Special Report: Tough Nutter ’25 Recap

 

Tough Nutters George “GHIII” Hunt of Brighton Best, Bobby “Tater Tot” Wegner of Beacon Fasteners, Bob “GQ” Baer from Abbott-Interfast, and BTM Manufacturing president Jake “Valdez” Davis put on their jerseys to relive highlights of the dirtiest fastener networking event of 2025.  Run time: 47:07

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Special Report: Tough Nutter ’25 Recap

I’m with you on this special edition of the show. It’s a recap of 2025 summer Mud Race event, as told by some of the Tough Nutters who were there. This one doesn’t need too much of a setup. It was back on August 23rd. An intrepid group of fastener professionals willing to get extremely dirty and have a whole lot of fun.

We got together in Rockford, Illinois. We put an episode together to talk about the hype video that’s out there on LinkedIn. It’s probably out on some other socials as well, but if you’re on LinkedIn, type in Tough Nutters. You’ll see what we’re looking at as we have this conversation. This is just a fun one. Hopefully, some of you will be inspired to join us next year.

Before I cut over to this conversation, a big shout out to the title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio. Brighton Best International, Goebel Fasteners and Star Stainless. Fully Threaded Radio is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners and the Ohio Nut and Bolt Company, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Cresa, Endries International, INxSQL Software, J. Lanfranco, Fastener Technology International, MW Components, Solution Industries, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Würth Industry USA.

We are so fortunate to have you guys on the team. We’re also so glad that we’ve got so many great audience. Appreciate it folks. Before we get into it, an editor’s note. This one was something of a technical challenge to pull off. It’s a little bit complicated when you have five people on one of these calls because you’re dealing with all the separate tracks and everything. We kept getting internet brownouts and some of these guys were in some fairly remote locations and in the end, GQ dropped off. I just worked with it and anyway, doing the best we can. That’s what Nutters do. That’s what fastener people do. I’m sure you’ll understand. Alright, now it’s time for a little Fastener Mud Racing.

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Back with another special report. This time we’re going to follow up on the heavily promoted, highly anticipated 2025 Tough Nutters Mud Run, which happened up there in Rockford, connected with MWFA FSTNR Week. We’ve got the spiritual leaders of this year’s team. There were so many people that were on the team. I didn’t even get a chance to meet everybody or talk to them. I hope that I do. Maybe in Vegas, who knows. Let’s go around the horn. Start off with Bob “GQ” Baer. He’s the team leader here. Bob, good to see you.

Eric, how’s it going? Thanks for having us on.

Excellent. GHIII, Brighton Best’s own George Hunt III.

Eric, good to see you again. Thanks for having us back.

Glad you got all that debris out of the beard, my friend. Jake “Valdez” Davis.

Eric, it’s a pleasure. It’s amazing. Everything stays out of George’s beard.

We’ll see about that when we see him at chowing down at the buffet table. I take your point. Finally, Bobby “Tater Tot” Wegner, Beacon Fasteners. He’s definitely the energy source for this team. I think you got muddier than ever this year. You were sliding through some of those puddles, but it looks like you’re all cleaned up now.

Good to be with you, guys. I’m still getting mud out of places right now.

My brand-new Solomon shoes are never going to be the same. We’re going to walk through the highlights video that was published out there on LinkedIn. Bob, you can tell us how that came. That was a really nice addition and just such a great job. It was out there. We’ll walk through this thing and try to give everybody a little taste of what this year’s mud event was like. I had a blast. I’ll tell you, guys, just right at the outset, there were a lot of highlights for me.

One of them was simply that the team kept growing and we held to the no one left behind. Some of us got lost but nobody was left behind. We had a couple of real senior members this year that joined us, including Carmen Vertullo and Brian Musker co-host, Fully Threaded Radio. Those two guys, I tell you, they’re an inspiration for a lot of people, plus a lot of younger guys.

A Look At This Year’s Mud Run Site

I think Field Fastener had 8 or 9. It was great to see those guys. Hopefully we’ll have them on the show. They can give us their versions down the road. Right now, let’s jump into this video. Bob, do you want to lead us off on this thing? We started off at the parking lot right across from the Rockford Airport, which was the site of this year’s event.

