Episode 308 features Jeff Furrier – racer, entrepreneur and preservationist

Big Rich sits down with Tucson native and lifelong off-roader Jeff Furrier—board member of the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame (ORMHOF), racer, entrepreneur, and preservationist of vintage race machinery. From a childhood in a tire-shop family to building UPR into a go-to racing safety and equipment supplier, Jeff shares the journey, lessons, and stories that shaped his life in off-road. 

With roots in the desert, Jeff grew up one of eight kids in Tucson, learning hustle and car culture from his Air Force-pilot-turned-entrepreneur dad. Hear about the spark that set his career path and the pivots into racing equipment and safety. 

Transcript

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[00:00:05.100] - Big Rich Klein

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road 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 off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.400] - Jeff Furrier

Whether you're crawling the Red Rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability. Four wheels or two, Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis tires deliver. Choose Maxxis. Tread victoriously.

[00:01:12.640] - Jeff Furrier

My next guest on Conversations with Big Rich. Growing up in the Arizona desert with a family focus on automotive, it was natural for him to become in the off-road world. I mean, you got desert and you got automotive. What else is there? Off-road. He's also on the board of directors for ORMHOF, the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame. And my guest is Jeff Furrier. Jeff, it's so good to have you on the air.

[00:01:40.500] - Jeff Furrier

Thanks, Rich. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad you think I'm interesting enough to be on your podcast.

[00:01:46.040] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, absolutely.

[00:01:47.290] - Jeff Furrier

So a compliment.

[00:01:49.560] - Big Rich Klein

So, you know, if the Board of Directors, got you on there, you've got to have some cool background.

[00:02:00.000] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah.

[00:02:01.340] - Big Rich Klein

So we're going to dive into that right now.

[00:02:07.040] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah, I guess. Sure. I guess that's objective. But yeah, I've had a pretty good ride. I'm still going. So great Definitely happy to be here. And the industry overall has been good to me. So let's point out and start with that easy question.

[00:02:25.400] - Big Rich Klein

Where were you born and raised?

[00:02:27.920] - Jeff Furrier

I was born in Tucson, where I still live. And there were eight kids in my family. So, yeah, there were seven boys and one girl.

[00:02:43.700] - Big Rich Klein

Did your sister feel outgunned all the time?

[00:02:47.720] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah.

[00:02:48.420] - Big Rich Klein

Or did she hold her own pretty good?

[00:02:50.860] - Jeff Furrier

She held her own pretty darn good. Yeah, she was definitely pretty tough. So, yeah, I want to ask that question, like how horrible it must have been. And I guess I didn't have to walk in her shoes, so I guess, I don't know. I'm sure it was definitely easier to be a boy. I think it is now, too. But anyway. Yeah, I know. She was good, but I have a good family. A lot of... And everyone in my family is super supportive of each other over the years, so everybody still communicates, and some of us even work together. But my dad ended up here. He's in the Air Force. He was a pilot. And he moved around a bunch and ended up here in the '50s. And while he was in the Air Force, he was always in different businesses. And honestly, growing up, he was always an entrepreneur from having booths and carnivals. It seemed like he worked in every industry and every type of factory, from bread factories to the ice to everything. He's got a lot of great funny stories about growing up, but he was always a hustler and always working.

[00:04:06.820] - Jeff Furrier

When he was in the Air Force, he was always working and buying and selling. He's got a lot of great stories that I didn't really know what they meant to me until I got later on in life. He wasn't trying to teach us anything. He was just telling us stories. I learned a lot without knowing it, I guess, from really all his hard work. But when he got out of the Air Force, I think even when he was in the Air Force, he had a gas station. But then he got out, I think in 1960, and opened up a break shop, obviously just doing car breaks, right? So he's always a car guy, and transitioned into the tire business in 1963. And it was primarily because, obviously, he'd have people in, he could only sell them break. So there's other things on the car he could sell them. Plus, at the same time, a big box. It was like an early version of a Costco, moved in right next door to him. And they started hauling tires out of the front of the place. And so he had customers. So he'd have customers walking out of the tire place next door, which was like a Costco in 1960, and coming over his place to have them installed.

[00:05:33.080] - Jeff Furrier

Because they'd never make it around to the back of the building, because he had a big sign on the side of his building and said, Tire installation. So the people would get misdirected and go into his shop. Perfect. He put tires on and sell them brakes at the same time. So, yeah, it was pretty funny. But he was always doing stuff like that. And then, obviously, figured out he could make some money to sell them tires. And so opens up a tire store right across the street from this big box store, which is the opposite of what most people would do these days. But, yeah, so started a tire store in like, 1963, and then ran that for, I don't know, the tire company still operates. There's a chain of tire stores now. He's since retired. But yeah, opened up more stores after that with the help of my two oldest brothers. And so, yeah, building that business, and really all the buildings still exist. So it's a pretty good business. It's a hard business, but it's a good business.

[00:06:40.960] - Big Rich Klein

So where did you fall in line with the age of the kids?

[00:06:46.600] - Jeff Furrier

So I have two younger brothers. So I'm towards the middle. I guess I was sixth. So I had a lot of people ahead of me to That I could either learn from one way or another. What they didn't get away with, I learned, and what they did get away with, I learned.

[00:07:09.700] - Big Rich Klein

But they were all in the cars, too.

[00:07:14.240] - Jeff Furrier

I grew up early working on my big brother's street rod that he built in our backyard that once he was finished, they had to knock the wall down to get it out. But I remember learning how to use wet and dry sandpaper on it. On that, helping him. Just different things, right? And just different things. Just learning without knowing you're learning, right? You're just doing what you do. But growing up, yeah, it was fun. We did a lot of fun stuff as a family. We'd go to the lake and vacation in San Diego and do all kinds of great stuff. But I'm sure... But my mom needed a lot of help, too. So when the weekends came, she was happy to get rid of us. So my dad, he was pretty good about getting us into other activities. That was always a plus. In all of that stuff, I still do. Then I transitioned into different types of... My brothers had motorcycle and so that's just what I learned. That's just how I grew up, from really everything.

[00:08:24.080] - Big Rich Klein

What about school? Were you a good student or were you always looking One of those looking out the window.

[00:08:33.520] - Jeff Furrier

I definitely was waiting for three o'clock a lot, but I don't know. My grades weren't great, and the teachers all thought I was a great student, But that was the guy. They said, well, if he'd apply himself, or if he'd focus as much on his school work as he does on riding skateboards or racing bicycles, then he'd be the straight A student. I was never in trouble. But I always just had a lot going on. I think like now, right? I don't think I'm much different than when I was 12. I have all the same hobbies and same distractions. But I didn't love it. But it was just part of the program. But I made it through.

