Episode 155 - Eric Hardin - Mint 400 Trophy Truck Winner

Eric Hardin got lost in the Ocean on a Jetski and was picked up by a Cruise Ship!!!

When you talk about Motorsports and more specifically Offroad Motorsports its common to see everyone helping each other, friends on/off the track, and simply put just good people.  Eric Hardin & Jason Merrell grew up with each other and still to this day remain great friends.  The stories and things that they have learned over the years will be passed down for decades!

Transcript

Unknown: 0:07

Welcome to the dirt life show with your host, George Hamil. Yeah, yeah. Welcome to Episode 155 of the dirt life show. stoked to have you guys join us tonight it's going to be an awesome show. We have a ton of cool stuff to talk about today, man, it's gonna be really good. It's gonna be really good to to catch up with you guys a little bit after the man 400 We had tons of cool stuff that happened at the Mint 400. But today, we got your winner, and the overall winner in the trophy truck class, Eric Hardin. Thanks for having us at Hardin motorsports dude. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And thanks for being here. Yeah, it's cool, man. You got a good spot going here. And then, man. It's been a while since we've talked to Jason Merrill on the show. But fun fact, Eric, he was our first guest on the dirt life show when we started the show. What's up, Jason? What up? Dude? It's been a while but man, I'm pumped to have you back on and now we get to talk with your buddy. I know. Eric's good did. As I've been hearing from everybody. I've been thanks all your guys at the shop. Robert Cain for helped me out like just such a cool atmosphere over here at Hardin motorsports. I'm Georgie Hamill, your host of the dirt life show. We're gonna have some fun tonight. We got some cool questions to ask Eric at the end. But mainly I want to talk about some cool stuff. Man, I want to talk about life in general, right? So life can take a lot of drastic turns, for good or bad. It's how you deal with these things. These turns that push you forward and defines you. Our guest tonight has fought through some very tough times. But as always kept his sights on greatness. Never letting adversity when he is a professional off road racer now meant 400 champion gratulations. But most importantly, he's never given up. Like I said, we got Eric card in here. It's really cool man to be able to sit next to you because we have a lot of the same. I don't know what you want to call it. Perceptions of life. And I want to talk with Jason about that. Because Jason showed me a lot of stuff when I was racing with his team about how to think about certain things and put them out of the way so that you can accomplish your goals. So that's one of the subjects that I want to talk about today. And I think it's gonna be really cool. For the kids. I know a kid in Danbury is watching so it's gonna be cool to talk with all the kids and all the people that are watching as well. So let me get through the sponsors real quick and then we'll get into it. Let's see here. Thank you to everybody. I can see wheels. You can head over to your local floral parts, grab some KMC wheels and tell me the dirt life sent to you. Thank you guys at Max's tires, always helping us out. We got some pretty cool stuff. We're gonna be at the DPW for race this weekend hanging out with Jeremy McGrath, his daughters Rowan and Bergen. They're going to be racing out there. So that's going to be a fun time. It's always cool to see the kids reg boys. Absolutely. Thank you the guys over at Motul and if you gotta get your reg ready for summertime, change your oil get some old tool in there. Shock Therapy Thank you very much. You can use the code dirt life get yourself some shock therapy parts. They just came out with some new stuff for the pro our there's a bumpsteer delete kit. I feel like that's gonna be pretty cool. I want to throw that on our pro our thanks guys the JL Audio thanks guys over at evolution power sports Zoolander racing products you can easily go the dirt life grab some soldier racing products, Vision canopies, and cryo heat. Alright, so let's get into it boys. First things first. How was the man 400? Eric, it was unreal. Unreal for us for for once? Well, you raise quite a bit, right because you do more series. You do best and desert stuff sometimes. Right? And then now mint 400. We've done a couple of best in the desert races. You know, over the last few years. We did the Bluewater desert challenge, I guess shoot that was a couple years ago. Mostly we only do the mint and King of the hammers the last three years and we did San Felipe a couple years ago. Okay, a lot of that stuff like us to different trucks. Right. So Jason, we see a couple of different trucks back here. Eric, maybe give us a little bit of an understanding of what the difference is between those two trucks. Yeah, the one in the back with the body on it. That's Frankie. Nick, who who preps all the trucks and runs the shop he named it Frankenstein because when we got a years ago, it was pretty thrash and needed. It needed some love. So he had to rebuild the whole thing from from scratch. It's an ID truck and with Dave's help and I've been told but it was able to turn it into a nice truck. So it's a good pre runner and just as an LS motor in it. So we ended up going to pre racing a lot of the more races with that truck. And all reliable kinda. I mean, we ended up racing it at the California 300 Just because the course was so tight and technical, I thought a free runner would be fine for it because but it ended up blowing up the motor. So it didn't. It didn't end up working too well. So way to go was reliable up until that though. Have you ever driven a trophy truck? Jason? I've been in a lot of them. Yeah, just having a one turn a pro for really? Yeah. How was that? I was fine. Would you ever do short course or? I don't think so. I think that's a young man's game. Guys are wild. If you put Eric in there, I think he'd probably give everybody run run for their money, dude. Yeah, totally. So the mid 400 was good for you this year and use this truck. The difference between the two trucks is obviously the horsepower horsepower. Yeah, yeah. So Frankie works out good for the bigger truck doesn't have a name because it never won a real race, a big race. So we were waiting to name as we got to come up with something for but you know, it's cool. Because what do you do with half us brake pads? What do you do with worn out rear gear? You know, all these different parts that so they're pretty much identical? Yeah. chassis, components and stuff. Yeah, exactly. So we're able to put all the put all the parts when we're done with it on the bigger truck onto that truck. And do that makes a big difference. That's actually when Jason has a company called the UTV wolf pack. And they had a race team when Lucas was doing the professional stuff. And that's what we would always try to do. Right is always have interchangeable stuff. Like so that's a big deal. Jason. Yeah, we had five or six, actually, we had seven, seven race cars that were all built same. So if we ever had issues, we can swap parts. And then you know, the biggest thing that did help us which, you know, in racing, I think Lucas Oil was all about helping other people. And at the track, you would find people that were self inclusive, they would just be by themselves, and they wouldn't help anyone. And then you come over to our pits, and we're always helping people. We had a we had a player's, we had a computer scanner to clear codes. So we're we're clearing codes for people that you know, the car would go into limp mode and you needed a computer to clear it up. We'd be helping people on my mechanics about why you helping him. He's your competitor, Mike, well, what's the fun of being out there by yourself? He paid the same amount of money to be on, you know, yeah, to be on course, he paid the same amount of money to be here. I mean, I would expect someone to help me out if I was there. And so we've we've lived by that, you know, the whole time that we've been racing, actually, that's a good point to bring up. Because that's a perception thing, right? Like, Eric, what we were talking about, like, you guys do that same thing for other teams, right? Like, let's just say a team comes into the pits and their trucks messed up and they don't have any help or whatever, like your guys will jump in to. Absolutely. I mean, that's kind of how most of the off road community is. It's a brotherhood. It's it's one giant family out there. I mean, obviously, we're all competing against each other, and we all want to win. But at the end of the day, you know, we want to help each other and help everybody have as much success as possible. And it's fun. So I learned a lot of that stuff from Jason when I started racing UTV. He's like, I didn't know that existed because like coming from dirt bikes and like racing Supercross. What nobody gives a shit like you're on your own. Like, yeah, and they'll tell you like bullshit. They'll be like, Oh, you put this means you get in, you're good, like, but it's total like horseshit, right? And then so like I come in, and Jason's like, yeah, no, it's not like that, dude, like, everybody helps each other. Like, there was one time I forgot, like, something happened to me in practice or something. We had to weld a bunch of stuff. Like they're out there. Like, we were up there until like three or four in the morning wrench on shit. That's how that's how the camaraderie thing works, right? That's one of the reasons that you probably like off road so much. Yeah, absolutely. It's just it's a lot different. You know, years ago and a prior life, I used to run some stock cars, and we'd run like the the NASCAR West series. And it was a lot different there. I mean, people would help each other if they really needed it. But everybody was pushing. Nobody was sharing secrets. Nobody would talk about anything. Yeah, I can get that. And well, I and I do understand the secret thing is different. You know, I'm saying like, there's a point where obviously you have an advantage on someone is one thing. But helping people get back to the track is is completely different. I had where where that stemmed from me. And I'm not going to put someone on blast. But I raised king of the hammers one year. And my crew didn't make it to one of my pits. And I wasn't going to make it to the next pit because I was going to run out of fuel. And one of the top, you know, one of the bigger teams in our, you know, that was sponsored by a big company. I went up and asked him if I can have some fuel. And I'm like, I just need like a gallon or two gallons just to make it to the next pit. And literally, he had like, he had like 1011 gallon drums. He's raised in a UTV, and he's like, No, we don't have enough. And it's really I pulled in before his guy or car and I started like 56 and they started closer up front and I came into that pit before them and he's like, he's like, Yeah, we only have enough for what we need. And I remembered that all my years racing, I wasn't sponsored by players. I didn't have a factory deal. And I remembered that and going forward faster. Word. You know, however many years we had our deals, you know, we raced for 12 or 13 years and six of those years were a factory back team. And I remember that, and I always told my guys, I said, if I'm out of the race, people need stuff, take it off the back of the truck, get their driver's license, tell them to send us back the part. Yep. If if someone needs help, and I'm not there yet, go help them. If someone pulls in, and they don't their level of lost, help them, you know, because they're there. And some of those guys, I do that and, and when we started racing, we started doing that stuff. I can tell you, I've gotten emails and messages from people that we help that were like, Hey, I came from Ohio. And the only reason I finished this because you gave me a PTO that, you know, and they ended up finishing so that that, you know, like I said, that stemmed from what someone did to me. And I thought that was pretty shitty. Yeah, as I pulled into the pits, like in my car was like duck, duck, duck, you know, and it barely made it. So it to the next pit. So just, I don't know, I just can't do poor sportsmen, you know, yeah, you can't do people dirty like that. Like when fair and square? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not just that, I mean, obviously, they're in a race, you come in before them, and they're like, oh, we have the advantage. But it's like, when it's a different situation like that. You feel like okay, like, Come on, throw someone a bone, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Well, that actually brings me back to like, what I wanted to kind of start off with Eric talking about is, you guys kind of grew up together, right. And there's a lot of other people that we've had on the show and that a lot of people in the off road community know one notable Casey curry. You guys have had like a long term relationship for a long time, right? And all the stuff that you guys learned growing up was helping each other right, like, even if you're just playing when you're little kids, like everybody still helps each other, right? And teaches each other how to like ride bicycles or whatever. So you grew up in Southern California. What are some of the memories that you had first before you got into off road? Like what kind of was the path that you took to get to that point? Home man, it's kind of always been an off road. Yeah, like stuff. Third, fourth generation. I mean, for racing. We're the first generation my brother me, but I mean, yeah, I'm the youngest of four. So we kind of grew up just riding dirt bikes, going out to the desert. Doing all those normal types of speed. Yeah. The Jeep speed. Yeah. Yeah. What was the first yeah, those are cool stories. What's some of the first stuff that you were thinking? Oh, I mean, we used to go out to the desert and he had this as 10. I had, I think it was an LS motor right now. It was it was something and it sounded like a bat out of hell. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we took the exhaust the mufflers, that's what it was. That's what it was. It was It was wild. Oh, we got to add this cherry bomb. Yeah, it was a Jeep speed. And then Jeep speed ran those series. I think it I don't know what class he was in. But yeah, how old were you guys? So it's kind of funny. You know, our first truck my brother and I built it. Well, he pretty much built it. He's He's a lot smarter. And he was a little older than me. I was 14. We brothers basically a genius. Yeah, he definitely is. But I don't know if this part was all such a good idea. But we took a old parts truck off the off the lot bought it off my dad for like 200 bucks at 185,000 miles on it long bed 1992 GMC Sonoma. And then we just built it with a arc welder and a tube bender in my parent's garage. And it was pretty bad. I mean, that's the we learned that that was it. That's the best part about it, though, did it like, I don't know redneck engineering, like you figure it out. And honestly, those life lessons or those things that you learned probably still help in the pit. They definitely do. I mean, learning how to MacGyver and just do whatever you need to do to know just give me some duct tape and a snorkel and I got this, I can't even tell you how many times duct tape and zip ties have gotten us out of the out of the desert, you know, total duct tape and zip ties, you know, you know, a tree stump underneath the front of the suspension and just drove drove the car and my co driver was on the back side of the car, trying to balance out the weight. You know, it just got out of there. It was good if we were on flat ground or going up. But as soon as we went downhill, the front would just dig. So like there was like, you know, the happy balance, and then I would be sitting out, we put it in neutral and I'd be sitting on the side of the car and he'd be on the back would be ghost riding, you know, from outside just to get the weight out. You know, it's either that or you're sleeping out in the desert sometimes because those recovery teams don't get to you to like, lately, you know. And so we've learned how to how to MacGyver stuff back together so that we don't sleep out in the desert. But that's the way you got to do it. Right, man. So you mentioned it before, what do you do for an occupation? So I'm in the car business. So I run to Kia dealerships in Orange County. Keever Weingarten Rukia. So Have you need to keep your head down? Yeah, if you need a Kia, we want to see in a Kia. We'll plug. But, you know, we try and spend as much time as we can racing, but it's hard, you know with a real job. Yeah, totally. So most definitely comes first. Yeah. So most of the stuff that you do is on unlimited schedule, basically. Right? How much time do you actually get to spend in a race truck then. So or I get on a prerunner, racetrack, whatever it is. So my little nephew Cole, he's, he's now he's 18. But he's, he's racing 1600. And the more series and that's, that's the series were the 1600s are all that, for the most part, and it's a real competitive class, he's doing a good job. And so it's fun being out of those races, you know, it's got a real family atmosphere, we can bring the RVs out there. You know, make a big bonfire getting a circle, it's a camp in a circle, it's fun. So sometimes I'll raise Frankie, the pre runner in those