Competition meets culture: Inside Take 5’s Battle of the Bays
A first-of-its-kind competition at the annual Take 5 Oil Change rally brings together corporate and franchise teams to showcase their expertise.
On January 27, 2025, Trevor Leslie took the stage at Take 5 Oil Change’s annual rally.
He wasn’t giving a speech or leading a seminar. Instead, dressed in cut-off jean shorts and a denim vest, Trevor took the mic to emcee the first ever Battle of the Bays.
This first-of-its-kind competition pitted teams of Take 5 Oil corporate shop managers, franchise shop managers, and franchisees against each other to see who could complete the Take 5 process from start to finish correctly in the shortest amount of time.
Teams were tasked with following the Yellow Brick Road framework, Take 5’s proven step-by-step guide to service. Each round of competition kicked off with teams offering a customary smile and water to the “customer” and ended with a “grey shirt goodbye.”
“It’s a celebration of our process and our people,” explained Dave Rozelle, Senior Manager of Learning & Development at Take 5 Oil Change. “The winner was not only the fastest team but the team who delivered the undeniably best results that Take 5 has to offer our customer.”
This year’s rally took place at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida, with more than 1,500 people in attendance. According to Dave, who is in charge of planning the rally, the event brings the entire Take 5 leadership team – from the shop to corporate level – together to recognize the previous year’s successes and align everyone on what’s next for the brand.
As the planning process for the 2025 rally began, Senior Vice President of Operations Missy McKinley approached Dave with an idea: a competition where employees showed off their Take 5 skillset.
Dave knew the idea was perfect.
“We’re a naturally competitive group,” he said. “Plus, once we landed on the name ‘Battle of the Bays’ it felt like such a good fit for our company’s culture.”
Crafting the Competition
With the idea and name in place, Dave partnered with Ryan Gallager, Regional Director of the Florida Central region, and Dallin Pender, Regional Director of the West TexAz region, to develop the logistics of the competition. The first priority was to make the event fun for the participants. Secondly, he said, they wanted to make it entertaining for spectators.
“Being realistic was our third objective,” Dave explained. “We decided that we’d rather cartoon a step to be illustrative so that it was still interesting to watch and participate in."
For example, because bringing real vehicles to the convention center was impractical, the competition needed cartoon versions. To make these, Ryan built the two “cars” used in the competition. These were iterations on training cars he previously developed to help train new hires on the Take 5 process without having them touch an actual car.
“I got the design in my head, started getting pieces together, and just got crafty with it,” Ryan said. “My wife jumped in to help and made all the decals.”
The next major realistic element they needed to replace was one of the most crucial steps— finding a replacement for oil. The solution? Sand timers.
“It was Ryan’s idea, and I think it was brilliant because it really helped visualize things like pouring oil and draining oil without bringing actual liquids into the convention center,” Dave explained.
Uniting Through Competition
Once the plan was developed, the next step involved finding participants — something Dave was not worried about.
“Once we announced, somewhat vaguely, that we would be having a competition called Battle of the Bays where teams would be competing against each other, people were immediately saying, ‘sign me up’,” Rozelle recalled. “The competitive side came out so fast it wasn't even funny.”
He also enlisted employees, such as Marlon McNab, district manager of San Antonio West, to judge the event. They monitored the competition, ensuring the process was completed correctly, and penalizing teams for missing steps. But more than missing steps, the judges assessed the quality, claims risks, safety, and team member communication the entire way through.
“We've never had that opportunity to actually demonstrate the technical side of what we do,” Marlon said. “To come in and see people display their talent was really cool. It was a great experience.”
Trevor, like Marlon, volunteered to be part of the team facilitating Battle of the Bays. Trevor is a district manager in Ontario, Canada, but previously worked in entertainment on cruise ships.
“I knew it would be electric,” he said. “We’re a very spread out company geographically, so it really brought a lot of the people who don't know each other. You saw people from Arizona and Florida hanging out, competing against each other but also boosting each other up.
Looking to the Next Battle
Take Five’s competitive nature came to life that Sunday when 42 teams competed in the first official Battle of the Bays.
This year’s winning team was “Top Gunz”, with Shawn Umrigar, Demond Lago, and Tony Aviles. “Oil Cans 2.0” with Des Batiste, Donald Roy Jr., and Brandon Lange took second place, and the “Soarin Eagles” with Dre Govan, Damon Alvear, and Josh Coleman took third place.
But the games are just beginning — Dave and the Take 5 team have already started planning next year’s competition.
“People saw what was happening and everyone wanted to be a part of it. Some teams wanted to go multiple times and others wanted to join at the last minute. We ran out of time,” Leslie said. “Next year, it’s going to be a whole new beast—twice as big, twice as loud.”
This event would not have been possible without the support and work of these people:
- Dave Rozelle, Senior Manager of Learning & Development
- Ryan Gallgher, Regional Manager of Florida Central
- Dallin Pender, Regional Director of Operations
Volunteer emcees:
- Derek Brown – District Manager
- Sam Campo – District Manager
- Chris Henshaw – District Manager
- Trevor Leslie – District Manager
- John McClellan – District Manager
- Charles Money – District Manager
- Brandon Thomas – Regional Training Manager
- Cole Wilford – Associate Vice President
Volunteer Judges:
- John Beatty – District Manager
- Chance Cobern – District Manager
- Matt Cox – District Manager
- Trey Gibson – District Manager
- Desmond Jackson – District Manager
- Wade Kovar – District Manager
- Marlon McNab – District Manager
- Dra Revels – District Manager
- Manny Rivera – District Manager
- Kenny Robertson – District Manager
- Jared Smet – District Manager
- Todd Stout – District Manager
- Colby Yarbrough – District Manager