Episode 190 brings us Joe Thompson, buggy-builder extraordinaire.

Buggy builder, Joe Thompson lays it all out in Episode 190; self-taught welder and bike enthusiast, Joe brings his varied background to the winningest drivers. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

4:08 – I would think to myself, there’s a bada**, I want to be like that!

13:19 – even when I was a BMX grom, I was glued to ESPN watching the Baja 1000

21:24 – “Are you any good?” Well, I’ve been told I have a good hand.  

29:18 – We’d always park the buggy on the street with a giant welding sign and an arrow pointing to the shop; I got lots of work from that.

39:35 – I know what’s wrong, I can fix it, Marcos totally blew me off

53:58 – the Gomez brothers and I are partners in winning, that’s what we’re partners in

58:50 – I see the fully independent cars being the future.

1:16:31 – The uniqueness of our sport is incredible

Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:02.340] - 

Welcome To Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the offroad industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future Legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land-use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call Offroad. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active in Offroad. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call Offroad.

[00:00:46.460] - 

Whether you're crawling the Red Rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability, four wheels or two. Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis Tires deliver. Choose Maxxis, tread victoriously.

[00:01:13.010] - 

Have you seen 4-Low magazine yet? 4-low magazine is a high-quality, well-written, four-wheel drive-focused magazine for the enthusiast market. If you still love the idea of a printed magazine, something to save and read at any time, 4-Low is the magazine for you. 4low cannot be found in stores, but you can have it delivered to your home or place of business. Visit 4lowagazine.com to order your subscription today.

[00:01:40.260] - Big Rich Klein

On this episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I'll be talking with Joe Thompson. Joe is a fabrication business owner, successful K-O-H, Ultra Four race car designer, and an innovator in four-wheel drive race car design. Joe, it's great talking to you. I'm really looking forward to this interview and finding out more about you.

[00:02:04.050] - Joe Thompson

Well, it's good to be here. I feel honored, to be honest with you.

[00:02:08.090] - Big Rich Klein

Well, I appreciate it. It's just a regular guy interviewing a regular guy. How's that?

[00:02:14.270] - Joe Thompson

Yep, that's pretty much what it is.

[00:02:16.150] - Big Rich Klein

So let's talk about the early days. We'll start off at the very beginning. Where were you born and raised?

[00:02:23.780] - Joe Thompson

So I was born in the Bay Area, raised in Mountain View, right in the Peninsula there. Later on in life, I moved to Grass Valley. That was around my 20s. But for the most part, born and raised in the Bay Area, I spent a lot of time there. Obviously, I was a BMX mountain bike kid, and I was consumed by that in my early days. Well, for me, for me with BMX, honestly, I think BMX is what instilled the competitive side of me, pretty hardcore because a cool story. But where I grew up in Mountainview, at the time I did, basically I was in Mountainview as a teenager, 85, 86, 87.

[00:03:11.420] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:03:12.330] - Joe Thompson

And that was an absolute that was the heyday of BMX, especially in the Bay Area.

[00:03:20.280] - Speaker 3

And.

[00:03:21.760] - Joe Thompson

We had three major tracks in our area, but we also had a ton of champions. We're talking the best of the best. We had, I think, there was four or five Hall of Famers that came out of that area at that time. We're talking the best pros, whatnot. So right when I started racing, I was in bicycles anyway. I was surrounded by literally the who's who of BMX back in that time. I'm on the gate with them, and they're around me. I had one guy in particular that would always ride by my house. He wasn't my friend. He was a top racer.

[00:04:06.990] - Speaker 3

Dude and.

[00:04:08.760] - Joe Thompson

Super well respected. He was a factory rider. He was traveling the country. He would ride by my house every single day. I remember when he would ride by, I would think to myself, There's a badass. I wanted to be like that. I think at an early age I had that… I was competitive in school. I did Pop Warner and stuff like that. I've always been competitive. But it wasn't until bikes were I was able to see people around me achieving things. You know what I'm saying? They were pushing hard, training hard, and actually achieving goals, championships and goals and number one plates and this, that and the other. That was hammered in early on. Then I started riding with those guys. Then you realize what it takes to actually win the preparation and training and that stuff, which applies directly to car racing. There really is no difference. It's a different venue. Right. It was a major part of my life growing up there. It was pretty awesome. I actually go there a lot to visit. Even to this day, I regularly travel down to the Bay Area to go ride my mountain bike or whatever.

[00:05:26.380] - Joe Thompson

It's like a homecoming of sorts. So I go back there quite often to ride still.

[00:05:33.900] - Big Rich Klein

I avoid San Bruno. I've shown Shelly where I grew up and took one of my grandkids by there, and that's about it. The only time I go to the Bay Area now is for 49er games.

[00:05:53.880] - Joe Thompson

It's funny. San Bruno was the town... I remember talking my mom into let me do this, and she just fought me tooth and nail, but she drove me to San Bruno and I bought a go-kart off of a guy.

[00:06:06.730] - Joe Thompson

I thought I just bought a trophy truck.

[00:06:08.960] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:06:09.930] - Joe Thompson

At that age, I thought to myself, Oh, wow, I've made it. I'm now Ivan Stewart.

[00:06:16.620] - Big Rich Klein

Having something motorized.

[00:06:19.400] - Joe Thompson

Yeah.

[00:06:19.880] - Big Rich Klein

So what was school like back then for you? Were you a good student? Were you indifferent? What was it?

[00:06:27.440] - Joe Thompson

Nope, I was a terrible student.

[00:06:29.430] - Speaker 3

It's.

[00:06:30.930] - Joe Thompson

Funny because you hear all these jokes about, Oh, I was just a bad tester. I was the opposite. I was a great tester. But I'm pretty sure that... I don't really believe in all the label stuff, but I'm sure that somebody nowadays would probably label me as ADD or something like that, but did terrible in school, terrible with homework. Actually, people don't know this, but I actually dropped out of high school sophomore year.

[00:06:56.580] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:06:58.140] - Joe Thompson

Yeah. So high school drop out.

[00:07:01.340] - Speaker 3

And.

[00:07:01.900] - Joe Thompson

My school years were fun. I actually enjoyed school as far as the social aspect. But again, all of my homies were BMX Gromms. So we basically got to school and counted the minutes until we can go ride after school. That's pretty much what school was for. It was to waste time until we can go ride again.

[00:07:20.990] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Kind of like the Southern California guys, Beach guys waiting to hit the waves.

[00:07:28.340] - Joe Thompson

Exactly. Yeah. So I wasn't a.

[00:07:32.510] - Speaker 3

Great student.

[00:07:37.110] - Joe Thompson

I'm not saying that it came easy for me. That's not the case because I was definitely no savant, you know what I'm saying? But things were like math and stuff was pretty easy for me.

[00:07:49.030] - Speaker 3

I.

[00:07:50.180] - Joe Thompson

Had a natural love of history and science, I guess you could say. I already love geometry. My grandfather was a pretty high upto 10, and he was a high school engineer with Lockheed. And so I think a lot of that was in my DNA. So that stuff came easy to me. And again, it's not that I was above anybody else with school. I was a little bit bored that I guess you could say, and my mind was definitely elsewhere.

[00:08:18.200] - Big Rich Klein

And do you mind me asking why you dropped out?

[00:08:22.940] - Joe Thompson

Honestly, it was a couple of things. At that time, I was racing BMX a lot. I was going to nationals and whatnot. I wasn't doing good in school. I had a stepfather. In hindsight, my stepfather and I have always we rebonded later on in life. But he was not from the same DNA as me. He was not a car guy. He was not a mechanic guy. He just didn't get me. You know what I'm saying? We didn't get each other.

[00:09:00.720] - Joe Thompson

Actually, I got kicked out of the house. But it wasn't because he was bad or I was just a total crappy kid. It's just that he just didn't understand me and I didn't understand him at all. We were just from different universes. Later on in life, when I became a parent, I learned that that's not that big of a deal. People are just different and he did the best he could and that's that. We came together later on in life when I was in my late 20s. I realized when I was a parent also later on that there's no rule book, there's no guidebook, there's no template to follow, so to speak. He knew as much as I did in that whole realm of things. But I ended up leaving basically because he and I didn't get along. I only moved a couple of blocks away to my best friend's house. Right? Right. Who, by the way, is still one of my best friends. He just bought a house here right near me in El Dorado Hills, which is super funny. That was that. I just went right to work and kept racing.

[00:10:10.040] - Big Rich Klein

What was the work? I followed my...

[00:10:12.770] - Joe Thompson

I worked at...

[00:10:15.340] - Joe Thompson

At the time, it was the largest bike shop in California. I think it may have been the largest bike shop in Northern California for sure. I think it was all of California as well. It was a huge shop. They had two locations and they sold over 9,000 bikes a year. That's a huge bike shop. That's unheard of to these days. That doesn't happen anymore. But we were in the boom. We were in that growth boom back then. We had Stanford College right by us. We had a huge clientele base. There's great locations. We were right on El Camino Real, so we had lots of traffic. I went to work there. I moved up pretty much right away. I actually was running the whole bike shop within within two years. I was a youngster.

[00:11:03.370] - Speaker 3

And we.

[00:11:04.630] - Joe Thompson

Had 15 guys there, and it was pretty cool. I really enjoyed that time of my life doing that. I have always thought that when I am close to retirement again or if I decide to get out of cars or whatever, I wouldn't be surprised if I open a bike shop, to be honest to you. I really enjoyed that part of my life.

[00:11:25.060] - Big Rich Klein

That makes sense. I mean, it's all about doing... I think life should be all about what you love doing.

