Super-spotter Randall Davis of Lasernut Racing and Axial RC Cars

Super-spotter Randall Davis from Team Lasernut and Axial Racing joins us for a look at his career at Axial and the 2020 season as East and West champion at WE Rock.  Coming off a great season and a great weekend at  Lasertown, we got tired Randall to spend time with us.  Enjoy.

3:47 – From Boring to Outdoors

6:43 – Kimmie from the fourth grade 

14:05 – getting started wheeling

16:54– put out an APB or something

21:53 – how Crispy got it’s name

31:00 – pressing the reset buttonl

37:09 – don’t make it weird

44:55 – my first time driving in competition

50:24 – going all-in in 2020

56:30 – tire irons are blistering 

We want to thank our sponsors Maxxis Tires and 4Low Magazine.

www.maxxis.com

www.4lowmagazine.com 

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:01.080] 

Welcome to the Big Rich show, this podcast will focus on conversations with friends and acquaintances within the four-wheel drive industry. Many of the people that I will be interviewing, you may know the name, you may know some of the history, but let's get in depth with these people and find out what truly makes them a four wheel drive enthusiasts. So now's the time to sit back, grab a cold one and enjoy our conversation. 

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

Why should you read 4Low Magazine, because 4Low Magazine is about your lifestyle, the Four-Wheel Drive adventure lifestyle that we all enjoy, rock crawling, trail riding, event coverage, vehicle builds and do it yourself tech all in a beautifully presented package. You won't find 4Low on a newsstand rack. So subscribe today and have it delivered to you. 

On this week's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, we have Randall RD Davis, yes, that's Randall Davis from Axial RC Cars and from LaserNut Motor Sports. Randall is the spotter for Cody Waggoner with Pretty Penny in the WE Rock series. And actually, Randall has a long history with We Rock and we'll talk about that and how he got his start and how he ended up where he's at now. So here we go.

[00:01:50.990] 

So today on conversations with Big Rich, we have Randall Davis, Randall RD Davis, as seen on Facebook and other social media. We want to welcome Randall. Randall has been around the Off-Road scene for a while, has been spotting for Cody Waggoner with Lasernut for the last few years before that Axial racing. I think that's how we first met. We'll just get started in. Randall, thank you for coming on. And where did where'd you grow up?

[00:02:21.950] 

Tell us about your life.

[00:02:24.350] 

Well, first off, I'm glad to be here and long time no see. I just saw you over the the past weekend here, which I'm sure we'll talk about in a little bit. So I'm glad to be here. It's really cool. I've been trying to tune into podcasts and stuff like that some of you and some of the other guys and I got a pretty busy day schedule that I don't have a whole lot of time to tune in and listen to too much.

[00:02:45.500] 

But when I can, I definitely try to. So I'm glad to be here. So thanks for having me. I grew up. I don't know. I actually I was born in a small town called Boring Oregon.

[00:02:57.560] 

Yeah. Which is near Portland.

[00:02:59.970] 

Okay. I was born there, but I didn't have any sort of like off road upbringing or anything like that. You know, I hear a lot of the stories of of, you know, the other guys where their their dad took them out in a C.J or, you know, whatever some old flat, you know, flat fender, old Jeep or something like that. And talk about all these old, you know, off road camping, fishing stories.

[00:03:23.750] 

And I didn't have any of that when I grew up, but I spent a few years there in in Oregon. And then my folks moved down to SoCal. And I've been raised here in SoCal my whole life. Through all of it, you know, I was I was always into the outdoors when I was younger, I wasn't part of Boy Scouts or, you know, any of those types of what were the other ones, Indian guides or anything like that.

[00:03:47.450] 

But I definitely got out. My dad like to go camping a bit. And so we did that. So I wound up getting, you know, just kind of that I got to be outside bug. And it really took off as of late. You know, once I got up into my adult years, I started to do it a lot more, but not sure if that's because I want to run away from the city or or it's just in my blood.

[00:04:08.810] 

But I think growing up, man, I took some trips going camping out to, you know, just the local mountains, Big Bear, and kind of up north a little bit Yosemite. And, you know, some of that stuff, Kings Canyon and most everything was all local. We did a few trips towards the Midwest, but not a whole lot of them. My my mom's side of the family is all in Texas. They live in a town called Lufkin, Texas, which is Deep East.

[00:04:36.890] 

And that's that's where they're all that. My dad was from San Diego. And he's now I think he's in Idaho or something like that. But he's he travels around kind of like you do. He's not an event promoter, but he does you know, he's one of those snowbirds. You know, he lives in Idaho and likes to travel south for the winter and lives out of a trailer and just cruises around, kind of floats around, you know, free, free spirit.

[00:05:02.870] 

Yes, free spirit, which is nice. I admire it. I've thought myself I thought to myself quite a few times, like, I think I am my dad's kid because I could definitely I could picture myself living living out of a trailer, just cruising around, enjoying life.

[00:05:15.560] 

You know, maybe you should become a rock crawling promoter.

[00:05:21.530] 

I don't know. You know, I always entertained ideas.

[00:05:27.010] 

Oh, you started off in Boring Oregon, an interesting name. What time did you move to Southern California? Oh, man. I was like five years old, I think. Yeah, I was really young when we moved down here. I don't remember much. I've been back there a couple of times, but it's beautiful up there. You know, there's a lot of green, a lot of mountains. So I'm surprised I have not actually gone back up there more just to just to get used to it and check it out.

[00:05:51.710] 

So when you moved it to Southern California, which I'm assuming that's where you went because of where you're at now and talking about Big Bear and Yosemite, what part of Southern California did you move into? What town?

[00:06:04.460] 

The first town we moved to was Santa Ana and I my dad transferred his work, transferred him down to Santa Ana or something like that. And, you know, he got a job there and we moved there. And then we shortly after that moved to Garden Grove. And then about that time, my parents split up and I wound up we wound up moving over to Orange. And that's where I spent a lot of my adolescent and teen years was living in Orange, California.

[00:06:31.530] 

OK, when you went to high school, what were what were your interests besides say girls or should we go back to fourth grade?

[00:06:43.640] 

Yeah, fourth grade. Kimmie from the fourth grade was was not even really a thing at that point. But that's definitely a really, really fun story to talk about. We reconnected sidebar real quick. Sorry, we reconnected on on Facebook. Somebody posted a class picture of us in fourth grade and tagged everybody that they could in the picture. And Kimmie was one of them. And then I went and clicked on her profile and was like, wow, look at Kimmie from the fourth grade, really grew up, you know, that's you.

[00:07:14.960] 

That's pretty hot. I think I need to go after that.

[00:07:17.180] 

So we we connected and started dating and I started calling her, you know, introducing her to everybody as Kimie from the fourth grade because that's where I met her. But school, oddly enough, Rich, I didn't do a lot of school. I did a lot of drugs.

[00:07:34.490] 

As truth be told, I'm a dropout. And, you know, I got clean off of drugs after several years. But it was it was a rough one. It wasn't super, super easy. So in school, I was interested in girls, drugs and rock and roll. I used to play the drums.

[00:07:49.790] 

OK, it's not about where how you grew up or where you grew up or what you did while you were growing up. It's where you're at today and what you overcome and and make of yourself. And yeah, I would have never have targeted you as somebody that was that that had a drug problem at one time. I'll admit it right here, right now, that in my youth, yeah. I was known, you know, there was every morning before school and I grew up just I grew up basically San Francisco, just just south of San Francisco and in the sixties.

[00:08:26.630] 

And I went to high school in the seventies. Everything was a lot different than it is nowadays. Oh, yeah. Culture was completely different, especially up there. Or anywhere just about in California, so I get it. Kudos to you for for doing and having and being what you are now.

[00:08:44.580] 

Yeah, I appreciate that.

[00:08:46.260] 

It's I was we we went to what we called a friends reunion instead of a high school reunion because of all of us that didn't really do well in high school. And I brought Kimmy from the fourth grade with me to this friend's reunion. And we were counting on our hands like who was in jail and who had died and who was back on drugs and who was a drug dealer like all of these things. And we were just blown away by the number of people that have died or been killed, you know, died some way or another or are back in jail or whatever.

[00:09:24.450] 

You know, we're just like, wow, all these people just. Didn't survive, you know, and it's it's crazy to think that there's that many that actually suffer, you know, or they're just still stuck, you know, I mean, I met people I actually knew an old old friend of mine. I was watching the news once, and she was one of the people that they were kicking out of the the Santa Ana riverbed,. I forget what they called it right there by Angel Stadium.

[00:09:48.250] 

But there was a whole encampment, homeless encampment. And she was on the news as one of the people that they were kicking out. And I was like, wait, I know that person like, oh, my gosh, that is just crazy. So, yeah, I'm glad. I'm fortunate. Went through rehab and got cleaned up, you know, got off to stuff I needed to get off of and moved on.

