Southsiders VW 12 Years of VW Community & Giving Back Ep 86

0:09 [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome to Dub Life Diaries. [SPEAKER_05]: The podcast where passion meets the open road. [SPEAKER_05]: I'm Joe Parson, your host, and also a lifelong lover. [SPEAKER_05]: Book a love, because this ride is just beginning. [SPEAKER_05]: This podcast is sponsored by Volk's Mania Magazine. [SPEAKER_05]: Good times, great cars, awesome Volk's Maniacs. [SPEAKER_05]: Visit Volk'sMania.com to learn more about this class leading VW Magazine. [SPEAKER_05]: All right. [SPEAKER_05]: All right. [SPEAKER_05]: All right. [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back to dub life diaries. [SPEAKER_05]: This one's going to be awesome. [SPEAKER_05]: I got the the team, the guys, the crew from south side. [SPEAKER_05]: It's VW.

0:49 [SPEAKER_05]: Let's go ahead and get this party started. [SPEAKER_05]: What happens when a group of guys get together in Florida because they love Volkswagen's. [SPEAKER_05]: And 12 years later, they have now built one of the largest VW communities across the entire state, most than over 7,400 members. [SPEAKER_05]: Cars show up every single Thursday to an event they put together thousands of people connected by Volkswagen's a 12-year history. [SPEAKER_05]: They do toys for tots, runs, they've got a massive annual show, tons of road trips, breakdowns, friendships, all the rest, and enough Volkswagen's stories to fill an entire book. [SPEAKER_05]: But Southiders VW was never really about building a Facebook group.

1:32 [SPEAKER_05]: It was more about building a family. [SPEAKER_05]: Today I've got Jay Gould, Carl Colander, Mike Plant, John Nita, Stephen Grant, sitting down with me. [SPEAKER_05]: These are the guys behind Southiders VW. [SPEAKER_05]: We're going to talk about how long I got started, how became what it is today, the cars, the people, the crazy road trips, and what happens when something that started just a handful of Volkswagen enthusiasts becomes a community of thousands. [SPEAKER_05]: This is Doug Live Diaries, and this is the story of Southsideers VW, gentlemen. [SPEAKER_03]: Awesome. [SPEAKER_03]: It's your having us, you know? [SPEAKER_03]: That's so good.

2:13 [SPEAKER_05]: This is going to be a fun one because there are so many of you here. [SPEAKER_05]: We're probably going to step all over each other and it's going to be crazy. [SPEAKER_05]: But that's great. [SPEAKER_05]: That's what can be done. [SPEAKER_05]: That's what we do. [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_05]: It's going to be fun. [SPEAKER_05]: All right. [SPEAKER_05]: Before we dive into these awesome questions, let me give a shout out to a couple of my amazing sponsors. [SPEAKER_05]: First up on the list. [SPEAKER_05]: Volk to Mania Magazine. [SPEAKER_05]: Everybody that listens to the podcast knows how I feel, fly SVW Magazine on the face of the planet. [SPEAKER_05]: And this next episode or next issue, mind you that's coming out is going to be issue number 28 and I'm very, very happy to say that my wife's Carmen Gia got five pages six pages six pages, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. [SPEAKER_05]: So KarmaGames, the crazy green KarmaGames, got a bunch of pages.

2:55 [SPEAKER_05]: We're super excited about that. [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you to Paul Cave and the amazing team at Volk's Mania. [SPEAKER_05]: You guys can check them out Volk's Mania.com. [SPEAKER_05]: You can use Dublife 10 at checkout. [SPEAKER_05]: You get 10% off of your subscription. [SPEAKER_05]: That is US subscribers only. [SPEAKER_05]: Also shout out to the salty dub from the beach to the bay. [SPEAKER_05]: Salty dub is tearing up. [SPEAKER_05]: Now the whole state. [SPEAKER_05]: We're not just the West Coast or Central Florida anymore. [SPEAKER_05]: uh... we're getting out there man we got merch on the website are vent clips are selling uh... we're having a whole bunch of fun putting together my buddy Allen and i uh... partners in salty to put together a ton of events uh... we got beach bash coming up this weekend it's going to be awesome i think it's going to range don't say nothing but uh... yeah that's what we do with in florida right [SPEAKER_05]: All right, last shout-out is to Kindest Realty Knowledge Integrity Heart.

3:47 [SPEAKER_05]: If anybody is moving to the state of Florida from outside the state or within, especially the greater Tampa Bay area, experience real estate, the Kindest Way. [SPEAKER_05]: That's K-I-N-E-S-T-Realty.com. [SPEAKER_05]: All right, guys. [SPEAKER_05]: Enough of the shout-outs. [SPEAKER_05]: I'm done with all that. [SPEAKER_05]: It's back to you guys. [SPEAKER_05]: Now, let's get this party started. [SPEAKER_05]: You guys ready? [SPEAKER_05]: All right. [SPEAKER_05]: Let's do it then. [SPEAKER_05]: So take me back then to October of 2014 and tell me what was happening in your guys lives and what made you think that, hey, maybe we should start a VW group. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, it kind of started when a few of us didn't want to go to a show that everybody else was going to.

4:31 [SPEAKER_04]: I think it was no. [SPEAKER_04]: Was it no doubt? [SPEAKER_04]: It was. [SPEAKER_04]: It was because that had to [SPEAKER_04]: I guess they were doing no dough and october back then. [SPEAKER_02]: It was some big event that some of us couldn't go to. [SPEAKER_02]: So we decided to do our own thing locally. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: So we went to pork and alcohol hung out and it up at Swiddlitz had some lunch and there were some phone calls that went back and forth or text messages that went back and forth because some of the guys were a little upset that we didn't join. [SPEAKER_04]: with the rest of the group. [SPEAKER_04]: And some of us have been trying to do more things.

5:13 [SPEAKER_04]: They just weren't received very well at all. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, after lunch, myself, Joe Reeves, and Steve Pounds ended up at the Florida Brewing there in a pork and apple. [SPEAKER_04]: And we had discussed about, [SPEAKER_04]: maybe branching off and having our own group. [SPEAKER_04]: The ball just got kind of got rolling there. [SPEAKER_04]: We contacted Carl, Carl locked down a Facebook page for us. [SPEAKER_04]: So that's kind of how it started. [SPEAKER_04]: And like a month later, we were doing our first Southsideers car show. [SPEAKER_04]: I think that was at O'Gayley High.

5:55 [SPEAKER_04]: Correct. [SPEAKER_04]: The first time we went to did our own Southsideers thing. [SPEAKER_05]: So those three guys that you just mentioned, I believe yourself included, those were the original kind of OGs kind of sitting around having the very first conversation about starting this group, correct? [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think it was bandied about at lunch too, though. [SPEAKER_04]: As like I said, some of us weren't too happy with being talked to the way we were about not joining the group for the roll-up to the Port Orange or whatever the show was. [SPEAKER_04]: And it's like, well, we always go to the stuff you guys plan, but whenever we try to plan something, nothing happens. [SPEAKER_04]: And all of us were centered below the Pini de Caudsway, which is right next to the Air Force base that people over here.

6:44 [SPEAKER_04]: So, hence the name Southsideers, because we were following the BW guide, South where is the guide to the north. [SPEAKER_04]: where the ones planning all the events back then. [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, did you really have any idea that this thing would, you know, still be something that would really kind of be this big almost 12 years later. [SPEAKER_02]: Not at all. [SPEAKER_02]: Definitely hopeful. [SPEAKER_02]: I always work to grow and bring in new membership and whatnot, but I do remember initially it wasn't met with the very much fanfare when we started our own thing to a point where I was told that there's a required county is not big enough to have two new W groups and you'll never get as big as we are below the line.

7:30 [SPEAKER_02]: When we pass them, I almost wanted to give [SPEAKER_02]: But, uh, bit my tongue and we just do our own thing and, uh, kind of left them behind. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's, you know, I've talked to a several groups all over the country and a lot of them promote that same vibe you just kind of talked about, which you didn't say, but it's no drama, you know. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we, we, we, we time is, we try and be as drama free as possible. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's just, uh, it's about to live with the cars, to live with the people. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the camaraderie, you know, we don't need the drama can go. [SPEAKER_02]: We don't need a drama. [SPEAKER_02]: We didn't have drama driving 50-year-old cars every time we drive 50-year-old cars.

8:15 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm interested to hear about how long was it? [SPEAKER_05]: When did you guys realize that this wasn't just going to be a group of what five or six guys who like Volkswagen's? [SPEAKER_05]: When did you realize you've actually created, you know, a small community in itself? [SPEAKER_02]: And we started growing leaps and bounds, I mean, right out of the gate, as far as the Facebook page went, you know, many of us, myself, Jay, Stephen, and Mike are all admin on that group, and you know, 100, 200, 300, just kept growing and growing growing very quickly. [SPEAKER_02]: I think we were up to, you know, over 500 in the first month, and just been progressively getting bigger.

8:58 [SPEAKER_02]: And there was probably probably we hit, [SPEAKER_02]: 200 or so and no, it's no slowing down inside that we knew it was going to get bigger than we dreamed it was going to pay. [SPEAKER_03]: But even locally, we've been meeting weekly since we started this and from the jump, we were a John 15 plus cars every week, even in a small parking lot in downtown Melbourne where we first got started. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that was awesome. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, from the jump, it, it's just never stopped. [SPEAKER_04]: We had 10 cars last week and it was a monsoon. [SPEAKER_01]: Or a rainy night, we will absolutely have at least five cars and some weird days when it's terrible weather, we'll have like spring, spring turn out for the, for the get together, which is amazing.

9:48 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we had a few events like that, you know, that we were doing like a, a weekly, we did like a first Friday event and I remember last year we started doing them and we did them at a brewery here in town and the for like several weeks in a row, it was pouring down rain. [SPEAKER_05]: uh... for when we were supposed to be there you know and you're the organizer right so you show up regardless well you know there are some dihards man like two or three guys that were there every single time it didn't matter what the hell was raining could have been raining cats and dogs they were coming [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that's why we do it every week too because if you miss a week, you don't miss a month Seven weeks without seeing your buddies, you know. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I know that that's awesome We're gonna talk more about that in a minute.

10:31 [SPEAKER_05]: I want to go back to the the four original guys for a second So let me just make sure I have this right so Jay Carl Steven and Chuck or is it Jay Carl Steven and Mike [SPEAKER_03]: No, it was Chuck. [SPEAKER_03]: Chuck's not with us tonight. [SPEAKER_05]: Chuck's not with us tonight. [SPEAKER_05]: All right. [SPEAKER_05]: So, shout out to Chuck. [SPEAKER_05]: He's not here tonight. [SPEAKER_05]: But these were the four original members. [SPEAKER_05]: Tell me was there a left? [SPEAKER_05]: Left? [SPEAKER_03]: There was nine of us originally. [SPEAKER_03]: There's four left. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: Of the original. [SPEAKER_05]: So, you guys, most of the people Chuck are on the call now. [SPEAKER_05]: Tell me, what was the chemistry like for you guys in the beginning? [SPEAKER_05]: The early days. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, we all just down upon really well, which is probably the key to our success.

11:16 [SPEAKER_04]: You know, we got a corporate group of guys who just get along and joke and bounce off each other, banding, you know, it's just. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, when we got to get there, it's very easy for all of us to feed off of each other. [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody brings something to the party, whether, you know, we're all we're all in on a joke [SPEAKER_02]: you know at one point or another been there done that everyone knows what we're talking about. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I want to say the same stuff over and over and over. [SPEAKER_05]: Hey, that's true. [SPEAKER_05]: That's it. [SPEAKER_05]: We're all getting older, right? [SPEAKER_05]: So we can we we make that mistake all the time. [SPEAKER_05]: But but here's what I want to hear. [SPEAKER_05]: I want to hear from each of you individually.

