Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Car Stories with Song
Speaker 1: Kang and Amelia Hartford.
Speaker 2: What's the question today?
Speaker 1: Are you a good gift giver?
Speaker 2: No? I'm horrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I found that there are these websites like winebasket dot com. Okay,
Speaker 3: and then it's just a matter of like, okay, it's.
Speaker 1: Just how much money I want to spend?
Speaker 2: Yeah, is this.
Speaker 3: Person one hundred dollars gift two hundred, three hundred or whatever?
Speaker 3: And it's like it makes it super easy, sure, right,
Speaker 3: and you're like, wow, that looks glorious, right, but to
Speaker 3: actually go somewhere to like if I had to buy
Speaker 3: you a gift.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, am I a fifty dollars friend? One hundred
Speaker 1: dollar friend?
Speaker 4: Two hundred dollars? That's the problem, you tell me? So?
Speaker 4: Or is it?
Speaker 2: Do I make you something?
Speaker 1: Do you make things?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I draw, I like paint stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'd more appreciate something like that, you would, right, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like those are the most meaningful gifts.
Speaker 4: The worst gift. I hate this gift.
Speaker 3: And I hope my like agents and managers and lawyers
Speaker 3: are listening to this, like this, there's a Hollywood gift.
Speaker 3: They send you this card and they go on, your behalf,
Speaker 3: we've donated such and such amount to blah blah blah
Speaker 3: organization and.
Speaker 1: Hate that I got the same gift this year.
Speaker 4: I hate that gift. I'm like, we got that gift?
Speaker 4: Is this like thank you for what? Right? Like putting
Speaker 4: it in my name?
Speaker 3: I'm like, come on, get me some cized chocolate or
Speaker 3: some hotel toilet.
Speaker 1: Try don't feed the starving children.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Look right, that's a come on, that's a
Speaker 3: that's a that's a weird gift.
Speaker 2: That's a JANKI gift.
Speaker 1: I think it'd be sweeter if they let us pick
Speaker 1: the charity. But they have an organization that they work.
Speaker 2: With, And yeah, I don't. I don't want that gift.
Speaker 1: Do you want your agents and lawyers to draw you
Speaker 1: a painting?
Speaker 4: I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: You know, my one of my agents, Frank, who is
Speaker 3: your agent too, He gives listening to this, he gives
Speaker 3: the best, best gifts.
Speaker 2: He will make you like a collage of the year.
Speaker 1: What the hell? Frank?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, you did this.
Speaker 1: I haven't received a yearly clause.
Speaker 3: Well you will, real I mean, because he loves photos
Speaker 3: and he'll like create this whole poster.
Speaker 2: And you're like, Frank, you actually went out and made this,
Speaker 2: And he goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Frank seems like a good gift giver.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a great gift giver. Are you a good
Speaker 2: gift giver?
Speaker 1: If I try, I can be At the very least.
Speaker 1: I try to write people letters. I like whenever I travel,
Speaker 1: Like you've noticed, I like to bring back little knickknacks
Speaker 1: for friends and stuff. I don't necessarily believe in only
Speaker 1: giving a gift for a birthday once a year. I
Speaker 1: like to give people little gifts throughout the entire year,
Speaker 1: just so you know that you're thinking of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you gave me a gift yesterday. I did maple
Speaker 3: syrup candy lollipop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shaped like a maple leaf. I brought it back
Speaker 1: from Canada.
Speaker 3: I got me in trouble yesterday. Why because I left
Speaker 3: it in the car and it melted. No, no, no.
Speaker 3: And then I went straight home and then we had
Speaker 3: to go to the Pet Star, my wife and I
Speaker 3: and she goes, what is that marijuana candy? I was like, mariju,
Speaker 3: that's marijuana. Are you getting stoned at the podcast?
Speaker 4: And I'm like no.
Speaker 3: She went to Canada and guys, She's like, well, that
Speaker 3: looks like marijuana candy to me.
Speaker 4: That's funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but no, thank you for that kid. That's that's
Speaker 3: a that's a good way to give gifts just throughout
Speaker 3: the year. Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to be more I
Speaker 3: guess less. Maybe hoarding is the word, because I have
Speaker 3: all this stuff, right, there are things that just end
Speaker 3: up stacking.
Speaker 1: Like I can't stand that I threw everything out, not
Speaker 1: like things, not things that people give me. Just I
Speaker 1: live a very minimalist lifestyle.
Speaker 3: But okay, let's say somebody gave you five key chains
Speaker 3: and you know you only need one, or you don't
Speaker 3: even need.
Speaker 1: Any merch if a company were going on. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have so many people in my life. I would be
Speaker 1: so happy to take them from me. All take what
Speaker 1: I'll use. I don't. I'm not one who if I'm
Speaker 1: not going to use it, not do anything with it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to give away everything, yeah this year because
Speaker 3: I go, Okay, this guy loves hats.
Speaker 1: Well, there's someone who'll probably appreciate it more than you might.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I have a need for it.
Speaker 3: Even Yeah, I don't appreciate it, but I think because
Speaker 3: maybe when I was younger, I had nothing, like I
Speaker 3: want to like have everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, so it's harder to let go.
Speaker 1: My mom held onto everything, which is why now I'm like,
Speaker 1: I can't. I don't want anything.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 2: So is your like house sparse?
Speaker 1: I just don't keep knick knacks and things. I don't
Speaker 1: even have like my high school yearbooks. I really don't
Speaker 1: have photos of me as a kid. I have the
Speaker 1: stuff I use every day.
Speaker 2: But yeah, huh, that's good. That's a minimalism. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 1: I've started keeping a little box of memories and it's
Speaker 1: like a little small box that I just put in
Speaker 1: the top of a closet. So I'm like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: I should keep some stuff to look back. That's been
Speaker 1: like the past year or two.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But you collect.
Speaker 1: Cars, Yeah, I do collect cars.
Speaker 2: It's hard to get rid of those.
Speaker 1: Can't get rid of those.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get rid of my cars.
Speaker 1: I'll take them.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you will.
Speaker 3: You have enough anyways, speaking of cool cars, our next
Speaker 3: guest is well, we call him the winningest professional drift
Speaker 3: driver in history. Yeah, a living legend literally, Chris Forsburg.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pro driver, he is a very successful businessman, and
Speaker 1: it was cool to sit down and talk about the
Speaker 1: headspace that you have to be in to be a
Speaker 1: competitive person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and having balance with that, yeah, that letting that
Speaker 3: competitive spirit be toxic.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: So you know, I've known Chris for years, but I
Speaker 3: don't know him, and today it was nice to actually
Speaker 3: sit down and get to know the man behind this myth.
Speaker 3: You know, winningest drift driver in history. So, without further ado,
Speaker 3: Chris Forsburg, there's such a technical approach that you take
Speaker 3: with driving. You know when I listen to you talk,
Speaker 3: and it's amazing that you're self taught. I mean, correct
Speaker 3: me if I'm misquoting this, but like the winningest professional
Speaker 3: trust driver in history, Chris like self taught, Like I think,
Speaker 3: I don't think people are aware of, like, you know,
Speaker 3: your accomplishments in the sport, right, I mean the winning.
Speaker 4: This winning is.
Speaker 5: It's a funny word to say, but yeah, because it's
Speaker 5: it kind of goes across different accolades because we have
Speaker 5: I say we me you know, you include the team, right,
Speaker 5: It's like you know you always say we, but yeah,
Speaker 5: I have the most podiums and formal drift I'm tied
Speaker 5: with most championships with James and Osmo, and I have
Speaker 5: the most head to head battle wins.
Speaker 3: So you got to walk through this the origin and
Speaker 3: the history for us, because it's how did it start?
