Up Close with "Trackzilla"!: Xtreme’s Monster Rough-Terrain Telehandler

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Bryan Furnace

Heavy duty engine oils. Proven engine protection at prices you can rely on. Giving you even more reasons to choose Delo. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Equipment World. I'm your host, Brian. And today we're here to talk about the monstrosity that you've seen at most of your recent trade shows. We're talking about Trackzilla. This thing is a beast.

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Bryan Furnace

It's a 600-horsepower telehandler that can reach up. I don't even know how far, because it's just that massive. And here to talk with us about it is one of the guys involved with creating this behemoth. So without further ado, let's check out the interview.

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Bryan Furnace

You can't bring a giant Telehandler like that to to Con Expo, and then not expect people to want to ask questions, so I appreciate you being willing to answer them. And my first question is, what in the world inspired the creation of this behemoth Telehandler?

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Worth Bistline

So the inspiration for Trackzilla came from a bigger relationship between BZI and especially Innovatech and Xtreme. So another tech is the innovation branch in the BZI family of companies. And our job here is to create new ways of doing things, especially focusing on efficiency and safety. And so we'll come up with attachments and systems that change the way construction is done.

00;01;26;27 - 00;01;48;25

Worth Bistline

And Trackzilla was a part of that. We needed something that was more nimble, that could handle bigger loads, that could reach higher kind of complement. Some of the systems that we were coming up with and try to remove cranes from the jobsite. So I quote, I like that kind of encapsulates and all the tech is it's not about ideas, it's about making ideas happen.

00;01;49;01 - 00;02;21;14

Worth Bistline

That's from Scott Belsky. And there's a ton of great ideas out on the jobsite, especially if you've been there. You know, these dirt guys and construction guys have a lot of really good ideas on better ways of doing things. So the inspiration for Trackzilla came from people out on the job site and the funding and the company and the structure of Innovatech and BZI funneling that into something that could actually be built.

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Bryan Furnace

I do love that aspect of the construction industry where when you really start talking to a lot of OEMs, a lot of the ideas that have come out over the last 50 years have really started at the boots on the ground level and then work their way up to an OEM or an outright company that is started by those guys putting that idea into process and into action.

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Bryan Furnace

So that's very cool.

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Worth Bistline

And another piece of this story is where the nickname for Trackzilla came from. when it was first kind of floated around, it was circulating in Xtreme’s engineers, and we had a in person meeting and one of their engineers pulled out this guy right here. He had 3D printed little unit and brought that to a meeting. And the name stuck.

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Worth Bistline

And, you know, good luck. Good luck getting rid of that name. Now.

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Bryan Furnace

Yeah. That's awesome. And it's created kind of its own aura and presence out there. Every time I see this thing and is just everyone standing around it with their jaws agape.

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Worth Bistline

Everywhere it goes, people are taking selfies with it. People are asking questions about it. Everyone wants to sit in the cab. It's incredible. The public interest in this machine and how wide of an impact it's made on social media, on the job site, everywhere it goes.

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Bryan Furnace

See, that's one of the biggest parts about construction that people outside of construction just don't quite get is we have the coolest toys, and it doesn't matter if you're in the industry or not. Everyone appreciates a giant forklift with 600 plus horsepower. Like, who doesn't appreciate something that awesome? And we get to play with it because we chose the traits?

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Worth Bistline

Absolutely. Yeah, that that's something that people don't realize. And something like Trackzilla. There's nothing like it. There's some unique features in the cab in the way the cabinets up and down in the stability of the base, it's incredibly stable. It has, automatic leveling feature. You drive it across the jobsite, and you never have to touch the leveling feature at all.

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Worth Bistline

It keeps it locked right in.

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Bryan Furnace

Wow.

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Worth Bistline

You mentioned the 600 plus horsepower 675. This is a hydrostatic machine. Everything on it is hydraulic. Just a point of interest. When that boom is all the way up in the air and you're providing full flow hydraulics to the tip of that boom it's using over 400. It's about 450 horsepower of that just to get the oil up there.

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Worth Bistline

Wow.

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Bryan Furnace

Because you're fighting gravity to get it up that high. Is that really what it boils down to?

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Worth Bistline

It's gravity. It's the friction in the hoses. It's the pressures you need up there. The flow you need all of the above.

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Bryan Furnace

I'm a dirt guy. I don't know anything about the the kind of building trades and what goes into creating structures. So for a dirt guy, can you break down what is the advantage of a giant telehandler like Trackzilla over some of your more traditional options that you've got available to you on the jobsite?

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Worth Bistline

Yeah, so the advantages of Trackzilla over the traditional methods, which involves, you know, heavy crane usage. So there's a ton of certifications permitting, a lot of red tape when it comes to using a crane on the job site. Everybody's used to doing it. So it it's kind of become mainstream. But also you have extra people on the ground with the crane that are rigging whatever you need to carry.

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Worth Bistline

And that especially if you're down lower, you need to manage that load with the ropes tied to it and those riggers handling it to to make sure that it doesn't impact anything on the way to be set. So those are some, you know, low level immediate changes. Now in the case of BZI, we we don't use a traditional erection method.

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Worth Bistline

So in the case of these Amazons, rather than erect a building from the bottom up, we actually erect it from the top down we'll stand the columns. We came up with some other innovations to hold those balls in place until we could place the roof. And then at that point, you can't use a crane. You need something that can go inside the building and set the 5 or 4 floors or mezzanine levels.