[00:11:33.590] - Joe Thompson

Yeah, except for doing what you love doing doesn't always make you the most money.

[00:11:36.620] - Big Rich Klein

No, no, no. But my grandfather told me or asked me when I was 11 years old, he goes, What is it you want to do with your life? What do you want to be? And at that time, I was really into scouting and backpacking and being outdoors and fishing and all that stuff. And I said, I want to be a forest ranger or fishing game or something like that. And he goes, Well, that's pretty noble. But as you gain knowledge and you get older, find out what it is that you really love doing in life and figure out a way to make a living doing it. And he goes, And now when I say living, I don't mean how much money you make. You have to make enough to survive. But how you get to live your life. Are you doing the things that you want to do? And when I found Off Road, that's when I started to live.

[00:12:38.720] - Joe Thompson

Well, when it comes to the whole bike thing and Off Road and how that all came about, for me, I feel like I always knew what I wanted to do. I didn't have a whole lot of... I wasn't that kid who was like, I want to be a fireman or I want to do this. I always assumed that I would somehow be in some type of wheel sports. Actually, in my earliest days, I really thought I was going to build mountain bikes for the rest of my life to actually build frames. I did build frames for a while. I built a few mountain bike frames and some dirt jumper frames and whatnot.

[00:13:17.460] - Speaker 3

But.

[00:13:19.210] - Joe Thompson

I always knew that I'd be in fabrication or creation in some way, and I always thought it'd be some motorsports. And even when I was in... Even when I was at BMX Grom, I was glued to ESPN watching The Baha 1000, watching Ivan Stewart. I remember watching that famous clip of Robbie passing Ivan when Robbie was young. I remember being glued to the screen watching that and thinking that was just the best thing since sliced bread. I always knew that I'd be in some way, shape, or form. Now, none of my family was in motorsports at all. Not a single person. I wasn't around it or immersed in it, but I was very aware of it, and I was definitely a fanboy. You know what I'm saying? I loved offroad racing, from the Mickey Thompson Stadium stuff to desert racing. I loved all of it. I knew that somehow in some way, I would be fabricating, designing, or building something. Right.

[00:14:29.300] - Big Rich Klein

So from the bike shop, what was the next step?

[00:14:32.820] - Joe Thompson

So I worked at the bike shop, obviously for a long time up into my 20s, early 20s. And then I had worked on, it's funny now because it's pretty commonplace. But back then, basically, I designed a gear box for mountain bikes.

[00:14:51.780] - Speaker 3

So.

[00:14:53.310] - Joe Thompson

It got rid of the derailer and whatnot. And it was actually like an actual geared gearbox that went at the bottom by your crank set. Interesting.

[00:15:02.900] - Speaker 3

And I.

[00:15:05.510] - Joe Thompson

Had worked on that. And I had hooked up with a guy back east, like a machinist guy. And I didn't know any better, man. Remember, I didn't go to college. I was terrible in school. I wasn't super structured in that way. But I actually was making good money at the bike shop, and I actually had quite a bit of money saved. It's crazy to think that the whole time I was in the bike shop, I actually was making a good wage.

[00:15:28.760] - Speaker 3

And had.

[00:15:29.820] - Joe Thompson

A bunch of money saved. I just jumped in with both feet and moved back to Pennsylvania for about eight months trying to see if I can't make my gear box thing go. It was a total flop. I failed measurably. I made some parts. I went to interbike. I showed the gear box to all the different vendors. Everyone told me I was nutty in a fruit cake and I had no idea what I was doing. That's literally what happened. I literally got shunned by everybody. It's, and I had spent a lot of money. For me back then, I think I was into that trip or that endeavor for about 30 grand. I remember spending like $20,000 of my own money. We're talking like actual green money that I had in the bank and it was all gone. But I did learn a lot, though, meaning I learned at that point in time in that whole process, that condensed time period, the amount I learned in engineering while doing that was crazy.

[00:16:33.790] - Speaker 3

The.

[00:16:34.700] - Joe Thompson

Guy that I went back to Pennsylvania with, he was incredibly smart, almost too smart, like lack of common sense, smart. Right? Right. And that was also a learning process because I saw it. I saw him making decisions that were not based in fact or based in sound engineering. It was like my mom calls it my college time. That's what it was. She's like, Just consider that your college fund that you lost. That was the money you spent to go to college. And it really was. I did learn a lot in that time period.

[00:17:17.970] - Joe Thompson

Also in that time, I had bought my first TIG welder and I was fabricating and building parts for my gear box set up. Then once I came back, I was done, lost all my money, and I moved right back to Grass Valley instead of going back to the Bay.

[00:17:36.980] - Speaker 3

Area.

[00:17:38.610] - Joe Thompson

Mainly because I had family there originally, and that's where we always vacationed. I was always a mountain guy. I love the mountains. I love high mountain lakes. I love rivers. I love fishing, and I love obviously mountain biking. I landed there and planted roots there at that point in time.

[00:17:59.150] - Big Rich Klein

Born a flat lander, but never felt like one.

[00:18:02.510] - Joe Thompson

Oh, no. When I was in the Bay Area, I swear I was in those mountains, those Santa Cruz Mountains every day. I was never… My first car, by the way, my first car that I bought at the bike shop, I owned a Myers-Mankss. I own two of them, actually. My very first car was a Myers-Manks, and I fabricated my own bike racks for the thing on the roll cage. I had a roll cage on it when I bought it. I fabricated my own bike mount and thought I was a professional fabricator at that moment. I was literally either at the track or the mountains every daylight hour. And that translated over to when I moved back to Grass Valley, I felt like I was at home. It was a great place to be. Right. And my brother is still there, by the way. My brother, Brennan, he still lives there.

[00:18:57.580] - Big Rich Klein

In Grass Valley? In Grass Valley. Okay. Yeah. So when you got to Grass Valley, what was your focus then?

[00:19:12.250] - Joe Thompson

In that time period from the Bay Area to moving to Pennsylvania and whatnot, by this time I had quite a bit of welding experience, and I think that I was.

[00:19:25.060] - Speaker 3

A.

[00:19:25.960] - Joe Thompson

Fairly natural welder. It just came easy for me, I guess you could say.

[00:19:30.740] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, you guys that can do that drive me nuts. But yes.

[00:19:34.670] - Joe Thompson

It's funny because the welding thing is one of those things. This is the best analogy I can give with welding and who is good and who's not. If you meet someone that can dance really well. They just naturally know it. People who can dance really well could probably just naturally dance from the very beginning really well. I can't dance. I'm horrible. Right? Now, if I went to dance school, I could get a lot better. But I would never be like Michael Jackson because Michael Jackson is just a natural dancer or was or whoever. You pick any guy. But it's the same thing with welding. Some people just naturally know how to weld and some can learn me better. But I'm lucky that I was blessed with being able to weld and understand the fundamentals right away. Although now I'm suffering because my eyesight is going away a little bit. But it was still a fun thing for me to do was weld and learn. Anyway, back to the Bay.

[00:20:45.480] - Speaker 3

Area.

[00:20:47.450] - Joe Thompson

Or Grass Valley, I mean. When I first went to Grass Valley, I answered an ad when they actually had ads in the newspaper.

[00:20:54.990] - Big Rich Klein

When they actually had newspapers?

[00:20:58.100] - Joe Thompson

Yeah. Andand it was so funny because the ad said, TIG welder must be good. It's exactly what it said, and I had a phone number. I'm like, Well, I'll give it a shot. I called the guy up, and to this day, he and I are still friends. And he and Brendan, my brother, are super tight as well.

[00:21:23.920] - Speaker 3

I call.

[00:21:24.740] - Joe Thompson

Him up. He answered the phone and said, Yeah, I'm calling about your table in position. And he goes, Are you any good? And he said it with a tone of like, Don't waste my time. And I was like, Well, I've been told I have a good hand. I think I'm pretty good. I'd like to at least try. He goes, Okay, come on down. That's exactly how he said it too, with a hesitancy of like, I really don't want to have my time wasted. So I got there and the luck of the welding gods were shining down on me that day because I laid down some good heaters and he hired me on the spot. And I worked for him for about eight years.

[00:22:02.790] - Speaker 3

And.

[00:22:04.230] - Joe Thompson

He was building custom shaped, custom formed, custom sized Harley gas tanks. The whole chopper craze that was happening back then. Right. He was on the leaning edge. He built tanks for everybody. We built all of Jesse James original tanks. We built all the tanks for all the guys from American Choppers and the who's who of Chopper Blok built our tanks. Nice.

[00:22:31.270] - Speaker 3

I.

[00:22:33.440] - Joe Thompson

Was the lead welder.

[00:22:36.090] - Speaker 3

And.

[00:22:38.460] - Joe Thompson

Ended up becoming the production manager thing in that place or whatever. It was a small shop. We only had eight guys at our max, but we were pumping out 40 tanks a week. The tanks were expensive. They were thousand, $2,000, giving you an idea of what we were doing. And so I worked there and that was my long time deal. And then in between all that, my brother and I accumulate a lot of tools, and we were buying more tools. I literally had a tough shed that I was renting from a guy that we would do a lot of side projects. We were building roll cages and you name it. I was building bike frames and a whole bunch of random stuff out of this little tough shed. That's where that went.

[00:23:29.000] - Big Rich Klein

Let's talk about vehicles at this point. You said you had the Myers-Manks. That was your first car. Yep. What else have you owned that maybe led you into the off-road world?

