Choppin' it up with Chad Axford
Annotations will appear as you listen
0:00
65:35
Car
Dodge Charger
The Dodge Charger is a car built for strong acceleration and sporty driving. People often upgrade them with performance parts, and that can affect how reliable the car feels over time. The podcast is likely talking about problems with parts and how upgrades were used to change performance.
Term
carbon fiber
Carbon fiber is a strong, lightweight material used on some cars. People use it to make the car lighter and sometimes stiffer, which can help performance.
Term
mile an hour
“Mile an hour” is just how speed is measured—how many miles the car travels in one hour. Here, it’s being used to describe how fast the car can go.
Term
hardtail
A hardtail is a bike setup where the back doesn’t have suspension—it’s a rigid rear end. The speaker is using it as a reference to their earlier vehicle experience.
Term
dragster
A dragster is a purpose-built drag racing car optimized for straight-line acceleration, typically with a very lightweight, minimal “tool” approach rather than comfort or styling. Because it’s built around racing, many owners treat it like equipment you can upgrade or replace rather than something you emotionally “attach” to.
Concept
door cars
“Door cars” just means regular-looking cars with doors, compared with dragsters that are built only for racing. The host is basically saying he prefers the race-focused dragster style.
Car
Chevrolet Nova
The Chevrolet Nova is a classic muscle car that people modify for faster acceleration. In the podcast, the Nova is described as having a supercharger (“blower”), which helps it make more power. The bumper being dragged suggests it was being driven hard and fast.
Term
baby blower
A “blower” is a device that forces extra air into the engine to make more power. Calling it a “baby” blower usually means it’s a smaller supercharger than the biggest ones you see on top drag cars.
Term
drug the bumper
“Drug the bumper” means the car’s front bumper scraped the ground while it was racing. That usually happens when the car sits very low or launches so hard that it squats and loses clearance.
Concept
top sportsman
“Top Sportsman” is a drag-racing class/category used in bracket racing events, typically for faster, more competitive cars than basic sportsman divisions. The discussion implies participation is changing, which affects how competitive the class feels at events.
Term
pro mod
“Pro Mod” is a drag-racing category for cars that are heavily modified to go extremely fast. It’s not a stock car—teams build them specifically for racing.
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
The Chevrolet Camaro is a sporty car that’s made to feel fast and exciting to drive. It’s a popular model people recognize easily, so it often comes up when someone is talking about cars they’ve seen or owned. In the podcast, it sounds like it was mentioned as a reference point.
Term
IHRA
IHRA is a group that organizes drag-racing events. Saying it was an “IHRA race” means it was part of their official racing series.
Concept
dialed
“Dialed” means the racer picked a target time before the run. They’re trying to launch and drive in a way that matches that target as closely as they can.
Term
door cards
“Door cards” are the door-area panels where racers put their run info. When someone says they have a number there, it usually relates to the target time they’re trying to run.
Car
Pontiac Firebird
The Pontiac Firebird is a classic performance car. In the podcast, they’re talking about how good a particular Firebird looks and whether it’s been updated with things like lights and gauges. It’s mentioned because the car’s condition and details matter to the people discussing it.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a sports car from Ford that’s known for being fun to drive. The podcast is describing a moment where someone didn’t realize a Mustang was involved until it showed up. That’s why it’s being mentioned—because it was a notable car in the scene.
Car
Honda Cord
The Honda Accord is a regular everyday car that’s built to be reliable. The podcast mentions it because someone drove it a very long distance for a move. That’s a good example of using a dependable car for long trips.
LIVE
Happy Monday night.
It's back on the bracket breakdown.
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms yesterday,
hot moms included, junior moms included, and my wife.
Especially the junior moms, man.
We're grateful for all of you,
and we hope you guys got the day that you deserved.
That was a good one, man. What'd you do?
You cook up a dinner or something? You do something nice?
We made some French toast in the morning,
and then we visited the in-laws for the rest of the day,
and hung out with my mother-in-law,
and then we'll celebrate my mother on Tuesday night.
We're going to have a pool party.
I got my kids out back having a pool party right now.
It's hot. It's like 87 degrees in my house right now.
Score. How about you? Anything fun?
Well, I got up super early in the morning yesterday,
and caught a plane in St. Louis,
and I got home about 2.30.
We'd done a bunch of shopping with the kids last week,
and then stopped and grabbed a couple extra things
on the way home from the airport,
and we had a present and dinner,
and some Dubai chocolate cake, you know,
and just kind of hung out.
I've been gone 56 days,
so it was nice to just get home and chill.
Tell our listeners where you were.
I was a little bracket race out back east,
just a little weekend deal.
No, man, kicking things off with TB Promotions
for the 2026 season,
the twin fifties out there at Worldwide Technology,
formerly known as Gateway.
And, man, just for me, the opportunity of a lifetime,
I'm running around there like a kid in a candy store
just on cloud nine.
I love this stuff so much,
and to get an opportunity like that,
Brian and Tyler putting a lot of trust in me
to come out and be on the team,
shared the booth with Steve Pointer,
and when I wasn't on the mic running around,
you know, whatever Brian needed,
from just keeping the water and the ice full
to, you know, doing whatever, man.
It's a team effort, and it's cool,
because everybody does everything, right?
It's like nobody's above any job, right?
When the storms came in,
and we were losing all our tans and canopies,
and everything's flying, right?
It's all hands on deck.
And so it's just, that's a fun,
I like how they got that set up, right?
It really is a team effort,
and amazing experience, man.
Heck of an event.
I mean, just filthy, filthy stuff,
all weekend long.
It's like, we were talking a little bit in the pre-show.
I mean, those kind of races, it's always filthy, right?
The kind of people, especially over four days,
T.B. and I were talking about,
it's like, you might have some weird things happen here or there,
around here or there, even a day here or there,
but over the course of four days,
eventually the cream will rise to the top,
and we saw that, right?
You look at the winners and runner-ups
all the way across the board.
The cream will rise to the top,
but just sitting in the lanes with Chris Whitfield,
hanging out one time during some downtime,
and he's like, man, I don't know.
He's like, I'm six, take eight, no good.
Nine, take four, no good.
And I look at my slip,
and it's like, I'll do the same thing over again.
But it was just that filthy,
leading into the final,
I guess it was the Saturday race.
I don't remember, because they all got kind of combined
and overtop of each other because of weather,
but Tim Foley's doubled at three,
and leading into that goes trips,
two passes in a row.
It was just filthy stuff,
but a ton of fun, man, had a blast.
Hopefully the folks in the pitch didn't get tired of hearing me
because they got really good PA system there.
So you hear everything the whole time.
If you're parked under the tower,
they have like a speaker tower out in the middle of the pits.
If you're parked under that,
you probably not listen to this podcast today
because you've got your fill in me over the last four days.
But yeah, man, had a great time, time in my life,
a little downtime for the next couple of weeks,
and we'll do it all over again,
headed out to trails here in a few weeks for the TB75.
So good time.
And we'll have somebody on here in a few minutes
that made a pretty good run out there.
Oh, yeah.
Why don't we just bring them on right now?
Let's do it.
Mr. Chad Axport.
What's going on, guys?
There he is.
How are you doing, boss?
Good, good.
And just set the record straight.
We didn't get too much of you.
We love hearing you call laps.
It's good to get a fresh voice out there.
It's the first race I've been to.
I believe that you were calling the laps,
and it's a nice change of pace.
You did great this weekend.
Like you said, the whole TB crew, solid.
Everybody, it's an all hands on deck.
You can tell.
I said that in my interview after Bailey whooped me.
Everybody's there because I love it, and you can tell.
There's nobody there that's begrudgingly just doing their job.
Everybody seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it.
Yeah, man, it's a good time.
And you can tell everybody else is having a good time.
And when you've got that kind of rapport
and that mutual enjoyment and excitement, right?
