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Mercedes and Andy Lilienthal · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
0:04
Speaker 1: your host Scott Brady, and I am joined this week
0:06
Speaker 1: by Andy and Mercedes Lilienthal. Now, Andy Mercedes are both
0:12
Speaker 1: very well traveled, and they're traveled in a bunch of
0:14
Speaker 1: unique vehicles. One of the things that make them so
0:17
Speaker 1: special is the fact that they've gone around the world
0:19
Speaker 1: and they use some of the coolest vehicles that I've
0:22
Speaker 1: ever seen, including some really rare right hand drive Japanese
0:25
Speaker 1: vehicles to do things like the Alcan five thousand. But
0:29
Speaker 1: part of the conversation that we have today is around
0:32
Speaker 1: their recent win of their class in the Alcan five
0:35
Speaker 1: thousand using an anious Grenadier. So we get a chance
0:38
Speaker 1: to talk about the race, we get to talk about
0:41
Speaker 1: some of their very impressive stage finishes, and we also
0:44
Speaker 1: get to learn a little bit about their experience driving
0:47
Speaker 1: that unique new vehicle. But then we also get to
0:50
Speaker 1: talk about Andy's experience with Warren and the things that
0:54
Speaker 1: he's learned in this industry. We get to talk about
0:56
Speaker 1: mercedes her experience as a journalist. She's written for for
1:00
Speaker 1: publications like The New York Times and of course Overland Journal.
1:04
Speaker 1: So they're a very cool couple. They've been around the
1:06
Speaker 1: overland industry for a very long time, and I really
1:09
Speaker 1: enjoyed my conversation with them at the Overland Expo. So
1:12
Speaker 1: please enjoy my conversation with Andy and Mercedes. Well, thank
1:18
Speaker 1: you both for being on the podcast with me today.
1:22
Speaker 1: It has been such a joy to watch your guys' journey.
1:26
Speaker 1: We've known each other for a really long time. I mean,
1:28
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think Andy, when you and I first
1:30
Speaker 1: started working together, and I would think so, so very
1:33
Speaker 1: very early, so even right before we started Overland Journal
1:37
Speaker 1: was right, Yeah, so.
1:38
Speaker 2: A long time ago.
1:39
Speaker 1: You were a member of the Expedition Portal Forum, like
1:42
Speaker 1: we just like we've interacted for a really long time,
1:46
Speaker 1: and you've been such an important part of the industry.
1:49
Speaker 1: I believe that some of the work that you did
1:52
Speaker 1: with Warren to help support overlanding was pivotal to this
1:55
Speaker 1: industry being healthy because once once a large company, high quality,
2:01
Speaker 1: well respected company like Warren starts to get involved and
2:04
Speaker 1: it's easier for other organizations to see like, oh maybe
2:08
Speaker 1: this overland thing is going to be cool. So personally,
2:11
Speaker 1: thank you for all of that support that you provided
2:13
Speaker 1: through the years. And then Mercedes. You have you made
2:16
Speaker 1: a career change and you decided to become a full
2:18
Speaker 1: time journalist, which is brave. So you are very brave,
2:23
Speaker 1: and you've been highly successful at it. I mean, you
2:25
Speaker 1: have written for some really big titles, and you've had
2:29
Speaker 1: some well published pieces, and you've traveled around the world,
2:32
Speaker 1: and you guys both were recently you know, identified by
2:36
Speaker 1: Anios as this opportunity to drive the Alcan which we're
2:39
Speaker 1: going to talk about.
2:40
Speaker 2: In a little bit.
2:41
Speaker 1: But what I'd first love to do is just kind
2:44
Speaker 1: of get some background in when did you guys first
2:47
Speaker 1: decide that you wanted to travel like or has it
2:49
Speaker 1: always been a thing?
2:50
Speaker 3: Do you want to tell a story?
2:51
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, so from right at the get go, we
2:54
Speaker 4: met on a trip, like we both like to travel
2:57
Speaker 4: on road trip. Literally the first time we met was
3:00
Speaker 4: a five hour drive from Saint Paul, Minnesota to Chicago
3:05
Speaker 4: area Milwaukee in Chicago area for a car show and
3:08
Speaker 4: so yeah, we actually, yeah, we actually met that way.
3:12
Speaker 4: But in terms of more adventure travel, I mean, like
3:15
Speaker 4: road tripping and all that stuff was something we would do.
3:17
Speaker 4: It's just something we naturally gravitated towards. In terms of
3:21
Speaker 4: more Adventure Travel. We were at the believe it was
3:24
Speaker 4: the twenty fifteen Northwest Overland Rally, and there was a
3:30
Speaker 4: couple from South Africa and they gave a presentation like
3:35
Speaker 4: they even brought a little generator so they could power
3:38
Speaker 4: their projector, and they gave this presentation about how their
3:42
Speaker 4: life is about travel and they lived on the road
3:44
Speaker 4: and they were doing a North American tour and I
3:47
Speaker 4: believe it was a Nissan with a truckbed career and
3:51
Speaker 4: they put together this amazing slideshow. And I remember sitting
3:54
Speaker 4: there going, I didn't know you could do this. I
3:57
Speaker 4: mean like I sort of knew, but I didn't realize
4:00
Speaker 4: that you could make this into a lifestyle. And you know,
4:04
Speaker 4: I knew about Overland Journal clearly and read or Overland
4:07
Speaker 4: Journal and and sort of knew that. I felt like
4:11
Speaker 4: this was sort of my niche. You know, I wasn't
4:14
Speaker 4: a lifelong off road guy. I was into car lowered
4:17
Speaker 4: cars and all small cars and all this stuff. When
4:20
Speaker 4: I went back to Warn Industries in twenty ten, I
4:23
Speaker 4: bought a Suzuki.
4:24
Speaker 5: Sidekick right small capable.
4:27
Speaker 4: Loved it. We called the Teal Terror, and so we
4:30
Speaker 4: had the Teal Terror there and we had way overpacked
4:33
Speaker 4: for Northwest Overland rally and.
4:36
Speaker 2: We all done that much.
4:37
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, you guys are not alone.
4:39
Speaker 5: True.
4:39
Speaker 4: And so we saw this presentation. She turned to me
4:42
Speaker 4: and literally said, like this is we both I think
4:46
Speaker 4: we both left that presentation going changed.
4:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know it.
4:50
Speaker 4: It was a it was a fork in the road
4:52
Speaker 4: that I don't think we expected to actually get to,
4:55
Speaker 4: but we knew. You know, I was working in the
4:57
Speaker 4: four wheel drive industry. We both love to travel and
4:59
Speaker 4: take trips, and suddenly it sort of came to me
5:03
Speaker 4: this gestalt, this this idea, like, hey, like we can
5:07
Speaker 4: marry these two things that we enjoy off roading and travel,
5:11
Speaker 4: and it's this thing. It's like I've found my people.
5:14
Speaker 4: But those those two people that put that presentation on
5:18
Speaker 4: it was a big It was a moment.
5:20
Speaker 1: It was at the right time for you guys to
5:22
Speaker 1: hear that.
5:23
Speaker 5: Yeah.
5:23
Speaker 1: Well, and then because you had worked with journalists for
5:27
Speaker 1: so long, yes that you you really had a good
5:29
Speaker 1: idea of how both sides of that coin felt, how
5:32
Speaker 1: it felt to be the manufacturer, what kind of content
5:34
Speaker 1: that you felt was supportive of you as a manufacturer.
5:37
Speaker 1: You identified maybe the ways of going about it that
5:40
Speaker 1: were better than others.
5:41
Speaker 4: Perhaps. Yeah, you know, my career had started in magazine
5:44
Speaker 4: journalism and then I swapped sides of the desk like
5:46
Speaker 4: so many people do, and went into the pr aspect
5:50
Speaker 4: of it. But I always kept writing on the side
5:51
Speaker 4: because I enjoyed it. But yeah, so I guess maybe
5:55
Speaker 4: I came at it a different aspect of different angles.
5:59
Speaker 1: And what's the what's the website that you have that
6:01
Speaker 1: covers all the tiny vehicles.
6:03
Speaker 4: So that's yeah, that's called subcompact, yes, and we don't
6:07
Speaker 4: feed it quite as much just because that market is
6:09
Speaker 4: almost non existent.
6:10
Speaker 1: It's tiny it is, if you will.
6:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we started French out culture in twenty sixteen
6:17
Speaker 4: and that covers all vehicles are mantras. Every vehicle is
6:20
Speaker 4: an adventure and we're united by horsepower.
6:27
Speaker 1: That's right, electrons at times, yes, which is fun too.
6:30
Speaker 1: I mean the electric vehicles I think are just really enjoyable. Yes,
6:33
Speaker 1: they have their place for sure. Well that's very exciting.
6:36
Speaker 1: Now tell me Mercedes, like, what was the day like
6:40
Speaker 1: when you decided that you were gonna make that switch,
6:43
Speaker 1: because that's a that's a big move, And what kind
6:46
Speaker 1: of work were you doing before I just don't recall
6:48
Speaker 1: I was.
6:49
Speaker 6: I spent nearly twenty years as a commercial interior designer
6:51
Speaker 6: project manager, and I had various jobs.
6:54
Speaker 3: Within that field.
6:55
Speaker 6: Most of it was working for well known architecture firms,
7:00
Speaker 6: and then I was on the facility side of things.
7:02
Speaker 6: The last few years was I was a department and
7:04
Speaker 6: people head manager at Nike Wild Headquarters based right outside
7:08
Speaker 6: of Portland, Oregon. So yeah, very fascinating, very fascinating, very
7:14
Speaker 6: challenging as well. Just a lot of dedicated, demanding, passionate
7:18
Speaker 6: people headquarters. And so spent nearly twenty years doing that,
7:23
Speaker 6: and you know, just a lot of that. Whole entire
7:27
Speaker 6: career gave me a lot of gratification, but I felt
7:29
Speaker 6: like I was missing something, and the further along I got,
7:33
Speaker 6: I just felt like this there is just something more
7:35
Speaker 6: than I needed to do and something different I needed
7:38
Speaker 6: to do. And when Andy went to Warren and when
7:41
Speaker 6: we moved to Oregon from the Midwest that's where we're
7:43
Speaker 6: both originally from, you know, we had a long commerce
7:48
Speaker 6: in many long conversations, and in twenty eighteen, I think
7:51
Speaker 6: it was a flight to Boston and coming back from
7:53
Speaker 6: Boston where we basically said Okay, you've got the insurances
7:58
Speaker 6: because of course in the US here we don't have
7:59
Speaker 6: a Nash Healthcare and you know, everything's privatized. Long story short,
8:03
Speaker 6: we said, okay, if I'm going to basically fall off
8:06
Speaker 6: a cliff or jump off a cliff willingly, he's got
8:08
Speaker 6: the insurances for health and life and whatnot, let me try.
8:12
Speaker 3: To freelance and see if I can make a go
8:13
Speaker 3: of it.
8:14
Speaker 6: And I jumped off that cliff, and you know, realized
8:18
Speaker 6: what I was going to do. And before I knew it,
8:20
Speaker 6: I was running for outlets like The New York Times
8:22
Speaker 6: and Ted Magazine and Expression Portal. I was running for
8:26
Speaker 6: you guys and a bunch of other titles, and so,
8:28
Speaker 6: you know, a lot of hard work.
8:30
Speaker 3: I was also doing some pr and marketing on the side.
8:32
Speaker 6: And you know what, backtracking quickly, you know, in two
8:36
Speaker 6: thousand and eight, I think the bottom fell up for
8:38
Speaker 6: a lot of people, and including us. We both lost
8:41
Speaker 6: our jobs within a year of each other. And we
8:43
Speaker 6: had just bought our first and only house we still
8:45
Speaker 6: have because we bought small and yeah, right, oh yeah,
8:49
Speaker 6: we both lost our jobs and so we said, well
8:51
Speaker 6: that's when we started cream Cheff consulting, and we've always
8:54
Speaker 6: had that running for freelance stuff. So we've written here
8:58
Speaker 6: and there, and we've just jobs here and there with it.
9:02
Speaker 6: But then I took the helm of it full time
9:04
Speaker 6: in April seventeenth of twenty eighteen.
9:06
Speaker 3: That like, I'm counting from what time?
9:09
Speaker 6: No, Actually, what's funny is I left Nike World headquarters
9:12
Speaker 6: and they have different markets in each of their buildings
9:15
Speaker 6: where you could buy salads or whatnot. I bought my
9:17
Speaker 6: salad and I persisted to go to one of my
9:20
Speaker 6: former employees as a contractor also another design client, and
9:26
Speaker 6: did cadwork form as a freelancer and ate my salad
9:28
Speaker 6: there as a freelancer. So I had not even admitted
9:32
Speaker 6: off and I do right in.
9:34
Speaker 1: Well, there's a couple of things that I've noticed about
9:37
Speaker 1: when you made that shift that I think has led
9:39
Speaker 1: to your success. When in this industry, we get a
9:42
Speaker 1: lot of people that pitch ideas, and I think the
9:46
Speaker 1: challenging thing for people to remember is that ideas are
9:49
Speaker 1: actually the easiest part of the process.
9:52
Speaker 2: Everybody has a good idea. A lot of.
9:54
Speaker 1: People have ideas that they're going to do someday or
9:57
Speaker 1: that they'd like to pitch. So the idea part is
10:00
Speaker 1: actually the easiest. We get tons and tons and tons
10:02
Speaker 1: of ideas. It's the execution that really separates someone from
10:07
Speaker 1: the rest of the field and Mercedes in general. For
10:11
Speaker 1: our experience, you have just been so professional. You're very detailed.
10:16
Speaker 1: Your follow up is excellent, like you respond to emails
10:20
Speaker 1: in a timely fashion, and for an editor, that is
10:24
Speaker 1: like finding Shangri law, because it is shocking how many
10:28
Speaker 1: people want to be a journalist, but they actually forget
10:30
Speaker 1: the fact that you need to still be a professional.
10:32
Speaker 1: And being a professional is what separates those from that
10:36
Speaker 1: rite for the New York Times and those that are
10:38
Speaker 1: still trying to get into their local you know, you know,
10:42
Speaker 1: club newsletter.
10:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you should be really.
10:46
Speaker 1: Proud of the way that you took your twenty years
10:48
Speaker 1: of professional career and you just maintain those values and
10:53
Speaker 1: those ethics of professionalism and you brought it into journalism
10:57
Speaker 1: and I have no doubt.
10:58
Speaker 2: I mean, combined with.
10:59
Speaker 1: Your great writing and your experience and everything else. But
11:03
Speaker 1: from what I noticed was it was that professionalism and
11:06
Speaker 1: that follow up and that consistency that I think gives
11:09
Speaker 1: titles and editors a lot of confidence so those that
11:12
Speaker 1: are listening keep that in mind. You know, like Mercedes
11:15
Speaker 1: made this huge shift in her life from being an
11:19
Speaker 1: interior design which is also a very admirable career, but
11:23
Speaker 1: to shift to being a journalist. And it was just
11:25
Speaker 1: the fact that you followed through. You did what you
11:27
Speaker 1: said you were going to do.
11:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it wasn't easy.
11:30
Speaker 6: A lot of it was a lot of long hours,
11:32
Speaker 6: a lot of non billable hours. And you know, I
11:34
Speaker 6: didn't realize there was there were so many transferable skills.
11:38
Speaker 6: I didn't realize that at the time, and I'm still
11:40
Speaker 6: learning that part. There was a lot of skills that
11:43
Speaker 6: I had that just shifted in a different way, the
11:47
Speaker 6: creativity part of it. Most of my articles, if not
11:50
Speaker 6: all of them, have at least some of my photography,
11:53
Speaker 6: but most of them have my own photography all of them.
11:56
Speaker 6: You know, where most of my articles have all of
11:58
Speaker 6: my photography in them. I pried myself in that I
12:00
Speaker 6: don't get paid any more for my photography being in there.
12:04
Speaker 6: I choose to do that because that's showing my complete,
12:07
Speaker 6: full perspective with anything that I write. But that feeds
12:11
Speaker 6: my creative my creative outlet from a visualist standpoint of
12:16
Speaker 6: where I was with commercial interior design to now being
12:19
Speaker 6: with photography and then the verbal aspect of it with
12:22
Speaker 6: the journalism.
12:23
Speaker 1: So it is a unique shift. And being a photojournalist
12:26
Speaker 1: as opposed to just the journalist is actually another big opportunity.
12:30
Speaker 1: A big selling point for someone to consider you is
12:33
Speaker 1: the fact that you can take professional photographs and then
12:36
Speaker 1: also write as a professional. That's actually quite difficult to find.
12:40
Speaker 1: And the challenge that we experience is that everyone thinks
12:43
Speaker 1: that they can.
12:44
Speaker 2: Take great photos.
12:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, because taste is very very challenging to define, and
12:49
Speaker 1: it's also very very difficult to be critical of. We
12:52
Speaker 1: find because Overland journal is all about the visual. Stephanie Brady,
12:56
Speaker 1: who designs the magazine is an interior designer. That's the
12:59
Speaker 1: reason why the magazine looks the way that it does.
13:02
Speaker 1: So for us, it is all about the white space
13:06
Speaker 1: and it's all about what fills it, which is these
13:08
Speaker 1: beautiful photographs. So when you tell someone that their photographs
13:12
Speaker 1: don't meet our standards, people get really offended.
13:15
Speaker 2: They get interesting.
13:16
Speaker 1: So the fact that you have been able to excel
13:18
Speaker 1: in photography and then of course just be published in
13:21
Speaker 1: these incredible titles, do you feel like that that is
13:24
Speaker 1: what has helped to also propel these opportunities like the
13:28
Speaker 1: Alcan I think.
13:29
Speaker 6: So, you know, for me, I'm always learning, and I'm
13:34
Speaker 6: always open to criticism, to helpful criticism, you know, constructive criticism.
13:39
Speaker 6: When you say, how about taking this photography you know,
13:42
Speaker 6: this photograph this way, or you know, teaching moments, I'm
13:45
Speaker 6: all for it because that helps me get stronger, and
13:47
Speaker 6: that helps my editors, and that helps than the publication.
13:50
Speaker 3: So for me, I'm all for that because it just
13:54
Speaker 3: helps everybody all around.
13:55
Speaker 6: So but with that, then my portfolio gets stronger, the
13:59
Speaker 6: public sho get stronger than I learn and I can
14:03
Speaker 6: then you know, take that too. You know a manufacturer
14:06
Speaker 6: like in US for instance, or super or you know
14:09
Speaker 6: Honda or Jeep or t W or any or you
14:13
Speaker 6: know v W or any of the other you know,
14:15
Speaker 6: maybe future manufacturers that are out there and say this
14:18
Speaker 6: is what I've done, this is who you know or
14:20
Speaker 6: Andy has done, this is who we've written for, and
14:23
Speaker 6: you know for the photographs that we've published in X
14:26
Speaker 6: you know publications and uh, and.
14:28
Speaker 3: This is who we are.
14:29
Speaker 6: And I think that professional level, the experiences that we've
14:33
Speaker 6: you know, backed ourselves with in the past can help
14:35
Speaker 6: catapult us in the future.
14:37
Speaker 1: You guys are a powerhouse and and I just I
14:39
Speaker 1: also complement the fact that you guys have been able to,
14:43
Speaker 1: you know, as a couple, been able to work out
14:46
Speaker 1: how you work together, which is not easy.
14:49
Speaker 2: It's not easy.
14:50
Speaker 1: It's very challenging.
14:53
Speaker 3: It is, it is.
14:53
Speaker 4: Has its moments, but there are things that we try
14:57
Speaker 4: to learn about to you know, we're working in a
15:00
Speaker 4: one thousand square foot house.
15:01
Speaker 2: I love I love tiny homes.
15:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, as we talked from a fourteen foot trailer.
15:06
Speaker 4: About size of our house.
15:07
Speaker 6: That's also our garage by the way, because we don't
15:10
Speaker 6: have a garage.
15:10
Speaker 4: So you know, learning those dynamics, you know, Uh, okay,
15:16
Speaker 4: she handled stress different than I do. You know, she
15:19
Speaker 4: may handle situations differently than I would. And it's there
15:23
Speaker 4: are times where I want to go no, no, don't no, no,
15:25
Speaker 4: don't no, no, that's not how you say it, But
15:28
Speaker 4: that's how she says it. That's not how I say that,
15:30
Speaker 4: And it's so it takes you know, I could hear
15:32
Speaker 4: her in the other room or whatever. I mean, It's
15:34
Speaker 4: no in that aspect, it's no different than any other coworker.
15:38
Speaker 4: You know, you might hear your other coworker saying this
15:39
Speaker 4: and this, You're like, no, no, no, but you know what,
15:42
Speaker 4: that's the way she handles it. I handle it differently,
15:45
Speaker 4: and vice versa. And I think that is a metaphor
15:47
Speaker 4: for pretty much the way we also compete in rallies
15:51
Speaker 4: when we travel. H We've heard these these stories from
15:56
Speaker 4: travelers over the years, couples who say, you might be
16:01
Speaker 4: really good at, say, folding the tent up after a camp,
16:06
Speaker 4: and I might be better at cooking the trailer.
16:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:09
Speaker 4: Sure, So rather than try to get in, you know,
16:12
Speaker 4: try to be jacks of all trades here, let each
16:15
Speaker 4: one of us excel as on and what we do
16:18
Speaker 4: rather than try to mock it up.
16:20
Speaker 2: You know.
16:21
Speaker 1: So, and also remembering that there's another side of those
16:25
Speaker 1: conversations that are happening, and the person, the manufacturer you're
16:28
Speaker 1: dealing with, or the sponsor or whatever, they may prefer
16:31
Speaker 1: a different approach, So they may resonate more with Mercedes,
16:36
Speaker 1: or they may resonate more with you. So you're right,
16:38
Speaker 1: it is important to let people maintain their voice because
16:41
Speaker 1: one of the things that's in short supply in many
16:44
Speaker 1: industries is authenticity, and it's something that takes a lot
16:49
Speaker 1: of mindfulness to maintain because if you try to be
16:51
Speaker 1: all things to all people, or if you if you
16:54
Speaker 1: don't maintain your authentic voice, then it's going to be
16:57
Speaker 1: a really quick ride.
16:58
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And I feel, especially these days, people can sniff
17:02
Speaker 4: out authenticity pretty.
17:04
Speaker 2: Well because it's rare. It is, so you know what
17:07
Speaker 2: when you see it?
17:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, And I.
17:09
Speaker 6: Think that one of the biggest things for me, you know,
17:11
Speaker 6: no matter if it's a you know, manufacturer or even
17:14
Speaker 6: each other, one of the biggest tools for me is
17:18
Speaker 6: just to listen. You can learn a lot by just listening.
17:22
Speaker 6: And we we need to work on that from time
17:24
Speaker 6: to time. And you know, especially yeah, yeah, what'd you say?
17:28
Speaker 6: But especially since now you are a full time freelancer
17:32
Speaker 6: as of almost a year, it's coming up on you know,
17:34
Speaker 6: you've worked remotely since COVID on behalf of Warren for
17:38
Speaker 6: well since COVID, but then you shifted into full time freelance.
17:41
Speaker 6: But that's a whole nother ball of wax. Still working
17:43
Speaker 6: from home. But we need to still listen, you know,
17:48
Speaker 6: whether it's us or a manufacturer, And that still gives
17:50
Speaker 6: you a lot of power to hear them and what
17:52
Speaker 6: they want, and that's also an important thing.
17:55
Speaker 2: I agree. There's a reason why we have two ears
17:57
Speaker 2: in one mouth.
18:00
Speaker 1: And a special thanks to on X for their support
18:03
Speaker 1: of this week's podcast. Going further on your adventures is
18:07
Speaker 1: about having the right tools. The on X off road
18:10
Speaker 1: apps intuitive maps make it easy to find trails and
18:14
Speaker 1: disperse camping, and their offline maps give you full GPS
18:18
Speaker 1: navigation capabilities even without cell coverage. Personally, I use on
18:24
Speaker 1: X for every trip in North America because I always
18:27
Speaker 1: know who owns or manages the land that I'm traveling on.
18:31
Speaker 1: It also makes for a reliable track recorder and I
18:35
Speaker 1: can filter the trails based on the follow drive or
18:37
Speaker 1: motorcycle that I'm using. On my most recent trip in
18:41
Speaker 1: the Quartermaster, I use the on X to find trails
18:44
Speaker 1: near where I was staying in Joshua Tree. I use
18:48
Speaker 1: the difficulty rating and the elevation to determine which trails
18:52
Speaker 1: are best suited to the vehicle and the weather. Thanks
18:56
Speaker 1: again on X for your support of the Ovalan Journal podcast.
19:01
Speaker 2: Awesome. So let's shift a little bit to the Alcan. Now.
19:06
Speaker 1: You you recently did the Alcan with the Grenadier and
19:10
Speaker 1: you guys won your segment, which is awesome, but I
19:13
Speaker 1: believe you've done it a few times before that with
19:16
Speaker 1: your own personal vehicles. Yeah, so what was the what
19:19
Speaker 1: was the impetus in because I've always found it fascinating,
19:22
Speaker 1: but I've never I've never done it, and so what
19:25
Speaker 1: got you guys interested in the idea of the Alcan.
19:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, years ago, I was at Portland International rights Way
19:33
Speaker 4: for just a track event.
19:35
Speaker 5: I think it was a vintage sports car.
19:37
Speaker 4: Event, and there was a guy that had a believe
19:39
Speaker 4: it was a super Forester, and he had Alcan decals
19:44
Speaker 4: on it and had a big map that showed the route.
19:47
Speaker 4: And I remember looking at this thinking going, that looks amazing,
19:50
Speaker 4: like Dragon to Alaska. Yeah, that's that's cool, and it's
19:53
Speaker 4: like some sort of you know, competition and okay, And
19:57
Speaker 4: I remember stopping looking at it thinking okay, and it's
19:59
Speaker 4: the same called TSD Times Speed Distance Rally, And okay,
20:03
Speaker 4: it's all on public roads, and you know, you don't
20:05
Speaker 4: have to have a you know, two hundred and fifty
20:07
Speaker 4: thousand dollars race car to do it. I thought, okay,
20:10
Speaker 4: And so as I became more involved in the automotive industry.
20:15
Speaker 4: I ran into my first, my first Northwest Automotive Press
20:19
Speaker 4: Association meeting. I ran into a gentleman by the name
20:22
Speaker 4: of Jeff Zerschmied and we got talking about times, speed
20:27
Speaker 4: distance rally for some reason or it was real close
20:29
Speaker 4: to that first meeting, and he says, oh, yeah, it's great,
20:31
Speaker 4: and I said, you, I've always kind of thought about
20:33
Speaker 4: doing it. He's like, oh, yeah, Cascade sports Car Club
20:35
Speaker 4: has monthly rallies. You should do it. And I said, oh,
20:38
Speaker 4: that's great. My wife and I would probably you know,
20:40
Speaker 4: have a lot of fun. He's like, well, I don't
20:41
Speaker 4: know if i'd do it with your wife because that
20:42
Speaker 4: I've seen, you know, I've seen things and badly. But yeah,
20:46
Speaker 4: and I said, I think we can handle it. But
20:48
Speaker 4: so anyway, we did a couple of those starting in
20:50
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen, and we just.
20:52
Speaker 1: Is that when you guys had your prot you we
20:55
Speaker 1: or you had a Mitsubishi, what was the what was
20:57
Speaker 1: your little SUV zero? We that thing was cool.
21:01
Speaker 2: Thank you.
21:01
Speaker 7: Yeah, we still have one of them. But we just
21:04
Speaker 7: did it in a little, our little daily driver car
21:07
Speaker 7: and we we thought, hey, this was fun, Like it
21:09
Speaker 7: was just a local Club rally and we did okay,
21:12
Speaker 7: and we thought, hey, this is a lot of fun.
21:14
Speaker 7: It combines road tripping and travel and you're with a
21:17
Speaker 7: bunch of other fringe lunatics who like to do the
21:19
Speaker 7: same thing. And then I started thinking about that Alcan
21:24
Speaker 7: thing and we started looking into it more and it
21:28
Speaker 7: was like, hey, I think we can do this.
21:31
Speaker 4: And then we decided, well, what would we take. Let's
21:33
Speaker 4: let's take that Pagaro that we have, which was kind
21:36
Speaker 4: of kind of lunatic because it's, you know, diesel and
21:39
Speaker 4: it's super slow for what it is.
21:40
Speaker 3: And it's right hand drive and it's nineteen ninety one older.
21:44
Speaker 4: And so but we we started we started talking with
21:47
Speaker 4: people about it. It was a winter Alcan.
21:50
Speaker 1: Oh there's two yes, yeah, sum So I did not
21:54
Speaker 1: know that.
21:54
Speaker 4: Like the Olympics, there's summer in winter and every two years.
21:57
Speaker 4: So when we first did it in twenty twenty and
21:59
Speaker 4: the Pagaro, it was a winter Outcan. And then we
22:01
Speaker 4: did it again in twenty twenty two with Subar of
22:03
Speaker 4: America and super Motorsports in an outback wilderness.
22:06
Speaker 2: And then that was and that was the summer one.
22:08
Speaker 5: That was a summer one.
22:09
Speaker 1: So the winter one is only every four years usually cool.
22:14
Speaker 6: Yeah.
22:15
Speaker 5: When we when we heard about this, we're like, let's
22:17
Speaker 5: let's do it.
22:18
Speaker 4: And uh we I spent a ton of time on
22:21
Speaker 4: vehicle prep for this because I'm bringing this old diesel.
22:24
Speaker 5: Up into the Arctic where we might see.
22:26
Speaker 1: Sixty blows zero totally and so cold.
22:29
Speaker 4: We made a number of obifications to it, a number
22:32
Speaker 4: of I rebuilt lots of that car drive line and suspension.
22:36
Speaker 1: Did you end up putting a diesel heater on it?
22:38
Speaker 5: I put a diesel cool Yeah, exactly, Like.
22:44
Speaker 2: And that was that was did it become evil? Or
22:46
Speaker 2: was it? Did it work?
22:48
Speaker 5: Absolutely the opposite.
22:49
Speaker 4: It was like crucially, we were in a Nuvik in
22:54
Speaker 4: the Northwest Territories and it was forty three blow zero,
22:57
Speaker 4: and uh there's no way you could start that old
23:00
Speaker 4: diesel up at forty three below zero.
23:02
Speaker 1: And the challenge is even driving it, you can't a
23:05
Speaker 1: lot of times those small displacement diesels can't actually produce
23:09
Speaker 1: enough heat. So even when you're driving, if you're driving
23:12
Speaker 1: into the wind, you can actually drop the engine temperature
23:17
Speaker 1: low enough that it actually causes damage to the motor.
23:19
Speaker 4: We brought Mercedes actually crafted a winter front for the
23:22
Speaker 4: grill to block it.
23:24
Speaker 5: But there was a there was one day driving from.
23:29
Speaker 4: Dawson City in the Yukon to Nuvik, where I'm sorry,
23:34
Speaker 4: it was actually from Fort Nelson, our white Horse to
23:38
Speaker 4: Dawson City, but it doesn't matter. And we got to Dawson
23:41
Speaker 4: and I remember we stopped because we were going to
23:43
Speaker 4: do some ice racing on the river up there, and
23:46
Speaker 4: we've been driving eight hours.
23:48
Speaker 5: We stopped.
23:49
Speaker 4: We were waiting our turn, and I just watched after
23:51
Speaker 4: eight hours of driving, just watched our cool inter but
23:53
Speaker 4: just dropped. There was not making any heat.
23:56
Speaker 5: It was. It was incredible.
23:57
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it was the same that we experienced like
24:00
Speaker 1: in Greenland or in Antarctica. Just like you can't even
24:03
Speaker 1: point the the front of the truck into the wind
24:05
Speaker 1: or else you'll you're in big trouble.
24:07
Speaker 2: Big trouble. So you got to back, keep the back
24:09
Speaker 2: to the wind.
24:10
Speaker 1: You have to keep the and you never shut the
24:12
Speaker 1: car off, but you still have to have the diesel
24:15
Speaker 1: heater running to keep it at tempt. So that that's
24:17
Speaker 1: why I was wondering if you had done that, that's cool.
24:19
Speaker 5: Yeah, we would see as we were going up the Dempster.
24:22
Speaker 4: We would see like excavators or whatnot in the absolute
24:26
Speaker 4: middle of nowhere, miles away from anybody, just chugging along because.
24:30
Speaker 2: They yeah, you don't dare, you don't dare shut them off.
24:34
Speaker 1: What did you guys? You sound like you did some
24:37
Speaker 1: prep with the vehicle. Had you guys done any winter
24:40
Speaker 1: driving training or what did you guys do to help
24:43
Speaker 1: feel comfortable? That's so much of these time distance rallies
24:46
Speaker 1: is like, you know, not getting stuck, not you know,
24:50
Speaker 1: not losing tracks because if you're spinning a lot, you're
24:52
Speaker 1: losing your in affecting your your mileage and all this
24:55
Speaker 1: other stuff.
24:56
Speaker 5: Well, the first thing is we were raised in the Midwest.
24:59
Speaker 1: There you there, you go. See, I'm a California boy.
25:02
Speaker 1: I had to get trained on that stuff. I had
25:05
Speaker 1: no idea.
25:06
Speaker 3: So in twenty twenty we actually did some skid training.
25:10
Speaker 6: Where we were we were at a PI r SO
25:13
Speaker 6: Portland International Raceway where so we were actually in what
25:16
Speaker 6: was it, an old tourist I think where they had
25:17
Speaker 6: on this crazy yeah, where we did skid pad training,
25:20
Speaker 6: which is pretty crazy, and that was my first time
25:22
Speaker 6: doing that.
25:23
Speaker 3: Which is really wild.
25:25
Speaker 6: The little outriggers that yeah, yeah, and they had you
25:28
Speaker 6: in different scenarios and different yeah, and then we did
25:31
Speaker 6: what was it. They had the pad part of the
25:32
Speaker 6: pad wet and then you went around circles and then
25:35
Speaker 6: you know, until you broke traction.
25:37
Speaker 3: And so we did that.
25:39
Speaker 6: But of course, you know we've got I'm from Wisconsin original,
25:41
Speaker 6: I'm dual citizen German American, but grew up and was
25:43
Speaker 6: born in Wisconsin and then he in Minnesota, and so
25:46
Speaker 6: we have that, you know with winter driving behind us.
25:48
Speaker 6: But you know, for twenty twenty four with the neoge Grenadier,
25:52
Speaker 6: I mean it was basically he was the driver, so
25:54
Speaker 6: you just kind of hopped right in and you know,
25:57
Speaker 6: let your guts take over and your your background takeover.
26:00
Speaker 6: But in twenty twenty we had that training which which
26:02
Speaker 6: kind of really which helped, and.
26:04
Speaker 1: You guys had the you kept the BF all trains
26:06
Speaker 1: on there. Did you use other tires?
26:08
Speaker 4: For twenty twenty four with the Inos, we used Micheline
26:13
Speaker 4: XI snow tires, so we had we had run an
26:16
Speaker 4: all Terraine started all trained in twenty twenty and this
26:20
Speaker 4: year we thought let's go studless, but let's go with
26:22
Speaker 4: the dedicated snow tards. We're big fans of BFG KO two's,
26:26
Speaker 4: we have them on a number of our actual vehicles,
26:30
Speaker 4: but we want.
26:31
Speaker 2: It's not an optimal tire for winter.
26:33
Speaker 4: It's a three peak snowflake rated tire, but it's not
26:36
Speaker 4: doesn't have that winter.
26:36
Speaker 2: Comp it's not optimized for it.
26:38
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we went to the mission. Yeah, they were.
26:41
Speaker 4: It was funny because when we put them on, they
26:43
Speaker 4: certainly not not be looking like a KO two And
26:45
Speaker 4: in fact, I'm looking at the tread depth going I
26:47
Speaker 4: just yeah, I mean, I don't know. And they were
26:50
Speaker 4: brilliant in the snow. And we did ice racing up
26:53
Speaker 4: on Great Slave Lake outside of yellow Knife.
26:56
Speaker 2: In the Grenadier. Yeah, how fun.
26:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, there were some very very very fast cableed
27:02
Speaker 4: Porsche Dakar. There were numerous you know our Brews high
27:06
Speaker 4: ends all that stuff. And I took third place overall
27:09
Speaker 4: in the Grenadier. And I still there's still bid of
27:13
Speaker 4: me that thinks they screwed the timing up and I
27:14
Speaker 4: didn't do that well, which is possible, but anyway, I'll
27:16
Speaker 4: take the third place.
27:17
Speaker 5: So but it was incredible.
27:19
Speaker 1: And when you had it in the ice racing scenario,
27:22
Speaker 1: did you go into off road mode so to open
27:26
Speaker 1: up some of those stability control parameters stuff.
27:29
Speaker 5: So my first we got two runs. I took two runs.
27:32
Speaker 4: So the first one I turned off traction control and
27:35
Speaker 4: found out that traction control turns itself back on over
27:38
Speaker 4: thirty miles an hour, I believe thirty four miles.
27:41
Speaker 3: Something like that.
27:42
Speaker 4: So as I started out down the straightaway, in the
27:45
Speaker 4: first corner was a right hand sweeper and I went
27:48
Speaker 4: into the corner and Ronald just went away went oh no, yeah,
27:53
Speaker 4: oh no, may not.
27:54
Speaker 5: Have been exactly what I said. But so the second run.
27:58
Speaker 1: I did family friendly show exactly sleep.
28:02
Speaker 6: So I was outside shooting, so I had I had
28:04
Speaker 6: my camera harness and both cameras and trying to make
28:06
Speaker 6: them not having them not freeze because it was about
28:09
Speaker 6: fifteen below zero with a wind.
28:11
Speaker 4: So yeah, so the second run I put it into
28:15
Speaker 4: four wheel high with luck so different. Sure that helped
28:19
Speaker 4: defeat some of the traction contols. Yes, and that helped
28:22
Speaker 4: a lot because the top three, actually the top three
28:26
Speaker 4: finishers were all audio and frame SUVs.
28:28
Speaker 5: Because the track had some really deep snow rocks.
28:31
Speaker 4: I think some of those Porsches and the supers and whatnot,
28:34
Speaker 4: they just would get up.
28:35
Speaker 1: In Yeah, sure it was a champ. So what made
28:41
Speaker 1: you decide to use the Grenader? What about the Grenadier
28:45
Speaker 1: was exciting for you? And for those that are listening.
28:47
Speaker 1: None of us on this podcast are sponsored by Grenadier.
28:50
Speaker 1: We do get access to the vehicle because we have audiences,
28:53
Speaker 1: but we've not been paid by any aus to do
28:56
Speaker 1: any of this stuff. But and I think that's important.
28:59
Speaker 1: But so what made you guys think we want to
29:02
Speaker 1: use the Grenadier and what'd you think of it?
29:05
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty, as we are putting up the Dampster
29:08
Speaker 4: Highway in our ninety nine horsepower diesel Mitsubishi.
29:12
Speaker 6: Considering putting hazards on because we're going so slowly.
29:16
Speaker 4: Getting passed by everybody, we had a discussion, like what
29:21
Speaker 4: other qualities that make a good winter alcan or even
29:23
Speaker 4: the summer alcam.
29:24
Speaker 3: Vehicle it's the ultimate vehicle.
29:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we.
29:26
Speaker 4: Decided it was adequate power, good ground clearance, and comfort
29:32
Speaker 4: and those were the three things that you Yeah, you're
29:35
Speaker 4: doing six hundred miles a day, sometimes eight hundred miles a.
29:37
Speaker 6: Day, and so twelve to thirteen hour day. Yeah, you start,
29:41
Speaker 6: especially in the winter, you start in the dark. You
29:43
Speaker 6: rally in the dark you have sixty seven well six
29:45
Speaker 6: to six hudred and fifty mile transits usually and then
29:47
Speaker 6: you finish in the.
29:48
Speaker 4: Dark and mercedies that had had some experience behind the
29:52
Speaker 4: wheel with Ino. It's over in Europe, and and so
29:56
Speaker 4: we thought, hey, you know, that would be a really
29:57
Speaker 4: good choice for an ALCAM vehicle. You know, it's it's
30:00
Speaker 4: it's also new, and it's got good power, plenty of
30:03
Speaker 4: ground clearance.
30:04
Speaker 5: Their car seats are comfortable.
30:05
Speaker 4: So we thought, hey, let's let's see if they'd be
30:07
Speaker 4: up for that, and they were, and uh, you know,
30:10
Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of kudos to them for
30:12
Speaker 4: you know, putting on a brand new, first of its kind,
30:16
Speaker 4: you know, vehicle from a brand new manufacturer.
30:19
Speaker 1: Well, and the fact that they built they're like they
30:21
Speaker 1: put like, let's build the cool overland vehicle. Like they
30:24
Speaker 1: literally like a brand new car company that makes the
30:26
Speaker 1: car that we all want to, Yeah, we all want to.
30:29
Speaker 6: You know, the fact that they have one point one
30:31
Speaker 6: million miles of severe duty testing right whether it's in
30:35
Speaker 6: the Sahara or you know, or the valley or in Scandinavia,
30:39
Speaker 6: in the Arctic or whatnot. For them, like you said,
30:43
Speaker 6: brand new manufacturer, first time vehicle. And for them to
30:45
Speaker 6: say yes for something like this and even your Africa trip, right,
30:50
Speaker 6: for them to say yes knowing the fact that there
30:52
Speaker 6: may be issues. There may they may not finish, there
30:55
Speaker 6: may be something that may be you know, huge tacup,
30:58
Speaker 6: huge kudos for them to put their next out there
31:01
Speaker 6: to say, all right, well let's just see what happened.
31:03
Speaker 2: And I had no idea how was it going to go.
31:04
Speaker 1: I had unit number seventy two of the production of
31:08
Speaker 1: the production run, so it was very yeah when you
31:12
Speaker 1: look at the vin.
31:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, look yeah, I don't know yet.
31:15
Speaker 1: So it was so it was so early, and like I,
31:18
Speaker 1: like you said, it just took a lot of courage
31:20
Speaker 1: on their part to say, you know, we're going to
31:21
Speaker 1: just like throw this thing into the middle of Africa. Yeah,
31:24
Speaker 1: I mean that's what they say. It's built for Africa.
31:27
Speaker 1: So we it was a way to check that out
31:29
Speaker 1: and see if it was true or not.
31:30
Speaker 6: Especially for journalists too, for people that have the ability
31:34
Speaker 6: to write about it like I did, for instance, in
31:38
Speaker 6: the New York Times or Tread magazine or some of
31:40
Speaker 6: these other publications to say, or you know, overlin journals
31:43
Speaker 6: to say all right, here's the good stuff, here are
31:45
Speaker 6: the challenges, here are things that we would like to
31:47
Speaker 6: see improved.
31:48
Speaker 3: To have that openness and.
31:50
Speaker 6: The ability to say, Okay, we're going to give this
31:53
Speaker 6: vehicle to three journalists that have a wide variety and
31:57
Speaker 6: a lot of eyeballs on us to say, oh, okay,
32:00
Speaker 6: here's the truth, as unbiased people that are putting this
32:04
Speaker 6: through severe conditions.
32:07
Speaker 3: That's that's pretty incredible.
32:08
Speaker 1: I think so so Mercedes unbiased opinion.
32:11
Speaker 2: Would you think of the Grenadier this time?
32:14
Speaker 3: I was a navigator?
32:16
Speaker 6: You've driven, Yeah, I've driven home as prototypes over in
32:20
Speaker 6: France off road and then the production the Euros production
32:23
Speaker 6: models for the Global Global reveal both right hand and
32:25
Speaker 6: left hand drives. So I was excited for Andy to
32:28
Speaker 6: finally have a chance to drive them because he never
32:30
Speaker 6: had a chance to drive them.
32:32
Speaker 3: You know, super solid.
32:34
Speaker 6: We weren't sure what the frost heave highways were going
32:38
Speaker 6: to present. We weren't sure if it was going to
32:40
Speaker 6: start getting really squirrely, you know with the roads, because
32:42
Speaker 6: we know how bad the roads are up there.
32:44
Speaker 4: Body on frame construction, circulating ball steering. It doesn't have
32:47
Speaker 4: the trappings of say a.
32:49
Speaker 3: Sports car right right.
32:50
Speaker 6: So we weren't sure, especially with so many long miles,
32:54
Speaker 6: with that bad road conditions, how it would be. And
32:57
Speaker 6: I had a pretty fresh, fresh back injury too. I
32:59
Speaker 6: know that the Racaro seats are beautiful and they're comfortable.
33:02
Speaker 6: I didn't know how that would be with my back.
33:04
Speaker 6: Never never had any back fatigue. Everything felt planted, and
33:09
Speaker 6: especially as a navigator, this is my root book, this
33:12
Speaker 6: is the root, but my.
33:15
Speaker 3: Head's down ninety of the time.
33:17
Speaker 6: I never needed drama meine, so that vehicle was still planted.
33:21
Speaker 3: I didn't. I didn't get motion sickness at all, and
33:23
Speaker 3: I usually do.
33:25
Speaker 6: So that's a huge testament to that vehicle just keeping
33:28
Speaker 6: you in one spot and not just being like this
33:30
Speaker 6: all the time, where some.
33:31
Speaker 3: Of the other four by four is just have that
33:33
Speaker 3: act to wander.
33:34
Speaker 1: I think the fact that it's got that wide track width,
33:36
Speaker 1: it's people don't realize that it's much bigger than a
33:40
Speaker 1: Classic Defender or an old land Cruiser. It's a much
33:43
Speaker 1: bigger car than that. The wheelbase is nice and long,
33:47
Speaker 1: wide track width, wheels are out at the corners, so
33:50
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's pretty comfortable on the highway or on
33:52
Speaker 1: any road.
33:54
Speaker 4: For that matter, we found it really good on bad roads.
33:57
Speaker 4: When we were on the Dalton.
34:01
Speaker 5: It really did it?
34:02
Speaker 3: Did it?
34:02
Speaker 5: Did you know?
34:03
Speaker 4: We've both driven you know, sawid axle vehicles before and
34:06
Speaker 4: sometimes they get a little unsettled and whatnot.
34:08
Speaker 5: The suspension tuning on it was really good. We were
34:11
Speaker 5: really impressed.
34:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
34:12
Speaker 1: I think the fact that it's you know, engineered in Graz.
34:15
Speaker 1: I mean they build military, heavy duty military vehicles and
34:19
Speaker 1: for bad roads, so it's like that's what they built
34:22
Speaker 1: this thing to do. That was my experience as well,
34:24
Speaker 1: that the number of times that I gave up on
34:26
Speaker 1: the road before the Greenador did like yes, yeah, I
34:31
Speaker 1: mean after a thousand miles of corrugation, I'm like, I
34:33
Speaker 1: have got to take a I've got to take a break.
34:35
Speaker 2: I've got to take a break in the car.
34:37
Speaker 1: I also wanted to take a brief moment to thank
34:46
Speaker 1: all of you for listening to the Ovalandural podcast. By
34:49
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast and subscribing to The Ovalandural magazine,
34:53
Speaker 1: you're supporting our employee own and veteran owned business. Impartial
34:58
Speaker 1: reviews and in depth content like this would not be
35:01
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35:05
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Speaker 1: one hundred percent of that subscription price goes back into
35:12
Speaker 1: creating the content like you're listening to right now. And
35:16
Speaker 1: as a special thank you for your loyalty, we're giving
35:19
Speaker 1: twenty percent off any subscription, and that even includes our
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35:29
Speaker 1: can go to Overland Journal dot com and use the
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Speaker 1: Code Overland podcast at checkout again, that's Code Overland Podcast
35:38
Speaker 1: at checkout, and that'll give you twenty percent off. I
35:40
Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate your support.
35:43
Speaker 2: Brutal so well that that is cool.
35:45
Speaker 1: And then you guys, you guys are doing the Alcan
35:48
Speaker 1: and you're going along, and I remember some of your
35:50
Speaker 1: social media posts and I could see the beginnings of
35:54
Speaker 1: you guys realizing that you might do well and I could,
35:58
Speaker 1: and you know, having raised myself and everything like that,
36:02
Speaker 1: I just I'm like, I know what they're feeling, because
36:04
Speaker 1: you're so hopeful that this might actually go the way
36:08
Speaker 1: that it could.
36:09
Speaker 3: For me as a navigator, we were so there are thirty.
36:12
Speaker 6: Six total teams for the Alkhan five thousand rally in
36:15
Speaker 6: twenty twenty four we were part of the two sop
36:18
Speaker 6: class or seat of pants class, which was seventeen trucks
36:22
Speaker 6: and SUVs. That's that's like over forty percent of the
36:25
Speaker 6: whole entire class. Huge, huge class and a lot.
36:28
Speaker 3: Of talented rally rally teams.
36:32
Speaker 6: We can't say we're novices anymore because we're but but
36:36
Speaker 6: I'm still fairly new to incremental time calculations. So basically,
36:40
Speaker 6: if we haven't touched on this, it's a precision based rally.
36:44
Speaker 3: So it's not like stage.
36:45
Speaker 6: Rally where you're sliding sideways into you know, in gravel
36:49
Speaker 6: and you know you have to get there very fast
36:50
Speaker 6: and this and that.
36:52
Speaker 5: It's precision.
36:53
Speaker 3: It's precision based.
36:54
Speaker 6: You have to be perfectly on route, perfectly on time,
36:57
Speaker 6: perfectly just everything has to be perfect. If you're early
37:01
Speaker 6: your penalized points, if you're late your penalized points. So
37:03
Speaker 6: everything's just got to be perfect to what the rally
37:05
Speaker 6: master has for.
37:06
Speaker 5: Their course a perfect score.
37:07
Speaker 3: So right, so zero.
37:09
Speaker 6: Seconds right, So on day two we were literally point
37:14
Speaker 6: one seconds off, point two seconds off, like one point
37:17
Speaker 6: two seconds off, and I'm like, holy please, but I'm
37:20
Speaker 6: like screaming.
37:21
Speaker 4: Like some of the times that the unlimited class cars
37:24
Speaker 4: which have rallied.
37:25
Speaker 6: With rally computers. It was we had no idea what
37:29
Speaker 6: we were doing. I mean, we had I know, you know,
37:30
Speaker 6: I had idea what I was.
37:31
Speaker 4: Doing, but interject real quick like. So when we did
37:33
Speaker 4: this in twenty twenty two, there was the first stage,
37:37
Speaker 4: which was the Mosquito Lake stage. We got off course
37:41
Speaker 4: and it's that's the worst thing you can do in
37:43
Speaker 4: these TSD raders, and so we got off course by
37:46
Speaker 4: quite a ways and that immediately kind of took us
37:48
Speaker 4: out of any commutation.
37:50
Speaker 6: One point day one, one direction that took me off,
37:53
Speaker 6: but the next direction.
37:54
Speaker 3: Was several miles down the road.
37:55
Speaker 6: It was just a bad luck of the draw because
37:57
Speaker 6: usually there point this and then point that and then
38:00
Speaker 6: you can turn around once you realize that.
38:02
Speaker 3: But mine is ended up being lug of the draw.
38:04
Speaker 3: That It was a way, you know.
38:05
Speaker 4: But so in twenty twenty four we heard we were
38:07
Speaker 4: doing that stage again on day one, and so we
38:10
Speaker 4: were like, we're going to nail this. We're going to
38:12
Speaker 4: do We're going to do good. We're not going to
38:13
Speaker 4: get lost, and we didn't, and we were like, hey,
38:15
Speaker 4: this is great. We're midpac which is kind of where
38:16
Speaker 4: we figured we'd be.
38:17
Speaker 5: And that was great.
38:18
Speaker 4: So then when we do the second TSD on Blackwater
38:23
Speaker 4: was I think it was uh. And when you do this,
38:27
Speaker 4: you have a phone that has a GPS on it,
38:30
Speaker 4: and it ding this every time you go through the checkpoint,
38:32
Speaker 4: and it'll go bink two seconds late or think half
38:36
Speaker 4: a second early, right, and it kept saying zero or
38:40
Speaker 4: point one or point two, and we're just like screaming yeah,
38:43
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I was like, don't get excited.
38:45
Speaker 5: We don't know what we're doing.
38:45
Speaker 4: We don't who knows the other teams might be doing
38:47
Speaker 4: this too.
38:48
Speaker 6: So well, and as the time kept on progressing, the
38:51
Speaker 6: days kept on progressing, we realized, I think we've got
38:55
Speaker 6: a magic combination here. You know, the Grenadier he was
38:58
Speaker 6: able to hold the speed and annual mode very well.
39:03
Speaker 6: We found that twenty four miles per hour was a
39:05
Speaker 6: little bit hard for him to modulate and keep that
39:07
Speaker 6: speed with the gearing, but other than that, he was
39:10
Speaker 6: able to really hold that speed in various terrain. And
39:13
Speaker 6: with my calculations, you know, basically there's long form math
39:18
Speaker 6: that you can do to say, okay, you're taking off
39:20
Speaker 6: at eight fifteen.
39:20
Speaker 3: I'm not going to bore you guys.
39:21
Speaker 4: We jokingly said the We jokingly said, the alcan is
39:24
Speaker 4: a mix of sleep approvation and long division.
39:28
Speaker 1: So that's not going to work for me. Math is
39:32
Speaker 1: not my strength. Math is not my strength.
39:35
Speaker 6: There's a lot well it's not mine either, but but
39:37
Speaker 6: long form math to basically say, if you're taking off
39:39
Speaker 6: at eight to fifteen, your next direction is like, you know,
39:41
Speaker 6: zero point two six you know, miles, turn left on
39:44
Speaker 6: Smith Street.
39:44
Speaker 3: Right, let's make it easy.
39:45
Speaker 6: So then there's a calculation for you to be able
39:48
Speaker 6: to say at eight fifteen, you know, or eight sixteen
39:51
Speaker 6: and point you know, two six seconds or something, then
39:55
Speaker 6: you turn left on Smith Street. So you figure out
39:57
Speaker 6: all those incremental direction changes. Then there's times that you
40:01
Speaker 6: can figure out.
40:02
Speaker 4: Because they give you the distance and they give you
40:05
Speaker 4: the speed and you.
40:06
Speaker 3: Have to figure out the time.
40:08
Speaker 4: So that's yeah, that's the nuts and bolts of this.
40:13
Speaker 4: But when we on that second day, we're looking at
40:16
Speaker 4: the scores going, well, I can't be right. We couldn't.
40:18
Speaker 4: We didn't we couldn't have won this. And we were like,
40:21
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, we won the stage. We never won
40:23
Speaker 4: a stage before, not a major stage, it's certainly not
40:27
Speaker 4: an alcan and we're like, oh my gosh. And then
40:29
Speaker 4: we were just able to kind of maintain the consistency,
40:33
Speaker 4: which was it's exactly like you discovered. Like you said,
40:36
Speaker 4: we were just like and I really doing that that it's.
40:39
Speaker 5: Like, oh we have.
40:40
Speaker 3: We had a disastrous day.
40:41
Speaker 6: I think it was day six, I believe, where we
40:44
Speaker 6: had a darn dog in the middle of the DSD
40:47
Speaker 6: that wouldn't get out of the way. He's honging, I'm screaming, couldn't.
40:51
Speaker 5: Bark at the car and he couldn't.
40:53
Speaker 6: There's two torn and I'm like, you've a real horn,
40:56
Speaker 6: and so trying to get him out of the way.
40:58
Speaker 6: Then he wouldn't get away. We had to grow pro
41:00
Speaker 6: fall off and fall in the foot well. I was
41:02
Speaker 6: worried it was going to fall on his side, like
41:04
Speaker 6: under the accelerator.
41:05
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to reach for it.
41:06
Speaker 6: Then my navvy supplies all fall into the footwells, my
41:09
Speaker 6: seat belt locks.
41:10
Speaker 3: I couldn't get anything.
41:11
Speaker 6: So as he's driving and we're under the TSD right so,
41:15
Speaker 6: and I had no directions to tell him where to turn,
41:17
Speaker 6: so I'm trying to get I mean, it was a
41:18
Speaker 6: mass chaos. So we had a very bad score that day,
41:21
Speaker 6: so we slipped into second place for two days, but
41:25
Speaker 6: we regained and I.
41:26
Speaker 3: Think we led. We led for seven of the.
41:29
Speaker 6: Ten days, I believe, of the whole entire Alcan five thousand,
41:32
Speaker 6: and we finished on top for the class. We came
41:35
Speaker 6: intent overall, which of thirty six teams which we're still
41:39
Speaker 6: pinching ourselves with inos credit are so And.
41:43
Speaker 4: One think I should just mentioned too, is is the
41:45
Speaker 4: one thing that we love about the long distance times
41:47
Speaker 4: speed distance rallies is it? Mary's a bunch of things
41:50
Speaker 4: that we're passionate about. So automobiles write travel, especially these
41:57
Speaker 4: you know, some of these areas that we go are
41:58
Speaker 4: pretty remote actually in the summer, and then you're the
42:03
Speaker 4: camaraderie is amazing because you are with It's like it's
42:06
Speaker 4: like going on a trip with your friends, well friends,
42:10
Speaker 4: new friends. Everybody's great.
42:12
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I mean one of the one of the
42:15
Speaker 6: remote stretches we had was three hundred and four miles
42:17
Speaker 6: in between fuel steps, so most everybody dumped fuel. And
42:21
Speaker 6: in the winter al Can five thousand rally, everybody's mandated
42:24
Speaker 6: to carry at least.
42:25
Speaker 3: Five yards of fuel we're having auxiliary tanker.
42:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, sure.
42:29
Speaker 1: And so did you guys put your fuel on the
42:31
Speaker 1: rack or did you have it in a bladder?
42:33
Speaker 3: No.
42:33
Speaker 4: We we used a run a racks double jerry canholder
42:37
Speaker 4: to go on top of the Pioneer platform and then
42:40
Speaker 4: climb the ladder carefully and.
42:43
Speaker 3: It is a slippery ladder. Yeah.
42:44
Speaker 5: We even occasionally one of our buddy cars.
42:46
Speaker 4: So they want you to have a buddy car every year,
42:48
Speaker 4: and the winter one just in case you have an
42:51
Speaker 4: you go off. And so every now when I'd climb
42:54
Speaker 4: on the ladder, John went our buddy car, He'd like,
42:58
Speaker 4: hold onto my legs because you have slippery Yeah.
43:03
Speaker 1: Well, congratulations to you both. That is an incredible accomplishment.
