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The Talent Tank
The Talent Tank
EP 31 James Cantrell
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.
The Johnny Knoxville of Ultra4 Racing hailing out of the great state of Kentucky. None other than the Madram11 sponsored UTV driver James Cantrell @j_cantrell502 sits down for a dive into The Talent Tank. This guy is currently in Ultra4 National Championship UTV title contention, so we got him to take a quick break and talk about life, hard work, race prep, or lack of race prep. Making sure you are having a good time, and how to properly load a trailer and change a tire.
After the Checkered Flag-
Here are six basic steps you should follow when loading a trailer, including parking on a level surface, loading heavy items first, following the 60/40 rule and tying down cargo.
- Always load on a flat level surface
- Emergency brakes applied (trailer too if equipped)
- Chock the tires to prevent rolling (it’s best to chock the last axle). If there are multiple axles on the trailer, chock the last axle
- If observing stay away from the vehicle, and do not approach the loaded trailer until the implement is in park with the brakes locked.
- If the vehicle or implement rolls or shifts while loading … DO NOT PUT YOURSELF IN DANGER.
- Trucks, trailers and equipment can all be replaced … you cannot.
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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 for and off road racing.
Wyatt Pemberton :All right, all right. All right, here we go. Truly the premiere of the talent tank fall season. We got James Cantrell on here today, James, how you doing, man?
James Cantrell :Pretty good, buddy. How you doing this evening, man? It's awesome. We
Wyatt Pemberton :are so glad that we were able to land you up. I actually hit you up in the spring and and then you didn't call me back for like a couple days. And by then I had moved on to another UTV guy, which does mean good thing.
James Cantrell :Yeah, I know. I kind of missed that opportunity. I saw your calls like he was probably was chat a little bit. I'll come back tomorrow. Well, too late on that one.
Wyatt Pemberton :We'll get on it. Yeah, so this past week, everyone just heard a truly a puff piece. It was a puff Puff the Magic race dragon. He's from just north of you the Indiana guys up there but uh, Today we've got you. You're sitting in in Kentucky. Where are you living in Kentucky? I think you're just east of Louisville. All right.
James Cantrell :Yes. Yes, sir. I'm just east a low of about 45 minutes from downtown about 45 minutes from very fertile off road park to
Wyatt Pemberton :Oh, nice. Nice. Nice drop their dirty turtles pretty awesome. So that is your home course. But if anyone's wondering who James Cantrell is because I kind of jumped ahead of us there I really did as my bad man James. So I've known you since about 2013 in person by money on the internet since way before that, you are ultra for racer, UTV racer rock bouncer, you hook your junk all the time. Your number, race Number Number 502. I think what you've raised almost six k leeches I think the last three in UTV.
James Cantrell :Yeah, we ran 4k, which is a we've done the last three and utvs and the year before that we ran the 4400 class and the Kobo car.
Wyatt Pemberton :And then you've been out there though, with like Mike Coville and Casey Gilbert and all those Michigan guys, right?
James Cantrell :Yeah, we were fortunate enough to hook up with Casey Gilbert and coleville back when we ran the old Trek series up at the Badlands. And we became real good friends with Mike and Casey racing through the Trek series. And they invited us to come out and pit coleville and kind of hang out and check out everything coaches.
Wyatt Pemberton :And since you're kind of like the, like the Johnny Knoxville of ultra for racing, of just injuries and wounding and getting yourself hurt, like they couldn't help but be drawn to you. And kind of like the chaos that ensues around the James can trail.
James Cantrell :Yeah, we made Gilbert at a Badlands first track race we ever went to. And we kind of started talking to the Gilbert brothers and we became real good friends. I started talking on the phone every day after that. And between me and Casey Gilbert. I mean, we both pretty much end up doing stuff that just shouldn't happen to a normal person. Well, he
Wyatt Pemberton :likes having you around would be my understanding just because you take the heat off of him like he's breaking his foot falling out of cars. But you're literally you got hurt wakeboarding this weekend, you've sliced your leg open or something, right?
James Cantrell :Yeah, I can't have any fun. I ended up cutting my wrist on a wakeboard on how you cut your wrist on a wakeboard. I have no idea. I made it maybe five minutes on the way forward and for hurt myself.
Wyatt Pemberton :frickin clam. So, I mean, I've known your stories and known your antics. But uh, when, uh, you know, some of the people that kind of, you know, helped me out advise on this show. When your name came up, the stories just started rolling out, and there is laughing there's laughing in the longer we messaged about the stories about you like, he's a clown. Oh, my God, he's really bad. Like, you're really bad.
James Cantrell :Yeah, we like to have fun. I mean, we do stuff that you really shouldn't do. But we get away with it most of the time,
Wyatt Pemberton :most of the time. So when we went to record tonight, we got started, actually, and everyone just heard this start. But we actually started, you know, 30 minutes ago, but we took a quick break because we were maybe three minutes in and a tow truck showed up to drop off a friend's pickup at your place, but you just had a tow truck experience of your own with your dodge. And since this is like current affairs, you've got to run down one what happened the story with what happened here Dodge, but to the lessons learned that guys on the show could truly listen and hear like things that could possibly happen in the future and what not to do. I mean, that's, it's a big deal, right?
James Cantrell :Yeah, it was a major deal. It's turned into even a bigger deal. After the fact pretty much I was getting ready to take some equipment, move it from the house. I've been working on falling down the street and the excavator at the house. So just typical Saturday morning, back my truck up to the trailer, hook it up, move it down the driveway and parked in a spot where I unload equipment and all the time. walk back up to the house, get the excavator drive down, pull it up on the trailer, get it in a position where I get all the straps and everything hooked up on it pop off the excavator and I mean literally soon as I hit the ground, I see the truck trailer excavator take off down the gravel driveway. And then within a couple seconds it was out of me catching it after Chase and after it a cream through my field through my neighbor's field bounced off a couple trees took out some mailbox and ended up in the ditch down the road about 400 yards from where it took off from. And the excavator
Wyatt Pemberton :and the trailer they're fine.
James Cantrell :excavator and trailer survived I've no idea how the excavator wrote it out. I was standing up there at the top of the hill just watching this excavator and truck and trailer Korean through the field I mean, I bet you it was running probably 30 miles an hour when it got through the field and I'll just waiting for the expatriate comes sliding off trailer to wrap around the tree and somehow miraculously both of those escaped the whole ordeal. The truck was not so lucky
Wyatt Pemberton :and it wasn't even tied down right?
James Cantrell :No the bucket was a blade was up it was literally sitting there running on the trailer.
Wyatt Pemberton :Oh man and it took off like it was on power under power right?
James Cantrell :Oh, it took off like you just throw it in Drive and stepped on the gas. I mean, I ran after it like oh, maybe just started sliding down the driveway. There was no slot and it was full steam ahead.
Wyatt Pemberton :So you get down to it. It's it's now cleaned off some fenders it's pretty it's pretty trashed pretty bad. And it's sitting there running and then park right?
James Cantrell :Yep, sitting on the road just in park. like nothing ever happened.
Wyatt Pemberton :Do you think it's salvageable or is it totaled? Or what's the SAS of I haven't heard
James Cantrell :the frame doesn't look bad under my initial inspection of it or ended up ripping the rear axle housing out of it the housing looks good It broke the leaf spring bed took some body damage down the passenger side I'm gonna have to end up fixing it unfortunately. I think it's salvageable. I'll know once I get it back from rusty Bray he's got it down there just inspecting all the transmission and everything in it. Oh,
Wyatt Pemberton :you're How far are you from Rusty Bray.
James Cantrell :I'm about an hour and a half. Oh, that's pretty well Northwest. He built all my transmissions for when I started racing the car from coleville to my trucks and everything he does any transmission stuff I need.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, he's awesome. What is his transmission shop? I forget the name but it's a
James Cantrell :Aamco Transmissions.
Wyatt Pemberton :Richmond, Kentucky. There you go. Aamco Yeah, so you know it's a chain but he's all he's all his own. He's done that for 20 years, right?
James Cantrell :Yeah, for as long as I've known him. He's always been on the transmission game.
Wyatt Pemberton :He's good. He's good now Yeah, I love rescue bringing in all those guys. You know Josh Wilson. All those guys kind of that part of the world. I'd forgot he was lucky. I absolutely. So so you end up? Yeah, you destroyed a truck and this is a truck that you ended up kind of like lat was his last year carwash not 2020 but 2019 you like got stranded coming home and somebody came and brought you that truck loaned you the truck then you end up buying the truck.
James Cantrell :Well it's actually the truck I took to King of the hammers. I guess this was last year. And on the way back we lost lock up in the torque converter. I ended up going down the textbooks and watching a couple of my buddies raced down there which That place is awesome. Midlothian, Texas on the way home coming through Arkansas the lock up in the converter side have to go out and at that point I'm like well I'm about 800 miles from home we're gonna see how far this thing is going to go. So I drove it all the way I made it about an hour north of Knoxville which ends up being about three hours from home before the trainee finally let loose completely. Brian Shelley a good buddy of mine who actually let me borrow a truck only lives about 45 minutes from where I broke down he has a tow service and luckily enough he was able to come pick me up off the side of the roads I wasn't too far from his house and bring me another truck of his that he loaned me to get my trailer and stuff back home I ended up buying the truck from him after I put a new transmission on it
Wyatt Pemberton :all right, right by that point, right?
James Cantrell :Yeah, I figured I might as well buy it now. I mean already broke at once. I might as well own it.
Wyatt Pemberton :So this truck Yeah, what do you think you got to do just put a flatbed on it or?