races, when they're not at the same time as the 1600 races. So I got to do that a few times in 2021 We won the championship we won a bunch of races so we love the more series and what Cody does out there. And the you know, the experience that I've learned from from that series, and it's really cool because they're never used to be any real big races out in Johnson Valley. Lucerne are in Barstow and then now it's like, everything's out now king of the hammers is big. And for the desert classes, which it wasn't before. And, I mean, that's a premier race now and, and I feel like it's helped a lot, you know, just running those races like I, I mean, I'm sure a lot of guys test out there and know that no, that that does or well, but you know, because of all the races we've done out there. I feel like we have a little bit of an edge just because I Yeah, cuz you know, the Translate muscle memory. So the mic is closer to Canada. Well, you know what, the first time I ever heard a kingdom, the hammers was when you raced adjacent, like, but that was like, I don't want to say when UTV started because like Guthrie's were like ahead of that schedule. But it was the first is XP 1000 at a na car and I was like oh, you're like yeah, I'm going out there. I'm like to do what and he's like racing the rocks. And I'm like, why rock suck and then you'd like, Dude annihilated that freaking car, like, you came back and you're like, but it was pretty fun. Oh, man. So we took a Lucas short course car. And to get to the car, though, two weeks before I was like, I'm gonna go race king of the hammers. And I didn't have a co driver. So I call one of my buddies and he's a CrossFit dude, because I know, I know that the CrossFit guys are like, you know, all over the place. Like they're super, you know, you have to have somebody it's light and quick and get out of the car fast, right? And so I knew that so I've Reagan said, I'm like, I'm like, Hey, I'm like, I call my buddy. I'm like, Mike, Hey, you want to come and CO drive? And he's like, Yeah, I'm like, Have you ever wished before? He's like, No. I'm like, Okay, I'm like, let's figure it out. So, I built a car in two weeks, took a short course car and lifted the suspension up, Walker Evans, you know, came down and dialed the suspension in and went short course guys think they can raise their dogs. And hey, you know what? I signed up late. I went like 58 off the land. I was dead last. And I remember, there was I don't even know all the hills. But I went by this one Hills called Sand Mountain. And I don't know where it's at on the track, but I had like four stickers like they make you they put stickers on each side. Yeah. And I went through the Sand Mountain and rusty. Rusty Baptists was there and he's like, I'm like, trying to get up this hill. And, and he's like, Dude, he's like, where did you come from? Bro? He's like, you're sitting third. I'm like, No way. I'm like, I'm sitting third. I'm like, Dude, there's no way. He's like, here's a third car that's passed through No. Three cars. Did you know that you will pass on many dudes? No, they were. We pass a lot of cars. But we you know, I'm saying like, we didn't know. You know, maybe there was some guys stopped them pets. And you know, it was it was later on in the day. And where we got where we ended up having our issues that race was we pulled into one of the pits and had to change an axle. And that put us down and then we got stuck behind some people. But I can tell you one thing if you raise king of the hammers, I see people get partners where they have like these big dudes. They're like 200 plus pounds, and they're sluggish, slow people did the guys that I had that I the guy that I had a my my car. He was like 150 pounds wet. And he was like a spider monkey. Yeah. And he didn't know how to winch but like we would pull, like probably jumped from rock to rock. And when we pulled up like 10 minutes behind people, and my guy would begin he would pass the dudes. And these fat dudes would be sitting on the rocks. I'm out of breath. And my guy would be like, ding ding me hook the rope. And we went past them. And it was like, you know, it was honestly we we had fun but it was like one of those things like we will be yelling at each other. And then and then the next minute we'd be like, Oh, do we just blew by that guy. You know at the very end of the race. We literally we we get out of the car and walk to our trailers didn't say a word to each other. Do that. Perfect, and the next day we get come back out and I'm like, What's up? And he's like, what's up? I'm like, nothing. And like, you know, it was like the awkward boyfriend girlfriend thing. And he's like, so you want to race next year? I'm like, hell yeah. He gets out addicting Do you? Have you ever done Koh? Like the rock? Rocks? Are you into it? Because dude, like, I'm not a rock guy, right? No, I mean, I was never a rock guy either. I really didn't have the respect for but now that we've been going on for the last two, three years, I mean, and it's a killer guys have in the hills, they go up and down. We hung out and watched chocolate thunder for a little bit, just just at night watching. You know, everybody cruising up and down. And it's it's a scene. It's a ton of fun. It keeps evolving, though, like from from when they had it what the nine hundreds to the 1000 was like they keep changing the course and keeps now they're running 30 fives like Kyle chi and the Miller brothers and stuff. Do they run 30 fives and they don't like they don't let off. They're wide open the whole time. Yeah, and there's a lot more cars to I think I don't know how many cars are were in the last one. But when we raised it when I raised it, there were 58 cars. And I think to finished. And that's it. Yeah. And they extended the time, you know, which I think was was a crappy thing for them to do at time. But you know, K, which changes the rules as they go. They they they added an hour on to the race. You know, we were told that the race timed out. So that the one of the refs is like, Hey, you got to turn around and go back. Oh, well, so then later that day, because they didn't get a full podium. They extended now we're on to the race. Oh, because they needed some people they needed. They needed enough people to create a podium so they knew an hour would fit that. Hey, let's throw a shout out real quick to Caden over there, the helping us and getting everything ready. Appreciate your guys help. Do you think do you think that you would ever do that though? Like, actually you know what before asked that question. Are you big UTV guy. I'm not really no. I mean, big truck guy. I think they're cool. I think they're really cool. I had a razor a few years ago, but I broke it all the time. So there's a dude that can help you. Right, right. He breaks a lot of stuff. He's He's He's lead foot. He's hard on it. Yeah. I mean, we all are, but Well, yeah. So it's kind of cool. Like we're talking all these stories like coming up, like, did you have anything like when you started racing, that you really remember, like, one race that you were like in the zone, or that you broke down or just something like super cool, because you didn't always drive trophy trucks, you came through the ranks, right came through the ranks, and it took a long time to get through them. We took our time, we spent five, six years in class seven, seven s seven open. As that class was evolving, I think our we stopped racing that in 2004. And we broke everything. I mean, it was really, it got really frustrating in that class, I wish we would have been in like a buggy or something that was more made for the desert and a little bit more refined. But was just because you drove it too hard. Just because we drive it hard. It breaks driving slow, it breaks. I mean, we never finished the ball 1000 We tried like five times, and there'd always be something broken. But, you know, we learned and that's where we really learn how to MacGyver things and, and learn how to crash really well do it through all that. So got got, not all of them out of the way. But a lot of them out of the way. Like talking about learning, like when, when you see like, I don't know if I'm reading between the lines too much here. But like, Jason has taught me a lot about all this off road stuff. But like when I hear you talking about that not being able to finish a Baja race. There's a lot that goes behind that, like, I don't know how to explain it. But basically what I'm trying to say is, you learn so much subconsciously about how to live life, right? Because you're at your lowest, then you've crossed the finish line. And you have this like relief or you're at your highest if you win, like there's so many different ways to look and perceive all that stuff and teaches you a lot in life. And you've done it for a long time. Jason's done it for a while. Now, when you get to be able to be at the top of the podium, like those things are super meaningful. Yeah. Absolutely. It's like it's unreal right now, you know, to come out of the mint. Like that was such a great like just an awesome win and you know, unexpected as a dark horse. So after all the stuff we've been through. Well, let me ask you this. You just said unexpected Jason like not unexpected. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, like, like the announcers like oh, you know, Eric Hardeen. Eric Hardeen. I'm like, What do you mean? aircard and I'm like, Derrick harden. You know, Eric's been racing next for fence. Thanks for correcting. He's been racing since you know, we're in high school. So on the live stream, he's he's not new to racing. And what people don't understand is like it from the outside. It's like, Oh, this guy just popped out of nowhere and won the mint 400 They don't see the years and years of like blood, sweat tears away from family, you know, missing work and busting your ass to actually get that first place meant 400 trophy and people are always like, Oh, well, what did you win at the race? And I'm like, a trophy and a couple grand. And they're like, that's it? Yeah. Oh my How much does it cost to get there? Like doesn't matter. You don't even know because just that race, what to get there, but not what it's accumulated to learn what you had to learn to physically make it to that point. Yeah, 100 person, it takes a lot for everything to come together perfect. Like that day. I mean, even on his last laps, I mean, I don't think I've missed them in 400 in 10 years, and that was the first one I missed. And I was at my house watching the helicopters. And And honestly, I think my adrenaline was probably running as hard as his was, because I know what it's like to be on that last lap. And in everything has to work. I mean, even two miles from the finish, people get flat or something goes wrong. And it's like, you're just you're, you're that close. And then you get to sleep and dream about being that close. But you pulled it off. And that's, that's what's awesome. Yeah, it's pretty gnarly, right? Like, actually tell us from a third person perspective, like, what were you thinking during the race? I mean, at the beginning, we were just, hey, let's get to the, to the second and the third lap for once, you know, after coming out of the hammers, and I think we were talking about it the other day, but, you know, I got three flats that the hammers, you know, passing the leader trying to pass the leaders, and I hit every rock out there I've been in, you're probably like, oh, shit, we're throwing it away. Yeah, yeah, I totally threw it away. And because I was driving over my head and taking unnecessary chances, and you know, that race is more of a spring because it's only two laps. But you know, in the men, Andrew Meyers, who's like, my, he's my best buddy. But he's also you know, my mentor and driving coach, when he's riding shotgun with me, he's been teaching me how to drive for the last five years or so. And, you know, he's just, he, he'll be there, and he'll just be yelling at me like, Hey, calm down, calm down, we're gonna go slow in these rocks, we're not gonna get a flat, just slow down, and the rocks go fast, where we need to go fast. And that's what we did. And I didn't want to slow the race pace down at all, but it really helped, you know, with with the rain and everything the night before, because it kind of like drawing you back a little bit made the race come to you almost. Yeah, well, I mean, it was crazy. Because we get around the first lap and the second lap, we started kind of laying it down a lot, a little faster, actually a lot faster in the rocks and everything. And we just start seeing people pulled over and they're way easier to pass when they're changing a tire, you know, normally. I would hope so. I'm like, I know, I know. And seen people changing drive shafts. And I was like, they're probably having a lot of issues coming out of the corners, like the ground, you know, got tacky. Yeah. And they're probably not used to the mint 400 Being that tackier, whatever, and maybe we load in the drive train. Maybe they set their trucks up, you know, for a dry, dusty, silty track. And we were actually talking a lot. We're talking about that because those four wheel drives are still kind of brittle, so to speak, you know, like we were talking to depends on whose truck Yeah, true. But we were talking about that on the live broadcasts were like, now that there's that much more traction. Does it help if you're lighter on the throttle instead of just giving all the juice to it? Because then it's really twisting the drive train, but I don't know, man, whatever you did work. i We barely made it. And it's a lot more fun. I tell you that driving with it a little tacky like that, I mean, the truck accelerates way faster. You're seeing way higher speeds and you typically have under prep. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's it was like a groom track. You know, for a lot of it's stuck in the corners. It wasn't too muddy. Like, you could really rail and it was there was a lot faster, you know? Yeah. So you can really cook it. Yeah, there was a lot of people on the live feed that were having full FOMO because they just wanted to be at the track. Like because they saw it and they're like, dang it. It's like fully watered track now. Yeah. And that's it's so rare in our sport. I mean, I was watching some of the videos afterwards and you see Harley and BJ just deicing for a long time. You know, normally that would never happen they were going at it at 100 miles an hour. I mean, like they could see and yeah you get you get wind and water and all of a sudden now the race pace turns up Yeah, turns up big time. Turns out you can see you can see someone's 100 feet in front of you and if they try to bunny rabbit you can go after him. You know that's so cool though. Like because that that's a different race. That's a real race. Well, you get was always like that you get a couple of factors like like rain or wind will will will make a race go from you know, okay, this is cool, whatever and then it'll turn into Okay, these guys are battling because now rain and wind will create those things where you could see you can go 100 miles an hour in the dirt and not have to worry about it. That's the biggest thing. Exactly, but it's super cool, right? Like, you never really get that opportunity. And this year it happened. Yeah, it's wild. Well, alright, so you pretty much always been in off road and are always, I don't know what you want to call it, quote, loved off road. But what wanted to make, like What made you start are actually a better question. When was it that you understood you wanted to become a race or a professional driver? I mean, I wanted to race off road, obviously, my whole life as a kid, it's a kid's dream to go out and drive trucks and anything in the desert. But it really kind of unfolded when I was 13. I was riding my dirt bike and it was right after I had I had cancer when I was a little kid when I was 12. I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, which is a bone cancer. That's one of the things I want to talk about if you want to get well I mean, we don't have to dive into it all right now but after I was done with like, my last chemo treatment, my brother and I and my buddy would we went out to Corona. Went for a dirt bike ride. And of course I whiskey throttled it when you could ride in Corona. Yeah, this is this not long ago. We're talking. I was 27 years back in the 19. Yeah, baby. Yeah, that's cool. And then I ended up breaking my leg, I broke my femur. And then I just gotten a prosthetic and actually shattered that thing, too. So my mom was really pissed. Yeah, way to go. Because those things are expensive. Yeah, it was just a bad deal around. I think it was my bones were a little bit more brittle. Because of the chemo for I was on chemo for a year and a half. So then I had to get a play, like you guys have all had, you know, nine days in the hospital, whatever. And then afterwards, I got with my brother, and we kind of put a little sales pitch together, like, hey, if we could, we could borrow 10 grand to put to go build a truck and buy this fuel cell and buy the material to run the tubes. And, you know, buy the seats in the seat or truck was it that you were trying to build this was this old last time I was there? Yeah, this 1992 Sonoma, and so we were able to sell it, and we got the money and we scab this thing together. And dude, that's like, you know, that means so much. To me, that's literally the exact same, even 10 grand was the exact same process that I went through adjacent. I was like, my sponsors Give me half the money. And for the last two years, I saved up an extra 10 grand. And I called him and he's got a car for like, 20 grand for sale or whatever. I think I paid like 17 or 18 for Yeah, cuz I had to travel back and forth from Arizona. Jason's like, I'll cut you a deal on some gas and stuff. And I was like, super pumped. And the reason that I actually got there was another one that I wanted to get. And I have reason I bought that one was because he answered the phone. And he's like, Yeah, I'll help you just call me anytime you need anything. And I'm like, Fuck, yeah, this is the, this is the way to do it. Because I'm like, so green, probably the way that you were. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna show up to the track like an idiot. And then he guided me through the whole process, like meant to only mentored me. So it kind of sounds like you went through the same thing, because you planned it out, got with your brother and started like structuring and all together. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, if you have the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants like Jason or something that really, that really cuts that learning curve down is worse than his ego. So we're racing, we're racing. We're racing glorified golf carts, you raise that trophy, a little bit different. But we're totally gonna say we are like, We are the power to weight ratio, you know, like, what you TVs are now today. They are like many trophy trucks, but they're still not, you still can't really compare, you know, a trophy truck, you know, to a UTV, they're just too different. Yeah, it's yeah, it just doesn't work the same, but they are getting, you know, up there, it's gonna be a little while before a UTV overalls about how race? I don't know, I've heard a lot. You know, I've heard a lot of people over the years, even when we first started racing the Lucas Oil series, when we brought that, you know, UTVs to the track, and we were made fun of, you know, they're like, Oh, no one's gonna come watch that. You know, I remember there was some times in our stock production 1000 class that we were close to pro 245 cars. Yeah. 45 cars. And we were close to Pro two times, like, it was like we were, I don't know, if we were there. The SR ones would run fast lap times, but not our cars weren't that fast, I guess. Yeah. In consideration for the lap times. But so yeah, so you go through all the all the stuff like you're, you're learning from the ground up? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we made pretty much every mistake you could make. But I guess that's part of learning. You know, that's the one of the best parts of I mean, at the time, it probably doesn't seem that fun, but like, understanding all that stuff is a necessity for continuing a good career at it, and finishing races. 100% like that truck. He said, Frankie, you know, he probably knows how to tear that whole thing down. Yeah, you know, I mean, I mean, because you've had to put it back together because out of necessity, though, you know, like you learn how to do things. It's like one of the things that I did like my my co driver was also my mechanic. Like, right now, and there was a reason for that. So I didn't have to get in the car. Yeah, good point, you know, yeah. But we have becomes, like, let's just say, for whatever reason that you didn't have an opportunity to have somebody help you, you would figure it out. And that's one of the things that I'm trying to say is like, you learn so much going through these processes or whatever you want to call it in off road that you have to figure stuff out, right? Doesn't matter what it is, you'll make a decision to move forward and progress. Yeah, for sure. And those types of things, I think those are really key components in life in general, right? Like, maybe you didn't know, just like I didn't, I was naive when I went through all these different injuries. But you're being taught something that is a good life lesson, right? And a lot of kids don't get the opportunity to live those life lessons Jason's kids do. A lot of the people that you're around do like your nephew does, like all these different things happen. And it tunes people up to be better human beings in general. And I didn't know that stuff when I went through all these things. But now as I get older, and I understand the things that I went through, I really appreciate the fact that I learned all that discipline, discipline, discipline, yeah, all that stuff. It just makes your whole life different perspective. You have to be disciplined to want to race. Yep. Because it is time consuming. And when you when you put that wrong bolt in and you don't tighten something correctly, and it causes your race failure. Then you get to sleep and think about that the rest of the friggin NEC till the next race accountability. Did I can't tell you, you know, like the, for example, one of the World Championships, Matt Martelly. You know, he makes fun of me because the one of the years I was behind RJ in second place, and I ran out of gas two miles from the finish. In second place, I ran out of gas. And Matt, Matt Martelli. I come in and he's making fun of me. The next year, again, I was in second place behind Rodney Anderson for some reason. They're always a little bit faster. And I stopped for gas. And car Romo's. dad's like, don't stop, don't stop, go, go go because she had a bigger tank. She had a brand new car and I didn't have like a four year old beater. And I stopped for gas and she went by and I was like, you know just to in Matt's like Matt Martelli came up. He's like, bro, he's like, when you're gonna get a gas tank in your damn car. I'm like, I'm like, it's not even a race car. I'm like, did this is what I'm like, I didn't even prep this car. I just came out here and ran it. He's like, he started laughing. But that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of UTV is I mean, like you. I don't know one of these days. If you don't have time to prep the trophy truck, just get in one of the UTVs and go have some fun. Well, they're good pre runners. Yeah, I'm saying like if you have a trophy truck I mean look at the herps guys like did the all their pre runners are all TVs and now they're actually starting to build like, race you TVs for pre runners. Yeah, exactly. So and then a lot of people do that Baldwin BJ Baldwin does that. Menzies does it. Rob Mac does it a lot. Now, Razor now instead of waiting, I mean, to prep a UTV? Well, it goes back to the whole park cheaper than then you can and you can have a million parks land on the trail in the chase trucks. Yeah, you can fill a chase truck up with the ATV parts. I mean, it is pretty cool. Alright, so going back to like what we were talking about before, as you start, you start having this itch right. And you started wanting to be a professional driver. Like it hit you right around? What age 13? Around 13? Yeah, so what what's the plan after that you save up the money, you get to get the car and then like, You got to figure out all this stuff on your own, or do you have help? Yeah, no, we built the truck. And we started racing it. You know, I mean, it was a ship box. But we went out to Parker for free. What are you doing, though? You just going in the desert? You got friends that are helping you? Yes. 10? Yeah, that was the Robert ray here. He was out there. Robert been like the diehard? Yeah, he's been there since the very beginning. It's a variable wave. Yeah. Yeah. But that's cool. Because he was telling me some stories actually about, about how you guys had kind of started doing all that stuff. It's so interesting to me to always understand this, because everybody's got their own journey, but it's kind of the same as the other person, right? So you're out in the desert, and you're just like, figuring it out on the fly. Yeah, just my brother and me. We we Pete drive apart and I drive apart and we just kind of who was a better driver, he was definitely a better driver. All right, so you started figuring it out and kind of getting getting your head wrapped around how to do it. And at that time, did you already have everything with the cancer taking care of? Yeah, yeah. So luckily, gratefully, you know, it was all good. And it's been good sense. So I have I have a question. And we'll Tarantino it after. So the truck was set up so you guys could both drive. And he was able to do it. As good as you are. How did you eat? I mean, luckily, we're both not too tall. So Jason, we're both short. So we didn't have Oh, yeah, we all get it eat back too much. So, you know, a couple pillows and nothing a pillow or pad can fix and then you drive with your left foot. So like did it did you have to have any different configuration at all? I know. I just drive like a regular. Yeah, you just move your leg over. I just can't drive anything. That's a stick with a clutch. Yeah, you'd have to have pretty fast feet. What George when George use arrays and Lucas Oil, we had to put a piece of foam because laughter We call this foam we call it the donkey deck. Yeah, big ass like so well, I held his legs in place because left to right. You know, like when he would take a corner his his legs would Yeah, like shift all the coffee. So he had to custom modify the seat with foam. And then we made like these big foot pedals like, I don't know, I was calling like Playhouse foot pedals, right, because the brake pedal was like, I don't know, six inches by eight inches, like massive. So I would always have been able to hit the brakes. And then the foot pedal, the gas pedal was, I don't know, four inches wide, six inches wide, and we space them apart. So they were directly in front of me with a little space in between. And then what I would do is I would hold on to the steering wheel, obviously and I had a Yamaha YZ or a Polaris and the waxie we had like a street bike shifter, like SR one. Yeah. And then I would hold my legs up like doing a setup the whole race and just stab the pedals when I needed to. So you like doing a sit up for whatever, 20 minutes when you're out on course or like UTV worlds like for like two hours, you would just be set it up. So I was kind of like you. I was like Austin, not necessary. I mean, you get used to it, right? But like, it's my normal at the time. But I remember thinking to myself, like, Fuck if I could just have a look because I was either smashing it or all the way off, right? Like there was no in between. And I was wondering if that still happens to you. So I mean, I cuz I have a real foot and one real foot and ankle, I'm able to like, you know, roll on the gas as smooth as I can, right. But you have to time it on the pedals, but you don't have that much time to roll in the gas because you got to be greedy with the throttle. I mean, we're in a race right? So you gotta go fast. So it ends up just kind of being smashed down. And then especially in qualifying, it probably affects you right? Yeah, it definitely hurts in qualifying anything where it's tight, you know, just because those guys Yeah, I can't tell you because you lose a quarter second here and a quarter second there. Like that adds up pretty clear. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Qualifying tough you and you don't set the trumpet the truck up any different like it's, I mean, I just tried to I try and straight line break drivers as far into the corner as I can and slam the brakes down and then get back on the gas. So Jason was your was your second driver at the races? He just jumped in. And it's just normal for him. Just normal. Yeah. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I thought you would at least have be able to reach the pedals, though. But, yeah. Here's so much taller. That's funny. I mean, even even with their driving with his left foot. I mean, he's still he's still crazy talented. I mean, he's still one of the fastest guys out there. So well. That's one of the things I don't think that that I mean, even though like it is a handicap is not really handicap. I don't think his legs ever slowed him down. Yeah. And that's kind of what I was gonna get out. And I want to talk about it a little bit too. But like, your normal is just different. Like, a one speed though. He's always amped. He's always happy. He's always got energy. He's always like, you're always pinned no need for caffeine. No, he's always pinned, but that whole thing is like, and I learned a lot about this when I was racing to because my normal wasn't the same as everybody else. So I always told everybody else if I was if I was normal, like you, I would fucking smoke you. But I'm not I'm at a disadvantage. If you were at the same disadvantage as me, I would still smoke you because my normal in my head was different than what they thought, right? So I was wondering if like, you have that same perception or mentality, you're like, it doesn't matter. This is the way I do it. And that's it. I mean, that's the way I think about it, you know, like, this is the way I do things the right way for me to do it. And, you know, I've, I've always felt like, we could go out there and and give everybody a shot at a win, you know. But, yeah, no, I mean, I don't think about that way as a disadvantage I think about it is, this is the way we do it. And that's it. And that's it. If everybody else just had a left leg, then you would be that much more ahead because that's the way that you think it's kind of crazy to think that that I don't know I wouldn't want to say people are limited and I want to sound like an asshole but I wish that people would have more of an open or clear perspective because they see that as a limitation, but it's not right. Like if they had that same thing they should be open and understanding that they could just do everything the same. Yeah, yeah. The whole excuse thing doesn't doesn't really get that far, you know? Yeah, it's like that makes a lot of sense then. And yeah, like Jason would always tell me that when I get off the track you buy Dude, you're hauling ass like you're doing good. Like, he'd be like, all passed. Yeah, bro. I didn't do good. I'm like, No, I'm like, Did you were hauling ass bro. You gotta like top three or top four? Nah. did so and so hit me he come off all pissed. That's the same deal, Mike, there were 18 cars out there. You're in the top five. What are you so pissed about bro? Winners winning, right? Yeah, but yeah, like that whole thing like, I really want to express that how much it should be thought of when you're a kid or anybody like maybe a better question to ask you is what kind of advice would you give a kid? Maybe he's 1315 16. Like, and he's going through hard times, I've had a bunch of people direct message us and say, Dude, I had such a shitty race, like, how do you get through this stuff? Because it's just weighing on me so much. Like, there's a lot of races that you didn't finish. There's races that you've won, like, how do you manage that stuff? I mean, there's major peaks and valleys in motorsports, or any type of racing. I mean, there's only one winner, you know, this isn't a football game or baseball game where half the people went and half the people lose. I mean, there's only one winner every time you go to a race, and even the best guys don't win every race. Yeah. So. So it definitely gets in your head. Especially if you make a dumb mistake, which is super easy to do. And everybody does it. So you knew it was avoidable? I mean, it's hard to stay positive. But what do you do? We just keep going out there and thrashing. Yeah, and everything's avoidable hindsight, in hindsight, but Right. It's like, oh, man, that rock was bigger than shit. I can't believe I hit that. But one of the things that you taught me, Jason was being accountable for it, right? Just be like, George, you fucked up. You didn't win the race. Don't do it again. And that's what I think a lot of the kids maybe miss right is it's figuring out, it's figuring out the stuff like what you're talking about. So I just, I'm gonna probably get yelled at by Kayden on this one. But I just got done having the same conversation with Caden about some stuff he hit, he hit a pothole in one of his cars, and there's a hairline crack, and in the arms, and he's like, Hey, like, what should I do? And I said, Hey, come on up to my office, I'm like, we should, you know, at least gusset them and check out the front and do some stuff. And I made the same mistake on one of my races at the Mint 400. And I was super accountable for that one. And it stuck with me ever since. I, you know, I rolled my race car at 75 miles an hour, I remember that we were scared that you and Ricky didn't like, it was bad. You know, it was my fault. You know, I'm saying like, 100% I'll take accountability for it. You know, we had we had some issues with getting some parts from one of the parts guys. And it was a factory part that failed, you know, wallowed out and the the ball joint just fell out of the bottom of the bearing carrier. And we just hit 75 miles an hour. Thank God, we didn't, you know, get up to speed because you know, at the time, I think we clocked that card 100 With with queen, you know, we with Queen racing, we got that two seater up to 100. And we just clocked up to 75 miles an hour in the car just started to hook. And as it started to hook, you know, I just told my co driver Mike, hold on. And then, you know, we went and over nA times. And you know, it was like a yard sale. I mean, shit everywhere in every