- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Coming up on the next "Off 90," we travel to Kasota and visit Drive A Tank, where customers can drive a tank, crush a car, and learn military vehicle history.

Then we head to Adams, and take a look at maple syrup production with Sapthre Maple Products.

It's all just ahead on the next "Off 90."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) (guns firing) - So Drive A Tank was born in 2006, September of 2006, making this fall actually our 20-year anniversary.

And it was kind of an accumulation of ideas and things that we had seen other places.

Me and my dad were on a trip in England looking for some military vehicles.

I just wanted to buy one for a personal collection.

And we were looking around and we found that there was about 12 places in the UK that you could do tank driving experiences.

And there was none in the United States.

So it didn't exactly take rocket science to figure out that if the UK can support 12 tank driving experiences, maybe the United States could support one.

So at the time, it looked like an easy way to make a buck.

As we all find out with time, there is no easy way to make a buck that's actually legal.

So obviously since we're still here, it's a lot more difficult than originally anticipated.

But like anything else that's hard, the payoff is usually worth it.

(upbeat rock music) The equipment comes from all over the world, just random places.

It's kind of like asking somebody that's, you know, collected baseball cards their entire life, where do you get your baseball cards?

There is no one specific place.

It's friends, it's maybe dealers, once in a while if you're in a pinch, but a lot like baseball cards, the dealer's usually the expensive place.

So we tend to avoid those.

Import from other countries ourselves.

Friends, like I said, collections, museums close down, things like that.

It's just every opportunity comes from a different corner it seems.

The vehicles are just vehicles as far as the government's concerned.

They're no different than a dozer or a lawnmower.

So the vehicles can be purchased freely, just like any other piece of construction equipment.

Any live tank guns are a registered destructive device, so they're treated as a machine gun in that case.

But the vehicles themselves don't really have any specific restrictions.

(upbeat rock music) Sometimes you can buy pretty nice vehicles from the manufacturers that never went to the government.

There's a lot of little nuances and niches with armored vehicle ownership.

But for the most part, what's affordable to own is British vehicles because they're sold and surplussed in mass quantities.

Other countries like Poland, our T-55 behind me came from Poland.

They tend to surplus a lot of vehicles.

Belgian, the Belgians surplus some, the Germans don't, the United States doesn't.

I know many people that have tanks with live guns in England.

So it's more commonplace there.

That is where the majority of the vehicles come from because that makes them affordable for our customers.

And same thing with era.

Typically Cold War vehicles are gonna be your least expensive.

So we used to have a Sherman from World War II and we sold it for almost $700,000.

So the problem with that is when I have a vehicle that costs that much and the parts supply, the infrastructure to go with it, becomes a million dollar vehicle.

So now our price point needs to change.

Where the Abbotts that we use for driving, they're typically around $100,000.

So literally the package costs 10 times as much, or more because it's such an old vehicle, so the technology isn't there, they don't last as long, they're more costly to operate.

So the Cold War vehicles are a good niche for acquisition price, value, parts availability, but they're also much simpler to drive.

Everything post-World War II, typically, we were in a new technology, a new technological advancement because during World War II we were happy to have a metal box with a gun that would move.

We had a tank, that was like engineering feat number one.

Post-war, we really started to develop the vehicles.

They really started to work and become what they are today with automatic transmissions, things that make it possible for us to take a random person off the street, get them into the vehicle, driving efficiently, make them successful in a reasonable amount of time, versus vehicles that are very complex and sometimes take days to understand.

(upbeat music) (singer vocalizing) So our packages start at a basic level, which is our three-star Lieutenant General package.

And it's designed to give you an idea of what everything's about, kind of get your feet wet, and then our packages tier up in difficulty from there.

So they really stack on top of each other.

So with the three-star you start out, you'll get to go through everything that all of our customers do on an event day.

So just because you bought a three-star package to get started, that doesn't mean you won't get to get in on everybody else's fun.

So if there's a customer with an ultimate package, doing everything, you're gonna get to be here, you're gonna see that, experience it with them.

But with the three-star package, you start out driving an Abbott self-propelled gun with your head out on our wooded course.

And when we come back up to the range, you'd experience one machine gun.

But in the middle of that, we'd be doing safety, we'd be doing history, we'd do shop tours, plus there's potential rides on the other vehicles that are out at the battlefield operating that day.

Our four-star package kicks that up a notch and that's where you experience periscope driving.

Now armored vehicles are designed obviously to be driven through a war zone, through a battlefield.

So you can't be driving around with your head sticking out, and that's where the periscopes come in.

So a lot like a submarine, you look in a periscope up and forward above the water.

Here, you look up through the vehicle's armor and out, and that's how you see the outside world.

So Periscope driving is a real world scenario of what it would be like to operate an armored vehicle in a real war zone in combat.

