Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From GTOs to G-Wagens: Drew Andrews’ Journey to Off-Road Obsession

Transcript

From GTOs to G-Wagens: Drew Andrews’ Journey to Off-Road Obsession · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Grand Touring Motorsports started as a social group of car enthusiasts,
• 0:04
  but we've expanded into all sorts of motorsports disciplines, and we
• 0:08
  want to share our stories with you.
• 0:10
  Years of racing, wrenching, and motorsports experience brings
• 0:13
  together a top notch collection of knowledge and information
• 0:17
  through our podcast, Brake Fix.
• 0:22
  Boulders, trees, mud, ruts, and sleeping under the stars.
• 0:27
  That's right.
• 0:27
  That's the recipe for off roading.
• 0:30
  And tonight we return to the road less traveled with our special guest and
• 0:33
  former GTM member David Drew Andrews.
• 0:37
  And as always, I'm your host, Brad, and I'm Eric.
• 0:40
  So let's roll.
• 0:41
  Welcome to the show, Drew.
• 0:42
  Hey, so Drew, back when we met, you know, back in the before
• 0:46
  times, you had a Pontiac GTO.
• 0:48
  We used to sport around that thing and you were big into sports cars,
• 0:52
  drag racing and all sorts of stuff.
• 0:54
  But how did you end up in off roading?
• 0:56
  I'm from North Carolina and North Carolina has a massive zoo.
• 1:00
  Off road community down there.
• 1:02
  And I'm from Western North Carolina and a little town called Black Mountain,
• 1:07
  which is a suburb of Asheville.
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  My dad had me in that bad boy in a, in a baby seat going off road in
• 1:13
  the woods on 6, 000 foot mountains.
• 1:17
  Yeah.
• 1:17
  Yeah.
• 1:18
  So I'd say I got into it at a really young age, but you were driving around
• 1:24
  in sports cars for the longest time.
• 1:26
  So how did you make the transition back to off roading?
• 1:29
  Well.
• 1:29
  I tell people I never really left off roading.
• 1:32
  I still had a love for it.
• 1:35
  I just didn't have the money for it.
• 1:37
  And it was either one or the other sports car or off road.
• 1:42
  You can never do both.
• 1:44
  Well, When you get older, that credit score get up.
• 1:53
  I always had a love for off roading and also it was the company I kept
• 1:57
  at the time we all were into like.
• 2:02
  One upping each other.
• 2:03
  So started out with like little Honda civics and then upgraded to Integra.
• 2:09
  Now that was the early fast and furious days.
• 2:13
  So those imports were extremely popular in the early two thousands.
• 2:19
  I bucked the mold.
• 2:21
  I was all about American muscle, but a different kind of muscle.
• 2:26
  So I had a Pontiac GTP.
• 2:28
  Oh, the three, eight.
• 2:30
  Yeah.
• 2:31
  Supercharged three, eight.
• 2:33
  And I mean, it, it kind of ripped out of the factory, but once you started
• 2:38
  like upgrading the supercharger pulley, cold air intake, MSD, ignition, all that
• 2:44
  good stuff, uh, I surprised the hell out of some of these Eclipse GSX owners.
• 2:50
  They're like, Whoa, this thing is fast.
• 2:53
  Yeah, I think it was fun wheel drive too.
• 2:56
  Fun wheel drive.
• 2:57
  All I heard, all I heard that description was cha ching, cha ching, cha ching.
• 3:03
  A little bit, you know, put pennies here and there into it
• 3:08
  and slow and steady wins the race.
• 3:11
  But then you jump to the goat, right?
• 3:13
  And I, I remember riding in that car and that thing was awesome.
• 3:16
  And the goat was still new back then too.
• 3:18
  So yeah.
• 3:19
  Yeah.
• 3:20
  It's a shame that that platform didn't get the love it deserved.
• 3:24
  That was a extremely well built car.
• 3:27
  The GTO was not an American car, but it had American horsepower.
• 3:33
  The generation I had, had the LS two, but the 2004 model had the, uh, LS
• 3:38
  one, which to this day has so many directions you can go with the upgrades.
• 3:45
  But yeah, my GTO had a LS two.
• 3:47
  I really liked my generation because it was less boring
• 3:51
  looking, less jelly beanie.
• 3:53
  Uh, . , that's a good way to put it.
• 3:56
  I ain't gonna lie, that thing looked like a jelly bean.
• 3:58
  laughs But it was, it was my sexy jelly bean.
• 4:02
  But yeah, Eric, you're right.
• 4:04
  Cause I remember I bought that and I brought it to the,
• 4:07
  uh, office brand spankin new.
• 4:09
  Back in the day cafe.
• 4:12
  But anyways We had that thing sideways more than once, man.
• 4:15
  laughs It had some soft suspension.
• 4:18
  I know those cars were not, were not very, uh, stiff.
• 4:22
  Actually, believe it or not, I mean, compared to what you guys are used to
• 4:26
  it, it was soft, but out the factory, it had a very competent suspension
• 4:31
  and it was a very basic suspension.
• 4:33
  It wasn't like, I don't think the rear had a double wishbone in
• 4:36
  the rear or anything like that.
• 4:38
  It was just, no, but it was, it was IRS though.
• 4:41
  Yeah, it was IRS.
• 4:42
  Yeah.
• 4:42
  And I test drove one.
• 4:43
  I test drove an Oh five.
• 4:45
  I was looking to buy, but you know what it did have?
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  It had an exhaust.
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  It would rip your ears off.
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  And it had 400 horsepower.
• 4:53
  10 years ago.
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  That's like, that was.
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  Some serious horsepower.
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  Now you ain't even, you ain't sneezing on that unless you have
• 5:00
  anything less than five 30 now.
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  Now Camry's come to 400.
• 5:05
  So from there, you had a couple of eight eights.
• 5:08
  I know that.
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  And you have one now.
• 5:10
  I know that as well.
• 5:12
  Oh, yeah, that's right.
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  Sorry.
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  Essays.
• 5:14
  My apologies.
• 5:15
  Oh, you got an S8 too?
• 5:17
  Yeah, I have a couple S8s.
• 5:18
  Your car history sounds very similar to mine.
• 5:21
  I had a 01 S8, I had a fourth gen Camaro, two fourth gen Camaros.
• 5:26
  I started with a Honda Civic.
• 5:27
  I mean, come on now.
• 5:28
  Okay.
• 5:29
  Maybe it's a big guy thing.
• 5:31
  So from there, I know you went, you know, kind of left the sports car
• 5:34
  world, went back to off roading, and you ended up with a Jeep Commander.
• 5:37
  Yeah.
• 5:37
  Which is Different because most guys that are into Jeeps either do Wranglers
• 5:42
  or Grand Cherokees or stuff like that.
• 5:44
  So you ended up with the Commander and I know you had a big love for that car.
• 5:48
  And I don't remember its nickname or its name, but you'll, you'll fill me in there.
• 5:53
  Her name was USS Black Axe.
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  So let's talk about what drew you to the commander, how you had that thing built
• 6:06
  out, what you did with it, and then what inevitably ended up happening to it, which
• 6:09
  was tragic, but we'll get to that point.
• 6:11
  So let's let's talk about the beginning there.
• 6:14
  Before the commander, actually, my dad gave me his Jeep XJ.
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  It was a Cherokee.
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  It'd been in my family since I was 14 years old.
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  I grew up learning how to drive.
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  It was a, it was not the four Oh, it was like the 2.
• 6:27
  8 liter with a five speed.
• 6:29
  And it didn't have the horsepower to get out of its own way.
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  But when you put that thing in four low, I was crawling up stuff that, you
• 6:38
  know, these guys would, I love them.
• 6:41
  The Toyota guys, Oh, the FJ is the only vehicle that can go throughout Moab.
• 6:48
  Stop, shut up.
• 6:51
  That thing is crawling up hills and you breaking axles.
• 6:55
  So ultimately.
• 6:58
  I'm 6'3 and at the time I was banging on like 280 pounds.
• 7:05
  I did not fit in the Diagon XJ.
• 7:09
  It was a joke.
• 7:10
  Like, people would like clown me at my office before I met you, Eric,
• 7:14
  and would be like, you ain't got no business being in that little thing.
• 7:19
  So, I was like, okay.
• 7:21
  I agree.
• 7:22
  So I did some research and I started looking around other vehicles and
• 7:28
  good old fashioned me, everybody and their mother has either a Toyota
• 7:34
  four runner or a Jeep Wrangler.
• 7:37
  And I didn't like.
• 7:40
  The whole, you're either part of this faction or you're a part of that faction.
• 7:44
  So I said, I'm going to up in this crap.
• 7:47
  I'm gonna go against the trend here.
• 7:48
  I'm a, I'm a do something illegal.
• 7:51
  I'm gonna get an I F S on a SUV.
• 7:55
  And I was scared cause I was looking up under it and I'm like, I went to go look
• 8:00
  at it and I was like, wow, this thing actually has legit hardware up under here.
• 8:06
  And then I started doing research on the different four wheel drive systems.
• 8:10
  And just because you have four wheel drive, they are not all created equal.
• 8:15
  As you know, in the all wheel drive, Industry with the sports cars.
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  So my must haves was it needed to have a heavy duty transfer
• 8:26
  case, a heavy duty rear end and a hopefully a decent front end.
• 8:30
  If it's IFS, you're going to blow stuff up.
• 8:33
  Anyways, I started reading the different four wheel drive systems.
• 8:36
  And so Jeep has these really cool.
• 8:39
  Systems that I believe are the best in the world, all the way from rock
• 8:45
  track, which is what the Wranglers have to the quadrature track systems that
• 8:51
  the, uh, and WK twos, the, the grand Cherokees and the commander at the time.
• 8:57
  And then they had like.
• 8:59
  An extreme version called quadra drive two and they had quadra drive one.
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  So quadra drive one was basically quadra track, but it had a
• 9:10
  low gear in the transfer case.
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  Quadra track has no low gear.
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  It's just legit all wheel drive with traction control.
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  Very stressful on the transmission transmission.
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  If you try to off road it and you have the quadra drive two system.
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  Which builds on quadra drive one, but adds in trick differential.
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  So it has the ability to lock.
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  Now the misconception is people don't understand quadra drive too.
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  So they're like, Oh, it's not a real locking differential.
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  The thing is it is a real locking differential because when you open a
• 9:45
  differential that has lockers on them, there is a solenoid that literally locks.
• 9:53
  Both have shafts together and they rotate at the same time and they can't deviate.
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  So the QuadraDrive 2 system has that, except instead of it being
• 10:03
  like air actuated or electronic actuated, it's clutch pack actuated.
• 10:10
  Yeah.
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  So you get pressure in the fluid and those plates stick together
• 10:15
  in the differential locks.
