Air-Cooled & Amplified Scott Sain’s VW Journey Ep65
Annotations will appear as you listen
0:00
92:27
Car
Volkswagen Carmen Gias
The Volkswagen Karmann Ghia is a classic Volkswagen sports car. People often restore them, including updating the interior. The podcast mentions sending one to get the interior refreshed.
Term
auto stick
“Auto stick” means the car can shift automatically, but you can also choose gears yourself. It’s like a manual feel without needing a clutch pedal.
Concept
drag racing
Drag racing is racing in a straight line to see which car accelerates fastest. It’s usually about quick launches and strong power to the wheels.
Term
engine and transmission
The engine makes the power, and the transmission helps send that power to the wheels. In this story, they built those parts to make the car quicker.
Concept
street racing
Street racing means racing on regular roads instead of a track. It’s usually about who can go faster, but it can be dangerous.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a sporty car made by Ford. People like it because it’s popular and there are many parts and upgrades available. In the podcast, it’s mentioned as something someone bought and moved on to the next car.
Car
Ford Granada
The Ford Granada is a mid-size car made by Ford. It’s generally more of a normal, everyday type of vehicle than a sports car. The podcast mentions it because it was part of someone’s car buying and trading history.
Car
Ford Fiesta
The Ford Fiesta Active is a small Ford car with extra styling and features meant to look a bit more rugged. It’s still a compact car, not a large SUV. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because it replaced another car as part of a trade-in.
Car
Volkswagen Rabbit
The Volkswagen Rabbit is a small Volkswagen car. It’s known for its boxy, square shape. The podcast mentions it because someone is describing that style and the car they went into.
Term
cam
The camshaft controls the engine’s valves. A bigger cam usually helps the engine make more power at higher speeds, but it can make it feel less responsive at low speeds.
Concept
drag cars
Drag cars are built mainly to go fast in a straight line over a short distance. They’re usually set up for acceleration and grip, not for driving around like a normal car.
Concept
street cars
Street cars are cars meant to be driven on regular roads. Even if they’re modified, they’re typically set up to be more usable day-to-day than cars built only for racing.
Term
eighth mile
In drag racing, the “eighth mile” is a shorter race distance—about 660 feet. People use it because it’s a common, easy-to-compare way to measure how fast a car accelerates.
Term
fly cut my head
Fly cutting is when a machinist removes a small amount of metal from the engine’s cylinder head. That can make the engine squeeze the mixture more, which often boosts power.
Term
compression
Compression is how tightly the engine squeezes the fuel/air mixture before it ignites. More squeeze can make more power, but it has to be matched with the right fuel and tuning so it doesn’t cause problems.
Term
80 horsepower
They’re talking about how much power the engine made after the modifications. In VW engine builds, tuning parts like the head and carburetors can change the power a lot.
Term
geared to close third and fourth
Close gearing means the transmission’s gear ratios are spaced closer together. That helps the engine keep pulling after each shift, so acceleration feels stronger.
Term
Weber DC and F carburetors
Weber DCNF carburetors are performance carburetors used on classic air-cooled VWs and other engines. The “DC” and “F” designations refer to specific carb models/jets and throttle setups that affect fuel delivery and throttle response.
Term
tin off
On air-cooled engines, the sheet-metal “tin” helps guide cooling air over the engine. Taking it off can make the engine run hotter than it should.
Term
fans
Air-cooled VWs rely on a fan to blow air over the engine to keep it from overheating. Without good airflow, the engine can get too hot.
Term
flywheel
A flywheel is a heavy spinning part connected to the engine. It helps the engine run smoothly by storing energy as the engine turns.
Term
clutch
A clutch is what lets you smoothly connect and disconnect the engine’s power when shifting gears. It’s especially important on manual transmissions.
Term
bore
Bore means how wide each cylinder is inside the engine. Bigger cylinders can help the engine make more power because there’s more space for the fuel-air mix.
Term
2.6 liter
“2.6 liter” is the engine’s size—how much total space the cylinders move through. Bigger engines can often make more power, especially if the rest of the setup supports it.
Term
400 horsepower
Horsepower is a number that describes how strong the engine is. They’re saying this setup could be capable of around 400 hp without needing a huge, extreme build.
Term
light tune
A “light tune” means making smaller adjustments to how the engine is controlled, not doing a full-on extreme setup. The goal is to get extra power while keeping things fairly mild.
Concept
giveaway cars
They mean raffle-style car giveaways where someone wins a car. It’s a way to support events and get people involved.
Car
65 red bug on BRMs
They’re talking about a classic Volkswagen Beetle (“red bug”). They also mention BRM-style wheels, which are a popular vintage wheel choice that changes how the car looks.
Part
aftermarket rack
They added a roof rack that wasn’t installed by the factory. It’s used to carry things and it also changes the car’s appearance.
Part
repop bumpers
“Repop” means the bumpers were made as copies of the original. The host didn’t like how those copies looked, so they swapped them out.
Part
Vietnamese stainless bumpers
They replaced the bumpers with stainless-steel ones made by a Vietnamese supplier. Stainless tends to resist rust better and usually looks nicer on older cars.
Term
patina car
A “patina car” is an older car that keeps its natural wear and character instead of being restored to look brand new. In this case, they’re pairing that worn look with nicer stainless bumpers.
Part
European blades
“European blades” sounds like a style of exterior trim piece they added. It’s mainly about changing how the front of the VW looks.
Term
lower the front
They’re talking about making the car sit lower at the front. People do this to change the look and sometimes the driving feel.
Term
MP5 spokes
“MP5 spokes” refers to a specific wheel style/fitment—spoke wheels commonly used in VW and classic-car builds. The speaker is highlighting the look of the wheels on the car they’re describing.
Car
Beetle Super Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle is a classic Volkswagen with a very recognizable shape. The podcast talks about a 1972 “Super Beetle,” which is a specific older version people often restore. It’s mentioned because someone found one and built it up.
Term
satin clear
A “satin clear” is a clear-coat finish that’s not fully glossy—satin sits between matte and gloss. In bodywork, choosing satin clear affects how the paint reflects light and can help preserve an “original-looking” vibe.
Term
carpet
Automotive carpet is the floor covering that affects comfort, sound insulation, and overall interior appearance. In restorations, replacing carpet is often done alongside seats and trim to make the cabin feel “new.”
Term
weather stripping
Weather stripping is the rubber or trim seals around doors, windows, and other openings that keep water and wind out. Replacing it is a common restoration step because worn seals can cause leaks and rattles.
Term
headliner
The headliner is the interior fabric/trim panel on the roof of the car. Replacing it is part of restoring the cabin’s look and can also improve insulation and fit.
Term
heater channels
Heater channels are metal parts that run along the car and help get heat into the cabin. They’re also important for the car’s structure, so removing them is a big deal.
Term
pan off
“Pan off” means taking the body off the bottom pan/chassis. It’s a big job usually done when you need to do serious work underneath the car.
Term
narrow transmission
A narrow transmission is a gearbox that’s physically slimmer. People choose it to make the drivetrain fit better when they’re modifying the car a lot.
Term
body drop
A body drop means lowering the car’s body closer to the ground. It’s how people get that super-low look, but it can require lots of setup so everything still fits and works.
Part
role cage
A roll cage is a metal safety frame inside the car. It helps protect you in a crash—especially if the car flips—and it’s often used in race cars.
Term
roll cage
A roll cage is a safety frame inside the car. It’s there to protect you if the car flips or gets hit hard, and it can also make the car feel more stable.
Concept
air-cooled
“Air-cooled” means the engine is cooled by air flowing over it, not by coolant. Classic VWs are famous for this design.
Term
package tray
The package tray is the shelf behind the back seat. In this case, the speaker means the turbo setup is tucked in that rear area.
Term
turbo
A “turbo” is a device that pushes extra air into the engine. More air usually means more power, but it has to be set up correctly.
Term
slam
“Slam” means the car sits extremely low. That look is popular, but it can make everyday driving harder because you scrape more easily.
Term
deleted heat
“Deleted heat” refers to removing or disabling the factory heat system—commonly the heat exchangers/heat ducts used for cabin and engine bay heat on air-cooled VWs. Enthusiasts sometimes do this for weight, simplicity, or aesthetics, but it can affect defrost and cabin comfort.
Car
65 bus
A “65 bus” is a 1965 Volkswagen bus. People love these because they’re iconic and a big part of the classic VW community.
Term
rust
Rust is when metal starts to corrode and weaken over time. They’re saying the car had rust in important body areas, so it needed metal replacement and repair.
Part
forepan
The “forepan” is basically the front floor metal. If it’s rusted, you have to replace it because it’s part of the car’s structure, not just a cosmetic panel.
Term
lower six inches
They’re describing a repair where they cut out and replace the bottom part of the metal where rust usually starts. It’s a targeted fix instead of replacing everything.
Concept
purists
“Purists” are people who want a car to stay as original as possible. Here, they’re upset because the host removed original camper-related parts.
Brand
Grumpy's
“Grumpy's” is the name they give for a maker that sells replica parts. In this case, it’s for a rack/dump-style accessory they were considering.
Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 is a sports car made by Porsche. It’s known for being expensive and for having a very recognizable design. The podcast mentions it because the wheels or details looked like they belonged to a 911.
Term
rag top
“Rag top” just means a convertible with a fabric roof. They’re saying their car is the open-top version.
Term
lift
A “lift” is a garage hoist that raises the car off the ground. It lets you see and work on the bottom of the car.
Concept
full restoration
A “full restoration” means someone went through the car and fixed it up completely, not just a small refresh. In this story, the car was restored but then didn’t get much real use.
Term
square tires
“Square tires” means the tire tread got flat spots because the car sat for a long time. It can make the car feel bumpy or shake when you drive.
Term
stick shit
“Stick” means the car has a manual transmission. You shift gears yourself instead of the car doing it for you.
Concept
barn find
A “barn find” is an old car that’s been sitting in storage for a long time and gets found later. It can be a great deal, but it may need work after sitting.
Term
original mile
They’re saying the car has low, original mileage—meaning it hasn’t been driven much. For older cars, that can mean less wear.
