Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Autocross to Off-Road: Dan Rao’s Journey with his Silver Monster

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From Autocross to Off-Road: Dan Rao’s Journey with his Silver Monster · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Grand Touring Motorsports started as a social group of car enthusiasts,
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but we've expanded into all sorts of motorsports disciplines, and we
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want to share our stories with you.
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Years of racing, wrenching, and motorsports experience brings
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together a top notch collection of knowledge and information
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through our podcast, Brake Fix.
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Tonight, we take the road less traveled.
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Heck, there isn't even a road.
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We're getting down and dirty with special guest Dan Rau, who is a British car owner.
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Avid off roader and was even on history channels truck
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night in America back in 2018.
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And we can't wait to explore his journey from autocrosser to off roader.
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Welcome to the show, Dan.
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Hey, thank you.
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It's been looking forward to it.
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It's going to be a fun evening.
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And as always, I'm your host, Brad.
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And I'm Eric.
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All right.
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Looks like the winch is secured, so let's get ready to pull ourselves
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out of this So Dan, we go way back.
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I met you a long time ago in a much younger state of my life,
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and you were an avid autocrosser.
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Yeah, I used to, I used to have a lot of fun autocrossing.
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I enjoyed that a lot.
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Volkswagens was what I used to autocross.
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Oh yeah, well ask him why he has that email address.
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Oh, man.
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There is a story behind that.
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The Slow Rocco, right?
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Yeah.
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I used to autocross the 1981 Scirocco S model.
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Yeah, I was jealous you had your Scirocco.
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I've always been in love with those cars, so.
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And it was a fun little car.
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It was all suspension, no tweaks to the motor or anything.
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And I thought it was pretty slick and I thought I was okay.
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But there was this guy that used to hop in my car, and every time he hopped in
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my car, he'd beat my time in my own car.
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And so he started calling it the slow knocko.
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That person was Matthew Yip.
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What's funny about that is I too have a similar story about showing
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up to an autocross with a Volkswagen.
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2001 gti and the person that introduced me to autocross would always get in
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my car and beat my time Every single single time and that person was mr.
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Eric It's a Volkswagen thing nobody else gets it that's That must be it.
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So dan let's talk about that.
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So you started in autocross.
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So what happened between then and now And getting into Offroading, how did,
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how do you make the transition there?
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Well, you know, I, I had always wanted a four-wheel drive
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vehicle since I was a little kid.
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Well, I don't know if you guys rem Well, Matthew might remember an
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old show called, I don't remember.
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Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
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I used to watch that show when I was a little kid and there was this guy,
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Marlon Perkins, I think was his name, and he used to ride around in this old
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1963 Land Rover all over the world.
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And, you know, I was born in Africa.
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My dad and his brothers had Land Rovers there.
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And so this ad for an old Land Rover popped up, and the bug just bit me.
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So I went and talked to the guy and ended up buying it.
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He gave me this long, sad story about how he'd apparently pissed off
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his dad, and his dad had pulled his college funding out from under him.
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And so he had to sell this thing to get money to pay for college.
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Now, whether it was true or not, apparently it worked on me.
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I had the opposite reaction to Land Rovers.
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My parents subjected me to the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, and I saw what
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that guy went through, and I was like, no way, no how, it ain't happening.
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Ironically, I watched that movie last night.
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This will come up later in the show, but did the Land Rovers you had in Africa,
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Also have a small block Chevy because that makes them infinitely more reliable.
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No, they did not.
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They were the standard old Land Rover four cylinder with a whopping 75 horsepower.
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So the Land Rover you have now, is that the same one you're talking about?
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It had the, you've had for this whole time, or is this multiple
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land Rovers later and, or is it multiple British cars later?
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Actually, it's all Land Rovers.
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I do still have the first Land Rover that I got, and I'll be taking it
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out on the trails this weekend.
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That one is no longer stock either.
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It's got bigger axles and bigger tires, but the first one I got
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was a four door, and so that's what I'm taking this weekend.
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That thing, instead of a small block Chevy, it's got a Cummins
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turbodiesel in that one.
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Oh, wow.
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A little four cylinder Cummins.
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The 4BT?
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4BT.
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Yes, exactly.
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The 4BT.
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Basically, the same motor that was in the early Dodge diesel truck.
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Between autocross and off roading, was there anything in there?
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Yeah, pretty much.
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Went from one to the other, and I was tinkering around with
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the Land Rover more and more.
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And, uh, I moved down to the southern part of Maryland, down near Pax River.
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And that put a lot of the autocross locations farther away from me.
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I kind of figured, you know, for the same amount of work that I do on stuff,
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I could spend a whole weekend driving, or I could spend about five minutes driving.
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So, yeah, exactly.
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So let me ask you this.
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Did anything from the autocross discipline translate over to off roading,
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respectively a different discipline?
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That carries over.
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Yeah, that's probably the most common, but yeah, there were there were some
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other things, you know, things like watching tire pressures and monkeying
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around with tire pressures to get vehicle to do what you want to do
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and handle the way you want it to.
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Discipline and you know, watching your feet and what you're doing with
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your feet and being able to control.
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Clutch and brake and gas at the same time.
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And, you know, one of the things that I've used consistently off
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road that I learned in autocross was left foot braking to set yourself up
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for different kinds of situations.
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Uh, that whole left foot braking thing was a tough one for me to learn.
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The first time I tried it in autocross, you know, I was coming
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around the autocross course and I thought I was doing pretty good.
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And I went to shift and forgot my left foot was still on the brake.
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Oops.
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Autocross requires quick reaction time.
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It also requires you to maneuver the steering wheel very quickly
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to have what they call fast hands.
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So I also wonder if shuffle steering and some of the other techniques
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translate over to off roading as well, where you have to maneuver, you know,
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very quickly because of obstacles and things like that on the trails.
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It depends on what kind of off road stuff you're doing.
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So most of what I built my Land Rover for and the Land Rover that
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was on the show, both of those were built for rock crawling, which is
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generally a very low speed event.
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So you're probably working the pedals faster than you are
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the steering wheel, typically.
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to try and, you know, maintain momentum or stop momentum or,
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you know, those kinds of things.
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But steering is probably one of the slower things, unless something starts to go
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wrong and you need a quick recovery to keep something from going really wrong.
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Do you miss autocross at all?
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I do.
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I do man on a regular basis.
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I look around at cars and I think man I've always had this fascination with
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mid engine vehicles And I saw a porsche 914 the other day that just looked real
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pretty and I was like, oh man, that would be fun That would be a blast to autocross.
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So this is a good segue.
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Let's talk about your build.
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Let's talk about the quote unquote Silver monster.
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Well, I helped build it.
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The silver monster actually belonged to a buddy of mine and he passed away.
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And when he passed away, I ended up with the truck and it's always tough
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for me to change anything on that truck.
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Cause for me, it belonged to my friend, Mike Van Curen, and it's always tough
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for me to change anything because I kind of want to keep it the way that Mike
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had it, the way that Mike set it up.
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But.
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You know how vehicles are, they need stuff.
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And at some point you got to change things and you know, you got to
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modify things to make it continue to work or to work for you better.
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Cause you know, everybody, ergonomics are different, different driving
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styles and that sort of stuff.
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But the silver monster originally, when he started building that, he
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pulled the front part of the body actually came out of a buddy's farm
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and had a tree growing up through it.
