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 asked me, you know, how do you sleep at night defending these people?
But the reality.
My bed full of money is, yeah, it's just, you know, I can tell you.
No, the seriousness is that you're, you're kind of supporting the system overall,
which is incredibly inefficient, it's incredibly inequitable.
The things that would take place in some of the more disadvantaged cities in New Jersey,
the kinds of drug charges and repeat offenders who would get probation and nothing would
happen to them, that nothing impactful would occur by getting another probation or another
fine.
These people were not pursuing professional jobs at this, but in fact, there was very little
consequence.
Meanwhile, you had kids in college can pop for weed charges trying to go to medical school.
And, you know, it's, yeah, like, he, these kids are, we're doing these things, but you
got to negotiate, you know, an equitable outcome.
Yeah, you should pay a fine.
It is life should be ruined in a way that this, a much worse offense to somewhere else
has no impact whatsoever.
And there's a lot of that where it makes the job really worthwhile to, to the person representing
them and that that defense needs to exist in order for it to not get worse, too.
Yeah.
With, you know, the way certain cases are handled and if there's not a check in place,
it can get out of hand really fast.
And the system exists on innocent until proven guilty, right?
And the, the cases need to be, the, the information needs to be presented in a way that it's
to your point creates an equitable outcome.
And, uh, I see Matt, oh, I thought you were going to grab the microphone and trash me.
But yeah, I, I think it's commendable.
I did grab them.
Okay.
It's commendable.
And I can't imagine it's easy to do that in, um, in, in a lot of those cases.
Yeah, um, there were, there were a lot of cases.
One of the, one of the main reasons why I left when I left is because I was trying to
spin off, uh, I didn't computer science in college.
So, you know, in line with my brand.
Yeah.
Uh, being a scene in the, so I was trying to get into the technology field and, you know,
doing defense work on technology and computer-based crimes, I tried to develop a cyber
crime defense, uh, website for the firm and, and trying to spin it that way.
Well, I had a couple of, uh, general computer fraud and abuse acts cases, basically, like
computer hacking and, uh, someone, you know, hacking into a computer or a system and corrupting
the New Jersey Transit website or something like that.
Um, those were really interesting, but turns out the most prosecuted cyber crimes are
child pornography.
Yeah.
And unfortunately, uh, well, that's unfortunate itself.
But the other part of that is, uh, they really don't prosecute those cases unless they
have an iron-clad case against somebody.
And there's, there's hardly anything, uh, that can or, you know, it's, it's not the kind
of thing I want to be involved in.
Yeah.
And so the firm handled those cases when I brought them in through this way.
The website, but very quickly after that, I was like, I, I'm out, you know, this is not
something I, I, I want to spend my time supporting in anyway, even with that other argument
aside, with, yeah, I know this system and all that, I just don't need this.
100% agree.
Uh, it would be, I would, uh, I would not mentally or emotionally be able to immerse myself
in that world enough to do the job.
So I, you know, I totally get you on that.
Um, so let's, let's make the transition now from law.
So you're, you're, you're a nerd that did some commuter science and some legal stuff.
And then at what point, so, so you left the cyber crime.
And then how did you end up in the gaming world?
And then I'm still trying to understand, as we follow this timeline where the photography
and all the other stuff comes in.
So I'm sure we'll get there, but, but how did you end up in the gaming world?
Um, well, I mean, the, I was just looking for, uh, privacy-based opportunities, uh, this
problem just, up into, come across at a time where I was searching, uh, you know, I, just
to speed through the rest of my career from the law firm ended up doing privacy consulting
work down in South Florida, just outside Fort Lauderdale and Miami, uh, that consulting
work led me to get that really focused privacy legal experience.
And then I just happened to see a job, uh, posted for PlayStation 4 that specific in-house
lawyer role, uh, and I wrote a, what, what I was told later by my future boss, uh, wrote
a really good cover letter that just still my guts that I'm a huge fan of PlayStation
and gaming and for whatever reason, it, it connected or resonated with him, uh, to hear
me out on my actual competency and what I could bring to the table there.
So I'm just very sorry.
Sorry, I have to imagine that privacy in-house privacy counsel is not the kind of job
that shows up very often.
Like, right?
I mean, I can't imagine there's, yeah, there's not a bunch of those.
It's not like, uh, you know, project manager or air conditioning installer, right?
I mean, that's a very specialized thing and to find that, that, that, uh, opportunity
at an organization that you already were passionate about seems like pretty fortuitable
for tourists, right?
That's right.
We're doing it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's, that was especially true.
Then I think a lot more privacy roles, uh, both legal roles and other types of consulting
and other work and privacy have been popping up more and more since then, because there's
been privacy laws that have been passed in California, uh, in the EU.
Uh, it's just been popping up in a lot of other states now too, but at the time, yes, it
was a, it was a rare find to see a company mature enough to have a role specifically
for that.
That they weren't just like passing it off to some attorney who's doing other things
and they're like, you're going to handle that too now, um, make this sound legal.
At the time, I, I think I, you know, consciously conditioned myself to have the experience
that when those roles did pop up, I was going to be very well suited and there wasn't
going to be a lot of people like me that would fit that role.
So I just needed to jump on it as soon as I could.
And then, so you spend, you spend a handful of years at PlayStation doing that stuff and
then can ask a question.
Yes.
Are you still a, uh, big PlayStation gamer?
I am.
Although I do play a lot of PC games now, but my console is still PS5 and I play all their
exclusives.
There's story telling games that they're extremely good at the new Spider-Man that's
coming soon.
And I still keep track of all that follow up question.
How, you don't have to announce that it's a follow up question.
How upset are you that Starfield is not coming to PlayStation?
Uh, yeah.
Uh, well, it is a bit, that's the game.
So it remains to be seen whether or not it will live up to what it looks like when it works
unrealistic.
It's in work on release day, okay?
And follow up follow up follow up follow up follow up follow up follow up follow up.
Like a square circle triangle, but it's not easy to see.
I don't think in his role, he was part of the design scene and it made the square circle
triangle X.
No, but I was not, but I did, I do remember having to correct a marketing deal where
they were improperly referring to the X button as an X button.
It's actually called a cross, the official name for that button is a cross.
And though it's clearly that, so the Xbox has the X.
Exactly.
It's proprietary.
Yeah, X.
Yeah, but I would assume now more than ever, like privacy lawyer and any organization,
especially in the digital age is like probably one of the top jobs in the company.
There's a lot to do.
I'll tell you that all of my peers that are doing that work, extremely busy, very often
under resource.
I think I'm very fortunate at cruise now.
The company that I'm at now is the self-driving car company and safety, security and
privacy are the number one focus for them because reputationally, the biggest hesitation
that people have is a fear or trepidation on AI, robot, self-driving cars, the safety of
what they can do and all the sensors that are on them roaming around the city.
What are the companies doing with them?
And with our biggest competitor being Amazon and Google, they have self-driving car companies
as well and they're both neck and neck with us on the forefront of this technology.
They already have a history of letting people down or being scrutinized or people being critical
of their privacy practices.
We can't afford to make those kinds of mistakes and we don't want to.
It's very fortunate that the organization that I'm in now, we have three privacy attorneys
choose support staff for it and that's not even including my manager who's also in charge
of our legal department of this group.
So a lot of resources there.
It's very fortunate.
And I think that to your point, you have the benefit of watching some of the early companies
make mistakes on the privacy side and to sit there and go, let's not do that.
I mean, so I'm sure there's a lot of a lot of headway being made in that regard.
Yeah, it's been super interesting and very different issues, but yeah, it's funny,
you know, the kinds of feelings and feedback that we get from the public in general.
You know, a lot of people are very reluctant or we'll say, you know, they don't trust
a self-driving car, but if you give them a chance and we've seen it where those same
people actually get a chance to take a ride after the first 10 minutes of riding around,
they're like no longer looking around, see if it's making the right choice and they're
back on their phones and, you know, caring about their business.
So yeah, it's going to be really interesting to watch.
I trust the full I trust a self-driving car about as much as I trust a submersible
down to the type of thing that, hey, that means I don't look, it's inevitable, it's
going to happen. We're trusting we're getting an Uber. Matt, you drive a Tesla.
Yes, I'll tell you if I drive it, I drive my Tesla. But we get into Uber's and we trust the
person behind the wheel in the Uber because he guys too, if we crash, is that, hey, does that
not, don't just assemble Johnny five, man. He did. Johnny five doesn't want to just take
that computer's consciousness. What was the computer? What was the Mars movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger
recall? Total recall that had the Johnny cab. Johnny cab. Johnny cab. I trust Johnny cab.
Okay, Johnny cab. So through your legal career and your computer science building websites in the
back end, where did, where did this photography creativity side show up and why?
Yeah, so I've always had the bug for it. My grandfather, his career, when I was just little
growing up, he had done work in photography and had dabbled in it, but PlayStation, parent company,
Sony, while I was working there, I got some substantial deals on Sony camera equipment.
And I started building out a little package of June, gear. And that really encouraged me to
start using it more. I started seeing a more professional effect in some of the stuff that I was
doing. It's not that you can't get there with more basic gear and that it kind of found that,
but it just kind of drove me to use it more. Using more professional lenses also started to
make an impact and how it looked and then I got closer to what I wanted and it just kind of snowballed
from there. That's where I picked up the camera and the gear. And then I guess a few years later,
my cousin was in the Coast Guard and he got stations in Alameda, which was only, you know,
20, 25 minutes from where I was living. And he was big into camping, off-roading,
the overland scene. So when he got out here, he started going on a lot of trips with them,
started shooting with him, just he also dabbled in photography and has since, you know, really picked
up the pace and shoots really great photos now too. But we just started going out and
that's kind of where like the Bronco stuff starts to tie back in because my first
first car ever was Bronco and I knew when they were coming back out with one, I was going to
sign up and get one. At the same time, I'm going out and using my cousin's truck. He's
taking me out on all these fun trips. So I just was fully committed to the idea of getting this
Bronco and going and using it ended up getting the Bronco the second week of production,
which there's a lot of people who had day one reservations who still haven't gotten them.
And so I got super lucky made the most of that opportunity by taking the truck once I got
it to a bunch of different aftermarket vendors and manufacturers and allowing them to use
my truck for R&D purposes, measure it up, send me some prototypes. With that, you know, on how
experiencing these trips, taking photos of landscapes and also shooting some photos of their
products for them, just start having more and more fun with it, getting better and better at
the photography work and one thing just kind of leads to another. I start meeting more people,
going to these expos, running into people who want me on their podcast, you know, things like
that and it's going to a lot of fun. Lane dudes in the spare bedroom talking on microphones.
And if you guys haven't already, please go to his Instagram page, which is at Franco Bronco,
so FRO and CEO Bronco. And you scroll through here, man, and not only the quality of pictures,
like the clearly the ability to understand how to use the equipment, but the composition and the
way you've got things set up and the action shots and the post-edity. It's all super cool, man.
It's like in all honesty, like if I were to look, if we hadn't had a conversation yet,
I wouldn't have thought you were a geeky computer lawyer that you were just a guy that was like
always into art and creativity. And that I feel like that's fairly rare to find someone that's
able to do the creative side so well, but then also during the day switched the other side of the
brain and get down to the nitty gritty of contracts and legal jargon. I think that's why it works
to me. To be honest, I need that contrast. You know, my day job is tech behind a computer every day,
working on self-driving vehicles, you know, reading dense legal stuff, staying connected,
like all day and night to make sure I'm responsive to work. And then when I get time off,
and I'm very fortunate my job allows me to take that necessary time off. When I'm off,
I'm off the grid. I'm not, you know, staying online. I'm off-line. I'm manually driving this vehicle
through rough terrain, I'm expressing creativity through, you know, a visual medium. I'm doing a
lot more video shooting these days as well. Trying to tell more stories. I think I need
to express that creativity that that other side in order to stay able to do the other stuff
that I'm doing, you know, to pay the bills in the day-to-day. The, the post editing after you do
the pictures and video stuff, are you doing that yourself? Yeah. Yeah, and I'm doing it very manually
still. Yeah, that's what you say. How are you a lot to learn about the workflow? And there's probably
a lot more things that I can do for efficiency, sake, but there is a certain
niceness about the fact that like I don't use a lot of presets. Every photo that I take,
I kind of evaluate on my own before I do the post processing and I try and figure out, you know,
if I try to portray the most realistic sense of what it looked like and I try to accentuate
a certain effect of what it felt like to be there. I think that's a lot of why I did this
stuff in the first place. It wasn't just to have a sponsored vehicle. You know, I was doing the
photography work just on trips and of landscapes. I have a personal account that has everything
but my Bronco on it. You know, to me, those kinds of trips. I'm sure you guys probably feel
this way too, being out there and experiencing these things. The fact that you're your video
podcast here has several people on it. You know that the shared experience of the things that you do
is probably one of the best parts of it. When I took those photos, it's not to get the effect
of people to say it's not to build that foam or anything. It's truly let that experience a little
bit of it too and hopefully inspire people to go out and branch out outside the box with their
normal day-to-day is this kind of traveling the places that I've seen this stuff that you see
on that account. I didn't even know that stuff existed when I lived back in New Jersey.
I knew the beaches, I knew the pine barrens and I knew New York City and, you know, the mountains
that I was used to for anyone listening in New Jersey was Mount Vernon, Mount Creek, which has
to make snow every winter for you to ski down and by the end of the season you're skiing on mud and
grass. Those are like the mountains. I've come a long way and I want other people to see that
people that didn't have the, you know, fortune and ability that I did to actually leave the state
leave and go see these crazy places. So that's, that's the motivation that inspires me too.
And I think there's so, and we've talked about this a bunch of times, there's so much
there's so much adventure in the world and we're, we're, we're, uh, fortunate to live in the
center of it in Southern California with all of the land that we have, but there's so much adventure
in the world and there's so much capability in just your, your basic, all-wheel drive SUV,
that 98% of the world will never, ever experience. They'll never see Alabama Hills. They'll never
see Moab, Utah, other than a screen saver on the back of a windows machine. There's a lot of people
and soak out that lived here other life that have never gone to Joshua, never been to Joshua Tree,
never been to big, and it's, it's just sort of wild or anything. Yeah, it's so, um, I don't want to say
confined like, but it just seems like very segmented. Once I, once I figured this out, like I got my
off-road vehicle when I was 19, once I figured this out, it was like, okay, well, I need to see
what's out there now. Like, I can't drive anywhere without looking off the side of the road,
going, where does that trail go to? But I think a lot of the people that,
hey, have that capability, so they have a RAV4, and they RAV4, a four-runner or something,
and it's like, man, I spent 50 grand on this thing. I don't think they're thinking, like,
yeah, let's go for wheel. It's, man, if I wreck this thing, I'd be over, like, you know, so, I think,
and, you know, maybe they're not aware of, well, there's different severities of trails,
you don't have to go rock crawling and do gold mountain, you know, in your stock, uh, Toyota,
you can do some cool trails and still get out and see amazing things, you know.
Yeah, I guess, but when I, I guess where I was getting at, was the way that he's
sharing those experiences in a much better way than, than I can, uh, I think is inspired,
it's going to inspire people to go do. I've, I've never tried taking professional photos,
maybe I'm, uh, you would be, you would be, you'd be shitty at it. I'm, I'm pretty sure,
I have the newest iPhone, and it takes amazing photos. Yep, and you're still going to be shitty.
That's true, though, and those, this cell phone cameras, these, they are incredible. They,
see, the line that we're getting before, the line that we're getting, the rendering,
is a professional gear at obsolete, pretty crazy. Yeah, um, can I just ask chat, GPT,
take some amazing photos or create some amazing content? I've been playing with that. Have you?
Yeah, and it doesn't come out the way exactly. I was like, I was like, I want an Instagram post
of a Toyota with a rooftop tent in the Southern California Desert. It was like a station wagon with
Toyota logo on it, and I'm like, that's not what I'm looking for, and I posted it right away.
What million likes? Yeah, the 176 episodes, though, I bet you, you have enough vocal
voice data that you could probably get these things set up, and it can have a podcast for you,
guys. Yeah, we need to show up. Listen, you know, we're going to take July 4th off.
I'm going to load all of the transcripts up into chat, GPT, and be like, make a show.
It'll be our best episode. I want to do that. No, the best episode by far is when we
weren't even on the show. We had our wives get on the microphone and talk for an hour, and that was,
that was not great. I mean, it was great for them, not great for us.
That's clever. So as you're doing the photography and getting more and more into it,
do you ever find yourself like, like, what's inspiring you to do the next thing? Like,
like, I could see that it just looking at your Instagram feed. It looks like you're trying to
push yourself to get to like the next style. And you've got, you know, a series of these styles.
I'm going to a series of these styles. Like, how do you get to the inspiration to go there?
Yeah. I mean, it depends. And for some of the photography stuff that I did,
you know, like, I usually just, you find yourself taking a photo that you see something. You're like,
oh, I haven't really hit that mark before. Like, so some of the moving stuff that you see
for a very long time in my feed, it was just me taking photos of my vehicle. Obviously, I can't
drive and take those photos safely. So, you know, I started going out with some photographer friends
and some of those shots where I'm some of them I'm driving and I'm moving and I have my photographer
set up, you know, where we've, you know, we're driving around, we're like, it'll be sweet to get a
shot from this angle. Others they're driving. And so I have the opportunity to finally like, you know,
shoot my truck moving. And so it just kind of happens and then you get kind of hooked on that and you
would just want to, you see what you did, but you feel what you could have done and you just kind of
want to push a little bit further than next time. For me, my current focus right now is actually
I'm still shooting stills and filling some time with that. But I'm actually doing a lot of video
and what I've found inspired by seeing some of the content from some of the photography buddies
that I've made in the industry. I really want to start doing a little more storytelling.
What I'm doing right now is you're probably seeing the last one or two posts that I have.
I've been undergoing a lot of upgrades to the truck this year and it was a, it was a group effort
by several different companies who had contributed different parts, RPG for this suspension,
you know, every dentists aim for the wrap, Falcon tires, 1552 wheels, advanced fiberglass for
the fiberglass components. And it's great because people know these companies and they want to see
what it looks like. You want to see the final build and that's great. I know that that's exciting
content. But I wanted to do something different. I'm always trying to do something different than
everybody else. I felt like the angle that people needed to see was the one that I started experiencing
getting into this industry a year or two ago, which was the people that I'm meeting. The people
behind these companies doing these great things, building these products, caring about their
customers. They all had stories to tell themselves how they got there. What they did to, you know,
it all started with the one guy's forrunner who needed to, you needed a bumper and he couldn't
afford one. So he could afford this year's welding kit and he just started fabricating this thing
and now, you know, he runs a bumper and fabrication company and there's these are,
telling the story. Yeah. And these guys are great guys because I've been hanging out with them.
I've been going to shows being in their booth and now camping with them. I want people to know
not just, you know, a product's great. A lot of product photographers can show a product in
that positive light and it look great and people know these products, but they don't know the people
behind them and that could be a differentiator for why to go use this company. Why, why get your
car protective film wrapped by SS Customs? Let me tell you about his story, how he started this company,
what his team means to him, what his team thinks of him. You know, these are things that I found first
hands in encountering these guys and it's when it's fire me to try and turn around and showcase that
because I don't think anybody is, they're, they're not doing it enough. Yeah. And that's there's
276 episodes of exactly that. This whole thing started seeing people online, Instagram, Facebook,
and you're like, oh, that's cool. I want to know more. There's more to that story. I want to be
able. I want to hear about that and we've had the fortunate opportunity to have those conversations
with CEOs of companies and race car drivers and all that stuff that does exactly what you're talking
about in that, yeah, you can see all of the stuff online and I double click to make sure I like it,
but I want to know more about that story. I want to know more about what inspired it and I think,
in the way you have the ability to visually represent that, if you can tell that story behind it as
well, it's a winning combination. You're going to do great with that. That's another question
that I was going to ask and I kind of lost it, so I'll come up with something different. As you're
doing the filming and that's what it was. You talked about how you're driving, you're going like
all this to be cool to get a photo from this angle, right? That skill set right there is something
that not everybody has and I'm going to speak for everybody on the show other than you. We don't have
it. When I'm driving and I'm leading a trail run around, I'm so focused on not making a
you turn because I don't want to get yelled at for making you turn. I'm almost missing
half to three quarters of the scenery around me sometimes. I can't even see that there was
something there. I'm so focused on getting to the next route. Yeah, it's what Jose is trying to tell
you. Me and him are seeing like murders on the trail. We just guys see ghosts. They see Jason from
Friday to the 13th. They see all kinds of crazy stuff. I'm not saying he was Jason. He was very
Jason light. We're in the middle of Mahabhi Trail. There's 50 miles from anything.
Make it guys running through the desert. They would see it all. I miss it. I don't see any of it.
That's very easy. I think I just got legal defense right there. My wife says the same thing.
But I seriously a skill. It's very much a mind frame to be able to be driving on a trail or out
in the desert or something and just be able to imagine the backdrop and go, oh, if we turn the
truck this way and set it up like this, this would be a great shot. Is that something that you just
see or does it happen naturally or do you consciously have to think about it? Tell me about that.
I mean, I feel like I'm thinking about it all the time. But am I executing very well most of
the time probably not? I take a lot of photos and then I'll use very, very few of them. I'll feel
our worth sharing. I think I'm also a little self-conscious. I think I probably have more
that should eat that standard but it's through mistakes and I think my admiration for those who
do it well allows me to see what I like and I've seen it just enough times that
usually I'll know what's wrong with my photo. I won't know how to make it right and I'll just
need to change the part that's wrong in terms of composition or whatever and just keep adjusting
until I feel like it's just coming into place. It's not easy. I mean, I have no formal training
on this either. If I had gone to school for this stuff that probably would be much better at it
and much more well-versed on how to line these things up on the first shot. I'd probably save a lot of
time but the real skill that I'm I think the skill that I'm trying to develop is
remaining balance with enjoying the experiences too because that's also important. I've been out
with various folks who do this stuff that the photography or influencing online with YouTube and
other things and it's tough for them when it's full time. I know that there's a lot of pressure
to produce the content to continually push the envelope on what they can deliver. When you go out
on on trips and a lot of the time is pausing, setting up the camera, capturing the shot,
then going back, retrieving the camera, driving around again. You have to find balance to make
sure that you and your group are still getting a meaningful first-hand experience where you're
sharing it outwards to someone else. Your audience still has to come second in order for you
to tell an authentic story. So having the pause and set up and all this other stuff,
that sounds like work. That sounds like a job to me and you know when first of all we don't do
any of that shit when we go out and we go wheeling, you know I'm not working. I'm there and that's
probably why we don't take any great photographs or whatever. I'm just trying to enjoy my time off
and then in hindsight it's like I see people post things, amazing photographs, great scenery,
whatever it is. I've seen that. I didn't take a picture of it or whatever but I think we do that a lot
where we're like oh we've done cooler stuff than that. Does anybody have a picture of it though?
Absolutely. We have we have Matt doing this on his in his truck like this through the
windshield. He's driving and he's like here post this and it can make someone throw up dude.
No it's all it's in that cloud drive all my video so I expect someday we'll have an intern
that'll go through there and just like clean him up or something make him look cool.
It's it's not. It's very much it's very much an active departure from experiencing the trail
or the desert or the run or whatever and taking yourself out of that to be able to do the photos.
We've even said a couple of times like okay we're going to set up a trip that is 100% specifically
devoted to just content collection. And then Jose doesn't wear his trail chasagers. Yeah and
they exactly and then we're supposed to all wear the jerseys and you didn't do it and it's always
Jose and we're just not all I didn't get that text. Yeah you did. Yeah you wanted to do it.
Everybody else they're really wearing the trail chasagers. Yeah it's very it's very much a
it's like you have to force yourself to do it and we don't do a good enough job of it at all.
Fortunately we're producing an audio show so then as long as we can keep doing that but
I do feel like there's something in the way the social media can share those experiences and
I feel like you know pages like yours and some of these other really people that are really good at
capturing that are part of what has caused it to grow as much as it has over the handful of years
is because you know you can go out and go wheel and see some guy on a trail in a crappy video and
go like I don't whatever I don't understand it and then and then you go out and you see one of your
videos of the the Bronco making a hard turn in the desert with the cloud of dust flood and then
someone's like oh shit I gotta do that like I need to be part of that right and I feel like that
content sharing is helping to grow the the the industry and the business and all that stuff.
Yeah I mean that's a larger debate overall about social media. I think that a lot of the content
especially for like younger generations you know the the content should inspire and invoke feelings of like
I can go and do that I'm going to go and do that I think those are very positive outcomes for social
media but I feel like it's it's not necessarily what I see the most what I see the most is the kind of
stuff that is so embellished that it it only creates the feeling that like I suck because I'm not doing that
I'll never be able to do that you know those kinds of feelings can be very harmful and the
younger generations especially you know the social media is in grade school high school kids who have
that stuff if you're not doing something cool online if it doesn't show that you're living this
insane life you're you're not the cool kid and you know it's it's very toxic when it's not used
correctly I make a very conscious effort I don't I don't want to have that kind of outcome I'm not
not doing this to just yeah to make people jealous I'm doing this to show like yeah I have a
sweet truck I admit it but I'm putting it to use in places that you know you can do the same thing just
gotta get out there yeah and I think that part of part of the why you can connect with people is
you're a you're not a photographer full-time content creator trained videographer you're a guy
that does a day job now granted it's kind of a cool day job but your guy that does a day job
that also like enjoy sharing your passion you know when you're out there and it's it's in a
way that's like hey look at how cool this is get in your truck come with me you know what I mean and
and I feel like to your point that inspirational type of content is what we need to continue to
push the boundaries of of people that challenge themselves to get out there in adventure and whether
that be shared through audio content video content or photo like I'm I hope that you know people
see it and go okay I want to be part of this how do I get be part of this now there's the there's
another line there to your point where people see super sweet rigs and think that the only way they
can get that experience is with $400,000 of shit bolted on a $100,000 truck right and there's
there's a whole another conversation there but I don't I don't think that I don't I don't think that
happens intentionally I I think that when you get into something and you don't know anything about it
you immediately start following things and go well oh this guy's doing it like this I love the way
this looks and I want to do that right so I think that's it's also incumbent on us to go hey
you don't have to have this type of vehicle of this type of tire or this type of thing
this is how you get out there in adventure and we and we talk a lot about just run what you're
wrong like whether it be a renegade or a crappy 80 series you know whatever you've been there you got
a crappy 80 series that can go anywhere anytime just not fast um how how often you get the chance to go
out and dirt man when's your when's your next trip well the the past couple of months has been
all these upgrades and a lot of video filming in the shop so I haven't had the truck too much
but the next trip that I'm going on is up to Pacific Northwest Expo PNW I'll be up there for that
week of you know the 4th of July week in exploring that area I'll be at the Expo in the booth for
American Adventure Lab and then following that I'm still working it out but I might actually make
my way all the way up to Washington State the Pacific Northwest is gorgeous that's only been up there
once which was last year for Expo PNW and I just wanted to spend more time out there there's a very
very diverse area you you think it's just you know giant redwoods and tocoids and whatnot but
especially Oregon deserts mountains volcanic landscapes go to the go to the Oregon sand dunes I'm
looking it up right now I got the chance to go there and it's where's it was just trying to find
what city it's in it's literally on the beach north fork Oregon it's called the Oregon sand dunes
just north of lakeside Oregon and it's it's not very big it's not glamorous or pizmo big it's not
very big but it's super cool it is super cool and the the actual goonies rock is right there you can
see the rock from goonies right there and I got to take a walk along those dunes and it was so much
fun so if you head up the coast man I'm suggesting you see that there and and to your point like
the minute you turn right and get you know head inland just to feet it's now all the trees in
the world all of the trees you've ever seen in your life and it's pretty gorgeous up there and you're
going to so are you so you're going to go up to PNW and then potentially go to Washington and then
do you have any specific place you want to go in Washington I wish I could remember what it was
called but of photographer buddy of mine his uncle has property up in Washington and it's you
got to take a ferry to get to it so it's some kind of like island dish I should have yet it
it could be I don't even know if you actually told me the name of it yet he just told me we should
go do it and I kind of was like yeah I'm in much how it works so we'll be doing that
and then later in the summer I'm also like based on my travel off of the expose that I know
that I'm going to be at so I haven't been to the one mountain west in Colorado yet I haven't been
to Colorado myself at all so very much looking forward to going out there and exploring
there's that and then the Broncos super celebration about a week apart so I might spend about two weeks
out there I know these legendary trails out in Colorado I just found out my nephew's going to
Colorado State he's going to be in Fort Collins and I said sweet I'll be crashing on your couch
no you won't I know I won't are you are you able to when you're on these long trips are you
able to work remote while you're traveling yeah that's another thing where I got to kind of choose
whether to balance that or not if I know that I'll have cell reception because I haven't gotten
any sponsorship from Starlink I would love to reach out if you're listening but they're not listening
usually if I have if I know I'm gonna have cell they're not my mom and like 12 other people are
listening to the show that's the only people that listen to the show perfect well hi mom also my mom
will be listening hi mom show as well that's one more yeah if I know that I'll have
cell reception I know the place that I'm going to I might do some work remote I definitely have the
option to as long as I can stay connected and you know make my meetings and whatnot but
to be honest like most of the time when I'm going out on these trips the reason is to
detach that disconnect so whenever that's possible I try that not to mix it in too much
granted you know sometimes I have trips planned but there's things going on at work and with my
role you know you gotta just kind of step up to the occasion that at times it's been very
very manageable and usually it's used as a way to get away from it I just and I was thinking like
if you were gonna do like a whole Pacific Northwest into Washington in the Colorado and kind of
make like a two week three week you know if you could do that I probably will yeah you can
come and get a hotel for three days and like you know and be able to knock out some work in there
between and not use all of the vacation days which I mean yeah but I've done that and a big
part of exploring for me is not just the outdoors exploring so you know in in the same vein
if I know I'm gonna go up like last year when I went up to Oregon went up I can't one or two
then I got an Airbnb for you know two or three days in a major city or area that I knew I could
explore a little bit and then immerse myself kind of in in some of the culture there the people
cultures some of the restaurants look up places that are well known and you know mixed that in
it's not just about like camping and living outside you know the four walls so
in that sense you know for those kinds of trips when I know I have a place I'm gonna be posted up for
a few days I might you know take a few days for for work while I'm there too
that's usually me coming home from the desert you always stop in bar store at the del taco there you
know because it's the well well we're got highly regarded as a culture yeah it's very immersed in that
culture and it is the best del taco yes we my wife and daughter and I did a family road trip where we
did the same thing it was you know camp two nights and then we hit a major city so we got our hotel
and we went to dinner and saw things and then camp another night and then back to the hotel and I really
feel like that's a it's a really good balance of mixing things up and you're leaving out like the
the special place that you went oh area 51 we drove the little alien we went to the little alien
and Tammy Tammy wanted to go down the road it's two area 51 and I talked her out of it and
um but yeah I think that's a that's a great way to do that um the uh you just compared like
that trip to he's talking to probably about going to high-end restaurants and saying you know like
the culture he's in love with you my son you're gonna be the at least missile silo that I really
want to stay at that's out in the desert in Nevada and you can stay the night so I mean I'm not above
that he's he's young and hip and cool and I had to compare something that's uh I know you know
to me that was cool but you know there's an you're saying this missile silo and why haven't we
yes yeah it's on Airbnb uh it was a former missile silo I think it's in Nevada I'll find the link
and it's definitely bookmarked area 25 I don't know that's not it uh I'm gonna have to find
that Airbnb and uh we're gonna have to go to road trip um the uh the the the bronco so as it you
you said it's getting a bunch of upgrades now are you getting close to being done uh anything more to
do uh no just swapping out I have some of the first run uh production units for the suspension so
we just gotta swap out for the final stuff and that that'll be happening next week and uh after that
I think the the build is pretty much done uh it'll basically be uh say unveils at uh P and W
at the booth there um actually right now the truck is at American Adventure Lab getting some of
the cargo equipment that they have for the back and uh swap out they have some new designs uh
they were one of the first companies that I worked with uh and so I still have some of their early
prototypes and now they've kind of refined the designs of drawers slides fridge slide with the
old-out table tailgate table things like that make uh set up and camp much easier but yet uh it's been
a long process but I'm really looking forward to showing the vehicle in its final form
uh and really excited about the video project that I'm doing and when when's that video when do you
think that video is gonna go live uh well I hope that it'll be going live by you know the end of the
summer I think I I'm still just finishing up the last few interviews because I'm doing uh you know
what I want to interviews with the b-roll from the shops showing you know they're different employees
doing things and uh telling the story over there uh interviews still filming the last couple of
them in the next week or two I say probably end of August I'm hoping that you know I'll be able to
produce the final video whether that's one somewhat longer video or a series of shorter videos
something like that got a lot of stories to tell uh but no shortage of footage at this point so
very happy to see you come together that's dude you're super inspiring like just to you know it
would be really easy for for someone to go to law school and become a lawyer at a cool company and
just be like yeah this is the life I'm cool but you're like yeah that's you know I want more and
one that would be easy no I'm saying it would be easy I'm saying it was it would be easy to get to
that point and just figure you won the game and stop trying is what I'm saying I'm not saying
it was easy for him to get there I mean where's your law degree might well see I I'm taking a
you to me class right now where's your name excuse me sir it's you dummy is it yeah is that you to
me no like academy no it's like it's you to me like academy it's you dummy no it's you to me I'm
taking some you to be courses first of all Frank what what is it do you just you're the you're the
armor I played the fifth but I mean you know you're you're you're doing all those things which is
a lot in one regard in in your professional life but then you're you're pushing yourself to do
something on the creative side and you're doing it in a way that's inspiring and super cool
and I know no joke like your your feet is awesome you do a lot of great capturing of moments
and it's super inspiring to see that and I cannot wait to see the video project that you got
coming up so you're going to have to let us know when it's released so that we can talk about it
and then where where's the what booth you're going to be in at PNW American American
Adventure Lab okay and you're going to be up there for the whole the whole week
yeah I the show starts I think that that Thursday or Friday and runs the whole weekend but I'm
probably going to just take my time getting up there uh spent some nights just you know up the
coast I'm not sure if I'm going to have him playing the route yet but maybe do a little bit of the
lost coast trail on the way up something to take advantage of the fact that I'm driving up through
there because I don't get enough chances to do that yeah that's very cool so anybody that's going
in PNW and I've just had a couple conversations people in the last two days that are going to be there
we will not be there unfortunately we will be at Cape Toyota doing a grand opening for their new store
but if you're going to be at PNW go by the American Adventure Lab a booth and check out Frank
and his super sweet Bronco and I'm sure you're going to be doing a lot of pictures and video
of that event while you're up there right yeah it's going to be a lot of content gathering
and that whole that whole week looking forward to it yeah and do for a trip haven't used it in
a couple of months yeah and the build on your your your rig is awesome and I'm super I'm super
jealous of it well dude thank you like like this I gotta tell you this story like the the story
arc of this conversation when a completely different direction than when I thought it was going to be
in and it's super in like like I told you early on like we don't do a lot of research a lot of times
we just keep people on and start having the conversation and and really we don't know what's going to happen
this was super interesting man so thank you so much for sharing your story with us
and and talking to us for the night man is there anything else you want to tell the listeners
before we give you your night back? No I think you know just if they have any questions
that one of the things I love the most is just answering you know people have questions about the
gear or why I made the choices that I've made or about the places that I've been to I like engaging
with the community I didn't do this for any other reason then the fact that you know I like doing
it it's one of the benefits of not having to do it full time is that I choose which companies
I want to represent and want to work with I choose when I want to go out and do these kinds of
trips and I know that I'm incredibly fortunate for getting the chance to be able to do that
so I just want to kind of pay it forward share the knowledge share the wealth and so
anybody has any questions want to reach out let me know all right everybody go follow Franco Bronco
FRONCO Bronco just like it sounds and and let me know you heard him here and dude thank you so
much for your time tonight I really appreciate it we'll talk to you later thank you guys how to get
thanks Frank and bye mom 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
trailchasers to get a discount on your subscription we promise you're gonna 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 gonna be raffles and giveaways and a ton of
fun you can find out all the details and the homepage of trailchasers.net so Jose's talking about
the Renaissance fair yes and it reminds me of the scene from the cable guy where he asked for like a
fork right or something he's like we didn't have forks during the run he's like you have forks but
yeah Pepsi I always think of the role models the new role models with stiffler and they're doing
like the the the the real quick yeah really it's worse than that I mean my ex-wife was super in
the ren fair that was that was her thing and you know did she part of it oh oh yeah oh yeah
now she she got all dressed up and you know one no she she based it no it she didn't
larp you know there's it's not like but you should you dress appropriate but they still treat you
like like shit if you if you're not if you're a peasant so this is what it is it's like in high school
all like the the so she's the no no you know the people that were in the acting class or drama
yes it's them continuing to role play like after school and now it's their turn to get back on
you hear on their church it's like the wash stuff baseball players that play softball
you know of course it was Matt Matt and I I resent that I resent that
it was 1920 we were great softball team but it literally is that like I remember the first time I
walked in and again my wife said did you have to dress up no no no I refused I refused
you know what Tommy Bahama Polo and just just T-shirt and shorts T-shirt and shorts I like J who
T-shirt and cargo shorts so I the first time I show up you know T-shirt and shorts and immediately
walking to the gate there's just it's like they're waiting for you to come in you know they're
oh they're gonna look at this fucking guy and it was like look at this look at this lead with his
knickers you know can't even afford any pants or whatever I'm like not the fuck you're like
I'll get you out loud but it was like all right you know what I mean you're wrong you just
I had to say well and and so later on there was like this one spot where you could pay like five
bucks and you get a handful of tomatoes and then you could wing a mat that was like an
a stock you know yeah yeah but it's not a stock it's just like a big board a set piece or whatever
with your head and you put your arms in and so this was this was one of my arm work yeah yeah
yeah you were fucking hosing tomato yeah so here's the thing and it was it's perfect the way
they set this set they set it up for me like this motherfucker let's do this for him they had that
and so there's two guys and they're shit talking you while you're winging tomatoes at him
and they're trying to get you wild up because you can't aim for shit if you're pissed off
and right next to that they had the beer like a beer stuff so I'm like oh man I haven't thrown a
tomato at anybody I don't think in my life you know I'm gonna do this I paid the five bucks
and this guy's like my you know I probably threw my arm out trying to get this guy
but at the first couple of throws like I'm wide right you know just all over the place
and the guy goes oh this guy you know in his what a fucking bullshit accent he's doing you know
he's like oh this guy's got an arm but he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn and and my
wife's like come on let's go and I'm all no no somebody just got paid homes and the beer stands right
here I'm not going nowhere till I get this guy I was probably $100 in well we're talking beer
we're talking beers too that's right two or three and I know you and I know you as you the
first the the your your uh range your your your uh your aim surprisingly is directly
proportioned to the amount of beer you have consumed so it's sort of tight in the dust he has that
every beer you had a recalibus yeah exactly every beer was a recalibration and then so
at first I was so bad he he just stopped he ignored me and he started heckling like other people
and that was the other thing like there was a couple of times where he moved his his fucking head like
and he was like oh you son of a bitch that was heading and so I caught him off guard finally
I caught him square in the door I swear to God it's one of the happiest moments of my life
he relaxed like to hurt his head went back through the board and he had to catch himself with his hands
and when you were sliding back out of the hole like I nailed him good and then you know like I
got a high five from some kid like people were cheering for me but you made that guy's car payment
that month I don't know regrets no regrets no regrets no regrets hey Perry does bring a good
point like what do you what would what do you think you're you what are you what are so patient
would be in that time do you know but I get I do want to say like the next year because we went like
five or six years yeah I pie messed a couple but I was like I want to come in I want to dress
as a stormtrooper and she was like you can't fucking be like she took it seriously because
like there's no space but I'm all this is uh and a galaxy you far far away long ago you know
whatever it's in the past this is what do you think about Robert Renff you put a space you put a
uh X-wing fighter in the center of Renff air it's tattooing like that's it you know what I mean
it's it's somehow it's a dirt hut with an electric sliding door they can they can teleport
they can teleport and we have light speed you have light speed you know that was the low
income there is the galaxy back then that's the out of rim bro like exactly so you you couldn't
wear your stormtrooper outfit now she wouldn't you know I mean I just I just said they just
pissed her off because I thought it was funny but you know every time I brought it up like she
get all mad uh your your your question about what what do you think your profession is there's a
comedian that talks about like every time someone thinks about history everybody thinks they would be
the night or the soldier or the warrior we'd all be scooping shit off the floor like that's
the reality is the reality is we'd be the slubs working for somebody else now you'd be the
fucking like so game of thrones like occupations right like you'd probably be the fucking king's hand
no I'd be the dragon fluff right think I think mac you like uh you know that head of security guy no
I'm swinging something like hammer or sword yeah you're just telling it's security guy you're like
the cannon arms yeah head of security all right that's let's better than pick an up shit you know
I definitely think I'd be the shit fucking the shit you're ever
and many by many white says more than a few of us would have died in burn the
hundred percent yeah no every like like I got I wish I knew which comedian was but he talks about that
all like how everybody wants to believe in you know on the right side of history are they would have no
you been a royal yeah you weren't you had been picking potatoes out of the fucking ground and grateful to have
somebody in the wild west I just would have been some kind of horseshoe guy like just making
you know you don't you know what I mean like I think about that shit all the time as I'm driving
a work at five o'clock in the morning like how the fuck did they do things like 200 years ago before
like there there was a concept of time but you didn't have a watch there wasn't like clocks everywhere
you just did you just get up and drift your ass to whatever the fuck you did you know like
sun up the sun down man yeah what did you do though like well I mean something you had to
provide some way they do like a farm or something yeah farmer but but imagine like sleeping in
could I be a sergeant at arms like in a town right I could be a sheriff you could
come to you that's what I would be my all front fans
my all with that's deep my western all fans you'd be the old fans yeah you old fan he all feds
um horse trainer says he'd be a horse trainer yeah that sounds about right um the well we
if we go to a Renaissance fair we have to take the microphones and we have to there's no look I don't know
I don't know if it's worth the well I don't want to say wrath but like the fucking annoying like
what is this they they don't they don't they do not break character like I've tried and it's like
what's the point Perry G says I've thought about doing the Star Trek time travel or thong
at rent fair Matt is that a typo or is he literally going to wear his Star Trek thong
at rent fair was there an episode where they're wearing thong okay I think he's talking about
I'm gonna knock you I'm gonna knock you yeah okay here's going to the Star Trek time travel
thing I see what you're saying so you show up oh yeah I'm just gonna name the actual episode
no six of a show up in Star Trek year and be like Star Games we've landed on a planet where
everybody drinks beer yeah but you the whole part of them is that they can intervene in the
fucking society that's what the federation's all about even if it's gonna leave you're talking about
the prime director yeah that's a yeah all right so isn't them go by going to the planet already
fucking up that director not if it's tattooing okay we just crossed the threads right there yeah
now you lost it we could have we could have run on how much fun it would have been to dress
ice-box half-fazards and screw around with people at the rent fair but now oh so if you're not
the rent fair on July 9th whenever the rent fair is if you're not at the rent fair it's a nice
fall we will be at Cape Toyota we talked about it a little bit last week they're doing a
grand opening of their Cape Adventure store is it is it bad that I pictured Perry in a thong like
get the rent fair yes that is very that is very bad sorry Perry so July 9th Cape Cape Toyota the
Cape Adventure show room is opening on July 9th from 8 to 12 we'll be there doing our shenanigans
on the the microphone can I come to that in a Star Trek uniform sure absolutely the we have a spot
on our website on trailtacers.net that has all the details we're to case you go I'm not sure
he's like phasing in and out of existence like on the screen I don't know what's going on there he
disappeared if you go to trailtacers.net on the home page there is a link to all the details
for the Cape Toyota event including a map for parking where the vendors are going to be I will
update the website we have a list of vendors that are already going to be there we're going to try
to get a couple more but I think it would be a good fit and we will we'll update you as we get closer
but we are hoping that we get a ton of people out there on July 9th to check us out we need to do
something fun I don't know what that is going to be yet a cornhole tournament or maybe that's
like the secret password is if you give me the live-long and prosper hand signal you get a sticker
or it's like a hot-up in a thong and I don't want you to get arrested I'd rather just see
live-long and prosper to Google that and I'll get you a stick yeah we'll come up with something
with some stuff for that but but that's that's what I'm excited about that event I can't
I'm looking forward to it I'm going to go out there on Thursday and check out the show we're
going to do some filming and talk to them about what's going on the we talked about the Joshua
tree last week right so I am sure you guys saw I took the map and I tweaked it a little bit
to change the route to eliminate doberman mine because I felt like doberman mine and okay mine
would have been too much so I'm waiting to get some feedback from the group to see what that
looks like but the only my big concern about about that trip is the heat in September I was
oh god I was going to comment after Joey D had his grammatical corrections that I didn't see any
walmer it's on that trim no you're near there are you aware there's no walmer yeah there's no
walmer it's not going to be able to take the land crews are on that trip because it's going to be
fucking hot yeah that's well that in my in my you know my presentation of the the route to the
group that's one of the things I noted is that it's you know it's going to be 110 and we're going to
be honest fairly you know consistent incline yeah on a rock so we need to consider that so I'll
be having some more conversations with them over the next couple days to figure out what that looks
like but um I do feel like it's definitely any better is I do I do feel like um that new route
I I do want to go even if they don't choose that route I want to go do that route the way I
have it planned out now like us go camp yeah camp go do that route because it looked like it'd be
a lot of fun um the uh and then what else do we have coming up well I'm trying to look at the
counter real quick what do we have coming up that's um on the counter we've got the July 9th
what's it like I I took off the recording for July 4th weekend I mean July 4th week
July 4th lands on a Tuesday so I just figured we just won't record that night I figured everybody
be doing stuff you know if you guys wanted to do stuff we can but uh otherwise we'll try to figure
I don't know if I'm going to be very coherent yeah I didn't think so um what's August 12
do you not work on Wednesday yeah I have to work on Tuesday but you know but that's Wednesday
yeah I wanted to see what Wednesday on Wednesday um is uh Nicole is at your suggestion for another
pre-run she's uh she's talking in the uh oh yeah so maybe we don't really have anything in
August but uh in September we've got that Joshua tree trip um we're going to be at the adventure van
Expo in Big Bear October 14th and 15th that's coming up now are we taking I don't know uh Ellie
Otto show the Ellie Otto show is coming up in November have you guys ever gone I see go over here
yeah I've gone I want your twice do you think it's worth going um I don't think for the show
I mean just for in general yeah you know I would I want to go see I always I could go see what the
fuck is coming up yeah I mean I saw that BW bus thing like six years ago when they unveiled it
the electric one yeah yeah yeah that was a long time yeah yeah yeah I just I saw that I got to
notice that was coming up and then um but the only thing that's like Tacomo probably a big thing there
oh yeah the only it's it's uh it's like the week after Seema um we had a conversation
we're doing Seema this year yeah yeah we're doing Seema this year well as of right now hell yeah
we're doing Seema this year uh let's see what happens if I get a job um anything else
anything else coming up that we Matt any update on the front here the people want to know
the people want um no there's no I mean you know what I did last weekend because it
been a few weeks since I even started it I felt bad on Saturday and I sat in it and I drank a
beer and I listened to the radio so I was like it's okay I still think about you it's the front here
has become his uh it's all sad like I come out for work in the morning and it's right out
parked on the curb it's like being dog do you just like just remember me yeah I mean I still remember
you right there you haven't gone anywhere but it's very sad it looks like the tires are always
deflated but they're not you know that's the way I perceive my poor truck it's has like a
seems like it's frowning uh it should be it should be um okay well I think that uh we lost Casey I'm not
sure exactly where he is yeah we got to get your parents to kiss at the enchantment under the seat dance
apparently Casey Casey said it's Casey Casey so Casey here without watching the YouTube
you're next Cody yeah next bro Mike my wife is next and then me Casey uh Casey left the
the the feed a while ago and he's got the the screen the the screen generated thing in the background
and as the wind is blowing the blinds in his uh in his room it keeps fading in an hour
it's either that or he's dressing up like a member in crottie kid when he dressed like the shower
and he's got a shower curtain around him maybe he's inside the shower curtain there
Dave Fraser said Casey's wearing his Star Trek time traveling thong it's still materializing yeah
oh my god Dave that's amazing yeah the uh we will we'll let you guys know what's going on with
coming runs and uh maybe Jose needs to get a magic rope and he's and pull him out of the
whole door guys if you don't know what that's referring to go back to uh I think it's 2019 episode
90 I want to say 29 years ago when off road Expo pulter guys uh picture mat and he was a drunk
trying to uh explain his taverns how polter guys works um then how somehow it hit the guy's
daughter got slept into a TV and he was not going down that path again I got to go get it right
guys a rumble TV say we're not going down that path again this is so awesome so bad this is so bad
all right everybody thank you for joining us tonight thank you to Frank for hanging out with us
he's clearly too good to be on this show as you can most of our guests uh see he fucked up because
he thought about my his own safety I would have just jumped in all right count all right all right
accolades to him he's like how am I going to get back all right guys thank you so much for hanging out
just jumped in you this is I'm just going to have to in it because they're going to keep talking
I'm just going to have to end it where was the other end ties you 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 tik tok we are the trailchacers
on most of those social platforms and we are on irate for 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 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 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 trailchacers
support team at irate for by four dot 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 Ryan to rigno.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 275: Cabe Adventure

Welcome to the Trail Chasers podcast. This episode is brought to you by Outdoor by 4 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 adventurers, whether it's 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.
This episode is also brought to you by Cabe Adventure, located in the Cabe Toyota dealership in Long Beach, California. Cabe Adventure is your one-stop shop for all your off-road and
overland needs. Suspension, armor, camping gear, all of it's available for you to touch and feel in their newly built showroom. The Trail Chasers team will be hosting the Cabe Adventure grand opening event on July 9th from 8am 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 trailchasers.net.
Well, that was pretty much most of my intro, but so today on the show, we talked to Brad Hart with the Cabe Adventure Center.
He gives us a brief rundown of Cabe Toyota's motorsport history before talking about the grand opening of the Cabe Toyota Adventure Center in Long Beach on July 9th.
Then the guys talk about this past weekend's trip to Joshua Tree. Sounds like they had a lot to deal with, a number of unforeseen situations, rocky trails, hail, and a Krabby Karen, apparently.
Apparently, apparently, Krabby Karen's don't like it when you try to get up in their, their outback.
Now I can't even listen to this show with my kids anymore.
It's time for the Trail Chaser podcast. Are you ready? Let's begin.
Trail Chaser, the other Chaser adventure. Trail Chaser, our time is now.
Trail Chaser, the other Chaser adventure.
Hey, everybody, it is Tuesday night at 6.30.
We are live on YouTube as we are on Tuesday nights.
This week, we're joined by Brad Hart from Cabe Adventure, Cabe Toyota and Cabe Adventure.
How are you doing tonight, Brad?
I'm doing well.
Thanks for having me on.
Thank you for coming on, man.
I appreciate it.
We were just talking kind of beforehand.
I've had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with Brad over at Cabe
Toyota and kind of see the whole operation of what what they're doing there.
And part of what Brad is going to talk about today is the grand opening of the
Cabe Adventure Store on July 9th, which the Trail Chaser team will be hosting
down in Long Beach from 8 a.m. to noon, July 9th in Long Beach at Cabe Toyota.
So we'll talk more about that in a little bit.
But so for those that don't know or those that aren't local,
Cabe Toyota has been down in Long Beach and has got like this long history
in the in the in the automotive space down there.
What what's the background of Cabe Toyota as a whole?
And then how did you end up there?
So currently, the owner is John Cabe.
And I probably shouldn't tell you his age.
Well, why you say I don't know how old he is.
He's clearly not young, but that dude is super cool.
He's there all the time.
He's onry as hell.
He still works on a ranch and a farm and he still like goes wheeling.
Like he is one of the coolest dudes I've ever met.
I really like John.
Behind the scenes, we his nickname for the last 20 years that I've been over there
is Superman, because we just don't know how he does it.
But he he just turned 81.
Wow.
He's on par with guys that are in their 60s.
You know, he's just amazing.
So John had twin brother, twin.
His dad was a twin.
So he had his dad and his uncle, twin brothers
moved to California from the Midwest and they started.
I think it was first a Volvo dealership.
Yes.
So they had a mobile dealership and they were in the whole
you know, startup dealerships and we're talking, I think, the 50s.
And then in the 60s, it was it was pretty wild.
And it was taking a chance.
But they were one of the first people to sign on to sell Toyota's,
which was a Japanese car.
So it was pretty risky, I think in 1966.
That's when they opened their dealership and then they established
basically on Long Beach Boulevard there.
I don't know about that property.
I think they're a little bit further down the boulevard.
But they started a Toyota dealership in 1966.
They're they're one of the oldest ones in Southern California
to do that.
So then John grew up working the family business and he never left.
So you know, he's he went from working.
He told me he told me that he his first job was cleaning out ashtrays.
So cars that we get that we get turned back in or they buy.
He had to clean the ashtrays, clean the cars out.
Then he worked up to the parts and service
business where they actually had multiple parts stores.
And so he ran those and then on his way up
in the later years to taking over the dealership and both his uncle and father
have passed away, they've been gone for a while.
So yeah, John's kept the family name alive.
And that's that's kind of the roots of the dealership there in Long Beach.
And I believe he was born and raised right there in Long Beach.
Those parents are from the Midwest.
And in the showroom, I don't know if it's one of the originals, but in the showroom,
they've got that an old Toyota pickup that's like a 1960s something pickup.
And it's what it's like super pristine.
And it still runs because last year at the Toyota Fest event,
you know, the team brought it out to the the Grand Prix area there that by the
Ocean Park there, pulled it out of the trailer and drove it around like that.
What year is that truck?
You know, it is a 60.
I want to say it's a 66 the year they opened.
It could be wrong, but it's real close.
If it's not a 66, it's real close to that.
And yeah, it's a stout that the first Toyota pickup to come to the US.
And rumor has it that Toyota is bringing that back.
Really?
Yeah, to compete with the the Ridgeline and Maverick and all that.
Maverick, yeah. Yeah, they were like, you know what?
We really need to put drum brakes on something.
That's funny.
So since 1966, the brand's been there.
And then like but but not just in in the form of being a car dealer on Long Beach
Boulevard, right? But they've been they've been involved in the community.
We talked earlier about some racing and a bunch of other stuff.
What other kind of what other kind of stuff inside the motor sports and off road
in racing communities does Cabe participate in?
So, John, from from what I hear, his sister, his older sister,
Marilyn, she still works there.
And so I get some good juicy gossip.
Yeah, yeah, from her.
John was a little bit of hell on wheels back in the day.
So this guy, he loved off road.
He would go dirt bike riding.
The guys the guy started going to Baja probably in his early 20s and never quit.
He's he's there every off road race still to this day.
So John was big into off roading.
He did have his own off road team in the 90s.
So he had a truck that he raced multiple Baja races and short course races.
And then in his later years, him and his buddy
support his friend's son's race team.
So right now on the circuit, there's entrusted racing.
They just got fourth at the Baja 500.
Nice. They race a class 10 truck and we sponsor the truck.
And John is there for every race and he still changes the tires and fills gas.
So he's pitting for this race team.
But Dell Eberts is the driver and he has won many championships.
And we won King of the Hammer in class and overall this year.
So we got first place in class 10.
And then we went back and raced a short course and got, I believe, third place.
So our race team is doing really well.
John, he just loves off roading.
And that's where that's where me and him really connected.
So the late the late 90s,
I worked for corporate Toyota and they they brought me on as an accessory
installer and they would send me out to different dealerships to help install
accessories. So I one of my accounts was Cape Toyota.
And I met John and we just hit it off right away.
So that was 25 years ago.
Wow. And, you know, we we gone off road trips and all kinds of adventures together.
But yeah, just over the past 24 years or 25 years,
we've just created such a good bond and friendship.
Yeah. And then so so you were with corporate Toyota.
You met John.
How, when and why did you make the jump from Toyota corporate to be kind of more
in the in the Cabe family? I mean, yeah.
So I was at corporate for three years and my older brother,
I'm not sure if you met him or not, we're super close, Jeremy.
I believe he was there for seven years doing the same thing.
We're accessory technicians.
We're trained by Toyota.
And corporate, we just weren't, you know, the corporate drama was a lot.
And we were young.
I mean, I was 18 when I started working with Toyota.
So what they're going to do is I think it was 2000 or 2001.
They said, hey, we're going to you guys have this experimental accessory program.
We're going to shut that down, hand that back off to the dealerships.
And you guys can go work at the port,
which is the port of Long Beach doing installs on all the cars coming in.
Me and my brother were scared,
but we looked at each other and we thought, man, this is an opportunity for us to bounce.
So I met with John.
I said, John, hey, if I leave, you know, can we still do something here?
And he goes, heck yeah.
So I 2000, about 2000, I left corporate Toyota when independent started
contracting to Cape Toyota and from there it just has involved into, you know,
Cape adventure, but it's just been this
work in progress and it's been fun the whole time.
Yeah, the amount of time I've spent at the dealership,
it never seems like you guys are not having a good time.
It just seems it seems like a really cool place.
So Cape adventure, so Cape adventure started based on what I recall as a way
for you guys to connect with your community of people that purchased the Toyota
trucks and SUVs to go out and do some adventures.
When did that start?
So I would say about seven or eight years ago,
we started picking up on this off-road movement, you know, and that's what we like to do.
We both have ranches.
We like to off-road side by side, ride dirt bikes.
You know, we like to go on adventures, but it doesn't seem like that many people
wanted to go with us, right?
So so he started, you know, it's just already really catching on.
And
so what we started off doing first was.
We thought, you know what, let's just build out one or two vehicles at a time.
Put them on the showroom floor, like forget, forget Toyota, this Toyota, that like we
love Toyota, Toyota is awesome, but we kind of wanted to do it our way, right?
We didn't want to have to be stuck to the to the to the rules or whatever.
We don't want to do what everyone else is doing.
So we started building out a truck, putting on stuff that we liked.
We didn't really care what other people liked.
Me and John would have coffee and then also want to bring Mike being him into this.
You probably might.
Yeah, Mike's a good guy.
And we'd have coffee, you know, we have coffee every morning and we just kind of,
you know, talk and say, hey, this would be cool or we should do this.
Let's try that. How about these wheels?
How about these rims?
They're like, what about this lift?
So we started building out a Tacoma, a forerunner and just throwing it up on the showroom.
And we didn't really care so much about selling that one vehicle.
But what we noticed was is people would come look at that truck and then they
would buy off of that truck.
They go, this truck's awesome.
I want the instead of the black one, I want the white one, but can you make it look
like this? And then we thought, you know what, this is this is one fun.
And two, we have something here.
So we slowly, from that point, I'd say about seven years ago,
we slowly started building what it is today to have this, you know, it's a mini
Adventure Center Cape Toyota.
We branded it Cape Adventure about six years ago to officially give it, you know,
its own thing besides Toyota.
We want to we want to come up with a pill to everybody camping.
If you have a Jeep, if you have a Ford, you know, we'll help you out with whatever
your needs are. We don't want to just be pigeonholed.
Wait a minute, even Fords?
Of course, you don't have to.
Of course, they need to they need a golden nugget every once in a while.
They need to they need to have a buddy.
I had a buddy that just bought a brand new F 250 Ford.
And he goes, I want to put a leveling kit, a lift kit on there.
And I said, hell, man, I go, you're going to have to come in on a Saturday when no
one's around on my day off, just when no one's with us.
I think it's funny that your buddy bought a Ford and he's like, I got to take it
to Toyota to help this thing out.
That's I he had a tundra that I fixed up and he loved that tundra so much.
But he's he's towing some some stuff and he needed a diesel.
So he went with the Ford.
I said, OK, but he yeah, he brought it right back to me to help him, you know,
do the suspension when I even Ford wanted to work on it.
So they're like that's funny.
So that so you guys also up until
well, even like I think a couple years ago,
like you guys started doing trips like you and John would put together trips.
And we're talking about the owner of the dealership, 81 year old John and Brad
are putting together these off road trips to go out and take people wheeling.
When did that start?
So
three years.
So we did some me and John did some small trips.
He has a he has a ranch.
I have a ranch and we kind of started putting together our own trips
to doing some offroading adventures to get to our destination, finding cool,
cool roads.
John's the type of guy like if we're going to go on a road trip because we have
to go pick up something like in Utah, he's going to try to find what dirt roads
can we take to get there?
I'm like, hey, I got to be back by Monday.
He's like, don't worry about that.
Like let's find some.
So three years ago, officially,
we started putting our cave adventure trips together.
So what we're doing now is I'm mapping out
different adventure trips and the people
that have gone before are invited and then people that we build out their vehicles
are invited.
So we host so we host one of these trips once a year.
Usually after a month of getting back,
everyone's texting me like, do we have to wait another year?
We got to go again.
So our cave adventure trip actually is next Thursday.
I have 900 miles mapped out.
Wow. Where are you guys going?
So we're going to stop.
I don't know. It's kind of secret.
OK.
So nobody, nobody listens.
There's like 12 people that nobody's watching.
Actually, there's 11 people now that we lost one listener this week.
So but just like in the in the southwest or far away.
I'm joking.
So so this this year it's local.
We're going to start
California City area east of the Owens Valley.
We're going to do I have about 70, 80 miles of four high, four low
narrow stuff we're going to do for the first day.
We're going to end up in the Red Rocks.
And then we're going to head northeast of the Owens Valley.
From there, we're going to work our way all the way up the Owens Valley east,
all off road, no pavement to this mountain range called the Whites,
which is northeast of Bishop.
I'm not sure if any of us have been up there.
I haven't personally been to that spot yet.
So I want to check it out.
The ancient Bristol Pine Forest is up there.
OK.
Then we're going to come cross the three ninety five
and go west side of the Owens Valley, come back down to Alabama Hills.
You guys have all been there.
And then we're going to go up to Manachi Meadows.
OK.
And then there's a I know a back way out of Manachi Meadows that's going to bring
us down to Kern to Lake Isabella.
And then we're going to end up at my cabin.
On the way out and then we end up coming out of Jawbone Canyon,
if you're familiar with that.
So we'll be back on pavement at the 14 in Jawbone Canyon.
Wow, that sounds very cool.
How many days, how many days is that trip?
It's four days.
Well, that's a lot to cover in four days.
Yeah, 900 miles.
It is, it is.
Well, three nights, four days.
So last year we did 900 miles in three nights, four days.
We went through all of Death Valley into Nevada, back in the Death Valley.
Then we went there.
Have you guys heard of Cerro Gordo, the ghost town?
Yeah, yeah.
OK, so I think Jose got raped there once.
It's every time he goes every time he goes to a ghost town,
somehow something happens in his tent.
It's super awkward. It wasn't once.
It's a ghost, right?
It was a ghost that raped him.
So that's OK.
He got slimed.
I think my mom's listening.
Self high five. Sorry, mom.
So we ended up going the back way up to Cerro Gordo, which if you've ever been
that way, I don't think probably anyone goes that way because it was crazy.
Spend the night in Cerro Gordo and then we come back down
through kind of the backside of Trona.
So that was that was 500 miles pure off road, 900 miles total loop.
Geez, that was last year.
Damn, that's a lot.
We went from 110 degrees to 29 degrees.
Oh, no.
And I'll tell you what, all of us learned a lesson on on that 29 degree night.
Because no, when we were heading to Death Valley, we all pretty much thought it's
going to be hot, you know, bring some cold clothes just in case.
But lesson learned when it got to 29 at night, we all froze.
Yeah, that's miserable.
That that's that's that's put the sleeping bag in the truck and turn the truck on
type of night right there.
If you don't have the the appropriate gear for that.
How long do you how long does it take you to plan this out?
Like, when did you start planning this 900 mile trip?
Um,
about three or four months before we go, I really I sit down with John and Mike
Bingham, just real quick on Mike Bingham.
He started working at Cape Toyota when he was 14.
He's been there over 40 years and he's our old school.
He's our FJ 60 guy.
Yes, this guy, his daily driver is an FJ 60.
His son's daily driver and they are clean.
They are super clean.
That's what they bring on our Cape adventures.
That's that's their that's their ride.
But Mike's Mike's a very good mechanic.
He's been he's not a mechanic at the dealership.
He's a manager.
Yeah, but he's a very good mechanic, very good parts background.
He, you know, he shares lots of input as far as our bills and everything.
So I just want to bring Mike into this this whole thing.
So when you're planning this out, you have to take into account that you could
do the 900 miles in three days.
But since you've got the FJ 60s with you, you've got to add that extra day.
And this year we have a 1986 forerunner joining our group.
Nice. Nice.
We have an 86 ish FJ 60 and an 86 forerunner by my friend Christian.
Oh, yeah, I said that was a that that forerunner is super clean.
So you saw it.
Yeah, I did.
So three points low in it.
Yeah.
Cody probably knows it's a six cylinder.
Yes, but it ain't it ain't when my son has a 91.
It's like the same gen, but it's the 3.0.
And yeah, it's a dog.
Yeah, that that was when last year when the Toyota we did the Toyota Fest and I
took Jose's I'll call it cruiser.
It's a Land Cruiser.
I know, but I was going to call it a piece of shit and I thought that was mean.
So but when I took Jose's cruiser and it was it was super cool because we met
at the Cape Toyota dealership in the morning and like I pulled up and I felt
cool in my in my 90 something 80 series, right?
And then the 260 series pulls up and then the 86 forerunner.
And I was like, this is really cool.
Like on the trip from the dealership to the event was like a whole row of classic
Toyotas that was just super cool, man.
You guys do a great job with that event.
And it's fun.
It's fun to bring on those classics and
to get off subject a little bit.
I want to do a cave adventure classic.
So I want to do I want to plan a trip where it's it's I'm going to call it a
classic, even though it doesn't sound.
You guys all look, you know, we're all probably the same ages.
But, you know, 19, 19, older, like 27.
Yeah.
You've got you got chin hair that's more than 27 years old.
I'm 44.
You're I get I get carded sometimes.
Are you serious?
If I look like this, I wouldn't be 21.
I wouldn't go outside.
What are you buying that you're being carded?
Yeah.
Is there another level of alcohol that I'm not aware of?
I've been carded at places.
Viagra.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, they just hand that out.
They just kick it down.
I just show up and people go, here's somebody.
You look like you need it.
Hey, I think that would be a very cool event.
An all classic truck run.
I'll leave spring.
I'll leave spring run.
Cut off your B 90.
1990.
So I want to say 1990 is in and then older from there.
And I probably wouldn't put together 900 miles.
I'd probably maybe do four or five hundred.
No.
Forty or fifty.
Just run it out to the Inland Empire and then come back.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's awesome.
So so now to to add to all of the Cape Adventure builds and then the Cape Adventure
trips, we're now opening the Cape Adventure store.
So going back to end of last year, there was a bunch of conversations.
And and eventually you guys pulled the trigger and talked to me about that piece
of it, about like what your experience has been ramping up and getting that store
built and then getting, getting able to start now launching it.
So we we we tried to do.
We tried to do all of this
five or six years ago, we tried to build a little store and kind of like start to
separate, you know, keep it together about the same time, like be our own thing.
Right.
It wasn't till we we really committed Iron Man reached out to us.
Well, actually what happened was
and by Iron Man, you mean me.
Well, I think I was the first first one to come in and say, let's do this.
You were the you were the reason for sure for the showroom.
Yeah.
The read the way I got hooked up with Iron Man was
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
So in in 2019 and 2020, when the pandemic hit, supply chain dried up.
Yeah.
So we were, like I said, I was doing these builds already for the showroom.
And we're using like 61 12 Bilstein, 61 12s.
You know, we're just kind of going middle of the road stuff.
We weren't really going Kings or anything too crazy.
We would do icon
some Davison, you know, we kind of experiment with different things.
And supply chain was so bad.
And then I started doing research about Iron Man, which was relatively new
to the states 2019 is when they started in the States.
Yeah.
So I reached out to them and they said, hey, we got product.
I said, well, let me try it out, you know.
So I put some product on some vehicles.
I put it on my personal vehicle, my brother's vehicle.
I put it on guys that work at the store's vehicle and we went out.
And we and we took these on our kid adventure trips.
And we thought, man, this stuff, this stuff's all right.
You know, it's
it's not I mean, it has its place, right?
I think it's really tough stuff.
The quality is really good.
It works for the application that we use it for.
Obviously, if you're building rigs for rock crawling, it doesn't work.
If you're building a rig for me, like high speed, you know, Baha,
whoop sections that might not be.
But for your for your your weekend warriors and stuff.
So
so I'm pretty happy with their product.
And then and then a couple of years go by.
So that was night.
I think I came in at 20, 20 with them, built a relationship, sampled a lot of
products, was pretty happy with it.
We still have other products we carry.
We're not just only iron.
And then and then you came into the picture with pitching us on the idea of kind
of this, this would you call it?
Well, I forgot the the outpost.
We started with so the the if you go into when you go into their dealership,
you walk in the front door to the right.
There's this raised area that was just perfectly not being used for anything.
It was the perfect size and it was not.
It was like some old desks there and some wheels that they weren't even sell it.
Like just random like like and I just thought to myself, we can make use of that space.
And so we started having conversations about that.
And it took a little while to make it happen.
But eventually
we built out that entire space to be an outpost in the center.
And then basically retail wall all the way around on on on that whole mezzanine.
Yeah, so Cody, he he he came in like guns blazing, man.
Like the guy, the design, the execution.
He he got the you know, the guys fabricating the displays.
So, you know, it's not a big space, but they really optimize the whole entire space we had.
So we got a bitch in display now that showcases a bunch of different products.
It's kind of unique because most people would do this in their parts department.
But we actually did this in our sales department.
So the people walking in buying the new car, we actually wanted to more
target them like, hey, you just bought this Tacoma.
This is one that's already fixed up or this is stuff we offer.
So we're kind of doing it
in an ethical way that most
shops probably wouldn't do because most people would have in their parts department.
Yeah.
So it's it's it's different.
But it it turned out really nice.
Cody did a great job.
And yeah, so from there, so so that when did we finish that, Cody?
November, we I think it was right around November.
Yeah, I think before it was right before Thanksgiving.
It was like the week before Thanksgiving.
So we finished the shop and then to really make this work,
we needed somebody to be there to run the actual Cave Adventure Center.
It was called the Cave Adventure Center.
That's so product knowledge.
Someone that's there during store hours.
So that's when we we we found this guy, Joe G.
Yeah, which he knows Joe G.
And he's in the chat room. Hi, Joe G.
So so Joe G has been saving grace.
He's got a JDM background.
He's a car guy.
He's he's deeply rooted in the Toyota world.
Off-roading is kind of new to him, but he's very good with product,
communication, inventory cells.
So yeah, we brought Jody in and he Joe G.
And he's kind of like the catalyst now to that's that's helping everything come
together. So, you know, I handle organizing and doing all the installs and making
sure the bills are done right.
John, he handles, you know, writing his checks and paying bills.
And then and then Joe G, you know, he handles collecting the money.
So and keeping us organized.
So Joe G has been a huge asset.
So finally now between Mike being on John, Joe G and me, we have a pretty solid team
where we can I mean, we can accomplish stuff.
We're getting, you know, we're getting bills done.
Timely fashions, customers are stoked.
Now it's now it's more like, OK, we're ready actually to take on more work.
So that's where we reached out to Cody and we said, hey, we got to like,
we're going to do like an official grand opening because we never really did an opening.
We just kind of like started doing business.
Yeah, yeah, which I think is a good thing, though.
Like you guys have had the chance over the last couple of months to work out
the kinks to get a little bit, you know, Joe G's been really good at going through
and finding out, well, I don't have the information I need for this.
Let me go get that, you know, like as opposed to putting the last screw in the wall
on a Friday and a grand opening on Saturday, you know, you guys have had a chance
to kind of play with it and see how it works.
So I feel really, really good about that.
And again, that's going to be July 9th at the Cape Toyota location in Long Beach.
It's on Long Beach Boulevard right off the 405 Freeway from eight to noon.
When you were describing like putting in that last screw on a Friday,
were you describing your truck, the assembly of your ranger?
Is that where you were drawing your experience?
My truck's going to need some new screws in a minute.
You'll hear you'll hear Tony.
We can't invite him on our Cape adventure because he has a Ford.
And John Cabe's role is John Cabe's role is hey, we'll work on your Ford.
But if you want to go off-roading on Kate on our Cape adventure trip,
you got to have a Toyota.
I know. So I guess that puts me, Jose and Casey out.
They can go. I can go with.
Oh, that's right, Jose. I'm sorry.
Can you go 900 miles?
I'm your token.
I dropped the taxes in back.
I'll be all right. OK. Yeah.
I'm your token Toyota guy.
What do you have?
Ninety four Land Cruiser.
Oh, man, you just missed the vintage.
Hey, technically, it's 25 years and older.
It's vintage. Yeah.
OK, we might make an exception.
Tony can ride with you.
Yeah. Well, I at the the last the last Cape adventure or at the last Cape
adventure, I had had a conversation with him about taking his on that.
I just couldn't. I just couldn't do it.
I'm not going on it.
Not without that.
AC functioning. It works.
It's the OK.
Just by the way, Death Valley, 110 degrees.
Oh, Mike Bingham and his son and the FJ Cruiser.
No air conditioning. Oh, my God.
And I'm pretty sure when we're going up to steep grades,
they had to turn the heater on to keep that engine.
Oh, my God.
I know. And guess what?
I know about that.
They're right there ready for next week.
Oh, man.
Geez, I know about that heater turn on.
Oh, yeah. This is more.
No, I used to do it in the seats in the jeeps.
Yeah, I used to do it in the jeeps all the time.
Roll down the windows, guys.
Heater's going on.
Old Mobile Broham I had.
The heater was on nonstop.
Well, if you know, if you just topped off the fluids, it probably would have helped.
But I don't know. Maybe you weren't aware of that at that time.
I don't know. So there's fluids.
The so again, from eight to noon, we're going to do
the grand opening.
The address is 28 49 Long Beach Boulevard in Long Beach, California.
We're going to do some raffles, giveaways, random shenanigans.
There's going to be some coffee and donuts or some something like that.
We're trying to pressure Brad into getting a couple vehicles built to put on display
ready to be purchased by people that attend.
But I don't know if that's going to happen.
How we will. I'll have some.
I'll have a vehicle or two.
That's good. And we'll be there.
Trail Chaser Team will be there.
MCing, you know, talking about hot dog broth and all the normal
things that you usually get from us on on these types of events has.
It's about as innocent as we get it.
Is our hot dog broth talk? Hot hot dog.
Everything else could be like, who knows?
Yes.
The as far as that sounds disgusting, it does.
It's like, but it's not.
And you don't, you don't even know what it means.
But you're like, oh, none of that sounds good.
Do I want to let's not put those three words together.
So the the the rest of the Cabe team as as the as the Cabe Adventure Store has
been built out and there's starting to be some activity there.
Has the rest of the Cabe team kind of like, hey,
what's going on over here in this corner of the building?
And then what's what's going on there?
There, yeah, I would say sales was super confused about what we're doing.
It's kind of funny now that if you walk in just about every sales person has a
Cabe Adventure sweater or shirt on.
So they're loving it.
And I think where it plays is,
you know, when you tell salesperson, hey,
we're going to take one of your units away.
That's an easy sell because right now
a Tacoma or a forerunner is going to sell regardless.
Yeah, so we're pulling a unit away.
We're fixing it up and now they got to ask more money for it, right?
So I think at first there was a lot of concern there.
But when they see when they see these people come in
and they will skip over the stock one to buy the Cabe Adventure one and they're
so stoked about it, you know, it just changes the whole dynamic.
It's just fun, you know?
So instead of selling a car and the person's all stressed out,
now they're all stoked and talking about, you know, tires and suspension and stuff.
So it kind of changes the whole dynamic.
So yeah, definitely more and more people around the dealership are getting amped on it.
And I think it, you know, we've had these conversations.
It many of the people coming into a Toyota dealership to buy a Tacoma,
Tundra, forerunner, RAV4, those four models specifically,
are going to drive away and then buy stuff to put onto the vehicle, right?
And they're buying it from random places here and random places there.
Whereas, you know, this you're giving them the opportunity to buy that stuff at
the time and then also work with the dealership they're purchasing the vehicle
from to get it installed and get it taken care of correctly and all of all of those
things, it's a it's much more of a holistic purchase for them.
And then as as we all know, with off-road vehicles, it's never a done project.
So as you need more stuff, you're going back to the dealership where you bought
the car from. So I think from from like a customer engagement perspective,
it gives you guys the opportunity to really watch someone buy that Tacoma and build
it up over time to be an actual Cape Adventure vehicle.
Yeah, I'm sorry to cut you off.
I'm wrong, but the way I've always understood it is if you have a dealership,
do all that stuff for you, then it's your warranty stays the same.
Like everything stays covered.
It doesn't void the warranty because don't say the W word.
So what we do at Cape Toyota, if we work on your car, so if we put a Cape
Adventure on there, we're going to do the factory match warranty.
So if you have a problem with that aftermarket shock,
bring it back to us, we're going to take care of you
along with implementing the Toyota warranty.
So the other the other thing to note on what you're saying, Cody, about convenience
too, is, you know, some people call trucks are expensive.
You know, Tacoma is $40,000.
So you buy Tacoma, you want to do wheels, tires and a lift,
and you got to go to, you know, four world parts.
I hate to say that or whoever.
And then you're coughing up that much more cash or putting on your credit card,
where if you do it at the time of purchase, which is cool,
is then it gets financed into the vehicle at maybe 2.9 or whatever it is.
Instead of having to throw it on a credit card that's 20 percent.
Yeah. Right.
So so you don't have to it just it just it just takes the sting out of it.
And then you're driving off and it's like 80 percent done.
You know, you can always act through it, but you got your core.
You got your suspension.
You got some sick wheels and tires.
Bumpers, lights, you know, whatever, whatever you want to do.
And it's and you're right.
Like you can almost sit there and just instead of saying,
I'm going to spend X amount of dollars on suspension, you're like, OK,
this this suspension is $25 a month.
Click, you know, this bumper is $15 a month.
Click, you know what I mean?
And so and to your point, credit cards are definitely not the same percentage
rate as as the financing on a new vehicle.
And if you know you're going to do that stuff anyways,
why not get it from you guys right up front?
Yeah, you don't have huge.
Yeah. And then you don't have to worry about like and then we'll we'll back that
warranty up, you know, so it's done.
It's under one umbrella payment at a low interest rate.
You have problems, you know, where to find us.
We've been there since 1966.
You know, it's it's it's unique.
There's not a lot of dealerships doing what we do.
There are dealerships that have trucks they fix up.
That's common.
A lot of times they just sub it out to a third party.
And Cody, as you probably know, you go to any dealership with a fix of trucks,
probably got a pro comp spacer on the front.
Right.
And it's an extra twelve thousand dollars for a three hundred dollar leveling kit.
Yeah, you get you get clear cup holder or
yeah, door handle seal covers and the spacer and it's a 10 grand markup.
So we really, you know, I would be lying to say we've never done spacers.
Originally, when we were experimenting, we were doing just leveling kits like that.
But we really have veered away from installing anything that we personally don't
like. And that's what's cool about me, Mike,
Bingham, John Cabe and Joji sitting down as we get we we the four of us get to make
the decisions and I go, hey, this thing sucks.
Like I don't want I wouldn't put that on my car.
You know, why do we want to put that on a customer's car?
You know, and on the flip side,
some of my go, oh, well, there's more profit and it's cheaper, but we don't care.
Like I want to put something on there that's dope.
Well, if I invite them on our Cape adventure trip, guess what?
They break down.
Guess who? Everyone's screaming.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think that's the big part of it is, yes,
you could make more margin on those on those puclips and all that stuff.
But you're you're not giving when you when you sell that fixed up truck,
you are selling something to the customer that says this is a cape.
Look at how cool this is.
You can go do these things, right?
I don't know that they can in some of those other instances, right?
But you're you're outfitting it in a way where you have the confidence
that if you drove it off the lot, you could go wheeling with it and it's going to be
stable, right? I mean, and I think that we will invite them on our 900 mile trip.
Yes. Yes.
And like I said, if they break down this guy, well, see, look,
if any of us break down, we just point at Casey, even though he had nothing to do
with any of our vehicles, it'd be like you're actually take it back.
He did install my suspension.
So it is his fault.
So that everybody's suspension here.
Yes, you did.
You need a job, Casey, I'm looking for help.
OK, we could talk.
That's a long commute from Big Bear.
Oh, that sounds like money to me.
I'm going to have to get a Tesla.
You will save money.
You will save money.
So when is that when is that 900 mile trip start?
We're leaving.
We're leaving on the 22nd next Thursday, so it's crunch time.
Right. Are you are you ready to go?
I'm I'm ready.
The issue I'm running into is I'm getting a lot of last minute phone calls
and texts from people going like, hey, can we get this done real quick?
Can you adjust this real quick?
Or can I rack my truck and just make sure it's look, you know,
so I'm getting people that are waiting till the last minute till,
you know, to do some things and I'm going, man, we're out of we're out of time.
So that sounds like our kind of people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'm confident everything will be OK.
And then the so on how many people are going on the trip?
We have 15 vehicles and in some of those vehicles, we have two passengers.
So we're probably going to have over 20 people on the trip.
That's going to be a good that's a perfect size.
That's 15 is a great size for a trip like that.
Are you guys are you guys all set up with comms in those old trucks?
Yeah, so me and my brother and a handful of our buddies, we all have our ham
radio license, we're nerds.
So I'm that, you know, I'm that Bo Fang guy that's got I got probably
twelve at my house, all pre-programmed with our private channel.
I love it.
Yeah, so it happens is when these guys show up, the guys that don't have comms,
I just hand out I had everyone at Bo Fang did it's all pre-programmed.
Yes, yes, I did this one year for Christmas.
I want I just asked for the Bo Fang radios and I got like nine of them.
And I did the same thing.
All right, here you go. Here you go.
And I think I have seven.
I'm down to I'm down to like three.
Can I get one of those radios just on our last trip this weekend?
I was like, I think I only have three radios left.
How did that happen?
Who here has their ham radio license?
None of us.
Shame, shame, shame.
I know. Well, we program them for FRS.
Yeah. Yeah, they're they're they're they're on the FRS system.
So it's not GMR.
I have a ham sandwich.
I definitely I definitely want to get
my ham radio license and then go for your degree.
I should. And then I want to we've got an event coming up in September
that's going to be kind of critical for communication.
So I want to upgrade from my because I've got like the cheapest handheld one
they make to like a base unit in the truck.
Yeah, there's parts of the trip this weekend.
I couldn't hear. Yeah.
Yeah. So so that's definitely something we need to work on.
So there's a company called Yasu.
Yasu, they make really high quality.
Units for your vehicle.
So in my personal truck and my brothers and my buddies that have their ham radio
license, it's YAUSEU, I think.
Yes, I was pronouncing yes.
Yes. So OK.
So yeah, they're they're stuff for I mean, they're not cheap,
but they're not totally expensive.
They have a lot of features.
You could program them.
I've been we've been using those for years and they're, you know, 50, 75 watts.
So so basically what happens is is say I'll be in the front with my Yasu
and my brother will be in the back, say 15 cars back, which could be a couple of miles.
Yeah.
We can talk to each other, no problem.
But what happens is the guys with the handhelds,
I can probably I can pick up these guys and my brother can.
But the guys back here with the handhelds can't.
So what happens is is me and my brother relay to them what's going on.
Yeah.
So, you know, having a mobile unit that's like 50 watts, 75 watts in your truck is a game changer.
And Betty White says that he has the white Yasu FT 65.
If Betty White has it, then it's what we should get.
Like it's what did you say, Jose?
He's like the Overland poster child.
Oh, yeah, you look at his truck and like, oh, yeah, he shopped at the Overland Warehouse.
Oh, and shy has the FTM 300 and we we always can hear shy on the trips.
And we did a trip with 20 vehicles on the Mojave and we were we were like seven
miles apart at one point.
Same thing.
Like from the front, I could talk to maybe four vehicles behind me and then they
had to relay and and so we we definitely need to do something better.
You can go.
I mean, with your truck rig, you literally can if if everything's right,
I mean, you could go 50 miles.
Wow.
If you get into ham radios and you really nerd out, you learn how to bounce your
signal word, honestly, from my handheld.
I've talked in Torrance, California, from my handheld, five watts.
I was able to bounce a signal.
I talked to people in Europe.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it's great.
It's crazy.
They were in San Fernando Valley and they just said they were able to do it.
Do you want to hear something even crazier?
I actually even talked to this is you're not going to believe me.
Don't do it.
I'm aliens.
You talk to someone on the space station.
Yeah, I talked to a space shuttle or overriding over
for 15 minutes until they got out of our out of our that's the second person
that's told us that on this show.
Yeah, dude, it's a trip, man.
And they were like Ukraine or some other.
I mean, they had an accent.
They spoke English and we chatted it up.
I was like, I can't believe we're talking right now.
It's the dude three blocks over.
He's like, I am in space station.
I live in a space that he built underground in his mom's basement.
Well, go back to the repeater thing.
During drinking the hammers, I was in Johnson Valley and I was happened to be
on a frequency that our buddy who has a ham license knew that I would be on.
He was up in Big Bear and he hit me up on the radio
in in Big Bear using the I mean, from Big Bear using the repeaters.
Oh, that's the cool thing about, you know, you guys can have your
balfangs and dial in a channel and it's pretty chill.
Like you don't have any problems.
But what's cool about having your license is then you can go through the repeaters.
If you're operating on a repeater without a license, you're going to catch
all types of hell for it.
People are going to be yelling at you, whatever.
But I've taught, you know, from from Southern California,
I talk to people all over the place going through the repeaters,
which is really awesome.
And we ride dirt bikes way up in the mountains above the current river.
And there's no cell service up there, but there's a repeater.
So my handheld will not reach my cabin,
but my handheld reaches the repeater no problem.
And then my wife or whoever's at base camp.
So we communicate through that repeater.
And we're talking like that repeater goes hundreds and hundreds of miles.
Wow.
So we always have a good, a good contact there.
Wow. OK. I'm sold.
I need to definitely step up step my game.
Once I get a job, man, I'm going to get a radio.
You know, it's really nerdy.
This is even this is even ultra nerd.
But cool is when you get your ham radio license, you get a call sign.
Yeah. So mine's KK six BFD.
OK.
Oh, come on.
I didn't get to pick that.
But what's even better is you then can have that legalized your license plate
for life and no one can take it.
So you can right now register your truck and get the KK.
I could get KK six BFD as my license plate.
No questions asked. I that is my number.
Wow. How?
You're that's lucky, dude.
That's a that's a lucky call sign right there.
How long did it take to get your hand license?
It's just it's just a matter of studying.
So there's a test that you have to do in person.
So you go online, you do some, you know, cram course tests.
You have to learn, you know, some schematics and how to read, you know,
different, they basically teach you how to make one from scratch.
Oh, wow.
And you're going to have to answer questions on schematics,
on how to build resistors and all that stuff, which I'm kind of
into anyways, like that sounds fun to me.
Then you show up and there's like 12 guys in their nineties judging you
and be raiding you if you don't pass.
So literally, like these guys take a serious man.
It's hilarious.
I've been to a ham radio like meeting.
Yeah. And yeah, he's right.
They're like super into this stuff.
You don't joke about it like they would be so mad at me right now.
The question is like, were you to communicate with Ukrainian astronauts?
What would you ask them?
No, it's more like, hey, guys, big news.
We can get two more percent range if we adjust our frequency from replace this
transistor with Betty White is saying that they're all old
Vietnam, Vietnam War radio guys.
I was just sitting there and I was sitting there.
I'm like, what am I doing here?
What were you doing there?
I don't know.
It was in Big Bear.
Wow.
You just stumbled into a ham.
That seems very questionable.
I feel like there's a story there.
Sounds like they lured you in there.
It's not like like if you said you landed in the Blue Oyster Club one night like
that, I would get knows the barracks.
Oh, OK.
I might have to implement after this conversation.
Cave Adventure 2024 ham radio mandatory requirements.
Yes, we got to just, you know, we got to keep that generation going.
These old guys, I mean, once these nine year olds are dead, no one's going to be
there to host the test.
But then that means it sounds like if you can berate the people that are taking
the test, that sounds like it's our jam.
Like it sounds like exactly what we want to do.
Oh, once you're gone, I can go to Big Five and just buy a ham like this.
The problem is, is these guys raise the money to keep the repeaters up and running.
Those are all so new some wanted to get rid of all the repeaters in California.
And repeaters were always they're only a Betty White could correct me if I'm wrong
because he's probably more knowledgeable than I am.
But Cal Fire has always used these repeaters as backup emergency communication,
right? Phone lines go down, stuff happens, you got the repeaters.
So supposedly Cal Fire goes, hey, we have enough technology.
We don't really need to rely on these repeaters.
But each repeater is kind of sponsored by a club and the club is all volunteered.
But they they keep that repeater in tip top condition for situations like this.
So do some then he he goes, I'm getting rid of all the we're getting rid
of all the repeaters, you know, because they're on public land or they're on,
you know, forest service or whatever.
Well, then you got man, you got all these world war two that's lining up with their
M1 grants at that guy's friend, and you know, all these all these old
hand guys are sitting back just waiting one of these days, one of these days,
the new internet system is going to go down and you're going to be coming to me
to try to communicate.
And they're just waiting.
They're waiting for that day to happen.
I am.
Oh, shit, that's funny.
Well, look, dude, like, again, you and I have had the chance to hang out a bunch
of times, I always enjoy hanging out with you.
The I'm really excited about what you guys are going to do at the Cape Adventure
Store and and how that's going to kind of expand your exposure to people in the
Toyota market and the off-road market in the community, not only just Long Beach,
but in the surrounding areas, because you've got this now, this showroom of
product that people can go touch and feel and get installed on their vehicle.
So don't forget the grand opening of the Cape Adventure Store is July 9th from
eight to noon at Cape Toyota in Long Beach, California.
The trail chaser team will be there.
So please come out and support Brad and Joe G and Mike and John,
the Cape Adventure team that's putting this together.
It'd be huge for us.
And I really appreciate your time.
And is there anything else you want to you want to talk about or like let the
people know before we give you your night back?
Yeah, I'm just stoked.
We're super pumped.
We're, you know,
it's all about the community.
We have so much fun hanging out with like-minded people.
That's where this all started.
I mean, you know, it's a Toyota dealership.
They make money.
You know, we don't need to do this, but man, it's fun.
We're having a blast and doing this with guys like Mike Bingham, Joe G and like
John, you know, John, he's like my best friend.
It's so fun doing something that with him and we have in common and like, honestly,
it's like, you know, yeah, it makes money, but we that's not the important part.
Like we just we're just having a good time doing what we want to do.
People have picked up their pick up their trucks are super stoked.
You know, we get to have good conversations, meet the community.
So, you know, I just want to say thank you to anyone that shows up.
Thank you for letting us come on here.
We're just super pumped on the whole vibe and, you know, getting to meet and to know
everybody. Yeah, I am way excited about this.
It's going to be I think I think the ninth is going to be a lot of fun, too.
And come out and and meet the other guys that we're talking about because they're
all very cool to hang out with.
So we will we will see you.
I'm sure I'll talk to you between now and then.
But for sure, we'll see you on July 9th at the event.
And until then, man, thank you so much for your time.
I really appreciate it.
And I'm looking forward to hanging out with you.
Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great.
Thanks, guys. It was nice meeting the KC, Jose and Matt.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll have somebody yell out even me.
Yes, even you.
My bearded brother.
All right, man, thank you so much.
Have a good night.
All right, thanks to Brad for joining us.
And again, we're looking forward to the grand opening event on July 9th at Cape
Toyota. So so this weekend, we did a thing.
Well, I mean, three of us here did a thing.
We went out to maybe I did something, too.
So you didn't do that.
I mean, he did something.
I was behind him on the freaking.
Oh, my God. So let's talk about that.
Like, like, Casey's been throwing up some stuff on Instagram.
And thank you for doing that.
But he posted a video, a short video of him being stuck behind a Tesla.
And he was making fun of Matt while he was doing it.
And Dagblurn it.
You'll never get stuck behind my Tesla.
Dagblurn it. If that's ever there, there should be no reason to be stuck behind
a Tesla ever because they are they're fast vehicles.
He he was going so.
I didn't I didn't even know that those things could go that slow.
He was regaining.
Don't go down the mountain.
He was trying to save energy.
I was in second gear on the brakes by the time we got to the bottom.
I had no fucking brakes because I was just I was on him the whole time.
Yeah, Casey, there's been a you showed him.
You showed him that he posted it and it immediately blew up.
Both good and bad comments.
There's there's basically a dude on there that told.
Is he hot? No.
He said that Casey's a dumb driver.
He's got gift cards to hand out.
So if you go and find that post, yeah, go and message that dude and ask him for a
gift card, he'll say, yeah, he does have gift cards, my understanding.
Yeah, but that that was fun.
And then we got down to Joshua Tree on Saturday night.
I was out in Huntington and I had to make the drive from Huntington to Joshua
Tree. That was a good time.
And then so we got there and it was whether it was decent in the night.
It wasn't bad at all.
It wasn't too cold.
Yeah, I felt it was great.
And then woke up in the morning on Saturday and I remember laying there
hearing thunder, hearing the crashes of thunder and thinking, oh,
that's pretty cool like crashes of thunder.
OK, cool.
And then not being smart enough to put two and two together to recognize that
crashes of thunder are going to be followed by something else.
And all of a sudden it was like, yeah, Thor, all of a sudden it was like,
Pah, Pah, Pah.
I was like, oh, shit, is it raining?
And Casey's like, it's hailing.
I'm like, oh, damn it.
So I start breaking down my tent and I'm trying to get everything.
I'm like, I'm just I'm going to close the tent before this gets too bad.
By the time I was able to get everything kind of gathered and get some clothes on
to get out of the tent, it was dumping.
So I just like, ah, fuck it.
I'll close it down later, put my jacket on, walked over to the awning
where everybody's hanging out and just hung out on the awning and it was
hailing like good sized marble sized hail and and then the hail went away
and then it rained pretty good for a little while and then it kind of died down.
And I was like, all right, well, I got to go break down the tent and now,
you know, close, close the tent.
Well, in my haste to take everything apart,
I took the the center pole that props up the center of the tent off.
And so the center of the tent had filled up with water and it just started
dripping through the top of the tent onto the mattress.
And it was like, I'm like, you fucking kidding me.
So, you know, it's funny talking about hail and what have you just really quick.
Like my neighbor bought a car.
It was probably like five or six years ago.
He buys this like relatively new.
I think it's like a Sentra or something.
But it looked like it just like he pissed off his girlfriend and she just went
to town on it and just beat the shit out of it with a bat.
And I and I was telling people at work like, I don't know about a neighbor,
did he, but his girlfriend just beat the shit out of his brand new,
relatively new Sentra or whatever.
And then I talked to him.
He's like, no, I bought this used.
It was totaled in a hail storm back east.
Oh, shit.
But it looks like the hail must have been the size of like baseball softballs.
Those are the size of the of the dense.
So literally they replaced the windshield like all the windows and then just sold it
as a total. My buddy was stationed in San Antonio and they got one of those
hail storms with baseball size and he said the entire barracks were standing
at the windows waiting to see whose car was next.
And it was just like boom, boom, boom, boom, crash.
Yeah, they just watched an entire parking lot of vehicles get demolished.
When we got out there, it was cloudy.
I was like, that's like we're going to rain.
But after a couple hours around the campfire,
it was just clear skies.
And I was like, I think I could take that rain fly off because it was it started.
Oh, that's right.
Go to your I think I'm going to take the rain fly off.
And that way it'll help the tent breathe.
It'll be a little cooler, maybe in there.
So I took that off, but it still has up good to the rain.
So I'm glad I took that off and then it rained, you know.
Cody, your Achilles or your shoulder surgeries didn't give you any inkling.
Oh, yeah, rain coming.
You know, that's a good that's a good point.
I didn't kill exact enough.
Yeah, none of my none of my extremities went numb or tingly.
So he was asleep.
So he didn't notice.
Is that what it is?
They go tingly and then you know, like something like what happens if my spider
tingle, if an earthquake is about to happen.
Is it like a sharp pain somewhere?
I usually get indigestion.
Maybe it feels good.
Like I won't.
I woke up at five or there's about to be an earthquake.
I woke up at five and nobody was up.
And then I was just like, I might as well just go back to sleep.
And I yeah, and I woke up to the hell.
Like, wow.
Yeah, it was it was not fantastic.
I will tell you that much.
But that's it.
Like it, it no damage to me or stuff.
Well, not from the hell.
No, not yet.
I mean, a bunch of stuff got wet.
But no, it wasn't.
It didn't have a rough weekend.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll talk about that at the end of the conversation.
So so then why wait is oh, there's better stuff.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, better stuff.
So much better.
So so then we we take off.
We had done like multiple versions of what we thought this one was going to breathe
and be and like we said, this was a pre run for something we're doing
in September and I had never I've never wheeled in Joshua Tree.
I've been up there fucking dirt roads.
But it's yeah.
And and I will I will tell you, man, like.
Uh, go on.
Thankfully, Joey D was there, right?
Joey D has a lot of experience up there.
Him and Nicole have been up there a bunch of times.
Jose's been there.
But like just his his knowledge of like looking at the map that I had mapped
out and knowing where to go, he had a lot of good input on on on routes.
Yeah, I mean, he has probably more input on routes or any even places you've been.
Yeah, he probably has more knowledge on routes.
I'm just saying he's he's great.
He's a great asset.
That's not an I mean, I'm trying to knock you.
But Joey is yeah, he's pretty good.
I mean, I don't need you.
I'm not I'm an unemployed user.
I don't need any more help, dude.
I'm sorry.
Um, so we ended up doing about 30 miles over four and a half hours.
And we saw some cool stuff like the the trails that we did.
The first section of trail that we did on Doberman Mine Road was very much
reminded me of Vampire Mine Road that we did in Parker.
Very rocky, very narrow shelf very rocky.
It was only rocks only shell rock.
It was just rock as far as you could see.
Like it was it was pretty awesome.
And then there's the little set of sand dunes we got to these sand dunes to play.
And it was very cool, like a very cool little sand dune area.
Fuck the sand.
Yeah, I was they didn't like that.
Throughout the course, we got a camper cruiser.
Oh, you drove the cruiser.
OK, and then we got to see a handful of different like mine sites.
Can I ask a quick quick question?
Yeah, what is the what determines what you're going to wheel?
What is the determining factor?
Like, oh, it's going to be hot.
I need the AC.
I'm taking the frontier or, you know, it's a trail difficulty, I think, for sure.
Right now. OK.
Yeah, like I knew we're going to get into some pretty crazy shit.
So I was like, I don't need to take the frontier because you don't want to ruin
the frontier or you. OK, not that I can't do it.
It's just not equipped, but you have the cruiser.
Why do it if you've got the cruiser?
Beat the shit out of that thing.
Mm hmm.
So out there in Joshua Tree, there's a ton of mining.
And we didn't even stop at all the ones we drove by, but there's a ton of abandoned
mining sites and cabins and mine shafts and all kinds of cool stuff out there.
That part. Big shafts out there.
Yes, those are the clubs that are out there.
Yes, the mine shaft.
Yes, yes, shafts, lots of bees.
There was a there was a there was a big.
Yes, yes.
We ran into this one spot where there's a
obviously fairly recent mining site.
Joey said that it was like 1980s is when it finally shut down.
And we were like, oh, this is super cool.
Wide open area was stopped to start making some lunch.
Next thing you know, there's a couple of bees there.
Then there's a couple more bees there.
And all of a sudden the bees guys had to skate or die.
Yes, it was a hundred percent skate or die.
So so Casey's very good pull.
He had skate or die.
Like if you don't know, skate or die, you'd go back and search that.
I bet there's some great videos.
So Casey had to we start closing things up.
I had to like hold on to rain and throw him in the car seat to make sure he didn't
get stung by bee.
And then Casey had to drive away with the awning out to try to get like get away
from the bees. Oh, my God, there's a lot of bees, dude.
So my awning was up in the rain.
Yes. And we got there like, oh, make lunch.
It's hot as shit.
So I opened the awning up for some shade.
And I think like the little
cannabis straps and things like that were still holding moisture.
And so the bees just.
But they fucking I smell that shit.
It was like that.
They were starting a hive on my freaking.
And that was the other thing about the weather, like it was hailing in the morning.
And it was like by lunchtime.
It was in mid eighties, but it was somehow felt like it was a hundred and five.
It was like a very weird humid heat that you don't really experience.
Oh, yeah. And Jose almost tore his awning.
I was well, I'm allergic to the, you know, to fucking bees.
So yeah, so when Casey, when Casey drove away,
yeah, yeah, yeah,
when Casey drove away, he ditched some of the bees.
But I don't know if you know this.
Bees can fly and they can follow.
So I had to go there and take my hat off and I was swatting bees while he was
trying to fold up the awning.
It was crazy.
Yeah, I was trying to drive away, but the strap got caught on the wheel.
And yeah, he started to back up and Joe saw it.
Joe was like, wait, because he almost pulled his awning right off the track.
So yeah, I don't.
Originally, when we pulled up, we were like, this would be a good lunch spot.
No lunch spot at the bee house.
That's not not at all happening.
I think you guys were throwing rocks down at the hive.
At the hive. Oh yeah, probably, dude.
She dropped one rock and, you know, it was the Coles fault.
I was dropping a lot of rocks.
Did you?
I held all mine till I got home.
Yeah.
So so we had lunch and then went and went and did, you know, a bunch more trails.
And we did OK Mine Road, which I don't know.
We went back. It was all right.
It was all right. We went back and forth.
It was decent.
Which which of those OK Mine versus Doberman Mine?
Which of those do you think was the more difficult trail?
I think Doberman.
Yeah, 100 percent, dude.
OK.
Um, because Doberman Doberman, it's the same shit over and over.
You know what I mean?
And on and on an incline, the whole time.
Yeah. And then death on your right.
And the OK Mine one had like breaks in between where it was just like.
Yeah, and that one was more just you had to be like head on the swivel when you had
to go around those rocks.
Yeah, someone needs to move those rocks.
There's a couple of remember pilot rock that one where like you had to get around.
There was like three of those on this trail.
Yeah.
Was it muddy and icy at the same time?
No, not this time.
I'm saying pilot rock.
That was so scared you never did.
Yeah.
If you like shelf roads, Doberman Mine.
Joshua Tees, Joshua Tees, or Joshua Tees.
Joshua, Joshua, Joshua Tees is your jam.
T-E-A-S-E.
Yes, no, no, T-E-A-Z.
Wow, like I said, you guys must have had a really good time.
No, this is it's the 90s.
Joshua, it's T-E-A-Z.
Oh, really good friend of mine.
So the so we did all that.
We did OK Mine, we did a couple of the things.
And then and so we did, like I said, I think it was 30 miles.
Let me what was a click again, 30 miles in four and a half hours.
And it was like the whole time I was in my phone in my hand and I was making video
notes every time there was something like, OK, at two miles, stay to the left.
Like, like the whole taking notes, the whole time and scheming.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I got to I got to try to take what we learned from that trip and figure out
what we're going to do in September.
And I think that we'll come over the new plan.
Yeah, well, so that we're going to do about the bees, you know?
Yeah, though, the bees won't stay away from.
But we're going to drive right the fuck fast.
Yes, you know what you need is that spray aerosol, the aerosol spray,
like adhesive that's good on bees.
Yes, no, it was an air conditioning lifesaver, dude.
Exactly. You would open up a unit and there'd be a like a wasp hive in there.
You just take out your spray adhesive and hit them.
Yeah. And the bet like when you hit him with bug spray,
they still fly away and do stuff.
You hit him with that adhesive, they just go and they just you just wait.
You put that adhesive on fan and you twist the knob and it's just yep.
It's like you just fan, you know, the spray pattern.
They're all stuck there and you just wait a minute and then you knock
off the hive thing and toss it on the side of the roof.
You know, you are a jail for doing that now.
What? You can't kill bees like that, bro.
If they're in a house in like Lombarada, you could do it.
No, no, you got to you got to like call someone and get them professionally.
I did. I called I called my boss to spray these of these bees.
I called 3M. I need more of this shit.
I need more of this.
No joke.
You know, we're going we're going back a couple of years, but no joke.
Spray adhesive in the tool box in the tool bag.
Oh, it was always there, you know, 100 percent.
It was the best thing for me.
It was crawling across addicts.
You know, you never know.
Whatever you run into, he's a spray adhesive side note here.
Spray adhesive story.
You know how the tangent tangent.
So spray adhesive nozzle on the top, you're spraying, right?
And those nozzles just like WD for your pain, they come off.
Oh, yeah. Well, yeah.
So one of my buddies who are renamed remain nameless.
They came off and so he's like, I got to put this back on.
So he's he takes the not the nozzle and he's putting it back on the can
with the nozzle facing in the word.
And so when he puts it on, it shoots into his eye
and spray adhesives, his eyelid to his eyeball.
I am not shitting you.
I'm going to call him and tell him to listen to this episode.
He had to go to urgent care.
Yeah, I was going to say, what's the move there?
Ashton or they had to go to urgent care and get like over time.
Oh, yeah, enough solution to where it could break like and then tweezers
and peel his eyelid off of his eyeball.
Wow. Yes.
That's so if you're using spray adhesive, you know, I just had
cataract surgery a couple months ago.
I'd rather do that.
I would rather go through.
Oh, my God.
That sounds like you're playing with adhesive.
Keep it away from your eyes.
Wow. Or wear safety glasses.
Yes. Always wear safety glasses.
All right, Cal, Ocha.
The. So, yeah, I mean, it was it was a really it was a really fun trip.
It felt really good to get some dirt on the tires and to experience that area.
I feel like there's more to explore out there.
But we didn't even scratch the surface.
But we didn't even.
But at the same time, there's more to explore out there.
But I don't know that there's more off road trails to explore out there.
Like in that area we were in.
I in all the mapping I did before this and all this research, it's like.
Park is big.
But it's all hiking.
The access to it isn't.
Yes. The vehicular access.
Isn't that. Yes.
That that was the thing that really that really got to me like in trying
to plan this when when the group that we're working with is like, yeah,
we want to do offroading and Joshua tree.
I was like, OK, cool, I started looking for trails and I'm like, OK,
well, there's one on this end of the park and one on this end of the park
and one down here.
It's not like Johnson Valley where you can camp and go in any direction
or Big Bear where there's a massive network of trails or Ocotea Wells
and Anzabarago, you know what I mean?
It's very much like you can do these trails, but to get to them.
It's an hour and a half away, even though you're still in the park.
Yeah, you can get to this one an hour and a half away, but you're still in the park.
Yeah, because initially when we were going to do this plan this out,
I was going to say we come in through Purdue and then drive up
through through the center of the park and then drive down Old Dale
and then come out through Kings.
Can't yeah, yeah, that would have been like a 10 hour day.
Do you know? Yeah, I didn't know we're like limited on the time time either.
And if you go to Joshua tree, don't automatically expect to see Joshua trees.
Yeah, in the area we were at, there was no trees or Joshua was anywhere.
That John Denver is full of shit.
Apparently it's legal to how about you to.
No, we didn't see you to either to has an entire album called Joshua tree.
Yes, I know that they do that, but we didn't see them there.
Look, they suck, right?
They have like five good songs.
So I think I'm going to take the information that we came up with
and create a new route that will be a little bit easier.
There's no easy route, though, from where the starting point is to that.
If we started at at all at Gold Crown, where we came out.
Yes, we go straight in to the dunes, then do OK mine
and then back around the other way, back out Gold Crown.
I think that we could do that.
I think that the only thing is understanding who's going to be on the
on the trail, because if there's any full size,
Doberman would be easier going the other direction down.
No, no, I think we avoid Doberman all together.
Just just avoid it.
I think that if there's any full size trucks on this on this trip,
if there's any one with 32 inch or smaller tires,
we'll say 31 inch or smaller tires.
Thirty ones can do it.
It's just as long as I got skid plates, skid plates.
Speaking of which case, I seriously need to get up to you to get that transmission,
that transfer case skid plate fixed for my truck.
There was a couple of times this weekend where I was like, oh, this is it.
This is I'm done.
This is it. It's the truck's going to stay here like that.
I hope Matt's off road recovery drives this far.
Yep, which any more else?
Anything else you want to talk about for that Joshua Tree run?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, like I think Casey had this interpretation
of Joshua Tree or Joshua Tree National Park.
That's like a whole.
I don't think a lot of people ever see that part of the park.
I mean, they go to like Joshua Tree proper.
Yeah, they go to like the road through Joshua Tree and go see like Skull Rock.
And that's it. Yeah.
And they go take shrooms and fucking whatever.
Yep. And there are.
There's our ton.
There are. It's starting to sound like a good trip.
Yeah, man. It's like I got money to go. Exactly.
There are a Skull Rock.
There are a ton of hiking trails and.
Yeah, you had us going driving through one.
I know my original map was going to take us right through a
right through a hiking trail, but that that didn't work.
How about we hike that part of the trip?
F you because that's one of the conversations about this trip.
They're like, well, we're going to try to put together a hiking trip,
hiking trip in the morning.
And I'm like, sweet, it's going to be 110 degrees.
And I will be in the air conditioned
car waiting for you to be done with your hike.
So we'll see how that goes.
But I I I'm going to I'm going to redo my route based on the information
we have now and then try to find out what who's going to be on the trail.
If if there is anybody that falls in those categories that we think can't make it,
we will have to redo this and, you know, make it much easier.
Take him to Johnson Valley and say, here we are, Joshua Tree.
Well, that was that was part of the conversation.
Like because from where from where the campground is, it's equidistant to you
could go you could go straight across the freeway and you're in Landers.
Like, you know, it's a and you can cut in right there at
Integra Tron. Yes.
So that was that was my thought as a as a option.
Always a big hit, the Integra Tron.
Yeah, my my always keep that store open every year.
Like every year I blow at least one hundred and twenty dollars on shit.
Yeah. Hey, Matt, why do you think the aliens decided to land in Las Vegas
in some backyard and not the Integra Tron?
Yeah, you've seen those guys.
They're pretty messed up.
They probably just want to have a good time with those dudes party.
Those readers are doing soundbats.
You're talking about eight to ten foot aliens.
What do you think about that?
It's fake as shit. You think so?
Oh, yeah, it's fake.
That's a they saw something in the sky.
You know, that that was legit.
There's video of a bunch of comments or whatever.
And they went, let's just say like some aliens
went in our backyard and they called 911.
And but why did why did they black out the body cam?
Right, because there were no aliens to see.
Yeah, but why would they like block it out?
Because then you could have intrigue and say, yeah, maybe there was.
This is weird.
That's how it always goes, dude.
That's just like the dude that the new whistleblower.
Yeah, dude, where's like the video evidence?
I can't disclose that.
I gave it to you. Sure, you know, I know somebody.
Yeah, I've seen them.
Look, I know people and they told me that it's real and I believe them.
Great. I don't believe you show me show me some evidence.
There's never evidence. What do you do?
Exactly. I was a top secret clearance.
You know, whatever you physically take the plans of engineers.
Yeah. Well, I was no.
Well, no, my secretary does my secretary does that.
So so the the Joshua Tree in September, it's going to be hot.
So we got to can we somehow coordinate aliens?
Because I know aliens Joshua Tree, Joshua Tree landers
in Tegrotron like Bing, Bing, Bing.
That's the three hits on a slot machine right there.
Like let's make that happen.
Like maybe if me and Casey brought out lasers
and we intertwined our lasers in the sky and just not watching that.
That would come that would come up.
I'll bring my laser for that.
Would you? Yeah. Yeah.
I think Betty White's right.
He said that Matt just wants to get probed.
Look, I'm looking for any kind of any kind of a long time.
Let's be honest.
Aliens, I'm not even judgmental.
Like they could be big aliens, small aliens.
You know, hair, hairless, whatever.
Yeah, I'm just sweet talk me.
Maybe give me a ride in a 20 bucks, 20 bucks, Betty White or 20,
whatever, alien bucks.
I'm not against it.
That's what they call their money.
Space rocks.
The so so part of me wishes that I did roll my truck off of OK.
Mine. Oh my goodness.
So we we left Johnson.
We we left Joshua Tree afternoon, two o'clock ish, right?
And we're in the highway and Cody says, you guys good.
I'm out of here. Yeah, everybody's like, I got a what time is it?
I got to go. Yeah.
So I was I was on my way home.
I mean, you guys lost me fucking leaving the trailhead.
Well, I said I had to go because I need to make a spot for some business.
I had to stop for some business and I did.
And then after that point, I couldn't get you guys on the radio.
So I don't know where you were after that.
So the I found you later.
Yes, so Jose found me, as did Joey.
So on my way home,
sixty freeway, Merino Valley, where it merges on the ninety one
and everybody slows down, dude.
And let's wait.
Hold on real quick, driving through from like Beaumont to Merino Valley.
It does not seem like SoCal.
I don't know. It's like a it's like a crazy drive.
It's very all the hills.
And yeah, you wouldn't think that's like I'm driving through Merino Valley.
But let's be honest, like I am not the most defensive driver.
I mean, that narrow canyon. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just after west of the mur.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm not typically the most defensive driver and driving driving home from.
Wait, you you could have just said I am the least defensive driver.
I I am a very just say I'm a very aggressive driver.
I'd be the most accurate. Allegedly.
I I have significant driving skills.
Have you run people off the road?
I so on the on the way home, get into get into it.
Typically, no. Most days, no.
Get into the merge.
You know, I'm at Merino Valley, where the 60s merge in ninety one.
Everybody's slowing down.
I'm in the slow lane and I'm doing 10, 15 miles an hour.
It's slow traffic in front of me starts to slow down.
I put my foot on the break.
I look in the side view mirror to see if I have space to to make a left turn
and change lanes, and there's I see a mini Cooper zipping up next to me.
So I'm like, OK, no, I can't do that.
All of my pre collision alerts start going off in the truck.
And by the time I look up, I'm in the back of a Subaru outback.
What? So I got so I put I put my truck into a the hatchback of a Subaru.
And it just it happened so quick.
And again, like I could drive like a jackass, I can drive distracted.
I was I was literally I was literally I was
it was the most normal driving conditions in which I've been in in a long time,
like just cruising and I look in my side view mirror and it was like,
and I look up, boom, done.
So it put a pretty decent dent in that because I went right over their bumper
into the hatchback of the Subaru.
So that wasn't great.
And my my front bumper is not fantastic.
It's pretty pretty done.
So I have to get fixed.
Yeah. So I have to figure out what I'm going to do.
Like the it's drivable.
Obviously, I drove it home and I've been driving it around.
But like backing up and turning.
There's a little bit of rubbish that wasn't there before.
And the skid plate thing is trashed.
So I don't know if a factory bumper is going to go on the front of that
or if something else is going to go on it.
How's like, is the hood OK?
Yeah, it just basically from, you know, the there's the front bumper
and then there's the balance anybody in the Subaru.
I mean, no, the lady was she was going to see me next Tuesday.
Like, look, she was she was she was unnecessarily combative.
Oh, wow. I get it.
I fucked up. I get it.
Soon as we pulled off the side of the road, I jumped out of the car.
I went over to her side car and I'm like, are you OK?
You know, she had a dog in the car with her.
Are you OK? And she's like kind of nodded her head.
And I'm like, OK, great.
And then she got out and I said, ma'am, I'm very sorry.
Are you OK? Do you need anything?
And she said, no, I'm fine. OK, great.
And then after that, she was just my neck.
Not no, she was just you're going to you're going to end up in court.
And that dog's going to have a fucking neck break.
Yeah, I it's she was just overly combative.
And and unnecessarily, she spent 30, 25 minutes
trying to find her digital insurance card on her phone.
And she couldn't find it.
And she reset her password four times and she's standing there
with her license in her hand.
I said, ma'am, why are you doing that?
Would you mind if I got a picture of your license?
I'll give it to you when I'm ready.
OK, so I'm waiting and I'm just standing on the side of the road.
I know it's going to rain any minute now.
I want to get off the road.
And then finally, I was like,
do you have a printed copy of your insurance?
I don't even care if it's expired.
She's like, oh, yeah, I have that.
And so she opens door and grabs it and I take a picture.
Like we could have been off the road in three minutes,
but she wanted to drag it out.
You should wait a minute.
So you're still in the lane?
We're no, we're on that.
It happened right.
You know where there's an exit for the freeway?
It happened right there.
So we moved into that.
I'm just saying, you know, you're on a freeway.
That's not safe.
Yeah, that was my point.
I'm like, let's get these pictures done.
Let's get out of here.
Yeah, she she had somebody else show up for some reason.
Yeah, that guy was taking like fucking pictures like no other.
And and he and she was like, man, you really messed up my car.
Man, you really I have so much pride in my car.
And you really I'm like, I'm sorry.
Every time I understand that you're upset
and I apologize is my mistake.
I apologize.
I couldn't say I'm I'm sorry anymore.
And then finally, once once after 25 minutes
of dealing with her trying to get this thing,
I was like, look, give me the picture of your of your insurance card.
And and this guy that showed up was trying to explain to me
how insurance works, like and what I should be doing right now.
I'm like, yeah, man, thanks.
I appreciate it.
As soon as I get her card, I'm out of here.
And I got her picture and I took off.
And I, you know, when I'm a state farm app on your phone,
submitted a claim, they called me today and set up like the what I need to do.
And all but just like it was just like one of the
after a really good trip on the way home.
They wanted like a police report or something.
No, I don't know what I don't hear.
Yeah, it was super.
It was super awkward arrest.
She was super awkward.
And like I said, combative.
And then this dude showed up.
I don't even know who the dude was to her.
I don't know.
Boyfriend, husband, son, friend.
I don't know.
And I'm like older.
What's that?
She was older, my age.
But when the guy shows up, I'm like, look,
to myself, I'm thinking, this doesn't involve you.
I'm not going to engage in conversation with you.
Like I don't you don't need to be here.
All I need is the insurance information so I can move on.
But after a good trip, yes, I acknowledged the fact that it was my fuck up 100 percent.
But I just wanted to get home.
And the last thing I need right now in my life is a wrecked truck.
Like it just put me in such a bum mood on Sunday when I have insurance.
Right.
Like I got insurance to cover the insurance is covered.
I have no concern about that.
I even talked to him today about the if if I wanted to would
would I be able to cash out and then do the repairs myself or whatever?
And she said, absolutely.
So I mean, I've got options there.
So I mean, I don't know, Nicole, if you know of anybody that might have
an aftermarket bumper that I would like to buy.
But so I don't mean for one.
I don't know if I'm going to do that or or just replace it with a factory or what.
But it just super shitty.
It's, you know, it's one of those again.
And and there there is 98 percent of the time I'm on the road.
If there was an accident, it'd be like, yeah, yeah, I deserve that.
Like this moment, I just was as mellow and normal as possible.
Yeah.
I mean, by the time I got up to you and I mean, yeah, you guys were just talking
and then I was still trying to get her insurance at that point.
And that's when I but it didn't seem like, yeah, I saw the Subaru.
The hatchback was pretty fucked up.
But but it's like a newer, a newer one or 2017.
Yeah.
I mean, they all look the same.
Yeah.
But I was just like, OK, Cody's good.
Like he looked you look fine.
She looked fine.
I'm like, OK, we were going less than 20 miles an hour.
Like like at 20 miles hours when I started to apply my break because everybody was.
And I think what happened was, you know how like you're starting to slow down.
I think somebody locked up a couple cars in front and then it just came to a quick stop
because as I was slowing down and I looked over, I still had plenty of room.
Gauge the like the speed.
Yeah, I had plenty of room and all of a sudden it's like, holy shit.
And she's she's like, didn't you see a stop?
Yes, I saw you stop.
But decided to run into you.
Anyways, what kind of shit is that?
I didn't want to use my break.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I figured I needed a new bumper.
You needed a new hatchback.
So let's do this right now.
I mean, so popping, but you gave me a dirty look in the mirror.
Yeah, I just kept going.
Can I take from her perspective for a second?
Just a quick second.
I hate having to log into anything.
And if I had to pull up my digital insurance card and like,
you know, it took me four fucking tries.
I would be flipping out because and I'd be looking at you like a hundred.
A hundred.
So that would already put me into, I don't.
Yeah, but why wouldn't you have the paper one print out just in case?
A hundred percent.
Because because there's a digital one.
Well, then fucking have it.
Yes, have it available.
Yeah.
Why don't you stop shot of my digital card?
Why? If you if you knew you were in traffic, why didn't you stop?
Hey, take a screenshot of it when you log in.
And I'm just saying, I can look, I can hardly log into this computer every week.
So I get the frustration one hundred percent of, you know, whatever.
So and, you know, whatever, I'm sure you were.
Look, I'm at fault.
I got to take some of this heat that regardless of whether it's wanted or not,
you know, or how much of it.
So that that's kind of the thing.
And at 25 minutes, all right, you know, yeah, whoever has one of the digital
license plates, they're fucking, you know, ultimate douchebaggery.
Yes. Yeah.
Well, those guys probably only put them on Tesla.
Yeah, I mean, the ultimate that's like.
So you have douchebag level.
That's like elite.
Yes. Yeah.
You have a digital license plate.
Yes. And red on a Tesla.
And red door handles. Yes.
But hey, I bet you save money.
The you guys want to you want a current report?
If I know you want to do it weekly.
I can do a weekly update.
I saved so much money this week.
So I did not save money this week because I have a deductible to pay now.
And yeah, just just like right now, it was like one of those.
You know how you're like when it rain, you're just like, oh, God, damn it.
Like, yes, like.
So I doubt she's listening to the show.
But I unless she took pictures and now she's logged in and she's a fan.
I I apologize.
I mean, it was a picture of the house.
My driving sticker on the back.
Probably not all of that number.
Oh, that would be so awesome.
That would be so awesome.
Yeah, that'd be so awesome.
I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast.
Yeah, it's suck, man.
It absolutely suck for breakfast.
And I was like the last thing in the world I want to deal with.
But yeah, your face when you drove.
When you drove by me, like after you caught up to me, you just look.
You're like, fuck this week.
We're just like, fuck.
But imagine if you were like on the on the way home from something as
at least you were like on the way home from doing something cool.
Yeah. No, I get that.
And we should work on the way to do something cool.
Yeah. And then you were like,
I can't frickin turn.
Yeah, no, it again, there's there's tenner.
It could have been worse.
There, you know, it was minor.
The truck is drivable.
We both walked away.
You know, it's it's 100 percent my fault.
I hopefully her attorney doesn't hear that.
But, you know, I fucked up and, you know, it is what it's what insurance is for.
Yeah, it doesn't matter.
It's what insurance is for.
You know, I feel bad about it.
It just it was just one of those things where you're like
awesome, like this is awesome sauce.
So I have to I had to I have to figure out what I'm going to do with the truck
and how I'm going to make that happen and what the next.
Ranger Raptor.
Well, that was the other thing, like, you know, I've been,
you know, obviously I've been talking about that for a while
and I absolutely want to do it.
But I read an article that was like, if you want a Ranger Raptor,
don't expect to spend less than a thousand dollars a month.
Because even though the MSRP is 57, no dealer is going to sell it
for less than 30,000 over over MSRP.
Like if you can get your hands on, how is that not illegal?
I don't force wasn't for someone.
Wasn't it for he was trying to make they were they were trying.
They were trying to stop it, but they were trying to bypass it.
Well, they were trying to.
They'll give like dealers that do that shit less allocations.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
But yeah.
But the the reality is that's probably not in my my immediate future.
So and I got to fix the truck no matter what.
Just get the new Land Cruiser. It's coming back.
Land Cruiser is coming back, guys.
Hooray. No.
So now now's the time where I bring up whose truck gets fixed first,
mine or his.
Mine's still drivable.
I could drive mine here.
I'm just preventative.
Like I don't want my transmission blowing up.
I could pull the front bumper off that bitch and be no problem.
You didn't have to do that.
Off that bitch, off my bitch.
So I say what I say what.
So, yeah, I don't.
So I need to make identical.
I need to make some changes.
I need to make some changes to the Ranger and figure it out.
But it is it's it's a bummer.
I'm a bum bummed up a dude right now.
I'm a bummed dude, but we'll figure it out.
Like I said, it could be worse.
All right. Anything else, guys?
We we can talk about, I think, what we did talk about.
The Cape Adventures, July 9th, we will be there.
I am looking forward to that.
I think it will be a lot of fun.
It sounds fun.
The.
What else we got coming up?
Trying to think of what other events we have coming up July 9th.
Oh, OK, there's.
Yeah, I don't think there's anything major coming up between now and then.
So we will be we'll be out at Cape Toyota on July 9th if you guys are going to go
and you'll you'll hear about us talk about this every week.
So if you guys are going to go, let me know.
And I'd like to see how many of the listeners actually come out.
Well, maybe we'll like Matt mentioned, we'll try to do a phrase that pays
or some kind of special giveaway or something.
So let me know how many of you guys are going to be there
to see if it's worth ordering some things.
And then then we'll go from there.
Thanks to Brad for for joining us tonight
and thanks to Cape Toyota for inviting us to be part of their grand opening event.
And thanks to you guys for listening.
It's been a lively chat room and as usual.
Fortunately, Tim had to log off early.
So that's probably good for all of my.
That was actually super good.
My my in just with one person logging off.
My insults dropped 50 percent.
Easy 50 percent.
So I appreciate that.
All right, guys, anything else?
No. All right.
Well, then thank you guys every month, every week for hanging out.
I mean, unless you guys want to talk the Tesla report, you know,
every week we talk about the Tesla.
I don't think anybody cares.
I don't think anybody cares.
OK, all right.
Well, let's let's do how long has it been?
Two weeks, three weeks, three weeks now.
OK, so let's let's wait till the first month at four weeks.
So next week, I'd like to see a full report prepared by you for next week.
It's great on money saved.
Done. So OK. OK.
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 outdoorxfour.com and check out their content.
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We appreciate it.
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And we are on irate4by4.com.
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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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We really appreciate all of your support and it keeps us going.
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You can find that at ryanterigno.com.
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Check it out. Give him some support.
We appreciate it.

Ep 274: BC Vaught from Kanati Tire

Welcome to the trail chasers podcast. This episode is brought to you by outdoor by for magazine the team at outdoor by
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100% original and unbiased content
Today on the show we talked to BC Vaughn with rotation motor sports and canadi tires
He tells us about his experience running the first time as a Baja 500 driver
After that we get into some crazy discussion about the Dodge rampage. Is that aptly named?
Hmm, I mean looking at the vehicle. I think it looks super cool. No one wants to believe me
Look the Ram Santa Cruz
That's a good assessment
Dude
Hey everybody it is 630 on take it back it is 640 on
Tuesday night we are live on YouTube as we usually are on Tuesday nights we already have
people in the chat room making fun of us I had someone you yeah I had someone in the
chat room and you know who this is says I look like Sid from Ice Age and I gave him
the middle finger on camera we are joined tonight by with BC Vaught from rotation motorsports
from Canadi tire and fresh off a trip to Baja California how are you doing tonight man
great happy to be back in the states have a great couple weeks in Mexico no I bet I
cannot wait to hear that Jose and I ran into BC at the Overland Expo a couple weeks in
Flagstaff and he was at the Canadi booth and we talked to him for a little bit and he was
telling us about this trip to Baja he's got going on and trying to show me showing us
pictures of the truck you were trying to get finished and hoping it ran so let's start there
let's do you left Flagstaff got down got down to where are you from where you where you
living at so I live in I'm here in Sunset Beach California just in between Huntington
Beach and Seal Beach okay and you know about it was November of last year being a buddy
we're sitting across the street here where I just came from right now Beals Barbecue
and he goes man I'm you know what I need some write offs he's got a company that does very
well in the telecommunications world and he goes I need some write offs and I'm thinking
about buying a trophy truck and me and you are going to race it and I just laughed you
know took another sip of my vodka soda and said oh yeah okay and he goes I'm not kidding
you tell me who to call right now so I go all right so I called Jim Beaver I got Jim
my buddy wants to buy a trophy truck can you lead us in the right direction he goes yep
connects him with Robbie Pierce at Jimco and within a couple days Ryan had procured the
truck Robbie Pierce was on his way to go on a scuba diving trip down in Bonn Air down
in the Caribbean and unfortunately Robbie on that scuba diving trip had passed away
from some type of a heart attack or whatever you know and but in the end the truck was procured
and and Ryan said did Robbie was one of the nicest guys I've ever met we got to go race
this truck in his honor and I'm like okay let's do it and sure enough we went down to a Baja
two weeks ago with the Jim Co guys pre-run we did over a thousand miles a piece on our own sections
and ultimately started our first Baja 500 and a trophy truck and we finished it we broke the
steering rack and you know had about four hours of time sitting while the vehicle was being
repaired but we finished the Baja on our first time in a trophy truck and it was incredible dude
first of all if anybody needs some goddamn write-off please yeah call me I have plenty of ideas I
got plenty of things you can write off why do I have to have like poor friends is that a dig at
me yeah pretty much build shit or move something that's like those the friends I have hanging out
with certain people I'm not unemployed by choice man I'm not unemployed by choice so first of all
you end up hanging out with the right person you end up in the truck yeah I don't I don't know the
right person because I hang out with these guys clearly and sometimes we end up in a truck but
it's yeah Ford Ranger which in the Ranger it's almost as good as a Baja trophy truck so but we are
dirt people like we're in the IE so you know like that this that's where you got an IE so I'm in
East we're all right now technically sitting in Eastvale which is very but they're like a sign I
in the veil we call it the veil let's ride some e-bikes let's do it 73 is down to black he's a new
part oh nice I got a 450 I can ride down there no you can't yeah it's sad you're right you'll hurt
yourself um so that I mean that whole that whole story is pretty awesome man to be able to be just
like you know hey let's do this okay let's you know and it happens you know and in a very short
period of time and I don't claim Eastvale I'm fontucky so you know I don't want to say I'm raised
there but you know I gotta claim my hometown okay um and then so you went down two weeks at a bunch
of pre-running did the did the event was that your first Baja 500 that was yeah my first desert
off-road race ever wow what so was it what you expected it was I mean you know I grew up off-roading
in Akatia Wells and Glamis and stuff and have been there since the you know I'm a quad a three-wheeler
guy to a quad guy I you know when I I wasn't kidding I played in some pretty well-known bands and as
soon as I decided to leave the music industry West Miller was like he was one of my best friends
he's like dude come work for me and I I go well what do you want me to do and he goes I don't know
but we'll figure it out resources and ended up working for him and then I started managing all
these quad freestyle guys and then it turned out to be Caleb and Colton Moore who were some of the
best quad freestyle riders in the world and then we ended up partnering with Polaris and then we
got into the X games and everything was great until Caleb crashed and perished in the 2013 X games
and then the goal was to you know help Colton get into cage racing and you know it just it
wasn't really Colton's thing he didn't really want to race he wanted to do freestyle yeah it didn't
end up working out but uh you know I just went on and Corey Ellis who is now the boss at Greenball
Corporation which is Canadian GBC Tires he sponsored us and a few years went by and I got a call one
night and he's like hey BC what are you doing these days man I need some help over here and I
said what's the job entail when he goes travel to events and you know handle on-site marketing for
our tires and I go sounds like a good time and he goes well that's not it he goes I need somebody
who knows how to drive so you can go off-roading with people and talk about our tires and not
wad up our shit you know what I mean and I said okay cool I'll I'll do it and that sounds good
I'll I'll take the gig and it's been awesome you know educating people on the GBC tires for
UTVs and Canadi it's been a lot of fun you know it's you were up against Bohemoths in the rubber
world you know I just raced a trophy truck on BFGs because we don't we don't make 40s yeah right
Baha you know and just see you know the guys from BFG and the pits they were a huge help they came
and helped hit it us and you know they have a ton of money and you know it's because they've had a
great product for years and they did the right marketing and and there's room for competition
in this industry and and you know green balls an American company obviously the tires aren't
made here they're made in Indonesia it's very expensive to make a tire in the in the United
States so you know the price point's quite a bit different but the family who owns the company is
awesome all the employees are awesome and it's just made me feel like you know I want to spend a
lot of time here building this brand and the brand itself I think I think it was about two years
ago was the first time I had heard of the brand through someone that we were connected with
that said oh yeah that's all I run all I run is Canadi tires and I was like all right let's talk
about it and this person's been in the motorsports for a while he was a he was a quad racer for a
while and all of his trucks are running Canadi tires at this point and and it was it was kind of a
my first introduction to the brand and since then I've been following you guys and paying attention
and seeing what's going on and then you got you and I had the chance to talk at Expo and I noticed
that I mean you had one two three four five six different tires out in front of your booth and I
didn't realize the breadth of offering that Canadi had until I saw that and then went to
the website and I've done a bunch of research sense but you guys have everything from the the
yeah the mudhog the the big knobby soft one down to the all terrain with you know three
other four other versions in between for various conditions and I think that there are some of
the bigger name brands that don't still don't have that many offerings in the space yeah yeah
no I mean we it's funny because like you know even though we have a lot to offer you know I like
to pinpoint to the target audience you know what the best tire is for them and there's it narrows
down to a few because our all terrain is called the trail hog it's a very soft tire it's a snow
flake rated tire that like when I was managing Caleb and Colton Moore and going to the X games
and I would drive out there I'd come home and go through snowstorms in Ure, Colorado or Silverton
and I couldn't believe how much grip the tire had it's a soft tire with excellent siping
and it's just it it just has a great grip but if you want you know the the regular consumer
comes up and they they what's the main question they ask what's the best tire yeah how many miles
am I gonna get out of this tire yeah and I go well it depends on what you want you know do you
want a performance tire or do you want a price point tire or do you want do you want to go to
the mall and look good yeah that's hard as hell that's not gonna give you grip and you're gonna get
30,000 miles 40,000 miles out of it yeah you know so I'm very upfront with people and I say this
is what the right tire is for you right now we got a tire called the Terra commander which I'm a
big fan of I got it on my personal vehicle it's a great all-around tire our all-terrain tire is a
very soft tire so if you want incredible grip and 20,000 miles it's the tire but if you compare that
the price point of our tire on that to another tire that you're gonna get 30,000 miles and
shit grip yeah there's the best tire for you yeah yeah yeah we were uh we were that Terra commander
RTX it's like that perfect we've talked about this multiple time like I don't need to run a mud
terrain anymore I don't I don't think I'm gonna go that route I definitely don't want a highway
terrain right I want something that's all-terrain heavy like just all-terrain with a little bit
more traction right and that that Overland RTX and the Terra commander RTX kind of to me fit that
bill I guess the commandant ATX is pretty aggressive as well but like it's that
is more of a if you have a 2500 or a 3500 and you need that load rating and you want a
a heavy towing tire that's your commandant which you know we used to have the armor hog or
yeah pushing that out now which was an all steel construction sidewall and everything
it's just not necessary if you can get the same load rating out of a you know
a tire that's 10 pounds less than weight yeah yeah I I really liked the the overall aesthetic
of the Overland RTX and Terra commander RTX and I feel like that that rough terrain that RTX
tire tread is is the for me and I believe for most people that fall into like the off-road
overlanding space that's the right tire right it's it's it's you know it may not if you're if
you're in Mississippi and you're mud bogging all the time it may not be the right tire but for
anybody in the southwest that's got varying temperatures and terrain sand rock yeah yeah
yeah I really feel like that's that's what's the so in that in that RTX lineup what's the
like what's the general sizes I mean you go all the way up to 37s and yeah the it goes up to 37
I gotta tell you the bigger the size in that tire the cooler it looks I got it like if it's in the
smaller sizes it just looks like you know another all-terrain tire but you get up into 35s and 37s
which we have on our company Raptor it's a bitchin looking tire it's different you know no you have
a company Raptor yeah I've never worked for a company that a Raptor it's it really sucks to
have to do events where my job is to carry fuel in the back of the company Raptor on an 80-mile
dirt road to bartend ranch from st. George Utah and they said just get there before us and I go okay
are you guys hiring because I currently need a job
I got to I from st. George to bartend ranch I got there in an hour
in our company Raptor with the those tarot commanders I dig the tire it's a quite
quiet tire on the highway you know and if you need it off road it grabs and it's a fun tire to drive
so you know at the end of the day people come up to the booth and they go what's what's different
about your tire and I say you know I can sit here till I'm blue in the face and give you these gnarly
technical specs but I'll tell you at the end of the day it's like formula one you got soft medium
and hard tires you got a tread pattern you like you got the siping in it that you need
you know you got the price price point that you want as well and then you got a company
that's based out of anaheim california that's an american company you support it you know these are
we got a small group of people working together to push this company you know we're not we don't
have the money to market like other major tire companies we're just a I'd say if you will a
boutique tire company and all the people that work here are super cool including to the top randy
who I've dealt with since when I was managing the more brothers and we were trying to race
short course off road with bikeman performance and doing the tear across series green ball was
always there for us you know what tires you guys need you know they're and and it wasn't
just for some crazy reason of marketing it's just because the people are cool and that's why
when Corey called me and said I need your help here I said I'm down to help because you guys are
great peeps you know yeah yeah and so you say a boutique tire company based here in the states
and but it's also it seems to me from the outside a boutique tire company filled with enthusiasts
that are selling a product that they're physically using and abusing and testing and
proving every day right I mean it's it's it's it seems like you guys are in the dirt lifestyle
you come to any Jeep event and half the time you come to our booth I'm not even at the booth because
I'm off-roading with people and and showing them that our tires are as good or better than anybody
else's you know I'm not we'll never talk shit on anybody else's tire because everybody makes a great
tire it comes down to marketing dollars and the people that work at that company yeah yeah I do
I do feel like and we've had the opportunity to to test and ride on multiple different brands and
I do feel like there's there's enough in the market to where you can yes there are bad tires
but for the most part you can find a tire that you like that's your price point that has the
aesthetic that you're looking for that fits your your your vehicle and you're gonna you're gonna
land in a good spot right and I and I think going to back to your point a lot of that's marketing
a lot of that's being out there and connecting with the community like you're doing and and you
know somebody knows somebody that's riding on this tire and so they trust that tire right I mean
for for a long time we were all running on tires that we we all promoted because we trusted them
and and and they performed and but I don't I don't think that there's if you're in the market for
tires there's plenty of options there's plenty of good options based on your price point I've got
a buddy up here who swears by canades he runs them I think he has the mud hogs some crazy uh
on his xj and he he loves them so the best part of that xj I know that you know take a chance
and run the mud mud hog they dig them you know because the the mud hog it's a software compound
it's a the tire flexes it grabs if you're into crawling you know I've had a couple people come
to buy the booth and they want to complain about the sidewall you know what I mean but I can tell
you what I can get in a I can go out there right now and my utv or my jeep or the even the trophy
truck on another company's tire and I can slide that shit right into the wall and I guarantee it
give me 15 minutes and I'll slice their tire their sidewall too yeah oh yeah there's there's a lot
comes down to the driver too yes you can't abuse on a tire and expect it to hold up to everything
it's just it's not possible yeah and and with with off-roading there are there's so many variables
in a trail if you're if you're on a if you're on mojave trail and you're cruising down the road
I mean chances are you're gonna be fine you go up to big bear though there's plenty of roots and
rocks that could jump out and get you say roots roots are you from the east coast
you said roots roots rum the two what the two youth youth but I mean there look we uh I had a
roots roots the uh I had we were wheeling in the snow one time and I made a wash I wash yeah
and since since I'm on my house husband I do a lot of wash now um the uh I made a u-turn in snow
and there was a branch sticking out that that nobody saw and it punctured the sidewall of my
tire there is no tire on the it was a Buffy the vampire steak there's no tire that would have
withstood that didn't you fight vampires with that stick I tried to I I still had it in here for a
while um but yeah I I think that that uh going back to the the tires I mean they look like a trap to
me as I was pissed um somebody set you up there's there's plenty of options out there and I I do
I do like the fact that you guys are uh you know 30 minutes away from where we're at
oh look at that that's awesome so let's talk let's talk more let's talk more about that so
you you get down there two weeks ago um and your uh can't can you what just happened right now
oh so he just held up his uh Baja 500 metal for uh it was a medallion yeah gee look at that
look at that finish I would just wear that why wouldn't you yeah this is an honest question
because I don't yeah I don't yeah I don't have anything cool like that why wouldn't you just
wear that exactly like I just go into work like I just had my backstage pass backstage pass exactly
I just had I had my MFRs today where I had to sit in front of like all the executives and stuff
and I would totally have that like just dangling from my neck like what's up fools yeah
look what I accomplished there's a better piece I want to know a better piece there's a there's
a power move if you may turn into a bell buckle yeah oh or I will put a clock in it and wear it
like flavorflame no yeah I think I I'd still like it around my neck so they can see it oh
that's is that that's the official Baja 500 uh tequila tequila what is that yeah tequila
wow look at that bottle that is amazing that's a really original man we had tequila to a bottle
like that one no you did not no I don't have that kind of bottle remember at that event we were
emcee oh man and had a super expensive tequila uh no there you go there you go so the uh so you
get down there and and like so where did you guys stay did you guys stay in RVs did you stay in a
hotel no we uh so Wes Miller who like has been one of my best friends for many years he's he's got
I think he's over 20 years racing Baja and so he's got a couple houses down there that he's got
he's connected to right on the uh right on the harbor there in Ensenada you know it's not like
five star accommodations but they're cool houses with comfortable beds right on the harbor and it's
in a gated community so you know all your shit's safe and uh we stayed there for two weeks and it
was great because you can leave go pre-run for the day you'll be gone 12 hours come back all your
stuff is completely safe and there's a brewery right in front of the property which serves
great food so we'd go there every night we had some food we didn't do a whole lot of drinking
down there until we crossed the finish line good night of drinking and the next day we hit some
wineries but uh yeah no it's comfortable Ensenada it's crazy I went down there thinking I'm going
to be ready to come home after a couple days but I never got homesick once the food down there
west miller's like a you know he's one of these guys that sniffs out the culinary arts and
and uh we went to some restaurants you know for 50 bucks you can have an incredible meal
man I bet I bet so yeah we ate well and uh just it was just a neat experience man 50 bucks
a lot of people in Mexico just so you know 50 bucks doesn't even it it hardly feeds my family
at Del Taco Del Taco exact I was gonna and that's not a joke oh I was at Starbucks now yeah
exactly yeah so in the in the race did you drive co-pilot or both no I got I got I drove I got in
at mile 212 at BFG pit two and I drove to the finish wow wow I got in at five o'clock and pulled
into the uh to the finish at midnight whoo what what was that like man like the I I was watching
a video earlier today of guys in a in a Baja 500 truck and they hit a sand patch and it's dark as
hell and they ended up having to stop the truck and get out and kind of walk to try to figure out
where the trail was and you know the drive the the copilot's walking pointing where to go like
what was your experience like driving at night for 250 miles it's crazy you don't know like when
you're driving a truck for the first time in your career and you just all you pictures guys going
wide open hauling ass and I'm in little sections and I'm doing like five miles an hour going I can't
fucking see and he's like just drive what you see just drive what you see and I'm like I can't
fucking see anything man and he's like well you got to do what you can and it's like you know
what you know from hearing about trophy trucks and hauling ass you're like well I got to go but
then when you're being smart and it's your buddy's truck yeah I want to be smart and save the truck
you know you just sometimes you stop and let the dust clear a little bit and move ahead and you
you know you just got to be smart you know it's which is why if somebody had a need to ride off
and they came to us and we had a truck Matt would not drive Matt would be a great copa because Matt
because the truck would make it four to five miles before it would explode in epic fashion and we'd
be like Matt my truck is still running we would say Matt we didn't finish and you'd be like yeah
but wasn't that cool like that's five miles better that is the most that's ridiculous I think the
coolest statement you just made was in my career I've you know my like you referred to your racing
career like now it's just what you yeah that's fucking rad dude I like literally like I your sort
of professional racers like what it sounded like to me well yeah I mean are you gonna tell are you
gonna do this again me yes yeah you're racing career one thousand I'm gonna be a veteran in
another race nice exactly in the same track you sign the check and I'll be there yeah that's
are you going to so you guys gonna take the same truck oh what do you think my buddy
truck I don't know he's right off I think he needs sponsors now
show on the truck yeah absolutely all twelve dollars the twelve dollars we get for this show
I'll make sure that that goes to the uh but but I mean like so getting that wins the next race
wait a minute we're getting four hundred and it's in a few months so what kind of prep needs to be
done to the vehicle between now and then to get it ready well the truck goes back to Jim co and Jim
co preps it and the motors got plenty of juice left in it tranny has got plenty of juice left in
it it just needs a little cosmetic fixer uppers and so not a ton of prep for the truck for the
Baja 400 but after the Baja 400 it'll probably be a pretty extensive prep to get ready for the
thousand mm-hmm the thousand this year goes from La Paz down in La Paz all the way up to Antonada
wow so the logistics of that is pretty gnarly you know getting crews separated and split
amongst the peninsula we'll go I got I got a crew of four we'll go and stage up I'd be stoked
you guys all came down we uh I don't know there would be any value to you when you rolled up
zero I got this duct tape what do you want me to
like all my friends that came to the 500 but we had a great time yeah I don't want to brag about
my duct tape abilities but I do have like a very high level yes experience between here you've got
50 years of collecting zip ties forever we all got yelled at holding the flashlight in the wrong
place growing up so we're pretty good at holding the flashlight too so speaking of the logistics
like how how many people went down there with you as support for the 500 you know it was mainly
you know uh it's more of a since we're so new to the game you know Ryan's kind of doing a
thing where he relies on jimco so I don't know what the price is that he pays for that I don't even
ask I'll do it for half but jimco supplies the crew they had chase uh I pulled into a pit you
know they work with the bfg people too so uh we pulled into some pits and the bfg people helped
out replaced the steering rack and stuff um you know so it's it's it's a pretty extensive deal man
because I don't know I'm just thankful to be a part of it yeah yeah um it sounds like it and uh
is he is he actively looking for sponsors now at this point to to continue this journey and
run more races we'll see you know I mean he's not like he's he's a very uh you know he's a very
successful guy that has things down the way he likes to do it and you know I'm an agent so
I've said I'm happy to start bringing sponsors the table and he says just hang on a minute yeah
he thinks his way and and I just I'm I'm cool with it I'm like okay you know you don't want to ruin
his ride-offs no can I you know well I just want to respect what his vision is and uh
obviously I I enjoy the seat but you know like I told him that's ever he had somebody else
for the job I would respect it and you know I'm just I'm happy to have done it one time and
I get to do it again great and if I get to do it again after that great and you got a sweet
mandalion like yeah like it seems like you know what thank you for the sweet mandalion and my uh
tequila and you get to Brett dude you get to break exactly you get to brag about finishing the
ball off five well I think that's gold too I'm going down to the uh jeweler tomorrow and see what
I did um on stars but I think that that you know there's a for a for a race team that in November
of last year decided to do this picked up the vehicle slapped together a crew through contracting
or whatever and then went out and finished the 500 I mean that's pretty awesome right I mean how
many how many a velo speciale has never tasted so good yes how many how many large uh race teams
don't finish I mean how many the the the attrition on those races is pretty gnarly because it's so
intense for you guys to take a truck out for the first time and pre-run it and finish it well I
guess you probably didn't pre-run on the race truck right uh but to finish to finish the uh the the
500 the first time out that's a big accomplishment right I mean that's what they say you know I mean
all I knew is when I got in the truck uh Barry who built the truck his lady was there and she goes
they see just gets at the truck to the finish you know and I said dina I'll do that trust me
you know I'm not a I'm not a guy that's going to go out there and drive a vehicle whether it's
my buddies or it's my own I'm not going to drive it at 105 percent I'm going to be smart I'm going to
drive it at 80 percent sure there were a couple instances where I think I got lucky and I filled
together but uh you know I'm a pretty smart and conservative driver so I'll get the truck to the
finish now I need to as time goes by I need to learn to mitigate that and get it in between
conservative and 100 percent so we can compete had had Ryan not busted the steering rack and I
had been sitting there for close to an hour trying to figure out what was wrong with
the paddle shifters and getting it out of second gear we calculate that we probably would have
taken 10th place oh wow wow and to me that's that's that's respectable you know that's
to me and it's like you know I don't think we're a couple of dipshits who don't know how to drive
I think we do know how to drive but I'm not going to come here and say we're going to blow
Macmillan out of the water you know any of those guys are Macackran no way there's a there's a I
want to say there's an F load to learn yeah oh not only not only learn but um there is a level
of experience that those guys have not only as drivers that's their job as mechanics as crews
right there's a there's a there's a huge gap between an independent team that's that's going out there
and and you know uh making it happen with grit and you know medello to a team that's
who's 365 days a year this is what they do yeah you know what I mean and that's not to say that you
can't beat those teams down the road but you know there's there's a lot of I would think that there's
a lot of things that got to fall into place for that to happen and to be able to go out and compete
and finish top 10 top five on the podium over the course of time is is is awesome I mean it
you know it's one of those things that the four of us have talked about multiple times about the idea
of being able to race something somewhere in the dirt and you're getting to live that dream
and just it sounds like you guys are doing a good respectable job of it yeah oh absolutely I mean
like I was just with Ryan over at Beals barbecue here in Sunset Beach where the whole idea came
up and we were just sitting there laughing and talking about like Jesus we were just here in
November and December talking about it and we just got home from completing it you know
how cool is that and what's the next step and we're racing the next step we're gonna improve
from here and it's it's super cool man I'm super stoked to be a part of it is so now that you've
done it so I would assume prior to to going like as it ramps up like it's in your head right you're
thinking about it you're what's the next step all these things now that you've done it has that
subsided or is it worse well geez it's that's something where once you've done it you always
want to improve right you always want to prove I know the mistakes that I made I know where I can
improve I know where the communication between me and my co co-driver can improve which is a big
part of driving in the desert you're going to wreck the car huh you're going to wreck the car
have you seen that video no there's a video Casey what's I don't know what's the name of it
it's it's too it's a rally it's a rally it's two guys in a rally car and the driver is driving
like a total jackass and the co-driver is trying to be calm and he's like please listen to me
you're going to wreck the car and then he just he's off the track please listen to me you need
to listen to me and he's like oh shut the fuck up well then that's the guy that you don't want
driving your car because I was begging to hear West Miller the whole night and all I could hear was
a voice I can hear I'm like West you need to freaking yell
and I'm like oh there's a 90 and then you know to the bushes and I'm like why where were you there
and he goes oh is he all right I think when we got to the finish and you know we hugged each other
and I said I'm sorry for yelling at you he goes dude that's just how it is I yell at my co-driver
when I'm racing yeah that's how it is all we can do is figure out how to improve on that
and that's going to make the next race that much better yeah yeah I definitely think that uh
you know I've watched enough videos to see some of those crews that have done this a bunch of times
like it's just it's almost like they uh they speak a different language right and they and
the co-driver says something to the driver and he totally knows what that means and then they
they do their thing right I mean and that that that only happens over time and part of it is also
gaining West's trust too or gain you know West will tell me you know it's just a crest over the
hill but still I'll check up a little bit going over the hill because I don't fully trust him yet
and that takes time you know you're not going to trust anybody in that situation until you have
experience yeah yeah and and you know someone tells you oh you got a right hand turn you can
take it 55 miles an hour well can he take it at 55 could I do it at 45 what you know there's
there comes a point where you to your point every time he says it's this you know that it's that
yeah true um what was the what was the most surprising part of running the race like as
you look back at it what what happened that was unexpected for you um like well I mean one time
you know I came up over a crest and it was an immediate 90 degree turn and I just pitched that
truck sideways and it was slow motion I go well that's it this is it last time driving a trophy
truck and right into these I don't even it was at night it was pitch black but I just from
ever it looking like a bunch of bushes and I was waiting to hit them and then flip over sideways
and land somewhere but somehow we hit those bushes and it put me right back on the road and I'm like
going I'm like holy f through that you know I couldn't believe like the strength of that
Jimco truck unbelievable beast and the abuse that thing took you know when you're I got a video
that my cousin took he was on the highway next to us and I'm on a road that's just full of whoops
and I'm doing a hot I remember looking down at the mo tech and it said 100 miles an hour
and I'm like holy shit I'm going over these whoops at 100 miles an hour I cannot believe
and you're hearing everything that's going on in the truck yeah here's mechanical shit in the back
you hear mechanical shit in the front everything's just working and you're just sitting there just
barely moving I know I in my ranger it's the same I I know exactly what you're talking about you
know I drive a Ford Ranger I don't know if I mentioned that you mean you're not listening to the
Beastie Boys I would just assume you're listening to Beastie Boys or some Led Zeppelin or something
usually the Foo Fighters yeah I think and I think that like you know part of the the drive or
desire to want to do like an off-road race like that is you know we drive our our daily driver
trucks and they're you know they they do their thing and we know how much fun it is when you're
doing 55 across the desert lake bed right the idea of being able to do 100 miles an hour
over whoops and through turns and through sand and and to your point just sit but still
just seems otherworldly to me it seems it's like it's like unfathomable you know sorry sorry to
cut you off but we feel like we're like we're always limited by what our trucks can do yeah
yes regardless of what we can do even though probably there's some limitations there as well
but I think we're mostly limited by what our trucks are capable of but to be able to drive a vehicle
that far exceeds our ability or at least as you know twice as much capable or triple whatever
the trucks were used to to be able to put your foot into it and go it's going to be fine yeah
yeah it's like driving an F like if most people drove an F1 car they're like dude this car drives
like shit but you got to drive it like at 180 miles an hour for it to actually handle
work and stuff well but you made that down for us but to Casey's point like as we're driving through
the desert of Johnson Valley and you see you see a rut or something you're like and you check up
because you know you know you're going to bottom out when you hit that thing the idea of my rooftop
tent is not going to like it yes I got 42 pallet uh totes of shit camping gear in the back um but
when you see that the idea of going oh I got this and just like hammering down and bopping right over
it to like that's like oh my god like that's other world like I I can't even imagine like I this road
kind of rough go faster yes yes you know what like the night before the race I was kind of second
myself out a little bit because I only had 20 to 25 minutes in the trophy truck before I raised it
you know I I we drove in plaster city I drove for about 10 minutes there and then we got to
shake the truck down before the race and that was about maybe five to 10 minutes so I didn't
have a lot of time in the truck but I feel like I'm pretty fast in a razor so I was like you see
it's the same shit it's a razor just with a louder motor you know and you know and just
relax and four times the price tag yeah yeah thankfully it's yeah well you know and I would I
would uh playing devil's advocate I would think that that maybe was to your advantage uh if you
spend a lot of time in a vehicle and you think because my buddy Ryan who owns the truck drove the
frick out of that truck that's that's what I'm saying is that like if you if you've driven a
truck a bunch of times and you feel confident in it you're going to start pushing it a little bit
further every time because you're like oh yeah I know the last time I did this turn at 60 I can do
it at 65 you know what I mean like to to you're you're going into it maybe tentatively because of
your lack of of seat time on it maybe that was part of what got it to the finish line is because you
were put you weren't pushing it you weren't trying to push it far farther than it could go you were
you're 100 correct because like once I knew once I knew the truck wasn't shifting into third and I
was stuck in second which mind you the truck will still do 65 70 yeah without over revving the motor
I think my rule was I'm not going to rev it over five grand because we're not going to win the race
right so why why abuse my buddy's motor yeah so I kept it five grand and under so that was about
6500 or 65 miles an hour and it was good for most of the train that I traveled you know what I mean
and there came a point when they said stop we want to look at the transmission and that
and I sat there for a while and finally Ryan I was in an area where I had cell service
mine calls me and he goes fucking drive that thing home
let's go go you know and get that to the finish yeah fine I can do it no problem and I did it was
like driving a razor you know on this truck it's paddle shift so it's super simple anyways that's
insane that's that's fucking badass so you know I drove at 80% you know from that point on you know
there was a lot of technical stuff in the dust I didn't try to impress west my co-driver I just
said fuck I'm gonna drive my speed and I'm gonna save the truck and I'm gonna get this thing to
the finish you know there's no reason to wreck it right now you know we're not competing for podium
I consider that like I just don't want to die like so I'm gonna drive as far as I can see
if it's dusty like I just want to stay back and and and assess the the terrain and make the the
the adjustments needed you know it's if you're trying to push beyond your experience at that point
you're just throwing in like a lot of very dangerous variables that may yeah I mean you'd be stupid
to do that you know I wanted to get it to the finish I felt comfortable if I rolled that thing
I'd be just fine but my goal was not to roll that thing it was to get it to the finish in a timely
manner so we can all celebrate have a survey son learn and learn from the event and you know go and
be stronger competitors next time you hear that Cody I'd be a great uh trophy truck driver that's
that's like me like hey look I don't want to go to the hospital I want to finish this race and I
want to drink some beers at the end Cody was early on that you'd be a better fluffer
you know that depends on whether how many beers are involved you know like in what kind of beer
speaking of fluffer man I had a I had a vasectomy consult today and it went well
I got an incredible story
go on they're acting like you're a tough guy no right because they're gonna stick a needle in
your balls I have a fear of everything touching my balls so I went there and the doctor goes
all right are we are we gonna have an issue with you and I go quite possibly and he goes
men tolerate this all the time and I go so you're saying I need to man up he goes yeah and I go I'll
try and so he's down there reaching he goes I'm feeling for the vas and I'm going all over the place
gonna work and I go good I'll come back and you put me to sleep that's a little bit me to sleep
but then after you get done with the vasectomy about a month later they'll call you and you say
hey you need to come to the you need to come get tested I go test it for what they go well we need
to get a account yeah they gotta make sure it's clear and I just did that so how many how many
you jack or I'm not
just
if you've had 30 sessions you need to come in and have it counted so you're like I'm married I've had
two sessions I go to the clinic at Kaiser and there's a lady there and I go hi I'm here for a
session count session yeah there's a bunch of people in there and she's like what test honey
swimmer count yeah it's tough and go back there and do that so then I come out and I was hoping
she was still there but she wasn't now it's a new lady and the lady goes oh you got a sample
what is your sample and there's a bunch of people just watching and I go uh semen and she goes
how old is it and I go 12 seconds a couple months oh I'm already in school I put them in
like look I had to do the same thing hold on what go ahead go ahead so the more all the story is
for your vasectomy get put to sleep 100% and then after don't wait for them to call you to 30 sessions
go in and get a test don't take a tick mark on the on the family whiteboard
is that what he could count down how he did I was awake for it I was awake for the whole thing
you're a man and they told me I had to come back after three months it wasn't even like
after this many times or whatever they said in three months they didn't have faith that you were
going to get the job they took one look at you and be like it's going to take them a while to get to
30 sessions I remember back in the day when my your sister and I were together and we were trying to
you know conceive yeah conceive and it was like okay come in we need some samples and they gave me
the container I'm like better give me a bigger container seems kind of small it's going to be
messing in here and then you're done you're like fuck oh man I could use a smaller container when
they gave me the cup and said go give us a sample I was cool with it and then I got in the bathroom
and looked at my phone and there was no cell service right how am I supposed to do this yeah
yeah no look it's calling the freak all in old school calling the fluffer my um my consult with
Jill went really well she was a little bit her hands were a little bit stronger than I had hoped
that they were but at the end of the day I think it went well uh some people are into that yeah
strong so I'm going to suggest that you schedule a a uh vasectomy consult I didn't do that
she know and uh I was sick specifically asked for Joe I felt like they were kind of trying to like
almost talk me out of it like are you sure it's permanent I said look yeah I got a 16 year old
and a six month old can I look can I schedule yeah can I schedule uh weekly vasectomies like
I got Kaiser so I can't go to that oh yeah well you know I'm gonna I'm gonna go back for a second
opinion he's got Kaiser he said he can't go to that I can't go to that swag on Kaiser yeah but
he that means he can't he can't go he can't go to my consult girl Kaiser has the room I'll tell you
the girl there to go to at the Garten Grove clinic I'm going to the Ontario one that's the right one
exit away you don't want yeah you don't want that this like the further from the OC it gets less
this is enticing this is a urology talk at trail chasers yeah if you want an appointment a real
appointment you want like further east yeah it's wide open out there nobody cares about that stuff
anyways this is totally off the rails um so the as far as the racing is concerned I am super
interested in hearing more about this especially hearing you know when we talked at expo and then
this was your first race and you got to finish and now you're excited to do better I would like to
keep having conversation you were like yeah this mofo says he's gonna drive a trolling trolling
no I was jealous you started showing us pictures and I'm like son of a bitch none of my friends
need ride offs that's the thing that I keep going back to none of my friends need ride off well I
need ride offs I just don't qualify for yeah I need to get ride off they're not just you know
$500,000 ride off exactly I'm riding off like uh lunch maybe I used uh I worked from home I get to
ride off a portion of my wi-fi service exactly um so I definitely want to talk more as you as you
continue this journey like as you get ready to go to the 400 and then you get that race
at the end of the day I should come down for it and hang out with us I would love to we'll talk
we'll talk after about how we make that happen and uh Casey's a great mechanic the rest of us
hold tools and cameras like that's you you at least get some assistance from Casey I won't even say
that I I just brother I'm pretty good at drinking beer and like cameras what's that you hold tools
and cameras yeah that's I just I just I hand I just hand stuff to my little brother that's I'm at
the point now where I'm like what do you need dude I'm your I'm your I'm your shot bitch um like
the link is just twisted you're you're the shot you're giving a high gear
hi cleaner
you're gonna be in so much trouble dude you are gonna be in so much trouble
call ended for some reason yeah the one all the power went out in the house like
but when are we going off road let's do it uh jose is supposed to be planning a trip to Baja
for an off road I want to I want to do some stuff up in Big Bear and
local yeah that's where I'm at I live in Big Bear that's what we told him I'm going I'll be an arrow
head on Saturday now he's getting stuff thrown at him for a buddy's birthday we're going up there
for his dinner but yeah I dude I I got the company vehicles I want to go up and do some off-roading
with some people who know the terrain and did you wheel that 200 yet uh did you wheel the 200
series the Land Cruiser yet I know you know what I'm taking that thing to the Overland Expo
in Loveland Colorado in August and from there I'm going to do the uh I'm going to stay in Crested
Butte and we're going to do the run from Crested Butte over to Marbles which is an incredible run
called the Scofield Pass then we're going to go down to uh Ure and do the Imogene Pass and I'm
going to camp out in the neat little tent on top of it nice uh yeah some planning we um we'll
definitely put something together and let you know we we need to get uh this weekend we're going to
do a pre-run um if you wanted to join us uh for that but we're uh we're going to be it's just for
a day possibly an overnight we might we might do uh Saturday night and then we have to do a pre-run
we're uh we're leading a trail run in September for a large group and so I want to pre-run that
trail and make sure we've got everything marked out before that so if you're not doing anything
Sunday you could probably do some Sunday like because I'll be up there and by the way I play
in a rock band you guys all gotta come check it out I was gonna I was gonna I was gonna ask next
like what what type of music do you play in so I I come from a band my I was the original drummer
of a band called Head PE okay which was oh my god I cannot believe that yeah the first three albums
BC Vot on the drummer and then I left that band I'm playing Breaking Benjamin oh wow okay those
ones I know um Head PE was the shit yeah that's me on the drums wow and so you're still you're
still playing dude I'm in a new band uh June 24th we're playing at the whiskey at Govo in Hollywood
and four of the original six members of Head PE are gonna jam that night Jim Beaver the voice of
Offroad is MC in the night if you guys all want to come I'll fuck I'll put you guys all on the list
you'll be backstage drinking beers with us and partying I'd love to have you guys out you say it's
June 24th June 24th Saturday night at the whiskey at Govo in Hollywood it's it's going on the official
trail chaser calendar right now what's the name of your band now it's called bias breaking in a sequence
okay it's my birthday weekend I'll text you back some videos right now oh that's Sunday's
Jose's birthday is Sunday so we're gonna take him to whiskey at Govo get him whiskey at Trash Trashed
let's see what happens on this friday night so let's get him really hung over for his birthday
yes I can't I have to be I have to be alive for Sunday says who I gotta I'm going somewhere
says who he's gonna end up at the Roxy okay we got you for for like yeah yeah we got you're
going nowhere we're gonna wake up on Sunday it's gonna be like has anybody seen Jose
he'll be at the Roxy for like a moracy cover man
hey whatever you gotta keep the party going no I'm not I'm just saying that's that's probably
what's gonna happen all right that seriously that everybody just got an invite for whiskey at Govo
on June 24th so we're gonna put that on the calendar to try to make that happen I gotta find a babysitter
yeah we're gonna try to make that happen I don't I don't know uh what's the time I gotta find a wife
and kid sitter I don't know I'm trying to think rain can watch yeah sure if you guys can make it
great if you can that's it's all good oh we want to make it I'll take it we want to make it for sure
absolutely so I gotta find out what time my wife flies out on Sunday so I'll go I'll go out the
whiskey the last time I went to the whiskey I spent a long yeah I saw like uh like it was like a surf
punk band uh man or astro man I think was the last time I'd been to the that was a long time ago
it was like 20 years ago uh yeah it's I I think I've been there once and it was at least 20 years
ago I'm just gonna have a couple of micro voltros and just hang out yeah yeah you got a big day in
the morning I got a big day I got a big day I'm Ross dressed for less if possible whatever we get
them shark eyes coming at it you know no problem oh shark eyes for sure I didn't get to see him on
his last camping trip no you didn't work hard enough you didn't work hard enough you didn't
have enough room uh yeah all you have to do is like swirl a bottle a bottle of Captain Morgan in
front of him and you'll see shark eyes yeah I didn't I didn't plan accordingly so I never
coming out in the world again he's he's retired I I disagree um yeah
how about some Baja he's rolling the Baja whiskey the Baja tequila that's right Baja tequila get
them shark eyes out 100 guaranteed shark eyes is retired all right he's he's not he peaked at uh
the yellow he's never peaked he still hasn't peaked look look Jose let's not ruin my the rest of my
life if if I'm looking forward to seeing your shark eyes come out again you know don't say it's
never gonna happen because I know we gotta give the people what they want yes uh so so the uh so
that I definitely want to have more conversations about the Baja races and the truck truck races
because I think you're we're vicariously living through you um you know and if you find another
rich friend that wants to do something please let us know um the uh I definitely want to hang out
and uh we'll try to figure out a field trip to uh whiskey at go go uh on the 24th and then I
did we'll plan a a wheeling trip sometime soon because I want to get uh you out in that company
vehicle with those canadi tires onto the trail and kind of check those things out because I've
heard such good things about them I want to see them in action and I think that's uh that's a great
way to do that I've been looking for peeps to hang out with to go off-roading up here I just
you know I've yet to meet a crew you know so let's do this let's do it I'll I'll I'll put some
together and uh and Casey's always up in Big Bear you know he he worked at the shop up there so
you know you can find them all the time and we try to put him in shark eyes yeah we try to
we try to put together runs and a lot of our runs are very last minute it'll be like Friday
at nine o'clock and there'll be a text that says who wants to go wheeling in the morning
so I'll add your name to that list for who wants to go wheeling in the morning and then a lot of
times we'll just we'll pull that off so I definitely uh I definitely want to have some more conversation
about that um what else is there anything coming up from either the the racing side or the canadi
side that you want to tell the listeners about like any events that you're going to be at
no just you know I mean I'm going to be up at the Overland Expo in Bend, Oregon next okay that's
in about a month from now but uh I just want to say you know check out greenball tires.com and
if there's anything I can do hit me up at bc at rotation motorsports.com
I'll give you all the information on the tires you need I I take care of everybody on price
and service you know it's like somebody wants some tires in redlands I'll bring you the tires give
you a killer price and deliver them to you yet yeah I just want to get the tires on people's vehicles
so they can you know learn to love them and tell their friends about them and we can just continue
growing yeah and that that's the you know that's the the proof is in the pudding right you get you
get them under a set of uh get the tires under a truck and go out wheeling and you go man these
things are awesome right so um word of mouth yeah we can we can definitely help with that I
definitely want to have a conversation with you about how we can help with that um the uh okay
well then then uh I man I'm so glad you joined us this has been awesome to have this conversation I
I'm looking forward to hearing more and we'll put something together for us to to do some
wheeling together and hang out by the campfire that's where the real magic happens and and then
uh oh and we're gonna try to come out and watch you rage on the 24th at uh whiskey you go go um
it's awesome well don't hang out I'll take care of all you guys and you'll have a blast yeah I
I will tell you I'll let you know if we're gonna make it happen um Jose's gonna bail out but
hey Jose I need a babysitter that night all right
all right man thank you so much you have a great night thanks a lot guys for having me on the show
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 all right thanks to
BC for joining us that was a really fun conversation I'm looking forward to hanging out with him and
I'm serious about trying to get to whiskey you go go on 24th we'll have to figure that out
definitely want to get out there to whiskey you go and I love having people on that are like
just living my dreams yeah yeah I think things are real good well that that guy runs in guns I
always say that that's like a term I haven't used in a while but it's like I'm just running and
gunning like if I'm living life on a dirt bike and camping and you know campfires and drinking
that's running and gunning it's that's that's the impression I get from him like yeah I'm gonna say
when was the last time you were running and done it no I was saying I don't think you've known me
as that person but you said if I got a dirt bike we'll be riding all the time god damn it yeah no I
got a he also said he was gonna fix his frontier yeah like none of those things are gonna happen did I
say I was gonna fix my front you did you did wait was there a timeline a seven because it's been
two weeks it's been two weeks I'm just saying you said you'd fix it I'm just saying Memorial Day
2025 yeah no I got a target to beat thank you guys for those targets you know and uh I will try and
and beat those days I mean I'm giving you like two years dude and I only think that I know I don't
have enough to fix the two three sensors on your drum how's that stopping me from growing
the whiskey a go-go because it seems like I'm more likely to go than you oh for that event I mean uh
if I didn't have to do what I'm doing that Sunday because you hate rock and roll that was the thing
uh yep uh so um we will we'll try to make that happen I am very very excited to announce that as
of today the trail chasers podcast is now brought to you by outdoor by four magazine there was no
drum roll so we we have been we've had those guys on the show a couple times we spent a ton of time
with them and out uh uh overland expo we've been chatting with them uh and uh we found that uh
Jason from outdoor by four has easily worked himself into our group messages and uh shares the
same the same uh lame 80s uh 80s movies mentality twisted sense of humor as we do so um we have uh
we've uh worked it out with outdoor by four magazine you'll see that there's going to be branding
on the show now and and all of our social posts are going to have that there's a whole list of
action items that I need to take care of for this to take go into place but there's going to be uh
some uh benefits to all of you as listeners um as go in as patrons right well uh yeah we're gonna
we're gonna work special benefits we're gonna work out there's gonna be discount codes there's
going to be all kinds of stuff so we'll put together some more communication on that and um
and be able to get that information out but for for those of you that haven't already um
outdoor by four outdoor x4 is the outdoor x4.com is the website um I have I've subscribed to the
man I think the the first time I met Jason is when we did the toil tire thing you're shaking
your head no that's not what I'm just gonna say like you had mentioned he he's kind of been a part of
the uh weekly you know uh you know in the chat room or whatever and yeah judging from I didn't
hang out with him this past weekend but from SEMA it's like oh yeah no we we fit like a glove
the first time me and Matt met I was at that toil tire yeah at SEMA and that's that's when all that
the random ass madness was happening at that table there's so many he and he and Jose were
having a conversation and I don't know I don't remember who I was talking to I was like I want
to talk to you I want to get into this conversation with these guys it was so rad and then and then
we had interviewed him I think uh Jason maybe uh four weeks later or something yeah yeah and it was
like oh yeah dude he's our guy he's our people yeah we're gonna save same wavelength he's 100%
our people and uh and we're gonna be doing uh like I said there's a there's a whole host of
things that as part of the agreement that that I need to do that I'm gonna put together and if you
haven't already go to outdoorx4.com and uh check out the magazine it's a super cool I have uh three
of the magazines here like it's a it's a super high quality good magazine we uh the trail chasers
were featured fairly heavily in issue 46 you can go back on their digital that's one of the other
things they've got you can you can subscribe to the print magazine yeah you can still get the
digital magazine they have an audio version of the magazine there's gonna be a ton of stuff there
but uh the coolest fort ranger on the planet was uh featured in issue 46 and then they they also
put this stupid blue truck in there but but uh Jason did a great write-up on um uh on that and
gave us some credit for that and we've been able to stay in contact books on tape books on tape
so I I really I think for me and I'll speak for the guys because we've had a ton of conversation
about this I think the one of the the most exciting things about this relationship is that
not only kindred spirits but their ultimate goal is the same as ours it's to communicate content to
inspire people to get outdoors to provide information to to be part of the community they do a really
good job of that and that's the I think that's one of the things that drew us to them as uh as
sponsors and um you know I I could not be more excited about this relationship and where it's
going and I think that already uh Jason's in the chat room already over the course of the last week
since this has actually happened uh he's already been like all right I talked to this person and
I'm gonna send them to you they're gonna be on the show all right cool let's do this it's like
already he you know it's he I want his speed dial already and I love it it's uh we just had
awesome we had a conversation when I picked up Presley today I was in the Carl jr. drive through
and I'm like hold on dude I gotta order dinner and uh talking about collaboration and and events
that are coming up and and there's uh there's uh we got a couple events that are coming up here
in southern california that we're gonna participate in um and try to uh try to get the word out while
we're there so it is um it is with a lot of humility and respect and appreciation that we
we announced that that we've got this partnership with these guys and I feel really really good
about it so if you guys have any questions about the magazine or if you have any questions about
kind of what's coming up next you know where to find us we're going to put more effort into our
communications where you'll see um some more uh integration with the magazine you'll see uh our
advertisement our our uh we're gonna do a uh ad inside the magazine to help get the word out about
the show and uh hopefully the between uh the cross promotion between the two brands we can grow
both audiences in a way that uh because I do feel like it's the same audience I think we can finally
double digit we can might we might get 20 we might expand past our families our immediate
families yes uh my wife has stopped listening a while ago so we need someone to replace that
download I can only have so many email accounts guys uh you know I've got a I've got a I've got a ton
of like old computers I should just set them all up right here and each week just download the
episode from each each if you've got old phones if you've got an old phone hook it up to your
wi-fi I think Tim's already done that I think there's like a number of people that have already
done that we're very appreciative anytime anytime I'm at the Apple store I'll find us on the phone
evil genius that is so genius it's all about the numbers uh look and on any given device
you can have stitcher spotify google google uh podcast pocketcast cast box so we condone that
like uh if you're a listener and just go to the Apple store yes uh set up an account okay I'll
tell you what I'll tell you what I'm gonna I'm gonna regret this if you send me a picture of you at
the Apple store subscribing to our show I'll send you a sticker or something like it if you
just a sticker like what it's not like they're committing a crime on our behalf it's not like
we're asking them to do are they are they no okay I don't know I don't know uh we're putting
internet laws yes content on the phone exactly our our family friendly inter informational only
podcast and if you do it on every device in the Apple store well thank you that many stickers
you know somebody here somebody's listening this that works at Apple and they're like
I'm getting a sticker tomorrow I'm getting I'm getting 12 stickers tomorrow um yeah unless it's
unless it's Ting like oh Ting does not count yes it does mark mark has a good idea too you can go
to T-Mobile Verizon oh yeah you can get up all the mobile carriers spectrum man I don't the sticker
rule stills apply I don't disagree um but yeah I think this is going to be a lot of fun um we've
already had some conversations about upcoming events and how we can collaborate and where we're
going to be and that kind of thing so um that's uh that's exciting to me um the next thing uh is
we'll talk about more in a couple couple weeks you'll start hearing more discussions about it but on
July 9th mark your calendars we will be at Cabe Toyota in Long Beach uh they are launching their
new adventure store powered by Iron Man and we will be emceeing the event and working with Cabe
Toyota to get the word out about it and uh I would love to see a bunch of the Trail Chaser
audience there we'll we'll talk more about that I gotta finalize the details with them in the next
week or so but um maybe we can come up with like another uh code word or code word or audible
yeah yeah I still I still have I still have some of the older ones the uh audible older ones so that
yes if you know that if you know the original audible if you know how that means you get that
but maybe we can come up with something else and if you don't then you need to go back and listen
how many that was before that was like a week or two before episode like 60 or something it was
before off-road expo 2019 it was 90 because I went back uh we listened to a bunch of episodes
trying like a best of thing and you know that was where Jose and I were talking about poltergeist
yes uh oh my god it is 89 or 90 it was that's an all-time episode that that is a great episode
yes and it's 2019 or so and it was like it wasn't it was like brew fest and then that episode oh my
god we were so good back then oh god remember see we were running and gunning that remember
yes remember I've been watching south darks and member berries um the I mean that whole
q4 of 2019 going into q1 of 21 I mean in 2020 we were on fire yeah we were on fire we're good
in those days man we have gone downhill is that bigger than the uh yes shy you know which one
we're talking about so I agree Matt I think before the cave event we need to come up with a phrase
that pays and uh and figure that out the um I don't have all the details yet of the event
timing and all that stuff other than it will be what was the date again July 9 July 9 which I
believe is a sunday yes sunday so sunday july 9 we'll be out there um and then oh I sent you
guys an article today did you read it no of course you fucking didn't I had mfr's today dude it was
like mfu mfu okay I had you know it was very high stress uh situation it's like the one time a month
I'm I'm held to account for my projects like it's very stressful hey man how are you doing on your
two 24 million dollar projects uh
he's like who told you it was 24 million because that's not quite what I've got in my books did
you say 24 exactly it's all perspective well after all the lunches are added up it's gonna come
way over 24 exactly so I found an article that I sent to the guys hoping that they would do something
with it they didn't so here it is I did we have jobs oh bird sorry Ram launches the rampage a new
small pickup truck for america it is south america I know it's it's but it is how dare you it is trying
to throw that in my lap as a patriot what for america yeah exactly south america it is it's
right now it's south america but I think it's important I mean look at that tail light it has
a US flag yes totally has a flag in it you know the maverick doesn't have that no because it's not
american so the the ramp the rampage the ramp rampage is a unibody truck similar to the maverick
similar to the the ridge line the Santa Cruz that markets coming up man I I don't agree their decision
to do to explain more why do you not agree with their decision well okay so so I guess
they could say check it out no one's really gunning for those dudes we could totally own
that market but but what is that market like how big is that market well in in it's in dodge right
you make the TRX and then you're gonna make a dodge ridge line but they they can because they
already make the TRX yes yes okay but so then why does ford make the ranger raptor as well as
uh hold on the Raptor I'll tell you about the Santa Cruz the only reason why I'm upset about this
truck is they wasted the the name rampage that the TRX should be the fucking rampage yeah like
that's that's a no brain name to make the miniature TRX right like just like the ranger
raptor right because look hey you want a TRX but you only want it you know you want a mid-sized
version of it here you go here's the rampage box frame all that good shit there were a unibody
here's the thing case specifically the fact that they're they're they're rolling us out in South
America I feel like you're you're looking at it from a very uh oh it is it is let me ask you this
let me ask you guys this question if these trucks were just as capable as a uh a traditional
truck you know body on frame had the same amount of capability would you care if it was unibody
no I drove the shit and my wj that were both unibody vehicles and they were great so you're
yeah but you know but you know how that that unibody reacts on exactly what technology does it have
shit translate uh transmits exactly honestly I don't know I'm never driven with unibody
truck off-road doesn't have solid axles so it there is a difference so with our trucks you've got
the frame isolation cab isolation bed right so there's there's multiple points in which the
vehicle can move that doesn't happen here it definitely and I haven't driven in a modern
unibody the last 2001 was my wj that's the the latest version of a wheel off-road vehicle I've
done but it the whole thing is the whole thing like it if it twists it all I know so I would
on the road unibody is is like a lot of your right like a lot of vehicles on the road that are just
road vehicles are unibody yeah yeah no I know what I'm just saying having like if you try especially
when you upgrade the suspension you feel that through the entire vehicle and that vehicle
twists to where it's just it's it's not great but yeah I would think for a trail running vehicle
an adventure vehicle a mojave trail vehicle a 3 and 16 big bear vehicle this unibody truck
or the ridgeline or the maverick would be fun to drive the renegade the renegade it would
it would be fine I think that I was going to say Casey I think you're you're looking at it from a
from a very US centric perspective in a in the global market I don't know that any other country
consumes full-size trucks the way we do yeah and also a full-size truck this is a mid-sized I know
that's my point that's my point is that you're comparing it to the Santa Cruz like which is a
cool ass-looking truck like dude if I if I just wanted something to like whip to the park store
once in a while and I wanted to take a Tesla true value I have taken my Tesla and you can
fold those seats down and maybe I could leave the tailgate open if I don't put some drywall or
whatever 2x4s or something but you know there is like an aesthetic like I think the Santa Cruz
is a really cool looking vehicle what it harkens back to like the Chevy love truck or you know
like a very matchbox very matchbox car exactly and so just what what Cody put up put up on the
screen right here it still looks like a cool if all right maybe it's not a truck but and I think
that's what Cody is saying is like well we we've identified truck as supremely capable
you're putting your you're putting your pride in in in a vehicle and it's capability and all
these other things this isn't really a truck it's like a utility vehicle yes it's like a it's like
an SUV but in truck form you know it's a friggin ridgeline yeah that it's right no but it looks
way cooler that looks badass but like I don't know haunt has been making ridgelines for
I god I can't believe they still make them and this truck might stop that uh John you know because
it seems that much cooler John is saying compare it to the rampage of the early 80s and I don't
remember the name but but that's like a full size yeah but this market is giant guys like
four can't sell enough or make the maverick fast enough yeah can't make them fast I would have
bought a maverick if I had oh John thank you for this this was the dodge rampage
oh my god the dodge John thank you for that the dodge rampage put it up on the screen so I can see
oh hell yeah it's a brat yes it was the Subaru brat yeah wow now I want now I want a rampage from
the 1980s holy shit I'm going on facebook market right now why didn't they do something cool with
the decoder you know dude who's who's say they're not gonna I thought they were I thought we read
that they were yeah the time is the time is now right I mean no but but it or it may be that they're
bringing out the rampage in South America get the get the the the bugs out and roll the vehicle out
in version two as the Dakota in America version two can't use it anymore I I would not at all
be surprised if they went unibody for their midsize truck look they've got the full size
they're not they're not competing like with the rest the midsize trucks are they
they're there's originally there's ridge line no that so that's maybe they don't want to compete
maybe they don't want to compete with Tacoma and Ranger and at the rampage as it stands
competes with the ridge line and and the Santa Cruz or whatever and and again it's just aesthetic
you just like the way that looks with with the RAM name and dodge behind no you put no
nobody cares about names anymore well they do that's why they buy Toyotas right I mean no no
I'm just saying okay that's Toyota but we're talking about Dodge like rampage we just had to
look and see what what a rampage meant 40 years ago and it was like oh shit that was cool you know
Dodge guys or Ford guys or Chevy guys there's Toyota guys there's Jeep guys whatever so people
people will buy shit just because of the badge on it maybe not us but there are people that are
like that and with the name RAM or Dodge behind it they could really put it in the market I think
if they put out a good mid or real mid-sized truck no I agree with you the Unibody truck no I 100%
I agree with you it says it says if you're hoping this with that this will come to the U.S. at some
point as the new to new Dakota don't get your hopes up the 2024 rampage is a small pickup that's
had unique requirements for South American market the Dakota has to come in with an RT model that
has 360 horse you know some crazy
that's not even putting out that much horsepower it didn't seem like no it's like it's like a
pendant for a diesel engine so we're not getting it here we're not gonna get it no no the rampage
or decode rampage but imagine a vehicle imagine a that vehicle the way it looked but like body on
frame yeah with that styling yep that'd be the shit did you guys see the the new release
of the Chevy Colorado oh my god the bison yeah oh my god dude no that I want it yeah that's amazing
that's a legit the desert yeah that's like uh was a desert no the bison the a b bison yeah I know
but they had a desert version uh you know what I saw you're talking about that one dude you want
the bison bro it is you know that fucking truck is big as shit though for a mid-sized truck it's a big
fucking good America yeah it's um yeah I I've not traditionally not been a fan of Chevy as a whole
I think Colorado I think the Colorado like Cory's Colorado looks great it's a zero two is a great
truck I'm just saying aesthetically it hasn't been my jam but that by that bison is freaking gorgeous
it is an amazing looking truck and uh dude that's gonna be like 80 grand
yeah they haven't announced right there with the ranger raptor right yeah it's like well the ranger
raptor is msrp 57 yeah which I built one uh did you it was 59 um I need someone needs to hire me so
I can get a ranger raptor did you get the very gay paint job dude that was that was so funny that
I did that uh those mean those memes came out about that that thing that that uh uh commercial
is like three years old four years old like it's it's been around for a while um the uh I but we've
mentioned it multiple times between the ranger the Tacoma this is Colorado it's like you can't go wrong
yeah stack up stack up your benjamins because you're gonna be spending a ton of money on a truck
but you're gonna have a ton of fun I mean all of these trucks are awesome do you think the after
market support is gonna be there for the Colorado probably not I don't know what aftermarket support
do you need with that Colorado as far as that's the thing capability it has 35s on it already
yeah um yeah well bumpers sliders sure I mean but it has that bad rack all that yeah but I mean
some people wouldn't change it Cory's bison had all that too no yeah nobody's competing with Toyota
or Jeep for for accessory wise accessories like but if you don't need like suspension upgrades
because the truck comes like ready to rock and roll and I've said a hundred times and I'll give
Ford credit for this like all right the Raptor I'll trust that they put uh enough uh math and
money and engineering behind I'll just leave that alone like on Raptor yes on Colorado and on a bison
100% I just leave it and then whether you want to put other shit on it that's you know it's up to
you and if you're trying to compare that to Toyota or a Jeep like yeah you're you're but for a Raptor
most people will never need more than what's on it but they still sell even bigger shocks and shit for
it right all companies make it because it's just people are stupid yeah well because there are some
people that need write offs if there's anything we learn tonight yes if there's anything we've
learned tonight is I need to get better friends that's what I learned tonight I need better friends
I don't know any of those people hey hey lose my number yeah yeah it comes with the DSSVs and it
comes with uh front um hydraulic bump stops front end rear yeah uh John says you need a
mullet to drive one of those eighties rampages that that is a perfect that that rampage looked
like a mullet you know what I think that um well okay the the brat the Subaru brat was like super
cool looking but also like the late 60s El Caminos yeah we're so cool looking that everybody's
trying to have since has tried to capture that aesthetic or you know that style you know like
the Ford the Ford Ranchero yeah is not the same but you know there was that 67 to 69 or whatever
um El Camino that was super cool that was based on the on the uh god damn it
help me not the Camaro
Ella Chevelle the Chevelle yeah it was based on the Chevelle that uh just everybody's been
trying to copy that yeah right there dude how cool is that 1969 it's like perfect uh aesthetics
like the balance everything is is ideal right there yeah that's a super cool vehicle so if you
could if you could try and duplicate that in whatever you know whether it's off-road many
trucks you know whatever that styling is is perfect for like the pretty sure that El Camino
has a bigger bed than my frontier does I was just looking at that it's like a 12 foot bed
I was considering what it would be like if I slept in the back of my truck and I was like
I don't think I can curl up into that small of a ball yeah now you have to sleep with the tailgate
down yeah that's the uh previous tailgate that's the Ranchero that's the Ford Ranchero
definitely definitely not as cool as the El Camino
all right well so uh again there's a ton of vehicles coming out and it's gonna be excited and uh
yeah that AV bicycle jeez yes it's amazing I look I if but if if someone was gonna hand me
if I had if I had the money to pick I'd still go Raptor I'd still go different in their own way
yes like Raptor still holds a horsepower king because it's like a 400 horsepower
but I think the most all-around one is part of the AV bison
does the Raptor come with a front locker yes I've heard yes it does I've heard it doesn't
it does um because that's the one thing like the ZR2 Colorado has had over the mid-sized game
was that you get it for a locker yeah um the uh yeah I just I'm I'm so I'm so in on my truck
that I mean if the Raptor is just gonna be a better version of that truck you know I mean it's
so the uh that's what I would you know how you make your truck better your truck better you buy
a Chevy Colorado yeah pull the shit off that you let's take all that shit off Casey it'd probably
be like amazing like if you if you just stripped it down dude yeah you'd be like oh my god I've
ridden it we did the donut run bro like I know like and then you just started piling shit on it
because I need I need rooftop tents and I gotta have refrigerators I gotta have my my biggest thing
right now is the awning just yeah I can get to the tent but I want that awning it was key
Jose how many hours did we spend under the fucking five yeah we spent the whole day in the sun under
the awning yeah okay yeah that's uh that's a key that's like a key equipment right there but like
if you take the rack I mean yours wouldn't look bad with just that that L rack you have going on
yes it would yeah it would look weird as shit um yeah the well the like for me there
there was a very specific reason why I got that rooftop tent and then it was you know it was given
to me and and uh yeah I I totally love it but there's also there's also part of me that's like
yeah I want to ditch the weight and drive faster and you know whatever for sure but then uh take it
for me the one that does not sleep well on these trips that uh sleeping well is probably like
trumps everything else yeah but I do think yeah you're right like especially when when the girls
come with me right it's important that they that they have they're comfortable and the whole thing
and in all honesty when when the uh in the past when we did ground tents and all that stuff you
know that it was my responsibility to get all that stuff set up it's ton of work compared to the rooftop
dude the that swag tent on that cot what a game changer told you right I told you right like a rock
dude yeah so you so I forgot about so you just set the cot down and then put the swag on top of it
yeah that's the that's the absolute move yeah the only downside is the cot that I gave you
isn't quite big enough it's not but it's still worked yeah but they do make cuts that are big
enough to cover the whole thing okay but I mean I dude I was like this is the best yeah that's how
I did it in Johnson Valley that year and it was so good yeah so good um all right well we uh we
clearly we're gonna do some pre-running this weekend on some stuff and we clearly need to put
together some uh some trips between now and and uh the end of the year and um some summer stuff if
we can even if it's just day trips to Big Bear but we'll let you guys know when that happens what
what our plan's gonna be and uh until then uh thank you for listening thank you for uh thank you to
BC for joining us for the night thank you to Outdoor by Four Magazine for being the sponsor
of the show we're excited to have you on board and we will talk to you guys next week
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 Turigno for all of the music on the show uh he's
got a new album coming out uh you can find that at ryanturigno.com that's r-y-a-n-t-e-r-r-i-g-n-o.com
check it out give them some support we appreciate it
hey can you hear us yep i hear you guys hear me yeah yeah yeah you good yep all right that's
better like usually there's only one man in the shadows yeah and that's me that's matt uh so we
are live streaming now uh we're we just came on to uh chat with some peeps while we were waiting for
you um the uh f you tim fuck you whoa tim's tim's tim says i think i've said this before but when
kody looks down on camera he looks like sit from ice age look i i recognize that i'm not an unattractive
man i don't need your help in telling me that i look like sit from ice age

