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The Talent Tank
The Talent Tank
EP 02 Terry Madden
A play on the triumph and losses in performance and life. The Talent Tank podcast will navigate the inner workings of lifestyle, lives, family, teams, careers, programs, and technology in and around the offroad motorsports industry. What breeds success with your Talent Tank on full, failures when its on empty. From the journey to the Starting Line to take that Green Flag, on to exploring trials and tribulations on and off the track in pursuit of victorious achievement and the Checkered Flag.
Episode 2 which brings Terry Madden @terry_madden to the Tank for a sit down discussion about racing, adventure, searching for answers, finding Gus the Camel in Morocco, being an offroad driving coach and his new business venture HIRôAD in Yucca Valley, California.
Terrys philanthropy: @thejessicombsfoundation
After the Checkered Flag-
Sadly the day after this episode left editing, Terry’s long term girlfriend Jessi Combs @thejessicombs was called home to her maker while attempting to set a Landspeed record over 500mph in the Alvord Desert of Oregon. Godspeed Jessi, July 27, 1980 - August 27, 2019
Wyatt & Terry discussed PTSD, Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer @dakotameyer0317 and his manta and business Own The Dash @ownthedash is brought up, unfortunately discussed as "Live the Dash". We apologize for the misquoted name. Please visit https://ownthedash.us for more info on that veteran owned business.
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Hey, this is Wyatt, thanks for joining the talent tank before you clicked on. I know you saw who this installment is about as a good friend of mine, Terry batten. And I've struggled. I've really struggled with this one sitting here. This is a one week after the passing of his girlfriend, Jessi combs, and good friend of many of ours, Pioneer Woman in motor sports. And we recorded this episode few weeks before Jesse's crash is really good. Terry and I went a lot of places and we got into some really, really good things. And I look forward to hearing that in this episode. But I'm also really excited about some of the goals that Terry and Jesse had set out and Terry lined out to me in this interview, I'm going to be standing here behind him, the town text in here behind and the offer community is standing behind them to help him carry out and fulfill those goals. You're going to listen to this podcast and I alluded to Jesse not being happy with me. What was just a week ago a funny story about an ill timed job gone bad that I thought I'd eventually get a chance to write in person at some point is changed with her passing. If I've learned anything from this, you can't just wait for Sunday. But I've got to say what a woman the outpouring of love that the world has had for her that social media has been inundated with pictures and video and testaments of people's lives with Jessie for what I've seen. She trains since all a motor sports it wasn't just off road, which This podcast is somewhat centered around. She was all over in the hot rod, same thing. She was all over in the motorcycle scene from welding empowering women to everything and then this one really hits home for me when we talk about land speed, I don't know how many people know but I've ran very fast Bonneville I don't have a record there. I've tried it has eluded me and I know where Jesse was on this. I've Heard Terry alluded to this. You have gotten right with everything in the world when you decide to strap in and you're going for the glory and you're going for your spot in history. Jesse had her spot in history at stout. She has chiseled into history today. I'm very, very saddened by this as so many so many so many people are that are reflecting on and remembering her and remembering her accomplishments. What an amazing woman tarry our hearts cry out for you. We are here to support you. I want everyone to as they listen to today's installment of the talent tank things change. Life is precious limit you've got from the day you're born to the day your maker comes calling. You've got to live it if anything that I've taken away personally in the past week of reflecting on our mortality is Jesse, Jesse lived it when I look at that woman's life. There had to be Zero regrets. She lived it every single day. And that is what we should all strive exemplify, to be known for someone that pushed our boundaries, pushed our limits and pushed our experiences. Godspeed, Jessi combs.
Intro/Outro :Let's drop the green flag on this episode of the talent tank podcast with your host Wyatt Pemberton bringing you the best, fastest, most knowledgeable personalities and ultra before and off road racing.
Wyatt Pemberton :Hey, it's Wyatt. Yes, asking for your help. If you liked the show and enjoy the content, please hit the five star rating on Apple podcasts or on Stitcher. Please consider writing a quick review on the talent tank Facebook page on YouTube and absolutely on Apple podcast and consider joining the discussions in the talent tank insiders group on But all right, let's get to it. All right. All right. All right, episode number two of the talent tank and we're still not running on full. Imagine my surprise about what a ceiling fan here in Texas and a Dodge Cummins AC in California can do to an audio track. Welcome back. Thanks for subscribing today. We've got Terry Madden on great stories. great content. Great background noise. Let's jump in and share some laughs Thanks for joining. All right, so here we go. This is Episode Two, the talent tank on the day. We've got Mr. Terry Madden gracing us with his presence, his beautiful Locks of Love hair. He's missing a big event in Sturgis I know when this finally airs, and about a month. We're gonna look back and he'll realize you know what, what a big deal it was to actually do this interview versus going to Sturgis you know. Oh, man. So So Terry and myself, we go way back, you know, at least a handful of years, you know, 11 1213 somewhere in there. I'll tell you he's been instrumental in my life the last handful of years. A couple years back he called me text me was I believe was a text text me to go sailing with him. He was that Ducks Unlimited banquet and learn in Kansas, where Terry's actually from is from Lauren in Kansas. We'll get into that here in a little bit. But he lives out in Los Angeles now moved to California. I think that's the that's the reverse commute, because I think everyone else in the state of California is leaving. Is that right? Carrie? They're leaving.
