The Valtastrophe herself, Val Douglas on Episode 188

I don’t want to say Val Douglas is a catastrophe because wherever she is, there’s a whole lot of fun going on.  Listen in on some great stories from this off-road maven; and her connections to some of the biggest brands in off-road. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

7:17 – I would take my 88 t-bird and follow the guys, my dad loved me for that.

20:46 – I was shell-shocked, Grand Junction to Laramie to Atlanta; I was over it.             

24:38 – go pack these bearings full of grease, then stick them in this tube, and don’t drop them on the floor! 

37:55 – in Colorado, you have to stay on the trail, it’s not like an open OHV area, Colorado is a big stickler for that

45:21 – the start of the yard sale at Potato Salad Hill….{be sure to listen to this one}

1:04.35 – competing was a whole different ballgame

1:10:35 – queen of the Rubicon Rodeo; champion bull rider

1:19:59 – my giant black German Shepherd is a personal protection dog; he won’t bite you until I tell him to

1:31:54 – what is the sweep team?

Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:01.020] - 

Welcome To Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview style podcast. These interviewed are all involved in the offroad industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future Legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land-use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call Offroad. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active in Offroad. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call Offroad.

[00:00:46.460] - 

Whether you're crawling the Red Rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability, four wheels or two. Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun, or competition, Maxxis Tires deliver. Choose Maxxis, Tread victoriously.

[00:01:13.010] - 

Have you seen 4-Low magazine yet? 4-low magazine is a high-quality, well-written, four-wheel drive-focused magazine for the enthusiast market. If you still love the idea of a printed magazine, something to save and read at any time, 4low is the magazine for you. 4low cannot be found in stores, but you can have it delivered to your home or place of business. Visit 4lowagazine.com to order your subscription today.

[00:01:39.420] - Big Rich Klein

This week's guest on Conversations with Big Rich is an offroader, a media marketing rep, NORRA Sweep and volunteer gatherer, Colorado land use, rock crawler, and fun to be around gal. I'm talking about Val Douglas. Valerie, good to talk to you.

[00:01:57.080] - Val Douglas

I am excited to be here, Rich. This is an honor. Thank you.

[00:02:01.630] - Big Rich Klein

Where were you born and raised?

[00:02:03.570] - Val Douglas

I am actually born and raised in Grand Junction, Colorado, which is actually where I'm at right now. I'm at my mom's house. Nice. Getting ready to bring her to southern Utah for the winter. She's a snowbird, so trying to escape the 50 degree weather for 70 degree weather.

[00:02:24.600] - Big Rich Klein

Right. But you guys still down there in Hurricane can get snow once in a while?

[00:02:29.160] - Val Douglas

We do, but it doesn't stick around. That's what I like about it. I've made the mistake, or not mistake, of living at 8,000 feet for about six years and realized that I don't like snow that much, especially when I was the only one with a plow. So changed that to a course of action and ended up going further south.

[00:02:52.080] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. Let's talk about those early days in Grand Junction. That's a great area for outdoor sports.

[00:03:02.350] - Val Douglas

Yes, it is.

[00:03:04.480] - Big Rich Klein

It's incredible. I mean, the hiking, the wheeling, the horseback riding, hunting, fishing, whatever you want to do can all be done right there.

[00:03:14.350] - Val Douglas

And within a few minutes, it's amazing. It's in a valley surrounded by the Colorado National Monument, the Book Cliffs to the north, and then the Grand Mesa to the east. And you've got a little bit of everything. So the desert all the way to the mountains and the Grand Mesa is pretty cool because it's got all kinds of stuff on it, from dirt roads to offroad trails, skiing. That's where I learned to ski at, was up on the Grand Mesa. But yeah, it's got a little bit of everything here. It was actually really fun to grow up here in Grand Junction. I was in the era where our parents kicked us out of the house, and we had to stay outside until the sun went down. Most of the time we were out adventuring around the house. We'd end up on the Colorado National Monument and walking and hiking all these trails that weren't trails back then, but they are now, and creating our own adventures every single day, it seemed like.

[00:04:15.360] - Big Rich Klein

What about the mundane things like school?

[00:04:20.760] - Val Douglas

I never thought school was mundane. In fact, I was one of those few people that looked forward to going to school, but I think I had school a little bit different than most people. My mom was a school teacher. She became a school teacher when my brother and I both started in school. My brother was four years younger than me, so she waited until Chuck was in kindergarten. But it was nice because mom was always home when we get home. She'd have the whole summers off, so we'd go do things with my cousins and stuff like that. But the school around here was a lot of fun, at least I thought it was. I know other people would think otherwise, but we did a lot of stuff in school. Mom always wanted us to stay involved. So middle school and high school, I did basketball, track, and high school, well, and middle school, I was in band. Let's see. I was in marching band in high school. In fact, I was drum major for three out of the.

[00:05:18.810] - Big Rich Klein

Four years. So that one time at band camp.

[00:05:22.030] - Val Douglas

Is absolutely 1,000 %. And can have so many meanings because I was in drumline. But yeah, school was great around here. I was pretty much a good kid for the most part. I say that with a little bit of, maybe I wasn't a good kid all the time. I would come up with these amazingly bad ideas for adventures on the weekend, and my friends would all go, That sounds awesome. We should do it. We would get into so much trouble or have so much fun doing it.

[00:06:03.790] - Big Rich Klein

Let's investigate that. Give me an example of something that you had really good, a lot of fun at, one of your ideas, if you can remember.

[00:06:14.680] - Val Douglas

Oh, so we have this park in town that was nothing but grass, but it was on a hill. And for the most part, I like not getting into trouble, like most kids, not getting caught if we did something stupid. But this park was called Duck Pond  Park, so there was a duck pond in it. We're real creative with our names around here. What we would do is I figured out what ice blocking was. I think I figured it out on my own. But what we would do is go get blocks of ice, take a towel out with us, and have ice block races down this hill at night. The cops showed up one night, and we're so pissed because we weren't supposed to be in the park after dark. We were having the time of our lives. There were probably like 10 or 12 of us out there just having an absolute blast. Not harming anything other than sliding down a whole bunch of grass on our butts, on a giant block of ice, and crashing at the bottom because there's no way to stop unless you crash.

[00:07:16.610] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:07:17.560] - Val Douglas

That was one of the fun times. We would go up and go four-wheel in. I didn't have anything four-wheel drive, so I would take my 88 T-bird and follow the guys. My dad loved me for that. I remember distinctly where Billings Canyon Trailhead is right now. It used to be just a rough dirt road. And we had come back one night from being up there, and my dad the next day goes, Why is there sagebrush in the undercarriage? I'm like, It must have jumped out while I was driving down the road. This thing never sees dirt, Dad. I don't know what you're talking about. But that poor Tbird, it saw everything it shouldn't have. It went to places that a real-world drive vehicle should not go, especially as a car. In fact, it reminds me a lot of some of the people we see down in Baha in vehicles that are in the middle of nowhere and we're going, What? Oh, wait. I've done that before back in my high school days. Right.

[00:08:30.490] - Big Rich Klein

When you don't know any better.

[00:08:32.390] - Val Douglas

Yeah, you just go with it.

[00:08:36.820] - Big Rich Klein

So being in all the sports and band and everything, you said you really enjoyed it. Was that a main focus?

[00:08:51.350] - Val Douglas

I would say marching band was, because it was basically like family. Even to this day, I keep in touch with the people that I was in marching band with in high school and into college. But the majority of the stuff that we ended up doing that was a focus was more cowboy related. So my uncle had a huge ranch and we'd go put cows up on the mountain. I knew how to ride a horse. I had my own horse when I was in high school. And we go do gymkanas and we go do all kinds of different events with them. And my uncle, also same uncle, raised horses. So a lot of the time over Christmas break, we'd end up at their place about an hour from my mom and dad to help them break and train, saddle train the horses that were getting ready to go race in the spring. Lots of different experiences growing up. I've cleaned one too many horse stalls than I ever want to, but it was a good experience. I can thank my parents. Actually, I could thank my mom and my uncle for teaching me how to do a bunch of that stuff.

[00:10:04.140] - Val Douglas

That's how we all got into off-road because my uncle had all these cows. We'd have to go put the cows on the mountain in the summer because you put cows on the mountain to get them out of the heat of the desert in the summer, and then you bring them back down in the fall. So when I was super duper young, my parents had a Jeep, and I would ride up in the Jeep with my dad while my mom would ride horses up and get the cows on the mountain. We'd stay up at the cabin on the mountain and then come back down. When I mean cabin, I mean, your tough shed is probably more well built than a cabin that we were in. That's what we use.

[00:10:44.910] - Big Rich Klein

How long would those trips last?

[00:10:47.590] - Val Douglas

Usually a whole weekend, if not longer. We're talking a couple of hundred head of cattle. It takes a while to get them up the hill, up the mountain, get them settled, make sure that they know where the water hole is, where the springs are at, and then put all the salt licks out for them and the mineral licks out. So yeah, it would take a good long weekend or a full week to make that happen.

[00:11:15.400] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, so there's two TV shows about things like that. On one end of the spectrum, you've got Heartland. Have you ever seen that? Yes. Okay, the Canadian one. Okay. And then you have Yellowstone. Yes. So where did your experience fall in?

[00:11:37.430] - Val Douglas

When I was younger, I would say it was more like Heartland. But looking back and now realizing all of the land use politics that my uncle was having to deal with on leasing and making sure the property didn't get developed and stuff like that, definitely Yellowstone side.

[00:11:55.990] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. But no train station.

[00:11:58.980] - Val Douglas

No train station, maybe.

[00:12:02.150] - Big Rich Klein

Maybe. That you know of.

[00:12:05.040] - Val Douglas

Yeah. There's lots of creeks up there that people don't even know exist unless you fly over them.

[00:12:12.040] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. After high school, I'm sure you did prom and all that stuff, right?

