All the Torquems

David -Drew- Andrews - Member and avid Offroader for GTM

Contact: David -Drew- Andrews at N/A

    

• First offroader was a Jeep Commander – let’s talk about the build and what happened to that car (flood in Ellicott City, killed it, iirc). 
• Now you offroad with a Mercedes G-wagon, known as “Gretchen” – let’s unpack that. 
• Where do you take your truck (regularly) for offroading? Where are some of the best places to Offroad? 
• What would you say is your biggest OOPS moment?
• What would you recommend to someone just starting out in Offroading?
• What are some essentials you “must have” for an offroading weekend.
• Is there a “good starter” offroader? Is there any to stay away from?
• Do you recommend any books, forums, websites for getting into the sport of Offroading? Any recommendations on parts or mods?
• Do you watch any of the offroading shows like Truck Night in America, Alaskan Offroad Warriors? Anything like that.

and much, much more!

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something, motor sports related

boulders, trees, mud ruts, and sleeping under the stars. That’s right. That’s the recipe for off-roading. And tonight we return to the road Less traveled with our special guest and former GTM member David Drew Andrews. And as always, I’m your host Brad. And I’m Eric. So let’s roll. Welcome to the show. . Hey, so Drew, back when we met, you know, back in the before times you had a Pontiac g t o, we used to sport around in that thing, and you were big into sports cars, drag racing and all sorts of stuff.

But how did you end up in off-roading? I’m from North Carolina and North Carolina has a massive off-road community down there. And I’m from western North Carolina in a little town called Flag Mountain, which is a suburb of Asheville. But my dad had me in that bad boy in a, in a baby [00:01:00] seat going off road in the woods on 6,000 foot mountains,

Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. So I’d say I got into it at a really young age. But you were driving around in sports cars for the longest time, so how did you make the transition back to off-roading? Well, I tell people I never really left off-roading. I still had a love for it. I just didn’t have the money for it. and I had, it was either one or the other sports car.

Or off-road. You can never do both. Well when you get older that credit score get up . Well there there is that credit. What ? . I always had a love for off-roading and also it was the company I kept at the time. We all were into like one upping each other. So started out with like little Honda Civics and then upgraded to Integra.

Now that was the [00:02:00] early, fast and Furious days. So those imports were extremely popular in the early two thousands. I bucked the mold. I was all about American muscle, but a different kind of muscle. So I had a Pontiac gtp. Oh, the three eight? Yeah. Supercharged three eight. , and I mean, it, it kind of ripped out of the factory.

But once you started like upgrading the supercharger pulley, cold air intake, SD ignition, all that good stuff, I surprised the hell outta some of these Eclipse G S X owners. They’re like, whoa, this thing is fast. And I think it was, it was fun wheel drive too. Fun wheel drive. All, all I heard, all I heard in that description was cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, a little bit, you know, put, put pin pennies here and there into it and slow and steady wins the race, but then you jumped to [00:03:00] the goat.

Right? And I, I remember riding in that car and that thing was awesome. And the goat was still new back then too, so, yeah. Yeah. It’s a shame that that platform didn’t get to love it deserved. That was a extremely well-built car. The G T O. Was not an American car, but it had American horsepower. The generation I had, had the LS two, but the 2004 model had the, uh, LS one, which to this day has so many directions you can go with the upgrades.

But yeah, my G T O had a LS two. I really, my generation because it was less boring looking, less jelly beanie, uh, . , that’s a good way to put it. I ain’t gonna lie, that thing looked like a jelly beanie , but it was, it was my sexy jelly bean. But yeah, Eric, you’re right cuz I remember I bought that and I brought it to the, uh, office.

Brand spanking noon. Yep. Back in the day cafe. But [00:04:00] anyways, we had that thing sideways more than once, man. So . Oh, . It had some soft suspension. I know those cars were not, were not very, uh, stiff actually, believe it or not. I mean, compared to what you guys are used to. It, it was soft, but out the factory, it had a very competent suspension.

and it was a very basic suspension. It wasn’t like, I don’t think the rear had a double wish bone in the rear or anything like that. It was just No, but it was, it was IRS though. Yeah, it was irs. Yeah. Yeah. And it had, I, I test drove one, I test drove in oh five. I was looking to buy. Yeah, but you know what, it did have, it had an exhaust.

It would rip your ears off then. And it had 400 horsepower. Yeah, he was awesome horsepower 10 years ago. That’s like, that was some serious horsepower. Now you ain’t even, you ain’t sneezing on nothing unless you have anything less than five 30 now . Yeah, that’s true. Now Camry’s come to 400. Yeah. So from there you had a couple a eight s.

I know that and, and you have one now I, I know that as well. But you went. [00:05:00] That’s right. Sorry. Essays. My apologies. . Oh, you got an essay too? Yeah, I’ve had a couple Your, your car history sounds very similar to mine. I had a oh one eight. I had a fourth Gin Camaro, two four Gin Camaros. Okay. I started with a Honda Civic.

I mean, come on now. Okay. Maybe it’s a big guy thing. So from there, I know you went, you know, kind of left the sports car world, went back to off-roading and you ended up with a Jeep commander. Right. Which is different, uh, because most guys that are into Jeeps either do Wranglers or Grand Cherokees or stuff like that.

So you ended up with a commander, and I know you had a big love for that car, and I don’t remember it’s nickname or it’s name, but you’ll, you’ll fill me in there. Mm-hmm. , her name was u s.

So that bitch was a boat . So let’s talk about what drew you to the commander, how you had that thing built out, what you did with it, and then what inevitably ended up happening to it, which was tragic, but we’ll get to that point. So let, let’s, [00:06:00] let’s talk about the beginning there. Before the commander, actually, my dad gave me his Jeep xj.

It was a Cherokee, it had been in my family since I was 14 years old. I grew up learning how to drive. It was a, it was not the four, oh, it was like the 2.8 liter with a five speed and it, it didn’t have the horsepower to get out of its own way. But when you put that thing in four low, I was crawling up stuff that, you know, these guys with.

I love them. The Toyota guys. Oh, the, the FJ can is the only vehicle that can go throughout Moab stock. Uh, shut up. . That thing is crawling up hills and you breaking axles, . So ultimately I’m six three and at the time I was banging on like 280 pounds. I did not fit in the day on xj. It was a joke. Like people would like clown me at my [00:07:00] office before I met you, Eric, and would be like, you ain’t got no business being in that little thing

So I was like, okay, I agree. So I, I did some research and I started looking around other vehicles in good old fashioned me, everybody and their mother has either a Toyota 4runner or a Jeep Wrangler and I didn’t like, The whole, you’re either part of this faction or you’re a part of that faction. So I said, I’m gonna upp in this crap.

I’m gonna go against the trend here. I’m a, I’m gonna do something illegal. I’m gonna get it. I f S on a S U V. And I was scared cuz I was looking up under it and I’m like, I went to go look at it and I, I was, look, I was like, wow, this thing actually has legit hardware up under here. And then I started doing research on the different four-wheel drive systems.

And just because you [00:08:00] have four-wheel drive, they are not all created equal, as you know, in the all-wheel drive industry with the, uh, sports cars. So my must-haves was it needed to have a heavy. transfer case, a heavy duty rear end, and a, hopefully a, a, a decent front end. If it’s i f s, you’re gonna blow stuff up.

Anyways, I started reading the different four wheel drive systems, and so Jeep has these really cool systems that I, I believe are the best in the world. I all the way from Rock Track, which is what the wranglers have to the Quadra track systems that the, uh, grand Cherokees, W Ks and WK two s, the the Grand Cherokees and the Commander at the time.

And then they had like an extreme version called Quadra Drive two, and they had Quadra Drive one. So Quadra Drive one was basically Quadra track, but it had a low gear in the transfer case. [00:09:00] Quadra Track has no low gear, it’s just legit all-wheel drive with traction control. , very stressful on a transmission.

