Vaughn Gittin Jr - Full of Surprises

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All right, folks, on the podcast live in studio,

Mr. Vaughn Gittin Jr., what hasn't this guy done?

I've known him for 20 years now,

and I've watched this gentleman go from Formula Drift

to Ultra Four to Off-Road to Car Building,

and now there is an actual factory-built dealer

sold Ford with his name on it in his RTR brand.

It is extremely cool to watch,

and he's here in studio to talk about it.

Vaughn Gittin Jr. is on the Smoking Tire podcast.

Let's go.

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I was wondering if you know your Myers-Manks,

and I saw you took it to Fat Ice.

What do you think of Bandito there?

Dude.

So hang on, that's really the thing.

Have you ever seen the Manx in person?

No.

Okay, it's downstairs.

It's literally, your Bronco is parked right next to it,

so you're gonna see it.

You guys should put it around.

It is, it's funny.

You know, because you've driven tons of stuff.

Like you've driven race cars,

you've driven supercars, you've driven off-road.

Once you've sort of been through all the normal stuff,

and it gets weird, doesn't it?

Oh yeah.

Like what, don't you guys?

It looks very weird.

I was just telling, I just picked up

a 1980 M81 McLaren Mustang.

Fuck yeah.

And I was just talking about all the noises,

and just the 80s experience.

And that's where I feel like the Myers-Manks is.

It's just like that raw, mechanical, just.

Yeah, it's bad shit.

Yeah, just what am I doing with this

on the road right now?

It is a game, you definitely feel the danger, for sure.

But at the same time, it's like for running errands,

for our like, for my little 10 mile circle, bro.

The best thing ever.

There's nothing there.

There's absolutely nothing.

It's so sparkly.

It's the sparkliest thing you fucking ever seen.

It's like driving a fishing lure down the road.

I mean, it's not.

It's got like the Bassbow pre-enconnit.

Oh, it's fucking great.

It's a 12 layer gel coat.

It's deep.

Oh, really?

Yeah, it is like a Bassbow.

It's a half inch, five or less.

I put a standard paint job on it.

No, but.

And you should know, it's parked right next to your fucking

RTR Mysticrome Bronco, the Rover,

which I love Mysticrome Bravo.

Thank you.

All your cars actually come in with good paint.

Thank you.

We had that green spec three that was good.

We have the gray one right now, the battleship gray.

And then this, but the Mysticrome is fire.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's good.

It's interesting seeing that color off a Mustang,

like the Bronco, it's just a,

it's a different type of color on the Bronco.

It, that color actually rewards the different surfaces

of the Mustang better, right?

The Mustang has got hips and angles,

whereas the Bronco is a little more of a slab.

So you have to kind of move around it a bit more

to get the experience, but we want to try it.

It's more subtle on the Bronco than it is on a Mustang.

Have you done one on a Mustang yet?

Oh yeah.

Is it red on a Mustang?

It's unbelievable the amount

that people have been getting that color.

Well, it's the right age bracket that's shopping,

isn't it?

Right?

It's people that were like, you know,

12 to 18 in the 90s are now buying those, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

The fucking Mysticrome's fire.

It is.

Have you seen our Urban Bamboozle?

Have you seen that color?

We have.

We looked it up.

Oh, we looked it up on the website.

Yeah, it was cool.

We were talking about it.

It's beautiful.

Do you know where that color's from?

I'm gonna Porsche color.

Porsche did Urban Bamboo.

Yeah.

So we called it Bamboozle.

It's like a $100,000 Porsche car.

I'm gonna show you a car that we have downstairs.

Oh, yes.

That car is painted that color.

All of the normally gray plastic is painted that color.

The wheels are painted that color.

Shit.

I swear to God.

Hey, you know, everyone has their own style, bud.

It's the single most options 9-11

I've ever seen in my entire life.

Oh, it's actually, they did the wheels that color?

It's fucking 40 feet from where you're sitting right now.

Yes, I can't wait to see that.

It's bananas too.

The wheels of that color though, huh?

The wheels.

Yeah, the wheels.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's insane.

And the brake calipers too.

It's fucking great.

It's unbelievable color.

I have my spec five.

Yeah.

It's being done.

It's our first production test as my spec five.

So I did my spec five in that color.

It's just so good.

Let's, so people have the fucking first clue

we were talking about.

Oh, yeah.

There was an intro, so everyone knows JR is here.

Thank you for coming.

Straight from the airport.

Yes, sir.

And we've had the pleasure at West Side

of managing the RTR West Coast Marketing Fleet

for like three months.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your business.

Appreciate that.

And I've gotten to try the cars.

There's like a literally a financial conflict,

so I can't really review them.

But I've gotten to have a go.

And you've got your spec three Mustang.

Yep.

You've got your spec five Mustang.

And then you've got this Rover RVR Bronco upgrade.

And that's what we've got.

Is that, and that's all you're making right now, right?

Those are the three.

We have, we have a, the Rover is our like maxed out Bronco.

We do have other Broncos.

Like you don't need the Rover package,

which is the roof rack and all the protection and stuff.

Oh, okay, cool.

You can scale it down a bit.

But yeah, Mustangs and Broncos right now.

Okay.

So we've got the difference between the spec three

and the spec five is like 50 horsepower,

but more importantly, a GTD-esque body kit

that sort of does resemble the, how the GTD looks.

But you keep your trunk.

It's not an inboard suspension.

So you do have a trunk.

It's effectively, I see it as being like halfway

between your spec three and a GTD.

Yeah.

I would even say it's halfway as an owner of the GTD as well.

You know, the spec five, I think the only reason

even compared to a GTD is cause it's a wide body,

frankly, and the horsepower, you know,

it has more horsepower than a GTD,

but the GTD is literally a Mustang unibody.

The whole front end is, I mean, you know,

the front end is completely different.

It's a multi-cell frame.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I mean, it's, it's, it's very much,

it's very much on a whole other level,

which is why that car is over 400 grand

and ours is starts at 160.

What's that I mean?

It's like, it's halfway between a GT and a GTD.

You get some of what you would get with a GTD.

You get the power, powers to someone's ass.

There's no difference between a 15 and fucking a 38

or whatever yours is.

Yeah, like to your ass, like, come on,

there's no difference there.

It's fucking fast.

But you get a manual gearbox still.

And optional or an auto, right?

And you still get to use a trunk,

which if you actually want to use your fast Mustang

as a car is a benefit, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

No, I guess I, I never,

You don't see the comparison here, dude.

You know, I don't because when I,

when we launched this car, in my mind,

this was not even, doesn't even hold a stick to the GTD.

Right? Like in my mind,

the GTD is a full blown race car.

Sure.

35s in the rear, 315s in the front.

325s.

Are they 325s?

They are 325s.

You know, the cantilever inboard suspension.

I mean, it's like literally like the RTRX or the

unicorn that we build, you know, suspension wise.

And it's, you know, it's just a batshit crazy car.

And the spec five is batshit crazy in its own way.

But I, you know, we didn't strip the whole car down completely,

put our own front subframe, rear subframe,

all that stuff in it.

So I guess I get too much in the technical,

but to your point, and, and frankly,

a lot of journalists when a car came out,

more power than the GTD for half the cost, you know,

so I guess I never, yeah, I guess I never,

I don't think of it that way.

And I'm also pretty close to Ford.

So I don't want them to think that I think it that way.

But no, it's a fair perspective.

And you have a extremely refined palette.

I mean, when it comes to cars, you have a,

you, you, you, you know, the difference between normal,

great, you know, exceptional and crazy, right?

But a lot of folks, even folks who buy GTDs,

they squirt the throttle a few times,

they drive it around and, and they're not really,

really into the nuances of why this inboard suspension

is better besides I can tilt the mirror down

and look at it move in the window.

And that's, you know, I feel that way about some shit.

Like, I just, oh, it's, I just,

it's better cause some smart people said it was,

but I couldn't really tell you where I know.

And so I just think like, I'm trying to give your car credit

cause I drove it a good amount.

This, the Silver Spec five that we had here,

I took it down to Rancho Santa Fe cars and coffee

to take my nephew out for a good time and I drove it.

I think we picked it up from Larry Chen's house

and drove back from there.

And it's a very tight car.

It doesn't tram line with the wide body,

which is really nice, more than you can say about a GTD,

which is a little darty, and it's, it is fucking quick.

And it actually really felt like it had less,

like have you, did you ever think like,

especially with when, when they started doing,

putting that, that blower on all the Coyote motors

that all made like 720 horsepower for a long,

did you ever really think,

did you feel like those were not quite making that at the,

that power wasn't quite making it, the tires never,

never quite got there, you know?

Especially too, because they were very inefficient.

So after you geese it once or twice,

it would be like, I just lost a hundred horsepower.

So I thought, I mean, I didn't,

I didn't sustain the spec five high speeds for very long,

but I thought it felt like a little more of that power

was finally getting to the wheels.

And that was nice.

Yeah, we're pretty spot on.

In fact, we sold our car at 860.

I told him 860, even though, you know,

Whipple advertises at 870.

I just said, you know, let's just put it out at 860,

just to be safe.

But, you know, with dyno,

actually I don't want to quote myself on this,

but I believe it's like 770 at the tire.

Sure.

It's a bunch.

If it, a lot made it to the wheels.

Yeah, and especially with the manual.

In fourth gear, it rips on the highway.

I mean, it is very, very strong on the highway,

that car, I really enjoyed it.

I appreciate that feedback.

It had a nice ride.

It did have a nice ride too.

We spent a lot of time on the suspension

and like that car, you know,

represents the pinnacle of our capabilities right now

with what we have all things considered.

Suspension wise, you know, it's got to cool over

as we spent a ton of time on them.

There's tons of adjustment, both soft and stiff,

in case customers want to go further with it.

Obviously the wide body, you know,

we invested in metal tooling for that wide body.

It's all composite out of metal tooling.

It literally comes out of the tool, ready to paint.

It's like, it's like a factory, like Ford would make it.

Yeah, our previous spec fives, we use composite tools

and they needed a significant amount of body work

and little wavy here and there.

And for this and where we're at as a brand,

it just wasn't an option.

How many of those things can you build?

We're doing 50 a year right now.

Okay, yeah.

