006: Our Biggest Mistakes Prepping the Dirt for Our RC Track (and What Finally Worked!)

Welcome back to Mary Tarsie. I'm Krista. I'm Kevin. And we are the husband and wife team behind LCRC Raceway. Today is a fun episode because we are going to dish the dirt. We're going to talk about what we've learned about dirt, microbiome, and mistakes we've made in working in the dirt and lots more. We learn something new about it every day. Yes, we do. We're not done yet. But we'll get into everything about LCRC dirt and try to share the knowledge that we've come across that will help other people that are trying to combat the same issues we did. Yeah, it's a science. It's a-- you know, you don't only have to know your own dirt, but you got to understand everything about it. There's so much to do it. Yeah, I can't wait to get into it. Are you ready? Let's do it. Let's do it. Welcome to Mary Tarsie. The behind the scenes podcast from Krista and Kevin, the husband and wife team behind LCRC Raceway. Each week, we share the lessons, laughter, and a little chaos that come with running a family-owned RC track and hobby shop. This is married to RC. Let's get into it. Hi, honey. Hi. I'm a little frustrated about the subset. Morning. Because this is the third time we've recorded it. We've had audio issues, and the first time we just had stumbling issues. Yeah. And we're like, OK, that one was not good enough. We have to redo it. Second time, we had audio issues. And I almost just posted that one because the content was so good, but the audio was so bad. I mean, no one's going to listen to it. So we're trying it again. And the cool thing is, as I feel like we keep learning, even in talking about it. So this should be the best episode yet. Well, I-- 100% because we've learned more about dirt since then. So we're going to talk about what dirt is at LCRC, what we're dealing with when we're talking about our dirt, the dirt composition. Then we're going to get into the microbiome of dirt, and what we've learned about, basically, the science of it. And then the molecular problem with dirt, which is something I never thought we would discuss, but we're going to dive into that. It's crazy. Then we're going to talk about additives. And the different things that we've tried adding into the dirt and the things we'll never try to add into dirt. And then we're going to talk about oil, because track oiling is something we got into this past season. And we've had some successes and some failures with that. So we're going to dive into that as well. So let's kick things off with what the dirt is we have at LCRC. How would you describe the dirt that we're dealing with? So again, most of the dirt is just native topsoil from right there on the farm, because the track property was originally part of the farm. And it's got what I call cobblestones in it, which are round edge football, baseball size, potato, type rocks. And then when we were initially building the track, remember we brought from where my motor cross practice track was out here at our farm. We had torn the practice track down. And I thought it'd be a great idea to bring some of that dirt out so we could build this RC track. And it's only six minutes apart. Like what, four and a half miles, but the dirt was so different. Not what-- that's actually not true. The soil itself was similar, but the rock composition from the Dunvalley farm, it was Flintstone, which was all sharp edge and gnarly looking rough. And we spent the first year, too. Honestly, you helped as much as anybody with trying to screen it by hand over the top of the expanded metal snow build trailer with rakes and shovels. And-- Well, in fairness, like the first couple of years, I feel like we just really-- the biggest thing we were doing to the dirt was trying to sift out the stone. So that was through metal-great-opened trailers, where we would dump the dirt on there and try to get the dirt to go down through and eliminate the rocks. We were raking the track surface all the time and taking-- and we still do that to the day. Sure. And taking as many of the stones off that way as possible. But really, the first few years, I mean, we were lucky. Remember Bill and Donna used to come and help us try to get rocks off all the time. But it was a lot of work just to try to remove the rocks. And that was some native stuff in some of what you're talking about. But other than that, at that time, it was mostly just top soil. It was. Now, to be fair, if you say you have top soil, it could have a certain percentage of clays and other things in it and still be considered top soil. I feel like our top soil was-- it was very rich farm ground top soil. Not that it had no clay, but I think the clay content was pretty minimal. It was mostly top soil. And easy to work with, in my mind, that's the main difference between top soil and clay is that top soil is just not that it's sand, but it's easier to manipulate. It doesn't get as hard. It also doesn't groove up and get as-- it doesn't take rubber like solid clay does. But back to working with it, it's also-- when you go to wrackle out, it doesn't