The Dirt Life
The Dirt Life
Vegas to Reno Recap with Ryan Arciero, Nic Whetstone, and more
Can you imagine navigating a grueling 555-mile off-road race, battling thick dust and treacherous terrains, all while maintaining an unwavering focus and strategic mindset? This episode celebrates the thrilling Vegas Torino race, where we delve into the intricacies of off-road endurance racing with firsthand insights from competitors like Bella Bouchard, Ryan Arciero, and Travis Moores. We highlight the triumphs of class winners such as Ryan Arciero and Jason Coleman, and hear from other notable racers like Raul Gomez, William Fry, and Matthew Grant about their exhilarating victories in the Maxxis Final 48.
Ever wondered how live streaming and Elon Musk's Starlink are reshaping the future of off-road racing? Discover how these technological advancements bring the sport to a broader audience, making every race more accessible and engaging. Nick Whetstone shares his recent second-place finish at Vegas Arena and emphasizes the importance of growing the sport. Join us as we explore the camaraderie that defines this racing community, and learn about the crucial role of the Geyser Brothers' expertise in achieving racing success. We'll also touch on creative strategies for securing sponsorships, with insights from industry experts and the upcoming sponsorship summit with Alex Stryler.
What goes through the minds of racers as they navigate nighttime challenges and unpredictable track conditions? From the high-speed dynamics of Polaris Pro-R vehicles to mastering off-road racing strategies, this episode offers a treasure trove of experiences and lessons. Hear from Josh Roe, Max Eddy, and Austin Eddy about their intense racing battles and the strategic decisions that led to their victories. We end with a heartfelt note on the family atmosphere within the off-road racing community, showcasing the emotional connections and mutual support that make this sport truly special. Join us for an inspiring and adrenaline-pumping ride through the world of off-road racing.
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Welcome to the Dirt Life Show with your host, George Hamill. Alright guys, welcome to episode 164 of the Dirt Life Show. We have a Vegas Torino recap for you guys today. Man, we're going to talk about all kinds of fun stuff. I'm your host, Georgie Hamill.
Speaker 3:And I'm your co-host. Bella Bouchard, let's go, bella.
Speaker 2:And Bella actually raced Vegas Torino, so it's going to be pretty cool. Bella's going to be able to give us some insight as to how the track was and to how the racing was even the pace of the race. A lot of cool stuff happened this weekend. One of the first things is that we just messed up, but we're going to announce it again is the Maxxis Final 48. So it was the last pit 13 to the finish line fastest times in eight classes. Just get straight cash. You didn't have to be a Maxis driver or Maxis athlete to be able to win that cash.
Speaker 2:Super cool and I will say this wholeheartedly. I feel like companies should engage in stuff like this and promote stuff like this a lot more often, because it shows how much these companies care about off-road. So we're going to go ahead and announce those guys, if you guys heard it when we were talking before. Thank you guys very much for listening, but right now we are going to give you all the winners. So the first winner in the trophy truck class for the final 48 was none other than our boy, ryan Arciero. Yeah, buddy, good job, ryan.
Speaker 3:Congratulations.
Speaker 2:Yep. And then let's see here who was in the 6100 class.
Speaker 3:Bella 6100 class final 48 winner was Jason Coleman.
Speaker 2:All right, Jason Coleman and Brady Mellon. Those guys were on it In 4400, it was Raul Gomez, so he must have been shredding. Who was the Open A?
Speaker 3:Open A class was William Fry.
Speaker 2:And Open E class for shredding. Uh, who's the open? A open a class was william fry and uh, open e class.
Speaker 3:Uh, for the max's final 48 was matthew grant so go get your cash matthew, all right open utv class final 48 winner was dallas gonzalez you know that guy yes, I do, yeah, so dallas gonzalez.
Speaker 2:I'm actually really proud of him for winning this because, uh, just for him to compete and his injuries in the past and to overcome those and win that he must have been just ripping the UTV. Na was GFI Racing and Maxxis Athlete Zach Kisman, so that was super cool to see. And then the final UTV Pro Turbo. Who you got, bill?
Speaker 3:One of my favorites, Cody Miller. Yeah, Cody.
Speaker 2:All right. So we got a couple of Maxxis athletes in there Really cool. So congratulations to everybody that won the cash for the Maxxis Final 48. They're going to post that on their social media. We'll share it and then you guys can go collect your guys' prizes. Man, thank you very much to Maxxis for doing that Super. Thank you very much to Maxxis for doing that Super cool, all right. So on today's show we have awesome guests that we're going to interview. We just mentioned his name for winning the Maxxis Final 48, ryan Arciero. So Ryan Arciero and Travis Moores are going to come on and talk to us a little bit about their race, the pressure that they had from Nick Whetstone and giving him pressure too, nick.
Speaker 2:Whetstone is going to be our second guest that we have. Uh, come on, uh, in his geyser truck man, he was just ripping consistent, consistent, consistent, driving all day uh. Who's our third guest?
Speaker 3:our third guest is josh roe.
Speaker 2:He's the utv overall winner for vegas torino yeah, he must have been shredding, because those like top three utvs oh my, they were just.
Speaker 3:Constant battle all day. Honestly top five.
Speaker 2:It was just so close all day. Second place UTV was Max Eddy. Max Eddy and Austin Eddy are going to join us. It's going to be cool to talk with them. And then we got a special Bella's Corner segment towards the end.
Speaker 3:One of your friends, bella. Her name is Samantha Road. She works for Evolution Powersports. She came out and co-drove, actually, for one of the podium winners.
Speaker 2:So yeah, jacob's a cone, so it was cool to see it's like a big family effort but it's also really professional and they do a lot of product development and testing and stuff there too. So, um, we're gonna get to learn a little bit more about samantha and what she does too, so I'm really excited about that um, a couple things that we're going to talk about as far as, like, through the show.
Speaker 2:We're going to talk a little bit about technology and racing. I think it's going to be a cool little subject. We're going to talk about the UTV battle and I want to mention to everybody, before we start the show, that tomorrow we are going to be at One Nine Industries, with Ryan Arciero actually, and we're going to do a sponsorship summit and what that actually means is like, if you guys are interested in understanding how to get sponsors, how to keep sponsors, how to negotiate with them, how to get free product or money or whatever it is to get your program to the next level, our buddy, alex Stryler, puts on sponsorship summits and it's sponsorshipsummitcom and I'm going to be one of the guests talking about technology and racing. And I'm going to be one of the guests talking about technology and racing, but the value in it is not necessarily just me. It's talking about social media, it's talking about promotional stuff.
Speaker 2:He does a very, very good job at telling everybody how to retain sponsors and to get sponsors. So if you guys are interested in that, please visit sponsorshipsummitscom and go sign up. And if you guys do want to code, maybe a secret code. I might be able to help you out too. So, all right, let's get our first guest on Ryan Arciero and let's see if. Yeah, travis.
Speaker 2:Morris is also thank you guys very much for letting us know about the audio issues. Really appreciate you guys. Thank guys, getting us all dialed in Alright.
Speaker 6:There we go.
Speaker 2:Ryan Arciero, Travis Morris. What's up, boys?
Speaker 8:How we doing, Bella George, how we doing.
Speaker 3:Hi Travis what's up?
Speaker 2:Doing very good, but probably not as good as you guys. Are you guys?
Speaker 8:still on the high horse man Four feet buddy four feet I know, can you believe that? Four in a row? It's insane. Both Travis and I are extremely blessed. Obviously, we couldn't do this, and we couldn't even dream of doing this without our team owner, kyle Washington. Without him the wheels don't go round and round. So a big shout-out. Give a big thank you to Kyle Washington for allowing us to take his truck and go run 555 miles through the Nevada desert.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 8:How did?
Speaker 2:that truck do Travis.
Speaker 4:Phenomenal the 19 Industries truck is the best truck out there and that Joe Gibbs engine is so fast. So I mean we hit 146. I think we talked about it before the race. I think that was my prediction and we actually hit it.
Speaker 2:Dude, that's insane. Well, let me ask you this, like both of you guys, ryan, a few years ago that was unheard of to do 146 miles an hour. You're a speed demon by yourself, but how does it feel to go 146 in a trophy truck?
Speaker 8:it. It's incredible. I mean the fastest I've gone is in this truck and and it was in Lucerne testing, and we did 159 miles an hour across Doggy Dry Lake and I tell you what that is the fastest I've gone in a trophy truck or in a desert truck or in the desert period and I mean at that speed you're making very small inputs. You can't make any big inputs in that steering wheel because the truck's going to really react to it. So you've got to be real gentle and kind of let the truck do what it wants to do. Especially at those speeds, dude, it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2:Could you imagine that, Travis? How does it feel on your head when that much pressure is going against it in the open?
Speaker 4:cockpit. Well, sometimes you've got to hold your helmet straight so I can still read the GPS Once we get about 120 and keep pushing that limit, then it's all focus, make sure we don't miss a turn or ditch or something that can screw us up with those speeds.
Speaker 2:Well, let's talk about some of that, because the speed was one of the things that I wanted to talk about at the Vegas Arena race this year and the average speed was very high and pushing those limits was like I don't want to say it was mandatory, but it almost was because you guys had established the pace with Nick Westo and it was so fast that it wasn't like you couldn't make any mistakes, you couldn't mess up and you had to keep the pressure on the entire time.
Speaker 8:Well, we sure did. Our goal, what Travis and I's plan was was, you know, take the start and then see if we can't bridge the gap to Nick and get to the tail end of his desk and at least at least have them on time and keep the pressure on him. And and that's exactly what we did within the first five miles we were at the tail end of his desk and and we really didn't have to push super hard to get there the truck was working really really good We've been working a lot with Fox on the live valve and the truck was handling really really good. So we were able to bridge that gap pretty quick and we just stayed there. And my plan was, with Travis, was just keep the pressure on Nick and wait for him to make a mistake and see if we can push him into mistake. And what I got to say is my hat's off to Nick because he did exactly what he was supposed to do. It didn't really rattle him and it took us three quarters of the race for us to finally get him to make a mistake. And that's the way we can capitalize on it.
Speaker 8:And in the process, no, we got two flats as well, two unlucky flats that uh, um, that we got, uh uh, both at separate times. And, uh, the first time we got it he was able to pull away from us and we bridged the gap right back again and I got him to his desk. And then the second time we got it, and then, just not too long after that, he got one. But we were we weren't in the position at that point to take advantage of his flat, so, but we were able to get back to his rear bumper again within 15 seconds. And then, boom he. He had a slow leaker and had to pull into rawhide. Uh, the third to last pit and we were able to capitalize on it dude, it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2:Does that change the way that you, uh your mentality travis when you have to get out of the truck and and change those flats because it's like, all right, we're going, we're going, we're going. Oh, pace has stopped for a little bit, like, are you just under so much pressure?
Speaker 4:uh, yeah, I think I mean there is a lot of pressure, but I think more of it's put on. I put it on myself. You know, I don't want to be the guy that that screws up for the race or we don't win because of something I do. So it's just about being smooth and, you know, do the fastest I can with being smooth and not risk making a mistake.
Speaker 2:Dude. Speaking of speed Ryan, we, I think, clocked one of your pit stops. I think it was pit eight, maybe 27 seconds.
Speaker 8:Isn't that awesome. It's the guys at One Nine Industries man. It's our team here. This truly is, and I can't say it enough. Yeah, I'm in the driver's seat. I'm the one that's turning the wheel Without Travis to my right side. The navigator is a massive part of what we do and how we go win, but just as important is your crew. If we don't have the right crew behind us, if we don't have the pit stops down pat, we don't have a truck that leaves the race shop that's ready to win, all this is for nothing dude, it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine being and like changing those truck tires and all that stuff that fast though?
Speaker 3:I think a utv tire is heavy. I can't imagine a trophy truck, I know.
Speaker 8:And then to your point too, like you know, travis did such a phenomenal job on those tire changes. I mean it's as hard as you can go, as fast as you can go, trying to fling those 40-inch tires on and off, and I mean he did such a great job. But every second counts. So you know, Travis is putting pressure on himself. It matters. So if you're slow, it matters and it could be the outcome of the race. You're right.
Speaker 2:And Travisvis you guys, when nick came into, the pits and when you guys made the in air quotes the pass, you guys passed him through there.
Speaker 4:If you were another second behind, like what ryan was saying, travis you may have not made that pass, oh for sure, because it probably took them in the pit, you know, a good 30, 45 seconds to get that tire change. So had I, had I been slower or we had any other issues we would have, we would have been hey. So let me ask you this real quick Travis, because we just had a.
Speaker 2:Navigator show and I'd like to give some information to the younger crowd, some of Bella's crowd and stuff like that. If you could give any tips and stuff to any of the co-drivers that are out there, maybe like patience, take deep breaths, do stretching, keep your mind right. What would you tell all these people to make their co-drivers better?
Speaker 4:I think the biggest thing is just staying relaxed. If you don't stay relaxed then you're going to get exhausted and you know you get tired anyways. It's hot, but it's just a different focus. You know the driver is physically and mentally, you know, being worn out and sitting in the right seat it's more mental, just making sure that you're reading those notes. And so I always tell myself just relax, relax, take a breath. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but you've got to trust your driver too. So you know, if you don't trust your driver then you probably shouldn't be in that seat.
Speaker 2:How was that dynamic working between you guys, ryan, when you guys were um chasing and then being they did the chase because you guys have a lot of mental games that you had to play in your head. You can't push too hard, you can't break the truck, but you still have to apply pressure to knit no, a hundred percent.