[00:10:08.530] 

What what year would you have graduated. I think it was 88. 88. OK, cool. After that period of your life, what did you get into. I mean, what was. Well, I got yeah. No, I got into I got into mini trucks. I had a lowered Nissan for quite a while. I had a car club back in the day and did, did all that stuff, did all the you know, the truck meets and the car runs and all that stuff and the show and shine's and you know, kind of got into the cars that way, Dug, that I did a lot of stereo installations back in the day.

[00:10:42.040] 

And, you know, they when they were doing, you know, a wall of Twelve's was like a term that people would use to have a whole wall of speakers built in the back of their car instead of having a back seat. And, you know, we were doing stuff like that and going to sound competitions and and all that stuff. And I just kind of I kind of got into cars at that point, you know, back at that time and didn't really think it would go towards off road.

[00:11:07.450] 

You know, back then, I even had had a cruise night that I promoted for a little bit. You know, Santa Ana - Bristol Street was a big thing that everybody went to. And I wound up securing a location down in Tustin and, you know, hosted a cruise night like a Sunday night cruise night. You know, everybody comes down and just hangs out and did that for, I don't know, several months. And then it finally erupted, as most things do.

[00:11:32.500] 

And, you know, somebody was a knucklehead and we wound up having to shut it down. So that was that was a lot of fun. You know, I was just kind of whatever, you know, making things happen. And then I bought a Dakota pickup, four wheel drive. I don't know if you know Bon Gillmer, but I bought I bought the Dakota and I took it to him over at the offroad shop. It was at the time it was he was working with Outlaw Off Road and then he has since moved on to his own company called Rebel Off Road.

[00:12:01.930] 

But I bought a truck, I wanted to go four wheelin with it and do this and that and the other with it and he just kind of put a bug in me and he said, hey, everything you're talking about doing, you need a jeep, not a truck. And I went, Oh, I didn't really think about that, you know? So I kind of. Had the truck for a few years and did some basic off roading with it, got it stuck a couple of times because it really wasn't a four wheel drive.

[00:12:27.030] 

You know, it was all electronic and B.S. and then it got wrecked. Somebody made a left in front of me and it got wrecked. And so we totaled it out. And then I wound up picking up my first jeep, which was an 03 Rubicon, so a T.J. Rubicon. And I picked that up, I want to say about 07, maybe maybe 06. Something like that, so Jeep life only the last 14 or 15 years. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe 20, maybe I'd really have to dig at the dates.

[00:13:01.480] 

But it's it hasn't been a long, long time. Like some of the other seasons, guys that I look to is like, wow, those guys know what they're doing, you know.

[00:13:09.790] 

So was it stock when you bought it or did you. It was lifted, yeah.

[00:13:15.320] 

I found a Jeep from a guy. He was working at Donaghey as a fleet manager, fleet sales manager, and he had this jeep up for sale and it was built it had a big Fabtech eight inch lift on it or something like that. It had thirty seven inch creepy crawlers.

[00:13:32.140] 

And, you know, I mean, it was just a giant TJ, stock wheelbase, but a giant TJ, had coil overs on the front and, you know, trilink in the back. And I mean, it was just a really cool jeep, you know, half doors convertible, you know, soft top like. Bought that and took it out Wheelin and actually the first week and I took it out Wheelin, the girl I was with at the time, not Kimmie from the fourth grade, she found a Jeep event and it was the high desert roundup back out at Stoddard way back.

[00:14:05.070] 

And so she found that event like I bought my Jeep on a Tuesday. She found the event on Wednesday and we drove out on Friday. So I had my Jeep like three days, didn't know anything about Wheelin, didn't know anything really about Jeep and didn't know any of that stuff, you know? And I was like, well, here we go. And we went out there, saw it was a CAL four wheel event and there was a whole bunch of Jeep clubs and stuff like that.

[00:14:29.220] 

But I don't know anybody. So we just, you know, piled out and we met we met a group.

[00:14:38.050] 

I think it was Dirt Devils was the Jeep club that pretty much welcome welcomed us with open arms, you know, we were just kind of tooling around like, hey, what is this deal? Where do we camp, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, that they were like, come join us. We'll hang out. I don’t remember any one of the people that were there, but they they welcomed us and then, you know, gave me some run ideas, you know, some of the trails to sign up for.

[00:15:00.010] 

And the trail I sign up for on Saturday was Pumpkin Eater, and I had never, never done anything. But they're like, oh yeah. Thirty seven lockers. You'll be fine. So I got into this waterfall on Pumpkin Eater and it a rock fell out from underneath the left rear tire and the jeep fell over on its side three days after I got it. So I brand new pretty, you know, new to me.

[00:15:26.980] 

Pretty show quality jeep. It's been in the magazine, stuff like that. And I just, you know, first time out, I dump it over on its side like, oh, man, I thought about it.

[00:15:36.650] 

I was like, well, that's Jeep. And I mean, you know, it's going to happen, right? So they put it back on its wheels and I drove up the rest of the waterfall and, you know, continued on, like, what do you do?

[00:15:48.970] 

You know, so that was my my introduction, my one on one to Jeeping four days in and you got body damage. That's yeah, yeah, yeah. It had a little damage on the a little damage on the A pillar. Maybe, maybe scuffed a mirror or something. I mean it wasn't a hard flop, it was, you know, just the typical jeep got tired, had to take a nap, you know.

[00:16:12.010] 

So what did the girl think she was riding with you at the time? She was out taking pictures, but but yeah, she was out taking pictures, but she she was laughing, you know, she's like, as long as you're not upset about it. And I'm like, well, what do you do?

[00:16:24.040] 

Like, you know, oh, man, you know, wrecked my jeep. I want my money back. You can't do that.

[00:16:30.070] 

Right? You're you're on the hook. Exactly. What was after that? Did you keep that jeep? Did you so or.

[00:16:39.550] 

Yeah, I actually did modify it. I lowered it. Creepy crawler tires at the time were for off roading. Those were way back then. Those were the the best tires that I had ever I had ever had. And they didn't last long.

[00:16:54.880] 

They were the BIA's ply tires, so they didn't last long on the highway. And this jeep was my daily driver. So you can imagine I got maybe six months out of them. So I wound up realizing it was too tall, you know, eight inch lift is or whatever it was. I think it's eight inch lift. It's just ridiculously too tall for a TJ. So I lowered it, put some smaller tires on it. We went from thirty seven to thirty fives and then I kept it like that for a while and.

[00:17:21.260] 

Took it out with my kids to lunch one day down here in SoCal, in Laguna Hills and parked it at the mall and went inside to have lunch and say hi to some friends at the mall. And yet, you know what? Your reaction shows it. I came back outside in the parking space where I parked, did not have a jeep in it any longer.

[00:17:40.010] 

He looked around like, is this where I parked it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I looked around. I was hoping you'd messed up.

[00:17:46.970] 

I was stumped. I was stumped. I was bummed. I'm standing in the parking lot with my kids and no car and, you know, basically kind of stranded, like, what do you do? And I called the cops and they were like, you know, great, will file a report. Give me the plate number. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, come on. And where's the APB? Like, send all the units, you know, go get my jeep.

[00:18:06.920] 

And they're like, yeah, we don't do that anymore. Right.

[00:18:11.000] 

So probably in Mexico already as close as we were to Mexico down in smoke out here. Yeah, it probably went there. A few months had gone by, insurance had paid out and all that stuff. And we did find out that there was a. Jeep theft ring out of Long Beach that was stealing Rubicons and stripping them faster than you could fart in a glass. I mean, it was it was just ridiculously fast. So it could have been that I talked to the investigators about that stuff and they said everything that they saw there, as much as it was chopped up, they would not be able to identify anything.

[00:18:52.110] 

They were like everything is just wrecked, like, amazing. So I bought I bought my next jeep, which was an 07 JK. I was a private seller. Yeah, that was private seller. So I bought that. It was slightly fixed up, but it was a four door, you know, had lots more room. It was it was fun to drive.

[00:19:11.370] 

The first time I took it out, I was so used to my TJ not having a lot of space that I packed the jeep to go out for the weekend and I had so much extra space, I wound up thrown in like three extra chairs and a, you know, an extra easy up and a spare cooler and just all this stuff just to fill up the back of the Jeep because there was so much room that you don't have, you know, in a TJ.

[00:19:32.160] 

And I was like, dude, this is this thing's got a ton of room in it, you know? So I took that out and. Well, let's see, before I took it out, I did take it to Rebel Off Road, bonded, did some some mods to it, put some 37’s on it and put the wheels that I still have the Hutchison Beadlock wheels. He put those on there. We put a Teraflex lift kit on it.

[00:19:56.460] 

And it was a Rubicon model as well. And we did. There's a funny story. Real Short Story is going to make sure I get it right. So we did he put it together. Soon as I got it, we did a Jeep run for him and then we took it up to Axiall was doing an event with Kevin Carey called Wheelers for the Wounded.

