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
Handling all the things, Phil Rawlings of SLOREX is on Episode 230
Phil Rawlings has his hands in a lot of things, he has embedded himself in off-road, like many of us. You’ll find him at Salt Lake Off-Road Expo, At Your Leisure, and many other places where voices matter. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
6:38 – I’m generally a very mellow and chill dude, but I definitely have an adrenaline addiction side
11:52– I got busted for a fix-it ticket, but they’d been after me for a while
21:13 – I have a photographic memory that doesn’t have any film now
36:02 – I found a job that was my favorite ever, I got to design and play with the coolest stuff
49:26 – people said, “you’re from Utah – I didn’t know they had off-road companies in Utah” that bothered me, we’re like the mecca for off-roading!
55:53 – our guiding pillars – promote Utah off-road businesses, promote Utah, and unite the off-road community
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 ClawsonAutomotive related topics. Anything from owning an repair facility to racing. Anything...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
[00:00:01.020] -
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.
[00:01:13.030] -
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.
[00:01:40.280] - Big Rich Klein
On this week's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I will be speaking with Phil Rawlings. Phil is the Director of the Salt Lake Off-Road and Outdoor Expo, the Boise Off-Road and Outdoor Expo, a producer of At Your Leisure TV, a mechanical engineer at Artec Industries, and is on the board of directors for the Blue Ribbon Coalition. All right, Phil, it's great to have you on the air. You've been beating around the off-road industry here for a while and got your hands into a lot of things like a lot of us do. So it's good to have you on board.
[00:02:18.520] - Phil Rawlings
Well, thanks. I appreciate it. It was fun to get the call and say, Hey, come on. I've listened to a couple of your podcasts and I've known who you are and followed you for quite some time. So for me, this is an honor and a treat.
[00:02:36.220] - Big Rich Klein
Well, the nice thing about this industry is that everybody that's in this industry is just a regular person. We've just goes on a different path than most. So it's good to have you on. So let's start off with, where were you born and raised?
[00:02:53.900] - Phil Rawlings
All different answers. I was born in Salt Lake, and a couple of years after, we moved Preston, Idaho, and then we moved to Burley, Idaho. And then high school was Logan, Utah. And then college. Yeah, you said not to jump too far ahead. No, that's fine. But anyway.
[00:03:17.030] - Big Rich Klein
You can give that to me. I'll bring you back.
[00:03:19.610] - Phil Rawlings
Okay. I got kicked out of the engineering program at Utah State, and I went down to the University of Utah in Salt Lake, and I've been around the Salt Lake area since then.
[00:03:35.010] - Big Rich Klein
So you were really young when you were in Preston then?
[00:03:40.030] - Phil Rawlings
Yes, from four to about seven to eight. But that's where my family, that's where my dad's family is from.
[00:03:49.220] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. For those of you that are listening that don't know where Preston is, that is, I believe, where they shot Napoleon Dynamite.
[00:03:59.480] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah. In fact, Uncle Rico's van, that was my cousin and his buddy's van in high school.
[00:04:07.220] - Big Rich Klein
Nice. Yes. That's cool. So then you're real young years in Preston, and then you moved to Burley. And how long were you in Burley?
[00:04:21.710] - Phil Rawlings
I was about 12. And then we moved to Logan for my dad to go back to school and finish up schooling.
[00:04:33.310] - Big Rich Klein
So was your dad chasing jobs then? Is that why the moves?
[00:04:38.350] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah. My dad, he didn't finish his college degree when we lived, I guess they lived in Logan before I was born, and he didn't finish his degree and moved to Salt Lake. And so this was him going back to finish his degree. And he was driving propane truck and managing a V1 propane station in Burley. And he started that in Preston and was transferred up to Burley. And just it was too rough. He messed up his back, and those trucks didn't have good suspension back then. Right.
[00:05:20.840] - Big Rich Klein
And then so you did your high school years in Logan?
[00:05:25.020] - Phil Rawlings
Yes, high school years in Logan, start of college there, and then I was forced out of the engineering program.
[00:05:35.670] - Big Rich Klein
We'll get into that. I made that a note already. All right. Those high school years, and maybe going into high school, were you a good student, or were you one of those that looked out the window wanting to just get the hell out?
[00:05:50.810] - Phil Rawlings
Both. Both.
[00:05:52.620] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. That's good. I had a semi-photographic memory.
[00:05:58.950] - Phil Rawlings
I didn't I didn't have to really study. I didn't have to try too hard at stuff. It just came easy. I didn't want to be in school. It was boring, and I was a nerd. But Anyway, I had a lot more fun not in school. I used to go and sneak out at night and go terrorize the town and sleep during school. I guess it all worked out.
[00:06:29.860] - Big Rich Klein
A nerd, but you snuck out. That's normally not... Those aren't two things that you put together normally.
[00:06:38.790] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, I guess I'm that way. A lot of people that meet me, they just assume that I'm very mellow and chill dude, which I like to think I am, but I definitely have that adrenaline addiction side.
[00:06:55.980] - Big Rich Klein
So if you have that adrenaline addiction, what is it that you used to do to get that fired up that you can tell that won't land you in jail or in trouble somewhere?
[00:07:10.440] - Phil Rawlings
There's definitely some things I still can't talk about.
[00:07:14.600] - Big Rich Klein
Good. I'm glad to hear that.
[00:07:18.350] - Phil Rawlings
It's interesting because people talk about their childhood, and they're like, Oh, yeah, I wish I could go back and do it differently, and this and that. I'm like, Oh, no. I got away with it once. I don't think I'll get away with it again. I'm good. I lived my childhood to the fullest.
[00:07:35.910] - Big Rich Klein
I used to, I still think that I was smart enough not to get caught. When I did things that probably I shouldn't have, that I thought them out, it wasn't maybe necessarily just knee-jerk reaction. It was calculated risk. It was calculated risk, exactly. I can even say that I've run from the cops on numerous occasions. Four times while I was a teenager. A couple of times is a 20-year-old in my 20s. And then once- On bikes, on motor cycles, foot? How did you- On in cars, once on foot, but everybody else that was running from the party kept running. And I dove into a boat, a covered boat that was in somebody's side yard and had just enough time to get into the boat, and the cops all ran past. Then I just waited there for an hour until I figured the cops weren't hanging around the neighborhood anymore. Then I just walked home.
