Driven Radio Show Jan 10, 2026

Driven Radio Show #336: Cannonball Scofflaws

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Car

Pontiac Torrents

The Pontiac Torrent is a medium-sized SUV that has a lot of room inside for passengers and cargo. It's comfortable to drive and was made to be a good option for families.

Car

Ford Thunderbird (1958)

The Ford Thunderbird is a classic car that was popular in the late 1950s. The 1958 model is known for its stylish design and was aimed at the luxury market.

Part

carburetor

A carburetor is a part of some car engines that helps mix air and fuel so the engine can run. It's more common in older cars.

Term

V12

A V12 engine has twelve cylinders that work together to create power. It's known for being very smooth and powerful, often found in expensive sports cars.

Term

48 valves

48 valves in an engine means there are many openings that help air and fuel get in and exhaust gases get out. More valves usually help the engine run better.

Term

double overhead cams

Double overhead cams are a type of engine design that helps control how the engine's valves open and close. This can make the engine run better and more efficiently.

Concept

AACA

The AACA stands for the Antique Automobile Club of America. It's a group that helps people who love old cars, and they have contests to see who has the best-restored antique cars.

Car

Buick Grand National

The Buick Grand National is a powerful car that was popular in the 1980s. It stands out because of its fast engine and unique black design, making it a favorite among car lovers.

Car

Willis Knight model 70

The Willis Knight model 70 is an old car from 1926. It's known for its unique style and was made by the Willis Motor Company, which was popular in the early 20th century.

Car

Ford Falcon

The Ford Falcon is a small car made by Ford in the 1960s. It was popular because it was affordable and easy to drive, especially for new drivers.

Company

Westwood Suzuki

Westwood Suzuki was a shop that sold motorcycles, especially Suzuki brand bikes. It was a popular place for people to buy dirt bikes and other types of motorcycles.

Part

DR 100 dirt bike

The DR 100 is a small dirt bike made by Suzuki, great for beginners. It's easy to ride and perfect for kids or new riders who want to try off-road biking.

Concept

Cannonball style racing

Cannonball style racing is a type of race where drivers try to go as fast as possible over long distances, often breaking traffic laws. It's named after a famous race from the past.

Car

Mercedes-Benz C 55 AMG

The C 55 AMG is a fast and sporty version of a regular Mercedes-Benz C-Class car. It has a strong engine and is designed for better performance and handling.

Term

horsepower

Horsepower tells you how powerful an engine is. The higher the horsepower, the faster and stronger the car can be.

Car

Toyota Yaris

The Toyota Yaris is a small car that's great for driving around the city. It's known for being easy to park and saving gas.

Car

Volkswagen TDI

Volkswagen TDI is a type of car that uses a diesel engine. Diesel engines are known for being more fuel-efficient than regular gasoline engines, which means they can go further on less fuel.

Company

Hot Rod Express

Hot Rod Express is a place where you can get help with car parts and upgrades. They know a lot about making your vehicle perform better or look how you want it to.

Car

Chevrolet Express

The Chevrolet Express is a big van that can carry a lot of stuff or people. It's commonly used by businesses because it has plenty of space and is built to be reliable.

Car

Mercedes-Benz 450 SL

The Mercedes-Benz 450 SL is a stylish convertible car made by Mercedes-Benz. It has a powerful engine and is designed for both comfort and performance, making it a popular choice among car enthusiasts.

Car

Mercedes-Benz SL

The Mercedes-Benz SL is a fancy sports car that can turn into a convertible, meaning the roof can come off. It's known for being stylish and fast, making it a popular choice for people who want a luxury driving experience.

Car

Chevrolet Corvette

The 1990 Corvette is a sports car made by Chevrolet. It's known for its fast performance and stylish looks, and it has a powerful engine called the L98.

Part

L98

The L98 is a type of engine used in some Corvettes. It's a V8 engine, which means it has eight cylinders and is designed to provide good power and speed.

Term

six-speed manual

A six-speed manual is a type of car transmission that lets you change gears manually. It has six different gears to help the car go faster or save fuel, and many people enjoy driving cars with this type of transmission because it feels more connected to the car.

Car

Hey, all you gear heads and car fiends, welcome to Driven Radio Show, your weekly

automotive happy hour.

I am Brett Hatfield here with my co-host and engineer extraordinaire, Mr. Mark Rose.

That's me.

We are coming to you from Driven Radio Studios, where we continue to fight the good fight

against schizoid mother nature.

It's nuts out there.

I'm so glad I lost her mind today.

I was going to wash my vehicle, I'm so glad I didn't.

Why?

It rained torrents today.

About three o'clock, I decided, you know what, I don't want it there to be a damn

dry thing anywhere.

And that made sure.

But I'll take it, you know, like, I was even talking to a coworker, I'm that old guy now.

I'm the one who said, well, you know, we need a drain.

I don't need a drain.

Yeah, that's right, grandpa.

You're the guy standing around in July hot enough for you.

Yeah, it's a dry heat.

And standing around in overalls and got your hands down your pocket.

Yeah, got him cut out for pocket pool.

Hey, what's new in the Thunderbird Chronicles?

Really nothing.

I've done like zero work on it, except I bought a heat gun from Harbor Freight

and and started removing that ugly red pinstriping.

Cheap ass just got awful pinstriping.

Come right off.

For the most part, yeah, now there was there's pinstriping on the door.

There's that kind of curve that goes up on the door.

It's a 1958 Thunderbird and the cheap pinstriping they put on the door.

They were kind enough to include double-sided tape.

So, you know, the red pinstriping came off, you know,

lickety split, but the double-sided tape is like, no, I'm good.

Just stay here.

So I got to break out the goop and spend some quality time with it.

No big deal there.

And I'm still psyching myself up to take the carburetor off and put on the new one

and then try and figure out how to hook up everything.

We'll see what happens.

But I'm feeling motivated.

I've been watching.

I finally figured out the name of there's a thing called the Unruly Farmer.

That's a video series.

And basically, I found that he has lots of farm animals.

And he yells and cusses at him.

Yeah, I found that yesterday.

But one of his videos, I was like, you know what?

You're right. You're right.

You're right. Where between the the curse words and the vitriol, he's like, you know,

when I was, I'll boil it down.

When I was a kid, you know, I just had to figure it out.

Yeah. I just had to effing figure it out.

Yes. You got a problem?

Effing figure it out.

Yeah. Well, there's lots and lots and lots of effing, effing, effing.

He's right.

And if I just watch a few more videos, I'm sure I'll be a master mechanic.

Well, one of the things that we seem to have forgotten as we've gotten older

and we we have enough money to be able to find help when we can't have

and figure it out is we don't have to now.

Which is why we know people like Daryl Ossipic of Ossipic Automotive.

I couldn't believe how easy I slid into that.

He has a phone number, doesn't he?

Yeah. 913-831-3613 or 13-3613.

Fifty nine, twenty, Mariam.

Like his first girlfriend.

Yeah, well, I just I love Daryl to death and I can't help not giving him crap.

Oh, yeah. Good guy.

And every week we do this and I'm reminded.

Oh, yeah, I told him I'd sell that Mercedes for him.

I got to call him about and I keep forgetting to do so.

Hey, speaking of Mercedes. Yes.

Um, we have to.

Say that, uh.

Pead Watt lost his father this past week and it's been.

It wasn't a surprise that he's been in the hospital for the last couple of months.

