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A conversation about cars, trucks, tugs and other machines of transport that flows like an ADHD fever dream, hosted by Hoonigan co-founder and 321 Action Action director Brian Scotto. Enjoy, it’s gonna be a bizarre ride.
Speaker 1 00:00
Welcome back to another episode of Very Vehicular. As always, I'm your host Brian Scotto, and today we have a repeat offender. That's right, the my good buddy Ron Zarris. But we are going to stay topic focused today on something that is near and dear to both of us: rally and how it is the greatest motorsport in the world, but for some reason, it never really, it never really has captivated the American audience. And this is important right now because it has been announced that the WRC plans to bring around to the United States. That's right, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, or around that area. And this is our moment. This is our moment to really get this sport to land here. At least we hope so. So Ron and I talk about a lot of the obstacles Rally has had here in the U.S. Ways that we've already tried to work on that. Obviously, all the work that Ken Block and us did, like Jim Khanna and Hoonigan, which really grew out of rally racing, and what could maybe be done moving forward. This is kind of like just joining a workshop because Ron and I talk about this all the time, and we just kind of get all the ideas out here today. We definitely want you to tell us what you think in the comments because we want to figure out how we get Rally to be on that stage. It might not ever be Formula One, but let's be honest, man, a lot more people should be watching it here in the U.S. participating in it and all of that, so yeah, enjoy this. But first, one quick little note: we did have a really really hot day when we filmed this, and unfortunately, we had some technical difficulties, which caused us to lose some footage or corrupt some footage. So there may be some glitchy visuals here, and there may be limited camera angles. Apologize, but you know, enjoy anyway. mr. Ron Zarris, aka Ron Carr, it's good to have you back, and actually to have you all to myself. You have not actually been on this show without another person. It's all like you, Vin. I think you came on with who else? Chazzy, Chazzy, yeah, yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 2 02:24
there's been a couple of me and Vin episodes, the me and Chazy episode, but never solo.
Speaker 1 02:28
Yeah, yeah. So of course it's just the two of us, which means we're going to talk about rally.
Speaker 2 02:34
Oh, I thought it was going to be snacks and snacks. We can also talk
Speaker 1 02:36
about snacks. We talk about snacks. Yes. So
Speaker 2 02:39
yeah, I mean, well, well, I'm super down because it's obviously the best motorsport on the planet. No bias
Speaker 1 02:46
that no one in America seems to get
Speaker 2 02:48
or care about, and it's like, why, or even for the rest of the planet. But
Speaker 1 02:53
so I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you on the platform for a second. You're launching a new brand called Anti Lag. Yeah, I'm sure a few people on the show see me wearing it, supporting it. Appreciate
Speaker 2 03:02
that.
Speaker 1 03:03
It's a Rally brand, or a brand that's spawned from Rally. And I was thinking about this today. If you think about it, Hoonigan was a brand also spawned from Rally. Jim Khanna was 100% a concept spawned from Rally, and oddly, both of those things went on to probably have a bigger life in the United States than Rally has in the last-I don't know-345, decades. Yeah,
Speaker 2 03:31
in the U.S. for sure. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 03:33
I know in the other parts of the world, Rally is is massive. Yeah, but in the U.S. it just seems like it doesn't click, which is weird because all the parts of Rally people really like in other forms. So, for example, like drifting is really grown out of Rally. You speak to anyone in Japan who's gone back far enough, and they were all inspired by by Rally, right? And if you think about it, in the early days, a lot of the Japanese brands saw a lot of their first success in rally compared to a lot of other sports, right? And then obviously we have like you know a bunch of great like off-road racing, like truck racing, and all that. Like rally combines all of these amazing parts, and yeah, why don't you think? Why can't we convince Americans to to to love this sport?
Speaker 2 04:27
There's so many different reasons, and a lot of them we'll get into on here. But in general, and why I don't think it's a larger global sport too is it's hard. Rally's hard. Everything about it is hard. It's hard to do. It's hard to cover. It's hard to explain to outsiders.
Speaker 1 04:46
It's impossible to spectate.
Speaker 2 04:47
It's imp. No, it's different to spectate. When you learn how to spectate, rally. It's the greatest thing on earth.
