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Car
Porsche Macan
The Porsche Macan is a luxury SUV, meaning it’s a bigger, higher-riding car with comfort features. It’s made by Porsche and is designed to drive more like a performance car than a typical family SUV. The podcast mentions it because someone sold their Macan.
Concept
new cars don't have soul
They’re talking about the idea that some cars feel special in a way you can’t measure—like they have “personality.” They’re saying newer cars might not feel that way, but maybe some will win people over later.
Brand
Tesla
Tesla is a company that makes electric cars. In this story, they mention their Tesla sitting in a garage as context for what they’re about to say.
Term
personification
Personification means giving human traits to something that isn’t human. In this case, they’re talking about treating a car like it’s a person by naming it.
Term
summon mode
Summon mode is a Tesla feature that lets you move your car using the phone app. It’s meant for slow, controlled parking situations rather than driving normally.
Term
open the garage door remotely
It means using an app or remote control to open your garage door from somewhere else. People do this with smart-home setups so they can move the car without walking over first.
Term
plug it in
“Plug it in” means connecting the car to a charger to add battery power. It’s the normal charging step for electric cars.
Car
Chevrolet C10
“C 10” sounds like a classic Chevrolet pickup truck. The host is saying their son loves driving it because it’s easy to interact with inside—like being able to open the window—and it’s a fun, tactile experience.
Term
wing window
A wing window is a small window that can open on a hinge, usually near the front side of the door. The host mentions it because the kid can open it themselves, making the car feel more fun and interactive.
Term
front bench seat
A front bench seat is one long seat across the front of the vehicle. In this case, the host is saying the truck only has that bench seat, so the kid gets to sit in the front in a way that feels different from a car with separate bucket seats.
Term
engine
They’re talking about the engine as the part of the car that you can feel and notice. The point here is that it creates a more “real” connection for the kid than a more hands-off, appliance-style vehicle.
Term
mechanical sympathy
“Mechanical sympathy” means you drive and maintain your car in a way that respects how the parts work. Instead of beating on it or ignoring warning signs, you treat it gently so it lasts longer.
Term
oil
Oil is what keeps the engine parts from grinding against each other. Changing it regularly helps the engine stay healthy.
Term
top end
“Top end” is a common shorthand for engine work near the top of the motor, like the cylinder head and valves. It’s typically done when the problem is in that upper part rather than the crankshaft area.
Company
FCP Euro
FCP Euro is a parts website that specializes in European car brands. The hosts mention it because it makes it easier to find the right parts for common jobs like oil changes.
Term
crush washer
A crush washer is a thin gasket that seals the oil drain plug. It gets squished when you tighten the plug, so it’s often replaced each time you change the oil to prevent leaks.
Term
brake pads
Brake pads are the parts that squeeze against the brake rotors to slow the car down. They wear out over time, so they usually need replacement eventually.
Term
wiper blades
Wiper blades are the part that actually touches your windshield. Over time they wear out, and when they do, they can smear or leave streaks so you can’t see as well.
Term
polish
Car polish is a paint-care product used to improve gloss and remove light surface imperfections. It’s typically used after washing and can make older paint look “shiny” again by leveling the clear coat’s surface.
Car
GMC high country
High Country is a nicer trim level on some GMC trucks. It usually means the truck is equipped more like a premium version, and the host is pointing out the guy was driving a new, upscale GMC.
Term
shock
A “shock” is a suspension part that helps the car stay controlled over bumps. If it’s blown, the car can start bouncing or wobbling because it can’t calm the suspension movement.
Brand
Bill Stein
They mention “Bill Stein” as their preferred shock brand. With shocks, brand choice can affect how the car rides and how easily the parts fit your suspension.
Term
U shaped bracket
The “U shaped bracket” is the specific mounting hardware the speaker describes on the Mercedes. It bolts to the shock/strut connection point and then interfaces with the suspension linkages, which is why some shocks can be adapted while others can’t.
Term
control arms
The control arm is a main suspension link that holds the wheel in the right position. Shocks and other parts often connect to it, so the mounting points matter.
Term
air conditioning (AC)
Car air conditioning is the system that cools the cabin. If parts that help it cool—like fans—aren’t working, the A/C won’t blow cold air properly.
Term
auxiliary fan
An auxiliary fan is an extra cooling fan that helps pull heat away from the car. If it’s not working, the car and/or the air conditioning can’t cool as well because hot air isn’t being pushed out.
Term
ground from the relay
A relay is like an electrical switch that turns a fan on. If the ground wire for that relay is disconnected, the switch can’t work, so the fan stays off.
Car
1983 Mercedes SL
A Mercedes SL from 1983 is an older Mercedes roadster. Here, the host is talking about trying to find a suspension part for it—something called a strut.
Term
strut
A strut is part of a car’s suspension that helps smooth out bumps and keeps the wheels planted. It’s also a structural piece that connects the suspension to the car.
Brand
Napa
NAPA is a place that sells car parts. The host is basically saying they don’t care where they get it—they just need the part.
Term
plastic bushing
A bushing is a small cushion between parts. If it gets loose or fails, it can cause rattling or rubbing when you drive over bumps.
Concept
reinforce this stuff on rally cars
Rally cars are built to survive rough roads and big hits. So they add extra strengthening around the suspension and body areas so parts don’t rip loose.
Term
rust
Rust is metal corrosion. If it shows up in important mounting areas, it can make the metal weak enough for parts to tear loose.
Part
alternator
The alternator is the part that makes electricity while the engine is running. If it’s bad, the car can lose power and won’t keep running for long.
Place
Madison
Madison is the place they’re talking about where the car broke down. It’s used to show how far they went to get the repair done.
Term
16 valve
“16 valve” means the engine has 16 valves total. Valves help control airflow into and out of the engine, which can affect how the engine runs.
Term
bottomed out
“Bottomed out” means the suspension got fully compressed and the car slammed down. When that happens, parts underneath can hit the ground and get damaged.
Term
washers
In this context, the washer is a suspension mounting hardware piece that sits between the strut and the body. Its job is to spread load and help the strut sit at the correct location and height so the suspension can function as designed.
Car
Rolls-Royce Phantom
The Rolls-Royce Phantom is a very large, very luxurious car made for comfort and a smooth ride. It’s known for being a top-tier model from Rolls-Royce. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because the word “Phantom” is being talked about in connection with aircraft.
Term
large sidewalls
The sidewall is the part of the tire that’s between the wheel and the tread. A taller (bigger) sidewall can act like a cushion over bumps and potholes, which helps on rough rally-style roads.
Brand
Nokia tires
They’re talking about tires from Nokia. In this story, the point is that these tires are built to handle rough roads better and help prevent flats.
Term
Aramid sidewalls
Aramid is a very tough material that can be built into the tire’s sidewall. The idea is that it helps the tire resist cuts and punctures when you’re driving over rough stuff.
Term
50,000 mile replacement guarantee
That phrase means the tire company promises to replace the tire if something happens within a certain mileage range (here, 50,000 miles). It’s basically a coverage promise to the buyer.
Term
puncture
A puncture is when the tire gets pierced by something sharp, causing air to leak. That’s what leads to flats in many cases.
Term
ASO
ASO is the name of a tire type/line the hosts are talking about. They’re saying it’s designed to handle a mix of conditions, not just one kind of driving.
Term
dedicated performance tire
A dedicated performance tire is made to give better grip and more precise handling. The tradeoff is that it may wear faster and not handle bad weather as well as an all-season tire.
Term
summer performance tires
A summer performance tire is built for warm weather driving. It usually grips best when it’s hot, but it’s not meant for cold weather or heavy winter conditions.
LIVE
And I remember talking to this guy, and I pulled over, and I asked him,
dude, he's on this next to the ocean in the middle of this nowhere land, just in his truck.
And he had a black shirt on, black cowboy hat.
