EP 48 Kyle Seggelin

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.

When you think of someone that marches to the beat of their own drum, that doesn't conform to a single norm, a vagabond, a nomad, an explorer on only a quest that they can complete.  I hope you picture Kyle Seggelin @iwannagofast77  from this moment forward.  Kyle is the driver of the #4654, the first EV vehicle in rock sports and the first to complete a King of the Hammers course.  Kyle and I first crossed paths at the 2021 King of the Hammers at a little known side-show called @ultra3_racing a good time with friends, 3-wheelers and at Tuesday night in the desert.  Where its gone since then, well, you'll have to listen.  But be prepared to find yourself seeking out used Toyota RV's and charting continent crossing adventures.   From Boston, to California, to Cabo and back.  From working for ULTRA4 Racing, to the assembly line at Tesla @teslamotors.  Investing in yourself, and how this BeanTowner worked his way into the Tesla R&D shop.  His Chinese is so good, we didn't even speak it on this episode of The Talent Tank.

After the Checkered Flag-
EV West @evwestdotcom, there's a lot out there about these guys, but at the same time nothing out there about these guys. 
They where the first to race an EV in Mexico at the 2013 NORRA 1000, and they recently had a landspeed car go nearly 250mph at Bonneville.  They even have a retrofit to make anything that has Chevrolet SBC or LS motor mounts a conversion candidate for their Tesla crate motor.   

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Transcript

Intro/Outro: 0:02

Let's drop the green flag on this episode of the talent tank podcast with your host Wyatt Pemberton bringing you the best, fastest, most knowledgeable personalities and Ultra4 and off road racing.

Wyatt Pemberton: 0:20

Alright, alright. Alright, here we go back in the talent tank firing it up again. Only this time when we fired up, it's gonna be really quiet. Like almost silence. It won't be quiet silence but joining me today, we got just just one of the coolest cats in ultra for really making waves in the offroad community. Having just just absolute pioneer. We've got Kyle soglin on with us. Some of y'all know him as a Boston Kyle, others of you know him as the driver of the shitbox shitbox. Toyota, our electric vehicle guy, people my professional world know him for being the guy that took on Lordstown in the Navy. Anyway, Kyle, how you doing, man?

Kyle Seggelin: 1:02

I'm doing good, Wyatt. Thanks for having me on.

Wyatt Pemberton: 1:04

I'm so excited about having you on and so excited. You said yes. I mean, I think everyone's gonna say yes, but then I'm always scared about people actually coming on and sitting down with you and talking to you. miles was like, you've got to talk to Kyle Boston, Kyle, you got to talk to him. And then the first time I actually physically met you was ultra three racing. On that was that party.

Kyle Seggelin: 1:28

That's how we've been trying to do it. For years. We have been partying and doing the ultra three racing. But finally it kicked off this year the weather cooperated. A bunch of friends showed up and new friends showed up and we had an awesome time.

Wyatt Pemberton: 1:41

That made the entire week for me. That was Tuesday night of hammers week. We're in hammers town. You guys are kind of up in the hammer heights area, which would be kind of west southwest a town of hammer town proper. You guys have like a big I'm gonna call it a teepee. Is that a TP? TP of lights?

Kyle Seggelin: 1:57

Yeah, yeah. 40 foot led TP

Wyatt Pemberton: 2:00

that's a top with what?

Kyle Seggelin: 2:02

Well, this year, we had a flame thrower on the top and then flame to go off every anytime. Anytime Don would hit the button. It's a remote control. flame thrower. And yeah, I mean, we we just have a lot of fun on Tuesday night. Come on up, you we're gonna get you on a trike and get you going around the course.

Wyatt Pemberton: 2:18

Like Cody Wagner donated like, like a dancing. You're what would you call that thing? It's like a like a, it's a sea change.

Kyle Seggelin: 2:26

It's a Go Go cage, go go dancer type stuff.

Wyatt Pemberton: 2:31

And you guys set up a track. It's it's a circle. It's basically the circle of death. It reminds me a lot of like, barter town for Mad Max was kind of like the environment. But anybody, I'm sure there's people because that missed this. There was no way we fit, you know, 40 or 50 or however many 1000 people were on the lake bed around your racetrack on Tuesday night. But we definitely felt like we fit a couple 1000 it was packed in there. When I came around the corner. We're doing some pre running earlier. And I came in like late after it had already started. It was like six people deep all the way around this circle. I mean, it was it was stuffed in it was a it came out.

Kyle Seggelin: 3:09

It was it was a great night, and we're gonna do it again next year. And next year, next year. Next year. We're gonna, it's awesome. It's honestly one of my favorite nights of the week. It is the don't miss and I hope people here so I'm sure people heard this a few, you know, episodes in the spring, earlier in the spring when we kind of talked about it. But I remember walking around the RV. I wrote up there with Adam shear. And we got out of his little Willis and we walked over there. We actually ran out of gas on the way over there. And miles, you know, the triple agent that he is, you know, or was he had, you know, shoved gas in it. And so we get up there we get out, we walk around some RVs. And we get to it to you to the ultra force site. And it is a circle of death. You're running around this huge teepee. And you said yeah, like if six people deep on the outside of the circle. But inside the circle like on the infield, and everyone's racing around you. I couldn't turn in tap somebody on the shoulder and we were packed in like sardines, tap someone and not have known them for like 10 years. It was insane. It was beautiful. Yeah, it was awesome. So walk through the competition for that how you guys came up with the idea to do ultra three racing. Now we you said it did blow up this year. So you guys had done it in years past. Tell me how you guys came up with idea, the idea and then walk through the competition of it. From my side of things. I came to qH and 17 and then I really met Tim Baker in like 18 and during the year 17 leading up to 18 and a bunch of brothers and friends from Oregon. They already had them they were into the ATC 70 the mini trikes with gnosis mansion with the hopped up motors and everything and they were already into it. And then we just kind of went from there, as far as I'm concerned from 18 and on we I think it was 1919 or 20 was the first year we actually set up a bracket like on you know, on a big piece of paper or a piece of plywood and actually we had a prize. It was a brand