take a bulldozer to wrack the jumps. And then over the years, we did end up adding some clay content to the soil. And that actually happened when we took-- undertook a huge project of screening the soil. So at that time, we rented a screening machine. And maybe you could just like share with people what that process was like. Well, we went through several steps in the screening process. So the by hand thing we talked about when we first started. And then we had met an excavator along the way that had actually had a drone screening machine on his track hoe. It was like a track hoe bucket, but it was a screening drum. And he came maybe twice and sat out in the middle of the track during a layout change and would just scoop and screen. And that got-- that got some rocks out. That was good. But it was very cumbersome, very time consuming. So then at one point-- and I don't remember what year we got that huge tractor trailer screening outfit. And we had that for a week. And that was the first time we really did it like a major screening. And then I think it's 2018 or '19 when we got the trumble that we had-- literally had it out in the middle of the track. And that was after that 30 foot expansion on the left. And the 30 foot expansion was more clay. Because we actually brought in some soil-- You saved the 30 foot expansion. You're talking about we extended the footprint of the RC track. And we added an additional 30 feet of track to what was originally there. Correct. To anybody that knows our old school lingo about the track, our Daytona term was always on the far left. And so we expanded 30 feet from Daytona out toward where the circus tents would have been in 2012. And it was a lot of real estate. And if we would not have brought in other soil, if we would have just tried to use what we had, we basically would have ran out of jump dirt. So luckily by that time, we had met another excavator who has now become one of our dearest friends, Dale Stidinger. And he was doing a job in Meflin Town that they hit some real rich clay. And it was pretty clean. They had to get rid of it from that job. So they hauled it to the track. And we ended up basically building that 30 foot expansion footprint out of 85% clay. Right. Which then, in turn, just mixed in with our tractor and added a little bit of clay to the mostly topsoiled dirt. For sure. And obviously, it took some time layout change after layout change. And then that screening process you alluded to, where we had that trouble right in the middle of the track. Yeah. And when you're saying tremble, I mean, some people might not know what we're talking about. So the first one that was tractor trailer, fifth wheel pin, holy cow, was it huge? Everyone that knows anything about screen machine, you've all seen the dirt gets bucketed and dumped in an incongruzly bars, which they're like a foot apart. And they catch the water, the watermelons. And then-- and that makes an overs pile. And then on the big one, the dirt fell down in a big trough and went on the conveyor and got ground. Like there was chompers in there. And then it would run it up the big conveyor belt to two sets of shaking screen. That's right. And you could park a tea tag or a dump truck or something under it or you could just scoop the pile. And it would make the good stuff. And then there'd be an overs pile right there too. So you had to be careful. Bawa-bawa. Yeah, you did. didn't stay on top of that, you could be letting the stones go right back into the best dirt. 100%. You had to really keep that separated. And when the screens got clogged, mine, they're a story and a half up in the air and it was a whole thing. It was. And it didn't help things that we were doing at a four o'clock in the morning. Well, the four o'clock in the morning story is from the trumel. Okay. That one, the original one, I just, I had any help I could get. Because we didn't have the kind of equipment we do today and we just did the best we could. Yeah, we just really didn't get through a whole lot of dirt for the cost of what that was. No. So then fast forward to the trumel, of course by then we had met Dale who like super hooked us up with backhows and 953s and like it was you know. And actually I'm lying. That was when we met Dale with the original one because Dale brought me a 953 to load the original one too. I forgot about that. But anyway, so the trumel, seeing grizzly bars, seeing like that type trough that it falls in. But then it had a conveyor belt underneath that would then run the dirt into this big drum. And the drum would spin, you could change the speeds, but the drum would spin and it would throw the good dirt out of the drum and it was captured inside another trough and the good dirt would then go down onto another conveyor and come out. And then the overs would actually go, they would fall out the open end of the drum. And it was a lot more compact machine. It was towed by a panel hitch which is the big circle that the like the receiver in the back of the truck has that like pincher type hook. And it was easier to move, it was easier to manage and it was definitely