Slow Baja - Off-Road Racing Wonderkid Jax Redline

Episode Date: June 21, 2020

In this Father's Day Edition of Slow Baja, we talk to fifteen-year-old off-road racer Jax Redline. At two-years-old, he started riding a Yamaha PW50 dirt bike with training wheels. He was so fast, his father had to tie a rope to the bike to keep young Jax from racing away. By the time he was in kindergarten, he had competed at national events like the AMA Amateur Motorcross Championship at historic Loretta Lynn Ranch. From that first 50cc motorcycle, Jax Redline rapidly moved up the racing, and horsepower ranks. From go-carts to mini-sprints to UTV's to his current mount, a 900HP Trophy Truck. It's safe to say young Jax Redline thrives on speed. To fill the void left in the racing calendar due to the Covid-19 situation, Jax Redline and his father Shane, have been in Baja keeping sharp and having fun riding dirt bikes. "I pretty much won the dad lottery!" Jax quickly admits.  We agree. Enjoy the conversation and Happy Fathers Day. Visit the Redline Racing Texas website here Follow on Instagram Follow on Facebook

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. Slow Baja is brought to you by the Baja XL rally. The Baja XL is the largest and longest amateur off-road rally on the Baja Peninsula.

It's 10 epic days, L.A. to Cabo, back to L.A., mostly on dirt. For an adventure of a lifetime, you've got to check out the BajaXL rally. More information at BajaXL.org and on Facebook at the Baja XL Rally News and Support Group. It's coming up, January 2021. Be there. Hey, this is Michael Lemery with the Slow Baja podcast. I want to say thank you to everybody for tuning in. I've got a great guest today. Jack's Red Line, Red Line Racing out of Texas, is on the line.

And tell us, Jacks, most people start with, how old are you, young man? So I am 15. I started racing Baja when I was about 12 in a turbo CanAM, and then we literally raced just about anything you could think of, race dirt bikes when I was younger, and then went to go-carts and U-TVs. And then we were racing a spec truck for the past year. And then this year we stepped up into a full-blown trophy truck, right, below 1,000 horsepower. So we're racing some crazy stuff and loving Baja. Wow.

A thousand horsepower, 900 plus horsepower, 15 years old. So do you have a regular driver's license in Texas at that age? So what's funny is I got my permit right when I turned 15. So I can't drive by myself on the road yet, which is funny. Oh, sorry, I'm laughing, man. That just puts some crazy movies in my head about you taking the driving instructor out to get your permit. We've definitely talked about it. Yeah.

Hey, I know that you got started pretty young racing motocross. Why don't you take us back a little bit through the history of the brief, yet. long history of Jack's Redline and where you got started racing and how that came about and your progression up to trophy trucks. For sure. So I was born in Amarillo, Texas. I still live here and right, I was about two years old. My dad raced motocross all his life when he was younger. And then so we, he had this great idea when I was two to right over to like two and a half years old. He was like, hey, I'm going to get Jack's a PW50 dirt bike. I'm going to put training wheels on it. and I'm going to tie a rope to the back of it so we can't run away from me.

So I was two and a half years old, running this tiny little dirt bike, and then we just kind of, I had a ton of fun on that and pretty much never looked back and have been racing since then. And I went to Loretta's when I was six years old, the Loretta Lens in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, and I finished fifth. That's like the biggest motorcross nationals you can go to. What eight for you, Jacks? I was six when I went there.

So that's kindergarten, right? Am I right? That's right, yeah. I love it, man. When I was first learning how to ride a dirt bike, still out of pacifier in my mouth, and I was doing laps around the block. And then we went from dirt bikes, and then just as you kind of step up the ranks in dirt bikes,

as you're getting faster, and everyone you're racing with is faster. You're really pushing yourself. You start hitting bigger, bigger jumps, and you start crashing. It happens to everybody. and when I started crashing quite a bit, it just got to a point where I wasn't even getting hurt as much, but it was kind of a fear of getting hurt.