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They had to cut that off.
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Okay.
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The back half of the body, the body tub, actually Mike bought for me.
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Oh wow.
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And that was an old Land Rover that I saved from the wrecking yard.
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It was named Kalua Kate.
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It had the Kalua logo and the Kalua script on the tub and it said Kalua Kate.
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And when I was trying to sell that tub, somebody came to me and said,
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you know, I actually knew her.
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So she was apparently a real person.
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Oh, wow.
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With a fondness for Kalua.
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So on the show, they gave a brief overview and they gave a clip of you
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talking about the silver monster.
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You said the name was bestowed upon it by your daughter.
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So there's a backstory there.
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And they gave us some technical specs, right?
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71 Land Rover with a small black Chevy.
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I thought I heard you say there was an Allison trans in there, but it was really
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kind of Blurred in the conversation because I think pistol Pete was talking
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over you a little bit I could tell it was a manual from the video And on the
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spec sheet that they put up as a graphic They said it had 450 horsepower with an
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88 inch wheelbase The stock wheelbase on that short two door body style would
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have been 88 inches The wheelbase on it as it stands is probably closer to 100.
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Maybe just a maybe 150 I think it's about 102 is what the wheelbase is.
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So the wheelbase has been stretched.
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And for our listeners out there, if you want to compare it to something, that
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is the wheelbase, uh, 104 inches is the wheelbase of a mark four Volkswagen GTI.
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So that's a pretty significant stretch, uh, to get up to that size.
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Trying to think what else is 88 inch wheelbase.
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I think the Miata is pretty close.
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Isn't it?
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Yeah, exactly.
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So you're going from Miata size to GTI size.
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That's a big stretch, but anyway, continue.
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Yeah.
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So the, um, the frame was built from scratch using rectangular
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heavy wall, rectangular tubing.
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It's got a small block Chevy, but it's been stroked.
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So instead of a 350 cubic inch, it's a 383.
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The transmission is.
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It's an old Chevy transmission, the SM420.
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Old Chevy four speed transmission, which you really drive like a
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three speed because first gear is this really low granny gear.
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It's like seven to one in first gear.
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Oh wow.
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Then behind that, it's got what's a real popular transfer case in the off
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road world is the Atlas transfer case.
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There it is.
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Axles are one ton Chevrolet.
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truck axle.
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So it's a Dana 60 in the front and what's a corporate Chevy 14 bolt rear end.
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That's kind of the drivetrain and the tires on it are 39 and a half
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inch iROC tires on beadlock wheels.
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Completely not street legal car.
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Yeah.
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I saw it had a tow bar on the front.
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Did you flat tow it all the way down to Georgia?
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No, no, actually that's not a tow bar.
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It's what a lot of folks in the, uh, in the off road world call it a stinger.
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Okay.
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So it's a, it's tied to the roll cage and comes up off the bumper tied
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back into the roll cage that, where if you're tipping, over forward.
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Sometimes that can keep you from going all the way over.
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And if you do roll, say if you roll over sideways, a lot of times that's
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a higher pivot point that between that and your roll cage, it will keep from
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smashing your engine, your hood all in.
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That's what he saw, it was not.
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I put it on a trailer to take it down to Georgia for filming.
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Nice.
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So let's talk about the name.
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It is Silver, and it is, does kind of look like a monster, so maybe it is
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pretty obvious, but you know, how did your daughter get the honor of naming the girl?
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So a little more personal history here that maybe you guys aren't aware of, but
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After Mike, who built the truck, passed away, I was spending so much time with
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his wife, Wendy, and his daughter, Maddie.
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You know, one thing led to another.
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We ended up just spending so much time together and really enjoying
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it and getting really close, so.
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Now I'm married to Wendy and Mike's daughter is now my stepdaughter.
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It's like a Hallmark movie all of a sudden.
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I like this.
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Yeah.
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So when we were prepping the truck for the show, she had called it the
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silver monster well before that.
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And well before I owned it, you know, before I got it after Mike passed away.
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So she had already been calling it the silver monster.
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And mainly just because it made so much noise.
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It's a loud truck.
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It's got a couple of really.
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It's got a single muffler on it, but it's wide open.
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And I tell you what, when you came around the corner for staging on that
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hill climb, I was like, what is that?
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I mean, it was outside of that 2000 horsepower diesel, which
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we'll talk about later on.
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I mean, it was, it was like, what is coming around that corner?
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Holy cow.
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Yeah.
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It's a fun truck.
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You can hear it coming.
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That's for sure.
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And I don't want to call it practice, but But where do you
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go off roading on the regular?
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Where do you take the Silver Monster to get acclimated to driving it and
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putting it in extreme conditions?
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Yeah, you know, that's, that's always the hard thing here on the east coast.
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Two places I go most often just west of Winchester and, uh, uh, there's a little
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town called Gore and not far from Gore, there's the, uh, the Cove campground.
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And at the Cove Campground, they have miles and miles and miles of trails.
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And I've been going to that place for, oh man, it's gotta be over
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20 years I've been going there.
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I know the owners real well.
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They like people to come off road, but they like people
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to come for organized events.
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But, you know, I know them well enough that I could pretty much call them up any
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weekend and say, Hey, can I just swing by and and play, and they're usually
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pretty good, not letting me do that.
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But on the East Coast here, pretty much anywhere you go, you have to pay.
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So when I go to the Cove Campground, I pay them a land use fee, or I pay
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them for camping, that sort of thing.
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There's, uh, the other place I go most often, a property that's
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been set up as an off road park.
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It's called Roush Creek Off Road Park up in Pennsylvania.
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So Roush Creek is old coal mining property and the property owners, once
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they mined the coal, they were trying to figure out how to bring in revenue.
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So they said, look, you know, they built an off road park and they have
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a section for full size vehicles, they have another section for ATVs
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and that sort of thing, side by sides.
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So for our listeners, we have a few members in GTM that
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are big into off roading.
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And so the places you mentioned, they also have participated at
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or in events at those locations.
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And what's interesting is, if you go to our website, And search things like
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Toyzuki, or you search Red Clay Rally, or Roush Creek, articles will come up
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where we've covered events where even Brad has gone to Roush Creek with one of
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our region chiefs, Harry, uh, one of our members out of the Aberdeen area built a
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Toyota 4Runner Suzuki Samurai, he calls it the Toyzuki, and he was at the Cove
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last year in Gore, and we covered all that, and it's really interesting, so,
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Common stopping grounds for everybody.
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So that's, that's good to know.
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And, and that these places exist, especially on the East coast, where we
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continue to develop and to develop and to develop, and there's not gonna be
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any trees left anymore, you know, by the time we're done, so the science of
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off roading, I mean, you're talking slow speeds, granite gears, things like that.
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But.
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What are you most worried about?
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What are you looking at?
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You know, we're always talking about look at the apex and you got to track out.
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You got to position the car in a certain place because of weight transfer.
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A lot of those things apply to off roading as well.
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So what's the driving style like, you know, I think one of the things you asked
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me, what are you most worried about?
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And I think the one thing that most crawling that are most worried about is
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rolling, flopping, or rolling, or because that's where you're going to get hurt.
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That's where you're going to do a lot of damage, and I think that's
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what people are most worried about.
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I mean, there's some hardcore guys with full on tube rigs that
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they can care less if they roll.