Speaker 3: Like how do you teach yourself to be the winningest
Speaker 3: in history?
Speaker 1: But did you see yourself?
Speaker 4: How many more times can we say?
Speaker 5: So it's no, It's interesting because I wasn't like fully
Speaker 5: into cars when I was young, but like my uncle,
Speaker 5: like he was in the drag racing My grandfather like
Speaker 5: worked on a drag card team, and so like we
Speaker 5: went out to like a couple of NHR races and
Speaker 5: so I'm like, wow, like Boston, No, I'm from Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5: We went to a couple of drag races and like yeah,
Speaker 5: like Andrews allowed, cars are fast.
Speaker 4: This is cool.
Speaker 5: But like it kind of start and ended there. And
Speaker 5: then my cousin he was a flat track motorcycle racer
Speaker 5: about the same age as me, like maybe a year
Speaker 5: or two older. I went to a couple of his races,
Speaker 5: same thing, like oh, this is cool, but like I
Speaker 5: didn't like pursue that right, And it didn't really change
Speaker 5: for me until my brother is two years older, and
Speaker 5: like our group of friends are about a year.
Speaker 4: Older, and sobody one of two three.
Speaker 5: I have a younger sister, older brother and so uh So,
Speaker 5: when my brother and his friends all got their licenses
Speaker 5: and they started to kind of like getting cars, Like
Speaker 5: he had a Chevy Blazer at first, and then but
Speaker 5: a couple of our friends had like the Hondas, right
Speaker 5: and like one out of Volks So I want a
Speaker 5: little civic things like that. So we kind of got
Speaker 5: into the car scene through them, right because he's like
Speaker 5: buying his Quarterer Intake and things like that, We're like, wow, like,
Speaker 5: you know, those sports cars are cool, and you know,
Speaker 5: the import scene more so. And so he got a
Speaker 5: Mitsubishi uh and my buddies got Hondas and we started
Speaker 5: to learn how to work on them ourselves. Like my
Speaker 5: parents had a house with a barn, and we converted
Speaker 5: one of the stalls into a little garage, and so
Speaker 5: everyone would bring their cars over our place. And then
Speaker 5: myself and my buddy Tony Angelo, who I met through
Speaker 5: my brother as well, we're all just kind of into cars,
Speaker 5: and he had a little more knowledge about cars than
Speaker 5: I did, and so he kind of taught me some
Speaker 5: of the basics and then from there together we like
Speaker 5: learned how to fabricate. We're building our own like turbomanifolds
Speaker 5: and like you know, making our own exhaust things like that,
Speaker 5: and basically like you know, souping these cars up ourselves
Speaker 5: back in like two thousand, like ninety nine time. And
Speaker 5: you know, the way that we learned was just you know,
Speaker 5: Internet forums things like that, read magazines because not everything
Speaker 5: was available to us. We weren't just doing bolt on parts.
Speaker 5: We're like building our own stuff because I had I
Speaker 5: at that time in two thousand, got my RC seven,
Speaker 5: and so there wasn't really many options for like we're
Speaker 5: trying to buy like intercol or kids from like Yahoo Japan,
Speaker 5: like turbo kids things like that, and you know, stuff
Speaker 5: would show up, it be like banged up, dented, and.
Speaker 4: We're like, well, let's just make it ourselves.
Speaker 5: So pick up an intercol or core and you know,
Speaker 5: welding up you know, steel pipes because we couldn't take
Speaker 5: a while aluminum yet and things like that. So we learned
Speaker 5: how to do all this ourselves by trial and error.
Speaker 5: I blew up like five motors in that car, learned
Speaker 5: how to rebuild the rotary motors, you know, ourselves like
Speaker 5: me and Tony were just take it apart in the
Speaker 5: living room and you know, how does this thing work?
Speaker 5: Just use the manual and put it back together. And
Speaker 5: so everything that we did was basically self taught, like
Speaker 5: not only the driving but the mechanical and the tuning
Speaker 5: side as well, because there just wasn't any availability to
Speaker 5: us out there in Pennsylvania. There was very very few
Speaker 5: tuning shops, uh, and then the ones that did exist
Speaker 5: we couldn't afford anyway.
Speaker 4: You know, so we're just like, well, let's just do
Speaker 4: it ourselves.
Speaker 5: It was all pretty easy until we tried to make
Speaker 5: like basically more than four hundred horsepower. Like as soon
Speaker 5: as we like kind of hit that realm.
Speaker 1: Four was a lot at that time, it.
Speaker 5: Was yeah, yeah, So we we got pretty much all
Speaker 5: of our cars, like the Hondas were making like three
Speaker 5: hundred wheel like our Arc sevens were like three fifty
Speaker 5: wheels stuff like that. And basically as soon as we're
Speaker 5: trying to like hit that next level, like we're just
Speaker 5: breaking things left and right. We couldn't figureut how to
Speaker 5: keep the engines together.
Speaker 1: So, but how did you learn what drifting was.
Speaker 5: So, yeah, like I didn't really know what drifting was.
Speaker 5: But I got my ARC seven first, and I got
Speaker 5: the ARC seven because Tony Angelo told my brother that
Speaker 5: that's what I should get because I didn't know what
Speaker 5: I wanted to get, which this was in two thousand
Speaker 5: ft fc FC.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we kind of like fell into drifting because
Speaker 5: of the car that I got, if that makes sense.
Speaker 5: So I got the RC seven because Tony you know,
Speaker 5: basically was like, oh, this is a rear road drive car,
Speaker 5: comes with the turbo. It's cool, right, And I like
Speaker 5: look them up and I'm like, yeah, they look look
Speaker 5: cool and everything else. What I was saying was my
Speaker 5: old AOL name was Import Turbo, right, because I didn't
Speaker 5: know what I wanted, but I wanted to import. I
Speaker 5: wanted to have a turbo, that's all I know. And
Speaker 5: so landed on the ARC seven. I was like, this
Speaker 5: is cool. It's like a little exotic, right, It's got
Speaker 5: this weird motor in it. That was the car that
Speaker 5: we like learned how to fabricate and everything else. And
Speaker 5: so in doing so, when you start making like, you know,
Speaker 5: three four hundred horsepower, it naturally just burns the tires
Speaker 5: and the more we were reading about what to do
Speaker 5: to RC seven's, you know, you kind of start landing on,
Speaker 5: you know, the Japanese websites. There's not too much you know,
Speaker 5: on the American side of what people are doing to
Speaker 5: like R seven except for drag racing. Yeah, and so like, yeah,
Speaker 5: you're searching for intercoler kids, suspension kids, and you just
Speaker 5: keep finding drift cars. Right, So we slowly, you know,
Speaker 5: are falling into these websites about drifting. And then and
Speaker 5: one of Tony's friends over in Japan, who was based
Speaker 5: over there, he was sending us a real player videos
Speaker 5: of cars drifting because you know this before YouTube even existed. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and so we're like getting these like you know, pixelated
Speaker 5: videos of like cars drifting around, and we're just like,
Speaker 5: that's awesome, I want to do that. And so all
Speaker 5: in the same time, when we're like blowing up our
Speaker 5: cars trying to make a whole lot of horsepower, we're like,
Speaker 5: let's actually like not make so much and make them
Speaker 5: drift cars. And around that same time, we went to
Speaker 5: like my high school parking lot, took a couple cones
Speaker 5: out there and basically tried to drift through it. Like
Speaker 5: we didn't even know what we're doing. We just watched
Speaker 5: a couple videos of like, you know, this is when
Speaker 5: we started to find out about initial D and we
Speaker 5: watched all that, and we found out about you know option,
Speaker 5: you know, watching the VHS tapes and so we're just
Speaker 5: looking at the in car footage and you know, like
Speaker 5: for the first like year or two, like I never
Speaker 5: even pulled the handbrake. Didn't ever think that would you know,
Speaker 5: be a part of drifting. And so you know, we
Speaker 5: see him like you know, turning in and pulling on this.
