Episode 27 - Tim Sheets - AKA "Poptart"

Owner of Hellraizer Jacks | NASCAR Pit Crew Trainer

In Episode 27, Brad sits down with Tim "Pop Tart" Sheets, owner of Hellraizer Jacks and one of the most influential figures behind the scenes in modern motorsports. Through Hellraizer Jacks, Tim supplies custom-built racing jacks used by NASCAR teams and competitors across nearly every level of racing, where speed and reliability can make the difference between winning and losing.

But Tim's impact goes far beyond equipment. He has spent years helping train NASCAR pit crew members, teaching the skills, techniques, and attention to detail required to perform under pressure when fractions of a second matter.

Brad and Tim discuss the evolution of pit stops, what separates elite pit crews from the rest, the engineering behind racing equipment, and how the sport continues to push the limits of performance. From the shop floor to pit road, this episode provides a fascinating look at one of racing's most overlooked but critical aspects.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, it's Bad Rabbit for Velocity USA with another episode of Driving Fast and Taking Chances. My guest today, Tim Sheet of Hellraiser Jacks. If you're in the market for the world's best pit jack, whether it's over the wall or just standard pit stuff every week at the racetrack, Hellraiserjacks.com can get you fixed up. Tim Sheets, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. So a lot of guys are looking at Tim Sheets, who is that? This is also Pop Tart. Sorry, guys. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

The only other Pop Tart I know is actually a Bulldog. A bulldog? Name Pop Tart. That's a new one on me. Yeah, I mean, it works though. You know, Bulldogs like Pop Tart, so yeah. Oh, I'm sure they like about anything. We were talking about frosting before we came on the air there, and I mentioned you had a little gray in the beard days. You got a little frosting right there.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Yeah, my girlfriend loves it.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Hey, what's it mean? Gotta keep her happy, right? Oh, yeah, of course. So, Tim Sheets, tell us the Hellraiser Jack story because a lot of guys, and I'll be honest with you, when I ran the modified tour, I used another brand of Speedy Jack. Let's just say it that way. Um, at the time, it seemed to be the only option of Speedy Jack in the marketplace. It appears that that place is no longer a place, and here you are, and man, your stuff. I'm looking at what I had compared to what you have. This thing is landmark. Tell us the whole Razor Jack story. How did it start and why are you doing what you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Uh, I mean, I've worked in NASCAR pretty much my whole life, and uh somewhere around probably 2015, I was trying to figure out like what I'm gonna do the older I get. You know, you're only gonna work for so long on a race team and a race shop. So I was like, well, what's kind of my way out? You know, I've changed tires for this to be my 29th season in NASCAR. How many tires have you changed? I don't even know a lot. Some people ask how many lug nuts I've ever glued. I was like, I don't even want to think about it. But yeah, I started hitting lug nuts when I was 14. Like I said, I'm getting ready to be 48. So I was like, what's what's the next thing down the road for me besides just working in the shop? What can I do? You know what I mean? Kind of seeing the light of the new car coming up, you know, and I was a fabricator, I was like, well, my job's gonna get eliminated, so what do I want to do? So I was already building pit guns and stuff like that and doing RD stuff, and we started messing around with doing jacks a little bit when I was at RCR. And uh I had an opportunity to buy uh a company that did pit gun stuff. So I ended up, long story short, I ended up buying that. Uh that was kind of a little short-lived because the whole couple years later, NASCAR decided, like, hey, we're gonna to do a single supplier, which we bit on that and whatever, but lost out last second. But so, anyways, at the time, people kept coming to me and asking me about fixing jacks, and I was like, Well, that's not kind of really my deal. You need to go see such and such.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

So probably the same such and such I used.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it just kind of started out like, well, I got I lost several hundred thousand dollars in sales, so I was like, Well, what am I gonna do now? Yeah. So it was just kind of a repair business I kind of started out with, um, and it just kind of built from there. And mostly because of my youngest son, he was 15 and he didn't really know what he wanted to do with his life. And I was like, kid, you're so smart, you need to like do something, like you need to go to school, whatever. And he's not he's always a straight A student, he's very smart, and a lot of it's assuming he gets that from his mother. I don't know about that. But anyways, he uh I got an internship at a at a machine shop when he was 15 just for the summertime, just because I told him he said some art he loves building things, he's very uh artistic and everything else. So I was like, Well, you can already envision and see things in like he said someone being a fabricator. I'm like, unless you hit the thing right, dude, you're not no future right now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah, so I was just but there was a day when that was a killing position to add, man.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Yeah, that's a great skill, you know, to be able to do things and make things from nothing. So I just told him, I was like, dude, you're so smart, and you he learns everything from just seeing it one time, and then he just takes off with it. So I was like, you need to learn the future of like drawing on the computer, how to run a CNC machine, this that whatever. And I took him over there, and the uh gentleman said, Well, I want to see if you want to do this, which was pretty awesome that he did. He was like, You're gonna take this one part.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

This is an internship, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Yes. Oh, nice. And uh they make guns and stuff like that, and he likes hunting and guns and stuff. So I sure thought it was like a perfect fit for him. So, anyways, he the guy said the test is gonna do to see if you want to do this. I'm gonna give you this, I don't know what little part it was of the gun. He was like, if you can go home and download Fusion 360 on your computer, you can get it for free because you're a student. A student, yeah. So that's a good thing, like any kids, if they're wanting to learn that, and you you're a student, you can get fusion 360 for free. Awesome. To learn from.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Is it like a CAD program?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yes, okay. It's kind of like your um SOLIDWORKS or stuff like that, but uh just way cheaper. So he went home that night, freaking did it, and two days later I went back and the guy was like, holy crap. So he was like, Here you go. Wow. And the guy was like blown away, so he he took him on, you know. And he kind of since it was a gun manufacturer, that pun intended, blown away. Yeah, yeah, all right. That's right, that's right. But he uh so he just kind of like took off with it, even though he said he didn't do anything there besides sandblasting or seracoting or still he's around it, you know, and he got the vibe, and that's what really got him going.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

He got to immerse himself in the culture, so yeah, that's made up.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

So it gave him something to like strive for. Sure. So like that's why I turned like he just really went crazy with it, and there's a few things online you can do to learn from, and that's what he did. He just started self-teaching himself, and this gentleman came to me and he says, Why don't you make your own jack? I was like, I d I don't have the money, I don't have the funds to try to go to machine shop to build say 50 jacks or whatever. Like I'm barely trying to put peanut jelly on the table right now, like try to do this, you know what I mean. So 2020, even though COVID hit, it was still a pretty good deal for me or year for me, as in Pitt and wise and for the stuff we were doing. And I saved up about 12 grand. And the guy's like, just buy your machine. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't even know what machine to buy. I don't even know what to do. And he's just like, you'll figure it out. And I was like, How do you how do you just figure it out? And he's like, Your boy can't, he's pretty smart. And I was like, and he's like, I got an engineer, I can send you, you know, you can pay X amount of dollars an hour to teach y'all. And I was like, What am I doing? So my freaking dumb ass goes and buys a freaking old CNC machine, yeah, gets dropped off in the shop, and I was like, Did you buy it from standby? Yeah, I did. Oh, right.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

I remember those though. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

So I was like, Yeah, it sure was.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

So I was like, It's amazing how many lives this building has touched. Really, we'll talk about that later. It really is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

But anyway, so we went through a lot of trials and tribulations, a lot of a lot of late nights, because the engineer we had, is uh his name's Joe. He's super awesome, and he's I owe him a lot, you know what I mean. Um we worked so many nights of midnight to three o'clock in the morning building our first jack.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

And now, were you building the jacks at home at first, or did you already have a shop?