[00:08:46.380] - Phil Rawlings
Nice.
[00:08:47.350] - Big Rich Klein
Then running in the car and then with a motorcycle, that was always easy because the cop cars back then were not going to catch a bike unless you laid it down. Then, Shelle and I ran, actually, We believe we ran from the cops out of Scorpion Bay in Baja after one of the thousands coming back home. We just hit the race course because we knew that they weren't going to follow us on the race course.
[00:09:15.030] - Phil Rawlings
Nice.
[00:09:17.420] - Big Rich Klein
Some guy was trying to hold us up for 20 bucks each for camping on a beach that you shouldn't have to pay for. And he goes, well, I'll go to the cops. And we were like, Go ahead, go to the cops. And then So we followed him out. You packed up? Yeah, we were already packed up, and he came up to us at the end, and he turned toward the police station. We went one block down, turned up, and then he pulled into the police station. And then I looked at Shelle and I said, Okay, what do you want to do? We're going to sit and wait and hash this out, or do you want to run? And she goes, she thought for about five seconds, and she goes, Run.
[00:09:55.710] - Phil Rawlings
That's awesome.
[00:09:57.340] - Big Rich Klein
So it was 17 kilometers down the Highway to the Race Course, and I knew that once we hit the Race Course, they weren't following me in a Toyota Corolla or whatever they had.
[00:10:07.560] - Phil Rawlings
I knew I liked Shelley.
[00:10:12.840] - Big Rich Klein
She's pretty demure until she gets fired up, but she's very righteous so that if she feels she's in the right, she's going to let you know about it. And that's what we were at that day.
[00:10:29.260] - Phil Rawlings
Oh, that's So then high school. I've been chased by cops in everything. Foot, bicycle, motorcycle, car, truck.
[00:10:41.720] - Big Rich Klein
And ever caught?
[00:10:46.400] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, I was doing some drag racing, and I figured I had a 50/50 shot. We didn't see the cop behind us, and we took off from the light, and street racing. I figured out a 50/50 shot. He couldn't follow both of us, so I took a hard right-hand corner, pretty much sideways. Took about 40 miles an hour. The cop followed me. I shut it down. As soon as the cop came around the corner, I shut it down, and that was the heck of a ticket.
[00:11:27.860] - Big Rich Klein
My goal is always never to have had a mug shot?
[00:11:32.980] - Phil Rawlings
Oh, failed on that one.
[00:11:34.920] - Big Rich Klein
See, I'm 66 and don't have a mug shot.
[00:11:40.070] - Phil Rawlings
I've spent some time in jail.
[00:11:45.790] - Big Rich Klein
Like I said, I think I just got lucky. I either got lucky or I was just a little bit smarter. I don't know.
[00:11:52.430] - Phil Rawlings
Anyway. I got busted for a fix it ticket, but they'd been after me for a while. And so they It held me for a while for the fix it ticket.
[00:12:03.480] - Big Rich Klein
So you were drag racing. What car were you drag racing in?
[00:12:07.700] - Phil Rawlings
At that time, I had a Mitsubishi Starian, little 2.5 liter turbo-charged roof It's a little drive. It's like the... I don't know. It's like the granddaddy of the MR, I don't know what you want to call it. And Anyway, late '80s. But of course, Copperhead Gasket was bored over. I was pushing 22 PSI boost with a custom piggyback injector system. And yeah, it was pretty quick.
[00:12:51.040] - Big Rich Klein
Awesome. So when you were in school, what was your... You said you You have a photographic memory. What was your best courses, or what courses did you like the best?
[00:13:08.210] - Phil Rawlings
I liked science and auto mechanics. I wanted to be an author at one point in time. I liked reading and writing. I was a voracious reader when I was a kid, but I haven't done that as much lately. Until I was 17, I wanted to be an author and go be a hermit, live up in the mountains somewhere. And then one day in auto mechanics, I was trying to figure out what was the next big thing in cars, what the next evolution was. And I had a thought while I was looking at a car on a hoist, and I was like, you know what? If I'm going to do that, I need to be an engineer. And that was the moment that I decided that I was going to be an engineer. Okay.
[00:14:09.450] - Big Rich Klein
And we'll get more into that. But during those school years, were you driving at that point, or what was your first vehicle?
[00:14:21.520] - Phil Rawlings
1974 Jeep J10 pickup. Oh, a J10. That was my first four a four-wheeled vehicle. I had some motorcycles that I had... My parents weren't very supportive of motorcycles, so I bought one from a buddy, and I had to rebuild the motor on it. I didn't know what I was doing, but I was mechanically inclined. Anyway, rebuilt the motor on this bike, and I kept it at my buddy's house. Whenever we went riding with them, I had my motorcycle.
[00:14:57.340] - Big Rich Klein
Without your parents knowing you had a motorcycle?
[00:14:59.930] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, they didn't know about that motorcycle, so I was probably about 18, 19 years old.
[00:15:05.980] - Big Rich Klein
Well, we have a lot in common that way. But I kept a non-running motorcycle. Well, it ran, but it smoked really bad, and I always fiddled with it, but it gave me the reason to have riding gear without the parents actually realizing that I had a bike somewhere else. Nice. Then you get out of high school, you decide you want to be an engineer. Were you working? Any jobs during high schools?
[00:15:40.250] - Phil Rawlings
I decided I didn't want to be a stupid engineer because there are those. I got a scholarship for the Vo-tech program in Logan. They have a Vo-tech College, and that's where the high school auto mechanics program programs were. I got the scholarship for their full-time program. And so I went through that. In the middle of that, I took two years off. I did a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints and went to Pennsylvania. And one of the areas that I was in was Butler, Pennsylvania, which is pretty cool, birthplace of the Jeep. And there, the guy that I was with in that town is now my partner in the off-road expo, Scott Phillips. Okay. And so interesting that we met in Butler, Pennsylvania. Anyway, this feels like it's Well, those meant to be type things.
[00:16:47.680] - Big Rich Klein
Right. So.
