“Why are we here? Because we’re here.”

Howdy!

My name is Kyle Doyle, and welcome to this newest iteration of “Exhaust Fumes”, my outlet for sharing my rambling thoughts and opinions on pretty much whatever suits me, whenever it suits me.

For years I’ve occasionally shared longer pieces on my private social media platforms to the enjoyment/annoyance of my friends and family. But recently, while attempting to rediscover and re-refine my electronic journaling efforts, I found that my chosen social media platforms were growing increasingly restrictive (not to mention over-crowded with distracting and frustrating bullshit!). The time had come to indulge myself in some good old-fashioned blogging; and why not? The internet has given us all a voice, and everything I have to say is important! (cue laugh track here…)

For those who don’t know, I was born and raised in Kansas City (and eventually Denver, and then Cheyenne) and grew up a MASSIVE monster truck fan, specifically of the Bigfoot team from St. Louis. By the time I graduated high school in the early 2000’s, I had secured a job with my first monster truck team (Bigfoot’s then-rival, Hall Brothers Racing and their Dodge-backed monsters) after having spent the last several months of my schooling helping develop a network of contacts in the industry by way of writing and “photography” I’d been doing for an upstart monster truck news website (founded by another high schooler across the country, no less).

Over the course of my decade and change making a living (or at least making some form of paycheck) in the monster truck industry, my experiences ranged widely from being a mechanic/crew guy to marketeer to live announcer to competitive race driver, for no less than the Bigfoot team itself. But this blog isn’t about the things I accomplished (or didn’t accomplish) in that industry, but all of this is worth providing you with, dear reader, so as to lend context as to why the “Exhaust Fumes” name is important to me and why I’m strangely excited to have revived it.

Sometime around 2007 or 2008, I found myself penning a pretty regular editorial on a monster truck news & coverage website, which I had nicknamed “Exhaust Fumes”. It was a bit of a departure from my previous series, an irregular-and-informal long-form travel journal rather lamely called “On The Road with KD”, which I had been authoring since 2004 or 2005, a column that itself was preceded by an early editorial piece I produced almost weekly as a senior in high school for a different monster truck website.

I like to think this original form of Exhaust Fumes was creative, hard-hitting and well-thought-out for it’s time, combining my fiery passion for the monster truck industry, my equally-fiery frustration with what I saw going on/wrong at the time, and substantial industry contacts (I *had* been gainfully employed in the business for over half a decade by that point) all capped off with a huge, drippy coating of youthful ignorance and enthusiasm.

Before 2008 was over, however, I found myself needing to lay back from the strong opinion-sharing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being strong opinions aren’t conducive to lengthy and healthful employment in the monster truck industry. If the team you’re working for loses bookings or sponsors because a promotor or sponsor didn’t like your opinion on something, you can potentially cause yourself some pretty serious grief. Exhaust Fumes stopped being a thing, and while I can’t say if the two were mutually exclusive or not, my career in the industry began to take off in the best ways I could have hoped for as my opinions became less public and kept more to myself. At least that’s how it was until 2013 when my strongly-held beliefs and opinions and experiences couldn’t be completely silenced anymore.

As my career at Bigfoot progressed and I really began to fall in love with the travelling aspect of my life while simultaneously falling out of love with the career side of my life. I began blogging again for a spell, channeling my travel writing influences and attempting to convey (yet again) how there’s always been more to me and my life than simply driving a monster truck.

And now, more than ten years since I last crushed cars in anger and half a decade since I last announced an event, I still find all of those experiences informing how I go about my days here in present times as a father, husband, and craft brand manager for a beer wholesaler. I still love tinkering with automotive projects and my toolbox is all but bursting at the drawers; I still keep a finger on the pulse of the monster truck industry and the people in it I care about; and I still love traveling, dearly.

But I’ve also become quite the foodie and home chef. I’d like to think I have a pretty successful career in the beer industry going for myself and that I’ve risen above my intended station in life, professionally. My love for history and useless information has become borderline obsessive. I’d also like to think I’m more patient and far less hot-headed than I was all those years ago when Exhaust Fumes version 1.0 was a thing (but don’t tell my wife I said that!). And of course, raising two daughters in this incredibly frightening and chaotic world has changed me immensely too.

Because the incredibly imperfect and flawed mass of contradictions and self-absorbed weirdness that I am requires constant stimulation, challenges and perhaps above all the “freedom to express myself even if nobody’s listening!”, I now find myself placing unearned and undue emphasis on this rebirth of my Exhaust Fumes concept not for anyone else but myself. Wanton self-gratification and indulgence, this is. That said, I do hope you find something enjoyable, funny, or informative along the way. And hey, I could have done worse, right?

I mean, at least I didn’t start a fucking podcast.