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How Danny Koker Turned His Passion for Cars into a Hit TV Show

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For 10 seasons, History Channel’s “Counting Cars” featured the restoration and customization of vehicles from choppers to hot rods at Count’s Kustoms owned by Danny “The Count” Koker, along with the wheeling and dealing of them. As he lives and breathes cars, the Las Vegas car flipper has been known to do whatever it takes to acquire those that he wants, even making cash-on-the-spot deals. He was the creative genius behind every project, so it wasn’t surprising that his hobby evolved into a thriving business and a successful reality TV show.

Get to know Danny Koker

Daniel Nicholas Koker II was born in 1964, in Ohio, USA, and spent the majority of his youth in Cleveland, or every summer with his cousins in Detroit, Michigan, from where his father hailed. As far back as he could remember, his interest lay in bikes and automobiles, as he grew up around them, saying that it was in his blood. At one time or another, his relatives on his father’s side had worked at Ford Motor Company, and one of his uncles was a biker, who had Harleys, Indians, and hot rods back then.

Danny was eight when his father bought him his first motorcycle, and he’s been riding two wheels since then. If he were to single out a car that started it all for him, it would be the 1966 GT 350 that his father brought home one day, and which the latter eventually passed down to him before he died in 2008 at the age of 75. ‘That Mustang…What an impression a car like that makes on a nine-year-old kid – going into the garage at night when no one’s around, opening things up and tinkering with things.’ He understood how people become attached to or fall in love with all sorts of things – clothes, shoes, or pieces of jewelry; for him, it was cars and bikes.

As to what got him hooked on customizing cars, it was his first car, a 1979 Chevrolet Camaro Z28. He was 17 when he took the car apart, customized it from front to back, and made it into a street-style Can-Am race car. Restoring a classic car or saving it from being relegated to a pile of junk is something that he loves to do, being the car addict that he is. Even if it was for a customer, he still found it a blast to bring people’s dreams back to life.

His passion for music

Danny’s father was a musician, composer-arranger, and singer in many bands and quartets such as The Cathedral Quartet, Foggy River Boys, The Rex Humbard Family Singers and The Koker Family Singers. As a pianist, he played for Pat Boone and his family, June Carter and Johnny Cash, and Mahalia Jackson.  He brought up his son in music, and 11-year-old Danny once performed at Carnegie Hall. Danny’s background was in gospel music, and he was later influenced by R&B and hard rock in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

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‘Music really really feeds my soul,’ Danny said. He has been doing it for most of his life and only stepped away from it for a time when he focused on cars and motorcycles. Later on, he somehow found a balance between his shop and his hard rock band, Count’s 77, with him as the frontman. He owned a recording studio, and wrote the lyrics of most of the songs in their self-titled album “Soul Transfusion” released under Shrapnel Records. During weekends, he was out performing in various cities or at his rock club called Count’s Vamp’d Rock Bar & Grill. He feels a connection to his father every time he does music, and this is important to him.

His passion for cars

As of 2019, he had about 100 cars in his collection – at one point he had 135, but had been trying to slow down and get rid of some vehicles that he thought other people would enjoy more, considering he wasn’t spending that much time driving them. On a regular basis, he’d been personally driving around 25 to 30 cars, with the rest kept in what he referred to as dry storage, in which they were sort of put to sleep.

The most powerful one that he has in his collection is the 1932 Ford Roadster, one of the oldest hot rods in the US. He and his father bought it in 1983, and he kept it in the mid-1970s  configuration. The flame was done by Von Dutch, a pioneer in doing paint work in custom vehicles. It was chosen by Mattel Corporation for its Hot Wheels collection. The next one was a 1983 Lamborghini Countach 5000S Super Quatro, an extremely rare car.

Danny has a list of cars that he prays he never has to sell. On top of the list is his father’s ‘66 Mustang GT 350, followed by his mother’s 1955 Chevy Bel Air convertible with a turquoise and ivory finish. His mom had one when she was young, and his dad bought another one and restored it for her as a gift. Selling his cars had never been easy for Danny, and he always felt heartbroken whenever one left his shop. He even kept tabs on some of those cars, as he informed the new owners that if they ever wanted to get rid of them, they should give him a call, because he might want to buy them back.

His collection was already quite impressive, but there was one that he’d always wanted but never got his hands on – a 1972 Lamborghini Miura SV. He considered it one of the most gorgeous cars ever made, and came close to owning one years ago, and thought it was a done deal, but the guy from Palm Beach, Florida had got sentimental over the car at the last minute and couldn’t let it go. Danny understood where the guy was coming from as he’d done the same thing in the past.

Danny loves all kinds of cars for different reasons, and so when asked if he has a favorite, he said that he really can’t narrow it down to just one.

From hobby to business

‘When you spend literally your entire life—starting as a hobby and then evolving into an actual business—it really is a self-taught type of thing.’ He shared that other than the basic shop class and automotive class he attended in high school, he learned whatever it was he needed to know by taking things apart to see how they worked, and then figuring out how to put them all back together. Danny set roots with Count’s Kustoms as a hobby shop in a small warehouse in Las Vegas for five years, before it officially became a business. They chose that name simply because everybody in Sin City already knew the Count, as it was Danny’s character when he hosted a television show that lasted about a decade.

The shop was initially focused on doing custom choppers; Danny hooked up with Shannon Aikau and they built a crazy chopper that he had in mind, and it went from there. People took notice, and word spread about their bikes. They made various kinds although leaning towards long bikes. ‘I feel like our bikes are a good combination of old school chopper…combined with modern drive trains so that they become functional.’ Many found their bikes to be cool but doubted that they would run, and he was happy to prove them wrong. He said that one could ride an 11-foot-long chopper all day long if it was built correctly, and its geometry was correct.

