S6E67 – Overland Experts: More Than Just a Driving School
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Car
Toyota Land Cruisers
The Toyota Land Cruiser is a tough SUV that can handle rough terrain and is built to last. It's often used for off-roading and is known for its reliability.
Car
Grenadier
The Grenadier is a tough, off-road vehicle made for people who need a reliable car for rough conditions. It's designed to be practical and strong, making it great for adventures or work in tough environments.
Term
overlanding
Overlanding is a type of travel where you go to faraway places, usually in a vehicle that can handle rough roads, and you camp along the way. It's about the adventure of getting there, not just the destination.
Car
Honda That Honda
The Honda That's is a small car made by Honda that can be used for different purposes, like carrying people or cargo. It has a quirky look and is known for being practical and efficient, which makes it interesting to talk about when discussing Honda's creativity in making cars.
Car
Jeep
Jeep is a car brand that makes vehicles designed for off-road driving, like the Wrangler, which many people enjoy taking on rough trails.
Car
Ford Bronco
The Ford Bronco Raptor is a special version of the Bronco that is built for off-road driving, making it more powerful and better at handling rough terrain.
Term
modification
Modification means changing or upgrading parts of a car to make it better or more suited for a specific purpose, like off-roading.
Term
vehicle preservation
Vehicle preservation means taking care of your car so it stays in good shape. It involves driving carefully to avoid breaking anything, especially when you're in tough places like off-road areas.
Term
vehicle sympathy
Vehicle sympathy means being kind to your car by understanding how it works and driving in a way that doesn't hurt it. It's about knowing what your car can handle and not pushing it too hard.
Concept
off-road
Off-road means driving on rough surfaces that aren't paved, like dirt or rocks, and it usually needs special vehicles.
Car
Defender
The Defender is a Land Rover vehicle that is made for tough terrains and off-road driving, popular among adventure seekers.
LIVE
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Lauren Fix and Javier Mota.
This is how to drive their cars,
but also actually first, how to build the cars
and then offer them to the public.
But this is...
There's more than that here.
They do the Jeep Jamboree here.
Everything, yeah.
This is 200 acres of property.
It's O-E-X Overland Express.
Overland experts.
Experts, I'm sorry, I can't read.
It's okay.
So okay, introduce yourself because Lauren didn't.
That's okay.
Yeah, my name is Tony Cerudo.
I've been with Overland experts since 2017,
retired out of the military.
And that's how I learned about this course
is I actually took my team through this course twice.
I'm sorry, when you say your team, what's your team?
Of course, yeah.
So Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha.
Okay, wow.
That's really cool.
That's all I said.
That was impressive.
Well, it's just one of those things where,
even though our guys are commandos and paratroopers
and can do all kinds of crazy fancy things,
for most of the global war on terrorism,
the guys were really driving to the fight,
driving to where we had to go.
And some of the more specialized units
needed to learn how to drive.
Yeah, they need to know what they're doing.
Well, yeah, civilian vehicles and austere locations.
So that's how I found out about it.
And Ted was one of my trainers, Ted Dinwiddy.
Oh, you were the trainer?
Wow.
Oh, so you are the sensei.
Tell us your name and about yourself.
Ted Dinwiddy.
I've been with OEX for, what, close to 15 years.
I was a pretty rookie instructor when Tony brought
his mobility committee from...
Oh, I like how you said mobility committee.
I think you're more than that, man.
And they were some pretty experienced guys.
So it was more of a facilitator than I was a trainer
for most of those dudes.
They were pretty high speed.
But that's when I first met Tony.
So let's start with the company.
I mean, this company, I understand you lease this
property and you operate out of here,
but there's other around the country?
So Overland Expert actually has three locations.
The original location is in, of all places,
East Hadam, Connecticut.
And I know that you're really...
Connecticut, yeah.
But it's a close course, about 40 acres there.
A very specific, specifically built course
to be extremely technical and to hone a driver's skills.
It was originally founded and operated
by a man called Bruce Elstrom.
Bruce Elstrom grew up with his parents
in other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East.
His parents were documentary filmmakers and UN workers.
So at a very young age, Bruce got really good
at driving and fixing vehicle.
I'm talking like 11, 12 years old,
while his parents were filming and doing their thing.
So he got kind of good at it.
And long story short.
So his stories were real cars.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, old Land Cruisers, of course.
Land Cruisers are everywhere.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, and rovers and things like that
or anything that goes off road
and could carry equipment.
That's kind of what they were dealing with.
So he came back and people kind of took notice
that he was good at this things.
So he started with doctors without borders.
Oh, wow.
Maybe, you know, UN, of course,
because of the connections through his parents
and maybe some Peace Corps.
And then the Special Operations Military Community
started taking notice and started hiring
overland experts for some vendor courses that way.
