Scott Taylor, 2022 ORMHOF inductee on Episode 185, winning champion short course racer

A champion of vocational education, Scott Taylor is a winning short course racer, race shop owner, and manufacturer of performance competition parts. Congratulations to Scott Taylor, a 2022 inductee into ORMHOF; Scott is why we say; legends live at ORMHOF.org.  Be sure to tune in on your favorite podcast app.

5:41 – I would take things apart I shouldn’t take apart

10:38 – I advocate deeply with high schools on how important it is to keep the five things of vocational training…                                

19:29 – I had a really good car and I drove the wheels off of it 

27:29 – He was a lot faster than me, but I had my eyes set on somebody I had to beat

36:26 – we weren’t cheating, but we were building our own stuff and ahead of our times

45:25 – it’s like an old girlfriend calling you up after 10 years and wanting to start dating again

Special thanks to ORMHOF.org for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:01.100] 

Welcome To Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the offroad industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future Legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land-use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call Offroad. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active in Offroad. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call Offroad.

[00:00:46.120] 

This episode of Conversations with Big Rich is brought to you by the Offroad Motorports Hall of Fame. The mission of the Hall of Fame is to educate and inspire present and future generations of the Offroad community by celebrating the achievements of those who came before. We invite you to help fulfill the mission of the Offroad Motorports Hall of Fame. Join, partner, or donate today. Legendslive@ormhof.org.

[00:01:14.190] - Big Rich Klein

On this week's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I'll be discussing life and racing with Scott Taylor. Scott is a 2022 ORMHOF inductee, a champion short course racer, manufacturer of performance competition parts, and race shop owner. Scott, it's so good to have you on the air. Let's find out more about you.

[00:01:38.770] - Scott Taylor

Okay, I'm glad to be here today, Rich.

[00:01:41.200] - Big Rich Klein

Let's find out where were you born and raised.

[00:01:45.660] - Scott Taylor

Well, I was born and raised in this little town out in northwest Illinois, and it's Belvedere, Illinois. Very close, we're 12 minutes away from Rockford and about 70 miles west of Chicago. I'm born and raised here. It's a very quiet community and very blessed to be in such a wonderful setting because I can go off and do what I did. And then when I come back, I'm back in my little protected bubble, we'll call it, but keeping a low profile. But I grew up here and built a home a one block from where I grew up. And Kelly and I and my daughter still live right here in Belvedere, Illinois.

[00:02:29.510] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. And I would imagine that the people that you grew up with in your youth, are there still a lot of them hanging around?

[00:02:38.430] - Scott Taylor

Oh, yeah, I'm into so many different things, and we'll get into that possibly, but snowmobile buddies and flying buddies and shooting buddies, and we've lost a few of them along the way. But in fact, this weekend coming up, I'm going with a friend of mine that I've snowmobiled with for 20 years. My wife and I are going up to the U. P. To go riding side by side in the fall weather and the fall trees and just get away for a few days.

[00:03:06.280] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Those early years there in Illinois, you, it sounds like you did hunting and fishing and all that stuff. How were you as a student? Were you more interested in getting out or were you a good student?

[00:03:23.410] - Scott Taylor

I was a poor student. I couldn't wait to get out of school to get home and help my dad mow the yard or helping paint or helping do whatever. My father worked from 7:00 in the morning until 5:30, the traditional hours, and I couldn't wait for him to get home, and foot was tapping all the time in school. I got through it. I graduated from high school, but I was more interested in being home, fiddling with a go-cart or a lawnmower or who knows what. Then as I got older, in 12, 13, I was into fishing and hunting, and I just wasn't really all that keen on school. I couldn't sit still.

[00:04:10.410] - Big Rich Klein

Understood. That's a common thread with all of us that are in this industry, as a matter of fact. So then the activities that you guys did, you mentioned snowmobiling and flying and what was the earliest things that you remember doing as a family?

[00:04:34.100] - Scott Taylor

My folks and I and my two brother and sister, I can recall we used to do a lot of boating on Sunday. They had to pack up the boat with whatever we needed to take to the lake and we'd go and spend a Sunday and the long drives home, which was only an hour, but then it seemed like it was all night. We used to go as a family, did a lot of boating. We went on camping trip and my dad didn't like it, so we didn't go back to doing that. But I was even into flying model airplanes, and my dad and I used to do some of that. I can't really think of too many other things. I wasn't into sports. I was into anything with a gas motor on it. Anything that you could put gas in and run it, I was all in.

