Conversations with Big Rich
Hear conversations with the legacy stars of rockcrawling and off-road. Big Rich interviews the leaders in rock sports.
Conversations with Big Rich
John James, D-Toy, on Episode 221.
Meet the Desert Rat in his Desert Toy, John James, D-Toy in the old Pirate days shares his history in rock-crawling. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
3:57 – We learned how to fight early, and we were little guys, so if one us got in a fight, both of us got in a fight.
15:09 – one of the best things I did, not just going to school in Phoenix, but just moving to Phoenix, it was literally the biggest city I’d ever seen, and living there on my own with my parents six hours away, life lessons!
21:05 – the most awesome part about Pirate 4x4 was the diverse amount of people I met
29:28 – my brother still talks about Lion’s Pride Park, holding on to a ski rope and being lawn darted over the top of this rise
38:20 – it was an off-road race with these clapped out Toyotas all the way to Wrecking Ball
49:42 – Marlin was good at a lot of things, but competing in rock crawling wasn’t one of them, I think his mind just went too fast – I thought, I could drive that rig for him!
58:49 – Back then it was such a foreign thing to do all the Hammer trails in a day, I had an advantage, I knew where they all were.
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
All Automotive with Matt Clawson
Automotive related topics. Anything from owning an repair facility to racing. Anything...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
[00:00:01.040]
Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road 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 off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.
[00:00:45.280]
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.
[00:01:13.020]
Have you seen 4Low magazine yet? 4low 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 4LOWmagazine.com to order your subscription today.
[00:01:39.470] - Big Rich Klein
On today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, my guest has been a friend for about 24 years. The first Tin Benders Club member that I met, he helped me locate and secure our first Cal Rocks Season event site, known as Lion's Pride Park. He competed in the F-Toy class and known on pirate 4x4 as DToy or Desert Toy. Jon James, so happy to have you on the podcast. How are you doing?
[00:02:07.960] - John James
I'm doing great, Rich. Thank you for having me.
[00:02:10.550] - Big Rich Klein
And the handle was Desert Toy, right?
[00:02:13.880] - John James
Yes, Desert Toy.
[00:02:15.100] - Big Rich Klein
But I remember everybody used to say DToy.
[00:02:18.590] - John James
Yes.
[00:02:19.660] - Big Rich Klein
Cool. So let's start at the very beginning. And where were you born and raised?
[00:02:28.010] - John James
I was born in Fontana, California, Kaiser Hospital. My dad had just became a San Bernardino County Sheriff. So by the time I was one year old, we moved to 29 Palms, where my dad was a resident deputy.
[00:02:45.370] - Big Rich Klein
And you have a brother, but are you the oldest?
[00:02:49.030] - John James
No. My brother Mark is ten and a half months older than I am.
[00:02:53.350] - Big Rich Klein
Wow. Not a whole lot of time between those.
[00:02:56.740] - John James
No, they got with it.
[00:02:59.920] - Big Rich Klein
Ten and a half months. Okay. And that's Mark, right?
[00:03:04.600] - John James
Yes.
[00:03:06.500] - Big Rich Klein
And from 29 Palms, how long were you there?
[00:03:12.300] - John James
29 Palms, I think we migrated to Yucca Valley because it's one area in the Morango Basin over there. My dad was a resident deputy and I think a detective. In, I think, 1979, he got promoted to sergeant in a place called Lucerne Valley, which I had never heard of at the time. I was 12. And so we moved to Lucerne Valley. And that's where my parents, my mom, still lives. And I live in Apple Valley, which is an adjacent town. Right.
[00:03:48.220] - Big Rich Klein
And what was it like growing up in that high desert area? I mean, it's wide open.
[00:03:57.530] - John James
It's wide open. I mean, It's easy to say there's nothing to do, but my brother and I were of similar age and similar interests, so we just became desert rats. My dad was a local cop, so that was a little rough at times. We had to learn how to fight early, and we were little guys. And so where one of us had gotten a fight, we both got in a fight just to keep things going. And naturally, we became off-roaders. My dad had a FJ40 Toyota Land Cruiser that he'd put a small-block Chevy in. And so when he wasn't being a cop, we were fishing and hunting and going to the river. And my dad loved going camping. We spent a lot of time in Baha. So growing up, that's what we did. We literally rode vehicles from our We didn't have a trailer to to them around with, because we can just write them from the front door.
[00:05:06.950] - Big Rich Klein
Right. And was him being a cop more of an issue when you were in Yucca Valley, 29 Palms area?
[00:05:17.860] - John James
No, because we were pretty young then. When we moved to Lucerne, like I said, I was 12. So we went to junior high in high school when we lived in Lucerne Valley. And that was when it was rough, because there was kids our age that was getting into trouble, and we were the local cops kids. And they took it out on you. And it was a small town. Yeah, and it was a small town, so everybody knew everybody.
[00:05:42.140] - Big Rich Klein
It's still a small town.
[00:05:44.020] - John James
Yes. I called the One Horse Town, yes.
[00:05:46.700] - Big Rich Klein
One Horse Town. Then, school back then, was it something you enjoyed?
[00:05:58.450] - John James
I'm not going to say I It's something I got through. From early on, I figured out what auto shop was, and that was my place. Yeah, that was the only thing I really enjoyed. My brother and I were in the band, and that was fun. But in high school, I figured out auto shop was the place I wanted to be, and so I migrated towards that. I excelled there, and I just got through the rest of high school.
[00:06:31.590] - Big Rich Klein
So you said you were in band. What instrument?
[00:06:35.230] - John James
Trumpet.
[00:06:35.950] - Big Rich Klein
Trumpet, okay.
[00:06:37.490] - John James
Yeah.
[00:06:39.740] - Big Rich Klein
Interesting. And did you play sports while you were in school at all?
[00:06:47.790] - John James
No, I wasn't. Like I said, I was a little guy. You wouldn't know it now, but I think when I graduated high school, I weighed about 125 pounds, and I was barely 5'4 or something. So yeah, sports didn't really do anything for me. I was more of a motorhead. I like to go home and take things apart. And as we got our driver's licenses and got into driving, drag racing was the thing. That was my first thing I got into is drag racing.
[00:07:25.640] - Big Rich Klein
What was your first car?
[00:07:28.620] - John James
Well, our first car, my brother and I had to share it. It was a '65 Dodge Dart four-door wagon that my grandma gave us. Certainly, it wasn't fast or not even something you'd like to fix up. But we were young then. I I'll tell you the absolute truth, Rich, the funnest thing to do when we were 15, 16 was to take that Dodge start and drive as fast as we could down dirt roads and throw the spare tire out the rear and see what it would do. You'd be surprised what a tire would do at 60 miles an hour tree.
[00:08:06.190] - Big Rich Klein
That was a real check magnet.