It was really nice of Sims to let us use their lot and their facilities for taking care of business before the race and allowing us to use it as a hub, if you will. We were able to give all the bling out and all of the spirit wear, our Tough Nutter jerseys and our, our pre-race ritual, which I’m going to let GH III talk about that. It was great. There’s a lot of excitement when we all come together first thing in the morning. Everybody’s fresh, we’re excited. Some of us are nervous, first timers certainly are nervous. I know Carmen was a nervous wreck all week about it. It’s a lot of excitement and you could see the eyes light up when you start handing out the bling and we get together for that awesome picture of all of us together. It really came together. I’m going to let GH III talk a little bit about the pre-race ritual here .

Hang on, you’re the organizer of this thing. Let me just lock in. There were 38 that signed up and 36 made it. We had to have 2 dropouts at the last minute, but 36 in the parking lot plus armor bearers. Was that true?

That’s correct. Thirty-eight signed up, two last minute cancellations, unfortunately. In addition to that, we had six spectators, bless their hearts, for coming, cheering us on and probably running three quarters of the race just like we did, George, trying to keep up.

Slinging ironclad gear plus the spirit wear and a few fireballs. George, what was the scene like for you?

It was pretty amazing to watch. As Bob said, you can see the people that have been there before and just how excited they were, but probably what excited me most was all the newbies. With their heads on a swivel, looking around and just in awe of not only all of the swag that was distributed throughout that parking lot, but also the camaraderie that already started and the prelude to the race. It is always our Parker Fastener toast of delicious and energizing fireball, which gets everything going. You could feel that thing at 9:00 in the morning, Eric, all the way from your toes to even me, for the back of the hair standing on my neck. It was a great start to the event and it really set the tone for what was about to come.

You didn’t spike years with Beta-alanine, did you?

No, not this year.

Getting The Mud Run Started

Let’s get into it, then. We got over to the race site and it’s the excitement. All the music’s playing. You see all the people there. The folks who are first timers are realizing, “This is it.” The heart starts racing and everything. It was a little hot, though. Bobby, were you feeling the heat there? I know your metabolism’s probably running the hottest of all of us. How did you feel out there before we started?

We were cooking, but we’re just getting warmed up for the race baby. It was good. Getting the exercises in, stretching out, making sure we’re not tearing anything. Talking a little bit about last year, having no idea what, what this year was going to hold.

The uncertainty’s a big part of it.

It’s like a cattle call. We started stretching out a little bit first and we had some intimate moments started by GQ Baer and letting us know how much this team is going to be appreciated and what it’s going to mean to us in the future and down the road. Jake, we got into this cattle call. They all ushered us into this pin where we probably sat for, I don’t know, a good 45 minutes to an hour and pretty much got the suntan we were looking for prior to the race.

You have a 50/50 chance of being called first. Unfortunately, we were called second, so it’s actually two holding pins. That’s before you go across the road and wait for another 15, 20 minutes. They’ve got a guy there that’s a great motivational guy. He gives you the do’s and don’ts of the mud race and talks about just how special the day is.

I think every year, doing the national anthem is awesome. He made all of us get on one knee if we could, and so everybody could see him. I thought that was just a very cool event. It was a struggle to get back up after being on one knee for so long, which didn’t bode well at the beginning of the race.

That was our first obstacle.

It was an exercise in mental toughness. I know Carmen started to really have second thoughts while we was standing there, looking down that first run and he is like, “We have to do this.” The longer you stand there and look at it, you start questioning yourself. Backing up, before we got to the pen, one of my favorite shots of this video that’s on LinkedIn.

By the way, folks, if you go to LinkedIn and you type in Tough Nutters in the search, you could see this video if you didn’t catch it already. The time clock goes in reverse. It tells you how much time is left in the video. Don’t ask me why they do it that way, but where it says about 5:35, that part is one of my favorites.