11:58 [SPEAKER_05]: What do you think each of you brought to the group that the others didn't? [SPEAKER_03]: Jay, why don't you kick that off? [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you. [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know this question was coming. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, because we're all so similar. [SPEAKER_03]: We really are, the three of us were there, the four of us Chuck Shit, Chuck's one of them. [SPEAKER_03]: He's were there every week. [SPEAKER_03]: We're just all in. [SPEAKER_03]: And that's why Nida there has been such a God saying he fits right in with, because we're all committed to every one of them. [SPEAKER_02]: Nida was late to the party, but he is such a good trooper as far as the core group goes.

12:41 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, even if I'm back at his jersey says all in, you know, we all get these big ball burpees. [SPEAKER_02]: And he's all in. [SPEAKER_05]: That's cool. [SPEAKER_05]: Yep. [SPEAKER_05]: So I like those jerseys, too. [SPEAKER_05]: I saw that when he when he first joined the call. [SPEAKER_05]: I was like, Okay, yeah, this guy came to play. [SPEAKER_02]: Got the real gray on today. [SPEAKER_05]: That's cool. [SPEAKER_04]: Then you got when Mike joined up, he really got us kicked off on doing more cruises and really organizing the events. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, he organized our, he, he heard us. [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he, he is probably the number one reason why our choice for tots and our winter blitz is go off so well.

13:26 [SPEAKER_04]: Who's this? [SPEAKER_04]: Who's the crazy one on that? [SPEAKER_03]: So I don't think there is a crazy one. [SPEAKER_03]: We all have our different degrees of crazy. [SPEAKER_03]: Yay. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: But I guess if you're going to say any one of us is crazy in the other one, I'm putting that on Nida. [SPEAKER_03]: That's not it. [SPEAKER_03]: All right. [SPEAKER_03]: He's not the hooker. [SPEAKER_03]: He's got to use her. [SPEAKER_03]: When we first started hanging out with Nida, he was driving down from Deltona to Melbourne. [SPEAKER_03]: It's an hour and a half one way. [SPEAKER_03]: Every week. [SPEAKER_03]: Every week. [SPEAKER_03]: That's all in. [SPEAKER_03]: That's all in. [SPEAKER_03]: That's all in. [SPEAKER_03]: That's where the name all in comes from. [SPEAKER_03]: OK. [SPEAKER_01]: But to Jill, I know you're probably going to get to some of the events that we do.

14:09 [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I don't know if you were going to mention the Toga Party. [SPEAKER_01]: But that's when, so I'll lead into that. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's when I realized how crazy United is, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So we're at the Nova Camp crown on the Friday night, right? [SPEAKER_01]: We wouldn't definitely want to do that the day before the show, not that we don't do crazy stuff the day before the show. [SPEAKER_01]: But on the Friday night, we had to campfire going, we're all having fun. [SPEAKER_01]: And I noticed that, hey, hold my phone and when you hear the music play, just turn on the camera or turn on the video. [SPEAKER_01]: And the next thing I know, the theme to Animal House is playing and not it comes around the corner with a full tug on and a metal hat and a chalice and he jumps up on the table and does a full balloon speech from Animal House.

14:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely the crazy one. [SPEAKER_01]: And, and that was the origin of the the night is all in Togo Party. [SPEAKER_01]: I got laying your tray here, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So we got our glow sticks, our landyards, and we just make everything. [SPEAKER_01]: So, so nighted deserves all the accolades for, uh, forgetting us going on that. [SPEAKER_01]: And we will have a Togo Party at every show we go to, whether they like it or not. [SPEAKER_01]: All right. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, all right, so is he probably then the one most likely to say we probably shouldn't do that and then does it anyway, you know what's for me, you know what's funny is is I would say John is somewhat of our moral compass he keeps the piece he keeps me he keeps me in line so who's the one who's the one that is is the most wild in that way.

15:49 [SPEAKER_05]: Well, maybe, right, maybe somebody that says we probably shouldn't do that, but then they go do it anyway. [SPEAKER_03]: That's Miracaro. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm down to fall into that category. [SPEAKER_03]: That's Miracaro. [SPEAKER_03]: We shouldn't be doing this, but I'm in. [SPEAKER_05]: So you guys all get along. [SPEAKER_05]: You guys are pretty similar from what you're describing. [SPEAKER_05]: It was their moments throughout the last 12 years where it wasn't all harmony, where maybe you almost talked about the club falling apart. [SPEAKER_05]: Anything like that? [SPEAKER_03]: No. [SPEAKER_03]: There's been times when we were like, brothers fight, right? [SPEAKER_03]: Sure, sure. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we have our disagreements, but it's never come anywhere close to that.

16:31 [SPEAKER_03]: No. [SPEAKER_05]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: We need to talk and talk it out. [SPEAKER_05]: Or I was just going to say, how do you manage to keep, you know, friendships intact while also, you know, running a large car community, but you just said it. [SPEAKER_02]: We, we have to talk it out, talk it out, hash it out, a lot of times. [SPEAKER_02]: Just get it all out there and then it's forgotten, just wash it away. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, start until the next time. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, until the next time. [SPEAKER_02]: But they are a few and far between. [SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say I can't remember an incident that really. [SPEAKER_04]: went to that level, you know, maybe somebody irritated somebody else, but yeah, that's as far as it really goes.

17:12 [SPEAKER_05]: So the Facebook group now has over 7,400 people in the group. [SPEAKER_05]: I have a Facebook group here in town. [SPEAKER_05]: It's, you know, we try to make it a frickin' national group. [SPEAKER_05]: You guys got a local page that's over 7,000. [SPEAKER_05]: I've only got 1500, 1600 on my page. [SPEAKER_05]: How the hell's a local VW group? [SPEAKER_05]: Grow to that size? [SPEAKER_02]: Um, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, one thing I'd like to do is I will post something on southsideers, don't post it on other pages, share it from your original post.

17:55 [SPEAKER_02]: That gets the southsideers name out there and people see it. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, what is the southsideers? [SPEAKER_02]: No, go check it out and click join. [SPEAKER_02]: Cool. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so the page is actually kind of worldwide, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we do with a lot of cross posting and, you know, always try to start with the outsiders and post a cross and then you get people that will see what we're doing and be interested in it. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we're from Melbourne, Florida, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So, for instance, how worldwide we are. [SPEAKER_01]: Somebody saw him when those cross posts that we were from Melbourne and the guy was from Melbourne, Australia. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's really cool. [SPEAKER_01]: And he keeps it all ironically on from Albany, Australia. [SPEAKER_01]: And I just hit him up and said, send me your address and I'm going to send you some stickers.

18:35 [SPEAKER_01]: And the next thing and I get pictures of him, you know, posting and putting his stickers in Albany, Australia on his on his bus. [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, we we're we are pretty far reaching. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, if somebody wants a sticker wants some swag, we'll throw it to him. [SPEAKER_01]: We just want to keep, you know, keep the community moving. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's cool, man. [SPEAKER_05]: I value that and I appreciate it and I can almost, I can relate because when I started this podcast just a year and a half ago, never in my life that I imagined that I'd see downloads in 80, like 86 countries now, it's absolutely bonkers to me that the the VW community is that supportive in that many countries. [SPEAKER_05]: I know I probably should admit this, but leading up to me saying that statement, [SPEAKER_05]: Before last year, I didn't even know we had freaking 86 countries.

19:22 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, what the heck, I can't even pronounce some of these countries on there. [SPEAKER_05]: You've got freaking people in Bangladesh and all kinds of, it's the craziest stuff, man. [SPEAKER_05]: It's to see where the podcast is getting, is getting downloads and where people are connected from. [SPEAKER_05]: I've even been in these guys South Africa in the UK, it's, it's just really cool. [SPEAKER_05]: I have that kind of reach, so I respect what you guys are doing for sure. [SPEAKER_03]: Volkswagen reaches worldwide. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not just, it's the appeal, you know, there's nothing else like it. [SPEAKER_03]: 100%. [SPEAKER_05]: Totally totally agree with you. [SPEAKER_04]: Strong emotions, especially, you know, the beetles and the buses. [SPEAKER_05]: Right. [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I remember I had one of those and my dad had one of those and blah, blah, blah, blah, you know.

20:06 [SPEAKER_04]: I'm just going to go to a gas station without getting a story. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's true story yesterday. [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody you know has a whole flag of story. [SPEAKER_02]: Whether it was college, why it's not called, you know, Louvies, rock concerts, getting high, getting laid. [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone's got to be W's story. [SPEAKER_05]: That's why I started the podcast right there because everybody everywhere I went had a story I'm like man somebody needs to be celebrating these stories and these people this culture not just not just the cars right the cars that's one thing and yet we're all attracted to them and we all have this sick [SPEAKER_05]: uh, you know, connection to them, but man, it's the people. [SPEAKER_05]: And, and that's really, you know, the big reason why I started it, but, um, but the thing about me back, back to you guys.

20:50 [SPEAKER_05]: I want to hear from you guys individually. [SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: Individually not staying in terms of uh, international flavors. [SPEAKER_00]: J has an eBay business, and a lot of times I'll end up with our spare parts. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: And uh, I don't know, where'd you ship that, that's during column off to, but I gave you [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I mean, I mean, a Volkswagen part sitting around here in my garage doing nothing and he shifted overseas. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, people need people need stuff and VW is everywhere. [SPEAKER_00]: No, no doubt. [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so our group is like the 23 and me of Volkswagen's right.

21:37 [SPEAKER_01]: So I took my rusty Texas beam off and I got a lower beam and Carl wanted to go race his his bus up so he needed a beam to to modify. [SPEAKER_01]: So he ended up with that. [SPEAKER_01]: Jay needed some stock spindles. [SPEAKER_01]: So he ended up with my stock spindles. [SPEAKER_03]: There's parts, I had your trailer HQ too. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, there's there are parts that are floating around. [SPEAKER_01]: I've got Carl's old roof rack, which is like the star of my boss, if you ask me, but we've got a cross-pollination of everybody's vehicle, you know, mufflers and pieces here and there are internal pieces. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a, it's a really cold dynamic. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's come up, brothers. [SPEAKER_05]: We need more of that vibe right down here in West Coast, Central Florida.

22:21 [SPEAKER_05]: I don't have a lot of guy, I got like two that are close to me that we swap parts and chair stuff and you know, but I don't have a group of six guys that are all, you know, pretty heavily invested, but it's not just six, that's just all I can really fit on the screen. [SPEAKER_03]: And I would say on a different Thursday, 50 people could show up, and I could still tell you 10 people that aren't here. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, that's so cool, man. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: That's cool. [SPEAKER_02]: We'll be out at Gators on a Thursday night, and somebody out of the blue that happened to have some VW parts in their garage, you know, some of that passed away or sold a car. [SPEAKER_02]: I found these. [SPEAKER_02]: Can you guys use them?

23:01 [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So there's plenty of nights where people just show up out of the blue that we've never met. [SPEAKER_02]: And just drop off VW parts to us. [SPEAKER_02]: They kind of really, we look at it and see who needs what, and they all go home with us. [SPEAKER_02]: My neighbor gave me this the other day. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, cool. [SPEAKER_05]: That's a cool book. [SPEAKER_03]: It's the fourth one I have, but, you know, it's not in the trash. [SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean? [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: It's... [SPEAKER_03]: It's going to find its way, you don't find it's way to somebody that needs it. [SPEAKER_05]: So I want to hear from each of you individually on this question. [SPEAKER_05]: All right, give me the short answer, not the long answer, but the short answer. [SPEAKER_05]: Tell me individually. [SPEAKER_05]: I don't care who goes first. [SPEAKER_05]: What does being one of the largest Facebook groups in Florida actually mean to you individually?

23:46 [SPEAKER_02]: I take a lot of pride in it just to... [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm proud of what we have put together over the past 12 years and the people, the cars and just what makes us what we are proud to be associated with such a great group of people. [SPEAKER_02]: And if it wasn't for Volkswagen, I'd still be buddies with them all just because they're that kind of guys. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love the exposure, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And the thing I like the most about it is, you know, we make a lot of stickers. [SPEAKER_01]: I buy a lot of stickers when my hobby is like getting different designs for stickers hand them out. [SPEAKER_01]: When I see a sticker out of show that on a car that I've made, I also did a the vinyl cut sticker.