[00:12:19.980] - Val Douglas

Yeah. Well, when I say that, it was more like Val got all of her friends together and let's go to prom together as a giant group, and so that's what we did. It was always something more fun to do. I was in student council, so I'd also help put prom on and all the after-party stuff that the school was associated with, stuff like that.

[00:12:46.130] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. So then was your school like mean girls?

[00:12:52.460] - Val Douglas

No. No, okay. No. We definitely had cliques, but I got along with everybody. And if they didn't like me, I just really didn't care.

[00:13:01.110] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Perfect. Let's talk about transition high school into adulthood, you might say. Okay. What came after high school?

[00:13:12.970] - Val Douglas

I ended up... I wanted out of Grand Junction really, really bad. So as soon as I graduated high school, I basically had a full ride scholarship to go to the University of Wyoming and Laramie. So spent the summer getting ready for that and headed up to Laramie probably four weeks, three weeks before school actually started because I was registered for marching band. So of course, marching band has to go out and get all the practices just like the football team does. So I was on campus a few weeks before everybody else got there. So short summer between senior year and freshman year in college, but it was a good time. And I can tell you right now, if you want to go to a place where it's really windy to college, I suggest, Laramie.

[00:14:06.900] - Big Rich Klein

The Wyoming as a state is probably the windiest state in the nation.

[00:14:13.770] - Val Douglas

Absolutely.

[00:14:15.740] - Big Rich Klein

The Indian word for the wind always blows here is Wyoming.

[00:14:21.350] - Val Douglas

I believe it.

[00:14:23.530] - Big Rich Klein

I made that up. But you know what? Everybody that's been to Wyoming or spent any time there believes it.

[00:14:29.650] - Val Douglas

Yeah. We used to say, though, that the reason how come, the wind always blows there is because Nebraska sucks.

[00:14:41.420] - Big Rich Klein

And there's got to be more to that, because in Cedar City, Utah, we used to say St. George blows and Salt Lake sucks.

[00:14:52.050] - Val Douglas

Right. Yeah, all depends on where you're at.

[00:14:55.810] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. Did you drive the T-bird up there?

[00:15:02.460] - Val Douglas

No, I did not have the.

[00:15:05.240] - Big Rich Klein

T-bird year one. It didn't survive.

[00:15:07.400] - Val Douglas

Well, it still was alive. At that point, it probably needed a new transmission and motor. I don't know why. But yeah, the T-bird ended up back in my possession my sophomore year. In fact, I think freshman year, they wouldn't allow freshmen to have vehicles up there. Laramie was a small enough town that, and it still is, that you could basically walk wherever you needed to go. You just didn't want to because of the wind, and especially in the winter months.

[00:15:37.870] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, because it's really cold when the wind blows.

[00:15:40.550] - Val Douglas

Yes.

[00:15:42.900] - Big Rich Klein

So then what did you study?

[00:15:46.800] - Val Douglas

I ended up going to UW originally for a minor, or I should say a major. I was going to be a biologist. Actually, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I was obviously in the wrong state.

[00:16:02.550] - Big Rich Klein

I was going to say they have a marine biology class or classes in Wyoming? No.

[00:16:09.430] - Val Douglas

No, not even close.

[00:16:11.460] - Big Rich Klein

But I figured if I- Did you know that before?

[00:16:13.410] - Val Douglas

I did. I'd actually applied to the University of Florida and got accepted there, but my dad said I couldn't go down there for various reasons. I'm like, fine, I'll just go to Wyoming, get my biology degree, and then transfer down there. I'm going to go there and finish out in marine biology. Well, that lasted about one semester. I got into my chemistry class, and apparently I was doing fantastic in class, which I had no idea. I was so confused, I went into my professor, and it was one of those giant lecture classes, so there were probably 250 students in it. I go into... I see my professor and I'm like, I do not understand anything you are saying. This is all foreign to me. He's like, I don't understand. Why are you telling me this? You have an A+ in this class. I'm like, I don't know why. None of this is comprehending. I don't know why I have an A+. I'm like, This doesn't feel right. And he's like, Well, stick it out a few more weeks. I tried a few more weeks and I was so lost, still had an A and I dropped drop the class.

[00:17:31.520] - Val Douglas

I'm like, all right, if I can't figure this out or why, I'm probably the only person in the world that drops a class with an A.

[00:17:38.750] - Big Rich Klein

In it. Really?

[00:17:39.950] - Val Douglas

Yeah, exactly. I dropped the class, and I'm like, I got to figure out a different route. So I changed my major to communication and mass media and made the switch.

[00:17:51.870] - Big Rich Klein

Wise choice.

[00:17:53.130] - Val Douglas

Yes. That was a big shift, though, because everything that I was taking first semester was all biology and chemistry related, and was gearing myself up, actually, to do an alternate plan of working for the Forest Service or the BLM. But like you said, it was a wise choice on switching. I ended up with a degree in communication, mass media, and a minor in marketing.

[00:18:24.240] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:18:25.950] - Val Douglas

Yeah.

[00:18:26.860] - Big Rich Klein

What was college life like for you?

[00:18:31.680] - Val Douglas

Believe it or not, I was a sorority girl.

[00:18:34.690] - Big Rich Klein

Really?

[00:18:35.910] - Val Douglas

Yes.

[00:18:37.540] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, I've got visions running through my head now.

[00:18:42.010] - Val Douglas

Yep. I joined one of the sororities, mainly because a bunch of the girls on our team and in the marching band were also in the sorority. But I joined one of the sororities and lived in the house, stuck that out for a few years, met this guy in Ski Club, fell in love, got married my senior year in college, and couldn't live in the house anymore. So technically, you age out once you marry, so if you're still in college. That was, quote-unquote, the end of the real sorority days. But yeah, I had met my now ex-husband in college in Ski Club, and we got married in between my junior and senior year. So it was quite the.

[00:19:36.830] - Big Rich Klein

Adventure with him. To a skier? Yeah. That's interesting, or deadly.

[00:19:44.660] - Val Douglas

But yeah, got married in college, graduated. Tarrin, my husband was a couple of years ahead of me, so he actually went to grad school while I was still finishing out my school. So that out well. Then we ended up moving to, of all places, after college, to Atlanta, Georgia.

[00:20:07.290] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow.

[00:20:08.550] - Val Douglas

Yes.

[00:20:09.790] - Big Rich Klein

That's a cultural difference.

[00:20:12.620] - Val Douglas

Very much so. I thought I could handle it, and it was entertaining. It was very much keeping up with the Joneses, and that is not my style at all. I'm like, oh, okay, whatever. You go buy your stuff over at whatever store that was, and I'm just going to hang out here and build my own table. You go buy your $1,000 one.

[00:20:42.320] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Was that the neighbors you're talking about or your husband?

[00:20:46.620] - Val Douglas

It was everybody. I was just I was shell-shocked. Yes, I grew up in a small town originally, Grand Junction, moved to a smaller town, Laramie, and then end up in Atlanta. And everybody had tried to outdo everybody else on what stuff they owned and what stuff they had. It was even before social media was really that big, and I was over it. Here I was, the only thing I knew about Atlanta, Georgia, was watching movies, and I was like, Oh, did some research. Guess what? The movie Six Pack was filmed down here. Guess what? The dirt race track, it was filmed at with Kenny Rogers, it was right down the road. Typical me, I would tell Tarrin every Friday night we'd go down to the Dixie Motor Speedway and watch dirt circle track racing back the truck up to the fence, had our ski goggles on. We keep our eyes clear of all the red clay dirt flying off the track.

[00:21:52.140] - Big Rich Klein

ice chest and full of adult barley pops.

[00:21:56.560] - Val Douglas

Yeah, exactly. Which was interesting because the county that the racetrack was in was a dry county, if I remember right, at the time. We'd always have to transport barley pops across the county line.

[00:22:14.260] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah.

[00:22:15.500] - Val Douglas

I definitely felt like Smoky and Bandit.

[00:22:18.460] - Big Rich Klein

There you go.

[00:22:22.190] - Val Douglas

Three years down in Atlanta, I think, is what we spent. Then we ended up moving to Denver because Tarrin got a transfer because he was working for one of the big financial companies, and he took over the Western US, which they allowed him to headquarter out of Denver, and we're like, Yes, back to skiing. That was a nice benefit. But sometime around in that time frame, when we moved back to Denver, in the neighborhood we found in Thorton, so we were north of Denver, there was this guy driving around in our neighborhood with this Jeep that was lifted. This is 2001, 2002, and he had a giant windshield sticker on it, it said, Colorado4x4. Org. I'm like, What is that? I finally got online and I'm like, Oh, this is a bulletin board, and it had a link to Pirate 4x4. I'm like, What is Pirate 4x4? I start reading through general chit chat and just absorbing everything that's on this. I don't own a Jeep at the time. We had just moved up from Atlanta, so we're like the outsiders that used to live in the area, basically. Trying to figure out what this Jeep thing is that I keep seeing around between colorado4by4.

[00:23:48.910] - Val Douglas

Org and Pirate4by4. It turned out that Eric, who started colorado4by4. Org, was friends with Camo and Lance, and they all started the Bullets boards around the same time, and the rest is history. But I was really intrigued and I wanted a Jeep at that point. I traded my little purple Cavalier in that was totally hail damage from hail storms in Denver for a 1992 YJ, which I actually still have.

[00:24:22.120] - Big Rich Klein

Right, okay. But it's not the same.

[00:24:27.890] - Val Douglas

It's not. It's had a few upgrades. It's had a few incidents.

