Slow Baja - Toby Pond Sponsor Spotlight Scheel-Mann USA

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

In this episode of Slow Baja, we highlight our sponsor, Toby Pond of Scheel-Mann USA. Toby and I met during the 2022 NORRA 1000 event. I was on the side of the road in the Mag 7 pit, watching as my 50-year-old bench seat frame was being repaired. Pond was there supporting a Baja racing Porsche 911, which was the first Porsche to finish the NORRA. We struck up a conversation about seats, and he gently probed my thoughts on aftermarket options. Given the circumstances of the repair and how the seat had broken in the first place, I was feeling a bit cranky. I realized I was being snippy, so I adjusted my tone and poured Toby a sip of my sponsored Fortaleza Still Strength tequila. He mentioned that a colleague on the Porsche team was in the tequila industry and invited her over to join us. She quickly informed me that Still Strength was illegal in Mexico and was very curious about how I was "so connected" to be pouring Fortaleza—especially since they "never sponsor anything" —and Still Strength, which was quite rare, expensive, and illegal where we were enjoying it.Our friendship began during that dusty roadside repair in Baja. A few weeks later, a pair of Scheel-Mann seats: a Vario F for me and a Vario F XXL for my navigator were in Slow Baja. The improvement has been life-changing, and my back is much happier now. No exaggeration—the Scheel-Mann seats are by far the best modification I’ve made to my truck. Follow Scheel-Mann USA on InstagramLearn more about Scheel-Mann USAMentioned in this episode: Slow Baja Vintage ExpeditionBenchmark Maps Baja Road and Recreation AtlasOvercrest Rally Overcrest RallySupport the Slow Baja PodcastBuy Baja Bound Insurance

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. Well, if you've been listening to me for a while, you know I'm an absolute minimalist when it comes to Baja travel. But the one thing I never leave home without is a good old paper map. And my favorite is the beautiful, and I mean beautiful, Baja Road and Recreation

Atlas by benchmark maps. It's an oversized 72-page book jam-packed with details, and now you can get it from me at slowbaha.com. That's right. You can get it in the Slowbaha shop, and in fact, you better get two, one for your trip planning at home, and one for your Baja rig. And if you love maps and you can't get enough of them like me, let me tell you about two sites I am absolutely obsessed with. Eastview MapLink and LongitudeMaps.com, whatever you're looking for in Maps, it's there. From the entire benchmark collection to Baja Wall Maps to custom maps, you'll find it all at LongitudeMaps.com or EVMapLink.com. You know I've long said it. Ask your doctor if Baha's right for you.

Well, if you've been hankering to get down to Slow Baja with me, you got to check out the Adventures tab at Slowbaha.com. All my trips are there from my famed fall vintage extravaganza to my winter and summer expeditions which are open to trucks of any age. You know, on a Slow Baja expedition, your meals are always included, which really does take the sting out of camping. And when we get off the trail, let me tell you, we have the happiest of happy hours. If good dirt roads, private campsites, ranch stays, great food, and great people sounds like you're kind of fun,

well, you've got to check out the Adventures tab at slowbaha.com. But don't delay. These trips are small, they're highly immersive, and they will sell out. And folks, just so you know, I am always here for you for your Baja trip planning questions. One question, 100 questions, the easy way to get me is Slowbaha.com slash contact. And if you'd like to go to Baja and you don't want to go by yourself, you don't have a vintage vehicle, my winter trip doesn't work out for you. I am happy to talk to you about organizing and leading a private guided tour. I've done it.

I've loved it. The pictures are over there at slowbaha.com slash adventures. And you can check them out. And if you've got some questions, let's talk. From the Shieldman Recording booth at Slow Baja Studios. Thanks for tuning. into today's Slow Baja. My heaping dose of gratitude

goes out to Justin Robbins, Rodney Willis, and the entire team at Red Line Land Cruisers in Colorado Springs. You know, I drove old Slow Baja up to Monterey for a couple days at Car Week, the brand new event sports car vacation land. That's pretty cool.