And I was like, dude, like, I rolled my window down, I kind of lean over like this.
I'm like, you OK?
He's like, I'm fine, but you should not be here at this time.
I'm like, why?
He's like, there's not much out here.
And if you're out here at this time and anybody's around, they're not, they're doing bad things.
Hey, guys, welcome to Overcrest.
I'm Chris.
And I'm Jake.
Hey, it's good to be back.
I have not seen you since rally time.
How are you?
It's been a while.
Yeah, I'm good.
It's very evident.
I've been looking forward to speaking to you.
Because you've made huge progress on your projects, no doubt.
No doubt.
You've sold a car.
You sold a car.
What did you sell?
I sold the Macan.
Sold the Macan.
Hold on.
Everybody, just so you know what's coming, we're going to talk about scouting.
I'm going to tell you some stories, but I want to make fun of Jake first.
So OK, what did you go ahead?
I don't know what to make fun of you for.
Yeah, you're going to say something stupid.
No, I'm not.
That's all I have saying is like we sold the Macan.
So that's great.
No, I did have an introducing story that I wanted to relate to you.
And I feel like it gets to a common point we've talked about for years,
which is like new cars don't have soul, right?
They don't have identity.
We've talked about it, especially the lecture.
There's a caveat word there.
The caveat word is yet.
It is unknown if those cars will earn it or not.
I don't think they will.
But it might be a younger generation might come up and they might earn something.
I don't think they will.
So here's here's my funny story that I want to tie back to this point
and give a different lens to look at that.
So as you know, we have the Tesla and it's parked down in like the detached garage.
And so just the other day, oh, first of all, do you know that it's named
like you name your Tesla?
You give it a name like in the app.
You're like, what do you want to name it?
Most you know, it can be Tesla or something.
Rhett named it Clark.
He named it Clark because one of his like reading.
I don't like I know it's what is the words like when you humanize human eyes
and inanimate object.
What is that called?
Yeah, that's personification personifying.
Yeah, I don't think that's the right thing.
Go keep going.
OK, well, regardless, he named it Clark because in one of his like reading apps,
there's this cat and Clark likes to party.
It just shows the cat partying.
And so when and it's for more.
Yes, that's it.
Yeah, I don't like it.
I don't like that.
Yes.
Anyways, Clark likes to party and Tesla does the stupid like party dance
thing you can do, you know, or like blinks, lights and opens the doors and windows.
And so he's like, it's like Clark Clark likes to party.
So whatever the car's name is Clark, you need to know this.
So we had never done the summon mode, you know, where you can see the stupid
people sitting at Target and they're on their phone and the car like pulls up
to them from the parking lot.
Yes, what is the only reason I see that could be cool is
if it's parked down in the garage and it's like 30 below, we can drive it up
the driveway to the house here.
So I wanted to try that.
So open the garage door remotely and like start driving the car and Rett's
watching and it goes down the driveway.
Like it's very confused.
It thinks it has to go down to the street and then come back.
And so I'm sitting there and I'm like, I think I'd better stop it before
it enters traffic without me on board.
And so Rett's like starting to cry because he's like, Clark Clark's running away.
No, Clark, he gets out.
He starts running after it.
Clark, get back here.
Get back here, Clark.
And so then like, OK, that didn't work.
Whatever, we'll try that again.
That was the end of that story.
But then we like the next day we go to plug it in and Rett goes, oh,
that's such a good idea.
I was like, what?
Plugging it in.
He goes, yeah, so Clark doesn't run away.
Oh, a leash.
Like you're leash.
You're leashing up the car so it doesn't run away.
Yeah.
And so in his mind, Clark, the Tesla has already this autonomous personality
where he's like kind of mischievous.
He's running away now at night.
You know, he's like, I love you, mom.
I love you, dad.
Good night, cats.
Good night, dog.
And then all of a sudden shouts, good night, Clark, down to the garage.
And so here's my point.
We assume these appliance cars have no identity yet in the eyes of a child,
the self-driving car is way more alive than anything analog.
So does that give it in a sense its own personality or soul?
Is it more alive or personified than any older car could ever be?
Certainly I would say yes, but in the wrong way.
In the wrong way.
What you're explaining to me is kind of terrifying in a way because it gives you a
because it's the same thing.
I was going to say this is the same thing with kids talking to AI all day.
Right.
Yeah, I go through it all the time with my kids.
AI is a tool.
It's not a person all the time.
I'm reinforcing that constantly.
It is a tool.
You just use it as a tool and then you're done with it.
It's always going to want to continue to try and talk to you, whatever.
It is only a tool.
Well, let Mike, would you use it?
Smart.
They have to be able to use it.
Yeah, it's fine.
They can use it.
Not quite anywhere.
Veronica tries to use it to help do programming.
She writes computer language and stuff like that.
So she's trying to learn how to program and it's helping her do that stuff.
But I think what you're explaining is true anthropomorphism, where you're
ascribing the sense that an inanimate object is alive.
I don't think that's what I'm talking about when I say that cars have soul.
It's not.
I know that because you're talking.
It's the it's the flaws and the little things that make it.
I'm trying to think what to relate it to.
Right.
Like we like.
What is an example?
What is something we like that's better analog than digital?
It's like a record, right?
You like it because it has that feedback, that warmth, that crackle.
It's not perfectly digital.
It has the flaw is what makes it.
Appealing or gives it.
Whatever the opposite of.
The opposite of.
Experiences that you have personality.
So I'm going to give you I'm going to give you a bone here.
It is the experiences that you've had with something and flaws help define its character.
Right.
It's character, how it anything.
If you were to drive like and I think.
That's what I'm trying to say.
That's very little character because they just kind of do their thing.
But I think that's why we love old cars.
They they break.
And when they break, you have an opportunity to fix them and you have an experience.
You have a story to tell, which I'm going to tell you a story as we go here about how
the R 107 convertible now has character and story.
And I've.
It's there does from what I heard.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's got stories to tell.
Right.
And I get to tell stories of it.
It helped me create stories.
What you're talking about.
And I'm going to give you a bone here.
That car now with red and you are creating stories with that car.
Sure.
But yeah.
But I think that the impetus and the origin and the foundation of those stories don't
come from flaws.
It comes from this weird like AI personification thing.
I don't I don't like that because it's not.
Real.
It's not a person.
It's a right piece of steel, copper and plastic.
That's all it is.
And hey, if it gives you and your family and you have some memories with that thing and
you and maybe the bone I'm going to throw you is for for your son, it's earning it right now.
Right.
So it's able to earn the.
Oh, Mrs. Producers showed up.
Are you going to go up?
Hello.
Do you guys have matching glasses now?
I told her she needs to get rid of those if I'm going to have these.
You guys match.
It's not.
It's not going to.
So cute.
It's not.
I agree with you.
The Tesla is a great appliance car.
And I'll say that again and again every single time.
I like it for what it is.
I'm not saying that it has.
You and your contrast.
I'm it's a little devil's advocate here.
It's for you and your contrast to what you know has character and what I know has character.
But for your son, he doesn't have that contrast.
That car just has the character that it has.
So I will say his favorite vehicle to drive around though is the C 10.
That's probably because windows and he has to do it and he can open the wing window himself
and he gets to sit in the front bench seat because there's only a front bench seat.
Yeah.
Well, that's the experiential stuff.
Plus he knows and he can feel.
Your engine.
I'm taking him with him.
Yeah, you have an affinity for it and he looks at you.
And he sees that you do and that affects him greatly.
How you interact with the world.
He can see what your posture and see that you like it.
And he is going to like it as well because of that.
11 more thread I'm going to pull on is you talked about how like the memories you make
and the character is the flaws and like the the stories you earn with, you know,
the breakdowns and everything else.
What if you're the collector?
So you never turn a wrench.
And you just have your guy, you know, that maintains your cars.
You bring it to a shop.