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Interestingly, they didn’t make sketches of the bikes, they just sat around and talked ideas. He said that at his shop, everyone had ideas, and so they all worked together as a team to make them come to life. Style was the most important; their bikes had to look cool.

The shop was getting recognition, as their builds were being featured in magazines and TV shows, and this meant more work for them. Soon the business expanded, and he hired more mechanics, fabricators, and those that would do administrative work. Danny admitted to not being a morning person, so he would come in late after checking in with Kevin Mack, his right-hand man. He would make his rounds to see how everybody was doing, inspect the vehicles and see what state they were in, and then approve or critique the work.

Owning a business is great, as he’s his own boss. The downside is that he’s the one who’s ultimately responsible for everything. When the pressure and the stress got to be too much, he would get on the chopper and ride all the worries away. Riding a bike is therapeutic for him.

How does he choose his projects?

Danny said, ‘You’ve got to start with a decent enough vehicle that you feel you can make a profit from by the time you’re done with it.’ If it was only up to him, he would be looking for something he wished he could have had in the past, or he had a personal connection with. As a business owner, Danny is always checking the market on what cars are selling. He would make an assessment of both the creative and financial aspects of it – he had to know that if he did something to it, the car would look cool. Completing a project takes a lot of time and money, so it has to be worth it in the end.

Out of all the cars he’s restored, the one that meant a lot to him, he said, was the two-time Grammy Award winner Barry White’s 1979 Stutz IV-Porte. It was what Danny called ‘the Car of Kings’ as some of Hollywood’s Royalty owned one, including Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr. The widow of the “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” singer Barry is a personal friend of Danny, and she asked for his help in locating the last car that her husband owned and drove.  Fortunately they found it, bought it back, and restored it to its former glory for Barry’s family.

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The hardest project he tackled was a full custom chopper for Ozzy Osbourne, as he said, ‘It was really a challenging build, because we really wanted it to reflect what would be Ozzy’s flavor without it being like a theme bike.’ Since Ozzy loved crosses, the gas tank was done in the shape of a cross and there were five-spoke crosses on the wheels. They put a Gibson Flying V guitar on the back fender as a tribute to Ozzy’s guitar player, Randy Rhoads, who passed away years ago. The English heavy metal vocalist had this bike for a time before it changed hands – Danny bought it back, and it was on display in his showroom.

Danny’s foray into television

Most people only know Danny from “Pawn Stars” or “Counting Cars,” but his first venture into TV was in “Saturday Fright at the Movies.”

Danny’s father launched the TV station, Channel 29, home to the family’s award-winning show called “Rejoice” in the early 1980s in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1989, he started the KFBT, Channel 33, in Las Vegas Nevada, which later became a WB affiliate. Danny moved to Las Vegas in 1988, and at that time the TV station that he co-owned was looking for someone to host a late-night show that featured horror movies. He was chosen to do it, and they developed a character named Count Cool Rider, who was a vampire and a huge Elvis fan. He hosted the show from 1989 to 2000, and enjoyed doing it. Of note, the family sold the TV station to Montecito Broadcasting Corporation in 1997.

Guest appearances in “Pawn Stars”

History Channel’s reality TV series, “Pawn Stars,” premiered in 2009, which chronicled the operations of the family-run business, Gold & Silver Pawn Shop based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was originally managed by the patriarch “Old Man” Harrison with his son Rick, grandson Corey, and Corey’s friend Chumlee.

As customers brought in a variety of items that they wanted to pawn or sell; there were instances when experts were called in to appraise those items, and Danny Koker was one of them. One time, he was asked to verify a 1968 Mustang GT fastback and its condition. It was the quintessential muscle car, identical to the one that Steve McQueen drove in the neo-noir action thriller, “Bullitt” (1968) – the car chase scene was regarded as the greatest in film history. The car owner wanted $20,000 for it, but Danny put it between $12,000 and $15,000 in the state it was in at that time. After haggling, the price was set at $12,500. It was returned to its former glory by Count’s Kustoms, and cost Rick $22,000, but he was happy with the transformation.

Danny and Rick are friends, and the former rode motorcycles with the latter’s brother for many years. With Danny’s expertise in cars, Rick was interested in making him a regular on the show. It turned out that the producers took notice of not just his skills but also his magnetic personality, and offered him his own reality TV show.

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Danny headlines “Counting Cars” TV series

“Pawn Stars” spawned the spin-off series, “Counting Cars,” with Danny “The Count” Koker at the helm – it chronicled the day-to-day operations of his shop, Count’s Kustoms, as they restored and customized vehicles. He was always on the lookout for cars, motorcycles, or anything interesting, and often did a little wheeling and dealing on the spot, so he could give them a little style or flair. Next came the hard part, as he would have to decide if he would keep it or sell it.

The show was fun to watch even for non-car enthusiasts, and Danny believed that part of the reason was that it was ‘good, clean, family entertainment.’ He shared that initially, the producers tried to present him as a hard-ass kind of guy; they wanted him to be yelling and throwing things around. They convinced him to do that to appease the executives of Leftfield Pictures in New York, but as soon as they stopped filming, he started hugging his boys and telling them he was sorry, and they all began laughing about it. He said, ‘That’s just not me. The boys in my shop are like family. We’ve been together for years.’ After the executive producers watched some of the footage, they told Danny, ‘That is just not you.’ He said that they were then allowed to keep things real in the shop – the show aired for 10 seasons from 2012 to 2021.

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Growing up, the three things that Danny was most passionate about and that he considered to be crucial in his life were music, motorcycles, and cars. It’s still the same to this day, and he said that he’s fortunate that he can do all three. Danny thought that Count’s Kustoms was just going to be a local hot rod and chopper shop, but because of the success of “Counting Cars,” it became known worldwide. When asked what his proudest moment was, he had a hard time answering, but said that it all boiled down to something that would make his father proud of him.