Speaker 5: It's all in Japanese, so we have no idea what
Speaker 5: they're saying, and we're like, oh, like okay, pull the
Speaker 5: way home. Pull that like makes the car rotate, like okay.
Speaker 5: And so it was just all trial and error like
Speaker 5: for the first like two years, and then we eventually
Speaker 5: figured out how to control the car and be able
Speaker 5: to drift it around purposely and you know, without spinning out.
Speaker 5: And that was all like yeah, leading up to about
Speaker 5: two thousand and three, and that's when myself, Tony, Matt
Speaker 5: Petty and this other guy Eric went to English Town
Speaker 5: and pitched doing the first drifting events out there. So
Speaker 5: it was the first organized drifting events, which is now
Speaker 5: Club Loose, the longest running drift events in the country.
Speaker 1: That's so cool.
Speaker 2: Wow, so you were in high school.
Speaker 4: Man, Yeah, yeah, I just graduated. Yeah. So yeah, I
Speaker 4: got my car when I was a senior.
Speaker 3: Wow, just self taught from initial d And yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3: Did you like right away connect to it? Did you go,
Speaker 3: I love this, this is like my my body.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, and.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it just just always felt like being in the car,
Speaker 5: like was where I wanted to be, like, you know,
Speaker 5: love driving, love cruising, love you know, being at the
Speaker 5: racetrack things like that. But I really do like the
Speaker 5: build and that's what got me into cars to begin with.
Speaker 5: Building cars, like I find that to be as rewarding
Speaker 5: as driving.
Speaker 3: So the method to the madness or like see behind
Speaker 3: the curtain of like, you know, successful people. It's interesting
Speaker 3: that we're having this conversation because I was like, what
Speaker 3: makes Chris the winningest?
Speaker 4: Right in it for a long time.
Speaker 3: But also you know the car, Chris, like you know
Speaker 3: it insight out drivers that don't even change the oil
Speaker 3: in their cars, right.
Speaker 1: So there's drivers who don't even truthfully know what they're driving.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, it's just it's just different approach,
Speaker 5: right to some people that benefits them right to not
Speaker 5: have a connection to the car, right because for me,
Speaker 5: it's like I don't want to break it. I don't
Speaker 5: want to because you know, like peopable, so it can
Speaker 5: be a detriment as well to like know how hard
Speaker 5: to push it If you.
Speaker 1: Hear a noise it almost you get in your head
Speaker 1: a little bit of what could I have broken?
Speaker 5: Yep, and then you know, like how much is this
Speaker 5: going to cost to fix it? Because you I'm also
Speaker 5: the owner of the team, and so you know, you
Speaker 5: might not want to like, you know, just blow the
Speaker 5: motor up, you know, for the sake of game will
Speaker 5: more lap in. Whereas if you're just the guy that
Speaker 5: shows up and it's like where's the star button, like
Speaker 5: you're not going to treat it with any sort of exactly.
Speaker 5: So you know, I try to be hands off at
Speaker 5: the track, so it's better that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, keep that in the game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I try to have that separation.
Speaker 5: But yeah, like so, like I was saying, I I
Speaker 5: truthfully like enjoy the building. I love the process, you know,
Speaker 5: trying to create new things like the my dots and
Speaker 5: it's like how we met. The first time was I
Speaker 5: built the two eighty Z, took it out to Sema,
Speaker 5: did the RB conversion, did the you're talking about the goal,
Speaker 5: I know what you're talking about. Yeah, And so his
Speaker 5: debut the year before, and you won the Grand Trismo
Speaker 5: Best in Show, and then I debut mine the next
Speaker 5: year and then we got the Grand Turismo a board
Speaker 5: best Import too, so it was pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And then years later she's in Grand Tourist. Yeah
Speaker 4: and then there I.
Speaker 5: Go, I know, so h yeah, so that was cool
Speaker 5: and yeah, like we got to do that. Like Nissan
Speaker 5: shut just recently, so that was probably right after you
Speaker 5: filmed with him, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's how the I wouldn't say that's how,
Speaker 1: but the Nissan relationship definitely strengthened after doing a movie
Speaker 1: about Nissan. It. Yeah, the first car I ever owned was
Speaker 1: in Infinity. The first car ever fully built was a Nissan,
Speaker 1: so that heritage has run deep since it's all beginning.
Speaker 1: So it was cool to be able to do GT
Speaker 1: and then us doing that shoot together at Willow was
Speaker 1: pretty awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was really fun. Yeah, I got to do
Speaker 5: I got to be a judge for a GT Academy
Speaker 5: back in I think it was twenty twelve, I want
Speaker 5: to say, but yeah, flew out to Silverstone, the whole
Speaker 5: thing was set up. We had a little drift challenge, yeah,
Speaker 5: out there part of it. So that was cool experience
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 3: So from amateur high school self, it's drifting because I
Speaker 3: want to share this with the listeners out there, and
Speaker 3: I'm curious as well. So then how do you get
Speaker 3: to the pro level? Like did you eventually have to
Speaker 3: have like a coach?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was two thousand and three, like I mentioned,
Speaker 5: and that was when we just started those events over
Speaker 5: in New Jersey and so went to the first couple
Speaker 5: of those and then it was later that summer we
Speaker 5: saw the D one Driver Search. It was the first
Speaker 5: one right in out Arwin Dale, and so me and
Speaker 5: Tony were like, we gotta go right, So we loaded
Speaker 5: up our cars, put him on the back of a flatbed,
Speaker 5: and we just drove straight out forty fifty hours.
Speaker 2: The D one Driver Search what is that?
Speaker 4: So D one GP, the D one Grand Prix Series.
Speaker 5: It was before they had their first event in the States,
Speaker 5: and so they held a driver's search where they let
Speaker 5: pretty much anyone enter. There was like sixty of us
Speaker 5: out there, and they picked the top eight were allowed
Speaker 5: to run in the actual D one event that was
Speaker 5: happening in like September, And so we put our cars
Speaker 5: on the flatbed, drove all the way out, entered into
Speaker 5: the event with our RC seven's and like Kengoshi's there,
Speaker 5: die Ziro's there, like Rey Sam like all those you know,
Speaker 5: all the OG guys are out there too, and so
Speaker 5: we get to the event and basically neither of us
Speaker 5: make it pass the first round, right, Like I had
Speaker 5: like an understeer, I like messed up.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: They're obviously being very critical and like I said, it
Speaker 5: was like sixty some drivers and so and was it
Speaker 5: just drift?
Speaker 4: Of course it was like or was it tandem?
Speaker 5: No, it was just single runs like a small like
Speaker 5: basically the infield of our one dale, not the bank
Speaker 5: or anything. And so yeah, like it just didn't have
Speaker 5: a great pass. But basically being out here like I
Speaker 5: first time in California, you know, like you see all
Speaker 5: the cars, like all the vinyl on them, all the graphics,
Speaker 5: and like they don't clean, they're nice. They all got
Speaker 5: nice wheels, you know, the tents, pop ups and everything.