Hopefully as close as any of us will ever have to get.

With that package, you also get to shoot three different machine guns.

You get to experience all three different types.

And as we keep moving up from there into our five-star package, you'll also get to experience main battle tanks.

Into the ultimate packages, you'll get to experience all of the main battle tanks, all of the self-propelled guns, the APCs, pretty much the entire gamut of armored warfare as a whole.

(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) (upbeat rock music continues) (engine rumbling) (upbeat rock music continues) A tank's lifespan is typically around four hours.

It's a frontline vehicle.

So if the enemy has a thousand tanks, you have a thousand tanks, it's pretty logical to think, if we go up against each other and we're pretty similar, one side isn't gonna end with a thousand tanks and the other with zero.

It's more like somebody's gonna have zero and somebody's gonna have 100.

So the disposability of armored vehicles is fairly high.

That's why main battle tanks are so expensive to operate because they're built with a four hour lifespan, where other vehicles, self-propelled guns, they hang out behind the front lines, 15 miles away from the enemy.

So they're designed to last a lot longer.

Same with APCs.

They're not driven up front and center with a tank.

So they're designed to last a lot longer.

That's why most of our driving packages tend to be centered around those vehicles because they are more fun to drive.

The lighter vehicles are always gonna be sportier.

The big heavy stuff like the Chieftains and the T-55 you see behind me, they're a whole different ball game.

Like a Chieftain is a 60-ton vehicle.

So no matter how much horsepower it has, it's still kind of sluggish.

So it's a little bit more like driving a school bus than a sports car.

(grand orchestral music) So the experience typically lasts about three to four hours.

So when somebody gets here, they'll go through all of our programs, all of our different things, and then they'll be here on the property for three to four hours.

And depending on how many vehicles they drive, that gets adjusted for how into things they are.

When we get a real tank enthusiast, sometimes they're here for five hours.

Part of the experience really is all about opening your brain, an awareness of armored vehicles and what the crews go through.

When you figure out these people last 42 minutes, that's their lifespan in an armored vehicle in combat, usually that makes people kind of stop and think and reanalyze what they've seen in movies.

It's more than just big vehicles with engines, it's about, you know, how the world works, armored vehicles and the people that crew them.

People always ask us, what do machine guns have to do with tanks?

And I always tell 'em, well other than something really awesome to experience, they're the reason that tanks exist.

Because machine guns were the initial problem.

Belt-fed machine guns created the stalemates of World War I. The trench stalemates of World War I would cost tens of thousands of lives a day.

It wasn't uncommon to watch 80,000 people just simply walk into a barrage of bullets and get mowed down.

That went on and on and on.

And that's what was really dragging out World War I until the Brits came up with the idea to invent a giant metal box on tracks that could simply drive across the machine gun trenches, drive across the enemy defenses that were causing so many casualties.

And it essentially turned them into a speed bump.

And the reason the vehicle was called a tank is because they told everyone working on the project that it was an experimental self-propelled water tank that would be used to deliver water to the soldiers at the front lines.

But the real premise behind the vehicle was to simply drive over the top of the enemy machine gun emplacements.

And that's what they did.

Now they were obviously successful.

We're here today.

They were able to stop the Germans and the rest is history.

So the machine gun really ties deeply at the beginning of the lifespan of a tank.

And as tanks began to progress, most of them have machine guns on them, in them for the crew, things like that.

So we've got machine guns that date all the way back to World War I to modern day today.

So you can experience all of those together with the vehicles.

The maintenance on the vehicles, we obviously try to stay ahead of it.

That's what's made us successful, how we've been able to kind of master the business.

But the reality is we've re-engineered a lot of pieces.

We have our own machine shop, so a lot of the components that were designed to be disposable, the thought process was, look, if the vehicle lasts four hours, it's gonna go into combat, be destroyed or maybe it'll never get used.

The pieces that were under-engineered, so to speak, we can typically take them, re-engineer 'em with newer technology and replace 'em to keep our maintenance costs down.

A lot of the vehicles do get re-powered with different engines simply because the original engines were very disposable or they haven't been in production for 30 to 40 years.

So parts are just not obtainable for them.

(upbeat rock music) Usually by the time people leave, it's a whole mashup of feelings really because obviously it's a lot of enlightenment about the vehicles and how they're used and the reality, but it's also a very thrilling experience, and typically people come in, they think the experience is gonna be difficult.

Like, "I don't know if I can do this."

I hear that a lot.

But really by the time they leave, they're experts, right?

So we can bring somebody in that's a little worried if they're gonna be successful and we can make them successful, they'll be successful in no time.

So everybody's usually very excited.

We always hear, "I'm gonna be back."

You know, most of our groups are just a perfect slice of the world.

I think everybody, it's hard to find somebody that maybe doesn't know at least somebody that grew up playing with toy tanks.