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They might be more worried just about breaking stuff,
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you know, high dollar stuff.
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For me, I love being in the woods.
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I've been camping since I was a little kid, and so for me, one of the, one of the
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attractions of Off road versus autocross is I'm out camping for the weekend.
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I'm out in the woods I'm running around in the woods all day And you know if you
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get stuck you're doing a lot of hiking up and down hills to get recovery gear
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and pull winch cables you know, but I love the whole outdoors and out in the
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woods aspect of it, and typically every night you're sitting around a campfire.
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We've got to the point now where some people bring smokers or fryer setups.
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We eat good when we're out there.
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If you were given advice.
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to somebody that was just starting out in off roading.
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What would those tips be?
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My tip, and I think you'll get this from a lot of off roaders, is bring what you got
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and learn how to drive it and figure out what's what before you start just throwing
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money and buying stuff that looks cool.
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You know, before you spend, you know, 1, 700 on the fancy worn winch, you
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know, learn how to drive first before you spend 2, 000 on a lift kit, another
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2, 000 on huge tires and wheels.
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Learn your vehicle because every vehicle is going to be a little bit different.
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You know, even on the track, every vehicle you get in is going to
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handle a little bit different.
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It's going to have its own quirks.
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So learn your vehicle, learn what works for it.
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Talk to other people that have the same kind of vehicle.
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And you got to figure out what you want to do with it too.
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You know, the scope of off road motorsports ranges from, you know, a
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quarter mile or eighth of a mile an hour doing rock crawling to high speed desert
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racing like Pistol Pete used to do.
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Expedition kind of off road stuff where it's more about traveling long distances
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and camping overnight So you got to know what you want to do And get out there
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and experience it a little bit first before you start throwing money down the
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drain In your opinion or maybe in the off roading community that you travel with
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is there a good starter off road truck?
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Like something you would recommend somebody starting out.
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It's so budget dependent, to be honest with you, in my opinion, probably
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the best deal going right out of the box is the Jeep Rubicon, you know,
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they've gotten more and more expensive.
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Now find a good used Jeep Rubicon in good shape with no rust.
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It's got low gearing.
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The low gearing is a big.
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And then lockers in the differential lockers front
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and rear right out of the box.
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There's nothing else in its price range that you're going to get that.
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Is there a type of truck that you'd say, no, stay away from,
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don't even don't do that.
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Land Rover.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Land Rovers.
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Don't get me wrong.
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I love Land Rovers, but you know, for off roading, I take the old Land Rovers, you
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know, 70s and earlier, maybe early 80s.
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When they still had what were called the series land rovers were all
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the older leaf sprung land rovers.
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Even a Defender is great off road, but when you get to the Defenders,
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the price of entry goes way up.
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Starts getting really expensive.
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The coil sprung land rovers, like the Discovery and Range Rover, they're great.
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Actually, if somebody has really got their heart set on using land rovers,
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I'd suggest finding an old Range Rover or an older Discovery before they got.
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As fancy as they are now, yeah, the new ones are pretty capable vehicles.
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But when you break them, you're going to pay well.
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And so they've got so much electronic glitz in them.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I don't see anybody taking an evoke to the cove
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and going off road like you do.
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So I'm not going to happen.
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You'd be surprised that you show up at some of these Land Rover
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rallies and there are people will show up with, you know, less than
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a year old brand new Range Rover.
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Take them on the trails in the mud.
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And you know, some of these guys aren't afraid to get them dirty.
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Wasn't there a study or a survey that said as a percentage, more Land Rover
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owners went off road than anybody else.
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Yeah, it was probably paid for by Land Rover.
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You never know, right?
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So these new vehicles are extremely capable compared to, you know, we talk
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about that a lot with the cars where a piece of crap that you buy today,
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subcompact is better than a GTI from 30 years ago, you know, just hands down.
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But, but I, I digress in our world, we have coaches in the right seat
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that are teaching drivers how to, you know, refine their skills in a
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particular discipline in our case.
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It's driving on the track.
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Is the same true in off roading or are you on your own to just sort of figure it out?
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We talked earlier about Roush Creek Off Road Park.
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They actually offer training courses at Roush Creek.
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So you can pay your money and it's not an exorbitant cost, but you can pay the fee.
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You can go to Roush Creek and take their 101 off roading 101 course and then I
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think they have more advanced courses.
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So that's what I would recommend.
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Yeah, that's what Harry did.
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So what's your biggest?
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Oops moment.
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That'll lead into my question.
21:22
Biggest oops moment?
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Man, that's a tough one.
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Embarrassingly enough, probably my biggest oops moment was in my first Land Rover.
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And it wasn't even off road.
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I used to drive this thing to work and back.
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You know, I had the top off of it.
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It's a four door.
21:36
It wasn't really made to drive around with the top off, but it
21:39
unbolted, so I took it off anyway.
21:41
But I would drive this thing.
21:42
I have a whopping 15 minute commute to work.
21:45
So it's fun to just drive it into work on the base, on the military
21:48
base down here, and drive home.
21:50
And on the way home, the neighborhood was still being built up.
21:53
And so every day on the way home, I'd drive through where the
21:56
construction was going on just to see what the progress was.
21:59
One day, I'm on my way home and, uh, we had a summer thunderstorm
22:03
and it was all dirt roads back where the construction was going on.
22:07
I'm coming along and there's a road that I knew to be nice and level and
22:11
flat and well graded and packed solid.
22:14
What I didn't account for was that it was a bunch of clay that had got saturated.
22:21
I got out in the middle of what should have been only a couple of inches
22:25
deep mud puddle, but it was probably a foot and a half of saturated clay.
22:32
Couple inches of water and I got about the middle of it and I can just feel the whole
22:36
truck sinking My dress clothes nice shoes, you know good slacks on and you know I've
22:44
got probably 10 15 feet of mud on each every side of me Took my shoes off rolled
22:51
up my pants, which still got muddy anyway Walked home, which was probably just a
22:55
couple hundred yards around the corner.
22:58
Walked home and had to get my neighbor with a Ford Excursion
23:02
to come over and pull me out.
23:04
And, you know, as payback, I had to wash his car for him.
23:10
I had to wash it in my driveway, so I ended up with all the mud.
23:14
Speaking of oops moments, I mean, they happen all the time on track.
23:17
They happen in autocross.
23:19
They happen in off roading.
23:21
I mean, oops moments are everywhere.
23:21
What is something you recommend, uh, a couple items that you recommend or good
23:25
safety gear that someone just starting out should, should take with them?
23:29
Safety or recovery gear, whatever.
23:31
I would recommend a couple of both.
23:33
So, anybody going out, number one, for off roading, you know, one of
23:37
the basic rules that you'll hear from most people is don't go out alone.
23:41
Um, don't go off roading alone because there, there are just so
23:44
many nightmare stories, you know, of, you know, It's not a solo sport.
23:48
Yeah, no, it really isn't.
23:50
You know, it's just so easy for something to go wrong or for you to get injured that
23:55
the number one rule is don't go alone.
23:57
But as far as equipment, even for a beginner, always have a couple of D
24:01
rings or what people call them shackles or D rings and A couple of toe straps
24:07
or at least one toe strap and a d ring for each end of that toe strap.
24:11
Do not get the toe straps with the hooks that are already sewn into them.