Where are they made?

So we've partnered with Fox Factory.

Where's that?

Fox Factory owns multiple facilities.

So they're the parent company of Fox Shocks.

Oh, okay.

And they have three outfit facilities

and they have some brands that they own

and we've partnered with them.

You know, I got to a scenario

and you'll probably appreciate this

where I created a great problem,

which was the opportunity to scale my business.

Created demand, created customers, created the want.

And I got to a place where it's like, okay,

do I wanna build a factory, deal with managing a factory,

deal with the amount of cash flow it takes to inventory,

selling thousands of cars a year, yada, yada, yada.

And I really just came to the conclusion of like,

look, if I could find partners

that I can just keep my brand focused on dreaming,

designing, engineering and making cool shit

and have someone else that has the ability

to run it at scale, I don't need all the money.

Like I'm not here to put hundreds of millions

of dollars in my bank account.

I'm here to just do cool shit.

And so they were a perfect partner.

They had the capacity, they had the ability.

They're the ones that enabled it for us

to be able to offer painted vehicles.

They got 10 paint boots.

And so we partnered with them to basically build our vehicles.

They're doing all of them?

All of them.

We do about a hundred at our facility a year

for one local dealer, Tyndall Ford in North Carolina.

That's just their highest volume and they're right there.

Yeah, they're right there.

And so that just works, but they do the rest,

distribute all across the country internationally.

Yeah, because the thing I've learned

being working with such big companies is like...

Folks, taking a quick break because support

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to learn more and welcome to the program, Mac Tools.

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Yeah, because the thing I've learned

being working with such big companies is like

once you get to a certain size,

it's really easy to lose the magic.

When I say that, one of our secret weapons

is our nimbleness and our ability

to create without a lot of red tape.

FMVSS is our only thing in EPA, right?

But as you get bigger than the processes come in

because systems are built for people to be able to leave

and do this and that, and it just, I don't know.

I feel like it's really easy to become stale

when you get too big.

And so that was one of my big things.

Like I would love to stay under 100 people.

We have 80 right now.

Okay.

And so with the relationship with Fox

for our spec vehicles, which we just spoke about

and then what we're doing with Ford

for the collaboration vehicles,

I feel like I have the partnerships in place

that just allow us to do bad ass projects,

design, engineer.

What's the difference in spec vehicles

and collaboration vehicles?

Yeah, so we have our spec vehicles

that we do all the design, engineering,

manufacturing of everything, right?

Those are our spec, our spec twos,

our spec threes, and the spec five.

We just announced the collaborations with Ford.

So we have a turbocharged Mustang RTR coming with Ford

and then we have the Bronco coming.

The turbocharged cars now it's on building price

on Ford's website.

Oh, cool.

I didn't realize that that was like a different

category of business for you.

This is absolutely a Ford product.

The collaboration vehicles are Ford products.

So it's built on the line.

Yeah, we share, we basically,

we share design and engineering studios

for both of those projects,

our design studio and engineering

for both of those products.

So it's not just like, hey, Vaughn,

we wanna do a appearance package RTR.

It's like, hey, we're gonna co-develop

what an RTR should be and we're gonna put it out.

And what I achieve with that is,

I mean, the turbo Mustang, $40,000.

Yeah.

Low 40s.

I mean, you can literally leave with this car

for under 500 bucks a month.

I mean, you know, credit, depending on all that.

Is there a press car in LA for these, for these yet?

We're doing the press launch.

They haven't announced yet,

but it's gonna be in a few months.

All right, quit.

You're gonna love that.

I've been bitch, I just wrote an article

for Road and Track about just bitching

about that there's so many things to buy

if you're a billionaire.

Yeah.

Like there's so many seven-figure cars

and there's so few like sub, you know, 100K cars.

They're just, we're like, that's a dying breed.

So a sub $45,000 car is awesome.

Yeah.

And it's totally proper.

It comes only with the, you know, EcoBoost.

I've been working on some calibration stuff

with Ford Racing.

I've got a prototype turbo upgrade at my shop.

And it's, we're gonna have a whole ecosystem for it.

And it's a really, really cool car.

We're just to detail the dragon with it.

What will they allow you to do

with like the chassis and stuff that?

Yeah. So stock as it comes, it's basically,

we took the base EcoBoost Performance Pack car,

which they don't offer anymore.

So we started with that.

And then once we started doing some testing with it,

we were able to go in and get some dark horse parts.

So it's got dark horse stay bars,

dark horse rear subframe, it's got the upper camber plates

for adjustment from the dark horse.

I was able to get them to put,

I shouldn't say able to get them.

We put Annie lag in it.

Oh, that's fun.

So when you're in track mode, it automatically has Annie lag.

Oh, that's fun.

And the response is very noticeable.

And when I was testing the car doing drifting,

one thing I noticed is,

cause they all come with a drift brake,

they all come with active exhaust.

When I pulled the handbrake

and then we'd go to get back on the throttle,

there was just a bit of delay.

And it's not a big turbo, but it's still, there was a delay.

And I knew that Ford had Annie lag strategy from the GT

from some of the rally stuff they do.

And I was like, hey, can we, I never like,

and the engineers I work with are freaking amazing, dude.

The passion that they had for this project.

You want me to warranty that?

Yeah.

That's awesome.

I mean, it's not like boom, boom, boom, shoot fire,

but the turbo stays spooled.

And now when you jump off the handbrake

and pick up throttle or you come in mid corner,

you go a little deep, you're off throttle.

And you, you know, you have to pick it up a little later

than you want, like it's right there.

It's really cool.

That's neat.

Interior is dope.

I can't wait for you to see it and drive it.

You'll love it.

Ben and I, Ben Hobbs and my other drift driver,

we're at Taylor Dragon at Ponies and the Smokies

this last week or two weeks ago.

And we had our spec two there, five liter V8NA,

and I was driving that.

And, you know, the spec two is a phenomenal car.

But I bet on the dragon, this is better.

Way better.

Yeah, I bet it's better.

I would take that car and the dragon over on my GTV.

I mean, almost all cars are too much cars, you know?

Anything front engine on the dragon is like, that's tough.

Like I got so spoiled, I was driving 918 on it last year.

Has light steering, actually.

Like it was great, but it's actually like, you know,

it's Miata or something is the shit.

I can imagine a four cylinder.

Like remember that, that 230i BMW, like M Sport,

like the four cylinder two series.

That was, that'd be nice on Taylor Dragon, I think.

But these would be good, yeah.

Yeah, so I mean, it's obviously a dream.

I mean, to have a production car for the, you know,

where the second person ever on the planet

to do it with Ford, with Mustang,

and maybe even first with Bronco,

but the Bronco is still the same mindset.

Is there another?

Yeah, Shelby's SUVs were Dakotas, remember?

Oh yeah, when he last, he did that last and then came back.

Yeah, he did a Dodge Daytona, the Omni GLHS of course,

and then the Dakota pickup truck,

which remember they did a convertible?

Yeah, oh yeah.

You get a Shelby Dakota convertible, that is like crazy.

Imagine the chassis rigidity on that thing.

Yeah, but you know, it's a dream.

Like when I started RTR almost 20 years ago,

like that was like one day I'm gonna do that, you know?

And here we are, and it's out,

and it's just, it's absolutely crazy to see

that we have a production vehicle with them.

It also gives us the, you know, the gamut, right?

Like my core audience that I've been growing is, you know,

still 18 to 35.

Now I have plenty of 45-year-olds like myself now

that have been with me for so long

that can afford our spec vehicles.

But you know, our spec three started, you know,

80, 90, 100 grand over the paint.

The one we drove was paint sample,

he has like 100 something.

Yeah, but now for, you know,

to be able to offer something enthusiast market like this

and the Bronco is gonna be, you know,

entry level enthusiast, focused,

it's just a dream to be able to like get something

like this out that people can afford.

Once Ford, you know, okay, now it's in production, right?

Now what kind of like maintenance do you have to do

on that collaboration side of the brand?

Yeah, so we've been working on this since 2023.

There was a couple of delays due to some supplier stuff.

And right now, so actually tomorrow,

I'm going to two local dealers here.

We're choosing like 20 or 30 dealers

and I'm personally going to share in the brand with them

and gain them on board because they're a key part, right?

The vehicles will sell, they need to be at the lots though.

So we're, you know, doing that.

And then really beyond that,

like there's no obligation, you know,

just to leverage it with content and just keep it going.

But like there's no like in the contract,

there's not a ton of things that I have to keep doing,

but it's like, I want to do things with it.

Well, I didn't mean more like things

you have to keep doing like, you know, appearance.

I meant more like, guys, support for this show

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Guys, taking a break from the action

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the CEO of Ford who's now got a podcast.

And you're always asking me what I'm listening to

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And right now it's this,

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But if there is one that is interesting to listen to,

it is Daniel Ricardo.

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And look, Jim is a racing driver also.

I personally raced against him like two months ago.

And for me, a CEO that drives race cars on the weekends

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So the two of them together obviously have a lot of things

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Well, I didn't mean more like things you have to keep doing

like appearance.

I meant more like now you've got the car out

and they go, okay, this is great.

Hopefully it sells.

I assume they wait a little bit to make sure it sells.

But after that, it's like,

we're updating the dark horse in two years with these parts.

Do you wanna start testing these parts for your car as well?

Like is it gonna be like that kind of thing

where they go, okay, we're looking to update this car

in three years.

So what do you think we could update

if we had this much more budget?

Does that kind of stuff happen?

Well, I've been working with Ford

on the back end of vehicles for a very long time now.

We have a Mustang, we have a Bronco.

I can't speak about a future product.

Can you speak about what the plans are three years from now?

But it is my personal dream that this,

and we're not there and I'm not sneaking anything in,

but it's my personal dream to like have the ability

to create like an entry level,

enthusiast focused ecosystem that is just building fun,

badass looking vehicles that people can actually afford.

And we'll still have our spec series of vehicles

and our Rover and the vehicles for people

that want something more,

but I love the opportunity to just bring it back

a little bit.

To your point.

Monkey Rally, Hydro Handbrake.

That car is great.

Monkey Rally fucking rips.

Dude, that car is great.

It is so, the Monkey is so underrated.

