On episode 33 of Roadkill
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 This time on Roadkill, we went on our Facebook page
00:02 and we told some people, you know what,
00:03 meet us right here at this parking lot
00:04 'cause we're gonna buy a car
00:06 and road trip it from Indy all the way to Tulsa.
00:08 And these guys showed up.
00:09 (crowd cheering)
00:11 (car engine revving)
00:15 (upbeat rock music)
00:18 (car engine revving)
00:21 We're here nearby Indy, about four miles
00:33 from the drag strip where the NHRA US Nationals
00:35 are going on and we gotta buy a car.
00:36 So we invited a bunch of fans to come out here
00:39 and meet us in this parking lot and bring their cars out.
00:41 I've got a pocket full of cash
00:44 and we're gonna go home with one of these junkers over here.
00:46 We can get into a lot of trouble with $5,000.
00:49 - Why are we buying a car?
00:51 - Should be at the strip club.
00:52 (laughing)
00:53 Let's go, 'cause I see cool stuff.
00:56 If you can get people to ditch work, ditch school,
00:59 and show up to a Walmart parking lot on Monday
01:02 just to sell you a car they really don't wanna sell,
01:05 you're probably doing something right
01:06 for your little online show.
01:08 - About 12 guys showed up with cars for sale,
01:10 which is super cool.
01:12 And even cooler, there was a big crowd of people
01:14 who just came out to see what was gonna happen
01:16 and brought their own rides with them.
01:18 - A few of the cars we passed on
01:19 were a diesel-powered Mercedes,
01:21 an all-wheel drive Honda with a six-speed,
01:24 an old Monza, a rotary-powered RX-7,
01:27 a third-gen Camaro, a Fox-body Mustang
01:30 that even had a spare roll cage in the back.
01:32 There was some good iron here,
01:34 but none of that stuff was cool enough
01:36 to go on this road trip.
01:38 - Ultimately, we narrowed it down to four cars.
01:41 There was a '67 Ford Country Sedan,
01:44 which is pretty much a Galaxy station wagon.
01:46 It had a 390 under the hood, an automatic,
01:48 no power steering, no power brakes.
01:51 This thing was on.
01:52 This is way too good for us.
01:54 - Yeah, a door could fall off any minute now.
01:56 - Let me guess, you have to pull up
01:58 on the column shifter to get it to start?
02:00 - Oh yeah, yeah, how'd you know?
02:01 - It's a '67 Ford.
02:03 I don't know, that's gonna be hard to contend with.
02:05 Man, oh dude, this is mint.
02:09 - I'm falling in love, we need to move away.
02:10 - I know, we need to move away 'cause this is too big.
02:12 - We could be done right now.
02:14 - Wow.
02:15 - There was sudden death, the off-road built Ford LTD
02:21 that was just nutso.
02:22 - That's the quietest front muffler mounted car
02:33 I've ever heard in my life.
02:34 - Well, we'll cut 'em off.
02:35 I don't know, this is pretty road kill.
02:36 Dude, what are you trying to sell me here?
02:38 Did you see the rust?
02:40 - No, all I see is awesome exhaust.
02:42 I don't see anything else.
02:43 Okay, all right.
02:44 - That's pretty good.
02:46 What else we got? - We'll be back.
02:46 Yeah, we'll be back.
02:48 - Then there was the limo.
02:52 Not a full-on stretch limo,
02:53 but a Cadillac production limo with a 472 in it.
02:56 Not bad, a little rust.
02:57 - Little rust.
02:58 - Did you see the dash in this thing?
03:00 It's like new.
03:02 Interior's actually pretty good.
03:04 - We buys this, you're driving the entire time
03:06 and I'm riding in the back.
03:10 - Truly like new.
03:11 Does it do burnouts?
03:13 - You gotta lean on it.
03:14 - Yeah, but yeah.
03:15 - All right, we need to keep shopping
03:16 'cause there's a three-way tie happening.
03:18 - Yep, three-way.
03:18 - Stay tuned.
03:19 - Tell us your story.
03:23 - This is a one-owner car, low miles.
03:26 - Then there was the S10
03:28 and we were taking that thing pretty seriously
03:30 because, well, look at it.
03:33 Handed out a V8 under the hood
03:34 and it was loud and ultimately it does good burnout.