That’s where you, GQ, you were revving us all up, giving us the pep talk. You just took the bull by the horns, then you passed it off to George and George did the consecration where we all circled around and put our hands in the center like a team should. That was a big group. Got the energy going in the right direction.

It really was. It was awesome to see that many people there, hands together at the end. I’ll tell you something else. When we were in the corral, one of the favorite things that I saw, and you’ll see it in the video when you see the motivational guy that Jake mentioned, is there’s a sign up there that I honestly read it for the first time. I’d never seen that saying before. He mentioned it, and it states, “When was the last time you did something for the first time?” I thought it was awesome, especially for our newbies.

When was the last time you did something for the first time? Share on X

That really resonated loudly for what we were trying to do. You’re right, Bob. That’s the first time that I recognized it and it was cool. You can see it as we are going through with the GoPro’s and we’re touching that sign as we’re going on in to our first heat and to our first obstacle. What a more fitting slogan for our team as we started this day.

Memorable Moments From The Mud Run

Also noticed that while we were sweating our butts off, this guy there with the microphone, he was wearing cargo pants, a cowboy hat, a long flannel shirt. I don’t know how he did it. He was definitely a different kind of guy. That set off the race, we did our first stretch, and that first one was one of the longer ones of the event. We came up to our first obstacle. That’s at about 4:50.

I had a little up and over. I had some good video shots of there. George had a good run at it and did the barrel roll over it. The great part is I think everybody has their own technique. I’m happy that Zach didn’t get video of my second attempt because it was a lot more awkward and not as pretty as my first. Best part about it, we’re high fiving. We’re waiting on each other. We’re getting everybody through it. We moseyed through the corn, through obstacle number two, which presented a little bit more of a weight than anticipated, unfortunately.

More of a technical challenge, for sure. Did anybody make it across both of these obstacles? This was at about 4:30 or so on the video where you had to join hands with your partner and balance each other and mosey down this very unstable triangular apparatus. You really could have gotten hurt on this thing.

This was one of the toughest obstacles out there, and this is where equipment comes into play. We stressed everybody to really consider what shoes you would wear. If you had the right shoes, that obstacle would’ve been a piece of cake, I think, but it was so slippery, covered in mud. Congratulations to everybody for getting up there and giving this a try.

 

It’s about balance and strength and your feet hanging onto the slippery board. There were a few of our participants that I think did make it across, but the rest of us really did struggle with it a little bit. It also has to do with matching up with the right partner and balancing the weight on both sides. It was a tough obstacle, for sure.

Yeah, you’re right. It was about teamwork, and it was also about checking up with the right partner. I had Carmen in this one, and i’ll tell you what. Both Carmen and Brian, throughout this entire mudder, were not only inspirational, but it was just awesome to see all of the hard work and dedication that they put into training come to fruition. I think you have two ends of the spectrum there, though. I think Carmen put in the work, did the time, loved it, and is he glad he did it. I think he’ll be back.

Brian, same thing. Put in the work, he’s going to do it. I think that’s one of those boxes he just checked off and said, “I did this and I’m good.” I’ll tell you what, Eric, those two men should be applauded for what they did and how they carried themselves through this mudder. I’m honored to call them my friend.

Yeah, great comments, George. Let’s also recognize another of our senior members who deserves honorable mention. That’s Dan Zender.

Dan was here last year and he came back with a lot of wisdom after last year’s race. Dan completed the race. Congrats to him. Second time around. He very carefully calculated which obstacles were worth tackling and which were worth skipping. As with the rest of us, he made it through the end.

The wisdom of the Zen Master.

Matches the nickname, for sure.

Now I like this shot right here at 4:27, GQ throwing up the guns. Looking good there.

Brief moment of feeling strong. I think that was right before we hit the mud pit, which puts your perspective back in the right order.

This leads us into my favorite sequence of the entire thing, maybe with the exception of the electrocution side of it, but I love it. At about 4:07, where the three of you, Jake and Tater and GQ, you were helping each other out. We got Tango in there as well. That was exciting.