Probably the most underrated car on sale right now.

It's so underrated.

You put that on a gravel rally stage with me.

I'll take it over at 9-11 Dakar.

You know what I think happened?

I think we had the point where the perspective

was like the government's forcing us to do something.

So like you either got labeled what people

that drive electric cars get labeled, right?

And like nobody wants to be that right now.

And then it was like the government's making you do this

and nobody in America wants to listen to government.

So it was just like, hard no, I'm out.

And literally that attitude and that mindset

totally destroyed the electric vehicle industry

to an extent.

The combination of unrealistic goals.

This 20, 30, 100% EV mandate, which was ridiculous.

Well, that's here with your governor here in California.

The rest of the world.

No, it was here, but like where California goes

like fucking the car industry follows historically.

Historically speaking.

You know a lot of people here.

Yeah, I mean, it's the biggest car buying state,

blah, blah, blah, fucking, except for the gas.

We mean, the rest of the world was like, fuck you're 9-1.

Yeah.

You know, and also just, they're very expensive

and they couldn't really get the infrastructure done

to make them, people really perceive them

as being less useful than their regular cars.

For most people, not most.

For many people, they are not.

For others, they are.

And so, you know, Americans like to buy a car

that can do everything that they need to do now

and then a whole bunch of shit they might need to do

at some point.

Right.

Realistic or unrealistic.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you make a good point,

because when they first came out,

there was such a negative stereotype about them

because a lot of the cars were very boring

and then EVs had to dig themselves out of that hole.

So by the time you get to Maki Raleigh

and you have to convince a lot of the public

who's anti-EV, like this is a really fun rally car period.

It just happens to have electric power.

They're like, I'm not driving an EV.

They weren't even having it.

Right.

I mean, I did the media, I did the media driver

of that car.

We went forward out to...

Was it a dirt fish?

Yeah, a dirt fish.

And I mean, we were given rips.

I had so much fun.

We had a WRC driver there.

His name's slipping me right now.

But we had an absolute blast in that thing.

And then I have a Maki.

We made a RTR package.

It's a small appearance package for it.

And I mean, in fact, that's why I drove the airport

to come here today.

They're fucking awesome.

They've got 20,000 miles on it.

And you know what I've done maintenance on that car?

Fuck all, couple software updates.

Window wiper fluid.

That's literally the 5,000 mile thing.

So, you know, I appreciate it for what it is.

You know, am I getting rid of my V8s?

And I'm very grateful to be someone that has,

in a situation of multiple vehicles.

But man, I just feel like if you're a two car family,

like there's no reason not to have one.

It's an A to go over 200 miles a day.

No, it is their appliances,

but like you can do really cool shit with electric motors.

And like in the case of that car,

the programming of those motors,

with the thing that you're doing is so good

that it turns you into an absolute rock star on the dirt.

100%.

Which is like what you want from an all wheel drive system.

Like so many all wheel drive systems.

Like, look, I love Subaru.

But like a Subaru, this car,

a Subaru pushes when this car is rotating,

like all the time.

Right, it knows exactly.

It's like front end needs to be pointed that way.

Yeah, it just does the thing.

It's fucking so good.

It's so good.

So yeah, it should make one of those,

but there should be a,

one of just a handle.

Well, just as it be electric.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, the electric drift brake

that we developed in the Mustang is incredible.

Yeah, no, it doesn't need to be hydraulic.

It just needs to be a handle.

It just needs,

because right now it's a button.

Well, you can't even use it though.

Right.

Yeah, you can't use it while it's going.

Yeah, no, you can't be sliding.

Yeah, you can't, I mean, you know,

and speaking of that, when we,

just a little sidebar,

you know, we did develop the handbrake and it's progressive.

When I first thought, I'm like, oh, it's electric handbrake.

I just, just make it on a switch.

I just wanted to lock or not.

We had to, when we tried it like that at first.

You learned that at all.

And it locks so hard and just every time,

it just, it felt like the whole rear of the car

was just going to slide out, dude.

Yeah, so we made it progressive.

That's the first time, dude,

the first time he eggs that motherfucker

and feels like the entire rear of the car.

It did, dude.

I was like, this is not what we're doing.

Cause I thought in my mind,

cause I always been thinking about the drift car,

cause I'm like, you know, every now and then,

like when I had a straight axle Mustang,

we get pad knocked back and I'm like,

man, if I just had an electric one,

I could just pull it and lock immediately.

That's all I need.

But it's freaking out of control.

You didn't realize what immediate meant, I guess, yeah.

Exactly.

I'm like, oh, maybe that delay is like built into my timing.

I don't know, but we made it progressive

and it works so good.

And also the progressiveness is great for the Mew, right?

If you're on a hard surface, soft slick surface,

like, you know, you just pull it a little bit more.

So.

Yeah, super cool.

Trials and tribulations of developing handbrakes, you know.

No, that, I mean, that is a killer innovation.

Genuine being, you know, using electrification for that

is another great one.

And for Ford to say yes to it is also shocking.

I'm really surprised and happy about that.

Yeah.

Well, I think they know.

Remember the Mach-1400 we built, right?

Yeah, I do.

That thing was amazing.

Yeah, those guys, I mean, they know how to have

a pretty good time.

Yeah.

They usually, Jim and the boys,

they're usually down to play a little bit.

And even more now that we're committed to just

Yeah.

Creating emotional, exciting, fun vehicles.

That's so fucking cool.

No, there's the RTR Mach-E.

The wheels look great.

Thank you.

It's a really nice looking wheel.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a good looking car.

And again, this didn't take off.

But, you know, like, I've been very open.

You know, it's a lot of people hide from, you know, electric.

And I think it has a place, you know.

The EV modding thing, I don't,

it's not really happening much, you know,

other than like a set of wheels or something.

People just really aren't doing it.

It's hard to get into.

When you see a modded Tesla, you're like, come on.

It was like a cheap splitter in the back, you know.

It just looks like such loser shit.

Well, just because no one's designed the proper stuff.

You know, unplugged to make some decent go-fast bits.

I've seen a couple cool things out of them.

They do. They make some solid go-fast bits.

Shout out to them.

They're fighting the good fight.

Yeah, I have seen their stuff is not gaudy.

But just like, you know, 95% of the time,

if you see a modded EV, you're like, bro, that's just,

that's terrible.

What are you doing, bud?

You're just adding so much drag on, like,

whatever you're doing.

Is the range worth it?

There's one guy who rolls around Malibu

that has some kind of speaker system

that like blasts out like engine, like a cam.

Yeah, Borla just put sound systems out.

They're actually decent.

I don't think, I've always been a proponent

for electric vehicles that have sound,

but not copying something else.

It should be like Jetsons or Fun.

I don't know if you know, but the Maki 1400,

we have a military weapon.

What is the name of Slip and Me Again?

It's like the sound cannon that you use.

It is, it's literally, what is it called?

We have one on the front and the back.

It projects 1.6 miles.

Whoa.

And I work with T-Pain to develop the soundtrack

for the Maki 1400.

It sounds insane when it blows by you when that's on.

Whoa.

That's nuts.

That's like a riot sound system.

It's exactly what it is.

What is it?

That's crazy.

Is it T-Pain's voice on it or has he produced it?

No, I'll let you listen to that first.

I really need to get T-Pain on this show.

I've heard nothing but amazing things about him

and I think he's an amazing musician.

He's amazing.

And he's apparently quite a good driver.

He is, yeah.

We built him two RTRs now.

So we built him one, a street car

that we put Angle Kid and made Driftable

and then he's like, I want the full thing.

So we built him literally our FD competition spec car

but we put a coyote with supercharger in it for him

just so he had to deal with the unreliability of a race car

or the cost of running a race car, I should say.

Isn't that kind of like your demo car would be?

Like if you have like an exhibition car

would be kind of like that?

We don't have the good suspension on all the demo cars.

The quick change, all of our billet arms and stuff.

You put all that shit on his car.

This car literally is, but you want it to be a convertible.

So it's our first convertible.

Get the fuck out of here.

That rules.

I mean, cause he's Atlanta, right?

In the Atlanta area?

Yeah, see?

He's in Georgia.

Drifting in Georgia is hot.

Yeah.

I can imagine if you're not competing

and you're just like, and I know he competes amateur level

but if you're just fucking around and having fun,

a convertible drift car is nice.

Yeah.

Would you prefer one if you were just fucking around?

Ah!

With friends?

No, because in the rain, it's not cool.

Oh, in the rain?

Yeah.

I'm a nice girl, so I think about rain.

I guess he's seasonal.

Yeah.

This thing looks rad.

Do you run like an all season drift tire in the rain?

No.

You just fucking...

We just run our tires.

It's like whatever, right?

We just run our tires and yeah, it's fine.

Our car was pretty cool, honestly.

Thank you, convertible.

It's sick.

I'm about it, yeah.

We built these little humps.

You see the speedster humps?

Yeah, the speedster humps are good.

Yeah, yeah.

That was cool.

I really like the rally style rear wheel.

And it's fun colors.

I really like the color you painted,

the tubing and the cage.

Yeah, thank you.

That's a fun color.

Yeah.

And so that's basically the same motor in the Spec 5.

Yes, exactly.

The Whipple on a...

It's exactly it, yeah.

He's exactly it.

Yeah, look at these wheels.

Cool.

Dude, I mean, the coyotes, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong,

but it seems like everybody,

I mean, like it seems like you can put a fucking Whipple

on one of these things and on a stock motor

and not have issues.

Yeah, I mean, their phenomena like the Spec 5,

you probably want to go,

there's probably 30, 40 horsepower to be gained,

but you don't want to go much more

just with the factory rods and bore.

But still, that's so much power on a stock.

On a stock bottom, man, that's awesome.

You know, and like I said, we've dynoed it,

and you know, Cletus, he did it back to back

with the Stage 1 and Stage 2 Whipples,

and it was like 770, I want to say, at the tire.

This car is about 850-ish at the tire,

and this is the illuminator coyote,

which has different rods and stuff,

but the coyote is an unbelievable motor.

I mean, it's unbelievable.

The reason why right now we're not using it in competition,

and we use the Ry45 still,

is we're running 13 to 1500 horsepower in the FD cars,

and so with the coyote, we certainly could do that,

but the weight penalty with the blower

and all the cooling and the additional exchangers,

it's 300 pounds, 400 pounds-ish.