Speaker 8:I said we know travis and I had a plan going into it. We talked, we talked through it. You know we're and and uh, and it's travis's job too to make sure that we're staying on on that plant, because it's easy as a driver to get rattled. That's uh, it's easy to get, uh, to have to be impatient and and want to work through that dust and get around that guy and but it's a 555 mile race. So you, it's, you physically have to tell yourself as a driver, you have to keep reminding yourself patience, patience, patience, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it. Sometimes that wait for it doesn't.
Speaker 8:It takes hours upon hours, like it did on friday, to finally capitalize it, but we ended up capitalizing on it. So you just got to be, you have to be in a position where you can capitalize on it. And it is like this race is unlike baja. Like baja, you know we're pre-running. We can pre-run a week to two weeks before the race. So we know every other line than the race course. This one we don't. So we can't capitalize on a, on a line that's to the left or the line that's to the right. So you have to. So the risk versus reward uh is way too high to try to charge through that dust and you guys saw the live stream of the dust and how bad the dust was, uh, so it was very different. Like 15 seconds was probably the closest we can get to Nick off his back bumper without taking major chances and it's just not worth it in the race.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were seeing that same thing too, bella was out there racing, so she didn't get to watch the live stream, but we were also talking about that. And Bella, how is it driving through the dust like at Vegas Arena? And Ryan was in that 15-second gap for half the race.
Speaker 3:I mean it was insane. Could you have done that? Oh yeah, we kind of we just had a little bit going through like the soap beds and stuff and you know, being behind someone's tail, but kind of just having full faith in your co-dog, like, okay, you're guiding me right now I don't know where I'm going, I can't see, like you know, there's power poles next to us and so it's cool to see that you guys have that much trust in each other, like being able to navigate each other through this 550 mile race yeah, yeah, and to your point, bella.
Speaker 8:I mean that's the same thing I would tell Travis when we were getting thick of it. I'm like, just tell me where, tell me where we're going, tell me where we're going and, and obviously you're trying to maintain a pace, but there's some of the roads that you're you're on a power line road and and uh, and the risk is very high if I start charging through that dust. So you know, you kind of back it down a little bit and uh, and you know you'll. You'll probably see me in the live stream where I'm kind of tapping the brakes. You see the front of the truck dive when I get into the dust, just because I'm unsure what's happening how was it, uh, doing like the, the strategy, right, because you take off and you're in second place.
Speaker 2:You kind of have a game plan and then you know you're going to be sitting in dust. Dust gets worse, dust gets better. You make up time, you lose some time. Like to me as a, as an ex-professional driver like it's frustrating, like I need somebody else to manage those those things for me, ryan. So you guys must have a lot of different strategies and the different uh therapeutic conversations in the cab.
Speaker 8:Well, I said it goes back to George. It's having patience. You know, when I was a younger driver, you know.
Speaker 8:I didn't have a lot of that and it does make the difference between winning and losing and just having that patience.
Speaker 8:And I, this race, I had to exercise that patience for, you know, for six hours and uh, and just knowing that, even though I'm sitting in mixed dust, I have them on time. So I, as long as I can stay there, I have them on time. I have them anywhere from, you know, from 45 seconds to 10 seconds on time, as long as I can stay there. So if I make a mistake and I hit something or I take a corner off, well, I'm out of the game. As long as I can stay in his best, I'm in the game and I'm still leading. The burden falls upon him at that point not to make any mistakes. So I think there's more pressure on him. And I talked to him at the finish line and told him what a great job he did and didn't rattle him, and he kept on telling me he goes. Man, I was hoping you were going to make a mistake and it just took longer for it to happen.
Speaker 3:That's some good sportsmanship, though being able to go at the end of the finish line, and be, like real.
Speaker 2:But, travis, like there's nothing that you can do except for shake their hand, because it was like a fight the whole day. I mean, the pressure was on both sides.
Speaker 4:Oh for sure, and that's what makes it fun. You know, we had the same thing last year and and, uh, you always talk after the race and it's just a good time. You tell, tell each other how it was changing tire or what missed this corner or did this or that, and then, uh, you end up, you know, talking about it all day and and having a good conversation, and it's just a lot of fun yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 2:And then were you guys able to spend any time with your families and stuff afterwards, because Reno is such a?
Speaker 8:beautiful spot. You know it's funny because up until last year, every year we would spend three or four days up at Tahoe with the family and enjoy, but my kids started school today, so it's like we had to get back.
Speaker 8:My wife, michelle, had already left Vegas and got back on Friday, so we turned around Saturday morning and our celebration was telling stories all the way back with my dad and my little son, ryan. So that was. You know. That in itself is worth it To have my dad there, who's a Hall of Famer, and to have my son, who I love to bring up through the ranks of Offroad Racing, be a part of it. And then Travis you know my best friend there right alongside me. You know, travis and I have known each other since we were five years old, and so we've had a long relationship together, and it makes a big difference when we're in the truck, because I can chew his ass out and he can chew mine out. We still love each other.
Speaker 2:No, that's exactly what off-road is all about.
Speaker 3:That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is pretty sweet. It looks like we might have lost Travis Ryan. He's driving home all the way to Colorado and he was telling me before the show that he had six or eight hours left. So all right, travis. We'll see you later. Buddy, thank you very much for coming on. I was going to joke with him. I wish that he was on Ryan, but during the live stream, I don't even know how many comments saying please wipe the GoPro.
Speaker 8:Wipe the GoPro, you know what? And I heard that on the radio. One of the fans was like wipe the GoPro. So it's like I had it in my head, for whatever reason. Obviously, I got a lot of other things to worry about when I'm in the truck, but every 20 minutes to 30 minutes, if we were in the thick of the dust, I'd tell Travis wipe the camera, wipe the camera. George is going to be pissed at me at the end of this deal if we didn't wipe the damn so we made fun of uh, you guys in the production chat that we had going on and, uh, travis started doing it really good at the halfway point.
Speaker 2:So I go. All right, travis doing a real good job. We'll give him a beer at the finish line. They go, no, no, no give him absolutely.
Speaker 8:But I, I I mean george honestly. And bella, how cool is it to be able to ride shotgun in that truck with Livestream for almost nine hours and be able to see everything I was seeing, except for, yes, you saw more because you got to see out behind. I couldn't see that.
Speaker 2:It was so cool, brian. I don't know how many people just commented in and just were, so I don't know what you want to say, like in awe or surprised or happy, like all of these different emotions from all these people because they get to ride along with you Like it was just so cool. And then what happens is is those little tiny like pieces of excitement all of a sudden become how their strategy would be if they were in there with you and what they would be doing and how they would manage it, and it's just all. The interaction makes it so cool to live that off-road life with you guys.
Speaker 8:Oh, a hundred percent. I mean I just took my kids to school for the first day today and I had so many parents come up to me saying, hey, we, we, we watched you in live stream and that they'd never seen an off-road race before. I mean those are the people that we need in our sport and to be able to give them the tool to be able to do that. I mean, if nobody has ever dealt with George and your product, I mean they need to get on board with you, because this whole thing and Elon Musk's Starlink has physically changed our sport for the better. Man, I can't.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that more than you know and I can't wait to actually see when it's in everybody's hands, right, because now we're going to have built by the racers for the racers and all the racers sharing all this stuff. It's just going to be so cool, man, and thank you very much for the kudos. But I'll say this I'll give you a stat Ryan, we had just at 90 extra cameras out there. 90. Wow, 90. That's how many racers are supporting us and trying to get the help out.
Speaker 8:That is phenomenal. Now we need another 900 more. Then we're going to cover this sport from every angle possible and it will be mainstream. That's what I'm excited about. That's what keeps me going is to be able to bring what I think is cool, what I've been living my life for, for the last 31 years of racing in this sport I've been around it my whole life but to be able to bring this to the masses and share my passion for what we do, because we literally have one of the coolest forms of motorsports and I've been around them all coolest forms of motorsports on the planet and now we're bringing it to them live dude
Speaker 2:I agree 100. Hey, speaking of bringing it to people live, um, you and I are going to join each other tomorrow for a sponsorship summit. Uh, maybe tell everybody what they can expect if they want to come join us and hang out with you.
Speaker 8:I'm super excited. Obviously, we're going to do it from One9 Industries tomorrow, starting at 2 pm. I encourage those who are trying to figure out how to get involved on the sponsorship side, not only trying to obtain sponsors, but what do I need to do to activate the sponsorship? What do I need to do to keep them? How do I need to do to activate the sponsorship? What do I need to do to keep them? I don't, I don't.
Speaker 8:I need to think outside the box because you know the the, the days of putting a sticker on the side of the car and uh and going racing are are long, long, long, long gone. And uh, we gotta be creative. And the biggest thing we have in front of us is social media which, uh, for a lot of us, in a lot of different aspects of social media, it's free, um, so you need to use it to to its max and uh, and I tell you what it's going to be. For I said, for those who are trying to figure this out, I highly highly recommend jumping on and uh and being involved in it and uh, if they need if they need to uh use the code one n-i-n-e and it'll give you 20 off.
Speaker 2:There you go all right, thanks, ryan. Hey and dude, I can't say you to you enough, man. I know how hard it is, I know difficult it is, but you got four of these bad boys, man Four.
Speaker 8:I'm blessed. I mean, it's a lot of hard work on everybody's part, not just mine, but to be able to go do that, to do four in a row, to do it once, is a feat in itself, because this is a tough race. To be able to do it four times in a row, you know where my mind goes. Now is number five.
Speaker 2:Let's go, baby All right homie.
Speaker 4:We'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 2:And again, congratulations, dude, and thank you very much, Travis, for joining us as well.
Speaker 8:Val and George. Thank you, guys, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on board.
Speaker 6:Later buddy.
Speaker 2:Take care. All right, so let's get Nick Whetstone on here. We're going to have to invite him, so let me go ahead and search for him.
Speaker 3:Imagine knowing your co-dog, since you were five years old.
Speaker 2:Dude, that's cool right.
Speaker 3:That's insane.
Speaker 2:I mean, just think about the synergy, though.
Speaker 3:right yeah, how comfortable they are with each other. Like that's so rad.
Speaker 2:It's pretty like well and also how much crap they can talk with each other. All right, so our next guest, Nick Weston, long-time trophy track driver and second place at Vegas Arena.
Speaker 6:Man.
Speaker 2:Nick, you were leading the race for just over what was it? Half of a race. That was a lot of crap.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was a long time Bittersweet, I guess Disappointing, but you know, all in all, I think, a decent result for you know the time we've been in the trophy truck and we're making progress. You know we've got these qualifying runs pretty dialed now and now I'm just trying to figure out, you know, when to push and how to race smart.
Speaker 2:Well, give us a little bit of a background on what you're saying then. Oh, there's a lot of guys I'll put it in two different paths here. There's guys that can all of a sudden, sprint just straight from the go. They're fast. And there's guys that it takes a little bit of time to warm up. Which one of those guys are you.
Speaker 5:Well, I think I mean I can sprint and I think you know I qualified first at me and qualified first here at Vegas Arena by, you know, a reasonable margin, I think me was like eight seconds and here was five seconds, and so there's no question about the sprinting. It's just really trying to find the happy medium, I think. And so you know I've gone out in the race and blazed away and, you know, blasted rocks and got flats and broke the truck and we've done all that and experienced all that. Now it's really trying to just reel it back in and, you know, get to the finish line.
Speaker 2:I think you showed a lot of consistency, though, at this race. I mean, even though there may have been a couple seconds there when Ryan actually did get past you, all that time, just in that little spot, that in the middle, all that time you were consistent.
Speaker 5:You're very, very consistent and very fast, that entire time yeah, I think that the um, the plan for this race was just to be like ultra disciplined.
Speaker 5:So really what we tried to do was go pretty conservative and so we weren't sprinting by any means, we were really probably only running, you know, 65, maybe 70 percent pace wise. And um, you know, I knew that that ryan was was going to be in thick dust back there, and so the plan was kind of to sit him in the dust line and wait for him to make the mistake. And unfortunately we didn't, you know, quite capitalize on that. We sort of worked. He had a couple of flats, but then, you know, we got a mystery flat and had a slow leaker. And then, you know, I didn't re-rack it when we went through one of the pits and so, you know, we had nothing on the rack and so at that point it like, well, I gotta go 50 miles through the rocks, pretty conservatively. So we just took it easy and, and you know, at that point there's no point pushing, you're gonna get to the finish line to get a result.
Speaker 2:So yeah, but you did have the right strategy, though we were actually talking about it on on the live streams and stuff like that and actually the best in desert live stream, saying it as well, and I didn't know that Nick was only going about 65%, though Bella, like that takes a lot of discipline oh yeah, and a lot of patience too is that a frustrating thing, man.
Speaker 5:It's like you. Just you've got this beast in your in your hand. You want to go fast, but at the same time it's it's a long race, and so you know, um ryan, yeah, he's done a lot of this stuff and and hats off to him, it's a credit, you know, to sit back there in the dust like that, not push through the dust and make a mistake. That's um, you know. That's why he's won it so many times and and he's had so much success in in in racing off-road as he played it smart. So, um, yeah, we tried to play it smart and just didn't quite work.
Speaker 2:But I guess that's kind of how how off-road goes well, yes to no, though I think like just listening to you right now, because I didn't know this stuff before the race it feels like you learned a lot just by this one race yeah, I learned a lot.
Speaker 5:I'm that man. I mean, yeah, that's my second time racing vegas, torino. We've we've only been in trophy trucks. This is our second year racing, so, um, you know period. So, um, you know, we're, we're really overall, we're still green as a team and I'm still green as a driver and so, like I said, we're making slow steps.
Speaker 5:It's like it's one of those things where, yeah, you can get in a truck and you can drive that thing pretty good, but once you get to a certain level, then it starts to come down to the one percenters and now it's.