[00:16:49.930] - Phil Rawlings
But. Go ahead. So I went back. I finished up the Votek program for auto mechanics. I got a job as a mechanic, and I didn't start high school. I didn't start college until about five years after high school. Anyway, so I was working as a mechanic while I was going to school. All right. It was interesting.
[00:17:16.890] - Big Rich Klein
Regular auto or diesel mechanic?
[00:17:20.780] - Phil Rawlings
Auto mechanic. So I worked in high performance shops. They were shops where you did all the regular tune-ups and belts and CV joints and clutches and all that stuff. But then they also had the high performance side of them. And so that was fun. It was an interesting change in the industry at that time, too. It was changing from carburators to fuel injection. And so I came in as the young kid that knew fuel injection, but I had to learn carburators because there wasn't enough fuel injection stuff to work on. And so by the end of my mechanical career, it was strange that I was the only person in the shop that understood carburators.
[00:18:12.320] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[00:18:15.270] - Phil Rawlings
And so, yeah, it was an interesting time, but I loved it. I love turning wrenches. And in fact, I started my own shop when I was 24. And no No business experience, other than people wanted me to fix their cars. And so I started doing that and it snowballed and turned into a shop. And then it distracted me from school and I started doing the shop full-time and not going to school. And then I brought in a partner, and that was a bad decision, bad move. And the whole thing went up in a ball of flames and wound up destitute. Afterwards, I was actually homeless for a little while. Yeah, it was a crazy ride.
[00:19:06.940] - Big Rich Klein
Homeless? What did you do while you were homeless? I mean, were you camped out somewhere or did you land on somebody's couch?
[00:19:17.390] - Phil Rawlings
Well, I had an old broken down Jeep truck that was in a storage unit. It was a 64 Jeep pickup. I loved that truck. And it was in a storage unit, and I got kicked out of my apartment. I went and I lived in the storage unit, but I wasn't paying rent on the storage unit. I knew that they were going to lock me out soon. I looked at other ones that they locked out and they'd put these... I went and looked at the brand of locks that they used and they spraypainted it with traffic marker orange. I went and bought the same locks that they used and spraypainted traffic marker orange. And I locked my own storage unit with my padlock plus one that looked like their padlock. And so I lived in my storage unit for a couple of months until I got back on my feet.
[00:20:15.850] - Big Rich Klein
So you didn't have the storage wars type episode where they cut the lock off and flipped the door open and you're standing there and your skivvies in the back of your truck.
[00:20:28.340] - Phil Rawlings
No, I I never had that. Unfortunately, I had bent the tab on the inside of the storage unit so I could leave the locks on the outside and shut the door. And it still seemed like it was latched, but I could, wiggle it and get it open.
[00:20:47.400] - Big Rich Klein
Nice. Very good.
[00:20:50.360] - Phil Rawlings
You got to work the system, man.
[00:20:51.610] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. Sometimes you do. There's absolutely no doubt about that.
[00:20:56.360] - Phil Rawlings
And that was It was a dark time, but good motivating learning experience.
[00:21:08.120] - Big Rich Klein
And from that point, how were you able to get out of that funk?
[00:21:13.890] - Phil Rawlings
Well, it got darker. I got into an apartment, but then I crashed my bullet bike. And I was telling you about that photographic memory. My brain, fortunately, inside of a helmet, bounced off of a telephone pole about 60 miles an hour. And I have a photographic memory that doesn't have any film now. So I lost a couple of months of my life that I don't remember. I had some real bad short term memory loss issues for a couple of years. And of course, right after that, I decided to go back to college. And and get back into my degree. And I've got a memory that's not working, and I've never had to study in my life. And so I had to learn new skills. And I have a textbook from a class and homework from a class that I don't remember. But I went to it. I got the grades. I mean, I got a C in the class. But I don't remember taking the class. And it was That was a hard time because I actually failed a couple classes, and that is what got me kicked out of the engineering program. Okay.
[00:22:42.340] - Big Rich Klein
And was it just time that brought that memory back, or what did you do? I have a decent memory now.
[00:22:53.110] - Phil Rawlings
It's just not what it used to be. But I had to learn how to work and study, and be like a normal person and actually have to learn things. So anyway, after I got kicked out of there, I went to I moved down to Salt Lake and went to the University of Utah and finished out my degree there. And the job I got, interestingly enough, was working at Advanced Fourwheel Drive with Randy Robinson. I don't know if you know who he is, an old school guy in the four-wheel drive world. He started doing four-wheel drive conversions for mini-trucks, for lines and stuff like that back in the '70s. The flat-top knuckle steering arm was something that Randy came up with back in the '70s. '70s. Okay.
[00:24:01.380] - Big Rich Klein
So you were working at the four-wheel drive shop?
[00:24:05.950] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, I was working at the four-wheel drive shop and finishing up my last couple of years of engineering. And, you know I had a '73 Jeep truck at that time, and listed it and put stuff under it. And this got me back into the four-wheel drive and off-road world.
[00:24:29.990] - Big Rich Klein
And then from there, you stayed as a mechanic there for how long?
[00:24:37.030] - Phil Rawlings
A couple of years until I got a job working for I did a engineering internship in Detroit, and then I got a job. This is while I was still in school, still working while I was putting myself through school, trying to pay off the debt from my shop And I went down. I worked at a place called Kirkham Motorsports in Aurum, and they do the Shelby AC Cobra replicas. So that was fun. And Then I got a job. My last two years, I have a four year degree, but it took me a lot longer to get it. So I was on the eight year program. So Anyway, worked for Kirkham for a little bit. Then my last two years of school, I actually worked as an engineer for an aluminum foundry. That was pretty cool. That's where I get my casting background from. And so that was... And it's actually served me well. I've used the casting knowledge to make a couple offer of products and design them for some people that I knew that had... That were doing off-road axles. And that just led me on the path where I'm at now. Okay.
[00:26:12.580] - Big Rich Klein
You mentioned Detroit. You interned in Detroit?