Term
one-owner
A “one-owner” car is a vehicle that has had only a single registered owner since new. Enthusiasts often value this because it can correlate with more consistent maintenance and fewer unknown modifications.
Term
stock everything
“Stock everything” means the car is mostly as it came from the factory, not heavily modified. People like that because it keeps the original character.
Term
ballast
Here, “ballast” likely means a device used to power certain types of lights. It’s a specific part that helps the light system work.
Term
manual
A manual car is one where you shift gears yourself. You also use a clutch pedal, and that takes practice—particularly when you’re starting uphill.
Car
1984 Ford Ranger
This is a 1984 Ford Ranger pickup. The speaker says it was their early experience learning to drive, and it was challenging because they were practicing on hills with a manual-style driving situation.
Car
Honda Civic
A Honda Civic is a very common, practical compact car. In this episode, it’s mentioned because the speaker learned to drive on it before learning a manual transmission.
Car
1984 Volvo 240BL
This is a Volvo 240 from 1984. It’s a simple, old-school car layout, and the speaker learned to drive a manual transmission in it—especially how to use the clutch when starting on an incline.
Term
stall
A stall is when the engine turns off while you’re driving or trying to start. On a manual car, it often happens when you release the clutch too fast.
Term
e-break
The e-break is the parking brake. It can hold the car still on a hill while you learn how to start smoothly with a manual transmission.
Car
Chevrolet Nova
The Chevrolet Nova is a car made by Chevrolet. It’s known for being a classic model that people sometimes customize. The podcast is referencing it as something memorable from the past.
Term
Fuchs
“Fuchs” is a type of wheel design with a classic, recognizable look. VW owners use them to make the car look more like the classic European sports-car style.
LIVE
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Dub Life Diaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: The podcast where passion meets the open road.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Joe Person, your host, and also a lifelong lover.
[SPEAKER_00]: Buckle up, because this ride is just beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is sponsored by Volk's Mania Magazine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good times, great cars, awesome Volk's Maniax.
[SPEAKER_00]: Visit Volk'sMania.com to learn more about this class leading VW Magazine.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, welcome back to Dublife Diaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's guest is one of those guys who didn't just join the Volkswagen scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: He actually built his entire life around it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about a guy whose first VW was in 1986.
[SPEAKER_00]: And since then, he's actually never looked back.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's built race cars, he hosts drag events up in South Carolina.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, even took it a step further.
[SPEAKER_00]: He turned in 1965, split window bussets behind me.
[SPEAKER_00]: into a fully functioning DJ booth.
[SPEAKER_00]: This guy literally pulls up, opens the doors and throws a party out of a classic split window bus.
[SPEAKER_00]: How cool is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: On top of that, he's been in the entertainment industry for over 25 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's at DJ.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a band leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's an event host and somehow he's merged music cars and community all into one lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's going to be one of those conversations that's about passion, longevity, and building a life around things that you love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Scott saying aka DJ Insane, welcome at the Wife Diaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey man, what's up?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's up?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate your time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we dive into these questions, let me give a couple of shoutouts to my sponsors.
[SPEAKER_00]: First up on the list, Volk's Mania Magazine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody knows how I feel at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: These guys are the Fly SVW Magazine on the face of the planet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Check these guys out Volk's Mania.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can use Double-Life 10, DUB, LIFE, the number one, zero at checkout.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have to say this, this is only going to work for US subscribers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now how cool is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've said this the last few episodes because I got to pinch myself just a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's so cool that I have to mention that because there are people in other worlds and other countries should I say trying to use my discount code to get 10% off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it won't work if you're outside the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, shout out to Salty Doug from the Beach to the Bay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Salty Doug is tearing up the coastal VW seen down here West Coast, Central Florida, events, swag, check those guys out, much of merch on the website.
[SPEAKER_00]: SaltyDub.com, same discount code can work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dublife 10.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, last shoutouts, Vera, a poultry of St. Pete, these guys are Marine and automotive, they're new automotive line.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not necessarily, specifically on Volkswagen's, but their owner, Aleguvara is a total Volkswagen super, super freak.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's my partner in salty dub.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's also a fantastic artist.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you haven't seen any of his work, his 73 thing won best in its class for Bug Jam.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just this past year in November, the stitching and the seats on the outside of the seats are the VW logo.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so just in case you needed to know, Vera Apulsry of St. Pete checked those guys out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, come on, man, check our hats out today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shout out to my buddy Chris White Riverbank Customs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both of us are wearing this hat.
[SPEAKER_00]: You won't see this on the podcast, but you'll check it out on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chris much love to your brother all about the scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: We appreciate you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're rep and we're rep and we're rep and we're rep and [SPEAKER_01]: All right my dude back to you man back to you good to be here man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I met Alan well I talked to Alan of a few months ago when he was having the The awesome issues with that double cab.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was building.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, and yeah, and then came down and did the show in Florida in January and [SPEAKER_01]: one of the guys came over with a given me swag to wear stuff and I said who runs this company and he said Alan so I sent Alan a message and he came running back into the building and he said oh I didn't know that was used so we got to meet in person and that was great so what a nice guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man, Alan's super, super awesome guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I'll out the Volkswagen community in the scene and again, also my partner in salty dub.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do about five events down here from from St. Pete area west coast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really just say west coast central Florida because they come from all over, you know, the depths of the highway was just a couple of weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great show, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you get down to that one too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I might want to send one of my Carmen Gia's to Alan to freshen up my interior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you will not be making a mistake.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, buddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get into it man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take me back to your first VW as the story says it's 1986.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was it?
[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of car was it was there was two of them actually Art Gabor was his name and he had two 70 bugs in his backyard and told us we could have him for 200 bucks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, we went by my dad and I.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my cousin and we drove the dark blue one drove it around the block came back and it just had made this weird noise the whole time we were driving it we got back and art goes oh the starter was still on yawning and turn the key back I should have told you all the time back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'll take money off because you can have them both for 140 to go get you a new starter.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got them for $70 each.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of them was an auto stick and the dark blue one was the one I eventually made two cars out of basically and drove that all through high school and painted it purple with flames.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I did a replica of it recently, but [SPEAKER_01]: That was it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was my beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: I started drag racing it all the Farmington events up in North Carolina and have been going to those since 86.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somehow that's 40 years ago they say, but I'm not math like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, me either neither.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think it was that made you fall in love with Volkswagen specifically?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the scene was hot there and I grew up in Fort Mill, South Carolina and next to Rock Hill.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had such a scene on Cherry Road every weekend, cruising the parking lots.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like most, I'm sure seven towns do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had such a good scene and I met great friends and there was a shop up there, A&B, imports, dugout, I was a Wayne Baker, Wayne just passed away last year, but those guys took me in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we built a cool engine and transmission was built.
[SPEAKER_01]: and just what I thought was the fastest car on the world back then was probably, you know, slow as could be, but I could beat, you know, I could beat Cameroas and I were like some stuff back then and that was just insane to the people who bought those new cars and here I am beat them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was fun street racing and getting into the drag racing scene and that's when it started for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was like high school days, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Were you a car guy or a car kid growing up or didn't... Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my dad liked to buy cars, flip them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had Mustang, he's in Granadas and fair lanes, whatever he bought.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember this 74, 75th Vigo we had.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was, I wanted to cool the earlier split bumper Vegas.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, then my first car was a Chevy Love truck, you know, fixed up with wheels and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then that got traded in on a Ford Fiesta, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the square box he went in with like the rabbit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I could make a pop, I can make a pop with these in reverse, you know, that was a great thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I, after I got the bug, that was it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in him from been on pretty much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Volkswagen scene, what do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, compare the Volkswagen scene back then to what the Volkswagen scene is like now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, 86.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that car was 16 years old.
[SPEAKER_01]: That car wasn't that old, especially getting for 70 bucks, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, ran it, ran it drove.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was nothing needed to be done to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just modified it, but I needed to start it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: the scene is still there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just talking to some people about that this weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's certainly still kicking pretty hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say, I don't think it's going to die in our lifetime, but it's certainly changing because the parts, you know, the cars aren't being made.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a long time since they were made.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's still some great manufacturers out there making stuff, but then you see stuff like, [SPEAKER_01]: Mofoco closing and I don't know if that's that big of a deal, but is that writing on the wall?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: You still got other places, you know, Ron, Louis's out there cranking out great stuff and CB's out there doing stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I think it's here for a while, you know, but it's not as strong.
[SPEAKER_01]: I noticed you know, I just had my Vita be dragged night this past weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had 78 cars, a lot of those were not just folks wagons, but the folks wagons seen certainly is not a hundred cars strong anymore, just folks wagons.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wish it were, but it is what it is at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: back then growing up that you did you ever think that this was going to turn into your whole life, you know, the life of Volkswagen's.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went doing a lot of thinking back then trying I wasn't trying to figure anything out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea what was going on anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, college, I went to college with no idea what I wanted to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I'm really good at math.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know anything about history.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's major in history, which was brilliant.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so the history and education that came out, I taught school for two years, I started playing music, you know, my second year of college, having no experience with music at all and had no idea how to sing and we started the band and they're like, oh, you're the singer, I was like, oh, I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I had no idea about anything and then so it's just been role-in and when I got back after, you know, after I finished college and got me another Carmen Gia and [SPEAKER_01]: got me the started building on the race car and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really got in pretty big back into it back in 2005.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when I was racing all the events.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I had a full-on drag car back then.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it took over somewhere around the end where it became the life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, that's how I speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know in 2009, when I threw my first event, my first drag night, [SPEAKER_01]: then it's just consuming from the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I was going to ask that question.
[SPEAKER_00]: When did you go from fan to, you know, real builder slash racer slash, you know, super fan, but sounds like you answered that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, you know, so 2000, [SPEAKER_01]: I guess in the late 90s, I had a really cool chroma gear and completely re-did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was painting my own cars back then.