So it's just, that's tough.

That's tough, and we're trying to pull 510, 15 pounds,

you know, year over year,

we're trying to pull weight out of the cars,

it's tough for us to do that right now.

That makes sense.

But for the demo cars and the street cars,

it's unbelievable, unbelievable motor.

We're just in Formula D, just asking for some craziness.

Is that naturally aspirated?

That much power, no.

It naturally aspirated with nitrous.

So it's about 950, and then we shoot

about 300 to 500 nitrous,

depending upon what track we're at and what we're trying to do.

Man, that's fucking hard.

Yeah, it's hard.

It's fun though.

Of course.

It's an unbelievable machine.

Is it, like, is drifting this car at 1300 horsepower

that much more fun than drifting a car

from eight or nine years ago at 950?

It's way more fun eight or nine years ago,

because this shit is scary now.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, it's...

Are we entering the Group B era of Formula Drift?

Yeah, I mean, it's been that for three years now.

Is it all the fear from the speed?

Grip, all of it?

So, you know, there's, to the, to like the driver,

1500 horsepower, 800 horsepower,

it all depends about the amount of grip you put in the car.

Right.

800 is gonna handle less grip,

15 is gonna be berserk speed,

because the amount of grip you could put in the car.

I mean, we're pulling well over a G

in these cars these days going sideways.

That's serious.

Yeah, and so, to answer your question,

it's just the, it's how fast everything's happening.

Like these cars, they're not like floaty and like easy.

Like it's, you're doing something.

You know, we've recently dialed back a little bit

to be able to be better adjusted,

but the cars are just, when you're on throttle,

they're locked down and they're driving.

And when you're off throttle, it wants to come back.

Cause you're essentially running slicks as well, right?

Yeah, I mean, they're 200 treadwear,

I think is what our tires are in the rear.

Sure, 200 treadwear.

Yes, of course they're two.

But they're like really aired down.

Oh yeah.

Aren't they like fucking 12 pounds or something you run?

Yeah, we run like single digits sometimes.

Are they just changing?

Do they change direction faster,

more quickly now because of all the grip?

You know, and you have all this kinetic energy

from the speed.

So is that, everything's happening faster?

Everything's more responsive, the acceleration's faster,

everything.

In fact, I was just at Drift Appalachia.

Love that event.

Oh my God.

It was so good.

We went there just a couple of weeks ago

and I was running my, usually I run the factory

off the shelf Nitto NT555 G2's in the demo car.

Okay.

But my wheels didn't get coded in time for my new livery.

So I took the FD wheels and put them on my demo car.

And I had the tires that were running in FD.

And my freaking handbrake that has no problem locking up

because on my demo car,

just have the factory caliper in the rear.

Has no ever, never been a problem.

And now I'm on a mountain and my handbrake's

not locking my tire.

So I'm going to switch back because it's that much wider,

that much grippier compared to the regular street tire.

So yeah, it's crazy how the sport has progressed.

It's really cool.

It's, I mean, it's selling out.

It's incredible what is going on with drifting

right now on a global scale.

So you think those changes that make it scarier for you

and make it better for the fans?

Or do you think it's just,

it's just the momentum of the sport or?

I think that question is very similar to like the mindset

of like, why was Group B Rally cooler?

Right.

You got to see the like, you know,

the things that like we enjoy, you know,

like we love competing at the top level

because it's like, who can bring the better mousetrap?

I like racing unlimited Ultra 4

because you have a very minimal rule book

and we can do whatever we want with the race trucks.

I like doing Formula Drift because it's pretty much

unlimited except for suspension mounting points.

So it's like the engineering and the prowess,

I mean, keeping a 1500 horsepower motor together

at 100% load, you know what I mean?

Like it's, it's, the team enjoys that part of it.

I think the fans get benefit.

Do I think that the fans would,

it'll be that much different for them

if we dropped 400 horsepower?

No, but it'll be different for us.

The engineers like to build a spaceship, you know,

you give them the box and they will build the thing

that just fits that box perfectly.

It may get back, you know,

they may be forced to dial it back at some point,

hopefully not because somebody gets hurt,

hopefully for another reason, but, but.

Sometimes it's like summary series,

it's constant, you know, stuff like smaller teams

can't afford it.

And they have prospects.

So when we're talking about, they have prospects

and they weigh, they limited it by the tire.

So it's a 255 or 265 max tire.

So if you show up with 1500 horsepower,

you ain't going nowhere anyway.

And that's the cost, that's the entry level of the series,

but pro, I love that it's, you know,

group B now I've been in the game for 20 years.

I've run one of the top teams.

So I might be a little bit jaded,

but the thing is, man, it's like,

this is also how I find you keep really good people, right?

Cause if you can, you know, it's, it's really easy

to smart people, to figure the thing out

and just keep doing it.

And then they get bored.

But if you can keep them challenged to innovate

and progress, we've won the last, not bragging,

but we've won the last four championships out of five years

in Formula D. It's a crazy stat.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the only reason that we're able to do that is

because we're not sitting on the couch in the off season,

we keep innovating.

And so if the innovation has to stop,

then you lose the good people,

then it just becomes, you know,

kind of rinse and repeat and nobody wants to do that.

Yeah, not in racing anyway.

Exactly.

But I want to go back to just a little nugget

that I got before.

Cause with the prospect of being limited to a certain tire,

you said, you show up with 800 horsepower

and you show up with 1500 horsepower.

It doesn't get you anywhere.

But that's an interesting thing for like the audience

to think about because a lot of people think about horsepower,

but they don't necessarily think about how much horsepower

they can put down.

Like Zach and I just drove recently

that the new M2, BMW, the CS,

which is like 530 horsepower.

530, 527, 5...

Sorry, which car?

The M2 CS.

Oh yeah, 523.

Well, the regular M2 is like less than that,

but already spins the tires like through like fourth gear.

And so this extra horsepower is present,

but is fully constrained by electronics, effectively.

And it has almost the same problem

if you turn everything off.

So it's just an interesting thing to like think about

that at this level, at this scale,

so if you were to show up at a drift event

and you have two cars and they both have identical,

say the same car, your fucking mustangs.

One is 900, one is 1400,

but they're limited to the 255 tire.

Is it, is all of that extra horsepower completely useless

in that scenario?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, and assuming like,

let's just say you're running the same tire pressure,

like maybe the 1500 horsepower could run seven pounds

where the 700 horsepower, 800 horsepower

would have to run 15 pounds.

You could get a little bit more drive out of it,

but if it was all things equal,

you had to run the same pressure, same shock,

same everything, absolutely.

Yeah.

Think about that when adding horsepower to your car.

You know, if you've got a regular car,

call it a Mustang, call it a fucking whatever,

and you put a whole bunch of horsepower in your car,

you know, think about your traction.

Yeah, and but it also, it also, though,

that is funny because we were chatting about,

we just, we, we had an article come out today actually

with car and driver, they instrument tested

one of our spec threes.

Oh yeah, cool.

And, you know,

Did it do well?

Instrument testing, no.

Oh, okay.

But you guys are driven it.

I thought it was fun.

Yeah, they're great.

But we don't, we don't build our cars

for instrument testing.

We build our cars as an enthusiast vehicle.

Yeah, rear wheel drive manual transmission cars

that could have a good zero to 60 in 2026.

And so, you know, we, so, you know,

we give this preface, if I want an instrument car,

we just put a different set of tires on it and send it to you.

We know the suspension's great, it can handle it.

It's built, it's built for a stick of your tires.

Probably build an automatic.

Sure.

If you, I mean, if you really, you know,

it would do better.

Right.

But the point I'm making is like,

what, what are you using the car for?

Right?

So it's not a blanket statement of like,

don't add more horsepower.

If you want to leave a dig or leave a light

and get the grip, less horsepower might be your friend.

If you want to do a roll from 60 to 100 or 40 to 100,

the horsepower, it will likely work

because you're not from a dig.

And most tires will, will handle that

as long as you're not an idiot with the throttle.

Sure.

So for me, it's like, when we're building a car

and, and this was kind of the interesting thing

about my perspective of the car and driver,

like the, the, the review was only about the, the, the data.

There was no discussion of the driving.

And we consciously develop our vehicles

to be very progressive, right?

It's my perspective that most enthusiasts live under 90%.

Sure.

Right?

You're going into canyons, you run 70, 80%.

That's a 60 to 70%.

Yeah.

You're cruising, right?

So I like to build a car that is very progressive

and confidence inspiring for everybody.

If you want to race car, we had this discussion today.

You, you'll get our car and you'll know exactly what tires

you want to put on to go the track.

I'm giving you a vehicle that you can drive in the rain.

You can drive back and forth to work.

I did drive the spec five in the rain.

You can do donuts and the tires aren't coming apart.

You can go drifting and you can do it many times

before you need a new set of tires.

If I give you an instrument impressing car,

you go do a couple of donuts, they're coming apart.

Sure.

You go to one track day or do any drifting there

to the cords.

So, you know, it's, I just go to that.

It's like the thing that people should take away

when they're building a car is like,

be very conscious of what you want.

Well, yeah.

What you're trying to achieve,

how you're going to drive it,

because that in lies the answer of what to do.

A lot of people will quote numbers to me

between two cars that we've driven.

It could be the M2 and whatever else,

but what it really comes down to is like,

if you and your buddy are ripping up a canyon

and he's in one of these and you're in the other,

these cars are the same speed.

They're effectively the same speed.

If you took them to a track day,

the better driver will put down the better lap time here,

but not necessarily the car.

You know, and even if like,

this one's better off the line,

let's go to all wheel drive and paddle shifters and blow on.

This is a rear wheel drive stick.

Like those two cars could still run the same lap time here.

They're still the same pace up an empty road.

Like the numbers don't really apply

to those situations so much anyway.

Right.

So, yeah, who cares?

Yeah, but it's always been discussion.

You know, is more horsepower equal more speed?

In certain scenarios, 100% of the time, yes.

Not everywhere.

Yeah, and not if your car comes with more horsepower

than tire from the factory.