[00:26:18.330] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, I did a intern at a place called Mustang Racing Technology. Okay. And worked there for summer in Detroit. And that was in It was interesting and eye-opening because I thought that I wanted to go work for one of the big three and do engineering for them. But then I went to Detroit, and we were working with the Skunkworks in Ford on the development of the GT Mustang. We were the Tremick dealer for the area, and so they wanted to try out a Tremick for the new GT Mustang. This was '05. And so they wanted to introduce it with a six-speed manual transmission for '06. But man, the stuff that even Skunk works, the most liberal, go-crazy division of Ford, the things that they had to deal with and the penny-pinchers and the beam counters. They ran everything. And I was like, Yeah, I don't think I want to do that. So That actually turned me off of pursuing a career at one of the big three automakers.
[00:27:36.940] - Big Rich Klein
Having your hands tied instead of being able to just create.
[00:27:43.100] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah.
[00:27:44.310] - Big Rich Klein
That's Bean counters have really screwed things up, in my opinion.
[00:27:50.730] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, so in my engineering career, I've worked for small companies ever since, and then I like it. There's definitely some challenges, but it's been a lot of fun.
[00:28:01.260] - Big Rich Klein
Okay, so you're working then in... We'll get back to working on the AC Cobra replicas. How long were you doing that?
[00:28:08.760] - Phil Rawlings
I think about a year, year and a half. And then just the drive and how much I was living in Salt Lake, and I was driving down to the Aurum area every day, and my bank account was suffering. I just did some math on how much it was costing me to drive to work every day, and then how much I made while I was there. And it wasn't very good. So I started looking for a job in Salt Lake, and that's when I found the job at the Aluminum Foundry. Okay.
[00:28:51.080] - Big Rich Klein
And the Aluminum Foundry, what things did you guys cast? Was it automotive parts or was it just... What was it?
[00:29:00.900] - Phil Rawlings
No, there were no automotive parts, but there were gear boxes. They had their own line of gymnasium safety and lift equipment. So the folding back stops that move out of the way and fold up, the winches that run those, they made those, and the safety straps that caught them, they made those. While I was there, I helped design a new generation of those. And that was my second patent. Anyway, that was pretty fun. And so we did huge wheels for the ski industry, for their ski towers. So we did high pressure mold, low pressure mold, and gravity poor mold, and then some machining as well.
[00:30:07.070] - Big Rich Klein
All right.
[00:30:09.700] - Phil Rawlings
And- So anything- How long did that last? Let's see. I was there probably five years. I was there when I got married in 2011. So, yeah, that's About five years. Okay.
[00:30:33.640] - Big Rich Klein
Up to that point, that was probably the longest job you'd had?
[00:30:42.870] - Phil Rawlings
Maybe. Yeah.
[00:30:44.770] - Big Rich Klein
That's one of the things that I've done until I got became an off-road event promoter, is I never had a job or a career, even my own businesses, that lasted more than five years. I got bored or tired of doing things and wanted something different?
[00:31:01.670] - Phil Rawlings
I'd say four years is probably pretty typical for me. Four to five. Sometimes it's because of me and sometimes it's not. My businesses have gone under or they've changed strategies, stuff like that. You find as an engineer that you are the first one out the door when things go bad. Because if things aren't going bad, they're not developing new products, They're not doing new and different things. And you're expensive. You tend to be the first one out the door when things are not going great. Okay.
[00:31:45.330] - Big Rich Klein
So you said you got married in 2011?
[00:31:49.420] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, I was 36 years old. That's pretty young here for Utah. Oh, wait, no. Yeah, so I was 36 when I got married, and I married the girl that I met at church, and she's awesome. So I had this I had to calm down a little bit. I don't know. Some people say calm down, and they're out drinking and partying and drugs and stuff. That was never what I did. I liked adrenaline. I was mountain biking and chucking off a cliff and rock climbing and fast cars and trucks and motorcycles and adrenaline. I liked adrenaline. Right. So I calmed down a little bit and decided that maybe I should start trying to be more serious about finding somebody. And I found that an awesome I'm an awesome wife. And I was listening to your podcast with Mark Jensen, and you guys were talking about your wives and them supporting you and your businesses and stuff. And that's my wife. She's a smarty-pant. She has her master's degree in statistical analysis from BIO, and she worked for 10 years in Vegas for HSBC, which is the second biggest bank in the world. And then she moved to Salt Lake because she wanted to meet guys that are more her age and interests and stuff like that.
[00:33:44.140] - Phil Rawlings
So she moved to Salt Lake, and then we met and got married.
[00:33:48.660] - Big Rich Klein
And she got stuck with you.
[00:33:49.650] - Phil Rawlings
And then she got stuck with me. I married a sugar mama. She made twice as much as I did when I married her.
[00:33:57.540] - Big Rich Klein
Nice. When I met Shelle, I was getting ready to shut down We Rock and get out of the off-road industry. I didn't know what I was going to do. And she was the Chief Financial Officer for First American Title. So she made a lot more money than I did. I don't know how, but I captured her heart, and we're still going strong. So it's good.
[00:34:27.400] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, it definitely I don't know what it is. Well, you've got another person there with you, and depending on you, and it changes everything.
[00:34:40.340] - Big Rich Klein
Right. Absolutely does. So then You're at the Foundry for roughly five years. What was the next step?
[00:34:52.020] - Phil Rawlings
Then I went and worked for a company that was doing hybrid electric trucks and working doing high voltage distribution systems for them, helping out a little bit with the drive controllers. My background, when I was a mechanic, I specialized in electrical and computer troubleshooting diagnostics. And of course, I was playing around with high performance stuff. And so a little bit of tuning. And so the electronics background did me really well when I went and I was working for this company. And I helped them develop some architecture. I actually helped develop some connectors. I wrote some specs for a connector that they use very commonly now in high voltage, hybrid drive situations or even I thought I saw some on a Tesla, but I'm not sure that those were the one.
[00:35:59.060] - Big Rich Klein
But Interesting. Anyway.
[00:36:02.030] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, it's pretty cool. And that lasted for about two years, year and a half, two years. And I wasn't super happy there. I didn't really feel like the company was... I felt like they were living a little bit off the hype and weren't really truly being sincere about the efforts for being an actual profit-driven company, and that bothered me. And so when they said that they were moving all the engineers to California, and they didn't offer any pay rate increases or anything like that, I said, Yeah, I don't think I'll be moving with you. And so they let me go. And then I was out of work for a little bit, and then I found a job, and my favorite job ever. I worked for a company called Intermountain Rigging & Heavy Hall, and I got to design and play with the coolest stuff. We did rigging We were moving jobs. We were moving, I don't know, 20, 30,000 pounds. It was a pretty light load. My first project we did was moving some 800,000 pound generators into a power plant down in Linden, Utah. And so I got to design these 42-foot tall columns that were going to support 800,000 pounds of a generator, plus all the equipment, and then roll it 40 feet to cross it into the building.