Speaker 5:You know, it's just those tiny little adjustments that we've got to keep making to get better, I think, and, um, we seem to be doing that. You know, we built this truck last year and had a couple teething issues with it, but you know, um, the whole geyser team and cheeseburger and and whatnot, they've really, um, you know, they've got this thing dialed in pretty good now and the truck's working well, makes a ton of power. You know, connor and I Connor Jackson, who's my co-driver we kind of, you know, we had to mesh a little bit as well and it took a little bit of time to kind of get to know, like the system that we're using and how we're using our notes and how he's reading out notes and how I react to them, and you know, like, like I say, you can get good at it um quick, but to to really master it it takes all those one percent.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it really does. And, like you said, um, being green at it only for a couple years now, you guys actually really are making pretty big strides. How much does it help to have a team like the Geyser Brothers with you, because you've got such a I don't even know what you want to call it, just a wealth of knowledge behind you.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean, those guys are the lords of off-road. I guess they really have got all the experience. They've been around a long long time road. I guess they that they really have got all the experience. They've been around a long, long time.
Speaker 5:Um, and you know, frankly, you know rick and jeff and their team, they're, they're wizards in off-road. You know that um, you can see when you're mentioning stuff to them, you can what. You can see their brain ticking over trying to figure out. You know what's going on. And they've just been around so many fast guys. They've built so many trucks. They've had tons of success, they've raced themselves and so they, they really know, um, and you know, I think it, you know it shows that putting a driver to a good driver that's been racing trucks for two years and in one of their trucks and been able to go out and qualify, you know, with these times and and frankly, you know, run a race like we did, I think that it shows that the trucks are um trucks, that they build a um, a top of the line. Well, frankly, I think, just to rebut on, on, uh, just to run off a little bit, I still think guys is the number one two drive truck in the market.
Speaker 2:So there you go. Hey, that's what, that's what creates growth. Right, it's microsoft and apple, it's chevy and ford like you gotta have that competition to create that and elevate the sport, and the best thing about it is is like you can put a driver like our sierra or yourself they're fantastic drivers uh, in a lot of different vehicles, and you guys can still get the job done. But you guys have chosen the path that you have and you guys are happy with that path.
Speaker 2:And that makes it so cool to see from an outsider's perspective, from Bella's perspective, from my perspective, because now we can choose who we want to win, we can root for our favorite driver, we can have our favorite teams. Like it is so awesome to be able to see that man and now, having all the competition so close, it's just fantastic. Like I I didn't even know who to root for on friday. Dude, like I was so pumped to see you out front. I was so pumped to see ryan chasing you. I was so pumped to see you chasing ryan.
Speaker 5:It was badass yeah, it was fun. Actually, I gotta say like that was well, it's almost. I felt like we're almost playing a little game with each other, like I'd be a minute out and then I'd come to the next pit and he's 20 seconds and the next pit was 40 seconds. It was fun. The course was pretty interesting as well.
Speaker 9:I've got to say.
Speaker 5:That was like we're in all these virgin tracks and then down into a wash that literally had no tracks in it. The motorcycle went through before us, obviously, but they're weaving in and out of the bushes. And so at one point I said to connor I'm like dude, are we even on the course, like so, and we're, you know, we're kind of pushing as well, we're doing 50, 60 mile an hour through these washes and I'm like shit, I don't know where we're going, but it looked like we're on course yeah, so you did like the course then.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I did. Hats off to the guys. I think the course was awesome, we had a great time, yeah, and you know, it kind of adds a level of you know complexity and that technical thing where it's like you kind of you know I saw Brian mentioned it before as well but you can't go out and pre-run this stuff, so you're really following a map. It's purely you know off-road, trying to read the terrain and get through all that stuff. That makes it interesting. Well, it changes the whole dynamic.
Speaker 2:Right, and speaking of dynamics, I wanted to ask like because I ask a lot of people this and Bella likes this question too is what kind of stuff do you guys do for nutrition and for hydration and stuff inside the truck? Because you're in the truck for a long time and as many people that would think, oh, driving the truck is easy, it's not the amount of calories that you guys burned in that, let's just say, eight hours of racing. That would put most people on the ground yeah, man, it's tough.
Speaker 5:I gotta say hauling the mail for nine hours is one of the toughest things I've done. Physically, yeah, but like mentally as well. You know, I think I try to think of myself as reasonably mentally stable, but you're, like, every like 10 miles you've got to reassure yourself and try and, you know, recheck up on yourself to make sure that you dial. But in our truck we have a fluid logic system and and I love it, I use it. You know I get cotton mouth the whole time and so I'm just continually pressing the button, squirt water in my mouth and, um, this race, for the first time I actually had an iv. So, um, I forget the name of her company, but the lady that was set up at Contingency. There we went and got an IV and it helped. It helped, you know.
Speaker 3:I think it's called Finish Line. Yeah, Finish Line IV, that's it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, finish Line IV. So that was awesome, and so I guess the way that she explained it to you is it fills up your cells with the fluid and then then you know, as your body needs it, it kind of deflates and keeps you yeah, keeps you um, hydrated and it worked it. It really did. After the mint man, I could hardly put food in my mouth. My lips were so dry. My whole body was just like I was like a dried apricot, so it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of crazy that the, that hydration and what you put in your body makes that much of a difference. And I only say this because there's so many people that think off run might be easy. Right when you get to the top level of any sport. Every little detail, like you said, counts, and that's one of the main details is keeping your main brain focused and keeping your body in check, and it's very difficult to do that for eight hours when you have nothing yeah, yeah, 100 level of concentration, especially when you're going quick like those.
Speaker 5:Uh, um, that course has got a lot of areas that you're going super fast and it's like man, you gotta try and get your your eyes to keep focusing on what's in front of you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's pretty crazy, uh, could, could you imagine going that fast, fella for that long I was wondering actually about the finish line IVs. I was going to get one before my race, but I've never done something like that before. So you know, going into a huge race like that, I didn't want to try something new out of my comfort zone. But was that a big? Did it make a big difference for you? You know, performance-wise.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it really did. You know, I get dehydrated really really easy and you know, frankly, I've got a fluid logic system in the truck and it was gone by about mile. It was empty by like mile 350. So you know, we had Pedial hours in 100 degree heat in a trophy truck, swinging off the steering wheel. It's pretty tough and that, um the iv for sure helped me. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't dehydrated when we finished the race.
Speaker 2:So, um, that's the first for me for sure hey, let me ask you this question, since you're, uh, two years into this whole trophy truck thing. What has been the uh? Well, I guess it's a two-part question. What was the most difficult like piece of the race that you had to negotiate and then like the same kind of steep curve was it? Is it all the same stuff that you're learning or is it different each race?
Speaker 5:you know what, um, like the first year, it was really just getting getting my teeth cut, like I've always loved going fast, like I've always loved racing. I grew up racing motocross, um, my, my parents raced ski racing and my uncle raced trophy trucks and so I grew up around racing, grew up around, um, you know, big motors and horsepower and all that sort of stuff. So I just it's kind of it's in my blood and I always loved it. But really getting my teeth cut in the first year, kind of understanding more specifically how a trophy truck works and how to really operate it, and so I did some um, some courses.
Speaker 5:I did some training with ricky johnson and you know he taught me a lot about, like, the intermittent braking and I think the intermittent braking is probably the biggest thing that helped me in a truck. You can't just jump on the brakes and expect that thing's going to stop. You've got six thousand pounds and you know you're in the dirt and all that sort of stuff and really that's been one thing that really helped me the most. Um, that really. And you know, throttle control. Throttle control is a huge thing getting traction to the ground, especially when you're in a big block with a gearbox. It's, you know, that's one of the next things is you got to figure out how to get all that power and actually get traction.
Speaker 5:So, um, there was that, and again it's you know, um, racing bikes kind of taught me how to read terrain. Um, you know, it also probably taught me how to set up for corners, um, getting in ruts, getting in lines, picking lines, doing all that sort of stuff, and so that stuff really comes natural. It's really you know. Now it's just like refining, setting up for corners and and, and you know truck position when you're on the course, truck position when you're getting through the rocky areas.
Speaker 2:Again, just refining the drive style. This is really near and dear to my heart because I came from dirt bikes too, so I understand a little bit. Bella, she actually lost a motor. They exploded a CVT and she lost the motor. What mile marker was it? It was mile marker two thirds. So I want to get what was that, Nick?
Speaker 5:No, sorry, go on.
Speaker 2:I don't want to use Bella's example, but in this case I am, and the stuff that you're learning helps keep those parts and helps keep the truck alive for a lot longer. So those little minute details, like changing the way that you use the brakes, changing the way that you use the throttle, have different rolling speeds through corners, have different things that don't upset the truck, all of those things help the suspension components, they help the tires, they help the engine components, the driveline components. It's really cool that you're saying all this stuff, because every little piece, like you said at the beginning, has helped you get to where you are yeah, for sure, and like even setting up with the suspension, just knowing the truck and understanding how it works.
Speaker 5:And you know, when we first got it going it was good. But you know, we went, we went, had a session with sdg and they helped get the wheels on the ground. I guess is the easiest way of explaining it. Um, once we could get the wheels on the ground I guess is the easiest way of explaining it Once we could get the wheels on the ground, we'll get better traction. It wasn't dancing around through the big bumps as much and it just started working a lot better. You know Dugans who build our motor. They've given me plenty of power and so that's not an issue in that respect. Plenty of power and consistent, reliable power as well. You know those guys take care of business, they build a really good motor and they've been a great support.
Speaker 5:Um and uh you know, their attention to detail is very similar to the detail that you're talking about this 100, and they've been around long enough, they know that that's what's required, and um and so that's just what they do, and they, they're good at it.
Speaker 2:So so, knowing all that stuff and understanding it, how do you feel? What's your gauge on your level of performance throughout the race.
Speaker 5:You know what? I'm super disappointed, but at the same time, we had a plan and, like I said, the plan was to just drive consistent, be disciplined, try and put Ryan in our dust and have him make the mistake. And that's what we did. You know, other than those couple of flats, we pretty much executed on that deal. Just, you know, we needed a little more luck on our side that day and it just didn't happen. It wasn't our time. So I really think that if we can be consistent like that in some of the races, you know towards the end of this year and next year, that we've got the top seed on the box looking straight at us. So I'm pretty confident in that.
Speaker 2:So, bella, I can tell you right now, just by looking and hearing, what Nick's talking about is he's got a lot of ambition. He's putting himself, as we call it, accountability.
Speaker 2:He's accountable for all the stuff that he's saying, and those are very good things for any professional racer, or soon-to-be professional racer like you, bella, to be able to learn because you can understand that you don't have to be mad at what you've done. You just have to be accountable for it and you have to have the drive to do it better, like what Nick has. I really appreciate that mentality, nick. I think that's going to take you very far, dude.
Speaker 5:I appreciate that. We'll see here shortly, I'm sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:Is there anybody you want to thank? I know that the Geiselberg guys helped you out quite a bit. We didn't get to see Lindsay out there, but I hope she's watching.
Speaker 5:Yeah, lindsay's always around, she's a good hand and yeah, again, I mean I can't thank the Geiselberg team enough. We call him Cheeseburger Brian Wibble is his name, but he takes care of the trucks and they're his baby, so big thank you to him. Connor, who's my co-driver, he takes care of the trucks and they're his baby, so a big thank you to him. Connor, who is my co-driver I'm not sure if he's on here. I tried to text him earlier, but you know big thanks to him. You know he's part of keeping me sane while we're in the truck and obviously you know we're trying to keep it all together there in an intense nine hours. So big thanks to him. Kmc Wheels thank you for helping out. Vp Race Fuels thank you for helping out. Big shout out to my family. They were up there on the weekend and they came to finish line and we spent a couple of days in Tahoe after. Oh, perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's Connor right there. What's up, Connor? It's just cool to see you, man, the whole Rubik Racing team Like I can't wait to see you guys. Just keep excelling at the stuff that you're doing. We had a comment. Come in before, bella. Did you see what it said? It said what's next for Nick.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, what do you got going on next?
Speaker 5:What big races do you have planned? So is going to be the California 300 of the Unlimited Series. And then, yeah, I've had a couple of guys ask about potentially going into Baja to race the 1,000 with them, so we'll see what happens with that. Maybe Tracy Poole or there's another team from Australia that threw a line out, so potentially we'll go down and do that. And then one of my favorite races of the year is Rage of the River at Laughlin. Oh yeah, it's carnage man, and we take the family down there and we camp and we tear the front cliff off the truck and we tear the panels off the truck and we just go down there and have a good time.
Speaker 5:So we'll be at that one.
Speaker 2:Sounds great.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Hey, so since you aren't from the united states, we have this thing called rapid fire q a that we usually do at the end of the show with our guests. We're going to only do the top five questions, but uh, are you ready? All right, go with the first question, bella tacos or hot dogs tacos okay, big taco guy.
Speaker 5:Uh, let's hear dunes or the river uh, the river I grew up on the river in south austral Dunes. Or the river, the river I grew up on the river in South Australia, so I'm a river boy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, river ride action shots or still shots oh, action shots oh, big action, uh, pizza rolls or jalapeno poppers oh man, probably jalapeno poppers.
Speaker 5:I like them hot coffee or tea coffee oh, that's okay, british heritage being an australian but man, I don't. I can't handle the tea. I'm a coffee guy.
Speaker 2:Alright, what's your favorite movie?
Speaker 5:buddy and that's it, my favorite movie. Oh man, it fluctuates up and down, but it's got to be Forrest Gump. Oh.
Speaker 3:Is that your favorite movie, one of my favorites.
