The Talent Tank

EP 24 Jason Berger

May 04, 2020 Jason Berger Episode 36
The Talent Tank
EP 24 Jason Berger
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.

Prepare to be motivated and inspired on this Episode of The Talent Tank.  Known simply as "Coach" or more endearingly as the "Winning-est Co-Driver in Off-Road History" none other than Jason Berger @crossfitsally.  We've all heard tale of this "Legend" from Truckee, CA.  Now finally having the opportunity to sit down and dissect what drives this guy.  What makes him tick, and how he has inspired numerous, motivates the masses, and keeps a select few, best in the world offroad racecar drivers continuously in the podium hunt conversation.  ULTRA4 Racing deals out the toughest courses on the planet, Jason doles out the ways to mentally and physically be the most prepared in mind and body before taking them on, exceeding goals, and remaining positive in the face of anything but.  Did we mention Jason is into CrossFit, don't worry he'll tell you he is, but he's much more than that.  Successful business owner of Dreamtown CrossFit, prolific philanthropist, humbled husband, fiercely driven competitor once the green flag drops 

After the Checkered Flag-
To understand CrossFit’s success it’s important to first idenitfy what CrossFit is and how it sets itself apart in the fitness industry.  CrossFit  uses aspects of gymnastics, weightlifting, running, rowing, etc. to test the body’s capabilites and stretch its limits. In addition to these focus areas, intensity is another integral part of CrossFit’s proposition. That a key way to test the body’s limits is to not only challenge it with new and varied movements but to maximize the amount of work done in the shortest period of time. They explain that by employing a constantly varied approach to training, functional movements and intensity lead to dramatic gains in fitness https://www.crossfit.com/

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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 of the talent tank brought to you by three amazing partners, custom splice offered recovery equipment, briny motor sports custom machine, and magnitude performance a mass Motorsports company. Enjoy. All right, here we go. Another episode of the talent tank back in session, we're going for a dive here with none other than the winningest co driver and ultra for history. Or so he's been called. We've got Jason Berger on with this. Jason. Thank you for coming on the show, man. How are you? I'm doing great.

Jason Berger :

Why thank you for having me. And that's quite an introduction. I don't I don't know if that's true or not. Thank you.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, there's a lot of drivers out there. And one particular owes a whole bunch of hardware and glory and sponsors and trajectories and you know, just everything to a lot of the hard work that you've put in, leading up to getting into the right seat and then doing right seat work forum that says a lot about you. And they've all said a lot about you. So we want to get into who you are. Let's do it. Well, almost have to laugh here. But you know, when we're doing like, the pre interview stuff, I talked to you at hammers this year, I came over to see Jason shearing and that's what you co drive for. And that's it. That's who you were. You've coached him for a lot of people. You've won with JT Taylor, you've won with Shannon Campbell. Have you won with Nick Campbell?

Jason Berger :

No, we did. The only race we did actually Rob was co driving was a Silver State 300 which was my first actual desert race. That was an absolute, you know, a dream come true for me to get into that car and it was it was actually very The car known as Oprah, and I still have that car because we don't know the name of that car.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, I'm gonna get there because I do want to know the backstory that and then you've done time with Wayland Campbell. Yep, there's so I mean, you have been the I mean starstruck I mean guys that everybody looks up to, you know, winning drivers or in the organization. And there you are, kind of in the, you know, shrouded in secrecy the best kept secret in ultra for is this Jason burger guy, even all the way back to the rock sport days. But going back all the way back to the rock sport days, there's a thing called pirate four by four. And on pirate four by four there was there's a story about how more than 3000 people on pirate saw your junk and stare at your junk and didn't realize they're staring at your junk. What's the story on that?

Jason Berger :

Wow, what a great way to start the interview. That's gonna be downhill from here for sure. So that story goes so you know I went to the hammers back in 1998 Seven I think it was and I had a bronco on 30 fives and you know we loaded up a couple of the Broncos didn't know what we were doing at all had only ever been on for dice or Rubicon you know it seen some of the videos and and we cruise down there and we were broken down at the bottom of claw hammer and an absolute private Cooper needed to get off trail hiked up this canyon was like, wow, this is just insane, right? Maybe someday. And so we went back in 2006 I think it was and and you probably know Tom waves good friend of mine and a couple other people and the whole thing was filmed. We went up there and opened up what's called full of hate. And and you know, it's just a typical hammers weekend before we all started racing where there was just a lot of partying, having a good time, literally, you know, kind of embarrassing to say as being open the cooler and be like, oh, we're out of beer, you know, it's only one o'clock. That type of deal. Just a boy's trip right. So we're up on the on the way back And getting back to camp and we just kind of all met in the middle of this one trail. Some people were back at camp, some people were stood on the trail, we kind of match up, you know, just being idiots or whatever. We kind of piled all of our cars up on top of each other. Like, you know, we kind of used to do the old days, like drive up on everybody's hood, little rig stalking. Yeah, exactly. You know. So what had happened is a friend of mine who passed away a few years ago, his name is Mike Turner. He had handed me his camera and he said, Hey, you know, take some pictures of this because his rig was all piled up there and stuff. And so we did that. And then like four or five days later, Tom Waits and posted this whole trip on pirate, right? It's up there for a couple days. 3000 views Tom calls me He's like, Hey, dude did to Bryce by chance. Take a picture of his balls. He's talking balls and I go, now Bryce wouldn't do that. This is Bryce Johnson and him. You may or may not know he's been around with Kevin Yoder team for a long time. Super good dude. And I'm like, No, Bryce wouldn't do that, like totally something I would do. And he's like, did you do and I'm like, No, I didn't. Do that, you know? And literally why like two days later I'm walking out to my garage I remember like opening the door and I went, oh no. Those are my cock and balls. I remember taking my Turner's camera thinking this is his personal camera right? So pull my pants back took a shot and then completely forgot about it. Tom, I guess it's a little embarrassing to say yes. didn't really look like a real cock and balls, but just posted the picture and call the campfire. And as he started to look a little bit closer. And so there was a part of me that was is I don't know, I was a little bit proud that 3000 people have stared at their prior four by four screen to figure out what the hell that was.

Unknown Speaker :

That's terribly awesome.

Jason Berger :

Yeah. I mean, how often can you in in life get an opportunity for 3000 people to stare at your junk, right?

Wyatt Pemberton :

I know. That's great. So there I wanted to hear that story. I kind of knew a little bit but yeah, so back to full hate though. Yeah, that was you guys. went out there and broke for hate

Jason Berger :

yeah so I kept on her but I had this this great trail in mind and at that time you know ways was building his car and doing a little bit more competition stuff, my buggy and I was doing x RA and you know doing you rock and so we had the vehicles that were capable upon something like that off and at that time, you know, running the center that Canyon and Tom Woods came up with the name full of hate that was a trip fabrication Tom weighs like, pull deal back on when they were good friends. Tom always had that name full of hate. So I wanted to name the trail and then I kind of let it and it was an awesome trail at the time was super difficult. Now, you know, we kind of there's just so many bypasses around everything, but I got to tell you why. Like when I wrote with Jason in 2002, three years ago, I think was three years ago is the first time we ever ran full of hate. And it was it was pretty exciting to finally actually run, you know, kicking the hammers and have a trail that I had actually found myself that was in the race

Wyatt Pemberton :

is super, I guess surreal is the word I put back to it like that you are a part of history. You're a part Have that original expedition team there? And I mean, you've been a part of rock sports for greater than 20 years. I mean, no surprise. I mean, but it's part. It's kind of cool that now there's so many people have read that. And it's been a recent topic of discussion. But now there's bypasses for all the hard rocks, right?

Jason Berger :

Yeah, yeah, I mean, you can, I wouldn't have even attempted to take my Bronco up there on 35. You know, even lockers front and rear at the time. And now, I mean, other than being a little bit off camber on some of that stuff. It's a bypass all the way around. And when we race, we've got a couple rocks that are a little bit difficult on the way up, it's absolutely nothing on the way down. And Dave's never forced us to run down the center of that let's

Wyatt Pemberton :

before we really get into the meat and potatoes of who you are, while we're having this still kind of topical discussion about co Ah, what is your opinion about the race line? Is it the 50 feet either side of the course is still game on when you're in the canyons or should the rule be like from rich to rich? Or should it be you need to if there's rocks in it, you need to run the rocks in

Jason Berger :

it, you know, I'm fine with with pretty much whatever. It's just I, I can't stand gray areas and and gray areas always create a lot of problems and unfortunately over the years, and it's just like running any business like I'm not like throwing Dave under the bus or anything?

Unknown Speaker :

Not at all. That's not the thought right

Jason Berger :

as you move along you go, oh, man, I didn't think about that, you know. And so in our goal is it just like we used to do rock crawling is to be smarter than the person who's setting the course out think them. And so when you say 50 feet either side, that's a pretty good rule because that means you run in the center. But the problem we've had over the years was that some trials were allowed to be up on the ridge, some trails, we had to be down in the center, and as we've progressed, the definition of what that is, I think has gotten really clear and much better than it was in the past.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Do you think on some trails that it is now deemed that 50 foot from the line is actually 50 foot from the centerline. bypass?

Jason Berger :

Well, yeah, I mean, it's a tough tough one, right? So it is, and I, you know, the virtual checkpoints have helped fix that problem, you know, then and there was one on a jackhammer this past year where you had to stay in the center and then once you hit that virtual checkpoint, you popped right up onto the left, and then you cruised along the road and bypass the center until you got up to the more difficult stuff.

Wyatt Pemberton :

We hear this every every year out of like Dave and JT and company. You know, this is the hardest year you know, this. We've, you know, this year it was, hey, we've added four new trails we've had out of guacamole, we've made it harder and harder and harder and it's still the toughest one day race, blah, blah, blah, is still the toughest one day race in your opinion, because it feels like the leaders come back pretty quick this year. They definitely did in UTV. It didn't seem like a tough race in UTV. Unfortunately, I didn't get to run very far with the UTV race this year. I think Shannon is right

Jason Berger :

30 models, which that's a new PR for me in terms of Racing. So I didn't get an opportunity to do that to see if it was but they were back really fast. And that did surprise me. I didn't think that was gonna happen that quickly. But I'm sure you spent some time The utvs are amazing vehicles. I am and they truly are. What you can put those things through is kidding. It's not the same as 4400. But you know, I mean, we had one this year in our 4400 class. That did pretty darn well, right. I mean, he's a pretty good driver, Cody Miller. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know that it's getting easier. I think that we I would like to think that we're getting a little bit better at what we're doing. And then I'd like to think that that the people who are designing the cars are getting that much better and what they're designing,

Wyatt Pemberton :

I think that's all fair assessments. I mean, you allowed me to put you on the point there but just hot seat for all of it. But no, I think that's a somewhat fair assessment on kind of all them. I don't know what the solution is. I do feel like it needs to be I know it's a challenge and you know, throwing rocks from the cheap seats here, but It does feel like everybody came has came back a lot quicker and easier in the finish rates have there's been somewhat of a scope creep and in how many finishers you have. So is the solution to continue the status quo. But LinkedIn, the course go from 200 to 300 miles or whatever that is, continue to allow, if the course is going to be somewhat watered down, then let's make it longer. Let's add in the endurance, the heart endurance of the equipment to where now it's not so much a sprint, as much as now it's you actually need to balance the car versus yourself and whatever there. I mean, that's somewhat of an incomplete thought. But

Jason Berger :

no, but I think that what we need to realize is we're probably and I don't know, I'm kind of shooting off the cuff here. Think about how many trails actual rock trails, we run 2528, whatever it is, like there's there's a bunch of them in there. That's probably been pretty similar over the years, maybe we've added some of those and we've gotten a little bit faster in the rocks, but when I think Back to 2009. If Jason and I could run at that time with his car 75 miles an hour, 80 miles an hour through the whoops, we were we were moving and we did really well that year. We are doing 120 now. So you know, we can we can lengthen the course in terms of miles and still be coming back in the same amount of time. If it's a desert portion that we're lengthening, because we're going 30% faster than we were 10 years ago.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Exactly. Yeah, that's that was exactly where I was going. Well, we will dive into deeper indicators here towards the end of our session, but here in the beginning, we're here to talk about you. Jason Berger. California guy, Truckee. Were you born in Truckee, or I know you're from the Lake Tahoe area to begin with.

Jason Berger :

So now I moved up here when I was one. I was born in Oakland, California. And then my dad's a Berkeley grad, and they both my parents want to get out of the Bay Area and came up here and actually started it sounds crazy, but they started ambulance business in 1973 where they were hired by the at that time I was hired out by the hospital and that's kind of how we got our startup here but I've been here ever since.