It's hard not to have fun.
The days are long.
None of us got a lot of sleep, but you know,
how do you not enjoy hanging out with 400 people
who all love doing what you love to do and doing it at a high level
and doing it for big time, big time money?
I loved going, we'll skip forward a little bit here.
I loved, you know, in the lanes, you and Bailey about to,
about to knock down, drag it out for 50 grand.
Y'all in the lanes just laughing and talking,
keeping it cool, keeping it loose.
Just love to love to see that, man.
Yeah, Bailey and I've, we've always kind of gotten along real well.
We're not obviously, I don't talk to Bailey every day,
but every time it's, you know, it's a, hey, how's it been?
How are you?
And there's a lot of respect there.
Bailey's an amazing racer.
He's very smart, very talented.
And it's like you said, there's so many people on that level.
It's unreal how good bracket racing's gotten in the last,
I think the last 10 years.
I mean, it's always been tough, but technology and just everybody's
leveled up in my opinion.
Yeah.
I mean, everybody's leveled up in the equipment.
Like, I mean, there's some nice stuff.
Like, I'm looking at some of those hot rods.
Oh, anything Costin owns.
Yeah.
It's just.
Yeah, absolutely.
So legit.
So yeah, a lot of fun, man.
Thanks for coming on.
You're, you're one of the guys that we've claimed out here on the
West coast for a long time.
And you, you made the jump through the other side of the Rockies,
but a lot of love for you out here still.
And you still, you still show up, right?
And you still represent out here on the West coast as you did a couple
of weeks ago.
And so I think we'll get into that a little bit too.
But Park, where'd you want to kick things off?
Yeah, I, that's exactly where I wanted to kick off.
He's had a heck of a start of the year.
Obviously he got down to the semis in the spring fling million just
this last weekend.
He run it up a 50 grander out in St. Louis.
So Chad's on a heater.
What are your plans for the rest of this season?
You know, that's a, it's a hot topic around here right now.
I was just talking to my dad about that today.
I had a hard time touching something that's working in this car we've
put together is it's clicking.
Everything's clicking right now.
The original plan was to go super comp racing.
We've got that D three bonus fund from Fentraktor here.
So they've got, I think it's like 10 grand to win a championship.
It pays quite a bit of money for first through 10.
So that was the original plan.
We have a sports national here next week.
I think I'm going to hit that.
We've discussed throwing a little baby blower on this deal just for
super comp.
Do it.
Yeah, that's, that's, you know, we've done it before.
So I've got information and we've got everything sitting on the
shelf.
It's just, do we pull the trigger and touch something that's working
so well, but I go back to, like you said, the million.
I was going for 20s.
So I'm not too scared to step things that direction again.
It's just, it's hard to touch something when it's working, you know,
but you and me are the like exact opposite.
Like I can't help myself.
I don't matter how good that thing's working.
It's like Parker.
He's seen it firsthand.
I've had a rough couple of years with parts failure.
We, I did the whole pro charger deal for a while and we came up with a
phrase.
The rods are so nice.
I get to see him twice.
It was rough.
We went through it for a few years.
So this whole plug the charger and put a little methanol back in it.
It's been kind of a relief.
You know, I haven't had to work on anything in a few weeks.
I, I, I have seen your fair share of unfortunate circumstances,
but things are holding together right now.
And that, that ride that you got right now is really nice piece.
You, you started building cars kind of for a living, I guess, right?
Maybe it was a side hustle, but you've put together a lot of cars.
I just kind of want to know what, what your favorite car you've ever put
together is.
I'd say the, the coolest one that I've ever done would be that new
Moles car had in 20, I guess it was two years ago.
So it would have been 23.
Geron painted it and everything carbon fiber, everything brand new.
And you know, we rolled the thing out in Phoenix and it goes 620 at 225
mile an hour.
It's like, you know, I started in an old hardtail that my parents,
I mean, you know, I, everything to my parents, they made my junior
happen.
They made my first big car happen.
They've made everything happen.
But it was kind of cool.
Dad and I rolled that thing out of the trailer and just kind of looked
at it for a minute.
It's like, it's come a long way, man.
It was definitely my favorite.
How many cars do you think you've owned over the years?
Yeah, you know, I don't know the owned question, but a while back
somebody posted like, how many cars have you driven?
And it was over 140 at the time and everything I've sat in this year is
new to that number two.
I mean, obviously Trimps new M&M car, which is what I was driving
at Tucson and Vegas.
And then this Moles, we just picked up out of Florida.
Yeah, it's, it's a lot.
It's got to be 75 ish.
Do you, I see you mostly run dragsters, but do you prefer dragsters
over door cars or dragsters as more of a convenience?
The dragster is a tool.
I feel like, and there's some that will argue obviously,
status and birch and everything.
I feel like a dragster is easier to make better.
There's door cars out there that are absolutely unreal.
There's no, there's no debate about that.
But I've always called dragster a tool, which is why I don't get attached
to them, you know, you can buy a new tool.
They sell new ones.
But as far as the fun factor, man, the most fun I've ever had
was driving that six flat Nova that had the baby blower and drug
the bumper.
And that was the most fun.
My buddy Braden still got it sitting in the corner.
And I hope one day he goes, Hey, man, let's get the band back together
because I'm in.
Nice.
That does sound like a lot of fun.
And it's funny because, you know, the dragster guys tend not to get
attached to their cars much.
And right.
And the door car guys do.
I mean, I've been shopping for my next race car since the day I rolled
my first one out, but anytime I get close or I see something that
might work or that might be in my range, like even still, I'd have to
get rid of my current car to do it.
And I just can't ever bring myself to do it.
And it's not the best car.
It's pretty good, right?
But it's not that after anything.
And yeah, it's like, I love that thing, especially being my first.
It's like, I just need to buy my second.
Maybe that's the one that would become the tool.
It makes it easier.
Yeah.
Always keep the first and then the second one can rotate.
I think that's what goes to happen.
So you did talk a little bit about you, you started in a junior.
How did, how did that progress?
You lived in California, right?
And then you moved to Vegas.
Correct.
Yeah.
I grew up in Sacramento, just outside, but I didn't get in a junior
dragster until I was 13.
My dad raised Volkswagen's and that was a thing where they ran two
times a year.
So we went to the racetrack two times a year.
And I don't remember when I first saw a junior dragster.
I'd say it was probably 11 or 12.
It was a conversation they had.
They're like, Hey, do you want to do it?
And so the first car we got was Casey Grizzles old car.
He was aging out and I tipped it over in a parking lot the first
day I ever sat in one because Gary's standing at the parking
lot and he said turn, I turned it like it was a go cart and we
tipped it on over.
But yeah, we started in juniors.
We ran that car for a year and then my parents, you know, they
said, Hey, if you're going to take this seriously, they ordered
a new half scale.
We had James at Cheetah put the car together and I was lucky,
man.
I started at 12.
We got the new car at 13 at 15 was the only time we went to
Denver.
I was able to win Western conference finals.
So we did, you know, a lot of cool stuff.
We won the Dell clocks, Dell Cox Classic.
So we got to do a lot as a family when I was a kid.
It clicked together early, which was cool.
Well, and then you just kept rolling, right?
And now to this point, what you've got 22 national event
wins at least.
How many you got?
I should know the answer to that.
I think it's two.
Yeah, I have two because Jim, Jim Glenn snatched the other one
from me and I don't do a whole lot of NHRA racing.
I won the sports nationals here in 19 or 20 and that was, that
was one of the things I was sitting on the couch, not racing.
And I just happened to pull up the qualifying order.
It's at Bowling Green.
It's 35 minutes away.
And I was like, man, they only had 19 or 20 cars.
We threw that thing in the trailer, showed up for Q3 and ended
up winning.
It was awesome.
Nice.
And then I don't think I ran another NHRA national event for a
while, was able to win Phoenix a couple years back.