Ep 272: Express Rally Overland

Welcome to the trail chasers podcast
Today on the show we talked to Aaron Scott and Dion with Express Rally. They talked to us about their latest Baja adventures and how they
shared professionally prepared food they had to eat during their 10-day trip
They also talk about their amazing scenery trails and people they met every time we have these guys on I wonder
Why are they on here again to make us look bad?
We're like we're like white rice to their awesome blossom
Then Cody knows they get in a super seat
They're super sweet trip to flagstaff a couple weeks back. What part of the trip made it super sweet
I think it was a snuggling picture. It was a picture of Jose and I snuggled you by the photos. I saw that's
That's for the all fans
For the trail chasers podcast
Are you ready?
Let's begin
Trail chaser
We have to chase your adventure
Trail chaser
Our time is now
We have to chase your adventure
We have to chase your adventure
We have to chase your adventure
We have to chase your adventure
Hey everybody, it's Cody we talk about in this episode that we're gonna clip the interviews from Overland Expo at the end of this show
That is not gonna happen
By the time I clip it all together it would have made this a three-hour episode
So I'm going to clip those together put them in a note in their own bonus track and
Release that episode in a couple days. So keep an ear out and that will come out soon. Thanks. Hello, everybody
Welcome to the show Jose's in the captain's chair. You're the you're the captain now. Yeah, I'm like
I'm not Cody's not captain Phillips anymore. I do I have to salute you
However, you want to salute, bro?
Hey, all right
But yeah, so we're talking to express rally guys they're on they're on the show again. Thanks for joining
Yes on that on this on the show again
Yeah, I was just doing some looking at the last time you guys were on and I think you guys get a smoking jacket at this point
Yeah, like this time five times
You're nice you guys are aces so just so you know what that means. It's on fire like we'll give you a jacket
Hey, well, they're aces now, you know, you know fighter pilots
But an actual smoking jacket. That's right. No, it's burning. Yeah, you know fighter pilots on their fifth kill
They're aces their aces now these guys are aces guys
Congratulations, you're an ace in my book. Oh shucks. Yeah
Now, but we're just going briefly gonna go over Scott's
Vehicle history from like the last couple couple years that you guys been on the show. I mean he started off with
The Land Cruiser the 80 series
Yeah, he built that thing. I'm like trying to go back through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I find it. It's gone
It's been a long time. He built that thing had two builds on it to great and he didn't even drive it
It was pretty even he had it built and never drove it
So you're the first one a couple times right the first build
Yeah, like the first version of it, which was
Yeah
Version one or version two he drove one time probably so yeah, he had that thing built up, right?
by Ozark
Jason Harris got a hold of that that deal and completely rebuilt it
I wasn't a brand-new 80 series with a with the diesel. Yeah, like a diesel swap like a five-speed swap
It was like the ultimate 80 series complete
Complete color change all around even the engine bay. Yeah, I had all the boutique parts on there at the Delta parts on there
They got taken apart down to every last bolt and put back back together better than me
I think was just silly so he had that first and then I think he got the FJ 40 after that, right?
Yeah, he had an FJ 40 while he had the 80, right and then get out for one event
Yeah, and then it made it drive it anymore
And that was a little tough on his left leg. Oh, cuz the third the third pedal
It's true and then after that
See that's where it gets kind of sketchy was harder on his third leg
A tip of the hat to that usually well, no you can still get the tip of whatever
Just a tip Jose just a tip of the hat just a tip normally I mean that's from my experience is just
Yeah, but then he had see that's why I don't know like a he bought a Porsche
No, yeah, but I don't say he had the 200
And that was a heritage edition
Was it just like a plane Jane 200? It was a heritage the heritage edition
So that was like the last run of the mill no more
Yeah, it was like the camera it was a camera crew car, right?
It was a camera crew and then my wife drove it Moab and it was I mean she fell in love with you know a six-figure car
And then
Imagine that after that it was another Porsche Magic Lakes
Sorry, Lieutenant Dan
And I think that's been it. I think that like we're caught up to now having a
Subaru
So he sold all those other vehicles, right? They're all gone
Yeah, he the 80 sold the 200 sold after like having it for three months the Porsche's old and
The 40 sold
Yeah, he's had he his most recent like love obsession has been his road cars and though those were both Mercedes
He had a dad wagon that was super super nice. He had a AMG or no still has the AMG
and then he has a
Subaru the one of the new like adventure ones
Hmm sounds like he has a working sounds like he has a lot of advice and selling vehicles
Do you think you could help me with selling a 2018 front here possibly?
I told you dude, that's that's the room where everybody's talking about I'm selling my truck for some for some reason
I don't know
but
So you guys you guys are on today because you have some new events or adventures planned is that am I yeah
Well, and we just got back from two two big ones, too
We just came back from Death Valley in February and then this is our second time Death Valley
I know we had we did a podcast with you guys
For just before the first one, right? Yeah, and then
We had our first
Cross the border trip down to Baja and March
That we were down there Jose Jose you better pick up some tips you can be already committed to planning the Baja trip
That's a one-way ticket. Oh
Yeah, yes, so we we wanted to come on and share a little bit about those trips
They were I mean it was epic guys
Have all of you been to Baja before I have
I
Again
Yeah
Deon's background image is actually from our trip
So I don't see like any of the any of the bartenders or servers with like the whistles in their head and they're like where were those guys
Yeah, how far do you have to go to get some chiclay I don't understand
We had our we had our own Revolution Street because our our chef more than one time had an entire
entire
cooler
Dispenser mixed up of like several gallons of cocktails and they were
Damn dude, we just keep getting one up
What was that last one? It was like a last night at the hot spring. This is like a it was like a
Watermelon something water melon mint something or other that was ridiculous. How's it use good?
Times I just don't remember the name now
There's probably a reason for that Jose. You're not allowed to go on any of these trips with these guys cuz you would not come back
He would just he would say you would search your own podcast. You'd be like
We don't need those jobs
Session dude, everyone's just crossing each other. Yeah
And you know, I wouldn't blame I mean it
Yeah, it was pretty amazing. You know and like I know that we've always joked about you know
When we started the events we had outback steakhouse never had the blooming onions
Still think about that
No blooming onions, but I will tell you guys this trip we had overland chef Jeffy Jesse Houston
I don't know if you'll follow him on Instagram. He's been doing a bunch of expos and stuff
we actually pulled Jesse and
his significant other and to join us for Baja like
What was it D on three weeks out from the trip? I think it was like I was still in California
making phone calls
trying to get him in and
Man, that was such a win. We won so hardcore on that because I mean we we were stopping at
oyster farms like right on the beach and they eating fresh oysters we
Bought fresh red fish like right as it was coming in from the ocean
From the fishermen. It was so cool. We were buying it off the boat and they were playing them on the boat
And he he's just came up with these amazing meals every single night. So like
We've continued to elevate the amount of like quality of food that we're getting in for every event
Which has been really really rad. I know that's always been a highlight of our events, but no
But super super fresh
So like Jesse's just super legit man
He's like he's a he's a legit chef that ran kitchens at like top-end like high-end restaurants
And you just got burnt on it and decided to do something new and so he's he's basically become an outdoor chef
We have no chance. He brings a level he brings a level of food
I mean, there's a couple of guys out there doing it, but it's very few in front of the train and he's next level
So one well, especially at our scale
Yeah, yeah, he's feeding 30 people a night, you know the first night
He made that we got down to Baja a night early to meet up with him and do shopping and allow him to do some prep
He was literally he didn't sleep a wink tonight before the event started because he was up all night cooking
He cooked like like 15 pounds of birria and so we had very a case of tacos the first night
He used that meat to make fresh tamales another night
He made pizzas on the beach and I actually brought a pizza oven with them. It was ridiculous
If any of our listeners go on these trips, they're never gonna go on any of our why why do we have you guys on to make us look so bad?
You get hot dog broth on our troops
Well, I don't want to brag old hot dog. Yeah cold hot dog and cold hot dog. I don't want to brag but Cody's pretty well known for his
Frito pies
Mountain balls. Yeah, but he'll take you know, this is what he does and this is like that did the highest level of
Culinary skill we have is he'll take Fritos and he'll take that whole bag and then put chili and cheese on top of it
So that's what we're used to
Chili cheese Fritos
Criminate against a good bag of Cheetos or Fritos with some chili and cheese and I need to man. That's Cody. We're ever in jail
That's like jail food, dude
You don't want to know what he was in jail for though. He went that's where he learned it
And we'll just keep tight. We'll be very tight-lipped about what why were you in Jack off his mattress?
But let's go back to the the beginning of the trip so
Logistically like yeah, how was it like just getting into Mexico? Was it like a nightmare everyone proceed perceives it to be like I
Think getting you so
It was really cool because so Dion's traveled down a Baja his entire life
This trip was my very first experience Christ in the border
And I got to do a couple different times because Dion and his family and my family went down and crossed the border a day ahead of schedule to
hit, you know the Costco and
Mexicali
And go do some like preliminary grocery shopping stuff like that
And then we had a house that we were staying at right off of the Colorado River that apparently runs down the peninsula, which is super rad
Yeah, Justin strong yeah, which is pretty a pretty rad spot. It was super cool
How many and how many rigs how many rigs went on the trip?
How many rigs did you have on this one? How many did we have?
We had 13, okay, you can just throw a number out there. No one's gonna count like
Well, we just can count all the trucks in your back. I was gonna say deal move out of the way
And then we just count all the trucks. Well, I think we're missing one vehicle there, but everybody else is there. Okay
Yeah, there's yeah, yeah, so 12 plus one, okay
But so crossing the border a couple trailers, too. Did you guys all meet up crossing the border was
Yeah, so we it was actually really cool because as for those of you that haven't crossed the border
It's super intimidating, right?
And leading up to this Dion and I hosted multiple calls with all of our participants. Yeah talking them through like
What does this process look like? What can you honestly expect?
What are the dos and don'ts for the things that you have all that stuff?
And like when I say multiple, I mean like we had it scheduled out like eight weeks out three months out
We had another one four weeks out
Required calls where we were going through like all of the operational pieces and logistics of all the moving pieces, you know
And then when it came down to the day
It actually went really really really smoothly
We met in Calexico at the Walmart parking lot
It's like a mile and a half from the border, maybe two miles from the border. Yeah, we split the group up into two groups
To just kind of downsize our group size
And then as you go through the border, I mean really it's just kind of
Following the line following the person in front of you if you get pulled over for a check you get pulled over for a check
And and then, you know, you go you stop and park and you go in and get your your passes
Your visitor passes essentially for being there for however long you're gonna be there
And then you get in your car and you jump back on the interstate and you go
It was actually really really smooth and simple
And that's all because of the planning that Dion did going into the trip
Like it it was nice to experience at the day ahead of time to like know
This is kind of what to expect. Yeah, it was really streamlined
I'll tell you is honestly more intimidating going back into the US side of the border
Because the wait times are way long hours
Yeah, I mean it was ridiculous
We saw people jump in the the wall like as we were in line to get back into the US
That was super interesting
But yeah, I mean it was a it was a really cool smooth experience
Honestly, it makes me feel way more confident crossing the border moving forward
So you had 12 13 trucks across the border no issues. How many days was this trip plan for?
11 technically 11 days. Oh damn. That's a long Wow. I thought they were gonna say like three or four days or something
I mean honestly like it was a long ass trip because we we were all Scott and Aaron and I when we were talking about planning this trip last year
we were talking about what's the length and I was fighting for more days Scott was fighting for less days just because
You know, this is the first I think Aaron. This is the first express rally trip that's been more than two nights
Yeah, yeah, they're typically like two to two nights three days. Yeah, your guys is tripping. It's two nights
Yeah, so but you know to me like two weeks is the is the amount of time you need to do
Baja right and it was 11 days, but
We were moving right Aaron
I mean, there were there were days where we were probably pushing the group
More than the group wanted to get pushed in a lot of ways to get to our next spot because we had a lot of ground to cover
We the first couple of days we burned a lot of pavement
South but after the first two days we didn't touch the pavement very much
And there were some there were some long days off-road to get to where we wanted to get like that spot in the background there
That's
You know 50 miles on legit trail from the nearest road. Yeah. Yeah, so that's so that's a whole day right there
Just getting to that point and that I mean that photo that that he's got in his background
We actually drove up to that and like in darkness you couldn't see anything
You just heard the waves crashing on the shoreline. So it was so cool to wake up the next morning and then this is your view
Every other is actually pulled in with daylight. So with those 11 days that you guys map out to do the whole like
Baja like the whole pin. No, no, yeah
We can't you definitely can't do the whole thing in 11 days if you want to have any kind of fun
I guess technically you technically you could but you just be driving the entire time right like yeah, yeah
We want about that. We went about halfway down the first south that we got was oh, honey
The address which is the the lagoon where all the gray whales calf down by Grand Negro. It's right
It's at the border of Baja, California, sir. Yeah
So it's about halfway down. That's that was our that was our furthest point south
We got down there
We booked it down there because we were kind of at the end of the gray whale season
So we booked it down there our third night. I think yeah our third night was actually in you know, honey
address we had a really killer spot all the way out in the lagoon at the end of the salt works and
We went we went and interacted with the gray whales the next day before we headed out to get to this campsite here
Now, I think for a lot of folks that was probably the highlight of the trip
I mean, it's I mean air it was the first time Aaron had been there so you could probably speak to it better
But it's a pretty no matter no matter how many times you've done it's a life-changing experience. Yeah
So, yeah, I'm assuming you guys are going through numerous towns and I don't want to say villages
But you know, is it like how are you guys perceived? You know like a group of over?
What is overlanding how is bad asses? That's how it is. Like they check us out. Are we looking for the cartel, bro?
I don't want to think negatively like that
But I mean, is it like it's for these yahoo's now, so I think there's you know
Definitely as
Especially you're in COVID as Baja's become more popular. Yeah, you know with with people posting every little remote spot on Ioverlander
You know over the last few years Baja the locals in Baja have started to get
less inviting in some respects of
Folks coming through it used to be that you were if you were driving through one of these ranches in the middle of nowhere
Because most of the trails that that we're running
These are roads that people use to get to the ranch and to conduct their daily lives, right?
Even though they may be fun trails for us to drive and some of them are actually pretty damn rough
Then they're a lot of fun, but these are the roads that people use every day, right?
So as more and more people have started going down there and people that maybe don't have
the the
Same level of risk as respect for the for the ranchers and folks that live there
And you know folks that go like blast and by 80 miles an hour and the Raptors and side-by-sides and you know
Don't really have a lot of regard for the people that live there and use these roads on a daily basis and just tear them up
That's started to create a lot of friction
but you know if you're if you're respectful to folks and you you know
You make sure that when you get you are in one of those remote trails
And you're coming up on a house or a collection of houses or a little village or something slow down and you know
You're friendly to people
you know people the people in in in all in Mexico in general, but
Especially in bar or so damn welcoming. I mean, there's some of the most genuine welcoming salt of the earth people
You'll ever meet especially if you come wheeling in with like a couple bloomin onions ready to go
Those out I would think that would do a lot, you know to help help out your you know passage through you know
You know what it's funny though. It's good for me if somebody came up man. I just want to go through your backyard
Here's a bloomin onion
How quickly things change down there right so when I I was down there pre-running some some trails for the trip and trying to
Connect some areas that I had never been able to connect before but I knew there was there was cool trails on both ends
I just wanted to try to figure out a way through I went out there with a buddy of mine back in
Back in November and we connected some trails
I was really excited to take the group on and sure enough we went through the first part of it
We ended up actually getting stopped and having to pay a toll to go through somebody's property, which was fine
Yeah, I have no problem doing that
You know, we're using their roads. These are using the roads that they maintain
But we got to the spot that I expected to go and things have just changed right and there was a
Huge metal gate across a major artery through this ranching area
There was just locked up and I I went down and you know
I found the local ranchers and you know, I was I had a conversation with them
Best I could and you know, they're just like no, we're not letting anybody through here anymore
Yeah, I mean we actually go we actually to go back another way
And we actually had that having to pay to get through the road to get a different way to get back out to the highway
Let's go around. I mean there, you know, it's it's hard to be mad about it because I think that
you know, they have more of a right to be mad and concerned about people coming through and
You know using their roads that they have to maintain and in a disrespectful way
So you just kind of chalk kind of chalk it up and be as polite as you can and you know, hope that the next folks do the same
Well, that you know, a lot of the roads that Dion's referring to or from Baja 1000
so like
After Baja 1000 goes and that trail is published or that routes published people go down there
Like you said and like just rip door and through this stuff
But a lot of the land that you're traveling through is farmland. It's I mean, it's beautiful. It's absolutely scenic
Um, but these are the roads that people travel on daily to get in and out of town to to get where they're going to get
The supplies that they need
Um and stuff like that. So it totally makes sense
You hear that case you can't just pull out a sawz on cut people's chains and cut down fences and stuff
Just for future reference. What's funny is that you see, uh, you see these 12 13 rigs
All over overbuilt for these roads and then you just see like a clapped out camera. You just drive right by
There's two actually from this trip and I think
Aaron will laugh when I get to the second one
But the first one was the the second day was the first day that we kind of were using folks into like the trails down there
Right. We had a lot of distance to cover. We spent a few hours probably close to four hours
It was on calma way wash, right and we're out there, right and everybody's like
This trail like it gets used in races
fairly frequently
And it's on the sia cortez side and it's like sections of it are just really whipped out like alternating just
You're just getting knocked all over the place, right?
and
We and we had a we had a semi truck
that was like
Carrying some huge. I think there were like water canisters or something or fuel fuel fuel
Drums, he's like get on my way. Actually it actually caught up to us at one point
And we had to like make sure that we got everybody in front of it and off to the off on another trail out of the way
It was pretty funny and then
On a on a separate part of the trip several days later. We're on the pacific coast working up the way and
This guy his name is dan, right
On the bike. Yeah
So this guy this guy's pedaling on a bike. Yeah biker dan by himself
I think he had come up from like argentina or something crazy like that. He was like working his way north
and
He caught up to us
We're having lunch and then we left and we passed him and then we had some issues before the video
I think it was the van with having trouble getting up a section
And all of a sudden biker dan comes up and we see him catching up to us
This guy on a little mountain bike, you know
Loaded down with all his gear just by himself in the middle of nowhere
Passing the pass in the line of belt rigs. It was pretty fun. Yeah, not not an adventure bike guys
Like no motor. He just this man is literally pedaling on a mountain bike
Yeah, like when he he had stopped. Um, he had stopped at our camp. I think on uh
Night four or five. Yeah for the morning of day four or five
um
And uh, we like gave him a bunch of like fresh fruit and stuff to help him keep still like stay hydrated
And stay alive like leapfrogging each other
Yeah, he was making his way up to uh to california
Wow
Anybody that i've ever known or met named dan i always dan the men no thunder dan like uh, nobody nobody gets
No reference to oh man. That's what you know, you're getting all this and the man is what I would that's right. What's up scott?
Hey, look who joined us. Don't worry man. We already
We went through your catalog of vehicles
Uh, you missed it, you know, you missed uh, what are you on a portion now air cooled? Are you there yet or not yet?
Are you there? I appreciate it. Thanks for the warm welcome
As always as always
We don't have to waste any time talking about my garage
I mean if you want to I mean the first 20 minutes was trying to get through the
The first 12 cars you we you had, you know, but
No, things are pretty boring
Yeah, we've got an amg gts and then I have a super route back
Super boring
In fairness, I mean we were ripping on scott's lack of off-road vehicles
But erin's modified his to the point where you can't drive it half the time now
Yeah, I'm breaking axle
The whole I'll tell you this I love jason harris and those aren't overland outfitters like in the work they did on my
I mean anything I've said to him. He's done a good job on
um
What's it learned is I I like I have to have a vehicle to drive every day. It's not like
That's modified because yeah
The the within one week of getting my vehicle back with my 80 series
We took it on an event and then sat in front of my house for a month because the starter went out
I don't have the ability to fix it nor do I want to spend the time to fix it and it was very clear to me like
Who am I to have a vehicle like this? I'm not jason. I don't not mechanically inclined. I don't want to fix it so
I can handle the sports cars because they're easy to send somewhere to get repaired
But like I need something to drive
Every day that is nice and boring and I could put absolutely zero thought into it. So
Yeah, anyway, who cares about my cars. I like I'm bummed. I missed baha
But see you all man
All the media you missed out hardcore
We're gonna have I mean we're gonna end up down there again scott. We gotta make sure you got something to drive next time
Yeah, you're gonna end up on our version of the of the baha trip and it's gonna be nothing like you guys
It's gonna be uh, they're talking about hot dog broth. Yeah, you get hot dogs and hot dog broth. I mean
We're gonna call it joseph farewell trip. Yeah, exactly because I'm not going back. I'm not gonna be able to come back
Well, I will tell you this new
I'm really like the new tecomas
um
Which means I think the new forerunner is very promising, but what I'm
The most excited out is the new lexus gx
So I saw I saw the new tecoma in person. I was at expo
Were you at expo? Yeah, it's pretty cool, man. It's for sure pretty cool
Yeah, I don't know. I hope the frame is stronger. Yeah, it's uh, it's box now
Like all the they dressed all those issues the rear disc rear disc brakes. Oh my god
box box frame
The seat it has shocks now funky seats. No, it has shocks now with the seats. Yeah
All right
You got to do the disc brakes first
But uh, yeah, let's talk about things that didn't get didn't go super smooth. I was the perfect trip
But we we we broke two mid-sized trucks in half and exploded my radiator and debris on a beach 40 miles from
The nearest river. What uh, what truck's broken?
So both of the vehicles that were pulling trailers
They had significant frame damage
It's by the whoops that one of them we actually like
One of them the bed actually like the fiberglass split in half
um
We ratchet and then the other
Yeah, we we totally rested at that point back together
And it I mean that was like what three days in that like that was that was that was that was two that was on
Calmer wash towing the trailer over those whoops did that one. Yeah
The other one was towing an opus. Um
Probably rallying a little too fast um on not rough trail, but rough enough to uh
See that's that's uh, that's another point against trailers, dude. I don't I don't want a trailer now
Well, I'm against it's not a point against trailers because yeah, well, I guess
Both we had two we had two full-size trucks mine and one of the participants both
Aev 20 ram 2500s and they pulled both of those trailers all actually both the trailers
Perfectly fine and the 200 series. Well. Yeah, you have 200 you had av prospectors. Of course, it's gonna pull it. No problem, dude
Yeah, but we we also had a 200 series on it that pulled with no issues
Like we were alternating the trailers off of the trucks
And the 200 series pulled with no issues
It's a night user. It doesn't die through deep sand beach santi. It was pretty cool watching the 200 just like
fish sailing through through deep beach
Like, you know really deep sand on the beach with the trailer behind it. I'm sure yeah
Yeah, I'm sure the midsize trucks would handle the whoops and stuff
You just have to adjust your driving manner like you can't you can't bomb those whoops with the train when you're hauling a trailer
Well, I don't know man that first that that first trail on come away. Yeah, like we were not going fast on the trail
We were we were like that was our first trail day
Real trail day and we were taking it pretty damn easy. We took a long time on that trail
Yeah, and okay. I'm back off the trailer train. I'm back. I'm out. I'm out of my soul
Matt can your Tesla pool trailer or do you have a trailer hitch on that?
Uh, give me a couple of weekends or whatever and I'll fabricate something. Yeah
I don't know
No problem and uh tie downs. You got enough tie downs. I'm yeah ties. Yeah, I can make it work. You'll make it work
dude, just you're right
It sounds like
Matt is taking some hints from somebody else on this call and picking up vehicles that don't belong on the trail
And uh, it's gonna start missing trips
Okay, yeah, if you guys haven't heard a map what happens first the frontiers back running or tesla has a hitch
I think the tesla gets a hitch first
I I will tell you on the I don't know man. We we we had a we had an isan pro 4x on on uh
on the bar trip and
man
Sam got it gets the driver award on that trip man
He the the way he drove some of the technical sections of trail and that isan was pretty impressive
Was it uh, there were also several moments where it was like cool zero fucks given going
Yeah, was it the current gen or the second or the last gen?
Uh
Frontier, I think it was previous. Oh, okay
I think that's what happens when you buy the Nissan all of your f's just go out the window
Like you you sign them over when you buy the truck. Yeah, because you know the trucks and be fine
He just drove it well though, man. There was there is there is some sections that other
Way, what what you would think would be way more capable vehicles were
You know having some having some issues and he drove that thing straight through it all
It sounds like matt was down dude. What were you this weekend?
Where was I?
I don't remember it was a long weekend
so um, so you guys were down there 11 days like
What was the uh overall takeaways from a trip that long like
I mean it's 13 rigs 11 days. It's like a lot of food. That's a lot of logistics a lot of fuel
I mean
Aaron you tell me but I I thought like from a logistical perspective and in that side of it
Couldn't really gone better. I mean, we didn't really have any logistical issues
I mean we broke other than two trucks breaking in half. Yeah, that's true. Nobody died, right?
That's not logistics though. Or is it?
If you can't make it to your next stop because your truck broken half that sounds like logistics. I made it. They made it work
Well, I think the way that deion had planned the trip like it
We planned space in there for if we ran into issues
The reality was is like while the
There was some things that happened to the vehicles. They didn't literally snap in half, right?
um
But was it something that you're like that's gonna really suck when you get back stateside and start talking to your entrance company
Yeah, that was that was a reality
um, uh, but overall like the vehicles still got through everything that we did. Um, uh, I think
The overwhelming piece was
Every single person that came to that event
Uh, they all had different expectations, right? Um, uh, I think you know deion highlighted the the whole
whale excursion thing that we did
Um, uh, any person that's ever said they've been whale watching
They haven't done it this way
Especially if they've gone in the in the states
Um, because legally you can't do it the way that we did it. Um, but the way that these preserves do this is absolutely amazing like
Did you guys have sex with whales?
My seven-year-old daughter actually, no, Matt! Come on, man!
Um, uh
My seven-year-old daughter actually got to touch a baby whale
Like how cool is that like in its natural habitat?
Actually got to experience what it was like to interact with
whales in the ocean. Uh, we had to see dolphins too. Um, that was pretty grand while we were out on the boats
Um, uh, but I mean honestly like it literally could not have gone better than it did
Um, even with a couple of things that we saw with some of the trucks
I mean everybody had a phenomenal
time the food
Was to die for it. It surely was but I mean the cool thing was is everybody got along so well like you guys know
Whenever y'all do this stuff
There are people in a group that can make or break a trip, right? For sure. Like we've all had that experience
um, uh, we
Had an amazing group of people that had such good camaraderie. Um, we
Um, there were a couple nights. We all got super smashed. Thanks to jesse
Um, uh, dude was just pouring mezcal on people's mouths. It was man
Shots shots were like saucers. It was like a saucer of mezcal. He's like here take a shot. It's fine
Yeah, he had he had all he had all his deli containers that he's using to prep food and stuff
And you started pouring shots in him and he had like a whole tray of like sliced oranges with with with chili on them
and I bet you the the nights or the days you guys had like the hardest time on the trail was was probably like the
coolest nights around the campfire because
You know, you guys went through all that shit and at the end of the day you're like, dude, it's just it's just
Well, I mean the night that we pulled up at, uh
Where we were going to be going out to see the whales that was I think night three
um
We pulled up and it'd been super cloudy
Uh for a lot of the day
So it was really overcast
It was really windy it for for a portion and then uh, the sun came out right before it was setting
um, and
everybody every single person was down at the beach right next to the water just completely
Mesmerized by the sunset that was happening in front of us and uh, you looked around if you like look at the photos from that night
Um, uh, that was the night that we did pizza. It was phenomenal
But if you look around at all those photos the amount of smiles that you saw and just like disbelief of like
This is where we're at in this moment in time was just so cool, man
It's truly one of those things that you're like, you can't believe I was there just two months ago
I was going it's funny to say that just the amount of smiles going like I was going through my photos the other day
And that evening like I just kept taking pictures of people's faces because they just had the biggest
Yeah
Some of our trips I ended up like nope deleting a bunch
Good for you guys. So those are so those are already two big trips this year
You know, you had death valley said earlier this year, right and then
So what's what's the rest of that? We had that valley
Yeah, we had that valley beforehand and then uh coming up in august. We've got moab
Um, uh, looks like we may be actually extending that trip. We're working with the BLM office right now
to
Maybe extend those days instead of just doing a regular three day two night thing like we have done in the past
We may be looking at like a five or six day event out in moab
Um, uh, just depending upon what the time frame looks like so that one's gonna be
That one's gonna be a good time last time we did moab. It was uh at the end of february
So it was like bitter cold now. We're going polar opposite. It's gonna be hot
Um, but school's gonna be in session. So it shouldn't be super busy at that point in time
Um, and then uh, we will be headed back to our stomping grounds that we haven't been in in over a year at this point now
Um, where we'll be in the Ozarks in the end of october. So that one will be a three day two night
Um, excursion through the Ozark national forest wasn't your other international trip supposed to be this year or did I get postponed?
Yeah, we uh
We set a long-term goal on that one
And uh, we knew that if we were going to go for a long trip
We really needed to test the waters a little bit closer without having to deal with logistics of shipping vehicles
All of that stuff. Yeah. So baha was a really really great test run for what does it look like to do a long event for us?
Um, and honestly it I mean it couldn't have gone better. So I think with that in our
Under our belt, I think it puts us in a really good place to start
Looking at what do actual logistics look like of getting vehicle ship for people running vehicles through lancers or heaven all that stuff
Um for that possible trip down to columbia
So, I mean, uh, you briefly referenced like it seems like you guys are obviously doing some planning
You know months in advance. Do you take into consideration like the weather and uh in case?
Yeah, there's something farmers almanac dude that you you obviously, you know the most up-to-date farmers almanac
You probably haven't delivered uh on a monthly basis
And uh as far as alternatives. Do you guys have like a contingency plan like oh man?
You know, it's it's lightning and and thunder and storms. Let's do this instead
Or do you guys not plan to that level?
Matt it's it's it's overlanding. Don't be a pussy
Um, yeah, I drive I drive a tesla now. So he doesn't know
I'm a big pussy. I can't it's just in my nature. That's the weather from the tesla on the app
He brings up the 10-day forecast. I wait until my test this tells me it's okay to come out
And then I come out of my house and I maybe I go to work
I actually have a question about the whole ev vehicle thing
So if you're out, let's say like california where they have rolling blackouts and stuff like that
What happens when you need to charge your vehicle?
I've rolling blackouts. I've had one blackout in the
The one blackout because somebody I think somebody ran into a transformer and knocked it over to my neighborhood
But I rolling blackouts, uh, you know for me it hasn't been a booby or optimist prime
Like do we know which transformer they hit because that's
It was star screen. It was star screen. It was megatron
The the the the the better angle on the ev that here at least we're on that in Missouri is like
All our all our electricity generation is coal powered
So unless you actually have your own solar panels that are enough to power to charge your ev
You actually have a cannot really help me
One I do have solar and I do uh, I did anticipate owning an electric vehicle
So I was just bragging because I've only had it a week
It's cost me five dollars to run this week. It tells you on your phone. Which is pretty awesome
Um, and uh, you know what their electric vehicles are extremely teslas in particular because now I see them
Now I'm very much aware of my brothers
and uh, like it's
It's essentially like, you know, you see those old photos from like the 60s and they're talking about
The volks wagon and it's been around since you know, the the 30s or 40s and
You know, the most popular vehicle of all time and what's the people's car?
The volks wagon, that's right. And so it's pretty much that's how teslas are out here. There's just
Yep, they're the they're the new people. I think it's the new people's car
Um
I can't I can't afford to be in that either way. It's not
You know as far as a commuter and I don't know what you guys do as far as a daily commute
I drive the same exact mileage every single day. So it makes a lot of sense, uh, to just yeah, you know, have have this vehicle
you know, uh
Essentially, I I pay I'm already you're saving money. I'm saving a ton of money and it's a fun. It's a blast to drive
It's a blast to drive. I see I'm looking at doing the same thing, but not eb. Um, I was just
Planning on like upgrading my man card and was gonna go with the motorcycle
Um, see are you married you have kids and stuff like because
Wait a minute one. I was thinking the same thing
And then I got I settled for an electric vehicle
Oh my god, well, then you uh, you know, maybe I should move down south and I could have gotten a motorcycle that that was what I said
Also, my commute's like 18 miles round trip. So
It's not
It's not what about the weather that I'm driving along ways. You guys have actual you you guys actually have my
Yeah, seasons. We have nasty weather. I could I could ride a motorcycle
11 months 10 and a half months out of the year. It's the same
There's the hardly rains or whatever and I still had to settle for an electric vehicle
Man, I have a motorcycle now and you said when if you buy a motorcycle, we're gonna go riding every other weekend
Okay, well, let me give you a chance Jose
I've ridden
Two times now and once without falling. I'm waiting for you to get some experience. So I'm batting 500. All right
That's hall of fame figures, dude. That is pretty good
My dad had a motorcycle for about a month. He traded a generator for for this motorcycle
For Mcnice and so I remember he had her for like a month and I would get rides around around the harbor because we lived on
We lived on a boat down in down in the harbor and we're down the beach
And uh, we had it for about a month and it was it was the greatest thing ever the mom made them sell it
That's a hundred percent. My dad my dad did the same exact thing. He had it for it was like a Honda
I don't remember how big it was
And then next thing I knew the Honda was gone and we had a giant box of fireworks
But they were cool illegal fireworks. So good trades
For me it was good because there was like a giant box of roman candles
And like those little tanks that kind of moved and then shot stuff like it was pretty rad
You know, it was always uh, it was always the 4th of july every weekend for like a couple of months
I'm pretty sure if Montana was popping off this weekend, right with roman candles and everything
This weekend, uh, you know what I stayed inside tesla said stay inside. So I stayed inside
I
And I didn't want to I didn't want to like, uh, you know upset my new overlord
Matt you stay inside. You don't upset Elon. I don't I was like, yes, sir
I saluted my car and I went back inside
So, um, Matt so to go back and answer your question. Uh, yes, I read the star signs and uh, that's how we plan our events
Oh, okay astrology
No, no, um
No, so we plan our event calendar. Um, honestly by looking at the like master overland calendar
If you were to just google search like
overland events of 2024
Um, uh, that's what I usually will pull up and schedule around that stuff
So it's not going to be around the same timeframe that way if we have participants that are wanting to participate in something like that
Like expo west
Um, that just came up
I wouldn't schedule something that same weekend because those are huge events, right?
But also we're looking at at like how can we have a presence at those events
Also, so we want to make sure that we're available for those timelines. Um, and then uh, also depending on where we're going to be
We look at things obviously like what's the season look like there
Death valley. I don't want to go in the middle of the summer. That would suck
Um, so we go in the winter instead where the weather's actually really freaking nice
Um, we actually had snow up to my knee
In a section of that valley when we were there in february. It was
So freaking cool. It was absolutely the coolest. Um, because we don't get snow like that here
So it was really cool to experience that someplace that's usually
hot as hell
And then uh, yeah like moab
Moab, I usually will try to like do a tandem event like that's going to piggyback off of one
And it's going to be in a nearby region. So like moab, colorado or new mexico, colorado
Something like that where we can hit two places
um
and
This year just happened to be that
Uh moab makes more sense to stay there for a little bit longer
Uh, so we can hit more trails because you guys know going out there
It usually takes a day depending on your group size to do one one thing
So, uh, spend more time get to do more. Um mark more things off of bucket lists
Yeah, moab, uh, you've you've ever been there? No, I case. Have you been there before?
Negative ghost rider. Uh, I think kody's the only one that's been there. Yeah, I haven't been there either
But that's that's another bucket less item. No, yeah, I know but it sounds like it's, uh,
Yeah, bro. We're like, yeah, they face these guys these guys suck. We're the lame version of you guys
We're we're total posers
We're we're the we're the wish version. Yeah, exactly
We're wish express rally
It's like I thought I was supposed to get out back. No, no, yeah, you're getting food out back, but we don't know
Get on back there
Get on back there
Yeah, the hot dog and hot dog bras out back somewhere all the hot dogs are gone, but there's still plenty of broth
Uh
So, uh, just so two more events this year and then uh, I mean you've got I mean
Just just two more events, but that's only like six months and they each one probably takes three months to plan out
The problem, yeah, it will like there was a huge lead up to baha
Obviously, um, there's just a lot of behind the scenes work that deon put into making sure that that went through it so smoothly
Um, and even like even all the planning that we did leading up to it. There were still some things that we had to change last minute
Uh, but it ended up working out for the best and then you make note of that and make that part of your plan for the next go around
Um, you know, one of the things that the honor we're talking the last day of baha
We got up before everybody else and we're just kind of like taking it all in. We're in this beautiful like oasis
Uh, it tucked away in some mountains. Um, and we were just like
Dude, wouldn't it be rad to like
Do baha, but really really hard like do all the really nasty gnarly stuff that people don't want to go back into town
they just like
Good luck if you make it back to the states
um, and so
overconfidence guys
All the trails that I knew we couldn't do with with this trip
Yeah, with with some of the vehicles that we had so, um, we want to do we want to do, uh, baha the hard way
Um, uh, I think is what we've decided. We want to call it or some variant of that
Um, and so we'll probably do, uh, a little bit shorter of a trip, but it'll just be like hardcore wheeling the whole time
Down there doing some of those tracks, which is gonna be pretty rad. Um, so yeah, we're we're definitely in the planning phases for
Yes, I like that. I like that name in the chat. It's a cario rally. That's fantastic. Oh, yeah, I guess someone's gonna die on this trip
It's like 10 people went about that part
That's in the fine people came back
That's in the fine print. Don't be disclosure agreements. NDA science. It's gonna be fine. Um
Yeah, so we're definitely in the works for 2024 season
But we want to we definitely want to close out 2023 with uh, some remarkable events going out to moab and and just
Get back to kind of our roots, you know, we started in the Ozarks and Ozarks are still one of those
Uh hidden gems that we have here in arkansas that we're blessed with that you've got a lot of versatile terrain
You've got a ton of water crossings that most people don't get to experience out west
um
And so for those of you that are listening we invite you uh come see what it's like to actually experience true water crossings
Just so you know, we have water now. Yeah, it's been raining a lot. I don't even notice but uh, we actually had some snow melt here
We had true that's right. If you look at like some of our local lakes, they're like full of water again and like we have flood
Situations
25 boats
It's not like just 25 boats in a circle like in the same little
50 yards square area of water. It's a hundred yards. Yeah, exactly. We got water
No, but you know, um
Oh, go ahead. Go ahead
I was gonna say there's you're you're definitely not wrong. We experienced a lot of uh terrain change in death valley
you know like leading up to death valley
Last year with all the flooding that happened a lot of those roads were shut down like 190 was shut down for a really long time
Um Titus canyon still closed. Yeah, a lot of they're talking about not even opening that up until next spring
A lot of the northern part of the park is uh closed off like tea kettle junction. All that stuff is closed off
Like you can't get to any of that stuff. Yeah
That's why I went we uh
I made a really good contact up there. That's a highway patrol officer for death valley
Um, and I think he's been there for 17 years or something like that
Uh, and we were talking through some of those areas and you know, like
Lippincott's open
But you can't do racetrack. You can't do tea kettle junction. So if you go up Lippincott
You just have to come straight back down Lippincott. So it's uh, it's an up and down
Is that the uh, I always get that and Titus confused. Is that the sketchy one the Lippincott?
Yeah, Lippincott's the fun with the shelf roads
That's the one that you want to do if you go to if you go to death valley Lippincott and defense mine
Or the two that you want to go and defense mine was the
Was the deal. I mean we ended up down there because all the other stuff is closed
but man that was a
Not only the trail itself, but what you find when you get up to the top is it was pretty incredible
Yeah, when did it when did I go? Was it december?
I don't know. Yeah
Yeah, I went in december and it dude. I was there a couple days. It was great. We say that uh
Charles Manson's place. Dude. I had a dream. That's when you were seduced by a ghost. Yeah, I'm not seduced
He got he got ghost home
Yeah, I wish my ghost it was just extreme dry humpies like
Kids, I don't know. I mean I have my ghost. I've never been driving by a ghost
I wish I wish it was that but it was actually I dreamt that I was getting kidnapped by these women and they weren't gonna kill me
And someone else on the trip had the same dream nightmare. It was a dream
Yeah, it was my dream come true
No, but uh someone else on the trip had the same dream as I did so dude. We're at Charles Manson's place
Look, I I don't want to have to do the math for you. I'll just leave it out there. You guys know what happened, right?
Uh drink. I didn't drink that night
Exactly that just made it more real
You can't even claim you were drunk. You're uh the volume's up on one of these speakers
Okay, there you go, uh, yeah, Cody just showed up in the studio with uh
With a plate full of food. Thanks. Thanks for offering dude with a rx bar. Uh, no, it's not
Yeah, yeah, but uh
But yeah, man, so I mean if I'm assuming just like all your guys is treasured. You got full, uh
You know photo and video that you guys give to your participants, right? Like you have all that stuff
Yeah, so we're not gonna do any of that either
We're not doing that stop in a local gas station. Make sure you get your fritos your can of hornbel chili
Boom done some velvita cheese and yeah, oh velvita. It's not even real cheese. That's well, that's the high-end cheese
Is it oh velvita?
Dude, uh, are you sure about that? It is in my house, but I live in fontana. So we do homemade mac and cheese
with this velvita
American cheese shredded cheese mixture like you belt it all down and so fake and real cheese mix. Yes
This is what me and my family does we go go to mcdonald's and then we
Mix up that fondue that he was talking about and dip everything in it. No, you know, it would be good
If you substituted the velvita and cody's recipe. You just hear me. I said I fondued mcdonald's dude
with fake cheese
Come on, man. Give it think about that. How disgusting that is
No, but that's the response I was looking for alternate prism side of the prism. It's like if you substitute to prism
What's the opposite side of a prism?
Oh, let me tell you about the opposite wavelength wavelength, right? I don't know
Look, we went from fake cheese to having real cheese from imagine a block of that in and out cheese
Do I
Go on and putting that in uh, cody's uh
God
Yes, yes, actually using real cheese. It would just be a bag of cheese. It'd just be a bag of cheese and
The chili is going off the rails real fast. Hey, that was like cody's night control. He can't stop us
Bro, we didn't even start on the rails. What are you talking about?
That's where it starts guys cheese start talking about cheese and dipping things in it and just goes off the rails
But yeah, but so where can uh, if people are interested in going to the last two events of the year, where can they find you guys at?
Yeah
www.expressrally.com
You can check us on our facebook page instagram page
If you want to see, you know scott's myriad of vehicles that he has at express rally scott
On instagram. Yeah, just follow his instagram. I think that's subaru can make it. Just follow us instagram
I mean, we'll take it places. We took the Porsche places. It was fun. Um, uh
Deon, what's your what's your handle bam family adventures, right? Yeah, bam family adventures. It's just all all the trips that uh
My family with with my wife and kids go on
Including a lot of the express rally stuff. So there's a lot of photos and video and stuff up there from baha
Damn that uh deon that sounds very familiar. Are you stealing wi-fi off me?
Yes
I'm gonna give him this router what I have
Yeah
Sleens back to a conversation I was having with hosea
Yeah, wait until I get this router. Whoo and uh these spots. There's limited spots right on all these trips
Like are there any open spots now? Yeah. Yeah, there any even open spots available? Yeah, there's
Yeah, there's uh limited spots for ozark's and moab
Um, uh, we do limit size because obviously that changes the dynamic of the group. Why is that? Uh, and there's also
Uh, you know
stuff changes
Permitting requirements. That's a big one. Yes
Um, uh, we do have to think about like the whole tread lightly principles pieces when we go out and do permitting with blm or
United States Forestry Service or national park services. Um, they've got certain requirements. Um, I've actually had to like update the
uh first aid safety
Uh certifications that our group has to be able to do these events in certain places
We had to do wilderness first aid for uh death valley this year
Um, which yeah, we don't have any to your we don't have any certification. We got goals
Yeah, they've they've like started increasing their certification processes for some of those stuff
So it's it's very interesting. Um, but and
I guess they just keep it dynamic and keep you keep you on your toes
Definitely as you go through the process
So, um, I think more more groups are trying to do similar things that we've been doing for the last few years
Um, uh, and so they're just trying to make sure that we're mitigating our impact
So we can continue to keep our public lands public. Yeah, for sure
I mean, I remember when I was filling out the permit for mojave
That the most awkward questions like are there any generators on the trip? Like who the hell is going to carry a generator?
Dude, like why is that an issue though?
a generator
Fuel noise loud and fire, but you're in the middle of the desert
But but they fire hazard. Yeah
But so you can have propane uh fire pits, but you can have a generator you're gonna burn it down
They want to be very specific about how it would have been really weird how you burn it down. Are there any teslas on this trip?
Also
What's your guys's take on uh, if it's like around nine o'clock in the evening you're blasting music
Not blasting not blasting. You're just playing music having a good time. You're having a good time. It's nine
It's not even nine. It was what 8 30. Yeah, it was 8 30
You're in the mid. You're in the middle. Good. Good. Good music into it
It was like Fleetwood Mac and like all kinds of good stuff open desert
It wasn't just like you weren't in the open desert. You were in a public camping area
On BLM land. Yeah, it was isolated in the open desert
Yeah, was it so we got we got Karen because because you know what I would have walked if roles reversed
I'd walked over and said hey, can I join you guys? What are you guys doing? I'd love to hang out
This sounds like a great party
Now we got we got Karen then we were told to uh, you guys are playing the music too loud
Can you turn it down and it wasn't me surprisingly? I I was gonna go over there and I actually tested them and so you did
Turn your music down. I think I think Karen's coming over guys
Turn it down. It was 8 30. It was 8 30 and it wasn't it wasn't blasting. It was it was pretty loud
But I mean that was uncalled for
Look, I would have played whatever she requested because I had a like a
Satellite signal, you know, like oh, you want to hear some tribe call quest? Sure. Let's do it. You want to hear some
Do you want to hear deep house? Let's do that. I don't care. Do you guys run star link on on your trips now?
Uh, we have actually the last two trips. We've run star link and it's been pretty stinking rad
Yeah, that's uh, we were exposed to star link on that on our last trip to uh, we're exposed to a lot of
A lot of things
We were exposed star link came down
And he was like check this out star link. It's pretty crazy, man. It was good. It was cool. It's pretty crazy
But
All right, uh, so overland rally overland express rally, right?
Or express rally
Overland
There's three words there eventually
Yeah, just uh, type in type in those three words. You'll send you to the right post
They'll get those three words in the right order at some point
Uh, all right guys. Well, thanks for coming
Go ahead. All right. See you. It was pretty good. So you can just google express rally
You'll find it, but it's express rally dot com type in express rally scott's garage
There you go
man, if you want to you want to go on a road rally now, you know, since you're getting
Oh, yeah, he's tesla. You could you could bring your tesla
I guess I I totally could I don't want to embarrass you guys, you know, just
But
He's laughing. Uh, yeah, dude, give me an opportunity to wreck my tesla in a cool way and I'll I'll think about it
It's the safest car. So you'll be all right. No, I'm talking about destroying my car. Yeah, no, I'm not worried about me
Yeah, yeah, that just gives me more incentive to just drive it that much harder
That's all yeah, we told Matt you're like, hey, you're driving like one of the safest cars like, oh dude, so I can drive even
Even more like a dick
Exactly exactly like oh, there's all these safety features like are they slowing me down like off off off. Yeah, it's great
All right guys, thanks again for coming on the show and we'll talk to you soon
Hey, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We appreciate it
You can find more episodes at trail chasers dot net. You can follow us on youtube instagram tiktok
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And we are on irate 4x4.com you can go down to the watch listen and discuss section and
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All right, I'm back in the captain's chair and I got to say that the uh, jose, you're uh, you need to get something checked
Dude, your butt should not be this hot. Why is it so hot here?
Uh, it's his ethnicity. I think
The uh
So, uh, you want to talk about your uh, your trip your weekend trip and then we'll talk about expo
Yeah, it was just a quick overnight uh to big bear. I met up kasey up there. He found surprisingly. He found a yellow post campsite
Uh, no, it wasn't a yellow post. Oh, it wasn't means and took off saturday. That's a little early from work
Uh, we went up there and drove around and it was just it was packed madhouse. Oh my god
I mean if people were camping everywhere they could possibly
Can't anywhere they could fit a car. They were parked camping and anyone that hadn't found a spot was driving around frantically just
Searching for a spot
And I went down this road that I knew there was a yellow post on but I knew there was no way it was going to be open
But maybe there'd be something pass it. It's like a
A dead end and there was a nice nice little open like little spur
Um, it's like a pretty cool little spot. I guess. I mean nothing
spectacular, but
We could have fit probably another
Three rigs. Maybe we did it differently another. Yeah, for sure
Um, yeah, I mean so means then got out there, uh, friday saturday night
Hung out made dinner went for a little drive at night
Uh, and then woke up and hung out until hose and rey showed up
Yeah, raise a buddy mind from uh jiu-jitsu. Okay. He beats me up like oh my god. We have humongous news
Huh the first the first Tacoma ever to hang out with us and go wheeling with us. What yeah, he drives a Tacoma
Oh, did he did he know about us before hanging out? I mean no, okay? That's probably that's probably why he said
You're in now. You have to come on all the trip now so that we have credibility
Someone's got to make this ball and it's it's full. It's fully kitted out too. It's you know, it's yes
It's got all the kutramal. Yeah kutramal
Uh, so you did you wheel it all or did you just do the bike? No, I just rode my bike
The park parked the the truck at camp and then went to and how was it? How'd you feel? It was great, dude? It was uh
The dirt bikes are the greatest thing ever until they're not
Until you got to pick it up off the ground
No, but they're dude. It's fucking great like I had a blast. It was like it was like what two hours something like that
We rode around
We just we were up near where 3 and 14 hits 3 and 16
So it was all just like is that is that uh crab flats
Hulkem, no, there's that big pine camp round and then there's that new staging area that they put in
Oh, I haven't seen that we stopped up. Yeah, we stopped there
Um, when we got to up into big bear when we did hosay's run from oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, I know what you're doing
Yeah, uh, so we're up near there. So we just did 3 and 16
And then you know, look kind of loops around comes down poly canyon made another right
Back to 3 and 14 and then back up to camp. So just a big loop on some service roads
But the service roads are not they're not just dirt roads anymore. No, they're all rotted out man. Like rotted out
um
Exposed rocks exposed rocks
Uh, yeah, but it was it was pretty easy doing on the bike. I mean like again, I'm not I wasn't hauling ass so
Are you feeling uh more stable and comfortable?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I wasn't I wasn't pushing it right like I was just riding within my comfort zone and uh
I almost held once but it was I got intimidated by a group of gladiators were in front of me
Oh
With swords and horses. How are they dressed? Yeah, I mean, I mean if I saw a group of gladiators coming to me
I'd be like, this is not a good place to be
or
guys
Do you watch gladiator movies?
Well, I think it was pretty that you had to move over and it was that section of road was pretty jacked up
Yeah, but I was leading the pack which was even more like, uh, that seems bad. I mean, yeah
Look, that's good and knowing semi-knowing like the trails you were riding. I think that's like perfect
Uh, a perfect scenario for your
Skill advancement or whatever because you're on dirt. Yeah and dirt's unpredictable
Uh, especially, you know, if you're if you're still getting used to throttle and stuff like that
And it's mostly straight so you can kind of pick your points
Like when you feel like uh, you want to grab throttle or you want to maybe pick something off
Like maybe a small little outturn or you know, you know, I'm saying and and get adventurous
Um, but yeah, I think the you know, you you probably got a couple more runs like that and then
You know, it's time to run out to the desert. The real ghost rider comes out the real ghost rider
That's when your skull face and your shark eyes come out. What is this real ghost rider?
This is like the third time he doesn't even he had to go through some mud too
Yeah, that's the youtube channel. I showed you guys were that fucking crazy swedish guy
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's yeah, that's his youtube channel. That's not that fast
to get pulled over and yeah, he yeah, he outruns cops and
Fucking he's crazy and he's just had like his 20 year anniversary. No, you know, you know what that dude is
That dude's married to someone he doesn't want to be married to
He's either I can tell you
Yeah, he's either has math skill or he's in a very unhappy marriage
The only reason he has that skill is because he's the whole time he's like, uh, uh, look dude, if it ends, it ends
I'm not I'm not saying that from experience or nothing like that crazy fucker does like wheelies like at 120 miles an hour
Yeah, he's he he keeps pushing it because he's trying to end it and he just keeps getting better
Um, but yeah, I'm the fake real ghost rider. Okay, that's my that's my got it got it
No, but I just did that quick little two two hour loop came back to camp and then we just just sat around
Party. Yeah, we didn't get too crazy
But for me like uh, no shark eyes. No
It was just relaxing. Yeah, just chill under the awning
Yeah, bullshit, but for me man writing the dirt bike. I'm not uh my throttle control. I'm okay with it
It's more my braking that I'm scared of because uh rear brake first always always always
I didn't even touch the front brake this yeah, don't
I just let just plan on the only way you know how to stop is rear brake and you look so funny is
It's the opposite on a street bike. That's the that's the thing because traction
Yeah, but on a street bike if you if you use yeah, if you go rear brake first on a street bike
You're you're you're gone. Yeah, yeah 100% I had that on a on a street bike
Front brake 80%
Yeah, only hit back brake when you need that other 20%
Wow
So they drilled that into me in that rider course I took so when that's when I fucking when I was going too fast the first time
I hit the front brake. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because on dirt. It's the opposite on dirt
You you kind of want to drift around a little bit
Especially if you're hitting a turn or something the rear starts slipping on you
Yeah, you grab a little throttle and you just kind of power out of it and on a dirt bike
If you're if your front wheel is off camber in any way or in a soft patch in any way the minute you hit that brake
Yeah, you're gone. That's exactly what happened. I was mid-turn. Yep, and I fucking hit the brake and
I sighed that shit. Yep. So it bit. Yeah, you hit that that that was down rear brake. Yeah on on the dirt
Rear brake that you turn on left. Yeah, uh, whatever. No, but on the on the dirt rear brake on the front front brake
I was letting the engine brake do more. Yeah. Good. Very. Yes. So yes
My thing is too is like I want to really learn how to ride a dirt bike
And I don't know like the way I'm doing it now if it's good fundamentals
You know the the best way to do it ride with somebody is better than you get get behind mat
I honestly like when I first got my dirt bike dirt bike
I'm not even kid when I got behind my dirt bike and there's we've talked about there's that video on our youtube page from
2013 or whatever. I was just like, all right. I'ma follow him and then and we would get in these groups
And it was like, okay, uh, all these people have similar similar bikes. Yep
He's going this fast. I'm gonna do that fast and then he's gonna make this turn
There there were times especially like in glamour or pismo where you're like someone mat was great at the the kick turns
Right, he would just a 90 degree turn and I'd be like, oh shit. I'm gonna have to find another way around
You're you're you're not even more like a 45
I'll do three laps
That cushion like if I fall it's sand. Yeah
You know riding it's like
That's boulders and sticks and rocks. Yeah. Yeah plus being in the dunes
You don't there's no penalty really if you miss a turn. I mean just keep going, you know, uh, you know
Realize that you're cresting and if if I take a snap turn or whatever at the top
All right, don't take that snap turn. Maybe just ride the top and go over
You know, whatever you don't there's no penalty. That's not as big a penalty for missing something even trail riding
I've trail I've done trail riding with you with my cup my brother-in-law Jason. Who's really a really solid rider
Um, you know riding with other people. We were just like, okay, this is the pace. He's at I'm gonna keep that pace and and
But it's also watching technique. Yeah, you can see so lean and where they're describing me, which is like funny. Thank you
But my buddy Brian was the same and he would ride
He he's like seven or eight years older than me
He has like pins in his legs because he was in a really bad accident
But when you put him on a dirt bike
The way he rides standing up
Always like he is never when he can hit snap turns like standing
How's he doing that? Well, you you watch him and it's like, okay
Well, he's still getting low and he's pressing on the pegs
And he must be doing something with the clutch and throttle, you know
And then you just kind of work it out and you keep seeing the same maneuvers over and over again
And then you try, you know, you you give it a shot like what you think he's doing
And then you can always ask him later like what are you doing when you're running into that?
You know railing that turn and you were standing the whole time. I had to get down on the bike
And again, when you get down, you're sitting on the seat
Now you're you're on a trampoline and that seat's gonna come up and hit you in the ass and you know
Throw you up over the bars or whatever. So naturally you want to try and stay, you know, uh on your
Standing up and use your legs as another means of suspension and weight distribution or whatever
But yeah, literally you just have to ride with people that are level or too above. Yeah, just follow zen everywhere
I
Honestly
He's been riding for several years, I've watched zen improve greatly. Yeah, the only the only thing zen needs now is a bigger power
Yeah, he's I told casey. I'm like, hey, hey, this bike is fucking gigantic. I couldn't even I don't think I could ride it
I think it's too tall for me
If you have short little stubby legs or something, but I try to get only gotta worry about that when you're just don't stop
Dude, just don't stop keep going. No, I told casey. I'm like, hey, I'm bringing my dirt bike. I have zen teach me how to ride it
That's awesome. Um
Well, I'm glad I'm glad you have fun and you guys got a chance to get it out in the dirt and do some stuff
I'm bummed that I missed it, but I had a
busy weekend of uh home depot and and if we had time we're going to go to
tj max or what what's it whatever the
bedbathin beyond
I wouldn't saw wouldn't saw a little mermaid on friday took pressy to to the little mermaid
How was that? Did you cry? I didn't cry. Um
It was good. Uh, definitely definitely different. Is the storyline
Anywhere near the original? Yeah 100 you could follow it, but they they they definitely had to tweak some things to
To keep it consistent with the way they were telling the story, right?
Um, there's a cut there's a song or two that they omitted and then two or I think at least two songs that are new
Um, I don't know any of the songs. So oh man great great one of the crap. So a french guy
Uh, he's he's making
So so that which is which is interesting because the when you think about like the ship wreck, uh, uh, you know
It's I they don't tell you where it's at, but it's more of a Caribbean Caribbean feel. Yeah
The uh when they go into the village, it's very Caribbean feel and it kind of I think it plays better than like the colonial french
I don't know. Anyways, um
It was it was worth it. I personally liked it. It was less oppressive. Uh
Yeah, no colonization going on. Correct. Correct. Um, so we didn't get the chance to talk about it last week
Cause stuff and then uh, but we did things stuff and things
But jose and I did make it out to overland expo west and it was the first overland expo west for both of us
Um, we lost our cherries together. We totally lost our cherries together
And I seen photos and that seems like that's an interesting, uh, turn of phrase there
I've already talked about the show
There may or may not be some pictures
Some photos in the hotel room. I was gonna say there may be pictures of a hose of jose and I snuggling in a hotel room someplace
Um, that that'll be on our only friends
Uh
Our only friends page that's patreon extras or or I I rate four by four member extras right there. Um
So, uh, I drove out thursday, uh, jose drove out friday, but uh
So I got out there. I got out the thursday night went to the the show first thing in the morning on friday
I will say and we talked about this a little bit. Um, the I don't know what it was like previously
But the logistics of getting to and from the event from our hotel
Uh, was dialed in like they had that dial. It was great. I I booked a room. I was like, how do you mean?
so I I ended up
Who's they?
The expo the overland expo so you had to you had to buy there's limited number of parking on site
And it was sold out
So I
And I wasn't gonna I didn't plan on camping. I got a hotel
um, and
Well, the elitist reasons. Um, and then um, but you don't even have a job. I know
Um, and then but getting so when I booked the hotel, I'm I'm doing research. I'm like, okay
How am I gonna get there? I'm I'm gonna have to uber or whatever turns out that I uh,
accidentally booked a hotel across the street from northern arizona university and they had shuttle
They had shuttle pickups from na u
Um, so we you could literally just go across the street
Park and get on the shuttle bus and the shuttle bus like every 15 minutes
And it was like they had to have a fleet of 12 chartered buses
Dude, it's probably three or four
It seemed like a lot
But yeah, you didn't wait more than no five 10 minutes and then it was just dialed in and then on friday
I you know I went there by myself friday morning
And I kept watching the phone and it was like okay rain possible rain thundershowers right around 11
And so I was walking around talking to people doing my thing and like at 10 59
I uh, I texted jason from uh outdoor by four magazine. I'm like, hey, man. Are you guys in your booth? He's like, yeah, we're here
Okay, I'm on my way
drip
drip
drip literally I took two steps under their awning their ostrich wing awning from rugged uh, rugged bound and the heavens opened up
Thunder lightning hail
That doesn't sound like heaven
20
A 20 degree drop
I'm not kidding 20 degree drop in tip like you could see your breath all of a sudden when it was like 65
Yeah, when I was when I was driving brush your teeth
It was
It was it was horrible. It was so I ended up hanging out under the awning with uh the outdoor by four guys for a while
And then he was pulling into town and so I just took it as an opportunity to get on the shuttle bus
Go back to the hotel
And then change uh put some warmer stuff on
No, I don't want to hear it
Put some warmer stuff on and then go back to the uh go back to the event
So he and I spent the last half of the day at the event and then we did all day saturday and ended up leaving early on sunday
um
for those of you that haven't been
it is
How how would you explain it hosie?
I was gonna say I thought it was bigger than it than it was
I thought it was supposed to be bigger like uh
I mean, it was pretty big, but I thought it was like a giant like uh
Fairground like giant fairground size
It's pretty it's pretty big, but I thought it was bigger than off-road expo at pamona. Is it yeah
Okay, yeah, it's definitely bigger than off-road expo at pamona because
Pamona, it's got the you know the isleways like three or four of those buildings, but that's it
It's it's only off-road. Oh, I thought actually off-road expo is only like half of the pamona fairgrounds
That's okay. I mean this was this is pretty big. It was big and you it's like
A whole section over here. That's and a whole section over here. There's like four quadrants
Yes, there's like there's like a center area and then four other. Yeah, peninsulas of of booths
Not it is big because yeah, we walked around all day
Saturday yeah half a day on friday all day on saturday. Yeah, and I
Feel like we saw everything. We didn't get the chance to talk to everybody. We wanted to talk
Yeah, but we definitely went down all the aisles and stuff. There's a lot of cool shit to see there for sure
Let's get down to the nitty gritty. How was the food court?
Um, dude, we wouldn't really eat there. Yeah, so friday when when I went so friday
We had del taco for lunch. Yes, and then saturday
Is this sounds like an authentic restaurant local to the area? It is it's flagstaff's own l del taco
Wow, go on. No, but when when when uh when I went back to the hotel to meet him
We I was just like let's just eat. There's a del taco across the street
Let's just eat before we go in and then saturday we we like what do we snacked on something but we did a couple cookies
Yeah, oh, that's right. Uh, I did a uh, yeah, I saw that I did a video of our cup o cookies
Which was super good and you're right. That's the only thing we ate
That's it and then we until we went to five guys afterwards. Um, it's an interesting guy
but the um
Everything was I won't say everything almost everything was there
There was a handful of new things that we
Didn't see I mean that we didn't know about that we learned about you're gonna you're gonna hear at the end of this
you're gonna hear from um
So here's the interviews we got on site. We talked to uncharted supply
towards the great bags, which is um a
safety
Kit inside of a bag and it's one of the coolest backpacks. I've ever seen
Um kick-ass products, which is an australian-based uh outdoor overland company with a lot of the mostly 12 volt
accessories my buddy ray
This weekend. He has a kick-ass product on this Tacoma. Really? He has I think what do you have casey the shower, right?
The privacy it's like the shit. It's like it looks like a tiny little awning. Yeah, it's a shower
Yeah, the privacy privacy sweet
um bottle jack buddy, which is
Uh, the affectionately called the bj buddy bj, but and who doesn't need a bj buddy
I had one already on the trip. You hose and I experienced bj buddies for the first time together
And um, it's so I'm sorry. I was typing. Was there an easy joke right there 100% you where you miss it all
Okay, um bj buddy like yes
Yeah, that's it. I'll just leave that one. Yeah, you guys use your imagine you uh, you drop the ball
You know what that's one of those like I'll leave it to the listener. What do you think I would say there?
It's like I choose your own adventure uh in podcast form in podcast one
So the the bottle jack buddy, uh, you can find them at bottlejackbuddy.com. I think
um
So we've talked about some of the larger the high lift like and how you're gonna die with some of those bigger jack
Like the bottle jack is a very safe way to lift things
So they make an attachment that goes on your bottle jack that's that saddles the axle
Of a vehicle so that you can lift it safely when you're on the trail
Very cool super simple product. Very cool. Um, hose and I had some ideas for them on ways they could approve it
Um, I have since done those engineering drawings. I did some engine
Bottlejack adapters. Yeah, I did some uh, I know
They asked they asked by the way
Yeah, so we started talking to him and they were like, this is great. Can they talk to you guys?
Uh, so I I did some drawings for him and sent him over us engineers
Um, what did you draw him? Uh, I drew up some stuff some ideas ahead shy says shy says he has a bj buddy
And he really I drew you a leigar put it this way my drawing and kodi's drawings. They're nothing
I was gonna say
I guarantee you I was saying we're probably more profitable
I don't know about that, but they're definitely hilarious. If uh, I don't even know how to draw one thing. Well
Again, I'll leave that to the list
So then, um
We talked to this was different when uh, he's like, uh, he's the captain, you know
We can just get it on a tirade right there. Just a tangent
Uh, go ahead. All right, never mind. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, we're good. Uh after the bj buddy upset everybody with
My whale comment earlier tonight
It's just a loud goff your way your comment. I'm
Hey, listen again
If you don't remember it now
Can't go back and listen. I'm gonna have to go back. No, you're not then we talked to uh come around to you
Then we talked to the ladies off-road network. Charlene. She was fantastic. They're doing some amazing like they're building out a whole network to help
Um girls and women get into the outdoor lifestyle off-roading overlanding camp cooking all of that stuff
Uh, we talked to nacho off-road lights and literally like I I somehow randomly they popped into my feet
I was like, I fucking love nachos. Let's go. Maybe they have nachos at their booth. They didn't
They missed opportunity from the marketing perspective on those guys, but
They have some really cool lights that are you'll hear about it in the interview after this that are um
innovative in the way that they
Use like a single switch and multi function. Yeah, very cool
Um, we talked to chuck a listener chuck just randomly walked up when I was uh talking to us
um
We did a test drive in a forerunner and threw the microphone in the face of the guy that worked for toyota
And he let us do it
And then and then uh a mic and then uh tim from real rigs rattle found us
He did he totally found us. We were uh texting back and forth. Yeah, so so we got check this out
This was super cool. He uh, he's like, hey, I got some stickers for you guys
Here's one for each of you and one for zen because I know that he's trying to get his uh forerunner built up
So how cool is that that's very cool was that from tim to uh to include zen in that but we and we didn't
I didn't think to grab the mic to talk to tim because we were right there having the conversation with rachel from
Expedition overland and then they started so we were talking to rachel and then they started to do like one of those demo things
You got one up tim. Yeah, he totally you got bumped. He got big time for rachel croc
Sorry homes. Yeah, uh, I would have found you later. I we would hide out
We'd have done some shots and I swear an amazing interview when we were when we were texting back and forth
It was on my mind and then I just completely Cody's fucking phone out there suck balls
Oh, I was on t maybe they would everybody called it t maybe
It was a ting or whatever you're you know that ting mobile. I mean I haven't met on ting in like two years
You're always no matter wait
You were on ting two years
That's what bro even if you switch to horizon, I'm still gonna say you're on ting
Everybody that had trouble was with t mobile like I I couldn't get
shit for reception
Shout out to Nicole. I don't know if I've seen her in the chat room
But at one point on friday
Nothing to do with this on one point on friday big timing us now. Yeah, she's she's totally big time
All of a sudden new suspensions like
Yeah, um one point on friday on the jeep talk show like all the time. Yeah
I uh, I guess not trying to arrange or whatever
I was walking around and getting ready to go up to one of the booths
And I someone we'd interviewed before and I for the life of me
Could not remember their name
And I couldn't get a signal and I couldn't get on there. I had Nicole says new suspension. Who dis?
I couldn't for the life of me
Pull up the page to figure out the name of this person
So I texted Nicole and I'm like are you in front of your computer?
I may need your help and she was totally willing to help me like research people
So I didn't sound like a jackass when I went up to talk to him
Uh and not knowing their name. So uh, yeah, I'm just gonna throw it out there. I'm the worst with names. So I'm sorry
You know, if we've met before I'm I would be like, hey, nice to meet you. You're like, what the fuck?
Like four times
And it's understandable, but I'm good with faces. I obviously I'll recognize you if we've met before I just I'm shitty with names, dude
Yeah, no, I it's like you're literally I'm shaking your hand and you're telling me your name and it's like
Yeah, I can't I'm sorry. Yeah, um
I'm kind of an idiot
I think there's a lot of idiocy on this call right now
um
So the the but we
Walking around there
I think the thing that struck me the most and we talked about a little bit on saturday was what recession, right?
Well, yeah, yeah, well one is just the money, but but two walking around there. It was very um
Validating if that's the right word as we're walking around it was like fist bump this person talk to that person
Hey, how you doing man? Like every every fourth or fifth booth
We had some connection. We'd interviewed before or gone wheeling with or done very much a
Like oh wow like for the first time we're now how many years into this for the first time
As we walked around that event. I was like, I think we might belong here
Like it was like our black swan event moment, right?
I don't know. I don't know what that means
Like, uh, you know like the best show right and then we die. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Oh, that's about accurate
That's about it. No, it was what happened in the movie. She died. I I just remember the mule cunis. Yeah, the portman scene. That's uh,
What scene is that?
The uh, I don't um
It just it just felt really good
To be able to walk around the show and talk to people that we that we knew and that we've interviewed and that we've interacted with
and and like
As big as that show was it kind of shrunk the community a little bit to be able to you know
Go up and shake people's hands and and you know catch up with them on on some things
We ran into the guys from mountain hatch. We haven't seen them
I think it was a validating. It was it felt it felt really good. Oh shit. Like um, we've actually
We we worked our ass. Well, yeah
Yeah, we we put in the time. Yeah for sure
And we're like fuck we've interviewed a lot of people
A lot of the big names in this in this we ran into lee lim from sol function talked to him for a while
um, we uh
I mean
There's a ton of people that we didn't interview but we at least talked to mike was shower pouch was there and we
Oh, we missed him, huh? Yeah. Well, we were like we were
We were walking or talking with uh, someone else a long discussion and then uh, yeah, we didn't get we were right there
But uh, talk to the guys from tread lightly
uh chase gentry chase
Overland campers. I mean jillian rebecca. We we we uh, shon holmans from truck show like we we got to like
Really talk to a bunch of people not everybody was on the mic, but I felt like at the end it was funny. Um
hosay convinced me to have that cup of cookies
Uh at 10 30 in the morning. I didn't want him. I wanted something else completely. That's that wasn't my choice
He wanted a he wanted a sound. Yeah
But but we were so like on the whole time talking meeting hanging out doing stuff
We didn't really stop to eat. We didn't really think about it. Like we're on the move
Like we were talking the whole day. Yeah, and then when we it was like, okay
Let's time to go we got in the shuttle bus and as soon as I got in the shuttle bus. It was like
Like I just
crashed I was so exhausted
And we were we talked about going out to dinner with a couple people that night and we were just like no
Let's get some burgers and go back to the room and that's what we did. We just ended up hanging out. Um for
For anybody that's considering going
If you I talked to a guy about this this morning
He asked is it worth it for just like a regular civilian that's not trying to get content
It would be it's right in line with any other festival or fair or whatever
That's going to have everything you can imagine in the space everything from
from the the smallest
trinkets to
Million dollar rigs. Yeah, no shit million dollar trucks with giant earth roamers
Um and everything in between so if you're like, I think I I think I would put it this way if
You you have a plant like a build-out plan for your rig and you don't you don't know what the fuck you there's too many options
You want to put hands on stuff? Yeah, you go to this show because all that shit's gonna be there and you get to like see it
touch it
Yeah, um
You get to uh, like see it and on of on on a potentially the truck the same vehicle that's on that you're doing
And you get to talk to the people that create it and they'll they'll
More than gladly take five ten minutes to talk to you about their product
Uh, but yeah, like I think that's this like you don't have to be in media to go to the show
If you have just if you're gonna build out something
Yeah, you should definitely go to the show because you get to put hands on everything
Yeah, perfect. Is it is it if you're in the southern california area?
And you know, you're gonna you're gonna have a similar show in pamona. Is it worth driving to flag?
It's not the it's not the same. It's not the same show because this is a very okay elaborate
so so this is overland expo and and
It is very overland specific like it's very
If you're gonna outfit your vehicle to live or and breathe out of it and sleep and and and
Cook and if you're gonna build the swiss army knife of the trucks
This is where you where is and one thing that I don't recall seeing that I've seen it off road expos and definitely at sima
Is the over the tops the the the brodozers the the vehicle that you're like, that's dumb
No one's ever gonna take that off-roading. This was all very like that's a badass off-road vehicle
Like that's a that's an overland truck very functional very real world very
In tune with what overlanding is
And and yes
I'd say
60 to 75 of the people that were at overland
Maybe 50 to 60 percent of the people at overland expo will also be at an off-road expo
So it's going to be similar
But there's things at off-road expo that just don't translate to the the every day is very overlanding
There's nothing 100 percent over to the point to the point where if it was yeah
To the point where like if there was something there that was brodozery
It would have been called out like it would have been everybody like there would have been nobody
It would have it it would have been the plague and everybody would have avoided it
Everything there was very functional very real
We had a good long conversation with the guys from honda about the pilot and the no you did
I swear to god we did and I
I tried to get them on mic and I tried to get them um
They're very corporate about it
I tried to get them on mic or get them to come on the show and they're like well
We're gonna have to talk to our director of marketing. Oh my god
But but these guys were like they were like look like they had collared shirts on they had polos their polos
Oh, yeah polos matching polo these two guys and dammit
I'm going to find out who they are who's it because I can't remember. Do you have their cards?
Bro, I just told you fucking I'm I'm as I'm meeting and you're telling me your name. I don't remember didn't they give you cards
I gave I know they didn't give me any cards. Oh
I gave them our cards
Anyways, these guys won't ever hear these. These are the guys that were directly responsible
Wait a minute. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. We just talked about how if you had a brodozer, you'd be ostracized
And honda shows up. They were not ostracized at an overlanding event because come on. No
I've never seen one viable option for something. Is it dude. I'm where are they at?
Never seen one not one pilot trail trail edition. That's it was that's a
It's trail something trail sport trail sport
So these are the two guys that spearheaded the trail sport
trim on the pilot and the ridge line and they
They're legit
They legit wanted to make this vehicle off-road capable
You could tell you know, Polaris has an off-road capable. Oh, we'll talk. Yeah, we're gonna get that we're gonna get to that too
You mean you mean the 2024 Suzuki samurai?
Um, they weren't you the one that said that?
No, someone said it was a casey must have been somebody sent one in the chat in our group chat. Um, but
The you could tell these guys wanted to make it viable. They they know their lane
They're not trying to they're not trying to get out of that lane, but they're definitely
Pushing to to get honda some credibility on the dirt because of the legacy that they've built in the dirt on their trucks
I mean on their bikes on their side-by-sides on their other stuff
why not
Why not capitalize and and expand that legacy in the vehicles?
Which is you know one of their primary matt imagine you and I worked at honda
Like off-road rnd
And we had all these fucking plans right like dude this fucking pilot's gonna be the the shit
And then corporate honda's like no you can't you can't do that. It has to be like very vanilla
Yeah, that's what they ultimately like it ended with right whatever the current trail fucking
But they wanted they wanted like they had they wanted so much more, but yeah, I can't and and the trail sport, uh
Ridgeline and so again
ostracized
No, because it's because it is a viable. It's a viable take this off-road
You fucking take it off-road
You know, it is you take this side by side. I put a goddamn tan on it and you take it off-road
Right there with a Subaru outback. Yeah, that the pilot the the ridgeline
Those hondas are legitimate
Overland adventure vehicles in the way that overland is defined today
Yeah, I mean technically anything how much money did they pay you and where's my cut?
I got I got a crf 300 for free. Yeah
I got a decent. I got a nice dirt bike. Yeah, great
Um, I would be more if they try to put a tent on a dirt bike. I'd be like, oh fuck look at Honda getting out there trying
Put out some shit on on the thing they're known for like they're known for dirt bikes
Did we did we talk about the Polaris overland last weekend? No, we did not so Polaris launched
I tried to shift the uh change the subject that way and you guys would not let me um
Polaris launched an overland
Side by side has a fucking tent on the top with a fully enclosed air conditioning and tent the whole thing for
$420 billion like it's like 45,000. Yes. It is the price of a jl
It's the price of a jeep and you still need a trailer
And you still need a truck and you still have to go in and out
You can't you can't just start here and in there you can't drive it on every trail
No, I can't drive it on every trail. You can drive it on like two streets in Arizona because it's the wild west there
um
Look there is absolutely
I gotta imagine that Polaris would not have launched this if they didn't think that there was a market there
I just don't know who's in that market. Suzuki did it 30 years ago. Yeah, yeah exactly. Yeah
I don't know. I don't know anybody with enough money to be in that market
Look people spend spend money. I don't know where it comes from
Uh, so maybe maybe there is a market for it, but you know again it goes back to Honda. I've not seen a Honda
Off-roading uh go to John DZ. I'm talking about real life on Instagram. I
Matter of fact, John, I know you're not listening these what John
I think it's John DZ and I've asked him to come on the show John Dizzy. Yeah, he's been wheeling a Honda
He's big time in me man. He's big. He's too good for our show
Uh, it's John J. O and DZ adventuring
I'm talking about just real life like I'm not saying I wheel a ton, but I you know been a number of years now
I've never seen a Honda on the dirt
We saw the Subaru's out there
I said a Honda on the dirt
Subaru's I've seen plenty like if you want to argue about Subaru's. Well, that's a that's a legitimate argument
I've seen them out on the trails at that pilot rock road. Yeah, but I was I think that's super sketchy
They were out there doing their thing. I have not seen one Honda pilot ridgeline nothing
But I think that's what the Honda 450 is what I've seen. I've seen a shit ton of those and those are great
Uh, I think that's what the trails the trail sport version is supposed to be it's it's to start that conversation is to get them out there
Um, yeah, John DZ underscore adventuring on instagram has a really nice pilot any wheels with another buddy
That's got a ridgeline. They do awesome shit and I would love to get them on the show to talk about it
But they're big time in me. So if anybody knows John DZ
Dude, they drive Hondas. You know, they're too good for us
Um, very elitist. Yeah, no, I I uh, I I sent him a message about a month ago
Um, maybe a little longer and I remember back so
Um, if anybody knows John tell him we were talking about him the I don't I don't see the
appeal
Of a side-by-side
Overland, I mean, you're not are you gonna what if Honda came out with a side-by-side would you be a pro honda?
Absolutely not at that point Cody works for honda. Yeah, it's what I just look if honda's hiring
I would know but see with those side-by-sides the financing is different. So
If the barrett entry is lower with these those vehicles
You can finance them for like 20 years, right those things
Fuck, I don't know what side-by-sides. They're like those fucking like don't you take out like a
recreational vehicle loan and like
That's for an RV. Yeah, but and you can register that as like a with an address
Yeah, but you go to bass shop and you look at these fucking boats and it's like only $80 a month
for like
A thousand months like $20,000 down and you transfer that loan to your kids. Yeah
When you're dead, I'm just saying like the financing is different on these fucking toys
They people finance them 15 years. I don't know look on the Polaris website
The four door is $45,000 and it says it's $661 a month. I need to ask for a raise. Obviously some fucked up shit going on
There's no fucking way
What am I what am I doing if I can't afford like that's my argument?
Look guys, you don't pay me enough to afford this fucking crazy ass shit like
What the fuck apparently this is what I should be able to afford
I'm just saying if if if you're gonna drop 45k on a side-by-side
You still need a trailer and a truck you still need a truck by the time you get the trailer and the truck you're 120
in
And you you can't drive that side-by-side anywhere. Where am I gonna where where am I gonna put my frigerator?
Can you put your frigerator on that thing? I don't know no
Where are you supposed to put all your firewoods for campfires and such?
I'm gonna be a less capable side-by-side than if you got
You know a can am or something like that. Yeah, so for 45k it's a golf cart
What would you get instead of the anything anything? Yeah, there's no wrong
Anything a Honda pilot trail
A base frontier is less than 45k 100. I'll buy math frontier. Yeah, and just put a hundred and fifty dollars of sensors in it
I'll say that metal cell to you for five years right now
45k who's a you have my friend here
Um
The uh, yeah, I would I would honestly get anything. Yeah, like there's no wrong answer other than if you buy that fucking
Yeah, definitely not. I mean Polaris. Look if you want to sponsor the show we'll change our tune, but uh, I don't see
We're not above. We're like Polaris
You buy Polaris, you know what I'd like to do is I'd like to apologize to my Polaris overlord
They're amazing vehicles and the AC works great. No, I'm just gonna be sitting here like, you know in Wayne's world and he's in all that
Yeah, you know, you guys just don't get it
It's like people only say that
The uh, but overall like
And outside of the fairgrounds is all of the camping like is camping all the way around and I would love to do
Do expo next year
Take the rv out
Stage the rv with a couple vehicles around it and just have
Just have a three-day party like drive out on thursday either thursday night friday night saturday night drive home on sunday
The only thing is like it was it was a hosé and I on the on the way home
80 miles an hour cruise control the whole way and it was still six and a half hours
Hey flagstaff, I mean look, I only saw this fucking Hilton in the parking lot of the
Northern Arizona part you but flagstaff looks beautiful from what I saw. Yes
We we stopped we got we jumped off the freeway and we were like I had a conversation about how
Green and beautiful it looked up there in flagstaff like it wasn't the Arizona that you're used to seeing like the youth picture in your head
That we've been do before I definitely want to see what trails are available in that area and and the six and a half
Six hours. Okay, but I was just gonna say the six and a half hour drive wasn't that bad
The way there fucking sucked the way coming back home. It was nothing, dude
Yeah, the way there because I left around noon
um, and I got
three quarters of the way there and hit
Tons of weather I hit
baseball sized water droplets coming down on the freeway and
The the 40 when you get out into arizona might as well be a dirt road
Sounds amazing. It was a commute. There ain't shit like the 40 the 40 bro is like where dreams go to die
No, I'm just saying like like they did like nothing there. Those. Can I bring my nightmares?
Those that out there were the potholes on the 40 have been there since 1985
No, that's where nightmares are born dude the 40. Oh shit. Yeah. No, that doesn't sound
You're not making this sound any better like you're getting your own head. You're like, what am I doing in my life?
No, dude, I was audiobooking it
But I do think that you know, I commute like two plus hours a day. Jose. I already deal with that shit
I don't yeah, but this is like six or eight hours. Yeah, but at least you're like, oh, look at that car over there. Oh, look that's a nice
Here it's like there's nothing dude. You're in a fucking tunnel a dirt tunnel and you're just
Wait here
We talking about 40 like I'm just saying like there's nothing like there's nothing you don't see anything
No, I know I've been to flagstaff. It's I've spent time in flagstaff
It's beautiful. What are you doing over there?
It's not your business. Jose
I didn't know you in those days. I had I knew different people you're looking for those vortices, huh?
I did. I had to go look. Well, you know, look
Look, that was an interesting time of my life
And maybe I did some things that I regret
Uh, was it worth it? Was it worth it? Yes. Yes, it was
It was it was worth it
But I'm I'm thinking that and I'm okay with that that six and a half hour mark from here to flagstaff
To st. George or mesquite nevada
To st. George is beautiful to to bishop mammoth that needs that needs to start becoming our in our realm like
That should be the radius. Yeah, we we've been doing we've been doing
Four-hour trips and and is probably the furthest we go and that's two and a half. We did parker. I mean, most of us did parker
We did parker. You remember parker, right, jose? What an amazing trip that was
hobby
It was probably the best trip hours to get out there one time parker the best trip
That's that's what we were saying when we were talking about this trip
We were like it took over six hours to get to the ovie
Memorial did we took me 12 hours to get
So I don't you should have taken my hobby trail would be quicker before adam and he fucking got there before me
Yeah, yeah, how does that work? Uh, so I I really think that we need to we need to push like a press scott
Prescott i'm sorry because they don't say press scott sedona flagstaff california elitism right there st. George
tonapaw alabama hills like that really needs to be our our next our next push to something about
Six to eight hours away from here madder. Are there any super chargers up to 395?
Yeah, I'll have to do some research about that. Um, I'm sure
You know, I'm sure there's a where there's a will
There's a way and so if you have to carry a like a generator for me
Preferably something that kicked out like 240 volts. Oh, it would make things a lot easier level level two or level three charging
I need level two charging really be saving money. Yeah, otherwise
Otherwise it'll take me a week to get out. It's like Casey in his truck
The the furthest the trips are the more mpgs he gets the more money he saves. Yeah. Yeah, so we just have to go on this super long
Oh, wow. No, that's a great way to think about it
The uh, so so I could have made it to parker in the tesla and then
Just charged that bitch at fucking walmart like 10 minutes away
Uh, perry perry is basically calling us out because he drove nine hours to come to our event and we're bitching about six hours
Um, I hey like he said I offered we offered to stay
It was fucked up dude. We're like, yeah, we called an audible. We're calling Omaha. We're like, hey, dude
We're not staying here. You need to go home now 10 hours. You know what? I'm sorry perry
I should have offered my house like why don't you just come down? We'll hang out in the pool tomorrow
Uh, you know that probably would have been the right move that would have added like eight hours through this fucking trip
Uh lee I just just to offer lee. We have not done. I have not done valley of the moon
We tried to do a trip down there
Uh at one point, but it's
It seems like it's a like a one-day trip. It's in san diego. It's a yeah, it's a one-day trip
It's like you go down there was like a 12 mile like like uh the the latest uh fast and furious movie
Yeah, valley of the moon
The movie gets crazy, dude
No
And then uh, uh jason is saying that we can stay at his house when we come out to phoenix when we come out to
Arizona
Are you sure about that? I don't know. He says you can crash at the cooler. I'm assuming that's what he's calling his house
I like betty white says. Yeah
Generator exactly, dude. Exactly. That's the most effective off-road piece of equipment honda offers
Is their fucking generator their overpriced generator nobody wants to use anymore. That's for you when you go up to
Yeah, no, that's yeah, so that's what they get the predator. No, they were saying they look like a bunch of macaw
Mark is saying he'll bring a honda generator. Yeah, turn it on you can he'll tow you behind him and you can charge while you're going
Just put some more trains on that. Yeah, let's go, dude. Okay great. I mean what options do I have?
uh, anyways the uh
Off-road expo was was worth it like it was it was it was it was like 80 bucks for a weekend pass and uh, um
You know if if I think it's like 300 bucks if you camp though, so uh
It's yeah, it's the camping was expensive. I remember seeing and I
The part of the reason I ended up just getting a hotel was because between
Uh, Tammy's discounts and hilton honors points and stuff. I was able to get it for
Braggie mc brag. I'm not bragging. I'm like, hey, dude. You had me at hey, let's go. Yeah
You don't have to fucking try to wine and dine me at this whole this hilton. No, well, he did though and it worked
He fucking
It was it was a good trip. It was a good trip. Everybody came back relaxed
Let's just say I got a spot. Look. I I got I got a bj buddy at overland expo, right? Yes
And hopefully there's another one next year
The uh
But anyways, it was absolutely worth the trip and I'd like to go back next year
um, the next one is in july it at
Pacific Northwest and that's I looked at every possible way for us to do that
But it's a it's a two-day drive no matter how you slice it. It would be it's a two-day drive
Or like a $600 flight and it was like
Yeah, no, I think 450 was the cheapest I found and I was like nah not doing it
Uh, not worth it. We'll just uh, we'll do uh expo west. We're just regional guys. That's it. You know, we're a six hour window
Like that's that's that's what we can do
I feel like Pacific Northwest is gonna be the big them
It's gonna overtake all the other ones now
so if they if they continue to do it at that at that place they did it last year yes because it's
Huge it's a very big place
um, I feel like the
Outdoor overland
Um
Vibe in the Pacific Northwest, especially in bend central, Oregon is it rivals southern california
Um, I think the only way they would make it
Man, Oregon decriminalized all drugs. So yeah, true
Yeah, I'm ready to go. I'm thank you. Oh, you know what?
I'm just stating facts here. Um, you are no very if they did an overland expo here in southern california
I think it would be bigger than it depends. It depends where though
So let's organize that what can't we do anywhere in southern california?
It could do it at the fairplex just like our foredecks
No, it has to be so it would have to be like big bear dude like in that hokum valley campground not big enough
All of hokum valley like the entire valley. No, he's not just like not just snap
Dude, there's like four ways in there
put gates up
Just start charging fools to get in there
And it's just like a bunch of like easy ups the entire
Three in 16 three and 14 all those three in whatever's
What about like where they do
TDS
Akatia wells. Yeah, I was gonna say either has to be big bear or anza
Like yeah, but but but but anza and akatia wells
Has the whole anza anza is like right off the highway too. You could it's easy set up
But but at that point you're you're rolling in a king of the hammer style generator type
There's no there's no land power. There's no water. There's no nothing
Right at least
But i'm saying but you talk about flagstaff and you're comparing like oh, this was a this was a full
This was a full kit with bathrooms and okay the bathrooms were porta-potties. It's not like they were fucking hard
I had other bathrooms there
All the fucking pisses I took were important
All right, my whatever
um
But I definitely don't mad because you had to talk about were you pissed?
No, I just
I just wasn't gonna argue
He's he's absolutely right every pee we took was in the porta-potty. So but there was other bathrooms there
Um, I want to go next year. So we need to figure out how to go next year and uh, it would be cool. Um
Well, what we'll do is well those those interviews we talked about we'll clip those in at the end of this show
Uh with the with those people and so listen to their some of those some of those conversations are really good
Five-hour episode. Oh, uh breaking news on the rumor mill
Oh
But uh pacific northwest overland rally may not be in oregon next this year
or next year
That's like washington then
Where's it gonna be Idaho?
Idaho is a huge outdoor and outdoor uh, uh, quarter lane
No, oh boy, z. Oh, I don't know. I don't know where it would be outside of boys boy. See boy. Yeah
Yeah, my niece goes to boy C state and she said you don't say boy Z you the minute you say boy Z
They know you're from california. Yeah, I'm gonna make it a point if I would be like boy z with a z. Yeah
It's boy Z. Idaho, right?
Listen you 500,000 people
You pronounce it the rest of the country boy Z
um
But uh, I don't know, uh
I'm I'm glad we went. Thank you. Jose for
Uh feeling derailing the show. Yeah for no for uh for coming out to expo. Oh, yeah, um and derailing the show
It was I I thank you for that. Yes
I thank you for derailing the show. He he uh, is thankful for your contributions
Everybody. Thank you everybody. I didn't really do much. I kind of stayed quiet the whole time
I was I didn't even know you were there for like the first fucking two days
I was like the creepy guy in the corner, you know
Hmm. Did you like
No, I didn't even think like who's taking all these pictures
And that's so fun
Casey yeah, because it was like it was like saturday night or something and casey's like wait. Are you an expo?
Because there was this cody was posting all these pictures or somebody's posted all these pictures of cody with the people and then all of a sudden
there was one with those eight
This was very last minute. It was very last minute
It was cody just keeps saying hey, could you take a picture of us?
It was my uh, my uh, my uh, I put the timer on my phone and just chucked my phone in the air while I was having a conversation with something
But uh, yeah, we we need to we need to all put it on our calendars to go next year. I think it'd be a good opportunity for us
Uh, thanks to the express rally overland guys for coming on the show and making us look terrible as they usually do every time we talk to them
Man that fucking bar is set, huh? Yeah, I know Jesus
Yeah, it's a uh, they do you know, they do good work. They do good. They could do good things
It's definitely a premium product that you come to us. We're like the spam of you know
Of the meat world apparently we're like the velvita cheese
Yeah, we're spam and velvita. Yeah, oh, you know that sounds bad to me. Yeah, it sounds pretty good
I'd eat that
Okay, we'll have to try it next camp trip. You're gonna make spam and velvita. Can I grill the
Yeah, 100 well
I would put on a skillet right slice slice it put on a skillet. I've never actually eaten spam
I have um delicious. I've never tried it actually. So it's pretty good. It wasn't it wasn't allowed in our house
It was not allowed in our house growing up. I wonder why kasey. Am I wrong kasey? Same thing as rice. No, you're right
It's it's exact same thing. Oh, no. That's a fact
It's the exact same thing as white rice. It was not allowed in our house like
Because my father had my father made a decision in 1960 something that he was never gonna look at that or eat that stuff
Again, yeah, and that was the decision that was made. I couldn't imagine my house
I could not imagine my house without rice like I that was like dude. It's one of the state's favorite thing white rice only white rice
Maybe rice is absolutely one of my favorite. We have I'll just make some rice for lunch
Like it's yeah, mom makes Spanish rice all the time. Yeah, that was okay. Well, but it
Spanish rice
But you're what you're saying is Spanish rice. It was just white rice with ketchup. No, no, no
No, what you're what you're thinking is Spanish rice is Spanish rice. What my mom made was not Spanish rice
Exactly. It was very different. It was white rice with orange food coloring. It had and ground beef. It had peppers and
Yeah, it had all it had all kinds
I remember the first time I went to a woman that I used to be involved with house and
They were like making rice and I was like, what's all that?
And they made the regular like Spanish rice and I was like, what is that?
Huh, and I ate it and I was like, this is the most amazing thing I've ever eaten in my life
My ex-mother-in-law would make
pots of rice Mexican rice
And just leave it in the fridge for me so that when I came over I could eat it because I was the only one in the house
That would eat it. Um, I love rice
Do you still have contacts with her?
Can't she still make that rice because do not I have not had contacts with sideways
Like you just uh, you know bypass the the person that you don't want to I may lose a lot of followers for one
I'm about to say. Oh, don't do it. But uh, I prefer white rice over Mexican. Uh, Jesus
Um, I how dare you?
Probably probably because you grew up with it
Yes, and that's what my ex would say. She was like, why are you eating that?
I'm like, it's the most amazing thing I've ever eaten in my life and she's like
Literally, that's all we ate for the first 15 years of our lives. Yeah, but my mom would always make both like
One meal one meal white rice depending what the meal was but I always prefer the white rice over the Mexican rice
Uh, I
I love them equally and and I'll even do white rice with teriyaki or white rice with butter or sure
You know, like you you can mix out. How do we get that f on rice?
For our topic
So if you if you come to one of our events instead of getting blooming onions, you'll just get a pot of rice
Like that's what you do. Oh, there you go. It's easy. There you go. I make it, you know, like three times a week
Yeah, the while the rice cooker knows. Yeah, water. Yeah, I love I love rice
Uh, and lea lea seems to approve of our conversation about rice. I don't know why that is
but he says uh
Jose try the rice at quattro milpas in san yago and some flour tortillas
Is that the restaurant with the blue tiles on the outside if it is like heard about that place like the best tacos ever
Let's go. They had those
I don't know. There's a place in old town san dieu or
Well, there's a lot of places like restaurants down there, but there's one place while you're waiting
Uh, they give you like tortillas handmade tortillas with butter on them. Have you guys had that?
Yes, yeah, fucking the best. Uh, have you ever had a cinnamon burrito?
Is that your mom, Kasey?
Kasey, right? Kasey, dude, seriously, tortilla, this is this is this is as gringo as gringo can be
Uh, just a tortilla with some butter and cinnamon like you were making cinnamon toast
Put it in the microwave for like 15 20 seconds and roll it up and eat it
It is amazing. It was like dessert for us. Basically cinnamon tortilla is just it was so good
It's like a poor man's churro. Yes 100 percent
Yes, it's the white white churro. It's a white churro
So all right. Well now that we're done with rice talk, uh
Thanks for thanks for listening. I'm gonna I'm gonna label this episode as rice talk
Thanks for listening to rice talk and thanks to express rally for coming on to the show
And thanks for everybody in the chat room for hanging out with us. We will talk to you guys next week
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
On the trail chaser support team at irate 4x4.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. He's got a new album coming out
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You