So you're not one fixing things or maybe you don't even really experience
breakdowns with it, but you like your old cars that have character and soul.
Well, there's all kinds of things that person hasn't earned.
Does a card not have a soul for him?
Um, I would say and this is dangerous territory.
And I and I went through this a little bit and one of the articles I just
wrote about mechanical sympathy is I don't think that people.
That don't work on their cars and do their own work, have the same connection
to their cars as the ones that do.
I'm not diminishing the connection that people have with their cars.
If they're not mechanics, not everybody can do it.
It's just some people just don't, they can't.
You know, they, right?
They should, I think everybody should try to do the best they can.
I think people should learn.
I think you should try.
I think they should fail.
I think, you know, Jesse, Mrs.
producer can change her own oil.
You know what I mean?
So like she's taught Irene of Veronica how to change her oil.
I let them let her teach them.
So it's possible, but some people just don't do it and that's okay.
But their bond is not as strong.
It just isn't.
It's just like, just like your relationship with another human being.
If, if it's, right, you never have any hardship to go through and you
don't persevere with anything, how do things become stronger?
It's like a muscle every time you work it out and you strain it, it tears
and it rebuilds itself stronger.
And if you're not doing that, if you're not doing your own work, you're just
not going to have the same connection.
You're just not, I just can't believe it.
I can't, I can't.
They may think they can, they may think that they do, but until they have the
the repercussions of ignoring mechanical sympathy, come back and bite you in the
ass and you make mistakes and you fail and you have to fix it and you're forced
to and you don't fix it by writing a check.
You have to fix it because you don't have a choice.
Maybe that's why I don't love my nine 11 as much as I used to.
Hey, Mrs.
producer, welcome, welcome back.
Um, maybe that's why I don't like my nine 11 as much as I used to because I
didn't, I didn't build the engine in that car.
To great car drives awesome, but I don't feel as connected to it as the times
that I rebuilt the engine myself.
I'm far more connected to this Mercedes.
There've been, yeah, there have been a few things that you've kind of just
because of circumstance, circumstance and time.
You've just had someone do it.
You've had a shot.
It's you've lost time and I sometimes I wonder if I regret it.
You know, the engine was $40,000.
This is like what, what the bleep?
You know, so should I have just done a 32 career swap and been done with
it and then it was, would be the engine that I sourced and I found and I put in
and maybe I did a top end on it and it took me more time and.
Um, I certainly, I certainly regret having someone else build that engine.
Granted, that engine is way better than anything else I could ever build.
It's just not necessarily.
Yeah.
You could build it to the same spec.
I could, but it still takes a lot of machine work and a lot of time and a lot
of different things.
Anyway, that's, well, I will say, you know, if you are going to be doing these
things yourself, you want to have that mechanical sympathy and want to get to know
your car, the best place to go to get started as FCP Euro, which of course is
the online retailer for OEM, genuine aftermarket and performance parts for
your European cars.
That is dangerous right there.
Holy moly.
Mountain Dew and Red Bull at the same time.
Oh, it's double barrel.
It's kind of good.
I, I, that is, that is ridiculous.
Okay.
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So I want to talk about a special car.
I'm going to pull up a picture over here.
I'm not sure if Mr.
producer is ready or not.
So we'll get this pulled up.
This is Sutton Morris, my co-driver, Jason Larson and my R107.
Look how nice this car cleaned up with a little bit of a polish.
You have to get that.
It looks really good there.
That's a pretty good looking car, isn't it?
Yeah.
All you had to do was crank the saturation and the contrast and it looks super shiny
right there.
Mrs.
producer, however, I will show you this picture.
This is the hood, which, which someone has painted poorly.
So everything like polished up pretty good except for the hood.
Yeah, that one, you didn't wasn't able to polish out.
It's just toast.
The other hood in the top is toast.
Anyway, so I fly out with Larson and we're scouting for the lost coast, which is a
place that's kind of, I wouldn't say it's like important to me.
I mean, it is, I guess it is important to me.
The last time I was out there is when the transmission died in my, were we doing
the podcast back then?
Yes.
We were.
Weren't we?
Yeah.
You probably talked to me.
There's, there is an episode about it because I remember you were explaining it.
It sounded like a helicopter, the gear train, the wine and the.
They're probably just like a road to rent sport part one.
Maybe I'll, maybe I'll say that I'll put the link in the show notes, but I won't
because everybody listening has Google.
You can go listen to it yourself.
But that was like a, it was a really formative road trip in terms of, um, dealing
with problems and dealing with sacrifice and persevering and coming out and then
driving home.
I mean, I found a transmission under this racist dude's table and it
I remember the story.
Yeah.
With Ken.
Yep.
And with me and we continued on and, uh, it's a good story.
You guys should go listen to it, um, especially if you're new to the podcast.
I mean, that has to be 500 episodes ago.
Crazy.
That was a while ago for sure.
But it was, it's a special place at the lost coast.
Um, it's in Northern California.
It's in the Emerald Triangle, which I had multiple people reach out to me and go,
Oh my God, you're going up there.
Be careful.
Um, just like, like really prominent people, like people that you would take advice
from, and I just, I was like, okay, whatever.
I mean, I was up there in the nine 11 and there was a lot.
It was a little weirder.
I remember being in, I think it was like Garberville or something.
And I was at a gas station.
And I just kept having people come up and talk to me like over and over again.
There's just kind of slinky people, you know, like it's dark.
It's nice.
Yeah, just imagine like a really dirty person, but they're a slinky going
across the parking lot.
That's what it.
I truly did not feel that way this time.
Because the car.
No, it didn't have anything to do with the car.
It just, yes, there are.
Well, first of all, the Emerald Triangle is named such because it was where the
cartels grew marijuana in Northern California back in the day.
It's very, Jake, it's very remote.
This, these areas are some of the most remote areas in the country.
And you don't think of like, oh, I was going to say that's not
what you think of California.
100% super remote.
I would have kin.
It's maybe just under Montana and Wyoming kind of in the same.
Dude, it is wild.
I mean, I drove four hours across one road and went through one town with
like a hundred people in it.
Wow.
It is very driving west to east, east to west, very, very remote.
You have Humboldt County, which is on the ocean, which is where your week is,
which is where a lot of things for the overcrust rally are going to be taking
place.
And then you have the next county to the east, which is Trinity County.
And Trinity County is the poorest county in California.
Just to give you perspective.
Most of the logging dried up.
And I mean, if you read my Patreon article, which you, if you're not a driver,
driving team member, you should, because I wrote a beautiful article with
beautiful photos, hopefully, beautiful.
That went with this.
And we go, go.
Oh, there we go.
Up on the top there, it's circled.
That's Humboldt County up there somewhere, I think.
Anyway, so it's a very, very remote area.
And I remember the first time I was out there.
It kind of hit you.
And I, there was, there was one moment that I was on the lost coast, which is
Matoll Road.
And I remember driving up and seeing the ocean from below and the sun was setting.
And remember sitting there with my friend, Steve and my friend, Nathan, watching
the sunset.
And I've got these crazy great drone shot, which has been lost to, I have like a
really crappy version of it.
I can't find any of this content, which is super sad.
There's so much content in my life, dude.
I just can't even.
And I remember looking down and being like, oh, the ocean is beautiful.
And then I, like, as I looked closer, I could see that it was a marine layer,
like just hovering over the surface of the, of the ocean.
And I was like, oh, this is so cool.
And then the sunset.
And I realized I had to drive four hours on this boat.
And it was like 31 miles.
So it was, it was an arduous trip.
Worth listening to that podcast for sure.
But on that road, I met a, this guy who was driving like a brand new GMC,
high country, black truck.
Nice.
Yeah.
It's odd.
There's like these ranchers out there that have like a ton of money.
And back then I think everybody had a little bit more money.
I'll explain that in a second if I can stay on task here.