[00:08:08.780] - John James
Oh, yeah, totally. But then slowly, we got a little older, and my My brother got a '68 Camaro. I think I had a '72 Plymouth satellite, and probably at the end of high school. And we were screwing around. It was big in Apple Valley to go to Corwin Road and Drag Race in the evening on the weekends. And my brother with this '68 Camaro, we fixed it up. Through Auto Shop, I figured out how to rebuild motors. And we met the local Hot Rodders in Lucerne Valley, the guy that owned the '76 station, Bob Bryant, and he introduced us to bracket racing and stuff like that. And so we built my brother's '68 Camaro in something that was halfway fast, and we would race it out at Corwin Road on weekends. We had a blast doing that.
[00:09:02.650] - Big Rich Klein
And that was just like grudge racing, no lights or nothing sanctioned, right? No. Like street outlaw's beginning?
[00:09:09.860] - John James
Yes. It was literally run from the cops, and we'd go to the Plaza in Vicarville. Which was your dad? No, my dad was in Lucerne. Luckily, he would hear about what we would do. But luckily, we tried to leave before the cops actually got a hold of us. Because the problem is, if they did get a hold of us, they who we were. So it was actually worse.
[00:09:33.520] - Big Rich Klein
Right. Exactly. And so, how long did you guys street race like that?
[00:09:42.510] - John James
Well, I ended up buying trading that and ended up with that Camaro of my brothers. And I kept that thing probably till the mid-1990s. I did a bunch of work for it, with and narrowed it. I took it to Phoenix with me when I moved to Phoenix for a short period and raced it out there and probably got rid of it in the '90s. Actually, I took the engine and trans out of it, put it in a sandrail, and raced sandbags for a while.
[00:10:17.260] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, that's quite cool. Yeah. Down in the Phoenix area?
[00:10:22.300] - John James
No, it was still here down in Glen Helen. But you get in a lot less trouble with a sandrail than you do with a street car.
[00:10:30.730] - Big Rich Klein
Right. Right. Especially if you're at a track area, an actual track. Yeah. Or or someplace like that.
[00:10:38.430] - John James
Right.
[00:10:40.410] - Big Rich Klein
So then you graduated What, mid '80s?
[00:10:48.370] - John James
Yeah, 1984.
[00:10:49.160] - Big Rich Klein
'84, okay. Did you work while you were in school?
[00:10:56.110] - John James
Yeah, I worked at a local place called Albert's Automotive in Lucerne Valley. Working on cars. The guy Albert paid me $20 a day, and I loved it. Learned everything I didn't know from auto shop. I learned from Albert. And from there, I figured out I either want to be a mechanic or a firefighter. And at the time, you would know it now, but at the time, firefighters didn't get paid very well. I decided to be a mechanic. I signed up for Universal Technical Institute in Phoenix and went through their auto diesel program in 1985.
[00:11:37.570] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. And that's what got you to move to Phoenix?
[00:11:42.040] - John James
Yeah. That's the first time I moved to Phoenix was in 1985 and stayed there for a little over a year.
[00:11:49.510] - Big Rich Klein
While you were going to school, did you work there as well?
[00:11:53.620] - John James
Oh, yeah. I had a bunch of different jobs. I just couldn't bring myself to work in the food industry or anything like that. I worked at Kenny Pinscher Auto Parts and Goodyear Tire Store, and I loved it. It was a good time. My parents paid my rent. My grandma sent me $100 a week. Or a month, which didn't sound like much, but it was enough then. I was able to get a job for screw off money. And if I needed to go home for Christmas or something and my boss didn't want to let me, I would just quit and get another job when I got back. I mean, it was great. I ended up working for Sears as a battery installer, which was the best paying job I had while I was there, paid 410 an hour. And when I graduated from UTI, I used my 15 % company discount to buy my first set of tools, which was a Craftsman 575 piece tool set.
[00:12:53.380] - Big Rich Klein
Nice. Now it's hard to warranty those tools.
[00:12:57.650] - John James
Yeah, it is. I still have a lot of them, believe it or not.
[00:13:03.570] - Big Rich Klein
Well, Craftsman actually had some pretty damn good tools back then.
[00:13:07.370] - John James
I agree. I agree. And that was too cheap to buy all Snap on. But yeah, I still have them.
[00:13:14.290] - Big Rich Klein
Not cheap, smart.
[00:13:16.290] - John James
Yeah, that's true.
[00:13:19.500] - Big Rich Klein
So then you worked as a battery installer at Sears. Did you stay there long?
[00:13:25.470] - John James
No, it was probably four or six months.
[00:13:29.660] - Big Rich Klein
Okay and just worked the whole time as a battery installer? I know when I went to work at Sears, it was in the '70s, but I spent a week on the battery floor. Then they moved me to tires, and then when they realized I could do more, they moved me to the exhaust shop and then to breaks, and then doing front-end work.
[00:13:52.710] - John James
No, I stayed in the battery. I stayed in the battery area, and I think they figured out I can do a little more. So I did some alternator changes, and shocks, and random stuff like that.
[00:14:06.280] - Big Rich Klein
Very good. So then, after working at Albert's, Then Sears? Or you went to college? I went to UTI, and I graduated from UTI in late '85, I think, and moved back home to Lucerne and got a job in which is an adjacent town, Apple Valley, as a diesel mechanic. That's better than 410 an hour.
[00:14:40.160] - John James
Yeah, let me think about that. I think my boss said, I usually hire people for six bucks an hour, but I'm going to hire you for seven because you went through that school. So it was then I realized, wow, the guy at UTI told me I'd be making 35 when I got out of here. So I think he was misleading me.
[00:15:03.300] - Big Rich Klein
Thirty-five an hour, huh?
[00:15:04.950] - John James
Yeah.
[00:15:05.780] - Big Rich Klein
I guess you needed to be in the right location.
[00:15:09.230] - John James
Yeah, exactly. And I was a naive kid. It's one thing growing up at Lucerne Valley You didn't learn the big world. I mean, one of the best things I did, not just going to school in Phoenix, but just moving to Phoenix. I mean, that was literally the biggest city I've ever seen, and living there on my own with a with my parents six hours away, life lessons.
[00:15:35.860] - Big Rich Klein
Right. And what did you guys do for entertainment when you were in college?
[00:15:46.550] - John James
I was a motorhead among motorheads, so it was great. I mean, we would hang out on the weekends at the Arbees and a drag race. I mean, I had a '72 Plymouth satellite light. That blew the motor up on the way home from California once. So I built a small block 360 with a mild cam in it and changed the gear ratio, I think. It made it a little peppy. So we've drag raced on the weekends and fix them up during the week. And that was back when I was learning how bad of an idea it was to have one vehicle that you modified, that you still had to drive to school and work every day. So needless to say, I spent a lot of time on the side of the road working on cars.