[00:37:47.400] - Phil Rawlings
And that was pretty crazy for a first project.
[00:37:57.130] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[00:37:58.210] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah. Hey, we I don't know much about you, but your paper looks good. Let's have you design this full-on system here. Don't worry, they're only $8 million turbine generators that we can't replace.
[00:38:18.260] - Big Rich Klein
So if you drop one, yeah.
[00:38:21.660] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, pretty much you just, you try and cease existing at that point in time.
[00:38:28.750] - Big Rich Klein
So after you do a design and they build off your design and they move the first one. As they're moving that first one, what's going through your mind? Were you there?
[00:38:38.790] - Phil Rawlings
Oh, yeah. I was on site. So we've got these massive I-beams that are 42 feet in the seating the air that these trolleys, they're basically like massive jack stands with wheels on them, powered by hydraulics. And so they're standing in the middle of these beams. And there's probably a 40-foot span in between these towers, these columns that I designed. Anyway, so they're right in the middle of these beams. And I knew exactly how much deflection those beams were supposed to have when they took the full weight and everything. And I was up in a basket and about level with the beams, and I started taking the load, and those beams started moving fast, and my heart just sink. I was like, Oh, no. I was about ready to yell at him to stop. And then it slowed down. And I calculated it was like two and a quarter inches, something like that, a deflection. But that first inch went so fast. And yeah, my heart just sink. And then it slowed down. And then it just started like the thing And it didn't even come off the ground yet. They were still getting the slack out of all the cables and all the tension on everything.
[00:40:07.850] - Phil Rawlings
And these beams were already sagging. So it finally hit that two and a quarter and the load came off the ground and everything was perfect. And it was dead nuts on what I calculated.
[00:40:21.070] - Big Rich Klein
Nice.
[00:40:21.630] - Phil Rawlings
And that was a thrill. So that was a I had a lot more confidence in my schooling and engineering and the math and stuff of everything at that point in time.
[00:40:37.660] - Big Rich Klein
But what a ride. That was probably the largest project you did then?
[00:40:42.710] - Phil Rawlings
No.
[00:40:43.390] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, up to that point, though.
[00:40:45.540] - Phil Rawlings
Up to that point, yeah. Right.
[00:40:47.000] - Big Rich Klein
So when you're engineering smaller things, there's not less opportunity to go wrong, but there's less impact if and nothing goes wrong.
[00:41:01.160] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because it was a massive system, but it was all fairly simple. I mean, you've got these round pipes that we've built into columns, and then You've got high beams across it. And really, that's, of course, you got your ties in between stuff to keep it from racking and shifting and stuff and all that. But your major components are actually pretty dead simple. They're just high risk, high load.
[00:41:37.300] - Big Rich Klein
And hoping that those I-beams were produced properly.
[00:41:40.920] - Phil Rawlings
Yes. You get your certifications on the mills and all that stuff. But you never know. Right. So, yeah, that was definitely a heart-stopping moment. But then we did a 1.2 million pound load out of Arizona. And this was a rectifier for a windmill down in Mono... Excuse me. This was for a windmill in Montefello. And we did this one over the road in this huge trailer. We called it the mega trailer. And so you've got 1.2 million pounds sitting in the middle of these 100-foot long beams. And then we had two semis in When we're, the worst case, we were trying to climb a hill just over the Virgin River. We had two big semi-trucks in front, and we had, I think we had six or seven semi-trucks behind, and they were all pushing these big, huge beams up the hill. Wow. So that was cool.
[00:42:57.380] - Big Rich Klein
Interesting. So after that job, did you get back into automotive?
[00:43:08.050] - Phil Rawlings
No. 2014, 2015, Let's see. No. When was that? I got laid off from there. The economy took a dive in '08, '09. But the heavy haul, it wasn't a It wasn't affected as much until 12:00 and '13, because the power companies weren't replacing their substations. They would have a failure, and they just take the spare off the pad, but they wouldn't replace it. And so, Heavy Hall took a big hit in 2014, 2015, and I got laid off shortly after that. And then through just Connections, I got a job selling diesel engine. Okay. And so, yeah, I know, right? But I was a It was a technical job. I had five states of my area. They were based in California. I was based up here in Utah. And so I got to do some engineering engineering stuff interfacing with customers and designed for the integration of the engine. But there's a lot of technology in the industrial engines nowadays with all the emission compliance and all that stuff. And so I worked there for four years. And so I sold John Deere, Dusan, Yanmar, some Chevy industrial engine, some Ford industrial engine. So it was definitely different.
[00:45:08.360] - Big Rich Klein
Right. Sounds like it.
[00:45:11.860] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah. And then in 2021, I think, the guys from Artec called me and said, Hey, we need an engineer to help us on our trailers that we're developing, that we're doing. The guy from Artec called me and said, Hey, we need an engineer to help us on our trailers that we're developing, that we're doing. Trailers. Since 2021, I've been over there doing engineering for them on their off-road trailers.
[00:45:41.290] - Big Rich Klein
What's the name of the trailers that they're building?
[00:45:45.900] - Phil Rawlings
The model is a Voyager, but the name of the company is Expedition Trailers. Okay. Without a E on the front of the Expedition. Okay.
[00:46:03.180] - Big Rich Klein
I've been trying to get Artie on the podcast and have not hooked up with him. He's on my hit list. So when you see him, tell him that Rich is really interested in getting him on the podcast as well.
[00:46:16.650] - Phil Rawlings
I'll tell him he's a hard one to nail down.
[00:46:19.550] - Big Rich Klein
Yes, he is.
[00:46:21.530] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah.
[00:46:22.860] - Big Rich Klein
So then you're working at... You're still working at Expedition Trailers with the Artec guys. It's a subsidiary of Artec, I guess.
[00:46:35.570] - Phil Rawlings
Sister Company.