Ep 271: Rugged Bound Supply Co

Welcome to the Trail Chaseers podcast. This week we talked to Theo Ferreira with rugged
bound. We discussed the very cool and innovative products that they are bringing into the
states from South Africa, including the tour top, which was our absolute favorite product from
Seema last year. Then we talked to Matt about the vehicle that he thinks he bought and I say that
he thinks he bought he's not sure because it's been at the dealership ever since 12 hours after
he took delivery of it. This dealership is the shining example of catastrophic failure. Good luck, Matt.
Well, he can traverse anywhere now.
That's a good one, those days. Good.
Trail Chaseers, let's check something true. Trail Chaseers, our time is now.
Hey, everybody. It is 6.30 on Tuesday night. We are live on YouTube as we usually are on Tuesday
nights. Jose is just finished swiping right multiple times trying to hedge his bets to see
Toronto. I can make anything work. And we are joined by Theo Ferreira from rugged bound and tour top.
How are you doing tonight, man? And I couldn't. So flashback to November of last year. Those
of you that heard the episode after Seema when we came back. We we raved about what was then called
the smart top, top or four of the truck beds. And we said clearly it was our favorite product at Seema
and everybody wanted one. And then going into off road expo, I'm sorry, overland expo,
we connected with Theo and booked this opportunity for them to come on the show.
We have an randomly run into you walking through the show this weekend.
Let's start with the show and then we'll work our way backwards a little bit. How was the event
for you this weekend? It was great. Actually, it was nice to be there this time.
Not actually running a booth in the disability. So I was attending expo with as a attendee this time.
We sponsored a very nice marketing campaign called for this land, which is run out of Phoenix.
So Rome and Lauren, they have a Tacoma and a trader. That's been all fully kicked it out
by a bunch of sponsors. And so we were basically there to support them. They were in the K-mart booths.
K-mart obviously launched a new roof rack. And so I was free to Rome a little bit and visit other vendors
and find more partners for the West Coast. So it was a different experience for me with that
expo list. Yeah, I can imagine. We've done these the type of events where we have a booth and you
can't get out of the booth and you're like, I want to see all the cool stuff. And so that does get
that does get taxing. So rugged bound is the U.S. distributor of tour top. So let's kind of start
it with you and then we'll talk about rugged bound and tour top. So you clearly don't have a
Houstonian accent. Where are you from originally? I'm from Tupoma, Mississippi.
So that's the inside joke from my old Phil days. I'll tell you that in a different podcast.
Maybe maybe tonight we get there, but I'm from South Africa. I've been here for about 20 years
on and off mostly on a few years in Scotland, but I've been here since about 2002. Okay, I have to
believe that South Africa to Houston, that's a pretty straightforward cultural change, right? I mean,
there's no real things you need to learn when you get to Houston, right? So in rugby, we don't
pass forward ever. That's a problem. And in cricket, we don't run in a diamond, we just run
front to back, but other than that, we each take a drink beer and we like to go to the beach. So
it's a pretty easy transition. That's hilarious. That's a pretty easy transition. That moving around
from South Africa to the U.S. to Scotland. Was that all like personal choices or was that like
for work? What was that work travel like? Yeah, so I actually didn't move to the U.S. I was working
as an engineer in South Africa, and I was hired on by an oil and gas services company in Cape Town.
At that time, I was single, I was 24, no dependence, and I said to them, I would like to work
anywhere that ends in a stand. Like a Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan, and that same he detects us.
Wasn't the plan? That's just where the company assigned me on my first assignment. And so I had to
get a car and a TV and a couch, decor on the walls, bed sheets. I mean, that wasn't in the plan
when I first came to the U.S., or when I drove the company. And so I was really just a nomad,
working in the long gas industry. So I spent a lot of time in South Texas and Uzbekistan,
Scotland, and then moved back to Uzbekistan and Texas over and over again.
You know, it's interesting. I recently, I'm on the job hunt right now, and I've recently seen
where some of those company countries that end in Stan, meant they're willing to pay a
absorbent amount of money for people in construction and engineering. And like, how long would I
have to work over there at that price to retire? But actually, um, so out of company, they were
used to work for, um, they had a, they had a coefficient system based on which country the world
did is, and so that these tables. And so you'd have a base bay, and then you'd have a 1.2,
1.4, 1.6, and 1.75 coefficient. So if your base bay was, let's say $5,000, then if you're working
in this country, you're getting 1.75 times that, you're playing a flat tax and you basically have
no, um, you've got no expenses because they have failed. And because you're an expert, you're
pretty much working all the time. Yeah. Um, and that was the days before Amazon, right? I mean,
okay, well, Amazon is just in 2002, but you could earn really by books. Yeah, it was in the
number four e-commerce. So you weren't sitting in a shipping container in the middle of the desert
on eBay trying to buy a car. Yeah. Okay. I'll just save all your money. And so it would, it would
save a pretty quick, but then when you're on your authorization, you would find a way to spend. Yeah,
all of a sudden you're, your pockets empty because you blew it all in 48 hours. Well,
interesting, interesting, uh, background, background from oil, you know, all that travel in oil and
gas, uh, to, how did you get from oil and gas to the, the overland product supply world? What,
how, how, how and when did that transition occur? I don't know, I'm going to have to have a podcast
for that episode. We're here now. So let me try and give you the one-minute version. Um,
well, it's actually, um, you know, there's a bit of a sense where we got it as well. Um, however,
I'll say this, I didn't get from oil and gas to overlanding. I was overlanding and camping,
you know, in South Africa growing up as a kid. I was climbing mountains and living, you know,
spending a weekend in a cave while you're climbing a mountain and staying in a cave and
positioning up to the peak and back. You know, it's just a very natural, you know, upbringing and
cybercuff for me. Um, going on safari with my dad and we went up to sugar natural bark a few
times. And so there was a lot of of the lifestyle. Um, and so I would say I just eventually came back
to it. Um, but physically how it happened for me was in 2009, I think it was. I was driving a D1,
disco lander over five speed with a GM vortex engine swap. I was pulling a conqueror trailer
that some guy from, I think Atlanta, the imported a bunch of conqueror trailers when he's
diving in safari and thought these trailers are great, you know, these will sell like hotcakes in
America. This was 2006 at that point when he did that. And so obviously no one knew what an
operator was with a tent on top. Yeah. And so that so he bought all these trailers into to Atlanta.
He owned a Lexus to your dealership and his son was given all these trailers to, you know, make
a business out of it. And so for anyone on this podcast who's listening and remembers the very early
early days of expedition portal before him, um, we'll remember when these trailers went on fire
sale. Because the economy crashed in 2008. Yep. All these trailers were sitting in a warehouse
and the if, you know, the the guy foreclosed, got foreclosed on the guy that owned warehouse.
And so all these trailers had to be sold on a fire sale. And so literally people were driving
one of the country buying these trailers. So I had one of these trailers. Well, and, and so I would say
trying to start an overland trailer business in Atlanta, probably not the right location to start that.
Even in 2006, like that's yeah, there was some, there was some key, you know, capital wasn't the
problem. It was some key marketing and strategic decisions, right? The demographics was wrong there.
Yeah, he was brought them together to Colorado. It would be awesome. Yeah. Anyway, so I was driving
around this disco one, uh, land river with this trailer with an easy on taint on my land river.
And it was, you know, people were stopping me everywhere thinking I'm going to Mars or coming from
far. All the friends of work would say, what are you doing? I said, did this is camping, man,
this is how I know camping. And this is the future. And this is not going to work, man,
this is American. When we go camping, we stay the holiday in. Yeah. And so that was 2009,
Ish. And so in 2010, I was actually running a crew of guys off of the golf course at Mexico.
And if you guys remember the BP horizon, oil spill with it, with a rig grew up.
I had actually a crew on that rig. And they were the guys who came off the rig.
They didn't do this cement to that location. And so we, we had to, you know, some guys died on that
rig. And we needed you them friends of mine work with those guys all the time. And so that kind of
made me think about, you know, the perspective of life again. What it is I was doing for my life. And
that was 2010. And I wanted to start a roof rack company, a modular roof rack company back then,
2010. For a lot of reasons, they didn't work or I didn't do it rather. And I just decided to
focus on my career. And in 2017, I had a life change in my, and my life personally. And until the
2018 is when I started this business on my terms, right? And I've been doing it full time now since 2020.
So it was a long journey to get back to overlanding and, you know, supporting the thing that I
love doing growing up as a kid in South Africa. And I think that the industry in the US,
even though it's absolutely blossomed in the last 14 years, I think we're still only seeing the very
of the iceberg, you know, because there are still so many people who have no idea that you can put
a tent on a trailer or on a trailer and run a fridge of a solar panel and couldn't go and
enjoy yourself. Yeah. But enough enough people have realized that you can to the point where,
and I think this is a testament to, you know, a whole more, like a, like a sign of how well the
industry is doing is that national parks are cooked up everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. And you see superiors with
rooftop tents driving. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, but I do agree that even though it is prolific in
our eyes because we're immersed in the, in the community, the percentage of people in any specific
geography is my new. To like, in Southern California, tons of people, rooftop tents and trailers
and all that stuff, you go to Colorado, Utah, the Pacific Northwest. But there's, there's giant
swaps of land. But the car makers are making overland ready trucks now. Yeah. The trail hunter is an
overland ready to coma. Yeah. From dealer. Yeah. Exactly. It's, I think, you know, part of that is because
they want to, you know, encroach a little bit on the aftermath of this. Yes. And, and put it in,
but, you know, some companies have done it well, some companies have not done it well. And some
companies realize, well, we just need to lead that to the professionals and partner with the
companies are too late for making their own roof rats, even though they come from OEM. Yeah.
Yeah. Actually, they're like two new roof rats on them. Yeah. And so there are examples of
collaboration that work really well. And there's examples of of OEMs trying to make their own things.
And it's nice. But this, they just don't get it just right. But, you know, it's an indication
that they realize that there's a, that there's money to be made there. And there's an interest there.
And the consumer's wants it. Yeah. And, and the, the new trail hunter, as an example,
has a ton of ARB stuff bolted on to it. And, and Chevy is working with some other, after, like,
all of the, that common, somewhere in between those models, the, the, the companies, the manufacturers
trying to build it themselves, uh, Nismo, for example, uh, the company is the manufacturer's partnering,
and then the manufacturers that are like whatever do whatever you want. Yeah. Sometimes there's
very wide label. Sometimes you can, you know, just do a sharp collaboration. And sometimes
you can try to build yourself. But, you know, OEMs are very, very cost-sensitive, you know,
and they want to use their platforms for as long as possible. So, designing anything that's
specific to a specific, uh, model range is hard, because if you're going to have to make dedicated
tooling of nails. So, I was surprised to see that the other way would make it a roof rack for
the trail hunter, as opposed to, you know, partnering with someone specific in the industry.
Hmm. I mean, it's, it's good that they tried. It's good that they did. I think it looks great.
I think we're going to make a really good roof rack for the Toyota Tacoma.
But I think it's easier now, uh, because all the OEM, especially like Toyota, they're all making
like global platforms. So, like, that reduces costs on their frame. Like, right, because before, like,
a Corolla, a Camry, all the other cars had nothing in common. But now the Tacoma,
Tundra, the Coia, they're all in the same frame. So, like, same parts get swapped, so it's like less,
yeah, cost is to make those three vehicles. Yeah, then it was before. Yeah, I think it internally
did the manufacturer, they're reusing parts. But then they're also going back to global markets.
The, the Ford, the this current gen Ford Ranger in Australia and South Africa is different than
the one here in the States. But the next one will be global. So, if, if there's an aftermarket
manufacturer that makes something like the Toyota Ford that model, it'll fit everything.
Um, you know, I think, you know, Corolla is a new right. Um, I bought 2010, I bought a Tacoma V6,
six feet, uh, four, four, uh, uh, they look the, the TREO for a package. And I specifically look for
that car because I really wanted that specific truck. And, you know, I couldn't find it. I had to,
you know, this is, this is the day before the, the dealer markup on the new prices. So, I still,
I found it, but I had to ship it in from some other state. But I had exactly what I wanted.
But the longer I had it, the more I realized, man, I should have just gotten the base model,
and I would have done this and this and this and this and this differently. Um, so I think it's
great that there's a trail hunter package that gives folks what they want. I predict though that
there's going to be a lot of guys opting for a different trail, a different package. And then,
you know, opting on what they want. So, and you see the same thing with the gladiator, right? Yeah.
Yeah. You see what the Broncos do? You see what, well, and I, and I called, so to me, that's, uh,
that's internal aspirational marketing. So aspirational marketing, meaning like, uh, I'm,
I'm going to sell, I'm, I'm, I'm Ford, and I'm putting a Bronco in an, an off-road race because I want
people to see how cool that Ford Bronco race car is. The same thing with the, the trail hunter or the,
the badlands are, they, they, they have to make a certain number of these vehicles that are fully
kitted out to give, give people the visual, a set idea of what the aesthetic looks like. And then they
go, yeah, but this is like 80 grand. And so most of us are going to say we can't buy that. However,
if I bought the base model and over the course of the next couple years, bolted on the right
parts, I could still make it look that way. And I, I really, I really think that's what a lot of
those top tier, uh, vehicles are for is to get people to buy the base and then, and then aspire to
build it up. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, so you said, you said, uh, 2018, you started the company,
that was the, the rugged bound. And, um, when you first started it, what was your, like,
what was your plan? Did you, you're like, I just want to start something. I want to be a distributor.
It's going to be something else. Like, and I asked because I, I'm wondering, like, how many twists
turns it took to get to what it is today? Great question. Um, I'm going to try and get the best
answer, um, but it makes me look really smart. It's, it's really, it's really as simple as I wanted
a Land Rover Defender here in the US, and me too. Basically, I imported one, I imported a second one
in the same container and that one paid for the first one plus a shipping. And while I was doing
that, I was looking at, you know, all the time, I wouldn't want to get into importing and selling
defenders. It's just that was just, you know, I basically learned how to import by doing that.
But I was doing that. I was looking forward to the right side of the company to partner with,
I reached out over the last 20 years. I've always been looking actively at which South African brands
already and, and worthy of US representation, right? Um, they might be big enough where they will
come over themselves. Um, they might be just the right size to come over, but they don't have
their team to bring themselves over and they need an American partner. Um, or some companies just
need to be pulled into the US because they don't have the mindset that they want to leave
South African actually market themselves globally. And so, over the course of 20 years, I was actively
approaching a lot of companies. Um, one of them is a massive chicken brand called Nandos. And if
anyone is ever being a dystopica or Australia, the United Kingdom in eight Nandos would know that's
the most amazing Portuguese chicken. Um, Nandos. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. Right
it down. Nandos. Is there, are there any here in the States? Yeah, they had one in DC and, and it
meant happen since, I think, 20 years ago. And they, but they never expanded from there. And so,
I've been trying to have a franchise in New York. And they said to me, no, no, no, we're not going to
do it because we're going to own all of our, we're not going to franchise, we're going to self own
South Manage. So, okay, cool. So that's how it happened. I wanted to, uh, you know, when they built the
bridge, uh, at the Hoover Dam. Yeah. So, maybe I shouldn't say this one because this one's an
podcast. Okay, I'll skip. No, you can say whatever you want here. Like we, uh, we don't, we don't,
we don't hold it in their bag. Nothing's ever stopped me. So, yeah, we say what we have. If I say it on a podcast
and everyone's going to hear the idea. Okay. Yeah. No, don't give away ideas. Don't give away ideas.
But it's, let's be honest, nobody's going to hear it on this. Yeah. Okay. Look, there's, there's,
there's like three of the 12 listeners may hear what you're saying and think about doing it, but
and the other six are like our family members, yeah, our moms and my wife and part of my
daughter is watching us on YouTube right now and I, guys, we'll try not to embarrass us. So, um,
so, so I actually reached out to RSI, you know, back when they first started. I was inside
for 2012, um, visiting family and I saw RSI canopy at the time and I thought it would really
well make. Um, and I reached out to RSI, um, to see if I could import some of the part of the
U.S., and it's just an 14 maybe, but anyway, the point is they obviously never replied to me.
And in 2017, they first came to Expo West to come have a look-see and, you know,
I'm now the RSI smart capitalist here and it's doing extremely well. So, I guess what I'm trying
to say is I was actively looking to find a significant partner, you know, to dance work. And so,
I found the Austrian awning, because I was a member of I had mud, uh, okay, to Yoda, um,
offered community. And on I had mud, I kept on seeing, um, posts about this Austrian awning,
which is this amazing awning from Australia, and guys are importing the old awnings. This was
back in like 2015, 2016. And I knew that this wasn't an Australian product, this is an African
product. But for some reason, everyone in the U.S., who were on I had mud,
were thinking it's an Australian product. And it's because all the YouTubers in Australia
were doing the full-ups on the Austrian awning. And so, that content went kind of viral.
And so, I started doing more research about the country who make the Austrian awning. And I learned,
you know, I've, I've known it about the products for a long long time, because they've been around
for, you know, decades. And that was a, that was a company I could, you know,
align myself with in terms of the values, the philosophy for how it is our products and how they produce.
And so, that's how that started. And so, when I started importing, I first focused on the awning,
because here we have, and this is important, the world's first two, seven yawning,
ever, there's not being sold in the U.S. Oh, wow. I didn't realize I was the first one.
Yeah, it's the original freestanding to 70. Well, I take it back. The two awnings were made at the
same year. It was just in the same 2008. And there was the Fox Wing from Australia, which is now
believed either to assure the backwing from, from runner-up. And the Austrian. And those are two
very different awnings, right? The one awning is made to be freestanding in wind. And the other one
is made to fail predictably in wind. Well, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, it's not a pejorative statement.
I'm not trying to do, to mean the product. It's just that they camp at the beach all the time,
in Australia. And they have really strong winds at the beach. So they were like, hang on.
If the wind comes up, you know, it's going to break the awning eventually. And so,
let's just engineer it in such a way that it's fails. They've got that at a specific point.
Yeah, yeah, that's the that's the fusible link. They've got it on one of the, one of the,
one of those. Yeah, that's all fusible link. But it's a Toyota fusible link. Yeah, no, but it's
it's the, to your point. It's the one piece where they're like, okay, but it's going to break,
it's going to break here. It's a plastic part. We could just replace it. Exactly. Exactly. And so
it's a very pragmatic Australian design. The way all these design product is very pragmatic,
because it has to be self-reliant. When they go off-roading, they go over landing the middle
so they want to be able to fix their own stuff. They want to be able to know that they can fix it.
And so it's just a pragmatic approach. We're in South Africa, where we go camping, typically in
the Savannah and the bush felt, we don't really have strong strong winds. We don't have like tornadoes
and hurricanes or like super strong gusts. We have nice winds, but we don't have super strong winds,
except at the coast. And even at the coast, you know, we've got lots of trees and stuff. So
South Africa we made the awning or big country designed the awning to be deployed fully
without legs and in most camping situations, you won't need to even support the legs at all.
So there's a different philosophy, you're different design approach from the two birds.
So they came out in the same year effectively 2008. And so when I saw that
folks were buying the Australian distributed Australian awning and flying it into the US,
to put it on because I thought that was the best long to get. I realized that there was a gap
in the market and they need to be important distributed in the US. And so that's what I've said about to do.
You know, Australia, they can brag or they can talk about like, you know, wheeling and being
self-sufficient out in the middle of nowhere. And yeah, that's pretty impressive. But I
were called, although this is probably a couple years ago, Jose and Cody here, wheeling in
Hammett. And you know, there was a shooting range that they drove through with like, you know,
the threat of being shot is real. And there was like a biker gang. I think that you guys had a
negotiate. I don't remember the biker gang. You know, I call them biker gangs, but they might have
been on quads. You know, whatever. Yes, every time. So all I'm saying is that's that's our comp,
like here in Southern California is, if you can wheel in Hammett, you could probably wheel it anywhere.
Yeah. Yeah. So back to the ostrich wing. It's been a while since I trashed him.
Yes, I just felt had it fitted. That was the good timing, man. So on on our, uh, nobody
had no, no, like, on our on our Instagram page, there's a video of me standing under the
thumbs up. Okay. Standing under the ostrich wing at expo this weekend, it, we talked about it a
little bit, uh, like, it was supposed to rain around 11 o'clock and like at at 10 45,
I got on the phone with the guys that outdoor by four. And I'm like, hey, you're, you're booth.
I'm going to swing by. And I got there at like an 11 o'clock at 11 o'clock at 11 o' one,
the heavens opened, hail and lightning and storm just coming down. And we were all just hanging
out under the ostrich wing. And I remember thinking to myself, think on this thing's pretty good. And
I looked up that one of the things that's very different about that awning is it's got the aluminum
trust frame as opposed to this, instead of a single, yes, like, extrusion. Yes, it's like a,
it's a reinforced, yes, it's a thing. If you go to the, uh, if you go to the rugged, like a
dress system, yeah, if you go to the right, look at that construction, uh, experience, if you go to the
ruggedbound.com website and you'll see what we're talking about. So not only does it have the,
the trust type arms, it's got a vertical prop in the, at the, at the anchor at the, uh, uh,
hinge that pushes up the, the awning so that when the rain hits, it does come down. It doesn't,
it doesn't sit and pull up point being I was super impressed with that thing to the point where
I was talking to the guys that out there, but I'm like, whom, would you guys get this?
Well, which, and I took a picture of the, of the brand before connecting with you the, the next
day to talk about it. Yeah. So I, I got the opportunity to, to experience that, uh, that awning
and it was awesome. It is, it is very, you mentioned the trust thing because that's the first thing
I noticed when we're, when I was standing under, I was like, dude, this thing looks heavy,
dude. Yeah. Yeah. It's heavy, dude. You look at this property installed. I'm supposed to be
one 70 pounds, but I don't want you right now, but um, I'm supposed to be one 70 pounds too,
but that was like 20 years ago. Yeah. So when it's, when it's properly installed,
when you are moving those trustes, those arms, just one of them, you'll see that you're actually
articulating the suspect from the vehicle and, and it's like you're moving the vehicle and so there's
no movement between the arm and the beam and the roof rack. It's all one thing because of how
it's constructed and how it's connected. So there's a lot of companies that sit now,
because I was actually freestyling on from design 2008 and there's a lot of awnings in the market
now that it claimed to be freestyling, but if you read the fine print, it's like freestyling indoors
at next boat. Yeah. I trust wire, right? I trust wire, but I mean, uh, I've seen a ton of the,
I've seen a ton of the freestyling awnings over the last couple of years. Like you said,
you go to an expo, you go to an event, you go anywhere, they're there. This, this one is the first one
I've seen with that trust, the trust is. I haven't seen this, but it does seem like a lot of the
awnings that I've seen are just like, easy-ups that they figured out. I had a strap onto the side of a truck,
you know, like, all right. I mean, I could have done that, but it sounds like you guys actually paid
an engineer of some sort to do some math and and come up with a real real, um, real structural solution.
Yeah, that's one. Oh, damn. Okay. Sorry, Cody just pulled it up on on the big screen pictures pictures.
Yeah, that one right there. That picture down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down.
What were you? I don't know. You just, you just pulled it up. All right. There's a picture where
the sun is just sunshine on Cody. There's a picture where zoom's in the trust dude. Oh my god. Okay.
But so you can see that there's the aluminum trust system, right? Yeah, picture that zoom's in right
on. I mean, I can't see what you've got. I'm just showing it in this. I'm just showing it all right.
Look at that. Yeah. So it now that that's a different level for sure. Yeah. I'm super, super, super cool.
And you've got to listen on your on your side at 1535, which I seem seems to be a very competitive
price. Yes, 15 dollars. Yeah, I see. Well, you're shipping these in from like South Africa.
Oh, wow. And that's what free shipping as well. Yeah. Wow. So yeah, we're trying to
price it comparatively because, you know, when we came with the product of the US in 2019,
or it says not elected as an 18, the problem is that, you know, the market's already been flooded
with alternatives, awnings from Maine and China that were not designed by anybody, specifically,
it was just reverse engineered. It's put your label on it. Look, there's a price point in the
product for everyone that's a cool thing about it, where we are with industry. The matter who you are
and what your, what your price range is, you're going to find the product for you. Right. And so
it's a very crowded market. And we had to fight for, you know, our place in the sun. And
marketing is expensive, you know, product placement is expensive. You don't get your product in the
magazine without paying for it. People might not know that, but, you know, these editorial are
free and the gear guides aren't free, you're paid to be in a gear guide. Sorry, if I'm
spilling the beans. Yeah, the nasty undervalue of what modern media machines. But, you know, so we,
we have to price a competitive, at least, that people have a chance to, you know, acquire one,
our smaller one, which is the Austrian junior, which is still big, it's still A4 inches long,
B minutes 75 square foot awning. That's probably even better. I think it's 1150 or 55. 1155. I just saw,
I mean, for sure, this is a premium product, but this is like the last on and you need to buy,
not like, you buy those cheap tents, you know, and you got to buy like four. Guys, come on now,
I've had the same tent for at least at least three years. Yeah, but how many tents that I take to get to
that one? Well, the tent that I buy, oh, yeah, let's go. Yeah, come on, let's, let's be correct here.
Casey buys a lot of tents. Thank you. Thanks. That's great. Oh, zipper. I hate to buy a lot of tents.
And looking at that, looking at that ostrich wing junior, I mean, at 75 square feet, as compared to
the 120 square feet, but I think for most of us, with a, with a midsize truck, that's probably a
really good size, not only for, while it's deployed, but when it's collapsed in the bag, you know,
I mean, correct. Yeah, we actually made that specifically for five foot bay trucks. Yeah,
see, it's, it's made from the mounting point that you can get from the five foot bay truck, which is
roughly about 55 inches. Realistically, when you put a truck's track system on there, you know,
a car of a system, whatever, you're probably going to have around 55 inches of space. And that's
what we need for the beam construction. And so, 55, if you take 133 percent of that, you get to 84.
And so, extrapolate from what the mounts of this is going to be. Because it's a free set. You just
make it way too much. A lot of numbers. It's a lot of numbers. It's a lot of numbers. It's a structural engineering
of being. We just just happened. We just saw 11 viewers. That's it. All of them have gone.
Out the door. Is this algebra? Yeah. Yeah. You're coming up. I'll make it fit, my truck.
Yeah. Yeah. I'll add things and everything I got to do. That's what I already did. Yeah.
So the awesome thing, the big one, right? It's so long. It's 105 inches long. You can't just
mount it on the short bay truck. You have to have a third mounting point on the cab. And we do that
inside of the quadlock. The problem is when you do that, you need to pick up the flex between the
bid and the cab. So our front mount will have like a small engine mount block. Okay. What?
Do you have a bit of a rubber? Yeah. I mean, a nice way to isolate it. And then, so that's so we do
that on the short bid. So all of the 75, and everyone I see there's an anchor, there are trucks
or double cabs. The short bid is at least there are 500 as well. And so we have a lot of instances
where we mount the big one like that. And but for the US market, we decided to give someone's
specific to the guys with my size trucks and also the cheap two-door jeeps. You know, they fit
really well. Yeah. That's enough said right there. They've designed an awning with seismic deflection
like in the engineering. That's impressive. Like usually it's, yeah, it's like Casey said,
look, I'll figure out how to do it. And he's just welding some bunch of braces all over his truck.
That's what I had to do. I had to make a weird kick out over the cab to brace it even further.
No, you made it work. Yeah. No, I like your, where's your seismic deflection? No, I like the
German. I don't have, I don't have anything like that. I like the ostrich wing junior. That's the one I
like. So a rugged bounce supply company, if you guys have not gone there yet, ruggedbound.com.
So there's also, I want to talk about a couple of the other categories before we get to the,
the tour top. So you guys have drawer systems, talk to me a little bit about those.
So a big country start making drawer systems 20 years ago. And the current model drawers is
the security drawer. And what sets them apart is they make the drawer for vehicles specific.
And what I mean by that is, we don't, they don't make a small medium and large drawer and then
have 25 tickets. They literally make 20 different drawers for 20 different vehicles. So inventory
management is hard. Manufacturing is hard. Scaling is hard. But that other
schools are philosophy of big country, which is there are no compromises for the rig. The compromise
has to be on our side, on their side, with the side of the manufacturer. Yeah. So you're not going
to end up with a lot of dead space on the side and on the back of the drawer system. You're going
to get the biggest drawer system, the longer the drawer system and the lowest drawer system that's
possible for your vehicle. So if you look at the numbers on the website, you'll see the actual
volumes are there with all the dimensions, interior, and exterior dimensions. And if you do your homework
and you compare it to the competition, you're going to find that very often the big country drawer
is sometimes 50 to 100% bigger on the inside than the main competition on the market. And you
can express your head and look how they're possible. Well, it's because the competition makes a
small medium and large drawer. So, you know, that's the philosophy. So the drawers systems are
amazing. They don't make a kitchen drawer. So that's one thing we don't have as a drawer system that
has like a source army enough kitchen thing that comes out and it's got a stove and a cutting board
it can else. And it's a great reason for that. So big country made those drawers back in 2004 and five
those kitchen stumbles. And after four or five years of learning and feedback from customers,
they realize that no one really likes their carousel and like bacon and program.
And I don't think you're troping little tree thing. Yeah, yeah, I would put it in my car.
Yeah, exactly, right? So there's a compromise there, right? And because most Africans, you know,
it's a family affair. So there's wife and two kids more kids typically. And so,
basically, the bacon propane smell and the car gets old. And so it's absolutely, we typically have
separate kitchen setups. Even if you have a vehicle-based camping system, you'll still have like a
pull-ups, you know, tables somewhere and you'll put it up next to the vehicle and that'll be your kitchen.
And so the US, I think, you know, Cody, you mentioned it before, you know, we've developed and we've
evolved a lot in the US on overlanding and becoming aware of what's available. And there's a huge
push now on, that I've seen the last few years on kitchen style drawers. And I think, you know,
you can, you can, you can thank this one. I think we're going to see an evolution over a few years.
You're going to start seeing people realizing that it's, you know, it's great for some people,
but most people are going to find that they don't actually like the kitchen inside the drawer system,
inside the vehicle. Yeah. And there will also something different. I think it's super, or
separate kitchen. Sorry, I think it's super cool, the idea that you pull it out and it's right there.
But if I'm going to have a drawer system in my vehicle, I want as much storage as I possibly can get.
And I'll have a separate cooking situation. Yeah, exactly. And so that's part of the problem
coming from South Africa is we don't have a lot of the US-based vehicles there. And so while we're
all part of SEMA, it's, you know, the SEMA garage, CAD and scan system that you get access to the vehicles,
the cargo area, scans and CAD files, typically are good enough to actually develop a product.
You actually have to do it in the vehicle itself. SEMA garage is like 20 minutes from our house.
Ship us the scanner. We'll, we'll take, we'll take, we'll go over there. We'll go as
wrap. Wait a minute. What are you committing to trust trust that you want to do this? I don't think
you can do the podcast there, right? Yeah, I don't think I'm going to ship you my frontier.
Yeah, so it took us a while to do the 1540 drawer system. But, you know, because of that,
right, so we had to learn how to give it a product here, make it there, get the prototype,
test it, SEMA, change it, and iterate it, right? So that took a while, but now, you know, we've got
the jail, you drawers system coming in August, September, we've got the new defended drawers system coming.
And those drawers are just massive. They're like double, literally double the size of what everyone
else has because they're made for those vehicles, where everyone else is using the same drawer
that they use for the FJ cruiser and the JKU for these vehicles. They just shove in the largest
common denominator and then trim it out. Yeah, you know, and I'm going to talk to them at the
big companies, right? The usual big companies. I'm not talking about guys who are making custom
series. Yeah, and on your on your website, you've got the the land cruiser 200 series,
LX 570 series with the stackable drawers and the cubby for the refrigerator. That's the first
time I've ever seen that. That is super double. Yeah, that's a double decor. That's a dedicated
obviously dedicated off road rig drawer system. You're not going to go golfing in some
soon if you have that set up. I mean, there's still, there's still, I don't know, a foot and a half
to that space. Yeah. Yeah. And so that pairs what were the gollings that we that big country
makes so they make really nice gollings and the gollings are structural. So they're actually
bolted to the vehicle, not just sit inside the the rubber window mount. So they actually
actually drill and mount the track to the vehicle. So it's dedicated. You're going to be
if it's like full say and you commit it. Yeah, but it's a super cool setup. Like I said,
two two drawer stacked one on top of the other and then a spot for a fridge and a spot for an
extra battery. Very, very cool. If you look, if you look at the photos on the back, there's some
photos there that shows the back of that drawer. Yeah. And you'll see that even the drawer shape of
the back is angled for the seat matches the angle of the seat. Yeah. So it's like there's like no
waste in space. On the actually cruiser drawer, even the drawer face, if you guys have seen the inside
of a cruiser barn drawer, it's got a very severe slope on the trunk on the inside the door. So when
you plug the door, the drawer system, the drawer face has that same angle. Oh wow. So you have that
little extra space. Yeah. So I mean these guys are, you know, big country do a fantastic job
designing drawers. In fact, they white label drawers for another well known stuff in company
Louis on that mention. When they first start making drawer systems, big country actually made
them for them. This is, you know, this goes black and white. But yeah, the drawer systems are really
really good. And if you do your homework and you compare the size, the volume that you're
sacrificing for drawer system versus the volume that you're gaining in storage, that ratio
is an important thing. And people tend to just buy what they want to from based on the one
marketing is telling them. But as this, you know, overlanding community is maturing and becoming
more smart about understanding what is they're getting for their money and what you're getting
for the space that you're sacrificing, these things will become more important. And I believe
strongly that the big country drawers that we've only had, you know, fairly scratched the surface.
And everyone who has them loves them, we've had, you know, four years of size of three years of
size of these drawers. We've had like one or two issues with manufacturing quality or something.
Obviously, we take care of the problem when in the rises. But these drawers use the best
liners that they're riddled with something with redling, that there's something wrong. There's
something that can be fixed. There's a newspaper somewhere. But these drawers don't make a sound
if they're properly installed and properly put together. And they're properly shipped for,
you know, they're probably packed for shipping. So they should arrive in a pallet. You just
slide them in, bolt them down, and you don't. There's no construction happening.
Awesome. Yeah. If I had an SUV, I would definitely go back to the drawer system situation.
Especially something like that because you talked about like, have them custom made. Sometimes
those are great or the first two trips by the third, fourth, fifth trip that they're just rattling
everywhere, right? I mean, there's a lot of shortcuts that I see companies are using really
I would say just open source drawer sliders. So there are companies that have been a lot of
R&D on drawer sliders and some of my contributors or some of my dealers who sell our products
and sell other parts as well. They call me a slide small. So I actually look at the brand of the
slide that's been used on the drawer, right? And if companies are selling products and they're using
slides that have no name on the slider. They're using a open source, re-manufactured, Chinese,
furniture, a copy version of someone else's product. There's something to be said for design.
There's something to be said for patents and IP. And there's something to be said for understanding
what's quality. And if you're using a lot of quality components when you're building your product
versus if you're going for the cheapest option, it's a problem that I see more and more often
with its drawer systems that are like $23,000 $4,000 and when people open them up and I look
on the size, that's an Amazon slide. But I mean, that's kind of where we are, like,
unless you have enough experience and I think everybody here, especially Casey and Cody,
you guys have built your own slide systems or drawers or whatever and you have the experience to know
like, no, man, this is like, it's just going to wear out. I just figured this out and I put it
together and it works. It's not that it doesn't work or whatever, but you just did, you bought some
product, again, off Amazon or from Home Depot or whatever. But then what you didn't realize was,
yeah, this is going to be torqued and twisted and you're going to be on the trail and all that
wear and tear is going to be extremely excessive. Yeah. So if you're making it right, right? So
in South Africa, we have a 20-foot shipping container filled, like, to the waste with discarded sliders.
So a big country are constantly buying slatters that constantly buying different vendors,
Democrats that constantly finding different sources and they use them, they test them and they
discard them. They've got literally a thousand of different manufacturers slides that are just piled up
because they couldn't master, they couldn't make it great. So what you're saying is the skateboard
bearings and the units that I use for my first slide. Remember that slider? I've been hitting
my back of my truck. That's exactly what I was trying to do. I made a full nothing worse than
something rattling around. I made a full time that you're all crotty. It was a full bed slide with
like literally unit strut and skateboard sliders. You were using a spitfire bearing to know that
for sure. Yeah. Yeah, you should have used like what's it? It didn't last by the end of Mojavey,
by the time we finished Mojavey. Exactly. There wasn't much of it left. So it came out.
And that's, I think my belief now is when it comes to certain suspensions or whatever,
like if Ford or Chevy or Toyota, they spend millions of dollars on engineering and
B. I just meant for their lesser quality vehicles. But either way, they spend a lot of money to
engineer things. And if you're trying to rig something up from Home Depot and you can have the
best of intentions, but it's not going to meet that same level of expertise. And that's something
I think nowadays is kind of kind of missed. But whatever. That's my rambling. Yes. Yes.
That is me, rambling. Okay. The next thing I want to talk about is what you mentioned at
to us when we ran into you this weekend was the new cell signal booster. Now, this is so, so this is
something that what if I don't want that? So you have a cell service like blocker? Yes, you put it
it's a off button. Yeah. Oh, show. All right. What I sell the one so has a off button. See.
Okay. Yeah. But but this is something that we've we've had multiple discussions about about whether
or not you want to be connected or not connected. But but when you do want to be connected,
like again, if you have the ability to turn off, that's great. But when you do want to be connected
and you have the T-mable T-maby, because this week it do my my signal was absolute shit at
expo this weekend. But I had full bar and he had full service. Everybody that was struggling was on
T-mobile. Everybody. But I couldn't get any of that anyways because it was so bombarded. Yeah.
It was on the network there. But my point being like if you want a signal booster, like
that's one of those things where I think especially if you do any solo or or one or two
people trips, like having that ability, tell me about this. Yeah. So I'm so happy to
mention the expo and T-mobile and it wants experience because I actually did a test over there.
Oh, really? I think how did you say T-maby? Yeah. Yeah. T-maby. Sorry. I'm not allowed to say sorry.
Oh, no, you could say no. Yeah. So okay. So Baltimore technical is the company who makes this product
and they've been around for 15 years and you know over the last 15 years, they've either seen
sold or or or worked on every single signal booster product is out there.
There's a system company or actually the parent company and it's actually
also an amplifier and it was an amplifier and they've also got another company called signal boosters.com.
They're affiliated and so they do signal boosting solutions for commercial properties, apartments,
big factories, using a range of products, including some of the weedless products,
which is made by Wilson and the products. So, you know, after 15 years of experience,
they wanted to create something in the market that harness all the improvements
as marginal as they may be. They wanted to figure out a product range that captures all of the
improvements and opportunities from the people they could see from their experience and that's where
both take them from. They basically designed their own system and so they're just launched and
made so it's very new to the market but it's exciting because they're they're they're the products
are all geared and aimed for addressing the little gaps and the little needs that they come to
experience from making kids selling kids and servicing kids from a range of different manufacturers.
I like this in the in the product specifications it talks about having the antenna
and that you can remove the antenna without pulling the antenna wire like there's a disconnect
the antenna so you could like a quick release so you can you like hey I don't need it I'm cruising
around town I can take my antenna off so it doesn't get broken or stolen and then easily attach it.
Yeah exactly so so the antenna itself I mean we're over landing right so if you're
over landing in Missouri or an Arkansas I'm sorry I'm not in your over landing helpers Missouri or
sorry I'm sorry for you. Well I mean there's something really not so good. So at some point
but the trails there are very very tight so your awning bags going to get ripped your roof up
top 10 is going to get bashed and at some point if you forget your antenna will get smashed by a
tree trunk or back by tree branch or something. So at some point the antenna will be busted and so
with the Walton technology solution you simply just disconnect the antenna and put a new
antenna in any wire particularly the wire you don't. So you don't have to buy only you know system
and rerun the wire and you know if we make a preventive installation we obviously want to run the
wire into a certain place into the headliner down the sea you see full of people of wherever
down to you know power supply. With their system all that stays in place you don't have to touch
any wire and you just opt in to know. Adam question so going back to CB technology the
the antenna had to be mounted in a specific way so that there was enough metal plane underneath it
so it can bounce is is I'm assuming that's not the case like is this something where you like just
find a place to mount it is there any like restrictions or or requirements for the antenna?
Well so the booster itself is a 50 dB booster which is the FEC mandates how strong the
booster is going to be so regardless of what anyone claims about their single booster the actual
booster that says I'll be able to see to wherever that's a 50 dB boost the antenna has its own
gain that it gets from its design of what the antenna looks like and how it's manufactured right
so those two things combine is what gives you the gain the proximity of the antenna
that's on your roof to the little antenna that's inside your cab that you hook up to your phone.
If you bring those two things too close together they will oscillate however at a 50 dB boost
with that small antenna for your cab the chances are that you have to bring them extremely close
and so that's not really an issue as long as that thing is on your roof somewhere you're fine.
Obviously the taller you can get it the higher you can get it the better but so we would put on a
roof rack if we had a truck we'd still put it on the roof rack of the truck as opposed to
you know on the car the system of the of the bed because it will still get a little bit extra hot.
Got it. Now what if I had a flux capacitor? Where would that fit in with that scenario?
That's in series you wire it in series. Yes it's amazing. You want it to flux well while you're
capacity. Yes you must you must at the same time. You're on another level. Like the questions that are
being at what are you doing on this podcast. I mean thank you. And he's drinking very many.
To be on the show. These guys are idiots. He spent enough time with us and see my new
we were idiots. No but he told me I was supposed to get a note pad. It started taking notes tonight.
You know? No don't worry. I will repeat the same things for you in the next podcast.
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. No no you don't need it. You only do it for so long and then you're
good tired. I mean that's where any notes and crayons so. Like those big ones like the construction ones.
And then the next category you've got the the fully welded roof racks. Tell me about
because I mean I'm looking at one on the website that's a rack on top of an 80 series and it's
a totally. Can I borrow the Joe Tracer's credit card? Because there's like eight things on the
guy for sure. Yeah it's got a limit of $4. The podcast money it's got $4 available on it.
So tell me about the roof racks because I think the roof racks then tie into our next topic of the
tour. Yes. Very exactly. So the roof rack is actually the product that they made first. So
this is a fully welded roof rack made from all custom exclusions. So these guys
designed a rack. Then they designed the exclusions needed to go the rack. Then they made the tooling
or that exclusions. Pushed the exclusions and then made the rack. So the rack is made with
the you know from a from a engineering point of view that everything all the loads are stacked.
Okay. So you have your your set up that goes to the vehicle's roof. You have a load bar that sits on top
of it and you have four plates that sit on top of that. And then the perimeter around it is
know those load bars on the delftail into the perimeter. So it sits on a layer. And those
are delftail in and then welded in as well. The corners of the rack are actually made from
cast aluminum. The country actually casts their corner pieces in house and they're on the ground.
So they have an aluminum found in the factory. And those corners are welded into the roof rack.
So this roof rack is one piece. When it shows up it's on a massive padded. It looks like a bit frame.
All you do is you flip it upside down. You put the feet on and you mount it to your car and you
don't. Yeah. I'm looking at the on the four runner version. I'm looking at the zoomed in version
of the corner. And yeah, it's just one solid piece with the square too well done on either side.
And like no fittings, no screws, no junction points. So that counters that were that
when I said earlier as far as like you know you bolt something together and you just bought
by a bunch of hardware. You know at some point that's going to fail. Like no matter how you know
one solid piece is like unbeatable. You know if you if you can get something molded in one solid piece
you can't. So we don't use 80 20.net. Is that a dating site? Shots fired hot hot.
Oh dude, 80 20. Yeah, we got to them. Yes, with the roof rack. So the roof rack.
Cody the the company roof rack goes back to 1991, 1990. So it's unclear exactly when they started it
with it. It's early 1990s. So this goes back almost now 32 years, right. And in that time
the rack has only been updated. I think twice where they've basically changed the thickness and
the size of the exclusions but ultimately the design state is the same. Now it's not the sexiest rack.
Right. It's not going to win the most 60 points on Instagram for the Hero Shots. But if you're a
hardcore overlander and you want to just forget about your rack and make sure it's
a pretty new functional and reliable. This is a rack to get because, you know, simple things like
bolting a tent to a rack. This rack is level on top. There's no edges. So you can just
lay the thing on top. You don't have to have 50 or 15 kits. You just drill a hole through the floor
plank because the floor plank is single sided. It's not a box of fusion. So you can just drill a hole
use a washer and a bolt and bolt. You'll tend to straight to it. Yeah. Then you can get for a tent
of like five bucks. So these things are just made like bullet like, you know, like they're
bombproof pretty much. And so I know a lot of weeks ago we're putting a lot of stuff in the house.
Yeah. That's also a rack. And a lot of people can put a lot of people on their racks.
We stay out of that conversation. Our rack is rated to 50 pounds dynamic load.
If it's got 60 and 120 pounds. If it's rated, if it's got 4 feet like the land cruiser.
So beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Like that looks like a beautiful rack. I was going to say
I'm looking like the the gladiator photos and the you're going to photos. I think it's
thank you. It's very complimentary to the vehicles. So I yeah, I don't know that I would say it's not
sexy. Oh, what you got. Oh man, props. Yeah. So I guess what I was saying was this is the
this is the side exclusion of the roof rack. Okay. So you can see the thickness there. That's
that's one eight inch thick. Yeah. That's about average. Yeah.
You've got an MH channel. And you've got an MH channel on the top. And so on the side of the rack,
it'll just look like this. Yeah. But you can run an MH track on the top of the bottom. And then
this is where the load bars sit in. So the load bars sit in here and it gets wildly into position.
And on top of that, you've got the floor plank, which is also one eight inch. Oh yeah. Yeah.
But it's it's single. So you're not going to crush an extrusion. So you can't normally
drill through the floor plank here and then bolt up because you'll crush it. Yeah, where this
one is got an inch and a quarter flat space. And so you can just bolt up straight to there.
If you don't want to use the the MH track. So that's you know, some of the building blocks
all would be country roof rack. And they've been like that since, you know, since 1991.
All right. The review was called African Outback. And then 2007, the company's merged.
And so yeah. So there's a lot of heritage and a lot of, you know, love experience behind building
a very strong racks that are very durable. Right. Right there when he was like showing us like,
you know, the thickness or whatever, like I'd notice like me in case you were making the same face like,
hmm, it looks pretty short. It looks on to me. Oh, I get it. It makes sense.
But now let's take that 30 years of rack and load control heritage and talk about the
Bell of the ball, the tour top. So when we met you at SEMA, it was the smart top. And then there was
a name change. I'm assuming there's some back in the story behind that. So now it's the tour top.
It's I can't see with this. I love it. He's got a sticky note.
Let's see. So we ran right there. So that the the tour top. So we talked about this quite a bit
after our SEMA show. It has that same basic structural foundation of the roof rack. We just discussed.
But it combines the the additional functionality of like a tonneau cover with gas struts and the ability
to hold a significant amount of load and be lockable. So I'm assuming that's just an evolution of
the things that they learned building these roof racks and then it turned into this.
Yeah, exactly. So look, we know that in the US, the the roof rack business is going in the
city direction, right? Everyone in the industry is moving in that direction. All the big names
are now pivoting in that direction. Where the big country racks are on this side fully well,
fully constructed and advertised. Where everyone else is trying to go as close to possible to
IKEA because it's better for more manufacturing. It's better for inventory control. It's better for
making new racks for new vehicles because you can just use the components. And then the
customer is the one who has to compromise, right? Because ultimately they're not getting the strongest
option. You can make a modular rack very, very strong, but there's a lot of costs involved to do that.
So we know that we're never going to be bigger than a one per cent of the market with the
with the well the roof racks and we're going to have certain specific customers going to want that.
And that's fine, you know, that's the philosophy of the company. But what we did have is
amazing raw materials and amazing know-how and building skill to build something really cool.
And so we decided to apply that and make a product for the truck market that is available and
you know, possible to be sold to anyone who has a truck and wants a bad cover, but to
expect more and demand more in terms of functionality and use of usefulness and diversity,
the truck that covers. Yeah. And that was the thing that struck us the most about the product at
Seema is, you know, we've seen truck covers and everybody has their opinion on them. But when we
when we met with you and you were demonstrating the product to us, every whole we tried to poke
into why not to get a truck cover, you were like, oh, no, I got you covered. Look at this.
Oh, no, you can load this much on it. Oh, look at it pops itself up with one finger. Like
at the end of it, we're kind of looking at each other like, okay, I think I think he solved it.
I think I need to find him. I will be the only loser to not go to Seema. Yeah.
And the first thing I heard when I talked to him after they got back from Seema, how was Seema?
Oh, my God. Oh, you have to see this product. It was it was it was it was it was it was it was
it was because because one thing Theo that we do regularly on this show is waffle. And we will
have a conversation about bed racks versus tunnel covers. So there's versus rooftop tents, ground
tenting, just constantly back and forth. And there is it's very rare for us to land on something
and then all agree at the same time that that's probably the best solution. This was the first
product. I think that we all went, yeah, no, yeah, that's right. That's the one. Like that's it is.
Once, you know, the problem is right, this product is so novel, it's so unique. There's nothing
quite like it in the market. And when people see it for the first time, there's so much different
things about it that you don't actually know what you're looking at even when you're looking at it.
You don't see the potential and that's, you know, that's the chance we have with the marketing,
go to you guys at Seema, saw it in, you know, being used, you saw it being opened up and closed
and you saw what was carrying and what it could do. But when you try and translate into photos,
you know, it doesn't quite translate easily. You need to see the videos, you need to see all
these different ways of putting stuff on there because it's literally unlimited. Yeah, you know,
so there's literally an infinite amount of ways that you can use this thing, whether you're a
plumber or an electrician or a overlander or a cyclist or a kayaker or a surfer or a skier.
If the list goes on, or you just a guy who wants a nice truck-made cover that's secure and safe
and strong, it'll work for you as well, right? So it just, it just works for everybody and the
options really are unlimited. It was literally like two weeks after Seema, maybe three weeks
and we were scouting campsites for King of the Hammers. And so we were trying to do this hill climb
and I had my cooler and like some bags or whatever and there was like this whipped out section
before the hill climb and I hid it hard in my truck and the cooler came bouncing out and I
go, send me a take video and send to them smart top guys. I mean, there's a solution. Yeah,
like the dirt, but going back to what you were just saying, the modularity of it, right? So
and I think we talked about this 100% it's a word. It's a word. It's a word. It's a word.
100% it's a word. I used the word proclivity earlier and I got Kudos for it. So the modularity
of the modulation, the modulation is very different. In a building on a nation system, modulation
is when you're going from one side, you know, we'll talk about later. Oh no, he's got the dictionary
because he says, this is his third language. Oh my god. The modularity of the unit is so much
and modeling. To your point, to your point, if you're overlanding, I know. I know. If you're
I growing up, we have a big red dictionary. I had the big red dictionary and my grandmother bought
me a full set of insects. Yeah, we had those. KC yet. But it set up in such a way,
that, like, you could literally create your own Lego kit of these types of brackets and bolts
to hold your attachment points. When I'm going overlanding, click, click, click. This is what I
have here. When I'm going to my job as a plumber, click, click, click. Like, you can literally
change out the functionality of your tour top in the course of a few minutes before your adventure
on a weekend and I think that was the thing that struck me the most. Was that? And then when
you have all that stuff on top of it, you can still open it. Yes. And get onto the bed.
Exactly. So that's what's the verdict deal. Would you find in your book?
Well, I found modulation. But it's a very long, you know, I'm sure the the the transitive
verb and the adjective verb, right? Everything is already there. So I'm not going to
just film it. So meeting of modularity, meeting of modularity, English, the quality of
consisting of separate parts of that wind combined form a complete hole.
So Cody, that you hit the nail on the head there. So the tour top can be one thing now
and then it can be a different thing over the weekend. And to get from here to there is super easy
and what you can do with it is all really, really up to you. So for everyone who's listening to
this and thinking, what the hell is got to talk about, right? So it's basically a roof rack
with for the bed. 17 T slots already on the top and four on the underside. But it's also a bed cover.
And it can also open and close because that gas trots and the gas trots, everything is bolted to the
vehicle in a way that makes sure that the dynamic load rating is actually supported. So we don't
use bed clamps. So that's the first thing to understand the difference between this bed cover
and any other bed cover in the market, any other bed cover in the market that use these aluminum
sea clamps and they're really just friction clamps. If you look at them closely, they just
kind of like go like this and they you know anyway. So from the outset, the engineering
suffica said nope, we're not using those because we have a dynamic load and the shift, it just
does things just tend to you know fail at some point. So they wanted everything to bolt into the
vehicle and so every tour top that we make or the big country makes has its own chassis section
and its own bracket section that's made for that vehicle. So for a tonro to co-mod a Ranger
an F-150 you know gladiator, they've all got different style brackets that works with their sets of
holes to get everything where it needs to be. So this thing is bolted into the vehicle and that's
why the ram and the subrato are the last ones that we're making in terms of the timeline because
the Toyota or gladiator and Ford, they have a lot of threaded holes in the bed and when OEM
when OEM designers place threaded holes in the bed, they do so in strong places and so you can
use those holes. So we design around them because we don't want to draw a ram in the subrato,
you have to draw a few places and put some plus nuts in, not to riv nuts plus nuts and
then you we also designed an actual clamp system that uses the GM vehicles you have the
over last slot. No I don't. I'm too good to buy it. And so we entered the design
a product that goes into that slot secured itself and then becomes a three-dimensional hole that
you can bolt into. So there's a lot more work that we need to be done for subrato and for ram
but those are coming out later in this year we've got the dry test that we're going on here right
now in Houston but any plan for our frontier? I was going to ask about that earlier. Yeah the frontier
is on the list yeah yeah the frontier is on the only third gen or second gen as well. No it'll be
the third gen and the second gen we just have to make sure we cover all the current gen before we
step back to previous gen but the frontier is easy to work with because of all the tracks as well right
so as long as it's tracks and holes already in there it's actually making quite easy.
Yeah the dynamic load what is the dynamic load for the listeners? 550 pounds. So when you're
camping obviously you can put a lot more on there you can sleep on it no problem. But while you're
driving the limit is 550. Yeah but if you're looking at a mixed truck it's actually quite a lot.
I was just going to say at that like in that you know I'm looking at the ranger because it's the
best truck in the world and when you when you look at what you're going to put on that you know
but at the time you put a rooftop tent and a couple gear boxes and what and you hang some
stuff from underneath I mean I think you've exceeded your dynamic load and your for a ranger.
Well I got you home didn't it? I'm just saying it. That's as stupid as a ton of weight to just
yeah that's the two of me. Yeah. And so the bounce of weight ratio is also important right this
product only weighs about a hundred pounds. So that's you know repulated around that there's a
hundred pound truck that cover and it's carrying 550 pounds. So the amount of weight ratio
element to be to be understood and respected and you know admire about the things. I'm the other way
for you very glad. Well I weigh 250 I can only carry yeah yeah hundred pounds. But there's
there's other products on the market that for example the specs are somewhere around
it weighs 200 pounds and it can hold 400 pounds like so you're you're only getting 400 pounds
of weight but you're carrying an extra 200 this goes the opposite direction it's lighter and
carries more. Yeah and so we we we we move that design philosophy into this slider as well so we
have a tour of slide which is very very low profile because we wanted to create a the most amount
of volume on a bait slide while it won't be the strongest bait slide we have to compromise
it'll be the lowest profile so it's only an inch and a quarter above the bait which is just nuts
right if you think about it it's just this much. Yeah and so my brother Casey here is a great
fabricator and he made me a great bed rack and it's it's super awesome in my bed my rooftop tent
sets up there it's all custom but we talked about it after the fact like moving all that weight that
far up absolutely changes the dynamic of my off road yeah he built himself a rack that is much
lower and I can see the difference in the body roll of of his vehicle versus mine on the same trail
and the idea of having something like this that brings that that weight capacity back down is super
appealing. Yeah and you can make this thing look as tactical as you want and you can make it look
as sleek and you know as simple as you want so if you want the look of the max tracks with the
high lift jack and the tent in the middle you can do that yeah we've got accessories for those
things we've got lower bars coming for the guys at the want the look of the lower bar we have nice
low mid and high profile lower bars and it's gonna be available soon we've got different max tracks
or I would say action metrics you know mounting systems we have bike rack systems but
the turret's up is pretty agnostic it's got M8 channels so you just run an M8 or a 516's
bolt in there anything with a half inch with a half inch head and you can bolt it down so if you have
already got a let's say a fork mounted you know bike rack system from a different manufacturer
you can mount that on this thing you don't have to buy out we don't have any proprietary you
know hardware or proprietary stuff that you have to use with it you can if you can imagine it if
it can be bolted down you can imagine it you can probably do it yes we talked about that a little bit
about like oh if I have this specific toolbox it's this got this specific footprint I can
fabric a sheet metal bracket with some M8 bolts and it just drops right in you know to me like
there's no limitation to which which is very different than some of the other load product
carrying products out on the market where you're like okay maybe they have molly panels or something
but there's there's a limitation to what you can do there this is just a giant flat surface
that you can bolt almost anything to and I like the I'm imagining there's going to be an open
source community of sorts that will go hey I 3D printed this bracket to mount my
X Y and Z here you know here's the model or even even additional like accessories for this
as it as it gets more and more popular in the states exactly and so we're looking forward to
partnering with a lot of different brands when we can take their products and we can confirm yes
this fits so customers can buy it to our top knowing that okay this will fit this will fit this
but you know who had to make a great new bike mount call that fits our that fits
zorogeth boxes they fit you know road cases they fit one up will stay and will bike mounts
they fit everything that you can imagine you know even look the you know the mag track boomerang
everything will fit because there's so many load bars or there's so many tracks on there
that you can make it work one way or another you know I just thought of you you mentioned that
you're coming out with load bars low medium and high that will also bolt to the top of this
so if you if you bolted a mid height load bar to it with your rooftop tent on you've now created
this cubby space where you can put additional gear like underneath the tent yeah you put more shit
yes I can put it exactly that's your wet dream right it's so excited I'm so excited yeah this is
great this is yeah goodness um the uh the accessories like all the the clamps and all that stuff
is that something that can be purchased from you directly to or is it like hey go find whatever you
want to do whatever you want yeah so we actually launched the turtap covers website uh a couple of weeks ago
so on turtap covers dot com uh which is the US website uh you'll be able to find the products
and you'll be able to find accessories and as we build up accessories we're going to be partnering
with a lot of different brands and we'll be you know selling uh their products they are also in
that in other words the idea of the vision would be that as we take and test and confirm things
what the things that work we'll try to sell those items on the same website got it yeah where
you can just buy it in one place so that way when you're building your platform you know what
works and I think a lot of companies are going that route um but the good news is that you know
you don't have to buy a set of tracks to then buy a set of load bars so that you can put your
tent on your loadable traffic cover right you can just bolt your tent onto the traffic cover so
whether it's through little brackets that you've had from home depot or whether it's because
you brought our tent pedestals or it's because you have some front and a quick release you know
a tent mounts from your previous roof rack whatever it is you can use it to just bolt the
tent straight to the cover to the tour top and and your solution is there so our solution out of the
box gives you just so much more opportunity we're not forcing you to buy additional things
to make this thing work for you. If you're looking for a test bed to keep coolers inside the
bed of your truck however you mean to do it whether it's above the the the the the shell or not
like I'm your I'm your guy they don't make it for frontier oh not yet but they do make it
from it we're talking about my frontier they do make it for the ring I've never seen a cooler
kind of flying out of the bed of your truck no because I know how to use tie straps I was talking
oh I said when we left Sima and then I saw this I'm like ultimate combo would be this with the deck
because you can have drawer system and then this thing you can you know I have access to it yeah I honestly
do think that that this type of product changes the way that someone would use their truck
in a more versatile functional manner both both coming from a construction world and the outdoor
world like I could totally see like especially like an independent contractor that has a ladder rack
and toolbox is whatever he's got the the the quick feet all set up so he can Monday through Friday
go do those things and he's got the the tourtop closed in lock so you can't get into it and I got my
tools and stuff in there hey it's Friday night after work we're gonna go off-roading this weekend
open up the tourtop make a couple changes of of foot mounts and now you've got your all your
overlanding gear dialed in and I and I just I don't know of any other product that has that
level of modularity and versatility yeah and you know the the number one question we get from
people who are on the fence is how do I on it you know that remove it from a truck if I needed to go
and fill up some mulch yeah go move a refrigerator yeah yeah so if it's a refrigerator or it's
stove or something from home depot or loads you just slide it on top of the deck yeah and strap it
down you know yeah you need to use the truck with anymore you can just slide it right under the
jet top as long as it's less than like like we talk we always use the the the argument of plywood
well what if I needed low plywood drywall or drywall yeah then you just drywall now that's right
yeah but I don't want to help anyone that's the other thing if I have this you can say look
man I can't I can't do I can't help you move I can't because of the my thing yeah but if you do need
to go to the you know the every good place where they're gonna drop a bucket of mulch loose mulch
in your truck bed it's gonna take you eight minutes to uninstall the whole thing so if you know
I'm gonna be going tomorrow morning Saturday morning we did going doing some mulch runs
yeah then Friday night you just you just uninstall it you just undo some bolts you undo some
clips on the bottom pop off the gas rods you lift it off you put it against the wall and you're done
so you're gonna have to put the mulch runs and like so if you wait if you wait something bad like
I had the mulch runs so I've seen you do the mulch run more than you do mulch run
oh so in Houston right it's very humid here there's lots of grass growing all the time
there's lots of weeds in the gardens and so people like I've never seen so much mulch
in my life oh wow everything in Houston it's crazy every every spring everyone just goes and
buys mulch and it just spends two weeks in certain mulch everywhere wow that doesn't sound like a
good time at all um what's what's the weight of the like for their ranger what's the weight of
the tour top once you pull it off the truck so the tour top that goes up and down the actual
saw the piece is 80 pounds oh ridiculous yeah I think I could even lift that yeah you just I mean
you just pull it off the back and then lay it down on it yeah yeah I mean yeah so yeah it's awkward
because it's so large right I mean it's five foot wide yeah but you used to it you know you know
so it's a little bit it's a little bit tricky but I mean it's very easy for two people and one
person could do it you see the plan how you're going to do it yeah put it off was you drop it down
so just yeah I mean at 80 pounds you slide it off set it down one corner and stand it up and walk it
yeah yeah exactly yeah just put like a blanket or something underneath it you know so it doesn't get
busted the padded padded padded padded padded padded padded padded padded padded padded padded padded
I'm okay with marring it up you know right on the concrete and then dragging it so but yeah I mean
no I would treat it like a like your drone that's not the story yeah
it just go back a couple of years Matt Matt that's not good story that's not good with things
things try to go away from Matt things are not good like and have good stuff you can't have good
things at all tell me that's not meant to interface with the machine yeah no no you know ironically
describe interface yeah so I'm super glad that we got you in the show to talk more about this because
we we have literally sent SEMA in November had a dozen conversations on this show about this product
and hearing about kind of the the the the genesis of it in the iteration over 30 years at least six
okay six okay what just being honest um maybe six on the show and six oh no they're
like oh no we're talking about off the show yeah that doesn't for sure but but it's you know
it's we've been to SEMA multiple times and it's very it's very rare for us to be like stuck
on a product like this um uh these are a lot I have it appreciate that feedback it needs a lot to me
so one of our viewers has a question okay viewers you want to know how is this thing in the dust
so it is dust proof even the locks we use to lock it down those locks are IP67 rated
some trucks are better than others and seating on the sides right so truck beds when you're off
loading the truck bed does move right so there is some torsion some torque happening on the truck
bed and there's some bed flex so when the bed flexes you can you can maybe lose some seal here
but on the SEMA toner the one that you guys saw um Chris was driving from Kansas City to Vegas
and before he did that trip um he was doing a lot of stuff from Arkansas radar Oklahoma
and when he first got the the tours of on his truck after his first trip off road we opened the
tour top the entire bed that all his bags all the gear everything was just covered in like a
quarter inch of dust because the ceiling system is so good that it creates a low pressure environment
and as you're driving you got a hot pressure in the back of the truck and it gets sucked into the
and it gets it gets in from the tailgate so what we tell customers is you really have to get a tailgate
aftermarket tailgate seal kit so as we progress and as we get bigger and better we will probably
have our own tailgate seal kits but as of now today you can buy basic you know extrusion
uh robber extrusions on Amazon flat 25 bucks and that that peel and stick and they do a great job
so Chris got a pair of that from Amazon um just as an experiment and he lined his truck bed on
his tundra because the tundra has huge gaps at the at the tell game when you look down you can see
like this massive gaps so once you seal that he had no more dust so sorry for the long answer but
yes the tours up seals out dust however you can pull dust in from the cavities and the and the
crevices of your truck beds so you need to put in an aftermarket seal kit so I'm wondering if you could
install a uh sort of air pump no no no just just a just a press a pressure crossover tube so
like if you if you had a hole in the bottom it somewhere in the in the bed with a I don't know
half inch quarter inch tube that comes out of the bed and maybe up into the engine department with a
filter on it and you talk about a tour snorkel no yeah exact tour snorkel but essentially you know
hashtag hashtag we own that special but but essentially you know if you're trying if you're trying to
equalize pressure into space it doesn't take a lot it doesn't take a large uh hose to do that
you could use a quarter inch hose it doesn't take a lot of hose either you one two hose at the most
uh you can you get you get the right you get the right hose you get the right hose you get the right
hose in the right spot you can you can relieve pressure right where you need it to be my point being
almost like a different point almost like a diff breather tube um I'm wondering if you if doing that
creates that equalization and pressure so it doesn't have that vacuum effect so big country actually
makes welded truck caps as well instead of together we we have not important to the US but um because
country makes welded truck caps and um on the truckups that have a dust vent which does exactly
which you may actually we basically you open it up it creates influx of air and that stops the you know
the influx of dust um some other companies using different ways our SSR cap have the EVO with a little
with a little uh scoop the little street point yeah super the top so there's you know there's different ways
and essentially we don't all do the same thing right and which which is to create uh uh of pressure
differential eliminate or so to speak um so what you're saying is why why why are we filled
what I'm saying is guys I mean really right yeah well you don't want dust on your shit dude
maybe I do maybe I do maybe it shows that I actually went off-roading and I wear it
well we don't have to worry about that anymore so where so the everything right now is uh uh you
can find all of the products that we talked about at at Rugged Mountain Supply or the tourtop itself
is very uh by itself at tourtopcovers.com right yeah yeah that's great and so we are you know
we didn't really want to be direct to customer uh direct to customer business we want to work with
partners around the US and ship to installers around the country so we want people to be able to go
to their local traffic cover shop their local accessory shop their local after and go look at one
look at a you know look at the demo unit like a little scale model and have one available to install
so we are really focused on building a dealership network around the country um we obviously in
early days but that's why we went to SEMA right we went to SEMA to find the right partners to work
with so we can have the product in front of our people with my place um but yeah for the moment
today tourtopcovers.com and Rugged Mountain.com are the two places we can bother now what other than
couple yuckel heads uh with microphones talking to you with SEMA what was the rest of the
the SEMA experience like what was the feedback light so the the for those of you for those of
the listeners who haven't been to SEMA it's an amazing experience it was my first time at SEMA I didn't
know what to expect but I've been to many large shows before I was honestly blown away so it was just
absolutely amazing uh to to experience the the high octane uh you know it's almost like it's
in your veins yeah when you get there there's like this vibration and there's an energy and there's
all these amazing companies where you know some company you've never heard of some companies you've
always seen but you've never actually seen the product in real life and you can see this all at SEMA
so it wasn't amazing experience to be there what was very humbling was on the first morning of SEMA
they have the award ceremony and the the the the kikok breakfast right so the kikok breakfast happens
on the Tuesday and on a Monday there's a bunch of judges who judge all the brand new products
in a bunch of different categories so we were entered in the truck SUV and um then category let's
pretty be category and that includes any product for trucks and SUVs that's a huge category
we won the runner up for base new product for 2023 at SEMA with the tour top um and we were very
very humble but that award because you know we knew what we have we weren't sure if the rest of
the world's gonna understand what it is that we have um and when you look at the product and you
experience it and you open and close it and you look at it you might not get what the opportunity
what the potential for this thing really is so all the big names came to our booth on that Tuesday
right so all the big distributors a lot of the big manufacturers some of them who are
really competitors and shouldn't have been in our booth were in our booth
potentially or blatantly you know some of them were trying to hide their badges
yeah and some of them were just like well who the heck are you guys and where did this come from
so we purposefully kept low profile all through development because we had to get our IP in place
we had to make sure that we had our ducks in a row so when we get to SEMA we really surprised
everybody um and and I think we achieved that so that was you know we succeeded in a lot of
on a lot of ways but um the feedback what has been and immense and it's been amazing um we had a
lot of different uh companies even from all over the world you know like they were
Toyota distributors in Israel and in Japan and in South America who were attending SEMA to look
for new products and all of these guys have Toyota highlights in their countries and you know
they want to get the the turts up for their countries and so just from an international point of
use well you know a lot of doors were open for this product through the SEMA experience and I
think there's no show in the world they can do that for you so if you're not a SEMA it's almost like
he doesn't resist you know within the eyes of the automotive athletic community and so for for
us to get that award um and get that recognition you know that was a huge thing um but for me personally
the experience was amazing you know and a Ken block uh race is so he um he was the keynote speaker
or the guest of honor at that breakfast um and later that when we were in the north hall for you
for those listeners who don't know the north hall is right next to um the uh there's like a track
where people just they don't know for five days yeah I think yeah they just there's smoke tires
for a straight and the wind was just blowing in a certain way all of that smell of that bird
grubber and octane we just come into our north hall and it was just this amazing feeling
and we watched the the Ken block um Jimcana um but what the oh there was the uh uh with the
uh there was a there's a different name for the one he didn't vagus with the electric or
the electric Audi quadro um that was amazing um so there was just so many things that you know
for me as a as an auto enthusiast yeah it was just an amazing experience that's very cool and
and I do agree with your with your assessment about like seeing in immediately you're like
oh this is cool this is great but I feel like as we walked away I think there was more conversation
around oh you know what you know what else do you could do with that what if you also did you know
and I think I think it takes a while for your brain to wrap around the capabilities but then you
realize you can bolt up under it too when you're like dude you can hang your first aid kit your
axe your shoulders like all those under there yeah yes exactly so just you just said something
they're written for we haven't even spoken about that so we've got multi panels coming we've got
gun racks coming we've got all kinds of cool little things coming um all the accessories I mean
they're just going to keep on rolling and rolling but you're right you know Cody when you
got walked away uh and had those epiphanies we had people in the booth spending 10 minutes looking at
the product they see the you know the quiet cat e-bike the zorgas case the max tracks they were
Jerry cans they were all the stuff and I would look at this in for 10 minutes and F10 was
it would ask us so can you like bolt stuff onto this and it's look at it's because that this
thing is just so different right it's not apparent it's it's so obvious but it's not always apparent
yeah yeah um people have become used to the idea that your bit cover has to either roll
or flip back yeah or fold or lift up a camp hold anything yeah that my my exposure to bed
covers was a company vehicles they had fiberglass thing that was absolute crap and you couldn't
put anything on it and it would didn't close right I mean this is this is a very different experience
this is a very different product and so it really gives you everything if you want functionality
and versatility in bed cover then this would really be on your list of things to look at now
is it the answer for everybody of course not right they are going to be cases where people would
prefer something that rolls they will be case where people prefer something that rolls and that falls
up and so you know this is just going to be one of the options in the market but we think within
category of people looking for functionality and versatility in addition to having all the other boxes
take the security of safety the way to prove that all that stuff we could do those things yeah but
then we could do so much more yeah I don't think there's nothing on the market today that's the
right solution for everybody and I don't think that anybody will create they never will yeah there's
never you're not gonna be able to create but what what you guys did was to take an existing segment
of people that go I want a truck bed cover and I'm willing to sacrifice the functionality of
carrying a load and when you don't have to do that you can have the truck bed cover and still carry
as much as you would in your truck bed or on a bed rack my trucking with a bed cover and I love that
bed cover but that's all it did yeah it was just it was just a bed cover yeah to build a rack to carry
all your other shit yeah I had to put a rack above the bed cover carry the stuff I wanted to
cover yeah well what timeline wise like when do you when do you think additional products are
coming out as you guys are rolling the stuff out on the website do you have any idea of what
that is a release is going to look like yeah so so right now today we've got the current
the current jinn thunder which is the new one the Tacoma which is the current jinn and the
previous jinn so it's back to 2015 we've got the F-150 current jinn and previous jinn because they're
the same bed so let's go back to I think 2015 is all and that's all short bed right and we also have
the full-rangeer and the radiator the next one's coming out will be the the ram and the sobrado
1500s short bed we're busy with the graphic testing and prototyping of those right now so we
have a functional version of that here in Houston we're busy testing them busy changing the
fitment some fitment solutions and so we hope to have them to market on our next ship and we're
just going to be arriving in August late August and it's September so but at the end of summer
beginning of fall we'll have the ram and the silver auto and right after that we'll start work
will have work already completed on the frontiers and also going back to the previous generation
of the thunder out the F-150 and the sobrado ram as well so a lot of work happening on the actual
products and then on the accessories line we have the marketing units here for the loadbars for the
traction board mounts we've got already got a lot of inventory on bicycle mounts and universal
block mounts for boxes so they work really well with ammo boxes you're not the front
under wolf backs work with him, small zardis boxes work with him so there's a lot of
universal features about those boxes that work but what we really keep on doing also is working
on the underside so having set sized modipandons they work for either the side of your top
or for your top angle size they're like a U-shaped modipandon so on the side you're
starting to get down the side you're dropping you can actually reach into that you know
in the front and you can have sun and small like flashlight or a you know something that you
would need in a moment's notice and that you would use very often you can just put it right there
but something I'm very excited about is a rifle case so you know for the last five generations
in America trucks have been in one way shape or form a rifle case right so you would have
in the back of your hayday crack you would have you know hunting rifles or your shotgun or something
this is going back obviously at the future generations and these days you know you can't really
ride around with your shotgun or your rifle on the back window anymore but in some in some
parts of the country you so can but not different in the city yeah you know so we often look
absolutely new in California yeah all right so we've been working for solutions for the
for the for the rifle guys and so we're working closely with Riko and magazine to you know make
sure we Riko of course sorry to make sure we design something that's you know that fits right
for their demographic and their readers um and so um and so that was a famous plug but you know
I think they're a great magazine and they do a really good job of capturing what what
overlaiders campers and so our needs but um we're working on a gun case that will go on the
underside of the turtops so if you open the turtops there'll be a gun case that'll be you know
a head height and then you can open it and obviously that's lockable yeah I'd say if that
were to prove as well so inside your locked and sealed turtops cover you will have a rifle case
that as you open it it'll pop down and you'll have obviously access you know you know you can
go ahead uh I'm sorry uh I make sense but you know how like um Milwaukee,
Reobee all at least two manufacturers have these those inner locking toolbox is now
you went from Milwaukee to Reobee because I I know that those one of those two are tool companies
I've I've made plenty of stuff with my green tools and I'm super happy with it
my so Cody Cody the the Milwaukee pack out base plate yes and that's where I was going like I could
so imagine imagine the pack out like you open up your truck bed cover and you've got your
first aid pack out your kitchen pack out your recovery pack out like like all of that modular
setup in underneath the truck bed hold on I'm gonna retract my last timing where I said the
ultimate combo would be the cover and the deck now there's a picture on their website that has that
slide apparently it's coming soon oh I see so you can have this the cover with the bed slide
with the bed slide yes and so and so actually at more expo in Missouri in Springfield
we had the bed slide in the Tundra and inside the bit on the bed slide we had a fridge
the stove and a Milwaukee pack out with a radio yeah that's the that's the picture I'm looking
yeah yeah it's yeah it's off to look it has my dirt bike helmet right there sir you know that
one's not scaled up on the side oh that's right yeah so yeah so you know this is exactly what
we're talking about we're trying to collaborate with brands that have found success in products that
are made to be universal and we want to make those product work with our product to make sure
that they are truly universal and people can buy with confidence knowing that they don't have to
figure out a way to make these things work together the tour top and the tour slide are so
almost agnostic when it comes to accessories yeah you could probably either direct bolt something
or have a very basic go between to make it work together yeah yeah yeah yeah look again and I know
we've been gushing over this thing all on my but we truly we truly we're super excited about this
product when we saw it at SEMA and and learning more about it just I think makes me that much
more excited about it so anybody that hasn't already go to either ruggedbound.com to see all of the
cool stuff that we just talked about tonight or tour top covers dot com to see specifically the tour
top stuff and then follow them on instagram what's the instagram handle it's uh uh
it's rugged bound is into it and tour top covers okay u s is on yeah tour top so I really think that
as these get more uh utilize my utilizing more traction you're going to see some really cool setups
and it's going to become one of those things where you're like oh yeah everybody's got one of those
right um we're sorry I'm just now picking up the YouTube no no we're uh are you going
are you going to any uh upcoming events or anything any of the other x-x bows or or anything
that people can go see this in person yeah so um the can you guys still hear me because I think
yeah we're also okay um yeah so the um the rig the responseer with the for the slant campaign
that will be going from x-x-x up to um Pacific Northwest and so they'll be going to the country so
I will be at Pacific Northwest again um and then we have our sites set on really attending a lot of
expose next year so when we have you know much more accessories much more uh coverage on different
models so this year is officially basically launch here we have a lot of work to do with marketing
with a lot of work to do with building out ad copy and marketing copy you know we got to really show
people um what this thing can do and so you need to show them you know photos and videos of different
kind of trucks and different places doing different things so that's what we're working on right
to help build out the launch here um but next year we will definitely be at all the big shows um
you know photo for a much more personal experience are you at are you going to go to see
me again this year uh we won't be going to see me again this year um we're going to give
see my skip this year we have so many hours in the fire from Seema from last year that we think yeah
it's crazy so we rather focus on fulfilling partnerships fulfilling deals you know and committing
you know follow through with commitments that we've made from Capreda Seema then going to the next one
this year and taking on more than we can handle yeah there is you know we're still a very small brand
production capacity is limited and so we've got a lot of things to grow in scale um and so we've
really come in and made a splash at the last Seema so we're going to give you the Seema unfortunately
we're going to skip I will probably be there so I will be visiting Seema myself but we won't be
exhibiting okay well let's stay in contact and catch up with you uh at Seema because I'm sure
that's uh I'm sure we'll be there um but again the super great product I think you guys are doing a
great job uh I love all of the and uh I love the fact that I got to experience the ostrich wing
without knowing and had any connection with you until after the fact like Jose and I both talked
about how cool that thing was so all the way around man uh I feel like you guys are doing really good
stuff and I'm looking forward to seeing this time next year when you start really hitting the
circuit hard with these uh expose I'm really looking forward to seeing where tour top goes and and
what kind of things you guys have accomplished so we've been going back and forth for a while trying
to get you on the show I really appreciate your time uh is there anything else you want to tell
the listeners before we let you uh have your night back yeah so um bolt on is South African jerky that's
I want to leave you with that message all right so I bet that is really really good dude so for Cody
thank you so much for having us on Jose Casey Matt was very nice to talk to you guys um we really
appreciate it thank you for spending what almost two hours with me yeah um I hope for everyone
who's still sitting around listening uh you had a bit of time and learn something I'm sure they
did yeah thanks for supporting us guys on the trail yeah uh and it's Emma uh so we'll see there thank
you so much man you have a great night 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
tik tok we are the trailchacers 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 do you think thank you so much.
Hey Matt how's that new car Matt? Why don't you guys recap uh whatever the fuck you guys did
it flag step no no we'll get to flag step another time it's not important it is I think I think
you guys made a lot of uh a lot of really good connections we made a ton of connections we did all
kinds of networking we hobbed and knobbed and I want to hear about like uh I'm a lot of knobbing
but I want to hear about how many knobs you have all of all all of them any anyone we could find
I went to that like uh so it's a lot of thoughts this weekend so yes I was thinking a lot
every time Jose and I walked by something interesting I would say you know what I think
who sleeps on what time of the bed if you guys we had who said we slept two beds in two beds in
one room so no I got a picture you guys were both in the same bed so I remember seeing
so I think you're two beds in that room yeah there was I don't know I've never seen those I don't know
those are actually I've seen it was a shark eyes super similar to shark eyes only a little more
so sexy yeah so so how was uh I was driving the Ford Matt I was driving my ranger the last 24
hours first of all I'd like to thank you for allowing me to drive the ranger what are you driving right now
I only I only let you drive the ranger so for this exact moment okay for this so what are you driving right now
what's outside in the front it's a Chevy Trevor's 2000 oh my god it's a Chevy
oh I can't do we want to go down really I kind of feel like I'm pretty
dejected like I'm just are you not having it I look let me let me explain I'll do the quick
version for Matt break it down break it down Matt what you we had we had all last week
all of the conversation last week is about what Matt should do Matt ignored all of us and went
and get his own thing and purchased a vehicle it was a used vehicle he got a good deal for it
it was in his price range great um as as as as how was for all that vehicle is that how they
yes I take it there's miles so so so the here's the thing for anybody that's purchased a vehicle
from a dealership uh and Casey you tell me how you feel about dealerships if you agree but uh dealerships
fucking suck just don't want to I don't want to go back through like the the gauntlet that I went
near the last week on this isn't you because I'm not I'm not doing this no no I don't I know I know
because it's gonna elaborate it's so he gets a vehicle not my head he gets a vehicle and it has a
couple little things that need to be done very minor very minor hey why don't you bring it back on
Tuesday great yeah to be honest with you had I know it would it was this much uh just just a
you know so problematic yeah I would have wouldn't take care of myself yeah and so they were like
yeah come back on Tuesday then he gets a text on Monday that says hey can you be here at 330 he shows
up at 330 calls me and says hey man I'm gonna be down the street from your house can you pick me up
sure you don't probably I'm unemployed I got nothing going on so he gets there and and uh they say
it's gonna take a couple out he gets there to drop off the vehicle 330 and the service guys like
what are you doing here you're supposed to be here tomorrow and he's like no look man this guy
texted me and told me to show it today and nobody knows if the guy that needs to make the little
repair is even there so it becomes a fiasco I pick him up at 4 I'm not in my head right now you're
mailing this I pick him up at 4 and he says jumps in the truck I'm on the phone with Casey I tried
to take off before he was even in the truck because I was making a little return and tried to kill
yeah and so I figured it was like well I mean I did ask for a ride he said he said yeah they just
need a couple hours so I'm gonna hang out of your house so we come back to my house I made turkey meat
burritos and I made more of a taco at a year turkey meat or it was chicken well I had I had ground
turkey meat and shredded chicken yes okay both both both both delicious came out really good on the
blackstone super happy so it gets to be six uh thirty and I'm like have you heard anything
it was yeah and Matt's like let me call and he calls the dealership and he's like hey yeah I'm
trying to get a status on my car it's it's at the service department and they're like no man
service went home at six that's just close what the f yes yeah I know okay that it might be closed but
I'm special like this guy here on my car so it it's six thirty I liked your summation
after after multiple phone calls it's basically like yeah man service has gone they're not done
so he's sitting here and he had to take my truck home because I wasn't gonna drive him home
and he's got back affecting uh the one person that worries in his house they're her schedule so
now because now I plan no she she had said she'd already canceled those plans before this happened okay
well I felt horrible no no so so so so so Matt takes my truck home drives my truck to work
and then I'm like just hey you gotta come to the house tomorrow anyways just come over kind of early
we'll go down and pick up your car so he gets here like at three I mean it's three thirty yeah
and he's like he walks in he's like yeah they just they just need a couple more hours and I'm like
couple they only need two hours yesterday and there's still need a couple hours it's three o'clock
the following day this this this depicts uh uh the wrap on uh the steering wheel wrap and a couple
on a wheel yeah and uh so he's like yeah they need a couple hours it gets to be five o'clock
we had made a plan of getting on the show early the four of us to talk about what happened at
Expo and some things and it's five o'clock and I was like dude have you heard anything he calls
them at five o'clock and they're like no man no man not done gonna need a good another day and he
I I was proud of you because you you got up you walked out of the studio but we had the window open
and you're like are you fucking kidding me the which is exactly what I would have said
so I'm not the dinner for you fucking oh for sure for sure so then so then Matt
Jose after drive Matt down to the dealership to get a rental car I'm not running that fucking thing
it's a loner I'm saying they gave you a traverse to dry because that's that's because there's
the shittiest car we have because because because they needed to fix a steering wheel wrap
and it takes three days this is now gonna be the third day it was special steering wheel
it must be a super special steering wheel space age stuff does it come with like vibrating
sensors am I I mean are we gonna do what can I mention what I bought that's entirely
should I be embarrassed by it's actually up to you I was fucking clown like and roasted
I sent a picture I don't let's not disclose yet but I would actually like in the chat room
because just to validate the duchiness apparently I was very excited on Saturday it's like
look at the new commuter and I took like three photos I sent it to like our little group
and it was like hammer time fuck you duch bag dick head you know whatever and I was like
dude I literally going slightly with papers like you know what I was expecting I thought like
oh could you you learned that Matt you know or something you know everybody that drives
what it's cars is a duch bag you have you driven one of those cars I've been in one
I've been in one and the guy driving was a huge bag wait hold no that that still might be true
but I'll gladly do label the fucking dick head he's mad I'm a hundred percent sure
I didn't say anything negative I didn't I'm looking back at you yeah I don't think I called you
I didn't drive you as glad you said at the time I did not say anything now I did not
Where's there it was on the environment oh I don't know shit about that
I'm looking at the group text and I did not there's nothing negative for me
I think the first comment was from me and I said shit
Casey Casey says sick and now and then Jose says fuck off you didn't buy that
And then I don't ever need to start talking about well frontiers up for sale
He's off the fucking show I just I said I did change my date from when he's gonna be back on the trail
I said all I said was he'll never wheel again. Yeah the frontiers going up the frontiers going up for sale in two months
Yeah, and then that's it. I changed my date from Memorial Day 2024 to Memorial Day 2025 all all blank drivers are douchebags
That's your comment. Oh shit. I didn't say that
Fucking directly that was direct. Apparently apparently I said that I'm what was I drinking was I drinking an expo?
No, no, can you have downballs? I had yeah, were you drinking metal? Maybe. Well, whatever
Jose may have slid me a roofy in the room. So we weren't the mountains and he didn't kind of high altitude
So the next day I did get to drive this mythical vehicle to work yesterday before I talked about it. It's very disappointed in you
He doesn't even know what you got
The worst option
So I did like in the parking lot like a couple of the plumbers that I'm chummy with I'm like
Hey guys, you know, look at what I'm driving and like their head dropped and just went
Yeah, I mean your full project manager now. I guess and you know what?
So you'll credibility you call
Whatever, I took that as a compliment like thank you. You could have you could have worked in the field for 25 years
You are and you know that's like five year you're negative experience
You don't have any more it's all got it's all got yes the last little bit of call is fucking just went away disappeared
Yeah, good. It's a good. I was trying to I bought a Tesla
I bought a Tesla and I'll tell the story really quick
Monty and I were looking for vehicles
After some discussion and thankfully we were able to borrow
Mom and Dad's trucks so I could take the the
Explore to work last week, which is really nice
It really was I mean you know sitting in traffic. It's a comfortable vehicle on the highway. It's great and so that was like
That's like very important because I would start it talking to Monty like you know what
Why don't you just hang on to your dad's truck and I'll just keep driving the explorer
It's nice yeah and then that all of a sudden the imperative to get me if you go yeah was it was very important that I get some last week
So we dropped off the kids or the kids went with grandma on Friday night and
So that meant Saturday was let's let's figure this out
And I had already been pre to pre approved for
For for alone through my bank so it was like
That's the way to go by the way. Trying as much leverage as you can pre approved for alone
You know what your payment is going in your land. This is what I got. Yeah. I don't want this
I don't want that you know whatever it makes a lot easier so I had had a I had had a Tesla three
I was pre approved for a model three at used I bought a used Tesla
I'm buying a brand new Tesla. I don't have that kind of money. You know they're not as I don't know
I was like oh your craze you must be you know whenever I didn't it wasn't that much out of pocket
I put nothing down
Anyhow
You know I went to Citrus Ford and they had already sold the one that I was pre to prove like all right
That's bummer but then we had a plan so I test drove a couple other electric vehicles you know in Aria
That I was gonna get I was pre approved for a lease a Kona and there was something else
And then you know checking again because it was like well, I really want to try a Tesla
Through my bank you can go through like hey, here's one over here like they already have the
Whether it's a deal with the dealer or however they're identified that was one at Rock Honda, you know right by the house
And I went did that test drive without money and good and I walked back
With a huge grant on my face like it was like
Nope, this is
This is me this is like a it's just a it's like a fucking dagger that
Hals ass it just
It's like it does it all like I don't know it's it's thrilling to drive does it do the punchball
It would fucking do the punchball
It's you motor or the poor motor
I don't know it's just a model right yeah, it's probably just single motor it's the standard model or whatever
It's not it's not going to the punchball, but
Anyhow like if you're on the on the freeway doing 75 and you punch it it'll pin you in the seat oh
There it pins you in the seat when when you want to get pinned in the seat they are doesn't
Manor's in their amazing and it's machinery and again. It's like the it's like a really super nice comfortable
Go-kart because it's planted it's low and like I said yesterday morning first day
I got to drive it to work. I was getting on the
Transition from the south 15 to the west 10 and like I could do that
Look this is what I do I'm a I'm a fucking asshole. I drive as fast as I can sometimes
Just to see if I can do it. So if I'm in the front tier I could do like 70
75 and the wheels fucking shaking you know like but I I did it you know like because that's how I I drive
Maybe it's bad you know whatever I did that shit at 80 no fucking problem in that car yesterday
It was like honor rail and then I I hit the throttle even more as I came out and it just
It like a rubber band. I can't describe it. It's like all you can do is in your mind it's just
Like just fucking shot out of a cannon. I'm already doing 80, you know, and it just shot out at that's just supremely
exhilarating right then you know there's a couple of instances where
Why is everybody driving so slow you know whatever and you just
You know you have to hammer the throttle you just start
Slightly pressing on it and it's like start track or whatever you just you start kind of seeing things like moving by like like I'm going to work
And I passed three cars and I looked down this you know the speedo 97 miles and I were like holy shit
Holy shit I was just doing
70 a
Two seconds ago like so again. Yes. It's a dude. She car
I'll agree with that, but I guess I'm a douchebag. I guess I'm saying it's going
Yeah, now you're a exterior match. Yeah, I mean we yeah, we gave you shit, but just the
The incompetence and absolute
Inability to communicate from this dealership has been catastrophic it really has been because again
I thought I gave a lesson on dealerships last week you did you did and you know my
Like I said that there there was two issues that the one issue was like a couple of rims were marred
Slightly like I didn't even notice him
But they did and they're like oh, we'll take care of that
Okay cool and then the one thing that was like pretty pretty obvious was on the top of the steering wheel
It was like like Indian burn imagine you just kept fucking rubbing on a leather. I'm steering wheel
It went right
Really dry
But really dry so it was peeling away at the top and I was like yeah, I mean if you guys could take care of that that's fine
So in my mind we're talking like I don't know man a two-hour thing how how fucking long can that take
You didn't think it was in be a multi-day fucking thing. Yeah, so that's why I I lit up that guy today
Because again sure recorded after after yesterday and it was like hey man
I'm dropping this off. I don't know what time your fucking clothes
I don't know whether you're doing me a favor. I don't know what the fuck
You just said you would take care of this in two or three hours. That means I'll be back in two or three
Fucking hours because you have my car. I just drove here from work, you know, and so
This morning and money had a great idea. She's like look
That's the other crazy thing is like the range anxiety is like legit because I don't have the car set up for
Tesla charging it and
I don't have the adapter to just plug it in like you know find a universal station or something to plug it in
I have to plug it in at home, which I was able to put in a 220 volt plug and whatever
It charged really fast. I'm happy with that
But now I'm dropping it off at this place
They fucking dropped it off
Jesus so on Saturday they had a detail this fucking thing
It's Aaron Chrysler Dodge and fucking Norco. I'll just tell you. I'm really not fucking happy
I don't read and you know we don't do that. We typically do not
But I'm that I'm that upset about it so I'm just gonna say fuck
I'm really disappointed with these guys. Yeah, I would not buy anything from them if I were you guys stay the fuck away from this place
You just just assumes when you pull up to drop your car off that you already know your fuck and it's gonna be a hassle like it
Like you know they wouldn't have come there if they didn't already know that to be honest with you
I don't know if it's it's like they're just inept and they they're just not that
Well organized or didn't just nobody gives a shit. It's one of the other
But either way when I bought the car on Saturday evening
I said hey, you know great we shook hand, you know, I signed a paperwork and the cart needed to be detailed
And they're like hey, we'll just drop it off at your house like an eight o'clock is that cool
After we detail it that's amazing. Yeah. Thank you. That's great
And so and I go hey can you just make sure to plug it in because when I test drove it it had like 22% charge
Can you can you charge it while you're detailing you know so that we're not dropping it off dead
They fucking dropped it off dead. It had a 4% charge
So again like we can you know it's just disappointing, right?
It's eight o'clock
Did the guys text me ham around the corner be there in five minutes me and the kids and money are coming out
It's like come look at the spaceship. I just bought you know, it's kind of like
Like a fucking Jesse's mobile, you know, it's just 10% charge
We could drive around the block real quick mother fucker that's exactly what happened and he comes out and he's all hey
Yeah, so I barely got it here
We mean we mean you barely got it here. Well, you know
It's not a lot of charge on or whatever did we we fucking talked about you were gonna fucking plug it in or whatever
But you know so so again
Just so everybody knows like in that if you're thinking of buying a Tesla from a you as a used vehicle from somewhere not Tesla
They don't know what they didn't mean that they yeah that doesn't mean they know how to
Speak to the vehicle that doesn't mean that so these are all things look it's kind of I don't want to say it's my fuck up
I don't know if it's fucked up or not. I just know
Nobody was able to speak to when I drove the Aria the Nissan Aria that guy broke down everything every control device
Look at all this cool shit like oh wow. Okay. He spoke to it. Well
When I bought this Tesla I think I knew more about the Tesla and I didn't know that much about it
Then the salesman so that was very disappointing and then dude you fucking dropped that shit off at my house
Would just a 110 volt cord to plug it in. I got a good work on Monday, you know, and it's like
Can I drive this on my been you know, so I I mean I did it plug it in and the next day I was able to put it in a
220 volt and thank God Amazon
You could like within say by 7 a.m. I had the level two cord so
By three four clocks suddenly afternoon. I had it plugged in and it it was fully charged by nine o'clock at night
Like four and a half hours. It was fully charged
That's great. So I'm set up for that
But still do these guys dropped it off just dead and just went
man, you know
Kind of like
Fuck you here's your car
Fuck head that that's like yeah right now going through it. That's that's the impression I get is like
They don't you didn't even give a shit no you could have figured I had a fucking charge it, you know, whatever
They don't have to do the dealership imagine somebody with a
Jeep and traded in for a Tesla and that you wouldn't bought a Jeep off of a tent
No that that's what I'm saying you could like you know
Who could have lockers just did it they'd be like do you I don't know be be aware of that
So again, I'm not like trashing my car. I've driven it all of half a day you know or whatever
And then you know as far as like rolling into you know the last couple of days and then I'm trying to take care of this
a fucking
The pull-through here when it wrapping a steering wheel, you know and you know like it
So going back to what money was saying
Okay, so they've had the car now overnight
Make sure you have enough power to get home. Yeah because I don't have the Tesla
I don't have the car set up to where I can just go to a Tesla charger and I don't have the adapter for or whatever
So you can come back to miles for the third night in a row and plug in here
I plug in here like the 110 volt like yeah, that's not that's not what's that gonna get me?
I have no idea these are all like things that I'm learning on the fly I've already bought this fucking car and
you know
I call this guy this morning at nine o'clock. Hey, guy
I'm not gonna trash the guy. I'll trash that fucking dealership though and I said hey, you know how's it going with the
With my Tesla. Oh, yeah, we're gonna have a taken care of and I said look, okay, that's great
Please text me or call me at noon so that I know how things are going and if you could please
Make sure to plug it in now however whatever means that you can like plug it in
I don't know if you're gonna leave it on with the air running because I don't know if that's a thing or not
I don't know if it works that way you just left the fucking key in it. Yeah, it's just a it's just a card
But I was very adamant like
Make sure not to just fucking you fucking me over when you drop that off with four fucking percent
Don't tell me it's done and now there's five percent
I'm supposed to get up to fucking Fontana from Norco, you know
Cuz that's how
To be honest with you how concern I was that they didn't give a shit that they did not give a shit
No, they literally walked away if they closed up for the night the night prior. Yeah, they didn't even tell me
Like yeah, yeah, yeah, they didn't even tell me like uh, you know, hey man
You're gonna we're gonna need this tomorrow like they gave they gave no fourth on to like
Hey man, I need this vehicle. You know this is a fucking steering wheel by the way. Yeah, like do it if I didn't know
I was gonna have to go through this hey fuck off. I'll just put on like a auto zone fucking
Yeah, I don't give a shit. It's not that big of a deal to me. It's got white teeth. They're gonna look like shit in a month or two
Anyhow, but whatever. I'm not gonna go. I don't want to go down that road
But anyhow when he when I had to
Continually call this guy
Today and he I got no response. You know, I got ghosted at two o'clock because I told him
Please call me it noon. I didn't get a call or text at noon. He didn't answer the phone at two
And okay, well, I started driving home at three o'clock. I called him. He did answer oh we need a couple more hours
And I knew right there like this is not gonna go well. It's just not gonna go well
Got here
Hosatios have whatever and that's when the flames
You know everything went up in in flames because I called him at five
We're gonna need it tomorrow and it's like fuck man. If you to tell me at nine
When the last time I spoke to you that you needed for another day
I could have made a range of range. I could have done something. I would have still cast you out
I'd have still said like what the what the fuck man
But you know to get ignored and just not be put on like that
Priority it's like yeah, you're you're you're you don't matter. You've already signed the paper work
You don't matter now so again in my mind. It's like well
You know fuck you guys again. I did I
Can't I what I thought I'm for about ten minutes and just said what are you gonna do? I have to go to work with the fuck
You're gonna do come down here and get a car and so the Jose dropped me down there and then and I saw him there and I said dude
You know I
I'm just trying to you know, I'm just trying to get to work
You know I rear it in a calm manner
You know reiterated all the things like if you just told me at noon or whatever like this wouldn't have been a big scenario
I wouldn't have been here but I still would have been upset. Yeah. It's the fact that I was ignored and I had to keep reaching out to you for
these updates. What do you say? He started blaming the vendor being like a
Not a renegade, but oh you don't know this guy. I mean he does amazing work, but if I tell him I need to
He'll just tell me to fuck off or whatever and it's and that's not your problem. That really isn't my problem
He started blaming the vendor right? Yeah 100% and that's what I
I made a point of saying yeah, right? Hey, can you stop? I'm kidding the table. Sorry
Matt the last two weeks have just beat this shit out of the table
Vert
I got heavy hands. I got a hand. I got a finger. Those are on worker hands anymore. No, you're gonna break your nail
so
Whatever when
You know, he set up the vehicle arrangement and I had to sign out for a loan or whatever. He just I got to go and he took off like all powder
And I just don't give a shit, you know accountability
Yeah, that's that again or and I told him dude I deal with fucking more vent vendors tell me about fucking
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're hurting cats every day
Yeah, with a bat. Yeah, exactly
I don't want to hear it. It's accountability. You've got to you got to step and go, you know, and I should have asked this guy
You know whatever I should have been because again. I was I went out of my way because I knew the things were getting sketchy here
Whatever, please just just just be out front just be forward and and he wasn't and so
You know at the end of the day, I have this loaner car. I'm gonna go fucking drive to work tomorrow
And I'm gonna I'm gonna press this guy a couple of times like and then I'm 50 50
I'm really you know, he said they're like the
The impulse for you or whatever the steering wheel's been fixed and it just needs to dry and set up and then some final things or whatever
That's that's what needs to be done tomorrow. Elon Musk has to you know, but either way dude
This is now the third time
You've had to drive to that dealership for a car that you own this is now the third day
Fucking steering wheel like again. What what is the the time? What is my time worth? What is their time worth?
They just gave me a loaner vehicle for fuck sake
I should go robber god damn bank or drive the thing off a fucking cliff like again. It's just over a steering wheel
You know like a steering wheel cover like you know, so it really is
I'm tired to be honest with you. I'm I'm just tired. Oh, I'm pretty worked
I've been worked up for a few days now
Rightfully so and it's exhausting and and I know you guys
I you know when you were telling tell me about the Volvo and the issues that you guys are having and I just thought I don't know if I could deal with that
And you know what I can't I fucking can and thankfully. Well, it's not over yet
Yeah, but it's not like a six week span
But still, it's like the ineptitude like the
Fuck man, just like do you care about your job like that your job is to
You know to to to service to your customers or whatever. Make sure that
Make sure they're happy or you try and like that's that needs to be serviced, okay? Yeah
And I would not sound like this this week at all that all
I am sorry that you had that experience because to your point we Tammy and I dealt with it
But I'm gonna have money and I know what that's like you were talking about last night tonight
You had a deal with me being over here, but I do thank you. Yeah, you are welcome back to hang out at any time
Thank you and I and I I enjoyed driving the ranger today
It is different like that that things got a lot of
Like as far as the drive tank drive trains concerned like it handles the extra weight
Yeah, but you feel it like when you're at speed turning or whatever that thing is yeah, and I I've noticed that
Well, we talked about this a little bit like I need to I need to put a couple more pounds of air in the back tires on these tires
Versus the last tires we had the last tires we had were stiffer well, they're f rated yeah
Now the the the
Rodians were f yeah, so so there's a little bit more wobble on the if you get off on this yeah, and
I I noticed it on the way home from flag staff. I need to put another couple pounds of pressure in there
Well look dude, I
We've been giving you a hard time the last couple days just because it's fun
But you're obviously not having fun and it sucks to buy a vehicle and then
Have to be in the situation where you don't have the vehicle and
So that sucks those people suck and I'm sorry that you have to do with it
I guess that the last thing again. I would like to reiterate if you're gonna buy a used Tesla
Understand that you're gonna be if you're not like maybe Jose like I maybe I can tag Jose in and give me some some training
But I got very little it literally your your it seems like a
Like a spaceship like it's a super technical like if to be fair
That's what I might put on that's what I said I said I've seen Matt tried to log into a computer
There's no fucking way he's gonna be able to drive a Tesla
My brother-in-law bought his brand new from Tesla
They just like okay here your keys you it's part right over there same thing. Oh wow
When you want to go pick it up you're like what the fuck you're gonna show me how the fuck this thing works
So like I said I had it on that Sunday because I charged it on the 110 volt you know my garage overnight
So I had like 30% and I felt like
Like a total douchebag because I went to home depot in a Tesla to buy like my breakers and
Switches cable or whatever I'm like holy shit. I'm gonna have oh you dude you
That guy become that guy
Did you should you wear did you wear a heart with a dolly on it?
Did you wear uh did you wear loafers with no socks when you're there?
Leaded pants. Yeah sure. Yeah tucked in t-shirt. Oh no. I mean I don't have that stuff. Yeah, maybe all of all it's
Phase two. Yeah. It's like my Lancus or a tire. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I have years to to move my way into that Tesla tire
I don't know. I think with the Tesla you in your that's day one dude. That's just all outfit. That's
I mean I wear cackies and polos like every day, right? Yeah, but I'm gonna be wearing the Lancus or he has to have time to
Err now if it's the Tesla you are back. Yeah, you're doing one. Okay. All right. Yeah, but there was like I just really quick
You know just tooled around town. I went through like 10% of the battery like
Just fucking around like
I probably drove 10 miles total
They were like a fool for I don't like every time because it was like
Wee you know whatever, but there was that concern even though it was fully charged Sunday night
All right, I got like 200 miles to get to work him back. But that's the thing is that enough like his that you know
That's the thing like you're always gonna be thinking about
Well, that's why you got him every day. No, when he's charging dude, but yeah
He's always be charging. Yeah, sure. He's offering a course on the trip. I told you he's a disson that he's gonna
Said he's gonna come to your house and teach you how to use it. Let's do it. So you bring the kids over
We'll jump in the pool. You know, it'll be it'll be a fun time. We'll barbecue
He has a Tesla also. Oh, yeah, Joey. He has a Tesla
Drive his dude. Here's the fast one
I let me get used to the one I have now
Sorry, sorry. It's already stupid. Yeah, I think like an extra a fucking
You know blood blood a thinner pill
To drive the fast one dude. Well, let's let's just see let's just wait and see if he gets it back ever
Before we we decide what he's gonna do with it
Better be an amazing steering. Yes, yeah, different color
We have like
It's gonna be a different color in case he's like, oh, man. Oh, I don't like Casey. There's all
Last two weeks Casey's just been fucking killing me. Oh, man. What if he goes back and they didn't even do anything
They didn't touch it today. I guarantee they forgot that it was there
That's why the glue needed to dry. Yeah, come on, man. Dude. I I fucking lit him up. I'm all dude
When I called you at nine o'clock that mother. I guarantee you that mother fucker wasn't at the
A poultry shop, you know, and you know, you had no answer for that and yeah when you meant when that's like well
That's at the poultry up. Where's the upholstery shop? Serritos like what do you like how much how much are like
Just yeah, how much are like just anything they use
So anyhow Aaron Chrysler whatever in Norco
It was it was shit when it was browning and it sounds like it's just even worse
I'm really not happy with you guys, and I mean to use this podcast to to
To put you in the fucking Hammett like hemisphere where I'm just gonna trash on a regular basis and I don't know if it matters or not
But that's how pissed off
Should that would be fantastic if it's definitely him at adjacent shy that would be fantastic
So she says you can use the app to see with the cards
However, I don't have full ownership of the car. He if Tesla doesn't recognize it as Matt's car yet
It's still registered to the other owner so Matt cuz I haven't had the car
I'm explaining the shot
This where I beat the table, but I'm not yeah
So test as far as Tesla's concerned it's still Bob Hosson Feffer's car and
It's not Macme hop
Macme hop
Mike Macdee bag is still owner of the Tesla so that that's why he can't take it to any of the Tesla chargers
He can't look on the app to see where it's at as far as he's concerned they could be they could be is it my call?
They could be Ferris Buellering that shit right now. I did know Mike in the boys are fucking
I did not put any money down
You should have checked the fucking hours on the car before you drop the back off of the dealership
Isn't a co-cover test? I went to get in case he thanks for your input. It's already
Go for now, you know, I'm look I'm an innocent roub that's just willing to be grifted by any dealer all the fucking time apparently
Well, that sucks Matt sucks to be you
More now than usual and
Hopefully it's still nice like it's it's
It's super nice
You know the white interior is very striking and looks great. Yeah, right now
In somebody else's lot it's been 10 like in three months. Yeah, it was 10 on Saturday
I thought oh that's not so bad. It's like tan interior and then they cleaned it and it was like bright white all of a sudden like oh
Well, we will hopefully hopefully he gets it back tomorrow and we don't have to have any more conversations about
This vehicle
But if
If there is more updates will let you know everybody else in the chat room has been pitching in what their thoughts and
Talks that was fun. That's funny. We will talk about Flagstaff next week
It wasn't I would rather talk about that this. Yeah, but it's not as time sensitive as your catastrophe
9 9 10 right now. I know
So all right everybody in the chat room
Thank you for making fun of Matt with us and we appreciate it and we will talk to you guys next week
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 patrons and everybody that supports us
On the trail chase or support team at i8 4 by 4.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 Ryan to rigno.com. That's r-y-a-n-t-e-r-r-i-g-n-o.com
Check it out give them some support we appreciate it

Ep 270: Matt's New Commuter Vehicle

Welcome to the Trail Tasters podcast. Today on the show we talk about my frontiers new fiasco
This is the most heated episode since in and out versus five guys show back in like 2020
So so, you know, the tip of the the spirit is taking its fair share of wear and tear
And now it's a neatest some pretty serious repair apparently. It's in limbo right now. Well, it's yet in limp limp
limp limp mode. Oh, you know, should I try and trade it in or find a commuter and upgrade the front here when I can
You know, who knows? Let's get ready to rumble like yes. Yeah, I apologize man
We I didn't think we're gonna have much to talk about but this just got super heated in angry and Matt
I think I had to do this broke that's like eating the table. Yeah, and he's still gonna make a stupid fucking decision and get
Commuter vehicle. See on the trail. I'm about a 20 24. Oh, that's the over under. Yeah, by the bubble and get three sensors
Yeah, anyways, we're sorry. Two-hand we're sorry, but never go to the dealer never go to the dealer
It hurts
It hurts
Alright, so who's A and I are talking about succession on HBO?
Yeah, I just I just stumbled upon the show and I've already been watched binge watched it up until season three
I know there's the fourth season. I think it's gonna be the last season too. Yes
We watched we watched we're up we're at the second episode of this season. Okay, okay, okay, and
At the beginning it was like it was it was riveting. It was like this is crazy. This is but now I'm at the point where I'm zoning out
I'm kind of there too because it's just it's kind of sold being assholes with enough money to be assholes like that's all it is
I haven't heard of this show what it's a session. So it's on HBO. It's on HBO
It's on HBO. It's been living
Oh, yeah, you're in a big bear. So you are under a rock
So you're two steps about having it. It is it's it's called succession. It's basically
Brian Cox the actor from super troopers the next person in session and again
Yeah, I take my pistol out with
I
Far from what's that restaurant?
I like with all the chats. He's shit. Oh, shenanigans
So bright Cox is
CEO founder and CEO of a global
Sam feels like Amazon medium that no media. It's more a fox. It's based on like a fox news
So this is the guy that owns every media channel in the world.
Are they the pro red or pro blue fox news?
I don't I don't think they ever really get to what they're they're they're
Platinum and fox news. Are they are they Republican or Democrats?
So in this show because in the show they're like I think they're more Republican because they call the president the
Raisin and he's from California
I think I'm assuming so imagine imagine this old guy that owns all of the media global media and he's got four kids
One kid is a complete slacker and and in the in the current season
He's super excited about polling for 1% of the votes in a presidential run that he's already spent a million
Dollars on the show asshole and then the other three are just the worst possible people
You could ever imagine in the world and they have enough money like in one of the episodes
We just watched the other day they were having this conversation on this like veranda built in
Barbecue veranda pull thing just outside of their house and they've decided that they need to go someplace and they literally
Walk out their house to get in the jet that's sitting in their backyard waiting to take off. It's like what's up a random
It's the it's a fancy point
It looks like shows you a reality or someone a life of how some people really fuck I'm an American and a 4A is the entrance to your house
And it's like I don't care about it. It's crazy because some people fucking live like that
I don't know man, but it's getting to the point now where it's like the worst the worst possible outcome
With the worst possible people making the worst possible decisions and they have all the money in the world to do it
And that's it's so so money and I tried to watch it. I think at the end of last season or maybe a year ago, I guess and it was like
It's like okay cool. There's like two full seasons to binge. I think we got four episodes in and went I fucking hate all these people
Yeah, I don't even care. I don't care what they do. I don't care who wins. It's a very I don't need it show.
Yeah, it's like I'm out. I don't even I just don't get it, but just the fact that some people really live like that is it's like I can't believe
Some I can't believe people live like that. They're talking in terms of billions on a regular basis
And like well, they throw away they throw bets or like their corporate retreats are like these multi million dollar fucking retreats to like hunting trips and shit
For all like the you know top executive level executives and and there's there's a bunch of people in there that are just
But they're all like they're all like trying to fucking just backstab each other. Yes, and they're they're gobbling the
No, there's a hand gesture
They're
Because they are cupping and gobbling as much as they possibly can because they think it's going to get them some kind of power or prestige with this guy and it's funny
It's funny how they bass that be chill. Yeah, and any turn they any chance they get dude
It's it's it's not a feel good show. You know it's a feel good show. Yeah, probably not going to watch that one. No, you know it's a feel good show the mask singer
I like the mass singer. We've been watching that that and Ted Lasseau who's up on Ted Lasseau. I am up on Ted Lasseau. This season is flat. I like it has robbed
But it's still good. I'm not a great
That's a sin island kind of guy
I feel like Ted I think I feel like what's happened with Ted Lasseau is they started so high exactly like this if this was the first season of Ted Lasseau
Everybody like oh my god, this is a great feel good show, but they started so high that now that this is just like a decent season and people are
Trashing it, which I don't understand. I think it's crossed the line to
Kind of like almost preachy. I don't want to preachy's not the word. It's just a little too like all right like the narrative or whatever
Like just be good people understand that like it is that show. It's like be a positive person
I don't like that actor guy. Oh, what's his name really sedacus?
Yeah, I hate that motherfucker. Oh, how could he do he's ready yet?
He looks like he looks like such an asshole. He could just hell. He's a fucking man. He's not he's the greatest
But he's a man. He is one good actor though.
Not really weird asshole. This comes out. We're the millers not into that.
Oh, we are the millers. It's like the best comedy. So good.
Since the Jennifer Anderson scenes are just bones.
Horrible bosses. I saw the first one.
That's funny.
Sedacus is great. What's up with that?
Yeah, what up with that?
It's not funny.
He's not funny. He's not funny.
But I haven't seen any of his movies.
He's not funny.
Perry, G wants to get back on track and talk about Marvel movies.
I have not seen.
Oh, look, the state of Marvel right now.
There.
I'm a value right now.
I have not seen Guardians yet.
Guardians brings it back a little bit.
Yeah, it's good.
I didn't even know that shit came out dude.
I haven't seen Guardians yet.
You would surprisingly.
I've got nothing going on during the day.
Yeah.
It's good.
Where are you?
I would totally go see it.
Matt and A.
Like 10 a.m.
Because you get into the better.
Go watch Guardians.
Maybe I will.
I saw John Wick like that.
I don't see.
Hell, you do that.
You can do that.
I may.
Maybe I will.
Maybe I will do that.
But that's it.
I mean, that what else has come out.
And then in wasque.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So I went into that movie with low expectations.
And it slightly exceeded my low expectations.
Like it was like,
Oh, it was not as bad as I thought it would be.
But it certainly wasn't good.
I don't want to say.
I wouldn't even put it middle of the pack.
It just wasn't as bad as everybody was portraying it to me.
I agree.
I want to agree.
So that and shesam.
The second shesam.
Same thing like do that movie.
Got trash.
But all right.
Well, I like what's his name?
Zach Levi.
Zach Levi.
And whatever.
It's just kind of a kind of goofy.
That that movie was never like serious or whatever.
It was just it was it had a good vibe.
I mean, it was just a stupid goofy movie.
And that's that was worth the watch.
Yeah.
I'm I'm a simple ten when it comes to movies.
Like just if I walk out of there with some popcorn and some soda.
You don't have to decide the zombies.
Jaws don't break when they buy it.
That's a TV show Jose.
And that's a whole another investment.
Yeah, that's your season.
Yes.
And years of your life.
Yeah.
Now you're investing multiple days.
Yeah.
So I would agree.
I watched the shesam and I liked it.
I thought it was good.
Now.
Let's not.
You know, the worst.
To this day.
The Thor love and thunder was just so trash.
It is the.
And the fact I 100% disagree at the time.
And it is the worst Marvel movie.
It is widely regarded as the worst movie.
I can't see how you defend that.
It's so stupid and bad.
Because there's a chicken in it.
It's because the girl takes it.
I disagree with you.
Right.
That sounds like.
Like that was 100% peg you.
You like that?
I did.
I did.
Love.
Love and pepper wasn't okay.
And I will tell you.
But it failed as like a superhero Marvel movie.
I loved it.
But it was an entertaining movie.
The single worst Marvel movie of all time.
And we all saw it.
Eternals.
Oh, yeah.
That was because according to rotten tomatoes.
Eternals is no is the last at number 32.
I don't even think they're trying to acknowledge.
Yeah.
They're like.
And man in wasp was second to last at number 31.
I'll take Thor Thor love and thunder is the worst to me.
Yeah.
I'd rather watch the other two.
You see.
Eternals.
I hate you high with all the Avengers.
And like the Iron Man.
I disagree.
I 100% disagree with you.
They set the bar to high.
It's not.
They're not reaching that.
It's like fighting over what shit.
It's not.
This is the most horrible pile of shit.
Which Marvel movie.
Yeah.
Trout is the best baseball player.
Uh.
Which Marvel movie.
Is rotten tomatoes rank as the number one Marvel movie.
Iron Man the first one.
No.
Yeah.
100% do the first.
The first.
Matt.
Is that what it right?
Okay.
I'm.
He's.
His opinion.
It's probably because he.
It's locked into his brain.
He's probably never even seen it.
Uh.
Matt.
True.
I mean, it's either.
It's a butter civil war.
Black Panther.
Oh.
Yeah.
That's not shit.
It's a good move.
No, no, no.
But now I'm like, I think that one probably took the mantle.
Because it is.
I think there's civil war or black Panther.
I will go with black Panther.
Oh, okay.
The first of injuries.
Okay.
You know what?
I'm going to change my mind.
I'm going to say.
It's Captain America.
The winner soldier.
Okay.
You're saying winner soldier.
Winner soldier.
Black Panther.
Yeah.
The Avengers number one.
Uh, it's Avengers.
Uh, Matt's right.
It's Black Panther's number one.
Uh.
Number two is end game.
Yeah.
Number three is the original Iron Man.
And then number four is Ragnarok.
What?
So Ragnarok is.
So Ragnarok is probably my favorite.
You could say that.
Thor has had, you know, one of the best.
Marvel movies and the worst one.
Yeah.
There's one of them.
I don't remember seeing.
The world.
Yeah.
I don't remember even seeing that.
What is that about?
It would still be 1100.
I disagree.
I disagree.
I disagree.
Um, but yeah, man.
So.
But, but.
Uh, 100%.
Like the whole genre is wearing down.
Like.
Well, it's Marvel's version now.
Like, uh, all the characters.
Like, a lot of people don't want to fuck these.
Well, that's that's what a.
Guardian's does good.
Is it kind of rounds about because you, you know, the characters.
Well, and they, they play.
Like the story, whatever.
I, it's not the best.
But they do a very good job of like.
But you get to see all the characters again.
What's the name?
Adam Warlock.

I don't know what the fuck that is.
Yeah.
They're leaning.
Marvel or.
I mean, I heard.
I've heard of that guy.
But my, my comic book.
Like, uh,
My, she thought that is his men and Spider-Man.
Like, pretty much.
Yeah.
I do remember.
I loved Iron Man and Daredevil.
Daredevil when I was like, like, a junior high school and stuff.
But, you know, it's like 30 years old.
That's what Daredevil isn't part of the MCU.
It's not considered.
Sure.
Yeah, it is.
He's in Spider-Man.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'm saying the movie.
The movie Daredevil is not.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
No.
But the other.
Uh, oh, god.
Matt Murdock.
Yeah, no, that's the.
The net.
But I think the same still mad.
It's something Cox, right?
Matt Cox.
Mike Cox.
Come on.
Come on.
I think it's my Cox.
Uh, but whatever that is.
Good.
What's his last name?
Oh, first name.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I wish there was a device.
But I wish there was a way.
Yeah.
Up Cox.
Okay.
So that that that that that's the.
I'm going to put Matt front here.
Crap's the bed.
It didn't crap.
So before we get to the Cox, that's his name.
Chuck.
That's his name for real.
I know.
You're right.
You're right.
Good old Chuck.
So the Chuck.
So before we get to the title of this.
My trials and tribulations.
Matt's trials and tribulations.
It looks like I will be heading out on Thursday to go out to.
To go out to flag staff Arizona.
The fucking brag to go to look.
It's not it's got nothing better.
It's not a brag.
I'm unemployed.
I've got no excuses.
It's it's it's not because I've got.
You know, it's one hundred percent because I don't have a reason not to go.
And and through some recent conversations with some people.
I found a place to stay.
And I'm going to try to meet up with a couple people.
I'm going to go to the YMCA in Flagside.
It's it's a hostel.
It's it's a hostel.
The Nambla headquarters.
Yes.
It thinks.
And it's a no what the fuck that means.
I don't know what the fuck that means.
I don't know.
Yeah.
It's not searching on my computer.

Please don't.
Oh yeah.
I can't actually know it is.
But it's only.
You listen to Howard.
How do you know?
The Nambla is.
I won't do it.
It was Howard 30 years ago.
Oh no.
He was on.
I'm going to head out to.
Overland Expo.
Anybody that listens that's going out there.
Hit me up.
I'll be out there.
I am going to.
I've got a list of people.
I'm trying to connect with as you know.
We are in the process of of bringing on some new partners.
This show.
And part of my part of my plan while I'm out there is to go talk to some of those people
that we've been discussing.
You can lure Nissan or Chevrolet or more specifically.
You.
You.
Yeah.
You.
You can't.
We can't.
We keep discussing Nambla.
I don't know.
We're going to get any sponsors on this show.
So.
I got a follow up.
If Nambla wants to pay for a new transition from my truck.
Everybody has a.
I'm not on a pose to it.
So.
The list of vendors at Overland Expo.
Is.
I just found.
I just searched.
No.
On your own.
On your phone.
Right.
North American.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Good boy.
Okay.
We don't need to say it.
Matt.
I have no idea.
Look it up.
It's still funny.
So that we did because it's a thing.
Like, oh my god, we're doomed.
We're just doomed.
Oh.
We're.
We're doomed.
Look, everybody has a price.
So.
Fairly Matt's fucking pretty about seven.
Seven thousand.
Okay.
I want to talk about that.
I will get there.
We'll get there.
So look.
I'm going out.
I'm going out the off-road expose.
Anybody in the chat room that's going to be out there.
I have Betty Whiteon out there.
Okay.
Very cool.
Betty.
Then let's connect while we're out there.
I'm assuming just because the way his Tacoma is kidded.
But if you go to the Overland Expo website and go to their vendor list, it's basically
everybody.
I mean, it's like the who's who.
It's it's it's everybody.
It's almost like if you're not there like are you even.
You know, but yeah, even overlanding bro.
It's it's crazy.
So I think Betty.
Betty White's truck isn't be like the center stage Tacoma there.
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, Tik Tok.
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Thank you so much.
Overland Expo.
I'll be up there Thursday Friday.
Yeah, Thursday.
I'm sorry, Friday.
I'll go Thursday night.
Be there Friday Saturday Sunday.
Hob novin.
I'm going to hob as much as I can get my hands on.
I'm not.
I'm not.
Whatever.
I got to do.
We are.
We are looking for some partnerships.
Got to be.
You got to go in skiing.
You got to be open to a lot of.
You got to be open.
You got to be open.
You got to do what you got to do.
To a lot of things.
You're hoping yourself up to opportunity to try.
I am doing so.
From whatever direction.
You know, just open it or not.
Not figuratively.
You got me 20 bucks.
Six times.
This show is such a catastrophe from that.
From the get go.
This is what happens when we don't have a guest.
So you guys don't like this shit.
Get us a guest.
Call him.
Call him.
It's a phone line.
They're open.
No, they're not.
Nine five one dirt.
Everyone who calls it would just make it worse.
That's.
I don't know who's attending.
Nine five dirt.
I mean, I want to.
I want to.
Man, I want to.
If the phone number that people use to call the wrong phone number.
We used to give out.
If that's the phone number.
I have three.
I want to say.
I want to say.
Do you.
I've got three tests from you.
You know, over over the decade.
It's we've known each other a long time.
It feels like decades.
I felt like I just met you yesterday.
Well, that's because I'm so exciting.
Five years.
Has it been five years already?
Delay of 2018 is when it was that July 4th weekend of 2018 is when Matt came on.
The show and we did episode 25.
And then that september.
That september you had.
That's when you.
That's when you.
I've.
Impregnated the show.
So 1920.
So it's coming up on five.
You decided to show up at Starbucks at eight o'clock in the morning.
I was on.
I was on time.

I was just out for a coffee.
I didn't even know what the fuck you guys were.
I don't know.
Tammy Tammy and money were there and Tammy was like, I think this guys.
I think this guy's going to be with the.
Why?
Because I'm bald and Mexican.
She said, I think this guy's here for the for the run.
Because you were hovering over my shoulder.
I was fucking.
I was in line.
I don't doubt it.
Well, I had only just had the closer.
I was in line for the bathroom.
Like.
Probably in there.
Yeah, I got that vibe too when I saw them walking.
I don't know why.
I was like, I think they're here for the fucking guys.
Fucking assholes.
Speaking of fucking assholes.
Let's talk about Matt and.
Segway alert.
Segway alert.
So Matt, let's.
Let's go back to a couple months ago when you're like,
Hey, man, the frontier stalled when I was picking up my wife.
Yeah, I don't know if I told you guys about that, but it did.
You know, it was coming home.
Mommy had to have like.
Procedure.
I mean, the personality replacement.
Yes.
Yeah.
And attitude adjustment.
Yeah.
But it was raining.
I think I'd replace the airflow sensor a few weeks before.
And when I stopped at a light, it stalled.
I was like, what the hell?
I started truck backup.
You started driving.
I started yelling at him stupid fucking truck.
But it started right back up.
Like no problem.
Right back up, but driving it shifted off.
It was like it just shifted really hard.
It didn't shift.
It was supposed to.
It was just funky.
And so I got it home.
It was probably like a Tuesday night or something.
And well, wasn't Tuesday night.
Maybe it was Wednesday night.
And a great.
You know, I got to get to work tomorrow.
I don't know what the fuck's going to happen.
So I just cleared the battery.
I took the cable off because that's.
Went in doubt.
Fucking clear the computer.
Yeah.
And it seemed to work.
So again, that might have been I think early December.
You know, four or five months ago.
And no issues.
And then my hobby trail as we all know.
I was before that went to Calico.
It died.
You know, I don't know if that was.
You might have been.
That's a good point.
Maybe it was the same thing.
And I just attributed it to not putting it in a neutral.
Trying to go to for or for hire.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, for low.
Like I was trying to do, but yeah, that could have been it too.
We were sitting at.
You're asking for more power.
She was giving everything she's got.
Dude.
Yes.
And so then.
Okay.
So we'll count that.
And then the third time at my hobby trail.
I had already, you know, again, like recognized.
Okay.
This is probably issue or whatever it is.
I'll clear the battery.
But the point at that time.
We were off.
It wasn't Calcer.
Calcio wrote it was.
By the liquor store.
So I was like, dude, should I just try and lip it back home?
Because this is now at least the second time.
That something had happened.
Or do I continue with the trail?
Well, you know, whatever.
I took the battery cable off.
Talk to Casey.
And was the couple.
You know that.
Huh?
You know.
Who?
Enic and Enic help.
Yeah.
I can do that.
Oh, knock knock.
No.
Oh, I'm pronouncing wrong.
It's Enic, right?
I don't know.
It's Enic.
Okay.
Either way, they're both like, oh, you know, we both had similar situations with our knee signs.
It's either like the cam sensor, maybe the crank sensor.
You know, it's like, so whatever.
It's not that big a deal.
All right, cool.
We cranking it too hard, dude.
Yeah.
And so we kept on the trail.
I had no issues.
And then after last week's show coming home.
I stopped by Jack in the box and it did the same thing in the drive through.
It just stalled.
Then ran like shit on the way home.
You know, the rest, the mile and a half or whatever my house.
So it's like, okay, well, the stupid cam sensor, whatever sensor it is.
I'm just going to drop it off at the dealership.
Let them deal with it.
You know, probably a couple hundred bucks for the sensor.
Couple hundred bucks to put it in.
And it was like, you know, while you're in there, go ahead and service the train and service the rear end.
Like I was rolling to just get the truck down up and taking care of.
Like, revitalize, you know, and then midday the next day.
The guy's like, so are you sitting down?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He didn't even do that.
He was like, so we did, you know, because I told him, you know, the truck runs hot.
When I fucking run the fuck out of it in a sand pit.
And 120.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And he's like, oh, okay, we'll look into it.
Well, we did the first thing out of his mouth.
We did find that there was a bubble in your cooling system.
And we, you know, we did, top it off.
So that we, you know, he's looking for affirmation.
I'm not afraid that they get rid of the fucking bubble.
They got rid of the bubble.
By top it off.
Dude, I didn't give a fuck because two seconds later was.
And the transmission is shot.
And it was like, I don't give a fuck what you did with the fucking coolant system.
And he goes, yeah.
So that when we plugged in, you know, there's no lights or nothing on no dash lights or anything.
And they just said, yeah, we plugged in and we got the torque converter code.
And yeah, that's, we just got to replace transmission.
What?
That's the fucking thing.
They do the same thing in the race horses.
They break their leg.
Yeah.
They fucking just take it back and push.
Yeah.
Here's another horse.

Right horse trainer.
But you guys use that little air fucking thing.
Yeah.
You can't control that.
Yeah.
It's like a piston.
So did those sensors ever get replaced?
Yes, not those sensors.
That's not what the code said.
They did check those sensors.
They said not of the code.
Yes.
Did I get a screenshot?
No, I got an email with all the shit with the code that, with the air.
Whatever.
You know what?
You're right.
I don't necessarily trust them.
I think that the dealership's going to go.

We just replace it when this shit happens.
Yeah.
They're not going to.
They don't have a transmission specialist that's willing to pull it apart.
Well, they're talking to actual problem.
Yeah.
It's just, there's no incentive for them to fix it.
It's just parts.

No, exactly.
I'm not sure.
They're going to charge Nissan fucking, you know,
$6900 is what they quoted to have a brand new transmission bolted up.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'll be there this afternoon.
You don't know.
So I paid the $179 dollars, you know,
a diagnosis and a flush the fucking radiator, whatever.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Thanks for that.
Well, I don't know.
Maybe your rent's cool as fuck now.
But the transmissions fucked up.
You know?
So either way, that was pretty disheartening.
But you guys know.
Like, that thing's got some hard, hard fucking miles on it.
And if it's the research that I've done,
there is a Illinois like the,
the club, or I'm sorry,
the torque converter Illinois that tells it when to engage during shifting whatever.
It's probably sticking.
It's probably, yeah.
I don't know.
It's probably just a stuck Illinois.
And if I replace that,
that would solve the problem.
But I haven't gotten that far into the solution yet.
At this point now,
I've, for this year at work,
I've gotten a lot meant for a commuter vehicle.
I'm just going to do that at this point,
whatever whatever I can get.
And then just park the park the front here for now until,
you know,
I can't shop around and get the,
you know, find a,
an affordable solution.
Or buy a use transition.
Whatever.
The point being if I buy an actual commuter vehicle,
then I don't have to,
that that,
that trucks not like dependent on my income,

like my,
whatever.
So logically,
it just needs to be,
I don't,
I don't want to be dependent on that anymore,
because I have run the shit out of it.
And not that I expect anything else bad to happen.
But,
you know,
I'm going to take this opportunity to,
buy a fucking shit box,
I guess.
Just kidding.
Casey,
I told Matt that if,
if,
first I suggested that we just take it apart and rebuild it,
and he's like,
I don't want to do this.
Who's we?
But,
but if he found a rebuilt transmission,
I'm pretty confident that we would be able to get it installed.
Bolting up.
I gave him,
I told him the name of a place.
I saw it.
We'll just rebuild that one.
And it should be,
like,
considerably less than what the dealership quoted you.
Um,
it'll be a fucking fist fight trying to get that thing out on our backs.
And you fucking crazy.
But it,
it'll happen.
And we can do it.
So these are all the things that I'm measuring,
you know,
whatever it's time to,
like when you guys didn't do that shit.
And you notice he said,
you guys,
like,
didn't even include himself in that conversation?
No.
Who,
maybe I,

Jose said,
we're going to do that.
You guys.
Yeah.
What do you mean you guys?

Exactly.

Let's be honest.
It's going to be me on my back,

give me a fucking 12 million.
Fuck.
It's fucking all filled.
But what you want to say?
I said,

hold the light right here.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
So,
whatever.
Are you going to be wheeling this,
a hybrid or are you getting?
So that initially,
that was the,
the discussion,
like even Cody was like,
just trade that fucker in like,
just trade that shit.
Here was my first suggestion was,
my suggestion was clean that thing up,
search online for a place
that's got a frontier pro forex,
drive it over it and go,
what will you give it for me?
And if they,
if someone gives you 10 to 15 grand
for it on a trade in,
you just came way the fuck up.
And,
and now you've got a brand new frontier,
yet yes,
you don't have a,
a commuter vehicle and a toy,
but neither do I.
You get a,
you get a brand new frontier,
and your payments are going to be about the same,
because you got enough on your trade.
So,
I'm going to trade the front,
my busted frontier,
that Nissan has identified as busted.
To Nissan and expect them to give me,
like,
something like,
they try to take it with me.
Identified is fucked up.
If you take it to a different Nissan,
they won't know the difference.
Fuck.
No, you take it to a car max,
and they'll fucking give you shit on it.
So yeah,
I've already gotten a,
again,
there's no,
there's no code,
or there's no,
a red light on dash lights or nothing,
and Carvana offered 15k.
15,
15 something for your truck.
Like,
I guess,
side unseen or whatever,
like I all had to do.
And so I start talking about,
what does that give me?
It does get me.
If I,
if I wanted a 2020 or 2021,
CR2 Colorado with 34,000 miles,
and,
but it's,

I'm paying $500 a month.
That's,
that's why I'm at,
and that's my commuter.
Yeah.

all I've done is just,
I've,
you know,
I did,
let's just say,
best case scenario,
pawn off my problem,
and now I have this payment.
Or,
you're going to have a payment.
Either way.
Right.
Or I get something.
Is it the payment covered?
Not all of it.
What do you mean,
isn't the,
cover by what?
Monning's job?
Go ahead.
You have a truck allowance, right?
Oh, yeah.
No.
It's like 350 buys.
It's not like,
okay,
but that doesn't make your payment.
500 bucks,

150 bucks.

you call my,
my wife,

say,
will you call your sister,
and explain that to her?
No.
Yeah.
So she doesn't,
she just knows that I've been getting that money for a while now,
and we've just absorbed that,
but regardless,
that the,
after some,
some ponderance,
look,
I can keep the truck,
and I don't think it's going to be,
it's not $7,000 replace
or repair that transmission.
I don't think the transmission is bad.
Okay.
Well, what,
here's,

if I still,
I still have to go to work,
and if I can get a hybrid or whatever,
and I can commute to work and save,
because I've been living with that Nissan
for four years on 15 miles a gallon,
$6,700 a month in gas,
and I get something that's,
that's like the worst,
gas,
but the worst commuter ever,
I can get something and make payments
and save that money,
and then take whatever savings eventually,
and fix the front here,
and then have the front here.
And then have the front here.
Not, not,
not possible.

we are a single family car family right now.
That's what I'm saying.
It's happening.
I just drive these floor for a while.

that's what I'm doing,
but Monty does go to work three days a week.
So,
we've,
we've,
we've come in dear to family members,
truck,
a truck,
a forward,
a forward by the way.
A forward Ranger.
I'll leave it to that.
Two forwards in that driveway right now.
Yeah,
you're a,
before you went dealing with the transmission,
and she like a,
I would replace
the three sensors that I told you about,
because every single fucking thing that you described,
is everything that both me and Enoch,
so I took it,
I took the auto zone,
it's a,
it says torque converter.
Auto zone plug,
I borrowed the,
the diagnosis tool,
torque converter.
That's what comes up.
Did you know any of my stories?
Nothing.
So you don't need to change any of torque converter.
Oh yeah,
yeah,
like again,
I haven't pulled the engine apart.
I haven't pulled the transmission off.
Maybe it is a simple fix.
That's still,
that's still a possibility.
Can't just weld that so annoyed.
And just,
you have a welder dude.
Let me turn it up.
I'll use the heavy cord,
so I get full voltage, full penetration.
Yeah,
I mean,
whatever.
That's where I'm at.

it's,
it's bumming.

you know,
I don't like that,
I don't like that situation.
I mean,
but essentially,
like that,
that's just,
the smart move is to,
semi,
not retire,
but just put the,
put the front here,
down on the side.

it's been a workhorse.
And I,

it's,
it's paid as dues.
Like it's been four years,
but a hundred thousand miles on that thing.
And they've all been hard,
miles.
They're not,
look,
you guys seem to,

what do you think I do when I drive to work every
fucking day?
It's,

We have it on the record,
just for clarity.
Say you have a,
a forward explorer and a forward range of and you're driving,
yeah,
I mean,
I don't think I said any,
like,
I don't think I'm understanding the,
the main floor model of the vehicle that we borrowed,
I don't think you had it.

I'm a car max has a 2013
ridge line for 20 grand dude.
That's not a fucking truck.
So,
so your,
your plan is,
now you're a four family now.
I hate you.
Uh,
you know what when times are tough when a year.
And you're,
I'm your truck.
I can't get me while I'm down.
I'm down.
I'm down right now.
Seeing you and we're,
some brothers and we're Nissan brothers and you're,
your,
your curb stopping me right now.
Fuckin you putting old yellow on a pasture,
right?
It's fucking,
let's straight out.
It's still white lightning.
And he's just when white lightning comes out.
Here's,
here's what the fuck is actually happening.
Is white lightning was probably embarrassed a little bit by,
by the new front here.
And it's too,
it's like your face.
It's like your face.
You got on the truck.

That's my truck and it's like mother fucker.

yeah.
It's due for some upgrades.
Like mother fucker.
It's time for Titan SWAT.
And now it can happen.
Now can actually happen.
Yeah.
This time next year,
when you're,
who knows what you're driving?
You're Toyota,
or your Nissan.
Can't give me some shit.
It's like,
at least I'm not too opposing.
Manufactured direct opposing manufacturers.
I have the best of both worlds.
Pick aside Jose.
I dip in the side.
I dip in multiple circles, right?
Not just Toyota and Nissan.
I'm a trader for both sides.
Yeah.
You haven't seen a succession.
Have you?
That's stupid.
The,
So what,
so what are your next steps?
Like, you know,
you and I were kind of,
to change the producers.
Perusing.
Are we talking about my,
my car max adventure?
What are you doing to?
What,
What's your next steps?
Because,
Dude,
there's a world wants to know.
It's a 2021 Nissan Frontier S for 34.
It's only got 17,000 miles at car max.
Mind the nest.
Yeah, again,
if I'm going to take on a car payment,
it has to pay for itself.
And I have that opportunity.
Because again,
I'm used to paying
$6,700 a month in gas for the front here.
I can easily meet or exceed that
and pay for a commuter vehicle.
That's,
I thought about it.
And you know what?
You know,
with the Carvana opportunity,
it was like just click here.
And it was like,

whew,
what's next?
And I got to the point where
just tell us when do you want the,
do you want the Colorado delivered to your house
or to the Ontario Vending Machine,
and we'll send you the coin.
It'll be there on the 22nd of May,
like,
and you can do it.
And I thought about it.
I was like,
dude,
man,
that's the payment I want.
Like,
you can totally,
I guess you could come pick up the front tier,
whenever,
I don't give you,
I'm not driving it.
But that's not,
look,
I,
can I just say,

you remember a couple of weeks ago,
I was talking about,
I didn't stay up all night in Gamble,
all fucking night.
I'm like,
semi-responsible now.
Yeah,
just semi though.
He's semi a lot of things.
I don't,
I don't know.
I don't know that
trading in the frontier,
the current,

the broke frontier for something new,
is any less responsible.
You're,
you're ending up with a car payment,
regardless.

and I'm paying another $700 a month on top of that,
in gas,
but what do you guys not,
that's,
that's math, guys.
I'm,
I'm trading one gas,
Guzzler,
for another,
except I'm paying for the second one.
Yeah,
so I'm going to,

it's a handsome ass truck,
I love to,

whatever,
but they don't put gas in,
whatever car you get.
No,
not if I get a fully electric,
or,
or all electric.
Or all electric.
You just said,
you just said,
it doesn't,

even if it slips,
if it's a hybrid,
and it gets seven times,
it gets seven times,
the gas mileage of my truck.
Why don't you just get a Tesla?
I would love to have a Tesla,
but you can't,









the jetty bolt.
That's what we were looking at.
Yeah, it's,

it's the roach on that thing.
The EV Range on a Chevy bolt.
Yeah, I mean,

if the pie cas wants to delve down the,
the math on MPGs and,
like,
shit boxes,
like we can do that,
but it,
the math works out,
like this,
like this is a community vehicle
that I will actually save money every month,
and then eventually be able to fix the,
the front here.
But that's,
that's the smart move.
This is smart move.
I don't,
I don't want to quit.
Oh, my truck.
I love my truck.
I love my truck.
Yeah, you know,
whatever.

if anything,
I feel bad.


I kicked the shit out of this thing.
And it's always been,

and it's taken whatever abuse I've,
I've given it.
It quit on me.
It's not,
and it,
as it quit,
you know what?
I tell money.

if I don't find something
that I like,
that we're going to make payments on it,
even if it's looking good on you.
That's not that bullshit.
I'm not going to fucking buy something,
just for the sake of buying it.
I'll drive the fucking front here
into the fucking ground,
like before I do something

I just don't want to do.
But I also don't want to drive the front here
into the ground,
so that that's,
you know,
it's still up in the air,
essentially.
I don't,
I don't want to say it's up in the air,
but that's the direction I'm going at this point.
So a Chevy Volt Premier.
It says that it's 43 city 42 highway.
So 43.
That's it.
But it's still plugin.
So that's the thing that,
you know,
talking to my brother and wife.
He's like,


he has one.
He,
you plugin and it charges the battery.
You get,
you get 40 miles off the battery alone.
Well,
that gets me to my job,
and this is a hybrid though.
I thought you said you didn't want hybrid.
No,
I'll take a hybrid.
I want to take advantage of the solar power
that I'm,
I'm making.
I'm making more electricity than I use.
Hey bro,
you don't have to brag, right?
You know,
brag when you,
when you can,
you have big electricity loads.

Nicole brought up the,
uh,
Nicole brought up the Ford fabric,
and we looked at that.
You can't even find one.
That's the,
that's what I said.
You're not,
$45,000.
Yeah,
a base model.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just get the fucking
Ranger.
We looked,
I told him,
I just drove the monkey a while ago.
I wanted,
that's what I want to tell me to get.
That's a Tesla.
It's the same price range.

I want to tell me to get that instead of the Volvo,
and she wasn't having it,

but it's a super nice vehicle,
and we found one,
you know,

but 30 grand or something like that.


it's more than,
yeah,
more than that.

high 30s.
Yeah.
So it's,
you know,
I was saying you don't want a car payment.
Tesla people justify themselves.
Well,
I mean,
$600 a month in gas.

you know,
I'm coming up ahead.

but your Tesla monthly payments,
like $900 or $1,000.
Yeah,
but I'm not paying gas.
I'm not paying gas.
No,
I agree with that,
but I wouldn't have a $900 payment.
It would be like $1200 on the Tesla.
Well,

if you factor in a car payment,
plus gas,
and then now it's just a car payment.
I think Matt should get the 2014 Mitsubishi.
I,
me, me.
Yes.
That, it looks like my,
is that?
Is that the,
Is that the Mitsubishi helped me,
yes,
the Mitsubishi,
I,
yes,
looks like someone took a shopping cart
and put it in the head.
Yeah.
Someone took a shopping cart and put a windshield on it.
That's what that is.
You know,
I don't know.
You know what,
I don't know.
It's not little.
Those are those are private.
Those are pretty big.
And they're,
They're 45.
They're cool looking car.
They're very cool.
Yeah.
And gas anymore.
They're quick.
Look,
I started down this road with my wife.
And I'm like,
yeah,
if I wanted to pay 700,
but it's something that I like.
Get a Hellcat.
Charged one.
Four door.
I think the,
Yeah.
And then Cody brought up like this.
What's that?
So I think the Ram TRX gets like 18 miles of the gallon.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, no.
Ha ha ha ha.
It's not my name.
18 minus 10.
Yeah.
I was, I was highball at it.

And it starts off at $120,000.
So,
Yeah, but you won't be.
Pardon me.
Pardon me.
Yeah.
Yeah, that 350 stipend.
You're good.
Before days.
Oh, that's right.
Um,
just.
Yeah.
I mean,
like,
so so you're,
it sounds like you're set.
You're going to go get some
computer vehicle of some sort.
Um,
and then I have to go to work.
Unfortunately.
Getting a mistake to me too.
I,
what do I mean?
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry,
but remember when your friend's.
I remember.
I remember,
remember.
I remember before he started just kicking me while I was down.
It's bad enough like the forward stuff.
And we're going to be not going to down though.
I have, huh?
When have you not been down though?
I mean,
yeah,
but I've never been down.
What's up?

All right.
Thank you.
This is pretty low now.
Like even with all that being said,
at least you have a job,
at least you have a job.
I do have two,
four,
two,
two,
four,
and a job.
And a job.
I,
I don't even have a job.
You live in Fontana.
I live in Monterey,
old dude.
South Ontario.
Thank you.
That does.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You are a true friend.
Yes.
I didn't even think about that.
You just keep love me.
I used to be a boss on you.
Yeah.

look at me.
Do you know what the cows?

I didn't understand how you were hurting.
Tim,

Ron,
I feel.
Tim,
he's right here.
The man in the city said that he recommends the test the model 3 which is a great recommendation if someone has the 50 grand of I1.
Yeah,
Now,
I'm gonna give you a more in prices.
Bro.
Now's the time to buy them.
There's also a lot of prices.
There's also a rebates,
like,
state of count.
That's about 100 bucks.
That's why I don't understand like with,
I just looked at the,
the pre-is prime,
like the new one.
It's pretty sporty.
It looks pretty rad,

pretty cool.
I think you get like both like a federal
and California.
Yeah.
This 12 like 12k.
Yeah,
the the model 3 starts at 40.
Yeah.
Get that performance.

dude,
that shit's fast as fuck.
How much they won for that one?
Like 48.
47,
240.
How's that?



53.
The long range is 47.
The model 3 performance is 53.
Hmm.
But you're not paying gas anymore.
Yeah.
And you got that 350.
Coming your way everyone.
Yeah.
That's already been absorbed.
Like,
Maybe you,
you need to shift in the auto sales
bro.
You're selling it hard.
Insurance is going to be cheaper.
It's one of the safest.
It's the safest car on the road right now.
I feel like I'm shooting me.
I've seen a lot of insurance company looks at
his frontier and they're like,
yeah, four bucks a month.
Whatever we're covered.
That,
that was the other thing.
I was like,
maybe I should just drive it off of something.
I don't know what happened.
Uh-huh.
The parking is still on every day.
Perry made the comment that he,
you wanted the maverick,
but he refused to pick it up.
I saw that maverick with that alley cab in the
fucking back.
I think he works in Corona.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Um,
I agree.

I think I told this story on the show.
When we were looking at the.
Um,
Oh,

Tell you right.
Oh, yeah.

Kia tell you right.

Oh, yeah.
It was like listed at 35.
We're like, yeah,
let's go check this out.
It was like 57.
What?
They're like, yeah,

if you don't buy it,
somebody else will.
This is Kia, right?
Yeah.
That's what they told me when I went
to go try to buy it to coma years ago.


you guys haven't even rebate turning?
Nope.

we don't need any.
So this one.
Someone's already calling about this one.
So when you want it,
you can take it now.
That's that.
Yeah.
So that's what I was saying.
Well,
that was ugly as fuck.
Really?
I like it.
I like it.
And an Aztec and Aztec.
It doesn't.
The party.
It's a little Aztec.
It's not.
It's a little Aztec.
I've always been a fan of Mazda's.
I don't know why.
I've never owned one,
but I like their style.
And that's the thing is that
style shouldn't matter.
Looks like all that shit.
It's a commuter.
It's like, this is what I get into to go make money.
Yeah, man.
So I can like cancel the guy.
It's not paying for this.
I tried to get him to get like,
No, I know I get it,
but the number,
the number one.
You sound like the guy that doesn't spend
two hours a day sitting in traffic.
Really?

I don't look it.
I didn't pay.
I didn't pay.
It shouldn't be comfortable.
But.
So I can.
Toaster.
But I 400 miles to the gallon.
Can it be comfortable?
It's going to be your bull.
A 2015 Ford Focus.
Only 3,000 miles on it.
I agree.
14 grand.
No, bro.
That's cheating on the last you dude.
Look, he doesn't need to last.
He doesn't need it to last for eternity.
He needs it to at least last a year.
Just long enough to get the frontier fixed.
But he can sell this.
Bro, what you need to do,
you need to right now the top two priorities.
You need to look in the force comfort and efficiency.
Just get a fucking camera hybrid.
I'm not opposed to a camera hybrid.
They're fucking nice.
But it does, is it plug in?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a no.
They're liking the low 30s.
Really?
Yeah.
I just figured Toyota can be hybrid.
That's the same as that prime Prius is 33 base.
There you go.
Do you see?
Yeah.
We'll see.
Yeah.
They'll see Toyota brothers, you know.
How do you always have an angle?
I was saying.
You're always saying.
You said Toyota Nissan brother.
He's shifty dude.
He's like, oh, he's thinking about something in the back and wait for you to say something.
Yeah.
He's always thinking about something in the back.
I can have a Chevy and you can always be close.
Oh, why don't you buy this forward?
You know, like, or, I don't know.
You always have the angle, the digging angle, you know.
Oh, we got to be selling.
Hmm.
I never saw him, movie.
What movie?
Always be selling?
The boiler room?
I don't know.
What was it?
Glenn Gary?
I think they're going to Ross.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That was a benefit said that.
Yeah.
Always got to be selling.
I think it was somebody else.
Yeah.
I know what our benefit was, uh, boiler room.
Oh, yep.
Yep.
I think it was.
Who's the guy?
Just shot somebody.
I think it was.
I think it was.
Who's the guy?
Just shot somebody.
I think it was.
I think it was.
Who's the guy?
Just shot somebody.
I think it was.
I'm trying to sue and put this pin this guy.
So I just hand him a gun.
Why would you assume there's bullets in a gun on a movie set?
But okay.
See what?
See how that goes.
That's why, you know, gun fucking safety.
Now, if you want to sue that person, a hundred percent, go sue that person.
So back to the, uh, the intellectual version.
Which one?
Which one?
The one that loaded the gun?
Oh, man.
He can't even talk.
Look, if you.
Hey, man.
I don't know what saying I trust you guys, but if somebody, if I was on an official movie,
I don't, on somebody's.
Hey, like, hey, man.
Uh, yeah, here's the movie or here's the movie gun or your next time.
You're probably going to fake shoot somebody.
Uh, it's good.
I don't know.
I'm a dumb actor and then just.
They always trust.
I thought I was a good actor, but you're bleeding better than I've ever seen.
But you know, we don't lie.
Trust.
So I, I think we come back to this one, Matt.
This is what we, we looked at.
It's a plug-in hybrid Audi.
Audi.
It's, uh, that's a nice look.
There's some car.
Every time I pull up to mama.

Who's that hot chicken?
Oh, it's Matt.

He would tell her.
See, uh, that works for me.
Uh, all the time.
I'm, I'm put in a hot.
She's like, uh, a glass.
I bet she's such a nice chick.
That is a hot chick car.
What if I roll the window down on my mouth?
Hey, hey.
That works too.
Hey, what's up?
Oh, you gotta be here.
All right.
You gotta get a blonde wig with you.
Yeah.
Yeah, that, I mean, honestly, that's, that's just the way it's going to go.
It's going to be, uh, some kind of hybrid, something from Carmax, 500 bucks a month.
I'm going to save, I'm going to save a couple hundred bucks on gas.
And that's it.
And then I'm still going to have the front tier.
And by this time, make sure we tighten swab.
Oh, that fence is stupid ass.
With your drugs.
That's over.
Last time.
That's it.
When he buys this electric vehicle, it is a last time.
Let me see you here again on the trail.
This is the first of three conversations we're going to have with Matt going off the show.
Hey, you know, I'm just going to get a commuter car.
You know, I'm going to, I'm going to park the front tier for right now.
We're just going to get all the things sorted out.
And then we're going to go ahead and hard.
Yeah.
Second conversation.
You know what, guys?
Uh, I haven't wheeled in a while.
I don't feel that comfortable on the dirt anymore.
And the last conversation is I'm not doing the show anymore.
Hmm.
All right.
So everybody.
For the front tier in your runaway with it with the drone.
So that conversation.
How dare you?
So everybody, if you're listening to this show, if you're listening to the show,
would you want to replace Matt, send your resume and train at the duty at trailtacers.net.
Preferably.
Do I have two to five minute video clip of doing a choice of who replaces me or
no.
I'm not doing your job.
You're going to be cutting out here.
Any minute now.
I don't even get to choose who replaces me.
You know, I make sure they look cool.
You know, they bring some doesn't matter.
This is an exact conversation I had with COVID-19.
So you might like, right?
The weird bikes, bro.
We'll be all right.
Is that dirt bike electric?
Is he saving money on gas?
She's going to be like, do you know what the forestroke does to the environment?
You remember what he said?
You get a dirt bike.
We'll go fucking right.
A little bit of dirt bike.
How long have I had this bike?
How many times have I invited you?
How many times have you crashed and been at a commission?
One time?
How are you going to fit on the thing?
In the first time.
In the first time.
In the first time.
Yeah, but yeah, how are you going to load up your motorcycle on the commuter car now?
That's the thing.
He's not.
And the previous video, whatever it is.
You guys, you guys, let me worry about that.
But that's the conversation I had.
He liked the day off.
I told Cody and he's like, oh, you're going to do shoot like that.
You're just going to fucking throw up weight.
Like, you motherfuckers are going to give me enough grief every single week.
The front mirror is not in the commission.
We're going to let you back on this show.
Okay.
You know what?
I see how fun.
I see.
Absolutely.
If we're like, all right, Matt, once the front mirror's running, you go ahead and let us know
that you come back.
I see how it turns out.
Turn off Matt's microphone until he has an offer.
Somebody, somebody, you guys are tired of being clipped by the front tear.
And you see your opportunity now.
We can exercise, Matt, and just forget about that guy.
You're ex-communicato now.
Avocado.
Ex-ovocado.
Yep.
You're out.
You're out.
You're out.
Hmm.
No.
Well.
Take whatever you want.
Okay.
All right.
Uh.
Pretty soon, you guys are going to be the Volt Chaser's podcast getting me talking
about all about electric vehicles and hybrids and how efficient they are.
I got a hundred.
Do you guys get them?
I would.
All the way to Barstone.
That's a good charge.
What are you guys doing?
You drive like that.
And you get a list.
There's a list that comes with it.
Did you guys see that you get an extra external fan for your USB port?
That's it.
It only takes 0.5 watts.
What octane did you use?
Oh, I trick question.
I used an additive.
We're horrible.
Yeah.
Well, because I want to be like, yeah, I just drove the San Diego for no reason.
Why did it?
Because it didn't cost me anything.
Except for the wear and tear on the tires and the brakes and all the other things.
It cost you something, dude.
It cost you something no matter what.
Yeah.
Time after.
Nothing's free.
I don't.
I don't like the plan.
I'm not a fan of the plan.
Yeah.
I'm not.
I'm going to tell you on the phone.
Hey, jobless guy.
Do you have money to help fund my alternative plans?
I'm just saying you asked my opinion.
I gave you my opinion.
What was your opinion?
My opinion was drive that shit to a dealership someplace traded in for 15k and get
a new truck.
Yeah, again, you don't appreciate things that have true value.
That's a good story.
True value.
True value.
That's not it.
It's not a hit.
It's not a hit.
It's not a hit.
It's not a hit.
Every time I watch this, people out of here.
They actually know about like, they know about things they don't have.
Yes, that is true value.
What you need is a ding-ahom.
What you need is a ding-ahom.
What you need to do is go to the home deep of five miles from here.
I don't know why you didn't go there first.
And they have the parts or devices that you need.
Yeah, that's true value.
Well, whatever guys in, I can't do it.
I don't know what amount of time.
But when the frontiers back up and go in.
And I have my computer vehicle.
And you guys are driving, except for Jose, fuck Jose.
But you guys are driving your every day driving.
You're wheeling your every day driver.
And then the front here is just leveled up.
And only gets used.
You guys thought I drove that fucking thing crazy as my daily commuter.
Just wait until it's not.
And it's up and running again.
And it's tight.
Wait, is that?
You still got to get it back home.
It's not like you can put it on the trailer behind the Chevy Volt.
Or the Mitsubishi Mi ICI.
Yeah, help me.
All right.
Well, we'll see you guys.
Matt, if you end up in that fucking Mitsubishi dude,
that's like the biggest cry for help.
Please.
The Mitsubishi Mi ICI.
Whatever.
That was a BMW or something.
No, no, no.
There was the Mitsubishi I showed you.
That's like the biggest fucking cry for help.
It's like Jose, I'm not getting that.
Please.
I promise you.
I promise you.
The Mitsubishi Mi EV.
Oh, it doesn't mean it's BG.
You know, I mean, if you like eggs, right?
Looks like a egg you would drive.
I mean, it's efficient.
It's stylish.
It doesn't look comfortable though.
It doesn't look comfortable.
It says, look man.
It looks like something I would shit after a hard weekend of drinking.
That's what sounds like it's like.
But if you were going to go this route,
if I was going to go that route,
where I'm like, okay, I'm definitively,
I've decided on the commuter vehicle and the separate off-road vehicle.
Yeah.
And I'm going to get the commuter vehicle.
I wouldn't go by the most expensive commuter vehicle.
I don't know.

I don't know.
I'm going to pay $1000.
Like, all right.
No, I'm going to say a lot of discussion.
If I'm going to save, if I'm doing this because I'm going to save money,
but you also said this, the other thing,
you're going to make payments on something you hate.
And that, that I agreed with.
I don't want to make payments on something I hate.
Yeah, I want you to make payments on something you hate.
But making payments on something you hate that you don't have something you love
is different than making payments on a commuter vehicle that your triple negative is.
No, so what I'm just saying is, it was your only vehicle.
If it was your only vehicle, absolutely,
I would say, don't go make payments on something you hate.
But you're, you're consciously making the argument that I'm doing this for
efficiency to save money so that I can put that money back into my front.
No, it's also to save my front here from being the daily driver.
And so at that point, you still have your front here as the vehicle.
But no, I'm keeping the front here.
That's, that's the truck I love.
It's fucking matter.
Yeah, that's, that's why I'm saying,
if you're going to go down this route, it's that argument makes sense to me.
It's the 2015, it's a 2013 Ford Focus.
Not buying that fucking shit box.
Look, I'll pay a couple hundred dollars a month.
The least have something that doesn't look like a fucking a turd,
you know, or something that wouldn't get flushed if I tried it.
You need it.
It's like, looks is three or four, you know,
thing, you know, look at everybody talking about looks.
But when it came down to you, trying to wheel it.
Look, I drive a hundred miles plus a day.
Do you want to be seen in a fucking bubble car?
Nobody's looking at you.
Nobody's, it's efficiency.
Everybody's driving number one, right?
So there's this thing that looks ugly and shit.
It gets a hundred miles of the gallon.
This one looks cool as fuck.
They get 75.
I'll take the coolest fuck it's 75.
It's 50.
It's 50.
It's 50.
And it's way, what if it looks good?
It's way from that fucking Ford.
Yeah, whatever it's fun to drive too.
Like whatever it's like the golf.
The Volkswagen Golf, electric.
What about that?
That's a cool ass car.
Yeah, Tim in this valid point.
All of a sudden, the Dodge Dart guy has,
it's confirmed about looks.
Mother fucker.
That guy was cool as fuck.
Wait, who said that to?
Don't fuck in Tim.
Give me a break, Tim.
That Dodge Dart was cool as shit.
That, that, please.
Find Cody's old escort.
Oh, man.
If it was, that's what we should do project car.
Let's get an escort, a 1994 escort,
and convert it to electric.
Solid, that's the swap it.
Solid, that's the swap it.
I mean, like, I can imagine this BMW.
This is not, is not a comfortable, high quality vehicle for 18.
I guess you're setting me up.
Did I put in a belt, bro?
I, you know what goes you rode?
And I come shopping that thing.
And it's, what do you mean?
When mine's a pretty cool...

You're gonna get rid of Kulman or what?
No matter what, because I'm, I'm putting, okay.
I'm gonna say let's do the over under right now.
Don't you have a bunch of ironman shit
strapped to your truck still.
I do.
It was free.
It was for work.
Advertising?
It was free.
I'm still using it.
Uh, the, I'm gonna do, let's do the over under.
If Matt gets a community vehicle and parks the, uh, the frontier.
I say it is a, it is.
One year minimum.
Oh, ooh.
I wasn't gonna give it a whole year.
I was gonna say easy.
No earlier than hammers 2024.
Before the frontier comes back out.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
Yeah.
It takes me that long to work myself up to go hang out with you guys again.
It will, it won't be back out on the trails before.
Memorial day 2024.
Ooh, you're seeing it.

I'm saying, I'm 20 24.
I'm saying it from now.
I'm saying hammers.
Wow.
I'm saying hammers 2024.
So February of 2021.
If.
And so Matt, uh, Jose, you're saying.
Uh, you're saying, you're saying.
Yeah.
He's saying Mojave.
Mojave 2024.
Yeah.
Casey, what's your guess?
Um, I say.
So.
So that's a full, Jose's got a full year year in two weeks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What do I get if, if it comes out soon?
What is it?
Eight months away hammers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um.
We're in.
Ten months.
Ten months.
I'm saying nine months.
I'm saying nine months.
I am going to give.
Oh, man.
That is tough because.
I like that.
I think back on on on.
You guys are doing this summer.
But you're not doing anything till September at best.
Probably October.
I'm not missing nothing till October.
I'm going to say, uh, mid July 2024.
Oh, you're going all the way all the way.
All the way.

Somebody, uh, somebody write that down.
Uh, so I'm saying hammers.
Jose say in Memorial Day and Casey say in mid July.
Thanks, Casey.
Um.
Yeah.
So the.
Uh, it doesn't look like what Matt's going to be on the trail again.
Um.
Ever.
It's live for it.
My, my community.
It goes like, well, they're explode.
Matt, the only ridicule.
I mean, obviously, you, like, no matter what vehicle you get, like,
we're going to give you shit about it.
But the only actual, like, legitimate.
A ridicule you will get is.
How long the frontier sits without actually having been touched.
Sure.
No, I did something.
I did this or I'm, here's my progress.
Then they're like, oh, man, he's fucking doing it.
You know, the cheapest.
Uh, yeah, I didn't fucking do anything the last six months.
You know, the cheapest often is just.
That's where you get the ridicule.
If you show what, dude, if you show up in that bubble or whatever the fuck.
That thing that you shut out after a hard week of weekend.
We'd be like, this thing is ugly as fuck.
So you'd be like, hey, I, the reason I got this is so that the frontier can be on the trail.
Ripping it up sooner.
You're like, okay.
Yeah, do it.
Your cheapest option is just fixing the frontier.
I know you're spending a lot of money on gas a month, but you still have that 350.
And you're not going to have to have more.
It's not like my wife.
No, but that's the truth though, because the cheapest option is being a new train station.
Yeah, that's the cheapest.
Yeah, fix your truck.
And that's it.
Because then you're not going to have a car payment.
You're not going to have more insurance.
Did you call that place yet, Math, that I told you about?
No.
Who's A's?
If you have a time, as soon as you have time, give them a call and they'll spit you out a quick.
Like say, hey, even tell them, I'll bring you the transmission.
That's going to make it even cheaper.
I'll bring you the transmission.
I just need you to rebuild it and they'll spit you out a quote.
That is your cheapest option though.
Just fixing the frontier.
I'll side whatever you're going to do with your commuter and all that stuff.
I'm saying just.
So again, my heart driven 130,000 mile frontier, I repair the transmission.
What's next?
Right.
The motor or whatever.
And then I'm commuting again.
I'm still getting 15 miles a gallon.
I'm spending a lot of money.
You're going to have it.
What is the cheating?
You're going to have another spin.
You're going to have another spin.
I'm saying a side from a side from whatever you're going to do with a commuter.
I'm saying just as far as the front here.
No, I know.
That's the plan.
Don't go back to the dealership.
The plan from the beginning of the year when I got that allotment was somehow
I got to figure out how to park the front here.
Like I just, I don't want to commute this every day.
You know, it's sitting on 33's.
The tires are shot.
It's wobble.
You know, it's not.
It's it's it's I'm driving a truck that I kicked the shit out of four years.
I'm going to keep kicking the shit.
What's going to change?
I'm not going to.
I'm you know, I'm going to start driving a little.
I'm not going to for wheelless hard.
And you know, I'm not going to put my foot to the floor when I get on the on ramp.
No, I know, but this is what Jose is saying.
Well, you're not just fix it.
That is just fix it.
That is, and then the motor blows six months from now a year from five years from now.
Whatever, whatever it is, like, okay, but I do have like the option to get a commuter.
It's just you guys are giving you would rather give me shit about not having something to go
for wheel with even though you're not going to for wheel until October.
So let's see if I can get back out there by October.
Because you, everybody fucking knows.
Nobody's going to Johnson Valley.
Nobody's doing shit.
Let's plan to enjoy.
And we can do something wherever the fuck you know, up in the Sierra Nevada's top.
We're going to talk.
If you guys go to Tahoe, I'll mess out on that.
That sucks.
I'm sure I won't be able to make that.
You can still ride with it.
No, I can't.
No, I'm not right with it.
Fuck that.
But yeah, you know, it's going to suck.
I'm just saying as far.
If you guys kick me off the show and I, I don't get ridiculed every week.
Yeah, then then the front here is going to get pushed back or whatever.
You know, I mean, come on.
Yeah, if you have any further questions or concerns or ideas about the path to go down to the front here.
Just please consult me.
And I'm not getting rid of the front here.
That's my point.
No, no, no.
But I'm saying aside from whatever you do with a commuter car, go buy the bubble.
But just don't ever go back to the dealership.
No, of course not.
Again, the dealership I thought was like a quick.
Hey, you got it all day.
You replaced the camcenter like we thought it was.
It's not the camcenter.
At least according to the dealership, according to auto zone,
I plugged the damn thing into the computer myself.
It's not working.
I'll tell you what those those sensors make everything back out.
Right.
So whatever, like again,
Casey, how much how much are those sensors?
Maybe 50 bucks a piece.
Maybe 100 in and you and if you were going to replace it.
There's three sensors.
And if you were going to replace the the transmission,
you'd have to change those camcens anyways, right?
Not necessarily.
But I just I experience this like exactly what he described
about one installing and then it starts bucking like it shifts and it's like
Yeah, it's just super hard.
I don't want to go in that gear.
I don't want to go in that gear.
Damn.
And it's a yeah.
But why would the computer be throwing out a torque converter code
to be able with the camcenters?
Because the computer doesn't know in what sequence the motor is in.
Right.
And the engine control module talks to the transmission control module.
The engine control module is saying, look man,
I don't know what the bucks going on.
And then the transmission control module goes,
well, if you don't know what the fuck's going on, I don't know what the fuck's going on.
So what you're saying is the dealership would have replaced my transmission.
And then I'd still have the same fucking problem with camcens.
And then I brought it right back.
Probably would have replaced those camcens and then put a transmission
in it also.
And you know what?
And they would have said, okay sir, that's 7,400 bucks.
And I thought you said it was 69.
Oh, well.
You also had to change the camcens.
74.

And we took that air bubble out of here.
10,000 dollars.
The air bubble.
Yeah.
But if you want, we'll buy it back for six.
I was that close.
Like, well, what do you guys give me for the fucking truck as it sits?
I was literally that close to just, what, what frontiers do you have on the lot?
Let's just do it.
But then, you know, ration it.
I started thinking rationally.
And Cody was like, don't trade it in there.
Trade it in a car man.
Yeah.
So did they say, hey, we opened up the, we pulled the transmission.
They did nothing.
They did nothing.
They put the fucking code in and they were like, flesh the guys fucking radiators and just
go look at it here.
So let me pour it.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, the guy bites on $6900 for the trans cool.
If you're not just getting a fucking out of here.
Then you watched the fucking truck exactly.
All they did is scan it.
Yeah, he just scanned it.
Sure.
It should've been 40 bucks.
So I, when we bought that expedition, how come you where the fuck were you last week?
When all this shit was going on?
You're the second record.
You called me.
You called me.
You know what decisions you're going to get from me.
Look.
Bye.
My default answer.
My default answer.
Hey, we said, well, replace these sensors.
You should, I'm like, I'm based on a call fucking case.
You need to come do it.
I said, okay.
You didn't call me.
That was where I'm going to stay.
You called me.
You know, for fact, my default is my new.
You're going to break it.
And this, this doesn't have to do with the dealership.
But we bought that expedition.
That Susan needs to have.
People bought it in Norco.
It's 100 to fucking degrees.
We never turned on the heater.
We start come.
It was an October.
So it's still hot down the hill.
We start coming up the hill.
Susan turns on the heater.
No fucking heat.
She's like mother fucker.
So I immediately take it to one of the shops up here.
As a hey man, the heater don't work.
You know, give me whatever quote.
And like, yeah, you're going to need a new heater core.
A 1,400 bucks.
I was like, damn.
You guys, you guys tested it that fast, huh?
Well, it's bypassed.
So yeah, you know, he, new heater core.
Okay.
But you guys tested it.
Well, no, we don't need to test it.
Somebody bypassed it.
Nobody would bypass it if it wasn't bad.
Yeah, but then, but how do you know?
It's actually bad.
Well, it's bad.
I'm just going to come get it.
So then, like, a couple of week later, whatever.
I seen another expedition out of gas station as a man.
Can I take a look at your motor?
And I took a.
Now, you found.
Of how his.
And he.
He's zip.
He's turn to pull his bands.
He's like, right here.
Hey, I went to the fucking local part store.
I got some hose.
I.
That's why I go to my hose.
That's right.
The fucking heater works perfect for 10 years.
Did you have the expedition for 10 years?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh.
He's like, no, we had ever six, but that's not the point.
No, no, we had it.
But 10 years.
Really?
So real rig.
Real rigs that rattle is a green with case in the chat room.
He's saying there's multiple threads about the exact same issue and club frontier, just
say it.
It throws out the torque converter code.
And but changing the cam sensors will get rid of it.
Real rig needs clarification.
Yeah, real rigs.
Kind of very least, you're $150 in to replace all three of the sensors that could possibly
cost those symptoms.
Not the code, but the symptoms.
Because the symptoms are wrong.
Real rigs says yes.
Real rigs says yes.
That the code is, is that's what it's saying.
Hmm.
There you go.
Matt, you're $150 away from.
Right.
Hey.
Oh, okay.
Hey.
$150.
And you put all three of our fucking guesses.
And then I'm out of $100.
I'm going to we at a start.
But you're out of $150.
You'll have.
How about this?
Can I count?
Can I count?
No, no.
Can I still do that?
With a commuter vehicle that pays for itself.
Can I still do that?
Like I said.
Can I?
2024.
Can I?
Can that still happen?
Or once I buy a commuter vehicle?
Yeah, you're a fucking dick.
And nothing works.
Like here.
It like somehow validates the blown transmission thing and makes it that much older.
That scenario is still open with having another vehicle.
But I get mad.
Driving that truck cannot be comfortable.
It's not.
No, it's not.
It's loud.
Whatever.
I'm saying I'd be fucking old.
It is.
I'd be way.
It's been worked.
It's it's fucking worked.
It needs to just.
It needs to be.
It needs to be written hard.
When I want to fucking drive it hard.
But when I want to go to work.
I just want something that just fucking gets me to fucking work.
So yes.
How about this?
Hey, it's a it's a hundred fifty dollars to give it a shot.
Cool.
When I get home from work on Friday and I'm in my shit box or whatever that I'm saving a ton of gas on.
You're bubble.
Then we can go ahead.
Yeah, whether it's a bumble bubble or a fucking little golf GTI, you know, whatever
squirt around car.
That's why I'm that.
I would say bare minimum, like it's worth.
It's one hundred percent worth the hundred fifty bucks to know that.
If you want to go.
Because those sensors probably need to be replaced either way.

There's nothing wrong with it.
Within the next month.
If it erases the code.
Cool.
But if the code.
What if that new code?
They didn't clear the code.
Huh?
They didn't clear the code.
Why would they clear the code if that's the problem?
Did they fix the problem?
No, but you just always send it off of the cleared code.
Why would they do that if it's not fixed?
Like how how do you do that?
Clear.
How do you know the transmission's bad if you didn't take it apart?
The code fucking keeps reading.
I ours.
What do we argue about?
Like they didn't fix anything.
What is it?
Good.
They also didn't look at anything.
I don't know what they did.
The code says this.
They didn't do anything.
They plugged the computer into it.
They went, well, that's seven grand.
It's seven grand of them.
And why would they clear that and go?
Yeah.
No.
Now it's free of any problems.
Go ahead and trade it in for whatever you want.
Because we've just erased the problem.
You don't clear the code and say, there you go.
It's fixed.
You clear the code and say, OK.
We'll clear the code.
We'll see what kind of pop.
Go ahead and take it to another.
Nissan dealer and trade it in.
Knowing that there's a problem, I guess.
Again.
Well, I mean, I guess that's the deal of shit.
But I mean, why have the ability to observe codes?
If you're just going to be able to erase the codes whenever you want or whoever.
Because sometimes Phantom codes pop up like crazy.
Ooh.
Phantom codes.
I think that.
It's a companion.
Nicole and Tammy.
I saw them on Phantom codes.
It long beats.
Next weekend.
I saw them in the T.E. bar and hunting to beat the Phantom codes.
It's not uncommon.
It's rocking the lead bar.
They'll develop a fucking hiccup.
Right.
A random fucking missile.
It'll never happen again.
They have two code.
Two base players.
The Phantom codes.
That's not right.
The Phantom codes.
Yeah.
Two base players.
They had two base players.
I didn't compute.
Dude.
They were good.
I didn't say they were playing at the same time.
One rested.
They were so good.
They did individual parts.
Yeah.
They changed songs or whatever.
The other guy was just dancing.
Yeah.
What's up with that?
He did the T.E.
The T.E.
The Dake is.
I hate that guy.
No.
So it sounds like Matt is going to get a commuter.
We're really excited about him getting his new commuter being able to commute comfortably
in a vehicle that commutes.
I mean, I'm sure the more exciting thing is.
I trade the truck in.
I get a new Colorado or a newer Colorado.
Yeah.
That's exciting.
But then I'm still paying five second dollars a month plus the gas.
I can't afford that.
I just can't.
No, no.
I think you buy the bubble.
And you fixed frontier.
That's why are we fighting?
That's the plan.
That's why we're not fighting.
You guys want to give me.
You want to give me shit about going.
You're not going to do it fast enough.
On the fucking you give me some money.
And I'll fucking do it.
We're not.
I ain't about it.
What do you want for me?
My truck broke.
It's broke.
What's in my truck?
No.
Quit hitting the table.
I deal.
Today is.
It has nothing to do with when I think you'll be out on the trail again.
That doesn't have anything to do with the ideal scenario.
The ideal scenario is you fix the frontier.
No, fine.
I'll do that.
I have no problem doing the $150 for, you know,
replacement sensors or whatever.
That's the logical, the easiest fix.
Cool.
I'm fine with that.
As long as it actually crests the issue.
If the torque converter is actually engaging too quickly or that's what's causing the truck
to stall at idle because the transmission.
And again, is apparently engaging when it shouldn't be and stalling the vehicle.
Yeah.
I mean, it says to me.
Yeah.
Again, a torque converter is engaging and causing the transmission to shift gears
or engage it like a clutch.
Yeah.
If it's stalling, always spinning.
It's a thing.
Yeah.
So I had to say, like, I was driving up the mountain.
And then my truck just died.
What the fuck?
It doesn't.
It's only done in first gear.
And I pulled over.
I waited a few minutes.
Truck started up.
Joe, fine.
And I've had that happen several times.
Like, since I, you know, I then I eventually figured out the problem.
Change the sensors and then happen again.
I changed the crank sensors.
Oh, I've replaced the cam sensors.
How come we're fighting with KC right now?
I don't understand.
Okay.

We'll do that.
Let's do that.
Like, whatever you're saying.
Who's the biggest baseball player?
Yeah.
Here's the mic.
We're the mic trout round.
Like, you know what?
KC?

Yes.
Uh, whatever.
Whatever you say.

We'll do that.
Well, you know, because these motherfuckers will try to go to you.
You know what they, they.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Cool.
Like, let's do that.
But I'm still, I'm parking the truck for the time being.
Jason Priestley has been a hair violence.
Uh, that, I gotta say.
I gotta say the, uh, the anger.
The anger.
The anger, uh, the unnecessary anger from, uh, from Matt primarily during the course of this stuff.
What did I do?
What did I do?
What did I do?
I just, I presented them.
That's like the brok.
I tiet a truck.
It's my truck is broke.
Everybody's attacking me.
You're a moron.
How dare you?
You didn't refuse to deal with it.
The dealer and his codes.
You could have come in here with anything.
And the response would be you're moron.
You're a fucking idiot.
I know this.
Hey, how come you didn't refuse them with their own codes?
What did you just come out of with your own codes and say, well, my codes are telling me that the
Transpiration is fine.
You don't shit.
Then, oow.
The, uh, that, uh.
It says Bob Dotson to read your, uh, your ECU.
You know, ever since he retired to Deheady, he's really difficult to get a hold of.
And it's not, you know, I don't have the same pull with that guy anymore.
So it looks like Matt is getting a commuter vehicle.
And, uh, we don't know what that commuter vehicle is going to be yet.
Uh, it's either going to be the Mitsubishi bubble, uh, or a Tesla Model Y.
I vote bubble.
I got to hear about fucking Toyota's from Mark.
And everybody's got to give me some shit.
All right.
You guys all know how I drove that truck.
Oh.
100%.
100%.
That's, that's, that's right.
The fact that the truck surprised me.
They made it this long.
Yes.
That is a huge, uh, kudos to that truck.
I'm not, we're not, I don't think anybody's questioning that.
You're questioning my understanding of codes.
I didn't think anything about the code.
I did look.
I didn't pay $7,000.
I didn't pay anybody to do anything.
Oh my god.
Thank god.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Well, it's never, anybody who's listening.
Never, ever, ever, ever.
Go to the fucking dealership.
That was, if you want to say that was my mistake.
I'll agree with you.
Yes.
Okay.
Why don't they lie to you, though?
We had, we had a, uh,
They wanted to sell me a new friend here.
We had a jail in the shop.
He came in.
He's like, yeah, I want like a, like a banks exhaust and a tuner and things like that.
And we did all that.
And he was having some, it was a, that is a jeep.
So it was like 2.0.
He, uh, equal torque corner.
They call it E-tor.
E-tor, whatever.
And it was having some issues.
He ended up taking another dealership like under warranty.
And they're like, yes, because of this fucking tuner,
the tuner is fucking at all up.
So they charged them.
I don't know.
It's $2,000 to take the tuner out.
Even though it's like, six wide.
It's two plugs.
Yeah.
Right.
A week later, same fucking issue.
No tuner, same fucking issue.
Yeah.
Look, there's bad mechanics.
There's bad doctors.
They're just people that are just shitty at their job.
So, you know, they all work at the dealership.
You know, I, you know, I,
Thank, thank you very much for getting the bubble out of my fucking
Adam, I radiator.
Give me my truck back.
And that's where we're at.
We didn't even do that, Matt.
I hate to see it.
But I would do it.
There's two, there's two videos.
I can't even do it.
I'm telling you.
How dare you?
Telling you that you do it.
This is two videos that apply to the situation.
I don't know.
The first video that's that went around of that.
That's that car salesman doing that dance.
And, you know, it says like a fucking, you know,
that car salesman that's like doing the robot dance.
And then people put like.
Yeah, fucking.
He just sold a dark charger for like 25% interest.
And the other one is at the dealership.
The video of the guys fighting.
That's Matt fighting with the fuck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
With the tech and he's.
So I'm like, I told you just to change the camp sentences.
How's your 7,000?
Yeah.
Look, I'm super excited.
I'm just like to say that shy has my back.
I'm with Matt, get a plug into drive to work.
So, not said right there.
That is validating.
And the three of us are not against that.
No, I'm really excited.
I'm super excited about hearing about your upcoming
commuter vehicle.
I want to learn all about it.
All this makes me want to wheel with you guys.
So much more.
I want to ride into bubble.
I'm looking forward to hearing all about the features
and benefits of the commuter vehicle.
And when I speak about commuter,
it's to work.
And hopefully the the the new commuter vehicle
paves the way for Matt's frontier to get back on the trail
as quickly as possible.
Better than ever.
This can go one of two ways.
One.
The commuter car is going to be so good.
That he's never going to fucking touch that truck again.
Never.
Or the fucking commuter car is going to be so fucking bad.
He's like, I can't believe I bought this piece of shit.
That's the one.
That's my thing.
That's my thing.
Honestly, I can't believe I'm fucking paying five
or another month for this piece of shit.
And that's what I told him at the very beginning.
Regardless of if you're going to go, if you're going to do this for
saving.
If you're doing this for savings, you're going to end up in
something that you're just like, why it's up you hate after
two, after two weeks, two months.
You're going to be like fucking bullshit.
Yeah.
I'm two inches off the ground.
I'm not comfortable.
This doesn't fit me.
You're still making a payment on that thing no matter what you do.
Just make the fucking payment on something you want to be in.
I'm telling you how it's going to go.
We've just done the 360 degree fucking.
He's going to marry a leader.
He's going to replace those three sensors on the frontier
and he's gone.
Son of a fucking bitch.
I mean, we can play the, we can play the financial game.
I mean, you don't pay electricity anymore.
I think we need to do like full on game show activities here.
And after this episode, can you see how this goes?
We can't do another six months of what is Jose going to buy?
Except it's me now.
Except when Jose, it was like, at least he bought a truck.
I'm talking about a piece of shit fucking bro.
I'm sweating golf or goddamn.
I meant to be helped me whatever that was.
Because I was in the same situation when I bought the frontier.
I was like, should I just buy a little commuter car and shit?
But no, dude, you're going to fucking hate it.
And you're still going to have that payment.
That's going to get super into drifting.
Here's pretty quick, dude.
That's the problem.
It's like, I just couldn't, I couldn't swallow that pill.
I'm going to hate this fucking car and I have to pay for what was your.
What, what were you paying for four years in fuel?
When you made that decision, nothing.
I've already, I've already paid.
There's $100,000.
Bro, I was paying like $800 to $1,000 a month in gas.
When I was driving.
No, but all that podcast money.
Mm-hmm.
That's true.
I was driving from Riverside to Fontana to Highland every day, dude.
You made a bad decision.
In the Land Cruiser.
In the Land Cruiser.
You made a bad decision.
How?
But you could have saved the ton of money.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
No, no, no, no.
You're comparing, it's two different things.
I already have the car or the vehicle that you're about to choose
between your, uh, your cruiser and the front tier.
You're going to choose the front tier.
I already have the front tier.
I have that.
No, I know, but it's the better vehicle.
Like, you're, like, you're already like, yeah, I think I'm ready to sell the front,
where the, the cruiser.
Yeah, you came to that now.
I'm already ahead of that game.
I'm just trying to like maintain and keep the front tier and make it better.
But at the same time, you know, as far as the commute or whatever,
I, I 100% agree with your 90, your 30 year old cruiser.
My, my front tier is only five years old.
It has size, electric heat.
The AC works.
Everything works.
And he works in my cruise or two.
So it's not, that's what I'm saying.
But I'm just saying for commuting though.
Yeah, dude.
You got to get come to compare the speakers.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we, we are going to let Matt decide what's best for Matt,
because I think the other three of us have varying opinions on it.
You know, all you want to do is pick and pick.
And, uh, Jim and Jim.
I say, I say by the bubble and three sensors.
And then you have two running cars.
That's right.
And then again, the front tier staying at home in house could potentially be
Michael's vehicle when he's come of age.
And, you know, ideally that that's been like the long,
and that's three years from now.
But it makes me happy thinking about Michael being able to wheel that thing.
And whatever, however it set up at that time, whether it's still just with the suspension
that's on it now and just, you know, however,
more miles that are wheeled, you know, in it or whether it's like
Titan swab.
Think about, like, if you're a kitten high school, you have a Titan swab.
Uh, I don't know how that's perceived.
But you have a Titan swab front tier.
As your daily driving going to school, I seem pretty cold to me.
What high school is he going to?
Uh, where's he just with?
Sun it.
Oh, the fancy one.
Yeah.
He would.
I dropped in off at school in my front tier on 35s like decked out.
And it's all the challenge.
Is there driving here at third jet Tacomas?
They're J.O.F.
Where's your name?
They're jacked up bucket trucks and their outies and Tesla's and all that shit.
And I'm like, what do you fucking parents do?
I mean, like, who's this guy in this gay front tier?
His 400 gets more cred than your fucking front tier.
Yeah.
That's true.
I don't know.
Your parents can't even afford it.
They don't look.
Look.
Until July, I mean, Zen can't wheel the four runner.
You might as well let Matt drive it.
Between now and July, until Zen gets to.
You might as well just lean over him.
I mean, but he's got, he's got two sweet ovals to choose from.
Yeah.
I'll tell you what dude.
I'll tell you this.
Like, if I had that, that extra is just, you're doing 90.
You don't even notice it.
Can I ask you one question, man?
It is nice.
I just want to say.
It is a comfortable car to drive.
I don't know.
I want to ask you one question.
Then I will drop the fucking whole commuter shit.
If you were to, if you can buy the car you wanted to buy or truck, what would you get?
I feel like this is a trick question.
It's not a trick question.
Whether if a gas wasn't.
No.
Okay.
So that's the whole point.
What am I willing to pay?
Like, every say, every dollar that I save on fuel, I could get conceivably something
like the ionic five, something like that.
Brand new.
Those days asking about, no, just, no.
I'm saying, I don't know.
He's asking about what commuter vehicle you would buy.
What truck, what car if you could buy a truck, what would it be?
Yeah, what?
You get one car.
Yeah, you get one car.
Gas aside.
Yeah.
What do you want?
What do you want?
What do you want?
What do you want?
What do you want again?
I honestly, I haven't even thought about that.
That's like, pie and the sky stuff.
But something within your price range, too.
I'm not saying fucking raptor.
What the fuck man?
Like, I'm supposed to know all that stuff.
My price range and whatever.
I honestly, yeah.
Again, like, well, what's my price range?
Is that, like, again, I could.
I could right now, according to Carvana,
trade in the game.
The quote, they'll come pick up my the front to your tomorrow.
And I can get a 2020 Colorado for 500 a month.
500 a month.
500 a month.
I could, I could, I could, I could do that.
But then what am I gaining?
You all right, a newer truck with much less mileage.
But I'm still, I'm making the payment.
And I'm doubling that.
Yeah, Colorado.
Huh?
What am I going to call the Colorado?
I'm assuming the same as my frontier.
Why would it be any difference?
It's, it's more, I'm pretty sure it's more.
More what?
I think it's, I think it's made 20s.
No way.
What world do you live in?
Like, do you live in, like, the real world?
It's, there's no way, every, every person here is on 33's,
not any, one of us are close.
Anywhere close 20 miles a gallon.
It says.
Of nowhere close.
It literally says up to 20 miles city 30 highway.

The R2 do.
Easily like, like, 16.
Yeah.
18.
I've lost.
Why would it be?
The so the matter.
The fact you're as lying.
You're telling me, me sounds lying to me about my computer code.
Yes.
Yeah.
The 2.5 liter I4 base engine is 20 city 26.
Is that on 33 for two wheel drive and 19?
We're talking about 33.
Why wouldn't I put 33s on my,
ZR2?
Why would a ZR2 not be on 33s?
It comes with 32.
So a 33 is okay.
Hmm.
Yeah.
It's going to be impacted.
Okay.
But are you over two miles of fucking gallon?
My point being okay instead of 700 miles of gallon.
You stopped hitting the 50 miles.
You stopped hitting the 50 miles.
You know, I get a month or whatever.
But it's not working out to the gallon.
It's.
I didn't say much.
I got 14.
But then you're in belishing.
If you were thinking with your heart or buying with your heart,
you'd buy that ZR2.
Like you do that that deal of room.
That swap room.
If I didn't have to.
Again, so it's a thousand dollars a month for the for the payment.
And the gas compared to the seven.
All right.
Well, yeah.
I mean, if we're comparing it to the a brand new.
Ionic five.
Yeah.
And I keep the and I keep the front here.
What the.
Are you guys stupid?
Like that just seems pretty obvious to me.
Like, okay.
I have the front here.
It's not.
It's not a newer.
Colorado.
You're right about that.
But I'm also not using it every day.
And I also have a brand new or newer vehicle that I'm saying.
It's paying for itself.
I don't have something to wheel for a few months.
All right, guys.
Keep giving me shit about that.
Keep giving me shit on that decision.
Hey, think of another scenario.
What if somehow you were on the moon?
And you had to choose a vehicle that you only had the limited gas.
But some.
Like, create scenarios.
I don't think I was on the moon.
I would choose you.
I don't push them over the edge.
I'm just saying.
You guys are just coming up with scenarios.
No, I just want.
It's not.
Do you're not really saving that much money by getting another car?
Yes, I am.
Actually, because I'm it pays for itself.
Like again, it's it's something I'm going to plug in.
And then I'm not putting gas in.
I pay $700 in gas right now is what the front tier does for me.
For four years.
I don't want to do that anymore.
I want it to sit and then run when I want to do it.
I can go wheel it this weekend.
Let's go wheel it this weekend.
Let's go do it.
We are going on Saturday.
Let's go do it.
Let's go for wheel.
The shit.
Oh, that's inside.
That's inside.
That.
You fucking scheduled the dude.
All right.
I'm going.
I'm going.
I think there's a meetup in Johnson Valley.
I can't.
My friends have changed then.
I'm going to be an expo.
I got to reach out to that guy and find out if there's still doing that.
I guess he has it.
Other than the first email.
I've not heard anything about it.
I haven't seen any advertisements.
My plan was originally to take then four run or down to that event.
But it's just idea.
It's.
Well, let me let me.
Let me find out.
I'm going to put on my calendar to find out if it's actually happening.
That's not the case anymore for me.
I'll tell you that much.
No.
However, there is a meetup in Johnson Valley.
We're kind of a battle ready rigs.
All right.
Those port meetups will wheel in things like that.
Yeah.
It's a groupite meetup Jose.
Okay.
I'll I'll tag you in the post.
You got it.
Thank you, sir.
I'm.
I'm interested in potentially going down.
Late like midday Saturday.
All right.
Um, okay.
Well, I think that we beat the shit at a mat tonight.
And that wasn't the end.
You know what I mean?
I look forward to the next few months to the frontiers running again for this to be a weekly segment.
I'm just.
How do you like your whatever the fuck I get?
Like it's going to be a wonderful.
You know, whether you guys approached me off the podcast.
Because you want to realize me weekly or, you know, I actually get the frontier effects.
That's the.
I call shock it in the bubble.
I wonder if the bubble can do Mojave.
Get it.
Get it all wheel drive electric.
And I was going to mention that like why can't this thing be like a capable thing.
There was there was something there was we saw something that was a it was an SUV.
Uh, all wheel drive electric and he didn't like it.
What's in the rating, Jonathan Valley on Saturday?
What's that all electric SUV that that was the Ion, his 9D.
That was the Mazda and it was some amazing.
You know, we can't has a range of last two days.
I'm just telling you what the internet's telling me alright.
Okay.
All right.
Dealers with light of you.
Deal.
No.
Okay.
Well, I really thought we were going in this episode.
This episode sucked.
I thought we were going into this episode without a long time.
That was a lot of fun.
That was a shit episode.
And being quite medium.
This is the most epic I've cussed ever in a fucking episode.
This is the most I've cussed in like in a two hour span in my fucking life.
Take away his truck is broke.
Yeah.
They can't have say.
So I was looking at him for your homey.
So Matt needs some time to decompress it dead.
I still need time.
Like, you know, this is like it happened roughly a week ago.
Like it was on Thursday.
I think I got the call.
So yeah, it's still like a source subject.
I'm certainly not stoked about it.
But how far did you drive to the dealership?
Like how many miles?
No.
Honestly, I swear to you, I'm not concerned about what?
I'm concerned about further damage, I guess, the transmission.
Because it is happening more frequently.
You know, the first time I happened was December.
And then, you know, if you did the graph, like when was the next time I happened?
I just got quicker and quicker and quicker.
So I guess I would say in the next 200 miles it would do it again if I were to.
If I were to, you know, make it.
But I mean, you know what, I'm going to take this to the dealership.
And then you drove for what 30 minutes.
Oh, no.
It's five minutes away.
It's literally three and a half miles from my house, the dealer.
And again, it was like, you know what?
I do that.
I took into consideration like, well, I don't want to fucking bother you to go replace these fucking sensors.
I have the wherewithal to just fuck it.
You know, if it's if it's 50 bucks a cent.
You're a drink bearer.
Yeah.
All right.
That's the nothing could be further from the truth.
But I just didn't want to ask you with it.
And if they could not.
Now, you didn't call me.
Yeah.
And service the trans and service the rear end and all that stuff I was going to have done.
But they hit me up with a fucking code and said that and they told me the transmission needs to be rebuilt.
I have since researched on Google and it could be six other things.
Like it could be just the selling oil.
It could be low on transmission fluid.
It could be all these simple things.
Okay.
That's fine.
But right now, what that put on on me and just it just it was like, you know what?
I need to have a commuter vehicle.
I don't want to depend on this anymore.
I just want this to be my fun truck.
So this is that's the sell.
Look.
You know, I'll be honest with you.
Like money.
Monty's approved the, all right.
Let's get that commuter vehicle.
So like, I don't have to fight for this.
This is what I wanted to do since I got that allotment and now it's happening.
And then I'll figure out the truck.
That's it.
You know, all these extreme things could could still happen.
We support you 100%.
I feel the love.
We go to, you know, expose next week, not this weekend.
No, it's this weekend.
Hmm.
I'm pretty sure it's literally this weekend.
It's this.
It's the 20, it's the 27.
I'm like, why is he going out so early?
I think I googled it and it's 20.
I'm looking up right now just to make sure.
But I, it's the, uh, 19 through 21st.
Oh, is it?
Oh, that was way off.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yes, I swear at that was the week after.
Maybe it was last year was the week after.
Maybe.
But, uh,
Now, poor Matt, just like a shit kicked out of him for two hours by us.
And now DIY automotive group is like, you do realize I have a YouTube channel.
Fixing most major problems with frontiers.
Right.
What done has kind of break them because they never break it.
Oh, uh, thanks for tuning in now.
It's just rehash it all guys.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's go.
So DIY automotive group.
I think you should get the bubble.
DIY automotive group.
You can go back to the beginning of the YouTube as soon as we're done here.
The hours back.
Figure out the here it.
And then you can email him.
You could.
It's Matt trailchaser.net.
You can set him an email and I'll take.
No, I'll take whatever advice or whatever.
Like again, nothing, nothing has been committed to.
I want to commit to the community view.
I'm not selling the front here.
Okay.
Okay.
Let's ask him real quick.
Hey, DIY.
He took it to the dealer.
They told him it's a torque converter.
And they were just going to replace and transmission.
Casey saying his truck.
He had also has the same front here.
He changed the cam in cam sensors and crank sensors.
Because they were giving the same symptoms.
And then yeah, that fix the problem.
So what a bad cam and crank sensor.
Give off the bad torque converter code on the computer.
Thank you.
You know, that was very interesting.
Who's a good job.
This is exactly what happened.
It is.
Oh, he's okay.
It's Dave.
Change the channel.
I knew who it was.
Oh, I didn't know.
We got to listen.
We have 10 listeners.
Yeah.
Well, mine is one because it's the same.
He's trying to make it.
He's trying to make it.
Yeah.
You know how I changed my law.
Yeah.
He just made.
He does it every other week.
He's like, oh, my God.
We're blowing up guys.
It's like, you know, altering nations here.
But what happened?
Did I?
Yeah.
And that's like I'm in the same room.
That's what you did.
Jose like you post things.
And I'm like, who's this guy?
And it's like, that's Jose's trying to read the comment.
Well, yeah, duh.
That's why I picked it up from the dealership and drove it home.
Like, thank you for supposedly fixing my, my overheating problem.
Hey, we fixed your bubble.
That'll be $473.
It was $169.
But what are you going to do?
Okay.
So, like, that's their hourly rate.
So they did all that in one hour.
Yeah.
No.
It's because they looked at them.
They just tell us, guy, I need the fucking new drug.
100%.
100%.
Yeah.
100%.
So again, I'm not saying that the problem.
The problem hasn't changed.
It's just the solution is this opportunity to park the truck.
I don't need to drive it every day anymore.
Okay.
We can argue over whether Matt over pays for something fancy.
They like to drive and commute and supposedly suit money or not.
And gets a shit box and actually saves money.
That's the true argument.
The reality is that the frontiers are going to link it.
Yeah.
The frontiers parks and it's just a good time.
Like, let's go for a wheeling.
Which is something like, like, wow, that's an amazing opportunity to me.
So, that's all.
All right.
Wow.
Sounds like Dave might have some ideas for you.
It's not a crankshaft position sensor.
Then torque converter makes sense.
Yes, it does.
It stalls at in at idle in gear at jacking a box.
Specific.
It might be jacking box related.
Like, came on the fucker.
I told you stop eating jacking the box.
But it was very specific.
Like, why do you do this to yourself, Matt?
You should not be eating jacking the box.
He need to be going to fucking in and out.
Why don't you go work out?
Why don't you work out?
And earn jacking the box and it's like, kind of damn it.
Frontier, you're so right.
Now we're waiting on Dave to give us.
Yeah, we got to close at the show.
Yeah, we're going to close at me emails and stuff.
And I would obviously appreciate any any advice.
So we think we think we hear Matt's got itself.
He's going to buy the commuter vehicle.
We all support his decision to buy the commuter vehicles.
And we look forward to it.
You can make fun of us.
You can make fun of him.
Memorial Day 2024.
I mean, I also make fun of me.
I got a fucking, I drove a Ford here.
You know, I like to go ahead and start.
Don't don't hold back.
That's why you made it.
Otherwise, you wouldn't see what I do.
If you do, I see what I do for the show.
If I open myself for ridicule.
I don't know.
You take our power.
You take our power.
Matt is made of pure content.
Yeah.
If you see, you're trying to get rid of me.
What are you going to do?
Dave is saying, get a new frontier.
I think we started there.
We started there two hours ago, Dave.
Yeah.
So you're, you're, I appreciate your validation.
V, VK 56 swap.
That's all I can say.
All right.
So keep takeways.
Worst Marvin movie.
We're on agree.
Mint.
It's.
Love and thunder.
That dark, dark, fucking dark world.
Dark world.
No, it's eternal.
Oh, I like that.
You know, I'll take love and thunder is the worst.
I turn to the worst one.
All right.
Thank you everybody for the, for hanging out with us in the chat room.
And having some fun in Matt's expense.
Matt, I apologize for getting your blood pressure up and making you feel like,
You know, I take medication for that.
So you can push on.
We can push it.

We'll just take an extra pill when I go.
And we'll see.
We'll see what happens between now.
And next week, maybe, maybe we'll have a new section on the show about.
Eevees.
How much a hate.
Farmax.
So it'll be a whole.
Let's, let's take, let's record me at Carmax and test driving.
Different ship boxes like that.
That's probably entertaining.
That probably would be.
All right.
We're going to end it here, guys.
Everybody, thank you so much for hanging out.
We appreciate it.
You guys have a good night.
We'll talk to you next week.
Thank you to everyone that participates and listens to the 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 trail
Chase or support team at iRate4by4.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 RyanTorrigno.com.
That's R-Y-A-N-T-E-R-R-I-G-N-O.
Check it out.
Give them some support.
We appreciate it.

Ep 269: Where To Next Overland

Welcome to the Trailchaser Spotcast.
Today on the show, we talked to Jeff and Christine with where to next overland.
We talked about what it's like camping and four wheeling up in the Seattle area.
What type of gear do they use?
What's been their favorite trailer trip?
We even asked them is it is the climate like super bunny up there in the northwest?
And I'll tell you, as the smats and Morrissey lover,
Seattle sounds like an amazing place for me to settle down.
Then we get into the new Tacoma.
Guys, what do you think about the Tacos leaked photos?
Yeah.
It's going to be at Tacoma, whatever.
Uh, rear disc brakes.
From brakes?
Um, and if Christine's family is listening, we tried to rescue her,
but it doesn't seem like she wants to be rescued.
So, why?
She didn't blinked, why is it?
Smoking meats.
It's time for the real season to begin.
Are you ready?
Let's begin.
Say, don't you say so.
Then I don't say something to you.
Say, don't you say so.
Our time is now.
And I'll repeat your adventure.
And I'll repeat your adventure.
The adventure.
The adventure.
Jose, you should think about finding our good times.
Good.
With wrong game?
A little Honda Gromp.
By finding your sound accruesor.
So it's 638.
We're a little bit.
We were kind of streaming on time.
You guys know how that goes.
And we're with our guests.
And we were just recently discussing.
Um, adult size motorized big wheels.
And I think that we have convinced, uh,
Jeff from where to next over at,
Overland on Instagram and YouTube to abandon the
Overland scene altogether and start minibight
Cartelling with.
What's that hard?
Christine, are you in?
I'll, I'll leave that to you all.
That's what you're in.
It only took one video to show you guys.
Yeah.
This solves a dilemma for me.
We have a motorcycle.
We love to travel on the motorcycle.
We have, we have the Lexus.
We love to, we love to overland.
So this thing's got three wheels.
It is the perfect middle ground.
Absolutely.
100%.
Look.
The, the trichacers.net.
Pretty soon.
We're going to start a whole new scene.
Do the trich, the, the trich.
On Instagram, where to next.
Overland is where you can find Jeff and Christine.
I was just telling them a little bit earlier that I,
I don't know how I came across their feed,
but there was like, a couple stories or reels.
And after like the second or third one, I was like,
You saw the line.
You saw their land crews.
You're like, dude, I got to interview them.
No, I mean, I felt bad for them at that point.
But, uh, the just, just, you guys,
You guys do really, really terrible as such.
How many alternators have you put in it?
Um, if we're not counting the previous owner, zero.
Yeah, we.
I have that.

Oh, okay.
We've made many other things.
I don't know.
Dude, these guys give me shit because I replaced a 30 year old heart on the car.
Yeah.
For real.
All the twice.
One.
The stomach placing has 260,000 miles on the original.
Yeah, but it's less funny that way.
If you tell it that way, it's less funny.
We make fun of him for carrying extra parks in his truck.
And the, the, the, the flip side of that is I don't know what parts to change in my truck.
Like, if my, if my truck breaks, I'm towing it to the dealership.
And like, here, dude, just give, what do you give me for it?
That's, that's where I'm at.
Can you take the rooftop?
Tent off her first place before we work on it.
Uh, so, so you guys, um, you, you said you're out of Seattle.
And um, looking at your Instagram feed and your reels and stuff.
You guys are really, really good.
It capturing adventures and, um, and telling stories around what you're doing.
And, and I commend you for for the content that you're creating.
Let's start with kind of some background on you guys.
I, I know Jeff, you kidnapped Christine from California.
You made her go up to Seattle.
And which, you know, blink twice if you need help.
We'll come get you.
But as he covers her up.
Um, so tell me on the internet, you can't do that.
Tell me, give me some background on you.
Give me some background on you guys.
Like, what's, what's your, you know, uh, where'd you grow up?
And, and how did you get into this over landing lifestyle?
Um, yeah, as Cody said, I'm from California.
I grew up in San Francisco.
Uh, I would say that I didn't really grow up in a house where we, we,
we, we did any, anything outside, um, other than like playing hide and seek with our,
or the kids in the neighborhood.

Um, it really wasn't until I was an adult and kind of moved around, um, California
and got to hang out with people who were really into, uh,
uh, just outdoor activities.
And moved to Seattle in 2009, met this guy and, um,
we just really bonded over like outdoor adventures.
And I think between the two of us, um, he's probably more of an adrenaline junkie than I am,
but I'm always down for adventures and trying new things.
And yeah, uh, I'll let you share the story about how we got into over landing,
because I think that's a pretty cool story.
But yeah, uh, didn't really do a whole lot outdoors and then all of a sudden,
like once I got into my 20s and 30s, it was like, oh, wow,
there's actually more to, uh, just to,
what's out there than, well,
living in the concrete jungle.
Yeah, especially Seattle, right?
I'm sure outdoors that's, that's, that's,
prime, prime territory there.
Yeah, well, and coming from, to touch on that, coming from San Francisco,
um, San Francisco can be very insular,
meaning you don't have to go anywhere if you don't want to.
Everything you need is, you know, a, a, a two mile radius, right?
So if you grew up in that type of environment, any type of, like,
temperature, if you wanted a Dodger hat, you had to go outside of that.
Oh, no, no, like, you got to smuggle that thing over the border.
They're, that's, they're gonna go, we're gonna go with a lids.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't know about that.
But, um, I could totally see, like, if you grew up in that,
very urban, dense urban environment,
the outdoor lifestyles, not something that's just like an everyday thing, right?
Uh, for those of us that grew up in the suburbs here,
like you've got to drive by dirt all the time,
and you're like, oh, what's in that dirt?
And that's how we end up doing it.
But that makes sense to me that it took a while for you to expand your,
uh, uh, uh, I just, I just made your horizons,
but like, get to a point where like, hey, there's stuff out here.
Yeah, yeah, because, I mean, in San Francisco, it's like,
all right, you want to go, you want to go out into the mountains,
you're driving up to Tahoe, and that's like five, six hours.
Um, so, yeah, here in Seattle, we're 30 minutes away from the mountains,
and so it's like, hey, we don't have anything to do this weekend,
but let's pack up the truck, let's go.
Yeah.
So that, I love that.
Probably why I'm still here, other than being trapped by that.
Yeah, I mean, again, we'll, we'll talk offline,
and what we can do to get you shut a little bit out of there.
Message sent, linked twice.
I'm sorry, message received.
So what about you, Jeff? How did you get into this?
Yeah, I grew up here in the, in the Seattle area,
you know, suburbs kid, and I think, you know, grown up here,
that's just what you do.
You just, you go out and you camp, and you, you get outdoors and you hike,
and you do all that.
So, I've always had a love for the outdoors,
and then, you know, I think probably in my, in my mid 20s,
early mid 20s, somebody's,
they all kind of got into, into writing, writing bikes,
motorcycles.
And, and so I had a lot of foam,
and so I ended up getting a motorcycle,
and, and these guys, they're like,
they would go for, they would go for a week at a time, right?
They would just go, you know, five, 600 mile days,
you know, go from here to, you know,
Montana, here to Texas, here to, you know, whatever.
And, and so I started hanging out with them.
I bought a bike, I started going on trips with them,
and I think I really, I really fell in love with just the idea of the road trip,
and realized that the American West is ridiculous.
Like the American West is just, like an embarrassment of riches.
When it comes to just outdoors and, and the terrain and the topography and everything,
and so, and the access and the, the open free access to land
that most of the country doesn't have.
Yeah, public land, and so,
so saw some of the country that way.
And, in fact, when we, when we got married,
our honeymoon was a motorcycle trip to Alaska,
so we rode to, oh, wow.
You know, when, dude, I could, I don't know,
I don't know how I've managed to pull that one off.
I, I had to drag my wife out of the house
just to go to the movies this week.
And it was like a movie.
I thought she wanted to see it.
I was like, let's go see, you know, guardians.
I was like, oh, this weekend, like,
she's, man.
So, could I just do that?
Well, all I had to do was sit on the back.
Take pictures.
It was like, okay, cool.
Yeah, I'll hang out.
Yeah, awesome.
That's a lot of fun.
So, so I, I, I captured her from,
he's under a cap from California.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Get up here.
Back of a motorcycle.
Took her to Alaska.
And then, and then, and her family's like,
is anybody seen Christine in the last 18 months?
Some guy on a motorcycle came over and just took her away.
Yeah.
So, red light camera that caught a glimpse of the sight of her face.
And she was flying by.
She looked happy.
Yeah.
Yeah, so, you know, we love that.
And then, and then we got into, we bought our, our Lexus,
basically a land cruiser.
All right, you don't need a break.
Basically, it's basically a land cruiser.
Okay.
And, and so, we bought that in 2019.
Was after you to the EDR, right?
Yes, on the motorcycle.
Yeah.
So, we, we bought it in 2019.
And, and it kind of combined just to kind of combine so many things that we love to do, right?
We love the road trip.
We love the idea of adventure.
We love to unplug.
We live in Seattle.
So, getting out of the city and not having cell reception is,
we, we, we love that.
And, and of course, camping as well.
So, it kind of just combined everything.
And, and as soon as we started doing it,
we just kind of fell in love with it.
So, I want to do this all the time.
So, that was the genesis of, like, I guess we want to call it overlaying, right?
What do we want to call it?
But, but that was really the genesis of that.
And, the, it seems like the, you know,
we'll use Madison example.
Matt started.
I'm sorry.
But, Matt started on on on motorcycles and, and dirt bike,
you know, and that, and that progression of wanting to do more and go,
I was already pretty old too.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're all pretty old normal terms.
The behind.
I'm, I'm definitely delay.
This is going to, he's going to, he's going to type out a complaint on this type.
You're going to, you're going to, certainly,
certainly type letter.
So, does that invite us to stamp for this envelope in a few months?
The ink ink in the quilt.
Yeah.
But, that's, that's a very, don't worry.
You're actually, yeah.
That's a very common progression of, I want to try some things.
I do some exploring on a motorcycle.
Now, I want to take someone with me.
And, oh, I want to go multiple days.
Let's move into the, the off road slash over landing world.
And, and I think, we've talked to a lot of people who have similar stories in that progression.
So, we're growing up, though.
I mean, you said you start, when, when was it that you got into the dirt bikes and stuff with your friends?
You know, it's, what's weird?
I don't know what it is.
Oh, are you, are you, are we talking, are we asking Matt?
No, I'm asking.
No, I don't know if he said goodbye.
He just said, he just said, he just said, he just said,
motor cycles.
If you go to dirt bike to Alaska and around the country,
that would be even more of a thing.
He tries to ride him around the corner.
He climbed only.
He died.
He's almost dead.
I'm 50, 50, right?
So, when did you start the motorcycle thing?
That was, that was, it was really, it was later.
It wasn't probably not until, not until.
I think I bought, I got my first bike when I was probably 28.
Okay.
So, and what, what was the bike?
There's a Suzuki SUV 650.
Oh, I still love that bike.
Man, I am jealous.
That's like the, like, the best first bike.
It is a, it's a, it is a great.
That's what I was looking at.
I told you to get it instead of that pile of shit you bought.
That's what I was looking at the name before I got my ninja.
Yeah, I, I, I really liked that bike.
That's a really good bike.
So, the, looking at, I mean, starting in Seattle, you guys have so much around you.
What's the, like, from your take, what's the, what's your favorite part to explore in that,
in that general area, starting in the Pacific Northwest?
I know you guys have gone other places, but like, in, in the two mile,
two hour radius of your house.
Like, where, if someone was up there in that area, where would you suggest they go?
And the two mile.
I just look here in Southern California, two miles is two hours.
So I don't know where how it's like in Seattle.
Yeah.


What's your, what's your favorite Pacific Northwest destination that we, we hit?
I would say it's probably just outside of Greenwater and the cascades.
Yeah.
That, yeah.
That one's my favorite.
Yeah.

I mean, in terms of access, the cascade mountain range, anything in there is, is beautiful.
So it's super easy to get to go.
Yeah.
And you know, we can get there in an hour, an hour, 15 hour and a half.
You can connect to, you know, the Washington BDR if you want to, you know,
check out some of that stuff.
It's tough this time of year because with the snowpack, you know,
there's not a lot that you can do in there.
So through the winter and even into the spring, the Olympic peninsula is, is amazing.
I mean, it's beautiful.
Like, you have rainforest, you have mountain, you have ocean.
And it's just, you can explore so much of it.
And it's cool because you got the, you got the Olympic national park.
But then all around it is national forest.
So you can do, you know, we've done basically full loop around.
Oh, really.
The Olympic national park, just through the national forest and connecting forest roads and things like that.
So it's, it's beautiful over there.
This, this just occurred to me, and it might be silly.
But do you see a lot of like, where wolves and vampires up there?
Because I saw a movie.
I saw a movie.
There was a lot of that stuff happening up there.
There's a lot of fighting.
They're very glittery.
I mean, if you saw him in the sun, like, I'm just saying, I'm very curious.
Did you see any well, where, where wolves or vampires were wolves?
Were wolves?
Were wolves anymore?
Were wolves?
You know, I was, I wasn't sure what they were when I saw him.
You used to be aware of wolves, but now they're were wolves.
Were wolves?
If you, if you drive through, what is the town for?
Forks.
You drive the town through that town.
Don't say new.
Oh, my god, Jose.
The entire economy that town is just, how do you not know that?
I, you could have strapped me to a chair and hooked up electrodes.
Yeah, but you're my body.
I would not have been known.
I wouldn't tell them they were in.
Oh, but you know what?
That's just, that's Jose's job.
He knows those things.
Jose has all that info.
Well, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to make fun of you.
So, so that, there's all that tourism.
It's all, it's all people just touring that whole area.
Yeah, oh yeah.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
That is crazy.
I'm looking into this day.
That was a long time.
Yeah, bro.
But that's like, there's like, generations growing up on those books, dude.
Yeah.
They were books.
I mean, that was a book.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The, uh, do you guys ever make it into like the, like Eastern Washington?
I know there's a lot of desert and stuff on that side of the state.
Do you guys ever go on the other side of the cascades?
The, the Eastern slope of the cascades is, is beautiful.
There's a lot of public land there.
There's a lot of areas to explore there.
Once you get a little bit further east, there's some pockets.
But it becomes farmland pretty quick.
And so there's not quite as much public land.
Unless you get way up northeast Washington.
It's a little closer to the two.
Yeah.
So I, I like a little bit.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, a question for Cody.
Do you have a map open right now?
I have absolutely.
I have a map open.
I have a map open.
Oh, great.
I love it.
I love maps.
I know what it is.
I know what it is.
I know what it is.
Well, two things.
I can look at maps all day long.
I love maps.
Secondly, you could name a street that's two blocks from my house.
And I wouldn't know where that is.
So I have to look it out on a map to nowhere.
Exactly.
I don't know where that's.
Um, the, uh,
So Seattle is.
Temperature wise.
You guys still have nine months of drizzle, right?
Yeah.
You guys, you don't have, like, that's a pretty good emo band.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a pretty good emo band.
They, they open for the cure in 1984.
Uh, I believe it.
Well, they're, the poster in the back looks like a joy division poster.
And there.
Oh, it does look like a joy division.
Um, but is that accurate?
Is Seattle mostly crappy all the time?
Oh.
If we're talking to people from California.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because you don't want people.
Yes.
Don't come up here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I already shoot you.
I already put my house on the market.
So yeah.
I'll be up there running this.
I can't wait to go to fork.
Yeah.
Right.
Through spoon to get there.
Yeah.
I would say it's, it's like, it's, it's three and a half months of a paradise.
And then the rest of it is, there's like three months that are hit or
miss.
And then the rest of it is, is dark and gray.
You combine the fact, you know, how, how far north we are.
Yeah.
And then the fact, it's not the rain that gets people.
It's just a gray.
Yeah.
The cloud cover.
But if, but if I'm super into Morrissey and the sun.
That's like, that's my jam, right?
Like your jam.
Then you get it.
You're right.
Please.
No.
Uh, so let's, let's go back to the, the Lexus.
Uh, what made you choose that vehicle?
Why did you, as you were transitioning from two wheels to four?
Why did you pick that particular vehicle?
I had, I had lusted after land cruisers for a while.
And I lusted after 80 series land cruisers.
I always wanted an 80 series.
There's a support group for you, sir.
There's, there's no need for that.
Yeah.
They have one for sale.

So, I, I, I wanted an 80 series and I started looking at it.
And I realized when I was, when the time I was looking, it was before.
Just before land cruisers shot up and back.
I kind of got lucky with when I bought it.
Uh, and so I realized that, you know, I could get 100 series for, effectively the same price as an 80 series.
And, you know, the reality of the type of travel we do is we like to do a lot of, you know,
we like to, we like to go for a week or two weeks if we can.
We like to go multiple states away.
And so having that extra power, having that extra comfort.
Um, something that was a little bit more modern was was super appealing.
So I liked it.
I was looking at, you know, land cruisers.
And then I realized that the, the LX-47ities were cheaper.
Yeah, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.

Like, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Exactly.
And so I was like, well, that's interesting.
And so the story that was actually, I was looking all over the place.
And, and, you know, where I was having the best luck finding and was in California, right?
So there were so many of them in California.
And they were dirt cheap.
And so I, I found one of the shady dealership.
I called them up.
I convinced them to hold it for me.
I flew down.
I bought it one way ticket.
I flew down to Hayward.
And showed up at this dealership.
But I knew as soon as I showed up to the dealership.
I was like, this is not kind of dealership.
You want to buy it.
I don't have a pink slip for you.
But I've got this graceless for you.
You're not saying that.
You're not saying that.
You don't really listen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The real pink slip is going to be in the mail.
Don't worry about it.
Yeah.
So I get down there.
And I'm like, I, I take it for a test drive.
And, and it drove well.
It was one owner.
I done all the research.
I looked up the maintenance history.
It was serviced at a Lexus dealership.
So I wasn't too concerned about the mileage, right?
It was more like, what was the service history?
Um, and test drive.
And it's great.
And I get back to the dealership.
And it stopped when we get out.
And there's just like a puddle under the drivers front tire.
Just a puddle of some sort of fluid.
And I was like, man, I flew all the way down here.
I don't have a flight back.
Like, I'm mentally committed to buying this thing.
You know?
And so they, I was like, hey, what's going on with this?
And so they take it to the back.
They have their mechanic look at it.
And they make up some story about what it was.
And so, you know, again, I'm pretty much committed.
So I buy the thing.
And I drive it all the way home to Seattle.
And it made it home just fine.
And they get home.
And the puddles, the puddles there again.
And it turned out I needed a new steering rack.
So that was like my first week with it was was my bring it up here and put it in a new steering rack.
But, um, you know, but it's been good sense.
And it was, it was, you know, it was a lot cheaper than I would have got it for up here.
So yeah.
I was saying, is that important?
Uh, the mile might still have a steering rack.
He hasn't done anything.
He hasn't done anything with his rack and first.
How many steering racks have you replaced?
I replaced one power steering pump.
Yeah.
Okay.
Going back to that.
Like, I, we give Jose shit about his 80 series.
But it is an amazing vehicle.
The only, I call it the monolith.
Yeah.
Because it's always behind you.
Like he always, he's the tail gunner on our trail trips.
And he's always there.
It's like it's he's like an imposing, you know, like again,
Monolith from like 2001 Space Odyssey.
A big black scary thing.
That's, that's what I say.
The only thing I borrowed his, his truck for an event one time.
And I had to drive it home.
And the only thing was the, uh, the floor board needs to be about seven inches
deeper so that you can get that gas pedal further down.
Because it's always shit.
It was so slow.
I, I, I drove mean.
I was about like, I was going to change lanes.
And then I slammed on the gas to try to change lanes with no.
I'll wait.
Oh, wait.
It's like, so the idea of getting, you know,
that, that vehicle with a little bit bigger engine and modern amenities is a,
I think you made a good choice.
Um, what have you done to the vehicles since you got it?
Have you done anything major?
Uh, in terms of, in terms of maintenance and general upkeep,
I actually have a video about this and it almost made me, almost made me cry.
When I tallied up all the things that I had to do and all the, all the, you know,
the costs of it, just the maintenance and everything.
It's more not easy on it, right?
We, yeah.
We're, we're, you know, we're off pavement most of the time.
So, you know, there's been a fair amount of maintenance just to keep it,
keep it running well.
We end up, you know, four states away and in the middle of nowhere.
So, you know, keeping it, keeping it maintained is, is important.
Um, in terms of modifications, um,
some 33 inch tires, rock sliders, skin plates, uh, recovery points.
That's basically it.
And then, and that, that thing will go absolutely anywhere.
That is that configuration.
Um, what's been your, what's been your favorite part about the vehicle?
It just, it's, it's, it's those long trips where it just does everything well, right?
The, the, the trip on the freeway down is smooth and comfortable and quiet.
Um, cushy leather seats like I feel like I should be wearing a monical driving that thing right.
Oh, and toss your top hat.
Yeah, the top hat.
It's just, it looks like Mr. Peanut.
Driving gloves.
I swear, if I don't see a video of Mr. Peanut in your lexas in the next week.
Mr. Robertson.
I need to get a Mr. Peanut kiss with that with a scarf.
It's still the scarf back.
Yeah, that's a marketing crossover right there.
You're welcome.