[00:16:38.060] - Big Rich Klein
That's not a bad thing later on in life.
[00:16:43.020] - John James
You're right. You're right. You know I learned how to fix things on a whim with Bayland wire and duct tape, that's for sure.
[00:16:51.350] - Big Rich Klein
As we lived on the road, traveling to and from events, having those skills of patching Trail fixes, you might say, but roadside fixes, was invaluable in getting to and from where we needed to go to do events.
[00:17:12.720] - John James
Yeah, and I grew up that way. Like I said, My dad was a cop, but he loved camping. And so we were always going somewhere in motor homes and four-wheel drives, and we broke down constantly. I remember talking to my brother. I'm like, Do you remember breaking down constantly when we We were kids? Yeah. I mean, I remember in Baja, we pulled the driveline out of our motorhome and we literally walked till we got picked up by a local Mexican that didn't speak English. We didn't speak Spanish. They took us to a place and we found a U joint to fix the driveline in the motorhome. Then we hitchhiked back. This is when I was 14 or 15. But yeah, constantly, bailing wire duct tape. Right.
[00:18:03.060] - Big Rich Klein
And then you graduated to zip ties at some point?
[00:18:06.230] - John James
Yeah, zip ties and onboard welders.
[00:18:09.360] - Big Rich Klein
Right. So when did the... Besides motorcycle, when did the off-road bug bite?
[00:18:19.470] - John James
Well, growing up in Lucerne, back in the '80s, that's when they had this fire cracker 250. And SCOR would come into Lucerne Valley once a with all their glory. And the start finish line was in the middle of town and contingency. And that's back when Ivan Stewart was big and Dave Shop and Walker Evans. And that was my introduction to off road racing, and it was awesome. And that's where you get the, wow, I would love to do this at some point. And later on in life, living out in the desert, we would go to races and bring a couple of twelve packs of beer and just sit there and watch races. And next thing you know, a racer pull up and tell us to change your tire. So that was great. I love doing that. And later on, Let's see. I mean, I was racing in motor cycles and stuff as a kid, and I found out right out of high school, as soon as I became a truck mechanic and I started making a little money that I like building things. I like building, even now, I like building things just as much as I like driving things.
[00:19:39.040] - John James
So I think I started slowly building modifying my cars, and I got away from drag racing and got into sandrails for a while, building sandrails and realized my hate for Voxwagens because I can't tell you how many Voxwagens I blew up. And then migrated in Toyotas, and I took a '85 two-wheel drive Toyota pickup and made it a four-wheel. No, I didn't make it a four-wheel drive. I made it into a pre-runner, made all new A arms because you couldn't buy anything back there. I couldn't afford it anyways. Made it into a pre-runner, put shocks through the hood, put Ivan Stewart fiber glass all over it, and just beat on it out in the desert for a while. And that was about the time that I realized when computers were coming on in the late '90s, that I think there's a website called Pirate 4x4, and it's really interesting. So it took me a while, I mean, honestly, to figure out how to log on. And that was back when it wasn't a forum like it is now. It was just a bunch of lines. It was really hard to figure out back in the early days and slowly figured out, hey, these guys are in the off-roading in four-wheel drives.
[00:21:05.940] - John James
And that's how I grew up. So I eventually converted my two-wheel drive pickup into a four-wheel drive and figured, Well, they do all this out in Johnson Valley, and Johnson Valley is 30 minutes away. So I thought that was probably a better idea. So I converted my Toyota and started going to high desert Roundup There's an event out there that's still going on now. The Mourango Valley Search and Rescue puts on a yearly event for a fundraiser. And I went out to that and you start meeting people. I mean, it The most awesome part about pirate is the diverse amount of people I met.
[00:21:50.060] - Big Rich Klein
Right. Exactly. That and then eventually all the information that is stored on that site.
[00:21:59.600] - John James
It was just awesome.
[00:22:03.590] - Big Rich Klein
So we met in, well, it was the break between 2001, New Year's, 2001, 2002. I had put on the first Cal Rocks event in November, put up or shut up, and I had secured a location right outside of Apple Valley that was, what was it called, Dead Man's Point? Yes. And the owner of that property, who was a real estate agent, was really cool up until three months before the event started. I mean, it happened in December. All of a sudden, he wanted all the information, all the driver's names and information and phone numbers, contact information. He wanted to know my insurance and how that all worked And he wanted to know everything. And I said, Hey, you sound more like a partner, not a property. I'm rent property from you. And he goes, Well, maybe I want to be a partner. And I said, Well, maybe you need to start your own event series. And I turned around and walked out. I would have loved to use that piece of property. But then I was three months away from doing the first series event, in the second event I'd ever put on, and I had no location.
[00:23:28.810] - Big Rich Klein
And Bob Rogge and I were heading to... We headed down to Johnson Valley for New Year's, and we came across this group of guys, the Ten Benders, and some of the shenanigans that you guys were involved with. And that's where I met you and we found that location.
[00:23:55.800] - John James
Yeah. Where was Put Up or Shut Up?
[00:23:59.530] - Big Rich Klein
That was at Lake Amador.
[00:24:01.510] - John James
Okay, so I didn't go to that.
[00:24:02.960] - Big Rich Klein
It was right outside of Sacramento, about 40 miles.
[00:24:05.870] - John James
That was back in the early days. And so, yeah, I mean, I don't know. You didn't want to have an event out in Johnson Valley because the BLM was such a problem to deal with, I think.
[00:24:16.520] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, they were difficult. It took too long to get it going. Yeah. They wanted a minimum of six months.
[00:24:22.610] - John James
Yeah. So my parents were heavily involved in the Lion’s Club in Lucerne Valley, and I know they had I don't know, 50 acres out there, butted up against the rocks. I thought, No, it's worth going to look at. You went and looked at it and I thought, I don't know if there's enough rocks out there for this. But you guys have a way of finding the mildest terrain and making it really hard.
[00:24:50.740] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, we can do that, can't we?
[00:24:55.120] - John James
Yeah. That was actually my first rock crawling event.
[00:24:58.570] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. Did Did you compete in that event? Yes. Okay. Pre-f toy then.
[00:25:07.090] - John James
Pre-f toy, my Toyota pickup that I converted into four-wheel drive, I'd fix it up and I'd put a lot of money into it. In fact, I had shortened the back of the bed, I don't know, a foot and a half, and shortened the frame a foot and a half. So the bed on it was only about four feet long. My goal was to get it in for a wheel and off-road magazine. And I ended up doing that. But as soon as the magazine came out, I took a sawzall of that thing, cut the cab off, and I bought a tubing vendor, and I made my first rig. And that was the rig I competed at We Rock.
[00:25:47.210] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:25:48.440] - John James
And it was the ugliest thing, but it wheeled really well. And oh, and Camo was my spotter.
[00:25:57.070] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, really? Eric. Yeah. Yeah. Camo.