Speaker 2:Forrest Gump man, I love it. Hey, buddy, I want to say it again, Like dude, just seeing the level of execution that you showed on Friday was just amazing. You impressed a lot of people and you really, really turned some heads. So congratulations. Don't hold your head down for too long, because the next race is coming up quick.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no, we appreciate it and really thanks to you guys for having me on the show. It's really cool. And I wanted to shout out to my business partner no, we appreciate it and really thanks to you guys for having me on the show. It's really cool. And I wanted to shout out to my business partner, Tommy, as well. He was in the other Rubik truck and he's come a long way as well, so keep an eye out for him.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah, All right, Nick. Well, thank you very much for CF3 Aces buddy Thank you See, you guys Appreciate it, take care. All right, bella. So we have your guy coming on next, josh Rowe. Josh Rowe, let's see here. So we'll get Josh lined up real quick. And thank you guys very much for sticking with us during this whole show, because we messed it up at the beginning, so we really appreciate you guys being flexible on your guys' time as well. All right, bella, go for it. It here's, josh Rill hi hi, good, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good what's up Josh?
Speaker 2:hey, first and foremost, Bella's going to give you an intro, but first and foremost congratulations. You were just straight ripping, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're uh pretty excited.
Speaker 3:Wait, look where he's sitting in the car, no way in his trophy. Yes, dude, that's already a win in our book we don't even need to do an interview. He's sitting In the car.
Speaker 2:No way In his trophy. Yes, dude, that's already a win in our book. We don't even need to do an interview, he's already got the best picture, we can default.
Speaker 3:All right, go for it. Bill Josh Rose from El Cajon. He's been racing for 19 years. He has experienced a couple years of the tough race. We all know Vegas Torino but race.
Speaker 2:We all know vegas torino, um but just this last weekend, josh and their crew overall vtvs vegas torino 2024 yeah, baby, good job, thank you.
Speaker 1:Hey, you're a big moto guy too. Uh, yeah, grew up, grew up, uh, racing quads professionally and then, yeah, kind of switched from from from the quads over to to dirt bikes. Pre-running down in Baja on dirt bikes I'd done the rip with Cameron a few times and, yeah, just kind of dabbling in all of it. I just love anything with wheels that wants to move across the desert. I'm about it.
Speaker 2:Do you have a favorite one? Well, UTV is probably your favorite this week, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, Sometimes it's pretty frustrating, but this weekend was good. Yeah, no, I mean honestly. I mean they all have their pluses and minuses. I have a great time on any one that I'm on, so I've been fortunate enough to be on good equipment over the years, so any one of them has really been pretty good. I agree, but I'll still say this Like I love four-wheel racing, but I'm still a dirt bike guy at heart.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you get on a good single track down in baja and overlooking the ocean.
Speaker 2:I don't, I don't know it's. It's pretty tough to beat?
Speaker 3:I don't know uh, hit it with your questions, girl all right, I got a lot of questions, but first I kind of want to jump straight into the race recap, you know, just to see if it was a smooth ride. Did you have any mishaps? What? What kind of happened?
Speaker 1:so we we've kind of gotten. This is a totally new program with mitchell and and myself and cameron and and this. Uh, this whole new platform has been been a little different for me, so I've just been getting used to it with with the shifting and and all the good stuff. But, um, yeah, so throughout the I mean we probably took off the start line and about 10 miles in I started uh, started seeing some some temp issues and obviously it was a super hot day so I was a little concerned about temp issues. So we were trying to keep our temp issues down and we were trying to kind of back out of the pedal and obviously we want to get to the finish line. So I mean, thankfully we were able to to run it up around 90 miles an hour for the majority of the day. But it just felt, I mean, those long roads you're, you're only doing 90. It feels like you're just a sitting duck, you know.
Speaker 1:So we're uh about I'd say it was probably probably about mile or pit five. We got into a physical battle with max, eddie and, if you rewind, about two, three years ago, max and I went like toe to toe and then naturally aspirated class. So I knew max was going to be going to the front so I kind of uh, I kind of just latched on to the kind of what ryan was saying about you know that guy, he I kind of latched, he started ahead of me, I kind of latched onto his dust line and we just started working our way through the pack and uh, yeah, we, we got up to. It was it was just after mile or race mile five when I uh caught up to the back of max, like I just caught a rock on the left front and and uh, tried to stay calm and we had to jump out and change the flat and that was kind of like our only really big issue throughout the day. I mean, obviously, the temps, not be able to push the car wide open. But, um, yeah, just kind of kept, kept plugging away.
Speaker 1:We uh got to, I'd say, pit 12 and put the last can of fuel in the car and uh, that literally our, our, our pits were just like radio silent we've had had over the years. They'll kind of hey, you're this close, you're this close, keep pushing, you know, and then something happens and then you know, everything goes away. So they were super quiet and they were just like, go, have fun. I'm like, okay, I know, I know, I know we're working in the right direction here. Yeah, we came through pit 13 and they were like, hey, hey, it looks like uncorrected. You're like right there.
Speaker 1:So, um it, actually I've kind of gotten this stuck in this situation before. I don't know if you guys know bo baron, but I've I've raced in many years on quads and um, he, I always felt that he always would catch the lappers at the perfect point and I would always catch him at the wrong point. And I watched max as we were heading up the rocky uphill, he caught a truck, or like one of the 4,400 trucks, and I saw that happen and I like I saw it all like replay in my head and I was like, oh no, I can't, I can't do this. Like I just I kind of looked over at my buddy Preston, and Preston is very, very good at keeping me calm.
Speaker 1:I like so badly want to just push the car to its limit just so quickly. Like so badly want to just push the car to its limit just so quickly. He's like no, no, no, like just you know, back off, back off. So we, uh, we had to push through his dust. I mean we tried everything because I mean he's still got a race going too. So it's hard to you know, hard to to discredit him, for you know what he's trying to do. So it's like we're trying to and thankfully, just at the top of the hill he led us by and I knew from that point on like I was going to be just a drag race to the finish and I just kind of drove that thing like it was probably his last race. But you know it was uh, it was. It was a lot of fun. We got to the finish and it was really cool to to hear that at the end.
Speaker 2:Well, sadie said that she just chimed in right now and she said that she's got the car in the garage and it looks like you could do another 500 miles. So you must have drove it pretty smooth the whole time yeah, it was I.
Speaker 1:I I guess I'm one of those people too on the like, on the, when I race and anything else as well. Like I, you feel like you hit something. You get out. You're like, oh, it's just a little nick, you know. So it was, it was, it was good, the car was. The car was unbelievable mitchell. Mitchell built an absolutely perfect car. I mean mean, I never even threw a wrench at the thing, I just full trust in him. He's like just go drive it, don't even stress on anything. So it's a lot of fun having that kind of trust and just being more or less being able to just focus on my driving and Preston calling the notes. I mean, preston, I was listening to Ryan and how you have to stay like you know, to drive that long and not make a little mistake. I mean one little mistake, you're out Like you're, you know. So trying to stay like present and not make any of those mistakes is so tough. You catch yourself wandering and you got to. Okay, bring it back, you know so.
Speaker 2:Well, bella, we were talking about it before the show. Even like pace in the utv class, josh is like well, here let me use some, some stats kind of, I guess, or some examples there was a lot of people that dnf the race yep the reason that those good guys dnf. The race is because the pace is so fast. You don't have a choice. You have to go all out or it's not going to. You're not going to win, Right, so yeah.
Speaker 1:I, yeah, we, we took off the start line and I mean it's like you're saying, I mean we, I mean we literally took off the start line, I put it to the floor and I'm like okay, and then that was when we, we started seeing the temps rise and it was like almost I mean I would say almost that maybe that those temps rising and me not being comfortable pushing the car to that extent might have been like the blessing in disguise you know where I was. I was kind of letting out of it instead of thinking like, oh, it'll take it, you know. So I, I just the it is so crazy, how fat, I mean you, literally. I mean I thought like it's so crazy now that a 550 mile race, I thought one flat tire was going to take us out of it. Like that's how, that's how you know. Before it was like oh, you could, you, could, you know, have this issue, have that issue, a couple tires, and oh, you still got a chance at it. Like now it's like if you're not, you know, perfect, I mean without.
Speaker 1:And I I was kind of talking my, my, my buddy schwank, he's, he's always done my fuel stops and he is, he, he takes pride in being able to sling those 11 gallon cans around, like you know that I can't even pick one up myself. And he, I mean, I told him at the beginning of the day, I'm like, hey, dude, like this, this is gonna be like nascar today, like you're gonna have to be perfect. And he's like I know, I know, like he's always, he's always game for it, so to to be able to pull it off, especially with all these super, you know, super good competition, it's uh, it it's really cool. I was really, really excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's super cool and you guys experienced a lot of that track, the track and the gnarliness of the train as well. Did you guys go full Matt? Because he had to?
Speaker 3:Definitely not full, matt. The one time we tried to go full Matt, we ended up with a flat. I was actually going to talk about that a little bit. Um, because you previously raced vegas trino, did you notice a lot of like changes in the terrain compared to like last year, year before?
Speaker 1:um, yeah, and I and I do think a lot of that plays and plays into our advantage. You know, like you, over the years, you're, you know, you kind of you get into sections and you, you, you're, you're very familiar of the section. So I've, I've, I've, I've won Vegas, you know, three times in the pro quad class. So doing all those sections again in the car, you get a lot more, a lot more comfort and a lot more, just, I don't know, you're a lot more aware, especially when you're in the dust. You know, you know, okay, or just I don't know, you're a lot more aware, especially when you're in the dust. You know, you know, okay, downhill sand wash, I'm going to drop down here and you're a lot more like comfortable, I guess.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I mean the terrain, yes, I mean all the washes that don't have a rut in them. I was actually talking to my buddy who he Ironman the motorcycle class and he was like, hey, did you see? Like he's like I couldn't believe this wash there was, like there wasn't a track in it. Like how was it for you guys? I was like, oh, we went through it after the trucks. I'm like it's like a full two-track run. It looks like you know a thousand cars have been through there. So, yeah, definitely all the rain and everything definitely makes a big difference.
Speaker 2:It's kind of crazy to think like how much different uh, each individual person's race actually is so like let's just say josh's race compared to ryan arciero or nick wetstone's race compared to your race, compared to the dirt bike guys, rates compared to all the different perspectives like what josh is saying, like you don't really ever think about it, but it literally is a completely different track from six in the morning to 12 100, yeah, yeah it's.
Speaker 1:I was telling, I was telling my buddy who did it on the dirt bike. I'm like, if you tried to go race that track on a dirt bike after the trucks have gone through, I mean they're. I'm not exaggerating when I say there is, I mean there's little basketballs that are just sitting in the middle of the race track and like if those were there on the dirt bike like you're, I mean you're. If you're in any slight dust, like you're, I mean you're gonna, you're gonna be hurting, you know. So it's uh, I mean those are what essentially, like gives us flats if we're pushing into the dust and these things are just hanging out like it's the scariest thing ever.
Speaker 1:But you just, I mean that's just, I guess, kind of the the risk we take. I mean I was listening to brian talk about, you know, trusting his co-driver. Like there's so many sections of that race course that I mean I'm literally just like he's saying, I'm like, all right, what are we seeing? What are we seeing? You know, and he's just, you know, he just he's, he's essentially the one holding the wheel, like it's just, yeah, it's something.
Speaker 3:How do you go faith with your co-drivers? Crazy. Not many people would understand that they're like what's the point of you know, co-navigating your view? Yeah, can't you just drive for a moment? Can't you just drive for yourself?
Speaker 1:I used to think when we first switched over to like the natural aspirated car, like I mean, you're only doing 75, 80 and like the natural aspirated car. So I always was like, when I switched from the quad I was like, oh, like, I mean he would, he would like, for the most part he'd sit there and we'd just drive and we get into a little dust and then, you know, he'd shout some stuff out and then we'd drive for the next couple hours and now that we're doing I mean a hundred, 105 miles an hour, like you mean it's crazy. The element, like I never thought I'd mentally get as drained just from like, oh, I've done it all on the, I've done it all on the, uh, on the bike and quad. You know, like I can do this like physically, like now, it's just it's crazy how draining it is. Just all you're doing is just sheer focus because you're going so fast. Like it's it's uh, yeah, it's just a different animal, yeah, what other questions?
Speaker 2:did you have for him, Bella?
Speaker 1:I do have a lot more.
Speaker 2:She does, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 1:I'm taking it up.
Speaker 2:No, you're not. It was a good interview.
Speaker 6:What do you?
Speaker 2:think Christian. Well, I would actually like to talk about this a little bit, so Bella's got a general question about, like, making the switch from two wheels to four wheels or to from handlebars to a steering wheel. Um, I want to know just kind of like what you were talking about right now what you have to do to change in your mindset, because I went through the same process and I love hearing this. You're out by yourself on a dirt bike or you're with somebody else inside of a car or truck, right?
Speaker 2:you have a lightweight machine with only two wheels. You have a heavy machine with four wheels. The dynamics of it are different. Like there's so many different things, how do you change your focus and your, your skillset and your mindset and your head? Because that, to me, is more than the physical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I that I struggled with, honestly, was I could always on a motorcycle or a quad. I could always make a motorcycle or a quad work. I could adjust my body, I could slip the clutch. I could, I could, you know, you know I could, I could, I could move my body weight here, I could. You know, wheelie through this stuff, dude, I could, I can change those things.
Speaker 1:And you strap into these cars, like, if the car's not working, like you're, you're sitting dead in the water there, there's, there's nothing you can do. You know so. And then also, I think, like a lot of the, the big things and one of the really cool things that I like about the, like the maverick r, is now being able to shift. So, before, when I would drive like a cbt car, you're accelerating through, you know, say, you're accelerating through the rocks. Well, you, everything is revving. So, like it'd be, like, say, you go through a rock section on a dirt bike, you're in second gear, you're revving and and the bike is loaded, everything is, you know, it's chattering. You're getting a lot of feedback.
