45. East Coast Car Rallies, Car Rental Business, and Squad Driven w/ Asa Gladstein

Let's do it. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide Podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And today, I'm gonna have a subbed in co-host for all the five, 10 minutes, I don't know, while we wait on Sean. So I'm gonna introduce my temporary 10 minute co-host. What's up, Dan? Hey, this is Dan Balto of CarMunity.

You've probably heard of us before.

Partial sponsor, partial co-host now, for at least 10 minutes. Yep, for at least 10 minutes. And you were on episode 14, I want to say it was, 14 or 15.

High loss counts.

Former guest.

Thank you.

But nonetheless, we are filming at our new location here at Ratified Motorsports. So things are a little quirky getting dialed in, but I'm really excited to be here. I'm super, super excited to have this little, I don't know what to call it, a partnership?

I don't know.

We'll figure it out. But nonetheless, in addition to the exciting news of a new location, we have somebody who flew in, just for me, just for me. Just for you. No other business, nothing going on. So I want to introduce Asa, is it Gladstein?

Yes, sir.

I probably should ask that off camera. But man of many rallies, businesses, I don't know.

Many hats.

Many hats. So you're associated with Driveify, you run your own rally. Those are the main two things I know about you. But I wanted to get you on because you're a genuine car enthusiast. You run a pretty sweet event that's too expensive, too rich for my blood, unfortunately, and way too far from Minnesota. But I just wanted to get to know you. So just tell us about you.

Sure. So my name's Asa, like you said, I run a few different companies of my own. So I run a company called Squad Driven. That's my main business. We do marketing and events in the car world. So everything from, you know, rallies are the bread and butter, but obviously besides the rallies, we have this thing called The List, which is like a little directory for car enthusiasts locally. It's kind of like what Dan does with community, but ours is kind of more like local and targeted, and he's way more like national. So, you know, we do The List, we do some marketing for other local companies, content creation, social media management, stuff like that, and then a whole bunch of different car stuff. And then in addition to that, I run a nonprofit called Stay Driven Charitable Foundation. So we raise money and awareness for different organizations that help people stay driven. So one of them is called Lark & Motors Foundation. So they help, they fix veterans' cars for free when they can't afford it. And then another organization that we're working with is called Tommy's Place. It's essentially, it's a vacation home for kids with cancer. So like a week, a year, it's like a different family. Every week gets like a free vacation in this like massive mansion. And like, okay, very cool. Yes.

Yeah, is that, I mean, this is not too similar, but I guess doesn't Ronald McDonald do something similar to like that? Like where they just kind of give people like a house?

Well, there's a Ronald McDonald house. I forget what they do, but it's something.

I should know more about this, because that's the charity we worked with back in the early Venom Rally days. So that's another thing I wanted to get you on here, because seeing how different people run rallies, you know, from you to Balto to Joey with G-Force, it's really cool to see everybody's hot take on it. But I think everybody is trying to not replicate, but take the best parts of Crown to see what happens. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that is. So you have the list, you have stay driven, and then what else?

So squad driven and stay driven are my two main businesses. And then I...

Come on in. Get out of here, Balto. Sean has appeared.

All right. And pause.

Transition. Yeah. Yeah, transition. Yeah. Grab yourself a Jaco. Perfect. Hey, I got the... What's that? Lululemon?

What? I don't know.

No. No. It's good good will. Yeah, I think...

What time is it?

We're cooking it. Huh?

What time is it? Yeah. How far are we in?

We're like half an hour in. No. Sean, meet Asa. He's literally just giving us the introduction now.

Hey, so my name is Sean Bryant. For any of you that don't know, I drive an orange BMW 1M, Valencia orange, probably the best color, and a blue Dodge Durango Hellcat, which I just filled up with 110 octane. And oh my god, it is rowdy. It's like the littlest bit of throttle that just wants to go.

Yeah, so I decided I had two options. Otherwise, we could wait, or I'm like, oh, you know what, let's give Abalto a five-minute audition.

Cameo.

Yeah, cameo. This will make it, I just figured it would make it more interesting for listeners. Why not change it up a little bit? Sure, sure.

Yeah, sorry about that, guys. I was a little late. I'm dealing with some stuff at home. But don't worry about it, nothing too bad.

Yeah, keep them guessing. Never let them know your next move. But yeah, so you have StayDriven and SquadDriven, which are basically the same business. And then what's the next, Driveify?

Yeah, so I mean, those are the businesses I own. And then Driveify is kind of like my third hat, if you will. So I manage the Boston branch. So I don't know how long you followed. So I started a company called Boston Exclusive Auto Rentals a few years ago. I ran it with a business partner, and then it just didn't really work out in the sense of like, business partner was, you know, we just had some disagreements as far as how the business should be run. And I was kind of burnt out with just like running rentals and all that stuff. So when I first started the rental company, obviously, you know, I went to school out in Minnesota. That's how I know a bunch of these guys and you, Dan, that whole network. But so when I started the rental company in Boston, Jacob, you know, at the same time was like, that's really cool. Like, I'm gonna start Driveify. So we've kind of shared ideas back and forth. I had my company and like we would talk about what we're doing for each company and bounce ideas off each other. And it came to a point where I was getting kind of fed up and I was like, I'm kind of sick of this. Like, because I had like four or five different car payments in my own name and it was just like tons of stress and work. And long story long, I called Jacob and I was like, I'm done. And he was pretty much like, what if we essentially like bought all your cars and you just ran like a branch of Driveify because we want to expand?

So, OK, so then, so I have a little bit of an idea of how renting cars work. So if you have them all in your name like that, isn't that pretty rough on your credit?

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I all the payments were going through. So like my credit was still good, but it was like I didn't to your point. Like it would have been hard for me to get additional loans or anything. Right. It was my debt to income or whatever was kind of maxed out.

So up next would have been like buying cars cash, probably.

Correct. Yeah. So I got lucky. And like when I was getting into the rental business, I bought like two or three cars literally in the same week, like before it could hit my credit. So that was one of the loopholes a lot of like rental companies do. Yeah, they'll just buy them all at once. And then they don't report it until a month later. And then it's too late at that point. But yeah, so I kind of got fed up and then called Jacob. Hey, I'm out. And he was like, hey, we want to expand. Do you want to run a branch of Driveify in Boston?

So I'm curious, what was the benefit of working on Driveify for you then?

The benefit is now I don't have any car payments like for the rental company. I have my own stuff. But now I don't have the four or five car payments. And Driveify has the legitimacy of like... So Turo is a big marketing platform, but for any rental business, it's beneficial financially to go off Turo. So Driveify has all that set up as far as contracts, and they have all the email, how to pay agreements, all that stuff. And the legitimacy of its own brand, right? Like, Driveify stands on its own and just uses Turo as a giant platform. And that's kind of the big advantage to helping them grow. And they have investors, and they have a handful of cars out here. So it's kind of like an expanding network, if you will.

Okay, so how many cars are you up to out there, then?

So I want to say in Boston, we have seven or eight. And then I want to say Minnesota, I'm going to butcher this. They have 15, 20?

They have a good bid.

Yeah, they have a lot.

I'm trying to run through the fleet right now with my Driveify series. The GT3 was a blast. It's a bummer you didn't rent that out.

I know, we want the fun stuff.

Always the fun stuff, but the Bronco makes sense. And this is why I tell people all the time, if you want to get into rental business, get a freaking SUV. It'll be gone all the time. Like AJ's X1, he forgets he has the car. That's how you want to operate. I mean, the supercars is cool and all that. It's great for the pictures, but that's it. I'm guessing you probably see the same thing out there. The SUVs? The regular cars are gone more often.

Yes, I mean, so initially when I started the company, I was renting out my R8. That's why I bought it. And we have a Boxster S 718. I had a new GR86. Oh, we had a Z06, a C7 Z06 at one point. I mean, those are cranking because even if they weren't getting rented often, the cooler the car, you can hike the price up. So my R8 was going to be rented for 600 bucks a day. So if my monthly payment on that, I don't know, it's 1,500 bucks plus insurance, I don't know, 1,800 bucks, whatever, 1,900 bucks. If I'm renting it out for $600 a day, after a weekend, my car's pretty much paid off, right?

Correct. And then you still have an R8 to drive the rest of the time.

Exactly. So I can rent it out five, 10 days a month, and I'm driving a free car and making a little bit of money until, of course, inevitably someone broke my clutch.

I remember that.

All the money was gone. It was a whole, yeah.

So you got a V10 or V10 Plus?

V10 Artronic.

Okay, Artronic. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. So what's that pre...?

It's the original Gen 1, not facelift, so it's a single clutch. I like it because it's very aggressive, but it definitely takes some getting used to. And some people who like the dual clutch are like, this sucks, but it's different.

That would be me. I'm in that camp. It's slower, 100%.

It's just more fun, in my opinion.

Yeah, so actually I finally got to drive a V10 one because I drove the Driveify one, however, long ago. And then I drove Jay's V10 for all of 30 seconds because he's like, oh, I never heard my car from the outside. I'm like, I can do it because I've proven myself capable of driving faster cars, I guess. Man, those R8s are slow, though. Sorry. But then I just freaking launched in. Dude, I was surprised how much quicker it is than the V8.

Dude, 100%. The V8 looks good. It sounds good, but it's still a V8. Yeah.

So here's the thing, I feel like if you want everything except the performance, get the V8.

100%. If you just want to look cool or whatever, get the V8.

Everybody else, especially if you're in the I want to impress people game, nobody's going to be none the wiser.

No, if you don't know cars.

In the car community, different story. Like, oh, that dork got a V8. That's a problem. But dude, that thing sounds like a banshee, dude.

The V8?

Yeah, have you heard that?

It sounds sweet. Yeah, I drove it in Vegas for the bang gear thing.

Oh yeah, okay. Dude, that thing sounds insane. I mean, but, you know, my golf beat it, you know.

Yeah, it's not fast. So I lost the... Oh, s***, I can't talk about that. Never mind.

No, you can't.

On the show, I was like, huh?

Oh, if there is anything, and I usually... I've never had to, I think maybe like on episode... The first time we ever had a guest, it was Eric's Garage. I think it was episode two, three, whatever. I said a bunch of stuff about dolphins getting high and all this stuff. Yeah, you remember that episode? Yeah. It just did not pertain to cars. I'm like, yeah, I don't think we're going to take the podcast this way. So that's the only time I've ever really cut stuff. But if it ever gets to a point to where you declare some war on a country or something, I don't know.

We'll cut it.

But for the most part, it's pretty fine. All right. So then you got all those cars out. Actually, I did beat a stingray the other day, by the way, a C7 Corvette.

Your GTI?

A base?

Yeah. I couldn't believe it. So I was on my way to... Do you know who Tony Hinchcliffe is? No. Well, Sean bought me tickets to a Tony Hinchcliffe comedy show. You would enjoy it probably. But anyways, I was on my way to dinner or whatever, and there was this Corvette. He must have saw me zipping through traffic. So he lined up next to me at a stoplight. I'm like, all right, I probably shouldn't because I spin, but I also knew he was going to spin because it was like 50 degrees and whatever.

Corvette, yeah.

So anyways, the light turns green and I ease onto the throttle because I knew I was going to spin torque steer and all that. I don't want to torque steer right into him, that'd be f****** hilarious. But anyways, I could feel like I just feathered it or whatever, but I hear him, the second the light turned green, whoa, just spinning and I'm like driver mode. So then it's literally like this. So I go forward and I see him catching up out of the corner of my eye and then I finally caught traction and got into boost and I was just gone up until like 80 on a perfectly legal street. I really should check the city cams. I would love to get some footage of that.

Can I get that?

So anyways, the reason I bring that up, I'm going to pretend like I had a reason besides flexing. So do you do a lot of track stuff or not really or just mostly rally stuff or?

So usually it depends. So some of the rallies, a lot of the rallies we try to incorporate at least a track day or some sort of driving event. Not during the rallies, I maybe go to one track day a year or two. Like I usually I don't track too too often. It's fun. But for me, like I know if I get the itch, if I get a taste more than a taste of like track life, I'm going to go all the time and all my money that I don't have is going to be gone. Yeah. So I prefer to just skip that step and go once a year, twice a year, get scratch that itch and I'm good.

I know we went to Road America and Jay's like, oh, we got to come here like all the time now.

I'm like, I would love to track day, travel costs, hotels, gas, tires, breaks.

He's like, I got a truck, I got a trailer. I'll just trailer my car here. You know, if we get a good group of guys, we'll get a hotel. It'll be fun and it'll be like, that's really expensive. And it's like, I wouldn't even bring my car because like I've decided the 1M is a great rally car. It's not a good track car.

That's surprising.

Well, it's good for the rally because I can take it to the track and I can have a blast. And then I can take it off the track and continue rallying. You know, I want to, you know, if I'm going to go to the track, I want a car that, you know, is awesome at the track, but sucks at everything else. So I was like, well, this just got more expensive.

I gave so much s*** to Jay. So he also has an R8 and he, we were talking about me. So I've been thinking about getting back into the rally game. I've had prolonged discussions with Balto and like, what makes sense? I work with him. Do I go on my own? Do I go low key? Do I just make a 20 car cruise and call it a rally? So that's kind of where I'm having an identity crisis right now. But I told Jay, I'm like, hey, we should start like in Chicago and go to tail the dragon or whatever. It's like one of the best routes. Dude, Crown milked that route for years, you know, and it worked. It's an amazing route. So I was just like, all right, we could do that. He's like, no, I don't want to. I'd rather I'm going to trailer my car.

I'm like, you nerd.

It's a six hour drive to Chicago.

I don't want to trailer it to the dragon or to Chicago or both.

He's like, yeah, like it's like you have to drive the dragon. You have to. And honestly, it's not that bad of a drive from here. It's like 16 hours, I think. Right, Sean?

Yeah.

You would do it again in a heartbeat, right?