[00:26:00.590] - John James
And it was, I don't know, it must have been June or something. It was really hot, but he ended up, because he's from the beach area, that desert sun got to him pretty quick. And he ended up having to bow out, and my brother ended up finishing spotting for me.
[00:26:17.290] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, that was an interesting event site and competition. I can remember going through and dealing with San Bernardino County, and they required They required us to have the CHP, and then the CHP out of Victorville wanted us to... We had to pay $50 an hour, I think it was, 49.50 an hour or something like that for the guy to sit out at the highway. But they also wanted me to pay for the mileage and his time doing rounds while the event was going on. And I'm like, wait a minute. I'm paying so that he's out at the corner for traffic control, but I'm going to pay for him to drive around and do patrolling as well? I said, I don't think so. I'll pay for the amount of time he's sitting on that corner when the event starts and at the end. And we hashed that and argued over that. I ended up not paying for his time going out and doing the patrol. But other things that happened were like, Oh, we had the courses set up in the first day. A lot of guys, it was the first rock crawl there besides the Jeff Knowles, whatever he called his thing down at his ranch.
[00:27:48.150] - Big Rich Klein
And so we had a lot of people show up, and we had three or four guys with just the most beautiful Jeeps with gorgeous paint jobs. And I I looked at the rigs and I said, I don't know if you guys really want to do this. Oh, yeah, we wheel everywhere. We go all over Johnson Valley and we do all this. Said, okay. And I remember the first guy gets up on the rocks on the sea course, courses, so the easiest courses. And he gets up there and he's just through the start line, getting up to the first gate, and he's getting a little off camber, and he called for recovery to get him off of there. And the second guy drove in, his buddy, going, Oh, I can get that, and got about 10 feet farther and called for recovery. And then the four guys all quit, with two guys not even getting on the rocks. And it was like, Yeah, this is dumb. I can't believe you would put force cars into doing things like this. And I'm like, It's a competition. That's what we do.
[00:28:56.550] - John James
Well, yeah, you were pouring the people back then. I mean, The fact that we would intentionally roll these things and drive them on their sides. I think I finished two courses on my starter because my fuel pump kept dying at your event. Rolled it upside down, and that's back when the spotter could hang all off of it and everything. It was great.
[00:29:22.740] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, it was a little more... The spotter had to be more of a gymnast.
[00:29:28.890] - John James
Yeah, my brother still talks about that, holding on to a ski rope and being lawn darted over the top of this little rise.
[00:29:35.980] - Big Rich Klein
You need to let go of that ski rope eventually. That's why it has a handle.
[00:29:42.630] - John James
Yeah.
[00:29:44.330] - Big Rich Klein
So it was really great working with your dad. I really enjoyed knowing him. That was Jim, right? Jimmy James. Yeah. And he was quite the man. Pretty cool.
[00:29:59.280] - John James
Yes. Yeah, he was. And that was great back in the early days. And they still talk about that, of me and all the old timers at the Lions Club.
[00:30:07.110] - Big Rich Klein
Really? Yeah. That's interesting. I don't know if the terrain would hold the vehicles nowadays?
[00:30:17.080] - John James
No, not nowadays.
[00:30:19.330] - Big Rich Klein
That's for sure. Yeah, those unlimited buggies would probably school everything out there.
[00:30:26.280] - John James
Yeah, pretty much.
[00:30:28.860] - Big Rich Klein
So what was You were working as a diesel mechanic, and how long did that particular job last?
[00:30:38.070] - John James
That lasted a couple of years, and they opened up a terminal in Phoenix, and so I moved back to Phoenix for a couple of years and started up a terminal there. Then I ended up moving back home because my family still lived back here. Went to work for a similar company in Fontana for a while. I stayed as a diesel mechanic for, I don't know, 25 years.
[00:31:14.980] - Big Rich Klein
Now, when I met you, I think you were working for James Gang?
[00:31:20.440] - John James
No, that's my company currently. I think when you met me, I was working for a company called Iron Horse.
[00:31:26.690] - Big Rich Klein
Iron Horse, okay.
[00:31:27.470] - John James
And then I worked for 17 years, I worked for a company called Dalton Trucking. That was probably Dalton.
[00:31:33.100] - Big Rich Klein
Dalton, that's the one. Yes. Yeah.
[00:31:36.110] - John James
And we actually shipped some containers back from Australia for you. Oh, yeah. And unload them at our yard in Atlanta and brought all those crazy Australians to that Henderson, Nevada event.
[00:31:51.670] - Big Rich Klein
And then after Henderson- After Henderson, we went to John.
[00:31:56.820] - John James
We actually took those guys, my My son, Luke, he was, I'm going to guess he was five or six. And he went with me and we happened to drive one of Dalton's old Peterbilt cabovers, go to 48-foot flat bed. God, we had five rigs on that thing. They were stacked, pumped up on each other to fit them on there. And after the vent, half of those rigs were broke down. So we drove back to my house in Apple Valley, and those crazy Australians worked all night getting everything back together because they weren't leaving here without going to Johnson Valley. So the next morning, we took them out to Johnson Valley.
[00:32:39.540] - Big Rich Klein
And I can remember the party out there, wheeling with those guys. I want to say there was maybe some Roman candles involved, and not just shooting them in the air.
[00:32:57.270] - John James
They wanted to feel the Johnson Valley Hammers experience. And back then, the tin benders were in full sling, that's for sure. So I think we gave them the full experience.
[00:33:09.040] - Big Rich Klein
I think there was a full experience there. That's for sure.
[00:33:14.230] - John James
Yeah.
[00:33:15.760] - Big Rich Klein
So let's talk about the tin benders and how that all came about. Well, yeah, let's talk that first.
[00:33:22.850] - John James
So like I told you, I got on to pirate four by four. I don't know how I got on to it or it out, or found it, but I ended up on there. And of course, Rob, I think Camo was the first one out of the Ridgecrest network to get brought into the tin benders. It had to do with the Surprise Canyon. I was just building my rig, and I literally never been to Surprise Canyon. The last trip, I think Camo was on, Marlin was on, everybody was on the last I was literally installing a winch on my front bumper that weekend, so I chose not to go, and I regret that to this day. But yeah, that's a... Camo was the first one in the 10 vendors, and he threw... I didn't know him from Adam. I met him through pirate, and I still never met him. He said, Hey, the ten vendors are coming out to Johnson Valley. Why don't you meet us out there? I had just put dual transfer cases in my Toyota and Detroit Locker's front and rear, and I wanted to go because I've been growing up in Johnson Valley my whole life.
[00:34:41.720] - John James
I knew exactly where the Hammer Trails were, but I've never been on them. I was pretty intimidated, but I met them out there, and that's when I met Rob, Bender, Jerry, Fat Kid, and Camo, and half a dozen other guys that aren't around anymore. We went up, I think we went up Sledge Hammer. That was the first event that I met all the 10 Benders, and that's how I got in.