[00:24:34.170] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:24:38.930] - Val Douglas

It's grown up over the years. Colorado4x4. Org led me to WERock because Scott Ellinger was a competitor, and he needed help with his marketing. I'm like, I know how to do marketing. I don't know what this WERock thing is. I'll come help you and figure this out. I end up at Scott's house in Firestone back in rock stomper days. I walk into this garage, and for any of you that have ever met Scott, he's an absolute genius, which also means he's got the messiest shop possible. I walk in and the vehicle that he's competing at is up on Jack stands, and he's doing like we're greasing bearings or something like that. But anyways, he's like, have you worked on a vehicle before? I'm like, no, not really. He's like, well, go pack these bearings full of grease and then stick them in this tube and don't drop them on the floor. Those are pretty easy instructions. I'm like, all right, I can do this.

[00:25:42.640] - Big Rich Klein

Not real thorough, though.

[00:25:44.340] - Val Douglas

No, but I figured it out. And then I dropped the bearings on the floor and the shavings of the mill that was in the corner. I'm like, Oh, God, this is going to take forever to clean out.

[00:26:00.150] - Big Rich Klein

Well, hopefully you had enough grease on them to where all you had to do is get the outer surface.

[00:26:05.760] - Val Douglas

Probably not. Yeah, actually I did because they're like, Holy cow. She actually knows how to grease bearings. I'm like, I've seen my uncle do this on the farm implement vehicles, so I know you have to use a lot of grease.

[00:26:17.210] - Big Rich Klein

But.

[00:26:18.020] - Val Douglas

Yes, I definitely dropped the bearings. The first job Scott ever gave me to do on the rock stomper, rock crawler was grease the bearings and put them in the housing. I was like, I told them. Don't drop them, and then you drop them. Yeah, I totally dropped them. Oh, yeah. But that's how the big part of me getting into the offroad industry started was all through WERock and rock crawling and going to different WERock events with Rock Stomper over the years.

[00:26:50.420] - Big Rich Klein

Do you remember what the first event was?

[00:26:52.700] - Val Douglas

Yes, I do. It was Globe, Arizona. It was my very first time also towing a 40-foot enclosed, which I lied about. I had never done before, but I told Scott I could totally do it, so he believed me. We had to tow from Firestone, Colorado, down to Globe, which is like a 12-hour trip with the trailer and road construction. In the process of us leaving, we had gotten a phone call from Scott's brother, Brian, that was already down there that he needed the spare engine that was in the shop. So we had to bring the spare engine down with us for his rock crawler, which was also a Toyota. I have no idea how it blew, but they were out practicing and had something to do with somebody else driving it. He who should not be named.

[00:27:49.990] - Big Rich Klein

We're talking about DC?

[00:27:51.820] - Val Douglas

Yes, we are. Okay. He who.

[00:27:56.970] - Big Rich Klein

Shall not be named. I love it. Yeah.

[00:28:01.270] - Val Douglas

On the trip south, Scott's like, All right, I'm tired. I'm right around Santa Fe. He's like, You need to take over. Because we're driving at night because it's a giant trailer and we didn't want tigers to get hot and stuff like that. So we left pretty late. We're going to just drive straight through until morning because there are two of us. Well, we get to Santa Fe, fill up, Scott's like, It's your turn to drive. I'm like, Sweet. I got this. No problem. Well, he is out like a light within a second. I'm trying to think how many times have I been behind the wheel of getting in the passenger seat. I am behind the wheel of a six-shift truck that I have driven like twice without a trailer on and a 40-foot enclosed behind it. Get on the interstate I-25 headed south and within 5 miles, we are in a cone zone all the way to Albuquerque. I'm like, how did this happen? Seriously? So yeah, it was miserable. Thank God it was at night and there weren't a lot of people in there, but I still went pretty slow to make sure I didn't take out any of those giant barrels with the trailer, because I wouldn't want to be the one to put the first dent in the trailer, which is a hilarious story because eventually I was the first one to put a dent in the trailer.

[00:29:20.000] - Big Rich Klein

You should have just gotten it over with and just cleaned the highway off.

[00:29:23.320] - Val Douglas

Right, exactly. But yeah, we ended up going down through ShowLow to get to Globe.

[00:29:34.110] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, the easy way.

[00:29:35.620] - Val Douglas

To tow. Yeah, it's not that easy. It is nothing but switchbacks. Scott and I did not realize this. Our bad for listening to Google Maps back in the day.

[00:29:49.530] - Big Rich Klein

People still make those mistakes nowadays.

[00:29:52.780] - Val Douglas

Yeah, that was a lot of gnarly switchbacks, and they're like 180s, hairpins, and dragging those trailer tires around. I was like, Oh, man, we are scuffing trailer tires right now. It's so bad. But we got into Globe and pull up and drive literally right to Bryan's trailer. They have the engine out of the other buggy. I pull up, I'm still driving, and the first thing out of Dave's mouth is, where the F have you been? You're two hours late. I'm like, hi, nice to meet you for the first time. Actually, I should have probably just kept driving at that point. We said, oh, you want this engine? Tough. I'm out. But I didn't. I was nice.

[00:30:44.260] - Big Rich Klein

Imagine the change of the future had you done that.

[00:30:48.260] - Val Douglas

Right. I could have changed some... I doubt anything what it changed. But yeah, first time ever meeting him, I got yelled at for being two hours late with an engine that he needed because he blew the other one the day before. Like, Oh, this is my problem. Okay, whatever. But jumped in and watched Scott and Brian and Dave change the motor in about four hours and get the buggy back out on course to test it. They ended up competing. We ended up competing. They got to meet Shannon Campbell for the first time. Let's see who else was there. Jason, Paulie, Tracy, Jordan. I'm like, I've only read these names on the internet. I'm meeting these people. This is really cool. Turns out they're just regular people. True. But in my mind, there were some giant celebrities. I ended up actually... You let me on course to shoot photos because I brought my camera down and ended up shooting photos for everybody that weekend. It was a ton of fun. I'd never experienced We Rock before. The drive back was just as entertaining as the drive down because I almost ran the truck out of diesel, which again, Scott fell asleep on the way north and left me to drive.

[00:32:16.190] - Val Douglas

We pulled into the gas station with about a gallon left of diesel in it.

[00:32:22.100] - Big Rich Klein

At least you had a gallon.

[00:32:23.900] - Val Douglas

Yeah.

[00:32:26.100] - Big Rich Klein

It's all good until you actually run out.

[00:32:30.820] - Val Douglas

Right. He's like, I thought you knew how to drive a diesel. I'm like, I do. I just didn't think it was going to drink that much. But yeah, we had made it to the fuel stop, literally there was one gallon left, and we figured it was actually already in the lines because it probably actually didn't have a full gallon because we took something ridiculous, like two gallons extra than what the tank actually held.

[00:33:01.280] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, you were on fumes.

[00:33:03.620] - Val Douglas

Yeah, we were on fumes, definitely. Scott was going to make me unload the buggy and drive it down the road and go get fuel. I was like, All right, fine. I don't care. It doesn't bother me one bit. But yes, lots of fun adventures with Scott and Rock Stomper. I remember another time we ended up headed to Globe and the trip back... The trip up to globe is always long. The trip back is always even longer because you just want to get home. And someplace on I-80, there was a rabbit that I hit, and that's how I dented the trailer. I didn't realize that I could dent a trailer with a Bunny Rabbit that was on the road, but I did.

[00:33:53.330] - Big Rich Klein

A Bunny Rabbit dented the trailer.

[00:33:57.160] - Val Douglas

Yeah, and I might.

[00:34:00.050] - Big Rich Klein

Have- You sure it wasn't a small deer?

[00:34:02.700] - Val Douglas

It might have been that, too. Rabbit, deer. Yes, it didn't survive. I felt bad. Oh, well, I wasn't going to stop that freight train because it was going downhill, and my uncle always told me don't swerve for animals because it'll make a bigger wreck. So I just kept driving and hit the trailer or vice versa, and there it went. So I put a dent in the trailer and never, ever, ever heard the end of it for the next six years.

[00:34:40.510] - Big Rich Klein

That's pretty typical. When you have a failure that everybody perceives is a failure, then they're going to rib you about it.

[00:34:49.690] - Val Douglas

Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

[00:34:52.210] - Big Rich Klein

What work were you doing when you were in Atlanta and then to Denver? Were you a working wife? Were you a stay-at-home trophy wife? What were you doing?

[00:35:06.630] - Val Douglas

I was a working wife. I actually was a consultant for JP Morgan Chase, and a bunch of the other banks. The company I worked for was the it company that all of the major banks went to for inbound and outbound marketing help for sales and customer service. Basically, I ran call centers globally for inbound and outbound customer service and sales, and kept me on the road quite a bit. It was a lot of fun. It was highly entertaining because I would end up in the craziest of places at the wrong time of the year, like Newfound in winter.

[00:35:53.850] - Big Rich Klein

That's crazy right there. Yeah, that's.

[00:35:58.030] - Val Douglas

For sure. Yeah. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia has a whole bunch of call centers for inbound and outbound customer service because there's really no industry up there because it's cold. It's winter most of the year. So yeah, they have inbound and outbound call centers. And of course, I ran the marketing team as well as their quality assurance and compliance. I would spend months in these areas. I think one year, I spent six months up in Nova Scotia going to all of the different call centers that we had into New Brunswick and then eventually over to Newfoundland. It was interesting. I ended up in Barbados once because we had call centers and Barbados. That trip didn't suck. I could tell you that. That was pre-9/11, and my mom found out what flight I was on and ended up going on that trip with me.

[00:36:59.860] - Big Rich Klein

There you go, to Barbados. Yeah.

[00:37:02.870] - Val Douglas

She just showed up at my door the day before I was leaving, and I'm like, What are you doing here? I have to fly out tomorrow. She goes, Yeah, I know. I'm going with you. I'm like, What? I'm like, Mom, I'm going down for work. She's like, I don't care. I'm going. I'm never going to get a chance to go to Barbados ever again, so I'm going. After several phone calls to the call center, had it all planned. She had a great vacation with the call center manager's wife while I worked. It was entertaining. But yeah, I worked in the credit card industry for, wow, almost 11 years. And then made the switch and over to off-road in a very weird, roundabout way.

