From NASCAR Driver to Snowbird Director (part 2 of 2) | Hank Parker Jr.

In today’s episode, Brody sits down with Hank Parker Jr., who now leads the marketing, sales, and programming teams at Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. Hank was formerly a NASCAR driver and then founded Fireband Media, a production company that produced short films and outdoor television programming. 

Hank walks through his life’s story and how he started racing, moved to television, and eventually arrived at Snowbird. The Lord’s hand has been evident in his life.

Click here to listen to Hank Parker Jr.’s testimony at the Be Strong men’s conference.

Transcript – Part 2 – From NASCAR Driver to Snowbird Director – Hank Parker Jr.

All right, well we’re back with Hank Parker today. I guess Hank Parker Jr. is what I need to call him, but anyway, he’s back on the show. We’re gonna do part two, follow up last week’s conversation. Before we get into that, I wanted to make a major announcement for those of you that listen and can be here this coming Saturday, September the 24th, September 24th at 3:00 PM. That’s Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. As of right now, it’s set for the North Campus in the Super Coop. If that changed, it would just be to bring it back to main campus in the Coop. But we’re gonna be doing a memorial service for the Big Kahuna, Steve the Big Kahuna Coleman. And we’d love for you to join us. Anybody that’s ever been impacted by this ministry that’s willing to come up, you can stay. We’re gonna make available, we have no event going on at Snowbird that weekend. That’s why we’ve waited. A month to do this. There’s nothing going on. So we’ve got the camp facility is wide open. If you need a place to stay, if you want to come in Friday night the 23rd, you’re welcome to crash here and just have a day of celebration and reflection.

Walk the property. We want to invite you to come in and do that. If you want to stay Saturday night after the celebration, it’d be at three o’clock, be about an hour, hour and a half. Hour and a half memorial service and bring your grill and stay and cook out or you can eat, grab some food locally. We’re not going to be serving food or anything like that, but man, we’d love to have people who have been impacted by this ministry come and celebrate the homegoing of the big kahuna and celebrate his life and legacy here. So please come and join us and we’d love to see you. Also, On behalf of my wife, on behalf of little and her brother Stephen and his wife Tammy, the entire family, the grandkids, thank you all for those of you that have sent condolences and said, you know, kind words. And we’ve had some folks give money to the scholarship fund that will get students that’ll get kids to camp. This past year we spent over $50,000 in scholarshiping students. It was actually up around $70,000. To be honest, the total that I got a couple days ago for kids to come here and go to camp and to not have to pay for that.

And that’s a big deal. And so some folks have given to that scholarship fund in lieu of flowers for scholarships in memory of Steve Coleman. So thank y’all. What else? That’s about it for now because I want to dive right in We’re coming off of our Be Strong weekend, just had the Be Strong conference. Awesome as always. Coming out of that and praying that the Lord will use that and continue to challenge and encourage men. Those of you that listen to this podcast who were here this past weekend, pray that it was a blessing. Would love to hear feedback from you. And also just pray that you’ll go and you’ll be on fire for Jesus, man. Go be better daddies and husbands and Faithful friends and workers and employees and employers and make a difference for the kingdom. So just gonna jump right in. Me and Hank, we’re gonna chop it up. We talked a little bit about, we start off talking about hunting and just, oh man, just jawing, you know, but we’re gonna pretty quick get into what, you know, why God led him here, why, you know, the way that the Lord led him here and why he’s so passionate about what he does in this ministry.

And then I’ll come back at the end, close it out, and I’m gonna give you then a little bit of an overview of what Hank’s job is specifically, and just so you can kind of wrap your brain around it. Thanks for joining us. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Hank Parker Jr. Welcome to no Sanity Required from the ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe. All right, so let’s just let’s pick up where we left off last week. We were we were talking when we went off the air after that last episode. Hank had asked me man, is that did we go too long? Is that too much? Man, no, I was that was I mean, I feel like I’ve known you as long as I’ve known you. I feel like I know a lot of the stories And I’ve heard you do presentation. We’ve used you at Be Strong, you’ve shared here, I’ve heard you at other events. But where you’ve got it bottled into a 30 to 40 minute presentation, it’s high level, it’s fast moving, it gets more into what we’re getting ready to get into in this episode, because that’s the big stuff.

Your walk with Jesus, how you came to faith, the formation of your theology, Christian formation. Because that that’s what matters. That’s right. In the big picture.

That’s right.

And it’s what and it’s the reason you’re sitting here. You ain’t sitting here. NASCAR ain’t got nothing to do while you’re sitting here in the big picture. You know, that’s not why you’re at Snowbird. If you had never gone down that path and we had crossed paths, I think you’d still be sitting here. But the thing is, I don’t think we’d have crossed paths. Yeah. The Lord, everything in God’s sovereign plan ties and stitched together.

That’s right.

And I think when I met you, I did not know you from NASCAR. Because I mentioned in the last episode, I was a race fan. I was a race fan as a kid because my granddaddy was a diehard race fan. We’d go to the New Asheville Speedway pretty much every weekend. Did you ever run there?

I never ran there.

It was smaller.

It was like a quarter mile.

Yeah. I mean, did it go to late model?

Yeah, they most know they raced late model stock. So you had the Presleys, Robert Presley and all those guys race there.

I went to school with Robert’s boys.

That’s cool.

Or with his one boys, my brother’s age.

But.

When I got and then I followed racing in the nineties, but just as a I followed Dale Earnhardt.

Right.

I kind of kept, you know, I wasn’t a diehard fan. And so I knew your name. From watching racing. I was not a very hardcore fan, but I followed it. So I knew your name, but then, you know, I just didn’t think about any of that stuff. And then I saw you. I was at my mom’s house, and I found y’all’s show, and you’re sitting on a muzzle loader hunt in Kentucky. You didn’t kill, you left, and you came back later and tagged one. Yeah.

You remember that episode? Yeah. Hell yeah.

And so I’m watching that and I’m like, I think Parker Jr. Man, this like he raced cars and his daddy was, you know, was the guy that I used to watch when I was a kid. He’s in connecting all the dots because Austin Rammel had told me that you started attending Venture.

That’s right.

You started experimenting with, you know, kind of visiting, because that was like a 45 minute drive. You went on, became an elder at that church, served faithfully there for a while as a lay elder. But I started to connect these dots and I’m watching an episode, I’m like, I need to get Hank. We used to do a Wild Game Sportsman’s Dinner slash Wild Game thing. You’ve done a bunch of that and your dad does a bunch of that. I’m like, yeah, I can reach out to Austin and get this guy’s number and get him up here. And that’s how our relationship started. So when I met you, you were walking with the Lord. And you said in the last episode, I think you said you were about two years into you’re about two years into film production.

Right, that’s right.

At that point. That’s right. So let’s go back, because I meet you as a believer and then start to stitch together your story, which I’ve heard your testimony, how the Lord moved you out of racing, and I’d love folks to hear that, because that’s what it’s all about. So walk us through that, like meeting Wendy, because the reality is, It’s crazy and it’s really good for me to hear everything you just talked about in that last episode about as far as like and I would encourage you if you didn’t hear the if you’re listening to this and you didn’t hear last week’s episode, you need to go back and check that out. But and I always hate it when people say that. Yeah, but you really do.

Yeah, it’s a background.

It’s a big part of story. But here in all those, how much has to line up perfectly? That’s right. I mean, for you to get in the rides you got in, like, it’s not, it’s, it’s, you got to be good enough, but there’s probably a lot of guys that are good enough, but don’t have the right opportunity at the right time and then capitalize on it. Maybe they have the right opportunity at the right time and they have an off day. Maybe they have the best day ever, but other circumstances.

That’s right.

Cause everything to kiss like everything has to line up just right.

Oh, yeah.

And we know in your story, it’s a sovereign move and work and plan of God.

That’s right.

But how do you go from, how do you get there?

All right, well, how about.

All right.