Speaker 5: I'm just like, there's something happening here, right, And that
Speaker 5: was basically like I'm moving to California, you know, drove
Speaker 5: home in sorrow. But on the same hand, it was
Speaker 5: like selling my car, like getting a new car, like
Speaker 5: I'm going all in. That was right when the Z
Speaker 5: came to the market, the three fifties, I should say,
Speaker 5: came back to the market and three two thousand and three. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and so I've sold my ARC seven and I used
Speaker 5: that money down payment and bought a new Z. I
Speaker 5: took it to like one or two events on the
Speaker 5: East Coast, and at the same time it was just
Speaker 5: like basically making my plans, wrapping it up. And there
Speaker 5: was like a Falcon drift show off that was happening
Speaker 5: in October back at erwin Dale again, and I was
Speaker 5: like going back to that event doing that, and so
Speaker 5: packed up all my stuff, moved out, made it in
Speaker 5: time for the event, and like had like a nice
Speaker 5: boty kit on nice wheels, like the car looked, you know,
Speaker 5: really legit got to that event. I got fifth place
Speaker 5: at that event, and so like just instant like recognition,
Speaker 5: I guess you could say it was obviously a pretty
Speaker 5: small community knew each other and it kind of turned
Speaker 5: into like who's this kid, you know with the with
Speaker 5: the new car right type thing? Like I say, this
Speaker 5: is like my first like subconscious lesson in marketing is,
Speaker 5: you know, you invest in yourself. No one's going to
Speaker 5: do it for you until you prove that you are
Speaker 5: going to put in the work and the effort on
Speaker 5: your own. So instantly started to get the attention of
Speaker 5: companies because I had the new platform, so they wanted
Speaker 5: to provide you know, coilover kids, exhaust intakes, you know,
Speaker 5: because they're promoting all their new parts for the new car.
Speaker 5: And so I was able to get support almost immediately.
Speaker 5: And so that's when I got linked up with motor
Speaker 5: X at the time, they were my first partner, and
Speaker 5: that's how I was able to go to forma drift
Speaker 5: in the first year. And so I went out and
Speaker 5: we entered forma drift. So I've been to every form
Speaker 5: of drift since the very first one, which was Road
Speaker 5: Atlanta and we got second place, went all the way
Speaker 5: to the finals.
Speaker 4: First round.
Speaker 5: First, your first, the first fdy around, Yeah, your first?
Speaker 5: What you well is that the is that the year
Speaker 5: that Sam Samuel hubin At won Yeah. So I member
Speaker 5: him in the finals and he won the first round,
Speaker 5: and then I met him in the semis the second round,
Speaker 5: so I got third place. Second round, he got first again,
Speaker 5: and then he won the third race, and then I
Speaker 5: eventually beat him. I was the first driver to beat
Speaker 5: him at irwin Dale the final round that year.
Speaker 4: Wow. And I ended up third overall.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So so I mean that year they saw the goats
Speaker 3: in that your class very.
Speaker 1: Defining of the industry today because everyone is really still
Speaker 1: around and competing still mostly.
Speaker 4: A lot of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I retired.
Speaker 4: I see him all the time.
Speaker 1: Are you a person who sets cool? Are you one
Speaker 1: who just only does what they enjoyed doing that day?
Speaker 1: Like how do you navigate that?
Speaker 4: I guess it's I never really like set a goal.
Speaker 5: I don't have like this is my five year plan,
Speaker 5: like I'm gonna be doing this, Like how I explained,
Speaker 5: like how I kind of like fell into like pro drifting.
Speaker 5: And that's like when I was saying, when I was
Speaker 5: out here for the first time in the summer of three,
Speaker 5: I was like I got to move to California, just
Speaker 5: like everything was just telling me, like I gotta get there,
Speaker 5: like I'm gonna miss the wave, and I'm glad that
Speaker 5: I did, because it was there was so much happening
Speaker 5: so quickly. Import drag racing was basically falling off, and
Speaker 5: you know, the Fast and Furious movies of course were
Speaker 5: like you know, coming out, and it was just bringing
Speaker 5: so much attention to the automotive scene. I remember, like
Speaker 5: when we were running our little shop out of my parents' barn,
Speaker 5: Like we went to the premiere of the first Fast
Speaker 5: and Furious movie and we had a whole bunch of
Speaker 5: flyers made for our little car shop, sticking them on
Speaker 5: the windshields of you know, any modified car, and we
Speaker 5: drew up some business, right, and that was helping us
Speaker 5: to like build our cars. We're working on other people's cars,
Speaker 5: and make a money so that we could go buy
Speaker 5: tires and go drifting. Yeah, Like there was never really
Speaker 5: like a goal or a plan. It was just being
Speaker 5: in the right place at the right time. And the
Speaker 5: only thing that I really did like step forth, which
Speaker 5: has shown you know, incredible response or feedback i should say,
Speaker 5: is the off road side. That was something that I
Speaker 5: was like, I want to get back into it. I
Speaker 5: had like dabbled in a little bit here and there,
Speaker 5: like I had a like a razor that would take
Speaker 5: you out to the desert and just enjoy just driving around.
Speaker 5: I was like, I really want to do this like
Speaker 5: on a different level, and so we pitched a Nissan
Speaker 5: when the Frontier came out, where like we really want
Speaker 5: to do an offer a program with Frontiers.
Speaker 1: The Frontiers my daily driver.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I love it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Same.
Speaker 5: So it's like this whole package that you can now purchase.
Speaker 5: It's a you know, race winning, you know, dealership to dirt,
Speaker 5: you know, package that we helped propel. And so it's
Speaker 5: still like a little surreal. It hasn't really settled in.
Speaker 5: That's crazy, I know.
Speaker 4: So it's like a dream, I know.
Speaker 5: And that's like the thing that like it doesn't really
Speaker 5: feel real still because it's uh, you know that that
Speaker 5: would be like I say, like a goal that I've
Speaker 5: always had. And the way that we made it happen
Speaker 5: was like like I said, it was like once again,
Speaker 5: like something was like telling me like this is the
Speaker 5: way to make it happen like I always saw or
Speaker 5: like I always wanted to be like, oh, like I
Speaker 5: got a you know, like an fr edition like Z
Speaker 5: or something like that, right, But there was just something
Speaker 5: that was always telling me like, no, it's like it's
Speaker 5: it's the trucks.
Speaker 4: It's in the.
Speaker 5: Dirt, you know, like like focus on the off road.
Speaker 5: And so we did that, and the Frontiers like such
Speaker 5: a high grossing vehicle that it just made sense to
Speaker 5: launch this Forestburg Edition package with the Frontier and then
Speaker 5: building the truck going to the race winning.
Speaker 4: It just told the story perfectly.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you would assume you would think that it
Speaker 3: would be in like a Z Forstburg Z edition that
Speaker 3: you could drift, but yeah, for every car person, it's
Speaker 3: like you have your own Saline or Shelby.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Frontier, it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 5: It's it's wild. Yeah, So it's yeah, it's it'll be
Speaker 5: launching in the fall. So, like I said, if you
Speaker 5: have a Frontier already, or you can get a brand
Speaker 5: new like on the truck, which is great because that's warrantyed.
Speaker 5: You know, so so many people are afraid to touch
Speaker 5: brand new cars because you lose your warranty. So that
Speaker 5: was like the biggest thing is it's all dealership installed,
Speaker 5: still covered and there how much that costs. It's nine
Speaker 5: ninety nine, nine nights, so it's like ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: It's so bad.
Speaker 1: And any dealership wow.
Speaker 4: Any on.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So you get there, Yeah, so you get yeah, full exhaust, yeah,
Speaker 5: the full suspension, the lift kit, beadlock wheels, Yokohama tires wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you can go Baja straight to Mexico.
Speaker 4: It yeah nice. So yeah, it's it's really yeah, thank you.
Speaker 5: So that was that I would say, is like like
Speaker 5: just subconscious bucket list item that I didn't even know
Speaker 5: I was like aiming for when we're like pitching this
Speaker 5: off road program.