[00:37:54.300] - Big Rich Klein

I guess so.

[00:37:55.580] - Val Douglas

Yeah, it was during my time on Colorado, four by four, I had found a nonprofit called Stay the Trail that was in Colorado that was basically an education program designed to teach people how to stay on the trail so you could keep trails open, which is something everybody needs to know because not every area is like Johnson Valley or out at San-Holo. Yeah, all of Nevada. Yeah, all of Nevada. It's not open OHV. It is you have to stay on the trail. Colorado is a big stickler for that, so we could keep the areas nice and pristine and you have that really good user experience. Well, I started volunteering for them. They had a trailer that was an educational trailer, and they didn't have anybody to staff it for an event at High Country Performance, 4x4 in Denver. I'm like, Well, I'll just grab it with my truck and take it down and staff the trailer for their event for the weekend. They're like, okay, fine. I ended up at this show, which was like a mini offroad expo. They shut down the street. They had all the major manufacturers there. I was really quite impressed.

[00:39:14.550] - Val Douglas

It was like Warren, ARB, gosh, Old Man, Emo was there. All of the big brands were there. Then there's me in the State of the Trail trailer, and the owner of High Country was there and watching me how I do stuff. And all of the guys at High Country had already known me because I'd been out wheeling with them. Finally, their sales manager comes over to me right before the show closes and goes, Hey, I need you to go in and talk to Al, our owner. I'm like, why? Because you need a job, don't you? I'm like, well, yeah, I guess the bank laid all the marketing team off a few months ago, and all I've been doing is going wheeling. So probably get a real job again. So I walked into Al's office and he's like, so the guys like you. I'm like, oh, okay. They're fun to hang out with. They're fun to go wheel with. He goes, do you want a job? I'm like, I don't know. Do I need to... I'd like to have a job, but what do you have? He's like, I need somebody to do marketing and work the front counter.

[00:40:28.540] - Val Douglas

I'm like, all right. He's like, well, when can you start? I'm like, I don't know. He's like, all right, I'll see you on Monday. I was like, what? So that was basically my interview at High Country was in the start of my off-road career instead of volunteering for Stay the Trail. I worked at High Country for four years, I believe, four or five, and had an absolute blast working the counter, doing marketing for them. We'd host our own events. We did training sessions for all of our customers and how their products worked. That's basically how I learned how a lot of this stuff works other than outside of Rock Stomper, because we'd have to know how it works so we could teach our customer how it works. How does your air locker work? Or how do you use your winch so you don't lose a finger or that thing? But yeah, that was a fun time. But I brought up the valtastrophy, which is the 92 YJ a little bit ago. The valtastrophy was already the valtastrophy by that time. And it was a... How do I say this? It was an oops. I had a comment that happened back in 2004.

[00:41:49.550] - Big Rich Klein

An oops.

[00:41:50.390] - Val Douglas

An oops. Yeah. At the end of the day, I need to know my left for my right, which I still am terrible at. But yeah, that YJ that I had traded my Cavalier on, brought it home. We realized that it was cute and had some big tires on it, but it needed more, as every Jeep needs more than just being stock height or have a buck lift on it or whatever. But it was YJ, so it has leaf sprung. When I bought it around 2002, we put a lift on it, put bigger tires on it, locked it. I locked a Dana-35, still one of my worst ideas ever, but I had no better back then. But yeah, I threw $1,000 at a locker to throw in that Dana-35 paperweight.

[00:42:50.330] - Big Rich Klein

Well, if you're a smooth driver, they last forever.

[00:42:53.740] - Val Douglas

Right. Yeah, if you're a smooth driver. In Colorado, you need to figure out how to double clutch stuff because it was also a manual. It is a manual. We ended up swapping that... After reading lots of stuff on Pirate four by four, I ended up swapping that rear axel out to an 88 and had found a junkyard 88 somewhere, I don't even remember where, and figured out how to weld because back then YouTube wasn't that big yet. They have a whole bunch of people teaching you how to weld for free on there. I had to jump over to Pirate 4x4 and read every article Bill Vista had and do every search you could possibly think of to figure out how to weld this thing together and put gears in it and locker. Doing that stuff at a shop was expensive back then, and it still is. But we wanted to learn how to do it ourselves because it was very much the built, not bought mantra back in the day. I'm opposite that now because I don't have time to build that stuff.

[00:44:01.720] - Big Rich Klein

I've always been under the idea that the professionals are professionals for a reason.

[00:44:12.070] - Val Douglas

Right.

[00:44:12.850] - Big Rich Klein

And while do it yourself sounds great, if it has anything to do with welding, I do not want it coming apart.

[00:44:21.850] - Val Douglas

Exactly.

[00:44:24.040] - Big Rich Klein

So I.

[00:44:24.280] - Val Douglas

Don't weld. But yeah, you don't weld. I don't weld. I had to learn how to weld. We bought a welder, bought a Miller welder and had it in the garage at our house and built a welding stand and figured out how the dials worked after doing a bunch of research, and literally would go from making metal, molten, lava, basically, to where you could actually make it stick together and have a good penetration. We went through the whole process of trying to figure this out on our own. We didn't know any welder buddies. We didn't have somebody that could come over and weld it for us. We ended up figuring it out on our own and putting the coil buckets. Actually, when we put the 88 in, we did a rear conversion on it. Yeah, we're going to eventually for link everything. We're setting the 88 up for that. But we also need to put a roll cage in. That's another reason why we're learning to weld and bend tube. There wasn't anybody out there teaching you how to bend tube back then other than Pirate 4x4. We had been told on Pirate 4x4 that there was this really cool program called Bendtech, and you could use it to figure out your angles and bend the tube on the driver's side versus the passenger side without having to think about it too much, which was actually correct.

[00:45:52.420] - Val Douglas

Yeah, we built a cage for that YJ in our garage with a whole bunch of sticks of tubing that we had got. I think the original cage in that was H-Ru, not D-O-M. This is not the original cage anymore because it's been cut out a couple of times at this point. You mean repaired? Yeah. Well, yeah, there was one incident that it needed a full replacement on. Right. We're getting there. But yeah, the cage and the 88 in the rear was really how it all started on learning how to fabricate and asking a lot of questions on Pirate 4x4. Man, I would get flamed by all those guys. But I was like, Guys, I'm just trying to learn. Don't rip my head off. I just need to know yes or no. Is this the right way? And if it's not, how do I fix it? They were pretty patient with me, which was amazing. But yeah, we took the Jeep out to Moab, and it was for Easter Jeep Safari, and it was a disastrous trip from the get-go. This is 2004, and I had borrowed my cousin's truck and flatbed trailer, and the flatbed was a goose's neck, so we could haul two vehicles on.

[00:47:21.200] - Val Douglas

I was going to carry my buddy Ryan's, his YJ down to Moab too because he was on the BF Goodridge fun and new Clifton, Slay, and was like, Hey, I know all these cool people. I'm like, I just want to go to Easter Jeep Safari. He and I head out from Denver after loading the Jeeps up and get to Silverthorn, and I'm driving. We pull into Silverthorn. I am hungry. I'm so starving. Silverthorn is at the bottom of Eisenhower Pass right before you start going up veil. I was also done with driving for a little while because both of those passes are a little nerve-wrecking toeing any big trailer. I pull off and I'm like, All right, I know the Wendy's parking lot is big enough for this big of a trailer because I've seen some of my trucks in there before. Let's head over there. Plus, it's all right turns, so it should be easy. So turn into Wendy's. It should be easy. Turn into Wendy's, and I swing wide and pull into their parking lot, and Ryan's like, Oh, my God, stop. And I'm like, What did I do? He's like, oh, never mind.

[00:48:41.840] - Val Douglas

Too late. I'm like, What did I do? He goes, yeah, just drove over the Windy sign with the trailer and snapped it off. I'm like, Oh, God, I can't believe I just did that.

[00:48:55.230] - Big Rich Klein

Bigger than a rabbit.

[00:48:57.040] - Val Douglas

Yeah, bigger than a rabbit. So Ryan's like, We should probably take that with us. It's a souvenir. I'm like, No, that sign's expensive. Leave it where it's at. I don't want anything to do with this. We didn't do this at all. Can we go inside, order food, and I think, Bryan, actually told him that somebody had driven over the sign. The guy is like, Yeah, that happens all the time. I don't know why they don't just move it or get rid of it entirely. We're like, Okay, phew. I'm not the only person that's done this. We get back on the road. We've got another two and a half hours to get to my mom's house. And it's upvale, pass down through Glenwood Canyon and then through to Beck Canyon to get to Grand Junction at this point. And we get to my mom's house, and I'm like, All right, let's check everything. I just wanted to check mom, make sure we picked up our last-minute goods that we needed. And we check everything on the trailer, and we continue on to Moab, which an hour and a half from Grand Junction. And so we head towards Moab.

[00:50:06.510] - Val Douglas

We get to the Yellowcat exit, and I'm looking in the rear view mirror. I'm like, something's not right. There's stuff flapping. I pull off. They got a did because of the two YJs that are on the trailer. Only one of them has a strap that's actually holding it down at this point between Grand Junction and the Yellowcat exit, which is roughly 55 miles. We had snapped all of but one of the tie downs, and each Jeep had a tie down front and a tie down rear, if not one on every corner. I was like, great, whatever are you going to do? Because literally there's nothing left except for the one tie down. We ended up using the winches to tie the fronts of the Jeeps down and then got creative with the other strap that we had. Then we found some little itty-bitty one-inch wide straps that are allegedly good for 3,000 pounds to tie the other one down. We're like, Oh, this is such a bad idea. We pull into Moab. We're pulling straight to the brewery because that's where Ryan had to meet everybody and unload his Jeep. I look at him and I'm like, I cannot believe we just made that trip.