Speaker 1 04:56
When he says greatest thing on earth, by the way, he means that in a full. Day you will see the car you care about pass you three maybe four times. Okay, yes, but at
Speaker 2 05:07
the same time you are also rally driving if you are spectating. No, no, that's the good part. Yeah,
Speaker 1 05:12
or going to jail,
Speaker 2 05:13
like or going to jail. But that's part of the fun. Like you go to any like Formula One, it's f1 is way better at home from the couch than it is like football in person. Absolutely,
Speaker 1 05:25
like football. I went to go watch a football game and like I wasn't. I didn't grow up watching football, but I watched it on TV for like a couple years. Yeah, like I want to go to the game, and I went to the game and was like, I wish I was home watching this on TV. Way better highlights, way better presentation.
Speaker 2 05:42
Meanwhile, during a rally, if you're doing it right, you are a in the car all day on gravel roads, going from stage to stage. You're camped out. Some random dude is cooking up tacos or roadside whatever, or you're just bringing your own snacks. Yeah, you're stage side. You watch a bunch of cars fly by, jumping in the air, big dust clouds. If you want to stay there, you can stay. If you want to go to the next stage, you bomb it to the next stage with your boys in a car. And on top of that, what other sport, other than maybe Baja or something like that, are you driving on a public road from stage to stage, and you're right next to Travis Pastrana in his full competition car? That'd be like going to Miami F1 and you're driving from your hotel to the track and like Fernando Alonso's right next to you in his F1
Speaker 1 06:29
car. The first WRC event I ever went to was 2007 in Mexico and Sebastian Loeb passed me like I was just driving on like you know some random two lane road, and I was doing probably like 75, and Sebastian Loeb passed me doing I don't know like a buck 15 on two wheels in the dirt going to the next stage, right? Like he was just transiting the next stage. I was like, that's one of the coolest things ever. Like he's out there on the road with you,
Speaker 2 06:57
and that's that's a million dollar race car right next to you with a license plate, yeah, for that country, and it's it's all like spectating it. We've had so much fun, and I was actually
Speaker 1 07:09
going to ask you, what do you think was the number one? What do you think was the number one? We we didn't call it spectating because we were technically covering the event. That's right, but like, do you have a peek? And we got into a lot of shit, which I guess maybe now we can talk about. It's been enough years, but we did a lot of we we did the limitations as it's been met. But like, what for you was sort of one of the peak what we referred to as what was it shitty? Was it world world rental car world shitty rental?
Speaker 2 07:37
The shit. God, hold on.
Speaker 1 07:40
Oh, I forget what it. We had a name for it. It was like it was like World Rental Shitty Car
Speaker 2 07:45
World Championship.
Speaker 1 07:45
I thought it was World Shitty Car World Championship just because we were on the World Championship. It was something along those lines, but it was
Speaker 2 07:51
every rental car was a race car.
Speaker 1 07:52
Yeah,
Speaker 2 07:53
and we would damage them and bring them back. And because we were with Ford M Sport, and the mechanics seemed to take a liking to us, we're like, yo, we just tacoed one of these wheels. Can you guys take the floor? We're tacoing a
Speaker 1 08:06
wheel. Remember the time we pulled the subframe out of? I don't know. It was like a Clio. No, it wasn't even like our first
Speaker 2 08:13
event together. Was that the
Speaker 1 08:14
Mondeo? That was Mondeo. I think that might be been the peak event because Turkey felt it was all over. This is why no one likes rallies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like after the first event, it was all down. No, it was all down. Like doing heroin. No, I would say I would say
Speaker 2 08:30
the peak for me was was always Mexico because we we we started knowing like where to go and what to do. The Chevy Tahoe was like the move or the suburban,
Speaker 1 08:41
yeah.
Speaker 2 08:42
So we would always. We don't suburb. It was
Speaker 1 08:43
also fun because we would go to Mexico with two full vehicles full of people. Yes. So we always had like 10 people or something like that, which was always fun. Yeah.
Speaker 2 08:53
And and it's such a like it's such a celebration. Like you'll go and you'll be driving and there's no one, no one, nothing. Like no civilization, whatever, and then you get to one corner, and there's a straight up party happening of like tons of dudes grilling, street tacos happening, a mini bar that somebody set up with you know a cooler of Coronas, and everybody's having an amazing time, kind of like N 24 happens, right? Yeah, yeah. N 24 is probably the closest you'll get to that.