Terry Madden :Yeah. I'm still struggling with the fact that I actually came here for myself, but
Wyatt Pemberton :I've met so Terry hits me up while we were out partying invited me and my wife to go sailing with him and a bunch of vulture four guys down in the Leeward Islands. And let me tell you, it changed my life. You know, being a Kansas guy myself. Now all of a sudden, like I love saying, I actually just got back from there. And that was a good time, but this is it. This isn't about me. We've got Terry, we got him in the hot seat. In February k wage came around post K, which there was the genesis of this. This program kind of came up and came to fruition. Terry was a huge proponent, you know, huge in my corner, had my back was cracking the whip on me to get it done. And I'm not gonna lie, I still even to this day have anxiety about this project. I'm excited about it. I will tell you if it weren't for Terry Terry, if it weren't for you, you know, I don't know how far I would have gone. I would have put, you know, nicely up on the shelf with a lot of my great ideas, and they never see fruition. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can't thank you enough for pushing this. You over the course of the last six, seven months, you've had so many great stories that we would love to have captured in that time period and we didn't get there. But here we are. We're in the month of August 2019. Finally, we're able to flange out we're able to get this going. Thank you for coming on board man.
Terry Madden :Oh, no problem. I'm excited to see this go. I think it's gonna be a really neat project and I want to see what you do with it and I want to hear the other episodes of other people you got lined up. They all sound great. I'm kind of excited.
Wyatt Pemberton :As I told you right before the show, I actually just got really good news about our first episode gonna kick off October. I'm really excited about that one. But so let's dive into uteri. A little background. You're from Florida, Kansas. That's like central Kansas, right?
Unknown Speaker :central Kansas. I'm from great band actually. It's about 20 miles from Florida but Barnard's where I ended up after I got out of high school,
Wyatt Pemberton :high school you your servicemen right i mean you you wouldn't serve for it for our country.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I went to basic straight out I school and did eight years is with military police. So it was combat MP and we didn't do any typical police where
Wyatt Pemberton :you're all over the world.
Unknown Speaker :We spent some time Japan Korea a few other locations but never stayed anywhere very long at all. A small unit that just kind of did went and did their specialty work. We were EP w which enemy prisoner war later on in the process. Getting into the Iraqi war. Previously, there'd only been us in one marine unit that did this because there weren't many prisoners of war. Then when all the defection started, everybody started coming. They turned us into instructors. So my last two to two deployments, all we did was cross train. Every unit deploying came through our two week school to be cross trained on prisoners or
Wyatt Pemberton :I know other guys in gotten out. They took things away from that, because I know you have some specific skill sets like the ability to be prepared your ability to seek out adventure, your ability to never like, stop quit, you have this you have this innate, you know, knack about referring to this in the racecourse format. You've got like a little MacGyver has that been part of your life or is that something that you developed through the military service or
Unknown Speaker :some of it came from the military? Definitely. I think a lot of it was ingrained. Well, before that, I think part of that's what actually made me succeed in the military. I grew up that way grew up on a farm and mill Kansas with a fairly poor farm. Grandpa was very instrumental on just Making anything work with whatever you had because it's all you had. And my dad was very mechanical taught me a lot and it was just failure wasn't an option whether we are wheeling in the river or you just were on a mission to get this, whatever it was fixed you just, which is a curse today, because sometimes I'll put twice as much into something just to prove I can do it then it's even worth.
Wyatt Pemberton :You got out of the service. You got back. I know. You got married. You have three kids.
Unknown Speaker :I've got two boys and then a girl I adopted.
Wyatt Pemberton :They're almost all they're all grown there right? I don't you don't have young kids in which is funny you look at you You're young guy when you told me I have it. Like a 21 year old. I'm like, bro,
Unknown Speaker :yeah, I got 17 1921 the oldest is on his own great girlfriend lives in Colorado Springs. Seems to be really learned a lot about live and doing good. I'm proud of him. Chloe, my daughter, the middle one she's sent premedicate you do an amazing she was always the good student. I'm super proud of her. daulton He's 17. And as of last week, he just sprung it on me that he's moving out here next week and going to do his senior year high school here at yucca Valley. Gonna get him back when I moved out here. He originally decided he wanted to stay with all his friends, which I respected. He wanted to graduate with his friends he grown up with but now he's changed his mind. And I'm super excited. He said it this way.
Wyatt Pemberton :Now, I actually know a little bit about DOM. It's not much but I do know, he's in the videography, and he's into editing. He's into video production audio production. Gotta say you know, as a dad like that's like such the smart move to go from central Kansas to Los Angeles where you have every studio under the sun has, at a minimum an office in Hollywood, right?
Terry Madden :Yeah, it's kind of funny because I made a choice.
Unknown Speaker :years ago when I got out of the military. I wanted my kids to grow up in small town America because I felt like it was the best forum small school, good people, less drugs, less crime and Now that I've experienced more of the world, I feel like I held him back because there's so much opportunity around every corner out here and I'm not sure I made the right decision. So I'm excited that he's gonna get to have both. He came from those roots, but now he gets to come have real world opportunity. See what he can be.
Wyatt Pemberton :I feel, you know, when I hit the real world after leaving Kansas, I hit their world, you know, somewhat handicap, you know, had been very sheltered. We didn't believe we were being sheltered. But by default, we were geographically isolated to an extent. I mean, that was a different era today. The way the internet is it's kind of shortened and flattened a lot of those those learning curves and the sheltering is a little bit hard to do, but at the same time, it is still there. Well, I for one is very proud of him making that decision to go put himself in a situation where he's setting up the playing field for the future for himself. You got to do as a parent, you got to look at that and just just smile and just be like, man, I think I'm winning on this one. So
Unknown Speaker :yeah, I'm up I'm excited about Dalton. I can talk about him all day. I won't take your time up. But he's been a unique child from day one. He, he had leukemia. We found out when he was three and he they gave him a less than 20% chance of making it. He beat it in four years of hard chemo and everything else. He's just been a shit ever since. And part of it's my fault because we spoiled him because we weren't right. He was even gonna make it but then he also has this damned invincible clause to him. He doesn't feel pain he's just like he can get through anything and sometimes he scares me because he just does shit shouldn't be doing but again, I wonder where we get set.