Speaker 1:Well, the, the dirt bike, or like the, the maverick r, you can short shift it and it will just settle the whole car down. So it's cool to be able to, like you know, kind of take that dirt bike mentality over to the car and really, you know, use a lot of my skills that I used. I just I don't know it's, it's. I guess that's like a really, really loaded question, but it's uh like I love, I love just hearing that, because you're right and we just talked about it a little bit with Nick Whetstone.
Speaker 2:We talked about those little minute details, right, and let's just say that you were driving a CVT vehicle and there's nothing bad about it. I have one, yeah, it would have been different for you. A lot of the little minute details that you used in your skill set to win this last race was because of the tool set that you were providing, and that tool set gave you the capabilities to do it the way that you wanted to. You kept more rolling speed. You unloaded the car when it needed to be.
Speaker 2:You loaded it when you need yeah and all these different little things made that much of a big difference over that well, let's just say 10 hour period right, yeah, it was, it was, it's.
Speaker 1:It's something like, and how Ryan was saying, how he's, you know, sitting out of the other guys, the dust and and not trying to push in the dust and and and trying to you know, hold yourself to, you know, not make that mistake and not push yourself too early and know when to like all right, this last 50 miles, like it, it's either going on the trailer or we're doing this, you know. So it's, it's hard to to really like trust yourself and knowing, like the amount of time and effort that you've put into this stuff and how much you are, like really believe in yourself and and and you know, go, go, execute, which is it's hard, after you've been doing it for nine hours, to go try and you know, really dial yourself in. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:If you were going to give to the younger crowd, if you were going to give some advice on how to be able to manage a race like the way that you did? How would you tell them to do it, or what would you suggest?
Speaker 1:I mean, I honestly I think it's just it's time and doing it, cause, like I mean, even over the years of of doing it right, it takes. It took me so long to just just every race. Like you're, you're going to learn something every time you go out and race. You're going to learn you know when to push, when not to push, how to save your vehicle, like you were talking about with, uh, the last trophy truck guy. Like how you're you're saving your equipment. You're not pushing the drive train too hard. You're doing all those things.
Speaker 1:Like there's so many little things that I feel like are like so ingrained from me from being like from when I was young and I was starting to do it to like now, to where it's like, oh yeah, I've, I've gone and broke that, I've gone and done that.
Speaker 1:You know, like you learn all those things and what makes things last and last and and uh, it's just that that's where, like, I feel like it's it's gonna be wild for, like, the younger generation coming up because, like, like all the equipment has evolved. So it's so crazy that, like it's like I mean, if you're not like I was saying, I mean if you're not, if you don't nail it that day. Like you're gonna be a top five guy. Like you're just you know, that's just where it is. It's like if and when you do it perfect, it's it's just you know you gotta gotta really have every and that's what. Like there's so many variables and off road, like if Schwick wouldn't have had a, can you know loaded with enough fuel, if we would have had, you know, all these different things that you know are going on, that you know, if know, if one of those things is wrong.
Speaker 2:We're, we're not even we're not having a conversation today. Yeah, but it's cool, bella. That's so crazy and like you get to experience it you get to experience it from the driver's seat you know how hard your crew works oh yeah.
Speaker 3:The amount of hands that get used that weekend is insane, from pitting to loading snacks, to doing camel packs Loading snacks Most important.
Speaker 1:Got to have them. Yeah, I, I all my I mean all my pit crew whether it's down in Baja, best of the desert, anything like that is is all my family and friends my, my wife and my three-year-old and and all my friends. They, they all show up to help. They're all super knowledgeable. I'd trust them with anything on any of my cars. And I'm just I've got a really cool core group of family and friends around me that that really want to see me and Preston do well and it's it's really cool to do it for them, cause I I feel like it's been a while, so it's a it's cool to kind of pay them back that way.
Speaker 3:It's definitely a team win and the high lasts all month.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think it's still hitting me, I just it's like.
Speaker 2:I just yeah, it's pretty exciting, I've waited a long time to put something like this together. Yeah, you landed on the top and there was a massive amount of competition, so you should be very proud of yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:So we are going to get the guy that you're battling with all day max eddie on here in just a little bit, but I want to say
Speaker 2:josh before you take off, first and foremost, it was nice being able to talk with you, a little bit like uh, as a human being, I really like your attitude and stuff, and bella has been wanting to, uh, do a little bit more stuff with her bella's corner segment on the dirt life show, and she wants to get more in-depth with people. I think it would be really cool if you guys lined up a show and we can actually sit down for you know an hour or something and Bella could give you some serious questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, I'd be more than willing.
Speaker 3:Really excited. That'd be super cool. It was not really you. I'm super happy to be talking to you and stuff, yeah and hey dude, congratulations.
Speaker 2:You should live that this whole week, man. Thank you, I appreciate it, all right. Thanks, josh. We really appreciate it. We'll see you soon, all right.
Speaker 6:See ya. Bye, Josh.
Speaker 2:Bye, all right, so let's get.
Speaker 6:Max Eddy on here and then.
Speaker 2:I think Austin Eddy is going to join us too. Yeah, and Max will get Max on, and then we'll get Austin, we'll talk to these boys. Man, it's so cool, don't you get like a little heartfelt, like get stoked, when you hear all these conversations? Yeah, all right, so we have Max Eddy. What's up, buddy? Nothing much. Hey, put your phone down a little bit so we can see a little bit more of your face.
Speaker 9:Let me. I got this set up in my. We got Austin, oh I didn't tell Austin.
Speaker 2:Austin, oh, there he is. All right, austin, what's up man?
Speaker 6:What's going on, George? What's up dude, Are you guys at?
Speaker 2:the same spot or no?
Speaker 6:No, I was out at dinner. I'm leaving right now.
Speaker 4:Oh right on.
Speaker 6:What did you eat? Denopolis and Barstow?
Speaker 2:There you go, all right, so let's get into this on the real though. So, max Eddie and Austin Eddie first and foremost boys, congratulations. You guys had an insanely hard-fought battle. It wasn't just top two, it was almost the whole top five all day you guys had a couple issues that held you back a little bit.
Speaker 9:But, max, tell us a little bit about the race. You know, man, it started with qualifying. I'm a desert racer. We don't get to qualify very often, so qualifying still beat us. Luckily hey, beat it. Sorry, my dog growled at me. You know, luckily we landed inside the top 15 at qualifying, which gave us a decent spot for the start and actually it's probably right where we wanted to be. We were kind of right at. You know, everyone in front of us was super fast and I knew if we just latched on to that group then we should be able to, you know, just mosey our way up towards the front and and run with those guys yeah, but I mean, it wasn't that easy, though you guys had an insanely I don don't know high speed Dude the competition and the level of the pace was just dude.
Speaker 2:It was ball to the ball. Can you give us a little bit of an understanding of how that was, Austin? Yeah, it was. Let's let Austin say it from the passenger seat. First, max, and then we'll go to you, because you were the man with the throttle.
Speaker 6:Yeah, these new Polaris players cards, they're, they're, uh, they're solid um. We raced um the na car last time at this race and it was like we had to like kind of back it down and like save the car. But no, these new cars, it's just, it's just wide open.
Speaker 2:You don't care about nothing really, you just who can go the fastest yeah, well, who can go the fastest is up to who's going to push the pedal down hard enough back so that's what I was saying, like I don't, I don't understand how the pace has gotten this fast in my mind, but you've been part of it like you're driving the force, like you're making, you're setting the pace, like it is so dang fast now yeah, it totally is.
Speaker 9:You know, two, two years ago in the na car, um, we battled with josh, you know, and I was like man, this is a pretty fast pace, you know, and and um, I was like how I don't know how these cars can survive? Well, it's crazy, we're still saying that and we're going 40, 50 mile an hour faster than we were in the NA cars. You know, I think we hit a top speed of 110 across one of the lake beds in the Pro-R and you know, it's just crazy that what these things will take, you know you don't have to be nice to them, you don't have to. You know, I think the mentality a few years ago was like all right, let's save the car. Whoever saves the car and gets, gets it to the finish line, is going to do pretty good. And that's not the mentality anymore, it's it's drive the fastest, you know does that change the way that you go about the race?
Speaker 9:Yeah, of course. Of course you know, and obviously we do. We do a lot more racing down in Baja and the mentality is is not the same down there. You know these. Baja is a lot rougher than Vegas Torino and takes a different kind of driving style to race down in Mexico. But Vegas Torino was a five hundred and fifty five mile sprint race. It really was, you know, and and we had, we, we unfortunately got stuck behind a slower car in the dust for 150 miles and ultimately ended up getting two flat tires because of it. Total driver error, 100% my fault, just trying to get impatient in the dust and I was listening to Josh, you know, and Nick and the Rubik's truck and Anne Arciero about just being patient in the dust, man, and you feel the race slipping away from your hands while you're just sitting in the dust doing 40, 50 miles an hour. You're doing a lot slower than what you really want to be doing, you know, and it's hard to remain patient for that long, but we almost.
Speaker 2:Well, it's kind of give and take, though, right, because, like the difference between the win and the loss or the second place, not a loss, but the first and second place time split was I think it was just at a minute, like it was so small and your mindset, you can't change the way that you were thinking because that minute could have been gained or lost right there in that second.
Speaker 9:Yeah, absolutely, you know. Honestly, it's a matter of if Josh would have got stuck behind that Ultra 4, that could have lost the race for him, you know if he got stuck behind that truck for another two miles.
Speaker 9:That would have been it. And it's a matter of just being, you know, having a ton of race craft and like, all right, how do I get around this guy? You know, um, we followed this guy for that same ultra four truck that josh was talking about. We followed him up this hill, pushing the push to pass, trying to get around him. We knew we we had to make up four minutes and 16 seconds in the last 80 miles. Um, our last fuel pit is the last time I seen josh.
Speaker 9:I was getting a re-rack from my last, from my flat tire, and josh pulls in right in front of me and I seen his, his, uh, pit guy with their dump can and I'm getting a re-rack and I took off. And then Adam Arsenault, our operations director, came over to the radio and told me I was fourth overall on corrected time and I'm four minutes and 16 seconds down from the leader, josh Rowe. And I looked at Austin. I said, well, we got to go for it, you know. And we got stuck behind that Ultra 4 for a little bit and had to get crafty to get his attention to get out of the way. And we did that and I was like well, josh is a good buddy of mine. I've raced against him for a long time. I hope he gets stuck behind that guy a lot longer than we did.
Speaker 2:That's kind of crazy, though, to think about. Like Austin, you guys made up all of that time. It's not easy to make up three, four minutes in any desert race let alone Vegas Arena, where you're just mad at the whole time.
Speaker 6:Yeah no, after that last pit we kind of just put our heads down, went to work and everything was just flowing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything was just going perfect and we made up quite a bit of time, and not quite enough, but enough to be, uh, second on the box. Yeah, it's kind of crazy, though. Like did you, did you, how did you guys do inside the uh, inside the cockpit, max? Like what's your guys's uh conversation? Like going, all right, we got to make up four minutes, what the fuck are we gonna do? And then you guys just tell each other I'm gonna do this, this and this, and then you just go and mark off the checklist you know, I I think it's, it's just quiet.
Speaker 9:We got it over the radio and it just everything gets quiet in the car and austin just you know he's super consistent with his, his notes and his calls and stuff and it it feels like everything just starts to flow. You know, like the calls he's calling out match the corners or match the braking when I need to get on the brakes for a danger, or something like that and it's just everything flows and honestly, like that last 80 miles was just, it was quiet in the car and we're just going for it. You know, and and being at night, you know, and and and trying to push through the darkness and the dust lingers a lot longer at night, you know. So it's, it's a it's a little harder, but I love racing at night and it's, it's one of my favorite things to do, and and uh, it seems when you've got a good navigator and co-driver like Austin, I mean we just got our GoPro video back of of some of the some of our race, you know, from our guy Nelson and and um, we got two flat tires both.
Speaker 9:Both flat tires were changed in two minutes. Two minutes and 15 second tire changes, that's out of the car, both of us out of the car and both of us back in the car, and so you know we used all that stuff just to get better and stuff. But a two-minute tire change in a UTV is pretty good. I know the truck guys got it down like a minute.
Speaker 2:Well, unfortunately we don't have big old uh, whatever they are 700, 400 watt jacks that'll push up a whole 7, 000 pound trophy truck on the etvs right, yep, uh, it is cool to hear this like because in in my racer brain uh, I'm washed up now but still in my racer brain like I can kind of feel it like what you guys are saying about being in the flow and just understanding how the car works and even though it's at night and it's dark, like I can kind of just see like you're you're moving slow on the steering wheel. You're kind of just your motions are like just like fluid, like that's got to feel pretty good and it almost like makes you feel like why the fuck couldn't I have just drove that whole way the whole time.
Speaker 9:Yeah, you know, and it is Like you got times right. You got 550 miles to make a mistake, or just be calm in the car and I think I feel when everything's flowing you know, your heart rate's low, your focus is on point and you're not getting excited.
Speaker 9:But the second you get in someone's dust, all that changes. You know, you can't see, your heart rate goes up, you start to get impatient and you start to make mistakes and, unfortunately, doing this for so long I you know, I still do that and that's exactly what I did at this race. It definitely cost us the overall win and got players factory racing Our first loss, I think. I think that josh josh will live that up for a while and and if someone was going to give us our first loss, I don't think I could find a better person that I would, you know, be willing to admit that to other than josh row for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, I will say this, though like josh, he did do a fantastic job, right? He gave everybody a run for their money and he drove a great race, uh, but I will say this your accountability is very impressive because you are holding yourself to a higher standard and you want to make sure that you don't make those same mistakes in the future and that you are a better racer in the future.
