Vaughn Gittin Jr and Dave Cole on the King of Hammers Stage

This show was recorded live on stage at the 2025 King of the Hammers off-road race. Our guests: - Vaughn Gittin Jr, a 2-time Formula Drift Champion who has turned his wheel towards off-road racing and been killing it in Ultra 4 Racing for Nitto Tire and Ford. - Dave Cole, the founder of the King of the Hammers event. This conversation covers a wide range of topics about the event itself, business lessons, and how technology is changing racing including: The WILD story about the very first KOH event How do you get people to sign up for something that's never been done? What is making cars go faster off-road? The creativity of spectator vehicles Building different mouse traps Why off-road racing might be the most exciting motorsport for a driver AND a spectator The nighttime antics you won't see at any road race Anti-EV? Hardly. And more! Recorded Feb 5, 2025 Get up to 10 FREE meals and a free high protein item for life at https://www. HelloFresh.com/smokingtire10fm. Today get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://www.joindeleteme.com/TIRE and use promo code TIRE at checkout. New merch! Grab a shirt or hoodie and support us! https://thesmokingtireshop.com/ Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! Enter code TSTPOD for a 10% discount on your first case on the Off The Record app, or go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Tweet at us! https://www. Twitter.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Twitter.com/zackklapman Instagram: https://www. Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Instagram.com/therealzackklapman

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Matt Farah?

  What up everyone, welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. You know how it be, we sponsored by Off The Record this week, just like every week. Some of you guys experienced a bit of an outage, sent me a DM, two people sent me a DM. Our TST Pod code had expired at the end of 2024, so we've extended that code into 2025, but just a heads up, in a couple of months, we're gonna have a new code that we're gonna be changing over. That way, all of the people using Off The Record can't just like get our code off other weird like code sharing sites. It's only for TST people.

• 0:43Matt Farah?

  So, if you get a ticket, a moving violation, don't plead guilty, get Off The Record. Download the Off The Record app and use code TSTPOD, TST Pod for now, to get 10% off all your legal services from Off The Record. And oh, by the way, I have gotten a bunch of emails from people, Off The Record's been killing it, dude. Dismissals left and right, all over the place. We love Off The Record. You can also, if you want to use a web browser, offtherecord.com/tst, or download the app and use code TSTPOD on that Off The Record app. 10% off all legal services. Don't plead

• 1:26Matt Farah?

  guilty, get Off The Record. Alright folks, we are live on a big stage for this one. We are up on, at the King of the Hammers race out in Johnson Valley, and we are sitting up on the main stage, doing a live podcast to Hammer Town with King of the Hammers founder Dave Cole and racing driver, Formula Drift Ultra 4 racing driver Vaughn Gittin Jr., he's an old pal of mine, and it's great to get him back on the show. We are talking about the history of the King of the Hammers race, what makes it so crazy, what Ultra 4 racing is all about, how off-road racing compares to

• 2:06Matt Farah?

  Formula Drift driving and grip driving and the different skills required. It's a great time with these two guys. We loved having them and really enjoyed King of the Hammers. It's Dave Cole and Vaughn Gittin Jr. on the Smoking Tire Podcast.

• 2:22Matt Farah?

  Hello Hammer Town. This is exciting. I get to talk to all 80,000 of you at once. My name's Matt Farah. Welcome to the Smoke and Tire Podcast live and boy, do I have a fire pit of people looking at me with a cocked head. That's my man and my producer and co-host Zach Klapman right there. And we are extremely privileged to be joined on show number 985 with one of my oldest racing driver friends Vaughn Gittin Jr., aka JR, driving that RTR Bronco here this week. And of course, Dave Cole, owns the joint, runs the joint, built this stage in how many weeks?

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Two.

• 3:00Matt Farah?

  Two?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Two weeks.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Built the stage in two weeks, built the event over 19 years. 19th year, yes, sir. 19th year.

• 3:07Matt Farah?

  This is so great. Thank you guys for having us out here.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  It's my pleasure. This is cool.

• 3:11Matt Farah?

  It's hard to be here. Amazing. And this is actually my first time here, so nobody should expect in-depth racing analysis. I'm at the, oh my God, what is happening phase of my King of the Hammers career.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  It goes about their two or three years that'll, that'll still happen. And then about the fourth year, you'll still feel uncomfortable about like where gate three is. We move it every year though, so.

• 3:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah, everyone seems to have an expert opinion of where we should go, what we should do.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:37Matt Farah?

  And see, that hill over there seems to be universal.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:41Matt Farah?

  And, and, and what's your recommendation, Dave?

• 3:43Speaker 01

  I recommend that you go out with some of the teams, go pre-running tomorrow. If that one, our pre-running won't be a thing, tomorrow's racing, isn't it?

• 3:51Matt Farah?

  It is.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Then I suggest you go watch the big race and maybe get out to the remote pits and see some of that strife happening out there. And then, um, and there's a Jumbotron out there, I believe, too. So you'll be able to see the race. So, um, yeah, go do the things.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  Dave, you didn't tell Dave that you also have a Raptor Ranger. So your suggestion and that would be go ripping in the desert.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Then you, yes.

• 4:15Matt Farah?

  We have Mike Levine over there from Ford. He won't like this, but we have a disposable Raptor.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  It's not ours, we don't have to pay for it.

• 4:23Matt Farah?

  I thought all of them were disposable. This one's, this is an Irving production. This one ain't never seen in a public road again.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Well, as I said, they said, oh, Matt Ferris coming, yeah, give him that one.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Well, that's why it has 5,000 miles on it.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  Pre-production one for him, yeah, give him that one, please.

• 4:39Matt Farah?

  How many years have you been here, JR?

• 4:41Speaker 03

  I've been here since 2016.

• 4:44Matt Farah?

  Okay, so, eight, nine, eight?

• 4:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, whatever that map was in accounting.

• 4:49Matt Farah?

  A bunch.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  And you're absolutely right, because I got, I was on the beach in Jamaica with my family on my yearly vacation, and Harry from Nido called me and he's like, hey, we have a spec truck for King of the Hammers race, he's like, do you want to go do that? And I was like, is that the race with like the big rocks in the desert and like all the things? He's like, yeah, I'm like, oh, that sounds fun. So I, no lie, I showed up here in a rental car with brand new tennis shoes on. And then I come in Boone Road, which is the road you came in on, right? And it's like nothing, and then you get through the gates and it's just like, burning man with race cars, right? And I fell in love, and I've not stopped coming back.

• 5:32Matt Farah?

  I get it, I get it. And Dave, before we started the show, I asked you, what came first? The UTV or the King of the Hammers? And you said the King of the Hammers by a month or two?