24:15
I've seen more of those fail than anything else.
24:18
So get a good quality strap with just loops on the end and then use a couple
24:21
of d rings or shackles at each end.
24:24
And that's, you know, that's your most basic recovery gear.
24:28
That and a jack.
24:29
Yeah, whenever I go off roading, I always make sure I take a shovel with me too.
24:32
Yep, so those, those kind of those three things are just great recovery
24:36
gear, just the most basic, um, as far as safety, personal safety, some people
24:42
actually, especially if you have roll cages, some people wear helmets, they'll
24:45
just use like even a bicycle helmet will keep you from cracking your noggin
24:49
on the roll cage and a good pair of gloves, I'd say probably the best thing.
24:54
Are there any websites or books or anything that you recommend
24:57
for people that are starting out that they should check out?
25:00
One of the guys that's pretty active.
25:02
There's a guy named bill burke He has a website and he does off road instruction.
25:06
He's based out west bill burke If you don't recognize the name He was
25:10
one of the american drivers for the camel trophy if you remember the
25:14
camel trophy events that were all you know Heavily sponsored by land rover.
25:18
He has some books out Very common sense guy, very focused on safety
25:23
and the environment and doing it in a manner that's, you know, not damaging.
25:27
If you're looking for an author, if you're looking for a guy to
25:30
find or follow, I would say Bill Burke's one of those kind of guys.
25:35
Any forums or anything that you recommend?
25:37
Whatever manufacturer you have, yeah, whatever manufacturer
25:41
their brand specific forums.
25:43
I'm on a lot of the rover based forums or, you know, Facebook pages
25:48
now where a lot of things are going.
25:50
There is a website called pirate four by four dot com heavily trafficked by a
25:56
lot of four wheel drive folks, but it's kind of Sketchy at times and depending
26:01
on which of the sub forms you're in people can be just downright rude or
26:06
you know In some cases really helpful.
26:08
It's hard to make a good solid recommendation for one specific form
26:13
one that I used to like Even though i'm a land rover guy was uh called.
26:17
I hate mud.
26:18
I h eight mud And it was a Toyota form, but the guys on
26:23
the forum were really helpful.
26:26
Um, you know, even, even for a non Toyota guy, they put up with me, but
26:30
that was one of the forums that I never, you know, a bunch of forums, you
26:35
walk away, they kind of, sometimes you just have a sour taste in your mouth.
26:38
I'm like, I'll stay away for a while.
26:40
I never got that on the, I hate mud form.
26:43
Um, they were always pretty decent.
26:45
So that, that, that might be a good one to recommend.
26:48
And any places you'd recommend for parts?
26:50
I know it's, it's very much more specific for the Landys, but.
26:54
Yeah, you know, to be honest with you, wherever I can find them at an affordable
26:59
price, I use most of the major suppliers.
27:02
I, I was just at AutoZone today buying stuff, you know,
27:06
and so I go to local places.
27:07
I go to Napa.
27:08
If I can find common part crossovers.
27:12
that I can easily find in local stores, I'll go buy it in a heartbeat
27:16
rather than, you know, pay the high prices for a Land Rover part number.
27:20
So, and, and online, you know, I tend to use, uh, some of the online
27:26
car places as well, you know, Rock Auto and some of those places.
27:30
I mean, I use all the same standard stuff everybody else does.
27:33
Perfect.
27:34
Let's move on then a little bit.
27:35
And let's talk about truck night in America, because this is the
27:38
thing that has me the most excited about this episode to talk to
27:41
somebody that's been on this show.
27:43
Let's talk about how you got on the show.
27:45
What motivated you to do it?
27:48
Well, you know, somebody put a bug in my ear.
27:50
Actually, they posted something on one of the Land Rover forums
27:54
or one of the Facebook pages.
27:57
I can't remember which it was.
27:58
But I saw a post from somebody saying they knew about this show and that
28:03
they thought that the producers really wanted a Land Rover, a built Land
28:08
Rover, because they didn't have one yet.
28:10
Nobody had applied yet, you know, yada, yada, yada.
28:13
There's a company that does all, you know, casting calls for all these
28:17
contest shows, you know, ranging from cooking shows to truck night in America.
28:22
So I found the casting call and I put all the stuff together and sent
28:26
them, you know, a bunch of pictures, sent them the story of the truck
28:29
and, you know, all that kind of stuff, little human interest stuff.
28:33
And I sent it in to them on, I think it was like a Monday night, about less
28:38
than 24 hours later, I got a phone call.
28:41
and a voicemail that said, Hey, give us a call back.
28:45
We want to talk to you.
28:46
Wow.
28:47
You know, it went from there.
28:48
I called them back.
28:49
We did a Skype interview.
28:51
Then I think we followed it up with another Skype interview.
28:55
But, um, after the second call, I said, well, so, you know, what's the deal?
29:00
And that was told, well, pretty much, you're, you're in.
29:03
Wow.
29:04
So it was just, it was just like that.
29:06
I mean, it just happened, that part of it happened quick, and then all the rest
29:11
was working out the details of where to be and when to be there, and, you
29:16
know, all the logistics kind of stuff.
29:18
In the initial concept, you had to have a driver.
29:22
So I had a buddy of mine.
29:24
He was, uh, he was a retired Marine that works here.
29:27
He's really good with his hands and phenomenal fabricator.
29:30
He drove down with me.
29:31
In fact, we used his truck to trailer it down.
29:34
And it wasn't till after the first day of filming, they were just
29:38
doing like interviews and you know.
29:41
All the kind of filler material.
29:42
And at the end of that day, they said, Oh, by the way, co drivers are out.
29:47
We're not using co drivers.
29:48
Wow.
29:49
The episode I was in, although it showed up as like, I think maybe the
29:53
fifth episode in that first season.
29:55
We were actually the second episode that they filmed.
29:59
Oh, wow.
30:00
And they were on the steep end of the learning curve, and they
30:03
determined just on the fly, and I think part of it was History Channel.
30:07
You know, pulling some punches.
30:09
They determined on the fly that now we don't need co drivers.
30:13
So they're out.
30:14
Interesting.
30:15
They had already figured out the idea of the coaches as well.
30:17
And we'll talk about that in a minute.
30:19
There are a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes.
30:21
Obviously you're on the hook to bring your truck down there, get it prepped.
30:24
How much time from that initial conversation to when you started filming?
30:28
Was it months?
30:29
Was it weeks?
30:29
Was it days?
30:31
Oh, it was months.
30:32
It was months.
30:32
I think my first discussion with them was early summer, and I don't think
30:38
we filmed till August or September.
30:41
I'd have to go back and look at notes, but I think it was initially supposed
30:45
to be in August, and then it moved, and we were in the beginning part of
30:48
September when we finally got told, here's when you need to be there.
30:52
Wow.
30:52
And they were really good about covering expenses and that sort of stuff.
30:57
So, you know, they asked us to get medical exams and a doctor's release.
31:01
They offered to pay for the doctor's exam.
31:04
They offered to come pick the truck up and send us plane tickets to fly down there.
31:10
So they were covering, you know, because they were doing this for
31:13
people all across the country.
31:15
One of the guys in my episode, the guy, Eric.
31:18
Peterson and I believe he may be related to the family that owns
31:22
the Peterson Automotive Museum.
31:24
Oh, wow.