direction, you know, 5050 feet, 100 feet, iPads and tool bags, and whatever. Yeah, just anything that's inside the car was outside of the car. Except for you guys. Except for us. Yeah, we, I dislocated my knee and destroyed my knee. And my co driver had to drag me out of the car. And then he laid me down on the ground and we had to push my knee back into place and then got back up, jack the car back up, turned it over, put the stuff back together and then drove 10 miles an hour to the next road. You know, and so that's talking about MacGyvering. But I think the lesson learned here is to be accountable for that. And like, Yeah, I mean, I do you know, I took the chance because I wanted to go make the race. I want to you know, I'm saying like, I was like a racer does like a race or does I made I made a stupid mistake, you know, I should have, what I should have done is I should have taught one of my other cars apart. And I looked at the part and I was like I you know what I think? I think it'll be good. And I made that mistake. And I paid for it. You know, I had I had a pretty gnarly knee surgery a year and a half ago. And I have nerve damage in my neck and my hands. So I'm paying for it now. But I mean, it's not going to stop me because now I'm almost through most of my recovery. And I'm already planning on building a new car. Yeah. When the accountability portion, like yes, you're in the car, the car that we're talking about building you know is is Yeah, it'll be it'll be a fun car. We do. I can't wait to see that thing. But I think I like both of you guys are saying is the lesson learned here is? Well, I guess there's two lessons learned racers forget very quickly. You can move forward. You forget about what happened in the last corner so you can get to the next corner kind of thing. But as long as you're accountable for it and you do learn from it and you take something from it like young Caden like he's such a smart kid and he's going to push past it and get through it and be better because of it. And those things don't just happen if you didn't race off road. You don't learn that kind of stuff. No, not at all. Caden, Caden is good. I mean, he, you know, I helped him out as much as I possibly can. He runs a lot of our parts. So he's he was up in my office couple days ago. Right on so love helping him out. You know, he he's the same way he hustles Exactly. Actually, another person I just commented in Greg Kelly. She's young little girl. She said, Yeah, you just keep going and get back out there. Yeah. 100% That's the way racers thing so good on you. Great. All right, so let's kind of like take a step back then. What When did you know that you had an illness in your leg or cancer in your leg? So I was 12 years old. I was just like any other kid real athletic playing hockey riding BMX, doing all that type of stuff riding bikes. And I just I, I had a bump in my in my shin on my right shin and then I kept complaining about it. We went to the doctor's anyways, they said it was shin splints tendinitis for a long time and then nine months later when saw specialist and he's like, Oh, no, and I was on it. Oh, that misdiagnosed? Dude, I hate here. Yeah, yeah, it happens. But that was on a Tuesday. This was me. Yeah. Well, I mean, it happens a lot more often. Yeah, it's hard. They make that they misdiagnosed my grandma and she died of breast cancer. So shoot. Yeah. Well, so they finally get it right. And they diagnose you like, what's the move? Because Dude, you're a young kid. Like, that's gotta be like life changing? Yeah, I mean, it happened real quick. That was a Tuesday. And then those specialists Dr. Eckhart was name he's in UCLA, he only saw people on Wednesdays, we were able to get in luckily, that next day, and then he was like, Hey, we're going to do a biopsy on Friday. But we're most likely going to cut your leg off. And they just told us right that that's the only option at the time. Yeah, I mean, he's like, that's most likely what we're going to need to do. You're like, we got to be proactive on this whole 12 years old. Were you scared? shitless I mean, you know, you're resilient. When you're a kid. You should be. It's like, Dude, I don't know, that would scare the crap out of kids. Yeah, I mean, it sucks. And being a father. I mean, how I think it's harder on the parents, you know, I mean, anytime any kid goes or anything tough like that. It's definitely harder on the parents. I mean, I feel now especially now that I'm older, I'm like, Oh my gosh, my poor mom, my poor dad having to go through all that any parent who has to go Yeah, cuz now you're recollecting on all that stuff. But as a kid, it wasn't that bad. I mean, you know, you bounce back from stuff a lot faster. I don't know, man. I've been through a lot of injuries and just hearing the story. Like, it scares me like, put your dad through hell, that's for sure. Yeah, my dad and my mom and they still blame me for their gray hair. Yeah, definitely. For sure. But so you go through that stuff. And what's the because this is kind of the theme of the show. I'm kind of feeling like right now is we're talking about camaraderie, people helping each other and stuff. So does the whole family like bond together? And they're, they're giving you positive reinforcement and letting you know, it's gonna be okay. Or like, how does it Oh, yeah, my whole family. I've got two sisters and a brother. And I mean, we're still super super close. We were we were closer than ever back then. You know, I mean, that brings everybody together. So you know, they were just super supportive on the it's easy, a lot easier. Being the youngest to you know, you got a lot less, you know, older, smarter people around you. So they're looking out and doing the work and helping my parents, you know, but they're also learning from from your interactions with them and stuff too. And to me, Jason, I wasn't around him at that time. You probably were spending a little bit of time with him at least like Did you see any change in his demeanor was he liked a strong pick me up kid that was still like, he's he has the same energy he's always had. I mean, I remember when I think it was it was junior high school when? When they did diagnosi right. Yeah, we're at El Rancho. But I mean, ever since I've known him I don't I don't think his attitudes ever changed. I think he's always been on a high. Was that something hard for you? Like, did you or you just didn't know any different at least I never saw like yeah, no. Oh, sorry. Good, obviously there I'm sure he probably Yeah, it was there nights like in bed when you're just like oh yeah, of course. You know, you don't feel good. So you're sick or puke? I mean, it's no fun going through all that stuff. When you're does it fuck are you mentally? Well, I mean once like they they nuked me with chemo for nine months. And so that first nine months was the worst and then, like, I was just dragging this leg around that I knew I was sick. I couldn't walk on I couldn't do anything. I was like to just cut this thing off like oh, so it didn't work at all. Well, I mean, I couldn't it was it was too weak to put weight on because it would break you know, so really, yeah. So that when they first told me that week, I was on crutches for nine months and then I once once they He actually did the surgery, which was really no big deal. I was looking forward to having it cut off. And you know, once they did that, that was kind of like, we rounded the corner and now we're on the exit. Now we're on our way out and do that takes a lot as a human being to be able to have that, like understanding of life. Well, I mean, I didn't really understand it, I don't think and that's probably the best part. You know, I think that's why being gone understand, you know, the depth and the severity of everything as much, you know, for me, it was just like, alright, well, we're nine months in, they cut my leg off. Now I got nine more months, and then I can go out and hang out with my friends and be normal, or be more normal again. So yeah, I get you. Yeah. And I think that naive part about it like has helped me a lot to in life, like, as stupid as it sounds like you just don't know what you don't know. Right? Yeah, just go forward. Just go forward. It's pretty crazy, though. And I commend you for having that attitude and being able to look forward to that. One of my buddies, Chris Ridgeway used to be a professional dirt bike racer as well, too. He had annihilated his ankle enough that it was just a complete mess, like, and he had to, like, go into the doctor's and he was like, for, I think, two years or something. He said, he was like, Dude, I need this thing taken off. Like, if this thing doesn't work, it's like more pain and more of a hindrance to me, I need to get on with my life. And then so like, now I kind of see the same perspective that you were feeling was like, Dude, you know what, I can have a better quality of life and a better. I don't know, moving forward, if I could just fix it. And that's how you fixed it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and you know, of course, they're telling me back then, it's really not that big of a deal. And I spoke to a couple people, you know, who were older and successful and gone through all that. And I was like, right on this guy is normal. He's cool. He's doing great. His this chicks cool. You know, no big deal. And that's exactly what it was. I mean, do you know, it's like peer mentors? Kinda? Yeah, they just come and talk to kids and stuff, you know, and they gave me some perspective on it. And they helped inspire me. And it was just good to see that. And it's real world example. So it makes it a lot easier to understand. Right? Yeah, totally. I think. I think that there's a lot to be said about those people too. As much as we talk about off road, giving you this opportunity and giving you a clear perspective. There's those people that still help man, I love people like that. And then so it didn't slow you down at all. Like you were just I mean, I couldn't play hockey anymore. ride dirt bikes, really? I mean, I could ride but I sucked, you know, no rear brake for you. Yeah. And it wasn't that fun, like not being good. So I just didn't really want to focus on that. And I mean, with age comes a cage, I guess. Right. And then we kind of rolled into the truck stuff. And the rest is history. I mean, yeah, kind of like how we had just talked about where you like when you first got in the truck to like, do the race truck stuff. Are you scared? Are you scared? No, I was scared. For sure. I was nervous. Because, you know, you watch all the videos. Roger, Robby Gordon all these guys. You don't know if you're gonna be able to get that. You know, that drift around the corner? Right. You know, it looks cool. Crusty demons. dirts. Awesome. You know growing up. Yes. Thanks. Except for one sec lands on all those people. Yeah, make some mistake. Yeah, he's done it a couple of times. He landed on some crowds with his with his old sand trucks. Wild Man. Yeah, yeah. But you never know if you're gonna have that. That knack? You know, if you're gonna be able to do it. And so what do you just use that? I don't know what the plural for naive is. But you just beat us being naive. Just be like, You know what, I'm just gonna go for it. You just go for it, start driving it in. And so that's exactly what I'm talking about is that's one of the things that I want everybody to understand is there's no limit, right? You if you just want to go for it, you just go do it. Like that's what makes a good person. And that's what makes a good racer. is just going out there and doing it. Kind of jump in. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's ever slowed you down. I mean, I remember the one time when you had some jet skis and you're like, did you want to you want to go run some jet skis up to Newport and back and I'm like, sure we go down to like, I where we go Long Beach or Corona del Mar. Yeah, that's far No. Dana Point, Dana Point, really that far. And we come out of Dana Point. And, and you know, he comes around the corner. He's like, he's gone. And, and he's not standing on the jetski because he's sitting, you know, and he's hooked up on this thing. And he's flying off the friggin the rollers, you know, hauling ass really trying to keep up and I come off a wave sideways. And I landed just launches me like 15 feet from the ski and I'm like, swimming up and he like comes back. And he's like, What are you doing Merrill? I'm like, I'm like, Dude, I just got tossed. You know, we get back on the ski and I get used to it and we haul ass up to Newport and that haul ass back. No, no, that's like, yeah, like, so the limits didn't exist. But no, it didn't slow him down. Like I couldn't even keep up with them. You know? Dude, that's so rad, though. And that's cool. Because that shows a lot of the people around you. I don't know if if you experienced it, why you're doing it. But a lot of your friends probably took motivation from you. I don't know about that. You know, but that mean without my friends I wouldn't be able to get through you know, there's tons of support from them. You know, yeah, but I think you probably did so support like Silent support that you didn't even know. Me. I guess. He does do some dumb shit. I remember one time he's like, I'm like, Hey, we're gonna be at Catalina on the big boat. I'm like, dude, come meet us. And like 12 o'clock rolls around out here from 1231 Two I'm like, still on here from calling him He's not answering his phone. And and the next day, I finally get a hold. I'm like, Dude, where are you? He's like, we started hauling ass out there. And we saw a cruise liner. And we thought those are the lights to Catalina so we followed it. And he ended up where did you end up? Bringing this. He ended up somewhere far away. They ran out of gas. I know where you were. This is a long time ago. This is like 2002 We literally I kept I kept waking up. I kept waking up in the middle and I'm like, where is he? Like he should be here by now. You know? Yeah, yeah. We got lucky on that. He I'm saying like he just did. He's like, Oh my God. I'm going to Catalina is a good zombie out there, bro. No problem. You know? Oh my god. What he's like jetski on like at night. He's like, Yeah, it's no big deal. That's like fearless. I can't do it. I'm not an ocean guy. The sharks scare the fuck out of me. Yeah, I mean, you're floating on a jetski unless you fall off and there's that's what I mean. Yeah, you don't want to follow it don't want to run out of gas. Jason. I know you'd like to run a gas. So I do run out of gas. I ran out of gas plenty of times. But everyone thinks like you fall off a jetski in the middle of the ocean sharks gonna come up and eat you. It's like, it's not even the case. You know? I don't know. Um, so that's why I think I do a lot of spear fishing in and we'll be out there and rarely do we ever see sharks. We do see him but it's not like everyone like say you jump in the water. It's like, oh, there's a shark. Yeah, you know, think about it, though. When you're swimming in the ocean. Oh, dude. I remember we're there's some big sharks out there. I'm not I'm not even gonna play. The only ones I'm scared of are big makers. Like I felt like white sharks or though cruise. Big makers or are different. You're not helping me. Like at all. Okay, I'll bring you all bring you spearfishing in you're a perfect example because I just have to swim faster than the next person. And we're good. That's why whenever I bring Jeremy I just give him the short films and I have a big long fence. Jenna harden just commented and said Eric and his brother got rescued by Carnival cruise ship once you hook me up with that story. That's what he's talking about that. But we all do we all have those stories where we went out and did something we shouldn't cruise ship though. I ended up I took I took a boat with no navigation. I ended up in Long Beach. Yeah, I'm saying like, we went we went the complete wrong direction. I still don't know like this whole like the Nautilus stuff where you like fine, I'd have zero idea because it's just all the same. Like it doesn't look good or no direction except for the stars and the sun. Like when you're out in the middle of the ocean. I mean, it does. It does change because like you can't get turned around real quick. That's what I'm saying. You don't know where you're going. Right. And I always thought I'm good with the directions but not in a situation like that. I guarantee I get lost. Yeah. Get lost in the vortex. Really. There's I mean, there's so many stories that there's so many stories where like Eric, you know, we went Wait, how far was that cruise ship away from the like from the shore. He was trying to trying to get to Avalon, which is 15 miles. They cut through the there's a thing called the 15 mile Bank, which is where it's it is a tanker ally. So all the tankers cut through that between Catalina go quick. Yeah, well, we thought we were we just kind of follow the things south and ended up being by the time we stopped it. He said we were 50 miles off a little boy yeah. So we we were falling for like two hours. Once we got closer, and we realized that it was a that wasn't a city and that it was a cruise ship. It was too late to go anywhere because our lights were flashing, you know on these two strokes. So how did you flag it on the cruise ship took like 30 minutes, we have flashlights and people drink it on them up at the bar tops on the flag. Thank God they weren't too sauced