24:30 [SPEAKER_01]: So personally designed and traded like fun wheel drive and all these different things. [SPEAKER_01]: When I see those on a car and I don't even recognize the person that has them, [SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of where I get some of the joy in, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Getting that exposure and bringing people to the group. [SPEAKER_01]: And knowing that you have a group of people that will do the same thing for anybody. [SPEAKER_04]: Right on. [SPEAKER_04]: Definitely, it's definitely pride. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, this thing that we created, my two favorite events that we do is the Toys for Tots and Winner Blitz, which is a benefit we do for the [SPEAKER_04]: You know, because I love cats and dogs and I love giving back to them and, you know, and then the toys for touch, you know, we, we, we, we've just been getting more and more and more toys every year and that's just like, you know, we give back or we, we try to give back a little, you know, just a little bit, you know, it may not, in the grand scheme of things, it may not be a lot, but, you know, if everybody did a little bit, [SPEAKER_04]: everybody, everything would be better.

25:40 [SPEAKER_02]: Let's put out a challenge right now to all other Volkswagen groups in Florida. [SPEAKER_02]: to top art toys for Todd's turnout. [SPEAKER_02]: Last year, we had 11 full boxes of toys lined up. [SPEAKER_02]: And I believe we had, how many bikes did we have guys? [SPEAKER_02]: I think we had 15 bikes and 17 bicycles. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And a bunch of full-size electric scooters, like it is unreal to the amount of stuff we're bringing. [SPEAKER_05]: When we set up our toys for Todd's set. [SPEAKER_05]: We're going to talk about that. [SPEAKER_05]: I don't want to take away from that. [SPEAKER_05]: Second, go off, I'm going to change it. [SPEAKER_03]: And I'll plus your turn, your turn to speak up. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to second Carl with what he said is it's supplied, but it's not necessarily pride in what we've done or anything. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not like a pattern of ourselves on the back.

26:22 [SPEAKER_03]: Is this on a night where 30 cars show up? [SPEAKER_03]: And you look at it and you're like, wow. [SPEAKER_03]: we had a hand in this we did that it's pretty awesome it's yeah i'll put it out there we're not necessarily everybody's company but they keep coming what what we we we we we we have some Jews we have some secret sauce that other people other groups just don't seem to have willy uh willy fancos from he's he's from eastern Pennsylvania and he moved down here 10 years ago and he said he's never seen anything like it he's been in the Volkswagen [SPEAKER_03]: He goes, he can't put his thumb on it either what it is, but we've got something that other places just can't do.

27:04 [SPEAKER_01]: And we have people, we have people that come from, you know, from elsewhere, right? [SPEAKER_01]: We have people that don't even have voice wagons. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, Carl, the Carl resonate, because he may get friends with our buddy Ian. [SPEAKER_01]: So Ian's like an Olympic roar from DC. [SPEAKER_01]: He happened to be in our area for training for crew, which happens to be like a world renowned location for crew training. [SPEAKER_01]: And now he comes every time he's in town. [SPEAKER_01]: He shows up. [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't have a Volkswagen. [SPEAKER_01]: He has an SUV with with roof racks for his crew And he came down last year before our winter blitz show and met with us and we told him that you know shows on Saturday He showed it five in the morning and help us set up.

27:47 [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't even have a Volkswagen [SPEAKER_02]: So that's the stretch that we've got. [SPEAKER_02]: He is a cool kid, too, man. [SPEAKER_02]: He is. [SPEAKER_02]: He's a cool dude. [SPEAKER_02]: Olympic, Olympic hopeful. [SPEAKER_02]: I think he does the single, uh, the kneeling row rowing. [SPEAKER_02]: But one man can do. [SPEAKER_02]: And, uh, yeah, good kids really good kid. [SPEAKER_02]: He and Rosh. [SPEAKER_03]: And there's been 15, 20 other people over the time that have absolutely no affiliation with Volkswagen, but they just hang out with us. [SPEAKER_05]: In the group, in this, in the, the grand scheme of things, is there a set of rules, or is it like an unwritten set of rules, you know, that that you guys follow or that the group follows rules, what are the, yeah, there's no rules.

28:33 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's it there's any rules are definitely unwritten. [SPEAKER_02]: There's no nothing set and stuff. [SPEAKER_05]: So if there's any rules there. [SPEAKER_05]: There is this rule. [SPEAKER_05]: There are no rules. [SPEAKER_03]: There are very very very flexible. [SPEAKER_03]: There's no there's no president. [SPEAKER_03]: There's no positions. [SPEAKER_03]: There's no do's. [SPEAKER_03]: There's no. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you pay your dues. [SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot to do. [SPEAKER_05]: Sometimes you talk to a club, right? [SPEAKER_05]: And they do. [SPEAKER_05]: They have a set of guidelines or a set of rules. [SPEAKER_05]: So you never know. [SPEAKER_05]: I've talked to clubs from all over the world. [SPEAKER_05]: And sometimes there is a set of rules. [SPEAKER_05]: So I was just curious if there was anything that, you know, there was like a 10 commandments for the Southiders or anything like that.

29:16 [SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you not seen and this is good. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't we stay away from from the conversations that will light people up. [SPEAKER_00]: So politics and religion are out, but if somebody gets to be an idiot on a post. [SPEAKER_00]: those guys that you see those other five guys in there that you see they literally haven't conversation about whether or not we want to let that post stay up because we don't want to have a fight on our Facebook page. [SPEAKER_00]: We just want to be able to have fun and those guys talk it out. [SPEAKER_00]: Like we talked about in the beginning, and if you want to say the unwritten role is keep it fun, keep it light, that's the unwritten role.

29:59 [SPEAKER_00]: If you go down a different path, you'll you're your comment with this appear. [SPEAKER_00]: It's rare that they kick somebody off the page because they have to be kind of a repeat offender, but your comment this appear and you'll you'll find an area bad word about anybody on on those pages. [SPEAKER_05]: I was going to say that a second ago, I was going to ask my next question, which was, how do you keep a group of over 7,000 people from becoming chaotic, but you kind of just answered it. [SPEAKER_05]: You kind of make them, you know, hash it out by either deleting comments or just not really allowing that drama to kind of exist.

30:39 [SPEAKER_03]: So, but even that is super rare. [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_03]: It just doesn't happen. [SPEAKER_05]: Well, when you set the example, right, and then you live by that [SPEAKER_02]: it you're right it can't happen because if it does then will the example get set again so people kind of learn and they just you know what they all get in line they thought they they follow suit yeah just don't want somebody to think that we're going in there to stop of deleting everything that we disagree with that's not it's not that that's not what we do would be in a lot of times you know we've all got both most of us at full-time jobs if somebody is poking around on a Facebook and they see a post or a comment that's [SPEAKER_02]: attend joff color. [SPEAKER_02]: And if I'm debating or someone's debating whether or not to delete that comment, I'll take a screenshot of it and send it to the group of us and hey, what do you guys think?

31:28 [SPEAKER_02]: Should we keep this or should we, should we dump this? [SPEAKER_02]: We've had an issue with that guy before, go ahead and you know, kick it off and get him a warning or whatever or just delete him. [SPEAKER_02]: So it has happened, but it is rare. [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, okay, okay. [SPEAKER_05]: So let's talk about this Thursday night thing then because it's come up a few times and you know, I think it's a good time to enter into kind of describing it just a little bit more. [SPEAKER_05]: So every Thursday, you guys meet at Gator's Docside, which is in Melbourne, a pretty regularly bring 20 to 25 cars together. [SPEAKER_05]: So maybe describe what a normal Thursday night actually looks like and then I'll tell you my Melbourne story.

32:12 [SPEAKER_04]: Set up my car and then my hiking willier usually the close second and I don't know we'll just park and we just start talking. [SPEAKER_02]: And we do have to make a shout out. [SPEAKER_02]: We do put a shout out to our favorite bartender, their Misty, and Misty will spread the word, just a reminder on poor clock that we're coming on Thursday nights, and all of our cones are up there on the patio, and she makes sure that the cones are all set out in the first two rows, which is probably 18 or 20 spots for choice for outsiders. [SPEAKER_02]: Nice. [SPEAKER_03]: So we routinely double parked that. [SPEAKER_03]: I was going to say it's a big night if we start [SPEAKER_05]: All right.

32:53 [SPEAKER_05]: So shout out to Misty then. [SPEAKER_05]: That was cool. [SPEAKER_05]: Shout her out. [SPEAKER_05]: So what why a Thursday night? [SPEAKER_05]: Why not a Wednesday or a Tuesday night? [SPEAKER_02]: That all goes back to initially when we first started southsideers. [SPEAKER_02]: We were going to a place called loose filling station in downtown Melbourne and their Thursday night out there was car night all cars any cars hot rods most of cars classics. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, then we say, yeah, it was and then we kind of, we kind of took over their all car night and it turned into VW night at loose filling station. [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it just happened to be on a Thursday. [SPEAKER_02]: So any time, then that plays close and we bounced around in a few different places before we really found a a great home on to at Gator's Docs side.

33:39 [SPEAKER_02]: What are we at nine years at Gator's now? [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's an iron, yeah, that's awesome. [SPEAKER_05]: That's consistent. [SPEAKER_05]: Why, why gators is it because of the relationship? [SPEAKER_02]: It is the relationship. [SPEAKER_02]: It's the, the fact that they, with the parking lot. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, big parking lot. [SPEAKER_02]: They'll accommodate us all. [SPEAKER_02]: They're very, uh, outdoor seating, outdoor seating with a nice patio outside, uh, when I work with them. [SPEAKER_02]: They work with us and we work with them. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we, we bring in, you know, quite a bit of business for them on a Thursday night, other than. [SPEAKER_02]: football and they do have trivia on Thursday nights and we also have a little southsideers Liz Gail of heads up are Gail force outsiders trivia team so like to play that yeah love all the nicknames [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

34:28 [SPEAKER_05]: We've really played third or better. [SPEAKER_04]: So you say nine, nine years at Gators? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, about nine years. [SPEAKER_05]: What are some of the earliest memories that you guys have from your first few meets there? [SPEAKER_05]: Tell them about the stinger. [SPEAKER_03]: That was at Luz though. [SPEAKER_03]: That was at Luz. [SPEAKER_03]: That was at Luz. [SPEAKER_03]: Carl, tell them the stinger story. [SPEAKER_02]: I had my bus at a lowered stance and I had a baffle this straight stinger out the back and we were out there for 10, 10, 30 and this woman was standing next to my stinger talking, holding a drinking run here and food in another hand like it's a go container.

35:09 [SPEAKER_02]: And when it was time to leave, her very first step got hung up on my stinger and she went down, chipped the chipped the tooth, still pepper shoulder. [SPEAKER_02]: I went in, I didn't want to deal with it. [SPEAKER_02]: I went inside and around the corner and J.J. came around the corner and was, what are you doing hiding from her? [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, you damn right, I'm hiding from her. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to hear her. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I felt bad about that. [SPEAKER_02]: That was, that was one of the earliest, uh, [SPEAKER_03]: memorable happenings at a thursday night we love that night she was a she was a school teacher she didn't go to school the next right and you also left out that this is a biker bar it was first and foremost the biker bar that's uh hey it was a reason those are very cool for the most part too so they can get down they are we have we have a mutual love yeah exactly tell it takes the push out a bunch of bikers [SPEAKER_03]: A bunch of bolts wagging guys.