And we just kind of, there was kind of a story we had because it was crazy. There was actually, there was a kid who was six or seven years old, and he, I don't even remember the story that good, but big motorcross accident and ended up this kid, like, got super, super badly hurt, like spinal cord injury or something. And I kind of freaked me out, and I was thinking that was going to happen to me. So we ended up getting out of motorcross when I was probably seven or eight years old. And we got into go carts, like dirt track go carts, just in circles. And then we, everything we do, it seems like we can't just stay at level one.

to go to level 100. We ended up within like, I think it was maybe a year of racing some go-karts. We were at the nationals in like maybe Louisiana, I think. And I finished top five there. And just then we got in some bigger go-carts. And I just kind of got bored of driving in circles. And then my dad had this great idea. We were like, hey, let's go down to the local UTV dealership and we picked up a non-turbo Polaris 1000. So we went to the little local track here in Lubbock, Texas. That's like not too, too far from us. And we went to a little local race and kind of been hooked on that. And then we raced and our buddies

with Trappo racing, Ernesto and Trappo, we kind of got hooked up with them. And we decided we wanted to go Baja racing. And we We were talking to them because those guys was Tropo racing. They've been racing Baja for years. They race a turbo K&M. And we decided that we want to race Baja. So we were like, hey, Ernesto, how can we get hooked up and raise Baja? We want to race to Baja 500.

He was like, okay, great. You have a year and six months. We're like, no, we want to go to this year's Baja 500. So we ended up going to the Baja 500 that year. It was 2017, was our first Baja race ever. and we ended up having no idea how brutal it would be. We went pre-running and we were like, this is easy.

We were in our can-am having the best time for our lives. And then we went after all the trophy trucks, has blown out the course and totally just blew us away. And then we've been racing Baja just about any chance we can get down there since then. And we've stepped up from spec trucks, trophy trucks. And now we're in a geyser, Abdali Lopez's old, PM trophy truck, which is, I think it's right above 800 horsepower. It's a small block, two-wheel drive. It is the fastest thing I've ever driven. And I love every minute of it.

Wow. That's quite a, that's quite a quick progression. And without getting too far into the weeds on all the different differences in classes and trucks and this and that, you're at the top of the heap already at 15. Up there with the big boys, with the big boys, with the, the right equipment and at your age are you actually able to race the Baja 1000 yet or do you still have to wait until you're 16 to do that so I have to be 16 to race Baja so this year we're doing all the best in the desert series but we are we've been we've been since this coronavirus started we have gotten really into DER bikes and so I have a KTM 350 and a KTM 450 and so we've been racing a whole bunch of local stuff we just went and I actually finished

second at this out of a weekend race here and not too far from us in Oklahoma and finished second in the amateur novice class. So we've been having a ton of fun on dirt bikes, but we're trying to get hooked up with Colton Udall. We went and rode with him a couple weeks ago in California. And we're trying to set up a trip with Colton and our buddy Chris Phillips to go down and do a little maybe a weekend Baja trip in the next couple weeks is what we're trying to do. Yeah, I hear things are hopefully opening up in Baja soon. Hey, so we've already gotten to Baja. So let's talk about what brings us together, Slow Baja and you, fast Baja. We met at the Nora 500, the inaugural Nora 500 back in October, and you were right up there at the front of the

pack. Could have, what, right on Larry Ranglin's heels for the overall, right? Yeah, it was crazy. So we ended up, we were like door to door with like legends. It's crazy. Cops racing team, Larry Ragland. We were with all the guys that I look up to, Mark Post. We were right behind him and right in front of him back and forth the whole race. But we ended up taking second overall and right behind Larry Ragland. And that was my first time ever in a full-blown trophy truck.

So I've gotten a lot faster since then. And so we're hoping maybe we can go to the Nora 1000 this year. and kick some butt. So what's that like for you when you're out there racing and you see the dust trail from the guy ahead of you? What happens in your mind? Do you just like, is it like fishing? You set that hook and you start reeling that guy in

and you're taking those whoops a little bit faster and you're moving? Or is it really you need to like moderate your desire to just red mist and overtake him at any opportunity. What goes through your brain when you see the guy and you want to get him? You know, I want to say you just pin it and plow through everything, but that's not really the smartest thing you do. You listen to your co-driver.