So, Pead, you have our deepest sympathies and anything you need,

anytime you need to just say so, Ronda and I went down to prior Oklahoma,

which is a little town about 40 minutes outside of Tulsa Tuesday morning,

got up really early, got cleaned up, got dressed.

I'm reminded of why I don't like early mornings and through everything

and the shot and Freud Express and hauled down to prior.

I am also reminded of why that is the best stinking road car there's ever been bar

nine and I don't care what else it is.

Super smooth, super super smooth, as fast as you want it to be.

And then some and just keeps hauling the mail.

You get the V12 crank to around 3, 3,500 RPM.

Oh, Jesus.

And the V12 just pulls and pulls and pulls and that one was one of the,

one of the last V12's, uh, one of the very last V12's Mercedes made

that had, you know, true double overhead cams, which means 48 valves.

Oh, good Lord.

And when you get it twisted up, it sings, it sounds so good.

But we got a few odd looks stopping at different gas stations, because you do

have people looking at a big Mercedes and you should just wait in front of your

payage.

You wish.

And it was those aviator sunglasses here.

It's like, uh-oh.

No, what are you looking at, eh?

Well, it, it's a little odd to be down there.

Ray Banz, nice suit, uh, big Mercedes and all that really early in the morning.

But what were your feet?

What were on your feet?

Uh, driving moccasins on the way down, sir.

I thought you were wearing the cowboy boots.

No, no, once we got to the, to the funeral and I fit right in.

And then, uh, that's kind of like stories about my dad used, that my dad used

to tell about one of his planes, about being able to leave to go someplace

early in the morning, get there, get done, what you were going to do, get back

on the plane and be back home early.

And we were back home early.

Nice.

Yeah.

Uh, all kinds of people asking, are you staying overnight?

And you see what's on the parking lot?

No, no, I'm home.

Uh, but we got back home in Titan enough for me to enjoy the very warm weather

yesterday, spent a good chunk of the day working on the roadblood yesterday.

It's going to be all right.

And I think that bikes my name might be big blue.

I don't have anything better for it.

I haven't come up with it.

It might be babe.

The blue Harley, I don't know something like that.

Hey, our special guests this week, and we got a bunch of them, uh, if we weren't

satisfied with just having one guest, so we have to, had to go out and find a

triumvirate of them.

Our special guests are Jeff Weiss, Christopher Michaels and Wesley Vai.

Uh, Jeff grew up on the East coast with a father who restored an AACA

grand national winning 1926 Willis Knight model 70.

His best friend growing up was Randy Tillum of Savage garage on YouTube.

Apparently Randy loans money to Jesus.

Christopher has been a movie special effects specialist.

This is a self-taught mechanic, custom motorcycle builder and racer.

Repeat coast to coast racer.

Having driven all over North America, the Caribbean, Europe,

Africa, shit, each has been everywhere.

Wesley grew up in Passaic County, New Jersey and lives in Pike County,

Pennsylvania.

His passion for cars started at a young age racing go carts at Oakland Valley

Raceway Park from age seven to 17.

He attended a technical school for auto body and collision repair and serve

with the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

Thank you for your service.

And he can't say who he works for because it'll get him trouble and trouble at work.

Gentlemen, welcome to Driven Radio.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate you having it.

Jeff, uh, you started going fast well before you could drive.

What was your first car and, uh, did your dad help you work on it?

My first car was a 65 Falcon.

Oh, now we have three of them.

So, but, uh, yeah, I started racing, uh, BMX when I was young and that just

turned into, you know, dirt bikes.

And, uh, in 1981, when I was 11, my dad took me to a, uh, a motorcycle

dealer, Westwood Suzuki, it's not there anymore.

And he said I could pick either a DR 100 dirt bike or they had these new four

wheelers that were brand new.

They had three wheelers everywhere, but this was a four wheeler and it was a

125.

I didn't know any better.

I thought the 125 was going to go faster than the 100.

So I, we got that.

So I've been riding quads pretty much longer than anybody ever did.

So you got one of the original quad racers.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

First one.

Very cool.

What got you interested in cannonball style racing?

Have you always been a traffic scoff law?

Yes.

But when Doug and Arnie, uh, did that, uh, 27, 25 time, I said, holy,

that's unbelievable.

And, uh, I just started following it, uh, pretty heavy.

And then Wesley reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to do some spotting.

Okay.

Sure.

Okay.

So that's, that's your first foray into the cannonball world.

Yes.

Spotting.

Yeah.

Okay.

And what were you in?

Uh, a C 55 AMG.

Oh, okay.

So that will allow you to go spot for other people.

Who did you, uh, can you say who you were working with or working for?

Uh, it was Steve Brown.

Steve Brown was running with the, uh, the GMC, the cannibal GMC.

Okay.

Alrighty.

Uh, now.

After you were a spotter, uh, what was your first cannibal type event?

The musket ball.

All right.

For the uninitiated, I can't imagine there's too many listening to the show,

but for the uninitiated, tell us what the musket ball was.

It was a under a hundred horsepower or a hundred horsepower or less.

Okay.

And, uh, we did it in a Toyota Yaris.

We were well, well below the hundred horsepower.

There were a couple of people who went over a hundred horsepower and it was

hilarious because as a penalty, you had to put a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle together,

glue it to your hood and every piece you were missing was a minute added to your

time and you had the choice for either carrying 10 pounds of concrete for every

horsepower over you were or risk the lobster penalty, which was a live lobster

from Connecticut in a bucket with a DOT tag on it.

So, you know, you didn't swap lobsters and if that lobster was not alive or was

restrained at any point during the trip, other than the bucket of water, you got

disqualified and I was, it was a very serious type of highly regulated event.

I heard the lobster had to ride in your crotch.

Uh, I, that might be a metaphor, but, uh, I think it's in a bucket of water.

It was the only stipulation, but it cannot be restrained.

We're over bands to the organizers.

FaceTime you at any point.

So, uh, yeah, that was the good run though.

Yeah.

Jeff is right.

It was under a hundred horsepower and the creative ways at which people shows

a ride under a horsepower was hilarious.

Sort of nervous about that because like I had a Volkswagen TDI and I know

I was close to like the horsepower rating and in the beginning before with the

dinos, you could put a little lobster sticker on the car.

If you thought it was over a hundred horsepower, I ended up with a few

stickers, but I sort of got buried in by Doug and Arnie's, you know, Honda.

So I was like, all right, great.

They're not going to move me out of the way.

I'm like, I don't think I'm over, but I'm really close.

But I had a big fuel cell only had to do one fuel stop on the whole event.

Oh, wow.

Well, and the Muskeball in 21, uh, when John put this together, I threatened

to ride that on a Harley I got that I think's about a buck 05, but I didn't

figure anybody would challenge me on it.

Furthermore, thank God, John talked me out of riding out of Darien,

Connecticut and November on a Harley.

Yeah, we got snowed on twice by turkeys.

What?

Yeah, so we're trying to leave the traffic light after the dyno section.

There was like a pack of turkeys hanging out there at the light.

And the red light, the turkeys will come up to the car, pecking it, all sorts

of stuff that was happening to your vehicle at this track.

Yeah, no turkey would come anywhere near this Harley.

I promise you the thing shakes the ground.

All right, Jeff, how far under a hundred horsepower under one on one.

Remember the hats and the stickers all said one on one.

Everything had to be under a hundred one.

Let's just say nobody put a lobster sticker on the Yaris.

Nobody, nobody thought we were cheating.

Okay.

How'd you prep the Yaris for this run?

A 20 gallon fuel cell and a light bar.

That's that's it.

Light bar facing forward.