Transmission. If you try to off-road it and you have the Quadra Drive two system, which builds on Quadra Drive one, but adds in trick differentials, so it has the ability to lock. Now the misconception is people don’t understand Quadra Drive too, so they’re like, oh, it’s not a real locking differential.

The thing is, it is a real locking differential because when you open a differential that has lockers on ’em, there is a OID that literally locks both hash ASTs together and they rotate at the same time and they can’t deviate. So the Quadra Drive two system has that except instead of it being like air actuated or electronic actuated, it’s clutched.

actuated. Yeah. So you get pressure in [00:10:00] the fluid and those plates stick together in the differential locks. So that’s how Quadra Drive does. Its trickery. Now, what’s really nice about Quadra Drive is it’s a point and shoot system. I never had to say, oh, let me lock the center. Let me lock the rear, let me lock the front.

The system would detect, will slip and engage each differential individually. That was what was really nice about it. So anybody who’s off-road, it knows it’s a bear. To turn your S U V or your Jeep when all differentials are locked with the Quadra drive it, it could detect that you were turning and it would unlock the front differential even if you were in the middle of a climb.

I’d looked into that and I was like, okay, that’s really cool. I might be able to do something with. because people are gonna lose their shit when they see what this thing can do. And that’s how I ended up landing on the Jeep Commander Overland. So what did you end up doing to it after you got it? Because [00:11:00] obviously you could only run at stock for so long when you’re off-roading.

So what kind of upgrades did you end up doing to the commander? I started out with two and a half inch, what you call a puck lift. So basically, uh, the spacer fits in between the body and the spring and functionally lifts the vehicle up. Okay. But you, you’re still on stock springs and shocks and stuff like that.

Now when you lift the vehicle, you lift the body higher, you are then allowed to put larger tires on and you want the larger tires because that’s an added lift as well. So you go from having a 28 29 inch tire. Which is like a 2, 2 65, 65 or something like that. And then you upgrade it to a two, I wanna say a 2 75 70 or something like that.

I can’t remember. No, 2 65 70, which is I think 30 inch tire. Of course, you go [00:12:00] off road, you test your upgrades and you realize you want more. And so, so I realized my approach and departure angles were crap. And my bumpers are plastic . So next thing I had to upgrade was my bumpers. You know, me all out. I bought both bumpers at the same damn time.

Two grand a pop. . I was gonna say, you only need to have one really bad, uh, departure angle, and then it’s fixed. . Yeah, it, there you go. And the bumper’s gone. . Yeah. Not, not a problem. I started realizing that even though the commander had like legit hardware to make it a decent off rotor, I could see where the bean counters kicked in and the development of this vehicle, because they were, they would put stuff that had no business being exposed on a off-road vehicle.

So the commander, my particular version, had rear ac and guess where they ran the AC lines [00:13:00] directly under the passenger door exposed, not covered, and then up through the wheel well into the engine bay. And so when I started digging things out, taking the, the liner inside the wheel well, , I was like, how did they get a plastic trash bag in here?

I’m not kidding. It was like a, a trash bag full of styrofoam. And I’m, I’m like, oh man, this thing is, oh. So I ended up having a guy devise me a splash plate for the rear AC line. So if I ever banged on a rock, I don’t crush my ac. Because if that rear AC goes out, go, it goes out for the entire thing. Mm-hmm.

that’s how they were interconnected. They weren’t separate units, but anyways, got the bumper on there. That was a all day , uh, job because of course, for whatever reason, they’re not good, like design-wise, like the wranglers are, like the wranglers are designed to, you know, un bullshit [00:14:00] bullshit back on there.

Whereas my big old hands was reaching behind and under the, the body to, to start the bolt, and it was just, it was a nightmare. I took that time to get a winch. So winch is very important for recovery. You recommend that people don’t go out without a proper recovery plan, and there are different recovery tools, but I’m sure we’ll get into that later.

But anyways, I took that time to bolt on a 12,000 pound winch. I upgraded my lift to a four inch super lift. . So that then required some real surgery on the vehicle and it took about a week for them to install everything cuz they were like, dude, why are you always bringing us the weirdest platforms to work on?

And he is like, I, I’ve never seen a commander lifted before. That’s literally what my shop guy told me. And he was like, but we’re gonna make it work. You know, So. So at that point the vehicle was substantially [00:15:00] higher when I got the four inch lift on it and put the 30 fives on. So I had 35, 12 and a half seventeens.

Eric, have you seen any of my videos? Cause I’m literally the only guy in the world that off-road a commander and had proof. So I have a ton of YouTube videos. We’ll link some in the show notes so people can check it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is literally hilarious because people are videotaping and they’re talking mad shit.

They’re like, oh, he has no business being out here. It’s, it’s, it’s funny. And then he is like, oh, he doesn’t have the flex to get up that thing. And she just walks right up some of the steepest, most difficult obstacles. And my whole point of that was to prove that ifss out the box might not have the, uh, same articulation as a straight axle, but when you have the right setup and you know what you’re doing and you have to change your driving style, it is just as capable.

It’s not as sexy [00:16:00] looking, but it gets the job done. And that was, that was the point of that. So I put the 30 fives on there, had the rear bumper winch, and then I started blowing up half shafts in the front. And that’s when I was like, This is gonna be a problem if I gotta do surgery on the trail every time I do a difficult job.

So I ended up going online and started meeting a lot of people from around the world talking to them like, uh, the Australians man, they are amazing group of people to reference for off-road ideas and, uh, best practices and stuff like that, that those guys, they’re on another level. But anyways, there was a guy who had a really popular Grand Cherokee that was having the same problems and he found a company called R C V, which is an American company that literally makes bulletproof half shafts and they’re like a burfield a.

I don’t [00:17:00] know. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Burfield, but Burfield, uh, if you look at like in cars, the CV is like, what, three or four balls in a ring. And that’s how, and they’re interconnected through the SP blinds that allow it to be like a continuously variable joint. Yeah, joint. There we go. And, um, but burfield are different in the sense that they have those same parts, but instead of a soft, rubbery, oily cover to protect it, it’s a massive steel cage that contains the outward pressure that happens when the axle is under load and you try to turn the steering wheel.

So that still bought that steel. is literally holding those balls in place as you’re turning. And I never blew up another axle ever again. And I did even crazier stuff. So it’s almost like a reinforced CV joint. Yeah, that’s exactly what it [00:18:00] is. Well, that sounds similar to the axles that we have on our cars.

They’ve got those steel cages too. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, we’re, we’re, we run drag axles for road racing. Oh yeah. Cuz they’re a lot stronger and they can, yeah. But they, they do that by using a combination of beefier parts from other vehicles and all that kind of stuff. It’s, it’s, but I, I’d be really curious to look into the stuff you’re talking about because I could see an application for that and, and I I got some ideas.

Gears are always turning. Yeah. Let me ask you a question real quick though. Yeah, sure. So I’m assuming that the front suspension and the front componentry of the commander is similar to, uh, the WK one s. Has anybody tried to retrofit a, a solid axle under one of those? , actually the WK one s and the X Ks are actually sister and brother, they’re twins.

There’s no difference between the two platforms other than the body was longer than the wk and a little bit wider and it weighed more. But the [00:19:00] underpinnings, the drive train, they’re both the same. So yes, parts are totally interchangeable powertrain wise, and yes, people do monster retrofits. So I, I know a couple of guys that have put Dana 44 in the front and a Dana 60 in the rear.

I didn’t think there was a need to do a Dana 60 in the rear, but always bigger means stronger though, right? But does it come with a 44 stock in the rear? Yeah. I’m glad you asked that. So it depended. It depends on the platform. So if you had the Quadra track, it had a soft Dana 44. But we know there’s all kinds of parts for Dana 40 fours that you could build on it, but you don’t want the Quadra track because it didn’t have a low, uh, a transfer case for, uh, low gearing.