You try to hit the corners as fast as you can. If you see some rocks, try not to hit them, but you see some big jumps over to the side, and maybe you can just hit everything a little bit harder than you normally would to get past the guy in front of me. Hey, and your co-driver's your dad, Shane, right? I will say. So I was doing all of our spec truck races and UTV races.

I was with my dad, Shane Redline, and we were having a ton of fun at it. And then once we got in the trophy truck stuff, he doesn't like the, he doesn't love how hard it is on you because you're just slamming into stuff at over 100 miles an hour. He just kind of beat him up a little too hard. he wasn't having fun as much anymore.

So he stepped up and he ended up flying around in a helicopter for a while. And now we're getting into the bike stuff. So maybe we'll race in different classes. But now Brian Hanson is my co-driver. And it is crazy how good he has, how good he is at what he does. It makes he probably 50% faster once I started going with Brian. Hey, and backing up a little bit, I'm assuming that you were your dad's navigator for a bit, and then you switched seats either in a race or, you know, for the next race, and your dad realized,

oh, the kid's getting kind of fast. And your dad, your dad lets you have that progression, and he moved to the other side. And now with the violence inside of a trophy truck, he's smart enough and generous enough to have, to have moved out and let a pro jump in and help you get to the next level. What did you learn from having your dad first driving, you navigating, and then you driving, your dad navigating, and now a pro navigator? What's that progression been like for you? So I'll say we've talked about that quite a bit.

So he started driving us when we were just getting into racing some razors at like, I think it was probably 12 years old on my first razor. and we were going and we raced probably two or three races and me in the right seat and then he just said, hey, Jacks, you want to try to do this? He wasn't expecting anything. He was just expecting to be slow and not be very good at it, but I ended up not being too bad. At our first race of me driving, I bounced off a rock and broke the car, but then ever since then I've gotten a lot better reading lines and reading tree lines to see what the corners are

going to come up and just being better at throttle control. And one thing that a lot of people will tell you is I'm really smooth when I'm driving where my dad just wants to throw it sideways for the camera. Yeah, well, I went to the Bonda Rond's school many years ago, and there's a difference between what looks fast to a camera and what is fast on a race course. For sure, and we race some Lucas Oil stuff, like the Lucas Oil off road. We race some razors. and then, or we race Yamaha's and Canams, and then right before we kind of got out of it, I was in a pro light, and it was always, all our guys that were out there being a part of the team, we're like, hey, Jacks, you got to get on the gas, your dad's smoking you.

Then we'd look at the lap times, he's up top pinning it, but I'm down and being smooth and cutting a whole second off the lat time around. So I've really learned to try to be smooth, and it's big when you're racing a thousand-mile race to really keep your truck together because if you're trying to win, you're not going to be able to win if you break your truck. Yeah. And so you've, obviously everybody who does this stuff, breaking down and crashing as part of it, what have you learned through that adversity of, you know, the excitement of being on top, being out front and then bang, an axle breaks, bang, you hit something, bang, you roll. You've done all these things. What's that like?

How have you dealt with it? How have you and your dad dealt with it being in the car or in the truck together? So at last year's Baja, or not Nora 1000. Last year's Nora 1000, on day one, like seven miles in. Nora, you can't pre-run. So it just came up on me really fast. I was kind of going for the lead and ended up getting sideways and rolling down a hill and just like how it feels to know that you're not going to be able to like,

even if you are going to finish the race, how it feels to not be able to win, it just, like, it's terrible because you're so excited, you're so pumped up and you were doing so good. And then another one was we were at the Parker 425, I qualified six out of all the trophy trucks.

And then on the timer, you can still see this, I'm pretty sure. I think it was race mile like 50 or 75. We were running second out of all of the trophy trucks, which is like insane. Brian was killing in our notes. We were like maxing out every single turn, just flying.