I think humans are naturally curious and I think tanks are a thing that we don't get to see or touch every day.

If you're a curious person, I think you're gonna end up here is really what it boils down to.

Typically, you know, it's people obviously that can afford it because tanks are expensive.

So our experience is expensive relative to maybe going to the movies.

So it does require a little bit of disposable income.

So typically clients are older, but that doesn't stop people from bringing kids for their birthday parties.

I've had famous families that you've probably seen on TV fly into the Mankato airport in their private jet and bring their entire family.

And sometimes it's grandkids coming with their family to show 'em what they did.

Maybe if they were in Vietnam or something, they wanna come and show the family what they had done.

So it's a lot of everybody.

So one of the things that I think people really appreciate is it is much different than what they expected, but in a good way.

I think it's way better and beyond their expectations.

And that's probably just because nobody knows what to expect.

Like what is this?

Again, tanks and military equipment are something most people aren't familiar with.

So there's a lot of that.

It's a once in a lifetime opportunity, something to talk about, maybe something they've thought about wanted to do, which is kind of an interesting way to learn and see, I mean a lot of the vehicles are pushing into a thousand horsepower, so it is some high performance components.

So there's a little bit of a speed and horsepower aspect to it.

And it all kind of just wraps up into one very unique experience that people never expect.

You know, I've always been interested in anything mechanical, engineering, machines.

I grew up in the mining industry around different equipment, specialized mining equipment, things like that.

So I've always kind of been interested in equipment and just like I said, with all my customers, tanks were always something that was sort of curious and off to the side and secluded.

And I just kind of, you know, started getting more and more interested in military equipment.

When I was 16 or so, I was into building show cars and then I kind of started looking around at other vehicles and stumbled upon military vehicles.

I thought, like a lot of people, I didn't know you could buy an armored vehicle.

So it's called green fever by the way.

When you discover that you can buy cool military vehicles and then want to buy them all, that's green fever, it's very common.

But kind of got into the vehicles and I realized that if I thought they were cool, other people probably think they're cool.

We get to kind of deal in interesting equipment.

We end up buying and selling.

So there's a lot to it in the sense of who you get to meet.

Like this is an entire community.

Obviously the tank buying and selling community is rather small, but we're all sort of the same.

So this is people that are all like-minded, traveling the world to come together and everybody gets here and they realize it's just like people, it's like you already knew them, right?

Everybody's kind of the same.

And I think it's the same for me as it attracts a certain kind of curious person that's willing to travel the world to experience tanks, and whether that's the customers or the people that we work with, buying and selling the vehicles, it's kind of all the same.

There's always a new set of challenges, things to redo, things to remanufacture.

So it's never the same thing day to day.

We might be with customers one day, fixing a catastrophic failure the next day, or the next week we might be traveling the country.

So we do travel around and maintain vehicles for other people, buy and sell.

So I mean it's really, people ask me what I do and it's hard to put your finger on it.

(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) (upbeat music) (birds chirping) (gentle guitar music) - It started with just a buddy that loves the nature just as much as me.

And he said he was going up north to his cabin and he was gonna tap some maple trees and I said, "Tap maple trees?"

And he says, "Yeah, I'm gonna make some maple syrup."

I said, "That'd be fun."

And he came down here and we started off with about 100 taps.

He went out and showed me how to do it.

And I think by the end of that season, I think we had about 200 taps because we liked it so much and we collect them off of buckets, and that's kind of how we started.

I'm Kevin Sathre, of Sapthre Maple Products.

I'm a co-owner along with Josh Loecher.

My last name's Sathre, and what we did, we took my last name and made our name off of sap tree because we get the sap from a tree.

And so we took my last name and converted into Sapthre.

It was all old school.

We just kind of made our own little cooker out of a flat pan.

And yeah, it was a lot of manual labor.

And then the following year we doubled our operation, which was, I think we're up to about 400 taps, and we started in 2014 is when we first started doing maple syrup just for fun.

(gentle guitar music) So after our second year we're at about 400 taps, we jumped up to about 1,850 bags.

And so we made all these different bag holders and we had 1,850, we'd go around and collect twice a day and we had fun with it and it was a lot of work and we kind of figured, hey, we should get into it a little bigger.

And we looked at a bunch of different systems and went on the internet and went and visited a couple sites and figured if we want to get bigger, we're gonna have to do a pipeline because no one has all day just to go collect sap.

So we did it mornings and nights.

So it just made for a lot of work and too long hours to actually turn it into a business.

So then we got into a pipeline system our third year.

So when we started our pipeline system, it's a lot easier because you're not out there collecting all day, even though when we first started we did 850 taps on top of it.

Well that only lasted about half the year and we realized that we have plenty of sap just on our pipeline.

It's a huge game-changer.