36:04 [SPEAKER_04]: First test this. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, a persistence. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: So 20, 25 cars on average. [SPEAKER_05]: Tell me what kind of, what kind of dub show up there on a typical night? [SPEAKER_05]: Typical Thursday night. [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of buses. [SPEAKER_05]: A lot of buses. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: We started out as a beetle group. [SPEAKER_03]: Now, every good one in front of you, all five of us, have a bus. [SPEAKER_03]: And we all had, and I know Carl, McCall, I'll start had a bus. [SPEAKER_03]: But Steve and I both had super beetles when we got started. [SPEAKER_03]: Mike had a beetle when he first came, start coming around. [SPEAKER_03]: Now he's got a bus. [SPEAKER_03]: Nine of us, I have to wait, it was his bus. [SPEAKER_05]: I've got a beetle and I've got a Carmen guilla and I want a I want a bus. [SPEAKER_05]: I've had a bus in the past, but it was too far gone to keep it.

36:47 [SPEAKER_05]: I was going to have to spend a lot of money on bodywork. [SPEAKER_03]: So I was like, nah, so that's why it was not ended up with the one that looks like it needs bodywork. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, that's actually early bay. [SPEAKER_05]: That's what that's what I want. [SPEAKER_05]: I want to go man. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I want a 69. [SPEAKER_05]: I don't want to go past 71, but that that's what I'm looking for. [SPEAKER_05]: I've got a 69. [SPEAKER_04]: 70 I got the 71. [SPEAKER_05]: That's the best year Yeah, that's a bit of a sorry What was the what was the the ad for for 71 was that disc brakes? [SPEAKER_05]: And do a porch and do a porch. [SPEAKER_04]: Right last year for the upright motor That's what made the 71 better.

37:32 [SPEAKER_03]: It was the disc brakes and the dual port motor [SPEAKER_03]: do you guys welcome air cooled and water cooled on Thursday nights or is it absolutely yeah we do but there's there's a water cooled group space coast dubs there they need in viera every Wednesday so like Thursday that thanksgiving we don't meet we go to their meetup on that Wednesday now we have a great relationship with them so but we kind of we don't cross paths a lot because they need on Wednesday we meet on Thursday so it's hard to do two nights [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, two weeks ago there, wherever they were meeting at was closed for the week or whatever and Carlson out invitation invited them out so we got what we get five or six of them out. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're always invited.

38:13 [SPEAKER_05]: Do the same people show up every week or do you guys get new traffic too? [SPEAKER_02]: We do get new traffic quite. [SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't say every every Thursday, but at least one or two a month, be either moved in here or new to the VW community just purchased their first one. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting back into it. [SPEAKER_02]: That's always cool. [SPEAKER_02]: Especially the younger kids. [SPEAKER_02]: It's good to see the young guys come in that actually, you know, want to get greasy and turn wrenches instead of just everybody wants to be a TikTok star. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a big mix. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we will always have a lot of pay buses, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Cause that's kind of what the core group has. [SPEAKER_01]: But we have, you know, we'll load up with splitties. [SPEAKER_01]: We've got Carmen Gies at pop out in the, you know, our Chuany's Vanigins are popping out together.

38:58 [SPEAKER_01]: It seems like they know when each other's coming out. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, a handful of times you get the Carmen Gies. [SPEAKER_01]: And there'll be three of them. [SPEAKER_01]: And you'll, you won't see any for a month, you know. [SPEAKER_01]: But, yeah, we have a good mix of pretty much everything. [SPEAKER_05]: What happens when some of your regulars don't show up for a few weeks? [SPEAKER_05]: Are you guys all over them? [SPEAKER_05]: You calling them figuring out what's going on or you just let it flyer. [SPEAKER_05]: That's what happened. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, a lot of times happened, but a lot of times out of the country around vacation with everybody kind of knows they're not going to be there or why they're not there. [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's rare that one of the court just doesn't show up without any notice. [SPEAKER_03]: All right. [SPEAKER_03]: But then there's others. [SPEAKER_03]: You'll be like, I just seen him in a couple weeks. [SPEAKER_03]: So we'll reach out to him.

39:38 [SPEAKER_03]: Just make sure things are all right. [SPEAKER_03]: Not because he hasn't been around, but yeah, I was going. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's how to make it, you know, community aspect. [SPEAKER_05]: That's a sure, that's awesome. [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, a few years ago, I was having some medical issues, but everybody knew what was going on. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's why I just wasn't coming around. [SPEAKER_04]: So, but everybody's pretty much there. [SPEAKER_04]: Every, you know, the group that you see here, plus, you know, Chuck and Willie, you know, like my Camacho, [SPEAKER_04]: He's an EMT, so his character would very, it's not very conducive to the club, you know, for him coming out to meet.

40:19 [SPEAKER_04]: But whenever he has a night off, he's there. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and Cindy, right, Cindy's car. [SPEAKER_00]: Cindy's car. [SPEAKER_01]: Cindy, she'll be upset. [SPEAKER_05]: deservedly so we touched on the on the on some of the buses here a moment ago let's let's let's let's give some details on the so let's let's talk about these you're some of your dubs individually J will start with years so you've got ice box right you got a nice I have I have the ice box you have the ice box which is a 70 panel tell us just a little bit about the bus when you get it why why a panel just kind of tell us a little bit about ice box [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'll start back with my previous bus.

41:01 [SPEAKER_03]: I had a 77 with a rag top, and it was lowered. [SPEAKER_03]: And I decided that with your bus you were talking about, it was just too far gone. [SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to put 20 grand or more embodied work into it, or I could sell it and get $7,000 from them by something that's essentially done. [SPEAKER_03]: And I wanted an early bay. [SPEAKER_03]: I always wanted an early bay. [SPEAKER_03]: So, [SPEAKER_03]: Rick Deck is the previous owner of this bus. [SPEAKER_03]: He was the second or third owner. [SPEAKER_03]: The ice box only has 41,000 original miles on it. [SPEAKER_03]: Wow. [SPEAKER_03]: The rust is paint. [SPEAKER_03]: 85% I can say it from my back, the rust it there is rust on it, but you can't see it because it's just so much fake fake rust around it.

41:46 [SPEAKER_03]: When I bought it, they had two inch trumps windows on it, which is why I wanted Mike stock ones, because I wanted to put the big General Grabber AT tires on it. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm driven this. [SPEAKER_03]: Pretty much the extent of the state of Florida since I had it, though, any engine mods or or anything like that, any mods. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a 100 single port with the original transmission of it. [SPEAKER_03]: Wow. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: If it wasn't for Willie Fink, I would have thrown this thing into a fire by now, but he keeps me on the road. [SPEAKER_03]: Cool. [SPEAKER_03]: He keeps us us on the road, by the way. [SPEAKER_05]: All of us. [SPEAKER_05]: Yep. [SPEAKER_05]: So Carl, you're up next. [SPEAKER_05]: You got high ball Betty. [SPEAKER_05]: I've all Betty is a 69. [SPEAKER_05]: were the name come from.

42:29 [SPEAKER_02]: It was surf Betty when she was lowered, but then I raised it up and I'm like, uh, something that goes with the high and I've thought like a martini glass or a high ball glass. [SPEAKER_02]: So I bought that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I bought a ball glass. [SPEAKER_05]: My 20s. [SPEAKER_05]: I know what a high ball glass is. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: That's awesome. [SPEAKER_05]: Okay. [SPEAKER_02]: But it's got a gestures on the front beam stock width. [SPEAKER_02]: It's got, uh, [SPEAKER_02]: I had Franklin's VW works up in the believe camp Washington, made me a set of race spindles, two and a half inch race spindles, I've got fresh customs, adjustable spring plates on the back. [SPEAKER_02]: It's got a 1600 dual port with a 343 car bonnet, a six rib transmission, a late bay front discs, late bay rear bearing housings.

43:19 [SPEAKER_02]: uh... just swapped over to the nine thirty cv joints uh... for little increased uh... and well i could probably go up a couple more inches uh... you and i'll stop breaking cv joints and then writing on uh... clk 320 mercedes uh... polished of the forge aluminum wheels and uh... general grabber general grabber 18s nice man okay that sounds like fun [SPEAKER_02]: knock on wood. [SPEAKER_02]: There's more wood in here than japano's workshop, so there's never, never shortage of wood to knock on, but yeah, she's been a good bus team.

44:00 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm very happy with her. [SPEAKER_05]: Well, and that's it, huh? [SPEAKER_05]: All right. [SPEAKER_05]: That's it. [SPEAKER_05]: How about John? [SPEAKER_05]: You got Helga? [SPEAKER_05]: Yep. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's hear about Helga out of. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, she, she, it took me about a year to find the right bus. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I was really, really looking hard. [SPEAKER_00]: I keep my cars that work on all my cars that turn my own wrenches, and I was just looking for the right one. [SPEAKER_00]: And in 2020, I found that in Payfield, colorado. [SPEAKER_00]: Don't know if you know about where that tap. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but it's southern. [SPEAKER_00]: It's southern southern all the way down. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I was a bought it in 2020, which was, you know, COVID times, but, uh, [SPEAKER_00]: I flattoed it back.

44:47 [SPEAKER_00]: It was all mine. [SPEAKER_00]: And since I've owned it, I've put 125,000 models on it and I'm squeaky. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm starting to build another motor right now. [SPEAKER_00]: Again, thank you Willie think he's my sense. [SPEAKER_00]: Going through this and I've got a Westy bed in here. [SPEAKER_00]: Jay had a block that was partially exploded and I'm putting it back together. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Ryan. [SPEAKER_00]: I believe Jay's quote is, it runs, but you didn't tell you about the cracks of the grocery store with you.

45:28 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know about it. [SPEAKER_00]: But the I'm building a motor right now that's going to be a temporary stock motor and then I'm going to [SPEAKER_00]: bigger CC motor just just to get up to maybe a two two or two three I'm running I'm running just a stock two liter the I'm running the baby wevers which are the ICT 32's and 32's 34's I can't remember but there uh [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 34. [SPEAKER_00]: But there I've got it tuned perfect. [SPEAKER_00]: I get now. [SPEAKER_00]: I get about 18 miles of gallon the last trip we were on. [SPEAKER_00]: I was getting about 12 and yeah, my close room.

46:09 [SPEAKER_00]: My car readers were breathing from all different places. [SPEAKER_00]: So I needed to get rid of them, but eventually this, this bus, this is what I like to characterize this bus as my forever bus. [SPEAKER_00]: It's never going away. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm a bit of a big luxury that you early. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: What was that? [SPEAKER_00]: Tell them the good part. [SPEAKER_00]: What's the good part? [SPEAKER_02]: I think you're getting to it. [SPEAKER_02]: The luxury got him. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, well, I was just, I was just going to say I don't have ballcats behind my seat. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, do I have little triangles and I will tell you, I can put my seats back, relax. [SPEAKER_00]: I can just cruise. [SPEAKER_00]: That's not what I'm talking about at all.

46:49 [SPEAKER_03]: Joe, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this [SPEAKER_03]: It's the last just fog up. [SPEAKER_03]: It's got an AC. [SPEAKER_03]: Fresh got AC. [SPEAKER_00]: You got AC. [SPEAKER_00]: And I bought the box. [SPEAKER_00]: It took me a whole, it took me one whole summer to realize. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm an IT guy. [SPEAKER_00]: I can't show up at work. [SPEAKER_00]: just soak in wet sweat. [SPEAKER_00]: So I bought the guilt. [SPEAKER_00]: I bought the guilt more kit. [SPEAKER_00]: I put it in myself. [SPEAKER_00]: Those guys were great. [SPEAKER_00]: This is before Alejandro took it over and those guys out in Nevada were awesome.

47:35 [SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, I just talked about the way I just talked to him. [SPEAKER_05]: He's he's going to be coming on too soon. [SPEAKER_05]: Nice. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, now they got electric options and all kinds of cool options, but I will tell you, it's you could feel a slight bit of power loss, but you know, terms of driving around town and having cold air blowing on you. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: night and day, night see it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, look at him. [SPEAKER_03]: Look at smoke. [SPEAKER_03]: Look on his face. [SPEAKER_05]: The way I see it, like my beer, my like my gear is stock. [SPEAKER_05]: It's like what power, you know, I wouldn't care if I lost power. [SPEAKER_05]: Like if I had AC and that thing, I could probably get my wife to hang out with me more.

