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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
It's time for another episode of Very Vehicular, and as always, I am Brian Scotto. I'm your host, and today we have none other than Vaughn Gitten Jr., aka Jr. to his friends. Vaughn and I go way back. We started working together back in my magazine days, and then worked together. He was actually on Hunior for a little bit, but we've worked together on a ton of projects. Unicorn being a big one, we get into all of that. But it's actually been really fun to watch Jr. sort of grow and become something more than just one of the first American drifters. And we'd get into the business side of what he's built with RTR, but also his expansion into the world of off-road and what it was like for him to show up in a new place and all of that. And we take a little mental health break to actually discuss sort of how to think about the way your mind works and the advantages that brings to being a driver, to creativity, to running business, and just general life. And it was it actually was a really great combo to have with him because I know he's focused a lot about that and thought a lot about sort of the psychiatry of of being a race car driver. Really interesting conversation. And then we bounce all over the place as we always do on the show. So enjoy this conversation with none other than Von Gin Jr. mr. Vaughn Gantt Jr., welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 01:54
I'm happy to be here, my man. I'm excited to hear what we're going to get into.
Speaker 1 01:57
I mean, I I'm going to start. I don't even know if I want to tell the audience, but like Vaughn's already said, he has a hard out in like just over two hours, so we're gonna take every single second of his time because you know we know all that's a short show here, but it's okay. Vaughn will do a part one and a part two. He'll come back. I'm down. So I don't know, man. Where do you want to start? Like, there's just so much to talk about. Like, I have like a little bit of a list in my head of things, but like, I don't know, man. It's uh, it's been a long time. We've known each other for a long time. A
Speaker 2 02:24
long time. We've done some really cool stuff too.
Speaker 1 02:26
Yeah,
Speaker 2 02:27
we went across the country. I was just gonna say that. I
Speaker 1 02:29
forgot about that. We did a we connected the whole country. It was like connect America because I think the idea we had, and we did a but we stopped at every single state line and did a burnout across the state line, and then I left you in Maryland, and I drove home, and you were like, "You have to finish doing them." And the sketchiest one was I stopped in the middle of the Holland Tunnel, and I did a burnout from New Jersey to New York, going home like in the middle of the Holland Tunnel, and you were like, "You got to do it." I like sent him, you know, there wasn't video back then. I sent him a photo of like the lines behind me all blurry as I'm like going through the one thing that has cameras everywhere. That was epic.
Speaker 2 03:06
That was epic trip. Remember we did? We got snowed in Vegas.
Speaker 1 03:10
Yeah, that was wild. So to set the stage for everyone, it was the launch of 2010 Mustang. 2010 Mustang. I was at Zero to 60 magazine. Yeah, and you were like your relationship with Ford had really really starting to go. We reached out to Ford with this idea of like, hey, we really want to drive this. You know, we really would love to drive the Mustang cross country, do this cool story. And they were like, actually, we have a driver who kind of was talking about doing like a similar kind of thing because you do you doing some with Andy Lapuka at the time, and they were like, do you know Vaughn Kitten Jr.? I'm like, yeah, I know Vaughn. And then we call. I called you. I'm like, let's put it together. We did it. It was the cover of the issue, which was super cool. And we did, yeah. We there was like so much stuff we did on that trip. Yes. And and I will. I want to go back. There was so much to talk about that day, including it snowed in hell. Like it literally hell froze over. We were in Las Vegas. It snowed, and every road got closed down. We got stuck there for an extra day, so we spent a day partying at the Golden Nugget, right? Yeah, which I had never been to before, which was a fun experience. So, because you guys always loved, like, I felt like Drift Alliance just absolutely loved Fremont. Oh yeah, that was
Speaker 2 04:15
that was that was definitely our spot. And I remember like vividly thinking about that because I just quit my job a couple years before that, and I was like thinking if I still had my job, how I would call my boss and be like, "I'm snowed in Vegas, like I can't make it back," you know. And it's like
Speaker 1 04:29
bullshit. Yeah, right. Sure you
Speaker 2 04:30
are. Yeah, think about that trip often. That was a blast. Because I, as I've been traveling now and doing a lot more off road stuff, it's been taking me to some of those places out west that we went through.
Speaker 1 04:40
Yeah,
Speaker 2 04:40
and I just like I'm like, oh, I drove through here with Scott Ellison, like recent.
Speaker 1 04:44
So, so here's something that I don't think we, you and I, probably ever talked about on this, but it comes a lot up a lot in my conversations about, and and I just had this conversation last week with with Ryan Turk, the idea that like drifting is this huge thing. Now, right? It is everyone knows what it is, right? From little kids to old people, they all know what it is. That doesn't mean they all watch FD, but it means they all understand what drifting is, right?
Speaker 2 05:10
No, the days are gone of where like I meet someone on a plane, I have to like explain explain the what it right. Like okay, no, now they know, yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 05:18
Um, like that's just everyone understands. Like they get what it is. It's a part of. It's no longer car culture. It's pop culture. We certainly weren't there 20 years ago.
Speaker 2 05:26
No,
Speaker 1 05:27
right? Maybe not even 10 or 12 years ago. Right? It's a
Speaker 2 05:31
golden era that I never even saw coming. Frankly, as close as I am to it, I'm
Speaker 1 05:37
yeah
Speaker 2 05:37
still shocked.
Speaker 1 05:38
And we we could dig a lot into that, but I I want to go back to one specific moment. And at that moment, you know, I was more in the sort of traditional motorsports space. I I liked drifting, but it wasn't like my thing. And I was kind of, and I knew a bunch of you guys just from being around E Town and things like that. So I'd met you, I'd met Tony Angelo. I knew Matt Petty. Like there was just like that kind of group of people, and I, I was like, so to me, drifting was what I had seen in either old option videos, which was the Japanese side of it, or like what I would see at FD, right? And I knew there was other stuff there, but I hadn't really seen it. And you brought me to, we were in Houston, and you brought me to the Greyhound Bus Depot. And there was a, you probably don't even remember this, but there was a group. It was like a, it was a like a just a small sort of grassroots drift meet, and there was a ton of kids there.
Speaker 2 06:39
Yeah,
Speaker 1 06:39
and it was like just an empty parking lot, and that made me fall in love with drifting. Like I had been in all these situations where I saw it as FD, and I respected it as the sport and understood all of that. But going there made it feel like skateboarding and riding BMX to me.
Speaker 2 06:55
No, I like we did that on that trip. That's what I said. We just stopped. That's what I meant. It was on that trip. I totally. We were driving
Speaker 1 06:59
through when you texted somebody or called somebody because, like, even back then, texting wasn't even that prominent. And someone was like, "Oh, if you're going through, we have an event here." Like, it was not planned. We wasn't on a trip. We just showed up. You went and slid a stock Mustang with a bunch of kids out there who all like were in like thirteens and fourteens, and they were geeked because, like, holy shit! Like Von Gitten Jr. just showed up and is like in a stock car and like going out and like ripping with us and then we got like back on the road in that same car and drove another you know a couple 1000 miles, but I walked away from that with like an eye opening moment of like wow this feels more like what action sports to me was as a kid than motor sports because it was like a bunch of dudes all just helping each other out, like the cars all felt very approachable. Didn't feel like teams, like big teams and trailers, because you know at that point drifting was starting to get that moment. You had like the Circuit Cities, and like there was advertising showing up, and you were seeing a lot more of that. Circuit City, remember that? Remember that place? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, but like, but Circuit City was a sponsor. No, it
Speaker 3 07:58
was.
Speaker 1 07:59
Yeah, and it was like that. That felt there was this this peak moment where every it was just like everyone was talking about drifting Maxim magazine so on so on, and then I got to see that and I was like this is cool and that was the best part of the whole trip for me was like that part we also set the world record on that trip
Speaker 2 08:15
yeah
Speaker 1 08:16
I forgot about yeah
Speaker 2 08:16
the drifting I forgot
Speaker 1 08:17
this whole trip
Speaker 2 08:18
the drifting world record which which was kind of a joke which
Speaker 1 08:20
was a joke, and you only did it to break someone else who said it, right? That was. Do you remember the story?
Speaker 2 08:25
Yeah. So somebody set the Drifting World record, and it was just big donuts. And I was so mad that Guinness called that the Drifting World record. And so I reached out to them to lobby for it. They wouldn't even hear me. So I was like, "Well, if I break the record, then I can at least tell them how much of a you know joke it is, and so we did the record at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, right? Yeah, and um and after that, you know I had the world record for the longest drift, which was just defined by a car getting in y'all, staying in y'all as long. We was like a couple miles. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1 08:58
a couple laps, and we did. There were no tires left. Yeah, but you were limited by the tires more than anything else. Yeah, we measured
Speaker 2 09:03
it by mileage,
Speaker 1 09:04
yeah,
Speaker 2 09:05
or feet, and it was a couple miles of drifting because the tires were gone. And so I had called, you know, after I had the record, I reached out to them and I said, "Look, this record is a joke. Like you can, it's all you know. You could wet the surface, you could do this." And I think that the record should be longest drift based on, you know, transitioning and not just one turn. And Guinness got back to me, and they basically did not like my idea, and it's lived forever. And somebody now has the
Speaker 1 09:31
record. Oh, so someone beat the one you did?
Speaker 2 09:33
Yeah, because they put these external like exoskeleton on the tire, these like plastic exoskeletons. Then it burnt through that. Then it burnt through these super hard tires, and so exactly what I said was going to happen. And like the lack of skill that it takes to do it is what it is. But anyway, we did that. I forgot we
Speaker 1 09:50
did that on. Yeah, that was actually a big. Like you know, it's crazy because back then you would do all of that for five pages in a magazine.
Speaker 2 09:56
I know, right?
Speaker 1 09:57
Right. Like now, if you did that, it'd be like an eight part series. On YouTube, where every leg of the trip was its own 30-minute episode. Back in the day, we're like, "No, we're gonna do all this work for
Speaker 2 10:05
one story."
Speaker 1 10:06
For one story, yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 2 10:08
I love what you said about drifting because, like, what you experienced in that moment is why I got in the sport. So you kind of experienced it backwards, right? You experienced it at like a not today's level of development, but it was pretty developed. There was pro teams, sponsors, yeah, and then you went to grassroots.
Speaker 1 10:23
Yeah, I think the first event I went to was in like, well, no, I went to. I mean, I was at I was at the the d1 event, yeah. So I was there. So I was there in the early days, like JGTC, when it was like felt really new. So 2004, 2005, right? But
Speaker 2 10:37
still different than a grassroots like right. But I always saw
Speaker 1 10:39
it on that level, other than like
Speaker 4 10:43
you
Speaker 1 10:43
know, I like I like there. I definitely had been to E Town, but like it wasn't there wasn't a big group of people. It was like two or three guys out like testing.
Speaker 2 10:50
Yeah, it
Speaker 1 10:50
just felt different than it did that day.
Speaker 2 10:52
Yeah, and that's why I fell in love with it. Like you know, those days, like when I had built my my first car, which was just a rear wheel drive that would you know spin the tires 240. I just go to the industrial parks and then that's when E Town started popping off, and I went to that first event at E Town where I met Tony and Chris and and Turk came later and that whole squad, and it was just like going to the skate park with my boys, and I just loved it so much, like that is what hooked me to it, and then the addiction started, and it just spiraled from there, you know. So I'm glad that you have still have that perspective, like that's what connected you with it.
Speaker 1 11:33
Yeah, and it it just shifted my understanding of it, right? Like I think it was like, oh, okay, I get this now, and I get like sort of the that, and that made me kind of go back with like a different view. And then obviously got way more involved in the sport and everything moving forward, especially like through the Hoonigan era. But it was like it was. I always go back to that Greyhound bus parking lot,
Speaker 2 11:54
yeah,
Speaker 1 11:55
because it just was this like like it that made me want to go home and build a drift car. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, where before I was like, that's cool, but like, I'd rather build a rally car. I'd rather do that. Where like, I went home and I remember telling Tony Harmer. You remember Tony?
Speaker 2 12:08
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 12:09
Like Tony was always like a naysayer to like that kind of stuff. And like, I think he was like, all right, yeah, that's pretty cool. Like, you know, like it was the thing that got you like, oh yeah, that's pretty neat. Like, so was
Speaker 2 12:19
Matt DeSillo until my wife showed up. Oh my god, I forgot about that too.
Speaker 1 12:22
I forgot about that too. Okay, so Matt Tasillo, who we actually I kind of shit talked him on an episode with Leah and and Lucy, but in a good way. I love Matt, but Matt's Matt's an interesting person, and Matt knows that Matt's actually now over running like you know he's running media at Haggerty.
Speaker 2 12:44
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 12:45
So doing very well, doing some great stuff over there with like Camisa and so on. But Matt was our was our managing editor at Zero to 60, and we were talking about I think it was we were talking about that episode that issue that we were doing, and Matt said, "Give me one day and I could be a pro drifter. First off, Matt wasn't good at driving cars like on streets, let alone on a racetrack. It's
Speaker 2 13:09
so absurd to hear. Like I, I know this.
Speaker 1 13:11
Yeah, him saying that is absurd. But it was in that era where people didn't really understand the sport, right? And it was like, and we were like, oh, really? And I fucking called you, and I was like, hey, I got this guy who thinks that like he can outdrive you in one day, and you were like, he couldn't outdrive my wife.
Speaker 2 13:26
Showing my wife at that time, yeah, his girlfriend at the
Speaker 1 13:28
time, and was like, and we, I was like, oh word, like that's a challenge. I love this. So we set it up, we did it at
Speaker 2 13:35
Etab,
Speaker 1 13:35
and you guys came out. You gave him all, you gave them both, right? Construction day of instruction. Yep, and she smoked them in the end.
Speaker 2 13:43
Yep, that was great.
Speaker 1 13:44
It was such a good day. He definitely ate humble pie at the end of the day. Yeah, that was dude. We had videos of all that. We didn't have
Speaker 2 13:51
videos of that stuff. It was all for magazines, all print. It was photos.
Speaker 1 13:55
Really, kind of before the video era. Video was really expensive because it was still on tape. It wasn't digital yet. You know, so it was like it was a lot more expensive to run run that. Yeah, we also did seat swap with you and Ken.
Speaker 2 14:07
Yep,
Speaker 1 14:08
you drove the Subaru and you drove your Mustang. Right, we did that as a zero to 60 story as well.
Speaker 2 14:13
Yeah, we did E Town. Ken drove my Mustang at E Town,
Speaker 1 14:20
and then you did the New York. Yeah, and then I went to the New York rally test. Yeah,
Speaker 2 14:24
I'll never forget that moment. Ken was in the passenger seat with me, and I went out and did the first lap, and I flicked the car sideways and let off the wheel. And Ken reached over the wheel. He's like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "What do you mean? This is what you do." Yeah, he could not believe I let off the steering wheel.
Speaker 1 14:39
Total different style of driving. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2 14:42
yeah.
Speaker 1 14:42
It's funny because the guy he wasn't
Speaker 2 14:44
wrong.
Speaker 1 14:44
No, he wasn't wrong. But I made it
Speaker 2 14:46
work. He wasn't wrong. Right,
Speaker 1 14:47
but it's a different. It's a different approach. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 2 14:49
flip my race truck like that. But with rally, you can
Speaker 1 14:51
hit a rock and then it just goes the other way. Right. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 14:55
That was epic. That was that was a fun. That was a fun experience.