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Worth Bistline

And really, the advantage that that gives you is the ability to pour concrete and get the other trades in on that top floor. And it's it's closed in from the weather. And we were able to cut some of the timelines of these jobs in half by using that method. Wow. So a crane is not even an option in that case.

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Worth Bistline

And Trackzilla, we wanted it to set that top level and just remove the cranes entirely.

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Bryan Furnace

Interesting. So we've all seen this thing kind of strutted around to a lot of the shows around the country and everything, and it's awesome to look at. But now that it's actually on the job, how are you guys finding it's performing?

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Worth Bistline

Yeah. So the way that it's performing on the job site, as with any new innovation, there's always changes that happen. There's always little tweaks that you make once it lands there. I would say it's quite a bit like a logarithmic curve, you know, there's a massive amount of changes and then you start tweaking it a little bit. So when it landed on the job, we had some of Xtreme’s engineers there with it to manage any issues or anything that comes up.

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Worth Bistline

They did some final program tweaks made it smoother to operate, so it's been surprising. On the job. We thought it would do a specific thing, and that was to handle one of our attachments to handle these big sections, but we found it was much more efficient for setting massive columns. We hauled heavier pieces of steel with it than ever before, and it's just become a universal, just an all-around extremely useful piece of equipment.

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Worth Bistline

And the final point I would make on that is the first job it landed on. They were starting that job eight weeks behind schedule due to some engineering issues that they had earlier, and with the help of track XL and the team there, they finished that job two weeks ahead of schedule.

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Bryan Furnace

Wow. That's dramatic improvement on the timeline. And that just ultimately is that kind of the fact that you're not having to tear down, move, reset up a crane to do all of these picks and kind of the overall job process changing?

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Worth Bistline

That has to do with the fact that Trackzilla is extremely nimble. You can handle larger sections of the building, and we do a modular construction, we build pieces on the ground and this thing could pick them up on the ground, maneuver them through the building, set them in place in, you know, way faster time than you could with a crane.

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Bryan Furnace

It is funny. I'm on the other end of that all the time. It's will. We'll get a piece of equipment or something we need to use, and this is the way the engineers come out and the designers say this is the way it should be used. And every single time we're like, okay, just give us a couple minutes and we'll go play with it.

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Bryan Furnace

And then you come to find out there's 18 different ways you can use it that that make these areas. Also way more efficient. And, and I will say it's always fun to be on a project when you do have the design team there, because now all of a sudden, it's a two-way dialog and, and you almost exponentially start to increase the efficiency and the knowledge that come out of that experience that everyone can kind of take and improve upon.

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Worth Bistline

Well, and we also have the advantage that, you know, BZI was founded by farmers that used to torch and weld and build things from scratch before Cat. And I mean, I have quite extensive dirt experience myself before becoming an engineer. So you find these kind of grassroots, blue collar types that understand what it's like to be out there on the job.

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Bryan Furnace

Yeah. So I'm going to ask the big question that I know is on my mind. I'm thinking it's probably on some other people's minds as well. Is Trackzilla a one-off monster, or are there plans to have other units come out eventually?

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Worth Bistline

So no Trackzilla is not a one-off monster. They will become commercially available, so you can check more on that by looking at Xtreme Manufacturing's website. They do offer it on there and it will be available to the public.

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Bryan Furnace

That's awesome. So just out of curiosity, does this require any sort of special certification? Or can the guy that's been driving that regular, you know, 60ft reach tell handler around the jobsite, jump on this thing and be ready to rock?

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Worth Bistline

So as someone that has been in construction and in the dirt industry, you know, there's different levels of job sites. So, I mean, if this is in the yard, people have jumped on it, and we've given them a rundown and been able to drive it in the yard. But the type of job sites that it's on and the the high-profile situations it lands in, there's absolutely some special certifications that you need to have in order to operate it on the job site.

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Bryan Furnace

Gotcha. So, my final question for you is, do you foresee this kind of being the pinnacle of these sort of designs, or do you foresee there being a next size up track eventually? Will these get bigger?

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Worth Bistline

So what you'll find with, Innovatech, BZI, Xtreme, we're always looking at a better and more efficient way of doing something. So there has already been discussions of a bigger unit. It makes people all kinds of excited, and we are just getting into the concrete and tilt up space. And so when you start talking about the weights involved there, I would, I would, keep your eyes open on our socials and website and see what comes down the pipe.

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Bryan Furnace

On my next ConExpo. It's just now it's every time. Well, there's got to be a bigger, badder model.

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Worth Bistline

Absolutely. Yeah. You'll see. It's next year for sure.

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Bryan Furnace

That's fantastic. That's awesome. Well, Worth, thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it. And, and thanks for building such a behemoth machine. That thing's awesome.

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Worth Bistline

Absolutely. It's it's been an amazing thing to be a part of.

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Bryan Furnace

Well, thank you again, Worth, for coming on the show to let us know how did this thing come to be and what inspired such an awesome machine. And thank you for the update on how well it's performing on the job. It's really cool to see something like this come to fruition and not only perform like it was supposed to, but well above and beyond.

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Bryan Furnace

So as always, I hope this helps you and your business. We'll catch you on the next episode of The Dirt.