03:37 (engine revving)
03:40 - How much is this one?
03:42 - I'd love to get 35, but I think that was a little over 15.
03:47 (laughing)
03:49 - You drive a hard bargain.
03:50 - Oh, that was the best thing I've heard all day.
03:53 So this versus hookers and blow,
03:56 certain death and the wagon.
03:57 I'm more into the wagon than I am the S15.
04:00 - Well, the S15 has more character
04:03 like from a complete piece of junk point of view.
04:05 It has sawzalling the roof off of it.
04:08 It has putty nitrous on it.
04:09 We can run that into stuff.
04:10 - I didn't even think about how crappy it was
04:12 and it didn't matter what we did to it.
04:13 - Right, that one, you know the whole time
04:15 you listened to me whining about,
04:16 oh, we can't drill a hole in this.
04:17 We can't run this into a tree.
04:19 That one is just gonna be a cruiser.
04:21 Let's talk about certain death for a second.
04:23 Most of what we would like to do is already done.
04:25 We can't really take the credit for it.
04:27 But see, we could add our own little something to it.
04:29 We can go get some house paint.
04:31 - It's got such a good look though.
04:33 - All right, so then how about hookers and blow?
04:34 - I love it.
04:35 - Not the hookers and blow.
04:36 I mean, I love the car.
04:37 Car's good.
04:38 - Yeah.
04:39 - The lazy man in me says,
04:40 I wanna ride all the way to Tulsa
04:41 in the backseat of that while you drive.
04:43 - I'm really torn.
04:44 Personally, I would say I most wanna own the wagon.
04:46 I most probably wanna drive certain death.
04:50 - This is hard.
04:51 - Man, we're indecisive.
04:52 - Like none of these will suck.
04:54 This will all be amazing.
04:55 - We could find somebody to pick for us.
04:57 - I like that plan.
04:59 - How about him?
04:59 - All right.
05:00 - Which one would you pick?
05:01 Oh, wait.
05:04 - Oh, you're influencing.
05:06 - Cadillac or the wagon.
05:06 - Okay, Cadillac or wagon.
05:08 Which way would you go?
05:09 - Wagon.
05:10 - Yeah, wagon.
05:11 - Wagon?
05:12 Okay, wagon or pickup truck?
05:14 - Wagon or pickup truck?
05:16 Which one?
05:17 - They're the wagon.
05:20 - Wagon, okay.
05:21 - All right.
05:22 - Wagon or LTD?
05:23 - They're the wagon.
05:25 - Okay, we're getting the wagon.
05:26 - We're getting the wagon.
05:27 - All right.
05:28 - Okay.
05:29 - Thanks, little man.
05:30 (all clapping)
05:30 - Thank you for helping us.
05:31 - We're gonna be on the episode.
05:33 - We're gonna be on the episode now.
05:34 - We bought ourselves a station wagon
05:36 and I'm now tempted to drive it all the way back
05:37 to California for the birth of my child.
05:39 - We use it a few times a year.
05:40 Me and my buddies will go to the races
05:42 and we'll go to car shows and stuff,
05:43 pile all in and whatever they do,
05:45 I'm gonna follow it and I can't wait.
05:47 - Well, we just bought this thing.
05:48 We've never seen it run.
05:49 So we figured we might as well give it a brief once over
05:52 before we hit the road.
05:53 - Ooh.
05:56 - Wow.
05:57 I don't care.
06:02 I got cookies.
06:03 - You broke it already.
06:04 You threw coolant everywhere.
06:06 - Hey, where'd that LCD go?
06:09 - Okay, so now all of you,
06:10 the next time you're watching this show and you go,
06:11 I wonder if they faked that.
06:13 It's blowing out of this completely loose hose clamp
06:18 right here.
06:19 We'll even let you fix that.
06:21 - All right, let's try it again.
06:25 Does it have reverse?
06:29 - Yes.
06:30 - It has reverse.
06:31 - Bye.
06:33 (engine revving)
06:34 - Oh yeah.
06:34 - This is pretty awesome.
06:39 - Okay.
06:42 - You want the tire to pop?
06:45 - Yeah.
06:46 - Woo.
06:50 - Nice.
06:51 Oh, that's good.
06:53 Right through the back window.