James Cantrell :Yeah, I'm gonna put a flatbed on it and get the bodywork fixed on it but the rear end back underneath it the front axle it looks like it blew all the ball joints and there's no telling what else is the front axle it didn't look too happy when it was going on the roll back to go to rusty shop
Wyatt Pemberton :and it's I mean it's a it's a big dodge daily right Crew Cab it's
James Cantrell :Mega Cab you know dually yeah it's a destroyed it. Yeah, I destroyed it in the bad part is I had a month literally had in my possession maybe a month and just absolutely destroyed the most. It was a beautiful truck two but that's kind
Wyatt Pemberton :of like your mo though from you know everything I've heard about you and seen about you. Yeah kind of like I said I called you Johnny Knoxville of Ultra4 but you're also kind of like like pig pen. You know, like just you just have that that the dirt ball rolling around you but it's not dirt. It's just chaos.
James Cantrell :Man I have nothing nice. It's a second vehicle I've owned that I've completely destroyed I rolled a CJ-7 out bill for probably about six years off roading and burn it completely to the ground after I think I made it seven or eight wheeling trips after I completely restored this Jeep and built it before I completely burned to the ground and had to just throw it away for scrap metal
Wyatt Pemberton :will cause that fire
James Cantrell :rollover valve in the fuel cell didn't shut. I was new naive and didn't have my rollover valve. plumbed all the way Round the cage and just had it running off the side of the tank and down the chassis. And when I rolled I was on a little bit of angle and the way the Jeep was set and it didn't allow the rollover about the close all the way I was sitting there just clicking and something ignited it I don't have any idea and once it went up it was gone it exploded like you see on fireballs and like TV.
Wyatt Pemberton :Oh Jesus. Well let's go back to you and dodge real quick just to recap like lessons learned there. Chock your wheels or use a parking brake or the truck was still in park right?
James Cantrell :Yep, all the above chock your wheels. Have somebody holding the brakes on the truck. Make sure that he breaks said turn it off. A buddy told me a good idea to is to pull the breakaway on the trailer. And that way the trailer can't move at all as long as you got a good battery on your trailer. So that's a great that's a great idea if you're parking on a real good incline.
Wyatt Pemberton :That isn't a bad idea. No I never thought of that. Yeah, when it when it initially went down I was texting with some of the Michigan guys have kind of about like what did you do when they said yeah that the truck was in park I was like man, I definitely load with trucks run. I do that but I'm always you know, emergency brake always on and even that you know, when you live in a skid steer or loading a little mini a little mini x i think that's what you had was like little mini x right?
James Cantrell :Yes, a little mini a little
Wyatt Pemberton :mini x they weigh a lot and you know you get you get them on the backlit with the trailer and it pulls the back of the truck up off the ground. You know, that was probably just enough to make the transmission kind of unload a little bit. And then when you came back down on it, it just it just engaged. It said she got
James Cantrell :I've seen people do that I've done it personally myself picked up the back of the truck and roll it a little bit before I realized what was going on. But this was one of those wild things I've never seen before.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, I've never even heard of it. But I'm glad you're safe. I'm glad you didn't run after you get the trailer the do the dooleys you know, Sideswipe you and run over your ass you know that that could be very suboptimal?
James Cantrell :Yeah, I thought about it for a split second I ran after for about 10 feet. And I'm like, Man, this is a bad idea. This thing is gonna take me out and I just stopped and had to stand there and watch it cream to the field. Luckily, and there was no forces in our field at that time. Nobody was coming down the road. So nobody really was involved in the wreck other than the truck itself,
Wyatt Pemberton :man. Well, just shifting gears to kind of, you know, current situations outside of wrecking trucks has been that part of the world. How is COVID affected you guys as you guys back to normal up there? Did you guys ever really change from normal? Man, it's kind of been weird. We've been working nonstop like it's normal. Works been wide open everything with that's been normal. Kentucky's been really strict. Our governors kind of had stuff shut down where bars closed at 10pm. You're at 50% occupancy and mass mandates and the whole nine yards and W they've been really strict on the whole COVID situation. Since I'm an urban American Houston, I'm actually in the city, Houston every day during the day, you know, we've seen I wouldn't say any relaxation of it. But it's you definitely see less people wearing stuff. Now more people are I think the skeptics are out the numbers have come out enough times. I know you're talking about COVID is way off way out of the ballpark for having a conversation on the show. But I'm always, you know, curious how guys are really interacting in other parts of the country? Yeah, I just don't believe necessarily believe media believe social media. And
James Cantrell :no, it's totally weird. Like you go into like, main global, and you go on the metro area. And it's a totally different reaction to the whole COVID. And what we have where I live out in the country as far as going into stores away, people wear masks and everything. It's just a thing. It's a lot less reaction for people out here in the country than what you see in the cities. I just don't feel like it's real, like at the end of the day. I don't know. I know. It's real. Yeah, I think it's a real virus because I'm pretty sure I had it back in December before kayo. Ah, I was deathly sick for like three weeks went to a specialist went to everything you could think of and all they told me was I had a bad upper respiratory infection and they tested me for flu test me for everything, couldn't figure it out. And sure enough, come to find out a couple months later, this COVID virus They call him I guarantee that's what I had.
Wyatt Pemberton :I'm gonna blame it on your code before code wasn't cool.
James Cantrell :I'm one of the I'm one of the carriers from Kaylee's got everybody affected. I'm sorry.
Wyatt Pemberton :I didn't see it. cailleach but I definitely didn't get anything from me. I never you know, had a problem. But anyway, man. So simpsonville, Kentucky, just east of Louisville. You live there your whole life.
James Cantrell :We lived here since I was three years old. I was actually born in Pasadena, Texas, which right outside of Houston. And then we moved here when I was three and we've lived here pretty much my entire life. We moved up simpsonville from the other county where I grew up going to high school and stuff about 10 years ago and lived here since
Wyatt Pemberton :your mom and dad they still up in that part of the world.
James Cantrell :I live with my dad made him live out here with my fiance Katie and then my mom passed away when I was a freshman in college. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, that was one of those tough things. You know, being a kid in college and stuff. It was tough dealing with all that and everything that came with the whole taking care of my younger brother and my dad and everything after that.
Wyatt Pemberton :Can't even I know everyone's gonna listen to us and that like sympathy towards me or empathy, I think is the right word. I haven't lost a parent yet. But you know, my parents are getting up to their 70s. And actually, you know, Kelly Kaiser, you know, he was my co driver for a lot of years, he was Jeb nasty madniks his co driver for a lot of years. His mom is currently kind of at the end of her days, and it's really sad, you know, trying to be there to support Kelly, and have conversations with him. And he's kind of, you know, in a place that I've never seen him go, I don't know how to empathize, because I've never had that feeling yet. But I know you know, that's, you know, something that we're all gonna have to go through. I just, I'm sorry for your loss young years ago, but still,
James Cantrell :yeah, I appreciate that. It's, it's one of those things, you know, you You never know how you're gonna deal with it until it happens with you. And this is one of those things you got to take and move on. We're all gonna have to deal with at some point, you know, that's a fact of life. You're going to die at some point in your life, but it was rough as a kid you don't realize how much people mean you until they're gone, especially down the years looking back. It's a it was really rough, but he's got to keep your head up and move on. How old are you now? 35 years old actually turned 36 Friday.
Wyatt Pemberton :Oh, happy birthday. 35th. Okay, so your, your episodes gonna come out and in four days, it's gonna be your birthday.
James Cantrell :Right? Well, happy birthday, right? Yeah. Older. One day closer to 40 it's
Wyatt Pemberton :one more lap around the sun. See, it's That's it? Oh, man. See your dad. You know, I know we did you message about your dad a little bit. But that dude, he taught you a ton of stuff. He's pushed you a lot, right?
James Cantrell :Yeah, my dad's always been there. We grew up in him. I spent a lot of time when I was younger going to work with him. He's been in construction his entire life. And I'm always go to jobs and hang out with him. And then we started racing motocross together, and it always pushed me to be the best. Whatever I did, it's grown up I did. I played soccer, baseball, football pretty much every sport you can think of and no matter what I did, he wanted me to give 110% to it or not do it if you're going to do something do it all the way
Wyatt Pemberton :and even doing that I know wrestling like you're pretty legit, huh? Or was
James Cantrell :Yeah, back in your bow. Well, I guess I was back in my prime. I don't know now as good as I once was about 10 seconds yet. Yeah, I actually got into wrestling. My dad wrestled in high school and end up wrestling for Ohio State and he ended up placing in state up in Ohio which will house a lot more competitive wrestling state than Kentucky is. I ended up wrestling through Junior High Senior High my senior year we ended up one in state 13 out of 14 Oh us ended up placement state ended up taking seven. We still hold most of the records for the state in wrestling as far as points one most finishers. I think we've got four or five records that still stand.
Wyatt Pemberton :Oh, that's so cool, though. I mean, I feel probably listen to be like, Oh, yeah, we all did. So no, it's cool to go back and reflect on like, where we all came from? Yeah. And what brought us all to be in this like, same kind of ultra for circle today and in the community, like who did what and where and how all of our paths somehow crossed. I think that's part of the show is that I like so much is finding out how I came to know this guy from Kentucky, right?
James Cantrell :Yeah, I mean, pretty much, you know, we all grew up competing some way or another. And it's just one other way for us to compete once we get older. We just don't want to grow up.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yes. So speaking up, what did you want to be when you grew up? You're a kid. What would you say I want to be something.
James Cantrell :I want to guess when I was growing up. I wanted to be in construction, which what I ended up doing now I always wanted to do all what my dad did. He worked for Walgreens he retired a few years ago then end up going back to work for another general contractor and global and I've just always followed after his footsteps. I went to work for him after I own my own business, went to college for a year. When my mom passed away, I ended up coming back home to local father went dku for a semester and then moved back home to kind of help my dad with my brother and take care of everything going on here and end up going to Jefferson Community College, which is the local school didn't work out very well. I had an opportunity to buy a sealcoating business from a buddy of mines dad that I worked for during high school and ended up dropping out of school and doing the sealcoating thing for five, six years building that up pretty good and ended up getting my journey Mims Carpenter during that period and going to work for Walgreens construction, which is who my dad worked for at the time. During the winter months and then grew into where Walgreens to go full time sold the sealcoating business went to work as a journeyman for Walgreens found a bunch of jobs for them traveling around Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and did that for a few years and realized the road life really wasn't for me. I wasn't cut out to live in motels and hotels week in week out it just really wasn't my style of work. So I came back home. You know going back to school, enrolled at JCC finish the classes I needed there to move over to University of Louisville to study mechanical engineering. And you're close there, right? Yeah, I'm about 35
Wyatt Pemberton :minutes from university level. Oh, I meant like close like you've almost have your degree.