48:15 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have power. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's let my conversation over because I don't always have it running [SPEAKER_00]: But my girlfriend who gets her hair done and her makeup done, she climbs in here. [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't want to be sweating bullets on a 95 degree day in a bus. [SPEAKER_00]: So me cranking that up, she's that's where I hear Poppy. [SPEAKER_00]: So, and I can't allow her to be used to that stuff. [SPEAKER_05]: That's where the name came from. [SPEAKER_03]: Gotcha. [SPEAKER_03]: She's from Panama. [SPEAKER_03]: She should be used to it though. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's, it's funny. [SPEAKER_00]: She should be, but she's not good with the heat at all. [SPEAKER_05]: All right, so next up Mike, tell us about the bus I think you're sitting in it [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I am sitting there.

48:59 [SPEAKER_01]: So my bus is DD and actually kind of got it start with my with my beetle. [SPEAKER_01]: I have a six or seven beetle named Dexter. [SPEAKER_01]: And I joined the group in 2019. [SPEAKER_01]: And I saw the buses around right because they were bus heavy. [SPEAKER_01]: And then you know, and just talking with the guys after several months, I said, you know, I really always wanted a bus. [SPEAKER_01]: We, you know, when I was in high school, we had probably 10 different folks when I was in the school part of my buses, bugs, things, all that stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was talking to the guys that I go, hey! [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'd like to get a bus one of these days and they go, what are you waiting for? [SPEAKER_01]: I go, well, I have to get rid of the bug and the bug's name is Dexter. [SPEAKER_01]: So I got Dexter and it's after the Nickelodeon Cartoon Dexter's laboratory because I figured I'd be working on it, figuring things out, kind of science experiments and such.

49:45 [SPEAKER_01]: And so my buddy's like, why would you have to sell that? [SPEAKER_01]: He's, you know, just keep them both. [SPEAKER_01]: He's got two. [SPEAKER_01]: He's got three. [SPEAKER_01]: He's got six. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, I didn't even register to me. [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, Flash forward at one of the buddies in the group was looking on Bay Pride Forum. [SPEAKER_01]: And he saw this Texas bus that had many videos of the guy redoing the floors and and putting new windshield in and all this kind of stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, look at this one. [SPEAKER_01]: So, okay, that looks pretty good. [SPEAKER_01]: And I show it to my wife and the price was right. [SPEAKER_01]: And she goes, you know, if you got that, you can keep both and just like, the whole world opened up. [SPEAKER_01]: So, so this bus from Texas is from Austin, Texas. [SPEAKER_01]: It was a Texas [SPEAKER_01]: He used to have a welding machine in it was basically bare inside and he would get a tow bar in the front.

50:33 [SPEAKER_01]: He would tow it out to the corals, disconnect it, drive it out to the corals to weld them and fix them and he came upon a bull on a cow mating. [SPEAKER_01]: and the bull didn't appreciate it. [SPEAKER_01]: So the bull smashed the whole entire front end and it didn't have windshield and all that kind of stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: So that was part of the videos and such that they were rebuilding the front or pulling it out. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it really looked like bubblegum. [SPEAKER_01]: They were just yanking it out just enough to get a windshield in and put some metal up there. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I ended up with when I first got it. [SPEAKER_01]: So I had that for a while and I ran it like that. [SPEAKER_01]: And eventually, I knew I was going to restore it. [SPEAKER_01]: And I needed a new front end. [SPEAKER_01]: So excavation, Dan Chavez, an excavation up in Rockbridge, Pennsylvania.

51:17 [SPEAKER_01]: He is a Volkswagen specialist, like he can, you know, he can braze it on Carnegie Infinity or he does everything he does is Volkswagen specialists in addition to regular cars, but he is definitely our Volkswagen specialist. [SPEAKER_01]: So he repeated that front end and, and, you know, I got the green medal, was it fresh customs or classic fab, which ever was. [SPEAKER_01]: So I get the medal from them and he does the work and when I got a back from him, I was expecting the front end to be like primer or black or whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: And he had patina matched it to match the rest of the car. [SPEAKER_01]: So my basically was the same color as Jay's, you know, patina and all that. [SPEAKER_01]: He sprayed it with the black primed it. [SPEAKER_01]: did a light coat of white, misted it with little black specks, and any did a acetone rag on the high points.

52:01 [SPEAKER_01]: And it basically looked like nothing had happened. [SPEAKER_01]: It just looked like an old, an old smooth front hinge. [SPEAKER_01]: So I ran it like that for several years, a couple of years, and I was waiting in line basically to get my bus done completely with Dan's area. [SPEAKER_01]: So we did the full restoration. [SPEAKER_01]: finished it in October of 2024, right before Bug Jam. [SPEAKER_01]: So here's where the props come into the group, right? [SPEAKER_01]: If something's wrong or you're not moving fast enough, this group will make sure you do. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: So Carl's asking me, hey, when we do in your headline and when we do in your floors, when we're doing this, I'm like, I got stuff going on. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm trying to slow roll it because, you know, that's just how I was trying to be, but Carl's pressure put it on the end of the [SPEAKER_01]: got me to put all back together and we made it within what nine days above jam.

52:53 [SPEAKER_01]: And so made it to bud jam and got second place in the category, which was it's a cool story, but the coolest story is going from a shell. [SPEAKER_01]: five weeks before getting it completely put back together and making it to the show so that was that was a really the high point for the for the vehicle. [SPEAKER_01]: So you might notice the color it's a you know, I'm really in in in in big with key west is my favorite place to go this looks very similar to the railroad bridge or the or the blue walls if you go down to key west. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's one of the one of the inspirations, but I grew up in. [SPEAKER_01]: Freestyle be an exing back in the days and I had an S.E. [SPEAKER_01]: Racing P.K. [SPEAKER_01]: Ripper before. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I know you're into bikes, right?

53:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Before Freestyle was even around. [SPEAKER_01]: So the three three pages in the back of the next plus with still pitchers on teaching how to do tricks, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And then bolting on things and extra on cables and all that kind of stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: But the S.E. [SPEAKER_01]: Racing [SPEAKER_01]: their van or their bus. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a backdrop for the quarter pipe and it looks very similar but it's a split window, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Lots of checker boards and, you know, skater themes and all that kind of stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's really kind of where the, you know, where the inspiration came from for that and all the checkers and all that kind of stuff growing up, you know, BMXing and skateboarding and all that kind of just lends itself directly to what it looks like today. [SPEAKER_05]: Hell yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Cool. [SPEAKER_05]: What [SPEAKER_01]: 21 10.

54:22 [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, okay. [SPEAKER_05]: All right. [SPEAKER_03]: Too bad his foot doesn't match it. [SPEAKER_05]: That sounds like a sweet bus man. [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for, thanks for describing and given us the back story there. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, heavy into BMX and when I was young as well, I was into, we, I had a profile cruiser and, you know, profile was a really big, you know, brand in my area because well, they were right in Bay Pines. [SPEAKER_05]: So they were right here in St. Pete. [SPEAKER_05]: They're actually still here. [SPEAKER_05]: They're, they're still here. [SPEAKER_05]: They're still producing bikes. [SPEAKER_05]: right right here in St. Pete, Florida. [SPEAKER_05]: So I had profile, framed for profile, fricking seat post clamp profile bars profile neck profile cranks.

55:07 [SPEAKER_05]: I had profile rims, most people didn't know they had profile rims back in the day. [SPEAKER_05]: I'd profile every single thing that you could have profile. [SPEAKER_05]: I had it even even breaks in scars for sure. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'd profiled everything. [SPEAKER_05]: I love that bike. [SPEAKER_05]: I raced cruiser class all the way to I, honestly, to I was 16. [SPEAKER_05]: When I was 16, I started driving. [SPEAKER_05]: My first car was a Volvo 240 BL. [SPEAKER_05]: The first night I had it. [SPEAKER_05]: I ended up reckoning and putting like doing like $2,000 for the damage to it by jumping it. [SPEAKER_05]: for me and a bunch of my friends jumped over a railroad track and I broke the engine cradle and I did all kinds of damage to it.

55:48 [SPEAKER_05]: But then I got my beetle. [SPEAKER_05]: So that was kind of a cool story. [SPEAKER_05]: I needed another car and that was how I got my first 72 standard beetle. [SPEAKER_05]: So all right, that was DD and that was from Mike Steven moving on to you. [SPEAKER_05]: You got multiple Volkswagen's tell us about a [SPEAKER_04]: behind me. [SPEAKER_04]: You got the 74th thing. [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, I picked that up and I picked that up and Viro a few years ago. [SPEAKER_04]: I always wanted a thing, but I didn't want to put a lot of work into it. [SPEAKER_04]: And so I did real well to find this one. [SPEAKER_04]: It's got just about every upgrade that I would have ever wanted to do to it.

56:31 [SPEAKER_04]: This breaks bigger tires, dual, dual carbs and, you know, [SPEAKER_04]: But we're really got me going into all this was Sasha. [SPEAKER_04]: My red bus, that was found by Jay at a garage they all about 11 years ago. [SPEAKER_04]: Wow, he was talking to the owner who was having some hard issues. [SPEAKER_04]: And he was trying to fix it up and get it back on the road. [SPEAKER_04]: And Jay is like, hey, I got a guy. [SPEAKER_04]: He's looking to buy a bus. [SPEAKER_04]: And he's ready to pull the pin on this. [SPEAKER_04]: And so he calls me up at work. [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so I go to the boss and I said, Hey, you know, I've been looking for a bus.

57:13 [SPEAKER_04]: And she's like, yeah, go ahead and take an early lunch. [SPEAKER_04]: So I ran home, grab the Tahoe and the tow bar went out to sunscreen and there's this bus sitting there at the at the garage sale with paintings and all kinds of other crap leaned up against it. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't for sale, but I [SPEAKER_04]: special. [SPEAKER_04]: He did a lot of the rust work and paint and all that other stuff. [SPEAKER_04]: He had to cut a whole new nose for it, so full nose is now a decoration in my garage.

57:53 [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, cool, man. [SPEAKER_05]: I like to put that in the front of my desk. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, that one's going to go right up back up here on the wall. [SPEAKER_05]: 10, 4. [SPEAKER_04]: I just got going wiring it today. [SPEAKER_04]: So the headlights work, the turn, the running lights work. [SPEAKER_04]: And I just got the flashers blanking nice. [SPEAKER_04]: So that'll be kind of fun. [SPEAKER_04]: Mike put me on to some Bluetooth technologies. [SPEAKER_04]: So I can just sit here and plug it all in and use my cell phone and get everything working out in the house garage. [SPEAKER_04]: I've got two garages. [SPEAKER_04]: I got to build a garage in my backyard. [SPEAKER_03]: problem. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, actually.

58:33 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: I got a 63 split window that's it's it's all patina and lowered and everything. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh yeah, that's my jam right there. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they I guess they found it in the field in South Carolina. [SPEAKER_04]: Everything at the bottom was all rusted out. [SPEAKER_04]: So that's all been replaced. [SPEAKER_04]: But all the Bettina up up above has been preserved and clear-coded and sealed. [SPEAKER_04]: And it's a great running car, actually, of my Volkswagen, it's probably my favorite to drive because it's just, you know, Sasha's getting there though. [SPEAKER_04]: I put a 1776 in it with dual carbs, a little bit of issue with it.

59:20 [SPEAKER_04]: Chief Chinese oil cooler setting he back. [SPEAKER_04]: I ended up, I had to pull a motor three times trying to figure out what the problem was and it was the the the cheap Chinese oil cooler where the oil, the the rings wouldn't sit seat properly. [SPEAKER_04]: And it put in the one out of the old motor back in it and oh look, oil leaks are going. [SPEAKER_05]: Hey, and then you found the problem. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, took a while though and having to pull [SPEAKER_03]: three times. [SPEAKER_03]: That's rookie numbers. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Here's a question for all of you and you can answer it individually.