06:54 - Like Cheech and Chong now.
07:01 - It wasn't us, officer.
07:02 What are you talking about?
07:05 So now we've got the wagon.
07:09 We've done a good burnout,
07:10 but the big question is what are we doing in Indy?
07:13 We're going to drive one mile down the road
07:15 and go to the NHRA US Nationals.
07:18 All right, let's merge.
07:19 Wow.
07:22 Oh, carbon monoxide death.
07:26 - We need to get that back window up.
07:27 - We're going to be putting the back window up
07:28 or Lexan-ing it or something.
07:30 There's as much smoke in here as when we did the burnout.
07:32 (coughing)
07:34 This thing cruises though.
07:36 - All my dreams are coming true.
07:38 Got a station wagon, going to the US Nationals.
07:40 Not bad.
07:41 - And we have chocolate chip cookies.
07:43 - I've never been to the big go.
07:45 I've never been to Indy during an NHRA national event.
07:49 So this was huge for me.
07:51 All these crew chiefs and drivers and owners
07:54 that I have watched on television since I was a kid
07:58 were now feet away from me on the starting line.
08:01 Look at the whole John Force.
08:03 Like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
08:07 (engine revving)
08:10 Oh my God, that's awesome.
08:12 (upbeat music)
08:26 - This might be the best day at work ever.
08:28 - If you watched episode 27 of Roadkill,
08:31 then you know that we met Don Schumacher.
08:33 And that was way back in like April of 2014.
08:37 - Well, we're hoping to go see Don Schumacher
08:38 who we met in the Corvette episode.
08:40 And we're hoping he actually lets us in his pits
08:42 because we flaked on him at least three times
08:44 when we promised him we were going to show up.
08:46 You know your big time when you get a police escort
08:54 through the pits.
08:55 - It's a large sea of people, I only know one of them.
08:57 - Good to see you.
08:58 - How you doing man?
08:59 - I'm doing good.
09:00 - How are you?
09:01 - Good to see you.
09:01 - How are you?
09:02 - How are you?
09:07 - Welcome to my office away from home.
09:10 - I was going to say, you probably live here more than home.
09:12 - Come on, I'll show you around a little bit.
09:14 (upbeat music)
09:16 Each area has its own set of tools,
09:19 massive amount of parts and pieces.
09:21 - Yeah.
09:22 - Wow.
09:23 - There's another motor back there.
09:24 - Yeah.
09:25 - Scott Motors under the cabin.
09:26 - Sitting around.
09:28 - Well he probably got eight to 10 short blocks here.
09:31 We have another chassis upstairs with a body on it
09:34 with a short block in it ready to go.
09:36 - We'll be talking about it.
09:37 - And the same for every team, right?
09:39 - Yeah.
09:40 - You know, if you guys went down the road with this,
09:42 you could fix whatever you broke.
09:43 - And we wouldn't have a show.
09:45 - Not only did Don let us hang out in his pit and feed us,
09:49 but we got to hang out with a few of his drivers,
09:51 including Spencer Massey, who races Top Fuel Dragster,
09:55 and Matt Hagen, who races Funny Car.
09:57 Both of these guys drive cars with 10,000 horsepower
10:01 under the hoods, and they're capable of traveling
10:04 across a racing surface that's a thousand feet long
10:07 at over 320 miles an hour.
10:09 (car engine roaring)
10:12 - Dude, look, it's Don Schumacher,
10:18 and he just gave me a pass,
10:19 and now we're going to the starting line
10:20 at the US freaking Nationals.
10:23 - It was just a thrill to be able to hang out
10:25 with Don Schumacher.
10:26 It was just a good time.
10:28 (upbeat music)
10:30 - It's about 3.45 here in Indy,
10:41 and all of Don Schumacher's teams have lost,
10:44 which is a drag for him, but it's good for us,
10:46 'cause we're going to go get a tour of his shop
10:47 right down the road here in Indy.
10:48 But first, Finnegan's going to fix the glass
10:51 in the back of the wagon,
10:52 'cause the carbon monoxide in this thing is killing us.
10:55 It's worse than that Cuda that we drove in Texas.
10:58 Absolutely brutal.
10:59 So we got to roll the glass up.
11:01 So let's just tape this now.
11:02 - We need to tape it.
11:03 - Yeah.