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  So that's how QuadraDrive does its trickery.
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  Now, what's really nice about QuadraDrive is it's a point and shoot system.
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  I never had to say, Oh, let me lock the center.
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  Let me lock the rear.
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  Let me lock the front.
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  The system would detect wheel slip and engage each differential individually.
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  That was what was really nice about it.
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  So anybody who's off roaded knows it's a bear to turn.
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  your SUV or your Jeep when all differentials are locked.
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  With the quadra drive, it could detect that you were turning and it would
• 10:50
  unlock the front differential even if you were in the middle of a climb.
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  I looked into that and I was like, okay, that's really cool.
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  I might be able to do something with this.
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  Cause people are going to lose their shit when they see what this thing can do.
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  And that's how I ended up landing on the Jeep commander overland.
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  So what did you end up doing to it after you got it?
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  Cause obviously you can only run it stock for so long when you're off roading.
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  So what kind of upgrades did you end up doing to the commander?
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  I started out with two and a half inch, what you call a puck lift.
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  So basically, uh, the spacer fits in between.
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  The body and the spring and functionally lifts the vehicle up,
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  but you're still on stock springs and shocks and stuff like that.
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  Now, when you lift the vehicle, we lift the body higher.
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  You are then allowed to put larger tires on, and you want the larger
• 11:46
  tires because that's an added.
• 11:48
  Lift as well.
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  So you go from having a 28, 29 inch tire, which is like a two to 65,
• 11:55
  65 or something like that, and then you upgrade it to a two, I want to
• 12:01
  say 275 70 or something like that.
• 12:04
  I can't remember.
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  No, two 65 70, which is I think 30 inch tire.
• 12:10
  Of course you go off road, you test your upgrades and you realize you want more.
• 12:17
  And so, so I realized my approach and departure angles were crap.
• 12:22
  And my bumpers are plastic . So next thing I had to upgrade was my bumpers.
• 12:28
  You know me, I'm mean all out.
• 12:30
  I bought both bumpers at the same damn time.
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  Two grand a pop.
• 12:35
  . I was gonna say, you only need to have one really bad, uh, departure
• 12:39
  angle, and then it's fixed.
• 12:40
  . Yep.
• 12:41
  It, there you go.
• 12:42
  The bumper's gone.
• 12:43
  Yeah, not, not a problem.
• 12:45
  I started realizing that even though the commander had like legit hardware
• 12:51
  to make it a decent off roader, I can see where the bean counters kicked in,
• 12:56
  in the development of this vehicle, because they were, they would put stuff
• 13:01
  that had no business being exposed.
• 13:04
  On an off road vehicle.
• 13:05
  So the commander, my particular version had rear AC and guess where they
• 13:10
  ran the AC lines directly under the passenger door exposed, not covered.
• 13:17
  And then up through the wheel well into the engine bay.
• 13:21
  And so when I started digging things out, taking the liner inside the
• 13:26
  wheel well, I was like, how did they get a plastic trash bag in here?
• 13:31
  I'm not kidding.
• 13:31
  It was like a trash bag full of styrofoam.
• 13:34
  And I'm.
• 13:35
  I'm like, Oh man, this thing is, Oh.
• 13:38
  So I ended up having a guy devise me a bash plate for the rear AC line.
• 13:44
  So if I ever banged on a rock, I don't crush my AC because if that rear AC goes
• 13:50
  out, it goes out for the entire thing.
• 13:53
  That's how they were interconnected.
• 13:54
  They weren't separate units, but anyways, got the bumper on there.
• 13:58
  That was an all day, uh, job.
• 14:01
  Because of course, for whatever reason, they're not good.
• 14:05
  Like design wise, like the Wranglers are like the Wranglers are designed to, you
• 14:10
  know, um, bullshit bullshit back on there.
• 14:13
  Whereas my big old hands was reaching behind and under the,
• 14:18
  the body to, to start the bolt.
• 14:21
  And it was just, it was a nightmare.
• 14:23
  I took that time to get a winch.
• 14:24
  So winch is very important for recovery recommend that people don't go out.
• 14:31
  Without a proper recovery plan.
• 14:34
  And there are different recovery tools, but I'm sure we'll get into that later.
• 14:39
  But anyways, I took that time to bolt on a 12, 000 pound winch.
• 14:43
  I upgraded my lift to a four inch super lift.
• 14:46
  So that then required some real surgery on the vehicle.
• 14:51
  And it took about a week for them to install everything.
• 14:54
  Cause they were like, dude, why are you always bringing us the
• 14:57
  weirdest platforms to work on?
• 14:59
  And it's like, I've never seen a commander lifted before.
• 15:02
  That's literally what my shop guy told me.
• 15:04
  And he was like, but we're going to make it work, you know?
• 15:07
  So.
• 15:08
  So at that point, the vehicle was substantially higher when I got the
• 15:12
  four inch lift on it and put the 35s on.
• 15:15
  So I had 35, 12 and a half 17s.
• 15:18
  Eric, have you seen any of my videos?
• 15:20
  Cause I'm literally the only guy in the world that offroads a commander.
• 15:27
  So I have a ton of YouTube videos.
• 15:29
  We'll link some in the show notes so people can check it out.
• 15:32
  Yeah.
• 15:32
  Yeah.
• 15:33
  It's literally hilarious because people are videotaping
• 15:36
  and they're talking mad shit.
• 15:38
  They're like, Oh, he has no business being out here.
• 15:41
  His it's, it's funny.
• 15:42
  And then he's like, Oh, he doesn't have to flex to get up that thing.
• 15:45
  And she just walks right up.
• 15:48
  Some of the steepest, most difficult obstacles.
• 15:53
  And my whole point of that was to prove that IFS is out the box, might not have
• 15:59
  the same articulation as a straight axle, but when you have the right setup and you
• 16:06
  know what you're doing and you have to change your driving style, it is just as
• 16:09
  capable, it's not as sexy looking, but.
• 16:13
  It gets the job done.
• 16:15
  And that was, that was the point of that.
• 16:17
  So I put the 35s on there, had the rear bumper winch, and then I started
• 16:23
  blowing up half shafts in the front.
• 16:25
  And that's when I was like, Oh, this is going to be a problem.
• 16:29
  If I got to do surgery on the trail, every time I do a difficult job.
• 16:34
  So I ended up going online and started meeting a lot of people from around
• 16:39
  the world, talking to them like, uh, the Australians, man, they are.
• 16:43
  Amazing group of people to reference for off road ideas and, uh, best
• 16:49
  practices and stuff like that, that those guys they're on another level.
• 16:53
  But anyways, there was a guy who had a really popular grand Cherokee
• 16:58
  that was having the same problems.
• 16:59
  And he found a company called RCV, which is an American company that
• 17:04
  literally makes bulletproof half shafts.
• 17:08
  And they're like a Burfield axle.
• 17:11
  I don't know.
• 17:12
  I don't know if you're familiar with Burfield, but Burfields, uh, if you
• 17:15
  look at like in cars, the CV is like what three or four balls in a ring and
• 17:22
  that's how, and they're interconnected through the splines that allow it
• 17:26
  to be like a continuously variable.
• 17:28
  Joint.
• 17:29
  Joint.
• 17:30
  There we go.
• 17:30
  And, um, but Burfields are different in the sense that they have those same parts,
• 17:37
  but instead of a soft, rubbery, oily cover to protect it, it's a massive steel
• 17:44
  cage that contains the outward pressure that happens when the axle is under load
• 17:51
  and you try to turn the steering wheel.
• 17:54
  So that steel, that steel cage.
• 17:57
  Is literally holding those balls in place as you're turning.
• 18:02
  And I'd never blew up another axle ever again.
• 18:06
  And I did even crazier stuff.
• 18:08
  So it's almost like a reinforced CV joint.
• 18:11
  Yeah, that's exactly what it is.
• 18:12
  Well, that sounds similar to the axles that we have on our cars.
• 18:15
  Like they've got those steel cages too.
• 18:18
  Yeah, we're, we're, we run drag axles for road racing because they're a lot stronger
• 18:22
  and they can, but they, they do that by using a combination of beefier parts from
• 18:26
  other vehicles and all that kind of stuff.
• 18:28
  It's, it's, but I'd be really curious to look into the stuff
• 18:31
  you're talking about because I could see an application for that.
• 18:34
  And I got some ideas.
• 18:35
  Gears are always turning.
• 18:36
  Let me ask you a question real quick though.
• 18:39
  Yeah, sure.
• 18:40
  So I'm assuming that the front suspension and the front componentry
• 18:45
  of the commander is similar to.
• 18:47
  The W.
• 18:47
  K.
• 18:48
  Ones.
• 18:49
  Has anybody tried to retrofit a solid axle under one of those?
• 18:54
  Actually, the W.
• 18:56
  K.
• 18:56
  Ones and the X.
• 18:58
  K.
• 18:58
  S are actually sister and brother.
• 19:01
  They're twins.
• 19:02
  There's no difference between the two platforms other than
• 19:05
  the body was longer than the W.
• 19:07
  K.
• 19:08
  And a little bit wider and it weighed more, but the underpinnings, the
• 19:12
  drivetrain, they're both the same.
• 19:14
  So yes, parts are totally interchangeable powertrain wise.
• 19:19
  And yes, people do monster retrofits.
• 19:23
  So I know a couple of guys that have put Dana 44 in the front
• 19:28
  and a Dana 60 in the rear.
• 19:30
  I didn't think there was a need to build it.
• 19:33
  Do a Dana 60 in a rear, but always bigger means stronger though.
• 19:37
  Right.
• 19:37
  But does it come with a 44 stock in the rear?
• 19:40
  I'm glad you asked that.
• 19:42
  So it depended, it depends on the platform.
• 19:46
  So if you had the quadra track, it had a soft Dana 44, but we know there's all
• 19:52
  kinds of parts for Dana 44 is that you could build on it, but you don't want the
• 19:56
  quadra track because it didn't have a low.
• 20:00
  a transfer case for a low gearing and then you had uh, the quadra drive systems.
• 20:07
  You had a, I believe it was an eight pin or, and then there was a 10 pin Chrysler
• 20:13
  eight and a quarter was the one I had, which is the equivalent to a Dana 44.
• 20:19
  I would think, uh, in toughness, the reason why they did the 10 pin like
• 20:23
  that was that was the only differential that was big enough to house.
• 20:28
  Clutch packs and the locking and all that stuff.
• 20:31
  And so that's how that works.
• 20:32
  So I didn't see a point in getting rid of the rear, but I've heard people doing it.
• 20:37
  And yes, you can do a Dana 44 or Dana 30 upfront.
• 20:41
  I've, I've seen a few guys do that as well, but that was going to be a
• 20:44
  pretty big job because they literally have to cut into the frame and cut
• 20:50
  the subframe out, uh, for the IFS.