Yeah, I haven't staged in a national event.
Probably it's, it's probably been eight, 10 months.
Like it's something I'll dabble in.
Obviously, if you get a run going a couple years ago, we finished
top 10 in TD.
It's like, then you have to go to them, but it's hard for me to
turn off the mode where we go race 56 times in a weekend
and then you go sit there and watch fuel cars for three days
and you got to get your head on straight twice a day and one of
them's early in the morning, you know?
So it's a different world for sure.
Do you enjoy, I mean, obviously there's, but they're both a
challenge, right?
You got one challenge because you're running, running, running.
And you got to stay locked in for 18 hours, but because you're
running for 18 hours, right?
Or 12 hours or whatever it is.
And then the other case, you got to stay locked in for, for 18
hours because you're only going to run once every 18 hours.
You know, and so do you, do you enjoy that different challenge
or just like it's, you just want to turn a lot more laps.
So you, so you go the other way or do you not enjoy it as much
or?
No, it's definitely, I like the challenge.
And Parker will tell you, it's like you wake up, like we've run
national events, especially like Phoenix.
It'll be 105 degrees on Thursday when you make your time runs.
And you got to run the semis Sunday morning before the pros and
it's 68 degrees outside.
What are we doing here?
So it's definitely, it's more, not going to say it's more difficult,
but it's a different, it's a different realm.
There's just so many more factors and you add in the throttle
stuff and that super comp, super gas, super street.
Like it's not just how fast do we think it is.
It's how much do I slow my stuff down to, you know, still be where
I want it to be.
But I love the NHRA stuff.
It's just, it's not prevalent around here.
It's not a big thing, but, but I do enjoy it.
Like I'm going to Norwalk.
I don't know if you guys have ever been in Norwalk.
It's a bucket list race track.
It's cool.
Every year my dad's like, we're going back to the ice cream track.
Yeah, man, we're going to go.
It's just a cool experience.
Well, and you've got a unique perspective on, right?
It's totally opposite, right?
Out there, it's not prominent.
You've got bracket racing.
You know, you got five, 10 granders to choose from every Saturday night,
you know, within two hours in any direction.
Um, and exact opposite out here, right?
Where that's not prominent here and NHRA is what it is.
The tracks are more than two hours apart, but, uh, but so you've got
to experience both West Coast style and now that Midwest and East Coast
style.
Talk a little bit about that because I'm always trying
to tell folks who don't know.
What's like you said, like at West, you, you know, your schedule right up
front.
This is what you're doing.
These are the NHRA races.
You want races, what you're going to, and you'll have a local bracket
race, maybe once a month that pays $800, $1,000.
And that's just what it is out there this weekend.
I don't think I'm going to travel.
I'm going to run for five grand at us 60 on Saturday and five grand at
Bowling Green on Sunday.
They're both an hour and the other one's 35 minutes away.
I get to sleep in my own bed and we're spoiled.
We don't realize it.
Like you, the people that have never experienced the West Coast, it's
like, this is a luxury to me.
I can wake up and pay $100 and run for five grand on Sunday.
I don't have to go anywhere.
You don't have to plan your whole life around it.
Like that deal we just did in Reading.
That's a huge deal out there here.
And somebody goes, Oh, it's 27 granders.
I'm not going.
It's two very different worlds for sure.
Yeah, man.
It is a big deal out here.
And I wasn't able to get down there, had other things going on.
My car is not ready for one.
So I had been just watching anyway, but definitely want to get down there
and race and I hope you keep putting stuff on.
But it's a huge deal to us out here.
And we appreciate anybody who's willing to put it on the line,
get out, put themselves out there a little bit and try to put on a show.
So appreciate, even though you're a long way from home now, right?
Out here.
Appreciate you just taking the initiative and putting something together for us.
You know, we don't have a ton of racers.
So you're never going to get 900 cars at anything out here.
But, but, you know, you can pull 100, 150 if you got a good program
and you pick the right weekend.
And so, and that's a big, you know, you get a hundred entries out here
in a big money race.
You've done pretty well.
So just appreciate your man.
And maybe we can take it there right now.
Talk a little bit about, you know, Redding riches and how that went.
Absolutely.
Talk about the winners just a little bit.
Let's dive into it.
So obviously you, you and Tony Trim teamed up to put on this Redding Riches event
and pretty cool deal.
Two days.
I mean, there are three days, but two days for the Maines.
7,500 to win in Super Pro, which is pretty dang awesome out here.
So let's dive into how you came up with the pay structure
and what you think you'll do moving forward.
We know this was actually like the third revision of this deal.
When we first talked, Tony was like, let's have, you know,
we thought we were going to do three 10 granders.
And then the more I talked to, you know, I did a lot of research with the racers.
One of the people I relied on a lot was Henry Robertson.
Henry's like the heartbeat of West Coast bracket racing, man.
He knows everybody and he's got everyone's opinion on tap and Henry.
I've known Henry since I was a little kid.
He's not afraid to tell me how it is.
And so, you know, at first we wanted three 10s and obviously, you know,
your entry fee is high to do things like that out there.
And he said, look, man, I don't know about this.
He said, I'm all in, you know, everybody that we grew up with is all in.
He goes, but you're going to have to get the people from out of town.
And so that's when I talked to people like Nero and Sefton and things like that.
It's, you know, we came up with the, you don't have to take four days off work to come to this deal.
We had tests in tune on Friday.
Everybody that tested, we have a little gambler warm up race.
If you paid to test, you got to race for free.
You know, it was just a little two grand deal, but it was fun.
And I'll tell you the one thing that really stuck out to me with the whole deal at Redding is the juniors.
There wasn't a ton of them.
I think there was 12 or 13 juniors.
You know, one of them walked up Friday and was like, Hey, can we race tonight?
I said, sure.
Everybody else is racing.
Go for it.
I bet you them junior kids put 30 runs on their cars that week.
If we ran a big car race, they ran another junior race.
Like they race four times.
Nice.
Yeah.
They were great.
But yeah, we, uh, we, we chose to separate box and no box, which, um, different out there,
I guess for the big money stuff.
Um, you know, the way that the T and a stuff used to be is it was one race, but they were pulled apart.
And then you pulled them in and had a no box winner and a box winner in my brain.
And it's probably the East coast side of it thinking you're probably going to have an extra round of super pro.
You hope you have an extra round of super pro.
Um, and I didn't want to basically essentially automatically give the no box car by at three.
So I think moving forward, we will do a single entry fee, single payout type deal.
They will be one category separate and we'll merge them at eight.
We ran our two gamblers races that way.
Um, so what we did Saturday night is instead of having that high roller shootout, it's obviously like I said, it's, it's hard to get 64 guys to pay that entry fee the first time around.
And, uh, consensus was we had a gambler race.
It's $100.
I think everybody on the property stayed and raced.
Um, and it was great.
We kept everyone separate at eight cars.
They went on a ladder and the no box guys held their own.
So if they're not scared of it, why should I be scared of it?
You know, yeah, man.
Um, a little different.
Like I keep mine separate at the race we do up here at Woodburn.
We don't do a merge, but again, just, um, not a lot of rhyme or reason to that other than like we don't ever combine.
If that's just not something that happens.
And so that would have been a new thing for folks.
And it was like, well, I don't know if they want to do that or not.
If they want to race super pro.
If they want, if they did, they'd enter box.
You know, I mean, I don't know.
So, but, um, it seemed like it worked out and, uh, what kicking things off.
Jason Vanderpool and Coupe Chun got down in the final, right?
That's it.
Yeah.
Jason hometown boy up there, um, blower car run for four forties.
And, uh, I don't remember the numbers are having in front of me, but I, I mean, anytime Cooper's involved, you know, it's tight.
If you're beating Cooper and Jason is no slouch himself.
He's naughty.
I think he raced.
He still got like an altar or something.
He races in like seven.
Yeah.