up. They were pretty soft stuff. I don't know. That's probably why they weren't stopping. The captain probably wasn't listening or whoever driving the thing. But they're I mean, there's so many that you can go into so many stories, but there the one of my favorite ones was it was me, Robert Eric, and we were meeting Casey curry. He's involved in a lot of these dumps. We were going up and meeting Casey Currie up at carbon Canyon. And I can't remember what truck he had. It was one of the pre runners. That thing had a big boy motor in it. Yeah, because we got onto the on ramp and we drifted the whole on ramp going all the way through. And one of the big trucks they were big man, they were big that yeah, he drifted the whole corner all the way up and then we get into the street and the carbon Canyon and we're hauling gas. We're I don't know how fast we're going. But I remember like we blasted by this cop. And he came out he came out and see the lights and he's like, oh those lights and we try and getting away from them and cop ended up pulling us It's over. And he's What's that? Yeah, Silverado. And he's like cops like, how fast were you guys going? And Eric's like, I don't know. He's like, I don't know how fast you guys are going. I just know you're hauling ass because he's like, my face was down doing paperwork. And I heard you guys go by. And then I looked up and you guys were already gone. And then we got out of that one. I don't know how we talked our way out of that one. Barely. That was close. I was close. And we were hauling ass. He was he was driving. Then we get up into the actual canyon where the dirt is and and we're flying through the dirt. And we meet up with Casey and Casey's there and we're hauling ass back down and some chicks down there videotaping. Oh, really? And Eric's like, do you stand in the middle of road? What do I do? I'm like, I don't know friggin duster, dude. So he turns and duster. And she like puts the camera down. Casey, I think he stopped. I think he stopped or he something she got his license plate. He ended up having to go to court. But he didn't. But he didn't rat us out. He went to court for that. And he saw as a statute on that whole thing. We're way past our we technically didn't do anything illegal. That's right. Because the cops dusted the girl out. You're good. Yeah, no proof. But yeah, but Casey didn't rat us out. So dude, solid, man. You got a solid group of people right there with you. I think I think she videotaped his license plate. I think he was driving like a jeep. That's why he couldn't duster out. It was a little underpowered. Yeah. Funny. Now you're out there one of them in 400. Dude, which one was better? Not getting a ticket or winning. They were both a rush. It was fun. Yeah, I mean, we had fun. We didn't get a surprise that we got away like, twice, which was like rare, right? The cop and then that girl that was videotaping that got Casey, not us. Bringing up all these great memories. Those those those times are funny. And I guarantee a lot of the people that are listening or watching the show, like I have those same type of memories. Every guy says, if you guys do have those stories, let us know. So we can talk about those as well. But if we don't get to it, send us in the direct messages too. All right. Let's take a quick commercial break and we'll come back in just a second. So stay with us watch them commercials give us about five minutes or so get another drink and we'll see you guys in just a sec. 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Zoolander racing the best products period Welcome Back Episode 155 Dirt life show with your man 400 Winner Eric harden did. It's been such a cool time to talk with you guys Jason marrow from UTV Wolfpack. And obviously Eric like just hearing the stories, dude, there's so much cool stuff that you guys have done. Whether it be sketchy or not. It's still pretty cool, because all of us have lived through that same stuff. So But let's actually talk about some some, like more racing serious stuff, like how hard is it? Or how much effort does it take to get a trophy truck to the races and across the finish line? I mean, it's it's a massive, massive effort to to get any car to the races and you know, and to get it especially to the finish line. But you know, as far as trophy trucks go, we're we're on the smaller side of the team's lower budget team. So we don't really get a pic a lot of the big races were on the big series. But, you know, our team's badass Nick Taylor, they bust their ass on the trucks. This last month. We did King of the hammers. Early February then we did another more race two weekends ago for my nephew Cole. He got second in 1600. And then we ended up Reese how hype was he always stoked? He's stoked he got his first win in December at the Barcia race out there, so really pumped for his future. And you know, he's he's showbizzy. He's 18 Now also, dude, he's pumped. Yeah, yeah, he's pumped. He's doing he's doing a much better. He's doing a really good job. And you know, he's showing his maturity behind the wheel. So I'm super pumped. Everybody keeps talking about tell the story of the cruise. Everybody's saying that. That's funny, man. So most notably, well, Eric is known now for winning the man 400. But prior to this, he was known for the cruise ship incident. Not at all. Eric has always been just wide open. lives his life full throttle. Yeah, it's funny, because it's like, you know, we we always we actually text more than we talk. And we have like a Text group with all our buddies from high school. I feel like this standard these days now. Yeah. But you know, it's like us just talking shit to each other. You know, that's about it. You see the text message group, and you're like, hey, I need to throw some heat. Yeah, no, it's like that all day. I mean, we're talking crap before the month. 400. And then it just got worse. Yeah, yeah, it's one of those things will go dormant for a day or two or three. And then it's like, bam, somebody gets going. And usually you and BJ Fisher. Yeah. But uh, you know, the good thing is is like, even today, like I haven't, you know, I haven't seen him in a year or two. And it doesn't matter how long it's been like, you know, when we see each other. I mean, it's the same thing. He's the same Eric, that he's always been. Nothing's ever changed. He's the same Jason. Definitely. Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing, too. That's why we love him. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, that's why everybody loves both you guys, right? How do you keep such a positive mindset? That's one of the things that I want to know. And I'm not just talking about because of what you've been through with your leg or the cancer and stuff like that. I'm talking about life in general, right? Because there's a lot of things that happen nowadays that are more seen on social media, right? So like, you're not a big social media guy, but people post positive inspirations and or they tell like, how their life is going or they're in the shit shitty circumstance or whatever. But you're really busy dude, Jason's really busy. Do you guys have all of these different things and you're taking on all this stuff like racing? You got an occupation. These are full time gigs right here getting these trucks to the track and then you go out and you Lose or you win. I mean, these all of these things are a lot to handle for a human being like, so how do you keep a positive mindset? I mean, it's super tough. And, you know, we do the awkward racing, it's our therapist. You know, we, we do it to have a good time. And it's your Dr. Phil to Yeah, exactly, to forget about the hard time and the stress and you know, everything in the rest of the world that we're dealing with, that we're all dealing with. So we're lucky enough to be able to do this with a bunch of fun people. But you know, we take it super seriously. So when we're out there, I mean, shoot, it's been, it's been really frustrating for me over the last few years, since we've, you know, Andrews been teaching me how to go fast and what needs to happen behind the wheel and what the truck needs to be capable of how we need to set it up over the last few years. And now we finally feel like we're there. And all the big events are just shit the bed. I mean, we can't, can't figure it out last year, like I was, I think we were talking about it last time. But last year, we were running third, which would have been a sweet podium finish for our first top or good finish in a mint or hammers are a big race. And we broke an actual going downhill like just didn't make sense. So the DNF that and the year before we scattered a motor, or a gear, and then the year before another motor, and then we left the lug nut loose the year before that and snap the act or snap the studs off. Then the year before that we lost another motor. So I mean, my brother's finished this thing one time with me and and we finished far back. So it's like, it's like our nemesis. You know, we can't get that race. We can't finish that race. Does that drive you? I mean, it frustrates me for sure. And, you know, I mean, we do a lot of the more races, you know, I kind of break them down as far as car counts go, you know, small, medium and large races. And, you know, the more races are awesome. There's usually not a big car count for the you know, for the unlimited trucks, but there's enough which is makes it really fun. And there's competition, but it's cool to be able to go win, win that championship in 21. And just go out there and race with Cody and those guys. And then to be able to win battle, Prim last year was a confidence booster. So we're broken. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's cool. But like I want to get to the my end question is going to be how much like how much you drive and how much you look forward to getting out there on the track and being a competitive individual and all this stuff. Because one thing that I think Jason probably noticed when he was watching the mint 400 Live Feed and I noticed very, very a lot when I saw you was the capabilities that you have for technical stuff in the truck. And you have limited function with your lower extremities but you had timing like you were wheeling and bouncing over oops, you were going through corners in the in the perfect area, like you were apex at the perfect time, like and this was on the last lap. So the man 400 When you're smoked, like your body is tore up, like your mental focus is fog, like everything. And you were still doing that. I don't know if it's muscle memory being in the truck for that long or how it actually works. But going through all of the things that you do, keeping the positive attitude and all of these things equal that on the track, and it's pretty impressive to be able, for me as a visual person. And looking at that on the live feed. I couldn't believe it like I would have probably been on more like just fuck, I'm barely gonna make it I'm just gonna roll these things and bring her home. So I don't know how it how it works for somebody like you. I mean, we pretty much drive as fast as we can almost all the time you know and that's that's the energy thing you were talking about Jason that's been good and bad over the years you know, it's like he'll drive the wheels off some don't don't let them fool you on that one. But hasn't let off. But yeah, I mean we're out there to race and have fun you know, and nobody wants to see somebody just go stop just because they have a lead you know you gotta go and get to the finish and Andrew and me were arguing about what visor to run on the on on my helmet because he's running the clear shield with the with their off with a pro armor tenet or the cruise armor tinted tear off oh yeah, that's one tear off yeah, so he could take it off when it got dark and then I was going to do that but it wasn't dark enough so and my ginger eyes you know I read you gotta have like devisee I need a darker so I don't have to squint the whole day so I was like no I'm running attendant shield we're gonna finish before dark or we're not going to finish like we're gonna get finish we're gonna finish and so that was the other reason like the last laugh that I was hauling acids because I didn't want I couldn't it was getting dark you know? What drives you is completely different completely different than what you thought it was gonna be. I don't want to listen to him so I was thinking it was gonna be this like Jesus changing moment. Now I couldn't see shit there's a lesson here you know maybe put two of those things on and then you can cruise that way when it gets dusky can't see anything. Or the other. Yeah, I better hurry up. Yeah, but you could tell I mean that on on the last like two laps. Seems like you were picking up speed like you were you were moving and it was smooth and, and it was going I mean, you're hauling ass. I'm in the truck felt great. Trucks fast. I mean we hit 151 Twice. Holy shit really? Yeah, I think what was your lead time on everyone? 15 minutes something like that 1415 Did that like if you look at like the last couple years races like on the Trophy Truck finishes like they were stacked on top of each other on the finishes and it's sort of second Yeah, so 15 minutes is is pretty cool. And plus they're like during the mid 400 Not to get I want to talk more about you, Eric, but like during the mid 400 Like, even rob Mack said at the beginning he's like, Dude, this is too fast. Like we're not gonna survive like this is the we're pushing the trucks that too hard. And then, like at the end serratus was admittedly he was. I don't know why you want to say cruising but he was pushing it. But he didn't want to push it too hard. Right. But householder was fucking pinned. Yeah, he was going he was moving. Yeah, like he was like he was stretching it out as hard as he could. Like, I'm, I'm I'm surprised that his truck made it but like, honestly, dude, it was pretty impressive to watch him drive to now he was he was willing. I mean, I was looking at the five red those laptimes Correct. He set the fastest lap out to everybody the first the first lap of the race. And I don't know how he did the other ones. But I mean, he was he was smoking it, you know, and that's when everybody was alive in the race and running. And it was pretty impressive. I mean, he Adams, a good driver in England. I mean, we just saw it from him last month at the hammer is getting overall winners. Any he can go fast. And he can he can finish clearly. I mean, top top three last weekend and then winning the hammers is dude. Yeah, he's no slouch at all. He does great. Yeah, he's really cooking it man. It was cool to see. And I liked the way that it was like it was a battle to the end, right? Like, if you did have a mistake, or if you lost a tie or something like you were given up a lot and he would have been able to come come up. Absolutely. Absolutely. No. I mean, we were we weren't really looking out the rearview mirror at that point. We were we were more worried about Harley and Kevin on that last lap, because those guys are those guys can lay it down and we were we yeah, we grew up. We grew up with Harley too. Yeah. Yeah. He's Harley's from high school to it's kind of crazy to a different high school, but we you know, we grew up with him. You guys were all so close, right? Yeah. It's kind of crazy, man. Like, do you guys ever think like how you guys all ended up here? It's pretty crazy. How many came out of like those high schools? Well, I can tell you guys could have played hockey. You guys go play soccer. You gotta get it done. Something that no, we want to we want to pick out a really expensive sport that doesn't pay out very well. Yeah, we wanted to Yeah, stress out. Yeah, who wants to go play golf and make millions and millions of dollars? Yeah. Why would you want to do something like that? Right. Yeah, not get hurt. Yeah. spend millions and not make much. Yeah, exactly. That's just the way it goes. But that is our off road culture. Right. I seen another meme the other day. If you want to make a million bucks and off road, you just start with two car with two. Yeah. Yeah. But you can't you can't replace like, like, the adrenaline or, you know, like even I remember like in the Lucas Oil races, like before we'd go out we'd be staged. You know, and the the one race would be going my adrenaline be going so hard that I would fall asleep in my car. Like before, before we're about to go out, fall asleep. And then the guy will come up and smack my window. Go do go, you know, and I'd wake up and be like, it'd be on again, because my adrenaline. We'd be sitting there for 30 minutes waiting or 20 minutes and your adrenaline's pumped. And your your all of a sudden you go from this high to like us waiting and you just fall asleep. Yeah, like nothing. Yeah. Have you ever had that happen? Yeah, kinda like, the way I always talked about it was everybody has their own different way of dealing with the chemicals that go through their body, right? Like, I told everybody, like, I don't get nervous, right? Like, all of that stuff comes through me. Like I get excited. Like, I get super pumped up. So like, when the adrenaline starts going for me, like I have a problem concentrating on breathing. Because I'm so excited. Like, I'm ready to go like a little kid, right? Like, yeah, good to go Disneyland like and I can't stop because I'm so excited. So if I take a couple deep breaths, or like in Jason's case, like I tell ya, do you get like that? Or