SP 10 KOH2020 David Hartman

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.

On this Tenth installment of the ULTRA4 Racings King of the Hammers 2020 The Talent Tank sessions, Executive Produced by Caleb Norman @caleb__norman.

Hailing from Grand Junction, Colorado and pilot of the #4874, we got David Hartman @davidhartman4874 to grab a seat during a busy and hectic Hammers week.  Albeit a shallow dive, you get another glimpse of what makes a program successful, hands-on, first hand experience and knowledge of their racecar.  Another driver who handles his own prep.  On this KOH Session we talk bars in Florida, investing as a career and lifestyle, new car setup, solid co-drivers, and sxs jetboats on the Colorado River.  Which who wouldn't want a tiny jetboat to explore with? 

After the Checked Flag:
Literally after the Checkered Flag; David finished 8th Overall in the 2020 King of the Hammers Every Man Challenge race, and 7th in class 4800 with a time of 05:47:17.558 which was 00:54:17.120 minutes out of 1st place.  

Location provided by: Cody Waggoner at Lasernut

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Transcript

Intro/Outro : 0:02

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 : 0:21

All right, here we go the talent tank from laser town and today right now this moment in time, we have David Hartman 4874 driver, sitting down with me getting in, we're gonna get into his brain here for the next like 30 minutes and we'll see like what kind of clips we can get out of them. David, welcome. Thank you, sir. So what I know about you is grew up in Illinois,

David Hartman : 0:46

Midwest boy,

Wyatt Pemberton : 0:47

but then you moved to Florida and opened up a bunch of clubs, a bunch of bars, you ran the bar scene in Florida. I did for a little while. Where was that was that

David Hartman : 0:57

it was in all was a Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale. They'll say so just north of Miami. Yes. No South Beach. Now I don't like that place. So your place they were like they had to be fully closed. Yeah, Fort Lauderdale is kind of like, like a little bit Midwest, the normal or normal people. Come on vacation leave on probation. You know,

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:19

that kind of place but you hate a lot of Grand Junction, Colorado today though.

David Hartman : 1:22

I do. Well, what made you

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:25

move from, you know, Illinois to Florida, the beaches to end up all the way up in the mesa.

David Hartman : 1:32

A lot of it was racing. You know, when I was down south I really wanted to be doing this and wife and I kind of made it work. We love the mountains. We love it out. Just Colorado in general. Our lifestyle. We snowboard mountain bike, every season we got some sport we enjoy and Colorado was just a place for us. There's a lot to do there. There is

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:54

so right here today behind us. We've got your brand new Audi 74 Jimmy's car yes Randy and company got it done in time they did any issues

David Hartman : 2:06

no not really thing it's honestly scary solid right now so

Wyatt Pemberton : 2:11

we won't jinx it oh knock knock on some wood there but you had some contingency plans anytime you're gonna roll out with a new car I did

David Hartman : 2:19

I was lucky enough to sell my old car to my co driver Jake and great guy and he said I'm not even take the stickers off of it until after hammers in case you need it. So he brought it still ready for me to roll if we really need it. So I owe him a huge bit for that.

Wyatt Pemberton : 2:37

So let me get straight so you hedged you completely.

David Hartman : 2:41

Yeah, well, I knew the car be done but it was gonna be tight timewise and I got it home and got about two or three hours on it small prep and put on the trailer and came out here and in running it for two days and gotta say she's bad. It makes makes the whole car feel like a slug. So

Wyatt Pemberton : 2:59

well. I think I think that's a real story in the sense that you're really creating anything can go right anything can go wrong, that you knew you're bringing out a new car. I mean, we've seen guys like Lauren Haley come out the past with a new car and end up driving the backup car, which would be the old car. So I think now I mean, that's a that's a reality. It's cool to see like that you actually had a backup plan. So many people don't independent backup plan and you see their name on the sheet then you seem scratched

David Hartman : 3:23

is fortunate to go to I mean, Jay, and I've raced together for about a year and a half now. podium, every single race we've been in the car together on. So it's a it's a real team effort. He's a great friend and awesome co driver. He's going to be fast on the East Coast with that car. I'm happy to see it go out there. I don't want to ever see it past me. So for

Wyatt Pemberton : 3:45

you, you mentioned you mentioned team effort. And that said about team effort. You actually I understood. Right. Jay is running all you know representing all your sponsors for this week as well.

