144. John Doc on Drag Racing, Small Tire vs Big Tire, Budget vs Expensive Builds

Deep down, I was like, no, I'm a small tire guy, because there's this battle between small tires and big tires. Now that I've done both, I'm like, I don't see why you guys are arguing, but the small tire guys think the big tire stuff's dumb, and the big tire guys think the small tire stuff's dumb. I think they're both cool, they're both so much different. I call it the fun zone, where you can stay in the fun zone, you can go fast, and it's not super expensive, it's not a bunch of work, it's fun. And as soon as you try to go to that next level, you exit the fun zone.

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 Ford-loving co-host.

I knew you were going to bring that one up here.

All right, Dan, Mr. Gunner Garage. Yeah, no, I think it's fair game, but also we were surrounded by a variety of things here today, so I think it kind of works out. He was in heaven yesterday, he got Ryan in the GT40 and all that stuff, and it's like, yeah, so we got to switch for the other team.

Today we'll make up for it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyways, although I do see you guys like to throw them in fox bodies all the time.

Hey, that's got a small walk forward in it, though. Does it?

All right, cool.

Hell yeah. I like it.

Well, anyways, today we are here with John Doc of Nasty Racing, and dude, I'm really happy that we made it down here, because again, we like to learn about, anytime we travel the country, it's like, let's see who does what outside of everywhere. So go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself, and we'll just kind of go from there.

Yeah, my internet persona, John Doc. Been doing YouTube for a while, that's kind of like my claim to fame. Started off just doing some small street car racing, and now this year, 2025, we're running Pro Mod, Pdra Pro Boost, and doing I think decently well at that for the newcomers. So I've been documenting my life on YouTube for, I mean, really, I guess 2017 is when I got my first camera. And at one point, I was doing daily uploads. So I mean, every single day for I think three years, I didn't miss one, and documented my whole racing career, whole journey, life, everything going on, work, life, fiance, everything in between, and here we are.

Well, you have a pretty legit operation going on. So I actually wanted to ask you this, I know I was gonna ask this later, but for your uploads, are you uploading the next day sort of deal all the time?

So I've slowed down in the past two weeks, I could say. I really slowed it down from every day to every other day. So I pretty much film gives me a day to buffer, to edit. Normally, I'm like, I'm gonna edit the next day. I don't edit. And then I come in the following day in the morning and I'm like, I got till noon to get this video out. So under the gun a little bit. But yeah, I mean, when I was doing the daily uploads, I would edit that night from what I did that day. And then I'd work until about four and that would be my video for the next day.

Dude, cause you're cranking them out. And I'm just like, this is it. And then they're like really in depth, like high energy. And that's the other thing. It's like a lot of people can't keep that high energy going, but yeah, that's super cool. So you've been doing that for however long. And then, so what's like, been like the last, we'll actually touch on like the last two weeks, cause like you're trying to get into that Pro Mod side of things.

Yeah, so we just started running Pro Modified, which is like the hot class right now. Expensive, but it's where you need to be if you're trying to do some stuff. We've been running the small tire stuff for a while. I love the small tire stuff, but not really as rewarding as the Pro Mod stuff for myself, the whole program, and the team. You know, a lot of guys put a lot of hard work in, and when you go out there and run no time, it's just kind of like, you know, oh, there's the wind light, and that's it. In the PDR stuff, in the Pro Mod, there's qualifying, you know, you can see your hard work paying off. People can relate in the stands. So we made the jump, it was really hot. My partner, Chris, he owned a Pro Mod, owns a whole other Pro Mod team, works with them, and he wanted to get us involved. So we got, I would consider a nice starter Pro Mod. Definitely not the most b***** car out there. It is a Ford, it's a Mustang. So there you go, it's got a Pro Line Pro Charge Hemi in it. And yeah, we've just been having a ball. We run a Big Dog the first Thursday of every month, which is a local race at Piedmont, which is not too far from us. So that's what we were doing yesterday. Had to postpone this. So I appreciate you guys being flexible. But we do that, and then we run the PDR stuff. So we're going to Norwalk, Ohio on Wednesday. So a lot more traveling. The events are a lot longer, but it's way more professional, completely different atmosphere. You know, invite my parents out to it. It's very structured, it's nice. It's like, you know, the professional stuff.

So you said it's more rewarding. What's more rewarding about it?

I think, you know, you go out there and you qualify. It's a tight field. And if you can get in the field, you can see your hard work paying off. There's no easy rounds either. So if you get a round win, like everyone's charged up. And it's just, it's a completely different level. I love the no time stuff. Don't want to disrespect it. I'm still a no time guy. I still go to my no time races. But I think for like the crew to, you know, we go up to the last qualifier and we're one number out and we go and lay down a pass and we get in the bump, everyone's like charged up and excited, you know? And it's pretty cool.

So when you say it's a tight field, how tight are we talking?

So the last race in Virginia, we made it to the semifinals. We qualified with a 370 at like 202. And I think the number one qualifier was like 65.

Okay.

So, you know, five numbers separates the entire field. The big races, like World Series or Pro Mod, I mean, you're talking about three or four numbers. So you go up there and you drill someone on the tree, you win the round. I mean, the racing is just that tight.

So what made you want to get into that side of things over, like you said, you kind of, you enjoy like the no time stuff and all that beforehand. Was it just like a timing thing? You're like, all right, let's just take this up a notch or what was it?

I really didn't want to get into it, which is funny. Chris, my partner, he was all about the Pro Mod stuff. And I didn't really go to a lot of the Pro Mod races. I'd go and spectate when they're local, but I was never really involved with them. And he's like, man, this is the place to be. And any opportunity that's given me, I'm gonna give it 100%. And my guys did the same, and we've been giving it 100% and kind of fell in love with it, the format, I think the professionalism. And then all our buddies are able to sit at home and they can watch qualifying. You have a good run, they text a hey man, good run, stuff like that. I like it's cool, you can see the reaction time. So when we went first round win in Virginia, I went like 0-20 on the tree and won on a whole shot. You know, they show the incrementals who I was racing beat me in every single spot except the tree and we won. So it's more in depth, I think the fans can relate more, they can see what's going on opposed to just seeing the wind light. So I like the grudge, the no time, I think it's bad a**, but being able to go out there and show everybody what we're doing, I think it's a little more rewarding for everyone involved.

Is it more regional or how far out do you guys travel doing that?

We're going to Ohio, we go to Michigan, Maryland, race down to Florida. So I'd say kind of like the East Coast-ish is where we stay. So they have some other pro mod series out West, but we don't really mess with that. We, PDRA is extremely competitive. There's a lot of big names that run it, and we've been having fun doing that. So we're kind of sticking to that. And that still gives us time to do some of the no time stuff in between.

I know it's kind of early for you guys still, but what's the next level look like? Is there another level above this?

More so, what is progression from where you're at? What does one year from now look like?

Hopefully one year from now would be like, still running the pro mod stuff, a little bit more competitive. Right now when we go to the race, we're trying to qualify, where it'd be nice to try to qualify in the top third. So maybe just a little bit different goals, and then just being competitive in the no time stuff. I've been struggling a little bit. The past couple of years, had to focus on business a little bit. Kind of racing took a small back seat. So being able to get back in to there and put my undivided attention towards that. Get a radial program, really rocking. Have the pro mod stuff rocking as well. And we'll still have fun with the street cars. That's what I like.

Okay. So to go a little bit further back, right, so what kind of got you into all this, right? Because a lot of guys, they kind of have a choice in life. Like I'm gonna go do road course, I'm gonna go do drag racing. You know, I'm on B&E. I saw a Tesla on your parking lot over there.

Oh yeah.

So it's like, where did this all start?

Well, I wanted to do something with motorsports. I ended up coming down here, Campbell University, which is like right down the road, we had a golf scholarship. I went down here, did like the PGM program, which was a certified PGA professional.

Okay.

And I loved golf. I played golf competitively for a while, and I just kind of fell out of love with it. And I always would want to do cars. So I'd end up working at the golf course and want to be at the racetrack. So I was doing everything I could to figure out how to make race cars my job. Got a job at a local speed shop, RPM Motorsports, doing marketing. And I was doing some marketing for them there. They were helping me work on my car and go faster. And that's when I started doing the YouTube stuff. And then from there, it was just like, I got to figure out how to do YouTube full time and make that my job. And started off from the car that I drove to school and drove to class and just kept evolving.

What was that by the way? What car?

It's called the Calmarro. It is a fifth gen Camaro, single turbo 400. Now it's got a power glide. It's got a nine inch. I think it was kind of ahead of its time. It went really fast like 10 years ago. And I don't even drive it no more. It's got parked in the corner of the shop. And I want to redo it now that I've upgraded my skills and can work on the car a lot more and build my own motor, build my own turbo kit, and kind of have a good representation of what we do now. So it's just chilling. Everyone hates me for it, that I'm not out driving it. But I'm like, just wait, good things are coming.

So how did you build your skills? Because you went from being in that golfing world, did you have any preceding skills? Or did that happen after you kind of moved and did that?

I watched Stacey David's Garage back in the day. That was as far as my mechanical skill and knowledge went. It's just kind of being hands on. I had some really good mentors that encouraged me to just do it and try it. And honestly, like now, I've learned that if you want to learn how to do it, you just have to do it. And you have to go in there and mess some stuff up and be okay with it. So yeah, I mean, everything is like self-taught, self-taught how to weld and work on cars and work on motors. Like I said, I had some really great mentors that I'm super thankful for that, gave me their time and information. And now I can't say I could build a whole car from scratch. I hate doing chassis work. So if I don't have to do the chassis work, I'm good. But everything but chassis and wiring, we pretty much do in house as far as working on the cars, pump them, turbo kits, setups, configuration, everything like that.

We just literally just yesterday had a wiring guy that wires a s*** ton of ProMod.

Girl wire?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, Abdul.

Yeah, so we got to learn a little bit about that world. And he's like, yeah, man, I love it.

Yeah, I can't do wiring. Wiring's not my thing. One thing I've learned is to stay in my lane.

That's one thing I told him yesterday. It was like most car guys hate wiring. And the fact that you love it is kind of weird.

Yeah, good for him. We need more people like that.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, it's tough to like, and I don't know if you run into this, like, you know, do the business or anything, but it's like it's hard when people like some of these skills are dying off. Like we, for example, we had an upholstered the other day. He's like, yeah, dude, that guy's from Venezuela. He doesn't speak a lick of English, but man, he does good work. And it's like, it's hard to find people. Yeah. So, okay. So you start kind of doing your own stuff there. So when do you, when was your first time at a drag strip then?

So, it's so funny. We were talking about this last night. It was like 2014. I had, before the cow marrow was the cow, it was the fifth gen with the cam. That was my daily driver. Went to Fayetteville Motorsports Park. And I'll give you guys the straight up truth. It was called Freaky Friday, which was like the staging lanes were at the back of like the racetrack. There was that many people there. It was, it packed. And there was like no curfew, Fayetteville Motorsports Park, like 2014. I did my first pass at like 1 a.m. We were waiting in the lanes that long. And there's just like beer cans. You can get like a contact high. It was just, it's just like the Wild West. And this is how Fayetteville was. If any people are like local to Fayetteville, they're like, oh, I know about Freaky Friday. And I mean, I was so nervous. I went out there against some Mustang. I went like a 14.5. And on the big end of the racetrack, I'm like, hell yeah, man. Freaking out. And the guy like holds up a six pack that he smashed in the staging lane. He's like, you want one? And I'm just like, this is chaos. And that was my first drag race experience. I was like, I don't know about all the other extracurricular stuff, but the racing is pretty cool. So I was hooked and we ended up making passes till like 4 a.m. And I just kept like hot lapping it. And I was hooked. I mean, after that, it was a 14.5, not really that respectable, shifting gears. But I was hooked after that. I was putting radials on the car. I was breaking s*** and it's just never ending.

Okay, so you do that. So how does it progress from there? Actually, what year was that?

That was probably 2014. And then I did some internships. I worked up in Pennsylvania, and then I was upgrading the clutch. The car already had a cam. I was on radials at that time, and I ended up breaking the diff. So I was carless for a little while. This is my only vehicle. Not a good idea to race my only vehicle. And I ended up doing a nine inch conversion, took it to RPM Motorsports, and they did the nine inch conversion. And from there, I was kind of hooked. We ended up putting a 400 in it, and later on, I did another internship, made some money, blew all my money, got a turbo kit put on the car. And that's when we started racing. The first time I went out, it went like 620, I think, on Wastegate. Ended the night going 590s, and I was like, from that point on, I was done. I was racing forever. So that's kind of how the car stayed. It had like a 850 Cirque Cage, 88 millimeter turbo, had a 400 in it, and we ended up going 550s with it. I was running the street car stuff locally at the time. They had a bunch of street car races, and it was competitive. So we won a little bit. And yeah, after that, I ended up getting a Trans Am called the, what was it, the Boosted Rooster, I think is what it was called. And we did the same thing with that, went some like 50s, pulling wheelies, making YouTube videos. And we'd sell that car, get something faster, and kept upgrading until we ended up getting some real deal race cars.

Because the tracks are kind of prevalent down here, and sounds like they're pretty open for people to come race, is there a street scene down here where you're doing any of that kind of stuff too?

There is, but not really around here, more like out towards Charlotte. There's about three hours away. So here, we can go two hours and probably hit like six or seven racetracks.

Yeah, that's crazy.

If you wanted to race Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you can.

That's crazy. We come from Minnesota where we only have, what, two, three options within a couple of hours, sort of deal. It might be a little bit more.

Well, we pulled in yesterday where ProWire is. What do they call that race city?

Yeah, Moorsville.

And there's like, you go in there and it's all these teams and shops and all in like this community.

Yep.

And we've never seen anything like that before.

It was. It's big out there. And it's the same thing out there, too. I mean, you go two hours and you hit eight different racetracks.

Okay.

Yeah.

When did you move down here? 2012. So I came down here for school, Campbell University.

Okay. And you officially moved down here at this point then?

Well, I just never went back after that. I guess I never officially moved down here.

Yeah.

I came down here and I never left.

I was going to say, because between the, so were your internships back in?