How about I start how I came to faith? Yeah, we’ll work from there. I think that’d make the most sense. So, you know, growing up as a kid, my dad was kind of my hero. My dad, came to faith when I was just like a year old. My grandfather had gotten killed helping build a church, a church plant in Kansas. And on the way home, he got killed in an automobile accident, riding with the church in the church van. He was the only person to get killed. And he had a note in his Bible just talking about how he prayed for his sons, my dad and my uncle, and that to. To preach the gospel at his funeral. Well, my dad and my uncle come to faith in Jesus at my grandfather’s funeral. So from a very early age, a year old, I don’t even remember any of that. My dad comes to faith in the same church.

At his own father’s funeral.

At his own father’s funeral. And my grandfather had been sharing the gospel with my dad over and over. And my dad, I was really focused on his career, really focused on just trying to be a good person and whatever that meant to him. But really what it boiled down to more for my dad was to be successful. And so my dad comes to faith. And so I grew up in church. Good people. I mean, just an awesome church, a church that really exploded at a particular time in the late 70s. It had a lot to do with my grandfather. A guy knocks, randomly stops by my grandfather’s house and door-to-door evangelism and my grandfather couldn’t get away from the question that he asked him. I said, my grandfather, raging alcoholic, lot of struggles, World War II vet, just had a laundry list of struggles and his life radically changed in this little town and people catch wind of it and see his life. And just God did a really cool work in his life. And so he lived out the rest of his years just very focused on the gospel with his family and with the community.

And so that church, my grandfather was kind of like a centerpiece because in the birthing of that church, my grandfather comes to faith. And so we go to church, they are good people. And you know the truth is it might have been you know a part of what my own brokenness and my own sinfulness what I heard and what I didn’t hear and what I the way I understood things I grew up in church every you know Sunday, Wednesdays all the time youe know and I made a profession of faith pretty early pretty young. I was probably about 10 years old. I can’t remember the exact time but Just to be honest with you, I really felt like, hey, I don’t want to go to hell, so I’m going to raise my hand and sign the card. That way I know I’m in. And so that was kind of my mode. But I was a good kid. I didn’t break the rules. I loved my dad. My dad was my hero. My dad told me not to do something, I wasn’t going to do it. It was more of a morality. It was more of a moral conformity.

I wanted to make my dad be happy and be pleased with my actions and that sort of thing. So growing up in this church, Southern Bible Belt type church, as soon as I started racing in my mind I felt like, hey, I can’t be a guy who’s going to drive 200 miles an hour and that lifestyle, that world of racing, you can’t mix those two. So I wanted to be successful. That’s what drove me. I wanted people to respect me outside. I’m not just Hank’s kid. I’m fast race car driver who wins races. And so when I got out of high school and started racing in the All Pro Series, I kind of just, I just kind of walked away from it. You know, just a lot of guys, just kind of a party scene, like you travel every week, you’re in hotels, you’re in different places, and you know, you gotta be super careful about how you tell stories about your past, especially before you come to faith in Jesus, before God saves you, that you don’t glorify those things. I mean, I wasn’t an alcoholic, I wasn’t a drug addict, I wasn’t a lot of things, but I was an idiot who wanted people to like me and I wanted people to laugh and I wanted to be successful.

So you mix all those things, those concoctions together without Christ driving your life, you make poor decisions and that’s where I was. And so early in the Bush series, I could see a lot of guys would go to the chapel and it was just hypocrisy. Like I would see them at places on Friday night, but Saturday morning chapel, they were there. And I hated that. So I just, I’m like, I’m not.

Gonna, dude, you didn’t go.

Yeah, I didn’t like that. But I was as much of a hypocrite in my own life because there is that, that, that culture of a good old American boy, race car driver, God and country, and, and the whole deal of how, you know, whatever was warped in my own mind. So I’m not pointing fingers to anybody else. I’m just saying the way I perceive stuff. And so in the Bush series, there’s a guy named Eddie Robinson. He became an IMB missionary, spent time over in India and Pakistan. He’s an awesome dude. He’s from Louisiana, country is cornbread. And he just started hanging out and talking to me about Jesus and talking to me about the gospel. I know all the Bible stories. I grew up in church. I get all that stuff. But what was different about this guy, he’d ask me questions that were really made me think, like, all right, so how does that apply? What does that look like in your own life? And so it wasn’t like, hey, do you know how to go to heaven? It was more like, what’s that look like in your life and how’s that shaped the way you think?

And so he spent a lot of time with me, and I think I was oblivious to it. I just thought he was a good dude.

And.

He asks me a question and I can’t remember the depths of it, but basically it probed a lot of thought and for whatever reason, and we both know the reason, God opened my eyes to see Romans 5:8 in a whole new light. That God demonstrated His own love for me. Christ died for me while I was a sinner, right? While I was at my ugliest, while I was hostile, while I was at my worst, He sends Christ to die for me. And for whatever reason, I had felt like God had the standard of holiness and perfection and I can’t live up to that so I can’t do that in race. I’ll be done with God. I’m gonna be successful. And when you stop and you really look at the gospel, you’re like, whoa, wait a minute. He saw me at my worst and yet he purchased me, he ransomed me based on the the work of Jesus. I mean, it shook my world. And I was toward the end of my time at my dad’s race team. I was driving for the United States Marine Corps. And so God saved me. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t real sure if I had really come to faith and God just did a big work in my life.

It was undeniable. I could not talk about it. I could not. It affected me. Now, there was still some struggle, massive struggle with sin. It wasn’t like all of a sudden, there was still some things I’d had to work through, but my conversation was going to be about Jesus. I was working that out, and so I had just started dating Wendy. I didn’t know how that was going to work. Wendy and I went to high school together. So my brothers are kind of crazy and they got kicked out of public school and I was the only one with a driver’s license so we ended up going to this Christian school in Charlotte where I met Wendy and she had a big old beautiful smile and she was very athletic and I said, I like that girl. I took her to the prom, she shook my hand and sent me on my way afterwards and we never talked again.

Smart girl.

Yeah, smart girl. Sent me on my way. So I hadn’t seen Wendy since high school and I ran into her while I was racing at a wedding party and we started going out. We’d only been dating a short time. I can’t remember exactly how long, but we’d, and so I’m like, I gotta tell her I’m gonna be one of those weird people that loves Jesus. Now we went to a Christian school and I knew her background, I knew her story. And I knew where she was and we had had conversations about church and Jesus and those sorts of things but she was in a place where she was really running from the Lord because her father passed away when she very unexpectedly when she was a senior in high school and she just was really wrestling and dealing with that and her way of dealing with that was just pushing away and so that lifestyle we were both kind of just, you know, when we first started dating, that’s where we both were. And so I said, hey, something’s happened. I don’t know. I didn’t even know how to articulate. I was like, I’ve rededicated my life, or God has saved me.

I don’t. But I see this in a whole new way. And there’s a guy who started this Bible study, and I want to figure it out. She’s like, okay, so we started going this Bible study, and it was. Every Tuesday night at seven o’clock, but we called it 701, ’cause the guy teaching it was always late. So we started going to that Bible study together, and man, God just grew us. She got on fire for Jesus. She was already a believer, but was just really trying to work through how to deal with her father’s death and where she stood, her own identity in Christ and what that looked like. But God got a hold of our hearts together. And man, really that really formed a bond in that relationship. I had a lot of respect for her anyway. But it just my heart for Wendy grew as we grew together in Jesus. And so, man, in racing that had a big effect on me because I had built this group of buddies that I was, I didn’t build, I had hung out with them, a group of buddies that just all kind of naturally are, you know, what drove us was, you know, driving fast and partying and that sort of thing.

Nothing too crazy, but just stupid. And I had to take a step back from that. And so most of my buddies felt like, oh, he’s stepping back because he’s found a girl.

Got a girl.