1:00:02 [SPEAKER_05]: What VW would you buy tomorrow if money wasn't the object or the issue? [SPEAKER_05]: It's B2. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh cool. [SPEAKER_03]: That's a good one. [SPEAKER_03]: That's not what I was thinking, but that's a good one. [SPEAKER_03]: I'd take it Fredlin. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, cool. [SPEAKER_05]: Those are cool to the mail trucks, you know. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't mind it, but I like the SD2. [SPEAKER_04]: I agree. [SPEAKER_02]: I would didn't think of that one either. [SPEAKER_02]: Other than the lack of headroom, um, six, three and it's, uh, kind of a squeeze. [SPEAKER_02]: I really like to pull them up from, uh, from Brazil. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, cool. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: That's a cool car. [SPEAKER_03]: Now, our buddy Willie has one. [SPEAKER_03]: Nice. [SPEAKER_03]: What? [SPEAKER_03]: What do you want to hear? [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, shit. [SPEAKER_03]: And it's cherry. [SPEAKER_04]: It's [SPEAKER_05]: Did I miss any of you?

1:00:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'd probably get a, I'd probably get a, a beetle convertible, pre-67 probably. [SPEAKER_05]: Nice. [SPEAKER_01]: John? [SPEAKER_00]: I would absolutely get a car and gear in a second. [SPEAKER_05]: Nice. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a little big motor in it. [SPEAKER_00]: Get that thing, cruise the down the street. [SPEAKER_00]: But a big motor, big alternator, put AC in it, uh, partop, not convertible just on out. [SPEAKER_00]: And just something slippery and fast. [SPEAKER_04]: Have you seen mine? [SPEAKER_04]: I was going to ask you the only problem I've ever had with carbon guise and maybe you have this problem is I sat in one before and they're kind of like this.

1:01:30 [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's a little narrow at the shoulders. [SPEAKER_05]: Well, if it, if it counts, I could say I feel that, but you know, when I feel that, I just move over this way. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I would have died through at the time, so. [SPEAKER_00]: if if it counts because you said vw i said carbon guia but if my next car would be a 914 because i know the motor i know the motor inside and out at this point that can count so yeah i'm going to see a decent one i shit send it night is win yeah if you guys see the truth i think you're a perfect one it's Volkswagen do it so we know you're [SPEAKER_00]: I know.

1:02:13 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've been to your shows, so probably I've probably seen it just didn't know it was yours. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: A Carl can't see. [SPEAKER_03]: You only see himself. [SPEAKER_03]: It's that green room with a skeletal pain on it. [SPEAKER_02]: I can't see. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: All right. [SPEAKER_05]: I was going to try to show you, but I'll get started. [SPEAKER_05]: I'll get. [SPEAKER_05]: I'll get. [SPEAKER_05]: It's cool. [SPEAKER_05]: Okay. [SPEAKER_05]: Let's talk about the people behind the cars. [SPEAKER_05]: I know I say this all the time, you ever listen any other previous shows. [SPEAKER_05]: One of the things I love most about Volkswagen culture is that eventually you realize that well, the cars are almost secondary to the people, right? [SPEAKER_05]: As a group, or even as Volkswagen enthusiasts yourselves, at what point did you guys start to figure that out?

1:03:00 [SPEAKER_05]: That it was really more about the people than it was the cars. [SPEAKER_02]: We're really on for me, early on, especially such a diverse group of people from all across the country, different countries, Mexicans, Germans, Puerto Ricans, I mean, panomanian, we have a little bit of everything in our group and that's when I realize it, it's not really about the cars, it's about bringing [SPEAKER_02]: bring in all these people together for, you know, a one, you know, for with a purpose, you know, it's that that was kind of cool for me. [SPEAKER_02]: And whether we were in Corvettes or Mustangs or it wouldn't have mattered, but it just happened to be Volkswagen's.

1:03:44 [SPEAKER_02]: And there's such a diverse group of people that everybody with similar, you know, thoughts and likes get together so well. [SPEAKER_05]: What do you think would be if I ask you and not it don't matter who who tells the story, but what would be one of the most meaningful stories that you guys can remember that would involve somebody from the club? [SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to tell them about the donation we did as a club up to get that bus running? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, that's all that. [SPEAKER_03]: That's the going. [SPEAKER_03]: Jack, I was thinking that, but I was also thinking about what Chucky, or the years what Chucky has done for the toys for tots.

1:04:31 [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah, sure. [SPEAKER_05]: Voice for tots is actually the next topic. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but well, once it's blinded right into it, because Chucky. [SPEAKER_03]: What he and his wife Shelley do for that, to me, that's the most meaningful thing that we do, because we helped Mike out with his bus-sounding Atlanta, but what Chuck and Shelley really do helps so many people every year. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: It's all on board now. [SPEAKER_03]: Like, we see what they bring, and we're like, well, I can't just bring this basketball. [SPEAKER_01]: You know? [SPEAKER_03]: I gotta step up my game. [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, it's a little bit of unintended peer pressure or shaming, it's completely unintentional, [SPEAKER_03]: They bring it and they that's what to me.

1:05:12 [SPEAKER_03]: That's what our club has done. [SPEAKER_03]: It's more meaningful than anything else. [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, behind the scenes guy, but he is definitely, you know, he's not here. [SPEAKER_02]: He's one of the most generous guys I know. [SPEAKER_05]: So it's a perfect segue moment then because now we'll we'll we'll get into toys for tots I know this has been a hot topic pretty much the whole time we we've kind of talked about it a few times, but so you guys have been doing the toys for tots run now for what 11 years I believe it's 11. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, tell me how it started. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, the first charity run we did wasn't choice for tots it was some sort of hands across the causeway.

1:05:56 [SPEAKER_04]: I don't even remember exactly what it was about, but the next thing to blitz, that was the first sponsorship year of the blitz. [SPEAKER_03]: The first year we did toys for Todd's, there was a Harley, a Harley group, a bait's did a, they were doing a toy run for years and years and years. [SPEAKER_03]: And then the year before we did our toy run, they had a really bad accident that I think killed a kid where I'm, I got lost and trolled his bike and it's winning into the crowd. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think it hurt some people to may have killed a small child. [SPEAKER_03]: So they couldn't get insurance to do it again. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, one of our, I can't remember his name. [SPEAKER_03]: They got their own tennis. [SPEAKER_03]: Do you remember his name, Carl? [SPEAKER_03]: You're the horse one for names. [SPEAKER_03]: Eric Colverson. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, he had a connection with the toys for tots, with the Marines, toys for tots unit.

1:06:40 [SPEAKER_03]: And he proposed we do it, and we did it. [SPEAKER_03]: And we've been doing it ever since. [SPEAKER_03]: We took one year off. [SPEAKER_03]: I think during the pandemic, and we've been doing it ever since. [SPEAKER_05]: What did, I guess, the first toy we're on look like, that many years ago compared to what it's become now. [SPEAKER_04]: night and day. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, like the production of what it is now. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_03]: The fourth year that we did it, we had like 70 cars show up, 75 cars show up. [SPEAKER_03]: Then now they do one in Orlando. [SPEAKER_03]: They do one down and four pierce now. [SPEAKER_03]: I think even Daytona does one. [SPEAKER_03]: So we don't draw from as far away as we used to, but we still draw 34 cars per year for that event. [SPEAKER_03]: And [SPEAKER_03]: They, for years, they kept trying to send a pickup truck to select our toys and that's hopefully inadequate.

1:07:26 [SPEAKER_03]: This year, they finally staged a box truck in the Gator's parking line waiting for us. [SPEAKER_05]: That's got to be a pretty cool feeling for you guys. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: And we filled that up. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: You may have said this. [SPEAKER_05]: You may not have, but I'm interested to hear like maybe what's not that it matters, but what's like the biggest donation or [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's last year, that was actually my fear with the bikes. [SPEAKER_02]: And like I said, 11, I think we had 11 or 12 full boxes. [SPEAKER_03]: Do you know a big good choice for touch boxes is our joke. [SPEAKER_03]: They'll like the size of a 55 gallon trash can. [SPEAKER_03]: Right. [SPEAKER_03]: And we had 11 of those like spilling over onto the sidewalk and all the money for the scooters.

1:08:12 [SPEAKER_05]: That is so awesome to be able to say that the Volkswagen community delivers that. [SPEAKER_02]: It's funny because we were waiting on our Marine max to show up one year. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, Max, where you been, man, you're late. [SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, I had just the meata guys had a tour around this morning. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, yeah, how they do? [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, man. [SPEAKER_02]: They had three full boxes and like three boxes. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm looking up on the four on the curb and we got 11 boxes lined up. [SPEAKER_02]: And it just kind of goes to show you how [SPEAKER_05]: how much reach we have and is the it does yeah it really makes you almost say too you know that people probably [SPEAKER_05]: would see the Volkswagen community differently because of that type of a turnout or that type of a donation being collected.

1:09:05 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and Mike Plant and his wife, they put boxes in and over there local watering holes and then they bring those over, they brought those over for those were full. [SPEAKER_03]: And would you have five or six bikes from Fert, Main Street, Oasis? [SPEAKER_01]: Oasis, Oasis, Oasis, give Oasis a shout out. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. [SPEAKER_01]: So my wife's kind of a behind-the-scenes workhorse, right? [SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't come do a lot of the events. [SPEAKER_01]: The big ones, the shows, the cruises and stuff like that. [SPEAKER_01]: She'll go to not the Thursday night. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's my night, right? [SPEAKER_01]: But she's a realtor as well, right? [SPEAKER_01]: But she knows everybody all around. [SPEAKER_01]: We've all been here. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, a lot of us on the phone, almost every one of us is set for night. [SPEAKER_01]: We grew up here in neighboring high schools and or the same high schools. [SPEAKER_01]: But my wife knows absolutely everybody and we watch who has sports on the weekends at our local local bar that we go to Oasis lounge in Melbourne Beach.

1:09:53 [SPEAKER_01]: And as they do pot looks and things like that, we've got our collection, a collection there, you know, drop off something if you want, you know, bring food if you want. [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, there are people that are just dropping $100 bills in here, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So at the end of the time's collection, you know, we have about $1,400, and we bought all the bikes and brought them in. [SPEAKER_01]: And we have to lock them up inside of the Gator's Fenstall patio so that we can go out on the cruise and then come back and pull them back out. [SPEAKER_01]: So kind of a funny story. [SPEAKER_01]: I know it's a little sidetracked, but, you know, one of our highlights of the group was was last year when we were doing that Carl, I got there pretty early. [SPEAKER_01]: And I went to drop off the, we went to drop off the bikes and we load them up on the front porch and and they were giving us an opportunity to use the restrooms there and, you know, it's just Carl and I so I went, I was going inside and Carl said, hey, is the alarm set I get now.

1:10:40 [SPEAKER_01]: They said the alarm was taken care because they were supposed to do it that morning or whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: And I went in and he went back around the front and he went out of the parking lot. [SPEAKER_01]: I was in the kitchen fumble and around and came back out through there because I had never been inside it and when it was dark and opened up where we normally said there are our tailgates and stuff and full on blazing alarms going off and Carl's just just laughing and said, I'll find it right. [SPEAKER_01]: And he's playing the cops theme song bad. [SPEAKER_01]: And the cops showed up and we had to go through the whole regular roll. [SPEAKER_01]: It was like one of the, I'll see, the high, my highlights in the group was, was the, the cops being called in. [SPEAKER_01]: We almost got to go like leave right away, but like good cop bad cop, the older cop was like, we're going to run them through the ringer.

1:11:25 [SPEAKER_01]: So we had to do a lot of, you know, given our names and all that kind of stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: So you know, a lot of people don't really drop off 15 bicycles at the place they're robbing, but the name we went through the paperwork and stuff like that, but that was a that was a pretty awesome man. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, cool man. [SPEAKER_05]: All right. [SPEAKER_05]: Let's touch on winter blitz. [SPEAKER_05]: I know that's also come up a couple of times. [SPEAKER_05]: You guys have what's called the winter blitz at a company called intercoastal brewing. [SPEAKER_04]: Right, this this coming up show or the 2027 one's going to be the 10th annual Uh, it is almost just a little bit about how that event came to Well, with his who's not with us Here in Florida anymore you get to move to Arizona contacts at the the winter blitz because they have one of those weekly [SPEAKER_04]: Stupid miles and then you go back and you went through thirst with some beers.