11:04 (tape ripping)
11:07 - Declare this car roadworthy.
11:11 (upbeat music)
11:18 - It's not as bad.
11:19 - Smell it.
11:19 - I smell it, but it's not as bad.
11:21 How much do you think we've shortened our lives
11:22 by doing roadkill,
11:23 just from the amount of carbon monoxide we've inhaled?
11:26 - But how much have we extended our own glory?
11:28 - Oh, dead legends?
11:32 - Yeah.
11:33 - That's cool.
11:34 Except for the parts we've got to lay under this car,
11:38 this is going to be comfortable.
11:40 - Man, this is lap of luxury.
11:42 - Oh, there it is.
11:45 - Yep.
11:46 - Holy crap.
11:47 - I guess it's right there.
11:47 - Yep.
11:48 (laughing)
11:49 - Hard to miss.
11:50 - If you died and went to heaven,
11:52 Don's shop would look a lot like
11:53 what your garage would look like.
11:56 Floors you could eat off of,
11:57 'cause they were that clean.
11:59 CNC machine equipment,
12:01 chunks of billet everywhere
12:02 that you could turn into engine blocks or cylinder heads.
12:04 And oh yeah, the building is so big
12:07 that you can pull the semi-tractor trailers
12:09 of all six of his racing teams inside the building,
12:12 roll out all the cars, set up the pits,
12:14 and maintain them right there.
12:17 The thing I liked most was the blower dyno.
12:21 This thing was so complicated,
12:23 I could not tell exactly what they were doing here.
12:26 And so we had one of the crew chiefs come in and explain it.
12:28 Basically, they use this electric motor
12:30 to get the thing spinning up at speed,
12:33 and then bam, they've got a clutch in it
12:34 that engages this engine
12:36 and instantly takes that blower
12:37 from idle speed up to 8,000 RPM.
12:40 Mind-blowing stuff here.
12:42 - Hell of a tour.
12:43 - That was great.
12:44 (metal clanking)
12:47 - Not a bad day.
12:49 - Do you think about what other people
12:50 must think of our jobs?
12:51 It's pretty ludicrous.
12:53 (laughing)
12:56 - Keep forgetting about all the stuff in the back.
12:57 - Did you see what the car just did?
12:59 - Yeah.
13:00 The fun of buying this car
13:08 and the excitement of the US Nationals
13:10 immediately tapered down
13:11 into about the most quiet road trip we've ever had.
13:15 We took these tiny roads heading out of Indianapolis,
13:18 making our way to Tulsa for the start of Hot Rod Drag Week.
13:21 - We took back roads.
13:22 That way, we'd get to see America.
13:24 We'd see pawn shops and small auto parts stores
13:26 and junkyards and all those things
13:28 that we don't normally get to hang out at
13:29 during a typical roadkill when we're thrashing.
13:32 - It gave me and Finnegan a chance
13:33 to talk about something more than our imminent demise,
13:36 which is the norm for roadkill.
13:39 I'm getting kind of attached to the wagon.
13:42 - Yeah.
13:42 - I feel spoiled.
13:43 - I don't wanna get rid of the wagon.
13:44 I like it.
13:45 I'd like to make it spunkier, though.
13:48 - How would you propose doing that?
13:49 - We don't just get nitrous bottles.
13:51 We get mother bottles, two of them.
13:53 Strap them to the roof,
13:55 wide them together,
13:56 and we have a 50 shot that lasts for eight or nine miles.
13:59 That's never been done before, I don't think.
14:03 - Actually, what would make you go faster at that point
14:05 is to put the mother bottles on the roof
14:07 with the nozzle pointing backwards
14:09 and just sledgehammer off.
14:10 - You know, the valve.
14:12 - The car, not to be judgmental,
14:14 has a little bit of rust, a little bit of oxide in it.
14:17 - Yeah.
14:17 - And it would just rip the roof off the car.
14:20 - It could happen, yeah.
14:21 - Instead of making the car go faster.
14:23 - Ratchet strap all the way around the car.
14:25 - Oh my God, I don't know.
14:27 - The trip ended up being so cash,
14:28 we had time to bench race.
14:30 We stopped to see a buddy
14:31 and finally crashed for the night
14:32 in New Baden, Illinois, right across from St. Louis.