Speaker 1 14:58
It's funny, like to think about that, like. How different things were in the print industry. Like we were doing the same things that people are doing now, but like they all had to be like compressed into like a few photos and you know a couple 100, maybe a couple 1000 words at most, which just like wasn't as easy to tell a story though. And I I truly miss magazines. Like there's something about the print era that I miss, but I can't help but I can't deny like there's just so much more you can get out of telling a story in video.
Speaker 2 15:26
Yeah. Well, we had a lot of left to imagination then, like reading those stories and like kind of filling in the blanks that our
Speaker 1 15:33
yeah
Speaker 2 15:34
brain took us, and now that's kind of it's kind of gone.
Speaker 1 15:37
Yeah, I know, I know. All right, look, I don't want to do this chronologically because like that's just. Do you ever do things chronologically anyway? No, my brain does not work that way. So like, I want to like jump all the way to now because I never saw this where you are now, which is like you are, you're like a businessman. You're like the modern day Shelby to Ford. Like I remember when you told me about RTR, and you're like, "We're gonna make some like lip spoilers or something." I mean, like, right? Am I wrong? And like, it started pretty simply, right? Yeah, it
Speaker 2 16:09
started as like a kit. Like, yeah, it was
Speaker 1 16:11
like, "Hey, we're gonna make a little this. We're gonna do this, and we're gonna do a body kit." And then obviously that continued to grow. And then you know, Lindsay left Hoonigan, went to RTR, and like, you guys kept growing and building and building that, and and now it like I don't even think I realize how big it is. Like I don't think I actually understand how big RTR has become because I will see it in situations and be like, wait, they're doing this now too. So like, let's just jump right into that. Like, not the history of it. I kind of want to. We can go back to the history, but like, yeah, what is RTR right now for you?
Speaker 2 16:44
Yeah, I mean, what is it? It's this. It's it's grown to something very incredible, and and I do. I'd love to go back to the history. I think it's important, but I mean, right now, you know, the company as it sits is roughly 80 people. We've got our facility in Charlotte, Charlotte, which is our on-road motorsport operations. It's all of our engineering, all of our administrative. It's where we do all of our product development, test fitting. Again, motorsport is there. We have a program called Built by RTR where we build vehicles in house for dealerships and customers, and then in parallel to that, we just launched our new off-road facility in Farmington, New Mexico. That's where all of our off-road motorsports are. I'm partnered with Lauren Healy on the off-road motorsport program, and our new facility is in Farmington. It's it's backs up to like 1000s of acres of BLM, so you know we can do additional product development and stuff there for our off road products. And and as as far as the business goes, you know there's the vehicle side, which is you know we have two ways we go to business. One is we get vehicles directly from Ford; they go either to us in Charlotte, or we have a outfit partner that does the builds of the vehicles. Their name is Fox Factory. So we do all the design, engineering, get everything ready for manufacturing. They get inventory, we get inventory. Vehicles come to both places, and they get built and go to dealers, Mustangs and Broncos. And then we just launched our collaboration vehicles with Ford, which is the Mustang RTR that comes from Ford. It is a turbocharged four-cylinder Mustang. The vision of that car is basically the the headline was build the most badass turbocharged attainable Mustang ever, and the car's super badass. And then in parallel to that is the Bronco RTR, which we just launched. Still the same mindset, attainable, very well contented, very capable, and both are badass looking. You know, with with the style. Clearly, I'm humble about our style, but yeah, like that. That is like the core of our business, and and the vision of what we do. You know, the ethos at the brand is cool shit wins. And you know, you know me; I've never really been like you call me a businessman, but I've never been a bean counter. I've always just done you know the things that I like, and I believe that there is like-minded people that will be attracted to that, and so that's what we do. You know, I I love Ford. You know, I've had a relationship with them since 2007. They never asked me to do this, but I had a passion to to win with them, and I felt that a new approach and a new a new vision could really shift the mindset starting with Mustang, and then it's evolved into a lot of other things. So the vehicle business is kind of the you know is the the light, and everything that we do supports that. So obviously the motorsport, you know, drifting is my passion. We now have three drivers. You know, I'm one of them part time in Formula D. We have James. Dean and Ben Hobson, and and the motorsports is its own business, but still supports like the vibe, the energy around the the brand, right? I mean, obviously, drifting and the content we can create and the audience we reach is very much suited for what we're building. And then on the off road side, obviously, I've evolved a lot of competitive energy into that, I fell in love with with off road racing in 2016, which isn't too far from my you know repertoire of starting a motocross, going to drifting, and now racing badass trucks in the desert and rocks. Are you going to
Speaker 1 20:34
just leave out low riding? We'll get to that. We'll come back to low riding. True story.
Speaker 2 20:38
And and I got hooked in that, and and obviously you know it's just it's all grown so well together because obviously I'm perfectly positioned for where Ford is going with off road, and you know Bronco wasn't a mistake. You know when I got into off road, I knew Bronco was coming. I built my first truck as a classic Bronco to start building that my connection with Bronco. But yeah, I mean it's it's been almost 20 years. I mean I launched RTR in 2008, and obviously you know launched the brand, built the RTRX, built the yeah. I was going to say
Speaker 1 21:13
for you, RTRX was that, and I'm just trying to get my own timeline straight. Was that sort of the launch of RTR, or was the concept of building parts already there, or did RTRX sort of launch that? And by the way, tell everyone what RTRX is, just in case they don't.
Speaker 2 21:30
Yeah. So the RTRX is is a '69 Mustang that you know I launched the brand. Let me step back and come back to RTRX real quick.
Speaker 1 21:38
Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker 2 21:39
So when I in just step back to 2004, Formula Drifted just started. I was in my S13 that I built on my back in my garage. I was never a Mustang guy. My dad was a hot rodder through and through. He's a Chevy guy. In fact, Mustangs were like the butt of the joke around the house, and I gravitated towards imports. Long story short, bought a wrecked 240 SX, fixed it. Accidentally fell into drifting from videos.
Speaker 1 22:10
So you bought a 240 before discovering drifting.
Speaker 2 22:12
Yes.
Speaker 1 22:13
Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 22:14
Yeah.
Speaker 1 22:14
Because, like, to be honest, 240s were not the super cool sport compact car in that era. Like, revisionist history may make you believe that, but they really weren't. No,
Speaker 2 22:23
my my boy, my dad used to sell cars to my friends because he'd hook them up from the auction. So my buddy bought a 240 SX for 6500 bucks from an auction lot in 98.
Speaker 1 22:38
So of course, looking like it
Speaker 2 22:39
was a 93.
Speaker 1 22:40
Yeah, so it's like seven years or whatever. Yeah, not even five years. And so,
Speaker 2 22:43
and so when I left that auction lot, I like dumped the clutch and did like a little fishtail out of the auction lot. And my boy, like three days later, tried to do the same thing, leaving the community college that we went to, and spun it right into a tree and totaled it. So I bought it from his insurance company for 1000 bucks. It sat out front of my parents' house. Like we lived in like a nice little suburban middle class neighborhood. I had this crash 240 out front while I was like detailing cars and like just starting to be able to afford to fix it. I mean, it was out there for like eight months. And anyway, I got it together with like remand parts, and I had drove it forever with a black front and a green back, and I used to just go like play around and slide around industrial parks. I had no idea what drifting was, and then I started to hook the car up, and like I started coming. You know, I was like, "Oh, there's a Sylvia. There's this car called a Silvia in Japan that's the same as this car." I didn't know any of this like stuff, and anyway, I saw the sport of drifting, and I was like, "This is like badass, like driving badass cars, showing your style and personality." To me, it was like skateboarding with cars. Do
Speaker 1 23:49
you remember what the actual first thing was you saw?
Speaker 2 23:51
Yeah, it was a it was an option video, and it was in a Team Orange event where like they were like just doing their like showy stuff and like out of the car and like hanging out the car and I just thought it was really cool. I had no idea there was competition or anything. I just knew it was a thing, and that just started taking me down the rabbit hole. And for a couple years, I just went and played industrial parks, and and then I learned about Drift Out Wednesday. And so I would literally leave my IT job. You know, I'm a computer nerd at the time. I'm making good money. I'm spending all my money on my car, and I went to E Town. On, I mean, I would leave, leave work early, go home, load up tires, jack, and I'd drive like three and a half hours. Like, like right, because you're
Speaker 1 24:35
coming up from Maryland to New Jersey. Yeah,
Speaker 2 24:37
yeah, chest in in my knees with all the tires and jack in the back, and and so anyway, that's that's how I got into the the sport. And then I really was like making a name for myself on the East Coast from like '02 to '03. It was a rapid two years of growth in in America for the sport. And and at the end of '03, I got invited out to. The Nopey World Finals
Speaker 5 25:02
here,
Speaker 2 25:03
and I maxed out my credit card. I didn't have a diff in my car, so I shipped it to Coz. They put a two way in it. I flew in my first time to California. I was so uncultured at the time. That event was also like the first time I like really interacted with a real live Japanese human Daiyoshi Hira and Ioshihara and I were like speaking caveman language to each other. Anyway, I flew in, picked my car up, tested in the church parking lot, like next door to Kaz, and went to this event and walked around with you know pamphlets and stuff, and um that's where I met Falcon.
Speaker 1 25:40
Yeah,
Speaker 2 25:41
and you know, after that event, they called me and told me they wanted me on their team, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I get to be on a team with Kaguchi and Sego Yamanaka and like Sego Yamamoto." Sorry, and it was like unbelievable. These are the guys like I had been watching, and like Kaguchi was my favorite, you know. Now I'm his teammate. Anyway, the deal of the first year and that
Speaker 1 26:05
scallop livery is like just legendary too. So it's like, well,
Speaker 2 26:08
this was before scallops. This was the blue, silver, blue. Right,
Speaker 1 26:11
right. I remember. Right, right.
Speaker 2 26:12
And um, and so the deal they called me and and wanted me on the team, and I was like, I didn't even ask about the deal. I was like, yes. And the deal that year, because this was '03, leading into Formula D, was in April. This was like November. Event was October. They called me November. I had to get this street car that I had ready for Formula D in May. You know, between that time, and I, the deal was 10 tires per event for me to paint my car their livery, and that was the deal. That was it. So anyway, so you know, so that's where that's like how I got into that sport in a nutshell. And we can talk about it forever, but that's that's kind of how it happened. And then at the end of '04, Ford announced the new Mustang, right? The s1 97, and along with that, they showed a concept car called the GTR. It was a orange raced out. Like the first time ever, I saw a Mustang, I was like, "Oh shit, that's sick!" And so, opportunity Falcon and I both felt this was an amazing opportunity. There was a lot of buzz around the Mustang to bring some American muscle into this import-dominated sport. I was up for it. Went and bought a car for $5,000 over sticker here in Southern California that month. Cut the springs, blacked the windows out, put wheels on it, painted the the Falcon livery. Took it to SEMA and announced that I was going to drive the Mustang.
Speaker 1 27:44
And this is like no involvement from Ford. Like you're just doing because at this point, had they started working with Ken Gucci?
Speaker 2 27:50
That so we didn't know. But that same year, they announced it at SEMA that they were doing drifting as well. We didn't even know it. We thought we're the only ones. They announced the the Ken Guci program, and we announced our program, and everybody thought I was crazy. They're like, "Why are you, you know, trading in the quintessential drift car for this big American car, whatever the case?" And you know, we debuted it that year. Had a lot of trouble. In fact, I was like the king of the borrowed car. I think something out of like six Formula D events. I borrowed cars at like four of them, but that at the end of the year there was the USA versus Japan, and prior to that, Japanese drivers had come over and just whooped our asses. And that year, an American, an American muscle car, you know, single-handedly knocked all the Japanese drivers out and won the USA versus Japan. And so between the photo
Speaker 1 28:41
of that is in my brain, like it's one of those things, like the car and you and that, like it's like it's on the roof, yeah, on the roof. Like it just, it's one of those images that, like, I remember as like a really cool moment, even if I wasn't as aware of the sport, it would just be like, "Fuck, look, America doing its thing." Yeah, like it's a little bit of like it gives you that patriotic pride you get in motorsport where you're like shit y'all want to fuck this game here yeah and found out yeah you know it was a
Speaker 2 29:09
huge catapult for me but I felt it was a great moment for drifting in America and I felt it just kind of represented like that American spirit of like what you believe in whatever you want to achieve you can and and and so
Speaker 1 29:22
and the other thing too, and there's this whole other story here, and we should probably tell this in like a documentary one day or something. But like you have Drift Alliance along the whole time of this, and you guys were taking drifting, but you were doing it with like a rock and roll attitude, which was not what like the West Coast was doing. Like the West Coast was staying very true to the original, I think that's like a whole other place you have to position here because you guys had a different energy about you that felt Americanized. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, like for me on the outside looking in, I wasn't as interested in the other drift stories. I was very interested in what DA was doing, and the first person I met in the group was Tony because it was like this. This does. This is like its own thing. This doesn't feel like a new motorsport. This feels like something different to me.
Speaker 2 30:06
Yeah. Well, you know, I met them that first time going to the Drift Out Wednesday, and I think o2.
Speaker 1 30:11
Yeah.
Speaker 2 30:12
And we all just hit it off really well. And like as the Drift Out Wednesdays happened and events started happening, we would all be there, and we all just really vibed, and Tony had the idea of starting a drift team similar to like the BMX or skate teams that we all grew up around. And and you know, one time Chris and Tony came up to me and told me about it, and and I was in, and you know, it was just started out as like a brotherhood, very similar to what you would have saw at that event in Houston at Greyhound Park, and and you know just bros having fun driving together, and then all of a sudden you know we all have a role in it, and it's you know we're we're rock stars of race cars traveling the world partying you know we're in El Salvador we're in Canada or you know we're just all over just living this crazy race car slash action sports mindset rock and roll team life, dude. It was it's insane. It was an insane time. Like I said,
Speaker 1 31:12
it's such a story. You don't need to go into all that now because we got to we have to save that for the whole group.
Speaker 2 31:17
Okay.
Speaker 1 31:17
Like I said, that's a bigger project. We'll get to it one day. All right.
Speaker 2 31:19
So so so back to back to the Mustang, and so now this happened, and I'm starting to like get integrated into the Mustang community. Like they welcome me with open arms. I feel like they were very pumped to have something fresh.
Speaker 1 31:31
They were waiting for it. Yeah, waiting for something different. And
Speaker 2 31:33
so as I started like going to those events, and I really wanted to like style this car more. Like I I just kind of had a revelation, and probably like late '06, early '07. I'm like, you know, I'm like, man, like the culture. The car's great. The culture around it is is incredible. Like, why did I overlook the Mustang? And I just had this revelation of like every time I've ever seen a Mustang, it's like old. It's like not physically old, but like the mindset is old. It's like
Speaker 1 32:00
torque thrust, torque thrust, and just
Speaker 2 32:02
racing stripes over the hood, and then like
Speaker 1 32:04
GTO light covers.