[00:20:19.810] 

And Axial was one of the the sponsors of the event. And so we went up there and did that event with the Jeep, had a blast. That was my first experience to some of the Rubicon Trail. We drove in, I think, from Warner Springs, the old route, and then drove out through Loon Lake. And we took the veterans for a ride and hung out and helped those guys along. And that's like that's a really killer experience, you know, to be able to to hang out with the veterans and, you know, kind of give them a treat of the wilderness and the outdoors that they may have never seen it like that before, you know, or they can't get out there now because they're disabled in some, you know, some capacity.

[00:21:01.960] 

So that was an awesome, awesome weekend. I really, really like to do another one of those if I can fit it in my schedule. So we did that. And then the next event after that was what's it called? It's the one out at the Hammer's that Tin Bender's was putting on Fun in the Desert.

[00:21:20.110] 

OK, so we went out to fun in the desert and we did that event, we ran clawhammer and something else, we ran some trails and hung out there for the weekend. And I was out there with the Axial RV. The end of the weekend came know the run was great, I hitched up the the both of the Jeeps, I had been flat towing around behind the Axial RV whenever I was going to events because I was helping promote Axial RC cars and the brand and in the lifestyle, all that stuff.

[00:21:53.940] 

I've been doing that for a while. So I left Johnson Valley and I was coming down the sixty two highway, the jeep, the RV kind of shuttered, like I had a blowout and I was like, wow, that was kind of weird. And sure enough, Kimmy was on her way home as well and she pulled up next to me and started yelling at me. And she's saying, the jeep is on fire. And I'm like, what?

[00:22:17.340] 

Like, Holy cow. So we pulled over and stopped me and my buddy Chris. And I got out and I ran out and looked at the jeep and it looked like it had overheated, there was smoke coming out from under the hood. I went, man, that's weird, so I pop the hood real quick and the damn Jeep's on fire and I was like, Oh my gosh, my jeep is on fire. So I had to figure out how am I going to get the jeep disconnected from the RV now?

[00:22:42.12}

Right. That's kind of the next step. So I went grabbed the keys to undo the hitch pin and I was just going to drive the RV away and just leave the hitch, right? Just let leave it there and get the RV away. Well, I put the wrong key in the hitch pin lock somehow and twisted it and broke it off. Oh, Jesus. So the hitch is now locked to the RV. So I had my buddy.

[00:23:07.980] 

I said, hey, go get the. The the tools, the Crescent wrench and the socket wrench off the floorboard of the Jeep, because I always had them there because that's the first thing I needed to get the Jeep off the tow bar.

[00:23:18.350] 

So get me the tools. So he runs back there and he grabs the tools. I mean, this is happening super, super fast and the jeeps going up in flames. And he comes back to me. He goes here and he hands me the tools. And what he handed me was a Leatherman and a shackle. And I like, what am I going to do with that, like, I have no idea what you can't use that to unhitch a jeep.

[00:23:42.690] 

So I kind of blacked out a little bit and I don't remember at all, but I ran back to the Jeep and I grabbed the tools that I needed and I told him, get in the RV. And when I tell you to pull forward, so you get away from the RV or from the burning jeep. So I undid the bolts and got him pounded out and I told him, go, well, he took off down the highway like Forrest Gump on a running day and just blazed down the highway like dude, where are you going?

[00:24:08.970] 

I mean, he was damn near 100 yards away from me before he stopped. And I'm like, dude, you just needed, you know, a few feet.

[00:24:16.350] 

All the while, I had unloaded two fire extinguishers on the engine trying to get it to put out and couldn't get the fire put out. It was just getting worse and worse and worse. So I realized it's going up and I need I need to grab some of my personal belongings out of the Jeep because I had a whole lot of stuff in the Jeep, you know, from camping and whatnot. So I started chucking stuff out of the back of the jeep.

[00:24:38.280] 

People are stopping on the side of the highway and throwing dirt on the jeep and pouring water on it, trying to help extinguish it. But it was too far gone. So at some point I realized I can't get anything else. It's just too engulfed in flames. And I got to got to call it. I got to walk away from it. So I stood on the on the side of the sixty two highway and watched my jeep burn to the ground. 

So you flop Your first one four days in and then you watch your second one burn to the ground or burn on the trailer. And it was it was flat-towed.. Yeah. So I don't flat-tow anymore. No. No. You think it was it because it was left in four wheel drive or. No, I there's two possibilities. It was never determined the insurance company didn't really care, they just paid out.

[00:25:28.920] 

The first was improperly towing, which might have been the transmission and the case t-case were both in neutral. And by doing that the transmission will spin. But the pumps that are in the transmission won't cycle the fluid. So the fluid in the transmission overheat and catch on fire or no lubrication in the gears and all that stuff. So there was that or where the fire appeared to start was right at the battery area. So I wasn't sure if there was some sort of an electrical issue because.

[00:26:03.730] 

I may have left the ignition in the on position, not in like, you know, the first click to unlock the steering wheel or whatever. So I, I don't know. But that man, after that, I don't I see people flat tire a lot now. And I'm like, no, not ever again. Nope. Is a pain in the ass to back up. Right. You can't back up. True. Yeah, true.

[00:26:26.200] 

So what was the third vehicle, so the third vehicle and will bounce back here in just a second. OK, yeah, let's bounce back just a second because we need to know what happened to the second vehicle, the second jeep. So the second jeep was totaled and it was sitting out in the desert. And I had become it had some Poison Spyder parts on it. And I had become over time Wheeling. I became friends with Larry, at Poison Spyder at the time, and Cheri and, you know, all those people, all part of the IE4W group and all that, which are a whole bunch of friends.

[00:27:01.230] 

So it was sitting junked, well, the King of the Hammers Everyman Challenge class was evolving and he wanted a chassis that was street legal with a legitimate VIN number so he could have a registered race car that he could compete with in King of the Hammers. So we made a deal and he acquired my jeep, which is now known as Crispi, because he took it and rebuilt it and made it crispy, which is a full blown race car, as you know.

[00:27:31.330] 

And now so right to this day, the standing joke to this day is nobody ever changed title. So it's still in my name. Oh, really? Yeah, that's the rumor I've ran the VIN a couple of times with some buddies and they say, oh yeah, it still shows up, as you and I find it humorous that it's just sitting there, you know, still under my.name

[00:27:54.980] 

I'm surprised they haven't come after you for back registration taxes. Yeah, that would suck, wouldn't it. I think it was nonoperating registered as not. I don't know.

[00:28:03.640] 

Look, I know that that would if that's the case, that's good, because I had a vehicle that I didn't not up and they came back after like six years of past registrations and stuff. Oh man, I, I had sold the vehicle to somebody else and didn't do the paperwork because he goes, I'm going to DMV tomorrow and never did I guess. And I have no idea whatever happened to that vehicle. But I thought if I did, I'm suing somebody and collecting Crispi.

[00:28:31.920] 

There you go. OK, so third vehicle then.

[00:28:38.400] 

The third vehicle now is the one I still currently own. It's a black 07 Rubicon four door, basically just the same as what I had before. Part of the deal with Larry was I got to strip the underneath the power train basically of the old jeep, you know, the lift kit, the axles and all that stuff, because it was all built up.

[00:29:02.400] 

So it was like, hey, we'll just take all that stuff and put it put it on the new rig and take the old axles and put it, you know, the new axle, new rig axles and put it on the old vehicle and call it done. So we swapped all that out. So we did all that.

[00:29:16.740] 

And since then, I've had to go in and replace them anyways with some rock jock forty fours and stuff, but got that rig and still wheeling it today.

[00:29:28.110] 

I've had a lot of, a lot of good experiences with it as of late.

[00:29:32.190] 

I was a little bit concerned about it. It, it's had some electrical gremlins kind of munching away at it and it didn't run.

[00:29:41.100] 

It actually died right at Cody's shop on the way to Trail Hero. So I flat-towed it all the way out to Trail Hero, thinking I was going to work on it once I got out there. And I just I pretty much gave up on it and just left it sitting on the trail for the whole week.

[00:29:58.800] 

So let's let's go into Axial. How did you how did you get involved in the RC business? So I had a couple RC cars when I was a kid growing up, but nothing real heavily, you know, you know, know where I came from, a lot of stuff didn't interest me, interest me too much. Because of everything I was doing at the time, but I had a couple RC cars and I had kind of I had Legos growing up and, you know, Lincoln Logs and Tinkertoy, you know, stuff that you could build with erector sets and all that.

[00:30:29.100] 

So I was always into. To wrenching, so to speak, and so I had a couple of old RC cars and then I got into, let's see, I became a computer consultant. Well, I'm having a consulting company for a while, just kind of segueing into Axial and. I was working for a company and I wanted to make my way out of the IT industry, out of the computer consulting industry, because it was taking way too much of my time and I couldn't spend time with the kids and and all that stuff, so.