more efficient. And we ran that thing day and night and at the end when we were about out of rental, we spent, there was three of us that spent till 430 in the morning out in the middle of the track. Just I mean we thrashed every square foot of soil through that thing we could. Yeah. Trying to get our money's worth out of it. Oh yeah. And to this day when we're out working on the track and we find rocks could it be like, man, didn't we spend the 430 in the morning out here one night, you know, how can it be so many rocks and they just keep they come up, you know, it's it's a constant work in progress. So speaking of which when we're talking about the dirt, dirt, the composition of the dirt, always part of it is we talk about the top soil, the clay and then the, the rocks, but there's something that we add to the dirt all the time, which is the sawdust, which we've really learned a lot about the microbiome of dirt over the years for sure and how the soil is alive. So every time it rains or something happens where we need to do moisture control, sometimes that means that we're adding some sawdust or like I'm going to call it organic matter back into the dirt, which is helping that dirt microbiome. Of course. When we realized that the dirt is alive, it made a big difference. To the way the dirt works, like it almost offers better traction when it is more alive. No, I 100% agree with that. The, like if you just generically look up the microbiome of dirt or microbiome period, like things that come up, you know, when you go out on the track after a rain, not on the race weekend, just when it's sitting idle and around the puddle as you see worm tracks and there's, you know, there's insects and you know the dirt's alive because it's grown stuff. Like, and I don't mean it's necessarily growing worms, which it is, but that's not what I was getting at. There's obviously the microbiome in the soil is alive because the worms wouldn't be there if it were not. You know, and that's actually really important to the quality of your soil. And the continued success of repetition, you know, like getting the same compaction, the same, you know, one of my big things is the, not so much the lip of the jump, like how it actually jumps, but the aesthetically pleasing top. You know, there's some track builders that, I mean, they let them perfectly peaked and it looks like super cross before they make a lap, you know, like everything is mint. And then for us, like I like to roll the tops over so that number one, the rain will run off and nothing that won't roll off the peak. But, you know, the rain handles it differently. It kind of has a little bit of a top to it. So you might get it actually a little absorption in the top of the jump. And if you ever had to garden tractor it or drag it, you can physically make it over the obstacles with a small piece of equipment. Yeah, when the dirt is alive and that microbiome in that dirt is good, it can handle that really well. When it's dead, it almost kind of falls apart when you're trying to roll over top of it. And it's almost like dealing with sand instead of dealing with good healthy top soil dirt. Yeah, in the clumps. So this is kind of maybe not really backpettling, but sort of long story. When we wreck the jumps, the best thing that we do is when you wreck a jump that's been there for a while, it comes off in big boulder-looking chunks. But we smash it in backdrag it and we water it while we pile it up, which again puts moisture and nutrients back in all of the soil, not just on the surface. And then when you go to actually reconstruct your new obstacles, you have this nice like, let's compare it to snow, right? Like we're going to have a snowball battle. When it's that dry fluffy snow, you can pack it in the same ball, but it kind of falls apart. When you have the perfect wet snow, it makes a baseball. And you can throw it. When it's too wet, you get wet hands and slop and it's, it's, it's, right? So there's that perfect balance. It's the same with the dirt for building a jump. You have to have that balance of good soil, few rocks, healthy microbiome and good soil, and the proper moisture content. So you have to check all the boxes. And then build the track in that time. You know, we always talk about how the best track builds always happen when it's had a big rain. It's the worst time to build the track because we're out there. We're getting our equipment muddy. We have to be in mud boots and we're like, oh, we just wish it would dry up a little bit. But there's something about that really wet soil and dealing with it. It really creates a very robust track that can hold up to the wear and tear. So this is actually something that Cody and I spent a lot of time talking about in recent time. We did some traveling. It had some time to be s about stuff. And one of the things when we're building the layout, because it's usually like we get the crew in, tear the pipe off, and we yard-break all the p-stones and clean it all up, right? And then I'll wreck the jumps into the big clumps and then Cody comes for a couple of evenings and we smash