Meet Emme Hall, off-road racer, Miata lover, cat herder, and freelance journalist. A woman of many talents and a bright personality, you’ll enjoy this one! Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
6:30 – I was never the ingenue; I’m way too weird for that!
10:42 – because life is too short to drive something that isn’t fun
19:22 – I was in my late 30’s. That’s old to start racing, because you got fear.
31:11 – So you should see these straight lines, and there are people where it looks like spaghetti!
35:39 – I got to drive with Tanner Faust riding right seat for me
43:17 – At the Mint 400, Matt Martelli gave us a gambler class, they gave us 100 miles, one lap.
54:00 – That sounds good, let’s get a $400,000 Cullinan to take on an off-road rally
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
Meet Emme Hall, off-road racer, Miata lover, cat herder, and freelance journalist. A woman of many talents and a bright personality, you’ll enjoy this one! Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
6:30 – I was never the ingenue; I’m way too weird for that!
10:42 – because life is too short to drive something that isn’t fun
19:22 – I was in my late 30’s. That’s old to start racing, because you got fear.
31:11 – So you should see these straight lines, and there are people where it looks like spaghetti!
35:39 – I got to drive with Tanner Faust riding right seat for me
43:17 – At the Mint 400, Matt Martelli gave us a gambler class, they gave us 100 miles, one lap.
54:00 – That sounds good, let’s get a $400,000 Cullinan to take on an off-road rally
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
[00:00:01.040]
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.
[00:00:46.160]
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.
[00:01:13.000]
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, 4low 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 4lowmagazine.com to order your subscription today.
[00:01:39.520] - Big Rich Klein
On today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I have the pleasure to speak with Emme Hall.
[00:01:46.270] - Emme Hall
Hey, Big Rich, how are you doing?
[00:01:48.360] - Big Rich Klein
I'm doing pretty good. Just to let everybody know, Emme is an off-road racer, a rally competitor, an event emcee, freelance automotive, a media representative, and a past Rebelle winner.
[00:02:02.110] - Emme Hall
I'm like, I do so many things. I'm not good at any of them, but I do a lot of things.
[00:02:07.380] - Big Rich Klein
Hey, you know what? Like I've always said, it's better to be a Jack of all trades than a master of none.
[00:02:15.590] - Emme Hall
Absolutely.
[00:02:19.340] - Big Rich Klein
How's your day going?
[00:02:21.550] - Emme Hall
I had a great day. I was working on... I've got a 2015 Chevy Colorado, and it's got total chaos, upper control arms and Uni-balls, and all that stuff. This is a truck that I inherited from my dad, and he was not the best at prep your shit, if you know what I mean. Right. The bushings have needed to be done for a long, long time. In fact, the truck got his name, squeaks, because the bushings were so squeaky. I've called this truck, squeaks, for years. I did the bushings today, and it doesn't squeak anymore. I'm a little upset about that.
[00:02:58.840] - Big Rich Klein
There you go. There you go. Well, you can just call it squeakless. Yeah.
[00:03:03.350] - Emme Hall
I don't know what I'm going to do. I honestly hope they start squeaking in a couple hundred miles. I don't know. They probably won't, because now they're fresh bushings, and it's all fresh grease and everything. We'll see. But then I was towing my offroad race car, buddy, the lifted Miada. I'm working with a friend of mine who works for Hyperco, and he's just this suspension dude, and I don't really know a lot about that. I've had a set of Fox shocks for this car for so long, but I didn't have the springs to go with it. There needed to be some modifications to the control arm so that I could fit the springs and the shock and alla la la la. I'm 95% there now, and so I'm very, very excited about it. Hopefully, by next week, buddy will have Fox shocks and hyperco springs on all four corners.
[00:03:56.990] - Big Rich Klein
Excellent. We'll get more into buddy in a little bit, but let's find out more about Emmy and your early life. Where were you born and raised?
[00:04:07.430] - Emme Hall
I was born outside of Los Angeles, California, in a town called Husqanda Heights, just the suburbs, almost North Orange County, San Gabriel Valley area. I grew up there most of my life, went away for college, and then I went away for grad school. I lived on the East Coast for a while, and then I came back to California in 2015.
[00:04:32.460] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. Those early years, school years, what activities were you into? Were you a good student or were you... I know a lot of us that are in this industry were okay students, but most of us just wanted to get out.
[00:04:50.350] - Emme Hall
Yeah. No, actually, I really like school, and I really like learning. If I could go to school for the rest of my life, I'd be super excited. But no, I was always pretty good in school, although I've figured out what's the minimum I need to do to get a 3.75 GPA? I never needed to get straight A's, but I always wanted to get close to it, but I also was pretty lazy.
[00:05:14.960] - Big Rich Klein
Did you do sports or anything?
[00:05:18.890] - Emme Hall
People always... Coaches and stuff always tried to get me into sports because I've always been pretty tall. And especially when I was a kid in junior high, I was always a head taller than everybody else. They wanted me on the basketball team and the volleyball team. But I'm not very good.
[00:05:37.370] - Big Rich Klein
At sports.
[00:05:38.280] - Emme Hall
I enjoy sports. I enjoy playing sports. But if you want to win, you probably don't want me on your team. That was made very clear when I was in basketball, I can't jump. I literally can jump three inches off the ground. I'm pretty bad at it. I enjoy doing it. I'm just not very good at it. Mostly when I was a kid, I did things like I did choir and I did drama. I really loved being up on stage and singing and acting, and I'm a terrible dancer, but I did a lot of musical theater, which people think is pretty funny. But yeah, I've done Sound of Music and Bye-bye, Birdy! And Oklahoma, all those classic American musicals, I've been in them.
[00:06:26.800] - Big Rich Klein
But you didn't do the dancing portions?
[00:06:30.160] - Emme Hall
No, I was always in there. If I was a chorus member, I was in the singing chorus. Then if I got a part, I was always like the quirky, funny, secondary character. I was never the ingenue. Never was I the ingenue. Oh, my God, no. I'm way too weird for that.
[00:06:50.550] - Big Rich Klein
After high school, you mentioned that you went back east, and I'm assuming that was for college?
[00:06:57.890] - Emme Hall
Well, yeah, I went to. My undergrad at UC San Diego. Okay. And that was in the early 90s, which is like, Oh, my God, it was so long ago. I did... Yeah, I went down to UC San Diego, and then I stayed down there for a while and just hop back and forth San Diego, Los Angeles. I moved up to Northern California for a while, and I was doing theater up in this little town called Sonora. Oh, yeah. Yeah, which is so cute. I just got fell in with this great theater. It was really small. I didn't have any money. I got married at that point, and we didn't have any money. He and I were just like, We're broke. But we didn't care because we were having a good time. But this whole time that I was doing this, I always really love to drive. When I was younger, I went out, my parents were divorced, and so I spent weekends with my dad, and we would always go out to Giant Rock or out to Glamas or Pismo Beach or all over Southern California in the dune buggy. I was always like a car person, but then I had this weird theater life as well.
[00:08:11.250] - Emme Hall
Those two things have played a very big part in my life, and it's just weird to have dabbled in both.
[00:08:18.850] - Big Rich Klein
Right. Well, I understand that you're quite the seamstress. Did that come early on? Did that come through the drama? Yeah.