[00:09:16.420] - Big Rich Klein

Any extended school after high school?

[00:09:20.540] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah, I went to the U of A and almost got all the way through that. But that's what you do in our family, right? You get out high school, you go to college. So that was just the transition, but I never loved it. But I think looking back, like a lot of people, they will Maybe they appreciate it more after the fact, but I don't know. I think like lots of things, right?

[00:09:52.440] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:09:54.640] - Jeff Furrier

But I enjoyed it. And I met my wife in high school, and who's I've managed to stay married to for however many years that is, close to, I don't know, 39 years.

[00:10:10.400] - Big Rich Klein

And how many kids do you have?

[00:10:15.240] - Jeff Furrier

I have four.

[00:10:17.300] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:10:18.540] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. So I have my daughter, Stephanie, son Dylan, son Carson, and Logan, all All good kids. So they're all working. Grew up doing similar things that I did, really. So going to the lake, riding dirt bikes, just that lifestyle. That's just how we grew up.

[00:10:51.620] - Big Rich Klein

So did you ever get into racing yourself?

[00:10:56.980] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. I started racing really, bicycles. And I think maybe when I was 10 or 11 years old, I raced BMX for several years. And at the same time, we were thinking with motor cycles and minibikes and all that. But I never really... Early on, I didn't race motor cycles. I didn't start racing motor cycles until I was out of high school. I started desert racing. But Yeah, I does race quite a bit around Arizona. Back then, it was ADRA and Whipplash. I did quite a bit of that. I probably rather would have been racing cars, but it's just what you can afford. That's what I did. I raced in motorcycles.

[00:11:53.880] - Big Rich Klein

So did you see the movie, or do you remember seeing the movie when you were young on any Sunday?

[00:12:04.260] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah, I remember it like yesterday. So it definitely had an effect to me. I remember the movie theater we were... We saw it in near our house, and I saw with my dad and my next two older brothers. Yeah, it definitely affected me. So that's what I wanted to do, right? You wanted to be Malcolm Smith. Right. And it turns out years later, I was able to meet them and interact with them and race against them a couple of times at Nora. And so that was pretty amazing. Yeah, but I would say on any Sunday, it affected me, whether good or bad. It definitely changed what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. I mean, it just, I think a lot of people's first exposure, obviously, because we didn't have YouTube and I couldn't afford a magazine. No, I remember that. It was a big deal. But also in those years, my dad would take us. We went to the first Super Bowl in motocross, which was a big deal. We went to several of the Mickey Thompson, early Mickey Thompson races. Nice. Which were a big deal. Yeah, I remember them.

[00:13:27.600] - Jeff Furrier

That was huge, right? I mean, What an effort. We drove from Tucson to the LA Coliseum. He probably went there and back so he could work the next day. Yeah, it's crazy because I'm doing the same thing.

[00:13:47.020] - Big Rich Klein

The same thing and whatever.

[00:13:51.000] - Jeff Furrier

And own some of those cars that I was watching race back in the day. So that was pretty exciting, too.

[00:13:58.360] - Big Rich Klein

I can remember seeing Seeing it, I was out of high school, or maybe it was my senior year, but it had been already out. This was senior year of high school for me. It was in '76. And a friend showed it to me, and I was totally blown away. And I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. There was no deserts around us. The thought of desert racing, I grew up in a drag racing family. None of that was... It wasn't even in my wheelhouse. Yeah. And I saw that and I thought, oh, my God, I want to do that. I don't know anything about it, but I want to do it. And it took me quite a while to get into it, but it still led that. And then it was great because being able to then meet the Browns during the premiere of Dust to Glory.

[00:14:58.460] - Jeff Furrier

Right.

[00:14:59.200] - Big Rich Klein

And then meeting Bruce and Dana and Malcolm and Roger DeCoster was there. And it was like, my God, this is what I want to do. I was so glad by then I was into off-road.

[00:15:17.740] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. Well, I was at that Premier, too. It was at the Grove.

[00:15:21.200] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah.

[00:15:22.900] - Jeff Furrier

That was a big deal. Yeah, it was. Yeah, that was as big a deal for that time, as on any Sunday was. And it definitely affected a lot of people because a lot of people then started showing up wanting to race because they saw dust of glory. No one had any idea how hard it was to race the Baháʼí 1,000, but But anyway. But also early on, I was exposed to off road because my dad, being in the tire business, was an Armstrong tire dealer. Okay. True Tracks. Yeah, Armstrong, True Tracks. Working in the tire service, we used to unload trailer loads of those things. So he was good friends with Dick CPAC. And so my parents... Yeah, because Dick was an Armstrong dealer. And so they became good friends, and the CPX would come to our house. We actually went on a couple of vacations with them. Dick was Santa Claus at our house one year.

[00:16:27.440] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[00:16:28.560] - Jeff Furrier

For Christmas. So whenever they were around, and him and my dad were talking business, I could listen to all that. And again, I didn't know what I was learning, but I was learning something. But I remember Dick telling stories about the Nora 1000 and just that adventure. I was in junior high school, I think, at that time, and that was a big deal to me, and being able to meet him. I didn't know, again, I didn't know much about him. He was just my dad's buddy. But I learned a lot from him and saw there how that business grew and knew they were in the mail order business and started to understand those dynamics. And then Dick got us into the off-road business in the mid '70s with Deserat. So him and my brother Mike drove California, I think in a pickup truck, and brought back a load of stuff from one of Dick's stores, probably in Garden Grove, and opened up a little off-road shop in one of our tire stores. And then that grew, right? Mike pretty much ran that, and I helped somewhat until we started the other business. But Dick got us into that.

[00:17:59.110] - Jeff Furrier

And during that time period, I was able to meet a lot of the legends of that time, Mickey Thompson, because we were Mickey Thompson tire distributor. And so, again, I'm around those guys, and I don't even know what it meant at the time. They were just guys we knew. But in retrospect, I guess I would have paid more attention, right? If I knew how big of a deal that was or how much I was learning, really, from that matter. So about the whole industry and But I didn't know where I was going at that point. But anyway, those guys were definitely influential in where I'm at now. Just my love for the industry, really, overall.

[00:18:47.580] - Big Rich Klein

Right. So your dad had the tire store, and that was Furrier Tires. Is that correct?