I did some internships in Florida, one in Hershey, Pennsylvania. And then I went back, I tried to work back home six months, but it's like, it really is true that if you do what you love every day, it's not work. So I loved golf, but I didn't love working golf. And it kind of ruined my love for golf. And I said, let me try to ruin drag racing. So I'm gonna make that my job. And I-

Have you succeeded yet?

No, I've tried like hell. And I mean, there are times you're overwhelmed a bunch of projects, bunch of stuff do deadlines to meet where I'm just like, man, I'm done. I'm going back to golf, but no, I mean, I don't have to work a day in my life because we do this stuff. And I mean, it's a dream.

Do you see the similarity here, by the way, both sports, you try to get the lowest number possible.

Yeah, I do correlate golf to drag racing a lot because but when you know, you practice, you have a team when you're golfing and you know, your coaches and everything. But when you step up on that T, it's on you. And when you pull into the beams, it's on you. So I do in the mental aspect of it too. I think they correlate a lot more if you really look at it. So I try to use that to my advantage because my dad, when I'd golf, he'd call me a mental ****, you know? He makes some of those key mental mistakes, and it ruins your day. And I try not to. I'm saying this, I went 007 red last night in the semifinals, so my dad would be calling me a mental **** right now.

So where does it progress from there then? You have the one car, you've kind of, you've done quite a bit with it. Where do you go next?

Yeah, so we started hitting the YouTube pretty hard. At this time, I had like 20,000, 30,000 followers. We got that other car, the Boosted Rooster. Chris had a, this is when I kind of linked up with Chris. He had a Twin Turbo Corvette that was built by RPM. And I met him there. He was a customer. I was doing the marketing stuff and we kind of clicked. He had a storm recovery company that I started doing some side work for. And yeah, we just started racing a bunch. And he ended up putting a lift in his tower shop. So they're building cell towers. They got all the cell tower equipment and they just got a lift. And we're just working on cars. I didn't work on the car much at all. My good friend, Ben, who's no longer with us, unfortunately, he was like my right hand man. He was my mechanic. He was building them, tuning them, doing everything. And we built some crazy cars together. And yeah, so we were doing that. We ended up getting a G-body. So like the fleet started to grow, which is great for YouTube, great for content. And people were like loving the cars at the time. And we just kept racing, just doing fun stuff, trying to be as active as possible and just have really cool videos. A thousand horsepower turbo G-body, doing burnouts on the street, pretty cool. It's going to get some views. And I kind of viewed everything as what would I want to watch on YouTube? And at the time there wasn't that many automotive YouTubers. This was pre Cletus taking off and it was myself, I don't know if you guys will know these names, StreetSpeed717, GuitarmageddonZL1, those guys. That's who was like doing the automotive YouTube. And yeah, I mean, we just kept going until we got, we ended up selling the G-body and selling the Trans Am, and we got the Black Sheep, which was my first race car. So it was an 87 Grand National, true Grand National. It was already all cut up and that was my first, I had fiberglass doors and a Lexan window. I'm like, oh, we're really doing it now. And I had a Hemi with a Procharger. It was just war slam out. Thing was slow as hell, but it was a race car. And that's what really kicked off the racing. That went from going from like, you know, we have some turbo street car stuff, and now we got a race car. It's on methanol. Like it's the real deal. It's got parachutes and all the whole nine. Okay.

I have to ask him what, okay. There's always a debate of what's a street car. What do you define as a street car?

So, I mean, like you'll get Devon Vanderhoof. Do you guys know who that is?

Sounds familiar.

He's got a, you know, a twin turbo big block drag and drive car on radials that goes like bottom sixes. I mean, it's crazy. I consider that a street car. I mean, anything you could actually drive on the street, it's a street car. Now, when it comes to like running the street car classes at the track, I don't think you should be on methanol because I think it's got to come out the pump. If you get pumpy 85, you're on 93 with like meth injection. That's fine. But I mean, something that you can actually drive around, that's just not like a full blown race car that you just like, oh, it's got tags. I mean, I run that Corvette over there. It goes, I'm about to sell it, so I can't really say, but it's very fast for what it is. Me and my fiancee, we go out to eat in it. We go get ice cream. I drive it around. You take it to the track and it whoops some a**. That to me is a street car. Something you can go out and enjoy and still drive around. These guys that have like five gallon fuel cell, they're like, oh yeah, it's a street car. I'm like, come on, dude. Everyone, you gotta get in where you fit in. I get that, but don't puppy kick. If you got a race car and it's just slow, just be the slow race car. You can win a lot of races just going A to B, being the slow race car, opposed to being the fast street car guy with a race car. That's kind of how I view it.

One of our favorite dancers we got on the show, we had Calvo on the show, and he's like, can you valet it at a wedding?

That's a very, that's very good. Yeah, if you could do that. If someone else can hop in it and drive it down the street, I think that's a street car. If you got to flip all these switches and buttons and can't...

Just have a panic attack figuring out someone's...

Exactly, exactly.

Oh, you took a deep breath like you were gonna say something.

That's just me being out of shape and old.

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Yeah.

And it's like, all right, fair enough.

I do like this trailblazer here too. I saw there was four Kirkies in there.

That's b*****.

I think that's kind of cool.

Yeah, that was the world's fastest trailblazer in like the mid 2000s. RPM Motorsports built it. It had like a hog a** nitrous motor in it. And then it, now it's got a hog a** motor with a turbo and nitrous on it. So that one's a street car. They just put power steering on it. Didn't have power steering. So it's got powers, no AC though. Like you don't have to have AC. Like it's not gonna get carried away. But that thing right there, TCAM Performance motor, probably 2000 horsepower build. We haven't run out the track. It's got like, the car itself's got like 5,000 miles on it maybe. So it is a, it does look clean. It is very clean. It's a b***** build. RPM put it together and we ended up with it. Nine inch, I mean, it's got coilovers all around. 400, pulls wheelies, trailblazer, you know? Something different.

I just saw one come for sale recently. That was like, it was like almost 2000 horsepower. And I was like, for 40 grand or something crazy like that. I mean, you probably see it on Facebook marketplace, but.

Well, I've also seen it.

It's probably that one. I've been trying to sell it for a while. Yeah, we don't, we don't really, it's a shame. Like I've used some stuff. We have too many cars. I mean, we got so many race cars and some of them need to be enjoyed, you know, opposed to just sitting. Now, we like to hoard them, but like something like that, that'd be an awesome drag and drive car. If someone want, I mean, it's just so unique. If someone were to take it out there and do drag and drives with it, it'd be awesome. I'm not going to. So sometimes one of those things where it's a shame, it's just sitting around.

What would you get rid of it for?

That's what, like money-wise? Yeah. I think we had it posted up for like 50 grand.

Okay, so I might even want to sell them.

It's crazy, the motor, like the motor build in it is probably like 40 grand.

Yeah.

Just for the motor. I mean, it's a b***** motor. So it's like, you take the motor out and sell it. It's a smoking deal if anyone wants this. I'm not trying to turn this into a sale.

No, that's fine.

That's why I asked too. I'm like, all right, good. Like, I'm just trying to sell cars on the show.

Oh, I've mentioned s*** that I'm like looking for, and he's gotten messages being like, hey, I have one of those for sale.

Yeah, I got an email once like, yeah, man, I got one of these. And I was like, a ridiculous price. I'm like, no response. I get that. No, like when we were doing one of our BS episodes, and we managed to convince our friend, he's like, man, if I found an F-150 for under, what do you say, 25 grand or something?

20, I think.

Yeah, a single cab. He's like, I'll probably pick it up in Twin Turbo or whatever. He found like a bunch. I think he found one for like 13 or whatever. Yeah, dude, just ridiculous. Then we went to Midnight Performance because we were down at 2K. And yeah, the whole thing, just ridiculous. So did he get it? He got it, now he's selling them. And he's probably listening to this, and he's like, ah, stop telling everybody. But it's okay. So, okay, so you get, it starts expanding a little bit. So what's next? So this is like what, what time period is this?

This is probably like 2015. It started evolving pretty quick. And that right there is when we started doing the giveaways. And that's kind of when like, had like an infusion of cashflow. And irresponsibly, I just started buying race cars. Cause who doesn't, right? And like, I don't want to get into numbers, but I was, we were turning some pretty good, right? I was like the only person doing giveaways at the time.

Yeah, I was like you in Motion Auto TV back then.

Yeah, and like, like diesel brothers. So it was, no one was really doing it, especially like the high performance, automotive, modified, like no one was giving away. They were giving away like a GTR. No one was giving away like, Hey, I got this like S10 with an LS swap and a turbo. Like no one was doing that. So I gave away some s*** boxes, but they were bad a**. You know, like for $20 to get like, I had a turbo ranger that was a death trap. I mean like 800 horsepower. And like with a 400 in it. I mean, that was fun. So I started doing that. And then I started like building cars, buying cars, blowing money. And like now to this day, like I still look back, I'm a little bit older. I have zero to show from it. Like zero. I was money in, money out. I was buying parts. I was just selling over, giving away. Cause I didn't know not doing projects. So I had like a lull where I was building some cars, had some bad dealings with, you know, chassis shops, cars not getting built. Which kind of like set me back on some stuff. And then you get a project kind of back in shambles and just sell it to get rid of it. So a lot of that was going on in that timeframe. And yeah, I mean, it was, there was ups and downs with it, but yeah, once like 2015, 2016, doing the giveaways pretty hard. We were giving away some nice stuff then, and started racing a lot more. We put an LS in the Black Sheep, which is really where we kind of got all like, I feel like we got our name out there racing. We set the hydraulic roller world record. Myself and Matt Gross at the time, he was working on cars with me in tuning. Awesome dude. We went out 16 weekends in a row. We won 13 of those and runner up another three. So we were pretty dominant in this local small tire field with the Black Sheep. It was 427 TKM LS, single turbo, 98, just simple setup, but consistent fast. Ended up going 412 with it at 2,800 pounds, an LDR trim, and set the hydraulic roller record. And people were watching us then. They knew what we were doing, and we were having a blast racing, winning. And then we started picking up some other cars and gotten to the small block Fords, gotten to the 41X, the Billet stuff, and started kind of evolving to the higher echelon of motors and horsepower.

What do they look like now for motors? I saw one of your videos, you guys are trying to put one in a trailer with a tractor, and they said it was a 98 grand, or was that, I mean, what?

That was probably when we first got our 481X.

Okay.

So, yeah, I mean, now, I hate to say it, that one's got a b***** small block Ford in it, which you'd love that. It's a Shelby block, 430 inch deal. This one's got a small block Chevy. We just picked this car up, we didn't build it, this was just a local car to us, that b*****, it's just front to back, head to toe, it's just a nice car. But a lot of the other stuff, and we got a couple Billet Hemi's, Billet 41X, I picked up my first Billet LS block, we got Billet small block Ford, so we've been slowly upgrading. I still got my stock block LS stuff, I love that. So we have all levels, some cast blocks, some iron block, pretty much everything from your $10,000 motor to your $120,000 Pro Charge Pro Line Hemi. So literally everything in between.

So you kind of don't really, do you lean one way or the other, like Chevy versus Ford? And it doesn't seem like you do.

I say this all the time, if you want to make big horsepower with a small block, you get a small block Ford. You got to be smarter to build a small block Ford, you got to have more money. If you want good power, it's going to be super simple and reliable, go with LS. And if you want to get real crazy, you build a spreadport small block Chevy like this thing's got. And it's going to take a while, it's going to be hard to get parts, you got to be really smart, it's probably going to be more expensive. And that's more of the one-off stuff. So that's kind of where I land. Chris got me into the small block Ford stuff. He's a Mustang guy from back in the day. He's a little older than me, so he was out popping bottles, the soda cans, pulling wheelies on the street. That's his era. So he got me into the small block Ford stuff. I like them all, I'm not partial to one or the other. I like my 481X, everyone gives me s*** about that, because everything now is the Hemi. The Hemi is like the pinnacle of horsepower. But I like the 481X, everyone calls it a big block, and I'll die on my 481X, I love that thing. So everyone's like, I'll get rid of that and just put a Hemi in it. I'm like, no, I'm not giving up on her. So that's kind of where we're at. Big horsepower wise, the Hemi is like the pinnacle. Small block wise, I think the small block Ford is pretty b***** if you do it right.

What are your thoughts on Coyote and what Brett LaSalle is doing and stuff with that?

I think it's b*****. I mean, dude, to go that fast is crazy, right? I just can't get behind it because it don't sound cool. Like it's just, it's the simple stuff, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

And then it's sitting there beating the ground. Like the Pro Mod we got, like you pull that thing in gear and you're sitting there on the starting line and the whole car is just shaking. It's popping and banging. It's b*****. Like we race because it's fun. It's supposed to be fun, right? This is why everyone does it. So if I can't have fun sitting in the car or just sitting there like a sewing machine, that ain't it for me. I got to have that thing beat in the ground. Yeah. And I work with TKM Performance, Kevin Mullins, all my LS stuff. They spec out all my cams, like no tractor cams at Nasty Racing. Everything's got to hit. So I mean everything from like our street car NA stuff to our boosted street car stock block stuff, all of our cam shafts, they're just beat in the ground. And I love it. You drive a street car, I had twin turbo new edge thing was just rocking the ground. You pull up the gas station, everyone just stops what they're doing, looks at you. Some of them are mad because it's so loud. Everyone's like, what motor's in that thing? And I'm like, rather, it's got a turbo, you know, stuff like that. But it's, yeah, it's got to beat the ground. But I think the Coyote stuff, to go that fast with a motor that small, it's insane. Never thought it'd be possible. Yeah.

It's kind of funny, like when Aaron was on the podcast, he's like, it's just, what kind of world do we live in where, you know, a five liter engine's a small engine?

Yeah.

Yeah, just, you see these freaking Honda guys too. It's such a wide range. Is there a car that ever got away from you, you kind of wish you got back?

No, no, I don't look back. Any of them that are gone, they're gone. There's a couple like that cut apart that I wish I would have left in their form that was like, you know, good, usable. I call it the fun zone, where you can stay in the fun zone, you can go fast and it's not super expensive, it's not a bunch of work, it's fun. And as soon as you try to go to that next level, you exit the fun zone. So there's a couple of cars, especially I got two in the shop right now that I, they were fun, they were low maintenance, they went really fast, but I had that itch to go a little bit faster with it, cut it apart and I left the fun zone.