Speaker 3: So did your parents think you're out of your mind
Speaker 3: that you were packing up and going to know? They
Speaker 3: were pornia, They're pretty supportive.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they didn't really know what to think, but it
Speaker 5: was like okay, like you know, if you're going to
Speaker 5: try it, you know, give it a hundred percent effort.
Speaker 5: Like because I went to like community college for like
Speaker 5: six months, wasn't really for me. I was like kind
Speaker 5: of skipping class to like go work on my car,
Speaker 5: and I'm just like I'm just not going to end
Speaker 5: up in an office, you know.
Speaker 3: I Mean, that's that says a lot I mean, that's
Speaker 3: a great lesson for people to hear. Is like, you know,
Speaker 3: we were actually talking to Jeff before you came about this.
Speaker 3: It's like it's a great quote, like, you know, passion
Speaker 3: is what is the recipe for people's success? Right when
Speaker 3: he because they were like, well, you know what, what
Speaker 3: what differentiates people that you meet that you know you
Speaker 3: know are going to be successful?
Speaker 2: And it's like simple. It's like they just are super
Speaker 2: passionate about what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Right, And I've i personally, whenever people say lucky, I
Speaker 1: can stand the term lucky because I feel like luck
Speaker 1: is when hard work meets opportunity. But that was the
Speaker 1: first time I heard passion actually talked about when it
Speaker 1: comes to success. Yeah, to to your point, So I
Speaker 1: think we both see the passion when you talk about
Speaker 1: what you're doing. And maybe you don't need that five
Speaker 1: year plan. You just live every day going after what
Speaker 1: you know you love doing, and with that will come
Speaker 1: success of some sort.
Speaker 3: Because it still sounds like where do you see yourself
Speaker 3: in ten years? It's like, well, what doesn't matter. You're
Speaker 3: just passionate about what you're doing, so things are going
Speaker 3: to come.
Speaker 5: Like you know, the off roading and right, yeah, like
Speaker 5: I I say, like, oh, I don't have like at
Speaker 5: I do have like another like idea that's like my
Speaker 5: next goal, like you could say about it. I mean, yeah, sure,
Speaker 5: it's not like my my next idea or like goal.
Speaker 5: I guess you could say, is too for us to
Speaker 5: have like our own compound with our own track on it? Right,
Speaker 5: obviously everyone's kind of dream you could say, like who
Speaker 5: wouldn't want to have like their own house with a
Speaker 5: big shop and a track on it.
Speaker 1: I if this sounds cheesy, but I have that on
Speaker 1: my vision board. There you go.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like, of course it's like playgrounds.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, a place that we can actually run
Speaker 5: our cars without you know how, and to go to
Speaker 5: a racetrack or load them up and everything else. It's
Speaker 5: like that's like kind of my long term like legacy plan,
Speaker 5: so to have a place for people to come to
Speaker 5: since I mean not that like Willow Springs is going anywhere,
Speaker 5: but you know, racetracks are usually falling to the wayside,
Speaker 5: So it's like giving people a place to go because
Speaker 5: that's like what we needed when when I was a kid,
Speaker 5: and that's why we went to English Town because we
Speaker 5: can't keep doing this on.
Speaker 4: The street, you know.
Speaker 3: And the track designed for like, you know, purpose, it's
Speaker 3: purpose built for like drifting, right, because I mean, did
Speaker 3: you ever imagine drifting would grow to this point?
Speaker 2: Because it's crazy, it's huge.
Speaker 4: Yeah it is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's world worldwide and yeah, and I would say
Speaker 5: a lot of that is once again Fast and Furious movies.
Speaker 5: You know, Tokyo Drift made drift you know, household term
Speaker 5: like people then understood it when I would tell people like, oh,
Speaker 5: like a drift cars, like what does that mean? You know,
Speaker 5: it was cool because you probably don't know this, but
Speaker 5: I was. I was a part of that movie, not
Speaker 5: in it by any means, but I did all the
Speaker 5: sound recording for your car. Yeah what so it was
Speaker 5: was on Tokyo Drift right, Yeah, yeah, Peter, it was
Speaker 5: Tony Angelo's old former drift Falcon FD.
Speaker 1: He was talking about that car when we did the podcast.
Speaker 1: He has it in his bank, right, Yeah, he did
Speaker 1: it below when he was recording it. Yeah, whoa, So
Speaker 1: you the driver?
Speaker 4: Ye whole the wait? No, I think it was No,
Speaker 4: I think Tony's I think the FD was fine. I
Speaker 4: thought it was the Mustang that broke.
Speaker 1: I was one of the cars.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 5: I think it was Vaughn's Mustang that broke because so
Speaker 5: like yeah, Falcon brought the rig out and they had
Speaker 5: the f D in there, uh and the Mustang and
Speaker 5: so yeah, I was like, you know, went out to
Speaker 5: this runway. You know, microphones all over the car and
Speaker 5: it's like, you know, you have like a like a
Speaker 5: line item list of like okay, like you know, I
Speaker 5: only car like rev the car rev to the red line.
Speaker 4: You know, like that all the way down.
Speaker 5: It's like drive up stop, drive up, rev stop, you know,
Speaker 5: and like just get them all the different tones. That's
Speaker 5: so yeah, like every time you hear that the FD
Speaker 5: like rolling around. Yeah, that's two.
Speaker 2: That's crazy. Man if Fest has just a world, it
Speaker 2: really is.
Speaker 1: The car community is like a family. Everyone seems to
Speaker 1: know everyone, and there's that always a full circle moment.
Speaker 4: I feel like, yeah, and that's what's cool about it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: It's like like almost every time like a situation rise,
Speaker 5: like it's like, oh, like I know a guy and
Speaker 5: like you know, make a phone call. Like you're saying,
Speaker 5: like it's such a small community. It's like you know,
Speaker 5: they'd say, it's like, what the six degrees of separation?
Speaker 5: Like in the car community, It's like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure is Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure there's people listening to this podcast because
Speaker 1: obviously they're fans of you, and maybe they want to
Speaker 1: learn how to get into drifting themselves. What is I know?
Speaker 1: So much has changed within the last twenty years for
Speaker 1: today those wanting to get into drifting. What would you
Speaker 1: recommend for someone?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, it's funny because you know, people have different
Speaker 5: viewpoints on whether it was easier to get into drifting
Speaker 5: in the early days or now, And I guess it's
Speaker 5: all in the definition of what what do you think
Speaker 5: is drifting? Are you trying to be like a pro
Speaker 5: one form of drift driver or you're just trying to
Speaker 5: like go drift your car. As far as like learning
Speaker 5: how to drift, it's one hundred times easier now than
Speaker 5: it was in the beginning because there's so many different
Speaker 5: events and tracks and opportunities to do so we had
Speaker 5: to make our own.
Speaker 4: There was no place for us to go then.
Speaker 5: Also, the accessibility of you know, the knowledge of how
Speaker 5: to create a drift car right or a modify car
Speaker 5: to drift is there, and like we're saying, the car
Speaker 5: community is so open and sharing you know, setups or
Speaker 5: tips or you know, whether it's driving tips or you know,
Speaker 5: like how to build the car, Like it's all just
Speaker 5: at your fingertips. So that portion of it is so
Speaker 5: much easier. And for anyone that wants to get in drifting,
Speaker 5: I always tell them it's like, yeah, obviously you get
Speaker 5: a real world drive car. And then the first three
Speaker 5: to tell everyone to do is diff seat, coil overs,
Speaker 5: usually in that order too. So make sure it's got
Speaker 5: to diff whether it's factory or you know, weld it
Speaker 5: up if you're on a budget, or you know, get
Speaker 5: a mechanical one.