Wyatt Pemberton :

So loose math in my head says you're about to turn 50

Jason Berger :

I got I'll be 49 this summer but yeah, I'm I'm closer to the end and I was to the beginning

Wyatt Pemberton :

but you're still killing it though. That's the that's the cool part. Jason fear when he told me about what he told me about an instance with you when he realized that you were legit like you were the dude like you were the guy and you guys were snowmobiling. He jumped off like a big mountain of snow and landed in in some water something and you guys are freezing and changing a belt and freezing. And he like was like, Oh crap, we're gonna die here. What's the plan? He finally like musters up like, what's the plan to you? And you're like, well, we're gonna fix this belt here. And if we don't get that belt fixed we've got that's Plan A then Plan B and Plan C. And he's also like, this guy was just cool as a cucumber. I don't know exactly what his words to describe you but he's like this guy. Cool he's level headed in the face of adversity he's uh he's already worked through the problems I'm I'm playing catch up over here and here guy like Jason here say that wow

Jason Berger :

yeah we that I remember him talking about it and it was just a spot I thought I could cross the river and I ran out of talent The minute I hit the water and Samba snowmobile, but yeah, I mean we can definitely dive into that. I don't know if that's something you learn or something you're kind of born with. I've kind of talked to us about friends. You know, I've, I've dealt with I used to own a transportation business and I've dealt with a lot of like really serious accidents, like I pulled a guy out of a burning car. The last one was a cement truck that flipped over and was you know, full throttle, tire spinning cab crashed. And, you know, I'm the guy who goes to the car pretty calmly, and then, you know, we've kind of discussed with my wife a little bit to like, is that something you're born with or something you learn? I think it's something you're born with to stay calm and pretty intense situations. And so that's just kind of kind of seems to be my personality.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I kind of think it's a I'm sure that there is a technical term For this from the psychology standpoint, but I tend to call it the firefighter complex. Like you're the guy who when the buildings on fire, there's those couple guys that are running into the fire, not everyone else who's running out, and you find those.

Jason Berger :

Yeah. And it's interesting though, like you say that I'm gonna throw myself under the bus here a little bit because because I am the guy I run into the fire. But I will tell you a story about one night my wife and I woke up or heard a loud bang in the bathroom, or in the kitchen somewhere in the house, and we got up and I'm butt naked. She's got a cup of like bull clothes on and we're walking I'm, I'm behind her, okay. And so we walk out and we look down the entryway, you know, like a little hallway going out to the garage, or the laundry room is in the garage doors open, like the man door and my wife goes, I wonder what's out there. And I said real quiet. I said, it's not what's out there that I'm worried about. It's what's inside and I walked back to our bedroom and left my wife. She continued to the garage. So there's Just some incidences in my life from like, wow, I am the big Sally. But she was like, What are you doing leaving me behind and I'm like, Look, I was going back where I knew was safe case we needed to call on the phone to somebody that wasn't gonna be getting attacked by the bear which was in our house. But anyhow, it was a bear. Yeah did come in our house and then and then left and it's something spooked and it went out there. So

Wyatt Pemberton :

Tom Woods has a bear story to Danny like, he killed a bear in itself.

Jason Berger :

It's the best bear story in the entire world. I mean, really, and when I've talked to Tom about that, I'm like, do you realize like, and, you know, we can go into the story if you'd want to, but, uh, basically at the end of that story, and he called me I was like, do you realize how much of a man you are like, I I was like, did your wife at the time he's gonna make does she fly back and have sex with you immediately, because I would have been the opposite. I would have been in the car with the windows up on the phone calling somebody to help me not taking care of her by myself.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I think this is the perfect easter egg will leave That right there and we'll let Tom tell the story at some future perfect, but that is a great easter egg because that story is something that I mean, that story is just something else. So growing up single single kid or you have siblings.

Jason Berger :

Nope. I have a younger sister three years younger.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Very cool. Does she live out still out in the same area the

Jason Berger :

rail so Reno's really close to us. It's about 30 miles away. It's in Nevada but she lives down in Reno. She's a really good badass real estate agent. My parents still have their house up here but they're looking to sell it you know, they're in their 70s now and kind of tired of dealing with the snow and and they bought a house down in Reno also moving down the slope. Yeah. Nice. And then growing up, I know you went to college on baseball, but were you always to play baseball. Were you always a an athletic kid growing up, you know, curiosities. Kind of use a kid. Yeah, I mean, I would like to think that I'm fairly athletic, but only I'm not one of those people who's good at everything that they touch. Like I said, terrible snow skier. absolutely terrible. And I grew up in I just I couldn't seem to get very good at that. But baseball was was for sure. My sport. I dabbled in football. My dad was actually drafted by the Raiders out of high school and then got hurt in spring training and then that's when he ended up going to college. But um, so I he didn't let me play football until my freshman year and then my freshman and sophomore year I played football and then actually started getting scouted by the Kansas City Royals the end of my sophomore year and so I quit playing football and I completely focused on baseball and you're good enough to go to college with it for a couple years. Ah, yeah i mean i Yeah, I did I mean there's there's I it's a long story too boring story for people but I did have a couple opportunities with some with some scholarships to do some different things. You know, I basically went to college, went to Sac State for a little while and then left and went down to Modesto JC and and basically saw people coming back at 30 years old have been playing single a ball for 10 years and And starting their job at FedEx. And I just had this moment like, I'm not good to go now, this year or I'm going to stop playing. And I kept they kept saying give it more time and maybe I was just too impatient but didn't get drafted that year and, and just move back up to Tahoe and started my life.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And you've been you've been good. I mean, your life's been great. So that's, uh,

Jason Berger :

yeah, I mean, yeah, why and I have absolutely zero complaints.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Right there. Yeah. And one thing I found out most interesting about you, but most interests me it's something that was a huge carrot. When I talked to you at King hammers was that when you were in college, that you were studying psychology to be like a counselor and effectively you are you've de facto backed yourself into a counselor role with your business dream town CrossFit.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, it is interesting. I was going to study that even when I was in high school, I was kinda like, I know the, the counselor in high school amongst you know, friends and Things like that and then as we moved on like even going we'll and I and I didn't like it very much in my 20s and 30s but always referred Okay Dad, you know that type of thing which was kind of a negative thing in my life back then. I have embraced it now. I like it to me it's a compliment.

Wyatt Pemberton :

The one thing that I find that's cool about what you and I've talked about, you know, just in briefly in passing but I know is going on in your head is the convincing people the mind over matter the mind over muscle that what they can accomplish if they just set their mind to it, that it's their mind that quits before their body quits and getting someone to exert and give you that extra 10 reps or that extra three reps or that extra whatever and then giving them the motivation to stay on it is quite rewarding. It

Jason Berger :

is absolutely I'd like to think that at what I do for a living now is is helping change people's lives. And I know that I am having an impact on that. What I get back from everybody that I see Every day I feel like is tenfold for what I'm giving them. It is I absolutely love being a coach.

Unknown Speaker :

So in the gym, are you the the loved guy? Or are you the kind of dreaded drill sergeant,

Jason Berger :

I'm not the drill sergeant. So my baseball career, my junior and senior year I had a terrible baseball coach. He was very, very physical with us. And I just he would scream and yell and he hit us with baseball bats and he long story short I got him fired at the end of my senior year and so I am not that coach. I'm not going to scream at you unless you really asked me to do it. If I know you're that athlete. I'm going to tell you to pick up a fucking bar right now and keep moving but that is not my go to my go to is more calming and staying very positive. So you know, for example, you know, keep moving instead of don't stop, don't stop as the negative, right? You're gonna concentrate a meeting on that keep moving. There's more of the cues that are used. I'm more of that A positive coach, then the screaming coach.

Wyatt Pemberton :

But that's also cool in the fact that you can draw on that experience from that previous coach and you realize you're not every learning experiences positive, you have learning experiences that are negative or take a negative experience and turn it into a learning experience. where, you know, through failure that what you believe to see that guy's failure shortcomings and his his methods were you were able to apply that today and say, That's not what I'm going to do. I'm not going to do it because that was a successful way. I'm going to do it this way, because I know that way, didn't feel successful to me.

Jason Berger :

You are 100% correct. And I talk about stuff like that all the time. That person in my life at that time sucked. And for 10 years, I had very vivid, intense aggressive Jeep dreams. I mean, like literally shoving his head through a windshield and pulling it back through and ripping his throat out like and I'm not that guy, the last guy you're gonna see get in a fight, but he was a huge part in who I am today. So I'm actually very thankful that I went through that stuff because he helped mold me who I am. There's a great story. I can't remember exactly what book it's from, but it's a psychologist that interviews a set of twin brothers and one is a multimillionaire, and one is living underneath the bridge, I think in Southern California, okay, homeless, and he interviews the the multimillionaire and the millionaire says, Look, my dad was a piece of shit. He was an alcoholic, he'd beaten my mom drugs couldn't hold a job, you know, the whole list. And he said, so I had no choice but to go this direction. And he went to the homeless person, the brother, the twin. And the brother said, Yeah, you know, my dad was a piece of shit. Alcoholic beat up, my mom was into drugs couldn't hold a job. I had no choice. Right? So I love that example of you can either use that have that victim mentality and use it to slow you down or you can reverse it and use it to propel you

Wyatt Pemberton :

right? It's the positive mold or the negative mold. It's still a mold.

Jason Berger :

It's how you choose To perceive it, you know, even with what we're doing right now, I try and send out consistent emails to my athletes about, you know, staying on top of this and you know, taking control of the one aspect you can take control of every day. And that's actually getting your our workout in, when we go back to work, whether they get a cure for COVID-19, all these things are completely out of our control. So we take on the things that we can control, and we can control these for dream CrossFit. We can control that hour a day that we give to ourselves, and we go workout.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, I mean, you bring up a very good part of what's going on the world and the COVID thing. A lot of the people with this, you know, shelter in place or stay at home orders or whatever you want to call it in your different jurisdiction. That really is a I mean, it's a suck on the economy, but it is a mental suck. being told that, you know, we're a freedom loving country, for the most part, I say for the most part, but being stuck in your house even you know, rural America. not that big of a deal but urban America. I mean, being told you can't go out and not socialize the the removal of socialization in our society aside from certain ages, you know, like my son, he's finally he's 12. He plays video games, and he's got text, and he's got his phone. He's great. I think he'd be fine with this going on for perpetuity until it gets to a point where he gets wants to be around girls or something. But my eight year old daughter, well, she's nine, sorry, my nine year old daughter, she did just have a birthday. This is hard on her. She just wants to see your girls. Like they're not playing video games with each other, their nine year old girls, they want to do each other's hair and do tic Tock dances and record them and post that. They want that interaction and they're not getting it, it's driving. It's driving everyone in my house insane just by one child being told, you know, you just can't socialize. So from a grand scheme of a population being told that and if just In my house, that's 25% of the population is going crazy. Well, imagine what 25% of population in the US does, or globally does. So, yeah, you've I think that's amazing that you're doing that the I guess that's the adversity, right? You're trying to keep in front of your guys, your people, your customers, your clients, your friends, and tell them you know, hold your chin up and get through this. And I guarantee That's right. As soon as they they get some challenges out of the out of their day, sweat a little they feel like they've had some success. A little bit. Success goes a long ways.

Jason Berger :

It does. I mean, it's not that we should ignore any of those other things, but we do not possess the power to change them. I can't change the shelter in place, neither can you. Somebody else is going to do that. So it's on my mind of when I'm going to be able to open my gym back up, but I don't give it that much thought or that much power to absolutely control my day.

Wyatt Pemberton :

How long have you been shut down now? Six weeks, so two months? Yeah,

Jason Berger :

we shut down March 18. I actually shut down before we went shelter in place. My wife is an RN. She works in surgery. So she kind of had her finger on the pulse of what was going on. And, and I actually have a tremendous amount of Rn PhDs and doctors at my CrossFit gym, which is awesome, too. Right? And so I had the influence of them, you know, basically saying do the right thing, have that community mindset, we should shut down early. And we had already put things in process, like, We're known as having one of the cleanest gyms that people think in the world, but I don't know if that's true or not, but we do keep a very, very clean gym. But even on top of that, you know, we were doing the social distancing. We were separating, I had made my classes eight or less, we've gone 10 or less than we'd gone eight or last, like we've made them really small, but it just became like, it seemed like the right thing to do. You know, and so we shut down March 18.

Wyatt Pemberton :

So yeah, you're over two months now. Yeah, we're well over a month. I'm sorry. We're into the second month for you. Yeah,

Jason Berger :

yeah. And I just heard our governor Newsome just today. It said that gyms are going to be in phase three. We're in phase two right now where some surgeries or you know, elective surgeries are coming back into the hospitals. So we're promised I mean, I'm hoping for June 1, but reality is it may be a little bit longer than that. You know, I you know, I don't go off on the whole cost that thing because JT said, you know, hey, how do you know Jason does CrossFit? He'll tell you, he does CrossFit. But one of the things with CrossFit is we are so community based, we love to see each other every single day it is the absolute hook for CrossFit. I we we hug each other in high five and fist bump and that is the actual fitness the actual exercise that we do is only about 20 minutes of that hour long class. There are so much Bs and camaraderie and we are absolutely family so my family is hurting right now. And I don't mean just my family at home but my hundred and 20 other members of my family, not been able to hug each other and high five and workout together has been just what you were talking about with your your nine year old It's extremely difficult. Well, I mean,

Wyatt Pemberton :

CrossFit aside, I think that's a great example. But I mean, we see even outside of what's going on like, like, let's say church, use churches, an example, people will go to church. But what happens when people end up with a community around their church, then they all start going on a regular basis, because there's a little bit of that. I don't know. I don't want to not go not necessarily a fear of missing out but something of a fear of letting down their community by not. And, and that's power. That is a powerful motivator. That's a powerful motivator to go to the gym. That's a powerful motivator to I mean, well, that's why people get workout partners, right?

Jason Berger :

Absolutely. And if somebody to keep you accountable, and CrossFit gyms across the world, including mine will not have trouble in terms of getting back on their feet, with their communities like their athletes that can afford to do it. Right whether they have a job and they can pay $175 a month because it's exciting. Have that who knows Time will tell on that. Right? But I actually think your example of church we talked about that a lot, right? If you move into a different community, in a different state, and you belong to a church, before you leave, you're going to look for that same type of community when you go into that, that next state, and that's gonna help bring you in, you're going to find like minded people, and that's what CrossFit is. I'm an I'm an absolute hugger. I just, I'm one of those people who needs contact and a funny thing just happened. You know, I haven't seen Jason since co Ah, and he's on his way to Utah right now to move his brother Casey to St. George. And he came by to drop off some tires. We just couldn't I haven't hugged anybody but my wife and my kid in the last six weeks, seven weeks and I couldn't not hug Jason. I just like, you know, just could not do it. So yeah,

Wyatt Pemberton :

so Lance and Renee, they've convinced part of the family Hoping to move to Utah too. So when is is there's something of a domino effect? It's been a little bit slow St. George Burke and pretty.

Jason Berger :

Isn't that kind of a Utah thing? I guess? Yes, it is just saying,

Wyatt Pemberton :

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's um, it would only be awkward if they all start taking on multiple spouses. That would be, but if they get a compound and they all live within that compound, I can see that working. Right.

Jason Berger :

You know, I'm exactly we, anybody who has children knows, knows this. having kids is extremely difficult. And, you know, you rely on family a lot to help you through that, especially in those beginning stages. And with Casey's injury that happened last year, I mean, we're almost coming up in the year, I think we're probably what, nine months now. You know, they had some really difficult times and I haven't talked to Casey in a lot of depth about this, but kind of reevaluated things and needed to be closer to family. And so I think Marcy really wanted to be back near that. And with Renee and and you know I know that that Lance in case you get along really well and so I hope it's the right decision for him

Wyatt Pemberton :

his racket Reno was just gnarly as it gets just yard sale and over and over and home would it go over his UTV and over and like nine times just nose tail broke his back I mean, just as nasty as it gets.

Jason Berger :

He got he got lucky even how they pulled him out of that wreck. He got lucky because he could have definitely been paralyzed and and I don't know if you followed any of the stuff that he did you know, I went saw him in the hospital and you know, he talked about the psychology we we sat down and talked about that of like, this isn't a negative thing in your life right now. It seems like it but let's use this as a pivotal point to change our life for the better. And I actually think Casey, from when I've talked to him is doing that.

Wyatt Pemberton :

You have to find the silver lining. That's that's what pulls us through.

Intro/Outro :

Stay tuned. Your talent tank is in vogue yet

Wyatt Pemberton :

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Intro/Outro :

Now back to the show.

Wyatt Pemberton :

So you're you're married, Andrea, she registered nurse. 26 years together. Is that right?

Jason Berger :

26 years 27 this summer,

Wyatt Pemberton :

I'd say that sounds like a very, very long time. I just had 15 with my wife. It sounds like a long time. But then when you say you're almost 50 I'm like, Well, I mean, then that seems just about right. You got married in your mid 20s? That's, that's life, right?

Jason Berger :

Yeah, I mean, it was, um, say was I 2021 21 when we got married, she wasn't even. She couldn't even legally drink at our wedding. And, you know, we're just we got, you know, we fell in love. I found the right person and we beat the odds, you know, statistically we shouldn't have made it this long statistic. Quickly you should have made it this long so good for you to

Wyatt Pemberton :

know. Thank you. Yeah, no, absolutely with especially in this day and age and now as we progress through, you know, the late 90s, early 2000s with technology and now social media rolling into the late 2000s I mean, the stories you hear about, you know, the Facebook and all of that and how many lives have been destroyed by that that's that's frustrating technology. I'm a firm believer in using technology daily in life to for further forward everything you know, reduction, human capital, you know, streamlining processes, but that's been a negative. That's one of the negatives of social media is the I guess the under mining of the relationship or the cheap ification of it? Maybe? I don't know if that's a word or a word, but I'm gonna use it. That's frustrating but so yeah, registered nurse. She's the glue your family supports everything you do all your crazy ideas. You want to go race in Baja, she's like, Okay, and then worries with anxiety that you're going to come back

Jason Berger :

You know, she's always been that way she has put up with and I think that every guy has got this story when they found I'm not a like soulmate believer I think that's a bunch of crap but I found the right person. Yeah she's always she's always believed in me and always supported everything I've done to stupid stuff like when we did you rock and you know I took a second out on the house I could get my buggy and become the superstar that I thought everybody was gonna be right and she's always been there right by my side She's also the person to you know, she lets me know when I'm being an asshole so she she plays a role Well,

Wyatt Pemberton :

I don't know if this is real or not, but for for me, it feels like you find the person that you're most willing to compromise with and compromise for. Right? I'm not my wife is not my perfect spouse and I'm not her perfect spouse but together with the way our compromises mesh, we just jive and it just works and I love her and she loves me and we love our kids and we Make these beautiful babies. And hopefully when she's having her highs in life, they they match up with my lows so she can pull me up and then vice versa the other ways. It's I think it's when you know, both spouses end up, maybe they don't compromise well with each other, they butt heads on the exact same item and their lows match. So when they're on the bottom there, it's terrible part, which I think this COVID thing I bet, you know, there's gonna be a slew of divorces come out over just folks who just realize I love that person, but I can't be around them this much.

Jason Berger :

Oh, I think you're absolutely right. And there's I've seen a bunch of memes and stuff like that kind of going on about that. You know, when you think about it, and you know, I have a kid who's 16 and he and he's going to be looking at maybe going to college, trade school, whatever he decides to do. And I think it's absolutely ridiculous, that at 20 years old, he's gonna need to try and figure out what he wants to do for the rest of his life. How many times have you I don't even know With with UI a, but change the direction of what you want to do for a living throughout your entire life, because you realized it was the wrong thing, and you thought when you were 18, that you wanted to do that you were 100%. And I think that's the same way marriage can be also, you know, that is a really difficult decision to make, especially when you're really young like I was, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life because do you really know what the rest of your life means? Like 50 seems possibly dead. And I'm right there, right? When I was 25. Let me talk about 50. Right, and I'm not right. So look, everybody who gets married loves each other. 100% like there's are people who aren't getting married who don't love each other. And it's just like you said, sometimes you find out that as you go through those years of your marriage that you let us compromise. Now's a great example. You know, she picks me up when I'm down. I pick her up when she's down. And when she's really busy, I'm doing the stuff that maybe she normally does around the house and I'm really busy. She's doing stuff I normally do. And, you know, just as a, you know, I perfectly means that a compromise.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Right? So she's a nurse, and what portion are part of the medical profession? Is she in? Is she still staying busy through this? Or is she one of the medical professionals that isn't busy now.

Jason Berger :

So what had happened with her, she works in surgery. And so when we went when they stopped surgeries, she basically didn't have a job. And so her boss came to her and said, Look, you can go in the COVID-19 unit, which is basically three months that you're going to be in there and then you'll have to quarantine and everything to come back to surgery. Or they offered her a position where she could actually be part of a team of three where they were basically writing the policies and procedures, infectious control team, leading with with what the CDC says to do, and putting those policies in place for the hospital. And so that's what she did, which her very first week and going through documents from the CDC back from December, which just so you guys know, like I actually have somebody in my family himself documents from the CDC in December and beginning in January warning of what was going to happen, reading all the way back through that it was a very stressful time for now that we flatten the curve. And she's actually going to be going back to surgery. Now she's not doing that anymore, that infectious control, they've got everything in place for the hospital and good to go. So she didn't have to go on on the front lines, she did have to go to all of the different departments to teach them these different procedures, which one of them was, you know, or COVID unit ICU, so she was, you know, there and, you know, possibly introduced to it. As far as we know, we've never we haven't had it, right. I'm going back to her normal job. But I have been on an interesting side of this, you know, and I kind of said this to you a little bit. Being a small business owner and being like, Look, I I gotta get I gotta make some money. Like I need my business to be successful. I can't just shut this down. I we have to move forward. And I'm on that side of it. And then I have my wife at the hospital who's a nurse who's on that side. So in our house, I struggle, it I we get I get both of them. You know, I really do.

Unknown Speaker :

Have you done like any zoom sessions or anything like that,

Jason Berger :

but we do two zoom classes a day. So we have a nine o'clock zoom and a five o'clock zoom. That's every night, we had to do this at two o'clock is gonna have to go to class tonight. And I that's great. You know, it's not the same thing. But it sets a time of day where the athletes know we can all see each other. And I'm going to say 321 go and we're going to do a workout. Now. That's pretty cool. That's a good pivot.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Yeah. And that's what we're learning. And we're, if anything comes out of this, we're learning how to pivot. We're learning how to be successful in very sub optimal conditions in a state of affairs. CrossFit. Thing is constantly varied high intensity functional movement. So we're on a constantly varied session right now. Right? We mentioned you guys have a you Andrea, you have a son. 16 years old. Yep. Okay, okay. And then, if I'm right, you guys named me after a trail on the Rubicon

Jason Berger :

Yeah, I wish I had a better story I wish like conceived on the trail or something but it's not just Bear Lake trail. It's Jeep trail that not many people know about but it's absolutely beautiful and as we were just searching for names are like well, Rubicon doesn't seem like a very good kid name and neither does Fordyce. And then all of a sudden Barrett came up and we didn't know anybody named Barrett and we really love that name Barrett burger is a solid name. Thanks that's a that's a powerful name like that's what we you know, we sat around and had that I think everyone does that right you want to set your kid up with the best name you see as you see fit right and try to give him at least in our heads we tried to get a new power names, your your hunters net, right, especially when you have a boy and some of our very best friends Keith and Emily just had a baby and their baby's name is Axel Erickson. And I'm like that is just badass. Like, it's just gonna be a stud. Right?

Wyatt Pemberton :

He's either gonna be an MMA fighter or a heavy metal rock star.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, Axel Eric's Great name. No that is that's good Now COVID has affected Barrett though, right? I believe you told me he turned 16. So he's close to getting his driver's license or he got his driver's license or his birthday is April Fool's Day baby, April 1. And he was he's been kicking ass. He's got a he's got a 98 GX j sitting on 60 s with 37 that's ready to go rock the trail and, and he's driven over the last couple of years on the trail and he was supposed to take his drive test on April 6. And with our DMV, I have no idea when it's ever gonna happen. And he is dealing with it really well. It kind of seems like this generation is not as excited to get their license as not at all. Yeah, like I would be losing my shit right now if I couldn't get my driver's license, and he's like, Well, yeah, it sucks. And while we're gonna go on discord and play some fortnight, okay.

Wyatt Pemberton :

This is almost gonna sound like a dig on California. That isn't a majority of your population have gotten licenses anyway.

Jason Berger :

Ah, you know, that's a good question. I actually don't know that the answer to that, but I will tell you amongst his friends, he's the only one who's not excited to get his driver's license. They just don't. It's so different to me.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I had a co worker a few years ago who all of his children, they were right there in that high school phase, and no motivation. They still want a mom to drive them around at 17 years old, and I was just like, what I mean, my father drove me I turned, I turned some from Kansas, we could get a hardship license at 14. I turned 14 on a Saturday. on that Monday, my dad picked me up from eighth grade, middle school, eighth grade, and payola, Kansas and drove me to one town over where they had a licensing station. I got my license, my hardship and I drove back to school. I never read the school bus again from eighth grade on that was it where it was, I like it was like I I'm done. Like as soon as we were allowed to get a license. We're done with like, that's it now, today, I just my head doesn't process that like what do you mean you don't want your life You don't want that freedom. What?

Jason Berger :

Yeah, I told my kid I said, if you don't get your license and don't take this seriously, if you're gonna count on me, I will charge you. This is Uber. I will be charging you for driving you back and forth. I'm not doing that. And but he's always wanted to get it. So it hasn't been a problem. It just sucks for him right now.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, that's awesome. I can't will tell him good luck. I hope he's hopefully studying for it. Right? If he's already been driving on the trails, he's good. You know, he's good. Yeah. Now he's gonna kind of jump out of turn here. When I was going through your stuff, and kind of researching who Jason Berger is. I came across this. Well, it's an amazing deal. It's a philanthropy called back country access. Tell me about how you and your wife ended up doing back country access. And if I kind of got it, right, it's you guys were doing like. It was a volunteer organization where you took disabled individuals out in experienced outdoors, like trail riding.

Jason Berger :

Absolutely. So how it started I grew up in a very philanthropic family. My parents are always Doing something or trying to do something for other people and like even for Christmas when I grew up, we had a choice my sister and I, we could receive a gift ourselves, or we could give a gift to somebody. It's just always been something my family was about. And so I started volunteering for an organization called Disabled Sports USA 20 years ago or something like that. And I was volunteering for the water ski program. And I absolutely loved it. So we take people with disabilities on a private lake and they've got a special water ski setup. I mean, even somebody who's a quad could actually still water ski behind the boat with the way we had this set up. The amount of joy that I received, seeing the smile on their faces was nothing in my life will duplicate that it was absolutely life changing for me. I was absolutely hooked. Their vice president at the time had come to me and said look, we're trying to there's their state grant money to start a program like this, but we don't have anybody who has the knowledge you have because basically most of the volunteers We're not motor heads. And I don't know if that looks bad on us, but I was the only one who actually probably knows what a VA was, let alone lockers and tires and all this stuff. So they came to me and we worked in conjunction with with California at the time, California Bring me the volunteers. We applied for the state grant. We got some money to get the program going. I would bring the Disabled Sports I basically put Disabled Sports in California together and be the leader of this and we would take people with disabilities in the back country. It was incredible we did for them. It was also at a time when trails are getting shut down in the backcountry is getting shut down. And for you and me right now, if we think about the back country getting shut down, it sucks. But if we still wanted to visit the back country, we can throw our backpack on and we can cruise back to that lake. Well, if you're paraplegic, you're not getting back to that lake. There's a very political side to this to keep trails open so that people with disabilities can have access to those places. The vehicle. And so that was kind of the basis of the whole program. So that went on for. I mean, we did for three or four years, we did, I think 20 trips, a summer day trips. I mean, we were like three weekends a month doing this. And it was amazing.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And you guys started that in the late 90s. Yep. And then went all the way until two years ago, a year ago,

Jason Berger :

you know, most of those grants are good for about three years, sometimes you can get them for about five years. And so because they, they expect the program to be able to be self sustaining by them. And so we we ran that program where we're doing a ton of those day to day trips for five years. And then I think we went on for about 10 years where we were still doing day trips, just not as many day trips. And then before that was up we had also I'd always had this dream of doing an overnight or into the Rubicon where we were three days and two nights, but logistically was something pretty difficult to pull off, especially when you're dealing with people with Mads, and we couldn't take at any kind of disability back there, we kind of had to, you know, pick and choose with who we thought could be able to handle being back there for three days and two nights. And so we moved into that overnight program, which was I think we ran for I'm just kind of guessing there, I think around 15 years. Wow.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And then you had some, you know, great volunteers that you said, you know, with California, but even like Dave Cole, Dave Cole came up and volunteered. Yeah, so

Jason Berger :

California was only while we had the state grant. So what I think was three or four years, we had them involved. And then, you know, I've been around rock sports for so long. And you know, the people we hang out with, you know, the 70,000 people that are on that lake bed, will do anything for you. They're the raddest people in the entire world. And I knew that with all of my friends that I met Whelan, I just needed to bring the program to them. They may not go do it on their own, but I knew if I could bring their program to them that they would just absolutely love this. And so we're kind of built a huge like volunteer lab. And so we had moved past doing anything with califor. And basically just Andrew and I were getting volunteers together and working with Disabled Sports. And when we started the Rubicon that had nothing to do with California at the time, that was just Andrew and I kind of run in that program. And I'm just was so excited because I just like if I was still running it wide, I'd be on you, like, come out and do this with me because I just want to see that smile on your face or that tear in your eye of how it is it is absolutely life changing. It's the highlight of this person's year.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, isn't that something you like to share with your friends, right, you share your labor. And you're talking about that very first time getting the person to water ski, and just the light it turns on in your soul and your heart and just pouring out of every pore of your body of how good it is. I can see how Yeah, that you would want to share that with all your friends like hey, I want you to come experience what this type of philanthropy is this. This giving and See what it does to your soul?

Jason Berger :

Yeah, yeah, Dave Dave came up and did it and, you know, little rich came and and I didn't see little rich forever. And then this last year I was in Zion and, you know, reached out to him and we started talking and it wasn't till then. I mean, we're talking 10 years later after he volunteered for me that he said, part of his whole trail hero project is doing something philanthropic like that because of the influence of that program. And I literally, like started to tear up of like, Oh my god, I had that kind of impact on somebody. I was so so stoked on it,

Wyatt Pemberton :

and they'll kick you into high gear. They're gone, man. It was it was awesome. And then that that effectively ended a couple years ago. But finally, economically, the insurance went away.

Jason Berger :

It did and the story's too long. But basically three years ago, I had a pretty decent incident with somebody that I had been taking on these trips for, for 10 years, someone I absolutely love dearly. I don't know if his hair cerebral palsy and it was the most difficult thing I've ever dealt with in my entire life. Wyatt, I literally had to hog tie this person and haul them I mean duct tape their hands behind their back and their feet together, their meds were completely off, they completely lost it and had to have the sheriff's follow me out of the Rubicon to make sure that we were safe and meet medical people and the insurance carrier, I don't think ever knew of that situation. But shortly thereafter, they the insurance was caught and they didn't want to cover that event anymore. And it was just a moment of me gone. You know, the organization called me and told me we got our insurance cut. And I said I get it. And they said Really? And I said I get it like I I wouldn't insure my own event. I mean, like, you know what I mean? Like I don't we're so far from the hospital. If somebody gets bit by a snake or somebody forgot their meds or somebody like my friend Bodie at the time and just was not having a great weekend like Get it in. So I really didn't push that hard to keep it going. And I just stepped back to take a little bit of a break. I'm sure if we wanted to get the insurance, we could probably raise the money. And I'm sure that you know, there are insurance companies out there you just right,

Wyatt Pemberton :

you pay enough whether it's 20 grand or 50, grand or whatever, they'll

Jason Berger :

they'll insure the event. It's gonna be cost a lot of money.

Wyatt Pemberton :

But isn't that kind of the world that you and myself and certainly most of my listeners kind of live in. We like that world where we do things that we know, we couldn't even get insurance for if we if we tried. Like that is that's the world like where where we feel the most alive is in between, you know, either dead in insurance, right? It's

Jason Berger :

Yeah, most of the things I seem to do in life that seem to be right there.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Yeah. Right on it.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, no, I am. I mean, there's a part of me that's, that's sad that we're not doing it. My son's been doing that trip since he was three years old. And I truly believe that it's out huge impact on the person that he is today. He is not uncomfortable around anybody. And so being around people with disabilities just they're just like everybody else and him growing up around that, I think, I just truly believe it had a huge impact on him. And I'm kind of bummed that when he's now gonna have a driver's license that he wasn't actually able to bring somebody into the Rubicon. So his passenger hair right. Wow,

Wyatt Pemberton :

yep. Oh, hey, all good things must come to an end. That thing run them for 20 years just sounds absolutely amazing in the lives that you touched over that time period. that's priceless, completely priceless.

Jason Berger :

You haven't they touched mine. Why? My guy? It is hard for me. And we all have our pain. we all deal with our own pain on a daily basis. But my perspective has changed when I'm having a bad day. You know what, it's not that bad. It's not that bad. Okay. And they reminded me of something I talked about this you know, when in CrossFit a lot too is we are referred to as tabs temporarily able bodied unless you die quickly in a car accident or something like that you will deal with a disability at some point in time in your life. How prepared are you for that? Right?

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, that's sobering. Yeah, yes.

Jason Berger :

But it always made me kind of think about that, like, you know, that and it's not to go on a whole spiel here with what's going on with our country and COVID-19 but there's a reason why we're also terrified to COVID-19 and it's because 80% of our population is that unhealthy that if they actually get it, there is a possibility because they have an underlining chronic underlying chronic condition that they are going to be in the hospital if we were not obese and we were not having hypertension and we did not have you know, all these other chronic conditions we can most likely play through this and I know there's people are gonna hit us and be like, Yeah, but I heard this person was in perfect health and 35 and died. Yes, that happens. But if we look at the majority of that, right, so, you know not to go off on that whole tangent with COVID-19 but you know, when when I am with disable sports when I am having a bad day and it's a legitimate bad day I have good reasons to have that. I do reflect back on what those people deal with on a daily basis just getting out of bed. Not being able to drive a vehicle not having a job being stuck at home, whatever. It put it in perspective for me that it's not that bad. Quit whining.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And right there, that little sentence you motivated. It's awesome. I'm laughing tongue in cheek. I'm like, man, stop describing me. Yeah. Let's move move on down the road a little bit. Okay. Jason, the entrepreneur. You've done a lot of things over your career, but you're most your latest venture. Drink town fitness. How did you sit back at the breakfast table or the dinner table or a booth at a bar and go I'm gonna open a CrossFit gym in a JT would say like, Hey man, I need something to go tell everybody about what should it be?

Jason Berger :

Well as most things in my life there is a phenomenal story as to how this gym opened. So I coached locally here at another CrossFit gym here in Truckee for six years, almost six years as my family. I absolutely loved it. One of the owners did something that was absolutely outrageous, to a female coach and very good friend of mine and refused, refused to apologize for it so outrageous that I went there the next day, and I handed in my keys and I said I there's two honors at the time and there were two CrossFit gyms. I went to the other owner and said, I cannot work for this entity. vigil ever again. And I turned in my keys and I left. Those two gym owners split over the incident and the one gym owner that I didn't get along with stayed here in Truckee, the other gym owner who I get along with great, still has his gym and Kings Beach. So when I quit, I started working out in my garage. Pretty soon I had 25 to 30 athletes in my garage that wanted to stay with their coach. And so when it was February 1 2019, I guess it was 2010 I can't remember exactly. They had split those two businesses apart and I knew that guy that I wasn't getting along with anymore was staying here in Truckee. And so we opened up dream town CrossFit. It was close to the end of May that year. And anyhow there that business is now done. They closed their doors, so we put them out of business, but all of my I didn't actually like sit on the couch and decide, hey, let's open a CrossFit Jim I had quit and and then decided that this could be a really negative thing in my life or let's turn a new positive thing and so we opened up dream town CrossFit.

Intro/Outro :

Stay tuned. Your talent tank is in full get

Wyatt Pemberton :

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Intro/Outro :

now back to the show.

Wyatt Pemberton :

How do you come up with a name? That's my wife.

Jason Berger :

So my wife so there's over 15,000 affiliates in the world and you can't have a name like anybody else's. So most CrossFit gyms nowadays are just basically naming themselves after the street. They're on CrossFit. You know Deerfield which is the street they were on That was just stupid. And I'm not a very creative person. So my wife came up with drink town CrossFit. And I said, there's no way we're gonna do a search and it's gonna be taken and she goes, nope, won't be taken. And I said, Why? And she goes, because it's so soft. Every CrossFit gym is we're going to stick your dick in the dirt, CrossFit to quote my wife. And she goes, it doesn't need to be that intense. It scares everybody away, and she's right. There's this thing that cost, it's so intense and everybody's gonna get hurt. And, and I'm dispelling that, okay, it's not that way. There are gems out there that are ran that way and it's terrible for those people and for CrossFit in general. But her thought was, we live in a dream town, you know, Truckee, California right next to Lake Tahoe. It's absolutely dream town. And, and I love it. And that's, that's how we got that name. Man. I like it. That's a good story. And if you talk to JT, Jason, Tom, Dave, call any of those people. They'll tell you that I'm the softest person they know.

Wyatt Pemberton :

So it absolutely fits. All right. And then out of that, so you're coaching at one. Now all of a sudden, you guys are working out your garage, you end up having to open your own deal. And then you've built the program there. And as I was going through your website, you have a teen program. Tell me about that. And what impact has that had on kids Barrett's age.

Jason Berger :

So how that started was and look, there's there's an aspect of like, you don't i don't think you know this, but there are people that I've been around in our sport for a long time, who knew me when I was 280 pounds, okay, high blood pressure on medication. Like, I don't know if I was pre diabetic or probably so I haven't always been a very fit person. That's been when I got into CrossFit and actually started with Cody Wagner. At the time, Cody had come to me we were rock calling together and he said, Hey, I'm pre diabetic, like I need to lose some weight, but I don't know how to do it, but I'm competitive. So let's do a competition. And I think it was 500 bucks who lost the most weight in 30 days. But it had to be like doing it not starving yourself like being smart about this and I didn't know about CrossFit at the time. And I went on like some website calorie counting, and I got an elliptical and anyhow and I won, because I like to win. Heavy Cody.

Wyatt Pemberton :

You you set it there, you know, it wasn't well, maybe it was just you but I remember when Lance Clifford I remember when chemo Eric linker. I remember there was a lot of guys that were heavy. Oh yeah. Myself included. I'm currently heavy. I'm 252 40 something like that. And I am diabetic but it's this whole so yes, of course I'm scared about all the stuff of COVID but not scared enough to really do anything about it. That's, that's that's a different story. But this whole your motivation to be fit and get fit. Did your weight loss and fitness change and lifestyle change? Did it happen at the same times like Lance and camo and all those guys when they all decided we're done being

Jason Berger :

tubs, mine was a situation where I need I went to the hospital to get my appendix removed, and I knew all the nurses, and being a guy who's six, three, I could carry my weight pretty well, but I was fat. It was terrible. I was so embarrassed that all of those hot nurse friends and my wife were gonna see how fat I was in a small my penis was probably, but

Wyatt Pemberton :

3000 people that seem that our bases were covered. Yeah.

Jason Berger :

But you know, it's interesting. There's always a moment like that, and I had nothing with Cody, but this was more of like, I was embarrassed. And I you know, I never take my shirt off at the beach or anything like that. And I got done with that and I saw my son, you know, he was I remember what he was for whatever it was, and I was like, I, I need to do something because I need to be around for him. And this has gotten a little bit out of control. And I've got the most loving wife and you know how much she loved me then at 280 is no different from now at 220. But, you know, I it was just a moment like that, that made me change it and I it's interesting. I don't it seemed like a lot of us were going through that like, like, say with Lance and camo. Yeah, I mean, Lance is known as fat bastard, right? That was that was this thing. But maybe it's just a moment where you at that time, we're all kind of close to the same age, where you're just like, oh, things are getting a little bit out of control right now.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, congratulations. And you've kept it off for a bunch of years. And you say to 82 to 23. Like, oh, that's still too you know, you're still on 200. And that's 60 pounds. That's your you're carrying around like an eight year old.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, my 220 now though, is right about nine, eight or 9% body fat. So it's, you know, it's a different translation. Like I probably would have just lost all the weight I'd probably be under two 100 pounds but doing CrossFit and lifting and things like that, then you you add some of that that muscle on there.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And so we did we got sidetracked on the your team program.

Jason Berger :

So the reason the reason I kind of went on that whole thing as to why I was unhealthy is to understand my passion. And because I didn't have the knowledge that I have now in my generation, and I'm not sure how old you are white, but my generation, in my opinion has really screwed things up. We went through the late 80s and 90s, where we went to all this low fat stuff, right? And we added all this sugar and we created a major type two diabetes and pre diabetic problem in our country. Look, I I can probably if you were here, I could probably get you motivated to get in better shape, right? But ultimately, people who are my age are pretty stubborn and not wanting to make a lot of changes to kind of set in their ways. When I look at our teens, I'm like these are going to be the stewards of our community as we move forward. These are the people who are going to make the changes to make a healthier society so how can I have an impact on them? My original thought was I just give the program away for free. I don't, I don't care. You know what I mean? But then when it's giving away for free, then it doesn't really mean anything to anybody when it doesn't cost anything. And I had this moment with my son, where we used to argue about his Xbox all the time. I just, I just hated the Xbox. It's just his go to. And after hanging out with Casey share, he wanted a one wheel because Casey had one and he asked him for his birthday, and I said, You're out of your frickin mind. Those things are like 1200 dollars. What makes you think that your parents are going to spend 1200 dollars on your birthday? And I was kind of pissed that even you know, broach the subject. So one day we're having this argument over his Xbox, and I said, How badly do you want that one we'll and he said so badly. And I wanted more than anything. I said enough to put a hammer through that effing Xbox. And he said, Really? And I was like, Wow, really? So my wife and the smart one said, Why are we hitting with a hammer? Why don't we look at selling it and I saw that smart like, I kind of wanted a video. Do it, hit it with a hammer and then social media the crap out of that, just to make me feel better. So what I'm leading into is it gave me that's what gave me the thought for my, my teen program. So my teen program is a pay it forward program, they can either do something for themselves or pay it forward to the community. So they are doing something in exchange for their memberships. So I have, I have teen athletes that are just putting more vegetables on their plate in exchange for that. That's pretty simple, but they may get sugar out of their diet, they may volunteer for two hours at the Humane Society. I have one athlete who's picking up trash on their street every Saturday morning. So it's giving them they have skin in the game, they're in charge of their their membership and what they're going to do in exchange for it. And if your daughter came to me or son and said, Well, I just I'm gonna have straight A's in exchange for it but they already have straight A's then I don't allow that has to be something they're doing on something that's creating an effort on top of what they're doing currently in exchange for the membership. So

Wyatt Pemberton :

it says something of a mental game, right? You're making them make a mental choice to own it.

Jason Berger :

Absolutely. And as a coach, what's great about it is if you if you paid for your kid to come to my gym and you force him to come there every day, whether he wants to or not, it is not a great experience for me as a coach. But when my teens are in charge of their membership, they're essentially paying for their membership. They're coming there on their own. It is an awesome experience for me as a coach, because they want to be their freewill. Yep, yep, nobody's forcing them to come in there. They come in on their own. And for myself and my coaching staff, it's been an absolutely amazing experience. And even in my zoom classes right now, I actually have one teen and I know it's not many, but I have one teen who every five o'clock, and he's one of my son's very best friends and my son's not doing the zoom class. So it's not like to see him. He comes in there and he does this so it is having an impact on him for sure. Wow.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Wow. Make it people healthier, right? more robust, more, less susceptible to say viruses or disease. Right?

Jason Berger :

For sure. And then I don't think, you know, just there's a business side of it too, right? Are you? Am I going to spend money on advertising? Or am I going to load a program like this do the advertising for me. So if I've got your kid in my program, and you're thinking about going to CrossFit, you're probably going to come to dream town CrossFit. I don't need to advertise that. And when you live in a small town, and you get all the hands talking at the bus stops about what your you know, your gyms doing to help the community. And so that's our that's our business side. That's our advertising.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Yeah, the power of the spoken word right there. Yeah, that goes way better than a billboard or a flyer or anything like that. Yeah. So this is gonna sound like an ad somewhat, but I'm curious about it because I saw it on your page. WOD. Rog, yeah. What's a word Ron? It's a product that you sell. Yeah, roll me through it. It really looks like a baton for beating somebody.

Jason Berger :

But it's not, it's a piece of workout equipment that you've got. Yeah, it's a pretty simple device. So in CrossFit, we do a lot of times we do really high reps. So you may do 75 to 100 pull ups. And what happens is you get a pretty bad callus on your hand. And then once that callus gets really big, it'll tear super, super deep. So pretty common in CrossFit for people to try and sand those down, or they take a razor blade and cut them and there just wasn't really a lot of great tools out there. And so I came up with that tool. And the way it works is it works like a lint roller. So it's, you know, about an 11 inch piece of hollow tube, it's knurled like a barbell on one side, and then halfway up, it's got a slit in it, and it has rolled up a brace that we worked with, to develop pulls out through the slit just like a lint roller does, okay, so you can use it to sand down the calluses on your hand. And then when you're done with that piece, you just literally tear it off like a lint roller and then have a new piece and so you're never having to buy the tool again. You only have to buy the abrasive and if you can Keep those calluses you know, at bay, then we have less tearing. And you know, your wife doesn't complain when you're touching her and with those rough hands.

Wyatt Pemberton :

So leather hands, so that's a W odrod.com. Yep, yep. Thanks. How much? How much is one of those things? $35 $35 is that shipped? No.

Jason Berger :

I can send you one.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Hey, I'm okay. I'm quite alright. But like I said, I was intrigued when I was going through you know, I want to know as much about us, you know, be as personal as possible. I'm like, Wow, look at not only entrepreneur, he's also got products out there and initially I was like, totally outside field then I started looking at it. I was like, I think that that's it looks like it work on equipment. No, it's a it's some personal care equipment. To go work

Jason Berger :

out very, it's a very CrossFit name. WOD is workout of the day. So wad rod is the name we came up with. We're still going through the process we got denied for the first part of it. It's been a cool thing. Like it's never gonna probably make me a ton of money or anything like that. But, you know, when I ship one anywhere in the country every time I ship one I'm like, really? They want one of these? Like, it's a really cool feeling when you invent something that's never existed in the year 2020 that's it's kind of a rad thing if somebody wants it,

Wyatt Pemberton :

right it's Yeah, a little bit of success goes a long ways.

Jason Berger :

You know, we have 100% money back guarantee. Anybody doesn't want it? I'd send them back their money. They send it back. I've never sent one back. I've never had to. Of course it's a cheap item. You know, it's not like they're spending $100 but

Wyatt Pemberton :

fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, yep. Let's move into off road. Let's do it is where you're well known we've, we've got you background covered. The mental game covered the mind over body covered but based on where you grew up the Tahoe area, you've got the Rubicon right there. No, you're you've spent how many weekends and days of your life on the rubric and by the time you're 50, so you probably got something like 700,000 days. Up on the Rubicon and then you've been a bronco guy. And so I think you know, you've rolled through a ton of different Broncos over the years though I did find somewhere that you had an F j at one point.

Jason Berger :

Yep. I think it was only one though. Only one. And then I mean even further, you got to race the Baja thousand this past year with Ford Performance when they rolled out the bronco. So that's kind of a surreal event to be a part of and be a part of history there. It's so surreal because my Broncos in 1969 and our number was 2069. Like I every aspect of what happened there was so so surreal, like I just couldn't not go like we were in the bronco. We got to do the Baja 1000 it was one of the coolest things ever. And you know, I haven't really talked about JSON that much in this but that guy has always, always always it has my back and includes me on everything they did not they meaning basically like Cameron Steele and Kurt laduke most guys What the hell is Jason Berger like I don't know who I am, you know Johnny Campbell I wanted Ricky Bray back when in the car with Jason was one of the things that was tossed around because he's he's known as this, you know, amazing dirt bike rider and he's got a lot more followers than I do. What do I got? 105 on my Instagram

Wyatt Pemberton :

CrossFit Sally. It's a great it's a great name by the way. I can remember Yeah.

Jason Berger :

Yes. So my old coach has called me a Sally all the time. And he was much younger than me and I didn't he didn't realize I didn't I didn't really care that he called me a Sally. So I just like CrossFit Sally. But um, so Jason was like, Look, I need my co driver. I want my co driver next to me. And so that's how I was involved with that. And I there's nothing that I did to get there. That was all Jason share that made sure that I was part of that program

Wyatt Pemberton :

as pretty cool. I mean, the names involved. is pretty cool for him to come out and get into off road on that level. Plus we saw him this year king of the hammers with the Ford arch. You know, it's very cool to see Ford is not an outside the industry sponsor. They're in motorsports, but it's very cool to see them getting behind off road Motorsports.

Jason Berger :

I'm so excited. I mean, I other than, than the level brothers, like we run an X ray, I was running a Ford Motor, also a 347. And so I've always been that Ford guy, you know, so yeah, just absolutely amazing experience. And I'll tell you why like that when we went down there pre running. Cameron wanted all of us Cameron Steele wanted all of us to go do pre running and by getting different vehicles, so we really become a team. And we're sitting around the first night at the dinner table, and we're supposed to introduce ourselves. And you know, it's Johnny Campbell, and it's currently Duke and it's Shelby Hall. And it's Brad Lovell. It's Bobby p coy. It's Jason share and then it comes to me and I'm like, some Jason Berger. There's absolutely no reason you would ever know why I'm here. Yeah, I mean, I was just looking around the table going, Oh my God look at the people that I'm surrounded by and what I get to be a part of because one of my very best friends pushed so hard for me to be there and even though it didn't go as was planned, right, we didn't finish right. Yeah, it was the coolest thing ever. Like even just like my backpack that says forward on it and I may or may not have tagged the Pelican case with a Ford Bronco sticker comes back.

Wyatt Pemberton :

That's amazing. I love that those Pelican cases have been starting to get tagged i think you know the tribe guys started Josh Bleiler started. I mean it was it. I think people thought I don't want to desecrate it or whatever. And I'm like, Man make that thing look like the back wall of a 711 and Compton.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, no, it was great. I saw that on one of your posts or something like I was like, Oh, I can totally do that. Bring it Look, I've said this and I truly mean some throw myself under the bus. I am I am not I mean I'm a good man. I'm a good husband. I am not I don't have the skills and like the manly skills of like JT Taylor, Tom ways I'm, I'm very I'm very nervous stepping out of my comfort zone like I grew up and tall Whoa, I like it here in Toronto, I feel very safe. So for me to go down to Baja, like all these things kind of had to be in place for it to make sense to me and our second night. I don't know Jason sure told you that. But we had 30 guns pulled on us. We were pulled over by the Federal rallies. They blocked us. pulled me out and Jason by gunpoint, six of them on my side scarfed up guns pointed at us. Like it was I was like, oh God, here's what my wife's been worried about the entire time. And all I'm thinking when I'm getting out of the car is my wife says I am a lot bigger than I realized make myself small make myself so and obviously everything went fine. They were looking for some deeper running some guns and drugs that actually treated us total Fairly, but it was one of the scariest moments in my entire life.

Wyatt Pemberton :

We have we've heard the stories and we've heard heard the scare stories. And we've seen the TV shows, you know, like Narcos, we've seen these things. And for those of us that don't go race in Mexico and baja south of the border on a regular basis, we're not. We've bought into who how scary it can be. But, you know, certainly there's some outliers like that. But by and large, it seems to be business as usual for the race community south of the border.

Jason Berger :

You know, I was terrified when they pulled us out. But ultimately, when we look back on it, they said they were looking for people in our description. They're running guns and drugs, and they searched everything and I wasn't roughed up, nothing was taken, but we were actually retreated very professionally as far as I was concerned. David, let me get my passport and phone out of the glove box, which I wasn't going to reach for as the guns are pointed at me, for obvious reasons. Not you know, and it was it was absolutely I obviously wish we could have put that car across that finish line. For Ford, they put a tremendous amount of effort into that program. I'm really bummed that we weren't able to do that but the experience I mean, it's absolute bucket list for me I think it'd be bucket list for anybody, especially based on that list and I know some of those guys I've spoken with some of those guys on that list. I wouldn't you know, not far as to say their friends I've just have met and talked to some they're just there's a reason why a bunch of those names are in offered Hall of Fame. There's are there contenders for it, they're just quintessential competitors, and you can't help but want to measure yourself up to them and ride some coattails there. I mean,

Wyatt Pemberton :

I think it's awesome.

Jason Berger :

Look, we've all seen dusty glory, and I'm pre running one day with Johnny Campbell for eight hours in the truck and I can't tell you how many times I'm when is this really happening? like am I pinch yourself? Come on. Amazing. So you know, I mean, I know we're kind of leading into some of that stuff. I don't know why, like I am not so much believe in luck, but I've been one of the most fortunate people in the world to be aligned with some very top teams that have given me an incredible opportunity to live out my lifelong dreams.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I love your dreams, you have good ones. So when you first got into kind of rock sports, you've been around the Rubicon for years and years and years, you're already wheeling. You got invited to or asked to spot for somebody back in the early 2000s at at an event maybe as a you rock event. And then that's kind of out of that was born your Motorsports, you know, mountain goat Motorsports.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, so we I went down to watch I saw the lake Amador doesn't remember where was where Chris Durham if you guys remember back then like it was just insane. That guy was just full throttle, beating the crap out of his stuff and I was hooked. Next year was down to Cougar buttes. And a good friend of mine actually volunteered for me I think, every single year for 20 years on my Disabled Sports program. His name is Philippe Zodiac love Philippe's the axis one of the nicest people you ever meet his spider Hurt, and he asked me to step in. And so I spotted him. And he's like, wow, we got seventh. We've never placed that high before. You want to keep doing this. And then I want to say like the sequence of events, I want to say we were in like Fernley for like some man made course out there. And that's where I got to know Jason a little bit better. I think that's kind of our first time kind of meeting up and and my brother in law, and I kind of worked on his car a little bit that he got back from Shavers. And then I ran that year spotting form and then yeah, I got my own rig. I bought a factory to bear Motorsports with mogh nines underneath it. Just a two seater and I ran the Yurok series on my very first bottle was Tom ways and then end up going. My brother in law ended up spotting for me and

Wyatt Pemberton :

did Tom have a mustache back then? Or is that a sans mustache era for him?

Jason Berger :

Tom's had it on and off. Not sure. But he was he was he was a great spotter. We I mean We were I think we broke on every single course our first time. He was probably a little too intense and I was a little too throttle happy. But yeah, I went we did the you rock and actually end up buying a buggy off of rusty Bray. I don't know if you remember rusty Bray

Wyatt Pemberton :

very well Mr. Kentucky. Yep. I bought

Jason Berger :

his single seat moon buggy. I think Jessie Haynes built that car at Badlands from correct I don't remember exactly. But so I was running Matt. I only ran that at SEMA that year we were down at Vegas for you know, the championships for Supercross. And then I got into x ray. And to me, that was just super, super fun. And I ran some nighters just for the fun of it and kind of put a sticker across the night just bottles like crawling is for babies. It was kind of my throw it as much as I still loved rock crawling. I just escaped me. I'm throwing that out there. And I had my moment like my very first moment and I don't think I told you about this. We were doing a Donner event and there was some downtime. I don't remember what was going on between like the finals or whatever and Dustin Webster was the announcer and I was doing recovery and there's this big rock slab there and that they would you know, drive up and go around this cone and Dustin was looking for like an intermission show. And so I decided I said I can climb that thing and two wheel drive and I hit the bottom of that thing on nitrus and it pulled the front tires off the ground and I literally hopped I mean you can see the air come off the rear tires with the front tires never touching and hopped all the way to the top. Complete luck like I hadn't there's no talent there whatsoever. I wish I could say totally planned, stopped at the top harvest pounding thought I was almost gonna die. crowd was going nuts. I go back down to the parking lot and I didn't know Shani Campbell very well, I just knew that he was my hero, right? Like everybody's here on the sport. And he goes, I want a picture of that signed to put up in my shop and I turned to my wife and I said I'm done. It's never gonna be get any better than that, right? Obviously, I've never sent him a picture that sign there. But that was like a really big moment for me and I, I got to know the Campbell family a lot better. And that's, um, after that moment that kind of moved on in terms of becoming, you know, part of their family.

Wyatt Pemberton :

You know, I mean, at that point, you know, like Bailey and Wayland, they were just babies. Yeah. So you've totally seen them grow up like I remember even just 2009 king of the hammers being out there. And I don't know, bailing Wayland being 10 or so and racing and then to see where they are today in 2020. You know, this, you know, these hard as competitors. It's amazing. It's awesome. Like, it's, it's, it's pretty cool.

Jason Berger :

I absolutely love it. I wanted Bailey to win so badly this year after we were broke. Not not before, right. And she passed us I'm like, Yes, come on, make this happen. Bailey. Come on. And unfortunately, it didn't go her way. But um, look, that girl's got a tremendous amount of talent. And you know, it's interesting to see how they drive compared to how their their their dad drives like and what I you know, obviously Bailey's a little bit more like her dad I would say, Waylon i think is a little bit more of that cautious driver and of course I got to ride with Waylon and see a little bit of that too. He's more of a calculated driver which has made him a very consistent finisher, right

Wyatt Pemberton :

I actually called and text Bailey this week about something I needed to talk to her about and that I had some questions on and some what was around you and she never called me back. Hmm. I hope she listens this and here's the call Bailey and of course our voicemails full and then ever called Bailey, her voicemail is a it's an answer you like it rings all the way until it answers and it's like, Hey, sorry, it took me so long to get to the phone. And you're like, Okay, no, it's cool. Be like totally suckered me. Anyway,

Jason Berger :

yeah, sorry. That was kind of like my moment with that and then we did X ray season. We did well, you know, all these things presented opportunities like my X ray season, I had a blast. That's when I really got to know you know, Brad and Roger better and it's when I became such good friends with JT like that is where our friendship started. So that to me was my number one takeaway from xR even though I don't talk to JT all the time. He's one of those guys when I see him, we can pick up right where we left off, give each other some shit gave each other hug. And then after X ray, you know, it was kind of like, it was just too short for how far I was traveling. I was traveling all the way to Colorado Springs. And if we were kicking ass, we raised for seven minutes, right like minute and a half courses. And I was like, man, I can't. This is This is ridiculous. And so after that, I'd sold all my stuff and kind of kind of stopped doing my own thing.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And right then was, you know, the weavers started to wind it down that oh 708 and then by oh nine It was pretty well wound down

Intro/Outro :

Stay tuned, your talent tank is in full yet.

Wyatt Pemberton :

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Intro/Outro :

Now back to the show

Wyatt Pemberton :

were you at King the hammers in a way? I was not. So the first your first year racing? Can you hear me? Here's your co driving for Jason shear in 2009. You're in a Campbell car. You put it on the box. Yeah. podium that thing. Tell me about 2009 king of the hammers. Dig back in your memory. How cool is that?

Jason Berger :

Yeah, I mean, look, I don't have to dig back that far like that, that I will never forget that. I mean, who's ever gonna forget the first time that when King of the hammers and even at that time, I know wasn't the size it is now. But it was a really big freaking deal to win that. I think Jason I spent more time that year than any other year that we've spent and we spent a lot of time and Jason may not have that same story because I'm not Right next to him working on the car like he is all the time. I'm up here doing my own thing, but why we practiced and practiced and practiced and practice and we route a moon rocks practicing, we were out someplace out by, I don't know, by somewhere in Nevada practicing, we're down at the hammers practicing just trying to make that car faster and faster. And we were we felt pretty confident that nobody was faster than us. We knew people were as fast as us. But we felt pretty confident going into that race. If we keep the car together, we put up a good finish. We never thought that we think they really thought that we'd win. But yeah, it was amazing. We passed I think that year, like you know, there was no qualifying and I want to say we started like 30th or 27th. And within 25 miles, we had passed every single car. We're physically in first. And I remember coming back into hammer town and Jason saying, well, even if we break down in a mile, we just made history passing all those cars in 20 miles. And then, you know, the rest is history. We're able to get up on the On the box there,

Wyatt Pemberton :

yeah, it's your stuff. And then in 2010, you had work getting away. You didn't come back to the hammers in 10. So I did in 2010.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, I was 2011. I did it in 2010. I came back JSON I broken Upper wightlink all the way over on upper Johnson. And I hiked across the top of the mountains, all the way over to the pet over by wrecking ball at the time was where there was a pet. And we had a spare one and then hiked it back and Jason had the car ready to go back together. And then I can't remember where we finished in that race. But it was in 2011 when my own transportation business at the time, and I had basically got the Starbucks contract. So you can imagine I was a little bit busy with Starbucks opening every other corner. And so it was hard for me to leave during the winter because we we get so much snow up here. And so I took I took a little bit of a break for a couple years, except for one local race. I'd raced with gt here locally,

Wyatt Pemberton :

and that was 2011. Stampede, right?

Jason Berger :

Yeah, and there's a beta. I'm pretty sure was 2011 I hate to tell this story just because I sound like such a dick. But you know JT qualified first and Jason was writing Adam sure about him that car, that white car, they had the two seater and Jason and qualified second behind us and we were in the TTB car. And, look, my fire suit was bought by Jason. Okay, it says rage for BFG. Everything's across it, right. So when we get through in the morning, I take such a dick. I take white tape, and I put it over rates forth and I put it over bf T, because we're good year and I'm not part of rage for that day. And I told JT so I'm going to walk back to Jason right now and just say good morning. Can I walk back there? Yeah, I'm sorry. I feel so bad. But he looks at me and he's like, but Chase, and he points at my my fire suit with the rage forth covered up. He's like, Chase, we're still like you're still on. I'm like, Chase, not today. Not today. I'm not rich worth it. I'm actually here to beat you. Sorry about that buddy. And I turned around, I walked away and I rented JT and I go got him he's gonna be such a mess right now like we thought I got in this ever head I know I sound like such a dick but that is the one thing about when you go from team to team to Team i've you know I've the year that Shannon ripped his whole front tire off passing a son when he didn't have to pass this on That's right. T passes at the bottom of full of hate and Jason does what do i do i go let them go. They'll take himself out. I'm co drive with them all the time. You won't make it to the finish line. He's got tire balls sticking out of the right front tire right now. And then Shannon asked me why did you let me pass you? That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen. You do. And I'm like I told Jason you take yourself out you almost did you dumb ass. He didn't even have the pastor's son. I'm not gonna let that little fucker beat me to the finish line. Exactly. Three nevertheless, Shannon and you know, I? So that's like you talked about the psychological side. Unfortunately, like when I've been on some different teams like that. I don't mean to use against them. But look, JT brought me on to win that race. And maybe people think it's a dick move, but it was just like there was our way of like, Hey, I'm here for JT today, and I want him to win. I'm gonna do everything to make sure that we do and y'all won with that car. We did wait we we want that we almost didn't we I missed a call coming back into into one of our pits one time I was just so excited because we had like a 20 mile lead on Jason and I forgot to call it turn and we completely went off down by the cows for some fencing I mean like why like missed the corner and like jump off the side of the road down like in a pasture type of missing the corner? Yeah, that's

Wyatt Pemberton :

a problem.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, I don't know. I don't is that JT is only when I actually don't I don't know. He doesn't race that much.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Well, I mean, as an employee, for for now. I can't but yes, I do believe that's his only win. Oh, that's awesome. But I have heard I have heard some discussion. probably get in trouble for ease that I've heard some discussion about some best On this, some Oh gee 13 stuff going on and I

Jason Berger :

know you're talking about right. Mm hmm.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Right. Yeah.

Jason Berger :

So I was asking when this was gonna air, because I was like, Huh, it's airing on Monday, I'm probably gonna keep my frickin mouth shut the talk.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I don't know when it's going on. All I know is I was told, hey, you need to come to California and I was like, in February.

Jason Berger :

Well, look, I everybody's um, I'm just gonna say everybody's a little bit antsy right now. You know, we all want to race and do stuff. And so who knows whether it's going to happen or not gonna happen, but I just think it's a lot of people getting antsy and the race cars are sitting there and races have been canceled. And maybe something does or doesn't have, but it's not actually from what I've heard. It's not actually like a true race. It's more like just Hey, let's get some buddies together in the desert and let's just go do some.