It was certainly intense. Kudos to Bobby. Bobby looked like he was sliding into each pit like he was at the amusement park and us were a little bit more dip your toe in situation. You got in there and without your Tough Nutter brothers and sisters, I wasn’t getting out without any help. It was just that deep and wet and the next hill that you had to climb was just as slick as can be. You had no grip. You had to work together and put feet on knees.

That goes back to our whole goal in working together as a group logistically is helping each other up. I think Bobby, again, with the energy, he just he plopped in there and next thing you know, he is out and he’s pulling my butt out of there, thankfully. I would’ve been stuck in there. It was fun, though. Just to see everybody at the end of it, and the amount of mud that was on us was finally the satisfying to me.

Bob, do you want to comment on that? I swear to God, you looked like a six-year-old playing in the mud in the video.

Bring me back. It was it’s a blast. Getting through the obstacles yourself is okay. Getting other people through the obstacles and working as a team and putting a leg down for somebody to step on it and grabbing an arm for somebody who’s getting up, we couldn’t do it individually. An individual could not run this race. Doing it is a team is fun, and it makes it fun.

There’s a scene of you at the top of the hill ready to slide down and that smile was as big as the screen. You were having a ball.

I was debating going head first and right into the mud puddle and decided against it last minute. Good decision.

Good call. One of my favorite, there’s a scene of about at about 3:40, and we’re doing I think our next obstacle, but we had a heck of a jog walk in between because the river was so high, we weren’t able to cross it, which was very disappointing. We had no opportunity for Jill Lewis to float away this year. I think, Bobby, you’re going under the barbed wire and you’re crawling in mud and rocks and there’s just a video of Bobby, and you could just see him. It looks like he’s just carrying on a casual conversation with whoever’s in front of him or to the side. He’s still got that smile on and that energy, but the rest of us aren’t that happy about it and worried about keeping our bodies closer to the ground so we don’t hit the barbed wire. Bobby’s looking like he’s working on a quote for somebody. Just awesome.

I might’ve been the only one with mud in my tea.

I think it was right after that event that iconic photo of George standing there looking like a refugee from the first Woodstock. You were standing there just covered. That is a classic shot. We’ve got to get that out.

As Jake said, that was one where we had a barrel in mud, and as a team, you had to push the barrel up to get your team over. As you got it over the barrel, there was another pit of mud you had to go in. Nobody was pushing the barrel and so it wasn’t turning. I finally said push. I was the only one not pushing. I went over and did go head first right into the mud. As I walked out, there was Lynn snapping that iconic picture. I’m forever grateful because that’ll be my screensaver for a long time.

That’s a keeper, for sure. Alright, i’ve got to make one other comment here. It is called a Mud Run. Aside from there being not a lot of toeholds, so you’re required to be on your knees a lot, there was a ton of gravel in there too. Here it is, like two weeks later, I’m still healing up from all that. I don’t know about you, guys. It was rough on me this year.

I had a few scratches here and there, but obviously, they create that pit by digging it out. Of course, whatever’s in the ground is in there, but you’re right, a few scratches. I don’t think anybody would expect to come out of this race scot-free. A little bit of road rash is a good thing.

George might have been talking about it, but one of my favorite, about 3:20, and then George was helping, I think it was it was Jill out. It again just speaks to the what I would call brotherhood both for men and women that are participating. I just thought that was a cool shot. I’ve got to give a shout out. I think the next obstacle, I’m going to call it that inverted wall, but then we had the piggyback thing there. Hero carry. I don’t know Ashley Parker, I don’t know, God bless her, what she would call it with having to carry my butt.

Ashley carried you?

Yeah, absolutely. You don’t have to have that reaction, Eric.

She’s bionic.

Exactly. That’s why the shout out. I carried her for the first half, and then I had her sign a contract, an NDA. She was awesome. She was absolutely awesome. She killed it. I was getting to at about 2:50, that inverted wall that we have to climb, that was one of the most scariest moments but also a very cool moment as Musker wanted to complete it. I know he had been frustrated earlier in the race, to see other Nutters up there on the wall helping him over.