Wyatt Pemberton :Does this mean that you're gonna have another set of hands and hits going forward like in February?
Unknown Speaker :Very excited about that. And I'm also hoping to get him in a razor I'm thinking possibly hammers.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, right. No time like there isn't. It's not like the you know, the hardest race on the planet to put him in a razor and say Get your teeth here. I guess after that every race after that ends up being easy like, Man, that was simple. I might know somebody to ride with him. It's done at a time or two. Yeah, right. Who's available?
Terry Madden :I don't know. I don't know.
Wyatt Pemberton :Oh man so Kansas you family. I know you're a business owner for a lot of years. You're an oil man. You're drilling guy so I know you're resourceful dude. Plus, I knew from you you've sold out, take the money and move to move to California being next to opportunities at hand. Now I want to get into those opportunities and how they kind of came up. I know you initially started a wheeling in Kansas. I know you met the the lucky dog racing crew, which would be Brian and Levi surely walk me through. Like I think I kind of know enough of the situation how it came to be. But I know at some point you were hanging out with lucky dog. Then you had your own race car. And then you started co driving for Levi, and then boiled into the grander picture of what you're doing in Phoenix with Campbell enterprises. So walk us through that and bring us up to comic current time.
Unknown Speaker :I know Brian surely for every other trailer shop we bought a lot of oilfield stuff from and just kind of watch Levi grow up didn't really know who he was. He was Brian's kid. Then we will in the river. We all played in this play place called cat house. There were j hawkinson. worked all filled with me and he was lucky dogs chief mechanic still his travels with him. Amazingly resourceful guy. And I always went out to cat house with wheel and there was can we call it the Kansas crunch? And that's where we all met and started wheeling together and then it evolved from there. Our oil filled shop Jay and Mike buckler, the name you might know him Mr. ness fields aid. Yep, built a buggy for a guy from Oklahoma City, who was buddies with Walker Evans traded in one of Walker's jeeps on it which was my first Jeep that I took the hammers into thousand nine and played in the rocks for the first time when that's
Unknown Speaker :that's when it all came together and
Unknown Speaker :went out there and Shirley's were racing and that's how it all kind of get came together and short story
Wyatt Pemberton :is circled on Walker Walker's close with you know the whole Campbell stable so you end up you Khodro for Levi, but you could grow for him for many years. bright orange helmets.
Unknown Speaker :Yep, yep, we actually brought the orange. Orange kind of came into the game. It's funny because we started rolling them in Europe and now everybody's got around them. I think Levi and I grew up together. It was he hadn't done much of it. I hadn't done much of it. We learned a lot from each other. It's pretty cool. I love being in a car with Levi today because
Unknown Speaker :we learned together the lines I told him to take
Unknown Speaker :his what he learned in the rocks and vice versa. And it's like, if I'm sitting pastor, he does what I would do. It's pretty good. cuz I've never been more comfortable on a car because we just we grew up together in a car. I love
Wyatt Pemberton :I love sharing freely via the whole surely campus good people, Levi especially man, I love sharing on him leave I transition to a single seater running around with Campbell enterprises. You're those guys because Levi was getting a Campbell car from from Shannon and then somewhere in there, Bailey started racing. And that's all I remember you started co driving for Bailey and that's been how many years so you could write for Bailey 340. It
Unknown Speaker :brought four hammers now. I think
Unknown Speaker :there was a transition there. I ran my own car for a year. And that's what I truly wanted to do. When leave I went to the single seat. I wanted to go back to running my own car. And truthfully I just couldn't afford it. I love it. I'm a driver by heart. I couldn't afford it. I pretty well quit and Shannon called. asked me if I would co drive for Bailey for a race in Sturgis, Kentucky. I told him no, I wanted to race. I don't want to co drive. And then I thought about it and at least it was a way back in the racing to be around it. And then Bailey yourself called I known her since she was a little shit wandering around the pits. And a little Terry, please. And I couldn't tell her No. So yeah, we don't really know.
Unknown Speaker :Now I can. I can now she's grown up.
Unknown Speaker :She's not this lovely kid, but she's not the sweet little girl. Everybody knows she's she's definitely her father's child. She's got an attitude. And she puts her helmet on. It's a lot of fun.
Wyatt Pemberton :Oh, for sure. For sure. For sure. I mean, look who she learned from in the car, just like you said.
Unknown Speaker :So yeah, it's it's been real fun watching Bailey progress, because I felt like I already you know, I already knew what I was doing at that stuff. And Levi, taught Levi and he taught me and Bailey was like a sponge. I everything I could tell her. She's so hooked up and she'd do something and I'd say no do it this way. And you never told her again. She just she has a tremendous amount of natural ability. And it's been really fun helping her progress. I did a lot in the car. At first, I was doing pretty much everything but the steering wheel. And it just slowly evolved with a new car, more switches to her side, more stuff to her side. And now she's pretty well outgrown me. And it's pretty cool to see that and feel like I had something to do with it.