Speaker 4: If you can.
Speaker 5: You have to have that because you have to have
Speaker 5: the real rols locked up, right, That's like a given.
Speaker 5: And then so step two. The seat I think is
Speaker 5: one of the most important things because as you're learning,
Speaker 5: you're really getting thrown around the car, right, and so
Speaker 5: if you just have like a regular old seat, Like yes,
Speaker 5: newer cars now have some nice bolstering, but you know,
Speaker 5: like your old BMW's two forty's you know MOZ does
Speaker 5: all that, Like they're pretty flat and half a couch. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And so as you're learning, you know, like you're gonna
Speaker 5: get tossed around, and so a seat actually connects you
Speaker 5: to the car and you can feel the car right
Speaker 5: and like you know a car will drift with the
Speaker 5: rear wheels locked up in factory form. You know you
Speaker 5: can do that, so you don't need to sit here,
Speaker 5: and like I gotta do an engine swap, I gotta
Speaker 5: get an intake, I gotta you know, all these different things.
Speaker 5: It's like the seat will connect you to the car
Speaker 5: and let you feel what the car is capable of.
Speaker 5: And it also is like a bit of a safety
Speaker 5: thing too, so that you are more in control of
Speaker 5: the car. And then coil overs because that's you know,
Speaker 5: your next best bang for the buck, because you know,
Speaker 5: lowers the car, stiffens it up and helps it to slide.
Speaker 5: From there, you can start working on you know, horsepower
Speaker 5: and other things like angle kits. But I usually try
Speaker 5: to tell people to not start with the angle kit
Speaker 5: because it's too forgiving, right, it allows the car to
Speaker 5: rotate too much, and it gives too much of a cushion.
Speaker 5: Like you should learn with less angle first and then
Speaker 5: add it because that will help you to be a
Speaker 5: better driver in the long term. But yeah, that's that's
Speaker 5: just to get a car that's basically ready to drift
Speaker 5: and then from there, you know, obviously go out to
Speaker 5: a track. And so many tracks now have like clinics
Speaker 5: drift days, like little lessons, they have teachers instructors, so like,
Speaker 5: if you want to get in drifting, stick to the basics.
Speaker 5: Don't overbuild your car. The problem is most people they
Speaker 5: just get stuck in the build. They never even make
Speaker 5: it to the track, right, So they have like this
Speaker 5: project and they're not actually driving the car, and there's
Speaker 5: always going to be someone around that's more advanced or
Speaker 5: knowledgeable than you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Right, So you have to have a little bit of
Speaker 5: a courage to just put yourself out there, yeah, and
Speaker 5: ask yeah, and and be humble and know that you're
Speaker 5: not the best guy there, and you know, don't be
Speaker 5: afraid to ask for help.
Speaker 3: I mean, if if you were able to talk to
Speaker 3: your high school self that was on a budget and
Speaker 3: have a choice of cars that are available today, what
Speaker 3: would you start with.
Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, like I I know it sounds like
Speaker 5: I'm just like preaching the Nissan, but like the z is,
Speaker 5: like you see at the track events. There's so many
Speaker 5: of z's out there now. The three fifty right now
Speaker 5: is like one of the best startup cars. It's got
Speaker 5: to be six. You don't got to do an engine
Speaker 5: swop for worry about horsepower. It's got a strong transmission,
Speaker 5: comes with a diff got decent seats, Like you can
Speaker 5: hop in a stock Z and just start whipping around
Speaker 5: track no problem.
Speaker 2: What was the story with the S thirty the to
Speaker 2: eighty build? Like why did you do that?
Speaker 4: Which is an awesome car? Like yeah, I love it.
Speaker 5: Yah, they're cool. Well I always thought they looked kind
Speaker 5: of cool, you know. I was working with Nissan like
Speaker 5: off and on. This was like twenty twelve or so,
Speaker 5: and then that Dotson like fell in my lap. It
Speaker 5: was basically like a friend of the guys at m
Speaker 5: A Motorsports were like, hey, this car that we tuned once,
Speaker 5: this guy wants to sell it sold Donson, Like would
Speaker 5: you want it?
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, So I.
Speaker 5: Got that Dotson had like no interior, but it had
Speaker 5: a running RB in it and like some old whatever
Speaker 5: wheels on it.
Speaker 4: Got it for four grand? What what? Yeah with the RB? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Oh I know you can even buy an RB for
Speaker 5: four grand or like even like a rolling Donson but yeah,
Speaker 5: you know I was twelve years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know so, but yeah free yeah, because it.
Speaker 5: Was like the guy's moving needs to get rid of it,
Speaker 5: like I'll take four grand for it. Was like I'm
Speaker 5: on my way, fell in love with it, started working
Speaker 5: on it like crazy, and beefed up the engine like
Speaker 5: read it the whole interior like yeah, you know you've
Speaker 5: seen it's kind of like, you know, a whole new
Speaker 5: kid on it.
Speaker 2: But carbon signal.
Speaker 3: These two guys, the two friends when's the doctor and
Speaker 3: on it's like a at guy and they're just enthusiasts
Speaker 3: of old dots Ins right, Like they're obsessed over vintage
Speaker 3: and modern like Nissans and Dotsons. So we were building
Speaker 3: the fuguzzi, the two forty Z, the seventy two that
Speaker 3: I have. They reached out to me because they were like, hey,
Speaker 3: we were doing like interior parts for like the two
Speaker 3: forty and they're like I'm like who are you guys?
Speaker 2: Like oh, we live in Dubai And I'm like what,
Speaker 2: like do what or like why like whatever?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: And they're like can we send it to you? And
Speaker 2: I'm like you guys, I'm sure you will.
Speaker 3: And then they actually sent everything and it was this
Speaker 3: bespoke custom interior that you know, the figur right, and
Speaker 3: then the year after they connected with Chris and then
Speaker 3: your body kit and the interior is all carbon signal. Anyway,
Speaker 3: they're the coolest dudes. They become like brothers to me.
Speaker 3: You know, they're just like truly passionate, crazy car dudes
Speaker 3: that I mean, this is all they do. They just
Speaker 3: keep making these cars and then they support people in
Speaker 3: the community, right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they make beautiful stuff.
Speaker 3: So what are you going to do with this new
Speaker 3: two eighty because I have three kids here? Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you should build one.
Speaker 4: I might all these kids. Yeah right, they're halfway there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm genuinely down. I've been wanting to do a
Speaker 1: dots and build even so a five to ten, like
Speaker 1: I've just been wanting to do that for so long.
Speaker 2: Now we can't put a rotary motor in that.
Speaker 4: No, nice, I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: With a rotary because I've never worked on a rotary
Speaker 1: before and I love to learn new things.
Speaker 4: And it was like crickets.
Speaker 3: She's like, oh, I want to do that, and Mike spec. No,
Speaker 3: there was a big old I don't like a two eighty.
Speaker 1: I would never. I would never. I'd want to put
Speaker 1: an RB in it or something in the Nissan family,
Speaker 1: something capable of lots of power.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you want to do a Z build,
Speaker 2: there's so much support. Yeah, you should do that.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll talk more about it. I'm actually looking at
Speaker 1: my next projects and be besides the thirty four, I
Speaker 1: wanted to do another Nissan building. Like how I got
Speaker 1: into cars and you bought my Z Nissan Z. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember I spec that car out
Speaker 1: the Yeah. Yeah, he bought the Z that I'd specked
Speaker 1: out because at the time I couldn't take delivery of it,
Speaker 1: and I've been regretting not buying that car. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you.