Unknown: 5:00

helmet. So the the grand prize was a brand new helmet. That's how we kind of got started, you know, the megaphone and like, you know, we actually had reason Ghana going on. And then this year it was obviously kind of to the next level we're kind of keep trying to keep the bracket semi serious is obviously all about fun, but like, you know, who kind of keep track of who won and who last. And that's it. I mean, it's about having fun, but we definitely like some of the guys out there actually pretty fast on these things. And wow, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Fast. So the way the competition works is it's it's a circle. Yeah, it's kind of like an oval, but more like a circle. Yeah, a little bit of a leash on some areas. It wouldn't it had some closes and openings on it. But what would you say? It's probably 200 feet, of course, but diameter of the circle, maybe 80? across? I guess, yeah, maybe it's it's not? Yeah, it's not that little, we kind of keep it small to keep the speeds down. That's part of our safety strategy is just like, Don't make it too big, because I'm going to start going too fast. Oh, you're good. Everyone was going way faster. And so the way that the way they set this up is two tracks racing each other, they start on opposite sides of the circle. So and you know, on a clock face, one is at three o'clock, and one is at nine o'clock. And then there's kind of a little thumbs up, thumbs up, and then they they flash our flashlight at the starters, you flip flashlights at each other. And that's it, they're off. And basically, if you catch the guy in front of you, that means you've got a half lap on them. And then your witness was they push them around the track almost. And it's high banked. It's that's the other thing is it's high banked. And if you have enough centrifugal force, then you pop out of the bank. I mean, you're sailing like it's like it's exciting. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's it. Yeah, that that's you can't really pass. I mean, it's super difficult. And that even just makes it even more sketchy to try to pass. So that's why we came up with the split start thing is so that we could that's that's how you tell who one is who catches who. And that's and that's how it is because you can't really get you know, heads up or anything on it. There's some women got involved. There's some women racers. And then there was some kids I saw like some teenagers that were out there that were fearless. Just freakin fearless. And then to kind of close out the night kind of as the racing kind of came to an end. You took some laps and your EV truck. Yeah, it opens up for sure. If it's got wheels on it, you might you can take it around the course no one's gonna say no, just have out it and see you know, we've had we've woken up and it'd be like, there was like a Nissan Frontier stuck in it one morning and no newzoo it was someone just driving through camp and got stuck in the middle of the night. Like this many golf carts flipped over in it, like fell part of it. Well, man, I loved it. I know from from my standpoint, it was one of the most entertaining don't miss events of the of hammers week this year for me, I would be so remiss if I hadn't missed that. I'd be remiss if I didn't tell everyone about it. Because it was it was literally the one of the funniest things that was like being right, you're right in the middle of just mass chaos, but it was so controlled. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, we chat the tracks clear. It's all sand and we get everybody back. Let's think about some hay bales for next year. Not really sure if the you know where we'll be with that. But yeah, I'm trying to keep it fast and fun. And you know, as safe as possible, but it is what it is. Yeah. And it's in it's an informal event. It's just basically a bunch of bunch of friends hanging out. Having beers, and just challenging each other to eraser on the fire. Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's all it is. Oh, man, I I like that, you know, as a basically a pioneer in offroad. Racing. How's that feel to be called that? I mean, I think that's awesome. A call you that? I was just gonna say, Man, I don't know about all that. I mean, I'm not the first one is had an electric car. You know, there was an electric car that raced in Baja a few years ago. I'm not sure exactly. And I'm sure I'm not the first one with some sort of electric truck out in G v. Before. I'm sure there's been one. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess it sounds cool. I don't know about all that. But well, I think you're being humble. But yeah, I am also throwing you know, a lot of accolades your way because now we have an Eevee class and ultra for you, we saw Roger Norman open up score and add an Eevee class to his series. And I just think that's pretty cool. Well, we'll get into we're actually going to go there. We're going to get into how you came to decide to build one and we're going to talk about your current stuff, but at the moment, I was just gonna, you know, flashback to who Boston Kyle is and, and we'll kind of walk forward so you've got the nickname you know, Carl Sagan, nickname Boston Kyle. You know, like, we've got Texas Jesus, which I believe you're also friends with, with Matt phallus. Yeah, no, I'm pretty good. So you're from you're actually from the Boston area. You're from Massachusetts, Sharon, Massachusetts. And then you end up out in California. But so Sharon, I looked up I was like, well, this sounds like this. All town. Well no, it's your like right next to Gillette Stadium where the Patriots play where did you grow up as a Patriots fan? Yeah, so the first multi syllable word I said when I was a baby was Bledsoe and that was the 1990s Patriots quarterback like we were patriots fans, my family through and through. That's just how it was ever since I was born. And that's how it always will be. That'll be my football team. Well, you guys have to go that's for sure that guy is added. We definitely enjoyed like an awesome like decade of dynasty or wherever you want to call it like it's been it was a pretty sick way to have like a, you know, my favorite football team in in right by where I live doing so well. And that that was awesome. Like, and we all enjoyed it while we had it is pretty dope. Yeah. Tom Brady is I mean, just an absolute stat. I'm a big gronkowski fan. I'm not a Patriots fan. So don't don't hold that against me. But I am a big gronkowski fan. Rob gronkowski is like I think his brothers went to my university. They went to Kansas State. He's a fan of mine like I've seen him do keg stands in person. This is your lifting this like six, six, dude. These guys throwing up over their shoulders to get drunk to do a keg stand. Pretty impressive that the doodle rip and then I would see on TV. My kids watch the TV show there. He was on so I'm going through them see. Okay, Sharon is next to Gillette Stadium. I'm certain you're a Patriots fan. So hey, no sharks knows no surprises there. And then, at what time did you finally leave? I know you went to high school and then you end up going to college in Boston or in Massachusetts. And then you end up heading out to California. What year did you head out to California? 2017. January 4, I think January 4 was when I hit the road. Yeah. 2017 A month later, your first king of the hammers. Yeah. So I basically dropped out of college, and I was gonna go back and I had a security job. And I was overnight, I was watching a fish factory. And I was like, you know, basically just had to watch the front door to make sure the fish they did. I don't know. That's, that's kind of how it was. I was like Google, watching dirt bike videos. I love riding dirt bikes. And I started noticing that, you know, I love watching freestyle. And I could see that they were all riding in this one place. And I found it on Google Earth. And it was in Southern California. And right next to it was a was like RV park. And it was like 500 bucks a month. And it comes with the Wi Fi in the pool. And I had a Toyota Motor home that I had bought the year before. Just kind of for fun. It was super cheap on Craigslist. I don't really know why I had it had it. I kind of got the idea. And I was like I don't know if I'll ever make it out there. So I sold my truck, I quit my job, I sold pretty much everything that wasn't in my van and put a couple of dirt bikes on a trailer behind the motorhome and headed west. And I wanted to go ride there. But on the way I knew I knew of King of the hammers and Lucas Murphy is actually from my area. And he was racing it that year. And I had hit you know, I was like, well if I'm there and you can I you know help you out, you know? And he's like, Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'll see you when you know, I'll see you there. And I got there like two weeks early for K wage. And I asked if I could volunteer basically and they said yeah, you know, but going straight to work. I never even saw Lucas Murphy that whole first year like I was just working for OSHA for all day every day so and then from there I went on to the to work for the other races. Wow, that and that's where we're gonna go man, we covered so much distance. I got to come all the way back to that because there's so much tonight. Can we go back to Can we go back to share Massachusetts? Oh, no, God. Wow. Yeah, that's that's a journey that I am completely floored by growing up as a kid. Were you like technologically proficient? Did you like taking apart VCRs? Or whatever Did you How was call segment as a kid kids today I find you to be you know how your mind works. And what you do from a technical standpoint is pretty sweet. Yeah, for sure. I always took everything apart. I can put almost nothing back together. So I mean, there's just a trail of parts behind me I guess. I know my mom was pretty mad when her fan in the bedroom had no like safety cage around it anymore. It's still but it still worked, you know, but that didn't cut it for her standards. You know, just the blade spinning in the in the room. I mean, my dad my dad taught me so much growing up. That's definitely where it started. And he had pictures of go karts he had and then eventually we got coke. I got my first go kart when I was 10 and I broke it instantly. And so it was you know, time to start fixing it and yeah, I mean just my whole childhood and growing up was fixing chat. We had a few toys I always had a toy around. But then also whatever it was, you know, I remember fixed my garage door. At one point all by myself. That was pretty I was still done that and then our our garage was like wasn't really full of tools and the tools that were There were not in order. So I don't know that like I had to make a lot of tools or spend a lot of time looking for what I needed. And if I couldn't find it, find another way to fix what I needed to. And I think now that that's kind of helped me a lot, because I don't know, just used to fixing things without the correct tool. And I don't know what the right wording for that is. But this resourcefulness, like MacGyver resourcefulness guy was probably way before your time, because you're like, 28 years old, right? Yeah. But that said, you're just the ability to be resourceful, and repair stuff. Because sometimes either you can buy it, but it's, you know, economically not realistic, or you're in a position like you're the middle of nowhere, and you can't, it's not available. So you got to come out with another way and solving it. And there's so many of us that kind of grew up that way. And it's funny how we all have kind of flocked together and, and gravitated towards, you know, this off road world that we're all kind of, you know, floating around in that we kind of grew up that way and had those types of experiences. So I kind of figured that was how you had to be. And here it actually from your mouth that Yeah, you're you're okay with breaking stuff and figuring out a way to put it back together and sometimes put it back together a better way. Or sometimes if you don't put it back a better way. Well, at least you learn another way to fail. And you don't feel that way. Yeah, right. Yeah, that is awesome. So I mean, just get a mental picture of your head of how your head works is, is pretty cool. So going through high school, what were you involved in high school? Were you a sports guy, or were you like a sharp guy or art or where would you say you gravitated towards? I mean, I played football, football and lacrosse. I was young, I was pretty much the only one in Cheran that was interested in like trucks and going off road and stuff like that. There were a couple of my friends for sure. But they didn't go to my high school. I went to Shanghai which was great, but it wasn't really it was more academic and I'm not really that way. I guess. I you know, I was I was I was kind of a black sheep in my high school a little bit, but it was great. Like, a lot of really bright people there. And I learned a lot like it was it was great. It just wasn't really for me. I suppose I didn't get good grades or anything like that. I mostly hung out with kids that went to the agricultural or technical schools around my town. Yeah, just kind of whenever I could go on in the woods. I had a man hand me down SUV for my mom. There's a 2001 Mitsubishi Montero, which, by the way is a rally car like I don't know if anybody's ever had a Montero before, but they they got a wildside to him. They hold up really good. But I was just getting in trouble because I bring it back muddy and with like little dents on it and stuff. But uh, so yeah, I guess that's kind of in high school. That's where it sort of started. Yeah, I don't know if my first real real off road. his truck was 86 Toyota, that's kind of where like, you know, fell in love with Toyota's in a real truck that was like super durable, easy to work on. And kind of that's what I really learned a lot about automotive repair and trucks and trucks and like putting big tires on so like the monetary right You mean that or the toilets or mode of transportation. You break it on the weekend? messing around. What do you got? Do you got to fix it? Right? Yes, sometimes you got to fix it before your mom finds out. Or your dad. Yeah, there's a lot of that. Yeah. You know the guys that were your are the crowd that was run around your high school? I mean, we don't see them chasing around baja Do we know exactly though proud to put Chad mass as my as my hometown because that for sure. That was the first time it's ever been putting a score book. I was pretty stoked about that. Like I see. pioneering, right, you're the sky from Sharon, Massachusetts, making a name those other guys. They're probably sitting they probably got you know, 2.5 kids a dog and live in the suburbs and sit at a desk all day, right? one way or the other. Everybody you know, whatever they're doing, they're probably doing it the best to just a little different way. There's a good humble way to state it, actually. So you like it? I can offer it. Did you as a kid? Did you like monster trucks? Are you more stressed? That was absolutely my first love. Oh, yeah. Then we're good. Like, like, I'm like, totally connecting with you here. Okay. Favorite monster truck as a kid. Bigfoot for sure. Bob Chandler. Yeah, it's got to be Bigfoot. And the grip grip is pretty rad. I wasn't really too sure about him at first, but I kind of grew on me know, for sure. Monster Trucks definitely grabbed my attention. And I remember reading bottom law. I don't know. I still when I grew up one day, I want to be a monster truck driver. I still say that right now. Like that's that's the idea. Well, we've had ultra for guys and ladies, women that have gone from ultra four to two monster trucks. We had Nicole Johnson she drove the Scooby Doo. I don't know how many years 567 years quite a while like a very long time was if you saw Scooby Doo at a monster truck event. Nicole Johnson was a was driving it. That sounds awesome. So as I say, you run Bob Chandler Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. This is Bigfoot was the thing when we were kids now, you know, I've take my kids to go see monster trucks and it's to Monster Jam. And it's all done. It's the Dennis Anderson show. It's Yeah, son of a digger and, you know, just there you're, I