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SEMA Bonsai Run 2025
About this episode
The B Squad Hot Rod team gears up for the 2025 Banzai Run, a fun, casual cruise from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas coinciding with SEMA. The hosts discuss their plans, vehicle choices, and the unique classes for participation, including an unlimited class and a legendary class with a $500 limit. They emphasize the camaraderie of the event, invite listeners to join, and highlight the charitable aspect supporting St. Jude's. Expect plenty of laughs and relatable car troubles as they prepare for the journey.
Topics:
banzai run
vehicle classes
charity event
SEMA
road trip planning
car repairs
camaraderie
hot rodding
SEMA Bonsai Run 2025
This is all about our Cruise to SEMA that we call the B Squad Bonsai Run. Come join B Squad in supporting a great cause. - St. Jude Research to battle childhood cancer.
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Dodge Dakota
".... If I recall correctly, you said you didn't love Dakotas. No, I love Dakotas."
Car
Ford Thunderbird
"...wo, maybe five. Yeah, it was or I are driving the Thunderbird. And the other one's driving the truck to follow ..."
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Toyota Land
"...on the non bonds I run, John and I started at the Toyota Land Cruiser Museum, which was awesome. But their park..."
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All right, are you guys ready to talk, B-Squad Banzai Run?
Yes.
Yeah, sure, why not?
That's the enthusiasm that we like to see.
B-Squad Banzai Run.
Okay, this is why I'm not a radio announcer.
B-Squad is, at its core, a roundtable discussion of the four of us who are admittedly rank amateurs
in the car world, trying to figure our way into hot rodding.
Four states, three time zones, two sets of brothers, once a week of a meet and bolt
of hot rod.
For B-Squad Hot Rod, this is Lefty, this is Train, this is Hollywood, and this is
Woodchuck, because A-Squad has a TV show.
Real disclaimer, if you try anything we talk about, that's your fault, not ours.
All right.
You guys were enthusiastic.
Damn, I better start over.
For this short message, we've got Jim Gale, myself, and Muddy on, and we're going to
do a little update on the Banzai Run this year, and I believe everybody here is planning
on going.
Is that correct?
Yep.
That's the plan.
You are super quiet, Kaylee.
Yeah, you am a full time.
Yeah, I can't hear a thing she's saying.
I think she's working on it.
Sounds good.
Okay.
Seeing how everybody's in, let me give you the rundown how I see it, and then we
can kind of talk about the previous Banzai Runs, and what kind of fun that was,
and invite everybody to come out and go with us.
So right now, we are for sure starting in Salt Lake City.
We're going to make the run down to Vegas.
Tactical pause here.
I believe any pause in Vegas is tactical.
I just think, you know, he's going to run.
I'm going to drive.
I think it's a much better idea.
Yeah, I've got to keep my girlish figure.
And that's on Monday, November 3rd.
So that correlates with SEMA.
B Squad's obviously going down there to attend SEMA.
SEMA is a trade show, so we cannot provide tickets to SEMA, but this is a completely
separate event.
So that's how we're, this is how I'm not talking right now.
This is how we're inviting people to come join us.
So anybody who wants can come join this run.
I know B Squad's planning on spending the night in Salt Lake, the night of the
second and then leaving relatively early the morning of the third, probably due to some
of our vehicles won't pass 65 unless they're going downhill.
Speak for yourself.
I am.
I'm sorry.
I am.
So in the past, the theory has been $1,800, not including safety equipment.
This year, I think we're kind of splitting it into three different classes.
And this is all like fun and games, right?
There's no entry fee.
There's no prizes.
We're just going to go have a good time.
But so here's kind of the three classes.
We've got the unlimited class, which means bring whatever you want to cruise in.
It does not matter.
We're certainly not checking receipts on any of these, but so if you want to bring
that six-figure car, that's perfectly fine.
If you want to bring your daily driver, more power to you.
No big deal.
Okay.
Our original class night, I don't know that I've come up with a name for it.
Maybe we'll have to do that.
But that's $1,800 all-in, not counting safety equipment, which is generally tires and
brakes.
Again, not checking receipts.
And the theory is it should have a lot of style and probably going to make it, right?
It's definitely a roadkill-ish kind of theory on that one.
And one step harder is the legendary class.
Jim and Gail are solely responsible for this one.
And it's kind of the same theory, but $500 limit.
Even though they've participated in the legendary class, they always seem to have the best vehicle.
So there's definitely somebody in first place that you want to take down, and it's not me.
Well, it has a lot to do with the fact that they're the only two that know what they're
doing when it comes to rebuilding them.