Speaker 2:So that's appreciative and that's what we always try to tell people on Dirt Life Show is if you have something to learn, be a sponge and listen to those professional racers when they are accountable for their stuff. So thank you for saying all that. One of the things that I do want to talk about, though, is Ryan Arciero and Nick Weston talked about it a little bit at the beginning of the show and that's the pace versus the race strategy. Right, the pace is so high it almost makes you feel like you have to throw the race strategy out the window and then just go balls to the wall, but you can't. You and Austin and the whole Flair's Factory team have to still stick to a certain level of plan so that you have the accuracy and reliability to get to the finish line. So how do you guys manage all of that?
Speaker 9:You know, I think I like to call it like a floating race strategy or a floating pace. You know you got to adapt to the pace or you got to adapt to a new strategy that might be a little bit faster, um, than you want to go right, um, especially at this race, because track position is extremely important. Track position could gain you five minutes or lose you five minutes if you're in the dust, you know. So obviously, just like, as the race goes on, your strategy changes and you got to adapt to a new pace or a new strategy or whatever, whether it's you staying holding that track position so you don't get caught up in the dust, for you know 150 miles, so it all just changes constantly, every mile.
Speaker 9:Yeah, it's kind of crazy. Are you able to adapt?
Speaker 2:that quickly, austin. Like how do you guys manage that from the co-driver seat?
Speaker 6:I mean because everything is like max is saying it's changing so quickly yeah, I think, uh, I don't remember the question, but yeah, I think just we're just getting that flow really and just and just start going, everything just clicks and um, yeah, pretty much it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't remember the question, I guess it is right like, and you're so, you guys are so natural at it because you guys have been doing it on dirt bikes and, you know, in all these different vehicles for so long I guess it is it's just like it just clicks, it just hits that way um let's just say that you were in the driver's seat, in the back of your player's car, bella, how would you manage that?
Speaker 2:I think, Do you take direction from the team? Do you make your own decisions? Do you listen to your co-driver?
Speaker 3:Definitely from the team. I feel like being open-minded is a big deal, especially in the racing industry. That way you have so many like just points of view. Yeah, it betters yourself.
Speaker 2:And you can be a sponge. So yeah, those types of things are always interesting for me to hear from the younger generation. Max, what kind of stuff would you give as advice to somebody like Bella that's going to? You know, try to shoot for being a professional driver like yourself in the future.
Speaker 9:Man, just keep after it. Keep every time you get behind the wheel. Learn, learn something, ask advice, talk to people you know. Just be open minded and and hang out with the best of the best you know and you're going to. You're going to learn, you know, and just watching what people do and being observant is is unreal. Sometimes it answers your own question. You don't even got to ask. You're just sitting there watching like, oh man, I've seen that.
Speaker 2:Just be super observant, yeah totally, hey, we're going to do two things. We've got Bella's Corner, we've got Sam Road coming on here in a little bit.
Speaker 5:I wanted to mention a couple things.
Speaker 2:I was wondering if there was something in the water I'vestow that's making these mustaches look so great.
Speaker 9:Well, we knew Vegas Torino was going to be pretty western, so we had to play the bar. I like it.
Speaker 2:I like it. I like it a lot actually.
Speaker 6:I'm getting mine ready for Baja.
Speaker 4:Oh are you?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's perfect.
Speaker 6:Vegas Torino is just the sprint race. Are you Nice? That's perfect. Vegas Arena is just the sprint race for your mustache?
Speaker 2:Yep, oh. And what's a milk stash? I don't get it, but it's funny. All right, hey. So we keep forgetting sometimes about asking these rapid-fire questions at the end. Max, you've answered some of them, but Bella's going to ask a couple questions. Why don't you start with Max first and then go to Austin?
Speaker 3:All right Max.
Speaker 2:You can ask whatever you want.
Speaker 3:Supercross or motocross. Moto Okay, motocross Okay.
Speaker 2:Let's go with Austin this one.
Speaker 3:All right, austin, chips and guacamole, or fries and ketchup.
Speaker 6:Chips and guacamole.
Speaker 2:All day. We can still be friends, buddy. That's what I tell everybody. Alright, here's your favorite snack, Max.
Speaker 9:What's that Favorite snack? Peanut butter and jelly.
Speaker 6:That's the racer's favorite
Speaker 2:what about uncrustable? Do you ever get those at the pits?
Speaker 9:I had a pack of them in my chest all right austin netflix or youtube, youtube.
Speaker 3:Uh, all right, do the superpower one all right, if you could have one superpower, what would it be? Max?
Speaker 9:see you in the future.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's pretty good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have that one too.
Speaker 2:All right, ask Austin one more, and then we're going to be out.
Speaker 3:Austin, same one.
Speaker 2:No, you can ask him whatever you want.
Speaker 3:What other form of racing would you like to try?
Speaker 6:Other form of racing, probably like downhill mountain bike, something like that.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:I don't know, dude, what if you could do like Dakar? What if you could do those like speed boats? That go like super crazy across those like Louisiana swamps. Those things look so gnarly.
Speaker 6:Yeah, or uh, yeah, probably downhill mountain bike. Yeah, All right.
Speaker 2:Well, he's going to pick mountain bike, but I think his stash is going Louisiana speed bumps. Hey boys, hey again, dude, you guys did a fantastic job and I will say this it doesn't matter what place you finish because, holy fuck, you guys are hauling ass. The insane pace is just. It blows me away. So I can't wait to see you guys on top of the box.
Speaker 9:Congratulations you guys. My car is amazing. I I think our all of our mechanics at players factory racing are are top notch, and my uh casey sims is my mechanic he's. He's a racer himself, so he gets it, man, and our car is flawless and even after after the race it's, I think he's gonna wash it off. We're going straight to the 400 with it.
Speaker 2:Dude, that's so cool man. Yeah, he does a great job. So all right, boys. Well, thank you very much. We'll see you guys in the races. I might even see you guys sooner.
Speaker 9:Sounds good, georgie. Thank you, see you guys, all right.
Speaker 2:So before we get Sam on, we're going to talk a little bit more about the sponsorship summit real quick, and so I told Alex, you can just have like 60 seconds, or we could just do 60 seconds, because tomorrow's going to be really important for helping spread the word on how people can improve their race program. So I want to give a little shout out to it. I'm a dirt life.
Speaker 2:All right, alex it just said that it declined you on the invite. So please update your Instagram app, and to do that, you just have to go to your apps on your iPhone and then update it. And so we'll talk about it just a little bit before we get Sam on the Sponsorship Summit. What it does is we get, or Alex gets, all of these different marketing vice presidents of marketing, marketing people, athlete managers, all these different things. He's got people from Ford. He's got people from all kinds of different companies that will come on and they'll talk to you about it. Matt Martelli is going to come on. Let me see who else we have, or Alex can tell us a little bit more about who we have coming on, but all of these people will give you guys advice on how to get sponsored and what they want in their sponsorship program. So it's pretty cool to be able to get all of that information.
Speaker 2:We'll see what we can get Alex on now Because, like when I was racing, I would have loved to have this information.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I didn't.
Speaker 2:I wasn't able to ever get that stuff, so did I change it?
Speaker 3:I have no idea.
Speaker 2:What the heck happened to the light. So we'll see if we can get Alex on here, if we can't get him. Unfortunately it's not coming up so all right, well, let's just get Sam on here and then we will. Is she on here? Oh wait.
Speaker 3:There he is let's get Samantha on, do you want?
Speaker 2:to ask her if she likes sam or samantha better, yeah, I should. What the heck did I do to change the way it looks?
Speaker 7:hi, hey, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I didn't know if you were going to invite my other instagram or this one, so I was confused. We got it, oh, I know, yeah, I was also do you go by?
Speaker 3:what do you prefer, sam or samantha? Bam, okay, that's what I figured, but I got a really sick intro for you so I'm gonna bust that out real quick. But sam is from wisconsin. She works for evolution power sports, as you all know, super involved in the athletes program sales department, going to events, races, stuff like that, so Vegas Torino being one of them. She co-dogged for Jacob Sucone, who placed second in the Superstop class, right behind his dad.
Speaker 7:Todd Sucone. But how are you Still like feeling the post post race high that comes with everything? This was my first full desert race co-driving and it was one of those that I looked at Todd before, like before we got into staging and I was like I have no idea what I just said yes to. He's like no, I was like all right, cool.
Speaker 3:Let's do this Very spontaneous a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was super cool to see and you know, what's funny too is like I didn't really talk to Todd or Jacob or anybody much before the race and I saw Sam coming with her gear bag and I go no way. This is so rad, like how cool is this that Sam gets to be? Able to get in the car and just have a good time at Vegas Arena. Get in the car and just have a good time at vegas arena.
Speaker 7:Did you think that the pace was pretty fast, sam? So actually, uh, there's a couple different things that happened before we, after pit one and before pit three, we had some steering issues, um, so we didn't really get a chance to go super fast and then around mile marker 350, we completely lost our front diff. So for us it was pretty. I think the top speed that we hit was maybe like 86 87 nothing too crazy, but that's pretty fast in the supercar, yeah no, yeah, and it was cool, we got to watch them too, oh I was really concerned about that in-car audio.
Speaker 3:That would be one of my concerns as well.
Speaker 2:Sam's got to be careful with her Wisconsin accent. It's just stuff to be construed a little bit differently.
Speaker 7:I do, I do. And at night when the field mice came out, we were singing Little Bunny Foo Foo. At one point Jacob did not have an opportunity to get in his head with how many different things were coming up with, like when we would call out turns or when something would come up. It was like Ric Flair woos every time we hit like a jump. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we kind of do the same thing Every time, me and my co-driver Dylan Lundberg we go or we make the 100-mile mark. We'll like fist bump or we'll be like booyah I say something stupid. We'll like fist bump or we'll be like booyah, or I say something stupid.
Speaker 2:I always do, but that's so fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just a little spice. Hey, what did you eat when you were in the car?
Speaker 7:Yeah, I didn't eat At all. No, I had a camelback and I kept drinking. You didn't have granola bars.
Speaker 3:You didn't have Uncrustables Nothing. No, I had Skittles.
Speaker 6:Dude.
Speaker 7:That's what I wanted. I wanted Skittles, but I never got them. I had a bunch of stuff taped to the roof, though, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what my mom does.
Speaker 2:She'll zip, tie it and then we'll when you like, when you're around, bella, like you could have just like passed skills from car to car that would have been genius.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we messed up I know it was really cool to see you out there though, especially because you've always been on the sponsor perspective and, you know, helping with the athletes program and everything but going into the actual driving scene, kind of seeing like you know, like this perspective. How has that kind of changed for you, or like?
Speaker 7:it's a whole new addiction. Yeah, um, so it really happened at the. Well, it happened more at hammers. So when we went to king of hammers for the first time this year as a company, um see, like being a part of the crew and and seeing todd and jacob race together, it was so emotional, like the highs and the lows and just like where they are and watching them on a racing tracks, and just all of it was just so intense. And then the mint 400 came up and I got asked to co-drive in the mint and I was like, oh, okay, like I've never done this before, but okay, and Todd threw us through me and Billy Longin on that third lap and that was amazing, that was like my first dip into it. And then when I I was told two weeks ago that we were doing Vegas to Reno.
Speaker 7:So I didn't really know how things go with the Zacon. Sometimes it's just like last minute and it's go, go, go. So I quickly got everything together. It was really interesting how everything came together because I had taken a call from Sarah Price the week prior and I told her that there was a chance that I was racing Vegas Torino. She connected me with Erica from Waypoint and she was a godsend. I took the class the Monday before we left and I learned so much and then, like I got my suit on Tuesday, I got my gear bag, I think, on Wednesday, and then we flew out on Thursday, got everything else and then was able to get the notes put together, get everything loaded and then got in the car on Friday and just did it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was wild, that's cool, so spontaneous, it's just like straight to the point Yep, yeah, wild, that's so spontaneous, it's just like straight to the point. Yep, yeah, no, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 7:It especially going into a race not knowing what's going to happen and then coming out with, you know, a podium spot like super, super cool yeah, it was wild, it was and it's so intense and just we were talking about it after, uh, one of the just how you explain what you've done to somebody who hasn't done it. Because I don't come from a racing family. My brother does Camaro stuff with the Crown Rally and with Gumball and stuff like that. My sister does barrel racing, but as far as my family goes, there's no racing ties to anything. So when I'm trying to explain this, it's so difficult because it's more than just you know, you and the driver going on the stage and doing all the stuff. It's the team and the teamwork and everything that goes into building it and getting everyone there.
Speaker 3:It was just, it's euphoric yeah, and the adrenaline too, just everything about it. I definitely give credit to all the other sports out there, for sure, but it's very hard to explain basically the dirt life Like to explain being in the car and these constant battles that no one gets to see.
Speaker 2:Well, we just talked about it a little bit with some of the other guys too. Like nutrition, hydration, focus, like all these different things Like you know, if you're tired and you drive from, let's just say, san Diego to Phoenix, that's like five hours, or whatever it is right. Or Los Angeles to Phoenix six hours you get tired.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, think of that times 50, 100. That's what's happening inside an off-road car, and one of the things that I think is so cool is there's all kinds of different ways to manage it. Sam manages it differently than you. You manage it differently than I do. When you get the good team together, it makes the most insane difference. At the end, you all feel like you achieved something.
Speaker 3:I definitely agree. I got a lot more questions for you.
Speaker 6:She's got a good lineup.
Speaker 3:Sam, she's got a good lineup.
Speaker 6:I'm here, for it.
Speaker 3:Speaking of adrenaline, I know you personally so it's a little bit different, but I know you do a lot of really fun things outside of racing and outside of the racing world. Um, give everybody a little idea what you do for fun.