Yeah, that was an amazing route and there's not only just tail. There's, you know, Blood Mountain, what is it called? The Skyway.

Chair Hall, Skyway. And then you.

There's a lot of mountain. I mean, it's.

Devil's Triangle. That's around there, right? I think.

Yeah, there's a bunch of mountains, a lot of a lot of really curvy roads to drive on.

And they're all better than the tail.

Oh, 100% roads around it.

Have you been down there?

Once, yes.

Yeah, once. Okay. So tell us a little bit about your routes then. So do you do you typically stay east or what do you?

So we've done, I run a rally called the East Coast Run. So we in the past, so 2017 was our first year, and it started to get bigger and bigger and bigger. But most of it is based on the East Coast or at least started on the East Coast. But in 2020, I think was the furthest off the East Coast we went. We went all the way to Cleveland. So we went from Boston-ish to Lake Placid, New York. Sick roads, cool. We rented out a mountain. It was awesome. And then out to Cleveland, rented out a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for dinner. There's a racetrack out there, stuff like that. But yeah, we try and keep on the East Coast. So I think in 2021 or 2022, we went to the tail.

From where?

From Newport, Rhode Island. So we started in Newport, went down to the Poconos, then we hit the Blue Ridge, and then we hit the tail and ended up in Knoxville.

That is a baller out, dude.

It was sweet. And we may or may not be doing it again next year.

Was that three or four days?

Four or five days.

Yeah. So you're up there. You do more days. So this is always a question I've had for you. And I'm so glad we can talk about it in person because over text, it just, you know, it just disappears. But so four or five days, have you had a lot of success with those longer rallies?

Yes, that question is a very long answer. Yes, it's a long question, too. So like most people doing an actual rally, if you know what I mean by actual rallies, like a rally, not just like we're going to lunch and calling it a rally, right? Like an actual rally is like a couple days and overnight, like something planned, you know, that kind of thing. Most rallies, you know, that are started up and coming, whatever, are anywhere from two to four or five days on average, right? Like, Crown or Gold Rush is a little longer, but like Crown, I'm blanking. There's a handful of rallies in that three, four, five day range, right?

Yeah, it's super regional as well, so it's super difficult because there's only a handful of rallies that are really national.

Right. And those, again, are closer to like the 10 day mark, two weeks even. And like, so this past year, we hosted our very first. So like we call it the East Coast run because we're East Coast based, but we never did a full East Coast run, like top to bottom. So this year, in June, we did our first actual East Coast runs. We went all the way from the top, we went from Maine down to Miami. I would never do it again. Really? Dude, so it was great. We did a lot of cool things. We hit the tail. We started in Maine at an airstrip. We did a lot. We had a lot of really cool stops along the way.

Holy s***, you hit tail on the way that's like a bit of a detour.

Oh, Blue Ridge, sorry.

Blue Ridge. Either way, it's still mild detour.

Slightly, yeah. I mean, there's nine days. So we spent two days in Charlottesville. That was our halfway point. And that's at the start of the Blue Ridge. So again, nine days. It was fun. I'm happy we did it. Everyone was like, let's go to Miami. And then once they realized it's going to take eight, nine days. You could drive. Yeah, you could drive there in 24 hours or two, whatever it is. That defeats the purpose. That's not fun. So we did it in nine days and we divided it in half for people that only wanted to do a three or four day each or whatever it ended up being. But anyways, lesson learned, I would never do that again. I would never host a rally that is that long again because people get burnt out after five, six, maybe seven days.

Some people get burnt out after two on out here.

Yeah. I mean, again, so my plan moving forward to next year, which I haven't announced yet, but coming very soon. My goal is to do more of those two or three day, like one spot and you explore. So we just did one two weeks ago called the Lake Run, which is my first intro into that shorter one. So we went up. One of our rallyers owns these cool properties called the cottages. It's like little cottages right on the lake in New Hampshire.

Like AirBnBs?

She might AirBnB them, but it's essentially like, it's hard to explain. It's like a big house and then like around the house is a U of like a dozen cottages. So they're like individual cottages in this parking lot. Super cool. And she owns a few houses on the lake too. So we, I think we had 20 or 25 teams. It was small, but essentially it was two nights and like two and a half days. Like people checked in Friday night. Saturday was a full day of rallying. And then Sunday was like morning rallying, barbecue car show, and then people went home. It was probably one of the best executed, in my opinion, and feedback that we got. Just because like most rallies like Crown or other rallies that I've hosted or other people have hosted, it's very go, go, go, go, go. Yeah, you wake up at 6 a.m., whatever, 7 a.m., driver's meeting, driving, lunch, or driving. You have an hour to get ready for dinner, you have dinner, party, bedtime, get up at 6 a.m., right? Which again, it's fun for a couple of days. But this rally was like, we were, it was early mornings, but the nights weren't insane. We still had fun. Like one of the nights we had a party boat on the lake, it was a good time.

You got to pace yourself more.

But also like we gave people time, right? So like Friday night check in was a couple of hours. We had a barbecue and that was the only thing Friday night. So it was like, I forget, five to eight, like three hours. You come whenever you want, check in, get your badges or whatever, get checked in, get your trifolds, get your itinerary for the weekend, and then hang out. Saturday was way more chill. So like we woke up early because we had to, we rented out Mount Washington. So we had a private for like, I don't know, an hour before anybody else came. So it was early, but it was like a cruise up to the mountain, which was cool. We were up on the top for like an hour, but like it was perfect amount of time. People weren't rushed, but people like weren't like sitting there with their thumb up their butt. Like, so like it was enough time. We came down, we had lunch in this cool little town in New Hampshire, and we gave people like an hour afterwards to walk around and explore. So it was very like, eat, take your time, hang out. And then it was back to the cottages. I think we had two or three hours before dinner. Dinner was chill, like an hour, hour and a half. And then we had a party boat, which is a couple hours after that. So everyone's feedback was like, way like everyone loved it because you had the fun stuff planned, but you also had time to chill. And it wasn't always like, go.

That was a big thing on mine for Whiplash as well, because like, a lot of people said they liked it when we would wake up or launch it like nine or whatever, right, right, right.

But people don't understand, though, people are like, I want to launch at nine, but I want to drive the best roads. I don't want any traffic, and I want to go like 2,000 miles. I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean? It's not possible. People don't realize that it takes time.

You're always compromising something. There's a delicate balance, and that's one thing I learned, especially after doing rallies for four or five years or whatever. I'm like, yeah.

You ran your own for four or five years?

Yeah, so if we go back to 2018, that's when we had Team Stance Out, which is basically we were running meets or whatever.

OG right here. Team Stance Out.

Yeah, honorary idiot that actually bought a ticket. So we had literally 11 people buy tickets, nine people showed up. So I apparently wanted to, guys.

And it was a weekend rally?

It was a two day.

It was a two day one. It was b*******. It was Minnesota to...

That made me fall in love with rallies. Even though you think it was b*******, I had an amazing time just because of the people that were there that did show up. I immediately fell in love with it because I was surrounded by strangers. I think I brought like one other friend, but everybody that showed up was so kind and welcoming. And it was like, this is going to be... It was a great time.

Yeah, but if I hosted that same event today, you'd smack me in the face.

Well, yeah, but it was like a good introduction.

You got to start somewhere. My first rally, dude, looking back on it, my first rally in 2017, we went... It was like 800 bucks. It included hotels and maybe one dinner, right? And it was like, I don't know, 25 people, we went from Boston down to DC was the final stop. But for what it was, everyone was like, this is great, everyone's so nice, they had a good time, right? But five years later, however many years you did it or I did it, looking back on that, I'm like, wow. Bruvital. Yeah, but you got to start somewhere.

And then you put us up in a four-star hotel in your last one, you got catered dinners every night. It was absolutely amazing to see that progression, and it always has that same quality feel.

Yeah, and then the stock market crash and I don't exist anymore. So yeah, the first year, it was a two-day event, so we literally rented a drag strip down in Iowa. It was an eighth mile or whatever. So it was fun. It was mostly highway driving, lots of windmill driving.

Basic route, just straight south.

Basic route. We were throwing hot dogs out windows on the way down there from quick trip gas stations and all that. So that was that year. Then the following year, me and my business partner at the time, I told him, like, dude, there's really nothing you could do for a two-day event around here. It's b*******. We're in the middle of nowhere. We got to drive a little bit. So we ended up doing this. We actually announced just before Crown announced. So we did Minneapolis to Colorado. So we were one of the first rallies to go out to Colorado.

Very cool.

So we did Pike's Peak and all that. So basically that route was Minneapolis.

The Black Hills were amazing.

You went through the Badlands? Like that way?

The Badlands. That was really cool, too.

Yep. So that's the only way you can f****** go out there.

Right, right, right.

And it was rough because it was like an eight hour drive that first day. There's no other way to do it. I mean, you had to straight shot it.

Straight west, right?

Straight west. Yep. So that way we would actually start with fun roads on the second day, right into the Black Hills. Then we go into the boring stuff. I actually really like that. What is it? Wyoming or Montana?

That was straight up boring, dude. Are you kidding me?

Dude, if I go back, I s*** you not. I guarantee you it's one of the podcast episodes. I want to say it's like the early ones. You said he loved those roads.

I'm going to dig in. No, no, no, no. Wyoming was the exception. Getting from, I think it was right after the Badlands, and then you start driving through Wyoming and it was just, you know, just a straight shot down these, you know, like, you know, one way or not one way, two way roads. And there's, you know, very little passing because the hills are crazy and, you know, you can't see. So it was like you're stuck in traffic if there's a bunch of cars in front of you.

I wasn't on the same rally, obviously not. But and then so that year, so that was when COVID hit. So that's when it was like, oh, no, was it was that the first year? No, it was the second Venom rally when it was COVID. No, I think it was that year because we were charging 750 bucks a ticket. It was like a fire sale. So I managed to strike a deal with the track instead of renting the whole track. It was per person. So it was like, I don't know, 75 bucks a car, which is legit for a road course, so a mile and a half long road course. A few guys that we've had on a podcast aren't fans of it because if you remember that one, that PPIR has a big bump.

Yeah, a huge bump and a huge bank curve because it's a what is it? It's an oval track. So it's not so they do have like a small road course, but it's mainly an oval track.

As long as you avoid that bump, people have broken wheels on that bump. So it's like, yeah, it's a little sketchy. But nonetheless, that was that event. And then the following year, we doubled up. So we did the same route, Minneapolis to Colorado, just somewhat different. Took it up another notch. I think we did drag racing that year and something else. And then we also did Minneapolis to Niagara Falls. So OK, so that was actually one of the funnest ones I've done outside of the ending when I parted ways with my business partner. But so that was Minneapolis to Notre Dame. Notre Dame, dude, Notre Dame is a frickin awesome city. Have you been?

Michigan?

No, Indiana.

No. What are you talking about? You're talking about Niagara? That's in New York.

No, Niagara.

Notre Dame.

What? Notre Dame. When we go to Notre Dame? No.

Yeah.

No, we didn't.

Dude, this guy's not going on the same rallies as me.

You guys go to the same rallies or no?

No, Notre Dame. We stayed at the bottom. No, it's...

We stayed on Lake...

Is it Champlain?

Lake Erie, right?

I think.

That's the second day in Pennsylvania. That was on the way to Niagara Falls. So we stayed on that big one.

You got to refresh my memory because I don't remember.

Okay. So we passed through the hood in Chicago. We took an accident.

We just started in Minneapolis?

Yes, Minneapolis. We went down through Chicago and then the next city over, like it's like past Gary.

Oh, Indiana.

Yeah, it's in Indiana or whatever. It is. I'm pretty sure it's Notre Dame. Unless I'm messing up my cities.

No way.

This is why I need my own Jamie for this. I need my Jamie for my, yeah, pull it up, Jamie. But, and then we ended up over at Niagara. So that was a super fun one. And then after a part of Waze, I'm like, I want to keep doing rallies. I thought about it for two days. Then our guest, Dan, who was on here once, he has been a long time rallyer of mine. And like, you know, he won a trophy in Niagara, dude. And that dude was just beaming, like super excited. I'm not sure if your rallies are competitive, but like mine were super competitive. And when he won that trophy, I was like, dude, like this is why I do it, cause people get so f****** happy. So that dude's the whole reason I lost a bunch of money, because I was like, I need to get back into rally games. So I hosted mine. So that was St. Louis to Nashville, down to Atlanta Motorsports Park, which is, you know, whatever, just an hour outside Atlanta or whatever. And we were in Nashville during the Country Music Awards. So when I say I spent money out the a** to be at one, like right on Broadway.

Oh, cause any hotels or venues or dinners or yeah.

And this is a four star hotel, right on Broadway. Everybody knows that Sheraton. It's an amazing, beautiful Sheraton. It's got this beautiful ceiling. Like it's just crazy. Did you find out where Notre Dame is?

I want to say it was Sandusky.

You would never catch me in f****** Sandusky. If there's anybody listening to this, that's from Sandusky, I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry.

I bet Dan remembers, because he had to fix his Mustang in the parking garage.

Yeah, he's literally fixed his Mustang on every single rally. Like we're talking-

We have those guys.

Yeah, yep. So, okay, so speaking of guys, girls, nine Bionaries, all that fun stuff. So who's your demographic on rallies?

Dude, everyone. So the way I describe it is Mustang to McLaren's. So like we, it's not, it's somewhere between, you know, the, I don't know how to say this, not insulting at all, but like, you know, the group of just like Subaru drivers, right? Like there's a lot, there's a lot of rallies. There's one local that I know of. It's not really a rally, but a group of friends that cruise, right? And it's like 99% WRXs.

Entry level sports cars.