14:35 (car engine revving)
14:38 Can't believe I'm saying this, but fire up the wipers.
14:44 (car engine revving)
14:47 - Oh yeah, look at that.
14:49 See you later, lot lizards.
14:51 We're out.
14:54 (car engine revving)
15:04 - When you think St. Louis, you think Bigfoot.
15:07 There's no Bigfoot out front.
15:09 - No, but there's a tank with a Ford Aerostar body on it.
15:11 And I've watched that run over cars before.
15:14 - Gotta tell you, kind of a letdown.
15:15 - Going?
15:16 - Yeah.
15:17 - Bob Chandler, you failed me.
15:19 You want to stop and let these people know
15:20 they're only going to be let down.
15:22 Look, you can see the look on her face.
15:23 She's going, that's not Bigfoot.
15:24 That's the Ford Aerostar on a tank chassis.
15:27 (imitating car engine revving)
15:30 (upbeat music)
15:33 - We stopped at a junkyard, which ended badly
15:39 when we got threatened by an old man with a steel pipe.
15:42 The guy threatened us with a steel pipe.
15:44 Yeah, but do you want to deal with that?
15:46 The guy's obviously going to continue coming after us.
15:48 That's crazy.
15:49 We bailed out of there and headed to Oak Grove, Missouri,
15:52 where we were going to visit
15:53 with some of our Drag Week racers.
15:54 - How you been?
15:57 - I've been good, man.
15:58 - Hi, David, how are you?
15:58 I didn't expect to see you.
15:59 - And we're at Todd Mashmeyer's shop.
16:01 That's Todd there in the black shirt
16:03 and Travis Gilpin in the gray.
16:05 - These guys are totally roadkill people.
16:07 'Cause anybody that has the engine out of their car
16:09 and the cylinder heads off of it
16:10 two days before they're supposed to be drag racing,
16:12 well, they'll hang out with us, no problem.
16:14 Even if we didn't bring beer.
16:16 Look at this over here.
16:17 That's an intake manifold.
16:19 And it didn't fit the cylinder heads.
16:22 And he could have very easily put spacers underneath it
16:25 to make it fit the cylinder heads.
16:27 He didn't do that.
16:28 He cut it in half.
16:29 Welded it back together.
16:31 And he's still gotta machine it to fit.
16:33 But he's doing all of this with, I don't know,
16:35 two or three days left.
16:36 He definitely lives the roadkill life.
16:40 - Leaving Todd's place, we knew we still needed
16:42 to show you some destruction on roadkill.
16:44 And so here we present
16:46 gratuitous shots of a guy destroying a house.
16:48 - This is basically an analogy of my career.
16:57 (rock music)
16:59 Yeah!
17:01 Woo!
17:04 By now you're wondering what's all the racket
17:10 coming from the front of the car.
17:12 This is Indy.
17:13 That's Jamie Hannon, the guy from the Corvette episode
17:15 that sold us that piece of crap.
17:17 And he thought it'd be funny when we weren't looking
17:19 by popping off the left front hubcap
17:21 and throwing about 75 cents in it.
17:23 And we just decided to leave it in there
17:24 to see what happens to 75 cents
17:26 after about a thousand miles.
17:27 - Well, and to prove him that we don't care.
17:30 - Nah.
17:31 - Yeah. - Aha!
17:32 So after a nice leisurely five day drive
17:37 with Fryburger in the wagon,
17:40 getting to drag week was a welcome change
17:42 because suddenly there was fury.
17:45 There was noise, there was smoke,
17:47 there was horsepower.
17:49 Everything that our trip was lacking once we left Indy.
17:53 What better place than a drag strip to go tailgating?
17:56 This car came with a barbecue.
17:58 It would be a crime not to use it.
18:00 And look what I got, ready?
18:02 Oh fire.
18:05 That's not good.
18:07 No lighter fluid needed, says the bag.
18:10 You don't barbecue, do you?
18:12 - Why is it going foosh?
18:14 That's like California lighter fluid.
18:16 - And if you're gonna tailgate,
18:17 you might as well tailgate at the finish line
18:19 because that's where all the action is.
18:21 (car engine revving)
18:24 This is Hot Rod Drag Week,
18:35 where we afflict roadkill punishment
18:38 on a whole bunch of other people,
18:39 most of whom have more skills than us.