Speaker 1 09:21
It was a it was a big shock for me because going to my first WRC event, Mexico to me felt like it wasn't real WRC because it was North America. Yeah, right. Like to me, real WRC was going to be you know in Spain or in Italy or Finland, like somewhere in Europe, and I get to go to you know the first one being Mexico, and then eventually we go you know as the team with Ken and did Mexico as the first event in the year because it's usually one of the first you know was one of the first two events or three events, and then go to Europe only to be let down by all the other events, realizing that Mexico. Was really one of the few locales that still had like the group B energy of like people in the people like in the roads lining the roads like party the whole way where you go to somewhere like Germany and it's like everyone's kept so far away for safety that it doesn't have that same like that same connection and obviously American rally is very very restricted in terms of like you're in spectator zones or whatever. Absolutely, Mexico feels lawless.
Speaker 2 10:26
It still to this day, Mexico and Argentina. I love Mexico.
Speaker 1 10:29
Shout out to Mexico. Shout out to Mexico. Mexico just rips. Yeah, it's so much fun
Speaker 2 10:33
for me. Like the the shitty car world championship and just covering. I think Mexico was always the best time. Yeah, like the most fun.
Speaker 1 10:41
You know, that's where I got the El Gigante nickname.
Speaker 2 10:43
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1 10:44
We were we were shooting at that crossing. It's like a crossroad where there's the jump.
Speaker 2 10:50
Yep.
Speaker 1 10:50
Actually, I oddly think that part of the road over there was also called El Gigante, but they all, everyone, I was like standing in front of people and blocking everybody, and I think it was like me, you, and Seda, and someone else, like year one, and you know, started getting the chant like "El cante, and that was because the crowds
Speaker 2 11:10
they latch onto anything. Oh yeah, if you're crossing the road, yeah,
Speaker 1 11:15
it's such, it's so much fun. But it's so
Speaker 2 11:17
interactive, you know. Like, and and on top of that too, again, like you could be standing at a corner. This crazy thing happened at just one of the past rallies in the WRC, where you know you have cars that go off and they'll roll. There's they'll spin. They'll go off into a ditch, and as a spectator, there's nothing stopping you from helping them back onto the road. Right. So you'll see, like a car spins, it goes off. It's in a ditch. Elfin Evans, he he spun off at this one corner. I think it was Finland, and he looks, and his dad is pushing the car. He spun at the corner his dad was at, and his dad gives him this look, like, "Really, dude? That okay? I mean, push you back on. It's
Speaker 1 12:01
funny because I imagine there were other teams being like, "We're gonna put a protest against that. Because remember, like that was always we were always told that by Derek,
Speaker 2 12:09
illegal service, which was
Speaker 1 12:10
like, if because you're on the team, you can't help Ken.
Speaker 2 12:14
Yeah, you can't touch. So like, if
Speaker 1 12:15
something happens, like even though like you guys aren't actually mechanics, like you can't touch the car is a legal service.
Speaker 2 12:21
Yeah. So, by the
Speaker 1 12:22
way, this is also another thing because, like, for people who are listening who don't know Rally, there are so many rules about Rally that if you don't know them, I'm sure you watch it and you're like, I don't know when they're racing and when they're not racing because you've got like transit stages, you have actual stages where you're actually driving, but all of it's timed, including the highway driving, and most guys drive pretty fast on the highway. But you're not supposed to, and if you get a ticket, like especially in the U.S. you can like you know lose points or actually get kicked out of DNF. Happened
Speaker 2 12:50
at a rally,
Speaker 1 12:51
yeah. And there's like all these rules, and then there's rules as to like where you have to be between control this, who can touch the car, who can't. I mean, that actually was happened to Leah at the beginning of Ria, right? What was drift? What was the actual situation for her?