David Hartman : 3:57

Yes, we had some crossover people when he purchased it. Car Yokohama ultra Titan a lot of the names that were on that car actually passed over to him to get a little bit of support that's pretty

Wyatt Pemberton : 4:09

cool i mean maybe that's maybe that's how you wouldn't do that for anybody but I think maybe that's you know an alternative when you're trying to sell cars today that you know to new guys coming into the sport you know we're not all Shannon Campbell's are

David Hartman : 4:24

in to me like I kind of thought with that ever doing to him I'm like, Man, that's not a bad idea when you're letting something go to like reach out to your sponsors and just say hey, I'm selling my car what can you do for the next guy and add it into the value of it because there's definitely a value behind having connections already on and not having to go through and buy everything new that's already working. So

Wyatt Pemberton : 4:43

So we talked about we're talking about value. I threw out hedge earlier. Your business you you know I've been asked a Who's this new guy you've been in ultra for for about two years. Yep. And I have a funny story about that when you brought out your car last time your when it was new when it was brand new. You went to go tune with King your tuning with eBay and I was tuning with my free runner at the same time and I actually passed you my crew cab past you and I was like what am I doing passing this guy in this this ultra four car this just beautiful Jimmy's car and then kind of find out that it was as you parked I was parking Mike C word gets out he's Texas guy that you had moved out to Cortez to go work for Randy and company that Jimmy's for before he gets out and I just we've just lost it laughs like you know hugs and kisses and all that, you know, patting each other's asses like man Good to see you like I hadn't seen him yet that weekend. Mike was the odd

David Hartman : 5:39

co driver I got to give him a ton of credit because the first time I drove that car was here on the lake bed right before I'm running hammers race. I'd never pre run never been here I never set foot in Johnson Valley. And the first time I drove to for car was that race and I got about 20 minutes of seat time we lost a transmission still are the trans and then Last mainsail got a little bit too much oil in it. It was one of those overfilled Yep. And then we got all that fix and went out and did pretty good. So yeah, Mike Mike wood had the courage to get in the car with a guy who had zero experience and co drive hammers with me. So yeah,

Wyatt Pemberton : 6:17

that's the CO driver number one for me, but he's insane. I mean, and he came from co driving for a guy named Carl langerhans. And if he could co drive for Carl, to drive for anybody, I got put in that little circle that year with those guys. Awesome People. Oh, aren't they Carl carries that whole group's great Pete salt of the earth, sir. What made you gravitate to ultra for racing? How did you get in?

David Hartman : 6:39

Well, when I was younger, I raced motocross and you know, the toll that takes on you. And then I was looking at Desert stuff class 10 you know, just, it was gonna take a lot of resources to really go that direction. And then I looked at this and called Randy and was talking to him about actually a trail car, and then my trail car turned into a podium, and then my podium turned into a podium our then it turned into a, you know about $40,000. Later, we had the old gray car. And that car is just phenomenal. It finished every race you ran, except that first row. Ah, so she'd been an awesome car. And I mean, you've had

Wyatt Pemberton : 7:17

some you have had quite a few podiums. Yep. And you finished very well national points two years or your rookie season two years ago. Where do you finish

David Hartman : 7:26

I was second on the West Coast fourth in the nation my rookie year and then same for last year with a lot of a lot harder races. So going down, you know, Mexico, Ridgecrest, all that and I podium every single regional race last year.

Wyatt Pemberton : 7:38

That was an outstanding number.

David Hartman : 7:40

Yeah. Yeah. Like, we're super proud of that.

Wyatt Pemberton : 7:42

So you've really set the bar high for yourself this year.

David Hartman : 7:45

Scary.