[00:31:00.850] 

I wound up transitioning over and I started at Axial, just kind of hitting the reset button. I started at Axial as a customer service guy/ warehouse guy, so I stepped all the way back down to the bottom of the ladder and thought, well, this will get me maybe a swgue into the Off-Road industry. I'll do RC cars. They're doing our cars, rock crawlers as we, you know, as we develop them and as they evolved.

[00:31:25.900] 

And I thought I'd be really cool if I can kind of somehow make this get me outdoors more. You know, I really want to be outdoors or in the industry. So I've progressed my way up the ladder. There went from customer service to warehouse to sales to purchase orders to yadda, yadda, yadda. Along the way here today, know long story short of that here today, I'm a product developer in the Axial brand because we are now owned by Horizon Hobby and so I'm helping develop cool cars.

[00:31:56.660] 

That's awesome. Yeah, and so you had your hands into the Cody’s 4400 car?. A bit, yes, yes, I did, so we had because that was under the Losi brand Cody and Axial, we've been friends for a long time, I'm not sure we've probably talked about it before because you talked about it before the first. Kind of a weird segue so the first rock crawling event I went to, I do want to touch on that real quick.

[00:32:25.750] 

I believe it was a CalRocs event. I don't know if you were the promoter or somebody else was, but it took place at Cougar Butte's back in 08.

[00:32:37.120] 

Maybe it was me, OK? It was a long time ago.

[00:32:40.660] 

And it was Dustin Webster was there. Becca was there. It was when they both still had cars. Dustin had that big silver, silver, Red Bull riig, whatever that was or think it was. Silver know, maybe he had the blue one. Right, when she had the silver one, there you go, he had that big thing and it was over there, cougar Buttes and I watched that and I got blown away by it like, wow, this stuff is really cool.

[00:33:07.210] 

And this is before I even had a Jeep, you know? So that would be kind of my my intro to Rock Crawling would have been that event watched that had a good time, took a bunch of pictures of the event and, you know, just kind of admired what was going on out there and was, hey, wow, this is really, really cool. So then later, I don't even know how I came across it, but somehow I came across the Lake Paris event or the Paris, California event, whatever year that was.

[00:33:31.780] 

And you guys were looking for judges, I thought, hey, that'd be cool to do. Like, we'll come down and judge and somewhat sponsor the event Axial. And so we went down to that event and me and my step brother actually went with me and we judged one of the courses there for you at Paris, California. And we put a big banner in the way on one of the big drops and had to tell all the competitors, like, you can't hit the banner, it's you'll get a point deduction or whatever if you hit a sponsor banner, because that was one of the rules and it changed.

[00:34:06.150] 

I put it like just enough in the way of where they want it, of the line where they wanted to drop off, that they had to rethink their drop just a little bit so they wouldn't hit the banner because you couldn't see it as they approached. So it was a added a cool little little challenging element.

[00:34:23.790] 

They probably hated me for it. But, you know, whatever made it fun. So after that, Cody saw the banner, saw how much of a pain in the ass the banner was, and he wanted to look up and find out what's Axial racing. What do we do? And so he looked us up and he called us. And, you know, at the time I was doing the customer service stuff. And so he got me on the phone and I talked to him about all the the cars that we were making, the rock crawlers that we were making and stuff like that.

[00:34:53.650] 

And. At some point, he was like, I don't know, I figured I invited him over to drive one or something like that, like why don't you come over and drive on and see if you like it and then you'll know if it's something you really want to do. And it just spiraled out of control from there. You know, it was he was hooked on those and we were hooked in rock crawling like, wow, rock crawling’s cool, you know.

[00:35:17.870] 

So. In that Paris event was that's what a lot of people remember, and I bet those big drop offs, did you do it more than once there? No, just once. Oh, Ricky Johnson, Ricky Johnson's Park and. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. And so we we rented it and then that the next year he had sold it. But was looking for another location, so me and Stobaigh we're talking with Ricky about where else we could move it because he wanted to buy a place that had rocks so we could do rock crawling.

[00:35:55.050] 

And I don't think that ever came about. But it was it was pretty cool. Just wow how everybody gets intertwined and stuff. But it was that was a pretty, pretty phenomenal event for the people that were there. The we talked about it with Jason Scherer  Is that registration in tech, was that Hooters there at the shopping center? And some guys with their drag, with their street drag cars came over and he smoked them in his rock crawler.

[00:36:28.640] 

You know, I mean, across the street, they weren't happy. That's great. Oh, I bet. But yet those good times. So from from the phone call that he made to Axial that he came over, did some RC car stuff with you and you guys just hit it off his friends and. I see what you're getting at. How did we how did our relationship start? How did we end up in a relationship together? End up in a relationship together?

[00:37:00.940] 

It it was kind of weird. We're not really weird. We we started doing I built on a rock, but it wasn't weird. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:09.520] 

Started building an RC rock crawler and then we went to some comps together and did you know, RC Rock crawling together and stuff like that. And then another guy came along and built a better car because he was more into it than I was. And we just kept doing competitions together, you know, here and there and going and playing RC cars. And, you know, he quickly realized these things are awesome because you can you can practice with it when it flips over, you just kick it back over to its wheels.

[00:37:38.470] 

It's not like a big disaster that you do. You know, when you roll your your big rock crawler, it's expensive. When you roll the little RC one, it's not so bad. So.

[00:37:49.520] 

He found that very, very useful to help improve his skills, and we wound up sponsoring him, his old moonbuggy. I think it was called Roxann and in I think it was 09. Yeah, man, everything just kind of blends together. It's really weird in 09 and it was 09, we went to it was a CalRocs event at Dönner, but it was it was, I think, Glenn's event or something. I think it was that. And so he needed a spotter and we went up there for that.

[00:38:25.020] 

And I spotted for him that first time and we wound up winning the unlimited class for I mean, for me, it was my first time out spotting. I don't know how many cars he drove that moonbuggy in, but we were ecstatic that we went up there and won the unlimited class for the first for me being a newbie, you know, so that was that was kick ass. And then right after that, he sold the car and I was like, well, all right.

[00:38:50.790] 

I guess that was you know, I was that. And then he just kind of left it on the table like, well, hey, man, you know, we had a really good time and we can we could deal with each other because, you know, you can't not everybody can deal with Cody. And, you know, he's like, we get along really well. We established a pretty good friendship and whatnot. And he's like, if I ever buy another car or I'll hit you up and I'll get your spot for me again, I'm like, sure, I'd be great.

[00:39:13.590] 

You know, I was I was digging it at that point. You know, I was kind of hooked on been doing some Jeep in and just kind of getting into the whole outdoors thing and camping and wheeling and just learning how cars. How the rigs work off road like it's it's a different puzzle piece to put together when you're trying to get the tires, you don't get get the rubber to stick to the rocks and and dodge all the obstacles. It's completely different.

[00:39:38.470] 

So. It kind of went by the wayside for I don't know how long, a couple of years, maybe he got out of it. He decided to, you know, spend time with the family and, you know, hang out. And then one day he called me and said he was buying another moonbuggy. And then he started talking to me about it. And, you know, I was like, yeah, whatever, you know, don't don't blow smoke.

[00:40:00.840] 

You know, if we're going to do it, cool, then let's do it. If not, then don't tell me it's something to think about. Like I'm I'm a commit guy. Right. And. So he finally called me, he's like, yeah, I got it, here's the pictures, it's being built, blah, blah, blah. And it was it was pretty Penny. And I was like, do that thing's amazing. And we went to.

[00:40:21.970] 

We did some jeeping together, he was used to drive his his flat fender rig, you know, he used to take that Audi to do that anymore. He makes fun of it all. But we did some pretty fun, fun trails there for a bit. And we let's see, we got pretty penny. And he we went to I think it was the first super of not the first super crawl of it, but it was our first super crawl event.

[00:40:46.360] 

And we won the unlimited glass with this brand new rig with very, very little seat time. Very, very little experience spotting for it, just like, wow. And the car was just off the hook capable, like there was nothing that we were able to do. There was nothing that we couldn't do in a car, is what it seemed like, you know, so that number one Jesse Haines car was was amazing.

[00:41:10.540] 

Yeah, I remember I remember that time because you guys were supposed to come to grand nationals and the car wasn't running right. Until, like, Thursday night. Yeah. He had no seat time and he said, nope, he's going to wait. And that's right. They started the next season with us. Yeah, that that's right. That's right. Because we were going to go to grand nationals just just to get seed time if the car was ready.

[00:41:35.900] 

That's right. I forgot about that. So that was that was the big hope, you know, but. Yep, and I was supposed to shoot it if he came to grand nationals as it was in Farmington, I was going to shoot it for 4Low magazine. All right. Yeah, he didn't show up and then it ended up on the cover of another magazine. Know that that that's so.