[00:51:23.470] - Val Douglas

She's like, I can't believe it either. That was just absolutely insane that we... Well, I took out the Wendy sign and then we lost all but one strap on the Jeeps and we had just checked them just before we left my mom's house. So it was nuts that we had lost them all. I pull into the place we're staying in Moab, which is a buddy of ours house. By the way, I almost took out their mailbox when I tried pulling in.

[00:51:52.010] - Big Rich Klein

Their driveway. Was it on the right?

[00:51:54.300] - Val Douglas

It was on the left this time. I'm just going to get both sides of the trailer. I'm just trying to think of this plot. But yeah, so I pull into our buddy, Buzz's house and unload. The guys, Tarrin's there. Our next door neighbors are there that are also Jeepers and my cousins there. He was a Jeeper back then. We're just done with this trip already, and we just got to Moab, and it's Wednesday of Easter Jeep Safari, and we are just over it. Back then, Easter Jeep Safari in Moab was rowdy. It was helicopters flying overhead from the sheriff's department, telling people at potato, Salad Hill to disperse. It was every state patrol in the state, I swear, was in that town for the week, just pulling everybody over left and right and handing out tickets to everyone and anyone. It was a little bit different back in 2004. But we unloaded and decided to go out to potato salad Hill because we knew that that's where the giant crowd was. That's where all the crashes happened. Let's go watch people destroy their vehicles. Why not? Sounds like a great demolition derby for free. We head out to potato salad Hill, and I end up driving...

[00:53:20.000] - Val Douglas

Actually, all the girls end up driving the Jeeps, there's three Jeeps, because the guys decided to hit the crown and sum it up right away, and we're like, Nope, we're not going to risk it. You guys have already been drinking. We'll drive. We're sober. Well, we get out to potato salad hill, and it was nuts. There were probably 500-700 people, if not 1,000 people on that hill watching guys drive up it. It was so packed at the top, you couldn't even find a parking space. We had parked for a quick minute and got yelled at to move and ended up going down to the bottom. Our intent was just to park at the bottom and watch. There were guys driving up potato salad hill in their dulies, in their square body Chevy's. They had people surfing in the bed of their trucks. It was crazy what we were seeing on this hill. We go down to the bottom and I go to park, and I keep getting pushed further forward by these Toyotas that followed me down. I'm like, okay, whatever. I have no idea where these toyotas had come from. Well, I get down to almost where the start of the hill is at, and I go to back up, and this Toyota is right on my spare tire.

[00:54:43.330] - Val Douglas

And I'm like, This is not good. Right on my rear bumper. I'm like, What is going on? Well, these Toyota guys weren't going to let me park. They wanted me to go up the hill. And I did not want to go up the hill. I do not want to be a part of this disaster that is going on on this hill. But they wouldn't let me back down. There was zero allowance for me to squeeze between them. There was like three or four of them. It reminds me straight out of the scene in cars, where the gang of cars is all around, Lightning and queen. They're like, No, you've got to go this way. I was like, Great. I am so getting stuck going up this hill. Remember, the YJ is a manual. We had just built the roll cage on it, just regeared it with new axel underneath it. Tarrin is in the passenger seat, my husband at the time, and our buddy Aaron is in the back seat. I'm like, Okay, something doesn't feel right. I don't think we should be doing this. Tarrin's like, Oh, no, you're fine. You could totally do this.

[00:55:44.170] - Val Douglas

This Jeep is totally capable of getting up this hill now. I'm like, I don't care if the Jeep can. I don't know if I can. It's like, You got this. Just turn the lockers on and drive slow. Put it in four low and drive slow. I'm like, All right, fine. There's a video on YouTube of me driving up potato salad hill, and I make it, I would say, three quarters, if not 80, 90% up. And then I start to bounce. And I know bouncing is bad. I wanted to stop. It didn't stop soon enough. And we had hit that left side ledge, and I had turned left instead of going right like everybody was yelling at me to go right, and I went left, and we went off the left hand side of potato salad hill two and a half times. If you watched the video, it was bounce, bounce. I am still on the gas. Realize that I don't want to be on the gas. Hit the brakes midair, it bounces one more time, and over we go. It was probably one of the faster rolls I've ever seen or heard of down potato salad hill, but we ended up upside down at the bottom by the big rock.

[00:56:59.640] - Val Douglas

We didn't go all the way into the ravene. But two and a half times Aaron stayed in the back, Tarrin stayed in the passenger seat. We only had stock seat belts, which was insane looking thinking back about it. But when we started to go over, I let go of the steering wheel and just grabbed my shoulders and held as tight as I could to my shoulders so my arms didn't flop around. There's video somewhere from the top of the hill of Tarrin's arm going outside and above the roll cage and coming back down. How he didn't sever it off is beyond me, but his arm was out of the roll cage, flailing around. In the same video, you could see Aaron in the back seat. When we go over, the left rear hits and pops the back seat out of that little stupid bracket that's back there. Aaron is getting beat up by the seat and the seatbelt as we're rolling, and his seatbelts were actually locked all the way out. He ended up with a rope burn from the seatbelt all the way across his back. When we finally stopped, he just got out and ran.

[00:58:14.280] - Val Douglas

We're upside down. He just got out and ran. He's like, I want nothing to do with that vehicle ever again.

[00:58:20.770] - Big Rich Klein

Kind of like a dog. Right. You see dogs in rollovers. They're like, The hell with you? I'm out of here. They just jammed. I'm out of here.

[00:58:29.840] - Val Douglas

That's exactly it. Taryn and I were still seat-belded in. The guys that were in the Toyotas that basically pushed me to go up the hill were the first ones to us. I didn't realize that we were still upside down other than the fact that the world was upside down and my seatbelt was hanging me upside down. They came over to get me out of the Jeep, and they're like, Okay, put your hands down. I was so confused. I'm like, Why do I need to put my hands down? They're like, So you don't fall on your head. I'm like, Oh, it's never occurred to me. When you're upside down, you need to put your hands down so you don't fall on your head when you get out of your seatbelt. Then same with Tarrin, we both looked at each other. I'm like, How did we not just die? And all three of us walked away. The cop showed up and came and found me and they wanted to do a breathilizer test, so I'm like, Let's do it. I haven't had anything to drink in nine days, and that was not fun. I never want to do that again.

[00:59:35.550] - Val Douglas

They're like, Well, usually when people go up this hill like that and roll, they're drunk. I'm like, I am stone sober, and I do need to drink now. I am done with this day. We flipped the Jeep back over. The Oklahoma guys came, I don't even remember their names. They came and flipped the Jeep back over. We had blown three of the tires off their beads. There were non-beadlock wheels and they had onboard air, so they helped us air those back up. Somebody in the crowd had a couple of course of oil. We put that in the motor. The windshield was totally smashed. The hood looked like an arrow. It didn't even resemble a hood anymore. The grill looked like it was winking at you. But after we flipped it over, let it settle for a while, pulled the plug, made sure everything was clear, fired right up. We're like, okay, didn't totally kill the Jeep. That's amazing. Drove it back to Buzz's house and went to bed because we're like, that was way too much adrenaline and way too much everything for one day. The next morning we all ended up getting up and I'm like, did that really just happen?

[01:00:50.390] - Val Douglas

I look out the window, I'm like, Oh, my beautiful black Jeep that didn't have a single dent on it has every dent on it possible now. We walk out and there was one panel that didn't even have a dent on it, and Tarrin took a wrench to it and hit it just so it match everything else. I'm like, Really? Really? Perfect. I'm like, Thanks. But we ended up taking the windshield off, taking the hood off, went to Napa, because at the time, that was the only car art store in Moab was the Napa. Got some radiation sealant, put that in the and we said, We're not going to let that change our plans. We're in Moab to go wheeling. So we went wheeling. And that was right when they had started closing down the trails with Red Rock four-wheelers on the trails that they had groups on for the day. We only had a handful of trails open. One of them was Moab, Rem.

[01:01:54.930] - Big Rich Klein

Love that trail.

[01:01:56.950] - Val Douglas

That's what we went up the day after we rolled..

[01:01:59.970] - Big Rich Klein

And then we got to- And then we really appreciated how short the hill is at potato salad.

[01:02:05.720] - Val Douglas

Exactly. We got to the Z turn and I'm like, I'm walking. I am not riding the rest of the way up this or down it. I am done. We get off of the labyrinth. We did the whole trail. We did it to the top of the big hill climb. We didn't go all the way to sand, we did them back out to the point. We got back down. We're like, All right, it's like halfway through the day. Now what do we want to do? Where's this off road park that's out here? Let's go find up in lower Hill, Dorado because we just rolled off potato salad hill. Let's see if we could go destroy this thing more. We found Lower Hill, Dorado. It was still open back then, and went up Lower Hill, Dorado and get into the area where Upper Hill, Dorado is, and there's a bunch of vehicles in there that are very well-built Jeeps. There's a couple of Buggies. Buggies weren't really a thing back then, but there were a few of them. And everybody that we drove by was like, Oh, my God, those are the people that rolled off a potato, sad hill last night.

[01:03:12.300] - Val Douglas

Can't believe they're out wheeling. And finally, I just looked at one group and I'm like, Would you have gone home if you had just rolled your Jeep or would you have figured out how to fix it and just kept wheeling? Because we're all out here to go wheeling. They're like, That's actually pretty cool. So we made a few friends and had a great rest of the week and came back home to Denver at the time. And I'll never forget unloading that Jeep, our next door neighbors came out and went, Oh, my God, you guys. What happened to this beautiful black Jeep you just had? Because it was destroyed. It didn't even look like a Jeep. It didn't even have a hood. It was like a wanky eye grill with a roll cage that was slightly bent. And thank God we had put that roll cage because if it would have been a stock roll cage, there's no way we would have survived that. But the aftermarket roll cage that we had built in our garage was definitely our saving grace on that one. But yeah, it was quite the interesting trip. That is how my beautiful black YJ became the Valtastrophy because it was such a catastrophe after I rolled it.