Lankers are over.
It's a leg tire.
Oh, that's it.
Let's, let's go into that.
Um, I don't know how long you've owned your land cruiser, but the older the land cruiser,
the more like, uh, credit.
You have none.
The more like prestigious the, uh, okay,
press out credit.


The, or the more ridiculous.
Yeah.
So we did, we did the Mojave trail, uh, two weeks ago.
And, uh, at one of our stops, which is just like this weird mine, you know,
in the middle house.
Yeah, it's a middle Mojave desert.
And another, uh, land cruiser pulls up and it's like,
actually, where's their two?
Yeah, just the ones.
That was just the one.
These two older couples.
And I know like, you know, I'm going to say older couple knowing that I'm pretty old,
but they're older than me, white hair, whatever they come out.
And they're like the, the guy was like full on Indiana Jones,отрly.
Like he had like the, you know what I'm saying, like,
the NFL filled up on the hat, like the vest was like all the cockets,
and shit in it.
You know, there's not one thing, the fucking cockets.
No, no.
Kaki from head to toe.
Exactly.
And I'm like, okay.
Kaki socks up to his knees.
What about how to fetch all the stuff in that guess?
Of course, with like some documents or something,
I'm sure there were some documents in there.
Or notes.
That's a bag of sand.
I get the bag of sand to like put on the, you know,
when you take the idol and you have to put the sand on the,
you guys know what I'm talking about.
And I was like, I get it.
Jeff Hardy has, he already has these ideas.
How long have you owned your life?
I think now he's like, oh, I got a piece of these together.
Oh, no.
I'm telling you.
We were in the Mojave Road.
We did the Mojave Road last year, and there's,
you guys, you guys, you guys have been to the lava tubes there, right?
Yes, it's my first.
That's like the most Indiana Jones thing I've ever seen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I hope that I want to see those guys in that lava tube.
Okay.
So I don't know, they were pretty old.
I don't know if they could make it down the lava tubes.
That's their cases kind of sketchy.
But still the attire that they were in.
I was like, Jose, God, these are your people.
They're in land cruisers.
When you get that outfit, like five, you get it on.
You had to be a five year owner.
I'm one year away.
And then I'll be able to start wearing that kind of stuff.
So it's our question to you, Jeff.
Yeah, Jose.
Yeah.
How many years have you had your land cruiser?
And when do you qualify to where your Indiana Jones outfit?
Well, I think it's, it's been,
we've had it for four years.
And I think, but I don't think Indiana Jones is my direction.
I think I'm going to go with more of a Steve Irwin.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Oh, okay.
That's brilliant.
Outback.
Yes.
The shorts.
Different side of the same coin.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You guys are the land cruiser owners.
I don't want to win pose like my misunderstandings on you guys.
You inform me.
And that's great to know.
Because I would certainly be the Steve Irwin route myself.
Yeah.
Oh, the shorts.
You're all killed by a sitting ring.
Like, that's your, you don't have to bring that stuff up.
Do you?
That's pretty heavy.
So you guys, would you get it?
Way to bring your shirt.
Nobody's happy about that.
No, of course not.
When you guys are out, like you, you guys,
you talk about going on multi day trips.
What kind of gear or setup are you using for, like,
sleeping situations and kitchen and all that thing?
Oh, this is going to be controversial.
You want to, you want to tell me what's going on?
We ground count.
Nice.
Ground count.

I'm down with that.
I'm all about that.

Not a, you're not going to get any any.
Push back here.
Hey, you're chasing your adventure.
And that's, that's all that matters.
Yeah.
The, um, there has been a four year discussion, uh, tough discussion argument.

The top root traitors, traitors, ground tanks, sleeping in the truck.
And every one of us has been in some version of that at some point,
and, uh, about to go back to the other way.
So it's, you know, whatever works, whatever,
that's our thing is like, I'm a ground, ground tent guy.
And I just slipped in my truck the last time.
Like, you know what?
I only want to pull this damn tent down.
It's just like, I'm in trouble.
And I was just in that in the winter because he's like,
Hey, I want to go on a one night camping trip.
And then it was like, January.
And I was like, oh, hell no.
I'm like, oh, it's warm.
It's warm.
And so he tried to set something up in the back.
It was awesome.
Sleeping in the truck is underrated.
Like, yeah, maybe, you know, for two people,
they'll tougher to pull off probably.
Yeah.
Um, you have to take a bunch of stuff out.
But for one person, like, I have my sleeping bag set up.
I had everything set up.
I was sleeping platform.
And it was like rolling the camp.
I didn't have anything to do.
It's great.
Yeah.
I have a pickup truck.
And even in that, like you get into the passenger seat,
pull your sleeping bag up over.
You fold the seat back.
Boom.
Like, it's like sleeping in the recliner in your living room.
It's, yeah, I've done it multiple times.
You park on an incline, you know?
So you get that extra.
That's, that's a pro tip.
That's a pro tip.
Yeah.
Look for an incline.
So you could get that extra incline inclination.
And whatever.
So you're sick.
You know what I'm saying?
So you like recline.
Recline.
Make a truck tilt.
Uh.
Trucks go back.
Cuse a question for all of you then.
So if, if the, the appeal of a rooftop 10 is ease of setup, right?
How quickly you can set it up and tear it down and how convenient it is.
Why does sleeping in the truck always get so overlooked?
Well, I think it depends on the type of rooftop 10 though.
Yes.
It depends on the type of rig.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and people.
So when I, when I go on long trips, I've usually got my wife, my daughter, and a dog, right?
And trying to find a place for each one of those people in the truck is a little bit difficult.
We did a, uh, a week long family road trip where he's to area 51 down in that down in southwest
year.
And we, you know, popped open the tent.
Everybody fit.
Everybody slept comfortably.
It was, it was a way to go.
I think, uh, for one person, like you said, maybe two people sleeping inside the truck is totally
doable, but, but if it's extended periods of time or it's more than more two people are more,
I think it just makes it more difficult.
Yeah.
And for, for me, I, look, I just, I'm old now and I'm crusty and I'm tired.
I don't want to have to fold up a tent and all the other crap, like unload the truck
and, and, you know, whatever.
If I pack light and it's like, okay, I can get to my, my barbecue and I get to my clothes and,
you know, whatever.
I'll just sleep in the truck.
If I'm burning on my kids, then it's like, okay, the tent has to get set up and all that,
a coupe for mom.
But I'll tell you what, those kids are going to help me pack that shit back up.
I'm not getting down on my knees, fold up that tarp and that tent again.
You boys get down there and do that stuff for me, you know?
We thought about doing a rooftop tent, but it's like everything when it comes to the truck.
You add one thing, but it really means you're going to have to add seven other things.
It's a great tent.
Jose always says, like, you know, there's been times where we've acquired things for free.
And Jose always says, nothing's free.
Because that means anything you get for free ends up cost.
Yeah.

So I totally agree with that.
And it changed, like, it drastically changed the, the putting the, the Casey built a custom rack for my truck.
And there's a rooftop tent on it.
It drastically changed the way I drive my truck on the dirt.
It absolutely changes the way you wheeled that truck.
Yeah.
Casey has that rooftop tent too on the bed of this truck.
Yeah.
And he, you know, it totally changed his style too.
From bombing the desert to kind of just cruising now.
Yeah.
And there's pros and cons.
I wish that there was a, a very easy, reliable way to put it on.
Take it off, swap it out, whatever.
You know, but that, that, that solution doesn't exist right now.
I think the closest thing to that is that, uh, wedge style camper.
I'm like on a truck.
Yeah.
But even then it's like, uh, it's like, it's kind of permanent on it.
Yeah.
We're going to take that off and put it on there.
But.
Yeah.

Our, our buddy has it to coma and he's got to go fast camper.

All right.
I will say, when we roll up to camp and we're like getting the bin out and getting the tent out.
And setting the tent up.
And we just watch him like get out and just like with a finger.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And sit down in his chair.
I'm always like, dammit.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Most of the time, I sleep in the back of my land cruiser.
And every time we get to camp, you see, everyone, unpack, especially Cody.
Cody takes like an hour dog.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
I got so much better.
He has this like, uh, air mattress that takes up like 80%.
I don't even bring that anymore.
Could you see one at a time?
Oh my god.
What did I do?
I had two containers in a refrigerator in my truck.
That's all I had in the back of my truck.
And yeah, but you had to pull like four boxes out to get to it.
Like it was a entire system.
Yes.
There's definitely just open up my tailgate in the hatch.
And I just sit there and I watch everybody.
Yeah, man.
That sucks.
Yeah.
Right.
It's good.
Yeah.
Everybody else is scrambling to set everything up.
When you're setting that camp.
And it's like, hey, anybody meet cocktails?
Yeah.
What?
What?
You're already done.
Yeah.
I'm already two cocktails in.
Like, yeah.
Um, the, so when you guys go on your trips, like, uh, how do you, do you guys work full
time?
I had you work that out where you're able to go for extended periods of time without, uh,
picking you being sick for work.
Uh, we are our own bosses.
Oh.
Okay.
So you guys hiring?
Yeah.
Oh, that's even better.
That's even better.
That's even better.
Like, hey, we should go on vacation.
I just say, yes.
Okay.
Again, yes.
Yes.
You're really smart.
Yes.
Uh, somehow Jeff wins.
I don't know.
Thanks guys.
Have a good night.
Bye.
Yeah.
I'm done with these guys.
Yeah.
Over it.
Over it.
Um, well, that, I can hear you again.
Yes.
Uh, that makes it that that definitely makes it easier to be able to do that.
Um, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the,
I think that ourselves up so that, um, when we do have to work, um, like, at some point,
if we end up doing much longer trips, because the goal is to, um,
essentially be location independent.
Mm-hmm.
We got Starlink and we'll be accessible to farm employees when we're needed.
But we really try to set everybody up so they don't need it.
What are your thoughts on Starlink?
I mean, that's been a game changer as far as giving you connectivity when you're outdoors.
But that's like the whole point of going outdoors.
You're trying to disconnect.
But what, what do have, have you guys, what's your experience been like with the, the Starlink?
We haven't, we haven't gone one yet.
Oh, okay. I thought you guys had it already.
Well, so yeah, now my argument to that Jose is,
if you, if you are us, when you have a house and you work all day long and they're in the week,
and you go out, yes, you want to disconnect.
But when you're out is now full time,
there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no connection.
You're ruined out.
But so like, so last week when we did, we had access to a Starlink.
And it was weird because, you know, everyone was on their phones.
Everyone was connected with on their phones now.
And it's like dude, that's not the point of being out here.
It's like you just need more discipline.
But that was why.
But that was how we, we, we pissed off the neighbors and their stores.
Because we're able to stream music and play it very loud.
But I see that as a client.
It allows you to be out longer.
Yeah.


See, that's the flip side to it.
If you can work from the road, that means you can be out on the road even more.
So I mean, it's, it's a given take, I guess.
What's the, I think, going, I think about, I think about these, you know,
some of these campsites that we all end up at, right?
Like we just ended up at one has been to Alstrom Point in Utah.
Most beautiful campsite.
We've ever been to overlooking Lake Powell.
It's just thinking as we're there.
I'm like, I would just give anything to just be here for four days, three,
four days, just set up, you know, set up internet, set up a little workspace and just
hang out and be able to work and be able to just be out here for longer.
But I agree with Jose for sure.
Like right now when we travel, I, I do not like it when we end up somewhere for the night
and their cell phone reception.
Like I do not like that at all.
Because I just, I'm not disciplined at all.
And if, if I have to go through this, I'm going to check my email.
I'm going to check my phone.
I'm going to do it.
And so, yeah, I don't, it'll be interesting to see.
I think it is totally a double edged sword.
But the idea being, you know, if we can be out, you know, for a week or two at a time,
and we could, you know, we can work while we're out.
Then that's, that's what we, that's what we're hoping for.
But be an interesting, interesting change.
What's the longest trip you guys have done so far?
Two weeks.
Whoa.
Where'd you go there?
We've done a couple.
Utah was the first one, right?
Yeah, we did.
We did Utah two years ago.
As Utah and Colorado.
Utah and Colorado.
So we started out.
We did the white rim trail, which to this day, by the way, is the most amazing overland experience.
We've, we've had.
I mean, that trail is, that trail is amazing.
So we did the white rim trail.
Then we did the, we took the rim rocker trail, connected over to Colorado.
And, and then we spent.
Yeah, and we were in, tell you right in your A, and we did, you know, some of the passes
up there.
And so that was two years ago.
At the Southern California last year for two weeks, the Mojave Desert did death valley.
Eastern Sierra.
And then we just got back from Utah again.
But two weeks ago, we got back.
Yeah.
Two weeks ago, we got back.
We started, and we started around Zion and worked our way over to Mojave.
Oh, yeah.
Zion's amazing.
I mean, I, I did Zion in, just like, we're on our way to Yellowstone.
This is probably like 20 years ago.
I'm sorry.
Jellystone.

Jellystone.
Yeah.
Jellystone.
Forks.
I, you know, I get Yellowstone and your sanity confused a lot because they're similar.
So, whatever.
We're on our way to Yellowstone.
We stopped through Zion.
It was like, God, I could spend.
At least two weeks up in this area.
It's beautiful.
Yeah.

Utah's amazing.
I wasn't expecting anything when we went a couple years ago.
And I remember so many people saying, oh, my God, you're going to Moab.
Some of those beautiful places in the world.
Like, it's the desert.
We're going to have to be.
But it's, and then you get there.
And it's like, oh, my God.
Yeah.
It's, it's, I don't know.
Like, you like, nothing else you've ever seen.
I feel like it's been like over saturated.
Have you been there?
No.

But it's their whole.
But I've seen enough like videos.
And I'm like, well, I mean, to be fair.
All I ever see it is just the two.
Rubber marks on the front of the window.
Fins and things.
I don't ever get it.
But in person, like, the, the, the landscape that you're looking at when you get to Moab
is unlike, like, I grew up here in Southern California.
Everything's brown desert or almost green mountains.
And you get out to Moab and the, the, the color of the mountains and the shapes and the sun sets
you're like, this is the most is a whole nother planet.
It is absolutely gorgeous.
Sedona, Arizona is, is a very, very similar landscape to that.
And it's, you know, there's, there's board of seas there too.
His, we tried to go to the board of seas when we were there.
Yeah.
You know, Tammy thought if we went to the vortex, it would make me better.
And it didn't work.
That's my first wife.
She was actually both 90 years old.
But we hit that.
Yes.
Yes.
That's my ex wife was trying to tell me about.
And, you know, when I'm in any more.
Maybe she was right.
You went to the wrong board of sea.
Yeah.
My, she was like, it's right there.
Right over there, rock.
There's a vortex over there.
I'm like, I can walk in there.
Let's go back to the room.
That's a beautiful rock, though.
Yes.
Where, so where it sounds like you guys have covered a lot of the,
we'll call it a west coast slash from from the ocean to the Rockies.
Where's the farthest destination you've gone to?
Colorado.
Yeah.
The San Juan mountains.
I think it's the furthest we made it.
Damn.
I mean, he bought this land cruiser.
You guys bought this land cruiser in 2019.
Is that what you said?
Yep.
Some bullshit.
Yeah.

This is absolutely nothing.
Yeah.
Apparently that's why I'm getting some more cycles.
Good.
I'm super bummed right now, man.
I've been wheeling since I was 19 years old.
And just so you know, that's 112 years ago.
And I haven't done half the shit you guys have done.
That's amazing.
I'm super like just just the like, hey, we're going to do this.
Okay.
Let's do this.
And you do it.
Like, you guys are just, did you don't, you don't have a job?
You can go do it right now.
I am kind of a, you can do it right now.
I am busy you're now in unemployment.
And I have been in any of my jobs.
It's stupid.
Wow.
The laundry doesn't do it self, man.
I don't know what to tell.
I thought, I'm not like, just the gnomes came out.
No, no.
No.
No.
No.
And someone's got to apply for it.
Yeah.
You have to step up our destination.
Yes.

We keep going to the same places every year.
Yeah.
It's kind of like, for us, it's kind of an addiction.
Like we did, you know, I remember the first big, big, big trip that we did was our honeymoon.
It was, it was going to Alaska.
And the amount of research and prep.
And what we did going into that and all the things that we worried about and how hard we thought it was going to be.
You know, like, yeah, there's always adversity, you know, when you traveled and things like that.
But, but once we did it and got back like that, that wasn't so bad.
And then we play in the next trip and it was a little easier.
Like this trip that we just came back from and you taught.
It was just like, oh, it's two weeks away.
We should probably.
Yeah.
Maybe like that.
You know, what are we going to pack?
Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's, it's a day.
And you kind of try and see like, what can we go a little further?
Could we do a little more?

We, I don't know.
It's, it's, it's, it definitely feels easier each time.
For sure.
So, for me, like, if I were to plant trips, which I really don't, I, you know, Cody tells us where we're going.
It's like, oh, okay.
Sounds good.
But if I were to do it to be around.
I feel like Cody, I don't want to.
Hey, you're number one.
You're number one.
I would center most of my trips around Walmart.
And everybody knows this.
You know what, the Walmart's are everywhere.
There's always a Walmart around the corner.
I'm sure there was probably a Walmart in Alaska when he went up there.
And that's an amazing thing.
Like, we should, we should really take that.
We need to take that.
Does that take how many Walmart's we could hit?
And then.
No, I guarantee you.
And a trip is based on whether there's a Walmart.
That's right.
Like within a five, you know, it's good.
Ten mile radius.
Yeah.
We're fine.
We'll find some amazing trails.
And good times.
I tell me, tell me Parker wasn't like one of the best trips.
And Walmart was five minutes away.
It was great.
Yeah.
I get a little bathroom.
Oh, I'm going to go take a shit in this bucket.
I'm going to Walmart.
Why don't you feel the Walmart?
You were there in seven minutes.
You did your business.
You, you know, you claim you cleaned yourself up.
You were back at the campsite.
Who was it?
They didn't pack in our max.
Somebody didn't even pack food.
They just went into Walmart every night.
Every night.
Yeah.
That's right.
I'm going to get a burrito for Walmart for dinner.
Like every night.
That's right.
There's a McDonald's in Walmart for prefigures.
He went to McDonald's.
But look, we're doing it.
We're doing it wrong.
We're doing it wrong.
It's the whole styling.
We're doing it wrong.
You're the best trip.
Was that the best trip?
It was pretty good.
It was good.
That's what I wear.
Where do you want to be like?
What's your aspirational, we want to get here somehow.
I think what we've talked about is Baja.
I think doing Baja would be would be a great trip.
That's come up a lot recently.
That's it.
Fuck it.
We're going to Baja do it.
We're doing Baja guys.
Your passport.
Australia.

I feel like it could be a softly.
I'm sure.
Wait.
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
I didn't say it was going to be like the next trip.
Do I have to bite?
Wait.
Can I?
I'm assuming you've done some research.
Can I bring my truck to Australia?
Or is that just you bite?
You bite.
You bite.
You bite.
You drop that thing in Australia.
They're going to laugh at you.
I don't even know what to do.
I land cruiser in Australia.
There's like a three year wait for those things.
Really?
No.
You bite.
Use one.
Yeah.
You're going to pay more for a use.
Like a use 79 there than you bite.
You know, 10 year old use 79 is more than a new 79.
Well, any 79 series, they're all the same.
Yeah.
I think Baja would be a great trip and there's even groups that put those trips together
that you can sign up for and go.
We were just talking a couple of weeks ago.
We were talking about there's a place in Texas where you can walk across the border
to go for a lot of that.
Like you just wheeling down in the Texas and then walk across the border and get some lunch.
Oh, you got to get on a boat.
Yeah.
You got to cross the river.
It's a little fairy.
It's a little fairy.
Yeah.
It's a little fairy.
Yeah.
But Jose set.
Look.
I don't know if you noticed, but Jose can speak Spanish.
And he said he's going to put together a Baja trip.
So we'll just do it.
Do it.
Make it happen.
But one of us may not be coming back.
But I'm just saying.
It's probably the best trip you guys ever.
Yeah.
For the other two.
Yeah.
It sounds like it'll probably be Matt.
I don't think that will.
Yeah.
I think they do have Bobby.
Yeah.
I think so.
Matt will end up.
Yeah.
Matt will end up at the Walmart and go like everything is so cheap here.
I'm never going home.
I'm funny.
Like so growing up in Southern California and Christine going to San Diego state.
Probably have some stories.
But it used to be just like, it was talking to TJ.
He used to be just like Friday night Saturday night.
We're going to go down to TJ.
Oh.
And remember, I remember like.
Did he do the whole thing?
He put the feet.
He put the feet.
You're part.
You're part now.
Yeah.
You park.
You go across the across the border.
The whole thing.
Revolution street baby.
Revolution street.
And I remember my buddy.
Giant.
So I think it's pronounced.
Revolution.
Yeah.
Like, you know, the first thing that happens when you get across the border is the kids.
They're selling you whatever they can sell.
And they're selling.
They try to sell him gum.
And chocolate.
Yeah.
And he's like, all right.
How much?
And she was like $1.
Whatever.
And this jackass pulls $20 out of his pocket.
Hands it to this seven year old.
As if she's going to count out change.
Yeah.
She hands him two pieces of gum.
And he grabs the 20.
And like a ninja.
You don't.
You can't find her after that boom.
She's gone.
And that was that was our first experience in TJ.
It was amazing.
Well, yeah.
I equate that.
At the RV playing blackjack.
And I blew $100.
And I got one.
Heinrich.
So.
And I knew it was going to happen.
I knew what I was getting into.
That's what happens.
Okay.
So Jose is going to plan on the Bahá'á trip.
Well, you know when we're happening.
We're doing it.
Yeah.
Where else?
Any anywhere else.
Like inside the States.
Maybe Eastern.
Eastern.
So you want to get ready.
Get to.
You know, I haven't really to me.
I haven't really thought much beyond the Rockies.
I think there's just always.
I always kind of.
Maybe that's maybe that's a mistake on my part.
And then once you get past the Rockies.
Nothing matters.
So you hit these coast.
Right.
What's the rock?
So maybe the Ozarks would be fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We've got the.
The guys from Express rally overlander down in that southern area.
Tennessee.
Right.
Yeah.
Tennessee area.
And they do some order.
Kansas.
No.
So somewhere.
It's all the same to me.
Somewhere north of Katrina Damage.
These guys.
Right.
Yeah.
And they do.
They talk about the Ozarks and all the.
All the stuff that's down there.
And what's.
You know, being a Southern California kid.
Like, you don't know anything past the.
The Rockies.
I mean, like, what you get past Arizona.
It's all flat as far as you concern.
But there's a lot of wheeling out there that that people go out and adventure in.
And.
I just drove through Texas once and it was like three day.
Like you.
You enter Texas and you're like, oh, shit.
I'm in Texas and you're driving and driving and driving.
You're driving Texas and you're driving and driving and driving.
It's like Louisiana.
Holy shit.
I've been in Texas this whole day.
I'm tired.
It's been like, but it's fucking day.
It's this if you trade.
If you try to go from San Diego north in California.
It's the same experience.
Yeah, but you're sitting there the whole time.
It's like, you know, you're probably working on your phone.
You know, yeah.
You know, that's 80 miles.
Yeah.
San Diego to LA.
What's your, what's your next trip?
What do you have?
Do you have anything planned coming up?
Usually this this time of year.
We've tried to stay here in the Pacific Northwest because that's one.
The weather is beautiful.
Yeah.
So we don't really have a whole lot of big long trips.
Bend my beef up for this.
Yeah.

We'll probably do over land expo Pacific Northwest.
Yeah.
But really this just time of year.
Like Christine said, it's it's just so beautiful here.
We have such a limited window that, you know,
we don't want to leave two years ago when we did Utah.
We did it in the dumbest way you could possibly do it.
We did it in August.
We're like, let's go to Utah and let's leave Washington.
There are 95 degrees in beautiful.
Let's go to Utah where it's a hellscape.
Yeah.
So it sounds like our trips.
Yeah.
So at this point, I think, yeah, the next, you know, four, four months or so will be just in the Pacific Northwest.
There's so much to see here.
There's, there's so many places to go that we haven't seen yet that it's always fun to check those off the list.
Let's transition a little bit to the social media stuff.
So like I said at the opening, I was just captivated by the way you guys film your things and tell your stories and it's very interesting.
It's not, it's, it's, I feel like you tell stories in a way that you're like, oh, what happens next?
And I want to know what's going on.
Tell me about that.
Like when did that start?
Do you have any background in social media or is this something you're learning as you go?
It's, it's something that we're learning as we go.
As a business owner, I, we have to have social media and I think that's kind of where our background stems from.
Honestly, I tell everybody if, if I didn't have a business, I wouldn't be on social media.
But I think because of just what what I've done on social media for, for my business, it helped us.
I think do what we're doing for where to next over land off faster.
And so I think that we've just, we've learned over the years.
And, and I think that when it comes to the storytelling and the videos and the stuff that we share,
it really started when we got a drone.
We bought a drone from Costco from Costco.
I don't know, I don't know when we were like a drone, that would be cool.
Let's get it.
And then we got it, we started recording stuff and I was like, what do we do with all this?
Yeah.
Just on the computer, well, that's done.
Well, that's exactly what we've been doing for seven years.
So, watching on our phone, you know, Matt is cool.
And our friends and family were like, what are you doing?
Like, where are you going?
What are you doing?
Like, we don't even, what's over landing?
Like, we can't even imagine what you all are doing.
And so Jeff started putting these videos together with the drone footage and sharing it with our friends and family.
And then it just, I think, snowballed from there because once you get a drone,
they need to camera.
Then you get one camera.
But this is not good enough.
I need to get another camera.
I need a camera for videos.

And I need one for video.
And I have to both things.
Now I want to do my glasses and ask for the photography.
So now you need this one.
It's like, oh, God.
So we just end up getting hobbies that cost a lot of money.
Yeah.
You're like, this is where our money goes.
See, look at these videos.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I, I,
Whoa, who's it?
Yeah.
But what I like about that.
You're not my bank.
But what I like about that is that it's a hobby that you both seem passionate about.
And you're both, like, yes, let's do this.
You just, like, you just made the comment, like, oh, in a women Costco, we decided to buy this drone.
Like, it wasn't Matt going to come on, babe.
You know what I could do with a drone.
And it would mean so much.
And then she would say the last drone you had was gone in 30 seconds.
Matt, because you don't know how to fly.
So, but I mean, like, it seems like,
Can I at least correct?
No.
Where are you in Belish there?
I didn't ask.
I didn't ask to buy the drone.
I just got it.
And yes, it flew away.
And it didn't come back.
You turned.
So it turned, you turned it on and it flew away from your house.
It wasn't my first use.
It was a third or fourth.
But if I were to buy another drone.
Yes, I probably have to ask you guys for me.
100%.
But my point being is, like, you know, all of us have hobbies and things.
And the ability for you guys to do it together and get excited about it and participate and go,
Yeah, let's go do this.
And I want, let's go spend two weeks living out of a car.
I mean, that's super cool.
You know, you guys are, you guys are very fortunate to have that.
I'm, I'm super impressed with the way you guys seem to.
Both have equal amounts of passion for this adventure.
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
I don't, I don't ask questions.
Just like she's, it seems down.
Let's do it.
Yes.
It's a nice change up from our everyday lives that I'm always like, yes.
Let's get out of here.
Let's do something.
And I love, I love doing things that most people are like, that you can't do that.
Or I mean, that sounds cool, but I could never do that.

And it's like, well, okay, let's do it.
And let's show you that it's actually doing it.
Yeah.

And then you guys, so going back to that, your videos make it very accessible.
Your vehicle is mildly built.
You're not in an earthroamer, a hundred thousand dollar earthroamer with all of the
worlds.
You do.
You do.

You do there.
In the middle.
Yeah, right.
You've got a nice smell.
It's used, and it's got a flat tire.
That's where I found it.
But I've already flown down there.
I'm committed to buying it.
Keep my mouth on something, completely cured of the rhomony.
So, so that, you know, I'm gonna..
In the minute, in my next vehicle, I don't give a shit what it is.
My next vehicle is gonna be somewhere at a state so that I can tell my wife babe.
I've already flown.
I'm already born here.
I'm committed to it.
I've committed to it.
It's $40,000 more than I thought it was gonna be, but I don't have a flight home.
Think about it.
Think about it.
Think about it.
If you buy a one-way ticket anywhere to go look at a vehicle.
How shitty does that vehicle have to be?
It's not a bite.
Fuckin' angry.
That's apparently not that shitty.
That's how I'm gonna buy a motorcycle.
It's like, oh, I had to fly somewhere.
So I had to get it.
Sorry, honey.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Cause I would've been like shit.
That's my new strategy.
What's the Uber gonna be?
Actually, know what I would've done in your situation.
I've been like, I can get an Uber.
It's gonna cost me $6,000.
For the motorcycle.
$4,900.
$4,900.
No, I would've been like, hey, see that puddle right there?
Yeah, can you give me a ride to the Toyota dealership?
I'm gonna buy a new four-runner.
Yeah.
But I get and go back.
I'm like, you guys, you guys make it very accessible.
The way you talk about the adventures,
you're not crawling over house-sized boulders.
You're just out on a trail, exploring new territories,
and sharing it with people to be like, hey, check this out.
Look what we found.
Yeah, and that's intentional.
I mean, I think that, obviously,
Uber landing is whatever it is to everybody,
and everybody's got a different idea of what it is,
and that's all cool.
But I think so many of the channels that you see now,
especially a lot of the big channels,
it's become total rock crawling.
You have a V8 swapped gladiator on 40s or whatever.
And it's just like it's super cool,
but it becomes pretty inaccessible at that point.
All these builds are over $100,000.
Yeah.
And if that's what you want to do,
then yeah, you need to rig that's that build.
But I think for most people,
just want to get out and get out into the back country,
and they want to go out on forest roads,
and they want to get out like,
it's, you know, we always laugh,
because can't count the number of times that we're somewhere,
and we're on a moderately bumpy forest road,
and you get to the top,
and you're feeling pretty good about yourself,
and what's sitting up there is like a bone stuff,
bone swag and cheddar.
Yeah.
Do you know what the,
because the car you see out there,
you never see him anywhere else,
but for some reason,
like a Toyota matrix.
Yes.
Are you aware of this?
I think you only buy a Toyota matrix
if you're trying to go off road.
Yes, 100%.
If you're trying to kick the shit out of it,
you know what I'm trying to,
trying to get the lemon lot of kick in on this matrix.
I'm going to take it out in the Mojave.
But I think that's a problem with like,
all the big YouTube channels,
right now it's like,
they have all these crazy built,
and it's,
it's skewing the perception of people.
They separate themselves.
No, no, it's like people that I want to get into

why need a bike,
a Rubicon Gladiator,
and then I got to swap out the axles,
and I got to put 40s on it.
But it's like,
do the most people,
like,
for most of these trails that most people do,
like you just need a stock,
anything.

Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's what we'll be tell people all the time.
It's like you just,
just get a truck and get out there,
and see what you're going to need.
Sometimes you don't actually know,
or do you think,
know what you're going to need,
and then you end up building and building,
and then you've like never get the truck out,
and if you just go and see what you need.
Yeah, we,
all the time,

our philosophy is always,
run what you're,
like whatever you got,
let's go get dirty and have some fun,
and go drive your vehicle in stock form,
for a while,
and figure out what kind of wheeling you want to do,
because the kind of wheeling you want to do,
will determine what your build will look like.
And the last thing you want to do is by ex suspension,
the day after you get your truck,
only to find out it's not going to be adequate for what you want to do.
Or you spent four times more than you needed to for what you're going to do.
And I,
I agree with Jose that,
and so Cal,
that was still works,
like,

it's all show.
Like how many times you had to come,
as on kings,
and yeah,
it's like that's a $7,000 suspension.
Have you ever taken it off rope?
Why would I do that?
Yeah, I'm not doing that.
I just like,
I like the way the blue shocks look.
I live the truck.
Yeah.
Well, here it's like,

it's Tacoma's and four runners,

you know,

Wranglers,
and Gladiators,

you know,
how many of them have pristine paint?
Yeah.

All of them.
Got the tell,
because especially in the Pacific Northwest,
if you don't have a history of all over the place,
then you're not,
you're not getting out and doing it.
Yeah,
I was just having a conversation with a buddy that's like talking about getting into this kind of stuff,
and he was talking about getting the truck,
and I was like,
don't get black.

why not?
Because it won't be black.

it'll just be like,
great stripes.
You look at my white truck from a distance.
It looks like a brand new truck.
Don't get close though.
So how,
as you guys have learned this social media thing,
and put this content out,
what's been the reception from people?
Like,
what's kind of feedback have you been getting from people on your content?
I think that,
generally,
you know, it's funny.
So,
what I really enjoy doing is I really enjoy putting together,

long-form videos,
long-form being,
you know,

12 to 20 minute long videos.
And I think we've kind of built a pretty,
a pretty cool community.
I mean,

it's,
people are very supportive.
People are very,
you know,
I think appreciative of a lot of that,

we try to make content about,
you know,
if you want to get started over landing,
here's some things to look at.
If you want to find great campsites,
here's some tools that you can use.
You know,
people always ask,
you go and you find a cool campsite,
and everybody's like,
can you give me coordinates?

no,
I'm not going to give you coordinates of the campsite,
because one,
now that campsite's going to be just flooded with people,
but two,

that's part of the fun.
You got to go out and you got to find cool spots.
So,
trying to help people who want to get started,
this lower that barrier,
like we were talking about,
you don't need a built-out rig,
you don't need,

a bunch of gear.
And so that's been cool.
And just,

it's always,
it always feels really good when we get it,
you know,
somebody who's like,
yeah,
my family and I are just getting into this.
We just got our,

a four runner and we want to get out.
Can I go here if I'm stuck?
And it's like,

absolutely.

just get out and have a good time.

you can go anywhere.
If you get to a point where you can't go,
stop,

just go.

you know,

this is where we're camping.
Yes,
hey,

camp here,
and then we'll turn around.

perfect example,

the Mojave Road,

It's like one of the
overlanding staples.
Yeah.
You can do it in any,
almost any vehicle.
Yeah.
Even even even even said,

if you've got some skills in a two-wheel drive truck,
there's only a couple spots where you'd really have to work it to get through.
Um,
and we've seen people do it in,
we had a stock four runner.
What was the,
what year was like a 95?
Yeah,
like a stock 95,
four runner.
Like on street times.

on minimal,
like,
that,
that is one of those trails,

I mean,
the Mojave in general,
you could go out and spend six days in the Mojave.
And as in a stock four wheel drive vehicle,
goes ahead of you.
Or get a Jeep when a gave the,
first time,
Matt did it was in a Jeep when a gave a stock kind of going to give.
I'm out the shit out of the shit out of the shit out of the shit out of the.
And they drove the tires off pretty much destroyed it,
but you can spend five,
six days out there just exploring,
I think your sister destroyed it,
officially,

sure,

I don't want to get to,
similar to you.
I've been destroyed.
She's just destroyed your house.
I was good about that one.
That's a sound bite for the sound bite for the hot takes.
All lull it.
So, so what's next,
like what you guys are doing doing all these these these trips and exploring,
and you're getting comfortable,
and being able to go further,
and you're building up this knowledge and skill set in the in the
social media and video production.
What kind of things do you guys want to do next, or do you know?
You know what's funny is,
I have a lot of weird ideas that I want to do just because they're fun.
Like I grew up watching top gear.
I was obsessed with the show top gear.
And so I've got this plan for this summer.
We've got a couple of friends.
We've all got kind of varying levels of dumb sports cars.
And I want to do like over landing in sports cars video or series.
And because it's like,
you can even do it.
You can even do it in that.
I mean, depending on your definition of overlay,
but you can find it.
You can find some beautiful forest rivers,
roads that are paved.
You can find dispersed camping right off those roads.
There's nobody out there.
So like I've got a lot of dumb ideas like that.
Kicking around on my head.
Uh, our, our buddy, two GP.
But what do we say?
Call it a short hood 95.
Oh yeah.
He just sent me a picture of a me.
A meata on a lift.
And then some video of some dudes bombing.
A lifted meata on 33.
He's going off.
Oh my god.
It was.
Well, that's the thing now.
Like even Porsche did,
they released that 911 to car, which is like that.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's becoming like,
overland everything now.
Uh, yeah, but like,
Tommy, I'm like, you do it.
Do this thing.
Like, take that meata.
Let's go.
Um, I think that would be fun, right?
And it'd be fun to take something like,
a Subaru or a Porsche cayenne or,
uh, you know, something.
It wasn't not the, not the cayenne.
What's the, the small SUV?
Uh, which one?
I'm a con.

And, and like, how far can you go in it?
What can you do in it?
Like, there's some guys that take it.
I know.
I've seen those.
That would be fun.
Like, uh, if you guys could do,
like, get multiple guys together.
It won't be able to go together.
And then do competitions.
Like, right?
Who can launch the furthest?
Who could do more Browns?
That's like, that's the ultimate goal, right?
Because it, because at the, at this point,
it's funny you mentioned the con.
That's her, that's her like daily driver.
And so I've got this, you know,
I've got a friend of mine who makes a video.
Not anymore.
So I was like, it's kind of wrecked.
Not anymore.
And I would be out there like,
I would be out there.
If, if she let me take the keys,
I would be out there like,
if I put one scratch on the thing,
I'm going to die.
My wife, my wife has the,
the Volvo XC40,
the little small crossover all-wheel drive.
And I was like,
we could take it on Mojave.
Like, let's just come on and see what it does on Mojave.
But I think like, you know,
you guys, if you've watched top of your,
you remember all the cheap car challenges.
Like, that would be,
that's the ultimate goal right there.
If you have, you have a little bit of a budget,
and everybody goes and gets,
you know,
$3,000 to build their whatever.
And then you go,
do the Mojave road or something.
Yeah.
I think that would be just,
that would just be a blast.
That's, that's how the gambler 500 started.
What's the crossover rate,
$3,000 to like,
Mexico Paces?
Like, can I say,
$3,000?
It's like $1.5 billion.
Yeah.
That's, that's what I would try and do.
I'd just buy the nicest,
Honda pilot.
I could get,
and just drive that.
Yeah.

do it through the boat.
It's not a bad,
that's the next phase.
I'm still going to show you another,
earlier on the gauge.
...
Which starts the enrich lines and stuff like that.
Overlanding that's when you know,
like,
overlanding.
It's pink.
Dude,

those Honda's are tough vehicles.
No one wants to believe me.

Until I see when out there doing something.
Like, there's a,
there's a,
There's a guy on social that's got a nice,

Bilt Honda,

and it does all kinds of healing.
And I'm trying to get him on the show,
and he hasn't responded.
So John, if you're listening.
It's, it's black, right?
Yeah.
John, this is a,
It's a pilot that he's got, right?
John, John, John, John,
John, he's a, yeah,
there's the,
one of his buddies has the red line.
And then he's got the pilot,
and they're both,
they're both awesome.
And I've sent messages to them and be like,
hey, I want to get you on the show,
and then like,
most people they ignore me.

you guys didn't ignore me,
which awe,
initially,
actually think,
what's wrong with these people that they're really
they come on this show.
But most people ignore me when I,
when I ask them to come on this show.
Who are these,
weirdos,
like,
we're,

you're asking,

people who come on the show,
it's like, hey,

but I'm over at you.
I just,
how, how straight 40 was it?
I,
I said these guys are messages.

yeah,
I produce this show,
do you want to come on?

you have to pull a Ron Burgundy,
like,
I'm kind of a big deal.
You want to come on in my podcast,
you know?
I went to have that go.
I'm a 49 year old white man.
We all have podcasts at this point.
Like that's true.
That's what we do.
That's, that's our,
that's our midlife crisis.
Um,
and smoke meets.
Uh,
we're okay.
Whatever you do,
whatever you do at your time,

I do you.
I'm going to let you do your thing,
man.

that's our other show.
No.
Hold on.
You got to get your studio,
Cody.
No,

is that a,
you familiar?
I'm,
I'm,
I'm full blackstone.
I'm full blackstone.
What's his or her name?
Yeah.
I don't think,
I don't think Casey has said anything
in like 20 minutes.
Me.
Me.

Me.
Me.
Me.
This is so,
this is so.

Thanks.
Thanks Jeff.
Sorry.
I'm getting this a perfect.
Yes.
What happened?
All right, this blurry.
You guys can't be in seegvelie.
More you got to move down here to California,
so we can hang out with you.
This is, this is too much fun.
They can smoke me with a smoke.
Me was Casey.
Do you,
do you, do you guys have any plans on coming back down to California any time soon?
We, we made next year, so we're, we're,
as soon as we left Utah, we kind of every April,
we're getting in this, this rhythm where every April
we do like a long two week trip.
But, you know, where do you go in April?
Right?
So like we can, we can go to SoCal.
We can go to Utah.
We can go to Arizona.
That would be another option.
A little further.
But, you know, it's just a little limited as far as what,
what can you do that time a year.
So, so we're kind of alternating.
And so we've kind of hatched a plan to start out,
maybe start out in Utah,
and then work our way west,
probably go east to west on the Mojave Roaks.
We did west and east.
So do the other way and then end up in Death Valley,
something like that mean.
I don't know.
It's early stages.
I haven't really planned it out yet.
We usually start talking about where we want to go.
The following year for our long extended over landing trip,
probably before we actually even get home from.
Yeah, it's like on the way home.
Where would you go next?
See, this is like our problem is we go,
didn't we tell people going on the Mojave next weekend?
Like we should probably,
we should probably let people know what time to meet.
Good, like it's, everything is so last minute with us,
because we're not good at what we do.
What, what has been your,
of all of stuff going back to like,
when you started got the truck and started this stuff,
what has been the,
the most appealing part of this whole adventure,
for you guys as a couple.
And why do you continue to do it?
I think because our daily lives are so hectic,
right, we're in the city.
We're always connected to our phones.
We've got multiple businesses that we're managing and juggling.
When we're able to get out and we're able to find,
you know, a beautiful campsite somewhere,
whether there's no one for miles,
and there's no cell reception.
Time slows down.
And I think that's the biggest draw.
I don't want to speak for you,
but for me that's the biggest draw.
Time slows down and then your priorities change, right?
It's very, it's very primal.
It's just like, do I have shelter?
Do I have food?
Should I start a fire?
You know, and so that's all you're really,
at least for me that's all by mind is occupied with.
And so it just is really probably the best,
like the best way I can think of the decompress
from the day-to-day life,
and all the obligations and responsibilities that we have.
I think that one of the really cool things that I found for us,
when we're overlining together,
is I think that it's really helped us with our communication skills.
I think that it has deep in our bond.
I think that we can,
we really have to rely on each other to survive when we're out there.
And so I think that it just allows us to, like,
hey, we need to talk about this.
We need roles like we're going to get to camp,
like who's going to be in charge of this?
Who's going to do this?
And I think once we kind of figured out,
like who was doing what?
And we figured out like how to communicate with each other
when there are things that need to get done or in a bind,
like this spot that we were trying to go,
or this trail we were trying to run,
the trail's actually closed.
So now we have to figure stuff out like on the fly.
I think that it's really helped us,
or at least I feel,
it's helped us be able to work really well together,
so that when we are faced with challenges in our business,
or just in life in general,
like I feel like some of that kind of spills over,
and it has just helped us as a couple.
So I can absolutely see that,
because once you're out there,
it is so easy in the day-to-day life,
with work and TV and phones and kids,
and all the things to like only a portion of your brain
is able to connect with that other person in your life.
When you get out there and you're just sitting
by the campfire looking at the stars,
there's nothing else, but there's new roles.
There's new responsibilities.
All the distraction goes away,
and it's like just the two of you,
and I think that's,
that is a very beautiful,
I mean, I might try, I mean, I might try.
But it was beautiful, guys.
No, that was a great point.
It was, it was, it was like,
yeah, it was like, you know,
it's amazing, it's amazing to piggyback on that,
you know, when we get out to like, when we get to camp,
there's so much that we do,
it's like just non-verbal, like we have our roles,
and I would say to any couple,
you know, wanting to do this together,
you know, like defining those roles will take time,
and it'll, and it'll be, you know,
a little bit painful at first.
But once you kind of figure out those roles,
and you just fall into it,
it's great.
Like we get to camp,
and we know who's, you know,
we know who's setting up the tent,
we know who's setting up the kitchen,
we know who's, you know,
doing what at all times,
and yeah, it's,
it just happens.
It's like, no, I don't have to think about it anymore.
And do you, and now I'm asking,
you talked about the roles,
do you find that there are very clearly defined roles
that you always stick to every time,
or is it more of a situation where you guys have primary roles,
but everybody knows what the next thing is
that needs to be done,
and if you're available, you do the next thing.
I think it's a little bit of both.
Yeah. Okay.

because there's definitely an order to,
you know, what we do when we do it,
when we set up, you know,
how we, how we go about it, for sure.
We definitely have primary roles,
but there's days, you know, there's days we're out in Utah,
and Christine's allergies were just killing her, right?
So she's kind of, you know, down for the count.
So it's okay.
I'm going to step in and we'll,
I'll, you know, I'll take care of this stuff,
and then you didn't stand over here and go.
You got to put them dirt on it,
and get back out there.
I'm not doing this by myself.
Now you're saying that, you're saying it with yoga.
And the face,
you could save something like that too.
I'm like being married.
Yeah.
What, what did you say?
Yeah.
Oh, look, I would never say it to my wife.
I absolutely not.
I'm just curious if someone else was able to say that to their wife.
Dance your question.
No.
That's awesome.
You're sitting back in a chair with a cocktail gun.
Well, I'm all set up.
We're not human.
We're not human.
We're not in that kitchen.
When you're going to get the potatoes peeled.
You got some food to go.
Excellent.
We'll just cock you.
And I asked because even though Tammy and I,
we don't go out and do as much as you guys do.
I feel like for us,
it's,
there are primary roles.
But for the most part,
it's like,
we kind of know that this is the succession of things that need to be done.
And whoever's done with the first one does the second one.
And then that person does the third one.
And it's,
that translates to home.
And it's,

whether it be taking up the trash or doing the dishes or getting our daughter ready for school.
Like, it's very much a,
you get into a rhythm.
And you're like,
okay, cool.
This, this rhythm works.
And I agree with you that when you,
like, as a couple,
when you start doing these things outside of the normal day today,
house life,
it changes the dynamic in a way that is,
maybe less territorial or less,
like,

we got to figure this out together.
And it's less like,

your job.
It's a shared experience.


Exactly.

And I think that's very cool.
Insight for you guys to share.
Yeah, it's,
it's teamwork is he like,
I don't know how you would do what we do without good teamwork.
It would just be,
yeah, you'd be fighting against each other.
I'll tell you.
I've watched Matt try.
He just throws the tent in the fire at the end of the weekend.
Yeah.
This is, this is it.
This is it.
This is it.
This is the fight.
This is the fight.
This is the fight.
This is the fight.
This is the fight.
This is the fight.
This is the fight.
This is the fight.
Exactly.
You know what?
It makes sense.
If you keep buying fifty-dollar tents,
you're going to need to go to Walmart a lot.
That's funny.
Speaking of fifty-dollar tents,
like what's your,
what's your favorite piece of gear of,
of all the gear that you have?
Like, what do you think is your,
your favorite piece of overlanding gear?
I know what mine is.
You know what you're at?
You wouldn't go to yours, is?
I love my,
the, the Tembo Tusk.
Really?
Yeah.
I got that over the summer,
and that has been my latest session.
Nice.
I'm like, we can't go anywhere without this.
And like, we actually,
we're, we're, we,
just the other day,
you were like, oh, yeah,
we can bring the scottle here.

The park.
Yeah.
We can bring the scottle here.
Come to dinner on the scottle.
I was like, hey, we can,
we can play a potchy ball here.
You're at just like,
and we can bring the scottle here.
You're at just like,
and we can bring the scottle.

That's awesome.
So that's, that's my favorite.
Yeah, I love to cook.
I love, yeah.
So that's been a game changer.
I'm like, oh, Coleman,
I'm gonna cook on this.
Like scottle.
Yeah.
And she's just dogging on me bad right there.
Like, I've got that shitty old Coleman,
and I'm liking it though.
That's mine.
We have, we have like a 35 year old,
35 year old Coleman.
That's what we're playing.

it will never,
I was like, we'll get something different
when it breaks.
Yeah.
Never, never, never.
No, mine, mine has bounced
around the back of my truck for 10 years.
Oh, man.
It's, it's awesome.
What about you, Jeff?
What's your, what's your favorite?
Oh, man.
I take a lot of crap for this.
It's my sleeping bag.
I have the, the largest,
most cumbersome sleeping.
It takes up more room than anything else in the truck.
It's bigger than ice.
It's bigger than ice.
It's probably taller than Christine.
But I, I just, I can't do mummy bags anymore.
Like I hate mummy bags.
I like to be able to roll around.
I like to be able to spread out.
And, and so I just got so frickin' sick of the mummy bags thing.
And, and so I eventually, I just, I just broke.
And I was like, I'm getting, I don't care how much space it takes up.
I'm getting this, this, uh, sleeping bag that is,
it's just a big box, right?
It's like a hunter sleeping bag.
It's like a minus 20 degree flannel line gigantic.
Yeah.
He's sleeping bag.
And it is worth every square foot of space.
Wow, square foot.
That was square inches.
It's like mentioned in your feet.
Yeah.
It's like a dead body.
Yeah.
We'll be like, head now on the trip.
And Christine's like, oh, can we bring this?
I'm like, nope.
There's no room.
No room?
No room?
That's where my sleeping bag goes.
But, you know, you got to, you got to be able to sleep.
If you're going to be out there for multiple nights and sleep well.
And so that, that one's a big deal for me.
We'll give that.
We're going to do a video that shows Jeff's.
Yes.
We need to see that.
What's the next, what's the next bit of gear or equipment on the wish list for the next trip?
Ooh.
After our trip to Utah, our tent.
It's got two doors on it.
One of the zippers on one of the doors is busted.
It's what the second time that we're going to have to replace it.
Because the, like, the first time we replaced it, it wasn't because it failed on us.
It was because we got caught in a storm.
It was torrential downpour.
We rolled it up and I was like, all right, when we get home, we'll air it out.
And then that was like the end of the camping season.
Oh, yeah.
It's been six weeks later.
You're like, what is that?
Did we ever?
Yeah.
It was like the camping bin, right?
So we threw it in there for like six or five months.
And it was a science project.
Nothing can be salvaged.
So yeah.
We're less and there.
But I think that's authentic.
You guys have.
It's, it's nothing special, really.
It's an Alps mountaineering, four person kind of standard ground tent.
But it's a second one that we bought because I got caught in a,
I got caught in the, the worst rainstorm.
I've ever experienced and surges on a motorcycle trip with that tent.
And all of my friends in the morning got out of their tent.
And they turned the tent upside down to dump the water out of it, right?
And I was like bone dry.
And I was like, well, okay.

I'm sold on this tent forever.
Um, but yeah.
So we got to figure out a new tent situation.
So I don't know.
Maybe in gazelle.
But that takes up almost as much room as mine.

Not as much room as the sleeping.
Oh, wow.
The gazelle is great.
But it is, it is a, you know, seven foot long.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's not, it's not easy.
We've got some friends who have a couple.
And yeah, we watched them put it up, tear it down and we're like,
Oh, God.
If only it wasn't so big.
Yeah.
So we're talking about maybe getting a gazelle tent.
But again, it's, it's the size that.
But yeah.
But I don't know that they may, I don't know that anybody makes a tent.
That easy and spacious that's any smaller.
No.

Yeah.
She thought it's just as big or not, if not bigger.
Yeah.
It's bigger.
The one like Matt has.
He has the four person.
But that's the person too.
It's Coleman.
Yeah.
It's a Coleman one minute set up.
I've had that for probably three years now.
And I've been pretty happy.
Which is amazing.
If Matt can have something longer than two trips, it is durable as shit.
Yeah.
I've got to do it.
I've got through six tents since six.
Well, person.
Yes.
Taj Mahal size elephant 12 person.
Yes.
I bought one at Walmart on that trip.
That's right.
And it's only three of them.
Oh, four now.
Yes.
No, four.
Um.
I don't know.
Is there any other gear that?
You know, I think at this point, we've got our, we've got our stuff pretty
dialed in.
You know, one thing that we do, I think this is really helpful for us is on the way back from any trip.
Well, we start making a list of the things that failed or the things that we wish we had or things that we we we want.
And that's what we'll buy.
So even we started out.
We went out with just our normal like camping stuff that we'd used the state park.
And then after a weekend, we'd be like, okay, we'll have it.
That's got to go.
We got to upgrade this stuff.
But like that was the best way to learn.
But at this point, those lists are getting pretty small.
So I think everything that's on the list at this point is like,
Oh, what if we got a rooftop tent?
But then I'm, you know, I do the math and I'm like,
to get a rooftop tent is going to be, you know, I need a roof rack.
And then the stock suspension is probably going to have to get small down.
And I'm like, I'm like $9,000 in to getting a rooftop tent.
You know, I don't know if I want to do that.
So, uh, let's get a trailer.
A trailer.
We'll get a trailer.
But we're like, Christine's a little bougie.
So the trailer we want is a Patriot, like Patriot,
Camper X3.
Oh, you're trying to buy one.
That's like a car.
You're trying to buy another car.
I love that he's like, Christine's a little bougie.
And she just went.
I didn't say a thing.
You know, I was just having a conversation with somebody
about the trailer thing.
And we have gone back and forth on this.
And I think I have finally gotten over it.
I do not think I will ever go the trailer route.
As much as I like the idea of disconnecting it.
Driving like when we met,
met like a car pulled out to Lothlin when we did the Mojave Trail.
We may have gone like a couple miles per hour over the speed limit.
And you can't do that with a trailer.
You can't, you know, if we hit a flat open spot on the trail,
and we want to, like, just vomit.
You can't do that with a trailer.
And I just, I think it would be too much.
I mean, I probably could, but there would be a very large debris field.
But it wouldn't be much more than there already is.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
I'm always going to leave that debris field.
It's just how much debris are you giving me to distribute.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, I mean, every time the funny thing is,
we talk about a trailer, but every time we come back from a trip,
I tell Christina, I'm like, I don't think I would have wanted to do half the trails that we did.
We've had a trailer, especially like exploring side roads and spur roads and switchbacks.
And, you know, the number of times that we've had to stop and do a, like,
Austin Powers 2010.
Yeah, that doesn't happen.
And I think if we had a trailer, I just wouldn't go down any of those roads.
And that would be a bummer because that's where we find all the best campsites.
Well, it's either that or you go, hold on.
And you get out and you got to hike your ass.
Two miles up to see if it's something doable.
And I don't hike.
And I know there's videos on YouTube that people wield the shit out of their trailers.
But dude, I'm not trying to do that with, you know, already $50,000 trailer.
And you're like, do I might flip this thing?
Yeah.
Sorry.
That's not.

I can't even afford the trailer.
So what am I even talking about?
That's why we, that's why I told myself that.
Right?
I can't afford a trailer.
So it's trailer's garbage.
I don't want one of those.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Well, guys, I, I'm so glad that that we were able to connect and get you on the show.
This has been a ton of fun.
You guys are awesome.
I love everything about what you're doing.
And just the way you guys are interacting and the whole conversation about how what this is done for you guys is a couple.
And, and you listen to us the whole time.
You didn't like, these guys suck and, like, close.
Oh, they're 100% going to regret this afterwards.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
They appreciate your time.
Yeah.
They're going to try to find out how to ship that we're going to be talking.
We hang up.
Oh, no.
I have to expect it.
No, I mean, we know that.
But you still are free.
You are free.
We're going to be talking shit to each other for the next half hour.
Yeah.
To trust me.
That's, that's what we do.
We interview someone and we're like, hey, that's a good time.
And then we just spend the next 30 minutes bashing on each other.
Yeah.
That's kind of our thing.

Like, we're very appreciative.
Yeah.
But no, this was, this was absolutely great.
I love what you're doing.
Everybody go follow their stuff, which is where to next.
That overland on Instagram and where to next overland on YouTube.
You guys are already killing it with seven and a half thousand subscribers on YouTube.
And 2020 and a half thousand followers on Instagram.
So clearly you're doing something right because you guys are, you know, growing your audience quickly.
I think a lot of it comes back to the content that you're creating.
So keep doing it.
And when you guys make your way down here to the ghetto, let us know.
We'd love to connect with you and hang out.
And Jose, let you know when the Baja trip is planned.
Yeah.
Awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having us.
This was a lot of fun for sure.
We appreciate it.
All right.
Anything else, guys?
Good.
All right.
You guys, thank you so much for your time.
We appreciate it.
You have a good night.
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 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.
All right.
Thanks to Jeff and Christine for joining us.
We were just kind of talking in the break here.
While Matt was in the potty break was how genuine and cool they are and their content reflects that.
And just joy to joy to spend some time with.
So if you guys haven't already go check out their stuff.
Where to next overland.
Um, we, I mean, I don't think we have a lot.
Oh, let's talk about the Tacoma leak.
Oh, yeah.
So I had, I probably had seven or eight people send me that image.
And I had seen it.
I had seen it.
And I read an article that said that the person that quote leaked it.
Took the, the same URL from last year.
Yeah.
And just the previous thing.
I kept changing the numbers until they got.
Who the f is got that kind of time, right?
Okay.
So if that's the case and it wasn't leaked by Toyota.
Um, do we think that that's the official final rendition of what the Tacoma looks like?
Can you pull it up on the big screen?
So I can.
I can do that.
I think I've seen something.
It wouldn't surprise me.
It's fucking hilarious because there's already memes about like.
2016, uh, gen two Tacomas or I'm sorry.
Gen three Tacoma owners training in there.
Uh, you know, trucks for, you know, the gen four.
And it's like the same fucking interior.
Yeah.
You know.
You know a hundred percent.
You know a hundred percent.
It's going to have the exact same interior.
And the seat is going to be uncomfortable with shit.
And we're drum breaks.
Yes.
No, no, they've confirmed the disc rear brakes.
So that's the picture they got.
It's not confirmed to tell it's like.
No, the Toyota on the lot Toyota posted the picture of the rear wheel.
With the, this break.
So it, it looks like a,
It's a baby tundra.
Small tundra.
Yeah.
Um, which I think that that image that's out, that leaked image that's out.
The front end looks great.
It looks like the truck looks awesome.
Yeah.
No, it looks good.
If it is a baby tundra, I wonder if they addressed the shitty back end.
Uh, the way the tundra, if it's the same type of tundra rear insert instead of a bumper.
Oh, uh, so they're talking about the like the geometry.
No, no, that's not least from anymore.
No, but the, but the tundra, the, the, the side bed panels wrap around to the tailgate.
And the bumper is an insert that sits between the two pieces.
Oh.
So if you want to do a, a rear bumper.
Oh.
You got to do a full clutch around.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Oh, I see.
Yeah.
One of the owners of one of the Toyota dealerships I was doing work with.
Uh, he was like bullshit.
I saw this thing coming out.
I bought the last last generation off the lot because I'm not going to get one of these people.
I'm not going to get one of these pieces of shit.
Look, dude.
The mid size game right now.
Uh, mid size truck market is awesome.
It looks at it through.
Yeah.
And you call a rado is fucking dope.
Uh, the new Ranger have come out.
The Rangers coming out tomorrow.
Yeah.

It's, uh, yeah.
The, the Colorado and the Canyon.
If I had a job, I'd be prudent.
Actually, those, those fucking Colorado's and canons are fucking badass.
I don't know.
The Ranger, it comes out tomorrow and from the pictures.
It looks fucking badass.
This Tacoma looks bad at like, yeah.
Yeah.

It's apparently ram has a fucking truck.
I mean, it size coming out.
Yeah.
Wow.
Are they going to Dakota back?
Um, yes.
Uh, I don't know if it'll be the Dakota, but there's been discussion about ram and a mid size.
Um, I agree.
Jose, and I think that we, you know, we talked about this like a year and a half ago.
Yeah.
That Toyota has been the old truck for a while.
There's going to be.
There's going to be the new.
Yeah.
And then, no.

I guess he's on because, but I mean, I think at this point, like if we look at once the new Ranger hits,
because I think the Ranger will hit after Tacoma.
The Rangers coming out tomorrow.
But I'm saying like, oh, I guess you're right.
So the Ranger, then the Tacoma.
Yeah.
By the time the Tacoma hits, it'll be almost like a level set.
Like the, the, the, the general generations of the trucks across the board are a year or two old.
Right.
So it's not like where it was before where the, you know,
Ranger came out towards the end of the generation before it and of the competition.
So it's like, it's going to, I'm curious to see once that happens.
We're like, okay, 24, all of the next generation of trucks is out.
Who's going to win?
Like, what's going to happen there?
Yeah.
It's fucking.
It's like Tacoma's going to win.
Yeah.
It's just because it doesn't matter.
I've set it before.
And, and you just alluded to it.
It could have the same exact interior with.
It's fucking drum breaks and people come out and the support would be automatic.
You know, they, they party have aftermarket, you know, everything.
Front rear bumpers and, you know, I mean,
Dude, they have to have some more fucking plans building nothing but Tacoma.
Then they can't fucking sell enough of them.
Exactly.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
And they'll lean their price.
Like, and that's, well, that's the other problem with all these trucks.
Now, too, it's like, they're all 60,000 dollars plus.

I know that, like, they're a fucking mid-sized truck.

Yes.
And I want that Ranger Raptor.
Dude, that's a 80,000 dollar truck.
I know.
My wife loves me, but I don't think she loves me enough.
That's a buy a Raptor when I don't.
But you need us.
You're going to need a second shot.
But the new job.
But the problem is even if you could afford the,
Yeah.
The Ranger Raptor at 80 grand.
Can you justify spending the 80 grand for a mid-sized truck?
Or, because you can get.
It's a miniature Raptor hell, yeah.
Yes, 100%.
Yeah, but my people are like, fuck that.
The regular Raptor.
For the same price.
I know, I know.
And I don't think the Ranger Raptor is the right vehicle for most people, right?
No, that's very, like, you're buying that truck because that's exactly what I want.
Because you can.
No, that's, no, you want a smaller truck that is fucking performed.
No, exactly.
That's the truck you want.
Yeah.
And you can.
I mean, my truck.
And the, and the Chinese, like, at 80 cages get a full size.
Yeah, but I don't want a full size.
But I don't want a full size.
I just like, my truck, when I got the, the Ranger.
And then we put that stage eight suspension on it with the lift and the wheels.
And at the time, there wasn't a lot of, there wasn't a lot of those Rangers that,
that were in that condition.
And we joked around when we did the donut run.
We joked around about that being this closest to a Raptor that was available at the time.
And knowing how much fun I've had in that truck and what it's capable of doing,
to answer your question.
Apps of fucking loopy.
I would spend, if I had 80,
he granted spend for the additional power additional suspension, the additional amenities.
He also wouldn't put a rooftop tan on.
No, it's absolutely not, it would not be an overlanding truck.
That would be a 100% you guys can't keep up with me truck.
Like, I would do whatever I could to, to keep it as light as possible.
Right.
But I don't see that happening.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's hard now because dude, everything,
every manufacturer now has a fucking like a pretty legit like offering.
Yeah.
And, and I think that it, it's going to impact the used market as well.
So that is pretty much the only one that doesn't have a mid-sized offering.
Dodge and like, knee sound doesn't have a SUV.
Like, they don't have a dexterity, right?
Toyota has a four meter.
But I mean, that mid-sized truck.
Yeah.
Dodge is pretty much the only one.
I mean, I don't know man.
Like, the mid-sized market is like on fire right now.
Like, you can't make a bad choice fight.
No, 100% if you're out to buy a truck, buy the one you can afford.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
You're going to have something to color you want.

Whatever option do you want?
You can buy that truck.
Yeah.
I'll totally agree with that.
Why mean that kind of goes to, like, again, Toyota buyers.
That's the thing.
Like, the accessories, the aftermarket support.
It's automatic.
That is automatic.
So, do you know what I mean?
You're going to overpay.
You're going to overpay.
And you're going to accessorize the shit out of it because you can.
Yeah.
So if you're going to, if you're actually looking into overlanding or getting into Toyota.
Yeah.
To be realistic for wheeling or whatever.
You're going to, okay, maybe, maybe Toyota prices you out.
And then you go, okay, well, look at the front here.
And I'll look at the, you know, Colorado or whatever.
And that, you're not going to be more.
Yeah.
But you know what I'm saying?
You'll look at lesser lesser.
Yeah.
But just something that's not as costly.
Yeah.
And we all, I think we're all on agreement, especially, you know, with driving
Jose's truck last couple of weeks ago.
Yeah.
There's a lot of awesome, supremely capable trucks.
Yes.
The midsize market is, it's on fire.
It really is on fire.
And Betty White asked the question, where does it go?
It's on fire.
Betty White asked, where does the ridge line sit in all that?
And I would say it doesn't.
It doesn't.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like there's going to be some people that say that doesn't qualify as a midsize truck.
I would say that it qualify in that, in that line up that we just talked about,
that's now the entry level.
Right.
That's now the, if you can't afford the Colorado and the Tacoma and the Ranger and the Frontier
or you can't, you don't want to go that there's another option.
I don't know.
If Honda made a type R version of the ridge line.
Oh, a couple weeks ago, it looked badass.
Yeah.
I was like, damn.
That one is pretty bad.
Because that's an independent rear suspension vehicle.
Yeah.
Again, I'm not saying that it's going to come with the four with ours.
Yeah.
I'm not saying it's going to compete with those.
Yeah.
I get a good look on my back.
It's going to be your bull though.
It's going to be your ultra four.
But I'm saying there is, it falls into that category somewhere.
And it will fit a niche for someone.
But even a ridge line now, it's like 40 grand.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I'm just saying like, dude, everything's fucking, it's ridiculous now.
Like, even my truck, I do this base model.
The only thing it has is photo drive and it was like 36.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I get it.
Look at what that thing is capable of doing.
It's just a base model.
It's comfortable.
Yeah.
I mean, that's off road.
It's handsome.
The only thing it doesn't have from like the poor pro 4x is a rear locker.
Yeah.
And the nicer interior.
But I didn't, I don't want it.
I didn't want it.
And it doesn't have the stereo.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's convenience.
But going back to the locker.
I 100% agree.
If you can afford the locker when you buy the truck, absolutely get the locker.
Right.
But I also agree.
I would also say that we do a lot of adventuring with a lot of different vehicles and
a good chunk of those vehicles that come with this do not have lockers.
And do it a lot of time they make it.
They may have to do two runs at it.
Or they may have to take a different line.
And it may be a little bit more stressful unless you're Nicole.
And you just do 60 miles an hour no matter what.
Yeah.
But like, you know, I'll get to one of those obstacles.
And I'll put it for low, put the locker on because I have it.
And just cruise right up.
Right.
But there is so much you can experience and explore in a base stock for driving.
Yeah.
I agree.
So.
Yeah.
If that, if that ends at being the Tacoma, I'm from the front end.
It looks like a super nice truck.
And this is going to be the first.
Hybrid.
This is the first midsize hybrid truck.
Hmm.
Interesting.
That is interesting.
I.
Well, I do.
Right.
Truck.
I said.
Oh, that's.
That's a good one.
Would you throw.
So no.
How about.
No.
I looked.
There's a handful of them here in the neighborhood that I see regularly.
I really like that truck.
I saw one today with a go fast camper.
Oh, shit.
On it.
On it.
On it.
I'll.
I took a picture of it.
I forgot to send it to you guys.
Look, I don't.
I don't disagree that a Maverick or a rich line is far the best daily driver.
Utility vehicle probably ever, right?
Like, they do everything you need a truck to do.
Just.
It's not a truck.
As far as the new taco.
I would really like to see it set the bar.
I don't think they're going to do it.
I mean, maybe as far as drive train with a hybrid and, you know, they try and match.
Okay, but a hybrid with three gears is still a shitty drive train.
Okay.
You know, I don't know about that stuff.
I'm just.
I'm just saying.
And I've said it before.
I think they.
They rest on their laurels and they know that they're going to be able to over-price and whatever this truck.
What?
Right out the gate.
They already have the advantage.
And I hope they don't just rest.
Yeah.
And just go.
Yeah.
We don't need to do this.
You know what, and, and, and, you know, again, take the frontier and the range.
I'm going to give the range of credit and say this is something that we need to, like, try and surpass.
Because they don't have, that's my opinion.
Is they don't have to surpass anything that the other trucks are doing?
Because they have that advantage.
I hope they do push the bar.
Because they essentially set the bar, you know, so many years ago.
I mean, a decade ago or however far back it would be.
It would be hoop to Yoda if they didn't take all the other competitors, like, seriously.
Because all the other ones do, they've stepped up their fucking game.
No, 100, 100 percent.
But they can fuck around and just like, ah, just do a minor up.
Dude, this should have to be like, like, I hope they do.
I really, you know, I'm an esong guy, you know, obviously, but I really hope they set that bar.
Because they are the trendsetter.
I mean, they have, they're the king of the mountain dude.
Try it.
There was, there's a 10 year span where they, even more, where they, nobody challenged that.
Because remember, dude, everyone had a mid-sized truck at one point.
To Yoda and Nissan were the only two companies that even didn't stop making it.
Yeah, they stayed there.
So that's why that's Yoda fucking the, the support is there.
Because yeah, there's just loyal.
But you know how many 23, 20, 23 Toyota Tacoma owners are going to trade in there.
Truck for a 24.
So I think what Matt was saying, like, I want them to push the bar.
But we all know, they could drop a turd with a Toyota logo on it.
People go, it's the greatest driving the world.
I'm going to buy it.
Yeah, exactly.
And I hope that's not the case.
I hope that's not the case.
Because I, because I think that on the opposite end of that spectrum,
you take the Nissan Frontier, which is a phenomenal truck by all standards.
Still gets one fifth of the, of the, of the notice attention.
Even when it came out and everybody that reviewed it was like, this is an amazing truck.
You haven't heard shit for a year.
You know, there's nothing new happening with it.
Mark said he saw a post that go fast camper can be an option like to order from the factory.
Dude, I got, I got, we got to talk to some lawyers about some shit.
Because did you see that Toyota, we saw it.
See, man.
They're, they're starting this trail hunter thing.
I, to me, that's infringement, man.
As far as I could, sir.
Do like, trail chasers in cars that you're, we're hunting something.

And I feel like, what are we hunting?
20 million dollars.
We're hunting.
20 million dollars.
20 million dollars.


20 million dollars.
20 million dollars.
20 million dollars.
20 million dollars.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or 20.
And then we'll shut up and go away.
Like this is whatever we can 20 bucks, whatever we can get 20 bucks.
Or just give us trucks.
Or just give us a brand new truck.
And do we'll be out of your hair?
Yeah.
Just sponsor the show.
Like it just keeps dropping.
You know what?
Get a tour of the factory.
How about, how about a couple of t-shirts in a half?
Can we speak to Frank Toyota, please?
Oh, my God.
I pulled a Bob Dox in the other day.
We were talking to Tammy about something.
And we were talking about clothing lines and stuff.
And I'm like, do you think, you know, when John Vaughn billabong started his company?
He's not a guy.
John Vaughn billabong.
John Vaughn billabong.
He started his...
And I said it.
I said it.
And I kept going through the conversation.
She'd let me finish.
She's all.
Really?

But I'm like, I don't know.
It sounds right to me.
I like John Vaughn billabong.
He started the billabong brand.
And he had to wear his stuff.
I love it.
That guy sounds like he wears a monocle.
He does.
He does.
But I don't...
He just pulled it right out of a hat.
John Vaughn billabong.
John Vaughn billabong.
John Vaughn billabong.
He certainly bought a board.
For sure.
When is the...
Do they say when the Tacoma's coming out?
In 19th.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I mean, it already got leaked.
Like, all of...
Yeah.
I didn't know when they like official...
The 19th.
The official...
Because every Tuesday they've been dropping fucking...
A little...
Yeah, little snippet pictures.
Yeah.
Just drop the fucking truckery, like...
Expose it to the world.
And then...
And tomorrow...
And the people in the suit for that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's got to pay extra for that.
The only thing about the Ford Ranger...
Not TJ.
The only thing about the Ford Ranger release is that...
It...
It's...
Essentially...
99% the Ranger that's already around the world.
It just...
It's...
It's...
It's...
It's...
It's a world platform.
Everywhere else has the same version that we're getting.
Minus, whatever America puts them in.
But it was like that when the Ranger came back.
It's like...
Dude, it's been out for eight years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, there...
There was definitely...
We're getting whatever one else has.
Yeah.
Plus two catalytic converts.
And a five mile per hour crash bar.
Yeah.
The two catalytic converters are just after the...
So the first one gets stolen.
You get the extra one.
Yeah.
But...
I mean...

And that's a good and a bad thing.
I've watched a ton of videos on the existing Ranger in Australia.
Yeah.
The Ranger Raptor amazing.
The Ranger Raptor...
The Ranger Raptor...
The Ranger Raptor...
The Ranger Raptor...

And it's amazing.
It's an amazing truck.
It's a Ranger Raptor that's coming out tomorrow.
Just a regular reason.
I don't know.
I mean, it'd be fucking...
If they want to go after Toyota, they're like...
Yeah.
And we have a Ranger Raptor here.
Oh, by the way.
Oh, wait.
Because I'll...
Wait, there's more.
Not going to really have no plans to release them after Ranger in the US.
Yeah, they do.

Yeah, they do.
They see, oh, said like, yeah, they're...
It's happening.
It's happening.
It's CEO...
A Ford set that up to...
Oh, Toyota.
They set that up.
Toyota's like, dude, the Ranger Raptor's coming.
Yeah, you guys should check it out.
Hey, what do you think, dude?
More than ever.
Like, what do you think the corporate...
Corporate espionage is like...
That fucking world dude.
Oh, dude.
Oh, I...
Remember that?
That was that movie with...
What was this name?
John Vaughan?
No.
Five.
Five open?
Yeah.
It was like regarding corporate...
Corporate espionage.
I think it was some other actress.
I don't remember.
But it's like...
I totally like good movies.
Yeah, you're right, dude.
You think that Toyota is sending people to go work at Ford and...
Fucking A, dude.
Yeah, dude.
I think they're all doing it.
To get the microfilm.
Yeah.
Oh.
Wow.
Dude.
You're not that old bro.
Were you on the rock with...
Yeah.
I don't know who killed Katie?
Yeah.
You know, I heard...
I read a theory that...
In the rock, that's actually James Bond.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We talked about that.
Yeah.
Um...
I...
But he was...
For sure, fucking.
I think the people on the R&D side that have all...
The people involved with these projects prior to the public release...
are under unbelievable scrutiny and rock solid NDAs.
Yeah.
But they still have to go out in public and...
And test all this shit.
They still have to go to, like, the same, you know, five or six suppliers...
And quote this shit out.
Those are all those people are signed in NDAs.
Just saying fucking servers are hackable fucking.
You can't be bought.
Yeah.
You don't...
And some of us are super cheap, just saying...
Everybody that wants S.B. and Oz from me...
Look, we all have a pro.
Everybody has a price.
I just have to be on sale right now.
Cody, you're not going to get it.
What you just said, you will not get a job.
A Ford or Toyota.
You blew it.
You blew it.
I'm not going to get a job anywhere.
If anybody listens to this show.
Yeah.
The corporate S.B. and Oz game is probably fucking wild right now.
I would be willing to bet corporate S.B. and Oz from corporation to corporation is less of a concern
than the interlinking media outlets and YouTube outlets trying to get all of this information.
Like, Toyota doesn't have to go look for stuff.
Because there's 48 YouTube channels and online journals...
going to get these photos and analyzing this stuff.
All they got to do is search YouTube.
I think they all know exactly what they're releasing.
And it all comes down to...
Bro, they've already seen it.
They've already seen it.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, great.
You're going to put a turbo on your truck.
Well, whatever we're going to sell.
That just means we're going to sell ours for another $500 less.
Yeah.
And that's another $500 will make per unit or whatever.
Like, I don't think it's like...
Oh, my God.
The Ranger Raptor is coming out.
We have to come up with something to counter that.
I don't give a shit about that.
No.
No, no, no.
And that's a good point.
Like, Toyota is going to do what Toyota is going to do.
Regardless of what it is.
Because that's Toyota.
Yeah.
Again, who's actually competing against who for what?
Like specifically, you know.
Like, yes, there is a market.
I guarantee you there's a market for the Ranger Raptor.
But it is a much smaller market.
How many of those units are they going to build?
Or are they going to build per year, right?
Like 20,000?
No way, dude.
More than that?
No way less.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I was just talking about 10,000.
Not even 10.
Right.
Because they're going to charge 80,000 for me.
It's a truck.
And I'm telling you, guys, there's only so many people that can even afford that.
But then they're going to be like, this is an 80,000 electric.
I'll just get the full F-150 Raptor.
So you just, again, you just cut into that number or whatever.
That's what it's all about.
It's not about, hey, we got a, these trucks have already been in the planning and, you know,
the investment and everything for five, six years or whatever.
And so at this point, there's not a whole lot of, you know, changes they can make or alterations.
It's just, all right.
Well, this is going to put out, and it's price point now.
And it's like, well, you know, we thought we're going to, we thought we're going to,
be able to compete with the TRD Pro.
All right, we may be not so much, you know, if, if they do, if there is the, that, again,
I don't think there's a whole lot of espionage.
I just think it's just, it's price point adjustment.
I mean, Matt, as a blue oval family member, which one do you prefer the Ranger
Raptor or the F-150 Raptor?
I don't know, I got to see the Ranger Raptor.
So I honestly, look, I got 100% of them intrigued by that Ranger Raptor
because I like the, the nim, nim ability, like I like the house.
Nimble, nimble, nimble, nimble, nimble, nimble, nimble.
I know what you said.
What is it?
You said nimble ability.
Nimble ability.
That might still work.
They're playing echo challenge here.
There's weight, man.
And I like them.
But I like, I like the size of my truck, and if, you know, if I get something that's
performance, uh, built and designed from the factory, because look,
Ford spends millions of dollars on engineering.
And he had more repairing.
But, you know, I, Ford, whatever.
Manufacturers put a lot of money into our tree and fuck it.
Exactly.
They've done the math a hundred times over.
And it's not like I'm saying, I can't doesn't do a great job or fox or whatever.
I was the other big, uh, the blue one king.
Exactly.
I'm sure they do the same.
They, they got that kind of money.
So, uh, ride out the box.
Yeah.
Raptors going to be, I think.
But this is why would you touch it after that?
You're buying everything.
And that brings up the other point, too, is like, these trucks are getting so
capable out of the box.
It's like, we're, it's cutting the aftermarket out.
It's like here.
No, no, no, no, no.
Because again, they're only selling less than $100,000.
But they're going to sell $5,000 in these Ranger Raptors.
Yes.
Everybody else that sees that Ranger wrapper and wants it, but can only afford the XL
Ranger is going to spend the money on the XL and then buy the $5,000.
I don't think you'll ever get to the Raptor.
No, but this is the aspirational.
This is the aspirational.
Yeah, because there's always going to be something bespoke with that right.
Yeah, like the engine.
It's not going to have the one that you have.
No, it's a three.
It's also you're buying.
You're investing in a three year old, uh, Ranger.
Yeah.
And then in building it up.
You're buying, like, I don't think you're buying right out the gate that XL, uh,
TV or whatever.
And then trying to build that to the Raptor level.
You're buying a three year old XL to you, whatever.
And then getting as close as you can.
So again, it's, it's all about money.
So you, Matt, you make people something to chase.
Yeah.
Matt, you would ask, like, who's competing with who?
And so I just pulled this up on, uh,
Did you ask chat, GPT?
I did not.
Uh, TFL trucks got a list of full year 2022 sales for mid-sized trucks.
So I got a Tacoma and 2022 sold over 237,000 units.
That's because that's all they could produce.
If you could produce more, they fucking sold.
Well, no, that it was down 6% from the previous year.
I think you're going different route.
But go, it's still route.
Yeah.
So, so, so, but just Tacoma.
That the Tacoma was 27.
Now, to your point.
No one is competing with Tacoma.
TRD pros.
Yeah.
No, that's everything.
237,000 units.
The next vehicle, the next one down.
100,000.
Chevy Colorado at 89,000.
Yeah.
But is that combined with the Canyon?
No, no, no.
Combined, it was 117 with the Colorado in the Canyon.
That's why I'm breaking it out.
The Colorado was 89.
The Gladiator 77.
The Frontier 76.
The Ford Ranger 57.
The Ridgeline 42.
And the GMC Canyon 27.
Wow.
So, so do your point.
There's the Tacoma.
Yeah.
And then everybody else is competing against each other.
Yeah.
You can essentially add up the rest.
And you almost, you, you equate to Tacoma.
It's, you know, it's about four.
It's 237 for the Tacoma.
It's going to be right around 400,000 for everything.
Okay.
So, but my huge insurmountable.
Yes.
My point being.
Yeah.
My point being.
So, Toyota is going to do what Toyota is going to do.
And who is Chevy and Nissan and Ford competing with?
Dan Chau, the other, right?
Right.
Like the beginning to be number two.
Exactly.
It's, it's, it's absolutely.
The next best option after Tacoma.
100%.
And, and, and whether it be next best option or next most desirable.
I don't know.
That's what I meant by next.
But yeah.
Clearly.
I can choice truck of everyone.
Correct.
Clearly, the, um, the, and you know, it's funny.
Look at the, if you look at the Ranger, the Ranger sold 94,000 in 21.
And it dropped by 40% in 22 down to 57,000.
And that is 100% because they kept pumping this 20, 24 Ranger.
No one went out and bought the, the, the, this version of the Ranger.
Because then the Bronco head come out.
Oh, true, true, very true.
Yeah, I mean, that probably stole some of the thunder.
But, um, but it's like, dude, all these companies too are still having fucking supply chain issues.
Like, they can't build these fucking things fast enough.
Bronco, there's still people that put their, their fucking Bronco orders.
And that had a friend of ours just got his and it was three years in.
Yeah.
A friend of ours just got his like a month ago.
And it was a two and a half year waiting period for him to get.
Yeah.
Um, that's crazy.
But try to buy you out of the fucking of that weightless.
Um, so that's, I think that's interesting.
I think the, the new Ranger, the new Tacoma is going to be very exciting.
I think that.
What is this way?
If you're in the market for a mid-sized truck, like, do the, the worlds you're always certainly.
You can't go.
Uh, well, I mean, I still think you're overpaying.
Well, that's, well, you're, you're going to fucking, yeah.
But that's everything on the planet.
No, that's true.
I mean, that's just the way the world, I guess.
I've, I've been, I've been very, uh, lucky with buying the one and two year old truck.
Like, like, to me, the Ranger Raptor comes out now.
I'm going to find it on Carmax and two years.
You know what I mean?
That's like low miles.
I'll buy that use truck.
I'm just concerned that the, the dollar value is not going to go to the last.
Yeah.
I'm not the last year or two.
I mean, it's no, everything's just been already.
No.
But when I bought, when I bought my truck, January of 2020, I bought it.
It was an FX store.
They were at the fully loaded with 15,000 miles on it for under $30,000.
Yeah.
I'm fucking crazy.
Like that, that, that, that, I could sell that truck now for twice that much.
And it's ridiculous the amount of inflation there's been in those vehicles.
But, you know, we all know why.
Um, all right.
Well, if, uh, Obama, uh, Dick.
Oh, no, I, I'm sorry.
Uh, I, uh, if you guys are, if anybody's buying it,
or if anybody's buying the new Tacoma, the new frontier or the new Ranger.
Uh, let us know.
I want to, I want to, I want to get your feedback when you get it.
Um, I'm going to trade my frontier and for a new Tacoma.
Did you, would you do that?
No.
I don't want to pay $900 a month for 10 years.
And I don't think it's a better, I don't believe it's going to be a better truck.
I genuinely, I genuinely do not believe it'll be better than your frontier.
I, I'm not a skilled enough driver to notice, like, to be able to tell you, like,
oh, yeah, this shit performs way better on the lobby than this.
Yeah.
Hold on.
Just as aesthetics though, like, again, every Tacoma I've driven is super,
is not comfortable.
I drove your truck.
It was, you know, I drove for a week or whatever.
It was like, God, this is something wrong with this, like,
the seats too low or whatever.
And I don't think they give a shit to change that.
That's not going to be something.
Uh, do a lot of people fucking complain about that.
So they, they have to dress that shit.
And it still has grown.
And they sell it.
And the transmissions all fucked up and the shifting patterns, all due to that.
That, there's, like, very obvious problems with that truck.
That's crazy.
It's glaring.
That's, I'm kidding.
It is a glaring problem.
Those are three obvious things that I would never, like,
it's a, it's a, it's a God.
You're going to jab me in the ass and I have to overpay for this.
Like, this is crazy.
Yeah, but, do you know what I'm saying?
I'm saying, like, you've got another truck.
What do you want me to do to you?
Yeah, whole.
No, I'm saying that's a Toyota wants to do to me.
It's like, yeah, guess what?
Yeah.
That's right.
It, it's still drum breaks.
And the seats are comfortable.
And it is fun when you're money.
It's supremely underpowered,
especially compared to the modern trucks or whatever.
But guess what?
I'm still going to poke in the ass and you're going to buy it.
You know, or other people are going to buy it.
But I agree with Jose that many of those things are going to be resolved.
Yeah, they can't, they can't rest on their fucking laurels.
It's like, watch it.
We'll be here on the 19th.
I think they can then.
They won't.
They can.
I, I don't think that's the point that we've been making those.
I think they can.
And they'll still sell.
Exactly.
Much than the other truck.
Exactly.
Because what's, if anybody who has a Toyota will always buy a Toyota.
Exactly.
What's the current model is outselling, you know,
by, you know, leave some bounds every other truck.
And all those conditions I just stated are existing.
Yeah.
And you can go get a frontier.
You can go get a Colorado.
You can go get a Jeep Gladiator.
You know, and they're all.
Yeah.
All those, all those address.
All those things.
Yeah.
Like, well, whatever.
But all those issues.
I've been addressing those orders.
I'll tell you.
I'll take a stock glad here.
I'll wheel that all day over at Tacoma.
Just because I know it's more comfortable.
I'll even even if you told me.
Uh, yeah.
You can't do nothing to this.
Uh, Gladiator.
You have to keep it on the stupid wheels.
And look at idiot.
For five years before you can do anything to it.
I'll take that.
You know, just because I know it's that it's just a better.
I think those issues have been running around yesterday.
And his seating is exactly the same.
They've had that problem since at least 1991.
And they have it fixed.
Well, the newer generation for runner is a little bit.
A little bit more comfortable than all of the Tacomas.
Like, we, we, we test drove those.
It's a, it's a little bit different.
Sign position.

What?
What?
I'm just reading the comments.
Oh, oh.
Uh, yes.
Jason.

Jason.
Yeah.
You'll, you'll, you'll, you'll learn.
Um, all right.
Before before Jason and the chat room
Chase is down a path that we can't recover from.
Uh, thank you guys for, uh, for hanging out.
Uh, if you are getting one of these new vehicles,
please let us know because I want to, I want to hear about it in real time as it's happening.
Um, but, uh, thank you to, uh, Jeff and Christine for joining us tonight.
Great conversation.
Um, we appreciate it.
And, uh, go follow them on all the socials and the YouTube's.
And, uh, we'll let you know when Jose is going to trade in his frontier for that new,
and uh, for, uh afin to come on, uh, 나왔.
Ranger.
Ranger.
I think we're going to sell that.
To combo.
Trade in the ring.
Yes.
Uh, yes.
You can do that.
Now.
It's a same interval in the be like $600.
Yeah.
For any of you.
All right.
You know, you want to join the blue oval team.
He can't handle it.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Everybody, thank you so much for hanging out with us.
We will talk to you next week.
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 patrons and everybody that supports us.
Uh, on the trail chase or support team at I rate 4x4.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.
Uh, you can find that at Ryan to Rigno.com.
That's R-Y-A-N-T-E-R-R-I-G-N-O.com.
Check it out.
Give them some support.
We appreciate it.
Thank you.

Ep 267: OutdoorX4 Magazine

Welcome to the trail chaseers podcast. This episode is brought to you by outdoor by four magazine outdoor by four is a fully independent vehicle based adventure
An outdoor lifestyle publication covering all types of outdoor adventuring of four by four is motorcycle bicycle or even if you're on foot
Go to outdoor by four dot com and subscribe today
Today on the show we talked to Jason and Frank with outdoor by four. They tell us about outdoor by four's beginnings and their future
Challenges
Then we get into this week's and we'll have a trail trip
Dude, there's like road and trail closures and we're gonna be very dependent on Cody's directs
No challenges your screen. How concerned are you guys? I'm not cuz I'll be leading the way on my motorcycle
So
You guys are not the worry
First time in front and on something fast
I don't think it's Jose's first time in front
And or fast
If you guys have any good home remedies for jackarm go ahead and say
It's like
Hey, but it is 640 on Tuesday night. We are live at 630 ish
I think we were alive around 630, but we were just talking about nonsense
We had a lot of stories like there was a comparison between Robert plant and Steve Garvey
It was like the hotter person, you know with their wives
Yeah, who was seducing their wife who was hotter? It was pimping their wife out for Steve Harvey
What I heard Steve Garvey was yeah
We are joined tonight by Jason Barnado and Frank led well from outdoor x4 magazine. How are you guys doing tonight?
Awesome. I was doing I was doing pretty good and then you came on the show now
You're like this is a total mistake
Yeah, I'm ill overdressed
Yeah, so I'm trying to be pro here. You're very company man. Yeah, you're very
Corporate
Yeah, I got I got I'm sitting here my underwear. Yeah, what's up? Yes, yes, somebody told me you guys
Yeah, so
Jason kind of teased us today and said earlier before we went live and said that he's gonna tell us some super secret special stuff
So we're gonna talk everything outdoor x4 magazine publishing and industry news
For those of you that don't know we had Jason on how was it of five six weeks ago? You were on?
No, dude, that was before Christmas man. Was it really damn really?
When you was right after we're told you of it. Oh, yeah, so it was it was early December. Yeah
Jason got to experience the single best off-road vehicle in the history of mankind and he drove it for
An entire day. Thank you. He drove my truck for entire day a big bear so we've been
Surprisingly from that interview
We found that the
combination of off-roading and 90s TV shows is the is the
Bond that we have and we've been sharing memes back and forth about all of that
So you guys are back now and Casey can I get you to move your voice? He's got a mute or something
It's a lot of your your breathing your nostrils your nostrils are in peating on
It can be the nose hairs like just scratching on the mic in front of your face
Yeah, well, was it the fan blowing in your face so you thought it was a good idea to turn on the recording and the mic with a fan blowing in your face on the microphone
Yeah, it's on low, but okay
267 episodes we haven't figured it out yet. So
Yes, it's better than figured it out. I just said
So the
While ago that we had Jason on we've been chatting back and forth about all kinds of random stuff
What has been going on since how have you guys been doing since the turn of the year?
Do you mean me personally or do you mean the magazine?
Let's start with you personally
generally
Me personally general
General Jason how are you doing in I man? I'm doing pretty good. I'm I mean I'm sitting here. I
My
Powers of double since we've last met well
And by powers. I mean monitors. I have two monitors now as opposed to just scrambling around on my laptop
I have a microphone that I use
To report stuff so I can look to my professional you are coming up in the world. I know and the actually
Frank gave me this microphone. So thanks Frank. I appreciate that. I did have a lot of spanned up
But we're not coming. He's still better with it than I do and I'm using the same one as you
I play with a lot of them just like to talk into it
I like to say certain things yeah like myself right things and I'd be like alive in a world alone
I like it
I've been pretty good man
Obviously doing work with the magazine
I do the social media stuff as we've been over before been
Coordinating some gear reviews and stuff and running the social media accounts
Creating fire content at least attempt to I could you see the post today about the
The speaker on the Tacoma. I have not yes. No, did you? Yeah
We could talk about that in a little bit more detail if you want to later. Yeah, they're they're they're drip feeding us
Toyota is with details on the the 24 Tacoma and
I don't know man, nobody cares
God just show me what the stupid truck looks like already you know it it's gonna it's still gonna be at Tacoma
Yeah, but right and improve. Yes, this rear disc brakes
Yes, now we'll stop
Yeah, yeah, exactly
Personally I started my own marketing agency
Still pretty small time out here because I also do the digital marketing stuff like that and I'm juggling that with
Working in the magazine business and
Trying to get this guy on the phone that's it until we which is our feet in itself that's exactly
And and and Frank let's start with understanding where are you in the world?
I am in
Texas actually just thought the Houston okay
Yeah, born here
Never thought I'd come back I did
Yeah, this is where I've been for a while actually
Yeah, so
Conroad Texas okay
I'll flip it up on the map and yeah, just like 30 miles on the Houston and
When did
I mean we talked about it a little bit with Jason last time but tell me about
The magazine and how kind of that came to be and and what what how you got the whole thing started
Oh, man
I'll try to give you guys the other 10-pace over version
So I
And I got into publishing actually kind of on a win back in two that late 2005 really 2006
I
I had been in the corporate world for like five or six years was
board out of my mind with my day job and my best friend and I
We both love doing stuff outside
hyping back packing mountain biking
Off-road travel
And he had gotten his degree in graphic design and and we both love doing photography and writing and so
We came up with this kind of
hair-brained idea of launching a digital magazine at the end of oh five and it was it was focused actually
Specifically on G vehicles it was a deep life style magazine that was kind of like a hybrid of all the things that we like doing you know outdoors related and
And travel by G and so we launched this magazine
Back then and oh five and we were talking like back in the days of my space and yeah
And like forums online forums and so we launched a 16-page
digital magazine and it was
Really kind of in its own right of kind of a revolutionary thing like at the time
Digital was in its empathy
I mean, no hardly anybody was doing anything with digital it was still a
Analot mostly analog very very paper-focused industry publishing and
And
Anyways, we love we lost this magazine what's that real quick in your quote you talked about being in your corporate world
Was your corporate world at all related to publishing and magazines? What did you do for the real job not at all man? I
I mean my story we have been getting into publishing is kind of just nutty in itself and like definitely a
Typical of we know what you would expect from a you know publisher of a now a
Black style magazine like what we do without the robot for
No, I had a I had a boring job. I was an oil and gas doing a kind of finance
That does sound pretty boring like I'm not gonna lie. It doesn't sound fun at all
It was so horribly boring and that was the whole reason why my friend and I launched this digital jeep magazine
I mean we both
We both just really were and have a spot with our day jobs where we were like just desperate for an outlet and
With his graphic design background and interest of photography and my interest in photography and writing
It for us it was really just like a like an outlet to break up like the monotony of these
The monotony of our day jobs and so we launched this digital jeep magazine
Lino five earlier six
It was a 16-page magazine. We put it out in a couple online forums a couple online jeep forums and
Also on expedition portal which at the time and only been up for
Maybe three months it was still very new so I was actually one of the original
Members of expedition portal back in 2006
Promoting this jeep magazine that we had just launched and the response to it was shockingly positive and
So my friend and I we thought well, you know we we put in the effort of you know putting out this
kind of pseudo
magazine that we had no idea how to
How to create we just kind of followed a template based on the magazines that we loved reading in print
It kind of used that as a guide to figure out how to put together this magazine
And but the response was positive it was like well, maybe we should do a second issue
And so we did the second issue and then the response of that was positive and so we did with we did a third issue and
Man, lo and behold after six and a half years we had been putting out this
Jeep lifestyle magazine that but it's how nice step the way for them. We had readers and over
I think it was 53 countries
35,000 subscribers which you know that doesn't sound like a whole lot now with
Instagram and social media and all these followers on pages of people have but
That was a different world. I mean that's that
A million subscribers now because it's digital and instantaneous 35,000 people that that cut out the thing in the magazine
Road to check put it in an envelope and mailed it to you to get a subscription. That's a that's a significant amount of people
Well, it was a whole lot of people now the one correction on that though was that we made them a steak
From the very beginning of it being a completely free magazine
Because you know when we started it again. It was a it was a break from our day job and what was the name of the magazine
So it was called jeep break adventure magazine. I remember jeep freak. Yeah, and it I don't even think it's in the existence any longer
After I stepped away, I think it was so lucky about a year later and in the last a couple years after that and it was just kind of like a Spanish
but
In the tady
Yeah, we had a lot of subscribers of followers to it and but again from the very beginning it was never designed to be
To be a business and so we didn't we didn't go through the process of creating a business plan
And like you know laying out all the specifics on that front again. It was just like a break from our day jobs and it just turned into the
Manifested into this much greater thing than than anything we had ever expected so
Anyway, that was I mentioned that because that was kind of like the catalyst that eventually led the album record
When I left that magazine in late 2011 and about a year later
I just you know still doing the same type of work that I was doing in the corporate world and when I was doing the jeep magazine
I was still working a full-time job
So at this point I had I was like 12 years into my career and
Not any happier with the trajectory what it was that I was doing and
You know more than anything was motivated by the amount of money I was making from which I was doing well
You know from that perspective that this wasn't happy and so I had spent the the previous six and a half years
Doing something that I found that I really loved and I thought you know
I've at this point I've developed the next release and publishing
I've developed a network of
Companies in the industry that we're kidding to which at the time
You know starting in 2006 really was kind of the fledgling overland industry and at that time there were literally
I mean you could count on one hand how many companies were in that space
So we were kind of my default
A part of that original kind of overland group that eventually and even at that time we were in the calling it overland
No, it didn't really even have a name
It just kind of turned into that so by 2011
Overland had really started to pick up and my desire to do something more related to publishing was
Was even stronger than before and so
2012 I
Came up with the idea about girl by four
2013
A friend of mine in the industry
Had expressed the interest in doing some work together because we had we had met each other in a collaborative a couple times with the gee magazine
And we decided to partner together and launch out a girl by four with my wife's blessing
whom I told y'all the background story on how we
Yeah, cuz she's now student at this point. She's getting all that robber plant money
Not
Still waiting for my Steve Garvey
Steve Harvey, maybe he's got it for you
But anyway, so we launched we launched the met the company in 2013
With my wife's blessing
Basically cleared out our life savings to make the company happen and then we launched the very first issue of a girl by four
January 3rd was the day the first issue came out of 2014
And we've been doing it ever since and
It's
It's been like anything else where it's it's been manifested by just a labor of love and and a passion for
The things and activities that we feature in the magazine and quite honestly though, I mean, there's there's absolutely no way in the world that it would be possible without
Man, the awesome team that we've got I mean Jason has been pivotable pit that can even talk pivotable in
Over the
Beautiful
He has been pitiful
That's for sure this guy's such a schmuck
Yeah, what happened
I mean we've got an awesome team that that we've built over the last ten years and honestly without the team
There's no way this magazine would be would would be able to thrive and survive like it has but
Yeah, that was beyond the ten-paste of version of how I grew up working about but that's kind of the history
How it happened I love I love the story
most importantly the part where you
Took a look at your corporate world and went yeah, I'm making good money. I'm doing this job. Am I actually happy
I don't did he say that specifically he did seems like you're you're imposing your own
I may be projecting some of my I may be projecting some of my current situation
But but but the but I absolutely love that part of the story and you know what we're gonna
do some different and
That takes a lot of like
Right how how much if you're what he's like yeah, how much actually
We're thinking about your wife already having a connection robber plant and you're already
We'll not put right at this point. You know your wife has I mean let's put let's put the savings in
Let's do this magazine did it because they need to have a cash cab with robber
I'm trying to figure out what's going on with Robert plant. I will clip that story into the
At the back end of this episode because it's a great story
Are you gonna come this to be part yeah, I mean it's been
Yeah, it's definitely you know my trajectory was was based on just a desire to do something that
Made me happy and
It was a huge risk. I mean the fact that my wife agreed to this I mean we'd like I said we're third of our life savings in 2012
2013 to to launch this company and quite honestly I'm in the first year
It's pretty scary. I mean we were in the red, you know for the first the first year and I was floating at myself and
You know after that first year or you know without going into all the specifics of my wife because if she knew how how
Dyer thing
She probably would never if he didn't
But I use her great
Yeah, but
It has definitely been a labor of love and and and finding something that
That just really really get a lot of advice. It sounds it sounds like to me she didn't know who lads
And she should be really thankful that you know things worked out in your in your web favor
I think you might be right
It's like hey honey go talk to that guy. It's a rather plant who and then she was like whatever and if you want to take you back to the hotel room
It's okay. I want to start a magazine
If only I had some sort of time travel pass. Yeah, yeah, sure. Tell me about it dude
So um I got to imagine going back to 2011 from the the Jeep free magazine to 2014
The like the the the technology and the way that the magazine comes together
That's there's there's a huge ramp up in
Technical and publishing capabilities there tell me a little bit about that like if you're a if you're an accountant
Doing finances in an oil rig like how did you get to that point where you ramped up and had the ability to
Figure out how to do all of the publishing digitally and and that kind of stuff and how's it changed over time?
Well, I mean definitely starting back in notes to oh five of six when we launched the Jeep magazine
I mean it was it was it was truly on the on a whim of no experience and you know we were fortunate in that at that point
Digital was was had not proliferated to anywhere near where it is that and so
You know, we were able to take a number of lessons that we but that we basically took just from trial and error
But I also I mean I have to give a lot of credit to to my friend who I launched that magazine with because
He had a creative direction that was really ahead of its time back at that especially back at that time
And you know he had a graphic design degree so you know part of his
curriculum, you know when he got his degree was kind of the basics of
Not necessarily publishing per se, but there were there were there were things that he had learned during the course of his
College career that
Certainly play the role in helping us get that thing off it get that magazine off the ground and and then it was really just from there. It was just
Kind of like any other career per say where you're learning on the job and you're also kind of learning things on the fly
You know, I spent six years
Really learning and roof and refining what it was that I was learning about the publishing industry
About content creation about developing a network of content creators
You know before the term influencer was but it is today. I mean, you know, it was
It was really like what we were doing at that time was kind of like a precursor to influencers because
You know again, we were in a space digitally where nobody else was heard like what's really doing much of anything
There were a couple other digital magazines out there
But there wasn't anything that was catering to vehicle in outdoor is like like the Jeep magazine was
And so we were in many respects kind of in a role as an influencer where we were
Actively pursuing you know companies who would take an interest and working with us to create content
But we could then use to publish in a magazine versus publishing it on a
You know in a social platform or on a YouTube channel
You know for us it was a digital magazine that was our channel for the content that we were creating and so I learned a lot from that experience
And so that really helped tremendously when launching outdoor by four because after six and a half years of doing that
I had a pretty good understanding of you know what we needed to do in terms of creating content
How to get it distributed digitally now the irony in that is that when I when we launched outdoor by four
Outdoor by force focus in in terms of delivery was 180 degrees opposite of the Jeep magazine
You know we I went from having a digital background to launching a magazine that's primarily print at a time where
Digital was actually
Beginning to really catch on and become more prominent and print was starting to the window
So it was kind of like working in reverse and I didn't have the background with print that I had
And digital that the initial partner that I had when I launched outdoor by four came from the print world
So he understood the dynamics of new stand distribution of
Developing a subscriber base and and handling border fulfillment getting maggots the magazine out to the masses
And so I learned a lot during this first six months that he was involved with outdoor my four
Before his departure and I bought him out and then um, you know took it on completely from there
So yeah, I mean it was really just kind of by
Initially by just doing it that I learned the business and I learned
You know all the components of publishing and then a broad that experience you can tell by four and then just over the last 10 years
Continually refining it and evolving it and and you know
Being a cognizant of like how people are are
Getting their content and how they're getting their information and and and
Trying to to to to be kind of on the not necessarily the cutting edge
But certainly being in the forefront of how people are interacting with their content and evolving
Other years how we refer to it
What's that the tip of the spear yeah, that's been never paying exactly. I mean it's
You know Jason has been helpful in this too tremendously. I mean we've had to evolve our delivery and expand
You know the mechanisms that weren't delivering
You know the stories that make outdoor by four so unique because
You know the the markets change a lot last 10 years the wicked people are using technology it has changed a lot of the 10 years
Technology itself has changed I mean it can't get changed as a virtually every day and so
And in an effort to maintain relevancy so that we're just as relevant and strong as a publishing media company
to five 10 15 years down the road
You know it's something that I'm actively involved in the gaged and and
You know I mean we're ten years into it it seems like a lot of things we've been doing
seemed to be working all right you know we're still learning you know certain things but
You know we love what we do and I got a great team and Jason's okay too. Yeah, yeah
I mean I see why you keep him around it's the it's the
90s movies references
80s
Working for some reason yeah
Yeah, I'm going to work
Right now a question for both of you because I I want to see how this because I know Jason most of your stuff is on the on the
Social side and
I'm super social super social so how does that content
One is there a road map for content meaning that we you've you've laid out
Issues in advance like we're going to have this type of content for each one of these and then how do you go about getting that content?
Who who's providing the the writing who's doing the editing all that stuff versus the social piece because I would feel like
the print side is
way more planned out in advance and the social is going to be almost more
I don't want to say reactive but more timely does that make sense?
Yeah, absolutely I mean the way that you just outlined it
Is yeah pretty much how it is I mean you know for a print magazine that's in the digital and an audio space
Yeah, I mean I've I've got a
Yeah, it's part of my responsibilities you know I lay out you know story I've got to
I've got a pretty sizable list of all the content ideas that we've
thought up of as a team and individually
Like the glasses were probably the next 10 years I bet
So I I'd go through this list of a variety of content ideas and a lot of things also just kind of come up on a whim too
I mean you know for instance you know there was a media drive that I had hoped to participate in
an aspirin North Carolina
I was supposed to fly out yesterday
I'm not whole thing
Kind of got set aside because of some other things that were happening going on
But there was a story that was probably going to be derived from that that hadn't been on our storyboard
That I would have squeezed into our storyboard and they could work in the next issue or two
But generally
generally, you know, we you know we have a what's called a storyboard and we'll lay out you know at least two to three issues
worth of content in advance and I usually have
Conservators who have pitched these stories that we have planned it will be coming out
But it's it's constantly evolving
Again, that's the beauty of where technology comes in and where we're Jason's role definitely comes into is
You know there might be something that
Catches Jason's attention on social media or something that catches my attention and I'm like oh
That this might actually be like storyworthy and either he'll reach out to a prospect or you know telling the story of whatever it is
That they they've shared or all do the same and a story pitch will be born from that and then an idea for our content comes from that and then
You know, we you know, we actually you know get something that turns out to be really really good and it wasn't something that we had planned for
So it's kind of a hybrid of pre-planning and then things that just kind of happened
That wind up being relevant for you know the type of magazine that we publish and do do you
Because I know it's not just you guys writing you've got other people that are providing content and and pitching stories and all that stuff
How does how do you build that network how do you determine
You know who you're gonna work with on which episodes or is it just hey guys? I wrote this bitch an article
Can you do you want to publish it like how does that work? We've got a couple of those yeah, yeah, we've gotten a couple of those actually over the years
Yeah, I mean, it's it's there are a lot of pieces that go into that
You know again with my experience you know with the Jeep magazine years earlier. I developed a network of
Some really
Engaging strong riders at that time that
Followed me on when you know when I eventually launched out door by four who have
Continued a ride on occasion, you know for the magazine so I had an initial network of contributing authors
Who have who were continue to be engaged with the magazine and then yeah, you know what
One of the the great things again about technology is that it's expanded opportunity for
People who have a story to tell
For us to connect with them for them to connect with us and so you know a number of
The freelance stories that we've gotten in the past and I would continue to get
Often have come about through just
By virtue of of technology and
In social media and then in addition to that
attending events
That's been probably
Especially for us in our early in the earlier I would say probably the first six or seven years of a girl by four
Our growth have been like viral by attending events of being their person and Jason can attest to this
I mean Jason was a subscriber who became a subscriber now door by four back in like 2014
When we met at overland expo east and
In North Carolina the first year that that was hosted. I was working their booth
Round or by four and
Which I always do I'm always present at virtually every event that we have some sort of involvement in
Because it's been important for me to to be able to meet people in the community and hear their stories and where they come from and what it is that they do
And that stuff really interests me and it's those relationships that have been created by attending events that have also led to us
Being able to to find contributors to the magazine you have some great stories to tell and yeah
That's been a big part of it and Jason definitely you know you can attest to that's been a part of the two
So I think that that gets overlooked are most of what we're doing in the outdoor world
Happens outdoors, right? You can get all the followers and influencers and all that stuff
But the actual getting outdoors at events at trail runs at whatever and meeting people has such an impact on
Connecting with your audience. I think a lot of people missed that
Absolutely, I mean you know
It's one thing to you know send a text message to somebody or see text in an email or whatnot. It's another thing to have a face-to-face conversation
And it's another thing to actually have like in-person
Conversation and I think that's one of the things that's helped make us very unique is that
We've been focused from the very beginning of being more of a community-based type publication and what I mean by that is
The community that we cater to this overland outdoors lifestyle segment which has continued to grow growing grow
There's there's a community that was that was originally created from you know
This very small core of
Individuals who were involved in overland from the very beginning that has continued to grow
And my approach to outdoor by four has been very much the same way. It's been
It's been to be active within the communities that we're serving and like I said a lot of that has been attending events and being there in person and meeting people and talking to people and
I mean that's it's not easy doing that because as this industry has continued to grow and they're more events that are happening
I mean I can't be at 10 places at once
Yeah, yeah, 10 places at once. You know other members of our editorial team can't be at you know every single place, but
We we do the best that we can to attend events that really cater to this community because
You know the storytelling that we feature in outdoor before is it's a unique reflection of the members of this community and
It has always been the goal to tell stories that people can relate to
Sharing product reviews of things that that the masses can relate to that. We're not so focused on the very niche segment of
The market that we're missing out on capturing the person who maybe doesn't have a thousand dollars a drop on a pair of boots or
You know $200,000 and you know to drop on the fully-offeted drug
It's always been our goal to have content that tells
Stories that anybody at any end of the spectrum can relate to and of huge part of that has been community driven
And attending events and just kind of you know getting in the trenches and introducing people to the magazine in ways that have
Been kind of a typical of how technology works now. I mean you hit on you know you mentioned a little while ago
Could you you know
When when I started my publishing career and we had you know at its peak
You know with a jeet magazine a 35,000 subscribers in like 50 countries
I mean that was that would be equivalent to like you said like close to a million people at this point and on on social channels
But it was completely viral. It was being active on online forums these communities of people that are engaged in the different things that we were featuring
Content wise and I've translated that in very much the same way without the robot for and and
You know, it's it's taken longer for us to grow because it's been our primary approach to the market
But I feel like it's more genuine
Rather than you know paying for followers or or Facebook likes or whatever that you know, I mean you look at our social
You know compared to a lot of other
Content outlets. We're not as big
But I I'm proud of the fact that it's been virally grown and
Those who engage with us are people who I mean it's it's been done at a very very element of level
It's just kind of grown from there. So
And that going back to your time out Jason getting involved the way he explained it to me in the truck seemed very stocky like it seemed
Like he was following you around a little bit and he was like
I'm gonna find a way to get myself in here whether this guy wants it or not
So
Let's just very much
Yeah, better fact you you did the Jose plan you did the Jose plan to get into outdoor by four
Which was I'm just gonna be everywhere there at and until they're like will shit you might as well come home
You might as well come beyond the show
Yeah, you know, it's funny you mentioned that because yeah, I mentioned that Jason and I we met when I was working the booth at the
Overland expo east event back in like 2014 or 2015. I think it was 15 whenever it was
It was 20 what's that it was right it was during the hurricane
Yeah, that was a crazy weekend because the hurricane just happened to come through and hit the North Carolina coast
He planned that he planned that so that he could hold away your inside the tent
It was like to get the hurricane
I'll snuggle with him. I'll protect him and save him and then he'll like I need you on my team. Yeah, that's my end
You know, that's that's that's pretty much how I think I have
Yeah, it's funny. Oh, but Jason
Yeah, he we met at that event. He subscribed the magazine
Um, and I can't remember if I gave you my email or how how we connected after that but
Jason had reached out
often on this subscriber and then over the years, you know, we would see each other at, you know, the events and so
It had gone from being just casual, you know, you know, pity good to see it to after seeing them, you know, three or four times at the event, you know
You're over year we developed a friendship and we know we started staying in touch
Email me occasionally or you know, I'd send him a note, you know, something about the magazine or whatnot and you know the friendship just kind of developed from there
Eventually, you know, we got to a point where I was like well, I mean
We've been you've been subscribing to the magazine all this time, you know, we've been we've been talking and we've developed this friendship
I actually could use some help
Would you be game for coming on board and helping us out and I mean fortunately he said yeah, he's been putting up with my crap ever since
Correct and what you know what you like to include the fact that I actually I actually wrote two articles prior to actually
Yeah, oh, really, yes, and he wasn't just he and that was that kind of goes back to the community element of what
I'll throw my fours all about
Yeah, he was not only a subscriber, but he also had a couple story ideas that I was like, you know what this is stuff that people can relate to
And it's well within the space of overlay now doors and say yeah, he actually submitted two stories that we published over the years, too
Wow, and then and that was the same thing with Jose
Yeah, I'm just gonna warn you. He's gonna start talking to other magazines
Because like Jose warmed his way in is like hey buddy, what's up in the next thing? You know more
Hey, you were talking you were talking you were talking to another podcast
Yeah, and every three weeks you're gonna hear about how he wants to start his own podcast
His own magazine to talk about all the things that you won't let him talk about because he's right
Lord, that's right. Yes, that's right, man. He's gonna want to get it burp by yeah
Yeah, hey, I do have something I want to mention I obviously have I listen to you guys. I'm sorry guys
Break and stuff in the garage Jose dude bro, you're not 13 dude
I'm I'm not you're right, you know, I'm not you cannot buy a dirt bike and then proceed to say
You know what training?
No, that's a thing Jason five. He went to a full training. He went to a training court a motorcycle riding course
And got a certificate that says he knows how to write a minus motor cycle
He 48 hours before he dealt it on his hands
Feel better. Oh, yeah, I just have this giant bump that I'm gonna live with for the rest of my life
But it's a certificate on it. Yeah
He just he needs to go through the matte deeterly training class and he'll be fine. I get him
I'm gonna have to know what I've said this on the last show
There's no way I should have a motorcycle license like I have an official California M1 license
There's no way I should have one. Hey God bless America. That's on Sam
America
America so I also want to real quick. I don't want to
The volt too far from the situation, but I was listening to the
The one where you were camping in the the Charles Manson Valley. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and hey, man
If you start here and like if you have a dream bro
I swear killing you. No, but it was in your camp has the exact same dream bro
It was like I heard a woman outside my tent like how you've never had a woman outside
That's what I was surprised
That's what I was so surprised
That was me
That's me I take a bag. I take a bag. Oh, that's me. Wish for it. It's been outside
Yeah, I was saying he's never had a woman in the tent not outside okay. I hit the tent
So look at it. What you guys are I mean you guys have come a long way
Let's let's think you know obviously from the Jeep Freak magazine and then you know starting in 2011
How many how many total issues have been published at this point of outdoor outdoor by four
Or finished we're finishing this year 49 right now
I hope to have it out by the end of this week in digital, but probably more like sometime early next week
Yeah, issue 50 is kind of like a
Kind of like a milestone issue for us in the sense that it'll be coming out
Right around the same time that we officially lost outdoor by four as a as a company
It'll be coming out in June or July of this year
um
And so I mean that's that's you know 50 issues is is kind of a big deal and then
10 years to so
Yeah, we're we're we're getting close to that issue 50 milestone
It'll be this summer what has been over the those 50 issues what has been
The the best part of publishing the magazine
Oh, man, that's that's a good question man my next question is going to be what's the worst part
But I want to start it on a high note so what's the what's of the 50 whether it be
Just the accomplishment or the community or like there's what about it keeps you going because 50 episode that I mean
Issues that's a lot of work
um that's like that's like
I don't know a hundred podcast episodes. I don't know what the with the correlation would be like in dog years
But you know it takes a lot to to
Rangle all that and put it out and then start from scratch again like
What has been the the drive to keep you going throughout this this whole time
Well, I've I would say probably like the best thing about it and maybe the worst thing about it at the same in that
Jason
You know all it takes I can press this button
I love the fact that I can get up in the morning and
What I do is work. I mean that that you know there's that saying like if you find something that you love
You'll never work a day in your life. I think that's total crap
um
Find something that you love it's still gonna be work and it's it's still gonna require effort if you wanted to succeed
It requires work and honestly I mean there are days when I get up in the morning and I'm like
Man, I've I've got all this crap. I got to get done
Managing this per laying over here or this this
You know these 10 items that I popped up over here Jason knows all about this because I get pulled in 20 different directions
And it can be overwhelming at times
But that's also you know there are days when I get up and I'm like you know I get to I get to get up this morning and I get to put together
You know with my creative director with Jason our social editor and a director of marketing and our freelancers and other columnists of around staff
A magazine that tells these stories that inspire people to step out their front door and
The most gratifying thing I would say that I've experienced as a publisher of a developer by four then
Going out in the field and random spots and meeting people who read a story in the magazine and were
Inspired enough by it to go out and do what they read
a quick example of that about five years ago six years ago whenever it was my wife had written a story about
Backpacking at big-band national part. This was back in like issue 15 I think
It was followed up by a story that we had done as a family traveling to several different national parks in the southwest
So it included a trip to like what would be mountains national par Carl's bed cavern
Petrify forest white sands and big-band and so my wife had written a story about the experience and had written in a way that
People with families and kids can kind of relate to and so anyway
We had gone to big-band during spring break hard, you know, each of our daughters were at the time they were younger
We were taking a spring break trip when it was a big-band national park
We get there and
The park is like the camp spots were we're pretty packed and so we want to have an account just outside the park
We pulled up into a spot and there was a guy with at the time there was a there was a trailer company called movie one
I don't know if y'all ever heard movie one but
They they're no longer in production now, but at the time they built a really nice off-road style type trailer
There was a guy with this trailer that was parked like 25 30 feet from where we were at
He saw our land cruiser pull up
I didn't know him from Adam, but he recognized our truck
And so he walked up to me and he said he wouldn't happen to be frank from out the right floor. I was like
Yeah, actually I am
He was a subscriber to the magazine who had read my wife's story about big-band and he was intrigued in the fight that he wanted to come down there and and check it out
And so yeah, I was blown away by it, but then here's the crazy thing
Two days later on our last day at big-band before we started our long like 10-11 hour drive back to Houston from big-band
And we went to a section of the park called Sanela and a canyon which is like right there
Overlooking the Rio Grande and there's a there's a nice non-technical height that you can do is like a mile and a half in and a mile and a half out
That just kind of meanders along the canyon and it kind of works its way up a little bit of elevation where you can kind of look down on the river
Sounds extremely difficult
That sounds like a very technical
Yeah, yeah, it sounds a lot. It may be a subtle lot worse than the drill is but we did the hike and it was my wife myself and my three daughters
We're walking back
towards the towards our towards the link cruiser
We had just crossed over a little section that kind of me ended along the river heading back to ours the parking lot and there was a
Spamley walking towards us my wife was wearing an outdoor bike or t-shirt and
The woman with her two kids in her husband saw my wife shirt and asked my wife if she was Andrea from outdoor bike floor
And my wife was like yeah, how did you know she saw she saw my wife t-shirt
And this this woman
Really really nice. I'm very complimentary told us she said
I read your story about traveling to these different national parks and we wanted to experience it the same way that you did
So we made a road trip from I think Missouri
All the way down to big bend
So there were two people that we met on just that one trip that had rid of the story that we had featured in the magazine that were inspired enough to go out and do
What had been written and so I mean we got in the lancruiser and like we talked about it my wife and I did and
That was hugely gratifying because oh, yeah
The goal has always been to tell stories that people can relate to and
Inspired them to do something that maybe they hadn't considered doing before and these were two people that just randomly happened to be at the same place that we were at
We were doing something that at a place that we'd love going to every year and it had inspired
You know two random people and their families did the same so it was it was an awesome feeling. So that's the long-unitier
Question and that's the reason why I get up every morning and do what I do is because of I can inspire one person
Another family to go and do something to consider before and they're able to get out and see the world in the way that they hadn't
Experience it
Man, I just think that's an awesome thing and I love that so that's very cool. That is very cool. It's very cool
I don't want to you know steal your thunder, but I think I
Inspired somebody to buy a front tier. Remember was it Francis or whatever? Yeah, he's like oh man
Just listen you guys
And we got and we got nothing from yeah, you inspired Casey and Jose and a couple of people to butt we get frontiers and we've gotten
I know exactly I'm seeing from Nissan
Just when we get the story factually straight. What you was a land cruiser or is the land cruiser?
100 series land cruiser is on no free bottle. Okay, yeah, better than yours
It's better. It's better than Jose
So Jason since you've been involved with the on the social and the digital side
What has been the most intriguing part about your participation in the magazine on that digital social side
Keyboard warriors yeah, yeah, and I'm talking about I do I do
You try to say anything man you could sit here and be like hey check this out
You're going to have
One out of every five people say that's garbage
It's garbage
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got a front tier to come a sub
Or so those guys are right
Yeah, you should listen to that guy you should absolutely listen to that guy if you're right to come and do something
Lancers and then and then it's it's it the thing is it's I think the hardest part about being
involved in social media. It's so different than when you're operating off of your personal
Viewpoints when you have the operator off of your your your
Look, I don't know what that's like at these these guys look these guys
Get like we have we have like there are certain things when it would get the we do not tackle
We do not we do not discuss on this show. This is show about outdoor off-road full-by-frame chain
And there are times where I have to remain some shit in and these guys get super frustrated about it
But I fully understand there's a lot of things I want to say but this is a show about
You know friendship putting that stuff aside put in that stuff aside
dealing with the stalker in your stair bedroom and then having a good time
So I get that part there was the post
That I made
It was about a month ago, I guess about a guy that started a wildfire here in Arizona
Because he was trying to get rescued and he felt that he for starters not a long hike been taken off water
He didn't
Basically practice dude. I can I can flag that aircraft with a mirror. I learned that boys
Yeah, yeah, you can learn it from a five minute YouTube video
So the fact that this guy thought it was a smart idea to light
Essentially the woods on fire in order to be found is you know
Generally accepted and this is going to not going to be a good idea not only is it dangerous to yourself
It provides a sense of danger to the aircrews got to get to you possible
Searchers on the ground and wildlife and all people that aren't involved in it
Maybe a hunter or a hiker or whatever you're you're asking for a lot of trouble when you decide just to light a fire
Yep, get somebody's pension yep, um and in the comment section of that I got more people saying well hey, he survived
Not not but let's not take it to the back the the 300,000 something people that were affected negatively by this action
Hey, but that guy survived. He's fine. He's fine. He's good burn it and I'm just sitting here like
Is this guy joking? No, I don't think he's joking. Yeah, you're a ignore
Ignore and then they start squabbling with each other and I'm like
Ignore Ignore and I'm like okay moving on. Hey, check out this
Let me put some goofy a little Eric Cartman gif on top of it. Yeah
It's I think that's the that's probably the hardest part of it all is just is you have to
Like for example, he just today with the speaker in the Tacoma dude
I don't have the same JBL in my lancourser. Yeah, I don't know how how the weather is for you guys and I I'm not sure how it is for Frank over here
But in Arizona dude, I don't put nothing on my dash
Nothing nothing that I don't want melted or turned into a a new mutant living organism. I'm not putting for sure for sure
a lithium ion battery
They've test how it device
I'm sure they could ask of my brand new truck which is probably thanks to Mark up as probably going to cost you $70,000
Yeah, and actually yeah, you know what is hilarious
Wait, yeah, I'm just now because Jason had mentioned this earlier and I hadn't seen it yet
This is a removable JBL speaker on the dashboard Jose has been driving around with exactly JBL Bluetooth speaker as his only sound system in the lancourser since
2005 like this is absolutely going backwards. What they got all my data. I sent them all the data every year
You know
Wait different weather temperatures and you're right
That's just for already offers a removable speaker in this in the southwest man. It's it's
Rivian yeah, yeah in the southwest where it's
110 degrees for weeks at a time
That if you don't have something over your windshield that's dead that's that I even with even with like a sun's
Sun shade I put a sun shade up no matter where I am right and I've had been a longest time a dash cam and my dash cam
Swole up and exploded
Because it just got too hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I went wrong with like you can't leave this thing in the truck anymore
Even with the sunscreen and now you're gonna put a speaker which is a great idea
Man, I got a Bluetooth speaker. I listen to stuff when I'm working on a car or something like that
But I would never put it on the dash and aside from the obvious
Insendiary properties of that let's take a look in the fact is you're gonna have some
Jack leg that's gonna walk around look inside your thing and be like bang man
I got to get me that speaker first ball first ball Jack leg
I'm not sure where that came from but it's my new favorite that was that's my dad is said since I was okay
Okay, okay, so that I we're gonna have to do some research on urban dictionary
No, we probably shouldn't have said when the one in South dictionary
I'll tell you right now. Don't use that
Yeah, that's probably a bread bag and then exactly and then to the accent immediately took me to boomhour at key on King of the Hill
Like it was like a perfect man
Yeah, yeah, I was rolling the dyngo walking down and mess. Yes, man
Just try be awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, somebody somebody commented on our Instagram that says you're gonna see catalytic converters tailgates and JBL speakers on Craigslist. Yeah
For sure, so the
So it's I mean clearly you guys are are growing you know the magazine is growing your influences growing
So you're you're spending the time on social like what is the what's the I don't know one year three year five-year goal for outdoor by four magazine like where do you see things going from here?
Man, that's another good question
uh
Well, I mean, you know, we're one thing that we are working on is you know, we launched a fully audio version of the magazine about
Little over a year ago, it's back in like
December I think of 21 January 2022. So somewhere first of the beginning of last year
Which was the first of its kind in the overland space where we have basically taken select stories from each
Issue of the magazine put him into an orp audio format that has like sound effects that complement each of the stories
And you can you know you can listen to you know those versions of the magazine on
Apple Spotify. I think I heart radio Google
A couple others the usual something yes, yeah, you have Jack leg read some of those
Leave it or not yeah
And I'm gonna have one just for you
That's like at some point and those readings as well. Oh, but you have to read it as Jack leg
We're we're we're down there. We're not that JBL
That's a great idea, man. We need to have like an alter ego for each. Yes
Hashtag that has to get to bring it with extra steps
I'm gonna I'm gonna a funny story about alter egos
There was an article written on a blog about our show that we didn't know these people at the time and it was it was written on the blog and the
The art I mean the author's name was
A mod Paddington and so we're like trying to we're researching this person trying to find them out who they are
Like it doesn't exist. It doesn't exist and
We they the people heard about it and they reached out to us and it was this super nice lady that was working
For a marketing firm that
She was she was writing up these articles and her publisher was like no you need a pseudonym and she's like no
I don't want one and they literally pulled it out of a hat made it up and that was that's been her pen name
Since the whole time and she's like I hate it, but everything has been published under that name
It's like wasn't a mod Paddington
You know you could just chat GPT that stuff. Yeah, you can't know. It was pretty fun
We're not gonna talk about chat GPT no
I'm gonna go the head fun with it
Past week is pretty good. No. All right. I'm sorry. No, it sucks. I hate it
Well, I mean well the just to begin and end that chat GPT there was a publication to be unnamed
I out there that what is a rhyme? I think
They were who was it? What is it rhyme with you don't have to say their name? No, I think it was it was a big one
It was a big one. It wasn't in the overland space. It was a big one and they found out they were using chat GPT to write all their
Oh my god
Yeah, hang on. I'll go go go go go by the way. I actually Google jackleg jackleg's deck definition is an incompetent unskillful or
Disclosed person
The fact that there is a reap them audio
Yes, the fact that one of the odds you're on a podcast full of jacklegs
Would you change the name to the jackleg jackleg podcast?
Yeah
So I mean other than other than
You guys have done a lot in digital since the you know
Going back to some of your digital roots with the magazine being available digitally the audio version and then the obvious of growing
Subscribers to the magazine are there any things like
You know, I'm in the sky type things that you want to try to accomplish with the magazine that that are just out there and you haven't figured out how to do it yet
Oh, yeah, they're actually a handful of them and I I can't I can't disclose
Most of them because I won't tell anybody I'm actually trying to find a way to make some of them work
No, but I've got a whole list of those things that I can't figure out how to make work
So if you want you figure it out, let me know
I'll tell you I'll tell you one thing that I have had it's kind of like a pineless guy project that I'm determined to to find a way to make a work is
Something related and I won't go into all the details but something related to virtual reality and how we
How we engage our readers with our content
Yeah, I mean for for us as a small independently produced magazine. I mean and I'm kind of hinted at it earlier
Like I'm constantly looking at ways that we can evolve what we're doing using technology using
analog on the print side and other
Traditional and non-traditional arena is to
To expand in our reach and find ways that we engage people like you know our and consumer readers
Our advertising partners and providing maximum value for them and still maintaining our unique and this is an independent title and so
Yeah, I've got a lot of ideas on the direction of where we want to go a year to years 10 years down the road to maintain our
relevancy and to continue to be a leader in this space and there's a lot of things I go into that and
You know again, I'm just one piece to this puzzle
You know, I kind of hold like us some of the stuff together, but you know Jason's input
Our director of marketing and his input and guidance on things
Our creative director and her approach to how she's designed the magazine now is also evolved over the last year and a half
With some kind of fun and engaging things that she does on the illustrative side that we hadn't done before
That I think also kind of compliments our uniqueness
So I mean
At the end of the day, we're always looking at and evaluating you know how people are consuming content
How we're delivering content
What we can do to
Continue to channel what it is that outdoor by four does to reach people in a way that they're gonna be engaged and interested in it and and so
I can't really give you a definitive answer because man I mean just like technology
I mean
It could have all tomorrow
Yeah, but but there are some kind of high pineless guy things that I got in mind and one of them is this idea
Utilizing virtual reality and a component of our storytelling
So that so that people can log in they can be immersed in a day in the life of Jack leg
Reading them a story that was written by Jack leg
I think that's the Jack leg experience. I'll tell you right now
Being in the room with them. Yeah, I'm not a hundred percent sure Jason's even real like he could be like
virtual reality like a project. He and though he's real
He's set next to me put his hand on my thigh. Well, I drive it around. I mean like it's hey
Yeah, for sure. I was I was a good playing about it at all. He couldn't you couldn't get the girl from outside the tent so he got Jesus
No, that's Jose. I bring my own girl. I bring my girl with me
You know Frank I think I told Frank the story about the the lady and Las Vegas at the the
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they told we talked about it on the last time. Yes
I
I told him he he should have been there, but that's that's that's those are traumatic yet bonding experience
This is our traumatic for me
But I enjoyed watching the whole the whole the whole thing the whole thing and and on that last episode the last time we had you on them because it was
You know the Toyo event we did talk about the experience of driving the people from Toyo
From the event back to the hotel and the guys predicted that we would never hear from Toyo again because of my driving and I
I would say they're absolutely right
The people from Toyo spent four minutes in a truck with me
And where was your virtual plan then you will not return my emails or phone calls again?
Did you have it hurt from anybody at Toyo since then?
Uh
Negative ghost matters for yeah
For the for the most what we're gonna I don't I don't blame him no
I knew it. Yeah, we we we almost killed the homeless man on the way home from the from the event with the
Toyo people involved. I don't think they want any code. Yeah, almost killed that code
Yeah, yeah
Look he would have got a free night in a red abad with it with the meal
Yeah, I don't know that's true. I don't know
Well, not if he's dead. Yeah, it wouldn't really matter. What Zack? He could have died
If he had the new to coma, he'd at least have that JBL listen to it exactly
Exactly one of the things about about doing this show that that we really appreciate is some of the
Access to information and events and companies that most other people don't get we've had a really
Great experience with a bunch of different companies doing things like SEMA is one of them and that Toyo event
Have you guys been able to leverage the the outdoor by four magazine
Cloud into anything that that is fun or interesting are behind the scenes that you want to share with the with anybody
That's a loaded question. Is it?
Was that was that a journalistic said way into an information? I don't I don't
don't know is it
Kind of
I've been I'm
I've been in the trail chase or podcast three times
I was gonna tell you guys that he was in a bottom of a defunct nuclear missile silo made in the 50s working on something secret
What since he's here now I'll let him deal with it
Yeah, I told I had told Jason the earlier to let you guys know that I was hold up in like our equivalent area 51
Working on some working on some things that ever top secret
Yeah, I'm aware that there are some things that we have been involved with over the years and and recently that
That I think no doubt of have had a
Have had an impact in an indirect way that we were involved with
We got some things in the horizon too that we're working on that
I think
You know, hopefully draw some attention to certain regions of the country kind of beyond
The attention that they've gotten thus far into from an editorial and journalistic perspective
Are you intentionally speaking in vagaries because you start talking about area 51 and I'm thinking how do we get you on the mojave trail this weekend?
Because that sounds like can't fire talk
I
Need to figure out a way to do that actually I can get away from Texas for a weekend
Let's go, we shouldn't be a problem. We don't often laugh in 9 a.m. Friday morning
I will need to figure out how to get over the drive off
You're coming to flex that next month
Coming to flex that next month. We're working on that. I would love to
I really have to check with my boss and
You know really
Honen on my work schedule to figure out if that's a possibility
What works
The job the joke is I'm unemployed. So I work on I don't work on taking out the trash
Your chores and my boss. I mean she sits down at the other end of the hall. That's what I
Here you yeah, she
She's out right in the yeah, she's actually listen to this show
She was like a member of the podcast. I'm out. She stopped listening a while ago because uh two years ago
Yeah, she used to listen every episode and I test it like I still think it's out there
You're nothing back
I would love to go to flag staff and and all honesty if if I'm still unemployed at that time
It becomes a little bit easier from a schedule perspective. So does the studio move with you as the as you live on the street
It's like the truck. I do if you go down to somewhere in Ontario
Would just meet you. I'm like meet me at Archibald and mission and then we'll just do the show from there
I'm gonna I'm gonna live with me. I'm the RV wait
I think I'm gonna live with you. I was they want to live in my RV
I'm not he that I'm gonna sell the house Jose, I'll rent you the house. Okay. I'll live in the RV
So we're just we'll still try to figure that out. We don't know who's gonna be in flag staff if anybody
Well, I hope somebody's gonna be there. I would love to be we got to continue our time travel conversation
Hey, man, you want to talk about the continuum. Let's thank you. I do. I do. I told you
I don't know I'm waiting. I don't think you two wants to hear it
The the alphabet boys look a map hey. Have you look there's an abulsion on YouTube
I'm sure there's enough people that do like they'll listen to anything
They're fucking big
Yeah, you know it looking looking at me
He nailed it
Looking at the group. It's gonna be on our no hobby trail this weekend. I guarantee you every single one of them would be
Totally in on that conversation 100% yeah, we were wonderful
You know it sucks. I wish you guys would have told me about it soon
You we did tell you about it. We told you about it last time you were on
No, you didn't you told me about king of hammers last time you I was on
Did we
That's almost the same thing look
It's working your in Arizona just need us in Laughlin on Friday
9 a.m. Friday morning. I'll think about it. All right
Ask your boss. He's right there. He's here. Right
Yeah, you know what? No, you don't go getting a Friday off. Yeah, you give a Friday Monday off. You don't go
Every day off. Technically he's he's like 50% my boss and then I'm the 50% my
Oh
Oh
At least 75% at least 75% of you is unhappy with you
That sounds like me and my wife
I
Was it like me and my wife and my paycheck that's like 50% mine. Oh, it's not
That's not if it is no you can't go in the mojave. I'll write the story about the mojave
He'll take the pictures and we'll publish it in one of the next episodes
Issues
Do it so the so look guys I
The magazine the idea of the magazine and the we've talked about this before the
The the different between a tactile magazine versus digital and and how people are consuming content like you've mentioned before
I think it's
Super interesting to hear the story about doing it digitally once and then doing it in print and now that print is expanding to audio and virtual
In digital and all that
I think
I think you guys are doing a really really good job of connecting with your audience and finding ways
Different ways to do that as opposed to the
This is how we do it if you don't like it don't come
Well, yeah, I mean if like like we said earlier, I mean I want I'll draw by four to be relevant
25 10 15 years down the road. I mean I'm I'm in my mid 40s
So I'm not gonna be retiring anytime soon and I love what I do and
Interestingly enough, I mean during the pandemic I hadn't even sure this was Jason, but
You know, there were a couple of lovers in the table to to buy and acquire out for about four
And I mean
I don't want to do that because I love what I do and I see
You know my goal has because always been you know as an independently produced title to
to
To continue to evolve and and engage people and inspire people and and
definitely
you know that
That having a foresight of what we want to do you know 10 years down the road is critically important for us
So yeah, I mean we're we're primarily a print magazine
I mean that's our bread and butter
But you know the digital edition of the magazine is something that we pride ourselves in it's something to be on any device
Web browser. It's got a video integrated into it
It's easy to read in different types of viewing experiences the audio version is a truncated version of the print magazine
But the print magazine is still our bread and butter and I mean it's I think one thing that really makes us unique as a as a content provider because
It gives people an outlet to have a distraction that's
Well, maybe I'm necessarily distraction, but it has an outlet that engages people without the distraction
Of what you get on your phone, and I mean any of us on this call
And anybody listening or watching this I make a probability degree that
You know when you're when you've got your phone, it's there's a continual distraction there
You might see something and immediately move on to the
Yeah, it's from one squirrel the next squirrel
squirrel things actually yeah, and so with with print
it's there's that
There's that tactile experience of
You know, you're not you're not relegated to a phone that's going to be continually distracting you
You're it's like a break really from
From that device and and so
You know print allows an opportunity where you're you're really engaged in an experience you know
You're you're turning the pages you're you can you can smell the ink, you know
You're you have to physically turn the pages in order to read the content
Whereas with a you know phone or a tablet or whatever
I mean you need to tap a button move on to the next and so
That will always be a part of our model of delivery without derailleur by four
But with the recognition too that it's important, you know as a business
That we continue to evolve and how we're delivering our content because you know
I want to upper about where to be relevant for you know as a as a media outlet
You know ten years down the road and not come you know and go like
So many other outlets have over the years. I just didn't keep up with the times and then
wound up getting you know bought out by some big corporate entity and then you know they flush
You know 19 out of 21 titles because they're not making enough money. You know that stuff
I mean
That's not where I want to be at I want to grow up or about four in a way that continues to inspire
He's people engaged and you know still
This unique in its own right so
Yeah, well that I I think you guys are on the right track. I yeah
Uh
Yeah, I mean you guys are doing it right and and I think even even stuff like this like you know
Having you guys on the the show to talk about the magazine and the journey and your personalities and it just shares that much more of the
Of the realness of who you guys are behind yeah the genuineness behind the magazine and I appreciate you guys coming on and
And spending time with us even though you didn't give us any juicy details that I was hoping for but uh
I think you guys already seen the Tacoma you're just you're just not gonna tell us
No
You're probably a if I saw it and I would tell you I saw yeah, you would glow you would glow
He's I saw it guess what I saw there yeah
You would totally you would totally
You're right leg would tell us
I have suspicions about it. I can tell you that I think it's just going to be a like a miniature ice tundra
Yeah, it's all will be yeah. It's going to be crap. But it is it is definitely being
Have it like I said man. I don't want to get back into the JVL speaker, but it's
There's some fun it that if it doesn't have a front locker
It's not gonna have no one dude. It's not gonna have it. It's gonna have it's gonna have it's gonna have
It's gonna have room drum breaks again. I mean
Confirmed ready
It's gonna be uncomfortable
Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna be uncomfortable is shit
And they're gonna sell a million of them the first year absolutely and it's gonna be the best selling
I'm gonna I'm gonna hate it had like and it's gonna be the best selling truck in the world
I'm more concerned about the the power train. Yes, because every time a new power train comes out
Man the first year the first probably two years
It's gonna be a nightmare and I told this to Frank at Expo when the gen three Tacoma was coming out
We talked about it. He asked me if I'd gone by down there to see it
And I told him I did and I was like, yeah, man, but it it looked at the time
It was very like it reminded me a lot of the F-150
And you know, it was it had this big flat
Dash and and all this stuff and I was just like kind of tow truck in front of it
Missed a chip or something
It was like I said everything new is gonna be weird, but any time
You know
They only ran this this the gen three for what six years
Seven years right no, it's 26 16 is when it came out
But yeah, so 16 so that's yeah, just still that's seven years six year yeah, but they they with by the time they launched
Gen three
Everybody else had already launched the version that was better than that. So so
Well, okay, so two years later. Oh, wow
My point being is like they launched in that in that cycle where they it was like a
Midway through everybody ratcheting up so that's they I don't think if they would have stretched out the gen three for a full 10 year cycle
They would have
drastically nose-dived and sales towards the last two three years. That's why they're doing it they're doing a new one now
These that's my very uninformed
He's done everything they're not gonna die if yeah, they're not gonna drastically nose-dive nothing
There's enough people they're gonna come out as soon as that truck comes out
There's gonna be already like 15 to 20 after market bumpers and everything you name it
I already have my pretty one to be already like super successful because
As soon as the tundra came out, I was like oh my god the tundra's out and then I'll say I saw
Tendra them fully decked out. Yeah, I thought it came out yesterday
That's like the Bronco when the Bronco first started trickling out all the sudden man those things were for everywhere
Yep, he especially here in Arizona and
When I had originally heard they were coming out I was like man, that's gonna be super hard to get a Bronco
So I'm curious to see when somebody's gonna get one and then I swear like two weeks later
Dude, I saw like five oh yeah, and there's a guy down the street. There's a guy down the street from here
That's from my house here. That's got one and
They're timing you
So now I see him everywhere. Yeah, they are everywhere here in Southern California too
Yeah, and I don't know man, and it's with Nissan. Do you guys know Carl? I think it's named Carl
Yeah, we are super tight
I've talked to you know we talked to him a lot. Yeah, we have interviewed him
Yeah, but he didn't show up
He didn't show up. Ah, you know
You want you want me to get him? He's up here. No, um, he was at our our booth at
Nick the booth next to us at over our next phone Colorado and
We got to talk in about what was coming up from Toyota and he was like hey man
He goes I can't tell you anything, but Nissan's already
Working on something more than that
Yeah, and
I don't know. I did there's so much like corporate espionage that goes on. What did he allegedly say?
What's that? What did he allegedly say? He allegedly said that the
That he's already was already working on something better. Yeah, there's what he's gonna have a deep-by
DRACE speaker in the dad
I asked him I was like hey, what do you think with the new Tacoma coming out and he's like yeah
We're not really worried about it. Yeah
And I don't know what we know hey, I'm Nissan so we're worried about it for if that's Nissan as in life
We're already cooking something up
I don't understand. It was a very it was a passing conversation as we would go back and forth to chat during the event
but it was
Like he said and it's it's always a one step ahead of the game so as soon as that thing hits
There's gonna be something or something new coming out from Ford from you know in in Nissan
Ain't tell you anybody else anybody else somebody's gonna have something out immediately
Yeah, and the new Ford range is gonna be better than all of them. So guys it's been
No, I thought for sure. I get yelled at for that one
We're sorry
Sometimes they're just they're kind of off kind of per se
Yeah, we're not energy anymore, do you guys we have really enjoyed chatting with you guys you guys are welcome to come back any time
You want to talk about more magazine stuff
The or Led Zeppler
Yeah
Yeah
I under airwolf, you know Robert Robert plant money that your wife gets every month
Any of that
To see you guys you're laughing on Friday. Yeah, see you laughing
But will where will you guys be next? Where's the next opportunity for everybody to connect with you?
That's gonna be over the next poll West and Flagstaff next month. I mean for me personally
I don't know if Frank's gonna go anywhere else
Yeah, actually I'm gonna be
Hitting up the Toyota Jamboree here in Texas. That's coming up
Um
And then yeah, it'll be the Flagstaff event. We're gonna be doing things a little bit different Flagstaff
So, you know, we'll have a booth there, you know, we'll have a
We'll have a truck in the booth spot and we'll have a motorcycle in the booth spot
We'll have some signs out there and you know some we've got a really I think should be a pretty fun scavenger hunt giveaway
We're gonna be doing there in the event as well
But it's gonna be the first year where we're not gonna actually be physically at the event or at the booth
During the course of the event
We're gonna kind of approach this overlay and expo a little bit differently
Because man, I mean for the like the last
The last 10 years that I've been involved over the expo like we've always I've always been at our booth and
Have never experienced the event
The way that everybody else is attending the event does because I've always been tied to the booth
You know after talking about when Jason and other other people on staff internally
We decided that we're gonna have a staging area
For the magazine and people can stop by and pick up cops the magazine all that stuff
But we're gonna get out and actually experience it about this kind of around the 10 classes
Visit with other vendors and just experience it and so
We'll be there. We're not gonna be at the booth per se, but we will have a booth there
You know, if people want to visit with us while we're at the venue
I mean just you know, have hit us up through social or through our concept form or our website
And you know, we'd be thrilled to meet with people while we're out there
We're just not gonna be at the booth during the whole weekend
So I mean there's a possibility you'll catch us
We aren't like you mentioned we are doing a little scavenger hunt
We got some cool prizes some some really nice prizes
From some of our our partner companies. We got some stuff from Midland Midland radio
We got some stuff from Omnia Sweden. We got some stuff from from a bunch of people and
It's gonna be
It's a real simple little deal man. You show up. You play the little game and walk away with something cool and
We're gonna be doing that actually. I think Saturday afternoon is when we decided we were actually gonna do the face
So people will have you know some time to get in there and walk around and check some stuff out
And we'll be we'll be around for sure and then it throughout the year
We'll be all over the place to just stay
Just give us a follow up on Instagram and Facebook and stay up and she happened to see us one around in the world
Throw something not too heavy at us
Breaking news that motorcycle they're gonna have in the booth. It's my motorcycle
Which piece
Which piece of it
That would be that would be funny because that would mean those days like okay, I'm not gonna ride this
I'm just gonna park it someplace and let people look at it
All right guys all
We should do oh there's there's an article there. Okay. This is the next article for whatever episode
Whatever issue comes out after
Is my first
Him trying to ride the motorcycle from here to overland expo without dying like it's just said an hour by our check-in of how far he's gone
There's a pool on that right he might make a December and a dean and then he's done
That's the article it's like a
To pair it's a paragraph like who's they started he's dead
Chapter one
Chapter 1.2. I don't know
to see
All right guys well, uh, thank you so much for joining us tonight
We appreciate it and you guys have a great night
Thank you, man. Thanks so much guys. Let's take care. See you
All right, thanks to Jason and Frank for joining us tonight. That was cool those guys are really cool
I I'm a subscriber of the magazine so if you haven't already done so go to outdoorx4.com and
Subscribe to the magazine they got some cool articles up there too there's a lot of good stuff you can read on the on the on the website without even
I'm a subscription, but I enjoyed supporting those guys
So it is it is Tuesday April 25th meaning we are
To minus T minus two days two days
Well one day for for
Muty McMute face over here
You're on
Our T minus like 16 out. Yeah, Casey's going out a day early and he's gonna golf on Thursday like a jackleg
I got the invite, but I just can't make it
Me neither I got work
So
So
Yes, several of us are going out Thursday morning. Are you going out Thursday or Friday?
Right, you're gonna meet us there Friday. You're gonna leave Friday morning. Yes, sir from your house. Yes. At what time?
I don't know five three o'clock in the morning
Okay nine o'clock, Jose
We're not waiting for your ass. Don't worry about me
It'll be in a front here, so he should be in the ketchup the bike if you do it
I'm gonna be paying six gear
All right, I'm just doing 045
I wonder which one goes faster the lanterns are the motors like a lot of motorcycle
I want I want to know which rich vehicle is coming
He says the front here. Yeah, I don't believe him. Why? Because you've never taken the front here out
That's true. It's just for looking good. That's all
We did you get your coxie road in it. Yeah, he'll do cox in the in the front here
Never he won't get lots of cox
Godless of lubrication
So Tim and I are going out Thursday
Midday get out there spin the night in at the avi and then we're hitting the trail of Friday morning around 9 a.m
I did a since I I have nothing to do
Yesterday I did a full like I took all my kitchen gear out
of my toads I did like I rearranged it put up in a different box like how can I get it in and and what's like what's
And I ended up I ended up today I ended up buying
Because I have a one of those five gallon motorcycle
Fuel tanks but if two tall I found one that was shortened more square to so I'm gonna bring an extra five gallon
I have like just a 20 liter fuel can first of all. I don't know how many I don't know how many I don't know how many
The jerry can is still too tall to fit where I need it to fit so that's why I got the shorter square one
To fit where I want it to go you guys is ones are not deal to you
I
You know that was like a joke at the time. I remember like oh, it's not DOT approved
Well, whatever I still feel it full of gas
Yeah, I'm happy to get a state and I'm going to be different from me
I live on every day art DOG a fruit. Yeah, yeah, I even blown up yet
So I'm gonna try to take some Matt and I were looking at it actually period you know where we're going right into the what we're about to go into
Perry G's like how many miles is this trip and that is a beautiful? That is a perfect one segue Perry
Do you want to replace Jose on the show since he wants to do his own show?
You know we should do
Everybody everybody listening stop listening for a second. This is a private conversation
We should have a one of the listeners the ones that are always in there guess once a week like kick one of us out
Have a different one call them. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, that is a brilliant. Oh, yeah, but that's gonna be like we're gonna have a discussion like a seared discussion amongst our like Cody
I'll be out. I'll be totally out. I'll be working. I'll be working the board. That'd be it. I think that is an amazing idea
But they get the second like this segment like poster interview. Yeah, and then sure
Who do you want to replace? You can you call your shot? I think that's a great idea. Oh
So things like Jose's not a year. No, yeah, great. Whatever. Fine. And I'm like we're gonna get found out
We're gonna get found out. Yeah, I know. Well, whatever. I'll be listening. Everybody's gonna run
That's how silly this is. I'll be in the chat. 130 miles, but 200 if you go into the punch bowl
Yeah, so it's going to be with the route that we have planned right now. We just did the math before going on on the year
It's about 185 miles with the current route. That's a dream that that was the
Extreme side. I think two long days, but we're gonna be able to move
Hold on. We're gonna be able to scoop yes. Yeah, some of that some of that section is
Great. Great. And easy. Yes, it's not it's not the so it was like 51 miles the first day and like 80
So no, it's not 180 then it was 51 miles. No, no, I don't know. I don't know where you get 180
Because I think it was I think it was like 56 miles in normally. I think 150 is say
That's on a long side. Yeah, so about 137. I think it was 51 the first day and 86 the second day
But you know it. I don't think we figured from the final camp raise a road to to the gas station. Yeah, so it's it's
I don't know what you're doing the gas station work on at the canyon. Okay, so I'll tell you that right now that is going to be
Roughly which is
Significant because either you get you get back on the freeway and go north to raise a road. That's the nearest gas station from razor
Down under the bridge through the river crossing to the freeway is 20 miles
I'm on a bring gas. So yeah, just because I'm bringing five gallons just in case. Yeah, I will have five gallons and then I'm
I'm cutting out early on Sunday morning. So I won't do the bridge trip. Are you cutting out early?
I got to get back to the house Tammy Tammy is flying out
Monday morning and press day as a soccer game. So we just decided to leave early Sunday. Okay.
Well, either way the other reason why there's a bit more mileage on this
Trip because there's a lot of road closures and we're just trying to anticipate
You know that extra mileage. So we did do I'm sorry Cody you did your due diligence and
Came up with alternative routes and so this is on the excessive side. I would say yeah, yeah, if it
But I'm saying I'm gonna bring gas, slam I'm gonna bring gas if you plan for
180 miles whatever that means for you if you can get 180 to 200 miles and that means you got to take a couple gallons of gas
You'll be fine, right?
Case and I talked about also allows us to see some stuff that we haven't seen yet. Yes, yeah
We're doing a very different route that the Mojave trail is very
Once you come once you come up and over from the offland side you can basically straight line it across the desert
We're going a little bit zigzaggy to see some different things and several of us on this trip have done
This the the original route. I don't know 10 times. So we want to do something a little bit different
I'm really excited to see well that I look like the bigger bigger flush is closed
That that the river or like better whatever what are they call it? So like so to like that we can't go through there
So travelers Monument is not we're not gonna do that no we have to bypass that
So we'll find more interesting things Jackson
Jack Ask Canyon Jack. That's Canyon Jack. Jack. Nick Canyon
So trail chasing Canyon. I will
I will send out an email to everybody on the on the list tomorrow just to make sure that everybody's updated has all of our contact information
Really I think it's
I think it's Perry G is the the only new one. Yeah, he's yeah
There's a specific hazing ritual that you're gonna have to participate in Perry for your first trip
But everybody seen everybody
Everybody else is liked it. So
What's that that scene from like hamburger Hill or what are one of those movies where they beat the hell out of that guy with a bar at soap and uh in the
Palo cases or whatever
Full metal jacket. That's I'm at say yeah and and and for the group there like because there's some
A little bit different route and because there's some closures
We've got some game time decisions. We might make on the trail that's gonna be it's gonna be a little bit different
I'll send everybody the access to the map no castle run but yeah, basically the castle run is out
However, which I'll tell you I think I think my friend tears probably pretty up
But I will tell you that I think
The alternate route that we've got through Jack Ask Canyon is gonna be as much or more fun just looking at the map today
I really do think it's gonna be a good time. Oh, it will be a good time for sure
the
Whether it's gonna be mid 80s during the day in 50s at night
Right, I think comfy so it should be super
Expect like
I might check I check I think yesterday and it said it was closer to like low 90s and like 60s at night
Beautiful. I'm not even bringing a tent. I was thinking the same thing
Should I just sleep in my truck? That's what I'm doing. I'm saving the better my truck
What yeah
Oh, yeah, so it's oh, yeah, I'm not gonna air mattress or something. Oh, yeah on a pad on the sleeping pad
It's actually warmer now it like Casey. I just checked on so Kelso, California is
I was checking goss
So in Kelso, it's 97 high of 97 low of 65 oh shit
to be hot, so I think it is so it says that the high is between 4 and 5 p.m
So it's not gonna be the highest like for very long
And it'll be like right yeah, we're getting to camp and the low when it's going to be the cold. This is like 4 to 5 a.m
Yeah, I'll take 97 over 115
Yeah, for sure
If it's
97 at 5 it'll be nice in the evening jeans and t-shirt weather
Banana hammock weather. Yes, I I do believe you should pack your banana hammock. I never leave home without it
It's me
Let me in your tent
Let me hear
Yeah, it's part of the more cycle you made your tent. I brought my band banana
But hammock
You're soon I let you know I'm coming in
Decide are we doing everybody bring in firewood? Okay, that was yet. Oh, yeah, that was gonna be my next thing
The four fireboxes that we know we have fireboxes. I don't have room for firewood
However, I have one for firewood, but there's an alternative
One of the routes that we have scoped out if we want to
Basically takes us right past the wood store and we can pick up plenty of wood before we get to razor road
That's what we looked at we were looking like I was like I was like isn't there wasn't there a
Castation in a grocery at a so yeah, yeah, that was he's a guy
Yeah, so here we go so shy says he has one. I have one you have one now Jose, right? Yes
Yeah, I don't think we need one and I'm pretty sure Joey has one. We just need one
Yeah, I don't want we need eight of them. So I'm not bringing firewood. What's up being a long night? I'll probably go through my my bottle
Maybe one night. What did I tell you when the fire goes out what's that mean?
That means we start burning it's bedtime
Wait, I mean Matt get your sauce on
It was so solid. So I'm not bringing firewood so that everybody's clear if if we want I thought was if we had at least four of them
We could have like two in the middle
One night and then the other people use theirs the next night or whatever
We can bring just more propane instead of eight firebox
What look? I'm I'm officially out on the fire planning. So if there's no fire it's on you guys somebody else planned the fire
On the second night the one option is to run down by the railroad tracks or whatever and I I know
Like as the story goes 30 years ago the railroad like there's a bunch of trees over hanging the railroad and they they cut down a ton of trees
Well since then to to a certain point east from like if you went directly south from
Raise a road where we camp and you went east like a mile or two all that woods been burned
But we just looked at satellite photos. I don't know where they date from but if you go back
Like four or five miles and it turns the corner it's all still there like it's unlimited
You could you could burn like an entire you know you could
You could heat an entire city essentially there's there's so much firewood down
There's a lot of wood yeah
And that is there is a potential route if we wanted to come back or go down that way
There would just fill up their bed full of wood
I'm assuming like two or three in the afternoon
I'll flip your bed with wood
And then we get to camp and we have a huge giant camp fire yeah, yeah, we can do that
Well, yeah, what we could do is if we'd you have a firebox bring it and then if you if not and you can sit with them bring firewood
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna bring just two two or three bundles regardless night one yeah, and then second night
I think I think we're good if we wanted to go that route. Yeah
So then the other thing is for those listening Friday morning
I would like to hit the trail 9 a.m. Friday morning so that means if you're you know
Out in Loughlin hit the hit the grocery store
You know in the morning the night before or in the morning so that we're not
Lolligan the one year we did this and we have like 11 yeah, but by the time everybody had breakfast and it was
That hotel it was like 11 or so by the time we got to the trailhead we didn't get to camp until
No, no, no, this was this was the year before that with like a
Jo P and a bunch of other people
You know, we didn't get yeah, well you guys were like oh we need to go to the grocery store. Yeah, so what are you talking about it? It was a it was a bad idea
So do your grocery and nobody went to the grocery store that Cody knocked out everyone went to the
Nobody goes anywhere I'm app out
I'm gonna do groceries tomorrow. So that's my plan and then
Done did it
And we've got we would we say there's gonna be 11 vehicles and 17 people I think
So perfect it'll be two groups yeah two ran two different groups it'll be
75 okay
It should be fun. It should be a good time the
I'll send everybody contact information so that when they get in the Loughlin
They can let us know and and I go from there, but
We're not waiting for Jose on Friday morning if he's not there. We're gonna we're going with Adam
I'm bringing the morsight go catch up to you guys
No, not from what I
Know you will not you
An ambulance on that trail. Oh, you get yeah you will be broken like a half mile into the trail from like the ovie
So you know make sure you have that contact info
Okay, I have a life light
Radios I need to
I need to plug my radios. I didn't even buy one. I know I still want to do the the mobile unit in the handheld
But with a smaller group it should be fine. We should be fine
But before September we need to get good radios
Yes, um the I got a couple of questions from people after last week where we alluded to the fact that we don't have a sponsor
I am an employed
We'll I'm currently a
full-time podcaster and house husband and I'm really really good at being a house husband not not good at a podcast house husband house
And I'm a good house husband so that's my
That's well, I tell you what you apply for enough jobs dude. They'll be tell you applying for job sucks. Yeah. I know
I don't know if anybody said do it recently, but it's not fun
So you you're applying forget to what are you even apply for like oh shit? I've got a very serious like project management
Canban board the whole whole thing. It's just the you know the talk color coded. Okay. Yeah
Mark's just catching up
His mind
disappointed
I'm a full-time or day and minister now Mark that's that's what's that's what I'm doing but
Yeah, so
Okay, I might
It's pretty lucrative
I would probably be a horrible employee
First Susan
But I got I got a handful of things in the works that I'm I'm working on and not too concerned about how this is all gonna play out
But in the meantime
I am going to be
How does it affect me in the rays I asked for like you will you will definitely the rays will be delayed a hundred percent we will
How about we do this?
Did we pay?
Now yeah, this is a very difficult conversation and I'm sorry that we have to have this
But the organization is going in a different direction and we no longer have a need for your position
What?
I didn't know I didn't know I had a position
I'll show you what it is later
Not dad again
I thought we were done with that
I'm sorry didn't get on the show
There was a one time thing
I never had to do it again if I don't want to I'm talking to mommy
Why she doesn't want you in that position
So the
Well anybody they can't run the campfire we could talk more about it but
We will
Yes, definitely independent now with that said there's also
been around the end of last year we were having some conversations with
additional people about sponsorships and
You know some of those it's faded because of the holidays and everything else
We we will be re-engaging some of those people and I've got a couple other ideas and I've had some conversations in the background about
sponsorships and partnerships and I think that for us the the the best part about the sponsorship is being able to collaborate with a
Company or group that that is a part of the community that wants to give back and and have a good time
So we're gonna find the right the right person for that the right group for that and go from there. What was it?
That's flesh light
They could be they could help with my jack arm
Jack
I might make it worse
You were out of you were in the bathroom we were talking about jack leg
It was and and then I said can you have a jack arm and I was like I told you guys that I had to have
Stringer because I fell off my bike, but I had a horrible case of jack arm
So that was every guy though that was in the break. Oh, I messed that. Yeah, you missed that it was it was super funny
That was podcast gold. Yeah, you missed it. It was the best power
So no joke we talked about it a little bit last week if there's a specific company that you think is a good fit for our
Particularly immature wit and humor and but light
And you think that they they're desperate. They're desperate. I think we hear them right now
If you think that there's someone out there that is a good fit. Let us know
We were open to those conversations and like I said sometimes it's just about
Connecting with a company that's fun and it gets us and wants to
Want to help us have some fun in the desert
All right anything else Casey
I'm super disappointed. I asked you if you could build me a swing-out tire carrier by this weekend and you just you didn't
You didn't show up today. I did ask you that yesterday, so
There's a little bit of a short notice. I get that but I thought for your brother. You do do more
Because as I was loading up yesterday. I was like I have
Fucking spare tire. It's you know it it's
That spare tire is great, but yes, that's that's a significant amount of room
For normal day-to-day stuff. I like having the spare tire up against the cab right over the axle
But when I want to load the back of the truck that's a significant amount of volume that I cannot use now because the spare tire takes it up
So I do want to explore the idea of a
You can and I think you can, but it hangs it's it's the width it hangs super low and
Yeah, genetically dude. I can tell you that you don't
The thickness of the tire
Makes it like it would bottom out the tire would bottom out before the truck would before that the
That's the same thing with the anchors. I would always hit it. Yeah, so it was it's more about the departure angle than being able to fit the tire there
The angle of the dangles problem
So that's what I'm trying to avoid, but since I've got nothing to do
In the near future, I'll come up to BigQuery and we can we can build a spare tire carrier
I probably have enough material. Okay. I hope so because I'm I'm broken. I can't find
Um, yeah, anybody else knows of a job too if there's anybody
Elon Elon was nice enough to offer to pay me to work on his farm and
I don't know if I have to choose between remodeling my own bathroom and a farm work
I really don't know which one I'm gonna choose to be honest
So I let I'll let you guys know, but if if anybody knows of anybody the companies are looking for
Shenanigan manager or
Director of Tom Fullerie, please keep me in mind
Jack are my list
Yeah, okay, what else anything else is there anything else that needs to be
No, let's go to Mahavey right now. Yeah, I know I know I sound like talking to you guys will be in the desert it will be in the desert
We got a really good group coming yeah, yeah, either way. I'll be talking to us
We got a really good group come in. I'm looking forward to it
What else I think so you guys plan on be out there like like five six o'clock
We'll probably be out there too ish
I think I think two or three. Yeah, we'll probably leave here around 10 on Thursday
um
Get out there and then
Check in and do our thing
He's gonna leave around 10. I'll leave around 11. I'll blow by him on the 40. It's on point. You know
I was gonna ask you isn't it go out the 10 or I'll up the 15 to the 40
I do not know a whatever 15 40 whatever Google tells me to do
um
We have to we have to do
The obvious says you can't bring pets so Cooper's coming with us and
I told Tammy to get one of those baby swaddler things and just put him in that so no one knows
So
I told I'm gonna put him in a backpack. He'll be fine
But yeah, we're bringing the dog
All right, well
It's it's late. I'm super tired from all my work today and
Ben's bringing his girlfriend
Oh my
He's there. That's the exciting thing. What is the what is the
Overunder for us getting them to our way allowed to like yeah, can we talk because I'm pretty sure
Yeah, I'm pretty sure
I know her dad. I know her dad. She can she can take it. I'm sure she can
She understands how sorry guys. I'm we're inappropriate. No, just her dad. He's not saying her dad is
Every bit. Oh, I didn't go. Yeah, I'm disgusting that her dad is every bit is sarcastic and angry as we are that's what I'm saying
Casey my wrong
No, not at all she's but they're 16. They you know, they're fine
I
Have your if the if the tent is rocking don't come on. I can
Is Susan still listening. I hope Susan's not listening
So with that we will be fully appropriate in our dealings with your teenage child and his girlfriend
My daughter's gonna be there. She's seven. So we have to be careful
Hey, that's okay. My daughter already thinks that I every time I say a cussword
She says that I get it from Uncle Casey
So I'm completely off the hook. She's pretty sure it's Uncle Casey's fault every time I do something wrong
So all right
Well
Thank you everybody that joined us tonight and in the chat room and I am looking forward to seeing all of you
in a couple a couple days and we're gonna have a damn good time and
Oh for those of you that aren't coming on the trip we'll tell you about it all next week have a good night
You
Thank you for listening and if you want to be on the show please leave us a voice message at nine five one three nine four dirt
Thank you to Iron Man 4 by 4 America. Please go to Iron Man 4 by 4 America and get everything you need for your next adventure
Thank you to Ryan to Rigno for all of the music and thank you to our patrons for all of their support
You
I'd just like to say if if Jose's like rude or obnoxious to you, it's cuz he hates Led Zeppelin. Wait, wait
It's confirmed. No, no, I hated them. No, we had a whole battle about Led Zeppelin versus Black Sabbath
And you know, I love Black Sabbath, but I'm a I'm a Led Zeppelin guy myself
Jose
All I said was that Black Sabbath actually wrote their own music. That's all I
Which was that's good is what Led Zeppelin did so I have an interesting story about Led Zeppelin
So when I was when I
Back in then I married my wife
Hopefully she's not listening. Yeah, well, we're not live yet
2007 I
Proposed to my wife and we were we were on a trip we're doing a cross country trip from
Houston where I live
So West Virginia you had been invited to go on a white water wrapping trip
Along the new river and my my my at the time girlfriend now my wife
And I had been invited to go out there to go wrapping for a couple of days and so I was like you know
We've been dating long enough. I think I'm ready to marry her
So I'm gonna propose on this trip
So we we were driving you know cross country and our first stop is in Memphis, Tennessee
And we rolled out on Sunday morning get to Memphis at like I don't know eight o'clock at night
I'm wiped out been driving all day my wife who or girlfriend at the time who had been sitting you know
Shotgun the whole time sleeping the whole way she was full of energy. She's ready to get out
So she coaxes me to go hit a deal street and
Memphis
So we get to build streets like at this point you know it was like nine o'clock at night
It's on a Sunday night. There's hardly anybody out we'll work our way over to BB keys
And we go inside
There's like a handful of people in in the whole place
There's a band on stage
But I noticed in the back of the club
There was a guy with long scraggly white hair and his back leaning against the bar
Watching the stage. I look at him like it's like Andrea that guy looks
So familiar and I could not place for the life of me where I had seen him before and so
We got this whole place to sit in we went at sitting at a table
Literally right in front of him like three three or four feet in front of them
So we're sitting there
We've been listening to music for about 10 minutes good blues band that was playing with the local bands and after about 10 minutes or so
The the the manager of the of BB keys goes up on stages of hey, you know
The band's gonna take a quick 10 minute recess
Get some water whatever
Stick around and you said by the way
We have a very special guest who is joining us tonight
a guy who needs no introduction
Robert Plant of Led's up
Was the guy that was there at at the bar
You know that I'd seen with the long Gandalf like type hair and so, but unfortunately you did need the introduction
He was getting inspiration for the next album
Right, but here's where the story gets really interesting so
Joel, you know, I'm I'm like telling my wife my girlfriend at the time Andrea
It's like you know go talk to him and see if you can get his autograph because I I figured if I walked up to him
I'm a guy. He's not gonna want to talk to me, but if she was up to him. She's attractive
Yeah, I said my hot wipe out to get stuff for me all the time
He'll be he'll be more inclined to at least talk to you and give you an autograph so
It took like 10 minutes to convince her to do this because she's very kind of socially adverse
But finally she worked at the hers to grab our bar receipt and
Walk up to Robert Plant and ask him to get an autograph. Well, she gets she walks up to him
And immediately he had a bouncer that was like 10 feet away like kind of hiding in the dark in the shadows
Who immediately jumps in right right in between Andrea and Robert Plant and
And
Robert Plant looks at the bouncer then looks at Andrea and he's like
That's okay. I'd like to talk with her for a bit
Bouncer the bouncer steps away and
For like the next five minutes he like proceeds to like hit on Andrea
Pretty much doing everything he could together to go up to his own cool
Here
Yeah, you're like wait a minute. She's gonna go with him
He's back
A board a board a board gonna be posing. That's a hell of a story regardless
So anyway
After like five or so minutes she gets his autograph
Word goes out in the street though
After the manager of the club it announced that he was there weren't gets out in the street that Robert Plant said
B.B. Keings
So after about five minutes of of her talking with him
This influx of like I'm not kidding
I mean literally hundreds of people just show up inside but B.B. Keings and it goes from literally a handful of people that are there
To like hundreds of people that show up and it was about that time
We're like you know what we should probably get out of here. So she says goodbye to Robert Plant
grabs our barricy and we walk out and
Rest of the trip was
It was actually uphill from there