Yeah. But it was we had already been dating for for a few months before. This has really happened. So I had to take a step back and just really evaluate because I wasn’t strong enough to not do what everybody else was doing. And I knew that about myself. And so I wanted to be different in regards to I’m not trying to do this because God’s going to be disappointed in me. I was just overwhelmed with the fact that God saved me. And again, not perfect, really working through that. But I put dudes around me that really, really helped me. Kenny Crosswhite spent, we spent every Tuesday for about a year and a half studying through the book of Philippians. Guys who just taught me how to, hey, this is how you read the Bible. Let’s work through that. Let’s spend time doing that. And so as my career, I came into this GNC deal, a brand new believer, pretty fired up about Jesus. They would take me to events, motor racing outreach would take me to events where I would speak. I didn’t even really know how to articulate the gospel very well.

You’re a Christian and you’re a professional race car driver. People listen.

They would ask me questions and I would just answer them. I knew, I just didn’t know how to present well. I knew that, man, God, I can’t explain it, but God saved me.

That’s powerful.

My faith is in Jesus. And I have a hope that’s totally changed and what I thought was so important is now it might be important but it falls way short of the fact that God has saved me and I’m a new person in Christ. I’m forgiven in Christ and I have a hope in a future whether racing makes it not whatever. I have a hope in a future that’s in eternity. And so that changed my perspective. So I would I would go to these events and speak with those guys speak at events with MRO but in my career man things were going good things were building up things were awesome so it’s easy to it’s easier in some ways. There’s there’s always difficult but it was easier like hey, I just became a Christian. I’m now winning races. This is gonna be awesome, you know? Well, the very next year, at the end of the year is when I lost my ride. So I’m a brand new believer. I’m like, okay, what do I do with this?

And there’s three things. Last night, I preached, we’ve got a bunch of Christian school here, Christians schools here right now. And you were there, but I preached 2 Peter 1, that ladder and progression of God’s promises to us. And there’s a point where you add to your faith godliness. And I define to those students, godliness is three things. And in walking through those three things, the second one, the middle one is that you learn how to suffer. The first one is willingness to submit.

Check.

When you become a believer, check. Got it. And the last one is to serve the Lord by serving his church and people. But the middle one is Prepare to suffer and be willing to suffer. And when you become a believer, one of the biggest lies that Satan, I think, tells people is, oh, finally, life is going to get better. Life is going to get easy. A lot of times it gets way harder. But in the difficulty, whether it’s suffering or persecution or trial or tribulation, you’ve got this stabilizing effect that the Lord brings to you that his strength is made perfect in your difficulty.

That’s right. And so for me, I mean, I was struggling more with identity of being that guy. I mean, the money side of it. Yeah, it bothered me. But, I mean, I raced several years, you know, as a single dude, I put money. I mean, what am I going to buy? I don’t have anything to do. I mean, I love to hunt and fish. I’m hanging out with my dad when I’m not racing, so. I was really struggling with people respecting me and, and having that view of being that high profile guy. And, and so, like, when that, when that was ripped away, and then I’m out with my hat in my hand trying to find rides, making deals with sponsors who had done me wrong, that was a tough time. And in the middle of that, as that, as that progressed, the guy who, like, In God’s mercy and grace, he put guys around me. He would help me. Kenny Crosswhite, he was doing Bible studies at Ray shops. And so I started going with him to these Bible studies. I just hang out. And then as I lost my career, that was kind of humiliating because the driver is the quarterback.

Everybody’s going to make sure he has his stuff, take care of him. He’s the main guy. He’s the, you know, everybody’s catering to you as a driver. Now I’m walking into these race shops, hanging out with guys back at the shop talking about Jesus, which is always a little awkward and weird, right? In a world that that’s not, like, it’s optional. You can miss your lunch and come go to Bible study with six or seven guys and talk about things. I think as I look back, the Lord was really uprooting in me what I was clinging to as far as an identity of people, the way people viewed me. And he was at work and all that. Of course, I couldn’t really see that. Then I was just frustrated and mad. And then I felt like I didn’t want to give up, and I felt like a failure in a lot of ways, but I didn’t want to compromise. By just signing with a team that was gonna do starting parks like I mentioned in the last episode. And so I was really wrestling through a lot of those things. And in the middle of that, just like it happened so many times, the Lord really, really grew me through that time and really rooted me.

And it wasn’t like I had an emotional experience and it was gonna wear off. Or I had a view that Jesus was good while things in my life were easy. But now it was like, okay, I’ve weathered some storms that God has brought me through. And now I’m in the word. I’ve got people, you know, Kenny’s teaching and working in my life. And so now I’m moving to like teaching some of the Bible studies. Working hands on with different race teams. And so the Lord began to just open up these opportunities and then to grow my desire for that. I mean, man, I love hunting, fishing and NASCAR. I didn’t care anything about reading books or making good grades in school. I wasn’t thinking about that sort of stuff. And so I didn’t really know how to study the Bible. You know, I didn’t know. And now I’ve got, I’m learning and growing in that and God’s growing me and I’m learning how to, I’m taking some classes online and just that’s where that’s driving me. And so through that, I don’t have any idea what the future holds and I’m still clean and I’m wanting to put together a big time race deal.

And then once that last team that I drove for that truck team, when they folded and went under, I said, all right, it’s about time to start figuring something out. I had a meeting, I was doing a lot of work with Roush Racing Back to, you know, that’s one thing I’ve learned in my life. And you always be careful about how you treat people because you may be back working with them again or you may be in some type of work relationship. You know, I could have cussed everybody out at Roush Racing when they fired me for dropping that sponsor and I could have moved on, but I would have lost a lot of opportunity. And they were really nice to me to bring me back on. That crew chief liked me, Todd Parrott liked me so much. I’m sorry, Brad liked me so much that they brought me in to do a bunch of work with Carl Edwards’ team when he would be gone or they needed testing and they needed, I needed a paycheck. And so they brought me in and we had a meeting with Jack Roush and Carl Edwards told Jack Roush, said, you need to give this guy an opportunity.

He’s got a lot of potential people haven’t seen. He’s not been able to showcase his talent and you need to give him an opportunity. Jack Roush looked at me, looked me up and down and said, he’s too old.

How old were you at this point? 33.

He’s too old. So I took that was all right. I’m gonna start, I’m gonna go down some different paths. I’m gonna explore other paths. And for the first time I felt like I was okay with that. But it was hard to sleep at night. It was hard to, you know, you work so hard and you have a dream for something.

Since you’re 15.

Yeah. And it blows up in your face and, hey, I mean, well, it feels.

Like it blows up in your face. But we know now looking back, you had an amazing career. You know, what a crazy journey and story. But it was a few chapters in a bigger story. And I think that’s what people, people need to hear in your story is, Yeah, in that moment, if we can go into that moment in your story, literally your whole world has just disintegrated. That’s right. That’s right. But you had an amazing run for so many years. And now looking back, it’s God making, it’s not we’re changing the chapter, it’s the book that I’m reading my kids in the morning before school. Today we started part two. So every day we’ve done a chapter. But then there’s like this blank sheet, a new title page, it’s part two. This is not just, you’re going into a new chapter, this is, okay, we’re closing book one. We’re starting book two kind of thing. I mean, this is a major shift in your life.

Yeah, major shift. At this time, when in our marriage we have two kids, and so you’re trying to navigate that and trying to figure out what that looks like financially. What that looks like for long-term career stability. And so you’re just having to learn how to trust. All right. I’m gonna work. I’m gonna work my guts out. But I’m gonna trust.

And then so this is when you this when y’all started a hunting show.

That’s right.

Because your dad had done the fishing show forever.

Yes.

And it was still running.

Yeah, it’s still running today. He’s got one of the longest running television shows ever. And so it actually so as that really started happening I got really into TV on the TV side of racing I spent a year doing that. That’s when you’re okay and during that time we started the hunting show. Okay, so it’s kind of like a year lapse and that was cool my dad to do that he had the opportunity to do that and he’s looking at it from the opportunity He’s got a lot of leverage from a fan base from his fishing industry. Yeah, he can hang out with his two boys and do stuff he likes to do and we can sell Commuteer and other products and Swacker Broadheads. We can do all of that stuff, but we can do it together as a family.