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Who is the richest of “Diesel Brothers?” RANKED!

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“Diesel Brothers” became one of Discovery Channel’s most popular reality automotive television series because of its engaging content and the unique personalities of its main hosts, David “Heavy D” Sparks and David “Diesel Dave” Kiley. From its TV debut, the series featured spectacular truck builds, adrenaline-fueled activities, and truck giveaways, which entertained their fans for the past six years. The two friends were later joined by The Muscle, and Red Beard, in the show. Fans wondered how much of their TV success translated to their financial growth – despite the controversies that the show was embroiled in such as the payment of huge fines to a government agency, the majority of viewers believed that they continued to accumulate profits that doubled their wealth. The only question that remained was who among the cast became the richest after they struck gold with reality TV.

Background on how “Diesel Brothers” started

Just like most auto-related shows today, “Diesel Brothers” was created when a production company was looking for a relatively exceptional automotive customization business, along with distinctive characters that they could feature in a reality-TV series for Discovery Channel.

The video that started everything

DieselSellerz was a small repair and customization shop located in Woods Cross, Utah, owned and operated by long-time friends, David “Heavy D” Kiley and David “Diesel Dave” Sparks. In 2012, when Diesel Dave sent a video of himself driving in California and making goofy jokes to Heavy D which the latter found quite funny, and uploaded it onto his Facebook page. When he woke up the next day, he was quite stunned that the video already had more than 100,000 views. He said it didn’t make sense, since he didn’t have many friends, but found out that it went viral after being shared many times. Because a lot of people found it hilarious, he thought to make more so they could use it to market their truck dealership business and created a page called “Trucks for Sale.” It was a major hit, and helped establish their brand, DieselSellerz.

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An appearance in Jay Leno led to Discovery Channel

After discovering the wonders of social media, the DieselSellerz crew created more videos with content mostly about pranking their friends, and some of which attracted over a million views, not only on Facebook but also on YouTube. They gained a cult following that their channel was noticed by a passionate gearhead, Jay Leno, and were invited to appear in an episode of the late-night “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” which opened doors for Heavy D and Diesel Dave. The day after their segment was aired, their phones never stopped ringing. Several production companies tried to have them over to film something, but they thought it was just a con. Six months after they kept blowing off offers, they received an official email from one of the executives of Discovery Channel. Everything seemed to be legitimate, and the cable channel sent a producer to film for three days for a pilot episode.

Premise and premiere of “Diesel Brothers”

Everything about the Utah customization shop and its fun-loving crew checked the boxes of what the Discovery Channel executives were looking for. After approving the pilot episode, Magilla Entertainment, one of the production arms of Discovery Channel, filmed them for a year to produce the first season of “Diesel Brothers.” On 4 January 2016, the TV series premiered on Discovery Channel, and it became a huge hit. Heavy D said it was just the right timing, since the popularity of “Duck Dynasty” and “Gas Monkey Garage” was starting to go down, and the cable channel was looking for a new one to fill the hole, and had hit the target.

The TV series featured both truck customization and outrageous stunts by the DieselSellerz team. In each episode, they showed how the team transformed a generic truck into a one-of-a-kind masterpiece by modifying the suspension, upgrading parts for power enhancement, and tweaking the design to give it more flair. In addition, the show featured off-road adventures and races, which put the vehicles to the ultimate test. Initially, it was about building awesome trucks as the producers wanted to focus on getting male viewers aged 18 to 45, but the friendship and hilarious banter among the crew provided content that was well received by everyone, so eventually, it became a family show.

Get to know David “Heavy D” Sparks

Heavy D was the one who started it all, and the main man in “Diesel Brothers.” He was the type who didn’t like being stopped anywhere or get distracted. He could, however, entertain people briefly, say hello, and do the photo thing, but then had to leave immediately to attend to whatever his goal was at that time. He didn’t do small talk and didn’t like being cornered, but during interviews or podcasts, Heavy D would do all the talking, while his best friend Diesel Dave would just listen.

Early life and family

Heavy D described himself as a regular guy who basically started with nothing. He grew up in a lower-middle-class household in Utah, the youngest kid of four. His father was a Green Beret and was part of the top 1% of the US military as far as fitness went; people often described him as a machine. However, when Heavy D was three weeks old, his father was diagnosed with a brain tumor the size of a tennis ball. At that time, his mother recorded his father saying goodbye to the children on a VHS tape. Everything changed when his father had a “priesthood” blessing in their Church, which meant someone laid a hand on his head and was given a blessing of good health and that he would see his children grow up. His mother felt that it was some sort of an insult and that they were being given false hope, since the doctors had already told them that he was a done deal – however, three weeks later, the tumor melted away.

Due to many unfortunate incidents, his father started late in life and was around 35 when he decided to go to college. When Heavy D was five years old, his father was still delivering pizzas and installing car radios to make ends meet. His mother was a homemaker, but wouldn’t hesitate to do her husband’s jobs when he literally didn’t feel well. Heavy D grew up watching his parents deal with all sorts of obstacles, but they never complained. It was amazing that Heavy D didn’t know that they were having a hard time, because he thought that whatever they had or lacked was just normal and that everyone was experiencing the same thing. There was even a time that their family lived in a VW Bus for about two months because they were homeless. He saw his father get knocked down repeatedly, but never lost hope and bounced back, but his father had a stroke when Heavy D was 15, and died six years later.