1:12:25 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, like like a you when you say run you don't mean run like we run in our cards. [SPEAKER_05]: You mean actually. [SPEAKER_04]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no [SPEAKER_04]: not after a five mile run or a three or two or three or five mile run. [SPEAKER_05]: What's that? [SPEAKER_04]: So we kind of got our we kind of got us started there and every year it's just gotten bigger and bigger. [SPEAKER_04]: We fill up their parking lot. [SPEAKER_04]: Everybody brings cat food dog food, toys, blankets, anything the [SPEAKER_02]: What's that?

1:13:11 [SPEAKER_02]: No entry fee, but take the dog food or the shelter donation in lieu of any kind of entry fee. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think last year we started doing both. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, last year we were doing both. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, it was time. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, good luck to the shelter. [SPEAKER_03]: So it's a win-win. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, all this in the shelter. [SPEAKER_04]: So this last year we raised around $2,500. [SPEAKER_04]: That was all the dog food and cat food and stuff for the shelter. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: The shelter sends out a couple of girls with a shelter dog to represent in the dog that's not adopted. [SPEAKER_05]: So this event happens on Super Bowl Saturday.

1:13:54 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm curious to understand why that day. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just the easiest day to remember. [SPEAKER_03]: That's the Saturday, the Saturday before Super Bowl Saturday. [SPEAKER_05]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a car show in a church locally the week before and we don't want to step on their toes and we like to support them because Tim Hodge who runs that show as a member is he is a Volkswagen. [SPEAKER_03]: He's one of us. [SPEAKER_03]: So we go to, we don't want to step on his toes [SPEAKER_03]: is Robbie Johnson's getaway. [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, it's where it's where it fits. [SPEAKER_05]: You got you guys all come into the getaway this year. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm debating since there's no no dough. [SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, I'm going the podcast channel be there again.

1:14:36 [SPEAKER_05]: I was there last year. [SPEAKER_05]: It was freezing cold. [SPEAKER_01]: I want that. [SPEAKER_01]: I want some freezing cold camping. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_05]: It's good. [SPEAKER_05]: Teen temperatures though. [SPEAKER_03]: You just want to worry about. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, again, my [SPEAKER_05]: I don't go out in this. [SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, you don't have to. [SPEAKER_03]: You'll be a bug jam too, right? [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'll be a bug jam too. [SPEAKER_05]: I'm a sponsor in the stereo contest again. [SPEAKER_05]: I'm a silver sponsor at Bug Jam for the podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: Awesome. [SPEAKER_05]: Yep. [SPEAKER_05]: So I'll definitely be there. [SPEAKER_05]: Not right next to the stage again. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe Kamache will represent again. [SPEAKER_01]: Right on.

1:15:16 [SPEAKER_05]: Who came up with the name winner blitz? [SPEAKER_03]: It was a criminal. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it was mainly Carl and I came up with that one. [SPEAKER_03]: I would defer to Carl and that one mostly that he came up with that one. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that might have been there. [SPEAKER_02]: One thing about the winter blitz that I take pride in is being a winter. [SPEAKER_02]: I think we came up with winter blitz because here we are having car shows in the middle of February when while the country is still in snow or very cold weather and you know salted roads and no one's in here we are having east coast to Florida having car shows so we'll call it the winter blitz. [SPEAKER_02]: So every year the trophies for the winter blitz I like to make those from scratch with the help from [SPEAKER_02]: Intercostal will give me beer labels that they put on their cans all different flavors and different designs and I'll come up with different different different trophy designs for the year.

1:16:06 [SPEAKER_02]: But I take pride in those and that's I like Yeah, they're all winter themed. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love the fact that someone brought their car, their pride and joy. [SPEAKER_02]: It's all people's choice voting. [SPEAKER_02]: Southsideers has nothing to do with any of the voting. [SPEAKER_02]: It's all any of the patrons that come sitting around eating drinking beer. [SPEAKER_02]: We give them a slip. [SPEAKER_02]: They picked up top three cars. [SPEAKER_02]: Just walking around drinking beer and checking the cars out. [SPEAKER_02]: Put them in the ballot box. [SPEAKER_02]: And [SPEAKER_02]: you know, that's how we get first second third. [SPEAKER_02]: We do it for this driven. [SPEAKER_02]: We did a most likely to be towed. [SPEAKER_02]: We do, uh, second third.

1:16:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but yeah, so I make the trophy. [SPEAKER_02]: I think of a letter. [SPEAKER_02]: Yep. [SPEAKER_02]: The girls from the shelter. [SPEAKER_02]: They picked their favorite. [SPEAKER_02]: We call that one the pick of the letter. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, that's cool. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, when we're done here, when we're done here, you should send Joe pictures of the ones you've done, so he might be able to insert them into the podcast because those are all your trophies are awesome. [SPEAKER_01]: Right on. [SPEAKER_01]: For the record, Southside or Winter Blitz trophies are the best I've ever seen. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we could put that challenge out there. [SPEAKER_03]: No, Joe, two years ago, Mike Plant won Best in Show with that show. [SPEAKER_03]: And then last year he got most likely to be towed because he broke down on the way in. [SPEAKER_03]: So let's tell that story so best show we've ever had with the amount of, you know, donations, all that kind of good stuff, right?

1:17:35 [SPEAKER_01]: So I generally, yeah, last year I didn't really collect, I collect most of the stuff I've tables and all that kind of stuff, so I've got the trophies, I've got the tables, I've got the raffle prizes, all that stuff and they know, they know me, right? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm super early at everything. [SPEAKER_01]: So, five o'clock in the morning, I'm cruising down, Wickham. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a beautiful beautiful morning, probably one of the nicest morning drives I had, and just home and long, and it also bang, clang, coming to a screeching hall. [SPEAKER_01]: So, I blew my engine and pulled into a pawn shop. [SPEAKER_01]: So, I get a hold of the guys and I go, hey, if somebody doesn't come here and get all this show stuff, we're not having a show. [SPEAKER_01]: So Stephen Grant came over with his real car and we took everything out of the real car.

1:18:20 [SPEAKER_01]: I called him. [SPEAKER_04]: I picked him up. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the airport car. [SPEAKER_01]: When it's going to make sure you get to the airport. [SPEAKER_01]: So he came. [SPEAKER_01]: We took all the stuff out of my bus. [SPEAKER_01]: And I left the bus at the pawn shop, locked up, and went to the show. [SPEAKER_01]: And we set up everything, and the show's getting ready to happen. [SPEAKER_01]: And the pawn shop doesn't open till like 9 or 10. [SPEAKER_01]: And so during that whole time, you know, Jay's gone, aren't you all right? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, no, I'm perfectly fine. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what do I have to do sit here with my dead bus over there? [SPEAKER_01]: But I'll stay here all day, and wait three hours after the show's over for the tow truck. [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, as they say, you know, the show must go on, and it all worked out pretty well. [SPEAKER_01]: So, not only was I most likely to be towed, I was towed. [SPEAKER_01]: So that was my non-cleaning thing.

1:19:00 [SPEAKER_01]: So, props to Haggery's. [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: If you don't have Haggery's, you should get it. [SPEAKER_01]: They're telling opportunity is really great. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they message me probably nine times during the time. [SPEAKER_01]: Have they picked you up yet? [SPEAKER_01]: Are you in a safe place? [SPEAKER_01]: Are you home yet? [SPEAKER_01]: Can't say enough about Haggery's tail insurance. [SPEAKER_01]: I was really worried about it before, because I had never had to use it. [SPEAKER_01]: But Haggery's has been fantastic. [SPEAKER_05]: That's a nice shout out. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, good stuff. [SPEAKER_05]: All right, let's touch on on on Bay Pride for a second. [SPEAKER_05]: I feel like we're we're at a good spot. [SPEAKER_05]: We've talked about it a couple of times. [SPEAKER_05]: Everybody obviously, I think everybody.

1:19:42 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so let's let's kind of touch on that. [SPEAKER_05]: So Southsideers was really the birthplace of Bay Pride for those that don't know which ain't gonna be a whole lot of people with 30 plus thousand people in that group. [SPEAKER_05]: It's 40 now. [SPEAKER_03]: Went over 40 this past weekend. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: shit. [SPEAKER_05]: Good for you guys. [SPEAKER_03]: So it was bigger than that once before, but it was full of all the southeast Asians, spam, troll accounts and stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: So I personally killed it. [SPEAKER_03]: I chopped it down to like four. [SPEAKER_03]: I chopped it down to like 28,000 people. [SPEAKER_05]: Wow. [SPEAKER_05]: And well now you're back up. [SPEAKER_05]: So obviously a bay window bus group for those that don't know, which ain't going to be a whole lot of people. [SPEAKER_05]: But [SPEAKER_03]: uh... tell me a little bit about this this group how did it come to uh... maybe even tell me why a bay window group what makes bay windows different for the people that don't know well it was week car all steven in myself and i can't remember who else was there and i've been steven pounds we were all at intercostal just drinking beer one night and i believe it was car all in room bay pride on the picnic table because you could write on the picnic table was there with a sharpie marker [SPEAKER_04]: And we just started to talk about it every day.

1:20:52 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, yeah, and I got to think, there isn't a bay window group out there that I'm aware of on Facebook. [SPEAKER_03]: So I created it. [SPEAKER_03]: And between the six of us, we probably have 19 different names that we have an idea and we'll just create the group and if something happens and something happens, it does happen. [SPEAKER_03]: That's awesome. [SPEAKER_03]: A few months in, as I'm the three of us were the admins done in the group. [SPEAKER_03]: And Josh Nichols from Bush Junkies, [SPEAKER_03]: He got a whole of one of a, he, he, he's noticed what we were doing and he pubbed it and I went from we went from like 250 people to 2,500 and 36 hours. [SPEAKER_03]: Matt's cool. [SPEAKER_03]: And that's where that was where I got, that's where we launched Trump.

1:21:34 [SPEAKER_03]: And it hasn't looked back since. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, you fell to need. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, everybody that talks about buses is always split windows and it's like not everybody can afford a $25,000 plus. [SPEAKER_04]: you know, not everybody wants one. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, not everybody wants one either. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Good good point. [SPEAKER_05]: Good point. [SPEAKER_05]: But at 25k, you're at a beater for for a split, right? [SPEAKER_05]: 25,000. [SPEAKER_05]: You're Stephen paid about that. [SPEAKER_05]: He's in. [SPEAKER_05]: He's in good. [SPEAKER_03]: Easy. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, good for that. [SPEAKER_05]: He got a good one. [SPEAKER_05]: That. [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I didn't have that for one that needed $90,000 worth of body work.

1:22:19 [SPEAKER_03]: No, he's sort of work. [SPEAKER_03]: The market has kind of come back to earth a little bit, but yes, that's. [SPEAKER_03]: He was on bringing trailer, and we were all watching it with him. [SPEAKER_03]: And we have this group chat, and we're all on this group chat. [SPEAKER_03]: And we're adding him on. [SPEAKER_03]: So he just kept been more and more and more until he owned it. [SPEAKER_04]: But the thing that pissed me off was, you know, whenever you bid the clock for 7 minutes, two minutes and it's like, you know what? [SPEAKER_04]: And so everybody was just bidding the minimum, you know, like $500, $500. [SPEAKER_04]: And the clock kept resetting, kept resetting. [SPEAKER_04]: And I just said, screw this and I just bid $3,000 on top of everything else.