Ep 265: MoLiesureXVenture

Welcome to the trail chase spotcast this episode is brought to you by Iron Man 4 by 4 america
Iron Man 4 by 4 is the ultimate overland lifestyle brand. They offer everything from suspension and recovery to armor and camping equipment
They are truly a one-stop shop for all your outdoor needs. You should go to Iron Man 4 by 4 america.com and get geared up for your next adventure
Today on the show we talked to a Malaysia Ed X Ventures. They tell us all about how they started their trip to visit all the national parks
Then they tell us about a certain specific park. They do not like in a silver tin townville
Westchester tinville
It came to us live from Moab which made us upset and then we talk about Jose's new excavates on his dirt bike
The way he felt he would think it's ice capates.
Yeah, whoever had the the square after lunch on the death death pool you guys want
You'll get used to that swing. I won for a long time. You'll be good
Save me just
And I'll take some picture
Save me just
I'll try this now
I'll repeat your picture
I'll repeat your picture
I'll repeat your picture
I'll repeat your picture
Hey everybody. It is a 630 on Tuesday night. We are live on YouTube as we usually are Tuesday nights. Tonight
We are joined in a pop top from a pop top in Moab mother F and Utah because they're jerks and they want to rub it in
It's the team from Moab leisure adventures
How are you guys doing tonight?
Yeah, you sound excellent. You were just saying
Yeah, I'm super jealous right now. We'll get into why I'm so jealous in a minute
But some background I think we've been following you guys for a while because you've got an awesome exterior build
And you're doing all kinds of awesome adventure stuff
And then if I remember correctly Casey ran into you guys at King of the Hammers this year and started to chat with you
Okay, so let me first apologize for my brother
First, first we passed each other going through the
I just call it like a sandy corridor
Yeah, the chocolate thunder
Yeah
Yeah
Yeah
And then I came whipping out from the the flatbed or the lakebed
Towards the sand dune corridor and he was coming the opposite direction
How's it?
And I do recall on I believe it was Friday night
I was ready for bed and Casey was ready to party and he ended up going out and talking to people and he comes back
He was like, guess who I just talked to so now you're on the show so if you could handle that you should be able to you should be able to stick with us for the night
For sure, for sure
So first because let's get it out of the way tell us where you're at right now in your pop tent recording live
Yeah, we're in Moab right now for Easter geeps Safari
We're just out here having fun running trails, main people, doing some interviews, all that good stuff
It's Easter geeps Safari sir, not Easter Nissan Safari
I'm trying to convert
I'm trying to convert
Yeah
Is it so I have I've only been to Moab once and I intentionally went the week before Easter geeps Safari because I was told it's a madhouse
What's the what's it like there?
Um, there's like I don't know 100,000 jeeps right drive it or obviously that's an exaggeration
They're not that many but it really are yeah, I've all you see everywhere and I've been told like you sign up to go on a trail run
And it takes 16 hours to do a two mile trail run because there's so many people
Oh man, so we did
What is it called?
Behind the rock trail today, which takes you to white knuckle, which is a really big obstacle out that way
And so we did a crew of I want to say 10 rigs
And it took us from nine o'clock until 6.30, 6.45
Oh yeah, one of the worst part is that we're riding along with the Warren group, which was awesome, amazing group to go willing with
But we were rolling down in the Warren Jeep and one of the shock mounts broke
So the rest of the trail, this was in the first like quarter of the trail
So three quarter of the trail, we were going around with no rear driver side shock
Did you tell him that that wouldn't happen in the next era?
Oh yeah, of course
The whole time I was like, you guys know I haven't Nissan, I could just
The spring mayor may not have popped out a few times on some of the larger obstacles
Jeez
And you said it was 10 vehicles?
Yeah, 10 vehicles
How long was the trail? How many miles was the trail?
The trail was probably, I'm going to say 16 miles
That's pretty long
Yeah, that's a decent difference
If it's technical, yeah, 10 trucks do you want the first
The actual technical part would probably about four miles
Okay
And the rest of it was just kind of your traditional Moab, Dirt, Sand
And then a little bit of rock mixed into the road
To your mic down
Okay
Yeah
We're all put out right now, sorry
Okay
Let's talk about traditional trail running
When you're not in Moab doing Moab deep things
What kind of stuff do you guys do?
I mean you guys are full-time adventurers, right?
I mean, that's what we like to say at least
No, no, for us we've been on the road for three and a half years
Trying to go to all of the national parks
We've managed to complete 52 out of the 63 national parks
We have one more park left in the lower 48 to complete
Which will be completing after three weeks after more expo
We're going to go up to IOS Royal
And that'll be the last park in the lower 48
And then we've got Alaska
That we're going to be going up to this summer
After the PNW expo
Then we're going to shoot up to Alaska
We're going to hit seven national parks in Alaska
This summer
And then we have Hawaii in America, Samoa
Hopefully we'll be able to complete those this winter
Not a guarantee yet
But yeah, that's kind of kind of what we've been up to for the last three and a half years at least
That's like our main cord venture
And then we just squeeze in as much dirt road
First seen as we can going from each location
You know, we try to stay off the paved roads as much as possible
To you, man, you guys
I don't even want to talk to you anymore
Because I'm like super jealous
And angry at myself for life decision
No, I'm just kidding
That sounds more a question about the ones in Hawaii
I was just going to ask you
I was just going to ask you
No, I looked into it
Initially, that's something I did want to do
It was at least send it to Hawaii
Maybe not America, Samoa
Because the only way to get there is you have to go to Australia
And then you fly back to America, Samoa
So for those, we're just going to fly out
Rent a vehicle
Experience, you know, the national parks
And then we'll fly back
As long as you rent a Nissan
It can actually be been looking
Overland rentals in Hawaii
So we've been looking at Nissan Extera
And a Suzuki Jimny
Oh, good, those are cool
I see one of those here
I see one too
I saw one of the state of Italy
It was a brand new one
Oh, nice
Do the Jimny and come back in the show and talk to us about it
Because I've only seen it at Sima
And I think it looks super cool
Yeah
Yeah
Yeah, it's so unique
Yeah, it's just so cool
It's tiny and compact
I bet it's fun as hell to drive
So the
First off, amazing
That you guys are doing this
I mean, it's super inspiring
What prompted it though?
Like, take me back to that three and a half years ago
When you went, you know
This normal life sucks
Let's do something different
Like, how did that come about?
So for me, I had a huge life-changing experience
That happened
And at that moment
That's when I realized I needed to re-gear
What my focus was
And what I saw my future to be
And how I lived my life
So when that happened
I decided to move out to California
And I was working there for like eight months
And while I was in California
That's how we met
We met out in California
I'm originally from New York
I needed a change of scenery
So I moved to California too
And we met in a hiking group
And he lived close to me
So we started hanging out a lot more
And then when he bought the exterer
He drove up to Alaska
And I was like, oh, I've never been to Alaska before
Can I come visit and scroll
I flew up there
And we did the inner loop
Yeah, the inner loop
It goes from like fair banks
Denali down the Tokyo
Now, over back to Anchorage
Okay, it's kind of like the inner loop of Alaska
So I took her on that
That was the first time
That was the first time I went camping
I'm a city girl from Brooklyn, New York
Wow
So we went, yeah, so the whole trip
We camped
I really liked it
I had never done anything like that
In my life
I got to be one with nature
It was so peaceful
I hate cities now
Oh, you back to California
We went to Denali too
We came back to California
And I was like, I really want to do
A longer trip
Travel for more days
And he was like, well, I was thinking about
You know, turning the experiment into an overland view
I didn't know what overlanding was at the time
Either
And so I was like, we should just go to all the national parks
And, you know, he didn't think our series
But, you know, here we are now
I'm going to teleport and cut the roof off
So it's crazy
Because I didn't think she was serious
By any means at all
Because I told her I was like, well, if you want to do this
You have to sell everything you own
I'm going to create a vehicle
In which we can make this trip possible
Financially
And the overland aspect was like the answer to that
Because we were able to sleep on all the BLM land
National Forest
We were able to take away that expense of hotels
And campsites
Things like that
Which really opened up the budget
To allow us to do a lot more
With our gas money essentially
And really get us all over the country
Because right now
We're on average about $1,500 a month
As well we spend
On fuel
Yeah, I know everything
On everything
Living
Wow
How many food and gas do you have?
And gases are biggest expense
I would imagine
That's crazy
Just wrap your head around that for a minute
Even
Jose and I just had a conversation about paying rent
Like
$1,500 a month
You can't get a
One bedroom apartment
And there is nowhere
In any of the cities that we would find
Our southsend
That we could get a place to stay for that cost
Yeah
That is amazing
So do you not currently have like a home base?
No
We're 100%
110% in this vehicle
Casey home is where the heart is
Yeah
So
I'm
Again, I'm just trying to wrap my head around that
Because it's such a
For lack of a better term
Like a nontraditional approach to life
And that so interesting
Interesting conversation though
Because my wife and I have had conversations about this
And I've said
If we didn't have our daughter
I'd be living full time in the RV
Driving around the country
Working remote on a computer
Like I'd find a way to do
Customers support or something
Four hours a day
Especially
In an environment today
Where home ownership
Rent
Cost of living
Is ridiculous
If you didn't buy a house ten years ago
Good luck to you
And I will apologize up front for that
I've said this before
I feel like I'm Gen X
I'm an old guy
I'm almost 50
And I feel like
People in my age bracket
And especially the ones before me
Always talk about how these lazy millennials can't buy a house
No, it's because we fucked it up
Because we screwed up the housing market
And lending and mortgages so bad
That it's completely out of whack
And we screwed it up
So I apologize
On the behalf of the entire generation
But again, I think
It's got to take
Especially for you, Diliate
Going from the big city
It's got to take a significant shift in your mind
To be able to go
I don't have a place to live
Technically
I don't have a home
I don't have a lot of possessions
And I don't know where I'm going to be tomorrow
Like tell me how has that transition been for you guys
Honestly for me
I
I'm very open minded to new experiences and new things
And so this was something that
I've always wanted to do
But never had the chance to
So of course I said yes
And
Minimalizing my items was very hard for me
I had a lot
I was living in a studio apartment in California
So I basically had to get rid of everything
Yeah
I mean when we first started the trip
We had like a
A hitch
A cargo hitch
We
The whole vehicle was like packed with things
I shipped a couple of boxes back to my parent's house
But then
As we continued this lifestyle
I started realizing there are all these things
That I didn't use on a daily basis
So if I'm not using it, why do I have it
And so
We just started shedding things
And now I have all of my clothes fit
In backpacking backpack
Essentially
I mean we talked about that all the time
Like every time we go out
It's like we're just keep refining our
Our loadout every time
Like overnight
Because yeah like at first when you first get into
You think you need everything like
Well Cody literally brings everything he owns
You've got to do like my
His backpack is like way over
So it was vehicle way over
The joke was
Is I just brought Bass Pro shop
Yeah
Every time we went someplace
And that's why we don't have to bring any
Yeah

And every time I do someone's like
You have an extra jacket
Yes I do
I have I have seven of those
I don't know what

I have seven
I think that comes with
For those of us that don't do it
Like let's say you go on one trip
A quarter
That's the thing
There's a very much like
Oh well what if this happens
Or what if that happens
And I may need this
I don't know
By the time you've been doing it
For 30, 60, 90 days straight
You're like look
That's never going to happen
I don't need to prepare for that
This is the a set
I can use one cup
And just wash it every day
Like that's the reality of it

And I think that just come
This got to just come with
Repetition and being being in it full time
Immersed in it
For sure
I mean it was it was easily six months
So you're looking six months
30 days a month
You know
What do we add?
180 days of 180 days of us on the road
Before I feel like we were even
Somewhat close to being refined
Like as far as like just what we needed
What we didn't need
And and also our mind sets
And understanding that
You know when you go to a place
You don't buy a trinket
Yeah
You don't need to drink it
Yeah
It's all right here
Saved in your mind
Take a picture of it
Yeah
I don't know
I'm pretty happy with my trinket
Trinketron
Coffee
Coffee mug that I bought
So
Well you also paid $80
Yeah
Exactly
If you did that every time
You stopped at a different
Yeah
So going back to
That three and a half year mark
When you decided to start this process
Did you already own the exterior
Or was that part of the beginning
Did you buy that at the beginning
Before you got started

I bought the exterior
Before
And then I went up to Alaska
Because I family in Alaska
So I went up to Alaska to visit my sister
And I thought maybe I would live up there
For a long time
You know
But after about a month and a half
I realized that Alaska was not for me
Yeah
What was the place
What was about it

Why
For me, for me personally
The people
In Alaska
It's very much so you're a native
Or you're not
Oh yeah
And if you're not a native
It's very hard to survive in Alaska
So unless you're tied to one of the oil companies
Or something like that
So Californians are not welcomed in Alaska
You can come visit
Yeah
But if I wanted to move there
I have California plates
To me, I would have said the cold
And the night
Like
Two damn cold
And it's night time
24 hours a day
Like
Yeah, that's the part that I wouldn't have
I wouldn't have managed
I was a Californian
It's our welcome
Yeah, that's true
Yeah, that's true
That's pretty true
For the most part
The
So
We don't want none of your free thinking
Kind of around
Yeah
Yeah
The exterior
Why
Like when you bought the exterior
Was there an idea that it would be more than a daily driver
And why did you choose that vehicle
So
I've always been a big Nissan guy
When I was younger
My driving career started with a Nissan 720 hard body
Okay
And so I wrote that for a couple of years
And then you know
Went to a bunch of different cars
Didn't have an offer
And vehicle for a long time
And then
What really kicked it in I guess
I was walking down the street
I saw the exterior
I was like, I want to go check out that exterior
It looks really clean
It said 4x4 on the side
I was like cool
4x4
That'll give me up to Alaska
So that's my mindset
It'll give me up to Alaska
No problem
I walk up to it
It was a six-speed standard
And immediately I looked over at Dili and I was like
So I'm going to buy this car today
The price on it was $9,500
At $135,000 on it
It's a 2009
And I got them down to $8,000
And I left with the car that day
Wow
So this is a manual transmission exterior
Yes
Open all open manual
That's insanity
Because I will never drive another manual transmission
I didn't care
How am I supposed to eat a cheeseburger?
Yes
I can't even eat five
That's the thing you can do that
Yeah
I used to do it all the time
It's too hard
So what year was it?
So 3.5 years of what that 2019?
Yeah
2019
June of 2019 is when I picked it up
Prior to it
You hadn't really done
You hadn't really done any like off-roading prior to this
So what was your off-roading background?
So before that
With the the 720 hard body
I had done a lot of sand-dune plain rivers
I was living in the Panhandle Texas at the time
So you know kind of picture that kind of like canyons and stuff like that
And then later in life
I found myself doing a lot of willying on beaches
I lived up on Cape Cod
Massachusetts for almost 13 years
So I was on the beaches a lot
But the hard core like Moab stuff
I had done a few times
But really the last 3.5 years has been
Like it's like the most intense hard core
I've ever done a mine tire life
So sure
Like I do in poison spider
And Moab still bender
Like these like really
I like red and black trails

And I find that interesting
Because we you know
We wheel our daily drivers
You're wheeling your home
Like you occur
You know if if something breaks down on that
Extera you're that's what you live until it's fixed
Like that
To me to me that the that level of
The stakes are higher
And that level of confidence in that experience
Yeah is is awesome
Like tell me about the exterior
Like how is the how has the exterior held up to this adventure?
So the I've been absolutely amazed
With how well the exterior has held up to be quite honest
Um
So one of the one of the best little stories I can tell
Like an anecdote a little story
When we when we first started
We were going through Death Valley
I was like hey where do you want to go tomorrow
She's like let's go over to belly rat ghost town
It's just down this canyon road
I'm like cool let's go down the canyon road
We'll hit that up in the morning
We hit that canyon road
We make it out to the geologist cabin
This is two guys sitting there with campfire going
And they're like hey where you guys doing where you going
I'm like oh you know we're just heading down the canyon road
Over to belly rat
And they're like tonight
You're gonna go to night and they're doing that look
You're like you sure you want to do that
And then he's like well there's another cabin over there
If you guys want to stay tonight
And you can go over with us tomorrow
And I'm like oh no no big deal
We can just go up the ghost city
Based on what he's saying
Do you guys know what trail he's about to talk about?
Yeah a mango pass
Oh
So I am in a
Stock
Exterah
With highway tires
Going down what I thought was a canyon road
Over to belly rat
Over to belly rat
Sunset
I'm starting the beginning of the trail
It's pretty sketchy dude

I went down I've only done it one time
And I went down the pass
So I went I went the opposite way you guys were going

And yeah it was pretty
And you would

Lockers and
Yeah
And the wind
I mean
I had 31
No wind
Going up is definitely harder for sure
Oh dude that was crazy
I blew off both of my side steps
Oh my god
I jumped
I had to get through
I kind of popped through the rocks
Came right down on those the side steps
Just shot right off the side
And I'm just like I'm going to keep going
Oh yeah
Yeah
So going back to the
180 day six months of trying to figure out everything out
That's less than number one
Side steps bad
Slighter lighter
Right so you guys
You guys had the opportunity to figure that out
But so again
I mean

But also you guys are learning
What you guys need to
I mean you guys are starting from baseline
You guys didn't go all in
Hitting that
Hitting that trail
With the fact that I was in a fully stock
And made it through
With some work
Don't get me wrong
It was a lot of work to make it through
But the vehicle itself made it through
And at that point I was like
We're going to build this thing out

Like that was kind of that was kind of the
Click the little click that I needed to go
All right we're going to put 33's
We're going to do a two inch lift
We're going to put the sliders
We're going to put the armor all the way
Underneath the skid plates
And then you know
So four months later
COVID hit and that's when I did all the upgrades
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
In listening to your guys stories and individually before
This adventure started
The thing that I'm noticing
Is that both of you
Had
An adventurous spirit
And weren't afraid to do something new like
There are people like me that are like you know what
I was born in the hospital right over there
My first house was next door to that
My second house was on the other side of that
You don't even like people like
There are people that have grown up in
Southern California never left right
You both of you
Are the exact opposite of that you know what
I need to change the scenery
I'm going to move from from New York to California
You know what I mean and and I feel like
The vehicle was the the next
The next
The the catalyst and the next tool
For you to expand that adventure
A spirit and that mindset even further than you thought was possible
I would have to agree with that you know
I mean it from where we started out with this vehicle and to where it is now
Like it that this vehicle has opened up so many doors
For us as far as being able to get out there and go where we want to go
And also meet
Amazing people you know
That was one thing when we first started this
We didn't know about the overland industry as a whole
We didn't know about the community
We just we're like I knew that if I built a vehicle this way
Not this final build that you see today
It was completely different than what it is today
But if I built an overland rig
I knew that I could afford to do the trip
And the way that we wanted to do it
And that was the main focus
And the bonus to that was the community that came later
The fact that we would roll up into some of these national parks
And there would be some guy with a rooftop tent
Which is walk over to me and be like hey
That's for it in the world
Yeah
And I'm like

You know it's funny my daughter just see the day on the way to school
I like somebody had driven by or whatever
And I waved at him and and my daughter was like
Daddy
How come you talk to strangers all the time
I mean
And I'm like I don't know babe
I just genuinely think people are good people
And I want them to I want to say hi
And you know that people are nice and it's nice to say hi to people
But then how do you explain to a seven year old but you don't
You don't talk to strangers
But your stranger danger goes away at 18
Yeah
But it's it's that the community the community that we're in
The off road overland community outdoor community
Fosters that right
It's very rare that you come across the situation where you're like you're like hey man
Are you doing great? How are you today great?
You may not be best friends for lifetime but for that moment
You're there to support it and if something went down at night
You'd be like hey dude can you help me out?
Absolutely. Let's get the jump start the jump jumper cables and get going
Um, and I think that's very cool that you guys are
You guys are experiencing that in not
Just a Southern California or not just Moab you taught it's across the country
Where you guys are going
Absolutely the the whole entire country
I think that's the other thing that's kind of opened up both of our eyes as we've been traveling the country
Realizing that
Maybe some of the stigma's people have about states are not factual
Maybe the fact you know those like like every like you said
Everybody is
A good person
And tell their not
Yeah, yeah, everybody. Everybody gets to benefit of the doubt right?
It's it's that whole
You're right. Okay, see here my best friend
Tell you you're not but it's like everybody starts with respect and you can only lose it right?
That's the way I think a respect and appreciation and then you it's up to you
To to keep that or lose it right and and I
Speaking of the country like how many miles have you guys tracked in these last three and a half years?
Hundred and twenty thousand miles
Dude
So you're sure has two fifty two hundred and fifty thousand. We have two hundred and sixty thousand miles
So yeah, I said right
How do they how does Nissan not bring the extra about how how does he know I don't understand it looks like extra
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I
What I don't understand is
Three of the guys on this show have Nissan products two of them beat the shit out of those products the other one. It's a girl
It's a pavement princess that
The but Casey and Matt beat the shit out of their Nissan's every time we go out and they're awesome
Everybody we talk to with a Nissan product. It's awesome. The exterior is awesome. How is Nissan?
Barely an a mention in the off-road and overland community. But what's weird as a nismo off-road makes stuff for the
Exeris still but this moves just a week
On that now with the nismo stuff like that came out two years. Yeah, four five years after the
This is exactly exactly yeah, yeah, we we met the guy that the head of nismo at it's in my interview
You're gonna have a go and and he is an enthusiast. He wants Nissan to be in the conversation with Ford on the off-road world
You know no one's gonna get there, right? Just four right and then everybody else to Yoda and then so he wants he wants to be up there with the Ford Ranger
He can do it, you know, it's shoot for the shoot for the sun. Maybe I'll get to the light there might be some gear conversation
So
But he he wants he's an enthusiast and he wants the brand to be in the conversation and it just there's no commitment. It's like oh my god
You guys are so good just get out of your own way and do it like it really is too. I mean like like talking with
Caro which is the nismo
That's the guy we we we we
Yeah, so like talking with him and kind of like
Just kind of asking a few little simple questions about what's going on and all that stuff. It's like
They just don't want to commit that budget. Yeah, that's really what they're they're like fighting for every dollar
Just so they can push out the little bit of product for off-road community that they do
So I don't know what's gonna change in the future or not, but I hope that they start really pushing it out because the industry's here
And it's only gonna get bigger and it's unfortunate
How much does it actually cost to get Chuck Norris in your commercial
Yeah, but even if they were to you know what we're going all in on the exterior this like for this new model like next model year
It would sell like hotcakes like if they just like when they released it initially it was all like gear to like outdoor people like
Yeah, like mountain bike first aid first aid
But if they did that again just now like dude you'd have a you'd have a hot seller again
I agree. I mean it was crazy. He's like I uh, I'm looking at the bronco and the new bronco
the the
Will base yeah the
IFS like it's like
It's like a cool to look there. Yeah, like the platform itself is almost like dinner with a what the exterior
It's just like okay, then
What come on guys? Yeah, yeah, yeah, like it's here. The the downside is
That at this point I mean who knows how long this this wave is gonna run right?
The off-road overlanding it could it could go on for our lifetime
It could it could Peter out in two years. I don't know but at at this point
Nissan is 10 years behind
Everybody else they're they're 10 years behind the frontier the the the the the the new frontier
Is is dying for like after markets. Yeah, well, I was gonna say the new frontier is
The old frontier enough a new box. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm just saying the new frontier is enough vehicle
To be able to put momentum behind and make it is it's a rock solid performer on a proven platform
It looks great like it's it's the enough vehicle for them to go. Let's see how this goes and it would go well
If they invested in it and then that could open the door for
The exterior or you know, even I'm gonna say it's gonna sound lame, but the the road the little road looks
Super cool and with some modifications could be a really good crossover
I think the new pathfinder is really cool looking not
You know not gonna be an off-road it may be an adventure
Yeah
But I mean look at and he's guys really mad at me, but look at the amount of
Marketing and push that Honda is putting in on the ridge line in the new pilot
Comparing
Comparing
Compared to Nissan exterior and frontier right you've got like a freaking dirt bikes in your commercial bro
Yeah, you've got a fraction of the vehicle capabilities and 10 times more
Marketing push behind it. So sorry Carl. That's art. That's my take on on the
We do
And we absolutely want the brand to be successful in the space because we truly believe in it
It's just not you know, there's nothing we can do from our side
But so so you guys have got this exterior
You've you've over the last three and a half years
Built it out. Do you feel that you're done? Is it dialed in or is there still more things you need to do?
So in this new version
This is definitely the closest I would say I am to being done
Okay, but as we all know it's never truly done. I'm glad to hear it
Just refining you're reminding me
I'm already looking at the the rack the the cabinet system that I built in here and I've already thought about different ways
That maybe I could improve the space and prove our mobility inside the vehicle a little bit. Yeah, I'm sorry
Improve our mobility. So I'm not poking her in the eye
So but yeah, so there's a couple little things that are
Yeah, so that's probably going to be the next
biggest thing that I'm going to be working on is I'm trying to
develop a hard wall
side for this tent
So hopefully by the end of this year
I will have figured out the materials and stuff and maybe over the
holiday season I'll be able to think that out. There's a company that just came out with a hard hard wall
Retail right now. Yeah, it's pretty crazy
Yeah, that that is a that is a rooftop tent
camper. Yeah, it's got power built into it. It's got heat built into it
Like that thing is something else
Now, it is that is that four sorry case is that the hard wall is that for
Comfort is that for
wind is that it's solely for comfort. Yeah, we just want to create
Just a little bit more of an insulation barrier
Because the canvas just really doesn't provide much in the winter time and we've been doing fine for
You know years now sleeping in the winter
But it would be nice to be able to wake up and not
Pull off my blanket and be like, oh my god, it's 32 degrees inside my tent
Well, just go someplace warmer
Well, maybe we do go down to Baja on this then the winter time. Yeah, I was gonna say you've got the ability to go to San Diego
I
We know all the way down. Yeah, yeah, what's what's that like so I mean, how how are you guys doing
International travel are you doing Canada? I mean, you're obviously driving through Canada to get to Alaska
What is your experience been with crossing borders?
So we have gone into Mexico
Four four four four times we've gone into Mexico four times over the last couple years and we stay down in
Mexico for anywhere between two weeks two a month and then and then we come back up typically around
King of the hammers we go down before King of the hammers and then we come back up for King of the hammers and then we kind of start
Our year of like different events and off-roading things that we like to do
Like last week we were on the rogo over land expedition. Oh, not just love those guys
Those guys are great
He puts together one of the the most efficient trips that you could probably possibly go on and it's really nice because you don't
In a sit you don't have to really think you know he plans the whole thing out you show up
And as long as you're aware you're supposed to be at the time frame that he said then everything's good
You just keep rolling and it's a lot of off-roading like this time
We went from Moab to capital reef
And primarily on off-road roads
We had a jump on the interstate to get over to the other side of Canyonlands because you have to get over the river
But other than that it was just dirt roads pretty much the whole time. Yeah, that's awesome
Those guys are awesome
We've been trying uh yeah for long as time we've been trying to do but it's just not we have not been able to get our selves in a position to go
Over trips they didn't convince you to saw an actual swap that exterior
Not yet not yet they they try and
But they want to see me they want to see me on like 37 so I can draw crawl with them up in the crazy stuff. Yeah
But going back to that I mean like for a for a
full-live and full-time driving efficiently across the country getting out and adventuring
Um
The minute you saw an actual swap that thing is now compromised. Oh, yeah, I would never do a solid
No, no, yeah, I like a nice smooth drive. Yeah, all right
We're recording this
But I mean
Unless unless you're trying to do some massive rock crawling that you don't need to be doing in that type of vehicle
That you're gonna be fine. I mean I don't
I don't see like
I'm gonna say say
Basically the Jeep Wrangler is the only vehicle right now that comes with a solid front axle in the midsize SUV
Everything else is I at this right and I
It is it's a matter of time before Jeep goes IFS. I think they're gonna they're squeezing like every
Drop out of that solid axle like absolute life style. Yeah, absolutely because they they you know
You know there there's like a gladiator out there and Wrangler like Jake like current versions to have front
I have seen it
Branding curry has one I can convert it to IFS and it's awesome. Yeah, I'm there probably like dude
They need to make the switch now
But but I do think that that
Based on my experience
The the IFS is way more comfortable for what I do like I'm not part of Johnson Valley crawlers
I'm not going to sledgehammer you know for the adventure vehicle off-road overland that I do
It's the perfect it's the perfect setup. Yeah. Yep. I found that I feel like yeah, you know a two inch lift some 33s
And you can pretty much go anywhere just about anywhere very very few spots
That you wouldn't be able to work your way through with a winch with some board. Yeah, yeah, some help. You know
You know how it it's and I've told people that a bunch of times like I've talked to people
I just got this truck, you know, I'm gonna do this don't just drive it
I was talking to a guy this weekend at an event kid got a 2013 Tacoma TRD off-road the TRD 4x4 package
And I was like put some sliders on it drive the piss out of it like drive it don't invest any money money into it
Drive it for the next three years
Until you graduate I will you will it and then and then decide what to do with it that that truck is so capable stock
There's nothing you won't be able to do. I've said it here before like I wish I wouldn't have I kind of wish them times
I just would have left my lane cruiser stock the way it was yeah, and just 33s and that's it
Yeah, but that's I love the 33s and I got really feel like that's like the golden spot
I'm I'm wanting to squeeze 35s under my ranger just just because my brothers tires are 35 and I can't let him have a bigger one
I understand
Yeah, I'm doing the
Into a five swap in the front
Okay, and I keep I keep thinking about doing goes in at that point. I could if I wanted to do 35s and it I will I'm regaining to four tens
I don't know I I looked my truck on 33s. I'm gonna have the option to go to 35s
Yeah, so I was like well, let's just try it. I mean I still have the 33s. I can go back to and now I like
I think that's the right size tire for that truck like that that that truck looks
That's how it's supposed to look
With 35 other than the fact that it's blue like if it was a color
Who's the best no, thank you. No, it's it's it's it around the artist friends right now
I feel like Casey should be selling ice cream out of the side of that damn thing
I thought about
To buy more parts
So you guys are in in Moab now how long you're gonna be there and what's your next trip
So we're going to be in Moab tell Saturday most likely
Finishing up is your Jeep so far
Yes, you got it
So I like four things went through my head all at the same time. I was like wait
Yeah, so we're gonna be doing the vendor show we're gonna be working with this fear there
to you know sling some skid plates
And then after that we're gonna head out to more expo
And the screen film is already
That I have not been to more
But that's that's a show that's growing a lot
It's this year looks like it's almost double the size of last year
That's um that's exciting that it's that it's I love seeing
Those community events grow year over year over year because again
It goes back to what we're just talking about this wave of off-road and over landing
It's growing and it's it's coming to different locations and that friendship and camaraderie
That we just discussed is is that's where it happens right and then it goes to the next event and goes to the next event
And I love like going from event to event to event and it's all see the same guy from last time
And I talked to you at this time and and it's it's super cool to see the community
Build and grow that way
Absolutely, I agree 100% on that um so what
What has been of the three and a half years of doing this full-time?
What has been the most challenging part for you guys?
Oh
I know what she's gonna say she's gonna say living with this guy at a truck for three and a half years
But I want to say
For seven yeah
There's a
There's a there's a whole like meme about how marriage is just two people standing in a kitchen trying to get to the same drawer
And pushing each other out of the way like I can't even imagine what it's what it's like to have two people in an
Extero full-time
All right, you should you should see a shuffle through it here, man. It's it's great
But you guys have got I'm sure you've gotten a rhythm like you kind of you guys get yeah, but what what's been the big other than him?
What's been the biggest challenge
Um, well, I mean it's a lot of minor, you know, specifically female problems like when
When we when we say it to hotel and I've access to a bathroom and a shower
I just want to stay in that bathroom
Like like now like we're a Moab and it's cold outside
I don't want to go to the bathroom outside
Twenty seven degrees right now. Yeah. Yeah, you doesn't have that problem now. Yeah. Yeah, I could have I could have just the
As human beings in 2023 we've evolved to have
You know a bed with a comforter on it and a heated shower and the access to all these things and that's that's kind of the
You know
That's what we are as human beings at this point and you guys have gone completely in the opposite direction
You're like hey, it's a 1705 here and we're just like we're living on the ranch
Running water and on the electric stove. Okay, so yeah, you're at least 1884 by that point
But I mean that I can imagine that being that being the the hardest part
Because I mean we we pretty much now down like our cooking
We're we're really efficient that we have a lot of dishes that we've gotten really good at
Sleeping's good. I mean it yeah, I mean really that the the access to a
Functioning restroom at any point in time like just I feel like going and going to the restroom
Just I'm gonna be here for two hours and scroll in the ground
I
Biggest thing I always say the the amount of time it takes me in the bathroom is directly proportionate to the number of Instagram fees
I have not seen yet like that's that's what's in my new my new feet
But I mean is in the grand scheme of things if that's the one thing
That's pretty damn good considering considering what you guys you know
You're making this life in this vehicle on the road and that's the one thing that you can point to as a challenge
I mean that's that's pretty good you guys are doing really well. Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah
What what has been the most rewarding piece of it? Oh, I would say the community for me the community for sure
For me going going back to the whole stranger change your thing, right?
Living in a city. I grew up like don't talk to anyone. I mean, especially New York City
Like someone looks at you the wrong way. It's like oh, oh, they might start a fight kind of thing
But then so so I came into this lifestyle kind of still having a little bit of that mindset like I was a little hesitant talking to new people
And then we started
Meeting people like in parking lots and he would always be the first one to go and talk to all the people
I would be sitting in the car and then
I you know slowly. I'm just like well if he's okay talking to all these people
I I should be okay talking to them too and so we built like you said a community like now
I'm excited to go to these events to see these friends that I've I've made throughout the years
And they're not strangers anymore like these strangers that we've met once at an event
Have also opened up their homes to us whenever we like work we're in town and they're like come stay for the night
You know we know you don't have you know access to a bathroom all the time
I'll give you that access. I'll cook you a meal. You know their friends like and so like their friends
Their strangers or what do you say what we're doing? They're friends until they're not
So now now I'm coming into like meeting people more with an open mindset
You know and
That's also why we don't go to cities anymore because I have to go back into that that turtle shell
Like oh my god people people are scary
You know on that on that note too real quick
You know if it wasn't for the community this vehicle as you see it today would not be where it is
we we had
Several people host us for multiple weeks allowing me to do all the work that I was able to do on this vehicle
We did rent an Airbnb a couple of times to to be able to accelerate that a little bit
But you know what really accomplished everything for us was was really having that community opened up their doors
And really allowing us to to complete this this so we can continue on our journey as we are
That that is it's unsurprising like we talked about how good this community is but
the fact that you guys have been able to
Be ambassadors of that community throughout the country is a huge a huge thing
I want to go back to the city thing though like I am a Southern California kid
I've been to New York
Handful of times my wife and I we just went for things giving and and I'm sure
As a California tourist in New York my experience is very different than some of the lives there
But I the first time I went to New York I was like
They're all assholes. I don't even want to do
But I was wrong like I found that people were super helpful
They they weren't you know I wasn't afraid to talk to people like yeah
There's some random stuff going on in the subway that you grab your seven-year-old and go come on honey
We're gonna go down to the next to the next but but like my
Experience in New York is was very different than that and
If you if you go back to New York
Do you go back and consider yourselves a tourist at this time at this point or are you back home?
She's back home. Yeah, I'm back home
Going going back to you as as a visitor in New York
For me growing up in New York and watching it change as the years have gone by
I would say people have become less ass holy because
People from other states have started coming in and moving to New York so they're not
Really New Yorker
Which makes it better
That real city folk that is interesting that is interesting has there been any cities
That you guys have gone to that you will not go back to
New York
Yeah
So we went to
Kaiahoga Kaiahoga National Park in Ohio and actually that is the only
Negative camping experience that we've had since we've been on this trip
We were camped out on a in a parking lot of a trailhead and
We were we were allowed to stay there. Yeah, yeah, completely legal. We're where right?
We're in the good in the gold
Like 1 a m 2 a m
Someone just starts banging on our window
We're upstairs the tent so at this at this time we we had a a smitty built rooftop tent
And you know, we had just started and he started banging on the car window and
And I
Ignore it the first door yeah, and then he started banging on the tent and so that's when he got
I was like, I'm not getting out of this tent. I was not a happy camper when I got out of that tent. What was his issue?
Um, so I was listening in and Anna gets out. He's on the ladder and he was like hey, man
We're trying to sleep like what's up and the guy goes
Well, have you seen a dog running around? Oh, no
He's like it's one in the morning. No, I haven't seen a dog running around and he's in the guy's like well
I'm trying to find a dog and you're not supposed to be here. So I called the cops
And so I think gratefully Edic was very calm and he said
In his mind he was like stay calm stay calm. Don't don't escalate this. Yeah. Yeah, you can just tell the guy
Cool man. Thanks for calling the cops. Yeah, and the guy the guy walked away
He came back in the tent and a few minutes came back roll. We're by and we heard the cops roll into the parking lot
Like whoa
They saw that Nissan and they were like this is a badass right now
We bite you back up. I you see that exterior. I can't I can't handle this guy by myself
But we hear we hear the cops talking to the guy the guy still talking about how he's looking for a dog and like up
I don't know what the conversation was like but he they basically told the guy to leave
And so as the guy gets in his car and is driving away
He's like cursing at us like go the F back to California
And how am I just like oh my gosh like what is going to happen?
And the cops stay there for like 10 minutes longer
Oh, but I didn't talk to us at all. Didn't even didn't even come to the car and say hey guys
You come chat with me for me. Yeah nothing because they saw the sky and they went all right Fred. What is it this time?
It's not the first time talking that yeah, did you lose the dog again this dog it doesn't exist again. Yeah
So yeah, so the cops drove away, but I mean I didn't sleep that night. Oh, yeah
Yeah, the rest of the night was just a wash at that point. Yeah, so meth meth has made it to a while
Yeah, but if again 120,000 miles three and a half years of that's the one that's the yeah
I mean we get that in the Walmart parking lot in Fontaine like that's you know
You're gonna say that just means that they've they've never been to him it
Yeah, there's yeah, there's plenty of places in California that happens in broad daylight like that's
That's normal
I mean you guys once yeah
We we try very hard to stay away from the cities and
That that's a national park that's in the middle of a city. Oh, yeah, so you you know you get the good with the bad unfortunately
What's been your favorite place? Oh, that one's actually pretty easy for us big bend big bend National Park Texas
Why is that when you're favorite
Yeah, I liked it because I
You get everything there like when we were there
When we were hiking up to
What is the
I forgot it's the highest frame
She's so basic she's so face and mountains
It was snowing so we got winter there then we we drove down on river road and that's the desert and then
So it was 80 degrees down there. Oh, wow
And then we also did a day trip into Mexico that
Enic wrote a donkey and he did not look
Appropriate on that dog
Donkey looks like I'm riding
People are basically dragging on the ground as this donkey was big
That's funny
I just recently watched a I'm trying to think of what city was I was just watching a my fact
I sent it to all you guys
Documentary where there's where this there's a city in Texas you can go that's literally on the border and
You go through a gate show your passport. You can walk across the river. I've seen that do and have
Breakfast ever and then come right back like yeah, I want to do that on
Can new fairy what was the name?
Okay, yes
Yes, that's the one that's on the other side of a big band. Is it okay?
So so we got to go to big band and then do a day trip down into Mexico
Yes, yeah
There's only two restaurants there and one bar there is bokeh
Del Carmen
Yep, that's that oh
Wow, that yeah, that's right there by big band because I mean
The the only way to get there is to go through the
Port of 30 right there in big band and it's literally one
Metal detector and a little bit of shack and there's like two guards there
And they leave it like five o'clock at night and you're like yo
I'm gonna go get some tacos. I'll be back
If you don't if you don't make it back before they leave you can't come back until the next day
Yeah, no really otherwise think they could find you
Yeah, they could find you for crossing the border illegally so can you so you can't drive across at that point
You have to walk through that
Yeah, there's no driving it in that area to to the to Mexico
There used to be but they they toured that bridge up a while back
All right, so it is
How long the calendar dude will go? I was just gonna say
Best time to go highly recommend
Winter time December January February
March is really good to because sometimes you'll catch the blooms
But it starts to get pretty hot and March. It is a a 17 hour drive from here
Easy peasy
I'll see you there in a couple days. It takes it takes 17 hours to get to the Colosseum from here like that's and that's an LA like it just
It's a same amount of time, but I mean yeah, I'm not going there either
Yeah, you could you could totally do you know a trip out from here out to Tucson spend the night like in you know
South Arizona and then and then from there go in the next day
Yeah, that sounds awesome
That's beautiful
the
Once you hit so it sounds like in the next 12 months or so you've got a quote plan
To hit all of those national parks. Yep
What happens next?
All right, so this one's actually a big one
So spring of 2024
We are going to start the pedamerican highway
Going from Pruto Bay all the way down to Yushuaya, Argentina
So this this year part of what we're doing this year
While we're also completing the the national parks is also trying to
You know kind of drum up excitement and to to what we're going to be doing in the future and
Hopefully you know make some good partnerships and things like that so that way we can actually afford to do this trip
That do that's amazing
How long's it gonna take you to do? We are planning for one year
So it's about 18,000 miles down and then and then to go back up you're looking about 13,000 miles to get back into the states
So what we'll see where it goes, but as as we go down we'll make it all the way down to Yushuaya, Argentina
And then at that point we will kind of see how everything's going and maybe we'll go over to Africa next
At any point, I mean like are you is there any chance you're going to get down into
Venezuela or Panama and go we're good. This is it. This is the place we're going to stand maybe
No
I do not I do not want to live in the Amazon where it's 100 degrees year round
I have no desire in that
But I'm just going to be beautiful and amazing to visit. I'm just like yeah, but you think there might be a place
Is there a place where all the places you've been like is there a place where you're going to go yeah, this is where we're settling down right here
I hope to find that spot. Yeah. No, okay. Let's put it this way then
If you had to settle down today as well all the places you've been you had to pick pick a spot
What's pot of it? Oh
Oregon
Central Oregon
I can see that I belong the right right along the mountain range
Central Oregon love that area
Absolutely amazing. I I've spent some time up in Oregon recently and
Expo P and W was right outside of Bend and I was in as gorgeous. It was absolutely gorgeous. The scenery was gorgeous
The all the towns were cool the weather in July was awesome. I don't know what it's like
Yeah
But you have to be on the eastern part of the state. Yeah, sit. You know, I
I talk a lot of trash about Portland and constant rain, but once you get on the other side of the mountain
It's very much like the inland empire that that it's very much like desert on this side mountain on this side like it's a much more
Temperate climate and not
Cold and and rainy constantly
Yeah, I could see that I really thought that was it was beautiful like Bend Redmond that whole area up there
Yeah
There and then metford areas also kind of the other area we're looking at like but those are that
We we met a lot of amazing people there. So that's also a reason that it kind of drew us toward Oregon
Yeah, and Eugene also like do yep. No, it the place is beautiful
But a lot of it is the people that we've met there that kind of solidified it for us because if we're able to meet all these different people
From all these different cities in Oregon and they're all
Very much the alike in their their openness and their stop process and stuff
So it was nice to kind of go in and have conversations with these people and not look at us as if we're a bunch of like
You know dirt bag bag of on weirdos home of this weirdos running around the country
Yeah
Well, I think your homeless weirdos running around the country and I
Super jealous. I'm super jealous. I mean seriously like I think that there is a large percentage of
Society that is like especially in the last
Three years
That's like effort you know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go see what the world has to offer
I'm gonna I'm gonna I don't need all this stuff. I'm gonna sell it. I'm gonna and
24 hours later they're back at their cubicle like that's and I'm one of those people and I'm putting me in that
You know what we're gonna do we're gonna live on the beach
Right after I go to work like that's you know me and I think that there's a large
Populate portion of the population that wants to do this and
For whatever reason
Can't have to pull the trigger doesn't have the confidence is
fearful of what's out there
And but hasn't yeah, and I think I think one of the things that you guys are doing through telling your stories
Is showing people that it's possible like this is look
You know you're not
Special forces trained survivalists you're just a couple of people that decided to do this and now you're doing it and you're you're living on
$1500 a month including gas
Yep, I mean
That's and it took a while for us to learn what it takes
To do this like when we first started we were eating mac and cheese and and canned beans and hot dogs and you know the things that we thought you would eat
I love all those things. Yeah, I don't think that's out by my house, please
I don't really like right. Yes
That's what I have for dinner tonight. Why don't you understand what you're saying?
You know throw some peanut butter and jelly in there and I'm a happy camper
Wait, I have some peanut butter and jelly you want nice. I always I always want peanut butter and jelly
Yeah, that's that's been now one of the probably uh
You know on top of all the other learning curves of course, you know when you go into lifestyle like this
It's so different than what you're accustomed to you really have to figure out new ways to accomplish
What you used to do so you used to go into a kitchen have a full stove of a sink and all that
Me able to cook up this whole big meal so now how do we do that in one pan?
How do we do that with a sink that's a quarter of the size?
You know, so it's you just you get used to it in a sense and then you figure out the best ways
to come up with the best food down for that what you have I find you when he first put the sink in
I like you stuff all the way
What do you mean that's not endless oh my goodness man like I had a 13 gallons of water
gone no exaggeration in 30 minutes oh
That's funny that's you know and I think between between your YouTube and your your Instagram so
We haven't mentioned it yet. I think we did earlier but go to
Moe leisure x ventures on Instagram and on YouTube to follow all of this amazing stuff
I feel like
There is a whole another level of your experience to be shared with the community
So going back to that population that wants to do this and doesn't know exactly how guess what
You've got a there's a book there's a blog there's a yeah YouTube series there's a seminar at the
You guys are living examples of what you can do in a vehicle and for how long and what kind of life you can have
It's not you know you're not live it's so fun like you hear about I either live in out of a car
And that's usually deter that's usually
Seeing as a oh, they must have fallen on hard times
Right or not
But you but that's not that it's like you're living in a car because you're experiencing so much life
Outside of this that you know a geographic location that you're not just bite bound to and I feel like
You're already inspiring people to do that, but there's so much more there that you could be like all right at
Expo P and W we're gonna do a full
Series of three a little water. You actually need this is why you don't use 13 gallons of water
So how to make 13 gallons of water last just to hear how to five minutes. So on that note this year
We will be teaching classes at Oberlin Expo's look at this I can see the future
No, we're gonna be teaching some classes on national parks. Okay, kind of just kind of a basic overview of like how to
Engage with a national park services and and just everything around visiting them as a whole
And then we will also be or I will be doing a
Class on aluminum extrusion how to build with it and how to utilize it in an overland build
And then we're also going to be doing a class on the rooftop tent how I modified it and
And kind of created the pop top Nissan exterior that we have today
That's how to use a sauce on amazing
I use an angle grinder
Yeah
I'm partial to the angle grinder over the sauce as well
And this is how you use 15 tubes of silicone
That you guys that's amazing like I love this I love that you guys are doing this that you you you had an idea
You you struck out you I mean like not struck in like and you struck out like you struck out into the world
You went out in the world to do it and and over time
It has become it seems to me as full filling as you expected it to be
Absolutely to the point where you're planning the next trip you're not even done with this one
Correct
That's
Good
What I'm finding is like
For for what we started with a national parks
It has become essentially a training session for the pandemic in highway
Then us us doing the the crossings into Mexico for multiple for months at a time coming back how that is what that feels like
You know
At the border you have to
Basically release yourself and let them do whatever they want to do to the car
Greece and Paul yeah, yeah, you know, I'm trying to do that multiple times in my life and no one is taking me up on it
I just
About it
Like whoops, yeah, I didn't mean to say that's
You know, it's funny is I I told the story we did a family road trip and we went over the Hoover Dam
And I pull up in the guy's like what's that? I'm like rooftop tent he's like
Open it up
Dude, I had that say
Well I told the story I was like it's a rooftop tent. He's like you know it's a rooftop tent
I don't know that's
He's like open it up. Yeah, all right, man, so I'm I've opened up fully open my rooftop tent open it up
He's like what's that? I'm like that's a giant box of camping gear
Open it up. Oh my and like maybe you got some surface to air
Yeah, I was like all right, I mean he's doing his job, right? I mean he knows that's a box of time
That's exactly but he's doing his job but it was like I did not
For the life of me expect to have to fully deploy my tent and open things up at Hoover Dam
At the at the US border
You know, okay, but you it's just something you got to be prepared for and I'm like
I'm pulled off to the side with my wife and daughter and the truck and you know
Thousands of cars going by and I'm like this. I'm that I'm like that jackass on the side of the road
That they're inspect like people are thinking that I'm gonna like I'm a unibommer as they're driving by like
It's just a what do that guy do? Yeah, exactly
It's a super weird experience. I did not expect to have to do that. You know in in you should have said
I know you're an idiot. You don't know you're an idiot. No again. I the guy was super nice
He was super nice and he was doing his job, but it's I did not expect after do that
I got to say I so when we went to the Hoover Dam we had the exact same experience
They pulled us off the side they wanted me to know it's inside the tent and I
And not the best at handling people who want to exert authority on me
And so when that happens I go back at him. Yeah, so
Every time he asked me to open something I'd be like really you really need to look inside that box
Like what do you think inside that box?
Or you know, I don't know it's inside that box
How about you open it up then if you want to open it then you open it. He's like I can't open it you have to open it
Well, then I guess we're not looking inside the box
This thing you in the box. Yeah, we're not looking I I feel like I I'm definitely more like him
Yeah, because they because they don't have any legal bounds
To invade my privacy like that, you know, and and I have a hard time with those kind of scenarios
You guys can't go back then that's what you're saying
We're not allowed to take anymore damn pictures
And I'm like you got a dog here. He's not unhappy like the dog doesn't know that there's nothing in there
But chili like what what else he was but
Again, that's probably one of those things that you you know you've learned and now you go around
You know
You know you know where the shortcuts shortcuts are to not have to deal with that
Yeah, I go I go team teams been washing get on the backside of the Hoover Dam and it's much much much more beautiful over there
Yeah, I did not do that
There's very very weird problems are moving on your part
Well guys look I am super glad that my my brother was drunk and ran into you and
Convenient show
That's surprisingly 85% of our guests are booked that way. I
My gas
Here's my card
That bartender was mixing up some tasty drinks
Yeah, it was
So strong. I was in bed. I was asleep already by that time you miss that man. That was a party. I did not I did not miss out
When when we're next year next year when we're camping man eight forty five is my bedtime. That's
Yeah, I'm officially tired now too, so yeah
I I the first night. I stayed up till like 11 in Casey sent me a text and he was like, what do you do an upstil?
That's how bad that's how lame I am
But seriously, I'm super glad that that you guys agreed to come on the show
That we got the chance to talk to you and hear your story
Super inspirational
Really like everything about you guys. I would love to hear more
You know have you guys come back on you know and in a couple months when you've hit another more like you've finished your last
Apportion and
Come on and talk about how the the training went at PNW and stay
Stay in touch with this stuff keep us informed. We follow all your stuff on on the social and
And I'd love to to talk to you guys some more as you as you do this and if you make your way back into the devil's territory of
Southern California you just you let us know and we'll hang out
I was gonna ask like where you played on B and at the end of this month
What is into this month
April so
At the end of April
We have more than we're going to
And then next by west
You'll be out of like the
They won't be in the end of April. Yeah, they won't be at yeah, yeah, yeah, well we'll be back we'll be back to the west coast
Close probably a couple weeks before XOS
Okay, so Junish
All right, I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, but we'll
We'll connect I would love to get out to XBO West this year. We have not been to that one at all
Yeah, I got I got lucky enough to go to XBO P and W with work and that was amazing
I worked my butt off and I didn't get a chance to really explore but it was a super cool experience and I want to do it again
So if we're able to make it out to the XBO we will let you know for sure
Definitely that'd be awesome so you guys out
All right guys anything else before we let you get back to your awesome Moab trip and you're freezing cold tint and living the life style of the rich and famous in the pop top
Well, you know with all of our classy
Things we have going on lately
I think we covered everything
So there's one more thing one more thing yeah, so something kind of cool
That we like to tell everyone with our name
Mo is Dilius last name. Mo leisure is my last name
The X is for the extera and ventures for all the adventures that were on yeah
I was gonna early on I was gonna ask that question about
Enoch leisure like how cool like I feel like you should be a character in a will fairer movie like
I just feel like it's like one of those super cool names that's like too cool to be real
Maybe one day
Mom and dad
When they give us our names. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Casey and I have lame names. We're just late like there's no my wife's brother when she entered when she was like
Yeah, I'm dating this guy his name is Cody my bro my wife's brother was like is he eight like is
Do you know somebody Cody unless you want them to always be eight year old?
Oh
I am eight mentally. I mean
So I mean I would give you a leash 12
Yeah, I'm a good junior high. I've made it junior high. I peaked at junior high and it's been all downhill from there
All right guys. Look. Thank you guys so much for spending time with us tonight. We appreciate it
And we hope to catch up with you guys soon
Awesome. Thank you for having us. This is fun. Bye guys. Bye
All right. Thank you to Enoch and Delia for joining us super cool
While Casey was on his party break. Jose and I were just having a conversation to continue about
The Nissan stuff and they have made some epic off-road vehicles the patrol the Navara the Frontier the Extera
Even the pathfinder
Yeah, but it's not just off-road. It's like it was like it made some they've made some like very like
Ground breaking cars like there's stuff like technology like skyline
You know there are other performance cars like dude it's like the 300 ZX the 240
Like I don't know like they have all these high water marks, but there's like giant values in between each one of them
And I was gonna
Before I stopped I remember you a dude with that with a Titan swapped front a pathfinder on 35
Yeah, it's not like the same the same generation as my truck because I don't know that same same frontier
No, it was like a
Dream-colored oldish
Almost like a goldish yeah like a bro like a bronze almost kind of but that even that generation is it's badass
I wonder if because because if you look at the Nissan off-road at least my perception of the Nissan off-road market
Outside of the U.S. it seems like they're they're way more into it in
Australia, South America like it's a bigger portion of their business
I wonder if it's just the U.S. like whoever's running the U.S. side of Nissan is like net not into it
Yeah, but everywhere else are like powerhouse. Yeah, so I don't they have their they have their
Game-plan like skewed should be the other way around yeah, yeah, they're missing a power here
It's just what we know about it. They're just yeah, you want to keep it that way. Yeah, yeah, it's secret
So again super super awesome that that they came on the show and we got to talk to him about it. I am I'm digging that
So Matt's not here you guys are half as loud as me apparently
Yeah
Turn you down turn us up how's that is that any better
The I think we are now brown cow now brown cow. What if I bump this what if I what if I move this lever here? What happens?
Oh, volume. What is this what is this thing that says volume?
the
I was gonna say this weekend
Matt's not here because he he's uh converting to a pirate he's transitioning
He's transitioning to a pirate he's got a pirate in training. Yeah, he's a pirate in training
The the Matt and I went to the rodeo x rigs on Sunday. How was that?
Amazing like it was at crown Toyota
Way bigger than I expected it to be like the amount of people it took
Originally um they were like you know Jason was like just yeah, I get there at 730 the things start to eight
I was already it was already quite out there at 7 and it took me to 745 to get
In online in into the parking lot and part and get set up
We got a chance to talk to a lot of good people
Very busy it was just the two of us
Casey was doing stupid dad stuff and Jose was
Doing stupid stupid bad stuff
Which we'll talk about in a minute, but
Very very good event. I wish that we and they had reached out to me a while ago and I was like yeah, let's put it on the calendar and kind of was so much
Stuff going on. I kind of like all right. We'll get to it. We'll get to it. Yeah. I wish we had been better prepared and and and committed to it
So I'm hoping that we get the chance to go back again next year when they do it and and make it a full blown event because I feel like it has the potential to be
even bigger than it was and it was it was pretty awesome
The so
Matt's currently a pirate
Jose is currently a left-hand in armed with a left-handed paper hanger
If what he was he's the second shooter on the grassy roll. Yeah, yeah, the
Saturday Jose
Let's try to be nice here real quick
Saturday as you guys know
Last week we talked about Jose not coming back to the show every again because he was gonna die because Saturday
He took his dirt bike out for the first time ever
Lord no, let's let's back up because I was at a baseball game last Tuesday
I didn't was on the show. Yeah, I don't know. So so when I went out of the text message about Jose's catastrophic
event
I was like wait a minute. He he he actually did it
So you made a decision and you went and bought a bike. Yeah, I bought him. I bought a dirt bike
Oh, I it's a dual sport. So it's a street legal. It's a street legal
dirt bike. Yeah, so
As a salvage title now or what? No, no, so
So Saturday so last Tuesday last Tuesday Matt was like I'm gonna try to get my dirt bike running
And I'm gonna go with you. We all knew that wasn't gonna happen. He didn't get the dirt bike right now
He tried he did try and so I will roll the TTR 125 right back
So Jose took the dirt bike out and not alone with my buddy
He was supposed to come with us on Sunday this event. Yeah, although at right around
It was like what three o'clock right around three o'clock in the afternoon
Jose sends the group our group a message a picture and he says
Well, this happened and it is a picture of Jose's
I said first dirt bike ride in the books but ended up in the emergency room and everyone thought was fucking around
Oh, that's right. That's right. I missed that first dirt bike in the books currently at Kaiser
with dislocated shoulder and Matt says hi April fools and then I said the picture of his wristband
Shit
So
Matt and I spent a significant amount of time. What do you guys think happened so I think
Whiskey throttle no, no, no, I think
The day was going pretty well confidence was building 100%
Mostly flat stuff
It was a it was a fire road. It was off so it was off the 38
Where the dam is yeah, so so mostly flat some some up uphill downhill stuff, you know nothing
I'm sorry off the 38 where the dam is yeah, is that 38 right the 138 the 138 yeah
No, like the back way to to big bear. That's the 38 right? Yeah
No, that's 18. Oh, okay, that would that road where the dam is
Anyways, so the dam is not anywhere. Okay, okay, I don't want to hear about the dam that fucking high
He was somewhere in something else when you're ready and I feel like backside of you cry, but there you go
You got it and I and so I feel like
You were picking up speed little by little finally got it into like third gear
Came up to like probably came up over a hill coming down and came to a turn that was a little bit sharper than you expected it to be
And out of panic locked up the front break the front tire washed outside ways and you came down right onto your face and shoulder. What did Matt say?
Matt
Matt I think Matt said you overthrothled you overthrothled the bike spun out and you ended up
Laying out with your hand this way. I
Think that Jose's just a just a natural born writer. He was going for a gnarly tail
And when he hit the jump he the lip gave out on the jump and then and that's what that's
Sentiment to a tumble. So let me preface the story
I've never been on a motorcycle until I took that writing class. Yeah, so I took that
California highway patrol writing class when he stopped right there. I tried to give you some
Riding background on zen's bike out on the desert several times. No, he didn't. Yeah, he did this you
Yes, he offered multiple times go for right take it for right. Okay. Well, so I had never I've never written a bike until that class and then
So I passed that class and I and I ended up passing the rent as well
I have a I have a motorcycle license
Which I don't know why they fucking give people motorcycle license with just those two things like
I don't know why they give people drivers like
So then I ended up buying that dirt bike and
Then Saturday was the first ride. I very fucking taking it on
So I we rode from my buddy's house and to from the Kapa to that to that trailhead, which was like
Maybe like five or ten miles, but dude. I've never been on the fucking street on a dirt bike
I mean it was like a like a foot like foot hill Boulevard. Yeah, you type a boulevard
But it was fucking sensory overload. I was just like holy shit. I'm on the street. I ran this fucking dirt bike between me and then hard
No, no, I do there was like you know big cushions like I was looking at every fucking
I don't want to get fucking tea bone whatever, but we made it to the trailhead and then I didn't get out of first until like for the first
Until after lunch dude. Yeah, it was just first all the way up just I was getting comfortable with the bike
We made it down to the fucking dam and you guys saw that picture. I posted a couple of pictures
I
No, I know exactly what's wrong. Is that the 38
That's also 38. Yeah, yeah, that's probably the Big Bird Lake dam. No, no, no, no, no, no, but it's it's below big
Big Bear
But yeah, so I was not pushing the bike at all like and
Then so we we stopped at the dam for a little bit and we were on our way back up to the trailhead
And I was getting really comfortable. I was like fuck dude
I feel too comfortable on this bike, right? And then so that's when I decided to pop it into second gear
You gave me too much credit when said by going through oh my god. Yeah, dude like I was like fuck
And dude even like even my buddy was like damn dude like you got really comfortable because I was like transitioning on the turn
And I was and I was sitting cuz that first during the first part of the day
I was sitting too far back in the seat is like dude. You got a fucking like put your nuts on the tank
Yeah, and as soon as I did that dude, it made sense like oh shit like you feel the bike pivoting
You it was like a game chain. It's so funny like you ride
More control. Yeah, you ride the front half of the bike
Yeah, yeah, you ride the front half of the bike
And they like didn't take yeah, you could be like a little fucking bananas. Yeah, that's all it really needs yeah
But yeah, I was like oh shit, so and then I started feeling it and
And then that's when I popped into the second I wasn't like going fast in second
It was but it was just going more speed now
So and then so we're coming up and I came I came around and asked turn
So I came up and I was like oh fuck. I'm going too fast
I wasn't going to I was just had to slow down. Yeah, so I
I clutched in I back break first and then
So this is where I'm like I've a lot of things should have happened before I made on this ride
I should have got to know in the bike way better the front brake on this thing. It's either on rough
Yeah, and then I fucking hit the front brake and
No, I fucking like tapped it
Yeah, I'm just saying the brake lock up and then just slid like you said it just slid from out from under me
And it felt like I fucking got kicked by a horse in my shoulder. That's all I knew and I was just like fuck
The bike apparently the bike flipped. I don't know
But nothing broke in the bike just the handguard and
The handlebars got a little bit out of line but other than that the bike's good
I thought I fucking dislocated my shoulder
But thinking back as soon as I fell I got up and I started like moving my arm and I could move raise it up and everything
I was like I don't think you would have been if it was dislocated. Yeah, I wouldn't have been able to do that right
I started touching my collarbone. I'm like dude. I think my collarbone's fucking destroyed
But now I was tapping in and I'm like dude. It feels broken. There's no way I could have fucking done that
Well in a lot of time when you're when you're collarball
I've never broken my collarbone. I've seen it when a collarbone breaks you can physically see it or feel it
It's like rigid like you can rub your hand on and go lip there's the break. Yeah, but I was just an excruciating pain in my shoulder
And I couldn't like lift up like my arm right
So but I had to ride the bike out out of there and it was like a fucking hour of just pain
My buddy took off to go get the the truck his truck and stuff, but
Yeah, I met him at the trailhead and then your buddy was like
Oh my god, that sucks. Hey, I'll be right back
He stayed with me. He stayed with me. He's like dude. Are you gonna be able to ride like
From the trailhead to my house? I'm like, I don't think so man. He's like, all right. I'm gonna go ahead and then
I'm gonna go get the truck and so you you wrote he took off went to his house to get the truck and then came back in trailhead. Yep
But yeah
So that happened. That's so that's how I felt like I pretty much just no experience
I should any early in the day
Up until there it was the best fucking day ever
Yeah, it was the fucking best there. I can't tell I can't believe people don't do this shit all the time
Writing a fucking just a motorcycle and then on the fucking dirt dude. It's I can't explain it like you have to fucking do it like Matt the way Matt
Yeah, it talks about it and you guys talk about it
It's for sure 100% like the fucking the best it it is. It's now imagine being like less
Like more confident into your skills and less afraid of crashing well
Yeah, so as soon as my buddy saw that I was confident enough to ride like the trail
He he would fucking get on it. He would just roost out of there just so he can go have some fun too
And then I would never even see him dude like
He was that fast like I like fuck dude. I'm like how do you navigate and he wasn't even pushing it? You know?
Yeah, so I can only imagine like you like you guys out in the desert out in the dunes like I miss yeah
Like yeah, I mean it's pretty crazy man, but up until that moment do it. It was like the best day ever
I was I had fucking smile ear to ear bro like it was the best dude. It's the fucking best 100% and you talk about
Sensory overload on the street. Yeah, like I felt I felt like
Everything was out just to fucking kill me like this. Oh, it is 100%
But
It always is only now you don't have a shell. Yeah, the I think back to the time that Casey and I spent on those on the street bikes
And you get to a point where I don't want to say that your senses get dolled no, but you you you know
What's the first learning you start seeing patterns like okay, there's a car coming out
Yep, he's not creeping out so he's good. He's not moving anymore. Yeah, you just start getting used to though
Yeah, totally all that shit and and being doing 90 miles an hour with a car close enough for you to touch is like just a ride
Yeah, I mean
Well, you look for pocket
Yeah, you're always your escape route congested. Yeah, you got it open up the head
I'm gonna do a hundred fifty miles an hour
No, it's a treat
And I'm sure it's gonna all last as fast as I am like get into this pocket and I'm gonna look to see I'm a navigate
What's in front of me? I see there's another pocket up ahead and then yeah, it's kind of weaving to the car
And getting into a safe space. Yeah, safe space and you're your escape plan and then off to the next safe space escape route. Yes
And I'm sure I've told I've told this story a bunch of times the I think back to
Casey and I were working on a bike and we needed a part from Harley Davidson and the only Harley that had it was San Diego
Oh my god, and it was like and it was it was like
Four o'clock and they closed it five or something like that dude and we all looked around and went we can make it and the four of us my
Self-bride
Self-brion Casey and his buddy Chris in Eastvale got on the bikes and I'm looking at on the map
It's 102 miles fucking made it. It's 102 miles and it's like it's an hour. It says an hour and 33 minutes
We made it in like 40 minutes. Yeah, the fuck out dude. So I'm not your average speed. It must have been like a hundred and ten about
You're but but the bike I I rarely I rarely ever went under a hundred miles
Oh my god on the freeway because that that bike that our six that I had
Third-fourth gear 90 miles an hour you didn't even know it was running
It wasn't even trying like you could do 90 miles an hour without thinking about it and
It's a little different dirt five. Yeah, if you were trying to pick five was just like pissed
What the fuck are you doing? Yeah, but I so thinking about that I was going 40. I'm a dirt bug
Like oh my god, I'm gonna fucking die
Think of fucking die
Thinking about that trip and I'm gonna sound like a total lay mass and I'm cool with it. You guys know who I am
So like the four of us would be flying down so this is four o'clock on the 15 freeway going down to San Diego
We're flying and then we would come up to a patch of traffic. Yeah, and it was like jet fighters that just
Panned out found different ways and then boom. We're all back in the same land together
Fucking crazy and that was some of the funnest days of my life is like it's on a motorcycle so much fun. I
Love motorcycles. I would love to be on a motorcycle. I just have this fear
Right now if you ride like that obviously
Fuck I don't know that I can ride in the other way. Yeah, yeah, I see I see we were saying well and because you know
Well, that's your baseline
At least for me there's far more response really than I have a hundred percent like yeah, yeah now now
Yeah, someone doesn't have a dad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's like like joking around. I don't have to ride
I'm not
I can't you can't oh
You've got a street bike. Yeah, and you're fucking just cruising in like at 50 you're like do what am I doing?
If you can go get a Harley you can go get a Harley yeah, and be like yeah, I'm just I'm out for a Sunday ride
Yes, you go get a crotch rocket and you're like
I want to see how fast I can get this. Yes, I think I did I am so glad I got this this dual sport because if I would have gotten a street bike
I do I would have fucking killed myself
Just because of like I don't think so lack of experience
Yeah, just on a night. No, I think I think you would have been better off
Yeah, you would have been bit so I like I tried to tell you you don't have to manage terrain. Yes
I would if if you had gotten and and if I were to do a motorcycle again
But for man. It's not here. Yeah, if if I were to do like a cafe racer
a little 400 500 CC
Naked bike as a Sunday. We're gonna ride down a downtown to make you and have breakfast kind of thing like I could do that
I know but that's a thing I couldn't I couldn't get another another street bike like that because I would want to ride it like that
You know, I'd have to get a
A bike that was topped out. Yeah, you know, I mean, but for me. It's just more of like
Are you me or you man? I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm but for me was like I was already nervous because I don't I didn't have any skillset on a bike right?
But for me the the going off road on it wasn't I wasn't like nervous on that part
It was actually came kind of he was telling me like do you're picking good lines and stuff maybe that's because we will
Yeah, there's definitely some transaction you're picking good lines like because I kept asking him for feedback like they what am I doing wrong?
Like am I doing anything wrong? He's like not do you're doing good everything everything you're doing everything wrong
He just
No, he just said that you're sitting way too far but on the seat and he's like dude you got a fucking like nuts to on my gas tank
And when he said that that's when everything started clicking on me. Oh shit. Yeah, and that's when I started getting more confident
But looking back on I should have like taken a weekend to get to know the bike
Like just reading around like in a parking lot. Yeah, practice a couple breaking breaking down
Yeah, because writing on the risk had a had a had a street bike. He had bought a street bike
And then he left he went back back in the Europe and he stored the bike at Cody's house
And he gave me the key because I told hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna practice on your bike
I'm trying to buy a bike and so I would get off work. I would go down to Cody's house right there in Eastdale
Yeah, I would hop on his bike and I would just drive around the neighborhood
Yeah, I didn't hit the main roads. I didn't hit the three ways. I didn't know nothing like that
And I learned how to ride a street bike
Just driving through neighborhood. That was my mistake. So I didn't even do that
I didn't take it out to fucking go test ride it because on it's gonna sound counterintuitive
but writing a bike on the street is
More forgiving than writing a dirt bike
Yeah, because you the traction is a huge issue
Traction breaking
Yeah timing when you're when you're writing around the neighborhood around a park
You know there's a stop sign coming up when you're on that when you're on a dirt bike and you come around a corner
And there's a rock in front of you. You're like you need to react without thinking about it
That's the thing that you don't you don't get to that no and that's my problem
That's my problem. I have to think about breaking and then putting the sludge in like that all has to
Come second nature before you even start fucking writing hundred percent fast and and I feel like I
Spent years on street. I had a dirt bike. Yeah, got rid of the dirt bike. I wrote it. I don't know five times
Got rid of the dirt bike to buy the street bike road the street bike for a couple years before
I got another dirt bike. Yeah by the time I got that dirt bike with a paddle on it in glamorous
I had
thousands of miles of street lighting and I
Could ride and react
Better than if I were to only had a dirt bike and only went out three times a year
But that's why I got the I wanted a plated dirt bike because I'm like if I can learn huh
So that makes total sense because now
I'm thinking like if I start writing this thing on the street like just even just learning just driving it to work
Work around then working back. Yeah, but it just you'll get to know the bike where you like you don't
It's just become second nature right like where you don't have to think about fucking downshifting or what if or trying to find the fucking
Clutch or I'm I'm sorry the the
Shift pedal like and you can feel what the bike is doing and you know where you need to do all your gears broken in like all that shit like
That totally makes sense. So I'll definitely have to be like writing on the street to make me a better
It doesn't it does take time, but it doesn't take long like yeah
I got I got my bike
on a Monday
And then and that was my only mode of transportation. I wrote it to working back that Thursday
I wrote it to lock yeah, oh shit. Yeah, so let me tell that story
No, so well case it in case he's defense he had written Chris's bike around the street a much of times
I practiced yeah, he was working for me at the bike shop
And so my mistake was made. No, I'm right. I will not I Cody. I was still at the
Telephone company. Oh, that's right. I didn't I didn't ride this thing for shit. Yeah
That was my mistake. I didn't take it out. How did you get home? Huh?
It's not it's not on my house. It's not on my house. No, he had his buddy go pick it up and drive it home
I get off a lot
No, no, we loaded it up to my buddies into my buddies truck
Yeah, so that so case case case case he's bike he gets it on on a on a Monday that third because we had already planned on going on the
Offland run he bought on a Monday
Thursday myself Brian Casey and Chris the four of us we're going right
So from here to Loughlin it's a four hour ride
Casey and Chris each had no, no, it's a four hour ride in a car. It's a four hour drive
So Casey and Chris both had 600 cc street bikes
My business partner Brian had a Harley road king 16 a 1700 cc
A 14 or cc right I had a Yamaha V star 600 a 600 cc cruiser. No, you have a 1200 nope and not yet
I had the 600 on that one and and so you're fucking paid I am full
Fucking throttle trying to keep up. I'm like topped out at 95 these guys aren't even trying
I'm at full throttle not even thinking about how fast and how hard and how much fuel
I'm using and we got to
20 minutes outside of Loughlin or whatever was and I was all I ain't making it these guys are all good
They're like on a half tank. I'm like I'm like I'm on
I was laying I was laying a horizontal across my bike. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you put your foot on the feet on the back
In fourth gear
So I
So
We I literally coasted into a gas station got gas we got there
The next day we had met up with some people and we were in a group of
eight or nine people and we were going to breakfast and
The lady leading the ride was on a track. You know, oh, yeah, so
We're
Casey knows we're driving and we were gonna go to this this this biker bar for breakfast or whatever
It was and she goes to pull in and she couldn't get in so she she
Goes out and goes to the next lot and starts to pull into this dirt lot
She's on a track it's a dirt lot. Yeah, it's fine
Casey for whatever reason goes like just past her and
Hooks a hard right to get into this dirt lot and does a Jose
Front from break front wheel washes out completely
I didn't even hit the front break no, no, I'm just saying the front wheel yeah, the front wheel washes out
The difference is and I think this is the difference between a dirt bike and a and a street bike
You're so low in the on the street bike catch yourself. He just put his foot down and the bike just dropped and I remember he looked up at me and I was like
I
Take it up. Let's go
Okay, no, yes, so I turned because it was like everyone was making a right turn
So I turned and it just hit soft sand like it just buried yeah, and went over and then I I looked up like oh my god
I just laid my bike down in front of
8,000 people yeah, it's 48 hours old
Yeah, I've had my bike six days four days whatever. Yeah, but I just put it down in front of 8,000 people
I mean when it literally mean Christopher the only two street bikes in that entire it's a Harley event
Yeah, I mean I was wearing a chest protector and it had like shoulder, but
And a helmet do you like all that shit saves your life? Yeah, but I mean that chest protector in the shoulder pad is gonna
It's gonna keep the road rash. Yeah, but it doesn't stop the impact. Yeah, so I've already started looking at like
Like the robot cop armor
It's starting writing I'm gonna look like a fucking I'm gonna look like
Chris what's the name captain America? Chris Evans. Yeah
I'm gonna like Chris Evans, but yeah, it's just be all protective. I think I
Right
Look I'm a huge fan of the pants like when we would go
Writing your bikes in Glamis and sand it's so soft most guys are writing in shorts and yeah, I still wore
Yeah, I still wore my pads
I wore my net color like yeah, I don't like after this fall like I don't give a fuck because hot
Yeah, I didn't care you're gonna go down. Yeah, I'd rather than I'd rather not be let me give the highest chances of
Not getting in yes, yes, so yeah, 100% I'm
I'm gaining that fucking thing, but I'm 100% getting on that fucking bike like the best
It's the best thing fucking ever. Yeah, I'm totally hooked
It's just so I might let me know man. I'll get zin's bike running off and
Yeah, it's like
So zin's bike can't even move zin
It's okay
I can't cut out a second
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahentre
So that TTR case we we went out writing I was on my cowy Tammy was writing this this TTR
And we were the big group of people we rode out to slash X and it was a big group of people and
As we came up to a fork in the road some people started stopping and someone stopped super quick in front of Tammy and she did a Jose
She she locked up and washed out and and smacked her head she didn't hurt her herself
But she smacked her head pretty hard and after that she was like I'm good
I don't want to ride for the rest of the day so
My Kawasaki was brand new and
So one of my buddies who's a good writer was in his side by side that time
So he got on my bike and I rode the TTR from slash X all the way back to Dale Evans Parkway to their to the road, right?
And I two things I remember from that
I felt like PB Herman
I had that thing pegged and I'm literally like standing up full to get overdone
So I'm over over what he's done. Yeah, it was it was but it was fun shit
And so I'm I'm writing and the guy that's on my bike is a 10 times better writer than I am and at one point
He was so far ahead of me who's your tails fuck and he's way far front of me and at one point
I come catching up and I was like how come how come I've caught up to him
The reason I caught up to him is because he dumped my bike on the way back
Awesome
But yeah, that that little TTR man. It's it's a fun little bike and yeah, so I ended up at Kaiser emergency in Ontario by my house
No breaks just the AC joint sprain severe and apparently not much they can fucking do with that
It kind of just has to heal on its own
I may have like a deformity on my shoulder like because then when the tendon heals back
So is it it's a tear yeah like the it's the tendon's torn
Okay, I have a follow up with the orthopedic. Yeah, that's that's the surgery
I had in 2019, but at that point there's like five tendons that hold your shoulder together
I mean, I like I said I can still raise my arm and stuff. It's just fucking hurt. Yeah, because I'm because the other
Okay, I'm pretty sure that I don't have either any
Yes, that's what I was going and I and I do I do okay. Oh, there's five tendons that even if I have just like three or the five
Yeah, I had none so the one the doctor said which the like the one I know
I remember hurting it playing ball and he's like yeah, that one was gone a long time ago like you can't even find it
And then he said that there's two of them that look like they've been torn for a while and then when I fell on the mountain bike
He's like you just blew whatever you had left. I had exactly zero tendons
Holding my shoulder together and I had to have surgery
But yeah, if they're like yeah, you're other four good. They might just say yeah, I think it was just the one that connects the collarbone to the shoulder
But I
Don't know
Yeah
You don't it makes you lighter. You don't need that one. Yeah, but yeah, I mean
It is what it is again. I'm going to be I'm going to buy more protection
Yeah, just take your time don't I
Stay off of the dirt until you when you get to the point where you feel comfortable doing
65 miles an hour on the street yeah, and you're not in sensory overload and you can you can react to things quickly without even thinking
Okay, good then that that doesn't that doesn't mean you can't do a dirt road or trail
But you have to be it's a very different mentality. Yeah. It's like I have to be like super baby steps even more so on the dirt than then on the
Yes, yeah, I always felt way more comfortable on the street than I did dirt. I I've told you that like it's it you know, it's a very different feel for me
Like I said your managing
objects
More than your managing terrain yeah
Right, so you're like you're just like okay. I have to avoid this this car and that car and
Kind of back and forth rather than oh shit. There's a boulder or a rut or yeah
But then on this going back to that case you on the street. I really feel like it's easier to
Manage even that so I would
When I first got no when I'm saying is when I when I first got my bite
I would come home from work. I would wait till after dinner and I would jump on my bike and go for a ride in the neighborhood
In the evening less traffic nobody around like I'd wake up early in the morning and go
Run to get donuts or something you know, I mean like you can you can go I can go in this area at this time
There's no traffic and
Really get comfortable with it. So just from my fucking you know 20 minutes on the road and then a couple out a few hours on the dirt
Like the road itself on the street is less of a factor. You have to worry about then the dirt
Yeah, so you're doing you're dealing with all that other shit too on the dirt 100% but also the fucking the road too
Yeah, you know, wash out
There's wash outs. There's fucking you know
Whoops, there's it's not like it's not a consistent. No. You don't know what's coming. Yeah
So but yeah, man like I said uh hopefully I'm not too banged up like permanent damage
Oh, you've got permanent damage, but you had that before or before you got that bike
And did they give you any idea of how long you'll be in that sling sling? They said seven to ten days
Well, it's not bad and then follow up with Orto see if anything else need to get done, but
I can move it around so I don't know look I don't know I can move it up now myself here's here's my idea
since you have
Functioning eyes and Matt has functioning shoulders. Dude. We can't guys can ride together
You tell him where to go it. He'll steer
But yeah, man. I definitely want to get back on the bike as fast as I can, but
Definitely intake the approach of getting to know my bike first a little bit better before I start fucking
Even you know pushing it even remotely harder on on the dirt. Yeah, it takes time dude
I was like I was like you got the beans over the frame
It definitely takes it takes time it takes a lot of
Repetitions to build the confident like even did like when you asked me if I would pick up the bike
I was like yeah, I can pick up the bike in my head though. I'm like I haven't ridden in six years
Yeah, you're like I could I'll do it
But I'm gonna be like 25 miles an hour. I'm gonna get yeah, I mean, it's a fucking brand new bike
Yeah, yeah
Whereas when Casey and I were working on this at the shop we had we had different bikes in there all the time
Yeah, but you're you're getting all the time you would yeah exactly you would just jump on a
Biking bike and ride it. Yeah, it didn't matter
But your your your skills were up to par. It's not like you guys were taking months in between no rides. No, yeah
Yeah, you guys are biking and taking it for a test drive. How to feel yeah, so good out of the other
It did not blow up
But I'm I'm I'm very glad that you
Got the chance to experience the fun stuff before you got hurt. Yeah, yeah, it's totally awesome
riding a fucking bike is the best it is it's a it's a lot of fun. It's
It's a lot of work in the dirt
It's a lot of work on the street too dude because you got it like I mean you just kind of know that's because of the type of bike
You got yeah, no the type of tires that are on that I I know but I'm not I'm just saying just for shit
They you got to be that you got to learn to be aware of too from going from never riding a bike to being able to ride on the street
Dude, that's a fucking steep learning curve because you're not you're not used to all those inputs coming your way
So eventually eventually you stop paying attention to them
Yeah, well because you just recognize the pattern did not it shit. Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, man
I'm I need to get back on the bike
250 cc cafe racer for $3,000 in Santa Monica. I do take it
Show me how to ride
I would I would probably kill myself
You got a TTR I'm ready to go
Funny I don't yeah, I don't know if I could actually ride a dirt bike again
Well, I'm glad I'm glad Jose is not dead. I didn't die. So I mean it's a successful weekend the death pool whoever had
I don't know who had what square in the death pool, but
Yeah
I don't know who had the square like after lunch the crash happens. I won
I won the this is what happens scenario. Yeah, you were pretty you
Yeah, you gave me too much credit those saying popped them to third. Yeah, I'm really surprised
And we hope Matt Matt had some ice surgery today shouldn't be shouldn't be anything major, but hopefully he's good
And we see him next week and oh, thank you to everyone that reached out on Instagram
Thank you. Yeah, thanks for your oh best wishes and and in closing I wanted to bring
I wanted to bring something up real quick. I got a message at six 15 right before we went on to the air
and it's a it's a super insightful
thought and it's from our friend Nicole
Okay, I feel like it's not and and Nicole sent me this picture of a
stick of butter. Oh
And she says
She says I just pulled out this stick of butter and thought why is it long and skinny?
Normally it's short and thick and
Then I laughed out loud to myself and immediately thought I hate those guys
The corruption
We have ruined we have ruined Nicole she will never ever be the same and I am so excited about it
I mean do we even talk about today's 4 by 4 day and then today the Toyota got the Tacoma got T's
Yeah, I saw that whatever yeah
Lot should happen. Let us shit happen, but it was more important to talk about your worker by
All right everybody. Thank you guys for hanging out with us in the chat room. We appreciate it and
Thank you for listening every week and I'm glad Jose is not dead and we will talk to you guys next week
Thank you for listening and if you want to be on the show please leave us a voice message at 951394
Thank you to Iron Man 4 by 4 America please go to Iron Man 4 by 4 America and get everything you need for your next adventure
Thank you to Ryan Tarigno for all of the music and thank you to our patrons for all of their support

Ep 264: Rodeo X Rigs

Welcome to the Trail Chaser's podcast.
This episode is brought to you by Iron Man 4x4 America.
Iron Man 4x4 is the ultimate overlay in the lifestyle brand.
They offer everything from suspension and recovery equipment to armor and camping equipment
and vehicle storage solutions.
At the end of this episode, we talked to you a little bit about the Iron Man Titan
power pack that we used over the last couple trips and how much we love it.
So stay tuned for that.
They're truly a one-stop shop for all your outdoor needs.
You should go to Iron Man 4x4america.com and get geared up for your next adventure.
Today on the show, we talked to Jason Flores with Trail Wolves off-road and radioriggs.com,
rodeox-rodeoaxriggs.com, rodeoriggs.
That's a radio?
I heard radio.
WN!
So it's rodeoaxriggs.com, my bed.
He tells us about the rigs and coffee event this coming weekend at Crown Toyota.
It's not rigs and coffee.
It's not rigs.
It's just a rigs meetup.
What am I?
Was I part of this rigs meetup, bed of feeding, bed of feeding, the camera, the camera,
yeah.
All right.
Well, that's happening this weekend at Crown Toyota in Ontario.
I apologize, guys.
You should make time to attend this event and support cancer research.
It's going to be huge.
And we discussed how Jose is going to die.
That's what we're next part.
Then we discuss Jose's midlife crisis.
Yep.
Congrats, Holmes.
Yeah, dude.
My official last show.
I just want to say thank you to everybody.
Thanks for having me on code.
Yeah.
And we'll see you in the afterlife again.
Rip homie will pour one out for you.
Hey everybody, it is 6.30 on Tuesday night.
We are live on YouTube as we are every Tuesday night.
We are joined by Jason Flores from Trail Wolves and Rodeal X rigs.
How are you doing tonight, man?
You're well, man.
Thank you guys for having me.
Thanks for coming on.
We were just chatting about the fact that you're a couple hundred yards away from us.
Just on the other side of the city line.
We didn't realize how close you were, but tell the listeners where you're at.
I'm actually an Ontario ranch.
So that is the area between Old Ontario and Eastvale.
It was just telling Jason, I was in Ontario Ranch for lunch today, getting me some jersey
mics.
So how long have you been there?
How long have you been in that area?
I want to say maybe five years, six years later, I knew the development stuff.
That whole area, so this whole area, from Ontario all the way down to Norco, Rona, nothing.
Nothing.
It was one of the things that dirt and fields and farms and dairies and cowland now,
but all house huns a brand new house is in retail.
So I would think like, you're long must grow really well because of like, is that true?
No joke.
This is not a joke at my first house.
I was just telling these guys like, and that's because it's like all cow pastures and stuff,
or dairy dairy.
At my first house, when you bought the house brand new, there's nothing in the backyard.
It's all dirt.
And went around at the side of my house and I'm like, what's that?
And this giant vine was growing and I had a full cucumber, like a full cucumber batch.
Just sprouting up on the side yard because apparently there was cucumbers there before.
So that was, we ripped that up, put concrete in, built a little bit.
But it's that factual of you guys, your lawns grow really well because of, you know,
the, you buy a manure for your lawn, or whatever you guys just really,
you bought your hands.
It really depends because I was, I was asking Jason.
Oh, yeah, I mean, the grass does seem greener.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Oh, I was, I was just, I was just, I was just say it's not like the, the rocky dry Fontana dirt that you're used to.
I didn't mean it as an insult.
I just want to know, you guys have a, must have an amazing risk.
Your grass does look nice.
My grass is fake.
I knew it.
I had someone say, I had someone near the day mentioned that about how good my lawn is.
And I was like, it's all fake.
So growing up here in Southern California, you said that you lived it a couple of different places.
Tell me about what kind of, I'm going to make an assumption growing up in Southern California,
the off road lifestyle has been part of kind of, you know, around you at least.
Tell me about that, tell me about you and off roading.
Like when did you, when did you start doing some of that stuff?
Well, you know, that kind of started back when, man, when I was like a teen,
you know, we used to have the ATCs before the ATVs, right?
The three wheels.
And we used to go out my dad would take us out.
We could go camping a lot.
You know, you know, your semity, you know, the Grand Canyon, things like that.
And so one day, one of my dad's buddies, you know, I guess he was going over a rock.
And, you know, how those things are kind of unstable.
He put his foot out kind of like he was riding a motorcycle or dirt bike.
And his leg got caught under the wheel and pulled them off and broke his legs.
And, you know, from then on, you know, mom was like, hey, you got to get rid of these things.
Yeah.
So, you know, then we started riding my neighborhood had those.
You remember those old Honda pilots?
Yeah.
Single theaters?
Yeah.
Yeah.
We used to ride those, you know, until he sold those.
So that's kind of like where, you know, the off roading kind of started.
And then just kind of went on, you know, life, life happened after that.
So, but that's kind of like the start of the whole off roading thing.
So, when was that, when were you a teenager?
Cool.
I want to really show my age.
Yeah, that was back in like, you know how to answer.
Was like the 90s?
No, let's see.
Well, younger than younger than younger than younger.
Yeah, we're close to the age.
We're not, we're not too far off.
Yeah, I mean, I do remember all those things you decide.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
I wasn't.
Yeah.
You know, it's funny too.
It was in Corona.
When Corona was like, it wasn't even built yet.
So, we lived in a new housing development.
And the shopping center and all that type of stuff wasn't there.
So, this is a bunch of dirt fields.
So, we'd even jump on like the little Suzuki 80s and, you know, take them all around
there before they started building homes and stuff, man.
So, I don't remember how or why, but I remember being down in Corona on our bikes
when we were like in junior high school.
Somebody, somebody have must have moved down there or whatever.
And you could ride around every, just like in Chino, you could ride around everywhere.
Everything was some kind of development.
There was nothing around there.
You could get lost for hours on your on your BMX bike through that entire area.
I was told to get lost for hours.
That was my parents.
Yeah, get the hell out of the house.
Why don't you go and ride your bikes down in Chino, you know?
Yeah, that's that thing when it was safe, right?
Well, yeah, you know, we were different back then.
It was like, nobody wants those radios kids.
Yeah, yeah.
I wasn't riding my bike down to the 7 to 11 and then you know, play Street Fighter.
You know, hang out in the lobby for our house.
Dude, don't get me started on Street Fighter.
Street Fighter, Street Fighter 2.
That was the, that was the thing back in the day.
I've told Tammy this story in Chino, right?
I euclid and walnut.
There's a Carl's junior and it was like the first Carl's junior that had to all you
can eat, all you can drink, uh, refills, right?
Oh.
And I remember that when you really didn't do it.
Oh, my buddy, my buddy lived on the housing track on the other side of the road.
We would ride our skateboards over to his house and skate behind the pizza parlor
beyond all of there.
We go to Carl's junior, we get a cup, we drink.
And then remember the newspaper, the newspaper dispensers, we'd hide the cup under
the newspaper dispenser, go skate for another couple hours, come back, get the cup
and drink, we would drink all day long on one cup at Carl's junior in that area
because it was the first one to have that.
You know what, count to think of it.
Like, I think that's America's obesity problem is probably related directly to free refills
on like sodas.
It's 100% acting the day.
And it's like, can I have a refilling?
You have to walk up to the camera.
And this is a large watch.
That's what I was saying is not the fact that it's 64 ounces.
What's the last time you bought a soda at the, uh, at the, it's bad at the movie theaters
when I'm like, no, no, no, no man, just a medium.
I got it.
Like, I just said that's too big.
I don't need too much.
Too good.

Well, big golps, right?
As seven, eleven, that was a big thing.
A big golps.
No, it's 30.
32 out.
No, before super big golps.
Just regular big golps.
See for ounces, right?
Yeah.
It's a lot of soda.
That was a lot of soda.
It is.
Uh, so the talk to me about the transition from, uh, ATC's and that kind of thing to,
in the little Honda as to, uh, like, what was your, what was your first off road vehicle?
Actually, my first off vehicle was at MDX.
Ha ha ha.
Just as the accident.
The accident.
It was an accident.
Accurate MDX man.
I was like, all right.
It was like, you know, I picked it off one of my neighbors.
And I was like, hey, you know it.
I'm just going to try to offer this thing.
I'm going to beat the shit out of this thing.
How did it do?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I actually did better than I thought it would.
You know, um, it wasn't bad.
I mean, it would, it would get stuck here.
But, um, with the enough momentum,
it was making it up, you know,
certain hills and stuff.
So what kind of was like an all-wheel drive?
What kind of transmission was in it?
Yeah.
It was just the all-wheel drive MDX.
Like, I think it was like a 2008 or something like that.
Um, so it wasn't, you know, it was just something fun.
And then I ended up selling that.
Um, and then getting a GX.
Okay.
So the GX is kind of like my, my thing out, you know,
and then after that, I got a Tundra.
So, um, which is the next project.
Um, yeah.
That's kind of like the vehicles that I'm using right now.
The, uh, that MDX.
Those, those all, all-wheel drive crossover SUVs.
Some of them do pretty well.
You've seen the Volkswagen Toreg and, and some of these, you know,
Well, we saw that element when we went to, uh,
Yeah.
That's right.
I was like, you know, I'm sorry.
When I went to death though.
Yeah, it's right.
When you went to death.
Yeah.
There was a Honda element just driving around just like,
What?
Uh, we were someplace and there was a, um,
Mazda CX5 bombing up a hill and I was like,
FNA go for it.
Like, and now Mazda's got the CX50,
which is a more off-road terrain.
Is it?
Yeah, it's supposed to be.
It's their version of the Trailhawk.
The Renegade Trailhawk.
You know, is that off-road?
I think so.
I think so.
Uh, what year is your GX?
I said 2011.
So I mean, it's a 460.
So I was pretty much, you know,
they're pretty much all the same.
Toyota's very kind of conservative with those frames.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, just different cosmetics from the newer ones.
But yeah, it's great.
I mean, I, I installed the, uh,
because, you know, they all have crawl control capabilities or whatnot.
So all you got to do is get the switches from overseas.
It's got the brain.
So now it's, I swapped out all the switches and stuff.
So it's, it's good.
I mean, I've had any issues with it.
Well, and they're, they're the,
Uh, they're the new hotness, right?

Yeah.
A couple of years, uh, people have figured out that all of the, uh,
four-runner product, uh, products fit on that, on that chassis.
And you're getting all of the luxury, all of the amenities in a vehicle that was probably
a grocery getter, probably, you know, prior.
It's a V8 400.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It's a V8 400.
And, and what's the, what's the other one that's the V8 Land Cruiser?
The bigger one.
Oh, the Alex.
The Alex.
Yeah.
So the different V8 though.

But I'm just saying it's, it's, if you wanted a Land Cruiser, the, if you wanted
an 80 series, but wanted a vehicle that went more than 12 miles an hour.
You go with it.
You go with the Lexus.

But the, the GX in the rest of the world is, so that's a Land Cruiser product.
Oh, yeah.

That's right.
It's like a Land Cruiser junior.
Yes.
That's what it is for.
Yeah.

And they're super capable vehicles.
And you've seen a lot of aftermarket support for them,
prop up pop up over the last five years.
And I think we kind of talked about it at one point where their, their resale value skyrocketed
because of it over the last handful of years because people now know, oh, this is an off road vehicle.
You can, you can charge more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's when everybody started, you know, following old people home with the 470.
Yes.

Yeah.
By that from you.
I don't even like five grand.
It's like 80,000 miles.
Yeah.
Dealer maintained.
Yeah.
Yeah.

I mean, just gems, right?
Because that that that 4.7 liter, I guess, was manufactured in a certain factory in Japan.
And they even have some of those engines that were documented to do almost a million miles.
So they're solid.
Wow.
Pretty solid.
I mean, I want to imagine you're, you've got Toyota engineering.
And one of my issues with Toyota vehicles is the lack of amenities and comfort.
And you take that Toyota engineering and then add all of the amenities and comfort that Lexus puts
in the vehicles.
And now you've got, you know, probably one of the best, the best combinations of vehicle available.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Jose.
I'm not waiting.
I'm waiting for you to say something.
No comment.
Hey, man.
I've got to get to Jose.
No.
I've got to have a 94 Lancaster.
That's nice.
Yeah.
Slow, heavy, and waste a lot of gas.
But I never get stuck.
And I always make it home.
He.
Yes.
Look at me.
Jose looked at me like for some reason.
Ha ha.
Yeah.
You always make it home too.
Yeah.
I don't know what.
Okay.
True.
He does make it home.
You know, I don't know where you live anymore.
I just assume you can be stopping off at the Arco.
They're on Sierra the 2015.
For all I know.
I don't even know.
Okay, don't.
Uh, so the, you said, so you've got the GX and you said you also have a Tundra?
I do.
I have a Gen 2 Tundra.
What year's that?
Uh, 07.
Okay.
The Gen 2 is, I think,
I want to say what 12 maybe 11 before they went to the 25.
Okay.
All right.
So, so Toyota's Toyota's your thing.
You're into the Toyota products.
Um, the, yeah, what's the plan with the Toyota?
I mean, with that Tundra.
You said you, it's a kind of a new project.
Yeah.
So that one I want to definitely go like more like the GFC route.
You know, put the tent some for the kid.
Yeah.

Um, yeah.
So that way you pull up that the events and stuff and they have somewhere to hang out.
You know, and stuff like that.
I'm worried about when we get lost.
Yeah, like you.
We've all talked about which, which route to go.
100 conversations, man.
Yeah.
There's so many ways.
And every week, it's like, nope.
I'm getting a trailer this week.
Next week, I'm getting the GFC camper.

Next week, I'm getting one of the scouts.

I'm just going to get a nice off-round 10 land camp.
I'm just going to get a nice, uh, shift party.
Ground 10 and call it a day.
Yeah.
Then you're just like, now.
But for that price.
Yeah.

It's something to all thing.
Uh, it's definitely a whole thing.
So how long have you had the tundra?
Um, that one I when he had maybe a year now.
Okay.
So yeah, I just picked that one up.
Um, I had a Tesla actually.
I actually got rid of the Tesla for the tundra.
You can see the way around.
I went backwards.
Yeah.
Usually see the way around.
Yeah.
I mean, don't get me wrong.
I love the Tesla.
It was probably the funnest car to ever drive.
But, um, just because fast it was.
But, um, yeah.
I mean, I mean, for me for what I'd like to do.
And it just, you know, it just made better sense.
I just feel like, especially in this area.
And correct me if I'm wrong.
I feel like the Tesla probably.
The Tesla is just just become the minion of cars.
Like it's just.
It's like, it's everywhere.
It's everywhere.
The Volkswagen buds.
Yes, they are everywhere now.
They're everywhere now.
They all look exactly this.
I saw a Tesla that had a wrap on it and a wing.
And it had full, like it was fun.
It was like, that's cool.
Every other Tesla.
You know, it's the same exact vehicle.
I know, bro.
But, until you drive one, you'll be like, fuck.
Well, the money you guys drive one.
Yeah, fuck.
Dude, this is your, you're assuming I'm never going to drive one.
Well, look, I'm just, I've been in him.
I driven one.
I drove one of the big ones with the dual engines.
Funny shit.
Yeah, bro.
I will die.
I will die and be in jail.
I drive like a jackass in my force cylinder.
I know.
You put me in something that's got a rocket ship attached to it.
Dude, but a Tesla.
Yes, they're all like cookie cutter.
100%.
But, but.
Dude, you just get in it and you go.
And then, and you go, it's, you don't even think about it.
Dude, it's, it's a great.
It's the best community.
It's the, it's the, it's the, it's the new,
mindless metal coffin.
Like that's what it is to me.
It's just, I think, drawing back to the Volkswagen comparison.
Like the, the, the beetle, like the, the, you saw them in America.
Like in the 40s, 50s, they started showing up.
And then all of a sudden it was like everywhere.
You saw Volkswagen.
Matt, if you drove a Tesla to work.
Well, you're not listening to the comparison I'm making.
You're just, clearly, I'm not comparing driving a Tesla to a Volkswagen.
I'm saying, I'm not, I see Tesla's on the highway.
Like I used to see Volkswagen's back in the day back in the 40s.
It's all Volkswagen's because they ran forever.
And people bought them cheap from the 50s.
They were still running.
There, there's nothing to them.
They're just like a simple vehicle.
They were cheap.
And you could still buy them into the 70s.
The super beetles.
Whatever that was.
Like it was just a few more CCs.
You know, whatever.
Couple more horsepower.
And in front suspension.
Okay.
I didn't mean to get into a Volkswagen battle with you.
I don't know that much about Volkswagen.
I'm just saying you saw Volkswagen's forever.
And now I can see that comparison.
Like I see Tesla's every.
If I counted.
If you didn't believe in your car, bro.
Yeah, it would, I would say I for sure confidently could say.
I could at least 20 to 40 Tesla's on the highway.
Different Tesla's from here.
It could be the same to my, you don't know.
I've got to admit the Tesla display on me though because I got me getting in another car with that ever hit using a key.
Using yourself.
Do you just walk up to it?
Like, yeah you get spoiled.
I get to get that.
I get that.
I don't want to.
I don't want to.
I don't know desire.
And yeah, no, I'm not as I am.
I'm not going to go any further.
It's, I'm glad that you got the Tundra stick with your.
F or F and that's what you should.
And I'm going to pose as a.
I don't know.
I'm going to sell that thing.
Might be well.
It's not like she's driving it.
It's 20.
20.
It's horrible.
So the, how do you, how do you choose which one you take out the GX or the Tundra?
Uh, so will you now the, uh, not Tundra's like more of the daily now.
Okay.
My GX is kind of built for like just trailing.
Um, we're kind of.
I'm trying to keep the miles down on that one.
We're kind of mind to go down to your GX.
Um, so it's got the King suspension, the, you know, the wheels tires,
sliders from bumper, you know, all those stuff.
And then the interior, uh, rocking like a gear plate with, uh, you know,
refrigerator, tables, all that type of stuff.
So it's kind of built just to, and then the roof rack.
As actually, I have it like modular, which is kind of cool.
So I built it where you can swap, uh, the roof easily to put your roof top 10 on
or you just want to run the roam cases.
It depends if we're just going to go trail that day.
Or if we're going to go trail for like three or four days.
Then you can like, uh, the gear plate switch up, you know, if you're going to
put your Pro Eagle jack mounted in there versus like a drawer or whatnot.
So it's kind of cool.
I just, you know, made it.
So because there's not a lot of room in the GXs.
There's actually more cargo space than the four runners in our GXs.
Oh, really?
Great.
Yeah.
So, um, you know, for the 460,
I have, you have to get pretty tricky with how you, you know,
how you set it up when you go out.
I kind of keep trying to keep it modular.
And that's what kind of led me to the GFC because I was like the GFCs,
like the perfect thing for any truck.
Yeah.
You get, you know, you get the whole cabin space and the down below.
It's kind of like two story apartment.

And then you get the whole bed upstairs, right?
So it, it's actually a good awesome thing to have.
Um, so, so with that, so you've got the, obviously the vehicles.
You've got a history of off-roading and everything behind you.
Um, talked to me about trail wolves.
Winded, winded trail wolves start and why.
And if you guys haven't already, you can go to trail wolves.store.
Uh, to their website or trail wolves.
Uh, on Instagram to check out what they've got there.
Yep.
So, so in 2018, um, you know, as one of my last deployments,
I ended up getting injured.
Um, one of my last deployments.
I ended up hurting my, or needing surgery on my knee.
So I came back and it was, uh, you know,
I didn't, and it was during COVID times.
So I really didn't even get to have surgery.
And so like late 2019.
But when I finally had surgery, I'm sitting on the couch.
And usually I'm an active person.
I like to get out and do things and stuff like that.
So there's driving me crazy.
And my wife was like, you know, just do something.
You know, that you can do why you're on the couch, right?
You know, on crutches, right?
So I'm like, all right.
So, um, you know, remember being on a trail.
And I was traveling with somebody's and they're like, hey, you know what?
Um, what we, we should start a crew.
And I was like, you know what would be a cool name.
Because I was always in the wolves, right?
Because I really loved the traits that wolves have, right?
Like, I mean, they're showable creatures.
They're family oriented.
Um, you know, and but they can be lone wolves if they need to be, right?
So they, they possess a lot of, like, really good traits.
So I was like, you know what?
It would be cool as a trail wolves.
And it was just like, that sounds kind of cool.
You know, it was like, yeah, so it's always been in the back of my mind, right?
And so, you know, I'm sitting on a couch and I'm like, hey, you know what?
I'm just going to go ahead and start this thing called trail wolves, you know?
So I was actually at a family party one day.
I would start.
Yeah, right?
And I was at a family party one day.
And you guys remember that clothing line, LRG?
Yeah.

Okay.
So it just all happens, you know, my cousin, you know, was one of the designers for that before they sold it.
Right?
And so he was like, I was telling him the idea.
And he was like, hey, man, you know what?
I'm dropping designs for you.
And we're kind of going from there.
And one thing led to another.
And I was like, you know, I'm just going to design stuff that I like and stuff that I've
felt like that's not really out there, especially in the off-road scene.
And kind of try to combine things.
And here we go.
And next thing, you know, we're where we are, you know?
So kind of, it kind of grew pretty fast.
I was been blessed that, you know, the right timing to, I could say, during the pandemic
and stuff was a good time to start stuff, especially hobby, hobby type stuff.
So things kind of kind of, things kind of worked out, man.
Just been blessed with these, you know, everybody jumped on board and had a good circle of people and family and stuff.
So that's kind of where that came from.
And the, you know, looking at the, the trail of sight, you've, you've clearly expand beyond just off-roading.
You've got mountain biking on there.
You've got, you know, clothes.
You've got all, I mean, all kinds of stuff.
Some really cool designs, you know, the trailbusters design that looks like the ghostbusters vehicle.
I mean, uh, tell me, tell me about that.
Tell me like, tell me how that expanded from just off-roading to some of the other things that you're doing.
Well, like, so, uh, we were out on a trail too, and then, uh, one of my buddies tires he deflated too low and he ended debating on one of the off-shoots.
So we're out there in the hot sun, you know, trying to figure out, like, you know, we had to winch it up and then we had to pull the tire off and we're jumping on the wheel.
Trying to hit the tire to get back on, so we get filled back up up there.
And I'm just thinking, like, this is a, this is a tail, right?
So every time you go on a trail, there's always a tail, right?
You come back either like something happened bad, something was good or like, you know, something happens where you remember, right?
And so that's what we came up with the idea of like trail tales.
And so it was like, hey, you know, it's cool.
There's all kinds of stories out there that then, if you see it, like, we started like, you know, stories are everything, right?
And so, you know, we decided to like, bring in, I'm a collector at heart too.
I'm kind of like an undercover nerd, you know, so I've always collected things.
And, you know, I've always been like big Batman Joker fans and you see there's a shirt in there for Batman and Joker.
And, you know, ghostbuster fans, stuff like that, you know, you should find me in Frankenstein's all the time.
So, you know, yeah, you know, so like, I just, you know, just bringing everything that I loved into under one umbrella is basically what I was doing, right?
And then, but also trying to tell a story with each design.
So, every design that we do, I always go over it with my cousin like, hey, okay, so I want to do this type of design and this is why.
And we always put like a story behind it.
And so that's the reason behind all of that type of stuff.
So, and so it kind of, it just kind of worked out that way, you know, so.
And then it kind of led to the rodeo X stuff.
So that was going to be my next thing.
You've got all this, all this background and offroading and then the design stuff and the shop with trail wolves.
Weird, aware and winded rodeo X come into the mix.
So, we came back again coming back from a trail.
We, I think, was Clayhorn that day.
And we came back and we, we didn't had lunch here at rodeo X in Ontario.
And we're sitting there and one of my buddies is like, you know, this will be a perfect place for me.
And I was like, I looked around and I was like, you know what, it would.
So I went and talked to the manager, whatnot, and, and then which side did do our first meet.
Just amongst friends and kind of put it out there.
And then we ended up having almost like 150.
Almost maybe a little under 200 rigged show up.
Yeah, I remember that because you have a lot of friends.
I don't even know that.
Maybe a lot of friends.
But I remember that first one because I was like, what's.
We're getting invaded by Tacomas and four runners.
And like, what's going on that I'm not aware of.
How am I missing this?
And you guys were all heading that direction.
And one of my neighbors was like, how come you're not down over at the Ontario ranch?
I'm like, what are you talking about?
He's like, there's tons of trucks that look just like yours parked over there.
And you're right.
So that, so what you, if you guys don't know, the rodeo X, it's in a shopping center.
And all around the shopping center.
There's Stater Brothers and Carl Junior and Jersey mics and.
Oh, Pio Pico's tacos.
There's a taco shop there that I absolutely love Pio Pico's tacos.
And in the center is this thing called rodeo X.
And it's like picture the food court.
Can I get some free tacos just by you mentioned?
No, I wish.
I feel like I would like to try.
Yeah, I want to be sponsored by Pio Pico.
That's how good they are.
Okay.
So in the center is this building that looks like this, the food court of a mall.
And it's going to all, like a beer, a beer bar.
It's got a bunch of different food stuff.
What is this?
What kind of mall are we talking about?
This is my type of mall.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you're right.
I remember thinking the same thing.
This would be a cool place because it's got an outdoor seating area.
Plenty of parking all the way around.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
So when was that what that was only a year ago?
Maybe not even that long.
Yeah, because we're all going on value six on this next one.
So that was a value one.
So it was like last year and we were doing it quarterly.
Okay.
And then we decided I was like, hey man, just turn out pretty great.
All the all the businesses were happy.
POP goes super happy.
Like everybody sold out their food.
It was it was good.
And so we were like, let's do it again.
So we did the second one.
And it even grew even bigger.
To, you know, I think I went.
We did like 400 rigs.
And then we just started expanding and pretty much eaten up the whole lot.
And then we did the Christmas event, which we did that with.
So then we started thinking I was like, you know,
some different, not just a regular meter or not, but I wanted to kind of like.
The whole idea behind rodeo is is rounding up right.
So we're rodeo x rigs.
We wanted to round up the community for a cause.
So, you know, we contacted the CHP and we ended up doing a toy drive for chips for kids.
And that was in December.
And that one even went even bigger.
I think we did like 500 submarines on that side.
And then we got to a point where the state of brothers was like, hey man.
You can't, can't keep doing this over here anymore because we just eaten up.
I mean, there was cars parked.
Yeah.
You know, on sidewalks and just parked everywhere.
And so they're getting, you know, complaints from everybody that used to shop on Sundays and stuff.
So we had to move it from there.
But it's been a blessing because then it kind of forced us to grow.
Because they forced us to kind of move and we did.
So we decided to take it on a road and then we moved it around the different locations.
Like we did long beach we did garden growth.
Which was awesome because when we did garden grove, we linked up with King because King is from garden grove.
And then they brought the huge truck out and stuff.
So that was awesome.
And then from garden grove, which is cool because it's right by city hall.
It's still craft.
And so the city backed us up on all that type of stuff.
They were happy.
And then we ended up moving to Long Beach just for a bigger space.
And then we out grew that one too.
Because Long Beach is like, yeah, this is too big.
Because I think that one we did like 750 rigs.
And then now we're moving, you know, moving this year.
We're going to end up doing Ontario.
And then we're going to go to San Francisco.
And then back in San Diego.
So we're actually taking rodeo x rigs on the road now.
That's awesome.
So that the Ontario one.
That's happening Sunday April 2nd from 8 to noon at Crown Toyota in Ontario right off the 15 freeway.
12.

One catering drive in Ontario.
The so if you guys aren't familiar, the Ontario Auto Center is really big.
The Crown Toyota is right in the center of all of it.
And it's a big lot.
Are they moving a bunch of vehicles to give you that lot?
Yeah, actually they are.
So they're actually and just by luck again, like I said, it was just they happened to be the largest.
I guess land owning toy to dealership.
I mean, Southern California or actually, I don't even know.
Nation, but Southern California or California.
I think they're the third largest in small human in the country.
They're I mean, they're not.
It's not a small Toyota dealership.
Long ago.
They have like 1,500 parking spaces.
Yeah.
So we're going to eat up.
I think like 500 of those because we have I think just under 100 vendors on this one.
So yeah, we're going to we're going to we're going to be able to just under 100.
Yeah, just under 100.
I think we'll.
I think we should be good to hopefully do the 1000 rigs this time around.
Yeah.
Wow.
And so looking at the announcement for it.
So it's a it's a off road over land meet benefiting the leukemia and lymphoma society.
Food and prizes free to the public, family friendly, all rigs welcome.
What what kind of things can people expect from the the road UX rigs on April 2.
On April 2nd in Ontario.
So our main goal with rodeo X now has grown to like bring the community together for cost.
You know, we did the the CHP checks for kids.
Then we did multiple sclerosis raise money for multiple sclerosis organization.
Then we did autism.
This year we're doing we teamed up with LLS because of cancer.
So I myself, I have cancer.
Actually, I'm actually fighting cancer now.
I actually just had chemo yesterday.
That's why I'm kind of like just chilling right now.
You know, so like it's it's kind of like my cousin had passed from leukemia right before I got diagnosed.
And then I got diagnosed with lymphoma.
So it's like a match made in heaven for us to work with lymphoma's leukemia lymphoma society.
So my whole thing is basically the kind of bring awareness.
You know, two cancer patients or two with their families.
You know, people because it's it's rough.
I was blessed to have, you know, family and friends and stuff helped me out.
But to go through it on your own is would probably be really tough.
So LLS actually gives money back.
And it's it's maybe maybe I'm wrong in this.
But I feel like we're at the point where everybody knows somebody or is related to somebody who has had a battle with cancer, right?
My uncle died of cancer.
My mom my mom put by the skin of her teeth made it through a cancer treatment.
And it's one of those it's like it's so common now that.
I bet people don't realize how many people they know in their lives that are fighting that battle.
Oh, you know, when I go to these transfusion centers, like it opened up my eyes because I was like,
Whoa, like it's literally like a like a factory.
You know, as soon as one person leaves the chair and another person's coming in and this is like all day, right?
And it's just, and it's just so many different cat like even colon cancers like huge now, you know, even for younger and younger guys.
So what it would never was, right? So I don't know.
I mean, yeah, I mean, I never really thought of it that way until I actually went through it.
And I'm like, holy cow, man, it's tons of people.
Yeah.
And that's what kind of like really drove the, you know, the drive like, you know,
team up with LLS does do some good for this community for this year.
And we'll fundraise throughout the whole year for this organization.
So are our, are you guys accepting donations, doing raffles, doing what's, what's,
How can people contribute to the LLS society?
Yes. So there's a couple of ways.
So we did, we did a design a shirt design.
And so partial those proceeds will go towards the organization.
Also, we're going to do a 50 50 raffle, which half of that will go towards the organization.
And then we also are going to do a regular raffle, which includes a bunch of prizes from, you know,
companies like Iron Man and things like that.
And then that will go towards the organization as well.
And what's really cool is that toilet of crown,
decided to donate money and also match up to a certain point of what we raise as well.
So that's awesome.
Very cool.
Very, yeah.
It just all kind of worked out the way I was supposed to sell.
Yeah, Kudos to Crown Toyota for that.
And, and you know, Crown Toyota has been part of the, in the Empire community.
I mean, Matt, when was, when was that auto center opened?
I mean, early night.
It's been 90s.
I would say, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, they, that 25 years at least.
Yeah.
But they've been, they've been in this in the Empire community.
And been a staple in the in the Empire community for a very long time.
That's awesome of them to participate and give back.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
I didn't think just on a, you know, it was even coolers like what you said.
They're actually the top seller of Tacoma's,
Tundra's in Tacoya's in the nation.
So even, yeah, I was like, on the other double whammy that worked out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The truck and SUV market here in Southern California is, is dumb sauce, right?
Yeah.
People talk about truck country.
They talk about Texas.
But it's, it's a very different type of truck country there than what we have.
Going through, going through your, your social media post.
You're talking about people that are going to be at the event.
Ironman will be there.
Jesse Rizzo will be there.
We talked to him last week about it a little bit.
You've got a low air don't care.
Low air don't, the low pressure crew's going to be there.
Church of dirt, garage, alpha, off road.
Goose gear, tiny rig coat.
Toyota Joe, rig talk.
Those guys are cool.
Haven't seen it in a long time.
AJC, which is some of the James Customs.
Yeah.
James Cover.
KC lights.
Cali Toyota's, the tint lab.
I'm just, now I'm going to just start scrolling through a bunch of people.
AV overland.
We've, we've talked to him before.
Front runner King, total chaos.
HK off road.
HK off road.
Fun fact was my second interview in.
Oh, right.
2016.
I believe they were episode number two when they just started their shop.
Oh, we have audio plus.
We've interviewed them.
They're still around.
You didn't ruin.
I didn't wreck them at all.
I can't vehicle dynamics.
We know those guys.
There's just, there's no shortage of.
Names and products.
Representation of the community and brand.
There's no shortage of that for this event, man.
You, that's amazing that you've been able to pull all this together.
I wasn't easy.
I got, I got, I got to say it was the team.
You know, I can't take credit for any of that stuff.
Really.
And, you know, like I said, I'm just blessed to be surrounded by good people.
The team that does their part.
Everybody has their own mission and stuff like that.
So, well, we're speaking of that.
How long, how long ago did you decide this event was happening?
And, and what that ramp up time?
So you finished the last event when and then how long have you been planning this one?
So this one took about.
It's been rough because it's been in between chemo treatments.
So this one I took about maybe like a month out is when we started planning this one.
Wow, you pulled all that together in a month.
Yeah, it wasn't easy.
But we needed to get one done because it was so we were so late in the game because of, you know,
I just, I just couldn't at the time.
So we were kind of behind the curve and I had to make sure we stayed within a calendar.
Because now we even have to do it three times a year instead of four times a year.
Which we changed it up.
We're now we're just going to do.
You know, Southern California down in San Diego and in Bay Area and from here on out three times a year.
And hopefully I'm crossing my fingers maybe making our way into Vegas.
But, you know, right now we're just going to do it three times a year and go from there.
And we're, we're getting right into the right season for this, right?
The, just hitting the expo season, the prep season, everybody wants to get.
We've been dumping rain here in Southern California, which for most of you around the country doesn't matter.
But for us, that's the norm.
Yeah, for us, it's like, we, we have to use to it's not normal.
Well, it's like, it's like claustrophobia sets in and like you haven't seen the sunshine.
For me, it made me realize I don't, I don't want to live in Washington.
No, of north.
I told you, I, I spent, after the second trip to my office in Portland, I'm like, if this place.
I'm not jumping back if it's, yeah, it's like that all year round.
Well, I remember, I remember I, there was, I was like, oh my god, it's gorgeous.
And they were like, enjoy it because you've got about 10 days of this and the rest of the time.
It's not like that.
But right now, weather starting to turn, people want to get out because they've been stuck inside in the rain.
They're getting ready for their spring and summer trips.
I mean, this is a perfect time to start these types of events and gatherings, you know, for the community.
Yeah, they're all over the place.
You just scroll through Instagram and there's like, neat.
Oh, yeah, coffee.
Exactly.
There were there were two last weekend there.
We were at one, there's, you know, this weekend, there's, there's basically from here until July.
There's going to be something every weekend.
Well, you used to be like, okay, to start off the year was came hammers.
Yeah.
And then like the next big thing was overnight and expo west.
But now it's like, they're filling in that void now.
And we're now like the whole year, there's something.
There's always going to be something now.
On one hand, you could say, others too much to do.
But on the other hand, that's pretty damn awesome that our community is big enough.
And cohesive enough and engaged enough to be able to do these types of events on a regular basis.
Because, you know, the, the thousand rigs you get here this weekend.
There's going to be some of those rigs that were at the yellow wheeling event last weekend.
Or that we're at there, they're going to go to the wheeling.
There's going to be a whole new group of people that couldn't make it to the last event.
It's the, the, the geosurkey is like, is massive now.

And it's strong though.
It's like, you know, when people put on good events, other people want to show up to them.

When you've got an event like this that's benefiting a good charity that's bringing all of these top tier brands together.
That you're like, how, yeah, I'm going to go.
It's right in the heart of the, the inland empire off road overland scene.
I mean, you have a, you have like three, three major freeways that connect that dealership.
You have the fifth, it's off the 15, the 10 and the six, it's right between the 10 and the 60.
So it's like centralized to everywhere.
Yeah, head north on the 15 freeway.
If you, if you just look to the right, you'll see it.
It's between the 10 and the 60.
Except if you're in his barrier.
Yeah, you want to go south.
I'm talking, look, I'm talking to the majority of people.
I mean, I mean, in Orange County, everybody is in the inland empire knows where crown Toyota is.
Okay.
For those people on the other side of the hills, fair to people.
That's very good.
No, it's very people know.
They have value height.
Yeah, Ontario.
South.
South.
To Ontario.
If you're in the high desert.
I'm worried about you guys.
Make sure you get there.
So the event, the event starts at eight.
What's the, do you have an itinerary like raffles at this time?
You know, like have you put all that stuff together yet?
The raffle we're working on doing it a little different of where we kind of group it together.
You usually like regular raffles, you know, it's usually at the end of every event.
But I kind of feel like a lot of the crowd usually, you know, clears out by the end of the event, right?
So like maybe a raffles every hour.
Stuff like that, just to keep people engaged and stuff like that.
So that's what you don't have to get stuck waiting for four hours to see if you want.
Yeah.
I totally agree with that.
We did the event.
We just MC didn't event two weeks ago.
And that's what we did.
There were three raffles throughout the course of the day.
Different prizes at each raffle.
And to your point, if someone shows up at eight o'clock in the morning and they want it around.
Yeah, they don't have to wait till five.
You know what I mean?
Like it made it, I think it made it better for the participants.
So this event coming up.
This is going to be an awesome event, obviously.
It's going to be my expectation is because of the work that you guys have done.
The vendors you have and the promotion you've been doing.
It's going to be well attended.
What would be what would be a successful event for you?
Once this, you know, at the end of the day on on the second, like when you sit back,
what would what would make you think it was successful?
That, you know what that LLS was happy.
You know, because that's the main thing, right?
It's just getting nowhere and it's out.
Because you know, another thing too is like, there's a, you know, when you think about ribbons, right?
When you think about breast cancer is the one everybody knows.
Because there's a lot of celebrities made it very popular and things like that.
They did fun razors and stuff, right?
But you don't know, there's like, there's like a hundred different colors.
Yeah.
For all the different cancers that are out there, right?
So we want to kind of just bring awareness to what oranges or to what the lime green is, right?
Like, you know, just kind of this help, help get the information out there and stuff,
or even just offer services for families that mind.
Because when I first got it, I didn't even know, like, what to expect.
But it wouldn't be kind of cool if somebody would have educated on me exactly what can't,
what type of cancer I have and what if I eat a bunch of sugar that sugar feeds it and things like that, right?
Like the doctor will give you just a little bit and just try to take care of you.
But there's no really like schooling or even for the family to understand,
because they go through it too, right? So, you know, my wife and everybody's all freaking out, right?
So this is one of those things where I think just education and offering help to cancer families and stuff like that would be like,
that would be successful.
You know, and then at the same time coming in and hanging out and checking out some cool rigs, right?
So I think that's pretty much like the goal at the end of the day.
So at it's a very commendable goal.
And I would imagine, again, with the amount of engagement you've had so far and the vendors and the attendance,
I'm sure you're going to be happy at the end of the day.
You know, I don't, there's a lot of these events that happen.
And, you know, the one we were at two weeks ago was benefiting children's hospital of Orange County.
And this one is LLS and the next one's going to be something else.
And that's another part of the community and these events that we talk about is,
is the off-road overland community is always willing to give back,
whether it be toy drives or canned food drives or fundraisers.
It's a very family-oriented community that wants to help, right?
And I think a lot of times you see things in the news or, you know,
about trails that are getting messed up and some of the dumb things that happen out there.
But on the whole, our community is pretty damn awesome.
And if you reach out and say, hey, everybody, we need to raise awareness for X or raise funds for Y,
you're going to get, you're going to get positive feedback on that.
No, it is, it's amazing.
Like I said, it's just, it's just all been a blessing, man.
Just to fall back into things that the stuff that I used to love to do as a kid.
Just to be here now, right? So yeah, it's been awesome, man.
Even just to be on this show, man.
Guys like you keep it in moving, keep it in going, you know?
You'll regret this. You'll regret this later.
You're going to listen to this later and be like, that was a bad idea.
That was a joke.
It could be a thing to do this.
This is, I am now tainted.
So after the second, how long before the San Francisco event kicks off?
So the San Francisco event will be August September,
we haven't decided which weekend yet.
But that's the better weather in the Bay Area.
You don't want to get rained in anything like that.
And then San Diego will be November, like in November, early December,
because it's even though it's cold everywhere else.
It's usually beautiful in San Diego.
Yeah, so yeah.
And so I'm assuming the as soon as you're done with this one,
you're going to start the planning process all over again for these other ones.
Yes.
And the, I mean,
it's, you have these connections with these vendors that you're already working with.
But a lot of those vendors are local.
There, those ones are here in Southern California.
They may not make that trek up to the Bay Area.
So you're going to have a whole challenge ahead of you,
finding people from Modesto north that are willing to make the drive, right?
So anybody that knows of brands north of Fresno,
let him know so he can connect with them and get them to the event.
No, definitely.
Have you guys picked out a spot for that one yet?
Yeah.
We're probably going to do another toilet dealership up there.
Okay.
So.
And then luckily, we have, like you guys know, stellar built.
So they're going to be one of the, the part of the whole event.
More so I was going to, I was going to mention them,
but I didn't, I didn't know if you had already reached out to them or not.
But that, that's really, those guys do great work.
They do really cool builds more flate and snail armors.
Yep, more flate, snail trail snail armor up there.
Wheeling wind and whiskey are up there.
There's plenty, plenty of people up there for you to connect with.
Let's let us know if you need any help with that.
Okay.
So between, between April, this event and the, and the September event,
you have any trail runs planned or trips or anything or you just kind of,
one weekend at a time, trying to get all your ducks in a row for all the events.
Yeah, coming up.
Yeah.
Well, we're probably going to have doing a troll for treat after this, you know,
before the next event where I love Utah.
So one of my favorite trails is the barracks.
So we might go out there.
You know, the whole crew just go out there with families and everything.
Hang out.
Maybe four or three or four days or whatnot.
Hit the barracks trail.
Tokerville Falls.
You know, stuff like that.
Just show where where is the barracks and what is it?
I've only been to Utah once.
I went to Moab and I don't know anything else about Utah.
Yeah.
No, it's been Saint George, which is South.
So it's about three hours north of Vegas.
Yeah.
Yeah, cool chill spots.
You know, they even have some glampion areas out there.
You can get the wife and the kids need to stay there while you go trail.
It's perfect.
I mean, it's so, it's so funny.
You say that because when you, when we made the trip to,
to Moab, I remember like you, you leave Vegas and you get to Utah.
And you're like, no, no, no.
You still have four hours to go to hit from one corner of Utah to the other corner.
You know, so that's, that's really not.
It's a six hour drive from here, right?
Yeah, it's not bad at all.
And it is beautiful.
It's, if you haven't ever, I would recommend to barracks.
No reason why I like it because it has literally almost every element.
Like you go through, you know, the sand part of it.
Then you go through the the forest part of it.
And then you go through the canyons part of it.
And you end up back and sad.
It's, it's really cool.
It's a cool trail.
It has like literally every element.
There's a street fighter zone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So from here, it's five and a half hours from from our house to St. George.
I don't know, St. George.
We came back through St. George back in the way back in the day.
I went to Yellowstone.
And it was just beautiful.
And then I found out it was like per capita.
Most golf courses like per human being in the United States.
And I thought that's where I want to retire.
Like some day, just want to be.
It's like mellow.
Lots of golf courses.
Not a lot of people.
St. George.
Adams always like dude.
It's only a five hour drive.

Well, I was just going to say it took us longer to get to Loughlin a couple years ago.
We did, we did the Mojave Trail.
We used to do it on Memorial Day weekend.
And it took us eight nine hours to get from here to Loughlin.
It took me six.
I mean, we could have gotten to St. George at Utah in less time.
Yes, honey.
We, you know, we don't, we don't do a good job of expanding.
Anything.
No, period.
Period.
Full stop.
But we don't, you know, because our trips are so like last minute sometimes
and we don't do a good job of expanding beyond.
Southern California.
And we're, we're spoiled because we can, right?
We can, there's a thousand places we could go in Southern California.
But I definitely want to start expanding into, you know, more of Nevada.
More of Utah back to Arizona.
I mean, we got to wait for Jose that whole time.
Because doing 35 miles a hour.
I don't know now.
No, no, no, no.
Now, now he's just going to follow us on the dirt bike.
Yeah.
I don't know.
And now he's going to stop every three, three minutes for gas.
No, I just loaded up on the frontier and then we get to the trail.
I won't ever see you guys again.
Yeah.
Because you'll be behind us on the ground.
Yeah.
I'll be fine.
So Jose just got a motorcycle.
And I'm in a very bad decision.
And we're pretty, I'm in a very, very bad decision yesterday.
I don't know what I'm doing with my life.
He's, we're pretty certain he's going to die.
And even it now.
Like he's, he's not going to make it out alone on the right path.
And he had a good decision.
Yeah.
We're kind of spoiled man.
Definitely.
We're only what 15 minutes from vital creek.
Yeah.
And then you got clay horn and finally rock, like right up the street.
Yeah.
All of Johnson Valley, all of Big Bear, all of Ocatia wells.
I mean, with with less than three hours.
Less than three hour radius.
You're in some of the most epic offroading in the country.
And when we get spoiled and so we're like,
I will just do a trip.
I don't feel like driving any farther than that.
But, you know, that's, that's neither here nor there.
What else?
What are the kind of things?
I mean, not that you don't have enough going on with trail wolves and rodeo eggs.
And all of the other things that you're fighting through.
Like, is there anything else you're looking forward to with the, with the brands or with anything else?
Yeah.
We're actually going to start like a trail series prison where we're going to be going out and documenting
different trails and stuff like that.
So I don't know if you saw, we've recently did a collaboration with Falcon.
And we did a Falcon commercial for them.
Oh, very cold.
Yeah.
We're still kind of working on things like that.
So, you know, just, this is a lot, a lot of stuff that we definitely want to get into.
But again, it just takes manpower and stuff and time.
So I'm just kind of waiting that out.
Yeah, that's the, that's the hard part.
We're waiting that out for four and a half, five years now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Are you.
So are you, is, is trail wolves and rodeo eggs your full-time gig?
Or do you, do you do other things during the day?
No, you actually do other things today.
So like I said, I was, I was just deployed not too long ago.
So I'm still in the reserves.
I'm just coming up pretty close to my 20 years.
And yeah, and then I'm also a first responder on the city of Los Angeles.
Okay.
But I've been kind of, but I've been off again because of,
um, casserole or something.
You're ailment.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I had a, I had a buddy in high school that he, he went in the military at like 20.
Mm-hmm.
And retired at like 40.
And then went into the private sector and made a killing.
You know, yeah.
And I'm like, I'm going to work till I'm 80.
I've made bad decisions.
But yeah, that, that 20 year mark getting there on the military side.
Yeah, that's a huge accomplishment.
Gradulations.
No, thanks man.
Yeah.
So it's been awesome.
I guess I've been blessed, you know, all the way around.
So.
Well, I, I am really hoping that we can make.
We talked about it a little bit earlier before we started recording.
Uh, we're going to try to make this work this weekend.
We got a couple things.
We have to figure out internally to figure out who can be there at what time.
And, um, I'll talk to you some more later this week about it.
Um, but for sure, we will have some, we will be there in some capacity to support you guys.
And, uh, and hang out.
Um, anything else anybody needs to know other than go to trailwolves.com to our trails.store to learn more about the trailwolves stuff.
And then a rodeo x rigs.
You can find rodeo x rigs on Instagram.
And then that will take you to rodeo x rigs.com to find out more about the events.
Anything else you want to tell the listeners before we give you the rest of your night back?
No, just, uh, appreciate you guys man.
Thank you for having us on.
And, um, you know, thank you.
Thank you for the community man for being so supportive on what we do and stuff.
That's awesome.
Thank you for coming on.
We appreciate it.
And we hope to see you this weekend.
Sounds good.
And then thank you.
So Perry sent out a photo on, uh, Instagram of his, uh, uh,
New Milwaukee, uh, fridge and all the other stuff.
And he said something about overkill.
And I'm like, I don't see you overkill.
And he just said in the chat room that, uh, he's, he's, he's got the McKenap fridge.
The coffee maker.
And he's been using them every day on a job site.
He never thought he did some so much.
The mobile fridge is probably one of the best things that was ever created.
You know what's funny is I was having a conversation with a group of people in the industry.
And, and they were, we were talking about modifications.
But they were like, what's your favorite modification?
I said, my fridge.
And he's like, what?
I said 100% my fridge.
And I never thought I would say, so if you're getting too off-roading,
it should be tires.
Fridge.
It's like a close second now.
It's either sliders or fridge.
Yeah.
Or to say.
Screw the sliders.

You know what?
Just tires and fridge.
That should be priority.
It's, it's so dumb how much I love my fridge.
Like, it's, uh, it's one of those things where you're like,
I didn't think I was going to be.
Well, you've never had it.
You're like, you just know what you know, right?

Once you experience it, like, if you borrow one,
or you see something, you're like, how the hell did I ever do this?
So that's the video that gets the picture that Perry said.
Like, how well.
How can I ever do this shit without this fridge, you know?
So, so how many batteries and how long.
Yeah.
Like, what's the math there?
He's like, how many carry 15, 20 bucks?
Right.
Exactly.
Oh, I got to do.
You know, I'm right out.
I carry eight.
Oh, right, I'll be batteries with me.
So I don't, you know, whatever.
And they worked this weekend or two weekends ago.
The Titan Pack.
I was going to say, did we talk about the Titan?
We haven't.
We need to do a full, like, full recap, a full thing on the recap.
Because, well, because last week, we had the catastrophe.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.

That's right.
That's right.
And that was a weird episode.
It was a very weird episode.
And Perry saying he gets about 14 hours on two five-an batteries.
A very weird episode.
A couple people have reached out asking me how the dog is.
And the dog is not.
The dog is.
We said goodbye to Carlos on Thursday.
Thank you for those that have reached out.
It's very unfortunate.
My wife is very sad.
And, you know, it's one of those things that is a pet owner you deal with.
I'm sad.
I'm sad.
But it was, it was very sad.
The, uh, so at the Yolo Wheeling event two weekends ago, uh, we were in featherly park.
It has no electricity whatsoever.
We were the MCs.
So we ran such a backwater.
Not backwater.
I'm just saying, considering, yeah, there's no electricity.
But there's amazing bathroom showers.
Yes.
All that stuff, right?
It's a RV park.
Uh, asked for us.
Like, it's an RV park.
There, there.
So there was an RV area that probably has full.
I'm sure it's full hookups.
The side of the park that we were on.
It was just like just park.
Yeah.
And underneath the 91.
Yeah.
And, uh, so we had to run, uh, uh, everything.
Wireless microphone.
Everything.
The PA system.
Two speakers.
My CPAP, our party speaker.
The, the whole thing.
We had about my, um, we used the Iron Man Titan pack to power.
That up.
Everything.
Full day.
Yeah.
A full day.
Yeah.
The one, one pack.
It was even charged all the way.
The first day was the first day was at 100%.
And it ran everything all day for eight solid hours.
Music all day.
Music all day long.
Wireless microphone.
Charged my phone.
Yeah.
Like, he did everything.
The laptop.
Uh, the, and then I also had my.
Robby battery packs and the converter.
There.
And so in the evening, I used that to power up some lights, charge my phone,
do some other stuff, and then I was experimenting with charging the, the
Titan pack.
The, the, the down.
I don't say downside, the Titan back.
But I think any of these battery packs is the recharge time.
Yeah.

It takes a long time.
So in my truck, I've got a one 10 outlet.
Oh, even at home, it takes along.

Yeah.
So when we were in Johnson Valley, I just plugged the Titan pack into the
one 10 outlet of my truck, and we're outwheeling for eight hours.
It eventually got charged back up, right?
At, at the event when we parked to camp, I let the car run for a while.
And then I've, I had a couple things to happen.
One, I didn't realize that I had the, the, the, the refrigerator.
And the, the Titan pack plugged in to the one 10 circuit.
And it was, it was flipping off and on.
So I had to unplug the, the refrigerator, plug that into the 12 volt.
Then I could charge the, the Titan pack.
And it got up to, I don't know, 40%.
50, it got down to about 20% after a full day of running the PA system.
It got down to about 20%, I think it got back up to like 40.
30% just running it like that.
And then I started experimenting.
I tried to charge it.
I tried to use the Reobi 18 volt inverter to, and plug the Titan pack into that.
It did not like it.
It did not like it would not charge because I'm like, I've been able to take the
Nobody likes probably OB juice to you.
Yes.
The, the green Reobi juice.
Yeah.
The, so then, so then the, and the way the Reobi converter works is if you plug it into a battery,
if you plug it into the cigarette lighter, it's like 100 amps.
If you plug it into the, the, the 18 volt battery, it's like,
It's like the other batteries.
No, like, that doesn't look like a real battery to me.
It's like, you know, I could say some controversial things, but it, that looks like a fake,
that looks like fake battery, juice to me.
And that's fine.
It works for me.
I like fake batteries.
But if you're a juice of choice, yellow, like the wall, I go to wall.
I'm invested in 20 volt to wall.
That's, I'm already, you know, I've read things that it's not the best and it may not be,
but it suits me and it's, and that's fine.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
You know, I think my dad still has a original, like,
Makita Power Jill with, like, those led asses.
Yeah, I don't have the long skinny ones.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just, the cylinder hole.
Yeah, I found one of those in my garage.
I, I found one of those on a first change out at my buddy's house.
Funny, funny, somebody had dropped it in there, like,
literally 25 years ago or whatever when the house was being built.
But sort of was that the, the Titan battery pack from Iron Man,
we used it at this event for two days.
And I use it at Johnson Valley for three days.
I am super impressed with the way this battery pack.
I think the next step is like the solar pack.
Yes, to see how, how, how trifector, right?
Right. Well, how quickly would the solar, you know, conditions varying or whatever,
but you're committed to it.
You're doing your own thing because again, I could have done that.
I could have just, I did run my truck to power my pack back up.
And I agree with you, it wasn't like super quick or anything,
but I did get, I got what I needed, but think about it.
But I could have left it back in pack.
Yeah, and just if we just put the power packing your tent and put the panels out in front of your tent.
You see what it does, yeah.
I'm back later.
I don't know some of these, and I don't know, and I'm going to try to look it up right now.
I should probably figure this out, but I don't know some of these power packs.
You can't charge in discharge at the same time.
Well, I, so yeah, I don't, I don't know.
Well, that seems horribly inefficient, right?
You're asking the essentially that battery pack or whatever to be.
Some sort of inverter or something.
That can't be efficient.
It'd be better to have multiple sources.
You have to go to intake and output.
I don't know if you pose heavier than I'm just saying.
It's very difficult.
Very difficult.
Don't do it if you don't have to.
But I was going to comment on, you know, having the,
been at that camp site with with the many people.
You see a lot of similar things, like a lot of the, the tents, the gazelles everywhere,
and a lot of the solar setups, like, you know,
it actually would have been who does to go around and interview people, like,
what, what works for you?
Like, you got a whole solar.
So like, from here, you know, like, does it work?
If you put that solar panel on top of your roof,
and you can just wire down, put like an Anderson plug.
Yeah.
Well, the right there.
The Titan Pack has an Anderson plug kit already.
Yeah.
So it's got the inlet.
It's got the little thing.
And if you buy the Iron Man solar panels,
literally plugs right in, like, plug and play.
And, um, I would have interviewed those people,
because I thought about that.
Like, well, how does this array set up work for you?
I was horribly hung over and I had no desire to go.
Let's be to anybody.
You guys work just wanted to.
Leave a day.
Leave me alone.
I dropped the bombs on day.
Yeah, you did.
So a lot of good photos of you.
Yeah, I know.
I mean, there was a dick picture.
And I think we're like,
No, it was a different thing.
You're face, but there might as well be.
Okay.
So this says that, uh,
the, uh,
6.5 millimeter DC or 30 amp Anderson plug input ports are compatible with charging
for charging directly from solar panels.
No external charge regulator is required,
but there's a lot of big deal because a lot of times you have to buy the solar panel,
and then you buy the regulator and then the regulator plugs into it.
Oh, wow.
This, this has a built in regulator.
So if you buy it, so you can buy the Iron Man panel, plug it straight in.
Right.
Solar solar charge.
Time over.
Right.
Yes.
Could out the middle.
Yeah.

Like, I want to plug something.
I need to plug something in this side.
I need to plug something on the other side.
Big work.
So here.
So this is, uh, maybe I should have read the manual before I use it.
So the input port.
Why bother?
Why now?
Estimated input port charging times.
Uh, eight and a half hours off the AC adapter.
16 hours off of a 12 volt cigarette lighter.
Uh, 13 out minimum of 13 hours off of the USB C charger.
That's not bad.
Eight and a half hours at 18 volts for a solar DC port.
That's not bad.
That's just, same amount as a, as plugged into the outlet.
And a seven hours for a solar 30 amp Anderson port.
Uh, it's just a guideline.
Um, the kind of given research.
I'm trying to find.
It's also like, I need to.
I need to know.
What's wrong with that Anderson port.
You know, like, I didn't even know one thing.
Control.
Yeah.
Give and receive.
I can't seem to find it inside the PDF.
Uh, repeat.
Yeah.
Uh, so it's.
I'm trying to find that part out.
Um, I know.
I know.
I know it can't give and receive when it's plugged into the 110 volt.
I know it's a, I know it's a, there's a maximum.
It can receive.
I think it's like a 100 watts.
Yeah.
I think it's a 100 watt.
Uh, a solar panel.
You can.
Let's go.
Let's say.
Okay.
So when to include a 200 tube of cool.
When the titan 500 is recharging the USB and DC 12 old output ports are workable.
But the AC output port is shut down at that time.
So you can give and receive.
You just can't give and receive 100.
It's not equal.
It's not one for one.
Yeah.
Somebody's going to lose, you know.
You know, it's just something compromises must be made.
Yeah.
Hey, switch off.
Okay.
See.
Okay.
So that long story short is.
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
Short short and long.
Short short and long.
I'm super happy with that.
100%.
100% that that titan pack ran my fridge.
The whole weekend.
So they're not said.
So not so having use it.
Would you have.
Would you have wished it was like a bigger battery pack?
50 amp hour.
How big is the battery and that thing?
I'll look back up.
It is 50.
52 amp.
Right.
52 amp hours.
There's other companies that have like giant ones.
Do like 1,500.
Sound about size sometimes.
I know.
I'm just saying is there.
Do you think there's a 50 minutes.
Is there like a diminishing return?
I think it's just like anything.
If you have 2,000 amp hours.
Yeah.
You're going to plug in enough stuff.
Yeah.
Think about this.
Yes.
A year ago.
Two years.
Ten years ago.
There was no cell phone reception.
There was no rooftop tax.
There was.
You had a styrofoam cooler and some beer.
Yeah.
That was okay.
You bought that fucking shitty white cooler.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The whole fucking.
So now we're at the point where we're bringing 51 amp hours of power.
And you got ice cream the whole fucking time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's one of those things where if you have the power, you'll use it.
Again, that's ran all three days at 35 degrees.
Yeah.
I'm down here for you.

Yeah.
Yeah.
So if you.
If you were like.
And I could have been more strategic and just unplugged it every night.
You know, but it does.
It does drop like if if you get back up to 46 or whatever.
It'll pull down.
Like very quick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's what I do.
And it stays.
Mine turns off overnight and still cold in the morning.
Yeah.
So the we're talking about the the Iron Man fridge is it if we run all day long with the fridge
plugged in.
And you get to camp and you turn your truck off and you've got it set at 32 degrees.
It'll be 44 degrees when you wake up in the morning.
It's it's about a 10 degree.
The only time that was an issue was Mojave 2022 when it was 115 degrees at night.
But under normal.
But I still feel like I 100% if I had that that pack.
It would have been a completely different experience.
100%.
Yeah.
That the.
Yeah.
And and a shade like.
You know, say he's on and would have been great.
If the entire camp.
I can't believe that.
Yeah.
Jose's can't if you've been amazing the the.
Uh, a fridge Iron Man fridge in the Iron Man pack game changer, right?
I'm for sure.
I fully believe that.
Under like the say last weekend if I wasn't in running a PA system all day long for two days.
And or if it wasn't Johnson Valley where I was running an electric blanket all night long.
That that P that power pack.
We'll get you through a full weekend of charging your running your refrigerator at night doing some lights at the campfire recharging your phone.
Whatever.
There's I don't see.
I don't see your power needs aren't yes.
I don't see any any it makes a huge dent on your power needs.
Not to mention like that fridge is great because you're you're packing that thing tight.
There's no there's no space loss for ice and slush and whatever.
You're you're you're it's a refrigerator.
Yeah.
Pack that shit as time as you want it for me at this time.
I don't see.
I don't see me needing more than this pack can provide.
Yeah, I don't like what else are you going to play in dude.
I mean, let's say like your video editing on the road.
Yeah, you might you might need a dedicated one.
You might need two of these.
I don't know.
A solar array would sure I'll take it.
And and just beat that that'd be a part of your strategic.
You know, whatever.
All right, I'm setting up camp.
You set up your solar array.
You set up your ten or whatever it is.
And then yeah, you're you're good to go.
It's like a perfect solution.
So you don't have that like a second battery.
Yeah, you're truck.
This this is like the perfect solution.
Yeah, until your needs exceed what this thing can do.
Then you'll have to do all like dual battery setup.
Yeah, I'm in your truck.
I am totally 100% happy with the way.
The the Titan pack works.
And in the trade fridge was I mean, it is a game changer 100%.
Yeah.
And I'm like the the last guy to be.
I mean, I was intrigued because again on that super hot trip.
You guys read nice cream like I night.
Two or like Jesus.
My watch.
Yeah, my is was melted by day one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I had to go into that gas station.
That's right.
And buy some.
That's right.
It was incredible.
It was incredible.
How hot it was.
And then to see you guys eat nice cream.
You know, there's a lot of anger.
So I started one eye open.
And I like.
You did.
He did.
Yeah, he's not.
They're going to take my.
They're going to take my fridge.
Yeah.
So that's our.
That's our quick review of the.
Iron Man Titan pack.
You can go get the Titan pack.
Uh, right now an Iron Man 4 by 4 dot com.
Iron Man 4 by 4 America dot com.
They are in stock.
They are 449.
Use code Trail Chaser's 20 to get 20% off of that.
Um, if that was.
But great.
It's a great deal.
Great investment.

It's a pretty decent.
And this discount.
Um.
And, and the fridge has like a tanfoss compressor.
Oh, yeah.
Like, uh, it's not like a.
A piece of equipment.
No, no, no, no.
It literally, uh, that that that's quality.
Like, tanfoss isn't cheap stuff, you know, as far as, uh, from my, uh,
Uh, HVAC and we're, we're refrigeration.
Uh, big.
The gold standard right there.
It.
It.

It's been around for.
Sure.
And it's, uh, it is a great, uh, a great manufacturer.
Um, but I want to do a blog post on the Titan Pack and on the refrigerator.
I just haven't had time to do that yet.
I thought the blog post fairy was going to do that.
Plus, uh, you know, one other, one other thing I was going to mention,
like when we got back and, uh,
uh, I used, uh, I drained down the Titan Pack and my, uh,
uh, I have my CPAP thing as well.
When I got home, that following week,
we had major storms or whatever.
I made sure to plug that stuff in because that Titan Pack would run,
like my CPAP for probably a week, you know,
and it was like, what if we lost power?
Or what would I be?
I'd either go, uh, because again,
you guys know how important it is for me to have my CPAP.
Knowing that I could run that thing off of that, uh,
Titan Pack for numerous days, uh,
as well as monies, you know,
I'm sure, or go get a hotel for 200 bucks and I understand like that.
I immediately made sure to plug that.
It's kind of an emergency, uh,
backup plan as well, you know.
And I'm not saying that that's,
ooh, go ahead and get one because it's your emergency plan.
But for me, it is like,
but you have it.
That's exactly.
It's ready to go right now.
Yeah.
That's, you know, one of the things about, uh,
building up a gear set that allows you to take some of these
amenities with you on the trail.
You also have them at home.
Sure.
Sometimes we have a pool party and you take the fridge out there,
plug everything in.
Now we've no one has to walk into the house or around
to the garage to get a soda.

I mean, it's, it's, it's, anyways.
He's got a new sleeping bag.
And it was awesome.
Like, yeah.
It had like, uh, like, uh, just a, uh,
uh, cut out.
No.
It just had a zipper or whatever, uh,
tell me more.
Velcro.
Had a Velcro, uh, Velcro latch or whatever at the end.
So it didn't like, if I rolled over,
it didn't just blow open.
Oh, yeah.
You know, it just held the zipper closed.
That was really rad.
So I was able, I don't, I'm, I'm a, uh,
I'm a lumbering sleeper.
Like, I roll around a bunch.
And so if it's just a, uh, zipper that's, uh,
you know, holding the bag closed,
it's probably not enough.
Yeah, having noticed.
Yeah.
So I had to have that little latch, you know,
the Velcro thing was really awesome.
So I'm really super stoked about my new sleeping bag.
Plus it's negative or zero degree bag.
Negative zero.
Yeah.
You know, it's about the same.
Uh, okay.
Uh, couple quick things.
Uh, that we have a new video up on our YouTube page,
just because we needed to do something, uh,
different.
So it's a little highlight video that we put up there.
The highlight real fairy showed up and did that, uh,
over the last couple nights.
Um, I have seen something.
And I'm assuming everybody has seen this.
If you're on any level of social media,
you have seen this.
I'm going to put it up on the screen.
And you guys tell me if, oh, yeah.
Oh, my God.
Okay.
Can't avoid it.
Oh, my God.
This is the video.
You've all seen it.
This is the video of the Kia Soul getting,
oh, what the fudge on a California highway.
Dude, imagine driving.
You just drive fucking on your own business.
I was fucking the fuck.
I was crying on the couch watching this.
And Tammy's like, I don't understand it.
And I'm like, look at that Kia Soul.
He's just fucking driving.
He's just cruising like a hamster.
Yeah.
So he's cruising along like a hamster.
Be popping down the freeway.
This tire shoots out from underneath them.
And then fucks my back.
And afterwards, like, I'm not fucking done with you.
My favorite part of this.
Hey, Kudosu, Kia, though, because the air base,
they went to guy lived.
The guy, they went, if you see when he's flipping,
they're already deployed.
Well, what he, he hits the tire.
So my favorite part of this is his son.
His son.
No, his son is he locked up in the air.
His brake like they're on.
He's like, oh, shit.
I got this stop.
I got stop.
I got stop.
And I'm just picturing this dude.
Fuckin' fucked up the floor.
Fuck.
Pulling on the steering wheel.
Okay.
So I think it.
Dude, you remember who from Roger Rabbit when the,
when the, when the weasels are in the car.
And they're about to get into an accident.
And their eyes filled the entire windscreen.
This guy's eyes.
You, I guess he's a 134, like, Pasadena.
No, it's, uh, I thought it was,
Oh, uh, it looks like 134 heading in.
It was this decido.
Oh, I thought it was, uh, go back to the beginning.
Code.
See the highway.
172 or something like that.
Uh, it does look like the 134, right?
I agree.
Uh, near Glendale.
Like by, uh, Eagle Rock.
Eagle Rock.
Yeah.
Um,
There's the, that's it.
That's a Chevy, right?
That.
Oh, yeah.
It was, it was perfectly time.
Where was I?
I'm going to spit this tire, right?
That's the Chevy.
The Chevy just got his deep dish brodozer wheels
at the local tire shop and some kids, some intern.
Put too many chug a chug as on the, on the impact range.
And what?
Yeah.
That's it.
Not, not, not, not.
Um, and I swear I.
Damn.
Once I found out this person was in dead,
I was dying.
I watched it over and over and I was laughing my ass off.
Because boom, brake lights.
And he's like, and he's 10 feet in the air.
He's, he's well above the height of that full-size truck.
If the entire vehicle, if you go in,
can you imagine that like, I think about like,
my wife and my kid just driving,
fucking down the road.
You're just cruising along.
Fucking mine in your own business.
And all of a sudden, you're staring at the sky.

Like there's nothing, there's got,
absolutely nothing this person could have done.
And a short of negligence, which we don't know,
there's nothing this Chevy guy could have done.
Yeah.
Dude.
Fuck.
Dude.
I assume this is, this is what it's like,
like around the world, like other than here,
like just some fucking crazy as shit.
Uh, this, this stuff.
Talk about stuff.
I've had it all the time.
I'm running my bike.
Yeah, goodbye Jose.
I'll, I'll inherit your bike.
You already said, if you die, I get your bike.
Do, yeah.
Any, this, that's the other.
Woo.
Uh, transition to.
Oh, okay.
But yeah, that's fucking crazy, man.
Like, dude, that, that's,
it's like the worst fucking possible thing that can happen
to either one of these.
Oh, yeah.
The, the, the fucking Kia, dude.
He's, did nothing wrong.
No, just driving.
Same.
And the Chevy owner's like, dude,
he didn't want that shit.
He or she didn't want that shit.
Like, that's the, the tires.
I fuck you.
I'm not done with you.
I'm going to wreck the bad guys.
Oh, shit.
Um, yeah.
Again, short of negligence.
Let's say this Chevy dealer, the Chevy truck.
Didn't know there was anything wrong with the lugs.
Yeah, but the tire is not even shaking, right?
No.
It's like, it's boom.
Just like, that's why I think it was over tightened and snapped.
Yeah.
That felt like it was loose.
Um, and fuck.
And now the, the Chevy guy is drag in his vehicle
across the side of the road now to get off.
And, and he's like, he probably has no idea this just happened.
See, it should like this that like makes me think stuff is meant to happen.
Cause thinking about all the things that had to go, that had to happen.
For this guy that's driving that's video has this cam on.
Yeah.
His car to fucking catch this.
And this per, he was like, he was in a Tesla.
They record full time.
Oh, okay.
I didn't know was a Tesla.
I thought I was like a stupid ass Tesla.
Yeah.
Anyways, that, this thing has been all over social media.
If I, I, I'm positive you have seen it.
Um, it was absolutely insanity.
Um, so, uh, I've been spacers for the win.
Hey, man.
Run.
I don't, I don't think it was spacers.
I didn't, it didn't look to me.
It honestly looked like the lugs just were over tightened and snapped.
Yeah, I don't know, man.
I mean, it seemed like it was tracking true into that moment.
Yep.

Boom.
Damn.
Um, and then, um, uh, so let's, let's roll right into, uh, what you did to Jose.
I don't want to talk about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I do.
But I do.
Yeah.
Uh, when, um, we were, I mean, I made Jason earlier.
And he was talking about his dad on an ATC.
And he got his leg caught.
And I was like, Oh, God, don't, don't talk about that right now.
Jose, you don't worry about getting your legs caught.
You don't have an ATC.
ATC.
There's not a third wheel or whatever.
You'll be fine.
That's immediately what I thought.
Look, man.
Uh, so yeah.
I got a fucking dirt.
You, you, you, you bought a dirt bike that has a street.
You, you, you, you, you bought a dirt bike with, with plates on it.
Yeah.
It's, it's my daily cruiser now.
But, but dude, God bless you.
I'm, I don't know what I'm doing my life right now.
Uh, I shouldn't have bought this fucking thing.
You know, you're wrong.
You made a hundred percent, uh, one hundred percent.
I'm going to great decision.
I'm going to agree with you.
Jose was a bad decision.
Yeah.
I agree.
Matt, Matt, things are the good decision.
Well, wait till Casey comes on next week.
Matt, get his opinion.
Um, it's going to be fun.
You're going to have, it's going to be fun.
Um, it's, it's, uh, you know, it really comes down to what you plan on doing with it.
What you plan on using it for.
I mean, dude, you guys are like, that said, I'm not driving on the road.
You, you can.
And, and, and maybe you're a better rider than me.
I'm just saying I just, I wouldn't do it like I wouldn't do it on Nabi.
That's Jose.
A dirt bike on Nabi tires is not a fun experience.
Like after you change the oil and you want to drive it around the block a couple times.
Okay, cool.
But like, hey, I'm going to commute to work.
Fuck that.
I don't like even.
All right.
Well, I don't, I don't know.
All right.
No, but I won't tell you if you don't do it.
Like try it.
Super motivated.
Try it.
Let us know.
Like set up where you got street tire tires like a whole different set of Rams.
Like you just bolted up coming.
I'm going to be on the street.
You're going to be on the street.
You're going to be on the wheelie king from now.
And I bought a bike that's way dude.
I bought the fucking stupid bike.
Where did you buy it?
It's a KTM 450.
That's, I'm going to fucking die.
I was going to die on the fucking bike.
I wanted a bike.
I'm, you're, that's, that bike's fine for a guy your size.
Yeah.
Like that bike will be.
Uh, uh, uh, you would have been disobeyed.
Some of the bikes that you were, you were looking at before.
Yeah.
Or like it would have been just like brick strattin.
A lot more motors.
But I wanted to learn how to ride that.
That's, that's where, yes, where you don't understand is this all.
It'll, it'll make it easier.
It'll be, yes.
It is harder to learn when you're, when you're,
you're trying to get from zero to five miles an hour is a full throttle.
Right.
That's, that's, that's impossible.
You'll, you'll learn throttle control immediately.
Like when the first 15 minutes.
Did you do that article?
I sent you a article with the different, uh, or it was like an image with all the different types of bikes, or maybe I didn't send it to you.
I think I didn't send it to you because I knew you would already picked what you were going to do.
But, um, like, you're, it's going to be fun.
Um, I would suggest that if you, if you are going to do any significant amount of street writing on it,
and who knows, maybe the tires that are on there are a different compound.
Most, no.
No, they're, probably not.
These are set up.
This is, like, a pure dirt.
It's a street.
I'm sorry.
It's a track bike.
Yes.
Said it was most weird.

It's even, it changed the sprocket because he did a lot of single trail.
So it's like, dude, you can't go, he's like, you can't go more than like 65 on this.
I'm just telling you that bike will accelerate great.
You know, if you're on the street from light to light,
but it's not going to stop great.
Try different tires.
Supermodel style.
Yeah, get those tires.
Like, just get those, uh, front and rear rims and tires ready to go.
All right.
I'm not going to go off-roading for a while, put it on, put that set up,
and see how that works.
Uh, I'm sure I guarantee you to work better.
Um, and then, because again, I think of, I think of it like, uh,
my paddle, like, I have a paddle set up,
and you swap over, like, actually,
I still have to take the rim and everything and get it swapped out.
If you don't have another, I don't have it.
We educated wheels.
No, but I would.
I would told you should do that.
I'd like to do that.
Uh, you should do that if you're certainly going to do street dirt.
You should have that.
I guess that's the best, best of both worlds, right?
Like, having your, uh,
you're going to get the most out of that bike for sure.
But, uh, cool man.
Yeah, how's it going at that poem?
Okay.
That phone f-ing, uh, thing, but
yeah, what dude?
Your bike has like, a steering damper.
It's like the, the guy who owned it, dude.
This guy, he's likeee a lot of good mods on it.
He's a real owner.
He's a real owner, if I'm in 2006.
The only reason why he sold it is because he bought a Husker Farna 501.
Like a 2023, which was right there,
when it was just sitting there.
That's like $15,000.
Yeah.
So he's stepping up, but he's leaving you.
And you're really good at it.
Yeah.
And he's like, he just got, because he rides up to big, he lives in
Mentone and he rides up to Big Bear.
And he was just tired of dealing with the carburetor, like,
going from the elevation.
So you feel injection.
Yeah.
So he's like, so I get, I'm going all in.
And, uh, he bought that Husker Farna 501.
Okay.
You don't give a shit about elevation.
Well, I'm not planning on riding to Big Bear anytime soon.
Yeah.
So this is what I was saying.
Like, I dig this.
There's a poster here.
Oh, yeah.

The differences between a cafe racer.
He had one of those two in a scramble.
Like, I love the idea of the cafe racer tracker scrambleer type
as a, as like my next, as a next bike versus see.
But I think you're, I think the last impression of riding that,
you know, 600.
It, like, did everything so good right on the street.
But if you kind of want to the fucking scramble,
like, man, this shit sucks.
But my, my needs, my ex needs and expectations are different now.
When, when I was in my 30s on a 600cc bike,
I was kind of hoping I wasn't going to make it.
Like, like, you know, I didn't give a shit.
Like, it was, uh, I wanted to see how fast I could go.
Push it as hard as I could go.
I wanted to lean as far as I could lean.
Um, now I just be, like, hey, uh, let's cruise down to grab some breakfast.
You know what I mean?
And, and I have no, no need to outrun anybody.
There were times, even on my cruiser when I had my, uh, my 1600cc cruiser
where my buddy and I, we'd be riding on the freeway
and we would see a group of, of, of crotch rockets, a group of racers.
Even though we both have racers back in the,
but we were happy to be on our cruisers that day.
We would intentionally, like, we would see it and in sync.
Hit the throttle.
No face, like, just open face helmets.
Fly by those guys at 120 miles just to prove a point.
Yeah.
Like, I don't need to do that anymore.
You know, I mean, I, I just, I would just want to have some fun on a bike.
But yeah, I mean, uh, again, I'm not making good life choices right now.
But I think, I think you're making the best life choices.
Whatever you're, whatever you're, whatever you're, whatever you're,
whatever you're, whatever you're, you're, you're re-aligning your shock rise right now.
One hundred percent.
Uh, but I'm super excited, man.
Like, I'm telling you, as soon as I took that motorcycle class and like,
I need to get one of these fucking things.
And it's, it's, once you start, well,
I'm hesitant.
And I don't want to be negative, but I'm concerned.
Part of my reason for being concerned about you getting a dirt bike that you're writing on the road
is my experience on a dirt bike on the road was not good.
And if the only thing I had known was a dirt bike on the road,
I'd been like, this is, this is dumb.
Yeah, I don't want it.
But having the ability to ride a small cruiser, a large cruiser,
and a sport bike, you know, I, those are the three different bikes I've owned.
Prior to writing as dirt bike on the road, like writing a dirt bike on the road,
you go, okay, well, that's just because that's what this is.
Yeah, you know what I mean?
And it's not the only experience you've had.
I, I hope that you have a good experience.
And, you know, it, it, you feel good about it.
Yeah, me too.
You will feel good about it.
You're just not going to ride to, you're not going to take that thing on the highway
and ride to raise a road to go ride for the weekend.
No.
You're still going to put that thing on the back of your truck,
just like a regular person with a dirt bike.
And then you're going to ride, you know, whatever, because again,
it is a dirt bike.
It's just registered with the state that, again, that's cool.
So you can fuck around town.
And like if you wanted to, you know, dig around your house,
whatever and just, hey, you know, whatever that means.
I'm going to go to the park.
I'm going to go to the park.
I'm going to go to the park.
You're not going to go to the grocery store.
You're not going to go to the bar, you know,
but coming over here or going to get some lunch or,
you know, like, there's plenty of things you can do on that bike
and it's going to be fun.
That thing is going to be fun.
Yes.
And I do think you need to do the super moto, put some street tires on it,
and see, see, I don't know that.
I don't know what that's about.
I don't know.
I don't know how the bike would behave, you know,
but I just saw, I saw a guy in a Honda gromm right here when I was turning on
on Bellevue.
I was like, man, I should've got one of those gromm's,
and those, those Honda ruckus are super cool.
What do you think?
What do you think?
The Honda, the ruckus?
The gromm, dude.
You haven't seen that here.
I'll pull one up there.
One's Honda, one's the, the gromm is.
Right.
Matt, do you remember like, when we were high school,
there was the pocket bike ride.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, at the other day, I was taking my kids to top golf,
and I went past two of these dudes.
Yes.
And it was like, get the hell out of the way.
You guys are just problematic.
No.
And then there's this one, the ruckus.
It looks like a scooter, but it's,
No.
It's coming out.
No.
They're doing, they're doing like full custom street racers,
called our ways to money.
Did you see the big wheel crew?
I've sent you guys videos from the big wheel crew.
I think it's got the big wheel crew.
And it's guys that, these,
the guys that make trikes,
like full on motorcycle, like trikes.
Um, those are people that live in like rural areas,
you know, whatever.
There's like no, there's nothing fucking around.
Danger of them getting tea.
Yeah.

Exactly.
Like a truck.
The odds of getting, uh,
right, yeah, run down by another vehicle,
or whatever.
It's like, uh, exponentially lower than around here.
Like, you're gonna die.
And that's I'm saying,
I saw two of those guys, uh, two or three days ago.
Like,
the fuck are you guys doing on baseline on these stupid ass bikes at traffic head
to slow down,
that the guy in the back,
because they were riding in tandem,
the guy in the back's like,
I'm assuming the one in front didn't have the skill level,
and he was scared or whatever the fuck.
But the other guy was like,
slow down,
you trying to slow up with the fuck.
You had to have somebody with you with like,
uh, to, to change lanes and shit.
That's dumb.
That's retarded.
You shouldn't, you shouldn't ride those things.
You shouldn't ride those things on the street.
So now that I'm a KTM owner,
what does that say about me?
I don't,
apparently KTM, uh,
barely you don't reach.
Not, this is a fucking, uh,
you got $1,6.
It's a 2006 KTM.
Um,
I think it automatically,
it means you get to look down on me.
If we go riding together,
like,
oh, this guy,
I'm back on the top.
I used to be North Montana.
It sounds like the move you made,
because I told you,
I told you in a text.
Would you rather die on a KTM,
or a Suzuki?
All right.
That's a KTM perspective.
I put it in perspective.
Mark's on his mouth.

right.
He's right.
Uh,
so that just again,
put you ahead of me,

but that's sort of,

like,
KTM everything now.

yeah,
because soon as,
as I bought that,

as soon as I got the Cali from Cody,
I had a,
all Cali shirts and,
you know,

matching decor.
It's going to be slow,


you'll see,

maybe,
or maybe KTM hat now,
and then show tour,
Yeah.
andâu's hat,
and then with,

we're going to be like,
Hey here's Abur go on wheel and he's like,
I can't go wheeling.
I'm meeting with my,
my German,
a motorcycle street.
my scooters trip,
yeah.
That's your,
your or a hustle meeting.
With Guantan,


yeah,
I'll say,
start getting to German axe

That's been like,

Yeah.
Speaking of German,
there is a show on Amazon Prime Call of Hunters.
What kind of it is?
It's,
it's,
it's a very good.
We,
I want to go to detail because it's very,
it's visceral,
but it has a lot to do with Hitler and the Holocaust
and and a bunch of stuff.
It's good,

great show.

Wait, what's the show?
Hunters.
It's absolutely worth watching.
Um,
the,
okay,
I just remind me because we were talking about Hitler.
Uh,
I don't think Hitler was brought up.
I brought it up.
I brought it up.
Like,

we talked about Volkswagen's earlier.
We think of Hitler automatically.

Yes.
I can bring in Hitler,
not me.
I just,
God.
You know,
somebody would German descent.
I resent that,
like you.
Get me over the head with Hitler.

Yeah.
It was bad.
He was just like a giant hole in your history from like
1934 to like 1940.
1940.

You think?
He was like,
we've learned to deal with that.
You know,
on his pants and you know,
whatever.
So when, when you go and write him,
when are you taking it writing Saturday?
Saturday?
My,
inaugural fucking ride.
Where you going?
Oh my god.
You type a down a fire road.
My butt next to my buddy's house.
Matt's supposed to go,
but you know what?
I didn't know you were buying a ball.
Like this week.
So I'm going to go right in your way on your bike.
But yeah,
if it's my bike,
it's like,


you know,
trying to start it or whatever.
I was just going to say whatever.
Like,
now it's like,

fuck,
I got a kid on that shit.
I'm going to try and get.
I'm going to pull it out of
moth balls tomorrow.

I'm going to,

I'm going to empty the tank.
Make sure I don't have any
care to see in there.

