Alan Woodson of Axis Fabrication, an OG rockcrawler, dishes dirt with Rich on Episode 99. A true east coast competitor, Alan shares his love of travel and building with all of us.
Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to Conversations with Big Rich on your favorite Podcast Player
3:13– growing up in a big, little city
11:17 – Scott bailed me out
19:14 – Full Disclosure: I did something to deserve the ability to not have my license
39:13 – let me tell you about how I met Charlie
48:07 – anything west of Tennessee is just a different mentality
56:12 – I’m definitely doing Axis Fab
59:42 – I think people that build and break barriers in the off-road world, it’s a lot like being an artist
1:05:17 – I didn’t come to that conversation with an open mind
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:20.110] – Big Rich Klein
On today’s episode of Conversations with Big Rich, we have Alan Woodson. Alan is Axis Fab out of Virginia, I believe, and we are going to talk to Alan about his days of rock crawling. He’s one of the OGs, his fabrication skills and everything that he’s doing. So, Alan, thank you very much for coming on board and discussing your life with us.
[00:01:46.270] – Alan Woodson
Thanks for having me.
[00:01:47.360] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah, no worries. So let’s jump right in. And where were you born and raised?
[00:01:53.050] – Alan Woodson
I was born and raised in Charlottesville, Virginia.
[00:01:56.240] – Big Rich Klein
How close is that to where you’re at now?
[00:01:59.110] – Alan Woodson
Right now, I’m about 45 minutes from that kind of Southeast in an area called Columbia, Virginia.
[00:02:08.770] – Big Rich Klein
And you’re in a kind of rural setting now, aren’t you?
[00:02:12.450] – Alan Woodson
Yes, sir. I kind of moved my business and my personal space into one on a large farm. Well, I shouldn’t say large farm. Large enough for me. And my daughter perfect.
[00:02:28.390] – Big Rich Klein
And teaching her the good life.
[00:02:30.970] – Alan Woodson
Yeah, I think she’s teaching me.
[00:02:32.720] – Big Rich Klein
Really? That’s awesome. Excellent. So let’s go to those early years. Was the Charlottesville that sounds like it’s a little less rural.
[00:02:45.790] – Alan Woodson
Yeah. Charlottesville, I guess, you know, smaller, more quaint than Richmond, Virginia, being the capital, but it’s mostly dominated by University of Virginia College.
[00:03:01.990] – Big Rich Klein
So that’s probably got some pretty good population to it then, because most colleges like that or universities are going to be in the neighborhood of 40,000 people or so.
[00:03:13.690] – Alan Woodson
Yeah, I would say it’s much a big little city.
[00:03:18.390] – Big Rich Klein
Big little city. There you go. And what was it like growing up there?
[00:03:23.830] – Alan Woodson
It was very family oriented for me. I have a lot of cousins and brothers and sisters. It’s very family oriented for me. So my family all around me growing up. So we got in trouble together and experienced a lot of stuff together. As a family. So I would say that would be the emphasis. Family. That’s what it was like having a lot of family room.
[00:03:49.630] – Big Rich Klein
That’s always good. So you said getting in trouble, I’m assuming you mean more like finding things to get into.
[00:04:00.850] – Alan Woodson
Well, it was a big little city, so it was rural on the outskirts of it. So we would explore a lot and find ourselves doing some pretty interesting things, both offroading where you shouldn’t be and that sort of thing.
[00:04:17.170] – Big Rich Klein
So when you were growing up, what did you start with, like, Tonka trucks? Bicycles. Did you get into ATVs early or motorcycles?
[00:04:29.530] – Alan Woodson
Oh, man, all of the above. I actually just having this conversation the other day with somebody like, where does this come from? How do you grow a love for what it is that you do? Well, you know, I never thought of it that way, but funny enough, my mom used to keep scrapbooks of our childhood. Each one of my siblings have it. Have one. And, you know, funny you look back from like the second grade, third grade, fourth grade of monster trucks. Just drawing monster trucks. Everything you could figure out with monster truck. The thing back then and then. Fast forward to I was old enough to get a paper route and start saving some money and buying the bicycles and stuff that you could offroad with and then advancing into motorcycles and ATVs. Of course, I couldn’t leave them alone. I started figuring out I wanted them to modify, modified a certain way. And whether it worked out or not, I started learning a lot of stuff that’s kind of where it started from there. And eventually you become the age of driving and probably wasn’t interested in a vehicle unless it has four wheel drive, kind of went from there. READ MORE