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Couple of months, yeah. It was April, May of 2007, I believe, the Robbie's Ride, RZR dropped, and that was the beginning of, I mean, we had Yamahas back then, Rhinos were pre, pre that time, but the sport UTV started in 2007, yeah.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Before that, they were just helpers, like they would bring your tires to the pits and your, move your stuff around.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  It wasn't even before, I mean, before 2007, there was just the Yamaha Rhino. That was, that was it. There was the Rhino and it had been discontinued and, and then there was, then we started Ultra Four racing and then, and Jeeps were, and everything was coming back and then the Razor started up and then Canon came out and then the, the explosion of technology in that, in that world is, is bonkers, across all of it, even, even in the, in the big cars and Broncos and everything else, the adaptation and the technology advancement over the last 10 years is bonkers.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Well, that's something I wanted to ask you about was like, how has the hardware changed? You've been doing this now nine years. Have you noticed a difference in either durability, capability, or speed of the vehicles? And like, what do you attribute that to?

• 6:47Speaker 03

  It's unbelievably changed, just in the short time that I've been in it. You know, the biggest progression, tires, suspension. You know, suspension meaning everything on all four corners, right? Whether it's billet trailing arms, portals. We've got Fox Live valve, literally the same suspension that's in the Raptors. That's constantly adjusting to what's going on.

• 7:13Matt Farah?

  You can literally, that's JR's truck going by right now. If you can hear that in our microphones, it's literally his vehicle that just drove by.

• 7:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is.

• 7:22Matt Farah?

  Those shocks are sick. We have them in our little Ranger Raptor too.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they're constantly adapting. And we've got buttons on the wheel that we can, like if I see a G-out coming up and I can't slow down, I can lock my compression out. If I get a big rebound and I'm going to buck the back, I can lock it out. Like, it's unbelievable. But the coolest thing about what I love about the sport and something that kind of transcends the drifting is, you know, in the unlimited class, now there's classes with rules, but in the unlimited class, there's so many different approaches. So people show up here with independent front suspension, fully independent cars, single-seat cars, co-drivers, lightweight, heavy. It's just, who builds their theory of the better mousetrap and show up and throw down with it?

• 8:08Matt Farah?

  When you drift and you're drifting a front-engine car, you drift Mustangs, and do you have a preference for front or mid-engine off-road?

• 8:19Speaker 03

  Well, funny you say that, because I've only driven front-engine cars and now I have a mid-engine truck for the first time this year. And there's trade-offs with everything, right? There's compromises with everything. The front engine, I believe, crawls a little better, but the mid-engine truck, where the balance is in the desert, and you just have to be a little bit more committed in the rock. So like, it's like any race car, right? There's trade-offs. And so when people are in there dreaming their mousetrap to bring the King of the Hammers, there's all these different theories of what's going to win. And every year...

• 8:54Matt Farah?

  Well, the fact that the course changes certainly changes the balance of your math, doesn't it?

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Well, we know there's rocks, we know there's desert, right? So it's pretty consistent in that realm, but it is heavy, heavy, heavy rocks. And you have to be able to do both.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  But the progression that I've witnessed in the last, you know, eight, nine years, it's crazy. I mean, Laura, my teammate, has been through four different cars in the past nine years because of the progression, the how quickly other people are building things that just push past where we were at. And so it's, you know, it's performance, right? But it's also not braking.

• 9:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  What goes on in this race, I can't even tell you, Matt. It is literally, when you get done this race, it's like you got done eight hours of his fight.

• 9:53Matt Farah?

  How long is each lap this year?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Eighty miles for the longest lap, sixty-five miles for the first desert lap.

• 9:59Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  But before we talk about the progression, Dave really needs to explain how this race started because it is, the story of this race is not like, you know, it's not like he was like, "I want to be a racing promoter and start..." Please, please explain the story. It's unbelievable when you hear this to where we are right now.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, in 2006, I competed in rock crawling and I love it. Still my thing. Passion is rock crawling and the sport was growing, but it was not, it wasn't taking off and it wasn't, we couldn't get people to come to it. We couldn't get sponsors to really go after it or support it. And in 2007, I decided to start, try something different. And I knew what the permit, permit rules were here. So I had 12 guys. I had all my friends and three more people. So I had nine people and three more. Twelve people showed up and we went racing. And I went on Pirate 4x4 back then, which was a, I'm not sure if you even know what Pirate was, but Pirate was pre-Facebook. It's where our culture

• 10:59Speaker 01

  kind of, kind of joined and communicated from around the world. We could talk to people from Pakistan on, online on Pirate about how we were hand-forming metal stuff. It was crazy. And...

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Was that at all related to Pirate Bay where people would like download movies and things like that? Was this like neighboring websites? Okay, never mind.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Nope. Pirate 4x4 was purely just a free-for-all of awesomeness, of just all the ideas percolating and what, what you, where you were going, what you were doing. It became the, it became the aggregator. It became the thing that brought everybody together.

• 11:31Matt Farah?

  I saw movies.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Different place.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, in 2007, there's 12 guys and I had a partner then, his name's Jeff Noel, and he's, I mean, I'm still not good at money, and Jeff was like, "We can't, we can't be in the, in the red to start, so we gotta be in the black." So we did a budget and the first race was gonna cost $30,000, 2008. So, I, um, we had racers, we convinced pro racers to send in resumes and told them that they couldn't enter the race, they had to be accepted into the race, which is rather...

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Exclusivity.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Exclusivity. Well, the other thing part was, no one wanted to come, so, um, the only way you can make people do something is you tell them they can't. Turns out, this is the best way to tell people, get people to do something. So I told, we told them all they couldn't race, and we told all the media they couldn't come, and we told the fans they couldn't come, and then all the media came and all the racers came and all the fans came. It was a good move. Uh, well, um, that year, um, we needed 30,000 bucks, so I, we got to a point of 600 dollars per racer and hoped we could get 50. And once I had 50, people said they wanted to come, we called them all in three hours and told them they had the last spot if they paid today. So we had 30,000 bucks, we had a race, um, and we did it. And the

• 12:49Speaker 01

  next year, we did it again, and went to 100 racers, and last year was 930 some odd, I think there's, there's, we're short some classes, we're not doing short courses, that kinda stuff, but we're still 700 some odd entries this year. It's, it's been a crazy ride, and the fans, I, I, you meet people, you see the same people that have been here since 2008, 2009, um, this is the place that I see them, this is the, it's just a, it's a happening now, and it, and it, the people that come here are the reason why it's rad.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  Well, it seems like...

• 13:19Speaker 01

  It's like every other part, right?

• 13:20Matt Farah?

  It seems like the people here spend the entire 51 weeks of the rest of the year preparing for this one.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  No, they spend the 51 weeks living the same way, and they just come, happen to come here, live, live here for a week, which is cool, but yet, yeah, the people that are here are the ones that do. You know, there's people that watch, there's people that do, there's a bunch of doers out there.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  It's evident, as soon as you drive around the parking lot, which we did for a couple of hours... I mean, you see the absolute spectrum of, I'll say color, but it's really like the vehicle construction. And you'll see two Jeeps parked next to each other, a thousand percent different. And you'll see the most interesting creations, and it's all based on function. And then also, like we were saying before the show, like, they're working on it in their garage, they're building it themselves anyway. They're not taking, they're not buying this off the shelf or even at like a specialty shop. And they go, well, if I'm wrenching on it, I might as well make it look the way I want to look and express a part of my personality. So you see jokes, and you see cool paint stuff, and you see metal formed. I mean, it's a, you, like, we saw a shortened Defender 90. Who shortens a Defender 90?