[00:18:52.420] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah, it was at that time. It was Western Tire.

[00:18:56.900] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, Western Tire.

[00:18:57.880] - Jeff Furrier

Is what it's called here. But we have another competitor in the area that had a similar name. And so they started branding the stores more with his name, Jack Furrier. So in our area, the tire stores really, to the general public, would be referred to as furriers or Jack Furrier's tires. So we put his name on it because there was confusion with a similar size. Tire dealer, who was a good year dealer, really, but they just transitioned the name slightly. But I don't know. Still my brother, everyone in the family, we still call it Western Tire. It hasn't been that for a while. But around the community, people knew him well because he did all his own TV commercials and did a lot of pretty, not crazy Eddie style, but a lot of TV commercials that definitely got a lot of attention, different ad campaigns, and throughout the years. So around Tucson, our name's pretty recognizable because of the tire company. So you can't get away with much.

[00:20:12.780] - Big Rich Klein

Well, I came across you guys the name Furrier with Desert Rat, when I started putting on the rock craws down in Arizona.

[00:20:24.140] - Jeff Furrier

Right.

[00:20:25.320] - Big Rich Klein

And guys would have somebody out there, typically bring a trailer out or something like that, some of those early events.

[00:20:33.760] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. So what year was that?

[00:20:36.380] - Big Rich Klein

It would have been 2003 was my first Arizona event, I think. 2003, 2002. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:49.720] - Jeff Furrier

So in the mid '80s, so I worked in in the tire stores growing up. And then in high school, I worked at Deserat. And in that area, in the '80s, it was chrome shocks and 40-inch tires. So I used to... But I was driving a pre-runner, right? Because I was in the desert racing, and I'd be in the Deserat store trying to talk people out of buying 40-inch tires and saying, No, this is what you got to do. You got to have a two-wheel drive with 33, 1,250 radials on it because it's faster. And I'm in there talking everybody out of buying lift kits and chrome shocks, and I'd get yelled at saying, Hey. The common thing was no one cares about desert racing. And at that time, it was true, because the money was in the six-inch lifts and all that. So I worked through all of that. And then we actually started a performance car shop in 1984, which I took over, right, from after working at Deserat, right? But this is just going to be like Deserat, but more focused on cars. And that business, it was a retail business. We had one retail shop, which we actually opened in my dad's original break shop in Tucson on Speedway.

[00:22:27.540] - Jeff Furrier

So it was a small building, but And I think at that time, it wasn't my concept or my idea to open a car shop. I think it was Mike's and my oldest brother's and my dad's. But at that time, Beverly Hills motoring was a big deal And so I think... And so really, it modeled after that. And I have a file in front of me just to refresh my memory on some of this stuff. But it was comical. And I remember at In the beginning, it didn't work that well because we were in Tucson and not Beverly Hills, right? So the product lines didn't match. In Beverly Hills, you had young people driving Porsches and Mercedes. And then in Tucson, the only person with a Mercedes was 90 years old. The demographic was just different. But it was a good business. But we sold sheepskin and car waxes. I think for a while, we even sold members only style racing jackets, probably with transam logos on it. It was pretty comical, actually. We sold some car bras, just dashmats, just accessories. Then did that until I don't know. We started until maybe the early '90s.

[00:24:06.740] - Jeff Furrier

We started doing some mail order ads. Because I wasn't really a sheepskin seat cover guy. I was more of a racing performance guy, and I was road racing at that time, too. So we started selling some different things. We were a big Momo brand distributor. At the time, we were one of the largest Momo distributors in the country. And so we built that up into a big a wholesale business. So we changed that business a little bit into more of a performance business, and then started doing mail order.

[00:24:37.720] - Big Rich Klein

What was the name of that business?

[00:24:40.480] - Jeff Furrier

Ultra Performance.

[00:24:41.730] - Big Rich Klein

Ultra Performance. Okay.

[00:24:43.240] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. So the branding, so the UPR brand is Ultra Performance Racing is what that is. Okay. Because while we had the store, we started selling some racing products. So we had a brand, which is basically our logo now, called UPR. And honestly, I think our first product was maybe an air intake for a Chevy truck, for a 90 something Chevy truck. And then we had some different products that we were menu packaging or rebranding or whatever that we branded UPR. So that's where that name came from. But we were in the mail order business pretty heavily throughout the '90s and early 2000s. And that transitioned a bunch. We started first doing HKS, like turbo stuff, and then the sport compact car, the Hondas, and got real big. And so we started, we were buying pages of ads in Sport Compact Car and Super Street, and those magazines, and doing events like import car, drag, racing, and different events like that. And also big at that time was the sport truck business, like Beltec-type, lowered trucks, and Boyd Cottington-style trucks. So we started doing that at the same time. So at the same time, we had the Sport Compact car mail order business, and a sport truck mail order business going.

[00:26:20.060] - Jeff Furrier

And they're both, I don't know, almost as big as anyone in the country, because we were buying lots of pages in the magazines. They were both successful. But at that time, you had to have lots of people. It wasn't really an Internet business. It was people on answering phones. So we had lots of people on the phones taking credit cards over the phones. It was just a different time. It was a good business. And we did lots of tires and wheels, especially on the sport truck side, because one of our advantages was we were in the tire business. And at that time, you couldn't be an accessory shop and really be in the tire and wheel business There were tire and wheel companies, and there were accessory companies, but there wasn't a big crossover, because just the way the distribution work, you had to buy tires direct from the manufacturers. They're coming directly from Michelin and BF Goodrich, and Pirelli. There weren't regional warehouses full of the stuff that made the stuff available to everybody else. So it was a real advantage for us for a long time. It was pretty rare now, but now Little shops can buy tires and wheels.

[00:27:32.860] - Jeff Furrier

So that was a big advantage. We did that for a lot till the early 2000s. And the industry started changing a bunch. I knew the sport compact car business would go bad or get more difficult when the really big guys, when the summits and the Jags and those guys who were real powerhouses at the time, started getting involved. And I knew they started getting involved when we were talking to our reps. And the reps were telling us, Hey, that Summit's mad because you're pricing on this part or that part or whatever. Jags is mad. And I used to laugh. I'm like, I'm some goof in Tucson, and I'm making someone mad at Summit. I was pretty impressed. But I knew the writing was on the wall because those guys just had, I thought at that time, they just had a lot more resources. And then it was going to turn into a big price wars. And I didn't... I just saw the industry changing a bunch. Even the customer base at that time was difficult. Credit card fraud at that time was much easier, I think, than it was now. Just the way we process cards.

