108. The Future Of Crown Rally, Squad Driven, w/ Asa Gladstein

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide Podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations, and I'm here with my co-host, Dan, Mr. Gunnigaraj.

Yep, here I am.

And today we have a repeat guest.

Repeat, am I the first repeater you've had repeaters before?

We've had somebody on four times, I think Michael Peterson still holds that record.

There you go, lots to talk about.

Yeah, but nonetheless, that's still an exclusive club of coming on again. I won't hurt you, thank you. Well, it made sense, given the news that dropped however long ago, and the fact that you're in town, too, it's just kind of worked out perfectly. That was a perfect clap, by the way. Too bad the mics probably won't pick it up. But nonetheless, Asa, I'm blanking on your last name thing. It's been a while.

Gladstein, if you know the last name.

Gladstein, I've been looking at it all day.

I was gonna say Gladstein, but I was like, I don't wanna screw you up either.

No worries.

I've heard every pronunciation of my first name and my last name, so.

I know it, and it's just like, oh yeah, and gone. But anyways, you are the now owner of Crown Rally.

I am.

What's the official title?

My official title?

Yeah.

Owner? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's kind of weird still. It's almost surreal, but I feel like owner is less douchey than CEO, right? Or like, I don't know what owner.

President?

Yeah, that's still, I don't know.

What's the name you tell yourself in a mirror every day? There's got to be one, right?

It depends. It depends on the day.

It's too early in the episode. Let people get to know you first.

Yeah, exactly, before we get that far, yeah.

Like, I came up, what was the, there was a number of ones I came up with for myself. I was just like trying, cause like, for example, Justin was Rally Master, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so I was like trying to come up with other names like that and such. I'm like, ah, cause like when I used to run my rally, rest in peace, but nonetheless, yeah. So, okay, you have an upcoming event. Now this is gonna drop well after the event, like two or three weeks from now or whatever, but tell us about the logistics, especially given the current circumstance.

Yeah, sure. So the logistics of Crown South.

Yes.

Sure. So next week is Crown South, which we're going from Chicago to Nashville. That's the start of the end. So the middle was supposed to be Chicago to Louisville to Asheville for two nights and then Nashville. As many of you may know, Asheville is not doing so hot right now. So we had to pivot when we got a call the other day from Asheville, which we were expecting. But the hotel was like, hey, we got to cancel, you know, Asheville is underwater and not doing so hot. So we're pivoting. And obviously this is being dropped after Crown, so I can freely speak about it. But we pivoted already. I found a solution. We've gone to Knoxville many times. I think Crown's gone once, and I've gone on my squad driven rallies two or three times now.

Knoxville is phenomenal. We went there for my rally. I think, no, we stayed. No, we didn't stay there, but I think we came through there. But I went on Crown 8, which by the way, that was amazing.

Was that the one that went to Knoxville?

Yeah. Yep. So we stayed in Knoxville. That's when I got to ride in the SVJ. That was pretty baller. Nice. Yeah. That was like when you bombed through those mountains in almost a million dollar Aventador. Pretty cool. Right. So I'm still grateful for that experience. Crown is still by far like, yeah, I ran my own rallies, but Crown was the peak. So that's why when you took over, when you took over to Torch, I'm like, this is going to be awesome. So we can talk about those logistics, but I'm more so curious, right? So how long were you running Squad for?

So Squad Driven, technically, I started when I was at school in Minneapolis and I was doing like cool photo shoots, and I did a small rally up to Duluth just for like one night. It was like, oh my God, this is my first big rally. And then I technically, that was just kind of a side hobby while I was in school. And after I graduated, I moved from Minnesota to Massachusetts, and I started my first actual Squad Driven rally was 2018.

Gotcha. So how many total events have you had? Do you number yours or no?

No, I don't number them. That would be easier. So we had one in 2018, 19, and 20, and then 2021, I thought it'd be a good idea to start doing two events a year. So 18, 19, 20. Then I did 21, 21, and one of them was like a local-ish one in New England, and then the other one was more of a long distance. 22, 22, same concept. 23, I thought it'd be a good idea to go the whole, so my rally is called the East Coast Run, so I thought it'd be a good idea to do a full East Coast Run from Maine down to Miami, do the whole East Coast. A lot of people enjoyed it, but I was more exhausting than it was worth in my opinion, but everyone seemed to have a good time. It was like 9, 10 days.

I was going to say it was longer.

It was long, it was fun. That was 18, 19, 20, 121, 21, 22, 22, 23, and then 20, 24. We did four rallies this year. So what are we at? Eight. So then we did our East Coast Run in May down to from Boston down to the Tale of the Dragon. We ended in Knoxville, I think, unless I'm butchering that, but something along those lines. Then we also did one in the White Mountains up in New Hampshire, which is super cool. We did like a private drive up Mount Washington and stayed on a lake and that kind of thing. Did a private like boat party. We're at 10, I think. And then two more, so 12. So we had a rally to Toronto as well, which was super cool. Crossing the border sounded better in theory than when we actually did it. It was fun, but a lot of people are just nervous. They don't know what it is, or they think it's more logistics than it's worth. So it was a small event, but it was awesome. We had probably a dozen or 15 teams. Everyone talked to everyone. We had small family style dinners, and it was a really good time. We did, that was my favorite track I've ever done. MoSport, really cool. Outside of Toronto, check it out. That was cool.

Why'd you like it?

It was definitely more high speed, and less tight turns, and more longer straights, and swoopy turns, if that makes sense. That's not like...

Those are the tracks that I like to do.

You're more like, my car, so I have a Gen 1 R8, and it understeers, and it's not a fan of the super tight stuff, but it's awesome on the longer swoopy stuff. So that was fun. And then the last rally of the year was actually two weekends ago, we went to Lake Placid, New York. So it's the home of the Olympics in the 80s, I want to say. So we did a night where we learned how to do curling on the Olympic ice, the movie Miracle, like the hockey movie, was on the same arena. So that was cool. We did a drive up mountain. We did these cliffside roller coasters. I forget your original question, but yeah, I think 12 rallies, and that was probably your first question.

Don't worry, I'm going to steer you into, you're not even going to know what question is coming next. Yeah, yeah. So then, why, right? Why give up what you've built? Are you giving up Squad, then?

TBD. So the goal is to not. It's two very different brands. They're both awesome in their own way. So Squad is more about the smaller, I'm kind of the tour guide, and everyone shows up and I lead you guys around, and we have a good time, but it's less of like Crown is more of, here's an amazing event, here's a plan, go do it and have a good time. See you at the end. Or that's how it historically has been run. And my rallies are more, I'll plan a rally and I'm like your tour guide for the weekend. So we wake up, I'm like, here's a, literally, I would do these trifolds. So here's your trifold for the day, and it has all the addresses and the itinerary and the routes and all that.

I love the trifolds. That was my favorite part of the rally, because that was amazing. It was one of those mementos you take home. I still got, even though, even from Venom Rally, again, one of those, that didn't work out, but I got my whole drawer full of itineraries.

It's a nice memento. You keep it. But yeah, so that was more of like, Squad Driven rallies are smaller and they're usually like, so the White Mountains one, the Olympic one, Lake Placid and Toronto, were more of like two to four days less expensive, like we were talking about earlier. It's not breaking the bank. The White Mountains one, I think, was too grand, maybe 2,500 bucks for a couple nights, you know, private drive up a mountain, party on a boat, short and sweet, you know.

Which is, again, like we were talking, I think that's one of my, I like that sweet spot too. So first of all, I run a business, I got four kids, so like getting away, nine, 10 days sounds great on paper.

Right, right.

But like I think even when my wife and I will go on a four day one and end in like Atlanta, right now I gotta get home. We're like, oh, we'll stop along the way, do this, bomb home. It's like, we're done.

Yeah, so that's one of the things where I have a lot of rallyers, clients, friends like that, where they have a business or a bunch of kids or whatever, and they want to get away for a day or two or three. But to your point, like all of a sudden the longer ones, four or five, become six or seven.

Yeah.

Which is, you know, that eliminates a lot of people. And I want to host rallies for both types of people, and not different types of people, but different types of availability, right? Like the people who can get away whenever they want and do whatever rallies, and the people that can get away for two or three days. I want to make sure that I can offer things to both.

You can have your Toyota brand and your Lexus brand, right? Like still under the same...

Essentially, yes. And yeah, essentially, yeah. So Crown, the way I explain it when people like my Squad Driven Network asks, I explain it in a similar way. I essentially say Crown is more of a, you know, take Squad Driven and fast forward it five, ten years and make it more legit. It's the wrong word, but it's more refined. It's more professional. It's more...

It's kind of like when you look at like when McLaren finally had a road car, right? Like they had this crazy history from the 60s, 70s, whatever it is. And then now all of a sudden they got a road car. That's basically what it's at, right? Like you have this tangible history. Sure. That's, I don't know.

I'm trying to come up with a good story for you here.

I don't know. Or like Ford and their Shelby and all it's got, you know, whatever. I'm trying. I'm trying here.

But to answer your original question, I want to keep them both alive. This 2025 is going to be the first actual year from the beginning where I'm owning and running both.

