I started riding BMX probably like anybody, you know, I got a bike when I was a kid and
there was something I just tooled around, rode around the neighborhood just to get away
from the house.
I'm from Witte here, you know, from East Los Angeles area, so I was a kid, I'd just
take off with my buddies and ride my bike around all day, you know, whenever I just
get out of the house and take off and just kind of progressed.
The more I got into it, the kids down the street build a ramp, so I caught myself over there
riding this ramp with older guys, you know, and just stayed with it.
I started racing, did that for a few years, but even racing, it was more an excuse to
go to the track and ride my buddies, I was like jumping, go to the track and end up
kind of just finding different transfers or stuff on the track to jump, and so I ended
up doing this dirt jump contest and after doing that, that was it, kind of stopped racing
as much.
I'd go to the races, they would have the dirt jump contest because back in the day, they
used to be together, you know, so I started going to the contest more in the races, and
that was all she wrote.
It's kind of cool, there's always been like, you know, riders that have lived in this area
that have kind of stepped out and built stuff.
With BMX and the car stuff, there's a lot of relationships and friendships, kind of
we're just, we're such a parallel, so many people are into BMX, we're into hot rods
or vice versa.
How many of my friends that I met from BMX who like years down the road, you know, are
out building cars or working in the automotive industry or, you know, I had team managers
when I was younger that are now, you know, managers of some of the magazines, that culture
always kind of shares the same, you know, similarity, you know, and so many of the guys
that I worked with in BMX in the earlier days are, you know, totally bested in the motorcycle
world or, you know, building custom cars or whatever, it's been pretty cool, like I've
always been so head down riding my bicycle and the passion for that's never changed,
so, like now that I'm getting older and doing a lot more stuff with the cars to still,
you know, work with some of the same people, it's pretty cool.
Never had a, you know, a garage or, you know, like, how do you say, like a father figure
or anybody that was in the car, so they just seem so far detached, they seem so far away
until I ended up getting this old car, learning how to work on them or keep keeping it on
the road, so I didn't buy my first car.
The old car, I was probably 21 years old or something, I bought a Lincoln Continental
65, I was driving through town, I was just sitting in a driveway with her sales sign
on it and I ended up driving home, I think I bought it for 1500 bucks and took it home
and everything worked, like it ran alright, it stopped, the windows and everything worked
and sure enough I tore the whole damn thing apart and it was just such an uphill battle,
I fought with that Lincoln to get it all back together and it turned out to be a pretty
cool car, that's how I got started and then I just kind of snowballed.
I got a shoebox, I got a 54 and every time I would start a project or I'd get into another
one, I'd always want to start another one, I was just like learning so much and it was
a, I just jumped around too much, I still jump around too much, obviously, but I mocked
it up at the 350, originally I was going to sort this car together and run a little rough
and it was going to be a beat or a ground down and like most projects as it comes together
I kind of put a little more time and more energy into it and it took a little more shape
than originally I planned, so now I'm just going to finish this whole thing off pretty
nice, so I'm going to readjust like the way the body fits on the frame here and build
custom hood with its sides and kind of tuck this 350 away and I'll kind of dress it down
a little bit to make it look a little more vintage, at this point my Academy skinned
outcovers into this air canada, they're more for mock-up so I can, you know, I can measure
off and what not, but I'll go over the cool air canada setup and get a profile all set
up a little bit, tuck away, draw this core barrel, like you know on the 31 I have Rochester
set up on off the intake so I have a way cooler induction system on that car, but with a core
barrel it should be a lot easier to tune and get more performance out of it so the whole
idea is to kind of dress it down and make it look a little more vintage or kind of old
school than it is.
I met good friends early on that were going to contests and going to races and doing stuff
so I kind of just jump in with them and things grew, like I said, pretty naturally just going
to, you know, a series of contests and getting invited to bigger contests and then luckily
having supports and pretty good sponsors at the time when I was really young, helping
with travel and stuff like that, so I was never overly competitive with going to contests.
Contests were always an excuse to get to go with like my buddies that fly to a new place
and ride some new jumps and I think at that time in the earlier days contests nobody took
them as serious.