Yeah, sure, sure, sure. So there's like entry level sports cars, you know, that do day rallies or whatever. And then there's, you know, we have the Gold Rush crowd, Gumball crowd, which drives McLaren's, Ferrari's, Lamborghini's, fill in the blank and does whatever they want. So like we have Mustangs to McLaren's. It's a metaphor, but literally as well, because I don't know what that was. I thought it was four at the same time, so it was like a beep. So we have Mustangs to McLaren's and the people reflect. So we have, you know, people who are students or people who are young, you know, then this is their one vacation for the year. They save up all their money and they spend a couple grand on a rally, right? And then we have, you know, the people with super cars that own a company and they are like, yeah, I do 10 rallies a year. I don't really care how much it costs. You know, I do 10,000 miles a year or whatever it is. And we have everything in between. So that's kind of the cool thing about our network is it's like, it's one of those things where people, you know, the person who owns the the Huracan STO is talking to the guy that's, you know, driving the V6 Mustang and like at a dinner table that doesn't matter what they're driving, right? Like, so our whole thing is like, obviously, like, I have standards in the sense of like, don't bring a s*** box. Like we've had people with their hoods have flown off on a rally or like, stuff's happened and it's like, you can't have a car of us, you know, it needs to be at least together or a certain caliber to keep up on a rally and to, you know, not be falling apart, right? For safety reasons and whatever.

And people get offended with that too. So we've, I recently with Jay, we started a group locally, like Twin Cities Sports Cars and Exotics or whatever. And our only thing is like, Hey, I think I got an invite. You're probably in there. If not blame Jay. I don't care to manage it too much. I'm just here to be a supporting asset, but because I don't want liability. But the big thing is that we tell people it's like, it's gotta be at least somewhat spoiler. Like if we're cruising into twisties, I need to know that the guy behind me is gonna be able to break.

Correct. I literally got re-rendered by Mustang the other day, which proves that point.

Yeah. So it's like, I got my GTI and for the most part, nobody gives a s***. But the fact that there is effort, like these guys ratified, they upgraded my brakes and everything. Like I could probably outbreak most people, like just because like just on a dime, it's quick enough to where you're not gonna be following me. And also at the same time, like when we did the Lumberjack Rally last year, I was driving so hard, when I would hit a bump, my wipers would turn on. I was f****** flying. When I would turn, I would dive bomb into turns, and I would literally be scraping. And I was keeping up with the Mustangs, which were making double the power, just because I trusted my car to drive. And that's the kind of people I want on my rallies, is like, hey, is your car gonna survive and keep up? Because I wanna be stuck behind you for 15 f****** miles. Who are we following the other day? We did a cruise, and this random C5 vet just jumped in between all of us. And we were just like, we gotta pass this guy. It's like, we can't do this. I guess it's the same for you. You wanna have people that can have fun.

Right, and again, we have a guy, again, he always ends up figuring it out, but he's come from, I think this year was his first year, the Maine and Miami Rally, and then he did the first half, and he just came on my lake run. But he has a, I'm gonna butcher it, C5 or C6 that's pro-charged with a bunch of power, like 700, 800 horse, whatever it is. On the East Coast run day, literally we started at an airstrip. It didn't sound so hot. And then we left the airstrip, and within an hour, he was broken on the side of the highway. So he ended up renting a C8 and finishing the first half, had a great time. But he just came on this lake run, and he brought a really cool, I don't know if I'd call it a resto mod, but it's an old 70-something Nova. And it's cool, it looks cool. It's got paddle shifters, it's upgraded, everything. Yeah, I think it's an LS, I don't know. But it sounds sick, it's fast, it's mean, it's I think supercharged as well. But again, day after we did the mountain, so day one, after we did the private climb up the mountain, down the mountain, and I think he made it to lunch fine. And then after lunch, on the way back to the hotel or the cottages, he blew a belt or something stupid. It was something small. But again, it's one of those things where those cars are just either old or highly built or both. So s***'s gonna happen, right? Even if someone's got a super built anything. We had a guy on this rally in the last one with an R33 GTR who's, again, broken a few things. But that happens, right? There's a difference between a car that's heavily modified having an oops because it happens, and then you figure it out and either get in something that works or whatever. Versus, to your point, a car like... We were all at a point in our car life where I had a... I started with the WRX, right? Sometimes my clutch would slip if I needed a new clutch, or sometimes there were stupid little things that would break here and there or whatever. I wouldn't expect to go on a rally and keep up with supercars and then be like, oh, why don't you want me hanging out with you guys? It's like, well, I can't keep up. I can't break like them. I can't handle like them. So it's one of those things, obviously, you got to start somewhere, and people have different tastes in cars, totally cool. But you shouldn't get offended if it's like, this event is for this type of car, or this minimum, make sure your car is quick enough, safe enough, together enough that it's going to make it, right?

To quote Dwayne The Rock Johnson, know your role, know your role. Because that's the thing, you got to try to hang with the group that you're with. It's like, again, WRX, Cruising in the McLaren, now sometimes it does work out. If it's a 600 horsepower built WRX that can handle, great. You might be able to hang with these guys. But again, just so everybody has fun.

Right, don't hold anybody up. Like on back roads, if you have a stock WRX or whatever, using that as an example, sorry, Subaru owners.

That's fine, we'll offend everybody by the end of this. Because here's the thing, speaking of broken WRXs, there was a broken McLaren on Daniel's bolt, or Daniel's Rally. Yeah, and it's for sale right now. So if you guys want it, it's a hell of a deal, by the way. Dude, did you see what they listed it for?

Yeah, it was like sub 150.

It was 155. McLaren GT.

For 155?

Yeah.

What's wrong with it?

And it makes 1,000 horsepower.

What's wrong with it?

It's a f****** McLaren, that's what's wrong with it. So it's fine now. I think they got to fix it. I think it was like a coil pack thing or something like that. We literally fixed it in like a hotel parking lot, dude. It was freaking hilarious. Like they checked with the valet, and we just hogged the valet lane. So we had two of these McLarens, one of them working one nut. And this is on Balto's rally and on community rally. And we're all just smoking cigars, drinking beers, whatever, just having fun. I literally at some point, so see that case over there? That's where I have all my podcast gear. They told me to go get ice, so I literally emptied out all my podcast gear. And I f******-

Filled it with ice in the hotel.

Yeah, dude, it was hilarious. And dude, that thing was probably like 20, 30 pounds of ice in there. And they turned it into a cooler, a*******. I was supposed to deliver it. I didn't say use it.

It looks like a vehicle cooler.

I know, he walks up with his podcast equipment and we're like, what are you doing? And he's just walking over, he's got this big smile on his face, and he like sets it down, opens it up, pops it, and we all see eyes, we're all like, what? We weren't expecting that.

They were all thinking, like I didn't even answer it until I set it down or whatever, because they all looked at me like I was, like they probably thought I was drunk.

What is wrong with this kid?

Yeah, they probably thought I was drunk enough.

He's setting up his podcast right now.

It would have been f***** up.

Drunk in this parking lot.

Would have been hilarious, but that was probably one of the funnest rallies that I've ever done though, just because again, people make the rally. Like even if things go horribly, horribly wrong, or amazingly well as an organizer, all those things can be offset by the people you rally with. So if you're, I mean, you probably haven't had this issue, but I don't think even I've had it because there's, I don't think there's ever a rally where everybody sucks. I don't think it's ever happened.

Where everybody sucks?

Yeah.

I don't think, so I try and keep a strict no douchebag policy and like we're pretty good because our network, obviously the way you go rally is like your people usually invite other people. So like occasionally we'll get a rare, you know, someone that's not ideal. And they usually find their way out pretty quickly because like everyone else, like to your point, like our whole crew is very welcoming, right? Like there are certain rallies that are very standoffish, but like our crew is the same as what you described with yours is like new people always come up to me and they're like, I feel so welcomed here. Everyone's so great. So like, you know, no, to your point, I think I forget what the question was, but we usually don't have people that suck too bad.

You know who that reminds me of? Those guys with the A7 that went to Colorado with us.

They were fine. They were good guys.

No, everybody.

You had beef.

No, no, no. Everybody hated them. Everybody had beef with them. And then I'm like, you know, I was talking to them like throughout the weekend, and finally like we get to the track and I'm like, oh, now I get it. Like he passed me in a no pass zone. Like I'm going fast as f*** and he cuts in front of me. I have to slam on break. It was a bad situation. He shouldn't have done it. And I immediately was like, yeah, these guys suck.

They were aggressive.

It's a lot of times that we find things with like new rallyers. There's one off the top of my head. I'm not going to name names, but like sometimes people feel the need when you're going into a new group to flex, if you will, or like trying to impress people or whatever, whether it's driving aggressively or being obnoxious or whatever it is.

Well, they spent the entire weekend driving like 170 miles an hour.

They literally blew through a town, I think, going like 130, I think.

Well, that's just stupid. Like there's a line, obviously, right? That's dumb. But for the guy I'm talking about, for example, like the one rally he came to or the first rally he came to is very much everyone, a lot of people were complaining to me, like, this guy sucks, he's annoying, like whatever. Halfway through the rally, he started to get all right. And then like the next rally he came on, you know, he was a totally different person. Like it was literally as if like he realized like, oh, wait, like I can just be cool and like don't need to try and impress anybody. Great guy. Love the guy. You know, he'll keep coming back. So it's like, you know, to your point in that world, it depends on the rally. Like there are certain rallies where everyone's like that in the sense of and the state, you know, kind of standoffish or like a douche bag feels the need to just flex all the time. And then, you know, there are rallies where everyone's super cool, which hopefully I'll keep being the latter.

Yeah, it's it's it's kind of your duty to like cultivate that environment, too.

And, you know, it's easier said than done, man. Like it's hard. There are times where there are literally people who have wanted to pay and sign up for the rally, and I'm turning down money because I know the person's either a terrible driver or just an a******. And you know what I mean? And like it sucks. And like that's one of the things, though, that's like good for the longevity of the brand, obviously, because like if one a****** comes on one rally and pisses off ten people and those ten people stop coming on the rally because that one person ruined it for them, you just lost ten people because you wanted to make, you know, whatever one person was going to give you.

Correct. And the nice thing is about is a rally game bigger and bigger is they kind of start turning into subgroups.

Good and bad.

There's good and bad for sure. But like if you end up wanting to go with the fast group, you go with the fast group. This is how I always explain to people. I'm like, hey.

Oh, driving wise, a hundred percent.

Rally at your own pace or whatever. But even then, like people you like or dislike, it's like if there's 300 people on an event, you know, like it was for Crown, for example, just because, you know, hometown heroes here, I guess.

Easy to use as an example.

Yeah, I mean, they just had astronomical growth, you know, year over year. So it's like they're just a perfect example to use. But it's like, if you have 300 people on a rally, you can distance yourself from them, you know, whereas if it's like a 10, 15 car rally, you're gonna be bumping shoulders often. So that's what I always tell people. It's like, hey, should be big enough. Just don't worry about them. Drive at your own pace. Hang out who you want to hang out, who you want to hang out with. But yeah, that's where it's at. Yeah, I'm really excited because I, how many rallies did you have this year?

How many rallyers did I have this year? So on our big main to Miami rally for the first half, we were like mid thirties, on the smaller side. Yeah, we were like mid thirties. And then the second half, we were like high twenties. So like, it was a solid group where it was big enough that we had a presence. It was fun and like, it was still an event, but like it wasn't to the point of like Crown, where it was 120 people. Like managing that many people is all of a sudden, like you can't fit in certain hotels, restaurants, venues, parking lots. Like it's a whole nother level of complication. So I'm happy in that, you know, that was smaller than we wanted because we were, you know, Maine and Miami, it's a far run. But normally like our rallies are anywhere from like 40 to 60 cars, and that's kind of our sweet spot.

That's pretty sizable.

I like that spot. I don't want to go anymore. Like I just want to make the event bigger and better as the event, but as teams wise, 40, 50, 60 is like the perfect amount.

Yeah, I think Crown was the outlier actually, because you know, you make it sound like, oh, you know, 30, 40 cars is small, but I think that's more of the norm, right? Because even Corsa, they limited it to like what, 25 cars?

Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I don't follow them too much.

Yeah, because like, I mean, that's the other big name, you know, because like, they just, I think they do like 25 for the most part. I think they might have some bigger ones. Yeah, but it's like, I don't think anybody really cracked 100 until Crown, right? I can't think of any. Gold Rush? Maybe Gold Rush, but I don't know. I don't know if Gold Rush was even that big. Maybe Bull Run. I know Bull Run gets pretty freaking big.

Corsa used to be huge. Corsa I think used to be 100 plus, like years ago.

I don't know, I think it might also depend on the events you do too as well, because I think the one out in Europe was pretty big, which some of our mutual friends have just gotten back from. So do you know what the rally for that was?

Corsa Europe? No, but I had friends, again, friends who did my rally, who did the posting rallying in Barcelona or something, and I was like, what are you doing? And they were like, I think it was Corsa.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it'd be sweet. I would love to rally over there.

Yeah, I think Nick Nelson was out there, Frank Ball. Yeah.

They were on that same rally?

I think they were on the same rally. Oh, sweet. Yeah, I think so. I know that Frank's done the Europe one before. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I know he was out there for sure, I'm not sure if he was there this year or not, but it's crazy. It's a global thing. You know where I would never want to rally? Australia.

I've never been.

Yeah, I haven't either, but I just want to take a hot take here, because I don't know, because it's such a big country, right? So the big cities are so spread out, right?

So another thing that I'm debating moving forward, all rallies, most rallies aim for the whole big city thing. You go to a big city, you do the whole shutting down the street, whatever, which is cool, we've done it, it's whatever. But wouldn't it be so much better to just have no traffic and only stay in the middle of nowhere in a nice hotel and a cool area and do your thing? Wouldn't it sometimes be cooler to avoid those big cities and avoid the traffic, avoid people on the road, avoid neighborhoods, avoid all that s***? Yeah.

How do you feel about cockroaches?