I don't know if that's his or he drives it.
But yeah, he's, he's always deep in the rounds or other being, you know, he'll sneak off and run some top dragster every year.
Yeah.
And, uh, Baker's field and yeah, Jason's tough.
That puts down a lot of laps, man.
Uh, Mark, a pair of Alaris getting out there in the field there.
I think in the, in the quick 16, Marco got that.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
Was there fast door cars in that quick 16 Troy wants to know?
They were all dragsters.
All dragsters.
Yeah.
All dragsters.
Troy's really pushing for top comp nowadays.
So I like it.
It needs to be the thing.
That's what we need to start doing.
Well, you're going to have to because top sportsman seems like it's dwindling very quickly, at least not so much out there.
But here, well, you can go look at the event reg website.
Top sportsman's looking tough on the side of the country.
Well, I mean, it's getting, it's gotten to the point now where every, maybe not everybody, but a lot of people are running at the bottom of, of the, the dial.
Right.
And you're getting so close to like, it's like, God, a little bit more money.
You got yourself a pro mod.
I mean, some of these cars, you know, you look at like a Yakimitz is Camaro.
Yeah.
And that's a pro mod, man.
Like that things.
I mean, it's some of these things are getting wild.
The IHRA race.
I guess it was Saturday.
I was watching when we were waiting between rounds there in St. Louis and Mandels were up there with that wagon.
He's dialed 390 in the door cards.
Like that's wild.
Yeah.
Really pushing the limits.
And I mean, yeah, I don't care how it goes.
I just, when they did the top comp thing earlier this season, I was just like, this is my jam right here.
So hopefully we see that a little more out here.
What?
You move into Saturday, you got, you got Robert Butler part of that big bucks ballers crew from California.
Him and Bill Woods squared off.
I think Bill picked up the win there.
And another familiar face on the no box side.
Craig, Mary Louise and Robert Kroom getting down.
I think Robert got the dub there.
The bill would and Robert Butler final round was nasty nasty.
Yes.
Double four dead to takes down six dead seven.
So we can get down out here too.
Oh, absolutely.
And there's a lot of that.
Like I got a couple of screenshots in my phone where they popped up and I was just like, we don't need that one for later.
Yeah.
I mean, Bill, Bill put together a string to end the day.
I think, I think it was, you know, the round of seven or so six or seven, whatever it may be.
Bill just flipped a switch.
He was double low dead on every lap and we're taking no more than 10.
Like it just got disgustingly tight for Bill.
And that's cool to see because Bill and Charlene used to run ready.
So that's, that's home for Bill.
You know, he's got a lot of time in there and obviously, you know, if you've been to ready before and you've been in the last few years, it's a whole new facility.
Tony and Jennifer have done leaps and bounds for the place.
It's, they've resurfaced the timing systems knew a lot of it.
You know, it felt like home.
They got a lot of stuff from Sack Raceway.
I walked in and I'm like, I recognize these tractors, but yeah, it was cool to see Bill pick that went up and his son, Jake was there too, which was awesome to see.
Well, let's talk about that the facility a little bit like Parker and I talked earlier in the season.
You know, all those improvements were going on. Tony was going back and forth with the county on the insurance stuff.
And like, I wasn't even sure if Reading was going to open this year.
You know, Tony, the eternal optimist and always was, was given reassurances and in the end he was, he delivered and the tracks open.
But that's all brand new surface this year, right?
I mean, they repaved that whole thing.
Yeah, they did all that over the winter.
I know Tony and Dan spent a ton of time out there.
Dan just, I mean, I don't know how long it takes to rebuild a track surface, but it's impeccable.
I mean, you could tell we showed up your rental car across it.
There's not one bump on that racetrack.
I mean, obviously the shutdown still got its bumps in it, but that's every racetrack.
The actual racing services smooth as can be and Tony, Dan, Jennifer, I should remember more of the employees names there.
I just spent three days with them, but you know, that place is awesome.
It's come so far from the last time I've been there and it's cool to see.
Well, and we love to see that out here.
I mean, and I think just across the country that it seems like some of the tracks or so many tracks are in such a precarious position, just trying to keep the doors open and keep the lights on.
But, you know, when you, so when you hear about a track that's not just keeping the lights on, but they're doubling down and we're pulling up the concrete.
We're pulling up the asphalt.
We're putting down new stuff.
We're putting in new lights, new scoreboards.
You know, I know Firebird just who's in fine shape, right?
But they just made an investment in some new stuff.
The tribe up there in Spokane has just been piling money into, into Calispe.
And so it's just, it's good to see, man, at a time where we're worried about which, which is the next drag strip to close.
It's nice to see some that are, that are thriving, you know.
Yeah, I agree.
Kevin Johnson chiming in saying smoothest track I've ever been on.
And then doing his fair share of traveling.
So I've got to trust Kevin's input.
He was out there.
Absolutely.
Kind of moving on.
Saturday night shootout.
Don Caesar picks up the win over Paul narrow.
Paul, that's, go ahead.
That's another one that turned it on.
Like, I've known Don for a long time.
Don, when I knew Don, he raised a motorcycle.
I didn't know Don had that Mustang till he rolled in the gates.
And, and when I tell you, like, I, the first thing I said to him, I said, dude, impressive, like, he was no worse than nine total, the last three rounds.
And they were just, it was gross, man.
And I, I actually didn't know he was hitting the top.
When we combined, he put a delay box in.
I said, all right, one tick less impressive, but still impressive.
Like, I thought it was bottom bulb and he was just, dude, he was knocking down.
It was, it was great.
He goes up against Paul, who, you know, is no slouch.
Paul was in the final round of my champ.
Yeah.
He was former top dragster world champ.
He was in the 10 grand final at my race last year, like dude knows how to wheel it knows how to turn on some wind lights and, you know, probably I'll just venture to bet without knowing Don, like, I don't know how many people don races that are of that caliber.
Right.
But I know if I lined up against Paul narrow, I'd be up on the wheel and be puckered up a little bit, you know, and so impressive run.
Impressive run for Don.
Yeah.
Do you want to hear this lap?
001 dead five takes down 17 dead zero.
So just a brutal, brutal run.
And then wait, close out last day.
Coupe chun in another final round.
Super scooper.
No shock there.
Honestly, it took longer.
But yeah, you know, it's like you said when we were talking beforehand, the cream of the crop is going to rise and Cooper's Cooper stuff.
Give him enough shots at it and going to find a way to get it done.
And I tell you what, I've seen his time slips the first two days.
They beat him like a drum and he kept just walking over and handed them to me because they were parked right by the front of the staging lanes.
They know who you are, bud.
I think I think this this last weekend in St. Louis is maybe one of the only times where I've seen Coupe just kind of be in the middle.
Coupe tends to be like absolutely invincible or he's like, oh, for six.
Yeah.
Right. I mean, they went out to Firebird last year, the year before.
I think he was over seven, you know, turns around six months later and never let's go worse than 18 in the million, you know, and then wins it.
So he tends to be a guy who's either just absolutely unstoppable or just not having a great day.
And, you know, out in St. Louis, just kind of back and forth, third, fourth round kind of deal.
He ended up going fairly deep in one of the races.
I think the dragster race, I think he was down to four.
They had him rolling.
I guess it would have been in the Saturday deal.
He kept turning wind lights on.
I think it might have been the Saturday 50.
He rolled pretty deep in that.
You know what? I think I remember, remember calling a lap and seeing his name come up on the screen pretty late and being like, oh, I know my man was still in here.
Still going.
So and I think, so that closes out.
I think Zachey Link, Cliff Hall in the no box final and then, and then Jeffrey Garner gets, gets two junior dragster wins.
You brought those guys up a little bit.
It sounds like Mr. Garner was on a little bit of heater in the little car.
Jeffrey was, Jeffrey was rolling for sure.
I think he won the Saturday night gambler race on the Sunday main event.