no, I get antsy. I get I mean, I still get butterflies every time I go up there. I mean, you just get so excited. You know, once you go through, you mash the gas once you know it gets sucked back, hit hit the first or second corner. Like Alright, this is this is why we're here you know, and the nerves calm down and go with it. Yeah, like it's go time once you get going. I think everything just goes away. You feel like we're a little calmer than like Don Dell was. So many people been talking about that. There was a few people that sent it pretty hard. I saw spec track that like he sent it he didn't like nosedive but he sent it like the perfect line. I mean, he got through that thing clean and I don't know if he did that every lap but it was definitely the fastest way to do it. If the trouble it was so crazy. And then I was talking to Jason Montes in the intro herbs truck and he was like Do Troy sentence so hard off off the finish line dude and he got all whipped like dirt bike whipped and then landed right next to the pylon almost took out them in 400 Like, I don't I don't get people like literally you watch people you know the first 35 feet and it's like I had the race is usually one the first 35 feet. Yeah, and it sucks because it's like I think I mean, I haven't had a 35 foot you know one like that but I see people go out there and in being a race or you know what it took for them to get there? Yep. You know the prep the hours the people the money, the time away from family, just everything to get there. And then in 35 feet, you go send it off a jump and just destroy your car. It is it to me is just the craziest thing. It's like, dude, let the do go by, you know, but I mean, that's, that's part of, you know, the fun part of watching this stuff, right? Because there's always someone out there. It's like, hit it, Larry. We have enough rednecks in the sport with money, right? They're like, go for it. It makes it super good for us on the live stream because we can commentate? Yeah. But yeah, so like, talking about being smooth and like all of that stuff. Like I think there's a lot to learn again, talking about the kids and stuff. Like if you're in a situation like let's use Kaden Danbury, again as the example. Right? So if he needs to overcome an obstacle that he broke and he was feeling guilty about it, just become accountable for it. And then what do you suggest he does the next time he gets out on track? Like how does that work? Just try not to make the same mistake twice. You know? He's pretty good at that. No, I'm yeah, we're using him as the example. But there's a bunch of kids that have that same issue. Because they really get down on themselves. They want to win for sure. Everybody does freshers high in the competitions. You know, stiff, stiff, yeah, today it is or everyone's getting out there. It's serious this year, especially the UTV is I mean, it's it's crazy. These guys are nuts. Yeah. And there's a lot of them there. Yeah, there is. That's what's cool about it, though. It's like I was watching it on Friday. Watch them all take off and do it. It was it was killer. And there's some really great drivers out there to Christmas Robbins actually said how rad would it be if we could just still go wide open down the main pit like the old days? I never saw that what we're talking about without a Speed Check. Yeah, yeah. There used to be speed limits back when we started speed checks now, you know, through all the fields and stuff. Well, I kind of feel for that speed check because I don't want to ever get hit by a car. Well, I think the speed checks that they do or like in certain areas, like one of the speed checks is on that bridge where you know, you're going you know, obviously side by side they obviously don't want people it's asphalt. You can't you know, be doing 150 miles an hour next to each other. I mean, yeah, just the wind drift alone would pull you guys together something, you know, trophy trucks didn't go as fast back then. Right? Like or did they know they didn't go this fast? They were fast, but the track was probably different. was rough. I don't think there weren't you know, 75 or 85 Unlimited cars run around there while I'm in the trash. I think we're probably still rough. I mean, they're you know, but you got to remember like with evolution like well, Kingdom motorsports said they can have a bypass to watch the people go past like that's what they should I mean, that would be sweet. What do you mean like like take a longer route but like a pit road or you stay on course kind of thing? That's all they added in the hammers on that remote pit? You could pull? Yeah, kind of like World Championships. Yeah. Or yeah, World Championships had it you had we had a pits that you pulled into. And yeah, or you come on desert bypass. Yeah. That that would actually be kind of cool. Because then you could see people just ripping right there. Well, and then all the people in the pits could get all their Instagram bangers. I think there's two sides of that. I mean, obviously with the with the speed checks and stuff, there's two people that people are using it for multiple things are checking the cars as it drives by two. Yeah, that's a good point. You know, so so it does. I feel like there's there's obviously a help on that side of it. But it's also could be a safety thing because you can end up seeing some wobbling from you know, because when we used to drive through the pits, you know, my guys would be out looking down you know, the row out of the car to see if anything was wobbling, loose, broken and then when we pass is the same thing. Yeah. And did some of the people even throw a frickin granola bar hammer inside the car water, whatever, too. We had. We had little worms on zip ties. So you just pulled them off the dash to go anywhere? Yeah. And then and then granola bars or duct tape to the roof. Yeah, I remember that. That's the first time I figured out how to eat in the car was when Jason had duct tape. I'm like, I'm gonna do that. That's such a great idea. Hey, did it flesh and dig in a bag? Have you ever tried digging a bag doing like 70 over oops, just don't work. Trying to eat some Lay's potato chips. Now you peel it off the debt off the top of duct tape and literally the duct tape will peel the it'll open the wrapper at the same time but you're just chopped down on it. Such a good idea. All right, pro tip duct tape. Your food to the roof. zip ties. Hey, what do you eat when you're in the car in the truck? So I mean, the good thing about those little 25 mile an hour sections is I mean it gives you a chance Sup pee. So I mean, I definitely wasn't dehydrated. I was drinking like PD like sport, the whole time. Pee and every single lap perfect, but, you know, I would eat like a goo. The last two laps, I need banana. So I'm like cramping up I always get like leg cramps and arm cramps, you know, if we make it to, if we can make it that far in these races, you know, it doesn't happen as often but now it's starting to happen. So I'm stoked. But that in a granola bar, you know, not too much just enough to just, you know, you're wrong. I used to like PB and J's or like turkey sandwiches or anything like that, like something substantial. It's kind of crazy that people have such different personal like, preferences when they're out there and like eating what did you eat? Just eat granola bars and like granola bars and then yeah, I mean, we would have sugar products. It depends on the race. Like we would set up different races last year like hey, we missed the float like, yeah, Vegas arena was like, you know, more endurance style snacks and then I think like the mint 400 and stuff was just like more sugary products to try and just keep you jacked up a mountain dew or something as long as you could you know, the whole time. Yeah, huge crash after the race. Those Yeah, those energy goo things with all the caffeine and everything in there afterwards. You're like, yeah, you're shaking your stomach hurts. Yeah, but it's fine. Like after the race doesn't matter what. And then plus like after the race of beer is like the best thing ever did. It was the one thing I miss about the bat races with Casey, folks, you know, is that when we finished the races, he'd be he'd be standing there with a beer. You know, like ready for you? Yeah, well, there was actually beers the mint 400 This year Christian syrup has got to chug Yeah, belching beaver. Yeah, yeah. So I think he should have chuck in Corona. But I mean we gave him some shit that last week when you're talking on the show. Man you guys got any other stories? Like to me to talk about? Did you ever guys Did you guys ever go to the track and like race together or with each other? Anything like that? I don't think so. I think yeah, dirt bikes, maybe like oh, no, all the Merrill boys were fast on dirt bikes and crazy. It's all crazy or stupid. Well, there's a fine line. There's a fine line. Well, there's still a lot of love to wheels in your family to your brother kids. Like your kids. Like, my nephews are rippers and now they got those serums and yeah, and did their soup in the surrounds up were like, you know, their mod not the chips. You know, my nephew told me he hit 98 miles an hour and one day, no fucking way. I'm like, bro, what are you doing? You know, and really, they got they got down in 88 Miles 98 is what he told that's so sketchy. Yeah, they wear helmets. Okay, I mean, yeah, 90 miles an hour helmet can do much. Yeah, you're dead. Yeah, it's like, but did they have tracks all over the place down in Newport like and like little dirt sections. And they have like, they're hidden for like 50 6080 foot isn't shitload? Yeah, and you don't have a motor so that people can't like hear you out there. It's almost riding like bicycles. Well, yeah, they're quiet. That's crazy. I got Mason electric dirt bike, and do we rip that thing all over Irvine? No one says a word. Because it's quiet. Yeah, it doesn't say yeah, doesn't make any noise. Dude, actually, that's we should talk about that. Then do you guys see like any type of racing? I'm returning like a trophy truck being electric or anything like because? Could you imagine if you could just have hot swappable batteries. So I know who's building one right? I know, I'll probably get shit for this. But I actually nerd it out. I nerd it out for a while on turning a Tesla into an off road car. Like just dissect them. The problem is, is that it's all a unibody right? They don't actually have like, legit frame. So can you use the drive line? You could? I mean, I've I've done a lot of homework on dissect. And that's tough because Koh came out with like an electric, you know, electric class, but I didn't want to do Koh but you know, I looked at like buying a salvage title Tesla and then just converting it over. It's just a lot of time. A lot of energy a lot of time I don't have right now. So I wonder how long it would last like you go like 40 Miles fully pinned? No, I mean, so when the big electric thing. So when the big electric thing like popped off in the beginning when all these electric trucks were like having like rival like, who's going to come out first, like the lighting in the Caribbean. And if you remember Brent thaw, built the Lordstown motors truck and they went down to Baja. I think they went like 20 miles. So and then something happened with the truck. And I don't know all the details on it. And electric. Yeah, I just know that I had a lot of stock in Lordstown that I bought on Friday, and I lost a lot of money on Monday. So, because I was like, Yeah, I really think about that. Well, yeah. I mean, I thought you know, I'm my call Brent. I built the truck. I'm like, Dude, it should finish. I mean, you know, why not? Right, like, and so I had high hopes for it because it's like, you know, the first electric truck wins, you know, not wins but finishes the Baja 500 and Wall Street would go off and so, yeah, I lost a lot of money on that. So I was kind of bitter about that. You know, but I think I went slow now you'd looked into Tesla, so you can make so yeah, so I'm like, I'm over here nerding out on stuff on how to you know, because the biggest issue they had was, was pulling in and charging the truck. You know, like they have like big generators on trust, I'm saying like, if you have hot battery, but the problem is, is like the way that those systems are set up. You know, it's not like a normal like, like, like the Tesla batteries, they bolt up underneath and there's a big, you know, you need like a big Jack system to unbolt it and come out. And like there's a process to it. You know, I'm saying we can figure this out, we could figure it out. If you get a sponsor from them, it would be pretty wild to see that the only reason I say that is because like you could control every single thing from the car, like let's just say it was like the man 400 And it was dusty the whole time at the beginning and then it got traction, you could actually just change all of that stuff on the fly, and have less horsepower and like traction control, like it would do it. I mean, I know you can do it on some of the bigger trucks and the more money teams but like, still like could you imagine how fast those things go. It's just money and time. I mean, we you know, when when I raised we mess with FLIR and and I don't know if you know what FLIR is like, don't don't FLIR is nightvision for boats, okay, so you could actually you could drive in the night. So FLIR works the same way and dust. And, and so we were messing around with FLIR Systems in our car. And the problem was, is just the dust in the screen. So we were trying to figure out how to drive through dust at full speed with a FLIR system, but the problem is, is like the FLIR Systems that, you know, you could do that with the government uses, like 100 grant. So, you know, it's just again, it's just time and money to do that. So clearly, there's so much technology out there that we don't use. But, you know, people just have to have the resources or the money or time to put it together. Dude, I can barely get a Starlink set up on the site. So yeah, I mean, just think like, just think if you're in a trophy truck, and you had a screen in front of you, and you had a FLIR camera, and, and it was complete dust, just like at nighttime, you could literally you can drive as fast as you want, because you can look through that screen and you can see perfectly through the daswell the FLIR system, dude, that would be so crazy. Could you imagine the advantage? Like, that's why we tried, we legitimately tried to put one into the car. And just just because the dust application with the Marine, it didn't work. This is meant clogging the camera. Yeah, I was just clogging the camera up. So we tried putting, you know, plastic rotators you know, and it just like, fortunately, like if you go through silt, it just, it's everywhere. You can't get so out of stuff for days. So it sticks to everything, especially electronical stuff that's wild to think about how like in five years or 10 years what we're going to be talking about, I think it'll be attainable because you know, the those systems will come down in price. I think RCR has one in his truck or he was right on one Desi. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I said, if he had if you have the funding, and I mean, all those things are so cool. And I love technology. We got another technology buff Robert over there. I love TAC it, it is kind of crazy to think like, just in your what you're talking about is a little bit escalated compared to what I'm going to mention, but like just thinking about the starlings, like you have a computer network on the car now. Yeah, like so that gives opportunity for all kinds of stuff, right? Like without giving away too many secrets so you can know where the car is. And all I have live data on my car, you can have live data, you can plug it into a Motek you can do all kinds of cool stuff. So it can be just in your car while you're driving. Yeah, not like f1 kind of shit, right? Like and not just showing a live feed or live broadcast, right. So once those types of things work themselves out. And again, this is not like five years, probably a year or two down the road like this is for certain things. Yeah, yeah. But it's it's pretty amazing to see that we'll have all that but it kind of it kind of also takes away from it too. I guarantee if you talk to like somebody like Rob Mac or any of those other people. Just keep it just keep it simple. Yeah, like, let's just get out there and race. Like, I remember talking to Bob Bauer, like he's old school, old school, right. And he's like, you know, what, the first Baja 1000 We just said, we're starting here. We're ending here. Whoever gets there the fastest wins. No maps, nothing. You just go. Like, that's how it works. Yeah, figure it out. Yeah. But like, that's like, true. It's cool. Baja. I feel like there's a lot of fun in that though, too. Right? Yeah. 100%. But, you know, it was like the same reason that happened with short course. Remember, the reason that we started to push the UTVs into Lucas short course was because of money. You know, we didn't have a big funding, you know, we didn't have my mom and dad weren't. We're writing checks for cars. And, and so you know, the people that were racing, the SR ones, you know, they came out with 60 $80,000 cars, we couldn't do that. So we want to we want to develop something that you can go buy off the showroom floor and have parts readily available that you weren't stuck to one builder, right. You know, kind of like if you go buy a Tatum sand car and you got Tatum front arms, I mean, you have to go buy him from paid him and if he charges 10 grand, that's what you're that's what you're paying. Yeah. Well, that's why the TVs are so adaptable because you can go down to the nearest players dealer and pick them up. And there's a ton of players dealers, you know, they have a huge network doing 100%. Like, I love that, that. That makes me think like, because you spent a lot of time at the off road races and stuff like, what have you. I know you got the trucks, but like, what if you just want to race a UTV one weekend? And the trucks are prepped? Just jump in one would you? Yeah, of course. Race anything? Yeah. I mean, those things aren't stocked, so even the stock ones aren't stocked there. Yeah. But like I said, we know guys that have TV. You could you could get in there and race. I mean, like, I feel like that's pretty cool. And I honestly think that we again, we're talking about the kids. Like if the kid saw you jump into UTV and race, they would love to see you do that. Like, I feel like they'd love to see you at the track. Especially like, let's just say a DB for race or something. Yeah, no. That'd be great. I think it would be pretty cool. Don't you think? It'd be cool to see him out there and UTV Jason. Yeah. Jason back out there. I think. I think it's more relatable. Sounds like he's gonna get out there and ETV Pretty soon I'll figure it out. I'm excited. I got I got I got some more physical therapy to do and then I'll, I'll get my stuff sorted. The big thing right now as you know, my son, so we started doing this k one has like a Grand Prix series for juniors and so I've been putting my son in that. And so he's been getting super competitive. He's getting super fast too. And, and now you like it? Oh, he loves it. And now I've been training my daughter and you know, in the beginning she was she was pretty slow. She's getting last place and two days ago, you know, she got second place right behind them two seconds behind them. Know when she gave him a run for his money. And she's like, she she can only reach one pedal. So and she barely reaches the steering wheel. And and she's given them a run for his money. So she loves it. So I figure you know, my thing is, is like my son has he has a racing go kart, he actually has like one of those gas powered ones. It's like, badass. He's got a UTV, he's got dirt bikes, she has their bikes. You know, it's like the evolution they like the best. They like four wheels or two wheels. They love both. They just love being outside. And I feel like that's like the biggest thing you know, it's just it's just making sure they get outside and have fun and that's honestly like that's that's been my motivation lately and that's why I've kind of backed off a lot but I felt like we could still go race one or two races a year. I feel like what we were doing before was just too much. You know, I think at one time we were doing we did 38 events in a year. Oh my God really? Yeah. You know we did we did full Lucas Oil series we ran desert series you know bat full bat and then you know we are run some of the other local races. I can't remember what they were called, like the dirt series. Do. That's a lot. Yeah. So that's a lot of resources. And we are setting and we are setting up at events, you know, for for the parts company. And we were still doing a lot of stuff like a lot of builds for Indian and Rockstar and Polaris like a lot of, you know, behind the scenes stuff that people didn't see. So that's a workload. I feel like I missed like two years of my son growing up you know, and that was wearing like when I caught myself yeah, I get I get that and plus now like you just said like seeing Mason girls and stuff like actually enjoying the like, I don't know what you want to call it the beginning stages of motorsports like that's pretty cool. I watch the complete opposite like get my wife was playing with dolls when she was little. My daughter's is the complete opposite. She loves. She loves this stuff. And I'm gonna fast I'm gonna make it to where she passes my son. Give them give them gives him some for his money, you know? Yeah, that would be pretty cool to see. Right? 100% What is Jenny think like shocking about the family atmosphere like, because I mean, like you guys both grew up like doing that stuff. And your parents obviously liked it and let you guys do that. Is that the same thing? Jason? She She's She deals with it. copes with it. Right? Like, yeah, she tolerates. Exactly. I think that she obviously she knew who she married. Now, there's no sugarcoating that. So I always tell her, I'm like, you know, if you don't want I mean, you get what you got. So I'm still the idiot that I do all this crazy stuff that we do. You know, I think all three of us are the same way. Right? Yeah. She wants to put me in a bubble. I'm like, yeah, it's not gonna happen. I was supposed to go snowmobiling this last week. And she was giving me you know, shit about going up the mountains because it just dumped and one of her friends got stuck. I'm like, yeah, they probably drove a Prius up there. Now, like, I got a truck, we're fine. It's good. It's okay. What's that night and I figured I'd save it. I have to go to a bachelor party this weekend. So there you go. Yeah, pick your battles. Pick your battles. All right. Well, let's uh, let's kind of wind down the show a little bit here. It doesn't look like YouTube and, and Facebook were actually being very nice to us. But that's okay. Instagram still worked out today. That's a flip from last time. Doing these live podcasts is very much like an off road race. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it does. But it's cool, man, I really appreciate both you guys taking the time obviously away from your families and just kind of hanging out and doing shop talk with us. I do want to have rapid fire q&a with Eric though you want to do it real quick. Jason, do you have give me you want me to ask him questions while you ask a question and then I'll ask a question. So with Radware we want you just start with the first one. Where did you grow up that one? No, the rapid fire q&a. Okay, got it. Tacos are hot dogs. Tacos. Big taco guy for chicken or a SATA. SATA. Every time do you enjoy the river? River? Big River guy really? River for sure. What do you take on the river jet skis, jet skis, little ski boat. I'm gonna give them shit all the time that floats? I'm gonna give you shit about the jet skis all the time. So do you bring a jet ski today? The PERB Exactly. Let's see here. action shots or still shots. action shots. Oh, big action shot guy. Some of those action shots at the Mint 400 took of you are pretty sick. Do that one. Are you coming to have a corner? Oh, William. Is such a trip. Yeah, I can answer this one for him through will or quad. Quad Claude Claude I didn't I didn't think you're gonna do I thought you would have said three wheeler. Not a big three wheeler guy. I mean, I like three wheelers. But I haven't written one in a long time. If you were gonna pick a three wheeler, what would you pick? Do you fit the are too big to fit? Pretty well. death machine. Yeah, totally. Yeah. If you haven't stuck your leg or flip one of those left. When they had those, the Kickstarter would always come back to you. SHAN Have you guys seen they turn those like a CR 450 into a three wheeler. They'd like us a half of 250 our chassis or 200x chassis. And then they use the front end of the mic the drag ones? No, it's like an actual CRF 450 like the front and then where the swing arm comes out. It's a solid axle three wheeler and then they put the fairings on it. Do this wild. Yeah, I gotta. I gotta. I gotta show you some of those things are easy. It's it? Well, I don't know if I will read one. Alright, see? Pizza Rolls or jalapeno poppers? Pizza Rolls. Coffee or tea? Even though pizza rolls burn the fuck out of the top of your mouth. Yeah, I don't know a whole opinion popper. Burning the top your mouth we talked about? Yeah, that's a good point. You said tea. I like both. I love coffee and tea. coffee in the morning tea in the afternoon. All right. What's your favorite movie? Top Gun? The new one or the old one? The old one. Og one. Did you get though? Have you been down to Oceanside and see how they move the Top Gun house into like little hotel now. It's such a bummer. Like it was sitting there all the static for so long. Then it kind of started getting decrepit, and then they put up all these buildings in downtown Oceanside. And then so they moved that house over into like a I don't know what you call it the courtyard of a big ass Hotel. So they still kept it. But it's not quite as cool as it was before. No, I didn't know that way the world turns man, Instagram or Facebook. Instagram. Well, so you're gonna step up your Instagram. Try just let your chick take it over. Right Just do like one of those shared accounts where it's like Diana slash Eric. People we grew up with you, bro. Your balls are the same. Guys not raising every like 50th picture is just the Eric on the podium until then he doesn't get anything. Yeah. Let's see here. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? The fly? You gotta fly. Yeah, we talked about this a bunch because I kind of feel like this is a little controversial. Like what did you pick? What was your superpower that you picked? Or did I didn't pick one what is yours? Because I've never really thought about it. What is it that forever? What is it? That's like Waterworld. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Big big spear fishing all over it. What's that? Aquaman you would do Aquaman I don't know. So like I always wanted to like the flying thing sounds cool. But I like the jumper thing where you can like jump to places like not like jumping like that movie jumper where you like teleport or whatever. Like I feel like that would be so sick because you guys think it'd be like oh, I want to go eat in Italy for lunch and yeah, I want to go rob a bank. Yeah. Problem solved that Yeah. What kind of Trophy Truck you want? Yeah, where do you get all that money? Don't worry about it. It's cool. You get your own truck. Yeah. All right, what's an excellent Netflix or YouTube? Netflix. Have you seen drive to survive the f1 thing on Netflix? I haven't watched it yet. Dude, it's solid. I've heard that from everyone. I know there's five seasons now. Well, so. Oh, cool hard and said your favorite movie is Goonies. I love Goonies too. Doesn't look good. Yeah, Goonies is a good one. Legend. Good. This is great shows how old we are, right? So the Netflix, that's cool, you got to see that that series, because like, this is what I want. So bad for off road to have a series like that, like it would be so cool. I mean, it's a multimillion dollar production. So I don't think it's ever going to happen. But if we could figure out a way to show the masses, because like, when you think about the popularity of f1, five years ago, it was very low. But now since that has shown to the general public, it's massive, like it's got way more of a following. You talked about like the same thing in off road. Yeah, I mean, the same concept enough references. I feel like kind of I mean, like, I don't disagree with you, I felt like with, you know, everything going on with off road, like all the big manufacturers and OEMs pulled out, I mean, and when they did it kind of fell out. I feel like the new manufacturers and OEMs are like the UTVs. You know, it's like they're the only ones that are given true support. Like you don't see Chevy Ford dodge. You don't see them out there with factory teams like Honda is the only one out there. Yeah. And, you know, it's like that, you know, those companies do need to come back. They do need to bring that back. And I don't disagree with you at all. But I think that our support definitely does not get the love. It should. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, you look at like Formula One stuff, like do when they did the Haas formula, one team don't want to say like, from what I read, I think it was like a $650 million deal at Hostin, and that's just one company one sponsor, right? That's what I'm saying. It's not it's like, okay, like, dude, imagine a million dollars for us, or $2 million for us can do wonders. That's what I'm saying. What do you think about the new Polaris team then like, so it's kind of, it's kind of putting that out there. I mean, it'll take 234 years to be able to, like, get up to a point like that. But I think that it's a start. You know, obviously, that was like a concept that that that we tried to do you know, what, back in 2012, with the five car team, right, we just didn't have the same funding, right? I think that what they're putting together is definitely in the right direction. And, and the reason it's in the right direction is because when we were factory sponsored, we had technical issues with our cars. And one of the big things was like, you know, I had my car would go into limp mode. So I was like, Okay, I have to go to the dealer to get it cleared. So then I made a big deal about getting computers so we can clear our own codes. Then once we got through that hurdle. The next hurdle was, well, you know, we're spending all this money. We're a factory team, why don't we have any engineers that we could talk to? Right? Then we got, you know, Craig got involved. And Craig's like, Hey, Jason needs a computer make it happen. And at the time, they're like, Well, we have to give you like a dealer number. Because, you know, we only give them to our dealers. And then Craig understood it, you know, Craig got it. And that's obviously why he's part of that factory team is because in order to, you know, they're spending all this money racing, and they don't have their own in house engineers helping these guys accomplish things. Right. You know, and that's part of where they're going. I think it's good, because hopefully, maybe it'll push other OEMs to step up. Maybe. You know, I feel like the Honda team. I feel like they're spread them. I think they need to break it apart. Yeah, I think they need to give the UTV thing to somebody. And they need to take the the truck side and give it to somebody. Yeah, I like where your head's at. And they're doing they need to separate that because I feel like you know, they're they're putting too much on one plate because the reality is is like, you know, I don't follow the proctor race team, but I don't see them on a box all the time. I think they just won last weekend, right? Yeah, they won the Baja, didn't they? Yeah, and they wanted to mention it, but like they're doing good too. And the truck won the hammers in the mama timeout Trump time or YouTube. TV? I don't know. They've been winning a lot. They have seen it. Yeah, they've been really well. But that's a lot better than it was, what two years ago? Yeah. And I'm just talking more about then practice runs a fantastic program and I really liked the way that they do the program because it reminds me motorcross right, like dirt bikes and stuff. Supercross teams, legit. Yeah, it should be. Yeah, absolutely. And it looks nice. That's why I'm just Yeah, his his setups are definitely clean. That's why play shows up, you know, presentable to a factory standard. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and the Japanese run a little different than the United States people do. So they better be on point, right? Yeah. 100% But the thing that I like most about it is it shows a good future for the sport of off road or for the off road community, right? Like no matter what happens when you have an entity that starts building a new thing that people haven't quite seen yet Like what the SCI group is doing with the players factory team, it gives an opportunity for growth. And that is the most meaningful portion of it. And I do think that there is going to be some leaps and bounds that they have to overcome. But that's with anything, right? When you're paving the way you're paving the way, hopefully. And with all due respect to everybody. Hopefully, those bigger programs don't pull away from some of the, you know, core people that had been there from day one to Well, you never know. I mean, hopefully it doesn't pull away from still supporting other racers. You never know. That's a question that always has to be answered with time, right? Yeah. But I'm just saying in general, like, hopefully it does not pull away from still supporting the racer. But as we're talking about that, though, too, I don't know. Because I don't know if it's going to affect other people. But as we talk about that, you got to remember we're a vigilant group, right? Like, let's just say I was affected because I used to be a Polaris factory driver, and I didn't get a part of that team. Well, that shows me another opportunity. It says, Okay, well, my normal is not going to be what their normal is now. Now I can go somewhere else. And I can look for non endemic sponsors like what I did with you, Jason in the in the UTV, Wolfpack, I asked you, I said, Should I keep all your sponsors? Like no, go get your own? Like, we have a limited budget, we're sticking to this. So I was like, okay, cool. And then I went out and got some non endemic sponsors. I brought Supercuts to the table, right? Like, that was something that was cool. And but it was, because of what I was shown, I said, Okay, I'm not gonna get any help there, I gotta go find it elsewhere. And I think if people understand that, they have the opportunity to do that, that it'll open up doors that they didn't even think were open because they got one close in front of them. So now it pushes them to go do something else. 100%. So I do think that there's a lot of opportunity for growth, and that's what I mean by progress and growth. So I mean, to you know, like, like Eric's set up, you know, Eric, Eric's family in they own a Honda Kia, Buick Pontiac GMC stores. And, you know, you'd think that GMC would see stuff like this, and they'd be like, hey, you know, we should come down there and be the title sponsor on the side of that truck. If GMC is watching this. Right. That's a great idea. Yeah. I mean, you know, these companies, you know, GM, you know, obviously, GM, like, go back to the Lordstown motors thing. You know, GM was a huge contributor to that Lordstown. They got a bunch of the people over there. They did spend the money to take the brunt old truck and have the Brent old build that truck and go bring it down to Baja and do that. So you know, why aren't you know, why isn't GM? Why isn't Ford why are they coming into these sponsors. Now, the men 400 Is televise. So they can't make the excuse that hey, you know, we're not televised, we don't have the coverage, you know? So now that that's there, you know, why aren't these big companies coming in? I think they gotta be shown it right. Like, they gotta be reintroduced to it. You got to remember too, that there's a lot of turnover in those companies. 