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  You know, it's like shrinking a Mini Cooper. But people here are doing it because they want, because it serves a purpose and helps them crawl the rocks better. I mean, there are just so many crazy, awesome, super-functional badass contraptions.

• 14:34Matt Farah?

  I'm actually even more impressed by the toy haul, the improvised toy haul.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:39Matt Farah?

  That's, that is some...

• 14:40Speaker 01

  It's necessity, man. Necessity is the...

• 14:43Matt Farah?

  Stashed on other stuff.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Necessity is the...

• 14:45Matt Farah?

  Mother-invention or something like that?

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  I have to, I have to find a way to get three race cars and a camper trailer with my gas-powered, you know, three, three-speed pickup truck from Maryland to the Hammers.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  It's amazing. It's new to me at its best. And like, we were on the lake that other day doing a photo shoot, and we've got half million dollar race trucks everywhere, right? Everyone's gawking on them. I saw this dude pull up, and it looked like a T-bucket, but it was like a wide T-bucket, and he hundred percent hand-built this, and it looked like a 1930s something or another. And it was so rad. He had leaf springs, one on top, one on bottom, with pushrod suspension on it. I'm just like, what do you, you know, like, it's so cool. It's so cool to see people's...

• 15:30Matt Farah?

  Pushrod and leaf springs.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Because he probably had them around, you know?

• 15:34Speaker 01

  I wonder how that rides? How do you think that rides?

• 15:37Speaker 03

  I mean, how flat is the road?

• 15:39Speaker 01

  It's got live valve shocks on it. It's a T-bucket, but it's got live valve shocks on it. I mean, come on, it rides great.

• 15:46Matt Farah?

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• 16:31Matt Farah?

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• 17:14Matt Farah?

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• 17:55Matt Farah?

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• 18:27Speaker 03

  It's cool though. That's one of my favorite things here. You there and to your point, there is people that literally spent 51 weeks building their thing to bring to him.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  I mean, and it's just a passion. It is created an unbelievable.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Dave and his team have created unbelievable lifestyle for a couple of weeks here in the desert.

• 18:48Matt Farah?

  Can we talk about one wheel off roading for a second? What are these guys doing?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Man, well, at some point, it's harder and harder to find more insanity. Like when you dug to the bottom, the dredges of finding all the craziness in the world. Turns out there's people that do it on one wheel too.

• 19:05Matt Farah?

  One wheel?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  They, yeah, amazing. And they're rad as humans and they're out there just fully sending it.

• 19:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I saw a guy riding a one wheel igloo cooler.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, that's Cooler Joe.

• 19:14Matt Farah?

  Shout out to him.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Cooler Joe.

• 19:16Matt Farah?

  Cooler Joe.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  But he's been here for 40 years.

• 19:19Matt Farah?

  You know Cooler Joe?

• 19:19Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  His friends are in full body armor and they're going over some of these obstacles and they're, they're literally one wheeling past cars that have 40 inch tires. And these guys are standing on a 12, 14 inch tire. I mean, that's incredible.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  I've never seen it, but it's the first time they've been here, but they're doing the thing.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  I mean, what else? Adding to the party set up this hill.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  If they live, they'll be back next year and that'll be the new class. How many classes are there?

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Well, they've already, they're already changing their name from Ampt Electric to Ultra One. So they're coming back.

• 19:52Matt Farah?

  Ultra One.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Ultra One.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Ultra One, Ultra Three and Ultra Four. Perfect.

• 19:57Matt Farah?

  We just learned about Ultra Three today.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Oh, you missed it. Last night was the show.

• 20:01Speaker 03

  You've got Ultra Zero. It's all the ultras here.

• 20:05Matt Farah?

  Are people okay? Is it a three wheeler oval racing?

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Super speedway, yes sir.

• 20:11Matt Farah?

  That's fantastic.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  The one wheels did that too faster, pretty fast. Really fast.

• 20:20Matt Farah?

  They're 200cc three wheelers. It's...

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Oh, so it's like flat track racing, but you can't tip over until you do?

• 20:28Matt Farah?

  It's not flat, it's banked, it's a banked oval.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  It's like a...

• 20:30Speaker 03

  It's like a velodrome.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  Three wheeler velodrome.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  I love the invention. People find the funnest, newest ways to be dangerous. They're just like, ooh, this is, like you said, this is too safe, we've done this, how else can we do this?

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, way back when, we had the, we had the chair of death on the back of Krusty's pickup truck, which was really just a, um, a spare tire mounted on a hub, put in the back of his pickup truck. So you sit on this 37 inch tire, but then you need spinning around on top of the pickup truck.

• 20:56Matt Farah?

  Oh boy.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  And you're, I mean, on 37s, on the trucks, you're five feet off the ground. And no one would ride it when it was called the chair of death, but once we called it the chair of fun, everybody rode it. So it's, it really is just all about...

• 21:08Matt Farah?

  Branding is really... Master of getting people to do things that are against their best interests.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  That is, yeah, we are the master of that. You can't come unless you sign up today. Oh, no, this is the chair of fun, are you sure you want to do it?

• 21:21Matt Farah?

  The chair of personal responsibility is next.

• 21:29Matt Farah?

  Okay, so, you know, we met in your drifting career, your, your other career, and here, other than, you know, an overpowered vehicle and a, and a loose surface, and a looser than normal rear end, this is a totally different type of driving. Are you, what of your drift skills translate over here?

• 21:50Speaker 03

  All of them.

• 21:50Matt Farah?

  All of them.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, you know, vehicle placement, obviously, is number one. Uh, the ability to control a vehicle at very high speed on a loose surface.

• 22:01Matt Farah?

  Obviously.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  And then the ability to manage the weight of the vehicle in all situations, right? So, um, I have a unique approach to driving, I use a steering wheel and four tires, right? That's my approach in anything, I get in, I'm like, hey, what's this dude? Okay, you know, and I just, I feel it and go. But when I started getting into this sport... The biggest thing is understanding grip and traction because when you're in the rocks, you have to maintain momentum or you have to have grip to get through the situation. And so for me, being able to, you know, coming from having my tires spinning 30% faster than

• 22:44Speaker 03

  my car, when I'm in the rocks, I can feel every little bit of grip and that's been a really good benefit for me after I learned how to read the rocks.

• 22:53Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  Which is a whole other art on its own. In fact, I've been doing this for nine years. I probably just learned two, three years ago how to read the rocks and it's always been my co-driver. He tells me the line, I can drive it up it because that's when I'll come in and have my skill set. And so it really is a two-person team. And I used to race motocross before drifting and so being in the dirt, I'm no stranger to that. I'm no stranger to being in the air. I'm no stranger to, you know, managing weight and breaking in loose surfaces. So it all has just really come together for me, right? It's like, kind of like life, like every moment gets you ready for the next.

• 23:32Matt Farah?