But there sure is something really damn cool

being like, hey, bud, I got 800 horsepower

under that hood right there.

Yeah, we do a third gear roll.

Yeah.

It's all hooked up.

Exactly.

Or just saying.

In Texas.

Highway roll racing in Texas and Florida, absolutely.

I don't condone any street racing at all.

No, why would you?

You can do a roll racing on a runway.

Yeah.

I mean, never mind.

Allegedly.

Let's go to the people.

Sure.

Is that time?

The people always have something to say.

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slash the Smoke and Tire podcast.

It's where you get our show live.

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Again, that's Patreon.com slash the Smoke and Tire podcast.

We love these folks.

Very kind of them to join us.

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Okay.

Such as carbon monocoque and ball torture.

How far are we from seeing the top pro level drift series

going to all purpose built full tube chassis drift cars?

Your car's mostly that already.

It's a full unibody.

Is it?

Yeah, it's unibody, factory subframes.

We're only allowed to move the suspension mounting point

two inches on the subframe.

I thought your car was much more race car than that.

No.

Oh, okay.

I mean, when you look at it, we cut it,

we have a tube front.

So when we crash, we can replace it quickly.

But from basically shock tower to shock tower

is a full unibody.

You can't touch anything.

You can't touch the firewalls.

Drifting be better if you could build tube chassis drift cars.

Yeah, so I actually conceptualized something like this

a while ago using a Trans Am chassis.

I had it fully like baked out like a full container

would be a full team and we would travel the world

and do this.

And he, you know, his point is one of the reasons

why I don't know that it would work.

So from a competitive standpoint, it would be freaking epic

because all the cars would be the same

and the door to door and the tandem

and like just the proximity and it would be really cool.

But to his point, there's something very exciting

about the relatability of drifting right now,

even though we have 15 horsepower,

even though these are, you know,

hundreds of thousands of dollar race cars at this point.

Still looks like a Mustang, right?

Still looks like a Mustang, still very relatable.

Still in the aftermarket that's generated

off of these vehicles is massive.

So you technically can, I mean, we don't sell all of our parts,

but you technically go buy a Mustang

and there's people that sell an angle kit and this and that

and you can buy a Mustang and do all of it, you know?

So that, I think, that is a big part of the culture.

You know, that's a part of the culture that NASCAR misses.

You have to be able to like sort of imitate it at home.

Yeah.

And I think it fed NASCAR for a long time

because the cars looked like the cars.

And now it's like, oh, the Chevy's passing the Ford.

You're like, right, but all the bodies look the same.

It's kind of like who paid for it.

It was literally the same car.

The shops don't even build their own chassis anymore.

Yeah, they just put a different sticker on it.

Yeah, they literally are supply.

There's one supplier for the chassis now.

So from a, from a, from a fan perspective,

like just pure sport, it would be exciting,

but from a big picture, cultural, you know,

all things considered automotive culture,

that's I think one of the exciting things

to his absolute point.

So I don't think that's ever going to happen in FD,

but I do think that it would be a really cool,

like special series like Iraq that travels, you know,

I'm like, because right now we get asked to go

to a lot of places, but the FD season is the priority.

We'll have one.

Yeah, but if there was like a whole other organization

that had the cars and shit.

30 of these cars, you put a different body on them.

It's like monster trucks.

You're smashing a car.

Don't matter, you just replace it the next day.

Call Sam.

The show must go on.

You go on.

I think it would be really, really cool.

It would be, you know,

it would be super fucking cool actually.

And then you only need,

you could literally use 500 horsepower crate coyotes.

Sure.

Because every car is the same.

You just balanced a grip to the tire.

Do you think sponsors would be resistant

to letting their drivers hop over to that also

because it might, like if the drivers are now in a vacuum.

The Saudis are going to do it.

No, no, no.

And then it's going to become problematic.

No, no, because right now, you know,

each of the teams for Toyota, Chevy, BMW, whatever,

like they can go, we build this car for our driver

and they try to tailor the car for that driver.

But once everyone goes to a spec series,

they kind of lose that kind of the marketing,

but also the control of it.

I don't know that you would have OEMs involved,

but I've also been surprised.

I mean, you know, the company that makes those lambs,

they had their name on the side of a no-name electric,

the FC or FX ones, whatever, Andreas Erickson's,

what are those called?

The rally cars that, the Nitro Cross.

The Nitro Rally Cross?

Yeah, I mean, that was a, that's true.

So some, you know, it depends on who's,

what the manufacturer is doing.

I don't believe that, I don't believe outside a NASCAR

that Ford would do that,

unless there was a way that there was some learning, right?

Like here's a good example.

My Ultra 4 Race Truck, the unlimited class,

is a tube chassis truck with a Bronco Raptor body on it.

Sure.

But we run Fox Live Alvin, that truck,

which is on all the Raptors,

we're always gaining and progressing that system.

We also have independent front suspension,

very similar link rear suspension of how the Bronco is.

So the suspension geometry and the suspension

is a big learning, you know, in off-road,

that's the most important stuff.

So we get some good learning from that perspective.

That truck, by the way, was pretty much one of like,

only two or three things at Ice Race

that actually looked fast.

Yeah.

You know, like, this is a great way to make things

that like should be fast, look really slow.

This was actually fast.

It was like this and that dude's like twin turbo hurricane

on huge spikes that he was mobbing

and like one other thing that were fast

and everything else was really slow, but it looked amazing.

Yeah, so this is a bandito, this isn't even our race truck,

but this is the front and back of our race truck.

That cab you're looking at is an actual Bronco cab.

When Bronco launched, there was a cyber orange two door

that everybody saw.

That truck was going to the crusher.

Yeah, it was a dollar car.

So we got forward to let us get that

and then we put our ultra four front end and back end on it

and a Raptor R motor in it and that thing is unreal.

They'll give you this if you promise

to never drive it on the street ever again.

Like it must be unidentifiable as the thing it came

and started as, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was using the cab.

Yeah, dude, I just, we're talking about NASCAR

being on production cars for a minute.

Remember, I mean, we were both very young,

all of three of us were young, but like,

remember when there were like homologation NASCAR specials?

Like when the Monte Carlo had like had to have like

the fucking, yeah, like the idea that homologation specials

for NASCAR and like that probably like,

I mean, I don't know what the aerodactyl,

but that probably did drive some sales.

Whereas like, I wonder how many sales NASCAR

really drives today because the cars are just not.

It's not culture.

I don't believe it.

I don't believe that it supports the culture,

but I do think it, I do think at some level

it still gives brand preference,

but I don't think culturally people are like,

oh, I'm getting a Mustang.

I'm going to watch Joey Logano race NASCAR.

Drift probably does a lot more than the NASCAR

in terms of seeing, you know, the car that you,

because aren't there a couple of people in FD,

at least one who are driving like a 240?

Yeah, yeah, like.

Yeah, there's no question.

I mean, I mean, when I started with Mustang,

in fact, I don't know if you know we're doing a book

and this is fresh on my mind.

Oh, really?

Oh, cool.

Because I literally on the way here,

I edited the entire, like the whole book

for like almost final edit.

And when I started, the parking lots had no Mustangs.

Yeah.

People thought I was freaking crazy

for joining the MIS 13 to compete in a Mustang.

And now you go out in the parking lot and it's full.

You know, I'm going to say full, but there's a lot.

No, there's a lot.

There are a lot more.

Like back when in fucking 08 and shit,

it was not very common to be at a drift event

in a Mustang.

There wasn't a big aftermarket for it.

There wasn't really demand for it at the time.

I mean, it was still kind of a Japanese sport.

Getting it, getting it on a white window list, Vaughn.

Very good.

I like it.

That's very good.

What's a challenge you struggled with

when growing as a driver and what helped you overcome it?

P.S. saw you at the wall in New Jersey when I was a kid.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

For all three of us,

do you want to know you guys?

I don't, what do you mean?

I don't fucking challenge.

The challenge is I'm not very fast still.

That's my challenge.

My challenge is for someone who drives this much,

I should be fast.

There you go.

Slow and fast out, Matt.

You got anything here?

Maybe you're going to school tomorrow next week.

Before I went to last racing school,

braking, my braking was inverted.

My braking curve was terrible.

It was literally increasing as I went through the corner

because I was used to doing camera car shit

where you have to get close to a car,

you might have to add a little brake

and that was just trained in.

So I had to learn to invert my braking graph.

Yeah.

Interesting.

So I think this question is two-fold

because one of them for me,

I think I'll just give the one answer.

For me, as I was progressing in top level motor sport,

I realized that I would do really well in practice,

but then like when there was qualifying or judging

or the timer was on, I would shit the bed.

And so I started, and it happened on more than one occasion,

I'm like, okay, here's the problem, right in my brain.

And so I started, I read a book called Speed Secrets

by Ross Bentley, which I highly suggest.

Of course, our friend Ross Bentley.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Ross is great.

And as you do, I read the book and I just called Ross.

I'm like, hey bud, what's it take for you to come out?

So I brought Ross out of Formula D in 2008.

I brought Ross Bentley out to FD and no idea

what Formula Drift was.

Have you ever seen drifting?

No idea what drifting was.

I didn't care.

I didn't tell him to tell me how to drift.

I need to tell me how to fix my brain so I can perform.

And so that's when I went down the route of sports psychology

and training the brain and studying the brain.

And so that is something that if anyone is serious

about being a driver, it's the number one overlooked thing.

And any sport is the mental world.

Like, oh, I want the best car, the best tire, like no.

You can do a lot just by being consistent

and just by showing up with the proper mindset.

So that for me, I think probably not

what he was expecting the answer, but I would definitely

train the brain as important as anything.

Your episode on Ross's podcast is a very good listen,

by the way, when you were on there,

for people who want to learn more about the brain.

Dre from Houston, what would you have

as a hypothetical Mustang future variant wish list?

You're going to have to figure out how to answer this.

All right.

I'll give you one.

I wanted one.

I wanted a rear drive Mach-E that

has the rally suspension and less aggressive tires.

And I just want the GT rally seats and a more powerful motor

I wanted to call it a LX.

Don't they have rear wheel drive?

They do.

It's a standard-rate rear wheel drive.

Yeah, I had it.

But you can't get that with the really good suspension.

That was your first one.