This is, you know, you're talking like mid to late 90s, like it was more fun, the prize
money was small, X Games was new, televised events were pretty new at the time were kind
of coming back, BMX was kind of re-growing as it kind of tapered off in the early 90s
so I remember going to contests and just having a good time, you know, it was way more of
an excuse to see everybody and travel and whatnot.
I was pretty fortunate to have a little more momentum in the earlier days like I said with
good sponsors and coming into those bigger events and I never won any major events.
I never won any of the big ones.
I was pretty fortunate just to stay busy and get to go film and shoot and that was always
my goal was just to go to the next spot or go ride with my buddies and ride new stuff.
So it happened with the Shedding Pickup I bought, a 50, a little Shedding Pickup off
the buddy who started it and I always liked those old, you know, 47 to 54 Shedding Pickups
and this was a pretty cool opportunity to get into one.
So yeah, it just sat in the back of the shop and collecting dust and six weeks before SEMA,
a friend of mine had gone back to me about the opportunity to do the Trucker SEMA.
They had a sloth for Red Cat.
So yeah, I jumped on it, it was really on like anything.
I was like, yeah, this shouldn't be too hard, you know, I had most of the parts, you know,
I thought I really started the truck but like anything as I tore into it I was pretty deep.
So it was a pretty heavy grind just six weeks.
I was gone every weekend during the contest.
I think in October, every weekend I was out of town so I would leave, you know, Thursday
or Friday, come home, you know, Sunday night, Monday morning, whatever I was and just jump
back on it.
So towards the end leading up to SEMA, I would come home at like 2, 3 in the morning, wake
up at 7, go back to the shop.
I ended up assembling that truck at Hillview as my shop at my house.
I still had enough power, you know, or anything ran.
So it was a pretty heavy grind.
There was times where I was pretty nervous that I wasn't getting the thing together but
luckily it was an open from some friends and a lot of late nights we got together and
got that thing to SEMA.
I've never followed the rules of really keeping anything to air correct or, you know, hunting
down open-edged speedy equipment or stuff like that.
I've always liked it.
I always really appreciated it but, you know, time and energy are fond.
Some of the stuff that goes in the truck and that stuff down and just, you know, maybe
I was too impatient when I was building the model days but this one kind of kind of do
it right.
It's the first time I've done that and I was really excited about it.
Take some time to get out the winter here to build it together.
I'm still collecting parts.
Everything's all vintage speedy equipment and old Ford stuff.
So just finding buddies that have stuff or tracking stuff down is a little more timely
than.
So we'll gather all the parts and log the build and do a couple web edits that kind
of showcase the progress of the project coming together and then I was driving across the
country from California to New Jersey and racing something on the beach at the Race
of Gentlemen.
I'm really looking forward to it.
I have some good buddies that are helping with this project and it's more about, you
know, the experience and just having fun with it.
So building a car in my garage by myself, it's, you know, kind of everything that goes into
trading parts and working with your buddies and getting something together and then, you
know, the great American road trip and just checking stuff out and having as much fun
with the cars we can.
I'm really excited about that event.
The whole idea of going to an event where you actually participate and you drive your
car.
Everybody doesn't stand around and kind of just kick tires.
I'm excited about that.
Seeing these old cars actually getting kind of flogged and I'll always ride my bike.
I ride my bike as long as I can and I've always done the car stuff.
It's always been for fun.
They've always been my own, my own cars.
My own ideas or hopefully have buddies come over and help and, you know, learn as much
that I can from them.
But, yeah, moving forward with, you know, a couple of opportunities that came about just
in the context that I've met throughout the years doing the car stuff.
I'm pretty excited about, you know, 2015 I'll be doing a few more cars that actually have
direction.
You know, like, you know, this roadster going to the race of gentlemen will document the
whole build of this car.
I have some really good friends that are helping with this project that I'm pretty excited
about.
And, yeah, to actually have a deadline or reason to build a car, that's all kind of new.
This thing going to the race of gentlemen and then from there to SEMA.
This will be a vehicle that I'll actually take out more often, try to go, you know, take
to more shows and kind of just drive the wheels off of it before there was never, and, you
know, I never had deadlines or reasons to build the vehicles other than just that I wanted
them.
This is kind of new and kind of new venture in the sense that I'm building, you know,
build cars this year with my buddies and kind of have a goal more than just to build myself
a car.