SPEAKER_02 7:48

No, I had a little shop. I was at about 1200 square feet. Is it where you are now? It's still one of my buildings now. Okay, right on. So I had like because you've got the big building now. That makes it from like 1,200 square feet, and now we have like 7,500 square feet. Right on. So, anyways, my son, he's just so freaking smart. Like he just from learning from the from Joe, our engineer, uh, just teaching him, and then he just started teaching himself, just doing all kinds of online stuff to learn things from, from programming to drawing to different setup stuff to you know, you name it. And he just took off.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Isn't it mesmerizing to watch kids? I'm gonna say that because I don't know how old's your son now. He's 21. So my daughter also 21. They grew up in a computer culture. We did not. I mean, there were computers, but not like what they think now. These kids are like kindergarten, they're pounding on a keyboard in kindergarten. We there was no computers in the whole school. Yeah, we didn't have that. So it's mesmerizing to watch these kids and stuff they can do.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Yeah, well, that's like a dumb thing now. I didn't even realize, like my son Carter, 21 years old. We're sitting there talking about stuff, and he goes, I was talking about writing out something in cursive. He's like, I don't know how to write in cursive. I was like, What do you mean? How do you not know cursive? Yeah, he's like, Dad, they quit teaching that in school. I didn't they didn't teach that. I was like, What? Well uh and I was like, how do you not?

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Can he uh can he drive a manual transmission? Kind of. So see, I'm telling you, we've had this theory. We could cripple, Eric. Can you write cursive? I can't. Can you drive a manual? I can't. So we have this theory. We could cripple a whole generation. We can all communicate in cursive and only have manual transmissions. They ain't going nowhere, man. Yeah, yeah, they ain't going nowhere.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Yeah, they ain't gonna know what to do with themselves. No, that'd be pretty rough. Yeah, but uh anyway, so it's just you know, kind of long story short, we started with that one machine and bought another machine, and now I've sold that first one. We have two brand new Haas VF4 SS we run. We got a brand new Dusan dual spindle lathe with the bar feeder and everything. We still have the one older lathe. I almost pulled the trigger last week for my sales guy buying another lathe, and I was just like, ah, I just got rid of a payment. So I want to hold on for a little bit right now, you know. Yeah. So I mean, like everybody thinks like, because we're building so many jacks and selling so many jacks, which is great, but like well, it's all profit.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Everybody knows it's all profit. Yeah, that's right. You got nothing in it, all your team works for free, rent's free, no power bill. Yeah, there's materials you can buy aluminum right now, it is a nickel a pound for the most premium stuff and free delivery.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

So I just had one salesman in a day and said, Oh, it went up 22 cents a pound. And I was like, Yeah, what else is new? I just got told my oil went up $16 a gallon or every couple gallons, whatever. I was like, Oh, that what else is new on that one, too?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

You know, so it just so you went from uh Michally, first year in the jack business, how many jacks did we sell? Ballpark. Not repair, but new jacks.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

I think we sold we sold 100 in the first year. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Were you blown away with that? You're like, man, I can't believe I sold a hundred jacks. Yeah, because my son and I were sitting there with that one machine we had, you know, just was it running wide open? I mean, in order to do a hundred, were you doing all you could do at the time with one?

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Yeah, we're doing all I could do, and like all our round parts we were most of all our round parts we were sending out.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Trying to get because we didn't have the leg.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

That first machine's just a two-axis, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:13

No, it was a three-axis, and it had a rotary in it, but um fourth axis rotor of it, we had to do a bunch of work to that machine, just like anything you can buy.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Can I be nosy? What did that first machine cost you? We spent like 12 grand. Well, that's crazy, man.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Yeah. Then I had to go on Amazon and buy our first tools, a little tool kit for like 300 bucks. Yeah. And I was like, is this gonna work? And they're like, it'll get you started. Yeah. But don't use the collets. And you can use some cheaper tooling for right now, but you just buy, you know, as you get going, buy more.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Buy more of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yeah, now it's like my son sits here and tells me how much he spends for one drill or something. I'm like, what? Yeah, I paid $300 for a whole kit, man. Yeah, $300 for the first kit we had.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

So six years ago, seven years ago, how long ago is this?

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Uh it'll be $15. I bought the first machine in November of 2020.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

So just past the six-year mark.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

How many jacks do you think you'll build this year if nothing changes and you stay on the course?

SPEAKER_02 12:09

We keep trying to set a goal for to ship 10 a week. Yeah. Uh 520 jacks? 500 jacks a year? It'd be nice. I don't know. I mean, in the time frame right now, I think we're somewhere around we've sold out, we serial number everyone. I think we're at 1250, I think.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

What do you think is the limiting factor that keeps you from being able to do more? Why are more people not buying more jacks? Is it simply because you're not able to supply more jacks? You think it's brand awareness? I mean, there's honestly, and it's crazy. I mean, we have tons of people tune in. There's people out here have never heard of Hellraiser ever, ever. So first exposure they've got. You used to insult me by, I never heard of your brand. I'm like, cool, let me tell you all about it. Yeah. With your deal, like, honestly, Justin introduced me. Obviously, we've known each other for a very long time. Justin introduced me to what you were doing. Like, I kind of knew you a little bit from the fab world, knew your name, same circles, that kind of stuff, but I didn't realize I didn't put two and two together. And I was like, oh, well, that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

So it's a lot of people don't know that I'm doing this and whatever. I mean, we I'm sure the same as you. Like, people start hearing about us, and it's not a bad thing, but it gets it gets a little annoying sometimes. Everybody, like every day, somebody's hitting me up for sponsorship. And I'm like, dude, I I'm I have a huge heart, and I would love to try to help everybody.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Let me tell you what, I have a sponsorship program right now. This is Tim's sponsorship program, and he's not even gonna get a chance to veto it. Here's how it's gonna work. So Tim will give every racer in America a 100% free jack, guaranteed, and I will actually guarantee this. Here's all you have to do. You're gonna sign a contract that you will sell 10 jacks in that calendar year. And here's how it's gonna work. You're gonna put how much is a jack now? Just ball apart. Not a cool orange one, just your basic one's 1450. 1450. Here's what you're gonna do, guys. You're gonna put $14,500 in an escrow account, okay? If you get to the end of the year and you've only sold seven jacks, you only owe him for three. So you wanna go ahead and put your phone number up so you get that get that deal? How many jacks can we get out there today, right? That's the way sponsorship's supposed to work. We we talk about that all the time with sponsorship and charity, and you're not wrong. We've been doing this basically for all practical purposes since the 70s. I I get Eric, how many sponsorship proposals do we get a year?

unknown 14:20

Too many.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Too many. Thousands. Thousands. It's like we're not dying to give free stuff away. And it's like, are you looking for sponsorship and a marketing partner, or are you looking for charity? Because for charity, I'm gonna tell you right now, you and I are gonna get in a car and we're gonna roll down here to downtown Weston-Salem, and we're gonna make a charitable contribution to the soup kitchen. We're gonna make some charity money work. I'm gonna give it to my church. I'm gonna make it where it goes. Your racing habit is not my charity. Now, my own racing habit is my charity, but yours is not. Yeah, but yeah, and but you're right, man. You hear that and you see that. Do you do any of the major shows? Any of the major trade shows and events, anything like that?

SPEAKER_02 14:56

So we this I think this year is this year coming up to be number four for doing the dome.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Uh what a great event.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Cody Summer's a genius, is he not? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

I mean, I'm telling you, I mean, like, we've got to give props to Emma too, because she's really the backbone. Yeah. Cody's the brain's Emma's the backbone.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

So we know everything gets done is because of the Emma, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

You know, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

You know, that's how those men are. We just throw out an idea out there, and we're like, oh, this is the greatest thing ever, but how are we gonna make it happen?