I don't know if we're talking literal cockroaches or-

No, literal cockroaches. So we stayed at a beautiful four-star hotel nearby our track last year. And dude, you literally get out to the pool. I mean, you shake a brick. Where was this? This was just outside Atlanta. Yeah, Georgia, like an hour outside, into Styx, beautiful four-star hotel. It wasn't too far from a big city, but again, since it's near lakes and it's in the south or whatever, we're talking like three-inch cockroaches, dude. These are not little-

But is that normal for that area?

I bet it is, because they weren't inside, they were just outside. I think that's just-

Like nature?

Yeah, nature, exactly. We were in a resort that was like right off a lake. You could hear boats speeding past. It was, we're outside. I don't think there's anything they can do about the natural wildlife.

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But nonetheless, when you get further onto the stakes, then you had to start worrying about that.

I would take having cockroaches outside, not in the rooms. I would take cockroaches outside over rush hour traffic.

Yeah, one was on an elevator with us, I'm just saying.

I thought you were talking about the La Quinta.

No, no, no, we're not talking about Balto's Rally today.

No.

Actually, no, okay. Because I know he's gonna listen to this. Again, to preface it, or not preface it, to pedal back a little bit, it was an amazing rally. A lot to do with the people. The second day was freaking phenomenal. But yes, there was a little bit of a sketchy La Quinta on the first day. But again, that comes down to-

Less is learned, right, or happens?

Yeah.

Well, here's the deal.

It won't happen again.

There's a lot that, oh, I'm sure it will. There's a lot that comes into organization. Like you have to pick and choose your battles because until somebody runs a rally, I am not hearing their f****** opinion. Like I used to, before I used to run bigger rallies or like the larger format style rallies, I used to be like, well, why didn't they do it that way? Well, that's pretty stupid. Like I was judging like Crown, for example. It's like, well, I wouldn't have done that. And then I'm like, oh, that's why they did that.

And then you do it and you're like, wait a minute.

Yeah, because again, to your point, like even if you're talking to like 30 rooms and 30 cars, that is still a lot of people. I mean, then you had to start thinking about minimums and then, because like a lot of hotels or restaurants, they're like, hey, you had to spend this minimum amount. I'm sure you run into that as well. So you have to think about cost effectiveness. Well, if I do this decision, it's gonna be $100 more ticket or 200 or whatever. I shouldn't say luxury, but you do have a little bit of a luxury of a higher clientele than what I was building up, I'd imagine. That's a choice, right? Yeah, it's difficult though. So here's my question to you. How much do you say you charge, like what, 750 the first year?

So year one was like, yeah, 800, 900 bucks. Year two, I want to say was, I think I essentially doubled every year. It was like 900 bucks, and then it was like maybe just under two grand. I didn't double, so it was just under two grand. That was doubling. And then after that, I think I went up a grand a year, just due to like life inflation, and I was making the rally better and better and better and better every year. So this year was the most expensive yet. I mean, it was nine days, I think it was about nine days, and it was 10 grand for the whole thing, or you could pay five for half. So it comes out to like just over a grand a day, which if you think about it, people will try and break this down all the time. So like we'll break down a generic day, right? So think of like a generic hotel, like a nicer higher end hotel. If you were to book a hotel on your own, a nicer higher end hotel is what? 400 bucks for a night?

That's fair.

Also, people don't think like if the rate is 350, 400 bucks, there's taxes on top of that. There's resort fees. There's like all the dumb s*** on top, right? So a $400 room ends up being $500.

That's the stuff that Biden is trying to fix is the resort fees. He didn't resort fees at the hotel.

But people like, people don't realize like there's all the little costs. And like, I think I've broken down this in like short videos before, but think about it. Say it's a granted day, like what I'm charging. 400 bucks for a hotel, breakfast, I don't know, call it. If you're doing an organized breakfast, you're paying anywhere from 15, 20 bucks a person, unless you're getting something like bagels and coffee. But like, if you want breakfast sandwiches or anything like decent for breakfast, like even if it's quick, 15, 20 bucks a person-ish. Lunch, double that, and then dinner, double that, right? So like, I put up a story when I was planning my last rally of like catering menus. So like on top of the food and beverage minimums and the rental fees for the venues, a lot of these, the places when you're booking, it's like a wedding, it's almost like a wedding. Like per person prices for most of these places are 100 to 150 dollars a person. That's just for dinner.

Yeah.

Per person, not including tax and not including tip. Or venue rental fees.

Those dinner venues are a b****. And I should ask Balto what he ended up getting charged, because like he stayed at the same hotel I was gonna do for my North last year before I decided to close up shop. And I think when I was booking, I think it was like 110, 120 ahead. Dinners. Dinner.

Right, right, right.

That's average.

People don't realize, they're like, well, I could go to a steakhouse and pay 50 bucks a person. They're like, no, I mean, yes, on your own, whatever. But this is literally like going to a wedding, right? That is like three course meal with sodas or whatever. And then if you want alcohol, open bar, add on top of that, right?

Yeah, and I think Balto did a cash bar. I think that's what I was going to do, but yeah, what was the meal? So then that second night at the Chicago, by the way, $60 a night per parking, that wasn't included on this ticket, but I wanted to include it in my tickets because I wanted everybody to park together. That was never going to happen. Yeah, when I called the lady on the phone, she's like, you crazy. Like Jenny, for what?

Yeah, Chicago. Chicago parking is crazy.

In what sense?

You have to pay for anywhere. Like there's no such thing as free parking.

Right, but that's not what I'm getting at, Sean. What I'm getting at is to park everybody together as a group. She's like, you're crazy.

No, dude, it's doable. Everywhere is doable. It's just you have to be... So a lot of hotels, the thing I've learned is like, anything's doable. Almost anything is doable. You just need to either talk to the right person or just know what you're asking for. Because like...

I thought you were gonna say ask for forgiveness.

No, no, no, because like I've been down, I've been on rallies that have done that. And it ends up like there's cars parked in between where you want to park. And then all of a sudden, some random person dings a McLaren, doesn't end well. So like anytime I'm doing parking, parking for me is the biggest thing because like if someone random parks between a quarter million dollar car and a half million dollar car or even a f****** $50,000 car and a hundred thousand, whatever it is, and dings their car, like now that's my problem. You know what I mean? Like it's not, you don't think so, but it is because at the end of the day, your rallyer is going to be like, hey, like why was this person parked next to me? I paid this amount of money. It's this rally. Like you should have taken care of that. Everything comes on your head as the organizer of this rally.

Oh yeah, yep.

It's everything.

And when things start going wrong, it's like.

Good or bad, right? Like the thing of running it is like good or bad, it's your fault no matter what.

Yeah, I have so many people saying that last year's event was the best event they've ever been on.

Like your event last year?

Yeah.

Which reminds me, what did you do?

That was the St. Louis to what's it called? Georgia one. Yeah, so like that people are saying that I was the one, like we're talking about people who've done crown for years, and they're just like that, like outside of a few hiccups, like the best event. And I was like, oh, that's a hell of a compliment.

Right, right.

You know, and I was just like, huh, that's I think just because it was more tight knit. I think the tight knit aspect helped a lot, but also I had way more expense out because Crown doesn't, they sometimes do four star hotels. I think, you know, the last couple of years, I think they ramped it up to four star, but for the most part, it was three star. Like when I, at least when I went on Crown Eight down to tail, I think it was three star hotels on those ones. I think one, it might've been four, but that's the thing. Like for me, I was like, let's go f****** send it on this. And that's why I lost 25 grand on that rally, but that was mostly due to contracts and minimums, not really the fact that everything costs so much, but freaking contracts.

Yeah, I got you.

Yeah, dude, the freaking, the minimums always get you, but what kind of watch is that by the way?

It's a Breitling Endurance Pro.

Okay, sweet. I was looking at the earlier. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, watch.

Like casual, like I can wear it every day and you know.

Yeah, are you a big watch guy?

I wanna be, but I don't have the money to be yet.

Right.

So like this is my nice watch for now.

Yeah, I got this tag here.

I like tag, I wanna tag.

Yeah, just, you know, I get compliments on it all the time. So I'm just curious, because we've had a number of people on who've, you know, got like Daytonas and all this stuff, whatever, like just ridiculous.

I'm not gonna get a Rolex. I say that now, but like when I have a bunch of money, I have a friend who, he runs this watch shop out of Newport, and they have, you know, similar, they have a very wide range of thousand dollar watches to million dollar watches, whatever it is. And none of them are like name brands. And he makes a joke every time. He's like, if I wanted to make serious money, like I would sell Rolexes, but he sells all kinds of one-off, like small Swiss, Italian, random, like little European brands. They're all, you know, handmade. They're all super high quality, and they all look very unique, right? So I want that aspect as opposed to like, again, I know they're different, but Rolexes are all the same. You know what I mean? Like, everyone's like, that's a Rolex. Like, okay, do you want to just have the same thing as everybody else? They're cool. They're nice watches. But I just want, I want to have something different, right?

I think any serious watch collector always has at least one in their collection.

They are, just to have, like, I have a Rolex.

Yeah, because if you have like, you know, whatever, like, I think once you hit a certain tax bracket, I've noticed this with some of my friends, like, when you have five, six watches, at least one of them has to be a Rolex. Like, I feel like everybody's like, always chasing like the golden whatever, what is it, eight to 10 watches that everybody must have, you know, like your Speedmasters and stuff like that, you know, your Submariner.

Or your Superpetuals or whatever.

Right, exactly. But then when you like, that's the thing, when you start getting into those ridiculous, like half million dollar watches, like I know people that have some of those too, when it's like, you know, that's a different type of person. Like, you know, you don't know about it because only that circle knows about it. Like, for example, we're in the car community, right? We only know about rallies because we're in the car community. So those guys only know about those super expensive watches because that's their community that they're in, I feel so.

It's a lot of overlap though. Like a lot of events I like to do, like in the off season or even on season, like I like to do events that are with my car network and others, but not car related. So like I've hosted private watch events where like we'll go to a brewery, we have like a watch vendor come out and they'll bring a collection of watches and people like, you know, it's usually a handful of my car people, but it overlaps into people that aren't into cars. But like car people like nice s***. People who aren't into cars sometimes also like nice s***. So like, you know, they can, you know, get along and talk about watches, right? So like it's something else in common. So it's kind of cool doing different things. Watches, whiskeys, suits, I don't know, stuff like that.

You a big whisky guy?

Yes, I like whiskeys. Like if I go out, usually old fashioned is just like the go-to, unless I'm at a s***** bar, then I won't get an old fashioned. But like a decent place, old fashioned is an easy go-to.

What's your go-to whisky?

Honestly, I like to kind of roulette, like let the place pick it if it's a decent enough place. Woodford's usually like an easy go-to or even like Maker's Mark, I don't know. But that's the more basic.

The staples.

Yeah, like just basic, like it's gonna be fine. But if it's like a place where it's decent, I'll let them pick, whether it's just like, give me whatever your go-to is. They usually have a house like, we choose this for our old fashions all the time. So I like to be surprised. Like food or drinks, like if you go to a good enough place, they hopefully won't steer you wrong.

Yeah, yeah, you get that every once in a while. So my biggest thing on rallies that I do, because I'm not a big drinker, I really don't care to drink all that much. I especially don't care for beer, sorry to anybody listening, but I just, they're like, oh, you get a taste for it. It's like, yeah, but do I want to get a taste? I don't want that beer belly, you know? It's like, if I start liking it, that's a problem, because then you start knocking them down. But I always tell people on rallies, I'm like, I don't care, you give me something. So that's how I get free drinks, because I just don't care for it. But at the same time, I get it. That's how I got exposed to so many different things. Like I just, I'm like, well, you buy it.

Oh, someone picks like a random.

Yeah, I'll drink whatever you give me. So like when we went to Niagara Falls, my buddy was buying me like fruity drinks and stuff, and people were making fun of me. I'm like, hey, I didn't buy those.

I didn't buy it. And it's delicious.

And it's delicious. I was like, oh my God. So it was fricking fantastic. So I don't know if you adopt the same thing on rallies, but I love doing that because I'm just like, they're like, what are you drinking? I'm like, whatever you buy me. I don't care. I'll suck it down. I don't care. So that's how I like to run it.

That's fair.

So, so then, okay, so you haven't, when do you announce your dates for your next rally?

Normally by now. So normally by now, but again, I forget if I touched on this earlier. I'm essentially switching my whole, I did touch on this earlier. I'm switching my whole model. So instead of doing one big one, I'm gonna do one decent sized one. I'm probably gonna recreate our old one that we did to the tail. And then I'm gonna probably host like half a dozen of the smaller two, three day ones, but like stay in one location, right? So like the one we just did in New Hampshire, like we stayed in the same place for two nights. We did two different days of like exploring. So I wanna do half a dozen of those, right? Like Lake Placid, New York maybe, or like maybe in the Smokies, maybe in the South, maybe again, in New England. I wanna hope, because those are easier to plan, less stress, and you can have 20, 30 cars and it's a good time and show people different parts. And it's usually more attainable price wise and all kinds of things.

That's kind of what we're thinking here too, is like a two day rally around Minnesota. Like you go further up north where the fun roads are, it can get, you can have a lot of fun, that's for sure. And then loop back around to Brainerd, our raceway out here. The race, yeah.

The issue is like I found, so the one we just did up to New Hampshire, a lot of my regulars didn't want to go because they're like, I've been in New Hampshire before. So like, for example-

That's tough.

If you have Minnesota people, you gotta go somewhere they haven't been. Like go to two days to the Badlands, right? Like it's eight hours or whatever it is away, but like-

It sucks on the way out there.

I know, but more people haven't done that, right? So like that would be something where I would say, hey, like meet us in Mount, maybe to buy Mount Rushmore on Friday night, get out there on your own. Actually, with that long of a drive, maybe you'd want to get with people. But like, it's one of those things where I wouldn't have that be a day of the rally, right? Like I'd be like, oh, it's a day zero. You know what I mean? Like get out here when you can by dinnertime. You know, we'll do our thing. And then the actual rally is the fun stuff.

