This week, Wes and Andrew are back again to talk shop, mainly, how the events of 2020 have changed the rule, times, and dates of our favorite sport. I’m sure it has affected you too, with events getting shut down, moved, delayed, what can you do? The good news, is that there will still be some riding areas open this season, and think about it this way: it might be for the better, you might visit or explore some new areas you’ve never been to? We all love Glamis, but the rumor is that Gecko Rd. will be shut down for all major holidays. Whether you camp on Gecko or not, it’s safe to assume, that if this is true, there will be a MASSIVE amount of people, all pinned together in a much tighter space. It will be a bummer if this is true, but after the year we’ve had, I’m just going to be optimistic and thankful that other riding areas have still been open, and will be open this year.

Speaking of this year, we’ve been gearing up for a huge October, with the UTV Champs, Sand Show, and Mexico.

Which rides are you looking forward to most this season?

Transcription:

It’s not desert season without a campfire or chupacabra off-road now here’s your host nick olsen what’s happening everybody it’s nick olson coming to you guys this is the chupacabra around the campfire podcast thanks for tuning in this is our second ever podcast kind of gonna feel like our first one because uh last time kind of talked about our origin story but um today we’re going to talk about what’s going on in the world like what i think that the tempo and the flow of the podcast will be so supercar off-road we are an accessories company in the off-road space predominantly side-by-side and sport side by side so polaris razer can mx3 yamaha yxz talon krx that’s who we are that’s what we dig what we’re passionate about and uh that’s uh the accessories that we make right now so for those type of vehicles so today uh we got a couple guests joining me same guys from last week we got wes leffler chiming in from las vegas nevada hey what’s up everybody glad to be here again and back again of course andrew garvey from el centro hey what’s going on guys glad to be back again tonight so like I said we’re talking side by side off-roading uh 2020 it’s kind of our first state of the union news ramp roundtable we might call it um what’s going on in the side-by-side world so i think it’s gonna be fun to do guys you know like talk about once a month you know lots of stuff going on throughout the course of a whole month and um new products uh events and of course the 2020s this is our first podcast september we can’t uh not talk about 2020 and talk about how much different has been from a typical year of riding events having fun and uh we’ll start off with uh the topic of which events did coven spoil for you in 2020 so i’ll kick it off I am the first event that I really really wish that we did get to go to they got cancelled was rally on the rocks in moab i went two years ago um it was my second time going there in a side by side i love the event I love going to moab to do some rock crawling it’s quite a bit different than what we do normally day to day you know from duning off-roading desert all that type of stuff mexico but um I really enjoyed it you know coming from a guy like all of us kind of a two-wheel background we like going fast maybe some guys haven’t been to mob it might sound like it’s a little boring going slow but man those rocks have so much traction it’s it’s amazing how much fun they are and um it’s not so jagged bumpy that it doesn’t beat the snot out of you like by going slow on the rocks out here like in arizona like where I live but um i was really bummed on that event you know that that normally happens in may and it got postponed to september and then it got postponed again so that’s the the one event I was really hoping um to go on that I got canceled due to coven so andrew what about you man uh in 2020 what’s the one thing you’re looking forward to that did happen uh 2020 I would say was the arizona peace trail uh we were gonna go with your buddies that and uh invited you down there I got the inc exclusive invite my brother actually flew in from north carolina to come actually ride in that uh ride in that ride um he’s never been in a side by side so he was really looking forward to it doing five six hundred miles of the arizona peace trial was was going to be an awesome trip for us but unfortunately the group decided uh right when kovit was starting to get really big yeah unfortunately the group said hey we want to we want to see how it goes and they postponed that trip to thanksgiving time this year so we’ll see if we get on it for uh thanksgiving but other than that uh wes what was your 2020 experience with what rides what what other things that uh caused you to you missed well yeah I mean kovit’s been crazy it’s cancelled it’s messed with so many schedules uh i have a busy schedule as it is and you know revolves around a little bit of racing but then also getting the rides in one of the rides that it screwed up for us as a family was our annual coral pink trip that we do every every april um which includes all my extended family and we go there for five or six days a year we love that trip um it got rescheduled we’re going to be going there in about three weeks which is awesome hasn’t been canceled yet um hopefully it doesn’t they’re in utah things are a little bit more lenient especially than california and nevada also I was excited about rallying on the rocks getting canceled the first time because I couldn’t go and then when I got rescheduled I was like sweet you know I have that week open it’ll be perfect and it was right about this time now and uh then I got cancelled again so i’ve never done rally on the rocks uh I was looking forward to doing that um haven’t done so much rock crawling but yeah nick that’s what I got yeah if you guys have checked out our youtube channel we can have some videos from all three of those um starting off with coral pink i think it was one of the first videos that we made west’s family trip and 2018 and we actually got snowed on a little bit but great time to go there in april um luckily I was able to go here in may recently with the three-day ride with some of my friends uh coral pink’s always found a ton of good trails in that whole area and then speaking of the youtube channel um andrew’s talking about the buddies invited me on arizona peace trail you’ll see we did the northern loop and the group that invited us for this past spring time we got cancelled was gonna do the southern loop so i hadn’t really off-roaded anywhere near there near yuma salome southern part so you know to do the whole loop is really a big effort a lot of days i think it’s like five or six days to do it the whole thing so it’s kind of broken down into two separate sections so um definitely bummer um and then yeah riley on the rocks I went to that then again it’s on our youtube channel I made a long video just so you can get a feel of like what the train’s like and I rode um poison spider tickle golden spike to golden bar and those trails are pretty gnarly but you know I went from like being like a total scared rookie to like feeling pretty confident so i was hoping for you guys to go just kind of see like you know those pucker moments and then like especially with all of us having four seat razors like the wheelbase and the four-wheel drive system is so freaking good on that car that you know we could all do hot tub if we had the cajones you know if it’s dry we definitely have the ability to do it like I don’t know if I would do it this time I don’t want to like talk back and say I would but you know um it’s totally doable with our cars i think our car is like the perfect one i’m pretty sure my car is way too pretty to go in the hot tub i’m just saying I mean it’s not that i’m scared it’s just that i’m it’s just too pretty i don’t know I would say after seeing nash do his thing in the x3 I don’t know if I want to