And it just kind of took off.
And that company started in 1998, Ted.
Does that sound about right?
Yeah.
So the company's been overland experts since 1998
and very recently in 2023, at the end of 2023,
trainers of OEX, JB McClure and Eric Eisen Smith,
who are trainers for OEX,
bought the company from Bruce
and just kind of did a handoff
and we're still going strong.
Wow.
Thank you for your service, by the way.
Absolutely.
Thank you for your support.
Absolutely.
100%.
We're definitely backing the U.S.
And this operation, if I understand correctly,
it's pretty much private for the military,
for specific companies,
but very rarely for media like us, I guess.
Well, this is the first time for Honda inviting us,
but what are the type of people are trained here,
military mostly, right?
Police officers?
Haven't done much in the law enforcement.
We've done some federal stuff.
More military, we do...
Maybe you better tell us.
We do recreational...
Yeah, but they can't tell us.
Private recreational classes,
we do some group recreational classes.
And then we've worked with various manufacturers.
Tire companies, the NES Grenadier,
hired us for their initial headquarters,
which was in Raleigh, North Carolina.
They hired us to train a lot of their new staff
on how this stuff works.
So we had a few prototype Grenadiers running around this place.
We drove those.
We drove those.
Really amazing.
The story of the company is really amazing too.
We sponsored, we helped them with their tour around the country.
So we had a lot of our instructors at every one of those events.
Plus a few extra...
That was a lot of fun to do.
And again, our main location, small as it is, is in Connecticut.
But yes, this is 200 acres here that we lease.
It is private property.
It's owned by an awesome couple.
Ron and Julie Parrish.
Ron is actually one of our instructors too.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And both of them are like 25 or 30 year National Park Ranger LEOs.
Ron was a law enforcement officer at National Park.
And he knows what he's doing.
He was also one of my instructors.
And also you have a location in Utah, right?
We do, yeah.
And that is where mostly military, but we also are offering a civilian course out there.
It's the military course that if you want to go on a real adventure, you sign up for that.
But that's an adventure.
Yeah, it is.
It really is.
And we operate on public land there.
So we are permitted for anywhere from 300 to 400 miles, give or take, depending on which route we take.
And the whole time is spent out in the field.
So it's camping.
It's living on a vehicle.
It's the real deal.
Yeah, it's true, you know, off-road touring or quote unquote, overlanding.
You know, as everybody kind of knows it.
The overlanding is hard, but it's also a wall.
It's more like glamping now.
Well, really, just like anything else, there's extreme levels on it.
You could go out with a sleeping bag and a tarp.
Or you could go out on an earth rover.
Exactly.
You know, with teakwood chairs.
Now we're talking.
That's my style.
So Ted, we went through these two day course here and you saw us or let's talk about me.
Not Lauren, she's better than me.
About what?
I know, I don't like that on the track.
Yeah, but I'm not out here.
Not so much.
But tell us, tell us about, I mean, the basics of these two day class and what we went through.
Well, it's a class that Honda developed because they wanted to train their engineers.
So they wanted to come up with these types of vehicles.
And so they began by...
You know, AT&T thinks that listening to the voice of a loved one can change everything.
And you, who loves podcasts, know that it's like that.
Listening to the voice of someone we love is unique.
That's why we keep our messages.
They mean a lot, right?
For me, if I need to cheer up in the parties, I know who to call.
Marisol.
Listening to her voice feels like being at home.
And if I need to tell someone something, I call Eric.
He's my best friend.
Listening to him is like a relief that I didn't know I needed.
AT&T knows that these parties are perfect to share your voice.
If you have time without calling someone, it's time.
Because more than a conversation, it's your chance to say something they'll always remember.
In these parties, share love with a call.
Happy parties you want and AT&T.
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Doing a survey of all of the off-road training they could find all over the country.
And they had three or four guys that went through all that training and then they came back
and developed a program so they could bring brand new or any engineer,
anybody working for Honda interested in working in the off-road program
and train them about off-road driving so that then they actually understood
what they were trying to get the vehicle to do.
So they actually understood how the vehicle needed to function.
And so their class is oriented to teach their engineers how,
what off-roading actually is so that they knew how the vehicle needed to function.
Versus, I believe you said to me, buying a Jeep and throwing a purse at it.
I think it's your life.
Sorry.
That's true.
A few people buy these off-road vehicles, a Bronco Raptor or a Jeep or whatever,
and they buy them all and they think I'm going to come out here and it should be easy,
but it isn't easy.
Well, and this is said by us, by Ted.
The best modification that you can make to your vehicle is the nut behind the wheel.
And that comes from Casey Sanchez, president of the association.
But yeah, the best modification is the nut behind the wheel.