[00:05:28.860] - Big Rich Klein

You had that same drive that most of us had, taking things apart as a kid and then trying to figure out how they go back together even if they weren't broken?

[00:05:41.140] - Scott Taylor

Oh, yeah. I would take things apart. I shouldn't take a part and figure out how it was built and try to make it faster, make it better. But my dad was a mechanic at the Ford garage in Belvedere, and my mother was a circuit clerk of Boone County. Mom and dad were both hard workers. My father left Manley's, I forget the years now, but he was there for 57 years. I got to go down to Manley's, where he worked on Saturdays when he went down to either work to service his own cars or get caught up on something or whatever we did. I used to go down with him, and I always looked forward to doing that.

[00:06:23.510] - Big Rich Klein

Wow, that's a long career, 57 years working for a company.

[00:06:28.380] - Scott Taylor

Yeah, he did it a long time. What's really cool right now is my daughter, Carly, is just 21, and she's dating a guy by the name of Max Taylor, which her mom's maiden name is Manley, and it was Manley Motors, and her dad and his family own the dealership. It's cool that my daughter is dating and been dating this guy for about a young man for about three years, and he's a good kid, and he's a manly. I don't know, it's just the way that the dice roll, but it's very coincidental, but I'm enjoying it.

[00:07:09.410] - Big Rich Klein

How big is the town that you live in?

[00:07:12.870] - Scott Taylor

I was thinking about this the other day. I think we're 19,000 people, something like that, 21,000 people in Belvedere.

[00:07:22.060] - Big Rich Klein

So easy to know a lot of the people.

[00:07:25.190] - Scott Taylor

Yeah. Although the older I get, the more and more they're not… Either they're going away or I don't see as many of them as I used to. We're all getting a little older, so we don't recognize each other right at first. But I still run into a lot of people. A lot of people know me yet. I still have friends and folks that stopped by and used to watch you on TV and all the good stuff about the racing days and how you've been and this and that. It turns into a social hour here out at the shop.

[00:08:03.310] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. That's always good to have that happen where people know they can stop by, and especially if you have the time and have a discussion.

[00:08:12.680] - Scott Taylor

I take the time because you got to do that. That's all part of what I am and how I enjoy my day and how I can make somebody else's day just a little better.

[00:08:22.450] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. And so high school was the highest part of education. Did you do any college?

[00:08:29.580] - Scott Taylor

No, I did some… I'm a self-taught guy, and if I needed to learn about something, I figured it out by either books or meetings or tours. Then later on, of course, we had internet, so I started to do things with internet and things of that line. But I was always a self-taught guy. I didn't do any vocational colleges or anything. I don't want to brag, but I'm smarter than most of these young engineers coming out of college that just don't have any practical. They'll get it. They'll get it. But when they come out, they just don't have the I've been there. I've seen that. I've been in that movie deal. There's a lot to be said over self teaching yourself as opposed to learning from a book.

[00:09:19.900] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly. Especially for somebody that has the true desire to want to better themselves and not just get by.

[00:09:27.990] - Scott Taylor

Oh, yeah. When I did Q&A's for Ford Motor Company and BF Goodrich and the vocational colleges that I used to go to, my message was always, You can do anything you want to do. If you want to do it bad enough, you'll find a way. My mom and dad didn't have a lot of money. We never went without. But I had to do everything with my own two hands. I started changing tires at 14. Then I went to work for a Schwann bicycle shop and a lawnmower shop, and I changed all kinds of wheels and tires and learned from that and then went on to be a machinist at Sunstrand Aviation, and then got a lot of my machining knowledge through that as well as four years of high school, I hung around the machine shops and the auto mechanic shops, and not basket weaving and sawing.

[00:10:25.180] - Big Rich Klein

That's another common theme with a lot of us in this industry is that we did the shop classes and we were always looking out the window trying to get outdoors. Yeah.

[00:10:38.200] - Scott Taylor

I tried to advocate deeply to the high schools and so forth when I'd speak at high schools and tell them how important it is to keep the five things of vocational, the training, the woodworking, electronics, drafting, machine tool, and auto account. There's five. I don't remember the other one now. Anyway, I advocated for that and they all went away. I learned from all of them. What I do today was woodworking as I just finished that 1941 Waco aircraft. Machining, I've used it my whole life. Auto mechanics, I've used it my whole life. Electrical and wiring, I've used it my whole life. We learned those basics in school and it gives us a path to get started on. We need to get to that, and I advocate about that every single time I get a chance.