There was a moment there, there was a little bit worrisome. Some of the gals were worried that we were going to drop him, basically. It was a success. It again, just speaks to the, just the brotherhood and camaraderie that is within that race and what is formed within this 30, 35 people that we have. To watch that and see that again was just brought it all back. I loved it.

Yeah, that was really cool. That was one of the events. There weren’t that many. That was one of them where people really had to make a choice, am I going to go forward or not? Several people overcame their fear and they made it across. It was very good to see.

Not to go backwards, but in the hero carry, the scene you see on the video is two of the most muscular guys on the team carrying some weight, and Eric’s carrying Cool Hand and Cool Hand’s carrying Eric. I’m referring to John Butler, of course. That was a tough obstacle for those of you that had to put somebody on your back and carry them that far. Kudos to you guys, Eric, you and John. It’s a great scene.

We were reduxing the first year that we did it because of course it wasn’t in the last few years, but when I saw that was there, I said, “Cool Hand, we’re doing it again.” We did it. I guess we’re still in moderate shape, so it was cool to be able to pull that off. I didn’t know if I’d make it, but I did. John did a great job there too. Now zooming forward past that crazy wall thing that you were talking about there, Jake, we came up to that giant hay bale, and there’s a great shot of you doing the Flying Superman technique across that thing, Bob. You’re looking like what do you call it?

Mad Hops.

Just before we get to that, the scene right before that, you talk about teamwork and camaraderie and being together. I remember in the movies always seeing the training for the Army and the Navy and the Marines where the whole group is running together. There’s a shot of all of us just coming off that obstacle. It supports the idea that we stay together through the race. It’s just an awesome shot of everybody running through the grass, getting ready to head up to that hay bale.

 

Yeah, 2:32.

I don’t have time slots on my video, but it’s a really great shot. Anybody who’s thinking about doing a race and worrying about whether we’re going to be there for you or not should look at that scene. Just a little bit of uplift there, I guess, that doing some squats paid off for me. I was able to get to that top of that hay bale. I did a look a little Superman-ish, which falls in place with my Clark Kent outfit. I must admit, I did watch a few people ahead of time and I observed what techniques worked and which didn’t. It was fun. It was definitely fun.

How much are you squatting these days, Clark?

Enough to jump over a hay bale.

I think everybody was a little bit surprised on how much more distance this was. There was a sign that didn’t get in the video, but there was a sign that said 3 to 5 miles. I know there’s some people that had GPS watches that were tracking. On our way to the last set of obstacles, the guy I was running next to, I can’t remember, it was over four. That was unanticipated, but I think the river thing being closed contributed to that. What was everybody’s thoughts? We had we went through like 8 or 9. We knew we had the electroshock, electrotherapy. We knew we had the wall, but the Arctic enema was waiting for us.

The nemesis event.

It was crazy. I didn’t anticipate it. I knew it was going to be cold. I didn’t anticipate it being that cold. With the barbed wired fence forcing you to go under and coming back out, and then the sounds of them just continuing to dump ice in the bath as you’re going.

George, when I got there, Cool Hand was helping him with a big smile on his face. I was really irritated by that.

It was chilly.

If you watch the video in slow mo and you see David Kerr jump in when he first jumps into the tub, the look on his face tells it all.

There’s video of me doing it. I’m saying something, I have no idea. I don’t know if I’m trying to pump myself up or telling myself it’s not that cold. By the time I got under the little fence, and I was anticipating having to go completely under, which I was glad that wasn’t the case, but the medic just sitting to the right outside there gives you some pause. To get out, your whole body stiffens in a matter of 15, 20 seconds and you’re trying to lift it out of there. It was just like, “God, please.”

It feels like needles are just going throughout your entire body. You’re right, Jake. You have to bounce yourself out of that tub onto a platform where you’re pretty much slithering off of this platform. They need to get you wet before the electric.

We’ll get to that in a second. There’s one shot that I saw. I don’t know if it’s on the video, but I was actually helping Carmen. Carmen had a hard time getting out of this. I think he stiffened up more than he thought. I’m standing there working with him to get him out and who’s behind? It’s GQ. The look on your face in this photo, it’s like, “Hurry up, guys.”