Speaker 2 13:04
A spectator can help you push the car up until the control. Yeah, and they continued helping her push it past the control. So your car has to be either under its own power or under driver and co-driver past the control, and control is you go past the finish line, and then you know there's like where you hand your time card over, and that's where she got pushed up, and and something around that. I don't remember the exact details, but it was like just over a certain line. It should have been just her and Alex, her co-driver, pushing, but the crowd helped in that DNF thing. So yeah, there's a lot of idiosyncrasies. There's a lot of little things, but the excitement of like how lawless it is once they start and go out there. Like imagine you're at a NASCAR race and someone flips or spins or whatever, and you walk down on the track and you're like Denny Hamlin. Oh yeah, like you pushing them back on, and they're like, "Dude, shout out to you! All right, then they go back and they, you know, like f1, like same thing. And and that spectator involvement alone is such a like amazing, amazing thing to experience.
Speaker 1 14:13
Can I give you a hot take?
Speaker 2 14:15
Yeah,
Speaker 1 14:15
NASCAR talks about how its roots are from bootlegging, and I would argue that rally is closer to the sport of bootlegging than NASCAR ever was.
Speaker 2 14:25
I would agree with that
Speaker 1 14:26
because, like, NASCAR just took the cars right from bootlegging and moonshining, right? And they took the moonshiner cars and then put them on a track on a beach and drove in a circle, but actual moonshiners drove like windy dirt roads that were like rally stages. So like if you actually think about it, like the whatever you want to call it, the spiritual ancestor of rally is American moonshining.
Speaker 2 14:52
I'm.
Speaker 1 14:53
I said it here first.
Speaker 2 14:53
Fully back in that. Yeah, because it you know it's like the Duke's a hazard thing. Like you you modify your car enough to be able to outrun the. Cops on a dirt road and jump and do whatever. Yeah, damn, you heard it here first. I mean,
Speaker 1 15:04
now granted, rally technically predates moonshining, but still,
Speaker 2 15:07
yeah, because rally
Speaker 1 15:08
is like arguably the first motorsport. Because that I
Speaker 2 15:12
believe so,
Speaker 1 15:12
right? Because all the early motorsports were all about proving the ability to get from one location to another, right? So exactly point to point racing in any
Speaker 2 15:19
condition,
Speaker 1 15:20
right? And it was like, oh, you know, it's like, what, what was it? Wasn't like the first reveal of the original automobile. Was Mercedes' wife decided to like drive one of the vehicles like across a bunch of towns? I
Speaker 2 15:32
didn't know that.
Speaker 1 15:32
Yeah, yeah, I probably back that far. I clearly do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like a, I'm like
Speaker 2 15:40
a '70s plus guy. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1 15:42
all the details, but like, if I remember correctly, like she drove across a bunch of different towns just to prove, like, look, this this you know powered buggy can do what horses can do, right? Yeah, a
Speaker 2 15:54
fraction of the time. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1 15:55
that became this like thing where every manufacturer was trying to prove that not only could they get somewhere? But look how quick we could get somewhere, and that's where like a lot of the early point-to-point stuff, you know, started to kind of develop. And then they got bigger and bigger. Obviously, Paris did the car, you know, La Carrera Pan America, which is like a place that you know Porsche stole a lot of names from. You know, and like you have you have like all these things kind of Monte Carlo, yeah, yeah, like
Speaker 2 16:20
that,
Speaker 1 16:20
right? That's been
Speaker 2 16:21
going on since like at least the 20s. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, yeah. Flora, Target Florio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so what? Yeah, super, super OG motorsport. And there's just so much going on in it. That's amazing. Something that cracks me up too. You watch WECC or any kind of road racing or even F1. Like the highlights are always, you know, when a car gets two wheels off the ground, you know, like ah, that's a sick shot, or or when there's four wheels off the ground, like a super
Speaker 1 16:51
car, and you're like, oh, sick, yeah,
Speaker 2 16:52
like that's still like. Meanwhile, in rally, like that's that's a shakedown, you know, like you you watch or listen to an onboard from Finland, and it's like they're in the air as much as they are on the ground.
Speaker 1 17:03
What was the? I'm blanking on his name right now. The the Russian rally car. I want to
Speaker 2 17:07
talk about that guy separately. Evgeny Novikov.
Speaker 1 17:10
Novikov's jumps. Yes, were just mental. Yes, because
Speaker 2 17:14
that dude embodies like what this sport is to me. Is this is don't be gentle. It's a rental, as a motorsport.