[00:11:34.820] - Big Rich Klein

I agree. It was really depressing to me when they started pulling all the industrial arts classes out of the high schools. It wasn't needed because we're going into the computer age. Well, somebody still has to build that stuff. Somebody still has to work on the infrastructure and build the houses and do all the things that thatthat we need.

[00:12:02.080] - Scott Taylor

Absolutely. To build a house, you got to know drawings, you got to know electrical and woodworking. To build a race car, you need to know electrical. You need to know auto. You need to know machining. It's all right there. It's the skills that somebody thought about and put through the high schools. And I truly believe that in my heart that that's what made me the person I am because I learned those five traits and I use them every single day of my life, and I advocate for that. I hit home a lot when I do talk to folks, but unfortunately you've got the schools and powers to be that doesn't think that that's necessary.

[00:12:46.110] - Big Rich Klein

Right. That's why I think Mike Rowe for President, the dirty jobs guy, that's all he does is advocate learning to work with your hands.

[00:13:01.380] - Scott Taylor

Yep, learn your trade, and again, passion. Passion will take you a long ways, and I have a lot, a lot of passion for racing, and I still do, although I don't do it anymore. I still have fun with the side-by-sides and the snowmobiles and being crazy about all that stuff at 68 years old. But the bump start I got going into junior high and high school, I still have a teacher that comes here. He's a locksmith, and he was my auto mechanics teacher. He's 83 years old and we're still friends. When someone else is here and he stops in, he'll say, Yeah, that's God. He was always up to something, but he was always full of hell. But he seen something in me and we get a chance to talk down then. He's proud that one of the students made it as far as he did.

[00:14:01.220] - Big Rich Klein

That's great. I'm glad to hear that. So then those early years, you're working on everything that you can get your hands on. What was the first car or truck that you got to drive?

[00:14:19.420] - Scott Taylor

In 1969 through '72, '34, I don't remember the years, I had a VW shop. I just started fiddling the folks. I'll be darned if I didn't have a little shop at my home. I bought a home and property in 1972, so I opened up my own little shop, and believe it or not, it was four city lots, and it had a garage on it and a house, and the rest of it was all garden and trees. I had a shop there for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. I fiddled with Volkswagen my whole life. In 1973 in my VW shop, I always bought these parts from a guy of the name of Phil Rouches, and his name of his business was Phil's Auto Tops in Evanston, Illinois. I bought all my bearings and gaskets and pistons and cylinders and lineboard equipment and all that stuff through Phil. Phil called me one day, said, Hey, we're having an off-road race up in Edgerton, Wisconsin. It was 1972, and it was Memorial Day weekend. He's, Why don't you come up and watch and see what we do? I showed up and I go, Wow, this is so much fun.

[00:15:41.370] - Scott Taylor

It's really cool. He sold chassis, he sold all the race cars, and he knew what he was doing. I figured out a way to build a Chenness two-seat car, and I actually raced it, I believe, that fall over in and did horrible. I had a flat tire. I just had a horrible day. I go, What did I get myself into? But I picked myself up, went home, fixed everything. Then in the spring, raced up in Wisconsin again and did a much better. Then my third race, I finished in the top three, and I go, Wow, I'm starting to get there. By the end of that season, I was winning races and doing real well. 1973, around the 15th of September is when I started racing, and it was in a rail fan car that had a 40 horse in it and one shock for wheel. You didn't have a driving suit back then. You had a helmet and short sleeve shirts and away you went. I raced at Lake Geneva and all around. We got to be good friends with the Proxes and the Warrens and the Leonards. Oh, my God! We just had so much fun back in them days.

[00:17:02.280] - Scott Taylor

That's where it got, and it was Phil Rouchie that- Got you started. -was the first guy to get me going. Then his son, Mike, I'm still in contact with him quite a bit. He does a lot of promoting of the race series and helps other guys out. You're a wonderful man.

[00:17:18.750] - Big Rich Klein

It's great to see the generations continue in the industry.

[00:17:26.870] - Scott Taylor

Yes, it's important that that happens, and there's some folks out there that do a good job at it. Thank God.

[00:17:33.740] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, exactly. You got to keep this racing going.

[00:17:37.860] - Scott Taylor

Absolutely.

[00:17:38.980] - Big Rich Klein

So that first Volkswagen buggy, like a class nine car, I would think of the score rules, but what the sportsman, 40 horse class or something. And how long did you race that?