take the chance with my pretty car either yeah and just talking about our buddy bill nash who did a back flip uh his car hooked up but he had a two-seater that’s the problem he had no weight on the front of the car so yeah no I was definitely looking for that trip i’ve never been out there and don’t really do a lot of rock crawling but I was actually looking forward to moab uh checking out riley on the rocks it seems like it’s a really really cool event to get out there and actually uh do some four-wheel driving yeah yeah um and you know speaking of 2020 as the tables are starting to turn i mean uh things are looking a lot better definitely utah definitely in arizona california is kind of a wild card um some events that are going down that you know we’re getting really prepared for as a as a business um and then as a racer and then as an enthusiast so starting off as we get into uh october here well actually before we kick off october um we have been doing a little bit of a few weeks ago was my birthday and i went with the family went up to sedona my favorite town in arizona hippie town vibe ton of good mountain biking good trails and uh partnered around with some of the rocks and did a little bit of off-roading in my razor uh but it was a fun time um how about you guys wes you’ve been riding a little bit right this summer yeah i’ve been able to take uh three trips this summer up to duck creek area in utah up in that area family has a place up there and just got back this weekend um it’s pretty busy on the holiday weekends but we’ve discovered that we like to go out as a family when it gets dark so we’ll go out about 10 o’clock at night take both the cars out with the radio communication um the only thing you really have to watch out for is the animals you know deer and stuff like that but you don’t get any of the dust um you’re able to spread out and I mean on sunday night I mean i think we did about 65 miles as a family all of us both cars and went out there and had a really good time duck creek is you know is very very popular especially with people in vegas i call it other vegas because pretty much everybody up there is is from las vegas or from out of town but uh the side-by-side uh enthusiasts have all just picked up on it and they’ve been up there and it’s a pretty fun place to go and hang out just enjoy the cooler weather you know getting out of the 115 in vegas and um I was able to do that three to three times this year um usually it’s a little bit more but like I said with the kovid thing there’s been a couple hiccups and changes of schedules but i love it up there been going up there since I was a kid and you know now with this side by side I mean especially um when my polaris with the right command app I mean on the screen you can just go and go and go all the maps are right there like a gps it’s it’s pretty fun and we had a really really really good time what’s the train like wes and duck creek i’ve never been up there is it just like marked fire roads smooth is there some technical is there i mean it’s everything you get you get some you get some fire roads and you you know you tend to learn the trails um you get a lot of rough there’s one there’s one trail that goes from duck creek and you head over towards brian head which you’re familiar with and and it’s your cross on a lava bed um so it’s a little bit of slow low low range I only put in low rain so you don’t smoke the belt but then you can get in some really smooth fast fire roads or some real tight twisty trees I mean there’s pretty much everything there and the cool thing about that area is you can go from town to town like I can leave my cabin go to brian head then I can go from brian head up over to penguin penguins over to hatch which is over in the 89 and make a big loop all the way around so you can make these pit stops so you don’t need to carry fuel and things like that you can always stop and get gas stop and get food get you know kids can get out of the car and stop in one of the little creeks or rivers and just you know take your time throughout the day it’s pretty fun altitude so the weather’s cool yeah altitude uh where we’re at is about 8 500 um so it’s pretty it’s pretty high up there um it was actually like 80 85 86 this weekend which is pretty warm for up there but then it snowed yesterday so there you go yeah this whole way so it’s just had like a weird heat wave too it’s been like dry and hot and all other fires going on but um wes you know we did a video on your razer got it all pretty good alternative got the wrap on it but you had talked a little bit about the the parts on the car not so like how was last weekend how you got like 700 miles of like the toils on it and you came from a 16 turbo so like how’s turbo s life treating you with all the bells and whistles well i’ll just put it in like perspective you know you have kids so you understand you don’t have really a favorite kid well that doesn’t matter with side by sides i mean I love my 16 I mean the memories i’ve made in that car but i didn’t drive that car once the whole time I was up there i love the turbo s I love everything about it I mean obviously the way it looks and it gets it gets a lot of attention we actually had a bunch of people stop us and you know like oh are you part of those guys are you part of the chupacabra crew whatever I mean I handed out stickers like I was a parade you know but I enjoy doing that but going back to the car I mean it’s it’s just amazing it’s amazing what they’ve done in the last four years the electronic shocks all the creature comforts it’s just i love that car it’s really hard to drive the 16 which I still like and I still enjoy but it’s just amazing the shocks the the everything that has to do with the wider stance being able to control the car more the the tighter steering um just overall the feel of the car is amazing do you hit the um dynamics button a bunch like when you’re going slower that rocket I mean when I first got it maybe because it’s a new widget I hit it like you know 100 times the ride like yeah i find I find myself doing that uh between uh sport and comfort a lot never hardly get into the firm setting um especially up there I don’t know i’m sure i’ll do that when we get into the dunes just to firm it up but uh I go back between uh firm and comfort i’m always talking to the kids in the back seat and make sure that it’s good for them but it’s really really cool how it’s from a click of a button you can adjust your car while going 65 or 70 miles an hour you know so so yeah I mean it’s amazing see I like on those fast roads too just to firm it up when you are going 60 or 70 and it has more of like a rally car feel where it’s like it’s just firm and it’s not going to wallow if the car is loaded down but you know what’s the question everybody wants to know is it worth the extra dough to get the dynamic shot uh absolutely absolutely it’s it’s worth in my opinion i get it you know when you have the other option and you know players throws a cheaper option at you and the only difference is it just doesn’t have the creature comforts you know and when you get those creature coverage you don’t you don’t think you need them because you don’t enjoy them but once you’ve enjoyed them like now i couldn’t go by a velocity even though it’s the same car without the creature comforts and electronics i wouldn’t I couldn’t do it now I know and i’m screwed forever so thanks polaris I should thank nick yeah yeah how about you andrew getting me ride in this past summer kind of since combination 150 degrees yeah it’s been super hot down here in the peril valley especially in our desert um it’s been the last couple past couple weeks it’s been 1920 even at night it’s not even getting down past 100 degrees so it’s it’s pretty pretty nasty out right now i did do one little night ride with a couple people from work um it was hot i blew through about three belts in about 65 miles i think I needed to do a little bit of clutch