How Westen Champlin Built a Redneck Media Empire

Hey, what's up? This is Joe Weber from Donut Media, and I'm so excited for this first episode

of Talk Talk Nation. In fact, I was so excited I forgot to introduce myself, so that's what

I'm doing right now. This was such a fun interview to do. If you find yourself enjoying

it, be sure to hit like and subscribe so we can do more of these. So without further

ado, here's my conversation with Weston and Gary.

I am not in LA right now because I'm being hosted by my very gracious hosts and my first

guests ever on the pod. We got Weston and Garrett Champlin. Sorry, Champlin.

Yeah, you got it close enough.

We are-

No, don't worry. Most people mess it up. It's a hard one to say, don't worry.

I like Champion.

Yeah, you say Champion. That's good.

I literally just asked you one second ago how to pronounce it, and I still got it wrong.

Yeah, that's all right.

You guys, thank you so much for having me in Kansas. It's frigid right now. I'm freezing

my ass off.

So we built this podcast set, and we're like, yeah, this is awesome because we're going

to start doing podcasts and we're going to launch all that, and that's going to be great.

And then we're like, you know what, we'll just use our set, and then we forgot to turn

the heat on. So I'm sorry, it's 38 degrees in here currently because the heat hasn't

been on this building in like a month, so.

Either that or we forgot to pay the heat bill.

You know, gas is expensive anyway.

That's not even a joke. We got like a $3,000 bill. Like it went up 300% like last year.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Well, so we are in your new podcast studio. You haven't launched yet, but soon.

So cool.

We filmed a couple episodes, but the thing is, we're really, really good at talking,

but we're not sure we're interesting. So we're just, we filmed a couple episodes.

We're actually really good. I'm really happy with them, and we're going to film a couple

more, and then we're just going to start releasing them.

Is it just you guys?

That's us. We'll have guests on, people we think that are interesting, you know, big

foot if we can find them.

We're trying to get our mayor.

Oh, let me ask.

Our mayor, our small town mayor.

You guys grew up in Winfield, right?

Yeah.

Born and bred here. What is it? Like 30,000 people, 40,000 people?

Oh dude, not even 10, 12.

Oh man, so you probably know everyone here.

Oh yeah, well, most people know us, most people know us in a good way or bad way, but we

got a Walmart, they just renewed, they like remodeled and stuff, so it's nice, but no,

yeah, it's like 12,000 people, then there's another town down the street that's like 10,000

people.

Is that Derby?

Derby is actually the other way. No, with Ark City is the other one that's 10,000 people,

but Derby is like 30 minutes away.

Okay.

It's probably 40 or 50,000 people.

Yeah.

But we weren't, the thing is, Winfield is actually like civilization. We grew up out in the country.

Oh yeah.

So there's nobody around.

Oh really? So you didn't grow up in Winfield proper? You were like out on sticks a little

bit?

We grew up in...

Not very many sticks, fields.

A lot of fields.

A lot of fields, but there's a little town called Burden. Technically, that's where

we were in between Winfield and Burden. On the farm, there's kind of where we grew up.

So you grew up on a farm.

Oh yeah.

You did a lot of like, did you help your dad a lot with the tractor and stuff?

So my mom ran horses and she would have like, at her peak, she had like 150 horses.

Holy crap.

And then my dad, he ran trucks and he was a cowboy and he would ranch and things like

that. And then as time went on, I was a lot younger to really remember this. Garrett got

the full experience. But then we ended up moving to town after we kind of got a little

older and it was so different because for whenever you're out in the country, whenever

you're on the farm, there's like 3 million things that always need done.

There's always something to do. And you never said you're bored. It's like, oh, you want

to paint the fence? You want to weed eat? You need to go worm the cattle? Like always

something to go do.

If you, like saying you're bored is like a cardinal sin. You don't do it because it's

like, if you ever mentioned, you were even thinking about maybe saying you were bored.

It's like, I'll go get the weed eater. You're going to weed eat the entire fence. That'll

work. Oh, we got to go feed this. We got to go do this. We got to go mow. We got to go

fix the fence. We got to go do that. So you never like, that was like, I still cringe

to this day when somebody's like, I'm bored.

I'm like, yeah, I go live on a farm in my, I grew up in like a big Italian family in

Milwaukee and my cousins owned a restaurant. So I was always in there like washing dishes

or whatever. We had a saying, if you got time to lean, you got time to clean. So there's,

it's not a farm because there's, you know, not that much to do, but I, I always kind

of romanticize.

You know, I mean, you know what's really bad is if they ran out of things to do, they

literally like, okay, here's a field. Go pick up all the rocks.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

Stuff that doesn't have to be done.

Yeah.

So the people, he will be like, you know, how's your day going? Or that's so awful.

I'm like, yeah, it's not as bad as picking up rocks.

Yeah.

Oh, I mean, 150 horses though, like that's, that's a lot of petting too. Like you couldn't,

you can just get lost in the horse stables for a while, right?

Most of them all stayed outside, but they were like, they're reds and like quarter horses

and they were like old race horses and all that.

These are like working horses.

Well, yeah, they were, they were. And then my mom ended up, she got cancer and then,

well, no, it's all right. She's still around. She's tough as nails. But she got cancer

and then there was like some stuff that happened with the family. You know, families get in

arguments all the time. And so

That is like a very big side.

There's a very, there's a very, very, very big story there and we do not have enough

time this week to explain it, but long story short, they all got an argument. So mom ended

up moving to town and then all the horses got sold. So there's like still like three

or four left over and they just kind of roam around.

Yeah.

There's out there. They're having a good time.

Those are big horses too, like quarter horses.

Lesson road world.

Yeah. Not very far.

He had to get a bucket to get on.

Yeah, I had to get a bucket to get on.

And then when he wanted to get off, he was screaming at me.

Gary, get over here.

Get over here now.

Get over here now. I want to get off this damn thing.

So growing up together, you guys were like inseparable.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Always kind of working the fields together.

Everything together.

Literally everything together.

That's awesome.

We still do everything together.

What's the age difference?

Six years.

I can't count that, huh?

What? How old am I?

Is this a secret?

No, it is six years. It is six.

Think about it. No, yeah, six years.

He's six years older than I am.

So you were kind of a babysitter for a while.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, basically.

Didn't do a very good job.

No.

The thing is, is that it was just always this thing

where it was just like, keep Western out of trouble.

Keep Western out of trouble.

I'm like, you can't do that.

It can't be done.

No.

He gets in trouble all the time.

But no, like we've always,

we've literally always done everything together.

That's awesome.

And then there was a point where,

you know, our story, our back story is like pretty interesting,

but it's a long story and I'm not going to really get into it.

But long story short, like a long time ago,

me and Garrett realized, damn,

this is life thing is really, really hard.

Yeah.

So we combined every dollar we had,

every resource we had.

I had a truck, he had a car,

and then we started our company.

Then this was like predating.

We didn't have a whole lot of money.

We didn't have a whole lot.

We both had 500.

I'm pretty sure I had 750.

I'm pretty sure I was doing well.

But like, yeah, we didn't have much money.

The thing was is that we figured we would just combine everything

and put all of our efforts towards, you know,

just a unified goal and that, you know,

essentially we didn't have anything.

So if we had some to fight over in the end,

then that'd be a good problem to have.

That's awesome.

We ain't got nothing to fight about.

So no contract was written up.

You're just kind of like.

But also there doesn't need to be any sort of contract

because it's just like there's,

that would never be the case.

Yeah, that's awesome.

That's awesome to have that kind of trust with your business partner

and have it be a family member too.

The thing is, is it like being broke and poor is a bond

that you just doesn't get broken together.

When you got that kind of bond, it's like being in the army.

And it never leaves you.

It never does.

So it's just like that thing where like no one like,

you know, as time goes on,

we'll be able to understand you on that level

that when you were broke, you know,

and then like all the struggle and the bad things that happened,

that, you know, Weston learning has had like a bag of potatoes stolen from him,

walking home from the grocery store.

You're going to bring that home.

What?

I wasn't probably nine.

We had no money, like absolutely no money at all.

And this was, even before we started company, anything,

my mom was had cancer.

She was in another ICU all the time.

So she wasn't always there.

Not that she, she didn't want to be,

she wanted to be, but she couldn't be.

So there was times that were things got really, really tight.

And I remember at this point, me and Garrett were staying at the house

and I'd walked down to the save lot to get a bag of potatoes.

And I'm walking back and as I'm walking back,

there's a bunch of guys standing around the front of an apartment like,

yo, what are you doing with the bag of potatoes?

I'm like, I'm going home.

It's like, no, get me them potatoes.

So he took my bag of potatoes.

I'm like, I'm like nine.

So what am I going to do?

Well, like it wasn't really a robbery.

He's like, give them here.

And I'm like, okay.

And I hand them to him.

I'm like, where's the potatoes?

And I get home and Garrett's like, where's the potatoes at?

And I'm like, uh, and I didn't want to tell him that like somebody took my bag of potatoes.

I thought he took the money and like went to Sonic or something.

He was like, so much.

He's like, did you get something from Sonic?

What happened?

I didn't tell him like years later.

What happened?

This was in, uh, we lived in Oklahoma State this time.

Yeah.

We lived in Oklahoma City.

We lived in like off of, well, if you've ever been to Oklahoma State,

it's off council road down there.

And it's like not the best part of town.

So it's, it's not unbelievable to think so about taking.

I think they're gentrifying it down there.

Dude, how are you going to?

Yeah, that's nicer.

How are you going to rob a nine year old for potatoes?

That's.

We had enough.

Like, so mom was like, I'm making that kid have some character in his life.

He might be famous and he might tell the story.

That kid's going to be funny because of me and I took his potatoes.

But no, that's, uh, like that was like a really, really sucky moment.

Yeah.

But.

Like, yeah, that really sucked about it.

And the reason I was going to go get potatoes is because you,

at the time you could buy a bag of potatoes for $3.

Yeah.

And we didn't have much money.

We had like 10 bucks.

So I went down and bought a bag of potatoes for the three bucks and I come back.

I didn't have the potatoes.

So we don't have much food.

So all we had was this big jar of popcorn.

Like if you had like a commercial grade amount of popcorn and there was a popcorn

machine in the house.

So we like ate popcorn for like four days until mom got out of the hospital and

could bring us some money.

Just malnourished was like the worst farts on earth.

Oh man.

It was.

And we lost weight.

Yeah, we lost when we were fans.

You know what?

And I've been battling to never get that skinny again.

I've been doing a damn good job.

We've been winning the battle with anorexia.

One cheeseburger at a time.

We've been doing great with it.

But no.

And then after that, so like later on, after we moved back from Oklahoma City

because we moved from the farm to town, moved Oklahoma City, moved back.

Yeah.

And then that's kind of when me and Gary decided to combine everything.

And then we started a company and we started doing like stuff with cars.

What was it at first?

Was it just an auto body shop or?

So we start off.

Just garage.

Firewood.

Oh shit.

Firewood.

So we, we went out, there was a little bit of property that we had access to that

we go cut, cut firewood.

And so we had chainsaws, we go and cut it all down.

And then the problem is we got it on the ground.

We got to go split it because otherwise you get more money out of it.

Do you want to know how much a log splitter is when you have no money?

A lot.

One of those just like hydraulic ones that, yeah.

We had to rent it.

So we had to rent it and we, we had enough money.

We got together and we rented one and we rented it on Friday because if you're rented on Friday,

you don't get charged for Saturday and Sunday.

Oh shit.

So we rented on Friday and we had 20 ricks of wood sitting on the ground.

And the thing is taking mind.

It's snowing.

It's like January and we were cutting up hedge trees, which hedge trees are nuisance trees.

So people would give us hedge trees as much as we wanted because it was just ready to be rid of them.

So we cut them up and then we'd split it and then we'd have to let it sit so it dry out and then we could sell it.

Anyway, we're out there and we rent this thing on Friday and there's 20 ricks of wood, maybe 25 ricks of wood on the ground.

And we're like, well, we can't do all this in a day.

So we ran it for 72 hours straight.

Oh my God.

Like I would split firewood, then Garrett would split firewood, then I'd go back to splitting firewood in the headlights of the truck when it got dark.

And then Weston was like reaching down there, going past the governor.

Yeah, I reached down and grabbed him.

Because we got some real big logs.

We got this big old hedge tree log on there that's about this big.

And this log split is ready to raise something like this.

And I reached down there and it's got like a little like predator, like Honda motor on it.

Yeah.

And I grabbed the governor and I'm like, reeeewww.

They literally just taken like delivery of this the day we came in there and rented it.

Oh my God.

And they came back and the paint was like off.

That's insane.

But like we just got our money's worth.

It got so hot throughout the night of us running it.

It melted the paint off the hydraulic tank.

That's insane.

And you want to know the worst part of it though?

Somebody came and stole our firewood.

No.

Yes.

I was so freaking.

You think it was a potato guy?

Probably.

I didn't think that guy.

Mr. Potato Guy.

He was terrible.

They had like haunted me for like a week.

I was so freaking pissed off.

They took all of it.

They took like three quarters of our firewood.

Dude, that's bullshit.

And then one day I burst open the door and I'm like, what?

I've got a freaking idea.

So you want to hear what Garrett's idea was?

Yeah.

Catch the firewood piece.

He's like, we're going to put more firewood out there.

And we're going to hide 10 sticks of dynamite and random pieces of firewood.

Oh, you're going to like Mark Rober it.

Oh yeah.

This was like 2016, 2015, like maybe 2014.

And he's like, and then we're going to watch the news for who's chimney blows off the house.

Oh my God.

Oh, you're going to put it in the wood.

Yeah.

Dude, that's genius.

That's evil.

But then I thought about it and I'm like, what if he sold to somebody?

No, I can't do that.

Yeah.

And then also the other problem I thought about too is I'm like, we're already broke.

How am I going to afford dynamite?

But we ended up after that happened, we put our firewood in a little safer location.

And then after about the fourth time that we melted the paint off the tank of their logs

putter.

They wouldn't rent us a logs putter anymore.

Oh no.

But I mean, we would.