Speaker 7:So prior to this and you know, going into like the heat of the desert and stuff like that, I actually just just came off of a 3000 mile motorcycle adventure where we left from St Paul Minnesota. Yeah, it was wild, it was. That was also very intense. We left from St Paul Minnesota and we drove to or we rode to, niagara Falls of all places Insane, yeah. And then we ended up at the Harley Davidson homecoming and then after that we just buzzed out to Mitchell, south Dakota, for the pre-surgeous party. So I mean, motorcycling is that's where I started with the power sports is in, you know, motorcycles.
Speaker 3:It's just where everything kind of started right, and then what it kind of just leaked into the off-road racing world. Who did you kind of meet and then decided, hey, I want to get into this program. I like it.
Speaker 7:So funny story, um, I so I started selling cars and you know car sales is and then I moved into selling Harleys and then I became the business manager and through that, like, I've had a passion for motorcycles my entire life and Jesse Combs has always been my idol. And it's wild because when COVID hit, you know, everybody experienced some sort of job loss and I was one of those people and I had kind of just let it go for a while, went to Arizona for a month and saw a job posting at Evolution Power Sports and just applied and did an interview and took the job and that was June 8th of 2020. So it's four years ago, yeah, and that's what changed my, my entire life yeah, that's super cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to be able to build a sponsorship like that.
Speaker 6:Now you're out here co-driving for some of the ambassadors for it.
Speaker 7:Yeah, it's insane, and you know what I was thinking about that today, because you know, leading up to this podcast and stuff and it was really George and Jen's podcast that he did on Soul Seekers, that kind of like tailspin to everything, because they were talking about, you know, divine appointments and things like that, and I really it kind of like everything kind of like was sent home with how everything happens and how people meet certain people and these different connections that you make and how they lead to other things, and everything just kind of led us here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I definitely agree. I think, everything happens for a reason Blessings in disguise, yes, because I see like seem a little bit hard to grasp or understand in the moment, but then, years down the road you're like dang well, that actually really worked out.
Speaker 2:It's kind of exactly sam and I have talked about this before but like you got to ride the wave sometimes and like, just be um, able to be, like, let life show you where you need to go. Sometimes, right, and there's all kinds of different things that have happened in my life and your life, right, and you're just like dude, I'm so down in the dumps and then all of a sudden something picks you up and sends you out, like on the right path. And seeing the smile on her face this weekend, like when she had her gear bag, like you could tell she was a little nervous, she was good to go and she's had like the confidence and this little swagger. Like you see all those things and you're like, yeah, this is like, this is how it's supposed to be.
Speaker 7:Yeah, aww, all of my heartstrings.
Speaker 2:But seriously, that's the way it's supposed to be right and you've felt like that before. No, definitely, those things have come up and it's meaningful, Because when you have that accomplishment, like what she felt at the finish line, dude smiles for days.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I definitely feel that way about racing, for sure. But I'd say that, like, that feeling mostly comes from the podcast. Like well, cause it kind of just started off as like a you know, we'll just do this for fun and see where it goes and stuff, and now it's, I think about it on a daily, you know. So You're passionate about it.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yes, well, that's the reason why she's cheating with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, when you're passionate about something, it's not easy to be successful, but it makes you strive to want to be successful. Hey, so let's, let's ask.
Speaker 2:Sam, this question. So when you're passionate about something, you have to, you want to learn about it, right, it right. Yes, and I told you today that I thought your path should be a little bit different than doing race recaps. Right, sam? What would you like to see from an interview from bella, like if she was going to take two hours out of her life to interview somebody? Do you think it should be in depth? Do you think it should be surface level? Do you think it should be about racing? Do you think it should be about health fitness? Like, how do you like see something like where Bella's going?
Speaker 7:I definitely fall for the in, like the in-depth ones. Um, I think it was, I watched it like two years ago, but it's one that I still think about every once in a while. But it's that one, that one YouTube about Brian Deegan where it really goes into like his history and his life and stuff like that that one that like things like that really resonate with with me personally. But I also am not really a surface level you, you know type I don't really gravitate to things like that. But anything that's in depth, like like the guys prior to even me coming on, they had a lot of great information about you know things like where they got the information from and then passing it on to you, I think that like things like that are really cool yeah.
Speaker 3:Me too.
Speaker 2:See, that's what people want. You gotta do it, follow your path yeah, so do.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Do you got anything to ask her?
Speaker 2:uh, no, I just wanted to see, like, what she thought of the race, right, like so, um, I don't want to call you like a beginner or a novice or anything like that. I am here to the guests that are on the show before, right, like we've got some really professional co-drivers how did you see the track and how did you feel like the pace was Like, what were your, I don't know, what was your overall feeling of how the race went? And my second, my follow-up question is is going to be what do you think you could have done better?
Speaker 7:Of course. So the overall pace I felt I know that you know Jacob wanted to really let it go, but consistency, I felt like was going to get us to the finish line and I know a lot of people go in with like checkers or wreckers type of a mentality on it and I just I had an internal goal and it was to get Jacob as close to Todd as possible and going into it I I take I took what Erica had said, cause she had given me a lot of pointers, cause she's done Vegas to Reno multiple times, and she said that last 50 miles is grueling and I think I like subconsciously internalize that, cause that last 50 miles I got my second wind and that's kind of when Jacob was kind of getting in his head a little bit, just cause that last section was gnarly, like with the rocks and everything, and we thought that somebody in our class was coming up on us and we just really dialed in and stuck to it and you know he listened and and even though he was getting his head about whether the car was going to fall apart or not, it was just keeping him calm and being like dude, we're going to do this, we're going to get there and we did, and that's what was so incredible about it. And I think that with Erica planting that seed, saying that it was the last grueling, I mean, I think that that really kind of sent us home Things that I can do better is definitely learning my lefts and rights a lot better, but I think that's what I mean. I mean it did make sense where everything was. You know you couldn't go right or you couldn't go left, but he understood the concept. But I do.
Speaker 7:I reviewed a lot of other people's notes and I know that I can do better notes. When talking to John Bray, who co-drives for Todd, he said that sometimes less is more and there was in the beginning section. I know I went really heavy on it. Towards the middle I was kind of mediocre and towards the end there was just certain things that I wanted to make sure that I marked and I think that I I totally agree with him that less is more, because sometimes I can get really muddy on the screen, um, and then just calling out dangers a little bit better.
Speaker 7:But Jacob was really dialed in on everything. So, yeah, and together. You know, prior to this I had seen and talked to, you know other co-drivers and things like that with him and they had given me some pointers and we just worked so well together and there was just certain sections that we were so dialed and it was crisp and it was clean and I couldn't have asked for a better driver to be thrown in with, because that's my first time ever riding with Jacob as well, and the fact that we just had so much trust and confidence in each other was really, really amazing.
Speaker 2:You realize that you just ruined the whole family's week because Jacob's going to have all this confidence. Now he's going to be walking around the house all high and mighty with everybody, right?
Speaker 7:No, todd's knocking him down. He's like no, this is what first place looks like Todd said remember who's on top. What's crazy about Todd's too, is they had cooling issues too, so they couldn't go over like 6,000 RPM Then at one point they were on their side. Yeah, that's crazy. They had like a 20 minute gap on us and I think we finished like four minutes or five minutes after they did, but they were on their side for a little bit there.
Speaker 3:We were rooting for you guys on our way back to vegas. Yeah, we were like watching the live timing like, oh they got it.
Speaker 7:They got it, yeah, and they're. Oh, fam, the family, they're already talking trash in the comments.
Speaker 7:I told you look where you started sam, you should have heard it all weekend. It was amazing. So Todd and Jen took all of us to Lake Tahoe on Sunday or yesterday, uh, and then I, aj and I flew back to Wisconsin today, but just the whole family atmosphere is just amazing. It was what was so cool and something that you know that I love watching because I never got to have it is, you know, seeing a father and son do something together, compete and then being a part of it and help it, help it to be achieved Right. So first and second place father and son is amazing.
Speaker 7:But what else was really cool is so Todd's parents were also there and Todd's dad was like one of the first people to hug me as soon as I got out of the car. So it's like you had three generations right there. And you know, I don't have any living grandparents. My dad is 74 and he's a farmer. He's not going to be getting in a race car. So to see the family, you know, work together and then create an extended family as well. Like the pit crew, everybody. We're just. We're all so close now and it's awesome.
Speaker 2:Doesn't that come out of?
Speaker 6:your heart. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 7:Oh, but dude did your dad get to watch live? He didn't know. Oh no, he he's still trying to understand why I did it because, you know, 12 hours in a race car. He's like I don't get it, I don't get it. He looked at, he looked at my helmet and he saw like the pumper connector, you know, and he's like, oh, you got speakers in there and I was like oh, that's wild but this is the perspective that we need to like open up, and sam will agree with this when I talk about it and this is actually a
Speaker 2:good, a good comment to make for her in her job position, especially with uh, an athlete manager. Having the ability to share your experience, sit in the car with you on a live stream and educate your father or educate anybody for that matter on who doesn't know what it's about and they can feel the same emotions that you're explaining to us here is exactly what we want to try to do to help grow this off-road industry that we all love so much.
Speaker 7:Yes, yes, for sure. I just did. You read Jacob's comment, I felt bad.
Speaker 3:I think I peed on Paul's shoes at the finish. I didn't know he was right there. No, he did not.
Speaker 2:That's funny, it's funny, but you know who's going to get their ass kicked later after all this jacob.
Speaker 3:I think I gotta do a review on jacob now jim senior doesn't mess around man that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Uh, overall, what did you think about the, the race and the experience all in all at all for you, I don't know.
Speaker 7:I mean like for the whole time living your life I, yeah, I, it's hard to put it into words, it's euphoric, it's something that you know, you, you can dream about, you can think about, you can have little thoughts go through your head and stuff like that.
Speaker 7:And I think that's what. I didn't have any expectations going into this I. I didn't know what I didn't, I didn't want to, I didn't want to make an assumption, because I didn't want to have something in the back of my head while everything was going on that would ruin the present or ruin the experience that I was having. And it's it's unlike anything else and it feels almost like it's like the first time, like the first time driving a car or the first time you know you don't have an expectation about it. Now that you have it, now you have this, this feeling that is inexplainable and you just want to share it with everybody and you want everyone to feel this way. But the only way to do that is to convey your experience and then, hopefully, they just go and they go to a race or they watch a race or they participate in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's kind of what George is doing here with the live streaming and stuff, kind of getting everyone to have their different like you know, the outside people that can't really look in the cabin and be like what's going on in here, you know they're just watching from the stands or they're watching from numbers on the live scoring. So it's it's really cool to bring outside people in, but especially like, show them the sport. Yeah, that everyone says, that we all love yeah, it's, it's definitely.
Speaker 7:it's incredible, and um was it that there was something else that I was going to say in regard to what we were talking about, but it just left my brain Crap.
Speaker 3:Always happens to me.
Speaker 7:Well, I read Jacob's comments saying my personal, as I was thinking it ADD is like stronger now?
Speaker 3:No, yeah, I think it's pretty cool, though, like even last year too, like you went and traveled to oklahoma from mid-america to I'm pretty sure that was last year yes, to um kind of go out there and do you know, for work reasons and stuff, but to even kind of see the short course and then go into the desert perspective, like what do you think about that? Like what's your favorite type of style of racing?
Speaker 7:desert for sure. It's just so much. There's so much more that I feel and that's not against nothing, against short course. Short course looks like it's, it's like combat fighting for me, like it looks like you're just gonna go, you're gonna like try to beat and you're everyone's so close together. But with desert racing, with like the staggered starts and just the endurance part of it, it's see, it's a lot of mental. Like there's a lot of mental, there's a lot of straightaways, there's a lot of opportunity for you to kind of wander in your head, whereas short course it feels like you have to stay focused, you have to stay present and you have to make sure that you're not going to get nerfed or sent some other direction. So I think desert just because of the challenge that goes along with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, especially the challenge and the mental blocks that you have to fight constantly yeah, just that mental game yeah, it's no, I'm just for it.
Speaker 7:I love it too and that's the other thing I was surprised about. I never once got in my head about anything. There was never like and usually which is strange because you know it's a stereotype that women overthink everything but there was never the moment where I was actually anywhere else but where I needed to be.
Speaker 3:And I think maybe that's so hard it is. It is really hard.
Speaker 2:That's so difficult to do. You should be proud of that, Sam, because that's like I don't know what's that movie where they're like squirrel, that's me Like I can never say that's normally how I am is squirrel and like.
Speaker 7:Even when uh drew one of the guys in the pit, normally how I am is squirrel and like. Even when uh drew one of the guys in the pit, he was like upside down in the car fixing the steering rack. Like no point did I like wander. At that point, while we were sitting at that pit, I was like all right, so we have to go here, here and here.
Speaker 3:That's super cool staying on your a game.
Speaker 7:I love it yeah, like Jacob said, that's us out of the car. Out of the car, we're just complete squirrel and everything. But maybe that's why it was fun, because we were having squirrel moments in the car, but it was still focused on the race yeah well, when that adrenaline gets pumping it does something to like the adhd and it just calms everything down.
Speaker 2:It's super nice we thrive in chaos yeah, yes hey wait, is there anything like what you were saying, though? Like would you have changed anything? Like, would you have done anything different?
Speaker 7:or would you like oh, you know what I learned a lot from that like I shouldn't do that or I should do this better honestly, george, I learned so much from every aspect of every part of that race, like just calling out and understanding the driver and understanding the car itself and how, like when to call out turns, how to call out turns, how it breaks, how it feels, and just every little movement.