[SPEAKER_01]: I ordered an engine from who's out there in Grant's past Oregon.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the name of this company?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll get in a minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he built me an engine.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a 1775 with a [SPEAKER_01]: with a bigger cam and I built a cool car me again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I went to a Catholic wedding with a girlfriend back then and it was like three days long, it seemed like and I came home and cut the roof off my car me again and made a roast round of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I sent it to a friend and she painted it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It made a really nice roast her back, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was late nineties early 2000s and then I ran into custom coach works out there in Colorado and we built the car and then we built another car, you know, it was It was got to the point where I realized, all right, there's people that do this better than I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me go play some songs, make some money and I'll pay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll pay John to build the cars in Colorado and people like, well, I'll just send it out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, [SPEAKER_01]: It was easier, you know, one stop shop went to John, you know, John out there to get everything in and when you're in Colorado, no, I didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Custom coach works as great, so John Jones, but.
[SPEAKER_01]: He built me a couple, and then I was racing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I got into the street cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: John had built this really cool car turbo.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he took it to this far as he wanted to.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we traded a car and I got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I realized, wait a minute, these street cars are faster than the full long drag cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when I stopped building drag cars and I built street cars ever since then, and just.
[SPEAKER_01]: crazy how fast the street cars are now, you know, back when I was 16 to whether they are now, like just this past weekend, Brad in our class ran a 5.79 and a 120 or something in the eighth mile, five seven and luckily I was the one in the finals with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got to watch that entire pass and I was going on the track and his lights were already on on the sign and I was thinking, is it good that I get to see the lights come on and the signs come on and tell me how fast he went?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think this is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I guess he is fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, because I got faster and then I was racing all the circuit around here and I asked one of the promoters, I was like, hey, would you ever do a race in South Carolina?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he kind of smart asked back at me with an answer, like, yeah, let's do a race in South Carolina.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I just started my own having no idea what to do, no idea at all and started a web page and talked to a few people and then all of a sudden John swears in California, he saw it because all my friends are in North Carolina and we'll come see them and come to your event and then.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eric Madsen, Alan Colorado, Oh, I'll come and John Jones came with him and then all of a sudden paradise is on board and all the big wigs started coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea what I was doing, putting on a bit, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're at Waffle House at 11 o'clock the day of the event.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're supposed to be there, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're eating and we're laughing.
[SPEAKER_01]: This Eric Madsen, we're telling people it's our birthday so that staff is singing to us ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's, that's the best times [SPEAKER_01]: But when we roll up to the event, you know, we're in a greenville sub Carolina for the event.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I walk in and the field is full of trucks and stackers and trailers and I was like, maybe I should have been here before now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: So everywhere, people everywhere, all those guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, uh, [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I wish I could think of all the names that everybody was there, but I just walk around.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was dumbfounded.
[SPEAKER_01]: We raised all night 342.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think was the last race.
[SPEAKER_01]: We started cooking hot dogs at that point and fed people all to the night.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I went to bed at 537.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember those numbers for some reason, but wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was stuck at that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's let's keep doing events because it's a great way to lose money and have fun at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's rewind the clock a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know the, I got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's impressed a lot as far as the builds go.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's go back to like your first real build.
[SPEAKER_00]: Describe that first real build for me, engine build.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the one that I did when I was in high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like the first one that you did yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So 1835 and everybody was running in C35 came back then and Doug told me, [SPEAKER_01]: So we put it in and there's Doug Gantt right down the road.
[SPEAKER_01]: He fly cut my head before me gave me a little more compression.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, probably make an 80 horsepower and I thought it was insane, but it was, you know, almost double what it had had.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we had the transmission was geared to close third and fourth, it just made it so quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I think I had 42 Weber DC and F carburetors that, you know, they were for a type three.
[SPEAKER_01]: We modified them for a type one.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just a blast, you know, no cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I had, I had the fans round all the, you know, just like we did, we took all the tin off and didn't know we were cooking the engines, but we were.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that was it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I ran it just like that and it just worked.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never, never blew it up, never broken.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I've dropped out of the album one time and that was it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't give it heart the engine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so speaking on on challenging or even hard times, what do you think now, you know, fast forward to today, what's one of the most challenging builds that you've ever faced.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, I haven't really realized that I didn't need to be building engine, so I haven't been personally sitting there building them myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to gather the parts, drop them off to friends that do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got a buddy in North Carolina, David Wagner.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's been doing it for me for the past.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe 10 years, all of my super fast cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's done the engines for me, they're just awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: But probably the most difficult was [SPEAKER_01]: We bought some waterbox or stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my friend Jason Vance, he's into it as well and had a waterbox from Vegas and drove around in the heat.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, let's build this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got all the parts.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got a crank and flywheel and stuff from Jose out of DPR Iran, got us a clutch.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got the JPM heads out of where he is.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't know whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I set it up to my buddy Prescott Phillips up in Wisconsin, and he put it all together for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a four inch bore, you know, big, huge engine 2.6 liter, and I haven't used it yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got a sitting there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to use it for a project, but I mean, it could be 400 horsepower just on a light tune.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll get to that one eventually.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy smoke.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean funny thing about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a wedding to DJ and in Wisconsin last May and I was just joking around and I said press cup of the press got a message.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said hey, I'm coming up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were wedding.
[SPEAKER_01]: I run into, you know, Wisconsin's huge and he said, well, where are you staying at?
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, well, here's the air, the air being be addressing is this 10 minutes of my house, drop by.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I split over one day and got to go meet him.
[SPEAKER_01]: We did a podcast with him and picked up my engine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he didn't have to ship it to me back from the South Carolina.
[SPEAKER_01]: I put it in my truck, probably only me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I'll break it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds uh.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it sounds like the VW community right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly what it does, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Here I am, come see me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, let's ask that question.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think separates VW culture from other car communities in your opinion?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a lot of people that I bring into the events that have been VA guys are not vote, so I can people.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the first thing they say.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, what is this with everybody just helping everybody out?
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, you all have a race class that somebody is just whipping your own rear ends.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you are cheering him on and having the best time watching him run those numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, yeah, I don't care about lending.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to see somebody do what Brad's doing or anybody else that's trying to push the limits.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just here to have fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I've always said about my events.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a party that we happen to have a drag race at.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not the other way around, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to party and we're going to sit in our cars and race and eat hot dogs at the end of the night.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's definitely different than the other the other scenes, for sure, it's just everybody's just there to have a good time and be friendly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, let's touch on VW Drag Night.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so VW Dragonite is my my my summer spring summer show and then the third one got rained out and I didn't get to pay out so I had all the money left over.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was a July show back then and I was like, all right, I don't have to do another one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't do it the next weekend or anything in the only time I could find was in November.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I did a November one and it was near Thanksgiving.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we, I named it just a different, let's just make it a whole different event.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where I came out with a German air drive day and social, and that it was either the weekend before Thanksgiving or the same weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: We cooked and fed everybody turkey dinner and made it a full Thanksgiving spread.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how that one kind of developed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And after we did it, it was just supposed to be that one year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's like, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: this has to keep happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then I started doing two shows a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just add the plate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I talked to a lot of guys that do shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do a couple of shows myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always like this, this opportunity to talk about, talk about your shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what makes your events different from other events?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, to be honest, we have talked to some other guys like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do go into shows where there are 3,000 people and 350 show cars right, love it, I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mine are not like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've almost gotten the point where I won't mind to be a boutique show, I won't there to be 450 people there that I know, 500 people right, that way I'm not printing 3,000 to shirts and trying to feed 3,000 people at the end of the night.
[SPEAKER_01]: The shows are smaller, it's a family, it's a bunch of friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: When somebody wins the card, 95% of the time, I know who they are, you know, they're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're with me, anyway, like Sunday, they got what was there with me, so I just, I wanted to be a smaller, let's hang out and I'll play some music of course, and then we'll all eat it at the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's hard to do 3,000 people, but it is easy with my setup, [SPEAKER_01]: I've gotten to where I can still pay, like my pay out was $13,500.
[SPEAKER_01]: Saturdays.
[SPEAKER_01]: Still pay that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can't do that on the gate of 500 people.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just not going to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the sponsorship has been amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the giveaway cars that I do, that's the only way I can do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what makes your events different now.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you [SPEAKER_01]: So 65 red bug on BRMs, running driving, just a perfect driver, not a perfect paint job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just a good looking red car, had an aftermarket rack top.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a roof rack here, I threw it on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It had some rusty repop bumpers on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't like those.
[SPEAKER_01]: I took those off and got the Vietnamese stainless on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just the perfect touch to a patina car with perfect stainless bumpers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did the European blades.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll lower the front a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_01]: And...
[SPEAKER_01]: just a cool driver.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what everybody said.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would draw the wheels off of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the guys that were down from Florida, bunch of guys from Tampa, they were like, we're driving a home if we win.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I hope you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the one it was there and he had had a few co-colders during the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: He came over and he was so happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, into the front seat and driving around the race track below in the hall and screaming in yellow and the rest of the night, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: The next day, like, I was doing something and I'd get a text message from one of the friends that was at the event and he's a firefighter and he's down in lower part of South Carolina.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, hey, the Raffle Corps, the giveaway car just drove on with the sign still in it that said, women this car for $60, they're driving towards Georgia.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's drove it home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha That's absolutely awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought I was gonna go somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, the kid Knox was just so, I mean, he was about to cry and you have to go back and watch the video from the live live feed when we gave it away, but he came up to me later and said, look, I'm going to drive for a little bit, but my dad has cancer and he doesn't have a bug right now and I'm going to give it to him and I was like, wait a minute and I was like, that's why we do it right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why we do this, you're going to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jeffrey Keaton out of Pennsylvania.
[SPEAKER_01]: He buys a ticket every year.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, I don't have room my garage, but I'm still in support of your event.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give it to somebody that needs it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So [SPEAKER_01]: We gave it to Robbie down there in Florida, because he had just had that wreck recently, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was the, you know, he's Robbie sent me a picture saying, hey man, I'm not gonna be able to make it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's my flip.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, yeah, you stay home.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he got the free ticket, Jeffrey Ballester, and he was very happy about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But some of the sponsors, when they get their tickets and their sponsors should be packaged, they said, if our name's drawn, give that card to Robbie, he gets it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're going to win a $10,000 of a car, but you're going to give it away for somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the community is about right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm interested, though, because I do events, you know, myself and I'm interested to hear throughout the year what goes into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, how what goes into organizing an event where you give a car away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, are there more moving pieces?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what's or is it just as easy as [SPEAKER_01]: It's gotten pretty easy through the years, so let me back you all the way up, so the very first one I did, it was probably in the first three or four.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chris Carpenter, Robert Rockhill, had put this car up for sale.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a.