We delivered it.

We'd split wood.

We'd deliver it.

So I had this like gray trailer.

150 put up in the backyard.

150.

A Rick put up in the backyard.

We'd stack in your backyard on your Rick.

We were red nails on.

Yeah.

We were Jeff Bezos with the firewood.

Dude, I mean, like that's the kind of shit you do when you're hungry.

Yeah.

We got filled up now.

No, it was, it was wild.

But I remember like we drove to Wichita with 10 ricks of wood on a trailer and came back

with like 1200 bucks.

And we still had a couple ricks left over.

And I'm like, God dang it.

God dang it.

We are rocking and rolling.

And then we took the money from firewood, start buying the selling cars.

And I remember the first truck I ever bought to like buy and sell or do anything with.

Oh, this thing was junk.

It was a junk heap.

And it was an extended cab Chevrolet, gray, ugly.

Wood bed.

They'd taken the bed off and had a wood bed on it and had a bad fuel pump.

And the reason why it had a wood bed is because it had been rear-ended and it was a salvage

title, but he didn't tell us that when we bought it.

Oh my God.

So we paid too much for the salvage title truck.

But the title was like, it was like folded over and the way they handed it to us, which

it's our fault.

We shouldn't have folded and looked at it.

But it was like, we didn't even know a salvage until we got it.

We were wet behind the ears.

We didn't know what we were doing.

Yeah.

Conveniently eating like a sloppy Joe while he's handing it to you.

Oops.

But what he did is he folded the title exactly where it said salvage.

So you didn't see unless you opened it all the way up.

But then if you were like holding it like this, yeah.

Yeah.

It's actually pretty smart.

Yeah.

Well, we found out which we bought a bed to put on it and tried to put a bed on it and

it wouldn't fit because the frame was bent.

So I ended up like putting a bed on it.

I hooked the, actually I straightened the frame back out with a come along and a tree.

Is this just like shit you learned on the farm or did you work at a garage?

No.

I never worked anywhere.

I never did any garage.

I know like I never went to school for automotive and never.

Weston was like literally like a genius at cars, like from a very young age, like there

is somewhere where there's like Weston and like eight or nine years old and mom has

like an old truck on the farm and Weston is telling her how it runs and how to fix it.

Wow.

Like he was just like, for some reason was like obsessed with like as soon as you got

a computer, he was just like Googling all this stuff.

Holy crap.

And then just out of nowhere, just like knew all of it.

Wow.

Found this thing called YouTube.

Like there's people around us that were like really, you know, like savvy when it came

to that.

And I remember like old timers coming around and it's just like, don't tell him, but

God, he's so advanced for his age.

Like even when he was like 16.

Yeah.

Because I don't want to get a big head.

That's so funny.

But he's just like, he's way, way beyond his years.

Like, and so.

Don't encourage him.

He's really smart, but don't let him know.

Don't let him know.

No, the thing is, I always just, I love to know how things work.

Yeah.

And I wanted so badly to understand how some work, because I would get in the car as a

kid and I would see they turn the key and I'm like, what makes it does what it does.

That's, I mean that like as a parent, that is one thing that I hope my kid is is curious

about everything.

Cause that is like what is going to propel you to go outside of your comfort zone and

learn and like kind of like stretch your brain.

And I really appreciate seeing that in people and it's such a cool trait.

You don't see it very often.

I thought it was just normal.

I thought people were just curious about things.

Yeah.

Some people just don't give a shit about anything.

No.

They're just like, bro, it is what it is.

I turn the key, the thing rips.

I don't know.

Yeah.

That's what happens.

Dude, the way that you actually, the real motivation behind it was that there was, what

was that car that you wanted to get started, but you could, or was it a lawnmower or something

you wanted to get started and you called dad every day.

Oh.

So my first truck ever had, right?

Yeah.

This is the wood one?

No.

That was the first one we ever flipped.

Oh, okay.

But the first truck I ever had.

If you want to finish up that story first.

Yeah.

Wait, wait, wait.

Did you bring it back up from salvage?

Oh dude.

So I straightened out the bed or I straightened out the frame I took and put a new fuel pump

in it.

I did like two weeks worth of work to this thing.

Yeah.

And then I turned around, I sold it to a farmer over in southeastern Kansas and he came and

he gave me $900 profit.

And I'm like, God, thank you.

We make money with cars.

What?

Dude, you know how big of a like a come up that is from after how to go do all the firewood

and then split it and cut it and then deliver it for 150 and then like, I can buy a car

and fix it a little bit.

Hell yeah.

Oh my God.

And I worked so hard on that truck too, but eventually we got it, we got it and sold

and made money on it.

And then we just kind of start going from there.

But even going back to the story you were talking about, like how I started on like

figuring things out as I, my grandma, when I was living on the farm, she'd got this truck

for $20 from the guy at the trailer park.

What?

And he just didn't want it.

He'd bought a new truck and he's like, oh yeah, you're going to buy it for him?

Yeah, sure.

I'll take $20 for it.

What's even the point of exchanging money at that point?

Grandma was actually kind of smooth with it.

My grandma was smooth with it.

She's like, this is, you know.

It's a junk car.

And she's like, well, would you take a junk prize?

Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

She walked up there and the guy was like, it's just a junk truck.

And he's like, well, would you take a junk prize?

And he's like, yeah.

And she reached in her pocket and she had $20.

Oh man.

And she's like, would you take $20 for it?

Well, yeah.

If you guys haul it out of here.

That's cool.

And it was a 1988 Toyota pickup, five speed, 22 RE.

It was like the whole week rail Toyota pickups, you know what I mean?

And like, I, it ended up getting like accidentally crushed, but I'm so sad.

What?

Well, I'm a way to jump to the end of the story.

But for years, I had this thing around.

It was like my first thing I ever got to mess around with or joke around with or

like work on or anything like that.

But it didn't run.

So at the time, my mom and dad are split.

My dad, he's out on the road driving truck.

My mom's still there.

And I would just call dad, like calm, like 12 o'clock.

I'm like, Hey, I got this truck.

It don't start.

And I'm like, I don't know, seven or eight, not very old.

And like, I didn't even know how to drive a manual.

So I'm like, well, once I get it started, I'll figure that out.

Anyway, so I call him like, it don't start.

And he's like, did you try putting starting foot in the engine?

And I'm like, where do I put it?

And he's like, there'll be a tube with an air filter, take the air filter out and

spray it in.

I'm like, okay, I go back out and I crank on and I try that.

And I'm like, Oh, it started.

I go back in.

I'm like, that, that worked.

What do I do next?

And then you're eight years old at this point.

Oh, dude, it gets wild.

Like I, I was like, my grandma taught me how to use a phone and I would get on the phone

and I'd figure out all kinds of stuff.

But I ended up, my dad ran out, like my dad was, he's really, really good rancher.

But the most, the thing he knows how to do with a ranch is use it to hammer on stuff.

So he's like, I don't know what was trying to do with it.

So I ended up calling the guy that runs the mechanic shop down west of town.

And I, and his name's Jimbo.

He's got a gorge mustache, by the way.

Of course.

It's like, one of those things you need to mention.

You should go actually interview him next.

Yeah, you should go ahead and interview him next.

Actually, I'm not even kidding.

That's a great idea.

He's a funny dude.

No, really?

He's a good interview.

Oh, 100%.

Hell yeah.

He talks about how he caught a mountain lion out here.

He roped a mountain lion.

But the way he does it, he does it with his mustache and his eyes and he just like, he

does like this facial.

I got there and that mountain lion.

Jimbo.

Yeah, Jimbo was funny.

But anyway, I called Jimbo and I'm like, Hey, I gotta tell you how to pick up.

It won't start.

I put starting foot in it.

It does start.

And he's like, it sounds like your fuel pump's not working.

I'm like, okay, what do I do?

And he's like, well, you need to get your fuel pump working.

So I took from that and I started Googling how to make fuel pumps work.

And then I'm a kid out there with wire nuts, pushing the wires together for the fuel pump.

And I got this, this toggle switch from Walmart and I ended up hot wire in the fuel pump and

I got it to run.

And it ran like that for probably eight, 10 years till I parked it.

That's insane.

It was like, it was crazy.

But the thing is, is like, that's kind of how I started.

So I worked on that and then the radiator blew up.

So I figured out how JB welded work.

I mean, I'll tell you what, I was a hell of a welder.

I could JB weld anything.

At eight years old?

I was probably a little older than I think it was probably like a year or two later or

maybe, I don't know.

No, I think it was actually after that because I was, I was there, that was probably about

eight, because then I, right after that happened is when we moved to town.

Like if, if they wrote your story into a movie, people would be like, no way.

I could.

You don't even know that.

I could not write a more interesting book or story if I tried to make one out.

Like there's nothing that would be more interesting than exactly what happened.

It was, it was so wild the way it all transpired.

But yeah, long story short, I always just love vehicles.

I loved how they worked and how they didn't work.

So you love the engineering part.

He definitely knows that it didn't work part.

I knew they didn't work part a lot, but anyway.

So you loved like the engineering and like the mystery of how it actually worked.

What were your guys's first like, what made you fall in love with cars?

What models?

You know, the thing is when you're in the middle of nowhere, the only way you have freedom

is a car.

Yeah, that's it.

And it's not like when you live in town, like you could walk somewhere, you're not walking

anywhere with towns 10 miles away.

Yeah.

So you have to have a car.

So I always just love cars because I'm like, I thought they were so interesting.

And I watched Dukes of Hazard a lot when I was a kid.

Oh yeah.

Generally.

I loved the generally.

Like I was a massive Dukes of Hazard fan and I loved Fast and Furious.

So I loved the 68 chargers, 68, 69 chargers, 70 chargers.

I loved them so much.

And then I remember looking at eBay when I was like 10, 12 years old.

And at them times you could buy like a nice, generally for like eight grand.

Yeah.

Like a nice one.

That was like right before everything blew up.

Now you couldn't, you couldn't touch one for 60.

You know what I mean?

And so I wanted one so bad, but I'm like, well, I'm never going to be afford one of those.

So I humbled my expectations down to a Chevy pickup.

And then I got to my Chevy pickup and it was just like, it was a means for me to like

run around and actually be able to go places and do stuff.

Yeah.

And my grandma actually did some wheeling and dealing on my first pickup actually.

So the Toyota.

Smooth grandma strikes again.

My grandma was a deal maker.

Grandma was a deal maker.

Grandma was about it.

She knew.

She was about the deal.

Honestly.

It's the blood.

She was about the deal.

She was really.

Oh God.

If Facebook marketplace.

Oh man.

It would have been terrible.

If she'd ever got on that, it would have been terrible.

Game over.

But the Toyota, I had, right?

I had that when I was really young and then it never left the farm.

Like it would, it would, I would drive down the gravel road and stay around the farm,

but it never had a tag.

It never drove down the highway, anything like that.

So the first time it actually comes down to me getting a truck, I got this old vet

truck and the vet in town owned it and he was selling it.

Oh, that's what I was like.

What is the vet truck?

It's like a truck owned by a vet.

It was a truck that had like a back bumper with ties to tie up with it.

And it has, still have it by the way.

Oh shit.

Is that like heated water in it stuff too?

Yeah.

It had heated water in it and it had a sink and it had a utility box on the back and

it had a refrigerator in it to keep like.

That's a great first truck.

Holy shit.

You could take that camping.

You could take that on a road trip.

I had a hundred and eighty.

Lots of bailing water.

Oh lots of bailing.

Oh nice.

The reason why he got rid of it is he hit a cow with it.

He was going on the highway.

He hit a cow with it and it was all smashed up and behind beside the vet.

It's office.

In case you're wondering by the way, almost every car he's going to tell a story about,

we have all of them.

Yeah.

I was going to ask, you had mentioned before the cameras were rolling, but you guys literally

have every car that you've ever bought minus a couple here and there.

But like.

We got like attachment issues.

We have attachment issues.

I still like the only one I don't have is I don't have that tell you to pick up because

it accidentally got smashed.

But I have every single vehicle that we've ever filmed a YouTube video with.

We still have it.

And you said that was like over a hundred.

Oh dude.

If you counted all of them, it's it's like, like if you kind of junk cars and cars that

run and cars that could run one day and cars still don't run, we probably have like close

to two cars that used to be cars.

Geez.

The cars that used to be cars.

We have some cars that are now couches, you know, there's.

Wow.

Do you have like in other walks of life?

Do you have other collections?

Like do you have pencil collections or some other shit at home?

No.

Camera collection.

Oh, camera.

Garrett loves cameras.

I love cameras.

Garrett likes cameras.

Garrett likes stuff to make really, really, really cool media.

He's always been about that.

So just for anyone who doesn't know, Garrett is like the brains behind the production behind

Weston's channel.

And you started just filming Weston.

Basically.

This guy.

Yeah.

This guy is like, so I'm good when it comes to cars.

Yeah.

I am nothing compared to how much of a genius he is whenever it comes to media, YouTube,

making YouTube videos about any of it.

I don't want to say too much.

You'll get a big head, but the thing that's funny is massive.

Garrett made YouTube videos back in like 2010.

Really?

And he was partnering YouTube and all that.

But then he got out of it because me and him started our business and like at the time,

you just like, you have to go on to real world.

You got to kind of move on to the real world.

Well, at that point, YouTube is so young and this is not even like a market at that point.

Well, things you couldn't like, you couldn't make a living with it at all.

Yeah.

Like the thing was like, I had friends that were like, they were getting 10 million views

a month and they made like, you know, 4,000 bucks.

Geez.

You know, like they were like absolutely crushing it.

And you're like, there's like not a career in YouTube at this point because it's like,

it was so early.

So I had to go find something else.

And but making YouTube videos was like absolutely my biggest passion life that I loved more

than anything.

He loved it.

I liked it so much.

You want to talk about me with cars?

That was him with YouTube.

Yeah.

He loved it.

I liked editing YouTube videos.

I liked thinking about it.

Like I just, I liked everything about it.

And then my favorite thing was uploading the video and then seeing it like go live.

Yeah.

Everything like it's just, it's not like anything.

Yes.

