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How These Entrepreneurs Built a Motocross Airbnb Retreat

By September 15, 2025Real Estate Pros Show


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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pro Show, host Erika speaks with Alex Kruthaupt and Scott McAdoo, founders of Throttle Therapy, a unique short-term rental experience located on a 93-acre farm in Virginia. They discuss the journey of creating a private retreat that combines outdoor recreation with family-friendly amenities, the challenges faced in acquiring and developing the property, and their strategies for building a community and marketing their unique offerings. The conversation also touches on their future plans for expansion and the importance of providing exceptional guest experiences.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Alex Kruthaupt (00:00)
    Yeah, I can say one thing that I think with COVID and everybody said, hey, I can make some extra money and buy a rental property. And I think that, I think the market got very saturated, very saturated. And I think in order of the best advice I would give is that if you’re going to move into the short-term market, you have to have a very unique experience. Very unique property, very unique. And with us, it’s just, I’m constantly saying, Alex, I mean, I’m constantly saying,

    build the value, build the value, build the value. This has to be an experience that’s something that if we were just ⁓ renting out the farmhouse, I don’t think we’d be here today. no, it would have folded.

    Erika (02:15)
    everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Erika, and today I’m thrilled to be joined by Alex Kruthaupt and Scott McAdoo. my goodness, it is so exciting to have you guys both on the show. You have a company called Throttle Therapy. I don’t think we’ve had anything like this before.

    Alex Kruthaupt (02:36)
    Thank you Erika, glad to be here. Thank you, thanks for having us.

    Erika (02:39)
    Yeah, so I’m excited to talk about what you guys have going on. So I want to jump on in. What was the driving force with forming throttle therapy? What was that journey like?

    Alex Kruthaupt (02:54)
    Alex should I? Yeah, go for we, so throttle therapy is a private 93 acre farm located right in central Virginia. We’re located right between, in Orange Virginia, Orange County. We’re located between Charlottesville, Culpepper, and Fredericksburg. So we’re just shy about an hour and 45 minutes outside of DC and not far out of Richmond. But it is a private, it’s a

    It’s a short-term rental ⁓ farm. It’s private farm, 93 acres, and it’s an old cattle farm. Had a big barbed wire fence around it, so you come in through the gate and it includes a five-bedroom house with a three-car garage and 10 beds and families and groups and corporations, company retreats. They come in and they lock the gate behind them and they have their own little private country retreat and they also get some very unique amenities and those

    very unique amenities and features are we added two ⁓ tracks in there, two motocross tracks, dirt bike tracks that are ATV side by side and dirt bike friendly. Then we cut miles of trails through the woods and we even cut in a mud bog and we have hill climbs and then we have power wash stations to wash off the muddy tires and we even added a hundred yard shooting range. So it is private, it is private and it’s just a way, I kind of call it the

    country version of the Outer Banks, like Beach House rental, where you go down, you rent a beach house for a week or for a few days. Well, this you get to come out and have a country experience for a few days. And we ⁓ came up with a unique name. I’m in law enforcement. I work with county police and I have seen a lot of ⁓ bad things out there.

    and kids getting hurt and bad accidents and things that, you know, things that kind of haunt me a little bit. So I found that dirt bike riding was my therapy to get out and just ride. know Alex and he can tell you about it. He’s seen some things overseas, you know, fighting for our country and, you know, things that we all, it’s tough to forget. So, you know, I, when I get out and ride a dirt bike, it’s, I can tune it all out. And, I just think about riding that bike and not smacking the next tree. And, and so.

    Alex ended up getting a bike and then several neighbors and friends got some bikes and we started calling it, let’s go get some throttle therapy. And well, when we, we were looking for a place to go take the family because they wanted to ride with us and the wives wanted to be able to come, but our wives are very bougie and they want to have something nice. And I’m not ashamed to say that they like nice things and they weren’t going to go stay in a, in a rickety old cabin somewhere seven hours away.

    So we said, why don’t we put our money together and let’s create a place. Let’s create a destination for families and groups that want to come down and have their own private experience, to be able to enjoy the tracks and trails and shooting range at their pace and not feel pressured by having other strangers out there. we ⁓ called it Throttle Therapy Lake Anne. It was a little retreat for our families. And very quickly we learned that others wanted to join.