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Education and previous job

By the time he was in middle school, Heavy D knew how to weld and work on engines by taking all available shop classes. He learned things a bit more easily than his classmates, and even before graduating, he was already interested in becoming an auto mechanic. While Heavy D’s family was into academics as his siblings earned their master’s degrees, he wasn’t into it. He only had one half of a semester under his belt, and when he was in the middle of writing an essay in college, he had a realization that academics weren’t for him even if he was quite good at writing. The great thing about his family was that they were supportive of what he wanted in life, though his path to success wasn’t as traditional compared to his siblings. After quitting college, Heavy D worked construction with his uncle for a while and learned the basics. However, when 2008 came and the economy went down, the construction business just fell apart.

Get to know David “Diesel Dave” Kiley

Heavy D described himself and Diesel Dave as Ying and Yang. Diesel Dave was the most carefree person in the world, easy to talk to, and most people could relate and gravitate to him. For instance, he would meet a stranger at an airport, sit down and converse with him. Later on, he would be part of the stranger’s family reunions. Diesel Dave once shared, ‘I bounced around all over the place as a kid, which might explain the reason for my nomadic existence.’

Early life, education, and family

Diesel Dave was born on 17 June 1984, in Lubbock, Texas, so six months older than Heavy D. At that time, his father, Mike Kiley, was a US Air Force pilot who was based at Reese Air Force Base, although in their family of nine, only he and his younger sister, Kerstin, were born there. By the time he was four years old, the family moved to Beale Air Force Base in California, but when he was starting to like it there, his parents bought a house in Sacramento, just before Operation Desert Storm happened. After the Gulf War, his father left the Air Force to work as a commercial pilot for Delta Airlines and they all moved to Utah. He grew up in a comfortable middle-class home.

He attended Davis High School, the biggest rival school of Layton High where Heavy D went to. While the two of them lived not far from each other, but weren’t friends until after they finished high school. Just like Heavy D, he was into automotive as he seriously attended most of his shop classes in school. As a hobby, he liked wakeboarding, dirt biking, and playing rugby, which led to him making many trips to the hospital. He said that if he didn’t go away on his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, he might not have survived his teenage years.

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Traveling and his friendship with Heavy D

Diesel Dave and Heavy D met at a Singles Ward, an event in their Church, and instead of meeting a future wife, they hit it off and became virtual brothers. The two friends also spent some time together doing missionary activity for their church in Bolivia and Brazil, as both of them spoke Portuguese. While they remained in constant communication, they pursued different career paths. Diesel Dave went on to become a security system salesman but he gained more friends than clients as he wasn’t great in sales. His goal at that time was just to earn enough money so he could travel. He had several nicknames depending on the kind of social circle he was in, until he became Diesel Dave and it stuck. He never really had a solid career direction when he was single.

The Origins of DieselSellerz

After Heavy D’s stint in his uncle’s construction company, he started a small business with an excavation tractor, doing all sorts of work just to keep financially afloat, along with his best friend Diesel Dave. The business failed after they damaged one piece of the heavy equipment that they had on loan – Diesel Dave then left to pursue other goals. Getting loans from banks was difficult due to the effects of the 2008 economic recession, so Heavy D needed to become resourceful and creative in gaining financial backing through weird money lending companies. He eventually had around six cars on lease, and then called Diesel Dave to partner with him. Things seemed to be improving until the time came when the cars weren’t being paid for except one. They went on to repossess the other cars, but finances were so bad that they didn’t have enough money to get the cars back. Diesel Dave went traveling again after the business failed.

After cleaning up the financial mess, Heavy D had enough money to start another business, a truck dealership he called DieselSellerz. Business was slowly doing well, and he again reached out to Diesel Dave to help him out. Actually, Diesel Dave said that he received a photo of the coolest tow truck Heavy D bought at an auction with a text message, ‘Just come and run this.’ At that time, he was about to go to Arkansas to sell mobile homes, but returned to Utah instead. Ultimately, they became successful through a series of wild events.

On a side note, it was interesting that 10 years later, the FBI was still tracking Heavy D, and asking about the loans that he made. Apparently, at that time, he hired a company to do it for him, which later turned out to be involved in illegal activities that he wasn’t aware of.

Who was the richest in Diesel Brothers?

Determining people’s net worth could be tricky as not all of the information about their assets and liabilities was shared with the public. While “Diesel Brothers” had listed other individuals as part of their crew, it was mainly owned and operated by Heavy D and Diesel Dave. The following are their financial standings:

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David “Heavy D” Sparks’s net worth – $8 million

According to authoritative sources, in June 2023, Heavy D’s net worth is $8 million. The money that he acquired was deeply rooted in DieselSellerz, of which he was the founding partner and CEO. The truck dealership and customization shop continue to provide customized truck builds and merchandise including apparel, accessories, and other licensed products to a certain niche market from when it was established. The TV appearance fees from Discovery Channel also contributed to it, along with endorsements, sponsorships and events that they were invited to participate in. One of the most telling signs that Heavy D made it to the top was the fact that he owned helicopters including a Black Hawk, which he bought in 2022 at a military auction. He was never complacent, even after achieving so much in life. He kept moving up with his new concepts and business investments.

David “Diesel Dave” Kiley’s net worth – $4 million

Based on what Heavy D said during interviews and podcasts, he and “soulmate” Diesel Dave may not be brothers by blood but they have been more than that to each other since the time they met. There was an era in their lives when they even lived and shared everything together. When DieselSellerz, which he co-founded, became successful along with the popularity of “Diesel Brothers,” Diesel Dave’s net worth grew to $4 million. Their brand expanded, after their reality TV series including merchandise, licensing, trade show, and TV show guest appearance fees grew significantly, the revenue stream has kept flowing to this day.