it and water it and pile it up. And then the next phase is the one that we've been falling short on lately. There was a time when we called it a "scarify," which is basically like a really gnarly chisel plow thing on the front of the skitter. And we back-drag it and it literally looks like a plowed field, like a rough plowed field. The best layouts were when we had it that way and we got that unexpected rain. And then we would go out on top of that gnarly plowed field look and run the Harley rake, which again got some more stones out and made it like that perfect snow to make snowballs. And then you actually, when you work on the track at that point, you are now, I'll say, sealing in like you're rolling the dough and you're actually sealing the moisture down in. So as the next week goes by when you have the layout built, the top of it might crust a little bit, but you can manually put water on the top. Right. But what you can never do is get the water down in it. Yeah, it's got to start with it there. So back to the microbiome of dirt because this is easy to turn into a way bigger conversation. I think it's all really good information. But like, so we've learned a lot about the microbiome of dirt. We didn't realize early on how important it was to give that dirt some time to rest. So if there was a new track owner or a new track builder that was coming to you that's like, okay, great. So you say the microbiomes important we want the dirt to be alive. How does somebody accomplish that? What do you do other than what we already said about adding in sawdust? What do you do to that track that can make that microbiome be healthy? So motor cross tracks, they actually will seed and plant the track and turn into grass. So then when it comes back time for their next big event, however many months or a year later, they just go out and plow it all in and put that sawdust and sawdust and grass and nutrients back in. Do you know what I just recently learned about that too? depending on what you plant, it actually can help that ground better absorb the water. The other thing that you could do is not mowing but like having livestock out there that rip and tear. That makes the soil, because the roots get stronger because they have to withstand that ripping. So that's why like having sheep cattle, you know, something out there to do the mowing instead of a lawn mower creates a deeper root system, which helps that water absorption. With all of that being said, planting grass on the RC track in the fall, it's not an option. You can't sustain that. It's just too much. So we've never been fortunate enough to have that luxury of doing that. But what we do instead is we might take some access dirt and take it off the track and then we let it rest. We put it in a big pile like we have the grassy knoll right now and then we do plant that and let it sit and just build up microbiome for years and then basically we'll recycle dirt out and bring new dirt in. So the best part about the grassy knoll now you brought it up. So when we build new roads or expand the campground or do things, well obviously we're taking all that sod and topsoil off the top and piling it up. And when all of that sod rots and turns into microbiome turbo fuel, then that's when when we get to screen that years later, it is, "woo, woo, woo, we." And like you said, being able to recycle when moving it around and let it rest, yeah, that's a great way to put it. The next topic that we're going to talk about is the molecular problem with soil which really ties hand in hand with this dirt microbiome because what we had learned years ago, we were having trouble with dust. We had screened the dirt and then all of a sudden we felt like there was such a layer of dust on top of the track all the time. And we were doing everything we could, you know, watering it on the outside and trying to reclaim it. And you know, especially because we just had spent so much money to have it be rock-free and then it just seemed to be falling away. Yeah, and we didn't want to lose an ounce of it because we spent so much money and time doing it. We talked to a really smart man Charles Hamilton and he was in the equine field and he did a lot with indoor arenas for horses and he looked at us and he said, "well, your dirt's wore out." Like, what do you mean the dirt's wore out? He explained to us that day and we have learned a lot about it since then about the molecular pattern of dirt is like a rigid edge on the outside of that molecule. And because of that it's easy for another dirt molecule to stick to it because they both have those like grippy pieces on the outside. But after a piece of dirt gets wore out overused and loses its dirt microbiome, it polishes off and actually turns basically to sand. That's what a sand molecule would look like is like a bore of a rounded edge and those dirt molecules can no longer attach themselves to each other. So the only way to reclaim that dirt is to remove it and be able to put the microbiome back into it giving it that time to rest and that really changed a lot about how we handled the track. Yeah, it's