Wyatt Pemberton :I think everyone has seen that and which I think it's funny that you wanted to you Everyone wants to drive their own car until then hundreds, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours in the shop by yourself or with you know, one buddy or two buddies prepping the same car just to tear it up and come back and do it again and the cost of run around the country. It's not for everybody. It is very hard. So it's I love hearing you say like, say that it didn't work out for you. You didn't want to co drive but then you end up co driving and then here we are today. And now you ran around with cables and they started to open your eyes to things from what I saw. I mean, it looks Like going to Mexico, building a chase truck starting to sell chase bed starting to camp out all the time. It seemed like for me looking at your life. A big segue into your move out west, like into this next chapter of your life is Is that a fair statement?
Unknown Speaker :I was at a transition at that point. So
Unknown Speaker :oilfield was dropping, prices are down business wasn't good. The year before I left, I drilled 72 wells on my own. And the next year I drilled three, if that tells you the difference in the drop of business.
Unknown Speaker :I was at a point where I had really good help,
Unknown Speaker :but I didn't have families I love or get rid of myself. The business was sustaining itself. I'd always wanted to play in race, had a little money in the bank. So I kind of laid myself off for a year and was hanging out with Campbell's
Unknown Speaker :moved into aliens room he'd moved out
Unknown Speaker :was we're gonna play in and I don't know, midlife crisis, early retirement, you're off whatever. But then somehow it turned into a business and in the meantime, oil was down so, and my heart was not in it anymore. So in the process of closing Madden oil completely sold off most of the assets, open a shop out here.
Unknown Speaker :This is what we're gonna do.
Wyatt Pemberton :What's the name of your business you told me but it's like high high octane but it's felt that
Unknown Speaker :it doesn't actually exist at this point but I'm working together and we got a building found we're in the, in the point of acquisition on it right now. should be done here in the next month or so. And then it's got a lot of renovations and then we're hoping to be open by the end of the year. It's gonna be called high road. Always take the high road. Okay. It'll have a retail spot up front we're looking for more moto centric, off road, merge motorcycles and off road together Classy Boutique showroom, carry the high end products that we love using and then the shop will be off road and motorcycle prep work for chase truck. I'm getting into other stuff that I haven't I'll get to in a minute. We skipped for big time there. But I'm excited about getting that going. That's definitely the next step.
Wyatt Pemberton :And that we will come back to that for sure. That's gonna be in yucca Valley, right? Yep. yucca Valley that's gonna be nice. I can't wait to come and visit. I know I jumped away for because you have got some stores you had some guys reach out to you far reached many people in your exploits and the guy receipt. What you did for Levi, what you've done for Bailey, don't you run both of those are those are two very great, you know, top tier drivers. But certainly they cut their teeth with you and you end up somewhere being reached out to about code driving, doing some driver coaching for some folks. And I know that you've been doing that. So I want you to tell me some of that. But I know that there's some stories in there. I don't know the stories. I want you to tell them to me but I know that you've you went to Morocco and almost died something about some camels. And then you got to come back and fill us in on the recent you know, just a few weeks ago. The game were 500 Talk to me about where you're at today in this new where Terry is with a he's a driver coach from what I've seen
Unknown Speaker :talk I don't know how that happened, but it's pretty cool. I want to back up a little on that a lot of that was because JT Taylor, and what it's all it started where Shannon I, which is a whole story in itself and you tell the story about how we decided to raise our first of all 1000 we're sitting at offered Hall of Fame, actually to say now, we don't get to other stuff. We don't get to it. So get tonight, the night Shannon's inducted in Milford Hall of Fame. We go down to the bar and I'm sitting there like a fly on the wall just listen these stories of the guys I'd grown up with Walker and selfish and Ivan Stewart and they're kind of given Shannon's shit about deserving to be there because he's a rock donkey and never raised him. Ah, so we leave there. This is the weekend before Sema and all week long we're talking like man, we gotta get we gotta get a ball. Good ball. So we run talk to Mike Palmer Palmer's race to for everything. One of our old X ray guys, and mocks that come along. Come Mark Pitts force. come enjoy it. Come experience it. So by like Wednesday, we're going okay, we're going to bond with Polymer. It'll be fun. It'll be cool. Thursday afternoon Shana calls me says, Hey, you serious? We're going to Mexico next week. Yeah, I'm serious. We're going to Mexico next week. He says, if we're going we should race.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah.
Unknown Speaker :What do you mean? We should wait? That's right. He says, Well, I've been thinking about which race Okay, what are we gonna rate? We'll take class one last time of the class won't sit in the back shop and pieces. Mike. Okay, it's next week, you know that? Yep. Um, we're going to pull the motors afternoon. So he pulls a motor tears it down, gets it to already got shipped to California dropped off back. I'm back from Sema into Phoenix by Friday. we rebuild, put it together and the next Wednesday, we're in Baja pre running. We pre run Wednesday, Thursday and the race was like that Friday or Saturday. Whatever it was, and No idea what the hell we're doing. Go run it finished 19th overall from starting in the back and then ultra for class, not having me I don't do what we're doing. It was Shannon and Brian Kirby. And Waylon and I had a great time still know nothing about Baja. And while and I are standing on the podium, cool, like gave us some little plaques were pissed off because we got 19th didn't do better. This guy walks up and he says, Can I look at that? I'm like, Yeah, sure. Here you can have it. He's like, what do you mean I can have it? I'm like, you have it's just a just finished your plaque. He's like, I've been racing this 10 years trying to get one of them. How many years you raced it. Oh, this is our first time we decided. So I mean, that was It's crazy how all this is just fell together with the right people the right times, but finishing has never been the goal for me. It's it's an expectation. It's only wanna win? But I do think it's funny, and I appreciate it when people just go out to just finish hammers. I've raised 13 of them, not 13 years, but 13 of them sometimes. Well, one year, three different classes several years to two classes utB 4400, and I finished 10 of 13
Wyatt Pemberton :don't mean that's an almost an astronomical record. I mean, there's guys that have raised hammers five, six years and still don't have that finisher I've never finished at one point I really, really wanted it now. I've moved on. I feel too old or too out of shape. But I enjoy all my friends though. Love for you reaching on your cars, drinking your beer, or drinking my beer there with it.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, you become again this. You're looking really forward to it.