[01:04:21.330] - Val Douglas

It just got named the Valtastrophy.

[01:04:25.580] - Big Rich Klein

Let's talk about Wiroc. I know this is probably jumping ahead timeline-wise, but when did you first compete?

[01:04:35.150] - Val Douglas

Wow. Okay. My very first time competing at Wirok was, I want to say 2019, and 2018? It's only been a few years. I actually showed up at Donner just to be a spectator and watch. Martha Tansy was there with her daughter, Ellie, and she had borrowed Clay Eagen's rig and decided that she was going to compete in it. I'm like, How are you doing this? This is Clay's rig and everything's handthrottle. Well, she still had petals in it, so she was using the petals, but the hand throttle was still there. I was like, okay, this is super duper cool. Well, she was pretty shy and started talking to Mike, and it was out there with me and told Mike that she didn't have a spotter. And Mike's like, hey Val, she didn't have a spotter. And I looked at her. I'm like, I'll spot for you if you need one. She's like, oh, my God, really? I'm like, yeah. So I ended up spotting for Martha Tansy at WERock, and I think we were in sportsman A or B, I can't remember. But yeah, we ended up competing, and it was so much fun. It was so much fun.

[01:05:58.980] - Val Douglas

I had a blast at Wirok just shooting photos and watching everybody out there and judging because I've been a judge a couple of times. But competing was a whole different ball game and even spotting. I had such a blast and everybody would watch Martha and I because apparently, I'm pretty hilarious spotting, especially when I put the helmet on backwards and don't realize it's on backwards for half the day. But whatever.

[01:06:29.180] - Big Rich Klein

Who cares?

[01:06:30.190] - Val Douglas

It's on. Who cares? It's on. It was so much fun. We were up there, and Barbara Rainey was there. She's like, You two are such a riot to watch, because everybody else out here, the spotter and the driver are yelling at each other. And Val, you're just so encouraging. You're just like, just give it a little bit. Now go a little this way. Okay. Now you got to get your butt over, so we've got to go left. And she's like, you talk her through everything nice and calm, just like she needs to understand it. Everybody else out here is angry, and when they hit a cone, they're pissed off, and you're just like, Oh, darn, whatever, let's just keep going. And yeah, it was a ton of fun, and we ended up annihilating the guys, and they were so mad at us. But yeah, it was a good time. And then I ended up competing a second time at... Oh, gosh, what was it? It wasn't even a WERock event. It was another event you put on in Cedar. It was Teralin. She didn't have a spotter, and she needed a spotter. I'm like, All right, I'll spot for you.

[01:07:47.870] - Val Douglas

We had an absolute blast that weekend. I think we took first in that one as well.

[01:07:53.950] - Big Rich Klein

That would have been, it would have been, We Rock, but I think it was a combined We Rock and dirt riot.

[01:07:59.270] - Val Douglas

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Then I ended up at Cedar City again since it's 45 minutes away again, just going up to be a spectator. It was the year you did national finals in Cedar. Michael Brassinini was there, and it was his first time competing. And he was in a red dot. And Kalif Redding came over and Kalif's good buddy. He's like, hey, Val, what are you doing this weekend? I'm like, well, I really just want to watch. And he goes, well, Brassanini doesn't have a spotter. I'm like, well, what is he competing in? He's like, sportsman A. I'm like, in a Red Dot? That's a really wide car. I know Michael knows how to drive, but that's a really wide car for these gates. He's like, well, maybe you should go talk to him. I'm like, all right, fine. So Brassanini very, very shyly asked me while I'm over there talking with him. He's like, I need a spotter. Are you interested? I'm like, Do you want to find somebody else? He's like, No. Literally, all the guys here are telling me you're the only one that can do this. I want you as my spotter.

[01:09:18.050] - Val Douglas

I ended up spotting for Brassinini at his very first competition, and it was a ton of fun. He wasn't quite prepared for my style of spotting, but hes weirded out and he figured it out. He was like, You can't be calm no matter what. I'm like, Well, yeah, this is a competition, but if you lose your stuff, you're going to totally wreck the rest of your day. I've seen way too many competitors do that over time. I'm like, You've got to keep your calm behind the wheel so we don't ruin the next course. We actually ended up second place for his very first time competing at nationals. That wasn't too bad. I was quite proud of him and proud of us, especially in a red dot because, man, I think we had what, three inches on each side of that wheel to touch a cone. I might screw it through a lot of times. I'm just like, engage rear steer because we are not getting around this thing without hitting it. But yeah, it was a ton of fun. Actually enjoy spotting a lot. We were actually as a blast. It's just a fun event that teaches you how to drive.

[01:10:30.500] - Val Douglas

Cool.

[01:10:31.670] - Big Rich Klein

Let's talk about Jeepers Jamboree.

[01:10:35.320] - Val Douglas

Jeepers Jamboree. By far one of my most favorite events to ever go to. It is the granddaddy of them all. It is adults only. I could tell everybody that's listening to this. This is not an event for kids. In fact, kids under 16 aren't even allowed there for good purpose. It should be kids under 19. But yeah, I didn't know what Jeeper's Jamboree was. And then, Tony, actually Pellegrino, invited me to go with the GenRide crew one year. And oh, my God, I had the best time. It is an absolute blast. They feed you every single meal. You camp out every single night. All you need to do is bring in whatever beverages you want to drink, like water or- Like water. -like water. Like Pedialight.

[01:11:33.180] - Big Rich Klein

Like water, that's funny.

[01:11:36.330] - Val Douglas

Or anything else that comes in a plastic container. But yeah, you camp for four days, or you could do the three-night one, and it's a good time. There's evening entertainment at the main area in the grass. There's a band that plays every single night. Man, one of my favorite bands, Tragically White. I found them there and have kept in contact with the band ever since. It's been well over 10 years since I first started going to Jeeper's Jamboree. Jeeper's Jamboree has been around for over 75 years now. No wait, this year the 75th?

[01:12:18.070] - Big Rich Klein

No, I don't think so. I think it was last year.

[01:12:21.550] - Val Douglas

Last year, yeah. That was the 76th. Yeah, it's been around for quite a while, and you wheel in. You wheel in, you check in in Georgetown, you wheel in, and it's a great time. They've got the rockrollers out there, which are spotters on the trail to help you get up stuff. We go down with usually a giant crew with the Reno mafia and a bunch of other friends. Yeah, it's a good old time. Sometimes the evening activities are anything from cornhole to bull riding. You're just like, What? How did they get that in here?

[01:12:59.210] - Big Rich Klein

Which is a real bull. It was the Rubicon Springs rodeo. Yes. And it was a mechanical bull.

[01:13:06.280] - Val Douglas

Yup.

[01:13:08.110] - Big Rich Klein

You did quite well.

[01:13:11.940] - Val Douglas

I did. I wanted to ride the bull. I was like, there's... I think I've been on a mechanical bull one other time and did pretty well. I'm like, All right, I'm going to try this. Everybody's like, are you serious? I'm like, yes. But of course, in typical Val fashion, I don't play fair.

[01:13:29.620] - Big Rich Klein

I'm going.

[01:13:33.350] - Val Douglas

To win this, I'm going to win it big. Yes, I am the reigning mechanical bull champion at Rubicon Springs, and from what I understand, we'll remain that for ever because they are never planning on bringing that thing back in. I could thank RaceLine for sponsoring me that night.

[01:13:59.200] - Big Rich Klein

Yes.

[01:13:59.620] - Val Douglas

Stickers and all. Stickers and all. Yeah, Rubicon Springs and Jeeper's Jamboree is a kick in the pants. Again, adults only, and you better have an open mind. Yes, do not bring your children. You have to have an open mind. You have to be ready for rowdy people. Sometimes the guys get a little inebriated and start fighting, and that's when they get a bucket of water thrown on them or just get knocked out. But yeah, it's a good time. You bring something to float on because you got the spring right there, which is a little lake, and everybody ends up out on that during the day, having an adult beverage, and then you go in for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yeah, it's a ton of fun. It's a good way to disconnect. Before we had Starlink or even satellite phones out there, it was a total no cell zone. It was a good way to totally disconnect for a few days and relax and have a good time. But like I said, be prepared. It is adult only.

[01:15:08.760] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Let's talk about Let's talk about Trail Hero and then into you know who. Let's start with trail hero.

[01:15:25.840] - Val Douglas

Trail Hero. Trail Hero is an interesting topic. I get a phone call from Little Rich, and he's like, Hey, we have a problem out here in southern Utah. There's a developer that wants to turn Sand Mountain into condos. I'm like, Well, I don't even know what you're talking about. Where is this at? He explains this right out of St. George in a little town called Hurricane. I'm like, Okay, I've got a good idea of where it's at. He's like, You're into land use. You understand all these things. You're really good at marketing. Can you help me? Because what we're trying to do is save this mountain from getting developed. I'm like, Yes, I'm in. What do you need me to do? At the time I'm living in Queen Creek, Arizona, so basically Southeast Phoenix, and had to drive up a couple of times, ended up staying at Rich's house while we were doing some planning stuff, and brought my big rig up for the actual event the week of the event. I'd been back and forth. It's a six-hour drive back and forth a couple of times. I'm like, screw it. I'm just going to bring the RV up.

[01:16:39.130] - Val Douglas

At the time, I had a 5,500 Kodiak four-wheel drive with a 40-foot work and play behind it. My other buggy that I had picked up along the way, which was a twisted customs car, is a twisted customs car in the back. Rich is like, All right, we're going to meet on the first. No, it was the 28th of September, and this was seven years ago. He's like, We're going to start planning all this out. We got to go drill some holes. We got to put up some flutter flags, and we got to stake out this trail breaker thing that he had invented, which I was like, Oh, that sounds like a really cool idea, and go from there. Well, I trusted Google Maps again, came up from from Phoenix in my Kodiak and 40-foot trailer to hurricane via Highway 89.

