Episode 19 - Jeff Freeman - Hoosier Asphalt Oval Tire South

Episode 19 (Part 1) – Jeff Freeman

Hoosier Asphalt Oval Tire South | Owner of Woodleaf Raceway Park

In Episode 19 (Part 1), Brad sits down with Jeff Freeman, the man behind Hoosier Asphalt Oval Tire South and owner of Woodleaf Raceway Park. With years of experience on the tire side of motorsports, Jeff brings a deep understanding of one of the most talked-about topics in racing today — tire prep.

Brad and Jeff dive headfirst into the controversy surrounding tire treatment and whether it’s helping or hurting the sport, including how it may be impacting costs, competition, and even engine longevity. The conversation also shifts to Jeff’s work at Woodleaf Raceway Park, where he’s helping grow the next generation of racers through karting and youth involvement.

From technical insight to grassroots development, Part 1 sets the stage for an honest and important discussion about the future of motorsports.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, Bad Brad today here, driving fast, taking chances. Honor to have Jeff Freeman on the show today. Jeff is, make sure I say it right, Hoosier tire, asphalt, oval south. Did I get all that right?

SPEAKER_02 0:20

No. Dang it, say it. What is it? Hoosier Asphalt Oval Tire South.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Oval tire. I left the tire. I do that all the time. But hey, if you're running those tires, and he can't endorse it, but I can, Bassett Racing Wheels. Bassett Racing Wheels are the best wheels on the planet. Whether you're 515, wide five, whether you need mini stock, whether you need big wide ones for your modified, our friends over at Bassett Wheel can definitely get you taken care of. Check those guys out online. Bassett Wheels, the only way to go. Drive fast, take chances with your Bassett Wheels. Well, Jeff, we are so excited that you were actually able to make the extremely long trip across the parking lot to finally come over here and get on podcast. So welcome, man.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Thank you, Miss What? Uh been the two months trying to get this to happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Two months, and I the commute's what's got to kill you. It was a pretty long vault. If we measured it off, how far are you from where you're sitting right now? Your office? 200 yards. Would you think it's that far? You could just about throw a baseball that far. So if my shoulder wasn't messed up, sure. Yeah, so people come oftentime, they'll come through here or whatever. I remember the first time like the Hartwigs came, you know, they parked overnight here or whatever. They go, dude, Hoosier's in your parking lot. How do you resist a temptation? I don't. I go there and buy two. So yeah, no, so you guys are super duper close right here, man. And uh one of the things that a lot of folks may or may not know about you guys, it really is a family business. Oh, yeah. Number one, you are not Hoosier. Explain how that works, where you guys plug into that. What is it that you guys do? I don't think a lot of folks understand. I think there's a misunderstanding of who you guys are and what y'all actually do.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Well, we're the asphalt side, the oval asphalt side. My dad was a dealer for many years, and uh the distributorship came up for sale, and um we couldn't buy all of it. I mean, it was every other distributor in the north, the east, everywhere else, they sell all the you know, road racing, drag racing, dirt racing. We're only asphalt, so we're just a small piece of the whole grand scheme of things, but we're still with the asphalt sides mainly in the south. So uh would distributorship come up for in 99, my dad purchased it, and here we are this many years later.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

So absolutely. Now you didn't uh even though you started off slinging tires when you were little, um, and oddly enough, so Jeff, if you guys that don't know it, Jeff's probably one of my best adult friends on earth. We've been we've been buddies for 50 years. Um, my dad worked in the race tire industry also, but for the enemy. My dad worked for Goodyear for Tom Parhale. Oh, yeah. So, but crazily enough, our dads have been we're buddies forever. Oh, yeah. So uh, and Jeff and I raced go-karts each other, grew up with each other. Oh yeah. Our lake houses are a handful of pieces apart, so uh, but we've always been great, great friends. You didn't necessarily start off your business, your adult life and career in the tire business.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

No, I worked at UPS, I was a mechanic for 10 years. So I worked for my dad when I was little, younger. Sure. And my dad decided he uh, you know, my goal was I was gonna race like everybody else. You know, we slung tires and then we were gonna go into racing. My dad said one day, he said, uh, you're going to college. I said, College? I'm what I'm going to college for. At the time they didn't have anything in racing college. So there's no four-year degree in raceology. Yeah, what am I gonna do? He says, uh, I don't want to figure it out. I said, I don't have a clue. I mean, he said, Well, go to school for electronics. I said, Dad, I I can't even put a radio in a car. I mean, I know nothing about that. So I went to South Tech, make a long story short, 11 weeks to go to graduate. I go to UPS as a mechanic, which was making way more money than I'd have been doing the electronics field. So, and here we are later, 10 years down the road, I ended up back working for my dad, which was what I wanted to do originally anyway. So it helped me a lot. It it got me out of, and I say this a family business is hard. We all know. Very, but going out and working UPS and doing what I did taught me a lot. I mean, a lot about all of it. That whole business aspect of it, working for somebody besides my dad, give me a good worth of it. I I know what it's like to have a boss man outside my dad.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

The hours, knowing you you're responsible for when you're gonna be there and when you're gonna. It's it was definitely I wouldn't change that. It it it taught me a lot.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

So was uh I think uh, and obviously as a business owner myself, I think the biggest surprise I had coming from corporate American own my own business was how many more hours I get to work now than it's mine.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Uh there it never stops. Yeah. I mean, my wife will say I'll get home and uh she'll send me back in, start supper, and an hour later I'm still in a truck with it running. Sure. She'll come out and say, I said, it never stops. So when you have your own business, it's 24-7, seven days a week. I mean, my phone's not on me right now because if it was, it it would be a good one. We'd be on the phone with it. Right, yeah, absolutely. So I'd have to put it over to the side. So it it never stops. Which I love it. Sure. Okay. If I didn't, I wouldn't do it.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Probably keeps us young.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

It well, I'm starting to get a little grayer now. I mean, now that my dad passed, it's I never really realized what he did. Sure. I I I realize now how much glue he had in the industry. And a lot of that weights on my shoulders now. So I'll cry a little bit if I didn't talking too much about it. So we'll move on to the next part of it.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Now, and uh your sister's involved? Uh your brother-in-law's involved, your mama isn't involved in there? My mom's the boss.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yeah. Okay. You know, my dad passed, my mom's the boss. Then it's me and my sister, my sister, and my mom do all the office stuff. Me and my brother-in-law, Steve Goodrich. Yep. Um, I give him a hard time about that because his last name, you know, Goodrich. Right. We're not in competition with tires. Absolutely. It's all good. We don't read the road racing stuff. Yeah, that's right. So, uh, but no, he's a heck of a good guy. But it's it's it's the family, that's it. And then we got a guy named Jim Schoff. Uh, he's the long guy. I pick on him and say he's a Jim's Mo Below and Go, you know. How long is how long has Jim been with you now? Jim's been with me since the first day, '99. Now he's he don't work for us all the time. Full time, right. But he's never let me down.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

I know he's there with you all the speed weeks. He's wherever you guys gotta go. He goes all American with you, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Everywhere I travel and we know the third guy, Jim goes. He's your he's your first choice for your third. First choice. And then my my cousin Joey Freeman, who does his tires at Bombergray, he goes with us some too. Uh, but Joey works, you know, he's got another job. He don't work for himself. Sure. So um he uh he can't go as much. But Jim, he always goes with us. So that that makes it good that we don't have to have another full-time person. But what people don't really understand is 99.9% of tires that go through the south come through the location over there. Very few tires get drop shipped, so we we handle all the tires. People don't understand. They they see us at a racetrack, they thought, well, them boys got off to the next time we see them at the racetrack, they don't understand all the tires.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