Right.

So my goal, just being transparent, which I've told most people, is Crown is, you know, obviously more of a legit business. That's what pays my bills. So I'm going to prioritize. We're doing a North, South, East, West. So I'm going to turn my East Coast run, which was the big bougie one that I used to do into Crown Rally East. And then I'm going to keep the smaller rallies under the Squad Driven brand. So I'm going to launch the four Crown North, South, East, West, and then fill in the blanks with, you know, the small weekend stuff under Squad.

So are you going to... What's the longest you're going to do then, days-wise?

I don't know. So...

That's tough.

Yeah, it's tough. And I can run through like a rough Crown plan for next year, which again, this is going to be announced in a few weeks, probably right around the time we're dropping it anyways. Trait like a little asterisk, this may change, however. The tentative plan, so North for the last 10 years or whatever Crown's been doing is Minneapolis to Chicago. So I want to keep Crown Crown, but I want to make it better where I can and just make it different, spice it up, give it a little bit of my flavor. So something I was thinking for North, for example, instead of going from Minneapolis to Chicago would be to go on the other side where it's like the Badlands to Yellowstone. So we'd go to like, we start in Rapid City, we go up through Montana, you know, Big Sky, Jackson Hole, that kind of thing. Cool bougie resorts, amazing, amazing roads. I've never been out there, but I've seen pictures.

So we did Venom Rally 1, when Crown was doing their thing, before they announced their first west or whatever, I think we were one of the first rallies to go out to Pikes Peak. So we did Minneapolis to, what?

Rapid City.

You went to Rapid City?

Yep. Oh, cool.

We did Rapid City, but then the following year, we did what's the other city that's out there in the Black Hills?

I didn't go on that one.

Deadwood?

Deadwood.

That Sturgis, Deadwood, like that kind of?

That was an awesome area. So if I had to choose between those two, Rapid City, not a ton of hotel options, but Deadwood was awesome.

That cruising through the like South Dakota, you know, mountains as far as the planes are concerned. Yeah.

Sucks.

Bomb, yes, that drive across, right when you're about ready to just like, you know, off yourself, then all of a sudden there's the Black Hills. You come in, you're like, all right, cool, maybe I can survive this drive.

Start seeing more green.

Well, that's why I was debating starting from Minneapolis, because that's where most of the North crew comes from. But I figured, to your point, I don't want to have the whole day one of the rally be, hey, we're driving eight hours on the highway together. Like, regardless, it's not going to be fun.

It's still not bad as far as rallying goes. So I drive a big old heavy car like you were talking about earlier. This is why I like the long straights and the long sweeping turns. Right. It's not bad. I mean, you can disclaimer day one's going to suck. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'll set my cruise at 130. We actually have where we've we've tested to see where it stops, where you could set the cruise. Yeah. So it's not horrible. It run a radar detector is like, I mean, it is just like you can almost set your cruise and go to sleep. I mean, it is a long straight road.

Usually the days before our rally anyways, like, for example, the ones I. So the ones I did, the Mide Mountains, Toronto and Lake Placid, it was. A different style of rally where we would stay in one like we the rally was like Toronto, right? So it was one hotel for three nights, four nights, and we the rally started and ended there. But to your point, people had to get there. Yeah, so we kind of had a day zero, if you will, where like it was an unofficial, semi-organized, like, hey, guys, if you want to head up together on the day beforehand, I'm meeting here at this time and I'm heading out this time. So it ends up being like people have to drive out anyways. So coordinate it, but don't make it an official part of the rally. Right. Which saves me the planning. And I don't have to charge for it. You know, like I don't have to plan anything or like food or stops or whatever. I can just say, yep, see you guys in Rapid City. But like if you want to group up and cruise, here you go.

Yeah, that was one of the ideas we had. I really hope those geese are getting picked up. But nature, nature. Yeah, that'd be hilarious. I don't know if you've ever seen like the podcast with Viking on his name, but he does like a whole fishing podcast, just invites comedians on. It's hilarious. But anyways, back to your point, like you can do a variety of routes. The six hours really isn't that bad. There's a really cool, like car based restaurant, it's like halfway there. Or like in one of the first cities on the way there. Pretty cool, breaks it up nicely. But again, you're not kind of like, you're not doing challenges or anything like points or anything like that on your rally. That's kind of nice thing about like the style of rallies that we run is like, you're able to break it up with competition a little bit.

Fair, fair.

But again, if you're just going to Deadwood, again, that was a really nice hotel we stayed at. That's a pretty sweet setup. But then, so what would you do after that? So you're planning like Wyoming and all that?

Yeah, yeah. So the goal with North again was Rapid City, up through Montana, and then we'd probably end in Jackson Hole. So you'd go like Badlands, a little bit of mountains and stuff. Yellowstone, Jackson Hole.

Bougie.

Yes, but I want to keep it short enough that like it's bougie, but it's not like stupid expensive.

When you say short, that's not going to be less than-

Three, four days.

Three is going to be tough.

So we would start in Rapid City, again, ballpark plan, start in Rapid City, do all the cool, like maybe Mount Rushmore, all those roads around there. Go to Billings, Montana. Found a really nice hotel there. So that would be day one. Day two would be Billings to Big Sky, and then day three is Big Sky to Jackson Hole. So three days, more or less. And then you check in the night before, so three and a half.

To help you sell, for those that haven't done, like Mount Rushmore, Black Hills area, that is, like I've done tail, and all the surrounding roads, this is kind of like tail to north.

Right, I've seen pictures, it looks insane. So this guy, Mike, he's one of my rallyers from Squad Driven, he's a diehard rallier, he wants to sign up for all of them, good guy. He went out for the bike week, or whatever, at Sturgis, I think. So he was sending me pictures of routes, he's like, we have to hit these roads, these are gonna be amazing. And he sent me pictures, and it's like, there's one called like the Spines Road or something, it's literally these like rock, needle-shaped rocks that look just like pointy, and to your point, it looks like Tail of the Dragon through these giant spiky rocks.

The elevation changes are gnarly. That was really cool, like I was watching it on my phone, with the GPS or whatever, and it's like just thousands of feet. But one of my favorite parts, there's a photo I took on Venom Rally, it's like there's a car in front of me, and then it's like this tunnel, and it's just all white, and then all of a sudden, you just see Mount Rushmore. That's wild. It's cool, it's awesome, so that's exciting. So that's Tentative Idea One.

Tentative Idea One for North, and by Tentative Idea One, I mean all the hotels are pretty much locked down, and we're pretty much gonna do it in August of next year, but it's not signed and sealed, delivered yet. That'll be soon.

Unless Yellowstone blows its top.

Right, right, right, unless something happens. So North, West, we already have announced internally and partially externally, so West is gonna be in the first week of June. Denver to Vegas, so that's gonna be a longer one. Denver, Aspen, Park City, Park City, Vegas, potential extra day in Vegas, so like six days, give or take. That'll be probably one of the longer ones.

Okay, which six is like, again, for your type of event, makes sense.

I think six or seven is the perfect length of a rally, period. Like, if you're going and have the time to do a bougie week-long rally, I think six-ish is the perfect length. I think you can have a great time on a four-day rally. You can't, like a four-day is also great. I think longer than seven is probably not my cup of tea. I think longer, after day six or seven, I'm burnt out personally.

Yeah, I could do a seven-day one, but it had to be like, okay, we're planning for this, rolling advance. Yep, yep.

Yeah, but no, so that would be the longer one. I'm also planning, like I said, the East Coast run is probably going to be a similar timeframe. The goal with that one's probably, I hate going to cities. Cities suck. I don't know why any rallies go to cities.

I'm kind of over that.

I think it's for the hotels, right?

Yeah, but like, you can go, so we're planning a rally, so the East Rally in Pennsylvania, there's a handful in Virginia and that area. There's a handful of the nicest resorts I've ever seen in this country that are in the middle of no where. So you go to the middle of no where, we would start in the middle of no where, we'd stop in the middle of no where, and we'd end, we might end in like, Savannah is what we're looking at, which is a small city, if you've been. Savannah's cool.

Yeah, it's, yeah, my mother's from Savannah, actually.

Very cool.

Yeah, and it's pretty notorious for being a pretty cool town.

It's a pretty cool town. There's a really nice JW Marriott right on the water. It's super unique. They have like dinosaur fossils inside. You walk in, you think you're in like an old museum kind of thing, but it's a bougie awesome hotel. So that would be probably another six day one, give or take.

There was another great hotel that we stayed at. Granted, it was full of cockroaches, but it was a great hotel. It was like an hour and a half north of Atlanta. I'm trying to think.

That was a resort too, right?

It was a resort. We didn't get to take advantage of it just because it was night, which is also on the downside. It's like you have these crazy resorts with all these amenities and you don't even touch them. That's why you're having that two night stay somewhere is pretty cool.

Right.

Like for example, when Crown did Asheville for two days, that was pretty sweet.

Two night thing is a game changer. The two night thing and something that I'm implementing with Crown and have implemented with my rallies is relatively a shorter driving day, but that's still a long day. So my goal is to launch every morning by nine, excuse me, and get to the hotels by five.