And just been a few years.
I'll come out
I'll come out with my mountain bike.
Because that's as fast as you guys are going to go.
That's,
It's, it's, it's spicy.
Yeah.
No, I, I,
what's the over under?
100 feet.
No.
No.
You'll, you'll go 100,
this is what this was going to happen.
This always happens.
You go 100 feet.
Yeah.
And then you go 200 feet.
I think I've got you go 400 feet.
Next in your,
you're on your,
and then you're on your ass.
And then it's,
it's never the first time out.
It's the,
it's the third or fourth lap that you start to get confidence in wash out.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, it's, it's when you start,
you know,
trying to grab throttle when you shouldn't,
and you don't know when you shouldn't.
And it's usually,
on a flat turn or something like that.
And it's like,
you just don't realize like how easy the,
you know, the,
I will be honest.
I am extremely terrified.
Like I'm not.
I'm there.
I'm really fucking nervous right in this.
Every time I rode my bike,

I was less terrified doing a hundred miles an hour on my street bike.
Then I was on my dirt bike because my dirt bike spent more time on the ground.
Then my,

although my street bike,
weird story.
My,
I had a flat and I had to get a new back tire from my R6 and new tires are slippery.
And you need to break them in.
And I knew this.
And it had been a couple months.

a couple weeks since I'd ride written that R6,
I was riding my other bike.
And left my house,
went down my old house down to the corner.
And there was a 90 degree turn.
And I just,
I just overthrothled.
And the back tire split right out from underneath me.
And I was going 10 miles an hour,
15 miles an hour every.
And the back tire spun out.
And I literally just put my foot down.
And the bike.
And the bike,
yeah,
spun around in circles.
Oh, shit.
I got to be careful.
Like got back up.
But that's,

it's,

I'm fucking terrified of that thing.
Just knowing where,
where the gear dude,
where the helmet,
where,
where a padded jacket,
where don't get overly confident.
Like you're going to,
you're going to want to hit the throttle,
because it's fun.
Do it on a very clean straightaway.
And make sure you can see what's in front of you.
And whatever time,
whatever distance you think you need to break,
give yourself a twice the next step.
Yeah,
five, five times the beginning.

Like,
I've watched Matt come up to a turn.
Lock up breaks.
And he's going to die.
I mean,
behind the picking,
we should be slowing down.
We should be slowing down.
And then Matt locks up.
Takes the tail around and is gone through.

100%.
Like,
that takes the time.
Yeah,
you're,
you're not going to have that for a while.
No.

but for that,
for that time being just,
like you said,
look for straight opportunities to gas it.
And just,
that's your,
that's your happy time.

okay,
cool.

When you're running,
yeah,
just to pay early break,
let the engine break for you,
like downshift.
Yep.
And hold that break down.
And then just don't get too aggressive.
Don't get too confident.
Don't get too confident.
Look,
I have,
I have no ego.
So I might even be in a fucking bringing on the trip.

like I said,
I'm fucking terrified.
I'm going to just be into it,
dude.
We're talking first day.
So yeah,
just wheeling around somewhere flat,
where you can see what you're doing.
Yeah.
That's fine.

That's cool.
What does that?
That is a,
uh,
a lot of,
No, it's a,
it's a scramble.




it's a,

you're cutting scramble.
you're cutting so still.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Uh,
I may or may not be browsing motorcycles now.
asshole.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Yes.
See my hands.
But you're not going to get a bike.
And I already have,
I already have one for him.
What?
Well, right.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I can ride with him too though.
I just swap out tires.
I don't see me getting another dirt bike ever.
I didn't say dirt bike.
I didn't even.
I have,
I have both.
I'm played it.

Mmm.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Um, talking.
Well,
but I don't know what I'm doing right now.
I'm going to cheat my dirt bike.
And I'm going to buy a street bike.
Yay.
For me.
I win.
I win it all.
I don't know what I'm doing.
But I'm fucking super excited.
Jose,
I think it's like kind of,
I don't want to say it's kind of a downer.
It's just, it's going to get hot soon.
So yeah.
You have like two months of riding time on that bike in the dirt or whatever.

I guess you ride in the street and get some time in.
But dirt bike season is over in.
Yeah.
April.
But motorcycle street bike season is just starting.
Um, right.
And even though it's hot as balls, like you just.
For the opportunity to ride, you don't care.
You, you, you still wear jeans and boots.
Should get these with your balls off.
And then you just go.
But I have a, I have a fridge now.
I'm talking about the, the bike itself though.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
No.
You go putting around for 15, 20 minutes.
You got to go back to your truck.
Let it cool down.
No.
Is that in fucking 100 degree plus weather?
I don't ride that weather.
I did.
You're going to do it.
I did when I bought my bike.
You're fucking going to again.
I need to know it.
I bought my bike in April.
My first shirt bike.
Yeah.
That that my arms in April.
And I rode through the summer.
We're going to ride.
So we're going to Elmarage a lot.
Uh, Jose.
Yeah.
Nicole's asking that you.

I know before you go out on that first shirt bike ride.
You, you do something for her so that she, she doesn't get.
I haven't got any notifications yet.
She'll know when there's, uh, we need to, uh, do an over-under on whether or not Jose is going
to be on the show next Tuesday.
That's a good bet.
He'll be fine.
He'll be fine.
I'm saying he'll be here.
But he'll be in pain.
Oh, yeah.
So he'll be in pain.
Some sort of pain.
Well, yeah.
You're going to use muscles.
You've never used like that.
Exactly.
No.
If I go riding.
And I hope I hope I can on Saturday.
Like I myself.
If you haven't ridden shit.
Yeah.
You're something now.
You're going to make it, bro.
I'm going to be hurting.
I'm not saying hurting because I fall already.
Yeah.
Just, it's, it's just being on a, on a motorcycle in the dirt.
It's a, it's a, it's a physical exercise.
Like it's, it's like, it doesn't seem like, oh, what are you doing?
Yeah.
I'm shifting my weight around trying not to crash.
Like, it's, it's a lot of, uh, it's a, there's a lot of exertion.
And you're going to know exactly what, what that is.
You're going to use a lot of muscles you're not using.
Yep.
Which same here, which is why I don't, I don't want to, to get a dirt bike.
Because yeah, because here's me.
Yeah, you do.
Here's what you do.
You've seen it.
It's, it's that he's thinking about it now.
No, he is.
I'm not.
I'm not getting a dirt bike.
I said that too.
Look at me.

Okay.
Yeah.
Because I, if I get on a dirt bike, I will want to push it.
You don't have to get full sand, but I, whether I want you or not.
You're broken.
You're broken.
You're broken.
I don't know.
So that's it.
It's, you're a trail guy.
Yeah.
We're, we're all trail.
But I'm not good enough to be a trail guy.
Can we talk about your perfect trail guy?
Like, you're, you're, you're a trail rider.
You're all about a, you, stop it.
There's a, there's a, you have every bit of any,
a skill necessary to be a trail riding person,
wherever we go.
It's how fast.
It's, it's how ridiculous the people you're riding with want to go.
And we ain't doing that.
Well, that, that wasn't going to happen.
Back in the day.
It's just like anything else.
There's, there's levels to the ship, right?
So you, you might be like, dude, I think I'm the ship.
But there's always going to be someone riding.
I never thought I was the ship.
I wrote with people who were ship.


And I knew.
Oh, I suck.
I'm.
Intermediate.
Like, and I was happy about that.
And I, and my, I'm pretty intermediate.
My goal was just to keep up with Matt the whole time.
Yeah.
Like, when it came, when it came to riding a dirt bike,
I always felt like I was riding two notches above my comfort zone.
And it made me better.
So my comfort zone kept getting bigger.
But yeah, like we would go to Glamis.
We'd go on these rides in Glamis and in lines of side by side and,
and, and, uh, quads and dirt bikes.
And I see the guy out front.
And I'm like, there's no fucking way in my kitchen.
I'm just, he's going that direction.
I'm going to not die in that direction.
Like, that was my plan.
But Matt, to stop your fucking riding gear because.
Oh, I know.
Oh, no, I know we're going out.
Now, there's no, I got to go into training.
I have to, like, do I don't, I don't want to need a montage.
I don't lift things anymore.
I have no physical, uh, nothing.
I have, I'm just a office guy now.
So, but I'm super pumped about it.
Like, I've been waiting for somebody to get a dirt bike.
Let's go ride dirt bikes.
Cool.
And, uh, the fact that you have a dirt bike.
It's not like, uh, riding with my buddy Mike or these other guys that I've,
the last few times when I riding like, fuck these guys are shooting at a camp.
Like, like, they never, because they did.
They never stopped.
They never stopped.
They never stopped.
That's like Jesus Christ.
Well, thank God.
I know where you're going.
I'll fucking each guys there.
And the first two hours is like, I, you know, I'll get there.
Wait for me. I'll fucking get there.
And then, you know, but, but by the end of the day,
it's like, you're now I'm in the pack.
All right.
It's all back to me now.
But I'm still exhausted.
I'm still physically weak.
You know, I can't.
Whatever.
Thankfully, they drank a bunch.
So, that's the great equator.
Um, no, it's, dude, I'm excited.
Uh, go out riding.
And, you know, let's go hit.
Dude, raise a road.
Is a super fucking great place to ride.
Do my things.
Because it's all same.
I like riding soft.
Yeah.

Well, yes and no, you can get into some soft sandy trails.

That'll challenge the shit out of you.
But it's also if you don't make it, it's like flop.
You just flop over.
But that'll, that'll enforce, like, throttle control
and weight distribution more than anything.
Like, if you're in 1st or 2nd gear,
5 to 10 miles an hour in this little tight little area where you're just on the throttle
and you're working the clutch to, you know, redirect the bike through these tight areas
and your weight distribution.
Yeah.
Very technical.
And the, the penalty is, get flop over and like bike stalls.
You know, you got to kick it over a number of times.
But you're not doing, you know, 50 miles an hour
on something and then bush comes out.
I don't know where and wipe out.
You tumble over the bars or whatever.
And you know, like that.
Yep.
But that could happen too.
I don't want to take that away from, you know, possibility.
Well, either way, we.
Well, the chatroom seems that I'm won't be coming back.
Yeah.
We hope we hope Jose makes it back next week too.
But hey, guys, I'm remote this week.
He's in the hospital.
What are these alums?
What are you like screwed you and said?
Jose, are those screws into your head?
Yeah.

And they're just, yeah.
They can't.
No, I don't know.
I can't even speak.
Jose, please don't die this weekend.
Yeah.
I'm not planning on it.
We are, we are trying to figure out how to rearrange things to get to the
rodeo ex-meat at Crown Toyota and Ontario on Sunday.
So live from the children's hospital fundraiser for Jose.
But Jose wouldn't be at the children's hospital.
Oh, you know, if it's close.
It's like the closest one.
Yeah.
He's going to be at the, yeah.
Was it the, the Brawley, the Brawley hospital?
Oh, that's glamorous.
I know.

I know.
I know.
That next winter.
All right.
Everybody's from now.
Yeah.
Everybody, thank you for hanging out in the chat room with us tonight.
We appreciate it.
Thank you.
To Jason for joining us.
And if you are available come out to the rodeo ex-rigs meetup this weekend.
If you're going to come shoot us an email or a message on social and let us know that you're going to be there.
We are trying to make it happen.
Anything else, guys?
Before we cut out.
Don't die Jose.
I'm a KTM guy.
No.
For the next 72 hours.
All right, everybody.
Have a good night.
We'll talk to you next week.

Thank you for listening.
And if you want to be on the show, please leave us a voice message at 951394.
Dirt.
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Please go to Iron Man 4 by 4 America and get everything you need for your next adventure.
Thank you to Ryan Torrigno for all of the music.
And thank you to our patrons for all of their support.
Thank you.

Ep 263: Jesse Rizzo

welcome to the trail chase report cast hey everyone it's Cody this week's episode is a
little bit weird right after we started recording our interview with Jesse Rizzo from YouTube
fame Casey almost dropped his baby so he left the call then I had to rush off and take a
dog to the hospital then Casey came back on the show I think and I hope Jason Jesse had a good
time and I promise it's not usually this bad it's always bad but this is worse than normal
either way Matt and Jose had controlled the show for most of the night and I'm really not sure what to
expect I don't have time to listen to what they recorded before publishing it so we'll find out
together after Jesse's interview and Matt and Jose's discussions whatever they were I'm going to drop
the interviews we did at last weekend's Yolo Weeling overland show we talked to Jeff from tough stuff
overland Jim from top dog tents mark from Tortuga off road and Anthony from Fuller Truck
accessories thank you to those guys thank you to the Yolo Weeling team for having us and thank you
to everyone who came out to the show to spend some time with us especially our friend Nicole she was
a rock star all weekend helping us out we couldn't have done it without her but we just got to figure
out what's going on with her attitude lately
hey everybody it is 6.30 on Tuesday night we are live streaming on YouTube as we usually do on
on Tuesday nights it is dumping rain here in Southern California I think Casey is about 85 feet
under snow and we're joined by Jesse we're going to be okay I don't know what to do when like
that much water is coming down it's like very confusing to me yeah just stay and there's something
I just stay and go around yeah we're joined by Jesse Rizzo who was up in Rancho Kugumanga
California which is just a couple exits north of us and it is still dumping up there how you doing
and I just doing pretty good just raining I'm not liking that no it needs to stop it was weird
today there was a good and I'm sure everybody not in Southern California is tired of hearing us
talk about it but there was a there was about a four hour period where the sun came out I was like oh
sweet and then it jumped yeah so didn't somebody asked me to do like a rain dance or something
a while back it was right too good I've never asked you guys you can blame me I would never ask
you to do me that was asking you well you know what I worked you know next time I'll
reel it back a little bit I'll see what I can do about some sun so for those of you that don't
know I'm I would be very very surprised Jesse Jesse Rizzo is a super popular internet celebrity
on the YouTube's you can find him at Jesse J. E. S. S. E. Rizzo R. I. Z. O. On YouTube you're sitting at
over 41,000 subscribers which is like 42,000 more than we have and somehow somehow we have negative
1,000 subscribers but I mean I when was your first video Jesse when did you start because I
remember I want to say right around the same time that this started you were just starting out so when
did you start posting videos on YouTube so I'll I'll be honest I started posting early on but it was
nothing off-road related it was like random stuff that out when I was bored I'd upload it
I want to say probably 2015 is 2016 none of those videos are up anymore they're all of the
but when I actually started posting I'd say probably 2018 yeah around that time yeah I remember
we ran into each other at a couple meets couple meetups and that Jeep at that Jeep at the
Redlands Jeep dealership a couple other things where you were just really kind of catching
catching some momentum yeah what made you start doing it what why did you start posting off-road
videos in 2018 I want to say back in so backtracking to like around 2017ish what am I buddy
is actually got a Tacoma tier the off-road 4x4 if you guys were to see him you'd probably
remember him but his name was Chris and he used to take me just on trails and stuff and I
didn't have a Tacoma at that time and just the experience honestly that's kind of what made me
have fun with it and then from there I ended up buying my first Tacoma in 2018 and just from there
just started the videos and I enjoyed what I did and I got some positive feedback so just went from
that was so talk about that piece of it like YouTube's been around for a long time and
plenty of opportunities to to do stuff and what was the like what were you thinking when you first
were like hey I'm gonna I'm gonna post this video and see what happens like did you have
any aspirations of gaining followers or was it just like hey I'm gonna do this because it's fun
so I did not so in the beginning like I was saying I mean I posted my first video probably in 2013
2014 around that time frame I just used to post things for myself to keep it like for memories
and one time I posted something and it kind of gained some traction and I was like oh this is pretty
cool and then I stopped and then around 2018 when I came back I did not think I just kind of posted
that I can't remember what the first video was but it was something it was something embarrassing
because I know I don't have it anymore it's all embarrassing everything everything you do the
first time is embarrassing is hell a year later so just just accepted yeah and I mean it actually
did okay I at least used back of the day for me that was okay and from there I was just like hey
I should give this a shot and I used to like doing like like install stuff on my own truck and
when I would want you to videos of other people do it they just they would never explain in
depth so that would really piss me off so that's when I started saying hey you know what I'm
gonna do it myself and I'm gonna explain it for people can actually you know understand what's going
on so that's kind of where it started I'd say but that's you know that's a perfect
perfect example like a lot of people that are posting things they take a lot of things for granted
like of course a variety lefty left a variety tidy lefty Lucy and things like that then
let's go back to the what happens when you do write it out sorry I guess but there you do
righty lefty at the same time it takes a lot of that take you know I'd have to start my own channel
right when I just said but you know I think that's a perfect example which is just set there like
well there's a lot of things that aren't explained that are maybe taken for granted you know
by these professionals or people with a lot of experience so if you're taking the time to actually
fill that void or gap in information that's that's pretty valuable and I think from my personal
perspective I think that there's been a swing when YouTube how to install videos were kind of coming
out and being more of a thing and they in the early teens it was very curated like nobody showed
the mistakes nobody showed the reality of behind the scenes it was very like I'd look it takes
one time I've done this one no it took you 48 times to get that one take yeah and I feel like
over time people people have avoided those videos and gotten really connected to the ones that are
like hey man look I'm more about to do this thing it's gonna suck I'm gonna bust up my knuckles
and I'm gonna lose my 10 millimeter and like that's the reality of what's actually happening
and that's what connects with people more yeah because it's like just being the real person you
are with the people I mean not everybody's a professional not everybody's kind of understand these
fancy words I'm pretty dumb myself I'm not gonna lie you fit right in just we're pretty stupid
you know so I can't really say like big big words so I just tried to explain it as if I was
watching it so I just I tried it it's gonna sound mean but it's true I tried to dumb it down
sometimes you know yeah like like sample a fill-ups head I mean yes some people will know what a
fill-ups head is if you don't hey it's that tool you know that has a plus on the top right
you know like that but yeah it's it's been fun and then I mean over time I've also done like the
off-road videos and which that I really love it doing it's just that's uh it's it's harder because
you can't you can't control the lighting you can't control the sound you can't you know it's just
you're out there but yeah it's it's fun yeah the uh and the off-road the off-road thing is a hole
it's all whole underbeats and by the way I'm looking at the first it's called first ever meet and greet
recap who is syndicate off-road uh that's the video that we met up with you at um at the that's
the syndicate off-road event and yeah and that was three years ago yeah that's when we had syndicate
Yoda's uh which is what I would run and then we have the syndicate uh Jeep off-road you know and
yeah syndicate uh yeah the Jeep club I know that one's the one that kind of took us to the next level
but syndicate off-road was of course like the main of both and yeah I mean all of them were really
great guys everybody was awesome I mean you guys knew them so yeah yeah they're no longer around
is syndicate Yoda's and syndicate Jeep still thing no so uh around when everybody kind of started
splitting we just honestly stopped posting on the on the Yoda's page and I don't see I forgot the
password so I wouldn't even know yeah and my buddy kind of took over a little bit and it just
wasn't going anywhere so we just kind of left it alone I got busy with like my actual job I got
busy with YouTube so we kind of left that alone I know the Jeep club they were still kind of doing
things here and there and uh slowly it just kind of everybody just started doing their own thing like
I guess we all grew up I guess yeah I don't know boy it's it's interesting how um there's been
throughout the course of the last how many years we've been doing this since 2018 19 2021 22 23
speaking of not smart I'm using my hand so after the course of the last five years
watching different clubs come and go and different groups get together and break apart and
and like each one of those steps is an evolution for the people involved and like to your point
that was kind of that that took you the next level then it gave you some more content then you
started doing things but rather than when the groups split up rather than just going oh I guess that's
over you went hard on your own and started doing your own thing and really kind of started
propelling from from there what from your perspective what was the hardest part about
getting the YouTube page started and the second part of that question is what's the hardest part
about gaining momentum uh I guess getting it started the hardest part was
just thinking about what I'm going to do next as far as content I mean mine was mainly like a
how to install channel I know like I said I did do off-road content here and there but mine was
based on how to so that was the hard part because I mean of course as we all know modifications to
these rigs is not cheap so I had to I mean I'll be honest I have a couple companies backing me up
so that's what helped out but yeah just kind of creating it thinking of ideas thinking of how I'm
going to do it thinking just just the whole thought process to put it together um that was
the back end that's hard I know one ever sees I mean people think oh you make YouTube videos
super simple it is not it is not it's not it's not it's not first of all I made one video that was like
45 seconds long it took me six hours yeah and you talked about I'm still working on my first
video and it's been five years and you talked about not only the cost of purchasing the parts
to do the modification but you have your own job to do on a daily basis finding the time okay I
need to carve out two days and the other piece of that is every time we've tried to film
something while doing something one of two things happens you get shitty film or you get shitty work like
you kids so you have to a lot three times the amount of time to do a project if you're going to be
filming it yeah and I mean sometimes you gotta do a couple takes you know like like for me like
going back on I'm pretty dumb no like when I'm trying to explain things like I forget or like
I'm trying because it's harder it's easy to do it but it's hard to teach and I guess you can say
so that's sometimes you gotta just redo it or wait I said this wrong you know or let me re-explain
so that's like I said that's the back and hard part as far as momentum going that was another of
course challenge I mean I think that's for everybody and it's still out of you now be honest it's
still a challenge for me I wish I might go right now was I wish I would have been a little bit bigger
than what I am but it's fine I mean my life which is the same thing for me yeah but that's something
that we all struggle with yeah but I mean like just the to get the momentum it is the hard part too
because for example like sometimes I'll spend hours making one youtube video and to me it was good
I go to post it and it does not do good so that's and sometimes I'll do a video and do a
really really quick and I don't care about it and that one does good yeah so to be honest I mean I
don't even know how to gain momentum I just kind of I keep trying and then I kind of see what
people are liking and I base it off of that to try to get momentum that way so so what do people like
well I believe you talked about this we don't know we've talked about it in the past like it's
crazy when you see when you see someone that's got you know hundreds of thousands of
users or whatever and you're like what how's that content any different than anybody else is
and then you see someone else you're like oh my god this is amazing how does it only have
12 views like the world needs to know about this but I don't know how to do that I don't know
what the algorithms and and I create a hundred percent with you on that because there's I mean there's
other people that have surpassed me around the same time I started and they're huge right now and it's like
really but I mean I could kudos to them you know that's freaking awesome I'm happy for everybody that grows
but it just it trips me out like I have another buddy I wouldn't say like I don't know him personally
but I just know him for years on Instagram he's in Canada and his channel's called Ship in XX
he also has it to come a channel and you're watching his videos it's like man why aren't you big
the quality he has the the sound quality video quality and the way he puts everything together
the storyline it's like dude like how you said you know sometimes you watch these smaller channels
and it's like why aren't they really so I go with you me but yeah it is it's very interesting and I
think the momentum piece similar to so the podcast world is the consistency yeah like you're not
going to gain momentum after five episodes it may not be after the other five episodes it may not be
after 50 episodes momentum comes over for 250 or yeah or we're at 263 we're still pushing for that
moment we hope somebody hear something I hope I hope somebody hears this this episode Jesse
otherwise you're just talking to the three of us even Casey didn't want to listen to this episode
and he dropped off and he damned our parents yeah oh yeah my mom listens don't just
hi mom she listens but it is it's really it's really hard to gain momentum if you're not
willing to do it consistently yeah and I agree with you I mean I have what 500 plus videos uploaded
I think right now but like you said I mean going back to the beginning before I used to close
random one and then after like you said consistently then I started going into a routine and that's
kind of where I saw it help out so I guess that's where the momentum comes in with YouTube but yeah
what so right right now are you are you planning out I'm not gonna get some nitty gritty here
so like are you are you planning out like a content calendar that says okay I know I'm gonna have
releases on here here here here and here and here and this is gonna be this type of content this type
of content like are you planning that out or is it Monday and you're like well shit I got to feel
something so as of right now luckily like I said I mean I have some companies now that like
really do back me up so I have like parts for the following month so I do have everything planned out
I have a calendar I have a whiteboard where I put my ideas on and a calendar as far as
when I'm editing when I'm uploading and all that before I would not do that and I would stress
out like crazy and I mean like I said I mean I have a Monday through Friday drop so it's that
takes up a lot of my time I'm in sales so it's it's a lot of time so now my schedule what it is is
on Saturdays I'll film I'll try to film it all day and then Sundays I'll edit and then that
way for the following Sunday that'll be that video so every Sunday post and Sunday edit if that makes sense
yeah yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense yeah that's seven days a week they're busy dude like
that's yeah if we were doing this right we would be doing the same thing I mean it's we record on
Tuesdays I edit on Wednesday we release on Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday is hey do you want to
come on the show hey do you want to come on the show hey do you want to come on the show you know
I mean and right now we're in a spot where we've got a month and a half booked out but there have
been times where it's literally Sunday. Yeah there's been times where it's Sunday and it's like
shit we got to fight can anybody talk to us Tuesday like yeah and to your point I found a like a
project management software that I've been using for my my data data day to day job and all that
stuff and I've been throwing a lot of the content in there and that's really helping visualize
this is where we're at this is where we need to go these are the things I need to follow up on and
if you have a system whether it be a whiteboard or or a software I think that's a huge part
of building up that momentum that uses a thing called blue stream he's like really blue beam or
he's got a weak stream in blue beam okay he's always talking about if I have blue beam right now yeah
I'm working on my my streams my blue beams are our solid I'm rock solid blue beams yeah but
yeah there's always like those those project management tools that how are you using those to
project uh just interviews for the future about me yeah like I don't know now I'm interested
I well I don't want to throw it up on the screen but I've got now yeah we've got we've got a content
calendar it's a no pad no it's it's a full look it looks like that's that's our content calendar
that shows whose book whose we've spent it says very fast so nobody could see but we got going on
but it's us on the calendar yeah it's uh but it's it's these are people I've invited here's the
people that have booked here's the people I've scheduled you know color coded each one very very
much dude it's very very very fancy pants it's called the notion by the way it's called uh notion dot
SO is the software I'm using and I'm using it for project management tools directories like it's a
it's amazing tool notion dot is so um the uh going back to content so as you're as you're creating
this content and stuff are you are you are you feeding off of the input you're getting from your
watchers like hey well you do a video on how to install headlights like are is any of that taking place
so I try to do that as much as possible only thing with that sometimes they'll tell me like hey
can you show us how to install this bumper you know and you're like send me the bumper
you know but when it's like smaller things or if they ask for like a normal easy video that I don't
have to like spend money on you know that I could just go out and do it yeah I do it I mean every once in a while
I'll do that I think we need uh we need Jesse Rizzo's garage so when someone says can you show me how to
install this bumper they can come to Jesse Rizzo's shop he could yeah film it well he's right there
I'm just saying like that that's the next level is hey uh can you do a how to video on
this and you're like sure come to the shop on Saturday who will film it work together to get it
installed right how cool would that be yeah that's something I did honestly I want to do
I mean financially I probably can't but I did I didn't want to do that and I I honestly wanted to
do it this year yeah it's just like I said financially I wouldn't be able to but I would have
loved to do that only because one I'd get to meet you know my subscribers and I'd get to like
interact with them and that'd be you know fun to me uh I may or may not know a place that might
have a free uh service bay up in the mountains that you could potentially collaborate with but
we're so somehow Casey's not here Casey was here with my own with our nephew well he was
hanging out and he disappeared so I had it I had to kick him off the stream but we'll talk about it after
you kicked him off the stream yeah because didn't see what happened I saw so no do the rain
front of the bed oh my god yeah that's what I was like uh I heard I saw something happened
but I had that part covered up Casey got up sorry sorry Jesse we're worse but Casey got up oh
and then and then rain was just sitting there and he was slowly started tipping I was like oh my god
and he fell dude dude I don't and I and I test Casey right away dude is he okay and he's like yeah
I caught him right and I caught him but then all I saw I saw rain fall and then I saw
the rain fall outside his headphones go on the bed so I don't know I don't know what happened
I'm like okay so so we have to go back to the beginning of this interview because I did see some
commotion happening but I have I've got like 48 hours open so I didn't see you know but that's
what I was like I'm gonna end us his stream so apparently Casey killed my nephew we're talking about
it later but the yeah I think that's the hard part is like I mean if if you had access to
all the different vehicles and all the different parts and all I bet you could film a hundred videos
a week you know I mean it's it's the I go a full force with that yeah so we got to
we got to figure out how to like I said I feel like we we can find you an extra a service based
someplace that you can collaborate with and we'll we'll talk offline so what kind of so let's talk
about the equipment that you use to make your your videos because I I'm going to assume
we've not had any conversation about this but I'm going to assume over the last several years
there's been an evolution of in mirrorless cameras from a GoPro to to a cell phone to like
talk to me about like what kind of equipment you started with what kind of equipment you use now
okay yeah so when I first started I started off with an iPhone I'm sure I I would think you know
most people that's how they start I mean the quality of course is not that good when you
do it with the iPhone and then from there I started with the still with an iPhone but I got a newer
version and then I got it with the tripod I got a microphone for it so that way the sound quality
could be a little better and then from there I went to a GoPro and same thing I mean I got a
I got a microphone for that I went wireless for it and it's from there then I ended up getting
a canyon I can you remember the name of it it was like a really cheap cannon at the time
all I could afford and yeah and I used that one for for quite some time actually and then from there
I ended up getting a canyon T79 and I also got a canyon G7X Mark II I got them at the same time
that way the the bigger camera which is the canyon T79 I can use for at home and then I had
mics for it the road mics and then the canyon G7X which is like a vlogging camera
that when I'd use it for when I'd go off road or you know it's just it's an easy camera to just
kind of move around okay and then from there this was last year now I ended up kind of switching
up everything so I ended up buying a gimbal a DJI gimbal I bought a road mics I bought wireless ones
and I bought on like with the shoe mount I bought a new camera I have a Sony A6600 I believe it is
and then yeah and then this year I plan on getting another one another camera just to kind of add
to the force for sure I'm going to get a drone though yeah I want to try to do more like off-road
content this year yeah so I know that's going to help out a lot that's very it's it's so funny
make sure you follow the instructions look implicitly I don't know if you've ever heard of it
never know you never know those drones have a mind of the run don't beat the shit out of the drones
apparently Matt abused his drone and every time he turned it on it took off and tried to get away so
don't don't be funny don't be mean to say they're very fickle and you know but I I'm I'm glad
to hear take the drone out on a date first and then just like how to take a little bit yeah
and then before you just make sure you ask for consent yeah you know you're right I was
my mistake I was I was going by different set of rules at the time yeah because that's the way it
was the old days you know you just you can drone over the head with a club to your
tire into the cave yeah it's a map at trailchaser's dot but I like hearing that because we've had a
very similar progression of equipment it's like oh yeah you know we need this and then the
additional mics and then a room and like for content creators that that are doing audio video
photo production whatever it's this constant evolution of tools and then you you learn to use
the tool you have to a point where you're like okay now I want to try something different
but the tool can do it and then you start investing your own money oh my wife isn't listening you
invest your own money into these these products and these tools to help you know expand your
capabilities yeah and that's that's I mean talking about that the next camera I want to get
I want to get like an actual video camera like for video only just because I've seen the other
people use that and the quality is just it's crispy it's hard to use it but I mean it's
it's crispy so yeah it's and it's it's it's not a small investment I'm sure no some of those
guys some of those cameras are I've got a friend that produces video and you say that that he's got a
camera that's more than his car you know it's also don't buy cameras that have propellers
and stuff that can fly away yeah you know don't do that definitely don't because they're likely
just do that for me well that's my experience as I what what production software are using
what operating system and production software so for the videos what I'm using right now back then
I used to actually use which I'm pretty sure the older people like us would know as windows media
editor I think it was called or something like that yeah I love that he's lumping us into older
people I'm like you're 20 years older than you are dude yeah Cody's a hard core windows
denier windows an hour it's all bullshit no but now I use Adobe Premiere Pro for the editing
and then for like thumbnails and stuff like that use Adobe Photoshop yeah so those are the two programs
I've been using for the past so I'm gonna say two years okay and they're solid yeah I mean they're
they're the industry standard for reason right into the live room or what's the other one the
big one uh there's two big like videos editing software yes not that big if we don't know the
name you're right you're right no it's like it's yeah well and Adobe is the the industry standard
and they've done um they've made it a little bit more accessible you can buy you know the
subscription to the creative cloud as opposed to going out and spending $1,000
it's a front you can spend it 50 bucks a time at every month but there are there are plenty of
open source alternatives probably not going to do the same level of stuff that you I take that back
there there are some out there open source that can do what you do yeah but not as easily
and you have to jump through hoops to make it happen but if you had the time to invest in the
tool you can absolutely do it and talking about that I mean to the regular person if you've never
edited or used any of that software it's confusing like I know when I first started I had to watch
a bunch of YouTube videos I had like for hours and then even to this day I thought if I see like a
cool transition or something I'll look it up on YouTube how to do you know this so it's it's it's
a learning learning game with that and I would suggest if you are considering doing video start with
some of the non subscription options uh light works is a is a really good open source tool open
shot Kate and live like there's tools there make it make three to five videos using some of those tools
just to see if it's something you want to do because it is you watch I think Jose made the comment
like you watch a three minute video that was four and a half days to cut together like it's not
it's not a quick process which is why we've talked about a hundred times we have terabytes of video
terabytes of video on hard drives that will never see the light a day because I'm not going to go
back and do it I'm just not going to at this point it's irrelevant I'm not going to do it yeah
yeah it's yeah it's it's not fun editing is just that's probably one of my things that I don't like
to be honest if I had the funds and I'll honestly I probably just pay somebody yeah
yeah but it's too expensive it is like and there's there's a service for all that yeah it's like
AI or something like chat GP or GMAT you've got it all you've got that all mixed up there's a new one
it's a GPT4 something like four we just have we have it do it hey look at here chat here's
look at all this stuff I have make make some cool out of this we can't just do that Matt Matt saw a
video clip on the news yeah and now he's worried about the robots taking over no he's trying to buy
away back into through their good graces yeah I want them to make because he picked it up his drone
yeah uh so when Chad that BT seven takes over the world yeah uh Matt's on the on the head
they're gonna show but Matt's also gonna like hey see that drone back here we heard we know we have
don't worry nobody's gonna worry about that first real weird what you did to him so what uh in
general like what do you think how much time do you think you spend every week on editing when it
comes to like you're ongoing releases uh I'd say on average probably probably eight hours on average
six to eight hours but sometimes there's videos that like it just depends on what it is like
as an example um one of the recent installs that we did was uh some Casey rock lights on my
Tacoma and uh that one when we filmed it we filmed it so that way it's kind of like an easy
video to kind of put together where I would stop right away uh any clip that I needed to redo I
just delete it so that way the memory card just had the clips exactly how I needed it so it was just
kind of like a plug and play just cut out the things I don't need and that's it that one probably took
me maybe two hours to edit two and a half hours and then other times uh like a while back I'm never
gonna forget to stay it's it sucked it was horrible I hated it I'll never do it again so uh I know
I didn't mention this but the Tacoma I have currently now it's a 2020 Tacoma but back then the
Tacoma I had was a 2018 and that one I ripped it apart completely and I did a sound editing video
on how to do it in-depth crazy in-depth instrument uh like everything came out seeds plastics doors everything
stripped it down one it took 13 and a half hours to film and we did it nonstop we just thought to eat
technically into restroom I had a buddy helped me out and uh so 13 hours to film that and then after
to edit it it took me three days so it would have been easier to just buy a ranger as far as I'm
concerned yeah so I don't I will never do that again but it's it you know most people don't
when they're oh I'm gonna make a video most people don't think about that and I don't remember if it
was someone that we interviewed or if it was a conversation with that buddy mind about like he would
he would create a very specific list I want a shot of this I want a shot of this I would like
he would almost edit the film in his head but we've talked to other youtubers stuff they're like yeah
like it's uh they have a whole uh shot list what they want correct they they they they create the
video in their mind and create that list of things then go get those shots and then edit together
but it still takes hours though something that would take a trail that would take like two hours to
do ends up being eight hour down the trail because it's stopping yeah go back yeah but for us most of
time it was click the go pro hit the go pro when we start the trail and hope something good happens
and then you got to come home and watch six hours of trail those show that that shot of like the
hood is uh okay hey you guys keep going but yeah that shot of the hood just driving like that doesn't
do it anymore now you're gonna have to be have more engaging uh exactly that's why that's why I was
saying about the drone that's why I want to get it because this year I do want to do like more
off-road content you can say yeah so I'm gonna need help I mean and like you said whenever I
have done videos like that on the trail a regular four-hour trail it ends up training into six to eight
hours yeah I mean and depends on how many people you have filming you like it did just it just every
every stop just that's like five ten minutes and then that and then sometimes I mean if
for me like if I didn't like the shot you know I'll do it again yeah for sure and now with the drone
thing too like uh you can you can uh fly those things like a national parks or like BLM land anymore like
it's getting really hard it's to use drone down yeah that's the hard part but I mean talking
about like off-road filming uh we did I did like a couple episodes doing filming a off-road challenge
with my friends and same thing I mean I'm pretty sure you guys know where clay corn is yeah and that's
a normal four-hour trail you know and that took us seven eight hours you know and then editing
that that's it that took days that was that was horrible so what was the what was the challenge
so basically um I took out a couple friends and I didn't tell them where we're gonna really do a
challenge I kind of mentioned it to them but I didn't tell them what exactly it was going to be
until we got there because I wanted it to be a surprise smart yeah the challenge was going to be
going going to like certain obstacles like uh if you guys know kind of like for example where the
tower line is the first kind of little offshoot like one yeah where the time you walk up the like
that electrical tower right yeah electrical tower uh for example uh one of the challenges was
let's see who can climb up at the fastest without losing traction so uh as as an example and then
from there the losers would have to I brought a whole bunch of spicy sauces so the losers would
have to take it and um so certain challenges to me make oh no I'm assuming like eat drinks yes
okay take this hot sauce yeah we had somewhere we were counting wheel slippage so whoever had
the least will slipage was of course the winner and all the other guys would have to drink the
hot sauce and hold them to bring milk and the most of them they thought I was joking so
none of them brought milk oh my god and then at the end the winner I gave them a hundred bucks just
just for fun hmm wow so that that's wow that's awesome but how did you measure like wheel slippage
and there's like what hold on hold on and like how did you what was uh was a driver skill like
the number one thing that prevented slippage or vehicle technology like what did you find uh
what did you find out during that challenge so we kind of based it off of um like the driver
and I guess it depends on your rig which challenge there are rigs tires stuff like that yeah tires
first because you know you know overall tires are a big thing I mean it's in the driver but it's
also in the tires and uh so yeah so the way we did it is we just had each uh we had people on each
corners so we'd count the wheel slippage so once you see a skid count that see another skid count
that so it was uh it was interesting um but it was fun like all of us had fun and uh our
snowmix hurt after that but it was fun yeah it was it was different challenges that was just like
one out of the other ones but yeah well yeah but filming that first part part took you at least an hour
yeah it was about a little over an hour fruit fruit it was I think the total of five of us six of
us and then uh another one which I'm sure this is probably I don't know if it's illegal because it's
off-road but I'm sure it's very dangerous another one was uh you're gonna do it with a partner so
whoever wants to be the driver can raise their hand and whoever doesn't want to be the driver
it's gonna have to be a passenger so the driver will be blindfolded in obstacle so
the fastest ride oh yeah it was it was disaster waiting for it to happen but it was fun and no one died
so that was the good that's our motto and nobody died yeah so yeah that that one was a really
fun obstacle I mean we we had to go up it whoever did it the fastest blindfolded and the
reason we blindfolded the driver is because the passengers sitting next to you had to guide you up so
you had those technically you had the spotter next to you sitting with you in the car oh man
where was that challenge at was that a play corn tune yeah that was in clay corn so it was
too bad okay other than clay corn what are the other like really cool trails or whatever that
you guys run or favorites I'm assuming big bear I'd say yeah big bear is a big one um I mean we
have gone to John Bull we've done gold mountain uh hope come we've done that one and a couple other
once but my favorite I don't know I mean I have a bunch to be honest gold mountain is cool because
it's easy but it's still technical at the same time I just wish there was more obstacles but I mean
John Bull is awesome overall yeah we haven't done that one yeah we haven't done John Bull or gold
mountain right well the challenge was or Matt gets some rock slider so you know I had it for John Bull
well and I'm on 33 so that's gonna be like challenging enough but you know Matt gets some rock
slider so we can do some like rock crawling type stuff and I finally finished my my sliders back
I don't know it's probably September or something like that so maybe I have to give that a give that a run
would you what would you say uh would I be in a truck me sound frontier on 33's I got some sliders
am I going John Bull or honestly I'd say I'd say no if I'm being honest I mean you you can
probably do it but you're gonna probably either you're gonna get turd old or you're gonna damage
something so it's I mean there's people that have done it on 33's so challenge that
did Matt that's kind of how I look at things like okay I think I got to uh just hit the throttle right
and like turd old shit yeah I'd say I'd say try out gold mountain I know you said you
haven't done a right gold mountain neither yeah we haven't done yet oh I would start with gold
mountain try that out uh then from there try a hold concrete and then from there John Bull
hey so I would do it in those stages all right looks like we got a plan for uh this okay
somewhere exactly let me know John Bull and Holcomb Creek are gonna be rough
well let's try let's try doing them like this weekend in current conditions
no back to back yeah all three of the trail same day
maybe tough all right Casey you're you're back is everything okay
I mean we were just talking about rain and it looked like things uh yeah I went around the
chair I had everything popped up on he started to go and I caught him as a close call
yeah I saw the whole thing happening like oh my god but I saw him just like this yeah that
he was just looking like he was just looking like he was just looking like he was right there
who's yeah that was scary freak the shit out of them but he's all good he's okay Jesse what
do you have going on in the future like what's your next step or anything coming up in the
future like that you're planning on um honestly I mean for this year what I wanted to do
but this weather has been nothing but trouble like everywhere but I wanted to do more like
collab videos with people that and like off-road yeah just more off-road content collapse um I've
been trying to get like bigger name people a couple of them said yes it's just I mean we haven't
had a set date only because like I said the weather and timing it's just hard to get
timing correct with everybody yeah I mean it's gonna even be harder this year because like all the
force around here close till June yeah that that's the thing you know it's like nothing I don't
know it's just everything I had planned has it hasn't it's not looking so good so well I've been
blaming COVID for like busted plans for a while so well not that snow and I'm sorry what's
what's I just and I'll still blame it on that even though 100% I got five years of explanations like
well COVID you know he won't blow away because the COVID it could be okay it's very likely that
COVID it's sensed that I might have been infected and said I want out I'm out so Jesse the
backstory with Matt's drone is he literally he flew it two times and both times it ran away
from his house and one time I got it back the first time he got it back and then he charged it up
and then the second flight it literally just flew away never back no it was like after the
second time I was like yeah I didn't want to be around me and that's fine I don't want maybe I
don't want to be around you you know that's the way I like that it so geez well I'm gonna have to
like you said I'm gonna have to be nice to my brother yeah don't just don't beat the shit out of you
you know you pull it out of the box and pull that out of the box gently and when you put
when you go to insert the battery make sure that you get permission to do it
it's doing it for a fire box nice to it
exactly you got a crest so you can't just be all well I bought you you know like it didn't
like that but at least the one I got I don't know where you're gonna buy your drones from
but I'll find out I'm not sure yet I might might have had its own expectations like
preset and I wasn't aware of that so you know that's that's the crazy thing and you know what
I I all I wanted it to do was just follow me around through the Mojave Desert
and take some cool video of me looking rad in my truck like doing nifty things
nifty things you know like like kicking up dirt that's all I wanted that's all I wanted
just some footage of me kicking up some dirt didn't even have to be too crazy but you know we all
have our own um expectations and that drone had its own and maybe it found a better life
somewhere else with somebody that was cooler than me and I'm okay with that
Jesse so I know you yourself and then our trailchaser started cutting their teeth on like going
to events any events you're going to be coming up going to soon
yeah so the one and I'll be coming up soon is the one rodeo x rigs which is April 2nd
in Crown Toyota Ontario California yeah um there I'll be right next to my good friend Jerry which is
the owner of beast fab beast fabrication yep he's in San Bernardino right yeah he's in San Bernardino
so I'm gonna be right there with his booth and then we should have our other friend Sam
which is a dead man off road the recovery here yep date I'll be riding between them or at least
in that general area and now have my truck with me and stuff so that's probably the next event I'll be
at and uh yeah is that Crown dealership is right there by Skandia yeah Skandia is there is no more
dude oh yeah but it's a giant right now it's in that area right there right yeah that's right
yep yep yeah that's where all the dealership throughout yeah Crown Toyota is like
I think probably the biggest dealership there yeah and it should be exciting I mean all the events
uh that my friend Jason has done which is uh trowels uh they've always been like a good
really really good turnout so I'm pretty excited for this one and then it's right down the street so
I'm excited yeah super close it drives I mean what's like uh what's the main goal of the
show is it kind of just getting off road rakes and vendors together or yeah so that's I mean that's
part of the goal uh this one specifically some of the proceeds are going to go for uh the
Kiemian LaFomas Society so for like cancer patients and stuff like that to me that's freaking
awesome whenever anybody does you know do the things like that for big organizations that mean
something you know everybody probably I mean I don't want to say like that but a family member
almost probably someone has had a family member that's probably gone through something for sure
so it's cool that they're gonna give back and yeah that's what this one's faced and just it's
always for something so all these events are always for something so I really like that so I'm a big
supporter yeah I mean like yeah like the last the last event we did this past we can yeah was for
the children hospital Orange County so exactly yeah you know that's like I said I mean that's
freaking I like that all right man so Jesse is there anything that other than your YouTube page or
your Instagram what yeah where can people find you yeah well I guess we stated in the beginning the
YouTube is just Jesse Rizzo JSSE RISEO on Instagram is another page that they can follow me
which is at underscore Jesse Rizzo spelled the same way and right there something different that I've
always wanted to do and the reason I bring up the Instagram and I'm about to say this is before I
used to hit up like bigger YouTubers you know when I had questions and stuff like that and I've never
yet responses so something something I wanted to do ever since I started my channel is always
trying to reply to everybody so if anybody ever does have questions that's probably the easiest way
to reach me which is on my Instagram at underscore Jesse Rizzo that's why I'm bringing that up
yeah sliding to Jesse's DM's yeah you'll get back to you I try and I might best trust me
but yeah I mean I don't care who you are I mean we're all people we're on humans so
I'm no better than the answer to our answer to our message hey because of our famous so I had
to you I said I don't know about famous probably more infamous yeah we might be infamous but
I'm sorry Jesse well we really appreciate you coming on tonight and given us your time and
if there's anything else you want to promote or anything you know what we'll go ahead and let
you go um that's about yeah I mean I appreciate you guys having me on the podcast that means a lot
and yeah I look forward to hanging out with you guys too awesome thanks Jesse okay thank you
you guys oh you hung up yeah I don't know I don't know if it was told to him like oh yeah
usually we do a post uh uh thank but yeah we went out with it but it's cool it's been a really
weird show tonight obviously it's like multiple emergency's going on right now what happened
Cody I think uh something with the dog they had to take him to the vet oh shit yeah I don't I don't
know what happened so but he left the inmates to run this island I don't know I got keys to the house
so anybody that wants to come out over it's like over house I guess I'm the captain now
yeah case you just laughed oh my god all right man well I guess we're gonna cut it short
we could talk about this past weekend's shinning yeah I don't want to re-live that Sunday
I don't want to re-live Sunday I think you have to I think you have to re-live this past weekend's
shinning I think so this Saturday we were at a Friday Friday well I was there on Friday night
oh yeah Friday night we went to a federally park which is like a RV
slash how would you explain that part I mean it's RV park but with like a lot of potential like
tank tank camping or whatever and the park was really cool and it was nice and maintained like
there's there's uh somebody's investing in that place whether it's our tax dollars or whatever I
don't know but the bathrooms were clean yeah man damn cabin do you can run out they cabin
you could run out they had like stream you can fish out of there was I didn't see the stream
but I don't know man I went I was about to go on a jam but they had like zip lines for kids like
there was a playground there was like a general store out front this is like a pretty cool place
the only problem with it it was right next to the goddamn uh two forty one ninety one
entertainment or change and you just had non stop freeway it was like it was like we
from like I was telling you guys there uh Friday my apartment faces a main street so I was
I felt right to sleep I had no problem you know well uh that opens up some doors for
but I will say I woke up so I was Friday and I Saturday night so we should say what we were
there for right on the event was for the yolo wheeling um it was their inaugural like
overlanding meat or get together oh no you know it's crazy is there's no Cody here to
to like the crazy tangents were about to go in so this could be either a really great episode
the rest of the show did a raster it didn't be a disaster it's probably the hidden bird
let's be honest but overland show it's an overland show it was an overland show
but again so for the yolo yolo wheeling overland shows their first one all the all the
proceeds went to uh the chill and hospital of Orange County and you know what there was there was
quite a bit of engagement on Saturday there was there was a lot of people that showed up
for being for being the first their first event thanks to Cole yeah yeah it was uh it was I
would call it a huge success they uh yeah they had vendors there yeah food trucks there
people have a good number of both food food trucks you got me at food trucks like we were all
talking about that first night like oh you know tomorrow I got to go to the uh there's like two
Mexican uh drugs yeah and I think our group bought something off every food truck there was a
Mr. French fry truck there was there was a vegan truck yep and I'll tell you what the vegan
truck impressed I was a little surprised yeah so that guy was handing around a walking around
handing out a free samples and that mixing pizza bro was on point I wasn't gonna talk about that
uh vegan burger whatever was delicious well you did not I didn't have the vegan burger you should
have fun with you a lot of things obviously um but other than that uh we were there Friday night
yeah we just camped out relax got our got our campsite set up in hindsight like we could have
set up anywhere but we literally set up like a homeless person underneath the overpass of the
westbound 241 to the 91 91 he's was like we had the whole park to choose from and Cody chose
right under the bridge or right under the free like let's blame Cody exactly but Saturday yes
Saturday we were I'm seeing the event Saturday and Sunday we're doing the raffle we did a couple
we walked around or Matt and Casey walked around it's a mobile interviews on Saturday they're
amazing interviews yeah when they're all legendary I'm sure they'll be clipped in at the end of this
episode you know when Nicole uh I did not pick that I just that's where I set up and then everybody went
yeah I guess so so whatever I didn't realize that everything so hey hey hey you should be on this show
Nicole you should be speaking to this stuff but I'll tell you so I did like set up camp
and it was like well I don't know this is like next to uh the Matt you pick that shut up
because oh my shut up dude I didn't pick it it was just like all right was or where I parked my truck
and then uh yeah ended up being horrible because you know you know what like where where we were
set up as far as the the orange room and vendor row or whatever it was a lot less noisy over there
but I didn't know that at the time like I just thought it was all noisy but yeah the the camp spot was
like extremely noisy all right yeah I mean that was so Saturday we finish up the event and then
uh yeah you got thrown out of the bus how dude I'm I'm disappointed in you what that I made
a bad decision yeah you're disappointed in that all right fine throw it on me throw it on me watch
you bling your blame your hangover on me oh well we'll get into oh yeah so Saturday
Jose guy a little too drunk apparently I was in drunk though that's not what you said so
look let's go back to it so Saturday we MCD event we interviewed people that that giant
drum shepherd was walking around rocky her name I found out later it was her her name was rocky
yeah Matt didn't want to offend the giant I you know these days hello his or her rocky
it or them like I don't know you know I don't want to be offensive you could be a guy but you are like
five four all right I don't know that doesn't mean but I look look there was a person I'll be
specific there's a person walking around in a German shepherd uh outfit outfit right
this it was a costume this is not a real dog what come on finally so I made an
section oh this must be a person in costume and this person was no more than five foot four
and uh they had very good like cheerleading type skills it was very important and I went
that is well I don't want to matter what friends I don't want to say it is a woman I don't want to be
offensive but I did I was referring to rocky as a him or her I'm like like numerous times it was
very uncomfortable for me which I what can I be offended that I was you know you're right you know
do you know what I'm saying like I don't know I was in a comfortable spot I don't ask for
yeah they were there because they were they were showing off dog that could be adopted oh that's right
yeah we ruffled off some stuff from the vendors different vendors that were there
what was like your coolest what do you think was the coolest thing that we ruffled up and this was
like over two days so yeah it was like six this was like over six raffles five or six raffles
we did between the both days but I think the coolest thing for me was that uh that telescoping light
that UFO light yeah I think so too yeah that would have been cool to have that we need one of those for
because Cody comes out like Friday night and he's got like a work light like we're about to
start hanging some dark work we're doing some framing or something like dude I don't need to see
like the dirt in my fingernails like I don't shine it in my face yeah God just I want to try and
relax have a couple cocktails before I go to bed but yeah yeah this was we had a couple cocktails
Saturday night I was gonna say I was talking about Friday night we were still not to Saturday
consider it is a whole other thing so yeah post post our MC duties and you know the camp
got dark and we started hanging on the camp iron mean man had a set on age old debate
oh this is and you know what dude I got confirmation today okay on my side of this debate like
you're crazy you're a crazy person how dude there's a giant acid you're a crazy person whatever
dude I'm so the the great debate was who's better black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin it's like
obvious it's obvious and chat room just started moving down I want to even let's not even
discuss yeah I'm not even say who supported who chat room if you're there there's the giant
asterisk by Led Zeppelin they stole all their music Jesus Christ Jose I was just trying to keep it
neutral so people would know I'm just saying but it's obvious I don't give a shit if Zeppelin
stole every damn song it's Led Zeppelin dude they made whatever songs they stole which they did they
made them better they made them like all time great I'm not denying that but yeah so
but yeah we got into a heated conversation over that I mean there's a lot of cocktails flowing
case you were there yeah I sure yeah there was definitely a lot of cocktails flowing and
a debate's happening I could tell who I couldn't even tell who was for which band
both of you kept making arguments for and against both bands why like both bands not like I'm
trying to disparage black Sabbath it was just well Led Zeppelin's better like just listen to
I'm like it's pretty obvious it's pretty obvious like name the drummer of Black Sabbath yeah I don't
I don't I don't but John Bottoms drummer of Led Zeppelin who's the lead singer okay I was
taking Robert plan all right that's a call that even Steven yeah and then who's the guitarist
Led Zeppelin come on and I don't if you gave me like 15 minutes and I wasn't drinking beer I
probably come up with the Black Sabbath Tony Tommy all right well whatever so you have you been drinking
no I'm not drinking anymore sorry guys Tony Paul just to me so that next day was like super
wow yeah I was I think I was dead somebody was like I think next morning Cody was like what's
time to go to sleep I don't know like I wasn't chicken time or nothing but yeah it was it was it was
late night and you know we got some video of some some cheers you know with some fireball you
once the fireball came out it was like that was it that was over Johnny yeah it wasn't the handle
of Captain or the bottle was it in effect Jose though nah I was sober dude I was pretty sober I was pretty
by what measure I mean I told you guys shark eyes was gonna come out
yeah shark eyes came out they turned black rampage came out dude look there's evil spirits
wrong in our camp I was just trying to protect us all right all right super strong work to help them out I
think okay yeah last year I'll come help you all right dude what's going on tonight what's going on tonight
so I don't know like man anymore yeah I don't know what's going on tonight but
yeah man crazy I was dying on Sunday I'm dying on Monday still still yeah but yeah I had a rough day
Saturday just with the whole eyeball thing yeah and then so I felt great Sunday I was like
happened I was saying how you guys are so terrible you didn't drink two bottles of stuff
obviously not I thought I was right there with you guys no you just kept drinking that you know
cool's light but dude like the marathon it I know not for me dude 100 meter sprint that's all
like yeah so what's our like overall take on the yellow wheel and over I think it was
success for them dude the considering was their first time ever doing a show like that spot
that location is great man like we're talking about around the campfire like even if
like we do the patreon like if it's like that's where we're going camping meet up here even
if there's no wheeling it's just a great spot to go camping just to go hang out yeah it was weird
camping where there was like there was no dirt like nothing was dirty yeah there's no dust like an
all grass there was some leaves that float we're falling and that's about it there was like
bathrooms yeah there's that clean bathroom when took a shower on Saturday yeah oh that's
right there's showers too yeah I mean it was a it's a great little spot like and it's right
off the 91 like you'd probably people drive by a place like they're whole lives they probably
even know that park was there dude I didn't honestly I didn't know that it was I knew that there was
like the golf course is over on that side and there's the the Santa Ana river lakes is over there
yeah the only reason I knew that park was there because I had gone to a few VW shows there but
other than that I would have never known that park was there yeah I definitely I would definitely
like to go hang out and I camp there again maybe like a little further away from where the like
not under the 91 not right underneath the freeway yeah not underneath the 91 freeway but
like as far away as we could get from it like over by the like the where I think the creek is
that yeah we're Santa Ana river whatever yeah as a creek further north it depends on what
size it is it's either a creek or it's a creek it goes creek creek stream river I think okay
that's the that's the steps it goes but um I can't wait till they do another one there man I think
that was it was a great it was great yeah we had a blast yeah and I think unfortunately what took
a little when not other sales was that other then was going on that same weekend this past weekend in
Pomona there was several different things happening oh I don't know those two but apparently the other
one wasn't that big either no I don't know not not from what I heard yeah I thought I thought
it was gonna be like an off road expo kind of deal like a giant like bender filled event but
that's what they made it sound like but apparently it was just like one one haul one exhibit haul
yeah but you can fit a lot of vendors in those one no one I think the one they did it in
was that the main one like the giant the biggest one they have yeah um but yeah my and what I was
really pleased about was that it took two hours to get home yeah dude I mean yeah for you and that's
like a win for you right like typically everything we do is like a five hour ordeal for you yeah
I expected on the way there like it was on take us three and a half hours it took us two hours
we even stopped for gas and food yeah and uh on the way home we didn't I don't really
stop at all we just pressed on and it was it was two hours it was snowing on the way home
yeah I mean but I was like oh it wasn't that wasn't bad at all we were home by four o'clock
but for Cody and I was like 20 minutes from our house yeah and for Matt it was like 30 so
but yeah it's a great spot man did you sample any of the food at that place at which place
at the event all the food trucks yeah I mean I had I had a pizza I had a pizza on Saturday
for those good pizza and then I didn't eat anything on Sunday
like nothing you're like yeah to the world of houses please just I need to just live
but we looked out because Sunday was was pretty slow yeah yeah I was I was not in good shape
but uh there's some funny pictures that I don't know if they will be released or not but
of me and my struggles on Sunday but uh yeah but the food was I put our took in some of those
but um I didn't have any of the fries from Mr. fries but they look good the tacos look good
the tacos look amazing but I didn't have any from the word where the tacos from the boom
now we got him from Andrea I think yeah and then someone was saying that there's another
food truck there that sold uh fairly cheap steak fries and not from Mr. fries that was also
Andrea's that was better than Mr. I mean do it if you're named Mr. fries you got to own the
fry game right but oh nobody should be out fry you look definitely go out fry right here in the
comment section here chat room a beddy white uh it wasn't me with a furry any pictures of me and
rocky are like legit okay so yes there are pictures and that's just fury yeah that's always like
the fury I don't know if you'll say I'm about your truck case like blue thunder my truck was
entered under an alias at the rig show so on Sunday yeah they had the well that's supposed to be
on Saturday too like was that supposed to be where everyone was supposed to all weekend okay it was
like you could vote all weekend but I that was rig well for it's definitely for the the most
dirtiest car bro my truck had like actual mud on it the the car that one wasn't even dirt
it didn't even have dust on it yeah just came from the car wash I think they were just
waxed it but yeah the one that won best technology that's like a weird category right like what's
what do you what do you categorizing as technology just a lot of light like our 17 lights yeah
he did have a lot of light bars but that was a cool to come in he won best technology he won
he won that honking which is pretty cool yeah well I interpret that best technology is like a
left over category from like a hundred years ago when lights were like a new thing so yeah but if
you think you would expect to see as dashboard full of like yeah and you know what it might have
might have had that because the people the people voted on that yeah I mean I didn't enter because
I didn't want to just win every category or else I would have even best technology okay so that was
that was really I it was a lot of fun this weekend I really like hanging out with everybody
because it it had been a while since the four of us right at at all got to hang out at the same time
and an event takeaways from takeaways from this weekend Matt takeaways what would I like to
take away I'd like to take away the 91 freeway if the 91 freeway had been removed and I had made
that comment a couple of times like why is this event centered around like one of my nemesis freeways
like this freeway I fucking hate and I'm not even gonna hold back like this is one of the worst
fucking freeway I fucking existence despise that freeway dude and well we could have we could have
camped we probably could have picked a spot a little further away so that's why we have some
shit we're talking about god damn it but you're right you are right like I you know when I
when I plop down and I was told hey you got a camp out by that white fucking jeep over there
whatever and it was like oh I'm over by that white jeep I didn't go around and explore like
well the god damn freeway is right there like is a hundred yards gonna make that big a difference
yeah hundred percent here's a big giant difference so next time next time
we we we do an event there I'll make sure to park further away but I'll tell you I had a good enough
time that if uh yola wheel and wants to do it there again I I suggest they do it there again yeah sure
as far as the vendor row and and you know how everything was set up everything else was great
I just make sure that I'm closer to the fishery or well well what was happening there was like a
stream or something or I'd rather hear a babbling brook than a freeway of hell
yeah well the further if you go further far enough north you'll run into the Sanana River
yeah but you can only go as far as I like shrub line and then it says uh but you can't go any further
case for endangered species when um case any takeaways as we can Jose was an endangered species
by the way um I need a bigger rooftop tent no you don't I don't think you have the biggest one
yeah the um that it came in came in clutch again it's kind of funny how you do carry that
fucking 10 around with you every day you drive around and the one time you're like I'm going to use it
you can get to use it yeah I saw it because we were we're we're it was like a trial
it was like a trial period of us figuring out how to do it but I think that was uh I'm sorry go ahead
I the one thing I I think a top of this is like a solar panel just to be able to
set up that right tighten pack and charge it not run your car or anything like that just yeah
so that that brings up a great point a great point number one like there's uh you know we didn't
know who was so this wasn't something we said at we were just camping with the yellow group or
whatever and you could see like a lot of similar things the the what's McCollot Tans and similar
setups but the solar panels I saw a lot of that too and when I had to go wheel my truck up
to our to our vendor booth or whatever wherever we were and then charge up my stupid sea
pack thing I I still had some some some a bit of charge left like I probably could have been
okay that that second night but it was like you know what I'm just gonna go ahead and pull my truck
up here watch it as it runs in front of us and charges back up it would have been nice just have a
solar array of some sort to do it and I have to plug it in just think about it you know let it do
it's thing yeah the following day but you're right like I think that's the next thing I want to I want to
get yeah Jose because that the Titan Pack is so clutch that you just like you want to keep it
dropped off I'm sorry the Titan Pack that thing was uh the it ran our equipment all we get it
ran the equipment so we had different packs but that thing ran my refrigerator all we can
long and you know we all know how important ice cold beer is a critical critical and then you know
kept everything else I wanted dry and cold like I had the thing it's 35 degrees I think was money
my refrigerator and the Titan Pack not stopped not stopped the whole time so as far as the uh having
that solar panel that was just for my little CPAP thing that I had that flash fish deal
that would have been nice to have that's what that's what I charged up uh at the fender booth
but I was doing worried about the fridge and the in the Titan Pack that thing was that was money
I think I know where I went wrong this weekend guys I was making drinks out of black Sabbath
but look I love black Sabbath but it's not lads I don't know now all the drinks I was drinking
out of that french press cup and I was just pouring like it was a regular drink you know what
I uh when we met up so Nicole me and Nicole met up here at Cody's house it was like 434
clock Friday afternoon and I'm on oh man I gotta stop and get ice still I went to the grocery
right I forgot about ice I'm like dude do you have any like red solo cups or something because
we're in drink cocktails and that's the ice is for I need ice for cocktails I brought like a
separate bag like a cooler bag and then I don't know I think there must be like about 20 red solo
cups somewhere between here and Proto Dam or whatever like uh because by the time we got back to camp
or when we got to the to the camp area I had no cups it was like a panic and then Cody goes
digging through you know give Cody shit all the time about bringing bass pro shop everywhere he
goes guess what he had he had like these two kick ass like like steel tumblers stainless steel
tumblers they're probably like 20 ounces I would say they've even looked like 20 oh 20 this is a lot
I mean that's like more than a beer that's a that's a it's not a pint
that a pint 16 ounces guess what is more than a pint that's my estimation but either it was like a
perfect cocktail size too like mine too yeah and then when I saw I'm oh hey man all right so we're making
cocktails and I made Cody a cocktail that Friday afternoon and you know he was like done all he needed
was like one or one really and he it was over and then you showed up you showed up exactly
it was like oh my god it was like a fact you brought up that with a handle uh the tall ahead man
I was using what I had you made your first cocktail and I was like Matt what are we going to do
about room oh Jesus Christ dude I just but it's brand new and I didn't have any of those cocktails
yeah you missed out I passed your sobriety test bro so I was good yes and then on Saturday
I don't know you never actually did but I said that that was the other I don't say weird thing
but I had brought some food or whatever in case we had to camp or whatever but we were so close to
civilization whatever that pizza place was dude it was delicious that was it it was um
uh porkies it was porkies pizza in and a high in or your balloon whatever it's at your balloon
to and a high in and I call it in it like seven o'clock and like hey let me have three large pizzas
or whatever were you at featherly park on the way where's that it's like a mile and a half
from you guys what do you mean where's it that oh do you mean like the zip line thing yeah yeah
not sure at that point I'm like two cocktails in I don't know like I can't even like look how
did I want me to and god knows what that conversation sounded like but I was here now
they're like okay see in a half hour I said a timer because I knew like in a
fucking way if they're depending on me meeting them at the gate because there was a gate I'm like
there's no fun the way I'm gonna be at that gate I'm all better said a timer and then I got a phone call
like hey yeah I'm so sorry you're fucking pizza and I'm like oh my god pizza showed up it was excellent
I couldn't be more I couldn't speak more highly of porcupis pizza you know I don't remember
the name of the place but I would have remembered it I know but we brought all kinds of stuff like
we brought up like one of the pre-made sandwiches we brought stuff for breakfast burritos we brought
stuff for tacos and then none of them used to Saturday Saturday afternoon Saturday morning
happened so quickly like oh crap we got a we need to get over there and get set up but in
make burritos and then by Saturday afternoon it was like yeah let's just go buy a shit turn
of fries and pizza like and then taco so it didn't need to sandwich and then we get to camp I was
like oh I guess I'm gonna make some tacos never mind Matt's order of pizza so finally Sunday
morning I was like fuck you know I'm gonna make some burritos at the booth so I brought everything
to cook food I didn't cook in food I better make use of it I guess hey so that reminds me
Betta yeah B.I.R.R.I.A. Betta yeah that's go is it go yes those are the best goat tacos I have
I'm Saturday I'm all like I went to I went to the taco truck I was pumped like just like
you guys I'm like yeah give me some what do you got and literally I asked the guy what's your best
thing I just want your best thing like is it burrito or whatever you're saying well you know or
chicken's good or whatever we have 500 five different tacos out past door a sada chicken and Betta yeah
you know whatever yeah one of each given one of each of those they were delicious that place was
on point and they were there they were like the last truck to leave I think because I had like
burrito the next day that was amazing chicken bean rice and cheese burrito on Sunday I tried to
help you Jose I was like dude I want the burritos you're like no I can't eat nothing I can't do it
no way I didn't eat anything that day I tried to give them a breakfast burrito that I made I was like
here drink a beer oh here's a rock star do you know or soda no Jose just wanted to admire
I mean coffee oh okay yeah but I think I was still drunk yeah he was so yeah but yeah it was a great
weekend thanks y'all the wheeling for having us out again and hopefully you know we can do it next
year or whenever you guys have it again I don't think they'll be doing it a buy-in you will maybe
next year so twice a year yeah I don't sure if they did it I'd love you there it's a great spot
I'm there absolutely all right guys anything else you guys want to bring up before show end
led seven don't mix rum and whiskey no I guess check check check check check okay looking good
levels looking good let me let me get your beer for you sir since you're doing the heavy lifting
well I can do that here we go there we go that works now I've got to figure it out we're good
we're good all right man so day one we're at the yellow what is this like a yellow and it's like
featherly park at featherly park okay it says it's an end of time but I think we're more like
your Belinda I think like yeah it's right there right there this is a really cool park
you know it it seems like as you know we were commenting history like the freeways like
right there yeah there's quite a bit of freeway noise but it's like what are people doing
because it was going all night like it didn't it didn't stop at seven because everyone got home
it didn't start up at you know five because everyone's getting to work early it went nonstop
like a recording on on on a loop yeah yeah no that dude that's the 90 on though you know and
and I have like said like a hundred times yesterday like why is my nemesis freeway the one I
have to camp next to you know you can't escape the 91 man well I've tried yeah really not so
I don't know I think we're gonna just turn a quick lap or just trying to hit some of the vendors
really quick for sure we'd see if you know I do my footwork is really rusty like yeah I've
been on this been a long time been a long time so well you know the best way to do it is you
come in come in hot come in toss in there corner in a gentle way okay and that's again
where my rust you know is in a firm but gentle way you know I need your help getting
we have the corded mic so yeah that way we get hot time if we need you yeah you're gonna talk to us
all right well let's get this party started all right so we're here with Jeff from tough stuff will
relayed and he's gonna tell us a little bit about tough stuff some of the things they offer yeah
yeah definitely yeah guys yeah Jeff told you tough stuff of lamp ram manager we're located in
Ontario California so we're kind of locals here to the area I grew up in Ontario there you go yeah so
we don't go through there don't let me yeah but we've we've we've we've we've we've provided
everything from you know your clamshell tents to your soft shell tents and then our our flagship
tents called the alpine which is basically a dual actions kind of looking at here behind you right
yes it's a it's a dual action style wedge tent you can pop up in the back half only if you
want to you could pop up in the front half I mean it's the thing is just decked out with all kinds
of fun I think of a single thing that had one single action that I didn't think would be better
if it had another action I'm sorry can you explain that saying be more thorough a single action
oh no action dual action is where it's at I have one action when you get true no yeah
I hadn't thought of it that way but yes the nitrogen is what you did yeah crazy about the tent also
it's got a blackout interior too oh wow okay so during the hottest days brightest days it feels like
midnight in the inside it's a really amazing if you actually need true dark in order to see true
color on laptop or something like that it's great place to go up and do it as well okay we also have
one of the thicker mattresses in the industry right now at two and three quarter memory foam up
there and I think it's plush it's really nice okay that's like you have like a like a toilet
system to hear what's going on yeah five gallon cassette toilet we have our shower
awning as well that also acts as a toilet cover as well I have just my little
chassis things out here like for instance your tire repair kit my vessel which is you know
your your state of the middle you know water bottle style and everything like that good
for making mixed beverages of all sorts oh yeah and the things are it's all like hotcakes right
now are actually my my lights my campus you gotta say you got these yeah if you can't
light yep the halo and the Titan yeah we were getting a quick demo those earlier today when
we stopped by I mean Jose were there's actually a speaker on this one for like playing your
jams and stuff oh yeah all right pop some magnetic charge it plug it back in pop back in
you can sit around the the table and what did you do that one Matt I you know like I said I
always come up with great ideas after somebody invented so I was gonna say you know we'll have
to maybe come by later on tonight and you can demonstrate the lights because last night Cody comes
out with this like obnoxiously bright like what have we got a studio like a movie
preview or premier the don't know it was like super bright so I'm wondering these are like kind
of diffused so they're not like some software white light full 360 on it it's about give
or take 19 air lumens my spotlight the work lamp over there is about 9000 lumens so that
well yeah that one we love that light as well yeah that's like if you're repairing something
or you know you're broke down on the trail at 9000 would be great to have something like that
that's very nice yes so what's like what's the thing you're excited the most about or like
the new thing coming out yeah that that you're offering or right now the it's kind of a smaller
thing we're coming out with a tent that's I'm sorry we're coming out with a compressor next month
okay and you know it's gonna be brand of the market it's gonna have all the nice little bells
of whistles and everything like that we want to provide something you know to repair your
tire now you gotta fill it up too right with air so we have a little compressor that's gonna be
out 5.6 CF and it's a you know the the standard it's out there in the market and it's like that
and then hopefully later on I was gonna say behind me is actually our prototype bed rack it's
gonna be my favorite it looks like you have a racks it's a modular bed rack it's gonna be good for
your full size small size vehicles it's gonna be completely modified so you can basically buy new
panels make it shorter or longer or if you have yourself your eight foot bed you can do it
a lot of bed so you wouldn't have any universal fit for multiple vehicles right so you wouldn't
get it like vehicles specifically just ordered the mid-sized one or the full size one you're gonna have
couple of front tier guys yeah yeah definitely yeah it's got it bolts to the channels on the inside
this one bolts to to coma channel that channel also goes to the tundra and also the JT's
we're working on with the front tiers we're working on with you know the Rangers and uh
yeah Rangers my my personal favorite CR-2 but hey that's the same
my brother has a Ranger I don't know I'll take the horse power of the Ranger in the CR-2
there you go how about there you go okay I'll take that all right and that's made of all aluminum
uh no it's all steel it's all steel rugged super heavy duty nice yes we didn't
want to cut any corners every like that with the aluminum we didn't want to think you know
Craig cracking or having to fatigue over time and stuff like that so we made sure to make it
steel the base the feet you can see are interchangeable so if that foot doesn't work for your vehicle
you could change the foot out put a different foot in and then have it bolt through your truck oh nice okay
that's cool yeah yeah like that very cool is there a you guys have like a website or uh social media
presence that we do you can uh inform us yeah definitely tough stuff overland.com is our website
we also have tough stuff overland um as our Instagram as well okay and have all our customers we
always encourage them to take pictures and tag us all day long and we'll go ahead and read forward
it and tag it back so yeah good times all right well thanks a lot Jeff we appreciate your time
gentlemen thank you thank you we're here with Jim from top dog tents and he's here at the
yellow wheel in overland show and he's gonna tell us a little bit about top dog tents who they are and
what they offer hey thanks guys nice to meet you the handsome boys I've been told yes
confirmed yeah yeah we're we're we're a new company building a brand I think we're doing it
really good job we're top tier I think we match anybody's product quality features in the industry
and in most cases we have better quality in features we also carry e-coolers of uh I think we have
five different model e-coolers from a 90 liter down to a 64 liter stainless steel we've got
seven tent models to cover wide range of vehicle options we've got four different onnings from
two 270 degree onnings to two side onnings and we've done our homework we spent two years in
development doing research on the competitors and what the products were that were available
and we believe that the stuff that we're using is by and far the best in the industry so
so tell me how they started or why you started top dog beds well I've been in manufacturing for
over 30 years so it's kind of what I do and this is right up my alley and I had really love
camping I had raised seven kids and we were always camping and you made it you're still on
yeah you know yeah I'm struggling with two yeah well try seven that's really fun
no a pass yeah the two I have you know yeah so you know it's just it just fit my lifestyle
and then I wanted to get involved in a business that was fun and working my ass off for a long time
and I did enjoy it for many years but it was getting a little burnout and I still do it actually
but you know this is something that I could wrap my hands around a bit of an inventor
I've had like eight patents to my name and so I have a real unique ability to look at products
and see where improvements can be made and we've already made a bunch of improvements to our product
the other companies don't offer and we have a lot more in the hopper so I'm really excited about
our future and the brand top dog okay and you know come out and see us you know what I
I claim I don't want to say I claim to be an inventor but I always seem to come up with ideas
that always that they already exist and I do know about it and usually it's coding like
yeah and we've had that you know for like ten years like that's been around like oh man I'm ten years too late
so yeah it feels like somebody's like stealing my ideas and you're going back and taught me
that's right and maybe I'm nicely and then going back in time and catching it like a beer drinker
what do I have in my head so well you mean a time traveler no well you just have the right
the ideas down before you start drinking and then maybe I would have found ideas that would have
happened to happen as I'm drinking then what are you going to remember to write it down
so tell me about the tent that you have on this FJ because I so I have a soft shell
you know tent on the back of my frontier but I've been looking at clamshells and I really like
how it's not just a clamshell it also raises up in the narrowest portion I guess of the tent as
well it's kind of creating some more room right yeah so the particular tent that's on my vehicle now
is our hard shell wedge tent with lifting bracket okay and so what that does is lifts the pivot
point of a standard V tent up about 12 to 14 inches so you get more headroom or legroom within the tent
okay yeah I think something like that's very appealing because my wife isn't real keen on just
the clamshells so something a little bit more room yeah yeah I really like that design so
and they have we have a roof rack option for our aluminum tents so that you can put as you
can see on my vehicle we've got a paddleboard up there you can go down to the beach just on
strap it you get the waves you know it's really great you can do the kayak you can do a canoe
whatever you like it's obviously when you have a lift it'd be like mine it's a little bit harder to
get it right yeah but it'll hold the weight and as you can see we've got the tent open with the
paddleboard on top so it does the job even with some weight on there and I'm sure there's a limit
to how much you can put on right but it's still but in this case you can okay and then they're like
in terms of our quality you know if you look at all the hardware and connection points and wells
um the fabric it's a 600 denier fabric with all the seams or waterproof we've got a nearly 3 inch foam
mattresses LED lights inside features like rubber banding that are around the outside of the
tent that you pull in the place as we close it helps draw the fabric in through so there's less
tucking going on right blocking you up and watching down okay yeah we've thought of a lot of the
things that some people have missed and you know like I said I've put my product product up against
anybody good so how can people reach out to you or find you so you can reach us at top dog
tents.com we're also in Fullerton California we can you know come by and see us at our factory
just call first any social media like Instagram Facebook and Facebook and it's just top dog tents
on Instagram okay all right Jim thanks a lot for taking a second to speak to us all right
have some voice thanks all right we're here with Mark from Tartuga overland all right Tartuga off-road
great that's right Tartuga off-road Tartuga off-road all right so Mark tell us about Tartuga off-road
and what you guys do absolutely so we started Tartuga off-road is a concept with a bunch of
deeper friends of ours here in Southern California we're here local out of Orange County we started
Las Vegas Nevada for a way to before us to afford an overlanding here we used to decide to make it
ourselves after years of development eight years now we made a through COVID we able to produce two
different size French slides there 100% aluminum with welding seams our competition has gone to
thin cheap stamp steel we use 250 pound locking slides we give you twice the means for these slides
competition does we also have a proprietary cutting board 14 is by 22 to allow you to slide it out
and put a two burner cap stuff any comments double fit and cook on it so those are rated
250 pounds of these two wow we've done so well they're very popular guns so well with the aluminum
even though it's 18 times more expensive than it used to be we're going to stick with it because
that's what sets us apart we have we believe the most heavy duty fridge fight on the market for the price
and so I'm assuming each one is rated for like several different size fridges
absolutely wait you can fit a fridge out one of our slides is rated for the way the slides are
250 pounds we haven't broken one yet we've finished one slide in eight years okay and that wasn't
our fault and so what size fridge does this one hold this hold up to a 55 liter the most common
fridge is a 52 liter and this is 16 by 28 hold most of your Dominican 45s up to 50s our
XL fridge slide a hold up to a Dometic 75 liter fridge which is one of the largest in the
industry there's a 95 but not many people use them and if they do they can find a fridge somewhere else
that's a gigantic thing that's a huge thing that's a family it's like the size of the one in
the first something in there yeah I think that's the size I have in in my house right absolutely that's
for a bug out I guess okay we appreciate you guys being here what a great day in Southern California
now we love it yeah you appreciate us but I still I appreciate that thank you yeah we thank you sir
thank you guys thank you for bringing Paulins in the air right everyone's doing good right
if you guys want to do on a fridge slide our our website is www.trotugaoffroad.com
give us a call my name is mark our phone numbers on the website if you want to make a deal
we do free delivery free shipping with shipping to your neighbors we ship the Canada we've
done really well so any questions or concerns or measurements give us a call okay
what about social media yeah so uh we're on Facebook I'm sorry we're on Instagram and Facebook
after a two go off road perfect all right thanks a lot thank you guys appreciate it you all right
we are at the yellow wheel and overland show in federally park in your balina with your balinda
we're with the balinda you're balita it's been a long day we're with Anthony from Fuller Truck
Accessories however you today I'm doing great yeah you feel it's a long day it's been a very long
day it's very long day into the day and somehow you have the energy to do this so thank you
for having me no no problems we were just saying earlier like I have some experience with
Fuller Truck Accessories on the commercial side like commercial fleet vehicles I know you guys are
very active there um and then you're here at this overland show talk to me a little bit about
that like with a transition yeah so we've been doing commercial units for for quite some time
but we we saw the riding on the wall during COVID when it hit everyone wanted to be outside
because you couldn't be inside and we just got slammed with just people wanting shells
and overlanding equipment and we're like okay I guess this is where we're going now so
we still have our commercial line we're still strong in that it's kind of our our bread and butter
and also our just our general golf club south customer who just wants to shell first first rig
but uh these overland guys have been really really grown our business but also you know we've been
around since 1976 we've seen the Tacoma craze of the 80s and the 90s so it's always been there it's
just not wasn't as mainstream as it is now and we're loving it we've always been a you know offroading
and camp in and that yeah they've got a really bad as we'll tell me about the suburban it's
yeah what year is it it's a 1970 suburban that my dad bought in 1984 really from the storage lot
across from the the Fullerton location oh really we've had it ever since we got a big 502 cubic
cent or cubic inch uh the motor in it that he put in and offrode it all and he built the rack and
that is so awesome grew up camping and going to glamorous in the mountains and all fun stuff like
that well it's it's interesting I was having a conversation with uh some guys at a company
about commercial truck applications and I I have this theory that the uh the overland crowd
if you look at the demographic it's a lot of blue color workers that go to work during the week
and then they want to go have some fun hunting fishing camping whatever on the weekend and they
that that that that functionality of drawers and doors and slides and all that stuff that they
have on their work truck every day they get out on the weekend and they're like I want that in my
truck and that's kind of to me where that crossover is from the from the commercial vehicle market
to the overland market is that kind of what you're seeing yeah that's a lot of what we're seeing
we're seeing a lot of uh a lot of the products we sell like cargo glide and deck we we sell
a lot of those commercially and uh we've seen a lot of people like I just want that for my rig right
I want to be able to pull my my generator my cooler my stove my boxes everything out
just like I can do with my uh work tool box or my deck drawers with all my fittings and
whatever parts they have in it and and so I've seen a lot of that crossover and yeah you're right
a lot of these uh overland people are people who are in the blue color workforce who are working
with their using their trucks as tools awesome what kind of stuff on the top of your head like
what kind of stuff is uh is uh is the big sellers for the overland side from your guys uh perspective
I would say the biggest seller is there's two types of people in overlanding there's the guy who
likes the rooftop tent and the open truck bed with that you know those frames yeah kind of
half or there's the shell person yep and so we've been doing a lot of shells we have this conversation
every other week is it to a camera shell or bed rack or a flat top and a trailer or you know
so every week we have this conversation so you're absolutely right yeah and we've been doing
shells since like I said it's the 76 so uh we are big ticket item is the shell okay we do sell
we do sell rooftop tents um but you know everyone sells a rooftop tent not everyone sells a camper
shelves so we really focus a lot of our marketing on these camper shells for the overland group
so that um you know you can you can because on a camper so you can sleep inside you know
you need a rooftop tent yeah if you don't mind taking your stuff out yeah but some of the
some of the shell manufacturers are now making the reinforced shell for overlanding specific
to put the rack on and then you know to handle that uh uh not static weight what am I looking
doing dynamic weight yeah yeah so we do have shell manufacturers doing that uh bring it and beefing
up the weights you can do the the the rooftop tents and kayaks and canoes and all that stuff
but the product that's launched recently smart cap has been a big big just game changer for
the overland world because they're made of stainless steel oh wow so that they have a much higher
load capacity of dynamic weight it's like up in the 330's oh wow and so you can you can have a big
can you can actually sleep up there while you're driving yeah yeah the the the the static weights
like 750 don't quote me on these yeah what I what I what I remember off the top my head but uh
really changing the game with that stainless steel and uh matte finish that has more of a
cut kind of rugged look then your typical aluminum camper shell that you see on the the job site
okay it gives it a more of a rugged look and people are and they even sell them for commercially
units too we've been selling a lot of them commercially units as well with these smart caps what uh
what else uh in that in that open truck rooftop tent guy or camper shell guy and what other
what other uh products that you guys sell kind of drop into those different applications so we do sell
the retracts XR and it's one it's just a rolling tunnel cover okay but it has grooves on the bed rails
and allows you to kind of put that rack you can have a midsize rack or a cab height rack and the
tunnel cover and the tunnel cover underneath and choose that's kind of a new thing that's been
coming around we've had other companies like pay said words do that as well if you get the full
size rack you can put a full size canoe on top now because uh it's cab height but you still remain
maintain your rolling cover interesting and you can take off those those rack mounts so you can
have a regular tunnel cover but interesting that's been a another option that we've been showing
people um to incorporate both otherwise they have an open truck bed and stuff gets wet you know yeah
yeah that's that's I mean fortunately here in Southern California doesn't we don't get a lot of
weather and sometimes if it's too cold or wet we just don't go out but um I know there's other
other places in the world where like being able to secure from the from the rain for us it's dust he
had a he had a tunnel cover on his truck for the longest time and all it did is
filter out the heavy dust and all the silt and like fine stuff got in there and it just coated
everything the first time I took it out I was excited because I was like yeah nothing's gonna get
dirty nothing gonna be dirty it's gonna be great we have to the camp the first night I open the
tailgate like what the heck is like someone took a handful of dust it just threw it in the bathroom
dirtier than the stuff in mine because at least mine was blown back out cleaner because it like
yeah it does blow out like I hated it yeah there the the tunnel cover does a great job on the top
but your tailgate yeah there's just all of that gap but what's cool about the smart caps is they
actually have a little like air scoop on the hood oh really and um I've not experienced it personally
but what it's supposed to do is supposed to create positive pressure while you're quite
driving okay keep some of that dust out I've not experienced it I haven't had any feedback
from customers yet because the product is fairly new three years old yeah I've not familiar with that
but they're thinking about it because that product's actually designed it was from West Africa
or South Africa okay and so that was where it was what's where they're actually important for
okay so that they're you know they're dirt roads down a lot yeah so there's a lot um what
what things are you excited about from the uh from the overlanding market that you guys think you
can capitalize on like what's the next the big thing for you the next big thing I would say
oh this is a tough one for us personally it's becoming the we really want to focus on the
service part of the overland world I mean these guys have dreams of just all of this stuff they want
on there and a lot of them overlanders are dreamers yeah really good absolutely full-sized truck
yeah yeah yeah I got to go with the trailer yeah everything too so I feel like where we can
really capitalize is the service part of all this and really because and also the camper shell industry
because it is it's very small here in Southern California yeah smart caps changing the game because
those come in boxes so those can be shipped over online and so we can ship those now where
you can't ship a fire of that shell yeah it's it's it's saying you're impossible so
I feel like now that we're able to ship we can really capitalize on on our shell production oh that's
interesting but also being able to install all the products we sell you know all all these LED lights
these flashy lights the powerboards then just everything we be able to really capitalize on that
because I would say tents but we didn't capitalize on tents as much as we did back in like
there are 2017-2018 when there's a really coming out because you know everyone's doing them but
I'd say just the shells and the the retracts tunnel cover so I was talking about those types of
systems and drawer slides I think drawer slides systems you know going back to deck they've made a huge
push in the market and it's one of those I've had that product in my truck and it's one of
those things once you have it you're like this is amazing like the drawer system is great
but I think overlanders are very much like kids with Legos like yeah exactly you build this thing and
you're like oh this is cool oh man I saw a new thing I want to try something new and I just need
more budget and more trucks like I mean Jose's got all the money in the world to vehicles and
he's still can't get it right and speaking of deck to going back to you know really
capitalizing on the service industry I don't I mean the deck when it goes in is two pieces yeah
but it's about a 478 pieces to a sample it takes us four hours before the customer gets there yeah
he I got the deck and he came over like one day and after work but like hey let's put this thing together
it's like nine o'clock at night we're still not going on here I thought it was just dropping in
oh no no that's where we're really trying to be that that the ability to do that and
and sell them and get on that that's very cool yeah so you'll come over to it I don't know if it's
nine o'clock and you guys have more than one location right yes yes so in in 76 my grandfather
grandpa bought the Fullerton location okay and then in 86 we bought the Riverside Offer
Riverside in Madison okay location and we've been there since my dad's been operating that store
and in Riverside in my grandpa grandma and uncle are still at the Fullerton store really yeah and
I'm the third generation oh that's that's super cool yeah I love that I love like I said
like I've been familiar with you guys from the commercial side and I love seeing you guys
here at a location like this because there's commercial work is never going away right now those
trucks are going to be there forever and I think that there's such a diverse opportunity in
off-road and overlanding from the things that you guys do and provide that it's just going to take
the organization to the next level and that's exciting for to see you guys do that exactly and we've
really starting to get into the off or the overland off-road accessories here at the show we've been
so many people interested in the airbed's air mattress okay and we actually know Jim Pittman
okay he's good friend of my dad's over here and he gave us a bunch of promo and everyone
every person oh my gosh look at the mattress yeah yeah and that's another great thing is
goes in your truck bed or goes in your your back seat you get a sleep back there and uh and then
also the accessories like uh domestic we've we've really picked up their line of tables and chairs and
we have a jet well stove that we're selling okay everyone so you guys are full in fully on this
and I noticed a dad standing over here in the background but you do all the hard work yeah yeah he's not
he's not quite the talkers so uh I'll take it over from here but it's good oh where's the best
place for people to find you guys when they want to be there find you online or coming get you
yeah so the best place to find us uh fuller truck.com right now our current website is under construction
so the old website hasn't been updated in some time and I've been front-learning the new website
that will have uh be able to buy off of okay it's more of a it's supposed the website is designed
to be an extension of our store it's not designed yet to be like a like an e-tailer where you know
a guy in New York buys off a remiss but yeah uh it's kind of an online catalog for us it shows
our shells but a lot of it is uh on some of the the more custom items it's it's called for
quote types of scenario okay it gives you the information the fit charts okay that stuff uh
you can reach us at that our location 1900 West Commonwealth in Fullerton and uh seven eight
two five in Indiana Avenue in Riverside and the last the last time I was in the Riverside location
like you go in and see a bunch of the products there's lots of stuff to see the touch and feel
and you know you guys there to ask questions and and get your information uh they're in Riverside
and then in Fullerton yep um well I'm super excited I love your love your rake by the way uh
but we're super excited about you guys being into this market I think that there's more than enough
room for people to come in especially when you talk about the service side I mean anybody can get into
selling things right but selling it and servicing it and being part of the community at
such a part and I think yours doing a great job with that and my my goals to have one foot or one toe
and all the industries yeah at least you know uh commercial overland regular guy
you know backflip first hunt first go to yeah yeah and just just follow follow the trends
and follow the market and really be the the the the service leader within the Southern California
Industries so it's awesome but yeah I'm looking forward to it because I know we're not gonna
we we can't really be the mega reetailer right but we can have a uh I feel like I mean on that though
there's a lot of mega retailers right let mega e-tailers yeah it's not a lot of guys where you can
drive up and say hey Anthony you know that thing that I saw like how when can I get that
install like oh you have it in stock I mean there's a big gap in the industry yeah that's what
we're trying to capitalize right I do think it's almost like it's it's funny I had this conversation
with someone like it's almost like things have gone full circle where nobody wanted brick and mortar
like it was all brick and mortar then nobody wanted brick and mortar was all online and now
everybody's like I am tired of getting all these boxes from Amazon never seeing the product
like it's trash like I can send this back I just want to go feel it so it's like yeah I
feel like especially in this industry when you're talking about large ticket items for dreamers
for guys that are dreaming about what this vehicle's gonna look like you guys are hitting that
sweet spot so I'm excited for you and we have such a wide selection you know I want my
one my customers to come in and be like here's my vision and then our job be like okay how do we
fill that and you go great what's your credit card? yeah all right we got this this this this
is your next scene oh this is my vision this is my wife's vision this is my wife's vision
this is my wife's vision this is what I have a approval for yeah exactly as horrible in sexists
is that sound well Anthony thank you so much for coming to the channel thank you for
for sitting down with us hanging out we'll we'll see you all day tomorrow too
and we'll get you on the show for some more conversation that would be great and then I'd like to
thank the the trail chaseers podcast yeah for having me on here it's my my first time on a podcast
no it's awesome you talked into the microphone the right into the microphone yeah yeah and then
you know big thanks to the Olo wheeling guys for having us out here so we're having a great time
thanks man appreciate you're welcome thank you
thank you for listening and if you want to be on the show please leave us a voice message at
951394 dirt thank you to Iron Man 4 by 4 America please go to Iron Man 4 by 4 America
and get everything you need for your next adventure thank you to Ryan to Rigno for all of the music
and thank you to our patrons for all of their support

Ep 262: Big Bear Offroad Experience

Welcome to the Trail Chaser's podcast.
This episode is presented by the Yola Weeland Overland show happening this weekend, March 18th and 19th,
2023 at Featherly Park in Anaheim.
The Trail Chaser team will be on the mic,
MCing the vent, most of us will be camping their Friday night through Sunday,
apparently somebody else has something better to do.
We'll be MCing the event,
which Matt thinks is going to give him carte blanche to go to all of the different food vendors
and tell them that he's the official taste tester and get their food for free,
but I think that's not going to work out.
So go to the link in the Yola Weeland Instagram page for details.
Come out and join us.
I 100% that my microphone and my prowess,
that's your backstage pass.
It's a back safe pass, I'm sorry, back safe pass for that event.
Today on the show, we talked to Desi Hauer from Big Bear Offroad Experience.
He talks to us about building numerous adventure-related businesses
before settling on his current trailing adventures.
Do you want to gain off-road experience and gain and have a great time?
Schedule your adventure with Big Bear Offroad Experience.
Today?
Sure.
Then we get into this weekend's Yola Weeling event.
You know, or Friday, if you have, apparently Jose is not going to be there Friday,
because he got something better to do, you won't tell us what this is.
So if you do,
Mark, don't let Jose in on Saturday.
You know, there's this adventure.
You know, there's this adventure.
Hey, everybody.
It is Tuesday night.
We are live on YouTube as we are usually on Tuesday nights.
It's 630 and we are joined by Desi Hauer from Big Bear Offroad Experience.
How you doing, man?
Great.
You guys, thanks for having me on.
No, thank you for coming.
So some background, Casey, you and Casey have done a lot of stuff together.
You guys are both stuck up there on that white snow capped mountain and with the
apocalypse and then I think one of the first times you and I ever hung out was when we
did the next and right and drive a couple of years ago.
And I got to drive with you to go get sandwiches from that super awesome sandwich shop
there in Big Bear.
And but you, you guys are, you guys are, so you're obviously up in Big Bear.
Right?
I'm here, Big Bear, not born and raised, but raised a majority of my life.
I'm a 40 plus year veteran.
Oh, so that's a, that's a long time.
That's my time.
What, what, what 40 years ago had you end up in Big Bear?
What drove you up there?
Raise by my grandparents, grandparents decide to move up here and they came up here.
But I was about a year old and they came up here and it started it, you know, I went to
high school up here, got in trouble in high school and they've gone to continuation
school up here and then, well, like every teenager in their hometown, I want to get out
of here.
I want to go somewhere else.
So I decided I was going to go up to Tahoe for a little bit.
Went up to Tahoe, started getting into some snowboard stuff and everything up there.
But really realized it wasn't the life for me.
I didn't want to live in a town where everybody just lived snow, you know, like other things
besides snow.
So decided to move back down, moved back down and like a indecisive early 20s, don't
teenager.
Like, hey, oh wait, this place does suck.
I'm going back to Tahoe again and, um, realized, uh, like, I wasn't up there to do anything
but have a good time.
I was just trying to exist.
I had no, no life goals except for just to have as much fun as I possibly could.
So I'd be up there and I would, uh, for a while I worked at Kirkwood and I would hurt
hitchhike from South Lake Tahoe to Kirkwood every day because my truck blew up while
I wasn't moving up there.
And so I hitchhiked at Kirkwood and when I would get to Kirkwood, it would be amazing
snow conditions and they'd always sense the crowds were down and they'd say, who wants
to go riding?
First one of my hand up every day.
Me, I'm going.
Yeah.
And then I did that for a couple of weeks and then all of a sudden, I got my paycheck and
I got a $56 paycheck after two weeks of work and I was like, oh man, this could
be tough living up here and that year, um, I don't advocate stealing at all and
oh, it was too hatred, but that year, going, I still, I stole a Snickers bar for my Thanksgiving
dinner that year.
Wow.
I, I, like, stole it from the cafeteria right before it left and I hitchhiked all the
way home and I got there and I'm like, oh, we have really nothing and I had the Snickers
bar that year for Thanksgiving, I'm like, maybe I should prioritize some of the, wow.
That is crazy.
That is crazy.
But I, I have going back to the continuation school comment because I grew up in
Montclair, right?
And if you need a continuation school, you went to Valley.
Yep.
Valley high.
And guess what?
Now I live in Fontana and guess what, school you go to if you need to go to the same
valley, right?
So it's like, I don't know, you know, what could be the, what's the continuation school
in Big Bear?
Like, because you have the highest school, and there's a, there's a, there's a, there's
only 12 people in the high school to begin with.
Yeah.
But even if not, there was actually a point when I got in trouble, it was a, with a whole
bunch of friends as a group of, like 12 of us and we thought we got away with some stuff
and about two months later, you know, one of my friends told the other friend and next
thing, you know, the whole group went down, the next thing you know, we're in the middle
class to get pulled out and it's the sheriff and everything and people are getting, oh my god,
we got in trouble and it was, it was funny because I got expelled from the whole school
district.
So yes, we have a continuation school, but where can school wouldn't even allow me at
the time?
And I had to go to our community school, which was at the Bear City Park, I don't know if
you're familiar with the Big Bear, they have, we have a little park in Big Bear City.
It's not even a park anymore because it's at the end of the runway and a plane actually
crashed there in the 90s and they realized it's probably, but you didn't cost that crash though,
right?
Nothing to do with the crash, but yeah, it was like 12 kids that went there and it was,
I think it was like six grade through high school, like it was just, it was like, it was like
the opposite of Little House on the Prairie with just like the bad kids, yeah, yeah, it
was the bad kid, a little house on the Prairie.
It was, it was a good time, a wild man, definitely, I don't know what, school education stuff
I learned, but I definitely learned how to kind of work a system in that one, like you
doesn't have to figure out your way to get your credits and get your school stuff going.
Then that year ended, that was my sophomore year, so my junior year started up at the
continuation school here and that I realized when I went to continuation school that I had
first semester sophomore credits because also when I was going to high school, I had, I realized
I could just leave anytime I want, so I would just leave and go snowboard, I was just like,
I'd show up and I'm like, what am I doing here, and I'd go snowboarding and I had so many
missed days and so when I got, it was the beginning of my junior year, you really had
zero high school credits and they told me like, hey, you got to, you got to figure this out
and you can ask some issues, so then they put me on my program where I could kind of work
at my own pace and they just gave me all the work, like this is the work that you have to
have done by this time and I just cranked it out and like, oh, that's it, I can crank
out four days worth of work in three hours, now let's get it all done and I went from freshman
credits to beginning of my sophomore year to graduating about four months early, so, in a
part, in a part, in a part, snowboarding, snowboarding, a ten-two, it sounds like, we all
should have went to high school and big bearer, that's it, my pretty, one of my electives
are, my PE elective was snowboarding through the winter months, so we, we leave school at
ten-thirty, and we had to meet at the resort at 1130, so it was a line of like 20-24 kids
and we would meet at the resort and it was chaos on the hill, we would follow once, our coach
or teacher, we'd follow him down the run and he'd haul ass, he wasn't losing, we were
ripping down and it was a line of 20 kids ripping behind him with zero disregard, anybody
on the hill, it was, they're wild and your friends would go down and when they go down
you're laughing at them and it, it, it was amazing and when I got to my very last semester of
high school at the point, I had, all my, all my PE credits were done, so there's like,
does he, all your PE credits are done, I'm, you're doing good, everything, the only thing you
really need is another math class, you know, I did algebra, are you sure? I did algebra twice
and I didn't mean, like, I did it to, I mean, like, I didn't really get into it. Somehow this
conversation with, I believe it was the principal and whoever else was in charge and my main
teacher at the time somehow they're like, well, do you want to keep up with your physical
education, I'm like, yes, of course, so my last semester of high school, I've got math credits for
my PE snowboarding. Oh my, there's, there's some math there, you got to know how much snacks
to pan away, this makes me feel like I should have transferred to like Apple Valley High School
because like dirt bikes was like your PE class and apparently could have been math. Yeah,
right. Yeah, we got high school. How'd they get the high school down? Oh, I don't
want to think about it because I'd be sad, because that's that would, but me out if I could
ride a dirt bike, that high school. No kind of chicks, I could pull a fucking ride a dirt bike
high school. No, none of this none of the same two people. You could, you could say, my
I couldn't, we couldn't pull him in your Dodge Dart, what made you think that a dirt bike was
going to be, maybe they're like, oh, first of all, I wish I had my Dodge Dart in high school,
Dodge Falcon or whatever you see is for Falcon, it was a point with champs. Yeah, it was a little
hatchback. If I had that dart, you guys wouldn't even know me in a day. I'd probably be like,
living somewhere north, Montana. Yeah. Like next, I mean, I'd be a bug based. Are you saying
you could have landed someone better than my sister? Because that's what I'm hearing. No.
Oh, shit. So, when did you, does he, when did you like, get through the high school and
then that towel back and forth? And when did you finally like, okay, big bears where I'm going
to be, when do you settle in? So, before I left all there, I got in the operating snowcats at
the ski resort. You know, up here, dreaming of, you're, I'm going to be a professional snowboarder.
I'm going to do this that. And, um, when I was 18, I got the opportunity to get into snowcats.
And I jumped all over that opportunity. Because right, so did Jeremy ran away by the way. Is that a
big bear player? So did Jeremy ran away and didn't work out for him. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Sorry, I got it. So, Denzi, sounds like you're fully qualified to take over for Hawkeye. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, exactly. I see, I, I like to put my break on before getting out of the snowcats.
You know what? It seems like a natural normal thing to do, but you never know, you know,
like when you're super hero, you don't do things normally. It's true. When they announced that,
and they said what happened, we knew exactly what happened. Because those older snowcats,
the new ones have fail-safes that you open the door that you break kicks on and all that.
That stuff doesn't work in the old snowcats. They're, you open the door and you literally see
like a grinder right there that'll be your effort. But sometimes it's hot, so you open the door.
That's, if you're doing daytime stuff, but you know, it's the most deadly place to be ever.
You're done. And I, I heard the only reason he made it, I've heard of, I know of other people that
have gotten run over by snowcats. And the only reason, if you get run over by the thing,
the only way you're surviving is if it's powder. Because you kind of sink in and as a crush you.
But if you have any type of hard surface on your feet, you're done. You're done.
So something you might have left out with the snow, but I wasn't there. But I got into operating snowcats.
When I was 18 years old, when I was like 19, and we'd back up the Tahoe again and then came back. So I was
kind of doing it a little bit here and there. But then when I came back down, I got into operating
snowcats at snow summit. I started working there. That was right at the beginning of snowboard
park development. So we were kind of designing west ridge and all that was just starting. So
we were literally doing all the groundwork for how a jump landing is designed and how a takeoff should
be shaped in proper trajectories and proper distances. Yeah. So I can, I can account for, I can
make math. I can thank you for multiple concussions. Because it's snow summit in pair valley.
I knocked myself out more than once on the snowboard park. It'll definitely happen out there for sure.
I think I'm on your side with that one too. Casey, do you remember when we went up
there with Cameron? We went up there with Cam one time. Yeah. So we went up there with Cam and
he's one of his buddies who I'd met before I knew. We get there. It's like the second run in
Casey and I get too close to each other and I kind of push off of him. I catch an edge. I fall back.
I hit my head and then this guy hands me my beanie and my goggles and I'm like, thanks dude, I
appreciate that. And I spend the next couple hours hanging out with my brother and this guy and I'm
like, who's this fucking guy following us around? Mind you, I drove him up there. He was with me
in the truck. He came with us, but for a good solid two hours, I had no idea who the dude was.
Like I just and finally I was like, I'm I'm going to die. I need to this is this is it was really bad.
It was. That happens to me like a lot of weekends. It's me. It's Jose, Jose, you know
back to operating the cats where they like, hey, you're 18 year old enough to do this now or did
you have to take a dream class? Well, it was I was 18. I kind of had, you know, like any job.
You have to know somebody to get in there. They knew I was kind of young doing like store work
park stuff and I wanted to or just get my foot in the door and in my head, I'm thinking, okay,
this is a way I can still be in the snowboard industry, but I don't have to keep up with my friends
or keep up with everybody as far as what they're doing because I'm six foot five back then. I was
like, 225 pounds right now. I'm like 250, but like when I would hit the ground, same jump, same height,
same trick, I'd fall right next to my friend, but I felt like I hit so much harder than my friend
that we were buck 50. Yeah, and it was just I just realized like maybe I can stay in the industry
doing what I love doing. I could even be more hands on because I could build a park the way I
wanted to do it instead of just writing whatever's there. And so it just was a golden opportunity
at that time for me. So that's awesome. And then I was doing that forever. Eventually,
snow summit purchased bare mountains. So then when snow summit purchased bare mountains, they
started to do all the snowboard park stuff over there. So I went over there with a couple of my
friends that I've been working with Texan Jeremiah and we started working over there. Then
while over there, I like every job, you need a raise, you need more money. And I was asking for
raise asking for money in my boss who was a big role model at the time or the mountain manager.
It's not my direct boss, but the mountain manager, talking to him, his name was Carl Plowser.
And when I talked to Carl, I said, hey, Carl, I need to get paid more. How much of these
guys getting paid? And you're like, I don't know how to approach someone for a raise. I just
look, I need to get more money. And he told me there really wasn't much room for a raise. They gave
me a little thing. I think it's like the 75 cents or whatever. But that's what they could do.
And I'm like, well, this isn't going to work. What is there somewhat work? And really,
there wasn't anything that was going to get me the salary I wanted. So he told me, maybe I should
get a second job. Maybe I do my all right. Oh, I'm going to second job. I looked at doing that.
Then I in 2004, right around then, I actually had pretty decent credit. I paid off like a
Yamaha banshee and all the stuff, just stupid stuff, went out of your kid. But I had a really
good match. He's not stupid. Banshee's a very good boy. Yeah. But you know, just when your kid
wasn't like anything big, but for some reason, I had an amazing credit score for a kid in my
young 20s, which I, I don't know how it's probably because grandma making sure, hey, did you pay
that money? Yeah, drive. It was grandma kind of making me do everything. And I decided, I was going
to glamour all the time. It's going on these places. And every time I was going to glamour,
it was costing me a thousand bucks. And it probably, if it wasn't bike repairs, it was personal repairs.
You know, I was going to hospital just to get work. I also had a couple friends die out there. I'd
one friend losing arm. And I was like, man, glamour was starting to get wild west type and kind of
getting a little wild. So I really wanted to start wakeboarding. So I'm like, I'm going to sell all my
dirt bike stuff. And I'm going to try to buy a wakeboarding boat. I think the finance it. I
heard they'll do a 30 year loan. So I went in there and I kind of used every connection I had I
got in there. And at 20, in my young 20s, they let me order my boat, not just order it. I, they
came with a piece of paper where I got to check the boxes and everything is hard. I ordered this
boat and it was a 60,000 plus dollar boat in 2004. You know, like, yeah, I'll take it.
Yeah, then I'll never forget leaving there writing the check. I actually threw up in the parking lot.
Oh, and I'll be in front of like, I can't believe I just did that, you know, but
that the boat came in and it was a $300 payment. And I didn't have any responsibilities at that
time. I was like, remember, but my parents found out my family found out and they were going to
fucking kill me. What are you doing by a $60,000 wakeboard boat? You're partying? Yeah,
you're a wakeboard. I'm like, I'm telling my life. What do you think I'm going to do with a $60 dollar
wakeboard boat? And so I told them, I'm starting a wakeboard school. I'm starting a wakeboarding
and wire skiing school. So they're like, they, you know, pretty much call them.
What's that? And yeah, exactly. And I ended up working out of, uh, or I went to the
people at Pleasure Point Marina and I said, hey, you guys, can I start doing a little wakeboarding
wire skiing school? Just really not to do the business, but to get away with my bullshit with my
family like I'm just like, if I do the least say I'm doing it, then I'm justified owning this boat.
So I started doing it. And for years, so I was taking people out and people were kind of
getting into it. So I was like, oh, this is working. Um, the next year, the owners of the Marina,
it was a member of the Marina, the managers, they came to me and said, hey, this business that you're
doing kind of compliments our facility, will you kind of work out of here? And I said, yeah,
and I took a little more serious. Then, um, as the year went on, I wanted to show them how
serious I was because I'm like, this could actually turn into a business. People were booking me
up while I was going out. It was still costing me money to take people out. I wasn't making money
like a business. But I was like, this could work if I took it serious. So it sounds like a podcast.
Right.
Um, my great grandmother happened to pass away that year. And I got, well, the first time I've
ever got a chunk of change, I got like 10 grand for a little inheritance. And instead of blowing it on
the car or anything like that, making a payment on my boat or anything like that. Um, decided this
Marina was selling shares of the Marina. It's a member's own Marina. So I used my 10 grand plus
saved up a little more and they let me pay off 17,000 to buy into this Marina. Wow. And now I bought
into this Marina, my young 20s and let them know, hey, I want to be the guy that runs a wake
boarding varskeens school out of this Marina. And so we started doing it. And it just the summer
after that really started taking off. Um, we had we were sold out where I needed to get another boat.
So the year after that, it bought another boat. And next thing you know, we had the wake
board school going. A couple years later, um, my original goal was to open a cable wake board park
and this night. And it was one of the first ones to be allowed in the state California. So
while opening the wake board school, doing all this, I was, um, working with the city to
open a cable wake board park, realized real estate in California, late front real estate
for, for an activity that's charging people $20 an hour in, you know, for multi-million dollar
real estate on the lakes. It's really not happening. You need to $400,000 people a day.
Make it work. No, I was like, I was set. I wanted to get this cable park going. And they just
introduced the two tower cable park. So it's a smaller footprint. So I'm like, how can I make this work?
So, um, I already worked out of the Marina for a few years. I asked them if I could figure out
a way to open a cable park here where they allowed me to do it. And they said, yeah, well,
we're going to figure it out is the problem was real estate. I put the whole cable park in the middle
of the bay in our zone of influence of the Marina. So we actually built docks, a rectangle of docks,
400 feet, 400 feet long, um, about a hundred feet wide. And we would shuttle people out to the
cable park in the middle of the bay with a boat. Oh, so didn't need to, um, no longer needed to
have the shore access. We just took people out to these docks. And we had a full cable weightboard park
in the middle of Medkath Bay here in Big Raleigh. And it was awesome. It was the coolest place ever.
Problem is the drought kicked in. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You guys have joined by the sign. Yeah. Yeah.
That's okay. It's so good here. The drought kicked in and it became a, uh, DTV shredder park.
Yeah. But those of you that don't know what come back like episode 40. It's a D, the DTV shredder.
Uh, that's that. Well, I will share with you what that is later, Dizzy.
Uh, Mr. I miss the episode 41. It's like episode 40 something. It was, it was, it's a stupid,
it's pretty funny. It's, it's a stupid, uh, it looks like a scooter with a track on it. And we
Matt Matt was making fun of it really hard on the show when we first started talking about episode 29.
Uh, episode 29. So, uh, really early. So what year was that where, where, what was the peak?
What year was the peak of the, uh, cable park? Well, the, um, probably 2010. Okay. Right around your hand.
And I also at that time, um, owned the restaurant. So I owned a restaurant. I opened a restaurant in 2008.
Called Desi's in the village. And it was, uh, maybe remember that. Yeah. Right across the street from Jack in the
box. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, it, it was doing great. But it, it was, uh, 2008. We all know the times, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. Of course. That's the year I decided to go all in and open a restaurant. Yeah. Yeah.
So, we were going, we were open a lot of my friends at. We're also in the restaurant business.
We're pulling tons of money from savings just trying to keep open. We were actually able to keep
open and pick, cover costs. We weren't making a ton of money. But in that time, just to be surviving
was a great thing. Yeah. Um, but in that time, I also got a divorce. It was going through a divorce.
And so in that divorce process, I, uh, uh, had to like make some decisions. What are we going to cut?
What were we get rid of? And I realized the restaurant industry wasn't for me. I wasn't like,
I didn't want to be married or restaurant. And I was also going through a divorce in 2007, 2008.
And I had to make some cuts. And I cut my X-Wife. Yeah. And it turned out to be a good decision.
That, that was the, that's the best decision to make. You know, I was, I was married for three
years to my X-Wife. I was married in three years. And it was about a four and a half year divorce.
It was brutal. Oh, so long. We had it with torture. But um, at that moment, I'm right after
my divorce, after got rid of the restaurant, I went on a vacation. You know how like you have
a different mindset. Yeah. And you're kind of, oh, yeah. I do. Yes. Exactly. And then I'll place. So I remember,
I used all my tip money from the wakeboard school. I would save up my tips. And I go on a fishing trip.
I went on a fishing trip to Mexico. And um, I paid every dime I had to go fishing like just
a forever day. I remember. And whatever money's in your bank account, you like life doesn't exist
after your vacation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. I got this right out later. Exactly. And I went
out fishing. And after fishing, I remember paying all my bills and then also tipping a great tip
and hugging the guy, hugging my captain. We actually still talked about what I called it. And I'm like,
hugging him. Yeah. Thanks man. That was amazing. And I remember when I left that day,
I was like, I want to be that guy for other people instead of us. And I kind of had like this like
a little epiphany in my head. Like, I don't want to deal with things that people have to do anymore.
Because I had the wakeboard school. I had the restaurant. I used to have to do a little landscaping
company. I was younger and everything too. And um, I realized every time people have to do stuff,
you know, you have to eat. So no matter how good the food was, they could be
bitchy and mooney, you know. But you don't have to go jetking. You don't have to go wakeboarding.
So these are people wanting to go out and have a good time. And it's a lot more pleasant to deal with
them. It's nice when people want to pay you versus have to pay you. No one wants to fix their
plumbing. But so when you tell how much the bill is there. And with what we do, I'm like,
man, I excel at having a good time. Why don't we show other people how to have a good time? You
know, some people excel at, at op at their quick books and some people excel at accounting.
I don't excel at any of that. But you know, I do a good time at. I'm good at having a good time.
I'm good at getting you out there having a good time. So I kind of help the people that can't get
out of the office and can't have a good time. I help them. Like, this is what we're going to do.
I'm going to show you how to have a good time because they don't, they don't know. And um,
I, when I had that little change in mindset, I feel like life got a lot better, at least,
as far as work wise, you have to work every day, no matter and less until you figure out the money
thing, everybody needs money. So you get, until you figure out how to bring some revenue in,
you have to work. Yeah, if you enjoy your work, at least it's not that bad, you know, and
and if you enjoy what you do. So try to just enjoy what I'm doing. I got to work every day. And
I, I make people's day and that's what's awesome. When with my wake boarding school,
there's kids that I taught how to wake forward back in 2005 and six that were five years old. And
now they're graduated college and they come up and give me a hug. Does he? I'm like,
holy crap. I'm old. And I need to get hugged me. But, you know, we've made something about
making life memories and life impressions are kind of just, it's very rewarding
versus just other things. Even if you get a bigger paycheck doing something else, it's also
enjoying your work and enjoying what you do. It kind of makes everything, I love that.
When did you transition or how did you transition from the wake boarding into what you're doing
now, which started off as the Big Bear Jeep experience? Now, the Big Bear Offroad experience.
And if you guys haven't already go to the Big Bear Offroad experience, it's just Big Bear Offroad
experience.com. They are big underscore bear underscore off underscore road underscore experience on
Instagram. They're Big Bear Offroad experience on TikTok and please go to their Big Bear Offroad
Experience page on YouTube and subscribe. We want to get that subscription rate on YouTube up
tonight, if we can, or Thursday, whenever you listen to this.
Oh, please, with that YouTube stuff, we just launched our YouTube channel and we're trying to keep it
friendly on our funny on there. Everybody's a professional. So many these channels. Everybody's a
professional showing what to do on their cars. Like, this is how you do that. You know, we go off
roading all day every day, but none of us are professionals. And what's going on? The second
you think you know what's going on, or you say, this is how you do it. That's when it doesn't work like that.
So yeah, we're professional enough to know it's not going to go as planned probably. So just be ready
for how do you define, how do you define professional offroader? I don't get paid to do it.
I mean, I should. I should. With my contribution to the podcast, and I go for wheeling,
and I talk about it. I should get paid for that. Professional. Okay.
But it doesn't happen. As I'm saying, like, I don't get me money, you know, whatever. You tell me,
does he? I don't want me to do that. When did that happen? When did you start the adventure,
you know, the offroader experiencing? So after the fours, 2012 and stuff, I had that epiphany.
That life epiphany. Like, I want to deal with people's good times. And, um,
I've got to deal with people's good times too. I just want to say, I need to be as sure like,
I only want to deal with people's good times. Can I deal with your good times? Yeah. I don't want
to be the bad times. Get your bad times out of here. Yeah. I like it. That we should do that.
Let us be in charge of the good times. Yeah. So, um, right after that,
I actually had the idea kind of, while I was going through that whole process. Like,
hey, I was into offroading. I was into jeeping. But personally, I could never
really afford a fully built Jeep. Like, and fully, like, I'd be going out with other people's
rigs and just doing what we could do here and there. I grew up going to glamorous with all those
family stuff. But I wanted to start doing it on my own. I realized like the only way I'm going to be
able to do it on my own is to kind of do the same thing. I did with the Wakeboard School. And you know
what, this plan that I had with the Wakeboarding School worked, let's try to do the same exact thing
with the offroading business. And I'm going to do with the Wakeboard School. I thought it was going
to be at Wakeboard School, but ended up taking people out in these awesome boats just to show
them what the lake's all about. We might wakeboard. We might, we might, we might, we might,
wake surf. We might go tubing. We might just go drive around Lake, but just get that whole
boating experience in these nice boats. Like, why can't that same plan work for the jeeps? Where they
get the whole experience of these nice offroading vehicles, these fully built rigs, but they don't have to
do it. And they don't have to go rock crawling. They can go on a dirt trail. We just want to go drive
around doing history to work. Yeah, whatever they want to do. So I got in 2014, I was as broke as
you could be coming out of the forest. I remember going through the forest that when creditors
recall me, like, we're going to ding your credit if you don't pay for this. I'm like, you know,
when you're going to do it, you're like, oh, yeah, that's all you got. Like, so let me, let me put
on the floor with the first one. Yeah, you're all, you can, you can ding a zero, but it ain't going
to go below zero, like that's where you're at. You're going to ding it. Yes, we're going to
run. We're going to, we're going to garden your wages. I have no wages. Go ahead, Doug.
I'm not fun. Gorgeous. You're going to put like some salad or something around my wages or
cartilage. That's what it's called. No, I know. Maybe we need to think about it. Yeah, it's dumb.
I think it'd be like a radish on the side of you. Exactly. On the side of it, so I'm going to get
some salad or some radish. I just came out of that kind of phase in my life where I realized
like, what am I doing? I'm just being self destructive here, you know, and so I'm going, I'm like,
I'm going to try to start this new company. I think I can make it happen, but I have like four
grand, maybe, to my name, like a couple of paychecks. And I had to call my call my grandma that
kind of raised me. She's driven my aunt, say grandma, you know, what's been going on, but I think
this, I'm going to try to do a deep, I need a co-signer. I was, I think, 30 something years old.
I'm buying two jeeps, but, you know, she's like, okay, you know, I'll help you get there. We had
the wakeboard school, and that was going. They know we had revenue going, but I just, I couldn't
just go in and buy two jeeps because I didn't have that. So grandma, co-signed, I went and bought
two jeeps, and I spent the next year just developing trail routes, developing what I want to do.
And I intentionally didn't go out with one company that does anything close to what I was looking
to do, because I didn't want to get tainted, like the idea of what I wanted by anybody else's plan.
So I got my whole game plan. I decided what I want to do, kind of developed some routes and trails
that we wanted to do. And then right before opening, I went out with a company called Las Vegas
Rockrollers, just to see what they do and their point of view. So I wasn't going out at completely
blind. I went out there and I'm like, cool, that's exactly what I was looking to do, but
some things were a little different. And I also, like, what can I improve on, you know, in my
frame of mind. And so I went out with them and then I went out and researched what other people did
and said, okay, it's time to open up. We opened up and it took about a year to get traction.
People were checking out, we got going on. But the next year, also, all those people that we told
to go out told their friends. And their friends were coming out. Next thing you know, these two
jeeps, one was the guide vehicle. So the other, the other one that's behind us, we're selling out,
like every weekend. And we're like, we have to get another jeep. So I bought a new a third jeep,
which was a little TJ. And we started, he had the trails. Now I have a two door and a four door
option. And it started taking off. And then it just started gain traction more and more. The reviews
started taking off. The word of mouth started taking off. And now we're sitting here. It's 2000,
23. Let me think about what year this was. We're nine years later. And we've now, I feel like,
probably one of the top rated driving experiences in the country. And I say that kind of proud,
like, man, we've done some cool stuff. And where our goal is to be the top rated driving experience
in the country. Our company motto is education through experience. So we're trying to get people
off-roading, but not just drag them along. And I'll cool what you did it and you're done.
We're the whole time they're out there. We're teaching them, but we're not making it feel like a classroom.
So it's just a casual conversation as we go out. They get to the Jeep. And as we're teaching
them how to drive the Jeep, right when they walk to it, they look and they go, why are the tires flat?
And it's like, oh, guys, we're actually air down for off-road use. You want to air down because
you want to wider footprint. The tires, the first stage of your suspension. So as you're going
down there, the tire is going to absorb the shock of all the instant shock. And then it works
its way up to their suspension. We talk about wider footprint. When we tell them stuff like,
when the tires are air down, it's like driving on four marshmallows. They get all excited like,
oh, you know, I get it. But and the other thing I think that's interesting about what you do is
you, it's not just a single, like this is the experience that you book. You're very much like,
do you want to drive your Jeep? And I'll take you on a trail. Do you want to drive somebody else's
Jeep? Do you want to drive one of ours? Do you want to, what kind of experience do you want rock
crawling? Do you want trail? Do you want, like you said, historical tour like, it's very much a
customizable. People will get what they want out of it because you give them the option to do that.
That's exactly. We try not to be, we don't try to not to personalize in a box. We want to,
if you guys want to do it, we'll make it happen. Well, you said the next entire bit. I love
any of those events that we do where people are getting out, they're getting an introduced to a
product. What was awesome about the next entire event is they just released the MTX. They wanted
to show a bunch of distributors and dealers across the country. What the MTX can do. These guys
still tires in warehouse is all over the country. They don't go off-roading. They see pictures. They
they, you know, they see the magazines and sometimes they drive down a dirt road and something like
that, but they don't go off-roading. So when they get up here, first of all, to the mountains,
you get to the big bear y'all, and you feel like you're in a resort. Yeah. Amazing. And then
you get putting these jeeps that are fully built. These things are one-toned axle, you know,
with suspension. They're fully done. And then you go on the trail and you actually go
into the low gear where most people are driving, when they say they're off-roading,
they don't even put in the low range. How are you really off-roading if you're not,
people get in the low range, you know, and get... What was last time you were on the 6.05
between the 10 and the 16. It's getting pretty bad, yeah. Have you, you should see big bear
bull of our right now. Oh, my bad. Oh, I can't imagine, yeah. If you're not, if you don't have long
travel suspension right now, just don't even drive down the bull of our right now. I'm not joking.
We're trying to get out there probably on the next day or two. Since we, the force has been shut
down and it's shut down until the 16th, we're going to do our next Instagram or YouTube video.
We're going to try to do a, put it going into four low and spotting through the pot holes right there.
And so bad. It is horrible. I can't believe that they're not doing,
I know they're doing whatever they can, but they throw sand and hit the first card tray
sand that all blast out. Yeah. Pretty hilarious. So, if you could you talk about like the, the
different like experiences that you offer, right? Because you have to just do one trail. You have
you do several different trails like for depending on what the people want. So, let me give you the
phone call. Like if you were calling right now and you go, hey, hi guys, what do you do? Like,
oh, guys, yeah. If you book us up, you rent and drive one of our jeeps. There's nobody in the
jeep except for you and your group as you follow our guide on the off road trail. The guide's
going to be narrating the trip via two-way radio the entire time. It's all about mining history,
history, the valley, off-roading, off-road techniques, all of that stuff along the way. We do everything
from sightseeing trips to the most advanced rock crawling trails that we have up here in Big Bear
and the trip you choose is going to determine the cost. So, our shortest easiest trip is a sightseeing
tour. It's an hour and a half long. It's called the Gold Vever Trail. We take you out. We stop at
like the lucky ball. With mine, we stop at the whole Valley Ranch. Talking about the mining
history, we get out of the photos. It's an hour and a half to complete. It's cost of 249 per vehicle
for a two-door jeep, 50 bucks extra for a four-door. That's per vehicle, not per person. The step up
from there is called the squeeze. You guys are familiar with the squeeze. So, we take you in the
whole convalley. We still do all the sightseeing stuff. But now we take you to the whole convalley
pinnacles and we go up to the obstacles in front of the squeeze. This is a great introduction area.
So, people have never been in four-low. They get to go in that low gear range. They get to learn
first how to drive over an obstacle by observing it themselves. So, we teach people how to
roll their actual windows down. Instead of just being the guy that's got his head behind the
wheel, we can load the regular tires. I try to go people like, guys, look at what you're doing.
Probably the most important thing with off-roading is just seeing what's going on. Yeah.
Just visualizing what you're doing. So, I get people to stick their head out the window.
They actually watch their tire approach a rock. We teach them how to drive up and finesse.
When you're in four-low, there's no reason really that you ever have to give it more than 10%
of the gas. Unless you're in deep mud or snow. But when you're crawling,
there's no reason to have to punch it because you're trying to prevent friction. So, you're
trying to prevent your wheels from spinning. So, we teach them how to finesse their way up the rock,
get to the top of a rock. And when they get to the top, how to stop right away. So,
the energy doesn't travel down the backside. Yeah. So, they get a rock. We have someone that we need
to book for one year, Nicole. If you're listening, let me know what week and you're available.
Yeah. Do you get the chat room early? Dizzy talks about finessing his your way up a trail.
And I just, that might be something like a troll. It might be something wrong on your kid.
She's going to be so mad. Sorry, Dizzy, go ahead. I had to do it again.
No, no, no, no, no. There's, there's times, you just end up bouncing your way through.
And it works, but we're out long. So, we teach them how to finesse their way down to,
you know, how to use the controlled braking as you lower. You just don't want to bounce down.
We try to get all of our, our guests and realize there's a front tire and a back tire.
Some people are surgeons with their front tires. And they just forget all about the back.
We drive right over stuff. So, it's good. It's like, guys, after you drive over an obstacle,
your front tire, then the same exact thing with your rear tire. And then we also teach them how
the turning radius. So, we teach about the obstacle straight. But then it's a little different when you're
turning. Are you going to go around the rock with your front tire or over the rock with your front
tire? Because you want your back tire to get it. So, that would be the squeeze, the squeeze,
when we get to the obstacles, the guides get out and they spot you through obstacles. And they also
take photos and videos with your camera or your cell phone. So, we're not trying to make extra money on
that. We want you to have the photos. And that's what blows people's minds. Everybody wants a picture
of them driving a lot of people over rock. You know, that's just, that's good as the photos get.
So, we get the photos. We get down. We get those low angles. And then we take people back.
So, that that that trips about two hours long. It's 349 per vehicle. And once again, two or 50 bucks
extra for a photo. Our most popular trip is John Bull Jr. We do John Bull Jr. It's basically
east end to John Bull. So, we go up the squeeze. And when you get to that intersection where you can
make a left and continue up John Bull or you go right and you hit John Bull Jr. We do John Bull Jr.
The obstacles get a little bit larger there. And now we have people doing it on their own. So,
now they're using all the skills that they've learned and applying that skill to use as they're
driving up. So, instead of learning something and driving away, okay, cool. Now, I'm doing it on my own.
We get them up the final cliff face at the top of John Bull Jr. We get a little photo and video
of them going up that because it's the most exciting part. And then we stop at the top. We celebrate
at the top. We get, yeah, you did it. You know, high fives, we get a group photos. And next,
three hours long, 449 per vehicle, 50 bucks extra for the photo. And then the last one is the trail.
You see right behind me here, gold mountain. Yeah. And yeah, gold mountain. The company G has 42 trails
in the country. They recommend people try to complete. There's the app that you can download in
your phone, the badge of honor app. And out of the 42 trails in the country, we're fortunate that
six of those trails here in California, three of them are right here in Big Bear. Yeah, gold mountains
one of them. We have gold mountain John Bull and Hope and Creek. So, gold mountain would be the next
point. That's four hours to complete, 575 per vehicle. Hands down are best trail for views, obstacles,
everything like that. It's, it's a very unique trail. Jeep, when they released their jail,
in 2018, 2017, they hired us to take them on a photo shoot. And they wanted to go up one of the
badge of honor trails. And they said it was for the new jail, the catalog and all that. I was so
excited. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be the first ones to see this thing. We got up here,
they hired us. They're like, we need to also hire an extra one of your jeeps to use it to
mocking up. And they bring else photo crew. They hired us to have the, we got, they got there.
They didn't have the jail with them. They, they want us to pick up, they use the photo and they
see G. I had the nose and this sucks. And that's so funny because now you're looking at all the
photos and you're all bullshit. That's bullshit. That year, they also hired us. So I told you guys
how I work for, I do snowboard parks. I work for this company called SPT. SPT is snowpark technologies.
We do events like the X games and all that. So for years, I've gone to the X game or I leave for
the month of January and help with X games course construction. In 2018, when the jail was being released,
jeeps sponsors the X games, jeep contacted my connects at SPT. They were like, hey,
guys, we want to build a course for the new jeep jail on the, on the, on the ski resort, on the hill.
Do you guys have a way to do that? And they're like, we actually have the perfect guy. Yeah, exactly.
So we had the, um, we are up here. They told me the beginning of December. And they're like,
hey, we have to build a course up there. And I said, well, we'll need rocks. We'll need boulders. We'll need
trees. We'll need all this stuff. Well, it was an aspen in December. We're not getting any of the
stuff. Why it around. All buried. Yeah. So I actually had to go out in Big Bear. We were cutting trees
down, cutting tree stumps down, collecting boulders. And I had to politicize tree stumps and boulders
and send semi trucks full of tree sucks, tree stumps and boulders and everything to call
that. You know the FedEx guy. The FedEx guy showed up, but he's like, the fuck is this.
How are you? How are you fucking shit? My shipping is fucking rocks right now. Are you serious?
He did exactly that. So the shipping guys, I, it's one of the, one of the guys that does all the
shipping for the X games. And he, he happens to be a friend of mine and he shows up there and my buddy
Billy, he goes, what the fuck is this? We had stuff like strapped to a pallet, like with like
ropes and stuff. He's like, this isn't going to work, man. So we spent like two days loading his truck
up, wrapping it with shrink wrap and he's like, can't believe I'm bringing fucking rocks to
the mountain. Yeah. It was when he was going, he was driving out there. One, there's a big
section of the truck. That was full of tree stumps because what we did is we built a road that was
all tree stumps side by side. So it's like an undulating road where you're driving on nonstop
links tree stumps that does like a wave kind of feel. And he's driving, he calls me when he gets to
about almost a state line and he's like, is anybody, no, no, does anybody know if we can transport
lumber across state lines with like, you know, well, there's all the bark beetle stuff. Yeah,
yeah, but yeah, I'm like, oh, man, I don't know. And he luckily he went for it. He got there,
but he was, you're like, it's in the box, in the back of the box, no one's going to know the
difference. Just don't stop. Just don't stop. What about the waste nation? Yeah. Um,
so you've got, you start with the jeeps and you, how many jeeps do you have in the fleet right now?
So now we're at 2023. We have seven jeeps in our, or six jeeps in our fleet. Sorry,
I used to have a seven side. Just don't rid of our little LJ. So the silver LJ. No, the silver
LJ I have. Okay. I bought a blue LJ last year and I was, I love this blue LJ. It was
moving my personal car. It was one of those highway cars. Yeah, yeah. And it had a couple of
little problems. We found out it was just the computer. We got the new computer for actually
three computers to finally get the right one, but we got a computer for it. And I was loving this car,
but this, this winter has been a rough winter for jeep tours. It's been the coldest winter since
since I can remember up here. It's been a long time of cold. Not really great. There's just
almost no sense, since, since I like the winter after I moved here 13 years ago, yeah.
Yeah, it's been the most. And so normally we're able to get just enough jeep tours to kind of
keep it open. You know, we might come up a little short, but we're just trying to keep the staff going
and all that. This year, it's been rough. It was rough. And then it was rough before this last set of
stone forums came that shut down the road. And then they just did the forest closure. So that
that's close to 17. So pretty much put us out for a month of time now. So we're going to get back
to work this spring, but we had to, I told the wife of all, I'm liquidating everything that doesn't
make us money. So the jeep is like, that's my personal leap. We can always get another one later,
but we just got to get to the spring. So now we've got the spring here. People are looking up.
It's getting busy, snow is melting. It's going to be an incredible spring up here with all this snowfall.
Yeah, with the snow. And then once that starts to melt, I think, I mean, that's going to
completely change the terrain. So if you, if you've wheeled in Big Bear and it's been a while,
you should go back. And then what's the, has there been any projections about the impact on the
lake? Because the lake has been sad for a long time. So at the end of last summer, we were 19 and
a half feet down. Right now, we're sitting at 12 feet eight down. And that's with no melt.
That's yeah, with just the rain and everything that's been lately. Right now, it's pouring rain
outside. So we're supposed to have anywhere from two to six inches. So if that's called three inches,
oh, that's what my wife calls it. Yeah, it's an average amount of snow. Yeah, I like that.
It's a, um, I'm going to have to do inches. So let's call it six inches.
Yes, I'm, I'm hoping, and I'm being, I think that will be sitting at like five to six feet
down from full when the, when it's all said done. And that will be incredible. That would be,
and it's been, it's been declining for 10 years. It's been, it's been, the,
Big Bear lake used to be, I mean, and obviously, you know this, but for the listeners, like Big Bear
Lake is a good sized lake. And we would go up there in the summer every year for the
deep. There's, there's like walkways where it's like like that we're supposed to be over water,
but they're just, yeah, they're just sitting on the ground now. Yeah. But, but it was, it would,
I mean, in that lake had so much activity year round that, and I'll just went away. All of
those lake activities went away, all of the resources. And I really hope that this helps get the
lake back to where at least it's having a positive impact on the community. Because Casey,
what you're saying that they're pushing all like that snow into the lake right now, from the
rock. I, I, I had heard, I'm dizzy probably those more about this than I do, but I had heard that
they were going to start truck trucking some of that snow and dumping into the lake. And I've seen
truck fools like, uh, um, and, and, um, full of snow driving around. And I've, I've, I've got to
assume they're doing that. I would be kind of skeptical just because of the road grind that they're
potentially up there. So just just to throw it out there. Like, I have an old dinette set and
some other furniture and some other care stuff. Do you think that would help out? I just want to
contribute. I just raise the level. I just want to raise the level. Yeah, I like do you think that would
help? I'm bringing that there myself. I'm sure it would just add to what's already at the bottom.
I was just going to say, I guarantee Casey talked about the road, he's concerned about road
Grim at the bottom of the big bear lake. That's probably the cleanest thing at the bottom of
a big bear lake. I don't want all that road Grim getting in there and intermingling with all the
dead bodies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you heard anything about that, does he? There, they are, I,
I know they can't put the snow in the lake. They're, but they put it in the adjacent. But they're putting
it, you know, it's going to, like, hold their runoff goes down towards the lake and stuff like that.
Wait, is it, can I hear, why can't you just dump snow into the lake? Oh, there's a
fine new group. I find you those answers. I would be getting paid a lot. Yeah, you know, because
because of the, like I said, all the road Grim is, the fight, the oil and gas, the grease and
every other thing you can think of. Where's that go in that? And like,
it's probably, yeah. It seeps into the ground, into the lake. First. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
All right. But at least the ground, the ground, the filter. It's like a coffee filter. It's like,
it's just like, you know, when you're in a pool, and someone says, I peed in the pool, and you're like,
ah, no big deal. But if someone's standing on the edge of the pool,
you're out. Guessing that is the greatest example. Thank you. 100% of you.
But now we're in a game. I cannot believe. No, the genius thing. You just dropped,
Daisy, like, the, the, the, the, because I'll tell you, like the soccer team level for
lots of people. Every, every in the summer, it's like, he's got damn kids are pissing
in this pool. I have a pool, and it's like, I know they're peeing. I never seen them get out of
the bath. Go take a piss. And it's like, well, whatever. But if they drop
trowel, it's starting to piss every time, you're like, that's very offensive. And you're
offended by this. I think it's closer to like, if someone said, I just peed in the pool,
like, ah, and then I'm going to take a shit in the pool. Yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, that, no,
now you're getting out no matter what, maybe. That's really funny. That's right. So you've got,
you've got this six jeeps now. And those are, those are all for, you know, like we said earlier,
all the different experiences. But then you've also expanded into the side by sides. What was the,
what was the thought process there and, and tell me more about that? Well, um, so back in 2019,
we were like, I, I, I, since we opened people are calling asking about side by sides, asking
if we do side by side stuff. And no, no, no, I was just focusing on the jeep trying to get it done.
But the, the calls were there. People were wanting to do it. And I personally wanted to do it.
Just want to make sure we had the jeep stuff done. Well, in 2019, I decided, hey, I'm going to
try to do side by sides. And I started doing research, which, which side by side company do I want to
get? If I'm going to get one to check out the razor, check out the canamps, decided, hey,
I want to, um, go with the canamps. I'm going to try to do this. I happen to have a friend that is,
like, is big with nitro and all that stuff and couple of the reps put, and I talked to him,
like, hey, can you put me in contact with someone at, with the main athletes, he put me in contact
with BRP official. Next thing you know, the, um, marketing manager for BRP products, like the
main guy that handles the main athletes puts me in contact with BRP corporate in, um, Quebec.
And I was like, wow, this, really escalated to, like, straight into the top of the boot game.
This is amazing. I told him what I was doing. I told him I'm looking at starting, um,
canamp tours out here. And I want to do it just like the jeeps. I just want to try to get, like,
three cars and to see how it goes. Well, with the numbers I was ordering, they said, hey,
we can't really help you. There's a program that kind of helps you, but we can't really do
anything because you're just not getting the numbers we need. But they put me in contact with their
main dealer. Modos do out in Utah. So, Modos do contacts me out in Utah. They let me know.
They have cars for me. They get me the cars. I'd have to drive out every time. This was, uh,
by the time this is going, this is in 2020. We all know that we're happening in 2020. So, like,
he was like, hey, I've got this can. I'm here. But I've got people offered to pay me $12,000
over price. And then you're getting it for this rate. You need to get here. And I'd have, like,
I'd get a phone call. I'd have to be there within 24 hours. Like, oh, but with with with with
trailer and pick this car up and get his office showed in floor. I had to do it three separate times.
So, we go out there. I, I did this, um, the three separate times. And I started doing my little
K&M tours. But I, while I was going out there, I, we also do our CD rentals on big real
lake here. I don't know if I mentioned that. So, with our wakeboarding and varsky in school,
we do CD rentals as well. 2020, I learned one thing. When you give people
gift cards to pay the rent. They're not paying the rent. They're renting jet skis.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And people were like, do you accept these cards?
I'm like, oh, yeah, we accept those cards. And so, people be lined up at seven in the morning
to rent jet skis. And they would go all day long every day. And so, I was being called. I'd be
calling these guys out there. Hey, guys, I need a couple CDs. I can't find them anywhere. I can't
get them. The, the, the my connection over at the moto zoo place would call BRP like, hey,
you should really work with this guy. He's doing, renting out a lot of equipment. He needs to get
equipment. They ain't up sending out a secret shopper. Kind of a person just come out and do our
Jeep tour. No. This person comes out and goes on our, our Jeep tours. And at the end says,
Desi, these Jeep tours are awesome. This is exactly what we want for our people that are driving
the K&M's in YouTube. Because there's the BRP wants people to get a good taste in people's
mouth. Like, YouTube is, they're amazing. But they're also putting a bad taste in the off-road
road road. You know, people like, you know, they just go wherever they want. They do absolutely
just have no off-road etiquette. A lot of it's just not being informed. Yeah, lack of education,
lack of experience, like, you know, like, we've talked about it at 10 times where it's at,
it's a turnkey. I'm going to go drop $25,000 and take this thing to the dirt. And now I'm doing
60 miles an hour in a trail. And I've never done it before in my life. And that's the whole thing.
When you used to go, you went back in the day, you'd go off-roading and your first time you go
someone shows you. You're like, oh, that's cool. And you're going to your piece of crap that
goes 10 miles an hour. Some of you're like, okay, cool. I'm glad I made it. And then you're like,
hey, I want to go 50 or 100 miles an hour. And up until 10 years ago, that was over. That was
100. That's six figures to do that. Yeah. And to do that, you would be going out off-roading
while you were doing your project to kind of, to learn so you were learning as you were doing it.
So by the time you have the six figures invested as off-road car, first of all, you have six
figures invested in it. So you want to take care of it. Yeah. Second is, you've already, you've been
educated, so you know to look out for people. You know where to go. You know what to do. Now,
all you have to do is be able to afford a $349 a month payment. And you can get out there. I mean,
I've seen people with bigger beauties all the time. They get this brand new car off the trailer.
And it's rolled within 10 minutes. It's like, man, it's insane. You know, just, they sign for it.
When I take people out in the can and trips, I know I went off on a little tangents. Sorry.
But when I take people on the can and trips, I tell them, yeah, guys, the cars do 50, 70 miles
now or, but if you're going 55 miles now or on the freeway, would you just turn your wheel right
as on your head? Why would you do it in an off-road vehicle just because it feels smooth?
Like, yes, because you saw the cool video on Instagram doesn't mean you can be doing it.
Yeah, exactly. And like, you saw the guy doing donuts on the polished concrete.
Like, yeah, you thought you could do it here in this brand. Yeah. And so we,
be our VIP kind of came out. They saw we did. They're like, we'd love you to be part of what we do.
Then we showed them that we did the CD rentals and they're like, well, now you hit the vehicle
numbers because CD was a VIP product. Yeah. We got on board with them. They have a program called
the uncharted societies. And it, their main purpose is education, getting people,
operating these vehicles and learning how to do it properly. They have a whole division of
BRP that's committed to snowmobiles, C2s, K&Ms, and informing people and educating people. So they
learn how to do this properly. So we became a member of the BRP uncharted societies. And
that sounds, they got to change that name. Because that sounds like a Nicholas cage
definition of an independent kind of shit. It's a society's, it's yeah. The Illuminati
are coming like, it's a very cool program. It's hard to remember the name. It took me a while to
kind of get it going. But yeah, it, it, it, it does feel like it should be a Nicholas cage move. Yeah,
actually. And yeah, we, we got on board there. We end up now that we're a member of this program.
We are an actual BRP dealer. We are about to deal brand new cars. But we're allowed to sell our
use car. We get all of our support from BRP. So we need to order any product. It's directly through
BRP. And their support is huge. It's been incredible. How much support they showed for us. So now we
have, we had a fleet of 10 K&Ms right now. We're about a fleet of six or seven. Then we'll order
more. They don't allow us to own them for longer than two years. So they want us to have
brand new equipment all the time. So we run them. We don't, don't let them get all clapped out.
We sell them used. And then we get new ones and we kind of just rotate through the fleet. And you're
running on stock, right? Because because they're, they're just out of the box there ready to go.
Yeah. So we do almost every company that I go out with that I've, like I did with the
jeeps. I've secret shop almost everybody with the side by side rentals. Most places get you kind of
the baseline models. A 64 inch wide car, 90 horse naturally aspirated. Because there's so much
involved with the logistics. So what we do, we have to truck all the cars down to the staging area.
We just can't leave from our office because we're going to California. We can't get as many people.
We can't do those numbers. These people that have 40 cars on a driveway that just send them out.
So we try to get people a premier experience. So we have all the the 72 inch wide art as turbo
RRs. So there's one step down from the top of the line car. The top of the line car is a smart
shocks and all that. And our guests, they wouldn't even, those are great at 90 miles an hour. But we're not
going 90 the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Our guests don't know that. But it's as high performance as
a car as you get for a rental out there. And we also put, we work with PCI radios. So we put full
comms in the car. And it's a huge expense to put full comms in the car. It's not cheap. But that
way, when the guests have their helmets on, it's full race helmets. So they're able to talk to
each other. Intercom communications through their race helmets. And they're talking from
car to car via two-way radio. So just like the Jeep tours, when we're talking about history,
the valley and all that stuff, we're doing the same with the side-by-side tours. And I haven't
been with the side-by-side company yet that does the intercom communications. They're out there.
I just haven't been out with one. Most of the time when you go out on the side-by-side tours,
they're waving at stuff. They pull over. You're getting out time and in time again to just
every time you want to talk, where this is interactive the whole time. We try to cover as much
ground as we can in a four-hour frame time frame. So it's full intercom communications. We work with
raceline wheels. So we'll get, we have bead locks on the cars. We do the roofs. But not, we don't
have to do much to the builds. Unlike the jeeps, the jeeps, we have to put full one-time axle
in the whole thing. And in part of that, I like to speak to like the, what does he's talking about.
Just about the comms and things like that because I went out with Desi. Desi is kind of
enough to take us out one day. It really is like what he's saying as far as race comms. It's
all inside your helmet. There's a button on your steering wheel when you're ready to talk.
And so from start to finish, Desi's on the radio throwing out facts and history and
just kind of chatted up and we're back and forth. And I mean, it, I would say it's a lot like
kind of all the banter on one of our runs. Like we're constantly on the radio just rag it on each other.
But then there's also actual knowledge involved. Yeah, we don't do that. We don't do that.
But the, but the experience that you're not holding up a radio to your hand and pushing a button,
you're not, you know, it's like you can't hear, it totally enhances the entire experience when
it's all happening inside your helmet and you don't have to like think about it.
You don't have to worry about not being able to communicate with the other cars. Hey, I have to
pee. You know, you just push a button. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, it's any, it was incredible. Any pee?
Yeah. So when you sign up, you get a catheter installed at the dealers at the, at the showroom.
The dealership. And the other thing. So I, I feel like I've been watching Desi do this. Like
somewhat from the beginning as part of the cancer. You have had, I had, I had my, my hands in every
looking cranny. I don't think one of those dudes. And he was, he started talking about, yeah,
I'm going to do this. I'm going to do some can and I'm going to get some can and I was like, okay,
yeah, I'm, okay, all right. And then one day he shows up with this trailer. I was like, it's like a semi
trailer behind his Dodge 2500 or 3500. What the hell are you going to put on that? And then
a couple of weeks later, here comes Desi down the street with four can ands on the back of that,
that freaking thing was like, holy shit. We've had to get it. We've had to bet the far many times.
And that's it. You know, we just, every time we make a step, we just go all in and try to do it again,
try to keep a, I think that's the, that's the theme here is every time you're like, well, you know what?
I got an idea. Let's do a grandma. Come here. You know what? It's like, you know what I mean? But
every time you have an idea, it's like, okay, that works. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you've got
a crazy idea or a passion or something. And every time you've tried it, you're like, okay,
now it's time for a new idea. And it's amazing to me that like, it's almost like a non-challot approach
for you. Like, for most of us, it's like, I'm going to start a business. I'm scared shitless. And
you maybe you were, maybe you were scared shitless at the time. But it seems like you're like,
this is just the thing that needs to happen and you just did it. We're all playing Blackjack and
he's counting cards. I always say, I work really hard at not working at all. And if that kind of
makes sense of a bitch. Is that it? Like, oh my god. I work as evil as well. We will buy it.
Well, I just, I feel like I work my ass off every day all day, but it's really trying to avoid
sitting in an office or having to go punch in somewhere. And I'd rather, if I'm going to be
focusing some ideas, I'd rather do it on my own. And if you're not going to believe in yourself,
who else is? So you have to be all in. I failed. Like, the restaurant, I say, I called a failure,
because at the end of the day when I sold, I was 150 grand upside down, you know. And there's
many things that I've done that don't make it. And it happens, you know? Like, whatever,
this got to keep going. And when you get, you get kicked in the nuts a lot with all the stuff that
you do. Like, you just, you're like, man, this is going to be a rough one to recover from. But if you,
if you keep doing it and to believe in it, it will happen. Like, right now, we haven't discussed
on keeping on. Keep on going, man. Like, right now, honestly, like, our personal business position
right now at this moment sucks. It probably hasn't been much better or much worse than it is
right now. We had a, we've got a temporary shelter that we, we own an acre on Big Gray Boulevard that
we purchased during 2020. And this acre, we're going to develop into our new headquarters for Big
Bar offered experience. On this headquarters property, we are going to be building a 4,000 square
foot steel building. The front half of the building is going to be a lobby for all of our customers to
check in, buy soft goods, buy whatever they need. Upstairs, we're going to have a conference room
for all these big team building trips that we have. And these, um, when there are people doing
product demonstrations and stuff like that, we'll have an office and conference area for that.
The back half of the building is going to be a three bay garage with multiple lifts. So we can work
on jeeps, canams, and everything all at the same time without having to be like one lift occupied.
You can't do a project because the lift occupied. And then on the side of our property, we're building
a terrain park. It's kind of like what we did at the X games. But this terrain park is going to be just
like what the Land Rover dealerships used to have. But a whole lot cooler. Yeah. So it's going to be
big rocks, big obstacles. And now instead of having to take people out in the middle of the back
country, we're going to be able to do a full off road demonstration area right on our property.
And this is, that's going to be super exciting. And this project that we are doing right now, it's
we, we want our property, we have that good go. But it's going to be a million dollar project.
And we're, we've literally pulled the trigger on it right now. And that's told the wife,
like we're bent in the farm. We're bent in the farm, like, and I'll call grandma.
You're right. This one's out of her league. I think the grandma's tapped out. She's already
co-signing on everything else. Unfortunately, grandma's cell phone don't work so much.
Yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're getting there. But this is the biggest one out of everything.
We've, you know, bent the farm. We take the gamble. But this one right now. This one,
there's been those times when I've been nervous, this is what, this is what's giving.
This one says, nervous as you get. Like this, we're, but there's no doubt in my mind that
this is going to be probably one of the coolest projects that has come to value. Over the past two
years, I've been working with the city council, the planning commission. And we've had to have
zoning changed. It's zoning laws changed. I've become a politician. I would, I had it in me.
But now we've had these zoning laws changed. And we've actually been given the thumbs up by the
planning commission, the city council and the mayor himself to get this project done. They've
come to us and said, this is a needed facility in Big Bear. We can't wait to have it open.
And we have support from the city of Big Bear Lake with whatever we need to get this project going.
That's it. It's a, yeah, it's cool. Except for the money. I don't think they're like,
you let us know. You let us know. Same gang and go to those same people about the
bottles. Yeah. However, that took two years. So yeah. But I think that a facility like that
has the opportunity to be so much more than just the things that you're doing. Like the way you talk
with, because there's so many organizations that that are focused on mountain recreation,
mountain bikes, e-bikes, Jeep side by side, water fees. There's so many people that do
mountain mountain recreation. Okay. Let's say the the latest version of Yeti bicycles is mountain
bikes is coming out. Okay. Everybody meet at Big Bear Off Road experience. We're going to go in the
conference room. We're going to do the the whole thing. And we're going to take off from there. I mean,
that that sounds like it could be the central hub for for all kinds of activity. It could be like a
small REI. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A central hub for all kinds of activity in the outdoor mountain.
It should be hashtagging this idea, but you know, whatever. I think Desi's already hashtagged it.
I'm a bit like a RC crawler course. So doing that. We're planning on doing the little crawler
course of the kids. We're planning on just like you guys were saying, multiple avenues. We plan on
goods and services for the UTV guys. We plan on just every almost everything you can imagine for
that's needed in Big Bear for the off road stuff we're planning on doing. So when you come up and
see it, you haven't ready ready by June ready. So we've got as of November of last year,
we've got a 24 month deadline to get walls up. Whoa. Locks ticking. We're trying to get going
pressures on. Do we need to do we need to have a party up there? Get everybody from the show.
I'll have you all the listeners show up with a case of beer and four two by four's each. And then
you can't lock it back and continue to stand. Sounds like it sounds like a semi decent bond.
I'm going to have to be straight. Yeah. Would just get everybody up there build four walls.
I would say if you could tie in in and out, because you guys could use in and out of there.
Oh my god. We could definitely use an in and out up there. We're planning on this.
When all these big events like Forest Fest, Jeep Jambory, all these stuff come up. Hopefully this
will become a staging area for these people. When you guys are up in Big Bear and one of our
things, we're going to have high power air there. So people off road, you can come get air.
Just get off road information. The Discovery Center's closed all the time. So we plan on
handing out the pamphlets and just the education stuff. So at least when people say, I didn't know or
why you leave in trash on the trail. We literally give out trash stacks. I know, I know,
I know some of the drives around in Nissan Frontier and they call her Karen for telling people
to follow the right trails. I'll get you connected with Blue Karen to get all those information
all that information out. But I do think it could be a central location for
off road clubs and overland clubs and like, okay, everybody meet here and you could start doing
the, you know, some BBQs at Big Bear off road experience every Sunday. Like, that's where
everybody meets and it sounds awesome. And you've got to, you've got to have it. Okay, take back my
internet crispy cream if you had a crispy cream. Donuts. You know, it's in the morning
and it's like here's your crispy cream doughnut. No, no, but we have to be a crispy cream. We have
a crispy cream doughnut. Yeah, wait, wait, not even have you guys had OJ's donuts. OJ's
donut is probably a little bit. Ohésitez don't it. I have no, that in the world.
Happy hour. I've had Dink doughnuts. Yeah, Dink doughnuts are good. Dink doughnuts good
restaurant and all that and they're good. Oh, this is before for years and years. I've had this
conversation with my daughter that OJ's donut is probably the best donut. Oh, oh, oh,
we're, we have much, how much money are they contributing to your, uh, giant wherever, whereas crispy
cream, the nation white. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. But crispy cream is
filling out the greatest burger. No, it's up there. It's good, but it's good. And it's got some money.
But here's what I've got dollars. So the difference between sunny donut and crispy cream is
negligible. You can't tell the difference. I'm saying the difference between a shit burger and in and out
is is is is exponential. Don't those crispy cream donuts are just, they're just donuts. They're not,
there's nothing, they just have got some good fries. Shit burgers fries. I'm just saying,
crispy cream ain't all that. It's not, uh, that's pretty good donuts. Well, can we all agree
that the internet patty did shrink? Oh, oh, oh, J's. Yeah, we've had OJ's donuts. That's the
one in the state of brother's parking lot on the on the backside of the teet Verizon.
Teet mobile, whatever. Yeah. We've eaten there. We all, all of us have eaten there. He had
donuts there. Yes. Um, I remember when they were coming out when crispy cream was going to
open up at the Ontario Mosmal. Yes. And it was still there. This try. I know, but I mean,
everyone was open to like their ability and everyone was losing their mind because it was crispy
and donut. And we went there one night. Late as hell. And we got a box of their donuts. And I was like,
it's just that it's, it's the glazed donuts. That's it. Everything else is done. They're just
donuts. I would bring up, I would bring, when they first open, I'd bring five dozen to be
beer. And I was like, a god. Well, you got crispy creams. Oh, it's just because anything,
when you're up here, anything that's not from up here, it's all brand. Yeah, that's right. It's
all brand. It's also been like that when you showed up with, with a bag full of double doubles.
Same thing. If you showed up to somewhere in the Midwest with some double doubles,
people were like, Oh, my god. Because they just heard about it. And then they didn't. They're like,
oh, yeah, I mean, that's pretty good. But they have their local burger place or whatever. They're
local burger place sucks. Yeah. Yeah. When they went, when I go to places and they say,
what a burger so much better. Like, you guys are, oh, yeah, that's crazy trash. It's trash.
I don't want to have to fight people. So, so, so you have 24 months from last November. So we're
looking at November of 2024. We have to have walls up. Okay. So walls up. So not necessarily operational
business, but just is got to be an enclosure of some sort of perimeter wall. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So that's
our, that's our, we're going through there. We're working with funding right now. We've got some
kind of outside investors working with us and we're just trying to get the project done. So this is a,
it's an exciting project, a fun project. It's a stressful project. And I feel like this is going to be
my life's work when I'm all done. Okay. That's the last big one like that. Let's just, I'm just trying to
get you coordinated with Krispy cream in and out. You know, that's a very popular thing. That's all.
I have no objection that either of things are you meant saying they're better or worse than anything.
Are you, are you still looking for investors? Yeah. We, we do have some people that we are,
we've actually fine tuning our plan. Okay. Now let me know. Let me know when you're
ready, because the trail chase of my cast has $12 in the account. And we would, there's no better
place to put that $12. And that's a $12 combined. Yes, for all of us. Yeah, for all of us. Yeah,
for all of us. And when I count, I think we can get you about 15% ROI. No. You might be all,
1450, I think. Nice. Nice. And I see you did do math. You did do math. So what, so I mean,
between, I mean, shit, between now and 2024, are you going to sleep at all? Are you going to have
any time to do anything? No, we've got an exciting project. I wish I could tell you the
fight, the details on our exciting project. But we've got a new vehicle that we're debuting here
in spring. So we're in the middle of construction on that. It's a Casey, what's your
brand with? Right. She's a schmoshem. It's, it's, it's going to be awesome. This is going to be
a head turner. It's going to be one of those vehicles that when people see it on the vote,
boy of ours, people are like, holy shit. I want to ride in, in that thing. Just like when you're
in San Diego and you see like the, the steel tours and that big duck voter, yeah, it's going to be
that type of. I know, I know what his vision was, like, and how he described what it was he wanted
and the vehicle he was using to accomplish this vision. I, I have not seen very much of the vehicle
at all, but I, I have a pretty good idea of what it's going to look like and exactly what it is.
I just, I don't, I haven't seen it, but it is going to be, it's going to be that. It's a Lamborghini
Diablo on 35 inch tires. It's, I say that because like, Mazda me, I just saw a video of a guy that
44 that four door, it like 2018 or something, 2019 had a Lamborghini that he custom built to run
the mint 400. That is awesome. One time I was in Glamis or I was in, I was in Glamis and I just
jumped is back before cell phones. We didn't have any type of navigation or anything. And I just
jumped on my banshee and we just started riding past the store and we just kept riding out the desert.
No idea what we're going. We ended up all the way at Gordon's well on the other side of Glamis
over there and I'm like, holy shit, we are empty tanks and gas like we are on the other side
of the imperial sand dunes. What are we doing out here? And I have a relationship with my dad that
I don't speak to him that much and it's not horrible. I think it's just I don't ever really
talk to him and growing up as a kid, I would go to Gordon's well. I'm like, my dad camps out here.
I wonder if he happens to be camping? No, I haven't talked to him for years. I think they
camp over this area. Go over there. They just happen to be, you know, I can't believe you're here
and he's like, I haven't seen you in years. We're actually just running out here. We're three
idiots right now. We have zero gas in our bikes and we need to get all the way to Gordon or
all the way to get the road. And there's like holy crap. What are you guys doing there? So
we got as much gas as we can. We get all the two stroking and we start riding. Instead of riding
and through the middle of the desert, that wasn't even sand. It was bushes and stuff that
riding through. We take sand highway all the way at one point. We have no idea where we're like
three quarters of the way in. I'm like, dude, we're fucking awesome. I'm nervous. It's getting we left
at like six a.m. and now it's getting dark. You know, like, it's been a long day. And then
next thing you know, I hear this. We're here ripping by and I look, it's a Porsche 911 with
paddle tires. That drives right by us. If that thing is drove by us, it's like seeing a
seagull when you're out. You've got to be close to land. We just kept going. Right when we hit
the edge of gecko road, my bike ran out of gas. So my friends kept going and then another one ran
at the gas. And one friend made it all the way back to the camp. Well, I feel like every trip we took
to Glamis. When I was on the bike, there was a part of me that was like, we're going to get lost.
We're not. We're not. I, every time I, I would take enough water and snacks to be like,
if I have to lay my bike down in the sand and sleep for the night, I will be able to do it.
Because you were the only one bringing like snacks on water. Everybody was bringing beer.
Yeah. Like every time somebody's during on this trip. Not me. It wasn't going to be me. It was
going to be me. So, so the, so the, you've talked about the spring coming up. So you're already seeing
bookings for the Jeep experience on the, at the spring. And I'm assuming people can just go to
Big Bear, Jeep, a Big Bear Offroad Experience dot com to book. Yeah, you can just go on Big Bear
Offroad Experience. We have an awesome booking software that kind of helps you get through
everything. We just greeted our Big Bear Offroad experience website. So you can go on there. You can click,
you can choose your tour. You can see the Jeep experiences. You can, if you want to go out
in the jeeps. If you want to do the K&M stuff, you just click on the YouTube experience and they'll
take you there. And then you can see kind of a little sneak peek. We have our tour experience
on our website. And that's going to be kind of our future project that we have coming up here
in this, this spring. I, I'm, I'm on there now. And I can, I fully recognize that little wooden
shack in that tree that you've got that picture of. I know right where that's at. So what do you
want to give anybody a sneak peek of what that's going to look like or are you waiting? We're,
we're waiting on this one. This, this is okay. So this is part of the, the thing that you're building
that's all going to be. All right. So tour experience. So I'm going to go out on a limb. And
Desi is now getting a pack of elephants. And he's going to give people back road tours on the
back of elephants with the, like the Shax built on top of them. Or it's a fleet of Porsche 911
who patled tires. We, we are, we're just trying to, what we're trying to do is we're trying to cater
to everybody and not everybody wants to go offroading, not everybody wants, or not everybody wants
to drive. We're trying to cater to all those people, even the ones that don't want to drive,
get exposed to what's out there, seeing what's out there. And so we're going to try to keep
all those people happy and actually seeing what the back country has to offer. Okay. I,
I have some ideas. I have some ideas. That's awesome. Well, I will bet whatever the hell it is,
whatever the hell it is. You know, we have, we, we work alongside some companies, you know,
generate offroading, curry, all those guys, rock, joc, those have been super supportive,
a couple of the most supportive have been like raceline wheels, uh, bought hot designs, and PRP.
Those guys have, um, really, this project that we have going on, they've all contributed,
to this project. So just right there, I can tell you, there's going to be some cool stuff
on these vehicles when we're on this vehicle when we're done. That is, that is,
whenever it's going to be, it's going to be awesome. Just because I can say that because, uh,
both, you know, Casey talked earlier about me and on the, the UTV experience, I got to do the
Jeep experience with you for the next and thing, and the whole experience was just top notch.
Like, do everything from the vehicles to the tour, like the, the knowledge of the trails,
to the way you handled it, everything. I mean, all of it was just amazing. Like, you know,
even if you, let's say you are an offroader that you have your own vehicle. If you're want,
like an amazing, big, big, big experience, reach out to Desi and his team to, to set that up.
Because I, I can't, I can't express how much fun and how, uh, how educational the trips,
the trip was that I was on. And, um, knowing you and the things that you do, it's, uh,
I'm super excited about what you have coming up next. Oh, thank you for that. That's,
you, you, you kind of mentioned what our goal is to make people from the very first timer
to the most experienced offroading enthusiast, come out and have a good time. You know, I,
I'm not, like I said, beginning, I'm not a professional, but if I go out offro,
off with a tour company, it'd be cool if, like, I'm having a fun time. I've gone out with some tour
companies and I've been like, they're driving down a dirt road and the road gets like a 10 degree
pitch like, this is crazy guys. I'm like, yeah, have you been down the boulevard lately?
Yeah, it's a way. Like, so, oh, we got to do. Yeah, we got a, we got a new member of the team,
uh, this show to, uh, somebody woke up. Okay. So, uh, Casey's got my nephew in front of the, uh,
Delaware mountains and with the, with the color sweater he has on, it just looks like a head. It
looks like Casey is holding a head. It's like, I'm trying to drown him in the light. Stop it,
dude. It's creepy. Shit. Um, well, Desi, look, uh, I am excited about all the things that you
have done. I'm even more excited about this, this new venture with the new building and what that
can mean for the offroad community and the Big Bear community. And I, I really, really hope that
it continues to, to gain momentum and get done quickly so that we can all take part in that.
Bob, thank you. It's, it's an exciting project. I, we're just trying to
better the community make it off, offroading kind of get people exposed to the offroading offroad
road. Um, let people know it's a family friendly activity. It's actually a lot of good people
in the offroad road and the offroad industry. Um, a little, like I said, education through
experiences are a big motto. We, we get you out there. We get you informed, but at no point
that we make you feel like you're in the classroom. Um, we realize what we do is a big ticket item.
Like no one, no one spends 200 bucks, 300 bucks, 400 bucks and on a small ticket item. So we
acknowledge that and we want to treat every guest like their trip is the most important trip to us.
So we, we know people are wanting to get out and wanting to do it and we know that they want
to be taken care of for their big ticket item. So every guest is important to us and
doing this for almost 10 years now, I haven't seen one person not have a good time.
There were a couple of things that I know when we first opened, I would tell people,
yeah, come out, try it out. Now I see if we're confident to come out with us,
you are going to have the time of your life. That's awesome. Even if you have a can now,
even if you have a Jeep, I can't tell you how many people have vehicles on East Coast,
they come out and they're like, man, these things are awesome. This is actually built better than
my Jeep back home. And even a lot of times if you just want to go wheeling to go out by yourself,
you have no idea where you're going. You know, now you can come up here, you can go out,
go wheel for half a day, get all the wheel and you need for that half a day and continue the
rest of your time up here in Big Bear and having a good time. Mm-hmm. So we'll look, dude,
we are, we're big fans of yours and we want to help. We want to anything we can do to help
in the future. Please let us know. I'll be getting that 1250, right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah,
we'll talk, we're, we're going to say a 90 here in just a minute, but don't hang up because I'll
give you all my information so you can collect my 12 dollars for that. But for everybody else,
go to BigBearOffroadExperience.com, go check out their tours, go sign up, go book your trip,
go have some fun with Desi and his crew and Desi, thank you so much for your time tonight.
Don't hang up just yet. We'll talk to you later. So if we're good on YouTube channel. Oh,
that's right. Go, please. Go subscribe. We go, we, so we were at 58 subscribers. We're at 60
already got two tonight. So that's the pool we have, by the way. That's so that you know,
you spend an hour and a half with us. You're going to get two people. We're, let's keep talking.
So everybody go to the BigBear OffroadExperience YouTube page and subscribe to help him build that
page up. Cody, thank you. All right, guys, have a good night, man. All right, thank you to Desi for
coming on tonight that was a good, we've been trying to get Desi on the show for a couple of years.
And it's just like never, never worked out. Casey, you've done a lot of work with with him and
on his vehicles and all that stuff up there. When did you start working with him?
Um, shortly after I started the other place, that's where we're going to call him. Yeah, we
cut the other place, yeah. It was, it was shortly after I started the other place,
he had come in and, you know, I remember, I was like, Desi, I was here yesterday with a different
Jeep. And then it was like the next day, it was like, this is the third time he's been
here and this is the third different Jeep. Who the fuck is this guy? And then I started slowly learning
and then it got to the point where, oh, it's Wednesday, yeah, he should be bringing the silver one
by here. And then it's like, what the fuck? You know, he started out with just stock rubocons
and then mild lifts and 30, you know, 35s and then slowly they all got a little bit better
lifts and some 37s and then the axle broke and then the ball joins blow out and then the ball
joins blew out again and then the steering was shit and then we had to put a motor in this one and it
was just like, at one point I'm like, I don't know how this guy makes any fucking money. It's
at all. He's giving it all to us. It seems like every time he makes his gun dust, just to keep
these things halfway running, you know, I'm sure I'm wondering what it was. I didn't, especially
the way it really was. It really was and then finally I think like he said he worked with
Brock Jock and Curry and things like that and he beat the bullet and we had a whole week, we can have
almost two weeks where we did nothing but does he's jeeps and every single one of them got King's
suspension, one ton Curry axles, ARB air lockers, like just the worst. We find him in
Gen Wright bumpers, Gen Wright sliders, cages, like all that. I mean, he he went berserk and decked
out all of his jeeps to where I was like, finally we don't have to repair these things. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. After every single trip and so yeah, he's he's one crazy. And vicious
guy like he just goes after it. I, you know, so and it seems to work. So kudos to him.
It does. I've been out on his jeep tours and I've been out on his can't tours. I've even gone out
and ran in some of his jeeps and I definitely smiled and laughed at him. How can you? Yeah.
Yeah. I think it's impossible. I don't want to frown on a jeep. Yes, thank you. It is impossible.
If you're on a jeep, it's not extremely happy. I don't know what to tell you.
I love his philosophy. Like I don't want to do things that people have to do. I want to do
things they want to do, right? I mean, that's a great philosophy for business. Like you said,
even if you do, if you have a great plumbing service, I want to be in charge of your good time.
Yeah, no one wants to pay for plumbing. Let me be in charge of your good time.
That is, that is cool. I think those, well, they're right. Take it back. Good. Because if you had
to reel a bag, it was bad. So it is Tuesday, March 14th, this episode will drop on March 16th,
third, which is a Thursday on Friday, March 17th, in the evening, at least three of us.
At least three of us will be at Featherley Park in the Anaheim. Who's the fourth that's missing? Apparently,
Jose has something better to do Friday. I don't know exactly what it is. Is it involved
Karate? No. No. Do you do too? That's in the morning. That's six a.m. Turt,
tumbling, or what do they call the man wrestling?
Yeah, and then you have a little look. If you're going to go man wrestling on Friday night,
do to have a great time. We'll see you Saturday.
Cruiser? No, that's already been taken care. So apparently Jose is too cool to hang out with us,
but three of us and Nicole will be at Featherley Park. Did you guys just said this two day?
I don't know. I have to just check to make sure I'm going on.
We know you don't have that to go in on. Come on.
He's a busy man. Yeah. He's a busy. He's super busy all of a sudden. It sounds like some bullshit to me.
Like I look right now. That sounds like someone who would text
saying that they're busy by saying they're busy.
That sounds like I'll tell you right now. Oh, yeah, I'll be there. Like I'll be there as soon as I can.
There's no, I don't have any other options. But that's me. I think I was supposed to be
not holding back. Or no. I'm going to have to let you know just in case something better comes up.
No, no. Exactly. That's so Friday night. If I'm. Yeah, look, we're going.
We don't give a shit if you show. I know. I'll be there. I guess that I won't be there till late.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll be close to 10. I'll be there after work. Matt and I will figure out
what time we're going to go. We're going to go get set up at Camp Friday night at the
overlending show and then the show is Saturday Sunday. It starts Saturday 8 a.m.
Did you mention the specific show? It's the yellow. It's the yellow overland show.
If you go to yellow wheeling on Instagram, you can go to the link tree and get the information for
the show. I am told that day passes are still available on the website. I was just having some
text messages here with Mark and he said, you can still get daily passes online. Camping is
by request only at this at this site, at this point. So if you're planning on camping, I think you have
to pretty much have to park on the 91. Yeah. Yeah. I choose to. You camp on the 241 and then walk
under on the 12. Yeah. That's what we want to do because you're up on the hill right there. That's
beautiful. Is that a camping area or no? It's like a park right there. Isn't there? Where? Like right
off the yes. So right on the 241 and the 91. Yeah. It is a private area. Yeah. What? So funny story. What?
So funny story. So 2,000 went on his doll. 2,000 12. When Tammy and I were trying to find a place
to get married, we were driving around and we had heard about this place and we just, we get
off the freeway and I'm following some roads to get there and I'm going up the side of the, you know
where I'm talking about right next to it. It's an off ramp and then there's like yes and there's
gates where the gate was open. There was open all the way up to the top and it's like a private
ranch. You can book where they burning like alga fields. I feel like there was sacrifices there
at some point. Like I feel like you have to wear alga. Oh, that place of North and California
would have been there. Oh, that's the, oh, he me and Grove. No. Yes, but yeah. No, this was alga. Yeah.
Okay. I defer to your nose there. I feel like you had to wear special pajamas to be on this
ranch. It was like a bluer jump chest. Yeah. It's not like a wrestle in pajamas. It was special
pajamas. It was special pajamas with cowboy boots. And it was, it was, and it was like,
you're not your name on it. Yes, and we were like, this is like kind of a, and someone came out
immediately. It's like you got to pay a lot of money, but at least you have nice cowboys. Yeah,
and there's a guaranteed spot for you in the afternoon. And someone came out immediately. Like,
what are you doing here? We're like, yeah, we were looking for a wedding venue. You can't be here.
Didn't you see the gate? I'm like the gate was open. I don't know what you're talking about. And we
got right out of there. But it is a, it's like a private ranch. I don't know exactly what it was,
but I got very achy cult vibes when I was up there. And we never been back. We, I mean,
it's a nice area. So we will be, come on in, we'll give you a haircut. You don't need to work anymore.
Just work on the farm. You're going to get up tonight. And here's a shirt. It says Todd on it,
but don't worry about it. I, this is probably a, for another time, but I told you guys about the work
I did at the, um, the Mormon site, uh, in what's next to him? It, what's right before him?
It, maybe it is. Yeah. In, in that area, like, uh, it was a, it was an valley. I knew, I knew it. I knew
this is, this is going to happen. So go on. Go on. No, I, no, actually, you, you actually did mention
your work at the compound. Did you see the golden tablets? No, but, uh, I saw a lot of stuff.
Cool. They offered, they offered me cool. I'm sorry, what, I said, I said Mormon. I, I didn't mean Mormon.
I meant, uh, scientists. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right off of B canyons. Yeah, golden
springs right there. Yeah. It's a, it's a Scientology. And they, they did Casey, they offered me
cool late every time I was on site every, every single time. And, uh, I had to, uh, so as far as
you're dangerous, you just, you just went from Sciental, uh, I'm sorry, uh, Mormon. Mormon, did you get
a Scientology? Like, what do you think your danger level went up? Like, what's the difference
in the tube? Like, if you start making our Mormons or Scientology, like, what is the, what is the
danger level? What do you look for, you know? You know, you know, you know,
there's honest, no, I don't, I don't know what the difference is, uh, one is more, uh,
there's eight, right? There's eight O T levels. Like, O T 8, there's a Scientology.
Yeah. But I don't know, I don't know. I don't know if there's a cop for, for Mormons or,
whatever, uh, later they say, uh, levels. This is, that's, this is a topic that I
defer to you. I shouldn't have brought it up. B T's, I was telling you about, uh, uh, is this,
I'm, I don't want to be in trouble with either. I'm, I was asking about your B T's. No,
shut up. I was saying, uh, yeah, I had to get in the show. This guy's son is so about, he's, you know,
they're gonna come clap in there. I don't want to be in the park. Yeah, I think you're, you're
already on the list. Yes, there's so many, so many people, someone's listening. Like,
that's a, this is a topic for probably another podcast, uh, like, I'll hold another show on the list
from. Um, anyways, anyways, we're going to be way off topic. We are, we're going to be at the
Yolo Wheelin Overland show this weekend. Uh, we are MCing the event. What does that mean? Uh,
that means master of crappiness. That's what MC stands for. Um, we, good. We just got some new
equipment in to make sure that we could do it. And we, to make sure we're louder at it. Yes,
and that's, that's important. I want to make sure that everybody knows a shooting is clearly.
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And we, um, we tested some of it in the living room this afternoon,
before they started the show. So we know it kind of works. There's a couple of things we need to figure
out. But um, yes, we can totally do karaoke. Oh, Roxanne. Uh, do it. I'll do it. I know you will.
You've told the story on the show about doing karaoke. Do we have a, uh, like a
prompter to just say seriously? Seriously, how, how how we not have gone karaoke yet, like
between. Because we don't want to go karaoke. We were waiting for this moment. Why mean,
look, we have to go. I want to do it. It's gratuitous. It's gratuitous. If it's just us doing karaoke.
Okay. Oh, it's fun. Yeah. We're, say, start at six p.m. Well, we can't go last week. And we,
why not? Well, maybe we'll do karaoke at the campsite. They want to allow it there. Who?
The park and scene via the OT, the OT eighths. I think you're, uh, I think Casey's right. Like,
who's going to stop sounds like? You're the MC. It sounds like karaoke at our campsite,
Saturday night. Yeah. Absolutely. You better have, like, your favorite song on some kind of
device. Because I'm sure, I don't have it. That's what I'm saying. Do we have a teleprompter? Do we need
a screen? There's got to be a karaoke app on your phone that you can do too on on YouTube.
We just type in any song and karaoke. Yeah. And they fucking come. Yeah. There you go. So we'll,
we'll figure it out. Um, but yeah, I'm hoping that everybody gets chance to come out and
come and hang out. We, we only have a couple of days. We got to figure out a couple of things, uh,
like what's going in the fun box and, uh, that sounds very important to me. Like, what is there's only one
thing that I want to play in the fun box? Uh, the the the the stick side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
No, I laughed maniacally right there. But I, I was, I meant like laughing at stickers. Yeah. You know,
like a row. We'll, we'll, we'll figure that out. Um, the wheels guys. Well, so we do, I think that's the,
the big things is just getting to that event. Oh, Nicole says she has a screen and projector. Oh,
that's right. So we're right. Oh, bring that Nicole and we will watch Jiu Jitsu the movie.
Oh, you made it. I'm 86, right. I've tried watching it. No, you're the one that told us to
watch it. I know, but I'm telling you, I'm not going to do that. You know what I want to watch?
I want to watch the road trip with credit. Although, it's not, it's, I'm not the raw. Oh,
that's dragging. Last dragon. Last dragon. There we go.
Yeah, show no. Show no. We can watch the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert. I can, we can do that one.
No, I'm not coming. That's why we'll not be there on Friday. We could do the American
Pike trilogy. There's a truth. I think there's four like five. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
This is. Yeah. Who is desperate for that kind of money? You know,
we'll put up a, how about this? We'll put up a post on Instagram and people can vote or in
the comments. What? Let's just ask the 10 people in the chat room right now. What do you go?
What do you want to watch? So I don't know. Dude, the fucking karaoke is the the best thing, right?
Yeah, but karaoke and then Nicole's projector. So we'll figure it out.
So come out. Come out and see us. If you haven't already about tickets, you can go to the,
I just had the website up here. Come on to go. You can go to the website and find it. It is,
like I said, if you go to link to r.e slash yellow wheelin. So link tree, yellow wheelin,
you can go to the overland show and get all the details. So we're going to have, it looks like,
it's a, by the way, it's a charity event for Children's Hospital of Orange County.
Uh, you can email them for availability. And air stream trailer top dog tents.
It's to privy tough stuff overland, fuller truck accessories, and it owed out doors.
3M Tortuga Offroad Cornerstone Overland Corva Offroad Warehouse Overland Kings,
SPTG seedlings, Rebel Offroad, and German Shepherd Rescue, and there's some,
I know there's other vendors at the beginning. Hey, here's the big thing. There is a Smors Cart.
Yes, what? Yes. So, uh, Mors Cart. So it's food in their payment. Again,
somehow we show up on the entertainment side. And I think that's a wrong, wrong posted.
Um, Andrea's catering to Bayes, Tabays, Mindful Kitchen, the boom Mexican food.
LA Pizza Rea Company, Tacos Nice Elvapur, Mr. Frys, Mr. Frysman, Mr. Frysman,
Smors Cart, and Tiki's. So, do I get a badge that just grants me access to all those vendors?
You, what you need to do is we'll take, since our new microphones will go like 200 yards.
Oh, you walk up and go, I was told to come over here and sample this for the show. I'm the official,
I'm the official sample. I don't know if you guys know about my, uh, my prowess with hot dog broth.
I have a lot of experience. Every vendor. Yep. Yep. We will be doing that.
They've got a map up now that get your appetite, grow like fast. You have to fast and
till we get there. Not really. I'll be ready. Don't worry about Matt needs a good stall.
Matt needs a good poop on Friday morning. He'll be fine for them. Yeah, I'll be ready to go.
I mean, shit. That's only like 30 minutes from how they tip top now.
Well, you know what, uh, well, describe what is tip to the only one way to find out.
Fucking eat the boom Mexican food. Yeah, are they, are you ready? Are you, are you, are you, are you,
still broken? If I, if I can make that, then I'm pretty sure I'm through like my threshold of, uh, you know,
that's funny. That's funny. That's funny. That's funny. That's funny. That's funny. That's funny.
Call it the boom. It's called the boom Mexican food. I got to find out. I hope they have the boom
bathroom like on the backside of that. That place has good restaurants that park. They're going to
thank God, guys. This sounds like a perfect event for me.
Hey, Matt, it's right, but isn't it? I mean, like very close to the green river. Yes. Yes.
Of course. Yes. Yes. You won't have time. Don't don't bring your clubs.
So every case. Do we know what the weather is going to be like this weekend? I think it's cold,
but not raining, right? I think it's like, oh, of forties, maybe.
Slight chance of rain, like high forties, 50s at night. I think it's fine. It's going to be kind of
the weather we've had recently. It's cloudy and shitty, you know, whatever. But it's like normal.
That's like normal for the rest of the rest of the country's like, oh, yeah, you got some clouds
or whatever, for a few hours and drizzles. Yeah, it's normal. Yeah, it's garbage for us.
Yeah, it's real good. Bullshit. That's like, uh, depressing and, and uh, we got how am I going to
get up for work in the morning if it's cloudy? I can't do this. My windshield's fogged up. How much was
good to work? Uh, it says that Friday, low of 48, high of 63, Saturday, low of 51, high of 66,
mostly cloudy and then Sunday, uh, low of 50, high of 62 with some morning showers. So dress appropriately.
Can you dress more like a, actually I take it back? You know, like anything like like a so cow,
weather woman, that they're very attractive. You have not seen the dumb truck unpacking.
Or maybe you have. I don't know how you're doing. You really want to know if you've seen this.
I don't know. I don't know. Oh, God. Oh, I got a case. I never. I Pat when I started this show
in 2016, I never once expected to hear your sister's dumb truck. Yeah, man, I never really thought
I like throw it out, and I like that, but you know what it works out? I'm fun. It's like, it's fun.
That's so funny. Um, all right. Well, I think the, uh, everybody go follow the YouTube
page for a big bear off-road experience, and then come see us this weekend at the yellow, uh,
overlining show at Featherly Park. And then, uh, we're going to do some interviews with some
vendors. We'll play those interviews next week as part of the show. And I'm looking forward to getting
out in front of people for the first time in a long time. Like, it's been a while since we've done. Very much.
So I can't wait for, like, useless interviews, like, we just, uh, you know, reaching for
interesting, uh, interviews just with random people or whatever's going to be a good time. Connected
with the community. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Um, you know, we are the people's media. We are the people's
media. Mm-hmm. We are we are. And we are hungry. Yes, very. So, all right, everybody. Well, thank
you guys to, I thank you to everybody in the chat room that joined us. It was pretty lively today.
I appreciate it. And then we will talk to you guys next week.
Thank you for listening. And if you want to be on the show, please leave us a voice message at 951-394-dirt.
Thank you to Iron Man 4 by 4 America. Please go to Iron Man 4 by 4 America and get everything you
need for your next adventure. Thank you to Ryan直kno for all of the music. And thank you to our
Patrons for all of their support.