So, okay, what does it look like for those cars leaving the fun zone?

Well, like your Grand National, I heard you follow up right away with, it was already cut up. I'm sure you've gotten some hell over that one then.

All those old Grand National guys, they were just mad at me. Yeah, yeah. They'd be like, is that a real Grand National? I'm like, yeah. And they're like, oh, shame on you for cutting it up. I'm like, buddy, we bought it, it was already a race car. Yeah. Like we didn't do the sin, we're just making it fast. Yeah. But no, like the black sheep is a good one that it exited the fun zone, had LS, single turbo, extremely low maintenance. We were going 300 passes on a motor with no maintenance other than oil change and spark plugs. And I put a Hemi with a blower in it and left the fun zone. Extremely expensive, doesn't really fit that good, but I wanted to put it in there. So that's one where I kind of kicked myself off, I should have just left it how it was and just been content and just raced it. But I always got to be looking for something more is my problem.

Yeah, but then to win 13 races right afterwards, I don't want to assume it was after you did that, right? That was when it was in the fun zone?

Yeah, that was pinnacle fun zone. And winning is also a lot more fun, than sitting in the shop working on them.

Well, it's better to be the fastest of the slow guys than the slowest of the fast guys sometimes too.

The landscape changed for the race that we were doing small block boost, so everyone was getting much faster. And we were fast early on and didn't really pick up. So everyone was starting to get faster than us and the car wasn't competitive, so I was like, gotta put a big motor in it. And I sure just loved how it was and just enjoyed the car and kind of been more selective of my races. But you live and learn. So I followed that up by cutting another one up. That was really good. So now I finally learned after the second time of doing it.

Okay, so you're kind of figuring out, you're going into more like the pro mod stuff. So how do you get faster? How do you get better? What does learning look like? Because this is a whole new world you're learning.

Yeah, so we have the help of Jason Harrison, Party Time Racing. So he won the PDR points championship the past two years. So he's like, we got great knowledge behind us. So he's teaching us a lot. The big tire versus small tire is completely different. I don't want to say it's easier. I think it's probably easier to go down the racetrack. It's not easier to go fast down the racetrack. And just looking at data, I mean, honestly, he's, I'll pull the data log up. It looks completely different from what I'm used to. And I'll just kind of sit down with him and he'll just explain, hey, this is what we're looking for. This is where it needs to be. This is where it's wrong. And I mean, honestly, getting faster than that, it's just experience and lapse. We're the new kids on the block. Guys have been doing it for years and years. I feel like our team has had great success early on with it. And hopefully it's just, you know, there's more to come, but we've had some really good people in our corner helping us out and, you know, try to surround yourself with good, knowledgeable people and learn from them is the best way to go. So that's what we've been doing.

What are you looking at data? What are you looking for?

On the big tire stuff, we're looking at like the G meter, the RPM plot, timing, because it runs a pretty gnarly timing curve in the drive shaft. So you can kind of base everything off that. If, you know, the G meter drops and your drive shaft speed goes up, you're spinning the tire too much, vice versa, you know, the other way, it'll go in a tire shake. So it's kind of the big tire stuff. What I learned is it's a balancing act. You have to know the track, be able to read the track, figure out what tune up you put in there. We ride an RPM engine plot really hard. So we pretty much have, before we go up there, we've kind of put what we want the RPM to do throughout the run to about two seconds. And you better know what the track's gonna look like, because if you're off on that, the car's gonna shake, the car's not gonna go down. So if I was out there on my own, this thing would never get down, but we have some good points of reference and kind of like a team that we're teamed up with so we can share data, and that makes it a whole lot better. So it's different, it's challenging, but it's really fun.

I've always wondered that like, because this has been going on for so long, right? Like there's technically already like a secret sauce, right? To how all this goes down. So like, what gives you the competitive edge? Is it the driver, the chassis, the engine? Is it a combination? Or like, I've always, when you have to follow the same rule set, how does one guy faster than the other at that point?

I think like just trying new things and figuring out what works. I mean, everything is so fast now and so competitive, but I mean, it's to the point where like the chassis, you know, they have a measurement from the mid-plate to the center line of the axle. If that moves two inches, it changes how the car acts. So it's kind of getting the perfect recipe of what works with each combination. You know, we were on the Hemi of the Pro Charger, so the center of gravity is, you know, out front and pretty low, opposed to screwblower where it's up real high. So the cars act different, but it's just finding that perfect recipe. You know, it's just trial and error, really. You just gotta keep trying it and trying to improve. And you know, when you test, you need to go and throw, well, we went out there to test the other day and we put a tune up in there, we're like, we don't know if it's gonna work. And it went out there, it shook the tire so hard, it broke a quarter panel. Like it just broke it off the car. And we're like, okay, it did not like that. So, you know, that's how you have to get faster, just by trying stuff.

What about adapting to different rules, right? Because you've been used to certain classes in the past, how's that changed? Is there anything that changed?

Yeah, I mean, it's now like we're hitting the scales. I never used to hit the scales. We're running no time stuff. Who cares about the weight? So now after every pass we go and we hit the scales. This, I mean, the Pro Mod stuff, I mean, they have limits on blower size. There's so many rules. No time it was like, hey, show up with a 98 millimeter turbo and be on this tire. So we haven't had to go through like tech or a teardown, but I mean, if you go too fast, they can protest you and they can measure your blower and take stuff off and do all that stuff. So we haven't had to experience it yet, but it's a whole lot different, you know? There's people watching you, you gotta make sure you have the right parts on the car. And before we'd show up with like, yeah, it's a 98 millimeter turbo. Right down the racetrack we go and that was it.

Well, yeah. When Rowan pulled first in snowmobile racing, they pulled her aside and pulled her spark plugs, to check to make sure we didn't shave the head. They like tore her sled apart and like made sure we weren't cheating and s***.

Yeah. No, that's like it. You know, they say in racing, like you're not trying unless you're cheating. Well, like their rules are so tight. Like there's no room to cheat. Like if you try to cheat, they don't catch you.

Well, the magic is in finding ways to bend the rules sometimes too, right? That's when you get to like the really crazy high level stuff. So, with how long have you been in this like Pro Mod space now? When did you get the car?

I mean, 2025 really, like, I mean, February is when we really started kicking it off with running the Pro Mod stuff. So before then it was, we talked about it for a little bit because we got the car.

How'd that conversation start, by the way? Like, oh, we're going to do it.

Well, we were at, so we, Chris convinced me to go to a PDR race and we ran that Mustang in a different class called Super Street, so it's 28 slicks. And had a really good time, enjoyed it and watching the Pro Mod. He's got one of his cars up there. He's like, man, you think you want to run a Pro Mod? And I'm just like, I mean, I'm not going to say no, but deep down, I was like, no, I'm a small tire guy. Cause there's this, there's this like battle between small tires and big tires. And I'm like, now that I've done both, I'm like, I don't see why you guys are arguing, but the small tire guys think the big tire stuff's dumb. The big tire guys think the small tire stuff's dumb. I think they're both cool. They're both so much different. I mean, so much different.

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But I mean, he's like, hey, let's run Pro Mod. And I ended up getting one and presented the opportunity, and we're going to run with it. And we've been working on it, like myself and all my guys, and we thrash on that car, do everything we can to make it as competitive as possible. And I mean, just having a ball with it. So I mean, I wasn't really like, hey, I really want to run Pro Mod. It was kind of a, hey, I think we should, and it's hot, and that's where everyone is right now. It's the space to be in, and I don't disagree with that at all. So now that I've run it, I don't want to say I like it more than Radials, but the racing is better, better racing.

Okay.

Speaking of that, I was watching some of the videos. What's that like racing for less than four seconds? I mean, that's a lot of s*** that you're doing in four seconds time. Like I watch you, it was like boom, boom, boom, pull, shoot. I was like, what just happened?

It's more of a feel thing. I don't understand how some guys go out there, and they have them buy a Pro Mod, and they've never raced before, and they go and sit in it and make a pass. And I genuinely don't know how they don't wreck, because a lot of it's feel. I've been fortunate enough to go, I've run every single number from a 620 down to a 360. It was 369, I don't want people to think I want a 60 flat. 369, because the little numbers count. So I've run every single number, so I understand the feel and how the car acts. And going from small tires to big tires, at the end of the day, it's still got four wheels and a steering wheel, so it's still a car. They're gonna act similarly in some ways. If the car goes right, you feel it going right. So it's a feel thing. There is a lot going on, but it's crazy. You kind of sit back in the car and you click the button and you can feel the car go right and left and you're steering. If you gotta steer too much and you're like, hey, I gotta abort. And it's kind of pretty much just like point and shoot. If you can keep it in the center, you're good to go. But if it starts getting way far off, you get to a point where you're like, ah, I should probably lift before, you know. You get far enough out, that thing's going to turn on you. So it's more of a feel. And like for me, when I'm driving, I look at the tree, I click the button, you get past 60, 100 foot, you're normally riding pretty good, put my hand up on the parachute and I'm looking for that cone. Once I find that cone, I know where I'm driving to and throw the shoot right before you get to it and that's it. So kind of get into routine of what to feel and what to expect. But for someone that's never done it, like I couldn't imagine going from 550s to going 370s. It's a lot, but going 4.0s and 390s and 380s, it was a slow progression to it. So I feel like I worked my way up, but it's fast. I mean, it's fun. It's a lot of fun, honestly. I wish it could be longer, you know?

Yeah, yeah, right?

Oh, have we heard that one before?

Well, that's one of the reasons I did some drag racing. I just couldn't, so I do road course stuff and it's 30 minute sessions. Let it cool down for 15 minutes, go back out, do it again. And I just, I did it and I stood in line forever. I raced for 10, 12 seconds, and then I got back in line again. I was like, I don't really like this.

Yeah, so I like the competitiveness of it. Yeah. And that to me is what I like, is you go up there and you gotta be good on the tree. You gotta have the tune up, right? I mean, people at this level, on the radial stuff or the big tire stuff, it don't matter. You gotta have all your s*** together to make a good pass. So when you put one together, it's a big team effort. You gotta cut a good light. It's rewarding. And you go and you beat that guy next to you, some close side by side racing. I mean, dude, there's nothing like it. You know, like when we were running up in Virginia, you click the button and I'm out. I knew I treat them. I'm out on the guy and I'm just like driving and looking. I'm like, I hope you don't come around me. And then you get to the stripe and the wind light comes on. Like it's an awesome feeling.

I will say I have way more fun in the pits at a drag race event though, because there is some down time. So like, you know, we're walking from camp to camp, having beers, hanging out. Yep.

At 9 a.m. Yeah.

It's a lot of fun.

Actually, no, it wasn't that. You remember, you remember Speed Summit? We showed up at their camp at like 830, and they're all like drinking Heineken's. That's f****** crazy. So, okay, how did you go about building your team?

So, well, that's a crazy question. I never really thought, so, I mean, we're all-

You just pick up guys at Home Depot, it's like, all right, come with me.

So, I have a Storm Recovery business. All the guys that are at the shop, they're all local to us, obviously. They live around here. Majority of them are, I mean, our age is, I'm 31. The oldest guy really on our crew is like 34, and the youngest is 25. So, for what we do, I think it's a pretty young team. We all do storm work together. They all run crews for me. They're all like my leads. And we do the storm work stuff. Whenever there's not storms, we're racing. So, it's not really a full-time job doing the storm work stuff, but I guess it is a full-time job. It's what we do full-time, but we don't have work every day.

It's probably pretty intense when it's going on, too, though.

Yeah, oh yeah. When it's happening, we drop everything and we go wherever. I mean, hey, they say go up to Connecticut. We're in Connecticut. We go out to Louisiana. We're in Louisiana. So, and they do a great job. We have a big network of guys that all work really hard, and we do an absolutely awesome job, and, you know, fortunate to know all these guys. And I use my YouTube to market my storm business, and it's been awesome. Most of the guys, I think 90% of the guys have an automotive background or inspired by, you know, racing. So like-minded guys, hard-working guys, kind of like a family. And I mean, hell, we have up to 200 guys working at a time. So the guys here on my team, they manage the crews in the field. And then when there's not storms, we're here at the shop working on cars, going racing. And it really is like a family. I mean, like you spend all day with these guys, and it really is like we're over there fighting with one another, yelling at one another, eating dinner together, eating breakfast together. I mean, it's not just a nine to five. It really is a family. And then when we leave, we'll go home and if we have time, hop on Xbox and we're playing Xbox together.

What's your choice of game right now?

I hate to say it. I don't hate to say it. Farm Sim. It's just some simple stuff. We go plow a field. I mean, Farm Sim is what it is. We got a little farm going.

Just chill for a little bit, talk some s***.

Yeah. I'm like, hey, can you come pick up my grain for me? It's so funny because in the game, it's just like we're at work. Yeah, but that's our game of choice.

Did you do Farmville 15 years ago at all?

I did.

Dude, I remember you'd have a friend like, oh, you get the notification, oh, your friend picked your farm. God, that's so bad.

I built my son a sim so he could do Forza and stuff. That's just a little logitech setup or whatever. And I come downstairs and he's driving a tractor and truck around town and picking up trailers and stuff. I was like, dude, I thought you were going to go racing with this thing.

Yep. Well, that's us. We're on Farm Sim.

So that's funny. How about the guys that are with you, are they also kind of coming from the same space as you? Do you feel like they're learning on their own or do they come from shop backgrounds or a mix?

I'd say like a mix pretty much. So Logan, who's been with me from the start, he's just been around racing forever. I mean, he really has. He's crewed for a bunch of people. He knows how to do a little bit of everything and he's just a solid dude. Mason, he's our youngest, he's 25. He came from Storm Work, lived up in Indiana and met him at a storm in Connecticut. I called him, I'm like, hey man, quit your job, which I don't tell a lot of people to do, so don't do that. I was like, quit your job. He's working at a Kubota dealership. So diesel mechanical background, which is great because we had an issue with our generator at the track last night and he's working on it, fixing it. He quit his job, worked up in Connecticut with us, and then came down here, hung out down here for a week. I got him a cam swap to do, did that for a customer and then moved down here. So I mean, we have guys from all over the place that have a mechanical background a little bit. No one really formally trained. Mason, in the past two years, I watched him teach himself how to weld, and now he's a great welder. So I think it's all kind of like-minded. We all want to be able to have a skill that's good and work really hard. We work well together. We go up there, we do the same thing every time at the racetrack. Everyone has a job to do, and no one says, hey, go do your job. Everyone just knows to do it, and really works well as a team. So in the shop, we built some crazy cars, like some fun stuff and some high-end stuff, some nice stuff. You wouldn't think that a group of guys like us with no formal background are going to be building turbo kits with billet motors and these nice cars.