[00:35:12.550] - Big Rich Klein
Nice. Were you married at that point?
[00:35:17.310] - John James
I mean, it was right there. That time period is when I got married, so probably barely right there.
[00:35:26.540] - Big Rich Klein
And how did you meet your wife?
[00:35:29.480] - John James
Michelle was a friend of a friend living down in Long Beach.
[00:35:34.120] - Big Rich Klein
I just thought- And you were able to drag her out of Long Beach to go to the high desert? She had...
[00:35:40.070] - John James
Her parents lived up here also. Oh, okay. All right. And I think she got tired of the rat race down there. She was living in an apartment in Vicarville and didn't like living by herself. So I had just bought a house in Apple Valley, a 2000 square foot house, living by myself. So A friend of a friend put us together as I needed a roommate. The funny thing is, I think she only paid rent like two months. Then she kept living there and she didn't have to pay anymore for some reason.
[00:36:17.060] - Big Rich Klein
She's never moved out.
[00:36:19.000] - John James
No, she's never moved out. We joined the Ten Benders, and the nice part about the Ten Benders is a bunch of crazy guys, that's for sure, but they're all family guys. So Motley Crue, that's for sure. But Michelle took a liking to all of them. They took a liking to her and all their wives, and it literally became a huge family.
[00:36:52.710] - Big Rich Klein
Right. And they were pretty instrumental in opening a lot of trails down in the camera area.
[00:37:04.190] - John James
It was the craziest thing. I didn't even realize what we were doing at the time. I wish I could have a do-over. I would probably pay a lot more attention to what was actually going on there. But I was just happy to be there. And as you know, the 10 vendors had a crazy reputation, and I don't know if it was deserved or not, but I was definitely one of the more ones in the club. But the Rob Parks of the World made it entertaining for the whole world. And the invention of digital cameras, so we could bring it home on Monday and show everybody. But yeah, it was one of those things that we would just show up out there. I don't know, Camo and Mike Hendrix and all those guys that drove five or six hours to get here. That was the crazy part. I live really close, so it was easy for me to show up. But we would meet out there twice a month, at least. And we would just sit there and talk about things, and somebody out of the blue would say, Let's go to Wrecking Ball. And man, it was on.
[00:38:20.860] - John James
It was as fast as you can get in your rig and get ready. And we'd wait until everybody was ready, and we'd all take off at the same time. And man, it was entertaining and scary at the same time because the camos of the world, they had one, no fear, and didn't care if they spent a bunch of money. So you get too close to them, they'd flip you. So I would spend the whole time going as fast as I could to get away from those guys so they wouldn't ram me. And I didn't like being in the back. So it was an off-road race with these clapped-out ass Toyotas us all the way to Wrecking Ball. And then we throw it in double low and start up the trail. And we all had a common hatred for the average Jeep trail to where everybody get out and spot each other over each obstacle. It would take a day to go a mile. So we would talk shit and heckle each other and throw out the winch rope and roll each other purposely. And then we'd drive over each other. And it was it was awesome.
[00:39:35.680] - John James
So you didn't want to have anything nice, that's for sure.
[00:39:44.080] - Big Rich Klein
I can remember the first time that I met you guys on that New Year's Eve weekend or whenever that period that we were down there. I had hung out with the pirates at that point, but they were We're up on the Rubicon and in the trees, and we get down there, and there is no tree. There was a cell phone Bush later on.
[00:40:09.160] - John James
The phone Bush, the wife's time.
[00:40:11.340] - Big Rich Klein
That was the biggest thing out there.
[00:40:12.570] - John James
That's still there, by the way.
[00:40:12.950] - Big Rich Klein
It's still there. But I can remember those sitting around and everybody going, Okay, time to go. And we were in Bob's Commando, which there wasn't a whole lot Commando on it, even though it was a Jeep. But he drove it like it was one of your guys' clapped out Toyotas, as you said. And it was, I think we met also that weekend. We may have met the S&N FAB guys from Washington might have been down there that same weekend, Jason Conover and and Ken and some of those guys. So it was quite the group.
[00:40:59.650] - John James
I I was just trying to remember those guys last night as I was thinking to myself, I'm going to have to remember from the early days, and I couldn't remember that guy, Jason Conover's name, because the rear suspension of my rig was a quarter elliptic dual triangulated four link. And I modeled it after something he had built. I never even heard a quarter elliptic until I seen a rig he had built. And then I put one together and copied the back of his rig and then made a dual triangulated four link, obviously. But I couldn't remember that guy's name. He was an innovator for sure.
[00:41:39.610] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, yes, absolutely. That was S&N FAB, Sweating Nipples Off-Road Team. Some of the names of clubs back then were just awesome.
[00:41:50.520] - John James
Yeah.
[00:41:51.160] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. So then, that was quite the weekend. It reminded me of the Mad Max movie, Drive driving across the Lakebed on the way to the trails, all the dust trails, and as you said, the not so pretty and straight rigs. It just reminded me of, like some of the scenes from Thunderdome or something.
[00:42:18.010] - John James
Yeah, it was awesome. The only advantage I had over those guys is I knew where the trailhead was, and most of those guys couldn't remember. So even if they could get ahead me, they wouldn't stay ahead of me for long because they literally didn't know where they were going. They'd been on the trails, but the hammer trails, if you don't know where the trailhead is, it's hard to find.
[00:42:43.610] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. At one time, we were trying to find... God, I forgot what it was. And we ended up going up a trail that ended up becoming Rucking Ball.
[00:42:54.350] - John James
Yeah, that happened often.
[00:42:56.590] - Big Rich Klein
We were like a canyon over or whatever. It wasn't the canyon we wanted to be on. I can remember doing upper Big Johnson. I think it was the same weekend that it actually got broke open.
[00:43:16.500] - John James
Yeah, we would regularly leave for a night run, and we would get on the trail and start heading up it, and somebody would get on the radio and say, I don't think this is I don't think this is Jack Hammer. And we'd go a little further and, No, I think this is Claw. Just because everything looks the same at night. But we didn't care. We just keep going.
[00:43:47.320] - Big Rich Klein
So then you guys, you worked for Dalton, and then you started your own gig, right?
[00:43:57.480] - John James
Yeah, in 2012, the old man that taught me everything I know about trucking turned a company over to his two kids, and they were just uncomfortable with how big it was. I don't know, it's like a $30 million company. Their intention was to stay in the trucking business on a smaller scale, so they cut the company in half. Just the half that they got rid of was the half that I ran. It wasn't hard feelings or anything. It was mutual. I understood that it was a big monster that they just didn't want to keep going. So then I bought my first truck and became an owner operator for three and a half years.
[00:44:44.750] - Big Rich Klein
And what were you hauling, mainly?