Yeah.

And it was fun.

I remember when I discovered that show, I was kind of burnt out on that TV outdoor programming, ’cause it was either big name product people, like the Realtree guys, or celebrity stuff, Or it was these little upstart shows that you would see on those outdoor type channels. But you didn’t know who these guys were and they were trying really hard to have a personality that fit a niche in the industry. And I’m like, oh, Hank Parker, I used to watch him fish. I didn’t know he hunted too, but it makes sense. And I remember starting to watch the show. Yeah, it just makes sense. But for him, He’s getting to, I mean, what a dream. To get to do something you love, film it, do it with your boys.

Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was really, really cool.

What was the first episode? You remember? Yeah. Was it turkey hunt? It was probably whitetail hunt.

It was a whitetail hunt.

That’s the bread and butter of outdoor programming.

That’s right.

Whitetail hunt.

That’s right. It was a deer hunt in Texas. First one. And we kind of did a hodgepodge of kind of explaining who we were.

Were you so excited on that hunt?

Yeah. Yeah. So, but I’ve, I mean, I’ve always hunted with my dad. I’ve always gone to all these hunts, and he’s, he was always been really big into it. That’s how, you know, obviously broken time. NASCAR, you know, Diller had a lease together in Texas, and he would come down to our farm in South Carolina.

But, I mean, to that first time, you’re going, okay. I’ve hunted forever. Did the race thing. New chapter in life. We’re doing it. We’re stepping into this new world of we’re filming the hunt.

Yeah. I was so focused on trying not to talk like just to be myself, just relax, not try to fit a mold like you were saying. It’s so easy to try to find a niche or try to copy someone else, you gotta, and so I was really, really focused on that. And at that point, you know, it’s kind of like, all right, let’s make this happen. And you had your eyes on a lot of different things to, the things that make it happen, obviously, you know, sponsorships, air time, and, you know, our product sales and things like that. So you’re pretty, you’re so busy, but it was, it was, it was really cool just to hang out, you know, and you always have those moments where, on a hunt where you get to overcome some things, and it really kind of sets you up to, to, to drive for success. So, like, we shoot a deer, we can’t find it, and then you find it, and it’s like, oh, my goodness, that was such, that was so cool. You know, I I wanted it to be easy, but the fact that it was hard or it rained and we were sleeping in tents and everything we had got wet, just looking back, you’re like, oh, yeah, that was awesome.

And I wanted I want to share that experience and what drove the ideas that I wanted to see in our hunting show was the relationships that you have with people and how that works. And so it’s all about people. I mean, you share hunting camp. I’ve shot a deer 10 years ago. I barely remember it, but I remember hanging out in camp with all those five guys and all the funny stories and staying up late and laughing and just hunting together. So that’s what we really wanted to highlight. We want to really highlight what that looks like. And the dynamic of that.

So cool. And into that last episode, we were talking about your dad getting into some product. So I got to tell my first story about using a Parker.

Oh, no.

A Parker licensed product.

Okay.

So I was so, okay, the in the last episode we referenced, we went on a hunt together. You know, we’d gotten to know each other a little bit and then just a little bit and came up. We want we did turkey hunt. Well, y’all shoot swacker broadheads.

That’s right.

And a broadhead, for those of you that are not outdoorsmen, outdoors women, not hunters, the broadhead is think of like on an old bow and arrow, medieval or, or Native American, the The arrowhead, like an arrowhead, what’s that made out of? That’s the tip of the arrow that goes, you know, the cutting edge that goes into the animal. And in modern archery, that’s a big competitive market. Broadheads, a big competitive market. And they’re called broadheads. They’re not called arrowheads. And Swacker is a brand of broadhead that y’all, same deal, Come Here Deer and Swacker, y’all, your dad was kind of involved in both of those.

That’s right.

So I was on a hunt in Ohio and I shot a deer and the deer, no broadhead would have killed this deer because just as I released, I mean it was the worst possible timing. The deer spooked and spun around and the arrow literally, if he would have waited a half of a tenth of a split second, I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, but I punched the air out as he’s spooking and turning. And he was spooking because a doe, I didn’t know he had a doe, he was following a doe. And she’s about to bring him right by me. I didn’t know there was another doe behind me. And she was watching me draw on him. He never saw me. And all of a sudden, she boogered and took off. She took off right as I squeezed the trigger. He wheels to go running off with this doe. This other dough. Well, my arrow goes in, like, behind his shoulder, but parallel to his body. So you want the arrow to go in perpendicular to the body so that it goes through both lungs. Mine went in exactly parallel, and it just tucked right up behind his shoulder.

Well, it never hit a lung. It didn’t hit any vitals. It’s a flesh wound. And so I called Jim, like, I remember calling you from the stand. I was like, all right, man, I don’t know what to do here. This deer wheeled. I’m pretty sure at the shot angle, the deer probably. Hitting dead. But anyway, we. So now you’re, you’re looking, this is a great opportunity to promote your Broadhead.

You know, so you’re like, it’s the Broadhead, Shameless Salesman.

So you gave me some, you gave me some swackers. Well, next year I’m up there in Ohio hunting, and, and you had told me, you said, the thing that I love about these swackers is if you make a bad shot, you don’t ever want to make a bad shot, but it happened.

Yeah.

And if you hit a deer back, which means if you hit it back, it means you hit it behind the lungs, which means the stomach or the liver, you’ve gotten into an area that is a slower death and it’s not a quick lethal kill. And you said, but it’s such a wide cut that if you if you hit it back, you’re still going to put that deer down right quicker than something else. So we’re I’m hunting, I’m in the stand and I shoot this deer and I hit it back. Just bad shot. I mean by three inches. I’m just off and it was some deer moving around the brush. Anyway, it was too far of a shot. It was a really long shot with a bow. Hit the deer back and the deer walks about 10 steps and lays down and it’s dead in about four minutes. Normally you want them dead in four seconds.

Yeah.

20 seconds.

You don’t want to be tracking all night long. Oh, not.

And I watched that deer die and I was like, dang, swaggers are pretty good. Since then, speaking of medieval.

Yeah, since then you’ve gone medieval with them.

Since then, I don’t know how many, how many picture, how many blood trails have I sent you videos of?

Lots. Lots. You know, it’s fun. I mean, I’ve, I’ve grown up hunting and I’ve loved to hunt and I can remember. Seeing releases for the first time. I remember when rangefinders came out. I mean, I shot the old Razorback fives. And the reason we shot Swacker broadheads is we’d been on several hunts. We’d lost some deer. And, you know, back in the day when I first started, you know, in the late 80s, early 90s, you get, you recover 50% of your deer and you’re doing pretty good.

50%. That’s exactly right.

Yeah, you’re a pretty good.

Hunters don’t realize that.

That’s right. And we went to Swacker Broadheads and they started, we started finding all of them. We’re like, whoa, wait a minute. And that’s, you know, we just believed in it. And we were wanting to make a big order to keep enough of them just in case something went south. And they were gonna, they were talking about going out of business. My dad got involved. My dad’s really good at marketing and sales. And, but he’s a bow hunter and he’s like, I don’t want to lose these broadheads. So guys like yourself get that. And that’s fun to share that experience with them.

Yeah, because, and that sounds terrible to say, we used to lose 50% of our deer, but I remember one time I’d been bow hunting about 15 years. I started bow hunting, my first year bow hunting was the fall of 1991. Okay. So I’m, now this is my 32nd fall bow hunting.

That’s awesome.

And I remember about probably 15 years in. Doing a tally and going, you know, I lose about 50% of my deer. I’d shot an eight point buck and I blood trailed him and it was a good shot. Like, I know it hit his front lung. He was walking, he was in stride, he was quartering to me and I shot and I hit the back of the front lung and then probably punched through the liver. Yeah, we blood trailed that deer and he got into a river across the river and I just, we just lost it.