100% And those people that the new guys made, there's never known about it, right. But if you look at like, MHRA, and NASCAR and all those places, like Did they dump insane amount of money and those places? Right, well, it's because of viewership, right? I mean, like, I mean, yeah, we're getting there haven't been televised for long though either off road. I mean, the mortality is do a killer job. We're getting there. about it, but the ball is televised, right? Not the way that you're not the way they not not the way it should be. Not the way you're talking about. Yeah, like it's not televised, like, well, so I went to nitro rallycross over the weekend. And it was that, oh, it was fucking amazing. Like, I all I did a good job. Absolutely. They do a fantastic job. So I noticed two things. I noticed one, that the mint 400 was very close to that very close, we just need a little bit more technology to be able to broadcast from trucks, like the star link and stuff. And we need to be able to tell a little bit bigger of a story, right? So they have limited amount of characters in nitro rallycross. Let's just call it like 10 people that are really well known, right? And they keep to those core structures. Because it's easy to tell a story. It's easy for people to latch on to be a fan. When you watch a football game, you know who your favorite player is, right? So if all of a sudden I go to an off road race, and I see 500 trucks out on course, cool. That's rad, right? Like, we just made a bunch of money because we just had all these people. But it makes it very difficult to tell a story. If all of a sudden Eric Hardin is my favorite driver, Jason Merrill's my favorite UTV driver, and I have the story. And I can latch on to that. And I see these people that makes me connected, and I may have never known about off road, all of a sudden, I'm gonna do to Home Depot that you can walk up to and say, I know that guy. I love off road. So it's a different thing. And I think we're growing to be able to get there, but I think it's gonna take a little bit of time and I think it's gonna take I don't want to say restructuring. But I think that there is a little bit of restructuring that needs to happen. Yeah, and and, you know, Desert is is harder to film, right? I mean, you know, that's why I love your course. Yeah, but, you know, short courses just, it's just different. You know, you gotta beat the shit out of your car for 15 minutes and then you rebuild it for the next four hours. Over Yeah, that's that's short course, you know. Oh yeah. All right. Let's keep going then. So what question do we leave off on? Oh, video or photo videos or photos videos? Like, what's the best like Instagram or video that you've seen lately? I mean that one of our CRO hittin that mount that was pretty insane. I don't know how we got through I don't think the FLIR picked out thing. He smashed doesn't pick up everything. I think pretty good. So Ryan RCL. Kudos. All right, Jason. Most memorable race. The men. That's a good one. Yeah, the reason I the reason that I have this question, though, and I've told this story a million times is my most memorable race was at Glen Hill on when I was on rmat. And I remember I just got like, I was sleeping on the start, I got a shitty start. And at the end, I had almost passed on Hamlin, right at the finish line. And I remember being in that race. And I was probably only like, 13 or 14 years old. But I remember. It was like one of those movies like, What's that movie with Bradley Cooper, where he's like, completely focused. Like he's like laser focused on Iran where he takes takes a pill like laser focus, like that's what it felt like, like I was in the zone, so much that you couldn't break me out of like getting to the finish line first kind of thing. Like, did you ever have any money to beat them? No, I was like, I thought you were going into like a banger on that one. I wish I was but I was like I was I was so far behind that was almost like three quarters of lag behind. And I ended up being like, maybe two feet from passing them at the end like right at it. And it was one of those things that I'll never forget. Because I really have never had that level of focus ever since. I don't know if you got from the back to the front. I think it was just the laser focus that I had. It was like I was on some sort of like, drug inside my system that just made me think like superpower like racing guy or something. I had a one. At the very end of the year, they take all the UTVs and the Lucas Oil series and put them all together. The NA is the turbos everything. And it's a shit show. Yeah, it's like 35 cars. And I remember I got a shitty star. I end up winning. I ended up winning that race against all the triples I was in a naturally aspirated car. And I won that I won that one I came from the back so that's like Yeah, yeah. Are you just like all you couldn't do anything wrong and didn't know at the very last corner like somebody was was coming up on me but I got over the finish before he ended up getting that big trophy. You know, like they had this big championship trophy for that one race because it's a shit show. Yeah, you know, there's 35 cars and they're all different classes. They just throw them on the one friggin deal Yeah, what did they call it? Like when this broke Jews and pro fours like the World Cup or something like that? Yeah, like the same kind of shit. They did the same shit with all the UTVs Have you ever had that like, mental focus like where you were just locked in? I mean, I felt like that at the minute for sure. Yeah, like just calm cool and collected not stressed out you know what I mean? It's so It's so crazy because like as a racer, you want that all the time but it doesn't always work out always work because there's a lot of frustration you know feeling flustered Oh, somebody or something like you know you take the wrong line or getting somebody's does and give you blow a corner you lose the start off the line, you know, all these different things and then you're kind of chasing the whole time. But ya know, when you get in that groove, it's killer. Do that. Yeah, I couldn't I still wish I had that. All right. What's your favorite snack? gushers Oh, big. Gotcha. All right. I didn't expect that. Yeah, I love Gushers. Nice. Supercross and motocross. Supercross Supercross for sure. Biggs, who are you going with right now? Like, have you been watching and keeping up? I mean, I always I love rocks. And you know, just watching him. So did you? Were you pumped that he won last? Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. What about you Jason? Have you been watching it all keeping up? Yeah, the last couple times? I haven't. No, but now just been inundated with work. Yeah, I mean, we usually we usually don't miss like an A one. I don't think we've missed an a one in forever. So he did though. Dude, it's been knocked down drag out like the racing this year has been pretty insane. Um, I saw the Deegan, you know, taken out a thing Yeah, taken out his own teammate saw that one. Those two kids were on the same team, right? Diegans Yeah, but I mean our Yeah, you can just once a win I mean, like, I mean, he's hungry. It's kind of crazy. But yeah, like I was so pumped when Kenny won like because he's like my guy to like, and maybe I don't know if it's the same reason for you, but I like him because he's been through so much and he's never given up he's definitely not giving up it's rad. It's so cool. And you can even see like I saw some sort of video like a long time ago when he goes to like put his I don't know what the chin strap on his helmet on. You can see his arms don't work like they should like none of those guys and I was working like they show candidates especially broke but like Dude, it's all those guys that I mean all The guys that we've known over the years like Nathan Ramsey and and yeah McGrath and read all the people that we're friends with and you know, they're all put together Bolton pins I mean every single one of them, dude. Yeah, it's crazy, right? Yeah. Let's see here. Oh well other former racing would you like to try her? Um, I mean, I drive a UTV sometime for sure. I didn't think you were gonna I thought you're gonna pick jetski racing. Oh No way. No way too old for that speed motor dragster speed boat. Dude, he's this guy likes water. I love water did they got they got a big old badass boat next door? Really? Yeah. What is that as a fountain or is there limits? I don't know what that is. But is that cool? All right. Final question of the night did and this means that if you answer incorrectly This means we're not friends. chips and guacamole or french fries and ketchup, chips and GWAC. All right, we're friends. All right. Well, yeah. So let's, let's kind of close out the show. I think you should probably give a big thanks to all the people that helped you at least propelled to the man 400 victory but honestly, it's all the years leading up to that too, right? Yeah, no, I mean, this doesn't happen without tons of work and sacrifice from everybody. You know, obviously my wife Diana, thank thank you so much my dogs trophy and trick. They're named after Trophy Truck and trick truck. Oh, perfect. They, they give me a lot of support. So love them. Robert Caden, he met Taylor of course, it's all you know, my family for all the support my brother, everything Jared puts into this. You know, it was awesome. wouldn't be able to do without him. My little nephew Cole excited for his future. And that is cool. He's doing a great job. You know, and of course, our sponsors, you know, the heart and auto group. They do a killer job, Kingston fury, pro Eagle, Jax Gibson exhaust box of tools. You got a lot of people to help you out. I'd like to personally for you on your behalf. I'd like to thank Jason Merrill for calling your phone. There's so many times that unconditional love night when you're out in the middle of the ocean. Right, right. But yeah, those things are like, that's just friends. Right? Those things are so cool that you guys have been through so much. And he's still sitting here. Just hashing it funny. A lot of the dumb things I've done, Jason's been there for Yeah, go. I figured that was coming. Right? That's expected, I guess. Oh, my God. But it is cool, man. I love to see that. And that's what the dirt life is all about. Right? It's getting behind the scenes and understanding all the people that are really here. You know, like, do you really know Eric Gardner, Jason Merrill, when you see him at the track? Maybe? But most likely, you don't until you get to have these conversations. So every everybody has a story. Yeah. 100%. And I appreciate you guys, Sharon today. So that was awesome. All right. So you guys can always go check out our sponsor deals page on dirt life show.com Hit that you can learn how to get sponsors, you can get all kinds of deals for your products, whatever you guys want next week, we don't necessarily have a show. We're gonna see if we're actually down in Mexico on Monday. So tune in for that pay attention on our social media. Thank you to everybody here at Hardin motorsports Robert Kayden and all the guys thank you for coming down to the shop. Thanks for having us. Yeah, and thanks, Jason. For coming down. No problem. Glad you one. Glad you pulled it off out of them passed out watching you the whole time. Like he's gonna get it. He's gonna get it come on there. We did. Everybody was so high man even I was hyped because I you know, like, like, obviously we have our friends from school, but they just don't get it. They don't they don't get it. We get to the finish line. All these people are crying. I'm like, what? What's wrong? What's wrong? We won. We made it. There don't they don't realize like what it took to get there. Yeah, you know, years. Yeah. years time, money energy. Like, just, you know, it's just crazy. That's why That's why it's like, like when he finished when he passed a finish line. And they're like, he won. I was like, dude, yeah, like texting them blowing them up, like, Bro. Got it? How many messages you get on your cell phone? Still coming through? Pretty much everybody I've met in my whole life. You know, the social media stuff blown up, but you win them in 400. And you're famous for racers get it? Yeah. People that race. People that go out and do it. They get it? Yep. You know, totally well, and I'm sure people that are close to you, whether they do race or not. They're still stoked. They see it. Yeah, they get a they see the commitment for sure. The hard work. Well, actually, I forgot to ask that. So like what's next for you? You're just gonna keep racing. Um, Cole's racing, the more race. I think it's April 29. Last week in April and the 16th. Honor, I think I'm going to race for Frankie out there also. And then I mean, I think our next big race is going to be the California 300. The mortalities race in October, you're gonna take the big trucks. big truck trying try and get that triple crown. I haven't seen the points, but we should be probably second. Yeah, explain that a little bit, because Robert was trying to explain it to me a little bit earlier, like, so you guys are still in the points for that triple crown, but how does it work? I mean, it's the hand king of the hammers, the mint 400 And then the California 300 and Whoever requires the most points wins I think there's a big person so if you if you win the California 300 You get second place you probably take it Yeah, I mean depending on how Adam does you know householder and where did he finish and the minute you got third third we won the hammers and got third fourth and the hammers are you like one point behind him or something? I'm not sure it's gonna be close you know? So if you won the next one that would probably cure it I would probably do it that's actually kind of crazy to think about the logistics behind it because you finish on hammers fourth and he finished third so you're right there yeah on the hammers. So yeah, so he's so yeah, so if you want you guys would be like appointed to for him. Yeah, there were a few more entries though. I think at the like three more trophy trucks at the at the hammers and there were the but still like that brings a whole different logistical equation. So like you're paying attention to Adam the whole time. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like you obviously want to win the race, but if all of a sudden like he's dropping back, Oh, I better keep the truck alive. Yeah. Or if he breaks then all you got to do is finish. Yeah, I think yeah. And Barr said on how the points break and anything can happen in Barstow yeah Parsons shit show you that track was fun last year though. It was it was it burnt once it burned in I liked it a lot more than you know everybody's giving credit scared a lot of guys away when it was super tight pre running and all that but you know, I'm excited for it next time. When are you going to have your new card on? I gotta buy it first. You got till October. Let's get a guy I have some scan. So we scan a couple cars and we're just playing with some stuff right now. I don't I don't know. I got I got some stuff. I got a I got Yeah, I got a whole bunch of new machines at the shop. So I got a new press break. Got a welding robot I got a CNC lathe. So I'm learning how to do a lot of stuff real fast, dude. Yeah, that's kind of cool though that you're actually doing all that stuff. Benefit all the people like that you're helping out like hey, Danbury build in America. Yeah. Made in America in America. All right. So thank you to everybody for joining. We really appreciate it. Man. This was a great show. Glad that you guys can hang out with us. Really appreciate it. Always hit us up in the DMS app to dirt life show and let us know who you guys want to talk to you guys want to see and what we could do better. Thank you to all of our sponsors. Thank you for living your life with us. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for listening to the dirt life show. See you next week.