James Cantrell :Oh, I'm close. I think I've got 24 credit hours left. I'm almost there. I took the last year I was going pretty steadily and then racing and work. took over to where there was so much invested in racing workouts so busy that I just couldn't totally focus myself to the rest of classes I had to finish right now. So I kind of took a break, and I'll go back. It's one of those things I've got to finish at some point, I need to go back finish my last 24 credits. I'm almost there. So it's no point not finishing it.
Wyatt Pemberton :Well, you know, that me curriculum, mechanical engineering curriculum. I mean, it's a lot of labs. So he even though it's, he took eight hours, it's a lot of labs to get through that.
James Cantrell :Yeah, the hardest thing actually, for me was calc four, something about calc four, I just could not wrap my head around. It just they killed me that once I got through that it's been smooth sailing ever since. And I love the me classes because it relates to racing, I find a way to what I'm learning to use what I'm doing in racing. My dad's in me, and I swear, if you're around what you know, he's an engineer on a regular basis. Like, you see the mindset and you kind of figure out kind of how their brains work. Like it's a certain type of individual. And you're you exemplify it. Yes. Yeah. I'll probably be the worst engineer ever, because I look at the most simplest ways to do everything. And the easiest way to make stuff work. And that goes against everything I've ever seen anybody else do an engineering? Over engineer? That's Yeah,
Wyatt Pemberton :that's near
James Cantrell :me, this part was gonna toss it off to the side.
Wyatt Pemberton :That's been said about you, as absolute. So you've got a younger brother, though, right?
James Cantrell :Yeah, I've got a younger brother. He's two years younger than me. He actually has a seven year old niece. She's awesome. She comes over here and hangs out all the time. She loves the razor she pop in and go on rides with me all the time. It's one of her favorite things to do. So you're totally going fast. Oh, I'm totally Uncle James. She, she's a doll. I love her to death. We have fun. I mean, I got her in it young. She was probably two three years old. She said it with my fiance and we go ride around the road and stuff and finally we started going faster and now she doesn't even like riding with my dad anything we got around here because he drives around so slow. She gets mad and says take me for a ride because you go fast.
Wyatt Pemberton :That's awesome. That's trouble right there.
James Cantrell :It's gonna be bad. I'm gonna have to get on a 170 here before too much longer. You brought up Katie Smithers, your your fiance and then you just dropped her again, right there. Anyone who knows you this almost goes against like human nature. Is she okay? She's great. I don't know why she puts up with me, especially for this long. We've known each other. We knew each other for four years before we started dating, and I was actually played football with her older brother. And we kind of made our brother became real good friends. And slowly, shortly after high school, I guess my freshman year of college, we started dating and that was 17 years ago. We're supposed to get married this weekend. But with COVID and everything, we had to cancel our wedding and kind of postpone it till after the elections. We'll see what is going on with everything.
Wyatt Pemberton :You could have taken her to Moab this weekend and eloped.
James Cantrell :I've tried. I mean, I've tried let's go to the courthouse. Let's just get married. But she wants the whole wedding deal. The dress the part on your switch. I mean, she has learned it. She's splitting her time for sure.
Wyatt Pemberton :Now that's awesome. I'm giving you know, I'm giving you a hard time giving her a hard time but I do always you know, like I said No, you know what, how we cross paths and the different places that we come from to end up being friends but the women in our lives in you know, everyone from you know, if you Lauren Haley's watched the van error, you know, Tammy Campbell, or, or Casey Gilbert's wife, or even just as you go through all the dudes that were around on a regular basis at events, and then you look at their wives. Most of our wives are very similar themselves.
James Cantrell :Oh, definitely. You know, I see a lot in Katy and, and everybody's wives, you know, I mean, they all end up having to put up with us. And it takes a special person to be able to put up with what we do with all four, four and racing and everything else.
Wyatt Pemberton :I think it's like superpowers.
James Cantrell :Yeah, I mean, she's a special woman to put up with me and deal with the stuff that she has to do with racing and everything else I end up getting into somehow
Wyatt Pemberton :and hurt and broke and cut up and
James Cantrell :yeah, she's actually kept hear me pretty good. She doesn't let me get hurt too much. But she's that little person that sits on my shoulder and says, really, you're really gonna do this. You think this is a great idea? And she's talked some sense into me a few times.
Wyatt Pemberton :What's the plan? So after COVID after maybe, you know, you know, the theory is this thing all goes away after the election? Right? You know, some of you some of us say that me I'm saying that you guys have a plan, a backup plan. Maybe when it starts freaking out you guys go go down the church and start scheduling dates is that guy that's gonna roll down.
James Cantrell :We rescheduled it tentatively for April 24. We'll see if that date ends up sticking hopefully everybody can come have a good time. So that was our big thing. We didn't want everybody to show up and have to wear a mask and social distance and deal with all the stuff that's going on with COVID it's we want everybody to show up and have a good time be able to relax and actually enjoy it.
Wyatt Pemberton :Oh, that's the same weekend as ultra for is having that race there and dirty turtle
James Cantrell :weekend after it's actually the ultra for race at Rush. Yes, we make sure Getting around ultra poor racing. I made sure I told her Hey, look at the schedule before he replied the day before race again. I don't know whether I'm laughing
Wyatt Pemberton :at everybody that's right now driving down the highway listening to this and it's like, is that my phone ringing?
James Cantrell :Oh, it's fine. It'll shut off in a second.
Wyatt Pemberton :Of course, it's yours. Oh, man. So how long have you done the construction work that you've been doing today? You're self employed guy, self made guy. You do all your own work schedule all your own work. How long have you been? You
James Cantrell :have been working for myself for the past six years. Once I quit working for Walgreens and went back to school. I started restoring jeeps for a few years restored a few CJ sevens and stuff that we sold through Macomb and did that deal and then slowly picked up back into the construction stuff to kind of give me something to do while I was going to school and it slowly progressed into where we got busy. And I actually went into partners with one of my buddies this year that I grew up with, and I mean him starting to do full installations and getting a lot bigger and what we try to do
Wyatt Pemberton :your excavation, you do asphalt concrete, you guys do rebar, tie, rebar,
James Cantrell :we do it all. We do whatever it takes to make money, whatever we can do that day, we go out and do it. We've tried to move away from a lot of the smaller stuff we were doing before all the handwork and stuff and try to get into more machine work and bigger jobs. And we started doing polls this year, and we're really hoping the pool business will take off with COVID and everything it seems to be a great market right now.
Wyatt Pemberton :You set set all your own forms.
James Cantrell :Yeah, we've been doing the fiberglass pools Okay, that's what we'll end up doing mostly next year setting fiberglass we may do a liner or two for gun I put we've got a buddy of ours that sprays gun I. So we may end up getting into a few of those next year. We'll have to see what next year brings.
Wyatt Pemberton :Gotcha. I'm very familiar with that world. That is hard labor.
James Cantrell :Yeah, it's not fun. It's hard work. But anything that is worth doing is hard.
Wyatt Pemberton :That's a fair assessment. So you've done that, yeah, five, six years now. What made you start doing it for yourself.
James Cantrell :I've always just been kind of the person that's like when I left college after my second semester at JCC and bought my own business and did the sealcoating thing and started working for myself. I realized real quick that a nine to five to seven for me. When I went to work for Walgreens and started traveling and stuff. I'm like, Man, this just this isn't the path I want to take. I like working for myself. I like having to make long schedule and be responsible for getting jobs getting stuff done. And being able to take time off. I want to go race racing. Prep takes a tremendous amount of time when you're getting ready for race and it's real hard to have a real job and go into your boss but like, hey, I need the next three days off. My car's broke. I got a race. I got to be out this weekend. They're not very understanding about that.
Wyatt Pemberton :That's a fair assessment. I think you can go with that. Which I'm gonna tell you. You definitely have friends that will say he doesn't prep at all ever. So
James Cantrell :Oh, man, les Gilbert and then Rodney so bad on my prep and it comes back when we first started racing. Casey Ryan, my partner used to race with we built the Cherokee together started racing together he was always hounding me about prep, like he was on top of getting parts ordered making sure everything was done labeling bolts. I mean, he was 100% prep, he beat that enemy beat that enemy beat that enemy. And then when he went away, and I started racing by myself, my prep kind of got a little lacks a little bit and stuff started falling apart. I've got to the point now where I've tried to do a full prep, it's it's a lot of work. Yeah. When you really share a car down and full prep or even a razor. It's not like prepping a 4400 car but it's still very time consuming. Just get one to stay together.
Wyatt Pemberton :Nah, man. I do. I do love Casey Ryan. He's a good dude. man. He's a fun dude. You see you guys built that that cheer key. I think that was the first thing. I remember you racing around that time period. That like 2013 ish time period. Was it gray? What color was it was navy blue, the blue. Engelbert was Gilbert's is gray. You Lily you brag like man, we built this thing with junk. Like
James Cantrell :literally we bought a bunch of used parts. I got online on Jeep speed and we got ahold of the guy that runs Jeep speed. I'm like man we're trying to put together this East Coast car we follow up with the Jeep speed guys do we know you're all are fast out in the desert? That's kind of the racing of a track it was. If you've ever been to the Badlands, it's a bunch of wide open Sandy I guess you call it sand. It's more pea gravel is bigger, but it's rough whoop out. I mean, it's a lot of high speed sort of desert stuff. I guess you would call it for East Coast. We knew following I followed Gilbert and Josh Wilson and Mike Hall fish all racing track before we actually built the Cherokee and kind of saw what all those guys were doing and how fast they were. We made the mistake of taking I had a CJ file that I bought from a buddy of mine straight Rock Crawler 4437 sprung over about one inch of travel.
Wyatt Pemberton :backbreaker
James Cantrell :all hundred percent. Well, we had met Josh Wilson at the first time we never ended up racing dirty turtle had a local race. We are like man, this looks like fun. Let's go up there. In an ultra for I guess it just started getting big. I'm guessing this was probably 2012 they're supposed to have the ultra poor guys up there. A couple of those guys came down Scooby rusty Bray when he still had his Jessie Haynes car. He was there. We went and signed up. We ended up winning the BA class ended up coming in third. In the Basics class. We're like, Man, this is really fun. Like we can maybe do something with this. And we ended up talking to Josh he actually was there. Josh Wilson was there Ray Smith Cherokee had like man This thing is so cool. It's so fast. He's like man, you got to come up to the trek to the Badlands next week and we're having an ultra for qualifier it's gonna be awesome race come up bring the CJ come race like we'll be there. Little did we know we're getting into showing up to the Badlands and that will CJ five with one inch sub travel. I've never I've never been so hurt we went to the car I went to the chiropractor two days in a row so I couldn't walk when we got home from that race. It was the most miserable thing ever I've ever done. It was the year that they had the ultra for qualifier back when they didn't have a regional races they would actually do qualifiers for ultra for it was a dustiest race I've still ever been to to this day and we came home after that race and I immediately started cutting that CJ apart and like never again we got to do something else and I mean casing it up bill meant Turkey was that the race where bill Baird wrecked and knocked himself out. He had the bright Saturn orange ifms car and no This was back before bill bear this was home. Smiley was the guy's name on power four by fours all I remember by but he yard sailed off the big jump three jumped into the ball. And I mean yard sale. He overshot it by good 70 hundred feet. I mean, they we come around. Now granted, this is our first big race we've ever been to we drop into the bowl and there comes a helicopter land and emfs and everything we're like, oh, like this is bad. I mean, the car was just in pieces everywhere.
Wyatt Pemberton :Is that what happened to Dave smiley? Yeah,
James Cantrell :yeah, it was a blue blue Jeep. Yeah, it was a full two chassis car that he had. I mean, he yardsale that thing like I've never I still haven't seen a wreck that bad.
Wyatt Pemberton :He's a good guy do that. He's also a transmission guy. I learned a lot from that guy over the years. But then you know, Facebook kind of took the tech away. And here we are.
James Cantrell :I missed the power days. That's how I got into the sport. Back in high school found power four by four started following it started seeing what everybody was doing out west and it kind of took off from there.
Wyatt Pemberton :Man, you you're spot on where I'm at on the interview with you. I was just getting ready to go. What made you get into offering like, I know like you were into jeeps and stuff. And obviously, uh, you know, birds of a feather flock together and move towards this. This racing I knew but what got you into just being out? I mean, I'm already an outdoorsy guy, but how did you get into Motorsports? How did you where you go, Carter motocrosser what kind of, you know, three wheelers.
James Cantrell :I grew up had go karts and then go karts progressed in dirt bikes and those around in years old started racing progressively. We started racing every weekend. had a bad accident when I was a junior in high school ended up breaking my back and TIB fib on a freestyle ramp. First time ever been on a freestyle ramp last time ever? Took a bad crash broke my back TIB fib. After that. I realized real quick I sold my dirt bikes and got into off roading. I was like, I gotta do something else and bought a couple axles and parts with the money I sold my dirt bike for for my CJ seven that I had at that time and ended up getting on power for about four to find all the parts while I was just back, I guess googling and ended up coming across power for about four and found out about iraq on on denna jellico. I was the only one of my buddies at that time that had the driver's license. So we all pile in one of my buddies, parents Safari bands, about nine of us and rolled down and went and watched the finals of the ecourse. Let's say that was 2002. I guess it was iraq back then. Yeah. And went down there. And I mean, that was back when you walked behind the Jeeps, they were going down the trails running through in between the cones. I mean, that was just the very beginning of rock crawling.
Wyatt Pemberton :I mean, teleco was still open, then
James Cantrell :teleco was still open. Then I got I was lucky and got to go to teleco. One time, that place was awesome. They had some epic stuff at teleco that I've never seen anywhere else. I'm really, really disappointed that place is no longer with us. And then there were there weren't
Wyatt Pemberton :even windmills at the top of a wind rock. Wind rock. Yeah, the windmills at the top of wind rock. They didn't even exist back then.
James Cantrell :No, none of that was there. That was a jellico was a big thing down there at that point in time and Black Mountain was still there. Harlan was just getting opened at that point. That was a good time. Man. I love going down to jellico back in the old iraq days. There were some wild times down jellico throughout the years.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, like you could always you know, YouTube the one night in jellico jellico motel and that's it's not a porno.
James Cantrell :No it's not a porn is definitely a night Angelica. That's just a typical weekend night in jellico. back then. just ripping it. So
Wyatt Pemberton :I mean, you've been racing a decade now. Right? Yeah. close to it. close to it. That takes a lot that takes a lot to stay committed for for that long. I can't stay committed for that long. I love it I just the prep you know finally you'll just wears out enough for me. And I don't think I love the windshield time enough anymore to drive to and from stuff as much as I used to.
James Cantrell :Yeah, me and Katie had this talk all the time about what we would do if I didn't race. She's like, why do you race? It's so expensive. You blow so much money. I'm like, What else are we gonna do? We're gonna get a boat and go hang out the lake and just sit there all weekend and float unlike least it gives us something and all the people we've met with ultra for and in all the elebrate series rock bouncing, everything we do are awesome and thorough, real good friends of mine noun. That's who we like. That's who we spend most of time with nouns, people that we race with, and it's just a giant family.
Wyatt Pemberton :Well, I mean, I love it, you know, go on vacation around the country. And we always stop and see folks, no matter where you're at.
James Cantrell :That's kind of how we're at with racing. We always use it as an excuse to do something else while we're on the road.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yep, absolutely. We'll just like you said you stopped in Midlothian there text Plex and saw some guys run in there. That That place is awesome. That would bring back up again. So your driver owner mechanic, you kind of do it all. You you do all your own prep. You have any any guys that help you prep,
James Cantrell :I've got a few neighbors that come over and give me a helping hand. Every once in a while case you'll still show up once in a blue moon will pee him and stop by and kind of sit around and supervise. He really won't pick up a wrench much but he's really good at supervising and critiquing.
Wyatt Pemberton :You need those right? He pressed enter next year dad that does the same.
James Cantrell :My dad really he doesn't really get involved much my racing. He's always supported me in whatever I do, but he's not very mechanically inclined. He's great with carpentry but when you come to mechanic see kind of tried to keep them out of the garage.
Wyatt Pemberton :So you got after the CJ, then you got into racing Cherokees. Then you end up with a car from Coville Motor City machines. I also am a former Motor City machine buggy owner. I love that car. It was only a year old X ray car. Yeah, hundred inch wheelbase terrible got it had air shocks. This was 2007 2008 2000 I think by 2008 we had I put our eyes on it. But I still missed that car. That thing would do things that was awesome. But then you know you put 39 on it. That was stupid. It should have stayed with 30 sevens and just stayed shorter should have never tried to go racing the hammers with it. But, you know, if all we have in life is butts, you know, at least we did it. Right? Yeah, exactly. I love that colocar that thing on the rocks was it was unreal. The places you can put it the things that they would do is on really it was a billy goat. And then you put a big ol motor in that thing. And I'm going to get to that in a little bit. But right now, so from there, you went to that car and then from there you graduated or downgraded or what? What would you call the move that you make when you went to razors?
James Cantrell :I really wasn't planning on going to razors permanently. In the beginning it was kind of just gotten rid of my colocar and Cole surely had this razor sin in his house. He's like, Man, you want to go to k o h I'm like, I don't have a car. Let's go do it the razor class and ended up raced at one race before that dirty turtle and then just kind of get a feel for it and brought it back here and tore it down and prepped it and didn't know anything about razors. I mean, it was a giant learning curve going to the razor from the big car. It's totally opposite. Anything you would expect with a 4400 car.
Wyatt Pemberton :Don't go too far down that path because I will I do want to talk about coal surely and mad Ram 11 and all his videos and stuff and how you guys are involved. But then you have gone completely viral numerous times that I've seen on the internet viral videos, racing beaters. I mean like full sin. You're like the who's the Canadian dude with the Canadian tuxedo in the mullet and that sends it on the snowmobiles. Oh yeah.
James Cantrell :I can't think of his name right now. I can't think of it either. Larry enticer
Wyatt Pemberton :he is Larry the enticer he just sends it and do you I've seen these videos of like, dirty turtle. And I swear, everyone who's seen I mean how many times you think that one video has been watched on on any platform, millions and
James Cantrell :millions of views millions of views and Katie hates it. She absolutely hates that video because you can hear in the very end of the video cousin and she gets so much grief for that and she hates that video every time it pops back up and I get a notification it's been shared again always make sure to tell her Hey, your video got shared again. Is she the one that shot it?
Wyatt Pemberton :No, she's the one that she can hear cussing at the very end of the video. I'll have to link it on this episode notes so that everyone can't can go watch that video so not not for
James Cantrell :her. Her comment at the end is pretty funny. It's pretty hilarious. But yeah,
Wyatt Pemberton :you just Jeep should be proud.
James Cantrell :It really wasn't supposed to Oh, I love some jeeps weave loves and beater racing around here. And really, the whole reason I sent it through that section is we were up there with Phil McCarty, he was in town shocked a couple guys. And they were kind of rolling through the woods section nice and easy and like, I'm like, man, y'all have to hit that. I'm like, I'm just gonna go show them real quick. You can actually want to this thing. It's not a big deal. So I came around the first time kind of double double double through it. I'm like, man, I can go a little bit faster. Well, I came over a little step up, jump around about 5560. And I was like, Hell no, I've done messed up. When it landed in there and it kicked. I'm like, this is going to be bad. And all I could think of was I have no helmet on. I'll have a seatbelt on. I've got to make sure I drive this thing out. So I knew those tires were in the corner. And that was my biggest fear is I was just gonna plaster one of those big loader tires. And I know those things aren't moving. Now. Somehow it was all luck. There was no skill no whatsoever involved with that thing coming back down on its tires, it just kind of landed back down. I kind of just drove off and we'll look we'll net g the whole rest of that day just beating the brakes off of it that I couldn't kill it ended up selling it to a guy for the motor after I trashed the whole front axle housing was been so bad, it would barely move anymore. And it was still running. That was one of the toughest four sevens I've ever seen in my life.
Wyatt Pemberton :What was that? That was about two years ago. Was that three years ago?
James Cantrell :Oh man, I must say that was like three years ago. Yeah.
Wyatt Pemberton :Shot raises. All shot Jesus. I think he's on a mission right now to kind of your neck of the woods tune in people.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I think he was a Missouri in Kansas this week doing some shark can a person bouncer guys, Phil's a great guy. I got lucky. When we were out at Keio Ah, we took Mike coleville his car I really didn't know anybody. We're just getting into the 4400 class and showed up out there and Joshua West team to eight Motorsports now. CBM Motorsports he grew up out here. He actually grew up with Katie's brothers. They were real good friends as small world this is and Josh did all my tuning on the big motor. We put in the coleville car, flew out here met us went to the dyno, did all the tuning on and got it ready for the dirty turtle race. We show it to the hammers, we're like, dude, our shocks are terrible. Josh is like I got your guy. You need to come meet this guy. We'll take care of you filled it. Notice from anybody at that point in time comes over is like started looking at our stuff like, man, everything looks good. Like, let's go out here and see what we can do. Man, he worked magic on that car. I didn't realize coming from the East Coast back. I guess that was four years ago, shock tuning really wasn't a thing. People really didn't pay much attention to it coming from out here, like they did out west. And once you realize the magic that's mighty knows what they can do with shocks will do to your car. You it's worth every penny.
Wyatt Pemberton :And that's exactly what you know, having a conversation with Josh Bleiler, you know, they'd ran line mountain for years and years and years and years. And they just strapped on whatever came out of the box. And then Eric Miller shows up there and really puts in, you know, open on them. And they took notice, and now you know, Josh is a big purveyor. So it's kind of funny the, I guess the circles are the are the silos so to speak, that we have across the country in different areas, where there's different genres of racing in different mindsets and different things. And then somehow we all start looking further and further to the west. Like, how they make them go that fast. How's he doing that not hurt, you know, like,
Unknown Speaker :and it's nuts. Like I thought I had a good car, which I had a great car for. When it was built that car was seven he was about six years old, I want to say when I started racing it but I went out and hung out with Phil before ultra for nationals flew out there to go watch the race before the year before I raced it in the razor and went out to Randy Lawson's house. He lives in the same town as Phil McCarty and he's like come on over I'll take you around the bomber and see what it's all about. It's not even on the same level it's it's insane what those top tier cars will do. I was gonna die for the first 15 minutes around with Randy
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, like you go to hit this first jumps or first whoops or whatever. And like you pucker like you fully suck up half the seat, right? I mean, Oh,
Unknown Speaker :cute. I ended up puking rotten with them after for about 45 minutes. I mean, just got motion sickness in the car. Oh, you're hitting these wash outs are five, six feet deep and he just plowed into them at 70 miles an hour. Like they're not even there. And I'm bracing for impact thinking we're gonna die. Like, the door is gonna get ripped out of here and we're gonna yard sale into these trees. And it just soaks it up. Like it's not even there.
Wyatt Pemberton :It's life changing. That's what I got when I first took my car out to Barstow and the holes that it would eat up was just it changed the way you look at a Racecourse it changed the way you look at the trails it changed the way what you could do with a properly tuned suspension was just so different.
Unknown Speaker :We thought we were going fast and we were sadly mistaken for Ron with Randy and those guys. It's like okay, like
Wyatt Pemberton :weren't even in the same galaxy. Like they were no this
Unknown Speaker :is the other on a whole nother League of speed and where we can go with this car and we're driving it for everything my car had. And it was no it wasn't a slow car by any means. But those top level guys like Miller, Randy Jason Tom, I mean it It's a whole nother level of speed
Wyatt Pemberton :which I go back to like the Oh 8090 1011 k ah years where East Coast guys started first started traveling out west. And then you go back even today. Go look at videos from 2009 of Jason shear in that Campbell car that one in 2009 and watch him in the whoops. And it's sit back on its rear and it is just carrying the front and he's let us East Coast guys showing up out there. Literally we weren't even taking a peashooter to a howitzer fight. I mean, we weren't even close. We weren't even in the ballpark. And it was it was just very very stacked against us. Now obviously you know it's not like that anymore. We're quick learners. We weren't going to get asked us to do this for a decade but uh but certainly this first handful of years yeah, we just didn't have we didn't had no idea what we didn't know. English didn't know i mean we were just fresh we come from rock crawling Woods you know, I mean stuff like that. Those guys have a little bit of desert experience and that yuja kale Ah, anytime you got desert experience that's a giant advantage when you show up a king of the hammers. So what was the first year you showed up at King hammers like out 14
Unknown Speaker :I want to say it was 14 we flew me in Casey Ryan flew out got a rental Jeep and Vegas and drove over and slept and Cobos trailer and first adventure
Wyatt Pemberton :in that drive from Vegas from McCarran to the lake bed as well. I mean, that's like a three hour drive, right?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I won't say it's right about three, three and a half hour drive. But how many hours did it take you? Oh, we did in probably two, two and a half. I remember we were laughing so hard. As soon as we got off at Barstow, you start coming down that road, and you just see all these trails off to the side and like the edge of the road is wide enough for a vehicle. Well, we just dropped that rental Jeep right off the side of the road. We're bombing through there, like 6065 miles an hour, just die and laugh and like, this is going to be the most fun thing ever. And that's what we always do, like we showed up at Boone road. And first time ever. Like man, there's that looks like the passing lane over there. So there's a big line down Boone road to get into the hammers were like, let's just go over here to the right. And we just started bombing through the whoops and that rental grantor or that rental Wrangler
Wyatt Pemberton :net Well, what year did it take you like 12 hours to get the rental car out there? Like you got lost? Well,
Unknown Speaker :we actually made it to the hammers. We were sitting around it was the night before the main race and we've kind of been hanging out in town and stuff went up to the top of King shock mountain and kind of looked over hammers and we saw Mike had a paper map and we're like, let's go pre run. Like let's go see what this is really about. So it's probably about 11 o'clock at night. We're like a first laughs about I think it was 50 something miles out here. 59 miles is back when they just ran out to the power lines out the old. I think it was NBR loop. Yeah, out around to the right and back around by the power lines and straight back into town. Well, back then this was our first year there. We had no idea I've never been in the desert. I mean, I've never been west of Colorado. So we're out there and we're like let's just go run lap on let's go find the course markers. See if we can just stay on course and we'll see what this is all about. We're cruising along. I'll say we made it almost a mile marker like 30, roughly 2530 we got out by the power lines. And instead of taking a left and have it back to our hammer town, some blended blown up and blown down some of the course markers. So we ended up going straight past the power lines and headed towards Barstow about six or seven hours later me and him were looking at each other after going through all these bomb craters up and down these hills were like Dude, we're lost. Like we were straight up last. And I remember coming in when we were coming in Barstow has that Lucerne valley where all the lights are up on the hillside. I get
Wyatt Pemberton :like a night out there. I get a little confused myself.
Unknown Speaker :I get a fuse. But I remember that you could see these lights up on this hillside. The first town he come to after Barstow and all of a sudden we crested this region way off in the distance. I can see those lights. I'm like, Casey, we just got to drive those lights. Like if we get there. I know we can get back. At this point. We're down to like a quarter tank of fuel or maybe a tank. It's like four or five o'clock in the morning. And he's the case he's looking at He's like, Dude, what are we gonna do if we get stuck out here? I'm like, we're gonna call 911 and tell him to come
Wyatt Pemberton :bring pizza.
Unknown Speaker :Like we're stuck. We don't know where we're at. We're two idiots from Kentucky out here just running through the desert like we know where we're at. We ended up making it back to hammer town right as coleville and all them were rolling the cars to the start line for the 4400 race.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yellow clowns.
James Cantrell :I'm sure I'll never forget it. I can tell you that.
Wyatt Pemberton :I'd heard tidbits. I'm glad to hear from the horse's mouth. I've heard tidbits about the adventure. I was like No way. Yes. Knowing you. Absolutely.