  I just went to Supercross last week. That is one of the most athletic things I've ever seen.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 23:37Matt Farah?

  Unbelievable.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  It used to be, it was the most exhausting motorsport, or I think sport you could do. It was like that, then ice hockey.

• 23:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  When they measured their heart rate and stuff.

• 23:46Matt Farah?

  We did the math. It was like 340 jumps every race. It was like insane.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  You counted that?

• 23:52Matt Farah?

  We counted the number of jumps per lap.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  And a lap, okay.

• 23:54Matt Farah?

  Multiplied.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  Fair. I thought you were like one.

• 23:56Matt Farah?

  How many jumps do you, how many jumps do you have per race here? What do you think it is?

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Well, it depends how many times I get airborne in the desert. A hundred, maybe?

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. You're all four wheels off the ground, probably.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  A lot.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  A lot.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Well, today we're watching, uh, what's the spot over here called?

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Qualifier?

• 24:17Speaker 02

  Qualifier, I guess.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  We're watching people get air on the way downhill in rocks. Which is something, like, I always thought jumping's fun. We got some air today. We went for a ride with Mitch Guthrie in the crazy Raptor T plus. And like, going through the air upward, I'm real comfortable. But when I saw this person catch air on a downhill, that seemed just terrifying.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  It is terrifying. Look, 60, 70% of this race is terrifying. Straight up. And that's why you keep coming back. Like, there is, it is, it is, it's such the representation, this race to me is such a representation of growth in life and how you grow as a human, right? So, this is the ultimate battle, and we can say one day battle because someone will argue this, but this is the ultimate battle of man, team, machine, period.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  It, it literally takes everything that you have as a human, plus all the equipment, plus the team, to just think about finishing this race. Every time I've raced this race, I ask myself, probably about end of lap two, do I really want to be doing this? You're starting to hurt, you're starting to get tired, you're starting to lose focus. It is a gnarly game, and it is so addictive. And, uh, you, you can't, this is not one of those sports that you do for anything other than the passion of it. For the, for the self, the gratitude that you personally get. This is not something that people can say, pay you money to go do. I mean, maybe some people will do those kind of things, but it's not about that.

• 25:58Matt Farah?

  You hear the same thing about Pike's Peak hill climb. People, people speak about the Pike's Peak hill climb exactly the same way.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  I could see that. I mean, you're flirting with death.

• 26:07Matt Farah?

  Yeah. It's you versus the mountain. It's not even you versus the other competitors.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  And you get one run, and you, and a lot of people like here, a lot of the cars you see at Pike's Peak were built in a garage by people just not racing.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  I drove my rock crawler at Pike's Peak.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  You do it?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  We raced rock crawlers at Pike's Peak.

• 26:23Matt Farah?

  Really? On the road or just up the side of the mountain?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  No, up the road. I, I ran a 1305 when it still had dirt in a rock crawler.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Really?

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Pretty fast.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  We had 12 volts for four racers racing in the prototype class. We raced against the Panamera, the Panamera Carrera, the Panamera Carrera, the race of Mexico. Those guys, like I had 1200 horsepower Hudson Hornet.

• 26:46Matt Farah?

  Oh, I know that car. That's a very famous car. Yeah, the Hudson Hornet.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, we raced with those guys. It was a blast.

• 26:51Matt Farah?

  The, uh, the, we went to Pike's Peak two years ago and some of the guys who were racing versions of UTVs, you know, street prepped UTVs and the things were like insane.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Oh, super fast.

• 27:01Matt Farah?

  Who was the guy who, uh, who rolled, landed on his wheels and had it first gear and going within?

• 27:06Speaker 02

  I know the video. I know what you're saying.

• 27:08Matt Farah?

  It was the greatest Pike's Peak crash in history. Three rolls on his wheels and was in first gear.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  What kind of vehicle?

• 27:14Speaker 02

  It's like a, like a built UTV side by side.

• 27:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Is Levi Shirley? I'm pretty sure you're talking about Levi Shirley.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  He went down the mountain and came back up, right?

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Unbelievable.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was Levi. He's here racing this weekend.

• 27:29Matt Farah?

  Greatest onboard crash.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Railed it today in qualifying.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  He what?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  He's sent it today in qualifying. Yep.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  That makes sense.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Levi's an OT. He's, he's been around for a really long time and, um...

• 27:38Matt Farah?

  What is your, um, what is your recce process look like when, you know, it's a new course every year? Yeah. So what is the, what is the recce process for you?

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Most years, uh, we'll get a course, a complete course of all three laps and then, um, we'll come out the weekend before and just go pre-run, make notes, get it comfy. Uh, this year, however, this guy decided not to tell us what lap three was. So we came out, did our process. So we go out, we'll do a lap or two in the desert and just, you know, make notes, you know, because it's always changing. Um, so we'll make notes in the desert. The big things you're looking for in the desert is the big G outs. Right? The, the stock class Bronco that we race, that can handle, you know, not as much as the 4400 trucks. So we're making notes for both races. Um, and then we get the rock.

• 28:25Matt Farah?

  What are you using for recce? What are you driving this in?

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Uh, this would be, uh, this year we were in Yamaha YXC1000s. And then we also, um, we have a RMAX and then we have a pre-runner, um, for the rocks.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  And then Bronco or Bronco Raptor, depending upon what part of the desert. So we're grateful to have multiple vehicles to choose from, so whatever tool needs to do the job. And then it'll be myself and my co-driver, Lauren and his co-driver, and then we'll just go together, stop, talk about things, get out, you know, we get to the rocks, we get out the rocks, walk some stuff if we need to, and just pick out different lines. Because not only are you racing, right, you're by yourself, right, two cars leaving a line, what, 30 seconds apart?

• 29:11Speaker 01

  30 seconds apart, yes.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, 30 seconds apart. So, but you're also planning for when you get to a rock trail and there's 30 cars having a yard sale. So now you need to know the different lines in the rocks so that you can improvise on the fly, ideally not getting out of the car and sending your co-driver to walk to find it. So this is the kind of work that we're doing before, is really just familiarizing, you know, this place changes every year, not only does the course, but it just changes, right? The desert is gnarly, you know, the way that things change and the rocks change too, you know, from all the wheelers and 51 other weeks a year. So, yeah, that's the process.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  If it rains a lot, it washes more dirt away, or if it's windy, it can blow more in, they can get deeper, more shallow, I mean, that's

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  That's what's fascinating about off-road racing and this, to me, is, you know, a road course is basically the same all the time. They repave it, alright, it's got new tarmac, but the lines are gonna be the same.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  They're not gonna redesign Coda. But here, you, one, you do redesign the race course, and it can, you know, go over this way instead of that way or a different direction, but also the rocks can change their size and their depth and everything, and the amount of rubber on them, you guys have to adapt to all that stuff.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  They'll be driving 65 of the same, or more of the same miles, all three laps, and all three laps will be different. They won't be the same. The rock that, the rock that he planned for and prepped for and said, okay, I got a rock on the right coming over this rise, it will be on the left a quarter mile later by the time.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Somebody hit it.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  They'll crush it, it'll be through it, it'll be in the left line now instead of the right line. You won't know, you'll come over the left line because that's the clean one and there's gonna be that big rock that's sitting there.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  There's a lot of redecorating. When I was here in 2012, I watched a rock About the size of a basketball just fly past some spectators and media people and I'm like, oh, someone might have planned to put their tire on that. And this is also a place where you'll see a truck drive over the wheel of another truck because that truck's in the way. Is that against the rules or is that just okay?