mean, they're absolutely great. But my son, and you know, some of his buddies will take them and, and just watch, you know, they've got their earmuffs on, and just trucks ripping it and doing backflips and all that stuff's pretty cool. And then normally we would take them which this weekend is would be that weekend. It's crazy. You know, we're right in the year 52 weeks a year and here's the weekend we're having this conversation in HR a spring nationals is in Houston. This it'd be this weekend. And you know, we're forecast for rain all weekend, so we're not going to go and we usually go Friday night for qualifying and nothing like getting your kid against you know, down there just the fence and you know the the top fuels take off and just raw and you know, the kid looks at you like oh my god and then you see like, what Where did it go? Did you feel that like my chest hurts? I didn't you know, I normally talk to James Scofield around this time because he's he's traveling with a with a team, but I didn't catch if he was going to be that should have actually texting before. You know, before this week, I was thinking about him today and then got sidetracked about it. But anyway, sorry. That's such a tinge about an HRA but so yeah, monster trucks I mean, we're talking about traveling circuses right yeah. And you know a little bit about that right as we get into ultra for ultra for ends up being something of a traveling circus in its own right. So you are sure what point did you kind of get into your first dirt bike though? And where did you ride around Sharon? I was never allowed to have bikes. You know, I like go kart when I was 10 ruin that and then lucky enough you know to get a quad we had a little 400 cc quad. And then I wanted a dirt bike mostly because we would take my dad would take me to like random pits around in Walpole, Sharon Stoughton so like behind industrial areas or on the power lines for me like I you can always read the power lines because in the East like all the land is private. Everything's bought there's no such thing as BLM land. There's no bus Massachusetts doesn't really like off roading there's no like, you know, there's not a lot of public sentiment that is good for that if that makes any sense. So but you could always go to the power lines because they get a service road under them and it says no trespassing and there's always a little road around the gate You know, there's a little way to get in there. That's so that's where we go would usually trailer to like behind some industrial park and be on the powerlines at one point. Yeah, I was never allowed to have a bike even though I got a banshee when I was 17 my dad had a raptor Oh, my mom still wouldn't let me have a dirt bike because they were dangerous. And it's like, wow, I'm a banshee that's like the most dangerous vehicle ever created. And, you know, when I was 19, I came home with one I got old, two stroke that was laying on its side in a barn in New Hampshire for seven years, like roached out but I got fired up and was writing it from now on like quickly I got I got rMz 450. And like I just I still love riding I don't do it as much as I should or want to but some of our catching air and grabbing fifth gear and wheelie is like just make us feel alive. You know. So I love it. Zero disagreement. Yeah. street right there was in front of me in traffic just a couple days ago. And I pulled my phone up going like this guy. He's looking around and you can know that look, you know that look in traffic. He's looking over his shoulder, and I pulled my phone out. I just hold it while I'm driving straight up on the you know, he went 12 o'clock and just rolled. Excuse my language. And that was the just right down the highway. And I was like, Oh, yeah, yeah, I got all that I caught on, hold on. I didn't share with anyone. But I think it would be what I would do if I was riding a bike in traffic or if I was, you know, out on the road. I don't think I'd be able to stay away from Papa wheelies. Ah, yeah, no, that's that's the thing too is like Becky's there's, there's lots of trees, and it's really tight. And there's not really big places to so not a lot of people have trucks. I mean, sure, there are some offroad trucks, of course. But for the most part, it's way easier if you got a bike or a quad to enjoy yourself on a weekend because the areas are smaller and they're in the woods. So there's just it's different than the West Coast. Sure. When it comes to like the rec wheeling. Have you been back at like may for holidays or razors and side by sides becoming a thing in that part of the world is prevalent as they are in, like, you know, the western states, for sure. Like that, when increasing in popularity, probably at the same rate, but just I guess overall, there's less participation in usership of off road vehicles in general. Like, yeah, like, I remember being out on the trails. I haven't gone riding since I've lived in the world. So I go home and Sema folks and everything but I don't go missing around. But the I've seen I've seen racers out there and things like that. It's just in general, there's just way less of that culture, you know, so you don't see it as much I can't completely See you there. So you get a you get a high school, you've got a dirt bike, you end up going to a local college there. What's the college name that you went to? I went to mass maritime Academy. It's like, regimented college. So it's not military. It's a State College, but it is they kind of like it's military with uniforms and rules. And all that, when I was studying for was to be a marine engineer. So I would work on large ships. What do you get out of that school isn't? Did you get a Bachelor of Science. But what's more valuable is the third assistance postcard license, the sort of large ships, a cap, and a chief of First, a second and third to legally sale. So you would have, you'd get out with the thirds. And then as you sail you second first and mentioned the captain a chief, that's what was going for. I didn't finish it. It was neat. It was any experience, I got to go on the three different cruises down through South America and Central America. That's pretty rad learned a lot, for sure. Is that something that you, you know, you aspire to be a sailor? Or is it something that you still aspire to maybe go back to? I mean, it'd be to go back now because to get the lice was like lifeboat training, fire training, and then tons of other certifications. And they kind of roll that into your four years when you're there. So when you're done, everything's up to date and ready to go. That's kind of why it's a it's a difficult thing to get. I don't know I never really, really being out on the ocean is awesome. And I do love it. But no, at this point, that's not necessarily My mind's Well, I think life is a pursuit, right. And, and sometimes it's not a pursuit of what you know where you're going, it's pursuit and knowing where you've been, and that you don't want to go there. Sometimes it's just checking the box off that you've experienced it. And you know that you don't want to experience it again, or that you've already lived lived that party life, which is cool about you. Because actually, I read that through the notes that I've got on you is kind of you've liked to change things up at kind of a continuum pace to ensure that you're checking your proverbial boxes off in life that you're, you're rolling through a set of a set of rules in your head that you want to get knocked out. So maritime Academy didn't work out. You're looking for a dirt bike riding you see you find on Google Earth, you find a track, you find this place to park your RV you own an RV. How old are you at this point? 21 or two? I was 2424. Okay. 24 and you're like, I'm selling all my worldly possessions except for my dirt bike in my motorhome. Couple shirts and pants and you throw them in your RV and you head out of Massachusetts, cross country for California. Did you make it all like in one shot? Or did you stop a few weeks different places? Or How'd that go down? What was awesome about it. And I always try to like From now on I cry times that I get to travel this way, which would be like, you know, without having a timeframe. It's so nice. So my girlfriend came with me at the time she was on her winter break from her senior year of college. So she had X amount of weeks, a couple of weeks. So we left Massachusetts then so she's still with me now. We got and this wasn't much of an RV by the way. This was an 87 Toyota coachman motorhome It looks like a dolphin most people think of them as dolphins. Okay back out of it to make it a toy hauler. We started and we just kind of like bopped around we were trying to go to get out of the cold winter in February. Anyway, she had a flight out of Austin, Texas, two or three weeks was probably about three weeks after we left. And we just kind of meander through the self we stayed off the highway as much as possible. got down to where we stood Nashville, Memphis, drove from Nashville to Memphis on backroads entirely. It was sick, it was really cool. And went down the Mississippi River, just kind of jumping between Mississippi and Alabama, and stayed in New Orleans for a little while. It was I mean, it was just a lot of fun. It was, you know, kind of No, no, no worries, really, you know, we're living cheaply, just food and beer basically, we're trying to park for for pretty much wherever we could. And then she flew out to Austin. And at that point, I really liked him. By the way, we weren't there for long, but man, that was a cool city. I like that town. From there. I just basically hightailed it to K wage. So it was neat. I was having trouble with my transmission in Arizona. And I call the local transmission shop. And I kind of knew what that entailed, you know, it'd be expensive and it's like days of downtime. Then I saw one on Craigslist and this guy, I call them and he's like, yeah, let me I said I was laying under under the truck at a rest area. I was like, these are the numbers I need. And he says he goes, Oh, he helps out of his house and runs under and he's like, hey, and he calls out the numbers. I forget what they were but there's the exact transmission I needed. was asking 150 bucks for it on Craigslist. I said, Hey, can I come and swap it at your yard? And he's like, are at the street in front of your house? Like I'm from Massachusetts, and he's like, Yeah, okay. I met him this guy Darrell the hammer and we're friends. We still keep up here. But yeah, I was a total stranger to him. And he spent his whole Sunday with me. He was kind of like he just helped me do the swap. we swapped it in his yard. And then the next day I hung out for an extra day he worked. And when he got home from work and went for a ride on my dirt bikes, he had been dirt biking in years. Like his daughter got to try the pit bike and his wife and everything. And like, I got a shower and got a home cooked meal. And we watch America's Funniest Home Videos together on the couch, like, just these awesome people in a tiny town Duncan, Arizona. And it was that to me, it was like, man, some of the best people that they're out there, they're everywhere. Yeah, you know, he just, they're willing to help people. And that was that was awesome. And I can't wait to repay that favor to whoever, whoever I can. You're kind of a modern day Gypsy, but you're, you're given me faith back in you know that there is back in society that it's not a lost cause, right, we're there still a lot of really good people out there. You kind of got to go out of your way to find a man today with you people don't even know who their next door neighbors are so little, they don't live next door neighbor, they definitely are going to ask if they can, you know, swap a transmission in their front yard. But when you find those people, you know, you're like, wow, you're just a good human. And there's no replacement for good humans. And I don't know if people are a lost cause but humans you know, I don't know. There are definitely some good ones out there. That's so duck in Arizona. You get this guy changes your life right there. Hope is renewed. And then you get on the road. And by the way, so your trip to California your goal was to hit this RV park, but you didn't know anyone out there. No, I didn't know anybody I knew I got on in the LA area. But that's about it. Like Yeah, just want to go there. But I can I wanted to go with those jumps were at like, those jumps are sick as hell you see on Instagram and stuff and I want to go Is it the ones where it's like, you know, it's like grass, but then they've got the the ramps cut out. So like RJ Anderson is hitting that stuff? Oh, yeah. Where is that? Ah. Now that there it's in Beaumont, California. Usually, the dope spots you kind of keep it keeping it a little tight. But now everybody knows now it's, it's in Beaumont. And what was really neat about it was like that culture, I was kind of missing where I had some friends to ride with. But nobody wanted to like, jump like the guys out west. And I figured that's what I want to do. That's where I got to go. And every single time I go riding in Beaumont, I jump higher than I ever have. It's so exciting. So a lot of it out there. So that's just if you're me, you're like, three, four stories off the ground and sailing, you know, 100 150 feet, right? Yeah, I mean, those are the big dogs out there. And I've been right there when, you know, the pros are hitting them. And that's awesome. I can't do that stuff. But there's what's really neat is that there's they're all the way from kitty jumps to that stuff. There. You go out and dig your own. I've gone out and did my own to. And it's just so fun like that. So I love doing one of the things. So you got out there, you know, let's call this like January of 2017. And then you look around and you know, King of the hammers is coming up. You've heard about you seen it, and you reach out to Lucas Murphy Optima battery driver. I haven't seen Lucas in a while. I think he's kind of stepped back from ultra for racing. But you hit him up. He says, Yeah, bring it in, you roll out to Johnson Valley. And then that's kind of where we left off. I was like, whoa, whoa, I threw the brakes on you. So start up back there. I rolled in through yucca Valley and then I was following GPS to Johnson Valley I didn't know where to go I stopped it here hero market and she says oh it's in a valley So okay, yeah, sure. I blow right Boone road I've never been there before. I've never seen anything I blow right past it. And I drive way out towards Lucerne. But at some point I pull over just because I know I'm gonna be near it somewhere. So I park the motorhome to get them I get on my dirt bike figured I can cover more ground quicker. And I just start riding and avenge and I eventually find it I thought hammer on what it looks to be like in the middle of the day. And I ride open roads now I know how to get there by the pavement. I figured that if I if I were right now and my bike and asked if I could help like they might not they might be like oh no we open next week. See you later. I figured if I rolled up at night that you know they're gonna they're probably gonna be happier than on a fire. And if I roll up at night they're probably at least let me hang out with them for one night you know they're not going to kick me out at night. So I get back to my my RV and I go to town give a close loss get firewood give me some food, get everything I need like everything for two weeks all set, got propane got everything I need. And I roll back out there. Sure enough, I find the smoke from the fire I just drive straight into hammer town like half the fences up at this point. It's early. And there's like no racers or anything. And the roll up into this fire. There's like 1520 people or so I cut it off and start walking there. Everybody's looking at me. You know how it is. I'm like hi is this king of the hammers? My name is Kyle and they're like yeah. My name is Texas. Jesus. What's going Man and that's the that's the first person I met. And everyone was so cool and they the neck I was like yeah i'll just I'm here volunteer I'll do whatever you know I can work and K wage like blew my mind is like exactly where I needed to be the people I met I can't I remember meeting the tribe crew and everyone was like, so cool and