31:26
He's the guy with the, with the Dodge.
31:27
Yeah.
31:27
Yeah.
31:28
So Eric Peterson, uh, the guy that won is a cop from, uh, I think Albuquerque.
31:35
So those guys, they ship their vehicles cross country or, you know, they
31:39
gave them the option of shipping it.
31:41
And one of the things that they didn't do on the episode is actually
31:43
say where you guys were from.
31:45
So, I mean, I knew that it was being filmed in Georgia, but I
31:48
don't know if the audience had any clue where anybody was from.
31:50
So it sounds like everybody was from four corners of the U.
31:53
S.
31:54
Yeah, yeah, they were.
31:55
There was, there was, uh, Albuquerque, California, or, uh, no, actually,
31:59
it was Albuquerque and Arizona.
32:00
I think Eric Peterson lived in Arizona.
32:02
Uh, Rob Wozniak, he lives in Baltimore.
32:05
Oh, wow.
32:06
Yeah, and then, uh, Avery Abbott, the guy in the Toyota pickup.
32:10
Yeah.
32:11
Um, he was a local, actually, he, he knew, he, he knew where that Off Road Park was.
32:16
He knew all about it.
32:17
He, he was a local from the, uh, from Georgia.
32:20
A lot of these, what's called in reality shows, whether it
32:23
be, you know, food Network or Discovery or, or, or on history.
32:26
I'm watching you on TV for, let's say a third of the episode, but you're probably
32:31
there for the better part of a week.
32:33
How long did it take to do all this?
32:35
I believe our episode they did of day one was show up and get fitted for
32:40
helmets and all that kind of stuff.
32:42
They interviewed us about the vehicles.
32:44
They took us around the site to different locations.
32:47
And that's where you see some of the interview stuff when we were solo.
32:51
They actually took video.
32:53
I mean, you know how it goes.
32:54
They probably shot 10, 20 times more videos.
32:57
video footage than what was actually in the show.
32:59
They actually had people in the car riding around with us,
33:02
shooting while we drove around.
33:04
They had us drive down the local roads and had a car in front, a car
33:09
in back, doing video on the roads.
33:11
They didn't end up using much of that footage.
33:14
So that was the first day.
33:15
Then the second day was actually starting the competition stuff.
33:19
Oh, interesting.
33:20
But on that second day.
33:22
They said, you need to wear the same clothes you were wearing yesterday.
33:26
So it looks like it's still the same day.
33:28
For consistency.
33:29
Yeah, yeah.
33:30
Consistency.
33:31
Although we were all bitching about having sweated our asses off
33:34
in those clothes the day before.
33:37
And not being given a warning so we could at least wash them.
33:39
But oh well.
33:40
The second day was the first three events that you saw in the show.
33:45
So it was the um, the hill climb.
33:47
The slag heap, they call it.
33:48
It was the tug of war.
33:50
The silo pull down, yeah.
33:52
Yeah, and then it was, what do they call it, four soldiers or something?
33:56
Yeah, where they have to come down the steps, yeah.
33:59
So that was all in one day.
34:02
So first day was set up stuff, all the fluff material.
34:05
Second day was those three events.
34:07
And then the last day was that final competition and event, I guess if
34:12
you want to call it that, going through green hell and all that stuff.
34:15
The way the show is edited, it's edited.
34:17
Any one of you could have potentially won or put down the
34:20
fast lap through the green hell.
34:22
And I was wondering if, if you got a chance to actually do a lap of that
34:25
obstacle course, or they said no, because if you break your car and
34:29
you can't do the other exercises, how did those logistics work out?
34:32
Well, actually the way the show played those things was the
34:35
order in which they took place.
34:37
So although it, the show takes place over an hour, filming was three days
34:41
worth of filming for one episode.
34:43
The events actually occurred in the exact order.
34:47
And it was an elimination as you saw it on the show.
34:50
So Avery and the, in the Toyota, when we did the slag heaper, that hill climb,
34:55
that very first challenge in the show was the first challenge that we actually did.
35:01
Avery actually got farther up the hill than I did.
35:05
Yeah, I was having issues.
35:07
I actually, they didn't show it on the show, but you know, this is a
35:12
throttle body fuel injection is on that, on that small block Chevy,
35:16
uh, it was, uh, an older system made by a company called retro tech.
35:20
Well, the two guys that were retro tech split.
35:23
One of them went to work for Holley on the sniper program,
35:26
and the other works for Fitech.
35:28
So, you know, those are both aftermarket fuel injection
35:32
systems that are pretty common.
35:33
But in any case, I was having problems with the fuel injection system, and
35:36
every time I put a load on it to go uphill, it would start stalling.
35:40
It was acting like a carburetor, and so I turned around, and I just
35:43
figured, well, let me try it backwards.
35:45
So I got it.
35:46
Halfway up the hill backwards, I actually ran over one of their cameras that
35:50
was buried in the middle of the dirt.
35:54
Avery got farther than I did, but since he was not able to drive away
35:59
from it and needed a bunch of repair work, and I could, I could just
36:02
simply restart it and drive away.
36:04
They said, well, he's out here.
36:06
Was that all shot in one take then, or did they have to restart that climb?
36:11
No, it was all one take.
36:12
So then in your case, when we see them cut away, obviously
36:16
we don't see the backup part.
36:17
That would be the director's cut, which I, I would totally wanna see,
36:19
especially running over the camera.
36:21
But , so did you just basically go down and come up the side of
36:25
the hill or something because you never made the full climb then?
36:28
That, that's exactly what I did.
36:30
I went down, went out the way that you saw the vehicles coming in to
36:33
begin with and met them up by the silo for the, for the tug of war.
36:38
Actually, what happened was, uh, we went back to, to the trailer
36:44
and in between those two events.
36:46
So they took us back.
36:47
They fed us some lunch, I think, and, uh, then they staged us up by
36:51
the silo area after a little break.
36:54
So had you guys already done the round table interview thing with the whole crew
36:58
at that point with the host of the show?
37:00
Yeah, we did.
37:01
Okay.
37:02
So, yeah, again, this is all the magic of editing, right?
37:04
And, and having.
37:05
Things just all spliced together after the fact in the cutting room floor.
37:08
So let's talk about that.
37:09
Let's talk about the host of the show.
37:11
So you got to meet everybody.
37:12
You got to meet pistol Pete.
37:13
May he rest in peace.
37:14
Right.
37:14
He passed away last year.
37:16
They did the whole, you know, you hate it like dodgeball in elementary school.
37:20
Yeah.
37:21
You got picked last, you got partnered with Glenn.
37:24
So what was that like?
37:26
Oh, I, we had a blast actually, you know, the whole filming part was a load of fun.
37:31
They had us all in the same hotel, but we weren't supposed to know each other.
37:35
We were told, you know, don't fraternize with the enemy kind of thing.
37:39
You know, we were all in the bar together after hours.
37:42
We were eating breakfast together.
37:44
But as soon as the producers would show up, we'd just kind of clam up and
37:47
act like we didn't know each other.
37:49
But when we first met the hosts of the show, I don't know about the other guys.
37:53
I think they were kind of in the same boat as I was.
37:55
And I finally said, well, tell us about you guys because
37:58
we don't know who you are.
38:01
You know, but it took us prompting them to do so to figure out who they were.
38:05
You know, Glenn was, Glenn was awesome.