[00:46:36.420] - Big Rich Klein
Sister Company. Okay.
[00:46:38.040] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah.
[00:46:39.370] - Big Rich Klein
And how did the whole off-road expos come about?
[00:46:45.920] - Phil Rawlings
Oh, we totally missed... Yeah. So when I was working at Intermountain Rgging, heavy haul, I'd done some off-road design work for some other companies. There was a company, they have a bad name, but the product was really cool. That's what I designed. And that was the portal axles or portal tech back in '09, 2010-ish. And so that was my first introduction to King of the Hammers was the In the second year of King of the Hammers. Randy Slawson was running a car that had the portal tech axles on it. And so I went down there and did some race support for them for King of the Hammers, for those axles. And then a year, two later, a couple of years later, I designed the Super 14. It's a dropout 14 volt. And It's super strong, awesome, Axel. And then supporting that, I got back involved with King of the Hammers again a little bit, doing some race support. Dave Cole's digital camo car had a Super 14 in the rear of that. And then we went and did some support on Vegas to Reno. And so that was a fun race I love doing that.
[00:48:31.890] - Phil Rawlings
And then that was where I got introduced to Rick Moningham with the Trick Toys. And he was a Easy Rick. He's a riot, but man, he tells you how he thinks it is. And there is no sugar coating on that.
[00:48:53.460] - Big Rich Klein
So the first time I met him. That's Moningham.
[00:48:56.950] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah. First time I met him, he read me the riot act So up one side and down the other. And so anyway, but I actually developed a pretty good relationship with him. And I like easy Rick. He's still one of my favorite people.
[00:49:16.100] - Big Rich Klein
So then from that, from portal tech and working there, you got an idea to do an off-road expo, just like that?
[00:49:26.580] - Phil Rawlings
It was, going places and supporting like They would drag me, they dragged me down to Pomona to the Off-Road Expo to be the tech person for the axles and stuff. And so I would take time off of work and and go down there. And people, the reaction was, oh, you're from Utah. I didn't know they had off-road companies in Utah. And so I'm like, What do you mean? We're like the mecca for off-roading. And that bothered me. And it ate at me for a number of years. And so I always wanted an off-road expo in Salt Lake. We have Easter Jeep Safari, which is awesome. But to be honest, there's not a ton of Utah people, or at least my friends, we don't go down to that because it's so busy and so crazy. We go the weekend before or the weekend after, or we hit it for just a second or two. So it bothered me, and I'm like, Okay, well, what would it take to put one on? And so I got researching it. And of course, I'm an engineer, so I got my spreadsheet out, and I estimated a bunch of costs of different things and started making some phone calls.
[00:50:54.590] - Phil Rawlings
During one of the phone calls to the event center in Sandy, I accidentally booked a date for the first show.
[00:51:08.100] - Big Rich Klein
You accidentally booked?
[00:51:10.830] - Phil Rawlings
That's how I tell my wife.
[00:51:15.410] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:51:18.170] - Phil Rawlings
And so this was probably... Well, I have a different version of the story than my wife and my business partner do, but I say it was early January in 2016, and they're all like, no, we only had three or four months to put this together. But in my mind, we had about five months to put it together. And so I got that. I booked some billboards. My sister is a graphic artist, and she's very talented. And I had her put some stuff together for me. I bought the website. I then started, I'm like, Man, I really need somebody to help me with this. I can't do it all. And so I called Scott. I'm like, Hey, I'm doing this thing. Do you want to help me? And he's like, oh, yeah, we can take a year. We can make all these plans. We can get all these businesses and stuff. I'm like, Well, the date is May 21st and it's already booked. He's like, Oh, Oh, you mean we're doing this now? It's a difficult still fashion. I try and do my homework and look at things and try and analyze it. But there's that point where either you're going to do it or you're not going to do it.
[00:52:47.910] - Phil Rawlings
And if you're going to do it, do it.
[00:52:51.350] - Big Rich Klein
Commit. Yeah.
[00:52:52.770] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah. And so anyway, our first year, we had a 50 vendors and 2,500 attendees. It was a one day show. It was Saturday. I had two billboard locations, one down by Moab, because I was hoping to catch people coming back from Easter Jeep Safari. And I learned that you should double check your billboards and make sure that the lights work on them so people can see them at night. That was a little problematic for me. But my headline sponsor was Artec that first year. They just moved up to Utah. And so I told them, hey, I'm putting a big billboard and your name's going to be on it coming out of when you come back from Moab. And they looked for it and didn't see it. And I got a call from one of the guys. I don't remember who it was over there. I was like, man, we looked for the billboard, but we couldn't see it. And then realized a friend of mine went down and checked it. He's like, yeah, dude, it has white pods on it, but they aren't on at night and you can't see it at all. So, of course, in my world at the time, that was a massive, massive thing.
[00:54:13.510] - Phil Rawlings
But in retrospective In fact, it was just a little bump in the road. And so between Scott and I, we knew a bunch of businesses. Scott had helped with U-Rock and with Arca before that. And so he knew a bunch of businesses. He helped write some of the technical documents for U-Rock and for Arca, I think. And so he's actually the one who got me into U-Rock in '02, '02, '03, doing a judging and stuff for him. Okay. And so That was a lot of fun and I was blown away by it. And that still drives and fuels a lot of my passion for off-roading and stuff was being there and watching people like Ivan Stewart and the levels. And Craig Stump was always one that was having fun. He had that buggy with the tractor axles on it. I think he was one of the first people to put a lot of weight down low. Just watching the innovations and the changes in that and everything was really cool. Anyway, I totally digress. So we reached out to a bunch of businesses that we knew and people that we knew and a lot of people that we didn't know.
[00:55:53.820] - Phil Rawlings
And I had a formula for how many people we had to call and reach out to in order to get the amount of vendors that we needed. And the funny thing is, it almost worked out exactly like my formula that I had. And so we pulled it off the first year and we thought, wow, that was pretty cool. On to the next. And one of the things that we did, we heard that there were some other companies looking at Utah for putting on an off-road expo, off-road show. And that drove me even more because in doing the research for the show, I decided that it needed to not just be a show. I needed to be able to do good for the off-road community. I needed to be able to give back, and I needed to be able to help build the off-road community in Utah. My focus was Utah, still is, But those other companies, I'm like, They aren't going to do what we can do with this. And so I came up with three pillars for the Expo. The first one is promote Utah off-road businesses. The second one is promote Utah. And the third one is unite the off-road community and teach them about land stewardship and about advocacy and keeping our trails open.