[00:17:56.640] - Scott Taylor

Well, back in then days it was called Class A, B, C and D, and A were the 1200 CC motors and rules. I raced that car for two or three years, and finally it was breaking up and having a lot of trouble. I ended up with another Funco chassis in a two-seat. I forget what year that was. That was the mid-70s and early '80s. I had finally went to my first single-seat car, which was also a Funco. When I went to that car in class nine, they called it class nine at the time, I was really doing well with it. I took that car to Riverside, California, and the very first race was in '78 and finished fifth against all the Hot Rods out in California. Then I won a lot of races back here. In the early '80s, I built what was called a Tandem. That was my own design, a side-off of, I believe, Funco made a tandem. I went to Riverside and won with it twice. It was in class two, which was a modified two seat.

[00:19:17.980] - Big Rich Klein

I was starting to- What's a tandem?

[00:19:25.330] - Scott Taylor

The passenger sat behind you instead of alongside.

[00:19:28.480] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, all right.

[00:19:29.770] - Scott Taylor

Yep. If you go back through the history of the Riverside days, you'll see where I won it twice. Brian Skipper's brother rode with me both times. I just had a really good car and I drove the wheels off of it. It was a lot of fun to do that. Goodrich was helping me at that time. Goodrich was our first sponsor to come on board and was providing us with support and tires. Then shortly after that, I got into mini trucks, and then that's where my career took off. Once I got something that the Ford Motor Company was interested in, and advertising and so forth, and with Goodrich, I started getting some backing, financial backing, and then I really started climbing up the ladder.

[00:20:19.860] - Big Rich Klein

Did you have an opportunity to race and score the desert racing in Baha, in the buggy or truck classes?

[00:20:29.360] - Scott Taylor

I never went to do any desert racing in a truck. I did desert race a couple of times in my tandem car, but it wasn't set up for it. It didn't have big enough fuel tanks and the desert thing was so much different than when I was used to. I kept breaking the truck or the car. I tried it and it was too far to travel for me, and it was too moneywise. I didn't have that money to do that. It was just too much for me to do. I just stayed here in the Midwest, traveled to Canada, raised in Canada a lot, and in Florida, and that was about as far as I could really travel away and do this.

[00:21:09.280] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Being from the Midwest, that makes sense. That's a longer haul, especially back in those days where fuel prices were low, but so was income compared to the city. That's right.

[00:21:21.480] - Scott Taylor

Yes, definitely.

[00:21:23.320] - Big Rich Klein

Everybody goes, Oh, you remember when it was 25 cents a gallon? Yeah, and I remember when it was a buck 50 for an hour of wage too.

[00:21:34.010] - Scott Taylor

Yeah, it was all in some a format of scale. Yes. Yes.

[00:21:40.550] - Big Rich Klein

So then you got a chance to race in Canada and that was all short course as well?

[00:21:45.970] - Scott Taylor

Yes, just like we do here in the Midwest and then same as in Florida. A guy named Jimmy Crowder, who was just a good friend of mine just passed here a year ago. He had a crowder excavating down in Florida and we raced at his big pit that he had. They called it the Florida 400, and it was either 400 miles or eight hours, whatever came first. That was quite a race. I know I finished in the top three once, and I think I won it one year. I don't remember much about it. It was a long time ago.

[00:22:20.860] - Big Rich Klein

And that was in one of the buggies?

[00:22:23.260] - Scott Taylor

Yes, it was.

[00:22:24.460] - Big Rich Klein

Eight hours in a class nine buggy.

[00:22:28.860] - Scott Taylor

Yeah. And we used to have what was called the Indian Summer Sprints about this time of year back here. We raced at Lake Geneva, and we started racing in the afternoon. And then as the day went on, we had to put lights on. It was an eight hour race. Whoever had the most laps and whoever was in front won the race. I used to win that overall in a class nine buggy because I never had to pit for fuel. I only had to stop about every 15, 20 laps for fuel. It was a five-mile something like that. I'd win by laps and it was just so much fun. Cars would break and they didn't get back out or spend too much time in the pits. I remember getting out of those cars. No power steering. My fingers were just wrapped around the steering wheel. I couldn't get them straight even back when I was in my 20s. It was hard on you.

[00:23:24.970] - Big Rich Klein

They called it a sprint, and it was an eight-hour race?

[00:23:28.650] - Scott Taylor

Yeah. The Indian Summer Sprint is what they called it.

[00:23:31.510] - Big Rich Klein

Sprint is an eight hour race. I wasn't expecting that.

