Ep. 8 The Journey to A World Record

The Journey to A World Record

Torie Mathis and her Co-host Sean Mathis talk about their world record attempt; how it started, why they did it, and how to get involved in this record-breaking event. It’s been a journey of marketing, relationship building, and event planning all in one.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

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SAF 08

[00:00:00] Sean: I think we can beat this one. 

[00:00:02] Torie: Hell. Yeah, you can beat this one. Let’s do it. Yes, yes. Yes. Let’s go.

Hey. Hey. Welcome to Smart AF I’m your host Torie Mathis. We have got a great show for you today, so let’s get started. So we’ve talked quite a bit in the past about bucket list things that we always wanted to do. And I think that’s cool. Like that, remember what was that movie that came out? Some bucket list movie. Do you know what I’m talking about? 

[00:00:37] Sean: The bucket list? 

[00:00:37] Torie: Was it called the bucket list? Okay. I can remember like my dad thought it was like the greatest thing we started and we’re like, what the hell is this? Like, we weren’t at the right age for it. However, we’re still pretty young and we have quite the list of things that we want to do. And I think that’s awesome because we’ve gotten those things on. Now, so that we can kind of, we’ve got a direction that we’re going. And so one thing that both of us have talked about is that we want in a world record. And about a month ago Sean decided to look into it more. What made you look into it? Like at that time, you just, 

[00:01:13] Sean: I think it’s trying to think. I think I was in bed the night before. Well, the record would be awesome. And I was actually I was looking at other world records and I, I saw that there was a lot of records for the youngest, blah, blah, blah. And so I was like, I’m pretty sure I’m the youngest founder of an automotive museum.

And so I was like, that’s gotta be something I can, I can get. So I went on there and I was going for that. And I wound up coming across this other record, that involved Teslas. And I saw that the current Guinness world record for the longest Tesla parade is held in China with 145. I was like, you gotta be kidding me.

[00:01:59] Torie: Only 145. That’s a low, low number. 

[00:02:03] Sean: And I was, I, you were across the table from me and I’m like, I think we can beat this. 

[00:02:10] Torie: Hell. Yeah.

[00:02:11] Sean: You can beat this one. 

[00:02:15] Torie: Yes, yes, yes. Let’s go. 

[00:02:17] Sean: And so I filled out the application. I mean, it was an existing record. So you literally just fill out the application. 

[00:02:23] Torie: Mind you, we are new Tesla owners, less than two months.

[00:02:28] Sean: Less than two months.But I found this. 

[00:02:31] Torie: Time it might’ve been less than a month. Like it was pretty fresh as a Tesla.

[00:02:37] Sean: It might’ve been right around. If not less, so 

[00:02:40] Torie: big stuff started happening, like, okay, so you filled out the application. Cool. Wow. 

[00:02:47] Sean: Like aren’t moving 46 Teslas. 

[00:02:50] Torie: But things started moving incredibly fast. 

[00:02:53] Sean: I belong to oh, at the time I belong.

To Tesla groups on Facebook. And so I just made a quick post and I was like, Hey, is this something you would all want to be a part of? And I immediately got a response back. I was like, hell yeah, let’s, let’s do this. And so I talked to Torie I’m like, well if we’re going to do this, let’s do it for something that can help make a difference in the world.

And I think it was only a couple of days. Before all this, 35 kids were rescued in the Atlanta area or in Atlanta, I should say from human trafficking. And Torie actually told me about this, this nonprofit organization called operation underground railroad or O U R first thing that came to mind.

I had never heard of them before, but. Torie was super quick to say. 

[00:03:44] Torie: Somebody mentioned them on Facebook. And I had been following him on Instagram for maybe a month or so. And it was just like one thing after another. And then listening to Tim Ballard, talk about his origin and like what they’ve been doing.

Like, I was just, I was pretty amazed by it and it just kind of really started to open my eyes to. Some crazy stuff that like, why aren’t we doing more about this? Like, we can do stuff, everybody like needs to know more about this. So my mind definitely went there first. Absolutely. 

[00:04:13] Sean: We didn’t want to do anything that could have opposition to whatever it is.

[00:04:20] Torie: There’s a lot of opposition right now. So saying that you’re going to put your money and your time behind anything. I thought it was important that it was something that everybody wants to help kids like ours. Our kids are that age, our daughter’s nine. Like everybody has that, that place for.

[00:04:39] Sean: Yeah. So the timing of all this of even learning about this current world record and then learning about our, and then the kids just getting rescued it all kind of just came together and I utilize Torie actually, 

[00:04:55] Torie: well, he didn’t utilize Torie at first for her design skills through something and started getting registrations. And this isn’t like getting one or two registrations within a week. Sean Mathis. 

[00:05:08] Sean: Within a week. We, with pre-registration, theoretically beat the record. And as of right now, I think we’re just, we’re just shy of 300 Teslas, which was my initial goal was to hopefully get 300 tests as there. Now, these are all pre-registered cars, so it’s still yet to be determined. How many of them will actually show up? 