And then something little happens, axle breaks, and you're like an hour or two out down on the race after you guys come out and get you. So stuff happens. It's a part of it. We know how it works. But you're going to get lucky at some point. And Bo's going to work for you, whatever you're racing.

Yeah. So can we back up a little bit and just talk about, how Baja is different from the other desert racing that you've done in the States. What is it about Baja? Baja just seems to loom so large. What's that like? So you go pre-run Baja. A lot of people that even don't race, they'll go pre-run the course. They'll just be blown away thinking, yeah, you could probably ride a dirt bike or a razor down this.

How is a trophy truck that is literally like multiple feet wider than a UTV even fitting on this course? and we're hitting trees on both sides, and it's just, it's crazy because best in the desert is super, super fun, but the courses are a little bit more mellow compared to Baja, and it's just a little different in the way you can see, like, how the pits are set up, where Baja, you can literally go pit on a side of a cliff, whatever you want. Best in the Desert, you have to go to, like, the designated pits. So it's just, I think Baja is a little more wide open on, like the rules and when you're pre-running you can take your can am on the highway it's awesome and then

just pre-running pre-running and racing um bah you'll come up on some locals that decided they wanted to build a huge jump on the middle of the road and you're ended up hitting this nasty jump at like over a hundred miles an hour so you never know what's coming up on bah best in the desert and the u.s races are a little more forgiving you're not racing on and beside as many cliffs yeah Yeah, so again, getting back to the Noro 500, where we met. So first day you went to the Pines and the bikes and the safari class where I was in my 50-year-old land cruiser, we went to Errandera along the coast. Next day, we took the trip through the pines and it looked like a herd of elephants had gone through there and busted that road up. I mean, you guys in your trophy trucks really, really, it was some narrow stuff, some rocky stuff, some silty stuff.

And I saw your truck. I think you were missing most of the front fenders on your truck. So it's tough on those big vehicles, as you said. I think that day we may have had to take the hood off because we were like, it was so tight and sandy. I think we may have had some problems, but we ended up finishing. And I think we, I think we, at the Nora 500, I think we came out physically first, like almost every day. But yeah, I remember the pine forest. It was like I said, you're literally, it's so narrow that you are hitting trees on both sides of your truck in the middle of the road.

It's crazy. And that's just kind of how it goes. You're getting slapped in the face the whole time. But that's kind of a part of it. And I try my best to be as smooth as possible, but it's hard. when you're hitting stuff on both sides the whole time to keep your body panels on. But as long as the truck finishes, that's all it matters. Right.

As long as it finishes. Yeah, it's exciting for me to go through it at 25 miles an hour. You must have been doing 75. Oh, my gosh. Over 100. I love it, Jack. I love it. Hey, what do you do for mental preparation for this?

Physical preparation, mental preparation. I've talked to Jim Riley a little bit about racing trophy trucks, and he realized he needed to step up his physical fitness to be able to survive racing trophy trucks. You know, obviously it's different for a guy who's in his 50s versus you, but what do you do mentally to prepare for this? And then do you have any physical fitness routine or any of that? So I'll say when we were racing the trophy trucks in the past, my mentally, I think it was

really just getting your pre-run notes in and really studying the course as much as you can. But up until like recently, we've been racing on their riding bike so much. that I'm really, really, like on bikes especially. And trophy trucks, it's brutal, but you're sitting in a seat just steering a wheel the whole time versus racing bikes. It's a whole other level. You're moving the whole time. It's pretty much like running a sprint race for the whole race.

But recently, I've really had to up what I was doing physically to be able to be good for hours at a time on a bike. So you've had to actually start some physical fitness training to be able to survive that physically. Yeah, for sure. My main thing has been we have a peloton in our house, which is just like a bike, a stationary bike, and just like being able to ride that thing for hours at a time, if you can ride a peloton at like 160 beats per minute for three hours straight, you can go race to Baja.