James Cantrell :It 100% happened and then the next year we flew back out another buddy of ours ended up coming with us. They ended up messing up in Las Vegas and given us a brand new Rubicon four door Wrangler. They have like 500 miles on it. definitely got full insurance on that thing. It was most fun we've ever had a cailleach 400 We just bombed that thing everywhere we went up and down rock trails didn't put a scratch on the outside the undercarriage I can't say it was in the most pristine condition but it really it really impressed me how good those jkh really are and stock form
Wyatt Pemberton :there. Man I did I trashed a rental car out of out of Vegas once it was a we had a power plant that you know from my work I had a power plant over in Mohave Valley which is right there across the border from needles California and got the rental car and it was it was back when they had the the pearlescent paint you know, it was like the Cadillac pearlescent paint, it's like that tan off whitish color. I don't remember what GM it was maybe it was like an impeller or alumina or something like that. So we get the rental car, we drive down to the power plant. And you know, I don't know what that is an hour and a half drive down to needles from Vegas. And then going back it's me and two co workers and we're in this thing. And you know how big the playa is or whatever the and you're cruising and we see this huge dust devil and I mean huge. I mean, this thing's like it's a mile across the base. And we're eating dairy queen, we gotten Dairy Queen at the needles Dairy Queen, and we're cruising toward this thing. And this one of my co workers he's an Indian guy. He's like, like, you're not gonna drive in that are you and I'm like one handing. He's already mad at me for not having two hands on the wheel because I'm trying to eat my Blizzard as we're going and we shoot into this dust devil and it takes the steer the windshield wipers and just peels them up and then we're just getting blasted. Oh man it sandblasted that car. It was not it was like these new You know, it was like the matte paint jobs that are cool right now. The whole car was that way and I'd stopped to get gas before we turn it at McCarran and I'm like, oh, man, this doesn't look good. I mean, this thing's it's been sandblasted. You can tell and No kidding. I swear like God, it never rains in the desert. Right? It rains just as we're pulling in the airport and the car goes in soaking wet. And we get out we get our bags and leave that thing. give it that nice shiny brass bell. Yeah, look great. It looks so good. But no, it was it was Matt that car was Matt because I drove it into a dust devil
James Cantrell :rental car. We had to stop and replace a shock on the Rubicon on the way to McCarran. We blew one of the rear shocks off doing about 60 through the whoop section. We were cruising around, it was hanging
Wyatt Pemberton :off the bags
James Cantrell :dragon. We ended up removing it and hammered down but we were cruising through the whoops I'm going back to chocolate thunder and run about 60 and all of a sudden Here comes a three footer. We hit that thing went flying airborne my buddy was in the back he ended up hitting the roof and falling down. But we ended up shear on the shock off of it but other than that the Rubicon was in great shape. We left Eric's we'd never been to a trophy Truck Race. So as soon as the main race ended on Friday, we all hopped on the Rubicon drove to Parker to watch this couple years when I saw Yeah, you raise the Parker for 25 that year.
Wyatt Pemberton :Okay. I believe Oh, that would have been the year okay, so I don't remember what year that was it 14 maybe 15
James Cantrell :that was 15 I want to say 14 was my first year at hammers I want to say and I guess I would have been 15 because the Parker race was the day you skipped a wage to race but no
Wyatt Pemberton :I started a was Chris summers car Yep, that's right we we went and qualified for starting position in Parker in mind left We came How did we do that? Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, no, we Yeah, we left that night after qualifying. We came we started the race on Friday morning with Chris got out immediately. I don't know how many I'm not even a mile got out because we part of the night before, got in it back in the truck and went back to Parker for taking contingency at the Bluewater while ultra for the 4400 races going on. And then of course we race the next day at Parker. man that's those there's those three years they're sucked really bad. There was it was hard when you had k h on Friday and Parker on Saturday and you had qualifying for Parker on Thursday. It really messed up a lot of people it was like, you know, I'm not a robin Cochran, but you know, Rob, you know, he was doing the same, you know, Rob was he had big crews of both, but he was racing both races and having to go back and forth. So it was the having to have the conversations and that was actually how I got the opportunity to meet Robby Gordon is Rob was like, are you guys racing that race car k wage, like that's tomorrow? You know, we're in qualifying you know, like you guys got rayssac Kaylee's? No not gonna kill each and then come back down Saturday with the same car. But anyway. Oh, yeah. Yeah, small world out there. But yeah, those couple years where they stacked up on the same weekend. I hope next year you know, the schedule gets kind of worked out is worked out this year. But I saw some stuff about score plus best in the desert plus co h kind of stacking up on top of each other and I don't know that's
James Cantrell :Yeah, I kind of saw that weekend after weekend after weekend kind of deal with what I was seeing. And that
Wyatt Pemberton :makes you It makes teams and people and folks have to like pick where to pick their battles and stuff. And that's actually a thing that you know, before we actually dive into racing, ATVs and stuff, what makes you determine what races you decide to go to because there for a while you were in ultra form. Then you go you Rock bouncing for a long time. And you had a lot of success in rock bouncing. I mean, these guys are the hill shooters, and you're hitting them in an ultra for car. And you want some events.
James Cantrell :Yeah, we ended up winning a couple of events. It was kind of one of those things where growing up out here on the East Coast, we followed rock bouncing, I mean, that's kind of I got him in power for about four and then culturally with mad ram him and Timmy camera just started posting all those YouTube videos and back in the day of like, Fagor, wheelie and all that stuff. And I started following all the rock bouncing stuff going to a few of the bands and I'm like, the more Washington once we had that 4400 car I'm like, man, we can go do this. I'm like this car, the way it works in a rock. I know we can be competitive show up to our first race ball, the transmission out those down pumpjack offroad super slick Hill blow the transmission pieces. I'm like, man, I know we can do this. So we go down and actually to the first pro rock race have actually ever had knockout racing. knockout Racing's probably my favorite form of racing I've ever done. It's the most intense thing ever. When you line up next to somebody and you're going to tackle a hill and fast show the top ones. That was some real fun racing. Ended up being successful at that we took third our second pro rock knockout event, they ended up going down and doing another knockout a band ended up taking second behind Tim Cameron, which anytime you lose to Tim it's like all right. I mean, I won.
Wyatt Pemberton :I won. Because Tim is pushing everything.
James Cantrell :Man that dude, it's it's unreal how good of a driver he is. He's a
Wyatt Pemberton :wheel man
James Cantrell :for the game. And it comes down a lot of it's his prep, a lot of it's his devotion. But he spends the time at the races. He is on those hillsides, looking at lines picking out lines sitting there paying attention what everybody's doing. He's really, he's a student of his craft. He's always learning always improving. He always impresses me with everything he does. And I was fortunate enough ended up beating him at one of the races. It's probably my one of my favorite memories from rock bouncing is when we took the wind down at APA and saw the big rock bouncers that was one plate and it just built that new Fs car and it was kind of its first year with it coming out and we ended up having some good success rock bouncing. It was really fun that I really want to get back into at some point.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, when I watch Tim Cameron like full wide, wide open throttle, pitch it into a turn and then he throws the rear steer on. And he's he comes out of the turn. He doesn't like flip right back. He I mean, he's he's he's driving both front and rear axles wide open throttle through the whole course. So it's like, I don't know how he did. I mean, he does it so smoothly and swiftly. And it's like, I mean, it looks like you know, what is the the Olympic sport with the skaters where it's the dual skaters, right? It's not a solo skate. It's the cup escape. And like, the guy is doing one thing while the woman's doing the other and she slinger. That's it's, it's like a ballet on ice. And in watching Tim Cameron, do that with a front rear steer ifms car, he'll shooting it at 1000 or 1400 horsepower. Who knows how many horsepower he's running today. But it's a big dragster motor, and he makes green screams it's it looks so fluid, and smooth. And you know what they say, you know, smooth is fast. And he just he makes it look so easy. You know, it's anything but
James Cantrell :yeah, he never looks like he's pushing or out of control. And then you look at the times against everybody else. It's like, man, how did you just put four seconds on everybody on this hill climb? Like, where did you pick it up at? And he's just he's that good?
Wyatt Pemberton :It's that's an eternity. Right?
James Cantrell :Yeah, you're talking 45 second runs?
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, an eternity. So what happened to that car that Koval car the Motor City machine car. Where'd that end up going after you stopped Hill Hill shooting?
James Cantrell :Oh, we started we ended up I had a bad racket. Race to riches it was Derrick West came out here Tom waves came out here a couple of other ultra four guys showed up Jeff called l we went down to race to riches at winrock ended up coming off the hill roll in the car real bad ripping the motor completely out of the car. The chassis actually took it extremely well. After that, and I had been out there and got to ride with Randy slawson in his car. I'm like, I need to do something else like this car needs to get like, I know I can be competitive if I get in something else. So I ended up selling that car and had plans to build another car the next season. And that's when I kind of went into the razor at the same time. And once I started racing, the razor I really never went back to building a 4400 car.
Wyatt Pemberton :It's fair. So culturally, Mr. madrichim 11. I've known Cole since a long time ago before he even knew what a video recorder was. Now I'm joking that he's always I think he was born with a camcorder in his hand but or a Sony Handycam or something along those lines. So how did you guys flange up just rock just being at Rock bouncing events? You guys got formed a relationship. He's a good dude. I have nothing but the best to say about him. How does he go from his razor be like here James. You start racing this what was walk us through Through all that,
James Cantrell :I've met Cole 30 Turtle had three bounty hills back when Tim Cameron still had a Showtime bogey. And they came up to do the three hills and try to conquer those and take the bounty and ended up talking to Cole with that event. And then after that, every event I'd see him at, we ended up talking to each other a little bit. And then I knew I had the Cherokee and stuff and we kind of talked a little bit here and there. Then I got into the 4400 car. We started talking a little more and I showed up the rock bouncing of the MC started posting all the footage of the race car and stuff. And we sold it became real good friends talking all the time. And I was at a little local race darnay op, and he's like, do you want to race my razor? And I'm like, Sure, why not like, I'll get it and give it a shot. I think I ended up taking third that race and after that he's like, just want to race it out the all four rays of dirty turtle and I'm like, Sure you don't have to twist my hand. I mean, anytime I get seated behind anything I'm in it doesn't matter what it is or race it. And one thing it just kind of snowballed from there. And he asked me if I could film for him up here dirty turtle. He couldn't make one of the events. And I've started filming for him.