Got to have Slow Baja on display there and got to tell people all about the Slow Baja vintage expedition and my winter expedition. So thanks to the boys from the Overcounter, crest rally for getting that set up and including me. Then I drove out to Colorado Springs. It's 1300 something miles to get out there. And I drove out there so that I could get my truck into Red Line Land Cruzzers. They are FJ 40 specialists. Justin Robbins has a beautiful 71. He let me drive

it. And it was amazing to find out how much better an FJ 40 can run than mine did. So, hey, thanks guys for taken care of 13 years and over 100,000 Baja miles of abuse on that truck. Got all sorts of things fixed up. All sorts of things. A truck is much, much, much better. And if you have an FJ 40 or a 60 or an 80 or one of those right-hand drive Pradoes that came in, JDM or whatever, you should get it out there to Red Line Land Cruises. Those guys really are amazing. wait to test my brand new boozy Baja, buttery soft suspension lift. I took off a one-year-old old, old man, emu suspension to put this one on, and I cannot wait to test it and tell the guys back at Red Line how much nicer my truck is in the dirt. All right, well, today's show is with Toby

Pond, and I could not have driven 3,000-something miles in my old Lancashire. If I didn't have shield man seats. By far the best modification I've made on my truck. And Toby Pond is the guy. He's the shield man distributor for the USA. He's a big Baja fan. That's where we met originally when I was doing the Nora stuff. I met Toby Pond through that. And again, I can't say thanks enough for Toby doing what he does. And I have a set of shield man seats in my truck because really it did make the drive a heck of a lot nicer. All right, without further ado, we're talking Baja, we're talking Sheelman seats. Toby Pond today on Slow Baja. Toby Pond, what a delight to be here in the shade of your Shielman, shield man, shield. Yeah, shilmon, but, you know, I'm not German. I don't

speak German, and so I don't correct anybody. You can pronounce that however you prefer. I have a German dog right here in my lap. Frank is hanging out for this podcast. he's absolutely wiped. We're at Overland Expo, PNW, and I'm just delighted to see you. Thanks, ma'am. Me too. Glad you're here. Yeah, so we met. Yeah.

We met on our roadside in Baja. I was getting the old bench seat at a MagSseffen pit repaired after it had broken, and we started talking about seats and if I had ever considered aftermarket seats. And I got to admit I was a little bit on a, I was a little cranky. And then I said to myself, don't be that cranky guy. This guy wants to talk seats.

And then we started having a little sip of tequila. And then I realized who you were. Sheelman, best seats in the world. Yeah. And then I had those best seats in the world in my truck, which has really changed my life. What's different? I don't hurt.

Don't hurt. I don't come home from a Baja trip and literally, honestly, sincerely need $1,000 of back repair. massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, all that was routine after going to Baja for two weeks. So finest seats in the world are actually saving me money. That's awesome. That's the end of the blatant self-promotion period. But how did you get going to Baja?

You were part of a team that year supporting a Porsche that was racing in Nora out of Portland area, right? Yeah. So for Baja, for me, started. In the 90s, I actually went down there and volunteered to build, help lay cinder blocks at an orphanage. And I slept out under the stars and went hiking behind the orphanage and the rocks and met the people that were there. And every moment just resonated with me internally and externally, and I knew I had to go back. And it wasn't until about nine years ago, a friend decided to take on the challenge of, trying to finish the Nora in a Porsche 9-11, an air-cooled 9-11.

And over the years, people had tried to do that, but had failed. And so naively, we said, let's see if we can do it. And so I invited myself along to Jeff Gamroth's team, and he had bought a Pinsgauer six-by-six as a chase vehicle, also super naive, not understanding the pace that was needed to kind of keep up. A F-250 might have been appropriate. Yeah, yeah, maybe. Yeah, like a plumber truck would have been way more appropriate.

Yeah. And so, yeah, that was the first year. And I kept inviting myself back and helping with logistics and working on cars and helping the racers. And one of those years, my wife met us at the end of the trip. And she saw this enthusiasm and the joy that was coming from everybody and had just done this adventure. And she said, I want to be a part of that. I want to do it. Why don't you and I do it in a G-wagon?