38:07
He's a good guy.
38:08
He's very, very laid back guy.
38:11
It was a fun thing.
38:12
Very cool.
38:13
And I mean, Pistol Pete Sorenson, he is a nationally recognized,
38:17
you know, Baja champion.
38:19
All those rallies and all that kind of stuff.
38:21
And I mean, he, he's a, is he as tall as he looks on TV?
38:24
I gotta ask.
38:25
He is, yeah, he was a tall dude, yeah, they must have specially
38:30
built those vehicles for him.
38:31
They had to, yeah, he was a big guy, but all those guys were wonderful.
38:35
I mean, one of the guys, uh, Abe Wine, he's actually somewhat local.
38:40
He lives out.
38:42
Manassas, Winchester.
38:44
He's one of the master fabricators, if I remember correctly.
38:47
Yep.
38:48
I believe his family runs a truck repair business and stuff out there,
38:51
and he's setting up shop, doing some of his own stuff now, fabricating.
38:56
I'm still in touch with a bunch, with most of the guys from the show.
38:59
They assigned you a coach.
39:00
What does that exactly mean?
39:02
Cause you, you, we only get little snippets of that and, and, you know,
39:04
you're supposed to be paired up, you know, so they eliminated the co driver.
39:07
So they, they give you this coach and said, what's that all about?
39:10
You know, there wasn't at least in, you know, early on, like I said,
39:14
we were the second episode to film.
39:16
There really wasn't much by way of coaching.
39:18
I think after the second challenge, when you get some actual shop time.
39:24
Before you do Green Hell and all that, you actually get some time in the shop,
39:29
which, you know, I think is where you got to know the coaches a little better.
39:33
So, for the length of time that I was on it, the only time you saw the
39:37
coaches was when you showed up on set.
39:40
And, you know, most of that was just quick suggestions.
39:43
When I was prepping to do the, uh, the silo pulldown, Glenn was, you know,
39:48
making suggestions as to tire pressures.
39:51
You know, he, he actually suggested that set up.
39:53
It was him.
39:54
He would just let all the air out of the tires and run them with the
39:57
tires flat, because that would create a lot more drag for the other guy.
40:03
If he was trying to pull you backwards, I guess that was his theory.
40:06
He said, just run them as flat as you dare.
40:08
We were busy, uh, right before we filmed that.
40:11
Just trying to lower the tire pressures as much as I could.
40:14
Did you get to run the green Hill just for fun?
40:18
Like I know you didn't get to compete in that part of the competition,
40:21
but were you able to get your truck working and everything to run that
40:24
just for fun while you were down there?
40:25
No, I did not.
40:27
I would love to have been able to, but pretty much once you were knocked
40:31
out or eliminated in the show, they didn't want you around at all.
40:34
They didn't want you on on the set.
40:37
They didn't want you.
40:37
Yeah, it was.
40:39
It was kind of you're out of here, you know, pack your stuff get your stuff
40:43
loaded and get on out That's a shame.
40:45
At least give you time to play on the on the course, you know, I think they were
40:50
Really, you know and as they should be they were concerned about liability issues
40:54
for one But they also didn't want you interfering at all in any way with the
40:59
The filming that was going on and if you were out busy doing that kind of stuff,
41:04
you would have showed up in the background of shots that they were filming and they
41:08
didn't want that kind of stuff happening.
41:10
Would you have had the opportunity to stay down there and get time on the
41:14
course just through the facility itself?
41:17
Yeah, once the filming was completely done, what History Channel
41:21
did, they locked this place up.
41:24
They paid, I think it was called Sunshine Off Road, RV and Off Road.
41:29
They locked this place up for the duration of the filming.
41:32
Oh, wow.
41:33
They paid enough to get exclusive use.
41:37
And when you pulled in there, you could see that they've spent, you
41:40
know, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
41:43
On designing a course and building the obstacles and they didn't want
41:48
people just kind of running around willy nilly damaging the facilities.
41:52
They had a significant investment cost.
41:55
So were you able to watch the other competitors like make your car disappear?
41:59
But were you able to watch or did you have to just basically vacate the premises?
42:03
You had to vacate the premises.
42:04
They wanted me to load, load that thing on the trailer and get it
42:08
out of there as soon as possible.
42:09
So I think what they did was they had you, they had us all in a hotel
42:13
and they would load us in a van.
42:16
They would drive us every morning from the hotel to the set.
42:19
They would throw us in a trailer for the cast members.
42:23
And if you even wanted to go to the bathroom, you had to get
42:26
one of the staff members there.
42:29
to escort you to the port a potties and then back to the trailer.
42:33
Wow.
42:34
So they were really tight lipped about anything else that was going on that you
42:38
didn't have to be directly involved in.
42:40
So the slag heap, right?
42:42
They tout that as a test of speed and acceleration while
42:45
climbing a hundred foot vertical.
42:47
I mean, steep as all get out, right?
42:49
So do you think If the landy had been running right you would have
42:54
been able to make it all the way up Where do you think where do you think
42:56
you would have fared out compared to the other the other trucks?
42:59
Oh, I think i'd have done really well the motor in that um, I think
43:03
when mike built it he bought that motor from patriot performance and
43:07
they He got the dyno sheet with it.
43:09
So the dyno at just over 500 horsepower, just motor at the flywheel.
43:16
Wow.
43:16
So in the second exercise or event is the silo pull down and they call
43:21
that a test of strength and torque.
43:23
What kind of torque numbers is the silver monster putting down?
43:25
I mean, we know your horsepower specs.
43:27
I actually have no idea.
43:30
I'll have to see if I can find the old dyno sheet and see if they
43:33
even gave him the torque specs.
43:35
I really couldn't tell you.
43:36
Okay.
43:37
But you know, with rock crawlers and things, a lot of it's in the gearing,
43:42
you know, you just gear those things so low that you could have a small motor and
43:46
still go rock crawling really more about the gearing than it is about the power.
43:51
So I wondered about the silo pull down, which is, you know, a giant tug of war.
43:56
And in the first round you went up against a JK Wrangler, right?
43:59
The one dubbed the nightmare JK.
44:01
Yep.
44:02
I mean, the guy said it's not your average mall crawler.
44:05
He did a lot of suspension work, all that kind of stuff.
44:06
But from a motor perspective, sounded like a six cylinder didn't seem like
44:11
it was anything really outside of the ordinary that didn't come from Chrysler.
44:16
It wasn't like he had a, a Hellcat motor under the hood all of a sudden,
44:19
you know, what happened there on the first poll, was it cause he had an
44:22
automatic and it just dropped all the power in one shot and that was the end
44:25
of it, or what, what happened there?
44:27
Yeah, it took me by surprise how quickly he got on it and just, I mean, he just
44:32
yanked me backwards in a heartbeat.
44:34
You know, he had quick reactions, maybe quicker reactions than I did.
44:38
And once I started moving backwards, that was it.
44:40
Yeah.
44:41
Um, you know, he got the better of me really quick.
44:43
Yeah.
44:43
I noticed too, that the Landy did a lot of hopping as it was being dragged backwards.
44:48
That had to be not the most pleasant ride for you.
44:53
Yeah, I'm used to that thing bouncing and hopping, so it didn't bother me.
44:57
But I think in that first round with him, I think the tire pressures were
45:02
A little bit higher than what they should have been, but even when I
45:05
lowered the tire pressures and went up against the, uh, the Ford pickup,
45:10
it still ended up hopping a fair bit.
45:12
Yeah, I noticed that as well.
45:14
How disgusting was that stuff in the silo when it dumped all over the truck?
45:20
That was nasty.
45:21
And I got it dumped on me twice.
45:25
It was probably a foot and a half deep in the back in the bed of that.
45:29
Oh my God.
45:30
What was it?
45:31
Was it crickets or beetles or something?
45:33
It was crickets.
45:35
It was crickets and wood chips, wood shavings.
45:39
I actually, I actually saved a big bottle of it just so people that want
45:44
to come by and see what it smelled like.
45:48
So I wondered about that.
45:49
Did they even offer to clean your car or clean your truck
45:52
after it was all said and done?
45:54
Oh no, they didn't offer anything.
45:55
It was pretty much get the guy out of here and send us receipts.
46:00
We'll pay for your gas on the way home kind of thing.
46:03
That's your consolation prize.
46:05
Yeah.
46:05
So let's talk about round two.
46:07
And I was like, thank God they didn't put you up against that dodge.
46:11
Because I mean, the size of that turbo is probably as big as I am around.
46:16
And I mean, it was, it was massive and he's putting down astronomical numbers.
46:21
I noted, uh, what did they say?
46:23
1946 horsepower and 2888 torque.
46:27
I mean, was anybody ever going to win that tug of war out of
46:30
the, out of the rest of you?
46:31
I don't think so.
46:32
That thing was just a monster.
46:34
You got chained up to that 94 Ford F 150 X farm truck, which, by all
46:40
intents and purposes, it just looked like a regular old farm truck.
46:43
Except, he Frankensteined that thing and he was running a 7.
46:47
3 liter power stroke under there.
46:48
Going back to those torque numbers, I'm like, I felt for you,
46:52
because I'm like, he's got a Chevy in there, he's got big bucks.
46:55
power numbers, but he's going against diesel.
46:58
And if this guy could put the power to the ground, even though his all wheel
47:01
drive was busted, he's got a leg on you.
47:03
I thought, cause they kept saying, Oh, I think the Land Rover is going to get them.
47:07
And I'm like that F one 50, he's got double the, the, the wheel base
47:11
on top of it all and everything.
47:13
I mean, I don't know.
47:14
Yeah.
47:15
Well, So, you know tv being what it is and editing being what it is There's
47:21
stuff that wasn't readily apparent when you watch the show So in the first
47:25
challenge everybody flying up that hill the big dodge the four door jk
47:32
And the ford those guys went screaming up that hill and They were excited
47:37
and they had the pedal to the metal.
47:39
So you saw how, I don't know if you remember how much air that Ford caught
47:44
when he came off the top of that Hill.
47:47
He busted his front axle and they would let us work on stuff overnight, but he
47:52
busted that front axle and you know what, now that I'm thinking about it, I just
47:56
remembered there was actually a dead day between some of the stuff and they let
48:00
us work on the trucks a little bit, but.
48:03
And I think it was between the first day when we filmed some of that fluff
48:06
stuff, you know And then there was a overnight and the next day was free.
48:10
Then we started filming the actual show Um, but that night after he came flying
48:16
up that hill and jumped he realized he busted his front And uh, so he was
48:22
trying like hell that following night to get spare parts the show producers Set
48:29
somebody running a couple hours away to try and find front axle shafts and parts
48:34
for him to get his truck going So they addressed that later in the episode they
48:39
split it into two Almost like on like a rally stage where you get the time to fix
48:44
and they say it's an hour in the garages And they tried to address the fact that
48:48
he broke the front axle and they're shown and work on stuff and he's got parts
48:51
all over the floor and And I'm saying to myself, did he really drive around
48:55
with a busted front axle the whole time?
48:57
Or did he try to fix it right away?
48:58
Or so was that scene in the garage actually filmed that night while he's
49:02
trying to fix it and not after, you know, whatever event or whatever happened?
49:07
No, it really was filmed later.
49:09
The scene in the garage.
49:10
Yeah.
49:10
But what happened was he busted the front axle and then we ran the silo pull down.
49:16
But he knew he had a busted front axle.
49:19
The axle shaft snapped.
49:21
Um, so when we did the silo pulldown, you know, everybody, a bunch of people
49:27
tell me it was such an unfair matchup.
49:29
But what I know Is he was down to two wheel drive and I still
49:33
had four wheel drive, right?
49:35
So it wasn't as unfair a match as you might have thought I thought you were
49:40
gonna get him actually because you had a good leg on him if you watch especially
49:43
from the drone shot I'm, like dan's got him and then all of a sudden it's
49:47
like I don't know if he hit boost or what and it was like he just yanked
49:51
you straight back and it was like well That was that was quick No, so the
49:55
problem I was having was with that retro tech fuel injection system You It kept
50:00
stalling on me when I, when I'd get too much of a load on it, it would stall.
50:05
And it was giving me fits for that whole show.
50:08
Uh, incidentally, when I came home, I spent a day just going over everything.
50:13
And when we were there, I kept popping the hood and looking around, seeing
50:17
what I could figure out, trying to figure out what the problem was.
50:20
I finally did figure it out when I got home.
50:22
When Mike built the truck, it was essentially like four barrel carbs.
50:26
So it's got primaries, it's got secondaries.
50:28
Mike had taken and put a extra throttle return spring on the
50:33
secondaries to hold them closed more.
50:36
When I was working on the truck before the show, I had disconnected that.
50:40
extra throttle return spring on the secondaries and never did hook it back up.
50:45
I, you know, I, I could have shot myself in the foot by not having done that.
50:50
Cause when I figured that out and I reconnected that spring and I had to know
50:54
if that did the trick, I hooked the silver monster to my Dodge truck in the street,
50:58
out front of the house and had my wife.
51:01
Climb in the Dodge and I said, just stand on the brakes.
51:05
So I was pulling against the Dodge with the silver monster on
51:08
the street in front of the house.
51:11
And I had all four tires smoking in the street and you know, it
51:17
was just pulling like crazy.
51:18
So I think that's what the problem was, was that one lousy 50 cent return spring.
51:23
Sometimes that's all it takes.
51:24
So there's other shows like Truck Night in America.
51:27
And one of them in particular that I watched, my daughter's very much
51:30
enjoyed Truck Night in America.
51:31
So we got through all that.
51:32
And then I found myself kind of wanting more.
51:35
And I stumbled upon Alaska Off Road Warriors.
51:39
Have you seen that?
51:40
I have.
51:41
It features two Land Rovers.
51:43
What did you think of that show?
51:45
Oh, I love that show.
51:46
I got hooked on that one too.
51:48
In fact, uh, Jason Beard, the guy that owned both of those Land Rovers,
51:52
because he broke one, left and then came back with the other one.
51:55
The diesel, which was even better.
51:59
He, uh, he friended me on Facebook after truck night, you know, I've kind of
52:03
stayed in touch with him a little bit.
52:05
Yeah, that was a fun show.
52:07
That was a very different exercise in the fact that they drove the bottom
52:09
of Alaska to the very, very top, completely off road, off the grid.
52:13
I mean, obviously they're just like Top Gear and a lot of other shows.
52:16
There's always some.