And I remember talking to this guy and I pulled over and I asked him, dude, he's
on this next to the ocean in the middle of this nowhere land, just in his truck.
And he had a black shirt on black cowboy hat.
And I was like, dude, like I rolled my window down.
I kind of lean over like this.
I'm like, you okay?
He's like, I'm fine, but you should not be here at this time.
Is that it was the cliff notes.
Like you should, you should really not be here.
I'm like, why?
He's like, there's not much out here.
And if you're out here at this time and anybody's around, they're not, they're doing
bad things.
And the reason for this is the Emmerd Triangle was Humboldt County,
Trinity County was where a lot of the cartels grew their drugs because it's
deep forest.
You can't see anything.
There's no resources up in these counties for it.
There's no money.
There's, I mean, unless you're the DEA, you're not finding anything.
You know, and I never saw anything ever when I was up there the first time.
And it always, I always kind of felt on edge because of what that guy said to me
when I was up there.
I'm like, yeah, he's always looking over your shoulder.
And I other people were too, were like, be careful, right?
Experienced Menacino County.
Yeah, that's the other one up there.
Yeah, well, they're just waves, wineries and weed.
There's actually a town up there called weed.
And they, they have like a general store or whatever.
And it just says we don't sell weed and weed or something like that.
It was pretty funny.
There's no weed for sale and weed.
But this time, the sense is that the economy is suffering more.
The lumber industry, because of regulation, is suffering more.
There's less logging going on because we're protecting everything.
So there was definitely a depression feeling to the area.
There's a lot of, a lot of transient people walking around.
But it was a different, nobody talked to me.
Everybody was polite.
Everybody I did meet was very kind.
But it definitely had a different feeling.
It wasn't scary like it was last time.
It was just kind of like, what's going on here?
What is happening to this place?
Yeah.
Gosh, there's so many like concepts I want to talk about.
I'm trying to figure out like, should I just, I think I'll just try my best to go chronologically.
I'm very curious about the people in the regard that like, we've been to West Virginia.
We've been to like some of the, you know, the hollers and we've been to places where
there are what I'll call like rednecks or there's some destitute people.
And they kind of fit into stereotypes.
I can't figure out what the stereotype is there because they're not going to have a
Southern twang.
They're not going to, what is it?
Um, the most common stereotype in these areas is when you're in the city is blue hair, red
hair, bull ring nose, male or female.
Right.
But that's not what I'm picturing out in.
No, out, out in the wilderness, it's just good old boys, American
flags, guns.
Yep.
You know, it's, it's truly, I mean, we went to eat at this, um, shipping
container in Mendocino County somewhere on highway 36 on our way in on the first day.
Well, let's, we can start the story here.
Okay.
Take I five up in the morning from Sutton's house and we get off on highway 36 and red
bluff and we head west and we get kind of hungry and we see that there's, it says no
services, 96 miles or whatever.
There's lots of those signs out there.
Um, lots of signs that say no services, 96 miles.
And Hey, your GPS is inaccurate.
Your GPS is Mrs.
Prodisher.
Maybe pull that sign up.
I like, I like that photo that I just saw.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's, they're inaccurate.
Don't trust your GPS.
And so as you assume, there's nothing out there, but there is like, we pulled up to
this little shipping container and I walk up and they're like, they got a sign for
breakfast and there's like a grandma off to the left, like painting a thing.
And there's like a kid with paint all over his face.
And I took that.
My, I took my order from this cute little, um, girl.
She was all of like nine years old.
She had a hot dog for breakfast.
Larson had a, a quesadilla and we talked and we just hung out and you know, there
was just dude with a camel hat on with a flag on it, American flag flying over here.
He was carrying, you know, it's not, there's a place called Jefferson County.
Have you heard of Jefferson County?
I feel like I've heard of it.
Yeah.
At that restaurant that we were, I said, Hey, where's Jefferson County?
And the guy laughed a little bit.
He says it's right over the next mountain, which was right there.
There's like a mountain pass that you go over and then you're in Jefferson County,
which is an area of Northern California that has been trying to secede.
Frank California, because it's just like, what are we doing?
How, why are we, why are we in any of this?
Doesn't align at all with the politics of California.
Doesn't align at all.
It's, it's all God's guts, guns, glory.
Horses ranching, ranches all over the place, wilderness.
Leave me alone.
Yeah, leave me alone type of stuff.
And I leave there and I'm like, all right, we're going over the hill of Jefferson County.
So I go over into Jefferson County, which is not a real place.
It's like, it has it's the name.
It has its own name for its county.
And I had gotten this route from a friend.
And it had been, excuse me, it had been used for other rallies.
And I got a couple aggregate maps and stuff like that of rallies that other people have done.
And I've one thing I noticed about these is none of them go farther north at all.
They all come to like this area and then nothing, nobody goes farther north than that.
And most of the California people I've talked to have not been.
Anywhere where the overcrest rally is going.
So I'm very excited for that.
However, I did get a couple of rows that were on the southern tip of where we were,
we were going to go.
And I'm like, you know what, these roads have already been rallied.
I'm going to check them out.
And it's in between.
It's like in between a ketten palm and like Ruth Xenia and these types of areas.
If anybody wants to look at a map while they're, while they're listening,
I can't do it because I'll lose my train of thought because I don't have any brain cells left.
Sweet.
You're eating your breakfast.
Eating the breakfast.
We're going to have a hot dog, which was made by a nine year old.
So it was not entirely warm, but I wolfed it down anyway.
And this highway 36 roads, great.
I'm feeling really good, man.
I'm like, this road is awesome.
It's feeling really good.
It's nice and curvy.
It's got great pacing.
It's super smooth.
I'm like, gosh, this is awesome.
This is the first road where this isn't even supposed to be on the rally,
but it's just so fricking good.
And we get off to go to this Ruth Xenia, Ruth Lake or Xenia Lake or whatever it is
and start on this route that I'd gotten from someone else.
And there's this dam.
And I'm like, oh, this dam is super cool.
It goes over the super picturesque spot.
And which there's there's drone footage of it.
If you pay attention over across Instagram, you'll see it eventually.
And I saw I drive, I have Larsen drive the car across this dam
and he turns around in this gravel parking lot.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
That's that's one of my buddies.
There's lots of that.
I he turns around in this parking lot and he drives back up on the road.
And I hear this.
Like catastrophic sound.
It sounds like.
It sounds like he ran over a bunch of pie pans.
That's I'm trying to think like it would put like
or he hit a pie pan with a baseball bat.
OK, uh huh.
Yeah, what the fuck was that?
I'm like 50 yards away trying to fly in the drone.
So I didn't really see it, but I could see him.
He did like a little donut and drove it up on the thing.
It was like a he hit it.
He hit it kind of hard.
It was like a little lip right where the asphalt drop down.
Yeah, well, that lip's not that bad.
I got in the car.
I'm like, oh, this is fine.
So I drive up and I'm like, oh, the car is kind of doing like a
whoo, whoo, whoo, like the shock is floating.
Yeah, I'm like, Larsen, you blew the frickin' shock.
Oh, we're getting to that.
That's that's that's the road right there.
That word that we're talking about.
Mrs. Producers getting a little bit ahead of herself, if I might say so.
That is that is aftermath photos.
So I'm driving.
I'm like, shit, the shock is blown.
I'm like, well, yep, when we get back in the town, I'll try and find a shock.
And my plan was these are these are Coney shocks, which I.
I prefer Bill Stein myself, but the bottom of the shock is a Coney
and it's got like the little hole that I wish I had it with me.
This is a little hole at the bottom and.
We're a boat will go through or a bolt to a strut.
Just normal, but on a Mercedes, it has like a little U shaped bracket
that bolts to that and then it goes into the control arm.
So it's something that you can take off.
Right.
Up those things, all like an integral.
You can't take it off.
Sure.
All like made for the car.
This Coney's made for something else and they adapted it or who knows what.