And I said, absolutely not. You're crazy. So when I had met you, actually, that trip, we were doing the safari. Yeah, you were in the Slow Baja Safari, which, yeah. So we met previous to that when you were supporting the Gamroth Porsche, and then you came back in that. And then you graduated to an actual racing video. vehicle of your own. Exactly.

Yeah, you came through the introductory to Baja program of Slow Baja Safari and moved up into a really cool like Dakar rally motue. The star is aligned and we found a truck that some friends of mine had built to do the Sonora navigational rally in northern Mexico and they had been successful a couple times, but kind of reached the end of their financial road and time allowment to go racing. And so the truck had been sitting for a number of years in the desert, and we revived it, and then kind of transformed it into the truck you saw, and then my wife and I did that. And talk about that livery a little bit.

Yeah. It's historic. It's historic. I really enjoy all kinds of motorsports events, and one of them being the road rally and off-road rally with cars in Europe, and there was a bunch of cars ran a Basto cigarette livery in the 80s, the 80s and so the we came up with like a an homage to to that livery but using the German flag colors and then Motool stepped in and helped support us and so we we put their logo on the side and yeah it was really fun this is what I love now you're in Portland right yeah what

what is so weird about Portland that you have a deep dive on 80s cigarette liverys for for race vehicles or 90 cigarette liveries and then you go like Portland Portland is the first time I've ever had hand-hewn ice. Artisanal ice? I was at the Imperial, and I ordered Fort Laezza, and, you know, I'm expecting it on the rocks or, you know, on a big ice cube. And the guy gets out of saw and starts sawing off a perfect square. That's the most Portland thing I've ever heard. Yeah, perfect square of ice.

So you've adapted a historic cigarette livery to your sponsor Motool. And the truck was beautiful. Thanks, man. Yeah, that was fun. And have you been back for the Nora since then? Unfortunately, I haven't. Okay. All right.

Yeah. All right. Yeah. Well, I'm done with Nora, too. So feel free to come along on the slow Baja in October or in March. But what is it that brings you back to Baja? Why Baja? What happened in that trip where you were laying, you know, cinder blocks?

that made you say this place is for me. Because it's very hard for me to put my finger on it, but I always say, ask your doctor if Baja is right for you, and it seems very right for you. Yeah, the thing that I keep coming back to you is, is there's a, obviously there's a geographical beauty that I love.

I love to be around it, but the humanity of the people that populate the area and have lived there for a long time, I just find really warm and inviting and grounding and I just really enjoy to meet those people and hang out and learn about their life. Me too. That was a great podcast, Toby. Thanks. So what's keeping you busy now?

You've got the best seats in the world. What's keeping you busy? Do you have a Baja trip coming up? I don't have a Baja trip coming up. So we have a small business and it's very time-consuming to do that right. And so my wife is doing 15 different jobs and things I can't imagine even would need to be done. She does and doesn't even tell me that she did them because they just need to be done. And then I'm busy.

You know, we get to go to Germany and meet with the factory a lot. develop new products and make sure that the quality is always coming in top notch. And so unfortunately, it's a cliche, but we've been too busy working and not busy playing in Baja. Yeah, well, I understand that. Can we talk a little bit about what sets Shilman apart? They are amazing. And I'm being absolutely sincere when I say that. And I have said, and I do say on the podcast every episode, that the best modification I've made,

bar none, have been those seats. What is it about them? Well, it's not rocket science. What a seat needs to do is it needs to fit you and support you in a way that your muscles can relax. And so we make a seat that is on the firmer side, but if you combine that with the adjustability that we have so that you can fit the seat to match your leg length and your torso width and your spine shape, What happens is that your muscles stop having to do the job of holding you in the seat and you can relax and the fatigue goes away. So what you don't realize is that in a normal soft seat that doesn't fit you, you're constantly working to hold yourself in place. And our seat, once it's adjusted properly, allows you to relax.