52:17
Support vehicles going with them.
52:18
And I often wonder what those support vehicles are on top gear.
52:21
It's always Range Rovers, oddly enough.
52:23
But you know, that was, I have to say, a hell of a journey for them and, and
52:27
I was hooked on that show and I was surprised when the first Landy died.
52:31
I was like, oh man, here we go again.
52:33
But you know, he came out.
52:35
With another one I was like, this is awesome.
52:37
Oh, yeah, he did really really well, even though they basically
52:40
Dequeued him from winning, but you know still he did really really well
52:43
All the other competitors hated the fact that he came back to oh heck.
52:47
Yeah producers were setting that up Just looking for some juicy conflict
52:52
in the show I mean, but those guys with that franken jeep that they
52:55
built that thing was I don't know.
52:56
That was crazy Yeah, it was a nightmare too, you know It did all the right
53:01
things, I suppose, in the end.
53:04
It leads me to my next question.
53:06
Would you do it all over again, knowing what you know now?
53:08
Yeah, in a heartbeat.
53:09
In fact, one of the producers, their quote, four wheel drive
53:13
expert was a guy named Cody Smith.
53:15
Really nice guy.
53:17
You know, he and I stayed in touch a little bit after the show.
53:20
And he told me, he said, you know, if you didn't have that problem, he
53:24
said he was, he was convinced I'd have done really well in the show.
53:28
Maybe.
53:28
You know, had a good chance of maybe winning.
53:30
This truck would have done really well in the mud and, you
53:34
know, the green hell and stuff.
53:36
It would have done really well, especially being smaller,
53:38
lighter and more maneuverable.
53:40
And some of those places like the deep swamp and that the Kaelin, which is
53:43
that that's almost like quicksand.
53:46
I think it would have just floated over that stuff compared to the
53:48
other trucks, but it's like, they're just burying themselves in it.
53:51
You know, it's.
53:52
I guess that makes me wonder because we know the show is still on hiatus after
53:56
Pistol Pete passed away because they haven't found anybody to replace him with.
53:59
And I, I heard stories about, you know, the cast being, you know,
54:03
distraught about it and all that.
54:04
And it's true.
54:05
He's, he's a larger than life individual and he's a hard person
54:08
to replace because you're kind of rebuilding the show at that point.
54:10
But I often wonder if it would be like other history channel shows where
54:14
there's like a redemption episode, like Forged in Fire is famous for doing that.
54:18
And then some of the other ones, so.
54:19
I honestly would love to see the silver monster on a redemption
54:22
episode of truck night in america and get your chance to get out there
54:26
and do it man I'd love that too.
54:29
In fact, i've told them as much multiple times as you need to do a redemption
54:33
show I told him I told him right from the start i'd come back any day.
54:38
It was so much fun So is there any indication as to the show is coming back?
54:42
Have you heard anything from them?
54:44
I had heard that, you know, for a while there was chance of a third season.
54:49
I think it was more than Pistol Pete that was the issue for them not continuing.
54:53
I think this show was really expensive to produce compared to a lot of other shows.
54:59
A lot of machine and equipment time and building those obstacles
55:03
and, you know, construction costs.
55:05
I think they just weren't seeing the kind of numbers that they wanted to see for the
55:10
investment that it took to make the show.
55:12
And I think it was more about that than anything to do with Pistol Pete.
55:16
Oh yeah.
55:17
It's never going to beat the ratings that Forged in Fire or Curse of Oak
55:20
Island or Ancient Aliens or any of those shows are going to bring in,
55:24
which are probably much lower in budget.
55:25
But you know, as a motorsport enthusiast, this was really cool.
55:29
It was something different.
55:31
It really got people engaged and I think motivated and hyped roading,
55:37
which I think oftentimes gets overlooked as just a bunch of guys in
55:41
the woods playing with their trucks.
55:43
It's more than that.
55:43
There's a lot of technique.
55:45
There's a lot of science, a lot of really, really strong engineering because
55:50
unlike us that are, you know, running on road course where we're worried
55:52
about a millimeter of suspension travel, you guys are like, I got to climb a
55:56
boulder that's as big as your house.
55:58
And I got to figure out how to get this Land Rover to do it.
56:00
I think it's super cool.
56:01
I mean, it gets me really excited and I would, honestly, I would love to
56:05
come out to the cove or one of the places where you're going to be with
56:08
the silver monster and see what it's like, you know, I mean, I don't want
56:11
to, I don't want to drive your car, but I would love to ride shotgun sometime.
56:15
Oh man, you should drive it.
56:16
I'd let you drive it.
56:17
That'd be fun, man.
56:19
I'd like to go to the cove if I can get my Tundra through it.
56:22
You're only going a half or a quarter mile an hour, so.
56:24
Yeah, yeah, that's that's even how bad could it be, right?
56:27
What's the future look like for the silver monster?
56:30
What do you have planned?
56:31
What's up next?
56:32
Well, you know, that's an interesting question because Wendy, my wife and I
56:36
have been talking about it because I have two built rigs that are built for
56:40
rock crawling and the silver monster was fun when our daughter was much younger.
56:46
I had this Little jump seat.
56:48
So it was perfect for Maddie when she was young, when she was five,
56:52
six, seven, and still small enough to squeeze in between the two of us.
56:56
And it sat up high so she could see out really good.
57:00
But you know, now she's 12 years old, and she's just got too big to sit in
57:04
that little tiny seat and too big to squeeze between the two of us, the
57:08
three of us would be killing each other.
57:10
So we're talking about whether we're gonna, you know, just
57:13
bite the bullet and, uh, yeah.
57:15
Between my Land Rover, the four door one with the Cummins and the silver monster
57:20
that has the Chevy small block, trying to find a way to maybe combine the two,
57:25
get the long wheelbase with four doors and the additional seating, but maybe
57:30
keep the Grieman small block Chevy and, you know, the high dollar transfer case
57:35
and stuff, mash the two together somehow.
57:39
It's actually feasible that I could maybe just stretch the wheel base on
57:42
the silver monster a little more and then put the four door body on that
57:47
chassis because that's a stout chassis.
57:49
It's really heavy.
57:50
So Dan, I can't tell you how excited I was to do this episode.
57:55
This has been really cool.
57:56
It's been a long time coming.
57:57
We've covered a lot.
57:59
Pretty much everything we'd planned and then some, As we were talking in
58:04
the pre record, you know, I couldn't believe when I saw you on TV and I
58:08
was talking to Matt and we all are connected through the autocross world.
58:11
And I was like, man, we got to make this happen.
58:12
We got to have Dan on the show, get the inside scoop on what it was
58:15
like off roading, being on truck night in America and everything.
58:18
So I cannot thank you enough for coming on the show.
58:21
This has been fantastic.
58:22
This has been a lot of fun.
58:23
And hopefully for our listeners out there, They get a new perspective on this and
58:27
maybe a newfound interest in off roading.
58:29
So again, I can't thank you enough It was fun.
58:32
Thanks for having me on the show, man.
58:33
I appreciate it Until next time.
58:41
If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
58:43
be sure to check us out on www.
58:46
gtmotorsports.
58:47
org.
58:48
You can also find us on Motorsports.
58:51
Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call
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or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
59:03
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59:03
We'd love to hear from you.
59:05
Hey listeners, Crew Chief Eric here.
59:07
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59:11
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