Yeah, the you know, it's funny that a Toyota Yaris only has a four bar fuel

gauge and a speedometer.

Those are the only gauges that they have that's nothing else.

And the speedometer is in the middle between the driver and the passenger.

I got more than that on my Harley.

It doesn't even have a gas gauge.

A Toyota Yaris will do a hundred and seventeen miles an hour.

For my God, but it won't do one eighteen.

And how God, that's got to be buzzing.

It doesn't like vibrate your fingers.

It was fine.

It was it was remarkable.

I'm guessing that he works really well at one hundred and seventeen.

I didn't think it was going to do it.

And it did it all the way to California.

All right.

So when you're pushing a Yaris, a little blister with four tires on it,

as fast as it will go, how often do you have to refill it?

Now, how big is the gas tank on a Yaris to start with?

Twelve, isn't it?

I don't know.

I don't even know if it's that big.

It's not 16. Jesus.

No, I don't.

I'm not even sure.

But we had a 20 gallon fuel.

We carried enough fuel to go eight hours and amateur move.

We swap drivers every eight hours.

So we are charging for eight hours and then you'd spot for eight hours

and then charge for eight hours and spot for eight hours.

And we made four fuel stops.

Oh, man, that just sounds like hell.

Well, when you really dump it in, what 11 it says here,

eleven point one to eleven point six gallons

range for the gas tanks that came in them.

You know, how long did it take really to gas up?

You couldn't even go in and pee fast enough for the tank to fill.

I think you filled both tanks and ran into pee between four and six minutes.

Nice. I'm pretty sure I had a wave runner that had a 12 gallon tank on it.

We're able to buy a zag nut on the way out to hell.

Yeah. Oh, God. Wow.

OK, so did it make it without you killing it?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, it lasted for a while after that.

He did Aaron, who owned the car, drove it home to Michigan from from California.

And he had it for a while after, you know, you couldn't pay me enough

to drive a Yaris from California to Michigan.

I think I would do it again.

Well, at least you were going.

Yeah. Did anybody give you weird looks?

Everybody.

Especially if you passed them.

Yeah, it had an antenna that was on the roof and the antenna was twirling

over 100 miles an hour. We couldn't figure out what that noise was.

Oh, my God.

One of the fuel stops, we thought it was, you know,

we had a rollover valve on the fuel cell and we thought the rollover valve

was hit in the window. We thought it was a license plate rattling.

Bill, we caught up to another another team and

they were there.

Antenna was also going like that.

So we commented to them and they said, yeah, well, yours is doing it too.

That's when we figured out what the noise was.

OK, so what was your next event after Muscat Ball?

Southern Classic.

And when was this?

Oh, 23, 22 or 23, 23, 23.

We didn't make it very far.

We made it to Birmingham, Alabama with a with a plugged fuel tank.

And we were able to limp it back to Atlanta, but from Birmingham.

But it was 180 miles slow.

Oh, no. OK, well, up next,

we're going to find out what the aftermath of that was

and why you skipped Southern Classic.

You're on Driven Radio.

Let's take a break for some commercials about cool car people stuff.

Driven Radio Show will be right back.

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And now back to more driven radio show 2023.

What were you running?

You didn't you say Mercedes?

It was a it's a 450 SL.

Yeah. Yep. OK.

When you got back, you start tearing into it.

Did you figure out what it was?

Did you start out in Jersey or work?

We actually trailered it down.

Oh, OK.

But I had been driving that thing as my daily for a month hard,

just making sure that everything was working.

We thought everything was fine.

What was it?

Fuel tank was plugged right where the gas comes out of the tank.

Well, if it's German engineering, that probably meant the radio

wasn't set to the right frequency.

Oh, Hush.

Did you just plan on coming back the next year?

Yep. And the next year, by that time,

I tore into the car and I had removed the drivetrain

and I bought a wrecked 1990 Corvette

and I stuffed the L 98 and the six speed manual

into the Mercedes, a lot of cutting.

But it wasn't quite ready for the southern classic yet.

So I asked my my my dad if we could borrow one of his cars

and he gave us my mom's 1970 Rolls Royce Corniche

black, like beautiful black paint.

And we we trailered that there and we were going to run it,

but they started calling for hail.

Oh, and I'm not doing that to my mom's car.

Yeah, I wouldn't do that either.

You wouldn't look good with your nuts tacked to your forehead.

No, no, you know, it's funny.

She got mad afterwards.

She said she that we should have sent it should have sent it.

You're kidding.

Yeah, I never did.

I expect that. So that's a pretty cool mom.

Yeah, that is that's a that's a way cool mom.

So not going to run in 24, don't want to hurt mom's car.

What about 25?

I have a 79 SL that we took.

OK, that was completely stock.

And that that'll do 118.

No kidding. Yeah, that did 118.

Christopher was behind us coming into

Texarkana and we bottomed out.

They look like fireworks.

That was the most spectacular bottom out I've ever seen.

Yeah, we were coming off.

I guess when you come off of the interstate, you make the turn north

right there in Shreveport and Eugene and I had passed like 13 cars.

Jeff had already passed those same 13 cars.

They came down to like the two of us in this drag race last 800 miles to

Texarkana.

And as we make that turn, we're behind them.

We're in the course Mustang.

We're behind his most his Mercedes.

And mainly you hook that turn so great.

You were like right at the edge of traction going on to that on ramp.

Just this perfect sort of, you know, slip angle set up perfectly.

And then just as you hit the gas there, we saw you hit that loop.

It made spark.

You look like a whale breaching when they land in the ocean.

It just like water goes everywhere.

You hit the bottom of that car and it was glorious.

The sun wasn't up yet.

It was just this absolutely spectacular fire show.

I've got it on video somewhere.

I'll try to find it and it's into you.

If I haven't already, it was the most epic bottom out I've ever seen.

It was it was fantastic.

OK, I'm hoping it.

I'm hoping it was just exhaust brackets and bolts hanging down and stuff like that.

It wasn't anything critical, was it?

No, no, no, it was exhaust.

It was but his his commentary was perfect.

He goes, ooh, sparse.

We were on the phone and we were like, you know,

OK, pretty.

All right, who'd you do that run with?

That one I did with Alex Coleman.

My original driver, co-driver, backed out.

And so I asked my mechanic if he knew anybody and he's, oh, yeah, Alex over here.

Alex turned 22 that day.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah, that's a hell of a way to celebrate your birthday.

Yeah, yeah, he drove the balls off that car.

I'm just trying to picture it.

And did you ever before the dip?

Did you ever feel like, man, this is this is going to go?

This is going to go where did you feel like you were going to lose it?

Or do you feel like you're doing all right?

Now, I had a good hold of it.

I didn't expect that that whoop at the end with the with the sparks.

But everything else seemed like it was pretty solid.

They're solid cars.

I know, I kind of knew her one.

Alrighty, Wesley, we're up to you, pal.

When did you first know you were a car guy?

Did you have any early influences?

Yes, so I got to say, like, you know, with my brother and stuff like that,

coming to the garage, working on like the dirt race cars and stuff.

That's probably when I was five years old.

He would just bring a random Camaro home.

Then my job was just to pretty much strip it out, make it a street stock.

So I'd pull interiors, all this stuff as a little kid just left alone in the garage.

Maybe that wasn't the most safe thing to do.

But that's what I was doing as a child.

I'd rip in tears out of Camaro's from my brother.

And then it slowly evolved to go car racing.

Had a friend that would do it.

And they're like you interested in it.

And one thing led to another.