I'd love to set up a game camera in my parking lot, the number of semis in and out, in and out, in and out.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Well, you know, we got back Sunday, and everybody thought, Well, what you what you boys got going on next week? I said, Well, Monday morning at 8 o'clock, we're gonna unload a truck, and tomorrow afternoon we're gonna load one back. And we had another one today. So right now's the one of the busiest times. Everybody's getting started up and ready to go for the year, so it's a lot going on. Which I wouldn't have any other way. I mean, the asphalt world in South, really, we got three weeks off, really. I mean, there's really no time anymore. It's got busier now than ever.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Well, that's there's really no offseason anymore. We have the ability to race all winter. I mean, January, we were racing Governor's Cup for you guys late in the year, and then what Speed Fest or whatever was in January, and then we're right back to New Smyrna, so it's just not a lot of time off.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Florida's 52 weekends a year if you want to. Sure, absolutely. And you know, that's basically those guys take advantage of that. And we run a lot in in, you know, Florida and Deep South, Alabama, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah, absolutely. This episode brought to you by Jeff Hill Trailer Sales in Modoc, Indiana. Jeff Hill Trailer Sales.com has got everything you need: cargo, utility, stacker, full blown race trailer, whatever you need, Jeff and his crew will get you taken care of. Jeff Hill TrailerSales.com. Check them out today. So now you guys obviously handle everything from quarter midget tires. You guys also have go-kart tires now. Oh, yeah. You guys do the mini stock tires, you do the late model tires, both super, late model stock, sportsman style stuff, all the way up to y'all do modified tires for many of the tours also. You guys have got a plethora of everything over there.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Now we're doing sprint car tires.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Asphalt sprint car tires.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Yep. We uh we sort of that you know how tours come and go and things change. Um I seen the need that we needed sprint cars back on our tire. And uh so me and Gary Fountain and his wife Danette put together a sprint car series in a two-week period of time and just launched our first race to FMS Outlaws at New Smyrna.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Bad fast. Bad fast.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Hey, listen, when them guys come off, they're I think their eyes are still spinning when they get out.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Oh, I guarantee it. That uh that uh Davey Hamilton, I guess he is, he actually puts on an event in Vegas every year. Oh, yeah. And it's right before we're there for National Finals Rodeo with my daughter's business. And uh a couple years ago, it's funny. I got there a couple days early, and I was wearing a Chili Bowl hoodie. And there was a guy in the casino wearing a Veloci hoodie. I was like, I said, Man, where'd you get the hoodie? Oh yeah, my kid wears her stuff. What are you talking about them guy? Oh man, they're top shelf, get my stuff, this that, and the other. He goes, You are you a chili bowl guy? I said, Yeah, yeah, I'll go to the chili bowl. He goes, Are you here for the Davy Hamilton Classic? I said, The what? He said, David Hamilton Classic, well, what is that? He goes, Well, they're racing out at the Bull Ring the next three nights. I wasn't here for that, but I am now. That's right. The next three nights, man. They had supers, sprint cars, midgets, um, and uh they had super modified midgets and they had the winged um sprint cars. Dude, put on one heck of a like 50,000 to win that sprint car. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah, it was madness, man. Can't imagine how many tires I was getting.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Well, Davy won the race, our first Noggle race. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. It's been two years and he won the race, man. He was ecstatic.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

He was something was happening right there. I was there that night. He was something was happening there right there at the end. Somebody got underneath him right there and ended up spinning. Santos, man. Santos coming back.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Man, he was coming. He was rolling. Uh I mean, that deep a run in the corner, and them two got together. I thought, oh man.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

So it's gonna be bad. Thank God he just spun. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

And then they the other guys missed him coming to the caught, you know, to the finish line. So it was a heck of a good race. They uh flow named our race the best race of speed weeks. Awesome. On asphalt. That was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

I don't disagree with that, man. It was really, really good. So, like your speed weeks or your traditional deal. You guys load up two, three days before the event. You typically load up a semi, and a lot of folks don't know. You actually have a CDL. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

You actually I'm the driver, I truck, I drive the truck.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

You drive, y'all have a Kenworth. I've seen it. You got a 53-foot, you got multiple 53 foot over there, and you actually drive that truck up and down the highway.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

I'm the only CDL driver we got.

unknown 11:12

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

That's crazy. So you guys leave two, three days before an event. You guys go set up the tire compound, you set up your tents, man. Y'all got your grill in the corner, the whole deal, and basically y'all just set up just like it was a mobile tire shop ultimately.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Yeah, absolutely. We always pick and say we're we're always the first ones in, the last ones leave. That's usually how it works. Now, a lot of times we'll have to leave events um to come back home to get ready for Monday. Another day. You know, if there's a race on Sunday, a lot of times we'll make sure everything's serviced, everything's done, and we'll say, hey guys, we hate to do this, but we'll might we might have to leave before the race. Sure. But ever but we always make sure our all our customers are taken care of, and there's something there in case something happens. In most of the places we go, the racetracks have a dealer that does the smaller stuff anyway. We when we go in, we service the big vents. You know, we we go in and help the dealer, or we go in and do it for the dealer, but there's always somebody there to service it if we have to leave. But I I don't typically like to leave, but there's cases when, well again, it's just me and Steve and my sister, so we you gotta come home, unload the truck, get ready for next week.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

So I want to ask you a couple of folklore black magic voodoo questions. Okay. Do date codes matter, and is there such a thing as a date code? Date codes matter. Okay. I see guys a lot of times going through the truck, and I'm not gonna pick on Matt Hirschman, but uh I see guys get in the tire truck and they're there for a really long time.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Well, you gotta realize and the way people under they think they think there's magic there, okay? Sure. The the reason I say codes matter is you want to match the codes to where you they're close to the same age, okay? Sure. You know, the worst thing happens is an old, old tire and and then a fresh retire. Well, COVID pretty much took care of all that because there ain't no old, old, old anymore. I mean, because it's still going on as fast as we can build them.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

People I know uh obviously, I mean, I come over and see you guys, I mean, three, four, five times a month. There's been times I've walked in the warehouse that I'm like, bro, y'all having a going out of business sale? And then there's other times I come over there in the warehouse and it's like, how do y'all walk in here? And we're talking about three or four days difference. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, unless they're storing those in some ginormous warehouse somewhere, that stuff looks super fresh to me.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Well, in the asphalt world, different than the dirt world. You know, we don't build tires like every week, okay? There's we call it winter production. We build up a bunch of inventory, and then because the dirt stuff ages faster, you know what I mean? So it's softer, softer compound ages faster. So we build a lot of inventory in the winter, and then we'll deplete it down in towards the summer, and then we build another big bulk that gets us through the summer, and then we start back fall, we start building some, and then you got that winter production starts over again. So it's it's easy to really three big, big builds for the asphalt stuff.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Do you feel like uh maybe a good example, maybe a bad example? One of the fastest tires that y'all sell is the F-15. Absolutely. Which would be the Bowman Gray tire. That's right. It's a 10-inch wide tire. Everybody's like, well, the 15-inch wide tire is faster. Whew, I don't know about it on that tire because it's gumball soft. It's really soft. Um if let's just say you had F-15s left over at the end of the season, and I know back in the day you probably did probably pre-COVID, you had three, four, five cents of those left. They probably get gobbled up, gobbled up with guys practicing the beginning of the year shaking cars down. But let's just say that we started off the season. If half the field got those last year tires and half the field got brand new tires, would we see a line in the sand drone? A new guy.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