The rest of us are just kind of making it up as we go along.
That's why we call ourselves B Squad.
We have this very skewed image that we know what we're doing.
It's all about shopping carefully.
It's not fixing them, it's shopping carefully.
If somebody was to come to the four of us and say, who am I giving my broken car to
to get me from Alaska to Florida?
You would be the choices, not me.
I'm going to have to defer to my esteemed colleague on this one.
I got nothing.
For what it's worth this year?
Yes, we know what we're bringing this year.
We will not meet the legendary class because the vehicle was $750.
So, Chair, I'm dying to know.
Oh, it's so we were going to take a $500 roll over that we already have in our possession.
And then we realized that that vehicle has already made the trip.
It made it all the way to Mojave and back last year.
So we decided that that really wasn't in the spirit of the challenge because the idea was
to get something to take down and bring back.
So we went shopping and as Gail said, shopped a little carefully.
We were limiting ourselves to the $1,800 limit.
But we were considering that $1,800, including all the anything that needed to be done.
So instead, we bought a $750 Dodge Dakota pickup truck quad cab.
I remember the picture of that and I remember saying that I loved it and I was
made fun of for loving it because I was too tall to fit in it.
If I recall correctly, you said you didn't love Dakotas.
No, I love Dakotas.
I think they are the coolest thing that Dodge came out with ever since they
got rid of the birdbath grill, not birdbath grill, but birdbath hood.
I think you need to go back and look at your text message.
What you sent was that you didn't like Dakotas, which is why everybody made fun of you.
Spellcheck got more lack of spell check rather got me.
And I mean, it's a truck.
It's got to be a Dodge, at least in our fleet.
So absolutely.
My father in law works at the Dodge truck factory for 45 years.
If I drove anything else, I would be disowned.
That's true.
We do have a couple of Chevy's, mostly Dodges.
Yeah, it's still like less than 50% of the number of Dodges we have.
Yeah, you made the trip in a square body.
So for a body Chevy, I should specify that.
So for this truck, I am still sticking with the name Algebra.
And this stems from some good advice.
Actually, you two gave me Jim and Gail.
In theory, a household should have enough cars for every driver plus one.
And that's if one breaks down or needs to go into the shop or, you know,
and I thought that was really good advice.
When you bought this Dodge, it turned out that the number of Dodges
in your household were like drivers times two plus one.
And it just got to be really complicated.
So I'm I'm behind the Algebra nickname on this one.
Sure, we're nice.
This one doesn't have a name.
So sure.
OK, it made sense in my mind.
Maybe I'm stretching too far.
Money hasn't turned in yet.
So I was thinking more.
That's almost advanced calculus.
And I'm not smart enough for that, but we just call it maths.
There you go.
But we do have it running and 99 percent ready to go.
We we've been doing some test driving on it and ran into a slight problem
today that is going to take me about an hour or so to fix.
Sometime this week, that being a the turn signals are shorting out.
So just need to do a little rewiring there at the back of the truck
where the trailer bikes were plugged in and that should solve that problem.
We did pull it to the B squad moment and bought fuses and a flasher
and installed them in the parking lot of the auto parts store earlier.
But that's B squad, right?
Absolutely. Derek would approve.
It was even in the parking lot of an O'Reilly.
Well, there we go.
Yes, I on a total orange cone,
I'm really hoping they come out with sparklators again at Christmas time.
Because I would love to snag one of those back on track.
Muddy, are we going to see the doba this year?
No, we are not because we are seeing the thunder chicken,
which will be street legal tomorrow.
Sweet. And it falls definitely under the $1,800 category
because I spent exactly 1750 on it.
I talked to guy down.
He wanted 1800.
I talked him down 50 because I had to jumpstart it.
The only thing that I can find wrong with it so far
is the brakes are soft.
So I'm going to be bleeding the brakes at some point in the near future.
My wife and sons want to help,
but they're convinced it's too hot to breathe outside.
I mean, it's only 104.
It shouldn't be that bad.
So they're not going to help me and they won't let me do it without them.
And I don't want to pull it into the shop and do it
because then I'd have to clean the shop.
Is this the car have air conditioning?
Absolutely. It's got great air conditioning,
great heat, everything in it works perfectly
except the door handles.
The door handles don't work at all because surprise, they're missing.
So they're on AC works.
All they're going to do is the hold the brake pump down,
hold up, down, up, down on the car.
Have them sit in the air conditioning.
It's perfectly fine.
Oh, I actually bought those vacuum pumps to pull it all out
so we don't even have to have the car on.