And so, you know, we had to stop and then obviously, you know, obviously we're broke.

So I'm like, okay, we're going to have to, I can't do YouTube.

That's what I really love.

That's what I want to do.

But that's not going to, that's not what we're going to do.

So me and Weston, we started doing the firewood and then from there we start into our car

business and we do really well.

The car business was like a skip and a hat a little bit in our story, but eventually

like we're doing our car business and we've actually like, we did like 120.

We sold 120 cars.

120 units at first.

Yeah.

We did, we had a dealership.

That's like a car every three days.

Yeah.

Like we're doing really, really good.

And then like.

Tired.

Very tired.

But you know, when you're working, like you're just like, you're locked in, you're like,

you're about.

Yeah.

You're in the zone.

But I'd always just like wanted to get back into doing YouTube videos.

And like I started seeing some like other automotive YouTubers that were like making videos and

I was watching them.

And then I'm like, I'm like, Weston, come here and watch this.

And he's like, oh yeah.

Long story short, I always wanted to do YouTube videos too.

I'm like, dude, I think it'd be cool to do YouTube videos.

But when you're not super confident in the idea.

So you don't want to really just bring it up.

You know what I'm like?

I'm like, oh, Gary's gonna think that's stupid.

And I've had all the experience in YouTube.

So me and Gary said that one day we were watching YouTube videos and people were doing on YouTube

the same thing we did for work every day.

Yeah.

Buying cheap stuff, fixing it up, turning it around, selling it, just showing it, showing

how to make a deal and how to buy cars and how to fix stuff and things like that.

And then I'm like, yeah, that's really cool.

I'd love to make YouTube videos.

And me and Gary had a conversation and Gary's like, okay, we'll make YouTube videos.

Hell yeah.

And I'm like, yeah, really?

He's like, yeah.

And then from that day to, what was it?

And what was the stats?

You remember?

I think it was a little over like a hundred days or around the hundred day mark we had

a hundred thousand subs.

That's amazing.

It was the perfect combo because I could do everything when it come to like actual cars,

like putting stuff together, fixing stuff, buying cars, whatever it was.

Gary would help me with that.

And then whenever it come to actually making a YouTube video, trying to think about how

we're going to film it or filming it or editing it or anything about YouTube or anything of

that nature, like he was a genius in his own right.

So it was like the perfect ying and yang that we could take and put together and we was

able to pull it off because like at that time, we would sit there and we'd film a YouTube

video and I was terrible on camera.

Like I was probably okay, but I wasn't that like I was not doing very well.

You're not who you are today.

The thing was, he was always like really, really funny.

He just wasn't confident when he got in front of the camera.

It's tough.

Granted, it is really awkward when you're first like, all right.

So I just like stare at the camera.

It's easier when you like, you'll notice this on YouTube too, but like there's like a thing

with like, if you have somebody else you're doing it with or a brother or like even like

even noticed like there's like a lot of twins.

They're like a really successful on YouTube.

And I've always thought it's just because well, there's two people there and it just

makes it so much easier.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, if it's just you talking to the camera, it's a void.

Yeah.

And you don't like eventually there's people on the other side of it, but it's hard to

tool your brain to think like, oh, I'm like, I'm in a theater right now and there's a million

people watching what I'm doing right now.

You don't understand.

The thing is, is like, yeah, you just don't understand what's going on on the other side.

Yeah.

And then also, it's also way easier if you like, like I'm filming him and like he's

saying something.

Oh, this is great.

This is great.

Yeah.

That's funny.

Yeah.

That's good.

And he's like, stop saying, oh, stop doing all these damn that words.

So you're getting active notes like as you're filming.

Oh dude, like without a doubt, he's, he 100% pushed me in the way that I need to go.

And like I was like, I wasn't very confident on camera.

So it was always one of those things.

I'm like, just be yourself.

Yeah.

Be yourself.

And I remember you told me something and I was like, damn, that's good.

That's a good, that's a good quote.

And I can't remember what you said.

Don't pretend to be somebody else because it's too hard to pretend to be somebody else.

Yeah.

That's basically what he said.

He's like, don't just be yourself because it's hard to pretend to be someone else.

I think that's a great little nugget to hold on to because like I'll watch your channel

and I'm like, this is, if I met this dude, this is who he is.

And I think the authenticity is what really like keeps people coming back and keeps people

like attached to you.

And I think that's what you guys do really well on your channel.

That was the other thing too is I was also like telling them like when we first started

I'm like, here's the thing, right?

Like if we do the YouTube channel, you're just going to have to be prepared for us to like

spend two or three years just not getting any views.

Yeah.

At all.

Like just making videos to nobody watching and you know, eventually somebody might watch

maybe.

And obviously we're trying to keep my hope.

Yeah.

You don't want a big head.

Yeah.

I didn't want to get into it.

And then like, you know, we're about to do something and like, he's like, I just don't

want to keep going.

Like, you know, we're making it because like we really, like we really wanted to make it.

Yeah.

It's like a process.

It wasn't, it wasn't even about like, obviously we wanted a result, but the result wasn't

like the biggest thing.

Yeah.

The biggest thing was like, we want to make a cool video.

Yeah.

And then once we kind of got getting a couple of subscribers, like a couple of thousand,

you're like, well, you know, you think about it.

Other people are doing this YouTube channel.

And then I said, no, they'll find out about it.

Yeah.

They'll find out about it because I was like, I'm like, should we tell anybody that we're

doing this?

Like, like your friends?

Like friends or family?

Like anybody in town?

I don't know.

Like I had like such a, like since I'd done it before, I had such a confidence of like,

I know, get like to this level, but I'm like, no, we're going to do something.

Yeah.

Like it's going to be something that people know about.

Well, if you think about like just how much crap there is on there.

Yeah.

Like all you have to do is like put a quality product out there.

Yeah.

Be authentic.

And then you can rise above this and then people will find it organically.

I think you guys really found your audience very quickly.

Like, so what year was the first upload?

2019.

I remember the first person that said anything to Western at like us in public is we'd went

to a casino and Western had that this thing where he was trying to get an engine out for

like three or four hours and then it just would not come out and it flew out like it

just flung out.

Yeah.

And he's like, we got it.

We relieved it.

And then we went to, we went some, we went to a casino and we went to a casino and somebody

does love a little gamble here as well.

Who doesn't?

And there was a guy from across the room is like, screen, we relieved it.

That's fun.

Take mine.

This video had like a thousand views maybe.

Really?

And like, yeah, it didn't have like, it didn't have hardly.

I think it had like 10 or 20, like a couple of tens of thousands.

Did it?

That's still such an awesome moment though.

The first time you get like, because you know, the internet is, is a flat plane.

Like everyone's equal and, and someone from India could have seen your video and like

commented and been like, oh, I like this shit.

But to be in public and have someone come up to you and do that, it really sets in at

that point.

Oh dude, it was, it was surreal.

It was actually really weird.

I'm like, well, so when we started to like, was he there when we did it?

Oh, wait, you watch the video?

Okay.

So when we released our first start, first got going, also COVID like kicked off.

Yeah.

Right.

So then we're just like, okay, we're just gonna stay on the garage.

We're gonna build things.

We're gonna do things.

Yeah.

Around here.

And like things like really, we really start to get to rolling and like you're just like

in the middle of it, just like making videos and trying to make the best product you can.

And then like, we didn't leave Winfield or go anywhere.

And obviously everyone's staying indoors.

So then like the first time we went anywhere, just like everywhere we went, people were

like, Weston, can I get a photo?

Weston.

That's so cool.

And so it went from like nothing.

It was so weird because everyone, like everyone knew who we were here.

Yeah.

And Weston's like, you talking about me?

Yeah.

Anyway, what do I know you from?

Everyone already knew us here because like it's a small town.

You know what I mean?

Everybody's like, oh, there's Weston.

Everyone's famous in small town.

Everyone's famous here.

Anyway, so for good and bad reasons, anyway, long story short, we did exactly that.

We never left town.

We just built stuff.

We made videos and they start blowing up and they start doing really, really well.

And you never really see the consequences or like the symptoms of that.

And then we ended up, we went to Texas for something.

We bought a new truck or bought a new car that we had to go pick up.

Like, well, I buy new.

I mean, it was crashed.

But you know, good deal.

New to us.

It was new to us.

And we got down there.

And we were happy.

We got down there to get it and we pulled into this Bucky's.

And we get out and I walk in sign.

It's like, Weston, dude, can I get a photo?

I'm like, do I know you?

Do I?

Have I met you and I forgot your name?

He's like, no, no, I watch your videos.

And then I got recognized like four times in that Bucky's.

Wow.

And I walk back out of my carrot.

I don't want to say anything.

I think we might.

I think the people of Bucky's really like our videos.

Yeah.

And it was, it was really, really cool because like we just, it like, it was so sudden.

It was such a sudden line.

Yeah.

Cause we're like also like we're, cause we were making videos for years at that point

too, leading up to that, but we never went anywhere cause like there was nowhere to go.

They're like, go out, you know, go outside.

Can't go in a restaurant.

Yeah.

And also, you know, like you're out in the middle of nowhere.

So you have another moment, almost like you, like when you sold all the wood, we were

like, yeah, like this is actually something.

It was so funny cause the columnist section, like obviously we're just in a small town.

So we're just like doing our thing in the country out at my grandma's garage.

But then they're like, the Western champion universe isn't affected by COVID.

They're like, does it just not exist there?

These are the comments.

There's no one here to give us COVID.

You know what I mean?

We're out here by ourselves.

So I hate no big deal, but.

So what was the first big video that really popped off for you where you were like, okay,

I'm going to keep like digging gold in this vein.

So the very first one we made got a hundred thousand.

Yeah.

The first one we made.

So you're like, okay, let's just keep doing this.

And so like we did a lot of stuff about like just what we were doing, which what we were

doing is we were looking for good deals, trying to buy cheap trucks.

Yeah.

And I still do that.

So this, like I still, I'm trying to wrap my mind around you paid $1,000 for an F 350

power stroke, right?

$1,341,000.

How is that even possible in 2019?

What's the video?

No.

We went to this auction.

It was a state surplus auction.

Yeah.

In Salasau, Oklahoma.

And we go down there and there's probably 200 trucks and they're all white forts.

Oh, it's like fleet stuff.

Yeah.

And there's 200.

And there's all.

But it was government and they, they had kept this fleet since the nineties.

Yeah.

They had them all from new homes.

So this was like southeastern Oklahoma.

The whole fleet of southeastern Oklahoma's state vehicles was there.

Wow.

Whether it was county road departments or whatever it was.

And they were selling all these trucks and they were selling the hundreds of them that

day.

Well, me and Gary walked out there and we would always go a little early and we'd look at

all the cars and we'd look at everything.

Well, all of them trucks except for two.

No, except for one.

The other one was blown up actually.

But all of them except for one was 351 V8 gas partners, which aren't worth nothing.

They're not like, they're not worth what a power stroke is worth.

They're worth a thousand bucks.

Yeah.

So we walk around out there and power strokes have a very, very small logo right below the

F 350 logo.

Yeah, I know.

It's a power stroke diesel right there.

I was walking across and I'm like, damn, none of these are power strokes.

And I look over and there's this truck sitting behind a tree because they have a line of cars

like this and then a line of cars like this and a line of cars like this.

And then right back here in the corner behind a tree because the line went too long and

they got parked behind a tree was this 1995 crew cab F 350 power stroke.

Do you think that's deliberate?

We also didn't know if it was in the auction.

Yeah, we didn't know if it was in the auction.

We're like, was this one in the auction?

Well, we walked over there.

It had a lot number on it.

So it was in the auction.

Reached inside, turned the key on 141,000 miles.

I'm like, I'm not even going to start it because if somebody hears this thing rattle.

That's still a baby.

Yeah.

Damn, they have a brand new.

You know what I mean?

Damn, they have a brand new ring.

Anyway, I'm like, I'm not even going to start it.

I don't even care if it runs.

Yeah.

And then we get back up there and the way that it worked is you sit down in an auditorium

and there was a screen with a bunch of photos of pictures of trucks on it.

And the pictures were like this big on a screen that was 10, 10 feet.

Super pixelated.

Yeah.

You could barely tell it was a truck.

It looked like a marshmallow.

You definitely can't see a power stroke logo on those.

No, definitely not.

And they were putting these trucks in 10 watts at a time.

So they're like, we're going to sell one through 10.

And if you get high bid, you can pick one, two, three or four, five, six, seven, eight

or nine or 10 or whatever.

Or you take them all.

You take one.

You take five.

You take none of them.

You know, whatever.

Anyway.

We had one of mine.

So this truck was halfway through the auction.

We were sitting there and I bid on something else.

I bought like a trailer or something and then that truck comes up and it's like a lot number.

It was like a lot number 70 or 80 or something like that.

Pretty far down.

Yeah.

And they put it in the right in the middle of a lot.

So they've been selling these gas burner trucks off for 800,000, 1500 bucks all day long.

You know, I mean, some of them have nice beds on them.

So somebody give 1500 for one that they really wanted.

So anyway, the lot number of one we wants comes up and they're selling 10 of them.

And they're like, you can take one, five, 10 of them, whatever you want.

So somebody hits it at a, I opened it up at 500.

Somebody hits it back at 750.

I hit it at 1,000.

And at 1,000, he stops.

I'm like, come on, come on.

Yeah.

Sell it, dude.

Sell it.

And he sells it to me.

I'm like, I want a lot, 88 or whatever it was.

I want that one.

And he's like, you just want one?

I'm like, just that one.

That's the only one I want.

I want that one.

And it's the only truck I bought that day.

And we walk out there and it had charged batteries in it.

The starter was halfway bad.

So it was like crying.

So after about the fourth time of going and going, I hit the key and go.

And it is like the funniest moment because all these guys are out there trying to get

all their junk started that they bought.

And they all turn around and it's like, it's a power stroke.

Because everyone knows not one of those trucks brought more than 1500 bucks.

And I had a guy walk up to me, I got in it and I was driving out.

He walked up to the windows like, I'll give you two grand right now.

Oh man.

I'm like, no, I can't do it.