maintenance on my my turbo s it’s getting up there to about a thousand miles so um but yeah it was hot sticky humid especially with these fires going on right now up in san diego and everything going on the air quality here is just garbage it’s murky it’s nasty outside uh we finally got a break today though it was it was down in the 95s this kind of weird uh cool weather that’s coming through right now is just it let me get into the garage and actually work on stuff it’s kind of nice without sweating like i just got out of the pool so hold on you got your car in august we got our cars the same day you got about a thousand miles up my math is correct wes has had his car like half the amount of time and he has more miles on it than you yeah I know it’s it’s crazy it’s crazy you know what we talked about you know we’ve said it before uh a lot of people just build cars to make them look pretty you know and they look pretty but there’s a few others that build pretty cars and still drive them you know and get them dirty like I make mine sit in the garage dirty for three days before I wash it just as a punishment so yeah mine’s still sitting since i ride I burned three belts uh it’s still sitting in the garage dirty um i’m gonna start working on it get ready for the season is it true that your garage floor is mirrors and you pull your car up on the mirrors like like old school off-road mag lowrider magazine is that is that true so people can see the under carriage see the undercarriage and see all the chrome underneath it yeah yeah okay let’s just make sure there’s a skid plate power supply [Laughter] i was going to get into you know events coming up but we should probably chat a little bit about speaking of events and like how the years turned out the racing world so this is wes forte west is a competitor in the best in the desert series he’s um been involved with the truck race team as well so like real quick house code would kind of change things and like what do we think we can expect with maybe other events getting changed or either going through because we’re looking at racing uh utv worlds here in early october yeah I mean kovit threw us for a loop i mean everything was going good january february two races under a belt and uh had the third one go and then all of a sudden just the you know the panic mass panic set in and things started getting shut down and it was at that time as a you know a racer and being involved in the racing you realized man this sucks you know and taking it for granted so um we ended up having our laughlin race cancelled um the jagdex uh sponsored race there in laughlin it was canceled and then we had silver state original data source they get cancelled um source day got rescheduled and we were able to race that in june uh it was great you know no hiccups that’s the desert stepped up and made some new changes to how we had the drivers meeting through social media also you know social distancing when you’re in tech they made it to where you could sit in your truck put your car on your trailer and just drive through tech and they checked your car out right there you didn’t even have to get out uh they made a lot of changes it’s really cool because I think a lot of organizations would have just said you know we’re done we’re not gonna you know do all these things and they made it happen and then things took the turn for the worse there in july when the whole country started peaking and new cases went through the roof and that was right before vegas torino which is the biggest race that that we have of the year is the longest race and uh ended up you know rumor has it that some higher-ups in the off-road industry not the side-by-side guys but trophy truck guys which I don’t think it’s a secret or anything but uh um bryce menzies dad uh stepped up and and really put his name out there and really tried to help to get the land approved for it and steve menzies able to really help it along with a lot of others especially a lot of hard work by best and desert crew and we were able to have that race so that race um was last month in in uh august and it went on as scheduled once again the social distancing um different precautions the one hiccup that did happen in that race though is that there was no spectators at all but then you have off-road fans and it was at sunset station a lot of fans came to want to see the cars while they’re going through tech and they actually shut tech down so there was several several cars there was over 400 entries but there were several cars that didn’t even get tacked and they had to get tech at the start line the next morning at the gas station across the street so if you didn’t pass tech I mean I don’t know what you were gonna do maybe they’re just like uh you know but race went on and we were able to race we were able to get both cars on our team to finish which is you know in in itself is a huge accomplishment um we had a few hiccups during the race um but we persevered and we were able to get the finish and at 515 miles it’s it’s a big deal anybody that’s listening to this that’s raised anything long like that will understand that part of racing is just finishing and in that race yeah you want to finish good but when you have issues and you have to fight through those issues getting to that finish line is one of the best things the best feelings ever you really don’t think about the position yeah it’d been great to be in a higher position or lower position but but overall um watching big big name teams in our in our in our class in the pro production turbo class dnf and have problems and and to be able to get both cars that we work on uh at roman motorsports and get them both to the finish with the finishes is awesome and it all ends up being pretty much the biggest race of the year right with baja being cancelled which kind of reminds me too it would have been you know I was kind of hopeful to begin the year we might have snuck in a summer baja trip like we did a couple years ago yeah and I think I think we could i’ve noticed a few people that we race with they do their fun rides and they’ve been down there but i’ve asked them questions because i’ve as long as i or as far as I know the borders are still kind of like closed for just recreation um but apparently they opened them up they just didn’t announce it um but i mean I talked about best of desert but obviously the score series has been hammered they they haven’t had a race um you know san felipe got cancelled then the 500 in june got canceled then san felipe they got rescheduled for july then that one got cancelled and coming here in a couple weeks they’re having their first race of the year in the middle or end of september the baja 500 which is now not even in ensenada it’s going to be in san felipe um and the course they have marked out i raced that a few years back uh in a code race and I hope nobody calls me to go racing because I don’t want to go that courtesy it is brutal cars don’t belong in that area and people who raise san felipe hats off to you especially in the side by side I can see it in a trophy truck yeah you’re going 80 90 100 in the bumps who cares but those guys know 7s’s and those you know razors and side-by-sides and different small cars class 11’s hats off to you so you know speaking of racing um like I said october we’re looking at a very jam-packed month and for andrew and I we need to do a legit shakedown if you guys have been watching our youtube channel we did a video about how all three of us were together we put the new motor in our race car made some updates to it um got you know a new oil cooler and uh being tuned right now and um got some new wheels and tires which is cool i think um we’ll probably do a podcast I think talking about like sponsorship and kind of like our process how we think about it you know the whole world right now and social and influencer and deals all that stuff i think it’s like an interesting topic that we can elaborate more on