Which is perfect.

So you have like an hour or so to chill and then like cash bar six to seven happy hour kind of thing. And then dinners at seven. So if you want, you can come to dinner at seven and we get there at four or five o'clock. You have two hours to nap if you want, to walk around, to explore the hotel, to chill.

Yeah, what you just explained, I think, is the perfect timing for one. Cause I've been on some too where you don't even roll in a hotel till nine o'clock.

I've heard it's terrible.

Yeah, no, like I want to freshen up. I want to have some drinks. To be, let's be honest, like the roads are closed up, but it's the three or four hours that night where we're all having some drinks and b*********** and talking and doing all that is what it's really all about.

100%. And I think that time frame is a perfect balance. And it's tough because there are other rallies I've heard about, not going to name drop, but like there are some that you run, you leave at like anywhere between 8 and 10 a.m. or whenever you get in at like 10 p.m. You know, like and then dinners on your own. Yeah, or people are doing dinner at like 10 p.m. or whatever. And like to your point, like you want to.

Yeah.

A majority of what makes a rally a rally is not just the driving, but it's the people and the events and the socializing. Right. Like you're going with your friends. You can go drive by yourself any day you want, you know?

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I don't know. I just feel like that's kind of a nice formula.

I'm curious, are any of your sponsors IV drip companies?

No, no, but that's not a horrible idea. Needles freak me out.

That's a missed market, man.

I know, needles freak me out, but I feel like that's a good idea. I know a lot of my sisters into that thing. I know a lot of people that are into that.

Well, you're the coordinator. You shouldn't be needing IV drips.

I should be needing IV drips more than anybody else. I'm staying up planning this stuff and organizing and I'm not sleeping.

Dude, there's a photo of me from Whiplash where I was on so much caffeine from a supplement product. Everybody thought I was on Coke. There's a photo of me jumping like NBA style, dude. I was ready to dunk. Running a rally is so much caffeine, which brings me to my next important question. How many milligrams are you on today?

Today was a travel day. It was relatively chill, although I just had a little Starbucks on the way over.

You're on fire.

Yeah, I'm OK, because I was exhausted. Long travel day. So yeah, normally like a I don't know. I think typical Starbucks is like 200, 300. I don't normally go like insane, but I'm like 200, 300.

Yeah, no. Yeah, you kind of like have this like Naruto aura about you or something right now.

That's a run like this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so that covers that part.

And South as well, which I didn't mention. We're probably trying a new formula for South. South, historically, again, for the last X amount of years, has been Chicago to Nashville. I want to do something like actually in the South. There's a new track in the Ozarks.

So that's a great track. Cannonball Rally was the first one to do it.

Yeah, maybe like either Kansas City, Dallas. I don't know. Somewhere in the Ozarks. That's a tentative plan. But it's I need to like I've never been to any of that area. I need to do a whole lot of research, which I started, but I need to do more.

We hit that route for myself because we launched from St. Louis. That is a kick-a** road. You would not expect this road is as amazing as they were down there.

Yeah, I've heard really good things. Again, it's very surprising, but I've heard a lot of good things.

Yeah, there's this thing that we nicknamed the pig's tail, because it just was like one of those things. I don't know what the road was actually called. I could probably dig up some routes. But a lot of people said that that day was like, you remember what I'm talking about? This is myself, right? That first day when we left St. Louis, that was, yeah, it's okay. He was overstimulated.

I may not remember too much, because maybe I was a little hog-over-all.

Everybody kind of remembers the day three. Nobody remembers the day one, which goes back to your north, by the way. Who cares? You know, it's like, you have to drive through South Dakota.

Right, right, right.

Part of plan.

Right.

So, okay, so you're south, so you're thinking like that, Ozarks. The track, by the way, I've heard from a lot of people, it's technical. It's a little nerve wracking. You definitely, the full senders should be cautious, but in general, it's an amazing track from everybody that, because I know people that actually, you know, like race on it. Pretty awesome, pretty b***** track.

Nice.

So, without...

That's probably, that's just a tentative plan. I think I'm going to figure something out like that, but yeah, north, south, east, west, and then sprinkle in some cool like weekend trips.

Yeah.

So you're not planning on sleeping at all for 2025 is what you're saying?

I don't think I've slept for the last 30 years, so I don't know if I'm going to start next year. Probably not.

How many of them are you planning on instituting track days until you try and hit one every time? Because I will tell you, that's one of also my personal favorites is to get a track day in.

So I like to incorporate at least one fun driving aspect. So on the bigger rallies, usually a track day. So west, I want to say we are planning at least one track day. North, no, probably not. Maybe a drag strip just because of the location. There's no good like actual tracks, but we may be able to hit a drag strip or something. But that's more of like we're doing some of the wildest roads in the country kind of thing.

That is kind of a more chill track day. So I've done drag strip once too. It's not really my cup of tea, but it's still fun to do.

Right.

And you can be more like I can go do a couple hits and sit now and whatever. Yeah, exactly.

And that's one of the things on the rallies. Like we asked for feedback at the end of most of our rallies. And some say tracks one of the more important things. And some say like I didn't need a track day at all and I would have been fine without one. So some I try to incorporate it at least 50 percent of the time. So north probably won't, west probably will, east probably will, south maybe depending on the Ozarks track and where we.

There's a lot of cool ones down there too.

Yeah, but I like to incorporate. So on my four or my three smaller ones, we did the track day in Toronto, but like the Lake Placid and the White Mountains, we just rented out a mountain to drive privately up and down. So like not a track day, but a fun private drive up and down a mountain. Yeah.

What's it like renting a track in Toronto pretty similar to here?

Give me money.

Luckily, no. So luckily, we have a good relationship with a few guys out of Toronto that are there like Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame guys. They host a charity track day. So we essentially just hopped on their track day, and they hosted us for that day. So I didn't actually have to rent the track, which was nice, because I'm guessing that level of track would have been very, very, very expensive. So we just paid like per driver to go on track.

We've done that. I've seen that done on other rallies before. It doesn't seem to have any other cars there. It doesn't bother me.

It really depends on the size of the rally and the size of the other run groups, right? Like if you're in run groups that are, it's, you're on a rally of even a dozen people, and then there's another 30 people in the same run group from the public, might not be ideal. But if you have a run group to yourself and it's not that big, I agree with you. I think that's a nice way to, as an organizer, it helps save some cash. And as a rallyer, it'll be enjoyable, and then it just helps kind of everyone. You know, it helps the people organizing the track day, because now they have guaranteed revenue, a portion of their day taken.

Plus you've got 30 other guys that just saw all your stickers.

Exactly, advertising, yep. So we might be doing something like that for the East Rally. Not 100% sure, so no promises. No promises.

This whole podcast is going to be put, the title is no promises.

Literally no promises.

But there's your merch idea right there.

No promises.

Put it on the back.

That's fair. So we had a call with this really cool, I'll rewind a little bit. So Crown and Squad Driven are all very much involved in charity stuff. So not necessarily every rally, but like a whole, the overall arching theme of what we do has to do with rallying and giving back. So again, fast forwarding, I had a call with, it's called, I think Race for ALS or something like that. Kelly Rae.

He's down in North Carolina or something.

They're Virginia based or near VIR. Yeah, you might be, yeah. But maybe North Carolina. Nice guy.

Might be VIR.

So I don't know. VIR is their home track, but they might be North Carolina. They're from around there. Anyways, our East Rally may coordinate with their ALS track day at VIR. One, a lot of people want to hit VIR. Two, it combines it with charity. So it helps, you know, and I don't have to rent VIR, but we can just pay per car kind of thing. We actually haven't discussed specifics, but I had a call with them and they were like, that'd be awesome if we can coordinate a track day with your rally. So it's a track day combined with a charity component and VIR, which I've never been to, but I know a ton of people.

It's one of the most loved tracks in America.

Have you been?

I haven't, on the sim I have, but like I have a handful of friends that have driven in real life, again, wheel to wheel. So it's like, they speak very highly of it. They say it's way, it's just beautiful in person.

I've heard good things, yeah.

Yeah, that'll be a, that's the one. I actually looked into renting that one as well from when I was building out myself. That's the one that got away. That one's really cool. There's also one in the National Corvette Museum track.

That's where we're going next week, Wednesday.

Really? Are you guys, so you only managed to rent, or no, you're sharing it, right, or no?

If I'm being honest, Justin planned the track day, so I don't. I think, no, we were renting the track privately, but it's like a Wednesday. It's on a Wednesday, so yeah. I mean, it's not cheap. It's still $10,000, $15,000.

It is not a cheap track day.

No, it's not cheap, but like, you know, it's a Wednesday, so relatively, it's fine.

They quoted me $32,000, and I had to do the whole weekend, but that was weekend.

Weekend, some track.

Tricky, yeah. Yeah, which makes sense. I've heard, I think Piero brought up that that track is one of his favorites.

I'm excited.

I don't know, I went there just to see the sinkhole where all the corvettes fell down to their death.

I forgot about that.

Yeah. All righty.