[00:08:30.290] - Emme Hall
Once I moved up to Sonora, I was able to start working in the costume shop, which was really fun, and I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot there, but I got to a point where I couldn't really learn anymore. That's when I decided I wanted to go to grad school. Yale School of drama had a one-year program, and I was like, Oh, that sounds cool. I could go for a year? Sure, I'll go to East Coast for a year. Then that turned into going to Yale for a year and then going to the North Carolina School of the Arts to get a full MFA in costume Technology, which is basically just like sewing. And then after that, when I graduated, I worked for a Ford Theater in Washington, D. C, which is the national park. It's a national park, but that's where Lincoln.
[00:09:21.200] - Big Rich Klein
Was shot. Right.
[00:09:22.660] - Emme Hall
Yeah. It was super prestigious, and we had fantastic actors, and I had so much money to spend. My budgets were so incredibly healthy. It was really fun because I didn't have to scrape by using crappy fabrics from Joanne's or from Walmart or whatever. I got to go to New York and go shopping. That stuff was really fun. That was when I got my first... Oh, no, I was on my second Miata by that time. But while I was working at Ford's Theater, that's when I first started reviewing cars because I had met somebody who... This was like 2009, maybe 10. Youtube was just starting. I had met somebody who had a YouTube channel reviewing cars. I was like, Well, I've never reviewed a car before, but I really like to drive. He was like, Well, shoot me a demo and we'll see what you've got. We shot it on an actual video camera, not an iPhone, but an actual video camera. I reviewed my 2001 Miata, and he was like, Yeah, this is great. The next thing I know, I'm getting a couple of cars a month, and I would drive them for the week.
[00:10:42.650] - Emme Hall
Then we'd go out into the countryside in Virginia and we shoot these car review videos. I didn't really know what I was doing at all. I was just watching other people and seeing what they did and the stuff that they mentioned, and then transferring that and bringing my own style into it. They always came up to be like, Is this car fun? Because you can review a car from a lot of different ways. Is this car practical? Does this car have utility? Is this car reliable? I'm like, That's not how I want to review a car. I want to review a car. Is it fun to drive? Because life is too short to drive something that isn't fun. That's the bent that most of my reviews take, is do what? Does it make me smile behind the wheel?
[00:11:23.710] - Big Rich Klein
Well, and that makes sense because anybody that knows you knows that your middle name is fun. I mean, I.
[00:11:31.180] - Emme Hall
Try to be. I try to have a lot of energy and be as happy as I can. Because we're put on this earth for a very short amount of time, so you might as well enjoy it. Part of that is drive what makes you happy, even if it's not... The best thing I saw, Rich, the best thing I've ever seen was a Mustang 500 with a car seating the back. I was like, Yes. You know what I mean? Because obviously, this car is completely impractical for you, but you love it, and you're introducing your kid to a muscle car that is incredibly unsafe, probably, but also really fun. Like I said, if you love it, if you walk away from your car and you turn around, and you smile, then you've bought the right vehicle.
[00:12:21.650] - Big Rich Klein
Absolutely. Absolutely. I smile every time I get out of my Raptor. Right?
[00:12:27.560] - Emme Hall
I know. Your Raptor is pretty dope, though.
[00:12:31.350] - Big Rich Klein
It's nice. It is. It really is. We'll get into the rebelle. But last year, Shelly didn't go on the rebell with us because she had to take care of my mom while I went on the rebell. I only slept in the tent two nights. The rest of the time I slept in the front seat, and it was comfortable.
[00:12:57.500] - Emme Hall
Yeah.
[00:12:58.290] - Big Rich Klein
Exactly. But Shelly goes, Okay, this year we're going to have to set up a tent because I'm not sleeping in the front of the truck. I said, But it's comfortable. She goes, No, no, no, no. I thought your energy came from Diet Dr. Peppers.
[00:13:17.180] - Emme Hall
It does. I realized, as I was getting into the truck today, that I have six empty cans of Diet Dr. Pepper on the floorboard of this truck.
[00:13:26.070] - Big Rich Klein
Not all from today.
[00:13:27.250] - Emme Hall
You know what? I'm going to bring one out right now because I took a cooler with me to my friend Michael's house so I could have some Diet Dr. Pepper, and I have one left. I'm going to bring it out right now. Listen, I don't have a lot of vices. I don't smoke. I don't really drink too excess. I don't do drugs. This is my one thing.
[00:13:50.370] - Big Rich Klein
Perfect. There you go. Anyway. I love that everybody's to think we're doing sound effects, but this is actually what's happening.
[00:14:03.670] - Emme Hall
So good.
[00:14:06.060] - Big Rich Klein
I'm cold, man. Excellent. So around 2009 or so, you were working in Ford Theater and started to do the videos?
[00:14:18.810] - Emme Hall
Yeah, I started to do some car review videos. When I could go on a press trip, which is when there's a new model coming out or the next generation of something. The manufacturer will decide who they want to invite, and they will invite you out to a specific location that really shows off the car, because it's easier to bring journalist to cars than it is to bring cars to journalists. They'll take you out someplace that really shows off the vehicle. If it's a truck, you'll go out to the desert somewhere, up to the mountains, whatever it is. If it's a sports car, they'll take you to a place where there's some windy road, whatever it is. And they'll put you up in a hotel and you get to drive the car on these curated routes. It's not really work. I will tell you that it's not really work. I will tell you that it's not really work. So when my schedule at the theater allowed for it, I would go on these trips. So then I started to meet people and there was a door and so I opened it and like, Oh, these people really like me.
[00:15:26.420] - Emme Hall
I really like them. And so I was able to start once my original outlet, he just stopped doing videos. I was able to piggyback on to or get in with another group. So I worked with the Fast Lane car for... They're out of Colorado. So I just hired a freelance videographer in Washington, D. C, and they would just send the videos back. And then I would work for them in the summer because I didn't have any work at Ford Theater during the summer. So I'd work for them during the summer in Colorado. It's just meeting people and figuring out who you like, who you want to work with, that stuff. And I really wanted to work full-time with them, but they were offering me a salary that I was like, No, I'm grown, dude. I am grown.
[00:16:14.460] - Big Rich Klein
I need a real job. Make a better salary at McDonald's?
[00:16:18.010] - Emme Hall
Yeah. Listen, a lot of auto-journalists, first of all, a lot of them are men. Most of them are men. And most of them are married and have wives that have really good jobs. And I'm like, Well, I'm by myself. I have to support myself, so I don't have the luxury of a second income. But then at that point, Cnet got in touch with me because they were doing a bunch of hires for a video, and they'd seen my videos, and they're like, We'd like to hire you. I was like, That sounds great. And so that's what got me back to California because they were headquartered out of San Francisco. I worked for them for seven years, and then we had a team of like 15, and they got rid of everybody except for one person. I've been freelance for almost two years now.
[00:17:06.770] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. When you said they were based in San Francisco, did you move to the Bay Area or were you able to- I did.
[00:17:14.530] - Emme Hall
You did? I did. I lived in a 330-square-foot studio apartment in Oakland. And it's like... Listen, we were a bunch of hippies, and I loved it. We had a yurt in the backyard, we had chickens, we had bees, we had a garden, we had a gray water system. I loved it. And my landlord was awesome, and the rent was really reasonable, and he was just great. And it was just like this little commune of five people, and I thought it was awesome. But it was expensive. It was $1300. Yeah, that's cheap for San Francisco, but it was still really expensive. And I really love the place that I was traveling a lot. The fact that it was small didn't really matter because I was on the road. But then once COVID hit and then I stopped traveling, I was like, Wait a minute. This is really hard. All I do is get up out of my bed and I walk to my chair three steps, and then I ride all day in my chair, and then I go to my bed like, This is terrible. That's when I decided to move down to the high desert.