SPEAKER_00 15:21

You know what I heard somebody say the other day? I heard somebody say uh nobody's ever made any money with an idea. You only make money with the execution. That's why we have to have the women because they are detail-oriented, they are patient, thank the Lord for that, right? They count the nickels to make sure that we collected all of them, they make sure that it's there and they made sure the customer was happy. You and I just brainstormed and came up with the idea. Yeah. So we were the idea guys, and without us, there is no execution, but that part of it is mega big for sure.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Yeah, so we're like trying to do something special for Jack for this year for the whole thing, because it's a 10-year anniversary. Yeah. Um so we just did PRI this last year. That was the first time we did that, and that was that was pretty big. I mean, there's so many people outside of like the dirt racing and asphalt racing we do in NASCAR that had came to us and asked us about it. And I looked at my son right there and I was like, dude, we're missing a boat on a lot of stuff. Yeah. And I was just like, and still me changing tires is like it's basically how I live because some people like again, like we're talking about all the money-wise or whatever. I still change tires and try to do extra pit crews and stuff like that, trying to make extra money for me to live, and then I take whatever I can and put it in the jack company. It's like trying to build up the machines and tooling and equipment-wise and everything to try to make it where it needs to be, so then I can just go to dirt races or asshole races on the weekend and have fun and try to sell jack here and there or get our name out there. I mean, it's all everything's a building process of trying to get somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

You know, Rome wasn't uh started in a day. I mean, and for all practical purposes, I mean, you're hanging out in my 36,000 square foot shop now. We would have never dreamed we'd have been here at the level that we are. But I mean, if you keep your nose to the groundstone, build a quality product, you treat your people like royalty, you treat your customers well. I've been there, heard you on the phones, that kind of stuff. That's exactly what it takes.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Tell me what makes a Hellraiser different? What's not necessarily better, because everybody, you know, is subjective. It's better than this, it's better than that. What's the snap? What's the whistle? Why do I want a Hellraiser Jack? Obviously, I have a Hellraiser Jack, but tell the tell the tell the folks out there in Listener Land why they want a Hellraiser.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

I mean, I think the biggest thing that I've learned is customer service. I mean, that's the customer service is a number one more than anything. I mean, you can build anything and try to sell anything, but if you're not there to support your product, it it doesn't mean anything, you know what I mean? I mean, that's to me is a number one. I mean, I've had everybody has growing pains. Nothing's ever perfect, you know what I mean? I mean, like we've had problems here and there, but it's all on how you try to like fix it. Sure. I mean, I had I had one customer that had a problem with a jack, and I got up at four in the morning and drove all the way to Georgia, almost Atlanta, to fix it. You know what I mean? It's like they're like, I can't believe you drove down here, and I was like, I'm not gonna have this.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

I can't believe you have a problem that I can't address like this.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Yeah, and then I had another one guy just bought a new jack and took it home and used it, and uh they were racing Wake County on, I think it was a it had to be a Friday, don't remember Friday nights, and uh so he used it Thursday night, everything's fine. He or Wednesday, whatever night it was, and then there was a message on somebody asked on Facebook about having problems with it, and I was like, and then somebody tagged me and I was like, Well, I can't have this. So I called the guy up and I was like, Hey, what's going on? What's it doing? And he's like, I just got this, and I was like, Okay, when do you race? And he's like, Tomorrow, we gotta be at Wake County, I think at 10:30 or 11 or something. So I was like, Well, I want to build a brand new jack and I'll meet you there. So we came in at seven in the morning, whatever, and I put a whole brand new jack together and drove over to Wake County and met him with the track, and I said, You take this one. I said, Give me that one back. And I said, Oh, I gotta figure out what's going on with this, it doesn't make sense. So I said, So and he was, I mean, he was kind of blown away on that too. And I was like, Yeah, I drove three hours or whatever, you know. Yeah, I just want to make sure things are right, you know what I mean? And that's what I try to do if there's something wrong. I mean, we have two dealers in Australia now, and I had an issue with one. I built a brand new pump for it and shipped it in two days to Australia, and I said, I just gotta see what's wrong with this. So here, just put this brand new one in it and send that one back to me. So I mean, I think that's the biggest thing of anything. I mean, anybody can make anything, uh, but I think just the biggest thing is customer service is your big thing, and you know, it's gotta be likable, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

So you're building everything in Mooresville though, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

So we build everything in-house. So, like I said, the only thing we don't make in-house is like our springs, but like I have those made, so we make a thousand at a time. Uh our casters, but I order five or those at a time. Um, and then uh there's some small valving and stuff in our inside the manifold block or whatever that we have made at a Swiss shop just because it's just small parts we can't do ourselves. Uh, but pretty much everything else, the whole framework, the handles, everything in there is in-house. So I mean we keep it so we know what's going on when we have it, have parts on the shelf. So that's my goal 100% of the time is have everything. Always 100% of the time, but you know, we're running out of parts, but we're always got material on the shelf we're trying to make stuff.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

What is uh what's the duty cycle of a jack? How long will a jack last if you take care of it?

SPEAKER_02 20:45

I mean, I've had uh I mean Tony Jackson Jr. had three jacks and he bought them when we first started going and he used them three years and called us up and says, Hey, you know, I see you guys are doing custom colors and stuff now, and all Tony's stuff is super nice.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

This orange jack is fire, man.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah, so he's like, I want some black and white ones to match, and I was like, okay. And he's like, Can we just trade these three in that I got? He goes, There's no problems, they all work. And I was like, sure. So I mean he traded in, got three custom ones like he wanted, and I mean, I turned around and flipped those pretty quick. You know, we rebuilt them whole things.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Do you often have used jacks? Do you have people trading stuff in?

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Not very often, you know what I mean? It's it's hard. I mean, that was just kind of a special one case. I maybe had one or two of the people wanting something newer. But I mean, that's all on how you take care of everything. You know what I mean? It could be three years, it could be five years, and three minutes. It depends on how many people you got working for you, just how they beat the piss out of it, or freaking leave it in the rain, or whatever the case may be, and don't take care of it. And that's why I tell people if like you switch the oil out on it at least twice a year or once a year, that's gonna be big on like all the seals and everything, you know, not having the sludge and the crud. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

So how long does it take uh start? To finish, if you only had to build one jack, how long does it take to start to finish the building jack?

SPEAKER_02 22:04

So I figured up it's about like uh we have about seven hours of machine time and assembly time to build one.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Okay, so and if uh if uh the average potato eating guy, when's your busiest time of year? You right now, or was it pre-daytona for you?

SPEAKER_02 22:17

I don't man, people ask this all the time, and I was like, We're always busy. So we I mean last fall we kind of slowed down a little bit, and we all had five to ten jacks on order.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Yeah, we have 104 on order right now. How long would it take to get a jack today? A guy calls you up and says, Hey man, I saw that orange one on the podcast. I want one just like it.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Well, this one actually right here is for sale.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

This beauty is for sale. By the time we air, it's probably not gonna be for sale.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

But yes. Yeah, uh, I mean, we have a few, we have some purple ones and some pink ones and some gold ones in stock that are not sold. But like, I think I looked on her today, we had probably almost 30 of our standard demons like this on order. Um probably 10 or 12 red ones, probably the same thing with blue, and I think probably 12 or 14 black ones on order.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

How long does it take to get a jack if I ordered a custom jack?