And, you know, I can just see Muddy crawling under the car
to bleed the brakes with it running.
With great danger, this is a great fight.
And I'm sure the heat coming out of those
is really going to make me happy to be under there,
not to mention, you know, breathing the fumes.
They're no fun.
Can you tell I'm usually the person
who gets to sit in the cab of the car?
Yeah, but I get to stand under it under lift.
So Steve, are we going to see the type two micro bus?
We are.
Paperwork is in the middle of getting done.
And if I'm really, really good,
it might be in the legendary class this year.
Yeah, because it was, you know, so expensive at free.
Yeah, well, turns out the paperwork is not free.
Unfortunately.
The government gets involved.
The price shoots up.
Yeah, you know, and just the standard title
I wouldn't have worried about.
But there's there's paperwork issues.
So we'll see how it goes.
I know that I am going to have to put some money into it
because last time I got underneath it,
it looked like I was lucky that the wheels stayed attached to it,
bringing it three doors down from my neighbor's house.
So but I'm told that parts are available
and it's not difficult and should be famous last words
should be easy, right?
But where you live, three doors down might be 40 miles.
I that's true. That's true.
Thankfully, these were these were smaller spots than that.
So it was it was less than a mile.
And, you know, you've got all the time in the world to get that done.
Absolutely, because I've got nothing going on right now at all.
No. Yeah, this will be fine. No.
Yeah. So that's what we're planning on bringing.
John's coming with us.
He's going to be rolling with the support rig.
He loves his truck and his air conditioning
and not having to worry about it starting,
which was funny last year, but story for a different time.
Well, we're on that subject.
I say we give bonus points for anybody
that doesn't use a trailer to get to the starting point.
Now, I don't want to wait that long for Steve to get there.
So how about how about nobody
anybody who doesn't use a trailer after the starting point in Saltwick?
That could work, too.
So the plan is that the bus also drives there under its own power.
Really?
So yeah, I'm going to slow down and wait for you.
I'm probably going to start like the day before he does, but yeah.
So for anybody that's not aware, Steve trailers to the starting point.
Jim drives to the starting point about three states.
And I drive to the starting point about 1,700 miles to the country.
Yeah. Yeah.
So this is why I think it would be awesome
to just separate class for you had to drive there
because Jim and I would both ace that one.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
The difference is I'll do it with bricks.
Yeah, and floorboards.
You have floorboards.
I usually don't usually being the one time I did it.
Actually, that is true on the on the algebra truck.
The there is a bit of floorboard repair with license plates.
So when we were leaving Salt Lake last time, I bought a Dr.
Pepper and I spilled it in the floor and all I heard was it hitting
the ground beneath because it just soaked right through the carpet
and went straight to the ground.
So that Flintstone did the whole way, apparently.
I think these are perfect examples of what the Bonsai run is all about.
The major thing that we have not touched on yet is
the reason we're doing the Bonsai run this year.
Again, it will be supporting research for cancer.
In the past, we've done St.
Jude's and I think we're going to do that again.
And everybody that that comes out is going to help that cause.
And again, we'll put that out on our social media.
So if you want to also help and donate through us, all the money goes
straight to St. Jude's.
We we give you the link and you you donate straight there.
That's the cleanest for everybody's books.
And of course, they're 501 C3.
So definitely right off in a fantastic cause.
So we're we're hoping to do some good for them.
And our other B squad goal was to get 10 vehicles on the Bonsai run.
And we're getting fairly close.
I think between all of us, we're going to have six.
One, two, I will be bringing two, maybe five.
Yeah, it was or I are driving the Thunderbird.
And the other one's driving the truck to follow just in case.
And then you and John, that's four right there.
And then you and Gil, that's five.
So we're halfway there.
Yep. There we go. Halfway there.
I can almost do math.
Don't let me in algebra.
It's not going to work.
If it really came down to it, we could bring another vehicle.
We still have the five hundred dollar rollover truck.
I mean, if we like to talk to each other so long, we used to drive alone.
That's fair. That's fair.
There's only so many back episodes of this podcast
I can listen to between here and there.
You know, now, don't don't get too much brain damage on the way to Vegas.
You know, it was nice if we could actually talk some of the other,
you know, actual hosts into showing up and doing this.
Yeah, they're they're doing important things.
It's tough. Yeah, we'll go with that.
Yeah, that's that's my story.
It's families, you know, but.
All right. So this is where we want to invite you to come out
and go with us again, no entry fee, no prizes.
It's just going to be a fun cruise with some of us from B squad.