I lost him.

And I walked that river the next day, couldn’t find him. And it was a fixed blade broadhead that didn’t have a real wide cut in diameter. And I just, there wasn’t enough blood to suit me. I was like that because again, for those of you that aren’t hunters, the way you recover game is you blood trail them. It’s not like in the movies where somebody shoots something and it falls over dead.

Yeah.

You shoot something even with a big magnum rifle, a lot of times it’s running off. That’s right. Now, if you shoot with the rifle, if you shoot, this is another conversation, if you shoot. A deer high shoulder and hit that spinal cluster like it is dead in the tracks it’s standing in.

That’s right.

Most people are taught to shoot at the shoulder or behind the shoulder. Well, that’s an archery thing. Archery, you want to shoot, slip it right in the crease behind the shoulder because you’ll punch both lungs.

That’s right.

A double lung shot deer is dead lethal within a few seconds. Maybe 50 yards. The farthest I’ve ever seen a double lung hit deer run would be 80 yards. Right. And they’re dead on their feet. This muscle memory.

Adrenaline.

They’re just running on a burst of adrenaline and then till whatever’s being pumped through their body.

That’s right.

Is gone, you know? And it’s like a couple heartbeats. And so then I remember going, when I lost that nice eight point buck, and I was spun out about it.

Yeah, it makes you sick.

It’s the first buck I’d ever shot with the bow. I’d killed at that point. Half a dozen does, maybe. And I shoot this buck. I’m like, my first bow kill. I’d killed some decent bucks with a rifle, but it’s so bummed.

It’s hard to swallow. It is.

And. And I was going, am I doing something wrong? No, I hit that deer behind the shoulder. Well, I. I don’t know. We were joking about a while ago. I’ve killed a lot of deer with a swacker broad. A lot.

People that know you can see, can visualize what your eyes look like right now. Touch of crazy in them.

There’s a little bit of crazy. I killed ten deer with the bow one year, about three years.

Oh, be careful. But different states, right?

Yeah. So I killed in North Carolina, you get six tags. I killed four with the bow.

That’s cool. Yeah.

And in Ohio, I killed a buck and a doe. Maybe two does, a buck and a doe. So I had one of each tag there, or six. And then I went to Alabama and down there it’s a real, the area I hunts were very liberal.

Yeah.

And I killed four or five down there. And we ended up being killed 10 with swackers in my bow that year.

Learned a lot.

That’s dirt napping them right there now. That’s like a body count.

That’s a lot of food for the freezer. Yeah.

And you learn a lot. I read one time, a guy said, The best way to get good at killing deer is killing deer.

That’s right.

You know, you can practice on that target and you can shoot. And I remember, you know, getting to where, you know, practicing at 100 yards is, is a consistent part of my routine.

Yeah.

Now, wouldn’t shoot a deer at 100 yards, but I’m, I’m shooting foam at that, but at 20 yards on a deer, it helps you. But there’s so many variables that have to go right. That thing like the one I shot. Yeah, I was talking about earlier that, It twisted at the last second and it went into the shoulder pocket. That deer was like 21 yards from me. That’s a close shot. So I’ve learned killing deer, I’ll kill deer sometimes. I go in, me and my brother-in-law, Mike Wilson, we call them kill days. Today’s a kill day. I’m gonna go kill something. In other days it’s like today’s a trophy day. If it ain’t a big trophy, I’m gonna let ’em go. And you watch ’em go by.

There’s probably more kill days for you.

A lot of kill days for me.

That’s all. I love it. That’s awesome.

We got kill these hogs. Yeah, we got we’ve got a gang of hogs rooting around on the new swoop property. We ain’t standing for that.

No, sir.

It’s bacon time.

We’re gonna have some fresh bacon at Be Strong. How’s that?

We got to this point on the hunt. We’re talking about hunting. Where you’re transitioning out of NASCAR, you transitioned more fully into the outdoor industry.

Right.

You’ve been married at that point and had a couple kids. When I met you, how old’s Cade?

Cade’s 11.

When I met you, he was a newborn.

He was a newborn baby. That’s right. Yeah. So.

At that point, you were a couple years into the TV industry. Let’s pick that up. We’re getting into outdoor programming. Yeah.

So, you know, walking outside of, walking away from my racing career, I think we walked through that pretty good kind of where, where my head was. So with TV, my dad is, you know, obviously in the outdoor world, very well known, has very much established himself. He loves to hunt. So we do, we’re doing this hunting show, man. It’s going really good. And the whole time through this, I’m trying, I’m working at growing. And my walk with the Lord and trying to read and study and grasp deeper concepts and be able to articulate better. And so as I was going through that, I came up here, the way we met, I came up here with a group of buddies to a Be Strong event. And it was, I had a good time. First time I’d ever been to anything like that, was really challenged, really convicted in some ways. To just lead my family well and to just to be faithful. And so as we’re doing this hunting show, things are, it doesn’t matter what you do. We were kind of joking earlier today about someone said, do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

How that’s such a fallacy, you know, you’re going to work. I mean, it’s just, do you enjoy the work or, but even if you love what you do, you’ve got to put, you’re going to be some sweat and some tears and some blood and you got to get after it. And that’s how that hunting show was. And I love to hunt as much as anyone. And so as we’re doing this show, trying to raise my family, things are going good. I come up here, we meet, and then you talk to me about getting on board as a board of director to come in from a marketing aspect. I’ve spent most of my life NASCAR, doing television things. I’ve not been formally educated in a university when it comes to marketing, but OJT for about 47 years. So I came up here and started sitting on the board and things were good. I really enjoyed the work here. I enjoyed the vision. The very defined and clear mission to proclaim the gospel through the exposition of Scripture and then alongside of that with personal relationships It really clicked with me because I didn’t feel like I was coming up to some kind of place where we’re gonna play a game or be gimmicky with particular things.

It’s something that you could put forth the word of God and trust that it’s gonna bring the results that God says it’s gonna bring. And I can get behind that. And so, man, I feel like.

I.

Just really enjoyed my time here. And so as we’re doing the hunting show, My dad, I mentioned in 1989 he won the Bass Masters Classic and decided to step down so he could be with his family. And I was on a hunting trip. We had been, I think I’d been in Iowa or Oklahoma somewhere. And I drove over and met my dad and my brother in Texas. And we went hunting at this really phenomenal place in Texas. To make a long story short, I’d been gone about 11 or 12 days. And I came home, my wife, you know, ready to pull her hair out. She’s dealing with little kids. Rightfully so. She’s been holding down the fort. And one of my kids, I can’t remember which one it was, kind of backtalked her mama. And at that point, I was like, okay, we need to have a serious heart to heart discussion. But I didn’t feel qualified. I felt like I’ve been gone for 12 days. I’ve been in front of my kids now for 25 minutes. And this has happened. And I remember just a wave of conviction that came over me with that.

And I really sought the Lord through praying and just getting some godly counsel from brothers and just thinking through.

What.

Was the best way to respond to that. And so I just sat down with my wife and looked at the hunting show. Things are going good. We’re not lighting the world on fire, but it’s solid. I get to go on hunting trips. I get to do what I love to do. We make a living at it. But I kind of took a step back and said, okay, 10 years from now, I’d really like to still be married. I’d like for my kids to like me and appreciate me. These are foundational and formative years. If I don’t invest now, I’ll lose that weight with them. And then when that time comes and you get to enjoy that fruit of a good relationship and really mentor into your kids in their teenage years, I’m going to have lost that. And so I made a tough decision to take a step back from the Hunt Show. And I called my dad and my brother and just said, Hey guys, look, I’ll be a part of the show, but I’m not going to travel like this. I can do certain things. We’ll have to set up parameters. And so I took a pretty big step back.

When I did that, I had to find other ways to support what I was doing, support myself and my family on my income primarily when I say support. So I started a production company with a good friend of mine, John Tate. And we started producing our television show, other television shows, and we started producing short form content for corporations and businesses. And we started doing some things like that to be able to grow our business so that So just so I could have it, you know, provide for my family.