[00:42:01.380] 

Yeah. Cody, when you hear this, I'm disappointed. Let's talk about your your your times with Cody and over the last few years, campaigning pretty penny what you guys pulled off, especially this last year. It's been a killer road. I think just the way that we have gone out and some of the little techniques that we've figured out to help us be a better team has it's been awesome to figure out. I mean, you know, I look at dodging cones and even when they're not there, but I look at rock crawling as a huge puzzle.

[00:42:37.590] 

Right. You got to put all the pieces together. They got to fit 100 percent. Correct. In order to get all the way through it. Right. You know, and when you add cones, it's anybody can drive through clawhammer. Let's just say once you put a cone where you actually want your tire, you no longer can just go drive through clawhammer. So it changes the game of wheeling tremendously. And through the time that we went wheelin and and did some of the competitions, we wound up deciding we'd go out on practice and we'd throw some cones down.

[00:43:07.680] 

We need to work on our communication skills. It was rough at times. Right.

[00:43:13.120] 

You know, we've we've had some pretty fun videos to post up that that, you know, there's no shame in it.

[00:43:20.550] 

Right, because we're watching it for our education and how to make us a better team. And then when we can laugh about it, we know, oh, man, that's that's Internet material. You know, somebody is going to get a kick out of watching us be idiots out here screaming at each other.

[00:43:32.970] 

So it was it was again, I'm going to punch you. Yeah.

[00:43:37.860] 

The classic line. Right. Everybody's heard that one. And, you know, the greatest thing in all of it is. None of it is like legit, like, you know, a full serious and if it is, it's in that moment and both of us have been able to walk away at the end of the course and be like, all right, we're good. You know, we're we we get heated, we're competitive. We want to win.

[00:43:59.900] 

We don't want to be second place. We have to get irritated, you know, everybody does so mad we go ahead. I was going to say, did it help you driving the car? Absolutely, yeah. I was. I was headed to that. Yeah, I was headed to that. It's.

[00:44:17.370] 

You know, obviously, it was an honor to be able to drive the car, but even more so to you know, it helped us as a team grow to where I knew what was going on in the car. So the first comp that he let me drive it. He gave me the car and said, go compete. He didn't even go he's like, find a spot or, you know, go, go compete. And I think that was that was that Dornner.

[00:44:42.020] 

I think that was was it twenty eighteen or seventeen, you know. I mean, what's your.

[00:44:49.290] 

I want to say it might have been 18. I think so, because then we went, Yeah, man, I hate dates.

[00:44:55.650] 

So he let me take the car, go, you know, get a spotter and, you know, reach out, find a spotter and take the car, go to donner, go compete. I'm like, dude, you're just going to let me take your car. And he's like, yeah, I'm like, all right.

[00:45:08.040] 

Well, I have a jeep, so I need a way to tow the car up to Dönner. So he said, all right, well, take, take, take the shit go, you know? And I was like, man, that's that's awesome, dude. Like, he's like, you know, he threw Spot in and working with him and hanging out. He's like, I know you're not going to go trash my shit. You know, it's it's not, you know, not how you treat stuff.

[00:45:30.300] 

So go compete. It's going to make you a better driver. It's going to put you under pressure and, you know, make you a better spotter and go do it. So. We went and I had Denis Volkov as my spotter, right, which I don't yeah, I never met him.

[00:45:46.750] 

I never knew him. I you know, I put some feelers out and got a spotter and a couple of guys recommended him and I said, all right, cool timing worked out.

[00:45:55.740] 

Oddly enough, when he wears a lasernut shirt, blue jeans and a lasernut helmet, he looks exactly like me. If you look at the pictures, it's a little bit hard to tell who's outside the car. So we competed and we made the shoot out, which I wasn't even expecting. You know, my first course I timed out. So I was pretty much disappointed and done thinking I would get anywhere on the podium. So we did that.

[00:46:23.640] 

And and then I remember in the shootout, Kimmie was doing a live feed on the lasernut page and. Cody was apparently watching and. There was, there was a wall, it was like under a tree, a little bit of a wall that you had to bump it up, I think it was one of the bonus lines or something like that. Cody was on the live feed and Kimmie yelled at me and she said, Cody says, send it.

[00:46:47.570] 

And I looked over at her like, wait. He's watching me in his car and he's telling me to send it to my car. I don't want to do that.

[00:46:58.050] 

And so which I did, we got through it and I think I got third or second. I got on the podium, which I was super, super stoked with first time driving the car, you know, just taking my time trying to figure out the car. There's a lot going on in there. I've got a video clip that's of me pulling off one of the cool little crack lines that usually people will take a cone on. And I was actually to bring able to bring pretty penny down it without touching a cone.

[00:47:25.650] 

And it looked like it looked like a spider crawling down a wall. It just stuck and it had no issues. So I was super stoked for that. Then we went to grand nationals. We didn't do so good on the season, so we weren't really in contention for a top spot at Grand Nationals. And so Cody decided to let me drive that and he would spot. And that was just kind of a we talk about it and talk about it and talk about it.

[00:47:51.120] 

And if it happens, great. If it doesn't, you know, no big deal. We're we're both there to win. So he let me drive at Nationals. And that was the first time I've been on any sort of big rocks or big walls. That's definitely got to it's got a lot of pucker factor there. That place Farmington to be intimidating. Very intimidating. Yeah, very intimidating. Attraction is is pretty incredible. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:48:18.660] 

There was one point where I finally got scared because he kept telling me to go up and there was nowhere else to go up and he kept saying, go up more. And I'm like, there's no more up. And you could feel the front getting light. And he's like, no, keep going. And I'm like, I see blue. There's there's nothing here. And he's like, nope, keep going like that.

[00:48:40.800] 

I finally told him, I'm like, OK, dude, I'm scared. That one got me scared. That one got me puckered, like I don't know where I'm going. And so we were able to pull off second, you know, that was that was awesome at Grand Nationals. You know, that just it helps helped him learn what goes on being a spotter in competition. And it helped me learn what goes on being a driver in competition, because you just it's easy to go, I should say easy.

[00:49:05.910] 

But it's it's very relaxing to go spot somebody just when you're at trail wheelin. Right. It's not high intensity. You're on a time limit and trying to dodge things that are put in your way on purpose. So it's two totally different things, you know, and so it's it helped a lot. There was actually even I want to say it was a A1 might have been a standalone course, OK, towards the front, a one where we were trying to drive a particular way and had a near rollover.

[00:49:36.300] 

And this was almost like the start of the day or something. And we had a near rollover and I was able to to drive out of it the way that I needed to drive out of it. I think it just turned down and, you know, kind of almost a little tornado effect. And we talked about it after the fact. And Cody was like, dude, I wouldn't even have thought of, you know, I wouldn't have thought to do that.

[00:49:53.640] 

And I'm like, well, that's the only way I could feel the car coming out of it was, you know, to basically crank it hard passenger and punch it instead of reverse, which he he said he would have done a reverse action instead. So it was cool. You know, sometimes it instincts just, you know, to help you out a little bit. Yeah. You always hope that they're right. Yes.

[00:50:15.000] 

I was hoping hey, we've seen me roll his rig already. Right. So I ended the day with a roll on on that comp.

[00:50:24.960] 

Yeah. At Nationals they're talk about 2020 season. You guys decided to to basically go all in. Oh, yeah. Twenty, twenty, 2020, what a year, right? Yes. It was interesting because. We continued to talk about it at the beginning of the year, we talked about it and then we talked about it just kind of at each event like, hey, what do you think? And can we pull this off and this and that.

[00:50:55.240] 

And we did Bagdad and we we continue to talk about it. And then when covid hit, I got informed that my company was issuing a work at home policy. So everybody was going to go work at home. So nobody had to go to the office. And that kind of opened the door for, well, where is home? Well, home is where ever you're at when you wake up in the morning, I guess, like what is home when you're on the road, such as yourself, you know?

[00:51:23.770] 

So we talked about it and were like, hey, I think we can pull this off. But early on, we didn't know what events were actually going to happen. Right. Because everything was postponed. And I know you were working your tail off trying to trying to get locations and figure out where you could host it and figure out what you know, what red tape you were going to have to go through and what kind of procedures you'd have to put in place and all that stuff.

[00:51:46.000] 

So we're kind of Snowjob we had to pull off. Yes.

[00:51:49.240] 

Yeah. So hats off to you for even making that happen. That's that's definitely no short order in my book.

[00:51:54.700] 

So we we we just kind of took it one event at a time. Right. So. It was Bagdad and then it was Texas and then it was cedar. Yes, is that right? OK, so we did the Bagdad and we won. Right. Jesse had some car issues. Yes. And, you know, he was out there for his first his first go at his new JHF Chassis. So, you know, he's got the bugs there and.