Speaker 2 32:05
Yes, it just never. Yes, exactly. Is never. Bro, I grew up in
Speaker 1 32:09
Queens. It's like the official bird of Queens, with an Italian flag on the back of your Mustang. Right,
Speaker 2 32:15
and and I was just like, man, like no wonder Mustangs losing cachet. And I didn't have a relationship with Ford at this moment, but starting in '07, I started talking to them, and I just had this vision I could not get out of my head, and and I got it out of my head. And in 2008, I I knew they were coming out with the 2010 Mustang, and so I knew enough people to call a meeting, and I I got a meeting top floor Regent Court, you've been there, the old main marketing building, and I walk in t-shirt, hat, jeans. You know, this is just you know me, right? And I'm throwing my little pamphlets on the table at a table full of you know well dressed people and Ford execs, and I'm like, look, 28 year old me is like, hey, this is what we need to do to make Mustang relevant and cool to this generation that you guys are struggling with, and like, if I'm driving the Mustang, I want it to be cool and people think it's cool too. So let's do this. And you know, I thought I was going to walk in there and we're going to leave building a car together. You know, really my ignorance at that time. But they basically loved the idea, but they were like, "Look, if we take what's on this paper and run it through our process, like it's not gonna
Speaker 1 33:25
it's not gonna look like this. It
Speaker 2 33:27
ain't gonna be that. It's
Speaker 1 33:27
gonna like 10 Xerox's later."
Speaker 2 33:29
So you know that was kind of like the door cracking. You know they they told me I could get behind the scenes access and start getting CAD and and start working with the team. But it was kind of like, "Hey, great idea, but good luck, kid." You know, more or less. And so I left that meeting and like hypothetically checked my pockets and I'm like shit how am I how am I going to do this I didn't know but I was doing it and so that year I figured it out and then in 2009 at SEMA I announced RTR and I had the first prototype car which was basically
Speaker 1 34:02
remember that now yeah
Speaker 2 34:03
blue it was at K and N and then I also had the RTRC which was all carbon fiber Mustang and I wanted to like instead of just installing another like or showing another dealer package with kind of just aftermarket parts yeah I wanted to show our engineering prowess and our different approach and how we think and so we debuted both of those cars. Meanwhile, know this: I didn't have money. I spent literally everything I had to do these two projects.
Speaker 1 34:28
Yeah,
Speaker 2 34:28
everything I was making for motorsport. I just quit my job two years before, and but I just believed in it so much. And so we launched the brand, and then that splash. You know that was oh I want to say it was oh eight then 2009 like the perception of what we were doing was really big now there's this drift kid Vaughn who's got a vehicles being sold at dealerships and like people don't know the ins and outs they just thought you know the perception was like wow this is huge and so Need for Speed really liked what we were doing. And they came to me early on, like mid mid o6 mid o9, I get no two early 2010, and basically told me they wanted me to build like this my my dream of something that could be a hero car for a video game, and they just gave me a couple like boxes that it had to live in, but it was really like my first time ever having a budget to build my vision. And so, so the RTRX is a '69 Mustang. At the time, it was not the 80-person team that I have now. I was literally at my house puppet mastering. I don't say that in a bad way, but managing the build of a chassis guy, wiring guy, Art Morrison
Speaker 1 35:45
did that chassis or part of the chassis. Yeah, so the front clip was Art Morrison. I
Speaker 2 35:49
designed that with Art Morrison to get steering angle and also be able to road race. I work with Twins Turbos out here, big you know famous old school super builders. They had a relationship with Need for Speed. They did like, you know, a lot of the project, the wiring, the headers, and I had a body guy, a chassis guy, and a carbon guy that I was working with, and so that was the first time I ever like built a true vision of mine outside of like the dealer installed couple parts I could afford to make, and so that car was a big moment for us. It was it was a I think a very unique take on a '69 Mustang, and it meshed all of my inspirations from Japanese culture, American muscle, and you know we had cantilever rear suspension, which now the GTD has. Obviously, that moved into unicorn and stuff in the future, and that was you know that car really catapulted the brand into another place.
Speaker 1 36:42
I think it also lended drifting to an audience that wasn't paying attention to it.
Speaker 2 36:48
For sure.
Speaker 1 36:48
Do you know what I'm saying? Like when I remember the first time watching that car move, it was like, oh, that's fucking badass. Yeah. You know, because like I think we all have this memory of like muscle cars sliding sideways through TV shows, right? And then after Drifting came along, you went back and watched that. You're like, oh, that's like really herky jerky power slides. Yeah, it just like like you know, just wasn't the thing, you know. And now all of a sudden, you go back, you got the silhouette of the '69. It looks you know wild. It's obviously the boom of sort of the pro touring world, but you're doing it very differently, right? And so, like, it was already on trend because there was pro touring was there, but like you're doing the drift version of it. And I just really remember that car standing out as a not just like, hey, this was really cool for RTR, but it was also like, I think there was a bunch of people who weren't even looking at drifting, but then they saw that and they were like, all right, that's fucking cool. You know, I mean, even a Wing Brothers, which is yeah, which is a jump forward to why the Hunicorn was important, but that's a whole other story. We'll get to that. Don't worry, we got plenty of time.
Speaker 2 37:48
Okay,
Speaker 1 37:48
so actually, let's take a quick break and we'll come back because I got a lot more to ask. So the other week we held Trefunks. For those of you listening to the pod, you know that that is the Volkswagen Audi nerd event that I host with my good friend Jason Whipple. What does that mean? Well, that means that this RS two behind me got washed and cleaned and detailed twice in one week. Yeah, you can thank G Technic for that. So we've done a partnership with G Technic, and part of that partnership, because Vinny set it up, was that I had to actually promise to do a better job at keeping my cars clean. Since this car had already been ceramic coated by G Technic, it made it a lot easier to get it ready for the event. Quick wash, boom, we were ready to go. But after 1000 miles of road grime and two absolute animals inside of it just living off of gas station, convenience store snacks. I need a full inside and out kind of big wash. And unfortunately, it's been a really busy week for me. But my detailer came by and took care of it with a bevy of G Technic products. Actually, left a really nice smell in the leather. This product, especially like the dash shine and the leather vinyl cleaner that they use, it just has like an OEM smell to it, which I really enjoy because I got in my car and it smelled OEM plus. You should go check out G Tech at G technique.com. That's G Technic with a Q. Be less like me, and you know, take care of your car, keep it running, keep it detailed, and have G Technic help you along the way. All right, so RTR X builds that moment for you. So like after that, I just feel like you were doing this thing where like you obviously were making parts and pieces, but then all of a sudden like it really seemed to take off, and I this was a moment where I was watching you go from being not just like Vaughn Gitten, the drift guy, but you were also like Vaughn Gitten Jr. You were like the Satan, like the I'm sorry, the patron saint. You were like Vaughn Kitten Jr., like the patron saint of like young Mustang guys, right? Yeah, I'm saying like there was this shift because like look, there were so many must like it's very interesting because Ford had a lot of brands right that were you know the obviously the Shelby's and like you know Roush and um what's the other one I'm blanking on right now other one something as Saline right like there was always these sort of like coach builders that would like do more with a Mustang. Some you could buy through dealerships. Some you couldn't. Some had direct relationships or not. But like, as to your point, they were sort of another generation. And then all of a sudden, RTR was the other generation. And like now, like I'll be driving through Long Beach, and someone rolls up in an RTR Mustang, and I'm like, fucking cool. Like just because I'm like, that's cool that you built that to me, you know. And I probably didn't see that in the early days. I think I was looking at you, going, "Yeah, it's cool." I guess as you make some body kits and stuff like that's definitely a business. Did you always see the goal being sort of the, for lack of a better word, that next generation Shelby? Like, was that actually in your vision at that point?
Speaker 2 40:57
It's it's funny. It wasn't in my vision, but it was in vision of a lot of people around me. In fact, Caleb Clark, who designed our logo for me, who actually just bought it, one of our spec fives, he brought me this his sketch pad that he had saved from when he was designing the logo, and on it he wrote the next Shelby, which was really interesting to me. I mean, I never thought about that, you know. And and um, I actually had somebody. I'm not going to mention his name. Someone really important in in the Ford atmosphere that had asked me, "Is like, you're going to be the next Shelby?" And I looked at him. I was like, "No, it's going to be the first me." And I think I think the, you know, being compared to Carroll Shelby's is absolutely incredible. I mean, he paved the way for for a lot of this. Did you ever
Speaker 1 41:44
get any time, get any chances? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2 41:46
a couple couple years of of being around him as I was starting to get in the four ecosystem. Oh yeah, like 2009 and 2010 ish.
Speaker 1 41:56
I got white wine drunk with him one night. I can't even tell these stories on the podcast, and he was like 80 something when it happened. Yeah, he's he's incredible. He's
Speaker 2 42:02
an incredible was incredible human, and you know. So did I have vision of that? No, but my vision was I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna make Mustang relevant and cool again. Like I felt that the car deserved it, and I feel like it was so cool. And people like me that love cars were missing out because of how it was portrayed, and it wasn't like this like crazy marketing plan. You know, it was just like, hey, we were doing really cool shit with Mustangs, right? Our cars looked cool, RTRX, our race cars. We were in this new sport that had a lot of energy where these cars weren't really welcome, and then we made them welcome. You know, we get to the unicorn later. That was massive, obviously massive for us to do that with Ken. And I think people really just gravitated towards the vibe of it. Like we were just having fun doing the stuff that we loved with a Mustang. And frankly, I think you know it. Maybe it could have been anything, but the Mustang I think gave us such a great base from what it is, and that it was time for it to like have this breath of fresh air inside of it, and this you know younger approach to it. And you know, I think we've done it in a really good way of still, while like respecting muscle carness, but bringing in just automotive culture, right? I don't want to say Japanese or European or whatever, but like when you look at our cars, they fit in at the muscle car show, and they would fit in at you know we bring our spec five doing exotic cars and coffee, and people will not be like, "What is that doing here?" You know, and so obviously that's a great testament to the team we have and the the openness to try new things. But somehow in there, to your point, yeah, I became the Satan. I mean, the the you know the Saint patron saint of and patron saint
Speaker 1 44:00
of like new gen Mustang owners because I think that there was this major gap, and like I think Mustang had a really hard time finding its new audience when the o5 came out, right? I think that there was this like obviously there's like the old timers who were in the original cars, and then there was like the Fox body audience, right? And then there was like the SN 197 and all that. I mean, my wife was one of those people.
Speaker 2 44:24
Yeah,
Speaker 1 44:24
right. I mean, she was super into Mustangs. Yeah, that she was there, and that was always like its own space. And I was a magazine guy, and the joke was like, if you want to make a good magazine, make it about Mustangs, because the the enthusiast market around Mustangs was so like just vibrant and just like vivacious for content that you could have nine Mustang magazines on the newsstand and they could all survive. Yeah, which was wild to think that just a single vehicle could support all of that.
Speaker 2 44:52
Yeah,
Speaker 1 44:52
right. Like you didn't have you had Chevy magazines, but like it was Mustang. It was like this one space, and then all of a sudden that like evaporated.
Speaker 2 45:00
Yeah,
Speaker 1 45:00
and like that was sort of when you were entering the space, right? So I think that it was an interesting timing for all of that, you know.
Speaker 2 45:07
Yeah, and I, you know, I I really didn't know what I was doing, you know. Like I don't have a, I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I always have been entrepreneur mindset. Like I had no idea what I was getting into, you know. I had no idea how to deal with dealers, and I had no idea to deal with, you know, to deal with Ford. I just like really liked the people at Ford. You know, as I started getting a relationship with them around this time and meeting them and their passion and kind of being able to go behind the scenes, I was like, like people deserve to feel this, and that was really the inspiration for me. It wasn't like this grandiose, you know, 10-year plan of like I'm going to do this. It has not been scripted at all. It's been literally, you know, motorsport, and I'm spending my money on this passion of growing the RTR vehicle side of the business. And as time went on, you know, it's it's gotten to be you know swap the level. Motorsport used to pay for for RTR vehicles, you know, to get it off the ground, and like, frankly, we, I mean, I launched RTR in 2000, like, sold the first vehicle, 2010, early 11.
Speaker 1 46:13
Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2 46:14
And like, it really didn't start to be a thing. Really, you know, we're doing 50 to 75 dealer kits a year, but it really didn't start really taking off until probably 2014 2015 with the new model Mustang s5 50, and then we debuted our first spec five, which is the wide body car, and really like that was the first car because s1 97 was to your point, it was kind of just like parts. We didn't have our grill yet, you know, with our our signature grill lights and stuff. And like 2015, I find our 2015 model, 2014 human year, I finally had like the ability to like actually develop a full car, and that was I think that was the first car that Lindsay worked on with us from concept to inception,
Speaker 1 47:01
yeah,
Speaker 2 47:02
and um, and and so that is when it really like started to become really real. Ford was really taking notice of us, and we started. Ford was really taking notice to us, and we were, um, you know, starting to have really special projects with them, and like we were in really tight with them, like in planning meetings and development meetings.
Speaker 1 47:24
And now you're doing all of this and still running a top level team in FD, right? So you've you've now you had a championship in
Speaker 2 47:34
Speaker 1 47:35
in 2010, and then you had another championship 2020, right? So you're like still in this full run, and you had and you were close to a championship
Speaker 2 47:45
many most all the time.
Speaker 1 47:47
2012, like I think you were right there. Like I remember there was always this like you were there, right?
Speaker 2 47:51
Yep.
Speaker 1 47:51
So like you're running a top level team, but you're also building this in the background. Like
Speaker 2 47:56
yeah,
Speaker 1 47:56
how did you find the time?
Speaker 2 47:58
Yeah, and I was still living in Maryland.
Speaker 1 48:00
Yeah,
Speaker 2 48:00
right, and so you know, I had a you know at the time around this time we're talking Ian, who was the owner of ASD. So in 2012, you know he Ian was running all of Falcon's stuff, and in 2012, I decided that I was going to go off on my own team, and Ian decided, you know, he wanted to to come with me. We decided we were going to do this together, basically, and so we partnered up, and I effectively absorbed what was known as ASD into RTR, and so now Ian is you know we we hired some staff, and Ian was basically part time CEO of RTR and part time running you know the motorsports team with the staff under him, and so I was still in Maryland running my demo program with my dad and my wife, and all of RTR vehicles operations was going on in Charlotte, and then that's really when it started to become like a real company, and we, you know, just started growing. and And so, how did I have the time? I had really great people bringing my vision to life. I mean, that's the only way to do it. You know, that was like my craziest time. I was like 3040 events a year. I mean, that was when we were traveling. We were seeing each other in Europe all the time with Ken. I mean, that was you were
Speaker 1 49:32
doing a ton of stuff.
Speaker 2 49:33
Yes,
Speaker 1 49:33
because you were doing your own events, right? And then you're, yeah, I mean, there was just a lot going on.
Speaker 2 49:37
Yes, and so, but but all the while, you know, we're developing, we're we're selling parts, and it was a slow trickle. It wasn't like wasn't making money, but still believed in it so much. And I could see what was happening. I could see people connecting with it, and I didn't have millions of dollars to do the marketing and have the staff to like to grow it where it could have been. But I just believed in the slow roll. Like I believe. Like strong roots and foundation, and so you know the drifting, everything we did in motorsport, all the Ford projects, all of that was growing the brand, and then ultimately, you know, we got to the place where it's very real.
Speaker 1 50:14
Yeah. All right, I'm going to bring you on a complete tangent here. I get into a lot of weird academic conversations around like drifting, especially now that it's been 20 years, because like a lot of people love to sort of like look back and like talk about different eras and so on, and you know guys like Will Rogey and Andy Sapp and like guys who you know who've been there for the whole time and like they're not as active in the sport now, but like they're still watching, they're still paying attention, right? And we talk about a major impact in drifting, and a major shift was the ASD change because Ian brought traction to drifting in a way that like changed the speed of the sport. It changed the way the cars were being built. Like his sort of you know he came from oval racing, dirt oval, things like that, right? Like that was his background. NASCAR,
Speaker 1 51:02
NASCAR, yeah, right. And like he brought a like it was just a different approach that like really changed drifting. Would you agree?