It’s exactly how I felt. My knees were starting to freeze. Of course, it’s Carmen, so I’m very patient because he was hesitant to do it, and he got through it like a champ. He just struggled a little getting over the wall. I’m like, “Please hurry, Carmen, please.” It was cold.

I’m glad that he did it and several of the people who said they weren’t going to wound up doing it, and that includes myself. I actually initially walked around it, and then I looked over my shoulder and I said, “Eric, you’ve got to get in there. Valdez is doing it. You’ve got to do it.”

I didn’t realize you walked around that. I know you’ve been talking about the Arctic thing for years now.

I’ve fallen through the ice while ice fishing many times. I know what it’s like. The thrill’s gone but I just had to turn out for the team.

Bobby, didn’t you do a couple laps in there before we all got to it?

Yeah. You’ve got to test the water on before you just jump in. I just had to make sure it was cold enough for everybody. Put some more ice in there.

Getting Ready To Be Electrocuted

Next year we’re going to call you Wim Hof. All right, George, you said it. They were prepping us up for the electrocution that was to come. Guys, this one was quite literally the biggest shock of the whole day for me, because I remember the first time we went through this, we had only done the electrocution one time, if I recall. It was one big nothing. I got zapped a couple of times. It was like a minor mosquito bite or something.

This time it was much different because I went through thinking I was just going to make it to the other side, be done with this whole ordeal. About midway through, I got hit with something right on my collarbone. It took my breath away. I wound up with a face and a mouth full of mud and crawled out on my knees.

You’re right. They listened to somebody’s negative feedback from that first year on how little it was, but i’ll tell you what, not only was the barbs longer, so you were going to get electrocuted no matter what, but they put more out there. What made it even worse is the mud on the pits were just filled with water and mud and gunk. You had no choice but to run full steam ahead through this thing and get zapped. You’re right, Eric. It wasn’t a little jolt. If you got hit in the right spot, you were going down. There were a lot of people that were face planting this thing.

 

I was observing people. Eric, you mentioned the first year it was a big nothing. Those wires that are juiced up are spread out and depend on where you hit them and how hard you hit them. I was noticing that the left side was a little lighter than the middle. People in the middle were going down more often. Don’t forget, there’s a guy there, there’s a little tuning knob, and the guy can turn the juice up or down depending on what he sees.

That explains it.

They probably saw us coming. Here’s the big group, Tough Nutters. Let’s see how tough they are. Turn the juice up a bit.

I saw him come around the corner, too, as we got some of the bigger guys up there, but I don’t know if i’ll do it justice. Eric, maybe you want to talk about this, but you could see it. You don’t see it on the video. I’ll tell you what, TJ was a machine. He just looked left, and he looked right, and he looked behind me, and I was behind him. He’s like, “Let’s do this. Hoorah.” He just blew right through that. I’m not saying he ran. He straddle walked like he was The Incredible Hulk through these tentacles of barbed wires that were probably, I don’t know, 40 volts.

It was probably 40 volts. You could see him get hit. As he got hit, it was like a bullet. It just went through him and he just kept going and going. I was next. I was contemplating going underneath and just getting muddy and not getting hit. I ran through, it didn’t work. I got him a shoulder and did the same thing you did, Eric. Faceplant right down in the mud.

Yeah, I could see that in the video. You were doing the limbo and that didn’t work. Now the thing about the video is I don’t think it does justice to actually what TJ did, because it makes it look too fast and painless. I think your description was pretty good, but the scene following that, where you have those people just shoulder to shoulder and a few of them are just dropping down, I think that captures it.

No, that’s it. The best part is to try and line up 6, 8 across and go through it. First Tough Nutter, zero plowed through it. This one, three times left shoulder. Luckily, I kept my feet, but there was some sharp pain just briefly, of course. We are trying to recruit for next year.

We’re all here to talk about it.

The aspect of it is I didn’t know what it felt like and then to get hit three times, it certainly wakes you up. Bobby, were you able to go under all of the tentacles?