Three hours straight. I love it, Jacks. I love it. Hey, so back to Baja, horses, cows, burrows. You see a lot on the quote-unquote race course. I mean, you know, the race course you're out there on the track, which isn't a track, it's a trail. Tell me about some of the crazy stuff that you've experienced in a truck at speed in Baja. Yeah, that's definitely different than a normal track that you go to at your local track where they carved it out. It's trails that have been there forever, but there is, we've had some gnarly stories, especially with fences. We're so unlucky with fences. There's been some locals that decide to put up the fence right in front of us. I think there was one

at the Baw 500, or nor a 500, I mean, where the guy we were coming in, I think it was, I think it was the last day. We were coming in. We were like 30 miles from the finish. We were so excited. and the locals, like, put up the fence. And we were like, we can't slow down. We don't have time. Like, Mark Post is, like, 20 seconds behind us. So you just kind of, you have a trophy truck, you have a bumper. You just go through the fence and report it to the officials, and they'll take care of it.

But fences have been a big thing with us. We've probably ran through 20 or 30 fences in our bar career. But that's one. And then locals really like to throw rocks in the middle of the course. and we've had one more recently, not in Baja, but riding out with Colton Udall in California. These people built this huge jump,

this huge kicker right in the middle of the whoop section. And so I was coming over at like fourth gear pinned, like leaning way over the back of my bike and just hit it and I almost went over the bars. It was crazy. But Baja and all kinds of off-road racing is just insane, never know what's going to come up. It's a lot different than going in a circle or around a track that they've set up. Yeah. And so on that, do you ever see yourself getting into a car and actually

driving a smooth racetrack, you know, like, you know, in a open wheel race car or in a sports car or making any of that progression? Or for you is the adrenaline of being on the dirt so much higher that you couldn't see actually, you know, getting into sports car racing. So I kind of two answers, really. Honestly, anything that goes fast and just kind of is awesome, I really enjoy just competing and racing against other people. But at the same time, I really like going really fast and flying through the air at over 100 miles an hour. It's like my favorite thing in the world, I know.

Yeah, and so on that, I've read that you're skydiving. Yeah, so I, yeah, that's true. So I went to Cabos and Lucas, Mexico. I think my first time I was, I think, 12 or 13 years old, and they hook you up to a tandem, tandem parachute, so you're hooked to like a guy who actually knows what he's doing, and you're pretty much just waving your arms around, being funny to the camera.

But that was my first time. And we actually, we went to the U.S. parachute, I think it's USPA maybe. I'm pretty sure that's what it's called. It's been maybe a year from now. But we actually went in front of the parachute, whatever the national administration of parachuting, I can't remember it's called it. I think it's USPA. We went in front of the board and we actually got a waiver to go skydive at a drop zone in Tennessee. So pretty much I at 14 years old, which was when I got approved, a 14-year-old got an approval to go jump out of a plane by themselves, which is absolutely insane.

We have, we've just, we're waiting to be able to go do it. We've been so busy with other racing, and then it rains a lot in Tennessee. So we're just, we're still trying to find a good time to head out and go jump out of some planes. But I'm, I'm really, I really like that feeling, just like flying. And I really like that. You get that skydiving. You get that jumping trophy trucks. You get that in dirt bikes.

That's like my, so fun to do. So that's what I was going to ask you. What are the parallels? It's right there. You're flying. Yeah, exactly. Wow. So what's next for you this year, buddy?

So honestly, we'll see. But our goal is to try to get down into Sambaa some more and go kind of enjoy the enjoy it on some dirt bikes, just maybe some cruise riding. And then we're going to be at the Silver State 300 in the trophy truck. They just gave us a new date for that. So that's awesome. And then we'll be at Vegas Torino, and then we'll kind of see what's back open and what we can do. But we just got some new bikes, and they're actually road racing bikes.

And so we'll try to get adventurous into that. check that out and see how we can do you're going to drag your knee you said you've got some road racing bikes you're going to get out and drag your knee and go around that's right we're joking about it i think i'm just going to try to drag my head on the ground awesome awesome hey so your routine uh jacks your routine up what are you eating uh before you go racing what what do you do um same thing every time different thing every time eating all I know like Justin Lofton, he always, I think it's ham and eggs every morning. We totally need to do that because Mexico food is so, you never know with some Mexico food.