18:41 This is where we take drag racing street legal cars
18:44 and make them race five times
18:46 at four drag strips in five days.
18:49 We add up their elapsed times
18:50 and the one with the quickest overall wins,
18:53 but the battle is really on the road.
18:55 We make these cars drive a thousand plus miles
18:57 from track to track along the way.
18:59 Once drag week began, Freiburger and I split up.
19:03 He had one job to do, I had another,
19:05 and my job was to hang out in the pits
19:07 and check up on all the racers
19:09 and find out their stories.
19:12 It was to interview the guys
19:13 who were trying to achieve personal ET goals,
19:16 guys who were just trying to get to the next track,
19:18 guys who were trying to keep their cars running,
19:20 people who were trying to go fast in street cars.
19:24 This dude came all the way from Australia,
19:27 blew up the engine before drag week even started,
19:30 and he's fixing it just so he can make passes
19:34 even though he can't win this thing.
19:36 Very roadkill.
19:38 Drag week rules because it's roadkill on steroids.
19:42 It's you versus the road, you versus your car,
19:46 you need to summon all of the MacGyver you have in you
19:49 to beat whatever the road throws at you.
19:51 It's not just about going fast,
19:53 it's about getting to the finish line
19:55 no matter what happens.
19:56 And the guys that make it to the end
19:58 are the baddest hot rodders on the planet.
20:00 While drag week is one of my favorite events of the year,
20:03 it is also work.
20:04 I've gotta tech all these cars for class,
20:07 I gotta shoot photos, direct the web and video coverage,
20:10 and I announce in the booth all week long.
20:13 This thing is just awesome though.
20:15 I love drag week and this is the biggest ever
20:17 with 310 cars.
20:19 And the drama delivered.
20:21 First of all, remember Mashmeyer?
20:23 The guy with the short block,
20:24 not quite done four days before the event?
20:26 Well, they got their engine in the car,
20:28 they got it completely wired,
20:29 they showed up at drag week,
20:30 and unfortunately failed on the very first day
20:33 and they were out.
20:34 But there was other roadkill guys who had big wins.
20:38 Specifically, Jeff and Jeffrey Lutz
20:40 in this pair of black '57 Chevys.
20:43 These guys were in the episode where we put the leaf blowers
20:46 on the Monza and we used their shop,
20:48 which is a complete juxtaposition of these killer cars.
20:51 And Lutz won overall with his six second '57 Chevy
20:55 that became Hot Rod's fastest street car in America.
20:58 (car engine roaring)
21:02 - Is that Jeff Lutz has won the unlimited category,
21:04 has won the overall championship at drag week in 2014,
21:08 and it was a seesaw battle.
21:10 - The other big deal at drag week was Larry Larson.
21:13 He's won this thing five times in a row
21:15 and built this new S10, which is just crazy.
21:18 Unfortunately, he failed at drag week by breaking apart
21:21 and not being able to secure the win.
21:23 But the next day, he came out onto the track
21:27 during the Hot Rod heads up shootout
21:29 and laid down the single quickest pass of all time
21:33 for a street legal vehicle.
21:34 6.16 at 219 miles an hour.
21:38 In the end, we might not have broken down
21:41 at the side of the road,
21:42 we might not have done an engine swap
21:44 in the middle of nowhere,
21:45 but this was an awesome road kill.
21:47 We got a chance to hang at the US Nationals
21:49 with one of the biggest names in the entire NHRA
21:52 being Don Schumacher.
21:54 We met with drivers,
21:55 we had a great drive through Awesome Americana,
21:57 and we ended at one of the most bitchin' events of all time,
22:01 Hot Rod Drag Week.
22:02 And in its 10th year, drag week delivered
22:05 with some of the best drama ever.
22:08 We ended up leaving our wagon behind at the track
22:11 and ultimately one of the guys here at the company
22:13 bought the thing,
22:14 and we flew home ready to road kill another day.
22:16 What's wrong with our world where, you know,
22:20 we keep all the clapped out, blown up 50 GMC,
22:23 Datsun 240Z, crap that doesn't run,
22:27 our perfectly good, virtually new,
22:29 one owner, barn find wagon?
22:32 Outta here.
22:33 - Masochist.