That's why we always make sure that we plan ahead to have stuff to where everybody's on the same thing. I mean, we're not gonna let some people race on fresh retires than others, okay? We'll we'll take them out of the system before we do that because we have another outsource for the F-15s outside of Bomagray with dirt stuff. Sure. So we don't, we don't we make sure that people don't get old and new. I mean, I know things they think we do, but that's does not happen.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Sure, absolutely. And I think part of that too is is uh while you guys are the distributor, what I don't see is retail customers in your business.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

We don't retail against in other words, if I sell our tire retail, I'm doing it for a racetrack. Sure. Okay. They get their part of the whole deal. We do not retail against sell against our racetracks or dealers.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

If they buy retail tires, they go to Freeman's Auto Center at my friend they buy my buy from Joey. Right, absolutely. So, or it carry, I guess, Caraway ace, they buy from the track there.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Well, we'll sometimes have a guy say, hey, look, I'm gonna go run five flakes. Sure. Okay, and I'm from this area. Well, Donnie Wilson. We'll say that, guys, okay. We're gonna go down there, so Donnie will send a guy up. We'll you might get three or four sets, okay? I'll call Tim Bryant and say, Hey, I'm billing you for these tires. Donnie come got them, you click when you get down there. Sure. We don't sell against our people. That's just my dad always said you, you, you, you take care of your guys, which we can't do that. We're not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

So well, being a distributor, it's hard to hard to make it happen and hard to make it fair for everybody. That's right. Now, you touched briefly there on the dirt thing. I don't know whose genius idea it was, but there's a group of people in that uh Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arkansas, uh, Arca LaTex is the area that they call it. They are taking what we would consider to be a worn-out race tire, grooving and siping these things, and they're going factory stock racing. Whose brainchild was that? That's freaking awesome, man. Because before those tires were just getting what? Ground up, thrown away, disposed of, or whatever. Now it's like they got a second chance or a second life.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

So we were talking about the uh go-kart stuff you mentioned earlier. I took that same thought process that we're talking about right here, and that's what the go-kart tires developed after is the asphalt pull-off compounds. Nice. And it's it's taken over a lot of the go-kart stuff. The treaded tire is an asphalt compound of some of the same stuff that we used. So I don't know who the genius was that came up with the idea. It's worked. We've a lot of asphalt pull-offs go out that way for sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Absolutely. I've seen, I don't know if you guys bring them back or what, but there's been multiple times that I've seen uh I call them the cage trailers, and they're packed. But every time, you know that truck, it's got a Texas tag on it, it's got an Oklahoma tag, it's got an Arkansas tag.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

When we were at New Samaritan, a guy just came in with two tractor trailer loads and carried them to Texas. Wow. That's that's he's he makes a living off selling Scuff Tires. That's crazy. But he takes them back and cleans them and grew. There's a lot, listen, there's a lot of work. He don't just come get them and turn around and pillow.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

I'm I'm sure you probably know the guy's name. You may not know him. Ronnie Humphrey, Ron. Oh, I know Humming. Ronnie's been a customer of ours. He's a buddy of mine, great guy, good businessman, loves Jesus, takes care of his family. He had that piranha deal. Man, just everything was clean, tires were wrapped, the whole deal. And I'm like, Ronnie, how much work you got now? He goes, dude, it's 80 hours a week, nonstop. Turning on thirty tires around. It's a lot of work. Turning those tires around. It's easy for me to just go over and pay him for four and get them, you know. Oh, yeah. Walk away instead of doing them myself. But absolutely. So you briefly touched on the go-kart thing, and and honestly, I I met you theoretically through go-karts. Oh, yeah. I won't tell anybody when, but it was 1983. So um go-karts have been near and dear to your heart for a very long time. Oh, yeah. I started racing, I was five years old. How awesome is it to be able to be part of the evolution of the Hoosier Go-Kart tire program?

SPEAKER_02 18:31

It's big. You know, everybody wants to be known for something one day. Sure. You know, uh was my dad would call the legacy. Sure. And the cigar man. The cigar man. Yes. That's I mean, I saw my dad, and everybody knows my dad's cigar man, you know. Absolutely. And we started the cigar man tour at East Surrey with a modified stuff. That's all. And that's uh, you know, and Hart would won it, and man, he was ecstatic, the trophy. I mean, you know, every picture you see, they're there and it makes me feel good. Absolutely. 100%. Should. So, but uh, you know, I'll tell the story, it's a brief story, and I said, we own Woodley for Sway Park, okay? And uh guy calls me one day and he says, Hey, I got my kid, want to get in racing. And I had him on speakerphone. And my dad was in the other office, and he I was telling the guy, I said, Look, uh, don't do it. He said, What do you mean? I said, unless you're a chemist or you know, you got a hundred thousand dollars to blow on paying somebody to tires, do something different. I mean the go-kart tearing things. So I hang the phone up with a guy, I said, Hey man, I appreciate you being honest. My guy comes there, my dad says, What did you just do? I said, What do you mean, dad? He said, You told a guy not to get in go-kart racing. I said, Well, I was being honest with him. Yeah, he said, we got a go-kart track. What are you thinking? I said, uh, um I was just being honest, Dad. He said, uh, be part of the solution, not the problem. I said, What does that mean? He said, You figure it out. I said, Yeah, I thought along long and hard and I thought. Treaded tires is what who's with dirt, that's what's all about. And I thought, go-karts people ain't gonna accept that. But I'm an asphalt guy. I'm not a dirt guy, so I thought, how am I gonna make all this work? Light bulb come on. I thought, we'll take asphalt compounds and put on the treaded dirt tires and we'll see what it does. So I got the go-kart tracks. I still got go-karts, got buttons. So I went over and done the test, and I test for about six months, different, different constructions, different stuff. I mean, the tread design's the same, but everything's asphalt complex.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Super cool that you are you've got that input with Hoosier. You're actually able to say, hey, we need to do this, we need to do that.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

I got the engineers on speed dial.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah, as you're developing that product, man, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Well man, I had them on the phone. I would I'd I'd be running in the call and say, Hey, man, it's doing this, it's doing that. We need to change this. Like, no problem, we'll build some more tires. And that's how the whole process got started. I mean, it was several phone calls and different changes. Um, and I say we got lucky. Uh, you know, it just we hit it. So, and then right now it's booming. I mean, really, but I you know, I was supposed to be what this morning and I just got I've been over here branding tires and putting them together.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Two months ago. You're supposed to be here two months ago. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's definitely taking uh taking a while. And again, to have those projects and those new projects are exciting and being able to get those going. I mean, how much is a set of go-kart tires right now? This episode brought to you by Jeff Hill Trailer Sales in Modoc, Indiana. Jeff Hill TrailerSales.com has got everything you need cargo, utility, stacker, full blown race trailer. Whatever you need, Jeff and his crew will get you taken care of. Jeff Hill Trailersales.com. Check them out today. How much is a set of go-kart tires right now?