Speaker 3:I mean the whole experience was learning and I just I want to learn more yeah, props to you for sure for going out there and not expecting anything, just having a good time.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I mean I didn't know anything going into it. So it's not like I was going to pretend like I knew anything. I just wanted to be a sponge and absorb it all. I had the basics down enough to be dangerous and to understand what my goal was and what the expectation of you know my role is in the car and to keep not only myself safe but Jacob safe and the car safe, and to keep everything together. I knew that needed to happen, but everything outside of that was just pure education.
Speaker 2:What could you have done to be taught what could have been the move Hindsight's 20-20.
Speaker 7:Working front deck yeah, solid steering rack and I think that, honestly, after that steering rack went out, we went really conservative yeah I think if that hadn't happened at like pit three todd, I see that that's the reason I asked that question I honestly, if we would have had a perfect car, knowing his issues, but we didn't know his. That's the reason I asked that question Honestly, if we would have had a perfect car, knowing his issues, but we didn't know his issues. So that's what did Jacob just say?
Speaker 3:For sure the steering rack yeah. Yeah, it's hilarious. I love the banter back and forth.
Speaker 2:That's why I just wanted to start a little bit of a Y'all should have met at the house, russell, everybody's hilarious. I love a banter back and forth. That's why I just wanted to start a little bit of a Y'all should have met at the house, russell, everybody's coming. What do you think about you guys teaming up one of these days?
Speaker 3:I think that'd be a gnarly idea.
Speaker 7:Dude, I've always been in. Bella's corner. I'm always in Bella's corner, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:I love that yeah, there you go. I love that. Yes, you guys, you know what you guys should do is plan a race to do together and then plan a podcast the monday after that race or the wednesday after that race, and you guys can just take over that whole week absolutely down.
Speaker 3:I'm so down for that we gotta, we gotta figure out something like that yeah, totally let's go.
Speaker 2:I don't want to pull like a girl card, but I think it's very important, especially in situations like this, because I'm learning so much from you guys on how to handle yourself, how to, um, basically be patient, like you guys are talking about patience a lot and what kind of stuff that could you give as advice to younger girls that want to get into this sam don't be't be afraid.
Speaker 7:It's intimidating. It's very intimidating coming into a male-dominant Because, I mean, as many women are in this sport and as many women are participating in things like this, it's still primarily male-dominated. And I think, just not thinking about it and just going for it and being confident in who you are and understanding that you also want the same thing that they do, and I don't want to say like removing gender out of it, but kind of removing gender out of it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, and you like, the ratios are changing, right, and I think that's. I think that's super cool, but I also think that there needs to be staple athletes and staple women that really try to make it so that everybody understands that it's possible, right? Because if you're giving an odd or you're saying yes, no, all these things, it doesn't really give that much confidence to the new up and comers, right? So I think you guys are doing a fantastic job, both you and Philip.
Speaker 7:I also will say thick skin, because there's going to be situations. Good point, yeah, I definitely agree and never take anything anything personally. My brother made me read the four agreements like four years ago, yeah, and that book really sent everything home like you cannot take anything personally and you cannot make any assumptions. You can't just assume that you know somebody's saying something about you because they could be talking about you know a different, like colored shoe that somebody's wearing or something they're like not. You can't have that in your head that there's an assumption that because you're a female in this industry, that somebody's saying something, you just got to go into it.
Speaker 2:Not make assumptions and don't take it personally and just do what you came there to do but I also think it's whether you represent yourself too right and it doesn't matter whether it's a girl or a guy, but, like I think, for girls it's a little bit tougher and you have to represent yourself a little bit stronger.
Speaker 3:I think for girls it's a little bit tougher and you have to represent yourself a little bit stronger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think definitely going into a hard-headed sport too, where, yeah, it is fully I mean not fully, but no, you're right, the hard-headed sport has actually been bothering me a little bit lately and Sam.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you've been getting this. Maybe it's like a full moon thing or something, but people know too much, like they need to be able to be a sponge. They need to be able to ask questions, like you don't need to know everything. The way that you're going to grow, the way that you're going to get better, is to open up your perspective and actually listen and look forward. And I've been seeing a lot of people lately that have been nope, I don't know what I'm doing. It's like uh no Things change.
Speaker 7:Everything changes every single day and, like even what Ryan and Travis were saying in the beginning, I gained. I got so much out of that and of course I was going to. You know, all these people prior to me coming on are very experienced in multiple facets of the racing community. There's so much education that you can take from just those people, from just those like what was it? 15 minutes, 30 minutes from each of them?
Speaker 3:there's so much one conversation could help an entire race, and not many people look at it like that.
Speaker 7:Well, the one conversation I had with sarah and it was like 15 minutes. I was in mitchell, south dakota, about to get on my bike and she called me about something unrelated and that whole conversation changed my education for the following week with er. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she's being open to it.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of cool. Hey, do you mind if I ask you a business question, because we're going to have a sponsorship summit tomorrow and I want to be able to explain some of the stuff like from an outsider's perspective.
Speaker 7:What is some of the most valuable stuff that people can do to get sponsors in off-road racing? I really really like when racers will send me a racer deck that has all of the information that I could ever need so photos, previous race results, who their current sponsors are. Social media I know that it's annoying and we hate posting on it and it's a lot of tedious effort, but it does help, and so if you have an active social media, make sure to list that. And then just good contact info. And then also, what are you looking for from us? That's always good to know, because some I mean I've had a lot I've had some people contact just to put a sticker on the car. They don't really want anything. It's good to know because some, I mean.
Speaker 2:I've had a lot. I've had some people contact just to put a sticker on the car. They don't really want anything. It's like, well, what, why Myself? Personally, I'm going to be one of the guests on there, but I'm only going to be talking about technology, and that technology actually goes into stuff like what Sam was talking about, about representing yourself digitally, whether it's on social media, whether it's on YouTube, whatever, having live streams, interfacing with promoters and all of these different things.
Speaker 2:So I think there's a lot of value in that. We're going to talk about stuff like what sam said about decks and different things like that. Um, I just want to keep telling you guys about it because I want to see people come to the summit tomorrow, because I want the industry to grow.
Speaker 7:My whole time to be there yeah, my whole goal by starting the dirt life was to help grow the industry, so this is one of the tools we got you helped grow the industry with me because if it wasn't for your podcast that you did with Jen, we wouldn't have known about our whole situation here so cool.
Speaker 2:We try it, but you're doing a really good job, Sam. You're not just helping yourself, you're not just being a co-driver in the passenger seat racing, you're helping other athletes. You're doing all kinds of stuff in the business. You're supporting different racers, you're coming on the podcast and talking to us about off-road racing you're doing.
Speaker 7:You're a role model to me. Yes, boom, stop. You inspire me. I was literally gonna tell you that.
Speaker 2:That you inspire me hey, I was gonna ask how's the puppy because you were gone for so long, cricket.
Speaker 7:Cricket, he's here. My dad actually brought him to the airport and he howled. He was howling in the truck. He was so excited to see me.
Speaker 3:What did?
Speaker 2:the puppies say when you guys got back, where did you bring them?
Speaker 3:Oh, we brought them. We bring them to every race. He sits at the pit.
Speaker 7:Cricket was at the mint. He was not at Vegas Arena arena. I was like I can't put that on somebody for 12 hours yeah, yeah yeah, when it's a little price, it's a little bit easier.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah yeah for sure, thank you so much for coming on. It was so cool talking to you in depth on the surface. I love it. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:What's next for?
Speaker 3:Sam, it's on your list.
Speaker 7:What's next is Sam's Sports Super Show Prep. Oh, I love that. We know it goes into that. We've got an event season coming up For Evolution Power Sports. I'm not only the sales manager, but I'm also an event coordinator and a sponsorship liaison. We have Glamis every single month October, november, december. Then we had the King of the Hammers. We have a event in Oklahoma in October. There also might be something else in October. Okay. No sleep Jacob has asked me to co-drive for Laughlin too, so I'll be there.
Speaker 3:Yay, super cool, super stoked for you.
Speaker 2:Don't hang up just yet.
Speaker 7:Tacos or hot dogs. Tacos OK, why don't you answer just one question?
Speaker 2:OK what's the next one? We're going to go down the whole list.
Speaker 3:OK.
Speaker 7:Chicken or carne asada. Wait, say that one again Chicken or carne asada, carne asada.
Speaker 2:Do the river?
Speaker 7:River.
Speaker 3:River Action shots or still shots. Action yeah.
Speaker 7:Three-wheeler or quad. I really want to do something stupid on a three-wheeler.
Speaker 3:You know they're called death machines right, yeah, that's why I want to do it Pizza rolls or jalapeno poppers.
Speaker 2:Poppers Coffee or tea Coffee.
Speaker 7:Favorite movie? Oh so I heard you say this. Coffee or tea favorite movie? Oh so I heard you say this I have two favorite movies and these are like my go to's. It's triple x with Vin Diesel, okay okay. And the Italian job I've never seen that movie dude.
Speaker 2:Mine is Requiem for a Dream, salt and Sea. And what was the other one? Crap, I forgot.
Speaker 7:I also like the Departed, the Departed's good.
Speaker 3:Instagram or Facebook Insta.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what about if it was Instagram or TikTok?
Speaker 7:I still do Insta, me too.
Speaker 2:Let's see here If you could have one superpower, because Ryan said it would be.
Speaker 7:I heard him say see into the future. I wouldn't want that. Not a chance.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't.
Speaker 7:No, I would want the ability. That's so cheesy, but I would want the ability to take grief away for a certain amount of time. That's a really good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a soulful one right there yeah.
Speaker 3:I really like that.
Speaker 2:Mine's, mine's way later, mine's teleport, yeah Cause, then I can just get, just wear it fast.
Speaker 9:I don't got to drive, that's legit, oh my God.
Speaker 2:That would be so heavy though.
Speaker 4:What if you could really get into people's minds?
Speaker 7:I would love that that would be so jacked up, Dude, I don't even know if you would want to be in here. That's what I'm saying. It's like a hamster and a raccoon and a squirrel and they're playing poker and for some reason there's a Ferris wheel. I don't know.
Speaker 3:That was a perfect explanation. I understood that. Know, that was a perfect explanation. I understood that completely. It makes total sense, netflix or YouTube.
Speaker 7:Did you say Netflix or YouTube? Yes, it's YouTube in the morning and Netflix at night.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's fair.
Speaker 2:Videos or photos.
Speaker 3:Photos Okay, retro, yeah, black and white or color color, yeah, color.
Speaker 7:Most memorable race actually, the mint, because it was my first. Okay, it was my first, I actually have it. I got a tattoo um of hunter s thompson, because you know fear and loathing in las vegas, and it says faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death how rad.
Speaker 2:That is so cool I did that after the minute I feel like this question is going to like totally negate what she just said, because that was meaningful. Favorite snack.
Speaker 7:Trying to think like what I've snacked on. I'm just gonna say Uncrustables, because I just keep in the freezer and that's like just my go-to.
Speaker 3:Racer go-to. Every racer I know loves Uncrustables Supercross or motocross. Supercross is fun to watch, I agree.
Speaker 2:What other form of racing would you like to try and open up your mind?
Speaker 7:there's a lot of racing you know, the bug stuff seems so fun, but it looks so yeah, but it looks so painful at the same time we just did class 11 testing yesterday morning.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god, like it was so like because we put a live stream system on class 11 and you're like looking at a driver on the track, you're like, oh, it looks so fun, it's like not that bad. And then you look at the live stream you're like, oh, we're back.
Speaker 7:Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, maybe that's why it's so appealing right now, because I still have a pretty decent back. Yeah, um other than that, like I don't know, 4,800 stuff seems fun.
Speaker 2:You're all about off-road dude. You can do anything, Whatever you can do. You can do drag boats. You can do anything Monster trucks.
Speaker 7:I'm not a massive water person, so that doesn't really get me. My brother does like car stuff and he does like rallies, so I don't you know siblings need to stay in their own categories or else it gets a little gnarly what about if you could combine two?
Speaker 3:you can do hooligans. Oh yeah, yeah, that'd be cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, speedboat or dragster, dragster chips and guacamole, or french fries and ketchup. It's final one chips and guac let's go well.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for being on.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate it thank you I do think that you guys should do, uh, maybe come up with some sort of plan, like I suggested yeah, we'll race together or maybe in the opposite uh format or whatever, but still, I think that you guys have some good things to talk about too yeah, we can tear it up but still, I think you guys have some good things to talk about too.
Speaker 7:Yeah, we can tear it up bye.
Speaker 2:Sam bye guys thank you, sam. Thank you so much, man. Tonight's show was pretty cool, so one of the things that I will say Bella is. I love having race recaps right and I love talking with all the guys, but a lot of the stuff that you and Sam just talked about really hits me in the soul, so I think we should actually keep going with this same type of context, right.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So thank you guys all very much for watching, Please. We just posted on I think it was on the Dirt Life Show. It might have been on StarStream, but go check out the Instagram and join us for tomorrow's sponsorship summit.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much to the guys at Maxis for doing all that they did for that final 48. That was just insanely cool to see. Like I can't tell you how much I think companies should give back like this to all of the racers. It is so cool that they just focused on the racers. It wasn't an athlete program, it wasn't any. It was just to give back to the racers. Like it doesn't get any better than that. So, uh, if you're a company out there, please put some effort into thinking about that stuff. Thank you very much, bella, for being so flexible. You did a really good job on the show tonight and thank you everybody else for watching.
Speaker 3:Thank you to everyone who watches. We do this all for you, so it was fun being co-host for a little bit, but I'll let you know when Bell's Corner gets up and running again. Why not?
Speaker 2:You're up and running all the time. Thanks to the guys at KMC Wheels, max's Tires, shark Therapy, elvish Power Sports, zolinger Racing Products, vision, canopy and Starstream, we will see you guys, next time Bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Dirt Life Show. See you next time.