Speaker 2 51:11
Yeah. Well, that actually started with Ian at Reese Millen's team.
Speaker 1 51:15
Yeah.
Speaker 2 51:16
Reese came out one year. I think it was '06 in the GTO.
Speaker 1 51:20
Yep.
Speaker 2 51:21
And all. all I'm gonna still, you know, we're like, what? Nobody could keep up with this car. He smoked everybody, and Ian was the one behind that. And Ian really made his name on that. And I introduce Ian. Ian, I say, took a liking to me through FD, I introduced him to Falcon, and and then once Falcon unlocked the budget for Ian to build those first four cars,
Speaker 1 51:50
yeah,
Speaker 2 51:50
it was insanity, right? It was the Mustang, the Sky, the 350 Z. Remember the Saturn Sky, the 350 Z, and because there was
Speaker 1 52:01
also that other Pontiac that they drove for a while, which was the sky, the version of the solstice.
Speaker 2 52:07
Yeah, the solstice.
Speaker 1 52:08
Reset the solstice for a while too. Yep. So that was when
Speaker 2 52:11
after the solstice, that's when Ian went to that all happened. ASD popped up in Charlotte, and yes, that changed the game. Like it was because you
Speaker 1 52:19
had that, and then you had Papadakis like come in and yeah, Papadakis
Speaker 2 52:23
was after Papadakis was driving at that time. Yeah, but
Speaker 1 52:25
I'm saying like those were two big shifting moments where all of a sudden it was like a different approach to like real engineering and rail race car shit came and showed up. Yeah, like because I mean there was a period of time where you know you I want to I want to get into this conversation because at some point I was like, "Vaughn, I think you kind of like need to like you're taking the villain role at like at and you became like monster truck and like all of that because those the machines were just so much more competitive than what a lot of people had and you were literally driving over the competition yeah because of the way the cars were set up and all of that and there was almost, and you know, maybe you're more open to talk about it now. But I think whenever anyone feels like they have like a crazy advantage, people like want to hate on you, right? Like everybody else wants to be like, oh, there's this, this, this, and this. But it was this moment that really pushed the sport to like a next moment, a next piece. And now all the cars are on a crazy level.
Speaker 2 53:19
Crazy,
Speaker 1 53:19
but that was that first sort of moment? Yeah,
Speaker 2 53:22
it was. That was a weird time too, because like I'm, you know, even now. Then it was interesting because I am the quintessential story of the grassroots guy that just chased it and and made it work. You know, then and even now with these this current generation of people are just getting to drifting. People only knew me as like the sponsored guy, right? Ford and Monster, and and you know, and and like they only know me as that guy. And but that at that moment around oh 920 10, like when we were starting to be really like dominant force, it was really hard for me because I felt like super misunderstood,
Speaker 1 53:59
right?
Speaker 2 54:00
Like I felt like you
Speaker 1 54:00
still felt like the underdog,
Speaker 2 54:02
yeah.
Speaker 1 54:02
But you were in the a weapon,
Speaker 2 54:04
yeah, yeah, 100%, you know. And like, you know, I was every track doing the best that I could do. I was out of my league, you know. Like these cars were way beyond, you know, and I just had to figure out and buck up and how to drive. No, learn figure out how to drive it. So you know, I was not showing up like with the level of confidence that I show up to now. You know, it was a different time. I was figuring myself out. I was like doing brain studying and like sports psychology and like trying to deal with pressure and like all the things that were around at this level that I got to at that time. And then I still had incredible fans, but there was like a group, and a lot of like the core even was kind of like, you know, bad for the sport. This is not the direction it should go, you know. And like, I I gave that too much energy at that time, not really realizing now. Like when I look back on it, like how it was really a great thing for. The sport, you know, even though in that moment it was like, you know, it's like it's like grassroots skating and pro skating, right? There's always been that kind of that thing, and you know, I found myself at the forefront of it, and it didn't feel good, but I just kept kept being me, and like it passed, you know. And there's been multiple moments in my career over the last, you know, 22 years, where like I've been like the most loved, and then there's a little bit of hate, and then loved, and you know, so it just kind of it just ebbs and flows, you know. But then I didn't know that, and like I didn't realize it was just a moment in time, you know. And so I really was like taking it a bit too serious at that time. I wouldn't say like it did anything like externally, but it was like an internal struggle that that I was having at the time for sure.
Speaker 1 55:47
Oh look, I think this is something that none of us talk enough about, right? Like you show up to do something. You're like, I want to go drive cars. I want to go build cars on YouTube. I want to go do whatever, and you're like, that's cool. And at first, everyone's like, "That's cool," and then you start to do well, and people are like, "Fuck that guy!" You're like, "Fuck me!" What do you mean? What did I do? And like, I think that is a part of the sport. I mean, man, you know, after Ken died, everyone was like, "Ken's the greatest." But when Ken was alive, Ken got a lot of hate.
Speaker 2 56:17
Oh yeah,
Speaker 1 56:17
right. And it's like it just, it just, it just, it's a weird thing. We, especially as an American society, we seem to enjoy to like build up our heroes than to only to tear them down. You know, so like I think it's something that I have conversations not only with drivers but also with like creators, YouTubers, right? Like everybody loved them at one point, and then they finally got the success that everybody wanted them to have, and then everyone was mad at them for having such success. You know, so such is a weird thing. It's not only in the automotive space; yeah, it's everywhere. It's skateboarding. It's BMX. I mean, shit, I was that kid who was yelling "fucking sellout!" Like you know, like right. It's just how the it's just how it goes. You know, yeah. It's tough because people. I think sometimes things feel so important to people, and they cherish them so much that they just don't want them to change, and and I have mixed feelings on this. But sometimes when things don't change, they disappear.
Speaker 2 57:07
Yeah,
Speaker 1 57:07
right.
Speaker 2 57:08
Yeah, I think you know. I think it's you know like the intent of the scenario often gets overlooked by like people's personal views and what they think is right.
Speaker 1 57:18
Yeah,
Speaker 2 57:18
right. Because at the end of the day, it's just perspective and opinion, you know, and everyone's entitled to those things. But like, it's also like talking about going for magazines. You know what I mean? Like back then, it wasn't easy to like create a pitchforks and like angry mob online in the comment section. You know what I mean? There
Speaker 1 57:40
wasn't much of a voice. No voices. A voice was gatekept.
Speaker 2 57:43
Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1 57:44
Magazines had the voice, and you could write us a letter, and if we didn't like it, we wouldn't publish it.
Speaker 2 57:49
Right.
Speaker 1 57:49
Yeah. Right. The internet changed that. The Commonwealth changed that. Yes. And
Speaker 2 57:52
now that's something that our generation has had to learn to deal with.
Speaker 1 57:57
Yeah.
Speaker 2 57:57
You know, and and you know, it's um, it's really been interesting because it's been a lot of like internal battle and like makes you question yourself and like, but like where I came to in the end because again this is something that happens all the time you know and you get in a new sport of off road and people like oh drifter guy can't do off road and like you can really absorb yourself into that or you can just look inside and be who am I? What's my intent? And then like that be the light, and you just acknowledge that it's just like hey, it's just noise. But I mean, I see it with like NASCAR drivers. Like I'm friends, you know, great friends with Joey Logano. He gets it the worst. You know, unbelievable human dude. Unbelievable. One of the nicest people
Speaker 1 58:36
I've ever met. Right,
Speaker 2 58:38
but it's like they only know you by what they know, and then they have this opinion of of who you are by what they see, and and it's like it's a double edged sword because like it's like you love that they're the reason why you can do this at some level, you know. But yeah, it's it's interesting to process it, you know, of like that we are the first to to have to experience that,
Speaker 1 59:02
yeah,
Speaker 2 59:02
you know, and now it's just normal. But like now, you've got like kids in elementary school that are like depressed because they're getting three likes on a photo, and you know what I mean? It's like it's a little bit insanity.
Speaker 1 59:13
Yeah, I can't even imagine that. I mean, I, I, and this is for a whole different pod, but like the thought that like children or go to school, they get bullied, and then they go home and they can't escape the bullying because it's online is a trip. Because I think all of us probably had moments in our lives where you had a bully,
Speaker 2 59:32
sure,
Speaker 1 59:32
and you were able to escape it, right? Like my bully when I was a kid lived on the other side of the alleyway, so I would just play in the front of the house when if he was out there, like I could literally just go out the other door to avoid him,
Speaker 2 59:44
right,
Speaker 1 59:45
and play with the kids on the other side of the street,
Speaker 2 59:47
right.
Speaker 1 59:47
And then if he wasn't there, I would go play. You know, it was like it was that easy for me to walk away from it. It's like now they can't even get away from it. And unfortunately, that bullying like doesn't stop as kids. It's become this weird, weird space we're in. But anyway. Um, I want to jump onto the off-road thing. I I ran into you a year or two back, and it was a quick. I I feel like we haven't had a chance to sit for years, right? And probably since like, I mean, over five plus years. Yeah, a
Speaker 2 1:00:14
real real, real, real connect. Like it used to be
Speaker 1 1:00:16
that you would come to town, we'd go get dinner with the ladies, do something like that, and then you weren't competing as much, and then you were busy because you were like a team owner as well as competing, and you had a bunch of stuff to deal with. We haven't really had a lot of chance. In fact, I ran into you somewhere, and I just was like,
Speaker 2 1:00:30
"It's not that you're not busy either."
Speaker 1 1:00:32
Yeah, exactly. We're both busy. We're both trust me. Busy. I was too busy for a long time in my life. I'm trying to change that, but I mean, I asked you something about like the Ultra Four stuff, and you were like, "It's the best." Um, so I haven't talked to you about it really at all, but you really seem to enjoy it. Like, it's just a whole different thing. It's a whole different animal. Like, tell me, tell me what that has been. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 1:00:57
Yeah. And so I think you know, Ultra Four is where it started, right? King of the Hammer. So, like Ultra Four racing. If you look at all the types of off-road racing, Ultra Four is like everything in one. So, like you know, King of the Hammers is its own thing, but Ultra Four as a whole would be like short course, desert, rocks. You know, maybe stream crossings, gnarly climbs. Like it's just like everything of off-road racing in one sport,
Speaker 1 1:01:21
but still fast through the still fast. Oh
Speaker 2 1:01:22
yeah, yeah. I mean, my my race truck will do like 125 miles an hour. Now trophy trucks do like 150. Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:01:29
yeah.
Speaker 2 1:01:29
But this truck can also
Speaker 1 1:01:30
they're not crawlers. They're not
Speaker 2 1:01:31
doing boulders. Yeah, yeah. It can crawl because it has to. It hammers.
Speaker 1 1:01:35
Yeah.
Speaker 2 1:01:35
Um. But it's it's everything. And so, you know, I I started in motocross. You know, as a teenager, you know, and you know Pastrana, but like I, you know, my one of my my best bikes ever as a teenager was a bike I bought from Pastrana back in the day. Oh, really? I didn't know that. That's great. Yeah, it was a '97 RM125, and
Speaker 1 1:01:57
guys got that crab connection.
Speaker 2 1:01:58
Yeah, football, bud. And so, you know, so I motocross, right, skateboarding, BMX, drifting, and then I got the opportunity to go to Ultra Four because of Nitto. They had a spec vehicle available, and I went out there, and I fell in love with this sport. You know, it not only am I my skill set very well suited for it, right? Vehicle placement, throttle control, commitment, you know, and then motocross, like reading terrain and stuff. Like I've organically built myself to be good at it, and obviously have a great teammate and partner, a mentor, and Lauren Healy, who's the you know gangster at it. But what I really love about the sport, you know, drifting is incredible. And the way I explain this, because people ask, I get asked all the time, "What do you like better?" And it's like my answer is, I love drifting, and I always will. But drifting, aside from like fun events, which is just fun, but at a Formula Drift event, you literally fly somewhere, you show up somewhere for three days, you practice for 12 laps, 1245 second laps. You qualify. You practice for another maybe three or four laps, and then you compete, right? And in between that, what would be probably if you win the event, caught 30 minutes on the track out of three days. In between that is the most insane battle you've ever had with yourself, because drifting is a sport that you cannot make a mistake. So it's in this moment you have to be the best you've ever been in your life right now, and that could be sitting in a hot car for 30 minutes between laps. That could be getting out and talking to sponsors or fans or autograph session or eating lunch or, you know, having a negative conversation with somebody in the team or whatever it might be that you then have to clear the slate and go be the best you've ever been ever. So the the the the mental strain that Formula D weekend is is it's intense, and the 45 seconds you're on the track is the most intense 45 seconds you could ever imagine behind the wheel, and that shit is fun. It but it is just a it's just a it's just a battle, and it takes a special kind of person to like that kind of battle. When I got into off road racing, the experience is this: you show up, you pre-run with your co-dog, who is your friend. You're in the truck for hours making notes, strategizing. You qualify, then you get in the truck and you go race for hundreds of miles. And you know what? That mistake that you make in drifting, you would lose as long as doesn't put you on your roof. Yeah, you can make it up because everybody else is making them, right? And it's it's it's new for me, so I'm constantly learning. Not that I'm still not learning at drifting. It after doing it, you know, 22 years being 46 years old, but I'm just like every bit of terrain, like it's just all new, and you're out. This beautiful nature, and it's just it's just an epic. And behind the wheel of an 850 horsepower truck that can, it's a monster truck. You know, it's like every kid's dream. It can do anything. You know, I jump and it lands like a cloud. And so, you know, I just I absolutely love the entire experience of it. And you know, I've been doing it now for 10 years, which is crazy to say.
Speaker 1 1:05:22
Yeah, I still think of it as like your new thing. My new
Speaker 2 1:05:24
thing. I know a
Speaker 1 1:05:25
decade plus. I've won
Speaker 2 1:05:26
championships in it. You have won major races, and it's like it feels really good to be able to be, you know, to have that. Not for the ego, but just for like my personal, like I wanted to do it, and I'm doing
Speaker 1 1:05:41
it.
Speaker 2 1:05:41
You know, like it feels like it's a really great accomplishment. It's still new to me, and I'm still perceived as the new guy. You know, and and so yeah, I just I enjoy it. It's it's it's just incredible. I have incredible team on the off road side, and we just have a lot of fun. You know, it's very parallels the drift vibe in a in a certain way, but it's just a lot bigger and open and more drive time and all the things Ken and I used to talk about. Ken used to be up you and
Speaker 1 1:06:10
he used to tell you you belong to the most expensive motorsport in the world per corner.
Speaker 2 1:06:14
Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:06:15
like you could drive four corners a weekend. He's like I drive hundreds of corners. You drive four corners a weekend, like that's really expensive. Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:06:22
yeah, he did. He used to mess with me about
Speaker 1 1:06:24
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Speaker 2 1:08:13
I I like rally. You know, I've been playing around the idea of taking El Bandito, our 1000 horsepower off road truck that Lauren just took up Pikes Peak to a rally and doing a stage rally with it. I really like rally. I think it's fun. I love that style of driving. I I'm actually really good at like that single track and vehicle placement and like I I I love getting in that flow with a co-driver. I don't think I would go do professional rally. I think right now for me, like the amount of effort that it would take me to get to the level I would want to get to, is more than I'm willing to invest in in time in in something new right now. But like I'm intrigued by it. I I love it. I watch it. I'm a you know Ken made me a fan of it. Yeah, I went did recce with him and and spent time with him at it. I am enjoying loving watching Leah and and her journey with it. So I'm I'm a fan of rally without a doubt. But I don't you know have any ambition to like transition to
Speaker 1 1:09:16
it. I was just curious because it's a it's a very parallel sport to the other two things you're doing for sure, right? You know, it's in that in that same vein. And I was I was talking to Turk about it, and he's loving it. Yeah, like he's really finding like a home there, and he's he's really enjoying it. So
Speaker 2 1:09:31
he's gonna get good.