Which is good because then you could.
Yeah.
Take it off.
I can take it off.
I could take the start out.
I can measure it and I can get something.
And now that's that's close.
Anything just getting a shock so I can continue on my way.
And so I'm driving a night and I kind of look over this ridge
and there's this river that winds like.
Miles away and I can see like this little white boat
and I can see all these bikini clad girls jumping around.
At least I assume that's what I was saying.
It was really hot and sweating and probably a little bit delirious.
I'm like, oh man, it'll be really nice to jump into that water with those girls
and they're bikinis.
It'd be so great.
And I'm just kind of like, oh, this is and then the car dropped out from underneath me.
Literally.
The front of the car just went.
And it was like, and I just felt it and I felt the students just go light.
Like there was nothing.
Yep.
Then I did.
There was an impact sound that sounded really bad.
You want it sounded like it sounded exactly like.
Running over a fiberglass bumper.
That's exactly what it sounds like.
You want like a great comparison would actually sound like if you took a stale
piece of bread and just crushed it with your hands.
That's what it sounded like a gravel shot over the top of the car.
Like right over the top just all over the windshield because it was just like a dip
like this.
So I went in and the bumper just went straight straight into the other side.
And then it was like.
As the tire was rubbing on the bumper.
And I'm like, I just remember going, I don't want to look.
I don't want to tell her something.
Like I don't want to look.
I don't want to look.
I don't want to see it.
I don't want to see it.
But someone on the discord mentioned it was Schrodinger's bumper.
Right.
If you don't get out to look at it, if you haven't seen it, it's it's not, it's
not dead yet.
Right.
Yeah.
It's then it's not dead yet.
That's right.
Yeah.
That's right.
But of course I pulled over and Mrs.
Producers can pull up the picture of the bumper from the front and my, and my repair
that I did.
The bumper was hanging.
It was split down the middle.
The bracket had pushed.
There's like a steel bracket, like three 16th steel bracket had bent and pushed the
bumper into the tire and it was rubbing.
And I'm looking around like, what, how am I going to fix this?
Yeah.
Like, what am I going to do?
Um, the answer came later when we, we'll get to that.
I'm like, okay, I just need to get out of here.
Morale is like, absolutely terrible.
This is like the first row that I was excited for morale is as low as it could
get.
There's, yeah, there's my USB cord that I used to tie the bumper back together.
Yep.
Okay.
It was quicker than zip ties.
I'm like, I'm just going to tie this.
That actually, that actually held for, for quite some time.
And so I actually ended up grabbing a log and I stuck it in the wheel well and I
had Larson use the power steering to push the bumper out enough where it wasn't
touching the car anymore.
So it was still bent in, but I bent the whole fender and the bracket out.
I'm like, eventually we're going to have to bend this back, but what else am I
supposed to do?
Yeah.
So, and I, and I pulled it and I, and I tried prying at it and I'm like, just use
the power steering.
That's like insane horsepower.
Just like, so I just went like that.
It was like, it was like nothing.
It just, it's hydraulic.
It's hydraulic.
This was like, push it out of the way.
Like no problem.
Bent it out and we drove the rest of the way to Garberville Napa like that.
And it, and every so often, and by the way, the rest of the roads all the way,
they were bombed out.
Absolutely.
Right.
It was, there was no redeeming quality.
There was no, well, at least nothing.
Every single road was beautiful, but returning to the earth.
It's just the fires came through and erosion happened.
And I mean, there was a point where we were driving and you, you're in your lane,
you look over and the other lane had fallen six feet down and it was just there.
And you're like, holy shit.
If anybody wants to go down these roads, if they've got like a lifted whatever and
you're on the rally, you want to go out there on Thursday and go to the
spoiler stuff, come find me.
I'll show you where they are.
It's a beautiful place.
But the lady at the little kettenpom general store, which you walk in, it's beer,
it's fishing and it's bull semen.
So there's like a freezer with a human.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can buy bull semen from the, from the general store and kettenpom.
So for impregnating your heifers or yeah, exactly.
So someone's got a bowl with like huge nuts and they're just, no, this is not like
a euphemism of any kind.
General store.
No, I didn't expect euphemism.
I didn't know if this was some weird, like, I, some, I don't know.
It's like a, it's a, it's a moisturizing cream, Chris.
Didn't you know bull semen?
It's the latest new thing.
It's great revitalized.
It literally was like, you know, for different bowls and different things like
this.
So anyway, I talked to her.
She's like, I'm like, do you have a rope?
Cause I was going to grab on the, the bracket and just yank it with a tree.
Yeah.
Something like that.
No, you don't have any rope.
I'm like, I'm looking at the extension cord plugged into the
bull semen freezer thinking, man, I bet that extension cord would work.
But yeah, but then the bull semen would go bad.
Chris, we can't have the bull semen.
Well, we can have the, these.
So random.
But, uh, you know what I did do while I was up there?
I did pull up on X and the reason I pulled up on X was not because of the
bull semen.
Um, it was because the satellite view on X is much clearer and better than, um,
then Google maps.
So I was using it to like out around and be like, okay, what roads are, are
going to work, what roads aren't going to work that coupled with the local
knowledge of the woman, the purveyor of, of bull semen.
Um, she said, do not go this way.
It's way worse than the way you came.
And I, how, how was that possible?
And it's interesting because you look on the gazetteer and it'll be like one
road is like red and you're like, oh, that's the main road.
And the white one is the minor one.
No, it's like nothing makes sense over there.
It's all weird and trashed and there's lumber trucks still driving on them.
So they're absolutely pounded.
Yeah.
And but it's, but they're not maintained either.
Nobody fixes anything.
It falls in and you know, it would have been better if it was gravel road,
because they could have at least brought gravel through and just graded it.
Graded it.
You know, and just like continually graded the road, but they just took like a
ribbon of asphalt and just dropped it on this ridge and then that was it.
Well, they needed, yeah, they needed to work for one season and got their
trucks out and that was it.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, I, um, I wonder how many people live in Trinity County because there
can't be that many property taxes and the lumber is dried up.
So there's no money from the lumber mills going to maintain these roads.
I actually looked it all up and wrote it into the article that I wrote for, uh,
driving team members, which if you're not a driving team member,
you should be really appreciate it.
You can read cool stuff, cool stories, part three coming out soon.
So I will say that on X is the best app for navigating.
It's an adventure.
It not only doesn't have a very clear satellite pictures, you can actually
select different layers.
Like if you want to see what it looked like in 2003 versus current, or if you
want to see where the wildfires are, because it's really, really smokey out
right now in Minnesota and you can't breathe on X would show you that.
So you can avoid it.
It also has trail ratings.
So you can see which trail or road you shouldn't go down as Chris clearly did
not use and it has detailed information to discover tool to help you find trails
near you.
It has added peace of mind, like a cell service layers.
You can plan your next route service in mind, great for emergencies and not
kind of venturing out where you maybe don't want to be without any cell service.
Uh, route builder, waypoint marking, real time updates, route sharing,
which is amazing.
You're fully equipped for any adventure.
I will say when we used it on the last rally, it was so cool being able to see
all the other participants.
Yeah, you can have like 10 your buddies just like, yeah, you can have like
so cool.
Yeah.
You can try it free for seven days at on X off road today.
Download it.
All right.
Um, yeah.
So roads totally bombed out.
And I know I've got probably, it was probably two and a half hours of driving
on roads that are absolutely destroyed with a blown shock.
Or what I thought was a blown shock.
So I'm driving and I would go over these, these little dips and the car would
make like this weird rubbing sound, but it sounded like a, an industrial zipper
being unzipped really fast and then zipped right back up.
Like it was just like, what is that noise?
And you get out and you look at your rubbing or all the dirt is still on the
tire.
So there's not like a shiny part of the tire.
I can't figure it out.
I'm like, that doesn't matter.
It's fine.