We've had some crazy food poisoning and stuff in the past. We really need to get better at that, but really it's wake up, eat some random tacos. We're all week pre-running and stuff. We're all just eating at random tacos. But we normally like to go to actually like more of a restaurant in the morning and go has some, good food and just try to not eat some weird stuff they'll throw you off that'll catch you up catch up with you later yeah that's a tough one it's hard to get out of those racing suits in there yeah okay hey um i'm i'm going to let you go here in a couple minutes we're uh we're rolling up

on a half hour here uh yeah tell me about your dad how's your relationship how did how did you mean he was dragging you around on a motorcross dirt bike when you were two or something like that, right? Yeah. You said jumping out of a plane tethered to somebody. You were tethered to your dad at two and a half. You've spent a lot of time with him in some very fast stuff, which can be super, super stressful. I don't even like driving with my kids when they're driving in regular cars. Tell me about your dad and what you've learned from him.

Yeah, so I must say, I don't know that I could do it either. It's pretty crazy just trusting me in that much stuff. But we like to say I pretty much won the dad lottery. Pretty much couldn't be any better. I'm giving you that vote for sure. Yeah, you did the dad lottery. I love it. He's definitely the guy I spend the most time with out of everybody.

My dad's awesome. I get to do everything that we could imagine. It's just everything that I really like to do. It's nice because we like the same things. And so we really, every time that we want to get into something new, we can do it together. And it's awesome to get to spend so much time with him and everything we do. And so you're well on your way to being a professional race car driver. What's the process on that?

How does that go from amateur stuff to quote unquote turning pro? Explain that to me for a little bit. Man, I don't know. I got to figure out how to make some money at this. At 15 jacks I love it yeah we have a we have a trucking company in Amarillo, Texas that is pretty much covering just about all of our racing and so really it'd be awesome to become a freshman race car driver but I feel like that's really like you get a lot of stress on your shoulders when you're trying to accomplish something like that and you see like sponsors pulling out and people's whole like careers are pretty much over what do you do now? right so i think honestly what we're doing now we are doing everything you could imagine um dirt bikes street bikes trophy trucks u tvs helicopters uh skydiving whatever we're doing so much stuff that really i think it it'll end up when i'm older it'll probably be go have a ton of fun every

weekend do some crazy stuff travel the world and then go home on monday and uh do it all again the next week. With a little bit of work in between at Jack's trucking. Exactly. Exactly. All right, we're going to wrap it up here, buddy. Tell me when you're in Baja, do you have a favorite taco? Are you a Karniassada guy or are you Alpestor or Pollo? What is Jack's eat when he's at the taco shop? So not many people know this, but like spicy stuff kills me. Like I cannot eat spicy stuff. Something's wrong with me. I like, it hurts so bad. So my go-to, is just carnia sara with queso and just nothing else.

Just carneasada and cheese. Good at that, man. Love it, all right. Well, let's close it out. What do you have to say to your friends in Baja, trying to get their Baja fixed, listening to us here on a podcast? Are you going to be at the Mexican 1000 in October?

You know, I'm planning on being at the Nore 1000. We'll see what we can do. Check me out on Instagram. Facebook and YouTube at JAX, R-E, J-D-L-I-N-E, Jack's Redline. We posted it just about every day, and so you can see what we're doing on there, and appreciate you for having me on. Hey, yeah, I don't want people to miss you on YouTube. You've got a great gallery of videos there, too.

I got to watch a few of them to see what it's like to actually be in a trophy truck instead of my old plane cruiser. And I do want to say, thanks for making some time for Slow Baja, and do you ever slow down? I like going fast. We're going to leave it right there, buddy. Thanks a lot. All right.

Bye, guys. Bye, bye. Hey, you guys know what to do. Please help us by subscribing, sharing, rating, all that stuff. And if you missed anything, you can find the links in the show notes at slowbaha.com. I'll be back before you know it. And if you want to receive notices on new episodes, Please follow Slow Baja on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for you old folks.