• 31:02Speaker 01

  It's encouraged.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  It's amazing, you know, and both trucks are fine, by the way. Road racing, obviously the cars would be just in heaps.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  I have a funny story about running over, actually. A couple of years ago, there was a guy in the way and I had to run his truck over.

• 31:16Matt Farah?

  What part of his truck?

• 31:19Speaker 03

  It was probably like tires, but I probably touched his door a bit, but it was like I had to go around him. He was jammed up and I had to go and that's the deal. It happens. So I now am ahead of this guy and we're in another trail and I get jammed up and I'm sitting here and I hear him coming and I'm just like, oh my gosh. So like literally you just take it. He just like fiberglass just falling off and you're just like, you know like?

• 31:44Matt Farah?

  I had that coming.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, had it coming.

• 31:46Matt Farah?

  Is there a point to drag racing people in the open desert or is you know you're gonna, there's gonna be a hole?

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Same point you do at any place else you do it. It's just fun.

• 31:54Speaker 03

  Strategically, you know, here's my perspective of this race.

• 32:02Matt Farah?

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• 32:45Matt Farah?

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• 33:24Matt Farah?

  an email saying, "Your, uh, your profile has found, you know, a thousand points of contact, uh, and we've automatically deleted a bunch of them, but here's some other ones that we need you to manually verify. Like, is this your address? Is this your phone number?" Unfortunately, most of them were old address and phone numbers. My current stuff is still pretty safe, but still, it made me feel better getting that stuff and hitting yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. It then kept going and it keeps going. Every month, it sends me a new report saying what it's found, what it deleted, and what I need to approve to be deleted. It's pretty cool stuff. I really like it. You can use

• 34:05Matt Farah?

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• 34:43Speaker 03

  They, him, they put the desert lap first. That takes out probably 30% of the competitors, 25% of competitors, because everyone's out there red misted, like mad mad.

• 34:56Matt Farah?

  No, this is turn one of the 12-hour endurance race.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:00Matt Farah?

  Basically, where a third of the field is, is just can't help themselves, right?

• 35:04Speaker 03

  And, and they overdrive their truck and, and, and so it's a, it's a mental game of being smart because it is a three-lap race. This is a true endurance race, but you have to be on pace. That's the hardest thing about this sport. How hard do you go and make it to the finish? And, you know, and if I humble brag, I have an amazing finish rate, but I've not been on pace to win, except for last year was my first time ever.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Now I know what it takes, but it's taken me nine years of breaking things, of making mistakes. You know what I mean? Like this is not, this is not that race that just a good driver shows up and wins. There's so much to learn.

• 35:44Matt Farah?

  But is it the kind of thing that, you know, you, you're, you're very experienced, you were, you're with a factory-backed team. There's other factory-backed teams here. What kind of a chance does a, a privateer on a real tight budget have to succeed in this race?

• 36:01Speaker 01

  In the 4400 class, there's always one or two. And then if it's not even, even if it's not even a, a privateer like, um, well, Paul Horst was a privateer. He's legit, and he is making spaceships, but he's a privateer. But then you also have guys like Cole Clark that are, they're coming up with new, literally new inventions, right? Like, it's not, Vaughn and Lauren have started from big cars, heavy, the traditional 4400 car was a big, heavy car, but it's getting lighter and more, more felt, more, more performance-based, better suspension, better everything, right? There's a whole other group of people, Kyle Chaney, Cole Clark, the UTV guys that are taking the UTV and they're stretching it. They're getting, putting more power, a little bit bigger wheelbase, a little bigger, bigger tires.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  And someplace in that middle is that, there's some place that still hasn't been found. I mean, they're still making it up. That's the best part about it. Like, we're still making, every year, the car that wins this was faster than the year before. And it's kind of like, I was an Indy fan back in the day, right? So it was like, you, they were pushing speed and everybody was excited about having this advanced technology and speed and you could see the speed and to see these guys doing the same thing with technology and seeing how it used to be fairly luck of the bounce. So you'd see somebody go out and just crush qualifying by 30 seconds, beat everybody because they had their one right balance or whatever. But when the 30 best drivers, 40 best drivers in the world are going at it and they're all within 10 seconds, 15 seconds on a course that's three minutes long.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Then you know that they're at the edge of what's capable and they're consistently laying it down and that edge of performance is pretty hardcore.

• 37:39Matt Farah?

  Well, and in this type of off-road racing, you don't see a need to impose restrictions for quote tighter racing, the way that F1 or Indy or NASCAR.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  He has classes that have that.

• 37:51Matt Farah?

  They do, but it's not to create a tight pack and the unlimited will always be pushing, right?

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, we have very limited performance rules. We have tire roll rules, that kind of stuff that just try to keep that more of a framework to work within. But I don't think we've even come close to understanding, I mean, what's fast yet. I mean, we're close, but it's changing so fast. It's amazing.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  Are there classes outside of unlimited where it's all private tier teams? It's all just, you know, people building stuff at home or is it always, is every class a mixed bag? But, you know, someone always has a shot.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Every class is a mixed bag and everybody always has a shot. Every year we have, we, I mean, yes, absolutely. This has not been a situation where there's very talented, very talented drivers and there's drivers that have backing and are professionals and do the things. And to Vaughn's point earlier, it is not this, I believe this isn't a race that even if you came in with the absolute best talent, with the absolute best car and all the things at your disposal, you still don't have this anywhere close to locked up.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  100%.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  I think the way you guys would understand this best, if we have a perfect race with the equipment that we have and some of the other top teams have, on paper, sure. On paper, we, it may, we may be perceived to be able to dominate, but it's out there is the equalizer. So all of these guys, all of these 100 guys, 700 people are showing up because they believe that they have a chance. Because you know what? The guys that on paper are going to win this can go out and end up on their lid because they didn't make a proper note or they get jammed up in the rocks or whatever it is. So the equalizer is the course. And this is, you know, this is one of those few.

• 39:40Speaker 03

  Places, um, you know, this sport, and I also believe that drifting as well is one of those few places where the guy can come out of his garage with his passion built vehicle and end up on the podium.

• 39:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  I'd love to drive and need to be prepared. Yes, exactly. And so that's what like, that's what I absolutely love about it. Like, you know, F1, you probably know the five people that have a chance.

• 40:02Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 40:03Speaker 03

  You know, NASCAR, road racing, you know.

• 40:05Matt Farah?

  Well, but there can be equalizers like the wet, for instance.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:09Matt Farah?

  You know, the wet in F1 or in X peak or in any type of road course racing could is the opportunity for the guy without as fast of a car to really, you know, that's the Senna story, right?