He's like, I'll give you it.

And then he's like, no, I'll give you three grand right now.

Cheese.

I'm like, no, I can't.

I can't do it.

And I brought it back.

You know, the best feeling ever is like when you buy something and this happened like multiple

times when we bought things is that when you buy something and the whole and you start to

pull it out and the whole crowd of people is like, what the hell man?

Like when you say everybody else like, you're like, yeah.

My question for you, my question is, do you think some employee made that deliberate choice

to park it behind a tree, put it in the middle of a lot?

I think if they would, I don't think so.

Then why wouldn't you bid?

Yeah.

Why wouldn't you bid on it?

That's the thing is like, I could see it.

That doesn't actually add auctions.

That's just not the case because there's just some things that they just don't take care

with because like stuff like that, other things like that happened.

Like there'd be things where we would go to an auction and then like me and Westman

like walk it like we were the in-op like non running.

That's where we live.

This is where we belong.

We would walk around every in-op row of every auction ever.

And it got to the point we would go to 10 different auctions over, you know, the summer

or whatever they were selling stuff.

And auctioneers will jump from auction company to auction company to auction company.

They'll just jump into whatever auction they're contractors.

And the auctioneers knew us by first name.

It's like, question buddy, how you doing?

You want to bid on it?

Come on Gary, come on.

And I'm like, no, not those, not those.

But one time we bought a $20,000 truck for $5,500 because they had it towed to the auction.

It was a 2014 Ram 2500 with the Hemi.

Yeah.

It was a Hemi truck.

Why was it priced so low?

Well, it was an auction.

Yeah.

It was an in-op row.

And the reason why it was there is they, it'd been repowed by Capital or Chrysler Financial.

That's so weird.

I can remember all this stuff.

They'd been repowed by Chrysler Financial.

Actually, this turns into like a very long story and there's a reason he knows why it's called Chrysler.

Yeah.

It was a pain in my ass later on, but we did bid on it for $20,000.

It was, it gets repowed for Chrysler Financial.

It was a $20,000 pickup all day long.

I know because I sold it for $20,000.

But I paid $5,500 for it.

Yeah.

Because they couldn't get it started.

What was wrong with it?

It was a neutral.

What?

So when...

That seems like...

No, it was, it was in drive.

This goes back to the Western movie.

That is too dumb to be a story of plotline.

I know, I know, dude.

The thing is we figured it out, but you figured it out before the auction.

I know, I know.

But anyway, we went and looked at it and I looked at it and it had been towed there.

Yeah.

Because somebody had removed the rear driveshaft out of it, which means they'd towed it there.

But also it was in drive.

So he'd got underneath, popped the linkage off the transmission, put it in drive so he

could roll it on the rollback or whatever, which didn't make no sense because he took

the driveshaft out anyway.

Yeah, what?

Whatever.

I'm like, all right.

I'm like, Garrett, I think this truck runs.

Yeah.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

I think it's just in the wrong gear.

And if a car is in drive, it won't start because it's got like safety and all.

Sure.

The other mechanics that they're trying to figure out, like anything, like, okay, it's

an enop, just run as a non-runner.

That's just like the auction.

They run as a non-runner.

The auction, that was one of those where they go car by car with the entire crowd of people.

So they just walk.

They walk.

They walk past all the cars.

So we bid on it.

We get it for $5,500.

I slide under it, slide it into park, put the shift linkage back on.

Garrett grabs the jump pack.

We fire it up and drive it off as the whole crowd stand there and they turn around.

You've never seen such a crowd of people turn around and look.

And the crowd of people is like, we need to run that one back.

I'm like, I bought it.

It's mine.

Like people like, I bet.

The auctioneers were like, actually, we made a mistake.

The auctioneers didn't because we bought so much from that auction company.

There was like, well, we're glad you got a good deal.

Oh man.

And, but it was, it's like so funny how many times that's like weird stuff happened.

Yeah.

One time we bought a semi for $6,500 and all that was wrong with it is it needed batteries.

What?

We put batteries in it, fired it up, drove it seven hours home and it was a winch truck

and somebody come bought it from us for like $8,800.

To me, that's so insane that like auction companies pay such a little attention.

I mean, there's so volume.

Well, these, these specific ones are always like when it comes like liquidations.

They don't do these anymore because like at this time, there was so many oil companies

going out of business that we would drive to Texas and they wouldn't even know what they

were selling.

They're like, we have 200 trucks and 25 semis.

They're like, this is the brands we have ram for.

This is what's going to be there.

A rough idea of like what, what's going to be at the auction and we bought all kinds of

things like that.

I remember there was one time we went to, we went to Austin and we had like, we, we just

got on the roll and we had like $26,000.

Like that's all we had.

We know what the city does.

Yeah.

We get down there and they're selling a hundred Dodge diesels and they are bringing cheap

money, like $12,000, $13,000.

But the thing is there's a couple there that, there was a couple there, they didn't know

how many miles they had on them.

Yeah.

We put a jump pack on one had 60,000, the other one had 80,000 and these trucks are

like brand new trucks.

I don't think that's how we found out because they couldn't do it.

The ECMs are bad.

So I ran the car fax on them.

That's right.

Yes.

So they couldn't figure out how many miles they were because they were new enough.

They could be under warranty.

So you bought warranty cars?

No.

They were non-rumpers.

No, no, no.

Oh my gosh.

We have $26,500 in our bank account.

Garrett buys these two trucks for $26,400.

Well, no, we get, we get the bid for like the 13,000 and then Weston's like, which one

would we take?

I'm like, we're taking that one.

We're taking both of them.

I'm like, we are?

Yeah, we're taking both of them.

And I'm like, Garrett, we only got no money.

He's like, there's trucks full diesel.

We can make it home.

And they're under warranty.

Well, no, we didn't know they were under warranty.

I knew one was.

No, but we didn't, we didn't know because like we could have started them up or whatever.

Anyway, we got them back and Garrett was right.

He ran the car fax on them and the ECM was bad in both the trucks and we just took them

to the Dodge dealership and they fixed them.

Here's what happened actually.

The reason they all had bad ECMs though is the auction company came in there and put

them on 24 volts, fried all the ECMs.

So they were like, they were taking like semi jumpstart and jumping out.

They had some guy out there that didn't know what he was doing.

That is a dumb.

He had like a big old jump pack made for semi is like, I'm going to start to hang in this

truck.

What?

That doesn't run.

Oh my God.

He did this like 12.

Well, that's like a tow mater move.

He did this like 12 of those trucks.

12 of those trucks had bad ECMs.

Damn.

So you could have, you could have gotten more good deals, but.

Oh, we ran out of money.

What actually?

Exactly enough for two trucks.

We didn't even have enough money for a hotel on the way home.

We slept in the truck.

Also, the other thing too is that the way that that ran too, though, is we got it cheaper

than original because we ran it.

So I got for 13, 13,000 and some change.

Yeah.

So we paid final, but the first time we ran it through, I'd like studied all of them

and do all the years and the auctioneer had a tendency like he would always like to say,

I'm exaggerating.

So he was like, he would exaggerate the statistics on them.

So they'd put them in a lot of like 10 of them and they're like, we got some 2014's.

We got some 2014 boys.

Got some 2014's.

And I looked at them.

There ain't no 2014's.

They're both 2012's.

So then I'm like, okay, I get the high bid.

Which one's the 2014?

Well, well, ain't no, I'm 2014.

I only bid that because I wanted 2014.

Oh, fine.

Let's run it back.

And then when they run it back, they already know we got the high bid, so we get it for

less money.

So they, the first time we ran it at like 15,000, right?

Yeah.

And then the second time they run it back is when we brought 13 and we bought both of

them.

And so then I knew I got the lower price.

I'm like, I'll take two of them.

And then the next ones after that actually brought more money than what I did because

there was less of them there.

So damn, I feel like, oh man.

And then at the end of the day, the auctioneer.

What?

I've been doing it.

The auction's on Wednesday.

You need to say it.

I'm telling you, the most exciting thing you'll ever do in your life is go to an auction.

She was and Lurie could not sleep the night before auction.

We were so excited.

I love that.

We would sit there and we'd look through all the photos because we'd go take photos

of them all.

I'm like, well, that one's a nice one.

Yeah.

That one's blown up.

Well, we really buy that one.

Oh, dude, I love deals too.

I like, we're, we are about the deals.

We love deals.

But anyway, sorry.

The auctioneer came up to me afterwards.

He's like, oh, you really think you got one over on me there?

Yeah.

I think I did.

It's his fault.

Yeah.

You can't lie to the audience.

But he was like, he was like a very kind of shanky kind of guy.

Yeah.

Because he would like start the auction every time.

He started the auction.

Auction time.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.

Come on.

Let's sell some trucks.

And if you guys are, have ever been to West Texas and you probably know the auctioneer

I'm talking about with that.

You can start every single auction.

That's so funny.

But you know how they're doing this Landman show right now?

No.

No, it's a Landman show.

Yes.

That's why we were running around buying all these trucks out.

We were buying all these trucks out of West Texas.

Dude.

So I bought my last.

It's like Mars, honestly.

It is.

It's weird.

So I had never been to Texas before and I, someone wrote in like a fan of Pascas and

they were like, I have my grandpa's 1998 BMW 328i.

It's got 24,000 miles on it.

I know you guys love it.

You've talked about this car before.

I like to know if you want it for seven grand.

And I was like, it was garage kept.

And I was like, this is right after.

Sir, I'll be right there.

This was right after I had my kid too.

So I was like, I had to justify it to my wife and be like, look, I'm going to be gone

for 24 hours exactly.

I'm going to fly into Austin and drive this car back to LA.

So there was a negotiation process, huh?

With my wife only.

Oh yeah.

I was like, I'll pay seven.

I don't care.

Like don't talk to anyone else.

I just want an attorney for negotiations.

Hey, we need a mediator.

Yeah.

We'll be gone 24 hours.

So he, I had been just emailing him and he was like, I don't know, 18 year old kid.

And then like the day I'm flying out there, I get a like a phone call from his number

and it's his angry dad being like, how much did he offer it for?

And like, he was like, I'll, I'll honor it.

But like, just know this is, this is not a good situation.

Like you shouldn't be talking to kids like this.

I was like, he emailed me.

You know, like I, I'm just take, you know, I'm not taking advantage.

That's going to make you feel so weird.

It was super weird.

But anyways, I, so we flew down there.

I was like, I only had 24 hours.

So I pitched them doughnut a short idea.

I was like, if you buy the ticket to Austin, I'll make a short out of me driving back to

LA in 24 hours without stopping.

And like, I knew, you know, something was going to go wrong.

It's a, it was garage kept, but it's still almost a 30 year old BMW.

So we get down there.

Oh, you mean 30 year old?

I thought you just talked about three year old.

No.

1998.

BMWs normally have problems all the time.

Oh, I know.

They're all going to have problems, but we get down there and we get like 30 miles out

of the city and we were like, we should gas up and then it won't start.

And I'm like, okay, this is like old fuel pump, old fuel.

And yeah, I was like, we don't have time to fix it.

So we popped started it.

And then we didn't turn it off.

We didn't turn it off for 24 hours.

We like filled it up, kept going.

But then in West Texas, it, we were going up like a slight incline and it just died.

And we are, it's like super windy.

It's the middle of the night.

Dumbled wheat flies by.

Yeah.

And, and there's like, you know, the, the puff of the flame in the oil fields.

That's like the only thing that's happening.

And it dude, West Texas is crazy.

That actually kind of reminds me of a story cause like West Texas is like, you know, town,

in between towns, you know, like 50 miles, that's not too far.

No, like they're like, you know, 50, 80 miles is in between towns.

And me and Western are like, we were running down there like once a week going to buying

stuff, doing deals.

And we drove this road, like just knew it like the back of our hand.

It's like literally out in the middle of nowhere, four hours away from anything.

And at the time it would stop falls, hang a ride, go down to Snyder.

And we're falling like this.

I've done it plenty of times while I was asleep.

Wesson is freaking cooking.

He's, he's cannon on ball and all done through there.

Oh, are you talking about one?

And there's this old man, like this really nice, like F 450 with an RV on the back.

And we're, Wesson's like, I'm about to pass him.

Like where he's, we're coming up on him and West is getting ready.

And he has a blowout.

He has a blowout as we're behind.

And then like, he does.

Yeah, he does.

And the thing is in West Texas, you're not doing 90 year impeding traffic.

Yeah.

This, this guy was doing 70.

Like, I don't know what he's thinking.

Speed limit?

What?

Anyway.

And I'm cooking along like 90 mile an hour coming up on him and he blows out one of

his trailer tires and I'm sitting there and I'm like, we're four or five hours away

from anything.

I'm like, we're in the middle.

And also the other thing too is that like when we left the house, we were always buying

such junkers that like Clifford is our red truck that we had forever.

And that it was like literally like a mobile mechanic rolling through.

Like we had every tool possible because we were prepared for like,

You felt obligated to help this dude.

Yeah.

I changed transmissions alongside the highway with all the tools in that truck.

But like, I was thinking about like the odds of it.

Like cause the odds of like, you know, he had a blowout because we were going to pass

like we were coming up on him and then you're going to pass and going around and we hadn't

seen nobody in hours.

You remember the interesting part about this?

What's that?

I was not going to stop.

Yeah.

But then I see him start to get out and it's this old man.

I'm like, okay, I got to stop.

So I stopped and I helped him change a tire on his RV.

And he's probably 2016, 2017.

He is like back on the road in four minutes.

Yeah.

I got an impact out because I had shitty trailer tires on my trailer all the time.

Did they just have a spare for the RV?

He had a spare and then the RV was also on hydraulic jacks to level it.

So he just hit a button and raised it up.

That's cool.

So he raises it up and we pull the spare off and I have an impact and I just rattle

it on, rattle it off real quick for him and he tries to give me 200 bucks.

I'm like, no, I'm not taking it.

And then his wife tries to give him this money and I'm like, no.

And then the wife turns to the old man's like, give them some money.

They helped us.

You would have been out here four hours changed this by yourself, Bob.

And he's like, he won't take it.