[00:52:20.830] 

We won that event and then we went to Mason and we won that event, and that was actually Mason. It was hot as hell, just so we can all agree. But considering that was supposed to be a March event, yes, it ended up being like a June. June. Yeah. Yeah. Something it was horrible. But we still went and we actually had a couple of our runs that were. Flawless, perfect score, exactly what we meant to do runs, and that it's like Bagdad was really good, we were starting to click and then at Mason all of a sudden we were.

[00:53:00.610] 

It was almost like we were on the same page the whole time, like, oh my gosh, we're we're just we're knocking every course out, you know, we're doing good. We're winning. This is this is great. And we kept talking about it. And at that time, we're even saying the same thing like, hey, well, if we can pull off working on the road, going to Mason and coming back and and then going on the road again, depending on where these events are, maybe we can pull it off.

[00:53:23.990] 

So I had to. Obviously, I had to get the OK from work to make sure that I could I could do that because some places they just won't let you do it. And the biggest thing was most of my work is on computer. It's 90 percent on computers. So all I needed was Internet access and my laptop. And I was I was able to keep rocking and rolling over there. So we were, you know, sucks for Cody because he had to drive all the time because we were driving during work hours.

[00:53:50.930] 

So I was sitting at the back at the dinette on the laptop, just hammering away on the keyboard, doing what I needed to do. And, you know, he's up there driving and I'm like, dude, sorry. Like, I need to need to work, you know, he's like, I got it. So it it worked out. And, man, we've that the funny thing now that we look back and talk about all the events is.

[00:54:14.360] 

We have a hard time figuring out which thing took place at what you know, which which adventure took place at what event, right. Because every road trip has adventures and. We started talking like man, which was that on the way to Texas or was that on the way to Tennessee or was that cedar? Where were we going? And we're like, oh, man, I can't even remember which ones, which, you know, we drove to six, seven events, total plus, plus, plus trail hero seven events for WE Rock and, you know, kind of grand nationals' and.

[00:54:52.210] 

Every one of them was an out and back. It was not like just one to the next to the next it was we're leaving. SoCal we're driving to the event and we're turning around and we're driving back.

[00:55:01.930] 

We did I think it was Pennsylvania. We did Pennsylvania. And I remember all the way out there because that was that seemed like a four day drive or something done three days or something dumb seemed forever. And I remember telling Cody, like, dude, we are the only two knuckleheads that are driving across the country for the weekend because that's literally what we're doing, is we just drove to Pennsylvania for the weekend. Nobody does that. Nobody goes that.

[00:55:27.760] 

Maybe you rich, but nobody drives from Cali to PA for two days through. Makes no sense. I'm there for at least four or five. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:55:39.160] 

And I mean, we pile in and pull out Sunday night, you know, we don't wait for Monday morning. Trophies are done and we're out of there, you know. Next. Next. Yeah.

[00:55:49.090] 

So knowing that that you may not remember what trip it was on, but is there is there something that really stands out? One of those I know that like on our second day of driving, Shelley and I, and, you know, we we start to loosen up first day. It's pretty quiet. Second day is, you know, we're talking about business and and some things. And then, like the third day of driving, we get goofy is is that's the day we need to turn the GoPro on.

[00:56:22.870] 

Yes. We if it's not being being goofy, dumb, it's definitely having some sort of an adventure.

[00:56:30.700] 

We had we had tire blowouts on the side of the highway in Arizona and New Mexico. I think that was on the way to Texas, actually.

[00:56:41.070] 

I think so, and that was it was really, really funny because the tire blew out on the trailer, I want to say we had two blowouts and the second one, we were like, we're done, we're OK. So the tire blew out. I think it was the first one. Tire blows out in the middle of the baking sun on the 10 or whatever it was, and it had to be like 115 degrees outside or something, it was just it was I mean, everything was cooking.

[00:57:08.130] 

And right. As we stopped to go check the tire, I got a work phone call. Sorry, Cody, I can't help, I got to take this call, so I went back to my computer, sat down and let him go outside and, you know, let's see Cody change a tire, right? He has guys, for that. Right? Yes. Repr. Yeah. So I stayed inside working and I finally got off the call.

[00:57:35.610] 

And I had no idea what happened, I was just, you know, doing my doing my work thing, so I walk out to talk to him and say, hey, how's it going? He's like, oh, my gosh, dude. And you know how he is, right? It's just just melt down almost. And he's like, Dude, I came out here and I got the tire out of the out of the trailer and it rolled down the side of the highway.

[00:57:55.290] 

And I had down the fence into the ditch and I had to go get the tire and the jack drop the jacket like he's sweating, is just sweating balls. And he's like, this is just not fun. And we're struggling, trying to get it all done. And he's got the jack got the tire up and he's like, all right, I got the tire up. Just put the tire on and let's get out of here. He's like, Dude.

[00:58:18.170] 

I'm done, I'm cooking, I'm too hot, I got to go inside and I'm like, all right, I'll take care of the rest. No big deal.

[00:58:24.470] 

So I started changing the tire and had the jack handle sitting on the ground and all that stuff and. I didn't realize how hot everything is just going to get so damn near blistered my hand grabbing the jack handle after it had been sitting out there on the baking pavement like, oh, my gosh, this is just too hot. Like, you can't do anything. This is a mess. So we managed to get it done and managed to move on.

[00:58:52.950] 

I want to say that was the first flat or it might have been the second.

[00:58:56.980] 

I don't remember that part, but we pulled off the highway on a tire shop, pulled off the highway and bought all new tires because he was like, I don't want another blowout. Like, this is just dumb. So it became expensive real quick. Yes, it does. Yeah. Eight tires aren't cheap. We we replaced this year in a in three events. We replaced one drive tire, one steer tire and all four of the trailer tires.

[00:59:28.780] 

Yikes. In three events. And it was like this can stop now. Yeah. Any time it's bleeding it hurts. Yes. I don't know man. We, we stopped at Cadillac Ranch once or twice. So Cadillac Ranch oddly enough. I think we were coming back from PA, we were traveling east to west, and an old buddy of mine that used to work for Axial was traveling west to east and he was traveling to Texas for an event.

[01:00:00.170] 

And we were traveling back home and I said, hey, well, you know, keep an eye out for us. We're going to be coming across the 40, you know, headed home, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, yeah, cool. Right on.

[01:00:11.380] 

So we touch base a little bit and, you know, schedules weren't going to click, that just was not going to, you know, you know, it's not going to happen. And we stopped at Cadillac Ranch and we're like, hey, you know, I want to see it. I want to get some pictures. And so Cody and I stopped and we walked over to Cadillac Ranch. And of all people standing, there was my buddy that decided to stop as well, unplanned, hang out and take pictures at Cadillac Ranch.

[01:00:37.090] 

And I'm like, really? We're going to run into each other over here in Texas in the middle of nowhere because we both decided to stop. That's just bizarre, right? It was a small world.

[01:00:50.380] 

My my family came to the Texas event. My family came to the Tennessee event. They all drove 12 hours from Texas to the Tennessee event. So that was good. Dinner with family and friends is always a fun time. You never know what's going to come out. And especially when you've got your relatives are always going to start talking all kinds of weird stories and, you know, making fun of me whenever they can. So those were always entertaining.

[01:01:16.120] 

And we were at this dinner restaurant and basically everybody sat down, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, right around the table, you know, because everybody had their significant other. Except for me and Cody, we happened to be sitting next to each other, and so the lady, this waitress, young waitress says as funny and spunky as she was, she picked up on the seating arrangement. And she's like, oh, no, I see what's going on here.

[01:01:40.300] 

I got it. You guys are you guys are just best pals over here making fun of us think and together. And I got bread for whatever reason. I got embarrassed and I'm like, no, no, no, we're just friends. She's like, well, where y’all all from Cali.

[01:01:52.600] 

She's Oh, yeah, that explains a lot. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm turning beet red. And I was like, Cody, we are never sitting next to each other again. This is just dumb. So the next time we went out to the restaurant, we were absolutely separate from each other with my cousins and, you know, family sitting in between us like we're not together now.

[01:02:16.240] 

You guys make a cute couple. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

[01:02:21.310] 

You know, the biggest thing is we like you know, everybody knows it's not easy to get. He's rough at times. You know, he's being a spotter for him is not an easy thing to do. You know, he gets hot headed and whatever. But it's you just got to be able to walk away from it at the end with, you know, still being friends. You know, it's competition. Everybody wants to win, you know.

[01:02:41.920] 

True. And I think that a lot of spotter driver combos have that same thing no matter who they are, you know, there's always that indecision or, you know, the difference of opinion. It's a different marriage, you know. I mean, it really is a marriage on the rocks. Yeah. And, you know, you just have to make it work if it if it's especially if it's a good combination. And I believe you guys are a good combination.

[01:03:07.570] 

So what do you think is is next coming up for for Randall? I mean, I know that you did a phenomenal job emceeing and hosting The Screamin or dreamin in this weekend, scream in a dream and. Yep, yep. Great event. I wished I wished our camp trailer hadn't broken so that we could have been out there. Oh yeah. The whole time camping. But you know, we did make it and we had a great time out there, really did.