[00:28:47.700] - Jeff Furrier

We never really got burned because we were good at it. But the reality was, especially on the car side, I would say half the calls we would get were probably fraudulent credit cards, because it was people who didn't know what they were doing. It was so easy. We literally had to call the banks to verify addresses. It was a process, right? And then they got good at... We were good at stopping it, but the reality was we spent half our days taking orders and the other half of our days-Verifying. Verifying them. And then, of that, 25 % of them would ship or whatever. And then the business was The readership in the magazines was really big, right? So the circulations on the magazines were at 500,000. The magazines were 200 and 300 pages, so the ad prices were out of control. So the ad crisis got really high. There were more people in it, so the margins were getting a lot lower, and the fraud level was just through the roof. Again, we didn't get burned that much, but just the time it took to process an order, which is different now. 80% of the time, your website will just kick it out.

[00:30:09.120] - Jeff Furrier

You'll never have to talk to somebody. In the early 2000s, I think at one point, I looked at the amount of money we were spending on advertising, how many people were employing to verify all these bad credit cards, and the margins of the product, and I think within within 90 days, we shut down all the advertising and then just went full-time into the racing business because we were already doing some of it. But I thought, We can get to the racing customer a lot easier because they're at the racetrack. They're a lot less expensive to advertise to. And the margins were better because there weren't that many people in it that were really good at it. And so you could charge. You could charge normal fair pricing. And so I think, and there were a couple of guys in Arizona that were doing a really bad job at the racing business, and they were customers of ours and they couldn't pay us. And I thought Honestly, if this is the best week that there is in Arizona, we should be able to turn this into a business. So I don't know. I'd say within 90 days, we were out of the sport compact car and sport truck business and full on into the racing business.

[00:31:33.760] - Jeff Furrier

And I think at that time, we probably had Momo and Sparko were our main brands. And then we just built it up from there. So I was involved in racing anyway, and we knew about it. And some of my guys that worked with me, one of them, Tim, who's a real important part of our business, still works with me and had a lot of experience. And we just changed a racing business, which we... I don't know, which was definitely better back then. Compared to the other businesses we're in, right? The customers are great. They're usually, they're not... The level of fraud is just almost nonexistent for the... When we're dealing just strictly with the racing industry. And so it's much better. We enjoy it a lot more. So we just built up the UPR. We just changed it. I think at first it was UP Racing, and then we just changed it to UPR, because I actually bought the PR. Com website from Union Pacific Railroad after Anadarko bought them. So I saw it available and I was bugging them for a few years to sell to me. And finally, we were able to make a deal and get that Our web address, which at the time, a three-digit.

[00:33:04.280] - Jeff Furrier

Com address was a big deal. It's not as much anymore, but definitely helped with our branding. And we've been doing it ever since. And my The focus has been, a lot of it's been on off-road racing, but the reality is the off-road part of it is probably the least revenue side of our business on the racing side. We do drag racing and circle track racing and dirt track racing, road racing, and all of that.

[00:33:35.940] - Big Rich Klein

So you're still competing with the guys that are the summits and the jegs?

[00:33:44.080] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah, but those guys aren't. We are, and it's different. It's a little different now because those guys, you're not going to call Summit and get the... I mean, they're obviously very good at what they do, but the same type of expertise on racing equipment as you're going to get at UPR. Really, we have several competitors that are really good. You just can't get that same level of service. And then our hands-on at the track experience is definitely way better. But those guys do a good job with drag racing. I mean, obviously, every drag racer is pushing buttons and getting stuff from Summit and Jags, but road racing and dirt track and the rest of them. There's enough of the other business out there that we're able to compete just fine. And we do some unique things that set us apart, which we've always tried to do. So you don't have to just compete with clicks or price. So there's things we're really good at, that people come to us for.

[00:34:58.680] - Big Rich Klein

The people that shopping the absolute lowest price and don't care about anything else, we'll always find those big box stores or the Amazon, that stuff.

[00:35:09.840] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. The manufacturers have done a pretty good job with map pricing to help with that. It's not perfect. But if, I don't know, if you can get what you need on Amazon and you don't have to call us or whatever, and you're making a good buy your main decision and you're getting exactly what you thought, it's fine. I mean, you're going to get it. It's going to be super efficient. But the reality is, guys like us, actually, we sell on Amazon some different product lines, but it's just made everybody a little love them or hate them. It's made everybody's level of service better. Because someone to order something on your website, they expect it on the way that day, or in the old days before Amazon. It's like you're taking a shower, you run out of shampoo. They could have it to you before your hot water runs out. Now, we get orders and they're like, Hey, where's our tracking number? And it's like, they ordered it at 8: 00 in the morning and they're calling you at 9: 00 wondering why they don't have it. But honestly, a lot of times now they just expect it.

[00:36:25.470] - Jeff Furrier

And it's not a problem because most people who are running successful businesses, whether it's just mail order or however it is, they understand that on the shipping side, that they got to get it out right away. So I think it's made people better But we operate there, too. You got to sell in all the marketplaces.

[00:36:55.040] - Big Rich Klein

So you've had or still have some pretty cool race cars, motor cycles, things like that. The one I really like, I saw at the mint last year, you had it there, and that was the Comanchi pickup?

[00:37:13.720] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah, the J10, the Honcho.

[00:37:16.580] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, the J10 Honcho.

[00:37:18.060] - Jeff Furrier

That might be my favorite car.

[00:37:21.000] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, that's pretty sweet. Explain the front suspension on that and how that That dial?

[00:37:32.960] - Jeff Furrier

The torsion bar? Yeah. Well, so that started. So the story really starts before that. It was the Roger Mears' pre-runner is what that truck is. So it was one of the Budweiser trucks. So that truck was built in Walker Evans Shop right after the first Budweiser truck was built for Roger Mears, Mike Moore and Roger Mears. Mike Moore owned the team and he paid for that truck. And so that front suspension was basically a torsion bar with what looks like VW torsion plates, but they're not. And they're separate and it's an adjustable torsion. So it will come in. You can dial it to come in like a bypass shock would come in somewhere in the suspension travel, wherever you want it. You could have it come in within an inch of travel or five inches or six inches of travel. That way you could run a softer leaf spring pack, so it would get grip and work better on the smaller bumps. And you can dial the torsion in so it comes in halfway or wherever through the suspension travel to stiffen it up towards the top, which is what the bypass shock effectively does.