like trying to make a snowball out of a fistful of super balls versus a fistful of jacks. I remember that conversation and obviously he was a respected intelligent man and been through a lot and I didn't want to just say, "you're crazy." But it sounded crazy. Absolutely. But so true. And after hearing that conversation being involved in it really makes you think about things different. There's a lot of debate about running the big roll or on it and running the vibrator or not running the vibrator because again, because it smashes all the molecules and takes the edge off everything. And also that we were talking about to having water absorption. So then if you compact it in, what happens to the water absorption? And some of that stuff was still what we're learning. There's going to be, we'll revisit this episode in like 10 years and tell you, "Oh my gosh, we thought we knew something then, but look at what we've learned now." Well, again, back to recent events, Cody and I were just out west and that's one of their big things out there is they don't like to roll it tight because when they roll it tight, it won't take water. If it won't take water, it has less grip. So they just basically track it in with the skitter and run it in with the garden tractor and call it a day. That way, back to your like roots and having the ability to get the water down in it. In fairness, since we're having this conversation though, you know, we started out that way. That's how we used to handle the track. And our track could not hold up to the amount of entries that we get with that kind of prep work. I think it works to our favor that we redo the layout so often. So it's a little bit okay that we have it come back compacted because we're going to tear it all up in a couple months and redo it. Well, in another thing for us, maybe not in the middle of the summer, but in the spring in the first half of the year, we can't not compact it like that because we get hit with heavy rains. And I mean, one of our claims to fame is, give me 90 minutes as soon as it stops raining and we'll be making laps. I don't care if we just got two inches. Just give me 90 minutes and I'll show you. Yeah, and honestly, tune in in the next couple of weeks because we have a great episode coming out about how we handle that, how we, when the rains come and we need to drive that track to go back to racing, we're going to talk about all the things. But yeah, no, that learning that skill has been has changed our reputation. It has given us the reputation of like, hey, you feel like you can go there no matter what because no matter what the forecast says, we watch them make it happen. Well, I mean, it's one of the major building blocks of what we've built. Yeah, and if that track was low, me and was not compact, we would not be able to scooch the water off and get back to racing. Yeah, it's tough and you know, it takes the entire village, you know, when we're doing it, you come out of the hobby shop and muck boots and, you know, we just saw hands on deck and we make it happen. And again, I, I accredit a lot of that too. Not just our crew and our, our sea family that's willing to come and help, but the learning of utilizing this all dust and and how the tracks prep beforehand. I mean, all the drainage and the runoff and all that. Yeah, which I can't wait to talk more about that. You know, the next thing is really the additives for the track surface. So years ago, we figured out a trick that we've been using ever since. We've tried some other things. So first, tell me about some of the track additives that we are not interested in using an LCRC, but other tracks do use. Well, I'm, I'm the guy that I don't, if it's corrosive, or way parts of it. So that would be like calcium. Yeah, like the, nonbiodegradable chemical stuff. Yeah. You know, and then there's some new ones out there that are classified as chemicals, which are sort of okay. And we've dabbled with a little of that. But calcium is probably the most well known and the biggest one. But you have to, you have to really work on your cars or the next day your cars are a rust bucket. And I just don't, I don't ever want to get an email or a phone call from a newbie the week after the race wanting to know why his brand new car that he put, spend his tax return money on is now essentially ruined. Absolutely. And I don't, I don't want that for them. I don't want it for for myself. You know, like it, that's, that's, that's tough. What about sugar? Well, sugar is kind of in between. I don't want to say it's corrosive because obviously it's, you know, biodegradable, but sugar has its own, you know, cons. It tears up tires, doesn't it? It does, it makes the track surface very abrasive, which generates ton of grip. But you can't, first of all, you can't really like, let's just sugar it a little bit. Right. Because that's a waste of time. So you either have, you're either sugar or not sugar. And when it's sugar, I mean, it, it'll take rubber and term black and have tons of grip. But like you said, it also wears tires out. So what do we do? What is the LCRC trick to offer