The tire looks fine.
Let's just keep going.
What the hell is this noise?
Dude, if you've never heard anything like it, it's like the weirdest, weirdest,
most craziest sound.
I'm trying to figure it out.
It's yeah.
Yup.
And, uh, we'll get all the way to this Napa and I go in and I go, now I'm
excited, dude, I'm exhausted.
I'm hot.
You know, I grumpy Chris air conditioning, which I fixed later was not great
because the, I mean, God bless me, have an air conditioning in the first place.
But the auxiliary fan wasn't working.
Someone had disconnected the ground from the relay.
So the fan wouldn't kick on like, come on people.
So I put that back on like three days later.
I'm like, Oh, there's the fan.
Icebox, dude.
Icebox.
The car is, it's so cool.
I literally.
So I go in, I said, Hey, do you have a strut for a 1983 Mercedes
SL?
And no, no, they did not.
Yeah, there's me taking a look at something right next to the dumpster
where the car belonged at that time.
So I, I'm like, okay, I'm going to take the strut off.
I'm going to bring it in.
We're going to do what I mentioned earlier, which is find a strut.
Yeah.
They said it was like three weeks.
I'm like, okay, well that's stupid.
What did the guys say about trying to find a strut?
Was it one of the guys is like, Oh yeah, we can make that work?
Or was he like,
Not three weeks.
I'm robot.
Yeah.
Napa.
Don't care.
Yeah, they just, they just didn't care.
He did have the, the kiosk where you check out said, Penn is missing,
but Penn and is were like one word.
So I looked at the guy and I kind of pointed at the thing.
I'm like, is this you?
He's like, yeah, no, no, it's the pen is missing.
I'm like, it says your penis is missing.
He's like, it's not, it's not.
Good for you.
You do.
Good for you.
I'm glad your penis is still attached.
Anyway, three weeks to get a strut, not going to happen.
I go out like crawling the car and I look up there and.
Expecting to see just grab the actual picture from my phone so I can show you
because it's the best way to do this.
Cause you see exactly the one I saw in the article.
So I know exactly what we're about to see, which is yeah, catastrophic.
It is, it is literally catastrophic failure, which does this also explain the zipper noise?
It does.
And I will explain that momentarily.
Okay.
I for some, some help on how, oh, here we go.
I'm just going to hold the, hold this up.
Yeah, there it is.
But this is what I saw.
Yeah, which is when I was not even, I didn't realize it was Ben outside of the strut tower.
It was spent outside of the stars.
And the reason it did that is because it ripped the sheet metal out of the car.
Yeah.
So it ripped the sheet metal out of the car.
And you see that little white thing right there, right here, that, which is the top of the strut.
Yeah.
That was loose.
And every time you would go over a bump, it would rub on the wheel and make that
wizard sound.
It was just that little plastic bushing spinning.
The stupidest of stupid.
Yeah.
And there it is.
There's the, there it is.
It ripped the metal right out of the body.
Now this is a known, I was talking to Matt Kwiak, who's like number one expert of anybody
I know with the Mercedes stuff.
He's like, yeah, that's, that's why they reinforce this stuff on rally cars.
They just had to read, they just reinforced it.
And I'm like, oh, well, that's great.
That makes sense.
That makes sense.
But obviously there's, you see, there's rust in there, which is crazy for a, there it is.
It just pulled it right out, just pulled it straight out.
Perfect circle.
Yep.
Perfect circle.
Which was, uh, okay.
So I'm not like, oh great.
This is unreparable.
Right.
It's unreparable.
I can't, without a welder, I cannot repair this.
So I'm thinking, okay, I will call Sutton, which is my only lifeline.
Sutton, here's a picture of what happened.
And he goes, hold on a second.
And he hangs up.
I call him back like five minutes later.
I go, I'm going to take the strut out.
I'm going to drive down there.
I don't know what else to do.
I'll just come fix it at your shop.
It's like six hours.
It's a six hour drive all the way back to Sutton's.
And he goes, don't worry about it.
Welders in the trunk, tanks tools, everything.
I've already loaded up.
I'm about to leave.
I said, no, you were not, you were not going to do that.
I'm going to drive to you.
So I forbid him.
I'm like, I'm not even going to tell you where I'm going to be.
Do not start driving up here.
You're not.
I mean, I'm like, I, I'm just blown away by that guy's dedication to the
craft of rallying and like getting things done and like what he did with
that Ferrari and getting that there.
And like the guy is.
Got like this insane work ethic and drive to just make things happen.
And I said, well, what are you doing?
He's like, what else am I supposed to do?
Which of you think about it?
I mean, what are we all going to do?
Just watch Netflix at home and whatever.
I mean, this, if someone called me and was like, Hey, I'm five hours away.
This is broken.
I also would throw a welder in my car because that sounds like a hell of a good
time.
I don't think they called you right.
This problem wouldn't be happening to me.
I would just be like, all right, let's go.
I remember back in the day when Euro works was around.
I remember taking someone's, someone's car died in like Madison, need an alternator.
And it was a, it was like a 16 valve and I had one.
I'm like, I'll bring it to you.
And I just got my car, drove all the way down to Madison four hours away and
installed it and we drove back together and had cheese and burgers.
And like, it was like, it's just fun.
Like it's just, just adventure stuff.
Right.
So I took the shock out of the car and I drove 60.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Six sketchy hours all the way back to Sutton shop.
And it was indeed sketchy.
It's a lot like one on one is like this.
It's very twisty.
I'm trying to make good time.
It was like three o'clock.
It's a six hour drive.
Not going to get there till nine.
So I'm trying to write boogie and you think everything's fine because you're just
like on a smooth part and you're like, this is great.
And then you go over and the car is like, whoa,
doesn't do that.
It's only one side.
So the park, dude, it was super sketchy.
I'm steering.
Oh, it was not good.
I remember going over one dip and I just, the whole bottom of the car bottomed
out just like oil pan.
You can just tell it just got absolutely railed.
So we get all the way back to Sutton's bumpers held on with the USB cord and zip
ties strut is in the trunk.
And I'm like, I don't know, man, what are we going to do?
So I start looking around.
I, I'm not something's like, I'm not a welder.
I'm like, I can weld.
Where's the welders?
We pull it out and look at it.
I'm thinking, what is it that I can do to fix this?
And I'm looking at the size of the hole exactly where the strut used to be.
And I'm looking at the washer that goes on top of the strut.
And I set it in there and it's absolutely perfect.
It's like, it just set right in.
It's like absolutely perfect.
It fits right in there.
Mrs. Producer, pull that picture up of the washer sitting in the hole
where the, where that got ripped out.
It's actually above where it got ripped out.
It's like not where it mounts that, that died.
Yeah, there it is.
Look at that.
Wow.
Wow.
It's just like that's what I was had the strut not been completely bent at an angle.
I was wondering if in that Napa, you could have found like some metal plate
or something to sandwich.
That's what I was thinking as I was my thought to there was a tractor
supply farm store, not a tractor, maybe a farm store over there.
I'm like, I could have figured something out.
Yeah.
Whatever.
I could, I could have figured it out.
There's another washer that I had sitting right there.
So I cleaned, cleaned all the metal up, took that washer and I welded a circle on the top.
And then from the bottom, I welded it again on the bottom.
And I'm like, fingers crossed, you know, it's like I spray painted it, primed it,
painted over it.
And it's not really where the strut is supposed to mount.
But where it's mounted now.
The car drove the rest of the whole thing flawlessly.
Like no problems.
It didn't.
I mean, I serious shit.
There was other times when I left, I was like, just like driving.
Oh my God.
It's not the most beautiful welding.
It was a really awkward place to weld.
I can understand.
Well, but it was hot and I put a couple of layers.
I like way overdid it.
Like I did one layer and then I'm like, and then I went over in the top with like
another layer.
I'm like, I'm like, I just cannot fail.