so nice. All the different. I mean, I mean a whole wide variety of people racers and then also just spectators out there. You know, whether it's chocolate Thunder or just going to people's camps, and it was amazing. It absolutely blew my mind I was like this is it just felt right. That's where I need to be washed. I mean, I love using the phrase, I haven't used it in a long time. But the inflection point like the inflection point of the moment where you rolled up in the RV to the fire there on means dry lake and getting out and meeting Matt phallus Texas Jesus in the relationship you guys still have today is really tight buds. And then the group of other people there it set your path for right up to the point where you're sitting right here talking to me tonight, but it set the path of you on this kind of I mean, right right right in the circus, right you you end up helping seven hammer town you end up involved with ultra for Europe continuing to volunteer continue to work with Dave and company, and then ultimately start racing. And then here you are, you know where we've got to the culmination today. But that's quite a pinnacle moment. Right? That's a that is that's a defining moment in your life where you can look back and say my whole life took a pivot a solid pit just because I walked up to the right fire that had those specific guys at it. Right? For sure. I definitely have to agree with that. Like Yeah, I think it was meant to be or whatever have you want to put it but like, Yeah, we got along so well done done so much with with Dave and everybody else ultra for have had such a good time. And I feel like we have we put on races but like some things that we do are pretty, pretty new. You know what I mean? Like novel ideas. And I think that's a man. It's just been a it's been really great. It's been really great. But some of my best my best friends now inside ultra for part of the reasoning and everything. And yeah, it's it's, it's been awesome. It's been an awesome couple years for sure. So around that at Intel. I know there's a ton of stories in there. And we go back to bit, I'd heard the story of this guy where this guy had a, he basically gets offered a job. He's working for Dave, he gets offered a job at Tesla. And Dave basically tells the guy, dude, you've got to take the job. And the guy was like, man, I don't know. And Dave tells him, No, listen, you understand, like if you don't take the job on firing you. So you're either quitting and taking the job or I'm firing you and taking the job, your call, how much truth is there to that story. At least a part of it first year. I really liked what I was doing. At the time, I just started working for all tech for Wayne Israel son, I just started for about two weeks with him. So I was kind of transitioning from ultra Ford to that. My new thing was I was gonna learn shocks. I was gonna start at the bottom, asking a million questions and kind of going from there. And eventually kind of learned race shocks on Dwayne. And and then the opportunity came up. He's like the Godfather now right of war style shocks. Yeah, he's an awesome guy. And he has an insane knowledge. Like I was so excited to learn from him and I still am whatever opportunity I can get to learn from him and talk to him about racing shocks. But yeah, I just started I had like two weeks there. And I got an offer from from Tesla to be a technician equipments, equipment, maintenance tech. And, yeah, I mean, just kind of talking with every, you know, of some folks and Dave, and that was kind of like, well, should I shouldn't I I mean, I kind of already knew I should but I think definitely. Dave was like, Yeah, you're doing that. So. So I did. I've got two questions. Now one is a throwback, because I completely skis you completely iced over it and or glossed over it. What did your parents say when you told them? I'm going to load my crap in this RV? And I'm moving to California? What did your mom and dad say about this? What did your your sibling say about this? Well, that's gonna be great, right? I was 24 at the time. So it's not like I was you know, and I think my mom had already kind of given up on me a little bit. They were supportive. They didn't think that the Toyota was going to work with the dam. I mean, it was old and didn't look like much. But it had good bones in it. Right? It actually ran great for the years I had it. But uh, for the most part, it was kind of like, well, just let us know where you are. When you're broken down and we'll, we'll come and get you. We'll get you a bus ticket or whatever it is. But yeah, I mean, like I said, I was 24 so I was a full blown adult. I was to make my own decisions, and I decided to go for it. But there's no support. It was all support for my family. They thought I was a little zany but it was support Good use the word saying Yeah, like that. Yeah, you're like but but mom and dad, where's where's the? Where's the support on this one? Like, we'll come get you when you break down. Come on where's the faith? Well, she didn't think he would. She didn't think it would go around town and I was driving I yeah, no, it's still. Yeah, I don't know, man, I tell you what everybody was always knocking that Toyota Motor home and I drove it everywhere it went up and down baja it went it daily drove it. It's where I lived in for two years. And it never let me down and got me literally everywhere is amazing. That sounds like an ad for Toyota. I mean, you just can't kill them. Right. But the 80s ones, those are the ones you need. Yeah, no, no, for sure. So then you get to this point, sorry. And I miss flashback to that, because I completely skipped that. That little portion. I was so curious about what your parents thought. And then I look, a squirrel and we moved on. As you're there. You're ultra for you're hanging out around Johnson Valley. You're doing race stuff. And how did you know you're working with Wayne? How did Tesla even enter the picture? Like how did you did you see an ad somewhere? Did you apply online? How did that pop up? How did that opportunity crop up? My cousin he he's a couple years younger than me. He was working there as an equipment tech, he graduated college, and that's what he was doing. And I went up and visited him at least once when because he was living up in that and it's in the Bay Area of California. And I was living in So Cal my van. And I hung out with him and his friends. That all worked there too. They basically had like a bachelor house. It was awesome. We drank a bunch of beers on the roof. And they all seem Yeah. And he said, Hey, they're hiring right now you should probably apply and I was like, Well, I don't have a degree and he's like this people on the ship who don't have a degree. So put it in and I'll refer you and I got the chance. You know, I was actually in Mexico. We were about to run the 1000 are the Nora there's probably the Baja 1000 and I got to interview on zoom on my phone. And I completely messed up I completely confused PLC and VFD vfds they are two wildly different things. Anyways, I confused him. And he said Yeah, you got that pretty bad. But in anyways, I got the chance. And from then I've learned a lot and I feel like I've done pretty good at it. So So variable frequency drive. What was the first one you said? PLC program logic control? Oh, probably. Logic control. Yeah. Okay. wildly different things. And I got Yeah, you got a flipped? Yeah, honestly, I believe vfds are in controls. vfds are going to be the future of the globe definitely in the United States definitely have like our power grid. You know, what we see certainly out there in California, you guys see brownouts on summary linear, we're starting to see them here in Texas, because we're we don't have enough electricity to meet the demands. So if you can take put control logic on to your vfds, and you can dial like your pool pumps, if you put a VFD pool pump in, and it gets to be the peak of the day when electricity is at a high note where you can throttle your pool pump back from 100%, you could throttle it back to 15%, it's still gonna run, you're still gonna circulate some water, you're not gonna circulate it at the high speed. And so then, therefore, you're not using all the electricity. So you're in conservation mode. And for you guys, you know, California, so they send out the conserve notices. If you you know, with Wi Fi and these wired homes and smart homes today, you would think you Billy go through like a nest setup. And if California so sends out a conserve notice that everyone's vfds would Oh, dang, whoa, and they would throttle everything right? I definitely think that that's those types of things are what we're gonna see it in our reality as we as you know, we go into the future, everything's getting more and more complex, solve all the parts in the equipment life. And then things are only going to be more automated, they're not going to be less automated as we go. Yeah, I mean, if these are gonna trickle down into components that we've never seen them before, they certainly are prevalent and have been prevalent for a long time in dust in the industrial space, large motors and things like that. So it's the best way to drive them and control them, especially when you need precision. There's going to be more, not less, and it's been great to learn more and more about them and kind of get there with it. You know, see what you can create with your mind. Right. Yeah. And applied to an electric truck, you know? Yeah. So this, so yeah, there we go. You get the offer. You're basically you're down at the 1000 you have a you got an interview. You banging out of the park, you get back to the states you get offered the job. Yeah, yeah. And I so I went up there. I live with my cousin for a couple of years. And that was awesome. He's my cousin Brendan is really good dude. And like it was just great to get to do that. You know, we're both in our younger mid 20s chair and a house together in a foreign state, you know, from where we grew up anyways. And that was just that was an awesome like thing to get to do. You know, so your girlfriend from back in in Massachusetts. The last time we heard her and you're She made it to Austin, and then flew back home. Did she come out and visit you with some regularity in California? How did you guys keep up? Because you guys are still together today? How did you guys keep up that relationship over a continent apart? Yeah. So she had finished her last semester of college. That was the primary reason why she didn't stick with me for the But no, she spent she would spend months at a time with me out on the west coast, whether it was just living in my Toyota, or then coming out and staying with us up at the house that we rented when we were working, you know, with me, my cousin. So we Yeah, we would always spend once at a time together long distance relationships are tough for sure. Do you now live with me full time out on the west coast, but it's been great. I mean, she I love her. We've we've known each other for since we were kids, you know, and we just know she's one for me. There you go. But good. So she's Was she a couple years younger than you? Yeah. And she clearly enjoys baja and off road and dust breathing dust. Yeah, yeah, we are one of our best. We like vacations. I get asked what it was. We spent three weeks going up and down baja all the way to Cabo and that Toyota, and it's not always comfortable. It's usually not the picture of comfort. Yeah, I mean, that's just, she supports my racing so much. In every way. It's it. Yeah, it's awesome. So she graduates college, she couldn't come to California. She's really she's got She goes, he gets a job there in the Bay Area. Like you you're working at Tesla. Now. She's working somewhere. What does Vanessa do? most insecure, killed, you know, private, I type stuff at the present. But, you know, it's kind of it's kind of evolving. She's, you know, definitely looking at Find her career as it comes. Okay. It's intriguing that you found basically like this soulmate that is, well, Mike, I couldn't get my wife day, live out of an RV or even go to the desert, even if we had a big RV. Like none of these things would like jive and, and you guys are just, you have this very, very copacetic relationship on that. And like I'm so I'm kind of envious. I'm like, Wow, that's a pretty bad. So do you guys have a plans for family? Kids? Stay in the Bay Area? Go back to Boston? What's kind of in your house future? Oh, man, I mean, not to put you on the spot. Ever since I was little, I always thought I'd have kids for sure. I mean, the there since I was a kid, I always thought I'd have kids. We'll see. I'm kind of getting close there. I'm almost 30. So that's kind of that. Yeah, that's in my mind. For sure. I also kind of miss my family. I got a extended family. That's really cool. I'm really close with my immediate family, but also my extended family. And I you know, I got like, nephews and nieces and cousins that are growing up and I miss them. I miss my grandma. You know, I kind of want to think about living back. I think about living back east a lot. We'll kind of see how that goes. As of right now. I'm not about to do that. But maybe within a year, I just don't know. I don't know. But that's the I'm definitely pulled for sure. Certainly, if you're looking at you know, as you guys human, so get get further along, you know, think about marriage and think about kids. It's really nice and convenient to have family nearby that you can lean on when Oh, yeah, the kids sick and they can't go to school or the you know, or you've already missed work because the kids been sick for two days. And you can't miss a third day and or just kids sports, having you know, the grandpa grandma come and watch him, you know, swing the bat, you know, yeah, play with my cousins, you know, like that. That's like, absolutely is colored my life. You know, like, you're who I am today's I've learned from my cousins, at least partially. So I mean, that makes me too, you know, it's like, probably being around my family. You know, it's probably coming up here soon. So you're working at Tesla. You're on your second job at Tesla, right? So you, you worked one job, tell me about that job, you know, I guess in in your terms, and then talk about your new job. I started basically on the factory floor in the body shop, which was it's kind of like Mordor it's like dark, like dingy. And this sharp pieces everywhere. And there's lots of welding robots. And it's really cool. There's lots of lots of technology to learn. It was It was great. Too dark and dingy. It's not quite like that. It's it's a it's a high tech shop. But yeah, I learned a lot about automation and different pieces of equipment. How to fix them. No, and you guys are building Tesla cars. Yeah, model three wasn't the model three line? Yeah, yeah. And we have a 55 seconds. cycle time. So if you're down for more than a minute or two, you know, this people start to show up. You know what, Hey, why are you down over here? Oh, we're working on this. If you're down for four or five minutes, it's a big deal. So it's learning how to get stuff running quickly is where it's at. When it comes to the the part of the line I was at, moved to a different part of line in assembly where we actually together we got painted bodies and we assembled you know, put the put the motors in and the batteries in and that was a whole new set of technology to learn. Great, you know, I learned a lot about that stuff. And now I'm in a different part. It's not on the manufacturing anymore. It's more r&d type stuff. So that's it's been, it's been awesome. You move from the assembly process and working on equipment to now you've, you're over in the r&d, shopping, don't divulge anything, you know, any trade secrets or work secrets. But tell us about kind of how that materialized. And then the new challenges of the new role. Definitely part of going with going electric truck racing was part of that evolution, I'd say. And the challenges of the new rule are, it's different because it's more wide open in a way, and it's definitely different than being part of the factory, like being on the plant floor. It's cool. It's great. And like, I don't know, I, I definitely felt a lot of pride. And I mean, I still do of being like an American auto worker. That's something that