That's what's happened to my core muscles here, actually. I'm going from the bench seat. I had a real six-pack that was holding me in. And that's all my fault. Hey, we're going to take a quick break to talk about if you're driving in Baja. You also need insurance. So we're going to hear from our friends at Baja Bound. We'll be right back with Toby Pond talking seats, Baja, cinder block housing, whatever else we can come up with.

Awesome. Here at SLOBaha, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border. When we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at Baja Baja. Bajabound.com. That's Bajaubound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Hey, big thanks to those of you who've contributed to our Baja baseball project. You know, we launched our gear deliveries on my winter expedition.

Michael and Matthew from Barbers for Baja, we're along for the ride, and we got to deliver that critically needed baseball gear up and down the peninsula. It was really, truly amazing. And on my last trip, I got to go to the state baseball championships and see some of our alums playing, some recipients of the Baja Baseball Gear Deliveries. And congratulations to Guerrera Negro and Muley, the Austenaros and the Cardinalitos won silver and bronze at the state championships. Big stuff. And it's really fun to be there and fun to see them.

All right, well, please help us continue this vital work. Make your tax-deductible donation at the Barbers for Bahamas. click barbers for baha.org, click the baseball in baha link, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I really do. It is so amazingly gratifying to be able to give these kids this chance to keep playing this sport. Keep them on the field. Keep them out of trouble. Please check it out.

Baseball in Baja link at barbers for baha.org. Thank you. I want to tell you about these new rocky, talky radios that I absolutely love. Heavy duty, beautifully made, easy to program, easy to use. We had 28 people, 15 trucks on the Slow Baja Winter Expedition. You can hand these radios to anybody from a 14-year-old kid to an 80-year-old, and they'll know how to use it. They are that well-designed.

One charge lasted the entire week. We are never out of range. I happen to upgrade to the accessory whip antenna for my radio and for my sweeps radio, the Donovan brothers, we were never out of contact. I can't say it strongly enough. Rocky Talky Radio's, RockyTocky.com. Check them out. Slow Baja approved.

Hey, we're back with Toby Pond, Shielman seats, best sheets in the world. Best seats in the world. I mean that sincerely. Anytime you see me in Baja, if you want to climb in and sit in my Shilman's, they are really amazing and they do sell themselves. But, you know, that time that I ran into you,

Tim and Kelsey from Dirt Sunrise, now Salty Sunrise, they were there in their FJ80 with your seats. And I asked Tim about them, and he said, you know, they don't feel like much when you get in them, but it's when you get out of them after 12 hours that that's when you feel it. And I say that every time now. I mean, that's the whole thing, right? Well, if you made a seat that was comfortable immediately,

a soft, squishy, luxurious seat, that when you got in just enveloped you and made you feel warm and fuzzy, you know, an hour into the drive, you would be an excruciating pain. So you can't have both. Everything in life's a compromise. Yeah. You know, ask your doctor if a showman seat is right for you. Hey, that's trademark, but I'll let you have it.

Hey, let's get back to that first trip. Was that school trip, religious trip? What got you down there to build houses? Yeah, it was a, I'm from Vermont originally. and my family left me actually when I was in a senior in high school. They said that they were moving to Oregon, and I had a friend that let me stay with him for the year in my junior year. And at the end of that year, I came out here, like to the west, you know.

And I was in a church group that my mom was going to the church, and so I showed up, and they said they were going to build this, help build an orphanage. And I said, that sounds great. let's hop in a church bus and drive to Mexico, and it was a great adventure. Do you remember what town that was in? I remember that it wasn't very far south, and it was in the mountains to the east of Ensonata somewhere. There you go.

Yeah. All right. Casa Hogar, maybe. Who knows? Maybe, yeah. What do you remember from that trip? The scorpions in the ground went with my tent, and the people in the village that were, We're a little bit skeptical of these, like, why are you here?

What are you doing? And then the longer we were there and stayed helping in the sun and not giving up, they warmed up to us and really welcomed us to the community and showed us around. And we weren't there for a super long time, but it was just a really sweet memory. And it stuck with you. Yeah, absolutely. And did you get back in between when we met at Nora? I did not.