Speaker 1 17:23
Oh, 100%
Speaker 2 17:24
And like, but except it's a rental car that got dropped off in a Formula One factory, and they're like, make it fast everywhere, even after it rolls. I
Speaker 1 17:34
mean, just think about if you were trying to sell rally and you didn't say what it was, yeah. And you're like, all right, so so here's the sport. The cars can do zero to 60 in like under two seconds, right? They slide almost everywhere. They're almost never driving forward. They jump like 100 plus feet, sometimes even more, like 150 feet. They often land sideways in a drift. They constantly roll down hills. They also catch fire. Sometimes they crash up and end up in like a lake. Yeah, this is a. And by the way, they're built on cars that you can buy from the dealership. Like
Speaker 2 18:07
you, you probably drive one. You probably drive
Speaker 1 18:09
one. Yeah. Is this a sport you want to watch? And America was like, Nah, nah. I think I think we're good. I think we're good. Is there any like dentist sports, like GT three racing, we can watch instead,
Speaker 2 18:21
the dentist world championship. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, we can we could wax on the sport forever, but like, why doesn't it work in the U.S. And like, I think there are a couple core reasons. One of them is in Europe it works so well because, especially at that time, Europe gas prices so expensive. Almost everybody, especially back then, drove around small cars, right? And this is a compact car sport, right? America, like it's always been big displacement, big cars and trucks. Trucks have been prevalent in the U.S. for forever, and I think that's why Baja and off-road racing are as big as they are because it's essentially rally, but with a something that's more relatable to everybody else.
Speaker 1 19:07
Do you think there's a way where you could reimagine rally in America with a different car? Because I look, not only do I 100 100% agree that I think the cars don't connect with a majority of the people, so it's like okay, Jim Conna 123456-all, done in essentially rally cars. Yeah, right. They might have been Jim Conna Focus, but we're talking Subaru's focuses fiestas, right? And then Jim Conna seven. We decide we want to reach a bigger audience, and we build the Hunicorn, which ends up becoming one of the most iconic cars of all time, and if you think about it, all the Hunicorn is is a muscle car, pony car, whatever you want to call it, with rally handling. Right? It's got a rally. It's got a rally sadev transmission set up in it. Yeah, sure, it has a v8, but it's like rally. With American sensibility, that was literally
Speaker 2 20:02
Ken's instructions when the car was being built. He's like, "I want a Mustang that handles like a rally car. Yeah, and that's why the unicorn was what it was.
Speaker 1 20:10
And the flares off of it were directly from basically the way WRC was cutting the back of the flares. Like so much of it had that look, but it had the toughness that I hate to say, like I just don't think a small compact car. No, it had the
Speaker 2 20:25
v8. You know, it had the look. Like it's really hard to beat an old school muscle car. Yeah, and
Speaker 1 20:31
you and you, but you took those two things, and it's like this awesome mashup, right? We mashed up like what was making you know sort of 60s era muscle cars cool, and like resto mod vibe mixed with the rally car side, and you know, like shit, man. We could do an entire podcast just on the hoonicorn, but if you think about it, like I don't think we understood how important that vehicle was going to be when it was built.
Speaker 2 20:58
Not at all, right?
Speaker 1 20:59
I was playing with the Lego the other day, and I'm just like, man, this is like an iconic car, and like, shit, I had a part in helping develop this. It's fucking wild, right?
Speaker 2 21:06
We were there when it was just a mood board and nothing else.
Speaker 1 21:09
But I wonder if, like, and and look, I'm going to say this, and this is going to be this might be blasphemy, but JimCon is seven is not Ken's best driving of all time. He drove better in most other films, like it's actually a lot lower. He agreed, but the Hunicorn and I think just the general attitude and vibe that we created for that, right? Entertainment wise, entertainment wise, and and the you can't the production quality. Yeah, it really helped carry that, right? Jim Kona Nine was 15 times better driving, but it was in the focus, so it wasn't as it wasn't as crazy. I think the the ultimate moment of Ken's driving and the unicorn is climb Khanna. Like I think that is peak driving. Both obviously Evo corner everyone knows so well. Shout out to Magic for capturing that amazing shot. And then then obviously next would probably be Olympic corner where he just like rides the K rail all the way through on the edge, and it's like because at that point he'd finally become really comfortable with the car. But and I'm tangenting because man, those were good times. But I can't help but sit there and think like maybe maybe Rally has a car problem in that we the people who love rally, like you, me, and everybody in the North American rally group on Facebook, that's going to be commenting about the things we say today in a negative way, is that we all love the European Rally, but like maybe it needs like maybe it needs to be super sized, like maybe it needs to be Americanized, and like, what does that look like?