[00:23:45.180] - Joe Thompson

I had a Myers-Manks that I then bought a Nissan truck, the old hard body truck. And then I bought a Chinawith off of, I don't know, Craig's List. I'm not even sure where I found it. Honestly, I can't remember where I bought stuff back then. I bought a Chenowith that I was hacking together to build a full tube Manx out of. And then what did I do from there? From there, I had a couple of Z cars. I had a 280 Z.

[00:24:19.070] - Speaker 3

But.

[00:24:20.380] - Joe Thompson

All my cars, to be honest with you, all of my actual drivers have all been pretty boring. I've never been like a big, hot rod or I don't have a lifted truck. I'm not driving around a truck on swampers or any stuff. I've always considered my daily drivers as utility. They're just a tool. I've always been that way, except for the buggies. Right. Which to this day I still love.

[00:24:50.140] - Big Rich Klein

I guess trying to lead to is what led you into the off-road side of fabrication in the world?

[00:25:05.430] - Joe Thompson

Let me just back up with the whole bike thing and suspension. I've been maybe a little bit bland here with this, but I definitely I mentioned I wasn't very good in school, but I definitely was a reader. I did love to read, and I read a lot. I read dumb, boring stuff, tech stuff, tech articles, you name it. I was consumed by cycle news, mountain bike magazines, offroad magazines, any matter what it was, it had to do with motors or engines or chassis or suspensionor welding or any of that stuff, I was reading it.

[00:25:48.430] - Speaker 3

I also.

[00:25:49.080] - Joe Thompson

Had a boring mind as far as I liked engineering stuff. I liked dry reading. When mountain bikes were big, and that was like the whole full suspension mountain bike thing was booming in popularity.

[00:26:06.650] - Speaker 3

I.

[00:26:07.580] - Joe Thompson

Was fully immersed in that, which is why I designed the gear box back in the day. I was fully immersed in suspension design. I took a lot of time to understand leverage curves and how that works and different aspects of suspension, what they do geometrically, the kinematics of the suspension, what it's to the vehicle. I think I had a good mental head start for off-road cars with that because, to be honest with you, bikes are the worst-case scenario, bicycles, I mean, are the worst-case scenario for suspension design because they have the worst unsprung weight ratios of any off-road vehicle. They're the hardest to actually to develop. I already had that burned into my brain. I was already a big student of suspension design. That was already part of my everyday thought process was suspension this, suspension that, whatever. Right? Right. And so in that time period of going back east and then coming back, I always had my mind on off-road as far as like I said, I was always a fan. I was always a fan of racing, always watched every race, watched every Supercross, watched every off-road race. I could get my hands on.

[00:27:31.950] - Joe Thompson

And so when we got our little tough shed in Grass Valley and we were starting to build stuff, we started to really branch out. We did lots of wakeboard cages, lots of off-road cages. I think the very first cage I ever built was for a Samurai.

[00:27:49.320] - Speaker 3

We.

[00:27:52.230] - Joe Thompson

Were doing a bunch of that stuff. Then the guy that I told you that I weld, tested for, I went to work for eight years, he actually lived on the same road as Kevin Yoter.

[00:28:03.680] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, really? Okay.

[00:28:04.920] - Joe Thompson

My brother and I were going to work one day, and we kept seeing this chassis in Kevin's yard. It was in the weeds. Finally, one day I just went over there. I'm like, Hey, Kevin. I didn't know his name. I said, Hey, are you interested in selling this thing? He goes, Sure, I'll sell it to you. He sold us that chassis for 300 bucks. It came with a green sticker. We thought that we had just struck gold.

[00:28:29.300] - Speaker 3

Then we.

[00:28:30.950] - Joe Thompson

Went back there. To give my brother credit, my brother did most of the grunt work. My brother is a beast when it comes to working on stuff. We took that chassis. I basically designed the front suspension and designed... The front suspension was unique. It's too hard to explain over the phone, but had a unique front suspension. It had 39-inch Swamper or 39-inch Irox, or no, 49 Irox, 22-R dual cases, all kinds of stuff. Day in the '70s, Snowfighter in the back, we thought was the best axel ever created—and we wheel the heck out of that thing. My brother still has it to this day, and it.

[00:29:07.310] - Big Rich Klein

Still runs.

[00:29:08.040] - Speaker 3

There.

[00:29:10.190] - Joe Thompson

Is that we doubled in that. Then I opened a full-fledged fab shop, an actual Fab shop.

[00:29:16.740] - Speaker 3

I.

[00:29:18.260] - Joe Thompson

Would always park that buggy on the street with a giant welding sign with an arrow pointing to my shop. I got lots of work from that. One day this guy comes in and he is now become literally my father. He's not my dad, but he's my dad. That guy comes in the shop and he walks… I remember him walking through the door just cocky as shit. He goes, Hey, can you want to loan them? I said, Yeah. This is like my old boss. He goes, Are you any good at it? I'm like, Yeah. He's like, Okay, why don't you build me a gas tank? I said, Okay. He said, I'll be back tomorrow. That's exactly how he talked to me. He still does to this day, he talked to me that way. He's just the next day with his rock crawler. It turns out that he was part of that.

[00:30:20.050] - Speaker 3

Whole.

[00:30:21.090] - Joe Thompson

Rat pack crawling crew, Walker Evans and him and the Curries and all those guys, they all wheeled together. I built him a fuel tank.

[00:30:30.670] - Speaker 3

And.

[00:30:32.620] - Joe Thompson

It turned out really nice. He was super happy with it and snowballed from there. He took me to my first trip ever going to Hammers. I went with him. We went wheeling Hammers. Highway 20, by the way, I think he named it.

[00:30:46.580] - Speaker 3

For.

[00:30:47.760] - Joe Thompson

Breaking that trail at Hammers. I'm pretty sure it was him who named it because Highway 20 is the highway in Grass Valley.

[00:30:52.480] - Big Rich Klein

Took.

[00:30:57.210] - Joe Thompson

Me to my first trip, wheel into Hammers. I had a great time. I love driving. I had a really good time driving there, and I felt like I was not a natural, but I'm saying I enjoyed driving. It was fun to do, and I was competent. I'm saying I wasn't like a rock star, but I was competent.

[00:31:14.280] - Speaker 3

So then.

[00:31:16.520] - Joe Thompson

Some time went by and I was very active on Pirate, and I was working on some suspension stuff. I was working on some IFS stuff. This is when Shannon built his first IFS car and I was really diving into that whole thing. But I didn't have a rig and I didn't have anyone that I'd ever built a car for or anything. He knew Rick Mooney him. This guy, Doug, Doug that had me to build the gas tank.

[00:31:48.140] - Big Rich Klein

And it's Doug who?

[00:31:50.350] - Joe Thompson

Doug McBurney.

[00:31:51.240] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:31:53.770] - Joe Thompson

Doug knew Rick, and Rick was looking for someone to buy a seating his TTF car for Vegas to Renner the long way back in, I don't know what year that was. 2000? Was it 2000? I can't remember what year that was. But anyway, Vegas to Reina the long way. That's when Dave Cole did it in his IFS car. What's his name? Built for him.

[00:32:23.070] - Big Rich Klein

So more like 2010.

[00:32:25.680] - Joe Thompson

Yeah, you're right. 2010. Sorry, 2010.

[00:32:28.250] - Speaker 3

And so.

[00:32:30.340] - Joe Thompson

I paid for the seat. I talked to Rick. Rick let's me drive. And I actually did pretty good driving. We were holding our own. I think I did pretty good. They said I did good. We did break a knuckle on the car. Had nothing to do with any of us. It was just a normal racing brake. And from there, I get a phone call from Rick a month later, and he's like, Hey, I just finished a car for somebody and he wants to race Hammers. He wants a co- driver. I told him about you. Do you want to co-drive for this guy? I said, Hell, yeah. That was Les Figaroa.

[00:33:11.700] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, okay.

[00:33:13.890] - Joe Thompson

Yep. He puts me in contact with Les. We're talking on the phone. I've never met Les my entire life. Les is like, Hey, we're going down here on this weekend and just come on down. So my first time showing up to Hammers ever, I cold call just showed up in the lake bed or second time to Hammers. First time being there with somebody else, I guess you could say, show up there and meet Les the very first time. I remember looking over to the camp next to us and there was John Reynolds with a giant sledgehammer straight in the wheel on his Unimog axel bronco, which I thought was pretty cool. That's my first time seeing John Reynolds, who was a king, was a legend on Pirate 4x4. I'm like, Oh, that's John Reynolds. Less and I formed a pretty good relationship. I co-drive with him for a few years, and we actually finished, I think once, I think we finished ninth one year. That was our best finish.

[00:34:11.630] - Speaker 3

But.

[00:34:12.620] - Joe Thompson

We did good in the car together. Then he sold that car to the brothers, actually. He sold that car that we had to JP Gomez. He didn't even know who it was, meaning they showed up with Bob Reggie, right?

[00:34:28.070] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, right.

[00:34:28.690] - Joe Thompson

They showed up with a bunch of money. They test drove it, paid for it, and took off. They didn't really even know the names. You know what I'm saying? Like, Les, call me and say, Hey, I sold the car. I'm not sure who I sold it to. So and then from there, I just kept pushing on the building side of things. And I ended up building a car for Les, which he sold. And he actually never raced it. A few other guys have raced it, it's still competing to this day. And then I then went ahead and I built that.

[00:35:08.010] - Joe Thompson

Did you ever see that 1964 Baha Galaxy 500? Right. Yes. That's driven on hammers a couple of times and stuff.