They did that for 10 years.

And that's probably, you know, the stem of it was from the dirt cars

and then just stayed in the automotive field,

auto body and then just tinkered on cars in the driveway.

So. And how did you wind up meeting Jeff?

So I think it's Jeff and I are probably what?

30. Yeah, like not that far away from each other.

So it's like a stone throw away in the cannonball world.

It's not that far at all.

Under an hour is no time at all.

So.

Right.

I said, Jeff, because again, on the Facebook page, I want to say the same time

that Jeff was involved with Cannonball, where like Doug and Artie with their time

in the Mercedes, because my original plan was like, I always want to take

a motorcycle across country, but not time whatsoever.

I just want to just, you know, usually go from New Jersey to California and just check it out.

Well, all of a sudden, car and driver post an article about cannonball run.

And this time I'm like, wow, I'm like, there's a bunch of idiots that have to do this.

I'm like, I'm in.

So I need to find them.

So I went searching all over the internet, trying to find Facebook groups,

eventually landed in the one.

And I was like, wow, I'm like, I'm in it.

So post.

And, you know, the same driver that he had in the musket ball,

I actually did my first run in 2020 with Alexis LS460.

And that's just where that lied.

So we just ran like a COVID run.

And just, you know, again, once I found out Jeff was near me, I was like, wow,

like, this is awesome, like a close by hanging out.

And I guess that's where our friendship, you know, came together.

And then even for that spotting for Steve Brown, like I was spotting for Steve

and then I was like, hey, let me eat some more spotters to cover, you know,

New Jersey in that area.

So again, we all reach out to each other.

It's a really small community, but we all want to see each other and be safe

and have good times and enjoy the run.

And again, just reach out, say, hey, I'm looking for spotters.

And I know Jeff just again from the Facebook page.

And this is like sort of like an initiate initiation where you get like a spotter

position and it's like, OK, this is a real person.

I'm really interested and then it opens the door for bigger things.

And then even like as far as like the Southern Classic, I ran that in 2021.

Again, that was a rental Mustang.

And that's that's a whole other story as far as putting fuel cells in it.

No, I guess you can I guess you can say that, like, I have a tendency

of maybe modifying rental cars and I have an expertise in making temporary

fuel systems and cannonball setups.

I don't think you're alone in that.

Nice. Well, coming up next, we're going to come up next.

We're going to figure out how they met Christopher Michaels and what motivated

them to cross the country not once, but twice.

Let's take a break for some commercials about cool car people stuff.

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And now back to more driven radio show.

Jeff and Wes took off and they they ran U.S.

Express last year, but not quite the way they wanted to.

Oops.

Yeah. Wes, what happened to that car?

Well, Jeff literally went above and beyond

trying to prep so many Mercedes Benz, I guess you could say.

He's prepped a bunch of cars.

He had one ready to go.

You know, Mr. Zaster, as you heard, is the one swap Mercedes.

Master cylinder issues, right, Jeff?

And then we turn into the spare Mercedes having computer problems.

So we tried that was option A was Mr. Zaster.

Option B was the white Mercedes.

Option C was finding a friend to tag along.

And then all else fails.

We talked to Taylor, great guy, and he could understand our

concern for what we wanted to do for this run.

So hey, listen, we both have plans to ask our girlfriends to be our wives.

We're going to, you know, ask for, you know, marriage and what can we do?

We have plans. We both have the rings.

This is our plan to do this at the end of San Francisco.

What can we do? And he's like, listen, you know, don't get anything fast.

Get a little rental car.

So Jeff does this thing, checks out what he can find.

And I said, listen, go to a larger area so we can sort of blend in.

And Jeff found a Kia Soul.

Oh, no, that's our car.

Is a Kia Soul more or less crappy than a Toyota Yaris?

It is. It is a better car.

Is it really? Yeah, it'll do 119 miles an hour.

It's actually two miles an hour faster than a Yaris.

It's two miles an hour better than a Yaris.

Put that in the ad.

So the speedometer says it's doing 128.

OK, well, we all know how about speedometers getting happy.

Try motorcycle speedometers.

They'll lie and lie and lie to you.

Tell us about running in a Kia Soul.

How about US Express in a Kia Soul?

Do you guys run into any obstacles human or otherwise?

Yeah, the Hells Angels.

Yeah, no doubt.

The Hells Angels, there were four.

Sturgis was the same weekend, I guess, or same week.

And so we had four packs of Hells Angels that we came up on.

Well, in different, actually, one of them we came up on twice because

we got off the highway in, I think it was in Kansas.

We got off the highway because it was a traffic jam.

And we went around the traffic.

We got back on and apparently the Hells Angels don't stop for traffic

because we caught up to them again.

I'm I'm guessing the H.A.

just love the side of a Kia Soul.

Yeah, and we try to be respectful on the whole situation.

We're like, OK, we don't want to blow their doors off.

We don't want to rip by them.

Like we're trying to respect them.

And eventually, like one point we flash the lights

so like on them, they all got over.

And I'm like, Jeff, this might be our time to go for it.

And we sort of got like green lighted.

We run around, you know, not reckless,

made head, you know, headway and did pretty well getting around it.

One group we actually passed on the right around a tractor trailer.

I guess the highway opened up to three or four lanes.

So we kind of slingshot it around them that way.

Otherwise, we waited for permission.

How did you meet Christopher Michaels

and what possessed you along with Nick Kruger

to decide to cross the country at speed twice?

So again, Chris has always been around the scene

that met him multiple times.

We knew about his previous run as far as setting

that a really good time for like Southern Classic

or another Southern Classic Southern Trail run.

So he was on our radar because, again,

like trying to plan for like coast to coast to coast is a lot of work.

And my hat's off to Nick because Nick did a lot of work,

spreadsheets and really crunch numbers.

But we can even talk about like going back to the musket ball because it was funny.

We almost missed the photo at the musket ball

because Nick and I were talking about trying to set a coast to coast to coast world record.

So it's always been in our mind.

We're just waiting for the right time.

So we originally set the world record, but lost a few minutes later.

Now we're like, OK, revenge run and wait a second, wait a second.

What was the world record?

So previously, what did Mark set it in?

Mark, I mean, 405 or something.

Yeah, it was it was a it was a higher time.

So when we went at the first time, Mark,

Spence, Nick and I, we set in time of 65 hours, 28 minutes.

But then a week later, we lost it by minutes and nine minutes.

We had this bad taste in our mouth.

We're like, man, I'm like, we worked.

We all worked so hard at this.

We need to go at it again.

So we have for it again.

I wasn't on one of the redemption runs, but there was a there was an issue

with a like possible drunk driver that came out onto the highway,

jumped in front of them and they flat spotted all four tires

because that vehicle just came straight over right in front of them.

They had to lock it up.

So that pretty much finished that run.

Now, going into this next run where we claim the world record at 61 hours,

59 minutes, getting Chris on board, sound like a great plan.

And I got to say, like there was no doubt in my mind, once he took the wheel,

I'm like, we are we're going to get this.

Chris is a very fast driver, very good driver.

And again, I again, it takes a level of confidence to sit in the back seat.

And have someone just hurl themselves down the highway.

And again, Chris was a great driver for all that stuff.

So and how much did you trim off the record?

Because it sounds like close to four hours.

Yeah.

So if you look at the old record, it was a 65 hours and we're at 61.

So we set a really good time.

The problem is with coast to coast to coast runs, you know,

you can plan for a really good one way.

But guess what?

You got to just do it again.

Yeah, true.