[00:39:03.940] - Jeff Furrier

This is a very primitive alternative to that, but it wasn't really an alternative because there was no bypass shock back then. But They work good. And so the first Budweiser truck had that, and then the pre-runner has that front and rear. But those are both great trucks. So I restored both of those. And we use the pre-runner all the time. So it works It works really well. But yeah. Have you seen the Budweiser truck? No. At one of the event? You've never seen it? No. Okay. Well, yeah, it hasn't been out a bunch, but it's been in some It was at the Indianapolis Museum for a while. It's been the Off-Road Expo. It's been to the meant once, I think. It hasn't been out a whole bunch, but we finished that, I think in, I don't know, 2018 or or so. But I got that from Mike Randall, the Randall-AMC Jeep racers from Phoenix area. I got the race truck. But Mike McAbe had the pre-runner. And then after I was restoring the Budweiser truck, he called me and said, Hey, you got the pre-runner. His dad owned it and it hadn't moved in 20 or 30 years.

[00:40:28.890] - Jeff Furrier

And we made a deal on it and I was able to get it. And so we left it in the original... In those colors that I got it from them in, which were the La Pau's party mix colors. The Casey family bought all the Budweiser trucks and then painted them. That maroon color, which is still on that pre-runner. But I've got some other ones, a couple of other ones, too. But it started the vintage car with the Chenwith that I restored with Rory, Rory Ward, the 118 Mark Stahl Chenwith. I think we restored it in 2010 or 2011. But that was a car that I actually worked on and drove a little bit in the '80s after Mark Stahl sold it to a local guy here who got me into off-road racing or used to take me a lot of the off-road races, named Jim Travis. So he had had that car for a while, the Kenneth 1,000. When Mark had it, he won two overall Baha 1,000s and had a class win in it. And then when Jim Travis had it, he won a lot of races, our local races. And then the car disappeared.

[00:41:47.860] - Jeff Furrier

And then I forget how I found out where it was, but it turned up in the '90s. Again, someone local had it and was racing it in whiplash races, and then it changed hands again. I was able to find that exact car again in the, 2009 or 2010. Anyway, got Rory to help me restore that one, and then we raced it several times and won a couple more races with it. That car is now in Lynn's Museum in Percibu. It was a great car. Super nice single your car.

[00:42:30.900] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[00:42:32.160] - Jeff Furrier

So meant a lot to me.

[00:42:35.060] - Big Rich Klein

So. Didn't you pick up some motorcycles recently?

[00:42:39.600] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. I've picked up a '86 Husqvarna 400 XC, a one owner, and in the same garage was a '72 250 WR. They're both one owner's car, bikes, came from Malcolm Smith Motorsports, and the '72 came from Malcolm Smith's shop when it was KNN cycles.

[00:43:12.320] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[00:43:13.580] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. An engineer owned them. They're crazy. The bikes were... Every note, every jet change, every receipt, every modification is all documented because of an engineer here from the China Lake near Ridgecrest owned the bikes. And I just got tons of documentation and funny receipts and just things you just would never keep. Owners manuals for the Bell moto 4 helmet he bought and just crazy stuff. But the 72 is pretty neat because it's got Marzocci forks on it and work shocks. And it's 100 % an original bike, so I'm not going to change it. I'm just going to clean it up and get it running. The '86 is about the same, too. I think the '86 had the original front tire on it. Wow. Super low hour, super neat bike. But those are pretty neat bikes. I've always liked Cuskies, really, because of the on any Sunday. I've got a couple of other ones, but I've got a 400 that Ravel had a model of that I built in grade school. It was a Malcolm Smith bike. And so I've got that. And the XR 75 that looks like I restored in the showroom condition that's here in our office.

[00:44:44.380] - Jeff Furrier

It really changed a lot of people's lives when it came to dirt biking. So I've got that. I've got stuff that meant something to me. I don't do it for the money necessarily because there's lots of stuff you could buy. But if they It had some effect on me, I have interest in them, like the Budweiser trucks I had pictures of in my bedroom in high school and other cars like that. Otherwise, yeah, you could...

[00:45:16.660] - Big Rich Klein

With your racing career, what stands out as the most memorable?

[00:45:25.160] - Jeff Furrier

I would say, I don't know. I road raced for a long time, and SCCA won a lot of races, but it's just different. Off-road racing is just different. So I would say probably when Rory and I won in the Chenwith, the Nora 1,000 class win, I think it was 2011, and we rebuilt the car in less than a year, went to Nora, had no idea what we were doing as far as the stages and how the timing worked and the whole deal. But we got the car there It went back and forth between me and Rory as we were finishing it, and he had in Bullhead City. I'd never driven the car. And we really didn't understand the whole time. And we were just happy to be there. And I think that year, there were Before they had way too many classes, I think there were 22 or 25 cars in our class. And so after the first day, we're doing... I don't even know how We didn't even know how to keep score, even how to keep track of who's winning, who's not winning. So I think it was on day two or something.

[00:46:51.340] - Jeff Furrier

I think Mark McDonald said, Hey, you guys are winning. We're like, What? You know what I mean? So the first day and a half or so, we were having a good time. And then we figured out we were leading, and then we had to pay attention. So we ended up... It was funny. We really didn't understand. We had several penalties, but I think after the car had no breaks, I think for most of the race, but we held the thing together and we won, and we beat a whole bunch of cars. We beat twice as many cars as there's ever been in the class at that time. And we'd done in the car. Really, we were just... It was a lot of fun because we didn't have a lot of pressure because we didn't know what we were doing. And then after that, it's like it was on. So then it's like, okay, we got to come back. We got to win this thing every year. So then it turns into different cars and more prep. It changed. It's still lots of fun, but I would say that one being so unexpected was probably, in my mind, probably the best, most memorable win.

[00:48:08.890] - Jeff Furrier

It's the best story, but like all off-road races, there's always a story and an adventure behind it, which is different than road racing or an SCCA race, like a national might last 40 minutes or whatever, and then you load your car in your trailer and you go home. It's just different. And if you break at a circle track race or a late mile race or something like that, you're never a quarter mile more from your trailer. So really, there's no more story. You broke and you went home. So you go off road racing and you got stuck or you broke or you... Whatever, right? I mean, there's always... It's just so much more of an adventure.

[00:48:53.580] - Big Rich Klein

And the best stories from off road typically happen from the guys, not that get on the podium, but the guys that struggled to get to the finish.