SPEAKER_02 23:07

If I could get some seals in, that's what's killing me right now.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

It's always something one thing we struggle with zippers sometimes, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

I mean, the one seal right now is what's got me killing me right now. I mean, we've haven't been able to really get a jack on probably three weeks or so because we've had it on order since December. Oh my. And it's just it's been a nightmare, really. Because I usually try to stay on top of you, because when you work on a race team for so long, you learn how to have spares, you learn how to stay ahead of it and everything. And that's I'm pretty OCD about it. So it's just when we come down, we're like at 100 left on the shelf. And I was like, hey, we got these coming. Oh yeah, they're coming. And I got down to 50, and they're like, oh yeah, they're coming. And I got down to two, and then they found like I think it was 46, and they sent to us. I was like, these are gonna be gone in like not even two weeks. Two weeks, yeah. And they're like, Okay, well, we got them coming. Well, then now I'm just I've been sitting here and I was like, this is like we gotta, we gotta get like every day. It's every day I'm been on it, trying to stay on it, trying to figure out something, you know what I mean? So before I know it, I'll probably have like 2,000 in my hand.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Hey, but you know what? You won't run out for a while. Yeah, I won't run out for a while. Hopefully, those are not twenty dollars a piece and you'll be good, right? Oh no, they're pretty pretty, they're expensive. So isn't that the way it always works? You never run out of the cheap stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Yeah, Murphy's Law. Yeah, it's not like three dollar things.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Now the Pinch Act actually came from Necessity because you've mentioned a few times about changing tires. You also teach people how to become a crew member, is that correct? You've got a school?

SPEAKER_02 24:39

I don't really have a school per se. Um, I do have a developmental crew that we kind of work with because you always got to have somebody. I mean, hell, I shouldn't be still doing I'm getting too old, but uh so I've always got some guys who are trying to teach and trying to fill in the voids and stuff, but like we have a supply crews for uh seven full-time trucks right now on forks, finity cars.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

When you say you supply crews, explain what that means because there's a lot of guys that don't do over the wall, they don't understand what that means. There's also guys that are watching this that are looking for Pit Crews. So, how does that program work? 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, rocket-donkey.com. When you say you supply crews, explain what that means. Because there's a lot of guys that don't do over the wall, they don't understand what that means. There's also guys that are watching this that are looking for pit crews. So, how does that program work?

SPEAKER_02 25:45

So it's basically just like again, for me being a NASCAR song, I just know so many people. And again, I've the same I have the same values on that as I do the Jacks, you know, it's being customer service, being having the right amount of people, having putting the right people in position to do the job without having a disaster, which I had one this past week and I had to fix that.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

So sometimes disasters happen. That's all right.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, so like I train everybody at my shop.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

We practice and because you talk, you and I talk, and you're like, hey man, I gotta run, I gotta go pit practice. Yeah, you do that most days of the week, yeah, when the weather's fair.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Two days, sometimes four days a week, but uh so yeah, so I have the crews that do truck and Xfinity. I don't do any cup stuff anymore.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

I just that's all center lug now, is that right?

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Yeah, I mean I did it some myself, and I just not a fan of it, you know what I mean? Uh that's a whole nother topic. I just don't it's gonna be part two podcasts. Yeah, so I mean, so I mean it just it takes a lot to learn how to do a five-lug pit stop, you know what I mean? It just takes time and just effort if somebody wants to do it.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

So so a team, potential team, me and Eric start a truck team Martin, and we need a pick crew. That's sort of got me on backtrack here. I'll run you sending down a rabbit hole on our.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

But uh the uh so a team will call me and they're like, hey man, we need a pick crew for the 2027 season. I'm like, okay, well, what's your expectations? What do you where do you expect to run at? Like, not being rude. I'm just being real, you know what I mean? Like, do you want an A-caliber crew, a B caliber crew, C D? Like, cause A caliber crew guys, you know, they want this much money. Sure. And they're they're not gonna want to drive to a bunch of races, like anything, like we drive to Bristol and rock and three hours or whatever is fine. But like guys like that, you know, and that's my business, like everybody has full-time jobs, so we can't just leave on a Wednesday or Thursday and drive to here or fly out there, whatever the case may be. So we all fly on um like basically a commercial, it's it's a fitch-passenger jets, uh private service, you know. So everybody wants to fly on that, so it's not cheap. Yeah. So it's like, hey.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

But we don't have canceled unless there's stupid weather. You're not dealing with canceled flights, you're not dealing with baggage issues. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

So I mean, it's the whole thing. Like most of the time we fly out that morning, go to the race, trying to fly right back after the race. And then if it's a rain out or whatever, you're not doing a change fees or trying to, yeah. So I mean it's there's a there's good and bad. There's some things.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

You guys fly out of Concord?

SPEAKER_02 28:30

No, we fly out of Statesville.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Oh, okay. Right, we're way closer for you. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

So uh they have, I don't know how many, I think they have about 10 planes.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

So it's one group that you contract with for that?

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Yes. Okay, perfect. Yeah, there's a lot of most most of the most of the teams if they don't have planes, they go through this uh air.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

So I want to I want to ask that unbearable question, and I know there's a lot of variables. Uh we're running the truck race in Las Vegas. I need a I need a pit crew. I want a I want a B level crew. What am I gonna spend for a pit crew for the for the event?

SPEAKER_02 29:01

For a B level crew for there?

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Because chances are if I'm driving, we got a D-level driver. If Eric's in with me, we got a C level co-owner. So I figured we'd step it up with a pit crew and get there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

I mean, that's a variable of it. I mean, you can spend like if you have the lower level guys, I mean, you're still gonna pay commercial flights, rental car, then you're gonna have to get a hotel room for a night or two, you know. So you're gonna be anywhere from five grand to ten.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Okay. Ten, five, you know. Fair enough. But that's still, uh otherwise, if I hired these guys full-time in my shop uh right now, and I know things have changed, uh, you live, operate, and work in Mooresville every day. I was actually there this morning. I was thinking, damn, I'm just gonna draw all this. We've done it up there. Um, nobody's really going to week anywhere for probably, and this is probably conservative, for less than a grand a week. And I don't think you could hire a quality guy for a grand a week, but you're gonna have that guy, he's gonna be a teardown guy, he's gonna be driving the hauler, he's gonna be doing something in the shop, whatever it may be. Rear suspension, front suspension, tire specials, whatever. Nonetheless, you're gonna have to pay those guys. And how many guys go over the wall for truck right now? Five.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