But like, like we talked about earlier, the juniors and they put runs on him.
I felt bad for all the dads that were running juniors and their cars.
Them kids didn't care, bro.
They pushed their cars up the stage and lands and they said, huh, let's go dad.
So a few of them that just they were struggling, but the kids were strapped in and ready as soon as they go back and we were, we were rolling.
Come on pops. Time to go.
So is this something you, you think you want to try to, to keep rolling out here, revisit the format, run it back?
Is this something you think you want to, you want to keep doing out here?
So we have a date in October.
Parker's not going to like it.
It's the Vegas national weekend.
It's Halloween weekend.
What we're going to do.
I haven't decided on yet, but we're going to race again, Halloween weekend.
I'm not sure how big or small we're going to swing for.
It won't be any smaller payout than this one.
We're going to stay at sevens or up.
Rather we merge the two categories or not.
I'm going to do some research, talk to some people.
You heard it here first.
We're breaking news on the bracket breakdown right now.
It's tough to get 150 cars out there.
So you have to think, you know, what's the most strategic way to make it beneficial to race track, beneficial eraser.
And, you know, I told the amount of people that came up to me and just shook my hand and said, thank you.
It's cool because, you know, I grew up around these people and then there's people that I had never met before.
And they said, you know, we hope you keep coming back.
We hope you keep doing this.
And I told them all there.
I said, you know, we'll be back in October.
I don't know what we're doing, but we'll be here.
And, you know, it was a resounding yes, we're coming back.
So that was cool.
I love it, man.
We need more of it.
And, you know, you're hearing it here first right here on the bracket breakdown flat bill promotions in the house Halloween weekend at Redding.
You know, we don't have a lot of promotions out here.
You know, TNA they were doing their thing for a little while.
Obviously Peter brings the big show out here to Vegas once a year.
You know, Chris Forsythe really just the one flying the flag for big money racing out here.
We mentioned Paul Nero earlier.
Him and his crew have got the super quick series fired back up out here.
I had a they had a really good series last year.
They're doing it again this year.
And then I mean, I don't consider myself a promoter, but I put on the one race and and so we'll have the summer show down and and and you know, but that we don't got a lot of it out here.
So like I said earlier in the show, it's like just got a lot of love for anybody who's willing to stick their neck out a little bit out here and give us an opportunity.
That's what it was for me.
You know, I was showing up as a as a, you know, rookie racer, been a fan and a, you know, in the spectator in the bleachers like my whole life.
But people were like, man, I'd put the the fling on or whatever was on motormania in the in the wheelie bar, you know, because they had some dumb shit.
They were like playing street outlaws or something.
I'm like, come on, let's watch some racing.
And I started hearing people like, man, I wish we had an opportunity to do that out here.
Wish we did.
I wish was like, well, let's do it then.
And so we put it together and, you know, a little bit of a slow start to first year.
It was just a one day deal.
That's all we had on the schedule, but it was just enough to kind of prove the concept.
We ran it back last year and it was a huge hit and a big success.
And, and, you know, you talk about the folks that come around and say, thank you afterwards.
Every year so far, I've been like, I'm never doing it again.
It's so much work.
Oh yeah, people don't realize.
And I'm just doing the one, right?
I can't imagine doing this every weekend as a track operator, trying to put together a race for all these different people.
Try to keep them happy to do what Brian and Tyler are doing or what, you know, obviously what Peter does to do it month after month after month.
I ain't, I ain't here for that.
I'll go and call the races, but, but what's made it worth it every year is you walk through the pits and you see big smiles.
You see people having the time of their life and they come up and give you a handshake, a high five or a big hug.
And then it's like, all right, we run it back.
Yep. Yeah, absolutely.
No, it's, it's a, it's a different level of gratitude.
You know, we all race.
We all love race and we like going and winning and everything, but it's kind of cool when you know, like, you brought all these people to one place and everybody's enjoying themselves.
It's a different level of gratification for sure.
It's a cool feeling.
Let's, let's get to this last week.
And talk about bringing all the people to one place.
TB kicking things off for 2026 out there at St. Louis for the twin fifties.
You know, we ran into some weather that, that caused us to rearrange things more than once.
But, you know, I think all in all turned out to be a pretty good weekend.
We all had a great time.
It seemed like all the racers had a good time and you, you talk about people on heaters, right?
You've, you started out the season pretty hot.
Bailey Ferraro has started out the season pretty hot and you guys lock horns in the final round for 50 grand.
Talk about working your way through the day and thought processes and just how you were feeling, especially having to bring it from one day to the next, right?
We had to kick the race forward.
So that was actually probably what you saw Bailey and I laughing about.
It's Brian was standing there and Bailey goes, man, I think it was the first three day 50 grander.
I've been a part of that.
We all got to kick out of that.
But yeah, we started on Friday and I just, you know, I wasn't going and Ivy goes, she's like, man, where you been driving?
You probably ought to go.
It's not that far from my house.
And so last minute decision for me to ride up there, single entered and, you know, I run the dragster race and I think I got down to 30 and just got a foul behind.
You know, I was, I was triple zero, get a foul behind one of the farmer boys.
And it's just like, all right, okay, come back the next day.
And I'm pretty sure it was Luke.
He just kicked my teeth in.
I made one of them runs you look at on paper and it's like, what are we doing here?
Why are we here?
And I went over, I was talking to Cooper and Chris Sullivan.
I said, man, I just go to the casino and take this buyback money over there.
Like I was that close to just double in the next day and calling it done.
Ended up getting over my party, party, bought back, turn the windlight on there.
And I think we ran, we were in three rounds on Friday.
Yep.
I think we ended up running three rounds Saturday before the monsoon rolled in, which was wild.
We come around in the staging lanes and we're on a ladder at that point.
Did not think I was going to be the buy, got the buy and somebody goes, you know, it's about to rain.
And I looked at Jaden.
I said, I hope it rains right now because I'll take the time to run tomorrow morning and they run one pair.
Sky's opened up.
It was intense, man.
It was wild.
I didn't even know we had weather coming.
Like it wasn't, I wasn't pulling it up on my phone.
I wasn't doing nothing.
It looked fine.
It felt fine.
You didn't get that weird feeling in the air.
Before you could see the storm coming from behind the bridge, you could see it working its way.
And we're like, OK, I had no indication of there was a little sticky outside, but you know, it's St. Louis in May.
It's hot sometimes.
Yeah.
Yeah, it had come out of nowhere, man.
We were driving back to the pits.
I don't remember who.
I think Bailey was the first one.
He backs up, takes his helmet off.
He said, forget this.
I'm going to load up.
So Bailey takes off.
Jaden takes off.
And I started riding out and that trash can comes rolling through the pits and splits Jaden and I like, we went this way and the garbage can goes that way.
And then they're going this direction.
It's like, you know, the winds ripping when it's blowing the trash cans around.
Yes, sir.
It was something else, man.
And I mean, I've never seen so many people scramble so quick to get him in the trailer.
We're pulling winter circles down the fuel factory that park.
There's a fuel factory blow up can.
It's like, I mean, it's like 30 feet tall and 20 feet around.
It was tied to four fuel factory, five gallon pails full of water and the blower motor to keep the thing filled up with air was tied to it.
Pick that thing up, took it all the way over the grandstands and popped it on top of the lounge bar.
We heard a, we heard a hellacious clash of metal on metal.
None of us could figure it out.
We looked over there and saw the fuel factory can was gone.
And one of the pails was like hanging off the roof.
I mean, picked up 150 pounds worth of junk and just flew like it was nothing.
Yeah.
It was intense.
It was wild for sure.
Yeah.
Maybe is taking fuel factory to new heights.
Absolutely.
Tell you what, that's just what they do.
So you go to the next day, right?
Day three of the longest 50 grand.
I get, I'm in the best spot ever.
Parker will tell you.