[00:49:05.480] - Jeff Furrier

Well, I figured out after, I think, winning. I don't know what year we won again. And I figured out On the way home, no, it was a year that I think I got second. I think they were timing Bob Howe wrong, the second place car. They were timing him off by 30 seconds. So on the last day, I thought I had him. Except for they never updated the board. So we're looking at the boards, and I'm always 30 seconds ahead of the guy, so I took it easy on the last day, and I lose by eight seconds. So I remember that trip home, right? I had a real long list of things I needed to do better and just everything. But when you win, you get a really short list. You think you did everything right. But everything might have gone right, but you didn't actually do everything right. But even in our house, even with athletics or anything like that, cheering one of the kids up after a loss or whatever, you really do learn more from losing than winning. It's time and time again, right? You're always going to get better. But once you win, you got to try to...

[00:50:20.150] - Jeff Furrier

It's work to stay there. But when you lose, right, you're just... I don't know. I remember all my losses.

[00:50:30.000] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:50:32.620] - Jeff Furrier

You know what I mean? I remember why, whatever the reason was. I did something wrong or you did everything right and you weren't good enough. Whatever.

[00:50:45.400] - Big Rich Klein

So let's go there. What was the most memorable loss? What was the most catastrophic thing that happened that was a difficult journey?

[00:50:55.660] - Jeff Furrier

Probably, as far as shoot, well, There's a couple of them, but I lost an SCCA Championship that I had in the bag in the last last race. I got hit at PI-R going into turn two where the cars all stack up. I got drilled real hard in the rear-end because someone in front of me checked up too much and there was a chain reaction. I I got rear-ended and it knocked my throttle linkage off. I had that coasted off. I didn't have anything. I sat there for two laps. You're not supposed to get out of your car, but I don't know. I had a conversation with a corner worker, and I think we got the hood of the car up and I was able to get out. I didn't even know it was wrong. I popped my linkage back on and finished the race. Except for thinking about doing something, it cost me two laps. So I think I finished the race, but I was two laps down, and so it was a DNF, so I lost all the points. So I lost a year's worth of racing championship. But the one where the timing and scoring at Nora, even though it wasn't a big deal, it was just a Nora race and it was one position, it wasn't a big deal.

[00:52:26.380] - Jeff Furrier

But it did. It affected me enough to now or even when I'm I'm talking to people about Nora, the tips I give them really is really you got to keep track of your own timing and you got to check your timing every day. Because when you come in at the end of a stage, They're volunteer workers. They're writing a time down. If you're not timing in your car, they can write down a time that's an hour off just by mistake. You'll never know it because you didn't know it when you finished. You They did it in two hours, but they have you at... Just a typo. You got to keep track of all your own timing and scoring. I don't think there's been a time where I didn't maybe find something. I haven't raced it in several years, but where you don't find something. I think paying attention, keeping track of that stuff as far as a time to race goes, I think, definitely makes a difference. But that bothered me because that's days of racing, and then you get off the gas and you lose. In eight seconds. Yeah, it was a long way.

[00:53:39.980] - Big Rich Klein

That's something. Eight seconds, you can pick up truly in the last two miles of a race if you know it.

[00:53:48.500] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah, that was a bummer. But there's guys that have lost much bigger races than that for less time. It seems like the ball 1,000 every year, it's getting that way in a trophy truck. The kids are all within 10 seconds of each other. It's pretty insane. Yeah. It's But anyway, I've learned a lot. So it's all part of the adventure, right? I learned something everywhere.

[00:54:21.600] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And what's on the horizon for you? I mean, more the same or you got something that you really want to do?

[00:54:36.240] - Jeff Furrier

I'd like to get back racing Nora, probably a little bit. I'm going to start road racing again. We're building a BMW for a pretty neat series called spec E46. So that's in my shop at the moment. So it's not quite as fun as off-road racing, but it's a lot easier. And you can Probably there's a lot of tracks, even a track day, you can do it within a day. You can load up in trailer. You don't have to bring a pit crew. You can bring a couple of people and go do that. And there's a lot of the racing in Southern California and Arizona, and really in the West that we can do. So I'm looking forward to that. So we work on that stuff I can work on on the weekends or four in the morning. But I'm doing that. We're working on some things here at UPR, some new seating ideas. We've got some as far as seat inserts go. We do a pretty good job with our seat pad, and you can have a whole custom seat insert done, but they're super expensive and time consuming. And we developed our seat pad So we could make people safer in a proper FIA shell-style racing seat.

[00:56:06.240] - Jeff Furrier

And then the next level, because to get people to fit them properly before that, we were doing seat inserts and we were flying places, and it's $2,000 or $3,000 to do it. It's just not available to everybody. And I think we're coming up with a version of that that people can actually do themselves, which we actually... I was going to test another one this morning before I got on this call, but we ran out of time. But we've tested a couple of them this week, just how they pour and if we think the average racer will be able to do it themselves for a reasonable amount of money. And it has to do with the chemical compound and how fast the mold kicks and in the material that maybe we add into it and not overcomplicate it to keep it into a, maybe a five or $600 complete system rather than a $3,000 system. Because I think lots of people need them. And I think off-road racing, I think seating is still way misunderstood with as much effort as we've put into it. So I think for getting people out of suspension seats and into proper racing seats.

[00:57:30.000] - Jeff Furrier

I think what we're seeing now, which we're seeing some other suppliers come in and then use the philosophy of a NASCAR seat, and they're assuming that'll work for off road racing, but it's a problem because the density of the foam is super... It's just super hard. And it works for NASCAR in road racing because you're planted in the seat and you're not moving around. So if you take a hit, you're not traveling an inch or two into the side of the seat. We're an off-road guy, before every crash, he's in some negative G situation. And it's usually before a G out, your suspension is top out, and so they're light in the seat. And then they slam down when they bought them out. So you need something that'll absorb that energy. But now we've seen... Some of this, it's a little lesser expensive product, but it's just a hard foam. I think is what's going to happen is People are going to start getting injuries because they're light in their seat. And very few off-road guys have their seat belt set up properly. It's just the way it is. They're usually loose for either It's an original setup issue or it's because three people drive the car, right?

[00:59:06.020] - Jeff Furrier

And they're all different sizes. So it's not uncommon in an off-road car for the guy's seat belt not to be set up right. And we talk to people every time we're out about it, and a lot of people are starting to get it, and a lot of people do it right. But when your seatbelts aren't tight and you're moving around in your seat, the chances of you getting an injury are just so much so much greater. So- One of the things that I've wondered, and maybe it's because of packaging, but having a seat where you don't move around.