Wyatt Pemberton : 7:46

Yeah. I have I have full faith in you. We jumped off a topic there for a second. I talked about the the value in hedging. And people always ask me about, hey, what's this guy do and I went I took that and said immediately what made you get into this So I, you know, when I went off track myself but what what do you do what were what is David Hartman do to allow you to come out here as much as you do about your I know you're married I know you have, you know kids that allow you to walk away and spend all that time on the road and all that time prepping

David Hartman : 8:20

for work like started off I felt when I got out of those bars I started working for a hedge fund as their head of acquisitions. So I was buying houses all over all over the state of Florida, Georgia with them and kind of led me to develop in my own business model. And whenever they had spent their billion bucks, I started my own little private equity fund with all the connections I had just buying houses the same way I was and then selling them to other investors. So it's just like a small private equity fund. I flip about 60 houses a year in Atlanta.

Wyatt Pemberton : 8:50

And so you're still doing that currently?

David Hartman : 8:51

Yes, I am. I got an awesome business partner there who's been with me for probably 10 years and I'm more than money, financial end of it. I call myself kind of a venture capitalist now Highlight invest in other people's small businesses things like that.

Wyatt Pemberton : 9:03

So I saw based on that I did see something recently that you and a another very well known author for racer, Nick Nelson have partnered up on a business.

David Hartman : 9:11

Yeah, we were starting a construction company kind of in a in St. George, Utah. We're gonna be doing some building there are a lot of excavation work right now because it's just it's where the money is. Doing that pools in Vegas area, but Yep, just a school senior digging holes. And Nick is such a hard worker. Oh, man. He's awesome. He's one of my best friends and like I mean, I I don't go into business with anybody but guys like that you can you can put your money behind and everything else so just great people.

Wyatt Pemberton : 9:41

I can see the absolutely see that as he racing. The T one race on

David Hartman : 9:44

Yes, he'll be here. He's actually bitten in my pit. He'll be here Monday morning with the TT. I was just down at the shop on the way here and she's making she's ready to go. He's chomping at the bit to come out and

Wyatt Pemberton : 9:56

get after it. So yeah, he just came back from doing that. Uh, That events Saudi Arabia with uh, with that track and Oh man, they were killing it out there.

David Hartman : 10:05

He's a phenomenal driver. I think it's I get parts it can live up to them right?

Wyatt Pemberton : 10:10

You said it now I mean Nick is always somebody to watch but I mean you yourself don't want to take the light away from you you know the shine in the late light on David Hartman here two years you've been killing it. second the second nationals fourth in the nation. Two years in a row. King of the hammers right now. You guys finished very well last year. Yeah. And I think you're looking at back that up

David Hartman : 10:37

to me the bragging rights as a West Coast now. You know, we're racing 200 mile races with 30 other guys it's not East Coast racing. But you know, 50 miles in the woods with four other cars in mud. And yeah, I don't mind mud, but I like race and a bunch of people and that's why I just gravitate towards the west coast stuff. I like the longer endurance stuff. races and having a lot of guys out there. Do you

Wyatt Pemberton : 11:04

think that that is, you know, a an issue with the future of ultra for in the series?

David Hartman : 11:09

You know, I mean, I? Yeah, I mean in a sense, but I like Casey's an East Coast guy is one of the best drivers or is I can't fault them for a race and where he lives. Casey Gilbert case we have we've had that phone call once or twice and man I just feel bad I'm like, Hey man, it's where you live, you know, if I live on these coasts, I'd be doing the same thing. So it's not feasible for everybody to go all the way across the country to race 4800 so I get it. No, yeah.

Wyatt Pemberton : 11:37

I drove out here from Houston. And I mean, when you leave on one calendar day, and you arrive, three calendar days later, it's I left the I leave Thursday evening and I rolled in here this morning. So it's Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I was on the road. I mean, it was total it was only 26 hours or so. But it was just ridiculous as

David Hartman : 11:57

far as where we got lucky with where we live to because every race is between us. 11 and 14 hours.

Wyatt Pemberton : 12:01

That's a good that's a good sweet spot. Yep. When you're under 1000 miles so Jimmy's four by four. How awesome is it been to be taken in and under the the arm under the wing of the of the Jimmy's army man.

David Hartman : 12:16

Randy's been phenomenal. You know, from day one I remember sitting down at his desk and he reminds me of this every five minutes. But like we said, Guys, like, I just believe in you. This is the first time I really met him. I said, you're gonna do good. You just got the right you got the right personality remind me of somebody. He just kind of left it at that. And now he likes to bring that up quite a bit that we found success but Oh, he's just always been there for me and is a big part of why I'm successful.

Wyatt Pemberton : 12:45

Now that's from the outside looking in. That's what has really appeared not that you wouldn't stand on your own. But it's really cool when you can go in with a plan and then have such an immediate support network. It's you know, I don't know I suppose like kids like going into college, like when you go into college joining the fraternity system is you end up with 100. ready made friends on day one. Yeah, that that, that social circle and what that does for your studying and setting the pace for what you're going to do those years of college, you just get jump started right off the bat. And so when you go into like a program like Jimmy's, and you grab a car from him, you know,

David Hartman : 13:25

I'd say a lot of that relationship just comes down to like, I walk into the shop and I treat those guys, just like anybody else. You know, there's no, I'm a racer. It's just we're all buddies. Get along with everybody. Try and take care of them. Okay, and I've gotten really close to so it's fun having a little brother kind of figure being I'm the oldest of three boys, so take out a little lack. I haven't my brothers around on him for sure.

Wyatt Pemberton : 13:50

So we uh, we banter a lot. I love it. That's my buddy. And there's one thing that you do, David that I followed you on social media that actually I'm really floored by I'm really curious about and you kind of probably know where I'm going with this because I've asked you about about the first thing I asked you about when I saw you today. So you built one of those little aluminum boats, that acid a little aluminum sounds like a toy but it's like a like a two person jetski that you sit down the hole and it's just powered there right?

David Hartman : 14:19

It is the rock crawler of the water. So slow it's not slow it's actually it's a 12 Jetstream boats makes them out of Canada. We had four of them imported on for Cody here at laser nut Nick Nelson, myself and another racer, Mike London. we all we all got them and it's got a 260 horsepower 1800 cc supercharged CD motor in about a 700 pound hole that has quarter inch aluminum belly and three HGH MW under that so

Wyatt Pemberton : 14:53

you call it like a Rockefeller No, it's it's a razor. It's a side by side for the water. Yeah.

David Hartman : 14:57

Oh man, but it's meant To like hit boulders, jump off things. We got a section called Glenwood Canyon, Colorado. We're going to run that's got like some eight foot waterfalls and things like that and they'll go up. That'd be cool to run down the Colorado River from your place and go, can you get to Moab from you? I can I can actually leave my back door and be in Moab in one hour. Buy that boat faster, and I can drive.

Wyatt Pemberton : 15:22

Holy smokes. Yep. So how close to a bar in Moab? Could you like could you truly go bar hopping from your house down? I'm alive. I'm back. Absolutely. Oh, man.

David Hartman : 15:33

depends on the time of year and the current coming home. We might have to have a trailer there. But if I make it happen fair

Wyatt Pemberton : 15:38

enough. Yeah. So yeah, if you did it in the late spring, you'd have the melt.

David Hartman : 15:43

I'm looking forward to the Mount. It's gonna be fun. So you could go downstream, faster, let go about 65 and 65. downstream. I mean, in one of those little boats, it feels like you're doing 150. So new project. We're really looking forward to get out and film actually some of the sponsors are going to do a film with us this spring. When they're down for Easter Safari, so we got some sneaky little things in the work that are gonna be some good film. So you really do have a bunch adding up here for 2020. Yeah, lots of small fun projects, lifestyle stuff, you know,

Wyatt Pemberton : 16:13

we'll be following you. All right. All right. Hey, what's your Instagram on there?

David Hartman : 16:16

David Hartman 4874 and it's Hartman racing Inc. Or David Hartman on Facebook.

Wyatt Pemberton : 16:23

So we've briefly bumped up on this new car this 4874 car David talked me through some of the major improvements this car has over that car that you sold to Jay.

David Hartman : 16:35

All right. I'd say the the biggest the biggest changes has leading arm so it's got leading arm trailing arm and it has a gob of front travel it's all has almost five inches more front travel in the old car and it's all up travel. I think for any solid axle car It probably has the most up travel out of any solid exit car I've ever seen.

Wyatt Pemberton : 16:56

Well in looking at it, if you guys see it in the background, all that gap over The top of the front tires over the top that front axle. It looks like he can kill some stuff like really, really eat some stuff up. It is a whoop Slayer. And I know the engine looks a lot lower and a lot further back from it is other Jimmy's cars I've seen in the past. Yeah, it's

David Hartman : 17:18

about two inches lower four inches back and one of the big changes on this one as we went instead of riding like I was running here. Okay, so before we went to Magnavox, and an FCS

Unknown Speaker : 17:27

so so it's a single speed case. It's

David Hartman : 17:29

Yeah, we got a high and low it's all time four wheel drive. The fuel tank also is a complete custom tank that drops to the majority of the fuel almost down to the belly pan. All the way all the way to his lower spout. three inches shorter, four inches wider. So what's your wheelbase now? I was 118 on 115 in this car, and it was 86 wide and this one's sitting about 90. So

Wyatt Pemberton : 17:53

yeah, you'll be a little bit more stable and you should be like climb better.

David Hartman : 17:56

Yeah, it's definitely it feels real good in the rocks. We got on plate a little bit choppy. Thunder and just during the qualifying I was really surprised a big difference in that FCS is just there's a lot less parasitic loss, you can tell you're getting a lot more power to the ground than you it was before in the old car, same motor didn't really make any changes there. Some small stuff cams, whatnot.

Wyatt Pemberton : 18:19

I'm not familiar with what the gear cut is in FCS boxes it straight, the straight cut out. So that's what I was thinking. That's a quick change ratio. If you're going to run short course you can just pop the back off the case, change two gears and it's like rigging your car. And here's the thing that I really, I really like digging in on and there's one my first question is have you like who preps your car?

David Hartman : 18:40

I prep my car alone. It's just one of those. That's my peaceful time I spent a good week in the garage alone wrench not touching every last thing working every last thing and it's just been what works for me and found a pretty methodical system for it that I just rinse and repeat every race

Wyatt Pemberton : 19:00

I think that's a trend that you see guys even your your record in two years speaks for itself. But I think the guys out there that are able to spend the time with the car though, that way when there is problems, they're the Johnny on the spot with a triage.

David Hartman : 19:17

Yeah, I mean, I just like being like, I'm just anal about sounds anything like that, like, I like to know, oh, I have a home that's getting close to being there. Because I know that squeak or the noise of a shock bolt. It's not tight, because you just, you know, if everything's rattling and clanking, it's like you're you're never going to know what problems are coming. So

Wyatt Pemberton : 19:38

with this normal

David Hartman : 19:39

layout, no, not on my car when I do it myself. It's just kind of I'm methodical about it. And I when the car leaves, it doesn't make any noises and I know what's coming usually. I have no idea what that sounds like.

Wyatt Pemberton : 19:51

Yeah, I think even when they're like completely done perfect, brand new, they still make just obnoxious noise. I mean, just Well, I mean, this car doesn't have necessarily the clickers it You were hearing the bypasses but so you have these internal bypass shocks and I asked you come pre interview like

David Hartman : 20:05

hey, how hard was this cartoon? Yeah well that's good thing about having Cade was the guinea pig on this car he had his that his first and uh we went down to Vegas for a few days tuned with the Nelson and got the car working really good

Wyatt Pemberton : 20:19

I knew I was cades car this isn't your car yeah it's Kate's

David Hartman : 20:21

car but we were all down there working together and we share notes and all that we run all the same things and same same adjustments and two minds are better than one I like this This may be faster and we kind of just bounce ideas off each other and take it back to this tuning sessions and works out of it. Luckily I just got to take his notes and move it over to my car and came out here and it's just in combination it's on point. Oh, I mean just the the savings right there in just time and effort and going back and forth to our you've worked out the bugs on one already decided we have to trade off who shocked in because it's hard on the cars. So next The next one I got to go out with mine and then he'll get my notes

Wyatt Pemberton : 21:03

in fix it all right well, so there is some some given some take. Oh yeah. I just figured it's gonna be just all take like Katie you're the guinea pig.