[00:44:47.020] - John James
I use some of my contacts from Dalton because I knew I wanted to secure my own work. And I bought a 40 foot aluminum semi-in-dump trailer because they're the most universal. You can haul me anything with them. And I got a contract to haul biosolids. You know what biosolids is?
[00:45:09.520] - Big Rich Klein
No.
[00:45:10.470] - John James
It's shit. It's treated human waste. So I would haul one load a day from LA Cany Sanitation in Carson up to a compost site in Hinkley. And I would dump that out and then I would go out to an iron ore mine out in Death Valley and pick up a load of iron for C-Mex in Apple Valley. And that's what I did every day for three and a half years. And that got me started and it paid well, so I was able to save some money and buy my second truck, and hire a driver, and it just went on from there.
[00:45:53.670] - Big Rich Klein
Very good. And let's talk about those F-Toy years.
[00:46:00.960] - John James
So, Camo and Mike, Mike Hendrix, who was a tin vendor and genius, and he decided he wanted to make a production car, something he could sell. The company he had worked for, it was a machine shop, he was a shop manager. They had got gobbled up by a bigger company, so he found himself out of work. And he knew he was talented enough to have his own business. Mike started Hendrix Motorsports with an X and started designing a chassis. And then it morphed into, let's make a chassis that fits on a Toyota pickup. And this took six months or more to figure it out. And of course, he lived close to Camo, and Camo was a marketing genius. At least I thought he was. And because Camo had a way of turning commercializing. No matter what you did, he could commercialize it, and he could sell it to people and get sponsors and stuff like that. Him and Lisa Winger were great at that. But anyways, Mike developed the formula toy Chassis, and it was a great concept because at At the time, I don't know if it was five years in the rock crawling thing.
[00:47:35.410] - John James
Everybody's Toyota, we call them raisins because the bodies were so beat up, it looked like a raisin. So it was time to pull the body off and throw it away and do something else. And the formula toy chassis was the perfect answer for that. So Mike developed the formula toy, Camo marketed it. I think he went to you and And convinced you to make a class. And back then, it was Cal Rocks, right? Or was it We Rock?
[00:48:05.540] - Big Rich Klein
No, it was Cal Rocks.
[00:48:07.430] - John James
Yeah. And that's how it started. Mike and Camo built the first formula toy. And I don't know who built the second one. Maybe Steve Parker in Yucca Valley. And Todd, one of the ten vendors we call Re Todd, he built one of the first ones. I think it was five or six or something like that. And he was in the military, so he didn't have the time to join the class So Dave Cole convinced me to take Todd's formula toy, and him and I would compete it in the first year of the formula toy class. So I thought, well, heck, yeah. So we took Todd's rig, and it was the fabrication on it was questionable because it was built by him and Dave Cole. So I think it took me several weeks of cutting metal off of that thing and redoing it and to get it presentable. And we joined the Formula Toy class the first season. I don't even know. What year do you think that was, Rich?
[00:49:28.820] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, man, that's a It's a tough question. I'm going to say 2004.
[00:49:36.870] - John James
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
[00:49:39.050] - Big Rich Klein
Because 2005 is when we changed the name to We Rock.
[00:49:42.380] - John James
Okay. We joined that class, and there was 2-4 rigs the first season, I'm going to say. It was always Lisa Linker was the driver of Camo and Mike's rig, and then myself and whoever else showed up. Lisa Linker dominated that class. Her and Kevin Carey was her spotter. I couldn't beat them guys to save my life because Lisa was pretty darn good. It took me that whole first season to get good enough to where I could beat them. I think I drove Todd's rig I think the second season, too, because the second season is where people started joining the class. It started getting bigger. And Marlin Crawler, Chris Geiger, or Marlin Crawler, had convinced them to build one, and they built one and got it all together. And I think it was the second season they started. And I was pretty good at it by then, and we went all over the place. And I remember we went to Globe, Arizona, and Marlin, being the crazy guy that he is. They worked on it the night before all night and drove all night to get there. It showed up at 4:00 in the morning, got an hour's sleep, and we started on the courses at, I don't know, eight o'clock, and he was dead tired, and Marlin was good at a lot of things, but competing in rock crawling wasn't one of them, because I think his mind just goes too fast.
[00:51:27.670] - John James
So he was terrible, and he would roll the rig or time out on every course. And so I felt bad for him because he had such an awesome rig, and it was Marlin. I think we did that the first that whole second season, and he made half of the competitions. So at the end of the second season, I thought, what he needs is somebody freaking drive that rig for him, and I'm good enough, I could do it. So I took a chance, like I have several times in life, and wrote a letter, a proposal. I was a shop manager at Dalton at the time, so I knew how to write proposals. So I wrote Marlene Crawler proposal, laid out what I wanted to do and how much it would cost them, and sent it off. And a week later, Dave Carnahan called and said, I think we're going to do this. Now, later on, I found out that I think Marlin was totally against it, and so was half the guys in the shop. But Dave Carnet's hand said, No, we're going to trust this guy, and I think he could do a good job for us.
[00:52:40.910] - John James
And so that's how it started, and that's how I ended up being sponsored by Marlin Crawler for the next 10 years and competing in the Formula Toy class under Marlin Crawler.
[00:52:54.040] - Big Rich Klein
And who was your spotter?
[00:52:56.490] - John James
Well, to begin with, it was... Let me think. I think Dave was done when we got in. So it was Jerry Sparks, Fat Kid. He was a tin vendor. And I think the first season, Jerry Sparks did it. Because the first season that I had the Marlin Crawler rig, that's when we went to Henderson, Nevada. And that's when we went to... Where was it in Texas? Spring, Texas. Yes. That was like the worlds, right? Or something like that.
[00:53:29.680] - Big Rich Klein
It was National National Championship was in spring. National...
[00:53:32.920] - John James
Yeah, yeah. And Jerry, something happened, and he couldn't make it. So he quit the team right before we went to that Texas event. And that's when Hoby was in it, and Hoby's story was a great story anyways. And so we had a great time. There was a lot of good guys in the form of the toy class. We had a blast.
[00:54:00.050] - Big Rich Klein
And didn't Mustard Dog, Eric, start spotting for you? Yeah.
[00:54:06.230] - John James
No, not then. Let me think. Mustard Dog was spotting for Hoby.
[00:54:12.540] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:54:13.400] - John James
And Hoby was sponsored by Trailgear. Of course, they were our arch enemies, which that was the business end of it. In reality, Matt was a really nice guy to me, at least. I got along with Matt really good, and all of these guys. And it was friendly, stern competition with those guys. And of course, Hoby and Mr. Dogg and I were all best friends. So it was a tongue and cheek competition at best. And then I think the year after that, Hoby wasn't able to compete anymore. And so Eric, who's my neighbor, he started spotting for me, and he I did that for a couple of years. And that's when we were really good by then. And so we went a lot. Eric and, of course, HT, our crew chief, and we travel all over the place. Had a blast.