Speaker 2 22:42
I think, I think there's some truth to what you're talking about. Absolutely, I think the way bigger issue is coverage, right? Like, it's just way harder to cover something that's happening in the woods. Like, if a car races in the woods, nobody sees it. Is it a thing? And throughout time, like technology has changed so much now to where I think it's possible. Because like back in the day, WRC was covered by literal dudes that had cameras and beta tapes, and they would go on a bike like an enduro. Yeah, and this they would go from a corner and then run to base camp and create a quick edit from tapes. This is in the digital era. They were still using tapes to do this, and then somebody at base camp would cut it and then put it to TV. Yeah, that whole operation was so challenging to do in the U.S.
Speaker 1 23:32
Well, it's one of the reasons why it's some of the most iconic shots you've ever seen of rally cars have helicopters in the background. Absolutely, because the only way to cover it was with a helicopter.
Speaker 2 23:40
And and where I think the argument for the cars, like yes and no, but like drifting, for example, drifting is all like two doors and big sedans and cars that people never really had in the U.S. But it exploded, in my opinion. Why? Because FD is three corners. You have to cover three corners, and that's it.
Speaker 1 24:03
Okay, let me. I'm going to push on this one because I because I think about this a lot. Again, I love rally. It is my favorite form of motorsport. My second favorite favorite form of motorsport is basically a derivative of rally, which is hill climb. Right, like
Speaker 2 24:18
hill climb is one rally. Yeah, hill
Speaker 1 24:19
climb is like like I rally on the weekends. That's right. Yeah, it's like and I like to stay like you know. Yes.
Speaker 2 24:25
Yeah. Yeah. And I can kind of memorize you know half the turns. I don't need a coach or I don't like my
Speaker 1 24:30
coach. I don't like listening to someone in my ear.
Speaker 2 24:32
I I I don't mean this from a danger or like a driving skill factor, but hill climb is like rally easy mode logistically.
Speaker 1 24:41
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, by the way, a bunch of people are like, you could fall off a hill. Trees kill you faster than falls.
Speaker 2 24:48
Yeah,
Speaker 1 24:48
yeah. Which is why the guys who rolled the Evo corner walked away.
Speaker 2 24:52
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 24:53
Anyway, no, but kind of back to this point. So, because I think about this a lot, and I think one of the other issues you have is. Like drifting initially became big in coastal areas because there was already the acceptance of the cars and the platforms that were there. Right, drifting didn't really start to move more. Like I mean, it's always been there, and for all the guys who were doing it in Chicago, St. Louis, like Houston, we we all know you were there, but it really took things like Vonga in in the Mustang, like people driving Corvettes, like to really I think start and LS engines to like really pop up. I think to start to grab the attention of car enthusiasts who liked what drifting was, but it didn't match the cars they liked, right? And I think that there's a whole group of people. I think for you and I, it's very easy to say. I love Volkswagens, Volkswagen and Audis. I mean, Audis literally are part of the history line.
Speaker 2 25:49
Absolute DNA, right? Like they
Speaker 1 25:50
created the switch to four by four. You know, like well, all wheel drive, but like in the era, that's what they considered it. And you know, Volkswagen rallied, and you know, and all the cars, Mitsubishi, obviously for you. Like you and I are, we like the cars that do this. By now, you might have realized I really enjoy European things. I mean, my cars are European. My tools are European. I mean, my producer, he's he's British, which I think is still European.
Speaker 3 26:15
That was rude, but go on.
Speaker 1 26:17
Can I tell you what I did this weekend?
Speaker 3 26:18
What did you do?
Speaker 1 26:19
So I decided that I'm gonna actually park the Vanagon for a little bit and get back to driving the RS2, like literally knock the dust off of it. And to do that, I figured I'd do a little preventive maintenance.