was, you know, the the auto industry in general, I think is was was sort of founded here in America with Henry Ford in the assembly line. And I definitely felt a lot of pride, spending lots of hours on my feet on the concrete there at the at the at the Auto plant. And I think that that was that was an awesome thing to kind of get to be a part of even besides it being a job. It was pretty cool. I enjoyed it. Did you think today, based on what you're doing? Do you think it's much more? I think the right words are? Are you more right brain, you're getting to use a lot more your right side of your brain, then your your left side, left side control, your right side is your ability to be creative. I think that's the it's kind of like the goal, I think, I don't know if I'm quite there yet. If that's what's what I'm supposed to do yet, for sure. It's still left brain if we're going that way with it. But it's just been great to learn, like all kinds of equipment that I can apply to, to lots of different places. You know, robots I can not a robot pretty much anywhere. And I think there's gonna be more robots and not less as we go forward. It's a good, good thing we get to learn. Oh, yeah, fully, we're fully rapidly moving towards Skynet, right? Fortunately, it's, it's starting to look more and more real. Yeah, it's, you know, like, If you can dream it, it can come true. Right. So I don't want to get into the the racing and the AV in the offered stuff you just yet. I guess we kind of what I'm coming back to on where you were at Tesla to where you are today. without, you know, again, I love that you're in a role that you can't divulge stuff that that's so cool, right? That's, there's some very cool factors to that cool points for having having a role at a company that, hey, it's, you know, I'm in the middle of trade secrets and stuff. How does that feel to have you know, effectively, you were able to get promoted and move up based on some stuff that you were doing outside of business right outside of your job that you're being paid for. Outside of that you were making waves overhand, the off road world doing Evie stuff that was quite separate from what you were doing for your factory job. And that made waves and now that the company identified that they looked at you, they had a conversation with you, they pulled you up in the r&d shop, and now they're putting resources behind you. That's gonna feel great, right? Yeah, I mean, for sure that I mean, that said, like, I'm mostly just dancing around, not because of anything like super awesome, or like some secret that's very, very neat. It's mostly just because I don't I don't want to get I just don't know what I can and can't say so. I mean, that's all it is like, but please believe me, like, it's not like I'm working on the new off road, Baja truck or something like that. It's not that cool. Promise. Yeah. It's just that I've already I've already put it up on Instagram that you're building a new cyber VA trophy truck. The cybertruck the TT the cybertruck. Tt. Yeah, I live in my house. Kyle, Boston. soglin. Oh, this is like, we're breaking it here first. You heard it here first. Right? Right. Yeah. No, I wish it was that cool. It's it's not it's just I don't I don't know what I don't know. I don't want to make the wrong waves or something like that. Whatever. I'm just not sure what I can and can't say. No, for sure. Like, I definitely when I was when me my buddies, were putting together the electric car in the shop. You know, I was it was expensive, too. I spent a lot of, you know, money on all the parts and everything in the batteries and stuff. And it was like, well, the way I viewed it was, it was like, I'm putting this on my resume. You know, like, you know, that's kind of what I how I felt like I was sort of buying an education for myself. There was a lot of stuff. I looked up online, and I had to learn and then there was a lot of lessons and things I needed to learn in the shop just actually doing it and connecting the different components together. And it's not rocket science, like I can do it. So I mean, I think a lot of you know, everybody can do it. But you just you actually need to get out there and spend the time and it took months, but it was it was definitely really neat to You know, to then get to race k wage and then get some opportunities come up from it. You know, I kind of thought that that might be the case. And it was it was neat to have that vindicated? Well, I think you nailed it right, bingo. Right? you invested in yourself, right? you invested in yourself and you capitalized on yourself and you bet on yourself. No one's gonna bet on you harder than you betting on your own self. Right? Yeah. So So you did that. And a lot of people don't, right. They, they don't have the faith in themselves or the or they understand or know what their self worth is. And you completely invested in yourself and went all in. So I'm very proud of you for that. I mean, I don't know that. You're proud of you as something that you're, you're okay with. But I was not alone. Like I had that my buddy, my buddy, Charlie pangolin. And he guy that I met through another buddy will, that's when we built the shop. We built this, we built the car and Will's garage and and this will spec right, yeah, yeah, we'll spec he helped me out so much. I mean, with all the fab and everything. And then his buddy Charlie hopped in there from the Honda, they used to raise Honda's together, he helped me out so much with the high voltage and understanding what we can and can't do. When we cracked the first battery open. I was, you know, I had like, two pairs of gloves on. And I was standing there wild eyed, like, I had no idea what to do. And he kind of walked me through like, just showing me where the I got a whole new like perspective on how to think about high voltage. And he was showing me where you can't touch like, Don't worry, we can you can put your hands all over this battery, you just can't put them right here. And right here. It's like and you know, where do you put a wrench like this, you can put it anywhere except for right here and right here and kind of learning how it all works and making sure that it's fused at all times, just in case you do drop a wrench, those kinds of things like, okay, I didn't do it on my own. There's no way no, no, yeah, I wouldn't. I didn't mean to suggest that. I just meant that when it comes to where you're at, in your career. Exactly what you said put this on your resume that you did invest in yourself now. So before we even talk about how you decide to race how you end up with your race car, and he that, how did you end up meeting up and flanging up with with Charlie and will spec because of you? I follow will spec garage on Instagram. He's got he's great with content. I love his content. Yeah. So how did you flange up with those guys and develop a relationship with them? I met Will it work? You know, like my first day at work? I walked in wearing a king of the hammers t shirt. And I relieved him because it shifts work there. So I relieved him. He's like, you know, King of the hammers. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, no thing too about it. And you know, and we got, we hit it off instantly, you know, and he's just by one of my best friends right now. I mean, I do anything for him. And his whole family is awesome. And we're actually in the podcast room right now. It's like, it's a shed type thing. It's like a nice shed that he built in the backyard for for this kind of thing. So this this kind of thing and some and obviously some some automotive stuff. So we'll spec garage while we try to put out as much content as we can on Instagram. I see that. Yeah. And that's where I you know, a lot of the updates on you actually come from him. Like he's the one who's really on top of keeping your your message out there. And, man, I really appreciate really appreciate well for that. Thank you for him. Or he's way better at it than I am. I don't don't. Yeah, that works. Okay, so so let's let's dive into this portion of the show. I'm so curious about so. You, I mean, we're gonna talk about your racing, we're gonna talk about kena hammers grid, talk about what you did at Baja, the 250. here recently, but let's talk about how you get to the point to say, Hey, I'm going to risking the hammers, I'm going to do it in Eevee. What am I going to build and then buying your Toyota that you're racing from Dave Cole? And then it's history. So that's kind of where I want to go. But so like, what was the genesis of was you and will sitting around on beanbags and going, Hey, we should raise an EV k? Ah, what was it? Well, it actually started years ago, I've always thought about making an electric crawler I remember working with ultra for would have long day, entire days of driving the trailers, you know, to and from a race and all the all the rigs were hooked up with microphones, not microphones, race radios, and we just, you know, kind of be rolling and there was just like a constant conversation for like, 10 hours now. You wouldn't necessarily always be talking. But what that means is like at any given moment, a radio might just spark up and just have a question thrown at you about some rig or some shock or some, you know, some alternator setup, at any given time. And people would just, we would just, you know, riff on it. And I was always going back to electric crawlers and the advantages you'd have there, especially if you have four wheel motors and whatever. So I mean, it's kind of been in my mind. For a long time, and then I had a I had a Toyota Corolla with a three oh in it in the three Oh, Rex I wrecked it during like wheeling when when COVID happened in 2020 in the in the in the spring, I wasn't gonna repair the three liter that's like the worst motor ever so I was I was alright now it's finally time to do it nice you could buy a Nissan LEAF for like three grand and then thunderstruck Evie has the standalone control component for 500 bucks, it's like alright, cool. I'm gonna make my Toyota electric, that's what I'm going to do. It's just gonna be for fun. I don't care about range. I don't care about anything. I'm just going to make it work kind of enough to get around hammers and just to do it. And then that I bought the leaf I already bought it. And I was kind of preparing for it and then talked to Dave and Dave was like, we're doing an Eevee class this year. And it was kind of like, dang, I got to make a race car. How do I do that? And we're talking to well at work about it. I was like, Well, you know, we didn't really have enough time to make my stock bodied 89 for runner a racecar in you know, starting in October and being given a line in February. And I know that Bailey's old racecar was sitting in the weeds. And so I just floated the idea by Dave I was like Dave, what if I converted that car? Because you know it's already got a chassis it already has raised seats and harnesses I'd have to get new harnesses but it already it's already linked. It's already Yeah, sorry. Got it was still was a stock class car. So it still had leaf springs in the back. But it had it was long travel with dever and it had, you know, a Marlin trans in it and a few other things and Mr. racecar. So, you know, and he was like, do it. I couldn't believe how onboard he was. He was like, yeah, that's awesome that the other thing too, is that that car is really used up. There is nothing straight on that frame or the pickup points for the front suspension. The arms are jank, everything about that car is like barely hanging on those kind of like, you know, sure, why not kind of go for it. It's not needed refresh, like, yeah, it's a way to breathe some new life into it. And then the other thing is that we're, you know, we're racing, but we're not really going that that fast. So it's like, if you're gonna put a VA in it, you destroy the card instantly. But with 100 horse cap, 100 horsepower leaf motor, you could probably, you know, get around the course and it might hold up, you know, so and it's kind of like a new legacy for the car that cars had a lot of awesome hands in it. Jesus, Texas, Jesus built it. And Bailey raised it. David ball raised it. It's been raised in Mexico. And then I think it didn't have success in Mexico at a race. I feel like maybe David won something in it. I don't remember all the details. Yeah. So David, Jesus raised it in the Norland 1000. Like right after they built it, they drove from Tibet, it was still street legal. They drove from Temecula in it. They drove to and Sonata or simply they weren't wherever they started the race and the race all the way down. They won the class, but then all the people in the class got sour about it for whatever reason. And then they drove it all the way back from Cabo to Temecula. It only had like two problems, the whole entire thing and they were minor minor. So that's that's such a glorious story. Yeah, the car's got a lot of luck. It's got the right kind of Mojo going for it. Oh, yeah, you don't, you can't you can't buy that kind of Mojo. So you and you end up with it you what do you do run down to the ranch there and grab it with a trailer and haul it back to San Jose. Yeah, as soon as he said Yes, I got it within 24 hours just to make sure to change his mind like I went and I flew down with my empty trailer and got it back like I'm cutting it apart. And we didn't really cut it apart, we just moved the gas motor and put the put the leaf the leaf in place, right the leaf motor hooked up to the Toyota trans and then through batteries in the bed. It was like pretty simple, really, I mean, we didn't really change the program up that much. We just put an electric motor with the gas motor went and put electric batteries where the gas tank went in the bed. So you had to you know, weld up, you know, a coupler to attach the leaf, you know the leaf motor to the front of the the Toyota transmission. I mean that that wasn't anything complicated, but they did you end up saving from the perspective of the vehicle like right, you can get rid of the radiator, you can get rid of all these ancillary items, but then you're adding back all these batteries. How do you think the weight Then did you? Did you actually go up in weight and then did all of that end up transferred to the back of the vehicle? or How was the setup? It depends on what battery you put in it. So we have like a small Nissan LEAF battery that's like the stock one that comes in like the normal older leafs it's 24 kilowatt hours. It's a little under 600 pounds. So if you put that in the bed, it actually might be a little less than that. I'm not exactly sure I should I should know but I'm not exactly sure. And then with the with the leaf motor is super light. I picked it up off the ground and put it into the between the fenders. myself without an engine hoist? I mean, that's way lighter than a 22. Our I can't Oh, yeah, you know, so I mean, we definitely lost weight in the front. And then we gained rate in the weight in the rear but the weight was all in front of the rear axle. So it still is kind of centered in the car. Okay, with the small battery I bet we lost weight. But with the big battery, there's we definitely gained weight the big batteries over 1000 pounds. That's like the major fight right now not the fight, but that that's what we're kind of waiting on. Is the battery technology to catch up? Yeah, I mean, I guess we're not waiting, we're doing it, but waits. As soon as the power density gets gets higher, we can, you know, really start to go some distances at at a higher speed. And then Allah is going to be awesome. But we got to start somewhere stuck in some data and kind of go from there, you know, you know, you get the car, the truck ready for K wage this past year. Dave, you know, has an Eevee class, you are in a class of one, but you're running in the AMC. And I guess initially the first kind of time I talked to you, I we didn't talk about this because it was more like high five man What a great offer for three, you know, ultra three party you got going here. But Nice to meet you. Hey, let's talk later. But in that world, you guys were completely guessing on range, you had no idea what you were doing for range. So would be kind of your game planning and in how you were going to attack a way to look from the outside. Because you're the