    So we start opening our doors to other folks that wanted to come in and have their own private little oasis there when we’re not down there enjoying it with our family. ⁓ Yeah, one of the biggest challenges was where we were going to find the perfect property. Again, we’re in the state of Maryland. depending on where you live in Maryland, just power sports. It’s not their cup of tea.

    A lot of the people that live within the state, it’s not their thing either. So we got to look outside of Maryland, but again, we didn’t want to go six, seven hours away. And Virginia is our neighbor. And for the most part, Virginia’s still kind of got that country, that rural ⁓ backbone, right? They enjoy those activities, ⁓ like dog hunting is a pig thing out there, which we didn’t know about. The dogs come through often. Yeah, they do. They let the dogs run loose and they chase deer and they…

    score them on how well they chase the deer. But that’s not a thing in Maryland. It’s the culture down there and it doesn’t bother me at all. So it’s pretty neat actually. But ultimately we wanted a place where we could take the kids to ride. Both of our kids started riding at the age of five and again they’re very small and they’re on a motorbike that can go up 22 miles per hour. Essentially which for a five-year-old is pretty fast and scary.

    ⁓ So our only option locally was to go to public tracks. And again, public tracks, again, there’s nothing wrong with them. Tons of people use them. But a lot of kids can get intimidated ⁓ by the big bikes and the loud bikes. And there’s just kind of people going left and right and all in between. And ⁓ they’re just not confident, right? Because when you ride a motorcycle or dirt bike, you definitely need to have some confidence when you’re doing it.

    Again, getting the kids down and they know it’s just mom, dad, brother, sister, next door neighbor, whoever, you know, their family, right? Essentially they have a much higher level of comfort and security and safety. And that’s, that’s really what throttle therapy does for our other guests that we have. Our biggest target audience is family. That’s, that’s who we designed this place for. Again, we love for company retreats to come in and a lot of employees like to do a pump employee appreciation.

    and bring their managers and employees out for a weekend of enjoyment of riding. But ultimately, our target audience is family and friends that want to come along and enjoy it, just like we do.

    Erika (09:39)
    Yeah, absolutely.

    And when it comes to finding that property, what was the process like preparing it for all the work that you were doing?

    Alex Kruthaupt (10:25)
    Wow, yeah, great question. So that was how many properties did we see before this? I don’t know. A dozen maybe. We visited quite a few locations and I in my mind, a hundred acres was my minimum. I am not going below that. And we went out and looked at several properties, made a lot of realtors, got a lot of tick bites and jigger bites and a lot of ripped jeans and pants and things. Cause we made them walk all of it because I had to go see it.

    to see the terrain and how we could cut trails and how we could build, where we could build this. And he spotted, we were actually out in the Charlottesville area with the wives doing a weekend getaway, a little wine tour out there. And ⁓ he found this property there in Orange, our farm now, and said, hey, let’s go look at it. And it wasn’t on my radar because it was 93 acres. And so it fell short. Just under. Just under. I mean, that was it, 100 acres.

    We, so we went out and walked the entire thing and I said, you know, there’s a couple things, know, a couple challenges that I think we’ll have, but I think this could really work. think this could really, the house is beautiful. mean, perfect. It was just in such great shape. And so we ended up, you know, we put an offer in and had a little negotiation back and forth and we,

    We actually, in order to get the, to close the, the close the deal, we had to let the current owner stay in there for how many? Was it a month? Was it a month? Yeah, it was a month. So it was kind of interesting. We were there, we needed to launch and we had to get out there to start working on these tracks and trails, but we couldn’t really get in the house. So, cause they were still there. So we were stashing our dirt bikes and equipment out in the woods under a tarp.

    and just working all day. And then we actually had to stay in a hotel. We had to stay in hotels and Airbnbs just to go out and work, but they were great. And they ended up letting us put some things in the basement. cause we were making these trips down with furniture and basically, yeah, our day consisted of, it was winter time. So the days are short. So we would, we would wake up at 5 a.m. and be out there with a headlamp and

    first light and start cutting trail and we would go all day and we had friends that were out there. His dad was there. He’d make a subway run for us and we’d be sitting there eating on the back of the four wheeler out in the middle of the woods. And then the sun would go down and it was, it was put on our, uh, grab our Allen keys and Allen wrenches and put furniture together and, and just, just start cranking out, you know, the box that beds in a box and those things. And, um,

    Yeah, it was a lot of work. It’s a lot of work and it’s still a lot of work and it’s definitely a work in progress and we keep going every time we go down we try to make it a little bit better, a little bit better. What’s really crazy, Erika, is we closed the house I think on what January 5th or 6th? January 6th. January 6th and we launched March 1st.