because we’re kind of on all sides of the fence from a company who sponsors people from racers that are trying to get sponsored ourselves and also trying to grow our following so we become a quote-unquote influencer if you will but um either way you know we’re making these improvements to the car to make sure that we’re dialed and we’re going to do a proper shake down but you know um a little birdie told me looking forward here utv world champs is the first time this event’s been done in havasu and i’ve done a little bit of riding out there in standard wash like last time I went through is when I went through arizona peace trail so to me the terrain feels like really narrow like a lot of those trails are initially built by atvs and side by sides it’s not like your typical wide open desert terrain and there’s a lot of blind ups and downs andrew we kind of all ran into my car a little bit on how much you’re not the west but um you know little birdie told me like hey it’s gonna be tight single track passing is gonna be tight like 60 mile course like what do you think about the riding um you know and how that race is going to pan out wes well you know the exciting thing about utv worlds and one thing that I will say about it is that they’re allowing you guys to qualify they’re allowing along the the different classes to qualify which is awesome uh because then that really limits a lot of the dangerous stuff like catching slower cars or guys who just may be going out there for recreation um so that’s one good thing that I think that the promoters are putting on is a qualifying that being said that if it is quite tight and twisty like that it’s just going to be who has the guts to to push through it you know we know in in this in this area in the southwest there’s rocks everywhere especially in washes big rocks and things like that if it’s tight twisty through rocks or through washes you’re gonna get these rocks on the edges and you know I think it’ll probably cause a lot of issues with people running in the dust um there’s some guys that do it better than others I mean to name a few like brandon sims if you watch his video from the silver state 300 that guy i couldn’t believe it I mean I was there i’d race in that situation and that guy pushed through the dust from like 40th place all the way up to where he finished in third and he pushes through the dust other people don’t push the dust that hard because one rock’s gonna take you out so that could be a big factor you know it could be a big factor but it’s really cool that they put on a utv only type race um which puts a short course and the kids can come out and the different classes and and they really promote it really well um but i mean we’ll just have to wait and see they’re going to allow people to pre-run so you’ll know a few days beforehand exactly what it is you just have to mark every rock very very well I think because you don’t want to be chasing somebody in the dust and clip one of those rocks or go over a rise and find yourself on your roof or your lid you know yeah and it sounds like you know anybody can pre-run it pre-running is wide open and if you’re just a fan or an enthusiast you can kind of check out the race wherever you want so if you’re not a racer but you want to go check out a cool race I mean I think there’s a lot of hype there’s probably a lot of pent-up demand because guys haven’t been able to race it’s in havasu which is like a great little town to go have fun uh the weather’s still gonna be nice even for guys to have boats hanging out there’s always something cool going on in havasu a lot of events i’m sure have been canceled but people are gonna be excited for it even if you just want to go check it out i mean robbie gordon’s erasing their new cars there so as an enthusiast too in general i mean there’s so many guys that ride and come down um to hang out and have a soon ride all winter I think it’s gonna be hopefully a bigger fan appeal and I hope maybe like like a king of the hammers vibe i’m hoping where people can kind of go around and and get wherever they want to be and make it exciting for everybody i I think you’re right I think it’s definitely going to have that I mean i’ve raised utv worlds in the past and that’s what it is the cool thing is you’re not competing um for the you know quote-unquote attention from trophy trucks and different classes i mean it is all about utvs when you’re there it’s you know the pro turbos all the way down into your youth 170 class where they have six and five-year-olds racing and it’s really cool because it gets a lot of attention all the videos are made all the promotion everything is about our sports about utvs it’s about you know chupacabra it’s about every you know every company that builds stuff for utvs and it’s really cool because they can all show up and they all are part of this big huge giant side-by-side community yeah it’s involved in racing but a majority of those people there or i would say almost all of them have play cars that they go out and they play in uh havasu I know it’s huge for people to have play cards and you know people are gonna know exactly where the dangers are they’re gonna know where the big jumps are and you’re gonna see crowds out there I know you’re gonna see crowds out there people setting up easy ups and just out in the middle of the desert which is really cool that’s what’s really cool about it spectator wise um so we’ll see how that goes i’ve never seen that in other areas i think it’s because best in desert runs more of a closed course it’s going to be more like mexico vibe who knows I mean how are they gonna control people from being right on the edge of the of the actual race course you know and when you guys come flying up over a hill and they’re throwing their hands up like go go go and your first thing I do is hey hit the brakes hit the brakes you know because you know it’s you know you you want the fans it’s cool you throw the siren at them a little bit you get them cheering or whatever but i mean we had an incense at vegas arena where guys were telling us to go one way and i was like no no no go this way and it wouldn’t have turned out bad it was just that they want us to go right through their camp area where they were where they were so I think in that aspect it’s going to be really really cool it’s going to be able to show everybody i just don’t know how they’re going to do it I don’t know what arizona’s limits are on you know the social distancing or what I won’t even be in the middle of october who knows um but in the past I mean youtube world has always been a really really cool place for spectators and for racers yeah I know andrew and I plan on doing like a legit shakedown in our car once we get it back from the tuner here hopefully soon um we’re probably gonna do a new steering rack um just because we have a lot of play in hours and it just feels like the front end kind of wanders quite a bit but you know once we get all of our boxes checked we have a couple of things like we’re going to have dry break on the on the card on our dump cans for quick fuel stops we’ve got a fuel leak coming out of the fuel cell we’ve got to figure out so you know we’re finally it’s like we’ve had this car it’s like we’ve only raced it twice it’s been the longest race car build of all time and man i’m just excited to hopefully learn what we’ve learned from friends you know and then just have a really good run and then hopefully be able to push a good pace and put this car what it’s capable of doing so i’m excited for it you know I think my strategy always is like we spent a fortune on this thing I want to get to the finish line i’d rather be conservative and wait for people to break not drive with my ego anybody can drive fast for the roll cage but it seems like the game is just preserving the car and just by that nature you know this uh we’ll see how it goes so how many how many laps is that you said it was you said 60 miles how many laps was it