Yeah. All right, Sean, can I get one of those jacos behind you? I need to crack open a second one to keep open Asa. It's not often. Dude, I barely have caffeine. So it's like.

This is, I had two coffees and then this.

Yeah, that's why I love how low caffeine these suckers are because you can just keep pounding them, you know, just a casual drink. We probably should have started with this way. Like how far into this are we?

Yeah, I can just cut it and.

Yeah, we'll just switch it around. I do that from my highlights sometimes just to make the story flow a little better. Just cause you know, highlights have a.

Like when you say highlights, do you mean the little clips that you post?

Yeah, the little clips, like the minute and a half long clips. Like those have a more like a punch viral factor to them.

Sure.

Whereas, you know, people who listen to this podcast, especially once they get this deep, they don't care what order things come in cause it's just how conversations go. Conversations, until they're edited, they're all over the place. And that's why I love podcasts, by the way. Like they're not so fricking, you know, like, okay, here's my list of things I want to talk about this time today. Now, certain guests, like for example, we had to get Michael Peterson on. We talked about vehicle dynamics. We wanted to come prepared with questions because I knew that one was going to be a doozy. Like we're talking about very intricate stuff about how cars work and all that. So it's like, all right, let's be prepared. But when you're having a normal conversation like this, you know, just beyond the meat, you know, you want, it doesn't matter. So back to my question though. So what got you into cars?

Coming to cars, we are really backtracking.

So you were born?

I was born in 1994. I'm young-ish.

And what was the car that you were delivered to the hospital in?

It must have been something fast. Actually, no, my dad wasn't a car guy. So randomly, so my uncle was the one who kind of got me into cars. When I was younger, I would go visit the, I don't, so I have a sister, we're all right now, but like we weren't really close growing up, you know, just kind of did our own thing. But I have a cousin who's a year or two older than me, and him and I would, we were like tight growing up because it was the only like dude my age in my life. You know, I didn't have a brother, so it was like my cousin close enough. So when I would go and visit, I was in California, then I was in New Jersey. So whenever I was growing up, I would go visit him in Massachusetts. And his dad, my uncle had this 1965 Buick Riviera. I was green, it was pretty cool. Yeah, so it was like my first taste for like a muscle car, right? And whenever I would go and visit, like we would, my uncle would like take us out for a cruise and we'd go to like one of those like old school cruise nights and we'd get ice cream or something. And like, it was a fun, cool, like go hang with uncle and cousin, cruise in a cool muscle car. Everyone's looking at you in like the loud muscle car. And you're a kid, you're like, oh, this is awesome, right?

Right.

And then you go to these meets and like, as a kid, it's like a candy store.

So he took you out to meets as a kid?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like when I would come visit, he would literally be like, you know, we'd be like, oh, let's go for a cruise. And we'd go cruise. And then we'd, of course, there'd be like the old people, like now we make fun of them. We were like, oh, the old guys in the jeans and the Corvettes sitting in the parking lot over here. That's growing up. That was my uncle, right? My uncle would take us and we'd hang out in those parking lots where it was like 30 sick classic cars, right? So it started with that. And then when I started driving, or even a little bit before that, I ended up in New Jersey. I ended up moving to New Jersey when I was like 13. So you start driving at what, 16-ish. But when I was like 13, 14, somehow when I moved, coincidentally, the guys who I became good friends with, of course, also their dads were into cars. So on the weekends, in middle school and high school, when our friends would be, I don't know, playing video games or sports or whatever, we would literally beg our friends' dads to go to parking lots and drive their cars. So we were learning at 13, 14, maybe 15 how to drive a stick. I learned how to drive a stick before I learned how to drive automatic. Because one of them had, I think, a 300ZX or something, and then the other one had a Mustang GT. So it was very basic, but for us, it was sick.

Right, well, especially back then.

Right.

Because how long ago was this? Like 15 years ago?

Yeah, ish. About, yeah. So yeah, again, for fun, we would go hang out in a parking lot and learn how to drive a stick. And I'm so thankful for them because we destroyed their clutches and absolutely ruined them learning how to drive.

You have to be grateful to your friends that let you drive manual. Granted, when Sean taught me how to drive manuals in a Z3, I think you were working on ready to replace the clutch.

It's gonna go anyway, so I'll teach him.

Yeah, but no, Sean was a great teacher. Actually, my first time driving a manual was my friend Sandra's FRS. And then after that, that's when I kind of forgot. I was like one day of coaching or whatever, and then Sean taught me, and I was like, all right, I can actually do this. I could stop at lights and figured it out. That's not the problem. Yeah, that Z3 was a problem though, because I don't know if you've noticed, I'm pretty tall, I'm 6'4, right? So every time I would go to shift, I would turn right because I hit the steering wheel. So that was a problem. But anyways, so you're grateful to the people that taught you how to do manual?

Yeah, yeah, so I mean, it started with uncle and car shows. Then it became friends and friends' parents driving stick for fun. We'd go to parking lots and just drive for fun. And then after that, once you get a taste for that, all of a sudden, it's funny, because in high school, I think we either were given or bought my aunt's car for like 500 bucks. It was a 2002 Civic. Me and my sister shared it. I'm a year and a half older, so I started with it. Then when she started driving, we shared it. And all my friends were lucky enough that one of their grandparents owned a Volkswagen dealership, so he got a new Volkswagen GLI at the time, which was sick. We were like, this is awesome. And then my other friend, I think, got that Mustang GT. We learned how to drive on or something like that. So they had those, and I had a Civic, so I was always riding with them. And I was like, oh, I had the s***** car, and they had the cool cars. And then I got lucky, and I just got a taste for it, so I would always ride with them. And then I came out to Minnesota for school. And I wasn't super into the car scene before I came out here, but I was into the friends car scene, but not deep in the car scene. Came out to Minnesota for school. What did you go to school for? I ended up starting in Jersey with, let's see what I want to figure out. Then after a year, I thought I wanted to be a nutrition major. Minnesota has a good program, and I had never been to the Midwest. I grew up on both coasts, and I was like, yeah, why not? Pretty cheap tuition out of state. Yeah. So I figured why not. Came to Minnesota, switched my major five different times, and I ended up, they have this cool program where you create your own major, and you pick like three different categories and pick your own classes and call it a major.

God, I wish I could put a title on my own major.

Literally. I mean, yeah, so it was literally called like, I don't know, it was like Bachelor of Independent Studies or some stupid thing like that. But it was, I picked business, global studies and Spanish. So it was like international business is what I tell people when I don't want to explain what I studied. So essentially, I wanted to do something with business, so I felt like it was good knowledge for like generic life, you know? But while I was in college was when I got involved with Crown. So I reached out to Crown, my sophomore or junior year of college. I think my dad was on my a** to be like, get an internship, get an internship. He's very hard a**, like do this, do this, do this. But it was great.

Are your parents from the States?

Yes. But my dad's always been a hard a**, like just work, work, work, work, work and pushing, which is, looking back on it, great. At the time, it was a little rough, but.

Was your grandpa here for some, okay, cause like your dad was probably born in, I want to guess, 60s.

Yeah, 60s.

So then his dad was probably born during the depression era then, right?

Yeah, Mr. Ben.

So I imagine some of those traits must have trickled down, you know, the hard a**. That's my guess. If I had to psychoanalyze your father.

Maybe. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. I want to sound smart. It's okay.

But yeah.

So yeah, he was on your a** to get an internship.

Yes. So at the time, like I liked cars. I had initially, I think I split with my mom, or somehow we figured it out. I got to use Nissan Xterra, but I would still go to car stuff. So like I modded it. I put a roof rack on it. I switched the HID lights. I did all kinds of dumb s*** to it, whatever. And I would start going to car stuff. And I was like, I need a cool car. So like my first cool car, like I traded the Xterra in for like the narrow body, ugly WRX. It was an 09. I liked it. It made cool turbo noises. It was great.

Was that the hot guy?

No, it's called the narrow body. It was the one right after, I don't remember the name of the generation, but the 08 was the same look, but it was slow. And then the 09, they upgraded to the STI turbo. So it was a little quicker. But anyways, so I had the WRX. I started going to more car meets. And then back to the internship thing, I was valeting for years just because I like cars. It was a good workout. It was exciting. It was fun. And then I was looking for an internship. Somehow I was looking like, what can I do with cars? Like I want to do an internship with cars. And I like planning things and events and stuff. I don't remember how. I stumbled on Crown Rally, and I don't remember how I reached out, but I reached out to them, and I was like, hey, are you guys looking for an intern? Like I want an internship. And then Justin was the one who I was going back and forth with. And they were like, yeah, we've never had an intern before, but let's chat. So I went and met Justin and Adam at this Japanese place in Uptown. Couldn't tell you the name of it. And we sat down. They were like, we've never had an intern. We could use some help. And we can't pay you, but if you're cool with the experience, we'll cover all your costs and the rallies and all this stuff. I was like, absolutely, sure. So, oh, sorry, I jumped ahead. Right before that, I first reached out to them. And they said, sure, I ended up volunteering at the launch of MAP, which we were talking about with Dan earlier. So one of their-

And what year was this?

It must have been 2015.

Was this their first or their second year?

Second.

When they were Central Crown still, right?

Yes, it was still Central Crown. Launching out of MAP, I forget where. And so I volunteered with them and I reached, I don't remember how I got involved with volunteering. And then after that, I reached out and said, hey, I want an internship. We met, they were like, yeah, we can't pay you, we can cover your rallies. Now we're all caught up. So year one, essentially it was me, mostly I was working with Justin directly. And essentially I was like his personal assistant, if you will.

Give me a coffee, yeah.

Yeah, kind of, but it was more like, I was literally like with him at his like standup desk in his house, because like his office was his house at the time, like any, a lot of entrepreneurs, like whatever, just working out of your house, making it work. And I would always go over to his house and we'd like plan rallies. Like I forget how it started, but my initial job, if you will, was sponsorships. So it was marketing and sponsorships or sponsorships and logistics, one of the two. So I helped get some big companies, like I helped get Hot Performance involved initially. And I think I instigated the partnership with Red Bull back in the day. But most of what I was doing was sponsorships. And then during the rally, logistics, like I would help with parking and set up and breakdown in the morning and at the end of the day.

Running to volunteers too, probably?

There was before volunteers, this was pre-volunteers. It was literally, I don't think we had volunteers. I think it was literally me and Justin, maybe Adam, because at a certain point, he kind of faded out and like was attending, but not really running it anymore.

Yeah, yep, correct.

But yeah, I don't think we had volunteers. So I coordinated like ordering merch, and then I coordinated doing a photo shoot. And like, I was kind of helping them marketing sponsorship, logistics, a little bit of everything.

Okay, and now remind me, I think, so you said you were kind of helping Justin out, was he, he also had like a marketing business too, right?

No, Epic Brain Works, he used to do, I think he used to do website building or coding or something along those lines. So that was his like day job, and Crown was his side hustle. And I think it got to a certain point, obviously at a certain point, he stopped doing that or less so, and then just mainly was Crown. Over the mic.

Like, no, no worry, here you go.

But yeah, so I helped with Justin. I think, I want to say I was with them for maybe two or three years. I started, my first year was volunteering at a map, and then we ended up growing, growing, growing. And I think my last year officially was when they launched out of the 3M headquarters in St. Paul, or whatever that is. I think that was my last year officially like running Crown with Justin.

Was that 2019?

No, it wasn't that. It must have been 17.

Wow, okay, okay.

So it was like two years. I think I was 14 to 17 or 15 to 17 with them.

Okay, so just before I cracked into the car scene, yeah.

Yeah, so I was with them, and then it was a point where they still couldn't pay me a job, so I needed to go and get an actual job.

Because you're wrapping up college at this point.

Right, right, right. So I was like, I need to finish college, I need to get a job. So we mutually parted ways, and then for the next few years, I would go back and I was a hybrid of a participant and working. So I would, hey Justin, what do you need? And the first time, I would help with the launches sometimes, and then I would do the launch and then catch up and attend. And I would help put out fires as needed. So I did that for another couple years, and then we just went our separate ways when I was ramping my stuff up. And then I still keep in touch with them sometimes, but we're not really, I haven't worked with them in years.

You do your own things, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I took notes. Essentially, once I graduated school, I was like, I wanna go back to doing something like that, but on my own, right? Like, I wanna do my own thing. So I was between, you know, my family on the East Coast, West Coast, and right after school, I was like, I wanna save money. So I wanna move in with one of my parents just to figure my s*** out.

Right.

And my dad was in California at the time. I love California, and there's obviously car s*** year round. The issue for me at the time in my brain was, I would be one of like a million people doing the car rally thing, right? Like, I would be competing with a million different people because that's all they do out there, is cars, rallies, events, meet year round, which would have been great, but.

Which part of California?

At the time, he lived in Pasadena, like near LA, right outside LA. And I made the stupid choice of going back to the East Coast because I was like, I'll be one of one or one of two, like in the Northeast. Like there's no, like I pretty much had to crack into the market and introduce rallying to people, and it sucked. Because like, why would I pay you $2,000 to drive on the roads and I can do that by myself? And why would I pay you? I don't want to stay in the nice hotels. I'm fine eating McDonald's and staying in a Motel 6.

Oh, I had a guy.

You know all the rally complaints.

I know, I had a guy offer to pay less so he could just bring a trailer on his RS3, and I'm just like, oh no, yes, no, yeah, it wasn't RS3.

Oh, like sleep in his trailer. Yeah, bring his sleeping quarters on his car.

Bring a fricking tent attached to his car.

I have people ask me for some weird s***.

Looking back into it, I kind of should have let him. I think that probably would have helped nurture that relationship a little bit. But nonetheless, at the same time, it's like that wasn't what I was doing. Now that's part of growing.