    Erika (13:41)
    of this year.

    Alex Kruthaupt (13:43)
    of the same year. No, two and a half years. So it’ll be three years this January. Yeah. For us. So yeah, we opened our doors two months after we acquired the property. And we were in the green our first year. So again, it was a slower start than we anticipated, but ultimately the year ended up amazing. In our second year, we doubled our business the first year. So it worked out really well.

    We reached out to the local community and just kind of asked the local clubs and said, hey, this is what we’re doing. Would anyone like to come in and, you know, give us a half days work and help us cut some trail and do some work. And, and, and then at the halfway point we’ll stop and we’re going to go ride what we cut. And we had some excellent groups show up that brought their tools and their equipment and their saws and, and, and one of our, one of our.

    someone who found us online and said, sure, I’ll come down and give you a hand. I love working on trails. And he said, I’m to be your first guest. he was, he was our first guest in March. And then from there, and then he wrote us a great review and then, and it just started kind of compounding and snowballing from there. So it’s been, it’s been an incredibly amount of the relationships we’ve made has just been amazing.

    ⁓ The people and the friends that we’ve made that have come out to help us because we couldn’t do it.

    alone. Yeah, we could not do it alone. We had that we have been very grateful. The motorsport community in general is kind of a unique bunch. mean, they all they all come out. mean, people to come out and just do four or five hours of work on a Saturday and Sunday, because they they enjoyed and be they want to make sure that we’re successful, even though it never met us ever was really something that impressed me. Now again, at the end of the day, we get to have some fun. And that probably doesn’t that doesn’t hurt because they get to kind of get the first

    tracks if you will. ⁓ But yeah, it was a pretty neat experience and those relationships have continued and sort of snowballed as well. We a lot of the some of our trails we’ve named after our volunteer helpers just to help you know just kind of that’s their trail they were out there cutting on that because when you get down there and that’s it’s kind of kind of hard to realize but everything we did was

    Not everything, but probably about 90 % of what we did was just walking through the woods with a saw and just foot by foot by foot by foot and just kept chewing away at it. yeah, we just stayed motivated and failure was not an option. We had to move forward, we had to be successful.

    Erika (17:01)
    Yeah, and you guys started off with a great year, so you had a good plan. It seems like the relationships that you built and the word of mouth was kind of like your marketing that carried you through. Would you say that that’s how it’s been?

    Alex Kruthaupt (17:20)
    Yeah, so one thing we did is that we relied on social media very heavy and we learned that with social media information can travel very quickly, both good and bad. And we documented this journey from the start. mean, when we went to sign the paperwork at closing at the title company, we rode our dirt bikes there. Now we’re tagged, right? So we have motorcycle licenses and we have insurance. We’re legal. But we said, let’s go ride our dirt bikes there.

    And it was January, it was cold. But we took some videos, took some pictures and just posted it and we shared and just had friends and family and then people were watching our journey from the start. And it’s been interesting how people that I haven’t talked to in 20 plus years have reached out and said, you know, I’ve just been kind of in the shadows, just kind of watching because a lot of people thought we were crazy.

    Everyone. Everyone. Yeah, a lot of people thought that we were, they were like, I just didn’t see this working. And I said, I’m, you know, and it was very motivating for us because the haters that came along, it just motivated me even more to work harder, to be successful.

    Erika (18:39)
    You know, it’s interesting because I’ve had a lot of people on the podcast talk about short-term rentals lately and they talk a lot about the downside and how oversaturated it is. But the one thing that I also keep hearing is that if you find yourself something unique and that sets yourself apart, that you are going to be busy and that’s what you guys are doing. ⁓ You know, what kind of advice would you give our listeners who are wanting to build out something

    Unique like this, know, not nothing, you know the same thing but you know doing something that they’re you know There really isn’t a blueprint for yet

    Alex Kruthaupt (19:11)
    What?

    Yeah, I can say one thing that I think with COVID and everybody said, hey, I can make some extra money and buy a rental property. And I think that, I think the market got very saturated, very saturated. And I think in order of the best advice I would give is that if you’re going to move into the short-term market, you have to have a very unique experience. Very unique property, very unique. And with us, it’s just, I’m constantly saying, Alex, I mean, I’m constantly saying,

    build the value, build the value, build the value. This has to be an experience that’s something that if we were just ⁓ renting out the farmhouse, I don’t think we’d be here today. no, it would have folded. So,

    know, so, and that’s where we.