Wyatt Pemberton :

That's right. Still bragging rights. Yeah.

Jason Berger :

Is it more important to Win $100,000 or is it more important to win a dick swinging contest? I say decorating contest every time, every time.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Every time no one remembers the other one. Yeah, you're gonna get rid of 100,000. So, yeah,

Jason Berger :

so I wrote with JT that year and then um, you know, I had I had done with the Campbells, I had in the 2007 a, whatever i'd spotted for Nick Campbell, when Shannon was getting more into the high speed stuff and and we did great like I, you know, national pro modified champion, the same year that Jason and I won co H. And that was that was a pretty cool accomplishment to have both of those things happen. So that's like Nick always, like flew me all over the place. And we just had an absolute blast doing our rock crawling stuff. And then Shannon asked me if I would ride with Wayland. And I think that was 2014 or 2015. I don't remember exactly the year that was but he at that time, I think that was his best finish that time. I think we got four thoughts that are fifth somewhere, right? their fourth or fifth, something like that.

Wyatt Pemberton :

legit people will beg borrow and steal just to get a finish and to finish top 10 is outstanding. Yeah. And then how did you guys broach the? The utvs started? I mean, I know how Campbell's got into racing utvs it makes it makes a lot of sense as much as Shannon hates them. And, and, and certainly you can vouch that he absolutely hates him. As soon as the last one comes in off of the course. They are being loaded as they come back to the Campbell compound. They are being loaded on the trailer to go back to Phoenix because he's kicking them out like immediately. They don't even get a chance no matter how broke they are. They're not getting repaired. They're not getting touched. They're literally grabbed the jack grab the impacts out of them. Put them on the trailer. That's it. I'm done.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, I mean, you know, Shannon like that's kind of he loves them. I can meet those things every weekend. It's just look, I mean, and then I'm sure you walked into their pin anybody else has like it It is it is freakin nuts in the Campbell pit. I mean, they've got you know, three cars now they got Brian's car too. We got four cars they're trying to manage one car is difficult enough and you've got tools going out to all these different cars. And then you've got, I don't know about six or seven new TVs there. You know, it's just a little bit insane. So I think that's part of I don't know, but just I think that's just part of like, let's get rid of some of the chaos. Let's just get these things. That's right. Yeah. And get them going on. And I don't remember exactly how that that started me, Shannon, I've been friends for a really long time. Anytime he's coming through. He stayed here before and he actually used to do CrossFit a little bit too. And then I don't remember when he asked me but he asked me if I would co drive for him. And I said, Hey, I need to take him check in with Jason like because, you know, like Jason completely changed the car for me and got me in there and and we just decided that it was a great opportunity. Jason didn't care that I was with Shannon and he looked at as a positive thing. It's another time where I get my eyes on the course.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Right, you know, exactly. And I know that's why I kind of, you know, Campbell's got into you know, for sponsors and The cars but also there's a reason why Lauren Haley is also in UTV. There's a reason why Miller's run a UTV, it's you get that extra chance to see course.

Jason Berger :

Absolutely. And in terms of sponsorship, look those things, people want to have those. My son wants one. I mean, everybody wants one of those things. So in terms of sponsorship, and actually being able to represent a company that actually might receive sales from what you're doing there is huge, right? Not that many people are going to buy a Campbell car like maybe one or two a year if if Shannon's lucky that he's going to build right, or Randy slawson. So, there's a huge opportunity for sponsorship there. And it gives you an extra eye on the on the course and you know, it's it's pretty fun. It really is. And now you can fit 35 there's a 35 inch competition tire forum that's starting to we're starting to get up there. I mean, they're starting to get a deal. Honestly, out of the box, even a little razor SS back in 2009. We're going faster through the website and Jason and I were in his car. Yeah, I mean, they just they just work. You know, you just don't want to roll on at 80 miles an hour. That's the only thing that terrifies me is, and I trust the camels are good fabricators, you know, and actually, I know everybody thinks Shannon's nuts, but he really isn't with me in the car. He actually listens really, really well. And my safety is definitely one of his concerns. Shannon is as good as it gets. on all levels. He's a good guy. He really is. Yeah, yep. always treated me really well, for

Wyatt Pemberton :

sure. Jason's current car that Jason one with two times back to back, you know, he was going for, you know, a fourth win, which would have been a third win this year. been amazing to do three back to back when he originally built that car, roughly. I'm gonna say this 2015 I could be off on my ears a little bit one way or the other. It was originally a single seater. Hmm. And then you guys had a conversation about racing together again. How did that go down?

Jason Berger :

So when Jason first built the car, he said that he was making it configured it so they could have become a two seater. They're wanting to come back and race with them. He's like, Look, it doesn't. It's a single cedar now, but I think for K wage at UC to be best. But, you know, I don't know, for whatever reason he wanted me back in the car, you know, but he wasn't going to change it unless I was doing it. And you know, we kind of talked about things like that, but it's kind of like this interview. I don't know series. Jason was I don't know how serious you were about this. So I was like, ah, whatever. And then, you know, I started being like, Yeah, I'd like to get back into it. And you know, I've been doing stuff with the Campbells and it was awesome. Like, we didn't have any problems or anything like that. But those guys were all in single seaters. Bailey had her co driver. Waylon gone to a single seater. And my son came to me and he said, Daddy, you know, I know Jace. You know, I know Shannon is one of your one of your great friends. And I love Shannon. I know you love Shannon. But you and Jason are like best friends. Like you guys belong in the car together. You really need to get back racing with Jason. This is coming from a 13 year old. So I was pretty rad. I called Jason. And I said, How serious were you about putting me in the car and he goes, I'm just waiting for this phone call. And I go Really? And he goes, I will order the parts tomorrow. And I said, let's do that. He literally ordered the parts the next day and sent the car to travel. I mean, that's how fast that happened. I'm not over exaggerating, like Jason was waiting for that moment. It's what do you want to do? Whether a two seater is what it takes to win k wage or not just having somebody to experience k wage with was more important to Jason than actually when he goes I just want somebody in the car with me that I trust and that I can enjoy this experience with

Wyatt Pemberton :

and when you realize how competitive minded Jason is when he puts his helmet on, or even leading up to putting helmet on. That's saying those are powerful, powerful words for him to say he just wanted to share that with you that that was more important. I'm actually kind of even shocked at that because being around him he's very intense about the wind.

Jason Berger :

Or Yeah, yeah, made me cry a little bit. I told you I'm sorry. No, but it really did. I was like, wow, and you know, the only time you're ever going to see me a really really angry side of me ever come out of obviously, somebody said something about my wife or somebody said something negative about Jason because I've just never met anybody in my life who always, always involves everybody and thinks about everybody else. And Jason's always done that with me. And, you know, look, he's nervous having a passenger, anybody who's in a two seater, and I haven't talked to, to Eric, or Josh or any of those people, but I know probably one of their main concerns when they go into race day is, are they going to hurt their co driver?

Wyatt Pemberton :

It's an underlying tone. Then I've broached that with, you know, with with friends and conversations, and I don't know how well you know, miles, but you miles is a good friend of mine. And it wasn't until he rode with me at the MIT one year and I was like, wow, yeah, I could have killed you, man. Like, like I could have killed both of us. That's how, how we just didn't have a good day. And that's something else. Your prep to get into the right seat, though. Walk us through the steps of what you know what homework do you put down how Do you make it to where? Well, I mean, as JT says, You're the one in this co driver in history style, you've certainly aligned yourself and are friends with some guys that are some very fierce competitors that are, you know, it's on any given day, they can put themselves on the podium, but you're, you know, patting you on the back, you know, virtually here, there's something about what you're doing in the right seat that is lending confidence to the program and leaning in confidence to the effort to be able to drive that extra two, three or 10%. to outpace the competitors. What are you going through on that standpoint? And then once you're in the car, what's the mental game? Oh, those are those are all great questions, or it's a lot to unpack.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, no, it is, um, I'm trying to like kind of decipher that. So I can say like, for me, and I think Jason would attest to this too. Like, I'm not very good when it's not intense. Okay, like when we go out and we pre run. I'm like, screwing up on the GPS left and right like I just like not in the game. As a pitcher in college, and in high school, I was way better relief pitcher than I was a starter like put me in when it's intense, and I'll do the right thing. I'll make it happen. So like in terms of our, our prep, I think everybody does the same thing, right? You're going out there, you're making the notes, I think something that Jason and I do a little bit differently. And I don't know there could be an argument whether it's good or bad, is we run the racecar. I mean, everybody knows that. Now. What's phenomenal about it is we're getting done with our pre running a lot quicker. And what also is interesting, at least for Jason and I is the faster we are able to pre run, the better both of our memories. If we run it at 30 miles an hour, I don't remember turns bombs. I don't remember anything. But if we run it at at, let's say 80% of what we're planning on running, I won't forget a single bump or single rock or anything along that along that trail, whether it's marked on the GPS or not. And I don't know if that works for everybody. It's obviously you're rolling the dice like but what happened this year, transmission went out Right, we didn't change the transmission before the race because everything seemed fine. Well, relatively seemed fine. Jason actually did make some comments that it seemed a little bit soft before the race. And I'll be honest, I kind of ignored that because some of my job is to kind of play through like, is this being over exaggerated? Or is this not like, is this a real thing? Or are we just dealing with stress? And I may have misjudged that because a car felt fine to me. And all of our data that we had coming back was good. The argument could be made. You're a dumb ass because you ran your race car out there pre running, and it made it through the pre running if you wouldn't have done that you would have made it through the race. Who knows? But we we've chosen to that to be part of our success.

Wyatt Pemberton :

We are running at race pace. It was It's like watching it's here's a great example. I actually saw it today and I'm running through my head. It is a I believe it's Parker for 25 qualifying this year. Harley Laettner in the concrete motor sports trophy truck comes over eyes. Truck one or two Trucks before him had came over the same rise and landed a little bit funky and wrecked and rolled. So he comes over it throws him out of the course to the right. to his right. And there's a camera guy over there. Yeah. Oh, it's crazy. You see the camera guy dive I think Harley collects the tripod that the camera was attached to. I think he collected it. But I've seen that at race pace. It doesn't look it doesn't look too bad. I mean, had the guy not been there would have been just, you know, whatever. I think that's scary thing that because there was a guy there and he dives out of the way it adds some drama to it. But then I watched it today in the video that I saw come across my Instagram, it was in slow motion. Well, it looks so much more dramatic, but you don't remember any like it's, it's that whole. As you speed up and slow down the video, the human brain picks up what's important and what's not important. Like a rock out there in the middle of one of the you know, one of the trails it's an inconsequential rocket 30 miles an hour. You don't care. It's It's below your noise threshold. Yep. But when you're coming through there at 80, all of a sudden, as you come out of that kicker, it throws you right at that rock at 80 that it didn't happen at 30. So it wasn't, it was below the, I'm gonna just call it noise threshold. It just didn't register. It wasn't too you guys weren't running out of pace that something like that would register now would have normally been a race, gender, things like that.

Jason Berger :

Yeah. You know, unless Jason builds a duplicate of the race car of exactly the race car, which would be rad. It's been talked about just has never happened. I mean, obviously, money wise, that would be insane. But um, that's your only other option really, because that you want to know your track width exactly what it is, the clearance that you have, all those things are really important. And actually, you know, Shannon's done that for years and Shannon's attitude is always like, hey, my junk can't make a 500 miles, then it shouldn't be doing 250 you know, his his thought is it should be able to go 500 miles double what the course is,

Wyatt Pemberton :

and he's wadded up doing that too. When was that 20 2018? I think they're just coming back from a photoshoot and yard sale the car. So, I mean, you know, it can be any moment it could be an inner, always, you know, I think

Jason Berger :

if you like I've tried to kind of even figure it out. What Why do I get an opportunity to do this? Like what has made me any different than anybody else who's reading not GPS because anybody can read a GPS and call a right and a left and I think I'm just, I'm calm during most of this like I never I'm never screaming and yelling at Jason like I've heard radio transmission with people in there like, just like screaming at each other and it's just super, super intense and you cannot keep that going for seven hours. It's just not possible. So it's just about trying to stay calm. My job is to keep the car calm and make the best decisions with the information that we have available last two years ago when we went back to back when our second year in Rome. We came in from the second Lap I said to Jason, we've done everything we were supposed to do perfectly. We came back in here physically, first, the cars in good shape. Now when we go out on our third lap, because we're going to have lap traffic, now we are make decisions based off of the information that we're given at that time. We don't ever second guess it. We just make that decision based off of what we see. Hopefully it's the right decision as we move forward.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And now Jason's left you on course before, right,

Jason Berger :

huh? No, he loves his brother. It was Casey.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Yeah. And that was a top of backdoor. I think so

Jason Berger :

that was the first year I didn't ride with him.

Wyatt Pemberton :

In my head, I as you're talking through that, I'm like, Wait a second. I think Jason has left somebody. It was not you. It was Casey.