Wyatt Pemberton :That's what I absolutely love about you know, you and the whole Campbell crew. You guys have always had a place for me to stay. That's what I look forward to.
Unknown Speaker :back to your original question. That's what got me into Mexico which got me into JT and we started racing Northstar, doing other things and until that point, I didn't truly realize what I had. JT kept telling me you're the best at this. You're the best at this and comment from him. It meant something to me.
Wyatt Pemberton :Absolutely. He's a pro.
Unknown Speaker :I ran with a few others, Dave Cole and Shannon and a few others, and they kept telling me the same thing. And I thought, Okay, well, maybe this is as much as I hate code driving. I I'd rather call it navigating or what anything co driving, I'm a driver who has to ride on the other side. It just evolved into me realizing that I actually had something and put it out there a little bit and I was shocked at the response. So that's how I ended up Morocco. That's how I've ended up a lot of the places now I'm doing it for hire and coach along the way and try and help
Wyatt Pemberton :that is brought together you know, whole new, undoing a whole new ball of twine there. You're getting in the car with guys that you don't have. You don't have control of the vehicle. They're rookies or newer or some of them are even veterans. They just haven't had good co driving or they actually want to push for a win. With a good navigator, I believe you ended up in Morocco recently so, and I know there's a story behind it. I just haven't ever heard it. So you You heard me allude to it earlier. I'm baiting you. I'm I think the world. What's the story? It's got to be good. I mean or bad. I don't know. And then we'll just edit it out. Tell me You pooped your pants or something.
Unknown Speaker :I mean, so brocco Moroccan desert challenge is this year it had 15 people less than two car. That's it. And eight days 4000 kilometers of insanity. It was really cool the coolest things I've ever done how many entries I don't remember exactly. I just remember they made a big deal in the drivers me at that 15 less than two car that third goal for next year to be bigger than that car.
Wyatt Pemberton :Okay, that's okay. Now I'm gonna have to go to a fat check after this and figure out what the Deckard number was. I think the cars it's a big number four.
Unknown Speaker :It was a really, really cool event but so a guy named Yep. But awesome me. I never been able to pronounce his last name and he knows it. So whatever. fire ant racing out of Holland, I'd raced against him years ago in Portugal, Wales and Scotland with lucky dog. He called me out of the blue wanted to know if I go race this Moroccan desert challenge with him, which was his total route book rally style navigation course that I've experienced with and ignore and a few others that nearly no, no nothing. Military counters, wave digital light points across the middle of the desert in the middle of freaking nowhere. So on a whim by myself, got a plane ticket and ended up America ash. I believe that's how you pronounce it. Wherever he landed. They hadn't he hadn't got a chance to be in the car hadn't saw the car the night before. And Matt Yep. The night before and the team and crawl in a car to take off for 4000 kilometers across Morocco.
Unknown Speaker :Serious language barrier
Unknown Speaker :the night, the night before I get the route book and it's all in France which I don't read. The emblems don't mean shit to me. Every odd was stacked against us. They could be stacked against us.
Wyatt Pemberton :You know what's going on in my head? I'm picturing that viral YouTube video of the car and the guy's like,
Unknown Speaker :I'll be in the car.
Wyatt Pemberton :That's what's ahead. I'm picturing you.
Unknown Speaker :There was a lot of killing the car. A lot of killing the car. So it was a bowler nemesis. badass car, man NASCAR yap is an ultra for driver is used to an ultra for car treated that one like an ultra for car which it is not. Between the two of us there's a serious learning curve and a lot of broken shit out.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, needless to say a DNF was that what happened today?
Unknown Speaker :We made it through day five, we had a fairly catastrophic cartwheel that we did came off of a lake bed section. It was 22 miles straight full out like bed, roughly 140 kilometer an hour, pull out into a pinch in the dust. He lost it on a rough spot and we went for a ride. And that was that was the end of the week for us car was done. We're 100 miles from anywhere, hundred and 30 degrees middle of the desert, sit there for hours waiting on recovery. And then that's kind of where the whole journey of the Moroccan desert challenge began for me, no injuries, a little bit of pride, a little bit attitude. We're still friends. We weren't for a day in there.
Wyatt Pemberton :But that's, that's how it works in racing. You throw wrenches each other and then you hug and make up. I mean, that's a bunch of Taipei's.
Unknown Speaker :So at this point, it was really neat setup, they move this bivouac every night they treated us like kings. I mean full full course meals full showers every night, this whole city set up in the middle of desert somewhere else, every 24 hours. one hell of a crew. At this point, we're on day five, we got three days left and my plane ticket was at the end. I didn't really have a team to do anything with. From that point forward. We didn't get back together. There was a few issues in there for a few days till the end. I've more or less hitchhiked clear across Morocco with other race teams going the same direction all I knew I had to get to the big black that night night a meal with my bracelet. There's hours of stories in that I met so many amazing people so much neat stuff, messed up on the border of Algeria. kind of got a little close. Got a nice military escort back to Morocco, and a real legit I got to show you the video someday around and with some Algerian refugees were actually had to ride the back of a truck for a few miles with the pipe trying to keep them off of it. They jumped on it at around about crawled over the top pulled their hoses to lock up the trailer brakes so we had to stop And then tried to take the truck and trailer.