Yeah, but that's gonna be cool. I'm excited you're taking this over. So what is it, what do you bring to the table, right? Besides obviously buying it, and we can touch on those specifics to a certain extent as well. But what is it that you're gonna bring to the table, right? Because you've learned a lot of lessons from running it. But of course, Crown being as old as it is, you know, I mean, let's put it this way, I was in middle school and Crown was made.

Serious?

Sheldu of 25.

I forgot. So yeah, because I was an intern, I think the first or the second Crown Rally, I think. I think they did one in like 2014, like it was small, super small one. And I was an intern in 2015. Yeah, that's wild. That makes sense. Yeah.

But like nonetheless though, it's like they have data, right? It's probably not the right term to use here, but like we're 2024 now, it's like 11 years since this since its inception. What is it that you think you can do differently?

So I think again, Justin, you know Justin, the previous owner of Crown, he still works for Crown. We work together. He's a good dude. We've been friends since 2015.

Trying to get him on, man. He's a busy boy.

Oh, on a podcast? So maybe what I'm about to say may kind of explain why he's dragging his feet a little bit. So Justin is a really good guy. He's really smart. He's really good at like, he knows. He's a perfectionist, like almost to a fault. Like there are times where I need like, for example, making the itineraries or doing graphics. Like he'll take a lot longer than I think it would take or should take because he'll like, he sees it in like perfect vision in his head and like to make it how he wants it. It's just like, he's like, oh, that thing could be moved a hair this way or a hair this way, you know? But he's really, really good at the things that I suck at. So, you know, for the last, I guess, 10 years, it's been Justin and then I don't know what point, it was me for a little bit, or Justin and Adam with me for a little bit. And then I don't know what point Tom came on board, but they had a full staff at one point where, like, Tom and Dan were the ones kind of planning and executing, and Justin was, like, the owner slash bookkeeping, graphic design, and that kind of thing. And obviously, with this comeback, Justin planned the whole comeback prior to me acquiring the company. So he planned north, south, and started planning west. And essentially, this is a really roundabout way of answering your question. But I think that I bring, me and Justin are literally polar opposites in many ways, which works well together 99.9% of the time. So the things that he was doing with Crown and is good at and all that kind of stuff are the things that I am not great at. And I think I have a lot of strengths that he doesn't necessarily have as well, which we're both very self-aware, and we're both aware that, like, he's really good at what I hate and suck at, and I'm really good at what he hates and sucks at. So, I think that I can bring more of the... I don't even know how to say this. So...

Pizzazz.

Kind of. So, like, essentially, I feel like, obviously, Justin being the owner, running Crown, he was one, like I explained earlier, hey, here's Crown Rally. He says hello at the launch, and he says, have a good day, here's a root, right? I'll see you at dinner. The way I've done rallies for the last 2018, six years, has been the opposite, like I said. I'm very involved. I'm problem-solving on the ground. I'm leading you guys, like telling you where to go, and like showing you all the cool things to do and that kind of thing. So I think-

You're the lead car, kind of.

Well, curiating, you're the route sommelier. Essentially, yes.

So like, I want to keep Crown Crown, right? I want it, like Crown's clearly gotten this far by doing something right. So I want to keep Crown Crown. Crown has a very loyal following and a very good name and brand. I think what I can bring to the table, which I'm finally getting around to answering your question.

Don't worry about it. I'll keep you on track.

Yeah, yeah, thank you. I think, again, Justin, just his skill set is not necessarily the he's not a people person. Like he likes spreadsheets and numbers and graphic design and that kind of stuff, which he's really good at, but he's not a people person.

And I'd say he doesn't like people, but like, I mean, yeah. But like, it's like kind of like that battery thing, like towards the end of the day, your battery is just gone.

But certain people's battery like his, you know, is gone in five minutes. And certain other people's last five hours or 10 hours, you know, like everyone has a social battery to your point. And some just get drained like this.

Like podcasts I can do after hours. I can't, it depends, right? There's certain events I like, I just shut down. Like you throw me into a club, like, you know, like some of the club events on Crown, you're not gonna hear from me. I'm just gonna go in a corner.

Yeah, it depends on that. I can do both. It really depends. But I think I can bring that, like, that next level. Justin and I have spoken about this. I can bring the, like, the person. Like, you know, Crown was kind of missing, like...

The face?

Yeah, like a face, or like, it sounds cheesy. Like a leader, if you will. Like, here's the brand. Like, I was very much squad driven as me, and I was squad driven, right? Or am, I guess. So like, you know, people know me as squad driven. Or when they hear squad driven, they think of me, you know? So it's like, obviously, it could exist without me. There could be someone else running it, hypothetically. But I feel like a lot of the reason that my rallyers continue to come back is because they like me. They like how I host events. They like, you know, the group that we've built. So I want to turn Crown into more of a, I want to give it that personality in the sense of bring into the next level, you know, more social media stuff, more content, more personable, more of a network, as opposed to here's a cool event, like drive the route and do your own thing. I want to make it more cohesive. So I think I could be more assertive in the sense of like taking Crown to the next level. And Justin agrees. That's part of the reason why he chose me to like, you know, we'll get back into that conversation of how I acquired Crown and that conversation started. But part of the reason why he decided on me being the good fit to be the one to take over was because he thinks that, you know, I, not to toot my own horn, but you asked, like I'm a hard worker. Like, I work my a** off. I don't really sleep, like we talked about. And it does sometimes rub some people the wrong way, but I get you done. Like, you know, if it needs to get done, like I yesterday found out I had to re-plan half the rally. I'm going to get it done. Right. You know, one way or another, you know.

You work better under pressure.

I work way better under pressure. That's one of the things Justin and I kind of clash heads on. Literally the only thing is we both handle pressure differently. Like when he's under pressure, he buries his head and like ignores me for two days, and it drives me up the walls. Because like when I'm under pressure, I'm like hyper focused and like I need to get this done. And like if I need to talk to him, I'm like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. And then but we're both stressed. So he's ignoring me and I'm the opposite. Right. We're both working on it.

I think you're more the style I am. Like I'm a 17 text guy and he texts me like once a day.

Yes. Yeah, I'm a very over communicator, which a lot of Crowners, Crowners, Crown Rallyers.

You got to come up with. You got to figure that out now. Yeah, we got to call these people, these people.

You people. No, so we, a lot of the Crown Rally people, since I've started to take over, and again, we're still transitioning. I'm just in plan most of these. I've kind of helped a bit and I, again, don't want to be like, hey, I'm the captain now. I introduced myself like that on North as a joke. But I don't want to say, you know, screw everything he's done. I'm in charge now. I'm doing my own thing. And I want it to be very much like, I'm kind of easing myself in and not over asserting myself too quickly.

Which is wise. I definitely, outside looking in, the way you're doing this makes a lot of sense.

I'm trying. I'm like, you know, I've never bought a company before.

Right.

I've never taken over someone else's baby or project or whatever you want to call this brand.

It's built a brand, right? Like you can't, it's not, I've seen, it happens all the time with businesses. They come in there like, we're going to change this and do this and this and this and it totally screws it all up.

Right.

They've made it this far. Right. You can't come in and be like, God.

There has to be a reason.

Yeah.

So again, I want to keep it as is and add my own flair, more content, more social media, more... Something that it used to be was, you know, not so driving as a group. It's more like, you know, hey, you leave around the same time, you know, some people go directly to the hotel, some people drive with their two people, or some people drive with their friends, you know, and I like the squad driven mentality is more of like, not 100% together, but more so like a pack of three or four, a pack of five or 10.

And how do you incentivize that though, right?

It's tough, right? There are things like, I don't want to, something someone complimented me on in my last rally was, I plan a rally and encourage togetherness, but like, you paid me to come on the rally. If you don't want to show up to anything, I'm not mad at you, do whatever you want. You paid me and I plan the event. If you don't show up, that's on you, you know? And so it's no pressure in the sense of like, I'm not forcing everyone to stay together, but I just want to create this network and mentality of like, we are a group, we are a tight network, we can help each other, we're all enthusiasts. So, you know, we are here for the same reason, doing the same thing. So we want to be together, you know? Like we want to like, you know, obviously rally driving, like the first person sometimes will cut someone off, slow down and let everybody else in, you know? Like that kind of concept where like we're staying together as opposed to someone's cutting the gap and they're gone. And then someone else cuts the gap and then everyone's split up. And then all of a sudden, you're half an hour apart, you know?

Do you find that you find these little groups that kind of go? So we, that's kind of like what you're saying. So there's usually a group of us that take off, like there's six or seven of us that we're just like, I don't know why we think it's some kind of a race, but we just take off like a bad out of hell, right? And that's like, so you got your like first group, then sometimes it was like the middle guys. And then you got the people that are just, I'm just here to putz. Does it kind of seem like that happens a lot on some of the ones that you run as well?