[00:55:14.720] - Big Rich Klein
I remember at Spring, Texas, you tried to use Chris Geiger, his traction material. Chris always had a knack for being in the way.
[00:55:28.150] - John James
Yeah, and I think going into the spring Texas event, Hoby and I, which was Trail Gear, we were neck and neck, and I had lost my spotter, Jerry. So if you remember Brett Porter, Western FAB. Oh, yeah. I talked Brett into coming and being my spotter, and I don't think he'd ever been a spotter before. But he knew enough because he had a formula toy. So we went into that event, and I don't know if you remember, it was hot as heck. Hotter I've ever been, and I went in the desert.
[00:56:01.470] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, but it was humid, too, because it was right after the hurricane had hit.
[00:56:05.620] - John James
Yeah, super humid. So we were dying, and Kobe and I had the same score on every course. And I think it came down to that course at the end of the day. Hoby was ahead of me, and I had a chance to catch up on that course. And it was one of those that I was timed out, and I was 50 feet in the gate. So I told Brett, get the hell out of the way. And I shifted into high range and just wooded it. And as I looked up, there's Chris Guider. Shit. So I stomped on the brakes, but I was in the air. And I think I hit the ground and pushed him back all at the same time. I mean, I felt terrible. Luckily, it didn't hurt him. But I beat Hobi on that course. So at the At the end of the competition, Hobi and I had the exact same score. So it goes back to your score on the first day of the first course, and then the second course, and whoever wins. And Hobi beat me by one point. He beat the national champion he got by one point.
[00:57:19.630] - John James
Wow.
[00:57:21.610] - Big Rich Klein
On the tiebreaker.
[00:57:23.430] - John James
On the tiebreaker.
[00:57:25.320] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, it's before we started doing the shootouts.
[00:57:28.140] - John James
Yeah. So it was really competitive. I mean, Formula Toy was a little boring to watch, but if you were in the class, it was really competitive.
[00:57:40.630] - Big Rich Klein
It was only boring because you guys are like 600 to one or 900 to one, or whatever, and you'd be on the throttle at 2,500 RPM, and the tires would make one revolution every three minutes. Yeah.
[00:58:00.940] - John James
I mean, that's what I told everybody. If I won that event, I was the most boring rig to watch out there.
[00:58:06.890] - Big Rich Klein
Right. And so how many years do you think it was that you competed?
[00:58:17.900] - John James
Well, we went all the way. I think the last time, last year I competed in We Rock was, I'm going to guess, 2008.
[00:58:28.140] - Big Rich Klein
I think so. Okay.
[00:58:30.280] - John James
Because 2007 is when King of the Hammers started. And at least that's when the OG race started. And I raced in that in the Marlin Crawler formula toy.
[00:58:43.380] - Big Rich Klein
And that took a while with doublers and everything.
[00:58:49.510] - John James
Well, no, it didn't. There was 12 people that started, and I think I came in sixth or something like that. Back then, it was such a foreign thing to do all the hammer trails in a day. I had advantage. I knew where they all were, and I knew almost every inch of them. So it was driving a formula toy, which wasn't fast, but could get through the trails. I knew I could make it. So just finishing back then, you could do well.
[00:59:22.880] - Big Rich Klein
Right. Was there a designed route from trail the trail, or was it just the quickest way you could get there?
[00:59:34.190] - John James
No, Dave gave us a list. In this order, you're going to go up this trail and down this trail. And some of it was obvious how you were going to get there, and some of it wasn't. And at the beginning of every trail, there was a little paper binder. The spotter had to jump out and sign his name, jump back in. And that's how they could tell that we did the trail. Okay.
[01:00:03.860] - Big Rich Klein
Almost like where guys would drop a chip into a can or something like that during the race. Yeah.
[01:00:11.300] - John James
But Dave didn't even have that many people to work for him back then. So he just trusted us to do all the trails.
[01:00:20.690] - Big Rich Klein
And that was John Reynolds that won that one. Yeah.
[01:00:25.040] - John James
John Reynolds, and I think Randy was his tow driver. Okay.
[01:00:29.920] - Big Rich Klein
And John knew the trails really well.
[01:00:33.640] - John James
Yeah, John knew the trails, and that was half of it back then, just knowing where the trails were. Right.
[01:00:41.330] - Big Rich Klein
Because there was no GPS. You might have the paper map that showed where the trails were located to each other, but you had to be able to read a map.
[01:00:55.320] - John James
Yeah, I mean, in the beginning- Pirate treasure map. Yeah, in the beginning, we would just take a piece of paper and put, sledge up, jack down, jack north up, and tape it to the roof of the car so we could remember what order they were in. And that's how we do it.
[01:01:13.090] - Big Rich Klein
And are the tin benders Are you guys still active? Are you guys at least like an extreme camping club now or something?
[01:01:21.430] - John James
No, not even that. I mean, everybody's spread out, living in different states now, and No. I mean, we talk to each other on the phones here and there, but no, not hardly anything. Everybody's gone their own way.
[01:01:39.400] - Big Rich Klein
So you'd mentioned Jerry. That was a fat kid, right?
[01:01:45.440] - John James
Right.
[01:01:46.040] - Big Rich Klein
And he had... Didn't he have a Samurai?
[01:01:49.460] - John James
He did. He had that white Samurai back in the day. Okay.
[01:01:52.590] - Big Rich Klein
Because I can remember him competing in that.
[01:01:54.950] - John James
Yeah. He was in that one in Eastern Valley. Right. Okay.
[01:02:00.550] - Big Rich Klein
And whatever happened to him?
[01:02:03.340] - John James
Shit. Last I heard, he was living in Washington State. I think he'd gone to college and got some degree, and I don't know. I don't know. He invested in some firearms company, and he did pretty well with that, but I haven't heard anything from him in years.
[01:02:28.880] - Big Rich Klein
And Do you still wheel?
[01:02:33.230] - John James
Not as much as... No, hardly at all, actually. Since I started my own business, I've been trying to build a legacy for my family, and that almost takes all my time now. So as soon as I started my own business, we were right in the middle of building a new race car for Marlin Crawler, and we had to abandon that. And no, I don't do much rig. I still have my car Well, you've seen it up in the Marlin a bit. And it sits in a container most of the time now.
[01:03:07.930] - Big Rich Klein
And you get out to to KOH?
[01:03:11.740] - John James
I get out to KOH here and there. I quit racing KOH in 2013, I think was the last year I raced it. And then I raced in another guy's car for a couple of years back then. But that's the last thing I've done. I think 2017, Luke and I raced the Baja 1000 with another team, but that's the last big racing we've done. Okay.