first one, right? It's not like, Hey, I put another Ls 400 cubic inch LS and in this car, I put an LS three and well those get, you know, five miles to the gallon, you know, things like that. You didn't know, what was your swag. And how did you arrive there and then what was your actual, so we really didn't have enough time to test the car, essentially at all before km h we grew just building it. And we knew that going into it. Again, originally, the plan was just to use this, I bought a Nissan LEAF and we tore it apart. The battery had a 78% state of health and like I didn't care because I didn't care about range it was just to do it and enjoy it. I don't even care if it got five miles. That's enough to get out of camp and get back and just kind of bop around the hammers and enjoy it. Well, now we're going racing. So we procured another 24 kilowatt hour battery locally from Craigslist. And then you know from hammer town to pit one is 15 miles, and then you got about 48 miles back to pit one. And then 15 miles from pit one back to hammer down for that 48 mile stretch. I had asked Dave it for the AV class, we can get a swap out there because I didn't know I didn't know how to do this. And he said no, we're not going to do that. That's part of the challenge. Like figure it out. That's where you get you know, okay, cool. So we need we need more capacity, the 2019 and up Nissan leafs had a 62 kilowatt hour battery. So it's almost triple, you know, I'm pretty close, it's it's a lot better. We were able to find one in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, that it shipped to us and it wasn't cheap. But we got it here we got it torn apart. It was completely different than the other kinds of batteries there was like laser welded and all this awesome stuff. But we found a way to scab it into our system. And then that's also the way the car can except two different styles of batteries. So we had to figure all that out. And we had almost no time to do it. But we got it together and got it in the trailer. We ended up bringing way more battery than we needed. Okay. That's not a bad thing, though, right? Yeah, it was awesome. Basically, the way I kind of figured what we'd need, it's super simplistic. It's nap it's napkin math, you know, the Nissan LEAF gets about three and a half to four kilowatt hours per mile when it's driving miles per kilowatt hour when it's driving. And the same car, which would be like a Nissan Versa. If it had a gas engine in it gets about 40 miles to the gallon, roughly. I asked Bailey Cole and I asked Texas Jesus, Dave, what, what is what did that 4654 car get? And they said it got eight to nine miles to the gallon with the 22 are in it? Well, that's about a quarter, that's about a quarter of what a Nissan Versa gets on the pavement. Okay, so that's kind of where I figured it, it's gonna, it's probably going to get about a quarter of three and a half to four miles per kilowatt hour. So we might get about one mile per kilowatt hour. That's about what we've been seeing, depending on how hard you drive it. And so you were dialed in like you actually even though it was back of the envelope math and a complete guestimate turns out you guys were pretty close. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of it has to do with how are you driving it and then what the terrain is specifically like, if you're going to leave hammer town and you're going to drive towards like towards chocolate thunder, but then take a left and then stay in the low part of the valley. Turn around and come back. Then you're going to do a lot better than if you left hammer town and went to the right and went up like pummel pass, let's say and then like towards giant rock, you went up to pummel pass, turn around and came back. You're gonna get way worse rains doing that because you don't really realize it in a gas car but what you did was he just gained 500 feet of elevation, and that you basically raised the weight of the vehicle 500 feet, and that takes a lot of juice. So it, every little bit of the terrain counts. And every time you hit the throttle, you need to be conscientious of it. And that's how you're going to get the good range. You know, you touched on something there that I've never thought about when I think about mileage You said you raised the weight of the vehicle 500 feet and that's that's the right way to think about it. But I'm, I'm in my mid 40s and I just recognize this right? You go up a mountain pass in your Gasser will you use gasoline or diesel or whatever it is to raise the weight of the vehicle to that elevation. That's totally different than if you just drove straight, you know, on a flat piece of pavement, you know? So I mean, that's kind of what qH is, it's a challenge, because not only going through sand, which adds a lot of friction, or rocks, which are like a different, it's a different way of thinking about mileage, but there's a ton of elevation change up and down, you go up and down all day. And that's, that's there's a lot of juice there. You know, I mean, it's like trying to climb stairs 45 times in one day, you know, different sets of stairs, it's like, it's way worse than just trying to run for 20 miles, you know? Yeah, so it can't. So that would be that you right? You're gonna get in theory on the desert lap on the desert loop at cailleach. Your mileage should be a lot better than on a Corolla a rock lap. Right? Or, yeah, and I mean, it could be there's more to it, though. There's a slip in the desert. You know, I mean, there's like different ways that it kind of pans out. But for sure, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, I think that goes without saying, right, because in the rocks, you're not you're, you're not gonna be running higher RPMs. So you're not gonna be running, you know, a bunch of juice offload at the same time, but at the same, I mean, do they probably now that you have some numbers do they kind of, even out in the wash or is, depending on the course depends on kind of how, where you're going to utilize more battery than less battery. So something that's neat about the electric motors is that it's not the same as a gas engine and that it necessarily burns more juice at higher RPMs. It's all about load. It's just like a vacuum on your on your gas engine. Like that tells you how much fuel you're using, you know, but like with with a gas engine at higher RPMs, you're obviously burning more juice, that's not as prevalent with electric motors, you can run them at 6000 RPM all day, if you don't have a load on it, it's a very, very small draw comparatively, it's just all about the kind of load you put on it. And they also run very, very cool. Like we need we don't even have a fan on the car. And we just cycle water through the radiator every now and then. And that keeps it cool enough because they're so efficient compared to a gas engine. So there's a lot of like upsides. There's lots of advantages we're seeing and we want to improve upon as we as we improve our program. Gotcha. Okay. That's been that portion has been super enlightening. And so now you enter qH you enter the MC Did you complete all like I feel like you didn't complete the entire course but you completed the two laps but that was all the Eevee add or what was the what was the layout that over for and set up for you this year? Because I know there's a big celebration. I just wasn't I was a little confused around what what the celebration was for Yeah, so they we were just racing the single lap the desert lap we didn't have to go out for the rocks. That was the Eevee course this year you know and so we got the win I you know I that's that's what it was we got the trophy that's what the the course was and it feels awesome. But we belong in the rocks. I that's what ultra four is all about. That's what king of the hammers is all about. Next year, we're going in the rocks for sure. Or at least I am if I can help it. Yeah, we definitely we definitely want to go on the rocks. We want to go further and we'll know that I think that makes sense. Okay, so that's why I was I think I was confused about when I was following you that day was that I never saw you you'll the rocks and they called you know how you finished a new one. I was like, wait, you know, I didn't recognize that there was a different I mean, no, you're on a different course it was the same course. It was just abbreviated You didn't have to go back out. And and so how many hours did that take for you to get from green flag to checker flag for you. I think it was knocking on it was over seven and a half I think it was it was over seven and a half for sure. It might have been closer to 10 I should know but I don't we had about two and a half hours of downtime with a steering issue. We broke something a clevis on the steering rack and it was actually so cool. Another team had that we were out that we were bringing spare parts to them on course we were asked at a pit and then when we broke we looked in the bag and we had the exact part we needed was in there we installed it on the car we got to them and they didn't need that part that was just a bonus thrown in by their crew. So they had the part they needed we both got on course it was car 74 Hollingsworth racing 48 100 car, it was it was so neat that, that their team had what we needed and helped us out with it. What are the odds? Right? And yeah, we mean my sister was my sister was co driving for me. When we looked in the bag we free was like, Oh my God, is that really it? And we put the car together. And I was so nervous when we started rolling again, because we hadn't gotten to them yet. I was like dill. Were we what are we gonna say when we get there? And she says, Well, we got to bring the part to them. Right? We're bringing the part to them. We'll figure it out. When we get there. I was like, Uh, hi. And if they didn't need that one, they needed a different part in the bag. So they were all set. We both got bolted up. And we we took off. It was awesome. Well, you alluded to it, you brought her up and we didn't talk about, you know, family early on, but siblings, walk us through your siblings. Um, so it's me and then Delia and Heather. They are awesome. They're, and they are the best. Delia is she? She did the same thing I did. You know, what we grew up together like really tight. We spent a lot of time together and we're just getting all kinds of trouble together. And then you know, later as we got older, she she did the Marine Engineering like I was trying to do she completed it and she section on a ship right now. She's a second. She's sailing as a second now. Keeping the propellers spinning on a cargo ship. I think it is for this hitch. Heather, she's an Alabama right now she's in. She's in flight school for the army. She's gonna fly Blackhawks. Oh, very. Yeah, they are the best. I love my sisters they are. They're just very, very rad individuals. They kind of they inspire me all the time. I love spending time with them. We don't we don't get to spend that much time together anymore. But they always come up for King of the hammers. Delia's been three of the four years I have or something like that. And Heather's worked for K wage twice now she's, you'll see her around. She's kind of volunteering in a way or she was a it was her internship the first year. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, she offers internships. I think she was the first one I think she was the first ultra for intern and she Yes, she had a read of a report and submitted to her school and everything she was she was the first intern and I think unless someone else claims that maybe they made me maybe they were it was no I think she was oh man they just kick so much ass I love them to death and they're badass well considering I've never even heard of elf for having an answer and I'm gonna get I'm just gonna go in here word on that they first because why? Why not? I you know this is this is new. This is kind of cool. Yeah, they do sound awesome. So which one of your which Delia or Heather co piloted for your co drove for you? I can't wait this year. Delia did and she was she kicked ass like we had she doesn't have any experience with CO driving. I didn't have any experience with driving in a race you know, of course, either of us. And she she handled the lead nav, and we're just using my cell phone for lean have in June is great. And was um, I don't know Cheers. Just awesome. When we broke, she was the two of us were great mechanically to try to get the fix going. I was super fun. And Heather actually waved the green flag in the checkered flag for us. It was just a really neat mine. You know, I was total family of fire. Wow. So you guys are in there. You guys get your finish? You won the elation of your complete mbean not only the first Evie, class competitor and ultra for racing, but the first one to complete a course and win your class. And I know there's always the joke like Haha, like you want to class a one. But in your case, I think that's a little different. Right? It's the kind of the way I think of it is like we accomplished the challenge. Right? Like that's that was the challenge for this year, if there was more cars than it would have been a race, you know, you know? Yeah, that's kind of that's just kind of how I feel about I want competition. real bad. And so when we heard that there was going to be another electric car entering it an off road race, we found a way to make it happen. We had across international borders to get there. Well, that's a great segue into that conversation. So I've got a former coworker, you know, friend of mine, her name's denita Park, she works at NRG energy here in Houston. And she would see kind of my, my LinkedIn post about various things and I you know, I put money down or a deposit down in order to Nikola the Nikola badger. And I think that that meant to some people I didn't like I didn't like the cybertruck Sorry, sorry, Tesla just it was just kind of I did really like the way Ilan musk handled the breaking the shattering of the window, the unveil like he shattered the window. He didn't try to cover up you just turn guess that didn't work. That didn't work out the way I expected it to. Yeah, I think we've got some work to do here. I didn't like from the aesthetic standpoint, but that wasn't the reason why I decided to get behind the niccola Nikolas, I thought was a much better looking truck from aesthetic version. But for me, it was the batteries coupled with this hydrogen fuel cell that they were claiming they were going to come out with. As we know, Nicole is not going to go forward with their truck and the Badger program, and we all got our deposits back on new trucks. But I'd love to hear your take on hydrogen, the potential for a hydrogen fuel cell. And if you think that that's something that will make its way into offer of racing and extending the range of, say, your vehicle or your solid vehicle, or other future racers, and what that looks like before we kind of talk about your head to head challenge. So the fuel cells are really neat. And I'm not I know a bit about how they work. I'm not I'm not an expert on it. I'm not exactly digital, I have a lot of questions about it. actually met ever since King from King hammers, I met this guy, Joe, up in Oregon, Joe Merrill. And he he is more of an expert on hydrogen fuel cells. And we've been talking a lot. Basically, there's a there's an overarching issue with hydrogen fuel cells. And it depends on which way you want to look at it, when it's from a racing perspective, then sort of none of this matters, but let's just go from a transportation perspective, or passenger vehicles or whatever you want to call them. If you're going to charge a battery, using hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cell, then the issue with hydrogen is that it doesn't have a lot of energy, you know, for its mass, so you need to compress it to compress it takes a lot of electricity, that you have to run a pump to compress it, and then it needs to go into a special container, a very high pressure can vessel and that those are complicated to make, they take a lot of energy to make. And then what you're doing with that hydrogen is you're running it through a fuel cell, which are pretty cool. Let's get a cathode and an anode. And it separates the electron from the hydrogen, you pass