People don't get that, bro. It's hard to explain because to your point, I've had people in the past ask, hey, can I pay less and just stay somewhere s***** or book my own restaurant, whatever. And I'm like, you could, the issue is everybody wants to do something different. So if you said yes to every single person, you're gonna be planning and doing, like everyone's gonna have like, you're gonna come on the rally and you're paying half price because you're staying in these places, but you're eating these meals and not these meals. And then you're coming and you don't drink and you're allergic to all this. So you're gonna stay in the five star and not eat. You know what I mean? Like I said, I'm kind of a hard a** in that where I'm like, here's the rally. It costs this, you get everything.

Well, how do you sell an event that's so different for everybody, right? Like, you know, what do you mean? Well, it's like, you know, if this person does that, that person does this. Is that really the squad rally? Like at the end of the day.

Because my point is like, you don't go into a restaurant and you're like, well, actually, I mean, some people do, but like, if there's, you know, on the menu, there's a, it's a steak house, right? And there's a steak and potatoes. You don't go into the restaurant and you're like, actually, like, can I have a, you know, I know your main steak is this cut, but like, can you do either this cut or like something else? And then instead of potatoes, I would like this. And then what you like, you just made your own dish. You know what I'm saying? Like the restaurant serves this just because if you don't want this, don't eat the restaurant or don't get that dish, right?

Yeah, just to keep harping on analogies. It's like if you go to a fricking Chipotle, right? And you get a steak bowl and I get a chicken bowl and I'm like, oh, Chipotle sucks. Well, it's because I got food poisoning from the chicken, but steak was fine. Steak's always great. You don't get food poisoned by steak. So that's why Asa's rally is the steak. Don't f*** with the steak bowl. So that's where I met on that.

Yeah, it's like, I don't know. Again, so I got in the rallies and it was crazy because when I first started doing the rallies in Massachusetts, there was one local rally. It was kind of like a track day with an overnight, but they charge a couple hundred bucks to enter the rally. Doesn't include anything. And my thought process, because I was learning rallies from Crown, was everything's included more or less. Like you plan the hotels, restaurants, everything's pretty much included.

That's where I'm at mentally too. I've always wanted to be included.

You sign up, you pay, and you don't pay for s*** during the whole time. Everything's planned for you, right?

Right. And some people don't like that.

Again, then it's not for you.

Exactly, you gotta know who your audience is.

But people are comparing, so when I was starting the rallies, people were like, well, how come this rally is $300, and yours is $3,000? I'm like, well, that doesn't include anything, and mine includes everything, because yours is $300, plus if you wanna do a track day, plus if you wanna do hotels, plus if you wanna do this, this, and this. Again, I'm not bashing them at all, it's just a different way of doing things.

But then they start mapping it out, and then they start, oh s***, I'm spending three grand anyways. Well, no, no, then they break it down, like, oh, well, your track day should cost this, so how did you get that number? And it's like, dude.

I started doing videos on this. I did literal reels on this, and I was like, I started explaining, like we were talking about earlier with dinners, right? People don't realize, well, if I go to dinner, it should be 50 bucks, right? Yeah, okay, but like, usually, first of all, no. Second of all, venue event, like event rental fees, food and beverage minimums, et cetera, et cetera.

Because we're not gonna kick you out after an hour and a half, because you got table limits at normal hotels, dinner venues.

But like permits, and like, you know, venue rental fees, like I was saying, like there are costs on top of everything that people don't account for. Like we rent out like this past Maine to Miami rally, and last year, we rented out the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte.

That's legit.

It was awesome. It was cool. But like, people are like, you know, oh, dinner's only whatever. But do you know how much it was to rent out the NASCAR Hall of Fame for dinner? Like you pay for the space, then we paid to use all the simulators, then we paid for dinner. Yeah. It's not just dinner. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

Not everyone thinks about that.

So, and a guy from Chicago actually reached out to me, yeah, s*** you not, yesterday. I might have to talk to you and Balto about this, depending on where you guys are and whatever happens. I'm not sure what your conversations are. That's why we're having dinner later, hopefully. I'm not sure what's happening there either. I should really have asked Balto that. But anyways, a guy reached out to me from Chicago, and he has like a venue where you can rent simulators or whatever.

Okay.

Like, so like full-blown, like $20,000, like racing simulators, like that are, you know, have all that haptic feedback or whatever. I don't think, I don't think he even listens to the podcast, but nonetheless, it's going to be mobile as well. But anyways, my idea was like, oh dude, if you could do a rally over there and I'd be wanting to challenges or whatever, again, I'm not sure if you do competitive things on your rallies or not really. Like points.

Sometimes, I mean, so like, when we did the NASCAR Hall of Fame, there was, have you been to the NASCAR Hall of Fame or no?

No, I haven't been down there, no. Not quite, not yet.

There's two areas that are cool. There's six old NASCARs that are gutted, and inside each half it's divided, but inside each half is a full sim setup. So we did that as a competition, and then the other half of that floor or part of it is a really cool pit crew simulator. So there's like two half cars, there's like three stations, and usually it's a team of three, or you do it individually. Someone jacks up the car, or someone takes the wheel off, like unscrews all the lug nuts, takes the wheel off, someone fuels up the car, and then you put the wheel back on, take the fuel out, and drop it.

That's sick.

So we did a little bit of competition in that sense, if that's what you're asking.

Yeah, so I was thinking about whether it's a future rally of mine or a car community or whatever, it'd be really cool to have a competition with the simulators, because this is a whole venue that's filled with simulators and then also mobile as well, so that's super cool. So that'd be a really cool challenge or whatever. But I think we jumped way back into rallies again though. So take us back. So what ended up being your first job kind of out of college then?

So my first, through college, I was doing valet and I was a lot guy at Audi Minneapolis. So I was there for a few years. And then I became friends with the salespeople. I knew about cars. I like cars. I'm relatively sociable. I can talk to people. So all the sales guys were like, you should sell cars. So, but they wouldn't let me sell cars until I graduated. So I graduated, I went into sales, and like I was training for a couple months. And I just didn't really get along with my direct manager because she wouldn't let me on the floor. So I was at my desk, like training, learning, whatever. And like, I knew most of that stuff. Like selling cars or selling anything really is like, you walk in and I'm just gonna help you find what you need. Right? Like, I'm not gonna be like, you need to buy this R8. And here's why. You know, like if you're looking for a Q5, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not, so anyways. So I was talking to all the sales guys and they were always short staff. So like, there was always people waiting around and I would go entertain them and like essentially sell them a car and be like, I actually can't sell you this car, but I'm gonna bring you over to someone who can.

Just so dumb.

I was so pissed off, dude, because I was getting paid minimum wage, whatever it was, because I was training and not actually selling cars. And then finally, they were so backed up this one week. She's like, good luck, go for it. And within that like first day or two, I think I sold like four or five cars.

That's legit.

I know, within like two days, in my first two days, I was like, damn, okay. Because a decent month at most dealerships is like 15 to 20 cars. Correct. So like, yeah, my first two days, I sold like four or five cars. That's good. Yeah, I was like, damn, okay.

Was that weekday or weekend?

I don't remember, to be honest.

Yeah, this should be a core memory.

I know, I know. But no, but like shortly after that, I essentially, I quit. Like I was like, the grind of like, I don't know if you've ever worked in car sales or anything like that, but like you're pretty much working seven days a week. Like you, a lot of it is just basic, like going to computer and a CRM and being like, hi, do you remember me? I'm Asa from Audi. Like, you came in here two weeks ago.

I can see why you hate it if that's your voice that you use.

No, you know, like in your head, you know what I'm saying? Like that's just like the boring s*** you're doing as a car salesman. Yeah. Most like traditionally.

Super monotonous, yeah. Right.

Which again, it's not for me, but a lot of people like it.

Yeah, it's my fallback. If things don't work out, I'd always go into cars.

Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, it's fine. For me, it just wasn't what I wanted at the time. Right. So this is kind of good and gonna go sad real quick, but I was looking for more jobs. Somehow I got connected with Auto Art out of Chicago. And I went out there and essentially, so I was talking to Larry and he was like, yeah, come out here for like, I think I was there for, I don't know if it was a full week. I think it was there for a week pretty much or a few days. I went out to visit for one day, interviewed, excuse me. Your excuse. I went out to hang for a few days, or I went out to hang for one day, interviewed, met the guys around the shop, and they were like, hey, can you come back next week and just test us out for a week and show us what you can do and that kind of stuff, because I was doing marketing sale or marketing and social media. So I essentially, I was like, yeah, that'd be great. And one of the guys, Rob, who I still talk to, he was there, I think he was big in their parts side of things. Like he was like the guy. Like if you needed anything, he was the plug, like wheels, exhaust, whatever. He used to be at like GT House and a bunch of other big parts companies. Anyways, he liked me first impression. So he knew I wasn't from there, and I was like, s***, I gotta get somewhere to stay. So he's like, I have an extra condo, like a f****** penthouse you can stay in for like a week. Here you go, here are the keys. I met the guy like an hour before this. I was like, okay, thank you. I went out there for a week and I tested it out. You know, I showed them what I could do. I came up with a whole marketing plan and all this stuff. And it was like, I thought it was pretty good because their current guy at the time was a photographer who was like not super sociable. So like he didn't know s*** about marketing or social media. He just took really good pictures. That was it. So he, you know, essentially they brought me in and I was like talking to this guy and he didn't know I was going to replace him. But the goal was for me to replace the guy, learn. Yeah, it was kind of a weird situation. But anyways, had the week, gave him a presentation, did well. Larry was like, go home, we're going to have a meeting Monday and then I'll call you back, but like you have a job. Great. Monday comes by, didn't hear anything. Tuesday, hey, what happened? Oh, we didn't have the meeting, we pushed it off. Fast forward, he kept pushing off, pushing off, pushing off. And he's like, oh, I'm on the verge of selling the company. So like, it wouldn't make sense to hire you right now. Da da da da. So I was like, all right, like f*** you, bro. But he ended up, I think they ended up selling like months after this. But yeah, so I had a brief experience with Larry, RIP. And so that was my whole thing with that. And then after that, that was my final like, f*** it, I need to go live at home, save some money, and do my own thing. I don't wanna keep trying to work for other people after the Audi sales gig, and then this fell through, and I was like, f*** it, I'm gonna try my own thing. So then at that point, I literally went to Massachusetts, and I was working three jobs. I was bartending, I was working for my uncle, he runs a sign company, super small, like hospitals, hotels, whatever, like the numbers on the doors, or like the signs in the hallways, like directories and stuff, like that kind of thing. So I was marketing in social media and installation for them during the day. Nighttime was bartending, and then extra nighttime was squad. So that was when I started really ramping it up. I started as a hobby when I was in Minneapolis. I did some cool photo shoots at an airport, and with Jacob, we did a video and some cool stuff. But when I moved to Massachusetts, I was like, I'm gonna make this a business. So I finally started, as my third job, I started doing, I think I started that one cheap rally, and then it went up from there. So I planned a cheap rally, and I think I hosted some meats and cruises. I hosted this winter cruise up to Montreal, which was cool. But essentially, I started trimming down. So I finally cut out the marketing gig. And I was finally, I switched from bartending at like a Friday's to serving at some like cool restaurant in Boston. So then I was doing that and SQUAD. And then COVID happened, and I stopped doing the restaurant thing. And I was like, all right, blessing in disguise, like 100%, like diving right in. So that was kind of how I got to like where I'm at now, sort of.

Yeah, just kind of like, just kind of ramp it up over time. That's what I've thought, because I'm kind of in that position right now. It's like, all right, what do I do here? Because like, you know, eventually I'm going to have to do or die. You know, it's like, I don't want to go work for somebody else again, somebody who has your destiny, like in your hands, like just get s*** can within 30 seconds, which is what happened to me about a mile and a half from here. And it's like, oh man, I don't know if I want to have that happen again. So it's like, oh, maybe I should like full send it and do my own thing. And that's kind of where I'm at right now, especially now that I'm monetized on multiple platforms, that helps a lot. So it's like, I think my timetable is like, I have another two months to do or die. And then I had to-

So you're figuring it out now?

Yeah, yeah. So I have a number of things that I'm kind of trying to make happen, whether it's marketing, photo shoots, a little bit of everything, but ultimately what happens in two months is either I'm fully sufficient off of this, which I'm 98% confident in. But again, I have a fallback plan. Like I, listen, like they say you should never have a plan B. I think you're an idiot if you don't have some sort of plan B. Like you have to have something to fund the plan A. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. It's like, all right, if plan A doesn't fund me, that's okay, I got plan B, they'll fund plan A. So that's kind of like how I see it. Like everything I see is just a matter of time. I'm not sure if you're the same way, but it's like, it's not, you know, if, but when. That's kind of the way I think. It's like when something fails, it's like, you know, I had a bunch of issues setting this up today. I'm like, it's bound to happen. That's why I came here early. It's like, everything is within your control. So I feel like you must have had a similar experience. Like, hey, it's do or die. Like here are the things I got to do to make this happen, right?

Yeah, I mean, it's tough. Like anybody who runs their own business, like it's scary, like jumping into the, you know, I need to, no one's paying my bills, but me, or nobody's giving me a paycheck anymore. You know what I mean? Like I'm either going to sell.

It's a weird feeling.

Yeah, it's amazing and terrifying at the same time.

I think the terrifying aspect is that it gives you a sense of urgency too, though.

Yes, which you like, I've gotten to a point now where I've like calmed down slightly, but like there, when I was first doing it, I was like pulling my hair out 24 seven. Oh my goodness, blinded.

Yeah, you look like you just got flash banged. Yeah, you're good. You're super angelic.

Exactly. I think it's the camera too. Yeah, so it was the type of thing where like I told you, I was doing the marketing thing during the day, I was doing bartending at night, and then I was working squad like 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. or whatever. You know what I mean? Like absurd hours. Yeah, so like I burned myself out multiple times. Like there were times where people talk about burnout and there are people who are like, oh, I can. Dude, if you work like to your limits and find those limits, it sucks. Like I mean, I'm gonna like not say I recommend it, but like it's nice to know where that limit is and like hit it. And then you can always like stay under it, right? Like a little bit under it.