• 20:54
  And now it's all open.
• 20:55
  So they have to reinforce, it's not a body on frame.
• 20:58
  It's, it's a.
• 20:59
  Unibody uni frame, and I tell people there's a difference
• 21:03
  between a unibody and a uni frame.
• 21:05
  A uni frame is where it is a unibody, but they sandwich a ladder frame to
• 21:13
  it, which makes it extremely rigid.
• 21:15
  You could have that truck in full tilt and you could still open all the doors.
• 21:21
  It was completely amazing.
• 21:23
  I was amazed at how strong that frame was, but a lot of people
• 21:26
  don't like unibody cause, Oh, it's, it's, it's flexy and all that.
• 21:30
  So it was, no, we've come a long way since the nineties and eighties aired XJs.
• 21:36
  So.
• 21:37
  They got to cut all that stuff out and then retrofit, you know, radius arms
• 21:42
  and longer springs because you know, those, the IFS inherently has shorter
• 21:49
  springs because it doesn't have all that room for travel, but the trade off is.
• 21:55
  IFS gives you a little bit more ground clearance because you don't have
• 21:58
  anything dangling up under the front.
• 22:02
  I didn't see it necessary for what the style of off roading that I do
• 22:07
  to need to go straight axle up front.
• 22:11
  Now, when you say the style of off roading that you do, a lot of
• 22:14
  people don't understand that There's different styles to off roading.
• 22:17
  There's rock crawling.
• 22:18
  You need specific rock crawler, you know, vehicles, a rock crawler is going
• 22:22
  to be different than a mudding vehicle.
• 22:24
  So why don't you, uh, tell us a little bit about the different kinds of
• 22:28
  sub disciplines within off roading.
• 22:30
  You're correct.
• 22:30
  There are definite lanes to off roading.
• 22:33
  You have.
• 22:35
  What I did is called overlanding, where it's more of a adventure
• 22:40
  style of off roading.
• 22:43
  The idea of overlanding is to be able to survive with only
• 22:47
  the things that you bring.
• 22:48
  The idea is to, you know, Go to old ghost towns and, you know,
• 22:54
  try to dig up buried treasure.
• 22:56
  No, no, that's not it, but it's like a, it's an adventure.
• 23:00
  You're, you're learning about the landscape.
• 23:03
  It's a different style of off roading because the lands tend to be a little bit
• 23:09
  wetter and looser and stuff like that.
• 23:12
  So there's not a whole lot of, uh, Rock crawling involved in it.
• 23:16
  There are situations where you have to climb over a tree or big old boulders
• 23:21
  or drop down into a river and drive across the river that's overlanding.
• 23:26
  And the term overlanding came around, uh, Range Rover coined it back in the eighties
• 23:31
  with the, uh, Land Rover discovery, not quite back to the Range Rover classics,
• 23:37
  but when the discovery came out.
• 23:40
  In the late 80s, I believe it was.
• 23:43
  I think that's when the Disco One came around.
• 23:46
  It's Discovery One.
• 23:47
  They called it overlanding.
• 23:48
  And overland vehicles tend to have what you call stadium seating.
• 23:53
  And the idea of stadium seating is pretty cool.
• 23:55
  You want the people in the back to have the same experience
• 23:58
  as the people in the front.
• 23:59
  So typical overland vehicles have a step up in the rear and sometimes
• 24:04
  they have a, if it's a third row, it has another step up there.
• 24:08
  And that's when you start getting into like skylights in
• 24:11
  the rear and stuff like that.
• 24:13
  The Jeep commander actually had that step up.
• 24:16
  It was called commander view and it was.
• 24:18
  Pretty cool.
• 24:18
  You'd be in the back and there's like these two open moon roofs that had like
• 24:23
  little shades on them and stuff like that, that, you know, you can look out
• 24:27
  and look around and see over the driver.
• 24:30
  And it sucks if you have a little old lady trying to get in there,
• 24:33
  cause she's got to like, you know, reincarnate her, uh, jumping days.
• 24:38
  My grandmother hated getting in my commander.
• 24:43
  You have, uh, rock crawling and that's where a lot of people like to
• 24:48
  go to parks like Roush Creek, Gore, West Virginia, Flagpole in Virginia.
• 24:55
  There's all kinds of cool off road networks that people
• 24:58
  like to test their flex.
• 25:00
  You got to get the flex, bro.
• 25:02
  And those are the guys who literally do some of the craziest stuff.
• 25:06
  Like they're, they're literally driving over boulders, the size of small cars.
• 25:12
  And getting in between them and just extreme articulation.
• 25:18
  And this is where lockers are very important for, uh, rock crawling,
• 25:24
  because you'll see guys blow their stuff up because they have open
• 25:31
  differentials and they're trying to crawl through a quarry and they get stuck.
• 25:36
  And they have no winch.
• 25:37
  And then they got to pay somebody hundreds of maybe thousands of dollars to come
• 25:41
  get them out because they broke or blew up something you have that style of
• 25:45
  off roading and then you have mudding.
• 25:48
  That's a different breed of people.
• 25:50
  They, uh, Daniel's people, mud people, mud and people.
• 25:55
  Boy, I ain't never seen anybody purposely get into a vehicle with no top on driving
• 26:04
  to the most dankiest, stankiest ass.
• 26:08
  Prehistoric looking water mud and get skadoosh.
• 26:12
  Oh,
• 26:15
  I'm like, oh my God, you know, uh, those people are very special.
• 26:21
  Like look at me, bro.
• 26:24
  I'm muddy, bro.
• 26:26
  Yeah, where'd you get some mud at?
• 26:27
  I went over there.
• 26:28
  I'm like, Oh God, let me get away.
• 26:35
  And you're not lying about the stankness of that mud because there's
• 26:38
  a lot of places that I ride at and go out four wheeling on with ATVs.
• 26:42
  And there's always those.
• 26:44
  It's that the water's been sitting for like a month and a half straight.
• 26:47
  It's stagnant.
• 26:49
  It's got all kinds of like mosquito larva and everything.
• 26:51
  And it just has that nasty, wretched smell to it.
• 26:54
  You know, you end up eating a little bit of it.
• 26:58
  I mean, come on now.
• 27:00
  They go into it.
• 27:01
  Like I got slow mo videos of people just.
• 27:04
  And they're like at the buffet as they go and corral, man.
• 27:08
  And then it's just like this wave of Nutella.
• 27:13
  He is not lying.
• 27:17
  That's why they say a little dirt never hurt.
• 27:19
  A little dirt never hurt.
• 27:21
  So let's kind of circle back and let's talk about what ended
• 27:25
  up happening to the commander.
• 27:27
  I mean, you ran that thing for years.
• 27:29
  Yeah, so I don't know if you guys remember a couple of years ago, but we were
• 27:34
  getting hammered with some freaky storms up here in Ellicott city and Columbia.
• 27:41
  And, and, uh, we had some flash floods.
• 27:46
  I'm going to Clobey's to go get me some ribs from the barbecue place.
• 27:50
  And I'm coming back the back way and I mean it just starts coming down.
• 27:57
  So I'm going down the hill and I'm like, damn, this is like the matrix.
• 28:00
  And I see a car sitting at the bridge.
• 28:04
  It's a single lane bridge of where I need to go.
• 28:07
  At the time the water was Maybe foot deep, like barely pressing over my foot.
• 28:15
  So I go to see if anybody's in the car.
• 28:18
  Cause the hazard lights are on all of a sudden I'm looking, my
• 28:23
  Jeep is like right behind him.
• 28:25
  And I just feel like this energy you like, you can feel it.
• 28:30
  And then all of a sudden water is now in seconds, ankle deep, knee deep, hip deep.
• 28:39
  I was caught in a flash flood and I was down in the Valley when
• 28:43
  this water was coming through.
• 28:44
  I was like, I need to get the fuck out of here, dude.
• 28:49
  I started hauling ass.
• 28:50
  I look like a Clydesdale running up the hill trying to save myself.
• 28:55
  You know, I'm just trying to get out of there.
• 28:57
  And as I got into the commander and I go to turn around, the water is coming
• 29:03
  down in there and it's like rolling.
• 29:05
  Up my hood as I'm trying to turn around and then it hydro locks.
• 29:10
  It sucks in water.
• 29:11
  As I turn around, I should have just backed out.
• 29:14
  So now it's hydro locking.
• 29:16
  Now the water is when I had to lift, I think I measured it right at seven
• 29:20
  foot and the water is reaching up to the window and you're inside it still.
• 29:26
  Yeah.
• 29:26
  And I had to run and I had to walk like four miles home, lost my cell
• 29:32
  phone in the flood, lost my clobies.
• 29:36
  Lost your jeep, too.
• 29:38
  I was so mad, man.
• 29:40
  I was like, I ain't got no food.
• 29:42
  I'm fat and wet.
• 29:43
  I gotta walk home and it's thundering and lightning.
• 29:46
  And then nobody's gonna stop and save me.
• 29:48
  Wait, so you didn't get the ribs?
• 29:51
  I did not get the ribs.
• 29:52
  They, they went down with USS black ass.
• 29:55
  That's a travesty right there.
• 29:56
  You know what's a travesty is I named it USS black ass and it went down in a water.
• 30:06
  So that, you know, obviously, you know, uh, active nature and all
• 30:10
  that and insurance gets involved.
• 30:12
  Sometime goes by a little, you know, if you have a proper burial at sea
• 30:16
  there and all that, And then you decide to get another off roader.
• 30:22
  Yeah, buddy.
• 30:23
  But you can't have anything normal.
• 30:25
  You already said that.
• 30:27
  So I went back to my roots and I got a new vehicle and it
• 30:31
  has a straight axle on it now.
• 30:32
  It's a Mercedes G, G wagon, G 500.
• 30:37
  Excuse me, what?
• 30:38
  It's a Mercedes G 500.
• 30:41
  The Galinda wagon.
• 30:42
  The Galinda wagon, aka.
• 30:45
  Because you see a lot of those off roading too, right?
• 30:49
  Well, not in the U.
• 30:50
  S., no.
• 30:50
  But around the world, yes.
• 30:54
  So what drew you to the Mercedes?
• 30:56
  I mean, talk about another oddball, right?
• 30:58
  The 3000 Star, bro.
• 31:00
  I've been wanting a G Wagon since I was 10 years old, 12 years old.
• 31:06
  That's when my love for it came out.
• 31:08
  I just thought they were super cool.
• 31:10
  Boxy.
• 31:11
  You see like these guys bouncing around and jumping over stuff.
• 31:15
  And, and people are like, why would you do that?
• 31:18
  Why would you take a G class, a luxury vehicle off road?
• 31:22
  And I'm like, ease all that.
• 31:25
  This thing is a military vehicle first.
• 31:29
  And people, when they get in it, they're all excited to get in it.