You come out Sunday morning and you get the time run.
You're feeling good.
So nothing better than a time run on a new day.
We love it.
I turned loose.
I didn't love it.
And the scoreboard lit up something I was not expecting.
I'm like, what, what are we doing here?
It's what the time runs for.
Yeah, exactly.
I rolled, I rolled down there and they had Dylan.
Dilly was working the time slip.
It was obviously a real short staff on Sunday and Dylan goes,
what do you think you were?
I said, I don't know.
It wasn't good.
He goes, no, it wasn't.
Here you go.
You know, luckily I come back at, I guess it would have been five.
And I had to run waller.
Jayden's tough.
And, you know, anything wills involved with, you know,
their cars are top notch and that kid is solid.
The hard part with race and Jayden, and this is no secret,
is the way he stages.
It's, I was just going to, it's the wildest thing I've ever seen.
That car doesn't back out.
Wow.
This thing I've ever seen.
You're going to stage first.
He's going to make you stage first.
I mean, I'm, I'm stubborn.
I'm not that stubborn.
I just, you know, you take your breath and you go in.
I still haven't figured out how he does it, but it goes flicker,
flicker.
And it's like, he stabs the button in the throttle pedal at the
same time and it locks every time.
Like he is on the two step before the bulb is lit.
And it's like, how are we doing this?
But, you know, that, that was my hardest part was you got to stare
at that bulb while he's over there flickering this.
And you know, it's coming on fast.
And I got lucky next to him.
I was two landed it dead on another one of those.
I probably shouldn't have got away with that a few of them.
I landed them.
I was double low and low dead on.
It's like these don't look good on paper, but they're turning the
windlight on, you know, I'm like six total taken 30.
It's like, it's not what you want, but it works out.
And then at three cars, I had to run Mr.
Fulcher and you know, that's the, that's the lesser known
Fulcher to the people that don't know them off of motormania.
He doesn't travel a lot just as talented as Zach.
Oh yeah.
So we were talking and, you know, the racetrack was good all weekend.
The right lane was a little marginal Sunday.
And, you know, everybody that didn't have lane choice got the right lane
and he was quite a bit under and we talked afterwards.
I said, you know, did it finally hook up?
He said, no, I just couldn't look at yours trying not to crash.
All right.
But yeah, he's, that's one of those guys, you know, they run a beacon
as local women every week.
You see beacon dragway posts and it's like, Oh, what do you know?
The Fulcher's won again.
Like, yeah, it's like Lucas Walker or Charlie Lockhart went
and foot break a beacon.
It's not a surprise.
They're solid.
He's hand them the trophy.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Or anyway, what's that?
Just that beacon or oh, they went every day.
Only one of them travels all around like that.
But yeah, the Fulcher family is tough.
Absolutely.
And then, you know, the final old Bayles.
Bayleys, Bayleys giving you a tough look.
He's gone 470 at 100 and I think probably 55, 56.
I never looked it up, but you know, we turn up.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
He's going 111 to my 106 and we're dialed within 500s of each other.
It's like, you know, he's making steam.
Yeah.
And I turned off the racetrack and I told Bailey, I said, I just hope
I didn't look stupid on paper or, you know, I said, I felt like I made
a good run, but you know, we're thou apart.
I took, I think I took 10.
I had to take six and it's like, you know, at the end of the day,
it's not the worst lap 13 take 10 is going to turn a lot of wind lights
on.
Yeah.
Nothing to hang your head about.
You mentioned some of those, those runs.
Some of them unnecessarily tight.
Oh yeah.
Like nine total taken 40.
It's like, you didn't have to do that, you know, but.
I remember the one, I think, I guess it was the reentry round.
I had to run Zach Hitchcock and I was one dead zero and like Zach
stopped and I saw Zach stop and I was just kind of lazy.
I'm like, you know, we're good.
And I look up and it's dead zero.
I'm like, buddy, what are we doing here?
And you know, I got the one with Corey too.
Like it looks great on paper.
It didn't look good in my seat.
I had Galitian.
I'm six take three.
And I just kind of like looked and I cracked it and I crack it again.
And it's like, you know, he's going 165 miles an hour, but it's like,
I said, I guess he's not coming.
I left and he goes, I'm like, I didn't get there.
I did obviously, but it's like in my seat.
I didn't drive that well.
They looked decent on paper though.
It was just, it was one of them weekends where things fell your way.
Yeah, man.
Well, they definitely failures until they didn't.
But like you said, just one of those kind of coin flip laps,
like you both threw down a nice lap and he just came out on the,
on the other end of it.
You know, you got into the conversation that matters and,
you know, turn the runner up pretty, you know,
probably pretty nice day for you and definitely, you know, just a slog.
What a grind.
Three days to, to get yourself to it for sure.
50 grand final.
We'll see you in Columbus or no.
Undecided probably.
We'll see you at BG for sure, huh?
On the fourth of July.
For sure.
Yeah.
We'll probably make Columbus happen.
I'm supposed to go on vacation that Sunday.
I could see that getting moved to Monday just so we can run up there and run that deal.
Nice.
I'm going to, I'm going to change topics a little bit.
You've said you've driven over 140 race cars and I believe you've driven
across the country probably more than 140 times at this point.
Plenty of them.
So you, you've kind of been doing a little bit of cross the country hauling
race cars around paint jobs and all sorts of stuff.
I want to know where is the best place to eat between the east coast
and the west coast?
And what's the go to stops?
You know, it's wildest.
I don't really stop.
Like, so I've done a lot of Lakeland, Florida to wherever Geron
sends a paint job to lately.
I can't tell you anywhere.
If it didn't, I'm a, I'm a Bucky's burrito once a day.
I was just going to say it's probably Bucky's.
Man, there's a Bucky's and Amarillo and it's like, you make it to Amarillo
and you need dinner taking that and get up the next morning and go.
I can do that, man.
I was, I had to pick up Parker and, or I mean Cooper and, and Luke at the
airport on Tuesday night and I was hungry, man.
It took a long time to get there and get checked in.
I was hungry and, and they took me to the pilot, the beautiful pilot across
the street from the track.
Well, the roll, I'm a sucker for roller, whatever's on the rollers.
Like, I can't, I can't say no.
I can't say no to the tornadoes dog.
Give me all the tornadoes and the roller butt, the middle, whatever they are.
I don't even know what they're made out of, man, but I love them.
And we got, we call them, we call them tornados.
Just make them sound a little fancier brother.
It was empty.
The rollers were empty when we got there though.
So, so Coop took me over to the Taco Bell and, and show me what that was all
about. So I got me some Taco Bell went there the next morning.
The rollers were stacked, baby.
Like your dream.
Oh buddy.
I was in heaven, man.
Stocked up on zines, coffee and roller bites and I was, I was set brother.
You're poor stomach.
Tom.
Nick press mode said Jerry's nuggets pretty good place to stop.
Every, every time I'm in Vegas, that's Nikki's spot, man.
You walk in there.
They know Nikki by name in the cafe.
Jerry's like, man, it's the best prime rib in town.
I've swear to you.
It's record ankles.
It's the worst thing I've ever ate, but it's tradition, you know, every year at Thanksgiving
we, we convinced somehow Jessica, Greg's wife, we get her to go.
Jessica hates me.
I don't know if you guys know that Greg's wife does not like me.
She's never liked me.
This is like a 15 year grudge.
Every year he's like, we'll go into family dinner at Thanksgiving.
We always go to Jerry's nugget after we're done racing.
It's a good time.
But yeah, man, Nikki and I, we've, we were, you know, Vegas has the ultimate gambler.
It's a $500 entry fee.
And Nikki was like, well, you know, we'll each put in $250.
And if we win one hand back to back, we can both run the ultimate gambler for 125 bucks.
I'm like, I'm in, you know, I'm a sucker for some blackjack.