[00:18:25.880] - Emme Hall
Now I've got a place in Yucca Valley, and it's a real house with a real... I've got a two-car garage, which is nice, and I've got space to move around. So it's been a good move.
[00:18:37.670] - Big Rich Klein
It's been a good move. Excellent. Let's get into your early years of offroad. You said that you got to go to... You went to Glamas and different places in the desert. When did you start driving Offroad?
[00:18:53.360] - Emme Hall
As soon as I could reach the pedal. I think that was about maybe 11 or 12. My dad had a sand rail. We had a three-wheeler and that stuff, and we would doink around on the three-wheelers. But as far as four-wheelers, when I was 12, I could almost pretty much reach the pedal. I had to have a pillow behind me and all that stuff. I learned to drive out in Glamas in that sand rail.
[00:19:21.250] - Big Rich Klein
Well, that's handy.
[00:19:22.930] - Emme Hall
Yeah, it was very handy. Listen, a Sandro can weigh 500 pounds, practically, so it'll do anything. But it was just a little 1,600 Volkswagen, four-speed transmission, nothing special. But yeah, that's where I learned all of that. We did a lot of stuff out there in Glamas and Giant Rock, which is out near Johnson Valley. We went to Dunmont a lot, just all the regular haunts that families are still going to now. I did that all through high school and then got out of it when I got to college just because I was so busy and I was still... My dad had a house in Mexico, so I would still go down to Mexico whenever I could. And we'd go out in the truck and that stuff, and sometimes in the sand rail. But it was yeah. And then I just graduated. I think my first race was in 2011, maybe. I was old. I was in my late 30s. That's old to start racing.
[00:20:29.190] - Big Rich Klein
When you finally got to race. That's old to start racing.
[00:20:31.680] - Emme Hall
Because you got fear. You have fear. When you start as a little kid in a trophy cart or whatever, you have zero fear, and you grow up having zero fear. You started in your late 30s, you're like, I could die. I could break my leg.
[00:20:46.530] - Big Rich Klein
Exactly. We had a drag boat when I was growing up. And when I got old enough to actually drive the boat, and I wanted to start racing it. And it wasn't for racing, but it was a very fast boat. I was like, Hey, Dad, let's start racing this thing. He was like, That's a good idea. Let's take the boat apart, get it all cleaned up, and then we can look at that. Well, we took the boat apart to reglass it and do all this work. It never got done and got back together.
[00:21:22.050] - Emme Hall
Oh, that's so sad.
[00:21:23.480] - Big Rich Klein
But later on, he told me, because I was afraid. I go, What do you mean you were afraid? And he goes, You have no fear. I've watched you ski. I've watched you water ski. I've watched you ride your bikes. All the things that you do, you have no fear. You will die in that boat. Yeah. And he goes, It was better just to tear it apart. And I was like, Oh. So I knew I needed to work on it. Now I knew I needed to work on it. But I might have died. So it's probably good.
[00:21:53.550] - Emme Hall
Yeah. At least when you're on four wheels, you have a.
[00:21:57.490] - Big Rich Klein
Cage, right? Right.
[00:21:59.240] - Emme Hall
Yeah. And the first couple of races I did was the more powder puff. They do the fundraiser for Cedar-Sinai Breast Cancer Center. Right. So I did that. And at that point, my dad had a Baha bug that was... Basically, the suspension was set up like a play car, but it was fully caged and I had the belts and everything. It had all the safety gear, and it had a 2180 dual-car Volkswagen in it. So I had to run a Class 5 Unlimited. But the suspension was not a Class 5 Unlimited car. You know what I mean? Right. It's in between a 516 and a 5 Unlimited. But it was just Power Pups, so who cares? I just went out and learned what the vehicle could do and what to do when the back end starts fish tailing a little bit and to know that the rock is there. But don't look at it because if you look at it, you'll drive straight into it and just get your feet wet and figure out what the heck I was doing. Then after a couple of those, I was like, Well, I really want a race car.
[00:23:06.760] - Emme Hall
We got a 1600 car, which is a great car because it's limited. Youknow what I mean? More money certainly makes you faster, but it doesn't make you that much faster. You know what I mean? It's really a driver's class because everyone's car is basically the same. Some people can get really into light and parts and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, everyone's running less than 100 horsepower, less than 90 pound feet of torque. And so that really taught me about momentum and never lifting and really pushing through your fear because those... I mean, that car is scary because you can't lift. If you lift, you're never going to get going again. And I did okay. I would podium every now and again. I was usually middle of the pack, and that was fine because all I wanted to do was to go and spend time with my friends and family and race a consistent race. I didn't necessarily want to start getting faster every single lap. I wanted to have consistent times and just be and finish, just finish, just finish, just finish. I didn't have-.
[00:24:19.770] - Big Rich Klein
How did you start racing? I mean, did you see the powder puff was available, so you wanted to try it, or was it something through C-Net? Yeah, actually my dad- Or was your dad racing? Yeah, actually, my.
[00:24:32.100] - Emme Hall
Dad signed me up for that powder puff. He just called me, and I was in DC, and he called me. He's like, I signed you up for a race in October. I was like, What? I've never done it before. I was like, Oh, okay, I guess. That was really low stakes because it was just a fundraiser. So who cares?
[00:24:48.800] - Big Rich Klein
And so your dad was a racer?
[00:24:51.610] - Emme Hall
Yeah. My dad raced 16 cars and 10 cars. Okay. All right. Yeah. I'd been out to races before, and I had... I don't remember helping to chase, but I remember going out to different, the Moore race and some of the Hydra, High Desert racing Association stuff. I'm sure we went down for the thousand. I'm sure we did. But I've been around it since I was junior high and high school. But I guess it never really occurred to me that I could do it, too. And I didn't... It wasn't really big on my list until my dad signed me up for that, and I did it. I was like, Oh, shit, this is fun.
[00:25:35.630] - Emme Hall
This is great. I really like this. Let's do this again.
[00:25:40.140] - Big Rich Klein
So then you went from racing in those Southern California desert races, primarily. Then you got into other types of racing. Was any of this related to the the media, automotive, freelance stuff, or was it just a natural progression?
[00:26:04.830] - Emme Hall
No. It was just... Because at that point, when I first started racing, I was still in that theater world and just doing the car stuff part-time. I didn't really have enough juice to be able to get those manufacturer vehicles for events like I can do now sometimes. It was just something that was fun, and I never really looked for sponsors or anything. I would race maybe two, maybe three times a year. I never wanted to race a whole season because it's just so much work. It's so much work to having to tear the car down every single time. I just kept it light and fun where I could work with my budget, both money and time.
[00:26:54.590] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. You ended up racing with the team Indiana Jeans? We call.
[00:27:03.290] - Emme Hall
Ourselves the Indiana Jones. J-o-a-n-s.
[00:27:06.190] - Big Rich Klein
Jones. Okay. Jones. Oh, yeah. Okay, I see. Yeah, Jones.