So obviously more weld was the answer.
Always the answer.
Yes.
100%.
3D print material.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And then it comes into the bumper and you can see it's laying there.
And Greg, who works for Sutton comes up.
He's like, oh yeah, I used to, I used to fiberglass skateboards and carbon, like
carbon fiber, fiberglass skateboards.
And he's like, hold on.
And he disappears for a little while and I'm fixing stuff.
That's, that's Greg right there.
And he comes back and he's got a little box of fiberglass, matte resin, all the
stuff needed to fix this bumper.
So we mixed up the him and Larsen and Sutton mixed up the resin and they
basically fixed this bumper, got all dialed in, but all together it's absolutely
perfectly.
We bolted it back up and, you know, bent a few things and, you know, down the road
man, it was absolutely perfect.
Um, until, uh, until the instance of Larsen, fucking, oh no.
I'm gonna Larsen was just like turning around and like went off a dip in the
middle of this death road, literal death row.
This road is, it's a literal death road.
Like if you drove off your dad, it's one lane death road.
It's on the rally.
So everybody can come have fun.
Oh good.
Death road on the rally.
Um, disclaimer, don't actually death road.
Don't die.
I like it.
Sue, because I called it a death road and now I don't think so.
Knowing that it was a thing.
Oh, well, yeah, dangerous road guys.
Um, anyway, so Larsen backs out of something and he drives over off a dip
into a rock and it bends the bumper bracket and again, he drives back.
I was like flying the drone like, uh, it's flying the drone and he comes back.
Oh no.
What does he do now?
And, uh, it's like, man, just pull up the photos from day four or five.
We're on our jackstand.
Larsen just doesn't like the bumper at all.
No.
So we basically had to, uh, we took the bumper off or yeah, that's our jackstand.
Oh, I love it.
Right there.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Worked great.
Theologically proven.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's not going to break.
You know, it's not a Harbor freight thing.
So, um, so safer than safer than Harbor freight.
And we take the bracket off and I basically get a big stone and another stone
and cave me on the fuck out of this bracket.
Right.
I'm just taking the stone and bam, just beating this thing.
And, and, uh, eventually we beat it back in the submission, put it back on the car.
And it was good to go.
I didn't pack the fiberglass this time.
Uh, no, it just, yeah, I don't know what he did, but it bent it.
So, um, I will be claiming this on, you know, on insurance because it's a very
valuable bumper and, uh, we'll basically have to, I'll have a fiberglass guy who
was asking when I was in Eureka.
Um, I met this, I met a lot of people and I'm not even sure how to tell everyone
about all the people that I met.
Um, but I met this guy named, uh, Leeroy Leeroy Zerling.
Um, and I was, I was introduced to him from Brecken, this wonderful woman who,
you know, a lot of this stuff is very strange.
You know, I don't want to say what the places are because I don't want to ruin
the experiences for people that are going to come on the rally, but for example,
I'll tell you about Leeroy in a second, but for example, there's this spot that
I really wanted to go.
Okay.
And there's a locked gate.
I'm like, okay, so you can walk in and you can look at it.
Enter here again.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's next to this other place where they said, yeah, you can walk over there and
look at that.
I talked to these, this dude with these mutton chops.
Um, he was working with a 60 ton hydraulic air jack.
Just to give you an impression of what this guy might have been doing.
You can think about that.
I couldn't, him and I, we were trying to pick, I was trying to help this guy
pick this jack up and him and I couldn't do it together.
And he was a pretty stalwart man.
It was very, very big jack.
Lift 60 tons, dude.
Um, anyway, so I'm trying to get over this spot and I like, I'm down there.
I'm driving around for three or four days looking for spots, driving on roads.
Is anybody knows that listens to podcasts or follows over Crest.
The amount of time and effort I put in the scouting is crazy.
Absolutely crazy.
It's one of the reasons why over Crest is great because we got a lot of special
things and I meet a lot of special people.
Yeah.
I really want to see this spot and we're actually, we were leaving this other
spot to come look at this spot.
And I'm like, let's turn around and just drive over there and see if the gate's
open.
I turn around, I drive over there and there's a guy unlocking the gate.
This is pretty rural.
This is like, I come to find out this guy's name is Royal, Royal McCarthy.
And he was a test pilot in the Korean War and a,
wow, phantoms and he flew all kinds of other things.
And he was a instructor.
So went on to be like a flight instructor.
Super interesting guy took us on a tour of this super interesting thing.
That was on the other side of the gate.
And I want to say, but I won't.
But like, it's all these kind of like, people ask them, like, do you just get
lucky meeting these people?
And I think it's not right.
I think it's like constantly being in the place to get lucky.
Like constantly being there, constantly looking, driving around for normally.
Yeah.
Normally you are not out there in a place like that.
Act for like 14 hours a day or someone to, yeah, to be there.
Right.
Exactly.
Um, so anyway, so I'm, it's just an example.
And there was another place that was a museum and it was closed.
And I went up to the window and I'm like, I'm going to see if it's actually closed.
Like open the door and there it is.
Don, the curator of the museum sitting there.
He's like, come on in.
You know, I'm close, but I'd love to show you around stuff like that where you
just kind of kind of put yourself out there.
Yeah.
But I met Brecken, um, who I was at the end of this dead end road on this crazy
peninsula, which used to be full of like lumber mills.
And now it's just super sad.
Um, they don't have much export sari anymore, all the lumber stuff left because
you can't dump a bunch of chemicals into the ocean, you know, to make wood pulp,
to make paper, you can't do it.
You just cannot do that.
So then of course the industry dried up and now everybody is suffering.
So I met Brecken.
She's like, I told her what I'm doing and dude, everyone that's out there,
you would think would be like, Oh, I don't want those guys coming.
They're going to make up.
Right.
She's like, this is awesome.
Because if you think about it, you're going to bring two, 300 people to a community.
They're all going to spend a thousand dollars.
Probably, you know, $500 to a thousand dollars piece, $300,000 to an impoverished
community is a big deal.
And it's one thing that we've always done is we've always gone to these places
that somehow kind of end up this way.
And I've had so many thank yous of thank you for coming.
Your community is so nice.
You know, just so everybody knows that has been on the rallies before,
what everybody does when they go out there and they patronize these businesses
and go to the restaurants makes a big difference.
Yeah, huge difference.
And they're all grateful.
They call me later.
They pull me aside.
They're intensely grateful for it.
Intensely grateful.
Tears have been shed with how grateful they are that overcrest has come to their
community and people can feel that it'll make a difference.
She's like, let me introduce you to Leroy.
Like who's Leroy?
Like he's the guy.
He knows everybody.
So I go to also and I realize that all the tugboats that are in the harbor have a
Z autumn for Leroy Zerlang.
It's like he does all in a couple of times.
In he's got the tugs, but you go in and he's just this dude.
That's just a blue collar guy with dirty hands sitting at a desk full of papers
in a one room shaft next to the shipyard where he is.
They're restoring some, you know, some pusher, some fishing boat or whatever.
It's a regular dude.
And he starts writing these numbers on business cards.
Talk to this guy.
This is the CEO of the lumber company.
Talk to him.
This is the company that company called Danco.
This is the CEO or the VP of Danco.
He's the one that could make that happen.
You know, this is this guy.
This is that guy.
This is the guy that owns this.
This is the guy that owns that.
I'm like, dude, you're gonna run out of business cards pretty soon.
He's like, yeah, I'm getting kind of pissed off.
He wasn't, he wasn't, of course.
But like it's you just walk into like this shack in the middle of this dead end
road on the end of this depressed area and you expect people to be kind of.
I think people are scared to put themselves in those situations where they
don't know what could happen.
One, I don't do this alone.
I do it with Jason.
I don't think it would be a good idea to do this stuff alone.
I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it alone.
I just, I wouldn't.
You never know what's going to happen.