    Erika (20:02)
    How do you build out the value

    for your, oh sorry, how do you build out the value for your unique audience or customers?

    Alex Kruthaupt (20:06)
    Okay.

    So that we have the value. ⁓ so how do we provide that value? ⁓ yeah, so everything from just communication with the guests. They have our phone numbers. They can reach out any time. We’re checking in. Hey, how did everything go? We add just attention to detail on everything that we can so that they provide. So for example, ⁓ we provide linens.

    Erika (20:16)
    Yeah.

    Yes.

    Alex Kruthaupt (20:42)
    We provide towels, we provide soap, we provide shampoo, and a lot of rentals, you have to bring your own towels. You have to bring your own linens. Especially in the motorsport community, if you go out west where you’re running a cabin, that stuff, you you gotta bring everything you need. You get a bed and a roof, that’s essentially. But we’re definitely kind of trying to do the five star. Customer service is huge for us. Another option, if you want, we can have your refrigerator completely stocked when you arrive.

    It’s just little things like that. So again, you go on Walmart, you order it, we’ll go pick it up and we’ll get it in the refrigerator. So as soon as you show up after, you know, two, three, four hour drive, you don’t have to deal with that. Plus being in the country, you know, everything is about a 30 minute drive and it’s just an additional task that you don’t have to do. The other thing that is really unique, we have a beer share. I know it sounds sort of like, like, I don’t know, who cares?

    But it’s been hugely popular. We’ve had it going almost three years and no one’s drank this dry yet. So one thing I’ve learned is that just traveling around the country and going to other short-term rentals is I’m learning and I’m, you know, just, I’m trying to be a big sponge and suck in that experience to say, what did I like about it? What’s something maybe I could have done better? ⁓ the, I went to a, I went to a bed and breakfast.

    down in Georgia, beautiful place. And they had a little wine share and gave me the idea. And I said, why don’t we do something like that here? So we picked up a refrigerator, put it in the garage, and we went to our local brewery here in Annapolis. And I picked up eight beer cans, two different types of beers. They were four packs, brought it down, made a nice little sign, had a nice woman write us, you her handwriting is a lot better than mine. And we made a video and said,

    This is a beer share, come on in, have a drink, have a beer, bring a beer from your local or favorite brewery or maybe a bottle of wine. And I said, we had no idea how that was going to work. And we came back and the refrigerator was full and it’s been, it’s been full ever since. And it’s been outstanding. And so a lot of people are coming in, they’re sharing, ⁓ you know, one thing value that we learned the trip that I.

    The trip that I mentioned that we were out there with the wives at this really nice cabin in the mountains, place was great, but you had to take your trash with you. You had to take your trash with you and it was a big inconvenience. So I said, you know, that was really inconvenient where our cars were packed. We’re in nice cars and we had to take all our trash with us. And I said, well, we need to come up with a trash service. So a value add is we hire a trash service.

    So the guests just drop their trash right in the cans on the way out, right by the main gate there, and they don’t have to take it with them. So just any way to make that experience just better and more fun and convenient. We provide firewood. Yeah, and so that’s another thing, firewood. So we have a fire pit, we provide firewood. Now we don’t give you an all you can burn, all you can burn, but we give you enough to have a nice fire and get you started. ⁓ But that’s all there and just…

    One less thing, so if we can just make that value better, so it’s just all about the experience and the customer service. But the biggest value is they can get what you really can’t get anywhere else. Tracks, trails, shooting range, all one spot, private. Yeah, and that’s what our guests, they’ll come out and they come out and they can ride, and they can go out and ride, and then at, hey, you know what, time out, it’s one o’clock, let’s stop and let’s get something to eat and let’s shoot for an hour.

    Erika (24:16)
    Yeah.

    Alex Kruthaupt (24:28)
    Okay, we shot, we had a good time. mean, I’ve taught my kids, my kids had a shoot there at the range and all right, time out. Let’s put the guns away, lock them up in the safe and then let’s go back out and have some fun. So they have that opportunity where it’s just, you know, they have that freedom to do that.

    Erika (24:47)
    Yeah, what you two have built is ⁓ so unique. So what is the next on the horizon for throttle therapy?