Wyatt Pemberton :I guess that was even before I was racing the razor that's cool so little via videography. We didn't know that about Yeah,
James Cantrell :yeah, I do a lot of the filming for coal now. I try to pick up all the events that I can get to that are local to me that he can't get to he's he's really big into the motocross email with read and everything he's done with that so I try to I don't have any kids my own yet right now. So any events that I can be at film for Cole I try to show up and kind of get the footage form so we can still keep the madrichim thing going
Wyatt Pemberton :oh, that's excellent. Yeah, I had no idea well, I know he's always got guys like submit cuz he can't be three places every weekend and and he's still just cranking them out. That's awesome. Yeah, what he's done for rock bouncing and whoever Yeah, I think it was no longer Oh, and gave it that name. I don't know who gave it the name but I still love it to this day. But uh Yeah, what his his videos are I mean people all over the world spend hour upon hour upon hour just watching dude just smash their crap up appeals and then it doesn't work out they come rolling back down sideways upside down taking out trees crazy.
James Cantrell :All I remember when I was to build my CJ seven right after high school I remember watching the videos he started posting on him and Tim camera just going out and doing stupid stuff. And man the stuff those guys doing like, Man, this is cool. Like one day I will do this. And it's like we got to do this one. Like whatever it takes. We're gonna do this one day and it's awesome. He's done him and Tim Cameron. I mean, they pretty much built this for rock bouncing. fully agree.
Wyatt Pemberton :I mean, there's Don't get me wrong.
James Cantrell :I don't want to tell you. Oh, geez. You know, I mean, the bake ends West Keane. I mean, there's a few of the original guys that have been in since the beginning
Wyatt Pemberton :in the builders. I mean, like a Woodley are some of them guys, right? No, I don't want to take away I don't want to sound like I'm taking away from them. Because I'm not I just don't actually know their names that well, right. It's not you're not kind of genre. Like I get way off the rails and say some, you're like, oh, man that way, way too many teeth or something like that, right? I mean, this is always a joke, right?
James Cantrell :100% we're always with rock bouncing. And it's it's funny, you know, I mean, we've brought that 4400 car down to that race at Alp. Once we got it tuned from Phil McCarty. The shocks worked so good. Like after that you kind of started seeing the sport slowly progressed, people started paying attention to shock tuning and
Wyatt Pemberton :I remember when easy Rick Mooney ham showed up at a an array sort
James Cantrell :of down in Arkansas at the ultra for race and showdown showdown. He's he was throwing down back in his car, and people were like, What? What, like, how did that dude make that do that?
Wyatt Pemberton :So in the West, you know, I mean, Derek West's been super successful and rock bouncing, he's won some really big races with his car. And then he's also then he takes the same car ride out to cailleach and runs k wage. So I mean, they really are utilitarian cars, if you can change your setup.
James Cantrell :Yeah, he's still he's taken that new car this year. And I think he's won a couple races and finished on the podium quite a few times with that brand new leading edge Safari just built
Wyatt Pemberton :yet. So how often do this Cole get in the car with you?
James Cantrell :Go get him once a year just to kill him or seen him really racy has any ambition of getting in the car with me other than that he could care less. That's
Wyatt Pemberton :hilarious to me. Because
Unknown Speaker :he likes riding and hammers. We have fun. I mean, he he rides me that whole race always because there's always something leading up to hammers. It's just it's something with me. There's always preps that didn't get done something that didn't get done in the whole race. I don't think we pre we pre ran one time in the three years we've raced it out a king of the hammers where we actually got to go see lap one of the desert. Every other year. There's always been something going on with the car or showing up late or we've just had to hop in the car and go race and he's always yelling at me and we get lost in the rock trails like this is what you get for not pre run and like this is the reason you spend the time out here. Do
James Cantrell :like to see the whole
Unknown Speaker :yell Cole get so mad and I just sit there and just take it I'm like I can't really say anything because you've right but I just sit there and just keep driving along
Wyatt Pemberton :what's your finish rates up there?
Unknown Speaker :Are you yeah we finished most this year out of we didn't finish this year we ended up making it like hundred and 30 miles ended up breaking up front excellent spinners and after that point we just packed it in we just turned around it into like spending the night in the desert and came back out the year before we finished 20th and then the year before that same thing we ended up making it in our limits and breaking the max let the pinch rock
Wyatt Pemberton :See I thought I really did I believe you I thought that you finished this year so that's that's my bad I didn't I must have had 2019 pulled up when I pulled up the ultra four points I did I did
Unknown Speaker :I wish we would have finished this year would have been a lot cooler way to go to finish. You always hate not finishing hammers every there's so much that goes into that race. But it's there's some people that have never finished chambers. So it's kind of one of those things. It's catch 22 it's it's rough.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, no, it absolutely is so mean. So while we're talking about cailleach right now, what are some lessons man? What are some lessons that you'd have for guys,
Unknown Speaker :be prepared. Whatever you can think can happen will happen. You cannot be too prepared for kale ah always end up procrastinating and end up not being prepared and it always ends up causing issues and that's one thing I've got to get better at in the show up with a game plan and spend the time free running spend the time shock tuning that's a major one out it king of the hammers your shocks gotta be on point or laugh one's going to be the most miserable day of your life. We made a mistake this year broke a transmission during qualifying and ended up spending the night replacing the transmission in the car luckily we found one from Blake vanderloo had one out there but we have put a new shock setup on the car I never got time to go test it so we threw all this extra weight on the car take off the line this year we made it about 500 yards and realize real quick is gonna be a long day every little bump the shocks with this bottom out we ended up we limiter to pit one where it's like take everything can't off the back of the car full stiff on the shocks from the preload up like this thing we're not going to make it another 10 miles at this rate. We ended up limping along pretty good once we got the weight off the car we ended up I think we ended up coming through lap one at like 60 some place 65th something crazy like that. And by the time we broke we're running up in the top 20 a lot of running 24 25th at that point I mean we're moving along pretty good once we got on the rocks.
Wyatt Pemberton :Well you're good rock guy too though. And you know some guys aren't.
Unknown Speaker :I love the rocks. It's kind of what we grew up doing out here you go rock crawling. You get in jeeps and stuff that's kind of what we grew up wheeling and Jeeves and going rock crawling down farlan jellico Gorge spent a lot of time rock crawling and that's one advantage I think especially us guys out east have gone to kayo H is we're mostly guys are they are really good in the rocks know how to retrain and be real selective with our line choice because out on the east coast. You don't have traction, like you do out on West Coast on those rocks. So you got to be real selective out east at picking your line because you got to deal with mud and everything else. You can't just point and shoot like you cannot west
Wyatt Pemberton :or trees right trees. Trees keep you honest. Right?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, trees out Hill are killer. They jump out in front of you real quick when you don't expect them to. They're fast. They're like
Wyatt Pemberton :an endurance race like kale. Ah, what is your pacing? What's going on? through your head? I know. We all we all strategize, right, a B, C, you know, Plan A until the green five drops in plan B's in place, right? What is your typical go to? Do you prefer to be the hare Do you prefer to be the fox I mean,
Unknown Speaker :in years past, my plans pretty much been get through lap one. I'm not that great in the desert. I know that's one of my weaknesses, we just try to get through lap one. And I know if we can get through black one and have a clean car that's 100% once we get in the lab to and hit the rock trails, we can really pick up the pace and start passing people. But the way the sports progressed in the last few years, it's really hard to not run at 110%. If you think you're going to win a kayo Ah, you can back it down a little bit and still have a shot at the win. But it's almost getting to the point now where if you don't go out there and run 110% checkers or wreckers you're gonna get left off the podium. The sports just progress so far the past three, four years with the machines equipment, the amount of support people are putting in the time effort. Everybody's putting in as a group the sports just grown so fast. I mean back east we run normally hour and a half, two hour races and if you're not 120% you're going to get lapped. The pace is just it's checkers records nowadays everybody just drives so fast at the edge of our control and the equipment so good that you can push
Wyatt Pemberton :well that was one of the things like as we look at over for what they've done to even try to slow down the sport a little like, like like the removal of like the tire ball ban. That was something to get guys to not use the cars like battering rams The rocks, not necessarily for a to slow them down but
Unknown Speaker :they're not bad. Technically I still have some tires I run with firewalls that are k away. They're ultra forward legal. 29 inches wide. That's a nice thing about a UTV a 28 inch tire meets that. Perfect. There you go.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, you may even make me. God. You want at Reno recently, a year ago at Nationals, where you run in 110% there 120% there because that's a short race. And you got a lot open,
Unknown Speaker :wide open. I don't know how the car stayed in one piece ended up going out there and my usual Cantrell, prep situation, Gilbert and all those guys. I mean, they worked on this car all weekend. I mean, they literally rode me all weekend because I did not stop working on the car from the time we showed up at Reno till the time the main race started dealing with clutch issues, fall join issues. I mean, they still give me major crap To this day, because I broke one of my adjusters on my killer ball joints, they were froze shut. And I'm like, Man, this is right before the main race. I'm doing like the final nutball just making sure everything's perfect. And they're like, I'm like, I don't know what to do, like, just paint it over with a hammer. I'm like, give me one like, that's not a bad idea. So I grabbed the mallet and I just started way laying on this adjuster on this ball joint to kind of paint the top over where it couldn't back out and just kind of wedge it in there. I'm like, well, it's it's making a break and kind of race. And it worked. And it worked went out there. And the main I think I started fifth had a epic battle with Casey shear that was probably that was the most fun battle I've had with anybody at a race. We went back and forth for two or three laps before he ended up rolling, trying to catch me through rock section. But we just come he was way faster on the short course. But I was faster on the rocks. So every time we come to the rock section down the main straightaway, I just had a line that I've walked through pre running, I knew that the car I was on this line and didn't veer from it, the car would skim it. So I just come in there every lap set up to it, kind of pre check and just put it and I just send it through that rock section every lap like it's either gonna stay together. I'm gonna win this thing. And somehow miraculously, the car held together.
Wyatt Pemberton :Yeah, I mean, Casey, kala, that guy. I wish he I wish he wouldn't have had that really bad wreck at Reno this past year. That took him out. Right. I mean, he. I think he believes he's, uh, he's retired. I think he is retired.