I just limboed. I just swam it. I plugged my nose and swam it.

The host guy was getting a little frustrated with people that were crawling and trying to avoid that. I know you’re tougher than that, Bobby.

Why You Should Try Participating In The Mud Run

Speaking of recruiting, everybody’s wondering how to get the next generation out here, and how do we get them involved in wanting to network? If you’re leading a team or you’re trying to recruit the next generation, get the Mudder. Post this video on your company’s LinkedIn pages, these are the types of events that new people want to see. The up-and-coming generation want to want to see the connections that they’re going to make. They want to see that it’s more than just an office or a cubicle or a paycheck. They want the community, the camaraderie, and this is the type of event that’s going to draw these younger people in.

Everyone in a company wants to see that their offices are more than just a cubicle or a paycheck. Share on X

Bob, that’s absolutely right. If you’re still a little bit hesitant about it, to Bob’s point at the beginning of the show here, there are spectators. If you just want to come and you want to be around it all, and you want to network and you want to do some of the things, come and watch us. Come and take some pictures and walk the event and see what it’s all about, and then maybe dive in the next year. There are a lot of things that you can do to really join this epic team. Jake has said it many times on this show. It is a brother and sisterhood, and it’s something you’ll never forget, and you make lifelong friends

You get incredible swag.

Beautiful swag, for sure. Not to forget the awesome BBI 100-year anniversary on one side, another commemorative coin that BBI was so generous to give out to all of us as well. The interesting about thing about it is, if you look at the finished photos, we have a diverse range of fitness, a diverse range of age, a diverse range of where people come from.

This has turned into a national industry event. As Bobby said, it’s definitely we want the younger people to come in and join us, but look around. Look at the people. If that variety of people can get through this race, you can get through it. We tell this to everybody at the beginning of the race. If there’s an obstacle you’re not comfortable with, just skip it. Nobody cares. There’s no shame in it. We’re here to have fun. We’re here to finish the race. You do the obstacles that you want to challenge yourself with and just have at it, have a good time.

I think there was one obstacle that George failed at about 30 seconds, and that was at the tailgate. I’d be remiss not to bring it up, but again, Ashley Parker being called upon.

She cheated. First of all, what had happened was I let her poke my hole into the shotgun of the cow, and my hole is a little smaller than the hole she had, and thus, she was able to get through it faster than not. Hold on a second.

We’re talking about shotgunning beers here, people.

Thanks for clarifying that. George, really. You’re a Tough Nutter now. No excuses. Clearly, she pulled her beer can down before you did.

Now it’s a tradition. What’s the old saying? First time is an experience, second time is a tradition. We’ll be shooting cows, as Jake so eloquently put it. Spotted Cow is a beer that you can only get in Wisconsin, and somehow, it made its way to Rockford, Illinois. Thank you, Tabitha. We shotgun a beer and Ashley won.

The first time is an experience. A second time is tradition. Share on X

We need the Cow sponsorship, come to think of it.

This Year’s Mud Run Sponsors

We had a lot of sponsors for this one. Somebody will have to get to work on that one before we shutter down here. GQ, do you want to run that down?

Yeah, sure.

As GQ gets that, I just wanted to give a shout out to Zachary Chase with SWD that did this video. He did such a professional job. We had just reached out to him and without sponsors, we’re probably not able to have Zachary do this for us. It was awesome. We’ve been wanting this for all of the races we’ve done, the four races we’ve done with the two Tough Mudders and the two Rugged Maniacs. Zach, great job. We hope to do it all over again next year.

Also, we’d like to thank the lovely and talented Lynn Dempsey and also Dorothy. Both of them contributed some of the photos to our archive this year as well. Alright, what have you got, GQ?

I don’t have that list in front of me at the moment, but I think George does. I’m going to let George take it from here.

Yeah, got it right here. Thanks, Bob. Integrated Packaging. Abbott-Interfast, BTM, Brighton Best International, Carver Labs, Field Fastener, Ironclad, Martin Industries, Big Bolt, Smart Cert, Parker Fasteners, ZMG Fasteners Plus, Metric Multi, INxSQL, Beacon, AFV, MWFA, and of course, Fully Threaded Radio.