[00:35:16.890] - Big Rich Klein

Yes.

[00:35:17.520] - Joe Thompson

We race it at the Vanora Mexican 1,000. Okay. And so I built that. And when I was done with that is when Ihad to weasel my way in to finally meeting the brothers and basically forcing an opportunity to build them a car.

[00:35:37.660] - Big Rich Klein

How did that come about? How did it work out? I mean, not how did it work out, but how did you force that?

[00:35:50.420] - Joe Thompson

Again, we actually didn't know who bought the car. Les couldn't tell me who it was, but Les could tell me that it was in Northern California. He could tell me it was near me. But he wasn't sure where. And Lotus, which is where the Jones brothers have their main facility, it's one of those places in the Earth that it has a town name, but it's not totally official.

[00:36:17.730] - Big Rich Klein

Right. I wouldn't call it a town.

[00:36:20.140] - Joe Thompson

Yeah. So if you were to look up Lotus California and try and Google search, Moses, nothing's coming up. Right.

[00:36:28.930] - Speaker 3

And sowe.

[00:36:30.440] - Joe Thompson

Didn't know who it was, but I went to a NorCal Rock race, and I'm walking through the pits, and I see the car in the far corner of the pits. You have to understand that I meticulously maintained that car for four years. At least on the fabrication side of things, Les did all the mechanical maintenance, but I did all the actual fabrication stuff, and it was in great shape when we sold it to him. Well, now the motor, the axel was broken in half. The front axel, it's in the pits. There's four motor homes around. The doors are open. There's a smoldering fire. Parts are everywhere. There's an engine about 10 feet away from the car on its side. Front axel was broken in half. Literally, I walked. I'm like, What in the hell happened to this car?

[00:37:21.010] - Big Rich Klein

It got GoMez'd.

[00:37:22.570] - Joe Thompson

I literally called Les at that moment. I'm like, I found your car. It's destroyed. I never saw those guys. I never saw them at the race ever. I never saw them come back. No one ever show up at the pits. It turns out that Jim Kearns was down at Pickingpull grabbing a motor for it.

[00:37:40.920] - Joe Thompson

And the brothers were all… I don't know where they were. They were all gone. That was my first introduction to the brothers, even though I never met anybody. Then the next race, I'm there, and Marcos was racing his IFS car that was built by Dan, Trout, and Bob.

[00:38:09.090] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:38:09.530] - Joe Thompson

I don't know if you remember that whole thing, but I actually don't know the whole story myself. But they started building it, then Dan went on vacation, came back, and there was some discrepancies. I don't know, the thing wasn't fully finished out. Something happened to it. It was just one of those bills. It was just a difficult bill for everyone.

[00:38:30.980] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:38:31.710] - Joe Thompson

Anyway, that car was it was breaking CV joints. I walk up to the pits the first time I actually see the brothers, and Jim Kearns is like, up to his elbows in CV Grease, and he's repairing the CVs in his car. I just walk up as they don't even know who I am. They don't know that I race their old car. They don't know anything. I'm looking at the car and I'm looking at the front end, and I asked Jim, who I didn't know at that time, I'm like, What happened to you? He's like, Oh, we popped the inner CV, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and we're talking for a second. He's ignoring me because he's working. He's like, He's working. I'm bugging him, honestly. I'm looking at it. I'm looking at it. I'm like, I knew what was wrong with it. Just from glancing, I knew what was wrong. I wheezed on my way over to Marcos. I'm like, What's going on? He's like, Oh, we broke a CV. I know what's wrong with it. He totally blew me off. Yeah, okay. You know what's wrong with it? Sure, buddy. All right, get out of here, whatever.

[00:39:35.420] - Joe Thompson

Just some guy showing up at the track. Right. I said, Well, I'm Joe. I used to race your old lady car with Les. He goes, Oh, okay. Now there's a little bit of a connection there. We leave, come back for the next race. Same thing. Jim's elbows deep in CV, Greece. I pulled Marcus aside and said, Hey, I can fix that. I know what's wrong with it. And then this time he was like, Really? You think you can fix it? I'm like, I can definitely fix it. Still blew me off, whatever. The third time around, I got there again, same thing. And this time I pulled him aside. I said, Listen, dude, I know what's wrong with the car. I can fix that for you. And he goes, You really can fix that? I said, I can 100 % fix it. Get into my shop and I'll get it fixed. He's all, Why don't you do it at our shop? And I said, Okay. I basically just reworked the front end. I reworked that it had too much droop. They were relying on the limit straps to limit the droop. And so mechanically, it was overdrooping and popping the CVs.

[00:40:46.490] - Joe Thompson

I reworked that, built some new arms and whatnot, and then never broke a CV again. Then I had a little bit of trust from the brothers, and I started doing a little more work for them. They had a car that was started by John Hall. John Hall started the car for Raul Gomes, but wasn't able to finish it. After fixing Marcus's car, I went in and I finished that car for Raul.

[00:41:17.930] - Joe Thompson

Again, not a job I really want to be doing because it wasn't my car, but I still finished it off for him. That's when we talked about building the twins, the new IFS cars for him. Okay.

[00:41:32.710] - Big Rich Klein

Then the rest is history?

[00:41:35.930] - Joe Thompson

Kind of. One funny part about that negotiation, though, is when I went to their office, JP said, and I'm not even joking, he said, I just want you to copy Shannon's car. He was serious and I said, No, I'm not going to build Shannon's car. I already have a car designed, which I did. I had a car that had... When I was racing with Les, I literally, in the first 20 miles of racing with Les for the very first time, I told him, I said, I have a car design. I'm ready to build this thing. I already formulated in my mind what I felt would be the best car. I refined that design. I kept drawn on it over the years. And then when this time came around, when he told me to build a copy of Shannon's car, I refused. I said, I've got something better. I said, You guys need to trust me. You're not going to get bambooled. You will have a winning car.

[00:42:39.700] - Speaker 3

And.

[00:42:41.910] - Joe Thompson

So it took a little while. And finally, I said, I remember, I think JP, I don't know if you've talked to him a whole lot, but he's a jovial guy. He's like, All right, fuck it. Let's do it. It's exactly how he was. And so that's what we did. I built him. I made no money on the cars, built him my garage.

[00:43:02.290] - Speaker 3

And.

[00:43:03.350] - Joe Thompson

That was that. That's how we-.

[00:43:06.350] - Big Rich Klein

And that was with your business was UFO?

[00:43:10.650] - Joe Thompson

So I didn't have any business name at that point in time. I was just me. Yeah. I had no business name. I had sold the other Fab business. I had moved on from that. And so it was just me working out of my home shop. And yeah, no business name at that point in time. I didn't name it UFO until halfway into JP's car.

[00:43:35.530] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. How did the name come about?

[00:43:40.670] - Joe Thompson

I had already owned the name. I wasn't sold on that name originally, but I had already owned the dot com name. I actually was an incessant dot com buying guy. I actually owned quite a few names of things I wanted to build or things I liked. I would buy the domain and set it aside in case I could make something happen. I always liked the name UFO mainly because it's not a Jeep. It's nothing against Jeeps. It's just that I'm not really... It's not that I'm against Jeeps or Broncos for that matter, any stuff, but I'm more of a purpose-built guy. When you design a car, it's all about the bones and the performance first, and then the esthetics are last. Right? Right. So when you build in that manner, things tend to look a little different than what maybe the standard norms are. Right? And so because I wasn't building a Jeep and I wasn't building something that was dressed up to look pretty, I thought, UFO is a perfect name because it's a fast car, doesn't look like anything else. It's an alien, right? Right. Out, not of the normal cut and cloth.

[00:45:03.450] - Joe Thompson

And so that's where I.

[00:45:04.290] - Big Rich Klein

Came from. Okay.

[00:45:05.660] - Joe Thompson

And then also funny story because I get asked this all the time, so I figured it'd be good to clear it up with you anyway, is John Reynolds had built that car on Pirate, and he had called that one he built for...

[00:45:19.480] - Joe Thompson

Who did he build that car for? That original IFS car. Do you know? I forgot the guy's name.

[00:45:26.690] - Big Rich Klein

Was it? It's not the IFS? No.

[00:45:32.080] - Joe Thompson

John Reynolds built the IFS car for that racer who raced it a couple of times. Anyway, the company, his racing team was called UFO racing. John Reynolds titled the Pirate 4x4 thread as the UFO build. But I had already owned the domain name at that point in time. It was just one of those things. I kept it quiet. I own the domain. I didn't really care. It wasn't like I was trying to title to do anything with it at that point in time. When I actually ended up building the car for JP and I decided I was going to name it that, I actually messaged John Reynolds first and say, Hey, listen, I know you guys aren't racing anymore. I know you're not pursuing it. I know it's not your company name. Are you guys don't have any issue with me taking this name and running with it? Because I already owned the domain name. I already owned the dot com name before they even started their build thread. He's like, Dude, he's not racing anymore. I don't have any rights to it. Go for it. I got Reynolds's blessing to not I didn't want to create any waves because he was a badass.

[00:46:52.490] - Joe Thompson

He's a legend. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. I didn't want to start off pissing people off. Things were small enough back then that people didn't really know. There wasn't a whole lot of outwardly exposure.

[00:47:09.800] - Speaker 3

For.

[00:47:10.730] - Joe Thompson

All the car names and whatnot, except for, like Jimmy's. Jimmy's obviously had a big name back then. Right. Anyway, that's how the name came about, and that's the confusing clear up because sometimes I get asked that by guys. Hey, did you build this car or whatever? I'm like, No, actually, it was a John Reynolds built car. It was called the UFO build. I'm always explaining myself to me of that whole situation. That car, by the way, was super awesome. That was a groundbreaking car in itself.