Speaker 4: Enjoyed respects so much loving it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because the Z that Nissan put on order for me,
Speaker 5: it arrived and it had red interior, and I didn't
Speaker 5: hate it, but I was like, you know, we're getting
Speaker 5: this new car and like, you know, like blue is
Speaker 5: kind of like our thing, it's like part of like
Speaker 5: our colorway. And I was like, yeah, like and you'll
Speaker 5: just pass on it. You know, I'll go back on
Speaker 5: the list for one with the blue interior, so the
Speaker 5: performance model and everything else. And so when it finally
Speaker 5: came back through, it was like like maybe six months later.
Speaker 5: It was apparently the one that she had specked out
Speaker 5: but then didn't take delivery, so all of a sudden
Speaker 5: it became available.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was so funny because we were at the
Speaker 1: newsman Ze launch. I was like looking at this Z
Speaker 1: and I was like, wait a minute, this like's all
Speaker 1: too familiar. And then we're talking we put it all
Speaker 1: together and then that's what happened, because.
Speaker 5: It was funny because yeah, just like got the call like,
Speaker 5: oh we found one, and I was like, I mean,
Speaker 5: you found one, but it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, h Starry to ask this question if it's sensitive.
Speaker 1: Are your parents still around? Yeah they saw supportive.
Speaker 4: Yeah no they are.
Speaker 5: So my mom's still in Pennsylvania, my dad is in Indiana.
Speaker 5: Now they're separated, but yeah they're they're around, and yeah, no,
Speaker 5: they're they're support They used to come to the races
Speaker 5: a lot in like the early years.
Speaker 4: But you know it's like it's expensive to fly to
Speaker 4: the racetrack all the time. My brother I gave him
Speaker 4: the ARC seven.
Speaker 5: So yeah's I after I got the dots and then
Speaker 5: built that up and the Arc seven became like a
Speaker 5: back burner project. And my brother's like, I really want
Speaker 5: to get a car, and like I don't know what
Speaker 5: to get and this and the other. And I was like,
Speaker 5: you can have the RC seven in like this pile
Speaker 5: of parts I have for it, but you know, you
Speaker 5: can't ever sell it, you know type thing.
Speaker 4: And so he's like, yeah, deal, so good deal. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so great.
Speaker 5: Gave him the car, give him all the parts, and
Speaker 5: then you know, helped him get a few more things
Speaker 5: for it, like when we it was closer to getting
Speaker 5: ready to run and yeah, so he drives that car.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 5: It's just talking to him on the way up here,
Speaker 5: telling him when I was going to do this afternoon,
Speaker 5: you know, and he's like, oh that's awesome, you know.
Speaker 3: And so you're really close to your brother, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's great. So younger brother two years older, younger sister,
Speaker 3: right yeah, younger sister, and.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we we talked like it's funny. We uh,
Speaker 4: I call it going to church.
Speaker 5: We talk every Sunday and just like yeah, so it's well,
Speaker 5: it's like we kind of like it's one of those
Speaker 5: things where you lose track of time, right if you
Speaker 5: don't like keep in touch with people. Yeah, And so
Speaker 5: there's a while there where we just wouldn't talk for
Speaker 5: like weeks or months. You know, you don't even realize
Speaker 5: how much time goes by. And then it was it
Speaker 5: was during COVID, like you know, you start kind of
Speaker 5: calling people little more often, like in that time when
Speaker 5: you're just like, you know, stuck in the house. And
Speaker 5: so it was like at that time, so I was like, yeah,
Speaker 5: twenty twenty, I was like, yeah, we're gonna talk every Sunday.
Speaker 1: Are you religious? Do you go to church or you
Speaker 1: just call church?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So it's like it's like all right, like time
Speaker 5: to go to church. Like you know, you would just
Speaker 5: like laugh about She's like you go to church yet,
Speaker 5: Like no, I gotta call him.
Speaker 3: That's really good. My sister's five years younger than me.
Speaker 3: And there was years ago we got in the argument
Speaker 3: over something super stupid.
Speaker 1: It always is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was so dumb, right, Like it was something
Speaker 3: like I think it was like about an Instagram post,
Speaker 3: but I can't remember.
Speaker 4: For me, it was something so dumb.
Speaker 2: And then I didn't speak to her for two years,
Speaker 2: Oh I believe it?
Speaker 3: Yeah right, and I will cup One morning and I
Speaker 3: was going, am I going to be that guy that
Speaker 3: dies without like communicating with, you know, your only sister?
Speaker 3: So I called her and I was like, look, I
Speaker 3: don't know what we argued about, and I actually don't care,
Speaker 3: but I'll apologize whatever it is, I'm sorry, And then.
Speaker 2: She just starts to cry, right, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's not do that. Let's not let's not like argue.
Speaker 3: And then one day we get old and we die,
Speaker 3: and then our story is that, you know, like we
Speaker 3: didn't speak to each other over.
Speaker 5: Something stupid, right at least something. Yeah, And it's like
Speaker 5: somebody needs to do it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: No, And that's that's you know, big on you for
Speaker 5: taking that initiative, because it's so easy to just like, oh, well,
Speaker 5: well they're not calling, you know, and like that's usually
Speaker 5: what happens, and that's like how just people go their
Speaker 5: separate ways, right, But it's you know, one thing I've
Speaker 5: learned in like recent years, like you can't change people.
Speaker 5: They're going to act the way they're gonna act. Either
Speaker 5: accept them for who they are or move on. Did
Speaker 5: something have to switch in your head? Because that's something
Speaker 5: that a milion like we talked about this like this year.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm making a conscious effort to just that'd
Speaker 5: be so hard on people, right because I'm like they
Speaker 5: fucked me over or like, you know, they did something
Speaker 5: that I don't agree with, Like I'm cutting them off right,
Speaker 5: and I'm like and this year, like I don't want
Speaker 5: to do that. I don't want to be that guy anymore.
Speaker 2: It's too much.
Speaker 4: It's like carrying a bag of rocks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I know, it's just yeah, it is like, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's just a bunch of baggage that you don't really
Speaker 5: want to deal with. And well, I guess for me
Speaker 5: it was I was previously married for like eleven years
Speaker 5: and my new partner lives my fiance now. I mean
Speaker 5: she's fantastic and really like understands like how to communicate
Speaker 5: with people and how to like understand either what people
Speaker 5: are saying or like what they're trying to get across
Speaker 5: here like reading like you know, body language, things like that,
Speaker 5: and so really like is helping me to like you know,
Speaker 5: learn like those fundamentals of like like this is like
Speaker 5: this house person is going to be and either you know,
Speaker 5: you have to accept those behaviors and you know, and
Speaker 5: if you want a relationship with them, like you'll have to,
Speaker 5: like you said, like work at it. And you can't
Speaker 5: hold that against her if you're the one that wants
Speaker 5: to have the relationship. Things like that that like, you know,
Speaker 5: she makes me think a lot about some of that,
Speaker 5: which is good. I appreciate that because I would be
Speaker 5: the stubborn type to just like whatever, just you know,
Speaker 5: walk away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need that sound partner in crime to slap
Speaker 2: you around a little bit.
Speaker 1: We'll say, to keep you grounded.
Speaker 2: Are you hyper competitive Chris?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, because that's that's what got you where
Speaker 3: you are today, that being the winningest.
Speaker 4: A T shirt?
Speaker 3: Right, But I mean, I'm sure there's pros and cons
Speaker 3: to it, Like over years, have you found a balance
Speaker 3: where it doesn't seep into like life in the negative way?
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess so i'd like to think.