That was the lineup this year. You should get a job on a podcast, George.

Thanks, Eric.

All right. Guys, it was wonderful. The closing sequence of that video that we’ve been looking at here, it shows a little taste of what it was like in the parking lot. It underscores the whole camaraderie idea and just a wonderful thing. Folks, Tough Nutters on LinkedIn. Do that search. You’ll get to see this. Hopefully, it inspires a few people to join up. I’ve got to say, before we go around the horn here and close out, I want to say that there were some of the nicknames that turned up this year with the new group. I love it. While there were too many, one of them that caught my eye was Igneous Rock.

Thanks to our sponsors, because the bling and all this stuff would not be available to us had we had to take care of all of this ourselves. A shout out again to all those sponsors George mentioned. We do require everybody to pick a nickname. You’re not allowed to just put your name on the shirt. Some very creative ones. That was Iggy, Igneous Rock, which is pretty creative. Matt has been part of this, and his nickname is Corporate for a while. His bride joined us this year. Corporate Plus One was interesting. We had Brady, we had Torque Titan.

I guess while we go around the horn here, we’ll give you guys a chance to comment on that. I’d want to say that it was a wonderful event, this year’s Tough Nutter Mud Event, and sure do appreciate being with each and every one of you guys. GH III, close it out for us.

Yeah, what a great event. I think all of us, all four of us and everybody in Nutter Nation would be remiss if we really didn’t give kudos to not only FTR, but FCH as well. What you do for this industry, Eric, and Brian and Lynn and Dorothy is nothing short of amazing and remarkable, and we couldn’t do this without you. Thank you for all that you do for us, and thank you for supporting our crazy antics and always being to the right or left of us. Appreciate you, brother, and appreciate everything that Fully Threaded Radio does for us. Thank you.

Episode Wrap-Up And Memorable Nicknames

Appreciate that a lot, Bobby, I know you got that list of nicknames there in front of you. What have you got here to close it out?

I’m not sure exactly which ones Bob had to run through, but some of my favorites of the day were Rabbit Hole. We had Marshmallow, Papa Grande, we had Coups, we had Double D. I was so proud of our team this year for coming up, not with just throwing a nickname on the page, but putting thought into it. B squared. Cool Hands, as always. It was a blast. It’s so fun when the gear gets passed out to see who’s coming onto the team, who’s new. Conversation started. How’d you get your nickname?

Yeah, it’s a great icebreaker. So many new names, so good to see. Alright, Bobby, thanks for being here. Thanks for being the spiritual co-captain of this team. Mr. Valdez, we’ll close out with you. Great to see you again. Great job. I know all your hard training paid off once again.

I could say it’s just the best day and the four of us wanted to get bigger. Our goal was 50, and I feel like we can do that. We were blessed after the race and after our tailgate and lunch, I got a text. I think all of us got the texts from Tough Mudder saying we could sign up. By the grace of the good man above, August 29th, 2026, Tough Mudder in Rockford. Save the date. That aligns perfectly once again with MWFA FSTNR Week with what we’ve already got for our MWFA 80th celebration. Put it on your calendar, Fastener Friends. We are going to expect you there. Let’s see if we can get 80 people for the 80th. Why not?

No early retirement for us, Nutters. Okay, thanks for mentioning that, Jake. Great job. I’ll just say that it was a very thoughtful gesture on behalf of BBI to put out those commemorative coins. Of course, on the other side was the 100th year, and what a great memento to have to take away from this thing. We’ve got a lot of them. On behalf of everybody here, Bobby “Tater Tot” Wegner, Jake “Valdez” Davis, GH III, he’s George Hunt III with Brighton, and of course Bob “GQ” Baer. This is our Fully Threaded coverage of this year’s Tough Mudder event.

 

Important Links

• Bob “GQ” Baer
• George Hunt III
• Jake “Valdez” Davis
• Bobby “Tater Tot” Wegner