We walk over there and I put down $250 and the lady yells out table max and she pushes back $50 in my money.
I was like, where have you brought me to eat dinner?
I think you can't bet $250 in a casino.
So no, don't go to Jerry's nugget.
It's terrible.
It's so funny.
I'm going to have to go now just, just because I want to get to the experience.
Nikki will take you a hundred percent.
If you take Nikki, he's, he's on it.
He'll get your VIP front row seats and everything.
Nick, get us reservations to the nugget, baby.
I'm coming.
We don't need reservations.
I got to my hotel.
I got to my hotel and I had a waffle house, a steak and shake and a, and a white castle.
Like surrounded.
That's a dream, man.
I texted Tebow.
I'm like, we live in right now.
I was so stoked, man.
It was tight.
Love it.
We hardly got any of that out here.
So you were, you were blessed for sure.
West coast doesn't know about waffle house except for Phoenix.
Oh yeah.
That's true.
I got down a couple different times and it's like you walk out of there cause no matter
what breakfast you get, you also have to add a waffle like to wash it down, you know,
and I'm a guy, I need a cup of coffee and OJ and a water.
That's enough to fill me up right there.
All that liquid, you know, and then crush down an all star, throw down a waffle for good
measure, man.
I'm pretty sure normally I go on a trip like this and I come back down seven pounds.
Not this week.
I think I came up seven or eight.
There's plenty.
It's a bad weekend.
Well, uh, we know you do a lot of driving.
Please tell me you're not like Dan Fletcher and the radio is not on because Dan Fletcher
is a, is a no radio driver.
So look, man, I'll catch myself sometimes you're just out there in the middle of nowhere
and you're like, how long has it been this quiet, but not like music.
And, you know, I talked to a lot of people.
Um, my phone goes off probably more than I wanted to.
So I, you know, I get, I get kept entertained.
I guess, um, you know, I'll draw on man.
He's a late night.
Got my girlfriend.
I'll go to bed and then Geron's like, well, I got to paint for 19 more hours.
So I'll talk to him just ride down the road about the dumbest stuff.
You know, he rambles about the five day back in 1964 and it's a good time.
Man, we get some good stories, but I do love my music.
I'm a, I'm a, you know, big country.
And then I like some big X the plug and I just let Apple run and see what it will bring us.
So not complete silence all the time, but I've got myself a few times.
We're like, Oh, man, I, uh, when I moved to Mississippi,
I was driving a Honda cord that had no radio 2296 miles there each way with nothing,
but what was going on up there, baby.
It's, uh, it's a different, it's a different kind of jam for sure.
Absolutely. Yeah.
He pulled out the dumb and dumber.
Who needs a radio?
Brother, it was, uh, I had went so many places, man.
Um, and like the first, the, the, my last stop of the leg was at Lake Dardanelles
State Park in Arkansas, which is this massive, massive lake.
And it was during a cicada, a cicada thing.
So I'm, I'm coming off of like 11 hours of dead silence.
And then I go to, oh brother, like it's a good thing that I did not have any sharp
tools or firearms with me because I wouldn't have made the morning.
It was, they're the, they're the most obnoxiously loud piercing noise you've ever heard.
Like, you remember that year partner?
I don't think you were old enough to be racing big cars, but the Vegas,
when they had all the grasshoppers do that's what it's like with cicadas,
but they sound like a toddler screaming constantly.
It's like, it's like a two year old child screaming.
It's the most piercing noise and they do it for like a month and then they die
and you don't hear them for years.
It's something else.
Yeah.
And like I'd heard them before, but like again, coming off of 10 hours of silence,
dead silence, and then all of a sudden someone flips that switch, buddy.
Yeah.
It was rough, rough sauce.
I don't think I could sit in a car for more than, well, that's the first thing I
do when I get in a car is turn the radio on because I can't let my thoughts
take over because that's, that's a scary thought in itself.
It didn't have none of that stuff, but it was an $800 banger.
I got up some dude in Portland.
I rode the Greyhound to Portland.
I knew this cat had this car for eight bills.
I rode the Greyhound out there, drove that bird back the next morning.
I took her all the way to Mississippi.
I had to get there.
Wow.
Had to do what I had to do.
Chad, I know you're up against it a little bit tonight.
You got business to tend to park on.
I don't know if you got anything else to, to close him out, but, you know,
obviously, you know, a lot of people that, that you work with,
that you depend on that, that you're thankful for.
So just want to make sure everybody always gets a chance to, to shout out
whoever they need to shout out.
Yeah.
I was talking yesterday, you know, when I talked to PJ after Bailey beat up on
me, my parents, and I said it on here earlier, you know, my dad's, I left for
something and I left a car tore apart in their shop with no center section,
no intake manifold.
And I, you know, I come back and he's got everything done.
I was like, all right, cool.
You know, my, my mom keeps both of us in check because, you know,
we'll be out in the shop for God knows how long.
I mean, you guys know how that goes.
But yeah, he, he's never shot down a road trip.
He's never not there.
It's a, you know, if we're out there at two o'clock in the morning working on
something.
So obviously then I keep all my stuff in their driveway.
But yeah, I mean, I got a great group of people we race with here.
But as far as, you know, support the Fuqua family, FTD wheels.
If you guys don't have FTD wheels on your dragster, what are you doing?
You know, they're made right here in Tennessee, sealed bearing stuff.
The Fuqua's are some of the best people you could meet.
Dad on racing products, obviously the Huffman's helped me out a lot with the
flyers and our race, you know, all our big checks and everything, accelerated
graphics, but yeah, I mean, you know, the normal, the family, the friends,
I was hoping to see some Huffman's this weekend.
Yeah, they got a lot going on.
Yeah.
I know Chase, Chase just, I think recently had another kid.
Yeah, I thought so.
And then obviously, you know, Rick's got some health stuff going on, but
they're plugging along.
Things seem to be going the right direction.
Good man.
I was just talking to my wife the other day.
I was like, I've been going to the Halloween race in Madras, which isn't
on Halloween.
It's like earlier in the month.
Telling I thought I might want to make the hall out to Firebird again for
the classic.
But if you're coming to Reading on Halloween weekend, I think it's
probably an hour and a half closer with just as many crappy heels to pull
as it is to go back out to Boise.
So once the flyer drops, man, and it's locked in, if I'm going anywhere,
I'll see you in Reading, brother.
Sounds good.
You got anything else part?
I do have one last question.
And this has kind of been Troy's question throughout our whole podcast.
But if you had one thing that you wanted to accomplish before you
hung up the helmet, what is it?
I want to win the million.
The million.
You know, for a while it was I wanted to win a world championship.
And that if you'd asked me that eight weeks ago, it would still would have
been I want to win a world championship.
But having that moment taken from me, it's lit a new fire.
Like I and I don't even run the million every year.
You know, I'm not, I don't have a backer.
Yeah, it's my wallet.
But yeah, that moment when the reality set in, it was sickening.
Like, you know, I mean, we've all been in them situations.
This is the first time as a grown adult at a racetrack.
I thought I was going to cry.
And like people like, I don't know how you didn't throw your helmet.
It's like, it wasn't that kind of feeling.
You know, I used to live, Hicks and I were roommates.
Like when I first moved to Vegas, Greg took me in and Jessica.
They gave me a place to live and put me on my feet.
And Greg and I traveled together.
We raced together.
You know, that's a brother to me.
And he walked up.
He didn't say anything.
He just hugged me.
I was like, it was right in that moment.
It's like, you know, and I just hope that I get back to that position to
be able to accomplish that someday.
Well, you got the skills to do it, man.
And I hope you do.
Bdub says, uh, says you'll be thanking Nevin.
I wear her suit.
I've seen that.
Yeah.
He had some sunglasses on.
I liked this weekend.
He was like, oh, man, I like three for $80.
I ordered them on the stage.
And I said, it's funny.
He sent me the link this morning.