And that, you know, this is a driver.
Oh yeah.
That goes with any vehicle.
On the racetrack too.
Absolutely.
Because you got cash, doesn't mean you know what you're doing.
Exactly.
You could have the coolest, fastest, neatest car ever, but if you don't know how to operate.
You probably don't know how to drive.
Cash doesn't hurt, but skills.
And also the thing that I really admire and respect is the structure.
So your military background is really important here because you guys,
when you go, when you were in service, you have processes, right?
Like for everything you do, there's like standard operating procedures.
And here is more or less the same.
You have to go through that to become better and be safe and have fun and come back safe too, right?
Well, we do have a methodology.
We do have our own proprietary method of how we approach it.
It's very linear.
And really, as, you know, as a former operator, that's kind of what attracted me to it in the first place.
When I learned the class and saw Ted's technique and Bruce's curriculum, I'm like, wow.
Okay, this is very similar to how we would do structure.
Yes.
And, but the whole idea is that it can be austere as it can be.
All you need is a patch of ground, a vehicle and some apt pupils, and then you can make it happen.
Bruce always started, when he began the company, he actually started the instruction when he was in grad school,
and he was going out, he was doing a master's or whatever in, in biology,
and he'd go into his study area in the desert and other students were getting jammed up in the desert
because they didn't really know what they were doing.
And so he started teaching them and being a natural academic, he started, he developed a curriculum
and so he would run them through the curriculum so that they could get out in the desert without becoming a casualty.
So that was the beginning of OEX's curriculum.
Wow.
It was, it was out of necessity more for recreation at the, at the time.
So that comes really handy for people like me who are very hyper and brush things and think that maybe I can do it without like,
I'm crazy, no, I have to say.
How often do you actually drive off road?
I mean, even Tony and I, we, we might go a few weeks, rarely,
we might go a few weeks without having driven off road and we always tune up a little bit before we get going again.
And this gives, our curriculum is, Honda's is quite similar to ours.
Ours has some differences, but not, not anything substantive.
And then Bruce came up with that system and it kept evolving.
And that's why we kept getting military clients was because the guys would come five, you know, one team would come through.
And then three years later, another team would come through and they'd be like, wait, that's the same thing that we,
that they got taught three years ago.
Yes.
That's exactly right.
It's all repeatable.
So they're all on the same page.
Easy for them to move.
And I just want to make it clear.
I never served in the military.
Oh.
I was raised by military people, but I never, I did not put the uniform on and take that oath and write that blind check.
And I would say he could have and should have.
Yeah.
But you have that mentality.
I'm too old.
If I'd been younger, I would have done it, but I grew up in a post-Vietnam era and it wasn't fashionable to join the military.
Oh, I see.
Anyway, you both see, saw all of us and without naming names or anything through the day.
Tell us some of the mistakes that you saw and how can we improve on that?
Of the mistakes from this last couple of years.
Yeah.
You don't want to have to name names.
Sure.
If you want to name me, I'm okay with that.
Just me.
Well, you can name me.
You know, you don't know what you don't know.
Obviously, right?
You know, if somebody makes mistakes or not, it's not really even the term I'd use.
Yes.
No, it's a learning process.
Okay.
Absolutely.
And of course, you're expecting mistakes.
Make mistakes.
And that's what you do and that's necessary to learn the right way to do it.
And to put in practice what we learned of the recovery system and all that.
100%.
And the trick is just trying to be able to find a way to relate that information to that individual.
You might receive information a little bit differently than Javier, right?
And a little bit different than Nicole and a little bit different than Michael.
But collectively, you're all in the same class, but the fun part is to see what makes you
click on that.
You know, Javier said he's maybe a little bit impatient.
It's okay.
I probably know two or three impatient people myself.
We all do.
Exactly.
The subject is I'm impatient.
Now you know four.
But that's okay.
And I think you guys even saw the marked improvement from yesterday when we first started to today.
I mean, we're running some trails today that are advanced, you know, intermediate to advanced
trails in stock vehicles, stock vehicles with brand new people.
And you guys were making it through.
And in stock vehicles that most people who think they know about off-roading would not
expect to be as capable as they are.
And what you learn is the capability is because the driver then understands how to, what they're
trying to do.
And the build of the vehicle is not nearly as important as a lot of people would like to
think.
It's all about the skill.
Wheel placement.
Yes.
Absolutely.
So the mistakes, if you call it that, are simply people don't know how precise this
driving is.
It is.
I get hooked up on a rock.
And it was, if I was literally one tire width to the left, I would have been fine.
Right.
But you didn't know that until you were.
You go through it.
You go through it.
And we said this before, and you said it too.
You know, it really get up on the trail.
You mentioned that, you know, we are, if you hit an obstacle, if you run in, you're sitting
in your car and you feel your car hit an obstacle, what's your first inclination?