[SPEAKER_01]: 65 or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember what it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a red one.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was dropped on the the Wi-Fi fuchs.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looked good, patented, and he wanted $5,000 for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I gave him $5,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: I drove the right KL, I got it, I brought it back here, and I printed $150 tickets.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, all right, I don't pay for it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So Dino Dawn was coming over and announcing my events back then, and we're selling the tickets.
[SPEAKER_01]: in here near us, and then the event was at the race track about 90 minutes away, so every Friday we would have the pre-show, so I told the girl, so let's take it, don't sell more than 50, because we gotta have a bunch of them for the show tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when she comes over and says, here we have seven left, what should I do on that?
[SPEAKER_01]: 50 and you got seven left.
[SPEAKER_01]: You went a little lower.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, we had seven left to sell with the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Dino Dons coming over to me is like, can you print more tickets?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, no, I didn't plan on this being this successful when I, you know, I wanted to keep the odds great.
[SPEAKER_01]: You had a one and a hundred chance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so that was the first one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then so I don't remember what the next car was I did, but then I started to realize in a way, [SPEAKER_01]: I can use the car to raise funds to put this event on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So from 100 tickets, to now I do about 400 tickets total.
[SPEAKER_01]: The sponsors get about 100 of them and their sponsors should package.
[SPEAKER_01]: You sponsor my event, you get a chance to win the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then a sell about $300.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that can raise their $60 now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that can raise about $18,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you might have $10,000 car.
[SPEAKER_01]: All you got $8,000, you've paid for the track.
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes it a whole lot easier when you leave your house and you're not sitting there watching the gate during the day going.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need 300 more people to come in here with so I can break even.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, it helps me fund the event.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I leave my house, it's paid for.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that the giveaway car has been such a blessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And people have never said, I can't believe you're making more tickets now.
[SPEAKER_01]: The chances have gone down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nope, they understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: They know what I'm trying to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I don't do this to make money.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no profit for this for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything I made rolls right back into the next event.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've gone from buying cars that are turned key to building from ground up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll send you some pictures of other stuff that I've done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like maybe two years ago, we did a 65, but that.
[SPEAKER_01]: unbelievable.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'll have to show you why it was on, it's on MP5 spokes, Lord, absolutely stunning job on Buddy David at Stoner Body Works here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He and I painted it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We built it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We put it all together, put a great engine in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, by some that need a little bit of work, a guy a few years ago said, hey, I need to sell this 56 oval, would you be interested?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, wait a minute, I've never spent that kind of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: on a giveaway car, but he made it worth my while of the tickets enough to make it work and gave somebody a black, but he did a original paint 56 over on 17 inch wheels.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don [SPEAKER_01]: thought for sure the tickets would fly off the show for 67 couldn't give them away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my God, it wasn't Lord, it didn't have cool wheels, and then I built a 72 Super Beetle in 14 that I found in a field, original paint.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was trying to give the car away, no matter what taking, I started looking at it and I was like, what can we do with this then?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I cleared the mold off of it and I was like, wait a minute, that's original paint.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went back to David, we fixed the body, but we're sanded it, cleared it with a satin clear, and I replaced everything else, headliner or seats, carpet, all the weather stripping and everything brand new car loaded, sort of every single ticket could not, could not believe people bought the tickets for a 72-super-view.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's so funny, but I'll tell you the sales the ones that sell the most red course, you can give me a red give away car people are buying them all so yeah that's it's just funny there's nothing like handing the keys to someone.
[SPEAKER_01]: a couple for a car for six bucks.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, not Batman.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to, I think it's a really good idea and a really good, you know, thing to do inside of this community.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you said something else too that really resonated with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was that you don't do this for for the profit.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know that that hits home because you know just for instance you know the peer show that we do it's almost 18 grand just to get just to secure the venue and pay the the $10,000 the the the St. Pete police department wants to close down base or you know for the two-hour window and then you know police escort a parade of 250 cars out to you know spa beach park it's not cheap
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, the first year we did the show, we had to charge like $69 of an entry because we had to divvy the cost up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just, we're trying to cover it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not making money here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I say, we're not making money, I mean it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, some of the community push back a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, man, you know, you guys are crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must be killing it and all stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're like, actually, you know, so I remember that first year that we got back out on the [SPEAKER_00]: We ended up taking screenshots of our of our invoice and posting them on the salty dub page because we're like look [SPEAKER_00]: you guys here it is here's the cost here here's what we're up against and i say we because now now all y'all are included all right now we're gonna take it personal if you guys are acting like we're making a bunch of money we're not and here's the proof and then we did we ended up selling you know we we broke even on that first year which for anybody that does events and shows you know you break even on your first year you're doing something right
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, and then year two, we did a little bit better than break even.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were able to fix the $990 worth of sprinklers that we broke out there and spot each park.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had that in the bank and then we were able to do something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was an additional cost of $600,000 that came in after the event.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were able to afford that too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, but, you know, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: My very first show, same thing didn't know what I was doing and got finished with it and I was going through the numbers and I had lost a hundred dollars and I was like, that's a win.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll take it right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I'm playing it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So six, eight months later, I opened the the lower glove box door, whatever it was in my, my band van back then and there was a hundred dollars and a note from Ann Metzger that the guy's from up in Maryland.
[SPEAKER_01]: She spots certain getting a hundred bucks and I was like, [SPEAKER_01]: I broke even, I was in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had shoved it in there, you know, not thinking when she gave it to me, but you know, and in another one, I remember a guy that races with us and he came up to me one time and he goes, hey, I've got a lot to put on with that, you know, where I live up and west of Virginia, can you help with it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I just like sure, I say whatever you want to do, I'm glad to help you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, well, what's the cost?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, you need to be prepared to lose $20,000, you know, because you could, if you're not careful, and if there's nobody shows up because, okay, I'm out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, there's one way to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could tag almost somebody's event.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just, I like to go overboard with everything and do as much as I can.
[SPEAKER_01]: And luckily, I figured it out through the year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe your first one, you might not lose 20 grand.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think my third one I lost like 7,000, and I was like, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to figure something out here, and that's when the giveaway car came in and just turned it completely around for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're talking about someone telling you making a killing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my main sponsor is Stokes, the one who's wagging out of North Charleston.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Eddie Stokes has been in both Swagans his entire life, his dad, before him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I was meeting with Travis, their general manager, this is probably the second or third show.
[SPEAKER_01]: They give me a good chunk of money to be the main sponsor.
[SPEAKER_01]: and we're at while weighing 80 and lunch one day, and he said, and you must be making a killing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the same thing you just said, I was like, wait a minute, Travis, let me explain something to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And no way do I take any of this money.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm losing money or barely breaking even just to do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you'll have to see sometimes the money we give away, you know, it's not, it's, you know, you give away $12,000, $13,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've given away $28,000 at a show before, but dude.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you, if I was only given away a three thousand dollar purse and bringing in that much money, I get it people could say you must be making a killing you're right, right, but I'm giving it all away and when Travis realized right then that I wasn't trying to do this to to line my pockets, they have been solid sponsors ever since I mean like when we did my 10th one and it's like I'm going to give you $10,000 to give away it is GM [SPEAKER_01]: was like, hold on, dial it back a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they didn't give me, they gave me double money that year and a new beetle to give away.
[SPEAKER_01]: I gave away a new beetle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody, my buddy still driving it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine getting your name drawn, you're sitting in the stands and you want a new beetle?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, it wasn't at least it was here's the car in the title.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for being here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: So incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a cool thing to witness to be a part of and yeah, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's just so awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to do something like that at some point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear about really cool stuff from from you guys and these guys that I have on you know on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear the the coolest awards the coolest ideas the coolest giveaways the coolest [SPEAKER_00]: donations, you know, had a guy out on just a couple days ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's also connected to the fire department where these, they have a burn camp of kids that are burnt and disfigured.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they raised all this money for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, burn and disfigured kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, bro, I mean, I just talk about it right now, getting goose bumps.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's, you know, that's, to me, that [SPEAKER_00]: that's this community man.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, you know, especially the guys like you that are, you know, putting on these shows that are given away tens of thousands of dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's to other guys in the community or it's to charity, you know, like a cancer survivor or a cancer fund.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and, and yeah, this burn camp for for kids that are, you know, that are burnt up and disfigured, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, dude, it's just, man, it doesn't get any better than that to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: and just knowing that the Volkswagen community does that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do my event normally on a Friday Saturday, which was this past weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the big wrap-up party is what we've always called it, is tonight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've got a whole bunch of people coming over hanging out with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we will charge an admission.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's pet supplies for our local pet shelter.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what we support.
[SPEAKER_01]: We support pet helpers and we have them come pick it all up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you should see all senior pictures of the truck loads of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I take it to them to their to their own store on that Monday or Tuesday after the party.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you guys are absolutely bad asses, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the cool thing ever to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's worth it does.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do all their fun razors and I play their big fur ball and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where I put all my attention and support is to put numbers because, you know, a lot of my animals, yeah, yeah, I'll make sure of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, me too, man, me too.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's jump into, let's change a subject just a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about music.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: When did music actually come into your life?
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I said earlier, I was in college, I think I was a sophomore maybe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this kid was in the ATO fraternity, his name was Walter, and he was just cool, and he had a guitar, and the hottest girlfriend in sophomore in college.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, did he do that with the guitar?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went to Hall, one Christmas, and I'll go to my grandmother's house, grandmother Petus, and then when was the guitar, sitting in the corner of the living room, I said, grandmother, who's guitar's that?