• 31:33
  And they're like, this is it.
• 31:34
  I'm like, well, what did you expect?
• 31:35
  It's a legit truck.
• 31:37
  Making it the same way for like 60 years.
• 31:39
  Yeah.
• 31:40
  Yeah.
• 31:41
  So they just changed the formula last year.
• 31:44
  They are no longer solid front and rear.
• 31:47
  They have an IFS now.
• 31:49
  So they ruined it and a solid rear now.
• 31:52
  So this is the first time that they went straight to the drawing board.
• 31:56
  And literally redesigned it, but kept the look.
• 32:00
  They said they wanted to keep the spirit and the essence, but it's,
• 32:04
  it still has the three lockers.
• 32:05
  And personally, now that I know how good IFSs are, once you
• 32:10
  do the right things with them.
• 32:13
  It's not a bad setup.
• 32:14
  So I remember when you got Gretchen and you went out like right
• 32:17
  away, you were out in the woods playing to see what it does stock.
• 32:22
  So what did you think compared to the commander after all the mods and
• 32:26
  all the time you spent with it, how did it compare, um, pound for pound?
• 32:29
  That is a great question.
• 32:31
  And I'm going to tell you right now, the G class is on another
• 32:36
  level from the commander.
• 32:37
  And it's stock.
• 32:38
  I haven't done anything.
• 32:40
  If I did the stuff in the commander, when it was stock that I did in the
• 32:44
  G class at Roush Creek, Oh, she would have broke 20 minutes into the trail.
• 32:50
  No way the commander would be able to keep up traction wise.
• 32:54
  The commander has the same ability as the G wagon.
• 32:58
  The G wagon is literally made of tougher stuff.
• 33:02
  They're not control arms.
• 33:03
  They're called radius arms.
• 33:05
  The radius arms are different in the sense that in a Jeep you have a upper
• 33:11
  control arm and a lower control arm.
• 33:14
  Double wishbones.
• 33:15
  Yeah, they work like that.
• 33:16
  A radius arm is this big honking chunk of steel, right?
• 33:21
  And it operates as a upper and lower control arm, but it's just one arm.
• 33:27
  And what it does is it hooks around the axle itself in a, like a C clamp.
• 33:34
  It holds the pinion and it holds the position of the axle, just like
• 33:39
  a upper or lower control arm would.
• 33:41
  Then you have leaf spring suspensions, like YJs, YJs.
• 33:45
  Yeah.
• 33:45
  Yeah.
• 33:46
  Had leaf springs and the actual, huh?
• 33:49
  And Corvettes and Land Rovers and Corvettes.
• 33:54
  Oh my gosh.
• 33:55
  The thing that people used to anyways, but, um, those are the different styles of
• 34:01
  suspensions, but the Mercedes suspension and overall build is just, it's a tank.
• 34:09
  It's salt.
• 34:09
  Like I can literally run that thing into a wall and it will still keep running.
• 34:14
  So we pick on these soccer moms who got G wagons.
• 34:17
  The fact of the matter is their G wagon will outlast your Jeep more than likely.
• 34:23
  And I am a jeep guy through and through, I've driven CJs, I've driven TJs, I've
• 34:28
  driven YJs, I've even driven the JK, and I had the privilege of driving the new JL.
• 34:35
  Now that's an interesting topic right there.
• 34:37
  Out the factory, none of those vehicles will be able to
• 34:41
  withstand what the G Wagon can.
• 34:44
  And the other thing is, the G Wagon is actually super simple to work on.
• 34:50
  Super duper simple to work on.
• 34:51
  Like it's literally three bolts holding one radius arm in place to change the oil.
• 34:57
  It's literally like you just reach in there and you just pull the daggone
• 35:00
  thing out and drain during the oil.
• 35:02
  It's it's everything on there is super simple.
• 35:04
  So I have not had to take it to Mercedes.
• 35:07
  I've been able to do all the work on it myself, change lights, change
• 35:11
  oil, jack it up, take the wheels off.
• 35:14
  You know, it's super simple to work on.
• 35:17
  So you said so far no mods, you haven't done any tire mods, no lift, no nothing.
• 35:22
  The only mod I've done is I've put on an aggressive all terrain tire thus far,
• 35:27
  and it's got, it's on 31 inch tires.
• 35:30
  Now, when I wanted to do 31s on the Commander, I already had to
• 35:35
  lift it two inches just to get 31.
• 35:38
  I didn't have to do anything on this.
• 35:40
  And it's got plenty of room.
• 35:42
  The wheel well, it's just really nicely designed.
• 35:46
  It's very similar to a Jeep where there's like no thrills.
• 35:50
  It's just an open space with like a little protection to protect the body
• 35:56
  from like rocks and stuff like that.
• 35:58
  But like you get to use the entire wheel well space.
• 36:03
  Just like in a jeep and power wise.
• 36:05
  The commander was a Hemi and the, the G wagons of V8.
• 36:09
  So dollar for dollar, they're pretty similar there too.
• 36:11
  Right?
• 36:12
  Yeah.
• 36:12
  They're dollar for dollar.
• 36:13
  They're pretty similar.
• 36:15
  I'm actually liking the Mercedes V8 better.
• 36:19
  Because the commander had, I don't know if y'all have had experience
• 36:23
  with the Hemmings, but they had that displacement on demand.
• 36:27
  And if that thing decides not to work while you're on the highway,
• 36:31
  you're stuck in four cylinder mode.
• 36:32
  And I had that happen to me a couple of times.
• 36:35
  I'm like giving it the goose and she will not go into V8 mode.
• 36:39
  And also I had to replace the motor because it dropped the valve.
• 36:45
  You know, those motors are like damn near 10 grand.
• 36:49
  We know someone who's had to replace a couple of them.
• 36:53
  And I was like, why is this motor?
• 36:54
  It's a push rod, put an LS in there, you know, or something like that.
• 36:59
  But it wouldn't work because the Hemi has a throttle or engine position
• 37:06
  sensor that has to made up with another sensor on the transmission.
• 37:10
  And that's when I started falling out of love with the commander,
• 37:13
  because I was like, unless you've got like beat pockets to understand
• 37:17
  this stuff and keep up with it, this thing is going to cost so much money.
• 37:22
  If any of these sensors go out and, and that includes the
• 37:25
  quadra drive system as well.
• 37:28
  If one of the, there, there are four individual sensors that you got to
• 37:32
  make sure are healthy in order for the quadra drive to work, because
• 37:36
  if one sensor goes out, that's it.
• 37:38
  You got nothing.
• 37:40
  If you got a wheel speed sensor that is reading incorrectly,
• 37:44
  QuadraDrive don't want to work.
• 37:46
  And I hated leaving that up to the system.
• 37:48
  And now, fortunately, I was one of the lucky ones that never had a situation
• 37:53
  where it went out on me, but there are lots of stories of people being like, It
• 37:58
  just stopped working and I don't know why.
• 38:00
  You need to have to do a diagnostic and all that stuff.
• 38:04
  Gretchen was a blessing in disguise.
• 38:06
  What's the Mercedes 4x4 like compared to the Jeep system?
• 38:10
  They're very similar.
• 38:12
  Think the transfer cases in like the Jeeps.
• 38:15
  I think it's the NV gearing.
• 38:16
  I think they're belt driven transfer cases in the Jeep.
• 38:20
  And I think the transfer case in the Mercedes is gear driven
• 38:25
  and those tend to be tougher.
• 38:27
  And, but, uh, you have to keep up with the fluid maintenance on,
• 38:31
  well, you got to keep up with the fluid maintenance on all of them.
• 38:34
  Don't get me wrong.
• 38:35
  The, the belt driven transfer cases are mad tough.
• 38:38
  Like.
• 38:39
  I'm seeing people with Rubicons doing all kinds of crazy stuff, even beyond
• 38:44
  what I'm willing to do with the G Wagon and their belt driven transfer cases.
• 38:50
  It just so happens the gear driven transfer cases are inherently stronger,
• 38:56
  and it's just a different solution.
• 38:58
  You've been off roading all this time.
• 39:00
  Where do you, so you mentioned a couple places, Roush Creek and,
• 39:04
  and Gore and, and et cetera.
• 39:06
  Is that where you go the most often, or are there some bucket list
• 39:10
  places you'd like to go to as well?
• 39:12
  Yeah, so Maryland sucks.
• 39:14
  Off roading is illegal in Maryland.
• 39:16
  I've been pulled over for it.
• 39:18
  Had to do community service.
• 39:20
  Oh yeah.
• 39:21
  I think in some places, like if you off roading like a watershed or
• 39:25
  something like that where people's drinking water or some endangered
• 39:29
  mushroom is at, uh, you're gonna have a hefty fine and up into jail time.
• 39:36
  I tell people the best off roading is legal off roading.
• 39:42
  There are trail network maps that you can take your vehicle on fire roads.
• 39:49
  That's a good way to start, you know, reserve roads that are
• 39:53
  kind of off the beaten path, but they're like legit highways.
• 39:58
  Even though they're off road, there's maps of like scenic off road highways.
• 40:04
  Is that like the transcontinental map or something like that?
• 40:07
  Yeah.
• 40:07
  Yeah.
• 40:08
  That sounds about right.
• 40:09
  I have to, I have to look it up.
• 40:11
  That's a good way to start also sometimes.
• 40:15
  You can find properties where off road companies used to use
• 40:20
  the land as proving ground.
• 40:22
  So like near me, it's off of 295 Coca Cola drive.
• 40:28
  Coca Cola drive.
• 40:29
  Yeah.
• 40:29
  Land Rover used to have proving grounds back there and the tenants now.
• 40:35
  have no problem with people continuing to use those lands to off road just
• 40:40
  as long as they stay within the bounds of the proving ground and
• 40:45
  they don't be going driving over the train tracks and stuff like that.
• 40:48
  Then you have like the off road parts, which would be like a next step up to
• 40:52
  Roush Creeks, the gores, the wind havens, the big bears and stuff like that.
• 40:58
  And then there's some, there's a park down in North Carolina, uh, Uwari.
• 41:02
  That's going to be a little bit more advanced and also off roading
• 41:07
  up a mountain is a little bit more different because you got to have
• 41:10
  cojones to be okay with your vehicle.
• 41:13
  You see nothing but trees and sky.
• 41:15
  And then you look down and you see the Valley thousands of feet below you.
• 41:19
  So you're looking at this thing.
• 41:21
  It's like one wrong move and I'm going to die.
• 41:23
  I want to die.
• 41:25
  So, further out west is the more of the rock crawling stuff
• 41:29
  like Moab and Rubicon Trail.
• 41:33
  Those are like, you asked me what's my bucket list, Rubicon Trail, by far.
• 41:40
  Energy wagon, energy wagon.