Speaker 1 1:09:32
Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's I think he wants to do it. Like I think it's he's he's felt a connection to it, and he told me it was an emotional experience for him to go do his first event, and because he felt reconnected in a way that he felt like he hadn't been in drifting for a while,
Speaker 2 1:09:46
yeah,
Speaker 1 1:09:46
and like I think it was exciting for him to feel excited about motorsport again.
Speaker 2 1:09:50
He, from my experience of me getting off road, the parallel, I would say he feels very challenged.
Speaker 1 1:09:56
Right, it's new.
Speaker 2 1:09:56
There's this thing that he has not conquered, and. When you watch his drift career,
Speaker 1 1:10:01
yeah,
Speaker 2 1:10:01
if he takes it with the same mindset,
Speaker 1 1:10:03
yeah, he's yeah, yeah, it'd be really great. So, yeah, the um, no, I I love sort of watching this. Like, you know, it's it's weird to think you look at drifting and it's what 25 years old in America, right? Something like that, barely, right? I mean, competition wise, it's it's 22
Speaker 2 1:10:21
one ish, yeah. Competition
Speaker 1 1:10:22
wise, yeah. right. So about 25 years old. We're now at a point where you've got you know like Ken and Chris will be the last guys to retire. I'm assuming that'll be coming. Maybe not. Chris could like race until it could compete until the 70s. Who knows, right? But like, but like, we're we're we there is like a whole new generation of people out there. There's like this whole new thing, and it's it's interesting to watch like everybody sort of who were there in the early days now like in a completely different chapter. Like, yes, you're still competing occasionally, right?
Speaker 2 1:10:56
Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:10:56
but you're not running a championship anymore. You're a team guy, but you're also like heavily in the off road. Then you've got like Daiyoshi Hara is like not competing at all anymore, but he's like doing road racing, and he actually just did his first rally the other weekend. And like he's like, it's like these everyone's like going and doing the things. It's interesting to me, kind of watching sort of this like the class of the early era of drifting sort of, kind of continue to do all this cool stuff. But then you got Tony Angelo, who's like gone on to become like one of like the bigger sort of you know creators in the YouTube building space for especially for older and like hot rod stuff. And it's really interesting to like watch all of that stuff grow and everyone kind of go their different ways and and kind of continue develop. But saying all that, like looking at the sport now, does it like one? I have two questions. The first question I have for you is: Of all your years there, what was your favorite era in FD? Right? What was sort of that best time for you?
Speaker 2 1:11:58
Man, it's. I mean, the best time, like from an unadulterated like fun perspective, would have been like oh four to oh six, yeah, the early days because it was like no pressure. It was still maybe even to oh seven. It was still like just very grassroots, like a really incredible camaraderie. Everyone helping each other. It was, you know, show up, compete. Everyone meet at the bar the, you know, the night after, and it was just, it was wild times. It was kind of what I imagine of like, you know, what you saw in skating and BMX in the early days. You know, just with cars, and I really enjoyed that. You know, we didn't really know what we were doing. We were like learning off of each other and pushing each other, and there was just like this very rapid progression going on. And you know, it was just very like it was very tight. And I think around you know where you mentioned that like 2009 2008 era of like Reese and the factory support and ASD and things just started really started to become like a professional motorsport and
Speaker 1 1:13:08
Tanner Faust. I mean, there's a lot of people who showed up from other sports because there was an opportunity there.
Speaker 2 1:13:12
Yeah, and it it's not that it like we were still like keeping that spirit alive. Like Drift Alliance was keeping that spirit alive for for a very long time until ultimately you know we all just got kind of succumbed by our absorbed by like our efforts individually you know do
Speaker 1 1:13:34
you think once you understood what the opportunity was it changed it for you meaning in the early days, you were paving the way you didn't actually realize what the opportunity was because you were like too busy bushwhacking. But at one moment, I think everybody had to wake up and go, "Like, there's a real opportunity here."
Speaker 2 1:13:52
Yeah.
Speaker 1 1:13:53
And especially as you started to see other people coming to the sport, people leaving their motorsport to come compete in drifting or try their hand at drifting, right? We were seeing it all across. You know, Jared Hildebrand was like, "I'm going to jump out of an Indy car and come try this," right? Everybody was trying to show up. Did that make it feel more serious for you guys, or make it kind of put the pressure on in a different way? Yeah, I think
Speaker 2 1:14:15
I think definitely pressure, but I think more so it like it just it it gave the it kind of like helped set the path because I think like in those early days we really know what we were doing it for how to make it into anything you know like I always again I always entrepreneur I mean you can ask the boys I was always the one that had like a little bit of business mindset towards it but like compared to now I would say I really had no idea but I think that like those things happening created the opportunities that we all got to take advantage of, and I think the only thing that really changed for me would be pressure, like showing up to have fun and carefree to where like I need to show up and get results because whether the results mattered or not, they or. They seem that they really did, and so that type of pressure is what changed it for me. I wouldn't say it was like the sponsors or or money or anything other than just like that that pressure to perform. Because like when you think about this, like anything simple, right? It's like you know if you're out, you know, and let's just say you're good at basketball, which I actually do think you shoot basketball halfway decent. I
Speaker 1 1:15:25
used to be, but I was never great, which is why I got into what I got into. Okay,
Speaker 1 1:15:29
if I could ball, like let's be honest, bro, I want to be here. So let's just say though,
Speaker 2 1:15:34
in general, right? You're out shooting hoops with your boys, and you're, you know, just something easy. You're you're sinking hoops, but then you get on the line for a million dollars, right? You start questioning yourself. All the negative self talk comes in, and you airball the thing, you know. And so that is the type of what my experience was around that time, like 2008, 2009, and that's when I realized and learned about you know sports psychology and and mental training and fitness and and stuff like that. So, but I am grateful for that time because it made me such a better athlete through the rest of my career up until right now. Like my mental game is incredible. Um, I'm I but I I don't say that arrogantly. I say it because I've been for almost 20 years, like studying it and and propelling it, and like to an ability where I can like snap into the zone in a moment.
Speaker 1 1:16:30
Can you share some of the stuff that you've done to sort of do that?
Speaker 2 1:16:32
Yeah, yeah, sure. So when I realized, you know, I would like do great in practice and then shit the bed in qualifying competition, I was like, "Okay, it's not the car; it's me, right?" Which is a whole nother thing to come to as a race car driver and you know rock star in your head and this and that, especially at that time. And so I I got these books called by Ross Bentley called Speed Secrets.
Speaker 1 1:16:56
Read them,
Speaker 2 1:16:57
and I read the books, and I'm like, "Well, I'm just going to call the guy." So I figured out how to get a hold of Ross Bentley, and I brought him out to an event in Long Beach, 2008 in Long Beach. I brought him out, and that is where I got my first exposure to like. There's so much more to the process than just being good. Good.
Speaker 1 1:17:16
These are classic books, by the way. Oh yeah, they've been around forever. Oh
Speaker 2 1:17:18
yeah.
Speaker 1 1:17:19
I didn't even know Ross Bentley was still alive. Oh yeah. I talk to him often.
Speaker 2 1:17:22
Yeah, and how old
Speaker 1 1:17:23
is he now?
Speaker 2 1:17:24
He's probably six, late 50s, early 60s.
Speaker 1 1:17:27
I thought he was much older than that. Yeah, no. I definitely got that book like for Christmas when I was like 22 and told my mom I wanted to go race cars. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2 1:17:34
yeah. And so that was my first like opening to it. And then you know he he gave me some great brain training things, and I'll share my process with you. But then I just started studying myself, and I read like a couple books, like Zen and the Art of Archery. There's a great book called Mind Gym by Gary Mack that I read. There's a book called The Score Settles Itself. I think it's by Bill Walsh, and it's all these like theory and process and just how it all works. And once I kind of grasped how it worked, everything gave me tools in my toolbox, you know. And to this day, when I strap in a race car and head up to the line, I get that what some people would consider anxiety. Well, I've shifted that perspective to excitement. This is part when I feel this. This is me getting ready for doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. Right. Whereas other people can go down and allow the anxiety take them down in the route of fear, and then you're losing all your confidence, and then the bad things happen. Yeah. So it that process happens with all drivers for the most part. I don't care who you are, and me over 20 years later, it still happens. And so when that comes in, I just I've I've relabeled it, and that's like the first step. And then, you know, negative self talk will keep coming into you as a driver, and like all the bad things that can happen, just come up because it's just how we're built, right? Us problem solvers, us as men, you know, we we always look. It's our job, you know. We used to have to protect our families from lions and tigers and bears, you know. And so when that stuff comes in, you rapidly have to choose what you attach to, because if you attach to those bad things and you give those bad things energy, you're going
Speaker 1 1:19:19
to do it. So
Speaker 2 1:19:20
you have to like clearly like, you know what I do is I like name it like if it's like I'm like Ted you're back again you know it's like you're out and then I just quickly focus on on what I want to happen or I just go straight to breathing exercises because if you're focused on your breathing you can't focus on anything else so I'll do box breathing so it'll be like four seconds in, eight seconds out, vice versa. Four in, four out. Whatever, whatever is needed in the moment to reset. I also do these things called cross crawls. So like where you take your right hand, touch your left knee, left hand, right knee. That integrates the left and right side of your brain. I do. Some centering exercises where, like, I'll go left and right and just watch my thumb do 10 left, 10 right, and it's just all of these things that not only keep me busy, but I also know that they're making me better than the guy next to me on the line, right in that moment. And so, every driver needs their mental their their mental help to walk, and so yeah, those are just some of the things that I've done, and and over 20 years, like I know exactly when it's coming in, what I need to do, and and ways to to roll with it, and and that's been my secret.
Speaker 1 1:20:32
I find that I find all that stuff very interesting. That's why I wanted to sort of hear your side of it. I think it's something that a lot of people don't talk about. I think that there's this like sort of mental health is this thing we just don't talk about anyway. Right. And I talk about it a lot on the show because I've had my own sort of like you know sort of struggles with it and journey with it, especially in the past couple of years where I've taken the time to actually slow down and deal with it. But when we brought we brought Leah to this was shortly after Ken passed, and you know Leah really wanted to get into Open Wheel. It's where she wanted to be. She's come back to Rally because that's the place she belongs. But she wanted to go try Open Wheel. She wanted to go. She wanted to go pave her own path, right? And if you listen to the podcast, she admits that she kind of did it because everyone expected her to go do Rally, and she wanted to go try something different. She got there, and it wasn't the right fit for her, right? But we went and we met with, and I'm I'm blanking on his name right now, but David, who runs, who was previously running the Honda race team in Indy and was up here in Santa Clara, fantastic person, just a great human being. And I had worked with him on a few projects, and I said, Hey, can you can you talk to Leah about what it's going to take for her to get into Formula One and what the process is. She's a young girl. She's got to figure it out. And we sat there with him. We went to the indie test out at thermal, and we sat in the trailer. And he told her that 40% of it is mental. He's like 40% of being a good race car driver today is mental. It's psychiatrists. It's meditation. It's all of this. And I'll be honest. Like I had heard all of this stuff before. Like obviously, Ken had some things that he was dealing with, and he was doing, and he was going through his own process. But like, you know, we never had like a race psychiatrist that we dealt with, you know. And just sitting there listening to this guy who had worked in Formula One and Indy and was the top guy in the business, and sit there to tell us, like, yeah, like, like you could be fast, you could be all these things, but at the end of the day, like, it's so the cars have become so fast, and the difference between drivers has become so minuscule that the advantage could be that you know you doing this, like the it's it's every advantage now is what you need because it has become so competitive that the psychiatry of staying in that space and and being that person who doesn't do things. And then you look back and you think about characters like Kimmy Rankin. Like what made Kimmy great was he was like unflappable. Like this man was just like, like you hear him and when he you know that famous like don't talk to me. I know what I'm doing. Like it's like he's in his own brain. Like he's there. Like he's that. You know, you read Art and Senna's book, and he talks about how he would literally vision see himself from above. Oh yeah. He would leave the car and watch him race him up. And I read that the first time, and I was like, "This is goofy," right? But as I've gotten older, I'm like, oh, I get it. I understand what what you're saying. I understand like where where where you're trying to be there. And I think it's a very interesting thing that I don't think in motorsports we talk a lot about, which is like the brain side of it. We talk so much about training now.
Speaker 1 1:23:35
Everybody's going to show you their training thing and how they can do this and whatever it is that they're doing for training, and you know, I stand on one foot and do this and do that or whatever. But I don't think people are talking about the mental side because a lot of times, especially, I think there's two sides of it. I think you talk about drifting, and it's like this is that you got four turns, and you fuck up, you go home, right? Put on the trailer.
Speaker 2 1:24:01
Right, right,
Speaker 1 1:24:02
put it on the fucking trailer if you fuck up. Right, but in 100 mile race, in like you know, in an ultra four type situation, we're out there for hours or 1000 mile race in like Baja. That's a whole other type of brain fatigue, of like driving at eight tenths, as you know, as a driver, is sometimes harder than driving at 10 tenths.
Speaker 2 1:24:25
Right. Well, for that long.
Speaker 1 1:24:26
For that long.
Speaker 2 1:24:27
Yeah.
Speaker 1 1:24:27
Right. Like not to just push and push and push. Right. And it's such an interesting part of the part of the hobby, part of the sport, whatever you want to say, is like the mental side of it. I
Speaker 2 1:24:36
mean, it's really no different than life. You know, not only in the fact that it's not talked about, but it's like that's the secret. Like your mental approach to things from the moment you wake up into the moment you you go to bed. You know, and you know, like everything on this earth is frequency and energy, right? Positive, negative, and so if you. Can live if you can live the majority in positive. I've seen this. This is what I've lived. Like it's the the book and the movie, The Secret. If you can, if you can always find the positive in your day to day reality, you will attract more of that. Is a very similar thing in motorsport, right now. Now there is you know reaction training and stuff like that, like speed of the brain, but the overall like where your consciousness is when you are doing the activity is so important. And but again, it's no different than in life. You know, if I came in here with you with a bad attitude or I carried in some some negative stuff, conversation would not be so so vibey and bright, and you know what I mean, and and so it's like that is like one of the greatest things I've taken from from life and motorsport and like brought into business and my relationship and what I teach my kids and like you know what the things to focus on because we all have a choice on what to give our attention, and many of us give attention to the wrong thing. Right? If you focus on the things you don't have, you will not have more. If you focus on the things that you have and you have an abundance mindset, you will have abundance. You know, and so we we have so much more control of the things that we just feel like some people just feel that things happen to them, but we're attracting all of it, whether it's good, bad, or or indifferent. You know, and um, and and that's one thing that can be learned from and or transitioned into motorsport. But I find that to be fact, and that has been in that mindset and that belief that I just shared. I mean, I feel like it's science, but I realize it's also a belief. You know, has been the absolute secret in in everything that I've ever done. From thinking I'm going to start RTR to the RTRX to Unicorn to Motorsport, like all of that belief is is why it's been able to happen?