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In assessing the exact personal net worth of any individual, it’s important to note that financial circumstances can change over time. It’s highly advisable to take into consideration various factors such as new business ventures, investments, and market fluctuations. When Heavy D announced in Roman Atwood’s podcast in October 2022 that the eighth season would be the last of “Diesel Brothers,” people wondered if that would have any effect on their finances. Their fans need not fret, as their official social media pages continued to increase. There’s continuous growth in their YouTube channel, which has generated over three million subscribers, and close to half a billion views. Needless to say, they are still winning the reality series game, even when they are no longer on TV.

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Waited 10 Days for Help! How Sue Aikens Survived a Bear Attack

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Sue Aikens captured the hearts of viewers of “Life Below Zero”, as she chose to live on her own terms in the Alaskan wilderness. Alone, she manages the Kavik River Camp located over 300kms north of the Arctic Circle. Having bears as neighbors, it was said that an encounter with one was inevitable. True enough, she had a harrowing experience with one that left her seriously injured. Many were intrigued that she survived to tell the tale.

Meet Sue Aikens

Sue Aikens was born in 1963, in Mount Prospect, Chicago, Illinois. She was 12 when her mom left her dad and took her to a small town north of Fairbanks, Alaska, only to abandon her afterwards. Instead of dwelling on why her mother did that, she chose to accept the reality of her situation, and figured out how to live on her own. Fortunately for her, an old resident took pity on her, and gave her a rifle and bullets after telling her that she had to learn how to hunt to survive. She matriculated from high school, having learned how to fly a plane at 13, later saying that back then in Alaska, one could do that at such a young age. Over the years, she acquired skills and wisdom in overcoming adversities that fate threw her way. She had two children with her husband of 17 years; the couple remained friends after going their separate ways. In an interview in 2019, she said that her mother is still alive and in her 80s, while her children are in their 30s, with kids of their own.

Her Kavik River Camp

Sue craved isolation; she might love interacting with people and hearing their stories, but only for a limited time. She was averse to living in the city, and the games that people play in society, and so had a passion for the Arctic and the wilderness, founding the Kavik River Camp to be an ideal place for her. It was over 800km away from the nearest city, Fairbanks, and around 130km West from a road. Her address was a GPS coordinate: 146.54 West by 69.4 North.

The former owners were her friends, and they wanted someone to watch and manage the camp. At that time, she ran a trapline along the Jim River, and so they asked her if she could do it. She said that as long as she could bring her dogs and stay there year-round, she was willing to go there. The site was an old oil exploration camp, and was in a dismal state when she arrived. She had second thoughts about living there, but took on the challenge of putting it to rights.

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Before long, she was the one leasing the camp; she was in her 30s then, and transformed the site into some sort of bed & breakfast for scientific researchers, photographers, hunters and eco-tourists, and provided them with logistical support from June to September. It also served as a refilling and search and rescue station. The Kavik River Camp had a 1.25-mile-long airstrip, fuel shed, trailers and outhouses. There was an internet connection so she could conduct her business, and contact her loved ones.

Alone for most of the year, she didn’t feel lonely as she said that she liked herself and found herself hilarious. She didn’t reveal how much money she was making, but did say that while it certainly wouldn’t make her a millionaire, it was allowing her to live the life that she wanted.

Her home away from home

The camp was 19km from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s eastern border. Sue might own the business and the structures at the camp, but she didn’t own the land. She said that her lease had been taken away by the state and was to be auctioned off, so she was only given a temporary permit. Competing with big corporations in a bidding war, it was likely that she would lose. In preparation for that, she bought a property that had two cabins, one old and one new, in Chena Hot Springs, Alaska. It was closer to town than she would have wanted, but it didn’t mean that she wouldn’t be happy living there. Through the years, she worked hard to make it her own, and stays there from time to time, but Kavik is still her home.

Background on “Life Below Zero”

National Geographic first aired the reality television series, “Life Below Zero,” in 2013, which documented the day-to-day struggles and triumphs of individuals living in the remote Alaskan Wilderness. While beautiful, the nature of the landscapes of Alaska was also unforgiving and could be deadly. Each day was a matter of survival, and only a determined few thrived there.

Sue Aikens in “Life Below Zero”

Prior to starring in the hit National Geographic series, Sue Aikens appeared on TV shows although not as a cast member or a guest. She had been in an episode of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” in 2010, because Kavik River Camp served as the base camp for a hunting party in the show. The following year, she was in a few episodes of Discovery Channel’s “Flying Wild Alaska” when her airstrip was used by a pilot looking for a landing strip in the area. One of the executive producers, Tommy Baynard, became Sue’s friend. He was intrigued by her unusual lifestyle, so when the show was being conceptualized, he asked her if she would consider being part of it. She valued her privacy, but agreed to do the show because the producers were respectful of her, and didn’t try to change her – what made Sue ‘perfect’ for a reality show was her personality. Joe Litzinger, one of the show’s executive producers, said that Sue was quite vocal about her feelings and inner conflicts.

Right from the beginning, viewers realized the level of isolation and risks involved in Sue’s job. For the first episode, she was in Fairbanks preparing for her return to the Kavik River Camp. It had been several months since she had last seen the place, as she was recovering from surgery to repair her broken bone after she had a bad fall in 2011. It was 40 degrees below zero when the plane landed at the airstrip. She armed herself with a rifle as she walked towards her home and inspected the whole place. She also had a shovel with her to clear the way of snow. As the camp was left unattended for quite some time, she discovered that most of her fuel supply was stolen, so had barrels of fuel delivered as soon as possible.