Speaker 3 26:29
It's not something I think of when I think of you, dude.
Speaker 1 26:31
Yeah, you see, the problem is that car gets a lot of things right, but there's this one issue where the strut bearings just constantly fail, especially if the car is like slammed on its nuts, like minus. So I ordered a set of strut bearings from FCP Euro, got them, and was gonna swap them out. And I stripped this really annoying nut. Like seriously, curse the German engineer who designed this. It's like a weird half castle nut. It requires this weird specialty tool, and if you put too much force on it, it gives up. So anyway, I stripped that, and now my car was on a jack stand. And honestly, I was about to just leave it there, like I've left many other projects to die. But it's the RS two, so headed in, went to fcpeuro.com, found the part because they had it in Arizona. They were able to overnight it to me. Boom! I had it the next day at my farm. Got the car back on the road. It was awesome. FCP Euro most likely has the parts you need and can get them to you pronto. You know, so you can keep driving the cool cars. That's what matters.
Speaker 2 27:30
I will say to support that Texas Dave, you know, Rally Ready Driving School. He's been doing a really interesting thing with this Chevy Colorado,
Speaker 1 27:39
right? Which like is the other part of it, which is like, is there? I think the Colorado, unfortunately, is a little too big for stages, but like he makes it work.
Speaker 2 27:47
He makes it work, but like he's dealing with the right tire,
Speaker 1 27:50
like that's not really there. Yeah. Like I've actually, I always looked at the Ford. Was it the Maverick, where it's like it's a pickup truck, but it's basically a car.
Speaker 2 28:00
Oh sure, yeah. Like like does something
Speaker 1 28:02
like that fit more? Like I actually think the perfect car would have been, and you know, obviously we don't make we don't really make pickup trucks that size anymore. But like the era of you know the Nissan hard body, right? Like that seemed like a good size rally truck. I mean, rally truck was a oh, it was a class. It was a class in the U.S. but it was never taken. Yeah, and
Speaker 2 28:24
and like some random places like Finland and and Russia has a rally truck class, which is hilarious. I mean, dude, slate slate needs to have its own rally class. Just put in like a turbo. Well, no, you got to put in a VA. Yeah, to make it work. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1 28:40
actually, there's a no. Here's a good one. Is um, are you familiar with Ario? Remember Ario Speedwagon?
Speaker 2 28:45
Yeah.
Speaker 1 28:45
So like not the band, but the the car. Oh no, the truck. No, I don't know. So Ario Speedwagon before they were a band was like a early automotive company in the United States, right? Like like in the early eras of like La Salle and Auto Auburn and white trucks and stuff like that. It was a car car company called Ario Speedwagon. Like literally, the wagon was the speed wagon. And I guess the name's coming back, and they're launching like a sub $30,000 pickup truck that's supposed to be bare bones. It basically seems like a slate, but with a gas engine because they're not going EV, and their whole idea is like is that back in the day, you know, f1 100 s, all these were like cheap, affordable pickup trucks that you could go do work in, and now you can't get into a pickup truck for like less than $75,000, right? Yeah. So their whole idea is like the classic, simple like workman's truck. They could be a really good one. Yeah, you know, DM us, let us know. We'll start the rally. Spec. Let's go. Let's go. I think.
Speaker 2 29:49
Yeah. No. Look, a lot of that stuff. Absolutely, I think would help. But
Speaker 1 29:53
again, I'm just throwing it out there, and I'm sure there's a bunch of people here who are rally, you know, purists that are like, that's crazy. That's not what the. About, but I think you have to at some points have these moments of like, right? But how to like? We have tried. I mean, we literally have tried with obviously Ken pushing so many ways to introduce rally here in the U.S. Right, X Games, bringing rally cross over. Even though it wasn't something like Ken was excited to do, but he thought, "Hey, maybe this is a way that Americans will enjoy rally because you know they can sit in an arena and drink their you know soda by the paint bucket, sure, and you know and and just and enjoy it arena style, right? Obviously, we made the whole reason Ken made the Jim Conna films was to help promote rally car stuff. Of course, that was the whole reason was like rally car driving in non-rally settings.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai