The Talent Tank

EP 18 Josh Blyler

March 23, 2020 Josh Blyler Episode 30
The Talent Tank
EP 18 Josh Blyler
Show Notes Transcript

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.

A new King is crowned!  2020 King of the Hammers 4400 Champion Josh Blyler of #BigB Motorsports racing out of Klingerstown, Pennsylvania.   In just four quick years in ULTRA4 Racing @ultra4racing, Josh sits on the throne for 2020 as the man to beat.  He's the current 2019 National Points Champion as well as current King.  Who is Josh Blyler?  Its the question we've heard over and over since February 7th.  But the better question is, why don't you know who Josh Blyler is.  So step on in, sit down, buckle up, and listen to Josh's journey from the valleys of the Appalachia, to conquering in Johnson Valley, California.  In scope, job creation in rural America, riding your horse to school, solar farms, Line Mountain, producing the Pro-Chassis for Miller Motorsports, chicken wings or not to chicken wing, as well as some amazing behind the scenes nuggets on his blistering assault to the Checkered Flag at this years ULTRA4 King of the Hammers.   

Headshot Provided by: Nicole Dreon www.nicoledreon.com/

After the Checkered Flag-
https://www.bigbmfg.com/
In 2011 Big B MFG. invested in a 1 megawatt solar farm that would eventually supply all the electrical power needed for the manufacturing plant. Since early 2012 the solar farm has supplied 100% of the electricity needed to power the plant at Big B MFG. This has significantly reduced the environmental footprint for Big B. The solar farm is sized to produce 100% of the power needed even as Big B continues to grow. We designed the system for about 20% growth. This along with the use of more efficient electrical equipment such as high efficiency motors and LED lighting will keep Big B MFG in the GREEN spotlight for many years to come.

This Episode brought to you by our good friends at Custom Splice www.customsplice.com, for all of your recovery equipment needs, they are your one stop shop.  Small Kansas business with worldwide reach.  

Please like & subscribe.
https://www.thetalenttank.com/
https://www.instagram.com/thetalenttank/
https://www.facebook.com/thetalenttank
Insiders Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTalentTankInsiders/ 

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 :

This episode brought to you by custom slice offroad recovery gear. All right, here we go back to the talent tank. This is our first big episode back after just an amazing king of the hammers season. What a great race we just had back at the beginning of February Here we are in March and sitting down on episode one back none other than our new king, Josh Blyler. How you doing? How's it going? Well, I'm doing good. So we've got Josh sitting in his shop. Pilot pro chassis is behind him. Gosh, you know, congratulations, I if I can't get that off my chest enough to be a new crown king. To be a new name on top of the box, How's that feel?

Josh Blyler :

is pretty surreal. You know, I don't know that it's fully sunk in or if it ever will. You know, this was completely a dream that I never expected. It was that far fetched. I never even really dreamt for it, because I didn't think it could be pulled off. So really, it's awesome. It's super ecstatic that we did it. It's just amazing. I love it. It's cool. I'm super honored to be included in that list of kingdoms that that sticks forever.

Wyatt Pemberton :

You crack me up, because I know that, you know, just putting you on the spot. And I've been told and I can tell you're a very humble guy. And so when I'm putting you on the spot to talk about yourself, I see you're kind of like, oh, man, I don't know if I know how to talk about myself This way, you know? Yeah, I'm not doing cartwheels. Yeah, I'm the new king. But yeah, do Congrats.

Josh Blyler :

Thank you. You know,

Wyatt Pemberton :

after the race ended, and you know, you're you're holding the scepter and the race is over. I started getting text messages. And calls and people just saying, who's this Josh Blyler or you've needed interview? Josh Blyler. We don't know who this guy is, you know, there's this whole entire fandom around king of the hammers and ultra for racing and they're just like, Who are you? And I'm sitting back going, Well, I kind of know who you are. You know, I've seen you your name floating in the points race a little bit. But Holy cow, you might be the best ultra for driver today, not just because of cameras recently, but today, and that seems like a crazy claim, right, Josh?

Josh Blyler :

Yeah, I don't know that. I'd claim that but if

Wyatt Pemberton :

you want to claim it, I'll take it. So I'm gonna give it to him here and let me just rattle off some stats for you. So you got your car in 2016 your dad got his in 2017. We'll talk about your dad here a little bit rusty. But you got your car in 2016 you raced the E series in 2016. So 2017 was your first year at King of the hammers. Yes. Yep, racing a king of hammers. In 2017 you finish the national painting. series and forth in 2018 you finished the national point series in second, and 2019 which is this past fall. You were number one. You've race King the hammers for years 1718 1920 and 17 your first year ever racing. You've This is all 4400 you finish sixth. You finished fourth in 2018 2019. You know, you still finished but it was only 11. I mean, right, right. And then you came back, you know a few weeks ago and you won on the box, your number one and that's four races for finishes. One barely outside the top 10 at King the hammers. And then in the points race you finished. Four, two and one in the last three years. I would say that your stats I know you're a humble guy, but your stats. Yeah, man. You're legit.

Josh Blyler :

We try to be consistent. You know, a lot of people don't believe me when I say the king of the hammers deal. I honestly All I ever wanted to do is finish that race one time. That's all I wanted to do. You know, we went out to check out that race in 2005. I really had no idea what it was other than the name. I knew the name king of the hammers. But we showed up in a lake bed and started looking around and I'm going, this is awesome. I got to do this. This is cool. The whole time. My dad's going, kid, you're nuts. This is crazy. This is out of our league. And it's no we're gonna do it. So we did it. And really, all I wanted to do is finish that race. We finished it. And then I thought, well, maybe putting this thing on the box, just some time a podium finish, that would be pretty cool. Still seemed pretty unreasonable, but I thought it'd be cool to shoot for it to shoot for a win. Never did I dream that we could pull it off?

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, I know as we talk, I'm going to jump us way way ahead of where we're at in the conversation. But you go in and racing off road and going and getting a 4400 car wasn't outside the realm of reality are just a crazy harebrained idea. You are from a long line of racers, and you are In a heavy and fast offered racer around the line mountain series there in PA?

Josh Blyler :

Yes, I want to say I'm from a long line of research as far as the bloodline goes, really, my dad was kind of the first one to get into it. But locally, Racing's been part of the tradition forever.

Wyatt Pemberton :

The lion mountain series brings that to the table. And it is a very offroad Jeep Racing's big here. And so I was talking to one of your friends. And he was one of my friends too. And I said, you know what makes this guy so fast. And he goes, man, he goes, I don't even like pre I'm not even gonna name who this is. He is. I mean, like pre running with him. Because he's so fast in the trees. It carries over to what we saw at King of hammers, that you become so fast in the rocks that you walk away from everybody, and you're not at a sprint, you're just running your pace. And after many, many years of practicing and being good at lion mountain, you just have that innate ability.

Josh Blyler :

You know, it's been a big evolution. You know, go back to my alignment. dates that race involved very much like King of the hammers, it used to be a attrition race. It was survival of the fittest, whoever whoever can make it to the finish line had a really good chance of winning the race. As it evolved over the years, it evolved into a sprint race, you know, there would be 20 people that have a strong contention of winning that race, every single store, and you had to sprint and earn it. You inherently this got fast in the trees, because if you wanted to when you needed to figure out how to dodge trees and make it work, you know, when you roll over to the rocks, I don't know that that's so much helped me in the rocks. You know, I had a very good teacher, you know, Eric Miller was took me under his wing. And before I went out of the king of the hammers pre running with him, I've never been in real rocks, what I call real rocks. I don't know that you can pick a better trainer than Eric Miller, and he's arguably one of the best, most fanatical people in the rocks I've ever been around. So to have him show me the ropes. I was pretty fortunate.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Yeah, he's a he's a student of the course you know, he's always studying, always studying, always studying. Always. Learning and then always trying to evolve it. I really respect that guy

Josh Blyler :

a lot. Yeah, for sure that I'll never forget the first pre round trip we had out there. I had my 4400 car and we left there we went from Reno to Johnson Valley to pre run. His car was pretty shot from the Reno race. So he went everywhere and his razor, and we did every one of those rock trails in my 4400 car and his razor. And at the end of every day, I just be shaking my head because I was struggling, you know, I was learning and trying to figure it out. And here this guy did it in a golf cart. And I was getting my ass kicked on a 4400 car.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Right? How has things changed since a few weeks ago? Has your phone been just ringing off the hook? I know you're not a big sponsor guy. I mean, I think my right way preface this is you're not looking for sponsors in the sense that you have a business and we're going to talk about your business here in a little bit Big B. But you're really have full dedication to your empire to Big B to your business and to all the families that you employ. So sponsorship isn't necessarily something that plays well into what your goals are for your recreation.

Josh Blyler :

Yeah, this racing thing for us is way over the top serious hobby we take it probably entirely too seriously, but it's not how we make our living. It's never how I intend to make a living. You know, Big B is is what we do for a living. It's, it's where we go to work, the race cars and the race shop is where we go for fun. I was also very, very keen on that get into this, you know, people told me Hey, look, if you want sponsors, this is the route ego, here's how you do it. You want to present yourself like this. And it always turned into it looked like more of a job than hobby. You know, the one person told me you know, the most expensive parts are the sponsored parts and I think they're right. You just the amount of time you need to invest into that to keep your sponsors happy. For me, it's just not worth it. It would take away from my everyday business, you know, run Big E and keeping everything going here. It would struggle. We do this for fun and At the moment job I always said we're quitting. We have enough jobs

Wyatt Pemberton :

so going to hang it up.

Josh Blyler :

Yeah, the phone's been ringing. I've had tremendous amount of opportunities, super grateful for all of them. But it's just not a fit for us. We're doing this for us. We're not doing it for fame sponsors or anything like that. Join it for us and the team and then the group of people that follows us around is why we're doing this.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And that's what I absolutely love about your story is your some rec Wheeler, some rec racers, rec racers that are very good at it. And we're like, you know, we're here to do this. As soon as it becomes not this. We're gonna hang it up. Let's devolve back. Let's jump back to who Josh is and kind of get back into where you're at man you live in helped me pronounce the name of this is clingers town.

Josh Blyler :

Nailed it. Perfect cleaner. Sounds down Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania,

Wyatt Pemberton :

and you've reached out to Pennsylvania and you just want to race in California. It's always a something else like when Eric when like Miller does it Are any of the guys that drive from that side of the country like Chris Mae from South Carolina. It's like God, that's it. The three days four days on the road to get out west.

Josh Blyler :

Y'all got some commissioned adventure in itself really,

Wyatt Pemberton :

really is. But man cleaners town. I mean, what is there? There's 100 hundred 20 people living cleaners down small little Burg.

Josh Blyler :

I don't know what the population is exactly, but it's not many. I mean, there's no red lights, no stop signs. We don't have a police station. We have two fire companies, two bars, a couple churches. There's not a whole lot going on here, but I won't go anywhere else. I love it here.

Wyatt Pemberton :

fireman's parade.

Josh Blyler :

Oh, yeah, we got the fireman sprays and carnivals, you got to do that every year. The local one here the Pitman Fire Company. They do a braid. It's literally front to back is a quarter mile half mile at most. It's really just a tractor braiding over it gets your old tractors out and crews up down the street but that's about it.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Now, I saw something about this. There's a fishing rodeo involved with that. Tell me what's a fishing rodeo.

Josh Blyler :

A lot of kids things go to a trout stream. You know a lot of times the the local fire companies or the state sportsmen clubs will stock a stream. Normally it's kids you know 16 and under 18 and under and you'll do a fish rodeo and so you can catch the biggest fish or the majority of the biggest question that's as simple as it is. Like I said, I try to do my background and stuff and I That's the first time I've come across the fish rodeo in writing and I was like, Okay, I've got to ask Josh what exactly this is. We don't saddle them up and take them for a ride or anything like that.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I didn't write I feared is maybe like a, like a roundup like you're hurting them in a in a creek or something or, or at least at a minimum, a kiddie pool. You grew up around there though, right?

Josh Blyler :

Yes. Born and raised in this valley. You know where I'm from. We call the Clarence down Valley. You know, we live between valleys all over mountains run Eastern West. And between the mountain ridges, it's only a couple miles. So we've got different valleys. So I've been born and raised in a cleaner sound Valley not always on this property where I'm at right now till third grade. I lived about six to eight miles away from here. When my parents bought this business moved to here and really lived in a little old farmhouse here on this farm. It's this farm is back for generations now. Although it hasn't been farmed for at least the last two. It's been a manufacturing facility since but still the farm was actually sitting in the bottom of the barn right now. This is very barn I'm standing right now as simply as I kept my pony when I was a kid just got transformed to a race shop. So it's still the same place

Wyatt Pemberton :

man keeps several thousand ponies. I love it. So your parents, right, your parents still together, Rusty who we know from racing. What's your mom's name? Sherry, Sherry, Rusty and Sherry. And she's a saint. Right she's dealing with and then you've got a brother skip.

Josh Blyler :

Is that right? Yep. Yep. And I have a sister Brittany.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I mean, let's talk about your mom for a second total st taking care of you guys. How does she deal with all you guys? racing and all your years and years of racing?

Josh Blyler :

Man, I don't know. You guys know dad rusty a little bit. I always considered him the grown man that's still stuck at 16 He refuses to grow up. I don't know how he does it. He's old has done some incredible things. But he just never quits. He's always on the rev limiter Go go go and don't get me wrong the you know a lot of guys look at what dad and I are doing right now and think man, he's guys that had to be great grown up with rusty and I bet it was all rainbows and unicorns and let me tell you, man, it wasn't. He spent a fair amount of time with his foot up my ass. I needed it. I deserved every bit of it. And he straightened me up and did a pretty good job, I guess. And then my mom On the flip side, she is the complete opposite. She is the sweetest lady you will ever meet. She will do absolutely anything for anybody. She's one of those. She's too nice kind of girls. Some people can take advantage of her but why her and my father ever worked. I have no idea because I don't think you can get two more opposite people. But yeah, love mom. She's the greatest in the world.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I'm literally envisioning like Pennsylvania. This nice small Little Town. I bet your mom is a hell of a cook. That's what I'm imagining right now.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, pretty much.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Yeah. And you look well fed to you know, you don't look like you probably. Oh yeah,

Josh Blyler :

it's like you didn't miss many meals man.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Same here. So yeah, so you talked about rusty being hard on you. But man today and memories looking back I mean you guys have and share some amazing bonding experiences.

Josh Blyler :

Oh, we've done some absolutely incredible stuff, man. You know, we were very big hunters before we got into the racing as heavy as we are now. So we've been all over the country hunting together. He's actually finished his grand slam of North American animals, which is one of every big animal big game animal in the country, which is a just a huge feat in itself in the hunting world. That's like winning king of the hammers. It's pretty cool. So, you know, he's done that. And what a lot of people don't know it's where they start. My mom and dad started at absolutely nothing. When they bought this business, you know, there was five people and it was a stretch man. They Things were tight. I got to see it growing up and things were nowhere near like they are today and and they've earned every cent they've ever made and every experience they've gained so I'm just super proud of them guys and it's really cool to see they've done

Wyatt Pemberton :

on that line I can't wait to talk about Big B and that your manufacturing business because we're gonna get there I find building empires highly insightful and the guys in the families behind them highly insightful. So we're gonna get there but you end up going to you went to local county was a Tri County School Tri County High School. What's it called?

Josh Blyler :

tri Valley

Wyatt Pemberton :

tri Valley. Okay. Which you went you laid into me on the cleaners town Valley, what are the what are the other two valleys? So you got tri

Josh Blyler :

valley that Higgins Valley and man I should know this? Hopefully Valley? Probably. Yeah, that sounds right. We'll go with that.

Wyatt Pemberton :

We'll go with we'll go with that. Where's your wife Laurie from she from local or you find her pull her back into cleaners down.

Josh Blyler :

I actually found her in college. She's from effort. Two hours from here. If it wasn't for college, I'd never met her. But yeah, that's where I found her.

Wyatt Pemberton :

What did you go to college for? Computer drafting? mechanical drafting? Do you use much of that today?

Josh Blyler :

The company does I do not write fortunately. And it was a stepping stone when I went to college for drafting, there wasn't a single computer a big B, which looking back on it. I'm not sure how that ever happened. But you know, I know we're not the only people that can tell that story. You know, went to college learned drafting literally when I graduated high school, I had zero computer experience. The computers were just coming onto the screen. And in high school when I was graduating and I was in the vote tech program had zero interest in any of that so I knew nothing about computers left high school went to York tech learn computer aided drafting brought it back to Big B we bought a computer and started doing our own drafting here and making programs to send it that's how we didn't have any lasers to the burn table and, and stuff like that. So it was really a stepping stone and got that program going big D and helped us move along.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Then now you've got your Laurie have three daughters, three amazing daughters. Yep, three daughters, Lily, Maddie and Hannah. Couldn't be more blessed. And you're completely outnumbered in the house completely. Oh, yeah.

Josh Blyler :

Horrible. Yeah. Yes. No. And it's it's really good right now because all three of them love each other. And, you know, the oldest is 13. And the youngest is nine, you know, so they're the age yet we're, you know, boys aren't a thing and everybody loves each other. But see, yeah, but that 1618 year old thing is gonna be great.

Wyatt Pemberton :

It's gonna kick you in the butt. I have a daughter who's nine and she she's a piece of work now. She is hard to handle. Yeah, there's no drama along those lines. But you know, she's she's big into baking. So it's constant. And the whole missing a meal thing. Like I could miss a meal. And I'm gonna make up for it in brownies or cookies, or it's just nonstop. She's constantly baking. It's for sure. Yep. This this past weekend. She gives me a listing of the grocery store. It says Yo, Dad Daddy, I need you to go get your store. Well, then I pedaled around, I ran another errand, and I'm checking out our grocery store. And as I'm pulling my wallet out, I pay and I put in my pocket. No, you pull your cell phone out, I'm addicted to myself, and I look and there's a notification and it's Parker Pemberton has put a, like a fence around me like a geo fence on my find my friends or whatever, so that it will notify her when I leave the address of the grocery store. And I'm like, What was this NSA crap? Like, my daughter's my nine year old just just sent me up like the NSA. Like, oh, man, we're so in for it. And you're in for it, too. I mean, you've got a couple there a couple years ahead, but what are they into? I mean, you guys live on a farm. You got horses, goats, cows. Are they able to do that?

Josh Blyler :

So there? As of now, none of them are showing any interest in the racing. You know, the little one I keep kind of looking at her because she's the she's the wild child, man. She's She's making me lose my hair at an alarming rate. If anyone will do it. I think it would be her but right now they're there and other critters man, they it's awesome to be honest with you, they don't do anything on the iPads or the xboxes or any of that stuff and I'm, I couldn't be happier. You know, they got a whole herd of goats and ponies, owls and stuff dogs and cats and chickens and white tailed deer. And they've got a regular regular Zoo up there and it's really cool to see you know, they're their priority is when they get home from school, they want to see their animals so you know, if you're at home, you'll see him running one end of the house, rip their school clothes off, they get on their farm close and out the other end the house and they'd be lying to the barn. But it's it's really cool. You know, they're interested in the local range stuff and they do some shows that the county fairs and stuff like that and nothing's competitive just spun and kids being kids and hanging out with other farm kids. And it's one of the reasons I would never leave this area. It's an amazing place to raise a family and raise kids

Wyatt Pemberton :

and they're telling you stories about animals with And you're like, which animals is that?

Josh Blyler :

Exactly? Yeah, they've all got names and I think they have birthday parties for most of them and, and it's, it's really cool to see him that into it. And it also makes you feel really good. You know, we've got horses and we don't ride as much as we'd like to, and certainly not as much as they'd like to. But if it's a weekend and it's a nice day, you know, they're just hounding you and pounding on you. Let's go right and let's go right and let's go right and then it's just just a good feeling that your kids want to do that kind of stuff. And it's it's awesome.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Man. I will tell you that's the number one thing that I miss about living in suburban America today in growing up rule was I grew up so rule that I would ride my horse to my friend's house two miles away. That was it what you didn't ride a bicycle down a gravel road, it just wasn't what you do. And in the rural America, you know, the flyover states here, so I did I'd ride a horse and so I missed the Billy to just walk out me like, Oh, I want to go ride today. I want to go clear my head today. Let's go get on the horse and I can't do that today. But that's It's pretty cool that you guys and your girls are able to do that.

Josh Blyler :

It's awesome. Yeah. You talked about riding around when you were a kid. When I was a kid growing up in this valley, we all had horses and ponies. And that was our motor transportation. So we can afford something with four wheels. He wouldn't think you'd get in trouble on a horse. But we did. I mean, we go out the full stunts, and, you know, we'd be swimming with them and just doing stuff. You shouldn't we wrote them. There was like five or six of us that had the brainy idea. We're gonna write them in a school. So you know, school from here is a 20 minute car ride. So we saddle up one morning real early, and we left in the dark and rode her horses to school and tied them out back in the ag fields. And we got kicked out of school for that. And it just, we had so much fun with our horses in this valley. And is like I said, I'm glad we're still here.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Yeah, those are good memories. Well grew up on a farm. You have another, you know, hobby outside of racing. You're, as you said, When I asked you about the Firemen's deal, you guys have the parade. And you like antique tractors.

Josh Blyler :

Yep. Yeah. So that's a I don't know if it's a bad habit or what it is exactly. But I got into that at a very young age. I had a young friend of mine Jesse hepler lives in the same Valley as a dairy farm. You know him and I started hanging out he was a couple years older than me. So he had access to wheels and I and so him and I started paddling around and you know, came to find out and stop while our family barn there was some old engines what they were but he did so we we drove them out and him and I part so much stuff that never run again. But it's, it's where I got my mechanical abilities, I guess I'll say you just mentioned and turn on old junk and try and make it go and make it run. And it's, you know, old mechanics are very simple mechanics. So it teaches you a lot of good lessons. So it's really where I got into the farm stuff. And at that we've got a bunch of fitness engines and old tractors and, and stuff like that and it's just that they're laying around doing their thing.

Wyatt Pemberton :

So for the people that don't know, and I do know some about these. tell the folks what a hit and miss engine is

Josh Blyler :

So hitless engine is a you know, early 1900s. It's called 1900 to 1930. At the latest, they were engines that he used around the farm anywhere really, anywhere needed a powered device,

Wyatt Pemberton :

they put him in washing machines,

Josh Blyler :

right washing machines, corn grinders, corn shellers you know, stone Mills to make your flour, an engine or run your water pump to pump water, anything that you needed movie parts for that you didn't want to hand crank, you know, that was your options back then either and crank it or put a horse on it or something, but there was no electric switch to flip here. So anyway, hitting this engine is kind of what it says that it doesn't hit on every stroke. They're very efficient engines, they've got big flywheels and they hold the exhaust valve open and free wheel when they don't when they're not under a load. When you put them under a load it they can hit every stroke and so the column hidden messes you know, they don't some cycles and they miss on others, and they're the simplest of simple mechanics you could ever come up with. But if you think about when they were made And the resources they added back then it's pretty amazing that they even did it but we're into that and we've got a sloop and my brothers into it a bunch of my buddies are into it and we get together a couple times a year we drag it all out and like we make chicken feed for the chickens at home and just completely useless it's really an excuse to sit around do nothing and drink beer and have a good time I guess but we had fun with it.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Which is where I was going like you'll do anything if you hang out with your buddies and drink beer

Josh Blyler :

right pretty much yep yeah.

Wyatt Pemberton :

What is like your favorite models? I mean the tracker models are you like like the john dears are you into like the May tags and the dairy maids are?

Josh Blyler :

So hiddenness is its New Holland is my thing. I like new Holland's it's they were built here locally in New Holland Pennsylvania is about two hours from here. So that's kind of a hidden Miss go to full size tractors. I don't really care. You know, formals john, here's really any of them and then the little tractors or the Pennsylvania Panzers. Those are the ticket

Wyatt Pemberton :

and now are those turquoise. Those are the tantalizing turquoise ones. Yeah. And that's kind of where the Big B Motorsports racing. That's where your car colors came from. Right?

Josh Blyler :

Yep, exactly. You know, when when I built the first car, it was actually Leah, Leah Miller that was up here and we're trying to kind of come up with a color scheme for this thing. And you know, I wanted to be different. I didn't want to irizarry a yellow car with Eric and there was red cars and green cars and blue cars. Everybody kind of had the the normal colors are picked and I wanted to have a color, but all the good ones were picked. So the first race or two that we ran, we just did rust. It was a brown car rust, you know rat rod looking and it didn't look really neat, but it didn't. It didn't stand out at all. Like especially when you got in the desert. It just disappeared. It was a brown turd. Yeah, so Leah was here one time and like we got come up with a color for this and there happened to be a Pennsylvania Panzer track they're sitting there. And so how about we go as a joke so let's go tantalizing turquoise because that's the color of the Panzer tractor and she looked at me so you know that might work and it kind of stuck. We stuck with the tantalizing turquoise and everybody makes an Enemy because of the name, but I think it looks good. It's kind of my color now.

Wyatt Pemberton :

No, it does look good. And it's easily identifiable. Certainly on a big screen and hammer town. People can look up and see this. They knew it was you. Yeah. So Big B, Big B manufacturing. You guys are one of the larger employers in the area. You guys are welding manufacturer job shop. If I heard right, did your grandfather start it but then rusty bought it from him in the early 2000s?

Josh Blyler :

Yes, my grandfather started the company. At that time, it was strictly a farm and my grandfather was still a farmer. He was farming this farm. But he was he was a mechanical guy had a lot of mechanical ability and, and, you know, started doing repair work for other farmers. And you know, there's two things in this area is farming and coal mining, you know, so he started doing repairs for local farmers and coal miners and it just kind of turned into more and more and he was just me didn't have any employees at the time. But it just kind of grew into he was doing more of that and less farming. Ultimately, he just started growing the business you know, started in a tiny little box shack thing with an old Bridgeport mill and a little buzz welder and, and grew it from there. And my dad got involved. dad worked away from the company for a couple years, came back to the company got involved, started help build it. You know, at the time, I think there was five or six employees. You know, my grandfather was that was just entirely too much. You know, he was used to being a lone wolf basically, you know, doing his own thing. And, you know, there are some that is being a pain in the ass wanting to go go go. They came to an agreement that bought the place in 96. It was five or six employees. It was some tough times, man, they really strung it all out there and failure wasn't an option. This was either gonna work or his entire life was going down the tubes. So super, super cool the way he did it and to be able to watch most of it go on has been awesome.

Wyatt Pemberton :

When you graduate high school, you had to graduate high school right around then right?

Josh Blyler :

I graduated in 98 so two years after my dad bought it

Wyatt Pemberton :

yep. And then you came back to the business after college after York and brought what you learned back in between you and your dad. You guys have gone from that, you know a couple guys in a little shack to where you guys are today.

Josh Blyler :

Yeah, it's been it's been quite the evolution man. It's you know, when I after I got out of high school in 98, went to college, just two year two year deal came out of there in 2000 and came back to work full time you know, prior to that I had worked here like in high school I was involved in any sports right like that, you know, if I wasn't at school, I was I had my ass kicked out of the shop and told get to work, you know, so. So basically, I had very good understanding of what was here and the daily operations by no means was there running it around, but I wasn't completely new walking out of college, I knew the ropes. So came in here after college did the drafting thing kind of got that kicked off and just have all been you know, my, my brother gotten evolved in you know 2005 to 2006 ish and we've just been continually growing it and adding people equipment and buildings and it's been good you know it's a nice steady climb in growth there's never been a giant spurt where we just shot out of the ground it's just really been here since 2006 or I'm sorry 96 was to kind of slow uphill grade and just keep picking away at it make it bigger.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I love the story. I'd love that the fact that you're leveraging technology and I have another key on that that I want to key on here in a little bit about Big B and you guys leveraging technology, but that you have slowly grown let's talk about your products what you guys make you guys just a welding job shop people bring in projects, but they tend to be very large stuff like one thing I know you guys have done work on like Ferris wheels seems crazy when I seem like at the carnival or whatever, out on a pier somewhere but was the most interesting thing you guys have built

Josh Blyler :

here. It's all interesting. You know, it's kind of cool about this. Or into this world or into is, is it doesn't get real boring you know, we were in job shops, machine and fab. So, you know we do large weldments big machining, you know, our, our forte has never been around a little stuff. Like we don't do good with little nuts and bolts size things, you know, some big weldments big machine parts big castings, like that just kind of fits our niche in it. It's kind of a good little niche we build around that that fits us good. But the cool part about it is is there's very little repetition sure we're welding or machining every single day, but it's always different. And I think that's really what attracted me to it because I don't have a super long attention span I kind of get bored with things. So you know, this was a production facility where it was the same exact thing every day. I don't know that I'd have made it I'd probably bailed them and did something else. But you know, every job is different and it has its own challenges and and own quirks and it's just very cool and the range of people that you get to work was really neat. It's not based on one person that worked for one company, we're kind of all over the place. And it's been a good model. You know, it's it's helped grow. And I like it.

Wyatt Pemberton :

What I think is really cool about at least that style of work and that type of work is that you're not beholden to any single industry, or all your eggs aren't in one basket, like you're not fully into coal, or you're not fully into oil and gas production, which I've done here on the Gulf Coast, every weld shop in Houston is in the oil and gas world and with what we've seen happen with oil and gas in the last couple of weeks. I mean, everyone's freaking out and flipping out. And it's like, well, if you were diverse, it's just hard to be diverse down here versus where you're at. You guys could have been into the shale plays in the gas world, but you didn't. And you've stayed diverse in the other things that you guys have going on. I think that's, I mean, who would think to work on Ferris wheels. Whatever comes to the door, right?

Josh Blyler :

It's to me honestly, it's a project that many, many companies wouldn't take on just for the liability reasons. You know, don't get me wrong, you got to do a good job in anything that you're doing. But you know, you're doing something like that. I mean, it's literally people's lives that better on the line. So you just got, you got to do it right, and you got to do a good job. And when you're done with it, you got to be fully willing, the way I always explained to the guys is when we're done, you got to be willing to put your kid on there and go and your, if you're scratching your head at all, then then I'm questioning it as well. So it's neat. I mean, we've we've done a couple Ferris wheel projects, we have a road crew that does traveling mechanical work, you know, we've been all over the country, that's always fun, you get to go see in different parts of the country and and use usually two, three weeks 10 trips, you know, not very often so you get to spend most of your time at home and go see another part of the country and see something cool and and do that. So it's been fun.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Do you take any of the Big B employees with you guys out west for any of the races or take Ah,

Josh Blyler :

quite a few of them. Actually, throughout my whole life, really, it's it's kind of been the same group of people involved in my life the whole time. From from when I'm a kid, you know, I told the guy that helped me drag tractors out of the top of the shed. You know, we're still very good friends and he was at hammers this year. One of my old horse riding buddies. Mikey is our pit crew guy. He's the lead man. He's the guy barking and screaming at everybody and he does a really good job with that. My weld shop foreman is also my uncle, I guess. Yeah, uncle. And it's kind of weird, cuz we're kind of the same age, even though he's my uncle. But he goes with he's a weld shop foreman here. He came with hammers. His son and I are very tight. We're, we're good friends, and he's been a great help. Caden is his name. And all the Big B guys. You know, there's probably out of the crew that was at hammers this year, there was probably eight of them that are employees a big B, who, you know, they know what we're doing and they wanted to come check it out and be part of it. And even the ones that couldn't make it, they're quite aware of what we were doing. I'm very short race day production was at an all time low here and the service was swamped. But you know, it does. It's been, it's been good.

Wyatt Pemberton :

No, that's very cool. And that's exactly where I was circling back to, like, you know, when you're small town America and you're engaged with all these people, they tend to be all the same people. So I wondered, and I was fairly certain that that was what the story was that these are all guys that and that's part of why you've been successful, correct that you've known these guys, you've had relationships with these guys, you guys are all vested in each other from it because it's not a Oh, at the end of the day or at the end of the week, they get to go home to wherever it's No, we'll go home, but then on Monday, we'll see each other at work or we'll see each other.

Josh Blyler :

You're exactly right. And, you know, from the outside looking in, I can see how it kind of looked like, you know, an outsider looking at our whole operation here and say, Man, you know, five years ago these guys really went out this aggressively and together this world class team of people and and just went attack this king of the hammers thing and it really couldn't be further from the truth. It was me with a crazy idea of that looks really neat. I want to try it and all these people kind of fall It is really humbling, to be honest with you, and fate brought it all together. You know, so all these people that are involved, I didn't actively go chase any of them, they kind of came in and knew what we were doing and seeing what we were doing and, and everybody kind of just fell into place by accident, really, it's, it's amazing. We kind of got a well rounded group of people that everybody kind of has their niche and they've found their niche. Every single year we go to hammers, it gets smoother and cleaner. You know, this year at hammers, I didn't say a single word about the pits or loading for the pits or anything like that, you know, we've done our due diligence, we've got spreadsheets and checklists that we've developed over the last couple years and you know, it gets turned over to that group of people and things just happen is they've all done it before and they're good at what they do and and like you said, they're fully invested and they want us to do good and I want to do good for them. And it's just been awesome to see the whole thing comes together.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And so it's you know, moths to a flame or birds of a feather flock together. It's People are attracted to doing things that if everyone's on the same page of doing great things, then great things are gonna happen. And that's kind of looking at your crew is kind of that I mean, I would go dig ditches with my best friends if that's what we're gonna do. I mean, I know we would have fun doing it, because it's with people that you enjoy being around and they enjoy being around you. You may my groups a lot smaller than that, like I don't enjoy being around me. Yeah, man,

Josh Blyler :

that's not good. Good. People are just fun to be around. And like you said, Man, it's, you put a crew of good people together and you can pull amazing things off.

Wyatt Pemberton :

put people on the moon. That's how far that goes. So back to Big B and we talked about like being technology forward. You guys have a big solar field? Yep. Are you carbon neutral or somewhere there abouts.

Josh Blyler :

We've got a megawatt system. We are the system has continuously overproduced the plant, you know, so every year our meter gets zeroed out. And to date we've always overproduced what we Using a year so it's pretty cool it's another big undertaking by my dad that was all his idea and and frankly I think he was getting bored here and he said hey, let's build a solar field let's go build a solar field and pizza bed under his wing and ran with it and and had some tough times. So we got that all straightened out and but it was another situation like that where he couldn't fail there was too much invested. So he made it work and really dug into it. But yeah, this this whole plant is run by solar and pretty cool to be green.

Wyatt Pemberton :

No, absolutely. And is that been a good marketing tool for Big B as well?

Josh Blyler :

It has been there's especially get into the bigger worldwide companies they like it, you know, it's cool to see to see them perk their ears from when you when you talk about your solar field and being completely providing your own power and stuff like that. So it has been a bargaining chip for sure.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I think it's really cool. And that's I mean, that's the world that I operated and I've been in the power business for, you know, since I left college, the ag jobs were not paying What the energy jobs were in so I end up moving to Houston and then Enron happened and but I've spent the last few years doing power project development and some of the stuff we worked on has been some solar work and when I went through your stuff I was like, man look at this they have a solar field. How cool is that and how technology forward that is that you or your father was is now in finding out those rusty rusty had the vision to say, Hey, we're gonna do this sorry. Sorry, Josh. I'm gonna take the credit away from me I was about no problem. But that you guys are you know, looking forward to the future and being green. I think, you know, there's some level of is absolutely amazing. some level of it. I think it's a little bit crazy. But at the same time, you see the dollars at the end of every single month that you don't have a power bill at the end of the year. You don't have a power bill. And for a fabrication shop and energy bills. That's usually a very significant line item.

Josh Blyler :

Oh, yeah, yeah, the writing a big check every month for electric so now we just we wrote a big check for a bunch of years to pay for us. Solar field. But that's all wrapped up and it's just pumping electric out. So it's been good.

Wyatt Pemberton :

You ready to have the conversation about racing and how you got into it? Sure you unpack that a little bit, a little unboxing over here. All right. So as a kid, you were into four wheelers, and then somewhere in there, you ended up involved with line mountain. And I want to get into the four wheelers a little bit, but, man, I have so many questions about line mountain. So

Josh Blyler :

Alright, so I'll throw it out and kick it off from the beginning. So it started with ponies, basically, right? Dad did by me my first four wheeler And literally, I don't know, probably took a month or two to have that thing destroyed. And, you know, I was kind of the deal and dad gave it to me said, Hey, kid, here's your first four wheeler. I found this one. And he repairs and thereafter it's yours. And so I kind of ruined that ride real quick. And then we're back on ponies but, you know, so it went from ponies to four wheelers ponies to you know, now on I'm 15 years old, you know, some of my buddies were older than me who already had their driver's license, you know, a neighbor boy here and Mikey, you said, you'll hear that name throughout the deal. He's now our pit manager. But he also works here at time had his own car, him and I are buddies. He lives 300 yards from my house, and we're paddling around doing things. And the line mountain thing is, if you're a local boy in these couple counties, on your local young man Raising Hell, you know about the line mountain thing, and it's whenever he goes do for the most part, none of us have anything worth racing at all. You know, we take junkyard stuff that wasn't roadworthy. You patch it together, and you go race this line mountain thing. So I'm sitting at 15 years old, my buddy's 16. We take a junkyard and Toyota that's literally far beyond road worthiness and we scavenge this thing and go to a slime mountain to back up and talk a little bit Line mountain lion mountain is now this year there. There'll be 50 years old. It's their 50th anniversary, which it's awesome to think about. The organization has been racing in the trees for 50 years is pretty cool. But a blind mount was started by a brothers brothers. Last Name Lennox. Dale Anik is the last surviving brother. And you'll see a lot of connection on this. I have the utmost respect for Dale and his family. What they've done there. Dale's grandsons are Jared and Shane urban. Those are our co pilots. So it's you know, Jared is my co pilot and Shane is dads so it's kind of cool to see how intertwined all of this becomes and as the story gets deeper, it'll just continue it intertwine but yeah, it's it's pretty rad. But certainly the lion mountain starts by blank brothers, that jeeps and you know through having a good time to side let's see who can make it up the mountain the farthest state they live up against me. Mountain family owns the mountain and they decide how far can we make it up the mountain with the Jeeps, whoever makes the furthest wins. You know, over the years, it just kind of slowly evolves into there's a track in the mountain and let's see who can make it the farthest or the most times and, you know, every year it just gets a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger and, you know, explodes into what it is today. You know, today they'll get, you know, between 120 ish competitors will come to that race. You know, anything from from the junkyard worthy stuff to ultra force style stuff. They've done an amazing job at rolling with the times. They've got a point system, a class system, where you can race anywhere a class to the E Class. It's really whatever budget and whatever you want to do. It's been really cool to watch that all go. So I'm back to 15 years old meme, build this piece of crap to you and true went there to see if we could make a lap. You know, in most of the races or four lap races, you went there to see if we can make a lap we probably raised three or four years and didn't achieve that goal. Every year just you know, something would break and come home and find something in the barn to put it back together and just every year kept getting better. And I think we finally finished a bass. You know, in 120 competitors, we probably finished like 90 a third or something. It was horrible, but we finished the race and that was a victory. So we were done with that thing. It was totally gone, completely tossing and it goes to the scrap yard. By this time I am through high school. And in the college while I'm in college. My dad got my brother started in go kart racing. I came out of college and bought a go kart, it's go kart racing for a couple years. Got down with a go kart racing. We got into Microsoft, Sony Microsoft for a couple years. By that time I'm married, and all the racing stopped. However that happens I'm not sure but all the way stops

Wyatt Pemberton :

we're not pointing the finger at Lori but it's Lori's fault right? Yeah.

Josh Blyler :

The other racing stops and you've got the family started you know, got a got a house built, you know moved on with life got got all that going on. And by the time I was through with all that, you know, we were building racecars again. And then about that time is when was when my dad got involved. You know, really up to that point. He wanted nothing to do with it in the off road racing the line mountain style racing. He actually said to me, we're building our last the first line mountain core after the wife deal, he told me to I was nuts. And this was dumb and a waste of time. And maybe three months into it. He had one sitting there he went down to the neighbor's house and bought his old race car and and all of a sudden he figured it was a pretty good idea. And that's kind of where the the rusty and Josh competitive thing all started. We were at lion mountain beat on each other's doors and we didn't care where we finished in the group of the field. It mattered where We finished next to each other because that's the guy that had to put up with the other guy for the next couple of months, you know. And evolving. You know, David, I'm telling you, and it didn't matter if I finished 98 and he was 97, my life sucked. And if the shoes fit flipped, his life sucked. It's just the way it was. And we've always been super competitive, and we just bust on each other to no end. But

Wyatt Pemberton :

where was skipping all of this?

Josh Blyler :

no interest. Skip had some interest. So he did the go kart racing, the Microsoft racing. He did the off road racing for a year or two. But really, No, it didn't. It didn't light a flame under him like it did with it. And he's in his own things. And he's got a lot of cool projects. He's into the hidden Miss engines and stuff too. But now skip never really got hook line sinker into the off road racing.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And so the cars that you're using your dad's Is this the whole tough enough and twisted intentions. Yep, you got it. Okay. So I've seen pictures of them and as was described to me like they're like A white go look at the pictures of these and you're gonna laugh. These guys totally take junk and put them together but then they they put them together like with really good fat skills and they're well packaged and they're well prepped, but it's still junk.

Josh Blyler :

Is that fair? Pretty much yeah it we had some good years with those cars man I I sold mine that still has tough enough that's upstairs in the top of the barn. I sold mine to finance the first Miller car has really that was my that was my kickstart for the Miller car.

Wyatt Pemberton :

It's all perspective right? Like at the time and even when you're racing it you're like, this is the baddest best thing I've got out there but now then, as things evolve and times change and you look back you're like man, I really was kind of racing.

Josh Blyler :

Yeah, well dad still races he had his at the seven miler last year the old tough enough car, and I laughed at him because you know, he got done with that race. And he came out all gimpy and hobbling around saying there's something wrong with that car. No dad, there's not. That's all the we've always been. He said no, I'm telling you. They've been They've never been that bad. Yes, they were. We're just really spoiled now. You know, we had a blast in those cars and did well with them. You know, I won the lion mountain series once with that the old twisted intentions car and we were always at the top of the box, man. We had a lot of fun race cars over there.

Wyatt Pemberton :

So we're at the point in your racing career in your racing life and your racing resume your pedigree? How do we get from there racing local, they're on the seven miler with the line mount guys. How did you get from there to racing? 4400 it happens in there somewhere. And I know, Eric has raced the line mountain a few times. Is that the connection or am I drawing a line where there's not a line?

Josh Blyler :

No, that's the connection. He's the it's another piece of fate that changed the course of history. Really. If Eric Miller would have never showed up at lion mountain, we probably wouldn't be having a positive we won't be having this conversation today. So up to the point where you know, there was a couple guys that We call them the rock crawlers is what we call them when I started showing up because they were showing up with vehicles that none of us had ever seen before. We didn't know anything about them. We haven't heard anything about them. But it was Eric Miller and Lou levy and a couple other guys but they were racing that was when ultra for was doing some of their events at the Roush Creek racetrack and Trevor in Pennsylvania, which is about 20 minutes free from here as well. But even though they were that close, none of us heard about at least I didn't hear about him. I didn't know anything about him. Through that connection. Some of these Rock Crawler guys started coming over to lion mountain. Eric Miller been one of them. And he was the one that you know, when they when these guys first started showing up the whole Iron Mountain crew, myself included, were saying these guys will never beat us here. They're too big they're too heavy. They're too wide. It's just the wrong car for our course you know we're very tight tight woods. It's just not gonna be for them well so I'm this guy starts kicking our ass and you know it raised our eyes are going man What? What is this thing and And who's this era Miller clown and you know what's going on? Do a little bit of homework ourselves and find out Well, he you know, he's the king of the hammers racer and by that time he had already won the hammers once and get a name for himself and and you know and the Balducci guys, you know, they were, they were ripping around the country doing this ultra for racing, you know, knew them to see them. But by no means were we buddies. You know, we asked each other at the tracks and stuff and say, Hey Eric, you know, Hey Josh, how's it going? But what always impressed me about Eric is that he wasn't afraid to come down to our level. You know, as far as racecars were concerned, we knew nothing. And, and this guy was a God had the point. You know, we race against them. And frankly, if he didn't break, we couldn't beat him. But if he had if he had a fault, we'd beat him and we were pretty proud to say we beat Eric Miller. And we played around with that for a while but what I always liked about Eric is, you know, at the end of the race, he'd come up to us I'll never forget the one race we're at Rush Creek racing. You know the old sloughing off and twists and cents or did not ride the greatest and Erica, bro. And he was sitting alongside the track one of these little nasty rock sections and he was watching us go through and, you know, after the race was over, he came up to us and said, Hey, guys, you know, what kind of spring rates you running? That and I are going, I don't know, whatever those are. And he's like no, but you know what pounds are your springs? I really don't know Eric What? Whatever they send us there's what's in there. And that's how crude we were back had no idea so he starts informing us Well, how about below Do you know what kind of preload you have on him? I don't know. But you know, whatever is on him. And so he starts laying up book and saying look, man, he's kind of to lunch. Let me help you. And he laid it all out and gave us the general formula on on you want to work your spring rate off your preload and kind of work from there and then give you an example. Like, you know, I came home from race and and I wanted to play with his theory. So I started playing around with springs and preload and stuff at and when the front of that or I think I went from a 350 over 375 spring Till I was done using his calculation and getting the course in the right heights with the correct preload, I think it was 100 over 125 spring. That's how thorough it was. You'll be damn taken to the racetrack the next time and she was night and day different. So that's why I always kind of I liked there, he wasn't afraid to talk to us on a level we could understand. He didn't come at us arrogant or make us feel inferior. You know, he just, he was a bro he would talk to us. So now how that all links together, it's, you know, Eric's coming ally mountain. I know him vaguely. I know he races this king of the hammers thing. And I go on Google and start checking this out and find out that this king of hammers based in California and Don's Valley, you know, ended January every year and so I started doing some homework, you know, the races coming up in maybe two months. I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna go check this out. I'm gonna get plane tickets. We're gonna fly out there and look it over. So we're like late 2014 coming into the 2015 king of hammers, right, exactly. All right. So, you know I told my dad I said, Hey, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get plane tickets and go check out this king of hammers thing and his responses and our that Eric, Eric Miller runs there doesn't he say yeah, that's where Eric Miller runs You know, it looks like a pretty cool race. I'm gonna I'm gonna go check it out. And basically if you're getting tickets, get me and give me plane tickets all go with all right. So I said to my buddy, William Caden, which is my husband and Uncle, you know, say Hey, guys, you know, because they were very ingrained in the racing program at that point and they helped a lot and spend a lot of time Listen, so I said, Hey, guys, when I go out to the hammers and check the streets out, he's gonna he's gonna go with and tag along both of them. They were hook line and sinker man, let's go look. So we buy for plane tickets and a rental car man. And we had the Johnson Valley California with Not a clue on what we were walking into. I mean, we had we could have been the more tourists type people in the world. So we get to the you know, the hammer town gate and pay for a wristband, and we go in and We weren't that naive, like, we didn't think we were allowed to go inside hammer town. We thought it took a special band to get inside there and stuff, you know, so we're completely clueless and you know, we thought we snuck in and we didn't you know, we're sneaking around and we finally get inside the gates of hammer town. We're walking around. We have no idea where Eric's tent is. We didn't tell him we were coming. We don't nothing so we we get to this town we finally find it's 10 and never forget, they were in there working on it. It was the year Eric did the backdoor shootout and just nuked everything in the car like two days before the race, and they're in there and they're tearing riggers out of this car motor and transmission and radiators and pumps. I mean, the core was just laying in a pile of parts. And I'm going holy, you know, what is this stuff? You know, we watched the race and I had problems that year. I think he was second finished second or something like that. But regardless at the end of that race, I was done, man. I loved it. I wanted to do it. I had to do it. I couldn't I'm not doing it. And we came home from that race and I put a for sale sign on my my twist intentions corino

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, I got a question for you. Could you imagine going back today to your five year ago self like thinking you're sneaking in a hammer town and being like, ISRO in five years, five years, you're winning that thing. Can you imagine her? Never that's that's crazy, isn't

Josh Blyler :

it? Yeah, you just it should have never happened but it did. No, it

Wyatt Pemberton :

did. No, it didn't happen for a reason with the with good reason. But yeah, anyway, I had to digress there for a little bit and be like, that's quite a moment. Like, it's hadn't been many years. This is very recent history five years ago.

Josh Blyler :

It's just five years ago. It's been a pretty aggressive schedule for sure.

Intro/Outro :

Stay tuned. Your talent tank is in full yet.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Since 2007, custom splice has been the go to supplier for tactical on an off road vehicle recovery. equipment. Custom splice owner Todd Stoffer saw a market where demands for absolutely the safest solutions to vehicle recovery were not being met. Since then custom splice has taken on numerous safety and recovery projects solving deficiencies and recovery gear for individuals and companies worldwide was started with synthetic ropes has led to custom splices expansive inventory of not just ropes in countless colors and diameters but an expansive product line of hooks barrier leads specialty thimbles chafe guards to name a few plus the fabrication of custom splices newest addition, recovery rings not to be forgotten. Don't miss grabbing some custom splice soft shackles with your next order, which are also available in many sizes and colors. Even though custom splice is a small business in America's Heartland Kansas, you can find custom splice employees shipping their products globally on a daily basis. Let's support the small business that supports our community and the talent tank give Todd and his crew at custom splice a call at 785-856-1844 or go the website Custom splice.com before you get stuck without a custom splice solution

Intro/Outro :

now, back to the show.

Wyatt Pemberton :

You guys get back and you follow back up with Eric.

Josh Blyler :

So the first thing I did is I put my car up for sale because I'm I'm hook line and sinker. I'm building one of these things. I don't care what anybody tells me. I'm doing it. I had no idea how it was gonna do it, but I was doing it. So I put my race car up for sale. And you know, I just finished line mountain I was the points championship, like the worst finish I had all year was second. We really did good that year. And I thought, well, what a better time to sell a car than coming off a season like that, you know? So I put it up for sale. Lo and behold, some guy bought it. He still has it and he doesn't do a whole lot of racing with anymore but he still has the car and and has done well with it. But anyway, I sell this race car. And now I've got this fistful of cash and I have no idea what I'm doing. So I by this point, I have Eric's phone number. I call Have them up and say, oh, Eric, I'm kind of in a position. You know, racing season is only a couple weeks away, and I just sold my race car. And it was kind of another oshit moment, because I was that set on doing king of the hammers. I put my car up for sale it sold, and then it all kind of sunk in like, Oh shit, you know, racing seasons in two months, and I just sold my racecar. I've got nothing. What am I gonna do? So I knew Eric was toying with building a production version of his car. He said, But this point, Eric and I are really not much more than a name basis. Do we know each other's names? That's about as deep as it goes. I call him up. And I say, hey, Eric, I just sold my race car. I'm building one of these 4400 cars to go to go king of the hammers racing. You know, where are you sitting on your production chassis, I want to buy on your chassis, and he's like, man, we're nowhere. I've been struggling. You know, I've been with a couple shops and nobody's taking a hold of this thing. I don't have the time to invest to it. So I'm I'm ready. Nowhere I can't sell you a chassis. Am I Alright? So I was kind of bummed. And I said, well, would you help me? Just point me in the right direction, man, because this is a totally different world than what I'm used to. We figured out the lion mountain game and what to make go fast there. through trial and error. It took us a couple years, you know, we didn't start there fast. It took us a lot of years to figure out what worked. And I didn't want to go through that same learning curve and ultra force. So I said, Eric, would you just help me out? Tell me what works what doesn't geometry use these parts? Don't use these parts. Just point me in the right direction. And he said, Well, yeah, I'd help you anytime. And actually, I'll one up. Yeah. Are you interested in building my chasse? ease? Yeah, well, yeah. That feels like fun. They put Sign me up, man. So it really there to that whole thing. Probably from the outside looks like it was well more thought out than it really was. because there wasn't a whole lot of thought in it. You know, Eric said, Hey, would you build a chassis? And I said, Sure, let's do it. Literally, probably a week later, the 21 car The Miller Motorsports was sitting in this building. It's kind of semi stripped down, it had housings under it and everything but by no means a full blown race car and john Balducci. You know, that's where john Belushi comes into the program. So Eric brought the car up, turns us loose. JOHN knows what he wants changed. And that's really the first time I've got to meet john or have a lot of communication with john. But ultimately, john ends up living in my parking lot in a camper for six months, seven months, something like that, while we hash out the original chassis, on the fixture table, all of the designing all the programming changes he wanted made. And John's a very big part of this whole mess, orchestration whatever you want to call it.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, let's even talk about that a little bit because I was almost, you know, naive to this. I wasn't informed so I feel like a lot of people aren't, but Miller's pro chassis, and all the kind of the the weldments that go to it. You know, the the bracketry The geometry all those things you guys figured out in your shop, he had it figured out. But then you guys did you guys scan that chassis that original 21 chassis. And now Big B Motorsports manufacturers, pro chassis for Miller. And all the pieces that go with it today. Is that

Josh Blyler :

fair kind of it's semi fair, there's some forces that that aren't correct. By no means to be perfect that chassis, they had a what I'll call a 90% perfect chassis when it rolled in here. JOHN can tell you every nut bolt washer on that chassis in his sleep, you know, he was ingrained in that first car when they build it. And john is probably one of the most over top over thought, you know, people I've ever met in my life. And him and I got along awesome. And it's another part of this puzzle that like I said, it just it looks like everything was super planned out and spend a lot of time and it was just another one of those situations that it just clicked. john was this guy. That was just he had His reasons why we literally had a conversation in the shop one night, we probably talked and argued for three hours. And the result of the conversation was we moved it to a quarter of an inch. But, but right it was, it was a tube that needed moved this way or that way to make it more serviceable to make it easier to work on. And it was totally worth the move. But it's that's the kind of guy he is and just drove all the small details over the top. Ultimately, we ended up designing the same car they brought in here. We made some minor changes on it to make it easier to work on. We did a lot of work on the steering geometry to give it right math and make it turn. I'll never forget that night john started asking me questions about how we set up steering in the old cars. He brought up a word to me that I've never heard in my life was steering Ackerman and I'm going Oh, boy, did you just say man, it's like steering accurate. You know, how do you set up the steering on your old cars? We make them turn left and right. That's it. That's as deep as we got. And he looked at me like I was at from another planet. And you know, till it was all done, we ended up doing a lot of math and geometry and changed some things and a steering to make those cars turn better than they did, which was pretty amazing. But really it was, it was that form of element we modeled the car completely in SolidWorks every component, every nut washer, bolt, the engine drivetrain, everything is fully modeled. There's a ridiculous amount of time in the into the modeling. But it's it's proved itself. So worth it, you know. So that's kind of how that all evolved. It went from a phone call from me saying, hey, Eric, will you sell me a prototype chassis or a production chassis to I'll bring you a chassis to his mechanic living in my parking lot. And yeah, so it's all done. We're building Miller chassis and knock it out.

Wyatt Pemberton :

It's a it's an amazing story. It's really cool how you find synergies in people and you don't know what they're capable of until you ask or you don't know what they're capable of until you give them a chance. Right? Are you just even open your mouth and have the conversation with them and you're like, holy crap, you do that. Wow. Yeah, I've been looking for a guy to do that.

Josh Blyler :

Right? Yep, absolutely.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Sometimes again, this is back to the races sometimes better lucky than good some days.

Josh Blyler :

I will always take luck over good. Always.

Wyatt Pemberton :

When it was I guess recounted to me that that's what you guys that you were doing I actually believed that john is about duty brothers and Eric, were you bending every tube still for the protesters in his shop? I didn't know. It was just a piece of knowledge that I know is probably out there probably in public. I just didn't didn't know that. You guys were the ones sitting on top of that.

Josh Blyler :

No, it's really, you know, from because I was the outside world and I stepped into this world and I truly when I came in, I thought Eric's we're building these cars in this you know, super high tech crazy garage deal with all kinds of CNC machines and laser cutters and everything else and and I'll never forget my first trip down there. I walked in and I mean place with nice and very clean and everything else but it was nothing what I expected what it was was three guys with an insane amount of passion,

Wyatt Pemberton :

exactly in building something

Josh Blyler :

that they wanted to go conquer the world with. And it was a it was a really neat experience. It was nothing like I expected.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I mean, you can look at him and just say the blood, sweat tears and just the endless nights of not being able to fall asleep or waking up thinking about something in the middle of night on those chassis. You can see it there. You can feel it there. I mean, there there's something else. When is one of those cars going to come out with chicken wings on it?

Josh Blyler :

Well, I

Wyatt Pemberton :

don't know. I like that pregnant pause. You had a good pregnant pause and a chuckle there. There's something

Josh Blyler :

we've been actively chasing it and talking about it. I was pretty much a firm believer that it had to happen that if we ever wanted to win races on the West Coast again, we needed to do it. I still believe On the east coast in the trees in the mud this thing this little farm tractor is going to do good no matter what cameras is the curveball in my opinion I I've always believed that and even believe it or now that that we pulled it off that races you just know it is a horribly abusive race. You know, the chicken wings have come a long way they're getting better in the rocks they're getting tougher, but you're I don't know that you can ever build one as tough as you can have solid axle car. And the other thing I don't think you can ever do in one is turn like these cars these cars are siculus for turning this they look broken when you turn and you can just get in the rocks and wiggle them around and do their thing so I don't know I don't know if there ever will be a chicken wing maybe someday I don't know

Wyatt Pemberton :

no it's it's a good question. I mean it's a good question good answer like had your bed on it because I'm of the same fruition as we got out of King of hammers. I was asked. Okay, unlimited budget. Who do you have build you a car and what do you What do you build? And you can raise it anywhere? And I like man, I mean, you know, Maurice king of hammers, I believe the car needs to be a solid axle. Like for that race, I just because of the endurance, it's an endurance factor. I'm willing to have my eyeballs rattled out of my head in the desert to be able to get everything else works good. But if you can only build one car, I'm like, Well, I really want to go to Baja. I want to really want to race some best in the desert. You know, all of a sudden, it's like, well, solid axle probably. It's not the cart for for this guy. Right,

Josh Blyler :

exactly. But

Wyatt Pemberton :

you know, I guess if money wasn't an option, you know, if it wasn't a factor then yeah, absolutely. You do the exact same car one solid axle one wings and spicy wings. Beautiful system.

Josh Blyler :

Yeah. And get it and one of each for spares. You really need like four cars.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Yeah. And you you guys wanted up a car, right? Didn't you want a car? What was the story on that?

Josh Blyler :

So it's actually the car we won king of the hammers in this year. That car's got a very colorful history. It so my Oh gee car, the The original car that john and Eric and I built out of this shop, I've got an incredible amount of sentimental attachment at the core. I said that core will never all die with that core man. It's separately my side. I poured everything into that core, and I love it. It was getting to the point I'd ran that car three years, and I was pretty rough on it. I mean, we did a lot of winning and everything else, but it gave her some tough times. And I didn't want to kill it. So I decided I'm going to build a new car, total identical duplicate duplicate car of my original car. And I'm going to kind of semi retire the original car and kind of give her a good life and let her kick back and the new car and we'll build is strictly a tool. I'm not going to get attached to it. It's strictly going to be a tool and when she's used up, I'm going to sell it and we're going to build another one. So we did we build it and then we didn't cut any corners. We build a really nice car and put everything into it and you know, took it out there to shock tune.

Wyatt Pemberton :

You took it off the king of hammers. Yes, one night we hold it.

Josh Blyler :

Yep, we finished it in the fall of 20 or 27. 18 and hold it out the king of the hammers 2019. We'll load it. It's brand new. It's literally never seen dirt. I mean it left this garage and got rolled into into our trailer to haul it out the hammers, we unload it be bought around the desert for 5060 miles just kind of wore the new off of it and liked it and had a tuning session setup. And these cores always have had a an ass kick tune a little buck. You could get the front end of suck it up and your nose be run across the back tires and look at the dirt with your nose. You can tune it out at high speed and then the core suck that slow speed and if you made it really good at slow speed and had the bucket high speed so we kind of always just went in the middle and found happy ground and dealt with it. That particular year we had time available. We had the cars done early we we had the hammers and we're gonna that's our focus. We're gonna tune this Aster kick out of it and we threw some wild stuff at it you know, we're doing it with Wayne and and we threw some off the fence stuff on it and he's like, I don't know about this. This is kind of crazy. Don't push it I don't know how it's gonna work till we figure it out.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And there's no better person out there to work on. You know what you're working on is then with alltech Wayne Israel. So right now there's nobody better.

Josh Blyler :

You can't You can't paint a better picture than that man. And he's been involved with the Miller chassis since Miller built the first one. So he's got a huge amount of tribal experience on it and knowledge and yeah, I love Wayne Swain throws this package in and he says, I don't know how this is gonna act. This is really less skilled. Don't be an idiot. So okay, so we go out and found a spot, these cars would normally act up. And I made like a 40 mile an hour pass across it at a speed where the old setup absolutely would have at least through the ass in the air a little bit, and it did nothing. It stayed planted. And me being the genius that I am. I said, Well, we found it. It's fixed. I turn around and try making a 70 mile an hour pass and she wasn't ready for that. It stood us up and I'll never forget. It's the only accident I've ever been In my life that absolutely went in slow motion. You know, I've heard about it guys talking about time standing still and everything else. And it did man it felt like we were driving on the front wheels for an hour. And when that bumper touched the desert for the first time, that gorgeous went into this crazy car wheel and and it felt like it was up there for an hour. So we landed again. And it just never ended. We were just going, you know, front over back front over back. I have no idea how many times but we kind of land on the side. I mean, I knew the car was totaled. I mean the ride we just took it was gonna be in bad shape. You know, weighing and everybody comes running over and it was Nate sours that was with me at the time. And we were both good. And just it hurt my pride and we just took probably one of the prettiest cars and a lake bed and just totaled it in less than 50 miles.

Wyatt Pemberton :

You guys were fine. You guys were 100% Okay, no injury, no issue. Yeah, we were good. I mean,

Josh Blyler :

so she did she did exactly what she was built to do, right. She she did everything she was she the front Quick folded under and a little bit of work on the back but the center section the section that keeps you alive it didn't move at all it was it was perfect so anyway we we hooked the chain to it drag it behind the trailer and we joked about it we had it we were the only ones in hammer town with their own junkyard Outback you know parts Carson how back just completely torn pieces but we parked it out back in and I had my car with to pre run she was supposed to be retired at the time as kind of went over her and had a talk with her and said sorry girl But we're not done yet. We need to go back to work you know went race that core she she was not at hammers. You know, I took it there to pre run is what she was intended for. So you know, between totaling the car and which I should back up. It's 150% my fault. That was just an idiot. going too fast too quickly. I drove way before that car was ready to drive. And if I didn't just ramped up like Wayne. Well, me too. We could have found it, we could have saved a car we did

Wyatt Pemberton :

a live and learn, right? You know, one of the biggest things that I know, I know you are a big proponent of this, learning from your mistakes, right? You'll never you'll never do that again and you'll never let anyone around. You do that again. You're like, Listen, you're not ready. I mean crawl before you run, walk before you run. Let's do this. Yep.

Josh Blyler :

Yeah, for sure. The I've learned a lot from steaks and it's kind of something my dad beat into me at a very young age is you know, number one, don't screw up kid or I'm gonna kick your ass. But if you do screw up, take the situation you're in and handle it. You're the one that put yourself in that situation. It's nobody else's fault. Handle it make the best of it, do what you got to do. So that's what we did. You know we put that car behind the trailer and and said we'll deal with when we get home, drug the big car out and went raised hammers and had some problems. You know, unconsciously that that whole wreck was in the back of my mind the whole time. I know every time we went over a little bump. I was checked way up I was my butthole was puckered, and I didn't want to crash again. So that particular race was our worst king of the hammers finish ever. We finished 11th. And we honestly we ran across the finish line and I was, you know, because that particular year we went there with the best crew I've ever had. We were the most prepared. You know, we went to the lake bed with three, completely ready to rip 4400 cars two days in, we had to wreck badly. And we just made a whole lot of work for ourselves that we didn't have to but regardless, I still had one of the best crews I've ever built. It was the to date it was the best crew went out there made a mess. We come across the line 11th and I'm hurt man, I'm going this sucks. You know this. This sucks,

Wyatt Pemberton :

man. That's perspective, though. I want to check you on that. I mean that feels just to finish. For there's a lot of people that have never finished right, right and you finished every single time you've entered which walking on water. I mean that that puts you in an Echelon that people can't you know, fathom But you finished 11th. And that's your worst finish ever. And that's so long like, Josh. I mean, at this point,

Josh Blyler :

I'm like, you're saying pretty much exactly what my wife said to me because we get back to the trailer. And I'm like, Yeah, we got 11th. And she's like, What is wrong with you, kid? And we finished 11th we're better than that. You know, I have a, I'm not saying that. ignorant. The team was better the team deserve better than that the team was better prepared. Being hard on yourself is fully within reason,

Wyatt Pemberton :

right? It's fully in scope.

Josh Blyler :

And she's like, I thought all you ever wanted to do is finish this race. So yeah, but that was before we finished it. You know, now I want to put it on the podium. I just want to get on that box somehow. And like I said, she was kind of a reality check. And I, you know, sat back and thought about I'm like, you know, jackass, she's right. All you ever wanted to do was finish this race. 11th isn't so bad. And that's when I went Chin up kid and, you know, and I was happy with what we went through and to be able to pull off in 11 it was a win.

Wyatt Pemberton :

No, absolutely. Because Come back from the adversity that you guys had earlier in the week. I mean wrecking a car and I mean, just that's a huge hurdle, and still hold your chin up and finish and within 11 place, that's an amazing feat to get there from where you were mentally. Couple days earlier.

Josh Blyler :

Yes, for sure. 100%

Wyatt Pemberton :

always perspective you know, what, what is it? What is that silver lining? And sometimes it does. That's why just like you in life, you know, with, certainly with Laurie, with your dad with the guys that you surround yourself on the team, surround yourself with the best people the best of the best, right, that are gonna help you elevate your game. And yeah, I get that you don't want to let them down. But at the same time, you know, you surround yourself with them so that you can always elevate each other like you're never a plane from the bottom. So, you know,

Josh Blyler :

it's kind of cool about our crew is a lot of people think we're pretty harsh, because we elevate each other not through Hey, buddy. Good job. Let's do it. It's a idiot. How do you screw that up? Hey, stop, suck. That's our motivation. Right there, you know, so we're kind of Different on those lines, but it works. You know, it's uh, we're heavy on the ballbusting

Wyatt Pemberton :

that's the Gilbert sister School of motivation

Josh Blyler :

100% that's why we get along with those guys. So good. Yeah, they don't cut any slack either.

Wyatt Pemberton :

absolutely zero. So, next chapter k ah 2020. Man, what a run. So 2019 you come back from 11th place you were hard on yourself but really, you had a you had a success. I'm calling it a success. I think you're finally there too. But then you knock out the the points championship for ultra for racing for the 4400 class for 2019 you're number one number one in the fall and then you've got a you know, handful of months no less a handful months with a big target on your back going into ko Ah, and let's go. Let's talk through prep. Let's talk through journey. Let's talk through your week.

Josh Blyler :

So I'm going to ask up just to 2019 hammers for a second you know 2019 hammers we finished we did the 11th place with the car the original car, I wanted the brand new one we come home from that we tear the new one down and I mean it basically took a whole front clip rear clip but I wanted to do it right so we completely tore it down to nothing put it back on the fixture prove that the center section stayed and then move a wink and when we start rebuilding that thing but I'm kind of rebuilding that thing along at the same time of keeping boji Racing so oh gee stuck with me for the whole 2019 season she she was supposed to be retired and then she got brought out and had base the whole season and didn't do bad at it right? No she did. She got pretty good and you know the whole way along and we won we went to the three East Coast races with it. And now we're going into nationals leaving the points race by that time. Oh gee, oh gee had did all the work. The new car which was dubbed bc is completely back together ready to race. And I'm taking them both with me to Reno. I made up my mind that I was going to race Oh g at Reno even though bc was the better suited car bc was going to sit on the sidelines and get a lesson taught tour. You know, stand here watch how this is done. I mean the old girl are gonna go go try to win this championship. And she did man she she held together and and that was a difficult race for me because I wanted to race hard so bad. But I also had a championship I was trying to win. And I just, I needed it all the workout and it did again, we got lucky. You know, Paul horschel was was on the line there. He could have knocked us out. You know, Unfortunately for him the the cards went our way he had a bad day had some mechanical problems. And if it wasn't for that he probably would have wrapped up championship But anyway, that the cards ran in our favor. Oh gee, and I ran the whole year and we wrapped up the championship for the team. So we left 2019 you know now nationals and we did our our annual trip to Johnson Valley to pre run. So Bo g was all beat up from racing nationals the new car bc I break her out and that's where we eat we come to terms on how to get along and and we raced. We didn't race we pre ran that car for a week in Johnson Valley right after Reno. So beat it around. That's where we got to know each other and really got to get along. Brodeur brought them both home from that trip and rebuilt. Both of them and dad's car suite totally rebuilt three cars between Reno nationals and 2020 king of the hammers. That's a lot. It's a lot of work. That's for the we're very fortunate to have the fruit guys because again, if it wasn't for them, we would have never pulled it off. So at this point, the BC car the new car was built brand new, totaled in shock tuning, brought home completely rebuild again, then took out a shocker I'm sorry to pre running, basically. I mean, we consider a pre run trip to King of the hammers is basically what we put on Miles wise till it was done pre running it was all shot again so we brought it home completely rebuild it again and it had never stepped foot on a Racecourse yet so 2020 king of the hammers is the first time that court got to dance see she redeemed herself pretty good because the honestly I don't like that car a whole lot she gave me nothing but troubles from the word go and you know we had it in that wreck and we just we kind of see together I really good but she she figured out how to win king of the hammers. So she's she's making a comeback pretty quick. So that's how we get now we're at 2020 king of the hammers. Oh gee is finally doing what she was intended to do. She's a pre runner and sitting back and relaxing. BC is going to be the racecar and of course then we got dad and a happy Pappy. And you know, there was there was kind of side bets all over the place. You know, dad had quite a bit bigger motor than I did. And all the guys here at the shop and the rest of the team. They had side bets on who was going to beat who in the qualifying lap, I'd say got that one, but

Wyatt Pemberton :

didn't need to hit From your dad huh?

Josh Blyler :

Yeah, I got him quiet it down for a little bit but we left the line for 20 hours with the same attitude we leave for every other race we want to drive fast but it's been smooth and consistent and always forward motion you cannot afford to stop for any so you got to take care of your car to make it live even with all that being said there's enough things that can take you out you don't need to flirt with it but you know we left align what I felt was very calm cool and collected you know three quarters of the way or halfway through the the first desert loop we we had a flat so we we run tire liners and tire balls inside the liners we ran as long as we could on the liner got to a safe place change the tire. Up to that point we really had held our own. We passed a couple cars but we're really holding on we're holding better than I thought we could in the desert. So we changed the tire but at time dad got around us a whole slew of other people. We changed the tire and depth What I thought are a true thought kind of screw up data just that that flat was that was taking us out of any serious contentions for anything. I definitely not even thinking that was possible. I was just trying to get on the box man, it's all I wanted to do. And you know, Jared, my my co driver he'd said, you know, we're not done yet just keep running a race we'll be fine. And that's all we did. We just, we ran smooth, clean. I didn't have any more flats the rest of the day. I didn't have any mechanical issues. The core was flawless there too. It just I should be all of that to the shop you know that all the time and effort we put into our PrEP is immense and and i think that's that's a grant a lot of our success to that but just ran a really clean smooth race and you know, just started picking people off and cruising along

Wyatt Pemberton :

and people just kept breaking. Like as soon as they were listed in the like they will be announced that hey, that's this the new leader, new race leader right within the within 15 They would be out and it just happened it just kept happening kept happening kept happening

Josh Blyler :

man the one I feel and I don't know everybody's situation on the guys that broke down I don't know all the details but you know the one that I heard that just I feel so bad for is Bailey Campbell you know for one understand a water pump pulley cracked and look around. Yeah, he trapped for that man. That is just you that is crapshoot one and I mean, she walked she was walking away. She laughed. She had that thing wrapped up. So there's gonna be so many situations like that. I'm sure where it was our day it's, you know, 1000 things went wrong and we didn't happen to pick up any of them and got us the wind. But it's it's a crapshoot, man.

Wyatt Pemberton :

It is. And so there you are like as we've watched, yeah, 12 different race lead changes and like you said, you mentioned Bailey there but you know, Camp steel in there for a while. I remember at one point watching the helicopter, had you and cam kind of mixing it up of some rock trails, and then you get around him and then You know, Marcos is, you know, fully fully in the race. It's you versus him. But he you know, since he had since he rolled in, in qualifying, he's way at the back. So he's got this huge time lead on kind of everybody because of where he started on corrected time. And then you're but your physical lead your first on the road, you're coming into the back door. From the top side, you're dropping in the back door, the first little baby ledge at the top. what went on in your head, you know, like you talked about the slow motion roll as you went into over in NBC. They're shocked to me with Wayne. Was that kind

Josh Blyler :

of the same one at different and that was I just quit driving 100% that was an idiot move. I watched the video afterwards and I'm going Dude, what were you doing? I not only did I enter wrong, I did nothing about it. It gave me forever to do something. I just kind of sat there and said okay, all over. I'm cool with I'm done, both chaired and myself my co pilot. When we finally got meta back at the finish line, you were both like, Man, what the hell happened? And that happened so fast and in the car, it seemed like we just drove in there. It was upside down. lickety split. I don't know what I don't know how to explain it, but we screwed up. I screwed up that

Wyatt Pemberton :

do you think that you've because of the length of the race and the just the mental strain? You think you were truly mentally fatigued on that?