That's intense.

Yeah, we've got some crazy builds. I mean, I taught myself how to weld titanium, so I built a complete titanium exhaust for this twin-turbo Camaro we're doing, and just stuff like that. I mean, you just got to dive in and try it and figure it out, and I film everything, so I have YouTube videos of me sucking a** welding and trying to figure it out, but that's the reality of it. This is life. We show our failures and everyone has them, and kind of go from there.

Do you have any big expensive mistakes that you've made over the years?

Yeah, I mean, I've definitely hurt some motors and stuff off of on the learning curve. So as part of it, I think you got to... Someone can tell me not to do it. I have to do it and mess it up myself to really feel it, to let it sink in. So I'm trying to get better by that. I'm hard headed. We're all hard headed. That's just, I think we wouldn't be here doing what we're doing unless we were. But yeah, I mean, there's some definite expensive ones. I got hurt the motor in our 41X, our twin turbo Camaro, and I was overrun on the lifters, and I knew I shouldn't have been. I was like, oh yeah, it'll be fine. Yeah, it's not fine. So that's one of those expensive lessons.

Do any of your shop guys, do they have cars too, or are they? Yeah.

Yeah. Logan, who he's just finishing up his, he's got twin turbo F body Camaro with a 408 LS. Mason's got a little nitrous F body, third gen that he's working on. CJ is another one of our crew guys. He's got a, he's got two actually. He makes too much money if you can't tell, two race cars. He's got two RX7s that are LS turbo drag cars. And then Dave, who is the adult of the group, he just sold me his race car and bought a boat. So, same thing.

He's got to have a boat guy, right?

Blown money somewhere else. Yeah, right?

I was like, they're both expensive mistakes, so yeah.

Yep, and then Tyler, who's another one of our guys, he just bought a new truck. So, whether it's a race car, a boat or a new truck, they all got something that they're working on. But yeah, I mean, we go to the racetrack, we're taking either one of these cars or one of their cars to the track.

Out of all the cars you got here, which one's your favorite to drive?

If he says the 450, I'm gonna lose it.

I do like the 450. So, I'll break it down. We'll go on the street versus...

Okay, there you go.

So, my favorite car to drive on the street, I got a 97 Cobra with a non-intercooled Kenny Bell blower. So, it's a four valve, and it makes like 400 horsepower. The thing is just ragged, paint's falling off of it. But I love that thing. It's b*****. I feel like I'm in 2004, just ready to tear someone's head off at a stoplight. That's my favorite car to drive on the street. My favorite race car, it's probably my third gen Camaro Slick Rick, and it's just been fun. I haven't conquered it yet. So, I'm gonna battle with it. We've been having transmission issues, converter issues, motor issues for literally the past two years. We've had some really good passes, gone really fast with it, but haven't got it sorted out. So, I like that one the most because it's a challenge, and I know it's got a lot more left in the tank, and we haven't gone as fast as we could with it. So, it's just a battle, so I like the challenge. So, that's why I love it.

So, you are a Ford guy. Is it still got the 4.6 in it, the Cobra?

Yeah, so my boy CJ has slung a rod out of it. I put a blower on it. My buddy Caleb at FN Routy shopped down the road. I won't work on the Ford stuff, though. The race car stuff, I will.

Well, that's got overhead cams, too, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not messing with this. So, they put headers and a blower on it, and I got it back. I drove around for two days. It was tuned up to 480 horsepower, which is above recommended. Another expensive mistake. I was like, don't put the bigger, don't put the smaller crank pulley on it. Put the big one. We want to make all the boosts. I don't recommend it. I'm like, do it. So, they did it. Put a new set of tires on it, wheels and tires. And I told CJ., I was like, just drive around the block so I could see what it looks like with the new wheels and tires. He pulls around back, I'm like, do a burnout, kicks a rod out of it. So now, I just got it back like two weeks ago. It's got a built motor, 4.6, the T45. It's lowered, the exhaust drags the ground, paint's falling off of it. But it's my baby.

I did see, he was like, what are you doing? I was eyeing up the Cobra R replicas you got laying out back there too. Oh yeah.

I hate to say it. I think I am turning into a Ford guy. Yeah.

He's a closet Ford guy. Yeah.

I got another SN95. It's called the Drop Top Dream. It was in a magazine. I found it on Facebook Marketplace for three grand because it didn't run and the fuel line fell off of it. And it's got a built 5.0 with a pro charger. It's got the style bar. It's convertible. Like, I'm a Ford guy now, I guess. Hot off the press.

Yeah.

He's admitting it on camera.

Yeah. He's even calling it a style bar. He knows his Ford s*** too.

It's got the side pipes. I don't know what to tell you, I guess. I'm into that, which no one likes, like the late 90s, early 2000 muscle cars. That's my thing.

No, that's where I lay too.

I used to be the biggest hater, and I started to hang around Dan, because I couldn't stand Fox bodies. And then, what's the generation after that?

That's what it's called. The SN95 was like, everybody hated him. They were like the ugly stepchild of the Fox body.

I own three right now. I have to say, because I own three of them.

Yeah, they grew on me. I think it's, I don't know, maybe things get better with age.

It really grew on me for being around this sicko. That thing's freaking cool, driving by.

You're welcome to Benson. You're welcome to Benson.

Yeah.

This whole, by the way, this is my first time actually being in North Carolina, right? Because I've done Tail the Dragon, but that doesn't really count. You go two miles across the border, it doesn't really count. So it's been a trip, it's just different, man. Like, what was the last trip we did? We went to 2K, and Texas is just big, all sprawled out, and it's just flat everywhere. And then over here, it's just hills everywhere. It's just nice.

I told them this morning, we went to the gas station, they had boiled peanuts. I was like, we went way too far south, dude.

We'll take you to Pat's Gas and Grill for lunch down the road. This is small town USA, 100%. They have the park where you'll go by on a Friday, Saturday, and they throw in an event there. They got a little stage, people singing on the stage. I mean, small town USA, I love it here because we're 30 minutes away from Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina. So we be out here in the sticks, do our own stuff, hop around town to town, 10 minute drives, but you want to go to the city, you're 30 minutes away. That's why I landed. And we're right at 40 and 95. So if we're going racing, you got to get on a highway with a rig, it's right here. So strategically placed in Benson, North Carolina.

How's it compared to Pennsylvania?

Pennsylvania...

Were you in a small town there too?

Yeah, I'd say it's kind of similar. Like honestly, maybe that's why I like it. Yeah, like where I grew up was the same. Racetrack's not as close. So you're racetrack friendly here. But very similar vibe to Pennsylvania. I think the people here are probably a little bit nicer, a little bit more, you know, calm and slow pace.

What about cold half the year?

There is that, yeah. There is that. We get like our one day of snow and it's gone. 70 the next day. I mean, they'll race around here year round. I mean, it's really good. If you like motorsports, it's a good place to be. And I like where we're at. We're an hour and a half from the beach, two hours away from the mountains. You got it all here. And boiled peanuts.

And boiled peanuts is crazy. My mom's from Georgia and she loves that s***. I'm like, yeah, no, thank you.

So speaking of motorsports, are you involved in anything else really, or do you pay attention to anything else?

No, I mean, I watch like Formula One. I watch NASCAR. We got a Simrig, so like I'll go on iRacing and do that. I think it's fun.

Now I have to ask you, what kind of Simrig you got?

It's a race tech, so they're one of my sponsors. So it's got a race tech seat and just a lot of tech wheels. It's kind of like basic. It's got four screens. I'm not a computer guy, so the younger folks set it up for me. And we just would do some iRacing and some stuff like that. So I mean, I do, I watch motorsports. I like the competitiveness of it, but do I do anything else? No, I'm fully invested in this. I like some of the trucks. I got a bunch of, you know, F450s with wheels and tires. I got one that's like a single wheel conversion. So I like that stuff a little bit, but I kind of just stick to what I know, stay in my lane.

Any old school stuff, OBS trucks, anything like that, or?

I'm looking right now for like a 7.3, which I had, you know, I was into the Dodge. It's not really a big diesel guy, but I had like a 700 horsepower Dodge, manual, dually, which was kind of fun. Our shop truck, big auction guy, got it from Auction 2 Grand. I got a turbo to compound it, just haven't had time yet, you know, so stuff like that. But no, a classic car stuff, not really into it. Like I said before, I mean, you give me a damn 95 Mustang, I'm just fired up.

That is classic, by the way. 30 years old.

It is, but I mean, compared to like some of the new looking classics, I don't know if you're an SN95 guy, but I mean, so like you go back, like the Fox bodies look great, or you know, like the first gen Camaros, I mean, they're awesome. I just couldn't see myself driving around in one of those. I don't think I'm old enough yet.

No, I've got several Fox bodies and some SN95s, but it's that old, old several is an understatement. That old stuff was hot, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago, but that's starting to die off now, too. Those guys are all old as hell now. And, you know, my dad would be what you would call a boomer. And they're they're moving on. My he drives a Lincoln Navigator now. So it's phased out.

Yeah.

So now I think the 80s, 90s stuff is hot because that's what some of us other older guys are.

I call it like the those are the cars that I was sitting in the back seat looking out the window at. That's the car that made noise when my parents were taking me to school. I'm like, Oh, what's that? So I think that's my love for them is I always thought they were cool back in the day.

I like it down here because if people are daily driving stuff around here like that at home, that stuff's all rotted away or it's in a collection or it's in it gets put away and comes out in the summertime. Here is like I can see like a 93 Ranger and it's clean as hell. And I'm like, damn it. I wish we had that s*** back home.

Yeah, no, North Carolina, South Carolina. I mean, the stuff just lives forever. Yeah, I mean, it really does. There's no rust unless you're out by the beach and that's far and few between. So we're lucky. We got a lot of Facebook marketplaces dangerous around.

Yeah, I know. I've already been on it.

Every time we travel, we're just looking like, oh, Dan, I'm his worst friend. I'm like, Danny, you gotta get this. You gotta get that.

I looked at your wheels and I thought for a minute, like, how can I get those home? If I ask him if he's.

He was literally like, I was like, Danny, are we buying something?

Have you guys ever been to Mustang Week on Myrtle Beach?

Yes, I went one year and I flew down because I didn't want to haul my car down. It was like a 20 hour drive. And I regretted everything. I was walking around going, God, I wish I had my car. I wish I had my car. But it was a good time.

Yeah, so I guess I am a Mustang guy.

Yeah, here we go.

I'm a Mustang guy. So I went to Mustang Week maybe, I don't know, it was last year, probably the year before with LSWAP Mustang. It was my first time at Mustang Week. And I was like, dude, this thing's b*****. Everyone hated me because I had a twin-turbo LS. I'm that guy. I had the bow tie on the grill and everything, but dude, it was a blast. So now it's like we're prepping for Mustang Week. We just got another 98 Cobra, which to me are like, they're just, the 4.6 is a s***** motor, the four valve, but we love them. So it's like, they don't make any power. They don't even sound that great, but 300 horsepower with the 410 gear, you're gonna have some fun. And so Chris got him a silver one. I gifted him a silver S95, so I don't have to go to Mustang Week by myself.

You know, a Coyote is like a direct bolt-in for a swap.

The sound, though, the sound. I'll take a 4.6.

You can get a ghost cam, too.

I can't do that. I can't do that.

The whole buzz that they call it a bass boat in Detroit.

Is that what they call it?

That's what Joanna called it. She's like, yeah, it just sounds like a bass boat.

Oh.

I mean, not wrong. I just can't get behind the sound of a Coyote. Nothing against my Coyote people out there, it's just.

Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong. Like, for example, like Mike Johnson, when he's a power cruiser, I got to go.

It's rough compared to a push rod motor that's just beating the ground. It's just, yeah, you know, there is some.

We he said we rode in a GT 40 yesterday and a 427 and he fires it up and it's just violent and the whole car is shaking.

It's a little shaky. Like I'm like we came off the lift and I'm like, I Dan, I can't close this door. I think it's going to fall apart. Like you got to slam it. I'm like, should I?

Yeah, like raw American horsepower. Yeah, dude.

Yeah, dude. Something about Ford. I remember my first time driving like a Rausch Mustang. And I was like, dude, this thing is like, what was it? S197 or whatever. And I was making like 560 wheel money shift. It was great. The owner was very happy with me, but yeah, no, it was, there's something about it. So, okay, we officially have converted him to a Ford guy.

I'm going to eat. I'm going to be eating my words for a while now. Yeah.

Well, it's kind of like, imagine like you're having like LS parents, right? You know, straight parents, and they're like, well, I mean, we accept you, honey.

We were LS nasty before nasty racing. Now I'm saying I'm a Ford guy.

I mean, yeah, what do you got to name it?

I mean, just I can't go. I did have a shirt that said small block Ford nasty. So, I mean, there were signs along the way, right?

Yeah.

He's talking funny with a little extra flair. Yeah. That's a mouthful. We got to figure something out on that. Well, isn't your ProMod also like a Mustang body, too?

It is a Mustang. It's a 67 Mustang. I can't escape it. I don't know what it is.

Oh, okay. So, what are you most proud of in what you've done?

We've done a lot. I think that what I'm most proud of, I just want to build a community, right? Like, my subscribers, I got like almost 150,000 subscribers. I just want to do good with my channel, you know, provide something that people can watch and be like, oh, hey, I either learned something, I found it was entertaining, it got me into motorsports, like do something positive with it. That's like my goal. So, when I get someone that comes up to me at the racetrack and they say, hey, man, I watch your videos, I love it, you know, hey, I came to this event because I knew you were coming. Like to me, that's what I'm most proud of, to like see anything positive, like promoting motorsports. Like, I would, my friend group now, like I would not know any of them if I just played golf, right? Like the amount of people, the places it's taken me, the motorsports community, it's amazing. And I just want to help people get involved with that, you know, branch out. So I think what I'm most proud of is building something with my team and my guys that can do something positive.