Hit the brakes.
Hit the brakes and stop.
Right.
Because that's what you would normally do.
Because you've been driving for 20, 30 years.
Right.
And that's obviously in a parking lot.
That's what you do.
So I mean, that's muscle memory.
So, you know, we have to kind of retrain a little bit.
So I mean, that's a mistake in off-roading sort of, but it's just an inherent thing that
you do.
Driving in snow and ice.
Same thing.
Yes.
The throttle is your friend.
The brake is not.
Right.
Right.
But most people think it's the contrary.
Right.
But anyway.
In Buffalo, we live on the throttles.
Yeah.
So anyway, we're running out of time.
Very interesting.
We could talk for hours, I guess.
Great story.
But let us, can you share information or work and our audience or anybody who listens
to this can get involved or maybe participate, take a class or is not open to the public
or how is it?
Yeah.
Overlandexperts.com online is the quickest thing.
We've got all our contact info.
We have our group classes that are scheduled on that website that you can sign up for directly
or you can, there's contact info.
Anybody can come.
Anybody can come.
Do you bring your own vehicle or do you supply vehicles?
Either or.
Usually for civilians, bring your own vehicle, but if you don't have one, need to learn.
We can rent you one.
That's not a bad idea.
It's not a bad idea.
I'm sure we're heavily insured, right?
Yeah, we are.
Yeah, we are.
You have to do that.
People are curious about how much it costs to get this done and when you're fully insured
and ready to handle people, it's a lot more expensive of a proposition than a lot of people
understand.
Yeah, right.
There are a lot of people out there teaching or pretending to teach that aren't as well
covered as we are.
Exactly.
We prefer you to bring your own vehicle because we can teach you to drive your vehicle.
Exactly.
We can teach you all the features and the button, we can keep it dialed into your vehicle so
you're not where our number one rule at Overland Experts is vehicle preservation.
Vehicle sympathy.
You need to learn to drive in a manner that preserves as Tony would call it your mechanical
horse because if you break this vehicle out in the middle of nowhere, you're not getting
it.
You're not coming back.
That's right.
Four-wheel drive is about the way we teach it is about being able to get cool places
and see and do cool things and then get home again, all in the same vehicle and that's
what we're about.
That's awesome.
Well, thank you very much.
It was an amazing experience for two days.
Check out their websites and sign up for a class, tell your friends, especially if they
just bought a Jeep or a Bronco or a Defender or anything that goes off road.
Anything.
And don't let anyone tell you they know what they're doing because they're teaching us
the coolest, newest state of the art, including recovery.
We even have motorcycle classes.
We will.
Really?
We will.
That's more up your alley.
We're coming back for that.
Thank you very much again.
Thanks so much.
Thank you.
That's a wrap for this episode of the Total Car Score Podcast.
Want more expert takes on the hottest cars, industry trends and insider insights?
Join Javier Mota, Lauren Fix and Carl Brower every week for the ultimate auto talk.
Hit subscribe, like and share with your friends to stay informed and stay ahead.
See you next time.
You know, AT&T thinks that listening to a loved one's voice can change everything.
And you, who loves podcasts, know that it's like that.
Listening to someone we love is unique.
That's why we keep our messages.
It means a lot, right?
For me, if I need to cheer up in the parties, I know who to call.
Marisol.
Listening to her voice feels like being at home.
And if I need to tell someone something, I call Eric.
He's my best friend.
Listening to him is like a relief that I didn't know I needed.
AT&T knows that these parties are perfect to share your voice.
If you have time without calling someone, it's the right time.
Because more than a conversation, it's your chance to say something that they will always remember.
In these parties, share love with a call.
Happy parties, I wish you.
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With a State Farm agent, you know someone is there to help you along the way.
And with so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help choosing a plan that
fits your needs.
So you can continue celebrating all of life's milestones.
Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
About this episode
Overland Experts offers more than just off-road driving lessons; they provide a comprehensive training experience rooted in military precision and expertise. Hosts Lauren Fix and Javier Mota chat with Tony Cerudo and Ted Dinwiddy about the origins of Overland Experts, their specialized courses for military and civilians, and the importance of driver skill over vehicle modifications. The conversation highlights the unique curriculum developed for Honda engineers and the emphasis on vehicle preservation during off-road adventures. Listeners will gain insights into the world of overlanding and the skills needed to navigate challenging terrains safely.
Original notes
In this episode, we sit down with Tony Cerruto, retired Special Forces Master Sergeant, and Ted Dinwiddie, Certified Instructor with the International 4 Wheel Drive Trainers Association, to explore how Overland Experts goes far beyond traditional driving instruction.
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AI Auto Podcast
Javier Mota
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