[SPEAKER_01]: She goes, it's yours.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I took it home.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the hardest thing to play in the world, which may have been a blessing in disguise because I made my fingers stronger, having to push down on those strings.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I learned a few chords and then I was playing gigs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know what I was doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know what's happened last?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody goes, hey, you want to join a band?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, let me join a band.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a band called Bedrock.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they had a CD already in a hit song.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, [SPEAKER_01]: great.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got in with them and then we started our all band and I was teaching high school with that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's my second year of teaching high school and the band was playing almost all the time and I finally had to quit teaching and that was it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was 90 to and I have been just nothing but music since then as well.
[UNKNOWN]: So [SPEAKER_00]: So when did DJ and come in to the scene?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, all right, so I had an original band we were called the pondering back then.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were trying to get on MTV, you know, and write the hit songs, and we had, we did a few CDs, and we had some fun songs, we had a decent follow.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't have anybody, you know, we weren't.
[SPEAKER_01]: On anybody's radar to get signed, but we thought we were, but we weren't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you know, we were driving, we're driving six hours to Knoxville and we're playing for $200 on a Tuesday, and then we're going all the way to East Carolina and, you know, for 250 on that day, but, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: Then you realize, wait a minute, we could stay at home and do weddings if we learn how to play brown on our girl and must take Sally, we could stay at home and make 10 times that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there were three bands we were in the same rehearsal space.
[SPEAKER_01]: The pondering was us, the frog movers and live bait, and the three leaders of those bands basically Jeff was a guitar player for the four movers, and Dave was the guitar player for live bait.
[SPEAKER_01]: And me, [SPEAKER_01]: We said, hey, let's go play on Monday nights.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not doing anything with our original bands.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we started a three piece.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've stood up, playing drums, guitar bass.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just played stupid cover songs and had fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did that for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all right, somebody wanted us to own Tuesday nights as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now we're playing Monday, Tuesday with the cover band.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then let's bring my drummer in for my band.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's make the band a little bigger.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then all of a sudden, we were an eight piece band with horns, keyboard.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were making $5, $8,000 a gig for weddings.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were like, okay, maybe we don't need to be on MTV.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I basically retired my original band, right around 2000, and the cover band rolled, [SPEAKER_01]: From 97, I think as well as when we started, we were called Plain Jane Rocks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we played from 97 to the end of 2018.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had a good 21, 22 year run.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had started playing music as the sound man band leader for the band all through the years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was picking songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was DJing, but didn't even realize that if that makes sense, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so then I got into the actual DJ side of it and when the band retired at the end of 2018, my singer was a little bit older.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, hey, I'm a retired, and that was in like 17 and I was like Bobby give me one more year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's roll out to the end of 2018.
[SPEAKER_01]: because I really had wanted to go to the end of 2020 and retire the band.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank goodness we didn't do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have been the worst year to go out on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we retired at the end of 18 and I was already booked.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know how booked.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was going to be as a DJ, but it went from zero to a hundred real fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I pretty much play every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, I got home from my event Saturday night and I had to get just today from between 12 and 11 PM.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I plan all day yesterday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me about these events or these gigs.
[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of events are gigs?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you typically DJ now?
[SPEAKER_01]: So [SPEAKER_01]: mainly my focus is corporate and wedding stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's gonna be your money makers, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but I'm not gonna sit at home on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, just because I don't have a corporate gig.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have bar gigs, Tuesday night, I'm doing karaoke one bar, Wednesday, I have a trivia gig at reds, and Thursday, I have a bar gig.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm in the public all the time, which is basically paid advertising.
[SPEAKER_01]: So somebody sees me, we need somebody for our Christmas party, hang of us, God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like a snowball to be out there doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only is it paid, I'm having a blast, being out in public, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't party, I don't drink, I don't do anything like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not the working, but I'm having a great time.
[SPEAKER_01]: and in my wife is fully on board with led to me work as much as I can.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have 34 gigs in April.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, there's 30 days.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's it's nonstop.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have, you know, Tuesday, I have two Wednesday, I have two Thursday, I have three weddings this week, and it just, it is nonstop.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm going to take something about me that a lot of people don't [SPEAKER_00]: I had to come up with a side hustle when I first started having kids, so my mom actually out in Colorado, she lives out in Canaan City in 2008.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had come up with this idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, you know, you're a pretty good speaker.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got a pretty good voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not really afraid to stand up front of a bunch of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't you consider getting, you know, ordained and being able to kind of be a minister at weddings?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I've read me like I'm like, you know, it's crazy dude that grew up around a bunch of, you know, wild parties and just I'm like, I don't know if anybody ever take me serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, no, it's not like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: People that hire, you don't know you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're they're hiring, you know, a professional of voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, just try it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in 2008, I got ordained with like some online free or organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I booked my first gig.
[SPEAKER_00]: I charged 500 bucks to get up in front of about 150 people and I was the the last person to arrive and the very first person to leave as soon as the ceremony wrapped up dude I was gone and I was like you know what I get used to this so between 2008 all the way up to about [SPEAKER_00]: probably right around COVID is when I I stopped doing my very last event all the way through, you know, back here in St. Pete all the way out to Colorado even spent a few years in Alabama.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did a hundreds and hundreds of of weddings over the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: As an efficient, [SPEAKER_00]: And I got up to the point where I would charge, you know, to go do the rehearsal, I would run the whole rehearsal, you know, you know, where to stand, what to do, you know, answer questions, organize the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: See you guys tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd go out the next day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do the wedding.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to the point where I was sometimes doing two weddings on a weekend, you know, I would do it another day on a Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you're saying this, I'm like, dude, I'm five in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I completely [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I always, I was always friendly with with the DJ in, you know, um, so it, they kind of, they kind of mix just a little bit because usually the DJs, DJs, the guy that mics me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: So with the music, I got into studio recording.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had my own studio for 20 plus years and, you know, watch that go from tape to digital and then to computer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the tech side of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love speakers and microphones and lighting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have all the fun stuff that I love to work with.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I tell my buddy, he's like, why do you work so much?
[SPEAKER_01]: I get going to play with my equipment, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm having a blast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's it's to me it's I'm not dreading being there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the DJ that loves his job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not the one that's just doing it for to get a check and pay bills.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm having a blast.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel that as far as me to keep going and keep doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel that as a side gig that, you know, doing weddings on the side and only having to do a couple of them a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually used to look forward to them because all eyes were on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was the center of attention, you know, everybody had to shut up and listen to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: and for this guy that was like the high school class clown and you know always wanted to be heard type you know it was like dude it fit my personality so perfect uh to get up there a lot of people used to say man you're crazy dude I can't believe you get up there making acid yourself and you know dude I've seen all kinds of crazy stuff happen at weddings I mean the crazy you can even think of as as a DJ I'm sure you know uh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but anyway [SPEAKER_00]: not it's not it's not really about me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about about DJ in for a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've been doing it a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your opinion.
[SPEAKER_00]: What makes a DJ actually good versus maybe one that's not so good or maybe even just average?
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of it has to do with the personality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you can can connect with the crowd, it doesn't it doesn't always matter what you're playing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean music is important, but [SPEAKER_01]: Don't connect with the crowd.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter what you play, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you connect with the crowd?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you read a crowd?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you connect with the crowd?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I talk to people during the cocktail hour walk around trying to figure out where they're from, you know, talk to them, you know, what do you do where you from?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just so I know, get a vibe, what do you like to hear?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then before we go into the introductions, I'll always give a little speech, introduce myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just say, hey, this is what's going on tonight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let everybody know who I am and what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just try to make it easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not there to be stressful for anybody, especially my client.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want the guests to feel the same way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, we're gonna have a great the time the night after you finish eating, we'll get up and dance.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm just trying to make that, [SPEAKER_01]: make them aware who I am and that introductory speech.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how I do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, well, that makes nothing like they know you, you know, and right, you know, I'm not the DJ that talks between every song and does the hype up, you know, get your hands up.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say a few things here and there and I'll make it.
[SPEAKER_01]: make it important.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've just like you were probably I'm the class clown.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to I'm trying to make you laugh, you know, so I'm going to make fun of the groom if I can or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't go in there with any of that stuff planned.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just off the top of my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to sure make it fun and lighthearted.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah and you know, I've been around the music for so long.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of have a feel like I have my finger on the pulse for some stuff when I get to my wife all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Honey, when you hear me playing stuff that I share me playing, just tell me it's time to give it up, you know, it's time to move on.
[SPEAKER_01]: You gotta go, let's bingo at the home.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when you're not, when you're not cool anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, let me know what that happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's probably said it happened like 10 years ago.
[UNKNOWN]: Ha ha ha.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it's been going to be really strong on you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of cool, where did the idea come from to put DJ booth inside of a split window bus?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, let me tell you how that started.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, a couple of years ago, [SPEAKER_01]: I had started a car, the 64-bug, one of my craziest builds, you were asking earlier about crazy builds.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jason and I, some of my buddy Steve Smart donated this 64-2, brought it to my house and said, hey, do something cool with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it needed heater channels, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jason and I are out there looking at, we just finished building my turbo guilla.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is my favorite car to race.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had just finished it and we said we're not building any more cars because we built that car in 64 days, pan off, raised the narrow transmission, everything, 64 days.
[SPEAKER_01]: We absolutely wore ourselves out.
[SPEAKER_01]: We both lost so much weight that summer because we built it from April to July and had it ready for my show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, he said no more cars were done.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like no more cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Steve brings that car over like the next week in an [SPEAKER_01]: No, let's look at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we go out there and look at it, and eat heater channels.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jason says, all right, let's do something crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, what is this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's cut the heater channels out.
[SPEAKER_01]: body drop it down three and a half inches.
[SPEAKER_01]: And nobody on the, because we had worked on Sean McCarthy's pro stock here at the garage at the house doing some 10 more.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, what are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we're not doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we body dropped it, build a role cage.
[SPEAKER_01]: A guy had bought a car from me with this unbelievable cage built in it from up in New Jersey that Joe Coney had done.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I sold it to my friend and he cut the cage out of the car and shortened it, you know, to cut it out of the car, he had to cut the bottoms off, right, ruined it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he had a hang on the wall and I was like, wait a minute, if he cut two inches off the bottom of that to get out of the car, that's perfect for the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just built Cosby Body Drop at three and a half inches.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, we put a cage in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had David Boot, my, my engine, my gagner and North Carolina built my transmission.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had the wheels made by E.T.