Speaker 1 1:27:02
Yeah, man. I mean, this might come as an absolute shock to you, but in in the past year, I was diagnosed with like severe ADHD. I don't know if you ever noticed this before about me. And you know, I without I don't want to make too much about this. I talk about this a lot on the pod, and it's a weird thing because for those who don't have it, I don't think it really matters. Those who do reach out to me are like, "Thank you so much for talking about this," because it's like nice to hear that someone who has done the things you've done also like has a similar struggle. But I, I got to this moment in like sort of the past four or five months. You know, it's been a long journey for me. It was like two years ago I realized that this ADHD thing was more than just like I bounce around in a conversation, the disappearance of Hoonigan and this this thing that didn't like suck all my attention like went away, and all of a sudden I was actually struggling with downtime. Like I was good in the fight. Like I was good on a 12-hour day. I couldn't deal with a three-hour day. Like I just did, I would just fall apart, you know, because I needed that like constant whatever. So this is a very simple thought, and I think it's just, and it's a little bit of what you're saying, but it's a it's a little different thing. And I I've discovered this, and I just it's interesting to share. What I realized was that my entire life was programmed around. Actually, let me take a step back. ADHD is like a weird; it's a bad name, right? Attention deficit disorder, hyperactive disorder, doesn't really define it. It was originally defined that way because it was like five-year-old boys who couldn't sit still in school. Oh, you
Speaker 2 1:28:33
know, I understand.
Speaker 1 1:28:34
I know you do because we talked about this on that trip, and I didn't know I had it then, right? And you know, and I look at it, and I said, "Okay, I just didn't want to share that. I was going to let you share. I wasn't going to be like, 'Hey, I know you have ADHD.' It's like it's your own, it's your personal life to share." But so, what I realized was like, you know, what really ADHD is is the it's it's actually a dopamine deficit. Your brain naturally creates less dopamine on average than the normal person sitting, so you are just slightly less happy than everyone else. So you supplement that. You supplement it with tapping, coffee, sugar, right? Like people find all these other ways to supplement, or you take drugs, right? Whatever it is, but you you're trying to raise your dopamine level. What I developed a really bad habit of, and I did this for my entire life, was that there's this other drug that your body creates that's very similar to dopamine, and it's called adrenaline, and it basically will service the same thing, but that comes out of fear, right? So I lived my entire life in fear. Everything was if I don't get this done, it's over.
Speaker 2 1:29:45
If
Speaker 1 1:29:45
this doesn't win, like it, like I would convince myself that like everything was a doomsday experience. Right, so everything throughout all of the magazine and Hoonigan, it was always like if this doesn't work, it's all over. It all falls apart, right? And I had like convinced myself something that wasn't really true, but it was the driver for me. You were
Speaker 2 1:30:05
living that.
Speaker 1 1:30:06
I was living. I was operating in fear because that's what created
Speaker 6 1:30:09
the
Speaker 1 1:30:10
adrenaline to keep it going. And I'm not saying that I was always anxious, but like I did have a lot of anxiety, and I didn't know it was anxiety. I had no concept because I've had it since I was five.
Speaker 2 1:30:19
Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:30:19
like I had no. This was just a normal state for me, and what I've tried to shift into in the past, like five or six months, is like instead of living in fear, it's like no, actually, how do I live in more of a dopamine world where it's about reward? If I do this, even if it's making your own fake rewards, like you were like, I call it Tom. Tom, get the hell out the car. For me, it's like okay, if I do this, I I'll go do this for myself. I'll go reward myself, right? So, and it's like it was like switching the mindset. So it's not about oh, I have to get this deck done tonight, which I do have to do after you leave. It's not I have to get this deck done tonight to go pitch tomorrow because if I don't, I'm going to be in trouble. It's like no, I'm going to get it done by 10 o'clock, and I'm gonna watch an hour of this show I really like. It's now like a reward drive for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:31:05
and like that sounds so simple to people who don't struggle with what we have, but it's not simple. And it's like that little slight shift has just made me like a happier person because instead of me always feeling like this gloom of something not happening, and it's it's weird. Like I mean, that's for me in a creative space and how that works for me. But I think it's the same. You're driving up to that line and that anxiety of I'm gonna fuck this up versus the like I'm gonna go out there and kill it and it's gonna be great. Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:31:33
you just shifted your perspective of what it is, right? And that and that's that's the most important thing. Like we get so attached to like what is or what we think it should be, and people just it really is just shifting the perspective. And like, also want to say that while you know, I I don't I don't I don't know that I like I don't necessarily accept the label of it. I know it's a thing, but I also believe it's like a secret weapon because
Speaker 1 1:31:59
100%
Speaker 2 1:32:00
the creativity and the ability to see things that not everyone sees, you know, like I don't, I don't fully like. I incredible
Speaker 1 1:32:07
pattern recognition, like the ability to think in a very different way. I mean, there's this current guy, the head of Plantier, Plantier, right? Yeah, right. The AI company said that like the only two people who are going to survive AI are those who are neurodivergent, ADHD, and those who are like in trades like plumbing because AI can't replicate the ADHD brain,
Speaker 2 1:32:30
right?
Speaker 1 1:32:31
And it's like, okay, well, that's interesting. Like, like, great when Skynet becomes maybe I'll have a use for them, you know, when they become self-aware. Yeah, I
Speaker 2 1:32:38
mean, but I feel like it's been like a bad label, and people are kind of embarrassed. There's a stigma to it. I know. Yeah, I don't feel that
Speaker 1 1:32:44
way. That's why I talk about it. Yeah, half of what I've done in my life is because my brain's wired the way it is. I struggle to get my laundry done. I wish my wife doesn't always wish I'm this way. Yeah, but it's also my ability to think the way I think. I
Speaker 2 1:32:57
know, like those little things that will be like So overwhelming, you know. Like even like sometimes I look at my pants and I'll be walking out my box. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's like seems like a lot to put those on. I know,
Speaker 7 1:33:10
you know. I know. Meanwhile, well, that's
Speaker 1 1:33:13
task. It's called task paralysis.
Speaker 2 1:33:15
Yeah, and then but then like meanwhile, like I'm thinking about how like to do the hardest things that people will be blown away about, but you're reengineering
Speaker 1 1:33:22
the way inboard suspension works, and like that's no problem. But like, yeah, the simplest thing of like, I have to go do this. Yeah, yeah, it's weird. It's weird how that that can work. Yeah, but yeah, no, I find all of this stuff sort of interesting. All right, I'm gonna we're gonna do a complete fucking changeover. Okay. The other day, Ryan dropped off the new RTR book. Super cool to see. I will be honest. It literally I got two days ago. I've been so busy. I haven't had really a big chance to go through it. But I did flip through the unicorn pages. It's crazy. Like you're at a point now where you have a book about your company, which was really rad. I know. I was stoked to. I haven't read the story yet, so like maybe I'm painted as an asshole, and we'll get to that later, but but I was stoked to have Mike Spinelli, who once worked with me at Zero to 60, to reach out and say, "Hey, I'm working on this book, you know, with about RTR, and you know, want to talk to you about about Unicorn." And it was actually really fun to kind of relive relive that moment because I just want to set the table and I want to let you run from there. But I'm just going to say this. I've said this before, but I want to just say it point blank. I think the unicorn is the most important vehicle that has been built in the past, whatever three decades, right? And I'm not saying that there aren't crazier cars that have been built since, although I don't know. But it changed the paradigm of like what a crazy car was because not only did it look the part, but it did the part. And then it went and did a whole other thing we never expected, which was just a fucking mop, a ton of fucking you know drag drag cars. Like we never thought it. Do that. That wasn't what it was built to do, and I went and did it. And I just I look now at what we I think we created, which was like this new world of these crazy builds, right? Whether it was you know whether it's sticking you know a V 12 and a whatever. Like I mean, YouTube is now create and SEMA has now created just like whatever the it feels like a video game, but in many ways like the unicorn was sort of the first to do that. And I know that there have been a ton of incredible race cars that have been built over the years, but this car was built to fucking kill tires. Like think about how crazy that is. Think about the money and the time and everything that went into, and all the people who were involved in that build, and it was literally meant to just go like just demolish a set of tires. It was never meant to be raced. It was just a party car.
Speaker 2 1:35:50
Yeah, it's crazy. You know,
Speaker 1 1:35:53
and like I don't think anyone had ever put that level of effort into a party car before, right? So, yeah, let's and I obviously, if you want the whole story, go pick up the book. Um, I forget the dates. Ryan sent them when they're supposed to be. When it's on, it's
Speaker 2 1:36:08
out. It's out now.
Speaker 1 1:36:08
It's out now. Well, I know it's available like this weekend, or you know, or was this will come out after that. So cut that part out, Troy. But like, I know, yeah. So it's out now. People can go get it. But we don't want to give it all away. But I mean, we we can't finish this podcast without talking about the unicorn because I think it becomes more important every year. I mean, the Lego car that just came out was like one of the biggest sellers that they huge. It was.
Speaker 2 1:36:30
In fact, I asked. I went to the store, of course, because it's the first time our logo is on a Lego, and I'm like, "How these been selling?" He's like, "Dude, they're flying." Yeah, I just love. Yeah, I love hearing that, and I wish I wish Ken was able to see himself in a Lego, a Lego figurine. He might have said no to that. Actually, no, no, I don't think he would have.
Speaker 1 1:36:46
I will tell you that there were certain things that were very interesting about Ken that he judged his sort of success on, and like the partnership with Hot Wheels was one of them. I think when the mainstream coming and appreciating what we did was really big for me. Yeah, you know, and I remember when Lego first, you know, after Ken passed, they added like this big scale, you know, unicorn that they built, doing donuts around or like outside of a donut shop, and they did it as like part of the, you know, it's they didn't sell it; it was like part of their display at Legoland, and like it came across my table, and I was still attending at the time. And someone said, like, you know, should we send them a cease and desist? And I was like, nah. I'm like, this would be something that would have made Ken happy. Like, like this is just cool. Like, it's a cool homage that they did, right? That you know, and and I think that those are those things. And I don't want to get too sentimental here, but it's like there's. I just wish like Ken could have seen what happened after he died. Like after all the things that were negatively said about that man, and he like didn't deserve any of it. Like he never called himself the best rally car driver. He all these things that made people hate him. Like he never called himself the drift king. He didn't even like if you asked him if he drifted, he'd be like, "No, I slide cars." Like he never used the word. He never wanted that. He just was his own thing. He you knew him very well. He was very humble. Yeah, like he just was you know not about creativity, but he was very humble as a driver. You know, he's very humble as a driver. And um, and then when after he passed, I mean, I was, you know, it was was fucking a horrible time. But there was a, there was a, I don't even want to use the word bittersweet because it was so bitter. But there was this little moment of where you're sitting there and you're looking at like Portia talking about him and all these people who like didn't he didn't work with who just came out and were like this was this moment, and then all of a sudden like the negativity just disappeared.
Speaker 2 1:38:41
Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:38:42
because I think it was like I think everyone took the gravity of like, okay, I could be mad that his last Jim Kona I didn't like and felt like a repetition of the previous one and whatever, and he's beating a dead horse. But when you look at the whole catalog, you're like, fuck, this was pretty. It was
Speaker 2 1:38:57
very much like you don't know what you got until it's gone. Scenario. It's very true, you know, and um,
Speaker 1 1:39:02
but yeah. So you were sitting in a hot tub with Ken,
Speaker 2 1:39:04
yeah.
Speaker 1 1:39:04
With obviously with the bubbles off because you know Ken thought it was weird to have the bubbles on the hot tub. Yeah, he definitely, which is a weird thing. No bubbles in the hot tub. Didn't have bubbles. Yeah, which is which actually I think is more weird because now you're like you can see everything. Like the bubbles kind of give you a little bit of a break, you know. But whatever. Yeah, yeah, no bubbles, hot tub. So yeah,
Speaker 2 1:39:23
yeah. He, yeah, we were out there. I was snowboarding at their their spot in Park City, and we were just chilling. And he's like, "I got an idea," and I'm like, you know, when Ken says he got an idea, it's always like, "Okay, what's coming?" And he's like, "You know, classic Mustang, all wheel drive monster." And it was really kind of all that he had to say. And I'm like, the all-wheel drive. I'm like, holy shit! Like, I never even. I'm like, I go to like engineering and how we would do it and what we do and what what it is. Like, immediately go to that part of my brain, and I'm I'm like, you know, and and we just. I'm just like excited. I'm like, yes. I'm like, what? Like, what's the vision? What's he do? Are you thinking rally car? He's like, no, tarmac. You know, and and we start talking about it, and and I'm like, you know what? And he didn't want to do '69, obviously, because I did the RTRX.
Speaker 1 1:40:15
It was also 50 years of. It was going to be 50 years of Mustang at that point, right? So it was important to stay in the 65.
Speaker 2 1:40:21
Yep, yep. So we did. So we did. You know, we we aligned on like 65, and he asked me if it was something I wanted to do, and the answer was like, "Yeah, I wanted to do it." I really didn't know how I was going to pull it off at that moment in the hot tub. You know, I knew that like I had the team. You know, at the time, obviously Ian and I were working together. We had a lot of stuff going on, though, and I was like, I don't know if this is like if we can do this, but we have to do it. Like, if Ken, it wants to build a classic Mustang, and I have to be the one to do it for him. And RTR, you know, needs to be the one to do it. Like, this is this is great for us, and also like, you know, I I knew that we could bring it to life in in the way that I know he would want it, and so you know, I um we went well back and forth a bit. It took a while to get you know the team on board with all we had going on, and then we ended up meeting in the UK, me, him, and Derek at an event at Santa Pod where we went. We were doing some drifting together. In fact, it was kind of funny because I was drifting my rear wheel drive car with his all wheel drive car at that event for the first time, and then we kind of locked in the plan to do it. And yeah, it was it was an incredible project. We went and bought like a brand new Cherry Virgin '65 Mustang and only used the outer shell of it. Sorry, everyone.
Speaker 1 1:41:47
But like those cars were not that expensive at that time. It wasn't. They definitely like that. Was like the less loved body stuff. It was like the especially like not a fast back, the Eleanor. Like that was what people wanted. The early ones, especially the notch, was not what people were interested in, and that's why Ken wanted to do it because, like, when we we talked about the different cars, because I don't know if you know this, but originally he wanted to do a Ford Maverick.
Speaker 2 1:42:11
No, he didn't mention that to me. Yeah,
Speaker 8 1:42:12
I don't know why. I don't know if
Speaker 2 1:42:13
I would have done that. Yeah, I don't know if anyone would have done it. I will say, Sung
Speaker 1 1:42:16
Kang built like a cool Ford Maverick later on. Oh yeah, I remember. Yeah, he did build that later on, but but he originally wanted to do a Ford Maverick because he wanted to just build something different, and I think he he I think he also felt that you were like in the Mustang lane, and it wasn't his lane. But when we kept talking with Ford, and you know, and this is really getting into the politics of working with an automaker, there's no reason for us to build a car they don't make anymore, right? Now the Mavericks back, but like as a different car, right? But at the
Speaker 2 1:42:44
yeah, they didn't. They wouldn't have that mindset of how the classic and just the vibe around the brand could build the collective brand. They do now,
Speaker 1 1:42:51
right? And thank
Speaker 2 1:42:52
you, probably to Ken. Yeah, yeah. But but
Speaker 1 1:42:53
we it was a lot of fighting in the beginning. They were like, "You're small car, like you do fiestas and focuses only," and we were we knew that we were not speaking to an entire audience of people because they didn't think those cars were cool.