[00:27:09.850] - Emme Hall
Yeah. At one year at powderpuff, Emily Miller and whoever was her assistant at the time, they were going to all of the pits and talking to all the women and telling us about this event in Morocco called the Gazelle Rally. I was like, Oh, well, what's this? Well, I like to travel. What's this? Gazelle Rally. The gazelle rally is done in stock vehicles. It's not a race, it's a rally. It's a navigational rally, where the point is not fastest time, but shortest distance between checkpoints. It's all about driving in as straight a line as possible. You might have a giant pile of rocks in between you and where you want to go, so you have to decide, are you going to go over it and risk your car? Are you going to go around it? If you get around it, how are you going to get back on your heading in the fewest amount of kilometers? I was like, That sounds like fun. I'll do that. I didn't have anybody to do it with, but the rally or Emily, I think, had somebody. She was like, Well, no, we've got this guy. Her name is Sabrina.
[00:28:25.690] - Emme Hall
You guys would be great together. I was like, Okay. I met Sabrinna. She seemed great. She was a navigator. I was a driver. We showed up. I knew nothing. I could hardly change a tire. I didn't know anything about the vehicle. I didn't know anything about recovery. I knew nothing. I think we finished like 75th or something, I can't remember.
[00:28:50.690] - Big Rich Klein
But you had fun. We put.
[00:28:53.070] - Emme Hall
Like an extra, I don't know, like 300 kilometers on our clock because we were so lost. Oh, my God. It was so funny. It was so funny.
[00:29:07.270] - Big Rich Klein
So how did they score that? Is it just by what they have an odometer that they're on your vehicle? Or did they use satellite?
[00:29:17.130] - Emme Hall
You know, GPS? Yeah. You went off your...
[00:29:22.810] - Big Rich Klein
It's like a race calculator.
[00:29:23.600] - Emme Hall
Or something. You went off your odometer. So everyone's odometer was calibrated. So you knew what your exact odometer reading was. You knew that it was accurate based off of whatever tires you had. We had a territrip, so that's how we did all of our distances. But when they did the calculations, they went off of the vehicle's odometer. I don't think they do that anymore. But it's calculated by you want to have the smallest, the fewest points.
[00:29:59.470] - Big Rich Klein
If.
[00:30:01.300] - Emme Hall
You miss a checkpoint, I think sometimes they'll penalize you 60 kilometer, sometimes they'll penalize you 30. I can't remember what it is. But the goal is to get the fewest amount of points. And I mean, one year I lost fourth place by a half a kilometer.
[00:30:19.340] - Big Rich Klein
Wow.
[00:30:20.790] - Emme Hall
And Total Chaos, Nicole Patel, and Kristy Beavis, they lost first place by maybe a kilometer and a half. I mean, when you get up there, once you start getting good, it's just like the rebel. It gets really, really, really close. We would do things like we would drive up to a flag, but I wouldn't drive all the way up to it because I'm like, If I can save 100 meters here, then I can save 100 meters. Over time, that might add up to a full kilometer. We would do all these things. If we were following a road, we would always cut the corners, always do all of these little tiny things because the competition was so very close.
[00:31:06.870] - Big Rich Klein
So everybody was probably trying to do the same thing. So all those corners became...
[00:31:11.700] - Emme Hall
Rounded off. Yeah. The people that were trying to win. Listen, you can go, you can watch the trackers of everybody. And all of the trackers should be a straight line. And there's only 10 checkpoints in a day or something. There's not that many. But it does go over nine days, but there's only... There's very few checkpoints. So you should see these straight lines, straight lines. And there are people where it looks like spaghetti. I'm like, What are you doing? What are you doing? You have no idea where you are. You have no idea where you're supposed to go. And it's just like, Just stop. Girl, just stop. Yeah.
[00:31:52.630] - Big Rich Klein
If you don't know where you're going, especially on a distance, where it's by distance, you don't drive around looking for it. You stop and figure it out.
[00:32:01.440] - Emme Hall
Yeah. Okay. But the gusel is the same thing in that it's all women, number one. There's no GPS, so you're doing everything with just your compass and your map. The maps are terrible. The maps are like 50th generation photocopies of maps from 1940s, and there's roads that are there that aren't there anymore. They're so bad. They're so, so bad. It's amazing anyone finds anything on that.
[00:32:30.460] - Big Rich Klein
So when you're in The Rebell and Emily hands out the blank maps-.
[00:32:35.460] - Emme Hall
Oh, my God. It's amazing. Those maps are incredible.
[00:32:41.120] - Big Rich Klein
I think the teams maybe should practice for more of the blank maps.
[00:32:48.090] - Emme Hall
Yeah.
[00:32:48.630] - Big Rich Klein
The whiteouts?
[00:32:49.070] - Emme Hall
Yeah, exactly. They weren't quite as bad as the whiteout maps, but they were close. They were pretty close. But the thing about the Pazal Raleigh is that you... Because you want to get as few kilometers as possible, there are some times when you're going over some stuff that you probably shouldn't be going over because it's the shortest distance. There's much more wear and tear on your vehicle. In my first year, like I said, because I didn't know anything, I drove too fast and I just smacked the truck. It was something like came across a washout or something, and I bent the frame of the truck, and they were going to DQ us, and they were going to not let us go anymore because it's unsafe. I'm like, That's bullshit. We do this all the time. We keep going... But I'm like, Oh, my God. This is my first time here, and I've spent this money, and now I'm not going to go. And I was just in tears and everything. And then they basically said, Well, you can't go any faster than, I think it was 50 km an hour, which is only 35. And I was like, All right, fine.
[00:33:59.780] - Emme Hall
I'll do it. They tracked my speed for the rest of the rally.
[00:34:03.970] - Big Rich Klein
Which might have helped.
[00:34:06.570] - Emme Hall
Yes, of course, it helped. Don't drive so fast, numb nuts. It's not a race.
[00:34:13.070] - Big Rich Klein
Too funny.
[00:34:14.640] - Emme Hall
Oh, man.
[00:34:15.910] - Big Rich Klein
But yeah. Yeah. From gazelles, then what other type of racing? Not getting into Rebell yet, but you're doing the Southern California thing with some of the organizations down there. Did you ever race Nora?
[00:34:34.020] - Emme Hall
I did. My dad and I tried to race Nora one year in the Baha Bug. We started in Mexicali, and we got to just north of San Felipe, and the whole motor decide to go, Not today. Just gas pouring everywhere. Carbureator just pouring out.
[00:34:58.470] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, no.
[00:34:58.980] - Emme Hall
Okay. Oh, yeah, it was bad. It was bad. But we were able to get it home. He has a place in San Filipe, we were able to get it home. And then we basically put everything in the Tacoma and chased the race down to La Paz or Cabo, wherever it ended. That was fun. We weren't racing, but we were still there. Then a couple of years ago, I did it with Volkswagen. They were campaigning the ID4 electric vehicle.
[00:35:26.980] - Big Rich Klein
It.
[00:35:28.490] - Emme Hall
Was me and an engineer and Tanner Faust.
[00:35:33.400] - Big Rich Klein
Really? And I was like, What is happening here?