Speaker 5: So I'm trying to not be so hyper competitive because
Speaker 5: it does you know, consumer time, Like you know, the
Speaker 5: more the more time and effort you put into something,
Speaker 5: the more successful you're going to be at it. Right
Speaker 5: of course, and so but yeah, you have to have
Speaker 5: a balance, right. I've been doing this for over twenty
Speaker 5: years now, and so I guess. But what gets it
Speaker 5: to me is like once we kind of like get
Speaker 5: like going in in an event or at the track, like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I get like way too competitive, trying to be like
Speaker 5: you know, like the fastest or whatever, and like like
Speaker 5: what can I do.
Speaker 4: To make the car better?
Speaker 5: Like we just got invited to that the fat International
Speaker 5: Ice Race. They usually have it over in Switzerland, pretty
Speaker 5: awesome event, and then they had it in Aspen this
Speaker 5: year for the first time, and it was also open
Speaker 5: to multiple manufacturers for the first time. And so I
Speaker 5: was driving the Safari package, the new nie on Zi
Speaker 5: that they had. So they brought that car out and
Speaker 5: you know, it's like, yeah, this'll be a fun weekend.
Speaker 5: You know, like go out and like you know, rip
Speaker 5: the car around, you know, like get some mangle, get
Speaker 5: some cool photos and content will be great. And it's
Speaker 5: like as soon as the times dropped, I was like,
Speaker 5: oh wait, we're like we're like sitting like you know,
Speaker 5: hop five right now, it's all that sounds like start
Speaker 5: messing with the car, trying to like figure out how
Speaker 5: I can get a couple more tents out of it,
Speaker 5: you know, like once again, Like you know, mindset going
Speaker 5: in is like we're just here to have a good time.
Speaker 4: You know, we got invited, this is great, and so
Speaker 4: we were where fourth just missed it, but you was
Speaker 4: away with like anger anger.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say anger, but yeah, it was definitely just
Speaker 5: you know, bad mood at least for like three minutes.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they're going to say three months.
Speaker 5: Months Normally, like if it's like a FD event or
Speaker 5: something like that, like like it'll linger for days, you know,
Speaker 5: maybe even weeks, but it's uh but yeah, like I
Speaker 5: was like, I was like let it go, you know.
Speaker 5: But like that's like that instant like mindset of like
Speaker 5: like just missed it, you know. Yeah, that's that hyper competitiveness.
Speaker 4: I guess you could.
Speaker 3: I had to like shut it down because it's okay
Speaker 3: to be competitive to a degree. But what I'm struggling
Speaker 3: with and like I'm working on, is that it causes
Speaker 3: me to be jealousy and I don't like that. I
Speaker 3: don't like that version of myself where you know, like
Speaker 3: what Jeff, you know, was sharing with us today to
Speaker 3: to be in awe of other people's accomplishments. Right, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna really work on.
Speaker 1: That versus like why aren't I doing that? I'm not
Speaker 1: doing enough?
Speaker 2: Yes, I do it to myself all the time, and
Speaker 2: that's that's something that like eats me up. It consumes me.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, you know, being competitive, it's like it
Speaker 3: makes you like wake up and be disciplined and go, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna push myself to this. But then it gets
Speaker 3: to a point where, like when you're sitting alone and
Speaker 3: the voices start talking to you, you just like I
Speaker 3: get consumed, Like I get hot.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, yeah, wait, why not me?
Speaker 2: And like who is this person? It's like it's not
Speaker 2: fair and all this nonsense, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've definitely had those feelings.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: It's you can't be successful and have that kind of mindset.
Speaker 5: Like However, the saying goes like, you know, all ships rises,
Speaker 5: the sea rises, right, so it's like, yeah, you have
Speaker 5: to like build other people up.
Speaker 4: You can't be trying to knock them down. You knock
Speaker 4: yourself down.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it's not a zero some game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: You know, like certain people have certain goals, like you know,
Speaker 5: like you're successful in a certain way, and you're successful
Speaker 5: in a certain way, and everybody has a different goal
Speaker 5: of what or a vision of what success is, right,
Speaker 5: and so you can't be jealous of one person's success
Speaker 5: because like you have your own path. And so I'm
Speaker 5: like preaching to myself right now because it's like the
Speaker 5: same thing, like I've felt that way before, like seeing
Speaker 5: other people like.
Speaker 4: Accomplish something like why don't I get that? Like why
Speaker 4: did I do that?
Speaker 5: Because I'm not putting effortwards that. Yeah, you know, so
Speaker 5: you just gotta be proud of people for you know,
Speaker 5: achieving their goals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, said Chris.
Speaker 3: It's nice to get in the mind of a champion,
Speaker 3: like have access to like you know, how you think,
Speaker 3: what your ethos is, and most of it is it's
Speaker 3: almost common sense, but it is.
Speaker 2: It's mentality.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like you know, treat other people the way you
Speaker 5: want to be treated. Yeah, it's as simple as that.
Speaker 1: It goes around around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, You're just it's a great example of like a
Speaker 3: template to follow is that, you know, there's so many
Speaker 3: people that give like excuses of like you know, well,
Speaker 3: hey dude, what's your dream. It's like, oh, I want
Speaker 3: to be a drifter, but I can't like when not
Speaker 3: well because no one, like no one taught me, like
Speaker 3: you know, my dad doesn't even drive, or like I
Speaker 3: don't have that kind of money. It was like why
Speaker 3: am I going to do it? Like I don't live
Speaker 3: in la, I don't live by racetrack. It's like, let's
Speaker 3: go and study Chris Forsberg. Right, it's like self taught,
Speaker 3: like you know, and it starts with this like love affair,
Speaker 3: this passion to like you know, like work on cars.
Speaker 3: And it's been really nice to sit down with you
Speaker 3: and really get to know you. I've been looking forward
Speaker 3: to this opportunity for years because thanks, I would see
Speaker 3: you like I see you at like Seema, I see
Speaker 3: you at some events and then and it's this bigger
Speaker 3: than life kind of character because it's like champion, No,
Speaker 3: I mean to you, you see yourself, right, and but
Speaker 3: then to others it's like, you know, you see the accolades,
Speaker 3: you see the winning this the title, right, So it's
Speaker 3: really nice to get to know the person behind you know,
Speaker 3: the man, right.
Speaker 5: So yeah, no thanks and yeah It's one of those
Speaker 5: things like how we talked about earlier, like you're just
Speaker 5: kind of going like one step at a time, and
Speaker 5: you know, you don't even realize, like you know, things
Speaker 5: that you accomplish like over twenty years until you start
Speaker 5: like stop and look back because it's like, oh, this
Speaker 5: is the next event, This is the next event, next.
Speaker 4: Thing to do.
Speaker 1: Easy idiot caught up in it. You know.
Speaker 3: Somebody asked me the question this year because they were
Speaker 3: like talking about this movie I did twenty years ago,
Speaker 3: and they're like, what has changed then? You know, it's
Speaker 3: like do you think, like you know, you've accomplished success
Speaker 3: and like what is your definition of success?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: And I don't know where I got this answer, because
Speaker 3: I was like, this is a brilliant answer. I just
Speaker 3: came with the fact that even I still am passionate
Speaker 3: about something that wakes me up, and that that motivates
Speaker 3: me to be a better person, to be the better
Speaker 3: version of myself, to constantly learn and grow. Like I
Speaker 3: was like, that is my definition of the fact that
Speaker 3: I actually still care about something that's really good.
Speaker 2: It's a luxury to have passion. Yeah, it's a blessing.
Speaker 1: Thank you, So much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me though, this is awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: When I saw the podcast get launched, I was like,
Speaker 5: I don't really want to get on that, and then yeah.
Speaker 4: You guys reached out and so very cool.
Speaker 1: Thank you, so yeah, thank you