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Uh, about 320. 320.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

So it's not like anybody is retiring off a set of go-kart tires. No. You got to be messing with go-kart tires because you love them.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Only because of loving it. Yeah. And and listen the sports dying because of the prepping of the tires. The expense is the biggest thing. People don't have the Time anymore to spend the hours after hours after hours working on tires every night.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

You know, we talked um a little I talked a little bit uh a while back, uh John Klutz. John was my mentor road racing. Oh yeah. Uh I won seven WK Road Race Championships, and I I accredit that to Stan Yance and John Klutz. Oh yeah. John my dad paid John to go be my crew chief every weekend, and we had a lot of success together. And asked John before he sold the business and retired, I said, What do you think has been the demise of go-kart racing? He said, two things, and it's very simple. Number one, money. Go-kart racing should have never paid a prize, ever. Period. He said, back in the day, we would show up to Daytona, there would be 2,500 go-karts in Volusia County alone, and we were all racing for a trophy and nobody cared. Yeah. And number two, tire prep. He said tire prep absolutely ruined the sport. Absolutely. He said, now I'm not saying that us smearing a little chemical here and there, but he goes, We had cut tires, we had site, you know, uh angle cut tires, we had tires that were cut a little bit, tires that were not cut enough, tires that had been cured, tires hadn't been cured. He said it really came down to tire war. And he said it was no longer about who built a better chassis, who built a better motor, this, that, and the other. He said, honestly, he said it ruined the sport, and he said it made it where a guy couldn't make an honest living with a go-kart shop anymore.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

So it just made it tough. And I remember as a kid, 1987, I went to my first ever Daytona. We used to run Volusia, the big track. I showed up, and I'll never forget, in Junior Limited Modified, we had 91 go-karts. Oh, yeah. And you know what we were racing for? Trophy. A trophy. You know whose dad was mad that we were racing for a trophy? Nobody's.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Nobody's.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

What kid was mad that we were racing for a trophy? Nobody. We had the best freaking time racing each other for a trophy. Oh yeah. It was unbelievable. And back in the day, which not Hooser, if you ran on a wet track, we had Continentals. And if you ran on a dry track, you had Bridge Stones. Yep. If you were bougie, you had a Dunlop left rear. Oh yeah. If you were boo, but if you wasn't bougie, you didn't have that, so it didn't matter. Now you look at this thing, man. Uh just a few weeks ago, Donnie Knoll came and picked up a new suit, and we were just talking, and I was like, What do you spend all of your time and focus on? He goes, Well, he walked in the door, and the first thing my general manager said was, Who stinks? Was Donnie. It's not B.O. It's chemicals. Oh, yeah. He goes, It's it's my whole life, man. And it's a wonder your children and my children only have 10 fingers and toes. Absolutely. The chemicals that we've been held and done over the years, it's been crazy stuff. So it's really fun to see this. Don't touch them. Hoosier come in. Support you, obviously. You buy a lot of tires. Support that and to actually see that where you guys are kind of bringing something full circle and bringing something around, man. Kudos for putting up the effort to that.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Once it hits a track, it can't get it.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

I'm gonna wipe them off. You can't do nothing. I saw your sign down there. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

So I mean, you know, it's can't take them in the trailer. Sure. They got us down the go-kart or on the ground. Right. So I mean, it's and they and the racers police each other. We don't have to have a guy walking around going, hey. Hey, you just put yeah, absolutely. You wouldn't believe I got him on film. I got him on the phone.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Oh, yeah. The the evolution of the uh of the camera man, wherever my phone is, the evolution of the video camera man, you ain't hiding nothing now.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

So yeah. It's cool, man. You know, it it's really it's fun again. Yeah. Think about when we was racing go-karts, well, not so long ago when I went back to racing after taking, what, 20 years off? I got the brainy ideas when I go back. You know, people don't understand racing is the worst drug there is, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Well, there's uh here's the thing. I we we were talking about this the other day. If you have a problem with drinking, there's a 12-step program. Drugs, 12-step program. Uh gambling, 12-step program. If you're a racer, you just gotta race more, man. That's right. There's no program.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 25:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

So uh the chemical side of it's what what got me back out of it. You know, the and the the prepping thing is just it's just got crazy. I mean, it's in the butt with the treaded stuff. I mean, it's made it's fun again, okay? You don't have to stay at the trailer the whole time working on the tires. When when you're not racing, you're at the fence. You're at the risk like we used to do. Yeah, here's the thing about go-kart racing, I see it. There's really what we call in big car, it's front gate, back gate. Sure. Okay. There's go-kart racing, there was really no spectators. Now, there's a show now. They racing three and four wide. I mean, the track would have been slickers better. Yeah. The racers come off, they give each other high five. It's amazing to me, okay, in a champ par class. Sure. They would go on, they would run, go out there and run the slick tires, no matter what brand it was. Come in, arguing, sometimes wanting to fight each other, which we don't allow. Go right back out the same guys with a treaded tire come in high five and laughing, having a great time. Great. All we changed was tires.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

And it was like, man, that's that's the most fun we've ever had racing. I'm like, well, guys, you know, we can do this without the prepping.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

And this year at Woodleaf Raceway Park, there is going to be no prepping all traded tires.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Right on. It's definitely the way to do it.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

That's that's definitely the direction I'm going in.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

So you guys have have obviously figured things out with the go-kart stuff. What do you see is the evolution of big car tires? We hear a little bit of complaints. You know, racers are gonna complain about everything. If you fix a problem for a racer, they're gonna create a new one. We know that. I'm a racer, you're a racer. We we're we are part of the problem sometimes. We'd like to think we're also part of the solution. But you know, if a guy was out here selling NASCAR Tour League or Modified for$19,995, somebody would complain that they were$20,000. And it's really$120,000. But what do you see the evolution with big car tires? What do you see as next for that side of the business or that side of the racing world? As far as what do you mean now? Well, I mean, uh you guys obviously have gone back in and you you've fixed carting for theory. Now it's just gotta go viral. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Can that be done with a big car tire?

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Well, I don't know that there's really a big problem with the big with the asphalt tire. I mean, we've we've changed some components in it and made it better. Uh, but I mean, there's no prepping on the asphalt side of it. Now that you gotta realize an asphalt racing is a little different than dirt. Sure. You you buy four tires every time you go to track, we keep them impounded. We don't have to sit there and work. So you guys do impound. We impound. Okay, you see how to do it. In the dirt world, you gotta think of it this way. You can go buy your tires from whoever, you take them home, then the integrity comes in. Sure. So the lab is a big important part of it. Taking the sample, sending the lab, we do that with the go-kart stuff because we allow them to take them home. Okay. So you got to do that. But now in the asphalt world, all your main bigger races, it's all impound stuff. So you buy them at the track, at least four, and they stay with you till you go qualify. The racers never get an opportunity. Now, some of the places will let them actually take a their if it's an eight-tire race, it's called start with qualifiers, finish with a set, another set. They'll let them go scuffing. I'm always like saying, guys, why do you do that? I mean, you you you let them take them to the trailer. Why did we even have an impound for the race stars? And they're like, Well, they'll look at me like, Why? I said, I'm a go-kart racer. You give me the opportunity to take the trailer, yeah. What am I gonna do? Well, if somebody else has the opportunity and you give me the opportunity, then I might be willing to try something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

How uh the uh the evolution of the lab has really changed the complexity of the city of the world.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Well, Blue Roosevelt's uh it's it's no joke, is it? It's a no-joke deal.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

So uh the tire prep, the this, that, and the other, uh, we had Bobby Pierce on a while back, and Bobby got DQ'd last year over a tire. Now Bobby's won 200 races, has never been DQ'd before, has never been DQ'd after. They in the dirt world, this is crazy, and I don't think you guys allow this. Let's just say that we show up to friendship. I go over to the tire truck, I get 17 tires for the weekend. You give me my 17 tires. All of the tires that I don't use, I get to bring back. No questions asked, I bring them back. And if I brought back four tires, you charge me for 13 tires and we go. He got DQ'd on a tire. How does he know that he didn't get a tire that somebody else had and molested? Now, my Bobby Pierce hater is gonna say, Oh, Bobby's a cheater, this, that, and the other. 200 race wins, we got one DQ, we won all those races and championships up to that, we won all them races and championships afterwards. Really? One tire, one day, one time, no chain of command. Now, I do know back in the day when I ran the smart modified tour, we could turn tires back in. So if we had now again, we're talking 2002, 2003, 2004.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