It's five all the way through, series.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Do you have an alternate or no? Do you send six or do you just send what they need? Okay, we just survive. Yeah, so but you've just hoping and praying everything goes right. But you got five guys that you gotta pay, bare minimum wages, a thousand bucks a week, plus insurance, but plus benefits, yeah, plus all the other stuff, and you've got to do that 52 weeks a year. Man, 10 grand for an event, that that's way cheaper. And to probably get better caliber people at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Yeah, I mean, that's the big deal, the big difference in now between when I started was you got in the sport, you're last everybody did everything. And now, since they've wanted to get athletes for everything, uh those guys are just most of them are not car guys, they don't work or learn. I mean, like if people even watch a cup race now, like nine ninety-five percent of the time if something happens to the car, you don't see one of the pick crew guys, or you see a road crew guy. Sure. Where myself, like I've done it all. I started out working on a figure eight car when I was 14 years old, you know, to late models to that old ASA series, to you know, like I said, ARCA Cup truck, you know, I've pretty much done it all. So you you have to learn how to do something. And I've been a fabricator, I've been a road mechanic, I've been a setup guy, wash cars, do anything and everything, you know. I mean, everything changes now. I mean, it's kind of different now than when I I haven't worked in a shop in 10 years now. So But yeah, I mean, like most of them guys now, I mean, like I got a lot of guys working now, you try to tell them something, they're like, huh? They're just gonna be like, they're about car people, yeah. They're not car people, but the thing is it's like just being able to that's what makes more people people more valuable than the next. And that's like a big thing with me. I have a lot of teams asking me about I had one call me this morning, they want to run some part-time races like this year, and they're just like, Well, Pop Tart, you can just change tires on a car. And I said, Well, I don't think Jordan Anderson's gonna like that very well because I put in his Xfinity car. I was like, I was like, I don't, it's not that easy, you know what I mean? So, I mean, a lot of people want myself and my group because we're like the older guys in the sport, mature, no drama, just getting out of your job. Yeah, the funny part about it is uh the guy that's our truck chief this year on Stuart Friesen's truck, he'd probably get mad at me for telling us if he watches this, but I thought it was pretty funny. We were at Daytona this year, and he comes up to me for the race and he goes, Hey man. I was like, hey, what's up? He's like, uh I just want to talk to you a little bit. I was like, okay about what? He's like, Well, if we got damage or something and we come down pit road, he says, Which one of you guys are staying back? I said, You are. And he goes, What? What do you mean I am? I said, You're staying back. I said, You don't need that fire suit. And he's like, look at me. And I looked back at him and I said, dude, I've been doing this longer, you've been alive. I was like, You know what time you need to go over there, there's something wrong inside of that truck. I said, because my big ass ain't crawling through the window. I said, so if you're worried about damage or anything, I was like, I got it. Don't worry. I was like, most of all of us on this truck know what's going on or have worked on this stuff. I was like, you don't need to worry about it. And he was kind of like taking back. Kind of like a deer in the headlights, you know. And then we had a little bit of damage that race, and I gave him a pretty hard time about being that guy with duct tape and everything, putting tape off the side of the pit box and on a light pole, and it was a pretty good story. I think he still wants to talk craft me now about it, but he's just he this week he's like, Hey, I come over here, get that duct tape ready to go ask there's a brand new roll over there, bud. Just start stringing it out everywhere. So you can mail him duct tape for Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Yeah, that'd be a good one. Yeah, I should do that too. From Pop Tart. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Give him a box of Pop Tars and cover all of duct tape.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

So, so guys that are out there right now who want to learn about being a NASCAR crew member, and I'll tell you what, fun story, and you know this guy too. Uh, many, many, many, many years ago, uh, we were over on, we're on Old 52 now, we're in Wellcome. We used to be on 150 in Reedy Creek. It's a much smaller shop. You know, things were just getting getting rolling pretty good. And uh I had this young man walk in my shop by the name of Sean Samuels. Sean Samuels. He's about yay tall, worked for the Bassett, he's worked for Junior, he's worked for everybody. He's a changer, tire changer. And he came in and people would look at Sean and say, Sean has a disability. Sean doesn't have a disability. Sean's just shorter than the rest of us, way shorter than the rest of us. And I said, What do you really want to do? And he was with my friend David, and he goes, I'm gonna be a NASCAR crew member. And you know, inside, I wanted to laugh, but I was like, man, there's no reason this guy can't be a NASCAR crew member. He's worked for dang near everybody.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Yeah, it's all the want.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

You want to do it, you can do it. And here's the thing, man, he honestly has some level of competitive advantage because he's at wheel level. He has the ability to do things other people can't. They love him in the shop because they can deploy him in the car where other people can't get to. He's become an incredible mechanic, an incredible crew member. He's making great money, loves his life, loves his job. It's like, man, he had that want, he had that desire.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

I think there's a lot of other young kids out there because when I met Sean, Sean was 18, 19 years old. I wonder how many kids now have that same desire but don't know how to get started. Everybody doesn't want to be a race car driver. You know, we all say when we're kids, I want to be a race car driver, I want to drive the train, I want to be Spider-Man. How many really do? At the end of the day, when they start looking at that, they want to become a crew member. How does a guy get started?

SPEAKER_02 35:40

I mean, it's easier nowadays than it was like like I said back when I was, and it was all like who you know, who you met, who you knew. You know what I mean? I'm from Indianapolis originally, so like that's indie car country. Sure. Uh, and I was me and my whole family, we were all NASCAR people. My dad loved Bill Elliott when we was little. So that's why I was a big Bill Elliott fan, you know. We hated our Here we are, what, a mile from the shop, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, that's a funny story. I went to work for for Big E at DEI the end of 2000. My dad's like, you still hate him? I never really hated him, you know what I mean? But it just wasn't-Weren't a fan. We weren't a big fan of him, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

So you don't have a three tattoo. Negative. And you probably there are no photographs of you in a big E shirt.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

No.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Okay, all right, carry on. That's all right. But you did work for him.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Yeah, I went to work there in the end of 2000.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

And did a great job.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Yeah, I mean, it was kind of funny because my dad was like, You're gonna go work for Ernest. He was pissed, wasn't he? He's he pays good, dad. I gotta do something, I gotta have a job. And he's like, Okay, I understand. But I mean, that's like so that's like another thing, it's another different conversation. But like people have said to me now, like, who do you who do you think some mentors are yours from your racing career? And I tell him a lot of times, I was like, I was never a big fan of Ernest when I was younger, you know, because I was an Elliott fan. I was like, but once I went to work for him, I gained so much respect for him. It was crazy because like the first day I worked there, he come found me in the shop and I was coming through the door, and he came around the corner and it just scares the absolute piss out of you. Grabs me by the shoulders and like shakes me a little bit, and I was only I was probably 22 years old or something there. And I was like, Oh shit, I'm in trouble now. You know why they call me Intimidator, right? Yeah, yeah. And he's like, You're new here, and I was like, Yes, sir. And he's like, What's your name? And I was like, Tim Sheets, and uh I think Ty Norris was with me and Ty says they call him Pop Tart. And he goes, Oh, okay. He's like, Well, I'm Dylan Hart, I'll see you around. I was like, Yes, sir. And he would come and as if he needed an introduction. Yeah, yeah, like I didn't know who he was. But he came around there, he would come through the shop every day. You know, if he was in town, most time he was always there, but he'd come through the shop and he would stop me and say hey to me or whatever. He'd call me different names. He called me cupcake a lot of times, which is really similar to a pop tart. Once you chew it up, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

What's that boy's name? Is that Toaster Strudel?

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Yeah, yeah. So it was just kind of cool, you know. I mean, he was really down to earth, you know. He learned a lot about when you go to work there about him and everything. Because I worked at other teams, you know, other big teams and something you don't remember your name or nothing. Or if they were with some kind of important people, they were like, you just go away, you know, you don't talk to them, whatever. Like I was hanging, we were in the one cool story I had is we were working out one day, and I've always been a bigger guy, and I'm hanging on the water cooler, just painting because Walt Smith is just running us in the ground. And Big E comes walk to the door, and he had all these people in suits. And he just looks around, he looks over, he goes, Cupcake, are you all right over there? And I was like, I'm going to get it. Okay, don't worry. You know what I mean? Because, like I was saying, most people won't even acknowledge you, especially when they got big groups of people coming up. Absolutely. So he was just it's pretty awesome, you know what I mean? And then uh another one I worked for was Andy Petrie, who's the first one I worked for on a cup team, and he was he was pretty awesome. Smart guy. Very smart guy. I mean, just one of them one thing it's like guys nowadays they don't understand about uh people getting their ass chewed when old school crew chiefs, and and I was like, that's just the way it was. Like I worked for Andy, I got my ass chewed, and I was everything but a young boy every day, like getting my freaking butt ring for something, even if I didn't even deserve it.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

But you know, that in that time there was not that there's not now, but there was a level of expectation that you had to meet, regardless. Because here's the here's the sad fact was, especially during the heyday 2000, how many resumes were in that HR office of guys dying to take your job for half the money?