[01:03:42.380] - Big Rich Klein
And so now it's all business Now it's all trucking.
[01:03:47.570] - John James
We're trying to... We got 10 trucks now. We need to get to 20 in the next two years. So I opened up a operation in Phoenix, Arizona. My son Luke, who's 24 now. Wow. He moved over there to run that part of the operation. I bought a... I have a decorative rock retail yard in Victorville, also called Angel Rock and Sand. Okay. So then Michelle runs the counter on that business. So we all stay pretty darn busy.
[01:04:24.400] - Big Rich Klein
And you're still next door to the Anderson's?
[01:04:28.160] - John James
Yeah. Eric and Rose are still our neighbors.
[01:04:30.390] - Big Rich Klein
Nice, nice. And two years, you'll have up 20 trucks, and then what happens? Two years after that, another 20?
[01:04:45.060] - John James
My goal is to get to where Luke pays me to stay away.
[01:04:49.330] - Big Rich Klein
Nice.
[01:04:49.710] - John James
So however long that takes, that's the goal.
[01:04:54.360] - Big Rich Klein
And when that happens, are you going to travel or are you going to get back into wheeling? What are you going to do? Or what would you like to do?
[01:05:02.120] - John James
I don't know. I don't know. Maybe all of the above. I have a hard time picturing myself retired, so I don't know. Whatever Michelle wants to do, probably at that point. She's been pretty good at letting me do what I want to do.
[01:05:20.640] - Big Rich Klein
So comes the time for turnabout. It's fair play. Right.
[01:05:25.930] - John James
Absolutely. Absolutely.
[01:05:29.200] - Big Rich Klein
And do you guys get on vacations?
[01:05:32.600] - John James
Yeah, we go to Cabo once a year, the whole family. My mom's still around, so she goes with me, and they're worth us. But not much more than that. Maybe one or two times a year, we get out. It's hard. We're a small enough business to where we can't afford managers, and we're big enough to where we need a couple of managers. It's a full-time job. That's why this worked out this morning, because Saturday is literally the only day that I don't have trucks on the road to where I have to worry about people calling with problems. Right.
[01:06:11.940] - Big Rich Klein
I'm glad it worked out. It's been a great conversation. I got to learn a little bit more about you and talk about some of the history.
[01:06:24.600] - John James
Yeah, because there's a heck of a history, and I was impressed when I've seen you the Marlin Memorial that you're doing this to keep the legacy alive to where people can look back and see what happened because that thing we were all involved in, rock crawling and pirate four by four was a phenomenon that I don't think will ever be repeated. And I don't know about you, but I didn't even realize it at the time until towards the end how awesome that was that we were involved in that.
[01:07:02.210] - Big Rich Klein
Right from the ground up. Yeah. It is pretty cool. I remember when they had the great collapse of pirate where everybody got wiped out and everybody had to resign up, and people were like, oh, I remember 200 or something. I'm like, yeah, that was after the purge. You know Exactly. Some of us didn't even know you could sign back up for the first week or two, or whatever it was.
[01:07:40.510] - John James
Yeah, for sure. It was an awesome thing to be a part of from the beginning. And all the people you met. I would have never met such a diverse amount of people for that website.
[01:07:54.390] - Big Rich Klein
Because you and Eric made some trips to go get parts and vehicles and things I know there's a pretty good story in one of those. Was it purchasing a car or something?
[01:08:10.200] - John James
I bought a Toyota 4-runner in Vegas, and I The guy was going to take advantage of me, and I ended up throwing a rod in it after I drove five miles down the road. Eric and I, the two most not intimidating people in the world, we Went up to this guy's house and somehow, through a dirty looks, convinced him to give me my money back. And then, of course, on pirate, it blew up to this big story, Eric, the Intimidator.
[01:08:49.200] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, we have a great laugh out of that because you guys are the nicest guys in the world. Yeah, exactly.
[01:08:56.460] - John James
We're just, especially me, I was glad that the guy didn't want to fight because I'd have been screwed.
[01:09:05.190] - Big Rich Klein
Got the stories. Anyway, and some of the Roxy bash and all that around the benders and stuff was just I mean, that's the stuff of epic stories, and that'll live in infamy, at least in our minds, forever.
[01:09:26.930] - John James
Yeah, the campfire antics. You know And in the 10 Benders, there was definitely a day shift and a night shift. And the crazier people went towards the night shift, and I was definitely part of the day shift. But it was great. All the campfire antics and what some of these guys... Bender, he's literally a genius. The stuff that he would come up with, he would show up out there with some bicycle that he made. It was like four feet tall and It was the hardest thing you ever seen to ride. But that's just what he did. He'd show up with this piece of crap car that he'd cut the roof off and put a roll cage on and painted it like Duke's a hazard. We'd go out and jump that thing, then we blew it up, then we tow it around the lightbed with Eric's FJ40. I mean, that was literally crazy. I think there's people that still have back injuries from that rig. I don't know if you remember Crusty Rob's dad. Oh, yes. He had a spare tire rack on the back of his Toyota that he thought he was being innovative, and he made it off of a Toyota Spindle and Hub.
[01:10:47.190] - John James
So he had a spare spindle hub under there. But what it did is it made it to where the tire would spin.
[01:10:53.110] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[01:10:56.700] - John James
Actually, we called that the Wheel of Death because We found out shortly, one, it was like 6 feet off the ground, and two, you fall off that, it would hurt you. But during all the ten-minute events, Rob had renamed it to the Wheel of Fun. You wouldn't believe the amount of people that would stand on that thing. I'm sure there's some neck injuries out there from that also. The Wheel of Fun.
[01:11:26.080] - Big Rich Klein
There you go. Well, John, I want to say thank you so much for coming on and sharing your history with us. And I really appreciate that you taking the time to do this. And it was good seeing you at the Memorial for Marlin. That was quite the event. It was really good to see the turnout.
[01:11:50.730] - John James
It was an impressive event, the Ocean of Toyotas.
[01:11:53.780] - Big Rich Klein
Yes. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to stick around long enough to walk all of the... To walk the whole thing and get enough pictures. I should have been taking a lot more pictures, but there was too many people to talk to.
[01:12:09.260] - John James
Man, wasn't it? It was a blast from the past.
[01:12:10.840] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, it was great. Anyway, thank you so much for spending the time, and I hope to see you again, and not so long in between times to see you.
[01:12:23.470] - John James
Absolutely. We need to figure out how we can get together more often.
[01:12:27.140] - Big Rich Klein
Exactly. All right, John, you have a great the rest of your day, and say hello to Michelle for me, and glad you guys are doing well.
[01:12:36.480] - John James
Well, thank you, Rich. It was good talking to you.
[01:12:38.590] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. You take care.
[01:12:40.490] - John James
All right.
[01:12:41.500] - Big Rich Klein
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 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 gusto you can. Thank you.