Yeah, you're about to set me off by the way, because.

Oh God.

All right, there we go. So I know you're a big reader too. You read every morning pretty much.

Mostly I try to.

For the most part, you know, at least 10 minutes every day. So since I got s*** canned, what's it called? Or laid off rather. It's like for me, I knew I was gonna have some time. I was basically about to run back into a job, whatever I was like. But then everybody's like, hey, hey, hold on. Easy, big guy. Let's find the right opportunity for you. I'm like, oh, that's a fair point. But I've been reading like crazy. I mean, I burned through a number of books.

Like business type books or other books?

A little bit of everything, but mostly business. So, okay, so here's the ones that I've ticked off since. So The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene. Have you read any Robert Greene?

I don't think so.

I advise it. It's amazing. Super amazing author. Have you heard of Ryan Holiday?

Maybe.

He's hitting the mainstream right now. A lot of big, like even T-Pain talks about him. Like, you know, like big, like rappers, like people you wouldn't expect to be reading philosophy all the time are talking about this. So Ryan Holiday makes philosophy super digestible, but also talks about, like, for example, like in Ego is the Enemy, he always talks about, like, Abraham Lincoln's wife and why, you know, who cares about Abraham Lincoln? That's his wife who did the heavy lifting or whatever, stuff like that. Life lesson sort of stuff. So anyways, so since, you know, a few months ago, so I've crossed out The Laws of Human Nature, Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins, fantastic book. Have you read any Goggins yet?

I want to say, I, what's it called, The Make Your Bed? Oh, that's not David Goggins.

Make Your Bed by Admiral McRaven. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I haven't not done Goggins.

I haven't read that one yet, but I heard that one's really good. It's a really small book. I could finish it in a day, probably. Yeah, let's see. I'm just about done with Never Finish by Goggins. I'm literally in the last 20 pages right now. Number of audiobooks by, like, you know, Alex Hormozi, super awesome. But anyways, my point being, it's like, I forgot why I got into that. Just because I know that you read a bunch, too. So I was just curious if you had anything to share on that front, because like there is something to be said. You know, there's a level of discipline that comes from that. You know, just being able to do s***, you know, the sense of urgency. Like, I've yet to read Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. That's on my to do list. You've read that one? Yeah, it's a long to read list. Dude, it's ridiculous. Like, that's the thing. When you start associating yourself with people that share books all the time, it's like, holy s***, that list keeps getting longer and longer. It's like movie fiends, they're always sharing, like, hey, did you watch the 400 movies? Dude, I seriously have a friend from college, like the only friend I had talked to from college anymore. That's not in the car scene. Literally, he was like, let me add it to my list. And he scrolls for like a full minute. Like, he's scrolling, scrolling. He's like, all right, I'll add it on there that he'll never get to. But it's like, oh, best show, best TV show. So I don't know. I can't remember what got me on that tangent, but it's like...

Burnout?

Burnout, yeah. Oh yeah, that's why Goggins, like he talks about, you're always getting to that 40%. Like most people only do 40% of what they're capable of, and that's their limit. But the thing is, is every time you get to your limit, you're like, oh, like you said, I can ride that limit. I can find it. I can always keep expanding, keep getting better. Because, for example, I lost a s*** ton of money on that rally last year. As we all know, I'm still paying for it. Thank goodness for Amex and their repayment plans. God bless you, Amex. But it's like, now I know. Everything that pushed me to that limit last year, now if I wanted to start another rally again, it'd be twice as many people, twice as good. It'd be f****** phenomenal. Because I rode that limit. I'm like, all right, let's not do that. So I'm guessing that's probably the same thing you did with your time as well. It's like when you burn out, you're like, all right, well, now I know not to do that, that and that, because that burns me out. You start caring about your time too. When you're saying yes to something, you're saying no to something else.

Part of me is like too stubborn though. If I told you I only did the burnout once and never did it again, I'd be lying to you. You know what I mean?

I burn out weekly.

Yeah, I'm not quite that because I've managed it, but there's a time, I was working, to your point, I was working during the day and at night and then overnight pretty much. And I've gotten yelled at multiple times because I have trouble relating and realizing that people aren't all like that. Obviously people like us that do that kind of thing, that's not the norm. Yeah.

I'm curious, where does this drive come from?

I don't know. I feel like it's gotta be the whole my dad was a hard-a** thing, and growing up, it was always like, if you want something, go work for it. So like, you know.

I told you that psychoanalysis worked. I knew it.

Oh yeah, I don't know. Okay, okay. No, when I was a kid, my first business was a car wash. So I was in summer camp, and it was literally called the Asa's Car Wash. I made a little PowerPoint for it, and whatever.

How old were you?

I was in New Hampshire. I must have been like 10.

10, so that's your first business?

Yeah, that was my first business, right? So I would go to summer camp, and I would tell my camp counselors, they would come over to my house afterwards, say it's 20 bucks, I'll give you the worst car wash you've ever gotten, scratch your s*** up, but you're supporting a young entrepreneur, whatever. So I did that, worked my a** off, and bought my first GameCube, right? My dad was like, I'm not buying you a GameCube. And he's like, make your own, figure it out. Okay. So I think since it was a young age, and it was very much like no handouts, if you want something, just figure it out. It was the same, completely unrelated, but my dad is a really good cook, but as a kid, you want chicken fingers and mac and cheese or whatever, right? You don't want to eat whatever the good food he was making was. He's like, if you don't like it, make your own food. So that's how I learned to cook at a young age. I was like, if I want to make something, I'll make whatever. Okay. But it's kind of the whole, I think it's, my guess, I don't know, I can't psychoanalyze myself, but my guess is-

And how does that make you feel?

Exactly. Well, but yeah, my guess is it's probably something related to that. I've had to be super hyper-independent since I was young. My parents have been divorced since I was like two, and I grew up with my dad. And he was always like, work. So it was like, I'd be alone all the time with my sister, like, you know, and just he's at work, coming home late, whatever it was. So like, you know, he had to work his a** off to provide for us. So like, it was kind of just, had to be independent from super young. So I think that was probably also.

I have a similar thing. So I started really, you know, through the books I read, it really forces me, like if you actually read something, you want to start actually applying those things. Otherwise, you're just f****** reading words for no reason. And I kind of realized that in the last few years. So I have been super hyper analyzing myself, which, you know, some people say is not healthy. I say b*******. I think you should really know who you are as a person.

Self-aware.

Why are you making the decisions you do?

Right.

So one of the things I realized is like, why am I always asking questions? I realized that I love asking questions. That's why I have a podcast. I love talking to people. Just, you know, it's kind of selfish because I learned about myself and the other person. You know, it's like, I love it. So I realized like, if I had to backtrack, like where did I start? Like my mom, whenever I'd get in trouble when I was a kid, right? She'd always ask me why, and I'd give some answer or whatever. And I was some, you know, it wasn't the full answer that she's looking for. She's like, I know why you did that, but she's like asking me why. So it kind of promoted that thinking, that critical thinking. Like, why did I do that? Why did I smack my brother over the back of the head? You know, it's like, oh, that's why. And then, you know, and I don't know, if I had to backtrack it all the way to my childhood, I think that's why I've always had an inquisitive nature is because of my mom, you know, and, you know, learned hard work and being nice through my parents and all that. So there's a reason you make the decisions you do, dude. I'm telling you, it's so big.

Yeah, it's ingrained somewhere, you know, like, I don't know.

If you go back far enough, there's a reason, because like, Joe Rogan always talks about this. He's like, at some point, you were a baby. You did not have this, you had this pristine little hard drive. You weren't all f***** up by life yet. And then eventually you become homeless on the side of a street. So what decisions led to you being on the street? And that's like, whew! There's a reason it ended up there. Like, stuff doesn't fall out of the sky. That's, I don't know, that's where I'm at. So, super cool. So I really just was curious about your background, because obviously you're a hardworking guy. You don't run a rally in your own business if you're an obscene person. Something happened along the way.

Inside, yeah. I think it was like the whole childhood thing. I think it was like work, work.

Well, yeah, it's like, you see something, how do I get it?

Right. And I'm also like a very undiagnosed ADD, ADHD. Like since I was a kid, like everyone around me has noticed it. And my parents are of course like, you're fine.

Yeah, I'm a doctor. I'll diagnose you right now. You're f*****.

That's what I'm saying, dude. Like I'm very, like anybody I talk to or work with or whatever, like I'm all over the place. Like I manage it, like I'm fine. But like I've never been medicated for ADHD. Like I'm just always been like, whoa.

That's gonna be the highlight.

That's the reason.

It's like a motorboating to Mike.

But you know, it's one of those things, like it's, people reference it all the time. Like it can be like, not disability is the wrong word, but it can be something that like makes it harder for you to do things in life. But like you can use it as a superpower, right? Like you can somehow like, sometimes you hyper focus on like whatever it is, and you bang out. Like I saw this funny thing once, it was like you either get four hours or a month's worth of stuff done in four hours or four hours worth of work done in a month. It's not nothing in between. It's like you either procrastinate and then you eventually like get like a little bit of work done or like you do, holy s***, how did you get all this done in like an hour? You know? So it's good and bad, but I don't know.

No, I think you and I are of the same mindset. That's why this is going so well. And I could tell that Sean's dying over here because anytime two extroverts get together, we don't hear from Sean for about two hours. Like the last time this happened, I want to say it was Jacob, right?

I think so.

Golden Peaks Jacob?

No, no, no, I want to get him on, but the f*****'s always too busy.

He's got time, he's lying.

No, I think if I had to guess, if I had to go into his psyche, I'm guessing he's waiting for me to figure my s*** out, because I don't know. I don't know why. I think we'll figure it out. I think it's a timing thing, honestly, but now that I'm gonna be hosted here in St. Louis Park, it's gonna be really nice. So it's gonna be easier, because it's more central. Shakopee, where we were at before, it's like an hour drive for Jacob.

Oh, damn, okay.

Yeah, that's the thing. When you're talking to business owners, an hour drive is a commitment.

From Boston, bro, where I'm at, everything's an hour drive. Literally. So like that's normal, you know what I mean? But I don't know.

Yeah, but no, Jacob, what was it? His hand was unrecognized with an X instead of an O or whatever. Great, he's a phenomenal videographer. Really good s***. I really hope to see him succeed. He's going to like film school in California or something, some dweeby stuff. But nonetheless, same situation. 90% of the podcast, to be fair, it's you and I this time, but it was just one guy talking almost the entire time. And so me and Sean were just like, you know, just like you never get a word in. So I'm so sorry, Sean.

You guys are having an amazing conversation.

You're just taking it all in.

Dude, he gets free front row tickets to the hair show.

There you go.

I don't go to bad.

I don't want a refund.

Yeah, no. No, speaking of refund, again, I do have to thank you for those Tony Hinchcliffe tickets. So if anybody doesn't know, so Tony Hinchcliffe, he runs a show on the largest live podcast in the world. So it's called Kill Tony, essentially what the format is. And I thought, actually, everybody should message me after this. Tell me if this is a good idea. So basically what his format is, as people come on out of a bucket, he pulls a comedian out of the bucket. Could be a totally random person that's never done comedy in their life.

Is this live?

Yeah, live.

Well, like on a stage or like on a stage? Like, okay.

On a stage.

Like you're going to a comedy show and this dude is doing this on a stage.

Yep, so it's a table like this. And then he has guests, so like Post Malone, Joe Rogan, whatever. So anyways, he has a table like this, pulls a comedian out of the bucket, or again, somebody's first time ever sometimes, or it could be a pro, you know, totally random. They'll come on, do a minute, do exactly a minute. Sometimes they bomb, sometimes they don't. Stand up or talking? Stand up, stand up. Yep, so they do a full blown minute. More often than not, they suck, but every once in a while, you find that diamond into rough, and it's funny either way, because if somebody bombs, it's right, you're like, it's usually hilarious. But anyways, after that minute, then they do an interview with the person, like, hey, who are you? What's your sex life like? They ask absurd questions, like legit, like what's in your fridge, stuff like that. So it's a fantastic show. And then sometimes, you know, they'll get like, you know, what's it called? Like little, like a big joke book means you did really well. So, you know, keep writing jokes in there. We'll see you next time, sort of deal. And then on to the next comedian. They'll have a few regulars, so the show doesn't totally suck, whatever. So I've thought about adopting this model for car shows. Like how somebody come on for 10 minutes or five minutes or whatever, tell me about your car or something like that. You know, just, you know, like once a month or something. And I always wonder if that'd be a cool idea for the car scene. Like, hey, tell me about yourself and your car scene. Like, what got you into cars, just total random strangers that we'll probably never see from again. Like literally just get a dude with some new balances. Come on, tell me about your Corvette.

Right, literally.

I don't know, do you think that'd be an interesting format?

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. So I used to do something similar. I want to start a podcast at some point.

Didn't you start one or were you on one?

So I've been on a couple. This is number three or four. But I'm a seasoned expert by now. No, no, no, but so I used to do this video series once COVID started called Six Feet Apart when that was a whole like stand six feet apart thing. I was seven foot kind of guy, but yeah, I was usually five, but anyway, so I would take, I would pick a person in my network and I would film this video and it was called Six Feet Apart because we would literally sit not quite, we'd sit like five, six feet apart, whatever it was. And like exactly like what you're saying. So we would film it and it'd be a cool like video, but it was like going into someone's life and business and we get super deep like there's one guy who is a Snap-On franchisee owner, very successful, has a couple. But like I learned about his story, which I didn't know. He drives like a new Cayman GTS, whatever, sweet car. But he used to be in and out of jail, not in and out of jail. He was selling drugs, went to jail, got out of jail, got clean and then essentially, I don't think he was doing drugs, but got clean, like stopped selling drugs. And then somehow I want to say a family member or a family friend somehow connected him with Snap-On, and then he started, went legit, and now he's super successful. Super nice guy. But my point is, I've done this a few times, not the last episode that we did was at an event. So I hosted an event at a brewery, and then we did a live filming of this event. So I had one guy up and we literally had a conversation and talked about his cars and business and life in front of people. And it's cool because people like watching that, because it's entertainment, right? It's like you're paying to go see this Tony Tyler, whatever his name was. And it's cool. So yes, I think it would be sweet. But the issue is, I think you need to have it either pre-planned or pick people because not everyone is good on camera or good at talking or whatever, so you could call someone up. I mean, it would be kind of funny to extend if someone was absolutely terrible. But I know people when I've tried to film, I've tried to film videos before for businesses that I've worked with and the business owner or whoever is horrible on camera, and I can't tell them that. So I gotta figure out a way to be nice and be like, why don't I try hopping in here?