Okay, so pick it up with that trip with Gamroth. That seems like a really great team. It was an amazing team. I've seen you guys at the end of the trip in Cabo, and it just seems like a really tight, really good, really friendly bunch. Absolutely. So it's a rag-tag group of the best, most enthusiastic people that knew nothing about Mexico, knew nothing about racing, knew nothing about logistics,

knew nothing about how bad. it was that first year the the plan for the car was that it wasn't going to be a doom buggy it was going to be a portion 9-11 maybe lifted a little bit on some all terrain tires with skid plates and we were going to show that we could do it and the first day was broken shocks and the skid plates pushed up into the shift linkage and no spare parts on the shocks because they bought the most amazing expensive expensive shocks that money can buy, and there's no way those were going to blow out. So, you know, the first night in... Ignorance is bliss, isn't it? Yeah, the first night in San Felipe, they were, three o'clock in the morning. We were at a Volkswagen, a really generous little mechanic shop opened up, and he had like an SUV carburetor rebuild kit that had the right size overrings to fix the shocks,

and we were borrowing oil from other teams, and it was the most demanding, physically demanding, We didn't, you know, as you know, there's a party every night. And we were so slow and so broken that every night we came in well after the party. And we didn't have plans on where we were going to get food. And so these mechanics were working their butt off under generator lights with no tacos and no beer. But it was at the same time coming together, humanity coming together with the local community and the other racers. the weather and um it was just you if you tell somebody how bad it is that they're like why do you go back and you're like well every second of it was the best yeah yeah yeah and then you get if

you have enough time to drive back where you actually get to slow down and enjoy things yeah without that pressure with with you know whatever is going through your head of how you're going to make it better for next time yeah all that that's pretty special as well yeah i mean absolutely if you get that, you know. A lot of the times we're so pushed to have the time to go down there and do it. We don't have enough time to relax on the way back. But yeah, have you heard of this thing called Slow Baja that's all about relaxing now? So sounds great. So we're going to branch into your peculiar collection of vehicles. Yeah. And I say peculiar in the nicest sense, the nicest. The nicest, from my heart.

Okay. I find it's, your, your eclectic might be a little bit, um, nicer way to spin that. Peculiar is probably not the right word, but you have an eclectic sense. Design led in my mind. Can we go through what,

what's in the shop? Oh, geez. Are you willing to? Yeah, sure. Yeah. So I, it's probably all on your website or all on your. No, I, I kind of, it's not, I'm not trying to hide it from anybody, but I Also, I don't try to, I don't put everything out there all the time.

But the reason that led me to starting Shulman USA is a really true passion for not just cars or motorcycles, but really anything that's well designed and something that I find interesting. And I had a little bit of an interesting childhood where we, I didn't live in, I moved a lot, and we spent a lot of time living in cars and going from like, the next job to the next job for my dad. And so I saw the world through the windshield of a car, and what you see through that windshield is often other cars. And so that's something that is just really deeply part of my psyche.

And so I love interesting cars. And so right now we've got everything from the rally truck that we built for Nora. We still have that in the showroom. And you have to describe them a little bit more than the rally truck. So that's a, that's a, that's a, that was the truck that was built by my friends in New Mexico. It's an homage to the Jackie Ix winning G-Wagon that won the like 84 Dakar. And so it's a short wheel base with some aerodynamic additions on the back so they could raise the top speed. And it has a really famous Mercedes engine called it an OM-60s.

so it you know it's reliable but also builds really good good power and revs high and makes it pretty flexible as a rally truck and yeah that's a really special truck the person the people the team of people who built that originally are really special there's a there's a really great community of really authentic g-wagon enthusiasts and the three people that built this truck are really a fundamental key group that of authentic people that are part of that community. And actually since then, one of them had cancer and died.

And so him being a part of that team is really special in the community. And so I'm really honored to have the truck and have been able to continue the journey of racing it and being successful racing it. Even though we didn't go fast, we finished the race. And that exceeds all expectations.