[00:35:39.160] - Emme Hall
I got to drive with Tanner Faust, riding ride seat for me. And I was like, Oh, my God. This is so nerve-wrecking. And he's so nice. He's such a nice guy. And I learned a lot from him because he's like, Listen, I can tell you right now, it's going to be really hard for me to sit in this seat, and I'm going to tell you what to do. And I'm like, Turner, it's fine. You tell me what to do. I'm happy to learn from you because you know more than I do. You drive way more than I do. So I'm happy to learn from you. So it was really fun. But once we added up all the time on that, we ended up... I think we finished like 25 hours after the first place finisher because we were in a rear wheel drive electric car.
[00:36:23.810] - Big Rich Klein
And having to stop to get it charged. Well, we.
[00:36:27.210] - Emme Hall
Were able to charge on the transit stages. So we didn't lose too much time. I think once we had a hard time, but most of the time, our charging was done during the transit stage. It's just that when you're on the special stage, you're just so slow.
[00:36:41.350] - Big Rich Klein
So you're charging on transit stations sections. Is that like with a really long extension cord or what?
[00:36:50.020] - Emme Hall
Yes, we had a really long extension cord that went from Horsepower Ranch, and then it went all the way down the Peninsula. It was actually pretty ingenious. They had a box trailer with a generator, essentially. There's nothing that says that you can't put your car on a trailer for the transit stages. They put the car in the trailer, and they plug it in, fire up the generator, and then they drive to the next start of the next special.
[00:37:20.010] - Big Rich Klein
Okay, that makes sense.
[00:37:23.090] - Emme Hall
Yeah. That's really, at this point, all you can do... Even if you had renewable innovations there with the green hydrogen charging, that's a mobile charger, but it's not like mobile moving as you're charging type of thing. I don't know, someone else might be able to come up with a better solution. But for right now, that's really the only way that you could do it. But it was fun. It was a completely inappropriate vehicle, but it was fun.
[00:37:54.440] - Big Rich Klein
Let's talk about buddy.
[00:37:57.990] - Emme Hall
Okay, he's my favorite.
[00:37:59.550] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, I gather that, except for maybe your cats. But we'll get to cats here in a little bit. So, buddy, is your Miata? It's your second Miata?
[00:38:11.500] - Emme Hall
Oh, no. Well, yes, I have two Miatas. Okay. But I think buddy is like the fourth one I've owned. All right. Fourth or fifth. So buddy is a 2001 Mazda Miota 1.8 liter. I have supercharged it. Right now, I'm turning 135 at the wheels, which is about a 30 % increase from where it was stock. And there's more boost in that super charger, but I'm just going for reliability. I'm not necessarily going for speed. I run 28-inch BFG K-2s. They're pretty heavy, so it's re-geared. It has 538 gears in.
[00:39:01.710] - Big Rich Klein
The back. Nice.
[00:39:04.070] - Emme Hall
It's so dumb. It's so dumb. And then I've got a stage one clutch for the super charger for the extra power, but the transmission is stock, stock five speed manual.
[00:39:20.770] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:39:22.040] - Emme Hall
And then we're in the process right now of getting the Fox, Shox, and Hyperco springs dialed in, and it's got a lift on it. I think I've got like 10 inches of ground clearance maybe. It's a fair amount. It's a fair amount of ground clearance.
[00:39:43.070] - Big Rich Klein
With that gearing ratio that you have, what's your top speed?
[00:39:51.540] - Emme Hall
Well, on the pavement, my speedometer isn't exactly correct, but I mean, I've seen 80.
[00:39:59.210] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. Fair enough.
[00:40:00.790] - Emme Hall
There's more in there. There's a little bit more in there. I wanted to supercharge it because I wanted the power lower since I've got those low gears and I just... There's no reason for me to wait for any turbo to kick in because the car is never going to be going that fast in the dirt. I've only got eight inches of wheel travel. That's why I supercharged it as opposed to turbocharging it. And that has all been great. It's got a fuel cell. All of that is now very fancy and legal for racing. Full cage.
[00:40:43.080] - Big Rich Klein
Ricardo seats. What's that? Window nets, harnesses.
[00:40:46.830] - Emme Hall
I got window knots, Ricardo seats. I got belts. I got rugged radio and an intercom. What else? Rigid lighting. I got an yellow, I got an amber and a blue in the back because I got to run a blue light because it's a slow car. Right. And then the amber light, everyone needs to run an amber in the back. And then I've got four rigid LED pods upfront, which is awesome. Although only two are wired in. But don't tell rigid that. I've got to wire the other two in.
[00:41:16.940] - Big Rich Klein
You shouldn't have put that... I'll have to cut that part out.
[00:41:20.350] - Emme Hall
No, it's fine. Listen, if anyone looks at the wiring on this vehicle, they're just like, What are you doing? It is a giant mess because I'm just learning. And so when you're learning, things aren't necessarily pretty.
[00:41:35.100] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, I understand. I get stuff from people and they'd go, Okay, we want you to put this on the car, on my Jeep. And the old black Jeep you've seen it. And it was like, Okay. I don't have a house or garage. We were living out of the semi truck. Right. I didn't have all the fancy tools and stuff like that. It was just like, Okay, run some wire. Put some butt connectors on there. And we'll just maybe zip tie those wires to other wires.
[00:42:07.740] - Emme Hall
Yeah, that's exactly.
[00:42:09.220] - Big Rich Klein
I got 500 extra pounds of wiring in my Cherokee.
[00:42:13.570] - Emme Hall
I know. It's like at some point I would love someone to redo it. But working in that vehicle, it's so small. And now that you have the cage and the seats in there, there's just not a lot of room to maneuver. It's hard. I still have the stalk-dash, so I just have the switches everywhere, like the Ignition switch is on one side and the switch for the fuel pump. Is like, Everything's labeled. It's all just like these random.
[00:42:47.370] - Big Rich Klein
Switches everywhere. Oh, my God. So nobody's stealing it, right? Well, the.
[00:42:50.660] - Emme Hall
Ignition is labeled with duct tape, but it's labeled yellow duct tape. But that is labeled, but nothing else is labeled. I know. It's so bad. It's so bad. And I have friends who were like, Their vehicles are dialed in, and they look at it and they're like, What are you doing? I'm like, Just shut up. Does it work? Yes. Leave me alone.
[00:43:09.820] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. And it actually got you through the... What was it? The gambler class?
[00:43:17.160] - Emme Hall
Yeah. This past year, last March at the Mint 400, Matt Martelly gave us a gambler class. So gambler 500 started out as a group of people up in Oregon outside of Bend, and they basically go out and pick up trash, but they've gamified it so that you... They say, Pavement is lava. So in order to get to the area where everyone's going to go pick up trash, you need to get there using as little pavement as possible. And of course, you're picking up trash along the way. But they do these huge cleanups. And I went to the one in July this year, and there were like 20 dumpsters full. People were bringing back boats and junked cars and just like all this crazy crap was coming out of the forest up there. It was amazing. And they just do... It's just a great group of people who will basically do anything to their cars. It's not the safest. I don't want to say that it's definitely a safety third quality to some of the builds, but it's just a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. They gave us a gambler class. And of course, you needed to have all the safety stuff.