What a crazy two different worlds. Like if you would have gone that route, you would have been hanging out in, I'm sure, different circles than you are now.

Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Like I say all the time, you know, good or bad, every single decision you've made in life gets you to where you are right now. So and I don't regret any of them. I mean, every single thing I've done got me here. We got a great group of friends, hardworking dudes in trying to inspire people. I mean, I'm not saying that what we do is great. That's why I should inspire you. I'm saying, look at what this has done for us. You know, going out, meeting new people, opportunities, let that inspire you, you know? And it's just, it's crazy.

Can I ask you about the giveaway stuff? Cause now it's like, my God, there's so many people doing that.

There's really companies that run it for you now.

Yeah, so I got out. Like I haven't, I have one car over there that I'm prepping to do a giveaway with. I was doing like four a year, and I did one last year. And yeah, the landscape has changed quite a bit.

Okay. Is it harder, you think?

Most definitely, 100%.

Cause there's just so many. Like I entered like five a few months ago, and I'm like, I shouldn't.

Well, most of I, I don't even like, you know, when I was younger, I'd go to Coles or whatever to get, I don't have to buy clothes anymore, cause everything I buy involves a giveaway now. I'm like, oh, I'll grab a shirt.

And it ruined it for like, so my apparel brand, it's the website still lsnasty.com, but I have Nasty Co, which is like my lifestyle brand. Like I call it Workwear. And then I have Nasty Racing, or like my two brands up on the website. I really can't have sales on the website anymore because why would someone buy a t-shirt from me just like randomly, if they can get entered to win a car by anyone else. So it really changed like the landscape of just like the e-commerce stuff, where it's like, if you want to sell stuff, you have to have some sort of reward that they could win. So I did, I gave away, I think like 12 cars, cars or trucks. And they were, I didn't lose on any but the last one I had a partner in and they didn't do, they didn't hold their end of the bargain. So it was more like a break even loss just a little bit in the big picture. But I mean, in its peak, I mean, extremely profitable. I was able to grow with a local company, they're called the Trophy Case. Now they're Merchant Limited. They do merchandise for Street Race and Channel and Murder Nova and a bunch of the big guys now. When I met with them, they did embroidery for Food Lion, which is like a local food market. So I did my first giveaway with them and we grew together from doing $50,000 in sales in a month to $300,000, $400,000 in sales in a month. So we were able to grow and they learned the giveaway stuff with me. And yeah, it was great. I mean, it was awesome. It was cool to see your merchandise out there and then give away the card. Someone like they buy two hats and a T-shirt and they win. And I've done all my stuff through American Sweepstakes, which is a company that like, they do all the bonding and insurance and everything like that. Pretty much just write them a check, just write them a check and they handle everything and they tell you who the winner is. But yeah, I mean, it was b***** and then it got just so overly saturated. Like everyone was doing a giveaway and then it got to the point where you just had to spend so much money in marketing just to compete with the other guys that are spending that much that to me it was just like, I don't have to live and die by the giveaway. So I rather, instead of trying to cut my price on shirts to increase my profit margin or do something to cheapen my product to make more money or to be more sustainable, I just want to do it.

Yeah. So what's that like getting the winner in? We've just never talked to anybody who's done it before. So that whole thing.

I've done a solo episode without you, remember?

You talked to me about the giveaways?

Yeah, MotionAutoTV. He was doing that like early 2010s. Yeah. Yeah, that was before you existed in my life. Yeah, I was lonely and scared because my old co-host left me for California, and I know you're listening, Shawn. And then I was like, all right, I'm going to do 10 by myself.

Well, you're giving away like race cars and stuff, too. So what's that? You ever hand the keys over to somebody and be like, oh, man, this may not go well?

What's the highest power car you've given away?

Like probably like 1200. I've given away a couple 1200 horsepower cars. And that's always a concern is to kind of get to that like tipping point. Like so when I got that Corvette there makes it made like a 1000 wheel, but it runs much stronger than it. I was like, man, this would be a b***** giveaway car. And I'm just like, it's too much to give away. Some people, you know, I don't I don't do the car plus 30 grand cash car plus. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, listen, I'm real. Like if I win a car, it's great. Like if I were to win something now, I'd probably turn around and sell it. Right. Unless it's like your dream car. It a car, no matter what level it is, there is some sort of upkeep. And you can sell it and get something that's more in your wheelhouse. Oh, unfortunately, a couple of my cars I gave away, they got taken apart and weren't able to be put back together. And then they'd start trading hands quick. And it's just like, I mean, it's your car at that point in time. So do whatever you want with it. It's yours, 100%, I don't judge you for it. But if it were me that were getting it, I would try to be a little more strategic with it because a car running is worth a whole lot more than a car tore apart. And there is also the side of like, hey, like I gave away a LS swap Colorado with a single turbo, we built it all in house, five speed manual, made 700 horsepower, absolute ripper. I mean, the thing was dangerous. It was one of the ones I was worried about giving away. I had it for six months. I drove it everywhere on pump gas and never had any issues with it. And then a few months later, after giving it away, the motor blew up. I mean, there's some stuff that it's just, you kind of have to have some, I guess, general knowledge. That's the risk of giving away a heavily modified car. They're not for everybody. It's not like a normal car where you hop in and turn the key and just rip on it. And that's just, it's tough to explain that to some people. And some stuff you can't learn without experiencing it. So there are the ups and downs of that. But I mean, giving away a car to someone, it's like nerve wracking a little bit, because especially when we modify it as much, you get attached to them a little bit. So you're like, all right, take care of her, good luck if you need anything, call and I tell everybody, I say, hey, you're part of the Nasi Racing family. If you need something, call me. And I think a lot of people don't want to bug me. And by, I mean, that's what I'm here for. If you have a problem with it, call me. If there's parts I can get you, call me. If there's something wrong with it, call me, we'll get it right. And we've given away turbo C5 Corvette, turbo LS swap Ranger, nitrous Trailblazer, nitrous New Edge Mustang, turbo SN95, turbo G-body. I mean, just a bunch of, like, yeah, crazy stuff. And some of them, the owners still have, and they're at the track racing them doing burnouts, which is awesome to see. When I get the text on my phone, I have a picture of the car going through the traps. I'm like, hell yeah, they're enjoying it. And some of them I see on TikTok getting sold to someone else. I mean, once it's theirs, it's theirs, you know? You hope they have a good life with it.

Well, that's scary too, right? Like Dan was saying, you give the keys to someone, you're like, oh, this is rough. We've had a number of high-horsepower shops come on the show, and they're like, I don't know about this guy. Look at 2K, how many guys are crashing, right? I'm sorry, Texas 2K, I forget we're on the Florida side right now. But it's like, you know, some guys are literally getting their first 1,400-horse car, they're running it, it's crazy.

Yeah, no, I mean, there's definitely some stuff where it's like, you kind of got to warn them. And you don't really know, I say like these high horsepower cars, they're like, it's like petting a snake, right? It's cool, but that thing can jump up and bite you in a second. So you got to be like on edge. I don't really mess around on the street too much anymore, just because it's like, to me, it's not worth it.

The risk or reward.

Yes, yes. If I want to make a rip, like I might, you know, be on the highway and just give it a little rip, but like going on these back roads, hauling a**, that we got a sheepy built Lambo back there, makes like 2,000 horsepower.

The Lambo is also sheepy? Okay, SDR8.

Absolutely terrifying. Chris gave me riding it on like 1,400 horsepower, and I was like screaming like a girl because like we're on a back road and you hit it, and that thing goes so fast, so quick, that if you end up in the grass, you're not just going to stop in the grass, you're going to be in the next field over, you know? So yeah, I mean, it's just, it's not for everybody. I think some people can enjoy it, but there's like, my recommendation is, if you want a high horsepower car, work your way up, you know, get the 600 horsepower car, then the 700, then the 800, then the 900 and the 1000, because if you go right from your 426 horsepower, fifth gen to a thousand horsepower, fifth gen, there's a good chance you won't wreck it.

It's a very different story. Like our friend, who I mentioned earlier, like it's like, he had, what was it? 1100 horse ZR1, like a C6 ZR1, and that thing is bad, but I'm like seeing and thinking like, I could never drive that. Like even a stock one, I gotta be like, yeah, maybe not. Sorry, you reminded me of the scene. It's like one moment we were looking at the scenery, and the next moment we were a part of the scenery.

Dude, it happens like that.

Well, the 68, and I'm not sure if you, what are your thoughts on the whole draggy thing? Like the 60 to 130 stuff.

I think it's cool. It's cool data. I don't know what a fast 60 to 130 is. I can tell you that the ticket's at the track. That's all I know is like, how fast you get to the 30, that's a bad mother. I can tell you that.

The track times are different too than street times, right? So like, I think the fastest fastest right now is, I think UGR at like 231 or something like that, like, which is ridiculous. But like, why was I bringing that up? Oh yeah, like in that car, like that, it just punches, like, cause that's probably all wheel drive too, right?

Yeah, I told him that is what the Pro Mod feels like. So like when you, the Pro Mod, 60 foot, you know, a good 60 foot is like a 930, 60 foot. Like we're really getting after, we want to go 928 to the 60 foot. So, I mean, sub one second, 60 foot that's getting after it. And then they run pretty good to the 330, like a 245 to the middle of the racetrack is pretty good. That sucker on the street feels like the Pro Mod.

Really?

Being honest with you. Is it as fast? Probably not. I'm in the passenger seat, so I think it feels a little bit faster.

Yeah, it does that too, right?

That sucker is no joke.

And you don't have to disclose this on camera, but what's it making for Powerwise? Any idea?

I think it's like 2000. It's a built motor, twin turbo, air to water. I mean, it's pretty stout.

That's probably like a high to low 360 to 130 on that then, roughly. That's just like what the Huracans are just, you typically a few tons faster.

Yeah, I think it's on like slicks on all four corners. It's just, I don't know that stuff.

It's a nasty looking car.

It's b*****. It sounds mean.

Oh, dude, something about a twin turbo V10, man. Yup.

No, that thing's stout. This one here, it's an Alfa buddy. Yeah, this one's upgraded turbos. I don't know, it makes like 1600, 1700 horsepower. So I don't drive any of this stuff. This stuff's out of my price range. So if I tear it up, I ain't fixing it.

Well, it's a different ball game, right? It's like a different type of fixing up, right? Yup. Okay.

Yeah, by like tens of thousands of dollars.

And I just don't know, like I'm a big stay in my lane kind of guy. Like I know what I know and I'm going to be honest with you. If I don't know it, I'm going to be like, can't help you there. You know, like I specialize in what I specialize in, and I try to be the best at it. And that's it.

What was one of the hardest things for you to learn when you were getting into this?

Um, I think probably like welding.

Okay.

Honestly, because it's not so much like, did I know how to weld? Yes. But some of the stuff that you have to do is I'd always like, Oh, so and so is going to come to the shop and weld this up for me and be waiting on them. And finally you just got to a point where you're like, no, I'm just going to learn how to do it. And the welding thing, I mean, it's a great skill to have. I try to tell everybody just learn how to weld. Just so if you ever have to, you know how to do it. But yeah, I mean, it's challenging, it's intimidating and you're just going to mess some s*** up. And I messed up a lot of stuff. When I was welding bungs on stuff, when I got started, I was buying three or four at a time. Said, well, the first one on cut it off because I messed it up. And that's just how it is. But yeah, I mean, welding is intimidating. At least for me it was, but rewarding once you get it figured out. So yeah, that's it. That's my one that was.

You recommend somebody starts with like MIG or just go right into TIG stuff or?

I learned TIG welding first. OK. I think once you get the concept, when I first started, it was so challenging, I couldn't use the filler rod, right? So I'd just fuse stuff together and be like, how do these guys put the filler rod in? You know, like that's that's challenging.

I got to use both hands?

You work in your foot? And so, I mean, yeah, it was challenging. So now I got it down to me with aluminum, titanium, stainless, chromoly, you name it, we can weld it. But yeah, I mean, I recommend TIG Welding, like I use AHP Welders, Amazon sells them. They're compared to like, my first welder was a Miller, it was like three or $4,000. I got rid of that. I got like four AHP Welders, a Prime Weld, I mean, they're $1,000, $1,200, $700. I mean, they got so many different ones out there. And for what it costs like for you to go to a shop and have them weld something up. Like I tell people like, hey, I want to put a turbo on my car. I'm like, we'll go get a welder for $700. And weld to one, get a bunch of scrap metal, watch some YouTube videos, do it, and you'll put yourself a turbo kit together. I mean, it's the only way to do it yourself. And the guy down the road charge you $10,000 to do it. You could be in two grand and have it done yourself.

If you want to learn more about fabrication and design, but don't know where to start, our partners at the High Performance Academy can get you going. With over 100 videos relating to motorsport fabrication, TIG welding and 3D design, it's the perfect place to expand your skillsets. Listeners at the show get a huge 55% off discount, so go ahead and use the link in the description to get you started today. Let's get back to the show. Well, that's such a big thing too, right? Cause like you would not be able to do what you do, at least not as easily, if you didn't have the capability to do it yourself.

100%.

I mean, what would it cost for you to go do, you know, like the pro mod stuff or any, or I guess any of the stuff that you've done, you know, if you weren't able to.

I like to think I specialize in building turbo kits. So we'll get a car, we'll put a motor in there, I'll build the turbo kit for it. I'll be in, you know, two to $3,000 in material, and I can build a turbo kit, start to finish if I have nothing else going on in four or five days. You take that somewhere else, they're going to charge you for like these high end kits, you know, 10 to $15,000. Where that's great. And then after that, that's like the hard part for me is then we got to plumb it. We got a crimper, we can plumb stuff up, no problem, takes a day to plumb it. So if we have the time, we can really throw some stuff together. Where the other stuff, and I'm not trying to like, if I were doing it as a business, I would charge people, you know, 100% the 10, $15,000. It's a skill that they don't know. But a lot of people, if you don't have the money to buy the 10, $15,000 turbo kit, you can do it. I think a lot of people are more capable than they think they are.

We also have a skill that you can use going forward too, right?

100%. I mean, I use it in my other business. We got to weld up transfer tanks or weld this on. It's just a good skill to have. And I'm all about having my skill set as large and vast as possible because you never know when you're gonna need it.