And then you had, uh, the Quadra Drive systems. You had a, I believe it was a eight pin or, and then there was a 10 [00:20:00] pin Chrysler eight and a quarter was the one I had, which is the equivalent to a Dana 44. I I would think, uh, in toughness. The reason why they did the 10 pin like that was, that was the only differential that was big enough to house the clutch packs and the locking and all that stuff.

And so that’s how that works. So I didn’t see a point in getting rid of the rear, but I’ve heard people doing that. And yes, you can do a Dana 44 or a Dana 30 up front. I’ve, I’ve seen a few guys do that as well. That was gonna be a pretty big job because they literally have to cut. into the frame and cut the sub frame out.

Mm-hmm. , uh, for the, if f s and now it’s all open, so they have to reinforce. It’s not a body on frame, it’s, it’s a uni body, uni frame, uni uniform. And I tell people there’s a difference between a uni body and a uni frame. A uni frame is where it is a uni body, but they sandwich a ladder frame [00:21:00] to it, which makes it extremely rigid.

You could have that truck in full tilt and you could still open all the doors and. , it was completely amazing. I was amazed at how strong that frame was. But a lot of people don’t like uni body cuz Oh, it’s, it’s, it’s flexi and all that stuff. No, we’ve come a long way since the nineties and eighties aired xjs, so they gotta cut all that stuff out.

And then retro fri, you know, radius arms and longer springs because you know tho the, if f s inherently has shorter springs because it doesn’t have all that room for travel, but the trade off is if f s gives you a little bit more ground clearance because you don’t have anything dangling up under the front.

I didn’t see it necessary for what the style of off-roading that I do to need to go straight axle up front. Now when you [00:22:00] say the style of off-roading that you do, a lot of people don’t understand that. Hmm. There’s different styles to off-roading. There’s rock crawling. Mm-hmm. , you need specific rock crawler, you know, vehicles.

Mm-hmm. a rock crawler is gonna be different than a mudding vehicle. Mm-hmm. . Uh, so why don’t you, uh, tell us a little bit about the different kinds of sub disciplines within off-roading? You’re correct. There are definite lanes to off-roading. You have, what I did is called overlanding, where it’s more of a adventure style of off-roading.

The idea of overlanding is to be able to survive with only the things that you bring. The idea is to, you know, go to old ghost towns and, you know, try to dig up, bury treasure. No, not, that’s not it. But it is like a, it is, it’s an adventure. You’re, you’re learning about the landscape. It’s a different style of off-roading because the lands tend to be a little bit wetter and looser and stuff like that.

So [00:23:00] there’s not a whole lot of, uh, Rock crawling involved in it. There are situations where you have to climb over a tree or big old boulders or drop down into a river and drive across the river. That’s over landing. And the term over landing came around, uh, range Rover coined it back in the eighties with the, uh, land Rover discovery, not quite back to the Range Rover Classics, but when the discovery came out, In the late eighties, I believe it was.

I think that’s when the disco one came around, discovery one, they called it Overlanding and overland vehicles tend to have what you call stadium seating, and the idea of stadium seating is pretty cool. You want the people in the back to have the same experience as the people in the front. So typical overland vehicles have a step up in the rear, and sometimes they have a, if it’s a third row, it has another step up there, and that’s when you start getting into like skylights in the rear and [00:24:00] stuff like that.

The Jeep Commander actually had that step up. It was called Commander View, and it was. Pretty cool. You be in the back and there’s like these two open moon roofs that had like little shades on ’em and stuff like that that you know, you can look out and look around and see over the driver and it sucks if you have a little old lady trying to get in there cuz she’s gotta like, you know, reincarnate her, uh, jumping days.

My grandmother hated getting in. My commander. . You have, uh, rock crawling, and that’s where a lot of people like to go to parks like Roche Creek, gore, West Virginia, flagpole in Virginia. There’s all kinds of cool off-road networks that people like to test their flex. You gotta get the flex bro. And those are the guys who literally do some of the craziest stuff.

Like they’re, they’re literally driving over boulders the size of small cars [00:25:00] and getting in between them. And just extreme articulation, and this is where lockers are very important for, uh, rock crawling, because you’ll see guys blow their stuff up because they have open differentials and they’re trying to crawl through a quarry and they get stuck.

and they have no winch, and then they gotta pay somebody hundreds of maybe thousands of dollars to come get ’em out because they broke or blew up something. You have that style of offroading and then you have mudding. That’s a different breed of people. . They, uh, that’s Daniel’s people. I think they mud, they’re mud people.

They’re mudding people. Boy, I ain’t never seen anybody purposely get into a vehicle with no top. Driving to the most danst, stinkiest ass, , prehistoric looking water, mud, and get [00:26:00] Whoa, whoa. I, I’m like, oh my god, . You know, uh, those people are very special. Like, look at me, bro. I’m muddy, bro. Yeah. Where’d you get some mud at?

I went over there, I’m like, oh God. Lemme get away.

And you’re not lying about the st of that mud, because there’s a lot of places that I ride at and go out four-wheeling on with ATBs and there’s always those hits that the water’s been sitting for like a month and a half straight. So it’s stagnant. It’s got all kind. Mosquito larva and everything in it.

It just has that nasty wretched smell to it. And you know, you, Jesus, you know, you end up eating a little bit of it. I mean, come on now. Oh God, no. They go into it like, I got slowmo videos of people just, they’re like at the buffet Golden corral, man. They’re ready. And then it’s just like this wave and Nutella , [00:27:00] he’s not lying coming in at him.

That’s why they say a little dirt never hurt. A little dirt, never hurt. Yeah. So let’s kind of circle back and let’s talk about what ended up happening to the commander. I mean, you ran that thing for years. Yeah. So I don’t know if you guys remember a couple years ago, but we were getting hammered with some freaky storms up here in Ellicott City and Columbia.

And, and, uh, we had some flash floods. I’m going to Colby’s to go get me some ribs. from the barbecue place and I’m coming back the back way and I mean it just starts coming down. So I’m going down the hill and I’m like, damn, this is like the matrix. And I see a car sitting at the bridge. It’s a single lane bridge, uh, where I need to go.

At the time the water was maybe foot deep, [00:28:00] like barely cresting over my foot. So I go to see if anybody’s in the car cuz the hazard lights are on. All of a sudden I’m looking, my Jeep is like right behind them. And I just feel like this energy, like you can feel it. And then all of a sudden water is now in seconds.

Ankle deep, knee deep, hip deep. I was caught in the flash flood and I was down in the valley when this water was coming through. I was like, I need to get the fuck outta here. Dude. I started hauling ass. I looked like Alys deal, running up the hill, trying to sa save myself. You know? I’m just trying to get outta there.

And as, as I got into the commander and I go to turn around, the water is coming down in there and it’s like rolling up my hood as I’m trying to turn around. And then it hydro locks. It sucks in water. As I turn [00:29:00] around, I should have just backed out. So now it’s hydro locking. Now the water is when I had to lift.

I think I measured it right at seven foot. And the water is reaching up to the window. And you’re inside it still. Yeah. And I had to run and I had to walk like four miles home. Lost my cell phone in the flood. Lost my CLOs. Lost your Jeep too. I, I was so mad, man. I was like, I ain’t got no food. I’m fat and wet.

I gotta walk home and it’s thundering enlightening and then nobody’s gonna stop and save me. Wait, so So you didn’t get the ribs? I did not get the ribs. They d they went down with u us s black ass . That’s a travesty right there. You know what’s a travesty is, I named it u s s Black ass and it went down and a flat in the water,

it sun so that, you know, obviously, you know, uh, active nature and all that. And insurance gets [00:30:00] involved. So time goes by a little, you know, you have a proper burial at sea there and all that. And then you decide to get another off rotor. Yeah, buddy. But you can’t have anything normal you already said. So I went back to ma roots and I got a, a new vehicle and it has a straight axle on it.