    Alex Kruthaupt (24:56)
    Go ahead. Yeah. So property number two, which I don’t think we actually ever stopped looking at properties since we got the first one. But again, there’s a lot of challenges that come with this. ⁓ A lot of times we have to find counties that are favorable, even in Virginia, as much rural land as they have and in motor, motor sport friendly and hunting friendly. There’s still counties that aren’t as.

    So one thing we do is we do look for counties that don’t have noise ordinance. Not that you couldn’t do this in a county that has a noise ordinance, but it’s just one other thing that we wouldn’t necessarily have to worry about. And it kind of speaks to sort of the vibe of the county, if you will. Again, trying to be respectful of the rules, we don’t want to break them. Because again, if you buy a large tract of land with the house and put a lot of investment in there, the county comes out and shuts you down. You’re gonna have a big financial problem on your hands.

    ⁓ so again, trying to find a Goldilocks property. The other challenge that we had looking for our first property was we could find a lot of beautiful properties, like with some sort of water feature, maybe a very nice destination where there’s a lot of tourism around that other things you can do rivers, lakes, stuff like that. but the house, there wasn’t really a good house. was kind of, ⁓ I don’t call it dump, but a dump, right? Something that just wouldn’t really. always a catch. There’s always a trade off. Yeah. Yeah.

    So that’s the other thing is trying to find the property that already has an established home on it. ⁓ We aren’t trying to build from scratch. And ultimately when we do buy something, we want to flip the switch as quickly as we could. Like with Lake Anna, we did it in 60 days. We’d like to kind of stick to that model where we buy it, we acquire it, we can start advertising. And then two months later, we’re getting our first bookings. And then again, we don’t necessarily want to compete with ourselves. So we’re not trying to have, you

    farm necessarily next door. So we kind of want to hit some other locations again, still staying in the Virginia area. ⁓ But you know, just a different, different area, kind of a different feel. One thing is when you do come to a throttle therapy property, you’re going to expect the same quality of service and, and amenities right that we provided everyone. So that’s really what we’re going for. trying to build a brand from the ground up. And it’s just it takes time. But

    Yeah, that’s where we’re at right now. don’t know if you want to add something. Yeah, our ultimate goal is we want to create the largest. So we want to take our model. love the private. I love that. We want to continue that. we’re also moving. Ultimately, the big goal is to have the largest motorsports park and outdoor recreation area in the mid-Atlantic is our ultimate goal.

    And with that, we’re looking at a minimum of thousand acres. So we would have a throttle therapy, Virginia location or something. And that’s where we want to be is where we can help solve a problem, which is have a place where people can come in that maybe don’t need the house and they have campers and they want to be able to camp or they want to just come in and ride for the day and maybe not have to stay for three nights or something like that.

    ⁓ That is the, that is, I love this culture. I love this community. It is just so much fun and especially just to watch our kids do it. I mean, I love to ride, but I enjoy watching my kids ride more than sometimes I do. It’s just so neat as a dad. And so we want to expand. We want to continue our brand. mean, just in the short, not even three years, we broke 17,000 Facebook followers for our page. It’s been great. So we want to continue this brand and move it out.

    ⁓ And we’re not opposed to doing, we’re looking into possible licensing agreements and our partnerships with other properties throughout the US.

    Erika (28:48)
    That’s exciting stuff. Well, I’m sure someone here today who’s listening needs some throttle therapy. So how can they reach you if that’s what they need?

    Alex Kruthaupt (29:00)
    Yeah, so we have a website, it’s ThrottleTherapyUSA.com. We have all our social media on there. Contact us now. My personal phone number is on there. So again, when you call the company, you’re going to get me. yeah, and hopefully, ⁓ you you’ll get your questions answered. yeah, we’re really easy. We’re on Facebook, ⁓ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. We got all the socials going. ⁓ Again, we found that that’s

    really the best medium because we can really target the folks that are into the power sports ATVs, dirt bikes, side by sides, name it.

    Erika (29:42)
    Absolutely. Well, thanks both of you again for being here. This was such an incredible episode

    Alex Kruthaupt (29:50)
    So you’re welcome. Thank you for the opportunity. it. It’s been great.

    Erika (29:55)
    And for our listeners, if you got value from this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pro Show. We’ve got more conversations coming up with pros like Alex and Scott, who are building fantastic businesses. We’ll see you on the next

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