[00:57:36.530] - Phil Rawlings
And so with those three things in place, those have been our guiding pillars for the show And they've done pretty well. And it's just grown like crazy. And the second year, let's see, the first year, we were like half a haul. We were 20 6,000 square feet, something like that. And the second year, we were a full haul. We had the full 50,000 square feet. And we had 5,000 attendees. The second year. And the third year was almost 8,000 attendees. And then the fourth year was... Man, I know I'm going to mess these numbers up, so maybe I shouldn't say stuff that's not accurate. So in 2023, we had 32,000 attendees. And in 2024, we had 36,000 attendees. And that was our first... The '23 to '24 was the first year-to-year that we didn't grow over 40 %. Wow.
[00:58:54.900] - Big Rich Klein
But at some point, you're going to hit- A plateau, yeah. Yeah, plateau. Exactly.
[00:59:00.590] - Phil Rawlings
Exactly. Yeah. You're going to find your reach and your infiltration through the market, and the people that year are going to know about it.
[00:59:08.460] - Big Rich Klein
And how many vendors did you have in those 23, 24?
[00:59:13.620] - Phil Rawlings
Two hundred and eight.
[00:59:15.260] - Big Rich Klein
Two hundred and eight vendors.
[00:59:16.780] - Phil Rawlings
Wow. Yeah. And we were 200,000 square feet.
[00:59:25.600] - Big Rich Klein
Nice.
[00:59:28.040] - Phil Rawlings
And it's all indoor, because we're doing it in... And now we've found our nice place that we like to live in the year. It's the end of February, first of March. And in Utah, you don't want to be outdoors at that point in time.
[00:59:44.130] - Big Rich Klein
No. Getting that many people to show up in the winter is a good job.
[00:59:50.470] - Phil Rawlings
Well, some people take it as a challenge.
[00:59:54.550] - Big Rich Klein
The off-rood community does. I'm not sure about the camping, the RV people.
[01:00:00.160] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, the vendors. Oh, it's funny. The last year we had a pretty good snowstorm that came in. Actually, the last two years, we've had really good snowstorms that have come in. And I get a call from some of the California vendors, and they're like, hey, we're watching the weather. And are you going to be canceling this? I mean, is there going to be anybody that shows up? I'm like, oh, yeah, trust me, it's going to be good. And they're like, are Are you sure? Yeah. In fact, if I could... I pray for bad weather. And so that way people don't go out and do other stuff. They're like, Oh, hey, what should we do inside? Hey, let's go to the off-road expo, to the to Flowrex. And so anyway, it's been pretty fun. But people from outside of Utah, they're a little gun-shy about the bad weather. But We don't care. It's all good. Right. So then- In fact, I'd rather have rain than sun.
[01:01:07.240] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. Keep people... Yeah, because people want to go indoors and do something. Yeah. It makes sense. So then You're working at Artec. You're doing the... You're doing the expo still. You've moved. You've started doing some up in Boise as well.
[01:01:24.310] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah.
[01:01:25.120] - Big Rich Klein
How many years have you done Boise?
[01:01:27.770] - Phil Rawlings
That's our first year. In April was our first year. And it's one of those things where I have an opportunity now to grow or not. And so we went for it. Of course, I did my homework on Boise, and we found a good place, and we found good people, and we wanted it to feel local like the Salt Lake one started. And the Salt Lake, when you come and you find a bunch of local shops and local vendors. The funny thing is we have a lot of local national vendors in Salt Lake. I guess that whole mecca of off-roading is a real true thing And in Boise, they have their own vendors and some fantastic companies up there, like Factor 55. And they have a little more overlanding and stuff. We wanted it to be a Boise show. And so we were able to do that. We had 7,000 attendees our first year and about 80 vendors. And so that was... I loved it. I love that show. That was a lot of fun. Cool.
[01:02:48.740] - Big Rich Klein
Excellent. And so how did all this transition into you being on the board of directors for Blue Ribbon?
[01:02:59.920] - Phil Rawlings
That grew out of the third pillar of the Expo, and that's the off-road community, the land stewardship. Every year, we donate a portion of our booth to the Forest Service, to the BLM. I know people like Boo and His and stuff when I say that, but we want them there. We want them to interface with our people. We want them to see who we are. We want them to see how strong of a community we are. And we want them to realize that we're a good resource if they want to do things the correct way. And so we donate booths to Tread Lightly, to the Blue Ribbon Coalition, to the Utah Public Lands Association, to the Desert Rats, and a few other organizations that are awesome. We trade booths with Trail Hero, with your son's event. And it's just one of those things that we feel like that's one of the simple things that we can do to try and get the message out there is to have those people there in interacting with the crowd. We do land stewardship panels on our stage. We have a 16 foot by nine foot digital LED screen behind the stage that they do presentation and stuff on.
[01:04:29.380] - Phil Rawlings
And We invite people to come to learn how to get involved, what's going on, what different things mean, and really to try and get people activated in that world. And that led me to interacting with Blue Ribbon Coalition quite a bit. Spencer Gilbert reached out to me and invited me to apply to be a board member. And then from there, it's just I love being involved with them. There's some great people like Ranch Pratt, Shannon Welch, Ben Bur, just great people from all over the United States. And so I love that. That's how that came about. It was just that we were already doing some of the stuff, and we were already involved with it, and we were trying to drag them along into our event. Good.
[01:05:40.140] - Big Rich Klein
Excellent. Then what else do you have your hands in?
[01:05:46.740] - Phil Rawlings
I thought you'd never ask. In January, Scott and I, we got involved. There's a TV show that's based out of Salt Lake, but we actually air in 37 states across the nation called At Your Leisure TV. And it's the longest running outdoor, off-road-centric TV show in America. And it's been 22 years. And Chad, the host, the owner, he's wanting to get a little less involved with it and retire a a little bit. And so he approached us and said, hey, what do you guys think about becoming partners in this with me? And so in true feel fashion, we looked at things and then build in. In fact, I'm at your leisure offices right now. We're going to do some production meetings here in a minute. But that's been a lot of fun learning about TV production and what's involved in it and all the different things going on behind the scenes. It's a whole different world. It really is.