[00:23:37.180] - Scott Taylor

No, and today you look at it and go, What is a sprint about that? But oh, my Lord, it was a lot of fun. It was what curved me from where I was and where I'm at today, that's for sure.

[00:23:51.910] - Big Rich Klein

And what was the racing back then? I know that off-road racing can get a little contentious, especially on a closed course, short course where you may be rubbing tires or body work. I always equate off-road racing to circle track. Circle track, there's always fights in the pits or in the infield or something after people have come into contact. Was there much of that back there in the Midwest racing? Or was everybody just like, Oh, well, it happened.

[00:24:34.750] - Scott Taylor

Yeah. No, I mean, it really wasn't that bad. I mean, sure, we all had arguments about you hitting me here and you didn't need to do it, or, You ran into me there and why did you do that, things like that. But the track I'm referring to was Lake Geneva. We used to run an old railroad bed and was adjoined to a big sandy, not sandy, but gravel pit. We used to go up and down this big gravel hill that seemed like it was forever, and it was probably only 200 or 300 feet or 500 feet, but it was just full of washboards. You didn't have grater smoothing the track out. You didn't have grooming jumps. If it rained, you were full on. You had to prep for the rain and the day. It wasn't just wheel to wheel going round and round and round. It was straight. It was an old drag strip and stock car track that we used the whole facility, and there was a railroad bed that was adjoined. You come down that railroad bed, back into the property, and there was loops they made. It was like, I think, a four or five mile loop.

[00:25:47.260] - Scott Taylor

You'd disappear. It's a horrible race to watch from the grand stands, because you just through the stock car pit and out on the stock car track and down the stock car track and on the drag strip and down to the end and then switch back and you duck away. Then two minutes later you come back out, or a minute later. It was a totally different layout back then.

[00:26:08.040] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Okay, makes sense. And then you got into the truck racing, Class 7?

[00:26:15.910] - Scott Taylor

Yep. I got into all truck course, 7S, and restricted 2,500 cc pin on motors. Of course, I had a Ford Ranger and ran that for two or three years and four years and did real well with it and got some help out of Goodrich and help out of Ford, and then the sponsorship. Well, then after that, I brought it to Riverside, finished second or third behind Scott Douglas and I think Chuck Johnson. After that is when I met Russ Warnamont, and it was the late '80s in Crandon, and they made the journey back here with Robbie in the Venable truck. I got to meet Russ and got teamed up with him and helped him out on the Coast a few times, and then I built a Class V two-wheel drive truck.

[00:27:24.190] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, cool. You did some work with Walker Evans as well?

[00:27:29.900] - Scott Taylor

Yeah, I knew Walker. I got to know Walker, and we did some things together. Back once we got going, we built a two-wheel drive truck and started campaigning it—and Walker came back here from California, and it was a new truck for me, and Walker showed up. We got talking about different things, how you meet somebody. I liked this guy and I thought he was a pretty cool dude, and he still is. We hit it off. We really did. When I came to California, he let me work in a shop on a… I had troubles with a tow truck when my trucks that I hauled a rig out there with. Randy and Walker says, Come on over, you can work in our shop and get your deal taken care of and get it fixed so you can drive and get home. We did that and I met him early on. Then I might have talked him into coming back to Calgary or back here to Lake Geneva to race. Of course, he was a lot faster than me, but I had my eyes set on somebody I had to beat. I then got more support from Ford.

[00:28:51.310] - Scott Taylor

They helped us with some big block engines and transmission parts. By God, if I didn't finally beat Walker. Then I got into the Ford Roughriders. That was Frank Diangelo and the Ford Roughrider folks with Goodrich and Ford. I was able to set the bar pretty high, so I was able to get put in that group of guys. That was a real boost for me in my career. That was cool.

[00:29:24.350] - Big Rich Klein

That was '86, '87.

[00:29:28.350] - Scott Taylor

Somewhere on there? Yeah, '86, '87. Yep, right in there somewhere, '86, '87. By then I was working with Russ. Russ was helping me a lot. I knew a lot of people in the business. I was hand making everything of my own. If you want to do something bad enough, you'll find a way to do it, and I found a way to do it. Then when Ford Roughriders came along, then I had financial backing and was able to really put a put a mark and hang my trophies up pretty high and pretty proud.

[00:30:09.910] - Big Rich Klein

What what parts were you producing? This is from your machine shop days, but you were what parts did you did you start making and were you doing on your own?