[01:03:36.760] 

I did not get a chance to stay for the bonfire, but the picture of you standing in front of it was phenomenal. That's that's an off the hook photo, I believe, Kimmie  from the fourth grade. Got that picture. That event was was pretty awesome. And that picture actually has been talked about quite a bit, which is kind of funny just because of how it turned out. So if you guys didn't see the bonfire, did you leave early when when you leave?

[01:04:03.550] 

We left after the awards for the for the costume and the cars and all that. Yeah.

[01:04:09.850] 

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean it was just kind of that was one of those matter of fact screaming or dreaming came about while Cody and I were on a road trip. That's how we talked about it. It was there was no real like I don't even know how I came about. It was like, well what are we doing for Halloween? Let's try to come, you know, let's have a party. Let's hang out. Let's, you know, let's do something.

[01:04:27.760] 

And then once we saw that it got more real, once we saw that places around here in Cali, we're saying no trick or treating. And we're like, well, that's just bullshit. We're trick or treating. You know, we'll just have a bunch of people out to lasertown and let the kids drunk or treat, you know, so it. Kind of went from there and then we started talking about awards for costume contest and then, hey, let's you know, everybody's going to have Off-Road buggies there.

[01:04:53.660] 

This was before I knew Johnson value was going to be closed. So let's do a little car show and then. Oh, you know what? Let's let's do a pumpkin chunkin. I forget how it came about, but we talked about that and then it was, let's do a witch burn and we'll make witches and burn them at the stake and we'll give out an award for that. And, you know, it just kind of just snowballed into all this different stuff, like, well, let's do this, let's do that.

[01:05:16.460] 

And, you know, Cody's nice enough to be like, hey, if you want to promote it and run it and put it together, have at it dude, like do it, you know, like. All right, well, we'll I'll see what I can do. You know, I, I don't know, I'll figure something out. And then we wanted to we had a 4th of July party out there and if you saw those pictures. But we did have a really big 4th of July party out there, killer fireworks show on the Fourth of July.

[01:05:39.560] 

And we had a flash. The band was called Flash Pants. They're a little bit raunchy. They're funny, they're good. But we're a kid friendly environment. I'm not really not really. And I, I think it worked out better also having a DJ instead of a band, because you're not necessarily like there to watch the show. Like, if there's a band there, you're going to be there to watch him perform. Right. The D.J., he can kind of you know, if the crowd's off wheelin or goofing off by the fire, he can just kind of keep doing some background music and just let it jam and make it make the environment good.

[01:06:15.350] 

So definitely having a DJ was an awesome idea and that guy, DJ Trust, just knocked it out. Never seen him perform up until a week ago at a Sunday brunch thing. And I was like, I think this guy is going to be good. And he definitely he knocked out of the park. Am I will let him know the the whole emcee thing. Just kind of. Accidentally came into play that actually started at Axial Fest. I think that's where it started.

[01:06:47.120] 

Axial Fest needed somebody on the mic to do the raffle prizes at the end of the night. And I was like, yeah, you I'll give it a go. Not a big deal. You know, I can talk. Right. So I did it there and they all said, hey, that was a great job. We want you to do it again the next year and so on and so on. And so I kind of started doing it there.

[01:07:07.220] 

And then I had a big, deep run, that adventure off road put together. They did a Jeep run from Pioneertown out to the Savvy compound. Where it was literally like just a dirt road crews, but they had some sort of record setting no, I don't know, two hundred three hundred jeeps all lined up at Pioneertown and drove through Rattlesnake Canyon all the way out to we're not rattlesnakes specifically, but all the way over to savvy compound. And it was just nonstop jeeps.

[01:07:36.720] 

Well, then they had a raffle party, a dinner party raffle at the end of the night, and they wanted me to emcee that as well. So I did that. And then the Fourth of July thing came and Cody was like, hey, you want to emcee it? I'm like, kind of used to it now, right? I've got a couple of them under my belt. No big deal that went off well. And so I was like, yeah, I'll do it again.

[01:07:56.990] 

It scream in or dreamin and, you know, and Cody's like, hey, it's your gig. You do it like, OK, so he's a. We were now talking, I don't know, maybe another New Year's party just run away to mark your calendar and my phone rang. Yeah, I guess I might be doing another a New Year's party out there.

[01:08:17.680] 

Laser town.

[01:08:18.280] 

So keep your calendar open. Cool. That'd be excellent. So we we skipped over. You raving KOH. Yeah, so and then I had a team called Desert Turtle Racing and I raced. My buddy had a car, he had a jeep, T.J., and we kind of talked about taking it out Wheelin and converting it into a race car and doing this and that. And so we teamed up to convert his jeep into an everyman challenge car and built it in 16 at a guy's shop.

[01:08:58.100] 

We did some of the fabrication there and then some of the backyard stuff. We did it, you know, at my buddy's house and seek out some sponsorship stuff and some support from other products and just kind of put a team together. And then all the while, I was inspired by when Larry McRae built one poisoned spider, built crispy. They did webisodes and they did a documentary and they did a film and all that stuff. And I was kind of inspired by it because I thought it was really cool that.

[01:09:24.450] 

As a racer or an inspiring racer, you could see what somebody else did and see it documented and know what? Trials they had to go through to to get to the finish line or to get to even the start line, right. There's there's everybody's got a story for KOH. You know, it's it's not just well, I mean, not everybody. There's some guys I bought a car and turn the keys, but lots of other people are grassroots and they just got to build it from the ground up, so.

[01:09:48.480] 

We built the car, we preran, and in twenty sixteen we started the race, which was our primary goal, and then our secondary goal was to finish the race. And we finished the race and we were super stoked. The agreement that we had was he was a former motocross desert guy and I was a rock crawler guy. So we had the agreement. The way the course was laid out, he would drive the first lap and I would drive the second lap so he would do the majority of the desert and I would do the majority of the rocks.

[01:10:21.030] 

So we did the first lap. We would switch and then compete. Then I would drive the second lap and that and 16, that was my. First experience in running that many trails in a day, and when you think about, like jeeping, you go a sledgehammer in a day and you're pretty stoked. Yeah, we knocked out a sledgehammer today, right? We got we got one trail at one trail under our belt or, you know, you go we'll end up in Big Bear and you're like, yeah, we spent the day running Hoquiam Creek or maybe two trails or something like that.

[01:10:54.760] 

Well, the crazy thing to me that I learned at KOH was it's not one or two. It's like frickin 13 trails, depending on how they lay the course out. There's a ton of them and.

[01:11:07.650] 

I can remember just drive in that drive in that race, and then even when we were done, when we crossed the finish line, I was just still focused on where's the next puzzle? What's the next trail I got to do? There's so many trails and. Took me a minute to get out of. That mentality, I was like, where's I got to drive more rocks, I got, you know, where's the next thing? And even though we were done, it just it was like, wow, that was that's monumental, you know, to.

[01:11:34.730] 

In my opinion, with the short amount of years under my belt compared to a lot of people. That's a monumental task, you know, to be able to pull that off and it doesn't happen for everybody on the first go and even years after that, it doesn't happen, you know. That's very true, there's guys that have that have run that event. Nearly every year that don't have finishes, yeah, we spent the next three chasing it before before the team dissolved, we spent the next three years chasing the checkered flag and never got it again.

[01:12:06.460] 

Right. Which is amazing, you know. It's tough, so it was it, man, that that I can remember, one of the trails that I thought was really cool just popped in my head was coming down Wrecking Ball. And we we came down wrecking ball. And there was cars I kind of wanted to have tunnel vision, and there was cars strewn about like big giant boulders just all over the trail as we started dropping into the trail. And I was looking and, you know, we're in the car and we're talking to each other.

[01:12:37.430] 

And I'm like, why? Why is that guy over there? That's not even a line like, what's he doing over there? That's that's that's pointless to be over there. And so we started passing all these cars coming down, wrecking ball. And then we came to the big drop and we had to take the didn't have to, but we opted to take the bypass line. But the bypass line coming down damn near felt just as deep as the standard line coming down.

[01:13:02.600] 

Except you didn't have a chance of getting really stuck in it. You just had a chance of flopping over. And so we came down that and made the turn. And, you know, we both were fired up because we just passed all these cars and we passed a few more guys and we got all the way to the end. Of Wrecking Ball and Through Wrecking Ball realized we were driving on a right front flat and so we were just kind of meandering our way to get out and we got out to the bottom in the open space and we had already suffered a flat.

[01:13:31.920] 

So the spare was flat and we now had a second flat. And we don't have we don't have a good tire anymore.