Wyatt Pemberton :We need to sit down and just do pen to paper and not saying you're gonna get a movie deal right now this you could really write enough it was crazy. There's some gems in here. I'm glad that I'm glad you didn't die
Unknown Speaker :I wish I did documented all along the way cuz then I met a guy that was Israeli military who was there racing who'd also broke down and we made it by ourselves for a day and then at 1.1 night there was a transports that went from bivouac bivouac with broken down cars Moroccan desert challenge ordination gets all the cars to the end. We see this transport sitting there with broken cars on it. We're out of a ride and we literally while the guys getting supper crawled into one of the cars on this transport somebody else's racecar and rode on the semi trailer across part of Morocco for a day into this car on a trailer.
Wyatt Pemberton :Wow. Yeah, I got no words for that man. What an adventure. Oh, because of a racing against some ultra four guys from Holland. Wow. At what point did you meet Hearing the camel.
Unknown Speaker :That was Gus. Yeah, that's the key. Easily this he just looked like, look like a ghost. The one night I'm in an RV with these guys and they dropped me off at the end of the blacktop and there's a dirt road into the bivouac it's probably I don't know six miles or so in there you can see the lights and I'm Morocco was really cool for me. I going through a lot personal did some serious just a lot of the hitchhiking and the by myself stuff was by choice. I did some serious soul search and walk the sand dunes and looked at the world from a different light made some decisions. And this was one of those nights I'm just kind of walking in and this damn camel with a saddle on walks across in front of me. And you can't make this shit up middle of nowhere, not a soul round. He just kind of walks up says hi.
Wyatt Pemberton :I mean, it's retirements. This is a sign right this is a sign of
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I don't know. crawl on this camel and he's going away on going. He's just seems to be bopping towards the bivouac won't listen to a damn thing. I say but he's not around and I figure well shit hits the fan I'll just jump off but this beats walking. We rode couple miles and out of nowhere somebody will get me here for being racist. I don't really care. hobby just pops up here this Gus is camel herder is pissed off? Not sure but I think it's a capital offense for stealing a camel and Rocco and I think he thought I was stealing Gus. By the time it's over, I rent Gus hobby bleeds me on into camp and lets me off. The next day I realized that at this camp, there's a resort and they give camel rights. They camel ride them up and do tourist bullshit. But there's a stable out at the end of the road and the resort in here. And they just turn the camels loose and they know their way back to the stable and back to the deal. So Gus was just doing his daily routine as he's he's a petting zoo camel, and I think I'm doing something cool, but I'm just trying to panic.
Wyatt Pemberton :And yes, it's like being on the longest Safari ever and then he really takes you off. The carousel right? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker :And Habib is just the kid that does the tourist camera rises it shut me down for some cash for being on gas. Right? Yeah. So that's what goes Come come into the picture. He was my buddy for a day.
Wyatt Pemberton :It's even funnier now. I know the story. I mean, only I've only seen the picture. I was like, I gotta I gotta ask this guy about this. You back in the States. I know we touch base a little bit here and there about that about I think you have to, at least for myself out today, you know, constantly you have constantly soul searching, you constantly have to be you know what, what matters? You know, I think that's a none of us ever grow. Notice ever well, and people always say, you haven't figured out you know, you look like you haven't figured out man who is who these people haven't figured out. I'd like to know.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, me too. I thought I had it figured out for a long time. Go to a more serious note here for a minute. I got some PTSD issues. I thought I had everything figured out and I was always right. And everybody else was wrong if they didn't like it's true. I've realized that that's wrong. I treated a lot of people wrong for a lot of years been really, really soul searching a lot of that I've been going to some different groups and warrior built a group that I've erased the mat with and you need to look up, everybody needs to look up. They're an amazing veterans group that does get things I go to their counseling groups every Tuesday night, it's been really good for me, I'm figuring out some of my faults, which can make me be better for myself and better for everybody around me.
Wyatt Pemberton :If you're not trying to better yourself, but you're kind of on the losing end of life. It's gonna be constantly that search and trying to find, find that center, find who you are, find who you are that day and then live it own it. There was one year at the mint 400 Dakota Meyer race, a class one with Roberts racing, I believe where your bill had a UTV in that race and I remember them talking at the beginning of it and not follow the code and now I don't know if you follow him now but he has a an organization called like live the dash right. You know, you have from the year you're born to, you know, the year you die There's a dash on your gravestone live that dash you know make that everything like that you'll have to look him up but I'll tell you just watching you over the last few years it really from outside this outside looking at you know being close friends with you I I have a lot more insight than this you really look like you are a living the dash like I know you don't have it figured out. And you know there are people out there looking at you going, man Terry's got it figured out. He's living the race of life. He's down in Mexico all the time. He's running the gambler 500 he's off to Sturgis, he hasn't figured out man. Just like it'll say the grass is not greener on the other side. I know that. But man it looks like you're you're doing good on live in the dash that counts for so much, man. It really does.
Unknown Speaker :It's funny because I thought I had I thought I had it figured out I had a very successful business I worked really hard for all I did was work, had great money in the bank and had great retirement had everything figured out. And now I am
Wyatt Pemberton :broke.
Unknown Speaker :Working different than I've ever Work truly happier than I've ever been in my life. The thing you got to pay attention to what you put value in, because I always thought I needed to work towards this retirement and work towards all this stuff when it wasn't truly what was making me happy. I was paying way too much attention to what everybody else thought was right. Instead of what I needed.