SPEAKER_02 40:01

Oh yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Well, I didn't make much money, so but even still, well, nobody made any money. According to Andy, he didn't either, but yeah, but but even even uh at at at DEI, wherever you're at, how many resumes are in that HR office? And and just go ahead and mess up, you know what I mean? The the next guy's in there.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

Yeah. But that was a cool thing about Andy, like if you ever had a question and you would ask Andy, he would he would tell you or teach you about it. Uh I mean many a times he was sitting there messing with something with the front clip and geometry and whatever, and you're just like, what are you doing, Andy? Like, and if you honestly cared, whatever he would teach you, you know, and it was it's pretty awesome. I learned a lot from them. And I stuck to a lot of people, you just have the want and you want to listen and learn. There's a lot you can be taught. So that's a big thing. Like to your point, like so somebody young wants to come in, it's just all about wanting a want and a drive. Sure. Uh I mean that's the funny part about it, is like my brother and I always all we want to do when we was young is change tires. Like I wanted to be a tire changer. There you go. And it was like nobody was gonna stop me, you know what I mean? So it's like I say you're just doing whatever you can to get there to try to get in that point, and then my whole career I've been a bigger guy, so always got put down a lot like, oh, we don't want him, he don't fit the mole. I actually got told that one time to Yeah, I went to Roush and tried out. They come after the tryout and they say, Well, you're you're three quarters, you're better than three quarters of the guys we got. I said, Okay, I got the job. And they said, No. I said, Why not? They said, You're not gonna pass the eye test. I was like, eye test? I can see fine. I can see fine. And they're like, No, once they take a look at you, they know you're not gonna fit the template. And I was like, Well, why the hell did you even call me here, dude? Yeah, no, no. So that just puts like a chip on your shoulder, and that's the way you should be. Like, like I want to I wanna be better than anybody, so it's just working your freaking guts out to try to prove a point. So it's the same thing with like our jack business stuff, you know. I take it very personally, so you work so hard to try to make it the best you can best you can be.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

Well, you're you're not driving to Atlanta if you don't care, you're not driving to Wade County if you don't care. So that's pretty obvious. Yeah. You mentioned the athlete thing. Uh I've got the opportunity to work with uh got the opportunity to work with Hendrick Motorsports on a shoe program for over the wall. I know that's been a thing for you guys. Y'all have been destroying shoes um since the advents of the of the new balance deal.

SPEAKER_02 42:22

Man of practice history had a guy rip the soul completely off the shoe.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

What that rips my soul out to hear that you ripped the soul off. So and we haven't given up on that project. We're getting there. So, but I was down working with JT, great guy, super smart, right? And uh he said, Come down, I want you to watch pit practice. I want you to see the way the guys use the shoe, the reason that they have it, the why they're taping the tops of them up. And I just went down there and just basically filmed. Unfortunately, I didn't know Eric at the time. I wish I'd known Eric because we'd have done some slow modes and some other stuff. So I just took my iPhone down there, I took a little camcorder, set some stuff up, this, that, and the other. I'm sitting there and I keep watching this guy go over the wall, keep watching this guy go over the wall, keep going over the wall. I'm like, why do I know this guy? Man, he was a former Wake Forest football player.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

And he's like, this is this is where we wind up, man. He goes, like, we want to stay athletic. This is it. He said, it pays good. We got really cool benefits, we get to hang around cool people. I'm still in sports and I get to do it. And I obviously here in Winston-Salem, we knew a few folks. So obviously I had been sidelines at some point and seen this guy, just something about him just stood out, and I was like, I was like, you're he's like, yeah, absolutely, man. I was like, that's crazy to think that we went from guys, not picking on Pop Tart, but like when you look at that, look at the days back in the day, Chocolate Myers carrying the gas can. It was like, who are the biggest, strongest guys? Because if you look at athletes, you look at bodybuilders, and then you look at strong men all beside each other, they're not the same builder.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

No, they're not.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

And when you look at the guys that really are able to get the job done, it's like they've kind of gone to that athlete look more than they have. Like you said, the I test at Roush. You have the ability to do the job, you're fast, you can get it done. You'd probably work for fair wages, but you aesthetically don't fit the bill. Unfortunate to see or unfortunate to hear.

SPEAKER_02 44:01

Yeah, I mean the new cup cars kind of merge to that, you know, that's why not downplaying any, but it doesn't take as much talent to pit a cup car now as what it it is to do a five look like it used to be, you know what I mean? And that and I piss a lot of freaking cup guys off by saying that, you know what I mean? But it's the truth. I mean, if you're gonna train a guy in two or three months and then you can throw him in and he's good to go, that would've never ever happened back in the day. So I was just I was getting argued on him and I was like if you if you could train a guy in two months and you can go pit a cup car, then obviously it doesn't take as much talent. I said that for a tire changer back in the day you could spend two, three, four years, you know what I mean, to try to freaking get to the top. Sure. So I mean it's that's just kind of my I mean there that's like I was saying there's nothing wrong with athletes or whatever, but there's just a lot of them I wish they would just want to learn more. About the cars to know some more, yeah. Yeah, learn more about the racing or whatever it is. I think it's a lot of the younger generation too. Sure. The old cell phone deal. Oh, yeah. Because I already yell at my guys if I see them on their phone during the race, not paying attention to what's going on. I'm like, you know how fast a car can blow a tire and be on pit road, and you're over there freaking Snapchatting or doing whatever it is you're doing. Yeah. And how many times I've gotten phone calls from car owners of crew views about freaking guys sitting on the wall on their cell phones? And I was just like, geez. Because then people want to text me during the race, and I was like, I don't want to talk. I try to text you, I was like, I don't bring my phone to Pit Road. My phone goes to my locker. I was like, I was taught this when I go out to Pit Road, this is my job. This is with my focus. Right. I don't have my phone. Yeah, nothing. If you need me, you know what Pittsball I'm in.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

That's right. Come on.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Otherwise, there's nothing else that's important at the time.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

I agree. 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. Now you've been around the sport for a really long time. Um, and you've been around, I'm gonna call it Mooresville, Race City, USA for a long time. When you step back and you look at it, if you're standing on a cliff and you're looking down and you take a breath, are you blown away with where we are and the evolution of where it has wound up? Or did you think that it would be where we are today? You're talking about traffic in Mooresville? No, traffic in Mooresville is horrible. I don't know who the civil engineers were. I guess that's a guy who plans the roads up there. Dude, so we we can make it up there. Well, I mean, obviously we work up there fairly regularly because we go drop stuff off and measure people, this, that, and the other. But in the summertime, I go up, um, I'm I'm an avid wake surfer, and I'll drag my boat up there. Let me tell you what, I do not drag my boat during drive time. Absolutely not. Because man, highway 150, 150 is absolutely that's code for the devil because that is the worst place to drive ever, man. Yeah. But no, just the the sport in general, where you saw it when you started and where the sport is now. Would you have ever dreamed we'd have franchises? Would you have ever dreamed we'd have been your own?