[00:44:35.870] - Emme Hall
But other than that, they were like, We don't care. I was racing against a old diesel Mercedes and a Subaru Justy, a lifted limo. But the lifted limo was actually there in 2022 as well. And then the vehicle that should have won, which was a Nissan Hardbody, and I'm like, That should win. It's an actual truck. But I knew because everybody that we're driving were all dudes. And I'm like, And no one really had ever driven in an actual race before, except for the guy in the Subar. He comes from class 11. I was like, Okay, I got to watch out for Scott because he knows me soon. But these other guys are just going to overdrive. And oh, my God, they all overdrove. And all I had to do was survive, and I won. They gave us 100 miles. They gave us one lap. And we're on the street is this year. They're going to give us two laps. And I'm like, I don't know if I want to do that, man. It was real hard. It took me four hours to do 100 miles. We were on the first day, and the course was so read it out that I didn't have enough clearance.
[00:45:48.400] - Emme Hall
I was just constantly scraping the bottom of the car and scraping the bottom of the car. I don't know, it might be a little too rough for that car, but we'll see.
[00:45:57.440] - Big Rich Klein
The Mint 400 course has just been, I don't want to say beat to death, but it's been beat to death. Yeah. There were.
[00:46:06.110] - Emme Hall
Some parts where I was like, What am I doing? This is stupid. This is stupid. But honestly, I didn't have... I got high centered on a rock once, and then one of the military vehicles that were entered came through and just yanked me off, just winched me off. That was cool. Then my throttle got stuck once and it cleared itself. But that was it. Aside from at the end when I was like, Oh, that shock mountains crack. That shockbounds crack. That exhaust thing is done. Those things. But I really... Like 20 miles an hour, I think I averaged, and I had a couple of people pitting for me who just came in, shook the wheels, didn't need to fill up on gas. It was amazing. I can't believe it actually made it and then won it won. Then when I finished, they weren't ready for me. They were doing qualifying for the big courses, the big cars. The guy's like, What? I'm like, I'm done. I need to get off. Yeah, it was pretty funny.
[00:47:05.520] - Big Rich Klein
They were qualifying on part of the race course that you needed to finish on? They were.
[00:47:12.470] - Big Rich Klein
No. Okay, good.
[00:47:14.760] - Emme Hall
No, but they were still running the qualifying cars, and so there was no one there waving a checkered flag for me. I didn't get the big fire spurtes or anything. I'm like, What are you talking? I'm done. I just did this in a Mianna. You guys just killed myself. Can I have some fire?
[00:47:30.560] - Big Rich Klein
They didn't have you come back through for the Photoshop?
[00:47:36.180] - Emme Hall
No, but I wrote a story about it for Hagerty. Right. And I think he photoshoped in.
[00:47:41.560] - Big Rich Klein
Some flames. Oh, there you go.
[00:47:43.810] - Emme Hall
I think he did.
[00:47:44.820] - Big Rich Klein
Excellent.
[00:47:47.130] - Emme Hall
Yeah, it was great. Listen, and the whole reason I did that is because there's another lifted, meota guy. His name is Dylan. I don't know how you say his last name, but it's like P-F-O-Y-L or something. He's got one. And on Instagram, he was bragging that he was going to be the first Miata to race them in 400. And I was like, No, son, you're not. That was the whole reason I went. It was just so I could race him. And then he didn't even show up. He's like, No, I'm not going to make it. I'm like, The whole reason I'm spending all this money is because you said you were going to make it.
[00:48:22.390] - Big Rich Klein
Sounds like an influencer.
[00:48:24.220] - Emme Hall
Oh, I was so mad.
[00:48:28.550] - Big Rich Klein
But you beat him to it. I did not have the money.
[00:48:31.630] - Emme Hall
To do this. Getting that cage and stuff was just so much money. Oh, God. But you know what? Now I have a race car and I love it.
[00:48:41.140] - Big Rich Klein
Excellent.
[00:48:43.120] - Emme Hall
Let's.
[00:48:44.460] - Big Rich Klein
Talk about your love of cats. I follow your social media as I do a lot of the rebels.
[00:48:53.720] - Emme Hall
I'm so sorry.
[00:48:55.130] - Big Rich Klein
I see you with cats everywhere you go. Not always your cats.
[00:48:59.750] - Emme Hall
No, I really like to annoy them.
[00:49:02.540] - Big Rich Klein
Is that it?
[00:49:03.820] - Emme Hall
Yeah, because cats are sometimes not accepting of your love. But Rich, I have so much love to give. And if a cat will not accept it, I will force that cat to accept my love. And it makes for really good pictures because they're always so mad at me.
[00:49:24.400] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, yeah. Well, cats believe that they're gods because you don't own a cat. A cat decides to live with you?
[00:49:36.620] - Emme Hall
Exactly.
[00:49:37.410] - Big Rich Klein
Exactly. -and tolerate you so that you can take care of it.
[00:49:42.370] - Emme Hall
Yeah. It's like, is the trade off okay? Because maybe if they don't like you that much, they'll leave. They'll leave.
[00:49:49.690] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah.
[00:49:50.680] - Emme Hall
It'll happen.
[00:49:51.440] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. I can't tell you how many times cats that I've had have shown up because the neighbor got them, but they liked my house better. Oh, yeah. My cats.
[00:50:03.120] - Emme Hall
That I have now are indoor cats because I live out in the desert and there's snakes and there's spiders and.
[00:50:09.360] - Big Rich Klein
Stuff that can- Coyotes.
[00:50:11.210] - Emme Hall
Yeah. I'm like, You guys are indoor. Sorry. But I take them down to Baha with me, and I just throw them in the truck and I'm like, Get used to it.
[00:50:22.090] - Big Rich Klein
Do you have a problem taking them over the border and then bringing them back?
[00:50:26.560] - Emme Hall
No. Most of the time they're underneath my seat, so they don't even know that they're in the vehicle. But I have never had a problem. I do know if you take a dog across the border, you have to have your dog either crated or tethered somehow. So people who are taking their dogs, you need to make sure you do that because you might get pulled over and that is an actual real ticket. They're not trying to shake you down. But cats are fine.
[00:50:56.840] - Big Rich Klein
I don't know. Because they have all those military checkpoints down in Baha. And if you have a loose dog, they want you to get out, and they're going to look through your glove box and under your seat. Of course, when they reach under your seat and there's cats.
[00:51:08.980] - Emme Hall
There- There's cats. And they're like, What the.
[00:51:11.080] - Big Rich Klein
Heck is this?. There's probably thinking- I was just talking about Crazy Americano catwoman.
[00:51:19.940] - Emme Hall
But yeah, they're super cute. I love them. But I really want a dog, but I travel too much to have a dog, so I.
[00:51:27.060] - Big Rich Klein
Can't have a dog. I understand that.
[00:51:29.120] - Emme Hall
Yeah. One day.
[00:51:31.100] - Big Rich Klein
Let's talk about the Rebell and how that all played out for you and your success and what you've done around it.
[00:51:42.770] - Emme Hall
Yeah, it's amazing. When Emily was starting it, I was like, Well, I have to go do this, obviously. I didn't have a vehicle, nor could I get a vehicle at that point. I just told my dad, I'm like, I'm taking your truck for a month. So sorry. Not sorry. So we did it in the truck I'm sitting in now, at 2015 Colorado with the total chaos, upper control arms, and king shocks, and stuff. And we did really well until the very last day. And then we made a really dumb mistake that dropped us from a potential first to 11th place. That was fun.
[00:52:23.700] - Big Rich Klein
That sounds like the rebel.