Make a living.

Make a living.

Short form content is like those Lowe’s safety videos.

Yeah, a lot of Lowe’s videos, Duke Power videos, we’d make videos for churches. We did like all kinds of just really different stuff that’s way outside the realm of hunting or fishing. So we grew that business. And as I was growing that business, kind of back to what I was saying, you know, every job you have, you’re going to have to work. And I wanted to make a sacrifice to be with my family, whatever that looked like. I wanted to be a good husband to my wife. I wanted to be a good daddy to my kids. Because at the end of the day, money comes, money goes. You can figure out different income levels, but you can’t alter that you get one shot at this deal. And I didn’t want to waste it. So my passion in the middle of all this was really ministry oriented. I wanted to be involved in some way in gospel work. And so kind of through that time frame, I had a burden for, I’ve got a shoe in and a connection with guys who love to hunt and fish. They know me personally or not they want to talk to me about it because of my dad so I’ve got this opportunity and I live in this community where we don’t live very far from a lake There’s a lot of people who love to fish everybody knows who my dad is and so my wife and I started a deal to do father son father daughter catfishing tournaments and so we started putting these these events on and it would be a free event for the community you come in We had different catfish lakes, lots of great people helped us, but we would, most of the

time they would donate a catfish lake to us for a day. You come in, you fish, we’d have a dinner, Bass Pro Shops got involved, the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources got involved, a lot of people got involved and they’d come to BB shoots, casting contests, we had all kinds of stuff. And at the end we would share the gospel. And so for like seven or eight years we were doing this and I really enjoyed that and at that time Growing, I think you mentioned in the last episode, I was a lay elder at my church at Venture. And so, you know, I had this tug and I think a lot of guys who get on fire about Jesus and love to read the Bible, they get really fired up about that and they think, okay, maybe I’m supposed to be a preacher or maybe I’m supposed to be a missionary or whatever it may be, you may feel a different tug in it and I felt that angst kind of through that but it wasn’t really sure what to do with it. And so as I kind of settled in and got really comfortable about what I was doing in my production business, I saw all kinds of opportunities.

There was opportunities to talk about Jesus with corporate people and there was opportunities to talk about Jesus in videos that we did and there was all these different opportunities that was put before me. And you know quite frankly, I was in a pretty good place. I was comfortable. I enjoyed what I did and I was able to, you know, there was days that was harder than others just like everybody’s life. But I’d found a groove that worked. And in the middle of that groove, you know, through some shakeups of different things in my business, you know, I was doing some work here as a consultant at Snowbird. I was coming in and helping with the marketing team trying to figure out how do we get more people to come to conferences and retreats. Summer here at Snowbird, summer is full 15 minutes after registration is open. But there were some events that you guys were having that were having a hard time getting the word out, getting bookings. And so you guys brought me to consult and kind of take a look at your marketing department and see what we could do to enhance and make that better.

And, you know, it, it was just instantly pretty successful. We, we were able to work together as a team, you know, in a way that we saw direct results. And it was, it was fun.

Yeah.

And so the more that I did that, the more you guys obviously were asking me to do. And in the, I was, I was working on a big project for Lowe’s Home Improvement, and I talked to Matt Jones, and Matt Jones said, hey, what do you think about coming and working here full-time because, you know, Matt, Matt’s not afraid to ask a question. He’s gonna lay it out there. I was like, okay, that’s pretty bold. Yeah, I don’t know, man.

I remember the meeting when we decided to, you know, me and him kind of sitting around the cauldron shaking the 08 ball. All right, I’m gonna ask him. Let’s ask him.

Let’s see what happens. So I thought about it and I’m like, you know, that’d be pretty cool. There’s a fulfillment that’s hard to explain. Although I had found really a lot of unique ministry opportunity where I was at and enjoyed. We were running a Bible study at my house for teenagers, young teens, junior high age kids. That was going awesome. And a lot of cool stuff happening. So as I started to process this, guys are not naturally smart, so I had to kind of work through this, through some experiences. But I just put it before my wife, said, Here’s the deal. They’ve asked me to move up there. That’s a that’s a big deal. And for people that don’t really understand, if you think about, you know, I lived in a community where there was there was a Walmart, there was a Lowe’s, there was a CVS and more than one grocery store that had actual choices to move to the middle of nowhere, Andrews, North Carolina. You lose a lot of that luxury.

It’s a remote mountain valley. It’s beautiful here. I mean, it’s unbelievable.

It’s just different.

You ain’t gonna run to Starbucks or Target.

No, you can. Target’s an all-day trip.

That’s, you know, you gotta plan a day for it.

Yep. And that’s cool.

People can’t believe that.

Yeah.

A lot of times.

I love that, by the way. But, hey.

Yeah, buddy.

So I put this before my wife and my wife, the cool thing is, you know, when I came to faith, when God saved me and I started going to that Bible study and God got a hold of her heart, we’ve been, really in tune and in track with that same kind of drive and desire. There’s not anything that I feel like that I’ve done ministry wise that she hasn’t been right there, a part of doing, like the whole time that I was at Venture, she’s teaching kids Bible studies and very involved. And so together we’re working for that same common goal. And so she had a love for Snowbird as well. And so I just later before, hey, what do you think we should do? I’ll give you, take a couple weeks, think about it, let me know, no pressure. Heck, I move on, I go back to work and I really am not thinking that much about it. About three or four days later, she calls me, she’s like, We’re moving to Snowbird. I was like, okay, now, before you jump on board with this and jump off the diving board into the deep end, let’s talk about it.

You know, we’ve got a daughter that’s going to be a senior in high school. We’ve got this, we’ve got that. This is going to be massive. This is going to be, you know what? And so, like, even as I say that now, I think about people that pack up and go to the mission field. I mean, it’s really not, but you kind of want to prepare for hope for the best and prepare for the worst. So I kind of set her up for that and she’s she’s set her face like Flint and so we started the preparations to move house that we built together lived in for 15 years raised our kids in we sold that and we’ve moved up here to Snowbird and man it’s been such a huge blessing. It’s been awesome. It hasn’t been without its battles, you A lot of people don’t know all the backstory, but it’s like as soon as we move up here, we had obstacle after obstacle, health issues, car wrecks, two of my kids broke their arm on the same day, two weeks after moving here. It’s like crazy, crazy, crazy stuff. But in the middle of it, we have felt a peace about where God has us and the way that God is using me in this particular role here.

Like, you know, you come from a background where you’re a race car driver or people recognize something about you and they want to put you on a pedestal and put you in a place where you’re automatically a person that’s in authority or the top dog and you get the spotlight and all that stuff. And so I come in here and I assimilate right into the group. I have position here, but I’m not the guy up on the stage speaking. I’m right where God wants me to be doing the things that I think that he has through my whole life prepared and equipped me for and is growing me in. I’m certainly not all the way there, but it’s really cool to get behind something that’s not about a personality like Brody Holloway or another personality, but we’re all on task for the mission of making the gospel known So that people, specifically junior high, high school students, married couples, men and women come to know and follow Jesus and grow in their faith. I can’t imagine, can’t imagine the impact that this ministry has on so many lives with the clear mission to exposit scripture well and to allow God to do his work.

What kind of effect that would have had in my life earlier, what that kind of effect that currently has on a lot of families and Man, it’s, it’s, if, if I ride off into the sunset and this is it, this is going to be a highlight. This is kind of back where Tim Fiedorek told me a long time ago, these are the good old days.

Yeah.

I’m getting to do this every day. And so that’s kind of how, that’s kind of how I got here.