• 40:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  But it seems, but it seems like there's more opportunity here, especially to go back to unlimited class, the fact you have front engine, mid-engine and UTVs that are all competing against each other, right?

• 40:29Matt Farah?

  Solid axle, independent, independent rear, portals, no portals. Yep.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  That's like, that is such a wide variety of solutions or mousetraps versus if it was F1 teams, everyone's cars pretty much looking the same. Obviously there's some differences because some are very fast or NASCAR, etc. Like it's a more of a known formula and here there's just so much, so much stuff, different stuff getting thrown at you that you have to like build for and everyone's just trying to figure out how to make it through. It's rad.

• 40:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, that, that is one of the things that just makes this so special and, and the unlimited class, I hope it never changes because the innovation that comes out of this series, let alone this race, ends up in production products. I mean, you can see some of the UTVs that are coming out, the things that have been learned, you know, um, and their capabilities in the rocks. I mean, you know, they're coming with rock modes and trail modes and you know, like all this stuff translates back and that's a big reason why Ford is here. It's a big reason why you see the UTV manufacturers here. They're all learning. Yeah, they're, they're creating credibility and marketing, but there's a lot of tech transfer that comes from it. I mean, this race has rocks, sand, hard pack, soft pack,

• 41:37Speaker 03

  boulders, has everything. You know what I mean? So for tire companies, it's just, it's the ultimate proving ground.

• 41:45Matt Farah?

  It's such a crazy, crazy thing to see. People have been telling me for years to come out here and like, yeah, they weren't overselling it.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Can you see your lights over there yet? You have a view.

• 41:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah, no, I do. It's uh, there's ants marching up and down the hill. Little red ants marching.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Ants are a lot louder and bigger when you get closer.

• 42:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, when you get there, you're gonna see the size of the ant run.

• 42:05Matt Farah?

  As soon as we are done with our work obligations, we're hopping in a borrowed Blue Raptor.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  Gotta send it bud.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  I bet you can drive it up it.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  Do not listen to this.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  You told me, you told me that car's never gonna see Rose again. I've got a camera for a week.

• 42:22Matt Farah?

  We get a thumbs up from the fire pit. We are good to go.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Where's Mike Levine at?

• 42:27Speaker 03

  I'll tell you what, Lord Healy will probably get that thing up that hill.

• 42:30Matt Farah?

  Oh, listen, a Ford.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  You're good with that, right?

• 42:32Matt Farah?

  Anybody with a Ford Dearborn ID badge, have at it.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Let's go.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  It's R and D. This is the trickle down technology we're talking about. We're gonna learn things. We'll give that information to the engineers. We'll tell them why the car caught fire after we rolled it down the hill and they can use that with future product.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  I am not being a part of that.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  You were just suggesting it.

• 42:52Matt Farah?

  Can I ask you about your new project with Ford, by the way? I'm super excited to see your new Mustang. I drove your original RTR Mustang.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:59Matt Farah?

  2017, 18?

• 43:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, that original was actually 2011.

• 43:06Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:07Speaker 03

  But you drove, the first one you drove was our, was our first S550 in 15.

• 43:11Matt Farah?

  The supercharged one. That was fast.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, so you know, this has like been the dream of mine since I started, RTR was to have a true collab with Ford. You know, we still have our spec vehicles that we sell and build pre-titled. They're available at Ford dealers all over the country. But this is actually a car, like right now, we get vehicles from the plant. They go to our outfit facility. We build them and then they go to dealers. This Mustang RTR is coming directly from Flat Rock. Um, it is something that I've been working on for almost two years with the Mustang team. And uh, we have developed the most technologically advanced, enthusiast, performance focused, turbocharged Mustang ever.

• 43:54Matt Farah?

  I'm super stoked.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  So rad.

• 43:56Matt Farah?

  I'm super excited to drive it. Congratulations. It's gonna be great. Your handling kits are really good. Your body kits are really good. You can't tell us what you did to the engine, right?

• 44:06Speaker 03

  No, the only thing that I can talk about in this moment is that the things you see on the outside, so it's obviously got our grill with our integrated lighting, new wheels. We did make the offset a bit aggressive. And we did announce that we stole some parts from the dark horse on the chassis side. And the other really one cool thing I can talk about is it has anti-lag.

• 44:31Matt Farah?

  Oh, cool.

• 44:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's not, it may not be as vocal as that, but the benefit of the anti-lag with respect to response is there.

• 44:43Matt Farah?

  Handbrake.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:44Matt Farah?

  Has the handbrake, right?

• 44:45Speaker 03

  Has the drift brake that myself and Chelsea helped develop for the new S550.

• 44:51Matt Farah?

  So Zach and I recently, the local, the people here at King of the Hammers, they're not going to like this bit. Because we drove the electric Mustang Mach-E Rally, which is

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Why weren't they like that?

• 45:02Matt Farah?

  I don't know, it doesn't seem like an EV crowd.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  But maybe they're performance-based, but the problem with the EV is at some point you got to get home and you can't do it.

• 45:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I know.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  Should be stuff from here.

• 45:11Matt Farah?

  That can be a problem.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  The torque will be awesome.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  Well, actually Optima has hydrogen chargers for everybody here.

• 45:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 45:17Speaker 03

  And there's a ton of off-road electric vehicles here.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  That, yes, I've got one. I think, I love electric control. I think from a performance perspective, electric controls will let you do things that, I mean, that is the next generation. 10 years from now, when you are, you are controlling wheel speed at a truly infinite level and you're doing it because of electric controllers, that's when traction control will be mind-blowing, right?

• 45:39Matt Farah?

  We're there now with road cars, with cars, you know, like the Taycan Turbo GT, the Lucids, the Ioniq 5N. And I was going to say the Mach-E Rally, because before we drove it, JR hit me up, he's like, "You're going to like that." And we got, when we got it on dirt, the weight transfer ability of that car with the active, you know, torque factoring and the low center of gravity, that had the best weight transfer on Lucid, any, any production car I've ever driven.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  It's so good. I did the driving at the media day with one of the, with one of the WRC drivers that Ford worked with. And it was my first time driving the car and I showed up at Dirt Fish and I was so impressed and I had so much fun with it. And you're right, the battery being four inches off the ground, it just rotates like this, you know? It's like ultimate center axis rotation.

• 46:32Matt Farah?

  And you could add Angle on throttle, it was the greatest.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  It's also however you however they programmed the way the motors work, not the diff switch, the motors respond well because we've driven other electric cars where when you turn off traction and you're in loose area, you know, loose surface, they're just they're sending a little too much to the inside left tire or the little too much to the back or whatever it is, and it just feels like two steps behind you. This felt like a really good NA all wheel drive rally car that was doing exactly what you expected with all of that clever stuff.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Ford's got badass.

• 47:02Matt Farah?

  It was really fun, but I was wondering why, I think the next one needs the handbrake. It's electric anyway, the Mach-E rally with the handbrake would be so sick.

• 47:11Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 47:11Matt Farah?