Jason Berger :

That's Other than that, you know, trying to keep him calm, letting him know what I'm comfortable with reminding him to drink or these all seem like simple things, but reminding him Hey, Jason, you take your drink water. Hey, Jason need to eat something. And that's pretty tight to CrossFit again. But when you do a workout, when you have to five rounds of such and such, and it's going to be 30 minutes long. I talked to my athletes. Hey, how do you think you're going to feel at 25 minutes? Let's start the workout there. Let's start out with that rep scheme. And Jason, I look at the race very similarly, we're not going to be done in three hours, it isn't a sprint, we're going to be in the car for a really, really long time. And when you're in the rocks, it kind of gets boring and sucks a little bit and it's hard. And I we try and figure out where we're going to be at that six hour mark and make sure that when we hit that six hour mark, that we are still making the absolute best decisions we can make. Okay? We don't want to make a terrible decision, like almost put Josh out this year, right? That's when you're like, oh, man, I was just like, couldn't believe that just happened. And thank God I'm stoked for Josh that I'm stoked that there was somebody new who got on the podium this year, right as super rad. And we're talking about the role at the top of backdoor on his way to the finish line. And and he said, I just my brain just stopped working. Yep. He was done. Yeah. And that's the mental game where you guys that make it to that point in the race, and certainly there's a lot weighing on them. Right. I'm the rabbit. Right? How close behind me is the fox, you know, or the hound on top of trying to run your race and be whatever? Yeah. At the end of that day, dehydration, lack of eating something for six hours or eight hours. Yeah, it all plays mental habits. And that's, that's, I think, what a lot of people sometimes miss in when they look at their race, like, oh, you're in the car for that one. How? And I appeal. They asked me that all the time. Like, how can you get in a car for six hours or eight hours? What do you do to go to the bathroom and then you have the catheter conversation? How does that work? It Wait, you roll it on and it's glue? Yes. That sounds terrible. By the way, that was a that was another little business I had never forgot to tell you about. It's called race catheter comm we had actually made a medical grade catheter that goes to a piece of vinyl tubing instead of having that adapter in there because I didn't like the catheters that were on. The market and the insurance was so expensive that I quit doing it. But they're the same ones that I use nowadays, but your your examples great. Like I tell people like, hey, hop in your car right now, and drive as fast as you can, all the way to San Diego, you know from taco. That's like what it's doing there and you're just on pavement not getting beat up the entire time. So to me, I truly believe that being in the best physical shape that you possibly can is a huge thing to being at your best when you finish that race not making stupid decisions. I don't want this to sound any sort of arrogance at all. But when we've the years that Jason and I have won, we've been in the car for seven hours and we get to the finish line. We're not destroyed. The car may not go much further. But Jason and I feel good. Like we're not completely trashed, like we're doing fine.

Wyatt Pemberton :

I know we see that like, like Eric Miller, hardcore workout guide now, like, didn't used to be, from what I can tell but yeah,

Jason Berger :

no, I think it's I think it's a huge part of it. Like you're you're my body is fine, I can take those hits fine. And when previously I probably could enough. So I think that's a big part of it. I think people forget, you know, I don't know when Shannon's by himself for example, like if he remembers to drink and eat or whether he has somebody on the radio to tell him to do that. But that's a very simple thing I do with Jason like, Hey, you take a drink water, Jay spend a half an hour, you know, let's have this, we got to make sure that our mental game is still spot on. Look, in terms of when I look at it from my perspective, that that year we went back to back that helicopter footage we're doing 125 miles an hour through those works. I want Jason at his absolute best. My wife and kid are waiting at the finish line. I don't want him making a mistake.

Wyatt Pemberton :

So what you're saying is, you guys are like 100% business. All seven hours. There's no funny stories or laughs or anecdotes or movie quotes. Oh, no, that's all. Okay.

Jason Berger :

And that's it. So what keeps you calm is what I'm saying is we're like, Jason are talking about anything and everything. And sometimes it's like, oh God, we kind of need to get back to racing, right? There is a, unfortunately, like, one of the coolest moments this year there was on the backside of you talking about like cool stories. After we came out of Cougar booth, there was a section where there was some like, it was probably seven more miles after commutes, or some big g outs and they were marked hazards. And I mentioned were pre running. I was like, I bet you we could clear those like that would be pretty sick. It jumped us while we had the helicopter down on us, and we're coming up on them and Jason I start talking about He's like, dude, we're gonna go for it. We cleared those and I told him I said, even if we don't finish this race, which unfortunately happened I said that was the most fun we've ever had fuckin trophy truck and how badass was that? So we having those moments consistently, right? Like we're always laughing and, and having a good time. That's really ultimately before Jason and I and for a lot of people there. Not everybody's like Lauren Haley, where it's become his, you know, his job that he does, I got it, no matter what happens. I'm going back to coaching CrossFit on Monday. And Jason's going back to his business on Monday. So we I mean, it doesn't mean we don't want to win. But we need to make sure we can still go back to our normal job, nothing there is going to be life changing for us, unless we screw up terribly. That's a good mindset to be in.

Wyatt Pemberton :

It is by saying that it's not a knock on like Lauren's mindset at all or, or any or Eric Miller's mindset, who are just, you know, hundred percent racing all the time now. But yeah, it's we get our own place, and we get our own mind and we get right with what we have going on for ourselves. Yep.

Jason Berger :

Look, I mean, coming from being with these different teams, I want to win every single time. Why this year affected me more than any other year where I haven't finished. I was three weeks later and just talking to my wife, she's like something on your mind. I'm like, I'm not dealing with this loss very well. I'm a very very competitive person. I want to win as badly as everybody else. But it's different when I raced with Jason, and we both have normal jobs we're going to, and I mean, this honestly, Shannon's never put this pressure on me. But that's how they make their living. Okay, that is this. They're a racing family. So in terms of my job to perform, I feel so much more pressure when I'm there to do that. And I said that families never put that on me. I put that on myself, you know, but monster doesn't sponsor the 20th place team right now. They sponsor the best.

Wyatt Pemberton :

So that is a interesting little segue here. What advice would you give for a future? Whoever wanting to get into rock sports? What advice would you give there? Take it easy. Take it slow. get your feet wet. You know, find your capabilities find where you can get faster, get better, make time, or is it a go flange up with With a with the Campbell team go flange up with one of these guys it's so that you get the exposure because all too often what it seems like we see as guys that you know they follow the Instagram world and they want that you know some instant gratification and if they're telling their friends hey I'm you know follow me I'm going out to a scheming hammers and if they DNF it's like life in in life wrecking for them and you're sitting here saying I mean I worried about it for three weeks after the race that we DNF but it wasn't the end of the world. I got up on Monday and still went to work.

Jason Berger :

Yeah, I mean look and I have a tremendous I'm just using Lauren as an example. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Lauren because he decided I am going to do this for a living. I'm gonna do I'm gonna get rid of everything else and I'm gonna be that guy. I you know, I don't know that many people have the balls to do that. Right? Like that is a he's crazy.

Wyatt Pemberton :

Yeah, I mean, he's awesome. It's awesome. linkers

Jason Berger :

Yeah, no, it is. Like I said, I have a tremendous amount of like, my balls are not that big. And of course, I was never that good to where I had that opportunity where I thought I could actually do something like that. But for most people who are getting into it, my suggestion is make sure that whether you win or lose is not life changing, because that the getting across the finish line and winning is is really super hard to do as has been proven right. And when I hear people mortgaging their, their homes and like getting into this extreme debt to come do this, I'm like, oh, man, that's life changing unless you can win because you're not going to get a sponsor until you get up on that on that podium. And so that's, that's kind of my suggestion. Look, if it's if it's somebody who's just got some extra money to spend and go out and have some fun, then you take that first year and you figure out a way to finish right? Because that's a big deal. Once you win, finishing doesn't matter anymore. You know that all that matters is winning, as I told you in the little bio, I don't care whether it's second or 15th it's not winning, right? Like that's that's the mindset once you win that race, like it's only first that matters anymore,

Wyatt Pemberton :

and you aren't the first one to say that Jason isn't the first one to say that I've even heard from Miller. I've heard it from Lauren. Yeah, it's, you got to feed you got to feed it. You got to feed the beast, right? The Beast says, you know, once you've tasted at once you want a second helping, it's not. It's not an easy second helping to get or a third helping or in now your case, a fourth, your fourth mouth.

Jason Berger :

But well, you know, every year it's something different. It's when you first you just want to win. And then it was like God if you could win twice, and then Shannon went three times like, Oh my god, what if you could What if you could tie Shannon and then we tie Shannon's like, Well, nobody else is going back to back. That's good to know. It won't happen for at least two more years. And then if we want again this year, like it's always you're just stepping it up a little bit more to what you need to try and motivate you to succeed

Wyatt Pemberton :

the mental game and what we tell ourselves what we justify in our own heads. Well,

Jason Berger :

oh, it's a great story. Every time I can justify anything Why?

Wyatt Pemberton :

Oh man, Jason Berger, folks. Wow, man. couple hours with you. Feel like I know you're like I've known you my whole life. What a great conversation. Did we cover every base you wanted to cover?

Jason Berger :

Yeah, I don't remember I didn't look back at our outline. But

Wyatt Pemberton :

we talked about your junk right out of the gate. That was a great, that was a great hook.

Jason Berger :

You I know you said you were gonna kind of throw me off there. And I really, like I told you I'm a very honest, transparent person. Like I'm really open about anything, you know. And honestly, like, you were like, I know you'd mentioned like, hey, I want to kind of dive into what you're doing. You don't need to let me trade secrets. There's really no the teams I've been affiliated with. They're not secretive. Jason does not see me he's not gonna have somebody come up and measure exactly what he's doing with all of his steering geometry and suspension and stuff like that. But he's pretty open. Shannon's always been the most open person about everything, right, everything. Yeah. And it's because I think that for the majority of those people, we any any of those people, I think anybody racing wants to win when you're at your absolute best. I sent it to Waylon when his dad passed him when he didn't need to, I said here's the deal. Well, and when you when you You absolutely have earned that when your dad is making sure of it, you know, and that's and I think that's always been Shannon's deal as Jason's deal Jason's like, I want. I want, I want somebody to be the fastest and the best it's ever been. I want it to not break down. And that's the guy I want to beat. I don't want to beat everybody that breaks down I want to beat the guy who's almost just as fast and we just outsmart him a little bit.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And we've talked man, we've talked about this on the show on with other people. And I think I can you we can test the DNA back to trace the DNA back to many people. But one of the main proponents of that is Shannon Campbell, Shannon wood will give you the shirt off his back, because he wants to beat you on course. Yep, that's it. Like, doesn't it We'll drink beer afterwards when our jumps all broke down. But that mindset, and we've seen Jason shear at the same time, all these guys have kind of embraced that. And it's this whole. It's what makes our ultra for community the offroad community, the rock sports community. Just the best damn people that you want to be associated with, you know, birds of a feather flock together, whatever but best damn people. I love being a part of the community. I'm glad you're a part of the community because of this. I've got the opportunity to sit down with you and meet you and now you have the opportunity to share your story with with the world here when everybody only knew you based on people calling you the best co driver the winningest co driver in all of history. Now we know

Jason Berger :

look, we're nine oh no, we're gonna close this up but um, most people probably don't want to be around any of us on race day. My wife says I'm an absolute pain in the ass on race day. Do you want to talk to Dave call during race week. Good luck with that Dave and I are close. I've had him ripping my head off and then after we get done with the race, we're best buddies again like you know, so we're that is what we bred in ultra for for sure. We will do anything for each other come race day when that flag drops. There to kick your ass but Before and after that I will do anything and give anything to you to make sure that you're successful also.

Wyatt Pemberton :

And on that note, we're out. That's awesome. Thanks, Jason. Thank you, Jason.

Jason Berger :

I wasn't expecting us to talk that long.

Wyatt Pemberton :

No, not boring. I love this outtakes. And on that note, folks, Jason Berger, Winnie's co driver and ultra for history. He's, he's a badass, find him, either doing CrossFit telling you about CrossFit or on the lake bed with Jason shear. Jason Berger, thank you for coming on today.

Jason Berger :

Thank you very much. Right.

Wyatt Pemberton :

All right, we're really out this time. I hope you guys really liked this episode. It was a really fun one to make. As usual. I really have to thank my my three partners on this custom splice. Those guys if you do anything for offroad recovery or even on road recovery or any projects, please hit Todd and his crew up at a custom splice comm give them a call. machining. Whoa, my gosh. Machines Stan and Brandon those guys over there in Fort Wayne Indiana. They do it all if they can't make it I don't know who can if if you need it made they will do it hit those guys up. They are a big supporter of the talent tank and I value their involvement. And then last but not least, magnitude performance Jason yoed and company their NACA dosis, Texas and everything that they've done for for the talent tank and getting behind and supporting this. This venture in this project and everything. Give them give them a call for your suspension needs. These guys do magic with springs and then the parent company mass Motorsports engines and they have they have engines on lock handbill, lots of horsepower. There your guys. Thanks, guys. We'll catch you next week.

Intro/Outro :

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