• 41:42
  So you have some very unique vehicles that you off road with humble
• 41:47
  beginnings with the Jeeps and whatnot.
• 41:49
  What would you recommend for somebody that's just starting out
• 41:52
  in this discipline of motorsport?
• 41:55
  I would recommend starting out first off, what is your budget looking like?
• 41:59
  Second, be okay with the fact that sometimes, you know,
• 42:04
  these Wranglers are expensive.
• 42:05
  So.
• 42:06
  You don't have to start out with a Wrangler.
• 42:08
  Me personally, I love like the, the late seventies.
• 42:12
  To mid to late eighties vehicles.
• 42:15
  So you got like Suzuki Samurais, Isuzu troopers, Jeep XJs.
• 42:21
  But if your pockets are a little bit deeper, you can start looking at like
• 42:25
  the Wranglers and you don't have to get a Rubicon start out with like a
• 42:30
  Wrangler Sahara or sport, the Toyota, uh.
• 42:35
  Hilux or Tacoma, and these platforms have such a following that it's cheap,
• 42:41
  like you don't have to spend a whole lot of money on upgrading, just figure
• 42:47
  out what is your priorities, so I learned through my mistakes, I wouldn't
• 42:53
  say mistakes, as I've gone along the way, I've learned that before the
• 42:58
  Lyft You need to think about recovery.
• 43:00
  So you need to figure out does your vehicle have good strong recovery points?
• 43:06
  If not, where can you fabricate something strong enough to withstand a nasty tug or
• 43:13
  work on looking at winches and bumpers?
• 43:16
  Because those are the first things to go.
• 43:19
  But some people, you know, find that they want to get right into the nasty and
• 43:24
  they put a two inch lift and a tire on.
• 43:26
  So I would say those older vehicles on a budget, depending on which one it is,
• 43:32
  I think the Samurais are actually going for a decent amount of money nowadays.
• 43:36
  If you can get your hands on a Land Cruiser, LC80, an XJ, of course, any
• 43:43
  kind of Wrangler that's not rusted, got to make sure it's not rusted out because
• 43:47
  you're going to be chasing that forever.
• 43:49
  Yeah, you're done.
• 43:54
  And then they become unsafe.
• 43:55
  Don't take a vehicle that smells funny or and is or are rusting.
• 44:00
  If you can find a vehicle out west, go for it.
• 44:04
  And if, and you can afford to get it here because those vehicles are always going
• 44:08
  to be in better shape than northeast.
• 44:11
  Or just East Coast vehicles, period, because all the street seasoning we
• 44:14
  put on the roads during the wintertime.
• 44:17
  So would you say that there's a vehicle or a brand or just to stay away from,
• 44:22
  like, don't even waste your time?
• 44:24
  Mercedes.
• 44:27
  Actually, I think that's a fair statement.
• 44:29
  I think that's, that's a very fair statement because honestly, you might
• 44:33
  not have a choice but to stay away from it because those vehicles are not cheap.
• 44:37
  My particular model is a 2007 and I purposely picked the 2007 because
• 44:44
  that was before they started adding all the electric gizmos and radar and
• 44:50
  all that crap that can go out on you.
• 44:52
  But even though it's a 2007, it still costs me like Right at 60 grand.
• 44:57
  So I think you can get a 2004 for like 40 something, like in the mid
• 45:02
  to high forties, some of the vehicles you were mentioning for people
• 45:05
  starting out, you're mentioning a lot of the more like SUV type vehicles.
• 45:09
  What are your thoughts on the trails with guys in trucks?
• 45:12
  Do you see a lot of them out there or is it more SUV, Jeep type vehicles?
• 45:16
  Well, no matter where you go, it's going to be Jeep heavy.
• 45:19
  Wrangler is King.
• 45:21
  And then after the Wrangler, the Cherokees.
• 45:24
  And then.
• 45:26
  On the opposite side of that, you have your Toyota guys.
• 45:30
  Now those guys tend to be the ones with the trucks, the Tacoma, the
• 45:34
  Hilux, the forerunners I've seen where people take a super duty, bob
• 45:42
  it and turn it into like, A rig like a legit, like you just bypass all the
• 45:48
  work you needed to do to make a buggy because you chopped your F two 50 down.
• 45:53
  It's got massive axles, front and rear, and cut the body a little bit and put like
• 45:59
  40 twos on it and you got a buggy truggy.
• 46:03
  Um, and then I've seen where guys have four wheel steering.
• 46:08
  How about that?
• 46:09
  That's pretty cool, huh?
• 46:11
  You can go in there and be a, uh, just starting out type off roader
• 46:18
  to like the extreme, extreme.
• 46:20
  And they all are there helping each other out.
• 46:25
  Uh, the people, the community is really cool community.
• 46:28
  Yeah, there's some ball busting going on between the Jeep guys and the, uh,
• 46:32
  Toyota guys, but it's all in good fun.
• 46:35
  But the jeeping community, there's some Interesting characters in that.
• 46:41
  Interesting characters there.
• 46:43
  I've literally, when I showed up with my commander, I'm like, hey, how you doing?
• 46:47
  And I had a guy literally stand there and, I don't know, like IFS, and walked off.
• 46:54
  I was like, well, peanut butter sandwich to you too.
• 46:58
  Bitch.
• 47:02
  And then you got the guys that just you know, All they want
• 47:05
  to do is drinking off road.
• 47:07
  I think that's the like, if you're going to do that, do that on your own property
• 47:12
  and your own farm or whatever, but don't go to a certified place and endanger
• 47:19
  other people's lives and endanger the facility's ability to carry insurance.
• 47:26
  Because you want to go out there and drink alcohol and set fire to
• 47:30
  the forest because you did something stupid and never, never drink and get
• 47:35
  behind the wheel of anything, a sports car, road car, off roader, nothing.
• 47:39
  Just leave the alcohol at home.
• 47:41
  Leave it out.
• 47:43
  Well, and the great thing that you mentioned that is I've noticed not
• 47:45
  just with the off road community where that tends to be a common thing
• 47:48
  where everybody has a cooler, but Brad and I are both familiar with 75 It's
• 47:54
  been open and closed multiple times.
• 47:55
  And one of the most recent times it was open, in my opinion, one of the downfalls
• 47:59
  that had is because spectators can come and drink, bring their own beer.
• 48:04
  But the problem is they didn't put any stipulations of it being only in cans.
• 48:08
  And a lot of the guys that used to go there to run that track, stopped going
• 48:11
  because of broken glass in the paddock area, like nobody wants to go in there
• 48:14
  with an expensive brand new set of slits and run over glass and toy brand new tire.
• 48:19
  It's the same thing out in the woods.
• 48:20
  Yeah, I tell people it's like when you get there at like you're going to someone's
• 48:26
  house, don't go disrespecting their property and they're ignoring their rules
• 48:31
  because what's ultimately going to happen and I've seen this on a lot of trails
• 48:36
  lately, they're shutting them down because people are completely disrespectful to
• 48:43
  people's property because A lot of these trail networks literally go in people's
• 48:48
  backyard and they give you permission to go back there and enjoy yourself.
• 48:53
  But when you're littering, you're just drunk, doing
• 48:58
  whatever, loud, one bad person.
• 49:01
  Person one spoiled individual can ruin it for the rest of it.
• 49:04
  Yeah.
• 49:05
  And, and, you know, it was something I was going to bring up and I'm, and I'm
• 49:07
  not as close to it as you guys are with the experience and whatnot, but I've
• 49:11
  seen it on a lot of shows that I watch about off roading to kind of, you know,
• 49:14
  educate myself on other disciplines.
• 49:17
  And I know one of the big things in your guys community is also the environment.
• 49:21
  And I understand full disclaimer.
• 49:23
  You know, we are still burning dinosaur blood here.
• 49:25
  We're not off roading EVs yet.
• 49:27
  So let's put that aside.
• 49:29
  Let's take that out of the equation.
• 49:31
  There's still a deep respect for the environment itself, where
• 49:34
  I've seen where guys are like, yeah, we'll cut down a tree dead.
• 49:37
  We'll knock stuff out.
• 49:38
  We'll pull stuff off the way while we're on the trail.
• 49:41
  But something that's alive, we're not going to kill a living tree.
• 49:44
  We're not going to try to damage the forest or whatever.
• 49:46
  So I found that to be really interesting, you know, and when something does
• 49:50
  go wrong and sometimes somebody does something they shouldn't, man, there,
• 49:54
  there's some serious backlash from that.
• 49:56
  So, uh, yeah.
• 49:58
  And they'll shut you down.
• 49:59
  Like a lot of people do not use the appropriate recovery strat when
• 50:04
  they wrap their winch around a tree.
• 50:08
  You're dead wrong.
• 50:09
  If you're.
• 50:09
  Putting raw cable up against the tree.
• 50:12
  Cause that's literally.
• 50:14
  slitting the throat of the tree.
• 50:15
  I think it's important to know that you need to have proper equipment.
• 50:19
  Don't drink, don't be taking weapons out there if you're not authorized because a
• 50:23
  lot of these places are on federal land.
• 50:25
  So you get caught with a weapon, you're done.
• 50:28
  Yeah, that's basically it.
• 50:29
  You're right.
• 50:30
  Eric is like, there's a way to have fun, but respect the area.
• 50:35
  Absolutely.
• 50:36
  So let's switch gears a little here, pun intended.
• 50:39
  Let's talk about your biggest oops moment while you're out on the trail.
• 50:43
  Well, I thought we already heard it.
• 50:45
  It was getting ribs.
• 50:48
  No, that's not an oops.
• 50:49
  That's a odd hail.
• 50:53
  I got one.
• 50:54
  So my buddy owns an off road park.
• 50:57
  His name is AK.
• 50:58
  Y'all might've heard, uh, of, of his company is, uh, chaos off road.
• 51:04
  They're a massive fabrication shop that does all kinds of crazy
• 51:09
  things for people's vehicles.
• 51:11
  My buddy.
• 51:12
  Took his TJ to, uh, chaos.
• 51:16
  And this dude did a one fell swoop upgrade, pretty much turned
• 51:21
  his Wrangler into a buggy, but it still looks like a Wrangler.
• 51:26
  25, 000.
• 51:28
  Now that I said that, let me get to my oops.
• 51:30
  So I'm off roading with this guy and he's got like 20, Something
• 51:36
  inches of travel front and rear and jumping down off of stuff.
• 51:41
  And I'm like, you guys are going to kill me.
• 51:43
  My airbags are going to go off and I'm going to die today.
• 51:46
  Anyways, we get to this thing called V notch and I don't know if you've ever
• 51:52
  been in a vehicle with a 42 degree lean listing over most people when they, when
• 52:02
  they get up on a, like an embankment, they feel like the car's going to roll over.
• 52:06
  You're.
• 52:06
  40 something degrees.