That don't happen anymore. We can if if it leaves my site, it's not your perfect. No, we we we what we do, we call it the exchange. You mount it, the size don't size up. That happens. I mean, come on, it's it's a tire.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

You know, but they but they do that in the in the impound.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

We do it in the impound. Sure. But if it ever leaves our site, it ain't coming back. Because I'm not, we can't take that chance.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

So and I have seen that's practice stuff.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

Now let's make sure we're talking about that. Race stuff is not gonna leave our site because it stays in the impound. Sure. But I mean, if a guy comes over, he buys a set of tires, practice tires, and it don't size up, as long as they do it right there in site, um, we'll let them exchange it. Because here's the thing, we all we're racers, right? If you put that tire on and they don't size up, then in our mind, we're it's it's it's our day. Oh, yeah. Okay, absolutely. You know, and a lot of people they'll go places and like that's your four tires, that's just make it work. Uh well, the guy done, he's done lost. You know, if that's tire doesn't mean he's not perfect.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

He's already mentally beat, so now he's gonna be physically beat.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Absolutely. So you we want them to be happy. I told somebody that they said, How many times can I swap a tire? I looked at him, I said, I'm gonna ask you a question. Can you be happy? I said, Rachel's not usually happy. I said, Can you be happy? He said. I said, Yeah. I said, when you've when you be when you can be happy, then that's when you can quit changing it. He said, I like that. I said, Well, that's that's my that's the deal here. I mean, you know, you can change it till you're happy.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

And that that's pretty bold because you don't make those tires. I don't make them. I mean I sell them. I just sell that tire and you're willing to stand behind your manufacturer. Obviously, your manufacturer stands behind you. Absolutely. They're the world's leading race tire manufacturer, and they obviously want to take care of that. But that's awesome that you guys are able to. And I'm sure I know there's been some situations where I think uh, I don't remember where it was a few years ago, a handful of drivers had some type of adjustment issue with a tire. And I saw something you guys had publicly made a statement about or whatever. Hooter took care of the problem. Absolutely. That was like, man, that's awesome. That hey, we got an issue, we owe you guys, we'll take care of it. Absolutely. That kind of thing. That's just um, you don't always see that level of integrity in business anymore these days. We obviously run our company that way. You try to take care of that also, and I'm sure you'd be willing to go to bat for your customer if they had that problem as well.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Well, you know, my dad always said to customers, right, and it's hard to say that sometimes when, like you said, racer's not always happy. Usually the guy wins, he's happy. Sometimes he may not be, you know. How many times have you ever seen that guy get out of the car and say, I just missed the corner? Or the crew chief say, you know, we missed the setup. But they'll say, I got a bad set of tires. Oh, so we always know every Monday, I expect I got a bad set of tires. I mean, that's that's a that's a normal. And I I don't want to say maybe they really did, but it's like the little, you know, house wolf, you know what I mean? Lily, okay. We hear it so much, then it's like you know how it goes. Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

It's like uh in the dirt world we hear it all the time. It's like the guy who wins, the racetrack was flawless. The guy who finished 17th, man's rutted up holes, jumped black slip, couldn't get no traction. Promoter was terrible, they didn't use no water. The kid who won, he's like, Man, I love this place. Come on, can we run tomorrow night too? Same for everybody, you know?

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Just like the codes. Let's get back to coaches, man. Okay. I I I got two sets of tires, right? I got practice tires and erase tires, and uh when I turned man, I was bad fast, bad, fast. Track record speed. Yeah, it was good. I bowled them tires on, slow down. But did you ever think that you dialed on your car, dialed on your car, and you've been running and running and running, right? You put the other tires on, it tightens it up, it shoves the nose, and you slow down. Yeah, you changed the tires, but you adjusted the car as you ran and it got freer.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

They don't think about that stuff. We hear it all the time. They never think about that. You know, one of the things that was really kind of a good education for me was uh your uncle Danny. We were at Caraway when I was running Smart, and uh I always bought one set of tires. And he said, he he was really nice about it. He was great about it. He said, You will probably never win a race buying one set of tires. I said, What? Velocity USA, the world's greatest driving suit, lighter, faster, and better than what you're wearing. Suits, gloves, shoots, helmets, head and neck restrained, everything for your safety program in one location. Check us out online, velocity USA.com. Give us a call, 336-764-8502. Drive fast, take chances for all your rodeo and western lifestyle apparel. Check out rocket donkey.com. That's Rocket Donkey Apparel. You'll see these folks all over the place. You'll even pick them up at the Chili Bowl Nationals. They've got trade show boosts at virtually every barrel race in America. Check them out online, RocketDash Donkey.com. Hey guys, this part of the show brought to you in part by Easy Sponsorships.com. If you're looking for sponsorship for your race car and running into dead ends and closed doors everywhere, check out easysponsorships.com and learn from the super sponsor man, Claude Hagerty. He will show you how to find money to go racing. He said, You will probably never win a race buying one set of tires. I said, What? We can't use but one set. He goes, You're right. You're only allowed to race a set of tires. But you can use as many tires as you want. I was like, What do you mean? He goes, Well, if you look at the guys that consistently finish in front of you, they are buying two sets of tires or 10 tires or 12 tires. I was like, Well, why would they do that? And he goes, Well, are you gonna qualify on used tires? No. Are you gonna race on used tires? I'm not gonna start the race on used tires. He said, But you're gonna take your car out there right now and you're gonna run them 151 lap old tires from the last time that you ran, and you're gonna get your car set up. And then you're gonna take them brand new tires and go out there and qualify. And when you get to the corner, it's gonna drive all the way to the fence. Now you've lost all the confidence that you had in your race car because, like what you were saying, you've got it set up to run on that junk, and now that it didn't click. A couple three weeks later, Donnie Leah came down and raced with us. And I watched Donnie go over there and they bought five sets of tires. Five sets of tires. I'm like, holy crap for a smart race, paid what,$1,800 to win back in the day. Yeah. I'm like, five sets of tires, man. My man's never been to the racetrack. Never been, never been on a racetrack, rolls out on stickers. Goes out there, who's the fastest growing racetrack? First practice. Never even been there. Oh, yeah. Donnie. Okay. I mean, I was fast there, but I wasn't that fast. That's right. My man comes in and they jack it up, make a couple of adjustments. Those wheels and tires came off of the car, and another set of wheels and tires, also brand new, go on there. He goes out there. He's even faster. He did that three times. The fourth time that they did it, they came in, they taped up, dropped the their qualifying package. Oh, yeah. He went out there and laid down a lap that all of us went, this ain't even fun no more, man. Like we're here racing for second now. Absolutely. And he put his brand new set on for feature time, and he went out there and absolutely destroyed us. Now, I went back shifter cart racing after I ran the smart tour, and I did the same thing shifter cart racing and had incredible success. FR and tag racing, same thing. If I'm not gonna race on that used tire, why do I do that? How many racers still have that mentality? They go out there and run that used tire, try to get that car fast, go buy the new tire, and they're out to lunch. How's all the time? Yeah. But how do you get them to understand? This episode brought to you in part by Schoenfeld Headers, Van Buren, Arkansas, all the way back to Daddy Schoenfeld building the best headers for all types of racing. If you need headers for your race cars, Schoenfeldheaders.com, check them out online or at any of their thousands of retailers nationwide. This episode brought to you by Bastet Racing Wheels. Whether you're looking for a 15-inch inertia wheel, rolled edge, armor edge protection, whatever it is that you need, DOT IMCA Bastet Racing Wheel has you covered. Bastet Racing Wheels is the leader in short track wheels nationwide. BastettWheels.com for all your racing wheel needs. This portion of our show brought to you by Woodleaf Raceway Park, right on Facebook. Check out the world's greatest dirt go-kart track with a focus on kids and family. They have ungo-karted go-kart racing. Jeff Freeman and his staff work tirelessly to make sure your kids are safe and having a great time. Check them out on Facebook at Woodleaf Raceway Park. How's it all the time? Yeah. But how do you get them to understand you need at bare minimum? If it's a place that's going to allow four sticker tires, how many times are you just out of breath and just tired of telling them you need eight tires? You don't need four.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