three or four that’s four laps yeah I mean that’s a long race you think about it that’s that’s parker you know parker 250 and and it won’t the terrain probably won’t be too far off you know uh of what parker like the the sand washes the problem about the sand washes though is lap one it’s not too bad lap two and three and four it’s washboard washboard like brutal to where your teeth are rattling in your head so it’s gonna be interesting you know I i think I think you’re correct I think it’s you should go in with the aspect of you know finishing and just set your pace set your pace there’s going to be guys that are going to be passing you and there’s going to be fast guys that you pass that you’re just like holy cow and you’re going to start double checking yourself like am I going too fast am I pushing this car too hard but you know they could be having issues or whatever and i see that in every race you know we pass people and just man we just passed that that guy’s super fast it makes you feel good um but then we’ve also had people just come blowing past us like we’re parked on the side of the road and we see him in about 15 minutes you know so it’s it’s so hard to set the correct pace without hurting the car and driving over your head yeah I mean andrew and I our longest race has been 100 miles so you know my old guy conservative pace is going to make more sense going 240 especially if the course is rocking as gnarly as what i’m thinking what i’m hearing it will be um and like you said it’s such a learning curve like all the fast guys know how hard to push it just like a with a playwriter right like you know everyone will push the limits but you’ve got to figure out what that balance is so the car is not going to get hammered i mean there’s yeah and there’s fast guys I mean there’s guys that just are on another level sometimes you know and it’s weird because some races the terrain just don’t fit those guys and they’re slower and it really really throws you for a loop and then in other races they’re just uncatchable I would think you know just for you first or what do they say uh in order to finish you got a first finish or whatever you know I think that’s that’s what you guys really gotta have the attitude and i mean I don’t know if we’re actually racing that one yet we might have a conflict but if not i’m gonna i’ll be there with you guys so we’ll get it all figured out and you know i’ll scream at cherries on the radio well you know that’s going to kick off our october which is obviously like literally the next month of planning to make sure the car is dialed it’s got a rough shake down we hopefully we’ve crossed every t and dotted every eye we thought we did that we got to show it to our first race then we realized we were sadly mistaken so we’re learning we’re trying to do it we um you know work as best as we can off what we know and then right after that we got the sancho which is uh cancelled from of course orange county which is usually a big turnout over 60 000 people and now we’re talking the week after and it’s october 15th in scottsdale so you know for me um as a business owner in arizona it’s a little bit easier logistically um to get our inventory there it’s our first time set up as a brand with the booth you know and we’re getting displays custom made you know we’re gonna have new clothing designs we got new products to show people you know all that stuff we’ve been working on for quite a long time and that’s actually almost more nerve-wracking for me than this race because i want to show up and be prepared we’re going to try to get as much content as we can you know maybe the the robbie gordon car for the consumer will be on display maybe polaris will drop the new rumored car um who knows what could happen right it could be exciting and at least I feel like they were able to get this event going before desert season uh what do you guys think about it in arizona and just happening at all i think it’s a good idea to do it on arizona again going with covin uh shut stuff down here in california I know sans sports is a huge huge turnout for everybody looking for deals to that just bought a new side by side they want to get some wheels and tires you know it’s it’s great for getting deals but on arizona I think we’re going to have a big turnout uh with the people out there out in that neck of the woods um but I think it it’s going hopefully cross our fingers you know something might happen they might have to postpone it so is it happening at the convention centers there um like where they have the auto auctions is that where it’s supposed to be happening it’s uh westworld in scottsdale so it’s quite a bit smaller than the california sand show um but what i’ve been hearing too from our buddies at dealers is that like inventory is so low of course like the biggest thing we haven’t talked about yet is cobit has created this amazing demand for toys uh people probably you know in my opinion have a big bucket of fun money and that bucket is now not going towards that disneyland trip that hawaii trip and people are buying you know bicycles getting pools um from what i’m seeing from family and friends and my understanding new vehicles and side by sides of you know and then of course like can-am polaris they shut down the assembly line everyone kind of hit the panic button then the opposite happened for our industry so I know a lot of southern california dealers that have you know a lot of presence in california aren’t going to come it’s a ton of effort for them to go all the way to arizona and then they don’t even have the inventory so i think unfortunately if you guys are in the market as listeners for a new side-by-side you’re gonna pay a lot more than you did last year um it’s good for us that bought last year’s keeping our resale up i’m glad I bought what I what I have when I did um and you know there’s only so many of them hearing like can ham only has so many products to allocate same thing with polaris and then um that’s just going to take a while to sort itself out so a lot of people were used to going to the sand show and and buying cars for killer deals um you know the oems is supported with extra discounts like you said parts of the accessories galore so I do it does sound like some of these smaller southern california accessories companies are are swapped and like I was reading last night on facebook a guy said all the cages that he’s wanting to buy are backlogged like 12 weeks so people can’t even find cages um and they’re going to buy stuff right away you know they want to live it and want to have fun outdoors with their family and get out of the house i’m sure those with older kids are all going stir crazy so it’s gonna be really interesting to see um how this pans out I still think the turnout will be okay it will be like california-san show but um man it’s just gonna be kind of a totally weird year in terms of those of you that are looking to buy something new I think that scottsdale is the best case scenario though I mean if you think about the size of the actual phoenix valley mesa and all those you know phoenix itself and then peoria and scottsdale all that there’s a lot of off-road in there every time i’ve gone down there i’ve been down there several times this year i mean constantly you’re always seeing people out riding side by sides all over so those people i mean how many of those people actually made up you know the sixty thousand would go to california you know it’s not going to compare I get it you know southern california is just its own beast and you know people are so into off-road and you know it’s not just side-by-sides that we’re talking about but at the same time I mean I would think that that valley that whole phoenix valley that’s humongous makes up a big big target you know of consumers that actually would go to the san sho I don’t think it’s going to be like you’re saying as much as southern california but i really do think that it’s going to be a really