as much? And this would be mostly for traction purposes. Yeah, it's not actually, it's, it's not just for traction, it's dust control. The liquid laundry soap is, is, is our key to what we do. And I got that trick from, from Kurt out in Ohio at the RC factory. And, you know, he was fortunate enough to end or, they could use powdered laundry soap in the jump-thirt piles. And then would sprinkle it on the track and water it in. Like to the point when they water the track, sometimes the bubbles will come up. And that dirt inside that building for being January and August. Ohio, it was grip and it was good. So fast forward to our struggles with the dust and interaction at one point, we decided to put liquid laundry soap in the, I'll call it washwater, you know the what the trackwatering water and you can control the amount of of effect it has obviously by the amount that you put in the tanks and people always ask me like, well how much do you put in? Well I told the colors right? You know I know if we have to water let's say if we have 30 heats if we're watering every 10 heats you can't you can't really put the soap to it because you're in a hurry and you know the track really has five minutes to blow it off water it and be making laps again and it's tough doing it with the fire hose and makes the suds and the bubbles yeah there's like you really got you got to be careful yeah there's a there's a special little magic number now if you were going to try this for the first time where would you start as far as how much soap to how much water? My initial attempt would be one gallon of soap per hundred and a gallon of water and and if you try that it's not gonna like bite you it might not quite be enough but you're not gonna get in trouble where all of a sudden you have you know the Maytag man threw up all of your frontstretch you got to go out and burn it all off and you know clean it up I know a lot of times you say about the color of it and that that really you know if it's right by the color of the water. Well we have we're fortunate enough our IBC totes on the on the main six that we use are actually what is it the regular ones are 275 or 300 and we have the taller ones that are like 325 or 350 so I'm just gonna explain what you're talking about to somebody that's never been tells he RC so we have those big large plastic containers that have the metal cage around them we use those for to hold our track water so they're connected together we have six or eight of them. There's six on the by the driver stand on the main the main group that we use the most and then we have a three pack and a two pack out behind the track as well. Yeah and that way we can keep water on hand ready to go to water the track at any moment. Yeah we can keep a we keep a two inch fire hose hooked up to the one to the six pack all the time and then the two pack out back has a garden hose with an electric pump that if if we need to patchwork or we just we need a little something here and not flood the thing you know you have a little more control with that and then the three pack over on herries and is it took to another trash pump with another big fire hose that again if we're in that hey we're struggling to get our program and you know somebody can go over and water herries and wow Cody or Taylor are doing the other end and you know we can really be efficient with it that way. Sure yeah able to put a lot of water on the track really quickly. Oh yeah. So this past year we dabbled a little bit with adding oil to the track so for us it was cooking oil and it was a highly contentious matter. It started out that we had some amazing grip in a specific section that we had oiled and then it turned into a skating rink. Talk me through why you decided to try out oil and what was your first experience with oil. So we when we start dabling with the dirt oval two things over there we were struggling to keep the track surface from getting eroded from mother nature and we would struggle for grip from time to time. So we played with some glue remember that. Yep. And the grip was insane. Crazy. It was it's like sugar and then some. Yeah right. So then we ended up putting the oil on top of the glue to try and tame it down and not only did it tame it down and made it like it was still really high grip mind you but it also shed rain like rain next on the windshield. Yeah. And that was a plus. So I've always thought about trying it on the off road. So Harry's corner again toward the end of the summer super dry. I can't get enough water in it. Yeah and also it is where the water sits track footprint is designed for all the water to exit the track down that way. So if there is a big green storm the water is sitting in that corner. Yeah for sure. And that's where we have to go sweep it off or squeegee it off or you know blow it off whatever. And I just thought what what better spot to give it a try. Yeah. And like you said when it was fresh I mean it was grip it was good. Yeah. But then what I didn't think about was that as the cars drive the rest of the track and get dirt on their tires and then drive back across