• 52:08
  Your, your, the vehicle's weight is literally all pressing on the other ax.
• 52:14
  You're holding yourself up to, uh, be able to control the vehicle.
• 52:20
  So we're going through V notch, and these little buggies have
• 52:25
  no problem getting by this tree.
• 52:29
  Now the commander has a horrible viewing angle when it comes to
• 52:33
  being able to see your surroundings.
• 52:36
  So I noticed there was a kick out of the tree at 40 degrees.
• 52:40
  I'm up there like looking down and I'm like, is that a boulder?
• 52:44
  No, no, buddy.
• 52:45
  You're good.
• 52:46
  You're good.
• 52:46
  Come on.
• 52:47
  Am I going to clear it?
• 52:48
  Yeah, you're going to clear it.
• 52:49
  You're going to clear it.
• 52:51
  And I'm like, okay, you're my spotter.
• 52:53
  I trust you.
• 52:54
  Passenger door.
• 52:56
  It looked like.
• 52:57
  It looked like I hit an iceberg.
• 52:59
  The door and I start seeing my door from the inside going like quivering, like, and
• 53:07
  I'm looking, I'm like, I know they didn't.
• 53:11
  So if you look at a video on my YouTube, it's got like 60, 000 views.
• 53:16
  I got a crease from the front passenger door to the rear passenger
• 53:20
  door from that boulder that I had an oops moment on, you know, it's bad.
• 53:27
  They were like, don't even drive up and they're just looking at it like this.
• 53:30
  And I'm looking back at them, like, and they're not saying anything.
• 53:34
  I was like, how bad is it?
• 53:36
  Oh, it's not that bad.
• 53:38
  I'm gonna get out and see.
• 53:39
  No, no, no, no, no.
• 53:40
  Just, just no stay in the car.
• 53:42
  And I'm like, Oh heck no.
• 53:44
  I get out and I'm like.
• 53:47
  I'm going to fight somebody.
• 53:50
  You're spotter.
• 53:51
  You got to fight your spotter.
• 53:53
  Okay.
• 53:53
  So my spotter is a preacher.
• 53:55
  He's a man of God.
• 53:57
  I can't beat up a preacher.
• 53:58
  He forgave him.
• 54:00
  I had to forgive him.
• 54:02
  No, he's supposed to forgive you.
• 54:04
  I cussed the hell out of his ass though.
• 54:08
  Did you do confession right after?
• 54:12
  I'm not, no.
• 54:19
  That's awesome.
• 54:21
  Oh, I'm still mad at that to this day.
• 54:23
  That happened like five years ago.
• 54:25
  You know, you mentioned earlier about, you know, recovery gear, a lot of things
• 54:29
  about guys starting out and all that.
• 54:31
  What are some essentials for folks that are, you know, getting into
• 54:35
  this, you know, outside of, you know, just leave it alone, learn to drive.
• 54:38
  I mean, that seems to be a common across all our disciplines, right?
• 54:42
  Leave the car alone until you can out drive the vehicle.
• 54:45
  Don't mess with it.
• 54:46
  Right.
• 54:46
  But you mentioned there's some essentials that a person should
• 54:49
  have when they're doing this.
• 54:50
  What would you recommend people put in their trunk when they're out there?
• 54:54
  First and foremost, I would say, never go off into the woods by yourself.
• 55:00
  Always have someone with you.
• 55:03
  That's the most important thing I've made the mistake of going off by myself.
• 55:07
  And I've had a very close situation.
• 55:11
  Where my vehicle might still be out there.
• 55:13
  I got lucky.
• 55:15
  Number two, if you can't afford a winch, have a come along, a come along with a
• 55:23
  high tensile strength cable, have the tree protection strap to wrap around a tree.
• 55:30
  A winch.
• 55:31
  I can't tell you how important a winch is.
• 55:34
  Like that should have been for me.
• 55:36
  That should have been one of the first things I got from myself.
• 55:40
  Because.
• 55:41
  At the end of the day, if you get high centered, which I have done, and I had
• 55:45
  no winch up at pots mountain in Virginia with my boy, and I was learning how
• 55:52
  to reacquaint myself to off roading.
• 55:54
  What you should never do is straddle a sand mountain
• 56:00
  and the belly of my vehicle sat down on the top of that mountain.
• 56:04
  And I was stuck for six hours.
• 56:07
  And you know what people just drove right on by on their motorcycles.
• 56:10
  They didn't help me.
• 56:11
  You're not going to be able to budget 6, 000 pound vehicle.
• 56:14
  If you get high centered on something.
• 56:16
  So winch recovery, strap recovery gear, you'll need a shovel.
• 56:21
  Oh, and the socket set.
• 56:23
  Those to me are the essentials.
• 56:26
  So to go along with the winch, would you recommend snatch blocks for guys?
• 56:30
  Yeah.
• 56:30
  So snatch blocks essentially double the pulling power of the winch.
• 56:37
  So in certain cases, like when you're really stuck, like wedged in between
• 56:42
  rocks, that's when a snatch block is a really good power multiplier.
• 56:47
  Uh, for your winch.
• 56:48
  So I don't think it's necessary, but it's a nice to have.
• 56:53
  They're super cheap.
• 56:54
  You might as well get it, but you're rarely going to use it.
• 56:58
  I tend to use them more and not when I'm needing to be pulled straight.
• 57:02
  I'll do it to where if the only good anchor point is a tree straight ahead
• 57:05
  of me, but I need to go to, I'll hook the two trees and use that slash block.
• 57:08
  Only the angle I need to.
• 57:10
  So I've never used them for amplifying the power, but I've definitely used it for
• 57:13
  pulling me a different direction than I'm.
• 57:15
  Oh yeah.
• 57:15
  Yeah.
• 57:16
  You're right.
• 57:17
  That's a really good way.
• 57:18
  Like if you, if you have a horrible angle and you got the straps for it,
• 57:22
  yeah, you can put, you can, you can spider web, a couple of trees or.
• 57:27
  And, and just pull that short distance and then readjust and whatever.
• 57:31
  But the real purpose of the snatch block is power amplifier.
• 57:36
  So what, what happens is you use the snatch block and tie it off
• 57:41
  onto someone's truck or something that's solidly anchored down, right?
• 57:46
  And then you return the power back to your bumper.
• 57:49
  So essentially you have doubled the pulling power of the winch
• 57:53
  because you, um, It's a return back.
• 57:56
  All right.
• 57:56
  So another question for you, which is a debate in the winching world,
• 58:00
  is a steel line versus synthetic.
• 58:04
  That's a good question.
• 58:05
  A lot of people, it depends on who you're talking to, but I'm gonna tell
• 58:09
  you right now, the Spydra cable is literally stronger than the steel cable.
• 58:17
  And it's Totally safer than the, than the steel cable, the steel cable people,
• 58:25
  for some reason, like them because they're, you're under the notion that
• 58:29
  it's just, it's a stronger material.
• 58:32
  Now the Spydra is just as strong as the three eighths steel and it's
• 58:37
  safer in a sense because steel cables have a problem of storing the energy
• 58:46
  of the pool within the cable itself.
• 58:50
  And what happens is it can explode and whip.
• 58:55
  When you get a cable that thick flying around and people are not
• 59:00
  being safe standing behind trees or what or don't put the drop bag on
• 59:03
  it, that's a very dangerous item.
• 59:07
  It can most certainly a really nasty laceration if not If that thing starts
• 59:15
  flying around, I always tell people with the steel cables, be careful because
• 59:19
  that easiest reference I have is if anybody's ever seen the movie of men
• 59:22
  of honor, when the anchor chain snaps, takes his leg off, I've seen cables and
• 59:28
  chain snap and the way they whip back.
• 59:30
  It's I've been fortunate not to be in the way of them a couple times
• 59:33
  and see now spider cable Synthetic cable does not store that kinetic
• 59:38
  energy within the cable itself You can literally stand right next to it.
• 59:42
  If that cable fails, it's not going with it's simply just gonna Turn into
• 59:49
  papier mâché and fall to the ground.
• 59:53
  I like that.
• 59:54
  Poof!
• 59:56
  One more quick question on the winch.
• 59:58
  Harbor Freight winches.
• 59:59
  Okay.
• 1:00:00
  What are your opinions on them versus I just went through this.
• 1:00:04
  I was looking for you know, a winch to get for the truck because
• 1:00:07
  the bumper has the winch plate.
• 1:00:09
  I settled on the Smittybilt XRO Uh, with synthetic cable, 10, 000 pound,
• 1:00:15
  but I seriously considered the, uh, the Badlands, uh, 12, 000 pound.
• 1:00:20
  Um, cause they're both similarly priced.
• 1:00:23
  I, I ended up with Smittybilt because of the, I guess the, the
• 1:00:26
  reputation, uh, Harbor Freight has.
• 1:00:29
  But what are your opinions on that?
• 1:00:31
  There is nothing wrong with Harbor Freight whatsoever.
• 1:00:34
  I, I say you should have got the 12, 000 pound Harbor Freight because.
• 1:00:39
  The thing is the Harbor Freight winch uses Smittybilt parts.
• 1:00:45
  The difference is the Smittybilt is modular.
• 1:00:49
  Like you can take it apart, work on it, and then put it back together
• 1:00:53
  and all that great stuff, the Harbor Freight, it is what it is.
• 1:00:58
  When it burns up, just throw that son of a bitch in the trash
• 1:01:01
  and get you another cheap one.
• 1:01:03
  You can't take it apart, but if you have the money for like a nicer winch, Your
• 1:01:09
  off roading is equivalent to your use.
• 1:01:13
  Like if you do a lot of off roading and you get stuck a lot, probably going to
• 1:01:17
  want to get a really good winch because you get what you pay for with the one.
• 1:01:20
  Yeah.
• 1:01:21
  That Harbor freight will burn out long before a.
• 1:01:25
  A Smitty build or mile marker or, or a warn or wor.
• 1:01:30
  So me personally, I've gone with warns.
• 1:01:34
  I'm getting a warn Zon and this bad boy comes with everything.
• 1:01:40
  It is remote controlled.
• 1:01:42
  I can control my lights, you know, I can plug up air compressor to it.
• 1:01:48
  It, it gives me, it lets me know what the voltage usage load.
• 1:01:52
  You're not gonna get that with a, uh, a Harbor Freight.
• 1:01:54
  You just better hope your alternator and battery can deal with it.
• 1:01:59
  Another quick thing for winches and being a year on the trails, a lot, a
• 1:02:04
  big thing I tell people all the time with winches is because I've, I went
• 1:02:07
  with the 12, 000 pound Badlands from Harbor Freight, but I don't off road very
• 1:02:12
  often, it's not that often I need it.
• 1:02:14
  So I couldn't justify buying a higher grade winch.