[00:47:38.800] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I don't remember specifically that car. The one that I remember early was the one that... Rick Dermo's car that was full four-wheel independent that he and Randy had built.

[00:47:59.920] - Joe Thompson

Hand-on-hand. Yeah. Honestly, credit to Jimmy's four by four on that one because that car, when you look at it, if you were to go back in time and look at that car right now, how tightly they package that car and how well they package it is really impressive. Even by today's standard, you know what I'm saying? They did their own stuff. They figured it out. That was a really cool car. That was a neat car. I don't think it really got the credit it deserved as far as breaking ground in the XRRA world or whatever. Just being a really neat, well thought out car. It was pretty cool.

[00:48:51.220] - Big Rich Klein

There's been a few that have been that I thought were. Randy Ellis had the Red racer, whatever he called it, with the four-wheel independent. But that was a racer, but it was more rock. He brought it out to the rock crawls early. Then Walker and Anderson.

[00:49:16.990] - Joe Thompson

Walker had that one? Yeah. And so did Shannon.

[00:49:20.370] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. But they all bailed on it because... And it's typical like what happened with the Desert racing and the four-wheel drive is that they couldn't get it dialed in, and they were trying to do it during the season. They were interested in winds. So if it didn't work the first time, it was like, Okay, scrap this. Let's go back to a drag axel in the rear and then see what we can do.

[00:49:49.440] - Joe Thompson

Yeah, they didn't give themselves the.

[00:49:52.380] - Big Rich Klein

Time to see it through. Correct. Right.

[00:49:56.090] - Joe Thompson

Yep, I agree.

[00:49:57.560] - Big Rich Klein

So now that you're a UFO, you're building cars out of your garage in Grass Valley area, which I came up to because you were working on Jaron's car when I met you the first time and did that for the magazine, the thing. And then you end up teaming up with the Go messes even farther, a bigger relationship. And you move out of Grass Valley and you come into El Dorado County and you're working in Lotus there. I guess that's a Lotus address where Mountain enterprises is at. And that's where the shop's at now, correct?

[00:50:41.380] - Joe Thompson

Yeah. So basically what I did was I worked... Because I built a lot of their cars.

[00:50:46.700] - Speaker 3

They.

[00:50:48.150] - Joe Thompson

Were farrying cars to my shop all the time, and it was a pain in the ass, and they're tough on cars. So there was always...

[00:50:58.030] - Big Rich Klein

That's an understatement. I mean.

[00:51:00.540] - Joe Thompson

There wasn't a whole lot of reworks. There wasn't a lot of chassis problems, but there's a lot of bumpers, a lot of redo this. Like when Marcos crashed his car end over end, there's a lot of big reworks like that had to be repaired.

[00:51:14.970] - Speaker 3

So.

[00:51:16.200] - Joe Thompson

A couple of things were going on.

[00:51:19.890] - Joe Thompson

One, Doug, the guy I mentioned earlier that got me into the whole thing.

[00:51:24.350] - Speaker 3

He.

[00:51:26.710] - Joe Thompson

Owned the property that you came to. So that was a 10-acre parcel that I rented for a long time from Doug that had the four-car garage on it. Right. And then Doug wasn't the house that was adjacent to that big house. He was on 100 and something acres. Doug actually, he's now in Payson. He's in Arizona now. I knew he was going to be leaving, and I knew I was going to try and find a new place. I thought about it. I actually had a deal on the table to buy that place. But my wife that I married, Angela that I married, she's from here. She's local to Kalama, Lotus area. She already had family here. I honestly was ready for a change because I had been in Grass Valley for a long time. I thought, You know what? Now is a good time for me to make a move. To be honest, Grass Valley was getting a little bit bigger than I liked. Just a little.

[00:52:29.980] - Speaker 3

Too.

[00:52:32.870] - Joe Thompson

Much, I don't want to say city folk influence, but just wasn't the small town it was when I moved there. That's all. In Georgetown, part of the Rubicon right near the shop here, it's not growing.

[00:52:50.210] - Big Rich Klein

No.

[00:52:51.120] - Joe Thompson

Everything's privately owned.

[00:52:52.780] - Speaker 3

So bought a.

[00:52:54.670] - Joe Thompson

House there in Georgetown.

[00:52:56.320] - Speaker 3

And moved.

[00:52:58.090] - Joe Thompson

All of my equipment to... They've got a huge building over here that they use for their big equipment stuff. The race shop is on one end of that building, and I have a section of that race shop. So basically the way Itry to say it to people is that the brothers and I are partners in winning. That's what we're partners in. We're partners in the goal of trying to win.

[00:53:21.920] - Speaker 3

I.

[00:53:23.280] - Joe Thompson

Don't work for them. I have my own payroll, I have my own health insurance. My wife does books. So we're separate in that way.

[00:53:34.020] - Speaker 3

But.

[00:53:35.040] - Joe Thompson

We are aligned and teamed up in the sense that we want to win races. I still do work on other people's cars. We just finished a car for Dan Wierick. I've got another car I'm doing right now for somebody else.

[00:53:47.300] - Speaker 3

We.

[00:53:48.410] - Joe Thompson

Do work for other people here still as well. I'm not just doing just their stuff.

[00:53:53.210] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Okay. I was wondering, I'm sure other people understood the dynamics, but I wasn't up on that.

[00:54:03.940] - Joe Thompson

No, most people think that I'm a GBR employee, which is understandable for them to assume that, but I'm not. I have my own thing. I rarely see them, to be honest with you. I have to force my way to get a meeting with Marcus or JP or Raul because they're busy, dude. They are go, go, go, go, go, go, go. The only time you know that they've been in the race shop is if Marcus leaves the core as light can on the fad table or something like that over the weekend.

[00:54:41.880] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I've been trying to get where I wanted to interview all three of them at once. And I was told- That's tough. Yeah, I was told good luck with that. They rarely even have time to sit down, all three of them together. Yeah. Totally true, too. Because they all run different parts of the Mountain enterprise, and they're just... I mean, they're the number one. They have more employees. Their largest... What's the best way to put it? They have more employees in El Dorado County with their business than any other business in the county.

[00:55:20.360] - Joe Thompson

Yeah, I think at one time, I think last year, before PGN slowed down, at one point in time, they bought more Ford trucks thanfor like two years in a row than anybody else in America.

[00:55:33.640] - Big Rich Klein

Right. I remember when Bob got his truck, his current truck, or I should say, Paul's current truck, and he went into that same Ford dealer and says, Okay, this is what I want. And they said, Well, our whole allocation, everything that we have is GoMez's. And he goes, Well, just sell me one. They'll understand. Yeah.

[00:55:59.900] - Joe Thompson

Yeah, that's pretty funny.

[00:56:03.020] - Big Rich Klein

So what do you see is coming up in the future?

[00:56:08.830] - Joe Thompson

Oh, man. As far as new cars or technology or in what-.

[00:56:15.790] - Big Rich Klein

In all forms. What do you mean? In your life, in the UFO, Fab shop, car design, any of that stuff, without giving away- So right now, industry secrets.

[00:56:31.870] - Joe Thompson

Yeah, I get it. To me, I think some of the bigger things that are being missed, and I know that Lauren has alluded to this and so has Cody at Lasernut, I still think that IFS, IRS cars are definitely the future.

[00:56:50.980] - Joe Thompson

There's an issue with those things, though. For example, at King of the Hammars, the IRS cars, the fully independent cars are amazing. They're amazing when you have, remember, Renow nationals or NorCal where you got the long rock gardens that you had to blast through? Right. The IFS, IRS, fully independent cars are just incredible through that stuff. They're incredible through nuisance rocks, and they're really good. Honestly, people are going to scoff at this. They crawl better than anything else. You can ask people who have driven Cody Wagoner's car, they'll tell you straight up. It's incredible what they will go through and smoothly.

[00:57:40.000] - Speaker 3

The.

[00:57:40.500] - Joe Thompson

Only downside to the fully independent cars is that when you put them in a short course scenario with the big tires. They tend to drive differently because they have more grip. Obviously, it depends on the car layout. There's more things to that. But just in a general speaking sense, they tend to have more grip. So the driver's sensation is a little different. It's just a different sensation. If you take a guy who's used to driving a live axle of your car and you put him in a fully independent car, he's going to come back and tell you that it needs more swaybar and he feels like he's going to flip over. But when you watch video of him, the car might be level and flat, but he's not like the ass end of the car is not hanging out like a pro two truck. It's more stuck to the ground. We've seen this because when Mike Bergman had his independent car and also Marcus, is they tear up rear tires more than the live axle cars because they're getting traction. All that horsepower is being used. It's getting put to the ground a little more than you would with the live axle car.

[00:58:50.150] - Joe Thompson

Anyway, I see the fully independent cars being the future, but it becomes a question of which type, what works the best. There's a little bit of a venue effect there, like where you're racing, like it's Cranon, for example. I don't think that they would dominate. Maybe if you have a purpose-built one for Crandon, but I'm saying generally speaking, you take a car that races K-O-H and then put it through it in Crandon and it's independent, it probably won't do as good as something else. Right. But at Hammers, though, which to me, Hammers is the benchmark. Hammers is the benchmark.

[00:59:33.760] - Big Rich Klein

True.