it through the battery. And that's how it charges the battery. Right? Your only emission is h2o, which is water, which is awesome. Like it's very clean, and hydrogens are super abundant. Like I get it, it's clean, the issue is that you have to compress the hydrogen and you have to store it into something that takes a lot of energy to create, which and all you're doing really is charging a battery, you so you still have to have a battery via a goal is hydrogen solar, have all this other stuff, you know? Okay, that says, so we may get there. But there's a lot of other issues and a lot of other quite, you know, deal killer level hurdles in between here and there. I agree. Yeah. And if there was some way to, you know, separate the hydrogen from water, whether it be out of the ocean, you have to do in a sustainable manner, you can't just like drink all the ocean water up, like you have to make it makes sense. And if you could do it for, you know, in a light fashion that could get it compressed, then for sure. I mean, that would be dope, because then cars can go a long way. I mean, the new Toyota Mariah has 400 miles on Philip, I was actually looking at maybe getting one of those, because when it comes to racing, what I would do is bring that down to King of the hammers and run a plug off of it off of the fuel cell and charge my batteries that way. Okay. And then then the then the electric race car, when it's on the course, I can say that it's powered by hydrogen, which is renewable. So all the energy spent by the racecar, on course, would be renewable. And that's kind of where my mind's going with this program, I want to try to find because we charge our batteries by generator, you know, a gas generator, I want to get away from that, I want to try to find a way to at least say that all the energy spent by the car on course, was renewable. And there's a lot of different ways to try to solve that puzzle. still working on it. So don't have the hot ticket yet. And I'm with you on that, like the the claim degree now I greet let's see zero carbon footprint on the race racing itself. But you know, I don't want to get into the argument about what the carbon footprint is of everything to make up to get to the point where you get to take the fight is we've got some issues, there is some suffering, but I want to go back that so I really liked the niccola. And so I put down a deposit and my friend, you know, former coworker denita has seen that she's following me and then she sees, you know, kind of the K wage stuff. And she invites me to go to her the checkout the Lordstown. And the Lordstown was really everything for me that I kind of wanted like it was it was a Silverado Silverado chassis. So I'm thinking about this and see my feeble mind on this. Okay, there's already an aftermarket for long travel suspensions for the Serato platform. So I'm gonna kick in I was looking for a commuter vehicle at the time so I'm, I'm like, I'm currently commuting in my, my pre rent you know, on 40s that's fun that truck parties it's a blast. You know, I love driving it in traffic, but to just go put 90 miles on it every single day wearing out a truck that really That's not what I own it for and want to use it for so so I'm looking for something else looking alternatives. And so she invites me to be energy's guest. The Lordstown unveiling here in Houston. So I checked this thing out like, Okay, this is basically a Silverado with a classy body. It's still Serato. And but it's got these wheel motors. And I'm pretty enamored with the wheel motors. I'm like, Okay, this is this is cool. Okay, well, I'm kind of liking where this is going. And you brought it up earlier, when you're talking about, hey, I'd like an electric crawler. And if you could get the torque at the corners, and you could get the weight right, you can get the the difference that we have in all of our photocards is sprung versus unsprung weight. You're working with wing Israel sent on tuning shocks, it's sprung versus unsprung. And then off road over forced racing, where it's a 40 inch tire going traveling up and down. It's a fight, you know, if we can move all this weight now, down there. Now this 40 inch tire weighs a lot more because we have motors down there. It's a new challenge. But you know, we've simplified the whole truck. There's no drive shafts, there's no there's so many things that go away. So didn't need to seize this. And, you know, the what I was interested in you to be involved in Lordstown. But then we talked about king of the hammers and i've you know about the talent tank show. And so she starts following you at King the hammer. So I have this corporate america friend that works in the energy industry that is now absolutely texting me and cheering you on from the sidelines for kh and we introduced this whole new person to this whole world where, oh my gosh, he V's are racing. And she's a Tesla. You know, she's, she's on the on the Tesla bandwagon. I love her for that. I'm not necessarily the I'm not the biggest fan of the Eevee. But I see that one day we're going to get there. And I'd like to I kinda would like to be an early adopter. So sorry, that was such a tangent to get off on Kyle. But as we talk about the Lordstown, it was this great segue to be in. You guys see that there's going to be another Evie vehicle at the score baja 250. And it's Lordstown and you guys thrown your hat in the ring. So talk about that story. Let's Let's go down that path and how exciting that kind of whole event was. We had just you know, we finished k wage and it was awesome. And thinking about race and more. It was right after that, pretty close that they put out that they were going to race the same fleet pay 250. You know, I don't know, I saw the I saw it. I saw the press release or whatever. And I didn't think too much of it. I thought that was cool. And then kind of grew on me. And I texted Dave, I was like, Dave, you seen this? What do you think about this? Should we be racing these guys? And he was like, let's go. Let's do it. And that started the conversation and we started to put together what we would need to do to make it happen. We already knew a lot about what we needed to do. And that was our strong suit, like open trailers a prerunner. And you know, we already had the rigs you know, the tow trucks to make it happen. Yeah. And we knew San Felipe Bay and the main thing was that we didn't really have the batteries to run 250 plus miles straight in a day. We actually couldn't even use the batteries, take those out of the car, put fresh batteries in and then charge the batteries on the trailer as they're going down the highway to the next hit to have them ready to go. We didn't have enough time in between in between pits to get to keep the car charged. So we needed a shit ton of batteries is what we needed. We needed like more than is usual in that is a scientific measurement as well. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. That's what we needed. And we actually that's how we got linked up with EV West. Mike Adibi Wes he was super cool down in So Cal and we went and said hi in person. And he had a ton of these batteries. They were actually Tesla cells that were made for the Evie smart car. And he had them sitting in plywood boxes on shelving. And, you know, we told them what we wanted to do. He's He's into racing. He actually I think holds the electric record today for Pikes Peak. I'm not. I don't I'm not quite exactly sure about that. But he did for sure when he ran it years ago. Okay, and he's actually seeking I think they definitely hold the land speed record for electric vehicles that they set this year. So they're all about racing and like hanging out at his shop down there. In the end, I forget the town San Marcos awesome guy in it was like, Well, here are the batteries, we can borrow them. We'll return them in aluminum enclosures that are useful for racing so that if another race team would like to use them for whatever they want, they're now in something that's like a you know, a tough box with like a heavy duty plug on the side so that they can make their cargo. Okay. Yeah, so kind of making this we're moving towards a world where kind of making them universal. Yeah. Yeah, I mean better than sitting in plywood boxes in a warehouse. Let's set them up in aluminum boxes. And if someone wants to make a race car, well, here's an empty aluminum box, here's your dimensions, you know, whatever. Go ahead and build your car around this. And then when you get to the race, you know, either pick up the boxes on your way, you know, with the batteries in them or that maybe they'll be there I you know, is sort of a organic conversation we're having with with TV West, and so we got a at all, man, tons of them wasn't cheap. But we didn't really we kind of rented them right? We didn't have to buy them. And we put them together in these limited boxes. Team Baker, fab derek derek Baker, Chad Britton, Danny, Danny agar, Berlin and jianna. And Vanessa helped me out so much with putting these things together. Like there's no way I could have that we crammed for three days before we left for Mexico. With just trying to get these 21 boxes we had to put six modules in each get them all charged up and get them assembled it was insane laser not cut the cut the aluminum and had a pent up for us. That was like that was the real push of the Baja effort was getting those boxes together. And then yeah, then we went down there and gave them hell. Well, that's cool coat. Yo Cody shows up, you know, with the laser net stuff and helps you guys out. But team Baker fab. I mean, that crew was all there that ultra three night and I mean, they are the epitome of ultra for racing. They are they're the folks right. I think so. We're pretty hardcore. Like that's, it has to do with race and and if it's worthwhile. We're all in like that's it. Absolutely. Like it was it was an insane effort by by everybody. Their team Baker. We got it done. It was tough. There's three days of some torture. But we got what we needed. Done. We made the zip line system out of the trophy truck trailer to get the batteries in and out of the race car. We found a way to mount the boxes in the race car like the amount of fab that went down in three days. was just insane. Like it couldn't it couldn't have. I didn't need friends. I needed the right friends and I had them that's the only way I got it done. Yeah, the that was one thing that was impressive. I actually shared that to my LinkedIn on this was how you did your your refueling right. And you guys built this kind of a gantry system that rolled down the center of the the the race trailer, and you basically lifted them up and you call it a zip line. I think that's an exact great word for it. You you would winch up the box how much how much did each box weigh 262 pounds so enough that they would suck to carry you could do it but a couple guys but it's still it's still certainly do it to two strong backs could do it. But it's not fun. No, no, it will whoop your ass. So you and then you guys gantry him down and get into the the tailgate of the 4854. And you just slip them in, right? Yeah, yeah, so we put a we put a I hook on the race car like on the trailer on the race cage. And so when the the racecar would back up to the trailer, you hook the winch to it. And when the winch draws tie, you now have a zip line. And with that said, we got the old ones out and the new ones in with relative it was way easier than trying to do it manually. But we did have two pits that had to be done manually. And that's where Poncho and Jorge guys from Cody racing down in Mexico and then they had a whole bunch of guys to help them. We did it manually with with like pry bars and just muscle and we got the we got the batteries out and then when we needed to. And I can't say enough about those guys, too. They helped us out so much on the effort to get that done. Talk to that race. It was a 250 mile race you guys DNF I think you guys made it like about 180 miles and through 157 157 and you guys had some you guys were fighting some electrical Gremlins is what I'd heard. So yeah, so the car was great all day, like we never met Lordstown up until we were getting we were staging for the for the take off. And then so we saw their truck. And they were you know, sitting over there and we went we were 50 yards away or so. And they can't like the CO driver and Brent oil guy and another guy came out and said Hi, we were shooting the shit with them. And it was all mutual. Like I was like, Oh, yeah, you guys stuff is awesome. And they were like you guys are stuff is awesome. Like it was it was really cool. You know, can't wait to get out there. We're gonna butt heads when we're out there. We're racing, but for sure, like what you guys got going on is great. So we're on the same page there and then took off from the line. We passed them in the first mile because they were stopped on the side of the road for some reason. And then they followed us through zero. And then they passed us again we had a navigational issue. But then at mile 40 we like our car was almost dead on juice and we were just barely getting a pit. And they were stuck on the side of the road. They were getting hooked up to a raptor to get pulled off. And we pulled over to talk to them. And, you know, they were like our cars dead. And I'm like, Yeah, mine is dead too. But I only got a half a mile to go to get us battery swap. So we swapped our batteries, and we kept going, they took hours and hours of charging or whatever they were doing. I don't know, wasn't my concern, but I saw it was like they had a box truck with a generator in it and they were just chillin. I think from what I saw about their their effort, like I really do think that where they're at with hub motors, I still think that's gonna be the wave of the future. I really do think that what I saw there trek was total work of art. It totally gives me faith that we can build long travel. A long travel pre runner trek for somebody somewhere already has the front knuckles already CAD design, so we just got to hit enter on a five axis mill and cut some out. But I think they hadn't thought through the the charging battery situation the way you had, like you were so much further advanced in this modular design where you could plug and unplug. And they weren't. Yeah, that for sure. Like two different strategies. And to be honest, I think the best solution is to fast charge the car. I don't think it's to do it the way that they were attempting to do it, it would be awesome to be able to create a car with around the battery so you can set them in the chassis the way you want and wire them in really, really good. Some things that you know, you introduced when you have 21 different batteries is that's so many more wiring connections. You know, you could have failures there. So if you could set up the car where you could fast charge it, I think that's the ticket. It's just it's it's a difficult thing to it's a difficult nut to crack. I don't think they quite cracked it. Yeah, we swapped them out. It was awesome. We went we went up pretty good. I think the car was going good all day. Everything was working. And then we had an issue where we ran it ran it dead. And then from then on we were popping fuses. I think we might have damaged the inverter on the motor. And then from then on, we were running too much current through the system were Yeah, it was Yeah, it was like working too hard. So it's kind of like I don't know how else to put it almost like running with flat tires. Now your engines working hard, and it's overheating. So I think we damaged the inverter. So we're running it too hard. We're drawing too much current. We're popping fuses. I mean, well, that's, you know, like Jason shear, right? he popped to retires at km h. And so maybe his mileage went up, but then they also didn't, you know, get a full load of gas. So, but that aside, but right, that's kind of a little of the two. It's a little bit you know, it's kind of like in the air but exactly what Yeah, you didn't get a finished in score. But what you did was you went, you know, 113 miles further than a seven figure effort. Right? Yeah, it would have been cool to have those seven figures we could have definitely think we could have made the 250 he would it would have been different but I mean, you