So that's a really special truck. Yeah. Yeah. And you've got this fabulous Austrian version of the G here. Tell me about that one. Yeah. So the one that's here at the show today. The one that's here that you can't see.

You can't see. That's the B-roll truck. That's a, it's called a, the code name for the German military was it's the wolf. And I think the German military had a lot of different wolves. But it's a fun little short wheel base, soft top G-wagon. The windshield folds down. There's no door tops. And so you can really really.

make it a very, very lightweight, you know, kind of scrambly, fun truck. And that one, as a similar engine to the rally truck, it's a five-cylinder version of the same engine, so it revs high and has a lot of power. And so you have this lightweight, relatively lightweight G-wagon that makes power and has no top, and the windshield falls down, and has great seats. So that's a very fun truck. Yeah, very unique. Other than lightweight, it sounds a lot like my land cruiser.

Yeah, well, when I say lightweight, compared to a G-Wagon with a roof. Yeah, and my land cruiser is not high-reving. But my land-cruz has great seats and no doors. It's a similar combination, yeah. And what else? You've got an Alpine. Yeah, so there's a French car called a Renault Alpine A-110. Fabulous rally car in the state.

Fabulous rally. It won the first World Rally Championship and won Monte Carlo many times. So that's a project that is a really, again, a really special car that was owned by a gentleman in Flagstaff, Arizona, that just really lived and breathed all types of adventure and rally, both with motorcycles and cars. And this was part of his estate. And so I was able to meet his wife, and she sold it to me, and it wasn't running. And so we're kind of getting it back on the road and sorting it out. and looking forward to using that in competition. Yeah.

And something that's exiting, we talked about it a little earlier. So part of the story with that is a series two Lotus 7 that was just a really beautiful original patinaed car. And I was telling you a little bit more of an elaborate part of the story, but there's a community in Portland of people, just really authentic car guys. And so we're doing some horse trading and they're helping me sort out the, Alpine in trade for the Lotus 7 and then they'll get the Lotus 7 going and we'll be

able to all use that together and have some fun. And I feel like I'm pulling these things out of you but I'm guessing that there's a 9-11 or something in the collection somewhere? Yeah. So I you know almost 30 years ago I dreamt of buying a 9-11 and I

there was a car in my neighborhood that I would see at the local video rental store You guys ever heard of that? Yeah, video rental stores. There's still a blockbuster in Portland, I understand. Eugene, actually, or a bend right down the street. Awesome.

And so it started with that. I bought a 9-11, and then one day I found a 356 convertible that was, again, in a garage and not running, and I was able to sell the 9-11 and buy the 356. And so I've had that for almost 30 years, or 25 years. and then our seats are a perfect fit for 9-11. And so we really needed to build a couple of cars to show how they fit and do R&D. And so we build an homage to the... This sounds so cheesy.

In 1978, there was a privateer group of a couple of brothers in France called the El Mierrez Brothers. And they wanted to win the Monte Carlo rally. and they race Porsche 9-11s, and so they came up with a formula to a group four formula where they could add flares and bigger wheels and tires to race, and then they won the Monte Carlo, privateer group. And so I just really loved the story of these guys,

like, that's the last time anyone in a Porsche has won the Monte Carlo. And so I built a car as an homage to that, so it has the same kind of formula that they used. And Jeff Gammeroth from Rossport, who I helped helped with the racing in Mexico helped me build that. So that's a really special fun car, kind of a, you know, it's got, you know, it's a patina car, so it's got nicks and scrapes and it's an original paint, but it's, it runs really well.

And do you do some fun rally stuff with that? Yeah, so there's, there's some events that are not competitive, but it's with people that love to go out and explore the country and drive back roads and, and when things break, get down on your hands and knees and fix things up. And so the over crest rallies won. And there's a bunch of really cool grassroots portrait guys on the East Coast that we've been traveling over and meeting with. So, yeah, there's some fun stuff. What do you find, like, you know, of course I'm doing a version of that, a slow version of that.