Now s it’s a Mercedes, g G wagon, G 500 excuse, excuse me. What? It’s a Mercedes G 500 . The gal. Glenda wagon. The Glenda wagon. A k a Gretchen. Because you see a lot of those offroading too, right? Well, not in the US No, but around the world, yes. . So what drew you, what drew you to the Mercedes? I mean, talk about another oddball, right?

The three years star, bro, I’ve been wanting a G wagon since I was 10 years old, 12 years old. That’s when my love for it came out. I just thought they were super cool, boxy. You see like these guys [00:31:00] bouncing around and jumping over stuff and, and people are like, why would you do that? Why would you take a G class that a luxury vehicle off road?

And I’m like, uh, ease all that. , this thing is a military vehicle first. And people, when they get in it, they’re all excited to get in it and they’re like, uh, this is it. I’m like, well, what did you expect? It’s a legit truck, making it the same way for like 60 years. . Yeah. Yeah. The, so they just changed the formula last year.

They are no longer solid, front and rear. They have a I F S now, so they ruined it and a solid rear now. So this is the first time that they went straight to the drawing board and literally redesigned it, but kept the look. They said they wanted to keep the spirit and the essence, but it’s, it still has the three lockers.

And personally, now that I know how good ifss are, once you do the right things with. [00:32:00] It’s not a bad setup. So I remember when you got Gretchen and you went out like right away, you were out in the woods immediately playing to see what it does stock. Mm-hmm. . So what did you think compared to the commander, after all the mods and all the time you spent with it, how did it compare?

Um, pound for pound? That is a great question and I’m gonna tell you right now, the G class is on another level from the commander and it’s stock. I haven’t done anything. If I did the stuff in the commander when it was stock that I did in the G class at Ro Creek, oh, she would’ve broke 20 minutes into the trail.

No way the commander would, would be able to keep up. Traction wise, the commander has the same ability as the G wagon. The G wagon is literally made of tougher stuff. They’re, they’re not control arms, they’re called radius arms. The radius arms are different. in the sense that in a Jeep you have a upper control [00:33:00] arm and a lower control arm, double loose phones.

They work. Yeah, they work like that. A radius arm is this big honking chunk of steel. Right. And it operates as a upper and lower control arm, but it’s just one arm. And what it does is it hooks around the, uh, axle itself in a, like a sea clamp. It holds the pinion and it holds the position of the axle, just like a, a upper lower control arm would.

Then you have leaf spring suspensions. Like Y js. Y js, yeah. Yeah. Had leaf springs and in Corvets. Oh, the, huh? In Corvette’s and Land Rovers. Yeah. and Corvette’s. . . Oh my gosh. The thing that people used to anyways, but, um, , those are the different styles of suspensions, but. The Mercedes suspension and overall build is just, it’s a tank.

It’s salt. Like I can literally run that thing into a wall and it, [00:34:00] it will still keep running. So we pick on these soccer moms who got G wagons. The fact of the matter is their G wagon will outlast your Jeep more than likely. And I am a Jeep guy. Through and through. I’ve driven CJs, I’ve driven TJs, I’ve driven Y js.

I’ve even driven the jk and I’ve had the privilege of driving the new jl. Now that’s an interesting topic right there out the factory. None of those vehicles will be able to withstand what the G Wagon can. And the other thing is the G wagon is actually super simple to work. Super duper simple to work on.

Like it’s literally three bolts holding one radius arm in place to change The oil is literally like, you just reach in there and you just pull the D on thing out and drain, drain the oil. It’s, it’s, everything on there is super simple. So I have not had to take it to Mercedes. I’ve been able to do all the work on it myself.

Change lights, change oil, [00:35:00] jack it up, take the wheels off, you know, it’s super simple to work on. So you said so far no mods. You haven’t done any tire mods, no lift, no nothing. The only mod I’ve done is I’ve put on an aggressive all terrain tire thus far and it’s got, it’s on 31 inch tires now, when I wanted to do 30 ones on the commander, I already had to lift it two inches just to get 31.

I didn’t have to do anything on this and it’s got plenty of room. The will, well. It’s just really nicely designed. It’s very similar to a Jeep where there’s like no thrills. It’s just an open space with like a little protection to protect the body from like rocks and stuff like that. But like you get to use the entire wheel will space.

just like in a Jeep and power-wise the commander was a Hemi and the, the G wagons of v8. So dollar for dollar. They’re pretty similar there too, right? [00:36:00] Yeah, they’re dollar for dollar. They’re pretty similar. I’m actually liking the Mercedes V8 better because the commander had, I don’t know if y’all have had experience with the hemis, but they had that displacement on demand and if that thing decides not to work while you’re on the highway, you’re stuck in four cylinder mode.

And I had that happen to me a couple of times. I’m like giving it to Goose and she will not go in the V8 mode. And also I had to replace the motor because it dropped a valve. You know those motors are like damn near 10 grand. Uh, we know someone who’s had to replace a couple of them. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, why is this motor, it is a push rod.

Put a LS in there, you know, or something like that. But it wouldn’t work. because the Hemi has a throttle or engine position sensor that has to made up with another sensor on the transmission. And that’s when I started falling outta [00:37:00] love with the commander because I was like, unless you’ve got like deep pockets to understand this stuff and keep up with it, this thing is gonna cost so much money if any of these sensors go out.

And, and that includes the Quadra Drive system as well. If one of the, there, there are four individual sensors that you gotta make sure are healthy in order for the Quadra Drive to work. Because if one sensor goes out, that’s it. You got nothing. If you got a will speed sensor that is reading incorrectly, Quadra Drive don’t wanna work.

And I hated leaving that up to the system. And now fortunately, I was one of the lucky ones that never had a situation where it went out on me. But there are lots of stories of people being like, . It just stopped working and I don’t know why. And you didn’t even have to do a diagnostic and all that stuff.

Line. That’s too much. Gretchen was a blessing in disguise. What’s the Mercedes four by four like compared to the Jeep system. They’re very similar. Think [00:38:00] the transfer cases in like the Jeeps. I think it’s the envy gearing. Think they’re belt driven transfer cases in the Jeep. And I think the transfer case in the Mercedes is gear driven.

And those tend to be tougher and, but uh, you have to keep up with the fluid maintenance on, well, you gotta keep up with the fluid maintenance on all of them. Don’t get me wrong, the, the belt driven transfer cases are mad tough. Like I’m seeing people with Rubicons doing all kinds of crazy stuff, even be beyond what I’m willing to do with the, the G wagon.

And they’re built, driven transfer cases. It just so happens the gear driven transfer cases are inherently stronger. And it’s just a different solution. You’ve been off-road all this time. Where do you, so you mentioned a couple places, Roche Creek and, and Gore and, and and et cetera. Is that where you go the most often or are there some bucket list places you’d like to go to as well?[00:39:00]

Yeah, so Maryland sucks off-roading is illegal in Maryland. I’ve been pulled over for it had to do for community service. Oh yeah. I think in some places, like if you off-road in a, like a watershed or something like that where people’s drinking water or some endangered mushroom is at, uh, you’re gonna have a a hefty fine and up into jail time.

I tell people the best off-roading is legal. Off-roading. There are trail network map. That you can take your vehicle on fire roads. That’s a good way to start, you know, reserve roads that are kind of off the beaten path, but they’re like legit highways, even though they’re off-road. There’s maps of like scenic off-road highways.

Is that like the transcontinental map or something like that? Yeah. Yeah, that sounds about right. I have to, I have to look it up. That’s a good way [00:40:00] to start. Also, sometimes you can find properties where off-road companies used to use the land as proving ground. So like near me, I, it’s off of 2 95 Coca-Cola Drive.

Coca-Cola Drive. Yeah. Land Rover used to have proving grounds back there and the tenants now. Have no problem with people continuing to use those lands to off-road, just as long as they stay within the bounds of the proving ground and they don’t be going, driving over the train tracks and stuff like that.

Then you have like the off-road parts, which would be like a, a next step up. The Roche Creeks, the Gores, the Wind, Windhaven, the big Bears and stuff like that. And then there’s some, there’s a park down in North Carolina, uh, ri that’s going be a little bit more advanced and also off-roading up a mountain is a little bit more different because you gotta have kajo to be okay [00:41:00] with your vehicle.

You see nothing but trees in Sky. And then you look down and you see the valley thousands of feet below you. So , you’re, you’re looking at this saying it’s like one wrong move and I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die . So further out West is more of the rock crawling stuff like Moab and. Rubicon Trail. Those are like, you asked me, what’s my bucket list?

Rubicon trail, by far. Yes. In a G wagon. In a G wagon. So you have some very unique vehicles that you off-road with. Hum, you know, humble beginnings with the Jeeps and whatnot. What would you recommend for somebody that’s just starting out in this discipline of motorsport, I would recommend starting out, first off, what is your budget looking like?

Second, be okay with the fact that sometimes, you know, these wranglers are expensive, so you don’t have to start out with a wrangler. Me personally, I love like the, the late seventies. [00:42:00] To mid to late eighties vehicles. So you got like Suzuki samurais, the Suzu troopers Jeep Xjs. But if your Bo pockets are a little bit deeper, you can start looking at like the Wrangler.

And you don’t have to get a Rubicon start out with like a, a Wrangler, Sahara or a sport, the Toyota, uh, highs or Tacoma. And these platforms have such a following that it’s cheap. Like you don’t have to spend a whole lot of money on upgrading. Just figure out what is your priorities. So I learned through my mistakes.

I wouldn’t say mistakes as I’ve gone along the way. I’ve learned that before the lift you needed to think about recovery. So you need to figure out does your vehicle have good strong recovery points? If not, Where can you fabricate something strong enough to withstand a, a, a [00:43:00] nasty tug or work on looking at wenches and bumpers because those are the first things to go.

But some people, you know, find that they want to get right into the nasty and they put a two winch lift and a tire on. So I would say those older vehicles on a budget, depending on which one it is, I think the samurais are actually going for a decent amount of money nowadays. If you can get your hands on a, a land cruiser, lc, 80, an xj, of course, any kind of wrangler that’s not rusted, gotta make sure it’s not rusted out.

Cause you’re gonna be chasing that forever. Once this, this is what happened, what happened to my rusting? Yeah, you’re done. And then they become unsafe. Don’t take a vehicle that smells funny or, and is, or are rusting. If you can find a vehicle out west. Go for it and if, and you can afford to get it here, because those vehicles are always gonna be in better shape than Northeast or just east coast [00:44:00] vehicles, period.

Because all the street seasoning we put on the roads during the wintertime. So would you say that there’s a vehicle or brand or just to stay away from, like don’t even waste your time, Mercedes ? I actually, I think that’s a fair statement. I think that’s, that’s a very fair statement because honestly you might not have a choice but to stay away from it because those vehicles are not cheap.

My particular model is a 2007 and I purposely picked a 2007 because that was before they started adding all the electric gizmos and radar and all that crap that can go out on you. But even though it’s a 2007, it still costs me like right at 60 grand. So I think you can get a 2004 for like 40 something like in the mid to high forties.

Some of the vehicles you were mentioning for people starting out, you were mentioning a lot of the more like SUV V type vehicles. Mm-hmm. , what are your thoughts on the trails with guys and [00:45:00] trucks? Do you see a lot of ’em out there? Or is it more SUV v Jeep type vehicles that you see? Well, no matter where you go, it’s gonna be Jeep heavy.

Wrangler is king, and then after the Wrangler, the Cherokees, and then on the opposite side of that, you have your Toyota guys. Now those guys tend to be the ones with the trucks, the T, the Tacoma, the high looks, the forerunners. Yeah. I’ve seen where people take a Super duty. Bob it and turn it into like a rig, like a legit, like you just bypass all the work you needed to do to make a buggy because you chop your F two 50 down, it’s got massive axles front and rear and cut the body a little bit and put like 40 twos on it and you got a buggy , Trudy

Um, and then I’ve seen where guys have four wheel steering. How about that? That’s pretty cool, huh? You can go in [00:46:00] there and be a just starting out type off-road to like the extreme extreme and they all are there helping each other out. Uh, the people, the community is really cool. Community. Yeah. There’s some ball busting going on between the Jeep guys and the uh, Toyota guys, but it’s all in good fun.

But the Jeep in community , there’s some. Interesting characters in that. Interesting characters there. , I’ve literally, when I showed up with my commander, I’m like, Hey, how you doing? Da da da. And I had a guy literally stand there and I don’t like I f s and walked off. I was like, well, peanut butter sandwich did you too,

And then you got the guys that just, all they want to do is drink an off-road. I, I think that’s the, like, if you’re gonna do that, do that on your own property [00:47:00] and your own farm or whatever, but don’t go to a, a certified place and endanger other people’s lives and endanger the facility’s ability to carry insurance because you want to go out there and drink alcohol and set fire to the forest because you did something stupid.

Yeah. And never, never drink and get behind the wheel of anything. A sports car, road. Car offroad. Nothing. Just leave. Leave the alcohol at home, leave it out. Well, and the great thing that you mentioned that is, I’ve noticed, not just with the off-road community where that tends to be a common thing where everybody has a cooler, but Brad and I are both familiar with 75 and 80 driveway.

It’s been open and closed multiple times, and one of the most recent times it was open, in my opinion, one of the downfalls it had is because spectators can come and drink, bring their own beer. But the problem is they didn’t put any stipulations of it being only in cans. And a lot of the guys that used to go there to run that track stopped going because a broken glass [00:48:00] in the paddock area.

Mm. It’s like nobody wants to go in there with an expensive, brand new set of slicks and run over glass and destroy a brand new tire. Yeah. It’s the same out in the. Yeah. I tell people it’s like when you get there, act like you’re going to someone’s house. Don’t go disrespecting their property and they’re ignoring their rules because what’s ultimately gonna happen, and I’ve seen this on a lot of trails lately, they’re, they’re shutting them down because people are co completely disrespectful to people’s property.

Cause a lot of these trail networks literally go in people’s backyard and they give you permission to go back there and enjoy yourself. But when you’re littering, you’re just drunk doing whatever loud, one bad person, one spoiled individual can ruin it for the rest. Yeah, and, and you know, it was something I was gonna bring up and I’m, and I’m not as close to it as you guys are with the experience and whatnot, but I’ve seen it on a lot of [00:49:00] shows that I watch about off-roading to kind of, you know, educate myself on other disciplines.

And I know one of the big things in your guys’ community is also the environment. And I understand full disclaimer. You know, we are still burning dinosaur blood here. We’re not off-road any EVs yet. So let’s put that aside. Let’s take that outta the equation. There’s still a deep respect for the environment itself, where I’ve seen where guys are like, yeah, we’ll cut down a tree dead, we’ll knock stuff out, we’ll pull stuff off the way while we’re on the trail.

But something that’s alive, we’re not gonna kill a living tree. We’re not gonna try to damage deforest or whatever. So I found that to be really interesting, you know, and when something does go wrong and sometimes somebody does something they shouldn’t, man, there, there’s some serious backlash from that.

So, yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. And they’ll shut you down. Like a lot of people do not use the appropriate recovery strap when they wrap their winch around a tree. You’re dead wrong if you’re putting raw cable up against a tree, [00:50:00] cuz that’s literally. Slitting the throat of the tree. I think it’s important to know that you need to have proper equipment.

Don’t drink, don’t be taking weapons out there if you’re not authorized, because a lot of these places are on federal land, so you get caught with a weapon, you’re done. Yeah, that’s basically it. You’re right, Eric is like, there’s a way to have fun, but respect the area. Absolutely. So let’s switch gears a little here.

Pun intended. Mm-hmm. . Let’s talk about your biggest oops moment while you’re out on the trail. Well, I thought we already heard it. It was getting ribs, , . No, that’s not a, oops, that’s a odd Hell . I got one. So my buddy owns an off-road park. His name is ak. Y’all might have heard, uh, of, of his company as, uh, chaos Off-Road.

They’re massive fabrication shop that does all kinds of crazy things for people’s vehicles. My buddy. [00:51:00] Took his TJ to, uh, chaos and this dude did a one fell swoop upgrade, pretty much turned his Wrangler into a buggy, but it still looks like a wrangler, $25,000. Now that I said that, let me get to my, oops.

So I’m offroading with this guy and he’s got like 20 something inches of travel front and rear and jumping down off of stuff. And I’m like, you guys are gonna kill me. My airbags are gonna go off and I’m gonna die today. Anyways, we get to this thing called V notch, and I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a vehicle with a 42 degree lean listing over

Most people when they, when they get up on a, like an embankment, they feel like the car’s gonna roll over. You’re 40 something degrees, you’re, you’re the vehicle’s weight is literally. All [00:52:00] pressing on the other ax and you’re holding yourself up to, uh, be able to control the vehicle. So we’re going through V notch and these little buggies have no problem getting by this tree.

Now the commander has a horrible viewing angle when it comes to being able to see your surroundings. So I noticed there was a kick out at the tree at 40 degrees. I’m up there like looking down and I’m like, is that a boulder? Nah, nah, buddy. You’re good. You’re good. Come on. Am I gonna clear it? Yeah. You going clear it.

You’re gonna clear it. And I’m like, okay, you’re my spotter. I trust you. Passenger door, it looked. It looked like I hit a iceberg, the door, and I start seeing my door from the inside going like, quivering, like, and I’m looking, I’m like, I know they didn’t. So if you [00:53:00] look at a video on my YouTube, it’s got like 60,000 views.

I got a crease from the front passenger door to the rear passenger door from that boulder that I had a oops moment on. You know, it’s bad. They were like, don’t even drive up. And they’re just looking at it like this. And I’m looking back at them like, and they’re not saying anything. I was like, how bad is it?

Oh, it’s not that bad. I’m gonna get out and see. No, no, no, no, no, just, just no stay in the car. And I’m like, oh, heck no. I get out and I’m. I’m gonna fight somebody. your spotter. You gotta fight your spotter. I, okay, so my spotter is a preacher. He’s a man of God. I can’t beat up a preacher. He forgave him . I had to forgive him.

No, he’s supposed to forgive you. . I cussed the hell outta his ass though. And they did do old Did you do confession right after ? [00:54:00] I’m not, no.

We’ll leave that where it’s, that’s awesome. Oh man. I’m still mad at that to this day. That happened like five years ago. You know, you mentioned earlier about, you know, recovery gear, a lot of things about guys starting out and all that. I, what are some essentials for folks that are, you know, getting into this, you know, outside of, you know, just leave it alone, learn to drive.

I mean, that seems to be a common across all our disciplines, right? Leave the car alone until you can out drive the vehicle. Don’t mess with it. Right. But you mentioned there’s some essentials that a person should have when they’re doing this. What would you recommend people put in their trunk when they’re out there?

First and foremost, I would say never go off, off into the woods by yourself. Always have someone with you. That’s the most important thing. I’ve made the mistake of going off by myself, and I’ve had a very close situation where [00:55:00] my vehicle might still be out there. I got lucky. Number two, if you can’t afford a winch, have a come along.

A come along with. High tinsel strength cable, have the tree protection strap to wrap around a tree, a winch. I can’t tell you how important a winch is like that should have been for me. That should have been one of the first things I got from myself, because at the end of the day, if you get high centered, which I have done, and I had no winch up at Pots Mountain in Virginia with my boy, and I was learning how to reacquaint myself to off-roading.

What you should never do is straddle a sand mountain and the belly in my vehicle sat down on the top of that mountain and I was stuck for six hours. And you know what? People just drove right on by on their motorcycles. They didn’t help me. You’re not gonna be able to [00:56:00] budge a 6,000 pound vehicle if you get high centered on something.

So winch, recovery strap, recovery gear, you’ll need a shovel. Oh and a socket set. Those to me are the essentials. So to go along with the winch, would you recommend snatch blocks for guys? Yeah. So snatch blocks essentially double the pulling power of the winch. So in certain cases, like when you’re really stuck, like wedged in between rocks, that’s when a snatch block is a really good power multiplier, uh, for your winch.

So I don’t think it’s necessary, but it’s a nice to have. They’re super cheap. You might as well get it, but you’re rarely going to use it. I tend to use ’em more and, and not when I’m needing to be pulled straight. Mm-hmm. , I’ll do it where if. . The only good anchor point is a tree straight ahead of me. But I need to go to, I’ll hook to two trees and use that smash block.

Pull me the angle I need to. Yep. So I’ve never used them for anchor and [00:57:00] find the power, but I’ve definitely used ’em for pulling me a different direction than I’m at. Oh yeah. Yeah, you’re right. That’s a really good way. Like if you, if you have a horrible angle and you got the straps for it, yeah. You can put, you can, you can spider web a couple of trees or, and, and just pull that short distance and then readjust and whatever.

But the real purpose of the snatch block is power amplifier. So what, what happens is you use the snatch block. And tie it off onto someone’s truck or something that’s solidly anchored down. Right? And then you return the power back to your bumper. So essentially you have doubled the pulling power of the winch because you, it, it’s a return back.

All right, so another question for you, which is a debate in the, the winching world is a a steel line versus synthetic? That’s a good question. Uh, a lot of people, it, it depends on who you’re talking to, but I’m gonna tell you right now, the [00:58:00] spra cable is literally stronger than the steel cable, and it’s totally safer than the, than the steel cable.

The steel cable people, for some reason, like ’em because they are under the notion that it’s just, it’s a stronger material. Now, the spra is just as strong as the three eighths. Steel and it’s safer in a sense because steel cables have a problem of storing the energy of the pool within the cable itself.

And what happens is it can explode and whip when you get a cable that thick flying around and people are not being safe standing behind trees or what? Or don’t put the drop bag on it. That’s a very dangerous item. It can most certainly a really nasty laceration, [00:59:00] if not amputate, if that thing starts flying around.

I always tell people with the steel cables, be careful because the easiest reference I have is if anybody’s ever seen the movie of Men of Honor when the anchor chain snaps. Exactly. He takes his leg off. Yeah. I’ve seen cables and chains snap and the way they whip back. So I’ve been fortunate not to be in the way of ’em a couple times and see.

Now spider cable, synthetic cable does not store that kinetic en energy within the cable itself. You can literally stand right next to it. If that cable fails, it’s not going whip. It’s simply just gonna. Turn in the paper mache and fall to the ground. , I like that. Poof. No, yeah. It’s a one more, one more quick question on the winch.

Yeah, sure. Um, Harbor Freight wenches. Okay. What are your opinions on them versus, I just went through this. I was looking for, you know, a winch to get for the, the truck as the bumper has the, the winch plate. I settled on the Smitty built, uh, X [01:00:00] R o, uh, with synthetic cable of 10,000 pound, but I seriously considered the, uh, the bad lands, uh, 12,000 pound.

Um, cuz they’re both similarly priced. Uh, I, I ended up with Smitty build because of the, I guess the, the reputation, uh, Harbor Freight has. But what are your opinions on that? There is nothing wrong with Harbor Freight whatsoever. I, I say you should have got the 12,000 pound Harbor Freight because the thing is the Harbor Freight Lynch uses Smitty built parts.