[00:30:24.580] - Scott Taylor

Well, I wasn't building anything for anyone else at that time. I had quit working for everything and for anyone. I had building our own rear-end houses and front-ends and spinels and ARs and just doing everything for myself. I wasn't doing anything for anyone else. I was paid enough to do it all on my own. I did everything here at the shop by myself, and with helpers, I should say, and just really didn't have to work for a living back in those days.

[00:31:14.310] - Big Rich Klein

That's convenient.

[00:31:16.980] - Scott Taylor

Well, it was from seven o'clock in the morning until midnight, building all my stuff all day long and all night, and just working like a mad man all the time on things, trying to make things lighter, stronger, faster, better. Building our own shock absorbers, building everything ourselves except for transmissions and motors. It was quite a time. It really was. I look back at it sometimes and just shake my head and wonder how and how I did it. But I did it mostly all myself. It don't know if I don't get along with working people. I always expect somebody to, I don't expect them to pass me, but I expect them to stay alongside of me. It's pretty hard when you're going 100 miles an hour for anybody to have that will to do it for somebody else. But I had a few guys that worked for me, and they were wonderful guys. Along the line, I did take some time off to have some fun here and there, but I was pretty dedicated.

[00:32:25.330] - Big Rich Klein

Your wife and family was understanding?

[00:32:29.740] - Scott Taylor

Well, I didn't have a wife and family then. I didn't get married until the very late, let's see, 1888, but I'm wrong, I got married. Then we had two daughters right away. Yeah, the answer to that is yes. I was a good dad. I come home, I spent time with the girls. I spent time with my wife. My wife is a hard worker to this day. She understood that I had a vision and that's how she met me. She accepted that and I never took advantage of it. We're very loyal and we just got along to this day. I can come home at night and I may take off and go to the airport and go flying, or I may stay home, or I may mow the yard, or whatever I do, she's fine with it. The same goes for her. If she's got something she's going to do, she just goes and does it. We've always had a phenomenal, phenomenal relationship. 0:0:0 jealousy and all the trust in the world.

[00:33:45.950] - Big Rich Klein

That's one of the things that I think makes a strong relationship, is having that zero jealousy.

[00:33:56.580] - Scott Taylor

There's none. She's a girl from Belvedere here, and I've known her brothers, and I'll be darn if we didn't meet one night out at a club, and before the night was over, we exchanged phone numbers, and we went out on some dates and thought, Gee, you're This is going well, and I'll be darn if we didn't marry her and have some great kids with her, and she's still the idol to me. She's still the idol to me. Awesome. She's a beautiful and inside and out.

[00:34:29.130] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. So then we're we're racing truck and that it was a Class 7. I'm not sure where the short course now, you got the Pro2, Pro4. How was that compared?

[00:34:52.210] - Scott Taylor

A Class 7S was a stock truck. A lot of stock parts, 2,500 cc, pinel motor in the Fords. The Nissan had their version of it and so on. But in the Fords, it was mostly all Ford, Rangers, and those were seven. Then they went to… They were that for a long time. Then they went to what was called the Pro Light. That was when they ran a lot. They opened up all the suspension. You could do it… There was limits, but it was like a Pro Two, spec chassis. Then short time after that, they were running really higher modified four cylinders. The Toyotas were real strong. The Fords were real strong. Eslinger built a lot of those engines. Then when Ricky Johnson and, oh, goodness, my name is… Marty Reed had the series. They went to a pro light, went to a V8 motor, a spec engine. That continued on, and I'm not sure where they're at now, but you had the Pro Lights, the pro twos, and the Pro 4s. I got out of the sevens or the stock trucks before that because I was campaigning the two-wheel drive pro two. That was called a class eight at the time.

[00:36:26.550] - Scott Taylor

You had class eights and class fours, four-wheel drives and two-wheel drives. Now they call them pro twos and pro fours and pro lights. I'm not sure where the rules are at today and how they're all spelled out, but where we're at today is where we were using stepping stones back in a few years back and trying to get affordable race cars and race trucks and try to get on an even playing field. For a while, there, it ran as much as you could throw at it and be within… The only rule you had was a weight limit. Then they started curving that down and then went to the spec chassis and then started getting their hands on a lot of the innovated things that Russ and I were doing. We weren't cheating, but we were building our own stuff and we were ahead of our times with our shock absorbers and some of our weight transfers and how we did some things. That's what made me a champion, and was Russ Warnemann and the things that we done to make it better, all within the rules as well. Walker was right there and the Flannery's are right there, and Jimmy Johnson come back and race with us.