It's a different series. The Super World, all them guys are gonna they're they're gonna throw tires at it. Right. And they're gonna have what they call the mock set. Sure, yeah. They're gonna show up with stuff that's left over. They'll go out and shake the car down. Shake it down. You know, check the brakes, engine, whatever they're gonna do. And then they bolt a new set on. Because think about Brad. You work all week at the shop for weeks prior to a race. And most of the time you unload yourself the fastest. You bolt not after you, not your scuff tires, but you bolt your first brand, you set the tires on. Then it's spent all day long dialing it out, dialing it out, dialing it out. Yeah, the smart guy who bolt his tires on, he'll watch, wait, watch the time, see what the track's doing, you know, then he'll put his mock set on. He's not sitting there dialing it all. You know, they'll tweak it here or there. Sure. But um the guy over there thrashing all week, he's usually not the guy that wins directs. So but you know, in the mini-stock world, those guys can't, they're gonna run tires multiple times. So those guys putting on brand new, you know, buying a brand new set and putting a set of practice tires on, that really don't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Probably doesn't make a lot of sense. Right. But you know, back in the day, we'll just not a great example, but not a bad example. The Goody's Dash guys, or even like uh what used to be the Pro 4s at Hickory, those guys could burn up a set of tires every week. Oh, yeah. But on the guys like uh, even I think you guys have a really good tire, is it the D800 or something like that? That's a tire a man can run three, four nights in a row. A brand new set is no faster than a set that's three weeks old. That's right. I see that. But the slick tire thing, everywhere I go and I see guys that are bad fasting practice that wind up 10th, 12th, 15th in qualifying order, you can almost ask them every time. Did you mock up? No. Why? Well, we were good in practice. Right. Well, now you're 12th on a racetrack that's one groove, hard to pass on, and now you're pissed about it. Absolutely. So for sure. Yeah. So that's a battle that you guys probably fight every week. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do you uh do you ever try to sell a guy more tires, or you just let them get what they want to get and move on?

SPEAKER_02 41:33

Well, since COVID, it's definitely turned into now where we limit tires. We figured out that, you know, and these guys has figured out that they don't need as many as they they used to.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

So it's it's let me make sure I heard that right. So you sell race tires for a living. I do. And you now limit the amount of tires a guy can buy. We do. Yeah. So say that out loud one more time.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

We we limit the amount of tires people can buy.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Would that not limit the amount of income you get to take home?

SPEAKER_02 42:01

Well, you gotta think about something, Brad. Everybody in racing thinks, you know, we'll call it the rich guy, poor guy. There's no such thing as a poor guy in racing, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Well, we we've had that conversation. But yeah, we've got to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

So here's the thing, think about it. If you limit the amount of tires in the poor guy, which there's not a poor guy, but the poor guy's mind, he's now equal to the rich guy.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

At least for tires.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

Yes. For tires, okay. So what you do is you allow them to buy practice tires to go practice to go test. We'll use the Donnie Wilson again, okay? Donnie may go test four or five times, okay? And he he's but he's got a lot of cars, got a lot of different drivers, but still yet not picking on him, but that they go do a lot of testing, okay. But when you get to racetrack, now we make them equal. Donnie's car and uh and the other guy, that's how many tires you can buy that day. That that has made it to where tire consumption is basically the same.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Oh, that makes sense. I I didn't realize I knew that like Martinsville Late Mile Stock Race, uh, Mike Looney and I were talking and um last year, uh whatever the practice day was, he's like, I asked him something about tires or whatever. And he goes, Well, we're only allowed to buy three sets. I said, three sets. I remember being up there a decade ago, and I don't remember who I was there helping. Maybe I don't know if it was Alec Young, somebody in that group, somebody, one of our local guys that was always fast. I I absolutely remember being at that truck and his dad either buying eight or ten sets of the city.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

Oh, yeah, back in back in the day. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

I mean, it was just I mean, it was just gluttony, man. There was tires everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

Sometimes you got to help people from themselves.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

I I can absolutely agree.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

I mean, really seriously. I mean, there I hate to say this, and I do sell tires, but a lot of times they waste them. Sure. And I I mean, I do I want to sell tires? Yes. But would I rather have more people racing buying more tires than less people? People racing is less tiresome.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

I think as a racer, we'd both like to see full fields with good competition than to see eight guys are the only guys that can come do it. Absolutely. For sure. And I'll ask you a question as a racer. Would you rather see a race, even if it was your favorite driver, who set the pole and checked out on the field, or would you rather see a 24-car field? Every driver led at least one lap. We had 109 lead changes in a hundred lap race, and they came across a strike four wide for the checker, and nobody knew who won until we looked at transponder times. Which finish do you want to see? I don't think you got to ask me that again, Dean. Yeah, exactly. But it's funny though, because it's like I tell people all the time, they're like, Yeah, we just want to dominate. I'm like, as a driver, I don't want to dominate nothing. What fun is that? I want to dominate the business world, but competition is good for business. And my thing is, man, I know you and I had some great battles when we were kids in junior stock back in the day. Let's pass each other every lap. Oh, yeah. So come by side by side and get off the skills and high five each.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

Let's go back to the go-kart deal again. Yeah. Okay, when when you run the prep tires, we'll call it. Yeah. I don't like to say brands, okay. I'm this guy I don't use brands. Yeah. So no matter what brand of prep tire, it's turns into a one groove racetrack. It does. Their integrity is gone. You actually remember back in the day, if I would have turned and looked at somebody going down straightaway, my dad would have took the cranker off the side of the motor and busted me upside the head with the helmet on. Now with the helmet on, okay.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

You're right. You you probably actually witnessed my dad at North Davidson the first time that I should have won, and either you or Shane Tuttle, y'all were R. T. One of the two of y'all actually ended up beating me because I did. My dad used to call it turtleneck. I turtlenecked, drove out of the groove, and one of y'all drove around me. And my dad whooped me at the scales. Yeah. Now he did not give me the courtesy of uh I got bare bottomed a bare hand and everybody got to watch it. But yeah, I mean, because I turtlenecked, and you're exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

Or or the fact of, you know, we we go in the last corner and we decide, you know, we're just not gonna turn. Let's drive through the guy.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

That's one of my biggest things when I decided to come back after my 20-year retirement.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

I tried to race everybody like we used to race. They don't race like that. No, I tore a lot of go-karts up. Go-karts are weapons now. Oh, yeah. I'll tell you what we do. Let's let's get rid of all the bodies. Let's get rid of all the bodies and get rid of all them big nerf bars. Yeah. Let's go back to old school. Yeah. Well, the problem would be we would have a we'd have to have 14 ambulances at the racetrack.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

I would like to be in the collarbone repair industry if that's the case.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

Oh yeah. Well, listen, it would only take one weekend.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

You're not wrong. It would take one weekend for each group of racers. Then we would have it done. I think we'd be able to get it. We'd get fixed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