And you can plan for like one good run, like that's, you know,

World Record runs one way.

Yes, you set up for the time you want.

But if you don't hit the problems now, you're going to hit them later.

So it takes takes a lot of planning and Nick, like I said, spreadsheets galore.

You know, my fiancee before I left and the kicker was it was her birthday on this weekend.

I felt horrible telling her, you know, she's like, listen,

you just need to get the world record and I will not be happy or I'm looking at you.

So she had this spreadsheet on her wall that was probably four feet long.

She knew exactly where we should be at what time, what location.

If she just looked at our tracker and she could tell us if we're on time and on her own end.

Do you think you left any time after?

Again, in the world of cannonball, there could be time.

Again, we also ran through problems.

Like I can like Chris explain that as far as detour that we had to go around

to finish at least one way.

Yeah, we're going to listen to that story again.

We've heard it once, but it's been a while.

Well, I give you the short version and, you know, Wes is being modest.

Everybody in that car drove spectacularly.

I don't even know what a spreadsheet is, but Nick could it.

It's when you smooth out the bedspread on the.

Yeah. Oh, OK, OK.

Well, that's a lot easier than, but Nick could have planned the moon mission by himself.

He did a great job and Wes was just so in tune with the car,

with the cops, with the road, his amazing spotter.

Like he was supposed to be sleeping in the backseat and his ear.

He picked us up getting called in on the police radio,

like literally in his sleep while we're staring down the road.

Like he was just such an asset.

Like again, it takes a little bit.

There's a cop out there, idiot, slitter.

Oh, I mean, just amazing.

So he was an absolutely great asset.

I was just happy to be there.

Hey, we had a fun run.

But yeah, there's definitely time on the table.

We spent easily 180 miles probably behind a cop

who would not let us get around him in Missouri or Oklahoma somewhere.

You know, Missouri loves company.

That sounds right.

And we lost a ton of time there.

And then I 40 got closed for snow up above Flagstaff.

And we had to divert off onto two-lane back roads from I 40

and somewhere around the New Mexico, Arizona border,

all the way down to Phoenix on like two-lane mountain roads.

And God bless, Wes is the bravest man I've ever met.

Because we're like, it's snowing.

We're going as fast as that car would handle around these turns.

I'm driving Nick's spot and we're using the GPS for like,

you know, like to set up for turns.

And Wes is brave enough to sleep in the backseat.

Oh, this is going on.

It just, it was a zoo.

I would say we, that run with the speeds we were laying down,

I think at one point we were on pace for like a 28-30,

which we lost some time out there.

So I would say that is a sub 60 run.

If we had the run on the way back that we did on the way out,

running fresh without the detour in the snow,

I think we could have done a sub 60.

But I'm so proud of the time that we did though.

And, you know, for Nick and Wes, who had done it already

and we're needing redemption, I was just proud to be a part of it.

And again, there could not have had better guys in the car.

You know, Wes, particularly, like we got some bad gas at one point

and Wes just had that magic with that car.

He could get it right to that little point,

right to that RPM range where it would start to stutter

and just hold it there, get as much speed out of it

until we got that bad gas out.

He was just like the sob whisperer with that car.

It was awesome to be there.

So what were you driving?

2000 something, sob 95.

I don't even really know.

I don't really think I know.

So it was a 2008 sob 95 Aero.

Oh, well, that's a decent little car.

Yeah, the suspension in the back was air ride

and stuff like that was like imported.

So that way we could have the auto leveling suspension

on the back and stuff like that.

Yeah.

And he had that thing tuned out to about 380 horsepower,

which is a lot on two skinny front wheel drive tires.

I've never cannonballed a front wheel drive car that was quick.

I mean, we've done, you know, rental cars and stuff like that.

It was a great car, though.

It was quiet at roadwell.

I will say it's not the most comfortable car for sleeping.

And like it's a little car.

Like we're all pretty good sized dudes,

husky guys, you might call it.

Like three big dudes in that car.

We're like three monkeys trying to hunt the same coconut.

Like it was tight in there, but it was fun though.

Yeah, that's a great little car, though.

I have a total respect for sobs now after running it.

Engineering is phenomenal.

We rally the crap out of that car.

I don't know how it stayed together.

Like I don't understand the mechanics behind that,

but we thrashed that car.

And it should be broken into a million pieces.

I don't know how.

Oh, yeah, there were numerous times.

That car had 156 mile an hour top speed

with the three of us in it and the boost leak it had.

And we hit that.

I don't know how many dozens of times.

But at one point, like it was early morning,

I think in the return run, it was like 50 or 60 miles.

And that car just stayed pegged at 156.

As Nick said, it was airborne twice on that run.

Just hitting bump.

West ran, it hit a deer and had no choice,

but we had a dead deer on it.

There was a foot and a half thick tall deer

with an eight inch ground clearance under a car.

And he just aired it.

I mean, that car was,

I expanded it to like Bluesmobile itself

when we rolled in as a red ball.

I give it the last stitch of effort that car had in it,

but it just made it.

It's a trooper.

It's still going.

I think it is the most cannonballed car,

maybe arguably the taxi, I think,

is the only other car that might have

more cross country miles on it in competition.

But it's a great little car.

So these guys say you're pretty damn fast on the highway.

Is it tough for you to run flat out

and just not worry about it?

How do you overcome the fear of being caught?

Well, you're going to go to jail just as long at 110 is 170.

So, you know, if you're going to dance with a devil,

you may as well lead.

I can just tell you this much.

And again, it's like one of those things,

like at least for me,

it's like something that you just don't want to ever face.

But like on the first coast to coast to coast run,

we have devices in the car tells us a whole bunch of things.

And one of the tones go off,

basically saying that like there's a police officer

in the area keys up a radio.

So that tone goes out.

Then the next words I hear out of the cost mouth

through the scanner silver four door car.

And now it was a hundred and fifty five and a hundred.

What was the number one fifty or one twenty five and a fifty five.

And I'm just I'm behind the wheel.

Mark looks at me and he's just like, yeah, that's you.

I instantly get that like cold sweat.

I'm like, man, this is going to hurt.

So we like crest the hill.

As soon as we crest the hill,

they pull over another car and I'm like, thank you very much.

Do you wait until you're past him to get back on the gas?

Yeah. And then the same thing happened,

probably 10 miles down the road,

hit us again.

And I don't know where they were at,

but we sort of skate through that one because it wasn't as bad.

But I don't know.

It was Utah.

I know what they were doing,

but they were running some secret stuff out there.

I bet.

And by the math, like,

not that you shouldn't be wary,

but we've gotten pretty good at avoiding them,

and they really don't run radar as much as you would think.

Now, you take a race just to make the math easy,

like the U.S. Express.

Let's call it 40 cars going across country for 3,000 miles.

That's a hundred and twenty thousand collective miles

of cars going as fast as they can physically go.

Nobody gets a ticket.

I mean, there might be what do you think West?

Jeff, like one, two tickets a year in the community,

probably.

Yeah, I mean, it's actually pretty good at this point.

It's actually surprising.

And I don't want to, like, jinx it

because, you know, runs coming up and stuff.

But, like, you can go faster than you expect.

The problem is just being confident enough to be like,

okay, I need to stay in it.

Where, like, subconsciously, you're like,

man, like, this is horrible.

Like, any second, they're going to be high in the woods.

But, like, Chris said that, you know, they're,

we'll run to an area, especially doing a run,

that probably five miles is a disaster.

So we know that that area is a disaster.

We slow down through it and then we're good to go.