Speaker 2 1:43:06
Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:43:06
like no matter how wide we made them and how much fire we made them spit, we knew that there was a there's a romance around the American muscle.
Speaker 2 1:43:14
Yes,
Speaker 1 1:43:15
right. And like I knew it. I had like built my Nova and was like, oh yeah, there's a different world around these things, right? So we we sat there and said, okay, this is, you know, this was the right this was the right thing, was right thing to go do, and we knew it was something that was going to like, you know, really go and expand what the what the whole world of what we were doing was. I don't think we knew how big it was going to be.
Speaker 2 1:43:38
Yeah, yeah, and you know, and so the entire project was was insane. I mean, I don't know how much really to get into, but you know the the
Speaker 1 1:43:47
is that. Let me ask him if he can hold off for 10 minutes because we got 10 minutes and he's got to go anyway. So. It's
Speaker 8 1:44:12
so cool hearing the VTS in the early, early planning stages of the moon corner. Because I just remember seeing that car. Yeah. Come out in videos, and you're like, "What is this?" Like it was bananas.
Speaker 2 1:44:27
bananas.
Speaker 1 1:44:31
All day I've been waiting for that to happen. This weekend, I was like, this dude's gonna show up, and sure enough, but he's gonna hold for a minute. So, all right.
Speaker 2 1:44:44
Yeah, and so I mean, look, you know, so immediately after that event, I went. The first thing that I did was went, and I just started like an inspiration board. Um, and and I think I've actually posted photos of that inspiration board on speed hunters when I did the build. But just a lot of vehicles, you know, I talked to. And really got his idea, and you know the vision was just this exaggerated everything. Like a real life Hot Wheels effectively was was kind of the design brief was 100%
Speaker 1 1:45:10
was like this needs to feel absurd,
Speaker 2 1:45:12
yeah,
Speaker 1 1:45:12
and it needs to be the kind of thing that a kid would want to buy in that Hot Wheels bubble pack because it had crazy proportions.
Speaker 2 1:45:19
Yep,
Speaker 1 1:45:19
like the one thing like I instantly mandated, was like the stacks have to come through the hood, and it's got to have like a just a badass like bird catcher on it because like that's cool. Yeah, even the
Speaker 2 1:45:30
shape of that, you know. Yeah, we did a lot of work
Speaker 1 1:45:32
on very like
Speaker 2 1:45:34
Mad Maxi feeling, and like, is
Speaker 1 1:45:37
it a trip to you? Because I thought about this the other day that Lindsay Ross was heavily involved. Like obviously, Lindsey and I were on the other side of that. You guys were sending us stuff. We were sending you guys stuff back. Lindsey was involved on the Hoonigan side of like helping design that car, right? I know like Andy Blackmore started it, and like we got in and we we changed WRC flares, the way the defenders bolt on, and you know did a bunch of interior stuff and so on. Scoop, and you know, then ended up like Lindsay became your main guy. Like it's kind of a funny world how that transitioned through all of that because it was this like cool collaboration of design, and then Lindsay ended up becoming the RTR guy. Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:46:11
and I really I don't remember working with Lindsay much on it. It was more because you just sent stuff over. It's because me
Speaker 1 1:46:17
and Lindsay were working together. Yeah, Ken would send us something. Like it's funny how like when you work on things like this, even though we were talking all the time, it's like a different. You would send stuff to Ken. Ken would send stuff to me. Ken sends back to me. Me and Lindsay would make a ton of notes, do that, and then we would send it back to Ken, and then Ken would send it to you. Meanwhile, me, you, and Lindsay were probably also on phone calls about other stuff. Not even talking about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it
Speaker 2 1:46:39
is it is wild, you know. And I I went to Lindsay's graduation, you know, from Art Center. I mean, I used to see his sketches at Camp Snakebite at the, you know, the Drift Party House, you know. And so then he went to Hoonigan, and but yeah, I love Lindsay. Um, and but yeah, so you know, once we find once we landed on, then it was like okay, make it reality, and like we ended up with a crazy concept, and like the metal work. I mean, you know that whole car was made in metal before we made any other stuff off of it. And so it's, I mean, it that car is truly a work of art. And you know, we obviously built it down to the wire. Literally, the team came to get the car, and it was still in pieces.
Speaker 1 1:47:20
I remember the car showed up at Hoonigan. Remember our old offices in downtown LA? Car showed up there. Ken hadn't driven it since it had no doors, right? Which was like that famous kind of him test moment. And we were filming the next morning in Chinatown in Los Angeles with like all these like statues, like a statue of Bruce Lee that was like you know all this stuff, and he got to do donuts in the parking lot next door because the parking lot at Hooney was so small. He was afraid he was going to crash the car, and we went and just stole the neighbor's parking lot in the middle of the night and did some donuts and like and went went and just ran it and the car
Speaker 2 1:47:56
ran flawless. It was
Speaker 1 1:47:56
great and like that car has always been great.
Speaker 2 1:47:59
Yeah, yeah, and I'm I'm so proud of that car. Not only
Speaker 1 1:48:03
did you know when like you guys were done with it, did you sit there and go like this thing's gonna break the internet and light the world on fire?
Speaker 2 1:48:10
Yes,
Speaker 1 1:48:11
you did. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 1:48:12
I didn't. I don't think I knew what that meant.
Speaker 1 1:48:14
Right,
Speaker 2 1:48:15
but I knew what I knew that this was like way beyond the level of the RTRX.
Speaker 1 1:48:23
Yeah, was that weird for you to build someone else a better car than the car you built for yourself? I don't have
Speaker 2 1:48:28
ego like that. I was just so proud. I mean, you still have your
Speaker 1 1:48:31
name on it. You know, Ken was
Speaker 2 1:48:32
such a brother. Like I was so proud for him to have one of our creations and that he trusted
Speaker 1 1:48:38
us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 1:48:38
And like you know, and and like that vehicle today is like you know one of our greatest create I would say our greatest creation. I mean, El Bandito I would consider like the off road unicorn at this point.
Speaker 1 1:48:51
Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:48:52
but that is our great greatest creation, and not only because of what it is, but like what Ken made it.
Speaker 1 1:48:59
Oh, the impact of he
Speaker 2 1:49:00
every time he drove that car, he did it justice. Everything I ever saw come out of that car, you know, and let alone just what it was. I mean, he I was one of the few that got to drive it, and holy shit! Still to this day, probably one of the fastest car, the fastest car I've ever driven. And then you know, Ken always, you know, to the day you know he passed, he always told me that that was his favorite car for
Speaker 1 1:49:22
sure
Speaker 2 1:49:22
in the fleet. I
Speaker 1 1:49:23
was just telling
Speaker 2 1:49:24
what that means of a guy like Ken who's had the things. You know, it's just it's an incredible accomplishment for a creator.
Speaker 1 1:49:31
Yeah, of course, it's such an amazing car. I and I think the impact the car had. Right, I mean, some of the most legendary imagery of Ken is in that car. Obviously, you know the famous moment of him sliding out to the edge at Evo Corner, right, and climb Khanna is just is just amazing, right? And you know, and and there's all these moments, but there was this, like obviously, like you know, I was, you know, there, and we were all working on this together. Together and you know seeing the renders of it and you know and seeing the early test footage, I was like, this thing's gonna be cool. But like, I'm also like putting together films, like my head's in that, right? Yeah. And I remember we went to go shoot something the next day, and you know when the car gets there, it's like the first not shoot something, we're shooting Jim Connor seven, and Ken comes around the corner, and the car is just at like an angle that like I hadn't seen because of its length, and because of like the overhang. Because we never had cars with overhang, right? Like we always had hatchbacks, right?
Speaker 2 1:50:32
Yeah.
Speaker 1 1:50:33
But the lack of a B pillar gave it this toughness, and like Ken sat where he was, and like the mask and the goggles and the thing, and I was like, "That's fucking badass!" Like I'd filmed a ton of stuff with Ken at this point, yeah. And it was this moment of like, "Ah, like that feels really cool." And like it wasn't the moment; like the car was just doing a big slide. It wasn't that the slide was cool. It was like the car had this presence. Is the presence of it? It had a presence that, like, I've never like we built other machines. We had other crazy things. I mean, the Huna truck was another crazy machine. There was something about the Hunicorn presence that I don't know if I've ever seen anyone replicate. And I realize I'm super biased because I was involved in the project, but I I just it was just stunning. And now, like, there's people building replicas. Like, I just saw the Sea Boys, which, by the way, in a previous episode, I said it wasn't their car because I, I didn't see it on their page. But yeah, Sea Boys have somebody, you know, building building a rep. They're actually doing
Speaker 2 1:51:35
a decent job. It looks really good.
Speaker 1 1:51:37
When they like, there's things I'm like, oh, that's yeah, that's where that is in that car. Like, that's where that is. Like they're they're doing it. Is that crazy to see somebody doing like a replica of something you built in in that level?
Speaker 2 1:51:48
Yeah, yeah. Because they're really they're really doing a good job. And obviously, I you know I also want to be clear. I did not hand build that car. My team did. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:51:59
yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 1:52:00
But yes,
Speaker 1 1:52:01
you were the foreman on the job. Yeah, yeah, right. Everything needs a GC, man. I mean, look, as a director, I don't hold the camera. You know, I still make the films with my team. It's the teams that make make you who you are. You know, I just
Speaker 2 1:52:13
I liked. Yeah, you want to give everybody. Not everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, for sure,
Speaker 1 1:52:16
for sure. I mean, Ian was involved. Everyone was involved. It was a big lift. Derek was involved, I mean, it was definitely a the last cross cross brand collab to get that thing to the finish line. Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:52:26
like you know the Sedev transmissions. You know, like did
Speaker 1 1:52:29
Skippy come out and Stu come out? Like they were like working in your shop. Yeah, like
Speaker 2 1:52:33
those last like two to last 48 hours of getting it ready for the shoot. Like it would not we we would have missed that shoot by two days. Had we not had all of the team, the whole rally team came out. It just you know it was a big undertaking and suppliers. I mean all the things you know, especially when you're building a a first of these vehicles. You know carbons getting pulled hot off the press. You know it's just it was a lot. And in fact, I never talked to Ken about that crunch. You know, like he was just nothing but happy with the car. Yeah, but he, I never got like I was like, hey, were you pissed at? Trust me, I
Speaker 1 1:53:06
was there with Derek the night before while we're prepping the car at 2o'clock in the morning at like the Hoonigan building, which was basically like an abandoned warehouse we squatted in. And those, you remember how gross that place was? Yeah, it was rats. Like the doors didn't close, so there was wind like coming in and out all the time. It was like chained closed. Derek was not stoked to be there, but then the car was flawless. So like we've had other cars that showed up on time and broke the whole time. You know, so I
Speaker 2 1:53:34
yeah, it
Speaker 1 1:53:34
was just I didn't realize I realized it was going to be something cool. I didn't realize how cool exactly was going to be, and now it is this like it. It is this identity that lives beyond, right? I mean, my son, who you know wasn't there in that era, unfortunately only got to meet Ken a few times. Like the unicorn is so special to him. Yeah, like it's it's this thing, and he's watched all the films I've made. He's watched a bunch of films other people have made like he loves watching that stuff, and I never told him, "Hey, the unicorn's the best out of all of it." This like he just gravitated to it. Yeah, yeah. The unicorn and monster trucks; those are two things. When the Lego when the Lego kit came out, he built a unicorn monster truck. Like he switched up the stuff, and I was like, "Ah, that's actually kind of cool." Kind of cool. But yeah, now that like that was definitely a fun one, and I was cool to see that celebrated in the book, because honestly, other than that speed hunters article that ran, like I don't think there's been a big storytelling around that car.
Speaker 2 1:54:26
Yeah, it was a great opportunity. The book is it was incredible experience. I've like dumped my brain out the Spinelli over like weeks. How was it working with Spin? It was great.
Speaker 1 1:54:38
Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:54:38
he just he he you know he extracted some thought, and then like you, I just you know, and it was great. And I I literally read every word, edited every word, and yeah, ready to ready to rock. It's out.
Speaker 1 1:54:54
You micromanaging everything crazy. Never heard of that. Well, I want to have a book. I want to make sure that it is accurate. You know.
Speaker 2 1:55:00
And sometimes when it goes from the you know from the the voice to the writer, some things get shifted. But Spinelli did incredible job, and I enjoyed the process. It was like therapy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 1:55:10
All right. I know you got to go, so we're gonna like lightning round a few things. Um, this is just me stating something. Uh, that T Pain project with with her super rad. I was so stoked to like show up at the last minute and be a part of it. You know, I got the word of what was happening the night before. It was super cool to see that. It was really rad. I can't believe he fucking blew it up, but that's perfect.
Speaker 2 1:55:33
Wasn't his fault. It
Speaker 1 1:55:34
wasn't.
Speaker 2 1:55:34
No, no. We had a we had an issue with fuel delivery.
Speaker 1 1:55:39
Oh,
Speaker 2 1:55:40
super freak thing. I mean, no, you know, Payne's car has the same exact setup. We've had zero problems with his car, but you know, was it
Speaker 1 1:55:48
something dumb like a sensor issue or something? No,
Speaker 2 1:55:50
it was. We're still looking at it, but we think there was.
Speaker 1 1:55:56
So it just it just it just leaned out was the wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:55:58
leaned out one of the banks. We think it was either a lift pump, or it's something that we've been using in those cars that we haven't used in my demo cars. And part of us is wondering if, because of how hard hurts flicking it, something is something was was losing fuel when it was a little bit lower than it should have been, even though there was a surge tank in it. So we're working through it. We've already got it's already sorted. I mean, he's been ripping it now. Yeah, yeah. But um, yeah, it's kind of it's kind
Speaker 1 1:56:29
of his luck though, because like he was. We always joked that he was like the official Hoonigan torture like tester, and like we also used to joke that he was the pre-breaker because he would drive a car and then you would get back in it and it would instantly break. You'd be like, "What?" He's like, "I didn't do it." I'm like, "No, you knew the exact moment to get out of this car." Yeah, and he is,
Speaker 2 1:56:46
and like,
Speaker 1 1:56:46
I mean, he's a stigma.
Speaker 2 1:56:48
Just no, yeah, he drove Lucy's
Speaker 1 1:56:50
Bronco, caught it on fire. Like everything he did was like it was always just a world of you know. We need to shift his mindset
Speaker 2 1:56:57
and the energy he's brought in. Yeah, yeah, he's
Speaker 1 1:56:59
he's great. But
Speaker 9 1:57:00
it was
Speaker 2 1:57:00
dude. He shredded that
Speaker 1 1:57:02
car. I was so impressed. I if you would have if I was in that situation, someone was like, "Here's this thing, and there's 20,000 people at this track, and now everyone's
Speaker 2 1:57:12
Laguna Seca,
Speaker 1 1:57:13
and it's Laguna, which is a wild track that you have very little seat time at, and there's a everyone's watching you now because you you were the biggest story of Grid Life that weekend, in my opinion. Oh yeah. And everyone's watching you. I would have been like, guys, I'm gonna get some practice time in with this. I'll see you guys at the next Grid Life. Let's park it. And he was like, Nah, let's go fucking rip it. And I was like, All right, that's hurt. Like, I mean, that's what you expect from him is just like, Yay.