Yeah, so my thought process with that concept, I don't want to, besides telling people, so I'm a very big stickler on, don't cross double yellows, don't drive like a dick, don't ruin everybody else's day just because you're on a rally, right? However, with that being said, I don't want to tell everyone, I don't want to make people, besides me telling people to drive safe because liability and all that stuff, I don't want to force the people that want to go a little quicker to go slower, and the people that want to go a little slower to go quicker. I want people to drive at their own pace within reason and have a good time. So again, if there's a group of people, like sometimes, for example, Mike, sometimes he'll go a little bit ahead just because he's having fun on the back roads, and then he'll drop back. He'll go ahead, have fun on the roads, and then he'll come back with the group. Or sometimes the slower people, they'll slow down, and then when we pull over to stop, when we pull over to stop, they'll catch up. So again, I understand not everyone's going to be together for the whole time. As long as everyone's being safe, not doing anything stupid. Again, liability purposes, like it's running a business.

It can be done. I rallied thousands and thousands of miles. I don't cross double yellows. I don't pass on the shoulder. Yes, sometimes you get caught up in situations that are frustrating. You either pull off and take a chill and then go with that, or eventually your window will open. Don't push it. It's stupid. I'm with you. Yeah, but I have a family. I have all this stuff. I can't imagine if I was just out in my excursion, I would just take in my kids somewhere, and then I got all these idiots crossing on either side of the road. That's what would piss me off.

So it's a fine line. But again, my goal and Justin's goal with Crown is to promote that environment where it's, don't be stupid, but have a good time. When it's more of a networking event with your friends and you happen to be sharing the passion of driving and cars, as opposed to like, the goal is not to go drive as fast as possible and just be a dick.

Again, also, if you're out there, you see us, pull over, please. We'll go around you. Right, right.

Some people are very good with that. Yeah.

And you'd be surprised that if you think we're out there and the cops are hating on us either, that also might shock you how often you get pulled over. And a lot of these are for charity, these events that we're doing and things like that. And some of them are semi-lenient to that, and they're like, okay, hey, slow it down. Have a good time, don't be a dick. So if you think that there's a bunch of Karens out there and we're all getting trouble for doing this s***, that's not always the case either.

I think the nice thing about Crown though is a lot of the people that do Crown have already kind of done rallies before, or usually somebody takes them under their wing, or they're there because of somebody else. Somebody's giving them the briefing too.

Yeah, Crown, again, part of the reason why I acquired it and it was so attractive in the sense of like in business terms, Crown is one of those events that has such a loyal, amazing following that it fills within 24, 48 hours of announcing the events. So my biggest hurdle at Squad Driven, like just being transparent, was filling the rallies. Like we filled some a couple years ago, but now we float around 30 to 40 rallyers on average, some less, some more. But, you know, that was my biggest hurdle as a business was introducing rallying to the Northeast. It was a foreign concept. Like now there's a handful, but people initially, for years, there was pushback. Like why would I pay you to drive with my friends? Why would I pay you to go on the road? Right, and I'm like...

We got guys that give us that same speech.

Yeah, to this day. And then we convince people to do a rally, because their friends come or whatever, and they do it, and they're like, I get it now. Yeah. It's hard to explain. It's hard to explain a rally until you do a rally.

I've done every single version from, granted, media for Crown. I've seen the Upper Echelon, which it kind of was at that point, even though it necessarily wasn't the peak. Like, it was still Crown 8. Like, that was pretty up there. Then obviously, I ran my little cheapo rallies. And then, you know, I brought that up to, like, you know, kind of mid-tier at that point. But I've also done, like, the free friends rallies. Like, I can see a purpose for every single one. And at this point, anybody who says, why would you pay blah, blah, blah? They just don't know what they're talking about. Which, again, Crown has no trouble selling out. You only have to make that argument at this point.

Well, let's transition into that real quick. What are you planning for sizes on them? Because I will tell you, one of the biggest gripes, even from loyal Crowners, you did it, I'm just going to roll with it, was that it got pretty big. And that they didn't necessarily enjoy that as much.

I am fully supportive of that. So Crown at its peak was 120, 150 cars, which, again, I understand both sides, right? As a business, the way the Rally business works is essentially, I mean, you know this, but after a certain amount of people, it's more profit, profit, profit, profit, profit, because a lot of your costs, a racetrack, for example, like a racetrack costs 10, 20 grand, whether you have one person that shows up, or you have 150 people that show up. And if one person is paying for 20 grand, that's $20,000 a person. If 150 people are paying for $20,000, it's significantly less.

Is there Amex over there?

Yeah, no, that was the phrase that we used on my rally, was put it on Amex. Right. I had 20 grand riding on that Amex, and I just paid it off.

Dangerous. And I've learned, I've done the same thing. I'm still digging out of a hole. Like, I'm fine now. But part of my small business learning is you learn by screwing up, and you learn by rally budgeting and spending and all that.

Well, the other thing is, and this is where you were better at it than me, by multiples, is you were able to market yourself. Again, these are entry-level things. We're not trying to have people start rallies and be like, here's your to-do list on how to start a rally. But that was one of the things that you just didn't struggle with, was the marketing side, because you had that personality. I'm sure there was struggles, but-

Well, the struggles, so I'm good at that part, but I suck at the other part, which Justin's good at, which is the bookkeeping and the keeping my budgets and all this stuff, which is why I ended up, like what you said, I lost a lot of money. And I think we might have talked about this last time. I lost a s******* of money, six figures of negative money that I had to find and make because I had to, just poor business decisions. And I ended up working, up until I acquired Crown, I was working three jobs, four jobs, and people didn't realize. People thought I was making all this money from Squad, and that's why I had my R8 and whatever, but I was working three or four jobs.

Well, touch on that then, because I would not have guessed that, right? Because I thought you were just yolo meister, right?

You thought I was what?

Like just yoloing it, right? Like, you know, just, you know what? We'll use Peter to pay Paul, figure it out along the way sort of situation, right? So explain that, right? Because that's the part that people probably don't even understand, right? So you're working three, four jobs, you're running a rally, f****** hell, right? That's the best way to ask that question.

Long and complicated answer. And to answer your question, 75 is probably the number. Okay. I have a follow up to that, but we'll go back to that.

75 Rallyers, we'll come back to that.

15 to 75 Rallyers is the happy medium, I think. But to answer your question, so ever since college, even before college, again, I'll go through it quickly, I was never a school person. I was always like, I want to do what I want to do and figure out a way to, one, give back and two, make money. So I was always about charity and giving back, just as how I was raised, and making money, I have to survive. So I started Squad and then I was realizing that doing these rallies, I'm not making money. Some of them would break even, some of them would make a couple of hundred bucks, maybe a couple of thousand dollars, maybe some of them would lose thousands of dollars. So very quickly, I started doing it, and I had to get a marketing job. So I was working at the time for my uncle, he owned a sign company, so I was doing marketing and social media for him. During the day, when I had downtime, I was doing squad stuff. After work, I would be doing squad stuff, and at night, I'd go bartend. So initially, I was working three jobs, because the marketing and the bartending, excuse me, would pay for my personal life and my rent.

But also add very good aspects to being a rally master, to be honest with you, being a bartender and a marketer.

In case we're understaffed, I can help. Yes. But no, people don't realize that behind the scenes, and a lot of my closer friends know this, but I would, again, during the day, I'd work the marketing thing. In between, I would do squad stuff. At night, I would bartend and do it all over again. And then sometimes, it eventually became, when COVID happened, I dropped the restaurant closed, I was in bartending. I also quit the marketing thing. I think it was just time. We went in separate ways very amicably. And COVID happened, and then it was kind of a blessing in disguise where it was the whole, you're gonna get paid what you were getting paid by the government or whatever for a very brief amount of time. Oh, I know that. So I was like, okay, great. I can maybe give a very brief shot at starting just these rallies and marketing and stuff on my own. So that I would-

It also catapulted the car market, which is probably a good bonus.

Right. So it was a nice, like, that was when I tried it 100% just Squad Driven and just the marketing. And it was quickly like, okay, like, this is not sustainable. I have bills and rent and whatever. And so then I started doing- I would still do my own thing, but I would find ways to do marketing and social media for other companies, whether it was like building a website or like, you know, creating content, hiring media to create content, stuff like that. But again, to answer your question, like, a lot of times I couldn't even tell you, which is kind of s*****, but like, I couldn't tell you how much of my own personal money I paid Squad just to keep it alive and have my R8 and do everything, you know? Like, I probably well into six figures of my own personal money. Like, I don't have a savings. I didn't have a savings. I mean, now I'm starting to get a savings, but I didn't have a savings. I was always like living paycheck to paycheck, which people, again, from the outside, you don't realize that. And I'm not one to talk about it.

And that's why I asked you, because like, these are the questions like nobody would ask me. And then, you know, people ask me on the podcast, like, oh, s***, you know?

Yeah, you don't think about it. And like, some of my closer ralliers understand, and they're like, I get it, and they're very helpful and supportive. But like, most people looking from the outside in, like, don't understand any of it.

Well, and here's the deal, they shouldn't have to. And that's the thing.

I agree.