You never lose skills, right? You can lose your business to shirt off your back, but you will never lose those skills.

100%.

Well, that's how a lot of shops start. I can't afford to have somebody build this for me, so I gotta do it myself. And then next thing you know, we're like, damn, I'm not half bad at this. And then it just kind of snowballs into non-billed race cars.

That's how myself and Chris got together. We weren't tired of, I mean, I guess you do kind of get tired of paying other people to work on stuff and being on their timeline.

That's the other thing too, it takes forever.

Yeah, you're just, there's no, I mean, even, I'm guilty of it when I worked on a couple of customer cars where it's like, I have other stuff going on, so I can't work on it. And their car ends up sitting in my shop for too long. So that's why I just, I have zero customer cars in my shop right now. Feels great. No one's waiting on me. No one's texting me. And the texts, they're welcome, right? I get it because I'd be sending the same text. But I mean, it's nice just to do it yourself. Myself and Chris, we just kind of got to the point where we're like, hey, you know, let's just try to do it ourselves so we don't have to pay someone. We don't have to wait on someone. We're on someone else's timeline. We're our own priority. And that's kind of how we started the whole LS Nasty Nasty Racing thing is he put a lift up in his shop and we were building a car there. And then we ran out of room, got another shop and had a couple more lifts and kept building cars and going fast and another shop and more lifts, more cars and it just keeps going and going.

So it's just kind of like a like a fun shop for you guys, just do everything all in one place sort of deal.

Yeah. Yeah. Chris and I agreed when we first started that if we're doing it for fun, right? So if we stop having fun, we're going to stop doing it. And so far, we haven't stopped having fun. There's been there's the ups and downs. You know, you get the days where it's frustrating, stuff's not going right or expensive break. That has to be expected. But overall, I mean, what we do and what we're allowed to do and in, you know, call it work. It's a dream, honestly.

The terrible cute thing was, I was watching a video, I think you were asleep on that one, actually.

No, it was one where he was trying to put the two pipes together and he kept going back to the grinder and going back. Yeah, he's like, look at that.

Nobody move. Nobody move. I was just laughing my f****** a**.

Some of your like sayings, you said tougher in a $2 stake. Like I think you're missing out on some t-shirt opportunities here, man.

I had some good ones for a while. We had a shirt that said, it was one of the OG guys, raced the Grand National locally here. He had the fastest Grand National. He had this shirt way back in the day. It said, in nitrous, you trusted, but your a** got busted and had a turbo on it. Like that shirt right there sold like hotcakes. You know, we had our Grand National on there with flames coming out, the exhaust and everything. But yeah, no, it was, I try to keep it fun with the YouTube videos. Like you can watch my channel if you want to learn something. There'll be some knowledge in there that you might, it might be something you already know, or it might be something new. We'll have it entertaining. And we'll show a cool car. You know, that's like, those are the three things I try to hit in every video.

Yeah, you're showing off the cars. I think you're missing your calling as a used car salesman as well.

Like have you ever seen Brody or whatever his name is on Facebook? Like he's like the, like a big Mopar guy.

I don't think so.

Oh, I've seen those ones. Yeah, yeah, he makes fun of the Honda guys and stuff too. Does he make fun of Honda guys sometimes when he's...

He makes fun of everybody. He makes fun of his own people. Like, oh, you got your 392, you got a 392 credit score, whatever the f*** you think. No wonder one of the ones that got me, what was the day he said today? He's like, most of the things we say are lies, but this ain't.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

I was like, damn, that's funny. That was funny. Where does that personality come from? Have you always been kind of an outgoing guy or?

I think there's one, I like to have fun. Like I don't, I hate, I get on my guys all the time. Like Dave's smiling back there because he knows, I'm like, if he's not smiling when he comes in the shop, I'll be like, hey, can you run to your truck and grab that and find your better attitude? You know, like, you better come in here and like, we're gonna have fun. I mean, because I always go back to like, my fiance, I drive her nuts because I'm always like, hey, I gotta stop by the shop because it's like my dream. I mean, when I was in school and I'd take like the little test and like, what do you want to do when you grow up? They're like, I want to be a race car driver. And then they're like, oh, you can't put that down. Well, if you're gonna be a race car driver, you gotta work on cars, you gotta have a b***** shop. So that's like, you know, the doorway to the dream is kind of how I look at it. So like, just to be able to walk in the shop and look at some of the cars on the lift, like I'm numb to it because I'm around it all the time. But like, I mean, we got b***** twin turbo cars, we got cars with blowers on them, like billet motors, like this is what, this is beyond what I ever could have dreamed. So to just be able to walk through there, just look at that stuff, it's just, it's so crazy to me, like dream come true.

You ever go back to those teachers and just be like, nah, it looks sucking, something like that?

No, I can't remember their names. I won't pay attention in school, I can tell you that.

You ever have somebody message you, like be like, oh, you inspired me, sort of type of stuff every once in a while?

Yeah, that to me is what makes it all worth it. You know, like when it's late at night and I don't want to edit the video, it's like just to get the message like that, to me, it makes it all worth it. Like I said, I just want to have like a positive outreach with what I do with my channel. It inspires some people to get out there, go buy the welder, go build a turbo kit, go work on the car, just try it and see where it takes you, because five years from now, you could be sitting in the same spot I am. I mean, I'm no one special. I worked really hard and I didn't sleep a lot for a little while, and you have to sacrifice some stuff, but I mean, it's literally able to live my dream is something that I think everyone should be able to do.

What's your YouTube up to now?

147, I think it was this morning.

Views are down compared to my peak, my prime. Views are down, but I try to focus on doing the YouTube for you, for me. When I started making YouTube videos, I wanted to make videos that I would like to watch that I didn't think people were making. And then after I started doing the daily uploads, I'm like, you know how cool this will be in 10 years to be able to pull up videos and look back at some of the cool stuff we did? And even now, we'll put videos for three years ago and we'll just be sitting there just like, dude, can you look how funny this is? It's just to have everything just recorded in these cool videos of what we were doing, to me, I think so unique. And someday I'll be able to go back and show my kids, be like, yeah, this is what I did, you know? I'm over there lopping someone's head off on the racetrack. I'm like, hell yeah, I was a b*****. And they'll be like, shut up, no you're not. No, I was, stuff like that.

That was cool going back to, especially when you go back editing, you know when you're laughing your a** off editing, you're like, this will be a good one?

Yeah, oh yeah.

Have you met some cool people throughout it too? Like, for example, have you met other like other YouTubers and stuff too?

100%. Well, see, for me, it is, I haven't really had a good luck with, I guess collaborating with other YouTubers. There's not a bunch really around where I'm at. I'm kind of like in my own little island. I've done some collab with other people, but do I have like a YouTube friend? I would, no, I don't think so. Which is, I'm just kind of-

A YouTube friend.

I'm just kind of like lone wolfing it over here, just having a blast with the boys, and that's it. Where everyone else, I think Location plays a big factor. They got some guys close, and they're able to collab and do some fun stuff.

Well, look at like Bradenton. All those guys are in one area over there.

It's like a hotbed of just content, and they're all putting out fire content. I'm a big Cletus fan. I watch all the video, like good quality. I watch it and just be laughing. That's why you watch YouTube, right?

Didn't you buy a stacker from him, too?

I bought a stacker trailer from him, yep. And I've known Cletus from like the, I guess when he just got started. I mean, we were at Streetcar Takeover, and I don't know what year it was. He might have had, we probably had the same amount of subs at that time, you know? And then, you know, paths differ, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he took off, it was flying. I mean, you watch his stuff every single movie, he's known he's played his cards right, you know, and they make awesome content.

When's your energy drink come?

I'm trying to get on with Alani right now. Oh, yeah. So my fiance, she buys these because they're like marketed towards girls, but I'll be in the Stagelands before every race, before I get in the car. I'm like, this pass is brought to you by Alani, you know? Shout out, go get it.

No, it's good s***, man. You ever had the, around Halloween, the witches brew?

No.

Oh dude, you got to get, that one's the best.

We have a fridge at the shop and I buy the case on Amazon. I just fill them up. We have a couple tool trucks that work out of our shop and the little tool truck guy comes by like, man, I drank one of those yesterday, but my head feel funny. I'm like, yeah, don't be chugging that thing.

I like them, they're good. I'm totally cutting this section out because by the time this episode drops, we're gonna be sponsored by Rekken Energy. I just want my buddies to start an company. At any point, he should get a shipment of his first batch, it's f****** good. I was part of the taste process.

Awesome.

Yeah, he's like, it's like fuel for hard workers and whatever.

That's good.

Dude, it's good. I'm a big C4 guy right now, though.

Yeah.

Yeah, the flavor. You tried C4 flavors?

I try not to drink too many energy drinks because I feel like I'm going to die if I...

Yeah, that's half the fun.

No, no, I'm like...

My chest gets tight about three hours after.

I was a big energy drink guy until I drank a bang, and I thought I was having a heart attack, and I had to take a whole shower. And after that, I kind of quit cold turkey. But now I'm like back on it with the Elanis, like here and there sporadically.

200 milligrams is like the standard, too. I'm like, can we just go back to like the Red Bull era where everything's like 112? Yeah, something normal.

You slam yours too, like I slowly sit mine throughout the morning.

Yeah, it's horrible for your teeth, but yeah, yeah. Yeah, I, do I got this soft, I'm just updating my Wikipedia right now, by the way. Like it's like, I got the softest teeth on the planet, bro. Like it's like, yeah, it's like, all right, 16 cavities in one week, whatever.

My fiance works in the dental field. So that's what the joke with me is, I got the veneers. That's what whenever we go out there, shake the tires, Chris will call me back. Your veneer is still in there? I'm like, brother, leave me alone. We can shut the tires, all right? But yeah, she's on me, you know, you gotta brush your teeth in the morning and that, and get the Invisalign, the whole nine. Yep, that's it.

Well, I just had a filling done last week, or like a Phil fix or whatever, and I'm like, I'm at GT40, I'm like, oh, this m***********'s gonna shake this loose.

Yep, yep.

I gotta show you the video, dude. Like, well, actually, it's probably like any of the race cars, like everything's just shaking, the panels are shaking.

People think that riding in race cars is fun and enjoyable, and they're like, they're brutal, they're barbaric.

Dude, I gave my man card back yesterday. I was in the passenger seat, and but listen, GT40, like it's a small 2300 pound car. I squeezed myself in there, like barely, like almost took my head off because the door chops you. And I, he's ripping it. He's only doing like 70 or 80. And I'm just saying, thinking like I'm the airbag. There's nothing in front over there, right? Like there's no cage. Like I've been in, you know, 2500 horse Vipers. Like it's got a cage, it's got MoTek. Cool. Traction control in this car was his foot. I was seeing and thinking like, I gotta get my man car back.

That's the ragged edge right there. I mean, that's just some barbaric s***.

In the sixties, they're doing 200 miles an hour for 24 hours. No, no, they don't make men like they used to, bro.

Not like that. Speaking of MoTek, traction control, things like that. You guys have like a go-to ECU you guys use or are you running anything like that?

Yeah, I'm a Holley guy. Okay. Pro Mods got FuelTech and one of the other cars we're working on has got FuelTech. So I like to be able to do them both. I like FuelTech. I like the Holley. I think they both have their, their ups and their downs. But yeah, I mean, I don't mess with any stock ECU stuff anymore. Everything's got to be on, on Holley or FuelTech. I don't know MoTek, the sheepy built stuff. They're both on MoTek. This one's on MoTek. You don't even know where to start. So again, not, not in my lane. So I don't mess with it.

It's a preference thing too. We've talked to you guys that do multiple and they just, they just have their preferences.

Yeah. I think I tell people, they'll say, Hey, well, what ECU should I go with? I'm building this car. I tell them whatever your tuner likes. If your tuner is a FuelTech tuner, go with that because that's who's going to be doing it. Like my tuner might like FuelTech and I put Holley on the car. Well, he's not going to like it because it's not what he likes, you know? So I tell people all the time, whatever your tuner likes, whoever's going to be tuning it, you'll learn it. It's just all it is. It's just like, well, you know, it's scary to go in there and make changes and figure it out, but that's the only way to do it.

So you guys, you have a tuner you'd like to shout out that you guys work with?

Yeah. So Kevin Mullins, TKM Performance. He is like my hero in drag racing. So he was in 2014. He was the world's fastest man on radials, went 411 like crazy, 200 and some mile an hour in 2014. I remember watching on TV and I'm like Kevin Mullins, my hero. He's got a machine shop in Denton, North Carolina, so about two hours away, hour and 45 minutes away from here. TKM Performance and they are b*****. And they got a hub dyno, so he does all my dyno tuning, tunes my street cars. Like he does like the base map, the fueling, timing, everything like that. And then I'll do the power management and the track, but he's b*****. They build all our motors, do all machine work, even our Proline stuff. We get the motors from Proline. If we have any issues, cylinder head needs to be repaired or whatever, we take it up there. They got CNC, they got like millions of dollars of just the latest, greatest technology and they're absolutely awesome dudes. So Big Shot TKM Performance. I mean, they do everything from our Hemi stuff, our LS stuff, Small Block Ford, I mean anything, they do it and they're awesome. So he's my tuner and he does FuelTech and Holley. He prefers FuelTech, but I like Holley, so I'd force him. He's proficient at both. So, but he always tells me man, if this was on FuelTech, it'd go faster at the racetrack. And I just give him a hard time. So, but he's an awesome dude. Any tuning, like this car is on, both these cars are on Big Stuff. We like Big Stuff as well. Big Stuff, I think it's Four now or Big Stuff. I don't know which one it is, but it's b*****. They all do the same thing, just they look a little bit different. Yeah.

You mentioned TKM, but who else do you respect in the industry?

I mean, I work with a bunch of different companies. So, I mean, I think that what I do with my channel is I keep it real. If I get a product that I don't think is worth the money or it's not good or it comes in complete or it's got issues, I just say, hey man, I'm not bashing you. I'm telling you, this is just not right. And I do the same thing with a product if it's good. And I don't really ask for a lot of stuff for free, I just go and buy it. I don't want anything for free. A lot of companies, when I go to order, they'll be like, oh man, well, he'll give me free shipping. And I appreciate that greatly. Or they give me 10% off, all that stuff, it helps. But there's so many companies that I work with that do an amazing job. Race Parts Solutions, I get all my materials from my turbo kit, stuff from them. They're awesome to deal with. Force Inductions, Jose over there, awesome to deal with. I'm super fortunate to work with a bunch of companies. I was sponsored with Race Tech. We've had a long lasting relationship. That's been great. We go to the PRI show with them every year, and our relationship started off with...