the oil they dirty up their dust over the oil. Yeah. So I mean imagine you know the asphalt grip corner and then you just kept throwing dust on it. Yeah. Well eventually it's going to be slick. Hence the ice skating rink you know nickname for that section which thankfully it was only it was only two sort of 180ish corners right there. It wasn't that much and in the end I mean although it wasn't what we had intended. Yeah. At least everyone was dealing with the exact same thing. So it was a challenging section that everyone was going through the same thing and it was just an added obstacle and in that particular track layout. And you know so for that it did serve its purpose it just wasn't necessarily what we were hoping for. Yeah I mean of course I was upset and disappointed because it didn't do what I thought right or it didn't it wasn't what I thought it was supposed to be but in the end it did create a different type surface. Everyone had to drive on it. And I mean I'm gonna say there weren't any donuts done over there but I mean you just you had to learn how to drive it. Guys were comparing it to like in these big indoor races when they dig clear down the concrete floor and that you know you roll down on to the concrete and make that one turn and come back up out and it's super slick it's like ice. Yeah but it's it's an obstacle you know it's part of it and even though that was the total opposite of what we intended it still worked out. Sure. It wasn't it wasn't a disaster. So is there ever going to be a time like it would you ever suggest to another track builder that they should use cooking oil for their track surface and what would you do different if you did. Well if you really want to be successful with high grip oil you know like that one track up in Canada that does it they use linseed oil and they oil wall to wall the entire place. Yeah. And then it all grips up and you're good to go. So unless you're gonna oil it wall to wall and you can't just do the groove the whole way around the track you've literally got to oil wall to wall and then you've got to be prepared like if you get a bumper digger or wing digger hole or something starts to blow out you've got to go fix it with more oil because that then just throws more dust and dirt back out on your oiled surface and all of a sudden your grip starts going on what's starting to select. So it's cool I mean it obviously it's a lot of work to do it wall to wall. You have to be careful not to make it too grippy that it tears tires up so bad that your customers start complaining and you also have to have the proper tires in stock available for your customers for it and you have to be willing to do the extra work to patch it like right now like you can't. Well hey you know I see that's blown out we'll fix that tonight no you you'd have to take a break and fix it right now. Right so I'm really I mean unless you've got tons of time and money or free material available and you want asphalt grip I'm not recommending to anyone to do that. It would kind of touched on all of the major things but the funny part is is that in preparation for recording this episode we were doing a little research you know I had never actually looked up what a dirt molecule looked like so I was about to tell the whole world that the shape of dirt was why it held together and it rounded off and I was like I should probably fact check this. By the way it is true Charles was right but the thing I learned in the process was that the reason that clay holds water so much more in a more significant way is to do has to do with the electrical charge of clay versus topsoil I never saw that coming. No. Yeah so and that basically said that same article said the more nutrients that are in the soil the better that it absorbs water which goes back to our microbiome and like that saw us being added to the dirt and how it gets nutrients back in the dirt so it did confirm a lot of what we already knew but it was it was fun to read that again. Oh yeah. It's crazy. It is crazy. The thing is, is that depending on where you're located, your soil is going to be way different than ours. But these couple of things that we've talked about today, it's going to hold up no matter what. No matter what your soil composition is, this could be helpful to somebody that's trying to build a track. Yeah, I would think so. Again, like you said, even if your soil composition is not the same as ours, if you're more clay than top soil, you might have to modify the percentages or the process is a little bit. But it's all pretty much the same. Yeah. Well, I just appreciate everyone hanging out with us today for a Merry TRC. I really enjoyed this episode and I'm glad that the third time was a charm. I think we actually covered more this time than we did the previous two recordings. So hopefully this time that was all meant to be. Usually is. Yeah. Well, we will hang out with you again next time on Merry TRC. If you liked this episode, please feel free to share it with a friend or somebody that might enjoy it as well. Sounds great. And we will see you next week. Can't wait.