I'm like, no, man.

I don't need nothing.

I'm fine.

Yeah.

It just took me 10 minutes.

I'm good.

So we get back on the road and take in mind we was in the middle of nowhere and I told

the guy my name and I think Garrett introduced himself and about three or four years later,

one of the comments on the video I remember looking through is like, I was watching this

video, my grandpa and he said, you stopped and helped him change his tire.

Oh man.

That's cool.

And I'm like, oh man.

That's kind of interesting.

That's super cool.

It's like the, I guess the grandson was sitting there watching YouTube video on TV or on his

computer or whatever.

Yeah.

I know that guy.

He helped me change his tire.

This was before we did YouTube too.

This was before we did to YouTube whenever I helped him.

But I always thought it was funny because we're four hours away from anything and we just

happened to come upon him and we got his tire changed in about four or five minutes.

I say, wait, Weston did.

I was there.

I said, we should help.

You said at the cones.

It's cool.

Yeah.

So, you know, he was back on the road in four minutes when he would have been there.

You know, if he had called somebody, they would have had four hours to drive out to

get to there.

Yeah.

That's what happened to me.

Yeah.

The closest place, luckily I was like within the 12 mile range of AAA, just barely by like

half a mile from Fort Stockton.

And I had to wait for this dude for three hours.

He was like, I'm just finishing up a couple jobs right now.

It's like...

Oh my God.

He was not doing anything.

He was sitting in his office playing Flappy Bird.

That's what he was doing.

Yeah.

My God.

But man, I haven't told the story on any platform yet, but like that dude was methed out and

he was telling me stories.

He was like, yeah, when COVID happened, there was like an overturned semi and all these

frozen bodies shot out of the semi and I had to go clean up the bodies.

And it's like, dude, that did not happen at all.

That did not happen.

You walk back and realize he doesn't have a repair truck.

He's just away in the car.

He was rolling.

I was like, you guys need some help.

That was a crazy night though.

I remember.

I had a couple of truck drivers who were like that.

Yeah.

I mean, I did this one truck driver.

He was like, I'll get all my stuff.

I mean, I'll tell you what I take out of New York next thing I know.

I was in LA.

I'm like, what happened in the middle?

He's like, I don't remember.

But I got there.

He was from here in Winfield and there was another truck driver that was from here and

he's like, it's Monday.

And he's like, I better take off, head to Ferala and he's going to get there like Thursday

or something like that.

Yeah.

He's like, why are you leaving so early?

Why are you leaving so early?

He's supposed to be there Thursday night.

Leave Wednesday.

What?

What are you doing?

It's like the cannonball run.

Oh dude, the cannonball run has been broken by a guy on a 379 Peter Bell and none of us

were over.

None of us were over.

Not documented though.

No.

Not documented at all.

My dad, he drove truck and he was a bull hauler.

So he'd haul cows.

Yeah.

And when you left lane beef train.

Left lane beef train.

And if you was hauling cows, you don't have to stop.

The way I scale, you don't have to stop for nothing.

What?

So no.

You got livestock on board.

They just get there.

Oh, okay.

They don't matter what happens.

Once the cows step on the trailer, it's stressful for them.

Yeah.

So they have to get all the way where they're going.

That makes all the stakes all tightened.

Exactly.

You don't want the stakes all...

You don't want the waggy beef.

You don't want the stakes all twisted up.

You know what I mean?

Anyway, so you can run them for a certain amount of hours before you got to get them off the

truck and let them rest.

So they're like, well, we could stop or we could speed.

Yeah.

They'd pick speed.

And you'll be...

And these guys have 300 lights on their trailer.

That's not an exaggeration.

They have the chicken lights all the way down the side of the trailer.

And you will see these rolling billboards 90 feet long doing triple digits down the interstate

at like 2 a.m.

And that's your dad?

Oh, well, he don't do it anymore.

He just owns cows and he owns a feed yard and stuff, but...

I didn't know that.

I didn't know that you didn't have to stop for the way stage.

Oh, dude, no, you didn't have to stop for nothing.

Wow.

No, and these guys get after it.

And I mean, like they will...

They'll haul for 10 hours straight.

Yeah.

And they'll just be cooking triple digits for hours.

I mean, who needs sleep?

Hours.

And if you ever...

You ever driven anything big, the bigger they get, the more sketchy they get, right?

And take in mind, a cattle truck, I've driven a few.

I've not driven very many, but I've driven...

You've driven a cattle truck?

Oh, yeah.

Like a big rig cattle truck?

Yeah, yeah, I've driven a couple.

Holy shit.

I drove grain trucks and stuff like that one.

Do you know how to do those like 22 gear transmissions?

Oh, yeah, dude.

Yeah.

Teach me.

So, my Peter belt's got a 15 speed.

Oh, shit.

But I drove a twin stick freight liner hauling grain.

What does twin stick mean?

So, it's got two gear shifts.

So, you have a main, you got an auxiliary trans.

Oh.

So, the more I talk, the more redneck I sound.

No, it's great.

This is great.

Hold on, let me get posh.

You have your main transmission.

No, but you got your main and you run through your main set of gears, then you'll throw

in neutral and you'll throw your auxiliary into a different gear and then you run through

your second set of gears.

And the same way now is like to have splitters, which means like semis, you'll go through

your first five gears if it's a 15 speed.

The first five gears could really be 10 because you can split everyone, but it's getting complicated.

Anyway, you'll go through your first five, then you flip it up and you'll go to high

range and you'll go through the second set of five and each set of those five have two

gears to them.

Holy shit.

So, on like a 15 speed, you can only split the top side.

On an 18 speed, you can split both sides, you can split the bottom and the top.

So imagine like you're in first and you have first high, first low, so you're going to

go first low, first high, second low, second high, third, your arm gets tired and you never

use the clutch.

Never.

Really?

Never touch it.

Wow.

I don't use clutch in anything.

The only time you ever use clutch is to start.

Like a redmatch?

No, you don't.

You have to.

You know where this really came in handy?

We did roadkill nights and they had like a drag racing where it had to be a manual and

Western was outshifting everybody, all these drag racers, they weren't able to get the

gears.

Western was a road.

Dude, that's the only thing I could do well is I could drive a manual.

And they all have these Turbo 400s and we did roadkill nights, it was this street legal

drag race.

Have you seen this video?

Is it Frye Burger hosted?

Yeah, he did.

I don't know if we give context to like what the event roadkill nights is, roadkill nights

is an event that they have up in, what is it, Pontiac, Michigan?

Pontiac, Michigan.

And it's street racing.

It's legal street racing.

So they shut down the streets and...

I didn't realize it was on the street.

Yeah, it's on the street.

So like the same road that you're going to go get your groceries, the previous day, they

shut it down, you're racing on the next day.

And they put up all these stands, it's a really cool event.

It's not a racetrack, it's a street.

There's a manual cover on the right, there's a crown of the road on the left.

So what regard was either way you do it, the lanes are bad.

Yeah.

It's just, do you want to deal with the manhole cover that might crash or the crown on the

left side that might crash or what kind of crash do you want?

Back to our whole debacle.

Back to our debacle.

Dodge sends out a Hellcat powertrain with a manual transmission.

They're like, build a race car.

So I have a manual transmission Dodge Challenger sitting in my shop.

And should I tell them what we really built?

Yes, please.

They sent us a motor and they're like, okay, this is a Hellcat red eye motor,

it makes 797 horsepower.

And the deal is you have to have a stock blower and you have to have, what else?

I had to be stock stock blower and something else had to be stopped.

You do anything else to it.

Yeah.

You do anything else to it.

You had to do a stock blower and that's basically they wanted us to build a,

they want us to build a red eye drag car, but you had to put in a Dodge car.

So the guys were sitting there and we were, we had this car we were going to build

an off road Hellcat with and it was, it was a black car.

And so at the time we were trying to find a chassis because we were in this

competition and we kind of went back and forth on and we're just like, well,

we'll just do this car.

It's easy.

Yeah.

So we were like, man, should we build this?

Should we build that?

I'm like, Garrett, we have two weeks to build a race car.

Two freaking weeks.

Was this the cop car that you built?

Well, no, this is a, this is a black Hellcat.

Okay.

We actually started off thinking we're going to build that one.

Yeah, we were going to build the, the cop car.

That's the one we were going to build.

But they're like, dude, we have two weeks.

We don't have time to do all that.

We need something simple and easy and fast.

So they sent us the Hellcat motor.

They sent us a blower and they, the thing they said is like, you have to have

this size of tire, no bigger.

And you have to do, no, that year they were allowed any tire though.

The rule they had was it had to have a stock block and it had to be a stock blower.

So, but you could do anything you want.

You could do anything else you wanted to.

And the thing that they were talking about is like, well, what these guys

have two weeks, what are they going to do?

You know what I mean?

Because like, okay, they get the blower, the blower ported or stuff like that,

but they can't take the blower off and put like a big old whipple on it or

another.

Yeah.

And that's definitely cheating.

And I'm like, well, I'm still going to cheat.

I'm just going to do it in a different way.

Yeah.

So I had in my shop, a Hellcat blocked billet bottom end stroked out motor that

was sitting in my cop car.

And it was a 6.4 liter instead of a 6.2 liter, had a billet bottom end,

could handle a crazy amount of boost, big heads, big cam.

And I had to have a stock block and the block was stock.

It was not bored over and nothing like that.

It was just stroked.

But it was not the block they gave you.

No, this was a 1500 horse.

This motor was ready to party.

And then not only that, but also they had to use a manual transmission.

And I was like searching high and low for like a, cause the transmission

that they gave you would not hold the power.

No, it wouldn't hold the power.

So they sent us a stock T 56 Magnum Trans, which are rated for like 600 horsepower.

But if you really get to really get to be none of them, and I know these other

guys that are coming to race, they are building pro-mod drag cars.

Because well, for one, they have the knowledge and the know-how on how to

build a pro-mod drag car.

And I'm like, man, they're going to be lighter.

They're going to have better traction on us.

They're going to be outclassing us in every way.

And I'm like, we're going to make more power.

Way more power.

Bars are still like a street car though too.

So our cars was like, okay, so what we have is we have a 4,000 pound

Challenger that's got weather interior in it, radio, air conditioning still.

It looks like a sleeper.

It is.

Like it's, it's got air conditioning, touchscreen radio, everything still works.

And I'm like, but we're going to put the widest drag tire we can put on the back.

We're going to put a good axles in the back end of it.

We're going to put a diff brace on it and we're going to throw an upgraded

transmission.

So Garrett found these guys in the middle of Podug, Pennsylvania.

I call like 30 people just trying to find a transmission.

He calls up this guy and this guy's like, what you need?

He's like, Hey, we got a TR 6060 that we need to get built.

And he's like, well, yeah, I could probably do that.

He's like, you don't want me to look on the shelf.

And he looks back and shows like, I got a fully, uh, fully upgraded internal set

for that transmission sitting right here.

Oh man.

And I'm like, we'll mail it to you.

I looked up so much because nobody else, everyone else had stock transmission.

Yeah.

So, so I like dialed in and got like the transmission we need.

And then also like the best modification that Western is like completely

forgetting is that this is the most exercise equipment we've ever used, ever.

And we used on the back of the car.

Oh, so we got dumbbells to weigh down the back of the car.

So we got more traction and they built a contraption to come out the back

and put weight out here.

We put a receiver hitch on the back and we hung dumbbells off the back of it to

weigh down the back of the car.

So weight transfer launch.

So anyway, I was worried about like passing

tech and like they're like, there's no way this thing's going to pass tech.

And it did though.

Yeah.

Oh dude, we got up there and the dumbbells hanging off the back on the back.

Cause they're like, these dumbbells are going to fly off.

I don't know if I should, uh, name drop.

I don't know who it is, but we don't need to say who it is.

He's a tech.

Nice dude.

Yeah.

Nice guy.

You know who you are, Mike.

Anyway, Mike walks up to me and like I had done roadkill knife fry two or three years

at this point.

So every time I would come with some shenanigans and he'd be like, you idiot,

you got 24 miles of fuel pump wiring back here and Mike, you know, actually

the funniest thing about roadkill nights is the, we were talking to the CEO of

dodge and he was literally like, Hey, when we first started this thing, we're like,

there's going to be absolutely no rules, no rules whatsoever.

You do what I, yeah.

Tim connects is he's saying there's no rules, no rules whatsoever.

And then they're like, what's this that he do?

Okay.

We need a couple of rules.

You know what's funny is like they bring it the first year we did it, they bring

us a car and the car wasn't right.

So they ended up sending us another car.

So we had two hell cats that were like dollar cars.

Like basically they were pre-production models, no VIN numbers.

And I had the personal cell number for the head of SRT.

And I send him a text of me with a photo of me with a Zaw Zaw.

And I'm like, I'm going to make the world's first convertible hell cat.

And then he just sits back like LMAO.

And then he's like, if after the race, if you want to, you can.

And I'm like, what?

And he's like, yeah, after the race, after you race and you don't have to worry

about rolling it over and you're like, well, I already did it, we'll chop the

roof off the car.

So I didn't end up chopping it off, but they were serious.

So like they're senders.

They were ready.

So Motortran also put this thing on.

And they have like a guy from Motortran quit.

He, no, I didn't quit.

He quit later on, but what was it?

Allen, it was Allen.

Allen was like a producer there and he was like making sure everything was handled.

And then whenever Allen would call, Weston would be like just saying some off

the wall stuff about like, Allen.

Things are not looking good over here.

What, what happened?

Well, I was testing the car out in Indiana.

And well, there was a state trooper there.

And well, it's an impound, but the race is tomorrow.

And Allen is like, well, can they get it out?

We're just like torturing his car, dude.

I don't know.

Dude, Allen was funny.

I liked Allen, but man, we made Allen's life for about two weeks because he, his,

his job was tasked with making sure we made it to the race and we did what we need to do.

Was he specifically assigned to you?

Only you guys?

Yeah.

You guys had a Wrangler from Motortran?

We had a Wrangler from Motortran and Allen doesn't work.

Well, he actually quit after that.