You know, but the problem is, you know, what are we teaching the kids? Sure. I mean, we're the I hear the daddies over there telling them, chop them off. Chop them. I'm like, come on, man. Yeah. What what are we teaching them? Or or just don't lift. Drive through them. I'm like, man, that's that's that's that's not what we need to be teaching. That's not. But let's go back to the tread thing. Sure. The tracker's slicker, they're not locked down, they can race three or four wide. It's way better racing. I mean, I'm telling you, you need to come over and watch it. Everybody's seen it like, man, that that's go-kart racing like it used to be. Like you say, coming off the track, the high five, and man, we had fun. That's the most fun we ever had. Right on. Uh, you wouldn't believe some of the guys. Ryson Murray was just over here to Smeo getting treaded airs and you're going to go. Andy Murray, his dad, probably sold more prep to the case. King of Prep. He's the King of Prep. Okay. He was over to Smee, and he says, you know, I never believed we would say this, but me and my dad said, you know, the treaded stuff is probably going to take over go-kart racing.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Yeah. I hope it's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

You know, he said, uh, he said, we're tired of smelling it and we sell it.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

So I mean, I think everybody in the in the go-kart world, the prep world, they're getting tired of the mess. Good deal.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

That's awesome too. Been able to work with Hoosier and bring that program to where it is, and hopefully that thing goes viral and we kind of see that. Also, you guys do the quarter midget tires.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Um, I've actually been uh really fortunate to be involved a lot more the last couple years with quarter midgets, man. And that's a really good group, too. Also racing for no money. Oh, yeah. Huge car accounts, huge fields. What I love about that deal, the volunteerism. If your kid is racing, you have to work the infield. Oh, yeah. If your kid is racing, you've got to work the grid. If your kid is racing, you've got to work the tech shed. I love that, man. And I think it brings that sense of community. Now, again, you we're always gonna have moms and dads that are gonna spend too much. They're all gonna do this, that, and the other, whatever it may be. But that's a really good group. And that, to me, even though our dads didn't have to volunteer, your dad would have pulled me out of the mud or pushed me off the drum or whatever. We don't see a lot of that in go-kart racing now, but I am seeing that in quarter midget racing. I did the Silver State Nationals in Las Vegas this year. Um, had to be out there for NFR and some other stuff and got a chance to go over. And I'll be honest, I went out there, you know, big was a big, huge who's race. I went out there and I was like, man, this is gonna suck. I'm going out here to make like$500. I gotta be here all stinking week for this deal. I had that was probably other than Supernationals, which is hands down my favorite event, Boone Iowa every year. It's probably the second best event. The racing was unbelievable. The passing was incredible. Meeting the families, seeing the camaraderie, it reminded me of when we were kids. Oh, yeah. Seeing those people, working with those people, man, it was just absolutely incredible to do that. And watching them manage tires and talk about tires and that kind of stuff, it was interesting to see the kids kind of really getting that sort of thing. So it was uh it was really good to be part of that. We plan to be uh a lot more coordinated stuff.

SPEAKER_02 49:33

Think about this right here. This is important thought. When we were growing up with kids and dads started messing with the prep tires, right? And it's got way worse now. The people get to the racetrack, the first thing they want to do is they want to run out there and take a pocket knife or screwdriver and stick it out. Stick it in the racetrack. Okay, all right. At that moment, they decided right then whether we're gonna win or lose. They've never unloaded. They hadn't unloaded a go-kart. Yep. They know what their tires are fixed for, their attitude changes, and they're already mad at the world.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Okay. Could you imagine Donnie Wilson going out in the middle of three and four at New Smyrna? Yep, we're done, man. That's it. Load them back up. I mean, really, if you think about it.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

So but in the go-kart racing world, that's that's that's it's amazing. That's what's happening. With the credit stuff, there's there's a reason for that. It doesn't matter. So the they're they're already happy before they, you know, they're happy. Sure. So to me, it's it's changed the mindset up. Now, the asphalt world, like you say, that's a whole different mindset. It is remote.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

It's gonna change a little bit. And everybody talks about the racetrack changed so much throughout the day. In the pavement world, it changed a little bit. I mean, I ran the dirt late model. Trust me, the racetrack really changed from hot laps to feature time. Well, it ain't the same creature.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

Well, and I take a dirt racer and asphalt either one. The dirt racing guy, he wants two laps of practice and go qualify.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Oh, you're down with that.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

Yeah, the asphalt guy wants to be there. Two hours. No, no, he wants to be there three days before the race. Just dial on it and dial on it.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

I think that was one of the biggest shocks that I had going from running the asphalt car at the stadium to running the dirt late model. We showed up and they're like, all right, it's time for hot laps. And I'm like, what is a what is a hot lap? And they're like, Oh, y'all call it practice. I'm like, cool. So I roll out there, and you know, like even at Bowman Gray Saturday morning, we get what, four or five, 10-minute sessions, and in the evening we get a what a five or 10-minute session. So I roll out there, and I mean, just about the time I got good and settled in, they threw the checkered flag. I'm like, is that supposed to be the yellow? And I came in and uh Michael Tesh and Bill and them were helping me. I said, What happened? And they go, What do you mean what happened? I said, Well, it was over. And they go, Yeah, you don't give it two or three. I was like, how do you get good in these things? He goes, Well, it ain't through hot laps, I can tell you that. I was like, Wow. Then sure enough, we rolled out there and qualified and we featured and we went home. And I was like, dang, I kind of like that. Because it's like we're using up the racetrack. We're in the pavement world, we're not using up the racetrack. We're actually adding to it. We're putting that putting that rubber down. Let me ask you this, just curious. So you were actually a Hoosier distributor when Hoosier got bought. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 52:02

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 52:03

So, and it's owned now by one of the majors, Continental. Continental. What major changes, if any, have you seen, good or bad? What is the program better for you? Is the program worse for you? Do you feel like they're giving you better resources? It's interesting to see that a company like that would buy a race tire company.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

To me anyway, it's very interesting. Well, they've still kept the main people there. That's the whole thing. I mean, yeah, people come and go, people retire. But as far as the main stuff, you gotta realize they they got their own lab.

SPEAKER_00 52:30

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:31

And most of the people working in the lab are still working in the lab. That's what another thing people don't understand. When when they make a batch of rubber, yeah, uh, they make a small batch, they send it to the lab, it gets tested. There's four or five different tests. Then they make the big batch. Sure. So, you know, and these tires are made by hand. Do you realize that the best tires, this is important, are made by women.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Wow. More attention to detail.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

There you go. It's like sewing.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Yeah. Most of your best signatures are women. Ours too. You know, one of the things I remember seeing years ago, I went uh to a uh boat factory. Uh you and I both have boat problems. A lot of folks don't know about it. But I went to a boat factory looking at a particular brand, and I got to go in their sewing room where they did the interiors. Everybody in the sewing room was and they were all wearing white. They had lab coats on, white gloves, the whole deal. And the interiors were absolutely beautiful. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, attention detail. So you say tires are built by hand. Have you you've seen them make a tire? Oh, yeah. How they make how do they make a tire?

SPEAKER_02 53:32

Oh, I can't tell y'all that. That's top secret.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

I see. But there's, I mean, I guess some kind of mold they put the stuff up.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

You need to go, you need to go up there and check it out. It's pretty cool to see. Next time, man. But believe me, if you've seen it, you'd be like, when you go through the first time, it's like the watching a movie and you want to rewind it and watch it again. Yeah. It's so amazing the first time, you got to go back to it one more time. Really. But you got to sign your life away.