[00:52:26.800] - Emme Hall
Yeah, exactly. And then the next year, I was actually able to convince Chevy to give me a ZR2. But I think Chevy was the first manufacturer vehicle to go in there. Although it wasn't necessarily like a manufacturer team, they gave it to me to drive for a story. You know what I mean? It's not like we have it now with the... They didn't send out a press release. They didn't support me in any way. They just gave me the vehicle. But that was... And it took a lot. It took some convincing because they didn't really know. But I think they wanted to see that ZR2 get out there. And they knew that I said, I'd shown them pictures from the first year, and so they knew that they would get at least.
[00:53:18.160] - Big Rich Klein
Some good photos.
[00:53:19.040] - Emme Hall
And then for that one, we got... I think we got third. I think we got third. And then the next year, that was the first year of the two-liter turbocharged Wrangler. So Jeff was like, Yes, take this vehicle. I was like, Okay, cool. But again, not a factory thing, just a journalist thing. And then that year, we tied for first. It's still amazing that we tied for first, but we tied for first. And then after that, it was like after we had that one under our belts, it was like we could get any car we wanted to.
[00:53:58.280] - Big Rich Klein
That helps. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:54:00.390] - Emme Hall
But then we decided like, Well, let's go to crossover. Let's do something really dumb. What can we do that's really dumb? Oh, Rolls-Royce has got that new SUV. Let's ask them. I just asked them, and they were like, Yeah, sure, that sounds great. I'll give you a $400,000 Cullin to take on an.
[00:54:17.670] - Big Rich Klein
Offer, Rally. But I will tell you what, that was the classiest car that I've ever seen out there. It was amazing. Over all the Raptors and the G-wagons and the Land Rovers and everything else that we ever have had out there. Oh, my God. That, Cullen. I mean, you guys needed to have a butler ride with you.
[00:54:38.280] - Emme Hall
I know. Well, we practically did because, listen, we threw a lot of codes in that car. We threw a lot of codes. And it would say, Please pull over and call your Rolls-Royce representative. It's not going to happen. And the problem with that vehicle is your wheel and tire package can only be so big because of how the spin on it.
[00:55:06.630] - Big Rich Klein
And.
[00:55:07.730] - Emme Hall
Then your wheels have to be pretty big because the brakes are giant. So you have to have at least, I don't know, 20-inch wheels, 19s maybe. And your total package can only be 31. And so I came really close. I was like, Nido was getting back to like, Nido was like, I think we've something that you guys can run, but let me check back with you. And as that was happening, Rolls-Royce was like, Well, we just want you to run on the snow tires. I was like, What?
[00:55:40.300] - Big Rich Klein
And how many are you going to provide? Are you out of your mind?
[00:55:46.160] - Emme Hall
It was terrible.
[00:55:48.360] - Big Rich Klein
It was terrible.
[00:55:51.880] - Emme Hall
Note to self, don't run snow tires in the dirt. We had to. What I didn't know is that I could have given more. I could have taken another spare and given it to the mechanics to carry. I wasn't clear on that rule at that time, but we carried two with us, and we did get two flats at one time in Barstow, which makes sense. And we'd already gotten a flat earlier. We were running on a plug tire already. It was a nightmare.
[00:56:26.020] - Big Rich Klein
How many flats have you had on the Rebell? Do you think?
[00:56:32.940] - Emme Hall
I had one in the Jeep. I had three on the Cullin. I think just four.
[00:56:41.060] - Big Rich Klein
That's not bad. Okay.
[00:56:42.830] - Emme Hall
But the media vehicle that I had this year, I got three.
[00:56:47.140] - Big Rich Klein
Right. You weren't even in an area that was a regular route, were you?
[00:57:00.860] - Emme Hall
No, I was not. But I learned some things about OEM, quote, off-road tires from that, and from nick and from getting those flats that I didn't know before.
[00:57:14.510] - Big Rich Klein
And what's that?
[00:57:16.150] - Emme Hall
Well, like a lot of OEMs are like, yeah, these are... It comes with K-O-2s. It comes with Falcon Wildeaks. It comes with whatever. But the tire manufacturer will do a run of tires that are very specific for that vehicle and what the car manufacturer wants. Just because it says it's a Falcon Wildeak doesn't necessarily mean that it's a Falcon Wildeak, because when I ran over a railroad spike, which would have done in any tire, it doesn't matter. But when I took that to the... I was at the mechanics and I was talking with nick, the lead mechanic for the Rebell, and he was like, What tire is this? I'm like, It's a Falcon. Well, he's like, Well, what's the load rating? I'm like, I don't know. So we're looking for the load rating. There's no load rating on it. He's like, I think this is actually a passenger sidewall. He's like, This sidewall is super crazy flimsy, and there was no load rating marked on it at all. It's like, the manufacturers want to have an off-road tire for some of their off-road vehicles, but they also want... They don't want to compromise on ride quality on the pavement.
[00:58:32.940] - Emme Hall
So they have these special tire. I had no idea. I had no idea that was a thing, but I think that's a thing. After I learned that, I was like, Well, no wonder. Ihad my spare was a street tire. So there was that. That was a thing, too.
[00:58:51.460] - Big Rich Klein
So back to the rebelle. What is it that you most likeabout the rebell? I like about the rebelle?
[00:59:06.960] - Emme Hall
I like that it's hard. It's hard. It gets harder every year.
[00:59:12.300] - Big Rich Klein
What do you mean by hard for those that aren't around you?
[00:59:20.310] - Emme Hall
It's hard physically and mentally. For me, and this isn't the same for every team, but for me, the driving doesn't really get difficult until you get to the planet. Especially up in the Northern part of the course, it's a lot of gravel roads and really fun things, but nothing that's like every once in a while we'll get a butt pucker road. But if you've got experience behind the wheel, there isn't necessarily anything that's going to make you like, Oh, shit, I don't know if I should try that. Then you could do Glamous, and then you're like, I don't know what's going to happen out here. But that's my experience. Other people might find Glamous easier and some of the other dirt stuff harder. It just all depends on what your style is and what your experience is. I love giving away my phone. That's amazing. It's so great. It's so great to give away your phone. I hate the mornings. I hate them. I'm terrible in the mornings. I hate getting up. I like figuring out the little tricks. Rebecca and I would have our own little tricks that we would do to save time or make our lives a little bit more comfortable.
[01:00:48.480] - Emme Hall
Don't get dressed in the morning. If you're going to change your clothes, change your clothes as soon as you set up your tent and then sleep in those clothes. And then you don't have to change your clothes when it's cold. Like little things like that, figuring out those little things that just give you a little bit of an edge. That stuff was always really fun. Okay. Yeah. I'm just going like, Where are we? I don't know. Where do you think we are? I don't know. Let me see the map. I don't know.
[01:01:13.890] - Big Rich Klein
And what was the... I know that you're no longer a competitive team in The Rebell. You've joined the staff. Yeah. And tell me about being on the staff.
[01:01:27.950] - Emme Hall
Well, I will tell you this, being on the live show staff is a lot. It's probably the easiest job on staff because everybody else is working their butts off 24/7. For us, we're doing things during the day, but it's not like the ops crew who's making sure that the tents are running well, or the kitchen crew who's constantly just cooking and cooking and cooking and cooking. My job as someone who just talks, it's not very hard. It's pretty easy, and it's really fun because we get to go out and figure out little packages that we can play of stuff that happens during the day. Our team is just so creative, and the guys that are filming and editing, they're so fast. They can just turn... They'll be editing in the back of the car as we're... Maybe we've driven out on course or something, we've done an on course update, then we're driving back to base camp and they're editing in the back of the car on their computers. I'm just like, You guys are so amazing. I love working with those guys. It's great. I love being able to do interviews with people. It's so great to see them coming because I know exactly how they're feeling.
