Meet Emme Hall, off-road racer; Miata lover, cat herder, freelance journalist. A woman of many talents and a bright personality, you’ll enjoy this one! Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
6:30 – I was never the ingenue, I’m way too weird for that!
10:42 – because life is too short to drive something that isn’t fun
19:22 – I was in my late 30’s. That’s old to start racing, because you got fear.
31:11 – So you should see these straight lines, and there are people where it looks like spaghetti!
35:39 – I got to drive with Tanner Faust riding right seat for me
43:17 – At the Mint 400, Matt Martelli gave us a gambler class, they gave us 100 miles, one lap.
54:00 – That sounds good, let’s get a $400,000 Cullinan to take on an off-road rally
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:39.520] – Big Rich Klein
On today’s episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I have the pleasure to speak with Emme Hall.
[00:01:46.270] – Emme Hall
Hey, Big Rich, how are you doing?
[00:01:48.360] – Big Rich Klein
I’m doing pretty good. Just to let everybody know, Emme is an off-road racer, a rally competitor, an event emcee, freelance automotive, a media representative, and a past Rebelle winner.
[00:02:02.110] – Emme Hall
I’m like, I do so many things. I’m not good at any of them, but I do a lot of things.
[00:02:07.380] – Big Rich Klein
Hey, you know what? Like I’ve always said, it’s better to be a Jack of all trades than a master of none.
[00:02:15.590] – Emme Hall
Absolutely.
[00:02:19.340] – Big Rich Klein
How’s your day going?
[00:02:21.550] – Emme Hall
I had a great day. I was working on… I’ve got a 2015 Chevy Colorado, and it’s got total chaos, upper control arms and Uni-balls, and all that stuff. This is a truck that I inherited from my dad, and he was not the best at prep your shit, if you know what I mean. Right. The bushings have needed to be done for a long, long time. In fact, the truck got his name, squeaks, because the bushings were so squeaky. I’ve called this truck, squeaks, for years. I did the bushings today, and it doesn’t squeak anymore. I’m a little upset about that.
[00:02:58.840] – Big Rich Klein
There you go. There you go. Well, you can just call it squeakless. Yeah.
[00:03:03.350] – Emme Hall
I don’t know what I’m going to do. I honestly hope they start squeaking in a couple hundred miles. I don’t know. They probably won’t, because now they’re fresh bushings, and it’s all fresh grease and everything. We’ll see. But then I was towing my offroad race car, buddy, the lifted Miada. I’m working with a friend of mine who works for Hyperco, and he’s just this suspension dude, and I don’t really know a lot about that. I’ve had a set of Fox shocks for this car for so long, but I didn’t have the springs to go with it. There needed to be some modifications to the control arm so that I could fit the springs and the shock and alla la la la. I’m 95% there now, and so I’m very, very excited about it. Hopefully, by next week, buddy will have Fox shocks and hyperco springs on all four corners.
[00:03:56.990] – Big Rich Klein
Excellent. We’ll get more into buddy in a little bit, but let’s find out more about Emmy and your early life. Where were you born and raised?
[00:04:07.430] – Emme Hall
I was born outside of Los Angeles, California, in a town called Husqanda Heights, just the suburbs, almost North Orange County, San Gabriel Valley area. I grew up there most of my life, went away for college, and then I went away for grad school. I lived on the East Coast for a while, and then I came back to California in 2015.
[00:04:32.460] – Big Rich Klein
Okay. Those early years, school years, what activities were you into? Were you a good student or were you… I know a lot of us that are in this industry were okay students, but most of us just wanted to get out.
[00:04:50.350] – Emme Hall
Yeah. No, actually, I really like school, and I really like learning. If I could go to school for the rest of my life, I’d be super excited. But no, I was always pretty good in school, although I’ve figured out what’s the minimum I need to do to get a 3.75 GPA? I never needed to get straight A’s, but I always wanted to get close to it, but I also was pretty lazy.
[00:05:14.960] – Big Rich Klein
Did you do sports or anything?
[00:05:18.890] – Emme Hall
People always… Coaches and staff always tried to get me into sports because I’ve always been pretty tall. And especially when I was a kid in junior high, I was always a head taller than everybody else. They wanted me on the basketball team and the volleyball team. But I’m not very good.
[00:05:37.370] – Big Rich Klein
At sports.
[00:05:38.280] – Emme Hall
I enjoy sports. I enjoy playing sports. But if you want to win, you probably don’t want me on your team. That was made very clear when I was in basketball, I can’t jump. I literally can jump three inches off the ground. I’m pretty bad at it. I enjoy doing it. I’m just not very good at it. Mostly when I was a kid, I did things like I did choir and I did drama. I really loved being up on stage and singing and acting, and I’m a terrible dancer, but I did a lot of musical theater, which people think is pretty funny. But yeah, I’ve done Sound of Music and Bye-bye, Birdy! And Oklahoma, all those classic American musicals, I’ve been in them.
[00:06:26.800] – Big Rich Klein
But you didn’t do the dancing portions?
[00:06:30.160] – Emme Hall
No, I was always in there. If I was a chorus member, I was in the singing chorus. Then if I got a part, I was always like the quirky, funny, secondary character. I was never the ingenue. Never was I the ingenue. Oh, my God, no. I’m way too weird for that.