Unknown Speaker :I think he's retired to in case he was a great driver of it. We're still good buddies. Yeah, his was. I mean, I love Casey. He's hilarious. he's a he's a great dude.
Wyatt Pemberton :Now I am hating on him and Marcy right at this exact moment, because I've seen social media and they're hanging out in Cabo right now. And that seems like such a better place to be, you know, Lance, and Renee and all them. And, Larry,
Unknown Speaker :if you look at them, they look really smart. Once all those guys get out of racing, they take some epic adventures. It's like man, is racing really worth it? Or is going to sit on a boat at Cabo for a week? sounds a lot better with that racing budget.
Wyatt Pemberton :What's your fiance say about that? Right there? Oh, don't listen to this. Oh, I think she would like Cabo a little better than going racing. But it's kind of one of those things. It's, that's what we do. And that's how we spend our any free time we have is racing. Again, you're preaching to the choir, I did it for a very long time. You know, I mean, the more the more and more content I put out the, the more and more I miss it more. I think that's why I'm still doing this because I'm living vicariously through you guys that are solid, you know, eight, 910 years younger. And I remember where I was, you know, eight 910 years ago, like, I couldn't get it out of my system like hard enough. It didn't matter. Like it didn't matter how, how bad I tore the car up and how many hours I had to work in the shop by myself. It was for that next event is for that next rush.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, it's just one of those things. It's like once you start doing it, you can't stop it's it's the worst. I tell people it's the worst drug you could ever do. It's it's once you get it in your blood racing with what we do the off road community. It's It's so hard to stop. Yeah,
Wyatt Pemberton :no fully. So hey, man, let's talk about the future. Talk about where we're going where where are you going? You focus on building this empire you know, you'll be the concrete man of Eastern Kentucky there. We're gonna
Unknown Speaker :we're gonna lose the pool. We're gonna push the pool business really good for the next year. I'm still gonna do of racing. That's my end game really hoping to a man that's everybody's in game that gets in the sport. I mean, you eventually hope you can get this paid for and that's all you got to do is be a professional racer. But we're gonna push real hard next year to try to grow the company and get bigger and
James Cantrell :kind of see what we can go with it.
Wyatt Pemberton :Get more guys under you. So they're keeping making money while you were out. Racing. Being a racecar driver. Yeah, that's the key. It's just man it's so hard to find skilled labor these days or anybody that wants to work. That's it's it's a show people all the time. It's nation, like you said it's nation one. This was a good conversation about Gilbert Casey Gilbert and you know, their business up there in Michigan. And, you know, I partner on a concrete company down here in South Texas. And our labor is, you know, our skilled labor is Hispanic. And that's that's it, you know, you don't find, you know, our truck drivers, our concrete, you know, Sema truck drivers, they'll be black guys, white guys, there's really no rhyme or reason. I mean, they're kind of everywhere equal opportunity. But when it comes to the trades themselves, were heavily Hispanic. Well, Casey's, like a man, I'm just gonna come down there with like a van, can I just like, go to like Home Depot and like, get a bunch of them come back and finish Congress? And I'm like, Yes, you could, but they wouldn't be able to finish concrete. You know, they they're unskilled, you know, their own train laborers or unskilled laborers. So that was interesting to me that that far north Yeah, that they're not up there. Versus here. You can't hardly find anyone in the concrete, asphalt, paving any part of that world that isn't a Hispanic trade. And those guys, you got to support them. I mean, the the guys that are the finishers, the guys that finish concrete, and how smooth they get it and how flat and level they get it and they do it without a machine, they do it by eye and you know, they will, they will make a slab You know, you're doing a slab on a house or a driveway or whatever it is. And they will drop down there two dudes and a two before and they will have this thing like
James Cantrell :is, it's super impressive when you watch I mean, anybody you know, any skilled labor like that, it's concrete works rough work, and oh, make it looks so easy. I mean, and they do form big slabs, and they just keep rocking through it. Like it's nothing I get on that screen board. And after 10 minutes, I'm like, I need a break like somebody haggin
Wyatt Pemberton :somebody come get this. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, would you really do 600 and 700 yard pours on a house. And I mean, those big, big houses, and these guys, we'd started, you know, four or five in the morning, and we'd finish it, you know, four or five in the afternoon, and it poured all day. And they just killed it all. I mean, just all day long. And then talk to Casey. And, you know, I'll see his stuff like he's building the house right now and how they were having a hand pull concrete in the basement, like pull it you know, with, with a, you know, hose or whatever, from one end to the other. Because it didn't have a pump long enough to get it over there. And I'm like, Oh my god, I mean, a shovel of concrete. It's heavy.
James Cantrell :Oh, it's no joke and trying to do concrete. I mean, when you're scraping and raking after a couple of hours, I mean, that stuff will wear you down quick. I don't care what kind of shape you're in. Yeah, if you don't do that kind of work every day. It's gonna it's gonna break you quit. Whoop your ass.
Wyatt Pemberton :So college, I'm gonna be one of the guys that gets it, you know, call you every couple months and be like, Did you get enrolled? Hey, how's class, and you stay on it?
James Cantrell :I'm hoping to get back in I probably won't go back in this fall. But I'm hoping in the spring we'll have things lined out where I can get back in and try to at least knock out a couple more classes. Yeah, it's more or less. It's my dad's number one thing is no matter what you got to finish college like that's the only thing he rides me on no matter what you do. You got to finish college.
Wyatt Pemberton :I mean, I think will pay dividends. I don't know if college isn't for everyone. It absolutely isn't. You know, there's people that you know, that's not the right thing. But knowing you and knowing how smart you are, I don't know if you would necessarily apply that your degree. But the fact is, it's a really awesome thing to be able to show and prove that you have gotten the world improving the ability to learn and it wasn't you went got a secondary education certificate. It's little you have a mechanical engineering degree. And that's that's a that's a big one.
James Cantrell :Yeah, and that's my dad says the exact same thing that you just said there and there's a lot of truth to that it's no matter what is something you can always fall back on.
Wyatt Pemberton :I will actually throw that out that's that's exactly I actually say that saying quite a bit. And it came from my mom, my mom, she would say you need a skill. You need a skill that you can fall back on and might end up being welding. And you know, I still weld once a week on something somewhere I'm always breaking out of the shop next, you know, the welders out you know, it's like if if every problem is a nail you have a hammer is I swear if you have a if you have a welder every problem can be welded. And it's a skill set that I can't tell you how much beer and in grace I've earned through life because I knew how to weld. But I don't do it professionally. I don't do it for a day job. I've never had one of my welds x rayed anything like that those guys that do that stuffer?
James Cantrell :Yeah, those guys are seriously skilled. I mean, the way I see it, my welds hold. They may not be the most prettiest thing in the world, but they don't fail. They're wreck tested. Yeah, they are wrecked tested 110% multiple times.
Wyatt Pemberton :Well, man, Mr. James can trail on the talent tank. Did we cover everything you wanted to cover today?
James Cantrell :Man, I think we pretty much went over everything. It's a good experience is awesome. And I really appreciate you having me on here and taking the time to talk with me.
Wyatt Pemberton :I can't say enough about all the guests that I've had on but yes, especially you know, thank you. Thank you for agreeing to come on. Thank you for sharing your story with everybody. You know, in our community, you know, people see your name on the insurance list. They don't necessarily know you know, like, who's this guy from Kentucky or how did you end up in UTV Are Latin and some of us we've known you for a decade and we know how committed you are to the sport and how involved you are in the sport and how literally you will give like the shirt off your back or you know, I'd say you give like a, you know if somebody needed a spare tire off their trailer, but I know that wouldn't be you. Because you need every spare tire you could possibly ever load into a trailer just to get done of it.
James Cantrell :Oh man, my trailer issues over the years, it's been one of those things that no matter what I do, I can put four brand new tires on the trailer. I'm a blow one going to a race. That's where we've got a running joke on right now with me and Casey and Casey. I've got a tire on my trailer that's been on there. I think I want to say it's going on six years. Now. This Tell me why this trailer tire is perfectly smooth. There is not a lick of tread left on it. And we've got a backbone to see how long this trailer tire last. It's one of those things where I want to change it but at the same time, we want to see how long you can actually run on a ball trailer tire.
Wyatt Pemberton :And you probably you probably had the month of September on the bet and that's why you didn't go to Moab because you didn't want blowup between here in Moab and have to pay those guys.
James Cantrell :Oh no, they're saying it's gonna run to like next year. They're saying it's still got a long way to go. I'm like, Man any day now this trailer I always keep a spare in my truck because I know any day that thing's good, it's gonna go but it keeps rolling. It's one of those. I don't get it. But I guess it really doesn't have any holes or cuts. It's just smooth like a racecar tire. less drag, the less drag a little more efficient on fuel mileage.
Wyatt Pemberton :I don't know. I have no idea. Well, I'm disappointed to hear that. Uh, you won't be racing my lab this weekend. But you know, because of that. It allowed us to sit down and tell your story, man.
James Cantrell :Yeah, man, I'm really disappointed. I don't get made to Moab. Wife happens you know, it's one of those things where I just got stuck here in Kentucky. I'm not able to make it a moabs awesome place and I know it's gonna be an awesome event also for being out there. It's gonna be really cool. But you'll
Wyatt Pemberton :be in Oklahoma right
James Cantrell :100% will be in Oklahoma for nationals. Well, I'll see
Wyatt Pemberton :you there. We'll drink a beer too together. Hey guys, thank you for for joining in listening to James Cantrell. James. Thank you for coming on the talented man.
Unknown Speaker :Thanks for having me Wyatt, its good time.
Wyatt Pemberton :I will catch you guys next week. We're out. You made it another episode consumed. If you like to listen. Please go give the show a five star rating on Apple podcast and consider writing a quick review either there or over on the Facebook page. Thank you for tuning in to this wild dive into the fountain tank Wyatt out
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