1:23:02 [SPEAKER_04]: A couple more people could bid after that and then it was done. [SPEAKER_04]: But I knew the people who owned the bus, the Mike and Kristen Barbado, up in Volusia. [SPEAKER_04]: So we'd seen that bus many years prior. [SPEAKER_04]: Now, they used to come down and hang out with us a lot. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: They've come down to our winter blitzes. [SPEAKER_04]: I've got a calendar here in my garage that features my bus when they owned it. [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, cool. [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, neither became a part of the group. [SPEAKER_04]: No, God. [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, Naya! [SPEAKER_02]: What? [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, no. [SPEAKER_02]: That's kind of a...

1:23:43 [SPEAKER_02]: unofficial official greeting for John every time we see each other. [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, that is you. [SPEAKER_02]: You need to their bird. [SPEAKER_03]: Matt, not I'd have first. [SPEAKER_03]: I sold him the block of the engine block that we just spoke of. [SPEAKER_03]: You a lot, little boy, we had a crack one. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, it's not cracked. [SPEAKER_03]: It kind of hole in. [SPEAKER_03]: Big difference. [SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, I knew him and I was friends with a lot of Facebook for a few years, but we're at No Do one year. [SPEAKER_03]: It was me, it was the four of us, right? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't there, but it was the other four of us. [SPEAKER_03]: And we're at the Persemin Hollow, the brewery there. [SPEAKER_03]: Outside in Port Orange, and we're all really good up our idiots. [SPEAKER_03]: Early Friday.

1:24:24 [SPEAKER_03]: And I saw night across the way, and I just flipped them across the restaurant, full house, I'm loud. [SPEAKER_03]: He looks up and I flick them off. [SPEAKER_03]: And then the three guys behind me, flick them off. [SPEAKER_03]: We were ruthless with him that entire weekend. [SPEAKER_03]: We go outside. [SPEAKER_03]: I say, Carl, get in this bus. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what this bus is. [SPEAKER_03]: It's getting this bus. [SPEAKER_03]: He gets into the bus and doesn't double middle finger. [SPEAKER_03]: And I texted it tonight. [SPEAKER_03]: It was night as bus. [SPEAKER_03]: I go, that'll make it not lock you. [SPEAKER_03]: So anyway, we were ruthless with them all weekend, just like that all weekend. [SPEAKER_03]: So he messes just in the Monday morning after nodo. [SPEAKER_03]: Hey, you guys meet every Thursday night. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he hasn't missed a Thursday sense.

1:25:07 [SPEAKER_03]: And this is when he lived in Delton, Delton. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: He probably had been played with that like that since college. [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, by just, you know, the shenanigans and talk with all kinds of stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: That was, that was it. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what I need it. [SPEAKER_00]: You see up. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, hey, look at that. [SPEAKER_00]: I got lucky. [SPEAKER_00]: Sort of. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Sort of. [SPEAKER_05]: So this is a good segue into into the next topic. [SPEAKER_05]: We're talking about, you know, maybe, you know, doing things together. [SPEAKER_05]: You guys about also traveled together of quite a few times, right?

1:25:47 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: One notable time is traveling to bugs on the bayou, which is Derek's event up there. [SPEAKER_05]: I haven't made it there, but I want to tell me what happens when a bunch of you get together and take a big road trip like this. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, all of us tend to go to Bugsham together. [SPEAKER_03]: Nite and I, amongst others who are not in this, not in the podcast you're doing, have gone to Bugsham to buy you now twice. [SPEAKER_03]: Nice. [SPEAKER_05]: I got it up there. [SPEAKER_03]: Speaking of Nite, we take the slow roll, we go back roads, we go, we leave Wednesday, we come home one day, we just take our time.

1:26:27 [SPEAKER_03]: Two years we broke down. [SPEAKER_05]: What happened? [SPEAKER_05]: Any stories from the breakdown? [SPEAKER_03]: I broke a CV joint. [SPEAKER_03]: And the spares that we had with us wouldn't work because I had some funky racing axles or something wrongs climb count. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what to do in there. [SPEAKER_05]: So anyway. [SPEAKER_03]: What's the fur that someone has traveled? [SPEAKER_03]: That would be it. [SPEAKER_03]: That would be it. [SPEAKER_03]: That's a group. [SPEAKER_03]: And I just gone further than that. [SPEAKER_03]: He's gone into the mountains of North Carolina and stuff by himself. [SPEAKER_03]: Nice. [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, I basically, I have driven to haterists because my parents were vacationing and I just took the back roads the whole way up there. [SPEAKER_00]: I've driven over to Asheville. [SPEAKER_00]: I've been to the panhand, I don't know, four times now.

1:27:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Two of them were Derek shows. [SPEAKER_00]: Other two times were just for fun going up to Dustin. [SPEAKER_00]: And then, I've been to the keys twice in my bus. [SPEAKER_00]: Daughter Jesse lived in Tampa, St. Pete area and I used to go down there all the time. [SPEAKER_00]: Also in my bus, she's got a 74 Westy. [SPEAKER_00]: So she's a daily driver and that one as well, but you said she's here. [SPEAKER_00]: Not anymore, she moved back up here to like Mary, but it had it, you know, it was it was good because you guys have a pretty vast community down there, but [SPEAKER_00]: Um, she's she's pretty independent, uh, does all her turns all her own wrenches also pretty pretty cool.

1:27:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, she's she's somebody you need to have on this. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, put me up. [SPEAKER_00]: I, I, I will I'll talk to her about it and maybe send me some contact info and I'll I'll just put you in touch with her and we'll make it happen because she's [SPEAKER_00]: She's actually as far as a young person just she's taken on the whole role of owning an old car and we all know what it means to own an old car. [SPEAKER_00]: You're either going to pay somebody a lot of money to work on it or you're going to figure out how to do it yourself. [SPEAKER_00]: And she is doing the figuring out how to do it yourself part. [SPEAKER_00]: Love so. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Pretty cool. [SPEAKER_00]: That's I mean, if you. [SPEAKER_00]: I got 125,000 miles on this bus and it's been all over the southeast all over.

1:28:37 [SPEAKER_00]: So can you pick a big torch with the Carolinas? [SPEAKER_00]: Yep. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when I went up to Asheville, I stayed up on Mount Piska and then I just drove everywhere, everywhere I could drive. [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I made sure my wheel bearings were good and my brakes were good. [SPEAKER_03]: That'd be for a win. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, those mountains were good. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, it was a great trip from the Carolinas. [SPEAKER_03]: Say what? [SPEAKER_03]: Did you drive it back, Jake? [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I, yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: When I bought the ice blocks, I bought it from Rick Decks. [SPEAKER_03]: He lived in poor St. Lucy, Florida for forever. [SPEAKER_03]: And I was up his butt trying to buy this bus from him. [SPEAKER_03]: And then in the meantime, he moved to the Bryson City, North Carolina. [SPEAKER_03]: sells me the bus. [SPEAKER_03]: So I had a drive.

1:29:18 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but I put home. [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, those mountains are, yeah, there's nothing to be tripled with. [SPEAKER_00]: I say, [SPEAKER_00]: part of that driving as a group thing. [SPEAKER_00]: There is nobody, if anybody breaks down, we all stop, we all solve the problem. [SPEAKER_00]: And that is one of the coolest things about our camaraderie, is that, yeah, we could all say, hey, somebody go ahead and get to the show or whatever. [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, we're just parked and we're running errands, we're doing stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: Last year Chuck Burnt Abel [SPEAKER_00]: uh... pulley seized up idler pulley seized up and you know what a stock feed of you belt still fits on top of that thing and the the brain of that was carol that was that was carol that was cool [SPEAKER_00]: Jay lost fuel pressure one year, Jay also lost an axle that a drove halfway to Alabama to get to one year.

1:30:27 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I finished that story in a second because Derek and Don Douro came through hard for that. [SPEAKER_04]: No, I was on my way to Thursday night and my, um, alternator shit the bed. [SPEAKER_04]: Not my alternative by a distributor and they came out there and helped me get them to do. [SPEAKER_04]: It's mostly a tool thing because anyway, [SPEAKER_04]: Jake came out there and we got the distributor replaced and I was back on my way to Thursday night. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's here's another story I'd like to share about Stephen Grant. [SPEAKER_00]: I was going to be driving along with the Christmas crews and my alternator died and Stephen Grant. [SPEAKER_00]: I just said in the group that we have a little group chat and said in the group chat looks like I'm about fellas I'll just meet you I'll just meet you getters and he goes I have two buses and he tossed me the keys to the splitty and I don't know how many people would do this but toss me the keys to their pride and joy bus and said you could drive the splitty and I drove the splitty time out he gave you the keys to the other one the pride and joy is the bay window bus let's be honest [SPEAKER_00]: That that that that's that split.

1:31:35 [SPEAKER_03]: He was so much fun. [SPEAKER_00]: But but that was a lot of fun. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how many people in other car clubs just hand the keys over to their cars and say here take this one. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: any one of these guys ever with trust with my car. [SPEAKER_05]: Let's let's touch on legacy. [SPEAKER_05]: 12 years from now. [SPEAKER_05]: What do you guys hope that southsideers looks like as a group. [SPEAKER_05]: I hope I'm still around to see it. [SPEAKER_05]: There's the honest Abe answer. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, let's see, 12 years, I'll be 65, so I'll be Carl's age now.

1:32:17 [SPEAKER_03]: And that's 65, you pick. [SPEAKER_05]: Do you guys still think you're going to be doing Thursday nights? [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't see Thursday changing. [SPEAKER_03]: No, yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_03]: There's nothing to change that other than being six feet under. [SPEAKER_05]: Do you guys think Southsideers is something that would eventually be passed down to another generation? [SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully, if we can get the younger generation, [SPEAKER_03]: interested enough to carry it on yeah right well for years and years and years years I was the young one on 53 I'm not the young one anymore there's plenty of people who are in their mid 40s low low you know lower 40s now so yeah there's going to be people around all right short answer from each of you I don't care who goes first when you hear the word south side or is BW what does it mean [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say brotherhood because I just don't know a better group of guys.

1:33:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, guys and girls, but it's a brotherhood sisterhood. [SPEAKER_00]: I just don't know a better group of people that have absolutely nothing else in common except cars, but we all give a give, give, and give to each other when we have to. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: It's family. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, family. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes. [SPEAKER_03]: We're giving lives a hard time at the trivia. [SPEAKER_03]: She's like, oh, I don't understand why you guys treat me like this. [SPEAKER_03]: It's because you're like our sister, that's what we do. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, at Southsideers, when I hear Southsideers BW, I just to me, it just says those are my people. [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, you're talking about not just you, but the people that you bring along for the ride or that are part of the whole journey and everybody that contributes and does things behind the scenes and makes artwork and makes little trophies and does those things.

1:34:01 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just something we proud of. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I had a story about it. [SPEAKER_01]: I was at the flea market right after we did the the the toys were tots and this this woman had a booth and I guess she worked for for Toy Shirtots and I heard her say oh he's south side of UW guys brought all this stuff and I stopped and I like that's us that's exactly what I want to hear. [SPEAKER_01]: And so they were amazed at how much stuff we brought. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's really about that contribution to the community and having the guys on the phone, the people that aren't here that make our groups too strong. [SPEAKER_01]: That's what it's all about. [SPEAKER_05]: That's a wrap for this episode of Dub Life Diaries. [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for riding along with us and diving into these incredible stories of the people in the Dub that drive their dreams. [SPEAKER_05]: If you love today's episode, don't forget to subscribe or hit that follow button so you never miss an adventure.

1:34:45 [SPEAKER_05]: Do you have a story to tell or know somebody else who's living the dove life? [SPEAKER_05]: Awesome. [SPEAKER_05]: Reach out to us. [SPEAKER_05]: You can find us on all socials and dove life diaries. [SPEAKER_05]: Or shoot me an email. [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not hard to find. [SPEAKER_05]: Double life diaries at gmail.com. [SPEAKER_05]: Until next time, keep the engine tummin and the wheels turning and always follow the road that inspires you. [SPEAKER_05]: This is Joe Person. [SPEAKER_05]: I'm signing off. [SPEAKER_05]: I'll catch you on the next ride.