good turnout scott everybody loves scottsdale I mean you know and for the southern california people to be able like oh we can make a trip out of it you know it’s the same as us in vegas and people in phoenix every year they make a trip out of going down there so we’ll see you know it just it we’ll just see I agree with you on the inventory thing that’s that’s gonna be something that I don’t know how they’re gonna combat but but there’s a lot of people that are gonna be selling their custom cars and things that they built and those are always there and then who knows maybe that new uh side-by-side company that’s building cars will show up with some he always does he always does yeah what a good good time to sell your rig if you have the ability to be patient and wait for like six or eight months for inventory to get back going um in general or even so no matter how good of a deal you’re gonna get even in five or six months but um that’ll be a big deal for us you know we’ll probably document it um as like a small business you know with our first trade show there’s a lot of moving parts even for a small company like us um having a display setup that looks legit you know having all of our vehicles that are wrapped on display as much as possible getting our products around the show there you know being able to sell products like I said having some exciting products for people to come check out so i’m really excited for us and um that requires a ton of planning uh from the business side of things that we’re working hard on right now and we’ll be taking up most of our time so I hope i hope the race car goes together smoothly in terms of getting ready for the race because we don’t really have time i don’t time’s going to be tight to get those both pulled off and then as I move into october the week after i got invited to go on a mexico ride a ride i’ve also put on our youtube channel from rocky point to el gofo which is super fun a great group of friends and my wife hasn’t done yet so i’m really hoping that we can pull that off which would be a four day trip back to back to back and after that you know andrew el centro glanis uh camp razer if you guys haven’t heard uh camp razor was cancelled but still glad if it’s still halloween um is gecko open is it gonna be open what do you think I don’t i don’t I don’t know have I know our local newspaper uh the desert review actually wrote a letter to blm and asking about it because that sustains our economy here it it’s really going to take a toll if we’re not getting that you know people come coming from la you know up north uh coming to the to the sand dunes um so we haven’t heard a hundred percent yet if uh gecko road will be open I know I was out in octo wells this past weekend passing through and they still have cones up in some of the some of the entrances of like washes and stuff like that saying hey this blm land is closed for due to covet so we’ll see what happens it’s really going to take a toll if you know they’re really out there enforcing these laws I know when covert first started octia wells they put a bunch of cones a bunch of ribbon up they even had planes flying over the over the top of people saying hey you guys need to pack up the desert’s closed you kind of kind of weird hearing that you know but we’ll see what happens come you know october 30th halloween weekend we’ll see if all those pad posse guys get up there on the pattern they might have to be camping in the washes with all the all the people that you know they make fun of yeah that’s gonna be a melee I i guarantee those those big dogs are already on pad three and a half they snuck in there and they got their stuck up there i’ve only been here for three days uh yeah okay okay yeah and the poor big ballers that might have to go slum it in the washes can you imagine them driving their rigs out there that ain’t happening no they’re gonna be down and would you imagine them having to pay their guy to go drive their rigs off for them i know you know how far it is for them to drive from the airport to the washes that’s terrible um yeah I mean it can be really interesting to see how the dune season starts and going back to march you know as i’ve been off-roading about my house I go far around a lot in the spring I was riding my moto a lot as well i’ve never seen more people outdoors than i’ve seen in general going to sedona like I said rhino moto side-by-side rides which is great um it’s also led to you know some other challenges so it’s gonna be a really weird year because like you said it doesn’t matter if gekko’s closed this is gonna be the biggest turnout maybe even just as big of cam fraser wasn’t there there’s the watches will be jam-packed all we have all these people that bought new rigs in spring all these people that don’t have have less options to do in terms of fun and vacation and getting out of the house and everyone loves glamis and everyone loves that first trip of the year I mean i’ve been to camp razer the last seven years in a row and you know you start to hear people say oh you know i’m not going to go that’s all the squids you know but they still show up you know they’re there they’re there and you know what you have six weeks there’s excuse me six months to get all fired up and get get your gear all set up and your car will set up and you’re going to be there so i think it’s going to be popping no matter what yeah especially like when uh they announced it it was on social media you should have seen all the comments on there it was people oh finally you know that turned into a side-by-side event blah blah blah and uh they’re just talking a bunch of smack about you guys about side by side I mean I love a sandro guy just like everybody else you know I love the sandro guys they have some sweet cars but i’m telling you right now you for one for every one bad freaking sand car you see you see 15 to 20 side by side so you know I get it you know we’re coming into their their sandbox and making them all look bad we have a real crusty real crusty friend i won’t mention his name but man he he is he hates side by sides and i’m just i just don’t understand why you know it’s not a big deal and speaking of which I got a rant about people being salty about camp razor like years you know it was like free lunches and giving away 10 razors and toy haulers right and then there was like that jake owen concert which sounded like everybody just absolutely loved well you know things happen maybe budgets get cut like the amount of people that complain oh there wasn’t as much free stuff who else is doing that what are you salty about like why is there any negativity about polaris who fixes everybody’s car they have four engineers that work like 14-hour days they rip motors out of cars they do everything they can and they still give away something was trying to entertain it oh you know last year I got eight free t-shirts in this show we got one like are you kidding me like if it wasn’t for them then that would have happened that wouldn’t have forced canyon to step up so last year our buddy carl broke his can-am guess what he went to can-am and he got a free trailing arm that wouldn’t happen if polaris wouldn’t have said we’re making this happen and they’ve they’re trying on polaris’s event you know I don’t know and they’re all there I don’t get the saltiness and then people being a whiny the expectation and the entitlement is is annoying but apparently it’s good for the whole community you don’t have to go that weekend if you do there’s going to be um some entertainment there’s going to be some giveaways there’s going to be some free service and maybe some free swag like last year nitro yeah it’s dope like everybody doesn’t want their kids to go watch natural circus family friendly show these the kids send it they rip like what more can you that was free that would never happen in the dunes man yeah and I get it I mean people get a little salty because you show up and you know you’re excited