[00:05:30] Torie: I think that we had these people registered before we even had a route. Like there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of details that actually go about to put on. A parade of cars, especially when it’s as big as 300 or more cars. 

[00:05:46] Sean: Had an initial thought were cool.

Short route would be just thinking some simple. And, 

[00:05:53] Torie: She has to have, where can we have that many cars parked? So your first thing was. 

[00:05:57] Sean: I was thinking the. Which is a huge parking lot early in the morning. And then they’re not even open in the morning and then there’s a there’s superchargers across the street.

Not that anybody really needs them for that given time, but it’s nice to have that kind of thing around when you’re talking a bunch of electric cars. But I was very quickly turned down on that route. And then the destination of it, I got no response back from anybody that I tried to get to figure out where we can end this thing.

And so I actually found out about the parking rides that Georgia has. There’s just a place that you can park, like there’s nobody to tow, you know, in that case. And so there’s one off of Highway 400, which is it’s the Winward Parkway park and ride, which is an Alpharetta just north of Atlanta, just north of Atlanta.

And it’s right next to highway 400. And so I went from that starting point to try to find where the next potential park and ride was just to eliminate anybody telling me no. But I found I actually, what I did was I looked up Tesla chargers and Eby charges and all that kind of stuff around the area as well.

And I want to find the Westin, the Westin Atlanta perimeter, north location specifically in Sandy Springs, which is a 20 minute drive south from the starting point. And I wound up getting a hold of the director of the Westin there who’s in. Very quick to jump on board with the whole concept of the parade. And I wound up going down there and meeting. Long story short, the Westin is now our final destination place. We are also given access to the Bernstein room after the parade, which is at the front of the hotel and has doors open to the front that faces the entire parking lot that we are going to take over with all the Teslas.

So it allows us to have kind of an indoor-outdoor atmosphere after the parade. And we’ll have a raffle that we can raise more funds for OUR few items that have already been donated. And we’ll have some speakers. We’ll have somebody that actually was human trafficked and has now become an advocate for human trafficking.

I will have somebody from OU R able to speak with us and kind of explain a little bit more about the organization because I can only do so much, especially since. A new follower of OUR and we’re doing all this for them, but it should be pretty neat to be able to pull this record off. I’m pretty confident that the record is well beyond beaten. So it just comes down to seeing how much money we can raise to hopefully save as many kids as possible from human trafficking. 

[00:08:39] Torie: So the parade is going to take place on December 12th, which is a Saturday, correct? Yes. 

[00:08:45] Sean: Yeah. 20 parade should start hopefully at about 10 o’clock in the morning. The plan is to. Start having the cars get there probably about eight o’clock. We’ll have some volunteers that’ll check everybody in. So you don’t even have to get out of the car. You’re just going to get checked in based on your pre-registration information. That way we know who’s in the car and what model Tesla you have. And that’s just for record-keeping for the actual record itself. And then after the parade, once we know who’s actually participated in the. We, will be able to send a certificate of completion just as a thank you for being a part of it. 

[00:09:21] Torie: And registration’s free. You don’t have to pay anything to be involved with that. There is opportunities for support and for sponsorships and donors. And we have made some special rates at the west end if people do, there are a lot of people coming in from out of town already for this. So we did arrange for some special rates at the west end, so people can stay there if they have.

Again, it’s just north of Atlanta. 

[00:09:42] Sean: Yeah. I know of at least six different states people are traveling from, and the Western is, not only the final destination, but we have a special rates for this event that you get to, you can stay at the west and at $89 a night or something. It’s really fantastic there. So. It’s worth the trip, no matter how far you have you come from and they have Tesla chargers installed there, plus they’re all around the area. So when you come in, with the car, there’s no concern there whatsoever, but even if you don’t have a Tesla, you can still go to Tesla record.com and either become a sponsor or just help donate to the cause.

[00:10:22] Torie: And so this is being brought on by Miles Through Time which is Sean’s museum and also the Tesla Atlanta group. 

[00:10:31] Sean: Tesla owners, club of Atlanta, Tennessee, and Alabama. And then there’s a few other locations that are probably coming on, but yeah, it’s a whole lot of people have been really quick to jump on board and, and just be a part of this. Cause I can come up with the concept. You can help me. Push it all out there, but ultimately, we can’t do it alone. So it really takes a whole lot of people coming on board to help make all this possible. It seems like it’s going to be a. Really big event, much larger than I originally anticipated. And it’s all for a great cause.

[00:11:04] Torie: It’s a really great opportunity to make a big change and some difference in the world as a whole. 

[00:11:10] Sean: That’s amazing. I encourage you to go to Tesla record.com. You can learn more about what we’re doing, what the current record is. And there’s a lot more information about OUR just so you can be comfortable with that.

And we hope to