The, a couple things that I thought about when you’re walking through it. Um, well, one, For people to understand how our board works, what we’ve tried to do is we’ve tried to put together a board of directors where each person on that board brings an area of expertise that’s gonna help guide Snowbird, the big machine. So for instance, we’ve got a pastor on the board who was a student pastor and a worship pastor, now he’s a senior pastor. So he gets all perspectives of pastoral ministry. He knows what it’s like to be a student pastor trying to raise funds to come to camp. He knows what it’s like to be a senior pastor and to try to put wind in the sails of a student pastor. So he brings the ministry, the local church, he’s super valuable because of, like when we’re in a board meeting, he can speak to where our average pastor, youth pastor is coming from. We got a guy who’s a commercial real estate guy, that’s his thing, and he’s big time. Big land deals, condo complexes, high rises, stuff like that. We got a guy who’s in commercial construction, hospitals, dorms, big universities, I mean, major construction.

Those guys bring, we’re doing all this land acquisition over the last three years, That board member that’s commercial real estate, he’s invaluable. He becomes the point man on all that stuff. We’ve got a board member, one of your best friends in the world, who Blake is like, he understands the personnel side of like at the end of the day, dollars and cents in a corporation, he works in the corporate world. But he knows, hey, we got, you know, this company has 2000 employees. We, we’re not going to be profitable until we have 1700. He knows how to cut 300 jobs and cut the right ones. And, I mean, that’s a valuable dude to have at the table. And so, you know, we got a guy that’s, that has pioneered online, online wholesale or retail, online retail for the likes of galleons filled in stream. Academy Sports, Gap, Athleta, the women’s brand for Gap. So he understands online sales and retail. Everybody on the board brings something to the table. Well, we were in a position at the time where I approached you and said, Hey, will you come on the board where we needed to go to the next step, the next level as far as our marketing, our media because Mark, in this day and time, marketing and media run that they’re together.

Yeah, because everything’s done through, everybody’s got a phone in their hands. So social media and commercials and apps and the way all that stitches together. And so you came to that chair, you came to the table and sat at that chair of marketing and media. I mean, the way the Lord had prepared you for that is crazy. Yeah. Because just like that Pastor that’s on the board had been a youth pastor, so he gets that. He’d been a senior pastor, so he gets that.

That.

That is super valuable. Well, you had been on the competitive side of professional sports. Nothing is more competitive than being a professional athlete, but. Ding, ding, ding, as Kahne used to say. The bell goes off. The most marketing driven sport in all of sports is NASCAR.

You better remember your sponsors at the end of the race, ’cause you’re gonna have a laundry list to go to.

That’s right. That guy gets up there and he goes, I want to thank Coca-Cola and Nabisco and Levi Garrett chewing the bark and Goodyear tires and 76 racing fuel. And he’s going down through there and you’re like, oh my gosh, what is this dude doing? And you’re like, they’re writing a check.

Yeah.

He’s making money. And then you look at the car, I remember being so mad, I was in about the seventh grade and I bought a Dale Earnhardt Wrangler. You know, when he was driving the Wrangler, I bought that car and I put it together. And then I remember looking at a poster and I realized it don’t have all the stickers on it. The model car didn’t have all of the sponsorship stickers. It just had the big ones. And it’s because there’s no way they could make all those little stickers. But you look at the side of a race car and there’s about 50.

It gets a little confusing. It does.

So you come into, so you come from a marketing standpoint. They don’t do that in the NFL. The NFL is its brand. Nike and Reebok and Adidas are fighting for the NFL contract. Right.

That’s right.

They don’t, you know, there’s sure there’s airtime, Super Bowl commercials are big, but as far as, it’s different. NASCAR is driven by the marketing machine. You don’t have a team like even you’re talking about, when you lost your ride that that year right after the homestead race. It was a marketing thing. It was a they took a hit. GNC took a hit.

I’m sorry. You’re out.

We can’t we can’t pay for your race team. Oh, well, then who can pay for it? Good luck.

Yeah, that’s right.

We’re gonna call Apple, Nike, you know, like this is a niche world of so you bring such a I don’t think people can fully appreciate I don’t think people in this organization can appreciate what where you come from because we were talking the other day and There was a video floating around because we’re doing all this. We were doing all of this this coming weekend as we’re dropping this episode. This coming weekend is the memorial service for Big Kahuna, which by the way, I’m gonna talk, I talked about it in the intro. I’m gonna talk about it again in the outro, but want everybody that can to come attend. We’d love to have you. And you’re welcome to stay on site here at Swoon in one of the cabins. Either, either night or both nights, the memorial service will be on Saturday. But anyway, I was talking to a group of staff. There was a video where I think two or three of us are guiding boats down the river. We used to guide a boat down the river every day. Led mountain bike trips. Every wreck we do here, I used to run that wreck.

Well, I haven’t run a wreck in seven years, eight years. So even our Even our full time staff that are not older than about 30 years old, they don’t know that side of Snowbird. So like, wait, you used to you. I saw a picture of you guiding. I was like, I’ll guide circles around you. You’ve been guiding two years. I got it for 12 years. I guided the New River in West Virginia. I guided the Ocoee. I guided class five whitewater. And when we’d run As soon as camp ended, I’d work full time as a river guide. But they don’t know that side.

That’s right. They know you.

It’s the same thing. Like Hank, oh Hank, he’s an executive and they’ll even confuse it. They’ll say, He’s a director. Well, you’re not a director. We have a team of directors. You’re not a director. You’re on the board of directors and it even gets confusing in-house. They don’t understand. What a competitive world from the marketing standpoint.

Well, what I love about that is, My past and what really gets me excited, people ask me, Do you miss racing? Would you like to go back and race? Well, sure, that’d be fun. Be awesome to collect one of those paychecks. All that stuff would be cool. There’s a few races I’d love to go back and run, but that’s gone and over and I’m old and whatever. But what I miss most is my team. I miss those guys. We would sit in a meeting and we would come up with ways to get better. And I mean sometimes it was heated and we pushed each other and we strove and we wanted to win and at the end of the day we patted each other on the back and that’s what I like about here.

We do that.

Do what you take. You might be leading a trip down the river. I don’t know, you’re crazy. You know, like we were crazy hours here, but it’s like everybody’s all in and if at the end of the day, I don’t care about the title, I don’t care about whatever the egos stuff, you know, I’m past all that. I’ve, you know, I’m at a place in my life where that, you know, one day when I was younger, maybe that would have been very appealing to me. But what I care about is being on a team that’s sold out for the, the making the glory of Jesus known as far and wide as possible. And that’s the team that I’m on here. And that’s, that’s pretty encouraging and exciting every day to wake up and go do that. I put my boots on every day.

Because we’re doing it.

Let’s go do it.

We’re doing it. We’re doing it, man. It grew about 13% in COVID.

It’s crazy. It’s nuts. Yeah, the first time, I mean, that’s a really good example. The first time we had a meeting in COVID, you stood up and said, I don’t care what we have to do, we’re going to figure it out and we’re not going to stop. And, you know, right when you first, I mean, I agreed with you when you first said it, but I was kind of like, God, this He’s a little crazy, maybe being a little bit ambitious here. And then as we kept going, man, it was just bigger for the fight, you know? And so it wasn’t like we want to be irresponsible. It isn’t like we didn’t follow rules. It wasn’t like we wanted to be reckless and stupid and didn’t care about people. But at the end of the day, we’re not going to live our lives controlled by fear. We’re going to live our lives in a way that we understand what our calling and our mission is and whatever it, we even talked about one time, I don’t know if you remember this, Hey, if we got to split up and go to churches and stand out in the field and do it, we’re going to do it, whatever it takes.

So it wasn’t about being reckless, it was about laying our lives down and doing the work that it takes to make it happen.

Yeah.

I mean, it’s- yeah, ’cause the big picture- It’s good stuff.