[01:02:47.380] - Emme Hall
I can see it. I know exactly like, Oh, it was a great day, or it was a shitty day, or they're having a hard time in the truck. I get it. I get it. Just being able to be there for them and be someone who's experienced but who's not competing in that moment. I think that that can be valuable for some of the people. Right.
[01:03:08.390] - Big Rich Klein
I know the, Shelly's built quite a relationship with a lot of the teams. Yeah, being the only female course worker, when they get to the green checkpoints and they maybe had a real difficult section up to that point, they can say, they've got a shoulder to lean on, maybe. Yeah. I mean, it's a rock, a shoulder of a rock, but, you know. And for those that don't know, the course workers call ourselves rocks because we don't know anything. We don't give away anything. We are there to observe and to facilitate the movel of vehicles down the course when needed.
[01:03:56.870] - Emme Hall
Yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah.
[01:03:59.900] - Big Rich Klein
What's the plans for Emmy going into the future?
[01:04:06.290] - Emme Hall
Well, now that it looks like these shocks are going to be done, I'm going to sign up for Rage at the River, which is in Loughlin, and that's in the beginning of December, the second weekend in December. And what I like about this race is it's over two days. You race an hour and a half on Saturday, an hour and a half on Sunday, and it's short coursey. I think each lap is maybe 14 miles, and you go out into the desert, but not really. And there's a whole stadium section that is just a little bit smoother. It's not likecrazy, whooped out. There's not a ton of rocks. It's just easier on a lifted Miata than Barstow.
[01:04:56.430] - Big Rich Klein
So.
[01:04:58.370] - Emme Hall
Hopefully I will make that. Let me see what else is going on. I have a trip to India planned for next July. It's a little bit far out, but we're going to drive tuck tucks, which is a little three wheeled motorcycle things.
[01:05:22.220] - Emme Hall
Yeah. Through the Himalayas.
[01:05:23.660] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, really?
[01:05:24.780] - Emme Hall
I'm very excited about it.
[01:05:26.740] - Big Rich Klein
That sounds cool.
[01:05:28.460] - Emme Hall
It's going.
[01:05:28.970] - Big Rich Klein
To be dumb. Do you guys get to decorate your own? Because those things are always just.
[01:05:35.190] - Emme Hall
Pretty wild. Yeah. Whatever we can bring or find there, we can decorate it. I'm really stoked that that is going to be really fun. Yeah. I mean, it's like 10 horsepower at elevation. I don't know. I'm going to get some canisters, some oxygen canisters. Frankly, I don't know how I'll do with the altitude. I don't know. I've spent plenty of time in the mountains, but 10,000, 12,000 feet, not 18,000 feet of the fucking Himalayas.
[01:06:09.680] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[01:06:10.030] - Emme Hall
But we'll see.
[01:06:12.150] - Big Rich Klein
It'll make a great story.
[01:06:14.180] - Emme Hall
I know. It's going to make an awesome story. I've got that planned. January, there's a lot of work things. The Consumer Electronics show is happening in Vegas. There's a lot of electric stuff. The CES is now used to be just all about TVs and computers. Now it's all the cars. It's the new car show. And that's where a lot of manufacturers will debut their EV stuff or whatever tech improvements that they have. I'm going to go to that with Honda. Just try to go down to Baha and hang out in Baha. And then we'll see where the takes me, I guess.
[01:07:00.800] - Big Rich Klein
Baha with your cats?
[01:07:02.930] - Emme Hall
Baha with the cats. I can't leave them at the house. Come on. They'd be so sad.
[01:07:07.230] - Big Rich Klein
No, that's true. That's true. You've got to take them.
[01:07:09.060] - Emme Hall
With me. They're so funny. They're so cute.
[01:07:13.140] - Big Rich Klein
I guess they travel well. We had our cat, Calie, that used to ride in the semi truck with us, and we'd open up the semi truck. We never had to have a leash on her, anything like that. Well, she wouldn't. I tried to put a harness and a leash on her when we took her from a house cat to move her into the, our motorhome/semi-truck. And she laid there the first night that I put the harness on her like I put a 50-pound sack of sand on her. I mean, she didn't move fromright. Right. Right. When I put it on her to the next morning, or if she did, she went right back to where she was at. Then after a couple of days, she got used to the harness, but really did not like it at all. As soon as I put the leash on it to try to take her out to the RV, she did this jump, spin, twist, houdini move. All of a sudden I'm holding the leash and the harness, and the cat is nowhere to be seen. I don't know how she got out of that thing, but she did.
[01:08:21.240] - Big Rich Klein
And she was like, Never again are you putting that on me.
[01:08:25.100] - Emme Hall
Oh, my God. That's so funny. Yeah. Honestly, I just scoop them up before they can think about it, and I throw them into the truck. And then they protest for 15 minutes, and then they settle down, and they just go underneath my seat. And they're like, All right, we'll just hang out until we get there. So far, I haven't had anyone poop or throw up. I think we're doing pretty good.
[01:08:49.190] - Big Rich Klein
Wow, that's pretty good. At least.
[01:08:50.800] - Emme Hall
Not the cats. I mean, I've pooped and thrown up in the truck.
[01:08:53.370] - Big Rich Klein
Now see, that's what I might expect. Okay. Well, Emmy, I want to say thank you so much for coming on and spending some time and talking with me and- No, it's so good. -letting people know more about Emmy Hall. Yeah. I can't wait to see you again. It's always a joy. I know.
[01:09:18.180] - Emme Hall
Yeah. Sorry. I was almost at me, too, and I'm like, That sounds weird. But if people want to follow me on Instagram, I'm @yawd. Me. That's... That's where I post the most. I'm not really... I keep my Facebook for people I actually know. Instagram is good. Yeah, Emmy.
[01:09:40.720] - Big Rich Klein
Yes. Anybody out there listening to this, it's absolutely... Emmy is awesome. Follow her. It's worth the time.
[01:09:50.820] - Emme Hall
For sure. Yeah. You'll see a bunch of press cars and then a bunch of Liftonyada stuff. Often me going like, I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm going to try it anyway.
[01:10:01.520] - Big Rich Klein
There you go. Yeah.
[01:10:02.750] - Emme Hall
That's how I roll. Well, listen, that's what YouTube is for, right? Yeah, that is. If I can't figure it out, YouTube can tell me how to do it.
[01:10:08.660] - Big Rich Klein
Correct. It amazes me what you can find on YouTube.
[01:10:14.860] - Emme Hall
I know. It's incredible. It really is incredible. And I'm like, How is this thing on here? Yeah. Anyway. Yeah.
[01:10:23.650] - Big Rich Klein
All right. Well, thank you so much. And we will talk later. And I will see you on The Rebell if not sooner. Thanks, Big Rich.
[01:10:30.820] - Emme Hall
Yeah, I'll see you soon.
[01:10:32.690] - Big Rich Klein
All right, take care. Okay, bye. Bye-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.