You did all the reviews on it.

I wanted a rear wheel drive long range, good suspension.

Does that make no mind?

No.

OK.

No, yeah.

All right.

Let's see.

Hypothetical Mustang future variant wish list.

I really can't answer this question right now,

because I'm already living in the future with Mustang.

You can have an exemption.

So just stay tuned, because they're all coming.

Instead, track days are the best days.

Favorite non-ford vehicle.

Are you allowed to answer this question?

Favorite non-ford vehicle.

You know, I have to go.

This is really quintessential in iRolee.

But it's going to have to be the Countach.

Like, the five-year-old in me is going to have to say the Countach.

Sure.

I don't know if I told you this, but I bought a Pantera.

I have a Pantera product.

Yes.

I was going to do a Countach.

I got to tell you, though, after I drove it,

after I drove one, irrespective of the price tag,

I was so disappointed.

I was sad about driving it.

And so I felt that the Pantera would give me that childhood dream

look, but I could actually make it be a driver.

It is possible.

It's a very mod-friendly community, the Pantera community.

They customize their cars.

I like a Pantera.

Panteras are good.

They're a good time.

And Countaches are highly variable.

It really depends, like, not just which type of Countach,

but, like, literally, like, which one you drove.

And, um, yeah, they're not for everybody.

Yeah, it's my favorite, because wherever you go with a Countach,

you win.

It's been on my wall.

It's literally in my office, still, the poster I had at my house.

So, like, that's the one thing I have to answer.

I have other things I like.

But that's, if you're going to say my favorite, that's the one.

Are you putting, like, race motor in your Pantera?

I'm still thinking about the drivetrain.

Just like Coyote.

I'm still thinking about it.

I got a really badass D-motor, which is, uh, it's, like,

we're at, like, 10,000 RPM.

Yes, that's cool.

I'm also looking at a couple IndyCar motors.

Oh, my God.

I'm playing.

Is it a street car or a...

Yeah, but it's, like, how often am I going to drive it?

Not that often.

Right, so why not make it also?

No, but it has to be, like, kind of streetable.

Like, can you, like, can you make an IndyCar streetable?

I think so.

Were you know Rob Dom?

Do you know him?

Yeah, he's, he's trying.

He's got a, he's got a rack of old Kazi IndyCar motors.

As he made one of them street legal?

I don't think he...

He will, but I, but I think the drivability, if you could get a more normal V8 to rev to

10, I feel like that gets you enough of that super exotic Indy flavor, but you also could

slip the clutch on a hill and keep, and get going, the Indy motor might be, like, you

know, 18,000 RPM.

Wait, are we talking about practicality right now?

Just a tiny bit.

I like it.

What are you using it for?

You need to, like, if you're going to drive it on the street, you don't want it to be,

like, horrible.

I, I originally, my original plan was I had a full body design.

I was going to go batshit crazy, I was going to do electric front drive train, GT3 Mustang

race motor in the back, and then I'm like, I got too much going on.

So I scrapped the body.

I just got a whole metal, the, the Group 5 or GT5 style car, and I'm still working on

the motor in my mind, but I got, I got interior parts, that interior guy got metal work being

done to the metal guy.

So things are happening.

I'm so excited about that.

Things are happening.

I'm sure you'll figure out something cool.

What gearbox will you use?

Well, the ZF's in it right now, obviously.

The original five speed.

Yeah, that's in it.

Um, can you make the Ricardo from the Ford GT fit?

If you can, it's like the best manual of all time.

Yeah.

So this is where I don't know where I'm going with it, because 6XD, who makes sequentials,

they just came out with a rear transactile.

Oh, well, yeah, you got the hook on that.

Yeah, it could be fun.

Yeah, that's the way.

Yeah.

It's a new little old.

I can't argue.

I cannot argue with this.

So I'm, I'm, I'm still playing.

Okay.

It comes in.

It comes in as opposed.

I love a good Pantera though.

The Duffel Shuffle Retirement Club.

These names are great.

You guys are great.

What inspired you to build cars in the beginning and what inspires you now?

I mean, you just talked about the dream of Ford of having a having your own name on a

production car.

That's amazing.

But back in the day.

Yeah.

You know, it's, it's interesting.

And this is part of the story I tell dealers about the brand.

I have a photo of me as a five year old and like a little tux, my mom and her wedding gown

and I got Hot Wheels in my hand and I probably had it in my pocket too.

And they literally had to pry these Hot Wheels out of my hand so I could take the rings down

the aisle of my mom's wedding.

And my, my dad is who I have to say is, is who inspired me.

My dad was a used car salesman, so he's always buying cars from the auction and he, you know,

fix them up and he'd always, he was a hot rodder, so he'd always bring some random, random

cars home and always be working on them and he'd take me to street races and I just felt

absolute in love with it.

And I was actually forced to work on my first car.

My first car was a 64 cutlass.

Nice.

Had hydraulics and Dayton's on it too.

Did you put them on?

Did you buy it?

There was a, there was a, if you want to be able to find it, there was a Jamaican family

that had to leave the country very quickly in DC and my dad passed their house and one

day they wanted 12 grand for the car and like a week later they wanted like three grand

for the car.

Yeah.

And I had just made honor roll and my 16th birthday was coming up.

My dad was hardcore on grays, so for my 16th birthday, my dad bought it, I'd be shocked

if you find it.

You did find it.

On your Facebook, my friend.

Yeah, there it is.

One.

Yeah.

So that car is what made me.

Dude, look at the cable.

He's got the cable, dude.

That is the car that ended on the mirror.

You see the mural on the trunk.

So it was Washington DC and the Capitol building was on fire.

What?

This was, this car was mint.

All black, shaved door handles, full brand new leather interior, 330 rocket motor.

This is the car that made me.

And look at the short wheelbase fucking caravan in the background behind it.

That was the truckster, the family truckster.

But this car made me learn how to work on cars.

So I was inspired by my dad, but this car forced me because it was constantly breaking.

Ball joints, tie rods, I'm hopping and shit, batteries, dude, I used to go, I would blow

solenoids all the time.

I'd go into high school with just gear, just oil, the drug fluid all over my hands.

One time the trunk caught on fire, me and my three boys, I was driving to school at

time, had to literally piss in the trunk to put the fire out.

Wait, why does, why does the trunk catch on fire?

Cause I saw a low rider at hot August nights have the trunk catch on fire after bouncing

too much.

Yeah.

Cause there's 12 batteries in it.

And so what happened is my switch box fell over while we were driving and one of the

switches stayed on.

So the solenoid got super hot and started arc in the battery cable and there was an oily

rag in the trunk that caught an arc and flit off.

This is a big, amazing sequence in a movie.

Yeah.

I can picture this sequence of events happening in a movie, so it's three of us, right?

So my one boy, my best friend at the time, Ricky, I'm like, we're right at a corner store.

I'm like, run in and get some water.

Me and Jared, my boy, get out.

We're staying up in the trunk, you know, peeing in the, in the trunk.

Ricky comes out with like a 20 gallon, sorry, 20 ounce, like a 20.

He just went in and got the styrofoam cup and put it in the water and he's running

and the water splashed up.

By the time he got to it, there was like five ounces of the cup.

Anyway, we got the fire out and that is why I started or learned how to work on cars because

I kept breaking that car.

And then after that was the S13.

Wow.

Here we go.

You really turned the corners.

That's pretty discord quick.

2016.

This is me age 16 with my first car, a 64 cutlass with 100 spoke datans and a 10 switch hydro

system skateboard in the trunk and a mix of easy rancid and Wu Tang in the CD player.

There you go.

There it is.

That's it.

How I learned to work on cars.

And is that, it looks like a BMW E 30 in the little corner.

Yeah.

That was my step fathers.

That's the car.

Learn how to do burnouts and donuts.

There you go.

I had to tell him that a long time, I told him that a long time ago because when they

would leave, I had this little spot I would take it to and do some burnouts and donuts.

Dude, I love that you had a hydraulics fucking car.

I tried to buy it back too.

You know where that car is?

Yeah.

You knew it was.

Yeah.

And he, he wasn't going to sell it to me, but then he, once he realized where thought

what I was and he jacked it up and he's on a full frame off restoration to call the

hydros off it.

And now he's made it kind of like a street rod.

Oh, wow.

Was it, is it because you showed up his house in a GTD, Mr. Chrome?

Mr. Chrome.

Mr. Chrome suit.

Try to talk to Mr. Chrome down.

He wanted seven grand.

I offered him three.

This is well before the GTD.

I signed him out.

We're in a monocle.

We're in an RTR monocle.

Well before that.

That's incredible.

Low gaslight anthem.

Your 2014 SEMA.

Oh, the ultimate fun-haver truck.

Good short, short cab, short wheelbase truck.

At the time, did Ford consider putting something similar into production and why isn't such

a segment more popular in your opinion?

Yeah, I love that truck.

It's a good time.

Oh, it was great.

It drifted.

It jumped.

It on-road off road.

It was great.

Whatever happened to that thing?

You sold for charity or something?

Yeah, I sold it and then it was auctioned off for charity, I think.

And then, yeah, yeah, it was, it was auctioned off and then a guy I know bought it from the

guy that won it.

A guy in St. Louis, like a huge fan that's been around for a long time, bends his name.

And yeah, you know, no, they did not think about putting something in production like

that.

I mean, something like this with the different ride heights and airbags and stuff like that,

it would just be such a nightmare for someone like Ford to do that.

But he's talking about a sport truck, I think, and I do love the sport truck segment.

And I have some ideas for us in the future and I think, I don't think it's not that

the segment would take off.

I mean, Ford just came out with a Lobo.

You know, I think that there's an opportunity to do a sport truck ride in the future and

give it some horsepower.

You know, I think people really like that and I think now soon is the time to do that.

So it's something I'm definitely thinking about.

That was a cool SEMA.

I mean, that was a very functional SEMA built.

Yeah.

I mean, everything I ever built for SEMA is functional.

No, that's not everybody, though.

You know, true.

What should be?

Yamaha, Bibi Yamaha, Bibi.

We already know up to your as in gasoline.

We already sort of talked about Machi Rally.

Tensile for electric off road Yamaha, Bibi says.

What's your favorite Mustang you've ever driven?