Wyatt Pemberton :I'm gonna segue into this actually gonna almost skip the pm or 500 conversation. We can go back there we get there. I'm gonna bring this up and I don't know if you'll take my bait on this but it qH 2018 you met a woman and you started hanging out with her. I will tell you it. If you want to use her name. That's great. But what I will say about this woman that you met, being your friend, I've noticed a remarkable difference in how Terry holds his head how Terry holds his shoulders, how Terry talks, how Terry does many, many things. I don't have a good relationship with her Another that's sort of another time, but I will I will say, having having someone of, you know a rock in your life someone is monumentous so I'm struggling with words for this somebody that believes in you stands with you struggles with you, man is there's no you can't put $1 figure you can't put a time figure that my happiness for you. I'm sure somebody at Harvard had a way to quantify that. It's something I don't
Unknown Speaker :even truly know where to start there. Yeah, she's a it's it's the first adult relationship I think I've ever been in in my life. We've been friends for 10 years, and closer friends for three years, year and a half Ichigo now we sit down and had an actual adult conversation of do we want to risk messing up our friendship, to be more to actually enter a relationship with As an adult was kind of foreign to me. It is cool. You know, we're talking about Jessie. She's a, she has been my rock, she is unreal. Everything I've accomplished in my life, I've always depended on myself more or less. And it is unreal having somebody in your corner that you can be vulnerable with and they don't judge you and they don't, you know, I was ashamed of my issues with my PTSD and my other things, and
Wyatt Pemberton :she forced me from my standpoint, I'm like, thank you. Thank you. So
Unknown Speaker :nice listening to her. I didn't grow up. Being able to show emotion. It wasn't alright to cry, what not right to be upset. You're supposed to suck it up. It was cool. It is cool. Having somebody to support me to that level. And it's really amazing. So I don't know, our relationships great. It really is. But more than anything, she's my best friend. And it is really rad having a best friend to that level that I can share. That amount of myself with I'm happy for you.
Wyatt Pemberton :I don't know if I'm happy for her but I'm happy for you.
Terry Madden :Yeah, I feel sorry for a lot of days
Wyatt Pemberton :maybe one day when this show gets you know 20 maybe even 30 followers maybe she'll come on and she'll tell the story about a about Wyatt yeah I don't
Terry Madden :know if she's gonna come talk to you anytime soon
Wyatt Pemberton :All right, so we did we went we went full on touchy feely, but that's I mean that's good. I think people have to know guys have had that conversation. So you know some guys are tough have a hard time reflecting on you know, I struggle I struggle daily, but some, but I also know everyone else does too. It's just what the struggle is are we all we all have our different battles we all that we all fight in. It is what it is. I'm very, very happy to see how happy you are with such a good woman in your life.
Unknown Speaker :I am and it's not perfect. It's not easy, you know, is never gonna be perfect or easy,
Wyatt Pemberton :then those are compromises within compromises. You make those compromises because Of all the ancillary benefits that are there, that rock that solidarity that somebody has your back your best friend, you laugh at the same jokes, you watch the same movies you
Unknown Speaker :then you get beyond the best friend part of it. There's so much other cool shit about it. It's so much fun to do. I mean, we've worked in the shop the last two weeks building the miniature Strider bike to be unveiled at Sturgis put a ridiculous amount of time and money into this just for charity. And it's the coolest thing you ever seen. But it's it is fun being able to go to the garage in the evening and share the similar interests and not sit on the couch. It's really neat to have that person that I'm not intimidated by her strengths that were my weak strengths are her weaknesses and where her strengths are my weaknesses and we just collaborate and work together and that's that's where highroad comes in. Because we're really making shit happen together and if we can make this highroad go with both of our followings and interests and talents. I have no doubt so you
Wyatt Pemberton :guys are gonna open this fire. It's gonna be it's in yucca Valley right up the grade from Palm Springs you passed in and out of it going to clean the hammers from the east. I've seen the proposals for highroad high recap this right Wi Fi, coffee shop cafe, high end, motorcycle gear, gift shop, hat shop, motorcycle shop in the back,
Unknown Speaker :all the above, off road on road motorcycle. Pretty much our business plan at this point is if we bring in all the things we love, we're going to some of the rock climbing stuff, some rock crawling stuff, if we enjoy it, other cool people should like it to we want to create a brand that is a destination like cc moto or one of the others where you go to get a T shirt and if you're close you want to stop by and put a sticker on the window like Coco's corner, a destination, a brand that people want to come be a part of.
Wyatt Pemberton :You remember that whole part where we started this whole interview and I told kind of everyone about cracking the whip on me to make this happen. This is me cracking the whip. make this happen. Gonna have let me know what I can do to help fit means just flying into Palm Springs and coming up and rolling a paint roller for a weekend let me know man I'd love to be a part of that one Hello friends with to just did it sounds like such a cool idea sounds like
Unknown Speaker :I'm so excited about it because it can give us a location to be able to do these things. I'm gonna include warrior built in it. We're gonna do some veterans stuff that I've already worked out talk to the counseling groups at Twentynine Palms and we're gonna do some veteran stuff where there's counseling, there's things available, and then she has a charity that's really amazing. That's called real deal is a 513 seat charity to bring awareness back skilled trades in this world. You know, let your kid go be a plumber. They can have a career and make a fortune. They don't have another bass, be a doctrine lawyer. Let your kid be a welder, and the women's roles that women play in them and we're going to use it for her charity and be able to have classes and workshops, open shop wanted to just be a cool place to come hang out.
Wyatt Pemberton :Sounds like a good place to grow old.
Unknown Speaker :I hope so. Although California is not my fault. Final Destination you say that. Now that's already been discussed, the goal would be to make highroad run a profitable and self sustainable in about five years. And then I think location two probably needs to be Oregon or Colorado.