David Hartman : 21:13

Gotta keep it fair.

Wyatt Pemberton : 21:15

Oh man. Well, he's he's a formula competitor too, you know, it's, he's

David Hartman : 21:20

a threat. He's good kid can drive. It's got a long career ahead of them. I'm really looking forward to being around and just being part of his team for a long time.

Unknown Speaker : 21:28

Don't let him pass you. That's the key.

David Hartman : 21:30

Now. You got to let k pass you. It's running from people that he knows you're there.

Wyatt Pemberton : 21:36

So he Well, I don't want to talk about kid let's talk about are you a better hair or a better hound.

David Hartman : 21:45

I love to chase. You do love. Everybody loves to chase that's my thing. I don't know why but curse for me is setting the pole. I'd rather be second third top six. Pick a couple people off and just sit there and wait. I pick what I you know my whole thing. It's just been altered. I turn it on when I need to. And I try and conserve the car as best as I can. And I know when I get down to, you know, the last quarter of the race, that's when you go, you got away. Yeah, we had kind of one of those Ridgecrest with Bailey Cole, where I gotten by him and I knew he was chasing me down. And I just said, All right, you're here, let them go and just fall to the finish and got the win. Because you're still occurred to me one time, but it was we there's a lot of that in 48. You just can't can't be the cause of death.

Wyatt Pemberton : 22:31

They just last year in this race did was that last year that Casey ran away with this by like 30 minutes.

David Hartman : 22:37

Yeah, I believe so. We had a mess up and Cougar bits were going through there and fell in a hole and it was like an hour and 15 minute recovery and we were way back in the pack and I think came back to six. So I had a hell of a run back.

Wyatt Pemberton : 22:49

I think I even turned off that race. When I saw Casey was out in front by he had like a 38 minute lead and then level was behind him by

David Hartman : 22:58

miles. Both great drive hat goes off to Casey. He's He's awesome out here. He's, he's been around for a long time. It's really

Wyatt Pemberton : 23:05

cool to see the level of competition in 4800 Yeah, it really is. Everybody's really friends if you're up there and you're one of the fastest guys, we all talk on the phone. We're all buddies. It's it's a good field. I think that's this racing community. Absolutely. I certainly I hadn't heard it put this way, but it was Jason share putting it in the sense that the guy that really set the standard and set the bar for what Shannon Campbell a decade ago, he's just kind of been this patriarch for the sport, it just that free flowing of information and Hey, I'll share whatever it's an open book my junk open book, it's free flowing information, because I still think I'm a better Darwinian movement that's

David Hartman : 23:42

contagious the same way like I want to be somebody at their absolute best you know, I don't want to be in the pits are out there in some way. I could have done something to help. Yes. So

Wyatt Pemberton : 23:52

and I think that is the other thing that's cool. bottle for four is like, I'll give you the shirt off my back just so I can beat you on course. Yeah. I love it. Oh, man. Thank you so much David for stepping out here for a little short interview, a little short stint. Really appreciate your support in the talent tank like you have. And when I reached out to you about this that you're like game on, I really wish you the best of luck on Thursday, and the EMC race and your new 40 enter car. I think you're doing a good job of representing your your sponsors, your partners within BRP dechaine and Yokohama. I mean, I know you have a bunch but those I know those guys make it the difference in you being able to race versus not race and be on the sideline man. Yes, sir. Thank you again for coming out.

David Hartman : 24:33

I appreciate you. Thank you.

Intro/Outro : 24:38

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