But when you've got someone with you, it kind of like, you know, he usually
waits in the car, you know, but he's around.
He can at least tell Jess what happened.
Yes.
The other day she goes, I really want to come to
untouched.
I'm like, yeah, you can buy it with my life insurance when I'm gone.
Wait a second.
It's probably probably not.
Anyway, you know, it's, it's interesting because like the stories of the good
things that happen when scouting or when rallying aren't that interesting.
Like I can tell everybody how incredible the roads are and I can be like, yeah,
the ocean was super blue.
It was really nice.
Um, but what it comes down to is, is the risk I personally took going out there,
the people I met, the things that happened, you know, bonding with Sutton,
who's just a great guy, you know, um, seeing Austin, you know, one of the rally
guys for, for lunch and I ended up going all the way up to Portland and meeting
up with like, uh, Steve, and Brian, like it's, it's just like the community is
so good and the people are so good.
And I know it's like this, this stupid cliche that, you know, obviously the
people are the important ones, but, um, that, but also taking the risk to
put yourself out there and go do something.
Um, oh, one thing I wanted to mention that I mentioned in the article was,
you know, I always have these, uh, well, first of all, let me tell you this.
You know what I didn't get when I was on the rally, Jake?
What?
A flat tire.
Do you know why I didn't get a flat tire?
Because I had no, I had large sidewalls and I had Nokia tires.
Yeah.
Aramid sidewalls.
That's right.
Nokia has also a 50,000 mile replacement guarantee.
If you had have, if you had damaged your tire, Breon repair, such as could have
easily happened with the bumper and strut, I'm kind of surprised that didn't
add a puncture or anything.
We are gnarly roads out there and it's, I've never gotten a puncture.
I've driven on some really gnarly stuff.
I've scouted three times for rallies on these tires and I've never had a
problem, not car, but I've never had a problem.
Are these, were these the ASO one?
Yes.
Yes.
ASO.
Surpass ASO one.
It is a basically an awesome tire that combines both the durability of an all
season tire and the capability of an all season tire with the performance of a
dedicated performance tire.
It gives you all the high performance components and kind of the capabilities
of something that also you don't get to sacrifice the capability when the roads get
slick or the weather gets tough.
Cause geez, Chris, you know how unpredictable roads can be.
Turns out it is a testament, I think, to their tires, to how much you are just
beating on them while scouting.
That's pretty amazing.
I've come back with chunks of missing, like all like full tread blocks missing from the
tire.
They've been good.
I mean, they're not like good.
Amazing.
They're not like a
a super sticky like tire, you know, like a summer performance tire.
They're a great high performance all season tire, which is what I like to use.
Rain, dirt, tarmac, all conditions.
Yep.
It's, it's what works best for me.
Yeah.
It offers the grip of, you know, the best of both worlds.
And like I said, if you get stranded, it won't leave you stranded or if you won't leave
It won't be because you're tired.
It's a problem.
Yeah, you still run over wood spike or something.
You'd probably be fine.
Nokia and tires.com slash surpass.
That's surpass AS01.
I, uh, it was the feeling that I, I mean, all kinds of feelings.
It was a great trip and lots of memories and, um, met so many people and what a,
what a kind place that totally turns on its head.
What everybody says about it.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Everybody's like, oh, it's me.
I'm like, oh, people I know still, I can be like, it's not that way.
And they're like, oh yeah, it's sketchy.
I'm like, no, it didn't feel sketchy.
Granted, I would not leave my camera sitting on my seat and parking the car and going into the
store because your camera is going to be gone, dude.
100%.
Yeah, but it would be gone in downtown Minneapolis, downtown Portland, anywhere.
I mean, it's just definitely downtown Portland.
Definitely.
Yes.
Yeah, it would.
And the person doing it would be naked.
I had this feeling is I feel like I got to have a little bit of what people experience when they
break down on the rally and everyone rallies to help them.
Yeah.
That camaraderie.
That's Jesse's favorite photo.
That's the photo I took.
The whole thing.
That's, that's the motion blur.
It's rainforest up in the mountains over the ocean.
It is incredible.
That's super cool.
I got this, the feeling of being a little bit of a participant and being helpless and having
someone from the community help me.
Usually I'm kind of above.
I'm up in a helicopter flying around looking at everything happen and it's, you know,
it was, it was cool to have that feeling of letting go and relying on someone else.
I'm not very good at that.
As, as you, I'm not very good at relying on other people.
I don't want anybody's help.
I just don't.
I don't know.
I know that.
I know that very much.
I typically don't want anybody's help.
I'd rather murder myself and complain about it later.
Right.
But like, watch, this was a funny moment.
I'm standing over, standing over there taking pictures of Sutton and Larson put the bumper
back on the car that I had nothing to do with and they, they did all the work.
And I'm taking the pictures and Sutton looks at me and he's like,
dude, a little help here.
Is there like struggling?
It was a cool perspective to be able to be, to be a little helpless and know that the community
was there for me.
Oh, it was, it was really special and applications for the rally closed in like a week.
I was going to say, you can still apply.
You can still apply.
They're open for a week.
I would like to see all the California friends out there.
I know many, many have applied.
Anyway, that's my, that's the rally scouting, rally scouting recap.
I have a question for you, Jake.
And this, this can probably lead into, you know, what's going on with you and over crust,
but are you coming?
Are you going to come on the rally this fall?
Do you think you're going to, you're going to come or you're going to do it?
And he is, I know because it's a long ways away.
It's a long trip for us.
And we know how expensive shipping cars are too.
Yes.
And things are a little bit different for you now, which no people.
I guess might not know.
Yeah.
So I, I have stepped back from the like operations day to day of what we call over crust events
and the actual rally production side and all the business behind the scenes there.
And I think what was, I kind of, we talked about this at the spring rally.
And it was, I think emotional for both of us, all of us involved.
And what I realized during the rally is this was the first time I'd gone in not being a part of
the crew organizing and putting together.
And I felt very out of place because I didn't have the mindset of coming in as a participant.
Right.
So just, you know, personally, it was, it was, yeah, a lot of weird feelings.
So I think now being one step removed from the building of the thing, if I came out and was able to just enjoy it as a participant, I think would be amazing.
I have not looked at the calendar yet and certainly haven't talked to you about it yet.
So I don't know.
I had two people reach out to me and say, oh, this one looks really cool and really fun.
Yeah.
It is going to be very good, very fun.
The roads are just like incredible and some of the locations we picked are incredible.
I'd like to have you out.
You know, as, as now someone that doesn't do events anymore, I would love to just show you what we're building as my friend.
I would love that.
Yeah.
That's what's so cool to see too is like, now I get to see it from the other side.
Yeah.
I like seeing all the content come out.
It's got to be kind of like, whoa.
Yep.
100%.
It's just now that you, we're going to, we can talk a little bit about some personal stuff.
Actually, let's do this.
Let's, let's make this a little bit longer for the driving team members and we're going to, we're going to talk a little bit about.
You can go to overcrestproductions.com forward slash driving team if you want to keep hanging out.
Otherwise, we will see you guys next week.
Take care.
About this episode
Sold a Porsche Macan, then the conversation spirals into what “cars have soul” really means—anthropomorphism vs. the character you get when analog machines break and force stories. That idea turns into hands-on scouting and rally logistics across Northern California’s remote Emerald Triangle and Humboldt County, where navigation tools, damaged roads, and improvised repairs (from shocks to bumpers) decide whether you keep moving. The hosts also unpack “mechanical sympathy,” DIY maintenance, and why they don’t scout alone.
Original notes
Kris recaps scouting Northern California's Lost Coast for the fall Overcrest Rally on remote Emerald Triangle backroads, small-town characters, and a 1983 Mercedes R107 280 SL on some of the most isolated roads in the country. Plus, Jake on Teslas, soul, and whether a new car can ever earn one. (it can't, probably)
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