Or nudge them in the right direction. It's difficult.

Right, not that I'm amazing at it, but I've done it enough that I know one guy that we had was staring at the camera the entire time. And he was like, I was like, dude, I'm over here. Look at me over here. And he was like, hi, my name is blank and this is my business. And like staring at the camera. I was like, well, you can't do that. That's not how you film a video. It was awkward for everybody. We were all like, ah.

We had one, I'm not gonna say who it was. Somebody who literally just every time they'd be talking to the camera, I'm like, hey, hey, I'm over here. Yeah, again, this is a conversation amongst car enthusiasts.

I get it, again, I'm under the mindset. I've learned this for rallies and podcasts and videos and whatever. I've done it for years, right? So I know all these stupid little things and so do you. But people who have never done it before, you expect it to be common sense, but it's not.

No, not at all. Right, that's why these people still need us. For the next, I think we got at least 20, 30 good working years of working with businesses where we have to teach them video etiquette, because it's still a pretty new format to talk.

You mean in general?

Yeah. Yeah, because for example, if I wanted to go across the street and go to this business or whatever, it's going to be a very, if they've never been on camera, I got to teach them this etiquette. And there's going to be a need for that for at least a while.

Talking to the mic, don't move. Don't try and talk over here.

That's a tough one. Yeah, that's why I love this space. It's a little tighter. So it's going to be, once we get the headphones, I'm so excited. But all right, so I do want to be respectful of your time here, because I know you're in town for business meetings and all that, but I'm curious. So what's next for you? What's the next five years look like for you?

Next five years?

Absolutely. What's the next five days look like for you?

Well, that's the next five days. So I'm in Minneapolis. I went to school out here. So I'm here. I initially flew out to do this podcast, Visit Friends. And I was supposed to drive a drive-ify car back to Boston. We were supposed to bring one of the cars from here back out to our branch. Long story very short, not doing that anymore. Just rearranging some things. And at this point, I'm not in charge, so I don't really have anything to say. But so the next five days are I'm here, flying home Thursday. This weekend, I have some events. Planning for a charity Halloween party I'm hosting. So we're hosting a charity Halloween party at this really cool local dealership in Massachusetts. And it's gonna be huge, having a cool DJ come in and making it a whole ordeal.

Ugh, I hate DJs.

It's a friend of mine from high school, and it's a whole like-

Ugh, he went worse.

I know, I know, he's the worst. No, he's great. But yeah, so that's my immediate future. But five years, I essentially would like-

Or I guess we're squad driven going, and driveify, I guess. Are those the only things you're hoping to stick to in the next couple of years, or?

Honestly, love Jacob and the driveify guys. I would love to get to a point where I'm just doing squad stuff, and I don't have to do the rentals and stuff on top of that. It's fun and everything, and it pays the bills, but I would like to get squad to a point where I'm hosting five to 10 rallies a year, small, big, whatever, and I'm doing marketing, and I would love to- I was talking to someone, I forget if it was Dan this morning, or someone the other day, but I would love to get to a point where I hate, hate, hate, hate, I don't know how, and hate, partially probably because I don't know how to do it, like editing videos. So like, I would like to get to a point where like the Amelia Hartford's of the world, or the, I don't know, Dustin Williams, or Mr. JWW, like I would love to become that point where like literally filming doing cool car s***.

And outsource the editing to someone else.

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would love to within the next five years become a point where like I'm making sweet YouTube videos and like doing, like we do a ton of cool s*** all the time.

Yeah, but you get bogged down with the logistical stuff.

Well, yeah, like I don't want to film it and I don't want to edit it and whatever. So I'm like, screw that, like I'm not going to do it. But I feel like it's a giant hole where I could be capitalizing on that. Like we take advantage, like you've been in the car world long enough. Like we take advantage of like the other day, I was cruising, my car's in the body shop and I have a friend who's got a 720 and he also has an M4 CSL and my car's in the body shop. So I was like, hey dude, like mind if I drive your car? Like kid half kidding. I was expecting him to be like, eh.

It's the half kidding ones that work out the best.

Yeah, I was like, hey, like you need me to stretch the legs on the CSL cause you never really drive it. He's like, yeah, here are the keys. So like I could have made a whole YouTube video on driving an M4 CSL. Like I'm not a BMW guy, but like that car's sick. And we were cruising with a 720 and a supercharged gated R8, you know what I mean? Like that alone, I mean, I would have to learn the whole format of doing YouTube type videos, but like that could have been made into a sweet video.

You know, I've thought about outsourcing some of my, cause like, who was it? I think it was Grant Cardone. It's like, if you don't have money, you got time. Like your time is your currency, right? So if you ever need an editor, I'm your guy, let me know. Because I've thought about even outsourcing that for a number of people, or even like hosting a podcast for people. Like, you know, especially with this setup, it's like, I could bring somebody in, we could host the f****** thing. So-

I wouldn't do a podcast by me, but again, the two hold up. So I mean, this is, I could buy the equipment.

Yeah, this is about like a thousand dollar setup here. I mean, excluding the laptop.

Yeah, I mean, it's not little dollars. It's still a grand as a grand.

Right.

But my biggest hurdle is like, I don't want to edit it. I don't want to edit it. I don't want to film it. I don't know how to do it. Like, I've been on a few podcasts and I don't know how to do it. But like, I would love to. And I have people, I was the other day, I'm friends with these guys in Boston who own this really cool boba shop. I don't know if you like boba. I'm a big boba fan.

Yeah, I'll do it. Time to time.

I did a video with one of those episodes of Six Feet Apart with them, learned about their work, life, cars, boba shop, whatever. And it was great conversation. And I always talked to them and they follow me and they were like, dude, you really should host a podcast. You do a lot of cool stuff. You talk to a lot of cool people, all this stuff. So I would love to feature more people, do what you're doing. Essentially do a podcast or something similar back to my Six Feet Apart thing and some sort of interview type thing.

Well, that'd be pretty easy to manage as well because realistically, I mean, I assume I don't f*** up like the Michael Peterson episode. That cost me an hour. A two second check cost me an hour of my time. If I just checked-

Did you check if these were on?

That's kind of what it was. So it was a wrong setting in one of the mics. So yeah, I had to deal with that because it was a catastrophe. But anyways, like realistically, like it takes me 20, 30 minutes to edit.

A whole episode.

A whole episode. Yeah, no, I've gotten efficient. That was one of the bigger things when I got laid off. It's like, all right, I want to make everything as efficient as possible. So that way, if I do need to go back to a job, I could still have this, Robert Greene calls it a godlike appearance. Like seem like you're doing more than you actually are. Fair, fair. Because people assume I spend hours and hours. The highlights, I spend about an hour for a minute video. It's a lot of work. But for the full episodes, like realistically, like throw it in the drop box. We'll figure it out. We'll talk after this. We'll make it work. If anybody else wants me to run their podcast, let me know too.

It's a little clog right there.

Of course, no, here's the deal. I have so many listeners that support this like crazy. If they made it this far into an episode, which is an hour and 55 minutes, I think right now.

We're at almost two hours right now?

Hour and 50. So I mean, you're gonna be in the top five, I think here for length. Yeah, you're my longest. But it's like, at the end of the day, a lot of people do want to do photo shoots with me or they want to come on the podcast or whatever. Some people are just like, they're just kind of waiting for me to ask them. And that's kind of how I like to operate. For some reason, like, I don't know. Every once in a while, it makes sense for people to be like, hey, can I come on? I'm like, oh, perfect. But like Eric Bloom, for example, I hit him up the other day. I want to get him on because, you know, he worked for Moto Crane. He built his, you know, freelance business. Like he's done a lot of cool shoots. He works with a lot of models, which bless his heart. I could never f****** do. I think I only work with one model, my friend, Emily. Emily.i98, whatever. I just, because I know the workflow, but bless his heart, he can work with however many all the time, runs a studio or whatever. I don't know these things, but I want to get to know him. Like I never met you in person until today.

True. We have an online relationship. We've talked a little bit.

We've talked a little bit, but again, like, you know, until you meet somebody in person, like, you know, until you can start seeing like their facial expressions and their body language, you don't know who that person is. And I kind of like that more even, like, because, yeah, I don't know. It's like, when we have guests we know, I feel like we don't know what to talk about, right?

Guests that we do know?

Yeah.

No, I feel like it's always like a good, friendly conversation. We kind of know how to, like, where it's going.

And I feel like it's all over the place, I feel.

No, no, not at all.

I don't know. I kind of liked meeting you for the first time like this. So I hope to have more of that. But nonetheless, let's put a ribbon on this fricking thing. So let's start with where can people find you?

squaddriven.com or at Squad Driven are the big Instagrams. If you want to check my personal, it's at the real Squadfather because someone else took Squadfather. Not a self-proclaimed name. Someone else called me that. So Instagram name, you know. That's pretty much it. Or staydriven.org, that's the charity. So squaddriven.com, staydriven.org. That's where you can find me.

Yeah, that's how I got Minnow. Like I had one person call me Minnow one year and I'm like, I like the ring of that. So that's on my plates, that, so I like it.

Your little short form nickname.

Yeah.

Well, what the hell, man? You missed my whole part where I ask him a question that's a staple for the show. It's only a few more minutes.

Yeah, no worries.

No, I'm not worried about your time.

So if you haven't heard the show before, we like to ask our guests a question that kind of lets us know more about kind of what vehicles you're into. You only got to pick three cars. One of them is your daily, one is your track car, one is your show car. Daily, track car, show car. Yep. Unlimited budget and your imagination is the limit.

So while we give him time to figure that out, I'm so sorry, I completely forgot about that.

I know. I was like, I thought you were going to throw it to me. You're like, what's your handle? Let me hear more. Let's put a spell on this.

I'm so glad you stopped me because my dumb a** would have been like, Asa, come back here. Fly back here. We've got to ask him.

We have one more question. I don't know, man. I would say, for practicality, I suppose, Audi RS7 if we're talking sedan.

Not an RS6?

No, I'm not a wagon guy. They're cool. If I had to do a wagon, I would take the RS6, but I would take the RS7 over the RS6 personally for daily. I do SUVs.

That's such a tough question.

I don't know.

It's whatever fits your budget. No, I know.

Well, my budget's not unlimited.

No, I mean, not your budget. Whatever fits your personal needs.

If you want to do it like a Urus or an RSQ8.

RSQ8, I think I would. I mean, maybe, okay. I would like the SUV because, you know, need an SUV for having a track car and a show car. So I would have the RSQ8, the track car. S***, I don't know, man. Like, I honestly haven't driven one, but I feel like a GT3 RS is kind of the move. So I have a buddy, he came on the last rally with a brand new 992 GT3 RS. Two RS is sick also, but the new GT3 RS I think I would take for the track car.

The DRS? With the new one with the DRS at the wing that opens and closes?

New one, it's sick. The 99, yeah, so I would take that as the track car, and then the show car, I would do a, I think I'd have to stick with the R8. I think I'd take a gated V10 R8. Which would boost, Gen 1, gated V10, and if I have the option, I would boost it as well.

Okay, because I saw a Gen 2 that had a gated six speed in it, and it was at UGR, UGR built it.

They manual swapped it?

Yeah. I was blown away. I was like, oh, cool, R8's got all the billet in the-

You saw this in person?

Yeah. In Minnesota? No, Texas 2K. We were at their whatever warehouse event, and I was looking around, I'm like, oh, look at all that billet bling for the twin turbo setup on the V10, and I look in the center console, I see six speed gated. And I'm like, oh, by far my favorite car there.

We couldn't believe it. It's like who, that's like a baller.

101, that is 101.

That's a baller budget, dude, to swap a manual into a Gen 2.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And think about the person that's doing that too, because the S-Tronic, I think that's what's in the new ones too, still, or whatever it is, dual clutch.

Yeah, it's dual clutch.

Whatever it is, dual clutch. To get rid of the dual clutch, that has to be a special car. And the fact that it's swapped and twin turbo blinged out to the tits, I mean, that's insane.

That's pretty cool.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's a baller car. It was black with what? I think it was like, what, silver wheels?

I'd have to look back at the video that I took, but I documented it. I was like, this is too sweet.

One of one.

Yeah.

Dude, well, that is freaking sweet. Sean, where can people find you?

Everyone, you can find me on Instagram at 1mnmopar. That's where you can just see some pictures of the BMW in Durango.

And then the hard part. Oh guys, you found me. You know where I'm at. Minnoxide, everything. This is what I live and breathe. Asa, thank you so much for coming on. I'm so glad you're here. We made it work when you came into town. I'm overly caffeinated now. I'm stuttering on every single word, but nonetheless, this is a freaking awesome conversation. I hope to, again, we'll figure out what the plans later are. I'll have to talk to Balto. But nonetheless, thanks for coming on. Fantastic guest. I hope to meet you out in Boston one of these days.

Come out whenever.

Yeah, I should come out, rent a drive-ify car.

Rent a drive-ify car, plug drive-ify.

Yeah, gotta plug drive-ify. Sean, thank you for being you. Thank you, Sean. And South 5, thank me for being me. All right, well, see you all next time.