Ep 261: Melanie White

Welcome to the Trail Chaser Spotcast.
This episode is presented by the Yolo Wheeling Overland Show.
This event will be held at Featherley Park in Anaheim, California on March 18th and 19th
with vendors, raffles, camping, and all kinds of family entertainment for the purpose
of supporting the Children's Hospital of Orange County.
Go to at-Yolo Underscore Wheeling on Instagram and click the link in their bio to learn
more.
The show is also brought to you by iRate4by4.com.
Soon, the Trail Chaser Podcast will be included in the iRate4by4 forums, and we will try
to start using that platform to have some more interaction with you guys on the interwebs.
If you're not already a member of the forum, please go to iRate4by4.com and sign up.
I hope you all explain those forums things to me.
I don't know how they were going to do it.
It's just more shit talking on us, but on the internet.
Yeah, I don't know how it works at all.
Okay, sweet.
Today on the show, we talk to Melanie White with Helwig Products.
She tells us about her gaining work, life experience growing up in the automotive industry.
We also discussed pre-imposed COVID conference call etiquette, somehow we've slipped into
that.
Then we start talking about some of our future events, like in the next couple of weeks,
the yellow Wheeling thing coming up, like in a week and a half, it's been pretty exciting
to me.
Yeah, and apparently predators are, is a very controversial topic around here.
Again, I don't know how we go from such an amazing interview with Melanie to the debauchery
that happens after the fact.
You guys, that's I guess that's what people are here for, right?
That's just who we are.
Hey everybody, it is 6.30 on Tuesday night.
We are live on YouTube on Tuesday nights as we usually are, and we are joined tonight for some
reason by Melanie White from Helwig Products, how are you doing tonight, Melanie?
I'm great.
I'm excited to be here with you guys.
Yeah, that's a really, right, yeah, I don't.
She spent a good 15 minutes, 20 minutes with us at SEMA, and she still agreed to come
on this show.
So, either, either someone in her organization was like you have to do it, or, yeah,
it's a pack on wrong, yeah.
So, for those of you who have to roast you, I'm both somebody.
Yeah, exactly.
Do you guys remember, though, how I sent the email over the, yeah, we did have a bunch
of back and forth after SEMA trying to get this scheduled, and then we had it scheduled,
and then I was traveling for work, and then you were traveling, and you're all over the
place, which I do want to talk about, because you are extremely active in the
automotive community.
We talked earlier about my, my cyber stalking you on LinkedIn, and seeing all the stuff
that you're doing.
We'll talk about kind of your background.
So, for those of you that aren't familiar, Melanie is the CEO of Helwig Products.
You can find all of Helwig Products at HelwigProducts.com.
They are on Facebook, they are on Twitter, they're on Instagram, they're on YouTube,
they're on LinkedIn, they're everywhere, as Helwig.
We have interviewed Mike from Helwig retimes, maybe, you know, he also recommended, or
we tried that candy from the Freddy's place, and I bought a giant bag, and he's world.
Yeah, an employer, just singular.
Eddie World, yeah, it's just one Eddie.
Okay.
I still bought two giant bags of that candy and finally finished it off, actually.
So, thanks.
It was mine, right?
Thanks, Mike.
Right.
Yeah.
So, you're delicious.
I've always been very gracious.
Oh, and I hold on, very important, I saw Bill Walton there, like the Bill Walton.
You're very smart.
I remember it.
Yeah, I remember it.
Okay.
But I don't know how that pertains to this specific conversation.
I just remembered.
I was like, oh my God.
No one was there.
So, you guys have always been gracious with your time.
We appreciate it very much.
Going back to our conversation at SEMA, we just happened to walk by the booth, have a conversation
with Mike.
You and I had a little bit of a conversation after the fact, and that conversation really
made me like, I want to have you on the show to talk more about kind of your background
and where you're at today is the CEO of Helwig.
So let's start with that.
Let's start with the years gone, years ago, young Melanie growing up in a world where
the automotive industry was just around you at all times, right?
You know, I actually was not like really in the automotive aftermarket until I start, I was
employed in it.
It was, you know, we did a lot.
We traveled, we dirt bikeed, my dad didn't have me boys, so, you know, he got us all
on dirt bikes.
I have, there's four girls in my family.
And so, we did a lot that way, but we never, I never really knew about the industry until
I was in it.
And then once I was in, I was hooked.
Me and there's just like so much passion, it's so much fun, we like, we make cool parts.
So I just, I couldn't get out of it after that.
So prior to that, prior to getting introduced to the industry, though, were you like,
I'm going to be a veterinarian?
Like, like, what did you, what did you think you were going to be before you became the CEO
of Helwig?
Well, so I'm a little bit nervous to tell you guys what I, I've had in my career path
at one point.
So I went to school, and I was going, I was going for, psychology is my main degree, and
then I have a minor in business.
So I was going down the marriage and family therapy route.
I was going to get my degree in that, and then I started cold calling and got into the industry.
And this is so much more fun.
I'm so much happier doing this, but it makes me a little bit nervous to tell people
that.
I've got a very interesting site.
So then, so then stay on the call afterwards.
I'm going to need some help.
Yeah, I'm sure.
Yeah, I'm sure.
Yeah, I'm going to be fine.
You're just, you just got yourself four side jobs, tell you right now, because we
need as much help as we could possibly get at this point.
You know what I find interesting about that, though, is psychology, even if it's not
applied in the, in the, the actual therapy or counseling of people, the study of psychology
in the human brain and how people think and work is applicable to everything, especially
leadership, which we'll talk about.
I'm sure in a little bit, but the ability to, uh, ascertain what drives people to be successful.
And then figure out how to provide that to them, um, it has to help in your day-to-day
life today.
It does, right?
I'm, I think the thing that helps the most is I'm really interested in people.
I want, you know, people to be happy.
I want, uh, I want to challenge people, and that is something that, because of that, you
know, my interest in psychology and then also my interest in my job.
Here at Helwig in Leadership, I, people matter, right?
We don't do this alone, and so I think that's the biggest thing for me is that I love
the community around, uh, around me, and I just, so appreciated.
I work with a stellar team, uh, and that makes a huge difference, right?
So I think that, uh, that interest in people and relationships is, is really what drives
me.
I, I think that's a working with a stellar team.
Like, I wonder what that's like.
I do.
Yeah.
Everybody, what's that?
Like, that's dragging me down.
I work with these guys.
So I, you know, that's the best one I was referring to, like, yeah, geez.
Aw, I mean, you guys are so fun.
I've been looking forward to this for a long time, because you guys just have so much
fun to see.
See, the cycle, the, the training, right there, such as all of you, she's exactly feel good
about ourselves.
You are, uh, she's letting us, uh, put our guard down.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
So, uh, just start smiling and it's about my instinct.
Yeah.
Uh, these are the glitch you're looking forward.
So you, going back, you, you said that you started at hell with just doing cold
call, like, B to B sales, right?
Yeah, I did.
So I, right after college, I managed a French gourmet bakery.
So I was in the food industry for a while.
And I was like, oh, but these hours are not for me.
You work really long, really, uh, hard hours.
And you can get called in at any point.
And I'm like, I don't want to do this for too much longer.
And so I had, like, a salesperson that would come in and call on the bakery that I was
working at.
And I was like, I want her to get like, she comes in, uh, like, boss hours of, like, right,
what we were talking about, like, later in the day, not the five o'clock shift.
She comes in, uh, at like 10 o'clock to, you know, take my order.
And I was like, I want to do what she's doing.
And so I got really interested in sales.
And I started to look for jobs in that field.
And then how I needed at the time and outside salesperson.
And I was like, look, I, that's what I want to do.
So that's how I got started.
Um, and it was cold calling.
And man, uh, does cold calling teach you something?
I remember thinking, like, oh, gosh, I'm, I'm cold calling.
This is awful.
And I think if that is the way that you should start in any sort of business,
you shouldn't get the easy path because it taught me, like,
I needed to show up and be prepared all the time.
I needed to, like, be really interested in in the success of my customer.
I had to, like, I had to follow up, like, follow up is like,
so key in sales.
And just taking an interest, like, they were all, like, so different.
Um, man, they were times where because I was young, like,
that really wasn't helpful.
I was young.
I was female.
And coming into these places.
I mean, I remember, like, just I lived an hour away from one,
uh, one call one day.
And I just, like, uh, I cried the whole way home.
And it's like, oh, my doing.
And then, but it, what it did for me that, like,
I had definitely had plenty of what the hell my doing moments.
But those, in those moments, I was like, oh, okay.
This is how I need to deal with it.
Like, I need to come in with a stronger presence.
Like, I don't need to, like, let these guys fully me around.
And so it just made me get better, right?
And it's all of that stuff that I, like, apply even today,
uh, thinking about that.
Like, I show up way more prepared because of my cold calling days.
Just so, you know, I drive home crying, like, on a regular basis.
So I don't feel bad about that.
That's, but I think that's normal.
That's a normal thing.
Yeah, that's it.
That's it.
Once you pass 46, 47.
It's just, I started crying.
I started crying.
Yeah.
I started crying.
I got to jump.
Sorry, I started crying.
Like, all the time.
40, 41.
I started crying.
I've been crying for years.
So this kind of touches on something we talked about a little bit at
SEMA.
So as a female in a, in a predominantly male industry,
um, I feel like, and I'm going to use my experience in air conditioning.
I feel like the, the women in sales in the air conditioning industry that I've either
worked with or had work for me are always more prepared, more knowledgeable,
more engaged, more like they don't, they probably had a similar experience
to what you had early on and went, okay, I've got to show up.
And I got to, I got to knock it out of the park every single time.
Almost becomes just a standard operating procedure for for them in their day
to day work as opposed to the SOP.
SOP correct.
It's a, it's a, it's an SOP.
And as, as their normal like mode of operation,
whereas I'll admit it myself as a, someone that's done sales been like,
I don't know, I'll call him today, whatever.
Like, it's, it's a very different mentality.
And do you, would you agree with that assessment?
Uh, 100% ideal.
And I do, I think about that actually don't have another female in a sales role,
but I do have a lot of like women on my team when I came to work at home.
Like, I was, when I was the third woman working in the company at the time.
And so it was like very meal dominated at work in the day to day, right?
To and it's very different.
It's like almost flip flop here in the office now.
And it's in my wife spent several years in the tire industry again.
Mail dominated industry, um, she's in marketing and, uh, you know,
from, from, from an outsider's perspective.
A woman doing marketing is just someone that draws pretty pictures.
And like, I think I told you the story where she was in a meeting with sales.
She's director of marketing.
She's in a bunch of meeting in this meeting.
And some guy was like, uh, sweetheart,
um, do me a favor, take some notes and she's like, excuse me.
Like, yeah, I'm not, who are you?
It was like, what are those, it's she told me about this.
And I was like, man, that's something that,
Well, I just want to say like, my, my PE, I do the same thing.
He's a 24 year old guy and I go, hey, sweetheart.
Can you just, uh, I'm fine now.
You can just go everyone's the highest.
Yeah.
Sweet cheeks.
That's, that's exactly how you have to do it.
Oh, uh, damn.
I got to call everybody sweet heart for a couple of weeks.
And you're like, you're like, you're like, you're like, you're like, you're like,
you're like, Chandler, you're like, Chandler and friend.
I'm not saying it's okay.
Yeah.
I'm just saying that's how you got to gloss it over.
But I guess, I guess, you know, part of that conversation is about the,
um, the differences in perception for women coming up in a male dominated industry.
And the, the challenges they have to come without without going into full detail about all that stuff.
There, there's a significant difference in the way you have to show up versus where,
maybe somebody else does.
For sure.
And honestly, though, like, so they're, we have stories, right?
I've got stories where like, I'm, I'm the one presenting and, and the gentleman's asking
an action callman, a gentleman.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The person on my team, right?
Who is, um, a male.
And, and I'm answering, and I'm doing all of the talking that he would, like,
can't look at me.
And it's, and I think that's like, but the thing that I'm seeing is that,
uh, few and far between.
There are, there are outliers.
There are, asshole, like, all over that.
And you can, like, really, like,
I'm going to choose to pay attention to them or not.
And I just, okay, you're not worth my time, right?
Like, that's, uh, I'm not going to ever convince them.
Yeah.
And so they're not my people.
I love what I do.
I love that.
I do think it's like, it has been being female in this industry.
Like, there's a bunch of dudes at an event.
And I get remembered.
They might ever remember my name, but they remember
I'm the girl from Hellwig, right?
Because I, I look different.
I sound different than everyone else there.
And so, for me, it's, I have been able,
I did have to, like, you know, reframe it for myself.
Because at one point I was like, this is so hard.
And, you know, one of those other days, like,
driving home of, like, you know, I have a choice here, right?
Like, I can cry my way home, where I can be like,
oh, I'm going to reframe this to be like, I get remembered.
Okay.
I don't need my advantage.
Well, I just want to go back to what Cody was saying.
You probably also get remembered for your, you know,
being prepared and extra studio,
or whatever, to speak to whatever it is.
Like, because that, that comes,
I think for me, that comes across first.
Like, you know, when, when somebody that,
especially if I have questions and, and you have the answers,
or you can speak to things,
that's the first thing that comes across,
at least for, I think for most people.
Yeah.
I think it's funny.
Like, I've been on sales calls with a female sales person
that works for me, sitting there having conversations,
and having a head of facilities for a large campus,
look at me and ask me questions, and I go,
oh, oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ask her.
I'm just, I just drove like that.
She's running this ball game, man.
I have nothing to do with it.
Where am I?
Yes.
I didn't think goodness for you, right?
Like, thank you for doing that,
because there are plenty of times
where that is happening, and someone
the male, like, takes the credit or like, you know,
you, you of course know it's going on.
Yeah, sure.

Right.
But you're giving her more credit.
So thank you for that.
So let's, let's talk,
it's back a little bit and talk more about the progression
from cold calling and getting kicked in the teeth every day,
because that's what cold calling is.
That's what sales call,
especially the beginning is just getting kicked in the teeth every day,
and you have to come in accepting that.
And then we're from there.
What was the next role?
Yeah.
So when I was cold calling,
I realized like, oh,
we don't really know we're still like,
we've been in business since 1946.
So really long time.
So when I was cold calling,
when I was making sales calls,
people were like, oh,
how much still on business?
And so I realized that
held needed some significant marketing
presence.
So that,
I did everything that I could to learn about that.
I took all of the courses.
So I filled the marketing role for a while.
So it was marketing manager.
And then,
so I did that role for a long time.
So this is where I did the role for like a year.
And then I asked for the position.
So it's like,
what I've done my whole career is I've like,
oh gosh,
okay,
like we need like a sales plan.
We need all these different things.
So I've like filled that position.
And then like, hey,
I'm,
I'm doing all of this work.
I need the title to go with it.
And so I have done that.
My whole career all the way to CEO.
I was like, hey,

I'm doing all,
I'm setting the strategy.
I'm doing all of this.
So like,
I need the position to,
the title to go with it.
So,
so it's interesting.
And I think like being a part of a family business.
So we're a smaller organization.
I was able to do that,
right?
I was able to see like a need within the organization.
And then go fill the position.
And then ask for the title to go with it.
So,
but it was just never really like handed to me.
So yeah,
but it also made me think I was grumpy about that for years.
That I always had to like work that like that.
But I also,

like I'm super invested.
And I'm really good at all of those jobs because I,
I did them.
So,
and it wasn't handed to me.
But asking is also,
it's good because even if you don't get it,
it shows them that they,
they already thinking about the future.
It shows them that you're invested in the company.
And then most likely always,
but I find she's,
this person's invested in,
and us,
let's take the time to train them up the right way.
And then we'll give them that position eventually.
And, and added that as her,
as she, as she elevates in her career,
she can look at the sales role,
the marketing role,
the this role,
the that role and go,

I have enough,
I have some,
some actual knowledge in how to do that.
And here's a tip,
it's for,
for those of you that want to,
no kids.
Okay.
Hopefully there's no kids.
There's this,
let's press.
Here's a tip for your kids that are listening to this.
There you go.

that means,
Tim's on there.
Okay.
So, here's a tip,
immature people.
The,
that's a very good piece of advice.
Do the job,
then ask for it.
I have had people in my career
that say,
they want this promotion.
And I'll say,
I've tried to give you the responsibility
to do some additional stuff.
You don't want to do it.
I'm not going to do that.
Unless I get the title.
I'm going to get paid.
You haven't proven that you can do it.
How am I going to,
how am I going to have confidence to give you that role
until you start,

showing the initiative.
I,

100% agree with that fact that if you,
sound like a gen X her right now,
or I'm 100% a gen X her right now.


I'm a gen old as crap right now.

I'm almost watching.

I'm almost watching.


I'm almost watching.


Oh, my God.
Yeah,
but it's true.

I'm not over my head.
I'm super depressed.
It's true though.
Seriously,
s somehow taking additional initiative,
taking on additional roles and,
and you have to look at it in a way
that if you,
if the company doesn't give you that role,
we'll guess what?
You can put that on your resume and go get that job
at the next company, right?
So I,

that's a,
I love the fact that you said that
because I've always believed in in that
mentality,
in the growth in your careers.
Take on the challenges,
do the role and then go,


I've been doing it anyways.
That's how you get that experience.
And that's the way to look at it.
Like,

you're giving me this opportunity
to do these things.
I'm not,

maybe I'm not,
it's in my role,

everyday role.
But
thank you for the opportunity.
I'm going to go ahead and take this
and then after a certain amount of time.
Hey,
remember how I was doing this really good?
I would like to get paid for this
on regular basis.
Or
Or


I can out to
the skills you allowed me to get paid for.

And take them elsewhere.
So,
insight sales,
marketing,
then what?
So I have,
I was vice president.
And then I
president and then CEO.
I also became an owner in 2019.
Oh wow.
So October 2019,
I became an owner.
And at 51%.
So I,
we are,
our woman owned certified.
And so we've gone through that process.
But in 2019,
late in the year,
I took on the position, right?
And then what happened in early 2020,
I was like,
what the hell did I do?
I was just going to ask,
like,

it's like,

we put a woman in CEO,
the economy tank.
Yeah,
we had plenty of challenges.

the last few years have not been boring in business.

I was,
we put a woman in CEO,
the economy tank.
Yeah.
We had plenty of challenges.

the last few years have not been boring in business.
I was talking to someone and they're like,

it just,
you got all of that crap out of the way.
And like,
all right,

that's a way to reframe that for sure.
Well,

so I'll,
I'll take a different approach of it at it.
So if you were a
seasoned old school CEO and the pandemic hits,
you still wouldn't know what to do.
You still,

one,
you wouldn't know what to do.

And two,

you would probably take that.

we're just going to weather the storm.
We've done it this way for 40 years.
You came in as someone fresh with new ideas,
the ability to pivot.
And,
how do you know she didn't just go with me.
I can tell how I'm going to do it.
She's a dead baby.
I mean,
she's a dead baby.
She's a dead baby.
She knows Jedi mind tricks.
She was trained in the Jedi artist.
That's true.
But my point.

you're right.
So I was,
we were doing like,
I was working 16 hours a day.
But it was because we were going like pivot,
like constantly like,
okay,
this is what we can get away with today.
We're going to do that.

this is what we need to do to be able to run all of our operations.
Because there was like,
these weird pockets where you're like,
am I essential?
Shit.

I got to go do the research.
And then you're like,

Oh gosh.
Do I only run essential parts of my business?
It's like,

I don't have enough of that to to keep us busy.
So I have to run it all.
And so there was just like,
we were working through all of that crap.
And it was yeah,
it was pretty interesting.
I remember that time specifically at work.
So I work for a rather large mechanical contractor.
We're doing work at a big hospital.
And they sent us out like certificates.
Like you are,
you need to go to work.
Like if you get,
and that was the assumption,
like,
do I have to have it on my passenger seat?
Because I get pulled over.
We did.
Yeah.
That's what I did.
I wrote,
I wrote it.
And we gave Pat.
We gave printouts to all of our engineers.
Yeah.


We had them too.
Yeah.
We did.
We we gave all of our technicians had that same letter on our letter head.
Here's our license number.
This is we've been deemed essential by XYZ code.
Because it was something that we had.
We had diplomatic immunity.
You see.
I will speak.
I'm speaking to that stuff.
I'm calling for paper.
I just wrote it myself.
I mean.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Casey said.
It's essential that I get to buy beer on Friday.
So I'm going to show up to work.
I am anated mind.
Just so you know like.
Yeah.
So did we.
But I did.
I did myself.
I was with tape.
We had a laminating off.
I don't mean to brag.
So.
So.
What was that timeline?
You know, how long from day one when you started in sales to be coming to CEO?
What was that that time period?
Yeah.
So it was about 15 years before I.
Yeah.
Okay.
And actually like before I became an owner right.
So then if I back up a little bit.
I was in the role at least a couple of years before I became an owner.
So yeah.
But I think that that's super important.
Because in that time.
You probably saw a lot of different things in the business.
You obviously had your hands on a lot of different components of the business functions of the business to where you weren't just coming in at the top level and having to figure out all those things.
You had all the knowledge and history of the organization coming into that role.
Did that help?
Yeah.
It helped tremendously, right?
And to whether the storm that we were facing in 2020 and.
You know, all the different things we've been dealing with now for sure that made a huge difference.
But I do what can I tell you a story?
Absolutely.
So I'm family.
I'm for generation, right?
So I.
But I have this like allergy to being like I'm family.
Like, you know, so I really loved the way that like I grew up in the the company because like no road was paved for me.
Like I earned credibility with my team.
You know, some of them like worked with my grandpa.
So worked for my grandpa, worked for my dad and now work for me.
So they've gone through quite a different transition.
So I used to make sales calls with other sales people and this was my first.
And it was my first time that I had done this.
And but no one really knew I was just I've been Melanie Wyatt.
I married my high school sweetheart.
So I've been white forever.
So I was riding around with someone and all day like they were like how to get in the industry.
Like he kind of didn't make sense to them.
So they like kept asking questions, right?
And so like seven hours into our like riding around together.
He goes, but you're made in name.
And that's what I'm like.
Oh, crap.
I can't lie at this point.
It's like that.
So eventually it's going to come out, right?
That I'm I'm family, but I just like so.
I was so allergic to anyone thinking that I like got this role because I was family that I would I would like hide it.
So it didn't help to do that.
I would just say be authentic because like I is totally lost trust in this person, which I then had to gain back.
Yeah.
But like then they're like, well, you didn't you were not front about it.
So what else are you like hiding?
Yeah.
So that was my one and only time that I did that, but it was like, I can't get away with that.
So I just had to earn it on just being me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So a story on the same van.
I used to be really close with a family, the the wife owned an electrical company.
And she had a son.
And the son came up and had random jobs.
He was a bartender.
He was in a warehouse, whatever.
And he wanted to come to work for the company.
And she said, great.
We need some installers.
You can start and he said, absolutely not.
She says, what do you mean?
He's like, if I come to the time.
Yeah, put me on the management.
Yeah.
I'm part of the family.
I'm management.
And she said, I started making cold calls and working in the office doing doing the finances.
If you want to be part of this business, you'll start at the bottom.
You're absolutely refused to do it.
And she went, then you don't work for me.
And he, as far as I know, he never went to work there.
And the thing was, like, all he had to do was show up, earn some credibility in the field,
step into an office job, earn some credibility there.
In five to ten years, he would have owned that company.
But he refused to do it.
It let's be honest.
Yeah.
Two years, Matt.

He had been like, look, what else do I do?
I've been in a way.
It could have been either a real short time or real long time.
But it's just to make him earn it.
It's, I have the exact same story where, you know, I was like the number one foreman.
And you know what, you know, so when such is going to come out and he's going to be your apprentice,
this, you know, whatever.
And at that time, I already voiced like, hey, man, I'm trying to get out of the field.
I want to start doing estimating or whatever.
Oh, okay.
And then he's going to put his son in law with me.
And I'm like, oh, god.
I already knew that kid.
I had already been talking trash about this kid for a year and a half.
There's no way.
There's no way this guy.
He was like, he was like, I did it.
He hated you back.
He was, he was a greater at all of garden.
Like, well, friend.
Yep.
Now you're getting into construction.
Like, it's just a different, it's a different animal.
And so I told my boss.
And I was very friendly.
Like, we played softball and stuff like that together.
And I like, please don't do this to me.
Like, honestly, like, he's all dead.
Don't treat him any different than anybody else that knew higher or whatever.
Just, you know, I trust you.
And I gave you the green light.
Well, that was the green light.
And so, though, day one, it was like a truck load of spiral pipe.
You know, duckwork that would have to be unloaded.
There's literally nothing else he can do.
He has no experience other than being 21 years old.
And you can carry things.
Yeah.
So I just told him start unloading that truck.
He wanted to his mom like that.
I was mistreating him.
And he, I hated him and all these other things.
And it was exactly what the boss I knew.
Yeah.
I didn't hate him.
But I did dislike him.
But what else am I supposed to do?
And sure enough.
Like, he didn't make it three weeks.
He, you know, he cut out.
And then, you know, after like a year and a half,
I ended up moving on.
And I've since then touched base.
Like, oh, how did someone say, yeah, he's, he's management now.
Like, yeah.
So it was like, oh, like, you know, he did not 100% gain that experience.
And understand like what the family business was.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
So with that.
So as you, I still hate him.
I know.
As you've come up in the business and now taking over the reins.
How, how has that experienced that experience that you had prior to becoming the president and the CEO?
Shaped the way you make decisions today.
Ooh, that's a good question.
Yeah.
I think it, it, like, filters into like everything I do, right?
Because I, I know these like intimate parts about like the business because I was so close to them.
And so, yeah, I, I couldn't say, like, oh, well, this is the exact fabric, right?
Because it, there's, when you do something and you do it well.
And you, like, really, like, dive into it.
Like, it almost like becomes a part of you, like yourselves.
And I think that's where, like, it then can, like, influence me to make better decisions for the company for sure.
Yeah.
And I can imagine that, um, that, that legacy of information.
And you know, we've had this customer for, I remember calling on that customer, like, that shapes the way you make difficult decisions.
And how are we going to treat this customer and do these things?
And I think there's value in that that, um, it is something that you, you can't really quantify, right?
I mean, that's, that's, that's an experience that it's hard to quantify.
Um, so as you've, as you've come up over the last 15 years or so in the automotive industry,
what has been your favorite part about just the automotive industry as a whole?
Oh, the people for sure.
I mean, I get to hang out with people like you guys, right?
And nobody has ever said that.
No one has ever said that.
Sorry, your check is in the mail.
And, uh, but, like, you guys are so passionate about what you're doing.
And it's so fun to be around people that like what they're doing.
And I think that's a big part about this industry as people like what they're doing.
And so, uh, that, once I got a taste of that, I was like, uh, I don't want to be doing anything else.
Um, it is very interesting.
The automotive slash motorsports world is typically filled with people that participate in automotive slash
Motorsport stuff in their spare time as well.
You know what I mean?
It's not, it's not very often you find someone that's like, it works for an off road company that's like,
Yeah, I don't feel like going outside.
Yeah, but their company touches upon different areas of motor sports, not just like one specific.
Yeah, no, that's what I'm just saying.
And it's on the industry.
So it's kind of cool.
She gets to see all the different groups of people that, well, and not taking this industry.
Not only motorsports, if like, if I'm correct, I mean, the stuff that you guys are doing
Crosses all types of motorsports slash off-roading slash commercial applications.
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some military applications in there.
You don't have to say anything.
We don't get in trouble.
But, but I mean, you, you, you're, you're, you're sitting both aliens.
If you were supplying anything to Area 51, we need to talk offline.
Okay.
There.
But, I mean, you, you, you guys are, you guys are touching all different aspects of automotive in some way or fashion correct?
Yeah, we are.
And I think that's the fun part about what we do because it isn't just like one niche that we are focused on.
So we do, you know, you, we make a sway bars and have made them for YouTube.
And for TV's and we go all the way up to some applications.
Like, if you're, if you've been at a airport recently and seen the, the big fire trucks,
there they airport fire trucks, they have three of our sway bars on those.
So, and that's a vehicle that gets our product made into it while it gets developed.
So, you know, so we have like, all of these different niches that we fill.
Like, we're the expert in loading sway control.
And then we get to serve a bunch of different markets.
Do you have a plane type sway bars?
No, but you know what does half sway bars is.
Have you been to DFW and at the tram?
The tram?
Yeah.
It has some sway bars.
It has some of our sway on it.
That we made for another company was like their design and stuff, but we designed it.
So, my son and we're like, he's holding on right to the, the pole and he's like,
I'm like, hey, this has our sway bars on it.
You should have done a better job.
I wouldn't be promoting.
Yeah.
If you've never flown at a DFW, if you've got a connector in DFW,
make sure you have a minimum of an hour and a half.
Because invariably, they drop you on this side of the airport,
and you have to take a tram to get the entire other side of the airport.
It's the, it's huge, and it's the worst.
Yeah, it's huge.
And you get a good view of it, right?
I'm assuming that's Dallas for, yes, Dallas for, we're sorry.
They're sorry, DFW.
Is that a specific tram somewhere?
No, they just, they just, they just have the monorail.
Disney land?
Like, I don't know.
What's real quick?
What is the engineering team look like as far as,
and you guys touch on so many different areas of motor sport?
Is it like one engineering team that adapts to all those different areas?
Or is it, or is it experts in each area that you guys have?
No, it's one.
And a lot of times what happens is that there's engineering teams like this one
for the DFW tram, like an engineering team on that company
who made the tram came to us with a design.
So like that happens a lot too, where it's like,
hey, here's our design.
Can you make it to these specs?
And then sometimes it's, you know,
we're coming up with the design ourselves too.
So, so it goes both ways.
How about the people mover at LAX?
You guys doing that tram?
No.
Do we talk here?
I know, I know that a lot of your,
the majority of your products are aftermarket.
Are there any OEM?
Do you guys do any OEM sway bars for manufacturers?
Yes.
The FedEx and EPS trucks, the big box trucks,
have our sway bars on them.
So they get built into those.
Yeah.
It's an option on the freight liner custom chassis.
And I never thought I'd geek out about it,
but it's so fun to watch a,
a manufacturing floor.
Like where, you know, you start with this like raw chassis
and you add like wheels and tires,
and like, you know, at the end you're adding like the steering
well, it's like the wiring, all of that stuff.
It's like fascinating that it all comes together.
We like completely, we,
I won't include you guys in on this,
but I completely took it for granted
until I started like visiting factories.
Yeah, we definitely take it.
Yeah, we 100% take it advantage.
But, but so I'll speak for Matt here.
It's similar in the construction or HVAC world,
where you show up and the,
it's a completely flat roof.
And when you walk off,
there's 58 machines humming and making cold air downstairs.
Like it's, there's something satisfying about that process
of watching raw material or raw components
end up being something that works, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll speak to starting off installing that equipment
to now planning and ordering and coordinating the installation
now that stuff.
It's still, it's not equal.
I think working on the field was a little more satisfying,
but it's still satisfying.
Yeah.
Yeah.

So, over the, over the course of the,
your time in the industry,
you've learned a lot, grown a lot,
done a lot.
And you seem to be very passionate about
giving a lot of that back.
Can we talk a little bit about your involvement
in some of these organizations,
specifically with Sima,
SPN and those kinds of things.
Like, when did that,
when did that start for you?
When did that,
that involvement in,

extra, we'll call it,
extracurricular activities in the,
in the industry and the business start.
Yeah.
So, I,
earlier,

you said that you have stopped me on LinkedIn.
I think specifically say that I stopped you by the way.
Nobody take that clip at a context, please.
It's going to,
that's going to be a meme tomorrow,
co-estugs.
And just so you know,
he stalks everybody on LinkedIn.
It's not that.
You should be a,
yeah, man arresting us.
You're paying attention.
I'm,

I'm completely happy with that, right?
At that time.
Okay.
So I stopped.
I,
I was,
I was,
a stalker myself of someone in the industry.


had been in a couple different like articles.
She was a customer that I was supposed to call end,
but she was like really never hardly in the office,
but I totally went out on a whim and I was like,
I want to meet her.
She seems dynamic and amazing.
And so I set up an appointment with her.
And I,
you know,
I complimented her about like what I was seeing her do in the industry.
And she was like,
Hey,
there's this mentor program with SBN,
Seema Business Women's Network.
Why don't we,
why don't you be my mentee?
And I was like,
I don't really know how to be a mentee,
but yes.
Like I had no idea what it really like looks like.
And she was so
freaking generous.
She would like,
She would invite me to a bunch of like,
she was a huge volunteer in the industry.
And so she was on the board of directors at the time.
She volunteered within the,
the truck alliance.
So she did a bunch of different stuff.
And she would just like invite me to things.
And I just would always say yes.
And one,
and there were even a couple times that we would share hotel rooms,
which was amazing.
And I think about like,
what I do that right now.
And I'm not sure that I would.
So it was incredibly generous of her to do that.
And what I learned with that is like,
I also learned her habits.
Like I learned that like,

we would go have a drink at the bar.
We were never the last one there.
We'd have a great time,
but she would get up early.
And she would read the paper.
She'd study for the things that we were doing that day.
And I'm like,
you know,
feeling a little feeling
what we did last night, right?
And not wanting to get out bad,
but I'm watching her like really attack the day early on.
And so it not only like,
she did she open doors for me,
which was amazing.
She showed me habits that I couldn't have learned anywhere else,
right?
So it was just like this amazing,
um,
step in to the industry in a different way.
And when I started doing that,
what I realized is that there was stuff that I could learn
outside my organization that would help my organization
if I volunteered.
And so,
um,
I love this industry.
And so I also like,
I wanted to volunteer for that reason too,
but it was like such a like,
a benefit.
When I gave time,
I got like so much more back.
I know people say that a lot,
but that was like absolutely my experience.
I learned so much by doing that,
and really like,
through my network too.
And it's amazing.
I mean,
I wish everyone would know this like,
if you are willing to just be like,

I don't know this.
Would you be willing to answer this question for me?
Um,
people like tell you a lot more than even what you're asking,
like they want to help you.
So I have,
I have two questions.
One,
who is this amazing person?
Or is this a top secret thing you can't name her?
And second,
I've found that that's a big thing like,
asking questions.
If you're not,
you know,
everybody gets put in situations where,
you know,
you feel like you're expected to have all the answers.
And that's not necessarily true,
or you're in a meeting where something is said,
or there's like a term news.

I don't know what that means.
That's like everybody else is like,
yeah,
you just nod your head like,

whatever.
I'll give you a lecture after the meeting or whatever.
But it's the one person that stands up,
or steps up and goes,
can you explain what a PLA,

shifting whatever whatever it is?
And then,
and then it's like,

thank God,
that guy asked.
And then everybody learns from you.
But again,
like there's no stupid questions,
except the one you don't ask.
Is that confusion?
Is that confusion?
That's weird.
That's why to fill a softacle for you,

Pull that back,
get something to you.
You will see something fun.
So is either confusion or adventure in phrase.
But who was the mentor?
And Johnson was her name.
And yet she's still in the industry.
We don't get to see each other as much.
But she,
yeah, I mean,
I still give her so much credit for just that generosity
and her willingness.
I mean,
I was also,
I was very careful too.
Like,
I wanted her help.
So I was also very,
like eager to get it, right?
And I would do,
I would appreciate it.
I would,
you know,
I would make sure she felt appreciated.
I was like very careful to like,
how can I help her?
To.
And yeah,
I'm young.
All of these things.
But there might be something that I can do for her
that would help.
And so just like,
I kept looking for those opportunities.
It wasn't just that I was like there,
taking from her.
And I think that was like beneficial for her too.
There's something fun when someone asked me a question, right?
Yeah.
Like I love to be like,

I love to answer that for you.
And so going back to that,

I was recently reading an article.
It was a CEO in his 50s.
And he suggested that every CEO,
40 years an old,
older,
should have a mentor that is under 30.
And he said,
not mentee mentor.
He said,
because these people in your network that are under 30,
see the world differently than you do.
No technology that you don't know about.
And if you ignore them,
and just treat them as the,
the people below you,
they will eventually pass you by.
And I think that that given take of,
we'll say,
cross generational information sharing is,
is invaluable as an organization.
Cross generational experience.
Yes.
Okay.
That's me.
They're opening.
They're opening the Coachella.
Yeah.
And then you talked about the networking.
So recently I was having a conversation with my wife about,
in this,
in today's market with the way,
employment slash unemployment slash job hunting is going,
on LinkedIn,
it is so easy to do an easy apply.
So if a job is open,
you just click the blue button,
the next thing you know your names in the hat.
And you'll see jobs on there that have been posted for 21 minutes,
and there's 3,472 applicants.
Because it is so easy to just click the blue button,
and then apply now.
It is so important to have a connection
and a network that you can pull from,
especially when you're in that job market.
And you want to,
you want to,
you are applying for a job.
If you don't have the exact right keywords for the SEO searches,
that they're doing,
that they're software is using,
you'll never bubble up to the top.
And it's so important to build your network outside of your,
you know,
organization,
or your immediate pool of friends for those opportunities.
Because you'll never get those opportunities if you don't expand that network.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And honestly,
like the best hires I've had are not from an application process, right?
They definitely don't come from,
I'll say there's actually one,
and it's like that is completely an outlier.
Most of them are,
hey,
I'm looking to hire,
do you know of anyone, right?
It's like that what happens in the background,
or it's someone that,
I mean,
my salesman,
my director of sales,
like he was so kind to me,
and he was one that I'd be like,
hey,
for an,
I have a question.
Can you answer this for me?
And he would like always answer my question.
He would always be super helpful.
And I just remember,
at one point I was like,
I really like him on my team.
I don't know if I can ever afford him,
and I don't know if he would ever want to like leave,
right?
Where he was.
I just always had that like,
I'd like him to work with me.
And we have like a couple like,
he was available,
and we didn't have a position.
We had a position,
and he wasn't available, right?
So it was like,
and then finally like he came to work for us,
and he's been with us for four years now.
But those are like those types of things that happened just because,
I don't know,
when you drive with someone,
you're like,
you know,
you know,
you go through hard stuff at work.
So it's really good to have someone that you,
you drive with,
and you can go through the tough stuff with.
Mm-hmm.
I think that's why I got the job that I have,
because I literally,
I swear to God,
like I had no experiences,
very little experiences,
as far as a project manager or whatever.
But I did reference,
like you know what?
I appreciate working on teams,
where we're all working together with a common goal,
and you know what you're getting,
like the guy that's next to you,
it's going to work as hard as you do,
and it kind of pumps you up,
like okay,
like we work together.
If you can get that sympathetic,
you know,
like tornado of production or whatever,
it's like infectious.
And you know,
next thing you know,
I'm getting a tour of the shop,
and all kinds of stuff.

oh man,
look at it.
It's worked out well.
But I do agree.
When it comes to like that people,
you could tell me that you have all this experience
and all these things that are valuable,
but I'll take work ethic, attitude,
and commitment,
like those are those are really big things.
You can work with that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I had another mentor,
who was like,
man,
you could not teach give a shit.
Like you just can't,
like you could not teach someone
to care about a job,
but you can teach them,
like you know,
like for you like project management,
you can teach them project management,
but if you,
if you don't give a shit like,
and you have the skills,
then like,
you're probably not going to be that good,
but if you care and want to learn like,
you can teach anything to people.
And I would,
I would flip that around and say that you also can't teach
give a shit in leadership,
because
leadership is so much more about give a shit
of your people than it is about the skill itself,
right?

I've worked for leaders that weren't the smartest person
in the room that didn't have the most experience,
but you know what?
You always felt heard,
you always felt valued,
you always felt like,
like you were a member of a team,
that's that leadership,
that type of give a shit for your people,
supersedes any of those skills,
at least in my mind, right?
I've worked for some people that were amazing,
salespeople,
or amazing engineers,
but you're like,
man,
I don't want to go in there and talk to that guy.
Like I just,
the last thing I wanted to do was talk to that person.
Well, you know,
similarly,

so I have some field experience,
both sheet metal and pipe fitting,
or whatever,
let's say.
But if I sit down and I call a meeting
between me and my,
pipe fitting form in or whatever,

hey,

I could do this estimate or work this schedule,
but I want to sit down with you
because you're the expert,
and look,
let's work this,
like the credit earned,
like I,
I can see that,
like he appreciates that,
I acknowledge your expertise,
even though I can,
it's a simple thing,
but can you help me with this?

And it establishes by and in all those things.
100%.
So what,
which,
is,
are we on the same pamphlet?
Like we're getting,
I think so,
I have a quick question on leadership.
Being that you,
you know,
you're the leader of the ship,
that was such a large organization.
Do you feel that leadership is something,
people are born with,
or it's learned,
or it's a little bit of both?
Oh, that's a good question.
I don't know,
like I'm the oldest of four,
and I am,
I,
I mean,
I'm so bossy,
like I really,
like I have advice for everyone.
Like I,

I can,
my sisters are seem appreciative,
but I know that at some point,
like they're rolling their eyes,
right?
And because I'm like the oldest,
a four,
like I'm even bossy to my parents right now,
so like,

good.

I,

I,


I,
I,

I,


I don't make me come down here.

I,





I,





I,





I,




I,




I,


I,

I don't know,
I,
I don't know,
I,
What do you guys feel?
I mean,
I think it's not a good idea.



I'm not a,
I'll tell you right now.
I'm not a gunhole.
Let's go.

or whatever,
but I am a,
a work ethic.

I lead by my,
my work ethic and experience.
And again,
there's expectations.
I put expectations on people.

I expect you to still have this done,
or whatever.

but I also see the opposite,
with an iron fist,
and it's just,
it's,
it's like almost fear or intimidation driven.
Yeah.

that's not me.
100% that's not me.
I want,
I'm not saying inspired,
but I want you to see,
oh shit,
you know,
Matt's killing,
and he's,
he's putting in his time.

I want to reach those expectations
or try and achieve what,
the goals that I'm setting for people.
And,
that,
that's it.
But I do see different levels.
I think it's just,
it's just,
it's styles.
I don't think there's any one recipe.
I think it's,
yeah,
I don't think there's any one recipe.
There's certain people that are born leaders,
and you see them on the field at 12 years old,
leading their little league teams to championships,
right?
They don't have any training.
I think,
but there's also people that have that's that.
They're born with that quality,
but they're not,
they don't want to encourage.
Yeah.

they don't,
maybe they don't want it,

like,
but,

there's the,
I'm accelerating this responsibility.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like that old Roman,
I don't know.

I don't know.
Yeah.
It's like that old Roman,
I want to say,
proverb,
but story where they had like,
we need a leader.
Let's get,

let's get a farmer to lead us or whatever,
and he just had a great work ethic,
and he was,

he was bright or whatever,
but he was able to,
to still use common sense,
and all these other,
you're going to have to look like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know the proverb,
whatever,
but,
there's a small thing.
But one of the few subjects I paid attention to,
farming and leadership.
Leadership and farming,
but let's,
Let's get these cows to produce warm milk,
but regardless of whether or not you're,
You're wielding your bowl,
but regardless of whether or not you're born with it
or
Or it's something that's,
that's thrust upon you,

It's a never ending learning opportunity

because everyday your organization
changes,
everyday your different challenges,
You have,

You've got to
need a hundred different ways.
It's,
It's an ongoing thing,
and I can say,
In my career,
I've been good at it at times,
and I've been bad at it at times,
and it's just,
It's one of those things that it,
You know,
Those are the people that you're trying to lead to,
Right?
It's not every,
That's not a common,
Every time,
You know,

It's always the same guy that I'm trying to,
Inspire to get things done on time
and under budget,
You know,

That's,
That's a variable as well.

Maybe your style changes
if you can,
If you can recognize that,
You try, you try.
Um,
The,
That was eight,

Because I think that there's something like,
Yeah,
I am like naturally this way,
But I will say,
When I was in,
I was a senior in high school,
Like when I was graduating high school,
I was like,
I thought,
My,
My goal was to marry a rich guy.

I do not have a three.
Me too.

That's my goal right now.
I'm just going to work with you.
My goal right now.
My goal right now.
Yeah,
I know that would really really help me out.
So,
I married my high school sweetheart
And I,
His,
You know,
He came from like a wealthier family.
It doesn't mean that that's going to be us, right?
So,

But I remember like,
But I married someone that was like,
Never let me,
Like,
Take the easy road.
Like,
And I thought it was a complete jerk for this for a lot at times.
But he never,
Like,
He would never let me sell myself short.
He always saw that I had like something else to give.
And I would give him a lot of credit for like seen that in me because I think that's part of it is like your circle of people around you and what they're going to reflect back is so key.
Because I,
I,
I would have been,
I would probably be divorced by this point.
Had I married,
So,

Just a rich guy, right?
Because I would have been really unhappy.
Because I wouldn't have been like falling into like what I'm,
Like,
Who I am naturally.
You know,
Yeah,
And yeah,
I'm glad that didn't really work out.
It's interesting because as you're,
As you're saying that,

And I'm not equating myself with your husband by any means.
I'm sure he's a much better man than I am.
Me too.

My,



My,

My wife in,

And when she was in that male dominated industry,
I found myself in those conversations doing the exact same thing.
Go,
Nope.

You work too hard.
You're worth more than that.
Like,
It's almost like being being an outsider,
Watching her struggles in that industry,
And still having some kind of concept of what,

What that,
What that comforts room conversation is like,

It's like,
No bullshit.
You're not taking their shit.
This is not going to happen.
It's not going down like,
Like,

It's like almost like a,
You know,
Bullshit.

I don't,

I'd be like,

Totally.

And I think that's so key,
Right?
Like to be able to do that because,
Like,
To be like,
Am I going to piss off,
Or is like,
Am I going to just point my husband,
Or am I going to piss off some people outwards?
Right?
Like,
So there's,
There's both of those things.
And I was like,
Well,
I'll piss some people off.

I don't want him to like,

It was just like,
And also like,
He saw something more.
Yeah.

So.
I,

I love that.
I love that.
You felt like you had that level of support,
To,
To push and keep going.
And,
And end up where you're at.
Back to some of the SPN stuff and the,
The C maturity stuff,


What,


What are the different,
Other than,
Isn't there more than just SPN?


What are the kinds of things?
What are the kinds of things?

That's,

What other organizations are you part of?
Yeah.
So within the CMA umbrella,
So I'm on the CMA border directors,
Right now,
Within the CMA umbrella,
I've been a part of the emerging
Trends and technology,
And I was just at what they're meeting yesterday.
And then,
I also have been a part of the SPN,
The CMA business women's network.
And I've just been a member of that.
Like the emerging trends in technology,
I sat on their,
Their select committee.
And then I was the chair of the light truck,
Accessory Alliance,
Which is now the truck and off road at the lines.
So I was chair of that.
Council for a while.
So I also was chair of CMA cares.
So when people,
When leadership opportunities came up,
I was like,
I'm in.
I'll do it.
But in the end,
Were they like growth edge things that I signed up for?
Like,
I remember the LTA that I was the chair of LTA.
And you'd have to leave conference calls.
And they're so freaking awkward.
I mean,

We get to see each other's faces here, right?
The conference calls.
You have no idea if someone's listening.
And so it's like really uncomfortable.
And I was timid.
And I was newer in the industry.
So I just,
I did not present myself very well.
And someone was on the council.
That,
And was on the call, right?
And after the call called me immediately.
And said,
Hey,
And I knew I didn't do a very good job on the call.
It was like one of my first or second ones that I had been in charge of.
And I was just like,
That's not going very well.
But I like,

I'm going to get on with my day and calls me and goes,
Hey,
You're one of the smartest people I know.
Like,
You are so bright.
But when you show up on these calls,
You do not show up in that way.
And he was like,
Whatever you need to do,
I want to see you work on that.
Because I want that.
And he was my friend, right?
And he had was that like,
So hard.
I was like,

It was bad.
But like that.
Like,
Like,

Him telling me that.


I signed up for toast masters,
Which is like a place to flourish speaking.

And,
Was able to like just really work hard on my speech.
And that,

Saved my butt.
Because I wanted to say yes to all of these things, right?

But I was not presenting myself very well.
And,
So I was so grateful for that.
And also,
Like,
The willingness to like,
The feedback was really key to like,
It's done.
And I might have like shed a tear after I go up that call.
But I,
But I found a group and like started to work on it.
But that person recognized your,
Your,
Uh,
Really answer whatever.
And just wanted you to be able to portray that in that form.
That's all.
And that's,
That's awesome.
That's hard too.
Imagine having to,
Knowing that this is going to be,
This is going to sting,
But yeah,
It's going to be better for you in the long run.
And those,
I think about that.
And I've had to give those that feedback too,
Or you're just like,
A hundred percent.

I'm doing this from a loving place.

I hope in the end that you will see that.
But those,
Those experiences,
Those really sharp,
Sting knife in the side.
Those only nice in the side.
I was trying to think of a good metaphor.
That's a good metaphor.
That's a good metaphor.
But it truly is seasoned.
You're right.
That was it.
But those,
Those are the learning experiences you have to have.
And my suggestion to people is have that,
Have that learning experience.
Wait early on in your career.
Don't wait.
Don't wait to your 45 years old.
And now,
You're like,
Oh, shit.
I really bomb that call because that's much harder to recover from.


You screw up in your 20s.
Screw up early as in your careers,
You can,
By taking on those challenges,
And you will be better faster.
But don't you think that now,
Since COVID,
And I don't,
I don't know,
But now those calls are,
I am inundated with meetings,
Like at least three or four a day,
That it's like,
Well,
Let's discuss this bullshit.
Where are we going to put this through this day?

Next thing you know,
You're having these meetings,
And it's like,
Oh, my God,
Why is the project manager for Kaiser,
The whole hospital,
It's sitting in this meeting.
Who invited this guy?
It's like,
All right.

This dumb meeting that was going to be,
It's going to be meetings.
Like in a five minute thing,
We're now bringing in like some big dogs,
And it's going to turn into a half hour,
And I'm going to have to answer some,
You know,
Whatever.

My point is like,
Don't you think that it's kind of like things are changing in that way.
Where it's almost,
That's the expectation.

I'll tell you a story,
Casey.

So our cousin,
Shane,

Is a in law enforcement,
And they're going to occupied wells,
And he asked me for some maps,
So I shoot,
I shot him some maps.
Hey,
Here's a bunch of campsites,
Here's a bunch of stuff.
So he says,

Can you help me with some of these maps?
So I sent him a link to a video chat,
Just like we're doing right now.
And he,

Okay, I sent you a link.
And he gets on,
He's like,

That's the first time I've ever done this.
And I would,
What?
What?
It's like,
What?




What?


What?
What?

What?

What?
What?
What?
What?
What?
He's like,

Never done the video chat.
I'm like,
This is a blew me away.
It's like,
Like the height of Kobe.
Kobe,
I was video chatting.
My,
My friend,
We were having a party.
Yeah,

I could not imagine.
So to your,

To your point,
Matt,
There's still a fraction of the country that's like,
Zoom,
Zoom in on what?
What am I zooming in on?

No,
My wife does that.
Yeah,
It's insanity.
Uh,
So,
Of the,
Of the 78 boards and,
And, and committees that you're on.
How much time do you sleep?
Because I,
I got to imagine running the company and,

Being a full-time mother and wife and running all the,
Like,
What do you,

What is it that's keeping you going?
Yeah,
So,
Uh,
I have not slept very much because I've been traveling.
And I just never sleep very much when I travel.

You know,
The thing is like,
I used to be like,
It has to be perfect.
All the time.
And where am I right now?
I'm like,

I'll just make up for it all the weekend, right?
Or I'll make up for it in the future.
And I've been traveling a lot.
So, I haven't got a ton of time with my son.
So, I'll just,
I'll make sure I'm the one that's doing like,
Pick up.
He's 13.

It's,
It's interesting.

I feel like it's me with like,
The crash on him.
No,
Like where I was in the time,
It's like,
Not interested.
Yeah.

Being received very well.
He's like,
Mom's been gone a week.
What?

He's like,


Me and I'm going to have to go to bed on time.

That's what's going to happen.
It doesn't get better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So,



So, I just,

It doesn't flows, right?
And that's where I'm at right now.
Where I know I'm going to like,
Make up some time for being gone.
And it gets a little tricky.
Because I also need to make up time for being gone with work.
To and,
You know,

I have an awesome team.
So, I can rely heavily on them too.
So,
Yeah.

Did the,
Does your husband and son ever get to travel with you?
When you go out of fun places?
Yes.
Yeah.

We went to Moab last year together.
Nice.
My son.
You're my son travels a lot with me.
And now that you're getting older,
If you didn't like have that stink face on sometimes,
I'm probably too crumpled.
Oh,
I got to work on that.
You guys are like,
You guys are totally out of place.
How do I do it?
My daughter, my daughter is seven.
And it's constant stink face.
It is like,
She's,
I have a 16 year old boy.
And I'm telling you from 13 to 16,
I think it gets worse.
Well,
I'll tell you,
I have a 13 and 11 year old.
They have stink face because they smell.
Yeah.
And they also stink.
Yes.

I have stink face for that reason.
Exactly.
I walk around.
We all have stink face.
Yeah, totally.
Walk around the house.
What is that smell?
Oh, it's my teenager.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's funny.
Does your son have any interest in the automotive world?
Right now he wants to be like a race car driver.
Me too.
At one point he was like a dirt bike.
Right or he's super good at like downhill mountain bikes.
So like,
I think that might be winning right now.
Get him a niche on frontier.
Okay.
Yeah.
And this is where she walks live.
Yeah.
Uh, what was that?
Millenie?
Why?
Why I need some frontier?
Go ahead, case.
Because they're cool.
Yeah.
The best.
We are very pro frontier.
We're up.
So the Nissan.
Several year.
I mean, the Toyota Tacoma is.
The Toyota Tacoma is the Juggernaut in the mid-sized market.
Yeah.
Matt went out and bought a 2018 frontier.
Then case you got a 2014 and then Jose got a 2022.
And what we have found is that that frontier for two thirds the price of a Tacoma
will either keep up with or mopped the floor with a Tacoma all day long.
Yeah.
So because it's a very underserved product in the aftermarket world.
We are constantly talking about the Nissan Frontier.
I mean, it's not as good as the Ford Ranger 100%.
But.
Yeah.
So these guys talk about how any time something is cool.
It has to be a Nissan Frontier as far as they're concerned.
Gotcha.
So it's funny because I'm like, what is it going to drive when he goes to when he gets his
license, right?
Like, and we have either of like an old like X sales car.
It was a crease classic.
And it was like.
That's a classic.
Yeah, I caught part right.
And the header, the headliner was like, I'm down.
And like, you want to head to get like push it back up.
There was a fracture for that held the glove box.
Close.
That's just like, it was a hot mess of a car.
And I think about that.
Like someone's like, he should do one of your like old sales trucks or something.
And I'm like, no, like those are cool.
Like, if you have like a Ranger, it has a refrigerator.
I know I've seen the Rangers several several times.
I've seen the ring.
You're your right.
So one of the first times we interviewed Mike was at Cema 2018, 2019, I think.
And that Ranger was part of my decision to get mine.
Like, I was like, I loved it.
I was already on board with it.
I really wanted one.
And I was going back and forth between that and the Tacoma.
And I saw the Helwig Ranger.
And I went, okay, it can look like that.
And then there was a couple of other factors.
But yeah, I'm very familiar with the Ranger.
Yeah.
Well, my son will not be driving that.
It's not particular.
He doesn't have a fridge in a bed on it.
Yeah, you're going to go find a gelopy for just so he has the experience of driving a piece of
crap forward.
LTD, like one of those mid seven.
Oh, he's like a giant boat.
Yeah, so.
Oh, props.
Yeah.
That was my first crime.
And he's on front here.
And he's on hardbody.
Get a, you know, he's on hardbody.
My, my first, my first car was a four to escort.
And I loved it.
It was a badass.
Um, I was jealous of the four to escort for sure.
Uh, with my big all Capri's class.
Yeah.
But I think we're talking about like a 20 year difference between when I had my first car.
And when you had your first car.
I had to start it.
It had like that crank in the front.
Like I had to get out.
I had to run over it.
That's hit the throttle.
Like, okay.
Woo.
Bad to school today.
Bad's first car.
The wheels were made out of wood.
Yeah.
Mad's first car was black.
Because that's the only color they came in.
Henry Ford said, if you don't like black.
He had one of the first hellwigs, sway bar.
In 1946.
Yeah.
So what is, what is, what is next?
And I, I hesitate to ask because I feel like you're already doing so much.
Is there something else that you want to be doing?
Either with the organization or your personal life or the or the seam a group or what kind of things are you aspiring to next?
Yeah.
Yes.
All of the things.
Right.
Like my poor family.
I have like a chart on our fridge of like what we want to accomplish for the year.
So we have goals as a family.
You know, I'm really excited like this year.
My son is going to learn more about you.
So I think I'm like getting him to DC.
And I'm super like geeking out about like the things that I'm going to be able to see that I've never seen because I'll take him.
And so there's things like that.
Like there's yeah, I mean, yes, of course there's things in the industry.
I want to be signing up for more.
But really, I think that also is like elevating my team.
Because I, I'm gone more.
So yeah, so I think it's it's a lot of things.
And I think there's this like magical thing.
You know, as like things become a little bit more challenging in the industry and like the economy to like this is the time that I love because I love showing up for our customers.
And I think these are the times when you really have to.
And we can weather this together, right?
So I think this is like a magical time.
I mean, that's really hard.
To to make sure like, you know, our, our sales are moving through.
It becomes more challenging, but it also makes us better.
And that's a part that I'm, I'm excited about.
So yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't have a picture of what I have on my fridge.
I probably should take one.
If there's a lot on there.
Yeah, I DC is amazing.
I didn't think I was going to like Washington DC, but my wife and I went and we loved it.
I definitely want to go back.
The organization.
So 1946 when it started, what's the, what's the growth look like?
I mean, I'm sure it started as a small family business, but you guys are, are large now.
Like what, how many how many employees is, is how we're at today?
Yes, so we're on about.
I want to say like 46 right now is where we're at.
So, you know, we've, we've fluctuated with the with the pandemic when there were like,
we were just crazy cranking away.
We had like above 50, but I will say like when I came into the organization,
and really like got into like a more like,
you started like marketing manager and like management roles.
Like we've tripled in size in the company.
So, so I want to do that again.
So, so.
So then what?
So you don't like sleep.
Yeah.
So with that.
Pines guy.
If when would that, when would that tripling in in size occurs?
Is that a two year or three year five year goal?
Yeah, I mean, it's a be had, right?
It's like what you put out there like 10 years like where you want to be.
So it's our big carry audacious goal.
Oh, come on big hairy ass goal.
That's what that is.
But, but I feel like so going back to that you talked about when you came into marketing
and then you know the tripling of the business.
Like from your experience in the sales and the marketing side,
throwing that be hag out going, okay, we're going to triple in size.
As the CEO, you know, you know what's going to be involved.
What resources are going to be involved?
What kind of marketing is going to be required?
What kind of sale?
Like going back to your knowledge of the industry and that business from the ground up.
It's not just a goal where you go.
We're going to triple in size.
Minions go make it happen.
Like it's it's not, you know, you're not in an organization like that.
You can really wrap your head around that.
And I have to imagine that there's, um,
like a resource planning that takes place in that kind of, you know,
ongoing growth projection that helps you get there.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, yeah, you don't get anywhere without a plan, right?
A map to get there.
And so we do have that.
And also like it's, I think that's what I find the most exciting about my job is that this is where the growth happens, right?
It's where when you sign up for big, crazy things that like,
I don't know, sometimes like shouldn't happen.
It's like, oh gosh, like we got there, but like what,
who you become in the processes, the key?
Uh, and I think that's what I'm excited for me and my team and like who we have to become to like,
fill that like that next role, right, to that, to hit those goals.
Well, as someone that has a family gold chart on the refrigerator at home,
I'm going to assume you've got the foresight and planning capabilities to get the organization there.
Hey, am I on your family gold chart on your friend?
No, I'm not feeling that.
Oh my god.
So this interview is over.
This is done.
Sorry, we're cutting out.
Sorry, we're cutting out.
So, so, I forgot.
So that we, we had a long conversation about fanny packs at SEMA.
And here we go.
And I, I was, I was explaining.
I was explaining how cool fanny packs are.
And this one here shut me down.
Like, she was like, no way.
It's not cool.
Anyway, at all.
And I cannot believe you brought it up because I'm still hurting from that conversation.
You hurt my ego.
And you been paying to me.
Yeah, no, no, no.
I was watching him some more.
I was still, you know, like that call that I got.
That was like, hey, you're brilliant, but you need to like, look on your face.
Oh, no.
So now for you.
Oh, I see.
I agree with you, but let me tell you way wrong.
Okay.
First of all, fanny packs are not cool.
Okay.
You're good.
Like, if you're a rivaling dad, now I see you pull out, like, pocket knife.
Yes.
Multiture, something out of your fanny pack.
See, it's, what about a multi.
It runs in the jeans.
Okay.
So that's there.
Because it's not me.
Then you try to impress your friend to press the other dad.
The other door.
I think dad.
The other door.
I'm just trying to impress.
You could just have a, uh, a sheet for your knife.
First of all, no one's ever called me brilliant.
And second of all, you're wrong about fanny packs.
Um, sir.
If I'm looking, agree to don't agree.
Okay.
Then, then what's your position on Carlos?
Hold on.
It's like how they say, like, women don't dress up for men.
They do that for other women.
Yeah, for sure.
Right?
Yeah.
They think that's not for other women.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're fanny packs for women.
Yeah.
We're already, we're already locked down at home.
We, we're already got a wife.
We're not worried about.
We're not worried about that.
It's, it's about that.
So what's your position on cargo shorts?
I don't know.
I can't.
What?
Tactical dead shorts?
It's their camouflage.
They're fine.
Yeah.
So we call them tactical dead shorts.
And you literally, would you have, I mean, yeah.
But what if you're wearing the cargo shorts with a fanny pack?
We have to not have too much.
I'll give you that.
You don't need that.
You don't need that.
You don't need that.
You don't need that.
You don't need that.
That's too much.
You either wear cargo shorts or the fanny packs.
With a backpack.
Yeah.
And, you know, come on.
And if you're, if you're going hiking, those actually, those fanny packs with two more pockets.
I don't look.
I don't need to be that ready for anything.
Whatever.
If there's like something I shouldn't have had.
You were in that far.
Exactly.
Like, oh, I didn't bring my mountain lion spray with me.
And all of my pockets.
I was, I don't know, dude.
I, I was meant to die.
That's all I'm saying.
And I'm, and I'm fine with that.
So look, obviously, we've established that we are a bunch of dorks here.
And you guys, I'm still cool.
So what is it?
If there's any piece of advice for a young woman in the automotive industry that is,
there's like, you know what?
I want to make this my career.
I love the people.
I love the passion.
What would be, like, your parting advice?
What would you tell someone to do?
Yeah.
So I actually have been thinking about this.
Cody, because you have a girl.
And we talked about this that team.
And it's like, yeah, you want to see her be successful in whatever she does, right?
So like, having the opportunity.
So I actually have been like, someone asked me recently.
What would you tell your younger self?
And I think my younger self was so damn stubborn.
I wouldn't have like listened.
But like, I'm hoping other girls would listen to me at this point, right?
I wouldn't be this mistake.
And I don't know that necessarily has to do with the, like, the automotive after market.
I think it has to do with, like, you know, in general.
I think like, I really want women, women, to know that people like are rooting for you.
Like, there are a lot of people that want to see you be successful.
And so, like, that is like one of the biggest things that it took me a while to understand,
like, that more than not want to, like, see you be successful.
Want to help you with that.
And then, like, failure, like signing up for things that like are outside my comfort zone.
I know if I'm like really comfortable doing what I do every day,
then I'm not like growing.
And I think that is like, that constant, like,
luckily I like changed in that kind of stuff.
But I know if I'm like comfortable, I'm not stretching.
I'm not like, I'm not growing.
And so, being willing to sign up for that and, like, you said earlier, like, do it early to it.
Like, early in your career, like, at least the, like, the big ones, right?
But I think if you're not feeling, then you're not trying.
And so that, like, permission to, to fail.
And then the biggest for me in this took me a while, like, is to have fun.
Like, I entered into this, like, super fun industry.
And I will say that there are, like, months that go by, there were months that have gone by.
And I haven't really, like, enjoyed it.
I've been, like, stressed and believed me, like, since 2020.
Like, there were plenty of things to be stressed about.
And there still are, right?
But, you know, there's always that choice of, like, am I going to let this, like,
like, like, wash everything good away?
Or am I going to just, like, let it be in its spot?
Um, the hard thing.
And, like, that's what I would really love all girls to it.
Anyone, right?
Young is, like, this, two-shall pass.
Like, this, really uncomfortable thing.
And if you, like, let it, it can take over everything.
Mm-hmm.
That.
Yeah.
I'm going to, we'll stuff.
And so, every day.
And, and I had this conversation with my daughter every day.
Here we go.
Okay.
Look, these guys know.
No, I, no, we already know.
Look, this is coming.
So, every day, when I drop my daughter off at school, I ask her.
I said, are you ready to have a good day?
And she says, yes, Daddy.
And I said, who decides if you have a good day?
And she says, me.
And what she doesn't know is I say that more for me than for her.
Because it's easier for her to forget things.
And I'm the one that little, dwell and get angry on things.
Like, it's, it's as much for me to remember,
to just decide to have a good day than to not.
And I think that resonates with what you're saying.
It is that the people are rooting for you.
Focus on those things.
Don't, don't let the negatives over.
Overcome the, the positives.
Yeah.
For sure.
Hey, guys.
It's always fun.
You have control over your attitude and your actions.
And that's like really, like, because you don't have that control over what other people do.
But sometimes I have to, like, flip the mirror back on me and be like,
you don't have control over what that person did.
You have control over, wow, you're going to react to it.
And you're out of tune about it.
And I, I feel like that gets harder as you get older.
I think so.
Yeah.
It's a muscle for sure that I have to exercise often.
I think it goes back to our early conversation before we actually hit record is the,
get off my goddamn lawn.
Like that, that crotchity old got damn it.
I want to done this way for whatever reason.
It doesn't happen.
Like it's just, uh, it does, it does take,
take a lot to overcome some of those things.
That's whatever muscle it is.
Is that's the signs of, uh, atrophy.
Yeah.
Totally.
Is that get off my lawn?
Get off my lawn.
Yeah.
If you're wearing cargo shorts or a fanny pack or yelling about your lawn,
you're probably a crotchity old bad.
If you had your lawn muscles, that muscle has shibbled out.
Yeah.

If you had to yell at your people, uh,
these people about getting off your lawn.
Because you couldn't run them down.
Then yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Good point case.
Uh, well, Melanie, I have been very excited about this conversation because I've been watching
you from, like I said, from, from SEMA and on LinkedIn and seeing the things that you're
doing and I think you're very inspirational.
Watching women stalking.
Look.
Yeah.
I thought your comments.
I'm going to in and out last week.
We're really great.
I agree with you.
Sometimes got to go three by three without problems.
My point being is I think you do like any board of the regulatory,
you're right about that.
You guys are, you guys are horrible.
Uh, I really like what you're doing in the industry.
And I like that you're, you are bringing a, a very relatable face to the industry at a very high level in an organization that's got an established relationship with the,
automotive after market and a, and a great reputation.
And I think what you guys are doing is amazing.
And I'm very, very appreciative of your time hanging out with a bunch of
dorks that wear cargo pants and fanny packs.
And I, I, I, I'm just very grateful.
Thank you.
So very much for, for joining us tonight.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
This is really fun.

I appreciate what you guys are doing, right?
You're getting a message out there.
And yeah.
Thanks for letting me have a platform.
If I influence anyone like that just brings me joy.
So I appreciate it.
And as a, a riot.
Any time you want to come back, just let us know.
Open door for you.
Okay.
Awesome.
All right.

So thank you.
All right.
So thank you.
Thank you to Melanie for the interview.
I appreciate it very much.
These guys are jackasses.
They're, they're, they're, making it difficult to continue with the show.
Jack Ask Canyon.
Just go explore.
Oh yeah.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
Hold on.
Uh, I do, uh, we, we do have an announcement.
So the adventure bikes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're all, we're all 60.
60.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're all 60.
60.
60s that will be on its side the whole time because Jose just took a motorcycle training course.
And then he's going down the checklist.
All right.
He wants a, uh, ZXR 400.
No.
He should get the SP 650 like we looked at.
So when he was March 18th and 19th.
For those of you guys that remember, uh, handful of episodes ago,
we had Mark from yellow wheeling on the show.
And they are doing a, the yellow wheeling overland show at Federally,
Park in Anahein, California on March 18th and 19th.
It's, uh, off of Santa Ana Canyon Road.
Uh, it is a cherry.
It's a very nice park.
It's a very nice, very large park.
It's, it's bike for a green river golf course.
That's from my VW.
Yeah.
Same area.

Same area.
Maybe I'll play a cheat on Sunday.
Maybe.
Uh, I don't think you're going to have time.
Yeah.
You won't have time because, uh,
we are going to be MCing the entire event for the weekend.
And we're going back to our roots.
No, we are, we are totally going back to our.
So if you want to find out more,
I'll start right.
Hot dog line interviews.
Oh, no.
We can only.
We can only hope that there's a line for that dog.
Oh, my God.
And I heard rumors that they will be a fun box.
Oh, the, I, yeah, we're going to.
We still have the fun box.
I don't know what's going to be in the fun box.
But, uh, nobody knows.
So we're talking, we were talking, we weren't in the room.
But I was, I was telling him how amazing it was.
How much of a hit that was like, I thought that was going to be a flop.
Dude, though.
Really?
Yeah.

Yeah.
Dude, I didn't.
Oh, dude.
And then the fact that people were like hesitant to put their hand in there.
It's like, bro, what do we do?
What are we doing?
What are we going to put in there?
This year we're going to put in a haunted house.
Yeah.
So, uh, it was episode 257 when we interviewed Mark from Illinois.
So, uh, at the yellow overland show at Featherley Park, March 18th and 19th,
uh, we will be there for the entire weekend.
Having some, I've got a meeting with Mark tomorrow to talk about it.
Some more, um, about what our plan is.
But, yeah, we're going to be doing some MC duties, uh, helping with the
Raffles and getting everybody organized.
It is a full, you can camp the whole weekend there.
They have spaces available for people to camp.
Um, you can go to trek.
T-R-E-K.
Trek.yolo wheelin with no G wheelin.com.
And find out more.
It's, uh, you can go to the, uh, very top of the page.
It says, overland show, learn more.
Um, the show itself is.
You go to the Instagram and just click follow the link tree as well.
Good point.
We'll in on Instagram.
The, um, uh, it's a charity event for children's hospital
Orange County.
Um, you can get tickets.
I'm looking right now.
Looks like tickets are still available.
You can do just parking.
You can do it for just come for the day.
You can do a full weekend of camping.
Um, the full weekend of rig and tent camping is only 70 bucks.
You can do an RV spot.
You, there's a winch recovery class that they're doing.
Gear recovery class.
There's a ropes course for the kids.
Um, it looks like the girls will be with me at least one of those days.
So probably Saturday.
There's going to be a fun box.
There's we will have.
Is there, is there going to be a, uh,
Uh, Jose's fun box 2.0 or we're still keeping it.
Uh, one bottle.
I mean, after you limit elbow.
We have, we, we have to see how it was blown out.
But how bad a shape Jose's fun box is in.
It's will make it look.
It's a, it's a myth that the more hands you have reaching in a fun box
Stretches it out and can't it won't work.
That's all a myth.
It's, it's, it's elastic.
It's, it's, it's, it's elastic.
It has elasticity.
So that, the, the, I still have the fun box.
It's in the garage.
Everything's ready to go.
We just need to throw some more stickers on it.
Put some more stuff in it.
Uh, and then we will have the fun box going.
We will have, um, we will be recording there.
We will be, uh, interviewing people there.
So please, if you guys are in the, in the area,
please come to the event.
I am very excited about the opportunity to get back to events.
Um, to do region of the fun box, you know, like,
there could be dangerous things.
There could be good things.
Yep.
There could be things you don't really care about.
But you might reach into the fun box and come out with a hot dog.
Yeah.
We don't.
And if anybody.
If anybody wants to put anything in the fun box,
everybody's a winner.
If anybody wants to put anything in the fun box for people to pull out of the fun box.
Please let us know what you consider a winner.
It's all subjective.
It is.
You know what's funny about this show is we go from, from a,
amazing interview with, uh, Melanie White, the CEO of an organization.
Don't make me feel bad.
Directly into directly into six grade boy humor.
I'm about to do this.
We are the worst.
We have to decompress.
I was on my best.
I was on my best behavior.
You guys.
Oh, mind up.
You guys did good.
You guys.
And hour to half.

Did that.
Now we are.
You guys, you guys actually did pretty good.
Uh, so March 18th, the 19th, yellow wheel and event.
Featherly Park, which is like Jose said it's a big park.
They do a lot of big things there.
Like big car shows and events and all kinds of stuff.
Um, and the, uh, we will be there all weekend.
I don't know if we will be there Friday night Saturday night.
And all day Sunday or just Saturday to Saturday night and Sunday.
I don't, I got to figure that part out.
But, uh, it's, it starts.
It sounds like being there Friday night would be fun.
I, I do.
I do think we, it.
So, uh, it looks like me and Casey.
I'm trying to, I'm trying to handle minimum, right?
Um, with a, a minimum handle, uh, various.
Look at this.
I don't know.
I don't want to lock us down to rooms.
Look at this.
On, on, it's official now on.
I saw that.
I saw that.
There's expectation.
Demi.
Look at it.
They, but our logo and writer needed it says food and entertainment.
We, I, I don't have food and I'm not entertaining.
What is going to, I think, say, there's,
Well, we're above that.
Well, like so like it's the next line of buzz.
Are we, are we the education?
We're in, we're in the graze.
And what is the expectation of the house?
Hold my God.
I, I, I was like, I.
Monthly, is a hustle.
He's adding people left.
Like he just added two more vendors today.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's going to be, uh, uh, it's gaining a lot of momentum.
It's going to be a big event.
I'm excited about it.
Yeah, that is, that is,
But why does correct?
The hot dog is, can't be both food and entertainment.
So, please come out, come hang out with us for the day.
If you guys are able to, uh, it would be fun to see everybody again.
It's been a while since we've done one of these events.
Um, I, it's one of my favorite parts of what we do is going to these types of community events and being able to hang out with people and,
And, uh, yuck it up on the mic and, um, you know, so.
Well, I'll start working on my like taco line humor or whatever, like maybe they're a swell.
Let's see.
Hold on there.
Look, I have, I have enough experience now.
I'll do some training, some research.
You know, I'm very adverse like with hot dog.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.

Okay.
So, we've got Andreas catering to Bayes of shit.
And then you got the boom Mexican food.
Okay.
I need the boom Mexican food.
And it is a bomb wearing some burrow.
Yeah.
No.
Okay.
So I got, I got less studying to do it for those, because, but those are very important interviews.
Those might be the most important interviews of the weekend.
You know, the people standing in line.
Remember what you were, uh, that tequila person?
And we took shots at that.
Uh, uh, and vaguely.
Where was that?
That was a deal.
That was a deal.
That was a deal.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
But I don't think that was like a vendor.
That's just some deal.
It was like, they were selling tequila there.
And you guys went over there and it takes, it's a quote, samples.
Uh, that's right.
That's right.
I do.
I do remember who was handing me the samples now.
Yes.
Yep.
That's right.
Yep.
And that was happening.
Take those samples.

Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
It was delicious.
Um, it all tastes like this.
Let us know if you're going to come.
We, uh, Tamian Jose.
Come on, man.
Those people are like counting on us to continue the, uh, that, uh, you know,
speaking to that product and a positive manner.
What product is that?
He said.
I'm trying to take the board for us.
He's pretty hot.
I remember.

You know, after you coaxed at me.
And that was the only old thing.
Oh, that's right.
I do not remember.
And I don't think you were there.
You know what's fucked up?
I remember more of the bottle than the chicken.
Shows were my priorities were.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's true.
You were pretty whack back in this.
It was.
So, uh, another event that is coming up that we are, uh, having some conversations
about is the tread agency.
So, they are a division of con media.
We've done a ton of work with con media.
Uh, they are doing in 2023 with our call in the traction series,
which is a series of events, um, throughout the country,
essentially they're doing one in, uh, Montana, uh,
uh, one in Joshua Tree, California, and one in,
another one back in Montana.
So, the one at Joshua Tree is going to be in September,
September 11th to 13th, and they're working on getting,
uh, people company's vendors signed up for the event now.
Um, and we will be participating in the event in, in some fashion.
When you sent that out that invite, I was hoping that you're, like,
uh, we're going to the Montana.
No, no.
That was like, okay.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, she were going to Montana.
We could go to the Montana one, but everybody could do it.
Um, and it is like, one of the classes is, like, predator.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was like, oh, shit.
Like, do this going to be awesome.
There's like, oh, wait.
We're doing this.
I'm going to learn how to fight a predator.
Yeah.
No.

We, we're going to do the Joshua tree one in September.
I'll tell you how to fight a predator, dude.
Find some Chris Hanson's going to be at our team.
You're going to quote yourself in mud.
Chris Hanson.
She's Chris Hanson.
I can't just predators.
I got it.
To catch a predator.
Oh, that's cool.
So yellow event.
The trade agency event.
Dude, the yellow event's like a week and a half.
I know.
When you stop hitting the fucking table, please.
Is that me?
Yes.
Yes.
The, uh, and then we spent a half hour or so.
Casey and I talked yesterday, and then we spent about a half hour,
45 minutes today before we, uh, before we went live, uh,
going through the map for our Mojave Trail trip.
Um, so that is happening.
It is, it is going to happen.
It is going to happen in April.
And it is going to require taking a day off of work,
because we're looking at doing a, uh, Thursday night.
Um, going out to Laughlin, spend the night at the, uh,
Avie Friday morning, hitting the trail Friday morning.
You don't have to commit to the Thursday night.
You just have to.
If you want to, if you want to leave your house at five o'clock in the morning on Friday,
to get to the trail headed nine, that's fine.
But, um, I will be leaving the craft stable with you leaves here.
Yes, on Friday.
Mm-hmm.
My, my plan is to go out Thursday night to, um, spend the night at the Avie.
And then, uh, go to, we're going to hit the trail.
If anybody stayed at the Avie, like, I, I've never stayed at the Avie.
Is it good?
I think I stayed there.
We've always stayed there.
I think like nine.
I think it's fairly nice.
My cousins would used to go there party all the time.
Yeah.
Um, party and staying in a hotel or two different things.
Yeah, I mean, I have party a lot of places.
I thought we're nice.
Turns out, you're partying the back.
And somebody's backyard.
That wasn't a place to stay.
Right.
It was really nice.
It was really nice.
That's a nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice.
That's the best patio for a child ever slept on.
Yeah.
I mean, about the time you're leaving is when you go, like, this place is a dump.
Yeah.
Um, so it's very, very important to you out of there, yard with a broom.
She's getting into fuckhead here.
Um, morning, morning.
Man, I got to go to work.
We'll be sending, uh, information to the people on the Patreon list for
the, what the, what's going on over there?
That was Jose.
That was me.
Jesus.
Thank you for taking ownership.
Jose.
It's almost like we've never recorded a podcast before.
Uh, the, it's a little bit of ownership.
That's right.
I'm sorry.
We were these indie, the shys acting.
Are we talking about what they say?
I don't, should we talk at all?
At this point, it's so dark here.
I'm not.
I'm just, or is it, or if the dates only released to patrons?
Uh, the dates will be released to people in separate emails because it's changed a
couple times.
I don't even remember if, because it really going.
Yeah.
Uh, it was the more J.
Um, there's trail closures.
You know, there's a variable.
They're open.
They just put out a,
They're opening up roads now.
Are they okay?
That was just declaring them out because there is a several closed road.
They're under mud.
Yeah.
And trails and whatever.
So we've, uh, we're going to do the Mojave in a very different path than we've done before.
Um, like, if you hold no more job.
Yeah.
If you've done this with us before, we're going to try to, try to,
uh, try to severe away from the traditional straight across the desert route.
What I'm hearing is there's no guarantee for your survival, you know, you're going to make it, who knows,
who knows?
Who knows?
Um, and there's a, I saw the map and it was like, that looks dope.
But there's, there's one area specific.
I'm just there.
We're going to have to go pre run to make sure we can even make it through, uh,
which we're, we're going to try to do in the next couple weeks.
Uh, April is the timeframe.
Uh, one of the, uh, April ish.
Uh, we decided not to do it Memorial Day weekend because, uh,
whether and, you know, honestly, this nightmare.
Yeah, I just, I don't want the six hour drive out and the drive back.
It's just not worth it.
It, you know, being on that weekend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Take a day off.
Yeah, take a day off.
Didn't you say it took you nine hours?
Yeah, it did.
Yeah, it took us six hours to get out there.
Um, so anyways,
I think that they often took me like three and a half hours.
Perry.
Yeah.
So the, uh, it, those of you that are part of the,
the trail change for support team, you will be getting, um, an email about that.
Soon, um, once we finalize the actual dates and figure all that out, um,
but keep keeping eye out for that sometime in April, um,
and one of the things we want to try to do this year is see some points that we haven't seen in the past.
And then Casey made the point that we typically from our, our second day or day two camp,
we typically just shoot right out to the freeway and haven't gone through the,
uh, afternoon canyon water crossing in a while.
So we're going to try to do that this year, uh, for those that want to.
Um, that is always a fun trip.
It is, uh, you know, three days, uh, two, two full days in the desert, uh,
and then a half day on the trip home and two nights of camping,
um, last year we did three nights of camping because I camped that Friday night.
Yeah.
Two, two years ago.
Two years ago.
We didn't do it last year.

This is fucking hot.
I think this is going to be the most.
Epicer of ethics.
And there you go, putting expectations.
Yeah.
Why, why would you say that?
Uh, I just feel it.
I feel it.
Well, uh, you know what,
I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to jump on that and say, yes,
that we, we have to come back.
You can't fear the reaper.
The reaper.
Thank you.
The reaper or, you know, the things that are negative.
No, uh, some people, uh, look, look for that.
Make you say something exciting.
That guy.
Yeah.
But think about that.
Like there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of lore.
And well, the can't learn.
That's the butts, you know.
Don't get to do it.
Do it.
Do it.
And it's motorcycle.
Yeah.
Do it on the back.
That, that's insane of enough to buy that bike, Jose.
Just, just combine that bike for show content.
You know.
For, for clown content.
You could do it.
You could do it.
You could do recon up ahead of us.
Not really.
Not when he's laying on a side.
Now he'd probably be able to keep up with this.
He'd be on the mic instead of the cruiser.
I used to have a bike for a long time.
This is going to be his first bike.
And he's like, drive it straight to the mob.
Yeah.
Not a bad idea.
And then the challenge accepted.
The bike's not making it off the mob.
It's going to get dragged down.
It's going to get dragged down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
It's going to get dragged down.
It's going to get dragged down.
Yeah.
Exactly.
We'll just drag it off the trail dude.
It'd be all right.
Um, then.
And the last piece of good news.
Is after a couple weeks of coordination with Austin.
If you go to irate4by4.com slash the trail chasers.
Boom.
There we are.
We are now on irate4by4.
Uh, in there, uh, in the, uh, watch, listen and discuss section.
The trail chasers podcast is there.
It's available and we can once this episode drops.
It will get automatically posted onto that thread.
And anybody can have ongoing conversations about the specific,
the specific topic.
Uh, I'm really excited about this.
I think that it is an opportunity to, uh,
have more direct connection with people that are listening to the show
because we can have some real conversations inside of the, uh, the forum.
So, uh, for those of you that haven't already signed up for irate4by4.
Please go do so.
Um, we will be working with Austin to put together some private forum stuff,
some, uh, content and a bunch of other stuff that we're going to private forum stuff.
Uh, someone sent me a meme and said there were nudes of casey.
And we're going to have all of that.
Is that confirmed?
Or have to follow through with with that.
I signed up first.
Yeah, you got to sign up.
That's the special tier.
That's is, uh, all fans tier.
Um, but so point me.
There's a, there's a lot of, uh, a lot of good things happening.
A lot of opportunities for us to connect with people coming up.
Okay.
I see how excited you are, but I'm not sure.
Um, so it's 830.
We can't say there is way past my bedtime.
Um, but what, uh, anything else, guys, that you, as far as the upcoming events or I rate 4 by 4 that you want to talk about.
I'm looking forward to the the yellow wheeling in a couple of weeks.
Or that's a week and a half or when this comes out next weekend, right?
Yeah.
That's going to be a lot of fun.
Well, any of your stuff.
Uh, yeah, 18th and 19th.
So 11 12 days.
Um, I think I think it will be a lot of,
but we have not, uh, we have not had an in a vendor rich environment with, uh,
with listeners and whatever.
And like, I think that's something that's been missed.
And I'm going to work again.
I was talking about working on my feet footwork, you know,
and my mic control.
So I can, I can pin people down and get some good interviews, you know?
Yeah. You know, you never know if you're going to be in the taco or
banana line.
Apparently Jose says frozen banana frozen banana line.
I, you know, I can come out.
You know, I'm hoping there's like, uh, some hedges or something nearby.
And I can just jump out at you like,
Blam, hey, what do you think about frozen bananas?
Like, oh, I like, I like him didn't chop it.
Oh, you know, this guy goes off from there, you know,
good time.
I was an ass.
What are you going to ask a person in the frozen banana line?
I got to work on that.
You know, right now.
We have already destroyed this episode.
Please do not need to go any further down that path.
You know, let's say you and I can get together and we can come up with
some really good questions.
Thank you.
I'm glad you brought that up.
Let's make sure I, I don't waste my time.
The, uh, we, we, we didn't.
With it.
It's like a cocktail in my hand.
I'm talking about time to people in the frozen banana line.
I'll make sure I'm prepared.
Uh, I, I, I, I'm now regretting this.
I'm really good.
We're back to like our,
We're in there.
We're in the, we're in the good time.
We're in the trail.
Chaser.
Good time pocket right now.
I like it.
Who's, who's going to laugh at does the stuff?
Yeah.
That's just the dumb shit.
I'm thinking about doing these two assholes over here.
I get into some other crazy shit.
It's going to be a fucking amazing time.
Amazing.
Uh, can't wait.
I can't wait.
I don't, I bet, I bet Melanie didn't realize she was the last interview.
Two james or both.
Yes.
Like, this.
This, this, this, we're shut down.
Uh, no, I'm, I'm super, I'm super pumped about getting out there and do because that's one of the most fun things we do is, is those, those conversations at events.
Um, uh, did you lose your, your headphones here?
Yeah.
Well, I, I don't know.
My headphones are off.
Well, maybe that's a sign we need to stop.
Just tap.
My, my pee.
Um, so anyways, we will please come out to the yellow wheeling
event.
Hang out with us for a while.
We'll have some fun there.
Um, I'm going to try.
It's short notice, but I'm going to try to pull some stuff together for giveaways and what have you.
And then, um, and then we'll go from there.
Uh, and then, and then, and then keep an ear out for the, uh,
and we'll have you trail trip coming up in, uh, April.
And then I'm hoping that we get to start doing a lot more of these community things and put more time into,
into like interaction stuff and trail runs and stuff.
So, we are working on that.
We're working on that.
All right.
Anything else, guys?
Uh, Betty White and shy.
Uh, I will have to get to you offline for whatever it is that you're, you're,
They're having an issue with the IRA.
Uh, it's not locked up here.
It's not up here.
It's not up here.
Oh, is it not up?
It's, no, it's not up here.
I'm seeing it.
I wonder, oh, I bet he's just made it hasn't made it public yet.
My bad guys.
I thought it was, I just logged in and saw that it was there.
I just, yeah, we already got kicked off.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I saw it there and I just assumed that it was already public.
So I will find out what they do.
Okay.
I mean, I, okay.
So here's a little indication of what's going to happen.
Perry G says he's going to make some whole brew jet fuel for the body trip.
Oh, my god.
And let's just pinpoint my burial ground or whatever if we could now, you know, just,
So we'll bring a shovel because we're going to have to leave some bodies out there.
Oh, no, that's me for sure.
Interesting.
Uh, okay.
Well, everybody that joined tonight.
Thank you so much.
Thank you to Melanie for the interview.
And we will see you guys at the yellow wheel and event March 18th and 19th at Featherly Park.
All right, everybody.
Have a good night.
We'll talk to you next week.
Thank you for listening.
And if you want to be on the show, please leave us a voice message at 951394durt.
Thank you to Iron Man 4 by 4 America.
Please go to Iron Man 4 by 4 America and get everything you need for your next adventure.
Thank you to Ryan直know for all of the music and thank you to our patrons for all of their support.
Much like this show, I make up 25% of the Hispanic population on the show.
Uh, three.
I am partial American Indian.

So take that.
Three, two, one.
Like, two percent.
Do you get a reparation check?
Everyone?
I don't qualify.
I've tried.
We're going to have any casinos in North Carolina that I know of.
But I've done some research.
Three, two, one.
Show an oak.
Show an oak in the ins.
Three.
Mother fucking two.
Mother fucking one.
Check it.
Check it.
Yeah.

Ep 260: Grooter and Moreno

Welcome to the Trail Chaser's podcast.
Today on the show we talked to Dan Grooter and Justin Moreno about their extaribilled
for the Mint 400.
We get into what it takes to put a Nissan into a big time off road rigs.
Guess what?
Find yourself a sugar mama, call yourself a trophy husband, and it's all down there
from here.
Or whatever.
It's all down there from here.
Easy peasy.
Honestly, this was a fun, down and dirty interview.
All about budget building your own race vehicle.
And actually getting it out there on the dirt and enjoying it.
Super, super good interview.
Glad to talk to these guys.
Yeah, Dan's always a fun time.
We've had him on it once.
Let's try it.
And he reminded you that you should always check your third member.
I get some help.
It's time for the Trail Chaser podcast.
Are you ready?
Let's begin.
Say the truth, say the truth, say the truth, say the truth,
I'll tell you the truth, and hear the truth, and hear the truth, and hear the truth.
Hey everybody, it is Tuesday night at 6.30.
We are live on YouTube as we are on Tuesday nights.
Tonight we are joined by Dan Grooter and Justin Marino.
How are you guys doing tonight?
What's up?
How's it going, guys?
You guys are Northern California, right?
No.
North of view.
Yeah.
We're not going to subscribe to the Southern California.
North of Italy.
North of Italy.
What's your year?
Warp arc, which is.
Oh, for some reason I thought you were farther up there.
I thought you were closer to Sacramento.
My bad.
No, no.
No.
So, Dan, this is what your second or third time on the show.
There was a, uh, it's been a, at least a year since the last time we had you on.
It's been a year.
And we were informed that this is Justin's first time.
So everybody in the chat room, go gentle and, uh,
or don't let me, or don't let me, or don't let me, or don't let me, and be nice, be nice.
So you guys, so, uh, for those of you that haven't already gone to
Daggerute X on YouTube at Daggerute X.
You can follow the exploits of the Nissan Xtera and Nissan Frontier build.
You guys are, are getting prepped for some upcoming races.
Let's talk about, uh, first of all, why you chose Nissan because we've had this conversation
in the past.
Please, so many other vehicles like you got a four-ranger, um, but, you know, you guys,
are, uh, building up this Nissan Xtera, give us, uh, the quick rundown on that
Xtera, like the, the story behind what it was, what happened and what it's become.
Um, it's a very long story how this Nissan became a race truck.
Um, I've been building the racetrack for, like, six, seven years or something like that.
So, so the, so the, the racetrack portion is kind of its own story and how it became a
racetrack, um, I'll give you this, the fast and dirty unabridged version, uh, a bridge
version, I should say, um, I bought the truck sight unseen in Tennessee.
I flew out there, picked it up in a garage in an airport garage, drove it to Chicago, shot
a Tommy gun, a deep fish, picked up two hippies that found on Craigslist, but I remember
that story.
We got to go, we got to go for short, short version.
Uh, I drove it to, well, I drove it to Denver, dropped the hippies off to give me a
power rock.
Yeah, I guess.
Go to, go to, I'll have you talk off-road it for a week and then drove it home.
And I, and then it was my daily driver for a year.
And the next year, I was going to pick up, because I, I had the, the Nissan off-road company,
that's kind of why I was into the Nissan world, I know my business selling off-road
Nissan parts.
So, I drive it to Orange County to pick up some trash ruse with my logo on them.
The day before I go to Moab, and I drove over the hood of some old ladies car with it and
totaled my truck as well as the old ladies kind of like that.
Um, and so I bought it back from insurance company for like, I don't know, 2,000 bucks or something
like that.
And then it sat in the garage for whatever it was three or four months, and I bought it
on that.
And at that time, I bought it from a new frontier, because my, you know, my truck is kind
of wrecked.
And it was pretty beat up.
I had to do a lot of stuff to fix it.
So I was like, in the meantime, I'm, you know, I need a new truck, and the extra was getting
this continued about a new truck got the frontier.
But the extra I was like, you know what, this is a dream since I was like 18 to, to build
the desert truck.
And I had started doing off road racing with another guy that, the only other extra racetrack
that was ever built, I was like sponsored him and stuff.
And so I, I was like, this is my chance to, to dive deep into what all this racing stuff
is about, instead of just kind of being a little bit of a, you know, hop into a race here
and there and experience it for myself as far as building it.
So yeah, I, I brought it over to BTFab out in Ontario.
And yeah, I said, let's, let's, let's get this thing.
Let's do this.
And so, and that was like six, like I said, six years ago, and, you know, I'd make
a little bit of money and then I'd burn it, make a little bit of money and burn it and
make a little bit of a, and it took, it took forever.
I mean, the racetrack building is way, like if you, if you want to just get out and race
in a racetrack, go buy one.
That's already built.
Yeah.
Why is this much, I think, I think I'm at double what I could get for it on the
marker right now.
Put it this way.
The first time you came on the show, I think you're, you're almost, you're a few
months away from getting it running.
And that was episode, if you want to go back, episode 125, because that, that
a bridge version is, yeah, the story.
I remember crying, listening to you tell the story of the hippies and the power rock.
I remember the power.
Oh, my god.
That was such a good story.
So go back and listen to episode 125 after this for the long.
Yeah, the power rock mounted on the dash, you know what, I have, you know, the
leather, leatherman, the leather pouches for leatherman wrapped in like a, like a nice soft
sunglasses towel in one of those pouches in the center of the truck.
Nice.
Okay.
So Lisa, you know, we can't get sunlight, where it's at?
You got to retry it.
I mean, once you, you got to retry it before we put it back in there.
You got to retry it up a little bit.
As long as there's a procedure that we all agree is like, and it's still going to
function.
Very good stuff.
Yeah, it's all right.
And again, if you go, if you go to the Daggeru decks on YouTube, you will see tons and
tons and tons of videos of building, of racing, of the, that, that front end of that
exterior completely off and, and all of the stuff that you've been doing on this thing
for the last several years.
So that's, that's the Dan, uh, background, how just, and how did he convince you to do
this stupid shit?
Like, how did you get wrapped into this story of our lives?
Story of the lives of definitely me and Danny, uh, you know, we, we grew up doing
this, uh, you know, when we were 15, 16, uh, you know, spending it every little time we had
on, uh, you know, fixing up our trucks and going out the Pizmo and two wheel drive in it
and watching Danny explode cars in the, in the ocean.
Uh, it's just, it's been in the blood and it's been there the whole time and, you know,
Danny's, uh, you know, four-year period of building it, I get the phone call one day.
Hey, you want to own a racetrack?
I know you saw me blow up trucks in the ocean, but how would you like to invest in a racetrack?
You want to see me blow up truck in the desert?
So, yeah, here's a, here's a prototype for everybody.
If you need money, don't call your friend and ask for money.
Call your friend and offer partial ownership of a piece of shit.
Dude, if, if it wasn't run, you, uh, at the time, I don't know if it was, yeah, it's okay.
You guys want to invest in my bottomless hole?
Yeah, of despair, uh, Ontario.
Yeah, I swear it's rad.
Yeah, Casey. Casey, how would you like to be part of the owner of a swimming pool in my backyard?
As soon as you said Ontario, I was out.
Like, nope, I don't want any part of Ontario.
Oh, bad, the first time I went down to see the truck, I was like, all right, I'm pumped.
I'm excited. Get there.
It literally looked like a barn fine full of rust.
This is what my money's going to right now.
Yeah, well, it needed it.
It needed really bad.
It's, it's been amazing, uh, you know, especially doing it one of your, your best friend.
That makes it even sweeter. So it's, uh, it's been a journey.
You know, like you said, uh, when you guys had your episode two years ago, it was almost done.
It was almost done for three years.
Uh, that was, you know, one percent is the hardest, but that's, it's the same truth.
The last home percent sucks.
Yeah, for, uh, I'm, I'm sure, um, I think it's, um,
I think it's really cool that, you know, you guys have known each other for a long time.
And I got to imagine, Justin, when you got that phone call, you, like, you had immediate flashbacks
of all the shenanigans you guys have done in the dirt.
Oh, like, oh, now we're going to have a, uh, a race vehicle with 24 inches of travel and
1,000 horsepower. Yes, let's go. Let's go. Let's go, Mr. Stuffa.
We, we got this. It was instant. I, I didn't even have to think about it. I just had to figure out
how to hide the money I was spending.
Yeah, so my, my next question was, how does your, would you, every day when you come to
garage and you tell your wife that the, the truck is almost done? How's that conversation played
out for the last five years? What truck? We didn't even go there one little bit.
I will say she didn't know for, for years.
Oh, it's not true. It's not true. It's not true. It's not true. It's not true.
It's not true. It's not true. But so, so I got lucky in the last, and probably the reason we're
racing today is in the last, like, I know, two years, I became a trophy husband. So, that's how
the story. How do we, okay, we split me, you know, what is this entire podcast is now shifted?
I'll get two shifts about your racetrack. Yeah, it gives us, let's talk about how to become a trophy husband.
How do I become a trophy husband? You just make sure that your wife makes a lot of money.
Because I've already got the look. I mean, you are arm came.
Maybe my COVID was really good to me. Oh, all right. Damn. She had to come on really nicely.
Okay, well, since I clearly don't have the skills, but it seems pretty cryptic, but
I'm going to say as wife is in pharmaceuticals or the medical industry. Oh, shit.
Well, she worked for realtor.com. Oh, yeah. Up until recently, I mean, now the real estate market
That was a great two to half years. Yeah, that was a great two to half years. I don't know. I'm just
holding the open holds out. So, so, so go in back to the, so this was how long ago was that conversation?
Hey, I need $10,000. Oh, what? Three years ago? Okay. Four years ago,
coming around there. Three, four years. Yeah, four years ago. And now it's $25,000.
And he keeps asking for $10. And you're like, dude, I already gave you 30. I think I think it's actually, yeah.
Like, so he up until, I don't know, three or four months ago, he owned a tire shop, tire first.
Okay. And so, I mean, that was one of the best ways to do it is we were like, you know, we were kind of like
skimming a little off the, I would go with work. I wish. Yeah. Yeah. The IRS was skimming. You were investing off the
tire. I would go work at a shop, uh, sewn tires. There you go. On my day off. And instead of getting paid,
we basically just take my money and put it in an envelope. I mean, I was worth, which I think I made
him a lot more money than I spent. There's shrinkage. There's a shrinkage. Yeah.
Yeah. That would be nice eventually. But then once the bill started coming, I was like, hey,
can you just like, what are some drops? So, yeah, what do you need? I'm like, these ones.
How many Mondays would I have to work? It was, it was one of those ones where it was like, okay.
So, everything costs 5,000 or more. Yeah. Yeah. Everything starts at a thousand and, you know,
5,000 a little, especially in the early parts of the bill, you're buying the big stuff. No.
Now everything's like a thousand dollars. Yeah. Or you need like 30 things that are like $200.
Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine. I can imagine. So, that math checks out.
100%. The, uh, so where is the vehicle? You're going back to three years ago when it was a
bucket of rust at BTF and Ontario, not running. And you got swindled into this thing, Justin.
Where is the, like, what was the progress? It sounded like swindling to me, like, oh, no, I'm trying to
I'm trying to give them an out. I'm trying to give them an out. I'm trying to give them an out.
No, I'm sending it. Yeah. I'm just like, how long did it take to get the vehicle actually
up and running? So, I think it was a year, um, from the date. I'm guessing a year,
eight months. Well, to, no, it was two years before it was like running in the garage.
I mean, back to us. Oh, yeah. It was about a year before we got it back, uh,
fabric and, and it sounds like, we're, we're, they, Dan, Dan's like a, like, hypnotist, like,
it's only been a year. It's been like, it's been, it's been. It's been, it's been, it's been.
So aren't the droids. So just, just, just wrap it 10,000 dollars a year. So did they,
did they hire the keyblur elves to assemble the molecules for each piece before it was the
year? There was a big thing was, is that the thing got pushed on the background, because it
wasn't getting paid for. So, okay, if he had so many projects that he was knee deep in and then it was like,
hey, here's a bunch of money. Okay, start building, so yeah. It was because I was, yeah, I was like,
I was like paying a monthly, and he would do, like, okay, here's 1800 bucks, and he would do 1800
bucks worth of work. And then he said it back in the chat. Yeah, he was $500, and he's like,
all the way till next month to do the next amount of work, because 500 bucks is like a couple
days worth of work on, you know, what you and Kristen Fab crazy shit, like that. So, Cody,
can we steer this interview? Like, so they were not trying to, we're not trying to get them to fight
against each other. Let's just, let's kind of like, plastic ones. I don't know, I just looked
in a bit. It's like fun. It's fun. It's, it's Hollywood price 101. You have to set up the turmoil
to then crescendo. It's like a bloodbath. In a minute, we're already established, dance,
jiu-jitsu. I don't know about, you know, Justin's, he's probably Taikwondo or something. It can be horrible.
I'm just drinking. That's it. Well, I mean, yes. I'm just leaving it at that. So,
to kind of answer your question, about a year to get the truck back, once we had all the shocks.
I mean, you know, there's, there's always like so many stupid hurdles. Like, we ordered shocks
from a guy that was kind of shy-steed. And that took like a shy-steer. shy-steer.
Shicedy shocks. That took four months. Then we got like seed and we had ordered seats at the
same time. And they never showed up. Then we had to go after him, we could get our money back,
so we could go down and get the shocks ourselves from King because they were apparently instead of
saying, oh, yeah, they're coming in. They're on order. And then we went to King and they're like,
they've been sitting on the shelf, dude. Oh, no. We have those things to stop. That was the worst
hardware. But it's so, you know, there's all kinds of things that set you back and stuff.
Oh, yeah. And then it was, and then it was wiring. Like, just not even the engine wiring,
the, I wanted, I wanted the wiring to be like really good because I've seen a lot of hack wiring
jobs. And my skills aren't there. I could wire the truck, but I wanted it done really well.
This was another pitch from Danny and this one hurt a lot. So, I mean, I spent like $3,000 to get
just the, just the cab wired. Because I already had the engine harness to stuff like that.
But, you know, lights everywhere. And it's beautiful. Don't get me wrong. It's beautiful. I got
big old connectors. And just, you know, I mean, you could have had me in case you have
there wiring for like a couple cases of beer and like some pizza weekend with that. I got to imagine
in a, in a racetrack. The wiring has to be very clean, very, very, very strict detail. Like,
very, because if there's anything that's not working, you can't be unzip tying a giant bundle of
wire to figure out whether or not it's just like, no, my, my, my point is, yeah, no, my, my point is,
I can fully respect the need to make that wiring, because just not making a good connection
on one wire will ruin your entire race day. Just as stupid as it is, a 16 gauge wire that comes
disconnected, you're done. Because now now it's going to take two hours to fight or try to figure out where it is.
So I can, I can, I can do mechanical things. You, you can track mechanical things down. You know,
just something as small as that I have three spots on the truck that grounds everything in my harness.
So, you know, you're not chasing grounds. Yeah, because one thing or another, you know, it's,
it's all like, raycon wrapped with special friggin black goo and it could keep it waterproof and
and there's no, like, like, I'm not worried about it chafing on somewhere and, you know,
it's going to go through a wire and, you know, a year from now when the dust blasts through the truck a
couple of times, you know, the electrical tape is flailing and behind, you know, I got four
other things at once. Yeah, it was one of those five months cry once kind of a deal,
thanks. So that was, that was a big deal, that really helped. But one of the big things,
I must have spent a month trying to get it running and started and here's a shameless plug
from my YouTube channel. I have a YouTube video of, I was, I was elbow, I was, I was up to my chin
and then down to my loins and rain wires, like sticking up everywhere for the engine
starting process. So I was like all up in the elect, the ECU, pin it out wires, I just could,
I could get a turnover but I couldn't get it to spark and I was like, lose in my mind for like a
month. I was in there every weekend and I have like alligator clips and wires. I mean,
it was a mess. Hop, hots, hots, hots method. Yeah. And so what turned out happened, what
would it turn out to be was the park neutral safety switch needed to see a ground when it's in park
or neutral. And there was one, of course, the one wire that I had probably looked at
fourth million times and said, oh, that's nothing. That was one that needed to be grounded.
Well, eventually I found that and I had been trying to start the truck turnover a million times
and I found that and I'm like, I bet you this needs to be grounded. So I ground it.
I go over it onto the driver's side. My truck is back three quarters of the way out of my garage.
I leave this one and I press the start button. It's in drive. The truck just drives right into the
back of my garage. Luckily, I had like a big like a wall locker because right next to that was
the water heater. But smash his into that. My wife runs out like opens the door. She's freaking out
and I'm like chill out. Nothing. You're a honey. It's starting to work. Yeah, and she's on a conference
going, she's showing over like. It was like crazy loud. It probably traveled, I don't know,
13 feet to get into the back of my garage. It just smashed it. So yeah, that was a fun process.
But I got it. I kind of got it off video. I would just like to comment that my in hose, uh,
Jose, my in case he's faulty wiring would not allow that to happen. If you didn't want a couple
of fuses or something and your garage would be safe. But whatever. Sorry. You couldn't have that
good story. All right. Well, I didn't say it wouldn't be in reverse and go into your neighbor's house
or whatever. Like that could still be, uh, you know, possibility. Um, so how, I mean, how would you estimate
what would you estimate estimate estimate was the total amount of time you put just in the wiring,
just in just in your guys' little time. That much, huh? Yeah. It was a sticker sticker placement. Like
you make sure you stick. It's probably like 70 man hours. Yeah. So what's interesting is you
made the comment about all the hurdles. And we've talked to a couple of you guys that are
dumb enough to build racetrack trucks. And I think that's what it comes up with is like, if you think
it's six months, it's 12 months. If you think it's a thousand dollars, it's $5,000. Like
whatever you think. If you're about to embark on this, don't go into it lightly because whatever
you think it's going to be, it's going to be longer and harder and more expensive. And I, I think
it's not in it. No, unless you're talking about me, it's shorter and quicker and not worth the, the, the, the
weight at all. Um, barely cheap. Yeah. Right. But I got it. I got to imagine bang for your buck. Yes,
I'm actually I'm the abargin price. Uh, I got to imagine that all of that builds up
to being that much more pay off. Hi. When you actually get the truck done and you get your first
time in the dirt and you're like, hell, yeah, it was worth every bit of it. Yes, um, partially. So
it's like, what a luxury type. We're going to, we're about to get this. Yeah, I was just, so I
get this first story to Justin, but um, I was just looking at that video. I think I remember that
I was just looking at that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're getting it up for us. One, yes. Like, I wanted to
build this truck from the ground up knowing that I was going to cost me a lot more, um, partially
because I wanted to know everything about the truck that I'm going to be racing so that one,
I can either I don't want to say, hey, there's no way we're fixing this or two, I know what that is.
And I've been in this all around in this truck so much. I know every single little stupid thing
that I've done a little little shady and everything that I'm like, there's no way it's that. But
I have learned so freaking much from building this truck as far as like in racing. While I was
building this truck, I had this guy, he's kind of my mentor. He has a Toyota Tacoma,
a Toyota Tacoma race with him a couple of times, a pit crewed forum, a brilliant guy. He's like a UPS
driver and he built basically a trophy truck in his garage. Nice. And like, like, he did everything
himself. Like, I didn't do everything myself. I've done a lot of stuff myself, but he's done everything.
But, um, you know, reaching out to him and then there's community people that you reach out and
talk to and, you know, hey, what did you do for this? Hey, what did you do for this? And of course,
you know, I'm like, I would have done like four million things different up till now, but
it is where it is. It's run a drive and we can get it in race. So we'll fix those dumb things later.
But the amount of like learning that goes into, um, into the whole racing world and like,
what it takes to get into a race and how much you have to work on the truck and how much
everything costs and, you know, I'm so much more knowledgeable now about everything.
And that's the best thing I think I've taken. Like, like, it's not a weight. Like, the money
isn't necessarily a waste to me because I feel like I, you know, it's like, this is my college.
You're getting to the board. Yeah. Yeah. But however, yes, I got the truck running. We've
button that thing up. Yeah. Let's go take this out testing. And I'll give just in this story.
And there we were in the out. I was made in bar still in good old bar so California.
Nothing good happens in bar still. I'm so that out there. Okay. I've said it. I said a long time
by going. Sorry. Danny gets gets 15 20 people to come out. Hey, this is it. Come watch.
This is going to be the main voyage. You know, anticipation is high. Everybody's pumped up.
Get the truck off the trailer. I was I was almost in tears because I was so happy. This is a
dream come true. Oh, yeah. It starts up. Everybody's excited. Let's go do it. Me and Danny jumping
or no, you jumped inside by yourself. First. Yeah. Yeah. Danny jumped inside by himself. He couldn't
contain himself. He literally like, I just, I just need to go, I'm just going to go put it around
the circle real quick. Get in it. Rips in and on first gear starts taking off. And poof,
there goes the tire. Rolling down the desert, dragging the rotor down into the dirt. And that
thing is just bouncing by the truck. And the first minute, 30 seconds. It was as fast as it was and
it was over. Yeah. It was so good. It was so demoralizing. So like I'm just driving all of a sudden.
I just see the tire. What's the goal goal? What was it? I'm looking at the video. It looks like
it shared the lungs. It did. Yeah. Yeah. Um, just, uh, who knows if they were tightening out that we'll
probably do that. Yeah. We're not going to be less than about, uh, about doing a nut bolt check.
Definitely got to do your nut bolt check before you get out. But I mean, that's right. That's kind
of the thing. You just built it. It seems like actually kind of like the obvious omission or whatever
is like we just built this entire vehicle. And the last thing we didn't do is check the lug meds
like, well, yeah, thank you. Yeah. Someone said, someone said, said he fucking put the fucking wheels
on. I'm sure he did it, you know, whatever. It gets better. Okay. Please. So, uh, some of the guys
go down there's an auto zone down the street. They somehow get lugs and studs. We tap them all in.
All right. Hey, let's try this for around two. I get the truck. We're all helmet up. Let's go, uh, let's go
test this thing out. We get in and Danny hits the accelerator and it's nothing but stinging first gear.
And we look at each other like, is this for real? Is it you have it in first? What, what, what,
what the hell's going on? And we spent about a good two and a half hours trying to figure out
taking around on it. You know, recent batteries, clean and false. Just all the dumb stuff, you know,
check every fluids. Because at the time, there was an automatic transmission. And then, I think right
after that, I was like, all right, let's get back in it. You drive it this time. And mind you just
in just in his, he's always been an off road dude. Me and him, and always been off road dudes, but he
isn't. He hasn't been like deep into the scene like I have, you know, like, especially with me
going out and doing my Tennessee runs for the Nissan stuff. And he definitely off roads. He
mobs his truck and stuff like that. But it's not, it's a little different. So this is his first time
in the truck driving. We hop in and it's pretty bomb and he's run. He's we're like, oh, we got no,
maybe we got no helmets on, no nothing. Yeah, we're just going to go take a little drive and then he's like,
oh, it's working. It's working. It's working. All the way up here. We're ripping it around and I'm like,
all right, switch quick. You jump in because Danny still at this time has not gotten past first gear at all.
So I'm like, switch quick. He jumps in, gets in.
I'll sit off the reveler. I'm like screw this. I'm just going to go have fun, you know. So
that like, basically, I was just like running over bumps as fast as I could. It was probably 25 miles
now. You're a little jumps on stuff. So, you know, I tried it like, I kind of got to the point
where I'm like, we're not going to fix this here. So I'm going to, I'm going to get as much in as I can,
you know, especially while everybody was out there and stuff like that. And yeah, we parked.
It was, it was like, on one hand, it was the most amazing, like, awesome, like we built something
and it drives. And you know, we could finally, I like, I could finally feel this suspension
and like, you just pointed at something and you drive over it. That's a, it's a weird thing
when you're in a car or a truck of like a racetrack. And you see a huge ass thing and he race.
Yeah, nothing happens. Yeah. And you're like, damn, bro. That's, let's hit the heart.
That is by far. That's like the one thing that I want to, I don't care if it's an eraser
not, but I want to have a vehicle where, like, that's not the limiting factor. Like, we've
hauled, there's a limiting. Yes, we've hauled ass in the desert. But there's a point in any one of our
street legal production ready vehicles is like, you get to a point where like, I could do that,
but it will be the last thing I do. I won't see. I'm not making it to work. Yes, because the
car's gonna be told, I just, the idea of looking at a two foot dip and going, hit it harder.
Like it. Yeah. That's, that's, send it. That's, and I'm watching this video. This first test video
on your YouTube channel from two years ago that kind of walks through a bunch of that stuff.
It's super cool to, to watch you guys. Like you said, you're just tooling around the, the
camp area, but I'm noticing that you've got the, well, I want to know was it like the linkage or something,
like the shift linkage, why wouldn't you go at a first or something or something? So the stock
trends that was in it, it's the same thing that you guys have in your frontiers. It needs to see
canvas signals from the ABS and the body control module. It needs to see these signals. And I don't
have any of that. I have PCU for the motor. That's it. So the transmission control module,
like it still had power and stuff, but it didn't see anything. So it, like, um, the logic and it
kicks it into spail safe and it just sticks to one gear and it says, that's all you get. Yeah. So it's
like, I researched for, man, I researched for a long time before I finally said, nope, I'm not going
to try and get this to work. It would have, it would have cost so much money and, and so much
custom wacky shit to get it to work that it wasn't feasible. So the next idea I had was a turbo
400 being a doctor plate to get the, so I have a VQ 4.0, just like you guys have in your frontiers,
and the doctor plate to put it to a turbo 400, which is the the transmission of choice across
based every racetrack out there right now. The, the doctor plate's $2,000. So I found a manual
trans with 30,000 or 40,000. Is it made out of that like unobtenium or whatever from like a avatar,
like the material type. Yeah, that was another phone. That was like that thing,
better we made out of like ink and hell, like it better we looked like a rainbow. Right, so
something special can't just be aluminum. Yeah, so that was, you know, that was another like
big setback. I found a, you know, I found the manual trans well then, you know, there's all
little things that you got to change for the manual trans. I had no clutch. I had to plumb a whole
clutch into it. I had to get an pedal pedal box, master cylinder, you know, plumb that all in.
And so once I, you know, I'm new drive shaft and everything. So once I got that in,
I was like, all right, cool, you know, now I don't want to work. And the manual trans that
Nissan Frontier exterior manual trans, it's been compared to a T-56, which is one of those
transes that you'd see in like an old Chevy like an actual manual trans in one of those. Yeah.
It has a lot of the same characteristics and they're very staff. A lot of guys will put them
behind LS motors and use that because it's, you know, you can buy them for, like I said, I think
I found the trans for $400. The flight, the lightweight flywheel and clutch was like $1,000,
but the cheapest thing. Yeah, but by the time you did, all the plumbing for the clutch and the
pedal and all that stuff, did you spend more than it would have been to put the turbo 400 in?
I spent less than it would to get the adapter play. Okay. Okay. All right. There you go.
Yeah, I think I, I think we spent $1,600 on the new trans with all the, all the things,
even even with the drive shaft and stuff like that with the drive shaft. Wow. So like I said,
yeah, it was, it was just more cost effective. And I can get another one of those if I need to
for $400 and it's, how do you like driving it with the manual versus the automatic?
It's, it's fun. I, it's fun. I will say it's not. So I have to start in second gear now
because first gear is low gear. Like lower your dial first gear is granted gear. Okay. Hard
granted gear. Like because it's gear to five is hard granted. Sorry. Yeah, it's, I'm going to give
me that. rear end gear is 583. So obviously it's geared crazy low to get all that torque down. Yeah.
But I originally chose those gears because I had an automatic transmission, final drive.
And then if you compare all the gears blah, blah, blah. That first gear that I have right now is,
it's, it's kind of worthless. So, and we learned, again, just this last race in October
that that we have a lot of torque going to those rear wheels in first gear. We blew up our
axle messed up real good. So, yeah. So, yeah, a little fast forward, but yeah. So, that was
kind of, that was our first time out testing it out. And it was kind of like, all right, cool.
It runs, you know, the engine was strong. Like I said, I bounced off the rev limit, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That motor is strong. It's good. But it was, you know, it's like,
all right, back to the drawing board. We've got to fix a bunch of things. But the second time we took
it out was like tears in my eyes, like joy of a newborn child kind of a situation. And looking at
the truck dude is freaking awesome. It looks amazing. The front end you've got, I'm assuming like a
tight and swap long travel arms. The, it's, it's huge, very wide stance. And I noticed you have,
you kept the leaf springs in back. And are those stock length exterior leaf springs or are
those? Because they look super long to me. Yeah, they, the shackles go outside of the front,
outside of the frame. Yeah. And that was, that was by a mistake design. It looks like a good
mistake, though. I guess I ordered the springs. And mind you, this was in the very beginning when
the truck was first being built, the, the, the, the, the built it had never built an exterior before.
It's actually wrapped it with. So a Titan would be F-150 width with a Raptor is wider than a,
wow. Wow. So it's almost 90 inches wide. Like you can't drive it under a regular trailer.
It's so freaking wide in the front. It's ridiculous. Anyways, so the rear leaf spring is,
I mean, I love to have a link to truck, but the leaf spring keeps it in the budget class. And
it's a leaf spring class that are running in class 2000 or it's a 7100 truck as well,
which is kind of a dying class. So I've started, I just started racing it in class 2000,
which is leaf spring, I think 35s. It's a, they call the steel cab series and some of the races
and stuff like that. I have a V6 in the 7100 class. You can run a, you can only run like V6.
2000 classes, guys with the, with LS motors and stuff like that. But those rear leaf springs are
very limiting factor. You can only make leaf springs go so fast before you write them.
Or before you put too much power to them and you get too fast and they'll eventually they'll break.
So it is kind of a limiting thing. But I mean, you can have so much fun with them. It's not like
and I still have 18 inches of travel. Yeah, I was just going to say looking at the just the video
of the little test run here in Barstone, the amount of rear wheel travel you're getting out of
those leaf springs is super impressive compared to your standard leaf pack on any other vehicle.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really, really cool to see. I was watching
you kind of bomb over some of those little obstacles and, you know, the front end has a bunch of
drooping in the back end as just as much droop. Yeah, you don't even feel it. And then so kind of fast
forwarding a year later, it took about a year to kind of, you know, we fixed other things as
well. But the, the big things of transmission, I, I freaking hurt my back like crazy putting the
transmission in myself on my garage floor. I was a bad idea. I literally just like wrecked
myself bad. But so we finally get the truck done and it was King of the Hammer's last year.
Yeah, King of the Hammer's last year where we took it out after I had, you know, this is kind of
the second outing to go test it out. And I took it out and bombed around. It was working pretty good.
It was, it was cutting out a little bit. I turned out to be caulk fuel filters and a little just
some, some small fixes, nothing big. But it was awesome, you know, like I could actually drive it,
I could get up to speed, start and I feel it out and see what it was capable of and stuff like that.
And then launch it, too. Yeah, really. And it was like the, it was like right by our camp and we had
we had left already, I think. Yeah, it was, it was the day before we left and I had my buddy in the truck
who was actually the truck. The last time he wrote in the truck was when I crashed it. He was in the truck
when I cut it. I would have let that guy back in. I go to give him a ride. I drive around a
little bit, show him. He's like, oh, this thing is amazing, you know, and I kind of see this,
this big, friggin lip. And I'm like, let's just go friggin hop it up a little bit. I'm thinking,
we're going to jump at a couple feet, you know, maybe two feet here, a little bit, you know.
And at this point, I driven around for a couple of days. It was still kind of acting up. I couldn't
get all the power down. But it was nice because it was, it was a downhill raf that, that one hill
that you guys can't put it on. Yeah, it was a downhill and it's kind of just a, like a five foot
burn, but it's kind of gradual. So I get after it and it actually had power and I went off that lip
and it flew like a friggin canary. It sent it into the mood. And like I went up and I'm waiting
for it to come down and it's just like up there, up there, up there, and finally it sits down
and it was just like like absolute butter. And me and my buddy just turned to each other just
wide-eyed and we're like, holy shit, that just, but, but then I got a bunch of my body sort of
videoing and they're like, yeah, they're freaking out. And I'm like, I pull up next to them, I'm like,
that was you driving me. Showed me this video of my truck just at least six feet in the air,
probably 40 feet long as part is like the length of the jump was long. Yeah, it came down super flat
and like it's stuffed all four wheels all, like I got all the way into the bumps,
don't get me wrong. It's like, that's about as, that's about as high as I ever want to jump it
because I found out, you know, I tested the limits right off the bat. But tell me, tell me,
while you were in the air, tell me your mind wasn't doing that calculation of the parts you
were about to replace when that thing found gravity. Like the whole time you in the air,
like this is going to hurt. Yeah, for every second. Well, true flame when I was in the air,
I was thinking, yeah, I think this is going to be all right. I had a lot. And this was a couple
days and like I was initially, I was driving the truck kind of light. Like I was still feeling the
truck out. I definitely was not pushing it anywhere near its limits. And that's, that's the thing.
It's like, I've spent so much time and money and effort into this truck. I'm almost scared to
push it to its limits at this point. You know, I'm still, we're early in the relationship, you know,
yes, yeah, I didn't want to go full plunge. Yeah, you don't exactly what you can get away with just
yeah, you're going to send all of a sudden, all of a sudden I was right up in there and I was like,
oh, I think this is like it just kept going. And then like it, it like the second landed,
it was just like every single man hour, every single dream that I had up into that point. I was like,
I'm, I've got it up on the screen here. So the guys can see it. Yeah, it was just like,
it was all every single bit of my hard toiling and getting agreed for my life was working every
time. Oh, my God. That video, that shot of you of you launching that thing. So there's, there's the
it's like, it plains. Yeah, it's like the it's straight out of a, I know, I'll tell you, I hear the
general league like, no, no, no, no, no, noわ, you guys are really, we got to do that again. I
didn't do it like four more times. Oh, yeah, that's, do so has your shit right there for sure.
And then he takes us, then he takes us like Dodge Ram and he starts jumping that thing quite
send like my, there's the slow mo. Yeah, it is, and it's impressive the way it, it not only took
that initial ramp, like, as it was coming up, like you could see this suspension soaked it up
and then once it launched and landed, like it just squatting, just squatting super.
It was, there wasn't even like a jarring motion when I landed. It was, I've had way harder hits
in my front here than I haven't, when I did that. Like, I am really smashed myself out of my
ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, where you're like, oh, gosh, we got to slow down, you know,
you get that, that fucking mission. Yeah, yeah, when that, that's going back there.
Going back to the conversation about trying to, you know, bomb the desert in your, in your daily
driver like that, like you hit, there are times like you'll hit something and you're like,
oh, shit, I need to get out and look, I need to get out and look to see if anything happens.
Don't look, yeah, don't look. It was, this jump was so smooth, I didn't even get out and look at
the truck. Oh, wow. All right, guys, I'm jealous. I gotta do this again. I literally just, yeah,
we're gonna, let's do this. I think I put two more people and I just sent it. That's, that last
slow-mo is probably like the smallest jump. Yeah, and I think that's what you're in my front
community do. Yeah, the funny part. Well, that was your damn, uh, tent, uh, and all that shit on there.
My trucks ready to do it. So that's what I'm saying. Like, let's do it, guys. I gotta do that. I have to
do that. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna spot a next king of the hammers. You walk right over. I know exactly
I got it here. Okay, Casey, Casey, Casey, next time we're drinking around the fire pit,
we're gonna walk right over to Mads truck and say, Matt, give me the key. Matt, give me the key.
So Matt's already doing it. Yeah. That's doing it in itself. That's awesome. That was so good.
Yeah, way bigger. So let's, let's fast forward a little bit. You guys have gone through all the
growing pains, all the building, all the testing, all the stuff. And now you're actually racing this
thing. Like you have, you have gone out and done it. You're, you're living the dream. Tell me about
that part of it about about now that the truck's done, you gotta go race. What's that been like?
Well, it was, for, for me, it was the sitting at a bar. It didn't wasted. And, uh, oh, yeah, that's right.
That's it. And me and Danny just happened a good old, you know, uh, boy's not out. And uh,
getting some beers at the bar and hanging out with me, I said, and Danny's talking about, hey,
you know, there's this California 300. It's coming up soon. So I look at it on my phone. I'm looking
at it and said, you know, he started talking with somebody else. And as he's talking with us,
I'm just freaking, entered us into the race. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He holds a foot up. He's like,
like, it's like, we're racing in a couple months. My, my, why do you win the truck is not done?
The truck's not done. I literally just sold my house. And I was going to be homeless for two
months until my new house, the people that I was like, yeah, they had moved out of their house.
And I was, I was living out of a trailer. My race truck was at his tire shop, like collecting dust.
And I was like, okay. Oh, wow. I moved into a new house. And I had three weeks to basically,
like race prep. When I say race prep, so the truck can go and jump six feet in the air. That doesn't
mean shit if you can't get through tech. Yeah. Exactly. The tech is like, you got to have this
sticker at this certain height on this part of the truck. You got to have your window nuts within
one inch of the freaking gym, James, I wish I had. You got to have, you know, I've been looking
for a good gym, James. I can't seem to find one on Amazon anywhere. You're looking in the wrong
section, sir. I ran out of an eave.com house. I told my wife I'm like, we're done. Like, I still have
two storage units because my racetrack's taking up space in the garage. I moved every, all my furniture
and all my stuff, like the necessary stuff in my house. And I said, honey, I'm in race mode now.
I'm going to be working on the truck for the next three weeks. No, it's not. And that's what it was.
I was grinding in every night, every weekend, grinding on the truck. I was mountain, you know,
mountain the jack and the jack handle. And there's so many little things that you don't think of.
And even then when we got out to the race, we were like zip, dude, I went through like three bags
zip ties at the race. And mind you, this was before like the four bags that I use on it. Like the
whole truck is that every race truck is held, but held together by zip bags. If you don't know,
that's how trucks stay together. This is secret. See, get down. I just want to go back to
honey, I'm in race track mode. Like I was just like, oh, and she was just cool with that,
because that's like, I don't think divorce, that's how it's like divorced to me. Like, oh, you know,
why I got it here? Because you're not packing the heat to dance packing. I got it. I got to believe.
I got to believe Dan. I'm putting in the work and he's somehow, I'm not really a troll. He has
really more of like a learning that. Yeah, I'm like a trinket husband. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not way,
you're way back. You're like, honey, go ahead. Yeah, you worked hard this week. Go ahead and pick yourself
up a six pack. That's that's exactly. And I appreciate it. That's a sad thing. Like, Dan, I'm appreciative. Like,
oh, thank you, honey. Dan gets out of the shower. Can I choose what kind of ear?
Um, yeah, next time you come back, go ahead. Yeah, turn to mommy and say, all right, but I'm in race track. No,
Dan gets out of the shower. The sad thing is she starts laughing like Dan, Dan. Yeah,
I'm just right there. Like, whatever, honey, I got a drink. I got to feel in these guys
were in the garage with like shit. We need to do transmission. He's like, all right, man.
I'll take care of it. And he goes inside. He goes inside. He takes a shower. He steps out of the shower.
Takes office town. He's like, honey, I need a new transmission. I need a new transmission.
Hey, honey, you know about my race team, right? Well, it's like a race mode. Yeah,
we have a race mode. Honey, honey, we went from, we just shipped it from truck mode to race mode.
Get ready. He gets all, he gets all done a pick. He gets does all the man's
gaping. Every time he needs something special for the race track. He's like, honey, I trimmed up a little bit.
We should have a nose. A camera's in my house.
Charity nose. Yeah, she knows because she's like, the man's gap is like, it's out. Yeah, what's
going on? What are you doing now? What are the drivers up? You just know, hold on. I'm going to get my wallet.
Yeah, he's like, Justin, I tried really hard to get those King shocks best. I could get his
some some Bill scenes. So I'll try again next week. She knew as soon as she walked in the bedroom,
she's like, what's that smell? Oh, my God, that's nice. The end of the candles are burning.
The handles are cologne. Just get the King shocks. Yeah.
Fuck, what is it truck news? The extra juice. You know, I don't, I'm just saying, I don't know.
I'm just saying it. That's, if that's the kind of new couple of links, please help. If that's the kind
of work you got to put in, man, Kudos to you, bro. Like somehow anything. Anything to race.
Somehow somehow you got the good gig. So how did how did the California 300 go for you guys?
We went. Yeah. It was super good learning experience. Yep. It's probably the best thing to
go in the shittiest race of the year and be our first one because from here on out, we have been
the worst it could possibly be. Okay. Barstow is our kryptonite. Yep. For sure.
I think the barstow is where dreams go to die, man. Why do you do that? I don't know. I would think
anything less. I mean, we weren't drunk when we signed it for the race. We were just excited to race
and then we were like, wait, we're racing first though. But yeah, so the getting to the race was
stressful as shit. And I'm excited to go into the mint because we're not hauling trailers out
there to live it. You know, like, I'm not coordinating, I mean, I'm coordinating like pit crew stuff.
But it's it's so much easier when you're there's, you know, I'm going to get everybody a
a couple of hotel rooms and that's where they're going to stay and they can feed themselves.
Yeah. Out there, you know, it's like you're prepping for like a weekend camping trip and it
race. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You tone two trailers. It's just a lot more logistics. So it was
super stressful getting out there. I put three sets of window nets in my truck just because nothing
works. And I'm going, I'm about to get my fourth set hopefully if they show up one time. But like
window nets was just the biggest pain in my ass in the world. But just all these stressful things.
You would think that that'd be a pretty straightforward, easy thing. Why? That's what I thought. Why
should be on the gym. Okay. If you're gym gym, shim shim shlam is it's on the
home. That's on you. Right now, as we sitting right now without my new custom window nets
that I had to order, if you looked at my window nets, gym, jam shim shim shim shim shim shim shim
fricken, poda, oh my gosh. Like, I don't know how I passed tech inspection. So here's here's
let me, let me tell you about getting through tech inspection. So I'm stressed as shit because
they're like legal. Like, if you look at the rule, I could find, I can fail or pass it as
somebody that was looking at my truck. I was bored of it. It was borderline. You know, it was, I was
doing the best that I could with the tools that had. We push the truck up to tech inspection
and we pull it in. And like, I am like, there's a shaky. I am shitting my pants. You look like
Muhammad Ali. But I could imagine because everything comes down to that. Yeah, it's a bad joke,
but here's a curiousness of that joke. The guy hands me a piece of paper to write my name and sign
on like, while he's inspecting the truck, I couldn't write my name. I was shaking so bad.
Like, literally, I was so stressed out at that point. And I wanted to raise so bad. I was shaking.
And like, if you looked at it, it looked like an 80-year-old man tried to hit me. I was just like,
I was laughing. That's why they let you through. They're like, oh, he's got palsy,
let him through. Let's find it. He's a, he's a, he's a make-a-wish foundation person. Let's just
put it in. Exactly. I'm like, we pulled up and I looked down at the wheel and like,
three of my, my, uh, be locked. Be locked, bolts are like, coming out of my freaking wheel.
We're all going around. Yeah. Like, we're like,
squeaks, squeaks, squeaks. We're here. Throw the instruction, click, you know?
So, Danny, go talk to him. Like, they, they, they passed us. And from there on out,
I was just like, it was like a million pounds of pressure. It's off my back.
Because it was like, once you passed, you're racing. Like, they can't really stop you.
So, let me, let me, because I don't know about the process. I know that you go through
tech inspection. If you go through tech inspection and they go, no, this doesn't work.
You can, you still have the opportunity to go fix it, right? Yes. Yes. I, and that's the biggest
thing is, if they said, your window nets are complete shit. There's like, you have to do, like,
I didn't have, there were some things where I like, I knew that like, I was kind of on the border
line where I'm like, if they say something will go over there and like, we'll make, we'll make,
you know, we'll do some shush lamb and we'll make your work. The window nets was the biggest thing
for me. And they barely even freaking looked at him. Of course. I knew that was going to happen,
but at the same time, it was the biggest stressor. It was the frickin' door handles.
Yeah, they must be like, we got a secondary door latch and we didn't have one, so we threw a
bungee cord around it. But again, that doesn't take me back to the race nets have been around since
1804. It seemed every vehicle, every race vehicle has race nets. Why were you so hard to, what's
what's the, what's the deal? Two reasons. The rules say that they have to be mounted to the
roll cage and they have to be within one inch of your window opening. My roll cage and my window
opening are like the most opposite shapes on the face of the ear and they're like, and it's just
a bar. Like in every direction, like you, I could show you pictures, but it's, there's a, there's a,
whatever window shape window is, and then you have a square window net, even if you have one
that's kind of like a square with a triangle on the edge, they're still not even remotely close to
one inch opening for the window. Second of all, to mount the bottom of it, my, my door bar goes
like this. The bottom of the window net goes like this. And so it's just, it's a complete ship show
without having like super custom window nets that are like six week back quarter kind of a thing.
Okay. So, I mean, I learned, I learned just order the custom window nets and nobody cares
and it's perfect and everything, everybody's happy, nobody, it's like nobody's deal.
So, how about just an agreement like, okay, when the truck is tumbling and, you know, it's like,
you know, I'm going down a cliff or whatever. I promise, I won't go out the bottom portion
between the window. I just want to, I'll just sign a wave or just a diagram like, I'm not going
to go through here. Promise or just build your cage to match the shape of the window.
Oh, whatever. It didn't be pretty hard to get in and out. Do like really hard.
Duke's a hazard that shit do the windshield. It's, it's, it's a long saga that I don't want to get into
it. I don't want to get into it. I don't want to get into it. I don't want to get into it, right?
I'm sure I've been done with the window nets. It's not anybody.
Uh, you got a bow and loop, Duke that shit. Yeah. So, on our, on, was it, well, we were pushing the
truck of the shocks. Well, we were pushing the trucks into tech inspection. We know we have to
we finished tech and we were, um, I think we're going to go do radio or we were doing something.
Now, we were going to go check the radio as a rugged radio. They'll make, just check it,
make sure things were good with it or whatever. You know, I'm on cloud nine, everything's great. I'm like,
we're breaking what I said. I was literally like the same exact feeling of when you know
you're about to like have sex with the first time. I'm telling you. Yeah, so you are up here.
Yeah, you're a beard and anxiety and yeah, yeah, all the things she says, she's like,
when she whispers tonight, that's what I'm hoping. That's what the guy did look. So, Dan is
with you. A whole other love. Because that's not nobody whispers in my ear.
Other than anything other than pick up milk on your way home. Like, that's the only thing I get
out of your ear. Get the fuck away. Don't you dare touch me asshole. What the fuck are you doing?
So, yeah, who are you? So, you're on your way to the radio, Jack. Oh, we're on the
radio, the radio place. We pull up to rugged radios, which is kind of in the big contingency area,
the contingencies where they do the attack inspection. Like, show off the trucks, et cetera.
And my buddy walks up to the reservoir on my rear shock and he pushes the cap down.
And the way that reservoir works is the pressure and a little bit of fluid. There's a
piston that goes up and down in there. And the cap has a rubber seal on it and it's kind of like
locked in there with a secret. Well, it should be pressurized in there by about 200 psi of nitrogen,
150, 200. He pushes the cap for some reason. And it drops down into that, into that
reservoir on my rear shock. And he walks over, all casually says, hey, but there's no pressure in
your shocks. There's no nitrogen pressure, which made a ton of sense because when we were testing it,
right before that, it's a little bouncy. Oh, bouncy in the back. I don't know the truck, you know.
Uh, so then we're like, shit. Let's drive it. And of course, my rear shocks are red flows.
My fronts are kings. That's all another story. But, um, so we're like, shit, we got to get some pressure.
These things, you know. Shout out to King. So whenever the King booth, uh, you know,
we gave them the, uh, the super love speech and said, hey, we've got kings on the front. And we're
gonna be buying kings for the rear and back order. Yeah. Can you fill us up? And the guys were
super cool. They, they filled everything up on it. The even place the straighter valve that we
have in the front. Um, they, they, they, they, they, yeah. Yeah. That happened. Um, well, you guys,
know, I'm very pro, uh, King shocks, you know, in the, the corner copia, like, if you go to their
off-road exposed, like, I, it's very impressed with their display was, was, was rather slow the ones
you guys should. The raffle was the one I said. But, so we're at off-road exposed, uh, a couple
years ago. And it's like four years ago. And what happened to off-road, what happens at off-road
exposed is I wait till Matt and Jose are, uh, feeling good. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty,
pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty.
Hand them the remote mics and say, go get some interview. Go have some fun. And, oh, and,
in fact, I was in a cast still. I, I was still in, after surgery. So I wasn't walking anywhere.
Nobody cares about that. Point me. I wasn't there to supervise.
And so they walk around. They do their thing. They do their thing. They interview somebody at
the, the King booth and talk about how great their booth is. The whole thing. They walk right
over to Radflow and basically ask them to drive their, why their booth sucks compared to the King
shot. It's like literally right across, I, I literally, I go, hey, I'm not disparaging your
shocks or whatever. But the display, it's like, you guys are hanging your shocks off of like all
thread and shit. Have you seen the King shocks? Like, there's a corner copy. It's like,
all the shocks are shooting out of the middle of the table. There's life's life and shit. It's
like amazing. And the guy was like, look, we're not good. We're not good. We're not good. We're not good.
We're not good at what we do. Oh, I did. I left. You know, I ran after that. Well,
I, we immediately got King stickers. Yanked our Radflow sticker because Radflow wasn't there.
Oh, Yanked the rightful stickers and stuck King shocks on a body hat.
We spread a little Radflow. We're going to get some King's as soon as I, you know,
as soon as you take shower. I'm going to do a little bit grooming first guys. You know,
get us those shocks. Yeah. That had cost a four grand. That was a $4,000 hat worth of
dollar hat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the best Colone. I money combined two nights of full body massage.
That's for sure. So what's the next, what's the next race? What do you guys got coming up?
Mint 400. When is that? Mint 400 is the, is that state line? It's, it's the pinnacle of
commercialized racing in the states as far as I'm concerned. It has the most glitz and glamour,
the most media attention. It's one of the most iconic races in the, in the states as far as
desert racing is concerned. And it's been around for everybody, right? Yeah. I think the last,
it went up until 88. I think went from like 67 to 88. And it was called Mint because the
casino in Vegas was they put it on. And then it died off. I think when the Mint
would out of business or something like that, I'm no historian on this, but it came back in.
Don't worry about being factually correct. That'd be the first time. Just, let's take a
spot. This show, we just make sure to. Yeah. Slims. We'll say 2013 it came back. When the mint
came back, I started, I was sponsoring a yellow exterior racetrack. And I actually
raised in the mint as a co-driver. The first time I ever got into a racetrack,
something that I dreamed of doing. And we made it 68 miles and looked at the rear end in
this truck. So, I've picked crude at the mint for four of them. I've been to a couple of just
a spectator. And so, like, the mint to me, like there's a lot of people that are all about,
like, I want to do the Baja one day, that the mint is 400 to me is like Baja. Baja is kind of like
this, like, kind of cool on the hill that's like almost unattainable. You have to be very well
offy. Yeah. Like it's, it's beyond the, yeah, beyond your own flat tire chatter. If you didn't
I'm saying, it's like four more inches if I'm going to be raised in Baja. I'm exhausted. I'm dehydrated.
I can't. We're just not going to make it. I'm giving you a kick. Hey, man. I got you.
What a friend. What a friend. Look at that. But so, the mint is kind of like a bucket list
race for me. The, the California 300 was cool. Like, that was a race that got brought back as well,
but it was kind of, that was kind of like a test race. Let's, it was kind of like, we set a,
we set a goal so that we could get the truck done and make it race ready. Yeah.
At the California 300, we went off course, went down a mountain, got stuck in a goaly, blew up a rear
axle, which is like, it's a 35 spline giant custom fab 9 inch rear end. Like, we shouldn't be
blown that, but again, we're near really low. And I was in first gear and rear on max tracks and
for max tracks and just like, ah, ah, you know, adrenaline rush going and where there's no way
that we're getting out. Yeah, I, I, I destroyed my rear end. Um, you know, we, we learned not the first time
I've heard that. That's how you got the rest of the money for your race truck.
$1,000 less it. I'm glad we got tax and turn season on right now.
Hey, it could have been way worse. Way worse. I didn't even have to take a slim gym off the other side.
Anyways. So the mint, that's what the mint is to me. Um, it's this, it's this, you know, bucket list race.
And we signed up for it at the same bar, doing the same thing. I said, listen, do thements coming next
year. I think we signed up maybe a few months ago, like close close to the Christmas area time frame.
And yeah, I signed up and I said, you know, we'll get the new axles in. This is before I got the axles out
to take a look at it. Um, turns out it was a lot more damage than I thought it was. Um, but yeah, we signed it up
and, uh, and we have a good crew. All the pit crew that was there first time at a race and they were like,
oh, yeah, yeah, but like you know, if you've been to a race once you're there and you get to experience it
in your, your part of it, it's different than just seeing cool race trucks fly by the same spot over and over.
It's, you know, it's, it's just a lot of cool stuff. And if, if you're into that kind of thing,
it's a, it's a hot lap into a lot of money. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I was just looking at the mint
website. It's March 8 through 12. Um, in Las Vegas, what do you know? Um, so there was a schedule of
events. So are you, so you're racing actually on the, the 11th Saturday?
Stuff Friday. Right. Right.
Racing Friday. So, and on top of that, so we get to, for contingency, we push our trucks down
free monster. Like literally under the big overhang, it's a, they're going to have a drift event going on.
They, they go all out for this. There's a lot of, a lot of big sponsorship money there.
On Thursday, before we go through to contingency, or on Wednesday, I should say, I get to be in the
parade, and we get to drive our racetracks down Las Vegas bullet down the street. Oh,
yeah, so cool. Which is pretty, like, that was another thing of like, I just thought that would be
the coolest thing ever. Like, you don't really get to, you know, I've driven my truck, um, just down
the street to Mexico a couple times. Right. Well, Mexican neighborhood, you know, and then we
would hate, say if you know what I'm talking about. Um, and it's always a little bit sketchy,
especially my new neighborhood where I don't know any of my neighbors, but, uh, but it'd be, it'll be
super cool to just, you know, drive the racetrack down Las Vegas, Vegas Boulevard. Like, I'm going to
pull it, experience. You got to be in like Beverly Hills now, or whatever I'm assuming. Like, just stepped up.
You went from like, that gets nox or calabassus to like, uh, no, because he's spending all his money on the
racetrack. Yeah, I want, uh, okay. So he's, I wouldn't be Beverly Hills, but you're in Ontario.
You're next to me. You're shocked. I'm not Terry. Yeah. You had to move down. Look,
what's not, let's go. He didn't, he's not even get that carried away. California City now,
boys, you live in barstone. You live in barstone. Victorville. Look, he's barstone adjacent. He's
in Victorville. Um, so, so when are you guys actually heading out for the mid? What day you guys
going out there to start? We're going to head out Tuesday, um, Tuesday that week. I have a bunch of
friends and Vegas, um, a bunch of off-road friends, uh, rural goverland. Um, I don't know if you guys
would talk to them a bunch of times. I actually coming back on, I just had a chat with them. They
coming back on a little bit to talk about their big event. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They have their big winter,
winter expedition, but I'm super tight with those guys since they first started their thing. And
we've become, I just have like my whole contention, like, it, those guys are like my group text buddies.
You know, how you get all the inappropriate things on your dude group chat. So those are, those are
bunch of my buddies out there. So I'm, we're going to go stay at their place for for two nights. And then
we'll, because all the shindig and festivities are in Vegas for contingency and all that stuff.
And then the race leaves out of crimm. So it's, it's a 90 mile or, it's three laps of 90 miles,
which is one more lap than King of the hammers. So second hammers, guys.
Um, but, uh, but it starts in prim Nevada right behind Buffalo Bills. There's kind of an infield
course. And then you go out and, um, and do a bunch of desert stuff out there. So we'll be staying
in hotel rooms up in, uh, up in Buffalo Bills for the last, uh, right, kind of right before the race
that we don't have to work. We got balls early in the morning and drive all the way up to cramp.
So it's, so that's the best news I've heard is like Buffalo Bills is open again. Yeah. They, they, they
just recently open. I think. I was going to say like, man, I had so many good times. Buffalo Bills.
I hope that shit ain't closed. Like, that's a cross from, uh, whiskey with, yeah.
Yeah, the worst, the second worst hotel I've ever stayed in my life.
We used to, I mean, from my state in so many bad hotels. Yeah. I and whiskey Pete. Yeah.
Whiskey Pete is like, they're in the top five, but I, I'm pretty sure I can think of like four
worse. A burial palace. We're, we're less. I'm terrible. I'm terrible. I've got that burial
palace. And I would stay in Vegas. Rose, the cheapest place. Uh, from, uh, four queens is worse.
Any any hotel law from our house. We're less often state line.
It's what I'm saying that any, any hotel, oh, and it's worse than Jesus, uh, confirmed. Yeah.
So from my house, we're less than three hours away from the river. Yeah. River right. You know,
we're less than three hours away. I think that's the technical term, uh, infecting all those hotels
River River. River. Yeah. From my house, we're less than three hours away from state line.
It's two and a half hours or so. And it wasn't uncommon in my younger years to be like,
it's six o'clock on a Friday. We could be there by dinner time. And we would go to stay
line. Have a dinner. Please. Uh, I'm talking about the bars closed on our Friday night.
We're in upland. Let's go ahead and do state line. Well, I've just said, like, I got $40.
Let's do it. We, my family and I could lose this $40 in two hands of bless. My family
wanted to turn around. Yeah, let's do it, guys. We, my family and I one year just decided to do
state line for new years. We didn't have to hotels or nothing drove out in the morning,
gambled until after midnight and then drove back at like three o'clock in the morning. That's just
what we did. I mean, state line was like, we used to go there all the time. It was, it was fun.
It was a, a cool place to go. Um, anyways, the only time I've ever stayed out there for races.
And I, I stayed out there one time for races. Every other time I stayed like a buddy's house or
something like that. But like I've been in those hotels and casino. It's like quite a few times
state at whiskey, pizza once. Never again. No, we'll see how Buffalo bill streets mean. I can't
imagine it's going to be like, I mean, they're all over the same people. If I remember. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I can't imagine it's going to be like a lot better. Right. But it's all because it can't,
it can't be worse than the nights in in Big Bear Kelly. Oh, that is number one, the worst. So
it come for that is that was we went there one year for, when my, my parents lived in Big Bear,
Casey was living Big Bear. We all went up there with family. And we just too many dogs and kids and
stuff. So we just, we're, we're going to room. It was so bad that we literally took sleeping bags
and laid out the sleeping bags, because I didn't want my dogs sleeping on their bed. Like,
that's how bad it was. So I'm not saying that that same weekend, me and Monty his sister were like,
no, let's go sleep with their dog. Like if we're going to sleep in filth, let's go sleep with like
our, at least the animals we know. Like it was sleeping those things. That place is sleeping in this room.
That place has since shut down and is reopened under a different name. I don't know if it's any better.
The gester in, uh, should have burned it down. So you, so you guys are going out Tuesday. So you're
going to be spending a full, what, a week and a half out there in the desert? Uh, full week. We'll
probably come back Saturday. Like I'm not going to, I think by by Saturday is with the unlimited trucks
race. I don't think I'm going to stick around and watch. I think we'll probably pack up and head home.
I imagine we'll be pretty burned out that by that time. Probably extremely excited from drinking
the night before we, because we finished and we probably won the race. I'm going to have that positive attitude.
You know, you have to have a lot of positive attitude and racing. There's so many things that
take you down. So the other thing I don't have for racing is money. Like, yeah, I have plenty of
positive attitude. Guys, we're in this race. Where's this, you have as much positive attitude.
You have as much positive attitude as you have money. Where, where is this, where is my problem?
Where is this bad attitude? Thanks. I was like, what are you talking about? Who are you? Uh,
so other than other than uh, window nets, what needs to be done before this race?
I need to lower my seat. We'd lower dannies. You need to lower your expectations.
So that was one thing we, that was what we found. We got lower expectations.
We keep it pretty low. Yeah, we're very low. What already had the last race was to get off the
starting line. That was a goal. Just get past the starting line and everything else. And you did it.
15 miles into a 300 mile race. That was a win. Yeah, for sure. Why do you have to lower the seat?
Are you bumping your head? Yeah. So we, we changed helmets. We had to buy new helmets,
of course, because like, your helmets time out. I've been through three seat belts, three sets of seat belts,
and only, and because they like, you certify them. Yeah. Data on them, right? This is my third
set of F and C belts in the damn truck because I always think that I'm about to race on my car.
I'm going to buy them. Yeah. He's still got some more stuff to do. But so my helmet
timed out from back when I was racing before. So I got a new helmet. He has a helmet with the,
so the bumper goes up here. My old helmet, it was down here. And I didn't think about it.
Well, now that there's a big thing back here, and then a tube that goes off, it hits the roll cage
back behind that. Oh, I'm just like, you're like, I'm just so annoyed. Which is again,
do that motion again, because I think that's how you end up getting the money per race car.
But yeah, so it was, it's just one of those dumps, and like we had put foam on there as well,
and with the foam on there, it's like an extra half an inch, and it's usually that's good,
but on this scenario, we were just like, we were just going to grab the truck out of the top of
your head. Oh, no. So we're like, oh, so we, we went through tech, you know, and then cut the foam out.
Yeah, I don't mean that. Yes. So, so that was, so we, so we got my seat lowered down. I haven't,
we haven't lowered his seat. We're going to try and do that. There's a couple of small changes.
I'm really hoping window nets come in. They're supposed to, they were supposed to be
built last Wednesday, wait for text back to hope. It always happened window nets.
I ordered all the custom stuff. I was like, now we got the good stuff coming up, like, hello.
And I'm assuming you can't just go by and just dumb question. You can't just go by
webbing, pet voice, like, like, like, send the webbing and erase your own net, the racing oil,
it. A couple of ways are auto zone certified. And so, like, I have three, like, I'm really good at photo shop.
I will give you a certification. It was, I have three different sets of window nets. I mean,
I can put in the old set that I, the janky thing that I had. So, I mean, it shouldn't look
twice out of there. Like, yeah, I guess that meets the thing, whatever it's you later. So that's like,
I have a backup, like, I have a lot of backup plans to not passing stuff. We spent a week and last week,
this last weekend, we put the axles in. I put the third member in. Right now, I have to put
rear differential oil in. I want to drive it up and down the street. I've got to set the toe on it.
Just, just, you know, all the little race prep, we're going to do a nut and bolt check,
and probably zip tie a million things all over again. But we did a really good job last race.
Like, my, my team that I'm building kind of like, you, you, when you're racing,
everybody says, I'm going to be out there as soon as you're out there. I want to be part of the
race group. Everybody, you know, but when the rubber he hits the road and when you're when you're
pretty grinding in the garage in the weekends, nobody answers their phone. Then yeah,
I hope he's answering their phone. Don't be showing up when you got to lift that third member
except for this guy except for when I took it out. Yeah, that was a shit show. There was oil
on my freaking mouth. Oh, my lips just drooling. It was a hot mess. But, but yeah, so
I'm not not for your side members. I'm not looking at what I mean. I want to help lift my
business members. There for my third member.
This guy can handle a lot of third members. I will say, though, our, our pick crew man is, is solid.
Like, yeah, we, we got to go part of it. It's very little and looking at other crews and looking at
people's stuff. Like, it's so freaking important. And Danny assembled a good set of guys that are like
fully committed. Yeah. They're like, we're getting rude. We're getting a, I got rooms for the
pick crew. And then they're like, oh, I think we're going to need another one. I don't want to sleep
on the ground. They're like, we're going to get another room. And I'm like, sweet, you know. But it's,
I will say that like, prepping for a race and all the things that I'm thinking about, you know,
I'm like, I'm, I'm looking through the rulebook daily and I'm looking through the pit stuff. All the,
you know, you have to have 10 pound fires, two, 10 pound fire extinguisher just 300 bucks. Yeah,
you know, it's like that stupid stuff that you're not thinking about that. But then the race comes
you're like, what do I got to have in the pit? Well, and that's why gas comes. They're 200 bucks and
feeds, you know? That's why you see these large commercial race organizations having full,
full organizational structures underneath them of the pick crew, the crew chief. All right. You're the
safety guy. You're the tool guy. You're the entire guy. You're the, because you're the zip tie guy. You're the
zip tie guy. Like, because there's so many different facets to just not even the truck,
just to the pit, just to the, all that stuff that when, when you're, when you're spending,
when they're spending millions of dollars in advertising and equipment to be out here on this race,
the last thing you want is like, no, you guys can't race because you didn't have your $300
fires. Yeah, you know what I mean? Exactly. But that it's, there's so much more in the conversations
we've had with, with guys like you that are building this up from the ground up. There's so much
more involved in racing than just racing. There's so much more to the truck than just making it go fast.
And it, yeah, it's, it takes a whole crew of people to do and for guys like you, that's a whole
crew of volunteers that are just passionate about helping. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a huge commitment
from, from all the people. You know, they're, they're taking a week off work. Luckily, I have some friends
that are, you know, either they own their own business or, you know, it's a slow season,
whatever it is. Or you know how to convince them. Yeah, I still get, you guys know that.
You still smile. But it truly is like, it's a passion. And I, like, when it all comes down to,
like, that's, that's why my wife lets me do this. Because this is, this is more than just
something cool and fun than I do. This is like, like, I was watching King of the Hammer's YouTube
videos and tearing up. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because my, when I, it's not, like, part of this, I would say
a large part of this is, this is my best friend from high school. I was homeschooled. Bro,
this was like my first real friend. This is my, this is my brother. Like, this is, he's like an
X Marine, uh, former Marine. I'm an Air Force guy. Like, we split up after high school,
went to the military. He saw some shit. I saw some chairs. And we came back.
It's a lot for both of you to be like co-manly together. Yeah. And now, like, like, it's just,
it's fulfilling a dream, you know, and it's, it's about the passion and like part of it is,
I'd say a large portion of it is just doing something that I, that I wanted to do with
fulfilling a dream with one of my, you know, my brothers, um, and, and working towards something
and hitting a goal. I suck it, like, meeting goals. I made a D and like, I don't know why they keep
promoting me in the military, but I'm good at selling. This is the most normal. They got showers
on the barrel. Yeah, you guys do the sales and you let me know. That's what it is. It's like,
it's passion because if, if there wasn't passion behind it, uh, I'd just be a broke,
Krig and Junkie on the side of the road. Like, hey, man, you got some drinking shocks. Like,
got a buster as drug. Um, so you, you don't have, you, you don't have very much time before
you got to get this, this thing on the road to Vegas, right? I mean, it's, it's next weekend.
Yeah. The shitty thing is, like, I work all weekend after I have like military duties this weekend.
So last weekend was kind of the weekend for all the big projects. Um, we'll bring it up there
Tuesday and I got a buddy with it with a, with a nice garage. You've got all the stuff in this garage.
If there's any last minute stuff, I think he's going to shorten some bump stops for me. Like,
an inch, and we'll check all the, we're, he's got nitrogen. So we're going to check all the
shocks. I'm sure he's luckily. Um, but yeah, my, my biggest crew is like, anything that I need
for some reason, there's something that'll make it happen. Like, those guys are, again, you know,
it's, uh, Mike from Rogo-Rillan. Um, my buddy Sean, he, he's been on a lot of Rogo-Rillan stuff,
but um, that, those guys are, they can make anything happen that you absolutely want to happen.
So I'm not as worried this time because we have a little bit more safety net. Um, but again,
you know, we, I did a lot of work last race to prep and get ready. So it's a lot, you know,
we're not like, we're not like nester where he's driving, I'm driving from, um, from Florida
that poor guy with a 75% I mean, and I, we were, we were there from like Monday to Wednesday,
um, do those guys have, I mean, hats off to them, um, commercial motorsports. You,
you guys had a money show, right? Like, yeah, they, they were, they were on the show just a couple
weeks ago, just like a week before they left, like four days before they left. Oh, yeah. And then
we wanted to try to get him back on to talk about their experience. Yeah, it was, it was, it was
one hell of a grind and you nested and, and mind you, those are all my friends that haven't
seen for like four years since I've been off-roading. Like, I knew every single one of those,
except for like one guy, I knew all those guys and it was like a family reunion for me. So I went
out there four days earlier than I was planning on, um, and helped them jam on their truck. We were
just like making a food and we didn't know what to do. Um, but just what amazing Cinderella story and
like, I, I personally knew what it takes to get a race truck on the road and like the fact that
he was building it in, you know, in the dirt. Yeah. I mean, he built it in a year, but he built it in six
months. Yeah. Yeah, that was the whole thing. They just decided to do it. They got it done in six months
and the, the rag tag group of buddies that banded together to get it across the, the country
to be able to do this. It's, it's an awesome story. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, I mean, it was inspirational
but also like, I, like, I felt like I connected up with Nestor on a whole different level because
I had shared in that stress in my own situation like four months earlier. So it was, it was super cool
to do that, um, I'm not even sure where I was going with this, but, but that's the kind of stuff that
like that, that keeps me going. Um, yeah. I think we're just talking about how, you know, you, you're,
uh, I think, if I can recap, you're, you're a couple steps ahead of Nestor in this. Oh, yeah.
That you've, you've already done the one race. You did some prep and you have a, you have a good, uh,
uh, support system in Vegas for you. It's a, it's less, less stressful than going. All right.
Shit. We got to, we got to get this thing across. Just us by ourselves, get this thing across
the country and hope all of everything works out when we get there. Yeah. And, and mind you, um,
Justin's first time in a racetrack was at the California, well, first time as a co-driver in the racetrack
with the first time he looked at the navigation system was the debut for we race. Oh.
Um, or maybe two days. We'll say two days, but first time he, like, worked the, the navigation
system that we have, um, I was, you know, we were setting all up, um, as far as, like,
gauging distance and, and, and, and learning the truck with me, you know, I'm learning the truck.
I mean, yeah, we missed some corners. You know, yeah, we hit some trees. Yeah, we got right back
back on that. We got back on the trails, but, um, but it was a huge learning curve for him,
but at the same time, I was so stoked because like, I knew while we were racing. It was 15 miles
but it was 50 miles of glory. That like, instead of like, this whole time or he's like, yeah,
we'll buy some more shit for the racetrack. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If somebody
wod. Yeah. He was going to be a little bit. Um, so he, like, I saw him getting bit by the
bug, so hard. And it was something that I got bit by a long, long time ago. And, you know,
I had a little bit of sprinkling and coke along the way with my with my other race scenarios to
keep me going. And now I saw that he got bit by, I'm like, I'm like, man, this is so good because now
I can get him to bite. It's hard to find good race. It's hard to find good race coke, you know,
these days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you have to go to TJ for that stuff. No, that's not
with a good race coke. Yeah. I think you have to go to TJ for that stuff. No, that's not with a good race
coke. Yeah. It's not with a good race coke. It's not with a good race coke. It's not with a good race
and mob. Right, right there at Huangtana. It's in Huangtana, bro. It's your back. But so with that,
what Justin, what kind of things do you need to do before this next race to be like, have you put
any more thought into how, how, what things you're going to do differently for this for the navigation?
Definitely. I mean, the really sucky part was and Danny can attest to it. That probably from
mile 12 13 up to 14 like we just hit a group. Yeah. Like like the everything got figured out
because then the first like the first two to three miles, I was sitting there finger
screw him with a screen, trying to figure out, you know, it's like, I mean, which direction would
direction? Is this a drop off, you know? Like we're freaking hands and going like, you guys see
the video. There's a video of the, I think they're Indian drivers. They're in their rally cards and
they're screaming at each other. Yeah. They're going to record cars. It is the absolute fun
to you see in the world because the driver is screaming and cussing in the other guys just
trying to be like, super calm and oh my god, it's so funny. That's like my favorite navigation
driver video. Yeah. It wasn't quite that bad. Like, and there was a moment. There was one moment.
But where do I go, bro? Justin, I know I'm hitting trees and shit. We're going, it's like, right
I'm like, I'm going right. It wasn't that bad. We didn't have those accents or nothing. You know,
I think I'm just going to do an accident. Yeah, do that. So maybe it's more effective. So go on
YouTube and search some mirror. You're breaking the car. That's so funny. It years ago, 22 million views.
Yeah. He's kids it's so freaking funny to hear these guys scream at each other. You're breaking
the car. So the navigation, you're feeling better about it and everything, everything feels good on it.
You know, it to be honest, like I'm a very Danny knows I'm a very controlled person I drive. Like,
that's what I do and to be a co-driver. Like, we're sitting at the starting line. And in my head,
of course, I wasn't going to tell Danny. I'm like, oh, yeah, there's a big jump. Like, right past the
starting line, there was like a nice, but like a nice, send it jump. I'm like, there's, there's no way
I'm going to be able to do this. Like, I'm going to freak out because he's driving and I got to sit here
and watch all this. And, and, and sure enough, it's, it's definitely a learning curve staring at
a computer screen. Instead of actually looking out a window, it, it's, it's weird, but thank God,
I was able to not be sick and just roll right in it. And after like the first, after the first
my miles, it was like, it was no big deal. Once we started grooving, it sucks so bad when we,
when we went off a hill. And mind you, that, that Marcel court, that course that they were
we were at. There were people leaving after pre-running it because they didn't want to wreck their
they, they said, it's going to cost us more to race this race by fixing our cars because this
rate, like their race course was so hardcore. And it was, it was goat trails through mountains,
like a lot of goat trails. And it was a really, like, really rough course. Like, everybody we
talk to you said, this is probably the worst course they've ever been on. Really, as far as like
desert racing is concerned. Like, it would have been a good course for side by side, so perfect side
by side course. Yeah, it was a good side by side course where they have four wheel drive and stuff like that,
but it was not a full-size truck course. There was a, there was a lot of carnage on that trail.
And a lot of people didn't finish that race. How many, how many trucks, how many trucks started the race?
I think in total there was 80 trucks total for all classes. I want to say between 80,
UTVs with everything. And if I remember right, it was like a 30% maybe. No, no, there was the only
people that actually finished with UTVs. Any of the two old drive trucks, everybody timed out,
nobody finished. Wow. Yeah, they all didn't even do the full laps. There was two trucks,
two trucks in my class finished out of five. They were beat up pretty good. I know the one guy selling
his truck now. I don't know if that guy is alive. But my one body whose truck is built way more
south in mind. He had do a lot of work on his truck and he got in like second place. He had to do a lot of
things. Yeah, it should've got first place. Yeah, I can see it, man. I'm like, I'm looking at the video.
You guys have got a recap of the, and it shows your truck hanging off the side of the hill.
And there, there was another truck in our class that was like, I don't know, maybe 50 feet down
from us. Same thing happened to him right in front of us. People blew a drive shaft. It's a big off
camera kind of drive around. And they had warned us about that spot. They said, there's a really
shitty kind of off camera. If you're not, if you don't get just the right line, you're going off.
And sure enough, we took the wrong line. And it would just right off the side. In hindsight,
we should have just sat there and waited for somebody to pull us. That was one of the hilarious
experiences that we had, you know, got to learn from it was that, you know, in racing now,
you fall for hill, you get stuck something happens, just sit your butt there and wait for recovery
and it'll come pull you out. We tried to, for some reason, we thought, we got this thing in the
Amherst shop. We started driving down and we had another freaking chocolate thunder. There's some shit
that we were trying to get out of. Almost rolled the truck down the hill. Yeah, it was sketchy.
It was very sketchy. So yeah, I'm looking at some of the video. It looks pretty gnarly. And yeah,
I mean, at that point, if you're, if you're, I think it's like an assessment, right? Is it worth
trying to get out? Can we still compete in this race? Or are we just going to do more damage?
Let's just call it a day. Yeah. And, and truthfully, there was, there was a crew that came,
like, because there was like four cars. While we were there, there was four cars that went off
five cars. Two, two more when we, when we went off. So it was three down the hill and then
we went off and then two more went off while we were there. Yeah. And so the cars that went off,
they sat there and then had race support come. They pulled them back on the course and they went
off and race the race. So, like, we, we learned a lesson. We, we learned a lesson. We, we were full
of adrenaline and, you know, thinking that we could, you know, hindsight's 2020. At the time,
it sounded like a good idea. Yeah, we got a map going on. I do, we go down this valley. We'll
cheat around. I just remember this. And like, mind you, like, my truck has no e-break and it's a manual.
So I'm sitting back there, my, my foot's on the brick pedal, like shaking like crazy after, you know,
like five minutes. And I'm trying to back down and turn around on the side of that hill. It was
dude. It was so sketchy. I thought for sure that something was going to go south. But, you know,
we made it out of our right and learned a lesson. Learned a $12 lesson. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. And it's
awesome that you have the video of it where it shows, like, you get, you get there and you can see the
back in starting to wash out a little bit. And you're like, oh, I'm getting on it, getting on it.
And then it was just too much. Yeah. Before I, you kind of like drop down and then go up and before
I even go up, you can see the right of your tire slips over to the right. And you have to stay
way left on that line. And I wasn't, I didn't know that that was the spot. You know, like, we had
actually gone up two hill climb before that. Where there was like five people on the side of the hill
climbs. We're like, we've got this. Yeah. We passed three of the, I think we were in second place.
I remember in second place at that, at that time. And we had gone up three hill climbs that other,
our other competitors had gone off. And there was broken trucks. And we're like, dude, we got past
the hard spot. And then we come up on that spot. And we're like, shit. Well, you know, look,
I'm looking at it. It made up before I even got there. It's, it doesn't, I was just going to
try to do that. So it doesn't look, um, doesn't look very intense. When you're, yeah, when you're
looking at it, it doesn't look like it's, um, it's right. Like it, like it would be an issue.
But when you see that, when you see what you, uh, how, like you're, like I said, the, how you
wash out of it, yeah, immediately. And you're talking about your truck and horrible drive.
Yeah. Yeah, true. I mean, you're not thinking about a two-wheel drive. Kind of come up over a
little hump and then you drop down and then you start climbing and it's off-camera. So you're
leaning really far to the right. And that, that's something that you don't see as well in the video.
But because you're leaning right that back in, wants to move up to the right, like at any given time,
also the right hand of the right hand side of that track is very soft. So if you aren't stuck
on the left hand side and almost like crazy left hand side of that line, the second you get off the,
the hard pack, your back end just wants to swing that. Wow. Like the second it touched it.
Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Like if you're just looking at it, it's, you're okay. And then you come
over that last little bump and then the back end just washes right out and you're done for
at that point. Like, you know what I mean? It's wow. That's even that is crazy. Like you,
I was just, yeah, there was not like watching it back. I was done before I even started going
up hill. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, just time size 2020, you know, like if I could
watch myself from the outside, I'd probably would have taken a better line. But what are you going to do?
Yeah. Yeah. What, what are you going to do? I mean, at that point, you know, a couple things is
is if that many people didn't, you know, finish the course. There's one thing, you know, it's a
difficult course. But that seems so indiscriminate. Like, what a weird thing. Like, oh yeah,
you just didn't show the angle. No, the video's never do it justice. Well, you can tell
look dude, I forwilled enough to like see like that, you know, from the video doesn't do it
justice at all. You know, but you could still see the mechanics of the rear end just sliding away.
Like, it just, it just gave away. It was a straight hill. The back end would have just kept going
forward. Yeah. So again, the assumption is there is off camera. Like again, it was just like,
it was already. Yeah. It was like super legit. Yeah. Yeah. With a very, very, very soft side hill.
Yeah. Yeah. Look at you. I watched another guy's in truck. And he went so far to the left.
He was like, this, but he was still on the hard pack. So he was able to get through it. And like,
that was the, I was like, I searched it out. I'm like, what was the line there? And when he went through
that first little dip way over to left. When he went over the top, he was like, you know, sketching out
about it. He obviously threw around it because he knew it. He's like, you have to be real stupid
and go like crazy left up here. And so that's what he did. And I, you know, I'm like, yeah, that's
that's definitely the way to do it. You know, and I would imagine, you know, I'm no racecar driver.
But I would imagine that as you, as you feel the back end washing out, your instinct is hammered down.
I'm going to, I'm going to power through this. And then all of it, all of it is doing it,
went and down, went and down throttle out, right? Yeah. It's just, and it just whips it to a point where
you're like, okay, now I'm fucked. Now I'm completely perpendicular to the track. And I got
another one. I was just barely, yeah, I was just barely on the tracks. So you're thinking,
people are behind me. I don't want them to, you know, have to slow down. And because if you slow
down there, you're done. Yeah. That's like a, it's a commit, it's a commit hill. You have to keep
momentum. If you lose momentum on the hill, you're done so. So, you know, one, I'm thinking about
the next cars coming out right behind me at some point in time. So I don't want to either get
nerfed or, you know, cause them to go up. So I'm batting. So in Medilem, like, I got to back up a little
bit to at least get off the raceline. But even then, I'm looking at a guy that just went off from front of
me sitting on the side of the hill with a broken drive shaft. And I'm thinking, like, you know,
somebody's going to come up around on this hill. And they're going to do the same thing. And then
it's, you know, there's just going to be carnage on this hill. So, you know, there's like a million
things going through my mind. Well, my freaking break pedal footage shake in. Yeah. Yeah. You know,
trucks running at a huge angle on the side of the hill. And we're looking at some other car
like ended up driving down to where we went. I don't know where he ended up going. But he drove
down the hill and disappeared off into the others. And that's, that's what got us thinking.
Maybe we can go down to the bottom of the hill. And there was like this little go trail.
And ended up taking, once we got down to the bottom of that hill that Khravas, it took
three trucks to get us out of there. And a Raptor on like 37's, an FJ with an Atlas and 35's
and a Toyota Tacoma. All, they all, well, two of them, the Raptor got stuck and had to get pulled out
and dug out. My truck, it was just a dead weight. It was a terrible trail to go to. We should never,
you know, again, hindsight. But so it was, we just, it made for a long day. And then it was
like, we towed it back for like eight miles. So the towstraps and deserts are just, just sad, dusty.
And it was so, it was freaking so excited. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade that experience to the world.
Yeah, I was, I was going to say that, that just, I, I think those types of experiences just,
give you exponentially more opportunity to do better the next time, right? If, if, if you just,
if you just made it through and nothing happened, well, you race, but you didn't learn. And in,
you know, the next situation, you know, understanding the course, pre-running, what to do, what not to do,
like all of those things. That's, that was the lesson learned. And in that video, what,
what would you have done different at that time? I don't think there's anything you can do, right?
But now the only difference is take a better line. Like, maybe we should have pre-rand. You know,
going back, there's a million things you could have done different. Like, I, I,
I may have gone off that ledge 10 times out of 10. Yeah, I'm saying, because there's already the
dude that's like down in the ravine or whatever, like that guy missed it. And, you know, maybe
there's a warning sign, like, oh, this, this is trickier than it looks. But I'm that, it, it,
you, it, it looked like, yeah, just hit that shit, you know, like it didn't, yeah, but until you see it,
the orbital drive razor trail. Yeah, there was, yes, so many sections that were
four wheel drive razor trails. They map, I can only,
to postulate, but I can, and almost guarantee, but they, they map the course with the
four wheel drive razor. You know, probably freaking cruising around. It wouldn't, it wouldn't be a
big deal on, on something like that. If you were just cruising around, you'd probably,
you know, maybe if you got a little out of whack, you could probably motor through that,
but it's, you know, at race pace, and if you don't get just the right line in a super wide truck,
yeah, you're done, so, you know, and especially, like, my truck is wide, and, you know,
the visibility isn't the same as a razor, you know, you're like, you can't exactly see the lines
of the same. So, I mean, a lot of things were going against me. That's what, that's my story,
and I'm sticking to it. Oh, can you define, uh, postulate, or, uh, he used, like, a regular,
speculatory, uh, how many of my money for my wife? It's a, uh, speculatory assumption.
Procreate? Yeah. Yeah. What about things? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, we'll leave that there.
Uh, the, uh, uh, I, I think, I think, watching you guys do this kind of stuff. Like,
guys like you and you brought up Nestor and Kevin Jones and, and guys real world,
everyday guys that are just like, I want a race, and I have a passion for it. I'm going to build it.
I'm going to, I'm going to nickel and diamond and pay for it 500 bucks at a time and get out
there with my buddies and race. And like, I find that super inspirational and, and I really, I really
love watching you guys do this and seeing, you know, that you made, you had some success in, uh,
at the last race, even if it was only two miles of being in a groove. Like, it's, it's the progressive
growth and, uh, experience that you're getting for the next race. And, and the mint 400 will be another
one. And the next, you know, it's the next one. And, and at some point, you guys are going to go,
yep, we've got our checklist. It's dialed in my net fit. I don't have to worry about it anymore.
And then, and then, um, yeah. But, but I, like, it's, it's like just an evolution of a couple
guys wanting to race, getting to a point where you're a race team. And I, it's so inspirational
watch and fun to watch. And I am, I am excited. I was just looking at the calendar to see what's
going on in the mint 400. I don't think I can, my, my wife is traveling that week. So I don't think
I can, uh, uh, bail and, uh, head out. Um, but, yeah, maybe grab, grab my daughter. I know that would
be the reason where the true reason why I'm trying to get out there is to get away from my kids.
Oh, yeah, yeah. But, you know what, like, just stay out of the shower. That I would say that, like,
when I started the race truck, I was on the stupidest budget. And, you know, when I hustled,
and I was like, doing social media marketing for an off-road company, just because, like,
you know, I was out there and people knew my name. And so I was able, you know, I was able to
post stuff on Instagram and make some emails for somebody. And I was making a little side cash on
the side. That went to the racetrack. And, you know, I was bought, I bought a car and sold it for
a little bit more money. That money. I was like, sweet. And, like, I would say 75% of the money
that's in the racetrack is hustle money. Yeah. And, whatever the F I've been doing over the last
seven years, um, it's, it's all been from, like, just hustling and trying, trying to make a dream come true.
And, yes, it's a lot of money. But, you know, if you, if you, if you just, like, my message to all
your listeners is, if you trace your dreams, you, if you can't afford it, figure out how you can.
Mm-hmm. Just, just, just do it. Just go do it. Just start it. It doesn't matter if it takes you
one year, like, Nestor. And, he's got a pay for it the next seven years. Or if it takes you
seven years. And then you finally get to race one way or the other. Start it and work towards it,
because, you know what, like, that feeling, like I said that feeling when I got off that,
that starting line, like, do there's something, like, like I said, I am now in tears when I
watch these, these, these rookies of King of the Hammers. Or when, when I see guys that are like,
you know, I've been, I've been, I've been slaving away, you know, my dad died and they, you know,
I had to pick myself up and I had to, you know, keep working or whatever it is, um, it's, like,
that, that, like, that gets to me. Like, it's, it's, it's 50% racing for me and 50%
setting goals, reaching goals, overcoming your goals, and doing it with the people you love,
you know, and the people, and we joke a lot about my wife is a little supportive,
rad, woman, and ever. We've been married for 20 years. The best person on the face is there
it's for me. And, uh, and seeing her support me and say, yeah, honey, go out in the garage.
I know, I know that this is your passion and your dream, and I know you need this.
And then she shows up on race day. She made the whole pet team racers with her little cricket
machine crafty. I think, he shows up with racers in a, in a big old sign with my kids. And I'm just,
I get out of my racetrack after, you know, eight miles getting told in the desert. I'm covered
and my wife's there and my kids are there, and they all have the racers on. And I'm like, I'm not
that. Oh, I'm just bullshit. I can't, I'm about to be a hot mess. I can't even get my wife to do
my laundry. You clearly aren't packing the heat. We talked about that. Maybe you should have
Dan come over, take a shower at your house, and maybe your wife will do some shit for you.
Yeah, maybe they're for me.
He sounds like just, this sounds like a fucking comic book story.
That's fine. You're not ruining it. It's just, I already know. That's days been ruined for
a long time. Every day has been ruined for a long time. You're seeing Groundhog.
I told him, like, what was shit? Was that I'm not gaining any additional knowledge or whatever
every day becoming better myself? I'm not getting ready to forget the day before.
I just wake up like seemingly days later, but I'm like 10 years older, like what the
fuck happened? I can't even see how a couple of my eyes, one of my eyes is all fucked up.
Yeah, it thinks Jose. Thank you. Thanks so much. That's how long Bill Murray was in that,
for 10, I think they mapped, so they did the math, and yeah, it was like 10 years.
We're good for him. Fuck him.
Look, guys, I am excited to see how the mint goes for you.
And I would love to have you guys back on once the dust set, literally the dust settles,
and you're done with your experience, come back on, and explain it to us. Tell us what was
like. What, you know, what went well, what didn't what you learned, what it's like to hoist up that
trophy for the first time, like I want to hear all of that, all of that story, and then
kind of live by curiously through you guys on this journey. So yeah, specifically Dan,
I just by curiously want to live to Dan. Well, we don't know. We didn't talk about Justin's
why. We don't. I mean, no, I mean, we didn't. We didn't. It could be better. It could be better.
That wants to join the holy bands. I'm going to start your only pants.
Whatever, I have for whatever my understanding of only pants. It's going to only dance.
Oh, man, it's at it's nothing but steamy shower scenes. It's like, it's like the frosted glass
and working on his third member. It's just, it's just, it's just my back and a king shot.
Yeah, it's motioning up, oiling and lotioning, lotioning and oiling. I got a one real nice one
to just dip fluid all over myself. Oh, my god. It's not only wearing his good boat. I think we're going
to, I think we need to have some back comfort back comforts. I think you found some funding for
your next race. Yeah. It's fully fun. I've only danced. Tell me you haven't only fans without
tell me. Yes, whatever it takes, whatever it takes to make it happen.
Well, look, like I said, guys, I want to hear about it. So, so make a plan. And when the race is over,
come back on the show. Let's talk about it. And we'll learn like basically get the fresh perspective
of what it was like for you guys to experience that race. Absolutely. I think we're going to have a
little, like a short documentary getting shot on us as well. So based on the money you've earned
for that, that race truck, I don't think it's going to be short at all. It's long, it's long.
Like, how many days are you? Like, how many days are you?
And please don't, please don't have your wife. Please don't have your wife listen to show. I'm
sorry in advance. You probably have more fun talking to my wife about my race truck than me.
Oh, I am sure, I've been a fact. Let's get her on the race track. Yes, I want to hear her
perspective about the race truck. And we'll have, we'll have a guest, a guest appear. Yes, I love that idea.
I love that idea. All right, guys, well, look, we appreciate it. Everybody go, go follow
Daggerute X on YouTube and Dan Grooters on Instagrams to also Daggerute X. Follow the exploits of the
extera and the racing and let's see, let's see, let's see you win. And let's see the next one
come out. Good for you guys. Absolutely. Can I get a shot out to Betty White? You were
already. I'm over here, participation trophy. We get, so we get our chat room is the best
freaking chat room every week. Like we get, we get a good solid group of, it's the same people every
week. And it's, so here's the thing, I have to not pay attention to the chat room while I'm doing
the interview because I wouldn't be able to do any interviews. But I could see the look on these
guys faces that are crossing me, where I'm like, yeah, it's happening right now. I remember
from my podcast, sometimes I was like, I just, I can't get past this, but it's good. Sometimes you
got to like, uh, choke of the day, sometimes it's too late. Well, all right, well, thanks. Thanks for
having us on. I really appreciate it. And we're definitely, instead of, instead of talking to Casey
every year, half drunker on the fire pit, it's good to hop back on here. Casey was full
drunk. He was full drunk. I was full drunk. Actually, I got way sober and he got drunk later,
but when I was talking to you, Casey, I was right on your level. I think both years, this year and
last year, we were so solid. Yeah. The same next year. Looking forward to it. All right, guys, you have a great
night. Sweet. Thanks, guys.
Thank you for listening. And if you want to be on the show, please leave us a voice message at
951394 dirt. Thank you to Iron Man 4 by 4 America. Please go to Iron Man 4 by 4 America and get
everything you need for your next adventure. Thank you to Ryan Torrigno for all of the music,
and thank you to our patrons for all of their support.