guys you guys made you did make make history and what where I saw in the online presence of history because that was a crazy day for racing. We had a there was ultra forego on that day. Plus good be had a race going at Nortel THAT DAY PLUS there was chasing you. So if anyone knew that Saturday was a it was a busy day for for Motorsports, and basically following you and seeing your success down there was kind of cool to see it online. Like you know, often fish foreigner with fish logistics was giving you he's given trophy truck updates, and he's giving shitbox updates. And I was so cool like that. I appreciate the hell out of fish bar. Like that was dope. That was that was really neat to be on fish just like as much as we were like, yeah, it was really fun. I think it's this, this this embracing, right, it's embracing of, well, you're cool. I mean, you're a cool dude. And you exude this, this this aura that people like to be around they like that you are the one pushing limits. And and I called your pioneer in the field earlier on. I know you were humble about that. But you kind of you kind of are and I think that's what you know, I think that's what baja racing is to begin with. It's this challenging of the environment challenging of the classes challenging. And in, you're doing that with an Eevee and people are like, wow, that's this guy. He's embodying the challenges, and he's rising to the occasion. We have nothing but to cheer for him. I find that fun. Oh, yeah, that that's it. I mean, it's just me, me and my friends like trying to do something rad I mean, you know, like that. Pretty simple, pretty simple equation like let's you know, as long as everybody's good families healthy everything's all right then let's What else can we do? Well, geez, let's make an electric race car and go race it you know. Like that. And like you said, it on you and or I set about you was the whole invest in yourself. It did what you've done actually pushed your career further forward and changed where you were, what you're working what you're doing from from a career standpoint. I'm excited for where racing takes you. I'm excited for where your career takes you. I'm excited for you. Does that take you back to the the East Coast? And if it does take you back to the east coast? What do you think you're going to do for work there? And we think you're going to do for racing there. You're gonna start like EV circle tracking it? I mean, what's the what's the goal? Geez, I don't know. Because Yeah, the racing in the East Coast is nothing like out here like but back home. When I was racing with my cousin. We do demolition derbies at a third mile paved oval track, it was figure eight with jumps in the middle, like, we were jumping into each other with pickup trucks, like, in a paved oval, it's completely different than what we do out here. I mean, I don't really know, I'll be honest with you. I like kind of just shooting from the hip making it up as I go. It'd be really cool to bring ultra for style or, or any any sort of, you know, unlimited four wheel drive off road racing to New England. Like, I think there is a thirst for it. Even if that thirst hasn't been, it hasn't been realized yet. It's up there for sure. I mean, we got our monster, which is like a mega Truck Race. weekend that happens up in Vermont, and there's some stuff. But I think that there's some rocks up there that can be found. I don't think you're gonna get an 80 mile loop, like you would out on the west coast. But I think I think there's there's some potential up there. So I can see that. Do you remember when they did frozen rush when Red Bull would do frozen rush? They bring the proforce? Man, I missed it. I almost went to that weekend, I almost made that I did miss it. I wish they would bring that back. I mean, like we were making plans, I think they did two years in a row. And then so the third year we're all making, there's a group of us making plans to go out there and go freeze our asses off. And I think it's in Maine. I think that's on a ski slope. And they're racing, you know, pro fours up and down the ski slope. And I heard it was just the best thing since sliced bread, then it just went away. And that was that was that. And that was now that that sucked. So Kyle, what is? What's the next race for you in your truck? What's the plan? Well, to be honest with you, I'm not sure. The idea would be not necessarily to race that truck. But I'd like to put something together that makes a little bit more sense. For what we're doing. The main two takeaways that we've learned is that the truck is heavy. And it has pretty limited suspension. I guess the third would be that it's recognizable. And it's kind of cool. Like it's a Toyota. It's a Toyota truck. Lots of people like that. And that's, you know, I mean, I do for sure. But if we wanted to go faster and further would need to shed some weight and increase the suspension, not necessarily because we want to go a lot faster, which we do, but it's mostly so that we can maintain momentum at a smoother pace. So you're not on the accelerator as much during the day, you're mostly just trying to maintain your momentum. And that'll allow you to go a lot farther in the rough stuff. So the next race for us, if we get to put together something that looks a lot better, potentially, like a side by side chassis, probably when it's ready, which at this point might be kayo H or earlier. But if we're gonna race the Toyota again, it's it's likely going to be at the men. That's kind of what I'm thinking, Okay, it's a lap race. It's got multiple pets. We have already worked out some battery with the Evie Wes. That'd be pretty neat. And it's also Vegas, and it's the levy that'd be really, really cool. And instead of Matt. Yeah, it's just gonna it's the mat. And then I didn't see the Martelli brothers did come out, they've launched it, they're gonna have an Eevee class as well, right? Yeah, I bet they didn't, even if they didn't, whatever would try to put in for it. I mean, it has to tell us not to if they if they didn't want us in there, but yeah, for sure. We, at this point, we'll, we'll enter any class that we need to, but that that gives us enough time to actually get that car set up better, you know, in trying to figure out a charging system because we will need to for that one. 400 miles. Yeah, right. everything that surrounds a man, you know, the Fremont experience and that yes, in general, and hopefully doing it like not under the auspice of COVID will be fine. Well, yeah, I hope it's all blown away by then. Geez. Over over. Yeah. All right, Boston. Kyle, we're at the part of the show. Where did you cover everything? Did I cover everything for you that we wanted to kind of talk about that you wanted to get off your chest? I got something. I want to take a page out of Adam shears book. Let's go. I want to talk about Massachusetts. He wanted to talk about Texas. Okay. Yeah. Well, let's talk about Mass. it's it's a it's a really great state. It's got a lot to offer. The Far Far East is Provincetown, which is like an old, old seaport. And then it goes around the ogre on Cape Cod, which is kind of like an arms sticking off of Massachusetts. And this just It's its own thing out there. There's lots of great beaches, and it's a, they're all about the seafood out there. Most of basses used to mess up but the seafood, Boston is a town full of history, you take the Liberty Walk, it's basically just a red line on the pavement, on the sidewalk that goes around and shows you historical sites and the town itself. If you ever find yourself in mass in Boston, try to try to link up with the with the Red Sox game at Fenway Park, and I don't even like baseball. It's just an atmosphere that happens at Fenway Park. I think it's America's oldest ballpark, even if you don't care at all about baseball, go check it out, sit through a few innings and take it out. It's like a living museum. It's it's really neat. And the town itself was super inviting. it's small enough you can get around it easy, but it's big enough that it's a real city. And then you go out to Western Mass and everything changes. It's like you're you're out there you know it's it's it's East it's it's very dense East deciduous forest. And it's a totally different atmosphere from the east to the west part of mass. Love the state I'm from in all of New England in general, Northern Vermont, and the fall for the leaves is some is a sight to behold. Like, never seen anything like it. I'm from mass, I know what leaves these changing looks like. But northern Vermont in the fall is something else. And then Maine in the winter is great for snowboarding and snowmobiling around like, yeah, I Love New England, I love Massachusetts. And if you've never been there, and you get the chance, go for it. Let me know when you're there, I might be absent tips where I'm gonna get tips from you. Because our kids have they have a fall break. Now it's in October, we have a four day break. And our plan is to go to the northeast, and based on where it falls, we stand a pretty good chance of catching the leaves. And so talking to will Gentile, he's there in Connecticut. And the thought is that we would fly into Boston, we would do Boston, we would loop through Connecticut, basically to check off Connecticut off our off our list because otherwise we would never never get there. But try to see we'll while we're there, and then loot north and try to hit up there through New Hampshire and Vermont, and then try to fly home out of Maine is kind of the loose plan that my wife's working on but well I will hit you up because I mean, I need the details. The the inside scoop, usually, if they've got this four days, four days off, or whatever, we'll add a day on the beginning in the end for travel. So we will, you know, we'll get you know, a night on the front end, you'll probably in Boston, then we'll do a little bit there. And then my family is good. Like the four of us, we will throw some miles on a rental car. So we can check the boxes and see the sights and see the place. And then when we get back it's like we need a vacation from our vacation. But we will have seen it so yes, you're you will. You're on my shortlist for people. I need to call about that. Well, that sounds awesome. And you can't you can't can't go wrong in the fall up in New England. Like it's just it's one of the times where it really shines. It's great. I've lived in West Coast for a while now and I just missed England. You know, it's part of it for four real seasons, really strong seasons, just a different vibe out there. It's it's, it's badass. Awesome. So that's how I know you're a fan of the show. You've listened to so many that you remembered you know that I'm sure thing and you've thought to bring it up here at the end. But I know you're you told me you're a couple episodes behind here at the end of where we're at. So you might not have heard everything I've input I've changed something starting to good B so you probably heard indicated B's was yet maybe top three songs that are kind of important to you right now in life or just top three that you can just no matter where you're at when it comes on. It takes you to a certain place where you're like, that was a great time in life for that was whatever. Top three songs go. That's tough one, obviously, you know, everyone knows why that's tough one it's like you know, favorite three cars or whatever. You can't really do it. But I guess coming in third would be them shoes by Patrick sheeny Patrick Sweeney. It's just got this sort of thing to it that I can't get out of my head. I'd love it. There's one of my favorite songs them shoes. The second would be anything by tool. Like tool is my favorite band. I don't even I like music. I don't necessarily love music. I mean, I guess I do but I don't think about it that much. I don't have my own stuff on my phone. I don't when I'm driving. I'll drive for 10 hours and have the radio silent and just be I don't even know what I'm doing. I'm just talking to myself. I guess it's just thinking in my head. But tool is different for me. Basically all the tools music is like my favorite superhero. Angela, I think the lyrics are dope and the music is even doper like that's, that's my thing. I'll interrupt there. So Danny Carey, the drummer for tool is from the booming metropolis of paella Kansas, where miles masochist is from and myself is from Danny Danny's. One of Danny's best friends was, you know, friends of our family and so my mom would travel out to LA with him and they rip it in LA. And then he had a place in Ensenada. And it's my mom is vacation with Danny Carey. You know, the draw from tour. I've met him a handful of times. And it used to be, you know, this 10 years ago, I had an basically an email address for him that he if they weren't playing anywhere in South Texas, I could shoot an email to the address and there be I get tickets, we'll call and then backstage passes. That band never comes back to the backstage. So the backstage passes. Were never worth anything. So people are like, Oh, I got backstage the tool. Okay, well, you went sat in a room and waited for the band. That was they were never gonna come because that's not what they they would ever do. But yeah, these are very different in so many ways. Yeah. Yeah. But uh, that is the I have no connections to any other band that I can think of. But But tulia Danny Carey, just just an amazing drummer. And I mean, he's, he's like one of the top 10 drummers of all time, and I find him pretty fascinating. I'm not a super big tool fan. But I'm, I am super, super big fan of undertow, that whole album. I don't know if it's just the time of life where I listened to it. And I really liked every song on it. But everything kind of after I've really not been great, you know, it just hadn't hadn't spoken to me. But yeah, man, I can see that there's a lot of people that are hardcore, hardcore tool, like, and I can see why. Right? They're different. Yeah, it's different. It's intense. And I think the lyrics are really meaningful on most of their songs. And for me, like, just, that's where I'm at. And the number of number one would definitely be zero sum by our wild America. Mostly cuz it was the it was the theme song in heavy metal concepts video, the km h video. The one we like, it starts with, um, with Tom ways, dip into the desert, and then it kind of goes through just lots of shots of racers in the people of New Age. And we listened to that song every single time two or three times that we worked on our race car getting ready for King of the hammers. And we didn't know if we were going to do it. We didn't know if we could get it together in time or we didn't you know, there were so many questions like we didn't even know if we get to get going to get to go racing. And we played that song a lot. And I played every time I'm in JV and I plan for me like that's that's probably like, where my my my mentality is that especially when it comes to racing, so that's probably about my favorite song. I really like it. And I wish I had all those years kind of blend together on on the movies. Like maybe it's the kingdom I don't know. When a wheel could roll it off the roll it off immediately. Just Will's head works that way it's wheel has a catalog in his head of every single clip he's ever shot. It's crazy. What do you got with? Wow, Kyle? Okay, I like I like where you go in there two of those songs. I've got to go look up though. I've got to go look, I'm I'm playing for myself and and be like, Okay, this is this is where you're at? Well, hey, man. That concludes that concludes the episode. I'm super pumped that you you agreed to sit down super pumped that you you shared your story with all of us in myself, and let me ask dumb questions or fun questions or whatever. That is a big one. Thank you, dude, thank you so much. Man, I really appreciate it. Like I'm humbled to get to be on the talent tank like especially since so many, like great people have been on before me. It's insane to think that that I can be a part of that. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Well, I look forward to what you have going next. And on that note, we're out. Thank you for listening and taking the dive into the tail end tank. Please like and subscribe on Instagram at the tail end or our website, the talent tank.com