SPEAKER_01 53:57

Yeah, I guarantee. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure they let you video in there too, right? Oh, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Take your phone, your first kid, and everybody.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

We'll do a podcast live from the Hooser Manufacturing facility. Sure. I'm sure they'll let that go down. Absolutely not. Sure, they'll take it down. So Continental's really just has it been has it been good for business? Yeah, it's it's good.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

I mean, it's it's better advertisement, you know, for the for the whole, but uh, I've you know, you know how Hooser was a family business. Sure. Okay, it was bought by a big manufacturer. Right. Things are always gonna change. Sure. I mean, they've broadened the spectrum. Now we're really worldwide. We were worldwide before, but now we're really worldwide. They're concentrating on a lot of different things just besides racing.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Doesn't Continental do racing tires as well for like GP and European stuff, probably right.

SPEAKER_02 54:41

European stuff's got the that market's really gotten big. Yeah. Uh but you know, a lot of people like to say uh they've lost focus. They haven't lost focus, they're just trying to get bigger, like anything else. Sure. Um the product, I mean, this we the the F-45, okay. If it's been around forever and ever. Everybody knows that compound, right? Sure. Well, according, different things, fabric, different things changed. We made a few tweaks to it, and right now that's what everybody's back running. Late mall stocks have always been 45s. Sure. But now the supers and pros across the whole Southeast back only F-45s all the way around. Yeah. COVID hit, you know, we've had a lot, we back then the day, I call it, we had so many different options.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

Compounds, all of the things. Oh my god. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

And when COVID hit, I mean, golly. That's the one year that I never heard nobody complain.

SPEAKER_01 55:29

Really?

SPEAKER_02 55:30

They didn't complain about the tire, they just complained they couldn't get the tire. It didn't make no difference what it was. They wanted it. Oh God, man, it I just need a tire. Yeah. And when you couldn't get a tire, it was like it was like a guy hooked on drugs. He couldn't get the drugs, you know what I mean? Right, right. So just being able to have a tire. Now it's now that they're more available, now it goes back to, oh, this set's not as good as that set. But during COVID, you didn't ever hear any codes, they didn't, what was a code? It didn't matter what the city was. Nobody was chasing the code, yeah. They just needed a tire.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

When did the when did the barcode, when did the scanning thing start happening? Because I remember when I ran the modified tour. We didn't scan the tires.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

The scanning of the tire, people don't understand. That's just the way you can police it. Every every barcode on the side, okay.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

But when did when I don't remember when did that start?

SPEAKER_02 56:12

Oh God, that's been 10 years ago, probably.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

And that helps you police which four tires went to the right customer. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

That keeps them from flippy-flopping. Like a not to pick on Donnie again, but Donnie's always got at least three or four cars. Sure. You go to a big race that keeps him from switching tire from car to car to car. Those tires are locked to that driver.

SPEAKER_01 56:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

Equality, making it everybody's same. Just try to make it, you know, equal for everybody. Sure. So we can police it.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

So uh most outlandish complaint you've heard about a racing tire in your career. What's the one thing that you're like? You hung up the phone, you looked at Steve, and you're like, dude, you gotta listen to this.

SPEAKER_02 56:50

Back to what I told you before. Four same codes, man, I went out there. I was the fastest thing in practice. I bolted four tires on, and I'm 20th. It was just those bad tires. I'm like, dude, come on, man. I mean, you Well, I didn't change nothing. I'm like, well. That's probably why I wasn't fast. But if you don't change something, guess what? In some of the divisions, they're again not talking about different divisions, but we make sure all the codes match. Yeah. So everybody got them same codes. Like everybody running on that same track. Sure. It was the same for everybody. Yeah. But you didn't change nothing. Nothing changed. You know how that goes. So I mean, we hear that all the time. I I mean, there again, was there a little something different? I don't build them, I don't know, but it wasn't as you know, when you got one guy, that's and it's usually that same guy.

SPEAKER_01 57:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that one guy's always gonna have the problem. That guy, yeah. Our customer service team deals with that guy too. So yeah. That guy. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 57:47

Absolutely. But I mean, in his mind, it's it was our fault. Yeah. Okay. And and you're never gonna change it no matter what you tell him. You know, in the stagger thing, you mean you tell somebody how to stagger a tire and then they you show them. Not just tell them to show them, and then you'd go over again. The guy's like, Man, I I can't get my tires size up my way. Did you do what I told you to do? Well, no, I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

Yeah. Well then Do you know what we call that guy? We call him an ask hole. Do you know what an ask hole is? He asks everybody in the pits how to do something and then does his own thing. He's an ask hole. Okay. So yeah, y'all probably deal with that too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, you deal with that. Awesome. So uh if a guy was needing tires to go test practice, this, that, and the other, if he's here in our local area, I guess he would just get in touch with uh with your what here's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 58:37

When a guy calls me, I always ask first question Where you at? Where are you going? No, where you gonna go race at? Okay. I want to tell him where to go. You know, most of these people, they like to try the bypass. You know, they do use that. Don't we all? Yeah, the bypass. Don't we all? So when they're trying to do the bypass thing, I always say, I had a guy call yesterday and said, I need some tires. I'm like, Where are you going? I'm going to practice. I'm like, where you gonna practice with? I don't know. I said, Well, here's the way I got this figured out, right? You pretty well know where you're going to go practice. Sure. Okay, you're dialing your car for a track somewhere. So where is that track? Well, I might go here or I might go over there. I said, Well, well, whenever you figure out which one of those here or there's it is, get you tires. We'll get you, because I'm gonna call that dealer and then let him know, and there we go. I said, We you're not bypassing, I mean, everybody's gonna get their piece of the puzzle. Sure. Okay, as we call it the piece of the pie.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

And everybody is convinced. If a race tire is$200, there's$199.95 profit in that tire. Oh, absolutely. Because it costs nothing to make it, ship it, warehouse it, inventory it, handle it, and redistribute it. All that's free, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I figured it was.

SPEAKER_02 59:44

Yeah, I'm 100% profit guy. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

100%.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Don't cost me nothing to get it from Indiana.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

Note note to sell. For closing the fire suit deal, we are doing tires.

SPEAKER_02 59:52

So, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, free. Don't cost me nothing. Give them to me. Absolutely. The shipping company don't charge me nothing. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, guys. And that's why I am the CDL driver. Yeah, because you do it all. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

Yeah, it's because you're making all that money. So I got I don't even hire nobody on me. There's no reason to. There's no reason to. Well, guys, if you're at an asphalt race in the South, any of the major events, any of the major super shows, anything like that, Jeff's super approachable, as you can see, man. He'd love to talk to you about tires, uh, wisdom and knowledge, man. You've been doing this 50 years all together, I guess, maybe a little longer. Man, Jeff's always willing to talk. Steve is always willing to talk. They're right here in Welcome. Beautiful, welcome, North Carolina. Absolutely. If you're here at uh RCR, a lot of folks come up and do the uh museum tour and stuff. These guys are always approachable, man. Come check them out here for sure. Absolutely. Jeff, we really appreciate you being on the show. Hope to get you on the podcast sometime. Talk a little bit more about Woodleaf, what you're doing there. I know you touched a little bit on the treaded tire program. Really want to hear kind of what you guys got going on, man. Super excited to get you back on the show for Woodleaf. Appreciate it. Again, thank you again, Brad. Good friends. Man, absolutely, brother. We appreciate you being on here. And uh, folks, that's gonna do it today for driving fast and taking chances. If you want to learn more about who's your racing tires, of course, they've got a great website. You can see them at the track there all over the country. That purple sticker will make you go fast every time. Guys, drive fast, take chances.