  And I got to drive Porsche's electric race car concept and they in the ice and they have invented something. They have invented a left foot braking oversteer pedal. So you know how you can initiate oversteer with the handbrake on under braking?

• 47:29Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 47:29Matt Farah?

  This allows you to do it on power. So when you're adding throttle, if you start to push, if you hit the left foot brake, it cuts the front motor and overdrives the rear to add angle.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  It's like a subtle clutch kick.

• 47:41Matt Farah?

  It's a it's an electric clutch.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  So to get you out of understeer just.

• 47:44Matt Farah?

  Yes, yeah. And you just ride the left pedal and it just adds angle. I was like, so yeah, the Mach-E rally. And then you've got the perfect off-road electric.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:56Matt Farah?

  So great.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, that car that car rips. I had so much fun on that thing and and we took seasoned, you know, I'm a fan of electric vehicles. I mean, you know, we've built some really cool electric vehicles, a Mach-E 1400 and the switchgear F-150 Lightning. And I'm a big fan of the technology and my favorite thing ever is putting people in the car that are like electric. And that take them around like, oh, my gosh.

• 48:18Matt Farah?

  They're all so fast. I mean, they're all fast, right? Every electric car is a dragster, but a lot of them lack soul. So you got to make up for soul, they they come up with gimmicks, right? So the Ioniq 5N has a synthetic gearbox that sounds really stupid, but actually works.

• 48:34Speaker 03

  Does it? How's it feel?

• 48:35Matt Farah?

  Like a gas car.

• 48:36Speaker 03

  You can feel it.

• 48:37Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:38Matt Farah?

  It drives just like a gas car.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  It redlines like a gas car. I mean, everything, yeah.

• 48:41Matt Farah?

  It's awesome.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  It's well done.

• 48:42Matt Farah?

  It's actually great. It's really fun. And then and the and the Mach-E has this this loose surface behavior that's so good. And other electric cars have other sort of gimmicky behaviors and like they're kind of figuring out how to inject fun into this stuff, which I like.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  Which is what it needs. I mean, I think if.

• 51:24Matt Farah?

  10% throttle the whole way, never moved my foot. And you know, the crunch of gravel under tires? You didn't hear it. There was no difference between wheel speed and forward motion. It was just this very precise up.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:41Matt Farah?

  Just up. It was so great.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  It gave you as much power as you could handle, well, not one thing more and exactly what you needed.

• 51:48Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Just to get into the point of being able to control wheel speed left to right. I mean, we're, at best, we have lockers that are fluctable lockers that you're controlling the torque to individual wheels. But you're still setting power to the front, sending power to the back. In our sport, the biggest problem we have is the contention between the front and the back of the car. When they're at speed in the desert, correct me if I'm wrong, but the biggest difference between like a four-wheel drive trophy truck and an ultra four car is that that trophy truck's going to have a over spinning front end. So that they're, when they go into, when they go, when the ground speed differentiates from the wheel speed and the car starts to porpoise like that, it rolls like a two-wheel drive truck, right? Like a rally car would go.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  When they go with the electric, when you get to electric vehicles and able to control that wheel speed, we won't have that contention. The car will sit flat. It'll go in hand with the computer with the suspension and the cars will just become infinitely better. Infinitely, it's going to be.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  Is anyone campaigning an electric truck in any class here or are they just hobbyists right now?

• 52:53Speaker 01

  It's all hobbyists building trucks from home. Kyle Segal and the husband, the Silvers, come up north. They built a truck and raced it. So there's been two or three trucks built at home and brought here.

• 53:06Speaker 02

  And I guess I phrased it wrong. And they've entered in races. They're not just driving around for fun.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  They raced. Yep. We have an EB class. We've been giving them the first desert loop and just basically giving them that challenge. You know, they're doing it, they're making all that of themselves. This is literally still garage, garage-built people going and doing the things.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, plenty of hot rodding. I drove a guy, it's called Tesla Sand Truck on Instagram, but he basically took a trophy truck and put a Tesla motor in the back. And he would go to Glamis, speaking about, you know, giving people like, if they come in with bias of, you know, people go one way or the other, they hate EVs or they love EVs, but it's been very politicized. But he goes there and he just does a wheelie and he wins a drag race and people come up and they go, "What's in this?" And then he says, "Come for a ride." And of course, you just change everyone's mind.

• 53:50Speaker 03

  Boom.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, you know, just does a wheelie past any

• 53:53Speaker 03

  With wheelies.

• 53:55Matt Farah?

  You do wheelies on sand, whatever you've got is working.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:58Matt Farah?

  You're fine.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  You're wheeling past the other wheelies. Yeah, it's very

• 54:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's exciting though. It's like, it's such an exciting time in this space. People are wanting to get back and connect with nature and just get out in the places that are, you know, least unseen. And it's, it's just very exciting, you know? You can see, obviously Ford is all in on, on off-road with all the racing they're doing, the amazing products they have coming out, their commitment to Raptor.

• 54:23Matt Farah?

  They're all in on racing, period.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:25Matt Farah?

  Jim Farley is, he's a racing driver and he is spending money on the things that he thinks are important.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  It's not, it's not just Jim. Believe, believe Bill Ford loves racing and they're just very, you know, Ford is built on racing and they're committed to keeping that, that history going and everyone knows that that, that creates a cachet and they take it serious and they are learning for things to do with the vehicles. I mean, when we meet up later, we go out and you have your Raptor and you follow me, you are going to be blown away with what that thing can do.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  I, well, we hit some whips earlier. I mean, it's very impressive. The last half is, and the size of that truck is great. Power is good. The power is equal to his old 2011 62

• 55:04Matt Farah?

  I had a 62 Raptor.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:06Matt Farah?

  Our little Ranger Raptor makes the same power and torque and weighs 600 pounds less and is, has better steering.

• 55:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:12Matt Farah?

  And paddle shifters.

• 55:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:13Speaker 02

  And smaller. It's great.

• 55:14Matt Farah?

  It's great.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  That's small trucks for the win.

• 55:16Matt Farah?

  Small trucks for the, yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  And it's like 55 grand?

• 55:19Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah.

• 55:20Speaker 03

  15, 55 grand?

• 55:21Speaker 02

  55, yeah.

• 55:22Speaker 03

  For, like, you can't build something that capable for that money.

• 55:25Matt Farah?

  It's pretty, I mean, what, what, all All of the OEMs are delivering from the factory now in terms of performance, not just off-road, but on-road too. I mean, you know, the stuff that, you know, that you can buy from GM, whether it's a Z06 or a Shelby GT500 or, you know, a Porsche Turbo or whatever, you know, you're buying nine-second drag cars, you know, 200 mile an hour, and that are totally fine to go get groceries in also.

• 55:52Speaker 03

  Have you driven a Raptor R yet?

• 55:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 55:55Speaker 03

  I don't even know five people in my life that should have one of those. They are so good. They are so fast.

• 56:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 56:02Speaker 03

  I mean, they're, they're just like, I mean, they're unbelievable trucks.