you’re excited because polaris puts on such a good event you know and they give away so much stuff I mean I remember when one year you walk into the swag bag and it’s like holy cow like they’re giving us all this just to walk through the gate you know and water bottles and everything just everywhere and then you know like you said budgets get cut and things happen but I mean there was a year where if you walked in with a piece of belt and it didn’t even have to be your belt you found a broken belt in the dunes you walked over and showed them and they would exchange it yeah I had a gates belt which I was probably never ever going to run in case of emergency only and I walked in with the gate spell and they freaking exchanged it right there i mean things like that that’s a 200 part right there and I get you know people get salty and you know whatever because it’s not the same as last year but i’m with you man those people just need to chill out without polaris without that that event I don’t think this sport would even be what it is at columbus yeah you know and um whether whether polaris has a budget cut or who knows right a lot of things happen right they had the recalls and a lot of things but um that’s it’s just so beside the point with because what are they supposed to do like make the super bowl and then the next super bowl and then jackson and then beyonce like at a certain point like people are always gonna ask for more and want more so like you know they can’t do that it’s not for any business it’s not sustainable and things happen to their business yeah that way more competition in the southwest and they’re still spending a ton of money and ship all these people out and i don’t know that’s just my little rant yeah um glenn’s still gonna be i’m still gonna be good that weekend’s always hot it’s still gonna be 94 degrees and it’s still going to be possible i’m still salty about show sign though unfortunately you know I was just actually I was just thinking that and i was like that’s one thing polaris man you need to step up that’s we we brought you the cleanest car at the dunes and this just gave you guys man you just didn’t care didn’t care there’s general with the pooper in it what these guys are talking about is one of our youtube videos from camp razer last year andrew’s car was all pretty and uh we tried to talk our talk in front of the dude and get our fair graces of having an all car that’s me for you we go to this event it’s a sand event and i’m talking about how our car is not just the same queen and it was biased we weren’t going to win anyway but either way we tried oh yeah and that’s the thing that it’s i knew the judges like I know those guys like I race with those guys i talked to those guys and they still couldn’t beat the corporate power man corporate power just they must have got a they must have got a bonus or something to pick the job i mean not to mention that you know they both are paid and you know they both raced the car and they both raced for polaris and not to mention seth or mitch’s name but I mean oh but yeah i’ll never forget that guys maybe chewbacca was going to throw down title sponsor if we’re going to win that event but um we got to wrap this thing up here in a few minutes andrew um we got a new video we’re working on x3 build give us a quick update andrew’s getting into the racing game with his own can-am we’re not polaris only can it um andrew’s the first guy to break the the polaris cycle with an x-ray so what’s going on with that car um so what’s going on I just dropped it up off at magnum off road up in vista california last week make some nice stuff uh as you’ve seen we’ve been posting some other stuff because i’m very very excited um to be working with magnum i reached out to them and they’re all hands on deck with us and they’re helping me out through this process you know they wanted to build me the my perfect car it’s pretty awesome um it’s it’s up there right now should have it back in my hands here at the end of the month um then on to the next part which is going to be gusseting the entire chassis pretty much made a race car out of off a stock chassis um so got to get that that that chassis stout for desert racing I don’t want to have any problems breaking tabs off or mounting points stuff like that but um it’s going to be a long process i I thought I was going to have this build done within six to seven months but it’s not going to happen this is so much more work than what I thought in my head so i’m pushing for april may of next year maybe hit some local district 38 races of the first couple races just to shake it down you know quick 100 miles get it done test everything like that and then uh my biggest accomplish or my biggest goal for next year is vegas torino 2021 so hopefully calling it well just a time out i’m out on that real quick there is no vegas dorino 20. oh it’s reno it’s reno to vegas reno to vegas yeah all right that’s that’s going to be really cool so rt rv what is it yeah yeah r2v r2v yeah that’s right so that’s going to be one of the biggest goals for next year is getting to vegas arena and getting across that finish line so really looking forward to it we got a lot of companies helping us out with this build name of name a couple you know baja designs prp seats uh method and tensor um magnum of course uh jeffrey’s performance is helping us out with the tuning uh thanks to evo for giving us all the evo evo products for that car um there you go jp right there cool guys yes definitely half baked powder coating is doing is doing all the powder coating and everything steal it for me um hooked up with 56 industries as well for suspension components uh wayne at all tech’s going to be going through the shocks making those things plush is there anybody else to even consider i don’t think so after riding into my turbo s and then the race car man i I don’t think i’ll go to anybody else after this so andrew um magnum like we you guys if you guys follow us on ig we post so many amazing x3s and just fab shops cage guys and guys that can do more like give us your top three top four like you were so on the fence we talked about this for months so give us the other people you would throw down your hard earned money um to have them build it next week if it wasn’t magnum yeah so magnum was my my number one pick um i had I wrote down a couple other companies to build build me a can-am chassis um one being gun can race cars out of mexicali uh down here close to me another one was uh thad at fab works um he was another contender but he built my chassis by the way um were you basing this off of like value or bang for your buck or i mean I was I was going for you know more of a budget build but now this thing’s gonna be it’s going to be way past budget but um well ultimately right the same thing we try to do with any of our videos is value like what do you get money right you know exactly it’s not like andrew’s getting any of this stuff for free like no i’m not forever that’s why I think we should talk about this more in a podcast of sponsorship and and like kind of how we approach it because if you look at like our turbo all of our turbo builds like all the stuff we we paid with our own money like we get better deals than others which can affect and I think there’s a lot of reputable brands that have competing products like wheels right there’s four or five options i would run with my own money um but then from there like if one more company wants to work with us a little bit more or sees value in us trying to create more content and value of what we’re doing whether that’s racing or beyond um go ahead and john i want to take your thoughts what are you talking about um like you said magnum and like mexicali who else might come up on your radar um then that at fab works of course um just the styling of the car really really I was looking for more of that sleek uh flat top cage the class 10 uh style um and magnum really knocks it out of the park uh