[01:13:37.890] 

So we decided to plug the front tire was shredded from coming down wrecking ball. The spare tire had a small like a one inch gash in it. And we said, well, let's let's plug it. We either done or we're not done. Right. So let's plug it. If it'll hold, air will continue on. And we still had to run. All the way around to Sun Bonnet. I think we had to go through chocolate sun bonnet, Highway 19, 20, double slide, all that stuff on the back side and then up and over to get to Pit 2.

[01:14:10.970] 

And I'm thinking, do there's no way a tire plugs going to hold air. So we plug it and I'm like, well, we'll go as far as we can. That's cool. You know, we're just trying to get through it and we plug it with, like, I don't know, eight, seven, eight tire plugs. Just kept stuffing it in there until it stops leaking. And we drove on and the damn thing held up, and if I could ever endorse a tire plug company, I would totally do it.

[01:14:35.560] 

These were none other than like Pep Boys specials, right? There were nothing fancy. And they they survived the beating they that the Hammers gives to you. You know, it was just crazy that they survived. And I'm like, dude, I cannot believe that tire survived. And it's still held air the rest of the week, like, just unreal. Who would have thought, that's awesome. So what's what's next? Anything anything in the plans besides the New Year's Eve party?

[01:15:05.090] 

There's a rumor floating around all again next year. I don't know if we'll do everything again next year. That's a lot. That might be a one and done one and done thing gone to the east. It's beautiful. I'd love to go back there and visit and compete again, but. I don't know that's really going to depend on what what work brings. I don't know if Cody and I'll do it.

[01:15:28.190] 

That's a lot of driving. That's a lot a lot of effort to to do all that I do. That was more than fifteen thousand miles in less than, what, nine months. Right. That's that's just ridiculous. So it was a blast. But we rock is definitely in the rumor that I've heard from Cody is we're talking about let me drive instead of him driving. Oh, OK. Big rumor, yeah, we've it's it's loose, you know, like every time we've talked about it before.

[01:15:59.740] 

I take it with a grain, I'm competitive, right, and now if I'm in the driver's seat, I don't know if we will actually win. So I want to win. I don't want to drive at the sacrifice of winning just for the fact, just for the fun of driving. Right. Like I want to win. So. We'll have to see how it goes. I definitely need more time, I don't have a lot of time, so I'll have to have a couple of practice sessions to get a little bit more comfortable.

[01:16:27.380] 

The big issue is, is time, right? Ten minutes is not a lot.

[01:16:31.160] 

No, no, it's not. Ten minutes. Not a lot. Yeah. You figure that's, what, 80, 90 minutes a weekend. Right. You can do that in a in an hour and a half at the Hammer's. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

[01:16:46.520] 

We were, you know, the cool thing. We were at Trail Hero and he let me take the buggy out. I went out with Jesse Haines and Ryan Maxfield and we went and ran. Broken chain or something like that, I remember the name of it, but we took off over there and I was following Jesse and I've never actually really followed him wheel before. And I was sitting in the car thinking, man, I got to follow Jesse wherever he goes.

[01:17:13.170] 

I don't know if I'm that skilled, you know, that guy's got that guy's got a down. He really knows what he's doing. So I followed him through most of the stuff. I got to mess around a little bit and then drive up a crack line. And Nick Melby actually spotted me. Nick and Ryan spotted me up this little crack line over there and. When we got all said and done, Nick was saying, oh, that was a line that Cody looked at and was like, I don't even want to mess with that.

[01:17:42.500] 

It just looks like a mess. You know, he's like, I don't want to deal with it. So Cody found out that I did it. And he's like, Dude, I can't believe you went and did that. And I was like, well, I don't know it look look doable, you know, I'll figure it out. Like, so we did that and it was a hoot.

[01:17:56.870] 

I had a blast, you know, it was it was really cool because it was unpressured, wheel time. Right. You know, Cody wasn't there watching what I was doing. There was no clock. There was no competition. It was just. Go have a good time. So that was probably as of late, that was probably the funnest thing I've done. Awesome. That's cool. Anything else you want to add that you can think of? Man, I could talk for days.

[01:18:22.480] 

I don't know, you know, there's you know, yeah, I mean, obviously, thanks to Cody, you know, it's been an awesome experience being able to compete in all of the all the we rock events this year was was unforgettable. You know, it's the terrain at every one of them was always so different that it was really cool to go to all the different comp sites and see the differences. Tennessee was completely different than than Pennsylvania, which was completely different than than Mason, Texas and Bagdad.

[01:18:52.840] 

Like, I really like going to those just because it's all of a sudden new and you got to learn how the car is going to react. If it's going to stick, if it's not going to stick, you know, everything's got that extra little think about it, you know, mentality like, oh, we got to think about this, especially I think it was Tennessee where we totally misjudged and Cody had never been there either. Right. So it was new for both of us.

[01:19:16.540] 

And we misjudged where we thought the car was going to stick and it actually didn't versus where the car wasn't going to stick. And it actually did both times. And both times we were like blown away. Like we're sitting there talking on the on the coms going, man, that was that was supposed to be a mess. And the car just hooked up. Or flip side of that is, dude, why is the car not going up this wall?

[01:19:40.960] 

It's just supposed to go right up. This is nothing, you know. So it was fun to bounce back and forth and learn, you know, the differences in the terrain out there. It was great. What did you think of competing at night under the lights? I always like that. You did that at trail hero a few years back, I think. Yeah, we did the shoot out during that time. Yeah. Yeah. And I like crawling under the lights.

[01:20:04.540] 

I think it's kind of cool. I think it gives it an extra. What's weird is so. The shadows will play a little bit of a trick on you, but at the same time you also can't tell how death defying high you are on a wall because you can't see it.

[01:20:21.100] 

There's nothing down there. So there's there's two sides to it. So I really like doing it. And it's also nice and cool. Right? It's not like blazing 90 degrees out in the daytime. So it's I like doing it. I think I'd like to see more of that. Right. You know, under the lights, because it just changes it up a little bit and makes you think a little different. I want to say thank you so much for joining me and sharing your story, what you've done over the years, delving into your past and who you are with all of our listeners.

[01:20:56.600] 

Again, thank you so much for coming on board and hope you enjoyed it as well. Oh, absolutely.

[01:21:02.730] 

And I'm glad, like I said in the beginning, I'm glad to be here. It's to me, it's really cool to look at where I came from and where I'm at now.

[01:21:12.440] 

Right. Like, I never would have pictured being a spotter and the rock crawling competition or even being a champion, you know, at rock crawling and being where we are. Another short story. I have pictures from that from that Cougar Butte's event, right where I can now recognize who the judges were there friends of mine now, which I didn't know them back in the day. Right. There's like I see somebody and and Randy Stock Burger and these people that I didn't even know back then, like even back then, I think I even have pictures of Cody competing and I even know him at the time.

[01:21:49.400] 

But I was out there taking pictures of everybody doing their thing. And I look through the pictures and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I know. I know all these people now, like, you know, just being around in the off road industry and being so into it just so, you know, whatever emotional about so into it. That it's cool to to be able to talk with those people and meet them. Everybody's friendly. You know, the greatest thing about.

[01:22:13.200] 

Off roading is 90 percent, ninety nine percent of the people are nice, friendly people, and they're going to help you. You know, that's the greatest thing about the community. That is true. So that's that's one reason I've been doing it for so long. Right. Right, right. It yeah, it's good. So, you know, like I said, thanks for having me. Thank my work. Enough Horizon hobby for let me do what I've done.

[01:22:37.290] 

And even before the Horizon hobby, it was Hobby Co and even before that it was Axial all on its own. I definitely would not be where I am today without, without a lot of that support. Same with me helping me out and putting up with the best that I do. You know, there's a lot of time she can go or do what I do and she's, you know, busy later, have fun, you know, and not all people are that way.

[01:23:03.750] 

So it's nice to be able to do all the things that I've been doing.

[01:23:08.670] 

And I don't know, man.

[01:23:12.210] 

Hopefully we're going to see what the next the next Lasertown event scream in a dream. And we'll probably be happening in twenty, twenty one. That was like that was a huge hit.

[01:23:25.080] 

I'm still wiped out from it. I'm still recovering. There is a lot of work there. You know, there's a lot of people that. That we all volunteer our time and help out and just get stuff done, and it's great to see how many people came out, there was more than two hundred people screaming and driven well. So I don't know if somebody gets sick. Maybe coater got one. Yeah. Great protest, right. Great protest.

[01:23:50.160] 

Maybe he'll get his wish and he'll he'll have a super spreader event. Dumdum.

[01:23:55.920] 

No, it won't happen. It was a protest. Yeah I agree. I don't protest. It was peaceful too. Yes. All right. All right, Randall, thank you so much. You bet. Thank you, Rich. OK, take care. Bye. If you enjoy these podcasts, please give us a rating, share some feedback with us via Facebook or Instagram and share our link among your friends who might be like minded. Well, that brings this episode to an end.

[01:24:24.570] 

OK, you enjoyed it. We'll catch you next week with conversations with Big Rich. Thank you very much.