But what do you find when you're out on a rally, whether it's a market, specific or a mixed where you've got Dotson 510s and Lotus sevens and whatever, your Porsches and whatnot. What does that do for your soul? I know what it does for my soul. I don't want to fill in the blanks here, but it's pretty special, isn't it? It is, and it's hard to explain. It's like when you're telling somebody how to make a recipe for like the most amazing

dish, and you're telling them the ingredients, and I'm like, well, that doesn't sound exciting, and that doesn't sound exciting. but dear Lord, when you add all these things together, you end up with this amazing taco or whatever. And so for me, what I've found, because people will ask me after we do an event, like what was your favorite part or what was your favorite car, and I keep gravitating towards the human experience,

which you just can't have unless you bring people together doing things that you all can share, and love and you know you surround yourself with nature and windy roads and and rock formations and interesting vehicles and then you throw in a little bit of a mechanical breakdown a little bit of a little bit of stress a little bit of stress and then you realize that like hey this guy has that tool and this guy has that tool and I saw the spare part when we were driving down the road the car's on the side of the road and the humans can do amazing things things when they're under stress and and you you come up with this recipe for the world's best taco

and you can't you can't do it unless you do it can't do it unless you do it we're going to leave it right there to be on that profound bit of wisdom you can't do it unless you do it thank you very much oh man thank you very much best way for people to get a hold of you oh you know our website um is shield dashman dot com and uh give us an email or a phone call it's all on there Best way for people to get a hold of you is to click through the sponsor tab on my website and click sponsor and it goes right to your website. Awesome. That's easy. All right.

And you've got Instagrams and other stuff. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. And you know what? Toby always, it's like you're a tailor. It's like you're a tailor with the tape measure around your neck, measuring people up to get people the right fit for their rigs. And it really is a special skill. And I really appreciate you sorting my...

You're very welcome. My ride out with the seat for me that's the right size and the seat for Ted that's the right sides. And Noah, who's behind the camera, got to sit in that seat for a week, and he lived to tell the tale. So, thanks, Noah. Thanks, Toby. Yeah, man. Thank you, guys. All right, we did it.

Hey, well, I hope you like that one. Toby's a cool cat. And, again, those seats are by far the best mods I've ever made. And, you know, when I was sitting there recording that, I was in Chama chairs. And I said, these seats are so good. I need to get some of those for Slow Baja. So now you're going to be seeing me sitting on Chamas when I'm not sitting in my shield man's.

If you like what I'm doing, folks, if you like what I'm doing, meeting people in person helping them tell their story to me. You kind of support the show. Drop a taco in the tank. You can do that by going to slowbaha.com slash donations. While you're at the slowbaha.com, maybe you want to check out the store. I've got some cool stuff in there, some foam front hats. are getting added now, so you might want to check that out a whole bunch of new styles.

Come to the Slow Baja shop. And, of course, you can always make a donation to the Baja baseball program. We're making some gear donations on my Slow Baja vintage expedition. All right, well, thanks for listening. I'm going to go out with telling you about Off Road Motorsports Hall of Famer and Slow Baja alum Mary McGee. She had a pal, Steve McQueen. You know, Steve loved Baja. And he said, Mary?

Baja is life. Everything else, it's just waiting. You know, people always ask me, what's the best modification that I've ever made to slow Baja? Without a doubt, it's my Shielman seats. You know, Toby at Shield Man USA could not be easier to work with. He recommended a Vario F for me and Averio F XXL for my navigator, Ted. His Ted's kind of a big guy. And Toby was absolutely right. The seats are great and they fit both of us perfectly.

and let me tell you, after driving around Baja for over a year on these seats, I could not be happier. Shieldman, slow Baja approve, learn more and get yours at shielman.com. You know, I'm all about keeping things simple, travel and light, and finding the really good stuff. And that's why I've been wearing iron and resin for years. It's not just clothes. It's gear that holds up in the dust, the salt, the spilled tacos, and still looks good when you're roll into town. Made in small

batches by folks who care. No flash. No fast fashion. Just the kind of stuff that gets better, the more you wear it. Check them out at iron and resin.com and pick up something that'll last the next thousand miles.