SPEAKER_02 47:19

Yeah, it's changed so much. And that's why I tell my people it's so different now than what it was 25, 30 years ago. I mean, it's good and bad, you know. Um I mean, I still love the old school aspect. I guess because you, you know, when you're old school or whatever, you just like it. And that's the thing, like, guys asked me about like being a pick crew guy or whatever, and I was like, it's a your uphill battle is way harder than what it used to be. I said, because like when I started, every cup team, every bush team, every truck team had their own pick crews. So like I mean, guys are pick crew members. There is there is a few out there that have been in the same place for a long time. But most of the time, the picker guys I mean shit, I I ain't embarrassed to say it. I mean, I know I had a year, I don't I probably worked at like five different teams, you know what I mean? But you didn't freaking kiss somebody's ass right or something. You did something wrong. You're only as good as your last pit stop. You're exactly right. And you'd be gone to somewhere else, but you know, like back then you're like, I screw it up for freaking hundred other places I can go to. Now it's like if you're a cup guy, what is there? Six big five, six big teams or whatever it is, right? So it's just like you better freaking make it or you're not, you know what I mean? You can't make everybody mad, you get nowhere to go. No, yeah, there's not as many jobs anymore, you know. You think you can go back to the truck series or do the Bush series or or whatever, because everybody needed a mechanic or fabricator, a tire changer, Jack Man, whatever the case may be. It's just it's way different now. And then so many big cup teams are trying to do kind of like what I do, you know. But uh so they're searching for a truck or expanding team to put their people on to try to get them experience, even though I've had some of the cup coaches ask me, now is it worth my guys doing the five lug? And I'm like, Yeah, because you you're getting race experience of like what's happening, like the tire changers I think is the biggest thing that's different. Because I've done the single lug between the five lug and you have to hold the gun left-handed or right-handed, and then how you're pulling tires, I mean, that is a huge difference because when I was basically cross-doing, like I'd get screwed up sometimes, like because doing piss-op saw muscle memory, you know, once you do it for so long, you just do it with your eyes closed. Uh, because I have people ask me, like, can you hit lug nuts with your eyes closed? I was like, Yeah. And like I'll show them videos like me doing like a Martinville or somewhere with so much break dust. And they're like, How did you ever see anything? I was like, I just need to see one.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

You never was happening.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

You got that one, you got the pattern down, you know. Um yeah, as a whole, it's just so much bigger now, so different. Especially on the pit crew side of things with I mean, just like Hendrick, everything they do, their combines to their whole I've never worked at Hendrick, that's the one place I never went to you, but like uh their whole training schedule. I know the pit crew got to get you hooked up. Yeah. But uh it's just completely different now how they do everything and how they train and how things they gotta keep up with. And I told I told one owner one time, I said, I'd do this for half as much if you didn't make me freaking work out four days a week, three days of pit practice and yoga and everything else. And they're like, Well, what do you mean? I was like, if I was like, I'm trying to keep up with my shop job and do everything else you want me to do. It's pretty impossible. Yeah, I was like, you can I'll cut my pay in half if I don't have to do all the other extracurricular stuff, and they're like looking at me crazy. I was like, Oh, I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

How much better do you think uh competition is or or or will continue to be because of live pit stops? You know, some series have competition caution and they come down or they take a I argue that. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 51:09

I yeah, I d I and people argue the point because I'm a tire changer, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 51:15

I know you're old school too.

SPEAKER_02 51:16

So yeah, but I freaking can't stand watching a race now with no pit styles because it's just a perfect example of snowball derby. I put into snowball derby for nine or ten years. And then, you know, the last two years that's like a bucket race, you know what I mean, for me to want to win. And a lot of people think that you know, I just gotta do it for the money. It's not that for me, you know. I mean, like like like I said, my dad worked on race cars in late 70s, early 80s in the old ASA and the old Art Co series and whatever back then with when Mark Martin and all them guys ran. And uh I would love to win the Winchester 400, I'd love to win the All-American 400, I'd love to win the snowball derby. Uh, there's a lot of short track races I did when I was a kid. I just never had the opportunity to be able to win them. So, like I would love to go to the snowball derby doing live pit stops and win a race. The last two times I did, I did it for Bobby Pollard, and we had a race-winning car and things just didn't work out, you know what I mean? But I mean, I just like like even the Arca series now, like I hate to say it, you know. I I can't even stand watching an arca race now. It's just there's no competitive. I mean, even you talk to the crew cheese or whatever, it's like, okay, let's just go out here and run laps and come in halfway and put this on. And there's no strategy to anything, and there's no competition side of it. I mean, it's just that's the thing in the big three series, you know, some guy could be dominating the race, have a bad pit stop, they're going losing 10 spots, 20 spots, whatever it is. Absolutely. Then you're like want to know where he's at, and you're like excitement levels getting like, where is the where are they at? Were they coming back? Are they not, you know? And they got your comers and goers, you know, it just mixes it up. And now if you don't have any kind of pit stops where any things changing during the race, it's like, or I need to take a nap this afternoon, just turn the TV on.

SPEAKER_00 53:11

I've heard people say nap car. Yeah, yeah. Nap car, you know what I mean? So I mean that was that was my dad's deal back there. He would turn the TV on, turn the volume all the way down, turn the radio broadcast on, because they got to paint the picture. Yeah, turn the radio about halfway up, jump up on the couch and fall asleep. Now he's sound asleep. If you change a channel on the TV, you'll turn the radio. I was listening to that. Yeah, I was watching that.

SPEAKER_02 53:31

Absolutely the same way. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, I I'd I freaking hate it. I mean, it's even it would be so good for like these younger guys wanting to come in a pit, you know? Yeah. And like they asked about what they can do or whatever. Well, and then like even like I've had a conversation with NASCAR about it because And I was like, the thing is like, because they were asking, like, where's all the pit crew guys go to? And I was like, Well, a lot of us saw the writing on the wall when you brought in the new car. So if they were an elder guy or somewhere, they were just like, Well, say la V and friggin' retire and move back home or did something different, and then the rumors going around about trucking's finity getting rid of pit stops, so like guys quit going to these schools in Mooresville and stuff, paying to go learn to do the things. I was like, so the people just really fell off, and it's like then there's there's nowhere we can take them to for them to learn. Like, there's no arca series, there's no late model races I can take a group of guys and say, Hey, give these guys some hot dogs and a pit pass and a hundred bucks or something, you know what I mean? Yeah and freaking have at it. And and they said that's the other reason why they got real pissed off of Snowball Derby because of the price of it. But and then they told me what they were paying. I was like, Well, I don't know who got paid that. It wasn't me. You know what I mean? It wasn't me, yeah, you know, and that's what people say. We're just here to make money. I was like, dude, I put this race for free. And that's when I started doing it. I started pitting Stanley Smith's car. We had several different drivers. My buddy Todd Foster got us hooked up with that, and me and him and four of our other buddies, we jumped in the freaking truck, and I think I think they gave us like three grand or something like that. But we had to pay our own wage.

SPEAKER_00 55:14

But but but would it be so bad to actually go do what you're trained to do and make money doing that? I do it every day. You do it every day. Yeah. Why does that make people mad? You know what I mean? I know.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

I mean, everybody's trying to make a dollar or whatever, but I mean that that was our whole deal. We went we'd go down there for like three or four days, and the whatever money they gave us was just for beers and food.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

You can barely survive in Pensacola for three grand for three guys, three or four days in Pensacola, yeah. That'd make as well.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

We'd go to the racetrack every night and we'd watch the races, drink beer, freaking just have a great time, man. You know, go out to dinner, have some beers or whatever afterwards, and just like old school racing, bench racing, you know what I mean? But I wish, you know, I heard rumors they were talking about this last year about trying to do it again.

SPEAKER_00 55:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 55:57

And uh that'd be fun if they do. Oh, dude, it'd be awesome. Because I mean, I paid to watch the first derby that they did with no pit stops, and I was like, well, this sucks. Yeah, this is true. I think Derek Thorne led green to checkers or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Because there's no pit strategy.

SPEAKER_02 56:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

Not that his guys wouldn't have been great, but nonetheless, I mean, Derek's got pretty premium stuff.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

So yeah, yeah. I mean, it was he was dominant, but you know, to give anybody else other chance, there was anything to kind of mix it up.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

So, Tim, I'm just kind of curious. Uh, what kind of college degree do you have? Zero. I'm saying that one more time.

SPEAKER_02 56:28

Zero.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

So you have no college degree, you're a business owner, you manufacture parts, you teach guys how to pit, you book pit crews, and you have no college background.

unknown 56:38

No.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

Wow, that's crazy, man. Did you make it an American to win that these days?

