Episode #48
While AJ was home this summer – we drove it up to Jon’s house for the day with the intent of recording a podcast. Little did we know that we’d be in for one of the most fun days of our lives. When we got to Jon’s he asked if we should record the episode before or after going out for a few laps in his rally car….. AJ and I both said “after!”
Peep the edit that AJ made here – click on it to get it to play:
I’ve been lucky enough to be able to get to know Jon and Jason over the years via their roles in the industry and from their preexisting friendship with Tim and Mal from Pitcrew.
Jason and Jon get deep into many aspects of racing rally cars – they share stories from times that they’ve crashed, what it’s like to be a co-driver and what it takes to participate – Jon mentions that the driving is the easy part. About a third of the way through Jason has to leave and put the kids to bed and we change subjects a bit and get into snowboarding and business.
Check out Jon’s Rally America bio and race history here: Rally America
Sharpen your hooning skills here: Hoonigan
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Jon wheels up!
This episode covers the following topics:
- The day of rally fun
- AJ joins the PA rally scene
- The electric car
- How Rally driving compares with snowboarding
- Nate and AJ’s experience riding along with Jon in the rally car
- Co-driver’s role
- Rally event logistics – stages.
- Jon’s race stats
- The Sno-Drift rally
- Wellsboro PA rally
- The art of the flick
- How Mal at Pitcrew influenced their rally passion
- Rallycross
- How Ali Goulet introduced Jon to rallycross
- Seven Springs
- Heavy Metal Racing
- Wrecks and ruts – Jon’s first roll
- Naturally aspirated verses turbo charged
- Driving verses co-driving
- Engine trouble
- Pierre Wikberg / Ken Block
- Jon’s obsession with camo
- Engine swaps
Sno*Drift Rally drift.
- Race prep
- Brandon at All Wheels Driven in Wellsboro PA
- Jay exits
- Jon’s role at Hoonigan
- Ken Block’s racing team
- The Hoonicorn
- Gymkhana
- Nardwar
- Killington
- How to get paid for photo incentive when your sponsor is stingy
- How to (not) tune a board
- Flipping cars via the Baltimore abandoned vehicle auction
- Listener questions:
- Dave Thacker – Thacker’s Transmissions
- Paul Horning
- Jared Lantzy
- Alex Dunn
- John Leonard
- Clutches
- Superstition in racing and snowboarding
- Blood Sweat and Grease Paint
- The first 1080 into powder – Colin Lentz
- Broken bones
- Step-in bindings
- “Expert class” – sharing advice on snow at just the right time.
- AJ signs on with Hoonigan
- Family vibes
- Getting to the hill before noon…
- East Coast/West Coast – Tupac and Biggie
- Adventure-mobiles
- Nate’s truck
- 4wd minivans
Jon at the Sno*Drift Rally after impact.
Quotes form the Episode:
“I hope you’re right – cause if not we’re going to go into a tree!” Jason Smith
“Right four over crest – five short.”
“The cool thing that I like about rally is the adventure in between – the time’s don’t always reflect what happened.”
“The snowdrift in Michigan – you’re going to go off the road.”
“You shift the weight of the car – like riding a snowboard.” Jason Smith
“It was a $400 car so I didn’t care about it – anytime it snowed, we’d attack the streets.”
“We’d get the $9.00 insurance on rental cars so that you could just drive it like a race car – I sent a car back on a flatbed, I won’t say where.”
“You’ve seen the roads around here, there’s no straight roads – it’s a rally to Seven Springs.”
“If it died, just light it on fire and leave it – when you pass that point where you no longer care, you can do some pretty cool things with it.”
“I’ve rolled three times – the first one was with Jay and we didn’t have a cage.”
“To do well in race you have to be close to wrecking.” Jason Smith
“Not bursting your bubble, but you’re a better driver than co-driver (Jon to Jay).”
“You see my car – this isn’t some high roller thing, I buy an engine for a couple hundred bucks at a junkyard.”
“I popped a tire, the front right, we had to go six miles more, but we won the stage… We just kept it pinned and kept going!”
“Carbon fiber is not my deal – I just don’t have a fancy car… I’d rather have people think that my car is turd and them beat them.”
“Killington had the half pipe… We’d sleep in our cars.”
“I can part out a car in my head, just by looking at it – it’s a weird skill to have.”
“Typical Colin (Lentz) – he did an amazing run and then he was like, I’m good – got in the truck and left.”
“There was no easy way to try em – you had to use some else sweaty boots (step-ins).”
“Adventure is cool right now….Rally is that, your phone does not work, there’s snakes, there’s tic’s…”
“All my grade school teachers marked does not work well with others.”
“It was almost like, if you’re not from the east coast – we can’t hang out.”
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