[SPEAKER_01]: some crazy cool wheels.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it's set.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jason and I both got busy a set for years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we were at Folly Beach or our vacation in July, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: After we had done the event, when we used to do it in July.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, Casey, let's add up the gigs we did the first six months of the year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a hundred and ninety-three years off that I went.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think there's a hundred and ninety-three days in six months.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, okay, this is why I'm tired and this is why I can't finish this call.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I call Bob Cook, cookers in Maryland.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, Bob, I got this project I started.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to finish it and I've got all this done and he goes, well, what do you want me to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, I want to drive up to you with my trailer and push the parts out of it into your garage.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you call me when I can come back and drive it into the trailer.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, well, I can do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, [SPEAKER_01]: I said, I know that's why I'm calling you because he's a one-stop shop like custom current works is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't have to sit it around for shops in your waiting five years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we agreed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was that was in July.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a vacation.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were going for a couple of days camping at the beginning of August and in Bob said, get the car to be nailed and I'll get it to you by the end of next season and I went.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait a minute, that's like six months.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we canceled our trip to go camping and we drove up on a Saturday night We bombed at the Maryland drop it off to Bob [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, show up with this crap where you'd put together in my garage and I opened the door and I was like, what if he looks at it and goes get out of here, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: I hate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes in the garage and I mean, it's a trailer and he's like, you've done all the hard work.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, he built me that car.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's turbo hidden behind the package tray, slam, do you can't, you can't understand why it looks so low with the deleted heat, your channels.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like a seven-eight scale car.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, I got that when a guy calls me and says, hey, I've got some stuff for sell and you're the guy I was told that would buy it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I go over to his house.
[SPEAKER_01]: He lives near me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had the 65 bus.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had a 64 son roof bug and a 68.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, all right, I need to sell this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you buy one thing, you have to take everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: All my engines on my parts, all the cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, all right, well, I'll take all of it and I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got the bus and I sold the other two cars to friends that have already fixed them up.
[SPEAKER_01]: The 64 bug isn't in Pennsylvania, you know, and it's unreal.
[SPEAKER_01]: My buddy Eric has the gear up in Rock Hill.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, I get this SO 42 that this guy had kept unbelievable records of.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was delivered new to Charleston in 65.
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew the second and third owners and then this guy got it inside of his garage for 14 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So SO 42 all the camping gear it had been to Costa Rica.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I had no use for it, but I Bob had just finished my goal car and I said, Bob, can we do something like this?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, short.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he comes brings me my goal car, delivers it to the house after a drag night.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he takes the bus home with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're looking at it out here in the front yard.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, yeah, this won't be hard to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll just blend it in some paint or drop it, put a cool engine in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to keep all the camping gear in it, everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he gets it up to Maryland.
[SPEAKER_01]: He starts working on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, well, there's some rust here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, well, there's some rust here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it needed like the lower six inches replace, you know, the inside forepan was needed to be redone at the forepan, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's got it up there and when we start talking I was like, he encouraged me to take the camping gear out.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, you're not going to use it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just all older than we can't restore it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of purists were not very happy with me that I took the SO 42 stuff out of the camper.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, Hey, Bob, what's the cost to put a rack dump, and he said, I don't want to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need one, but what would it cost?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he told me, well, Grumpy's makes an exact replica for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, it would be awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, well, I don't need it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm sitting here at the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: What if I put that rack dump in it?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can stand out of the top in DJ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: What if at the end of the wedding and the bride and groom can stand out of the top?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can drive them off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, they mean.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've caught him back and I said, put the rack top in and I've got to use for now because I had no use before like I said.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when all the sudden, I thought of he can work this into my DJ business.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how I got.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how I got there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, you've seen the video floating or the picture floating around for years with the dude with the top kicked up and he's DJing on the top of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all I just thought that was cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I realized I could do it with the rack top, I was like, [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he did it perfect perfect execution.
[SPEAKER_01]: We painted it all over.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, it eventually told me he's like, we're not blending this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're getting a full paint job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We dropped it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We put the fewks on at a big engine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I, he picked that up in April.
[SPEAKER_01]: November.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she could ask me about a getaway car and I said, well, I don't have one quite yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, but I'm working on this and she goes, what is it not told her?
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: My dad is a Volkswagen guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, if you could have that, she goes to you would not believe how happy that would make him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I call Bob and I said, hey, man, this wedding in four weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, yeah, I'll have it done.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, not a question, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not yelling at me and telling me he could do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, I'll have it done.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I met him in a met his brother Jean in Virginia on 81 and 77.
[SPEAKER_01]: on the Monday, picked it up, carried it home, and I had never driven it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I load my equipment into it for the wedding on Saturday.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the DJ, you know, I could have trailed it to the wedding.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was about an hour drive to where the wedding was.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had never driven it out of my neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm about five miles from my house and I was like, did I just leave my house as the DJ and the ceremony guy in a bus I've never driven and I'm nervous because people are driving by me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a wreck till I got to the venue and we get there, I hit it, we're getting ready to come in on the stairs, they are and I walk up to the dad and I said, hey, can I ask you a question?
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, my daughter's getting ready to come down the stairs and her wedding and I said, I know this is about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, you see that bus over there?
[SPEAKER_01]: I had moved it into the front.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, that's their good way to be here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, I would love for you to drop them off in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I turned back to look at him.
[SPEAKER_01]: thinking he was going to say no, he was gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was already in the bus sitting there with the biggest smile.
[SPEAKER_01]: It made his day.
[SPEAKER_01]: He drove them off with them standing out of the roof.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll send your picture of that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so cool, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the best thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: She said that he got cancer after that and he beat it and she said she sent me the picture of them standing out and she goes, I just want you to know he made it, but we were so happy that he got to do that and that was [SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So actions now, you obviously, this is something that you use, you've incorporated into your business.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are people's reactions?
[SPEAKER_01]: absolutely love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get a lot of the people that don't think it's driveable.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this stays here all the time and my wife is doing a photo booth out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we use it as a photo booth as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: You sit in it in the back seat and you know, just like we're talking about with the backgrounds here for the zoom calls.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I do virtual backdrops and all my photo booths now.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no more sit and something up or just against a wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's.
[SPEAKER_01]: wherever you want to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll put you in the bus and you could be on the beach, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So these guys were in the taking the pictures and we were at a venue that's not far from our house.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the guys were like, this place you're all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she goes, no, we drove it here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, no, no, you didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: This stays at this venue right here all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, [SPEAKER_01]: Well, give me about 15 minutes and I'll let you be the judge of that because I was driving the broad and groom awful later and they're standing out at top.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and then we went home in it, of course, but in the funny reactions, people just absolutely love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the kids, that wasn't one the other day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these kids couldn't have been 15, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, just this drive, I was like, yeah, drove it here in an hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, [SPEAKER_01]: Are those Porsche 911 wheels and I went wait a minute you're 15.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you know that?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was very impressed with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he knew that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's a good reaction.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was get those car guys that stand out, you know, yeah, we're going to use it tonight at our house party here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll set it up as the photo booth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody to get in and DJ from around the side of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll send up pictures of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: We get it going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was in the in the venue hall there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had gone off.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was cold on set.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, dude, it was freezing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had gone off peeled off to use the restroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's this bus in there that's just sitting all by itself with these little in tall speakers, you know, and I'm like, [SPEAKER_00]: What is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just kind of looking at it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I saw some of the pictures in the videos come out from when, you know, the DJ and started or it happened and I'm like, oh, that's what that bus was doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That bus was the center of attention was the whole DJ thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's badass.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was my first kind of, you know, first see first look at that at your bus and [SPEAKER_01]: What if it's great, you know, in Robbie, I remember Robbie was putting the event on and I looked at my calendar and I had had that weekend off and I sent Robbie a message, I said, hey man, you need me help down there for the getaway and he goes, he goes, well, we would love it because I just don't have the budget for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like budget.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, who's asking for money for Robbie?
[SPEAKER_01]: So now care about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to come support me there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's like, well, come on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we were still excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you got me a camp in spot.
[SPEAKER_01]: We brought our camper down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just we just made the biggest weekend out of it, we, it's the, there was the beginning of sick week, it gainsville right on that Sunday.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we came down on Friday and got to see the band playing at night and we showed on on Sunday and I mean on Saturday and then played that night.
[SPEAKER_01]: How boy is it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: cold.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not what we thought Florida was going to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was just glad he put me inside for the Saturday night show because it's supposed to be out on the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: So or the the block party.
[SPEAKER_01]: Born in Turkey.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, spent 12 years of my life out west in Colorado.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can tell you probably on one hand less than five times I'm 48 years old in my entire adult life here in Florida that I remember it being down into the teens.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what it was in Dover Florida that weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was down into freaking teens.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was unbelievably freezing.
[SPEAKER_01]: We wrote over that Sunday, we left and went to Gainesville for for sick week and it was mid afternoon right sunny, but the wind was what was getting it, but you know, the 980 mile drive they're getting ready to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was 40 degrees, you know, it's like the job, do these cars have heaters because I don't think they do but [SPEAKER_01]: We just made a good trip out of him and it was fun and it was great to see everybody down there and people I had seen or it was not right before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, good awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love all these guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Riverbank guys here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're going to be them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brad long, long restoration.
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gary Miller, you know, all the, all the guys that I see at all these events, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: even, you know, day city, bug jam.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get to hang out with a lot of these guys and, you know, I see them time and time again and what a cool community man.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like a challenge.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it was very such a good time and I hope we can make it back this year coming up and I hope it's at least 75.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too.
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm all you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another good thing I'll tell you real quick stories aside from that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're heading down there.
[SPEAKER_01]: My wife's a dance teacher, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can her best friend that they went to high school and greatest school together.
[SPEAKER_01]: They live in Tampa.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, oh, we're coming down for the weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe she comes to see us over at the park.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, we can't go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our daughter's very first recital dance recital is that Saturday.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Kate sees like, oh, I would love to go to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, how do you should go?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was telling Robby about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, how far is it to this high school?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, well, what was going on that weekend?