The difference is, The Smitty build is modular. Like you can take it apart, work on it, and then put it back together and all that great stuff. The Harbor Freight, it is what it is. , when it burns up, just throw that some bitch in the trash and get you another cheap one. You can’t take it apart, but if you have the money for like a nicer winch, your off-roading is equivalent to [01:01:00] your use.

Like if you do a lot of off-roading and you get stuck a lot, probably gonna want to get a really good winch because Yeah, you get what you pay for with the win. Yeah. Yeah. That Harbor Freight will burn out long before a, a Smitty build or mile marker or, or a warrant. Warren. So me personally, I’ve gone with Warrens, I’m getting a Warren Zion and this bad boy comes with everything.

It is remote controlled. I can control my lights, you know, I can. Plug up air compressor to it, it, it gives me, it lets me know what the voltage usage load. You’re not gonna get that with a, uh, a harbor freight. You just better hope your alternator and battery can deal with it. , another quick thing for wees and being a, you’re on the trails a lot.

A big thing I tell people all the time with Winche is, is cuz I’ve, I went with the 12,000 pound bad lands from Harbor Freight, but I don’t offroad very often. [01:02:00] Right? It’s not that often. I need it. So I couldn’t justify buying a higher grade winch. And other than that, because I have multiple vehicles and tractors and things like that to change around on, I put mine into a cradle system instead of mounting it on a bumper, one of my trucks.

Because the fact that one thing that I take tell people the time is a lot of guys, and you see it very common with Jeeps, is a guy will have a win on the front, but if he doesn’t use it often enough, and then everything gets all codded inside for the contacts. , they get out on the trail, they pull it out and then it won’t go back in.

So you can see a guy coming back from trail with the lead wrapped around his front bumper cause he couldn’t get it to go back in. So do you have any recommendations of any sort of protective stuff? Ones that are solid mounted? , and what’s your thoughts on cradles where you can change from front to back as I did with mine?

Yeah, I think it depends on what your requirements are for the winch. Obviously it’s beneficial to have a cradle because you have more options on where to start the pull from. But the strongest [01:03:00] platform would definitely be a static mount. I’ve seen people do static mount winch up front and then keep another winch in the cradle and only put it on the rear when they need it.

They have the, the connectors and everything going to the rear. So other than that, do you know like, uh, protective out of the weather elements, like covers and stuff like that? Oh yeah, yeah. I forgot about that one. Yeah, you’re definitely gonna get more life outta your winch. You’re gonna get better response out of your clutch control if you protect it from the elements.

Because what sucks is when it’s two degrees outside and you’re trying to handle a winch. that’s all iced up because you didn’t cover it up. That sucks. I learned that lesson a while back ago. , it’s probably best to to use a cover second. This is where still this kind of going back to what you were talk asking me, Eric about still versus SP still is resistant to uv.[01:04:00]

Spra is not. So when the sun bakes the Spra cable, the synthetic cable, you compromise its strength. It would probably be best to most definitely cover your winch. I’m assuming, like you were saying, when it was two degrees and if the synthetic had a bunch of water in it, it turns into a solid block and it’s hard to unspool it.

Yeah. Oh yeah. And same thing for uh, still I. Just cover it. I mean the cover is like a few bucks and it takes a few seconds of your time to cover it. So Drew, man, this is all really good information. So for somebody that’s starting out, let me say like myself, that’s not as familiar with off-roading like Mountain Mandana is and Brad and and so on, and other guests that we’ve had on this show.

Are there any books, forums, websites, or anything that I could use to kind of, you know, nerd out on and, and get more familiar with? You know, now that we’re going into the winter when a lot of motorsport is closing down that I could do some research on, is there anything that you could recommend you can wheel in the winter, [01:05:00] wheeling in the winter for me, when I started out again as an adult, we didn’t have this wonderful tool called Google.

Just type in like off-road parts for whatever your vehicle is and like it’ll immediately give you some really cool websites, not magazines. , but I mean, obviously four Wheeling is probably the biggest one where they show some pretty interesting projects within the magazine. But for me, I haven’t really been big into the forums as much as what is out there for me now and how do I make it work for me.

I never really looked at other people’s projects and said, Ooh, I want to do that. For me it was go to Google and then you go, you start finding about things like Quadri tech, which is a really big one. Then, uh, there are [01:06:00] a lot of off-road based communities on Facebook for both Nissan, Toyota, and Jeep and Ford.

Those groups tend to stick to themselves, like Jeep people don’t talk to Ford people. Four people don’t talk to Toyota people and there’s always like and nobody talks to a Mercedes person. Yeah, yeah. Nobody shoot Mercedes people don’t talk to Mercedes people. I’m finding that out right now. , I don’t get no waves, dude.

You have to apply for their overlanding group, the Mercedes, gwa, overlanding of America and all that stuff, and the fact that I didn’t have a G Wagon as my cover photo, they declined me. You’re not overlanding the Bloomingdales. Ah, oh. That’s what the problem is. be like, excuse me, I need to run over this bush real quick.

the most entertaining group to me is the Jeep groups. I’m still a part of the Jeep Groups. Jeep Col. [01:07:00] Jeeping of America is another one. Those people just want to have a good time, but they do some of the funniest ball busting, like, I can’t say it on this, but like, you look at some of the memes that they say, G people are like this.

And it’s usually like, this man’s man and whatever, and then Toyota people are this, and it’s like, eh, I’m not gonna say it on, on air, but it, it’s, it’s, it’s all in good fun. Well, I got a question. You guys have seen it before, h how, how do all those other people feel about the Subaru people? Oh, the Subaru.

We won’t talk about the Subaru folk . They’re a special breed too. Yeah. . Yeah. No, the Subaru folk. I’m cool with the Subaru Rufo. Uh, matter of fact, I did tell her the dragon this year Eric ran into, I was riding with my buddy. He has a, uh, 2012 s t i I believe it is the one that gets no love. The ugly one. The ugly one.

That’s what everybody calls it [01:08:00] anyways, so my boy’s like, uh, we’re going to just, you know, take it easy. We’re not gonna do anything. And next thing I know w pow pow pow p and we’re just hauling ass down the road. And then there’s this guy in a, no, what is that thing called? The Subaru, the Tribeca. The four Street?

No, not the Tribeca. It is like, it’s now back, not it’s, it’s like the Crosstrek, but it’s renamed just Oh, it’s the Impreza Crosstrek. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. And he is keeping up with the s t i and his Crosstrek. Ah, I, I was, I was dumbfounded. Dumbfound it, but they were on, they were on pavement, right?

Yeah, we were on pavement. But he, he, he said, he says he has a, a wrc, loadout, whatever that means. He has tires that are bit nabby for him to go off road. This is pave where guys say that they have the simulated [01:09:00] low gear setting in their Subaru Outback. And I’m like, that ain’t, if it ain’t a transfer case, it don’t count.

and dude, you see these guys, they got ’em. They’re at Roche Creek. Hell, they’re always like the super skinny . Uh, there’s a tight figure out his life type , and he’s got like, and he’s talking to you serious about his off-road capabilities and then for, and then he tries to drive Rock Creek. Yeah. They start talking junk like, you paid all that money, bro.

And I can do that. And I’m like, well, you’re like, here, here. Here’s my. Text me when you want me to pull you out, right? Yeah, exactly. , I need to get a sticker that says, uh, Subaru Recovery Team

That’s awesome. So you, you, you mentioned Ra Creek a bunch of times. Some of our guys, including Brad, have gone there to take the school that they offer. Are there other places like [01:10:00] that that do you 1 0 1 course. Yeah. That do courses or do you now, and you also mentioned you’ve been doing this for so long, do you find yourself teaching other off-road how to, to work this motorsport?