That guy whinging on Facebook, you know, like, oh, man, like, I don't, you guys don't understand how hard it is to run this. Like, no, that's not fun. It just isn't. So this is kind of me saying hats off to you. Like, hey, keeping it on their covers, because that's how you keep it fun. Because if you're out here saying like, oh, I have to work these four jobs, I don't know if I'm going to make this rally happen, that doesn't inspire conference. So I got to give you props for Props are Due.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

But then, you're working how many hours? How are you able to take the time off to run these rallies? This is where my whole curiosity-

All of my jobs were flexible. So that was right. Bartending, I could ask for a couple days off. It's not a big deal. They more so, we had extra bartenders, so I'm not making money. They don't get s***, unless they were understaffed. But most of the time, there's plenty of bartenders. And then similar with the marketing thing, it didn't last too too long. Mostly, I mean, we just, again, amicably part of Waze, he's just like, yeah, I don't really need you to...

I gave up on the marketing thing too.

No, it was for my uncle, like for the sign thing. But yeah, I would always have to do flexible jobs. And then most recently, so I was working for Drivify, which I think we might have talked about in the last podcast, so I was doing rentals, which is flexible.

Are you still doing that?

Not anymore. Since the Crown thing, it's just Crown and Squad. So again, right before I was doing mobile tires, so I would go to your house with this Boston mobile tire, good dude, and he was awesome. He's kind of a mentor. We'd talk about life, but also I'd help him jack up cars and take the wheels off, and he would do the tires, I'd put it back on.

Like mindless kind of work, like you could kind of just talk and work.

It was talk and work. It was chill. It was good networking, and also it was good cash. So I was doing that. I was doing the rental gig. I was doing my own marketing stuff and the rallies up until Crown. Literally, I was doing four jobs, and people didn't know that. And a lot of people, I told them, and I was like, yeah, like I did this. They're like, what do you mean you did tires? What do you mean you did this? You don't just do like do this full time, or you're not like a rich kid who just has parents' money? No, to none of the above, you know? So I don't know.

I think that was a question worth asking, because again, like, again, Minnesota guy looking at a guy across the country, like I thought you were just doing the rally thing. So that answers that question.

But again, it's not that I was hiding the other stuff, it's just I don't feel the need to talk about, if you just asked, I'm happy to talk about it.

But like, is this full time now?

So since I acquired Crown, luckily, Crown is a legitimate business that, you know, has been around a bunch of years and has proper budgeting in the sense of like, I can pay myself a livable salary with between Crown and Squad, between the two brands, I can cover my bills. I'm not rolling in the dough. I'm not buying an SVJ tomorrow. But like I can survive and I don't have to work my three other jobs. So again, my goal is to obviously figure out ways to increase one company profit, but to my pay, whether it's more rallies, bigger rallies, maybe not bigger than 75 or whatever we're talking about, but more rallies, bigger rallies and just other ways to figure out, you know, I can provide good experiences and make money from it and marketing and stuff like that.

Well, speaking of the 75 thing, so that's the other problem, right? Because you get, I don't even know how. So you're going to fill those 75 spots when it comes to Crown. Like that's going to be easy, right? Like you said, within a day or so. How do you, though, keep it? Like, how do I get in? You know what I mean? Like, where do those things, though? Like, OK, now I've decided I can do Crown. I want to try one. You know, is it going to be impossible for something again? Are you going to add more rallies? Like, what's the...

So that's the tough part is like we... So again, Crown used to be three rallies a year, North, Southwest, 120 on average per rally, and they'd fill in 24 to 48 hours.

Yeah.

I had a few lunches with mentor friends last week, literally, and I was trying to brainstorm. I was like, how can I, like, what do you think I should do? How can I make more money? Because I feel like it's kind of capped.

Yeah.

And they were like, if you're selling out that quickly with a wait list, like, there's a problem. Either you need to have more events, charge more money, or have more people. And I was like, well, I don't want to charge more because I don't want to turn into fill in the blank rally that charges way too much money and isn't a great experience.

It changes the demographic to the experience.

Right, right. So I don't want to be like certain rallies that are way too expensive and they provide the same experience. I don't want to have it pass that 75-ish mark because after a certain point, it lowers the quality of the event. And I don't know how many more rallies I want to add because after a certain point, I think it lowers the... I don't know the word I'm looking for. It kind of lowers the... The prestige of it? Yeah. Not the uniqueness. Like the... How special it is, right? If there's 100 Crown Rallies a year, people are like, oh, s***, like if I can miss this one, I can do this one, and I don't care about these, you know? It wouldn't matter. But if we have, you know, it was three filled with a wait list, now it's... Next year, I added a fourth one. So I'm adding the east as a fourth one. So we'll see. Next year, 50 to 75 cars times four rallies. We'll see how that goes. And again, if that fills up with a wait list, maybe we add a fifth one, or maybe, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. There's so much of this country that people want to explore and drive that I honestly probably could add a few more rallies in areas that we don't go to. And people, there are people, as you guys probably both know people, that all they do is rally. Like they don't... It seems like they don't work. I'm sure they have their own jobs, or their own companies or whatever.

Yeah, I'm assuming you gotta be at that point where you have companies that are working themselves. Yes, yes.

Yeah, but I know people who like, they literally go on 10, 20 plus rallies a year.

Yeah, that would be my dream. It would be where I'd want to be.

Like Chris down there, he has a garage about seven units over. He and his friends, you may know Nick and Teddy Way, they did like 11 in one year.

Damn.

That's legit, and they did, I think, one of mine that year. Are you familiar with Quiet Racing by chance on Instagram? So check them out, right? So for example, the whole thing, and those who know, I have a point here, trust me. So a few years ago, it was a guy with a Corvette that just disappeared off into the distance, right? Like the cops chasing after him, and he made an entire brand surrounding that. You can kind of do, and now it's like a cult following, right, like this whole street racing thing, blah, blah, blah. Don't replicate that. But you could somehow replicate that cult following with the idea of getting friends together and drive, and that could be another aspect to the business, maybe. I don't know, just throwing s*** out there.

Lots of ideas.

But you can only scale this, like you said, to a certain point. If you have a thousand crowns a year, it loses its panache. Right. Is that f****** word?

Sounds right.

It is now. I saw it on the TV. It's okay. But yeah, so you're trying to figure out how to scale it on that front as well, but the nice thing is you don't have to worry about food on the table anymore.

I don't have to worry about working for a job. Correct, that's the nice. Yeah, so like that was part of when Justin and I were talking and like we were deciding when to do it and how to do it and all this other stuff. And part of it was like, hey, like, you know, this is a real business. I, we used to have a team of like four or five people on salary. You know, if we do this tomorrow, like there's enough room for you to quit the other jobs and you can get a salary and not have to work those three other jobs, you know.

So has this been in talks then for a little while? It sounds like this is excited when to announce.

So we, I couldn't tell you what month. I could probably guesstimate. So it moved for a business sale. It moved very, very quickly. Justin and I again have known each other for about 10 years, give or take. We've been in touch. They kind of stayed in, you know, Midwest and West. I stayed on the East Coast and we did our own things. I used to come back on Crown as like a hybrid of a rallyer and staff member and just kind of chill and help. Recently, so again, just we'll be fully transparent on this podcast. So I've been doing my own thing for eight years. I was frustrated working the four jobs and not having a savings and working month to month and all that stuff. So I approached Justin and I was like, hey dude, like we had talks years ago of him buying me out, like potentially Crown coming to the East, or essentially like we didn't get into specifics, but something along the lines of like me rebranding as Crown, doing my thing, but like I'd be a branch of Crown. And so I approached him in probably April, May, April, May, give or take.

OK.

And I was like, hey dude, like I'm frustrated. You know, you want to buy me out. Like I'm, you know, let's you're coming back. Yeah, I'm ready to work and I, you know, I'm just kind of frustrated working these multiple jobs. Like I would love a salary and I would love like a steady income. I've never had a salary until right now or a few months ago. But so is that a dental? No, I still have to pay for my own health insurance, dental insurance.

What a s*** company.

That's what I'm saying. I quit. But long story short, I initially approached Justin. Hey, you know, I I'm kind of frustrated. You want to buy me out? He's like, Yeah, I don't know what we're doing or come back. It's complicated, et cetera, which everyone knows. So he was pretty much just like, give me some time. I'll get back to you. And I honestly thought he wasn't going to get back to me. I thought it was just like, yeah, you know, this is a nice way. Midwest. Nice way of letting me down. Yeah. And just being like, yeah, you know, I'll get back to you. I think it was a week later, maybe two weeks later. I was I forget where I was. I was out. I think I like dinner with friends. He's texting me. He's like, can you call me right now? I was like, yeah, give me like 10 minutes. Called him and he was like, so you want to buy Crown? And I was just very much like, what the f***? Dude, jaw drop.

Like I seriously, I was like, you want to buy me out? How will you buy me out?