Living at Kavik, one had to have the means to keep warm and to prepare for the worst in case of a storm. She used ropes as a way to get from one place to another when there was zero visibility. One time, the weather was so bad that the plane couldn’t get close, and dropped off 900lbs of supplies and gear by the perimeter. Sue had to move all that through the frozen ground with a pack of wolves hovering nearby. She divided the load into 20-pound packs that she could throw as far as she could, and then did it again and again until she reached the camp.

No matter the struggles, this was the life that she chose, as she said, ‘I love the life that I lead. There’s some twisted part of me that thinks that this is pretty freaking cool.’

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Living in bear territory

Kavik River Camp was right in the middle of grizzly bear territory, so there was a constant threat of an attack by these lethal creatures especially when provoked. Back in 2014, she said that at least 80 bears lived within 10 miles of the camp, that were being monitored. Part of her routine each day was to check for animal tracks in the surrounding area. She would also go up on the roof of a trailer, and with a pair of binoculars, would scan the horizon to see if there was any bear or wolverine near her camp; if so, Sue would fire some rounds to scare them away.

Encounters with the Grizzlies

The first time she landed on Kavik, a bear came out of the fog at the runway and swung at her, but she somehow got to safety. Bears had an incredible sense of smell, and so she was careful with how she stored her food and burned the garbage. However, there must have been a lingering smell that attracted bears to come to her place. One time, as she was sleeping in her quarters, a bear crashed through the wall of her tent. She moved quickly to put some distance between them, and grabbed her rifle. She shot it, causing it to run away; come morning, she found its ear. Since then, Sue made sure that her handgun was within reach of her bed and she had baseball bats stashed in several places. It didn’t mean that she lived in fear of them, but she respected their ability to sneak up on her.

2007 Bear Attack – How did she survive?

She might have escaped her few encounters with bears, but there was one time that she was left at the mercy of one. In 2007, she noticed a juvenile male bear that continually buried its kills on her helipad every night. She called it an ‘alpha push’, as the bear tried to mark her place as its territory. Naturally, she dug up the caribou carcasses by morning and burned them, but believed that’s what enraged the bear.

One day, she went to the river to get water before it totally froze over. She had to use a water pump, and as she needed two hands for this task, she put down her rifle – some might say that she had gotten careless or wasn’t paying attention that time. She said that she did check her surrounding but the bear must have been hiding near the river bank where she couldn’t see it. Before she knew it, the bear attacked her and dragged her into the tundra somewhere between the river and the dining hall. She felt the bear’s teeth penetrate her skull as its jaws were locked onto her head and throat. As she was being mauled and thrown around, she played dead in the hope that the bear would soon leave her alone and that she didn’t bleed out; she wouldn’t have stood a chance had it been an adult grizzly or a black bear, and if that were the case, one shouldn’t play dead but fight back with everything that one had.

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The bear bluff charged her many times before retreating and going back to the river bank. She escaped its clutches, but knew that she was just given a reprieve, and that she had to make her way to the safety of the dining hall. One could only imagine how she got there considering she was in pretty bad shape, with her head torn and her hips out of their sockets. The first thing she did was to clean her wounds to prevent them from becoming infected, and then stitched them up. She called for help from the troopers, but all she got was their answering machine; she tried other people, but wasn’t able to contact them either.

Sue knew she had to deal with the juvenile bear herself, because unless she left the area, it would come back to assert its claim to the territory. She cinched a gun belt tight to support her hips and grabbed another rifle. From past experience, she knew where the bear was headed, so went there and shot it. Her hips gave out on the way back to the dining hall, so she slowly dragged herself to get inside.

For some reason, it took 10 days before anyone showed up. The whole time she was just lying there, waiting. It was terrifying at night when she could hear the sounds of a bear feasting on another animal, and knowing it was only a tent that separated her from that; she was thinking that a bear could barge in at any moment and have her for its next meal. She said that as she was giving off an odor from being unable to get to a restroom as well as whimpering in pain, she was sure that a bear was aware that she was right there. Help finally came as a pilot friend found her and took her to Fairbanks to receive treatment. She had hip surgery and made a full recovery.

Many compared her experience with that of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, a frontiersman, in the 2015 action-drama movie “The Revenant” in which he survived being mauled by a bear and left for dead. Sue’s friends had seen it, and told her not to look at that brutal bear attack scene. She said that she didn’t want to watch it as she was someone who would want to move on.

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Facing her fears

What Sue experienced was quite traumatic, and many wondered how she coped with that, considering she continued to live with bears as her neighbors, but her fervor for living in the wilderness hadn’t diminished; she wasn’t someone who would hunt or kill just because she was afraid. That said, there were things she had to do to protect herself from animals encroaching on her territory. When a bear got too close to her camp, she had to take care of it before it became a serious threat.

Actively pursuing a bear was a big deal for her; it would only take a few seconds for a predator to become prey, so she had to act fast, especially if one spotted her while she was hunting it. A grizzly could run as fast as 56km/hour according to the National Wildlife Federation, so outrunning one was quite impossible. The first shot was going to make a bear mad so she had to make it count. She hit it twice and was quite shaken afterward. She approached the bear slowly and poked it with the end of her rifle in case it was still alive and only injured. The bear wouldn’t go to waste as she’d use the fur for warmth, and meat for food.

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Sue was proud of overcoming her fears, especially as the bear was moving closer to where she was. She said she did this to protect the camp and herself; she wanted her grandkids to still be able to come and visit her. This face-off with a grizzly was just one ‘skirmish’ in what she said was the battle on the Arctic.

In living in a remote place with below-zero temperatures and wild animals abound, Sue said she had to be comfortable with her own death; she’s not seeking it, but isn’t afraid to face it either – everyone has an expiration date, but just doesn’t know when or how it is going to happen. Also, it might take some time before help could arrive, especially during winter. As to whether she planned to stay there forever or retire somewhere else, she said that in having a raven personality, there might come a time when she would be unable to resist something ‘shiny’ on the horizon, and check it out. Until then, she was happy with her life.