But it's surprising on how fast you can actually travel

with the amount of enforcement that's going on.

Do you think there's a certain speed at which they just say,

screw it, I'm not going that fast to try and chase them down?

But the problem is, depending on the cop, you know,

if they're young and they're full of piss and vinegar

and they want that chase, they're going to at least try it.

Maybe not call it in and try to run you down.

But again, you have tactics to try to get away from that.

But yeah, there could be certain numbers where they're like,

yeah, I'm not even moving because there's no way

they're going to get it.

Okay, and there may or may not be, like,

blackout switches on some of these cars,

allegedly, that helps it to disappear at night.

And there may or may not be night vision

and thermal cameras and other things

like that that make it a lot easier as well.

No, we know about all of the countermeasures.

All right, but further record though,

like if they're behind you with the lights on, pull over,

you know, like one of our kind of mattress is like,

don't break the law when you're breaking the law.

The lawyers have a fairly good chance of getting you off the hook

if you were just speeding, but like speeding and evading,

reckless evading, whatever, like,

if you try to hide or run, I mean, yeah, we do.

If there's a reasonable chance we can get away with it,

but there's no like movie chase scenes where they're behind us

and we're like jumping bridges and stuff like that.

Just pull over and take the ticket and keep going

because, you know, you're going to go to jail

a whole lot longer if you get caught trying to get away.

So we're going to be like, we'll take it like a man.

We're going to be like Jeff and I and blend in with the Kia Soul

and he can explain that whole problem.

Oh, exactly.

Yeah.

Cooper for cop could not believe that that car was going that fast

and then was trying to dial in, well, who was that?

That went that fast.

We were coming, we were coming into,

Wes and I were coming into Sacramento at 112

and everything lit up on the dashboard,

the tablets we were running, the radar detector

and the cops lights on the side of the highway all at once.

When he got on the highway, he got in the slow lane

and there was a tractor trailer in the middle.

There must have been a car in front of him.

We could see the cop because his lights were on

under the tractor trailer.

So we just kind of did this a little bit back and forth

until he turned the lights off.

And then we couldn't find him.

We then we couldn't see him.

So I set the cruise control to 72 and the lane assists.

So the car was like driving itself.

That cop tailed us for about five miles.

He probably read the plate and it said it was a rental,

budget rental car from Rhode Island.

And there's no way that a Kia Soul was doing 112.

I just love the thought of it.

Okay, you can't avoid every ticket.

And like Christopher said, just pull over.

If they're behind you and they got the lights on,

go ahead and pull over.

What is the single worst thing you can say to a cop

when you get pulled over?

Single worst thing?

I don't know.

You got to try that humor thing.

If that works, you're going to see what kind of cop

you're dealing with.

But none of us will ever come out and say,

hey, we're doing a cannonball run.

Tell them we're storm chasers.

Tell them we're organ donors.

We've tried all kind of dumb stuff.

A lot of it works.

But generally, like honesty is the best policy.

I've told cops that I was trying to get back

to the campground to get all the barbecue chicken,

to get the white meat for all the old people got it.

I've offered a beef jerky.

I've told them all kind of dumb stuff.

Like sometimes you just tell them something so stupid

that they're just like, okay, sure.

I got pulled over one time as the guy gets out of his car,

walks up, I just took my head out, and I was like,

I got here as fast as I could.

And he just got laughed for a second.

If you can humanize the interaction for just a minute,

you got a chance.

All right.

It's my experience, the second worst ticket I ever got.

I knew I was screwed when I rolled down the window

and the cop walked up to the car laughing.

And that's how we both knew I was screwed.

Yeah.

You know how I was screwed once is that when I was pulled over

New Jersey State Police, pulled off the side of the road.

It's a pretty big thing.

But I rolled down my passenger window,

then I hear a knock on the driver's side.

Well, he was on the field training officer set up.

So now this guy is brand new.

Well, it's a training exercise.

I broke the law and I'm about to learn everything in the law.

So that experience right there that when I was expecting

to talk to the trooper on the passenger side,

then the knock on the driver's side,

then I was like, forget it.

I'm done.

I've only been like two jail twice and only had to spend the night once.

But you know, sometimes they get a sense of humor, sometimes they don't.

Which state's the worst?

Well, the particular time I spent the night in jail

was in Dawsonville, Georgia, which is like, you know, the birthplace of NASCAR.

They have like a race car like on a plant in front of the jail.

Like I'm walking in like with my hands handcuffed.

I'm like, y'all know this is a mixed message, right?

But I would say Missouri probably has some pretty draconian penalties for speeding.

I got a when Ed Bolian and Dan Doucet and I did the musket ball.

I got a 102 and a 70 there.

And thankfully ticket clinic to Ching got me off the hook.

But like, I think they got to change to littering or something.

But I was going to have to do like 30 days in jail and lose my license and have to like

report to Missouri for like once a month for a year and do like 200 hours of community service.

Wow.

And thousands of dollars of fines.

Like they were coming down hard on that.

But I just, Arizona is pretty scary.

I think they will generally take people anything over 20 over.

Alabama made 20 over and more of felony.

It's a state felony.

So it's not like you like lose your passport or you're right to vote or anything.

But some states are pretty hardcore, but other states are just kind of like, man, whatever.

Like in Atlanta, if you're not actively shooting at somebody, they don't care.

Oh, God.

I was going to say, man, Kansas is 25 over and the copy was laughing was kind enough to

write me for 24 over.

So I didn't have to go up here before a judge right then.

Didn't have to go see a magistrate, but it was a hell of an expensive ticket.

Alrighty, since we've had Christopher on a bunch and we always love having him on here,

Christopher, you're never not a good time, but almost every story he tells is what's

the dumbest thing you've ever done in a car.

So Christopher, you're exempt tonight.

You other two, Jeff and Wes, you're, you're screwed for both of you.

What's the dumbest thing you've ever done in a car?

Oh, I definitely know this one.

Back in like 1988, my friend Randy from Savage Garage had a Honda CRX manual.

And if you, if you just let that clutch out slow enough, you don't need to give it any gas

and drive itself.

So he cut the wheel and the car was just driving in circles.

We got out and we got on the hood and we sat on it.

But as it was turning, we didn't notice that it was drifting a little bit and it hit a speed bump

and the wheels straightened out and it headed right for a dumpster and it hit the dumpster

with us on the hood sitting.

Oh, wow.

That's bananas.

I want to be an airborne ranger.

Back then, you remember Caldor's or Bradley's stores?

But there was a strip mall that had, uh, you know, movie theaters that we used to do on

Friday nights.

We do the Caldor 500.

We just drive around the store, uh, you know, ride right around the whole store and everybody

did it with, you know, their music playing or fast, slow cars.

And, uh, yeah, that's where we did it in front of everybody.

Oh, that's a good look.

That was like the original ghost riding.

That's crazy, dude.

All right, Wes, you're up.

It's the dumbest thing you've ever done in a car.

So one of two things, I guess Jeff can confirm this is that one year when I was down in Key West,

now this is really a car.

It's a moped rental that I decided to try to throw down a time of Key West doing the

loop and see how fast you can do that in.

So that would be one dumb thing and it's, you know, it has a motor and wheels.

Now, do you remember your time?

Cause I did the same thing one time.

I had the screenshots somewhere in my computer here, but I, again, I think when

Savage Garage went down the week after they smoked my time.

But then the next thing, I don't know, as far as dumbest thing in a car, uh, a friend of

mine was driving and pretty much it stemmed from a hit and run to basically us ramming

a development gate, hitting a person, throwing him over the hood of the car.

