Justin Vickers
A Man as Unorthodox as His Crocs
Story By: Cody Carney
Photos By: Tom Leigh
This month’s Campfire Chat goes out to a guy who has a particular dynamic to him that you won’t find in many people. When I say the guy has a personality, I mean you will never find a dull moment while in his company. He has this uncanny ability to make people laugh. Justin Vickers is comedy by nature, and his character can only be outweighed by his mechanical and race skills—as long as he doesn’t leave his racing Crocs at home.
Vickers has had an interest in cars for pretty much his entire life. He’s applied himself widely to the industry, and it all began in his youth. During his teenage years, a friend of the family had a shop and would go and get Vickers every day from school and take him over there to work on things. He started out doing oil changes, and because it was a body shop, he eventually was able to paint the inside of truck beds and do stuff that he couldn’t really mess up. Basically, that kicked things off for him, and he got more into mechanics from there.
The ardent passion for cars didn’t stop at wrenching on them. Vickers learned to go Dukes of Hazzard in his younger years as well. He raced for Yamaha for eight years, and after quitting that, he started racing road course. That led him to race the Trans-Am Series in a Camaro for several years after. Sometime later, one of Vickers’ buddies got on with Spike TV and got him onto it as well. He continued from one job to another but remained in his profession working on and racing cars, which he still does to this day. He even owns a restoration shop out in Georgia.
Vickers will laugh as he calls himself out on living a gypsy life—always traveling from one place to another, never being in one spot for very long. Even now he jumps around, sometimes living in California, Tennessee, or Texas. He calls himself a chameleon, blending into whatever area he ends up in, but with all the traveling and hardships in life he runs into, Vickers always turns to cars. Although he actually tried getting away from them for a while. His father owns a construction company, so naturally, he set out and gained a contractor’s license too. It didn’t take long for him to realize he was knocking on his own head and went back to cars.
It’s no wonder Vickers is all over the place. It matches his persona. The ideas that come from this guy are what you’d pull right off the script from a comic book. If it doesn’t come out of left field and doesn’t leave you crying and struggling to catch your breath because you’re laughing so hard, it’s not Vickers. He’s always ready to jump in on the action and make it a party. Besides that, he’s just downright a good guy.
My first time meeting him was a few months back at the Sand Sports Super Show. After the first day of the Expo, the UTV Sports crew threw a taco party. Vickers showed up and the taco party somehow turned into an Indian leg wrestling tournament. Although I didn’t face old gator legs there, I still won twenty bucks. I later crossed paths with him again in Sand Hollow at the Trail Hero SXS Rally. Once again, the tourney started up. I went about ten rounds against Vickers to see who would be the definitive winner. Now I’m not going to say who actually ended up winning… but I will say he should bring his Indian leg wrestling Crocs next time.