Josh Blyler :

No, I don't. I wasn't tired. And I didn't know we had the race one I knew we were doing well. And I knew we were in the physical lead. But and like the guys do, they tell us as little as possible on the radio because I don't like a lot of information. I end up listening to them instead of driving. You know, the last communication we had was second place and they didn't they never even told us we were in the lead. You know, I got tangled up with Cameron steel. And you know, I'll never forget it too. We got around him. Wayne was just getting back in the car. They got done Winston and we had shot the line and got through and I said to Jared is if we just pass Cameron steel Can you believe that and you know, the guy's a legend and we all dream to be Cameron Steele and we just got to pass him. So that was really cool. And we get around Cameron. And after that man every corner I'd make and I could look back out the window net. I could either see him or his dust cloud. I knew he was he was staying with us and then I was driving my nuts off trying to stay ahead of them because I knew once we got in the desert, he was going to eat my lunch so if I knew if we had a chance to stay ahead of them it was going to be in the rocks. So I just drove and drove and drove and at one point Mikey the radio guy got on the radio he said, Hey, just letting you guys know the second place guide broke using Calm down, but Don't slack off too bad Gomez may get you on corrected time. And that's the first time I put it together. When he said the second place guide is broke. So I just responded back I pushed the button and said was second place Cameron steal my your slide deck? Yes. That's what I knew we were in the physical lead. They never told us anything like that. So I just he gave me too much information. I put it together that we had the physical your smart fella right? That's probably where I crumbled when so from that point on going dude we're leading the king of the hammers and yeah just I Rookie rookie mistake drove in there I don't know what I was thinking I don't know if I was thinking about getting across the finish line or what I was going to say because I hate talking on the radio or the the microphone anyway. I don't know what was going through my mind but looking at the video it's safe to say 100% I quit driving and it whatever was going on in my head was not driving.

Wyatt Pemberton :

It was something else want to happen ever. You know, hammer count erupted with just yeah, I made good TV. Oh, it absolutely did. And then they got your writing quick. And, you know, lickety split, got on down into the short course and cross the finish line. How did that feel crossing

Josh Blyler :

that was a little touching go. Another very fateful decision that I made. That worked and it probably shouldn't have. The one we were the whole time. We were laying on the side, that little ledge of backdoor I stayed in because the game plan was let's flip this thing over quick and I'm Take off Jerry, you're staying out the whole time we were laying there that was oil running past the window net that was in the dirt. And we do have I mean the whole cars have the breather system. It's the to the rules and the four sides and down and everything else like that. It just it was the way it was laying. It allowed my my engine crank to be drained. And I drained all the engine oil out laying there. I knew we had an accumulator on the car. And I was pretty sure the accumulator was going to be dead because we laid on the side after we roll on it a little bit on the throttle trying to get the thing to do something either finished rolling or flips back and the wheels so I was pretty sure I was pretty rough on the accumulator oil during that. So anyway, they flip us over, I hit the accumulator switch and sure enough, there's not a drop in oil pressure gauge doesn't even wiggle and it was just subconscious split, split second decisions. You know, I'm still at this point. I'm thinking Gomez is coming and I just pissed away, probably any advantage I have. So I just decided I'm going for it with Well you know we had four quarts of oil in the back of the car but in a split second I decided it wasn't worth the two minutes but do oil and she'll make it so I hit the start button started up again the oil pressure gauge and even though and I dropped off a back door and headed headed for the finish line about halfway there I was thinking to myself this was really really stupid because just in my mind I could picture me getting into like the Ford arch and the motors coming apart completely and pieces blown outside and there I'd be sitting and let the whole field come around me and at that point I was thinking maybe I should have just taken oil and settled for a second place finish you know, it's just what was going through my head but fortunately she she stuck with me it the motors completely ruined but I'll ruin a motor for a king of the hammers when any day

Wyatt Pemberton :

absolutely cannot. You cross the start finish line. They flag it you get the checker you pull off, and then the wait begins for Marcos. How did that go? what went on in your head? During that lull

Josh Blyler :

it and I truly, truly mean at this point to even be in contention for the demon behave this guy may one that was good enough for me. You know, I was pretty confident at that point I was getting my podium and and that's all added everything for after the point of winning the race or for finishing the race. So just to be in contention that we may be a winner. That that was enough. As far as the time that 15 or 20 minutes or whatever we had to wait there that went by the snap of a finger. It just that was my next question was how fast or how slow? It seemed like an instant later, it was all figured out. It was just everything is going a million miles a minute and you know, congratulations. And you know, Eric pulled in and I got to talk to him and Robbie and there was enough going on that the time flew by before I could even know it so that wasn't a problem. Oh yeah.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Eric looked like he was on a pogo stick. He was bouncing around. Like from car to car. Up and Down hug and high five. And I mean, Lee was there with the baby. I mean, just they were, I don't think he could have been happier. I don't think there was a more proud or happier person there about your win than him.

Josh Blyler :

No, it's been, you know, our relationship has been awesome. off the track. We're best friends and we'd do anything for each other any, any condition anywhere. on the racetrack. We certainly just want to beat each other. But Same deal. I mean, I've taken second place there already. And and it's awesome. You know, it's awesome to see two cars that are super identical with two guys that drive I think extremely identical. How consistent those two cars can be all the time. So it's fun.

Wyatt Pemberton :

It's kind of like the planets and the stars align on that. Yeah. Yep. So here you are. Jason chairs handed you the scepter Dave Cole has announced You're the man. King, the hammers 4400 winner you drive a car. off the stage, you're the guy. Go back to PA. I'm seeing the background. And that's what the the people that listen to the show do not get to see, right? They don't get to see the video of you're sitting in the shop. There's two proach assays. What would you say they're about 50% torn down each of them maybe more.

Josh Blyler :

They're both missing their engine, transmission transfer case drive line. Really the only thing that's in them right now is a little bit of plumbing and electrical. Other than that they're completely stripped.

Wyatt Pemberton :

They look pretty gone. So yeah.

Josh Blyler :

Yep. And that's man, it's part of our program, too. I, I pride ourselves on on on the prep that this team does. And that was another thing I've always said if I can't do it, right. I don't want to do it. You know, so we've got to take these things to every race. I mean, they're they're 100% they could race hammers at any point. It's one of the biggest things for the continued success of this team is just race prep, man, just hammer hammer and hammer and and you're right. A lot of people don't see the amount of work and a lot of guys think You just take it home, you give it a wash job and you maybe changed motor oil and off you go. And it really couldn't be further from the truth. You know, these things come pretty much completely apart every single race and you know, there's something that's not 100% you fix it 99% isn't gonna cut it and that we've always just stuck with that.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, where I was going with that was, you know, hammers was really barely over a month ago. I'm sure you celebrated. But immediately you guys get back to pa and you're back in the shop, you're back, cranking it out, you're back, stripping it down, you're back, making the cars back new. No rest for the wicked. Right?

Josh Blyler :

Right. The bc car, you know, I knew I had that car that motor new coming across the line. That car wasn't home for four days and the motor was out at the at the engine builder already. So I mean, it came back, washed, it tore it down, engine out and off it went so it's forever man and it's the ultra for racing, especially if you're gonna do the whole you know, a series east or west And hammers, there really isn't an offseason, you know, because yeah, like all what you would think well, winter, you get to relax Well, no all winter, you're rebuilding to go to hammers, which is in the middle of winter. And as soon as you get home from hammers, you got to start all over again because the next race is in a month or two and it's there's just no offseason. It's constant.

Wyatt Pemberton :

It's a good challenge, though. And clearly, you've risen to that occasion on numerous occasions at this point over the past four years to constantly be putting in that work. And you're right, that people don't see that they see when you're at the race they see you at your during the race, and they see you slightly after the race, they don't see the countless and hundreds and thousands of hours just spent toiling away on this chassis chasing this dream and, and you've chased a dream and you continue to attain it and meet it and reach it and exceed it. pretty badass. And so when anyone looks at me and says, Hey, who's Josh beiler I'm gonna say how do you not know who Josh beiler is? I mean, that seriously, how do you not know who this guy is? And you know, now we've got We've got you on the record for So what's next? What's next for you?

Josh Blyler :

You know I've been asked that question a whole lot they're like well now you one can the hammers what's your next thing you know what are you what are you gonna go next and you know this we're gonna you know my game plan has still stuck we're I'm having a blast the rest of the crews having a blast you know I get to do this with my dad we're going to do this as long as we're having fun or as long as we can afford it whichever one comes first. Like I said we're having fun I don't know what's next we're going to we're going to ride this train maybe forever I don't know but we're going to run it so it's it's no longer fun or or the crews not interested anymore and we're just gonna keep sticking with this as long as we as long as we can.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I support you winning again I support you win and even like maybe two more times. Once you've won three times I don't know if I'm gonna be able to support you I'm gonna practice like they are now supporting the the new younger you know, the next guy who'd no one says they've heard about but it's one of the points championship for a couple years in a row. I'll be like, that's the guy I'm asking. I'm giving you a hard time.

Josh Blyler :

Yes. Yep, I'm with you 100% man

Wyatt Pemberton :

well Hey Josh did we cover kind of everything about your story that you wanted to get off your chest and kind of get out there? I think so you covered all the bases for me man I like I had an absolute blast going down the this rabbit hole with you and really telling your story and the people that exactly that that came forward and we're like Hey, who is who was this guy and like know this you should know this guy. This is this guy should be a household name. Well, now you You are a household name. Now they have something and some color and some dialogue to go behind that I hope. Hope you gained some fans by that by appeal. Just listening to you. You're super likable guy. I love some of your saying some of your nuances. Dude. Very nice to have had you on the show. Thank you for agreeing. And congratulations, man.

Josh Blyler :

Yeah, no problem. Why? It's everybody. It's no secret. I don't like the interviews or the speeches or anything like that. I'm not. It's not my cup of tea. It's not why I'm doing this. It's It's cool. And I'm glad you guys are interested. It's just awesome. I'm uncomfortable with it. So it's hopefully you can do something with

Wyatt Pemberton :

you fooled me, but I've been told that about you that you are kind of that way and reserved. And, man, I hope I brought it out to you because I really felt like we've had a I've had a good, you know, two hours with you. So I hope everyone that listens they have a good two hours to and they feel like they're on their commute to work and they're sitting there listening. They're like, Man, that was fun. I like Josh.

Josh Blyler :

I hope you're right, man. I hope you're right.

Wyatt Pemberton :

All right. Well, hey, we'll let you get back to it. But Josh, thank you. Congratulations, and good luck on 21. Man, I know you guys and what the effort that Big B puts into everything that you guys do you guys do it? 100% and then some. I have no doubt you guys are gonna be close to a repeat this year on points and probably close to repeat again. hammers and 21. But man, awesome.

Josh Blyler :

Keep it up. Don't stop. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Wyatt Pemberton :

All right, guys, we are out. I'd like to thank our sponsor for this episode, custom splice offroad recovery gear. For all of your offroad recovery needs, reach out to these guys customsplice.com

Intro/Outro :

Thank you for listening and taking a dive into The Talent Tank. Please like and subscribe on Instagram at detail intake or our website, the talent tank calm