in that category um especially with that big rear trunk that they build um it really it really looks good and that was my number one um at first I got a quote from them they were a little on the high side um that’s when I reached out to can can race cars I changed some stuff on the on the build sheet with magnum uh brought the cost down quite a bit um biggest thing was the fuel cell uh their fuel cell sits in the back um off the rear end uh the fuel cell that we put in this car actually sits underneath the driver and passenger seat so lower ready so much better um so realistically with can can and magnum uh they were really really close in price to pretty much what I wanted um so I ended up going with magnum uh kept my money in the states especially during this pandemic you know a lot of these businesses are hurting for hurting for money but but um yeah it’s just magnum was my my my top choice um so we did a full race build with them they’re gusting the whole chassis tying in the whole front end with their bulkhead front bumper shock mounts their cage window nets rear trunk spare tire carrier they’re mounting all the radiator intercooler pretty much doing most of the fabrication work for me um once I get it back from them it’ll go up to my brother-in-law and he’s actually going to weld in some more of the pre-cut gusset kits from like lone star and s3 so but adding value it’s like it’s it’s all coming out of my pocket um like nick was saying he’s we’re you know working with companies like the ones I mentioned and we’re still paying for all this product but it helps out with the discounts that they give us yeah you know we hope to return that favor and provide value with them um with the videos that we’ve done content we’ve created and you know it’s important I think like racer anybody in general like what’s the value we’re providing and like I said it’d be a good podcast for us because we think about it too from people that we want to work with people that we work with now um you know having that reach on social putting a lot of effort in on social for me means a lot and um you know because it means a lot to me I hope that we’re following through the same thing with people that want to work with us so you know it’s fun um we hope that we can build more of a following and hopefully all you listeners just kind of point you in the right direction of our personal experiences our taste what we’ve learned what we want to spend our money on if we thought it was a good value or not you know and be transparent um if we thought that that even if we did get the deal on that of that product or this product like what we think you know so everything’s got a price and a value and that’s really hard to decode in this industry and that’s where I think there’s a ton of value you know is because all these products don’t have a thousand reviews on amazon right it’s all word of mouth like hey wes how are those toyo tires hey andrew like you know how is gonna that that setup gonna be on your canon versus this discuss the kit or whatever it might be so you know that’s what I hope uh you guys as listeners get a lot out of this podcast we just kind of talk shop and let you know how we’re spending our money kind of where we come from how much we’ve been involved in it what we think about it and we’re always learning too you know the the best case is our video series on our race car uh we thought we knew quite a bit we came to the first race we didn’t even have the taillights working when we pushed on the brake pedal we didn’t even pass tech i think I think the listeners I think the listeners also need to understand is that yeah you know we build these cars and we we put our hard-earned money in and they need to understand that but also the fact that there’s a reason why we put the certain things that we put on there you know we’re willing to pay for the good stuff and the good parts you know i mean I stand by my car which is completely different from nick’s car or andrew’s car but you know it I stand by those products i went with the products that i wanted because I believe in those products i’ve tested those products i’ve you know use those products whether it’s in racing or in my other car and things like that and it’s it’s important that people understand that that we’re not we’re not here to you know look at this you should go here you you you know we’re pouting like oh you know you need this this light bar and these wheels and these tires I mean that’s what this is about I mean if people have questions and stuff and hopefully they’d ask us you know you know like for instance you talked about the tires like I went with a different tire brand than you guys did and there’s a reason not because your tire is better or my tire is worse but because I know that tire i know what that tire does and so it’s a lot of knowledge that we have that we you know we can hopefully share with people and they understand it and that they understand that it’s sincere i know in the past there’s been other platforms and there’s platforms currently that it’s plain as day they do things because that’s who gives them money and that’s what’s cool about chupacabra off-road man we’re just some guys and just like everybody else and these listeners that are you know excited about this and you know we’re able to use the parts that we want and build those cars the way that we want because that’s what we know yeah you know and to touch on your point people have different value props for every product some people will never buy box lights they’re gonna buy a 60 light bar off amazon you know what kudos i’ve had one of those two and for what they are they work amazing for the price so you know um a video I did on my car I had in 2018 was value versus performance like where i didn’t I had the stock seats I had yeah it was on light bar but then i splurged and got the bfg kr2s which is still probably the best tire that there is um I didn’t have any electronics in it but you know I went with an sdr cage it was a little bit more pricey so and then I made sure I had a spring kit so that was kind of the purpose of that video and I think uh we’ll elaborate more on the channels like you know yeah or like one thing i probably stand on is like I think spending money on suspension is always the way to go no matter what you’ve got but you know um and and showing you guys why I think why we think that’s valuable but you know we’re not going to can try to convince you that this brand of tire or uh light bar if you just don’t see value in or i’m about to see heaters most of you guys think that’s maybe a waste of money or powder coating the wheels like adds no performance in a custom fair bit of money i’m hoping also that we get a lot of comments and a lot of things from you know either listening to this or watching it on youtube and making a lot of comments people can show us products that we don’t even know about you know things that hey go check this out check that out type of thing because i’m always looking for the new cool stuff on honestly all the time on social media things like that and peeking in people’s cars and whatever so there’s a lot of cool stuff out there we don’t even know about and you guys know listeners that’s so hard to keep up on like where all three of us are super nerds and we try to do a lot on social and there’s new products coming up every day and it’s it’s so impossible and i’ve been nerding out on this for a minute for since 2012 issue i’ve been paying close attention and that’s what’s so exciting about the industry that’s going on right now so good time to be in like I said so all right guys well fun getting together as always thanks you guys for listening um you know check us out we are products company check out our website chupacabra offroad you can find us on social google pinterest we got a pinterest page we’re updating it weekly at chupacabra off-road and all that stuff so thanks for listening i’ll catch you guys on the next one you.