My favorite Mustang that I've ever driven has to be the unicorn.

Yeah, I mean, I just I mean, I just that's a Moses to this day.

The most unbelievable vehicle that we've ever had come from RTI there.

I do want to give up to your as in gasoline just a little bit,

because yeah, he's typed this up.

OK.

I like the potential of off road vehicles.

Let's forget about the range and how you charge just a fear function of that.

The low center gravity weight in off road and the instant torque

phenomenal, right?

Think about like being in the sand or being in in situations where like in my

race truck, I wouldn't be able to toss the car.

You can't flip.

I mean, you might be able to.

But I don't believe you could flip a Machi Rally.

It would be hard because the battery is so low.

So that would be massive, massive benefits.

And then the torque in the wheel control like you could have.

I just think about like when I'm at King of the Hammers racing going up the rocks

just to be able to switch and have low output and just full grip on the rocks.

But then like when I'm in the desert or get in the sand and I actually need to

get wheel speed to get me going, the the the the infinite adjustability,

I think would be phenomenal.

Do you guys not have that in the gas powered truck?

Like driving modes, essentially, like you go under the rocks,

you can hit a button and the throttle is less responsive.

And then you know, because my truck right now, we don't.

We do not have that because we are drive by wire.

We can do that.

We just have not done it.

But it but it would not have the same torque control.

Yeah, definitely the electric car.

You could just be.

Yeah.

I mean, no, when we've done electric off-roading in Rivians, the G-Wagen,

like they're dope, right?

The difference, man, I'm talking about like not racing.

I'm talking about a regular person going up a trail, right?

When you do a gas car, even a very good one like a Land Cruiser or something,

you know, you hear the engine, you know, a little bit of strain and then you

can hear the tires a little bit in the electric car.

There's there's like no slip.

Yeah, it's just whatever is needed makes it, you know, like you're like

you're 15 on a horsepower drift car.

Oh, I need to get 22 horsepower and not 23.

Yeah, it's exactly that much.

Yeah, we built the switch gear.

I don't know if you know that the F-150 Lightning switch gear that we built for

Ford, we basically built that and made it have like wrapped raptor-esque

capabilities and the low center gravity of the battery in that truck was just

made the dynamics unbelievable.

Yeah, wide body salami says if must, if Ford doesn't make a Mustang quote

Dakar variant, would you the shit in and get in Baja Mustang?

Yeah, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you I have a concept in my phone of a rally

Mustang.

If they don't raptorize it, you know, you could certainly do it.

It's definitely something that is of interest to me right now with what we've

kind of got in development on our plate.

I don't know that I'll be in the next couple of years, but if no one does it,

I could say there's a potential that we could do it.

Front-wheel drive NSX says, what's it like working with Cletus?

Oh, do you have you met Cletus?

I've never met him in person.

I've texted with him hundreds of times and Zach and I are racing in his race

in Connecticut on July 2.

I was in that race too.

Yes, dude.

Connecticut July 17 staff race.

Are you individually doing it?

I don't know.

I don't know that there's a two person race.

I think we might each be in our own cars.

I love Cletus.

Yeah, he seems like a solid individual when he was just first

starting like 15, 16, always tells me the story.

He's like, he's like, dude, I was at Seaman.

I was so nervous to meet you and but you were like so cool.

And and and we've just become friends.

I I met him after that again at Holly Ford Fest

and he had his Crown Vic and we did some drifting.

And I literally talked to him this morning.

We're talking about doing some cool stuff.

So we're going to see you in July at his race.

I can't wait to start my first time doing it.

Yep. Yeah.

It's our first time.

You know me and Kurt Busch won one of the races.

I can't fucking wait to get my real drivers.

Is that sharing car?

Yeah, we shared a car and we won two Fierros.

Hell, yeah.

And so my mom, when I was five years old,

there's a video on my YouTube of me giving my mom one of the Fierros.

We when I was five, we used to literally we had we were we're dead broke.

My dad and my mom were not together by living with my mom.

Awesome relationship, my dad, but living with my mom.

And we just didn't have money.

And we literally drove a chivette with a blanket over us,

had a hole in the floorboard.

So our local radio station was giving away a Fiero.

And it was like 85, 87 ish.

And my mom, I mean, every time tried to win this thing, you know,

and never did.

But nonetheless, I won this Fiero through the race.

And I ended up, I gave it to my mom.

I got surprised. That's real.

And she drives it.

Seriously.

She her tag says winner on it.

She loves it so much.

It's the greatest.

That is fantastic.

It was so nice.

Nice of Kurt Busch to win that race for you guys.

Yeah, I would do pretty good.

I'll give him a good clean car.

I saved all the nitrous.

I didn't touch the nitrous button once.

I love there's a nitrous button.

Oh, my God, Kurt did kind of dirty win, but we won.

Winner's winning.

I'm just talking shit now.

And I'm going to lose hard later.

Don't worry, dude.

Good. Yeah, don't worry.

I can't wait.

How BBI auto sport, Vaughn,

what is your favorite one of your favorite formula drift memories?

Um, let's just say drifting in general.

I mean, for the drift, you know, there's been a lot of

you got championships up the ass.

You got a lot.

I mean, from winning winnings, I'll say just in general,

USA versus Japan, 2005 was my absolute favorite drift,

like win thing, but formula drift memories.

I mean, from 2004 to like 2007,

2008 is probably when it got real serious.

And I told you, I started doing the mental training stuff.

It was, we thought we were rock stars or race cars.

I mean, if you could like, if you saw like a cartoon

of where form of the D showed up and like bounced around

those years, it would just be like a trail of fire.

Yeah.

I mean, we had so much fun those early days.

I mean, barely organized, Wild West.

You actually did a pretty good job, but it was the drivers.

Like, you know, drifters are, you know, we, I don't want to say

the outcast, but we're all very like minded, you know, like

we're the skaters, we're the freer spirits of motorsport.

And it's always kind of been that way.

I mean, you know, the hotel furniture would end up in the

pool, you know, like the pool furniture.

And it was just like, it was just a, it was a wild time.

You had a bunch of dudes in there, you know, early 20s.

Sponsorship.

Good time.

So like those early days were really fun.

I mean, I definitely have a lot of great competition memories

over the last 20 years, but USA versus Japan was absolutely,

you know, my favorite.

And again, mentioning the book, I was just writing this today

and reliving this one story I'll share with you in 2005.

We brought the Mustang and everyone thought I was crazy.

And that whole year we had nothing but trouble with the

Mustang with the, with the motor we were running.

We were getting a motor from a guy in Canada.

His name was Sean Highland and he was the guy to build these

motors, but they just couldn't handle drifting long story

short.

My experience.

So USA versus Japan was at the end of the year.

We had a new motor Falcon went to Hasselgren.

You know, Kasselgren, they built the Toyota Atlantic Motors

back in the day.

Oh, they never built a Mustang motor.

They first shot built us to highest horsepower and a mod

motor ever.

And that's what I was running.

So I went into this round of USA versus Japan with no

confidence.

I literally borrowed a car like five of the six rounds of

forming the D that year.

So I had no confidence going into this and my first battle is

against Kazama and Kazama is like the previous years D one

champ like the guy.

And here I am.

You know, short, you know, I beat this dude and then I went

on to win that event and that was like kind of the shot hurt

around the world and it was such an impactful event.

Not only for myself, but drifting in America.

And so that to me was a really good memory.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

Also, can anyone beat Dean this year?

No, that guy is a cyborg, man.

I watch footage of him like, wow, he's unbelievable.

Unbelievable human unbelievable driver and yeah, it's it's

incredible that we have on the team.

Last one find me the squiggles.

That's a Google Maps reference.

Okay, there have been quite a few action sports stars who's

transitioned into motor sports.

Is there something relational between those two things as an

athlete or is it more of the relationships with the marketing

side and lifestyle brands leading to those opportunities?

100% with age comes a cage.

Yeah.

Well, I started in motocross and I skateboarded.

I rode BMX and so my my belief like when you break down driving

you're you're just managing weight.

Yeah, right.

It's literally going from motorcycles to cars is an advantage.

100% the big one because when you when you come off of things

like a skateboard and a bike or motocross, your weight needs

to be in the exact perfect places or you're crashing.

And so you become an expert like your internal gyrometer

becomes so finely tuned your butt dyno just acceleration

braking force you become so connected.

And so when then when you get in a car and you have a cage around

you freaking Superman so you push even harder than you did

before.

So there's absolutely a connection.

You know, everyone's like, oh go carts do go carts.

I'm like get a dirt bike.

Go ride.

If you want to do cars, go get a dirt bike.

Carding will make you fast for sure, but I don't believe

that carding gives you the same understanding of vehicle

dynamics as something like it's probably.

I think it's very accurate because if you go to the limit

in a cart, you're spinning.

You don't ever get to learn.

Well, and you find folks if they're very good at drifting

or rallying or loose surface driving or motorcycling, it's

typically backwards compatible with grip driving, which is

not true the other way.

You know, you could have some carts of aunt who's good in a

formula car.

They can't fucking do a basic second gear slide, you know,

or or even, you know, but but often the other way around.

Well, it's because their craft is is about driving at the

limit.

Yeah, yeah.

They're scared.

Most of them there.

There's a lot of outliers and I'm not discounting anyone, but

the reality is they put their 10,000 hours and gain the

limit and consistently be there.

They haven't practiced going over it.

Whereas rally drivers, motocross drifting, you're constantly

over the limit.

So reeling it back in, it's more of a mental thing than it

is a physical.

You just have to like remind yourself to not be sliding

all the time because it's slow.

100% not.

It's not like, yeah, it's fucking weird.

There's that 10% buffer, right?

Where if like 11% over the limit, get into 90%, I find in

road racing is very easy.

That extra 10% is freaking scary.

Yeah, yeah.

We work with Billy Johnson.

He's one of our test drivers of our of our TRs.

Yeah.

And this dude at the 95 to 100% unbelievable.

When I'm road racing, I'm like a 90% guy.

When I get to like 95, 100, it's just some feelings that

I've not felt and I don't have the confidence that the car

is going to stick.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So unless I'm out trying to, you know, win a record, I'm very

happy with driving on a road course at 95%.