• 1:02:18
  And other than that, because I have multiple vehicles and tractors and
• 1:02:21
  things like that to change around on.
• 1:02:22
  I put mine into a cradle system instead of mounting it on a bumper.
• 1:02:25
  One of my trucks, because the fact that one thing that I tell people time is
• 1:02:29
  a lot of guys, you see it very common with Jeeps is a guy have a winch on
• 1:02:33
  the front, but if he doesn't use it often enough and then everything gets
• 1:02:36
  all corroded inside for the contacts.
• 1:02:38
  They get out on the trail, they pull it out and then it won't go back in.
• 1:02:41
  So you'll see a guy coming back from trail with the lead wrapped
• 1:02:44
  around his front bumper because he couldn't get it to go back in.
• 1:02:46
  So do you have any recommendations of any sort of protective stuff for
• 1:02:50
  ones that are solid mounted and what's your thoughts on cradles where you can
• 1:02:54
  change front to back as I did with mine?
• 1:02:56
  Yeah, I think it depends on what your requirements are for the winch.
• 1:03:00
  Obviously it's beneficial to have a cradle because you have more
• 1:03:07
  options on where to start to pull from, but the strongest platform
• 1:03:12
  would definitely be a static mount.
• 1:03:14
  I've seen people do static mount winch up front and then keep another
• 1:03:20
  winch in the cradle and only put it on the rear when they need it.
• 1:03:23
  They have the connectors and everything going to the rear other than that.
• 1:03:27
  Do you know like a protective out of the weather elements like covers and stuff?
• 1:03:31
  Oh yeah.
• 1:03:32
  Yeah.
• 1:03:32
  I forgot about that one.
• 1:03:33
  Yeah.
• 1:03:34
  You're definitely going to get more life out of your winch.
• 1:03:37
  You're going to get better response out of your clutch control.
• 1:03:40
  If you protect it from the elements, because what sucks.
• 1:03:45
  Is when it's two degrees outside and you're trying to handle a winch.
• 1:03:51
  That's all iced up because you didn't cover it up.
• 1:03:55
  That sucks.
• 1:03:55
  I learned that lesson a while back ago.
• 1:03:58
  It's probably best to use a cover.
• 1:04:00
  Second, this is where still this kind of going back to what you were asking me,
• 1:04:05
  Eric, about still versus Spydra still.
• 1:04:09
  is resistant to U.
• 1:04:11
  V.
• 1:04:12
  Spider is not.
• 1:04:14
  So when the sun bakes the spider cable, the synthetic cable,
• 1:04:18
  you compromise its strength.
• 1:04:21
  It would probably be best to most definitely cover your winch.
• 1:04:26
  I'm assuming like you were saying when it was two degrees and if the synthetic had
• 1:04:29
  a bunch of water in it, it turns into a solid block and it's hard to unspool it.
• 1:04:32
  Yeah.
• 1:04:33
  Oh yeah.
• 1:04:34
  Same thing for, uh, still just cover it.
• 1:04:37
  I mean, the cover is like a few bucks and it takes a few
• 1:04:41
  seconds of your time to cover it.
• 1:04:43
  So drew, man, this is all really good information.
• 1:04:45
  So for somebody that's starting out, let me say like myself, that's not
• 1:04:49
  as familiar with off roading like mountain man, Dan is Brad and so on.
• 1:04:53
  And other guests that we've had on the show, are there any books, forums,
• 1:04:55
  websites, or anything that I could use to kind of get You know, nerd out on and
• 1:05:02
  get more familiar with, you know, now that we're going into the winter, when
• 1:05:05
  a lot of motor sport is closing down, that I could do some research on, is
• 1:05:08
  there anything that you could recommend?
• 1:05:10
  You can wheel in the winter, will in, in the winter.
• 1:05:14
  For me, when I started out again, as an adult, we didn't have this
• 1:05:19
  wonderful tool called Google.
• 1:05:21
  Just type in like off road parts for whatever your vehicle is.
• 1:05:26
  And like, It'll immediately give you some really cool websites, not magazines, but I
• 1:05:34
  mean, obviously four women is probably the biggest one where they show some pretty
• 1:05:41
  interesting projects within the magazine.
• 1:05:44
  But for me, I haven't really been big into the forums as much as.
• 1:05:52
  What is out there for me now and how do I make it work for me?
• 1:05:57
  I never really looked at other people's projects and said, Ooh, I want to do that.
• 1:06:01
  So for me, it was go to Google and then you go, you start finding
• 1:06:06
  about things like Quadratech, which is a really big one.
• 1:06:11
  Then, uh, there are a lot of off road based communities on Facebook for both.
• 1:06:17
  Nissan, Toyota, and Jeep and Ford.
• 1:06:21
  Those groups tend to stick to themselves.
• 1:06:23
  Like Jeep people don't talk to four people.
• 1:06:26
  Four people don't talk to Toyota people.
• 1:06:28
  And there's always like, and nobody talks to the Mercedes person yet.
• 1:06:33
  Nobody at shoot.
• 1:06:34
  Mercedes people don't talk to Mercedes people.
• 1:06:36
  I'm finding that out right now.
• 1:06:38
  I don't get no waves.
• 1:06:40
  Dude, you have to apply for their overlanding group, the Mercedes G Wagon
• 1:06:46
  Overlanding of America and all that stuff.
• 1:06:48
  And the fact that I didn't have a G Wagon as my cover photo.
• 1:06:55
  You're not overlanding the Bloomingdales.
• 1:06:57
  Oh, that's what the problem is.
• 1:06:59
  I'll be like, excuse me, I need to run over this bush real quick.
• 1:07:05
  The most entertaining route to me is the Jeep groups.
• 1:07:09
  I'm still a part of the Jeep groups.
• 1:07:11
  Jeep Colt, Jeeping of America is another one.
• 1:07:14
  Those people just want to have a good time, but.
• 1:07:16
  They do some of the funniest ball busting.
• 1:07:19
  Like I can't say it on this, but like, you look at some of the memes that
• 1:07:23
  they say, gee, people are like this.
• 1:07:25
  And it's usually like this man's man and whatever.
• 1:07:28
  And then Toyota people are this.
• 1:07:30
  And it's like, eh, I'm not going to say it on here, but it's all in good fun.
• 1:07:37
  I got a question.
• 1:07:38
  You guys have seen it before.
• 1:07:40
  How, how do all those other people feel about the Subaru people?
• 1:07:44
  Oh, the Subaru.
• 1:07:44
  We won't talk about the Subaru folk.
• 1:07:48
  They're a special breed too.
• 1:07:49
  Yeah.
• 1:07:50
  Yeah.
• 1:07:51
  No, the Subaru folk.
• 1:07:54
  I'm cool with the Subaru folk.
• 1:07:56
  Matter of fact, I did Tell of the Dragon this year, Eric.
• 1:07:59
  Ran into, I was riding with my buddy.
• 1:08:02
  He has a, uh, 2012 STI, I believe it is.
• 1:08:07
  The one that gets no love.
• 1:08:09
  The ugly one.
• 1:08:10
  The ugly one.
• 1:08:11
  That's what everybody calls it.
• 1:08:12
  Anyways, so, my boy's like, Uh, we're gonna just, you know, take it easy.
• 1:08:18
  We're not gonna do anything.
• 1:08:19
  And next thing I know, Womp a bop pow pow pow!
• 1:08:22
  And we're just hauling ass down the road.
• 1:08:25
  And then there's this guy and a No, what is that thing called?
• 1:08:29
  The Subaru The Tribeca, the Forrester?
• 1:08:32
  No, not the Tribeca, it's like, it's It's like the Crosstrek but it's renamed
• 1:08:38
  Oh, it's the Impreza Crosstrek, yeah Oh yeah, okay, yeah And he is keeping
• 1:08:43
  up with the STI and his Crosstrek Ah, I was I was dumbfounded, dumbfounded.
• 1:08:51
  But they were on, they were on pavement, right?
• 1:08:54
  Yeah, we were on pavement.
• 1:08:56
  But he, he, he said, he says he has a WRC loadout, whatever that means.
• 1:09:02
  He has tires that are a bit knobby for him to go off road.
• 1:09:06
  I've heard things where guys say that they have the simulated low
• 1:09:12
  gear setting in their Subaru Outback.
• 1:09:15
  And I'm like, that ain't, if it ain't a transfer case, it don't count.
• 1:09:20
  And dude, you see these guys, they got them.
• 1:09:23
  They're at Grouch Creek.
• 1:09:24
  They're always like the super skinny, uh, throughout his life.
• 1:09:34
  And he's got like, and he's talking to you serious about his
• 1:09:37
  off road capabilities and then for some reason he tries to drive.
• 1:09:43
  Yeah.
• 1:09:44
  They start talking junk.
• 1:09:45
  Like you paid all that money, bro.
• 1:09:47
  And I can do that.
• 1:09:48
  And I'm like, well, you're like, here, here, here's my digits.
• 1:09:52
  Text me when you want me to pull you out.
• 1:09:54
  All right.
• 1:09:54
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:09:55
  I need to get a sticker that says, uh, Subaru recovery team.
• 1:10:02
  That's awesome.
• 1:10:03
  So you, you, you mentioned Roush Creek a bunch of times.
• 1:10:06
  Some of our guys, including Brad have gone there to take the school that they offer.
• 1:10:10
  Are there other places like that, that do you want to do courses or do you
• 1:10:15
  now, and you also mentioned you've been doing this for so Do you find
• 1:10:19
  yourself teaching other off roaders how to To work this motorsport.
• 1:10:23
  Actually, I have, I haven't done any official cadre work simply because
• 1:10:29
  I don't have time, but when I do go off road and we have someone new.
• 1:10:35
  You know, we always have, you know, the before the event brief where
• 1:10:40
  you get everybody in a big huddle and you go over the basics, who
• 1:10:44
  to look for, for information and I do that stuff for my own club.
• 1:10:50
  And then what we'll do is we try to sparse the experience.
• 1:10:55
  Drivers in between the inexperienced drivers.
• 1:10:58
  So like every three or four vehicles, depending on how big the group is, we'll
• 1:11:03
  have an experienced driver lead, then three or four unexperienced drivers
• 1:11:08
  or people without the appropriate recovery gear, then we'll drop in
• 1:11:12
  another experienced driver with all the.
• 1:11:14
  Appropriate recovery gear and experience.
• 1:11:17
  And then what we do is we call it, it's called spotting.
• 1:11:20
  So if we get to a rather technical obstacle, the first driver goes first,
• 1:11:28
  then that driver stays in spots.
• 1:11:31
  The next driver, then the first driver takes off.
• 1:11:34
  And then the driver who just got over the obstacle spots that driver, or
• 1:11:38
  it could just be like one guy just sits there the entire time and just.