[00:37:47.850] - Scott Taylor

Believe me, he was hard to beat. It was some great, great times and great racing.

[00:37:55.310] - Big Rich Klein

Those years of racing were I still think were the heydays. I mean, it was a little bit more open in the rules, it appears. Seeing some of the old footage, race videos and stuff, it's very entertaining.

[00:38:24.270] - Scott Taylor

Yeah. It was the heydays of racing. In fact, today, before we did this interview, Jeff Doer called me, and he was the old Class 4 guy, and he got into the Ford Roughriders as well. We talk about it every time we talk. We may only talk once every two months, but we always hit on… It was the heydays of racing. We raced at the best times that we think happened back then. Because it's gotten complicated, it's gottensponsor-driven. It's gotten sponsor-driven, it's gotten celebrity-driven, it's gotten all of the above. We definitely raced at good times, that's for sure. The heydays is a very good way to say it.

[00:39:19.160] - Big Rich Klein

And your performance competition parts, your shop, you're producing or you started producing for others as well?

[00:39:29.110] - Scott Taylor

Yeah. To this day, I make motor plates and a few other things, flywheels and stuff like that. I still have them in machinery and I still have all CNC equipment. I build parts other than the off-road racing industry for other industries in Rockford repair parts, and that's what I'm doing for a living these days. But I still have all my patterns and stuff. I make spinels and uprites and rear snouts and motor plates and flywheels and starter adapters, not near as many as I used to, but some of them I'll call and I try to keep them on hand, and I still provide when I can.

[00:40:09.750] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Your motto, you can do anything you want if you want it badly enough. That's correct. You've pretty much used that your whole life.

[00:40:25.430] - Scott Taylor

I have. Believe me, there's been times it's been struggles, but that's what makes you stronger and that's what makes you figure out how to do it. You become better at it. Instead of just having somebody hand you something oror just, what do you want to say, loan it to or give it to you, you work for it and you respect it better. It's like the kid that had to buy his own bicycle opposed to mom and dad buying it for him and handing it to him. It's back. You work for it and you take better care of it and you make it work for you. And been my model forever, and I think I grew up at a pretty good time.

[00:41:12.500] - Big Rich Klein

Let's talk about what I think is one of your biggest accomplishments, at least in wins, and that is in, I believe it was 2002, you were the first pro-two to beat pro-fours in the big altogether race, the championship race.

[00:41:34.730] - Scott Taylor

That's correct.

[00:41:35.960] - Big Rich Klein

That is correct. Talk about what led up to that and what some of the feelings of those pro-four guys were.

[00:41:43.920] - Scott Taylor

Well, at the end of the weekend, they had the big championship race, and the Borg Warner Cup, they called it, and they had the big trophy like they do at the Indy 500, and they backed the race. One year, we packed up the best we had, put the best packages together. Rauch racing in Lavonia, Michigan was doing our engines. I said, We need a hot rod engine. We're going to go win this damn thing. We got a good shot at it. I knew Crandon like the back of my hand. We went out. We had a good truck all weekend, won our races, and we prepped the car, our truck, and we lined up. We lined up, and we always got a head-started because the forage would out-pull you down the straightways off the corner. I forget how many laps it was. Russ was on the radio and I was out in front leading and he says, They're not catching you, Scott. He said, Just back off a little bit. He says, They're not catching you. I think it was griefs or it might have been plenary, I don't recall. One of them, they cut a tire down and I only had one guy to stay ahead of, and they were coming.

[00:43:05.360] - Scott Taylor

But I was able to outrun them down the straight away, but they were killing me on the corners. On a big track like that, it really paid off to have long straightaways that you're running 110, 115 in the turn one. I didn't lift. I just threw that thing sideways every time in turn one and did a big drift all the way through and up and around and never down shifted until I got into the gravel pit corner, clicked the second off that corner and third, and I seen the checkered flag. I'll be damned if we didn't win it. We had a hell of a night that night. We had one crazy party up in the barn, but we made history.

[00:43:52.280] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, you did. Any of those guys in the pro fours, were they any hard feelings?

[00:44:01.620] - Scott Taylor

No, we were all professional enough. Of course, they were all at the party and the other two were drive guys, and they knew it was coming sooner or later. It was a big celebration. I still have a poster. I'm looking at my office right now. I still have a big poster in here of the first race I ever won. It was about 30 pounds to go and about 50 less wrinkles, but it was quite a night, and we had a heck of a party on it, and I still hold my head high on that race, that's for sure.

[00:44:44.960] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely. Like you said, you made history.