• 56:06Matt Farah?

  They're, they have a lot more power than brakes, um, and they're eight feet tall.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  But it's a riot, man. It is, you are driving a firework. It's so good. My 60s, like, three seconds, three, four seconds.

• 56:17Speaker 03

  Every morning I bring a Raptor R home, uh, my boys, uh, my boys are like, Daddy, do a, a burnout blast off. So I'll, they'll be like, uh, they'll be up against the, the window, front window, like both of them, and I'll go to leave and I'll just blow the tires off it, leave in the driveway, and they just absolutely love it.

• 56:35Matt Farah?

  That's good, man. You got a, you got a piece of dirt at your place where you could light them up on your own property and it's all good, right?

• 56:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:42Matt Farah?

  Yeah, we can't pull that one off. I can't do. Play 11, leaving my neighborhood.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  No, you can do it in your driveway, I think legally, uh, but that's a very short burnout.

• 56:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's, uh, let's just talk about a legal battle I don't want.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  If you ever want to go fast, you can stop by here. It's how we work too.

• 56:58Matt Farah?

  This, I mean, the desert is, it's, you know, it's the last bastion, right? It's, this is, this is where you can be free in a four-wheel vehicle. Yeah.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  It's, I mean, the ride we went on today, but also we've driven side by sides of Polaris Turbo and other, other times we've been in the desert with various horsepower. You just, you get to experience all the things that we kind of want to experience on the road, but you can't for safety and legal reasons, and you can do all of that out here. You can get air and slide and kind of relive like movie driving if you want to, and then challenge the hell out of yourself at one mile per hour or 100. It, you know, if you get a trailer or something, you can just drive out here. Like, it is the best. It is, for me, it is the best. The most fun I've had in vehicle, period, beyond, beyond drifting cars at a slow speed, not your speed, and beyond road course stuff. There's just so much more happening. There's

• 57:48Speaker 02

  just way more adrenaline and way more, just way more to pay attention to. It's just so fun.

• 57:53Speaker 03

  You get it bud.

• 57:54Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm in dude, I am in.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Good summary. You get it.

• 57:57Matt Farah?

  Do you think the, that for, you know, young people that, that maybe don't have access to fast cars and racetracks, that, that getting into side by sides and stuff, not even competitively, but can, can really translate to road driving competency and skill and all that kind of stuff?

• 58:14Speaker 03

  Hundred percent.

• 58:14Matt Farah?

  Totally does.

• 58:15Speaker 03

  Hundred, hundred percent.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  It's all weight transfer. You were nailing it earlier, but the, the reality, it's all weight transfer and off-road, it's, it's more of a macro weight transfer, right? You're doing, I can't even imagine, I, I still have never been in a drift car with you, but the, your, your weight transfer is, is more subtle, not as macro, not as big, but, but is, but is all the, it's all of the work, right? As soon as you, when you push the car to each direction, and off-road's the same way, except that the, the moves are much more gross.

• 58:46Speaker 03

  Happens a lot slower in off-road, but you have to manage it, you know, you have to like, control exactly where it's at, because if you do it the wrong time, you're on your lid. Or if you, if you don't know the dirt you're on and you catch it, you know? It's like you said, there's so many things to know.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  You get on a rock crawling and you couldn't, if you just, if you turn a little too much wheel angle and you end up jacking the front suspension and roll the car over, but if you open up that steering, you'll open up the suspension, it'll sit down and it won't, and you can, you're making that jacking happen like, super slow, super, and you, that's, that's the fun.

• 59:17Speaker 03

  I would prefer this over karting. Like my kids right now, like, whether they want to go on racing or not, whatever, but like right now, I've got them in the dirt. Four-wheelers, buggies, because that is, that, those dynamics, right? Karting is the same thing over and over. Yeah, it does teach you how to be smooth, lower power, you know, you do understand, you learn momentum from karting, but when it comes to vehicle dynamics, like that's my, my challenge with road racers. Road racers live below the limit.

• 59:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 03

  And when they get to or above the limit.

• 59:49Matt Farah?

  They shut down.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  They shut down. They have no idea what to do. So I'm like, if you're road racing, or you're like breeding your kid to race drifting dirt.

• 1:00:00Matt Farah?

  Rally.

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  Rally, loose surface stuff, because that just, it gives so much confidence when the car is ultimately going to come loose when you're road racing.

• 1:00:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:00:10Matt Farah?

  It's either going to come loose when you want it to, or when you don't want it to.

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:00:13Matt Farah?

  It's like you get to, you get to choose if you're.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Do you know, um, I don't know his full name, SVG, the guy who's like the hot shoe in NASCAR road courses right now?

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  Uh, Shane, Ben.

• 1:00:22Matt Farah?

  Ben Ginsburg.

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:23Matt Farah?

  Yeah, he's the V8 supercar guy.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  When they did the race at Sonoma, which he won, on the victory lap, all these NASCARs, they're all going around like a cooldown, and he literally S-drifted past and around other cars, which, one, I mean, you're just dunking all the people you just beat, but also it showed that he had massive control beyond the limit. I mean, I was so blown away watching that, and so he had control beyond the limit, so he was able to drive at it and above it ahead of a lot of other people. It was masterful.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  In the early 90s, there was a different hot rod that was doing road racing for NASCAR. His name was Robert Gordon, and he was doing.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then he went to off-road and did all those.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  Well, he was in off-road before he went to NASCAR.

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  Oh, did off-road first.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  And, and IndyCar and all the things, but I mean, you, you are, I agree with everything Vaughn's saying, that you're, you have all the, it's just bigger, and if you're, and you're, you're driving your entire race at that limit as opposed to you staying below it all the time, always wanting to avoid it, you're, you're constantly embracing it, you're constantly treading there, and that's.

• 1:01:24Speaker 03

  It becomes a comfort zone.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  That's why it's amazing watching you guys do it.

• 1:01:28Matt Farah?

  It's a, it's a beautiful thing to watch. I mean, you could, because you could see it, you know, when you're watching road racing, or even drifting, you know, outside the car, it's, it's a smooth thing. It's only when you get inside the car that you realize how much work is being done, but here you could see that work from the outside, which makes it a much more, I think, compelling spectator sport if you really love driving. This was a real treat. We gotta cut it off because you guys have a drivers meeting. We do. Here, right now. Yeah. And that hill across the way is getting awfully bright.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:02:02Matt Farah?

  So I think Zach and I are gonna take our borrowed Ranger Raptor and head up there and see what's going on. Definitely. Dave, it's an absolute pleasure. Thank you for your time.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Thank you for coming out.

• 1:02:12Matt Farah?

  And having us.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  It's been a pleasure, the Ford.

• 1:02:13Matt Farah?

  JR. Thank you. Always great to see you. Pumped to see you out here. Have a great race. Thank you for joining us here on the old show. Heck, yeah. And love to the family, back home, of course. And thank you to Ford for our borrowed Raptor and our RV over there. And I promise we won't break it too heavily. That's our show. We're not gonna break it. Thanks for listening. See you later.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Cheers.