Wyatt Pemberton :Let me buy in and open in Colorado,
Unknown Speaker :have a place in both and play the whole Snowbird role where you come to California in the winter and go there in the summer. There's amazing clip here. A big part of it that I've left out is the driver training that's going to we want to do trail rides. We want to do driver training. I've already been doing a lot of driver training. We got some big events coming up. We're doing some launches for several companies I can't talk about yet with new vehicles where we're going to guide their launches for their media rounds up big bear. One I'm really excited about right now is you heard a Jenson Button f1 guy.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, I do have a Jenson Button is okay, so
Unknown Speaker :Jetson just hired me and we've already we've already went out and done our first test sessions had a really good time, or going to campaign a 6100 truckers The season that I am doing the logistics, the peer support the CO driving for, and it's been really amazing to get in with somebody of that level of talent and race seriousness, but that amount of humbleness and teach ability. He tried racing them at 400.
Unknown Speaker :And he came back and he's like,
Unknown Speaker :you know, he's a pro. I mean, he's one of the winningest f1 guys of all time. But he's a pro on pavement, not dirt. And he realizes that and came in asked for some help and we got in the truck and took off and his reaction times and ability is insane. But he'll also sink you so deep into a corner, you're going to go right on out of it. We have a few times.
Wyatt Pemberton :And it's amazing transition. Guys, right. But the
Unknown Speaker :level of that he listens to me for it makes me feel good about me for somebody of that caliber racing to ask me to coach them to learn a new skill. We may 20 mile loop out here hammer so today ran it says Several times, you know a few laughs he's got it memorized and you tell him something one time and he soaks it up. I think it's gonna be a really remarkable thing to do the next couple years to watch him progress into this and grow into a team we're working with mass that runs singer Porsche here in LA, he's going to come cut his teeth in the dirt also, singer is going to have some some role in this which is going to be really really cool. It's it's something I'm excited about. It's it's, it's gonna be a lot of fun and it shows me that there are people that realize my value and offroad that I can create a business out of this coaching.
Wyatt Pemberton :We've seen plenty of guys come and go the carousel of right seat driving in like trophy trucks that just seems like a revolving door for many drivers It feels like but for guys that come out of ultra for a completely cut from a different cloth and they seem to have a lot more like grit and resilience when it comes to sitting behind the wheel or behind the right seat in the big trucks will go back to college, where they come the T ones have the He was running on Thursday and who we saw in the right seat of a bunch of those trucks they were you know over four guys. Yeah, it was cool to see like Wayne Israel son in there. That's it. I mean, I'm excited for you. I'm very excited for you.
Terry Madden :They're hitting the harder race and King of the hammers, in my opinion, you know, after going to Morocco and
Unknown Speaker :go on to doing all the things that I have done and the amount of time I've spent in Baja now braced in seven, eight countries now, if you can succeed at King and the hammers, the other stuff really is easy. I don't care what anybody cross over says, King of the hammers is hard. And to succeed at it, it takes a certain type of person.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, I mean, no doubt about it. And Dave Cole takes the bad burn of the hammer on you know, many occasions with man that that guy still continues to I give so much credit. He's a good friend and the they continue to crank out the finish rates. They continue to crank out the envelopes that continue to get pushed, I mean, offered industry what it's done over the last 10 years. Now we're seeing trophy trucks being popping out with drives all wheel drive trophy trucks. It's a beautiful thing to see where this for this industry has gone and the relationships that have dealt out of it and blended and crossed over. And you know something else how many I can't imagine 10 years ago having a trophy truck drivers or team owners phone numbers in my phone and today I do. And I know you're the same way. It's like, you know, we're some farm kids from Kansas. Here we are. Love it.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. Yeah, it's come full circle. It is really amazing. That has been cool for me to a few of those guys. Ivan Stewart. Ricky Johnson. Walker Evans, you know, I watched him I used to ride my damn bicycle to the bowling alley to play dive and Stewart off road race game
Unknown Speaker :and to
Unknown Speaker :be able to hang out talk to them guys text them if I got a question is kind of surreal. Some days. It's it's pretty neat. To realize how small a world this offroad world really is. It's crazy. Family family,
Wyatt Pemberton :just like a family dysfunctional as can be and don't get along sometimes. And like I said earlier throw wrenches at each other. But at the end of the day,
Unknown Speaker :it's still family facts. There are more people hands down in this offroad world scattered around the world, not just united states that if I needed help they'd be there than my
Terry Madden :quote, true friends I grew up with,
Wyatt Pemberton :right you're doing it for me. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for pushing me to this level. I'm going to continue to push you you know that come around my shoulder beat me on the back. I'm here for you. I know you're there, too. I know you and I can talk for hours on end probably not this long without a beer. But at this point, I think we've done pretty good. Thank you for coming on the talent tank. Thank you for telling us all some stories about when your talent tank was low, like in Morocco. And what you did do to replenish it you know with guests the camel, thank you for coming on. I really appreciate it. Episode Two in the books, man. Any closing remarks?
Unknown Speaker :No, I'm, I'm proud of you for stepping up doing this. I think it's gonna be really cool and give the industry itself another outlet. We'll all enjoy, and I look forward to coming back on maybe season four or five. be dead
Terry Madden :by then.
Wyatt Pemberton :All right, Terry. Thanks for coming on man.
Terry Madden :Anytime Why?
Wyatt Pemberton :You made it, another episode consumed. If you like to listen, please go give the show a five star rating on Apple podcast and consider writing a quick review either there or over on the Facebook page. Thank you for tuning in to this wild dive into the tank Wyatt out
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