I don't think we had anything to do with that.

I don't think we had anything to do with it, but Allen was funny.

I hope he's doing all right.

No, dude, he went back and he worked, he's lives in Hawaii now, I think.

I think he's doing it.

Oh, he's doing, he's doing way better than we are here in Kansas than the Gulf.

But long story short, we, so I'm like, okay, we know that this car needs to make some power.

It's a thousand to 1500 pounds heavier than every other car.

It needs to make power.

So we yanked this 6.4 out of my cop car.

We throw it in with the Hellcat Blower.

And then we go to a good friend of ours down in Atlanta.

We can't, we get the car put together.

We get it all running and we throw it in the trailer and we cannonball all the way

to Atlanta, Georgia overnight drive there, get there to my tuner and his name's Tim Barth.

And he is like a magician, whenever it comes to Hellcats, he is a magician.

And we're sitting there and I'm like, this thing needs to make power, Tim.

He's like, how much?

I'm like, as much as it can.

He's like, what's in it?

I'm like, it's a bill at bottom and six four.

They said, I'll handle 1500.

He's like, well, okay, we'll make that.

Jeez.

And he's like, I'm like, it's got a stock blower and he's like, that's fine.

So how much time does he have?

He has one, one night to do this.

What?

Yeah, he tuned this in one day.

That's tuned this car in one day.

That's incredible.

He's the best.

Hands down, the best Hellcat tuner in the world.

Without a doubt.

He is awesome.

That's insane.

So what, what do you know what it made before?

Barth tuning, by the way.

Barth tuning, he deserves a big shout out, Tim Barth.

B-A-R-T-H.

He actually told me to stop mentioning it because he's got too much work.

He's like, people of these sixes are calling me people of five, seven,

him, he's like, can you give me an extra hundred dollars?

But if you got a Hellcat and you want to tune to Barth tuning, he's in Dallas,

Georgia, and he is hands down with the best tuners I've ever seen.

Yeah, I'm good plug.

Dude, he is bad ass.

Anyway, you want to know how bad ass we're sitting there and we have a stock blower,

which is capped at like maybe a thousand, eleven hundred horsepower.

Yeah.

And I got a nitrous kit on it.

And he's like, okay, we're going to use it.

And like, I just put it on as a joke.

He's like, no, we're using it.

So we finished plumbing it all up.

He helps us pump it all up, get it done.

It makes 1200 to the tire on us.

And the biggest we had was like a 150 shot.

I'm like, what are we going to do?

He said, I watch and he takes the jet out and goes over to his drill and drills

the jet out manually, just drills the jet out on this thing.

And then I don't have no idea how big a shot it is.

No science.

No idea.

But it may have made like 1400 to the tire.

That's insane.

On spray.

Wow.

And I'm like, God, I'm dying.

I guess I can get a repump a wheelie on the dyno.

You know what I mean?

And we tune it.

We can't embal all the way back to Kansas because we had a track rented and we

could test it there.

So we can embal all the way back.

I think it's so funny.

You guys are just driving this on the highway.

Oh, no, we hauled it.

Well, we hauled it, but it was in our RV.

Like, so we had our RV and we had a trailer on the back and we was hauling it

behind our RV and we take turns like driving.

Anyway, we came all the way back.

We get to the drag ship.

We hang the dumbbells off the back of this thing and we get out with dumbbells.

And we try it without the dumbbells.

It was faster with dumbbells made it faster.

Gripped up and went.

Anyway, the first run, the drive shaft gets in a fight with the insulation on

the fuel tank and rips all the insulation off the fuel tank.

I'm like, OK, so we get that jacked up and yank that out.

So that the drive shaft is bending enough to like get in the way of the shielding.

No, what happened was is we had to put three fuel pumps in the fuel tank

to support the amount of power we were making as we were running on Ignite Red

98 fuel. So you guys are getting like half a mile per gallon.

Oh, dude, it would burn.

It would burn five gallons in one run and like a run.

Wow, that's nuts.

Anyway, after you idle up there and did all the stuff, anyway, we get up there.

That and the reason why the insulation got in a fight with the fuel tank was

because I had to space it down to fit the fuel pumps on top of the fuel tank

in between the car body. Yeah, I spaced it down with two by fours.

So I have two by fours in between the body and the fuel tank on this car.

And I spaced it down just a little bit too far.

I should have used a one by four and it got in a fight.

So we ripped the insulation out, but there's just enough room

to dry, chef, clear, so I'm like, OK, fine.

We get out there, we run.

This car is booking.

And I mean, I guess it's hooking up, taking off.

It's a forty two hundred pound.

And you said it's manual.

There's a manual, six feet manual.

I wouldn't show it to you.

It's still sending the warehouse.

Jesus, it's sending the cold storage right now.

But this car is a forty two hundred pound car, which is heavy,

makes fourteen hundred to the tire.

And we said we said on the video, oh, it makes like twelve hundred.

I don't know.

This is pretty good.

You guys are sandbagging.

Yeah, we sandbagged in Dumbbell.

We were sandbagging in Dumbbell.

Also, we had four twenty six and didn't we put something out there

like teasing that we had a better engine?

I thought we I thought we sandbagged and then we were

that everybody started to assume we had like a four twenty six in it.

Oh, because like when this car fired up, it was rowdy.

Like this car just sounded.

I mean, it's a loud.

But anyway, that's given.

Long, short, short.

Car's booking.

We run on we run six passes on the track.

Like also, just like if some sort of context is they've just spent

the last two weeks, no life in getting this car built,

getting everything put together.

We slept in our shop.

Yeah, like it was like a miserable two weeks.

Yeah, ran all the way to Georgia.

And it's like that point in the story, like, oh, my God,

like things are kind of coming together.

Good job, team.

And then we go and it has a a twin disc McLeod clutch in it,

which was supposed to be rated for the power we were making.

Mm hmm. Make six runs.

Car runs great. Everything's good.

Like, yes, we're awesome. We're doing good.

Oh, this is like testing before road.

Yeah, we're testing the car.

We're getting everything ready.

We're doing all that. We're in Kansas.

We just tested the car.

The car was running great.

We go to load it back in the trailer to go to head to the vent.

We're like, we're ready.

Cars ripping. We're ready to go.

We're on our way to Detroit to go race.

We go to put it in the trailer.

And when we go to put it in the trailer, the clutch just gives up.

Yeah, it comes apart.

So it literally does not have enough clutch to even pull itself out.

And we have to be there the next day for the press conference.

The car has to be in front of this.

This is stressful. Oh, this is stressing me out.

And Manson was stressing. Oh, car has to be there.

Yeah. So I'm sitting there.

I'm like, what are we going to do?

So I call everyone, everyone I can think of,

know of, even seen, met, might have met.

Everyone I can think of to find a clutch.

And I'm like, I need a Hellcat clutch today, today.

It's also we're not the event isn't the next day.

It's the press conference.

The car is supposed to be there to be on display.

Yes. So the car is supposed to be there to be on display

at the press conference the next day, right?

So anyway, can't find a clutch anywhere.

I'm calling everywhere, every place I can find.

I finally have a buddy of mine

call me back from a Chrysler dealership.

And he's like, there is one in Des Moines, Iowa.

Oh, God. And I'm like, what?

And he's like, in Des Moines, Iowa, at this place,

there is a clutch there.

I'm like, OK, we push the car in the trailer

and cannonball all the way there, all the way, all the way that night.

From here in Kansas.

To Indiana or to Iowa.

Des Moines, Iowa, which is like a 10 hour drive.

Geez. 9 hour drive, whatever it is.

And we cannonball all the way there.

We get there at 3 a.m.

And there's a Menards parking lot across the street

from this Dodge dealership.

So we wait.

And then this guy rolls up the dealership at like 6 a.m.

And he's like, opening the dealership.

And I'm like, like going to be another door.

I need this clutch now.

There's a crack head outside.

And he's like, yeah, there's a crack head outside right now.

He wants a clutch for a Hellcat.

He's like, I'm not sure we have it.

And I'm like, the parts department set it out.

It's there. Can I need it bad?

And I'm like, the clutch, you can look at it.

It's $1,500. Here's $1,600.

Keep this extra hundred, pay them when they open.

I need it.

He's like, OK, so we take the clutch

and take them on.

We slept in the parking lot across the street

like for four hours, got the clutch.

We drove the rest of the way to Detroit, right?

And we get there about.

That's another like 10 hour drive, right?

Oh, yeah, dude, it was a while.

So we get there.

Just keep in track, by the way.

We're in Kansas and drive all the way to Georgia.

Get your cartoon.

Drive all the way back to Kansas.

Test it.

Then we drive all the way to Moyns, Iowa to get it fixed.

And then now we leave it.

We're in Kansas.

We drove to Georgia, back to Georgia.

To Georgia, had it tuned back from Georgia.

Test the car and break the car.

That was like a 18 hour drive to Georgia.

To Georgia?

Oh, yeah, we drove.

God damn.

It was a crazy one.

But he was the best, so we won.

Yeah.

Anyway, we get to Pontiac, Michigan, about, I think,

four hours before the car has got to be locked in

for the press conference the next day.

Yeah.

And I call a buddy of mine, Tom Bailey.

And he's from up there.

And he's got, he drag races a bunch of cars,

has a bunch of six-second cars.

I'm like, can I use your lift?

He's like, yeah.

So we push the car out of the trailer,

we push it into a shop.

We start yanking the transmission out of this thing.

And then.

By the way, this is like 1, 2, 3 AM in the morning.

Yeah, this is like 1, 2, 3 AM in the morning, whatever it was.

And I'm pushing, like, the guys from Motortrend are calling me.

And they're like, it has to be here.

And like, I'm in a f***ing foul mood.

I have.

Allen's not here this year.

Allen wasn't here.

The guy that was calling me.

He's in Hawaii.

Yeah, Allen's in Hawaii.

And the guy that's calling me is like, not very nice.

He was, he was like, I don't even care.

I know.

He was an absolute asshole.

Yeah, man.

He was an absolute dick.

And then I'm like, dude, I just got to get the car fixed,

blah, blah, blah.

And he's like, well, it has to be here tonight.

So it can be in here for the press conference.

I'm like, I get that.

The car has no transmission in it.

He's like, well, if you don't show up, that's on you.

And it's going to look bad on you.

And we're just going to.

This is not a bad representation on us.

This is a bad reputation on you.

And it's like, hey, we're doing all this work

to try to make your guys' event really, really nice.

You could be a little bit nice.

Yeah, that sucks.

You could be nice to us, you know what I mean?

And the guy was so rude.

And I sat there and I was in such a bad mood.

I'm like, f**k it.

Take the car.

I'm like, come get some people.

Come push the car into a trailer.

We'll just haul it over there without the transmission.

Yeah.

So we haul it over to the press conference and it sits there.

And then I go and take in mind it's like four, five AM

at this point in the press conference is in 9 AM.

I go to the hotel and I sleep for a couple of hours

and I get back over there and everyone's like, yeah,

my car's ready and yeah, we're ready to race.

No, everybody.

We went over to sleep.

I thought we went straight to the press conference.

I don't know.

We slept for like three hours.

Anyway, I get over there and everybody's like super excited

having a great day because all their cars are on.

Yeah.

And I'm like, just standing there, just defeated.

And they have like covers over all these cars

because they're all sitting in front of this really, really

cool ass building and the M1 concourse racetrack.

And I just can't care.

I'm like, car has no transmission and the drive shafts

You guys are like toast at this point.

Dude, I've been up for like, besides for the four hours

of sleep I had, I've been up for 24 hours straight.

And I was in such a bad mood.

You had this dude yelling at you.

You watched the video.

I look like the most histophilistic you've ever seen.

And this guy from Motor Trend was yelling at us like a couple

hours before saying that we're going to look bad because we

didn't show up on time, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, they pull back the covers on all these other cars.

And there's like a bad ass pro mod car.

And there's another bad ass car.

And then there's another bad ass car.

And then it comes down to mine and they pull back on mine.

And also one of the cars was not a pro mod car.

One of the cars like there was very few actual street cars.

So all the other ones were tubbed, big tired.

And so ours was like a street car.

So it's just still like all the same stuff.

We were like, well, we're street racing.

So another street car, another YouTuber, they want to make

an interesting car.

So they're like, oh, we'll put a Hellcat and a Dodge Viper,

which is throttle.

Yeah, which was with a bad ass build.

There was a street car and their car was cool.

Their car was really cool, but it was really, really fast.

Vipers are light.

And like when we built our car, like we want to build stuff

that like we really liked.

And like, honestly, like pro mod cars, they're like tub,

like just, it doesn't really.

It's not like you're chasing tense of a second.

You know what I mean?

Tense of a second to have a car that has no air conditioning,

no seats, no nothing, no power steering.

Like, okay, you can use the car for six seconds at a time.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And I'm like, I don't like that.

I like street cars.

I got a car that I can jump in and go drive it if I want to.

Anyway, so their car was a street car.

And I think there might have been another car there that had

like a ripped out interior, but it was mostly street car.

And then there was like two pro mods there.

I'm like, damn, this sucks.

And so they're ripping back all these cars.

And all these cars look fast.

Yeah.

And they get to ours and they rip the cover off of it.

Gotta get stressing out.

It's thinking about they ripped the cover off of it and it's sitting

there and there's wiring hanging out from under it.

And the drive shaft is on the ground and the front bumper,

the bottom of the front bumper was taken off and the front bumper

was just like set on the car.

It looked like an absolute wreck and everyone was just joking.

Like, dude, why'd you bring a car that has no transmission?

What are you doing here?

And I remember the guy that was hosting at the time,

he had like a Don Rickles kind of comedy.

Yeah, where he would just like to roast everyone.

And he's like, well, and then some people didn't even show up

with transmissions in their car.

Haha.

I'm like, you.

Okay.

I like that.

You know, so let's take a peek at what we've got.

Yes, admittedly, it's not not drivable yet, but it's it's.

Hey.

You gotta have to bleep what I said, but Mike, you this is not my day.

Yeah, like, I'm sorry, dude.

I'm normally like having a great time. This is just not my day. So

We're sitting there and we

Get over with the press conference and I'm like, all right

We're going to fix this car and about that time another youtuber Freddy DeVar ish. He's like, oh, yeah

I'll come help you. So he comes and helps us. I get like three red bulls we get over there

and

Take in mind the clutch that we found in Des Moines. I told you about was a stock clutch

This wasn't even like stock. There's a stock clutch

Why and we'd blown up a build and we'd blown up a built triple disc clutch

Why did it? Why was this the only shop that had a stock clutch?

if you're trying to find a hellcat clutch and

on a Friday

Like four o'clock in the afternoon your options are limited. Yeah, it's the only thing we could find and get there in time

So it was a stock hellcat clutch was rated at 700 horsepower. We're making way way more. Yeah

So we know it's gonna blow up, but you have like maybe one good run. We have yeah

We're like we have two good runs in this clutch. That's what we have

Anyway, we get the clutch thrown in the car. You know, it's funny. It's all sources. I remember more and more about this day

Yeah, it's funny. Anyway, we get the clutch throw in the car get the transmission back in and get it put together and

I'm like hell. Yeah car runs

So we fire up the car and we're like we don't put in the trailer Michael. No this thing finally runs

I'm driving it to drag the racetrack. Yeah, so we drive it to the racetrack and we're driving this thing through the hood

And I mean through the hood. Oh my god. I sure hope I put it all back together

Right because like it's got a big zero eight on the side and it says my name on it and it looks and it's like

Noises and everybody

Yeah

They were so excited so hyped. Yeah. Anyway, we end up that's the real press conference dude

We want accounts. Yeah, we were having a good time

Anyway, we drive down the street and we get to the street that we're supposed to be racing on the next day

Take a mind. This is just right after the press conference

the car was supposed to stay in there after the press conference we stole it out when put a transmission in the clutch in it and

We're driving it down through there and Freddie Tavares is sitting in the passenger seat. I'm like, should we take it for a test rip?

Yeah, she runs oh hell yeah pulled in there park it

Didn't do a single test it the car set there they did testing for so here's the thing that also kind of like mess with like

All the competition right because obviously he's got a he don't they don't know this but obviously has a stock clutch

So they don't know why we didn't so the thing is is it like the the whole day?

Weston obviously goes and he's so tired he goes and sleep, but the rest of the competition is like speculating like what the hell's in that car

Yeah, like why are they not like because they know like we will obviously put way more horsepower

Yeah, they're thinking like they're thinking it could potentially be like even more than 1500

You know like that there's like this freaking month with which there is and so they're like what's going on this?

Because so the whole day it sits there at the front of the like front all the

Influencer cars

In front of the in front of the racetrack

Right there at the front yeah as anybody seen Weston's car hit and like nobody seen a go

And so like that kind of like mess that's cool

Because then they're like the they've all been running they all been tested and then it shows up race time

And then we show up have done no testing and it's time to go so they don't know the mystique is like yeah

The or is also goes even another couple levels too because we we do the first race so basically the way it goes

You forget this right so we go in there right and take in mind. There's five of these cars

my car sits right up there right up front the whole day and I'm in the RV taking a nap and

Like I later on they say wait, where's Weston? He's like he's sleeping

He's like is he not gonna test his car and then I thought we did we do one tested or not even we didn't do one

We didn't do nothing when you did the like the run the day before

Had they set up the

At that point the parachutes weren't set up yet. It was just traffic was going down and wow

Did test it yesterday? You know what I mean?

It was still public road then but we didn't even get over 50. We just launched like no one has seen this car run

But people have heard it echo through the city

They also they didn't hear it. They also like at the press conference

They like you know, they fire them up and they rev them up so nobody's even heard it wrong

They always even heard around we parked it there. We'll have to sit there all day race starts

And to be honest, I was so exhausted. I don't really remember exactly how it goes

but we get first pick and we go into our first race and it's grudge match style. So you're doing like

Like heads up like whoever to the end wins. Yeah, and

We get first person and I don't remember who we race first but boom walked them

Just gone. Yeah car links on them

And then this is like the part where like the you know, like the aura comes in because like we we run the first one

And then there's this guy that's helping us the the lime cat and he walks over and he's chatting with weston

And he's like who you racing next because I just won that race. I'm like, what the hell I won

Like the clutch held together. We got our one run out and I'm expecting this thing to blow it any second

And uh, take in mind they run these cars hot lap them

So you run back to back to back to back you the race is done in 20 minutes

And you don't have time to let the car sit. Yeah, so you got time to pull back around fill it all around us

But I'd like listening to what we're talking about you can hear everybody like you're all like basically

Your pit is their pit too. Like you're just parked right like right next to each other. So we're here feet apart

I mean it's like a public street. Like yeah, and so they've got us all right here real close together

And lime cat he comes over and he's like, you know, who do you got next and it's like I got crap. I was like

Oh

well

We should probably turn the nitrous on and then the rest of the

You didn't even have the nitrous on the rest of like the nitrous wasn't on what they're like, what?

It's like a thing out of like a movie or something like that. Like, okay. It's time to level it up

No, no, I'm like, he's like, who do you got next? I'm like

Crab builds he's like, all right. We should turn the nice and all and everyone turns around. It's like you weren't running nitrous

No

Yeah, holy shit

Uh

We turned the nitrous on we go out against scrub built and he's got a pro mod car

It's got a tire this wide on the back. Yeah weighs 1800 pounds wider than our car ways

Full stripped out race car

and

No power steering no power steering no nothing we get up there and I just run a run

I just put gas in the car got back up there and the car is a little warm but not super hot

And I'm like, all right, whatever so we get up there run and we launch out and he gets ahead of me

And I shift to second gear and they put a delay on the nitrous like a second delay

And I walk and he's right there by my door and the nitrous hits and the car goes

It just takes off

I got out ahead of him by like half a car and won the race i'm like, what?

Wow, what we never seen like a group of people also gets so excited because it was a foregone conclusion

That this car was gonna lose like there's no way the day before the black car should like that our car should win

So all the pits everyone else just starts cheering in the pits like all the other racers

I just got like beating on top of the car and like, oh my god. This is so freaking epic

And then also it comes back to it, right? So they got all these pro mod cars

They're just built to race like that's all they are. Yeah, and then in the finals

Ours the street car has air conditioning has he has radio and then throttle

They beat a pro mod car too. They're they're right. They bought a they beat a pro mod with their viper and their viper was quick

Oh, shit quick and uh, they were also so freaking excited

But also like the youtube part of me was also like they're really really excited like, oh, this is great youtube

yeah, yeah, anyway, we uh

We wind up again

And I beat that guy that beat the second guy and third third run is throttle and this viper and this viper

Had just beat a pro mod

That was really really quick probably quicker than the corrupt builds car that I just beat also

The the guy driving could drive ricky can really drive. Yeah, like solo. He's on throttle. I think he's still there

Yeah, he can drive and like he was in there and he was driving that car and he was doing a damn good job that day

Anyway, but man, even even with like the extra power and stuff that viper is like so sketchy to

Dude drive at its limit

Dude the the viper was sketchy and he was he was driving it to its limit, but wow that car probably had

I think they set it dyno to like 800 horsepower. Oh, so you had like almost 900 horsepower to the tire

But you know, he was a lot lighter. He might have been a thousand pounds lighter. That's true

Um, because I was fat, you know, anyway

We uh, we get up there and we're going to race and the car is hot

So take it mind. We just have done a couple races and the car is like really

You got a little heat sink going on and you can smell the clutch. Yeah, that's just smells awful in the car

So we've got like fans on top of the car point now that we got a generator sitting on the roof running the car

Oh the fans and we're spraying nitrous

At the bell also by the way one detail that's like lost every person that we beat joins our team

Yeah, every person we beat so every one we beat like the this is really a movie

Yes, I know like this is what I'm saying like people in the comment section of this youtube video were like, I cried

Watch this video like it was so good. It was the most wildest thing

They're like, so, you know demonology. He comes over. He's like you take my gosh

Have you ever met demonology? No dude. He is a character naso character. His name's herman. He's an awesome dude

Awesome dude, he comes over and he'd lost to the viper and he had a pro mod drag racing car

And all he does is drag racing. He knows his way around drag. Yeah, he comes over and he's like

He lost to corrupt builds that's what it was and we beat corrupt builds

and

He comes over and he's like you need gas

He's like, what kind you run? I'm like 98 oct or e 98. I'm not same. Shit. I run

He comes over this gesture. He's like use my gas and beat him

And then after we beat him, he's like, I'll take credit for that. He'd use my gas

And he was like so hyped and then everyone that we kind of beat or kind of got out of the competition would start helping us

freddie tavarez start helping us

Uh, he started helping us even corrupt builds start helping us and like we shut the car off

So like at the very the very final of the at the final race between the the viper and ours

Everyone else that like if we had beat had was helping us push the car to the start line

That's so cool. The car is sitting there. We got the fans on it. We're glad to try to cool down

It's super hot. You can smell the clutch. You can just smell the cars being super hot and uh,

We're pushing it to the start line and I'm sitting there my guys

I don't normally get competitive, but I'm gonna freaking send it and we dial up the nitrous kids high as it goes

like we had it on like

70 percent duty cycle we dial it all the way up. Oh, no delay. No nothing

And it's it's got a pedal switch on it. So as soon as I go full throttle, it's going to go on

Oh, shit

So we line up and I look over to ricky and like dude, this is a badass race and he's like, yeah it is

This is badass. I'm like, hell, yeah, I'm like, well, whoever wins, you know, the best man win one kind of thing

and

We get there and the car we fire up the car and the cars running great

But it's hot. You smell the clutch. You smell everything and take a mind

We've run the car like four or five runs now on this stock clutch with like 1400 horsepower

and

I wrap it up to about 2000 and I just dump the clutch and the car goes

Hunkers down and I kind of pedal it for half a second

Yeah, and then I'm and then I floor it and the car just

Whoa, and then I slam into second gear. Whoa

It's slam with the third gear and got out there and I beat the viper by

Maybe a bumper. That's incredible. Like barely beat it. That's so insane. And that's how I won

But like that was that was and take in mind this car just won and it was the day before

Sitting in the press booth with no transmission in it

I was just thinking as soon as it crosses the finish line that angry dude for motor trends probably like

Well, it doesn't look great

The guy that was trying to get us there. Yeah, he was way nicer after that. He's like, okay

He comes I was like, yeah, you want buddy come get the trophy. We're all friends. We're also friends and like

Cool. Yeah, I get that. Yeah, he come apologize and he's like, I'm just trying to do my job

And I like I get it. I get it and he's like, uh, you've got to come up and get the trophy

I'm like, there's a trophy and I'm like, I never even thought we'd even get close to the trophy

So I didn't even know there was one we get the trophy and we're standing there and I'm just like

It was the weirdest moment because it all got quiet

It just got silent. Yeah, the anus the trophy when we like walk into the crowd to head towards like they have this

Part where all like the dodge people were at and like the whole crowd doesn't say a word is where there's a vi

There's a vip booth

Uh up at the top of the hill

And I'm like so tired and so exhausted

Yeah, and I just put the car back in the staging lines

And I got the trophy and I'm holding my helmet and I'll walk towards the crowd

And it's like the most real movie like thing of people like party crowd just parts

And no one says a word that is so bizarre

Everyone just everyone's just like

Like some people's like, dude, hell, yeah, you did it kind of like thing

But it was like this like summer moment of like, dude, you did it

And I walk up to the uh, the vip booth and we sat down and then one of the execs from dodge and I'm like, god dang

I didn't imagine that

I don't think you'd be doing that. I really didn't think you would win

I was gonna say the same thing. It was like so quiet like it was the most bizarre thing

That is you like they watch this whole race and everything

Take it mind people are screaming cheering and there's just like this calm after the storm where everybody's like, you did it, dude

That's so awesome. That's such an incredible story and something that probably doesn't like it's hard to convey

In a youtube video. Oh, dude, so I like that like I got chills multiple times during that story and it's such it's such a cool experience

It was why you're the f***ing

2025 SEMA creator of the year you guys. Yeah rats. I never even brought it up

We didn't really even talk about youtube, but uh

We are almost out of time right now. I just wanted to like I said, we're really good at talking

But no, thank you. Thank you. I got honestly

SEMA was super awesome. I didn't think whatever we went to it. I'm like, okay, we got invited to a whole outside

You got another hour

You got another I'll I'll we start talking about SEMA and everything there. Yeah, we did a lot of SEMA

We did a lot of because I don't think about a bunch of different things at SEMA

I mean the level that you guys operate epic. Yeah, the level that you guys operate

Not just on production for youtube, but like your production for fixing cars

modifying stuff

The volume that you do it is staggering and it's crazy and it's very inspiring so

Uh hats off to you guys for you know

Finally getting recognition for it like the second ever

Creator of the year for SEMA. By the way, that's it's a new award and I'm glad you guys got it

Big big shoes to fill after chris fix

Dude, I mean, I don't know if you guys were inspired by him

But like doughnut people at doughnut for years where like I always watch this stuff whenever I try to learn how to do stuff

No, like there's so many and he's such a nice dude. He is so nice

And the one thing I will say that most people will never

You know like get a chance to

Uh verify is

It hit the voice coming from his face doesn't match his face. No, isn't it?

But I was like, oh, it's also weird because like I've met him

I know what his face looks like nobody else knows what his face looks like

He's always wearing the helmet, but like it it doesn't match

But then he puts a helmet on he says hey guys chris fixie

And he walked up to me without his helmet. He's like, hey dude, what's up? And I'm like, oh, yeah

Hey, what's up, man? I talked to him for 10 minutes didn't know who he was and then he's like, you know who I am, right?

And I'm like, no, I'm sorry. I don't he's like, I'm chris fixie. I'm like, bro. Where's your helmet?

Yeah

But he was so nice, but the it's like meeting the stick without his helmet

You know, what's wild about it is

I don't really think about it until like I actually take a moment to take a step back and think about it

because we have built

So many crazy things. Yeah, and we've built more crazy things than anyone else

And it's wild actually

I'm kind of curious about this from your perspective because like one of the craziest things we did last year

was

The the killer cone or the esophagus. Yes. What did you think like did you watch that when it came out?