I would love to tell you that we've got a whole bunch of big names coming.
I can't tell you that.
I can tell you I'm going to offer to have them come out
because it turns out a lot of the big names in the car world also go to SEMA weird.
But I am surprised how many events are directly before SEMA.
So I will see how it works out.
No promises.
But yeah, if if you're a listener, if you've got a YouTube channel,
if you've got a podcast, if you just have a car and want to go with us again,
we're starting in Salt Lake on Monday,
morning, November 3rd and headed down to Vegas.
And we're expecting to get there by evening.
And we'll probably all go out to dinner somewhere in Vegas.
And have a lot of fun along the way.
I'm turning it into a family trip.
You guys have to put up with my hellions for that dinner.
Oh, come on, we put up with Daniel.
How bad can they be?
Good point.
And so I'm going to ask probably what is the question here
that hasn't even even looked at yet?
Where are we meeting in Salt Lake on this date?
That is a good question.
I've had a couple of places in mind.
And they haven't gotten back to me yet.
So those details will be coming shortly.
I'm trying to find a good car oriented place.
Last year on the non bonds I run,
John and I started at the Toyota Land Cruiser Museum, which was awesome.
But their parking lot is extraordinarily small.
So I don't know that having a bunch of vehicles
starting there is going to be easy.
But that's a possibility.
And then I also talk to a movie car place.
Not all that unlike the one we started at in Denver
on the initial Bonsai run, different different owners, different place.
It's in Salt Lake, but they haven't gotten back to me yet either.
So I'm going to firm those plans up.
And then we also have to find a place to land for lack of a better term
there in Vegas. And I think we might be able to do that.
They might they might have a place. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Turns out they might have a restaurant or two in that town.
So those details will definitely be coming.
But I just wanted to get the info out, get the invitation out.
You're welcome to drop us a line if you want to let us know you're coming.
We're going to let everybody know where we're starting.
So if you surprise us and just show up there, that's that's cool, too.
And yeah, we're looking forward to having a lot of fun
doing it for a good cause.
And yeah, hopefully the weather will hold out for us.
And hopefully the crappier looking car that you bring, the more
I'm going to drool over it, I'm sure.
So, you know, you'll definitely get our attention.
But the how did you get it here in one piece thing that we would do?
Absolutely. Oh, and I'm I'm working on
a special souvenir that is is solely for this year's Bonsai Run.
I'm going to keep that one a secret, but it'll be a cool little trinket.
And it'll I'm going to tell you it's a collector's item.
I don't know that it's going to be worth a whole lot, but it's going to be cool.
Sure. Throughout the teasers and Libos.
I I'm doing everything I can to try to get 10 cars there.
I'm trying hard.
Yes, from two years ago, I still I'm still cruising around
with all the Bonsai Run key chains, at least one key chain on every set of keys
I've got. So this is definitely worth having.
All right, guys, have I have I missed anything on this event
that is shaping up to be awesome?
Not that I can think of, but we haven't asked.
OK. So look for a little bit more information.
Probably come out in the same format.
You're obviously listening to this the same place you get our podcasts.
This update, so to speak, will go away after SEMA, obviously,
because it won't be any good for anybody to listen to after that.
But it'll be published until then.
And the future updates will come out in much the same way.
And if we're really good, we'll even put them on social media.
So, you know, marketing, it's a thing.
I struggle. The struggle is real.
All right, man.
I will talk to you guys later.
Have a wonderful evening. All right.
See you, buddy. Bye. OK.
So for B Squad Hot Rod, this is Mav and Gail and Steve
because a squad can blink and have ten people join them on a cruise.
And they remember to hang out for the outro.
Yeah, that's true. That's true.
So if you want to help us out,
subscribe and review us on your podcast app of choice.
Don't find us on social media.
We're on Facebook and Twitter at B Squad Hot Rod.
Also, emails go to hosts at B Squad Hot Rod dot com.
OK, so because you're not staying for Seema, right, Muddy?
No, I'm not.
I'm going to have the whole family with me and we're going to hit.
We're going to hit the Grand Canyon when we leave.
Epic road trip. Yes.
Oh, yeah. We're going to hit Dodge City, Kansas first
and just do the whole, you know, the whole gun smoke thing there.
And then we're going to meet you guys in Salt Lake
and drive down to Vegas.
And then we're going to go down to the Grand Canyon.
And then we're going to cruise on back, stop at Amarillo
overnight and head on home after that.
Nice. That sounds like an awesome family trip.
If we haven't killed each other by the end of it, it will be.
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