[SPEAKER_01]: Some other show in Tampa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not Clark show, but what's that gas gorilla?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is that, but that is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like the pirate parade.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the things are closed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's unbelievable.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like several hundred thousand people that flood the streets on Tampa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she wanted to go to the school when I told him what school it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, well, that's not that far from here other than it'd be in this weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, how's she going to get there?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, she's trying to find a car.
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys just take my suburban right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, gave us her, gave us his suburban, she drove, went, got to go see her, what she calls her niece, got to see her very first recital.
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, just how the stars align on all these events.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was, it was, it was different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, Robbie just said throw us his car, go have fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's another, you know, another awesome move of the VW community man, you know, we're just the big, the big family, the big brotherhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give me your opinion on why music and cars go together so well.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you get in your car and you crank up the radio.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's what that's what we did as kids, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: My buddy, he just drove down from, [SPEAKER_01]: Moore's going with Carolina to come to my party tonight, and he's got the little, what's the little square sign on's called from 20 years ago, X, X something, it looks like a little toaster.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, he just drove it out of the cube.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, yeah, that's not that it's the sign on how is it the X to maybe something like that and I said Yeah, I said how was the driving is it's full of speakers in the back.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a dance party all the way down here Well, there you go, so that's that's that's what it is to you know the one in the music and In this in driver run on in your cool car, so that's how it works for me, so [SPEAKER_00]: So you've been, you know, entertainment industry, you know, been doing this, this, this life for, for 25 plus years.
[SPEAKER_00]: What, what do you think it is that's kept you most consistent in, in, in this as a profession?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm a kind of the, do what I say, say what I mean, kind of guy, and, you know, even when I was a guitar player, singer, [SPEAKER_01]: I was with enough practice I could have been terrible, but I was good enough business man to keep you know to keep us busy just because we did what we said we were going to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: My wife used to follow the band before she wrote me into this marriage, but she was just [SPEAKER_01]: She said that one of her biggest things pet peeves with her friends was that they would you know be late She goes they start when they say they're gonna start and they end when they say they're gonna and she goes we've got to get there They're not the band that says you know gates open at 730 or doors.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went at 730 and then they started 10 She said they say they started at what time and that's when they start so it's important real [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the same way with weddings.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're never going to have to worry about if we're going to be there or if we're going to be on the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kept that same work ethic with the DJ and stuff, just knowing I don't want any stress on my clients, my planners, anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny that in the beginning you would get planners wanting to know why we weren't there five hours in advance.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I know you've never worked with this, but we don't need to set [SPEAKER_01]: than you think.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't worry yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, as the planners got to know us and me through the years, they know they got nothing to worry about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I make it easy for them too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and that keeps me busy because they keep throwing me business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, listen, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, talent, quality.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always the hardest to find in people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so when people find that talent, they find that quality, they find somebody they can count on, you know, it's like, why would they want to call anybody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: They, they know, you know, one of my, one of my biggest gigs, one of my very first gigs ever was while we in Hilton head.
[SPEAKER_01]: and Diane Crowley, she opened the wall wing back then, and it became, you know, it became a huge corporation, basically.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I started with her in 93, I think, and I have been with her ever since.
[SPEAKER_01]: She now owns Reds, Ice House, and Mount Pleasant, and I work there all the time, and she has kept me busy and been a part of my life ever since.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's not my second mom, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: You know, why do you, you know, why are you still there?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, because she has paid me a lot of money over these last 30 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if she needs me for a gig, I'm going to be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no no questioning my loyalty there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, no, that's that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what's what's next for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm so happy with where I am right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just playing and having fun and driving these silly cars and having fun with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I don't know that there's a next, I probably, I taught the KC a lot about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm not going to be the 70 year old DJ and it's going to 25 year old Brian and Grim's way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to be the person unless it's a novelty thing at that point, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, look at Grandpa Rock and but I don't know, I can work at this pace, like, I did 350, 359 gigs last year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, in a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think I can work at this place another five years or choose to work at this place But I also don't want to just work myself to death that I don't [SPEAKER_01]: I, you know, I didn't get to go down to know that and that stuff this past weekend because I just, it's right in the middle of my busy season, but I need to start planning to do that kind of stuff because I want to go, I want to be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when, when wanting to go to these shows because more important than working, I'll know, I'll know, I don't need to dial it back, but right now I'll just have too much fun and, you know, working this month of for me to be able to, [SPEAKER_01]: build these ridiculous cars and have fun with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, heck yeah, luckily, I'll send you some pictures of this one I picked up, just this past Sunday, I've had it a week now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bob call me a couple months ago, Bob Cote and he said, hey, I built this car for a client.
[SPEAKER_01]: She wants to sell it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's a sister car.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks exactly like one that he built for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: start blue in 1951 split when they're dark blue on fuchs hers was a convertible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mine's a rag top and I said yeah, I want that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we, we text her and discuss a price.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never seen the car in person didn't see it now.
[SPEAKER_01]: He built it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think 14 years ago, 2012.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um, [SPEAKER_01]: And he, I send her a check and he decided he's going to go pick it up for me because it's close to him and we're going to do a few things to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm at a gig working and I start getting these picture after picture from Bob and it's on the lift and it's underneath and it's under the fender and the engine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, man, have you detailed this already?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the bottom is shinier than any car that I have at home because I haven't done a thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: She never drove it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wait, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: She built a full restoration convertible bug and never done what he said she took it out drove around the neighborhood got stuck on a speed bug because she had four girls in the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they got stuck and she took it back home and never got ready again.
[SPEAKER_01]: The tires were square from sitting on the tires for 14 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: It had the same gas and when he dropped it off to her 14 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we got to be kidding me, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so he got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, clean the tank.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had sent a 2275 with him to put in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: David had just built for me and we put new tires on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: and he met me last Sunday, we met at a sheet, not a sheet's, yeah, a sheet's castation in Mount Eri North Carolina.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're sitting there, we're eating, we're telling jokes and stories and stuff, and we're talking about when Bob came to my very first event in 2009.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Bob had adopted a baby in Russia.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had flown home with the baby to Atlanta, with the new [SPEAKER_01]: on a thick on Friday.
[SPEAKER_01]: His wife flew back to Maryland with the baby and Bob came to my event.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, he let you do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, so we're talking.
[SPEAKER_01]: We said, well, how old is Gavin now?
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, he goes, uh, his birthday is right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's 18.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, [SPEAKER_01]: You're sitting here with us at a sheet's gas station.
[SPEAKER_01]: He can turn this in with just a few guns.
[SPEAKER_01]: Birthdays right now said, let's go.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to all we got up and he drove him back home.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, that's when I picked up the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: I brought it home and I cleaned it up and worked on all kinds of stuff this whole week so we could take you to this show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it would be wonderful, whatever, at the show this week.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so anyway, that's like, yeah, I can't wait to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to keep working so I can have cars and stuff like that, because I don't have kids, some of my kids are Volkswagen's.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I got enough for both of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got five kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So because I have five kids, I don't quite have the budget to have as much fun on these cars as you do, but it's okay, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am absolutely full to the brim and it's all good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love my kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: I give them, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: I try to give them as a best of life as a possibly cam.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ones that are driving, they all have cars.
[SPEAKER_00]: I try not to let them worry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think education is my first focus for them and not making them feel like they have to worry.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I moved out when I was 17.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I had a rough, a pretty rough time, you know, trying to make my way through.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was always the knucklehead that had to learn the hard way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started from the bottom.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like, you know, way too many times.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just told myself, when I met my wife 25 years ago, [SPEAKER_00]: you know, when we have kids, they're not ever, ever going to struggle the way that I had to, you know, in my youth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to make sure of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have five kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: My last one is is also an adoptive child, but I will absolutely work, you know, hand over fist.
[SPEAKER_00]: to my knuckles, believe, whatever I have to do, three jobs, five jobs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care what, you know, I'll do it all to make sure that they don't have to struggle the way that I had to.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, you know, work ethic, all that stuff, you know, education, super important to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: My wife went to Rollins in Orlando.
[SPEAKER_00]: She got her, her master's in elementary ed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she did that just the home school, my kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: and that's what that's, you know, she's a fantastic, they're privileged and lucky, you know, they didn't have to go to a public high school like I did, you know, and all that fun stuff, but, you know, it's kind of unique because [SPEAKER_00]: They stand out everywhere they go.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're good kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're well entered.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're respectful, you know, growing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to think, you know, maybe home schooled kids might not, you know, they might not hit that well for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm like, man, they're gonna be anti-social.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're gonna be this.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're gonna be that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all just kind of stigma stuff that you, you know, that you hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, they're like, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: upper class kids I got one that's you know 18 he's been an MMA since he was five he kicks ass he went to golden gloves as a boxer in in last year 17 years old he won you know his first first championship day one he won second day he wins he makes it all the way to the championship match and loses that one but dude we're talking he's going up against the best guys in the state of Florida and he's and he's he's dusting him and he's tough and he's
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, smart and just all that dude and and it goes into all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all have their own special skill sets.
[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter about a time she was 16 and finished high school at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: She already had her AA, you know, from college from just being, you know, an overachiever, you know, my wife just sets her up like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's at 20.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's already a cosmatologist.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's already working in her career.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's what I wanted, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want them to launch properly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want them to have to move out and struggle.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want them to launch and have a life, you know, and so anyway, enough of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had parents like you.
[SPEAKER_01]: My, my dad worked to put my brother and myself through college.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was never a question of if we were going to pay for our own college, my mom, same way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, they paid for our college.
[SPEAKER_01]: They took care of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was always food on the table no matter what, you know, I came home at four in the morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom would get up and cook.
[SPEAKER_01]: And today should do the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so we're not when, when 94 when my band was getting busy, [SPEAKER_01]: And I went to her who had just paid for my college education.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's also a school teacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, Mom, I'm thinking about not signing my contract and teaching anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one full well, she's going to say, I just paid for your college.