So that's maybe the one wild thing.

So I don't know if you want me to elaborate on that, but what's the statute?

That's as many years ago.

So we ended that.

So that's, that's pretty clear, I guess you could say.

Well, if you're safe, we'll leave it at that.

We've been speaking with Jeff Weiss, Christopher Michaels and Wesley Weig.

Guys, please tell us where we can find you online and on social media.

Start with you, Christopher.

All right.

Well, I'm all over the place.

I'll be hosting the off-road games again on matsoffroad.com.

You'll find me on Venwick.

You're telling stories.

I don't do my own social media, but you will find me at Christopher Michaels art

on Instagram and Facebook, just posting sculptures and artwork I do and random dumb

stuff I do in cars.

How about you, Jeffrey?

Let's see.

In Instagram, it's Hollywood action sports and also have another Instagram for Ms. Disaster.

It's Ms. underscore disaster.

And that has the, the build from the Mercedes with the Corvette drive train in it.

And Wesley, as far as this goes, I have it on the shirt, but at the West under store express,

you can find me on any social media platform, usually in that frame.

That's how you can find me.

Oh, by the way, I did forget.

I do have a website, chrispermichaelart.com.

You can get some cool merch, including my new Atlanta smells like weed t-shirt.

You have to check out his artwork.

He does really great sculpture, stuff like that, especially even trophies for like Southern

classic stuff.

He's really, really good.

It is a little disconcerting to be on a Harley over in Missouri and to smell weed in traffic,

to smell weed.

When you're riding down the highway, if it slows down on the highway,

you can smell it in your helmet.

And you're always thinking, you know, man, I get it.

I get it, but please don't run me over because you're stoned.

Plus that weed was your smelling was in somebody else's lungs.

Oh.

Oh, nice.

Not all of it.

All right.

You're welcome.

But yeah, same thing for Atlanta.

Like the amount of violence in Atlanta and the weed smoke would seem mutually exclusive.

And also this violent at the same time, like that shouldn't even work.

Y'all should just be passed out somewhere.

You never see anybody high out of their skull who's really, really angry and wants to do

harm to people.

Not usually.

Hey, what's going on down in hot Atlanta, man?

Oh, man, what is going on in Atlanta?

Yeah.

I mean, I would sum up Atlanta with this description.

It's like having valet parking at a restaurant with metal detectors.

It's like everybody's trying to be coming up and spending all this money, but you still

might get shot.

So like, you know, we're going to charge you $100 cover charge, but we also got to

frisk you.

Like it's just Atlanta is just this pile up of dichotomies.

You know, like you're high, but you're violent.

You're rich, but you get it.

Like it's just there's no, it makes no sense.

But no, that that's a lot of the world these days.

I absolutely understand where you're coming from.

I lived in Marietta for a year, but that was in 1968 to 69.

So it still wasn't that friendly at that time.

But yeah, I don't think it's anything like it is.

No, no, no, very, very different now.

Yeah.

Like, like if you were going to give America to Enema, you'd stick it in Atlanta.

I guess we got shot at it in Atlanta with Ms. Disaster being Dave Collins went to a gas

station to get some diesel fuel for his old Mercedes.

And the guy was shooting sideways over the trunk of the car.

We can't stay here.

And we just drove away five minutes later.

It was like, there was nobody ever there.

He went pizza style.

No, man.

Yeah.

I could start like a gun store in Atlanta, just mounting the sights over on the side of guns.

Hell yeah.

I think you may be on to something.

I'm an interested investor if you go that way.

There's a lot of intersection takeovers up the street from my shop.

I'm going to get like a little like a hot dog cart and go up there and just start moving sights around.

But yeah, it's just a lot of gangs really.

Like there's a lot of Latino gangs that are now fighting with existing gangs.

And it's just getting crazy.

There was like the whole highway got shut down one night for just this complete gunfight.

Like they just let them fight it out.

It's it's bananas down here, man.

I think I can figure out how to do that.

You know how you press in sights on a Glock.

You just make it so that they come off at a 90.

Yeah, you can do that.

You can do that.

It's a cheap way to do that anyway.

I might do that to mine just flopping around my 23 just to carry it that way.

Again, I'm an interested investor.

You let me know if you want to go that away.

Guys, thanks for being on.

Always a pleasure, Christopher.

I'm glad you got the technical issues worked out.

Thanks for being on.

Perfect.

Just exactly what we wanted.

Always a pleasure, man.

Thanks for having me on.

Appreciate it.

Good to see these guys face to face.

We talk online all the time, but it's nice to see Jeff and Wes smiling faces.

So, of course, seeing you guys in a couple of weeks.

If you were going to give America an enema, you'd stick it in Atlanta.

It's the line of the show, man.

What's the context on that?

So, people are just doing what we're talking about.

We're talking about different places and how many places of legalized

weed for either medicinal or it seems like every place that legalizes it for medicinal,

about 20 minutes later, they legalize it for recreational.

And when we tell our guests, thank you and appreciate it, we stop for just a second

to let them get on their merry way and et cetera.

But sometimes there's some conversation that goes on there.

We got on a roll.

And the other thing is, I've known Christopher Michaels now for

four or five years, maybe a little bit longer than that.

We've had him on the show a bunch of times.

And then we finally got to meet in person at Travis Bell's Backyard 400 when he did that.

And late in the day, Christopher was driving a go-kart that had a pickup truck body on it.

And he was driving the wheels off the thing, but he had no brakes.

And there were a lot of different go-karts there.

And most of them were set up with kind of the rod and band type brakes.

It was, it's just a rod back to a steel band that went around a drum.

And you push down on the brake thing and it pulls the steel band tight.

And that's what the braking was around the drum.

And everybody had worn out a bunch of these.

And Christopher was trying to get some brakes underneath his truck so we could,

you know, throw it, slow down to throw it into a corner a little bit.

And, you know, I'm standing around.

I'm not doing anything kind of useless.

I grew up with go-karts and I do know how to turn wrenches on stuff.

So I jumped in.

I started helping him in a second.

You know, I got grease up to my elbows, but we're just trying to get it figured out.

And since then, he's called me the world's greatest

crew chief and all kinds of crap like that.

It's a lot of fun.

And I love Christopher to death.

He's just fun to be around.

Always fun to be around.

Always makes the show a lot of fun and he's colorful.

And I can really appreciate that too.

Well, you know, that t-shirt that he was talking about,

it makes a lot more sense now after hearing the full story of it.

He said, yeah, he was saying go buy the new t-shirt.

Atlanta smells like weed.

And so we were talking about that and he was kind of seeing that Atlanta is

a bunch of different contradictions and dichotomies.

And he said, if America, if you were going to give America an enema, he'd stick it in.

Bless your heart Atlanta.

I love you.

Yeah.

Well, I love Atlanta.

I hate the traffic.

You can't find your way around.

And Christopher and Wes and Jeff, thanks for being on.

It's and Christopher, it's always a pleasure.

And he and I, even when he's not on the show,

we'll shoot the breeze occasionally and talk about stuff.

And I'll just, I'll ask him about crap.

He has on social media and he'll ask me about crap.

And I just like spending time around the guy.

He's fun.

He's, he's damn fun and damn interesting.

And I'll call him and ask him Harley questions and stuff like that.

And he's just a genuinely good guy, as are most all the guests we have on here.

We've been very, very fortunate to meet lots of really cool people with this show.

Guys and girls alike.

And I just, I love what we do here.