Speaker 2 1:57:38
I pre planned. I was trying to get him see time. Payne's like, Nah, he'll be good. I'm like, are you sure? I'm like Payne. This is a big boy track. Yeah, and a big boy car. And I mean, you even said
Speaker 1 1:57:46
earlier your step up to go drive the first ASD Mustang was like, holy fuck. Yeah, and dude, he when he
Speaker 2 1:57:52
got the track, he's like, dude, I feel like this car was built for you, for me. I was like, well, it was, but I can't believe how good you're driving it. Yeah, no, he said it just does everything. He
Speaker 1 1:58:00
got up to speed so quick. It was incredible. I mean, he's been driving around broken cars most of his life. Like
Speaker 2 1:58:05
he deserves the torque. The
Speaker 1 1:58:06
torque stallion is a is like a nightmare of a car. I know, and I've had to work on that car to do.
Speaker 2 1:58:13
We were able to make this happen.
Speaker 1 1:58:15
Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:58:16
because he deserves it, and he showed why he deserved it. Yeah, yeah. That man. I don't. I mean, I don't know that he has plans to do it, but he will be really good if he wanted to go compete.
Speaker 1 1:58:25
Yeah, no, I think I think it'd be cool to see him do it to see the
Speaker 2 1:58:28
pressure come on. Yeah, I don't know about
Speaker 1 1:58:29
that part. Would be really interesting, but it was cool to see all that. And I we had I had a bet with a bunch of the guys on like you know Nappy Boy team and everything of like is he gonna cry or not? They're like you ain't gonna cry, and I'm like that boy's gonna cry. Yes, I know this. I knew he was going to, and it was like, all right, yeah, I saw that, and that it's a moment you should. It was a really special moment. It was cool to see. It really stoked me out. It like made me like you have those moments in the scene where you have this, and you're like, I love this community. Like it was just one of those like, and I was I was happy to be there for it. It was it was really cool. I'm glad you were there too. Yeah, it was really rad. But yeah, so yeah, I don't know if we'll get through a lightning round because we only got like two minutes left. But I wanted to bring up something because I think this is a factoid that like often gets dropped out. But I was thinking about this the other day. We were talking about like history of Hoonigan. You know that you are the you are the second athlete behind Ken to have been signed to Hangan.
Speaker 10 1:59:25
He
Speaker 1 1:59:26
only stuck around for like a year or so, which I get now. But in the beginning, like you were that guy.
Speaker 2 1:59:31
Well, Ken, Ken, I give you. We can do a couple more minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I went to the recce with with Ken in New York, he presented me Hoon again, and um, and yeah, that's no, that is crazy. So I was after Ken. That's interesting.
Speaker 1 1:59:51
Yeah, because I was like telling someone else a story about it, and I was like, because we were like talking about like early roster, and like you know, I think a lot of people it was so. Long ago, the key kind of people forget that like all of DA was on Hoonigan for a few years, right? And there was like this whole era of that. But most people now they're they're they think of Hurt and Vinny. They think of sort of of like the post athlete era, right? Right, where we weren't doing that. But in the beginning, it was like there was like you, and then obviously, then Ryan was next, and then like B.J. Baldwin. There was like a couple people who all kind of came in in that early era, and yeah. And it's funny because I someone once asked me, they were like, "Why did Vaughn leave Hoonigan?" And I said, "I was like, we left." I was like, "It was the most amicable breakup I've ever had of any relationship I was in." And I remember I was like sitting in the kitchen. You weren't there with me, but we were on the phone, and I think both of us just had this like we're both trying to build something here,
Speaker 2 2:00:46
yeah.
Speaker 1 2:00:47
And like we got it probably makes more sense to do it apart because like you were heavy on RTR,
Speaker 2 2:00:52
yeah,
Speaker 1 2:00:53
and doing the team, and like we were heavy on trying to do what we were doing, and it was like there was this clash moment, and you're like, yeah, man, I don't know. Like, we want to do this. I want to do this. Like, we can all still like figure out how to do things together and do that and do whatever. And I remember being like, "All right, let's see how this works out." But it did.
Speaker 2 2:01:10
I think it was like two years. I think it was two years. Stuff together. I mean,
Speaker 1 2:01:13
I'm stoked because a lot of times we
Speaker 2 2:01:14
still flirted and did stuff. We just did stuff together,
Speaker 1 2:01:16
but it was it was definitely the moment where it was like you had to go build RTR and I had to go build Tune again, and like we were both like, not that we were well, we bump heads because we're very similar in ways, but like not in a bad way. But like I think it was one of those moments where like, hey, we're both doing this, and like you need to be focused here, and I need to be focused here, and that's just kind of yeah. I
Speaker 2 2:01:34
had zero hard feelings. It got it also kind of got around that time was when like another group was getting involved, and everything was kind of splitting out. It was Wasserman, I think, was getting involved in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1 2:01:46
Wasserman had been involved, but they were becoming more involved. It was just kind of getting different. Yeah, well, we were growing. Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, at that point, we weren't making money, so I never
Speaker 2 2:01:55
felt anything negative about
Speaker 1 2:01:57
it at all. And not to bring up as a bad thing, but I just think it's a thing that's like forgotten that you have this history in the team in the early years. Like I have photos of your RTRX sitting next to my 911 at like you know at the Hoonigan like you know t-shirt sale. Do you
Speaker 2 2:02:14
remember coming to the Ford plant when I did that video and we did the sticker drop video? The tire slayer, yeah,
Speaker 1 2:02:21
Tire Slayer thing. Yeah, I totally forgot about that. With all, yeah, like, yeah, just but like, it's so much has happened in so many years. Like, honestly, half the stuff that you mentioned about the road trip, I was like, oh yeah, I forgot we did. Like the world record thing, I remembered as you were talking. I was like, what a weird thing to forget. I mean, it was also because it was like kind of a joke, but it was still like, yeah, we went and did that. We did that. That snow the next day. So, anyway, super fun to have you here. You're not competing this weekend. Oh, you are. Oh, by the time people listen to this, it'll have already happened. But yeah, they
Speaker 2 2:02:51
already know that I. Are you? Yeah. Is it interesting?
Speaker 1 2:02:54
Are you? And don't take that from Ryan Turk. I ain't gonna give it to him. Yeah, that's good. That's good. You know, I
Speaker 2 2:03:01
crashed last year going against him.
Speaker 1 2:03:04
Yeah, yeah. Do you still enjoy? Do you? Let me ask. This is my last question. Do you enjoy competing now more that you're not in the championship?
Speaker 2 2:03:13
I love it.
Speaker 1 2:03:14
Yeah, because you could just go as hard as you want,
Speaker 2 2:03:16
dude. I just show you just fuck
Speaker 1 2:03:17
other people's day up. Dude, I just show
Speaker 2 2:03:20
up and drive as hard as I can and just enjoy every moment because our new our cars are such animals.
Speaker 1 2:03:25
Yeah,
Speaker 2 2:03:26
and I just you know I haven't driven it since Atlanta.
Speaker 1 2:03:29
Yeah,
Speaker 2 2:03:29
um, and I'm excited to reacquaint. Yeah, and just do my best for those 12 practice laps and see what ends up happening. So,
Speaker 1 2:03:40
and I mean,
Speaker 2 2:03:41
no pressure, just
Speaker 1 2:03:42
yeah,
Speaker 2 2:03:43
just fun.
Speaker 1 2:03:44
Is it? It must have you gotten to go up against James in battles when you're out there? Like, I mean, I
Speaker 2 2:03:50
beat him in Atlanta this year.
Speaker 1 2:03:51
Right? Okay. How in the
Speaker 2 2:03:52
finals?
Speaker 1 2:03:53
That must be like a fun thing as the team boss. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 2:03:56
Oh yeah. Yeah. And I've not beat James yet. I think we only prior to that battle, two times.
Speaker 1 2:04:02
That dude's a machine.
Speaker 2 2:04:03
Dude, he's unbelievable. He is unbelievable. Speaking of mental game, he doesn't have any. He just does. He's got no strategy, no nothing. I mean, he does something. He has to, but he like not consciously to have a process.
Speaker 1 2:04:18
Yeah, when he was on when he was on Hun again, I did a ride along with him, and I had been in so many drift carts at that point. And it was like it was him and Piotr, and like they they just draw. They they're such good dancing partners that it just felt like a different experience, like being with the two of them together. Because it was like holy shit, the ability there. Yeah, that's someone I need to get on the pod. Maybe he'll stay on Monday. We can include him then. He'd love that. Yeah, I love James. He's great, but he's also tall, and I, you know, you always gotta, you always gotta root for the other super weird, freakishly giant people in motorsport. So him, me, Dan Gurney, you know, you you want
Speaker 2 2:04:51
to know something? I want to go talk about this with tall people. You know what I've noticed with being with James? So many people like look at him and are like, "Wow, you're.". You're so tall. How do you not hit your head? Like all of these, like tall things. And the thing I've realized, first of all, it's really annoying to it's really annoying to him. I say that because it got like, but I'm like, what is it about being tall that it's okay to talk about their body as like this thing? You would never go to like a 500 pound person, be like, "How did you fit through the door?" You know what I mean? Like, you would never do that. I know. How is it like? And the only thing I come to my mind is like, "Well, I guess like being tall is like something that many people want to be." Right. So it's like
Speaker 1 2:05:34
it's not a wow. Your
Speaker 2 2:05:35
face is so beautiful. You know what I mean? Like it's not seen as like a negative thing, but for like someone that lives with that every day, it's got to be annoying.
Speaker 1 2:05:45
Trust me, when you fly, like I used to have this saying that when we were at Hoonigan, we were we were coach seat famous, which was like everybody knew who we were, but we still flyed coach everywhere because we didn't have the money to fly first. It was like you might get you might run into people who knew you, but it didn't matter. You were flying coach, and like the amount of times where I would like sit in a middle seat on a flight, and somebody would just walk past and be like, "Oh my God, you you're a giant. You barely fit in that seat." And I'm like, "I know, thanks." You wouldn't say it to someone who was like overweight. Why do we got two seats? You know, I would
Speaker 2 2:06:17
never do that. I don't know.
Speaker 1 2:06:19
Yeah, no, it's one of those things. I also have had random people just want to take photos with me, like oh, like like especially short girls always want to take photos with tall guys, and I'm always get like stopped in the street, and she's like, I just want to take a photo with you, and then like hands the phone to her boyfriend. I'm like, yeah, this isn't weird. Like I'm telling you right now, your boyfriend's not stoked about this whole. He's pretending that this is okay, but like I'm, I'm telling you, I don't. You don't want this because this one's happened to me with Shaq, where I felt short. Nah, you don't want
Speaker 2 2:06:49
to do.
Speaker 1 2:06:51
Anyway, dude, thank you so much for coming on. I'm gonna let you go do whatever you gotta do tonight. But yeah, it was good to catch up.
Speaker 2 2:06:57
You too.
Speaker 1 2:06:57
Like it's weird that we had to do it on camera, but it was nice to chat and actually hear some things I never heard from you before. Love you, man. Appreciate it too, dude. Man, it's good to see you. And hopefully, we can get the families together at some point in the future. It's been it's been way too long as we all grow up and got too busy. I agree. Yeah, we need to do
Speaker 2 2:07:12
that.
Speaker 1 2:07:13
You need to come back next time you're out. Bring you back on for another show idea because we do different things here. We do like arguments, and I think you'll be good. And I think you. I think I know you enough to know you. You like a good argument. What are you trying to say? We do a show called. I don't
Speaker 2 2:07:25
think so.
Speaker 1 2:07:26
I don't think so at all. No, we do a show called Firing Order, where it's all about ranking the best of things. So that'll be great. And oh, I just remembered one last thing I wanted to ask you, but I don't know. We'll do it later.
Speaker 10 2:07:39
All right.
Speaker 1 2:07:40
Yeah. Just go. Just do it. All right, here, real quick. You were one of the first people to sort of really push the a domestic car into drifting. Yes, reset the Pontiac, but like you really sort of embraced the community. How crazy is it for you now to look at drifting and see Corvettes dominate like grassroots events? Like, is it and and to see a lot of Mustangs out there, but you did the Mustang thing. But to see the landscape of the space shift, where like guys aren't really drifting 240s anymore. Obviously, it's an older car; it's more expensive. But the Corvette has become one of those cars, and I realize it's outside your brand. No, whatever. But it it is it has a lot to say about like American adoption of sport.
Speaker 2 2:08:23
Yeah, I mean, I think people just got well. First of all, 240s got expensive, but they realized what we already instead of importing stuff, what we already had. Yeah, that is great for it. And you know, I mean, I was just at Holly Ford Fest, and the amount of mustangs there. I mean, there was like 35 mustangs, you know, and it's like it it's incredible, and I think yeah, more of that. Like I love seeing that how we're taking American engineering. Not that I have anything against Japanese or European cars, but I think it's great. Like it's it is the modern day of hot rodding. Yeah, you know what I mean. That's that's what this is like. This is the hot rodding that our parents were doing, except we're doing it with drifting.
Speaker 1 2:08:57
Yeah, it's funny when we we when Hoonigan bought its first c5 vet for like just a yard car. The joke was, yeah, we bought it because it was already LS swapped. It was like, yeah, it already was. But no, I I think I love like that to me is this huge conversation in drifting, which is like the cars that we all talked about. Because I'll talk to domestic car guys all the time, and they talk about drifting, and they still think it's like FDRX sevens with rotaries. I'm like, have you been to a drift event, dude? Like, trust me, it's like a lot of V8s, and it's a lot of Fords, and a lot of Chevys, and things you don't even realize are like showing up anymore. So, anyway, thank you for the encore question. That's like when the band comes back out. It wasn't a big one; it just was one that was in my head. I forgot. Thank you, ADHD. But yeah, thanks, Jar. Thanks
Speaker 4 2:09:50
for coming on. The mailbox is full and cannot accept any messages at this time. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Speaker 1 2:10:04
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 9 2:10:15
That was rude, but go on.
Speaker 1 2:10:17
Did I tell you what I did this weekend?
Speaker 9 2:10:18
What did you do?
Speaker 1 2:10:19
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 9 2:10:28
It's not something I think of when I think of you, dude.
Speaker 1 2:10:31
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. Heatwave just created my favorite sunglasses of all time: the Easy Rider photochromic. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I've learned to really value what yellow lenses can do for your vision when you're driving at night in your 40s. And look, I get it. Yellow lenses they can be a little dorky unless you're cosplaying as the operator from Sicario. But with these, they actually transition to look like regular shades in the sunlight, letting you stealthily blend right in. So anyway, thanks Heat Wave for making these for me, I guess they actually made them for everybody. Go find yours at heatwavevisual.com. Hey, if you're into older analog cars like me, then you might not know that these days the suspension actually talks to a computer. But KW knows and has sorted Porsche 997 and 991 owners with their new DDC plug-and-play coilover system, which integrates seamlessly with Porsche's active suspension management, aka PASM. Historically, installing aftermarket coilovers meant you lost the ability to toggle between suspension modes, rendering that switch on the dash useless. With KW's new system, you get to have your cake and eat it too. Factory controls and a 911 that rides on rails. Find yours at kwsuspensions.com. Have you ever questioned why only sockets are privileged enough to get asked to dance by the breaker bar? I mean, seriously, so many other tools could benefit from part-snapping leverage. Our favorite German tool company Wera has solved this conundrum with their new X Power Actuator. What is it, you ask? It's basically a long bar that accepts a ton of different inserts, which range from the Joker self-adjusting wrenches to ratchets, bit drivers, and even a weldable blank insert. You know, so you can make your own unholy creation. Ultimate fan clutch tool. Anyone see all the batshit things they make for this wild mechanical implement at Wearatools.com.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai