The Ford Edge is a crossover SUV, which is a family-friendly vehicle that’s built for everyday driving. The podcast mentions it in a story about a very serious crash on Pike’s Peak. The key point is that the Edge was involved in that incident.
Pike’s Peak is a super famous race where vehicles drive up a mountain. The track is hard on tires and brakes because it’s steep and the weather can change fast.
Term
roof in his truck
Landing “on the top of his roof” suggests a rollover or severe impact where the vehicle rotates and ends up inverted or near-inverted. In crash analysis, the roof is a critical survival space, so rollovers are a major safety concern.
Bonneville is a famous place in Utah where people try to set speed records on salt. It’s all about going as fast as possible in a straight line safely.
“Unmodified” usually means the truck is basically stock, not heavily upgraded. That makes the record more impressive because it relies on the original design.
The Toyota Tacoma is a pickup truck made by Toyota. People like it because it can handle rough roads and it’s a common truck to modify for special builds. The podcast mentions it as a standout example of what people do with Tacomas.
“Brakes failed” means the car didn’t slow down the way it should. On a tough course like Pike’s Peak, that can be especially dangerous because you need braking to stay in control.
Concept
14,000 feet
14,000 feet is very high altitude. The air is thinner up there, which can change how the car runs and how well systems like cooling and braking handle heat.
Concept
Craigslist days before Facebook marketplace
They’re talking about the earlier days of buying used stuff online. Back then, Craigslist was a common place to find cheap vehicles to fix up or flip.
A diesel engine is a type of engine that runs by compressing air so the fuel ignites from heat/pressure, not from a spark plug. People often pick diesel engines for trucks because they can pull strongly at low speeds.
A “car build” just means someone is working on a car project—changing it on purpose instead of leaving it stock. Here, they’re talking about turning a cheap truck into a shop work truck by swapping in a different engine.
It’s a turbo setup that uses more than one turbo to help the engine make boost more smoothly. Instead of waiting for one turbo to spool up, the system tries to keep power coming across more of the RPM range.
Fuel injectors are the parts that deliver gasoline (or other fuel) into the engine. If you’re making more power, you often need bigger injectors so the engine doesn’t run out of fuel.
If a truck is going faster, it also needs to stop better. Bigger brakes help the vehicle slow down more strongly and handle the extra heat from repeated hard stops.
A tube frame is a chassis made from welded metal tubes, usually replacing a stock body-on-frame or unibody structure. It’s common in race trucks because it can be built lighter and stronger in specific load paths, making it easier to fit suspension and safety equipment.
Grid Life is a racing event brand where people compete on track and show off modified cars. Here it’s mentioned as another kind of racing the speaker wants to do.
Car
2JZ
The 2JZ is a Toyota engine that’s well-known for handling big power, especially when turbocharged. Here, they’re swapping it into a garbage truck so the truck can be built like a serious performance machine.
Garrett is a well-known turbo brand. “G 50” is a specific turbo size/type, and in this story it’s so big that it’s almost comically oversized for the truck.
Term
millimeter
They’re using millimeters to describe turbo size. The bigger the number, the bigger the turbo hardware is.
A “large frame” turbo is a bigger turbocharger built to move a lot of air. Bigger turbos can make huge power, but they can take longer to get up to speed.
In racing, the “apex” is the inside point of a turn. Hitting it means you steer so you pass closest to that inside point, which usually helps you accelerate out faster.
Racecraft is the “smart driving” part of racing. It’s how you choose your line and control the car when you’re going fast and the tires are working hard.
“Floating” means the car starts to feel like it’s not firmly stuck to the ground. At extreme speed, the air can affect the car so the tires don’t grip as well, making it harder to steer.
Concept
aerodynamics of a shoe
They’re saying the car’s shape isn’t very efficient in the air. At top speeds, that can create extra drag and make the car less stable.
“Going sideways” is when the car starts to rotate and point in a different direction than it’s traveling. If it happens at high speed, it can be very hard to correct quickly.
“Exit speed” means how fast the vehicle is going at the end of the timed part of the run. It’s one of the main numbers people care about in land-speed racing.
A parachute is used to slow the vehicle down after the run. When it opens, it can pull hard enough to change how the vehicle moves, so timing is important.
Bias ply tires use a construction where the internal plies are laid at angles (instead of belts arranged radially). They tend to be more “flexible” in sidewall behavior than modern radial tires, which can affect how the tire grips and how it behaves when sliding at very high speed.
A “flow state” is when you’re so focused on what’s happening right now that you react automatically. In driving, it means you respond to the car’s behavior quickly without thinking too much.
Concept
lizard brain
“Lizard brain” is a way of saying you react automatically, like an instinct. In racing, that’s useful because you don’t have time to think through every correction.
“Going sideways” means the car isn’t pointing exactly where it’s moving. The tires are sliding a bit, and the driver has to steer and control it so it doesn’t spin out.
Term
turn into it
“Turn into it” refers to steering into the direction of the slide to help the car regain stability. In practice, this is a common technique for correcting oversteer: you steer toward the direction the rear is stepping out so the tires can re-establish the right grip angles.
Term
tires held up
“Tires held up” means the tires didn’t overheat or fall apart even while the car was being pushed very hard. At extreme speeds and sideways slides, tires can wear out fast.
Term
200 plus
“200 plus” means extremely fast driving. At that speed, it’s much easier to lose control if the car starts sliding or if grip changes.
“Getting sideways” means the vehicle starts to slide sideways instead of going straight. That usually happens when the tires lose grip. The driver is saying they managed to regain control after that slide.
“Spinning” here means the truck starts rotating as it slides, instead of staying pointed the way you want. On slippery surfaces, it can keep turning until you correct it. The driver is saying the surface helped them recover.
“Tech inspection” is an official safety check of the vehicle. If officials think the car or truck may have been damaged or behaved in a way that needs review, they can make you go through it again. The speaker is frustrated because it’s time-consuming.
“Salt dust” is the gritty powder that gets thrown up when the tires hit the salt. It can make it hard for officials to see exactly what the vehicle did. The speaker says the dust made them think he spun.
The Chevrolet Spin is a small van made for carrying people. In the podcast, it comes up because someone says they didn’t “spin,” but others claim they saw it happen. The car is mentioned as part of that situation.
In racing, “loopholes” means finding a way to follow the rules but still get an advantage. It’s basically using the rules in a clever way to go faster.
Nitrous is a gas you can inject into the engine to make it produce more power. It’s like a temporary “power boost” that racers use when they need extra speed.
NHRA is a big organization that runs drag races. Their rule book is basically the official “what you’re allowed to do” list for different race classes.
A “gasser” is a drag-racing class/style associated with older cars, where teams often ran a more traditional, straight-line drag setup rather than modern purpose-built drag platforms. The speaker contrasts earlier gassers with today’s “pro mods,” implying the rules and competitive landscape changed over time.
This is a specific kind of drag-racing compliance rule: the driver’s seat location must be within a defined range relative to the factory (“stock”) position. The speaker uses that constraint to justify moving the seat and rearranging the cabin so the car still fits the class rules.
“Sunk back” means the engine was pushed farther back into the car than normal. That can steal space from the front seating area, so the driver ends up sitting farther back.
An “oh shit moment” is when something suddenly feels really dangerous. In racing, it’s the kind of instant where you realize you have to react immediately to avoid trouble.
The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car model. The podcast mentions a GT3 cup car, which is a race version related to the 911 line. They bring it up because the host drove it at Pike’s Peak.
Car
Dart 2JZ
“Dart 2JZ” is a custom race car setup using a Toyota 2JZ engine. They’re talking about how much power it can produce and how they decide what to run during races.
A “power ceiling” means there’s a limit to how much power you can use effectively. Past that point, the tires can’t grip or the car can’t stay stable, so more power doesn’t help.
Mechanical downforce is what makes the car “stick” to the ground more. It helps the tires get more grip so you can put power down without spinning or losing traction.
The Nissan Quest is a minivan, which is a vehicle made to carry passengers comfortably. The podcast mentions it because it was involved in a record or challenge. The focus is on the Quest being the car used for that event.
The transmission is the part that sends power from the engine to the wheels through different gears. Rebuilding it for racing is a major job, and if it goes wrong, the whole car can miss the event.
Term
modified the frame
Modifying the frame means changing the car’s structural chassis or mounting points, which can affect alignment, rigidity, and how loads travel through the car. In racing, frame changes are sometimes needed for fitment or performance, but they can also introduce unexpected problems if other systems aren’t re-engineered to match.
A wrap is a vinyl covering put on top of the paint. It can change the look and protect the original paint—here, it’s used because the original paint isn’t in great shape.
Term
built dart motor
A “built” engine means it’s been strengthened and upgraded inside to handle more power. “Dart” usually points to high-performance parts used in that build.
Moton is a performance suspension brand known for motorsport-grade dampers. “Three-way” suspension typically means the shock/damper has separate adjustment circuits for different damping behaviors (commonly compression and rebound, with an additional control), allowing fine-tuning for traction and ride/handling balance.
JDM means “Japanese Domestic Market.” It’s a way enthusiasts talk about cars and parts that were made for Japan, which often have unique versions compared to what you’d find elsewhere.
A frame-up restoration is when someone rebuilds a car starting from the main structure (the frame). It usually means lots of parts get replaced, not just cleaned up.
A transfer case is a part in many 4-wheel-drive cars that sends power to both the front and rear wheels. It helps the vehicle switch between normal driving and low-speed, high-traction modes.
Baja Designs makes aftermarket off-road lights. If a car has Baja Designs on it, it typically has upgraded lighting meant for better visibility off-road or at night.
LP6 is a specific Baja Designs light model. It’s the kind of extra off-road light people mount on the front bumper to see farther ahead.
Concept
veggie conversion
A “veggie conversion” usually means changing a vehicle so it can run on vegetable oil instead of regular fuel. It often takes extra modifications, and if it isn’t set up right, it can cause problems.
Term
veggie oil
“Veggie oil” means using plant-based oil as fuel instead of regular gas or diesel. It can be tricky because it doesn’t act exactly like the fuel your car was designed for.
Term
harmonic bouncer
A “harmonic bouncer” sounds like something meant to stop the car from shaking or vibrating at certain engine speeds. The goal is to keep vibrations from causing problems or failures.
Right-hand drive means the steering wheel is on the right side of the car instead of the left. It can change how the car feels and how you position yourself to drive.
“NA” means the engine is naturally aspirated, not turbocharged. “Automatic” means you don’t shift gears yourself, and the car’s acceleration behavior will feel different than a manual or a turbo car.
A “door slammer” is slang for a car with a normal enclosed body—basically a production-style car with doors. It contrasts with more exotic, purpose-built race machines.
It’s a bragging-rights speed milestone: hitting 300 mph on a measured run. It usually means the car has to be proven safe and fast enough under strict rules.
They’re talking about rules that let you drive faster only after you’ve proven you can. The event uses different “levels” of permission based on your previous runs.
Concept
double A license
“Double A” here is a higher permission level for speed runs. It means you’ve met the requirements to be allowed to attempt faster speeds.
“Fabrication” in a motorsports garage means building or modifying parts from raw materials—often alongside “welding” and “cutting.” This is the hands-on metalworking stage where you create custom components or repair damaged structures before final assembly.
Wiring is the electrical setup in the car—running wires for things like sensors and controls. It’s usually done later in the build once the main parts are in place.
“Three-wheel motion” means the truck is only touching the ground with three wheels instead of four. That can happen when it hits a jump or lands in a weird way, and it’s one reason the driving looks so intense.
They’re describing a crash where the truck hits jumps and ends up flipping over in the air. It’s basically the vehicle losing control after it launches and then landing in a way that makes it keep rotating.
This is a special rally version of the Toyota Celica. It has a turbo engine and all-wheel drive, and it was built to meet the rules that let it race in rally events.
Homologation is basically “approval to race.” The company has to make a certain number of near-identical cars that are street-legal so the race version is allowed to compete.
Off-road tires are built for dirt and rough terrain, with tread that’s meant to bite into loose surfaces. On regular roads, they can feel worse—less precise steering and grip—than street-focused tires.
A livery is the car’s graphics and paint design—like racing-style stripes or decals. In this case, the design makes people think it’s a custom paint job rather than something original.
The BMW 3 Series is a luxury car that’s meant to be comfortable but also fun to drive. The E30 is an older version of the 3 Series that people still talk about. The podcast mentions it when discussing BMWs.
An engine swap means putting a different engine into a car than it originally came with. It’s more than just dropping in an engine—you usually have to change other parts to make it work.
Wheel horsepower is how much power actually reaches the tires. It’s measured on a dyno and is usually less than the engine’s headline number because some power is lost along the way.
A Garrett turbo is a performance turbocharger. Using a bigger one usually helps the car make more power at higher speeds, even if it can feel less responsive at low speeds.
“Diff” refers to the differential, the part that sends power to the rear wheels while allowing them to rotate at different speeds in turns. The Ford 8.8 is a popular rear-axle/differential swap because it’s strong and widely supported with aftermarket parts.
A cradle is like a mounting frame that holds parts of the drivetrain in place. If it’s custom, it’s been modified so everything fits and stays solid under hard use.
Concept
big turbo cars
Even though big turbos can make huge power, good tuning can make the car feel manageable day-to-day. The goal is to control when the boost comes in so it’s not just “all or nothing.”
A burnout is when the tires spin and smoke while you’re trying to heat up or test traction. They’re saying the car has so much power that it’ll do that easily.
A “stock block” is the original engine base from the factory. It’s the starting point before any upgrades or machining.
Concept
tandem Supra
A “tandem Supra” sounds like a custom, one-of-a-kind Supra setup. It likely means the car was modified in a very unusual way, not something you’d find from the factory.
A Toyota RAV4 is a small SUV that people often use for everyday driving. Here, they’re talking about a 2024 model they bought because they needed something practical for their kids.
Term
600 miles to a tank
“Miles to a tank” means how far the car can drive before you need to stop for gas. They’re saying it can go about 600 miles between fill-ups.
Sport mode is a button or setting that makes the car feel more responsive. It usually makes acceleration quicker and changes how the car drives compared to normal mode.
The Toyota Prius is a hybrid car, meaning it uses both a gasoline engine and an electric system to save fuel. People mention it because it’s a very recognizable model. The podcast is clarifying that the car being discussed isn’t a Prius.
The Toyota Sienna is a minivan, which usually has more room for kids and car seats than many SUVs. They’re considering it because their current vehicle doesn’t fit their growing family needs.
The Honda Civic Type R is a performance version of the Civic. It’s known for sporty looks and track-ready tuning, and here it’s used as a style comparison.
The Toyota Supra is a well-known sports car that people associate with speed and tuning. Here it’s mentioned because the other car’s styling reminds the host of a Supra.
The drag coefficient is a number that describes how easily air resists a car’s motion. A lower drag coefficient generally helps reduce aerodynamic drag, which can improve top speed and efficiency—something the host links to the car being “sleeker.”
A “JZ swap” is when someone changes the engine to a Toyota JZ-series engine. It’s popular with car builders because those engines are well-known for being strong and easy to modify.
“Slam it” means lowering the car so it sits very close to the ground. People do it for the look, but it can make everyday driving less comfortable and reduce ground clearance.
They mean a Japanese version of Craigslist—used cars being sold by individuals. The concern is that you might not know the car’s real condition until you inspect it.
“Rusted out” means the car has heavy rust, often so bad that it can affect safety and repairs. It’s a common worry with cheap imports if you can’t verify the car’s condition first.
They’re warning that imported cars can look great in photos, but problems may show up after shipping. Salt water exposure and delays at the port can make rust worse, and nobody may check the car while it’s waiting.
The Mitsubishi Delica is a popular Japanese van. People love them because they look cool and can be made to handle rough roads, and here they’re talking about lowering or lifting one for a dramatic look.
“Slam” means lowering the car a lot so it sits very close to the ground. People do it mostly for the look, but it can make the car harder to drive over bumps.
The Toyota Previa is a minivan, but some versions were made to be faster than you’d expect. In this segment they’re talking about a supercharged Previa and that it could come with a manual and all-wheel drive.
All-wheel drive (AWD) sends power to more than just the front or rear wheels, improving traction. That can help a vehicle accelerate more effectively on slippery or uneven surfaces.
The Mazda RX-7 is a sports car made by Mazda. It’s known for having a unique engine design compared to most cars. The podcast talks about RX-7s that people build and modify for performance.
The Honda NSX is a sports car made by Honda. It’s known for being a serious performance car that enthusiasts pay attention to. The podcast mentions it as part of a group of highly modified cars.
The Nissan Skyline is a performance car model that many car enthusiasts like. People often modify them for more power and better driving. The podcast mentions it as one of the cars that shows up in a group of heavily built vehicles.
“T37s” is a type of aftermarket wheel that a lot of Japanese car fans like. People choose them because they’re stylish and often lighter than factory wheels.
The Ferrari SF 90 is a high-end Ferrari supercar. Here, they’re reacting to how one looked—especially the rear lights—and how the color made it stand out.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car made by Chevrolet. The “C5” is a specific generation of Corvette. In the podcast, someone is picking up a red C5 that’s described as especially clean.
A “Dodge 3500” is a heavy-duty pickup truck. It’s made for tasks like towing and carrying heavy loads, and the podcast says this one is lifted and has a Cummins engine. It’s mentioned as the daily truck someone drives.
Cummins is a company that makes diesel engines. In this context, it means the truck is powered by a Cummins diesel, which is popular for strong pulling power.
The BMW M3 is a faster, sportier BMW version of the 3 Series. The podcast mentions an older M3 from the mid-to-late 1990s. It’s brought up because someone bought one from a friend.
Term
hell rot red
“Hell rot” is German for “light red,” and in this context it’s being used as the specific paint color name for the BMW M3 the speaker bought. It’s more precise than saying “bright red,” because it points to a particular OEM color/trim combination.
Term
Modena interior
“Modena interior” is a named interior color/style. They’re saying this M3 had that specific interior setup, not just any generic interior.
The Mazda MX-5 (Miata) is a small two-seat roadster. It’s known for being light and enjoyable to drive. The podcast says the current Miata is still a cool car.
“LS” is a popular GM V8 engine family that’s often used for swaps. “Twin turbos” means using two turbochargers to push more air into the engine for extra power.
With turbo cars, “onset” is when the turbo really starts adding boost. “Late onset” means it kicks in later in the rev range, so it can feel slower at first but stronger higher up.
Gran Turismo is a racing video game series where you can drive and tune lots of cars. They’re talking about picking a car that’s basically meant to be a mess to make the experience more fun.
They’re talking about Sonoma Raceway and why it’s a tough, interesting track. The conversation highlights corner types and how they make driving more demanding.
“Neutral throttle” means you keep your foot steady on the gas instead of changing it mid-corner. That helps the car stay balanced and predictable through the turn.
A “carousel” is a particular corner section on a track that’s taken in a smooth, curved way. The key is to keep your inputs steady so the car doesn’t get unstable.
A “legends car” is a cheap, entry-level kind of race car. It’s built with a simple metal frame and usually uses a motorcycle-style engine, with lightweight body panels so racing stays affordable.
A tube chassis is a vehicle frame made from welded steel tubes, rather than a full unibody structure. It’s common in race cars because it can be lighter, easier to reinforce, and simpler to build around for a specific racing setup.
In legends cars, “motorcycle engines” means using an engine design originally intended for motorcycles. These engines are compact and relatively inexpensive, which helps keep the overall race-car cost down for spec-style racing.
A fiberglass body uses fiberglass panels instead of heavier steel bodywork. On lightweight race cars, fiberglass helps reduce weight and cost while still providing the external shape needed for racing.
The driveline is the power-transfer system under the car. It’s what connects the engine to the wheels, and in this setup it sticks up into the cabin, making the interior very tight.
Road racing means racing on a track with lots of corners, not just going left and right on an oval. The car has to handle braking and turning well to be fast.
Car
Yamaha FJ 1200 engine
They’re talking about putting a motorcycle engine (from a Yamaha FJ 1200) into a small race car. That kind of swap can make the car feel really lively because the engine is light and makes decent power.
Torque is the engine’s twisting force. More torque usually means the car feels punchy when you get on the throttle, even if peak horsepower isn’t the biggest number.
Concept
running fast lap times without using the brakes
They’re talking about a way to drive where you keep your speed through turns instead of slowing down a lot. If you can do that, you can set quicker lap times because you lose less time to braking.
The “corkscrew” is a well-known tricky section of the course where the road twists quickly. Drivers have to keep the car hooked up and pointed correctly while going very fast.
Concept
carrying so much speed you just drop in
They mean the car stays moving really fast and the driver commits to the turn without backing off. The track shape makes it feel like you’re dropping into the corner while staying in control.
They’re talking about a specific turn (turn 11) that people consider especially scary. The warning is basically: don’t get too close to the tires or you’ll lose control or slow down a lot.
LIVE
Hey, what's up with your face, it's Joe here and welcome back to Talk Talk Nation.
This week I got to travel to Santa Rosa California to talk with Scott Birdzall.
You may know him from his horrific crash on Pike's Peak where he flew off the edge of
the mountain and landed on the top of his roof in his truck.
Or you may know him from his unmodified truck record at Bonneville.
This dude is a madman and he's got one of the coolest garages I've ever seen.
I'm so excited for you guys to hear this conversation we had.
But first, hit that subscribe button, follow me at JoeGweber on Instagram, follow Donut
Podcasts, and thanks for listening.
Welcome back to Talk Talk Nation, I'm your host Joe Weber and I'm joined this week by
Scott Birdzall, an action sports legend, and we are in his garage outside of San Francisco
right now.
Would you consider yourself like a Bay Area guy?
Yeah, I lived here my whole life.
Either that or up on the North Coast.
But yeah.
You've been on my list for so long, you know, I've only been doing this for a couple months
now, but I've seen your work on Hoonigan and just been like, man, this dude is so fun.
I just want to talk to him.
And we have more in common than I thought.
I didn't realize that I didn't even know about the whole snowboarding thing.
Nobody does.
I never talk about it.
Do you keep it secret?
It's just like a thing in the past.
It's just something I just don't do anymore.
Yeah.
You said that you haven't stepped on a snowboard in a while, right?
Not since like 06, 08, something like that.
Wow.
It's been a long time.
Is it just fear that's keeping you or is it just like your body?
Both.
No, it's not really fear.
Like I'll go out and shred like whatever, but my body is hammered like knees and back
and everything after all that stuff.
And right now, like, you know, I'm driving for, you know, multiple different companies
and sponsored and they, you know, I get paid to go out and race.
Yeah.
And if I go out and be a squid and break my wrist or break my ankle or something like
that on a snowboard, then, you know, it's kind of irresponsible for me to go trash myself.
Yeah.
It's kind of weird to get to that point where you're like, oh, my body is like, or like being
responsible.
Yeah.
That's so funny.
Well, your garage is awesome.
We took a little tour before, but you have, there's no like one type of car that defines
your taste or what cars you work on.
We're sitting right here amongst a bunch of JDM stuff, but also your land speed Toyota
Tacoma and a NASCAR thing we don't want to talk about yet, right?
I haven't really, I haven't really like, uh, you can, we can talk about it.
So it's a TA2 car that I'm going to race at Pike's Peak this year.
So sick.
And we haven't really like released a livery or anything like that yet.
So we're, we're kind of keeping that under wraps because it's super fun.
That's awesome.
And if you didn't know, Scott is the holder of a record at Pike's Peak in the diesel
class.
So I was the holder of the record until 2023.
Someone else set a faster time than I did.
And I chucked my truck off the mountain that year.
So we're trying to, we're trying to get back to that level right now.
Yeah.
Did you chuck it off because you were like frustrated?
So I chucked it off because I don't, the brakes failed.
And I went off at like 14,000 feet and I went 175 vertical feet onto the roof and then
rolled 11 times and ended up 700 yards away from the roadway.
What?
Yeah.
It was not a party.
Holy shit.
I don't want to do that again.
What injuries did you sustain?
Zero.
What?
Yeah.
So I didn't get a concussion.
I wasn't, I mean, I was rattled.
I mean, I just got chucked off a mountain, but, um, you know, my heart rate was fine and
I was pretty calm about the whole thing.
The only injury I sustained is when I was trying to climb back up the mountain to get
to the top.
Cause I saw the medics coming down and they all freaked out and I'm like, I'm fine you
guys.
And I slipped on a rock and I rashed.
I just destroyed my shin on a rock.
So like that was my injury.
When you're in the air flying down the mountain, did you feel like this is it?
Yeah.
I was, I was pretty sure I was checking out.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
Like first, like I had no doubt that that was it.
That was done.
I was done.
Like, I can't even fathom, did you have your life flashed before you?
No, I just thought, I just thought that I, you know, I hope my kid does good in life.
That's pretty much it.
And then I hit and then I remember like feeling my head hit the roof and I'm like, the roof's
really far away from my head.
So like the roof's caving in and it wasn't and my belt, I hit so hard, my belt stretched
and I bumped my head.
No way.
So then I rolled again and I felt the touch again and I'm like, oh, it's hasn't caved
in yet.
Like, and I'm just waiting for the roof to come in and just kill me.
Oh my God.
And it never happened.
And I stopped and I wiped the snow off my face because there was snow on the mountain
at the time.
I wiped the snow off my face, felt my legs, look, they're still there.
Everything was still there.
Everything worked, reached over, turned off the truck, calmly unstrapped and I basically
hauled myself out of the truck and I sat on the side of the truck because it was sitting
on its side.
I processed it and I was like, wow, this is wild how I got here, but that's crazy.
Holy shit.
So the truck is on my container out in front of the shop.
I don't know if you saw it.
No, I didn't.
The carcass is just sitting there.
Is this the Ford 49?
Yeah.
Old Smokey.
Yeah.
Man.
So that you bought that for 200 bucks, right?
So I paid 200.
I got, so this is back in the Craigslist days before Facebook marketplace.
So I was perusing Craigslist as usual because I've addicted to buying shit boxes off the
internet and I found this truck and the guy was asking like 400 bucks for it.
And I'm like, man, it's ugly, but I can probably do something with it and flip it.
So I went and I ground him down to $225 and I hauled it back and power washed it and I'm
like, man, this thing's cool.
It's got a really rad patina on it, which is most like a lot of, like the truck was
kind of famous for its patina.
It was really cool.
It's so funny to low ball someone and an already super cheap deal.
Dude, if it was $5, I would have tried to get it for two.
Like, you know, come on, never pay full price.
So anyways, I had brought it to the shop, power washed it and we basically parked it
along like where the employee parking is and it sat there for months.
And then one day I'm like, you know what?
We're going to throw a diesel engine in it and like come and swap it and make like a
shop truck out of it.
I have zero self restraint when it comes to like car builds, you know, case in fact,
that was our garbage truck for the shop.
No way.
So.
And now it's a record holder as well.
We'll talk about this later.
This is super cool.
The whole thing snowballed and then it ended up getting like compound turbos and then it
getting bigger injectors and then, oh, now it needs bigger brakes.
Oh, now it needs, now it needs suspension and oh, I'm going to cut the back chassis
off and make a tube frame and before you know it, it's 1300 horsepower.
Yeah.
It was like a full on like race truck, but it was still a street truck.
You know, I grew up watching like Pikes Peak with my dad on TV, Wild World Sports back
in the day.
And I said, you know, I'm going to go race Pikes Peak and I applied and they denied me.
Was this your first racing experience or like, no, I've done, I've done a bunch of racing.
So like I'm at that point, I had basically retired away from doing anything paid.
Um, you know, it's just, it's too much stress and too much pressure.
If you let your sponsors down, yeah, it's a bummer and thankfully I have some really
cool sponsors now and they let me kind of do what I want.
Like I want to go race Bonneville.
So I go race Bonneville, you know, Pikes Peak, uh, time attack stuff, like grid life.
I get to race for fun, but also results at the same time.
So you mentioned like watching this kind of racing with your dad.
Did you also follow Bonneville stuff as well?
Not really.
It's always been like a, that's really cool.
Yeah.
But I don't think I would ever want to do it.
It's so insular.
Like it's, it's such its own little island in the racing community, but people in it
are, you know, like so gung-ho about it and just lifers.
They live it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, that's me now too.
So little backstory, uh, my friend Tim is one of my guys at Pikes Peak and he, we,
we met through the whole diesel community thing online and, uh, he's come to crew
with me every year at Pikes Peak.
He's awesome dude.
And he does races Bonneville.
He owns the full size diesel truck record at Bonneville.
Oh shit.
Yeah.
He's got a Dodge crew cab truck that does like 230 something miles an hour.
That's crazy.
That thing is like a flying brick.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
Anyways, he's always telling me I need to build a Bonneville car and come out and do
all that.
And so you don't have to talk me into doing stupid things.
Like you just need to mention it a few times and I'm there.
So we took the shop's garbage truck and put a 2JZ in it and about a bazillion dollars
worth of parts and now it goes fast.
The turbo on this thing is gotta be like, it's a size of a dinner plate.
So that's a Garrett G 50.
So it's, you know, insane about that big.
How many, well, like 150 millimeter, like.
No, it's not that big.
Uh, I think that one's an 88, 88 millimeter.
It just looks insanely huge in a tiny truck.
It looks massive.
Yeah.
Well, so with the Garrett large frame turbos, I think they even make a 67 or a 70
millimeter, a small one, but it's in the big frame and they go all the way up to
like 120 or 109.
I can't remember what the biggest one is.
But yeah, it's insane.
You can make stupid power with those turbos.
Did you get into Bonneville to like set records or just to have fun?
With Bonneville, I didn't, I didn't really have any kind of reference
point for what I was getting into.
Yeah.
So I just assumed it wouldn't be fun because, you know, you're just going out
and going straight.
Like that's, that's why I don't drag race.
Cause I want to turn, you know, no shade on drag racers.
It's just not for me.
Like I want to turn, hit apexes.
I want to have some racecraft there.
But when I, when I got there, I was shocked at how sketchy it is to drive on,
to go straight on salt with something with a thousand 1400 horsepower.
That you do with it's terrifying.
I am more kind of concerned, I wouldn't say scared, but I'm more concerned in
this at 240 miles an hour than I am at Pike's Peak at 10 tents.
You get out there and you're floating, right?
And you're driving a car that's not meant to go 250 miles an hour and wasn't
even meant to go a hundred miles an hour.
In fact, I don't think it would go a hundred at stock.
It's got pretty good aerodynamics for a truck, but it's still a truck.
So you're out there basically trying to go 250 plus with something with the
aerodynamics of a shoe.
That's absolutely insane.
So Bonneville is multifaceted and you're not going fast for, you know, eight to
10 seconds, you're going fast for five miles instead of a quarter mile.
So it's a long time to, to keep it straight and to, you know, keep your shit together.
You've had a lot of scares in your driving career, but the one at Bonneville
where this thing goes sideways is just sticks out in my mind is like probably
the scariest, one of the scariest things I've seen online that doesn't involve
like any carnage, like full carnage.
Yeah.
Can you explain how you got sideways in this going over 200 miles per hour?
So that was on the fastest run we ever did.
And so the, my exit speed on that run was 252 miles an hour.
And, you know, when you pull a parachute in a, in a land speed vehicle,
you don't lift, you lift after the parachute, you feel the parachute hit.
I didn't know that.
What's, what's the reason?
So you drive into the shoot, it keeps the, it keeps the forward
motion going to get maximum deployment out of the shoot.
So it hits right.
So anyways, I found out that on that occasion, that the land yard for the
shoot was too short because we'd never gone that fast.
Yeah.
And so as soon as the shoot grabbed, it instantly chucked the car, the
chucked the truck at 45 degrees, like sideways.
And it was another one of those moments like you're like, oh my God, like,
this could be it.
Like if I catch edge and start rolling, like this could be bad news
because you're going really fast.
Are you running bias ply tires?
Yeah, they're, they're specifically made by Goodyear for 300 miles an hour.
Wow.
So you're in these kind of like antiquated tires, sliding sideways at 230,
240 miles per hour.
What's going through your mind?
Um, I need to save it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I did, I don't, I don't know.
I kind of, when I'm, when I'm driving, I'm in like a flow state and I don't
really think of like, what ifs it's all just like lizard brain.
Yeah.
It's lizard brain stuff.
Like, what do I need to react to?
Like, okay, I'm going sideways.
I need to turn into it as much as I can.
Cause even if you plan it, it's going so fast that you can't really like, you
know, you don't have time, time to think about it.
Yeah.
That's why, like I said, at Pikes Peak, I didn't think about much.
I just went off and I'm like, well, this is life now.
That was a cool life.
So I can't believe that the tires held up going that fast sideways.
Like I would just imagine they would crumble or, you know, like DB.
I would think that too.
But, uh, believe it or not, a lot of guys get sideways at 200 plus, sometimes
300 plus at Waterville and I don't know if they save it.
They spin around, but, uh, you know, they just kind of spin around.
Yeah.
I guess that's maybe an advantage of being in the sand is like, you're not hitting
any, you know, crack or something that's going to flip you.
I feel like the salt has so much give to it that when you get sideways, you're
just kind of spinning.
Healing salt.
Yeah.
Something like that.
So you miraculously like recovered control this truck.
What, like, what happens after that?
I just kind of, I thought to myself, that was, that was kind of rad.
I saved that.
And then I went off and I said, whoo, because I knew I broke the record again.
Was your team just like baffled?
No, but the, so the Bonneville stewards, they slap you with a tag that makes you
go back and get tech inspection again.
If you spin, and I threw up so much salt dust that they thought I spun.
So they came out to slap me with a tag.
I'm like, no, I didn't spin.
And they're like, we saw you spin.
I'm like, no, I don't, I have a little camera.
Like you're not putting that tag on my truck.
That's so funny that that's one of the first thoughts is like, no, I don't want
to do another tech.
Exactly.
Tech sucks.
I hate going to tech.
Are they like, I mean, they have to be very strict.
They have to be.
There's soup for, for tech, those guys are super cool.
Yeah.
But like, you know, I've, I've been racing a long time and I've had to fix
shit that like wasn't right in tech and it's the worst because you're there,
you're ready to race and then suddenly like, you can't race.
You got to go get your welder or take your axle out and change something or do
something stupid, you know, like tech fixing shit from tech sucks.
I was just explaining to my, my kid loves cars now.
He's watching cars on repeat.
Good.
And I think in cars three, there's a character that's supposed to be smokey
eunuch who is, and I had to explain to my wife and my mom, like how cool smoky
eunuch was for like finding these crazy little loopholes.
Racing God.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, a shade of that happens still in racing where you like
find, you have to find loopholes to find an edge on your competition, but he was
so unique in the fact that, you know, like he thought outside the box and, you
know, used acid to thin the metal on his car and do crazy shit that you would never
even think of.
Yup.
Like nitrous in the roll cage, stuff like that.
Like my, one of my favorite ones is when they, you know, like limited the size of
the gas tank, he put in like a 300 foot tube.
So there's like extra gas in the tube in the car.
Yeah.
I mean, it's not against the rules.
No.
So I, uh, years ago, I built a drag car to the 67 NHRA rule book.
Yeah.
And one of the cool, like, is that a class that's still run?
No, no, it's just like, it was a gasser.
Yeah.
Nobody, they're gassers now are, you know, like pro mods and stuff like that.
What I did was I took the 67 rule book and I saw that the driver seat had to be three
to four, or maybe it was three inches.
It was three inches or five inches, four or aft of the original position.
It couldn't be stock position, but it didn't state that it couldn't be any
position of any seat in the car.
It said the driver's seat has to be forward or after the stock position.
Yeah.
So I made the driver seat, the rear seat and moved it forward three inches.
And so that was like my interpretation of the, did you move the whole firewall
back and yeah.
So that's why, because you couldn't sit in the front anymore, because the engine
was so sunk back.
So you like had to sit in the back seat.
That's crazy.
So like that was the rule interpretation of the same, you know, yeah, that's fun.
I love that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
And I cannot confirm or deny that I've ever interpreted rules for any of the other
stuff.
Currently taking away any of these accomplishments.
No secrets.
So all right, I kind of just want to talk about like, oh shit moments, because
you've had so many out of those two, is there anything that beats those, you
know, flying off of Pike's Peak or going sideways at 240 miles per hour?
Pike's Peak would be the biggest, I would say like, oh shit moment of my entire life.
That was a moment where I had resigned myself to, that was it.
Yeah.
And then it wasn't it.
So like, that's a really weird, it's weird, kind of emotional roller coaster survivor
syndrome after that.
No, but when I did, when I, so when I went back, I was really timid.
Yeah.
Like my first few days in the car, I was like, man, I don't know if I can race
this race anymore.
And then I just got comfortable and I was like, okay, I'm going to rip it.
Yeah.
You have to get to that flow state again, or just like turn off.
Is there something in your brain you turn off?
You know, I don't feel like I, so I drove my GT three cup car, my Porsche GT three
cup at Pike's Peak last year.
And I don't feel like I entered a flow state in it because I was still like, yeah.
You're back at the scene where you like flew off.
Yeah, basically like be comfortable again.
It, yeah, it was a little weird.
I think I'll be fine this year.
Yeah.
But I think that was just like my get in the saddle, kind of get back in the saddle
kind of year.
Would you say that ignorance kind of?
Oh, ignorance is bliss and racing.
Like it's a, it's the same thing.
And anything, if you don't, you've never experienced the
consequences or you don't understand them, like that's why young kids, like you
put them on a dirt bike and they're shredding.
Yeah.
Or you put them in a race car and they're like 10 tenths or 12 tenths because
they don't understand like how jacked they're going to be if they've wadded up
in a wall, you know, I mean, that was me when I was a teenager too.
Just, it's still kind of me.
Yeah, that's my problem.
All right.
I want to talk about like obviously building these cars is insane and super
expensive and takes forever.
How do you find that edge against your competition when everyone is kind of
going for the same spec or in the same class?
Like this, you were talking about the Tacoma, like you can't put any
arrow mods on it.
You can't do a bunch of different stuff to it.
So how do you find the edge?
Power.
Power.
There's no restrictions on power.
None.
Okay.
You could have a 100000 horsepower, but it's what's usable.
So we have a Dart 2JZ and that thing that's capable of, you know, 2,500 horsepower.
But do we run it at that?
No, we, I run at it.
We like when we dyno it, it made 1460 to the wheels and I had it on tune five of
seven.
So I had two more tunes, two more hot tunes above what I ran it at Bonneville.
You have to be able to use all the power and I couldn't.
Yeah.
So it's, it's at like a power ceiling right now.
So we're going to add more weight to it this year so we can put, you know, more
mechanical downforce on it to hopefully get more traction this year.
You actually broke your own record at Bonneville, right?
You set it like just over 200 miles per hour.
Yeah, you can probably look on that sticker right back there.
It looks like 204 was the first record or 206.
Oh yeah.
That was back in 2024.
2024.
And then you broke it by like 40 miles per hour the next year.
So it was 189 and then I went 204.
And then the last record we did was 239 average with a top speed of 252.
Holy shit.
So we've raised the bar a lot.
Yeah.
I mean, do you, what are you going for?
260 this year?
270.
270 is my goal.
The fastest truck ever at Bonneville is like 262 and some change.
So, so of any class.
And that's of any class other than like the crazy streamliner ones where
they're not really trucks anymore, where it's like elongated nose, like aerodynamic,
like, you know, boat tail rear end and all this other stuff.
So unmodified aero.
Yeah.
Even, even slightly modified aero, it'll be the fastest one.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Wow.
Do you have any like reservations about it?
I just don't want to die.
Yeah, there's that, like, but I don't have any reservations.
Like, do you feel like you're a superstitious person?
Sometimes.
A little bit.
It depends on this, on the, on the whole scenario.
Do you have any kind of like rituals that you have to do every time?
I'm really weird about putting my gloves on when I get, I always have to
check and double check my gloves.
That's if you put it on wrong, do you have to take it off and start over?
Yes.
Yeah, it's really weird.
That's pretty common though.
Like coming from skateboarding, I always think of Andrew Reynolds back when
he was like, it might have been like undiagnosed OCD or something.
He would knock his board three times.
And if he didn't do it right, he would have to do three sets of three knocks.
And if he didn't do that right, he would have to do three sets of three sets
of three sets of knocks.
And I, like, I am, I consider myself a pretty superstitious person.
Like, don't step on cracks kind of person.
Yeah, I don't know.
I have, I have certain processes I need to happen before I feel like I'm going
to get in the car.
Um, I mean, a lot of that just kind of puts your mind at ease and tells your,
you know, subconscious that you, you are safe and then you know, you, you know,
your machinery.
Yeah.
Most of mine are just weird neuroses I have, you know, like, yeah, but I wouldn't
say that I have like any specific, like rigmarole than I need to do before I get
in there, just the gloves, just the gloves.
I need to make sure my gloves are on, like exactly how I want them.
And they, my fans feel good in the gloves.
Yeah.
So coming up, it's in August, right?
Bonneville.
Yeah.
Bonneville is in August.
What was it like two or three years ago?
Bonneville got rained out for most of it, right?
There was a couple of runs that happened, but was it completely washed out?
It was essentially an ocean and the, and the event was kind of a non-event.
Yeah.
Um, we, that's, that's the event that we had built the truck for to go to Bonneville
and go out and break records, but it rained out and I wasn't about to take a
brand new truck out into an ocean.
So then instead we did shift sector with it.
And then we set the half mile truck record with, with it.
So this is like a sign quest that you had and you still broke the record.
Yeah.
Like off the trailer, like off the trailer.
That's crazy.
What happens in that kind of scenario when you're, you know, like building a car
for years to race and then it just gets washed out.
Are you, you just have to switch gears and find another event to keep it hot?
Or, or you just tough it out?
And you wait another year.
Yeah.
You know, like I've, I've had, you know, and the team has had like big heartbreak
with our Pikes Peak car, like two years out of the, you know, since 26, since 2018,
I've been doing it, but with two of those years, uh, the LMP car blew up on the
dyno, like the day before we were supposed to leave two years ago.
And then one year we did a whole transmission redevelopment on old smokey and
it, everything just went completely foobar and we had modified the frame and
everything that except the new transmission and we couldn't get it ready in time.
Damn.
So, so you just, out of luck at that point, basically you're just, you just
host yourself.
Yeah.
Cause you tried to change something and it didn't work and he did it too late
and too late in the game.
How do you handle your sponsors at that point when you just, you don't have an
answer for them that they didn't, I didn't get one real negative thing.
Like it was just like, that's racing.
Like I'll make it up to you guys.
I'm sorry.
That's so cool.
Let's just keep going.
Does that feel good to have that kind of backing?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like my title sponsors, Amsoil and they are like super rad.
Hell yeah.
They don't, they're like, all right, we'll, we'll do it next year.
Yeah.
It seems like you have some pretty cool sponsors like heat wave, uh, you know,
they've been, my boys at heat wave, they got me dialed in.
I got Amsoil, I got, uh, vibrant performance.
Like they do all that, like we do tons of fab here.
And so they don't only sponsor my racing, but like they give me parts too.
That's pretty cool.
I also noticed all these, uh, motocross bikes.
Do you,
do you race motocross as well?
Um, I used to, I still like to ride, but I try to wait until Pikes Peak is
over to get my riding out of my system because I don't want to go out and,
you know, get wrecked doing something fun and then be like, sorry guys,
I can't race cause I was having a party on my CR 500.
Yeah.
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I don't know if you're a baseball fan or not, but there's a pitcher a couple
of years ago who messed his hand up picking up a drone, like the night before a
playoff game and he couldn't pitch for the rest of the season.
Yep.
There's another guy on the Giants that crashed on his four wheeler.
Uh, Baumgartner.
Yes.
Yeah.
He was also doing rodeo under a pseudonym.
Yep.
And they were like, Hey, you got to cut this shit out, dude.
Yeah, we're paying you millions and millions of dollars and we can't get
anything because you're out there partying on a, you know, four wheeler
or riding your bull.
Yeah.
It's the same thing with dirt bikes.
I realized that I'm really blessed to have companies that support my racing
and I try to be the best steward of that and like not being an asshole and
going out and wrecking myself and then not being able to give them anything
that they essentially, you know, paid for.
I think that's cool that you think of them, you know, as like friends and you
don't want to disappoint them or, you know, like, uh, be unreliable.
I think that's a great partnership.
Yep.
I, and that's, that's how I try to like approach the whole thing.
Yeah.
Like before I really partner up with companies, I'd like to get to know them
and be friends with them first.
So I'm not the guy that's like sending his deck to like some random
company has never met him before.
Like, Hey, give me money.
I'm cool.
You know, how does that compare with, um, going back to like your
snowboard sponsorships?
It was kind of the same snowboard sponsorships is cool.
Yeah.
You know, we had the, the Burton warehouse that was really close down here in the
East Bay, uh, go down and like Hawk and Michelle would just hook it up and I'd
go out and ride and it was fun.
Hell yeah.
Zero pay.
But, you know, but yeah, like, like boards and, uh, gear and stuff like that.
Like, um, it was pretty cool.
That's cool.
And my, uh, it's, it's funny too, because through snowboarding, my now friend, uh,
Russ was really high up at Burton and he recognized me at, uh,
SEMA one year and we got to talking and he ended up, uh, basically orchestrating
my first big, like, uh, automotive sponsorship back into racing.
Whoa.
So it was a cool, like, it was a cool connection there.
I love when that kind of stuff happens where like worlds collide and you're just
like, Oh shit.
Okay.
Yep.
That's fun.
How does it feel?
Is it exhausting to be successful at everything you touch?
I'm not.
What do you, what do you fail at?
I don't know.
I just, I fail at a lot of things.
I'm just good at hiding it.
You know, you got to, it's like, it's like the artists, you know, artists always
know when to show his work.
Yeah.
I mean, I fail all the time.
Like I crash.
I'd say or do something stupid, you know, like everybody fails.
You just got to just, hopefully your failures aren't too much in the, in the
public eye when you do it and mine are like right there.
Like if you crash at Pike's peak and it's spectacular, like there's
millions of views and millions of people and like all the armchair warriors are
like telling you how you should drive and all this guy sucks.
All the, you know, it's like, you just can't listen to it.
Do you think the guy who got lowballed for his truck was like, I got my revenge.
Finally.
I don't know.
I don't know if he's, if he even realizes like what the truck ended up being.
I should actually, so it, uh, smokey's on the cover of hot rod.
And I had a bunch of prints made.
I should probably just take one to him.
Be like, remember the truck, the truck, I ground your face off for 200 bucks.
Like, oh, by the way, I almost died in it too.
Well, it's cool that you're also getting recognized by like these cool
publications.
We interviewed Fryburger a while ago, um, who is for those who don't know, uh,
editor in chief at hot rod for a long time.
Anyways, let's switch gears.
Uh, can you tell us about the space we're in right now?
We're, we're in one of many different bays in your garage in Santa Rosa.
This is my shop, Chuckles garage.
And the shop we're in now is like my personal, you know, keep my cars out of
the, the shop kind of thing.
This is the toy case here.
This is my like, where I keep my race cars and where I keep my, my Supra and
my sore and my GT four.
I love this pearl, Matt white, by the way, is that a wrap?
It's a wrap.
So that's a, that's a one of 23 or 24, uh, Supra is in quick silver.
That's like a really rare color, apparently in 1998.
Oh, what's good.
You didn't paint over it.
Well, the paint is trashed.
So I was like, I like for such a like nice expensive car, like it can't look
ghetto, so I got to, I put a wrap on it.
And it looks like it's set up for, um, just daily driving or what?
So this, this car is like a wild daily driver.
It's got a built, uh, dart motor in it.
It's got a 6xD sequential transmission.
Oh wow.
It's got Moton three-way suspension.
Like it's, it's like a really high end street car that's, you know, going to
be 12, 13 under horsepower.
Like it'll be, it'll be a fun street car.
That's crazy.
That's, I have no restraint.
So it's like, that's what my street cars turned into.
It's like, I, anytime I touch something, I'm screwed.
It's like, okay, you have more cars over a thousand horsepower than you have under.
No, wait.
Yeah.
Yeah, cause I have tons of shit boxes that don't even run.
So like that they kind of equal it out.
Who's a S 13 is that?
Uh, that is Dorian's.
He's my helper in the show.
I like that a lot.
It's pretty cool.
A car you have so many different types of cars here.
So this is like I was saying before, this is mostly JDM in here over there.
We have some beamers and then there's like a wagon here outside that is lifted crazy.
Yeah.
So the wagon here, it's got the stock engine in it.
That's just built.
Yeah.
Is that the four liter inline six, the AMC one?
No, it's the 360, the AMC 360.
Okay.
And then it's got a four L 80 behind it.
And then, you know, modern transfer case, all new suspension, like that's a frame
up resto, except for the, the body, like we left a little patina on the body.
It looks beautiful.
I love that thing.
It's so rad.
Yeah.
And it, do they have like a light bar up front or is that stock light?
No, that's all.
So we custom made that front bumper for it at a sheet metal and then it's got some
big Baja designs, like LP six is on the front of it.
It's super cool.
And then you have also have like a high like surf too.
So that's my buddy highs and he is also a shit box aficionado and he bought that
thing and he's like, Oh, it's such a good deal.
I'm going to get it.
And I'm like, all right, we'll be careful of those good deals.
Yeah.
And it is like every time we go out and do something to it, it breaks.
So like it's like right now he's in this cycle of like trying to get it fixed so
we can get rid of it.
That's so funny that the one car that has like the reputation for being
unbreakable is like the biggest.
Yeah.
It's like it was owned by someone that like did a veggie conversion to it to
like run it on veggie oil.
And it's, it's just like, I was like, it's all screwed up.
I don't know veggie.
Like the, the harmonic bouncer like spit itself off.
Oh shit.
Yeah.
It's just all kinds of problems.
What is your favorite project car around here right now?
Project cars.
Ongoing project car.
They're all ongoing project cars.
Like, which one are you most excited about?
The Pikes Peak car right now.
Yeah.
I just want it to be like reliable and not explode.
I'm really excited about my Supras.
But they, you know, they take second place to everything else I got to get done.
Like the race cars and customer cars.
You don't really race those, do you?
No.
No.
Well, that's a lie.
I have one on the way.
I just got a car from Andy Scar in New Zealand.
He's like a JDM exporter guy.
I just bought a 97 Supra, like total shit box, right hand drive, NA automatic.
Like the worst spec you could possibly think of, but it's a hard top and we're
going to build the world's fastest Supra with it and we're going to take it to
Bonneville.
Whoa.
So it's going to look, have the same livery as the truck, but and the same,
it's going to have the same exact drivetrain and everything as this truck.
Yeah.
But we're going to go out and cross my fingers, hopefully get a door slammer in
the 300 mile an hour club.
Is that like an extra license that you have to get?
So I've got a license up to 300 now, I think, because I've got my
double A license, I'd have to check.
But once you go over 250, like you get your top license is kind of unlimited.
Yeah.
I think there's one above it, but I don't know what it is.
So the 252 run that you had in this qualified me for my AA license.
Was that your top score?
That was my top score.
Um, I mean, like, I couldn't imagine being super excited to like top that,
especially after the run that you had where you're going sideways.
So I'll be, I'll be super relieved to talk that this is your toy chest.
Basically right next door is your Porsche restoration.
No, so we got three shops.
Well, this doesn't really count.
This is like my personal like man cave garage right here.
So the first shop is where we do all the welding, cutting, fabrication, like
all the dirty stuff, machine work.
Um, and then the second shop is, you know, wiring, final assembly, you know,
all the clean, cleaner stuff.
Um, and then both shops are together.
So like Resolute Motorsports and Chuckles garage are the same address.
Okay.
And so they use the same, the same stuff, but they, you know, Resolute Motorsports
is specifically Porsche stuff and Chuckles garage is like a party.
Yeah.
If it's cool, it's cool.
If we want to build it, like we'll build it.
So have you always been into restoration and fabrication and, and fixing cars up?
Or I, I'm kind of, I want to talk about how you made the leap from being a
snowboarder to motorsport and having a garage.
Well, motorsport kind of came naturally because I've been carting for a long time.
Uh, since I was a little kid, I've been racing dirt bikes since I was young.
So like anything Petrol motivated is, is kind of like a lifeblood for me.
Like that's where I get my kicks.
That's what I've always been interested in.
You know, then, you know, when I'm a little, little kid, like my dad was always
watching NASCAR and Indy 500 and, you know, like Pikes Peak on TV.
Yeah.
Uh, as back then, like there was a lot more motorsports on, you know, network
television than there is now.
And random ones too.
You know, like, uh, I feel like you have to go to ESPN eight to find some random,
yeah, some, you know, like the 32nd level of ESPN.
Yeah.
For just a pretty normal motorsport thing.
Like I like that, um, stadium super trucks is kind of becoming, you
can find it everywhere now.
I know, I really want to race that.
Yeah, I can see you doing that.
It's like pure, it's just mayhem and it looks fun to me.
And the cars, the trucks look fun.
And, you know, three wheel motion around every corner, like that, that sign me up.
It just, it's like a video game.
Yes.
Yes.
Like what other motorsport has just like random wooden ramps in the middle of the
streets, 00
It's, it's, it's, it is the most non-reality based racing that you can think of.
Like it's just, it looks so fun.
Yeah.
My good friend, uh, Pat O'Keeffe raced a stadium super trucks and it has one of
the most famous crashes where you're like jumps and like flips upside down and
then spins across the bar.
It's like so gnarly, but it's always jumping up on my feet and I always
got a trolling with it when I see it.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
So do you think that's within the next couple of years you're going to start
doing that or just like a cream dream?
I don't, I don't know.
We'll see.
Like I don't, my wife, this drives my wife nuts because I plan nothing.
Like I don't like to plan things.
So like, Oh, I guess I'm racing Bonneville.
I got, you know, oh, let's go do a trophy truck.
Let's, let's try this.
You know, it's hard to pick up your daughter from school when you're in
Bonneville.
I mean, yeah.
Well, she goes, went with me the first year and she had a good time.
That's cool.
How old is she?
Uh, she's 14 now.
Okay.
So has she, have you started getting her into motorsport at all?
Cardi?
She enjoys it, but like, so we're building a car, she started to get into it.
She's got a 92 Celica that, that we're restoring for.
Yeah.
And at first she was really into it, but now it's like she didn't care.
Yeah.
So hopefully I'm hoping she gets a spark back in it.
Um, cause we just had some really cool, like PRP seats made for it with like
Jiu Jitsu Kaisen, like, uh, like an anime center, like graphics and everything on it.
So like, I want to get her stoked on that so she can start working on her car.
That's awesome.
Otherwise she's going to have an absolute shit box for her first car.
That's punishment.
Your punishment.
No air conditioning.
You don't like what I like.
So you're driving this down.
Um, as long as we're talking about Celicas, I really want to touch on this one back here.
Yeah.
This is one of my favorite cars, possibly ever.
And this is an original one, right?
Yeah.
So this is a Celica ST 185 GT four, um, turbocharged four cylinder all wheel
drive, uh, factory homologation for rally cars.
Yeah.
That's about as rare as you get for like, you know, vintage 90s Toyota stuff.
You said it had like super low miles, right?
Yeah.
It's, it's, it's like as new.
Geez.
And this is, so if I, if I could call my collection, my car is a collection, that
would be my crown of my collection, like over my rare Supras, everything.
It's so cool.
I love that car.
It's so fun to drive too.
Yeah.
Like it's, it's peppy.
It's, you know, all wheel drive.
So I mean, it handles like shit because it's got like off-road tires on it, but
it's so fun and like the looks you get, people are like, what is that?
Yeah.
Most people don't get it because it's just like a 90s car with a livery on it.
Well, no one would ever think that it's like an original, you know, if any, if
anything, people see it and recognize it, which would be rare.
He's just driving through the public, but like, I would think it's just someone
put a, you know, that livery on it themselves.
Well, even, even the, what do you call it?
It's the one that they had in the U S.
All track?
Yes.
The Celica all track, even you never see those.
No.
And that's like thousands of times more, you know, available than one of these.
Yeah.
Only a car guy would notice, but even a car guy might not notice because he's not
a car guy that's into JDM stuff.
Like it's a very niche, like noticing kind of thing.
Would you say that JDM is not as popular up here or at least in this small town?
It's not like it is an LA, but there's, there's a lot of guys that are into JDM
up here.
We have a quite a good business built on like building JDM stuff.
That's cool.
And also, um, beamers, like, uh, was it the E 30, E 30, the E 30?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the,
us about that car, cause it like what you told me blew my mind.
Yeah.
So my buddy Mark brought that car to me and told me what he wanted.
And it was just like a simple swap.
First he wanted to put like a BM, like a S 52 in it.
And I said, Oh, that's lame.
We don't, we, we want to like put with something reliable in it.
So I tried it.
Everyone, if you come into my shop, I'm going to try to put a 2JZ in your car.
I don't care what it is, like Ford truck, 2JZ.
Don't care.
Um, so I talked him into 2JZ swapping it.
I don't know if it's good for him or bad for him, but he basically let me talk
him into like many levels above.
It's insane.
Yeah.
So we'll show you if you go, if you're watching this on YouTube, we'll
show you B roll of it, but it makes how much horsepower it makes.
It makes 1180 to the wheels.
God damn.
Um, it's a 2JZ GTE, a big Garrett turbo on it.
It's got a pandemic wide body, a Ford 8.8 diff, like custom cradle, like huge
brimbo brakes, like full custom interior, like the, and then it's painted, uh,
the same color as the, I think it's a 2021 Aston Martin color, but it's
like a gold bronze color.
It's really cool.
I love it.
We'll show B roll of it.
But, um, as a beamer head, that was like the first thing that caught my attention.
Yeah.
My favorite thing about that car is Mark drives the shit out of it.
Like he drives it all over the place.
I would imagine it's kind of uncomfortable to like try to drive 25 with 1200 horsepower.
It's actually not.
Yeah.
You can just, I don't know.
Yeah.
So that's the cool thing about big turbo cars.
Yeah.
Like it drives like a pussycat down low.
It drives like any regular, like.
So what RPM does it kick in?
We're like 3,500, 4,000, like the party starts and then like it's, it gets, the
cars, the car on full kill is essentially undriveable.
Cause like the white too, right?
Yeah.
So it's light and then the widest tire you can put on the back is at 275.
So like you, oh wow, you throw a thousand plus horse at 275 tire and it's just
going to do dial a burnout anywhere you want.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
So what is your process for starting to work on an engine or do you send it out?
Uh, I don't touch engines.
Okay.
We do the things that attach to the engine.
Yeah.
Um, but we don't do any internals.
So we have ALC machine in town that's, these guys are like the 2JZ gurus.
Yeah.
So if we have any stock block 2JZs that goes to them, um, otherwise I use dart and
that dart builds us the motor in their factory and it comes to us as a hundred
percent dart 2JZ.
Oh nice.
So that's like for the extra spicy builds, like it gets a dart motor.
Man, I wish I just had like unlimited money to throw your way.
I wish I had unlimited money.
So you, you mentioned this is like your prized car right here.
This, this, uh, I love that car.
If God forbid you had to whittle this down to three cars, which three cars are you
saving this podcast?
Isn't long enough for me to, for me to contemplate that, um, three cars, I guess
that's not that hard.
Um, I would keep my land speed truck for sentimental value.
Yes.
The Celica and my 98 Supra.
Okay.
Um, that's a tough one too, because I also have the only tandem Supra ever
made over there, but I feel like, I don't know, I have more of a connection to this
cause that was my first Supra.
Oh wow.
So you are like mostly a Toyota guy.
I love Toyotas.
Yeah.
Toyota is the best car in the world.
Like no one, there's, it's not even argument.
Like it's just a statement.
Yeah.
Um, I recently became a Toyota guy and no one will give me shit because I won't
stop talking about my RAV4, but it is an NPC car.
I'll give you that.
Is it a first gen RAV4?
No, it's a 2024.
Okay.
It's not even, it's just like we had to buy one cause we had kids.
So it's like a daily driver car.
It, it's the best.
I feel like those are exempt from hate.
Well, people, that's what you would think, but the comments say otherwise
because apparently it's an NPC car.
Uh, I'm a non-player character in my own life.
Uh, but on, if I fill it up and I charge it up, it gets me 600 miles to a tank.
Yeah.
That's legit.
Yeah.
It has 300 horsepower with, you know, like sport mode.
Yeah.
And it's not a Prius.
Yeah.
There you go.
Uh, but we're finding that it's too small already with two kids.
So I'm, I'm shopping for a Sienna and I know like vans aren't your thing.
I gotta stop you there, bro.
You've got to get, if you're going to be a family man, you've got to get the TRD
Poe for runner, but then, and then, but then you need to do the overland stuff
on it and put the, the widow, waddle on the back, the little ladder.
Dude.
Yeah.
So that's the family car right there.
I'll consider it.
Although it's not much bigger than what you have.
Yeah.
You know what the, the issue is like the doors don't open wide enough.
So like my kid, he's only 30 pounds right now, but I'm like struggling to
like squeeze him into his seat.
And so I'm thinking just a big old barn door, open it.
I mean, that's helpful.
Have you ever seen those little like dog carrier things where it's like a
jacket for the dogs with a handle?
Yeah.
They make those for kids too.
You can just like stick them in the little thing just like that.
You know what I'd like to touch on?
Yes.
Is how slept on minivans are.
Yeah.
Like, have you ever seen like a Toyota Sienna?
Yeah.
Like if you've ever seen one like the, maybe a five, 10 year old one that's
just slammed down on some like TEs or something like that, they look sick.
There was some point, I think it was like 10 years ago where they just
started like sneakily making it more sporty looking.
And now it looks like a civic type R.
Like it has like a spaceship and a civic type R had a baby.
It's got crazy wings on it.
It's got vents like exactly like the rear bumper on them.
It's looks just like the Supra.
Yeah.
Like it's got the same tail.
So it's like a Supra fan.
And I think they are kind of trying to feed into, you know, car guys that
have to make compromises.
Right.
Cause they're also great cars.
They're fast, you know, like they're probably as fast as my rev.
I mean, at least it's sleeker and with like a lower drag coefficient too.
It's lower.
I mean, like 200 miles an hour.
I got to link up with a BC moto and he can make me a thousand horsepower.
You've seen, you've seen BZ's mini-game, right?
Oh, he does his Honda though.
His, his auto, uh, what is it?
He has a funny name for it.
It's an Odyssey that makes like a thousand horsepower.
Yeah, it's stupid.
I love it.
Yeah, it's so rad.
The, so on one of my bucket list, JDM cars is like a newer high ace.
Yeah.
I want to get one of those and slam it and like two JZ swap it because
I, there's this shop in Japan that I follow them on Instagram.
They're so, it's, they build the rat of stuff, but they two JZ swap these
high aces and they slam them on like TEs.
Oh man.
Dude, they're so sick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, uh, how do you feel about like Japanese Craigslist?
Do you, do you trust those kind of imports that are cheap, like a little too cheap?
Um, I don't know.
I've never done with it.
Yeah.
I've never done it, but I know a lot of people that have had good experiences
with that kind of stuff.
And I know people that have like absolute nightmare, like I lost all my money
experiences.
It feels like kind of a roll of the dice.
If you don't have like a vetted, uh, place like top rank, bringing them in,
like it could just be rusted out.
Yeah.
So that, this is the thing.
Like, so I, I also want to add, uh, and I'm not sure if I'm saying it right.
A Stadia.
Yeah.
Like a 260 RS.
I've already seen it written.
So I don't know how.
Yeah.
Stadia, Stadia, like I don't know what, which one it is.
I'm going to say Stadia.
You know, I've wanted to get one of those and I've got a buddy in Japan and I've
had him look at a couple and everyone looks great on the ads and like, it's like
immaculate and he goes there and he looks at it and he's like, dude, this thing's
a shit box.
Like the towers are rotted out on it or stuff like that.
And like those are the pitfalls you get.
You're like, you think you're getting something mint and it shows up and you're
like, dude, this thing is clapped.
Yeah.
Cause not only it might look good, it might actually be good, but then it has to spend
months like amongst, you know, sea spray, like on the ship, super damp and, you know,
no one's checking on it.
And then it might just sit in the port for a while too.
I'm super nervous, but I have always wanted to import a car.
And I think I was looking at, you know, like Delica space gears, like those kind of
Delicas are so cool.
I love Delicas.
I want to make, yeah, everyone raises them up, makes them like stupid high.
I just want to drop it and like put some teas on it.
I think the slam Delica would be cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So my friend Stewie had a slammed like Toyota.
It would be a high ace in Japan, but they actually sold those.
Remember the like cab forward Toyotas that were like in the mid 80s, early 90s.
It started with a P, right?
Not the Previa, the one before that.
Okay.
But the Previa was sick.
So the Previa had the 22 RE in it, but with a supercharger.
Yeah, the supercharged and they made five speed versions too.
And I think they were all wheel drive.
Man, yeah.
But like we got this hint of like Japanese coolness like in the early 90s.
I have a really funny story about the supercharged Previa.
We, our friend Sean Lee, who I think he worked with Top Ring for a while, but he's just like
a mainstay in the car scene down in LA.
He's just like at every show.
I know Sean.
Yeah.
He was, he was, he always claims to be like subscriber number 50 for Donut.
I was there.
I was number 50.
Yeah.
But he used to have these like toy drives.
He still has them, but like he would invite all these super car owners and you know, like
all these built RX7s and NSXs and R34s would show up.
And I remember this one, you know, like there's all these amazing cars.
And he wrangled all the Donut guys.
He was like, I got something special for you guys.
And he pulls around the corner in this Previa that he had put on.
He put T37s on.
I know what you're talking about.
Yeah.
It's so sick.
And he's like, you know, it's supercharged.
And we're like, yeah, we know.
That's so rad.
Yeah.
I love that he like gets our shtick though.
Like he's like, oh, these guys love shit boxes.
So are you like one of those guys that goes to, they'll go to like a car meet and there's like,
you know, tons of like multi-million dollar Ferraris, Bugattis, whatever.
And you don't even give them a blink, but there's some like slammed Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda,
shit box over in the corner that just has all the right JDM stuff.
And you're like, you're so stoked on that, we don't give a shit about all the fancy stuff.
If you, if you put a row of Ferraris down, I don't give a shit.
Yeah.
Unless there's a green one.
For some reason I love like the, I saw, what is it?
SF 90, the one with like the 80s style tail lights that are just like,
Oh yes.
I know what you're only talking about.
And it was like a British racing green.
And I saw it at Monterey car week last week or last year.
And I was like, man, Ferrari should do more green cars.
The new designs look good in green.
Yeah.
Red and black gets old.
Yeah.
And it's like red is just played out.
I know it's like their heritage color and they have to do red, but yeah,
like more yellows, more blacks, more greens.
It's the same thing with like Porsches.
Like I really, I like odd colored Porsches.
But when I see a red Porsche, I'm like, yeah.
Red is like, like, I don't know.
I hesitate to say that it like, if you just had a kid design your car, you know,
he's going to make a red.
It's just the kid color.
Yeah.
But on the other hand, I like red.
So like I'm picking up a red C5 from my buddy Sahan.
He's got like this cleanest C5 you've ever seen.
Oh, really?
So I'm picking that up.
And then my daily truck, it's like a Dodge 3500.
All lifted up Cummins and all that stuff.
It's bright red.
So like, I still like red.
Yeah.
There's, and you know, obviously like BMW has Imola red, which is one of the best reds.
What's your favorite red out of any OEM red?
So I had, and I found out it was crazy rare.
I still sold it because it's a car.
Like I just get another one.
So my friend Rick sold me a, an M3 was a 95 or 97.
I can't remember.
But it was hell rot red.
Oh, nice.
The bright red.
Yeah.
And it had the Modena interior.
So, and I found out that they only made like a handful.
Like you can't count them on both hands of those cars ever.
That's super rare.
It was a cool color way, but the red was like bright as hell.
Like it was the brightest red ever.
It was like pretty eye-grabbing.
It was, it was like a red, obnoxious red.
Yeah.
I hate to say it, but, and I'm going to get flamed in the comments, but
Mazda's red that they have just like the metal flake red basic.
They only make like five colors, but.
Right.
Their red is so good.
I feel like Mazda makes such boring cars now.
I know.
It's a white, black, red.
Um, but for some reason that metal flake red is just, it probably looks good on
like a non Mazda.
Yes.
Although the Miata, the current Miata is still cool.
It is cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would love, what is it, uh, NF RF Miata.
Um, Jimmy is going to be mad at me for not knowing all this shit.
Shame on you.
The internet will scold you.
Yeah.
If you got a Miata, what would you put it to Jay?
No, what would I put in a Miata?
I don't know.
Probably like an LS with twin turbos.
Like something just completely, completely obnoxious and destroy myself in it.
Super late onset turbos.
Yeah.
It doesn't make you crash like giant snails, like 90 millimeter on each side.
So it does a spool to like 5k.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's super responsible.
I mean, if I'm going to have like a little tiny car, like it's going to have
something stupid about it.
Yeah.
That's like something I would do in Forza Horizon.
Right.
Remember what, I remember, uh, the first Gran Turismo came out and I was always like
picking the most unreliable, like undrive my unreliable, undrivable car.
Like the, um, the Ascudo Pikes Peak, the Twin Edges thing.
All I did is crash my brains out, but it was so cool.
Yeah.
That's, you got to do that a couple of times before you get bored.
Yep.
You're pretty close to Snoma.
You're like, what, half hour away?
They were like 20 minutes away.
Yeah. Do you race there a lot?
Yes. That's when I go, when I go testing, it's either Thunder Hill Raceway or Sonoma Raceway.
Oh, cool.
Where would you rank it as far as your favorite tracks?
It's probably one of my favorite tracks on the planet.
I've never been before, but we're, we're testing the Nismo Z tomorrow.
Do you have any tips?
Is there like, you're going to Sonoma to test it?
Yeah.
I mean, if you're at 10 tenths, just stay neutral, just stay neutral throttle through
the carousel or you'll, you'll end up in the, uh, in the bushes before you know it.
That's, I, I, uh, fired up the Sim a couple of days ago and I was like, well,
I've never been to Snoma.
I might as well like refresh my memory.
Sonoma is a really fun technical track.
Yeah.
Like you've got the S's, which are like so good, but also really hard to get perfect.
You got turn 11, uh, which is, you know, a big hairpin.
Yeah.
You know, ending, ending after a really long straight, which is really fun.
I love, yeah.
That section is really, you got the little kink right before this,
right before the straightaway leading to turn 11.
You know, there's a couple different configurations they run in.
There's NASCAR configuration and then the, like the, I don't know what configuration
called it, just the, the big track.
Yeah.
There's a lot of really, you know, the carousel is fun.
But like, I love that track.
It's really fun.
I'm super excited.
This was like a region that used to have a lot of race tracks, right?
Yeah.
Like back in the day, there was the Katadi Speedway they had.
It was a big drag race facility.
There was flat track things around here.
Yeah.
There's still Petaluma Speedway.
Petaluma Speedway is there.
Yeah.
And they still run every week there.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
And there's Yukaya Speedway about an hour north of here.
Yeah.
I've heard of it.
I've never checked it out.
Yeah. It's kind of like Petaluma.
I think it was a little kid last time I went there.
I think the last thing I went to see there was, I was probably 10 years old and I saw
Destruction Derby, which was like the best thing ever when you were a kid.
Like as a race fan from such an early age, how do you feel about all these race tracks closing
and more restrictions?
Like we've seen Laguna Seca, you know, people living near Laguna kind of petition to restrict
it more or even, you know, get it taken out eventually, how you feel about people infringing
on race tracks.
I think it sucks.
Sucks.
You know, you're, and this is to anyone that's buying an expensive house near a race track,
you're an asshole if you buy something knowing there's a race track there and then become the
problem.
Like it's not the race track.
It's you're the problem.
It's you.
And there's no scenario where you don't know there's a race track there.
You know, if you're, if you're going to check out a house, the realtor is 100% telling you
there's a race track.
Yeah, you live two miles from a race track.
You're going to hear it every weekend.
Your house is $10 million.
Take it or leave it.
Yeah.
Like if you are so entitled that you think you can buy a big piece of real estate near
something that people have been enjoying for decades and that is a, you know, it's a, it's
a worldwide landmark like Laguna Seca especially.
Like you're, you're, you're a prick.
Yeah.
Like go put your fancy house somewhere else and enjoy yourself and enjoy your quiet because
there's no race track there and no one's ever going to build a race track around an affluent
community ever.
So you don't have to worry about it.
But I really have like a chip on my shoulder for people that want to come and because now
they own it, think that everybody needs to not have their fun anymore.
Yeah.
Like you can't have, I'm here now.
You can't have fun.
Like that's not cool.
Yeah.
That's just such like a, like you said, entitled behavior.
Super entitled.
And it just, it bugs me that Laguna Seca is kind of even in the crosshairs at all being
such a historic race, raceway and was there when it was just, you know, nothing.
The reason it's there is because it was in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah.
And there were very few houses and, you know, civilization has encroached upon something
that's, you know, very, very special to people like you and I, like Laguna Seca is, it's
a legendary place.
Yeah.
And I, it would kill me if they took, I love that track.
Yeah.
In fact, my little legends car over there, we just did grid life at Laguna Seca and it's
probably the most fun I've ever had in my life in a race car on a track.
Tell me about this car.
Cause it's so funny.
It's so, it's way tiny.
I saw it on your Instagram the other day.
Right.
You made a funny post about like, oh, gas is through the roof right now.
This is my daily driver.
Oh yeah.
This car is absolutely insane.
It's, it looks like a little, almost like a dirt track.
I don't even know what you would call it.
You call it a legends car.
So it started out life as a legends car.
It still is.
We call it a super legends car now.
But a legends car are like these really inexpensive race cars.
They have motorcycle engines.
It's a tube chassis and it comes with like a 37 Chevy or 32 Ford or 34 Ford body or what,
you know, just a little fiberglass body.
It's like a two third scale little race car and they're hilarious.
When you sit in it, like you can elbow the passenger, the passenger door.
Two seats?
No, one seat.
Okay.
Yeah, one seat because so you're the driver and you take up like
three quarters of the interior space and then the driveline is the passenger.
So like there's this little hump where the driveline is and then the other door.
They're tiny.
Yeah.
But driving it is so fun.
Like there's nothing, I can tell you there's at least that I've driven.
There's nothing more fun than like a legends car that you took and modified to go out and
road race with.
And it's got a little four cylinder from a Yamaha.
Yeah.
It's got a Yamaha FJ 1200 engine.
It's like a hundred horsepower.
Man, that's fun.
It makes like 70 pound feet of torque.
Like it's super fun.
Yeah.
I mean, if it was in a regular race car, it would be an absolute turd.
Like it would be super slow, but it kind of rips because it's like,
it's like a thousand pounds and has a hundred horsepower.
Yeah.
You said you were like passing people that had a thousand horsepower.
No, not passing, but we could run really fast lap times because I don't have to use the brakes.
It doesn't weigh anything.
So I'm like, where they're blowing past me in the straightaway is like, I'm reeling them in.
Like, you know, it was fun.
That's got to be frustrating for them.
That this little buzz bomb is like, you can't leave them in the corners.
Yeah.
And not the carousel, but the corkscrew in that thing is like a religious experience
because you're carrying so much speed, you just drop in.
It's like an elevator drop.
It's so good.
It's super fun.
Hell yeah.
I got to get all the etymology down for Sonoma before I get in there.
Yeah.
The S's.
The carousel.
Yeah.
There's turn 11, the S's and the carousel.
Turn 11 doesn't have a name like a...
It's just turn 11.
The widowmaker or something like that.
No, it's just like, don't hit the tires.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And watch it.
Corner exit.
Corner exit on turn 11 can get a little spicy if you get on the gas too early.
Oh yeah.
Because there's a big wall there and it kind of hurts when you hit it.
I'm super excited.
Well, cool Scott, thank you so much.
We're running out of time, but is there anything that you wanted to plug?
You can just find all my socials on at Chuckles Garage.
And yeah, that's about it.
Hell yeah.
Just keep...
If you're in the Bay Area or Sonoma County or whatever,
you want work done, fabrication work.
If you want to build a 2,600 horsepower tricycle, I'll build it.
So that's the thing man, if it's fast and it's cool, we'll build it.
I don't care what it is.
I love that mantra.
Hell yeah.
Well, you have some of the coolest cars I've ever seen in this garage
and I really look forward to following your journey in whatever motorsport you want to do.
It seems like you're very eclectic in what you like and I really appreciate that.
It's a nice way of calling me a weirdo.
I mean, you have great taste.
I feel like you're also just kind of just an awesome dude to know.
So I'm happy I met you.
Yeah, ditto.
Same thing.
Well, cool Scott.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for watching.
And if you haven't already, subscribe.
Like the video or leave a good review on whatever podcast platform you listen from.
And we'll see you next time.
Thanks.
Later.
About this episode
Scott Birdsall’s Pike’s Peak story kicks things off: he “flew off the edge of the mountain” and landed “on the top of his roof,” then explains what went wrong when “the brakes failed” at “like 14,000 feet.” Between crash survival and recovery, the conversation ranges from his diesel-class Pike’s Peak record and TA2 plans to Bonneville’s salt-flat stability, parachute braking, and sideways moments. The episode also tours garages, swaps, and the mindset behind building and racing—plus a few wild build detours.
Join us as we chat with Scott Birdsall: action sports legend, speed record holder and all around nice guy. Aside from his legendary motorsports, Scott, known online from his Chuckles Garage account, does custom fab work on everything from 911s to Supras to '49 Fords. Birdsall has an insatiable need for speed, and with that comes some insane stories.