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The Rise of Justin Swanstrom: From Drag Racing to Street Outlaws

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Justin “Li’l Country” Swanstrom was a rising star in the drag racing community, but his switch to “Street Outlaws” gave him global recognition considering how big the television franchise had become over the years. He developed a cult following due to his colorful and interesting character, not to mention his exceptional skills at the tracks. Many wondered how a full-time drag racer got into the Pilgrim Studios-produced reality show that delved into the world of possibly illegal street racing.

Get to know Justin Swanstrom

Justin Swanstrom was born and raised in the small town of Zephyrhills in Florida. His nickname was “Li’l Country” as his father, Corey Swanstrom, was “Big Country.” His family has several businesses including S&S Vac-Video since 2014, which provides CCTV Sanitary with depth measure, CCTV Lateral services, and CCTV Storm lines for joint measure & cracks. To put it simply, they have huge trucks equipped to operate as a vacuum cleaner but on steroids, and then they looked through all those pipes to check for damage or problems. Justin once said that work came first before racing, and when he later left the company to focus on racing, he did say that he would go back whenever his dad needed a hand.

He has been around drag racing his whole life, because of his dad. Corey loved muscle cars, and he used to street race with his gold Chevy before he got into drag racing – Justin often accompanied his father, and helped out at the race track. The first time he got into a race car was when he was 14; his dad bought a small-tire, single-turbo car and he messed around with it for about six or seven months before telling his dad that he wanted to race. Since he was quite young, they didn’t want him to go fast, so bought a naturally aspirated 520 big block Ford Mustang in California, and forged his birth certificate to get his National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) license so he could run at the tracks. Justin did a couple of burnouts, made his first pass on the track, and went 5.87 seconds – everything went well.

For Justin, racing was like a drug, but just to make it clear, he said that he didn’t do drugs and only drank every now and then. Unlike other race car drivers, however, he never formed any attachment to the cars that he drove during races. Over the years, he had a lot of cars that he sold and was okay with that. Justin usually keeps cars for radial vs world, grudge, and no prep racing.

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He was a self-taught mechanic. When he was just starting out in racing, he didn’t know anything about a car, such as how to fix it and make it work. He wasn’t that interested, so he didn’t take the time to learn all that, but eventually realized the value of such knowledge. Justin wasn’t even in his 20s when he could do mostly everything on his car, such as taking apart the motor and putting it back together, or changing converters and transmissions.

Who does Justin look up to the most?

Justin respected and admired his dad, who taught him to give 110% in everything he did. It was instilled in him that if he couldn’t give his best, then he shouldn’t do it all. He also idolized Stevie “Fast” Jackson because of how competitive he was. He knew he may never be on Stevie’s level, running in NHRA, but Justin would always put himself in this guy’s shoes when he was at the track and it seemed that nothing was going right, asking himself, ‘What would Stevie do?’

His journey in drag racing

Justin started with junior dragsters, but outclassed the other competitors when he reached a speed of 88mph at age 12. He moved on to grudge racing, which was a type of drag racing in which two drivers would go head to head in a race without any predetermined rules. He did that until the end of 2018, because he was unable to get into other races. Justin figured that if he wanted to continue with this expensive hobby, he had better acquire sponsorship to afford it, and the best way to do that was to join the radial versus the world (RVW) class. This is a highly competitive class in drag racing in which vehicles have radial tires providing better grip on the road instead of slick tires. He did pick up a lot of sponsors that were of tremendous help to him, soon getting them on board with his grudge racing as well.

Truth be told, he preferred grudge over class racing because there was a lot of trash-talking and hustling involved in it, and he enjoyed all that. His main reason, however, was that he liked gambling. He felt that once he was off the line on a drag strip, he had a 50/50 chance of winning that race – those odds were a lot better than going to a casino. He went to a casino once and lost $800 in 20 minutes, vowing never to go back, but he would continue gambling at the racetrack.

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At the age of 17, he was already a force to reckon with at the X275 doorslammer-class in 2013. He set the record for the best elapsed time at 4.86 seconds on the eighth-mile track and won Wild Tomato Nationals at Immokalee Regional Raceway, then scored a back-to-back win at the US Street Nationals held at Bradenton Motorsports Park. He might have lost in the Heads Up Madness event at the Florida drag strip, but set a record with his elapsed time of 4.710 seconds at 149.52 mph during the second round of eliminations.

His experience at the tracks wasn’t all good. There was a time when he had to overcome his fear of racing following a mishap at the Lakeland drag strip. He made the rookie mistake of watching his opponent instead of his lane, so didn’t notice that he was close to the wall – the car shifted into high gear and spun around before hitting the wall. He said that the accident was not that bad, but it was something he had never experienced before, and it shook him. His father fixed the car, and they took it back to the drag strip where it happened because his father wanted Justin to conquer his issues over it, and he did.

Background on “Street Outlaws”

The nature of street racing might be illegal, but it gave people an added thrill, so the fascination for it was never-ending. “Street Outlaws” made its TV debut on Discovery Channel in 2013, and its ratings soon rose to the top, and resulted in the launching of several spin-off series such as “Street Outlaws: No Prep Kings” (NPK) in which Justin Swanstrom would be heavily involved.

An NPK race simulates the condition of a street, which meant that the track isn’t prepared ahead of time. It would factor in on the outcome of a race, because the driver would be dealing with a lot of unknowns and would try to compensate for them. Viewers found this to be much more exciting than most forms of drag racing, in which the track was prepped. Many believe that NPK has since become the biggest platform in drag racing.