• 1:11:41
  He just knows the trail and he just tells everybody where to go.
• 1:11:45
  And that's where the teaching of the inexperienced driver comes into place, or
• 1:11:50
  I'll see somebody like go down a hill a certain way and I'll tell them to stop.
• 1:11:56
  Do not do that because we do not want to roll over a situation
• 1:11:59
  because a lot of people.
• 1:12:01
  We'll turn away from the hill because they get scared.
• 1:12:05
  And when the vehicle is shifting and transitioning into like that in between
• 1:12:11
  phase of shifting its weight around, it gets kind of scary for people and
• 1:12:15
  they don't know where their will is.
• 1:12:16
  But the last thing you want to do is turn.
• 1:12:19
  Away from the, the lean, you want to always turn into the lean and do
• 1:12:24
  not stab the brakes because it'll cause the vehicle to kind of get
• 1:12:30
  very unsituated and it can lead to a whole bunch of mess you don't want.
• 1:12:35
  So that brings up a really good question.
• 1:12:37
  Um, ABS, are you for or against it in off roading?
• 1:12:42
  In off roading, ABS is a really good, Because anything that you can do
• 1:12:47
  to increase traction, you want it.
• 1:12:49
  And ABS increases traction through just being a traction
• 1:12:55
  manager, through slip management.
• 1:12:58
  Also, it helps to prevent, to a certain degree, individual tires locking up.
• 1:13:06
  Now, ultimately, if you're on loose gravel, ABS ain't gonna matter because
• 1:13:11
  once you start sliding, that's it.
• 1:13:14
  It doesn't detect that the vehicle's moving when it
• 1:13:16
  detects all wheels are stopped.
• 1:13:19
  So it's not going to try to ABS it up, but like on muddy
• 1:13:23
  situations and stuff like that.
• 1:13:25
  Oh yeah.
• 1:13:26
  ABS definitely helps.
• 1:13:27
  So is there a structure to moving up in off roading?
• 1:13:31
  So is there like so many hours behind the wheel, you know, things like that?
• 1:13:36
  I don't think it's a managed structure.
• 1:13:39
  I think it's more, what are you comfortable with?
• 1:13:42
  What do you consent to?
• 1:13:44
  So is it more like.
• 1:13:46
  It's like we got the green hills and the blue hills and the double
• 1:13:49
  black diamonds literally like that.
• 1:13:51
  Yeah, Rouse Creek.
• 1:13:52
  They literally have the definitions of the trails, but the green trails
• 1:13:55
  are like, you know, stock friendly.
• 1:13:58
  Then blue trail is imminent body damage possible.
• 1:14:04
  You're obviously going to want to have a lifted vehicle at that point.
• 1:14:08
  Then you have your black.
• 1:14:09
  And those are the trails where they are extremely technical,
• 1:14:14
  body damage will happen.
• 1:14:16
  So if you are all about bumping something, getting out and checking
• 1:14:20
  it, you don't want to do a black trail.
• 1:14:23
  Then above the black trail, you have the red trails and that's just
• 1:14:27
  the Jesus take the wheel trail.
• 1:14:30
  You don't want none of that sauce right there.
• 1:14:34
  I'm going to tell you right now, cause I've been in there and I'm sitting there.
• 1:14:38
  Okay.
• 1:14:38
  Cool.
• 1:14:39
  Some of them trails is sketchy, especially again when you start climbing up house
• 1:14:45
  sized boulders going up the hill of a mountain or something like that.
• 1:14:50
  That's buggy level.
• 1:14:51
  You need buggy or truggy.
• 1:14:53
  And to Drew's point about the different trail levels and stuff,
• 1:14:57
  Rouse Creek also has for some of their obstacles, they've got bypasses.
• 1:15:01
  So if you've got a recovery vehicle behind you, or you're an inexperienced
• 1:15:04
  person mixing and they don't want to take, they don't want to drive through
• 1:15:08
  rock Creek and there's a bypass for it.
• 1:15:11
  Exactly.
• 1:15:12
  So are you allowed to take passengers or only your spotter?
• 1:15:16
  No, you can take whoever paid.
• 1:15:18
  Oh, okay.
• 1:15:18
  If you can fit them in there, they, they get the ride along.
• 1:15:21
  Yeah.
• 1:15:21
  It's not, it's not as structured as a track day.
• 1:15:24
  I'm just curious.
• 1:15:25
  Cause some of our listeners do come from the track world.
• 1:15:27
  So, you know, I got to ask these questions, right?
• 1:15:29
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:30
  I mean, I would love, I would love to ride shotgun.
• 1:15:32
  So, you know, let's do it.
• 1:15:36
  Speaking of that, you were saying how like Roush you go to quite often and
• 1:15:39
  I know Roush charges per Passenger and there are some other parks that don't and
• 1:15:46
  it's basically you pay for the vehicle and that's it What are your thoughts on
• 1:15:50
  places charging for the passengers or not?
• 1:15:52
  Do you think that's good for the parks or?
• 1:15:57
  I think if you're going to come and have fun and use the facilities, and even if
• 1:16:02
  you're just a ride along, I think, I think it's fair that you pay a price to come on
• 1:16:09
  to the property because these properties are private property and they have to
• 1:16:15
  be able to keep the business going.
• 1:16:17
  And also they're not your friend.
• 1:16:18
  It's, it is a business.
• 1:16:20
  So if you show up on their property and you want to ride
• 1:16:22
  along, yeah, you got to pay.
• 1:16:24
  Now, I don't think you should pay as much as the driver.
• 1:16:27
  Like, and I've never seen a park charge the same amount for
• 1:16:32
  passenger as they do a driver.
• 1:16:34
  Also, there's a difference between the upfront costs.
• 1:16:37
  So like Roush Creek does like a upfront costs and then you get
• 1:16:42
  what's called a membership card.
• 1:16:44
  But I think the price was like 30 or 40 bucks, the upfront costs.
• 1:16:49
  But after that, for the rest of the year, it's only like 12.
• 1:16:55
  To get onto the property.
• 1:16:56
  I think that's fair.
• 1:16:58
  Yeah.
• 1:16:58
  I like that too.
• 1:16:59
  Another question for you as we kind of finish out the segment here,
• 1:17:03
  there's a lot more off roading shows on TV nowadays than there used to be.
• 1:17:07
  Right.
• 1:17:07
  And it's made the sport probably more popular.
• 1:17:10
  And so, you know, some of them like truck night in America,
• 1:17:12
  Alaskan off road warriors.
• 1:17:14
  There's Bunch of shows on motor trend that have to do with off roading and
• 1:17:17
  four wheeling and stuff like that.
• 1:17:19
  What are your thoughts on stuff like that?
• 1:17:20
  Are they overproduced and really don't show off roading for what it is?
• 1:17:24
  Are they too glitz and glammy?
• 1:17:26
  Or is there one that kind of is just right that you would
• 1:17:28
  recommend somebody watch that?
• 1:17:30
  Yeah.
• 1:17:30
  That's kind of really what it's like out there.
• 1:17:32
  So those shows are a hit and miss for me.
• 1:17:36
  What I can't stand is when you get a guy who openly admits that they
• 1:17:42
  don't off road and they're giving.
• 1:17:45
  Sage advice, performance trends on what this vehicle can and can't do.
• 1:17:50
  And then they're like, Oh, this thing is very off road worthy,
• 1:17:54
  you know, stuff like that.
• 1:17:56
  I'm like, Oh God.
• 1:17:57
  So it gets a little cringy for me, but then when I think about it, the
• 1:18:02
  mass majority of the people who sees those shows, they roading either.
• 1:18:08
  And then sometimes you have a hit, like, I don't know if y'all remember
• 1:18:12
  a few years back, Top Gear America had a off road, I thought that was one
• 1:18:17
  of their best shows when they, when Tanner Fowlson took off to Alaska.
• 1:18:24
  I thought that was hella entertaining because Those guys actually knew a
• 1:18:30
  little bit of something, especially, uh, what was the guy from North Carolina?
• 1:18:33
  Rutledge Wood?
• 1:18:34
  Yes.
• 1:18:35
  Rutledge Wood, yeah.
• 1:18:36
  He actually knew a little bit of something, something about off roading.
• 1:18:40
  So I appreciate when these guys have real authentic moments off road instead
• 1:18:46
  of like these staged, Oh, get me going up this hill and a tire off the ground.
• 1:18:53
  And then Alaska off road warriors.
• 1:18:57
  I've seen a couple of episodes.
• 1:18:58
  My dad's been trying to get me into it.
• 1:18:59
  Oh, he's like, man, you need to see what they're doing.
• 1:19:02
  And I I'm impressed.
• 1:19:04
  I'm impressed.
• 1:19:05
  Like that's legit.
• 1:19:07
  And I'm also a fan of seeing car reviewers, hop into the passenger seat of
• 1:19:14
  an off road vehicle and ask an experienced person about the vehicle and what its
• 1:19:21
  capabilities are and all that great stuff.
• 1:19:23
  I've seen that a lot, the stuff motor trend is doing.
• 1:19:27
  I like their car stuff.
• 1:19:28
  He takes the vehicles and does a hot lap at Willow Springs.
• 1:19:31
  Oh man, I love that.
• 1:19:33
  But off roading.
• 1:19:35
  A lot of these series have not hit the mark for me, and
• 1:19:38
  I don't watch it too much.
• 1:19:40
  So Drew, this has been really cool because we've gotten to see a
• 1:19:43
  different outlook on off roading.
• 1:19:45
  And like we've said, motorsport is deeper and wider than people realize.
• 1:19:51
  There are flavors and colors and different styles within every discipline.
• 1:19:55
  Of motorsport to include off roading.
• 1:19:57
  As you talked about, you got the rock climbers, you got the overlanders,
• 1:20:00
  you got the survivalists, et cetera.
• 1:20:01
  So this has been a really cool and technical outlook on a, yet
• 1:20:05
  another variation on off roading.
• 1:20:08
  And I'm hoping our audience learned something new today and,
• 1:20:11
  uh, maybe a newfound interest in a different type of motorsport.
• 1:20:14
  So I can't thank you enough for coming on the show.
• 1:20:17
  Well, Hey man, thanks for having me.
• 1:20:19
  Honestly, I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation because it had me
• 1:20:24
  think about some things as well.
• 1:20:26
  So, but thank you.
• 1:20:28
  Thank you for having me.
• 1:20:34
  If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
• 1:20:36
  be sure to check us out on www.
• 1:20:40
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• 1:20:40
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• 1:20:41
  You can also find us on Instagram Also, if you want to get involved or
• 1:20:46
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• 1:20:53
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• 1:20:56
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• 1:20:56
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 1:20:58
  Hey listeners, Crew Chief Eric here.
• 1:20:59
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• 1:21:03
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• 1:21:06
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• 1:21:09
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