I, I, you know, I race for fun for shits and giggles and I

race with a fucking kid.

Shout out to Tato.

He's 21.

He's races and super Trafeo and he is fast in a way.

I can't understand not just that I can't do.

Yeah, I have his day.

I have his logs.

I've lined them up next to mine.

I can't understand them.

You can't understand how he's doing what he's doing.

Dude, we're, I'm so lucky.

I recently with him and Tommy Kendall and Zach is coming

to race with us and wrote America in two weeks.

It's going to be fucking awesome.

But dude, this kid was at Kota in December was two and a

half seconds a lap faster than Tommy and he's like 21.

What?

Yeah.

These, these fearless and insane and like, we're just like,

yep, can't do it.

I don't know.

Yeah.

You know, sometimes you look at those traces and you're like,

I feel like I would drive through that wall if I do the same

image.

Yeah.

And it did that to me.

That's the thing, man.

It's just the, you know, it's just the, you know, you've got

it into driving harder.

Yeah.

Recent more recently.

I'm, I'm lucky, but I'm a lot of practice and keep it up

and whatever.

10,000 hours, man.

Yeah.

And did that kid used to do sim?

Oh, a lot of it.

Still tons of sim is that's something talking about backwards

compatible.

I can't drift sim for to save my life.

I can't either.

I'm pretty decent at road racing.

Yeah.

And I'm decent at like, you know, dirt on eye racing.

Like I, when I, before I go race at Crandon, I'll just run

some laps and stuff, but drifting can't do it.

But the kids that start and sim and get in a drift car forget

about it.

Dude.

Oh, hero, hero, Manoa, this Japanese kid who just got picked

up for WRC ride.

He came to form the D last year.

He puts in like a thousand laughs before we're around.

He's unbelievable.

He's, he's probably the only person that can beat James Dean

right now.

Wow.

As long as James having a good day.

Is this case is possible to, I mean, I'm sure this is a stupid

question.

Is there, is there a good like drift sim setup that is better

than others?

I don't know.

Cause I'm not good at it.

I'm not good at it.

I mean, your friend like Corey really likes it and a set of

course is really good.

But that's the one that depends.

But like wheel and stuff.

Yeah.

I try to, I try to practice for racing on semi suck balls.

Do you?

Yeah.

I have crashes in a sim that I would never have in a car.

That's the, that is the problem.

Just use it, but use it though to just get your eyes going.

Yeah.

You know, just get to follow the track and know what's there.

It's still very valuable.

You know, did you know that if you can just sit and relax and

get in a theta state in your brain, right?

So like premeditation, just, just sitting, breathing and run

laps in your head, your brain doesn't know the difference of

doing it with a car or not.

This is part of the mental training.

So before I show up anywhere, I got a hundred laps easy, right?

Boom.

See that?

And it just helps you memorize all those points.

Because it just makes it familiar.

So if you guys are doing any of these endurance races, like

leading into it, see the track, find the marks, assume the

rough breaking points, and it just becomes so familiar because

that's all you're trying to do is create, create calmness in

the chaos of racing.

And that is when you can perform at your best.

Well, actually, when I went over to the sim to Tato's house

the other day, I, the first I said, look, it's actually going

to be more useful for me to watch you run laps and talk

me through the breaking points than it is for me to sit there

and try to, my hands can get through this fucking corner on

the day, but you tell me, okay, three board, but, and you do

it a few times and I can, I can have it there.

I know tracks.

I can, I can have it there.

And then when I show up in the car, I'll be fine.

Yep.

And actually that worked.

Huge.

Yeah.

Huge.

I mean, every time I've ever gone racing, I go road racing,

I go find the fast dude.

I should do it more.

Yeah.

Many times has been Tanner Fouts.

Shout out to him to just get those little tips and then I've

got Tommy Kendall.

Yeah.

He's such a stud.

I love him.

And he's one.

Now, what do you do before the Crown Vic race?

Because you're like, now are you downshifting from D to three?

You know, what do we do in the Crown Vicks?

Yeah.

I think, I think I did shift.

The biggest thing for that race is it's a long race.

Don't race until the end.

Yeah.

Just get through it.

Everyone's, everyone's racing the front.

We all got no front right tire and then you just beep, pop and

do, do, do, do, do.

You stay out of trouble because, you know, how many laps is

this motherfucker?

I don't know.

I don't even know.

I don't know this race.

I don't even know.

I tell you, it's going to be so, I'm so stoked.

You're going to have a blast.

I'm so ready.

It's going to be great.

We are going to have a blast.

Hell yeah.

All right.

It's called the New England 900.

900?

It's what it's called.

Maybe it's 900 cars.

I don't know.

I can't find it.

We'll find out.

It's the longest number outside of Bob.

Do I have to make my flight a day later?

What are we doing?

This is a 24 hour race.

I've got myself into it.

Has he ever done a proper Enduro cleatus?

Not as a driver.

Has he ever hosted one?

Um, I mean, what's, what do you consider Enduro?

How long?

I don't know.

Six, six, eight, 12.

No, I don't think so.

It'd be fucking crazy.

No, no, there's qualifying.

There's a monster truck demo.

We're just sick.

Then there's a van race.

And then there's the actual 900 race.

All right.

Well, it doesn't sound like we're going to have to figure this out.

Otherwise, I'm going to have to change my flight.

Yeah, it's going to be a good time.

I do need to, I do need, Ryan will kill me.

If I don't tell you about my book, that's coming out.

The when's the book coming out?

Did you know we were doing a book?

You told me on this show.

I didn't know that before.

I had to get you one because I saw your eclectic books.

You don't get me one.

But it's like, I'm blown.

I'm sitting here reading.

It's like a book of the last 20 years and it's, it's called Raider Rock.

Is it a photo book or a written book?

It's both.

Okay.

It's both.

I wanted to do a coffee table book.

I felt the time was right to a lot of people are starting to get, you know,

wanting to know more about the brand.

And so it's called ready to rock, which is obviously what RTR stands for.

For those of you don't know, and it's dreamed passion and how cool shit

wins in the story of RTR.

And so it was, it's been a fascinating process.

You know, Mike Spinelli.

Yeah, Mike.

Of course.

Great.

So Mike and I have chatted probably for 30 hours over the last couple of weeks.

And I just been dumping my brain to him and he's kind of formatted and

gotten away and then I've gone through and literally edited every word.

And it's from like to start adrift all the way through this current moment

with RTR and it's got really some, I think my, my hope is that it'll be

inspiring to some because the reality is like on paper, on paper, like I'm

not the guy to be here.

Why?

Well, I, you know, I,

I dropped out of college.

I, you know, like, like all of those things, like with the success I've

had in business on paper, like the standard dad that's like, get a job,

go to college.

Well, it's, it's been a very different journey.

Yeah.

And those paths rarely lead to like extraordinary.

Those paths lead to like stability, but not, not extraordinary.

Sure.

Fucking rocking a six, four on hydraulics as a first car in high

school, that leads to extraordinary.

That's a different story.

Your shit is bouncing in the parking lot between third period.

Yeah.

You're on some other shit.

I think a lot of people still kind of get lost as like I have, I still

have people who now are like pushing their kids into this more traditional

thing and the world has changed.

Yeah.

Right.

The resources, the abilities that like, you know, passion is the most

powerful attractant in my opinion.

So if you can find that and just live it and believe it, the things

that you get from that come.

So this has a bit of, bit of that philosophy, a bit of like the things

of how they went down and it's, it's really cool.

And I'm obviously sitting here saying a book about me and my brand is cool,

but reading it today.

It's hard to go hawk a book about yourself.

That's tough because you're not, you're not like a look at me kind of guy

despite the race car and the monster hat.

Totally.

Exactly.

I think, I mean, I'll do it for like, I haven't read the book, but I have

been a fan of yours and I do think your story from what you've told us

on previous appearances is amazing because there's a lot of people that

even drive at your level, do FD and whatever, but you are like in the

room with the arguably the largest OEM in the world making cars.

And so you very few, very few people have that story at all.

So I think that's a really original story and it's super impressive.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I'm down.

And it's the chapter on tantric sex that really got me.

Yeah.

It's that.

And you're talking about that.

How Inboard Suspension helps.

Let's get that done.

JR, thank you very much, bro.

I appreciate it.

RTRvehicles.com is actually where you can pre-order the book.

Is that it?

Where can they pre-order it?

This is where we're looking at it now.

Yep.

Where do we get it now?

I should probably be able to tell people.

It says available for pre-order now.

Yeah, it's true.

It's your career books.

Where is that?

Caramania, career books.

Yep.

We are not doing pre-order, but it's on and people will find it.

We'll put the link in the show notes.

Yeah, ready to rock.

That's fucking awesome.

And Mike Spinelli getting the work.

He's a man.

I've had so much fun with him, dude.

We love Mike Spinelli.

He's the best.

Thank you everybody for listening.

Thank you to our patrons for asking such good questions.

If you happen to be in Stafford, Connecticut on July 17th,

come see JR Zach and myself racing in a Cletus race.

Apparently it's 900 somethings.

900 is so many of something.

I don't even know.

It's like an eighth mile speedway and we're just going to be so dizzy.

And yeah, RTR.

Spec 3, Spec 5, the Bronco shit part.

And are some parts available?

Alla Cart is accessories and dealers as well.

Yeah, cool.

Yeah, well, we sell parts obviously at the website

and then our collaboration vehicles come with Ford.

I'm so pumped.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Good for you, dude.

We don't have to get you in those.

Yeah, I want to try the four cylinder.

I even asked you about that before I even,

I texted you when the story came out about that.

I was like, can I drive that?

And you're like, well, we only have the 870 horsepower one.

Fine, I'll take that one.

Yeah, we'll get you.

No, but your cars ride, drive, stop, and handle very, very nicely.

Thank you.

They're very balanced cars and I really like that about them.

Thanks, man.

We'll see you soon.

Now go look at my sparkly legs.

And your, and your mystic chrome Bronco.

Let's go, bud.

Thanks, everybody.

See you live from Charlotte, 1010 Smoder Club

for the Heritage Invitational.

We got a live show and that's on Thursday and you'll hear it then.

Bye.

Vaughn Gittin Jr - Full of Surprises

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