MudBeast Origin Story

My name is Todd Stephenson; I’m the founder of Infinisia and our related companies in Canada and USA – Including MudBeast!

When I was a little boy in 1973 I was looking in the yellow pages (remember yellow pages?) and spotted an advertisement for Go-Karts. I was instantly obsessed. I was a shy boy, but I gathered my courage and phoned the store (with my rotary phone). I spoke to a kind man and asked him how much the Go-Karts cost. I don’t remember what price he quoted me, but then followed with, “That’s a lot of money eh?” And I suppose it was for a boy with an allowance of 25 cents a week; we never bought it. From that day forward I pestered my parents to buy me one.

Finally, one day when I was about Twelve, my dad announced, “Why don’t we build you that Go-Kart?”.

My Grandfather George Stephenson and my father Al were both skilled metal workers. George was a welder by trade and had been overseas in WWII as an engineer, blowing up and rebuilding bridges in Western Europe. He had one favorite tale of finding an abandoned bank in an empty German town during some downtime with his unit at the end of the war. They used explosives and blew open the bank’s safe and helped themselves to worthless German Marks. Al was an accountant by career before retirement, but learned construction, engineering and metalwork from his father and still uses those skills today. I’m sorry to say that while my brother learned those skills, I did not – although I did learn Accounting from him and that has been incredibly useful in many different businesses.

My father and grandfather designed the Go-Kart and my dad purchased the engine, clutch, wheels, suspension, brake pedal, rectangular steel tubing for the frame and more. The seat was repurposed from an old boat, and more scrap steel was used to make the roll cage and other items. The first version of the Go-Kart used a throttle knob rather than a gas pedal. They spent perhaps a month putting it together, and my dad tells me it was one of his fondest memories working with his own father… building this Go-Kart for their kids/grandkids. They had done lots of projects together over the years, but this one was the most fun for the family and one of their best bonding experiences.

The Go-Kart was an instant hit. It went very, very fast… probably almost 40kph… faster than the MudBeast. Luckily my grandparents lived at Island Lake near Athabasca in Northern Alberta, and at the time, beyond the gravel road behind their house was an empty field. My brothers and I used to burn around there whenever we could. We wore Grandpa’s grinding goggles for a mask to keep the mud out of our eyes but were generally covered in mud by the time we were done. The throttle knob was an initial design flaw that My dad and Grandpa fixed after realizing it was rather dangerous to have a Kart that could keep running like a boat if the driver lost control. They replaced it right away with a gas pedal.

Every summer for years, two of my three brothers and I drove that Go-Kart into the ground… Dan, my dad’s youngest son, was younger than me by nine years and he never got to drive it. That’s Dan in the old picture in 1985, sitting in the Go-Kart with his life jacket on… safety first! Being the 70’s we never had much more than goggles for safety gear. Now safety is much more important, and we urge you to get safety gear for your kids… And we mean helmets, gloves, goggles and mud suits… not life jackets!

I learned to drift in that go-kart and I developed a passion for dirt road Rally Racing that continues to this day. It was so hard taking turns and letting my brothers have a go. I really wished we had more Go-Karts so we could all race together. We drove it pretty hard and we broke it fairly often. The clutch in particular was not a great design and my dad and grandpa had plans to change it for something superior, likely from a snowmobile. Following one too many clutch breakages, my dad took it apart to fix, and then life interfered, and that was it… the Go-Kart was never reassembled. My dad has a brand new engine and new clutch for it, and we still own that Go-Kart, but it has not run in 40 years.

I graduated from high school in 1986 and later university, then developed a career in IT and tech companies. I founded our primary operating company in 1997, initially as an IT Leasing company, and later switching to ecommerce when we started UpStart Battery and opened our first eBay store. After a rough couple of years, by 2009 we were experiencing significant growth and success, and we began to expand to different products and markets. We currently run a number of different online stores and channels, including the original brands, UpStart Battery and UpStart Components, Canada Mailers, plus Certified Battery, Ely Lane, Denali Pure (our highly regarded line of replacement water filters), and Infinisia – our brand in the USA and operating name in Canada.

While our business was growing more and more successful, my family was growing too. My two girls were born in 2010 and 2013. My oldest daughter Alyssa has always enjoyed cars. Since she was three, she had one of those low-speed battery powered ride-ons that she could use in the cul-de-sac where we live. As she got older, she began badgering me for something faster. Sound familiar?

Last summer Alyssa was asking again for a faster car to drive… (when she wasn’t asking to drive the truck, which so far I have declined as she is only 13!) and suddenly I remembered the Go-Kart my dad and Grandpa built for us. I began looking to see if I could find the girls a new Go-Kart for Christmas.

I shopped around but could find nothing suitable in Canada. Eventually I located a promising supplier and ordered a Green, gas-powered Kart for Aly and a Blue one for Hannah. I had to put them together when they arrived; it took me about five hours for the first one but only about an hour for the second one after I figured out how to do it. I was enthusiastic about the high quality, performance and compact design for such a great price.

Our first time using the Karts was in the Squamish Valley about two hours from Vancouver. There are many old, decommissioned logging roads out there to explore and I felt it would be a good place to start without worrying about any other traffic or outdoor enthusiasts. My dad and I loaded one Kart in each of our pickup trucks and off we went into the woods. The Karts operated exactly as expected and the girls had an absolute blast. There is a certain type of happiness a kid can have that can only come from driving a speedy Go-Kart through the mud, and seeing my girls with their mud-covered faces and happy grins reminded me of when I was driving the Kart my dad and Grandpa had built. And now he and I had prepared this great experience for my girls, just like he did with his dad before. I would never have expected Go-Karts to be such a tremendous intergenerational experience, but for our family, that’s precisely what it is. This has become our ritual… my daughters, me, and my father… bonding over Go-Karting. Best thing about driving Go-Karts out there? No cell service means no smartphones!

After realizing what a great product these Karts were, my team and I did a market and business case analysis and decided to pursue the opportunity. My team and I have built a highly successful business selling replacement parts, but while they are excellent products, most of those parts don’t exactly set your blood racing. It was time for something fun.

We set about creating the MudBeast… our brand of Go-Karts, built for us by the same manufacturer that made the ones my girls have, but to our branding and specifications. Our website is now live, and we are taking heavily discounted pre-orders for Christmas and early spring, for delivery of our first 100 Go-Karts in April or May, just in time for summer. With delivery of our first container, Pre-sale discounts will end and regular pricing will apply. But we will be stocking these Karts, accessories and replacement parts permanently, with MudBeast being the newest brand in our portfolio of companies. You can see them on display at our main warehouse at 3149 Production Way, Burnaby BC.

Oh, and what about the old Go-Kart my dad and grandpa built? Although it hasn’t run in 40 years, we are going to restore it and get it rolling again. We should be able to drive it again next spring.