Actually, I have, I haven’t done any official cadre work simply because I don’t have time. But when I do go offroad and we have someone new, you know, we always have, you know, the, before the event brief where you get everybody in a big huddle and you go over the basics, who to look for for information and con I do that stuff for my own club.

And then what we’ll do is we try to sparse the experienced drivers in between the inexperienced drivers. So like every three or four vehicles, depending on how big the group is, we’ll have an experienced driver lead, then three or four unexperienced drivers or people without the appropriate recovery gear.

Then we’ll drop in [01:11:00] another experience driver with all the appropriate recovery gear and experience. And then what we do is we call, it’s called spotting. So if we get to a rather technical obstacle, the first driver goes first. Then that driver stays and spots the next driver. Then the first driver takes off, and then the driver who just got over the obstacle spots, that driver.

Or it could just be like one guy just sits there the entire time and just, he just knows the trail and he just tells everybody where to go. And that’s where the teaching of the inexperienced driver comes into place. Or I’ll see somebody like go down a hill a certain way and I’ll tell them to stop. Do not do that because we do not want a rollover situation because a lot of people will turn away from the hill because they get scared.

And when the vehicle is shifting and transitioning into. like that. In between phase of shifting [01:12:00] its weight around, it gets kind of scary for people and they don’t know where their will is. But the last thing you want to do is turn away from the the lean. You want to always turn into the lean and do not stab the brakes because it’ll cause the vehicle to kinda get very unsated and it can lead to a whole bunch of mess you don’t want.

So that brings up a really good question. Um, ab bs are you for or against it? In off-roading? In off-roading. Ab bs is a really good thing because anything that you can do to increase traction, you want it and a b s increases traction through just being a traction manager through slip management. Also, it helps to prevent to a certain degree individual tires locking up now.

Ultimately if you’re on loose gravel, ab b s ain’t gonna matter because once you [01:13:00] start sliding, that’s it. It doesn’t detect that the vehicle’s moving. When it detects all wheels are stopped. So it’s not gonna try to a b s it up, but like on muddy situations and stuff like that. Oh yeah, AB B abs definitely helps.

So is there a structure to moving up in off-roading? So is there like so many hours behind the wheel, you know, things like. I don’t think it’s a managed structure. I think it’s more what are you comfortable with? What do you consent to ? So is it more like skiing then where it’s like we got the green hills and the blue hills?

Yeah. And the double black diamonds literally like that. Yeah. Roche Creek, they literally have the definitions of the trails, but the green trails are like, you know, stock friendly. Then blue Trail is imminent body damage possible. You’re obviously gonna want to have a lifted vehicle at that point. Then you have your black and those are the trails where they [01:14:00] are extremely technical body damage will happen.

So if you are all about bumping something, getting out and checking it, you don’t want to do a black trail. Then above the black trail you have the red trails and that’s just the Jesus take the wheel trail. you don’t, you don’t want. None of that sauce right there. I’m gonna tell you right now cause I’ve been in there and I’m sitting there , some of them trails is sketchy, especially again, when you start cl climbing up house size boulders going up the hill of a mountain or something like that.

That’s buggy level. You need buggy or truckie. And, and, and to Drew’s point about the different trail levels and stuff, Rouch Creek also has, for some of their obstacles, they’ve got bypasses. So if you’ve got a recovery vehicle behind you, or you’re inexperienced person mixing your group and they don’t want to take, they don’t wanna drive through Rock Creek, there’s a bypass for it.

Exactly. [01:15:00] So are you allowed to take passengers or only your spotter? No, you can take whoever paid. Oh, okay. If you can fit ’em in there, they, they get the ride along. Yeah. It’s not, it’s not as structured as a track day. I’m just curious cuz some of our listeners do come from the track world, so you know, I gotta ask these questions, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would love, I would love to ride shotguns. So, you know, , let’s do it. I’m, I’m down. Speaking of that, you were saying how like Rosh, you go to quite often and I know Rouse charges per passenger. Correct. And there are some other parks that don’t. Correct. And it’s just basically you pay for the vehicle and that’s it.

What are your thoughts on places charging for the passengers or not? Do you think that’s good for the park or does, does it deter people’s money to come? Uh, I think if you’re gonna come and have fun and use the facilities, and even if you’re just a ride along, I think, I think it’s fair that you pay a price to come onto the property because these properties are [01:16:00] private property and they have to be able to keep the business going.

And also they’re not your friend. It’s, it is a business. So if you show up on their property and you want a ride along, yeah, you gotta pay now. I don’t think you should pay as much as the driver like. , and I’ve never seen a park charge the same amount for a passenger as they do a driver. Also, there’s a difference between the upfront cost, so like Roche Creek does like a up upfront cost, and then you get what’s called a membership card, but I think the price was like 30 or 40 bucks, the upfront costs.

But after that, for the rest of the year, it’s only like $12. to get onto the property. I think that’s fair. Yeah, I like that too. Another question for you as we kind of finish out the segment here. There’s a lot more off-roading shows on TV nowadays than there used to be, right? And it’s made the sport probably more popular.

And so, you know, some of ’em, like Truck Night in [01:17:00] America, Alaskan Off-Road Warriors, there’s a bunch of shows on motor trend that have to do with off-roading and four-wheeling and stuff like that. What are your thoughts on stuff like that? Are they overproduced and really don’t show off-roading for what it is?

Are they too glitz and glammy, or is there one that kind of is just right that you would recommend somebody watch? Like, yeah, that’s kind of really what it’s like out there. So those shows are a hidden miss for me. What I can’t stand is when you get a guy who openly admits that they don’t off-road and they’re giving sage advice, performance trends on what this vehicle can and can’t do, and.

then they’re like, oh, this thing is very off-road worthy. You know, stuff like that. I’m like, oh God. So it gets a little cringey for me. But then when I think about it, the mask, majority of the people who seizes those shows, they don’t know nothing about off-roading either. And then sometimes you have a hit, like, I don’t know if y’all remember [01:18:00] a few years back, top Gear America had a off-road.

I thought that was one of their best shows when they, when Tanner Faus and , Adam Ferrara, uh, took, uh, took off to Alaska. I thought that was mm-hmm. hella entertaining because those guys actually knew a little bit of something, especially, uh, what was the guy from North Carolina? Rutledge Wood. Yes. Rutledge Wood.

Yeah. He actually knew a little bit of something, something about off-roading. So I appreciate when. These guys have real authentic moments off-road instead of like, these staged, oh, get me going up this hill and a tire off the ground. And then Alaska Off-Road Warriors. I’ve seen a couple of episodes. My dad’s been trying to get me into it.

He’s like, man, you need to see what they’re doing. And I, I’m impressed. I’m impressed. Like, that’s legit. And I’m also a fan of seeing car reviewers hop [01:19:00] into the passenger seat of an off-road vehicle and ask an experienced person about the vehicle and what its capabilities are and all that great stuff.

I’ve seen that a lot. The stuff MotorTrend is doing, I like their car stuff. He takes the vehicles and does a hot lap at Willow Springs. Oh man, I love that. But off-roading, uh, a lot of these series have not hit the mark for me and I don’t watch it too much. . So Drew, this has been really cool because we’ve gotten to see a different outlook on off-roading.

And like we’ve said, motorsport is deeper and wider than people realize. There are flavors and colors and different styles within every discipline of motorsport to include off-roading, as you talked about. You got the rock climbers, you got the overlands, you got the survivalists, et cetera. So this has been a really cool and technical outlook on a yet another variation on off-roading, and I’m hoping our audience learn something new today and, uh, maybe a newfound [01:20:00] interest in a different type of motorsport.

So I can’t thank you enough for coming on the show. Well, amen. Thank, thanks for having me. Honestly, I, I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation because it had me think about some things as well. But thank you. Thank you for having me.

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