It is all on my property, and after the second year doing maple syrup, we went around looking at different farm groves and stuff that would be maybe something we could invest in.

And we found this when it was 22 and a half acres, and it was about 95% maple trees with a few ash.

Now the ash are all dead.

But it's pretty much all maple trees there now.

And we found that and ended up buying it and set the system up and we got about eight miles of pipe out there.

So it's almost just like milking cows.

You got your vacuum system and then you got your releaser and then you got your tank outside.

So once you're tapped and you got your vacuum and you got your grade of, we're flat around here, so we're about 6% grade.

On our main line, you got a wet/dry and then you got a dry line.

So just like milking cows.

So you get the taps in there, everything's set up, turn the pump on and she pumps back to the pump house into the releaser just like milking.

And then outta the releaser it goes into the tank outside and then we go collect it from there.

So once you're set up, you know, it takes about four days to set the woods up.

Once you're set up and you can maintain your leaks, you're pretty much golden, you're set.

So you don't have to really babysit much.

We go out, we take our old milk truck and go collect the sap at the woods and once we get it at the woods, we bring it back.

It's about a 2,400 gallon milk truck and we have a 1500 gallon tank at the woods.

We bring it back here.

We run it through a reverse osmosis system.

So this is called a reverse osmosis RO machine.

And this is basically the heart of our operation because it takes about 80% of the water out of our sap before we gotta cook.

So the more water we take out, the less work we gotta deal with.

And so this is the main heart of the operation.

So when the sugar comes in, it's coming in at like 2.5% let's say, and we're bringing it down before we get it into the cooker at 16%.

Takes like 80% of your work out of the job.

Yep.

We do it all with wood and we got a stockpile of wood.

We actually started getting a little behind, so we were actually splitting wood the last couple days just to rotate some of the non-drying with the little wetter wood, but when your fire's going hot, it eats it.

But yeah, we're all wood fire.

So once it goes from the draw tank to the cooker, it's like there's drop flues in here and we got that fire as hot as we can go, all dampers wide open, and you look at it as like oil and water.

So as the sugar content goes up, the less sugar's coming in, it's pushing the higher sugar through these little ports, and then it goes through the drop flues into the finishing pan.

There's one finishing pan, there's dividers in there, and it just keeps pushing through.

And then once it gets through the very far one where it draws off, once we get our test and everything's set to what you want it to run, it automatically will open and shut on just like the pressure in the air, you know, because every day is different, if the sun's out or if it's cloudy or not, what temperature you can boil water at.

And I think what we just finished out, I think it was like 215 if I remember.

And normally, you know, rule of thumb is 219 for syrup.

But yeah, once it hits that you get everything set, you're pretty much cruising for the day.

It's really sweet.

I mean you're taking, on a rule of thumb, they say it's 40 to one.

Some days are different.

You know, if your sap sugar's high, it might be a 32 to one ratio to get a gallon of syrup, you know, but usually it's 40 to one to make a gallon.

Pretty much right on.

And so is my MISCO.

So you're gonna draw off today at, I'm gonna drop it down because when I look, it was 215.6 (device beeping) we're drawing off today.

Boiling point today is 210.8 just because the weather and pressure.

So now we're set.

Right now he's drawing down the finished product, which is syrup.

It'll go right through the filter press, but we're not filtering, we're bypassing, we're just going right into the barrel.

And once that's full, we'll put the caps on and that'll go onto the sugar market.

We'll sell it as wholesale by the pound.

That's 55 gallons right there.

(gentle music) Well, you can find our product pretty much in any of the local butcher shops.

Heimer Foods is one of our big sellers here in Adams.

We sell it here.

We'll ship it out even.

It's a very, very, very good product.

(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) (upbeat rock music continues) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - I recall in our early days we were doing check-in and so, we get a kick outta sometimes, not to pick on anybody, is we'll get people to show up and they're in the check-in line.

They're like, "Hey, I came all the way from Eden Prairie.

Do I get an award for driving?

I drove an hour."

You know, and then we get somebody would be like, "Hey man, we came from Chicago."

"Yeah we drove in from Dallas."

And then all of a sudden I hear this voice in the back and it's this little kid.

He's like, "Me and my dad come from Moscow."

I think literally came from Russia.

They were here for something else.

Like they were, I think his dad was something to do with grain trading or something, I dunno, he had some other business in the United States, but it was just kind of funny when they said, "We came from Moscow," and they were in DC, so they came from Moscow, via DC.

So yeah, all over, other countries, you know, a lot of, if you go to Japan or a lot of Asian countries, you know, a lot of the things we do are very taboo for them.

To an American tanks are not that far outta the ordinary and machine guns really aren't that un-normal.

But to somebody from those cultures, the idea of touching a machine gun is kind of eye-opening for them.

So it really is a lot to draw 'em in.

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