Company of Enthusiasts: The Full Series

AMSOIL is a company of enthusiasts. These are stories from the people who formulate, test and use our products. They spend their weekends doing the same things you love, on the same equipment, in the same weather.

Company of Enthusiasts is where they tell it in their own words. Each one is a short peek into the life of a person and the toys they cannot stop working on. Some are dealers. Some are employees. Some are customers who got talked into being filmed. Every one of them answers the same unspoken question: why does anyone care this much about a machine?

Start anywhere. They are categorically grouped by enthusiasm.

Trucks, Jeeps and Off-Road

• We’re into Diesel Hot Rods
  Walt Moss started a trucking business in 1978 at age 22. Its garage in northern Wisconsin doubles as the shop where he builds his motorized creations, including a 1959 school bus he rescued from a neighbor’s field and shortened by 28 inches. Also see Walt Moss.
• We’re into Jeeps
  TV host Tiffany Stone set out to build a SEMA-style Jeep* and had it ready for the trail a year later.
• We’re into Trucks
  Award-winning builder Randall Robertson of Rtech Fabrications works by the shop motto, “We build trucks to do truck things.”
• We’re Into Off-Road Adventure
  Off-road racer Brad Lovell grew up camping and off-roading in the mountains around Colorado Springs, Colo., where he and his brother built the shop that houses their racing vehicles. Also see Expedition Colorado – Moab to Colorado Springs.
• We’re into Humvees
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer Jon Caudron took his girlfriend’s advice to start his own company. He bids on surplus Humvees* and rebuilds them by hand.
• We’re into Tanks
  Tony Borglum’s weekend hobby of driving tanks began as a change of pace from the family construction business and grew into Drive A Tank Inc. Also see What’s it Like to Drive a Military Tank? Find Out Here.

Hot Rods, Classics and Custom Builds

• We’re into Hot Rods
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer Martin Cranford found a fat-fender Ford* van in the back of a chicken coop and decided to fix it up. The build became a family affair.
• We’re into Classic Cars
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer Jerry Mikielski Jr. comes from a family that was restoring cars before he was born. He meets us at a weekly car cruise in Wyoming, Pa. Also see Ford Mustang – America’s Pony Car.
• We’re into Custom Classics
  Custom vehicle builder Murray Pfaff of Pfaff Designs in Royal Oak, Mich., shows FireMaker, the 1956 Cadillac* he has owned for more than 25 years.
• Entombed 50 Years, Miss Belvedere Still Turns Heads
  Miss Belvedere, a 1957 Plymouth* entombed for 50 years in Tulsa, Okla., found a permanent home at Historic Auto Attractions in Roscoe, Ill.
• We’re into Cars and Trucks
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer Steven Smith has loved trucks since he was a toddler. He drives a 2010 Ford F-250 King Ranch with a 6.4L turbocharged diesel V8.
• We’re into Vintage Go-Fast
  Tim Odell builds vintage go-fast vehicles at Vice Unlimited, his shop in Lincolnton, N.C. They are meant to be touched and driven. Also see Watch Now: Tim Odell Does Vintage Go-Fast.
• We’re into Showing Off
  World-record-holding monster truck driver and sprint car racer Joe Sylvester tours Canfield Speed Farm, the 6,000-square-foot race shop that has housed the Bad Habit monster truck and his sprint cars.
• Take a Walk Around the Scraptona
  Michael Hunt of Tred Wear says every good build should start with a story. He walks around the Scraptona, a one-of-a-kind build made from scraps with the heart of a race car.
• We’re into Building
  Custom vehicle builders Randy and Sydney Weaver run their hot rod shop together. Sydney quit her day job to build full time when they married.
• We’re into Hybrid Tuners
  Team Hybrid founder and president James Lin was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and moved at age 7 to Oxnard, Calif., where the team got its start. Read more about Team Hybrid.

Racing and Competition

• We’re into Winning
  Scheuring Speed Sports owner Steve Scheuring gave up a steady job in heavy equipment to start a snocross team.
• We’re into Breaking Records
  Professional off-road driver Bryce Menzies was riding a dirt bike at age 3 and built his first off-road car with his father in 2007.
• We’re into Competing
  Jeff Seehorn started trail riding motorcycles at age 4 and broke into road racing at 19. After six years of rally racing, he returns to a motorcycle at Portland International Raceway.
• We’re into Drag Racing
  Street Outlaws racer Jerry “Monza” Johnston explains how he got started, how his family fits in and why he bought a supercharged 6.2-liter 2015 Hellcat*.
• We’re Into Tractor Pulling
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer Todd Domann pulls with Hurricane Allis, a single-turbo tractor that makes about 3,000 hp and drags a sled weighing about 60,000 pounds.
• We’re into Driving Fast
  Professional driver Loni Unser, a member of the Unser racing family, talks about her start, balancing racing with school and staying sharp on the simulator.

Motorcycles and Powersports

• We’re into Motocross Racing
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer Kevin Arlotti rode BMX bikes as a kid and bought his first dirt bike at 30. He has been hooked on motocross since.
• We’re into Custom Bike Engines
  Custom motorcycle builder Mark “Makr” Atkinson runs a CNC machine shop in an airport hangar in Woods Cross, Utah, and builds his own engines from the ground up.
• We’re into Vintage Dirt Bikes
  “Being vintage is really a state of mind,” says Independent AMSOIL Dealer Lorraine Strenkowski. Her biggest vintage passion is dirt bikes, Can-Am* machines above all.
• We’re into Backcountry Snowmobiling
  Adam Trainer first rode into Grizzly Lodge, 50 kilometers north of Scotch Creek, British Columbia, in 2007. He bought the business in 2009 and built it from the ground up.
• Watch Scott Judnick Go Big – And Why We’re Into Snow
  Scott Judnick started by taking his sons racing. Within a few years Judnick Motorsports was running a rig across the country.

Water, Woods and the Outdoors

• We’re into Vintage Outboards
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer Bruce Chadwick collects vintage outboard motors and gets them running again, including a 1929 Elto Speedster nicknamed “The Knuckle Buster.”
• We’re into Hydroplanes
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer Casey Jones races hydroplanes, which get their speed by riding on air with only a small part of the boat in the water.
• We’re into Hunting
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer David Huff plants food plots in the North Carolina woods before deer season.
• We’re into The Outdoors
  Independent AMSOIL Dealers Joann and Robert Smythe live in rural Rosharon, Texas, about 30 miles south of Houston. They talk about getting muddy, putting family first and Hurricane Harvey.
• We’re into Fishing
  Professional angler Pete Maina caught his first muskie off the dock at age 5 and took his first guide job at 11. He has fished for a living ever since.

Working for a Living

• We’re into Agriculture
  Dairy farmer Peter Davie works the Delta, British Columbia, farm his grandfather bought in the early 1950s. Also see No Day is a Bad Day on the Farm.
• We’re into Being Your Own Boss
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer Andriy Dyachuk was born in Crimea, Ukraine, and came to America at 31. He builds his business by stopping at shops and asking if they know about AMSOIL.

And Then There’s This

• We’re into Awesome
  Vehicle builder Gordon Tronson left New Zealand in his 20s because he wanted a Mustang*. He now builds one-of-a-kind machines at his shop in Henderson, Nev.
• We’re into Produce Ballistics
  Independent AMSOIL Dealer Tom Frazier built Chunk’n-ology, a pumpkin chunker that launches pumpkins, cantaloupes and watermelons.

Recommended AMSOIL products

Start with AMSOIL synthetic motor oil and find the exact AMSOIL products for all your vehicles with the AMSOIL Product Guide.