I was like, so we figured it out. And of course I was like, yeah, but like, let me think about it. Like, let me take a second. I called my dad and I was literally, me and my dad are close. We kind of he's one of my mentors, and like he's a very good businessy guy. So we talk all the time about that. And I called him out. I literally was speechless for like 30 seconds. And he was like, are you okay? And I was just like, yeah. So Justin asked me if I wanted to buy Crown Rally. Anyway, so part of the reasoning behind it, which we were talking about earlier was Justin's at a point in his life, he's almost 10 years older than I am. I'm 30, he's almost 40, I think. Sorry, Justin, if you don't want people knowing you're almost 40. Anyways, he's at a point in his life, they started Epic Raps, they're doing well, he's got a kid, and he's trying to not work 200 hours a week, you know, he doesn't want to run that company, run this company, do this, whatever, and he wants to slow down, and I'm at a point in my life where I'm ramping up. I'm still like foot to the floor, full throttle, I don't have any kids, I don't plan on having any kids anytime soon, if ever, I don't know, but I like cars. So we're at the perfect point where it makes sense, he wants to slow down, I want to speed up, and yeah, again, one thing led to another, and it just worked out. So if this was a random business sale to someone else, it probably would have taken a lot longer and been a lot more paperwork, and a lot more lawyers, and a lot more of everything, but ours-

Did you guys work to like a broker?

No, we worked us to, and we each had a lawyer. He essentially drafted an agreement with his lawyer. I reviewed it, and I hired a lawyer to review it, and then we kind of went back and forth on a couple little things.

Both lawyers were like, all right, you guys are-

Both lawyers were like, hey, if you didn't know each other, this is absolutely stupid, and you guys should need way more signatures and paperwork, but since you know each other for 10 years, you're fine. Yeah. One thing like that, and then we moved on. So that was in July, give or take, and then I don't think we announced it until August.

That sounds about right.

Yeah. We announced it right before my Toronto Rally, which was the first weekend of August. So I think it was, again, it's good for both of us. I'm 30 foot to the floor. I don't sleep. I want to work all the time. I love rallies. I love all this stuff. And he's trying to slow down, but he's signed a contract. He's now an employee of mine, which is really weird, but kind of cool. So he's not going anywhere. Again, we get along very well. We work well together. We balance each other out, because I'm usually one to shoot first and ask questions later, and he's the opposite. So I think it'll be good. So we'll see.

So what does that involvement for him look like? Because again, you said next year is going to be pretty much all you. At some point, does like, because like a lot of times when somebody buys a company, there's like a year kind of them being on the board or something like that. What does that look like? Is he going to be involved going forward at some point, or is that going to fizzle out?

No, so the goal is we're going to have our own roles, right? So the goal is I am planning all these rallies and getting all that s*** done. And he's doing the budgeting, doing the books, doing not the books, we have an accountant, but he's essentially keeping us straight with our budgets and our spreadsheets. And he does all the graphic design for Crown, excuse me, like the wraps and the livery kits and all that stuff. Justin does all that. So he wants to do that, and he doesn't want to plan the rallies and vice versa. I don't want to do that, and I want to plan the rally. So we're going to have our own roles. Until literally our agreement is pretty loose. It's like, hey, you're an employee, you're getting paid X dollars. If one of us doesn't want this to happen anymore, then 30 days notice, I think we said, something like that, no harm, no foul. But again, I foresee us hopefully working together for a long time, because he's a good dude. We'd love to have him involved. It's his baby that he's grown for 10 years. So I would love to help him take it to the next level, and maybe we'll eventually have a team, and him and I aren't even doing this anymore. You know, like we own the company, and we have people running the rallies. I don't know. We'll see.

I can't wait to clip together all the, at the end of this. Just make a...

See, you want to buy a business?

Right, right, right.

And it's done.

Okay, well that's exciting then. So then, are you 100% owner now then? Yeah, just me. Gotcha. Do you, so for now it's gonna be that sort of partnership phase. Do you see yourself adding anybody else's partners in the future, or do you want to kind of just hold the reins for the time being?

I think as ownership, I'll stay 100%. But I do feel like, and I was having this talk with some friends and Justin the other day, as far as I think one thing that I'm not very good at is delegating and hiring a team, because I've always been a one-man band. So I was kind of picking Justin's brain on like, who worked for you full-time? What do they do? How much did you pay them? That kind of thing. Because I think, you know, 2025, maybe I need to hire a team. So like, I'm not pulling my hair out, doing a million things, and I can focus on the big picture stuff and scaling, and we can have people doing, like, one person's in charge of social media and marketing and content, right? And then one person's in charge of sponsorships and staff. And then, you know, I'm planning the rallies, and Justin's doing the books and graphic design. Like, that's maybe like a general overview of the plan.

The best thing I would have done if I wanted to stay in business is have somebody else wrap the f****** cars. That was so time-consuming.

Yeah, wrapping got a part of the job.

Yeah, that was definitely, yeah. So that kind of works out with Epic. I'm guessing that's going to be the go-to.

For now, when you're starting, you have to build it up to almost what it is before you can start pulling that one off.

Yeah, I'm going to leave that to the pros. I'm out of the rally. Right, right, right. I'm retired. And for a while there, I was helping another rally, but now I'm just like officially retired. I was planning to retire next year. I'm like, yeah, I like what I got going on. It's all right. No, that's fair. So then what has you most worried going forward? Like, are you scared about anything? Is there anything? Because like a lot of times when people jump into something like this, it's like, you know, full send. Is there anything in the back of your head just going like, hey, this is what? Caution. Anything? Or you're just like full send?

Now, I think I'm okay. Well, we'll see how filling the rallies for next year goes when I launch them next month, hopefully. Initially, Justin and I were on the same page. Both of our fear was we didn't know how both of our clientele, mostly the Crown clientele, was going to take the news in the sense of, like, good news, a handful, a solid chunk of the Crown OGs and Crown Network know who I am. That's a good start. If I was a random person, it may have gone a little differently, but a lot of them know who I am, knew who I was. So our fear, again, to answer your question, was we announce this Asa's in charge, and everyone wants a refund, and nobody wants to come on the rallies anymore. That was the initial fear, but obviously, North went really well. South, I think, is going to go really well. We'll see. I think I've done a decent job so far, again, and Justin's still involved, which I think is a good, like, anybody who's Crown loyal is not leaving. Anybody who's Justin loyal also isn't leaving because he's still here.

Well, ultimately, it comes down to the fact that, one, he's involved, but two, you being that OG helps a lot. Because you've been there since...

Right, if I was some random person who was like, hey, Joe Smith, who has never been involved with Crown ever, is now running Crown, like, I feel like there might have been more of a hesitancy, if that's a word, more people would have been hesitant to come back on South, or maybe ask for a refund, or I don't know about West, things like that. But a lot of people, a lot of either the old Crown people or the new people who have talked to old Crown people about me have privately messaged me or commented like, I don't know you, but I've heard really good things, and I'm excited to see where you can take Crown. So again, the initial fear, that was really it. And besides the fact of like, now I'm running a giant business, coming from running my own little one man band show, that's a little nerve wracking.

Well, I think that's, this is just a guess. Let me know where you stand on this. Now you actually have a budget to play with. You're not worried about being strapped for cash. How do you, what's your game plan to prevent yourself from bawling out?

Justin. Justin, Justin is my...

The spreadsheets, the spreadsheets will stop you.

Literally, but also like it's a really good thing because it's so Justin to answer your question is very good at initially, he was good at keeping me in check with spending, but it's awesome because there are certain times where I'll tell him to like be small or I still keep the squad mindset in the sense of like I was spending as little as possible to have the best experience. So I had to find that balance, right? But Crown, a lot of times, Justin's like in his old mindset of like, we're making money, we're a huge brand, we got to spend money, do this really awesome stuff. And I don't care what it costs, you know, like that's a little exaggeration. But you know what I mean, like it was more so like free flowing of like, we'll spend all this money on crazy food and crazy venues, which is part of the brand, right? But we literally had this talk today about hotels because he was on the mindset of like, oh, it's only like, I don't know, it's like 10 grand more. And I was like, oh, s***, 10 grand more. Like, I can save 10 grand. He's like, yeah, but like, but we ended up, we ended up, whatever. We figured it out. But it's one of those things where I was telling someone the other day, I was dealing with a budget for, I forget if it was South or West, one hotel for two nights. Guess how much we're spending between rooms and venue, and like dinners.

How many participants?

I think we have 70 rooms times two nights, times two dinners.

Two dinners?

Just guess, ballpark.

$1,200.

What?

$1,200?

Total cost of two nights, 70 rooms a night at a nice resort, and two dinners.

$90,000.

So $70,000 times $1,200, roughly.

No, more than double that. So, but again, that's why we can figure out ways. So again, it's literally the number is $200-something thousand. Like for two nights, 70 rooms, 70 rooms, dinner, dinner. But again, for me, for Crown, it makes sense, just judging by, you know, there's a formula of like how much rallies should cost a business a day. And, you know, you walk that line of like the more expensive ones. Like what I usually charge is about a grand a day ballpark, but Crown's a little more, but obviously like it's still very good value for your money. It's probably like $1,300-$1,500 a day. Very good value for your money, but there are rallies, you know, that are three grand a day, two grand a day, $2,500 a day, which is wild, right? But again, coming from my brain of like the most I've spent, off the top of my head, the most I've spent on like, so even if you divide that by two for one night, right? That's a hundred and, call it $120,000 for one night for hotels and dinner. I feel like the most I've spent is at one hotel plus dinners, probably half that on the high side. So now for me, like I'm dealing with these contracts where I have my deposit $75,000, wild.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And I'm like, for me, like, that's just like nuts. And obviously it's cool, like the business is that big where that's normal. But for me, that's, fear is the wrong word. It's just like, holy s***.