[00:44:49.270] - Scott Taylor

Yep. And then I think in the fall of that year, it seems to me that I won the Governor's Cup as well. I won the Board winner twice and the Governor's Cup once. It was just one of those years I just couldn't do anything wrong.

[00:45:14.930] - Big Rich Klein

That's great. What is in the future for Scott?

[00:45:25.270] - Scott Taylor

I retired in 2000. I started race in 1973, and my last race was in 2013, and I've been away from it now 10 years. Then I was inducted into the Hall of Fame, and I told Frank and the rest of those guys, Man, this is it. Actually, at the induction, I got up there and I had heard already six wonderful speeches from my peers. I had to get up there and speak. I said, Man, I don't know where to start or where to stop. I said, This is like an old girlfriend calling you up after 10 years and wanting to start dating again. I looked over at my wife, I said, Sorry, Kelly. And everybody just started laughing. They thought that was so funny. But I'm manufacturing aircraft parts now. I just finished a UPS-7 Waco that I'm flying. It took three years to restore that, and it's an open cockpit biplane, and it's really a good big piece of history that I put together, and I'm enjoying that and just doing what I want to do anymore. I still work way too hard, but one of these days I'll slow down, but not yet.

[00:46:48.990] - Big Rich Klein

That Ormhoff night, your induction, like you said, it was a pretty good size class that got inducted that year. What was... What was that feeling besides the old girlfriend calling after 10 years? What was the party like after that?

[00:47:09.200] - Scott Taylor

Oh, it was pretty intense. It was really crazy. When we got word of it, we had a big party at the airport of the induction, and my wife said, Hey, we're going out to Sean Tinger, and we're just going to hang out for the night and have a few drinks and this and that. Well, little be known that it was announced on the internet that night and she had everybody from the airport there, and I'm friends with everybody at the airport. I'm the guy out there, the go-to guy for this and that. So many of my friends were there and we had a heck of a party and a lot of food, a lot of friends. It was a heck of a celebration for me getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. There was three couples from the airport. The owner of the airport, Stephen Tina, my flying mentor, Steve Zoreline, and his wife Patty, and Jim and Val from Belize. And they all flew out and sat with us during the induction.

[00:48:09.760] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, that's great. It was.

[00:48:10.960] - Scott Taylor

Really a fantastic weekend. And to top it all went off. It was the end of October, and the next day after the induction was Kelly's in my anniversary, because we were married on the 31st of October. So we had a phenomenal.

[00:48:28.250] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Excellent.

[00:48:29.280] - Scott Taylor

So it all come together. I'm a very blessed person. I'm very fortunate to have the friends I have and be able to do what I do. And it all comes from the five shop classes in high school.

[00:48:47.280] - Big Rich Klein

And I hope that you get a chance to talk about that often at schools or with people that could make a difference.

[00:48:58.160] - Scott Taylor

I talk about it all the time. Whenever I get a chance, I talk about it. I talk about it all the time. I get so many, like my old school teacher definitely agrees with me, Bill Robinson. I've just been blessed. I really have been. Again, you can do whatever you want to do if you want to do it bad enough, and you'll find a way. I've been applauded on that many times, and I hope if I just have one person follow my lead on that, do what I say, I've succeeded. I'm hoping there's been plenty more than just one.

[00:49:44.420] - Big Rich Klein

I'm surethere has. I'm sure there has. Well, Scott, I want to say thank you very much for spending some time and talking about your life and what drove you to your passions. I really appreciate getting to know you. I hope to see you at least once a year for quite a few years coming up here at Ormhoff at the Galas. And again, I really want to appreciate for you taking the time to have this conversation with me.

[00:50:15.030] - Scott Taylor

Well, it's definitely worth it. And you'll see me out at the Hall of Fame watching the other inductees go through what I went through. It's really a very humbling experience, and it's good to see people achieve. There's so much negative in this world right now that I don't want to get into politics on the leaf, but I don't know where it's going or why it's going the way it is, but hopefully God will figure a way out to get us turned around and get us going in the right direction again.

[00:50:48.810] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely. I agree. Hopefully. Scott, thank you very much. You have a great rest of your day, and for sure, we'll see you at the next Ormhoff induction. Thank you.

[00:51:01.390] - Scott Taylor

Thanks so much, Rich. It's been a pleasure to talk with you.

[00:51:04.840] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.

[00:51:07.270] - Scott Taylor

All right, so long for now.

[00:51:09.460] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you would think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the best that you can. Thank you.