How did Justin Swanstrom become part of “Street Outlaws”

In a 2019 Dragzine interview with Wes Buck, Justin described himself as a full-time drag racer. He admitted to not having street raced before, and shared how he got into “Street Outlaws.” The previous year he chanced upon a video of an NPK race at  Bristol, in which the drivers ran for $200,000, and found himself interested in it. Justin wasn’t familiar with NPK, but the race that he watched turned everything around for him on the path he wanted to take, as far as his racing career was concerned. However, he had to talk his dad into it, because having a radial background, the latter didn’t want anything to do with big tires and wheelie bars. Justin did a lot of begging to get everything going, because he felt that it would be huge, so wanted to give it a shot.

Several months later, he finally convinced his father, and they got started on putting together a car, a 2012 Chevrolet Camaro Fifth Generation, for the 2019 NPK race. He was somewhat familiar with Daddy Dave and Kye Kelley from the show, because the two ran some radials as well, and he talked them into putting in some good words for him. They were instrumental in getting him there – not that everything was handed out to him; he worked hard for it and his crew put in the time on what was needed for him to qualify. He participated in the Future Street Outlaws Class, in which big tires battled it out for a chance to take part in the main NPK event.

Justin said that he wasn’t better than the rest of the drivers, but he was brought in to be part of the hit series, mainly because he and his crew were great for TV. They had lots of ‘exciting’ moments befitting a reality show.

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Justin was introduced to NPK fans

“NPK” was in its third season when Justin made his first appearance, participating in several grudge matches. He won against NPK veteran Kye Kelley twice at the Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Ohio, and took home $10,000. However, he lost to Lizzy Musi at the New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire, but then beat Larry Larson at the race track in Morrison, Colorado, and this should have been his ticket to the main event with $40,000 as the prize money. Unfortunately, his car had issues that his team was unable to fix in time. He was quite frustrated by this development, as he wanted to make a name for himself along with his team, the Swan Gang, and show everybody what he could do.

Crashed his $200,000 No Prep car in 2019

His foray into the NPK world was a tough one. Justin said, ‘I don’t know if it was paint color, motor combination, we just could not make it work. It was probably the worst luck I’ve ever had in racing.’ Everything culminated in a crash, but he said that it helped build his story for the show. He was up against Bobby Ducote from team New Orleans in a grudge race that took place in Norwalk, Ohio. After crossing the finish line, he was headed towards the center line and pulled a hard right, smashing onto the guard rail with such force that the impact propelled him toward the other lane and caused him to hit the concrete barrier there as well. The car went back to his lane before finally stopping. He was knocked out and only came to when the paramedics were there, telling them that he couldn’t feel his shoulder. Justin was banged up so badly that he was lifted onto a stretcher and taken to hospital.

His first full season in the NPK series

Despite the major setback that cut his racing season short, it didn’t deter Justin from coming back to the tracks for season four of the series. Fortunately, he accomplished the goals he set for himself with his ProCharger-boosted Lexus, which he referred to as “Prenup.” He won a couple of races on the 15-race tour and got enough points to finish third behind Kye Kelley and Ryan Martin. All in all, he considered it as a good season; it certainly put him on people’s radar as a serious contender for the top spot.

Maple Grove crash in season five

During the “Great 8” event for NPK at the Maple Grove Raceway in Pennsylvania, Justin competed against Dave Adkins. As they neared the finish line, Justin’s car caught fire and then his quarter panel on the passenger side was hit by Dave when the latter lost control of his car, and the two got tangled up with the parachute deployed. With the car still on fire, he got out and tumbled over the concrete wall. It was said that an intake manifold blew and caused a fire to ignite under the hood. After the fire was extinguished, there seemed to be a heated argument going on at the track, which led to various speculations.

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Later on, Justin clarified things via his Facebook page. First, he shared that his face got hot, but other than that, he was fine. Next, his dad got ‘excited’ when a cop grabbed Justin for some reason, but it didn’t escalate. Lastly, Justin didn’t body slam a cop, but he did get angry at someone from the track who made a comment about getting tired of fixing the walls. His father addressed some issues as well through his social media account, admitting that the fire was their fault, as they’d overlooked something in the pits. The important thing was that his son and Dave walked away from the crash. He apologized to his wife, Melissa, for putting up with all the craziness of what they loved to do, but saying that racing had been his ‘crutch’, and that he let their son enjoy it as well.

Is he getting paid to race in the show?

Many were curious to know if Justin got paid to race in NPK events; he could only speak for himself, because he didn’t know what the arrangements were between the other cast members and the producers. In 2019, he said that he didn’t get paid to show up at the race – since he enjoyed racing, he just went there on his own. It cost him $3,000-$5,000 to run a race each weekend, saying that he spent around $800 every time he fired up his car. Whenever there was an opportunity for him to participate in a grudge race or shootout, he went for it, and tried to break even or get a little money before going back home.

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Justin as an influencer

He put up his own YouTube Channel in May 2019, all about racing, with some comedy skits in it. He already had a big fan base on his Instagram account, and many suggested to him that he upload content onto the popular video-sharing website. He wasn’t too keen on the idea at first because he wasn’t computer savvy, but he later got into it. Justin thought to inspire others to get into racing, and shared a little information on how to go about that. He didn’t want to reveal everything he and his dad learned over the years unless he would be compensated for it, but he was willing to give some details that would be of help to an average person. His content was quite informative as well as interesting, so his subscribers grew to more than 80,000 and his videos garnered over 19 million views.

Justin’s life revolved around working, racing, and vlogging. He said that he was so busy that he didn’t have time for anything else; not that he had other hobbies. He didn’t have much of a social life either, because of the schedule he keeps. It didn’t mean that he isn’t having fun, because what he does for a living is excitement enough for him.

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