She just reminded me of a funny thing you said one of your videos, the Race Tech and the Kirkies thing. You're like, yeah, man, if you get the Kirkies, like you'll be in your seat. But if you want to live, you get a Race Tech or something like that.

Yeah, I mean, the Race Tech, it's a b***** seat, a b***** product. I went and bought my first one, and I'm like, this thing's b*****. And then I say on the video and I'm like, if you work for Race Tech, you better get with me, because this thing's b*****, and I can talk about it. And they sent me an email, and that started our relationship. I think a lot of people, as far as sponsorships go, they call these companies and say, hey, sponsor me, hey, sponsor me. And it's a business transaction, it's a two-way street. So if you don't have anything to offer them, don't ask them to sponsor you. But I knew I could offer them some marketing value, and they reached out to me, and I've sold a bunch of seats for them, and they have me as a dealer. We sell them through our race shop. To me, I like selling that because it's safety. It's overlooked a lot. You spend $40,000 on a motor, and then you don't want to put a $2,000 seat in your car. You want to put a $100 seat in your car? Come on, that don't make no sense.

Well, and the reason I say that is because we've had Porsche Cup car guys on the show who do race tech. Calvo says he thinks the only reason he's alive is because of his race tech, because he crashed at 180 or whatever, at a half mile event. It's like, I don't know if you ever saw the footage, but the car was unrecognizable. It was a funny quote from the video. I had to bring it back.

Yeah, no, to me, I think it's, again, I want to do good with my channel. And if I can imagine if someone's going to go out there and they're going to put a kirk-y seat in the car and they switch up and they put a race tech in there because of something I said on a video and they go out there and wreck, that to me is a big deal. That helped them. And that's why I just want to have a positive impact in the motorsport stuff.

Can you explain why, something like, in your opinion, right? Like how a race tech is better than a kirk-y? In your experience.

So it's like comparing apples to oranges. A kirk-y seat is just something to put your a** in, right? Or like it's 130 bucks, and there's nothing wrong with kirk-y seats. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. And I think they have their place, right? But if you're going to go out there and build a high level drag car, you're going to spend a bunch of money. I mean, some of these cars got, you know, five, six, $10,000 in wiring on the car, right? You can't really appreciate the wiring, but it needs it. Well, you can't appreciate the seat, but you need it. It's kind of one of those things where it's like, don't be so tight, invest in yourself. You go and you sit in a kooky seat, it's great, it'll hold you in there. I've gone fast kooky seats. They don't have head containment, or at least like the standard version, which is like the gold standard in drag racing, does not have head containment. A lot of them aren't secured properly, where you have to support the back. You can't just bolt it on the floor and then just ride, because if you get in a wreck, the whole back is not supported, it'll twist, it'll bend. So the Race Tech, it tells you where you can mount it. It's got nutserts in there. This is where you mount it, and it's got some in the back. You have to mount it in the back as well. It comes with head containment. It's so much, like, it offers so much more than a kooky seat. Is it more expensive? Yes. Is it expensive for what it does? No, I think it's fairly cheap, honestly. I think it's very cheap. And we own Alliance Racewear as well. We sell fire suits. It's another one you see where these guys got $200,000 car and they're out in a $5 fire suit. Like, honestly, they got that s*** from Summit and they got their single-air pants on, their single-air jacket, and they're in a methanol turbo race car. Like, brother, that fire does not care. And I guarantee you that hospital bill is way more expensive than it would be to buy that $2,500 fire suit that will literally save your life.

Assuming you're lucky enough to get to the hospital too, right?

Yeah, I mean, dude, fire's no joke. I got a b***** fire suit. I wear my head sock. I got a helmet. I got a hybrid on. Like safety is no joke. Drag racing, and I think a lot of motorsports is a very reactive community. They're not going to do anything until someone gets hurt. Yeah. So I try to promote that safety and, you know, get a good seat in the car, be safe, wear your safety gear. And it drives me nuts. Like I'll wear my same fire suit that I wear in my pro mod when I drive that street car, because that fire, it don't know what car it is. It don't know if we're in a pro mod or a street car. It's fire, you know? So I try to promote the safety aspect of it pretty hard.

So when you say apples and oranges, just levels to it then basically, right? So it's kind of like a base level seat versus something that's the next level.

Yeah, they don't offer any head containment.

That's kind of what I've heard.

And Racetech sells a seat with no head containment if you want a passenger seat or you want something for your street car. But if you were to get a KERCY seat and put the ISP padding around it, and then have your chassis modified to secure it in all the proper locations, it's going to cost just as much if not more than a Racetech seat.

Okay, I see what you're saying.

The way I always try and explain to people too is, if let's say you get in a wreck, you break your neck, you're in a wheelchair now, how much money would you pay to get to use your legs back? You know what I mean? Where's the money at now? Two grand? You'd be like, if you're six.

It's reactive, that's the thing. After the fact, we had a car get wrecked at Rockingham, gnarly wreck, didn't have a Racetech seat in there. We were already working with Racetech at the time. So we had some cars that had it, but didn't convert that car over to a Racetech seat.

Is this one of your cars or?

Chris owned the car, and one of our other guys were driving it, and went towards the center line, came back and whipped the wall. He got really messed up in the hospital, broken ribs, really bad head injury, broke his knee, lacerated spleen, had to have surgery, all the s***. The seat, it had a kirk seat in there, it was like twisted and folded. It ripped where it was bolted in the back, it ripped it out. So the seat was like twisted over like that. He's in the hospital, he literally says, man, if I was in a race tech seat, I'd have walked away fine. And I mean, that's first hand experience. That's not a sales pitch. That's someone in the hospital in rough shape saying, man, I wish I was in that seat. And that's just something that like we see all the time is just reactive, you know? So we try to be a little bit proactive, outfit the cars, you know, make sure they have all the safety stuff on there and be safe. It's not a matter of if you wreck, it's when, you know? You make enough laps, you're going to wreck. It's part of it.

Have you personally had any safety scares? Knock on wood if you haven't?

Not yet. I mean, I've had some, I've wrecked before, I haven't hit anything. You know, that's the difference is, you can wreck and not hit anything, and I've done that a couple of times.

Okay, what does that look like?

So I was driving this piece of s***, Fox body, factory seat. I bolted in the factory lap belt earlier that day, just not abiding by any of my safety rules. And that was a twin turbo LS, and left one of the lower control arm bars, the jam nuts loose, and from the ride up there, doing the burnout, whatever, it kind of lengthened a little bit. So the tire ended up touching the fender, and we got about half track going like maybe 100, and it got upset back there, and pretty much locked up the tire, and start going back and forth, almost hitting the wall, skidding, just steering the wheel, trying to keep it off the wall until you go about 10 mile an hour, and then you go, oh s***, and you drive it off, and that was one of my wrecks. I didn't hit anything, didn't tear nothing up, but I was completely out of control, fighting for my life with my lap belt from 87, just fighting for my life in there. And yeah, so a wreck with no crash, I mean, it happens a bunch, and that one was a good one. Some of the other stuff, I think a good driver is someone that doesn't allow themselves to get into a really bad spot where they have to have a crazy save. You see a lot of people, they're saw on the wheel, they're out there, they drive to the center line, they're almost wrecking, they almost hit the wall, and they're like, man, he's a driver, what a great save. To me, I don't think personally that's a good driver. I think a good driver has the driver IQ and the knowledge to say, hey, I'm out of shape, I need to stop before I get in trouble. So that's just kind of my aspect, or my insight on that is, I try to make smart decisions in the car, live to race another day, this s***'s expensive, I don't have to buy the same s*** twice to rebuild it.

I've seen people do that, too, where they go to take off, and it didn't go down exactly like they wanted it to, and they just were done. What the hell is this past gonna be anyway? It's not gonna be, when you're splitting that many hairs, at that point, what's the point?

Yeah, on a boarded run, it's just, if it don't go down like you want it to, it goes up there and gets upset, you just quit. Now, when you're racing, obviously, you're gonna push it a little bit harder in competition to get to that finish line first, but you still have to know when to quit. That's my biggest thing is, if it ain't in the cards, it ain't in the cards. If we lose this round, we're gonna race next weekend. The guys might get mad at you, oh wow, if I were driving, I would have stayed in it. Well, it's tough to say that you weren't driving. So especially when you gotta work on it. Working on a wrecked car is the worst. Trying to pull the motor out of something that's wrecked and it's not fun. So we experienced that and making smart decisions is key, I think. Try to, the longevity of the car, the program, everyone, just gotta make smart decisions.

When did that switch happen, right? Because usually when you're young, full of piss and vinegar or whatever, is that what the old guy said?

Help me out here, help me out here, what are you asking me?

Right, when did that switch happen? When did safety come on your radar? Or is it always a concern?

Yeah, I mean, I always wanted to be safe and terrified of fire, right? So I've always had like a nice fire suit. But I just, I think when you really kind of like step back and look at, you know, how much money and how much time in your life you have invested in some stuff, I don't want to go out there and, you know, if we're racing for five grand, it ain't worth five grand, you know, to go out there and wreck it.

So you just naturally were like, I wish I could be safe about this.

I think a lot of guys from from my perception, they drive with their ego, they drive like they're trying to prove something. And I have nothing to prove to anyone, right? Like I'll go out there if I mess up, I say, hey, man, I mess up. It's on video, you know, like I tell people, you know, I'm not perfect, I'm going to tear some s*** up and I'm going to show you guys because that's real life. If you go and only put out awesome videos, you're doing great, that's not real. So I have no ego when I drive. I drive from a competitive standpoint if I want to win and I want to do the best. And there's going to be times where I mess some stuff up or forget to do something, I do it wrong. And it don't bother me one bit, you know, I go home and we don't try again next week. So some guys drive where they want to be known as, oh, he's a b***** or oh, he, you know, he was driving the hell out of that thing. And there are times where you do have to drive and make some, you know, hairy decisions. And, but for the most part, if I go out there and I have to border run it, don't bother me one bit. That's just what we do. And yeah, drive with no ego.

That's it. Quit looking at me like that, man.

What's your favorite, what's your favorite power adder? Do you have one?

I'm a turbo guy.

Okay.

I'm a turbo guy for sure. Turbos, they sound cool. They make good horsepower. You could rev the s*** out of them all the time. Because the motor, it don't care. The pro charger stuff, it's b*****, it's loud, but they're finicky. I like a screw blower, but they're a lot of work. So I don't want to work on them too much. So the turbo is perfect for me. The least amount of maintenance in my book makes great power and they sound cool.

Any particular brand?

I like Force Inductions. I run FIS turbos on pretty much everything. So I run, my Peterbilt's got a Force Induction turbo on it. My diesel trucks, they just make good turbos for all applications and we love them. Make good power and had great success with them. I've had zero failures, which is crazy to me.

You're probably pushing them pretty hard too.

Oh yeah, I mean, we've gone so fast on, we've gone fours on twin 62 millimeter turbos, which they're not, they shouldn't go that fast. Overspin them and they just, they keep taking a beating and keep going. So yeah, Force Inductions, we run their Billet 102s, we got them on cars, we got their twin 62s, we got 76 on my truck. You name it, they make a turbo for it, we run it and it works great.

You do any diesel work too then, or not really?

I try not to because I don't really know what I'm doing, but I can tear some s*** up. I had a 700 horsepower, 5.9 Cummins, I thought that was pretty cool. I just, we got our shop truck, which is a $2,000, 300,000 mile, 6.7 Cummins. So I called Force Inductions and got a turbo so we can compound it there. Just, if we're gonna go to the racetrack and this is gonna be our shop truck, it's got to at least have something different, cool, be modified. So we got a hood stack for it and everything. And minor, minor diesel stuff, I would say, but.

Okay.

Are we in that area too, where you guys lift the front end and drop the back end real low too?

Yes, not us though, not us. The squatted trucks are real, and it is brutal, and they sound so bad. I'm surprised, have you seen a couple go by?

I haven't, yeah, but when you were talking about turbos, there was, I think, a 6.0 truck that drove by.

I heard a turbo whistle. All the guys with the squatted trucks are still probably sleeping, because they ain't got no jobs, so they sleep in. But yeah, the 6.0s and the 7.3s, you'll hear them, they're big. Everyone's got a diesel truck around here.

Okay.

I think they just banned that too recently, didn't they?

Yeah, but they don't care. Those kids out there, they put their hat on like this.

And they're- They just slide forward with the hat.

Oh yeah, and they're just like leaning back, sitting like that, yeah, yep, that's it. And it's funny, we sell the wheels at our shop. We got like the big 26-inch snowflake reps, so they come in there and they buy them.

The retail side of things?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do a little bit of that with the storefront. So, you know, we got the big wheels up in the window, so the squad of truck guys come by and look, and you know, if that's your thing, it's your thing, all right?

Yeah, yeah.

I'll make my little comments here, but you know, you do you.

I put some heavier springs in the front of my truck just to support my snow pile, because up there we have to push snow around, right? And I mean, it's like frozen water, but yeah, you can't even I mean, it's like barely a little bit. It lifted just a little bit in front. My dad won't stop giving me hell. I'm like, you can't even tell if you're really looking at it. And he's he won't stop making fun of me.

So I got five plow trucks. We use it for the storm stuff.

Oh, yeah, because you go all the way up north.

Yeah, we got there. All you guys will appreciate this. They're all like 99 to 03 Silverado's. One of them is a suburban 2500. They all got six liters with cams and shaved heads on them. So they're all beat in the ground. And they all got, we jack them up in the front. We turn the keys all the way up. So like you said, when they're riding around in the summer with no plows on, they're a little bit high in the nose. But yeah, they can't leave anything stock. So they got headers and full exhaust and they're all work trucks. That's awesome.

So is it just to like get all this s*** off the road when you're out there?

Yeah, so we do all the telecommunication stuff. So the plow trucks are, we use them to clear the access roads to the cell sites.

Oh, okay.