SPEAKER_02 56:41

Oh, surprising, isn't it? That's my son. My youngest. Well, my oldest went to Purdue, so he's an engineer for housing transmissions now in Indiana, but my youngest son, he didn't, like I said, he didn't want to go to school. He's an engineer for dad.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

Yeah. He's an engineer for dad. He's a good one. He's the lead engineer at Hellraiser. Yes. Does it say it on the say it on his business card? I probably should make it. You should do that. Don't tell him. Hey, don't watch this so we can get you some business cards. Yeah. It'll actually be a little bit before it comes out, so we'll give you some time, man. That way you can get it done. Yeah, let me know. We can make that happen. If guys want to find out more about the Jax, how can we find out about you? Give us your website, social media phone number. How do we find out?

SPEAKER_02 57:16

Uh they look on Hellraiserjacks.com or look us up on Facebook or Instagram. Uh, my phone number's on all this. My cell phone in my pocket, 704-506-3795.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

And we can call or text, because that's you, right?

SPEAKER_02 57:28

Yeah, they can call or text us me. I'll say hello, this is Tim. Or they say Hellraiserjacks or I don't know. A lot of times I don't know who it is or whatever. Yeah. Um, believe a voicemail or whatever, text me. I'll get back to you at some point.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

And for as far as the pit crew stuff, it's not really something that you teach or whatever it is, but if guys know a guy, can get in with you, that's something that you still you got a lot of passion because you and I talk all the time. You're like, man, I gotta run, I got pit practice, man. We got so and so, we got this. Yeah. I hear I still hear the excitement in your voice when you talk about pit practice. So for guys that are wanting to learn that kind of craft, what kind of advice would you, what kind of quick advice would you give them to be able to find out more about that? I mean Can they still call Tim and you direct them anyway? Tell them where to go. Yeah, I mean you can want to tell people where to go your whole life, so this is your chance, right?

SPEAKER_02 58:12

I mean, they can they can give me a call, whatever. I mean, but that's the big thing I tell the Devo guys I got now. It's like, you gotta come here and work on your own. Like, I'm not, I don't charge for a school or anything. We'll teach you. Uh, but you just gotta put in the time and the effort of doing it yourself. Like, I leave the door open and I'm there. Well, if I'm not at the racetrack, I'm usually there six days a week, sometimes seven.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

Show up with your knee pads, a pair of gloves, and the desire to work, and you're gonna make it happen, right?

SPEAKER_02 58:35

We give you knee pads and gloves. We're gonna deal with mechanics where they're pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_00 58:39

They do have great sub, absolutely. So but mechanics wear, there was your plug right there. Yeah, mechanics wear. By the way, we're running low on gloves. If you can ship that'd be great. So, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:48

But uh, yeah, I mean, it's just it's a want. Like I said, man, it's just a want. A guy wants to work hard enough to do it. That's a big thing to me. So they want to come in and show they got the effort. Because I mean, I got one kid right now, he's there like I think four days a week. I mean, he freaking busts his butt. He's been doing really good. I mean, he didn't run in, he's been running 13 second stops already. I mean, he's hoping trying to put him on something full time here shortly.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Boston, Boston. Well, Tim, I've kind of dominated it there with asking the questions, grabbing information. Is there anything you want to share with our audience before we let you go, man?

SPEAKER_02 59:20

No, not that I know of. Uh, you know, just if you want to buy a jack. About four or five weeks right now. So just be patient with us.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Right on, right on. And uh, and and you can they can uh if you want to reach out to him, leave your name and number. If he gets a use jack in, he'll certainly give you a call if that's a possibility.

SPEAKER_02 59:37

I mean, this is just kind of one combination we got of all orange, but we've done orange and black. Either I mean we can flip-flop the side plates to the framework, and we do blue. The anodizer we do it's got as orange, purple, pink, gold, red, blue, black. Um, we can powder coat the side plates to gorgeous. Whatever kind of colors you want. Uh, we do our own laser engraving of our logos and stuff. So if you have the car number, your team name, whatever you want.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

We put the car number stuff on there. Yeah, we can. Yeah, I think I saw it on Justin's jack. You did uh 97 on there. Yeah. Yeah, he had his in here earlier. Tim did not like that jack. It was a little scratched up. So we wanted to make sure we had a fine shiny. You know, I mean, it's south side. You know what I mean? It just is what it is. I think when you run that slow, you wouldn't have to beat it up that bad. This is great. Yeah. He made a decal for him that says the mid-pack missile. So that was great. Yes. I mean, there's been days. There's been days.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:36

When he asked me about putting my Hellraiser on his quarter panels car, I was like, man, I don't know. It's like, are you thinking about looking at that far back?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:43

Well, let me tell you the advantage. Let me tell you the advantage. With his car being a couple seconds slower than the rest, it's the only car you can actually see. Yeah. So there's actually mileage on that. So you probably pick the best guy. And I will say this we give him a hard time. He is a great jawbone and incredible brand ambassador for sure. So um there he loves to talk. He he has lots to say. Yeah. Because let's say we've traveled a lot together. He's been one of my best friends, been an employee for several years. And uh we've just while you're out, you maybe like work on his attire. Probably not. So we uh as as we drive places though, Justin's one of those, if if nobody's talking, he feels like there's something wrong. So he needs to say something. So what I do, what I do, man. So I actually bought these um for two reasons. I bought I bought some AirPods, right? So I just stick them in and he'll call and I'll be like, or he'll talk to me, I'll be like, it just it's great. So he'll walk out in the warehouse. I don't even have him in. I've got him so trained now, if I just point at my ear, he just turns around and walks away. So yeah. No, he's a great guy though. We do, we love, we love to bust his balls, though. So yes, actually. Yeah, I got guys like that too. But hey, you know what? Ultimately, he may not be the fastest guy at the track, but he does have the coolest jack. He does have the coolest jack. He definitely has the coolest jacket.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:50

He is pretty though, he's got that pretty new fire suit and he's gonna do it. He does, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

Gold on there, yeah, yeah. Gold.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:55

Yeah, yeah. I don't know about the gold. Yeah, I'm not a big gold person.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:59

Yeah, yeah. Because this is orange. Because I know on the resolution it looks gold, this is orange. So yeah. Because that is orange.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:05

Yeah, like people have argued about the anodizer on stuff, and I when I got stuff years ago, and it was supposed to be gold, supposed to be gold, and I was like, that's not gold. Like, that's gold. I'm like, no, that is not gold. And then I switched to anodizer and I was got gold, and I was like, that is gold. That's gold, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:24

Yeah, so yeah, everybody argues so. Well, Tim, thanks a million for coming on the show. You guys probably know him as Pop Tart, Hellraiserjacks.com. You guys are in Mooresville, you there, like you said, six days a week. Unless you guys are gone to a race, stop by, talk to him about a jack. If you're ready to get a jack on order, man, they can do it. He's got a few jacks in stock right now. So if you don't need a custom jack, he's got you ready to go. Uh, we can get you guys set up with him. If you don't get his number stuff, man, message us here at the shop. We're really tight with him. So we talk on a regular basis. Really appreciate you making the trip over there. I know you're super busy. 100 and some jacks mine. If your jack is late, it was my fault, my pop. Because I twisted his arm, made him get down here. But uh Pop Tart, we appreciate you coming today, man. Look forward to seeing more great stuff. Check him out at the trade shows too. Did PRI this year, you'll see him at the Dome also. Two monumental events that we have in motorsports. Come talk to him about all your Jack needs. LRangerjacks.com. Guys, that's gonna do it for this episode of driving fast and taking chances. Drive fast, take chances.