Ep 259: Irate 4x4

Welcome to the Trail Chaseers podcast. Today on the show we talk to Austin
Prith from my rate 4 by 4 and he talks about the path that led up to starting the
forum. He also talks about the current state of the forum and how forums are
great resources of information. Then the guys talk about a short king of the
hammers recap and in even shorter recap of Jose Matt's trip to Calico. Matt
not that now that forums are back. What's going to be your new handle? My girlfriend's
booms. I still couldn't find that right that private thread he was talking
about. Yeah that back in yeah back in moderation somehow. Just to clarify my
news are not on I rate 4 by 4. They will be soon.
Hey everybody it is Tuesday we it's 6.30ish we're live like we are most Tuesdays
I know it's not been as consistent lately because of travel stuff and Matt is
pissing off people in the chat room telling him what to do and the horse trainer is
is pretty angry. I don't know why you normally don't tell people what to do.
He's a huge piece of people. He tells people what. Don't tell me what to do. We are
joined tonight by Austin from I rate 4 by 4. How are you doing man? I'm great. Yeah
thank you for coming on. We were supposed to do this last week but as the text message
just started flying with Austin it was we made the air of scheduling something on
Valentine's Day and there's a couple of us that decided that was probably better to
not do a podcast and Austin promised some pretty romantic juicy details but hopefully
he saved those for us for this for this week. Where are you at man? I'm in St. Louis.
Okay. Okay. Oh wow. St. Louis was there. You guys are in most of our last
day. We're all in something California. Yeah. You're so what do you three hours
ahead? Two. That's about a central time, central time. Okay. All right well I'm
sorry it's so late where you're at. There's like a mountain time for like two
states like why are you so special Colorado in Arizona like right now? Arizona doesn't
have a yeah Arizona is its own time it's like it's own highlight it's it don't
know. I just think they're time. I could have said Hammond you know like I just wanted
to blame somebody. So I rate 4 by 4 you guys are familiar with it. I'm sure it's
I rate 4 by 4x4.com. They're on YouTube at I rate 4 by 4 on Facebook and on
Instagram. Awesome. Give me a little bit of background about you and the off-roading
world and like you know what do you drive how long have you been doing this? Why did you
start doing it? None of us should have been starting to do it at costume much money.
But yeah just give me a background. Yeah. No I probably started 4 wheeling back or
3 wheeling I should say back in the day when I was 6, 7, 8. I got a little Honda 70
back in the mid-8, mid early 80s there. So that was a lot of fun. There's a place
around here called Lesterville. Lesterville that we would always go to. And if you're
familiar with big foot like the big foot Bob Chamber that's where that was his
playground. So okay he's from East from St. Louis so down here those are the kind of
trucks we had back then growing up and we didn't I mean we would just go down here
and see the guy like my dad would have his own truck and buddies would have their
own trucks and three wheelers and then every time he'd come up you know they'd circle
around and check out his stuff. So that was pretty awesome. I'm sorry I got not that
that's not exciting but I got super excited because I thought we were talking about the
real big foot but then you start it was like oh that that four truck which okay
yeah I mean that's so pretty cool but you know I thought we were going to start talking
about big foot as Matt being a Ford owner he's you know he gets excited about big
foot yeah I guess both big foot yeah not that and and you said how long ago was that?
I was mid 80s early mid 80s you look you look too young to be doing that stuff yeah
you yeah you look the so if you always grow up in that St. Louis area have you always been in
that part of the country yeah always been been here watching watching you guys out
I was just gonna ask like what's your favorite place to wheel in that in that territory mud right
mud is fun sometimes I'm sure like as you guys will know our our hatred for mud is slightly
less than years but it does get old after a while and pretty much sticks to everything and
it's not that we hate it we just can't find it it like doesn't exist but also we hate it yeah
what are you driving what kind of vehicle do you drive right now right now I got some on blocks
on the shop unfortunately it's been that way for about a year I've got a jeep guy my whole life since
I've been sitting in the blocks yeah hence the blocks I'm understood my life I was gonna say
that sounds like me looking at my dirt bike in the garage like well I got a I got a jeep
sits on blocks I just I go in there and I crack up crack open up beer and I look at it like
yeah someday so yeah we got a buddy in the chat room right now that's got your sister jeep
on blocks in his garage in Arizona it hasn't moved since December of 2019 I don't think it's the last
okay yeah all right let's find it so now I'm going to be in a jeep guy forever and when I got
I rate when we fired that up I got rid of my jeeps and bought a unimog so I took that out and
play with that for just a couple quick trips and then tore it down and started doing a rebuild
but it's been going on forever so how uh how is a rebuild on a unimog is is parts are parts
available for that thing they are it's kind of pain the ass but they're they're available
they're harder to find they take longer to get luckily there's just place out by you guys
California expedition importers and that guy's sitting on like a stockpile of unimog stuff so
like when they made those military vehicles they had to make so many spare parts for the
military to keep stock and warehouse is all over my no things were sold all over the world so
there's a lot of new old stock for like 1950s and 60s unimogs out there just to never find
somebody to get it to you so and pain the price right and willing to pass right true true you know
you guys know what jeeps they're by so jeeps did for just in every pocket right right I don't know
what the hell I was thinking about that Mercedes things and Mercedes like yeah fuck you hold my beard
you can't see Casey is that unimog still sitting in front of that shop down the street from your shop
uh no I haven't seen it in a while they used to be a couple you know why bro yeah I was going to say
maybe you should go snag some parts since 10 minutes it's the same Lewis uh for Austin
what's what's willing a unimog like that seems like it would be a lot of fun that's a really good
question I took it out too uh I bought it and uh one of the members on the site brought it
he brought it all the way from uh just outside of Vegas to my house we got out we looked at it I
spent about two months uh getting it up and running again and then we went out to I held it
up the KOH and that was the first year I was doing media there and so I was more time doing media
stuff and anything else so I didn't really have to take it on any real trails bought it back and
tore it apart so I'm anxious to find the answer out myself so that's a good transition
to the site when did uh when did I rate first uh hit the interwebs uh I think we like actually
went live mid late May of uh 2020 so like we kind of started talking about it and planning on it
from uh the old site the fire there like uh early April you know we kind of made some posts on there
and said hey uh the people in the bot this are pretty much tank in the place people are leaving
let's uh let's do something about it we put a vote up and uh not just our group but nobody wants
to do all the work of setting up a new site and all that if nobody was going to go so yeah yeah
for sure we we threw a vote up and where he's like fuck yeah do it so we did and then uh in May
we made the transition when uh the other site uh did a major upgrade so just changing to their advertising
platform yeah so um i think those days are resident forum guy i i had a little bit of
a conversation with you like i i'm not as familiar with forums as i would like to be so pirate four
by four yeah was like the go to it was and i do remember go you know going back to my the time i
had i did spend on there they do remember there was a uh significant amount of smacking in the face
on the forum like you know there was there was some stuff there was some stuff there uh so i looked
from the outside because i wasn't i i didn't have my keyboard confidence yet with all my uh the
source words and just uh was like you know i would go to forums for uh what they're designed for you
know the the information about this hey this is how i upgraded that is anybody else had this kind of
thing and then um yeah i guess around that time when the the the platform was purchased
and you started this did you did you have to build everything from scratch on i rate like how
tell it walk me through that transition process was it like okay we're gonna do this and then you
just went and started building from scratch yeah i mean before that site even before pirate even
transition transition to its new format that they use um why i got it some forum software about it
set it up bought a server got everything deployed i have a background in doing IT web stuff so
it was easy it wasn't that difficult plumbing i knew i knew where to go to get the stuff and got
it all set up and uh and a couple weeks had a designer come in and do some design work because
a more of a software guy and we can't design for shit you know it's hard it's hard to find someone
that's a great engineer or software tech and it's also a good gooey guy it just doesn't happen
it is it is i i'd probably suck at that shit so brought somebody in to do that got that set up
and uh i brought some of the moderators over some of the big names that were there and just to kind
of help test the site out and put it through its paces and and then uh they're ready to go live
and we then we just we kind of sat on it for a week or so pirate they put out an announcement saying
hey on this date and may we're gonna take the site down for a while and then uh while we can
divert it to the the new software and um my background IT that should should be something
that could easily do in like an hour so in the background it shouldn't take in the you know
three days it took them but i knew what they were gonna do they said they were gonna do it so
i just wrote a little post i said uh it's really just a stuff we previously talked about on the forum
uh this is the new our new URL we're leaving because you know these XYZs we voted on it here's that thread
fuck these people were out you know and uh i posted that and like i don't remember the exact time
but say it was five o'clock i posted that like four fifty nine on the site and then sure
right on five at five o'clock they locked that site down and it stayed up there on the main page
on the first page for three days and i'm like if that doesn't tell you how much they don't
care about yeah yeah yeah people on the site and keeping the site alive i i don't know what does so
and that was it you know by uh a week or two layers thousands of people are already on i right
and uh go on a town put in tech and you know bullshit I think you same kind of stuff you're talking
yeah yeah yeah um and and so you're you're you're back around an IT i mean that yeah that seems
benefit beneficial to take on a challenge like this like i i i feel like if uh Matt was going to
start a forum uh he would then stop the forum because it just wouldn't he would never he would never
plug in a computer to figure out what to do so how would i start that for what i'm saying you would say
guys let's start a forum and then ask somebody to start it for me no you would you would say you
know we should start a forum and then they go do you know how to start a forum you go yeah
fuck that that's not a good idea we're not going to be exactly I don't know what a forum is like
and i would go hey we're going to start a forum and then i would do it wrong for 24 hours and
then go out when i can do it i mean so i do i mean like a background and IT that that that had
to help was there any other things in the in the development and deployment of the forum that you
were like oh shit i don't know how to do this i have to learn this like what what was the what was the
challenging part of doing that um probably just said design shit really and then once uh as far as
getting it set up that was that was really i could handle that pretty easily but once i did get
up and running i didn't quite realize how much stuff goes on the background of running those
not just a little i forgot my passwords or changed my username and my billing didn't go
something like that but the uh the request that come in for like somebody post a link to some place
and they don't want you share in their content so there's a you know the uh taken care of those
requests moderating the site and then we had some issues with uh people talking about uh Caitlin Jenner
and just well no jokes the site was really what does she drive yeah because that would be
detrimental like you but right but I'm coming to say Caitlin Jenner driving is also a topic
with that we should probably avoid yeah i don't want to dive i don't want to dive into the
specifics on what got the site in trouble but uh post post interview we can yeah post interview
i didn't think about that part yeah there's probably i mean not only moderation of the actual
forum but just all the the operational requirements in the background right yeah there's a lot of
low stuff uh just you know the community's pretty happy they're happy they have a new home to move to
but then there's also sometimes they want to talk about stuff but they can't and we'll start getting
flags from people start setting in complaints and stuff like that and uh every once in a while you
get a legal one that people once their name taken off the site or some stuff like that so
that stuff does happen um but and that was probably the biggest learning curve i wasn't
wasn't expecting you that kind of stuff i didn't think about that so if so someone posts uh
news of Casey up on the up on this site and Casey says as one does it was plenty of them floating around
if you guys are looking for two to get a little jar don't look too hard it's taken away from my
office yeah so if someone if someone posts news of Casey up on the on this site Casey then hits
you up and say hey you got my weiner out i want that taken down like yeah we can't sit with this
bigger with his photos how many times have I wished that hey yeah you got my weiner out
like and then what why you're in it I guess twice that side yeah I noticed you have my weiner out
what the lens is that yeah uh it's an average size why damn so so i mean how that picture was
taken from really far away and it was cold so it's very cold these yeah Vermont it's right um how often
this stuff like that happened where someone's like hey i want this down or this thread is
representing me incorrectly or that that information is false like yeah how often is that i'm not super
often it was it was more uh it happened more at first and i kind of think it was probably the old
site maybe fuck one of those little bit or something i don't know i think they knew exactly how to
get an illegal uh attorney to write a legal letter that made our hosting companies say oh shit okay
you're gonna get you they turned the site off until i fixed it okay um somebody knew how to pull
the strings and so we've taken measures to to move to hosts that are much more free and with the
speech and that kind of stuff so we don't worry about that nearly as much anymore and i would assume that
a lot of that is self-moderated by the community right in that you know hey this is uh this is a
forum to talk about off-road vehicles and these kinds of things and if you know if people are
gonna post things that are too far outside of the realm of those conversations right i mean i
would assume that there's you know moderators and other people in the community say hey take that
take that to a different site let's focus on this stuff yeah yeah there's plenty of that there's
even a private forum on there where people sit there and post uh i mean nothing crazy but uh they they
feel free to they be speak a little more about what's going on in life and show like that yeah yeah yeah yeah
so yeah but there's definitely moderators are on there uh we get them on there 24 seven because you
know we got up in a couple different continents but the community really is a awesome community
that's the same it literally is like somebody just picked up the pirate people and moved them somewhere else
they do a really good job you still get that a little bit of hazing if you come in as can
something stupid without searching you know um so you still get that and they like you said
they do a really good job pleasing themselves and uh so it's uh it really is for as ignorant as they
can be to new people sometimes it's a great that's an awesome community so yeah yeah yeah i could
33's without a lift yeah yeah yeah i'm going to go fuck up one there or something yeah uh well
Chevy 63 and springs fit in my uh Toyota pickup yeah yeah um so looking at the forums statistics
I rate 4 by 4 it's got over 21,000 threads over 1 million messages over almost 6,000 members
the latest member is PB 52 welcome aboard PB 52 is that peanut butter 52 PB Blaster 52
do you think the PB stands for first of all yes Paul Blark it's Paul Blark he was born in 52
um so my my I guess my point is that that we're not talking about a small community or a small
amount of information i mean that's a significant uh over a million messages that's a significantly
it's a lot of traffic active yeah community like what has been what i don't and i don't even know
if you can if this is uh something you can quantify what has been like the most active portion of the
forum is there like one one community that's that's uh more active or one board that's more active
than other others i think just oh like chit chat basically because every single person that
whether you're a dodg per Mercedes person i mean everybody falls on that category yeah most people
end up their bullshit part of the day oh and and i'm sorry i asked a dumb question because it's
right here you can see on each one of the chats you have to one of the chats how many threads how
many messages why is there you know what there's 263 threads with six over 6,000 messages
on the Chevy GMC and Hummer uh thread so one of two things is happening either Chevy's in GMC's
break down a lot or people see Hummer and think it's a completely different side all together and
they're like hey where do we get this information from uh age h3 is better that's why it's got
so much that uh uh uh uh uh uh uh the four four and four and there's 11,000 messages
yeah but that's all awesome they're like this my fort is so awesome they're like yeah i need to fix
uh how do you fix you know fill in the blank yeah uh here's a picture of my fort here
yeah uh you've got you've got the Chevy GMC in a Hummer board Dodge Ford
International Harvester that's interesting uh Izuzu Jeep Land Rover Mercedes Mitsubishi
Nissan Suzuki Toyota is there anything not covered like is there if you've got the box yeah there's
there's a Mercedes form oh yeah there's a there's a general four by four form in there it's kind
of a catch all um for kind of bigger rigs and buggy's mostly post on there okay um like i don't
try i don't uh my name's on all the paperwork and bills and all that kind of stuff i don't try to
claim this is mine though this really was pirate it's been i was on pirate for like 16 years
i feel like this is really just the community here so when we launched this i said uh in the last
several years of of pirate they put so many silly forms on there just trying to draw more
traffic and it really just diluted the traffic to be honest because people were trying to look
all over the place and couldn't find shit so um like 99% of the stuff i do on here i'll always
post something to vote and say hey what do we want this to look like now do we want this to look so
the uh individual forms you see on the side are really because that's what we vote on that's what
we thought would be most beneficial right now if some brand comes along and all sudden they start
getting you know they got like a thousand posts that we can easily search and find and we'll break
them off and put them in their own form look i really think there should be a Honda pilot and a Honda
Honda Ridgeline Trimov doesn't push that bullshit why is there no Honda look i'm just saying
it's been voted the best truck of the world forever i'm just saying Honda is going to be the new
thing man you know what i saw Santa Cruz lifted on some really like 32's i don't know it was
the some meteor tires it looked pretty rare that that that market that that i don't know if you can
wheel it or not but it looked cool i saw one yesterday that had like a bed rack with a basket on
top of it really there it is that's going to be the next one the Hyundai Hyundai Santa Cruz and the
Honda Ridgeline are going to be the next uh i didn't say nothing about Honda i'm just saying just saying
i like that you've got you general four by four new before by four i'm almost afraid to look at it
RC rig so you've got a spot a spot there for remote control kids or or adults or adults
mostly adults yeah of course because those damn things are so goddamn expensive kids can't afford them
it's ridiculous that's big boy toys yes that's true there you can't have them are because
their dad is into it yeah they they bought them a car yeah like shop and tools side by sides interesting
that the uh the side by side uh four i'm 134 threads 33.8 thousand messages
in relation to all of the other threads that doesn't seem like a very big side by side community here
yeah it's not where it's uh it's also the forms fairly new too okay i was gonna say so i think that
that's because that's definitely a growth opportunity right it means huge yeah you could it's
it's the way girl i think the mentality of most people like back from the old site in the
day is everybody used to build their own ship and they kind of give the golf cartility a lot of trouble
for just going out and financing something and yeah yeah there's a there's a little bit of a really
going on hi i commented numerous i'm sorry i've commented numerous times that that was kind of
the qualifier back in the day to your prowess like your skill set to drive something like that is
at least you grew up or you had some time on tools or you know whatever and you built it yourself
but how dangerous is it that you're able to for 20 30 grand right out the gate you know because
you saw your buddy doing it and now you're wheeling something that you are not qualified to do
gives you a false sense of security and next thing you know you're tumbling down some dudes
your kids are flying out you've got to mention the cooler a beer you know all that's a
beers or anything in the head like all kinds of stuff no it's it's all in those things like crazy
super fast and to Matt's point they've done that I'm inexperienced but I do I do disagree with
the financing your fun like I gave up on that build shit a long time ago right the CJ 7
half that I don't want to keep it running the minute I hit you know 60 thousand miles on a vehicle
I'm looking for something new like my my truck my trucks approaching 60 and next year may be the year
like it's it's a top speed yes top speed because it's put that's stupid type I just I look I don't have
if if we were in a position where I was like oh shit before we can go wheel again I got to go get
under my vehicle and and swap the axle I just wouldn't wheel every year ever ever go off-roading
ever again you go through the garage and go yeah there's my tools hey there's a bowling ball you know
I'm just going to head instead I'll start golfing again like it's not a joke if I had to do
repairs to keep my vehicle running and go off-roading I would just you would never see me ever again on
the trail like I just don't have the interest the time or the energy to do it so you know for those
in the thread that are like screw you guys for buying your side by side I don't know man I don't disagree
I do it when I when I talk about the you know those not being safe or whatever I didn't mean
like they don't look fun as fuck like I would totally yeah dude it's just a very expensive you know
yeah but I absolutely I would I would totally wheel yeah for sure I'm just I but I am I am a I'm a
100% okay with financing my fun like that not I'm not building shit I don't that doesn't mean
anything to me like if you if we show up on a trail and you built something from scratch and be like
that's sweet I'm gonna go do sixty-seven like you know calorie I don't care I don't care
I'm like an in I don't know man these those side-by-sides get pretty crazy the shop behind our shop
they build those side-by-sides yeah and they rip fucking down the street on their turbo fucking
there and here the turbo they're insanity absolutely crazy yeah this is going back to the side-by-sides
though you could almost create a whole another layer of side-by-sides with Honda Yamaha Kawasaki
whatever can I am right is that I mean as the side-by-sides board starts to grow is that ever
something you're gonna like assess and go maybe we should break this off and do some different
yeah absolutely if it grows that big well definitely we could definitely break it off into
its own former site or something like that or you can break that down in the subcategories
you kind of have like an unwritten rule that's uh yeah something has about a thousand posts or more
about a specific thing and then it can be uh it's own form if it makes sense for it so
to a man cruiser for him oh you know he's yeah yeah there's a toilet
there's a toilet in there yeah and every every all of the 10,000 messages on there is
how many alternators do you carry in your land cruiser one do you change the oil
every week or every other week in your land cruiser what's an alternator yeah uh uh Jose Jose just
has a 96 land cruiser it's a 94 it's a 90 look it it started as a 94 it might as well be a
2000 because he replaced his so many rights that's all I'm sorry uh I'm replacing 28 year old parts
again let's go find answer fund bro like you can wait what you be done I mean at some point
you've replaced all the parts it's just a perfectly good 22 truck in your site it's cyclical
like well now it's time to get back through those transmission parts or the knuckles again yeah
by the time you change the the tail lights out he's the next week and he's now replacing
the headlights it's it's nonstop so marketplace you've got a vendor a vendor spot on there what's
what's the goal with that piece of the of the of the board really just right and helps small
business so there's a lot of shops in there that build that are building here some cut we've got
a new guy right now that I just met at King of the Hammers are just joined and dea fabrication
and he he makes some awesome chassis that he's selling so those are those are pretty sharp looking
to those but mostly there's a support small businesses in their regular dynamics is in there you
got in there as soon as he really first started getting his first patents and he's been an awesome
source of information for any kind of power steering type stuff so and that was got written I was
got a bunch of his equipment on rigs it and 44 hundred cars and all kinds of cars so just to
really kind of you know give him a place to sell their stuff and make people aware of who they are so
that's awesome I see that you you've got a section called watch listen and discuss and you've
been able to get some cut rate second tier defunct podcast you gotta start with somebody right
I mean you gotta go you gotta go the ones that are easy to get right the snail trail for my
floor and really wanted whiskey I obviously am kidding you guys know how much we coordinate and love
those guys what tell me about that piece of it about the watch listen discuss and and because
you've had some side conversations about it but but where that's different than I think I've
ever seen on a forum what's the what's the idea behind that so some of those guys I'm sure
you guys do use patreon for the for for your membership and basically just brings their membership
off there and to here and that's exactly it's just the five of us that do use the patreon yet for
our membership yes we we catastrophically failed at patreon the first time around but we
hesitated and doing it for we didn't want to do it for a long time and we decided to do it and then
we totally hit it up and we yeah we over committed under delivered which if you're my wife you're totally
used to that but everybody else and so now we're trying to figure out what to do with that and what
the next step is so like how are snail trail and the weaning wine guys using using I rate in this
function so basically what they did they both have their own public facing forms and what I
I put a little code in the background so that every time they push a new show live they grabbed that
show it pulls it into a new thread and grabs the pictures and any descriptions I have with it
and a link to where they can listen to it right on the site and then what it's for what was the
time for so that they could come in and other listeners could come in and talk about their
that show if they have any questions or any of that kind of stuff okay continue that conversation
that's pretty cool plus plus on the map they also have a private forms you can't see for their
members so you can't see that from the front end but there's private forms each have or the
members can go in and bolstery them all well where they push like extra bonus content they put it in there
so that seems like a really a a really good I'm gonna use a stupid word here but like a
really good synergy of taking the the content around the off-roading and the things that we do
putting it in a place that's already got a very hard symbiotic that synergy and the symbiotic
it's all the sins I don't know all about the sins but like you know seriously put it pushing the
audio content of the podcast onto a platform that's already supported by all of the other stuff around it
it seems like a really a really good opportunity for a listener to be able to go
listen to a show and then at the same time if there's a topic of conversation on the show to
start doing some of their own research inside the point one degree less of effort like they
have to put it in if they're on the phone ready and they listen to the show they can contribute
there already yeah I think that's I think that's really cool how long have the the snail trail
and weaning guys been up there maybe six months maybe okay so some last summer we just kind of
kind of brainstorm bullshit and talked about and then we made a happen there so it's also got
so there are some ads on the site just to help pay the bills but the ads are turned off on
those guys as pages and available to for them to use as well so if there's some companies that are
really helping support them they can throw their graphics or their ads up for them just kind of
give a little love back so that's okay yeah the site gives I think the site will get about like
1.8 million views a month so that helps them give them a little traffic to the people who
support them as well that's awesome that is awesome and then you've got the whole miscellaneous section
of like you said chit chat and raffles and cooking and events and you know as you continue
going down you get into racing outdoor sports and then classifies I got to imagine that's pretty
active where people are trying to sell parts and vehicles and anybody selling anything good
yeah there's always stuff on air it's been more time finding stuff I don't need on
air than I was just going to say I probably would start like oh hey someone selling blue balls
blue balls 1986 samurai so I don't okay it's blue I get it very cool blue balls I like it it's
a pretty built up samurai but now I need to see what else is on here xj parts at international
scouts oh you're in the trash section a John deer tractor blue ball samurai sounds like a
category like on a porn site you know what's up with that what's in your search yeah that sounds like
Jose and I say it's I've already experienced it but I might like no no I'm interested but this is
pretty cool where where you've got that much traffic on the site to begin with and then now people
have an opportunity to post their you know whatever it is their first they have for sale in a community
that's obviously more in tune than say Craigslist you know I mean like this is this is people that
already want to do this stuff and want an off-road vehicle and here you go you know
right yeah what's that well again that's one of the more popular sections and that's one
of the ones we kind of find too didn't renamed all the forms to what they are and again like a
it's a big community decision and and that's what they wanted that's what we needed and that's what we
so that's what we have up there okay I need how much do I need I need some money and a
and a ride to Texas 16 thousand dollars and a ride to Texas to go pick up this full two buggy
ranger so 16 grand that's how much they want that's what it says 16 grand
Austin can't see yeah like an old ranger full two body doubt and that's actually not that bad I
know it's been saying it's not that it starts oh here you go it was a Jose here's your O2
land cruiser you can get it too yeah I don't have an O2 I know you you know yeah so you can upgrade
to an O2 that way you can change out less parts I mean you still have to change out parts so I can
see why my check-in line is yeah I can actually read the code it's a yeah it's yeah the 100 series
mark cast from yellow wheeling has yeah the 200 oh he does have a 200 you're right yeah you're right
but I mean again it's this damn it I'm gonna be stuck here because it's a 74 FJ40 buggy
like I I kid I'm gonna be stuck here honey I need the I think this is a really cool opportunity
like again to whatever you're selling to put up on a marketplace that is already in tune
what is a what is there's a a class if I hear called wanted so much want what that's
that's when you get desperate you start posting up it sounds like like a moracy album title does you know
it does okay so this is people are like I need a 1986 Chevy manual steering column does
anybody have it wanted Dana 60 so you could go in here you could go in here start selling stuff
Jose we could just start selling the 80 series off by pieces on the I ran 4 by 4 it gets you enough
money to buy that other 100 series cool but so the so the so the as far as the classified sections
are go like you just you just provide the the the the spot for people to put it up and then they
coordinate on their own like eight I want to sell this eight I want to buy this like you don't have to
be involved in any that I don't I don't touch any of that that's all between the seller and the buyer
and it's you know doesn't cost me a thing to post those are so just just I just got creating the
count that's it very cool there's also the hauling section neat it says need help moving something
from 0.8 to 0.9 I want us hold on to that section when you need to haul that for you whatever wherever
it breaks oh that's the fourth section so people like hey I need I need someone to help me get
something from Ben Dorgon to Santa Maria like that's what don't ask questions I just shut it
away just get here that's it you should rename this to the transporter it's Jason Statham so
yeah okay so then we'll take the new hundred series that you get and we'll just drive things back and
forth that at the hauling section this is you can be the the Uber the I rate Uber I rate Uber
the way it meant that guy he's not he's not a good Uber driver um so how much of this was
available day one of the site launch and how much of it has evolved over time
I'd say probably about 90% of what you're looking at was available day one um and then we kind of
cut out a lot of forms and merge a lot of stuff and put some renaming and moving and stuff like that so
but 90% of it was already day one ready to go it's hold on one sec it's I think it's right
by the on the counter next to my bedroom uh Matt is going a party so I'm asking him to grab my
water bottle while he's out uh he goes to the bathroom after after prep I'm gonna check the seal
I'm gonna just shut up and drink it so 90% of it was available and and are you are you
seeing anything emerge on this site that is making you think that there like there's another
like any changes that are going to come or new boards it need to be created like is there anything
that's been up and coming or has it been pretty stable in these categories it's been pretty stable
in these categories I think uh some people have asked you know somebody comes in with some oddball
thing and they put a request in the same pit everybody just tells me you know we kind of got a guideline
for that so what's pretty stable here I think uh we are going to add a new section here so I hung out
with Keith from Evolv Racing we hung around the fire had some beard with him KOH and we don't have
an EV for him and that's something that people have kind of asked for so yeah I mean there's not a
whole lot of it out there but you know the old site back in the day was known for you know coming
up with groundbreaking shit like like pouring suspension back in the day that was that was something
was kind of pioneered there and so we want to get the EV section up as soon as those guys are ready
to start doing some post but I'm gonna put it up until yeah let's somebody post in there but
you know that we were at hammers as well and there was a significant number of ribbons and um
I it's only a matter of time right that that's going to be it's at some point they're going to be
just as common as anything else and um I think it's great to get out in front of it and I do think
that there's probably a lot of conversation for people that either are considering buying one or that
have just bought one and go shit now I want to take it off road how do I do this like what's the
what's the what's the details um about halfway down the mountain yesterday at a call box
what bro I could only imagine you know um I was when they were at a gas
and that's so fun better um I saw I had to make a drive up to 1000 ohs last week and I saw
three Tesla's on the side of the freeway don't know what the deal was but uh it was not a good
sign is for my perspective like it didn't it didn't I feel that's bad um I think it's one to
charge the other and to charge the other um eventually that's gonna that's gonna happen you're
gonna plug a USB-C into your phone and stick it in your dash and then it's gonna like charge your
car off of that uh but um yeah I think that's that's a good one that that I could see getting a lot
of traction soon um is there anything that when you started the site you were like oh this is
gonna be a hit this is I know this is gonna be and it hasn't like is there anything that's
surprised you like that um not really not right off the bat I uh I I mean we had probably 3500
4,000 people I would guess that we're on pirate the day we all moved over and uh it has kind of
killed that everybody moved over so I was happy about that um I don't think uh I don't know
there's much that we've tried that uh people have just flat out rejected I think uh there was
some of the free speech issues I got I'm huge on free speech so I want to let people and I may
think that you're dumbass or whatever but I'll agree with you and listen to you and talk to
you about it you know so and I want to allow that as much as possible on the site and so I came
right out of the bat saying that and I didn't realize like I said some of the issues that we got
I got the legal legal teams at the most thing company coming back at the floor so
so we did have to draw some lines and to the honest with you they're they're pretty small
given how you like them I'll look you know yeah um so they're they're pretty minor things but you
know you change your mind like that you they're forced to change your mind everybody comes back
at you like you yeah yeah yeah it's it's an evolution it's an evolution just like anything else
like you know but it's you know that or take the site down yeah so you're exactly what and and
the reality is free free speech is great and yes free speech but there's no there's no such thing
it's free speech without consequences like that's the that's the lot right you can there's say what
you want but there may be consequences fuck around and you can find it
got I just saw some of the more you fuck around yeah yeah um which of the which of the
forms the or which of the boards do you think you spend most time in you know I probably
spent about half as much time on this site as I did what I was like on pirate just because
so many other things to do I always find something else something else it could be tweaking or working
on or some shit so I really spend more time probably following so we sponsor or help sponsor
a couple of the race teams that were in King of the hammers that race ultra force so I spent a
lot of time watching their rigs and just checking out any of the new the new builds that are out there
so there's a lot of jobs was there in the chat room saying say and hi who Kevin who Kevin Jo I'm not
who see is that someone is that someone that we know yeah he's Kevin Jo's is Casey's man crush
he's uh you know if Casey was ever going to meet me switch race to five over him
so sponsoring the race teams now how how how did how did that come about like was that something
that that you know you found them on the form and then kind of developed a relationship or was that
pre form what tell me about that I mean yeah it's I really like it's not my my space I mean it
is my space but it's not so I'm trying to take whatever comes out of it and put it back into the
community helping however we can so the one thing I did do that part didn't do is we opened up a
parts counter on there so we sell a lot of off-road parts so I kind of hook up with those guys that are
trying to build their own rigs it's mostly the EMC guys yeah and the kind of people that are on
fire all the time and hooked them up with the best deal that's possible deals we can as frequently
as often as we can to get a little advertising space on the rig so that's a cool program and then
we have our own racing section there's a hidden race in section two where they can sit there and
bullshit about rules or how to build water you know that kind of stuff so really again it's really
just trying to help build up the entire community help them the best between and so you've got you
got a whole section of swag you've got a calendar on there you've got groups where you've got several
of the larger groups that probably I would assume like black hills for example like they just use
this for there is that is is they use this as their primary method of communication and you know
yeah yeah there's there's a lot of local clubs that have reached out to put their own form on here
there so I can pick an admin on there and give him access to allow people just into their forms
so they can allow paid members in there however they want to manage it that's basically
so they can manage their local groups so and there's just some like a like southeast i-rates so that's
a lot of people maybe down by where you guys are who talk about getting out we have one just for
the weekend and and share like that so they post up them there well aren't most people in the
southeast i-rates I mean I feel like that's just like the the way it is over there
yeah no no no come on you you've you've traveled enough we are the worst
most impolite people in the country who's sweet southern California have you have you ever seen
that what do you mean you people yeah have you seen that us people have you seen that graph
of this the United States it's got the four corners and it's like in the Pacific Northwest and
in the Northwest it's they act like they like you secretly hate you or whatever or no act like they like
act like they like you and really do like you in uh in the northeast like New York and New
Jersey they act like they hate you but they actually really like you in the southwest for four
days they act like they hate you because they really hate you and in California we pretend to like
you but really hate you it's like yeah I think the most accurate thing I saw like uh comparatively
was like New Yorkers versus Californians and New Yorkers will like if you're broken down on the
side of the road they'll talk to you like what the fuck did you do what a fucking mind but they'll
help you yes yes in California you're broken out of the side of the road oh my god I feel so
bad for you it's horrible but we help you that's an accurate cause we wouldn't even stop yeah
you wouldn't tell you 100% it's we just posted on Instagram yep this guy totally ruined my
from New York and it's now it's now an hour and 12 minutes instead of the hour eight that
ways told me it was gonna be um so what what's next I got I feel like I feel like you guys you know
you made the switch you built this up you've been maintaining it over time it's grown a community
you you clearly have a community of people that are actively participating in this where do you
see the site going next and what kind of things are you trying to do going from here?
I think uh I think probably one of the next biggest things when Apple gets its thumb out of the
task and they update their operating system is uh and not to get too nerdy with the shit but it's
it's called push notifications so you can basically take the site I've got the site built where you
can install it you guys are laughing on it are you can take the site install it as an app on your home
and then it will receive notifications in times somebody replies to your posts or send you a
PM or any of that kind of stuff so uh I think that's gonna be huge especially with a lot of the
people that love like uh Instagram and Facebook for for that very reason yeah but it's always that
Instagram application that comes back uh from those meet those uh post places whenever somebody likes
your posts it's just fucking impossible to follow build on there so I think once that once that
comes around from that operating system it'll help a lot so is there is there a mobile app for it now?
We had one before but it didn't work quite as well and we were using the browser instead
so uh Android already allows you to do that so of course they do because they don't treat you
like a three year old they know that you're you're a smarter person than that if you're using an
Android device and they can trust you to be able to use it without helping without having to go
to a Mac bar for a genius to help you that's all I'm just saying right Apple's just being
greedy and lying in their pockets but making you do I really that surprises this shit I mean like
that is news to me nobody else no comment
bro you're the only one who has a great fucking bubble knowing all right I love I love your
one plus that that operates on team yeah no one plus it's a mobile it's a mobile it used to be
changing it's not in business anymore but it's probably with the other one like a cricket
boost mobile with what's got it correct the coating's over here on his pedestal again yeah
I'm sorry uh mint mobile oh dude it's because you're in the right I would totally I looked at it man
I almost switched to mint I mean he's dreamy he is dreamy so the the mobile apps that push notification
anything else what are there what are there maybe less technical things are are you looking
forward to building out on the site we got two two things uh the uh our part counter and our swag
store or getting a huge overhaul right now I kind of that's one thing and the only thing I didn't
drastically underestimated when I was launching this and so many people would want swag and
what a pain in the ass of it I don't know if you guys know you guys this oh yeah it's so tired people
they get a trail cheezor stuff nobody we have a shot nobody wants I think we're trying to pay people to wear
yeah nobody wants a shirt no nobody wants a shirt no nobody wants a head like shaking
really yeah we got we got new stores rolling out and the cool shit is it's going to be
available for all the vendors as well so like stay on trail guys if you guys if you guys
end up hopping on there you'll be able to throw your swag up in there and being able to control
the background I can you know all that money goes straight through you doesn't touch me at all
same way with with those guys in the membership so looking forward to offering that not just
shows like yourself also like the race team but I got a bunch of swag from the guys I
support very KLH and be awesome to let them throw that up there somewhere so that holy
kind of a platform where we're getting ready to roll out to be pretty huge that's awesome and I
got to imagine that there's as you roll those out there's going to be more
back-end moderation required I know I know you're you're not doing all of it like how many
back-end moderation you know I do you saw me shaking my head I was like so many anybody want
who's the person you're back-end moderation not back-end manipulation and very different
but sometimes you got a moderator in the back-end too you know then I agree look back-end
masturbation that's your whatever so how many how many people are who's back-end yes how many
people are actively helping you keep this thing going I think we have later nine moderators right now
so they're on their they're on their quite frequently so that like I said the community
doesn't amazing job can't place themselves and the second they find something there's a little
report button they click it and whether or not we're on or not moderators get some kind of a little
pop-up to go there and check out whatever they have to do that's interesting because up so going
back to and again I'm not I wasn't very active on pirate but I do remember that part of the thing
with pirate was the the debauchery the the things the things getting getting at a hand right it seems
like that'd be a natural thing for you it would um I'm curious to know your thoughts on if what was
your username I just did I do not know I'm curious to know if you think that little kid
over yeah yeah I'm a member one the uh or two is it is it do you think that the original so
these guys are losing their shit so I'm I'm going to I'm gonna equate it to the first marriage so
in the first marriage it was a complete catastrophe but you're not a dark but you learn
our calling of the wrong things to stop please stop first marriage everybody everybody
work on ten dark spades you're leading us there you're driving this ship right into the pit
of the spade nobody should follow me into the battery okay I'm sorry your reference you were referencing
the battery and that's a work yes I'm sorry I'm perfect I'm saying everybody should have a first
marriage because you're gonna fuck it up right you just be and then the second marriage is what
you get it right is there is there any validity to the fact that pirate because of the experience
that users had on the first round that change their perspective coming here and go whoa you don't
we don't we don't want to this can get out of hand quick if we're not paying attention let's do a
better job uh some of that but you know what I I don't it's not my job the change can change the
community it from who we were I am I'm not trying to change that no I'm I'm just worried
if you think it had an impact if if you do you think that that that that experience had an impact
on this one it does quite a bit and it's hard to get through so we've been getting a lot of
numbers that have come back that were run off after the after was sold so in the big thing is hey
I used to be able to post you know my girlfriends tips or whatever on there and now we got to move
that to the private forum where's that or where I find it I'm not seeing the private forum
and if in the chat bar you can share a link drop a link somewhere there's only 19 of us in
there this week but it might pump up next week if you go back and form was that yeah so
I mean that that was the thing back in the big of a front top end yeah the front top end right
there's a forum for that there's a but no back in the day that stuff was okay you know
10 15 years ago now they can't get you can't do that otherwise whoever that was you're
girlfriend times gonna find it and you're asking them to be in trouble time shit so
it's I think the way the times have changed has uh has been kind of hard for some people to
kind of sucked on there but stupid chicks that's Matt that trail chase me
send me a complaint please shut I take my emails but every one of the pictures complaining about
yeah you're good you're very good there's uh there's some interesting stuff on the
chit chat section I haven't gotten to your your girlfriend's boobs yet but uh there's I mean
10 from 10 years you're working way up yeah it's from 10 years you know it's a 10 year old
comment you know it's first it's it's his wife now and now he's the one going can you do
me a favor it's kind of disrespectful how my wife's boobs up there uh he drinks and I spoke
her yeah she she just found out about this from 2012 I was just bragging to the guys
how great your boobs were and so I shared them sorry they're not great things they're not great anymore
yeah that's funny that's funny that's from some time they were amazing oh perfect post post
your sex toys 35% off so again there's a little bit of everything for everybody here um I got to
imagine that that this is a lot of effort on your on your part like it just keep in this going it
was a ton of effort to get it going and keeping it going it can't be easy and I mean there's what
we say over 6,000 people here that kind of uh on their behalf thank you for doing this I mean it's
one of those things that like um you know as a community we're always looking for places to connect
and whether that you social media or forums or whatever but having the ability to to find
like minded people with a commonality that want to have a good time and go off-roading and share
their experiences and I think one of the things that that forums has been always been great for
is helping people figure out how to do things I got a question I'm going to go to the experts
I'm going to find the people that have done it before and get some good information um so I mean that's
commendable that you're able to pull that off and you've been able to keep it going for
I mean as an e-son owner that's all you're going to get any information from this forums there's
there's nothing official anywhere you know it's just forums I know let me see what's on the
Nissan board is this yeah no the second one it's a Nissan not a Ford I don't know what that is
poor man's Toyota that's on there
2000 frontier beater I mean there's uh there's all kinds of stuff on here for you front here people
as uh they're all beaters I mean they're not you beat him you beat him well they keep going because
you can yeah but again that that's like going back to that man that's the the Nissan community
in the off-road world has been underserved by for a long time and here's a place where you can go
right if you've got a unimog or a frontier or something here's a place you can go to find people
either in your area find people to wheel with find people they can help you with your questions I mean
this is a great resource for anybody that's trying to you know either get into stay into or
assist people in this community right it's it's definitely different than uh so forums that
all there were this forums back in the day and social media came around and people jumped on
the new hotness there and uh understandably it was pretty cool and uh but one of the biggest
things that that they don't offer that forums do is firstly like we kind of joked about it's
a pain they asked if I'll build bread or anything like that on Instagram or anything like that
but another big thing is everybody's taking their their posts there and sharing information which
is awesome but that stuff doesn't show up and search in and so my pirate pirate today still gets
a shitload of traffic which is why that company bought it they put like 20 something ads on a page
which is why they wanted that's their only reason they wanted that and so people are like I still
I still went on pirate and that's because everybody jumped shipped from forums and went to social
media none of that stuff for the last you know 10 years or so is in search engine so um this kind of
this uh forum itself does land in the search engines and it makes it a lot easier to start finding
any of the kind of tech that you're looking for when you're working on your rigs that's that's a
great point that's something I think about like how to how to xyz you're not going to find it on
Instagram or Facebook or or you know especially because I hate Facebook and I'm not I do never
I go on on there and do not fight enough people like in my life regular I got to fight people on
internet you know yeah there's there's a there's a there's a there's a definite advantage to that
when people are trying to find information on on on their build or their their problem or that kind of
I didn't think about that about the like when you search on it you're you're not going to
find an Instagram as soon as to me like I don't know how would I know that you know all right
imagine you know that uh the forums back in the day like they don't cut show up in a search engines
what's the search engine yeah yeah yeah yeah for it's I think Google that sounds stupid
yes I mean we're the lakers used to play yes it's a great western form the great western
forms very familiar it's a poor yeah it's huge it's a huge thing and not so we also if if you're
a racer on the homes and you let us know about it and if he's sponsor you we also let you put
your uh your sponsor's ads on your posts so if you're getting sponsored by King or King Shocks
or whoever it is you can put them in there so so it's just another piece you they can go offer
you know whoever it is if they're trying to get parts from just so they can get out there
but then do what I want to do you know be racing so anyway we can help them we do that
I don't know if this is too too corny to read this but I'm going to let's call you guys
absolutely go on look look it this is where corn comes to die like this is this is corn
I would say this is where corn comes to thrive not this is that this is the corn hub that is
corn hub is that where you go it's just for people in Nebraska more like a special
of you know right now Nebraska you should try in other ways sounds like corn hub they're one
letter away you're almost there how do you know that's not exactly what I'm looking for
I don't know what I don't know look at that corn hub it's
I mean look I mean look I've got my work for us
I use a different computer you have a map search for that stuff at my house when he's sitting here
in my house anything I computer anything in question right here is where he waits
so he shows up with a list of this I might be naive but I've never said that he shows up with a list
of his notes after he's like upper decker what is that exactly I'm sorry awesome what was
well you're going here you're caught you're quarantined touching based on how effective the
the search engines are for your build and more importantly for these for these guys that are building
race rigs I had one of the guys that we we help sponsor a little bit I'm not gonna say his name
anything because he's some of the sort of private message but I'll read it real quick because maybe
already didn't know it maybe you do but you've got some pretty big eyeballs watching stuff on here
Fox Fox corporate tire co Falcon shocks since posting that thread he's got a build thread on here
because I've had more people reach out to me which I've never had happened before to offer sponsorship
like more than I can handle because I want to thank you personally first of all let you know
whatever you're doing is working oh things are good on your end but you're definitely doing something right
I'm being thanked for using that form format for a build thread instead of the
logarithm based social media so congrats and again thank you for giving us a home to do such a thing
that's right there that's I mean first first first time I read that tiny bit of allergies that
he I mean it that shit so it's awesome that these guys are using this to help build their rigs
and that's a thousand percent what I want it's validates the form you know it's like you know what
I'm I'm gonna go here for like real advice other than a social media based
place I was just so me because I think we've all on the various social media platforms we've all
seen where there's an account that you're like how does that personally have two thousand followers
and other ones where you're like how does that person have twenty thousand followers like you
know whatever whatever the black magic is happening in the background to make those things
it there could be someone with really really solid information doing a great build with a
fantastic story behind it that will never ever be found on any of the social media platforms
because it just doesn't feed correctly it just doesn't it doesn't resonate for some reason
whereas somebody like some of those companies you mentioned that's looking for it I want to find
a guy and our girl and they go on these forms and they're like wow the way they're building
that suspension and the I can see that they have some knowledge of it now I feel good about reaching
out to this person and it's a story that that I want to tell that maybe never could ever
bubble up to the top of the you know that the viral social media platform yeah right so yeah so
that thing and it's kind of another thing that's on our list to do is to really help these guys
get their own analytics to help track that stuff because as much as that is I mean we can see that
that's helping these guys build their rigs it's the unfortunate part is when they when these guys
go out to you know seek some sponsorship or whatever one of the companies first questions is how
many followers do you have on Instagram then how many do you have on but we don't do Facebook
that much but they be care about this platform or this platform and so that's kind of the
uphill barrel battle that we've been fighting with for a little bit but it's awesome to see that
starting to come around once those those marketing people on their own are able to use the
search engine and find share so thank you guys so I think it's awesome man it's a it's a whole
other aspect of of this kind of of you know platform that I didn't think about and you know I got
to believe at least from my limited experience that there's a more and you guys are gonna bomb
me for this but a more intimate connection with people on this type of a platform where it's it's
back and forth interactions answering questions for each other as opposed to a scrolling through
Instagram and all like I know that person and but it like so that's the that's how you differentiate
like from a Facebook to Instagram type of situation where you're looking for information but now
this seems like a much more valid and tested means for for you know if you're looking for builder
whatever you know how do you how do you how do you get that out to the people like hey you know
and if you don't go to Facebook if you're looking at a builder something yeah I don't know but
the thing it's very obvious you know the advantages of I rate 4 by 4 opposed to you know
social media like social media it's such a it's like a it's like a slow you know where you're
like there's a bunch of shit coming down if somebody's flushing a fucking door and it's a shit
sleez that's you're sitting there you're the one going through the shit you know with your
fucking screen and like maybe you can't something good but it's mostly crap you know I don't think
anyone's like fishing for likes on a forum you know what I mean they're they're genuinely there
because they want to share information right and that's true and I think like a conversation
they're not just like how many likes can I get off of this can I just uh putting it in a chalk you know
right just say the shit sleuth is playing Coachella right here if I just want to make sure
that uh hashtag shit sleuth sleuth uh that's mine you know what he's meant to he's
opening up for them is it it's a shit sleuth like a slow-up sled or a shit sleuth because I
shit sleuth would have to do some mistakes it's that's a shitty job it's both of them both of them
I mean they're not saying good they're not saying good they're not saying good but so
going back to that though I agree and I feel like for me I feel like um social media is more
of a past time where it's a uh it's just a uh take your mind off of something and you want to see
pretty pretty objects as you're scrolling through whereas the forum is way more uh active it's way more
I need to go find some information and I'm going to then um interact with it as opposed to just
double tapping for for like um you took to comment uh CJ varn do on the it's Jason varn do
okay oh shit hey Jason uh forums are crowdsourced libraries without them we'd still be
thumbing through greased up pages of old manuals chiltons and you know whatever that's a boy
all those oh he said greased up I just made the assumption that it was one
oh that's exactly what you're working on uh you got to be there pulling the heads on
something and your hands are all greasy it's just pulling the head that's my grease
oh this is like that's not great oh my gosh but I still great comment that is that is what it is
look dude I uh we've been going back and forth trying to get you on here thank you for uh uh not
impeding on our ability to keep our wipes happy last week I'd valentize day because that was a problem
but this is this is you've built something here that I think um is very commendable and is validated
by the amount of traffic and the uh interactions that you've had with people and it's say uh I'm super
I'm super impressed I'm very glad that we got the chance to connect because we've had some background
conversations about some stuff that I definitely want to continue having with you about kind of how
how this this fits into what we're trying to do and um you've done an amazing thing here dude
I mean you should really it you probably have too much work to like stop and sit back and look at it
for a minute but from an outsider's perspective looking at the amount of content and connection
and interaction and community you've built here um kudos dude very very cool yeah thanks
I'm glad everybody liked it and they moved over so that was uh that was the most
technicalist so I'm glad uh glad everybody's using it and the uh the old gangs pulled together so
the speaker. Awesome well uh everybody if you haven't already go uh login to i-rate
4x4 set up an account um we will uh we'll start figuring out how to use that to our benefit uh
going forward and um we didn't tell you to not hang up but we're gonna say goodbye for the night
don't hang up on the call just a minute and um but I really do appreciate you coming on the show
telling us your story it's been really fun talking to you yeah absolutely thanks for having me there
all right thanks man thanks Austin all right thank you to Austin for joining us that was uh
awesome conversation looking forward to spending some more time at i-rate 4x4 for sure uh you know
especially because i'm on a tight and swat my uh frontier yeah just trying to pick up some tips and
tricks yeah uh it's probably there um so we went to hammers just blew right through yeah we
didn't even know i saw i mean it was like like next week and that or no no uh just being on
sometimes in the future uh he's he's not gonna do it you know you know um the uh uh counter-wise
winded uh winded so it's the 21st so when was when was our weekend trip to hammers with two weeks ago
two weeks two weeks ago well we can have yeah so uh weeks yeah two weeks we went out um
Jose and Matt bailed uh because they're well those are slow and then and then we'll tell it
we'll tell the story about how we we ran into Matt um but i was uh semi-leuser i i forgot to tell you
Cody when i was airing up at boon road on that saturday morning even i hear gooooooooh look how the
highlights joke you know it's funny he was in town yeah he he he was busy with work whatever but
he was headed to go do um burn town up to kickback yeah and he while he was up in big bear he got me on
his ham radio i was talking to him i was talking to him while we were in Johnson Valley he sent me a link
to where he was he was on the inside of the world practically yeah um so we all i want to go through
your step i step i am i am i am i'm just trying to i'm trying to write the names of people there
because i i didn't write him down earlier so i uh myself Casey um Casey's wife Susan duty driven
mark mark from yellow wheeling shy Nicole and Scott all came out at some point for the weekend
we went out Wednesday nights ended up camping at our traditional camping site although i think we
found a better spot for next year um that was Wednesday Thursday Casey showed up everybody started
um we decided to go wheeling and we actually we didn't really wheeled did we we we we kind of
went and saw there was a spot to watch the races not sure if the hammers you're wheeled yeah yeah
you know true like we we didn't take i five over to ours yeah you any area you know so we went
over and watched some races uh at a fairly close spot and then side by side races yeah and then went
to a different area where we could see him coming down this hill and we had lunch uh and set there
and and well it was shy it was shy shy is one said let's go over here well yeah so i said so
what's in that can't have that and follow you i will say that i i didn't have a lot planned
i didn't have trails mapped out and a shy did an amazing job of just like taking the lead
and a lot of cases i was like yeah we'll follow you um so we we were we were at a spot watching
some races and there were some rangers there on um not four rangers but park rangers
on dirt bikes and everybody was talking to them and they took off and went down this trail and
up and over this hill and uh we'd seen a couple of vehicles go that way and shy was like hey let's
go see what's over there and i'm like sure and so we get we get up and over and this is now
the afternoon it's now like when i clock at this point we get we get going we get up and over there's
a good uh hard turn on a hill climb that's off camera a little bit and we get a couple spots
and of course shy is driving and for those of you that don't know shy and haven't wheeled with shy
picture picture like perfection yes like picture just he's like a four runner that is perfect
very unassuming like you wouldn't think it's built up but it takes the perfect climb it's like a
NASA built four runner with hover capabilities whenever it's necessary it's a cool calm
collect like a demeanor do he has he says he's a chef I don't buy it I don't buy it
at the base of this hill and then shy went up and then he was stopping it was going on shy is
like oh I'm just picking my line and then yeah and then and then you get over there and you're like
there's no line there's no line put line did he pick how's he over there so he so shy went
and the trail was it was fun it was it was fun it was everybody was doing and it was good
and then we got to a spot where it was like okay you know how you get to the spots in a trail and
you're like you can physically see the end of the trail where it dumps onto the flat desert
and it's 200 yards away 100 yards it's not far like I can walk there but god damn it I'm not
going to be able to drive there is it was like it was like it veered off and we're like Casey
shy and we're like oh there's no I ran that most of that trail because Cody was down stacking rocks
I had to drive my truck down he'll run up get Cody or drive Cody's truck down run up get my truck
drive it down it was it was always trucked out of the right drive my truck down it was one of the
trails that we've done to the point where shy made it through but as I was guiding shy down I was
also chucking rocks and like oh shit he's gonna fall off of that and we got to figure this out so
I had to build up some spots we got shy through and then and then did you come through
that you came through next you came through but Nicole Nicole came that's right so and then I took
your truck no I drove my truck down you brought it down and yeah and then but it was it took it took
several hours to get five vehicles through there yeah but it a 200 feet yes it was it was less than
100 yards and then we got all of the vehicles down a Scott Wolfesteg wasn't with us he doesn't have
anymore he now has a Dodge Ram 3500 quad cab long bed it is why it is it is the queen
effing Mary this thing is so big so we get all of them down at the same print on the back
yeah it looks like the top of a trash can it's like so tiny so we had to that truck and while we're
doing that there was a group of 34 yeah I don't want to use the word douche bag I was trying to
think of something else there was another group that was like what are you guys doing and they so
this one guy brand new raptor decides to squeeze into our into our arch our group and just come through
and I swear that there was about five guys going left turn right turn do this do that and
and Casey and I steps to back and we're like just let that all shot I was trying to
guide him at first for his buddy showed up and she said hey yeah he's like no no that's there deal
let them do it you don't be responsible for that I said yeah you're right I it was it was very I
very much thought that that raptor wasn't going to make it one point I thought it was going to get
cock-eyed and stuck between two rocks so it finally got through but that's that gives you an
idea of how bad it was and then he has a raptor had had problems going through I mean you know
I don't know whatever and then so we got to the point where it was Casey was about to uh he was
on the radio with Mark doody driven and he was like all right man what do you want to do in
Casey and I both got on the radio were like do not hesitate to turn around like I I don't know
I had a plan I was like I think I can get you through this this is how we're going to have the
attack with he said I think I'm going to turn around yes you're truck I I'm already at the bottom I don't
care what if you what you want so so I'll tell you one thing I ain't coming back up to help you
out of there yes yes you did so I ended up hiking for freaking miles with Mark because we had to
turn around okay okay but look I'm eight years older than you and I'm way more broken so um so
confirmed and confirmed we got we got Mark turned around and there were a couple there were quite a few
spots where I was out walking in front trying to guide him through and then we we made it back down to
the other side of the hill and then took the long way around to get back to where our trucks were
my point like it was a non-planned let's see what's over here type of trail and it ended it
being super challenging super fun and took like three four hours and by the time we were done it was like
everybody was that people were like where we're doing that we're going back to camp that's exactly
what we're doing I'm going back to camp I'm having a cocktail and I'm done for the night and that's
what we did we went back it was obviously coldy shit because it's always cold out there for this trip
and we we hung out by the campfire and I was in bed super early that night no wait you stayed up
oh that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right it's a lemon a clock that's right
it was the first night I was up late for some reason but I did I did tell you that I have a power
pack now and I have a new electric blanket a 110 volt electric blanket I'm going to do a whole
conversation about this later we should talk I win I win oh yeah Casey okay we'll talk about Casey's
in a minute but but my my power pack and electric blanket super duper dialed in like it'll run
for eight hours at even at medium temperature on the electric blanket I was warm and comfortable
all night long that is like the the way to go from now on at least in my mind Casey's going to
argue that his toxic fumes spewing into his face is the right way to go I had the electric blanket
underneath us and then I had the diesel heater on low dude that just seems too fucking hot
yeah I mean it was cold yeah but it wasn't as cold as it was last year I slept in my
chonies with just like just a blanket yeah so dry I mean I didn't need in the past I've slept
out there with you know the thermals the pants you don't even you don't even take your jacket off
when you claim in the bed you still have your beanie on I was just in I think maybe some pajama pants
and a t-shirt like it was still I was totally comfortable in my tongue and everything
straight up I had just I I woke up the next morning it was like fuck you guys are it I
wait it was it Casey's Casey's diesel heater is very cool Casey how much diesel fuel did you use each night
um it's a five liter tank it probably used like half uh how many how many cups is that yeah like
can you Americanize that you know five you know how many you go whenever one and three quarter
bald Eagles okay all right not seems fair so how much did you bring for the week for the entire weekend
three times more than I need so less than a five gallon tank so you'd use less okay
so I brought so that the actual fuel tank for it is five liters um I feel that up and then I brought an
additional I probably brought an extra five liters again how many freedom units is that thank you
I love the thank you day walk I want to say I want to say the 10 liters is equal to like a
roto packs um I'm trying to I'm trying to picture it in the yeah it's an American
I'm trying to picture it in soda in soda bottles so how about how how many how much is a soda
bottle it's a beer right like whatever that's a two liter speaking like an American price
I think that the 10 10 meter one that I have is equivalent to like a two and a half gallon
roto packs no uh and Mark wants to point out that by like half a gallon of diesel in one night
uh Mark wants to point out that the physical activities in your tent was probably what kept you warm
more than anything so it was the first weekend trip that they didn't have the baby with them
and we were all warned we were all warned that it was going to be that they did do the park far away
from the rest of the campus. We were almost caught on fire. We had a lot of friction
there was dry uh we were speloking um so that you so you're happy you're happy with it would you do
anything different with your uh diesel heater? I'd probably turn the heater blanket lower because
they had it on high and then turn the diesel heater like way up because I think that'll help
with conserving the power on the power back. So those diesel heaters on high they go through a lot
more diesel like like I can't imagine it on high. He had it on like low and it was like yeah those things
hot and a significant amount of volume out of that hose right? That's right. I mean Casey
Casey's hose was delivering it was delivering more volume than I could consume at one time
it was and you know I what something on my on my blanket I had my blanket set it at three it's
got it from one to six I had it set right in the middle and it used I'd say 75% if the battery
pack was fully charged it would use 75% for the night um I can't and I was warm I can't imagine
that the blanket on high plus the heater I'd be too hot to sleep. No it was nice dude you know there's
so many comments coming up in the chat room deck. For whatever reason my keyboard doesn't work
to mine. But God it's like it's like I've been muzzled or whatever. This is so awesome Casey's wife
is in there and she's confirming that the volume is is sufficient as as a kudos to you. It was up
until a couple weeks ago fighting the the volume needed yeah it was a task of hand it was I I'd be
willing to bet that today on whoa on whoa I'd be willing to do it today. His volume is significantly
less than it was six months ago um but the uh did the remote because you had a remote on that thing
right okay I didn't I didn't even use the remote I just I put it on I started I do you see I was on low
is it possible to put a thermostat on that thing so you can you can put a thermostat inside the
tent and skate I want to keep it at 64 degrees you could take the remote like the control panel
and extend the wires and you could put that in the tent and put it on like a thermostat mode
and then tell it I wanted to be 60 degrees whatever um that's just I wanted to just have it all
house permanent I know that if I'm using it is because it's cold to shit and I rather wake up
ago wow it's kind of fucking hot in here then like this fucking thing isn't working right you know like
why is it smell so fucking there you know like it's like I'm like sex and candy in there the whole time
I'm I'm just like sex and Miller like that smells yeah do I'm all in on the piece later
interesting I I I would like to try it but I don't I mean that that's usually the coldest trip
when we do when we do hammers they all seem like the coldest trip and and I feel like uh don't
do that don't blow in the microphone I think it was colder when we went after Christmas
yes I agree or before Christmas or early in December it was colder I agreed but my like
the the comfort I had with just the blanket seemed like more than enough and it was a way simpler
setup so you know I wasn't able to participate in you know testing my gear on that Titan Pack
but I did what I got I got my my fridge and the Titan Pack I right out to get just plugged the fridge
into the Titan Pack it ran that fridge for three days oh yeah three days that's pretty random yeah
yeah well I want to do a full ride up on the the Iron Man Titan Pack because we we got the opportunity
to use those um what do you have that big set you map 35 degrees that's what I put it to three days yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah so that so that was the Nali trip but Nali Trail was on Thursday Friday we
had originally plan on doing rattlesnake canyon um but because we had the two larger vehicles with
us and everybody was pretty well good with the trip on Thursday Mark had done it before yeah um
but we just we just got showed up Thursday night as well as Mark from yellow wheel in yeah just
so yeah so we but Mark duty driven has done that trail in his giant ass truck he has I don't
think he had 37 yet the first time he didn't the second time he did but either way it's like you
feel that it's got whoever else and go hey man this guy's already done it so take the damage or
not like you better you should do it no everybody was comfortable with not doing it after the after
so we ended up just kind of tooling around and going to different chocolate thunder we went to the
back side of chocolate thunder we went to a couple different places to watch the race and we haven't
done that in a while it's been it's been a while since we spent the day just focusing on the race
just paying attention to the race exactly and it was cool it was we we watched some dumbass people
try to do dumbass things and get stuck we sat and had lunch that's a blast yeah I love that yeah
it's all the cool spots watch the race watch other people tool it around doing things we ended up in
some gigantic frickin sand dunes and then I mean that was it for the day right and then we just
kind of we went back to the camp site Casey went and did Casey for a while with a meeting up with
another group entertaining people um I heard stories yeah we were not guys Casey you were gone
by the time I got there on Saturday yeah so Casey took oh yeah yeah I had to take off that was
fine so we that that we were originally planning on staying till Sunday and I think with it being a
small group we got enough wheeling in in a couple days and it was coldest shit everybody was like
by Friday night everybody was like I'm good I'm good let's just wake up in the morning
break down camp and hang around for the day and then go home and we ended up
we ended up breaking down camp and instead of we didn't go we went towards the integral trying
so rather than the way we've tried to go in the past because usually I'm talking about Saturday when
we met a set of yeah okay so typically on Sunday after the race is over we will head out the
opposite direction because then there's it's not closing anymore you can go past the course
so we're like we can't do that because it's Saturday the race is actually going on and so we went
out towards the giant rock in the integral trying area when he used yeah and um shy was leading
and uh he gets on the radio and he's like looks like mats here and I'm like no that truck is moving
way too slow for it to be met and sure shit mat showed up after after after because I had text
mat on Friday and I was like hey just because you talked about possibly coming out just a heads up
we're all gonna come home on Saturday like everybody's ready to go and you're like should I come out
I'm like I don't even know what time we're leaving it maybe early maybe late I'm just giving you the
heads up and so you just made the decision to drive outside in the morning yeah Saturday morning
well I made that decision on Friday afternoon it was like you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna try
make it out on Saturday and go wheeling or at least get something done on Saturday we had a crane
lift on Friday night it's like one of the things I don't have to participate in but it's encouraged
and it's like as a you know leader or whatever hey guys do it you go out there with your pom-poms
and like yeah you're doing a great job so I didn't get back home to like one 30 in the morning
Friday or Saturday morning or whatever but earlier in the evening whatever I'd call the buddy
of mine and I hadn't seen that this is like a lifetime friend I grew up with and a few weeks back
he's like dude I hear you go for wheeling and you have a podcast yeah Matthew I do do you want to
oh I I have a I just bought a 2010 explorer for wheel drive and I just want to screw around in
or whatever next time you go for wheeling and so my mind I was like oh shit that was a few weeks ago
this would be like a perfect thing like let's just my idea was come in like we do like a few
miles short of the entry boom road yep it's just dirt there's some sand so you kind of need
it's beneficial to have for wheel drive you don't necessarily have to have it but he's got a stock
explorer 2010 on stock wheels everything and well you know what I want to do this tomorrow I
want to sit at home all day and let's see if we can catch up with the group so I met him up in the
high desert like 7 am we hit the turnoff short of boom road wheel through hammer town and I'm like
this is hammer-tounded this is like don't stop don't roll down the window don't don't make
content with anybody just keep moving you know there's a lot of dust and flashing lights or whatever and
we went wheel right through there and then we got up to you know our our typical campsite
you guys were already gone it was like 10 15 10 30 in the morning you guys were already packed up
and left so we got out and the Olaf group was still there and I'm like hey this is like where we
typically camp and I was just explaining like how we normally do things and I'm like well they apparently
have already left so I'm like okay well I don't know really how comfortable you are we on that stock
explorer but there's that wedge or that little valley that sandy dunia area that's more of a
direct route down into like chocolate thunder or hammer town whatever and I told them we're not going
up to to this location because it's that's difficult you know it's very soft you got a curing
momentum and you know it's beneficial to have some kind of upgrade to your vehicle but coming down
you could probably do it I don't want to commit to you because it's just me and a bunch of
tie you know tow ropes if you get stuck but if you want to go check it out I think you go through
let's let's both of us drive down to the entry point you can jump in my truck and what we all
through there and I'll show you what it's like so literally we went up there and I hit that doom you
know and I hit a couple figure eights in there and then we came wheeling out and boom there you guys
were like right next to a truck like you guys were waiting on us it was it was weird yeah it was very
and you said you tried to reach out and for like all of us had spotted a text you yeah we all had
spotty receptions so sometimes it worked and sometimes any guys had changed the radio frequency
changed the radio frequency because when we first got there we were talking and they were using
that frequency for race recovery so we didn't want to be jerks and step on it so at that at that
point I was like oh well shit we got enough vehicles here and there's a wench and whatever we'll
we'll get you out of here I'm not worried about me getting you out of here so at that point the rest of
the day as a group we will to the back side of chocolate thunder and you know hit up a giant rock went to
in Tegrotron I blew a ton of money in and talk in Tegrotron again because a lot of those
excuse me they started was very beloved shoes lip signs of course they yeah those are still there
but they've stepped up their swag game it seemed like the the shop had a lot of better stuff
this year so I'll be there next year again to blow another hundred dollars on stupid eggs
yeah it's gonna get to every year because all you got to do is like put a UFO like on a hat and I'm
like fucking hey I got to have I have to have that and you know this is how simple it is at my
house as I just have to show the hat I don't even have to like explain how much it was
money will just go yeah yeah yeah those those one of the fighters could do it quadruple the price
like oh this is $200 that fuck I don't know here's my $200 I got to have that hat like that's
how simple I am but yeah we did hit the that was the end of the day but it was still like a lot
of fun my buddy got to four wheel actually four wheel his his rig and he's you know the funny
thing was any we're speaking about it briefly like don't get too tied into this like old ass
explore like I don't know number one zero fucking parts yeah like you need to like get some bigger wheels
and get that rig off the ground I was just googling he just fucking just sell that thing and buy
clapped out to you know that's or gb vm just just okay let's not get to it yeah
all right I think it's all uh independent all four corners that yeah I think it's an
opinion either way was like fine yeah I think it was fun getting him out there and then just
get rid of it yeah kind of showing I'm like dude I'm up with it enough time and money that
shit you can make that shit a fucking ultra four race car. One hundred percent I'm glad I checked
the chat room I was gonna say the one half mark yeah commented on Rasputin Rasputin was there
and I look everybody I google Rasputin but he he made an appearance in a league of
legends or whatever that last movie with extraordinary gentlemen yes yes he's in that movie and we
saw him at the integrity and we also saw the lady that killed the grinch yeah I actually took pictures
of the lady that killed the grinch but but you know what no that that yes that was impressive too but
this motherfucker was Rasputin the way the guy walked around he's shredded like you can't
keep me never heard the name but no this is the guy he's like a Russian hologarker no he's not a
old guy he's like a medic he's not a medicine man but man yes like a witch doctor oh yeah yeah yeah
yeah and the way that he walked around it was it was like yeah you can't kill me I'm untouchable
he was exactly they're dude walked around there was some there was some interesting people
at the integrity on this year this year it was that the integrity on was going off because
we were there on a saturday I think so that's maybe what no we were there saturday last time
yeah no no it was popping it was going off on on a lot of love she was lip signs yes yes
and I'll tell you that that guy the way it the way he was dressed like the way he moved you
yeah like I was a little jealous like man the guy's got so much confidence like
you guys have to be like I was unkillable yeah like because the first thing you see is like
oh this fucking asshole fuck this dude like the way he's dressed tell him the way he was dressed the way
something well no I I pretty got he doesn't listen but the guy was just
so pompous and like the his presence or what he had a presence he did he not have a presence he did
yeah it was almost like get the fuck out of what are you doing here fucking redneck
I was like I don't know what I'm doing here Rasputin but anyhow so that was that was the end of
our day's exploration yeah and I'm really glad that we met up with you guys because it just kind of
opened the one thing you I don't want to see tape for granted but you know there is like strength
in numbers especially when you're four wheeling and and I knew for going against Rasputin
got no we wouldn't have stood a chance dude if you know anything where Rasputin like four
five trucks were the people and to confirm we are our fucking mouths shut around him what I'm talking
about having some familiarity with the terrain where we were wheeling and I had like a newbie you know
with me and I and I very stock vehicle well I had to try and think like you know it's a yeah
can we have a few things I don't know but once we had more vehicles it's like oh well at least
somebody can go get help or at least you know we have enough vehicles to like tap to like chain
or way out of here or whatever so did did he have fun did he is somebody wants to do it
100% he was like dude now I had a blast next time we next time you go out please let me know
which was the following weekend which was the best weekend that's right you guys did I met up
I met up with Jose and Tam and Dave and Joey for their calico camping trip but just me and
Johnny went out for for the day just the day and I'm very glad that I did not have math
you my buddy come out on that you would have been fine over those rocks yeah you would have been
all right please do you guys get any good count because the the one or two times that I've been in
the calico I was in a Jeep and I remember it being pretty gnarly there was a 50 point turn yeah it took
it's fucking forever to get to it took somebody in a Jeep a gladiator 25 minutes to go through one turn
that took me a minute and it helped you guys do I think it's like tin can Allie
okay we're going to have to pull that up next week and talk about it in more detail yeah but
two 12 traitors actually went wheeling can you believe in what
that's a new record for it is and I was at both it's crazy
what I don't think we have easy goes plan that's the worst about finishing up a trip you're
like what's next I get well we're about to get we got snowmageddon rolling in yeah well
yeah you know so snowy in this coming Sunday me and Jose we're talking tell Jose how we were talking
what are we talking about god damn don't do it or do it I'll do it I don't even know what you're talking
about behind the trail oh yeah behind the trail when Memorial Week it's bad yeah
enemy is bad we're doing for a good one I'm telling you the way I'm sure you got it I
won't I will not be doing and I have a tent no no look we have easy it everybody has a
good things now everybody has an honor no everybody has refrigerator absolutely not it would be a different
experience like 100% it's not going to be hot this year what about like a month earlier it's next weekend
mommy trails now we have to do it and it has to be good it won't be good because you guys will be
there complaining the whole time why not a one month earlier the beginning of me the end of April
beginning of May next week yeah yeah two weeks from now we're talking about it's freaking the
middle of February look it it was a memorial weekend staple for a lot of years and there was one
bad year which now we're also having to be the biggest of year like attendance wise yeah the green
there was a lot of people no one there was a lot of people there are a lot of trauma yes
it was coming yeah it was it was bad look we'll just we'll get our farmers on all
I'm looking at it right now look at the trends for and so on average oh this is for some reason
okay here on average it's saying that the high for May is 83 in in 2023 or
it's 2021 it was 21 and and 2021 doesn't have me it shows that the the high in May see it says
90 this isn't correct this isn't so wait it was 148 degrees there when we were there
Memorial Day weekend I'm quite literally when we were crossing the like by the travel is
bonnet yeah my truck had 118 yeah yeah yeah like not not an exaggerate I was exaggerate
put it this there was a 24 radius from the campfire to the nearest yes and it was no need for campfire
other than light yeah let's just put all our flashlights together yeah um one of those
Amish made fire like fake fireplaces yeah yeah I don't know we can have that conversation I just
were we're having it what doing it maybe well mid April do it for my birthday
I was just looking at that I said Google calendar had Easter Monday no one gets Easter Monday I
found no I haven't even a cold but I don't so it wouldn't it that's weird you don't get
Easter Easter is always on a Sunday so no it never goes um Nicole's saying end of March
and yeah one nineteen mark is a confirming one nineteen it was it was ball's hot it was
ridiculous hot yeah let's just do the end of April like the first weekend of May
how about we should do it Memorial Day I mean everybody has the time uh
nice long right everybody we're gonna go ahead and uh I'm because I'm traumatized by your anger
from last time you guys were all me that was that was not anger uh towards you it was just no I
I'm misery typically remember you being angry at me for planning at that weekend no we don't
that's dumb we know he's done Memorial weekend we need to hire someone to go get the freaking oasis campsite
yes at razor road yes and just hold it down it will be there in two days you go get it
yeah with all the trees and chill yeah well trees yeah the oasis campground and and we've talked
about a way to do this where uh you know we split up and have yeah I'm not I'm not opposed to
it's like we're talking about nine months that we're gonna do this come on we're kidding we're
brought to the dance guys we're neglecting our you know all the good times you know there's
isn't anybody doesn't anybody want to go to Mojave to do Mojave again send us uh send us some messages
on uh that's code that's something I don't know if anybody wants to do that again yeah Nicole says let's
just drop off Jose frontier to hold that's not a bad idea Nicole you know we we go in running
he's not using it she is calling you out yeah that's okay if you don't fire if you don't
use it you lose it also we had enough people could have just pushed those fucking people in that
camp and just said this is ours now what was in that camp though we need to recruit Rasbutin
if we had Rasbutin yeah he's walking there and just wave from off and they would leave
all right well we will we'll figure it out I that's always been a really fun trip it's good for
for families and you know and friends family's in friends so I'm down
all right well there's three three out of four Cody who down who oh that the three of us
against you I didn't I didn't yeah I guess I did say no yeah you were uh opposed but
secretly I've had conversations with Jose we have a lot of secret conversations feel like
I feel like there's like some mutiny there's some mutiny it's not mutiny it's not mutiny
if you agree it is different it is different like there's a lot we have a lot more gear
we're a lot more prepared for something like that yeah we were all prepared for that last
but if we did it if we did it even an April I would buy a bucket fan like just one of those
home depot bucket fans because I have enough uh 20 volt batteries and I just had a fan you know that
we can sit around or whatever and and utilize remember remember on that trip I didn't have
the rooftop tent yet remember that trip I had the king size air mattress I had a small two
person Amazon tent and I had a king size air mattress once you put the air mattress in and blow it
up you couldn't get it back out like what you could bear with it it was 18 inches like it was
18 inches thick air mattress so you had like a 12 inch window to crawl in and out of the tent it was so
dumb it was the dumb and I remember I just I air the air down the mattress and just folded it all
together and threw it in the back of the truck yeah I was a dick I parked I parked right next to Cody
and like I just opened my tailgate and pulled out my chair and said watch it took him an hour to
fucking unpack everything it was the worst and he was just looking at me every time he said you mother
fuck here's the worst all right I think I think we need to flip the narrative flip the script on
my hobby trail like it's been enough time it's been a couple years now it it's scar does bad but
it was it was a scar but you know what we just one year off yeah and you get back on that horse
and you if any fucking ride that thing or you know whatever if the bohavi trails or horse
we got to ride that horse again and have another a half a good time because we had numerous trips
that were a blast and then there were there were epic there were do we saw like the invasion
fleet from space you know like on that trip there was a lot of great things to make oh yeah it's around
there was let's not forget to get the yes exactly like the crazy dudes that were you know running
down from the moon the desert like what the fuck is that there's also the guy in the on the trail
that set out like Jason you know from Michael Myers Mike my out Mike Myers that came out on the
tram was like what's up you know and I'm a Josec keep driving the Jason's right behind you you know
that was all good times you know we got to bring that back around if if listeners are interested
connect with us on one of the emails just social media or something it's shy yeah it's like the
sure all right let's do it let us know if we want to do more hobby this year all right well it is
830 do we want to do more hobby in like two months yes I mean honestly we could do more hobby tomorrow
we've got 68 maps of more of you like we know exactly where to start an end you know it there's
really not much set up to do it so it's not it's not that difficult I'll think all right we're good
we will let you know if that's gonna happen thank you to everybody that joined us at hammers
and it was a really good time and it was a small group a bunch of people dropped off but it
didn't be in a really good time I am very tired for some reason and I will I will check in with you
or we will all talk to you guys next week
thank you for listening and if you want to be on the show please leave us a voice message at
951394 dirt thank you to Iron Man 4 by 4 America please go to Iron Man 4 by 4 America and get
everything you need for your next adventure thank you to Ryan Tarigno for all of the music
and thank you to our patrons for all of their support

Ep 258: OVRLND Campers

Welcome to the Trail Chaser's podcast.
This episode is brought to you by Iron Man 4 by 4 America.
Iron Man 4 by 4 is the ultimate Overland lifestyle brand.
They offer everything from suspension and recovery equipment to armor and camping gear.
They're truly a one-stop shop for all your outdoor needs.
You should go to Iron Man 4 by 4.com.
I'm excuse me, go to Iron Man 4 by 4america.com to get geared up for your next adventure.
Today on the show, we talked to Jay Welman with Overland Campers.
There's no valves in that.
That's OVR, L&D.
Just if you're looking up on Instagram, we talked about Jay, how he came up with his design,
and then we go over some of the options, his bed-mounted campers can provide.
Pretty cool stuff.
Then I'm not sure if you guys noticed during the interview, and I didn't want to scare
KC at the time, but they're seem to be like a ghostly cat, and it's butt right behind
him.
Again, I was like fearing for him, a little bit, like, oh my god, I don't know if he knows
that there's cats I asked, like, right behind his head.
But I think we might finally have that paranormal proof that Tammy and Nicole have been looking
for.
Oh my god, I think they're actually Tammy and Nicole are actually going on like some ghost
hunter event.
I would start a KC's cabin, KC's house right now, making it my fluke meat.
I hope they were the fluke meater for sure.
I'm going to make a prediction.
They're not going to find any ghosts.
That cat is like my Pokemon.
Hey everybody, it is Tuesday night at 6.30, we are live on YouTube as we are on Tuesday
nights, most Tuesday nights and most the time at 6.30 ish.
We are joined tonight by Jay Welman from Overland Campers.
How are you doing tonight, man?
Oh, good.
Yeah, just warming up here.
Good.
Thank you for joining us.
So if you guys haven't already, go check out Overland Campers on Instagram, OVR, L-N-D campers.
There's a YouTube page, same Overland campers, and then their website is campoverland.com.
I'm digging the OVR, L-N-D because I really feel like as a society, we don't need
vows.
We should just eliminate those.
It's too much work and I'll tell you who you don't have time.
Every company I ever talked to or anyone I tell my email to needs vows.
It is a horrible decision to name the company that and I regret it.
And yeah, I get OV-E-R-L-N-D, I get OVR-L-A-M-D, it doesn't go well.
Yeah, I can imagine that say, because phonetically, it makes perfect sense.
But when you're trying to explain it to someone, you probably have to spell it every single
time.
Scarbator Roger Lansnanci-Jurrow.
I never learned all of the military things, so I'd be like, Roger Biff.
Yeah, Roger Biff.
No, I'd be like, OVR's valedictorian Ranshee.
OVR's.
OVR's, right?
There's, there's no ones I say are wrong, but Nancy Drew goes together now.
Where are you at right now?
We're in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Okay.
Are you a flagstaff native?
Did you go up there?
No, I'm from Denver, Colorado, and then I did the oil rig deal after college.
I went to CU Boulder, and when overseas, and then when I came back to the states, I lived
in the camp for a couple of years, and here we are.
I had a buddy that went there, so Benton, if you're listening, you've got a fellow
CU guy that did oil things.
He did oil things too, and then ended up as an engineer someplace, so yeah, that's what
always happens.
So how long have you been in Flagstaff?
This is going on year eight, I think.
Yeah, we were living out of a camper, and the mountain biking is really good, and I was
on fun employment from the state of Wyoming, so I told people I was a state sponsored
mountain bike rider for Wyoming, and I was in Wyoming's unemployment, and my wife got a
job at that country guiding in the canyon, and I was mountain biking, and then I was
forced to get a job at some point, so tell me more about this fun employment thing,
like how do I get signed up for that?
Yeah, it's when you have money in the bank, and you mountain bike or hike, and I risk it.
No, that guy.
That's rewind.
Okay, so you have no kids in the state pays you to try to get a job, which I did
after four months, so I had six months, but I got it on and four, so.
Can we rewind to like, how you get money in the bank?
Yeah, I'm out.
How do I get money there?
Oil rigs living the camper.
Okay, yeah, you have low overhead, yeah, you just like all, just a little bit of this for a
couple months, and you talk about, I'm going to need you to help explain that to
money that we're going to live in a camper, and work on the whole of it.
Dude, I'll do it.
It sounds dirty, but you know, you know, I probably can't do that, so I think you
guys, you guys at the best case scenario, you're going to live in a van down by the river.
Like, that's, you're not going to get here in a camper.
Swading for somebody to step to that.
Is oil rig life anything like they portrayed on Armageddon?
Oh, that's talking about, on a deep water horizon, no, no, that, no, that, no, tell me
this guy's not old enough to not know what Armageddon is.
It has been a joke on a comet.
I don't think it would be like that.
No, I'm talking about the oil rig life that it portrayed.
Will it ask you to drill on the comet and to go home with his daughter?
I would, I would do it.
Okay.
Yeah, I think, I think, one of the same page, I think, one of the same
page.
Yes.
Are all oil drilling company owners?
Do they all have hot daughters?
Did it turn off?
No.
No.
It was, they're all of the interesting time, like, so you're all on this man camp.
Like, I was in Wyoming on land and you're all on this rig living together in these
conacts and you're all like, who's going to Walmart tonight?
Who's getting the food tonight, you know?
Oh, I'd go.
Or who?
So it's one of those things where you don't really see or hear anything, you just hear
stories and or like Buffalo Wildlings, like when are we going to Buffalo Wildlings?
That was the deal.
Even though I've never eaten their sense, but.
Hmm.
How long, so, so you eight years ago with Flagstaff, how long ago before you, well, let's
go back, that you say you're living in the camper, the type of camper you were living
in, what was it?
It was, I don't know if you guys have heard out of Spokane, Washington, but this company
used to exist, called Roman Chariot, and it was the OG wedge.
So it competed with four real camper.
It was the four real camper slide in, essentially.
Yeah.
You know, wedge from the front, it was vertical walls, single pivot on the front, and
then it had this like had some gas threats to help it up, but then it had this bar that
you would jam in the place in the rear, that would hold the whole thing up and spin them.
Yeah, just probably shy of two years in that.
Wow.
So we're talking about a cab over camper with the canvas wedge pop up.
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
I'm looking at an image of it up here on the screen.
Yeah.
And selling those for like 3,500 bucks.
That was a sad.
I cheap.
That one that was on that was 20,000.
That was 20,000.
20,000.
So I picked it up off the sky and Cody Wyoming, he owned a gun shop, rode over on the
Harley.
We built like a case.
So it fit my truck.
Cause it was off the full four grand drive to Canyon at the time.
And it was great.
Yeah, they were selling for 3,500, and they went under in 2008 during that recession.
So, and how long did you guys live in that camper?
I just tried two years.
My now wife, you know, joined me for like the last six months, and then we did about
two to three months in Flagstaff out of that before we decided we were sick of sharing
at the Little American.
It was time to not brush our teeth in the Starbucks every morning.
Yeah.
Because that's not, I mean, Van Life is one thing, you know, getting the school bus
and living out of that is one thing.
That's very small court.
You're essentially camping every day for you.
Years.
Yeah, it was very tight in there.
You had your bucket system.
We had our cook bucket, our winter gear bucket, our clothing bucket, and like our cooler.
And that was the game.
I'm going to tell you right now.
I think it's here like, rest from bugging you don't want to confuse it.
I want to confuse it.
I want to confuse that little American talk about that reason.
I'm going to tell you right now that, uh, Jane is wife, have the single strongest bond
of any married couple in a history of the world.
Yeah.
They made it, yeah.
Because out to my wife is the sweetest, most easygoing person in the world.
There's no effing way.
She would spend two years in a camper with me.
No effing way.
So, Kudos to you guys, you need to start a marriage counseling business on the side
to get people through tough time.
Because I think that's a test.
You just gave a couple of that.
Yeah, I am.
Here's a camper.
Go ahead.
I'm in tight court.
Yeah.
How did that happen?
How did that happen?
How did that happen?
I don't know.
It was, uh, I mean, it was on an oil rig, met her working on an oil rig.
And I was like, I'm living, I, this is how I live.
Obviously, I have my parents in one place, like, I can hang out there.
But she just was like super into it.
So, it's like, I'm imagining, like, in the man of steel, the movie, where Henry
Cavill, he worked on an oil rig and he was all, like, muscular and stuff.
And that's probably how Jay looked at that time.
And she couldn't resist.
It was like, uh, she, he could have said, look, I live in a foxhole.
Why don't you come, stay with me, she's like, 100%.
This is the nicest foxhole I've ever been in.
You know, so who knows to you, Jay?
Okay.
So, yeah, we're done.
So, two years in the Roman chariot, um, and what years were that from?
Oh, 2015, no, 2014, to 2016, yeah, somewhere in there.
And then I have to assume that that experience was part of the foundation for starting
overland campers.
It was, uh, yeah, I hate the wedge.
Really?
Oh, yeah, I was just like, you know, I hate this thing.
I want the four wheel camper with none other side story.
So, 2015, the GMC Canyon Colorado came out.
I don't know if you guys know anything recently of the Colorado GMC warranties, but they
will void a warranty if you wrote a camper in the back.
What?
What?
Really?
On GMC Colour, canyons, and Chevy Colorado, as it says, in the manual, this is not meant
for sliding campers, even though they market towards that group.
And like, when you buy a track, you expect to do that.
The whole deal is, is now they don't do it.
And I, I don't think it wasn't, I'm pretty sure it was not in my 2015 manual that
it said that, because that was the first year it came out.
Yeah.
And I bet my rear axle blew my front rear diff with that camper in there.
And I could have opened them a lot of it, but I was, you know, on an oil rig like, well,
I just take your time to fix this and, uh, but now they've made these changes where, you
know, you see the bad beds of like people offroading in those with caboers.
Yeah, Chevy's, Chevy's are not viable platforms for offroad vehicles.
I've, I've made that very clear on my position, but they are though, but they're not.
They are, they're, they're, they're not.
Chevy's, it's just a, Chevy's, it's a brodozer and, yeah, you got to put a radar sticker
on the back.
Like that's the only thing a Chevy is good for is carrying radar stickers.
All right.
It's a Chevy sticker.
It's a Chevy sticker.
Or a mural of a guy fighting in dragon, right?
Oh, one of them.
You know, that, that would have extended your warranty.
He had you done that.
Um, is that?
It doesn't matter.
Because, uh, just really quick, I saw a guy, this is like a 2004, 2005 Silverado.
It was red.
I was going to work one day in 2009, and this guy had a mural of his Chevy on the tailgate,
fighting a dragon like the dragon's real fire and shit at it.
And I took a picture of it.
I was so excited.
I swear to God, six months ago, I saw that truck again.
14 years later, still on the road, still wheeling, still has that mural.
So, you know, that's I'm saying, like, if you have a Chevy, put some kind of mural on it.
Yeah, you got a 100%.
You got to Aztec warrior that shit.
If you get Aztec warrior with like his high enough, you know, like his chick.
And then it's usually like holding something like, uh, you know, a gold spear.
It's usually the truck itself running away from the cops.
Okay.
All right.
I'm sorry.
So, got, I hope you still don't own a Chevy.
Do you?
Uh, I don't.
Oh, yes, good.
I feel, I would have felt bad.
Now we're really going to start trashing Chevys.
Well, the news, please, too.
You look at the new Colorado's coming out and the whole thing is like,
work truck, they've got the work truck, you know, bottom line.
And they're all short beds now.
The Colorado and Canyon are only coming on the short bed.
Yep.
So, then you see our two Colorado looks pretty badass.
Yeah, the new has.
It does.
The new should look like a camper platform is the way to go.
Yeah, and the, the Chevy Colorado looks awesome.
Uh, we have a friend Cory that has a fully built out, uh,
uh, bison, uh, zero, two bison.
It's amazing.
I still, if you gave it to me for free, I'd sell it for something else.
All right.
All right, Ford.
Yeah, I bought.
Uh, Ford.
Um, so, what are you driving now?
Uh, we have the Tacoma Gen 3 because of, I mean, marketing.
It's the standard of the market, essentially, for our industry.
Yes.
And we've got a RAM 2500 as well.
Okay, as far as our trucks go.
And a super forestry can't forget that one.
Oh, how family?
How, uh, how do you fit that camper on this Subaru?
Stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
To talk to you by for us, for sure.
Yeah.
You in a stretch?

Yeah.
Um, so in, uh, 2016, you stop living in the camper.
And at that point, we just like, I spent two years of my life in a camper.
And there's got to be a better way.
And I can design a better way.
And that probably, I can imagine like, the wheels are turning in your head constantly.
And you can't stop thinking about it.
And now you're drawing it and walk me through that.
Like, what led you from getting out of the camper to where you're right now?
So, it, you know, I really hated the wedge.
And I wanted what I wanted.
And it took, I was kind of toying with different ideas for about two years of just different designs
and that I really liked and, you know, functionality.
I, functionality in my mind is everything.
Like, you get a camper because you want to camp.
And a lot of camping is minimizing the campground shuffle.
And so like, just maximizing space for what you're given, essentially.
So that was kind of my like, what I wanted.
And then that kind of just like went down to, hey, let's put something together finally.
And so I'm tinkering with all these ideas, drawings.
And then I finally like, we were finally able to just afford a house.
Oh, I worked a couple more jobs in between.
I flew out to the east coast and did CNC tube bending engineering.
And that like got me into some kind of different thought processes on manufacturing.
And then I became super depressed doing that because I lived on the east coast.
But flew back here every week.
Yeah.
And then I did solar here and through that solar, I was able to, you know,
for the house here, got a house and finally out of garage space.
I was like, all right, let's do this.
So I bought a well there, watched a bunch of YouTube.
Wearing how to weld.
And started building design one, which was, I built one side of this thing.
And I was like, oh, this thing looks like shit.
This would not work.
Um, well, so you weren't had a well from YouTube.
So I mean, that's what happens in aluminum welding too.
It's not like I was working in manufacturing job here in town that had a resource.
They had a professional welder there.
So I was able to kind of like show my welds and be like, oh, do I need to work on this?
So I, you know, through that, I learned about all the different techniques and really
dialing in that process.
But then it just became all the drawings.
And no matter how many times I drew it in CAD or, you know, on paper and look at it,
it was more just like hands on.
I need to build this.
I want to build this and iterative processing through that.
And then I started with the second one that I, the, the first one I ever built,
which was the first one I ever built was just a side wall, you know, as proof of concept
of my welding skills.
And then the second one was the full thing, which is still on the road.
Some guy named Jay and his dad's name Jay has it.
In Colorado.
And, you know, then it was just this iterative process of dialing in that day.
Of what I really wanted and perfecting that.
And it turns out, you know, now we have a company doing exactly that.
And how long, how long, when did you, first of all, how long was that iterative process to get to
watching YouTube to completing the first prototype?
It took me from, oh, so my goal was, I convinced the solar company because we're in
Flagstaff, over the next pose in Flagstaff, I convinced the solar company, oh,
we should try to sell some solar, you know, I make sense like,
these people, I love that team.
And I was like, oh, let me park, I want to park a camper out there.
And so I had some like boost space and I started, I think, in December and had the functioning
prototype slash one that's still on the road, haven't heard from them in May for that expel.
That's pretty quick, man.
Yeah, in 2018.
So that would have been expo, Flagstaff, 2021.
Jose, it only took me six months for my rock sliders.
Yeah, so it took Matt six months to build up rock sliders real quick.
I, I, we're talking about earlier.
Are you said you don't like the wedge thought?
What, what don't you like about the wedge style pop up?
I mean, they're cool, but you don't have to hold that.
No, no, no, no.
Tell me how you really do.
Talk to you.
I need to know.
I think they're, I think like, so the deal is, it's like, back to that concept of,
if you want to camp, obviously the wedge has its time in the place.
Like fast pop up, whatever.
Like if you want to stesify your Chevy Colorado, go for it.
Stesify.
These are fine.
If you want to like drive the, you know, just like be cool on the street and maybe use it to camp occasionally.
Maybe.
How for?
You know, you know what I'm saying?
Like it's an accessory to like your lifestyle.
Again, but there's a tow box with two people.
You're just fighting over space.
Like in this wedge, you can imagine this.
So it's like this.
Yeah.
And there's a tow box.
And so you're, you're, you're having to pull the bed halfway out for someone to like,
be up against that while someone's cooking when you're just imagining yourself,
hey, if this wasn't a tow box, like you could be sitting up there,
hanging out reading a book, and I would have this whole space.
To be cooking on that rainy day.
Obviously, like when you're camping, you want to be outside.
Yeah, you cannot take it hanging out.
But, you know, shit happens, and it's cold or snowy or whatever.
So hold on real quick.
I think I just found the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Oh, yeah, dude.
On your website, you've got the white O.J. Bronco with one of your papers on it.
I freaking love that.
So that's pretty sweet.
That's a one-off or a customer out in New Jersey.
Uh, it took us a couple months to build that.
I don't think I will ever build another one.
If you might think of that, we just have a jim one for runner that we built one on as well.
Yeah, I see that one too, dude, or customer.
That thing came out really nice.
So the Bronco, awful.
I don't know what the engineers were thinking.
But with that cap, it has these, I can't help visualise this.
But that angle for the cap comes off that angle.
Yeah.
In this angle has its own radius.
Yes, that's different than the inner radius.
And so you're meeting all these three different radiuses of different dimensions.
And you're like, what is going on here?
I think they were just like, oh, we can build fiberglass.
Like, it's super cool.
Whereas the full runner, it's like, oh, hey, guys, this thing is a 16th of in square.
It comes off square.
Yeah.
And full square.
Oh, the flooring is just over the truck.
They literally, yeah, right.
The flooring are they literally took a block of wood
and slashed it with two pieces of knife and go, yeah,
that's your forerunner, like the Toyota engineers are like,
we don't bend it unless we need to bend it.
Like that's, they don't, it's so simple.
Okay, so May of 2018, you go to Ovalandx Bowen Flagstaff
with your camper and you're there with your solar company.
And were you talking to people about the camper
engaging their interest?
Yeah, so it was kind of the big three came out at the time.
It was, you know, this is everyone's first kind of drop show.
It was go fast.
Me and vagabond outdoors with the driftor.
And so we were like the first three out there.
And we all took different paths into this market.
Yeah.
And so it was one of those things where I presented what I wanted in this market
and I had some really solid interest.
It wasn't, you know, the product we make now is like
dialed in my mind.
Super dialed that one was, you know, me and my garage.
And we had this one, these, this couple of customers come up
and really they came back three times and they really loved it.
And they actually made, they were like convinced me
because we really only accompanied, well, there's a couple more that do it.
But now that do the barn door halves, so rather than a flip up.
Yeah, you've got these barn doors that open up the back and they're like,
we want this, but we want it this way.
And you have to do it with these barn door halves.
And so, you know, where the initial prototype was just a flip up.
And so that got me thinking into that.
And then they bought one and what took us, you know, that first,
those first campers took us like six weeks each the build.
And you're still building my house, right?
This is how it went.
Yes, in eight thousand square foot garage with 20 people.
So, wow.
So, then at that point, were you, did you just call the solar company and say,
come and get your shit at the, at the expo?
Or like, like, how did you make that transition?
We're in house.
So, I'm working with solar company, my whole goal with this.
I grew up with that.
So, going back to Taco Bell, I'm a Wendy's guy.
I never met a Wendy's elders in the form.
I don't know.
Wendy's is where you stop because there's no
in and out or a whole junior available.
But we don't, we don't have it in and out here.
We've got to Carl's junior.
But the four for four is okay.
This is my dad.
This is a little segue into my family.
Okay.

Have a little bit of this company.
The four for four, you guys know what that is.
And it's now the big, you bag for five.
That's how inflation's real.
You know, it's four, big, you bag for five.
It's a value.
You get, you know, the chicken sandwich that the chicken nugget,
if you want, and the fries.
And I'm telling my dad about this and he's just like,
what?
This is unbelievable.
And then my, him and my mom went down in five
after visiting us and went to get a four for four
and they split it.
Yeah.
Now, you can get two.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like that.
Dude, come on, you can get two.
It's eight dollars and forty four cents after tax.
You can do that.
He's like, no, we split it.
The value's insane.
And so back to that, my whole childhood has been raised
like, do not go into debt.
Like, debt is the demon.
Yeah.
And so starting this whole thing, I've done it all that free.
And so back to that, I was working the solar job.
After building the third one alone, I had like this mental breakdown
of like, I'll never build another one of these.
I'm like, drunk, crying to my dad like,
oh, I can't build a camper.
And so we got, you know, I, we got a whole
to the sky and in Brussels.
And he started and he was working part time while I was working
it's full time solar and working on the weekends doing this.
And then he started full time over here.
I went down a part time and then finally I was full time.
But what was cool is the solar company gave us allowed me to rent
a little corner of the 4,000 square foot shop.
Wow.
So I only built the first one in my garage.
And then I had shop space.
I think 400 square foot of shop space to build the next.
I think we got probably through 30 something in that space.
That's awesome.
That is very good.
And then, so when did you, what year did you officially
file the business license?
Get the website?
So it took 15.
That was all right after that expo.
It was just boom boom boom boom.
So we got this other guy that he wanted one.
He canceled a different order from a different company because he wanted
the straight wall straight pop.
So there was two orders.
And since we were just a two-man shop, it was just,
you know, we didn't need much.
I was buying aluminum by the length essentially from this vendor.
And then it was just a slow scaling process of figuring out the tooling,
figuring out, you know, iterative manufacturing processes to make each one
we built incrementally better and faster to produce.
That's the key to everything when it comes to the manufacturing,
these kinds of things and that iterative processes.
Are you telling him how to do this job?
Yeah, I mean, no, no, no, it's just telling you.
I'm providing some insight because I don't want your insight.
I don't want it.
I have insight on this because I've been building shit.
Anyways, oh, come on, you put them up some shelves.
Anyways.
It's a equivalent.
It's like, it's a house shelter.
The house.
My point was going to be loading shelves, right?
Yeah.
They're hidden.
My point was going to be, the iterative process has exponential knock-on effects
for efficiency and cost, right?
Every time you make a small change, it gets a little bit easier and a little bit faster,
and a little bit cheaper.
And that's the key to continue.
Was that right, Jane?
Well, the main one is design, right?
So there's other people in this competition of those three,
you know, that have come out with designs and have had mass produced and had issues with their
first design because they were like, this is the way it's going to be.
We're going to make a thousand of these.
We're going to make 500 of these.
And so the best thing was a much slower approach.
It was each one is not only getting faster,
but it's at the same time getting better.
You know, solid, sound design changes that are just like,
hey, we're dialing this in.
Though these are really good and functional and still out there,
like doing their thing, you know, it was just dialing that in.
And do you, do you feel like the, you'd say earlier that you feel like the,
the current design is dialed in,
but do you feel like there's more to get out of it?
Are you still looking for the next incremental change?
Always, for sure.
Yeah, there's, there was a couple of things on my short list and still are on my short list of,
like, just time chasing vendors.
So when you go to the scale of, for instance,
large format aluminum sheeting, you can't get it.
You have to go overseas.
So, you know, there's certain things where you're just trying to get these like different materials,
the way you want them and figuring out one, the minimum order quantities is one thing.
So you have to have a bank behind you to, you know, be able to buy a thousand of these
one things that they're going to make it for you.
Yeah.
And so being in this position now, you can really knock out those shortless things of,
though it's really sound and awesome right now,
for manufacturing purposes, it just takes hours and hours and hours of researching
and trying to tie together some manufacturers to make what you want to eliminate
a three-step process and make it a one-step process.
And that I got to assume that the inflation, the scarcity of raw material and all of those
other things that have been happening over the last three years since you owe four years since you
open this, has got to have an ongoing effect on how you do your business and build your product.
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you've heard from a lot of people talking that
when COVID happened, it was like, okay, this is crazy. But, you know, the industry, I was like,
oh, what's going to happen? Our industry was super safe, it turned out, because people are like,
oh, I want to be outside. I want to get it for now, essentially. I want to spend time with my
family. I want to be outside. I want to be from everywhere, away from everyone else. So
that really worked out for us, but as far as material sourcing and stuff like that,
there were some definitely OSHIP moments where it became from like buying your one
three weeks, one month of inventory because you were safe. To now, oh, we need to buy six months.
And then as you guys have heard, that really compounded because I'm not the only company trying to
bring in six months. The person in front of me also said, I want six months in the person in the
front of them. And so it took all those lead times and just compounded them to the max.
So it was chasing a lot of different vendors initially and pulling things from other states
that I hadn't dealt with before of like raw materials and then ordering quantities,
organizing the shipping to make sure that kept moving. So it took, I mean, it was a huge
stress point for sure. And anyone in the industry can tell you that it's been insane. But now,
it's definitely love about. Yeah. And the fact that you were able to pivot and make those changes
through the course of that is got to make you feel more secure and better going forward because
you're like, hey, I made it through COVID. I made it through all, you know, the last three years,
it's figuring all the different levers to pull has got to make you feel good about the business going
forward. Certainly. Yeah, definitely. You know, you have all the things in place and not only
do you have those things in place, now you've spent, you were forced into spending the time to build
in those redundancies. So, you know, now I know the secondary suppliers, if this was first one
fails, if it ever happens again. And it's just brought in those channels. So as far as that goes much
safer. That's very cool. So the looking at the website, you've got a couple different versions of
the camper, right? So I'm looking at, uh, camper show options and matches do this. Sorry,
Matt's turn to break things in the office here. We might have a turn-o turn-o ball.
Turn-o ball going on. So you've got the three different versions. Tell me a little bit more about
like the models and what to look for if I'm going to go shopping for one of these. Yeah, so it's
pretty much just one model. Okay. And it's our camper show. And that then, you know, you start with
this premise. And we're, I would like to think we've got to be one of the most customizable
products out there. And so that's where this like it would iterative down to a broad, you know,
family tree of items you can get. And so that's where like a lot of personality comes out with
our customers. It's applications. I don't know. There's some space out stuff out there where I'm
just like, what are you even talking about? We can't do that. But because we have all these options,
like, well, do hatches, any size you want, any location, or a window placement here for your
cat, or a second one. Yeah, it's all this stuff that you personally have never thought about.
But a customer has this end-case of like, my Jerry can has to go here. Yeah, yeah, I need to hatch.
That's perfectly placed for that Jerry can right here. And then I want to own no behind that.
And so then we take, we start with our base. And so that's what separates us is we're not,
we do production. But we're very sloppy production in the sense of, we have our jigs, we have
our tooling. And within our premises, you can take that and do like, hey, I want this here,
this year, this year, this year, I want this taller, this to mention a little longer.
You know, so we get tall people. We have six, 10 customers, like six, but 10 customers,
that want to stand in their Tacoma. You know, okay, we need to build this side wall to 25
inches. And then you want extra bedding height for another of their 11 inches, you know,
to figure out these different use cases for people. Wow. So, so you're, you're doing more than
just a, okay, make 16 of these. You're just like, okay, here's the foundation. It's like one off
every single one. Yeah, I was going to say every room. Yeah, wow, that's so cool. What's the,
what's the craziest thing you've seen someone ask for?
Hmm, recently, and I got to respect the guy. And it was really, I really loved the idea, but
we had this guy that emailed us that wanted a mobile observatory in his truck bed. So,
like a telescope, observatory dome. And he wanted us to make the roof slide back or totally articulate
or remove. So, then he could stargaze and not have to have this unit on a trailer.
All right. That's because you've come out of our scope, but it's a really neat idea.
I know. I retain it. That sounds to me like the, the beginning of a terrorist. Yeah,
that's where the, yeah, where the, where the, where the, the camera shot opens up. And some
missile comes out and hits the Pentagon. Like to me, you, you dodged a bullet.
Literally and figuratively dodged a bullet with that one. Yeah, I probably was pulled
court for that. They were like, no, they were like, you didn't think something was strange about
this request. You know, we got a lot of like rain. I'm, you know, a lot of things come down
to bedding. Like, people are just like, and we're just back to that use case of like cat,
animal access, skis, surfboards. They want to keep their surfboards inside. So, we made this
taller. So, then they can put their long board atop the bed and hang out from the sea.
I want a thousand lots of solar on the roof, you know, stuff like that. I was just looking at
that. You've got the, the solar roof port to where you can just go your panels up there and plug it in.
Yeah. Yeah. So, the idea is just like, hey, we'll wire this port up top, the gland with the MC4
cables. So, if you want to tape on a panel or like mount one up there, then it's prewired back.
So, then you can plug it in the area and either you're wiring set up or whatever you want to.
That is true. And you'd mentioned it earlier about the barn door thing and I'm looking at some
of the pictures. It's pretty cool. That's super cool. The way the, like, I like the, I don't
they're all this way, but the tailgate and barn door option to where like the top half is the barn door
is that open up. That's, that's a really, I've never seen that on any other product.
Yeah. So, that's gotta be our number one selling feature just because
and once you like, if you guys are at expo stop by or in Flagstaff, just stop by because you will be
if you come to that show, but the nice thing and people don't think about is we're so used to,
I don't know how many of you lived out of a camper shell or slept in the camper shell,
but you're so used to just like crawling in in your knees on your camper shell like this all the time.
And it's so nice to be able to stand on your tailgate and then go in and not have to have
anything above you. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. The, so the way, the way all of these are set up
is this, we'll call it the solid frame and then the canvas extender and you mentioned that
that tall person, you just, you just made that canvas taller like are you? No. No, so that's always fixed.
We made the wood sidewalls taller like so that before the cab over and then we make the cab over
taller too. So another big one of our options is like making the cab over taller because you're
already breaking miles per gallon, like yeah, that point of view. So you can leave your mattress
up there, you can leave your down bedding up there, you can leave a pillow up there. So you're not,
like the whole point back to this basis of like the shuffle is like in this wedge, we have to move
shit around all the time and leaving stuff like just bringing the top down on top of your stuff
and then popping it up and it's all right there is like part of what you should want to camp
or I think. Yeah, that's why I make it that way. So I totally agree. Like even so rooftop tents,
there are certain rooftop tents where you can leave your bedding in and the clamshell comes down
and closes on it. I want to know if Jose agrees because he's the wedge guy. So look,
I, my thing is that I want to set up and break down as fast as possible. So a rooftop tent,
the wedge one was always my go to like if I were to get one. But you can't really, those are,
you can't really leave your bedding in those. Those are usually kind of two thin and you can't close,
you can't close the uh, you can't leave like your pillow in the in the swift you can in the iron
man's way if you can leave your you can leave a sleeping bag and your in your pillow and close it.
But, but then I'm like if I put this, this style, so then I start again, like if I sold my
land cruiser and then I bought one of these things like this, you can like do everything in here like
if somebody seems to put it with it or the third tent to come on you're saying. Yeah, my on my third
gen on your second gen if you had to do it get or put a capron. No, I put it on the front here on the front
here. Oh, you're going to wheel it. Yeah, no, he's not. Yeah, well, if I sell the land cruiser,
then I have to wheel something. You know, right with you guys. No, you can ride with me,
Jose. Yeah, it's breaking their shit, then you're sure. Yeah, exactly. No, but then I'm like,
man, but then if I buy one of these like pop top campers, like you have all your stores needs
met and you're like sleeping platform on top and like it's like the best of both worlds, but
I don't know, I always keep going back and forth, but then it's like all that weight, but I don't
know if it's so I was going to ask about the weight. So what's if I went bare bones on the just a base model
you could never go bare bones. What's the off start off the way? He was going to win to it.
Windows are what adds weight. So the deal with so back to like when I was designing this back to my
Ben Axel truck on that canyon, I wanted the elitist, most space functional design I could build.
And so with all we've used it's all aluminum tubing, all aluminum skins,
composites and then some wood trim, like a short bed Tacoma or a long bed Tacoma, I'll tell you,
is 275 pounds. And so that's the weight of the level we've talked to. That is the weight of the
risk of tech and the shell you're at that. And so that was the whole thing of just like,
let's make this as the light as possible. So you're not you're tapping in your payload,
sure, but to get up to that 600 to 700 pound threshold, you have 400 pounds of shit to put in there.
Which is a lot of stuff. And the or one of me. Yeah, the uh, but no matter what if you're going to go
down this path and you're going to bring your campsite with you in some fashion, whether it be
the bed cap, the rooftop tent and a bed rack or something like this, you are already,
you're adding the payload no matter what, right? So bed rack and a rooftop tent, you're at that,
I was just going to say, so I'm all right. I want to say my rooftop tent is 250 pounds without the
rack. Casey's rack that he built is 4,012 pounds. It's big, it's heavy. So I mean, built to your
specs, sir. It was built to my best. The uh, but my steel, my point is that if you're going to go
down this route, you're already adding payload and reducing your miles per gallon all this up. So
if you were going to go apples to apples, what's 275 pounds, I get this or 275 pounds and I get
twice as much space and functionality, it's a, you know, it's, you start, yeah, I start playing that out.
Like I, I'm curious to know, I'm going to see what my, what my tent, uh, what my tent actually
weighs, but I, I knew the stand is super nice. Yeah, that's that huge. Even just as being
able to sit up straight, like just out of the weather is cool. Yeah. I stand and find in my tent,
it's no problem. See, but then you're going to, you're going to take it down and put it up every
single two minutes. It's, it's a, it's a one minute time. I don't know, I've seen you do it. You're like
mother, I've been over there. You're like these zippers. Yeah, not the mylar blanket. Yeah,
you're having a table. I don't know. The mylar blankets were just a room or they didn't actually
happen. And you were too lazy to do it. You try putting a tent away when you're hung over, you know,
it's like that's a lot of fun. This thing just pop it down here good to go. Yeah, so my, my, my tent
dry. My tent bites up with 150 pounds plus the, the bed rack. I'm probably closer that 250 pound
weight. Yeah. All right. Sure. You know, so then on a full size, like if you had some windows,
they're usually about 350 or 360 each. Oh, I like for a six and how about so how about the one you
have on, I'm assuming that green Tacoma is yours, right? That gets out to 108. Okay. So that's the,
that's the way I'd want to build it out. Might Tacoma and then. Yeah. So if you went windowless,
I was able to save space and you went with the, like the rate van version. Yeah.
Yeah. We can be on the side. Exactly. You would save some weight. Yeah. But so, but this to come
this green Tacoma, that's a long bed, right? That is a long bed. So do you, do you,
can you make one for a short bed? Oh, yeah. We make tons for short bed. Bro, they had a light
short. We have four different tiers with these things on it. Really? I think someone that works
there has a frontier on with with one of these, right? We don't have a frontier. We've got
it. We build for a lot of frontiers, but there's a ton of our work. There's a Gen 2 Tacoma
long bed, my long bed. There's a short bed, Gen 2. And then there's that four runner. He was an
old employee. That's cruising around town. But yeah, on your website, there's like two or three
frontier proforex is it? Yeah. So one of those is the first customer and he's got, I think,
four hundred and some nights in it. And I mean, he just, he works that thing. He's put a heater in there.
He's, he's got time spent in that thing. Oh, so I got to get one of these now. Right,
something like that, loser. Dude, do it. Do it. He didn't get it right now. What's up?
Peak of the markets right now. I know. That's why I would have to sell now, sell sell sell. I'm sure
we can find someone in the chat room that would buy it. So what is, so what's the future? What's
the next, the next thing for for the brand and for the company? Like, where do you see or
what do you envision everything going next? I don't know. I mean, I definitely back to that
short list is got my short list of stuff that I want to implement. But it's just, you know, it's
making a product that I want. And so it's just, you know, probably just keep on doing that. Like,
we as far as the, like, critical design changes, I'd love to make, you know, a simpler process
with more attachment points on the inside that make it easier to mount stuff. So as you as a consumer,
you know, you're going to buy this shell. And the goal is to want to inflate it maybe to want to add
walls, maybe to add in slate, like a solar panel, maybe on the inside, like with all your
meters and stuff, uh, your controllers. Just make it more, at least interior-wise,
accessible to easily put key nuts in places. So yeah. And we have a unit strut runner and aluminum
unit strut runner. We used to use 80, 20, but the unit strut aluminum is, like, four pounds lighter.
And so now, Tina, it's a hardware store. If that, a lot of customers get those in more places.
So then you can tee nut a wall panel up early rapidly, but just kind of design focus around utility
more would be, you know, a long-term goal of mine. For that, yeah. The, uh, as there've been anything
that a customer has said, hey, I need this. And then you put that into production. Like,
that's a great idea. I'm going to add that to the customization list going forward.
I mean, those barn doors are the biggie for sure. Uh, other stuff is like awning channel,
you know, people like getting awning channel that marine, that marine sea channel, yeah,
that you can put the catarope through. Uh, so we hang that in some places. Um, you know,
there's, there's definitely been a myriad of things. Like, the first, there's so many forced hand
things that, you know, people want. And we do. And then other people see it. And it's like,
we call it kind of the, um, the in and out secret menu. You know, you don't know everything.
Uh, but if you mumbling the pictures of people shit, like, you're going to find something. Yeah.
And it, it, it becomes then, oh, we should start adding this. We should start adding this because
so many people want that. And so you see that like bike, that dude that mount to the bike.
Yeah, I'm looking at the barn door. Yep. That like now, you know, every four customers is like,
oh, I want to buy some of mine. Put that on my barn door. It makes sense. So there's definitely
a ton of stuff like that that we start small and then people mind pictures enough that they're like,
I want that. I want that. I want that. And then it just kind of develops into, okay, it's part of
our production now. Like you might as well just offer it. Um, I'm looking at on your Instagram page.
You've got this tundra that was flatbedded with one of your campers on back. Is that, is that
flat under a flatbed. I'm trying to coma. It's a gen 2 to coma. Yeah, flatbeded with what looks like a
badass wide custom build on top of it. Yeah. So the cool, the cool back to the coolest builds you
could do, honestly, is you buy a short bed for door to coma and you flatbed it. Yeah.
Because you get the real base, you get the four doors and then what you end up getting is the same
length as the long bed to coma and the same width as a tundra. So it becomes a sweet unit that's
way bigger than what you can build. So instead of, you know, 63 inches long, you get 77 inches long
and instead of 63 inches wide, you get 70 inches wide on it to coma short bed. Casey, we are flatbeding
my ranger. I'm watching this video. That is so cool. I tell you what, you sell you sell your land
cruiser off flatbed the ranger. All right. It looks like you're going to be getting a sauce all
today. Or may I, I mean, not, I don't know. That's, I'm really, so this is one of those stories to
me where somebody had life experience and went, no, I can do this better. I, this is something
that I want. So I'm going to build it and it goes back to that, that like, that adage that
if, if you build something for you, there's somebody else out there that's going to want it as well.
And now you've built an entire business and ecosystem and community around just like,
dammit, I'm not living in this wedge anymore. Like that, yeah, when it comes down to it. And I think
that's amazing. Like there's so many things where you could have just, I'm going to go buy something
else, but you decided to, to build it. And it's, it's become like your passion and your full-time
job. And that's super commendable. I really like that. Yeah, but he's also employed to any other
people. Yeah, it's like, it's like a whole thing now. And so going, going back, we don't know that
he doesn't still work for that solar company. That's true. Yeah. On the side. Do you guys
own the good guy? Um, the going back to that that 2019 timeframe when you were like, I'm
going to do this. This is going to happen. What would you do differently that what do you know
now that would cause you to do something differently then? Oh, if I knew what the product was now,
I'd do that. I would take out that loan and I'd go hard. Yeah. But no, it's, it's, you
learn a lot. You know, I started the business and I'm back to that mentality of like, my dad
splitting a four for four was I'm going to design the website. I'm going to, I'm going to do taxes.
I'm going to do all the payroll. I'm going to, you know, figure out all the business stuff. So if
I get, you know, just, I think go back and take an actual business class to like limit and mitigate
that stress of like running a freaking business. It is not the easiest thing. People, you know,
see this thing. It's like, oh, business. You should, I want a business and it's like, oh, there's
any side. So many things. I can go. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My day is at five. Yeah. Can't beat that dude.
And there's, there's so many, there's so many aspects above and beyond just making the product
that if you don't know or have guidance, you're just beating your head against it until you
figure it out. And then you're like, oh, that's so easy. I wish I would have known that six
months ago. Right. Oh, for sure. There's so many things like that where it's just like,
and every time that some, you know, something comes up, you're just like in two months,
it'll be fine. It's like, you will have learned from this and you can only grow and then
you forget and you grew from that. So what, what advice would you give someone that is think that
that's got the next cool product that's not a direct competitor yours, obviously? That was like,
hey, I'm really thinking about starting a business and making this thing. What would you tell them?
I would tell them that the world of manufacturing resources and the energy of some people
and some positions that you could call like, I think when I started the company, I was just like,
I need to figure this out. I need to do this and be able to understand like 3m, for example,
you can call 3m and if you talk to them enough, like, all those salespeople are X engineers for
3m and they want to help you use their product. And so a customer that got a hold of the 3m
adhesive NASCAR engineering team, like, for just like helping them out. Yeah, it's like, oh,
I need to product information. You know, and so like the resources are out there to like,
don't feel afraid because of your size starting something to not call big manufacturers and
feel like get info from them and kind of feed into that because it's in their interest to see
a small person grow to what could become something big. And they've got tons of info. They've
years of industry experience. That's great. That's great information. That's great advice.
Going back to the 3m adhesive. I'm just, yeah, I'm going to start. I'm just going to call 3m
for ideas like, well, so I'm looking, I'm a aspiring entrepreneur. Do you guys have any ideas
and things that you could help me with? Please and thank you. Well, so today, literally that we
had this conversation today, there's a, there's a, a, a, a, a, a story kiosk that we build. And we use
this high, it's, Scotch extreme double sided tape to, uh, fix acrylic graphics to a frame.
And it works amazing. And one of the contractors that was with us today was saying that he used to
do some work with a trailer company. And they would just use that super extreme double sided tape
to hold the sheet metal onto the trailers because no one wanted rivets or screws and I didn't
have any penetration dream. And I'm like, holy shit. Yeah, that's going to be it to be. Yeah,
immediately, you're like, that's insane. It's double sided tape. But then I realized how much I
used this double sided tape. First, and I'm like, yep, I could totally see it. If you
affix that to a frame and lay that sheet across it, it's not going anywhere. It's stuck.
Yeah, what was the name of that trailer company? Because I want to avoid that place like the
way. Well, it is tricky with that stuff because like the HP is super cool stuff. Very high bond
and they have tons of products. And it really is like a temperature and cleanliness game.
And so if you apply it in, you know, sub room temperature by a little bit, the if he's
going to go way down instantly and it needs that longer care time. Or if you like didn't clean
it the proper way, he's going to go way down. So it's a really, it's really awesome stuff. But
you have to deal with it in a very like, I always deal with it in a way of like, I want mechanical
fasteners as well because you can't always like you want to trust what you're doing and what
your employees are doing at all times. But you want to rely on secondary and tertiary forms
beyond anything. Yeah, that that that tape that we use, you're right. If you don't, if it's dusty,
think about foil tape, man, going back to if foil tables, once it's stuck, it's absolutely stuck.
But when you stick it on dirty sheet metal, it doesn't stick for shit. Or sheet metal that's sweating.
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like the application actually matters, you know, when you when you
apply it. And that's what they kept telling me. But it was like, look, I don't have time for sealing
up this shit. Yeah, I got to get this shit done, you know, air don't care and air don't care.
Well, dude, I, I, I feel like, uh, don't have to sell my land cruiser now. I'm just going to say,
I feel like this is, I feel like flat that is Ranger. I know, I feel like your land
crew. Land cruiser's been holding you back, Jose. Has it chopped? Well, I don't know about
holding him back. It holds the rest of us back. Well, if we have to wait for his slow ass to get there.
I get there, though, I get there. All right. No, I do, I feel like this is just having this
conversation about the, the thought process behind why you developed it, why you started the company
and, and how you are customizing and iterating on every single one of these builds. It's like,
that's a great testament to, like, the, the, the community that you're building around this product.
And I, these pictures are awesome. If you guys haven't already done it. And I definitely see that,
like, with, I mean, I live, we work in the space and you guys know the space as well of, like,
wedges pop up. These things that become super, you know, popular from 2018. Yeah. And you can definitely
see, like, there are, and most of them are wedges. And they definitely are the wedges. Like,
and when a new company pops up, I'm like, oh, what's this new company is that a direct competitor.
Obviously, you're sweating, you know, a little bit like what's going to go on. And it's just another wedge.
And you see this and it's just like, people see that market of what is really selling. And I understand,
like, wedges are selling this shit. Like, they're pumping. It's awesome. Good for them.
But I will say, like, our customer is a really testament of that. Like, hey, I've either had one of these
wedges. A lot of the people that we get are just like, have had those now for two years and like, screw this.
Yeah, I want this. Like, I realized this now. And or we get the people that are just like,
I knew I've always wanted this. I want all this space. I want to be able to camp.
And so that's been really cool to see that customer with the super high stroke.
Just be like, this is it. And back to your like, oh, I built, you know, my idea of like, I wanted to build this.
I built that other people wanted it. And so many customers. It's like, I've been dreaming of this. And I thought I'd
building it. And then I searched it. And you're doing this.
And then you're like, yeah, don't build it. It's a giant pain in the ass. It takes forever.
It's super expensive by mine. I didn't take off my time. I could have made. I mean, look,
my dad was a TV repairman. And he's got a great set of tools. He was not a TV
repair, but I mean, any of these, you look at these cabovers and some of these flatbed
canopies and anything in this space that the teardrop trailers, there's always part of you or
at least me that's like, yeah, I can build it. My brother here is a fabricator. You know, Matt
is great with some tin snips. Jose, he gets pizza the week. It's like, I can order a video.
Lot of that. Yeah, he monitors forums for information. Exactly. But you think to yourself,
I, you know what, I could build that. I could build that. And then you look at your product and
you're like, okay, I can't build it. I could never, ever in my lifetime, make it look that good.
And two, it would take me two and a half years to with the time that I have available to me.
Yeah. To two and a half years just to get something semi functional, right? Twice the cost.
It twice the cost and the time or I could buy this and go camping next weekend. You know what I mean?
And I, I really think that a lot of people going back to your early conversation about COVID
and people getting outdoors. I think a lot of people were like, I need to do this. I need to do this now.
What's the, the path of least resistance. Let's start buying these products. And that's, you know,
that worked out well for you. Yes. Well, it's, it's, it's, I'm super impressed. I'm super impressed
with not only the product and the company, but just with your personality and the way that you're
approaching this. And I'm, I'm very glad that Jose found you and, and booked you on this show.
And I'm, I'm stoked on watching where you go next with this. Are you going to be at any of the
upcoming events? Yeah. So because flag staff, expose and flag staff and we're in flag staff,
I can drive there in five minutes. So we'll definitely be there. I'll be won't be at that one. We're
going to do Denver. We want to get well, love land again. And then we will do Pacific Northwest again
as far as the events. And then maybe a mountain bike festival or two. But, you know, the cool thing about
building a product that goes on trucks is people with trucks are out there. So if you, you know,
a lot of customers are just like, oh, I'm on your list. And I just saw one. So it's kind of just,
and it's always showing them like all our customers are the most phenomenal people in the life.
You wouldn't believe the parking lot tours I've given. I need to be on payroll.
Really. Like, I mean, I could imagine that, you know, especially like at an event or a club run
or the trail, someone sees that and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is that? Yeah, you're going to
know to me. And that's, that's got a word of mouth. It's got to be a huge part of your, of your
business. Hey, if you guys got a long-term loaner, R&D unit that you guys need offload. Let me know.
I want to see them chop the top of your, of your land cruiser. I'm put one on there. Like,
that's what you had. Oh, come on. Yeah. Like I said, if you guys got an R&D unit, long-term loaner,
you guys, I wasn't on the track. You can always borrow a Gen 3 long bed. That's the one I've got on my
end. And I can take that off. I have the track and trash it around the senders. No, I have the
2022 frontier, which is the essentially the same dimension does all the other, just your short bed. Yeah,
just short bed. It's not, it's not the same. Yeah, it's not the same. Yeah, it's that one. Well,
you've got the, so it's the new frontier. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, it's the same. It's, it's a little wider
than the Tacomas. Well, so here's another thing that we do differently is we build back
that custom thing is like, we build for the truck. Yeah. So, no, I'm saying a lot of the
midsizes won't fit. So, they actually, the Tacoma will not fit a frontier.
Tacomas and Colorado is their interchangeable. Yeah. Frontiers in its own world,
Ranger, and it's especially on-world. Of course. When you, you need to hit that level of eliteness.
Right. There's nothing else. No, but I think it's the, the new frontier. I think has the same
dimension as the old frontier. Like it does. Yeah. But yeah, my loaner wouldn't fit that as well. Yeah,
the new frontier, they like spit-shined it and just send it back out. They were like,
hey, look, it's green now. Yeah. Exactly. Well, dude, look, I, you're a lot of fun
hang out with and talk to. I hope we get the chance to connect with you at one of these festivals.
And I want, I definitely want to see the product first hand and then figure out what
I body part I need to sell to, uh, to get one because I really feel like, I mean, we've had this
goes, uh, open with this. Like we've gone back and forth, cab over trailer. Yeah, trailer.
We've talked to him. It's been a while. It's like what we got and I need one of everything. And
and one mark ten. Yeah. Yeah. But see, Matt's tried that. And he's ripped the how many
zippers. Matt has put four Walmart. You can turn it fire. You can return. Yeah. So I know you can.
Between me and Matt, it's a, yeah, the cool dozen. Yeah. First case,
you fucked up a Walmart trailer at Parker at Parker Arizona at winter expedition. They
wouldn't let him return it. Can I, can I speak to my 10 experience since we're talking about it?
I've had the same coalment tent for two years now. Yeah. But prior to that, it was like a new
10 on everyone. Yeah. That's because I spent a couple hundred bucks on a 10. If you go with a
a thirty five dollar big five special chance between you and Casey, between you and Casey,
the money I spent on 10, you could have bought one of these campers. Yeah. A hundred percent.
Jose, I'm the same truck. And you have the same truck. You could just switch off. Yeah. I'm
talking about the big five specials, you know, where you see the ad. And it's like, oh, dude,
13 dollars, you know, that's, that's, that's my shopping experience. And my budget.
Like four for four at Wendy's. It's just very much like four for four with the big
bags. Just for them. Yeah. You in case you could split it. Yeah. There's, there you go.
All right, Jay, look, man, I really appreciate you hanging out with tonight. Thank you so much for
the call. And hopefully we get to connect. If there's, if there's anything else, let us know.
Other than that, you have a great night, man. Yeah, like what? Thanks, guys.
All right, that was very cool. And I legit want one of those things. Yeah, I've been going back and forth.
Yeah, how did it look to do? That things awesome. It would be great to have for this weekend,
for Casey and I to go out to the desert to go camping. And when I say Casey, I know I mean that
Matt and Jose have decided that they do not want to hang out with us at all. Yeah. And they're going
to you guys are done. I don't blame you for not hanging out with us. I sent an email out today
to everybody and let them know that you guys wouldn't be joining. And I was like anybody that wants
to back out because Matt and Jose aren't going to be there. You're probably getting more of
I'm sorry. I totally get to the patient. Oh, am I going to stay up late? Let's need to steal
Panther with. You know, I don't know. Definitely not Cody. No, no. After the last couple of weeks
I've had dude, it's 70, 50 Scott. You know, I think I saw Scott was on that list, right? Yeah, I do that.
Scott. Yeah, um, Elon, Elon for sure. Yeah, and there's, you'll have plenty of people just
not go with it. The campfire. So you're free, isn't it, be there? You can still have them.
Joey's usually pretty late, too. Yeah. Joey stays at pretty late with you. Like, um, but yes,
that's happening. If you are, how does it feel dude, actually, I'll be doing some wheeling.
I'm pretty, I've been excited about it. You to to be in all honesty. I have it because I haven't
didn't shy at all. You have it. Well, we did the Johnson Valley pre-run and then that was a quick
overnight. Prior to that, it had been months. This is going to be a real like 4-day trip where
I can just hang out, do some wheeling, be with a bunch of fun people, like disconnect from work,
like it. It's, I'm really excited about this, this trip. It's going to be, uh, it's definitely
needed. It's definitely something I need, uh, personally, to, uh, to kind of reset and, um, I'm looking
forward to it. Um, yeah, for markets is last hurrah, right? I know. Marks, it's, uh, it is.
Marks, Marks, Marks are going to be the one staying up late with me. Yeah, that's right. Marks got,
he's got to get it all in because he's not going to get it all out. He already did that. That's
where you had an evidence position. He did it a little bit of it. Again, that's what I'm going to
try your new cap gun out there. On, uh, on, uh, on Mark. Um, yeah, it's, it's going to be fun. It's
going to be, uh, the last time we checked weather, it wasn't going to snow, right? No, did it
to be a high 40s? Yeah, it's high 40s, low 60s in the day. Um, good, like, it, uh, it didn't
be nice. It didn't be nice weather out there. So you guys have an itinerary, uh, basically or
it sounded like the, the big run was Friday. You guys are going to do that. Snake Canyon there.
That's, that's the plan right now. Yeah, is, uh, do a good, long, rattle snake Canyon trip on
on Friday with the group, um, and then Saturday kind of whatever, um, the, I'm going to, again,
I've been super busy, been minimal planning, and I haven't pulled a single box out of the garage.
I don't, I haven't gone through anything to get ready. So I got to get that done before
end of day tomorrow because I'm going to be heading out after work, um, and, and cruising. Um,
so yeah, the, the plan is to do a trip, a good wheel trip on Friday. Um, and I think that
Casey and I will figure out if that trip that we have planned makes sense, we did, it's the
same when we did last year, and, and all honesty, it was a lot of fun. It was a great trail. It was a great
trail. I don't see why we would do something different. Um, so, are you guys going to stop by the
integral child this time? I don't know. I think, I think, think about like, uh, the different stickers
they might have. Uh, there might be, well, the different tumblers are t-shirts. Yeah, my tumblers
still going strong, and I have it every day. I still wear that t-shirt. Um, the, the original plan was
rattle snake Canyon, and then to stop at the integral child before going back to camp, and we didn't
have time to do that. So we did the integral trying to second the second day, right? Yeah. I don't
want to do that again. If, if we don't, if we're not able to stop by the integral trying on Friday,
while you're out there. Yeah, I don't think we'll go all the way back down on Saturday as a separate trip.
I would, if, if I would rather just go, hey, let's go find a spot to watch the race camp, you know,
just sit down and watch some racing a little bit, take it super mellow on Saturday. Um, that, so
another thing for those that are joining us, there's been some back and forth, and I should send
an email on this, but there's some, but there's been some back and forth about whether or not we need
to buy a ticket. $75 to register $100 now to register for the event. It appears based on the
unlimited amount of research that we've done that that is for access to the hammer town proper
gated area, yeah, all that stuff. We do not intend to go into hammer town at all. So I do
not plan on buying a ticket at this point. However, be aware that we may get stopped in someone
may ask us for a ticket, and at that point we have to make a decision. How wouldn't even stop?
But I have a frontier. I have a frontier, so I can get away from pretty much anybody.
So maybe an ultra four car or two might be able to keep up, but if like, one of those, one of those
desert pegs, one of those desert pegs, tries to stop me. Good luck. Hey, don't call Mark
names. Yeah. So I get that that's just, I guess my, my disclaimer is that as of, I don't intend to
buy a ticket unless I'm forced into a position to buy a ticket. Well, I mean, yeah, I don't think
do you say not as I'd use using last year's the barometer, right? We just drove through hammer town.
We didn't spend any time in hammer town. I don't even know if we drove through it. We just kind of went
around it. But yeah, the main road isn't necessarily hammer town, you know. Yeah, no, no, we, we
yeah, my, my plan is to stay away, stay away from that area, if for the most part, and just avoid the,
the buying a ticket, if it, if it all possible. But wanted to make that a, make everybody wear that.
We, if you're going, we already got an email, the a couple days ago, while ago that showed kind of
what our itinerary is, where we're going to meet up, where our tentative campsite is. If there's
any changes on Wednesday, where we're camping and what's happening, I will, I will shoot everybody
an email slash text to let them know. We should usually, one around there, we have service
spotty in some cases, but service. So if you, if you need to text or call, you've got our contact
information in the email, call us text us. Somebody knows somebody that how to get somewhere.
Hopefully, remember that one year when Elon came out, and we were like driving around shooting
lasers and flashlights in the air drive. Yeah, that was funny. But I'm looking forward to it. I'm,
absolutely, I cannot wait. I cannot wait to get out there and just kind of disconnect and relax.
Yeah. Um, Casey, do have you decided when you're coming out?
No, it'll depend on when I finish doing all the stuff I had to do.
Hmm, do you want to talk about what you're doing for a week? No, okay.
Are you doing more than what I know you're doing? No, okay.
Just that. I said it to Jose and Matt too. Yeah. Okay. I'll think Matt, I'll think Matt
opened the message though. Um, I saw some, I saw some things. I've seen things. Okay. Okay.
Yeah, Casey's, Casey's impressive. Casey's got some stuff happening in the, in the background, that I cannot
wait. I think he's going to get some orders, basically, from once that happens. Um, Adam already
walks away. Yeah. Yeah. There's going to be, I guess that I think, I think there's going to be a
couple of custom orders for that, uh, me being one of those. Um, any, uh, I mean, I guess,
I guess we're just, we just go. I mean, it's, you know, and true trail chase or fashion,
zero prep time and just win it. What, the, the thing is like, there's, there's just,
there's a little hectic around there. Oh, there's, there's only so many hours in a day, man.
And like, uh, you know, there was a time, and you guys remember this time. Oh, where, where,
you can't tell me what I remember or not. Okay. You don't know what to say right now. I think you guys,
I think you guys remember this time where I had a job that was like a quote. If, if I, if I put
four hours of work at a day, no one knew the difference. Everything was running smoothly. Like,
I had time to do things. I don't have that job. That's no longer the case. Like, I'm not on that, uh,
uh, uh, that lane anymore. Yeah. There was a period of time where I was on a part-time schedule
with a full-time paycheck, and it was phenomenal. Uh, now I, uh, but I think, uh, I think, I think it's
fair to say, all of us has, our time has definitely had been, you know, redirected in other areas and
fucking sucks. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's, we're in that cycle where, yeah, it's like, uh, we need to get
refocused on some of the stuff that we really want to do in planning trips and, and hanging out with
our friends and, and, you know, we'll get there. Uh, it's just, uh, right now, um, just, just getting
my ass to the desert tomorrow night. That's hard enough. We'll be a huge accomplishment from my perspective,
because up until, up until noon today, I was like, okay, I don't know if I'm going to make it
out there Wednesday, or if I'm going to go on Thursday, because I got this to do, and I got that to do.
So, basically, I made that decision that I'm going Wednesday night after work.
Yeah, I don't know why I just tried to, always like, oh, we have a trip coming up. I think I'll,
I'll take on a major project. Yeah, you won't leak the floor. We're going to get three weeks
of work into, uh, four days. Yeah, it's 10 pounds of shit in a five pound bag.
What is the, what is the, what is the, uh, percentage of certainty that you're going to have
your truck ready to go tomorrow night tomorrow night? Like, it won't be right. It probably won't be
ready for me to like, leave tomorrow to go down, but it'll be probably ready for me to leave in the
morning on Thursday. Okay, so you're coming out Thursday. I mean, it depends. So Susan probably is going to come,
but I don't know if we're to come at all. Motherfucker. You're giving yourself an out.
I don't like it. Yeah, he's definitely just by his, just by his, his body language. He's not
coming out tonight. I'll be there. No, I have a baseball meeting to go to at six. I have no idea
how long that's going to taste. Oh, meetings, which means I don't know how much time I'm
able to get work on my project after work or get done during the day. So if I could squeeze everything
in, I want to come down tomorrow night. You're going to be a baseball player? Yeah.
So. All right. Well, well, so we'll see you early Thursday morning. See you Friday night.
It's close. All right. At least you're going. Super close. Yeah. Yeah. I was just going to say,
what are you talking to? You backed out for perception. It's a pretty big fucking deal. I
worked. Yeah. Yeah. And then Matt just got poop. That's the problem. He's not pooping. Yeah.
Matt's comfortable. The, the, the, the, the trip will be fun. If you, if you are, if you've already
talked to us about going, you should have gotten an email. The last, you got one today. And then
there was one prior that's gives you all the details. But I will ask for forgiveness when it comes
to planning because we're going to wing a big portion of this. And I'm trying to figure it out.
Bring firewood. Yeah. I've got a ton. And that's one of the things I got to do
after work tomorrow is I've got a ton of scrap wood. I've been saving from all the projects that I've
been doing. And I've burned and shit. Yeah. I'm going to try. I want to take a, um, what I wanted
to do, but it's not going to happen is I wanted to take some of the scrap plywood that two by fours
or plywood and make boxes and then put the, the, the wood in that so that you could just like
literally set the whole thing in the fire. Um, oh, I did make. And hopefully, hopefully this gets
marks approval. I doubt that it will though. Um, I saw a, I don't know if it was on TikTok or Pinterest
or some lame thing. But I took, I had a bucket of sawdust. And I took toilet paper rolls. I hot
glued a piece of cardboard to the bottom, filled it up with sawdust, melted a candle, and then poured
the paraphernal wax in there, and then hot glued another piece of cardboard on top for a fire starter.
So you could just set it in the bottom of the fire light it, and it's supposed to go long enough
to, uh, to get the fire going. So I made a bunch of those. It was a giant fucking mess. I think that's
a bomb. It's a giant mess. I, I told my flat by that. Yeah. I told my wife in the middle of it.
Yeah, I think, I've like, I decided that it would be easier to just buy fire starter because
that's not, I just, I'm just going to say, I just don't have one. It was like, you know what?
It's probably, you know, it was, I made eight of them. I still have half a box of the shit from
last year, the fire starter stuff. You're not going to. Yeah. Um, well, these, like a nutrition bar,
you know, yeah, it doesn't taste as good though. No, no. Uh, so we will see if they actually
start fires. The, uh, the downside is like, as you pour the, the wax into the tube, it, it, it didn't
seem like it was penetrating all the way down. So I had to, like, throw it in your life. Yes,
you look, look, that, you just need to, that much penetration. And, um, so I had to stick something
in there and stir it around as usual. And, like, poor multiple things in there. Anyways, you
get what I'm saying. Um, uh, and then, uh, and then we'll go there. Um, so that's the, uh, that's the
plan. I'm going to try to create up a bunch of wood and get everything loaded and, um, uh, I still
got to go to the grocery store and so ton of things to do before I head out. Yep. Um, and, uh,
well, I'm jealous. Hope you guys have a, have a good time. I am jealous. I'm not jealous. I'm disappointed.
I'm disappointed that you're not coming. I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed. Yeah, join the club.
So, somebody took a week off of work for vacation and, and instead, uh, spent it in the hospital.
So, great times. Uh, hey, you know, but you got to look at the bright side. Hey, help.
I'm some kind of life. That's some great insight though on your health. I'm going to be sick this week.
Exactly. Exactly. Could have happened at a better time. Um, uh, the, uh, the,
is there any chance you're going to come out at all? Um, he's going to go do that. Well, no, I'll
try and make it on Saturday. I'll see if, uh, it really depends on how things are moving moving.
Uh, yeah. Trust me. Trust me. I want to go. I'm just not there for the duration for sure.
But as far as, uh, you know, by by Saturday or, you know, maybe Friday night. I don't know. Maybe
all things all things will change. Um, but yeah, I feel like you'll be ready to come out Friday after
you know, like, fuck this. I can, I even sense it. Fuck this shit. I'm going out. You know,
we're going to do KC. There's Thursday morning. He's going to be like, you know what? We need to just
bombard him with like pictures and videos of us having a good time. The whole time. I got the
Thursday morning. I'll just, uh, he's going to be out there Thursday morning. Really? No. I think
I think there's a lunch time dinner dinner time Friday. I got Friday lunch square.
Friday lunch dinner dinner time Friday.
There. Well, we'll see. Uh, well, I'm coming. We're all going to be in
we're all going to be the desert. We're going to, what's that? Oh, my god.
You can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't.
Out of this right. I got a desert. It's, it's the frontier. Wow, fly it through the desert.
Oh, my god. It's mad. And there can be like theme music playing from his speakers. He's going to,
and he's going to pull up and he's like, out of the way, I've got a shit. Dude, I, it's happening.
I got a, I got a, I got a, I got a, I got a, I got a, I got a, I got a, I got a, I got, that is the best
story ever. For those of you that have not heard the, I got to make Kakka story, Matt tells
this story, and I'm not going to tell you here, you, it's only to be told that I can't fly. Is that
only can't fly? It's not only campfire dude, you have to go to the campfire for this story.
It is one of the funnest sort of that. I've probably heard it three times front to back, and I
cry every time I hear it. It is the best story. It's, it's the paper plate with the, with the
Colson on it, is like the best part. Is the best part, because I could see the guy, you know,
stop, stop. So good. If you ever want to hear that story, you have to come, you have to come
to the internet with us. Damn it. I want to hear that story now this weekend, Matt.
We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see.
Okay. The, uh, thank you guys for hanging out with us tonight. We appreciate it. Thank you to Jay from
Overland Campers for the interview. Sorry, guys. I will not be there. Just last minute stuff
at work. Just a job dude. It is. But it's also just rent. So. So we, I didn't realize the podcast
money wasn't paying rent. No. No. Yeah, I'd like to think the podcast insurance for last week.
You know, really came through. Can't beat that podcast insurance. podcast insurance.
Sounds like something you need to buy to keep yourself away from podcasts. Yeah, exactly to remind
you not to do it. All right. Everybody in the chat room. Thank you guys so much for hanging out
and chatting with us. We appreciate it. And we will talk to you guys next week.
Thank you for listening. And if you want to be on the show, please leave us a voice message at
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