It is, man. And a big part of that was we can’t do this if the health department wants to shut us down, they can. So it’s not, hey, we’re going to do it by now, it don’t matter what anybody says, we’re doing it. Well, no, it’s not that simple. That sounds great. We’re going to do it and we’re going to do it with the blessing of the state. We’re going to do it right and we’re not going to get shut down and our insurance company is still going to cover us. And that’s what we’re going to do. And we did it. We did it. We can look back now two and a half years later and go, we did it. And not only did we do it, but the insurance companies coming in saying, hey, can we recommend the way you guys operate to other camps that we cover? We’ve become not just an authoritative, like, like, like two of our guys were at a large denominational camp last week running a conference, speaking and leading worship at a conference. And that camp is, has a lot bigger budget than we got. And they got, but they’ve got, they’re subsidized.

They got a bunch of money coming in. I don’t know a bunch of money, but I know that, I know they’re supported by their state, the denomination in that state. And they said, we want to be like you guys. What do we basically? How do we become more like y’all? Because we talked, we met with people at the state level. We did what it took and that’s a mentality that you came here equipped with already is what I’m getting at. A lot of people, you take some of the directors here, some of the managers, they’ve grown up in this ministry, so it’s ingrained in them.

That’s right.

They don’t know anything else.

That’s right.

But, but, but what’s harder is people that transition in here and they can’t handle it because it’s a, it’s a pressure. We don’t, like you said, is Holloway crazy? I don’t know. I don’t know. But he don’t, you know, and it’s like, we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna, we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna keep doing it. We’re gonna keep growing. And we, and we, and everybody here has got to be, Don’t care who gets the glory.

That’s right.

Jesus gets the glory.

That’s right.

Nobody cares what they’re, there are people that come in here and struggle because they want a title. They want some, they want some status. I want to get up front on stage or I want to do this. I’m like, okay, then you’re not getting on stage.

Yeah.

Yeah. Like you’re not ready. We want people that are behind the scenes. It’s like, The duck in the water on top of the water, that dude’s just slowly cruising along and under the water, his feet are flapping 90 miles an hour. Yeah. And you just cruise along top and behind the scenes, we’re running 90 miles an hour and then we’re we’re doing what we do. That’s right. And you came in here already with a an, like an understanding, a professional level understanding of marketing. But and then a professional level understanding of media because you ran a production company But then you also understood what a whatever it takes mentality that’s why it synced up. That’s why it synced up when me and you went on turkey hunt the first time and I saw in you talk about crazy your psychotic when we’re trying to kill a turkey. Yeah, and I was like, oh, yeah, that’s my people. It’s like, okay, we’re good. We’re gonna be fine and now you didn’t like how we got to that church.

We had to ride a bicycle 800 miles.

Me and Hank got a, we got up at five, we got up 4 30, got up 4 30. Well we sat up and talked till two in the morning.

Oh yeah.

And then got up at 4 15, 4 30, out the door, had some mountain bikes loaded, went behind the Forest Service gate and we knew if we get on bikes we could get there faster and quicker and these were not electronic or electric bikes. These were pedal on mountain bikes on.

The side of a mountain.

We went up a switchbacks on the side of a mountain. It was steep. That’s a ravine. That’s a gorge. We got way out there and we killed a bird. Almost.

Second one made it happen.

And at one point, we’re dangling off the side of a cliff.

Yeah.

And literally feet dangling off, trying to shoot a bird.

But.

But after that, that’s the thing, though, man, you had. You spend a day with somebody and, you know, yeah. Like me and this guy. Yeah, we’re on the same team.

We’re.

And likewise, I spent some time with people and I go, oh, we’re not on the same team.

Yeah. It makes it hard. And, you know, we talk about, we talk about how the Lord used this ministry pre, during and post covid and what that all looks like. And that’s the one thing that drives me back here. There’s, there’s such There’s such an honor held to the authority of God’s scripture. This ministry I believe is going to continue to move forward. We’re going to continue to do things, but we’re going to have to continue to do that relying on God’s grace and allowing him to lead through all of this by not giving into cultural whims and different things that are going to come down our path, but just staying true to what the Lord has called us to. By his grace, we’ll continue to stand firm in that. And that’s something you can hang your hat on that. That’s long-term stuff. I’m raising my kids and I’ve got a son that’s 15 and a son that’s 11. I’ve got three daughters as well. But my two boys coming up here, hanging out in the creek all day long, fishing, trout fishing, sitting in services, being around guys like you. So they’re hearing it from me, but it’s being reinforced.

Man, this is all the things that people would look at in my life. My dad, my racing career, all the things that I’ve gotten to do. This is just as big, if not bigger, than all of it. It’s such a blessing to be a part of it. And so as we go forward, I’m excited about what the future holds. I’m excited about my part in it. I’m excited about seeing younger generations come up and what this ministry will look like 10, 15, 20 years from now. And I think that by God’s grace, we’re gonna continue to stand firm in our core values and our mission statement that we’re gonna proclaim the good news of Jesus and we’re not gonna waver from that. And you’ll continue to bless that as we go.

Yeah, the truck. Truck, man, it’s just crazy to think what’s happened in 25 years. And right now we’re at the hardest, fastest momentum we’ve ever been at. What’s gonna happen in the next 25? The Lord only knows, but I’ll tell you this, the core values are solid, the mission statement’s solid, and so we’re not gonna change.

Right. And he’s faithful.

And the Lord’s faithful. He’s carved this thing out, he’s got a plan for Snowbird. Now we just need some sugar daddies. Come here and start dropping millions. Develop that new property. We need some big NASCAR sponsors.

That’s what I was about to say. We should start going to more races.

We need the Bisco and we need GNC and the Bisco and shoot, we’ll take a beer sponsor. We’ll take Budweiser. Y’all come on down here. Winston Cup cigarettes. They’ll come down here and sponsor a lake for snow.

It might be a hard sale.

It might be a hard sale. Oh, man. It’s exciting. Well, thanks for coming on. Let’s try to kill something in the next 48 hours.

Absolutely. I’ve got a pack of Swacker broadheads just with your name on it ready to be used. You’re the only guy I know that recycles broadheads.

Shoot, I take them apart, sharpen the blades, oil the little hinge pin, put it all back together and kill another one with it.

I’ll have to get you some more.

Last year I ran out of swackers and y’all were, y’all had just moved and stuff was all packed up. Be like, I’ll get you some. And you did, but I’m like, I got, I got, I’d shot like, I shot up eight swackers a year before I was out, you know? So I went and I bought some, I don’t know what there was some, I did the research, made sure it was a reputable broadhead, you know, and bought them. Killed a few deer with them and then you got me. Got me some swackers.

Got your back. Ready to go. Yep. Ready to roll.

Kill them all. I tell you what else, though. I like shooting them with them swackers, but I like shooting them with that seven mag, too. Hogs, deer, bear, elk.

All of it.

We’re equal opportunity big game killers.

Yes, we are.

And consumers because I like to eat it.

I like to eat it too.

All right, man. Thanks.

Thank you.

Well, thank you all for listening. Trust that was an encouragement to you. One thing that I think just understanding how we work, we talked a lot in that conversation about the board of directors. The board of directors is eight, there’s eight seats on the board of directors. And three of the board members are me, Hank and Matt Jones, AKA mugs. And we are the, the three of us make up the executive team at snowboard Outfitters. So we are board members and we are snowboard Executives and each with a corny title, whatever. Got to do all that stuff. But each of us, just with a different area of how we lead the ministry and, and do, do it together, do it in partnership. And, and Hank specifically oversees Media, marketing, that involves Snack Shack sales. So Snack Shack manager, store manager, is on Hanks team. Registration and booking, that front office, that crew, they’re on Hanks team. Programming guys, they’re on Hanks team. Mugs, Matt Jones, oversees the operations side. So food service, transportation, construction, maintenance. Those guys are on Muggs team. But that’s what Hank does here. He’s an incredible friend, a huge blessing to my family and has been an incredible gift to this ministry.

And I love him, appreciate him as a brother, love his family. And I hope you get to meet him next time you come up. And if you’ve never been, go ahead and start making plans. We’ll see you soon at Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters at an event this year. It’d be awesome. And thank you again for your support, for listening, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us@SWOutfitters.com to see all of our programming and resources. And we’ll see you next week on no Sanity Required.