[00:59:34.430] - Joe Thompson

You look at Hammers and use Hammers as your only data point. A fully independent car will dominate that race for sure. I don't know this for a fact, so someone out there could probably fact-check me, but I'm pretty sure Marcus is the only one who has gone through that whole race and has never winched.

[00:59:57.640] - Speaker 3

He.

[01:00:00.330] - Joe Thompson

Has winched before. I'm saying that he has completed the race before and has never pulled a winchline and has made it through every single obstacle without winching or without help. That's in a fully independent car. I don't know who else has done that. I'm sure it's been done. I just don't know who else has done it.

[01:00:17.910] - Big Rich Klein

They.

[01:00:20.340] - Joe Thompson

Wheel amazing. I think the fully independent cars are there. Also, it's drivetrain technology.

[01:00:29.540] - Joe Thompson

The drivetrain stuff, transmissions. You see Lauren playing with the manual. You see guys like Tommy Dyksra has got a new car being built by Tridenton that has a Sprrag. It's like a carrier bearing slash Sprrag assembly.

[01:00:46.030] - Speaker 3

I.

[01:00:48.010] - Joe Thompson

Know that I'm pretty sure Paul Hershaw has had a Sprag set up in his car. I think Lauren had one in the fully independent car for a while as well, I think. But those things have proven not to hold up. There's still progression happening. We're not there yet, but there's progression happening in the drivetrain area.

[01:01:05.430] - Speaker 3

Because.

[01:01:06.440] - Joe Thompson

That is our weakest link. When you look at an Ultra Four car, they're almost high end tractors in some ways. I hate to downplay what we've done, but we have a lot of custom drivetrain parts in our cars, but they're still very simple. Our T cases are basic. The drive train is beef, everything's locked up. There's no selectable transfer case. They're pretty rudimentary when you think of them from that standpoint. But the key is they finish races.

[01:01:46.540] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:01:47.070] - Joe Thompson

That's the key that people are missing that, too, by the way, is like, they finish races. And so in order to win, you got to finish. Right.

[01:01:58.860] - Big Rich Klein

With Raul's first car, you guys brought that down and finished it basically on the like bed.

[01:02:07.320] - Joe Thompson

It was actually done before that. Raul's first car was done before that. But I agree with you. It was his first race. Right. So in his very first race, he took third. I think the next year he took a second. I think the year after that was like, I'm trying to remember now. So he did a third, a tenth, a fifth, a blown motor, a sixth, a third, a first, and a first. Right. So from 2016 till now, he's completed every Hammers in the top 10, except for one. So... And it didn't have anything to do with the car or the drivetrain. It was just he lost the motor.

[01:02:51.210] - Big Rich Klein

And the brothers drive to win. I mean, they-that? Absolutely. They are what I call the Robbie Gordon textbook, Driving. You're going flat out as fast as that car can go through any section. If the car survives, you're going to win.

[01:03:19.890] - Joe Thompson

Well, let's rewind that a little bit because it's funny because we can touch on another touchy subject that people have blown out of proportion. You've heard the whole term the hobby racer thing, right? Right. Okay. Well, that was a term that was used by Vaughan in a positive way. He was working with some of the up-and-coming racers, and I think he was given a speech and used the term hobby racer. Now that's been taken out of context and people have been using it a little bit in a derogatory sense, like they're making fun of Lauren and Vaughan about it. It's a messed up way to twist the words a little bit, but the reality is the brothers… People are going to laugh when they hear this, but they are hobby racers. Right. Yes, they've won hammers, and yes, they've won some races. Right? And yes, they've won some money. So technically you could say that they are professionals, right? But the reality is their day job, which is consumed for those guys 12, 14 hours, whatever days they're doing, right? That's what they're doing every day. When they get back from the races, they don't think about race cars.

[01:04:43.900] - Joe Thompson

Their race cars are completely off their mind. They're 100 % focused on work, right?

[01:04:48.710] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:04:49.120] - Joe Thompson

So when they get to the races, this goes back to your earlier point, though, when they get to the races, that is their time to cut loose. That's their party time. They all have families. They're all responsible with their home life and that stuff. But the racing is their one outlet where they can just go balls to the walls, let it all hang out, and go for it. And when you look at the three of them, Marcus is the premier example of that. When he's here in the office, getting to meet with him is like next impossible. He's just work, work, work, work, work, work. Then when it's race day, it's all race and that's it. Then you've got a JP who's the same way, but he's more of a wheel man. Jp's more of the killer, Assassin, under pressure, getting the fastest qualifying time, fastest lap, leading the race. He's that guy. Then you've got Raul, who's the long game guy. He's the conservative one, but which also makes him a great K-O-H driver, by the way. He's the conservative one who doesn't go crazy out there. But the reality is they're all doing it as an outlet.

[01:06:13.200] - Joe Thompson

It's a part-time outlet. It has nothing to do with their profession. I think the only guys who are really doing it professionally would be Vaughan and Lauren, maybe. I don't know. Is Brad Levelle making money from racing? I know he's definitely a professional, right?

[01:06:29.600] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. I'm not sure if he has other- He's all-consuming. I mean, his work with Ford is his job, and that's racing.

[01:06:38.180] - Joe Thompson

Yeah, exactly. That's a professional. Lawrence, a professional, Vaughan's a professional. But pretty much everyone else is out there just to have fun.

[01:06:46.720] - Speaker 3

Right.

[01:06:48.950] - Joe Thompson

I.

[01:06:49.840] - Big Rich Klein

Can understand why that was misunderstood, and some people take it the wrong way. It was like when the term rock donkey with Pete was first. I can remember standing around the fire bed or the fire pit at the lake bed. Pete was racing there that weekend or that week. It wasn't even a full two weeks then. It was just a week. We're all standing around the lake bed at the fire. He goes, You guys just want to be like me. There was so many guys that took, they all took that wrong, and they were just like up in arms right away. I said, No, Pete, you said that wrong. You said that wrong. Because Pete and I were friends. I tried to explain to everybody what Pete meant was you all wanted to be able to race trophy trucks. But this is where you're racing. You guys are rock donkeys because you're racing rocks. And he calls Cameron Steele a donkey. That was his term. And we just happened to be rock donkeys. And of course, we all took that to the next level and the stickers and it was rock donkey racing and all that when we started and Shafer and Lance and all those guys started racing down there in Baha.

[01:08:15.740] - Big Rich Klein

But the term was misunderstood or what Pete was trying to put across is you want to be like me. No, you want to be like a trophy truck driver. Everybody wants to race at that highest level. Yeah. And Pete was misunderstood that way. Most everybody realized it later on. But that's a guy that's going to be missed. I don't know if you ever got a chance to meet him. I did. He was an interesting individual.

[01:08:47.290] - Joe Thompson

Yeah, very outspoken. And he was pretty close to being on point a lot of the time. He was always on point, but he had a pretty good track record.

[01:08:59.100] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And heOne thing, at least in the desert world, is that he may have been the most underfunded trophy truck team out there. Right. When I pitted for him and helped him out, we had two or three pickup trucks with... I remember the first time I showed up, they had a whole bunch of tools and toolboxes laid out on the back of a trailer, and we were trying to organize the toolboxes so that we'd have enough tools for each one of the chase trucks to go down the road and hopefully make a repair if needed. There was no real organization because everybody just showed up at the last minute. But the guy could drive. For one eye, the guy just was an incredible driver. And he loved to piss off Robbie Gordon. Yeah.

[01:10:03.630] - Joe Thompson

That's pretty awesome.

[01:10:06.790] - Big Rich Klein

So what about personally?

[01:10:14.050] - Joe Thompson

I've just been trying... I've been trying to get myself better on the business side of things. I'm not really a big business person in general. I don't think about money a whole lot, and I'm not consumed by it. But I do.

[01:10:30.480] - Speaker 3

Know that.

[01:10:31.640] - Joe Thompson

Getting things on a more professional plane, in that sense, is important. We've been doing work there. The wife has really gone through and fixed a lot of stuff with our books and made my billing out a little better. I would like to get some production stuff going in the future. But the problem is it doesn't interest me very much. If it's not an interest, it's hard for me to put the energy in there.

[01:11:01.110] - Big Rich Klein

But.

[01:11:01.550] - Joe Thompson

I do know that there's a lot of stuff that people have asked for from us that I haven't produced. And if I did, it'd probably help a lot of people out and it makes some extra income, that stuff. But that's an area that I'd like to improve for myself or for the company and for the guys just to get a little more like residual income coming in besides just the cars. But other than that, man, we were supposed to build a trophy truck.

[01:11:33.670] - Speaker 3

But the brothers.

[01:11:34.470] - Joe Thompson

Have slowed down a little bit. We back burn to that, which is a bummer because we had a really cool platform set up, and we did a lot of work on that thing on the Cad side of things. I was really looking forward to launching a UFO designed four-wheel drive TT truck of our own design. Because I felt like we had something different to the bring the table. That still can happen in the future. It's just right now we're not doing that.

[01:12:05.580] - Speaker 3

But in.

[01:12:06.370] - Joe Thompson

The future, I would love to do that. That's been my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal has always been to build a CT. From the early days, I always thought that somehow I'm building a trophy truck. Right. That's one of them. I want to do some UTV stuff. But other than that, I want to just keep progressing the cars and incrementally pushing things forward. I just want to win more races, dude, honestly. That feeling of watching these guys, these drivers win, if I'm not at the races or I'm at home, it's nerve-wrecking. I love that feeling watching someone like Raul or JP or Paul Wolf or whoever it is do well and get pulled position for qualifying or whatever it is, those are all huge wins. And I'm super thankful to see that stuff happen. And it's addicting. You want to do it every time. So definitely want to get another K-O-H win. I really want to be the first to win K-O-H in a fully independent car. First builder anyway. We've been close. We've been really close. And I do feel like we have the toughest and one of the fastest fully independent platforms, just getting the cars to fall where they may.

