The mission has changed, the passion has not. Chris Brahs and Drew Garcia talk with us about the changes at Outlaw Desert Racing due to government-mandated changes in their state and how they pivoted. Adrenaline Therapy, pit support and off-road racing across the region in support of combat veterans is their focus now. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app – a new episode releases every Thursday at 2 a.m. – if you subscribe on an app or YouTube, you’ll get notified every week.
Show Notes
5:25 – just work hard, play hard, right?
10:44 – our social media just took off the last three months
18:11 – That’s the good thing about the teamwork that Drew and I have created…
29:08 – our New Mexico land trust commissioner wouldn’t even have a meeting with us
35:26 – one of our goals is kind of a dream
42:11 – we gather items to mail overseas to troops that are deployed for Christmas
48:14 – we have a lot of support and we’re growing
https://outlawdesertracing.com/
We want to thank our sponsors Maxxis Tires and 4Low Magazine.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:47.080] – Big Rich Klein
On today’s episode of conversations with Big Rich, we have Chris Brahs, president of Outlaw desert racing series and Drew Garcia, the vice president of the Outlaw desert racing series. We’re going to find out more about these guys and their 501(c)(3) nonprofit and their adrenaline therapy program that they’re doing with their off road racing. But before we get into the racing, let’s get into your guys’ background, but thank you for coming on board.
[00:02:18.000] – Chris Brahs
Thank you. Rich. Happy new year. And we’re excited about this.
[00:02:21.810] – Big Rich Klein
Awesome. And Drew?
[00:02:24.100] – Drew Garcia
Yeah. Thank you.
[00:02:25.060] – Drew Garcia
Happy new year to everybody out there.
[00:02:27.050] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah, it is new year’s day for anybody that’s going to listen to this podcast, which I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of you. So let’s jump right in. And Chris, where were you born and raised?
[00:02:42.040] – Chris Brahs
I was born in eastern Washington, and in 1980 we moved to Idaho to the family ranch and grew up there a couple of times back and forth to Washington to help my grandfather out with the livestock auction yard that he built and with his age and whatnot. But finalized high school and stuff in Washington or in Idaho state and went to the military after that for seven and a half years and combat rescue, helicopter crew chief. And the last year I was in was security forces, law enforcement. And that’s about that for the first bump in the road in my life, I guess you’d say.
[00:03:28.950] – Big Rich Klein
Okay, and what part of Idaho is that?
[00:03:32.280] – Chris Brahs
McCall, 100 miles north of Boise, up in the mountains, 5000 foot elevation, lots of snow year round recreation, snowmobiling, skiing, hunting, hiking, fishing, camping, everything that you can think of. The valley that I lived in, Valley County actually is the name of the county. Back then they had 1100 miles of groom trail in the wintertime for snowmobile. Yeah, I used to ride the snowmobile to school every once in a while. We lived 28 miles from town and then moved closer, a little bit closer to town. But it was 18 miles from town. Pardon but there was a few times rode the snow mobilethe school because of the county plow, couldn’t keep up. That’s the only time we got snow days. Right?
[00:04:31.500] – Big Rich Klein
And how about you, Drew?
[00:04:34.060] – Drew Garcia
Well, I was born in 1973, I’m 49 years old now and I was born in camp Lejune in North Carolina on the military base. My dad was in the Marine, so I was a Marine brat growing up until I was about 15. Ended up in California, San Diego where my dad was stationed there and yeah, it’s kind of some of my roots there and then my family is from New Mexico, from Albuquerque and Clayton area so I would go back and forth and yeah, that’s pretty much my roots there. Grew up, went to high school, played football, college football and then I played semi pro football for about seven years. I was the defensive nose tackle and during that time I was always into offroading so I was up at Apple Valley, California.
[00:05:24.740] – Drew Garcia
So high.
[00:05:25.660] – Drew Garcia
Desert was right there. Lucerne Valley, barstow. Johnson Valley. So I’ve been doing pre runners and rock crawling since I could ever remember and friends and neighbors had them. So it was just a dream that that’s what I was going to do when I grew up. So yeah, those are my roots and finally came back with the family back in Albuquerque, settled here. This is where I met my wife. I have two wonderful children and they’re all grown up out of college now. So just work hard, play hard, right? READ MORE