[01:17:38.990] - Big Rich Klein

Through the tunnels.

[01:17:40.910] - Val Douglas

I didn't go... Well, no, I ended up coming up 17 to flagstaff. And instead of going to Page, that's the way I went that time. I didn't go to Page. I went over Jacob Lake. Okay. Yeah. I went over Jacob Lake like you're going to the north rim of.

[01:17:58.410] - Big Rich Klein

The Grand Canyon. Because it's going to save you five minutes if you're in a car.

[01:18:01.630] - Val Douglas

Exactly.

[01:18:02.810] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly. If you're in a car.

[01:18:04.750] - Val Douglas

If you're in a car. And I'm driving at night because apparently that's what I'm used to doing with all those years at Rock Stomper. I start up the path and I'm like, Oh, hey, we're straight into hairpin switchbacks right away. I'm going 20 miles an hour up this hill. What did I get myself into?

[01:18:29.030] - Big Rich Klein

Right in.

[01:18:30.450] - Val Douglas

The dark in September, and it's already bow season. I start seeing all these little camps everywhere because it's 10 o'clock at night. I'm like, All right, there's hunting camps everywhere out here. Got it. I get up to Jacob Lake and there's snow on the ground. I'm like, this is a really bad idea. I'm glad my truck has four wheel drives. I'm like, I got a giant boat anchor behind me, so I'm not too worried. And get down towards, let's see, towards Fredonia, hit more switchbacks. I'm like, where did I just come over? Go into Colorado City, Hilldale, and start down the hill into Hurricane. Unbeknownst to me, there are more switchbacks this way because every other time I've come up through Kingman in Vegas and that route, so it was pretty straight. I should have just gone that way probably the first time, or at least gone to Page because that five minute in a car thing is more like an hour and a half in the rig I was in. Right. I pull in front of Rich's house at two o'clock in the morning, and everybody's obviously already asleep. I'm like, Fine, I'll just get up first thing in the morning and just leave the truck and trail that's worked in front of Rich's house.

[01:19:52.100] - Val Douglas

So giant, Kokiak, 40-footed enclosed in a neighborhood. Totally fine.

[01:19:56.970] - Big Rich Klein

That's all right. I parked my semi there, too.

[01:19:59.400] - Val Douglas

Oh, excellent. Thank God there was a park there. The next morning, I wake up, and I've got my two dogs with me, and of course, they need to go to the bathroom. I know I'm in a quiet neighborhood because I've driven to Rich's house before in a car, and I just let the dogs out, don't think anything of it, and don't even realize that there could possibly be other people out on the sidewalk at this point. One of my dogs is a giant black German Shepherd that is a personal protection dog, and he runs into the guy that is parked right in front of me in his camper. And I'm like, Hi, don't panic. My dog won't bite you until I tell him to. And he's like, Oh, okay. And he starts petting the dog. And I'm like, This is really weird. Quantum is just letting this random dude he just met that I don't even know his name start petting him. And then Scully, the other one that is a hot mess disaster, 24/7. It's just like, Yeah, whatever. Hi, my name is Scully. I want to be petted. And I walk out of the trailer and I'm like, Oh, hey, I'm Val.

[01:21:09.780] - Val Douglas

Do you know if there's any coffee? The guy is like, Oh, hey, my name is Mike and I don't drink coffee, so I have got no answer for you. I'm like, All right, fine. I'll just go let myself in the house. So I went to the house, made a pot of coffee and sat down, met Mike formally for the first time, and it turns out he was your lead judge for WERock, and was also down there to help Rich set up stuff for Trail Hero. He's also on the board of directors for the Utah Four-wheel-Drive Association. I'm like, Oh, okay. That's why he's here. He's land-use and.

[01:21:49.030] - Big Rich Klein

Useful with- I think he was also with me. He went into the Rubicon with me on Jeepers Jamboree, and I believe it was the same the same trip that you won your bull riding title.

[01:22:04.920] - Val Douglas

Yes, it was. We figured that out.

[01:22:07.110] - Big Rich Klein

About- A small circle.

[01:22:08.590] - Val Douglas

Yes, a very small circle. Yeah, we start chit-chatting, Rich gives us our jobs. We go out and do our jobs for like two or three days. Somewhere in the middle of that, before Trail Hero started, was my birthday. We ended up making tacos at Rich's house for my birthday. Had a lot of fun. Apparently, drunk Val stabbed Mike with a knife trying to make tacos on accident, not on purpose. He put his hand in the way while I was trying to slice open the hamburger. Something bad was going to happen if you do that. I wasn't on purpose. But yeah, we ended up working. All of Trail Hero, when we went out to the state park, we camped right next to each other because my dogs liked him. Quantum wasn't going to kill him. Quantum wanted to pretty much eat anybody except for Mike. But yeah, it was interesting because he's also the only other person that have really given Olive to to go drive around and go put stuff up, which most people don't just hand out their buggy and go, here, go drive your bug. Go drive my buggy that costs a few thousand dollars and go put stuff up for this event.

[01:23:29.560] - Val Douglas

But I just met the guy a few days before and I'm like, here, take my twist at customs car. Sure, why not? But, yeah, we ended up working all of Trail Hero together, pulled off that first Trail Hero, which was absolutely insane because we knew what we had to do. We've all done events before. We didn't realize how big of an event that we had made it and weren't quite prepared for not having enough volunteers to make it happen. We were running ragged, but only we knew that. The rest of everybody else that was there didn't.

[01:24:06.150] - Big Rich Klein

Nobody knows unless you tell them how chaotic behind the scenes is.

[01:24:12.420] - Val Douglas

Yep, they have no idea. Which was great because we wanted to make sure we were there for our customers to have a good time. Our whole goal was to make sure that that mountain was used and that the BLM couldn't turn it over to the gentleman that was trying to do a land swap on it because there were no trails on that area. We had put trails in every and any area that was out there so that it was being used. But yeah, we had spent basically two and a half, three weeks together at that point. Trail Hero was over. I had to go to Moab and handle another job. Mike headed back up to Lehi, which was four hours north to the Salt Lake area. It was me and the dogs out camping in Moab, where I was getting a job done. Mike calls me and he's like, hey, my buddy Badger and I are headed to Moab to go camping. I'm like, cool, where are you guys camping at? We were thinking about BFE. And I'm like, cool, that's where I'm at. You should come hang out. And, well, Mike and I have pretty much been together ever since.

[01:25:27.140] - Val Douglas

Nice. We had done so much together and gotten along so well. And pretty much by the end of Trail Hero could read each other's minds of what had to be done and how each one could help each other just to get those projects done to make the event happen. It was really strange to not be around him when I was so used to him just being there. He came down. I headed back down to my house in Phoenix after that camping trip, and he came down and hung out for a couple of months, and.

[01:26:07.110] - Big Rich Klein

Then- You weren't able to get rid of him?

[01:26:09.990] - Val Douglas

No, I wasn't. Then Rich had more plans for Trail Hero year two, and I started thinking about it. I'm like, why am I in Phoenix? I work remotely. This makes no sense. Why am I still here? I really don't need this giant house. I literally, within 48 hours, decided one day, screw it, let's just sell this house and move to Hurricane. The first person that looked at the house bought it, and I was like, Oh, crap, now I have to pack all this stuff. Mike was right there to help me pack it. We actually ended up buying a couple of trailers and bought 10 acres up in hurricane with nothing on it. We just dropped a couple of the trailers there and ended up staying at a friend's house in Wickenburg for about six months before we figured out let's build a shop house. Let's do this. Let's do that. One thing led to another, and we basically moved in together in the RV, the work and play, and started living together. Still living together, and finally got engaged. We haven't gotten married yet.

[01:27:23.960] - Big Rich Klein

That'll probably happen. It'll happen.

[01:27:30.440] - Val Douglas

How do I put it? This year, things have gotten in the way where we haven't been able to follow through on our plans because while my mom ended up in the hospital a couple of times and a couple of other disasters happened that we needed to focus on. I'm like, all right, we'll just put that off until next year. It's no big deal.

[01:27:51.500] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome.

[01:27:52.750] - Val Douglas

Yeah, it's pretty cool, though. When I got a divorce from Tarrin, I was bound and determined to never get married again. I'm like, screw it. This is once was enough. I was married to him for nine and a half years. It wasn't like it was something that was sour in my mouth. That's also another funny story. You probably don't even know this, but it was at WEROck Finals in Las Vegas, where Tarrin and I realized that we probably shouldn't be married anymore. Oh, really? Yeah, because I was out on course. It was a night event. I was out on course shooting, and he was over sitting on the trailer with Chad from Rock Stomper. Those two were chatting it up. And I looked across courses, and I'm like, Who is Chad talking to? He is having a great time with him. And so I wander over and I had to do a double take. I'm like, Tarrin, you're laughing. You're having a good time. I'm like, I never expected him to have a good time at a We Rock event. He's like, Yeah, this is fun. Now I get why you want to do it.

[01:29:02.890] - Val Douglas

This really isn't for me, though. I was like, Oh, okay. So we literally got home from that trip, sat down in our offices and said, all right, we're really not meant to be together anymore. It was fun while it lasted both of us split ways, and that was pretty much the end of that. Yeah. But he at least had the... We both had enough foresight to see that I was more into the off-road thing and the rock-crawling thing, and he was definitely not. He liked building stuff and not me. Well, I do enjoy building it, but he was more into the building things, and I was more into the go out and drive and wheel and go to competitions and events and races and all of that stuff. He's like, I really don't see my future in any part of that at all. I'm going to let you go your path, I'll go mine. I'm like, All right, fine. We still stay in touch, which is great. But yeah, it was at that WE Rock event that we realized that we really weren't meant to be together anymore. Interesting. But yeah, then I found Mike 10 years later.