[SPEAKER_01]: You better keep teaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, well, why don't you give the music a try.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may never have another chance.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go ahead and do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was that was 94.
[SPEAKER_01]: So 32 years ago, and I haven't had a job since because this is not a job to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, he did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, my mama knows best, baby, mama.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went home to see her Easter and I've been trying to eat a little bit differently lately.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was not eating after three o'clock when I was up there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she just couldn't understand that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: She made this meal for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Huge meal, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: She's in.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, making him all happy by not eating.
[SPEAKER_01]: So at nine o'clock, then next morning, when I went eating window reopened, I had live up beans, mac and cheese.
[SPEAKER_01]: Six or eight devil eggs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything she fixed me for dinner the night before.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a huge, much at nine in the morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was so happy to see me eat all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, describe the VW community for me in just one word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tight knit is one word less.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got a compound word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tight knit.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you know, you know, people were all close, you know, we, we, we, we start talking and we know a bunch of the same people and, [SPEAKER_01]: It's we know we know good people and I think that's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say good.
[SPEAKER_01]: How about we use that word.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can take it.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got some rapid fire style questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are great that demand the fast response.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, if a story comes of any of them, I'm not going to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to cut you off or try to stop you feel free to tell a story, but they are designed to be [SPEAKER_00]: Shoot.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Favorite VW model of all time?
[SPEAKER_00]: Carming gear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carming gear.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got one.
[SPEAKER_00]: 71.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just put a vintage air cool steering wheel in it today actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have one in mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a 70.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have two carming gears.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a 65 and a 70.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this 71.
[SPEAKER_00]: We found it from my wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's her favorite air cooled car of all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was green.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she had to have it because it's an auto clutch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, she didn't want to stick.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you want to drive an old classic Volkswagen?
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want it to be a stick shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, nah, it's just, that's just what I want.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you can find one great if not, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, no, I'm going to find you the car.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just going to have to be, you know, in early 70s, I think 68 to 70.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to find it for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I found it in Pennsylvania.
[SPEAKER_00]: We drove up to a barn.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found a one-owner with 46,000 original mile on the gas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and we picked it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I paid a little over 12,000 for it, which to me was a good deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just about two years ago, and it's our favorite car, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she absolutely loves it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so quiet, you know, it's stock everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so strong and so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just so quiet and just such a great little car.
[SPEAKER_00]: to continue, you know, she loves it, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I keep adding.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in pieces to it making it nice and classy for, you know, left and right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's got to make such cool stuff there down there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they do a good part.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, how about this one, split window or bay window if you're looking at buses.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like him both.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never owned a ballast until I got this 65.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in my first one is a split, very lucky, but I love, I love the look of like a 70, but a window slammed, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, early back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm 50, 50 on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay, and that's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: That I, I got a bad back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, I, I'll kind of start that thought with that with that statement because of that bad back anytime I'm ever in a split, they're kind of, you know, I got to tuck my head and, you know, they're, they're tight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, based to me, just feel like they're a tiny bit more roomy for, for movement for my head and and just my, my little baby back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so I just like [SPEAKER_00]: I like a safari windshield on a bay, uh, so I just like that to me, it's such an nostalgic look in the early bay window transport, not even a camper, just a transport or just a tentop, uh, like me, me too, me too, all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Best song to cruise in a VW two.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, give me something from Bob Marley, three little birds, could this be love?
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me any of those.
[SPEAKER_01]: Could you be great?
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, from.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I can feel it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can feel it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, man, you are automatic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, definitely manual.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lared on a manual was a kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: My granddad had a 84 ranger.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, today you're pretty easy to draw out.
[SPEAKER_01]: That 84 Ranger was nearly impossible to drive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, he was trying to get me to learn driving uphill.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a sharp hill, but just a little.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we had gone the other direction, I think it could have figured it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that was my first lesson.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our first experience on driving was the 84 Ranger.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why plainness could be a lot of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I learned how to drive on a Honda Civic, but my first stick shift that I owned was a 1984 Volvo 240BL.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I learned it was a coupe, and I learned how to get it out of first gear.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the first day that I got that car, I'm on St. Pete Beach, and I'm going up the causeway, and I get stuck at the bridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm on this uphill right and every time I would take my foot off the break to try to, you know, fan the clutch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would jerk the whale and, you know, oh man, I would dump the clutch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd stall it.
[SPEAKER_00]: People behind me beeping.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've never, you never don't bother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I finally might be good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can use the e-break and just fan that clutch.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I learned that pretty pretty quick as a 16 year old kid, but maybe 17 actually at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I am, I am not the guy that divides so let's see them apply that to music back when when I started the band there seemed to be this [SPEAKER_01]: the band tension, and I never had that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how we put bands together to become that super band and what we call it in a bag then.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not, I'm not going to say either one of the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, VW seemed to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's no divine.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like the Snoop Dogg, like the Snoop Dogg music, you know, he was East Coast and West Coast, you know?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, how about dream event that you haven't been to yet?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you got a busy schedule, is there one that you really want to go to?
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to go to Texas versus the world down there in September, you know, my my schedule used to be there was a there was a season for weddings.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Charleston is such a destination area for weddings.
[SPEAKER_01]: That my season is now year round.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go on in third week of or second or third week of September is just so hard for me when the big weddings are that weekend, but one day like I told you earlier, I'm going to start taking these weekends also I can do that kind of stuff, but [SPEAKER_00]: Mine got to go up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rich.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to hit buses by the bridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: That too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got to do it in a bay window, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a, if I had to answer it, that's how I'd answer it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would definitely love to take my DJ bus out there and play some music for them for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll, I'll, I'll take a split window for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Me too, shoot.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, how about this one?
[SPEAKER_00]: One tool that you can't live without.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, those little impact screwdriver is that I used to do stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just using it to fix stuff earlier for the party.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love those Nova walkie.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't remember the the the model name, but they're the coolest little things with the small batteries now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're lightweight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, lightweight red ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so love that cool stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, I sit there and screw things and bolt things to get [SPEAKER_01]: When I was 15, I was turning to screwed 400 times to put that wood screw in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like more, you got exactly how I took my engine out of the parking lotter in the driveway back then.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, but I did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: about this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most underrated VW model of all time underrated.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Soraka, along the Soraka is from the 80s man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a clash of pictures of that for the YouTube listeners and viewers when when when when I put this up on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm struck as [SPEAKER_00]: Somebody listen and right now thinking about getting into the Volkswagen scene, the Volkswagen culture, what advice do you have for them?
[SPEAKER_01]: By a $60 ticket for one of the cars I'm giving away, he's getting pretty cheap if you win.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's just like there's some friends of mine that only weren't early, early, early model stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: on the drum and nicely built that I can have fun in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, funny, the one directly behind me, my, that was the, that car was my high school replica car that I built back in 2014.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was purple, flames, just how I did it in high school.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I read you did it to that level, they're bobbed it for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Bob's like, there's no reason you should be putting money in this leg model.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not worth it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, well, doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to do it because all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he built it to that level right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The dark blue, the fuchs, it's got a 2110, a little 10 to 1 compression.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll have absolutely scoot around town.
[SPEAKER_01]: We put a rag top in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Bob gets it finished and he says me a text and he said, [SPEAKER_01]: This is the coolest car, and I was like, who said this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not Bob that only wants 49 with cable breaks.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said he said it just rides good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so quick, and he said, and I don't worry about it because it's a 70 and I don't care if it gets scratched up or whatever, and I was like, see, there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were on a something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, just get something and get into the scene is how you get started.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what the double life is all about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Passion, creativity, building something that's completely your own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Looking at you, this episode, Scott didn't just stay in one lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: He blended music, cars, community into a lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brother, that's rare.
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate you coming on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I've taken enough of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a wrap for this episode of Dub Life Diaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for riding along with us, and diving into these incredible stories of the people in the dub that drive their dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you love today's episode, don't forget to subscribe or hit that follow button so you never miss an adventure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a story to tell or know somebody else who's living the dove life?
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reach out to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find us on all socials and dove life diaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or shoot me an email.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not hard to find.
[SPEAKER_00]: Double life diaries at gmail.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, keep the engine tummen and the wheels turn in and always follow the road that inspires you.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Joe Person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm signing off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll catch you on the next ride.
About this episode
Scott Sain (DJ Insane) and the hosts trace how Volkswagen culture blends cars, music, and community. Scott explains his start with two 70 Beetles in 1986, then moving from drag racing into street builds, including a 1775 with a bigger cam and the lesson that cooling matters on air-cooled engines. The show also covers event vibes—“It’s a party that we happen to have a drag race at.”—plus how VW scenes change as parts get scarce, and how giveaway cars and ticketing help fund future shows.
Original notes
Episode 65 of DubLife Diaries brings on longtime Volkswagen enthusiast, drag racer, event promoter, and professional DJ (Insane) Scott Sain for an unforgettable conversation packed with classic VW culture, racing history, music, and community. From buying his first Bugs for just $70 in the 1980s to building some of the most recognizable grassroots VW events in the Southeast, Scott shares the journey that turned a passion into a lifestyle.
We dive into the evolution of the Volkswagen scene, Scott’s drag racing roots, his boutique-style events like VW Drag Knight and German Air Drag Day, and the incredible stories behind his custom car giveaways that help fund the community while giving back. Scott also talks about transforming a restored split-window bus into a fully functional mobile DJ booth, his career performing over 300 events a year, and why the VW world continues to feel like family after all these years.
This episode is full of nostalgia, inspiration, hilarious stories, and genuine passion for the air-cooled community. Whether you're into vintage Volkswagens, event culture, racing, music, or entrepreneurship, this one delivers.
🎙️ Hosted by Joe Person
🚗 Air-cooled culture, drag racing, music, community, and unforgettable stories
🔥 Featuring: Scott Sain
#DubLifeDiaries #Volkswagen #VWLife #AirCooled #VWDragRacing #ClassicVW #SplitWindowBus #VWCommunity #BeetleLife #KarmannGhia #Podcast
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/dublife-diaries-the-vw-lifestyle-podcast/donations
DubLife Diaries The VW Lifestyle Podcast
Joe Person
0:00
92:27