You have to adjust to it, right?

Like you said, it, all you did is you, it's like those games where you can pay to move forward, right? Instead of like, you could play the game, right? And earn all these things. What you've done is you've just, you've, you've went into the future of what you had. Because again, you're talking about people not, are being reluctant, maybe not knowing you, but you haven't given up rallying. Like when you left here and went there, you started squad, right? And you've been doing that nonstop every year, some up till now, right? So it's not, it's not a thing that you're not privy to, or a place you maybe would have gotten to eventually.

Eventually, yes, but to your point, it would have taken me five, ten more years.

Right, right.

Maybe, but again, I don't know. Crown, I think, also is one of the original rallies where it was like right time, right place kind of thing. So I don't even know if in five, ten years I could make my brand like as big as Crown, you know? I don't know, but obviously now I don't have to figure that out. Yeah, wild, wild, wild, but it's cool.

Well, we're excited.

No, I appreciate that.

It's gonna be fun to watch. I think, I'm curious to see what you do. I think you, this fly is gonna catch something else.

Extra guest.

Yeah, the amount of times we have flies just come, because again, we do a lot of interviews in shops and such.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so you constantly have flies. I should get sponsored by a swatter company.

Literally, bug assault.

Dude, that'd be perfect. Yeah, but anyways, before we start wrapping up here, is there anything else that you kind of wanted to touch on? Because I'm sure, I mean, this might even be, this won't be out before it's on the actual rally. I was gonna say, it'd be kind of cool to just have people listening to it on the rally.

No, I mean, I think we kind of covered everything. I'm just super excited. I'm honored. I'm grateful that I was given this opportunity. I never thought in a million years I would be in this position, but like it's one of those things. Again, it's cheesy, but like it's not luck because I've worked my a** off for 10 years, you know? It's one of those things like, yeah, it came out of nowhere, but I've done a s******* of work to get to this point where it did come out of nowhere.

Yeah, I don't think anybody's going to question that.

No, I mean, I have a hard time personally stepping back and appreciating how far I've gotten or what I'm doing. I'm just very in it and like, oh s***, like, what am I doing tomorrow or today? Or how much work do I have to get done? I'm terrible at relaxing and taking a step back and like, oh, this is cool. Now I own a company that makes a decent amount of money and provides amazing experiences and is well known across the entire country, you know?

Yeah, it definitely is something to take on. But also take a second, appreciate it, and then get back to it. Like, for example, since the last time you're on this podcast, it's, I think, eight or 10x'd.

So it's like, what, my life?

No, no, no, I'm saying like, yeah.

Or your podcast.

Yeah, right. Like since the last time you're on, well, yeah, your life as well. But like, for example, like, you know, take a second, appreciate it. Like, oh, cool, we grew this much right back to work.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're like 10x just in the last few months.

Literally. Yeah, it's wild. Like, again, since. Yeah. No, I wouldn't say I'm a different person, but like since he's balling out again, Rolex is no no no no Rolex.

He's saying at the Ritz, you know that.

But since I was on your budget, we're fine.

Since I was on your podcast last, seriously, like completely different lifestyle, right, like different. I was working a bunch of jobs and struggling and whatever. And now I'm less stressed about finances and more stressed about how am I going to solve a flood in Asheville and figure out where to go, you know.

It's a new, it's a different level. Or it's a different level, but it's a different stress.

Both, you know, it's totally different. Again, I would not give it up. I'm very happy where I'm at. Excited to see where I'm going to go. But I'm, you know, it's again, since I saw you last, I'm happy, couldn't be happier.

Staying on the East Coast?

For now. Again, the good news about Crown is I could probably live anywhere in the country. So I don't know, my goal is to probably be in the Northeast. I love it there. I like the people. I like the speed. I like how I can be direct and people don't get offended. Because when I was at school here and working with Justin, there were times where he understands me and likes me and knows who I am. But he would tell me that other people would get offended or upset by me just by being direct. He's like, I know you're not being rude on purpose, but like, yeah, I need you to like, you know, reign it in. Right, right. And I'm like, okay, I went to school here for like four or five years. So I got it eventually. But yeah, I think so.

You're gonna be passive aggressive here. That's how it works.

I know, I'm not good at that. I literally had a call today with a hotel in Knoxville and I was like, listen, I'm gonna be very direct and I apologize in advance, but like this hotel offered this price. Can you match it or not? And she was like, I appreciate you being direct. Let me ask. So, you know, it's one of those things like, I could have just taken that what she said and been like, yeah, you know, it's fine. I'm not gonna push it.

Well, think about it.

Right, but like, I'm one to like, you know, if you don't ask, you're not gonna get it. And I'm not being rude. I'm very polite about it, but I'm just, hey, like, someone said this.

I'm booking this either way, either you get on board or you don't. Exactly. Yeah.

Right. Like, I'll give you a last shot. Like, I'm gonna book this at this price unless you can come down closer to it. And so eventually they did come closer to it. And I was like, glad I asked. Thank you.

Yeah.

So.

Well, on that note, Dan, do you wanna pop the usual three?

Yes, absolutely. So at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. You have to pick a daily driver, a track car, and a show car. You have an unlimited budget. Do whatever you want. Spend some of that crown money. Whatever you need.

All right. I think my daily driver, a daily driver, a show car.

And a track car.

Track car.

And they can be cross-platform, right? Like track cars can be show cars, vice versa.

Fair. So I think my-

I don't remember a daily track show.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you have to pick three, but I'm saying-

You use it as wanted.

So I think my track car would be- I'm a hardcore R8 guy, but I think it would have to be a built one. So I want to take mine. I'm at 90,000 miles, V10, but it's an R-Tronic. So I would love to maybe- I've debated boost, but for a track, I think boost is unnecessary and probably would make it harder to drive on track. So I think NA manual R8 with a bunch of really cool, redo all the suspension, aero, that would be sweet. I also love the R8s just because it pisses off Lamborghini people when you're faster than them. It's the same engine, but whatever. Anyways, the show car, I think I would take a Koenigsegg 1-1 because it's super cool and it just looks wild, but also it's fast.

Sounds like a write-off to me.

Yeah, I think that would be the show car or an 812 Competizione or whatever it's called. Is that the Ferrari 812? I don't know if I had to pick by the Koenigsegg just because that's wild. And then the daily, I don't think I would have answered this last time, but I think it would be an RS6. I was not a wagon guy. I was not a wagon guy. I drove a buddy's RS6, and I want one. Really bad.

He's grown up before our eyes.

I was not a wagon guy. I think last time I probably said an RSQ8 or something like that. I love those. But I think a daily, the RS6 has plenty of space. I can fit my tents and merch and everything in it. It's fast enough. You can rally an RS6. You can make it look wild and you can make it stupid fast. It's comfortable. I think an RS6 is a daily. Yeah, the show, I think I have to go with the one-to-one, and then the track car will be probably a heavily modified R8, I think. That's my final answer, pretty sure.

Okay, don't worry. We'll get you on next year again.

Yeah, I'll have three more next time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where could people find you?

That's tough. Now you can find me at Crown Rally or Squad Driven, at Crown Rally or at Squad Driven, on Instagram or.com or Facebook. That's pretty much it, yeah.

And drops his address, and you can find me in Boston, Massachusetts. Is there anybody else you want to shout out before we say goodbye?

I want to shout out to AJ for letting us use this really cool garage. Oh, s***. You were supposed to do that, but I'll cover it because you didn't. Thank you, AJ. AJ's a good dude. He's a Crown guy. He was my landlord in college. I don't know if you ever knew that, but I've known him for a long time. Shout out to Mike for his car being behind me. Shout out to Brianna for her car being behind me. That's pretty much it, I think. Shout out to you guys. Appreciate you having me on.

Yeah.

And Justin. Yeah, there's a lot of people. I'd like to thank my, I don't know, agents.

Dan?

You can find us at Gunna Garage with Two N's.

And then here's the part where I usually remember everything I have to say. Thanks, AJ, for letting us borrow this. This kind of worked out funny, because we could have used the Ratified Studio, but I was like, you know what? Do you know anybody up here that would let you use their shop? Whether it was here or Epic or wherever, it would have ended up somewhere. It's just cool to have a fun backdrop like this. So shout out to AJ. This is pretty sweet. I think you could rent storage here as well. So rent it for parties and such.

You need winter storage, I believe. AJ said these spots, you could probably fit, what, four cars in here, probably?

Yeah, I don't know. I came here expecting to see some cool cars, AJ, and not knowing I was walking into a storage unit, so thank you very much for that one.

I know, I was hoping to see that Calvo. I'm not sure if he sold that or not, but nonetheless, yeah, it's okay. We'll give him a few weeks to listen to this. As for me, you guys made it this far in the episode. Follow me on everything Minnoxide. I think that pretty much checks out. Asa, thank you for coming on.

Thanks for having me.

Dan, thanks for existing, and we'll see y'all next time.