[01:30:13.340] - Val Douglas

Yeah, I think it was 10 years later.

[01:30:16.190] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect.

[01:30:17.420] - Val Douglas

Yeah, cool. There's so much like the world from WEROck to Trail Hero to Desert racing. We haven't even covered Desert racing.

[01:30:29.140] - Big Rich Klein

No, I was just I'm going to ask about NORRA.

[01:30:32.550] - Val Douglas

Nora. How did you get involved with Nora? In a very weird roundabout way. I was shooting photos with Matt at Durka Durka photo for about seven years, and he had pulled me about Nora, this vintage rally that had restarted with the original race in '67 that was the Mexican 1,000 point-to-point, and it's now a rally race. I'm like, Oh, cool, I like rallies. Matt and I had actually shot a couple of WRC races. I'd looked into Nora, wanted to do Nora, and out of the blue of all of the things that my crazy life has gotten me into, this one's really intriguing. I get a phone call from a trophy truck driver that wanted to race Nora, who had to know what I knew about it and if I could come down and be on his team. I'm like, Okay, yeah, cool, I could do that. Well, I ended up driving one of his chase trucks for him at the Nora Mexican 1,000 in 2016. I think we finished fourth, I don't remember. But yeah, it was a fun five-day rally, and we had blown a transmission on the race truck outside of La Paz, so the last day between La Paz and Cabo.

[01:31:54.670] - Val Douglas

We knew we were basically out because all we had done was started that super special and that was the only super special that day. We only got points for actually starting the actual stage. Anyways, changed transmission, driver decides he's going to finish the truck and I need to follow them through. I'm like, this chase truck shouldn't be on this racecourse, but if that's what you want, boss, I will do this. We went the coastline from La Paz all the way down. Where was it? It was fun. It was like Los Burelas and all that stuff. And get to the finish line, go to the party. That was one of the years where the award ceremony was right after the race. We go to the party, head back north, with. But when we were broken down, the sweep teams had come through, and Andrew McLaughlin and Dave and a couple of the other huck was on that sweep team. I'm like, What is the sweep team? Our whole job is to make sure that the humans are safe on the course. If they've got their chase crew with them, we leave them alone. If they don't have a chase crew, we get them back to civilization to make sure that they're not left out there.

[01:33:11.950] - Val Douglas

I'm like, Oh, that's really cool. I've never known a race to actually have a clear race course, basically. The next year, I got a hold of Dave Conklin, who was on the sweep teams, and he's like, Yeah, come down. I'd love to have another rock crawler doing this with me. I went down, volunteered in my JK. Mike had gone down with me at this point. We didn't know what we were doing. I knew Baja Access Roads, and Race Course, and stuff like that. Mike had never been to Baja before in his life. He'd never been out of the country, I don't think, actually. I went down for the Mexican 1000 in 2017 and met LSAO, met Mike Perlman, and they were super excited to have extra rock crawlers on the team because, let's face it, we know how to recover things because we get ourselves some situations that we have to know how to recover from. One thing led to another and got invited back to be on the sweep teams the next year. I don't remember the exact chain of events, but basically, I took over being crew chief for the sweep teams in about 2019 and started planning the sweep plan for all 10 teams as they move down race course.

[01:34:43.310] - Val Douglas

As we leap frog down to make sure that the race course is clear, we don't leave anybody out there overnight. Got involved with that, and LSA and Mike approached me. They're like, Hey, we heard you run social media. At this point, I'd started my own business to do social media marketing as a consulting agency. I'm like, yeah. They're like, Are you any good? I'm like, I'm pretty okay, I think. I mean, people make money, so I think I'm okay. They're like, Well, can you take over our social media? I'm like, Sure, just I need access to that and I need content to post photos, videos, stuff like that, graphics. They're like, Oh, you don't do that. I'm like, Guys, I run the sweep team. I'm the last car on course. The only thing I have photos and video of us is of us, actually. People that are broke down. Yeah, we're winching them back onto a trailer or something like that. It's not stuff that people really want to see from a race other than, yay, we had a hero that rescued us in the middle of nowhere. I took over social media for them, then actually took over their entire media a couple of years ago.

[01:36:00.620] - Val Douglas

Let's see, 2021, we decided that we wanted to start Nora TV. I had been doing live videos with GenRide, I'm on a tech talk with Tony for several months at that point, and gone through all the trials and tribulations of what a live show is on Facebook and YouTube. So I knew what to do there, so we started Nora TV, brought in some locals from Insinata to help out with that, the filming and the production. And it actually turned out to be really cool because we partnered with one of the universities there in Insanada to help produce the show. And then they realized that they needed a director of media and somebody to be the media wrangler, for lack of a better term. Basically, keep everybody in mind, make sure that they're staying away from racecourse, make sure that they understand where they can and can't be, and cannot be on the outside of a turn, stuff like that. Produce a video to show everybody. Don't do stupid stuff basically while you're out taking photos and video, which is very, very important because we never want anybody to get hit by flying debris or a vehicle themselves.

[01:37:19.110] - Val Douglas

I took over that aspect as well. I wear a few different hats at Nora right now, which is keeping me on my toes, and it's a ton of fun. Absolutely love all aspects of Nora. By far, it is the most fun I have ever had desert racing. I've been almost at every single type of desert race there is, from the Mint 400 to King of the Hammers and Baha 1000, the code races, all of those. They're great time, but Nora is the happiest race on Earth for a reason. It's just a giant family. It reminds me a lot of We Rock, where everybody is still family and everybody helps each other out. The vehicles broke down, everybody pitches in on different teams to help fix that vehicle so they could get to the next Super Special and continue on the race. That's what I love about Nora, and it's just really a different experience from most racing experiences out there.

[01:38:27.140] - Big Rich Klein

Cool. What's next for you guys?

[01:38:33.320] - Val Douglas

Oh, gosh.

[01:38:34.600] - Big Rich Klein

What's next? What do you think? Do you have long-range plans besides maybe tying the knot with Mike?

[01:38:41.430] - Val Douglas

Yeah. Because I'm at my parents' house right now, I'm looking on the walls here, and my racing actually started way back in the day with Hillclims in Colorado. My dad was the race director for the Lands and Hillclimb back in the '80s and '90s. And I actually took over that race in '98 and '99 as the race director, and I still assist with making that race happen. But right now, the race only goes halfway up the mountain, and our goal is to get it all the way back to the top like it was in its heyday when my dad used to be the race director for it. For those of you that don't know what the Lans in Hillclim is, it is a sister race to Pikes Peak Hillclim. There's a whole Hillclim Association here in Colorado. They have 4-5 races a year all on dirt. They're all uphill mostly, and you've got all different kinds of cars racing them from stock cars to... They even have side-by-sides, open wheel cars, trucks, you name it. They race during hill climbs. But I'd like to help the current race directors get this race back up to the top of the mountain.

[01:39:58.960] - Val Douglas

It only takes money, of course.

[01:40:01.620] - Big Rich Klein

It does and everything.

[01:40:03.160] - Val Douglas

Does and everything. Yes, it's that land-use fee to get it to the top that's always been an obstacle for them. I'd like to see the lands and hill climb back to the top of this mountain. Five miles right now of it is what they race, and it's entertaining five miles. But when you get to the top of this mountain… Again, I think I have a thing for hairpin switchbacks, but that's what the top of this mountain is like, and it is single lane at the top, all dirt. It's about 10.2 miles, so four miles less than what Pikes Peak is. But yeah, back in its day, we had Rick and Roger Mears racing here. We had Uncers racing here when my dad was race director. When I was race director, we actually made it a King of the Hammars qualifier race, which was highly entertaining to see those vehicles put 33-inch tires on it and go on dirt roads at really fast speeds. But when J. T. Taylor learned how to really drive at high speeds with full hydro. But yeah, I'd like to... That's one of my long-term goals is to get this race back to the top of this mountain just so that I could say, yeah, I helped them out and made that happen.

[01:41:30.080] - Val Douglas

It's really cool right now because the race director is actually Paul Dahlenbach and his buddy, Chip, and same Dahlenbach as Wally Dahlenbach Jr, that used to race NASCAR, and is an advertiser. So we've got the right people in place. We just got to, like I said, find the money to make that happen.

[01:41:52.770] - Big Rich Klein

Well, I hope that happens.

[01:41:55.870] - Val Douglas

Yeah. Otherwise, I'd like to finish my house at some point. The house we bought, I pretty much gutted. Well, it's been three years, and I still don't have a floor in the basement, but whatever. It's totally fine. Just the basement. It's totally fine. There you go.

[01:42:17.320] - Big Rich Klein

Well, Val, I want to say thank you so much for spending the time the second time and doing this. It went completely different than the first time did. I think we actually did better the second time.

[01:42:31.900] - Val Douglas

I would agree.

[01:42:32.610] - Big Rich Klein

I think it was good. I really enjoyed your stories.

[01:42:37.820] - Val Douglas

Well, I hope everybody else enjoys them. Done a lot over the years. It's crazy to talk about them and think back to some of the stuff that I've been out with you, I've been out with other people, all the other stuff we didn't even get to.

[01:42:53.360] - Big Rich Klein

Talk about. Right. We could talk for another hour and 45 minutes.

[01:42:57.700] - Val Douglas

Exactly. Yeah, because we didn't even touch base on the five times Aries K-O-H.

[01:43:01.780] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, there you go. Well, we did say the name not to be mentioned, and then we did mention him. It's all good. I know. All right, Val, you take care. Say hello to Mike for me, and I'll let you know when this is going to air.

[01:43:20.190] - Val Douglas

Awesome.

[01:43:20.800] - Big Rich Klein

Thanks, Rich. Okay, you take care. Okay, bye-bye. Bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email, or a text message, or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you would think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gust of you can. Thank you.