43:07
Speaker 1: I mean, the Alcan is something that I've followed off
43:09
Speaker 1: and on for probably twenty years, so that is it's
43:13
Speaker 1: an incredible achievement. And it shows how much you guys
43:16
Speaker 1: have learned and grown as drivers and navigators and you know,
43:21
Speaker 1: vehicle evaluators, so that I mean, these are very difficult
43:24
Speaker 1: navigating and driving conditions. So so now that you've done the Alcan,
43:29
Speaker 1: what what do you think is going to be the
43:31
Speaker 1: next big idea? If you if you want to share it.
43:34
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we're we're actually you.
43:38
Speaker 3: Can I talk about this?
43:40
Speaker 1: Talk?
43:40
Speaker 3: I could talk.
43:41
Speaker 6: So we have a couple of different things going on,
43:45
Speaker 6: So do you want to talk about what's happening this
43:47
Speaker 6: at the end of this month and then I'll talk.
43:49
Speaker 5: Yeah.
43:49
Speaker 4: So this the end of this month, we're headed out
43:51
Speaker 4: to Connecticut, going to be doing some stuff with Subaru,
43:55
Speaker 4: going to super Fast. They have they have held on
43:58
Speaker 4: to our twenty twenty two alcan and they've brought it.
44:01
Speaker 4: They bring it to all the Subfest events and they
44:03
Speaker 4: have us talk about it and so we get to
44:05
Speaker 4: go interact with that community, which is really fun and.
44:08
Speaker 1: Such great cars.
44:09
Speaker 4: Great especially since they came out with their Wilderness series
44:14
Speaker 4: with more ground clears and stuff, and it's it's fascinating
44:16
Speaker 4: to meet a lot of these buyers. They're really into
44:21
Speaker 4: they're really into having adventures and going out and.
44:23
Speaker 2: See what because they're good because they really work.
44:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, really great.
44:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then I've got a couple other things going on,
44:29
Speaker 4: and then in June we fly to Europe for about
44:31
Speaker 4: what five weeks, four or five weeks, so we're in Europe.
44:33
Speaker 3: For Yeah, I think it's a little yeah about four
44:36
Speaker 3: or five weeks.
44:37
Speaker 2: When are you gonna arrive in Europe?
44:39
Speaker 6: So we are arriving in the let's say du An eighteenth,
44:42
Speaker 6: I believe. And so starting June twenty second and finishing
44:46
Speaker 6: July seventh, we are doing the northernmost rally in the world.
44:51
Speaker 6: So it is called the Baltic Sea Circle Rally. And
44:54
Speaker 6: it is nine countries, sixteen days and about seventy five
44:57
Speaker 6: hundred kilometers and we are going to be driving Volkswagen
45:00
Speaker 6: ID buzz Ev.
45:03
Speaker 3: So let's see.
45:05
Speaker 6: So we're starting in Germany and Hamburg, Germany, and then
45:07
Speaker 6: it's going Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, then going around the
45:11
Speaker 6: opposite back in so Estonia, Lithuanian no I'm sorry, Latvia,
45:16
Speaker 6: and then Lithuania, Poland and back to Germany.
45:18
Speaker 2: You'll love that.
45:19
Speaker 1: Well, I'll honk as I drive by into Grenadier.
45:23
Speaker 3: Literally are you going to be around there?
45:24
Speaker 2: Literally at the same exact time?
45:26
Speaker 5: Really, that's funny.
45:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, I leave, I'll leave.
45:29
Speaker 1: I'll leave Greece on the eighteenth of June.
45:32
Speaker 6: Oh my god.
45:33
Speaker 2: Really well driving eastern eastern Europe, so.
45:37
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, will you be going through Poland?
45:39
Speaker 2: Yeah?
45:40
Speaker 1: Right, well close, So I'll be going through Germany as well.
45:43
Speaker 3: So oh well we'll have to see wa. Yeah, my
45:45
Speaker 3: sister leaves over there.
45:47
Speaker 2: We'll just honking waves.
45:48
Speaker 5: Reminds me of when we'll have a coffee. Yeah.
45:51
Speaker 3: I was going to say, we'll have your grenadier and
45:53
Speaker 3: then we'll have an idy buzz.
45:55
Speaker 2: That's so fun.
45:56
Speaker 5: New Zealand.
45:56
Speaker 4: We went to New Zealand in twenty sixteen and Mascott
45:59
Speaker 4: was there. We ran into We planned that we met
46:02
Speaker 4: at the Church of the Good Shepherd on the outside
46:05
Speaker 4: of christ Church and he pulled up and we looked
46:07
Speaker 4: at each other and swapped some ideas.
46:08
Speaker 2: And't it Yeah, isn't that funny?
46:12
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
46:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's super cool. So you've got those things coming up.
46:16
Speaker 1: Good luck with the new race. That sounds really really fun.
46:19
Speaker 1: Hopefully you can go from strength to strength on these
46:22
Speaker 1: rallies and keep doing new things. How do people follow
46:28
Speaker 1: what you're doing? So you guys have crankshaft Culture. What
46:32
Speaker 1: are your Instagram channels? How do people stay connected with
46:36
Speaker 1: what you're doing?
46:36
Speaker 4: Absolutely so, we have crankshaftculture dot Com, which our website.
46:40
Speaker 4: Our social media is going to be crankshaft Culture on
46:43
Speaker 4: Instagram and Facebook. We have a YouTube channel. Uh. And
46:46
Speaker 4: then we have our personal on Andy Underscore Lilienthal at
46:51
Speaker 4: excuse me, Andy Underscore Lilienthal on Instagram.
46:53
Speaker 3: And m R City's Undersquare Lilienthal on Instagram. Uh.
46:57
Speaker 6: And then also LinkedIn where krankshaft culture as well. And
47:00
Speaker 6: then he is well crank shaft cult on X or Twitter,
47:03
Speaker 6: whichever one you know. And then I am writer with
47:06
Speaker 6: writ on X and Twitter. I thought I was fitting
47:11
Speaker 6: that wasn't taken yet.
47:13
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it. I love it. That's
47:15
Speaker 2: really great.
47:16
Speaker 1: So what advice would you give to people that are
47:21
Speaker 1: getting started with the kind of things that you're enjoying,
47:23
Speaker 1: like the rallying, maybe even some of the some of
47:26
Speaker 1: the journalists stuff.
47:27
Speaker 2: What's what's some advice that you.
47:28
Speaker 1: Would give to to new journalists or new adventurers For me.
47:33
Speaker 6: Don't be afraid to fail, don't be afraid to try it.
47:37
Speaker 6: Talk to people that are in it. Most people will
47:39
Speaker 6: be very kind and helpful. Some people may not be,
47:43
Speaker 6: but just have a thick skin and just keep on trying.
47:46
Speaker 4: Really yeah, and I'd say, you know, don't wait, don't wait.
47:51
Speaker 4: You know, it's life is very short and we never
47:54
Speaker 4: know when our last day is. So if there's something
47:57
Speaker 4: you want to do, do it. If you want to
48:00
Speaker 4: start writing, start networking, network network there, work, talk to
48:03
Speaker 4: people and just be open, you know, don't be too
48:06
Speaker 4: staunch and setting your ways on stuff because there's lots
48:08
Speaker 4: of ways to skin cats.
48:09
Speaker 1: And yeah, and it takes time and consistency and then
48:14
Speaker 1: and then next thing, you know, the opportunities come up
48:16
Speaker 1: and you're driving the Alcan rally integrated.
48:18
Speaker 6: Yeah, all right, I mean both our dads died, you know,
48:22
Speaker 6: my dad, my papa died in nineteen ninety eight years dad.
48:25
Speaker 6: Your dad died in twenty fourteen at age sixty six,
48:30
Speaker 6: both of them sixty six. And you know, I am
48:33
Speaker 6: almost fifty and and he's not that far off.
48:37
Speaker 3: And you know, if my days tomorrow, I want to
48:39
Speaker 3: have lived.
48:41
Speaker 5: You know.
48:41
Speaker 6: So we're working along the way, and you know, and
48:44
Speaker 6: doing what we want to do while we're working along
48:47
Speaker 6: the way.
48:47
Speaker 1: So and you guys are doing it, and you're an
48:49
Speaker 1: inspiration to so many. You're certainly an inspiration to me
48:53
Speaker 1: to us as well, and we're so and we're just
48:55
Speaker 1: grateful for all you guys produce, and we're thankful for
48:58
Speaker 1: the time that you guys have been able to contribute
49:00
Speaker 1: to our own outlets as well, and I really appreciate
49:03
Speaker 1: you both being on the on the podcast today.
49:06
Speaker 3: Thank you much for having us.
49:07
Speaker 1: You're very welcome, and we thank you all for listening
49:09
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you next time.
49:12
Speaker 2: H