So, and they're good because we use skid loaders and mini-Xs and stuff like that. Occasionally we use a dozer, but they're the most mobile, right? And they can haul generators, which is what we do as well, and refuel generators. So they're kind of the best tool for the job. They can push the snow out the way. They can refuel the generator. If we need to bring one out there, they can tow it out there. So I got five. They're all $3,000, $4,000 trucks, but down here, there's no rust, right? So they're good to go. Perfect. I freshened the motor, so we took all the motors out, put new pistons in them, shaved the heads. They all have a different camshaft. So one's got a BTR, one's got T cam, one's got NK Performance, one's got TIC cam. So they all have different camshafts. And we got them tuned by our buddy, Chris Neeves, Blazen Eye Performance. They did a great job. And yeah, so they've been, the first year they got like 14 to 20,000 miles put on them. And it's cool. You go to a gas station with a plow truck and the thing's just counting them off. What kind of motors in that? I mean, it's got a Corvette motor in it. That's what we gotta say.

That's freaking cool too. Cause it's cheaper to get a new truck.

Oh yeah, 100%. And with the plows on them, especially like, we're driving from North Carolina to Vermont with a plow on the front. It just beats the s*** out of them. So I found that that year model is the best truck. Like $700 to build the whole front end. You know, there ain't no point to put it on one of these new trucks. And I buy my plows from auctions and they're old war out. We get paid for the drive up and if they're sitting around, so a lot of times they don't do a lot of work and they're there with the equipment, so we get paid.

Yeah.

As far as I've never asked you this, what's a plow weigh?

I don't know, baby. Mine weighs 1,000 pounds.

Holy s***, really?

It's a stainless steel V plow.

Oh, you see, that's a nice set up there. I got like a 1999 Western Unimap, baby, on that. Seven and a half.

Not a V, then? A single blade?

It's just to the side, going down 95, 70 mile an hour the whole way.

It may sound really dumb, but I prefer kind of a straight blade. I'm getting used to the V plow. I kind of figured out how to work it. It's nice that you can scoop some stuff when you're doing snow. But I mostly did it for when I'm driving down the road. It's really nice to be able to kick it like that. It just looks nicer on the truck.

All the boys hate me because I'm like, man, you go to Trenton, New Jersey today. So load up and head there, and they're in the plow trucks, and they're halfway up there going 65, 70, because it'll overheat, and the plow kicked one side, so they're driving like this, the whole way there. Man, I hate you so much. I'm like, gosh, get that money, baby. You getting it?

Yeah. I've been in some of those cell tower sites. I used to do satellite communication stuff, so I've been to plenty of those and had to put up stuff like that.

But yeah, we're plowing the gravel access road. So you can imagine, it's got to sound like a corvette out in the woods, just ripping the limiter. You know, those guys are out there just wide open, pushing snow. So yeah, it's fun. Dave, where'd you go? You guys went all the way up to Wisconsin?

Yeah, we went to Wisconsin, Maine.

Wisconsin, Maine. Really? And they just drive these 2002 Silverados with a plow on them and a cam all the way there. So they're good old trusty trucks.

Oh, so you guys don't even, it's anywhere. You'll go anywhere that it's got, yeah?

Continental 48, we got the contract for all of it.

Okay.

So yeah, so we do, we do. Anytime there's power outages, we are working. So, and I have guys all over the place. Like I use my YouTube to promote it. So if anyone's watching, you can send me an email, JohnDocRecovery at gmail.com. We'll put it on the screen here, right? Shameless plug. Yeah, that's fine. It's a great side gig. So these guys get paid really well. We pay them daily, even if they sit in the hotel. So, you know, as soon as you leave the house, you're getting paid a day rate, and the work is, you know, minimal. We pay for your travel time tuned from the event. We reimburse all fuel. We put you in a hotel. And I call it the race car fund. I got a lot of guys that are building race cars off of it. It's not a full time job. I wouldn't tell you to quit your job, but you go out there, you work a couple of days, you work a week, you make a couple of thousand dollars, and you come back, get back to your normal life doing your work, and the paycheck comes in, and boom, you got your new turbo, you get your new converter, you know, that's kind of how it is. Most of the guys that work for me are in that motorsports background, so it's really good gig.

Dude, you just came up with the sickest name ever, like racecarfund.com or something like that. I imagine it's kind of like Angie's list or Craig's list.

Oh yeah, just looking for side jobs to support your head.

Well, think about the skills that car guys have, right? Like whether it's like fab work or...

Well, that's what I love about it. All these guys are mechanically inclined, so they should go up there. And all we do is we haul generators to sell sites, we hook them up, and then we refuel them while the site has no commercial power. So it's super easy, a lot of downtime, a lot of waiting around. So these guys, we pay them on a 12-hour minimum. So we might go and send them in a hotel in Trenton, New Jersey, and we don't have work for three days. Well, they get paid their 12 hours for three days straight, and then we pay them to drive back home. So super, super easy job. And if there's an issue, like this is what I love, is we kind of have like a family, right? So if one of our guys is up there and his brakes go on his truck, someone in the crew is a mechanic or has a mechanical background, they fix that s***, and they all come home. So it's like no man left behind. And I try to, my three main things are, pay them good, make it an enjoyable work environment, they will come back and work. So that's kind of how I base my business model. And we've been operating for the past five or six years with like one or 2% turnover. So it's been great.

That's crazy. Whereas some industries like 50%.

Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, pretty much if they go in the field and work, they're coming back and then they're blowing up. Anytime it rains, like, hey, we got any work? And it's awesome. It's a really good group of guys. There's another thing too. It's like, you know, the friend group that we built from there. Like, if it wasn't for YouTube, that's how I promote it. I wouldn't know half these people. And some of these people, I mean, I know from Kentucky and Illinois and Iowa and Florida, Louisiana, and I'll text them, you know, we'll make a pass. And they were watching on TV and they sent us a text. Like, you just never know who you'll meet, where you'll end up. It's just, it's crazy. So that's why I try to tell everybody, like, man, just go do it. Just try it out. Yeah.

So you got six weeks to claim racecarfun.com.

I know, I got to, I got to.

What's the craziest storm you guys have done? Or somebody on your team or something?

Yeah, so we've gone, so we had that really bad Hurricane Helene that hit the mountains of the Carolinas. You guys familiar with that? Yeah. Yeah. So we had crews stationed up there.

Okay.

And so-

That's the one where Cletus had, like, helicopters going and all that.

Yeah. So they were up there. So we had crews. I had, me personally, I had about 200 guys working from, you know, the mountains of the Carolinas all the way down to Florida, because that's where, you know, all the outages were. And my guys up in the mountains, the main fiber for the cell tower up there, which goes under 40, got washed out. So for two days, we had no phone communication with them. So they would go and go to the yard and stand by and wait for dispatch. And they never got dispatched. So at the end of the day, they had to go back to the hotel and they were sitting up there. And after two days, we finally got in touch with them. And we're like, what's going on up there? And they're like, bro, it is a mess up here. Like it's a mess, no power. We're getting low on food. What do we got? So we ended up getting them, you know, a sat phone. We were able to communicate with them and we were able to get them to work. And I mean, some of these sites they're going to, it's completely washed out. We got, you know, dozers pulling the generator up and they're hooking everything up. I mean, it's crazy.

It was nasty. I had some friends drive down from Wisconsin and like they were getting like told to turn back.

Yeah, some weird stuff going on. Again, I'm a big stay in my lane kind of guy. We deal with the telecommunication stuff. So we focus on that. We got our little paperwork that we can get us to where we need to go. But yeah, to have a hurricane, something like that, hit North Carolina, on the beach, like the coastal cities, if they get tore up by a hurricane, you're like, hmm, you kind of saw it coming. It's like you don't, not necessarily you don't feel bad, but you expect it. When it hits the mountains of the Carolina, it's like those guys, they're helpless. They're helpless up there. Like they didn't expect it. They were prepared for it. And it hits kind of different, especially being home like that.

Like, was it Asheville that got pretty torn up? Yeah, I remember seeing like some-

Well, I had a whole Mustang Week trip planned. I didn't go that year. I went next year because they- I mean, Hurricane was coming over. I think they canceled the event.

Yeah. Yeah. And the Carolines, it's- You know, we're in a pretty good spot where we don't get hit with a lot of s***. So we travel a bunch. Like, hurricane season, we're in Florida a bunch, Georgia, Louisiana is a big one too. So that's kind of where we stay. But every once in a while, we get one on the coast.

He's really selling me on this North Carolina. So hurricanes aren't as crazy over here then, huh?

Dave, when's the last hurricane we got? It was what, 2016 maybe? Yeah, 2016.

Wow, so like once in a decade.

We're due for one. No, I'm just kidding.

No, yeah.

I'm just kidding.

If they happen, we go to work, but we don't wish for them.

Right.

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of one of those things where they're going to happen, we'll take the work. And what we do is we make it so, you know, 911 and all the emergency services, they go to the cell towers that we use. So we try to get the first responders able to communicate as fast as possible. That's our job. So we try to do our small part. And everyone involved makes a little bit of money.

Well, it's not like you're a door knocker or like a storm chaser, right? No disrespect. But, yeah. Okay. So, man, we're coming up on two hours here. Coming up on Steam. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, so obviously every game plan for the next year is keep improving. Are you mostly going to stick to the Pro Mod side of things, or are you going to work on some of the other stuff still?

So, my goal is be successful in Pro Mod, be successful in the Radial Racing as well. So, really kind of just focus on both sides of the program and just be competitive. We want to go to races, we want to win. We don't want to be any class fillers. Make our upgrades. I think we're pretty much done expanding as far as the car collection and the amount of s*** we have. Maybe even downsize a hair. I'm trying to sell some projects so we can be more efficient. So that's my goal, is to be more efficient, be more competitive and get the projects that we have knocked out so we can get through the racetrack and set some records, win some races and have some fun.

Sweet. Well, I'm done. Oh, should we pop the usual three?

Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be another, I wonder how many of these are going to be Fords. Oh, okay.

Let's see how this goes. All right.

So at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. I need a track car, a daily driver and a show car. You have an unlimited budget, build whatever you want. Weld two cars together.

All right. So what are they again? You get a track car.

Yep.

A daily driver in a show car. Yep. Got a show car. I've never even thought of a show car. I don't even, I don't even, a show car. All right. I'm going to change it up. My show car is going to be a Peterbilt. Got to have a bad a** show truck.

Been a while since we've done, heard one of those.

Got to be like a stretch 379, like 320 inch wheelbase, all aired out, flat top sleeper. That's what it's got to be.

My 15 year old daughter likes that kind of s***.

Well, our rig, we got one that's not, it's not a show truck. It's a good working truck, but it's a stretch 379, it's a bad a**, but a show truck one, like all done up with the lights, polished, never really goes on the road unless you go into a truck show. That right there, I'd lose it over that. So stretch 379. My track car. I don't know, I mean, I don't want to say a pro mod, because I feel like that's boring. It'd be like a bad a** radial car. Probably this car that we're building right now, it's called Beetlejuice. It's a first gen Camaro, it's absolutely bad a**, twin turbo LS. I'd say that'd be my dream, where it's almost a reality, the dream track car, because it's just beautiful, bad a** twin turbo. And then the daily, I hate to say it, but we gotta go with the Mustang. We gotta go with the Mustang. We gotta go with like a 03 Terminator Cobra.

Yeah, that's a good one.

So just, they're cool, cool cars. So that's my three. A Peterbilt, a first gen Camaro drag car, and a Terminator.

I think those are good answers. It's been a while since I've heard of a Peterbilt. It's been probably, I haven't heard that in at least 50 episodes.

Yeah? Yeah. I'm a truck guy. I'm a big kid, you know? I like big trucks. I like equipment. I like race cars. So that's me.

You guys do off-road stuff here too? Side by sides? Anything like that?

Not really, no. Some of the guys do. There's a big mud and off-road park down the road, but I burn all my money already. I ain't got no more money left to build a side by side.

Well, sweet, man. On that note, where can people find you?

YouTube, John Doc. On Instagram, it's John underscore doc one, and for any business inquiries, you could shoot me an email. I know you know where to head in.

What was the email again?

Johndocrecovery at gmail.com.

Cool.

So that's for your work stuff. If you want me to work on your race car, ain't gonna happen.

Ain't gonna happen.

Sorry about it.

Sweet, Dan.

You want to buy a race car, though?

Yeah, we got some for sale. If you want to buy some, hit me up. We have some b***** stuff, and we don't like to change hands too much, but if they go to a good home and can be used and you enjoy it, come on, buy it.

So the Trailblazer, that's number one on the list.

Yep, I probably sell my Vette next to it. It's a b***** street car, 400 in the back, 427 Procharger F1X on Holley.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so it's like a little sleeper. It's got factory seats, but the thing is a bear at the racetrack. It is fast. Went to the semifinals in the street car class last month, so big semifinals guy. I can't get to the finals for some reason. It's been a rough year so far.

That's what I was going to ask you. Do you have a favorite track or event?

Favorite track or event? I mean, I like running Galat, which is our local track four miles down the road. I mean, really, any event they have out there, I'm there supporting. So I'm not partial to any specific event. We ran ProMod out there. It was a blast. We were in the small tire stuff out there at the blast. The facility is amazing and support in local. I mean, it's in our backyard, so I love it.

I should ask this really, this is a Minnesota goodbye by Midwest goodbye. What's it called? Is there any money to be made in racing?

So if you want to make a million dollars racing, start with 10. Yeah, all right. That's what it is. So you will not make any money racing. You gotta do it for the love. You gotta do it for the competitiveness and you gotta do it just because you wanna do it. Don't go into racing trying to make money. And I say the same thing, don't go into YouTube trying to make money either. Go into it with some passion because you love it. And if you love it and you put your heart into it, it'll probably reward you.

Cool. I think that's a great way of finishing it. Dan?

You can find us at Gunna Garage or...

Or Mr. Gunner Garage on Facebook. Cool, awesome. Well John, thank you very much for coming on. This is a blast, man. Yeah, man. Dan, thanks for existing, and we'll see y'all next time. Thanks again for watching the show, guys. Be sure to go into the description down below, and check out all of our sponsors. They are what make this show possible. It allows us to travel the country and talk to some really cool guests, so be sure to check them out, support them just like you support us, and see y'all next time.