[01:13:38.780] - Joe Thompson

That one year, Marcos came from last to first. He passed to every car in the entire field, only to have a Haim joint break at the end of the very last few miles. And he'll tell you it was his fault. He said he nose it in really heavy into a ditch, and he knew he heard it. And then the U-Joint or the Heim joint finally gave it up just a couple of miles from the finish. And when he hit another G out and that's that, right?

[01:14:07.000] - Speaker 3

Right.

[01:14:09.870] - Joe Thompson

But I do feel that he has the ability to win that race if luck goes his way. By the way, that race, when he did that, when he passed every car from last or whatever, I think he got 10 flats. He came into the pitch one time with three flats at once. He was pushing. He is relentless with that car. Pretty impressive. But I just want to win, man. That's all there really is to it. I know it sounds like a really simplistic and boring thing or boring goal, but I just want to see the cars be on the podium. From any of the drivers, by the way, I like to see Paul Wolf do well. I'd see Raul do well and all the brothers, my brother. I really want to see my brother do well, honestly. I think he's really coming into his own as a driver right now. He's getting way more comfortable in the car and he's coming into his own confidence-wise, you know what I mean?

[01:15:07.510] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:15:07.790] - Joe Thompson

He's starting to believe in himself as far as the driver is concerned. I know I'm really hoping that he can put something together. I'd love to see him get a top five finish at Hammers. That'd be amazing. It should be a super proud moment watching him do that. That's all I really have, man. I don't really have a whole bunch of other stuff other than to ride my mountain bike as much as possible- There you go. -because I'm getting old.

[01:15:35.790] - Big Rich Klein

Keep in shape.

[01:15:37.540] - Joe Thompson

Yeah.

[01:15:38.370] - Big Rich Klein

I'm fighting that right now.

[01:15:40.630] - Joe Thompson

Oh, yeah, me too. My back's jacked up. And if I don't ride, it tightens up instantly, which a couple of days, and I'm limping around like an old man. As soon as I get on the bike and ride a little bit, I feel great. I just got to keep moving. That's all there is to it. Yep.

[01:15:57.190] - Big Rich Klein

Movement is very, very important.

[01:15:59.520] - Joe Thompson

There is one other thing I thought would be interesting to touch on if we.

[01:16:05.480] - Big Rich Klein

Have time for this. Absolutely. We always have time.

[01:16:08.180] - Joe Thompson

There's a couple of things that I think are important, and I'm not sure. I'll probably get heat for this. I think it's an important thing to touch on because it affects the sport. That is the whole, and Lauren will laugh at this, Lauren and I have had lots of conversations. We've had conversations both publicly and privately about.

[01:16:30.360] - Speaker 3

This, but.

[01:16:31.500] - Joe Thompson

It's like a two-part deal. You mentioned earlier about Pete and the rock donkeys and that stuff. Right. And the uniqueness of our sport is incredible. True. And my stance on our venues and where we're racing and the cars, this goes along with the cars thing you asked me earlier, is I don't know if my position is unique because I've talked to other top drivers. I've talked to, I'll just name drop right now, I've talked to Shannon about this, for example. Shannon's in agreement, as long as pretty much everyone else I've talked to on this matter, and that is our sport is unique. We're racing our cars through stuff that the TTs avoid or the class ones avoid. We're subjecting the cars to loads and impacts that you really can't design, you can't account for on a computer very well. You know, for example, if you're designing a trophy truck, you know that your intended course, your intended terrain is this. Take out crashes out of that equation because you can't really account for a crash. A crash are loads to the car that you'll never be able to plan for, right?

[01:17:49.470] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:17:50.220] - Joe Thompson

But in our sport, we know that we're going through a rock pile, and we know that we're going to be going somewhat fast. We know we're going to hit a load from this direction, that direction, etc, makes the sport totally unique. So building cars that will go through that stuff requires a lot from that car. It requires a unique approach to design.

[01:18:14.260] - Joe Thompson

And when you look at the hard engineering of it, the numbers of what loads go where, what impacts do what, what's going to do what, what's going to break the steering rack off the car. If you look at history right now, the past five years, the amount of steering racks that have been blown off a car or have been broken is astronomical. That just shows you that the lows of these cars are seeing, the impacts are seeing are incredibly great. Because the car is unique and because Hammars, we'll say hammars again, Hammars is the baseline course.

[01:18:51.480] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely.

[01:18:53.300] - Joe Thompson

The idea of taking those cars and then going racing somewhere else is awesome. I like the fact that we race at NorCal and then we race at the old Renau venue. But even those courses that NorCal Rock race is the best example of this. They have a natural rock section as well as a man made rock section. And in the natural rocks man, those guys, you have to slow down, otherwise you're going to destroy your car instantly. You have to slow down and you have to show some driving tact, some control to get through it and not kill your car. And then continue on your race and actually win. Right?

[01:19:33.800] - Big Rich Klein

Yes.

[01:19:34.920] - Joe Thompson

So when you look at the courses that we've had, like when you look at Crandon, for example, Crandon had the man made rock sections, which they were nothing more than a whoop section and Supercross. The difference is that they're made of sharp boulders versus actual rounded dirt whoops. But the fastest cars, you just hold it open and just blast across them. That's literally what you're doing. That's not a whole lot of thought. It's a two part thing that I'm bringing up, and that is, actually, and Lauren already knows this, I really believe that there should be it's really hard. It's a gray area, but not there should be only one car. But I think the cars need to highlight the terrain that we're driving through, and I believe the courses need to highlight the capabilities of the car.

[01:20:29.130] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely.

[01:20:29.880] - Joe Thompson

These courses that are short courses with a little sprinkling of rocks, that doesn't do it. That's not enough. You need to have some obstacles in there to slow these cars down. You got to punch over the top of something. You got to come to a stop, get over an obstacle. Maybe there's another one right after it. You got two cars and altering lines, three cars, whatever it is, altering lines, getting through this stuff. Then once they get through that section, they're back up to speed again. Amazing. That's what fans want to see. The courses need to match the cars and the cars need to match the course.

[01:21:07.950] - Speaker 3

I.

[01:21:10.130] - Joe Thompson

Don't know, I'll call out Lauren right now is that to me, the true mark of a good car is that it literally can do everything and can compete in every venue and be competitive.

[01:21:24.930] - Big Rich Klein

Not.

[01:21:26.510] - Joe Thompson

Just being also ran. That's where I'm the most proud of our cars, that they've shown they can do short course. They aren't as fat. I'll say it right now. The new car that Keith built for Jason.

[01:21:39.870] - Big Rich Klein

Shearer.

[01:21:40.590] - Joe Thompson

That's a fast desert car, dude. That's a fast-fast, desert car. I do think in a hammer situation, we probably have an advantage over him in some of the bigger rocks. But he has an advantage than Desert. And so you have to have that balance. That's why I always go back to not having five cars for five events, five different cars for five different venues. You go to Crandon.

[01:22:14.210] - Big Rich Klein

You should be racing the same car at every single venue.

[01:22:19.020] - Joe Thompson

Yeah. I know there's got to be an out or a rule for a broken car or something like the same way you have with drivers, that thing. I really think that that needs to be in place because you can't alienate someone if they have a broken car, they car wheel, they destroy the car. That's totally understandable.

[01:22:33.820] - Big Rich Klein

There's got to be some- One change in the season.

[01:22:37.160] - Joe Thompson

Yeah. Or if you have a new car being built and you're ready to unleash it, I get all that stuff. Right.

[01:22:43.900] - Speaker 3

But.

[01:22:45.340] - Joe Thompson

Having four cars in the trailer and then choosing the car that you want to race, depending on the track that you're at, I think is against the spirit of our racing situation. Plus, it also brings down everybody else. I'll tell you right now, if I was given the green light right now to build a short course only car, let's say Paul Wolf called me up tomorrow and said, Hey, Joe, here's 500 grand. Build me the baddest short course car you can build. It would not look anything like the car he's driving now. It would be a totally different platform. But that car would not go through hammers.

[01:23:25.320] - Big Rich Klein

But.

[01:23:29.600] - Joe Thompson

That takes away from the sport. It takes away from other people competing. The majority of our sport is comprised of hobby racers, and that's not meant as a derogatory. It's meant as these are people that are spending their hard-earned, work-day cash on a car. They're trying to be competitive. They're trying to go out there and win hammers and be competitive at the other venues. Well, why would they want to show up? If I'm showing up with the Go-Mans brothers with 10 different cars and we're picking and choosing the best car for that venue. And knowing that the guy who showed up in his Jimmy stress, the car is just going to get smoked the moment he leaves the line. That's just not a good way to get people to the start line. But also the promoters need to build courses that complement the cars as well.

[01:24:17.260] - Big Rich Klein

Agreed.

[01:24:18.030] - Speaker 3

So.

[01:24:19.790] - Joe Thompson

Anyway, that's just something I think is important. I also think it's important for the sport in general.

[01:24:24.130] - Big Rich Klein

Well, I think it equates the same thing as what's happening in trophy truck right now. I mean, look at the numbers of the trophy trucks at Baha this last week compared to years past. Everybody, so many people are dropping into the spec cars or the smaller trophy trucks design because they're more affordable and it becomes more of a driver instead of a bank account. Yeah.