[00:59:47.580] - Big Rich Klein

The body, your body's in the seat, but the seat is like a truck or a car is with the suspension, is doing all the work. And so not necessarily the seat pad that you're in, but the seat itself.

[01:00:05.480] - Jeff Furrier

Right. You mean the seat on a separate suspension system? Right. Yeah. Well, that's possible. And I think, and for sprint car racing, but it's more of a breakaway style system. It's not a... You can't really... You can't have the seat moving around a bunch while you're driving the car, even if you're strapped to the seat.

[01:00:36.860] - Big Rich Klein

Because the throttle, the steering.

[01:00:39.440] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah, it's just a lot of movement. So I think really the answer is really an energy absorbing foam, which is what we've done with our seat pad. But that only covers you on the bottom. It doesn't necessarily make you fit side to side, and it doesn't solve your seat belt problem. But for sprint car racing, they're doing a lot more of that because those guys take super hard hits where the chassis is hitting the ground. But off-road racing crashes, which also people don't understand from outside the industry or even inside the industry, is the safety equipment, it should be different because you're not Our phone car is not hitting a wall. It's not going straight into a wall. I mean, the couple types of crashes that are bad, is if you hit a G out and you nose it in and you stop, And then you go forward in your seat. That's a... Those hurt, and those can break your back, and usually you break your upper back, or a G out, where you case the chassis onto onto a hard surface.

[01:02:01.730] - Big Rich Klein

Right, get that compression fracture.

[01:02:03.640] - Jeff Furrier

You get that compression fracture, which is also common, which then the seat padding, what's under you matters to absorb that energy. The forward impacts, the head and neck restraints are going to help with that, but tight seatbelts will help with that a bunch. But it's really not necessarily about the padding. So they're just different, right? And so when a car Where you don't see people getting really injured is when they're rolling on rollovers. You see some horrendous rollovers in off-road racing. If the guys are restrained on a scale of 1-10 at about at least a seven or so, they're probably not going to get hurt because the way the vehicles are built, they're big. The wheels and tires are pretty far away from the driver. They're big, and so they're hitting on the tires and wheels. So they're absorbing a lot of the energy. So I think the rollover type crashes aren't necessarily as bad. It's the anything where the chassis hitting the ground, or the worst ones. So they're just different crashes. So it's the same reason you'd use a different spring on a road race or a NASCAR. Same reason you use a 1,200 pound right front spring On a circle track car is you use a different spring on an off-road car, right?

[01:03:37.270] - Jeff Furrier

Because they're just doing different things. And it's the same thing with safety equipment. And I think a lot of the industry doesn't understand that. But I think a lot of the off-road industry is just in the off-road industry. They're not seeing other stuff. We're talking to people all over the world, really, about types of crashes they're having and safety equipment And then different things are happening in different forms of motor sports. And really all of them, I try to bring everything relevant back to off-road racing because I think off-road racing needs it the most. All the development's done other places, but there's not specs for off-road racing. And really, like we say, no one's ever been sent home from tech at an off-road race, right? Because you just paid $4,000 for an entry fee. They want you racing, but I've been sent home from a race for being a half-inch too wide track with on a road race car. Sorry. You know what I mean? Really, that's after practicing for two days and then a random tech inspection. It's like, Sorry, go home. They don't care. But that doesn't happen in an off-road racing. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but I think there's still an educational void, I think, for a lot of these guys, but they're all getting better.

[01:05:05.160] - Jeff Furrier

I think King Hammer, I think they've done a great job in their tech. I think they're all getting a little bit better. Anyway, I'd like to see a specific set of rules as far as safety, that all the sanctions would at least use as a guideline. Not class specs, specs, but just safety specs and make them all read the same. Just make it the same, make it consistent across the board. So I've got outlines of that that I'd like to present. And if we can get everyone on the same page, at least you know when you show up, you can race that race on your safety. And that's usually why people are being bounced or having a problem, right? If their helmet doesn't tack or something doesn't tack as far as safety goes. But if it's a class thing, they It would be a different class.

[01:06:01.160] - Big Rich Klein

Right. I think that that's a great idea. I know that as an event promoter, taking safety and writing a tech book for safety was very difficult. Liability-wise as well, with our rock crawling, everybody was in suspension seats. But if the suspension seat mounted properly or have a transfer case right underneath the seat, if you came down flat on the wheels or with a frame compression where you're hitting the chassis really hard, which is what happens in the rock crawling, then you're hitting your tailbone or it's not moving like it's supposed to, not absorbing that energy. And so you take them and I had one guy, Chris Durham, said, Hey, you got outlaw the the Kerky type aluminum shell seats or hard seats because I broke my back in one. And it's like, yeah, but if I tell everybody you can't use that and then somebody gets hurt in a different one in a suspension seat, then I've now, and they had been using something else before and never gotten hurt, they can come back and say, Hey, your rules made it so that I got hurt.

[01:07:31.180] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah.

[01:07:32.680] - Big Rich Klein

So it's really tight and difficult.

[01:07:35.360] - Jeff Furrier

It is, but the problem is there's no spec, right? So SFI has specs. If you're a drag racer, there's an SFI spec for the transmission blanket, for the steering wheel quick release, for everything, right? And we could do that for off-road racing, but there's really no specs. I'd like to at least have a spec for the seat. And I'm on a SFI board that does the seating specs, and they're pretty difficult. But I don't think it would be impossible for off-road racing because a lot of the seating is really... There's really no spec, so you can really show up with anything, which is our problem. And the other thing that these guys do is, which I think they should all be members of SFI, because then SFI will help train you and SFI will help defend you in court with experts. So if you have a volunteer doing your tech with no particular certification, except for... He's been doing it for a long time. If he's in court And he's answering questions and they're like, hey, why are you an expert on this? And it's like, well, because my dad raced Dombuggies, which is very likely, you know what I mean?

[01:08:58.610] - Jeff Furrier

Then you're going to have a problem. But if you have someone from SFI saying, Hey, this is a spec used around the world. We're experts. We do testing. This is why this is required. So the reality is with off-road racing, if there's no spec, there's no expert to testify for you or really against you, I guess, for that matter. So I think it's an issue. And a lot of it you can take from different forms of racing. In the FIA, they They do different things in Dakar than they do in Formula One, obviously. But there's a lot of different things with seating that they use over there. The brackets have to be tested with the seats. And now we have a little issue because the seat padding or seat foam used in the specific seat with the specific FIA spec has to be listed with the FIA as an approved accessory for the seat. So there's a lot. Some of it may be extreme, but I think a lot of it is overlooked. I think there's a lot of guessing being done after people get injured, because I talk to a lot of people after they get injured, if they'll talk to me.