And what you all don't know is after Mark and I get done recording the show,

the studio is in my house, a move we were forced to do years ago,

but now is, is just fantastic for us.

Cause we get a set when we start and we get to talk as long as we want.

Yep.

And we, you know, we always know that we've got our equipment.

Sometimes the equipment doesn't want to work.

Oh, there is that.

We do run into that crap sometimes.

You know, we've only been using the shit for six years.

Eventually we ought to go get new.

Uh, but we do really love what we do and we get done.

And Mark and I will talk about stuff.

A lot of times we go through Facebook marketplace and we look at 700 used cars.

But we also, uh, we walk out of here and go upstairs and I always,

I'm chewing on Mark's here and I can't shut up.

Once we just started on the show, man, I can't shut up.

And I walk him outside and, uh, you know, we usually shake hands, good show, all that.

And almost without a, almost without fail.

Yeah.

I always tell you, this is still my, my favorite thing I do all week, every week.

And, uh, you know, when, when we got down here to record the show tonight,

I felt like crap and I felt like crap for a good chunk of the day.

Part of the reason is I haven't been getting any sleep.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

I'm working on like my third night in a row.

You need to go Atlanta, put yourself a t-shirt and a quarter ounce.

Just walk around and breathe the air, be nice and relaxed.

Man, I don't like the way that stuff smells.

Well, you know, when it's filtered through a hot box and it, you know, 1994 Dodge neon,

there's a reason I quit, I quit smoking at like my second year of college.

I just didn't, I didn't like it anymore.

I think that may be the main, uh, use for, um, use Dodge challengers.

I honestly is at a filter for a joint.

Yeah, could be.

I worked with a guy and his, he had a nice little 2015, uh, not like a Hellcat or anything,

but it was pretty sweet.

Well, yeah, but you can get Hemmys and Scatpacks.

Got stolen, uh, and then they found it and it had been hot box like nobody's business

and was sitting in somebody's driveway.

Yeah.

And they're the ones who called the police saying, Hey, there's a car that's been out here for a

couple of days.

We don't know who's it is.

Ended up being his.

I would, I would tell the insurance company to keep it because you'll never get the smell.

That's pretty much what happened.

You never ever get the smell out.

But anyway, uh, the, the thrust of this was, uh, this is still my favorite thing that I

do all week.

And I've got several jobs I love because all I have to do is write about car stuff.

You know, it's fun to kibbutz with car people, man.

Especially, uh, the guests that you find are so often so very creative and funny.

Look how many really legitimately good friends we've gotten out of this.

I mean, people that, uh, you know, even just locally that, uh, we, we get a C and we run

into them a car stuff or, you know, we, we go and do things with, but we also have people

like we were just talking a second ago about, uh, World of Wheels is coming to Kansas City

next month and Larry Wayne, we've gotten to be friends with Larry and it's fun.

You know, when we see him, we walk up and then Larry always has a big smile and a big

handshake for you and we wouldn't know him if it wasn't for the show.

Yeah.

So, and Rick Hunter, we wouldn't know Rick if it wasn't for this show.

You are not wrong.

So we got a lot of great friends that we've made from this and, uh, you know,

Christopher and, and now Jeff and Wes because we know what you did.

We got dirt, baby.

But this is, uh, this is still my favorite thing that I do any week.

Yeah.

So when we do the show closing and oh, by the way, for those of you who don't know,

I read the show closing every week.

Yeah.

We don't have this prerecorded and just tack on the end and my voice changes on that

from week to week yaw to be able to tell by now.

So when I read the, the first two sentences of the show closing and I say,

thanks for spending time with Driven Radio.

We love what we do and we wouldn't be able to do it without the support of our listeners.

That's absolutely true.

I do love this.

Um, one of the cool things that's been going on the past few weeks is, uh, many of you

who listened to the last couple sentences that I read on the show closing.

If you have a story you would like to tell or someone you would like us to interview,

Jeff, tonight was one of the people who contacted me and said, Hey, I got a story to tell.

Nice.

And I have other people and we haven't had Wes on before, but we've had Christopher on a lot.

And we had another longtime listener.

I don't know if he knows the guy he suggested we interview,

but he sent it to me and it's the guy I sent you this afternoon.

Yeah.

It looks pretty interesting.

And that does look interesting.

And the fact that he ran a car on Hot Rod Power Tour using a lawnmower carb on it.

I'm like, what the f...

Okay.

And he made that work.

He made it work.

I'm already jealous.

How the hell do you get that to work?

Yeah, what?

So, uh, when we say the things that we say in the show closing, uh, it's not

wallpaper and it's not just pattern.

And we really do mean it.

Thank you for spending time with Driven Radio.

We do love what we do and we wouldn't be able to do it without the support of our listeners.

You can find us online at DrivenRadioShow.com.

And on LinkedIn as Driven Radio Show podcast because somebody already had stinking Driven

Radio Show.

I couldn't believe it.

If you have a story you would like to tell or someone you would like us to interview,

contact me at Brett at DrivenRadioShow.com.

And if you'll hold on for a half a second, uh, what is that gentleman's name?

Where is he?

It is, uh, the guy's name who sent me the suggestion is Conrad Brighter.

Conrad, we are looking into this.

We absolutely are.

And, uh, he says, hi, long time listener.

Conrad, we certainly appreciate it.

Hey, guess what?

You made a suggestion.

You got your name on the show, pal.

So thank you for sending that in.

And I want to know how he made that damn carb work too.

I want to see how that works out.

But, uh, again, if you got a story you'd like to tell or someone you'd like us to

interview, contact me at Brett B R E T T at Driven Radio Show.

I'll run together.

Dot com.

I'm Brett Hatfield from Markel Groves.

Yo.

Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time here on Driven Radio.

You know, Darryl Ossopic might just be the most interesting man on earth.

Might be.

If you look at his collection of vehicles, you'll realize this is a renaissance man

from weird old beaters to serious performance hot rods.

All in one place.

Owner of Ossopic Automotive, Darryl is the car whisperer,

practicing voodoo that brings vehicles back from the dead.

Just for, for us here on this show.

Darryl has worked on, um, Mercury Mountaineer.

Yeah.

Classic Corvettes.

Oh yeah.

Nissan Xterra.

Mine.

Unusual Mercedes.

Yours.

And a 64 Dodge custom 880.

Neither of ours anymore.

Not no mo.

But you know why it ran?

Darryl Ossopic.

That's right.

In other words, we come to him with our whining issues and he comes back to us with

shiny fixed automobiles.

It is like magic.

Darryl has ASC certified mechanics and happily gives binding estimates.

You might not know he's happy, but that might be because he sees us come in and it erases all of

his joy.

Yeah, you'll watch that face drop.

Darryl will explain what he finds, what he plans on doing, and lets you make your decisions.

Nothing hidden, no mechanic bait and switch.

He's straight up and even guarantees all work for at least one month or 1000 miles.

Yeah.

Ossopic Automotive, that's OSI, PIK Automotive, 5920 Merriam Drive in Merriam, Kansas,

called Darryl at 913-831-3613.

What was that number?

913-831-3613.

Don't even have to read it.

It's been in my head for a while now.

That's that dude on the back of my skull.

Ask for the Big D and tell him Brett sent you.

After he sighs heavily.

And he will.

He'll get you taken care of 913-831-3613 Ossopic Automotive.

0:00

72:20

Driven Radio Show #336: Cannonball Scofflaws

Willis Knight model 70

Volkswagen TDI

Mercedes-Benz 450 SL

L98

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