Yeah, I thought it was insane and I was like you guys are geniuses

I really wanted to pick your brain about this because

you guys walk such a perfect line between

what I'll call nutritional

YouTube content where you're actually like showing people what you're doing to these cars and it's not just like

candy, you know

Candy's the opposite where you got the steak and you got the potatoes. Yeah. Yeah, and you guys are like

So perfect in the middle of that where you can do stuff where this like huge

viral spectacle of putting a cow catcher on the front of a

Semi and running through a bunch of shit and

Anyone can see that and be like, whoa, that's incredible

Then you go to your channel and you have like all these in-depth videos

Like how do you fill out a calendar for a year and say, all right

We're going to do this kind of stuff

But we all got to do we got to do

You know the the viral stuff we have to do this stuff as well

And is there any process to that or is it kind of just like as you go?

They're definitely I think we just

For me like just stuff that we get interested in or like it's definitely stuff we get interested in

But you also got count like a lot of this stuff

Some of these builds will take six months. Yeah, and

Um, we got one now that nobody knows about this can probably take a year

Yeah, we got one now that we're building it's probably gonna take a year

It's probably gonna take a year from today

And we've had three months already holy crap, and it's gonna be the biggest thing we ever built or coolest thing

we ever know not the biggest but the coolest and uh

But whenever you're thinking about that stuff, we have like, okay, we know we want to do these things, you know

And Garrett Garrett's idea was the cone Garrett's like we need to build

Take ownership of the cone and like honestly at some points

I didn't want it because the day the shoot came right so like, you know when you watch the video

I mean, obviously you're in production so you understand like how how hard it is

How do you get 30 cars out there? How do you get all the motorhomes like there's like so much setup and we had

You know 30 plus cameras filming and then we had this slow-mo drone and then we rigged up

You know a camera on the side of a truck and it's like Jim Connell level production

Yeah, and like I'm driving the truck he did all the production on this

Like I gotta stop him for a second he did all the production on this and that's the thing is like Garrett every once in a while

He's like we're gonna shoot something cool

You know

And he just slides in and then we produce this epic epic epic thing and the thing is is like

If you do a good job, no one notices that's that's like the ultimate if you do a really good job with production value

It's supposed to be so seamless no one notices

But that episode the actual segment of us hitting those cars

Is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen on youtube. It is amazing and I was just driving it

I didn't film it. He filmed it. So like on the on the back story on that obviously

we got all the camera set up and we have a truck rigged with a rona 4d on the back and

Hydra system so basically like and I have a guy sitting passenger seat operating the camera because I'm like

I didn't trust anybody else to drive the truck because I'm like you need to pace it just right

Yeah, because like it's everything and then like so the camera operators like no, it's recording

And you only got one shot we've spent like a week and a half setting up all this stuff

And he's like no, it's recording. So I'm like, you're sure it's recording. I'm like, look at it. Okay. It's all red

It's all good. Like we're good to go and also because that's your most important shot

Is that shot where you're driving beside the truck? Yeah

And I remember sitting there thinking about it because mom my mom was like really way worried and she's like gary

You freaking idiot. Why don't you come up with this idea? You're gonna get west and killed and like the thing

You're gonna get him killed and then I'm sitting there and like I'm just so worried like I'm so worried

I'm almost like like I'm just so incredibly nervous. It'll go round like because the what people don't see there is

it's a world war two runway and

The expansion joints are this big and so if the thing digs in, you know

A lot of stuff can go bad or something come underneath the the semi and flip it and like, you know

Something horrible happened and I'm sitting there thinking like oh, this is all mighty if it goes really I'm like, you know

Basically it goes wrong. It's his fault. Yeah. No, I got feel like I love that the person you're most worried about

Is your mom coming down on you? Not just that but I'm like, I'm also worried all the way around

But like she's making me like really think about it because like yeah, you kind of like

It's this thing that's taken so many many months

You know, okay, you're working on and then the day comes to film it and then like it's that time to do it

And then like okay, and it's like three two one like go

And so then I start to drive and then I'm looking at the camera and I'm looking the rear of your mirror

Because also bear in mind when he hits it doesn't even the danger doesn't even set in yeah

Until I put the drunken gear. Yeah, and like I didn't even think about it

My mind's so I'm like, okay. The cameras are good. The gear. It's got that

All that's up. I'm waiting for them to tell me that the drone's falling and I can take off

I've been like, okay. I said all the cars upright. I've got a

We designed an axle to go underneath the front of that to kind of keep it from

Digging into the concrete. Okay, force case scenario. Um, and I'm like, okay, that's good. We got the expanded metal. I'm like, all right

GoPro's going good. All right

So in there and about that time like okay go and I'm like, oh shit. Okay

I'm like this is sooner than I thought so we had to get going quickly like there's like

So many comments about like this visor like Wesson's visor

But we were in a rush because we had this like really slow motion camera

They record in a thousand frames per second and you have to have a lot of light for this thing to work

And so the the drone operators like hey if we don't go in the next 10 minutes

We're not gonna have enough light to do this and so like we're all hurrying

And so that's where everybody's running around making sure everything's good to go

And then as we so it's like three two one go and so I start to drive and pace the truck

So like I'm driving right beside and also they tell me they tell me to go and as soon as I put in gear and start going

You're like go go go everything's ready. I'm like, okay. I'm going so I forget to put my visor down on my helmet

Oh, shit. So I throw it in gear and I and I'm rolling through the gears and it's a 10 speed semi

I got you

It's a 500 horsepower catapult underneath the hood makes 1700 foot-pounds of torque

10 speed I get it into about ninth gear and I'm coming up to six cars

Staggered like this and I'm like, oh god. This is the first moment

I'm going to impact myself with this thing and it's absolutely

terrifying

and

We I agree. I was terrified. I wasn't I was in the car right here next to him

Yeah, and like also because you also got to pace it and have like the exact right moment

So like I'm like looking at the monitor to see how the shot is looking

And then I'm looking to back to see what the truck is because also like if I'm not in the right spot

The car is too far to the side and it's too far forward. He's too far away to go to your shot

If he's too far back, he's going to get hit by a car. So it takes like so many people in unison to make this

We also on top of that. I had collar Australian friend in the back and he was

He was so like, you know, they hit the first initial wave of cars

And I'm like looking and then my operator is like, there's something wrong. Something's wrong. He slowed down

Oh my god, like something's went wrong and I'm like, what? Oh god. Like and I've been worried about it all day

Anyway, and then so then I'm like trying to look at the monitor and the way he's holding

I can't quite see it and I'm trying to look in the mirror and then I'm trying to look at the monitor and like

You know time is passing so quickly and by the time I look up the damn thing's right next to me

I'm like, oh what happened was is I hit them first six cars. So I hit

three six

12

Maybe 18,000 pounds were the cars. Yeah, 18,000 pounds were the cars. It deflects it off

I lose a bunch of speed because I didn't have the thing in full throttle. I was just kind of I got to 70

And I was kind of coasting along a 70

Slows it down. You were at 70 miles per hour. I probably was at 70 when I hit those first cars

That way makes way more sense why you're going like

You're trying to get out of the way of all the debris and stuff. Oh, dude

It was well that wasn't even that it was just the fact of whenever I'd hit. Oh, yeah

Walk me side to side. Join you around. Anyway, I hit those cars

I get down to about 40 and then I'm like, I gotta go

So I put the hammer all the way down and the in the motor go

And diesels take a minute. Yeah, this thing's built to boost and it just starts freight train

If you notice if you watch that video back after that first initial hit

He kind of hits it without the throttle fully in but after that everything he hits

He's not losing. He's gaining speed. So he's hitting it and then going

Semi's are incredible things. Nobody in Creel realizes how much power they have

But I hit them first car so down about 40. I hammer down this and go

Boom

And I know we've spaced all these things at intervals of like 50 to 75 feet away from each other

So I'm here and I go bang bang bang bang bang bang bang and I'm starting to speed up

And I can feel it and the whole truck is just violently shaking

And it's literally the cabs thrown off one side to another

And then about that time I hit two cars and a boat

And the boat comes by the driver's side window rips the mirror off of the the truck

Bust out the driver's side window and comes in and lands in my lap. Oh my god while I'm driving this thing

So I grab the mirror throw it in the passenger seat and hang back on and I'm just absolutely cooking

Right cooking and about that time I look over and I'm like, oh my god the camera truck's right there

Oh, because and he's over there

Just realizing that I'm starting to speed up and if he slows down anymore, these cars are going to come over and land on the camera truck

And he's finally speeds up. I can see he gets on it and about that time

I'm coming down through there and I hit this rv and this rv flings off and then comes down to then

There's this big old camper trailer

And I come down to that camper trailer and I'm like, oh god and I hit this camper trailer and it demolished

Into a thousand pieces and it had the stupid shower tank

Oh

The plastic. Yeah the plastic water tank or it might have been the clean water tank

I don't know but the water it's set in it for probably years because it smelled

God, no, so we might it we might have edited it out

But I hit that rv and it smelled so bad

I when I come to a stop and the truck the truck's rear axle locked up

I come to a stop and I'm like, yeah

Ah

And I and I try to get out of it and the door is bent from where the boat hit it

So I can't really get out of the door

So I finally get out of the door and I get down I take my helmet off and Garrett comes over and he's like, are you okay?

Are you good? And he's like, I was so worried that this was going to be bad. Oh my god. So where he's going to die

Yeah, I'm like, oh my god

Anyway, I was so excited that it was like like once it like we went through all of it

I was like the whole team you like you've never seen so many people so excited and like just from

Watching the rear of your mirror it was like and then I seen it there and hitting stuff in person

Like you seen a video, but it was the most incredible thing I ever seen in person

Insane and you know what now that you say it like the first hit it was almost like

It seemed intentional that you slowed down and then sped up because it like

It looked so cinematic and it also made it more dynamic of a shot

Yeah, because you're hitting it you kind of like oh you're like, oh the first one like it's way more impact than I thought

Then you just like yeah bulldoze through everything. I think at that point you're like, oh, I'm good. I can do

Like I just hit 20,000 I hit 20,000 pounds with the cars. I'm like, I'm still alive. Yeah

And it's just it's straight piped a caterpillar and it's over there just singing in my ear to

I'm like, okay

It was so cool

But also the whole team worked so hard on that project

Then every single person was there like like the whole team you've never seen a group of people more happy

Then our after that was done with and it was awesome. That's the thing too is like

It may not look like it that video took us six months from the day we start on to the day we filmed it

So maybe a little and I think that's pretty quick and that was pretty quick for what for what that was because that was a lot

and it took six months for that and

Like you were at the compound earlier

Yeah, and like you've seen it

But like if you ever actually look at it that thing is so well engineered it has like

I forget what the kind of steel it's in our engineer put it in there

But the tip of it's made out of a high magnesium steel. So every time you hit it it gets harder. What?

Basically indestructible

The front tip of that cone

Like watch that cone and the way that it handles the damage versus the one mythbusters built at the end of it

Mythbusters is absolutely mangled ours has a couple dents in the bottom. That's crazy

So like we we got the gear got the idea from like gta mostly and then mythbusters

But i'm like we need to build one that is actually is

Tough and that thing weighs 4500 pounds that cone by itself. Wow. That's a full

Dodge charger with a full dodge dumbbells on the back. Exactly

Exactly. I mean that's redneck science for you, right?

Dude, it is redneck and what's funny is you've seen so many people like seeing the cone and they're like

We have redneck science stickers on the side of redneck science. What is that?

Like dude and a lot of people over the time have asked me what's redneck science and i'm like, you know what?

It's it's a great excuse to do

Dumb stuff. I think that's a great excuse to do dumb stuff and it's a great excuse to have fun

it's it's kind of a reductive

Vision of your channel because you do put so much thought and so much engineering and so much production value

into your videos

and I think it's

It's it's very charming to call it redneck science because there's so much that goes into it, you know, like

Uh, I really respect you what you guys do

Well, also another thing that's kind of interesting about is whenever we make a video

We like to have this thing of like where we're kind of goofing off

Yeah, and then you'll see how well we can produce something and I think that's the charm of your channel

It's like you're doing the work because you had to chop logs to get here

Yeah, and you had to sell a million cars to get here and you know how to put the work in

To make quality content and I think that's what translates to the fans and you guys have

5 million fans right now

Just that 5 million on youtube. Yeah, congrats. So it's wild. I good. I couldn't do it without the people that support us and watch and I've got

I'm there's nothing about me that's self-made. I 100 have people around me that just make me look really good

like Garrett and the rest of our team

and

They work really really hard and like, you know, obviously we all work hard, but

Um, it all comes together. Yeah, that's awesome

Thank you so much for being my first guests on this on talk talk nation

No, you're welcome. I couldn't have thought of any two better guests than you guys. This has been so much fun

And uh, thank you for having me at your compound. Oh, dude. No, thank you for coming out. Thank you for coming to kansas

And also, you know breaking in the podcast studio

So we're we're starting a podcast of our own and we've filmed a couple episodes and we're going to start releasing them

But we haven't kind gotten quite that far yet, but at least the set's getting good

I love this set the bricks look real

Wait those sheet by sheet. Wait, wait, those are real. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sorry the real big

They're not the best

But I got them hung up right they don't weren't falling anybody. Well, what's the name of your podcast?

We don't know yet. We don't know yet. So

Check out the champion brothers podcast whenever it comes out

Champlins corner Champlins corner and check out their youtube obviously subscribe if you haven't already let me tell you something

Let me tell you something

We always say let me tell you something about long story short. Oh man, I do say that one a lot

I do say that one a lot

Make sure you follow talk talk nation on spotify youtube wherever you watch your podcast

Because this has been an absolute riot and he's a great host. Oh, thank you

Yeah, you can't see me right now, but yeah, I know you guys he's a great host, but his camera died

All right, we'll see you next week. Thank you for watching the big camera. We'll bring it over all right

Let's go do burnouts the parking lot

How Westen Champlin Built a Redneck Media Empire

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