[01:10:19.380] - Jeff Furrier

Many times we can explain it, or many times I'll hear what their injury is, and I'll guess what their crash looked like, or I'll guess how their seatbelts were set up or whatever. But I think a lot of them can be avoided with some education, and I think a lot of the guys are getting better. But I think that seating with the effort we've put into it since the early 2000s, which has come a long way, that's why you see the shell style, specifically, Sparco, and lots of these cars, because people are starting to understand that you don't need to be bouncing around in your suspension seat to be safe. So I think being more planted in the I think it makes it big. I think there's a lot fewer injuries now because of that. So I think it's way better. I think people fit in the seats better. I think you got to fit your seat like you fit your helmet. But I don't know. It's not perfect because off-road racing, there's several people in the car, right? So there's not several people wearing the same helmet. So it's a little trickier, but it's possible.

[01:11:29.700] - Jeff Furrier

So I don't know.

[01:11:31.080] - Big Rich Klein

Let's talk about the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame and how you came about to being on the board of directors, and how long have you been a board of director?

[01:11:42.420] - Jeff Furrier

I don't know how long. It's got to be six years or so. I think Rory got me on originally. And yeah, it just sounds like a good idea. The people on on the board were the people I'd like, that maybe I knew or had met or whatever or had respect for. So any time I can obviously involve myself with people like that, I It's educational for me. And at the same time, if I'm helping promote the sport, save the sport, obviously that's a benefit because it's where my passion is. So I need to do that, too. But I've involved lots of different service groups and have been on and off boards, but really enjoy this one. I think there's a lot of good work being done. I think that the way if you looked at if warm up didn't exist, all of the things that wouldn't have happened, you know what I mean? All the that has been done with Ormhoff, even though we're trying to get it better all the time, it's amazing. So all the meetings and just trying to make every ceremony better and all of it. Just The whole focus is doing more and doing better.

[01:13:19.040] - Jeff Furrier

And to be involved with that, that's great. Because that's how I show up to work. How we make today better. Or what do we need to fix? I think there's a lot of work to be done, but I think within the last few years, it's gotten really good. I'm always amazed at the ceremony with the people I meet, even though I know so many people that are going to be there and the new people that I meet when I'm at one of those ceremonies, and the amount of people that are at the ceremonies, and how I think maybe nervous, not as Not as much me, but as hard as Jen and Shelle and everyone works on them, and Barbara had worked on them. It's like I'm super nervous for hoping they're going to be a success because maybe I'll question certain decisions. But man, You go to one of those ceremonies, and it's all forgotten. All that hard work just pays off. Every one of them is been a win. The families with people being inducted, it's just how exciting they are. The people I've met really through that, it's great. And they're all our industry peers.

[01:14:35.000] - Jeff Furrier

So it's amazing. So I think there's good work being done there.

[01:14:40.800] - Big Rich Klein

I agree. I've learned so much from the people on the board just by observing how they work, whether it's at shows or whatever. It's like spending the last weekend or the last four days with Cal Wells out in Daytona and just watching him work with his staff and the drivers and the marketing partners that Legacy Racing has. And just everything from the caterers to the pit crews. I mean, the love that they have for him is incredible.

[01:15:23.840] - Jeff Furrier

It's mind boggling the amount of effort that would go into that and then for it all to come together. Or like that. I mean, that's the stuff that would keep me up at night. Oh, yeah. But the scale that's being done, especially, yeah. And Cal is a great addition to the board. Obviously, I love listening to everything he's saying. Just being able to learn from those guys.

[01:15:50.200] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, just a little bit I'm able to absorb from everybody has been awesome.

[01:15:54.580] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. Well, I grew up doing that, right? I mean, that's how I have educated myself is by listening to other people. So, yeah, we've got some good folks, including you.

[01:16:06.480] - Big Rich Klein

Well, thank you for that. I don't know about that. I got lucky to get on the board. Anyway, Jeff, I want to say thank you so much for spending the time and talking about your life and your passions. And I really look forward to getting to know you even better. I really enjoyed the MIT 400 last year contingency and being able to hang out all day with you and Rory and Gary and just absorbing you guys. And it was awesome.

[01:16:35.840] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah, the same. No, that's going to be fun. Yeah, I'm hoping to make it this year, and I think I'm going to try to bring a motorcycle to maybe ride in the parade. Cool. Instead of a car. Yeah, so it might be fun.

[01:16:47.260] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, and- Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. One of the things I found out is that Jimmy Johnson is getting back into off road racing.

[01:16:56.400] - Jeff Furrier

That's crazy. Yeah, that's going to be exciting.

[01:16:59.060] - Big Rich Klein

And His crew, the guys on his cup team, are really interested in the concept of unlimited truck racing.

[01:17:12.900] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah.

[01:17:13.680] - Big Rich Klein

He's telling his guys, You got to come out and work these races because we don't have any rules. It's got to have four tires and it can't fly.

[01:17:26.800] - Jeff Furrier

Right.

[01:17:27.980] - Big Rich Klein

It's the way he put it. And his crew Really? No rules? Because, they, NASCAR rules you to death.

[01:17:36.640] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah.

[01:17:37.900] - Big Rich Klein

And the guys are all looking really forward to that, and they'll be out at the mint.

[01:17:43.740] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. There's no one going half throttle at a desert race to try to keep the pack together.

[01:17:50.720] - Big Rich Klein

Correct.

[01:17:51.280] - Jeff Furrier

It's quite the opposite.

[01:17:53.270] - Big Rich Klein

No mandatory yellows, no mandatory cautions.

[01:17:57.540] - Jeff Furrier

No, that'll be exciting. And those guys Yeah, they don't... Obviously, they don't know what they don't know. But, yeah, Jimmy will be good. He'll attract a lot of attention. I'm sure he'll have a lot of fun. Yeah.

[01:18:10.340] - Big Rich Klein

All right. You, Jeff, take care and go back out and sell some parts.

[01:18:15.920] - Jeff Furrier

Yeah. All right.

[01:18:16.840] - Big Rich Klein

All right. Take care. Thank you so much. Yeah. Okay. Bye-bye. 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 think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information 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 gusto you can. Thank you.