[01:25:00.290] - Joe Thompson

I actually don't know the answer to this question, but in spec TT, you cannot run four-wheel drive, correct? No four-wheel drive in spec TT?

[01:25:07.770] - Big Rich Klein

I believe that's the case. I don't know that for sure.

[01:25:12.020] - Joe Thompson

I don't either. It'd be a neat thing to know. But I can see that, though, because Mason has done such an incredible job of come out of the gate with an amazing TT platform in four-wheel drive that works and is finishing races and is obviously incredibly fast. Right? Right. So anyone else who's showing up is showing up, hoping that they break, that the Mason in front of them is going to break. True. Versus showing up, knowing that they can compete against the guy who just left the line before or after them, and they're actually racing each other.

[01:25:50.790] - Speaker 3

So.

[01:25:52.530] - Joe Thompson

Same thing with us. I think there should be venues that compliment the cars need to complement the venue. And getting people.

[01:26:01.430] - Big Rich Klein

Excited.

[01:26:01.890] - Joe Thompson

About.

[01:26:02.230] - Big Rich Klein

Showing up. Even if it means doing it man-made and pouring concrete to simulate the drops and the climbs that you have to do at K-O-H.

[01:26:14.960] - Joe Thompson

Well, if you remember, I know you remember this because I know you were there, but.

[01:26:18.910] - Speaker 3

Remember.

[01:26:19.950] - Joe Thompson

The Oroville rock crawling stuff?

[01:26:22.070] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah. I put on a lot of events there.

[01:26:25.080] - Joe Thompson

Yeah, exactly. Remember the giant covert there when it would have to go bump up and over? Yup. Okay. Only a handful of guys did it, if I remember correctly. Goodby can't do this at NorCal Rock Race because he's constrained by the state. The state won't let him do certain things in that course. He can't go and put in six of those big giant covert and stagger him and have the cars go through them. You see what I'm saying? Right. Or go over them. The state won't let him do that. But there are other venues where they have some flexibility to do something like that. Where you've got to, like I said, you're coming in at 50 miles an hour, you come around a corner, you hit the brakes and boom, you stop, low range, pop over this obstacle, go the other side, one more after that, pop over, change ratio and take the hell off. That to me is what we need, is something of that nature.

[01:27:26.680] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, we built a rock crawling facility in Tucson. That was originally PMO Motor Sports Park and then became MCAP Motor Sports Park. It was the first race that Vaughan came down and raced with Randy. Randy was navigating for him. At least it was the first time he raced Dirt riot. Yes. And that place there was set up like that. They went out in the desert section and they did five or six miles a desert, and a lot of it was If you made a mistake, you had choya, cactus balls everywhere. There was a short course section, which was more of a GP, Motocross area, nothing super radical. And then it went down into the bowl, which was all concrete, man-made stuff that we had- Features, yeah. Yeah. And it was badass. I mean, in fact, it was almost too hard. We had to take everybody through the easier lines because the stuff that was built there was built for competitive rock crawling. Right. It was a blast watching the guys come in there. That's where all the spectators hung out. It was right there. Some would go out to the GP course to watch them jump, but most of the time, everybody hung out along the fence line to the pit so that they could watch the go through the rocks or the concrete.

[01:29:04.560] - Big Rich Klein

And it was cool. So if anybody out there is listening and agrees with this and has a piece of property and wants to race course or has a race organization that needs some concrete work design and wants to do it right, I know some people available to do that.

[01:29:24.470] - Joe Thompson

That'd be amazing. I do think, and the reason I think this is a big topic is because everyone keeps talking about building the sport and getting more sponsors and that stuff. I think that the one thing that makes the sport unique needs to be magnified and highlighted and propped up for everyone to see.

[01:29:44.140] - Big Rich Klein

I agree.

[01:29:46.860] - Joe Thompson

Because there is no other motorsport on the planet that I know of that has cars going through the same type of stuff or the same variety of terrain like the ultra four cars are doing. To me, that.

[01:30:07.900] - Big Rich Klein

Says something. It's obvious you don't see crowds out at K-O-H at the Lake beds where guys are hitting a hundred and thirty miles an hour. Where do you see the crowds? This is even back in the old days where you could go anywhere and stand right on the side of the racecourse.

[01:30:27.690] - Joe Thompson

They're all. Cain Rod made this point on one of his podcasts, a couple of podcasts ago, and he's spot on. Is that you have to bring back that element of Wild West. Now I know it's got to be controlled and safe, but you have to bring that back. It's something that makes the sport intense and unique. I don't know if you heard his idea, but I think it's pretty good, which is if you pull a winch, you're getting some time penalty.

[01:30:58.300] - Speaker 3

And.

[01:30:59.870] - Joe Thompson

The idea would be to encourage you to drive the course, not just take the safe way out every time. And I don't see anything wrong with something like that. Some variation of that would be amazing.

[01:31:14.170] - Speaker 3

And.

[01:31:16.230] - Joe Thompson

I don't know. To me, we need to highlight what these cars can do, and we got to make the courses highlight what they can do.

[01:31:23.690] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:31:24.780] - Joe Thompson

I agree. Which I think Reno did really well. If you think about Reno, Reno did a good job of that because even though they're going downhill in those bigger rocks, it was still fairly treacherous. You couldn't just go straight down.

[01:31:41.440] - Big Rich Klein

No.

[01:31:41.710] - Joe Thompson

That was obvious. There was guys that did that paid the price. But I'm just saying you couldn't just go straight down with complete and total reckless abandon. And then you had some short course, you had some Hilltimes, stuff thrown in there. There's a good variety. I think this is true, but I'm pretty sure Ultra Four is the only one that sold that venue out even over the Pro 2s and Pro 4 trucks.

[01:32:08.170] - Speaker 3

I'm.

[01:32:09.280] - Joe Thompson

Pretty sure the Ultra Four race is the only one that ever sold the stands out. And that was incredible. It was a super fun place to watch the races. And the cars were being put to the test in every, they had a lot of things, a variety of terrain to hit, which is amazing.

[01:32:29.000] - Big Rich Klein

And the Toyilla had that in a way. They had the short course part and then the rock through the concrete areas. Again, it was all designed for competitive rock crawling, which is slow and technical, which the guys really needed to slow down or they'd eat shit, you'd say. This is the best way to put it. But that would be nice to have that place be able to come back and actually go out there and have it built by somebody that is building it for that specific type of racing.

[01:33:08.020] - Joe Thompson

Sure. You always wonder, if you took a poll of all the drivers, how they liked that venue, so I've heard mixed reviews because I've raced there and I liked it, except for the mud part. That was weird mud. If it rain there, it was an absolute nightmare. But and it was narrow in some spots. When you went to those rocks, there wasn't a whole lot of ways to run the cars through those narrows or through the man made rock section. Right. But it was still cool, though. It still had the right mixture of stuff. That's all. It had the right mixture.

[01:33:41.350] - Big Rich Klein

And again, it was, especially in the rocks where you're talking about narrow, those areas were designed for that competitive rock crawling. So instead of making it for racing where you could get three cars or four cars through at one time, it was designed for one car at a time navigating cones. It was never never designed with the idea of hauling ass through it. Correct. Yeah. Same thing with the Tucson. We had to be real specific where we let the cars go through, although it would have been great just to open it wide open and just said, Okay, you guys try to figure it out. But it would have just been mayhem in there. One thing I hate in racing is bottlenecks. Whenever I designed a course, whether with our dirt riot racing, it was always like, Okay, where are we going to have the biggest problem in a bottleneck? And how are we going to deal with it? That was first and foremost in my course design.

[01:34:45.760] - Joe Thompson

Right.

[01:34:46.480] - Big Rich Klein

I didn't want the bottlenecks.

[01:34:49.240] - Joe Thompson

Yeah, I agree. It's got to be wide enough. You got to have courses that complement the cars 100 %. That's how you're going to build interest, is getting people excited about watching it and getting the drivers excited about driving it because there is a lot of courses. Sorry, promoters, if anyone's hearing this, but there are courses out there that are just straight boring.

[01:35:11.410] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:35:12.580] - Joe Thompson

The drivers aren't going, Oh, my God, that was amazing. When the driver says that was an incredible course to drive, that's a good thing. Right. When they liked the course and it gives them some satisfaction, you want that. I mean, Reno had that, and I think NorCal has that. I know there's other races that have that as well, but I'm just saying that that's an important factor to get car count up.

[01:35:43.710] - Big Rich Klein

Agreed. Well, cool. Joe, I want to say thank you so much for spending the time on this Sunday morning and talking with me and letting everybody that listens to this, which seems to be quite a few, are going to enjoy this, I believe, and learn more about you. And that's the whole goal.

[01:36:07.880] - Joe Thompson

Again, I appreciate it. Honor to be on here. Feel blessed to talk with you and have this adventure. So I appreciate it.

[01:36:16.400] - Big Rich Klein

All right. You take care and we'll talk some more. And I got to swing by the shop. I'm only like 10 minutes away.

[01:36:24.140] - Joe Thompson

I know.

[01:36:24.880] - Big Rich Klein

I agree. You've got to come by. I've been saying this for a year and a half now.

[01:36:29.130] - Joe Thompson

Well, you've got to come by because we've got something new we're working on right now. It's in there. It'll be a first for UFO.

[01:36:34.790] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. I will swing by then. Excellent.

[01:36:37.200] - Joe Thompson

All right.

[01:36:37.820] - Big Rich Klein

Sounds good. Okay. Talk to you later. Bye. All right. Bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you would think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gust of you can. Thank you.