I said, we're way past that, bro.
They're already on the way.
That's so funny.
Yeah.
You always trying to sell something.
Oh, yeah.
It's just who we is, man.
Always selling.
Chad, once again, thanks so much, man.
I appreciate you coming on to talk a little bit about, um, obviously,
the weekend, talk about Redding.
Tell us a little bit about, um, you know, where you came from,
what you're all about.
And just a personal thank you from the West coast on behalf of the West
coast for, uh, you ain't forgot about us.
I know you, you know, you're in different pastures now, but, uh,
appreciate the love you continue to show, uh, to the West coast people
out here as we try to build this culture of big money bracket racing.
And, and, um, and you're a part of that.
So thanks for that.
And, uh, we're all looking forward to, uh, the flyer drop and,
and see what goes down, uh, this Halloween.
So I don't know if you come to Columbus, I'll see you there.
If not, I'll definitely see you at BG.
Sounds good.
All right, guys.
I appreciate it.
Thanks, Chad.
So much like wherever you're racing next.
Thanks, buddy.
Mr. Chad acts first.
They don't make them much nicer, man.
Um, just like it's funny because I, I've never known Chad and like seeing
seeing him, seeing him in a blower car and his name's Axford,
like it's just like to me, like, like, I bet, I bet homeboy salty,
uh, you know, but I never knew him and, and got to, you know,
got to see him and hear him a little bit and, and, uh, chat a little
bit in the tower, uh, this weekend.
And, uh, you know, you won't meet many people that are just more down
to earth and nicer than him.
Um, and I love when it, when there's some people who are like on the high
pulley all the time, I got to meet the farmer boys this weekend too.
And brother's on the high pulley from the minute they wake up to the
minute they hit the pillow.
Um, and, and that's cool.
Right.
And, and it's always interesting to meet the folks that are, um,
just so chill and, and like that flip a switch, right?
You put that helmet on and tighten up those belts and that dude's a killer.
Oh yeah.
But you catch them in the lanes or in the pits afterwards, you know,
and just a, just a gentle and, um, you know, graceful kind of human being.
So appreciate guys like that.
Guys that, uh, will help anyone anytime they need.
And, uh, it's just a breath of fresh air is what he is.
So, um, what do we got coming up?
We got Boise divisional this weekend and HRA stuff to go over next week.
It seems like forever since we got to talk about some class racing, man.
Absolutely.
It's been a couple of weeks, but, uh, um, and, uh, I apologize for missing last
week.
I was pretty much dying.
I felt like, but, uh, um, yeah, we'll, we'll get back into it, uh, next Monday.
Um, obviously we're going to have a show dedicated to your summer showdown.
Um, can't wait to talk about that.
Um, definitely got some exciting news to, to hear about that.
Yeah.
I'm on pins and needles right now, buddy, cause like the forecast doesn't go
out far enough right now, you know, and, and like it's 86 today, 87 degrees
today, it could be like 57 tomorrow.
Matter of fact, I think it is.
Right.
And like this is a, this is a dicey time of year in the Pacific Northwest and
the way the weather has been acting over the last, you know, I mean five, 10
years now, but, but it seems like every year it just gets more and more
unpredictable and more wild.
I mean, last year on Tuesday before the race, weather said 74 and partly sunny.
On race day, it was a buckle four, you know, and so it was the summer showdown
for sure, even though summer don't start for a couple more weeks after that.
And so when this, when I've only got one, right?
Like I can't postpone it to a different weekend.
I can't like this is it and all the eggs are in one basket.
And I sit on pins and needles until the 14 day forecast grabs my weekend and I
can start, start watching it.
So just hoping for all the best there and really looking forward to the 30
annual.
It'll be the biggest one yet.
And, you know, like we were saying, it's like just trying to build out here,
continue to build, not just put on races because there's not a culture that's
waiting to receive them, right?
You got to do both at the same time.
You got to try to build the culture while you, and you build that culture with
the events that you're putting on, right?
And so, and I'm new to this game and I'm learning as I go and just like Chad
said, right?
I rely on the racers.
I'm, I'm hitting up Maddie Keelman.
I'm hitting up Henry Robinson.
I'm listening to the feedback of people like Paul Nero and, and, and Jimmy Lewis
and whoever else, anybody that's got anything to say, whether it's good or bad,
I'm listening.
I'm taking it in and trying to make decisions that, that'll make the most
people happy that I possibly can and, and build something that, that they're
proud of.
And I, and I hope that like because of that, I hope people see that because I
don't feel like this is my race.
I feel like this is our race.
And it ain't for me.
It ain't even really for the track.
This is for the people that come to it and, and, and it's ours and we're
building it together.
And I hope people feel a sense of ownership and a sense of pride in, in
what we're building, because I certainly do.
And I'm certainly thankful for everybody that, you know, that, that helps me out
and gives me their opinion.
I will repeat this exact same speech whenever we have the show for the
showdown, but I just think about it all the time, man.
I got nothing but gratitude and humility for everything this sport gives me.
And, and, and I learned more like it's confirmed to me every day.
This is one of those sports that like you get out of it, what you put
into it and the people that aren't happy with what this sport gives them
typically ain't putting a whole lot into it.
You know what I mean?
And the people I meet, the more people love this sport, it's always the
people that put the most into it.
And so I just try to stay aware of that and give it as much as I can and
trust that it'll give it back to me.
And so far it's never failed me once.
Absolutely.
Well, you do go out of your way to put in a lot of effort.
And the, the people didn't ask for it.
Well, maybe they did, but you're giving something to them that they didn't
know that they deserved and, and they're definitely grateful for it.
That's for sure.
I am excited to announce that I will be at the summer showdown this year.
Got my flights booked this morning.
And you know what?
Even if there is bad weather, your boy's going to be there because I said,
no, thank you on travel insurance.
So my dog, my dog, I like to be one guy there, whether we like it or not.
I like the confidence brother.
Hey, and I don't think my car will be ready.
I'm going to try, but we got Columbus coming up pretty soon.
I got to catch up on work, not only catch up, but then get ahead so I can
leave again.
If anybody got a car, my dog can wheel.
Trying to, he's trying to put it in the lanes.
If you got a car, he can drive.
If you want to double something up, get a hold of Parker.
It don't matter.
It don't matter baby.
Juniors, he'll drive a junior.
If I could fit, you know, we'll fit you in there.
We'll fit you in there.
Some of these things getting big now.
He's got, he's got 23 inch cages, man.
Some of these, we had cats driving big cars and little cars at TV this weekend.
It was like, I kept seeing that name.
I'm like, I'm like, is this a, is this a father son,
like senior junior kind of deal?
It's like, no, that's the same brother.
He's in the little car in the big car.
So super fun.
But yeah, if anybody got a car, my man can wheel.
You want to double up with them, get a hold of them.
Would love to see, see that happen.
So thanks man.
It's good to have you back.
I'm fine.
I think this is my first show where I haven't been sick either.
So glad you're on the mend and it's good to get back together with you.
Yeah, sir.
Yep.
We'll see y'all next Monday.
Thanks for, thanks for listening.
Like, subscribe, follow all the above.
Like and share, like and share.
See you next week.
About this episode
Chad Axford joins Bracket Breakdown as the hosts bounce from weekend chaos to bracket-racing strategy. They talk about how bracket racing has leveled up over the last decade thanks to “Technology and just everybody's leveled up,” plus the realities of endurance focus and brutal heat. Chad shares his lap-calling vibe, his favorite carbon-fiber build, and how teams manage forced-induction and methanol when parts fail. The conversation also covers event formats, prize revisions, and the community effort behind big-money racing.
Original notes
We are excited to Chop it up with Chad Axford on the Bracket Breakdown tonight. As a promoter, racer, hauler, and builder, he's a true jack-of-all-trades.
Bracket Breakdown
Bracket Breakdown
0:00
65:35