[01:07:15.610] - Big Rich Klein
And anything else you got your hands in? Or are you at max capacity right now?
[01:07:25.670] - Phil Rawlings
Oh, yeah, I'm max capacity. Let me see. I put some notes down for myself earlier. I'm on the Advisory Council for the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development for the Outdoor Recreation Program. Nice. I try and put in a good word for the motorized off-road world. And there's a lot of people that are a little bit more granola, hippie-loving And so I try to be the different voice on that. My wife and I now have four kids, I have three little girls, then I have a little boy, and they range from 11 to four. So I'm busy trying to be a dad, and they love off-roading. In fact, we go to a winter four by four Jambree every year, and it just happens to coincide my daughter's birthday, so she thinks that's her birthday trip. And they look forward to that. We hit a few off-road events, we go camping and just getting them outside and involved in things, and they love it. And we just bought an XJ that I'm going to be fixing up over the next couple of years for them to drive when they get their licenses, and they're super stoked about that.
[01:09:00.090] - Phil Rawlings
It was just a lot of fun.
[01:09:04.090] - Big Rich Klein
I love the XJ platforms.
[01:09:07.720] - Phil Rawlings
It's dirt simple, not super powerful, but they work. It's hard to argue against a garbage can that can climb what you just climbed.
[01:09:20.830] - Big Rich Klein
We just did a motor swap in a '98. I should have it back here within the next month or so, so I can finish it.
[01:09:29.980] - Phil Rawlings
What motor did you put in?
[01:09:32.050] - Big Rich Klein
It's got about a 390 horse LQ4.
[01:09:35.440] - Phil Rawlings
Oh.
[01:09:37.760] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, so the gas. That's going to be fine. Yeah, 6 liter.
[01:09:40.800] - Phil Rawlings
So you're going to strengthen your unibody on that?
[01:09:43.930] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, that part has already been done. Yeah. Okay. It's got JT, 44 axles, four linked in the rear. It's got a radius arm front, which I like on my existing XJ, my beater rig. And One that we use for recoveries and setting up race courses and all that. So now it's just a trail rig.
[01:10:06.960] - Phil Rawlings
Radius arms are dead simple.
[01:10:09.230] - Big Rich Klein
Yes.
[01:10:10.560] - Phil Rawlings
And they work. Yep.
[01:10:12.560] - Big Rich Klein
May not be the greatest flex, but you know what? They work. I wouldn't necessarily run a comp buggy with them, but for trail wheeling and picking your own line, they're just great. You can drive through everything.
[01:10:30.720] - Phil Rawlings
And what size tires you're putting on that?
[01:10:32.970] - Big Rich Klein
35, 1350s to begin with, 17s. And then eventually, I'll go to 37s on the V8 Jeep.
[01:10:40.570] - Phil Rawlings
Nice. Yeah, your 37 is probably going to be about the limit of your axles there.
[01:10:48.110] - Big Rich Klein
Well, everything is going to be Cromollet and 35 spline. Oh, that helps. Yeah, it's going to be. And I don't drive with a heavy foot, except from stoplight to on the rocks, I'm very smooth in the rocks.
[01:11:04.510] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah. My off-road rig is my family... I still have my 73 Jeep pickup, and that's lift I did on '40s and Dana 300 and Chevy fuel injection system on it. Still got the MCAP 360, but my family offroading rig is a '88 Grand Wagoneer. And We call it saggy because when we got it, the back end was all sagged down. It's just a fun rig. Nice. So if you see it's round, it'll have a little... It has a red pot of pot bucket on the back, almost always, because I have three girls. They have to go to the bathroom at the drop of a time. That is a constant fixture on the back. My wife and I joke about all the time. And she's like, yeah, we have these pictures of us being all cool and stuff, and then there's the bucket.
[01:12:08.060] - Big Rich Klein
A bumper-dumper?
[01:12:11.240] - Phil Rawlings
Now it's just got to flip up lid and inside the lid, it has a seat lid. And then it's into a bag. Dump your kiddy litter in there and strap it back on the top.
[01:12:24.780] - Big Rich Klein
Actually, we use one of those in our adventure trailer. With the rooftop.
[01:12:29.800] - Phil Rawlings
That works.
[01:12:31.460] - Big Rich Klein
We bring up a little shelter so that we can...
[01:12:35.100] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah. We had a vendor at the last show, Instaprivy, and I was looking at their set up there and it's slick. It packs into a pack and it's got your toilet seat and your bag and you roll it up. And so we went hiking up to Timpanogus Cave, and I took that with me just on a swim because I hadn't I've used it yet. I'm like, All right, that's a pretty good hike with four little kids. I'm going to need this. And so sure enough, we found a wide spot on the trail and set that thing up. My girl, she was dancing like crazy. I don't think she would have made it that another five steps. We whipped that thing out and set it up. And then, of course, once one girl goes, they all got to go. And then my boy, he's like, I got to go, too. And so pretty much the whole family, except for my wife and I, they have their moment on the trail. And people come around the corner and they see a little green floating privacy thing. They're like, Is that? I'm like, Yes, that's cool.
[01:13:51.340] - Big Rich Klein
There you go. Perfect. So what's in the future for you?
[01:13:58.430] - Phil Rawlings
Well, as For the moment, I got to concentrate on what I got going on. So AYL, the TV show, we need to modernize it a little bit. It's an awesome show. It's cool. It does a lot of good. We use it to help us with promoting some Blue Ribbon Coalition stuff and some other land use things. But we need to modernize it a little bit, make it a little bit more YouTube friendly. But that's hard because you can't lose your current viewers. You can't change it so much that they tune in and they're like, Hey, where's my TV show? And so we have a super loyal following and viewer base. And so we're trying to modernize that and trying to figure out how to exist in the new sphere of social media and Internet content and everything like that. So we're trying to do better at selling advertising space on the show and things like that. So if you have a product that you need to advertise to an off-road viewership market, hit me up. Is that okay to do a plug like that on your show?
[01:15:22.620] - Big Rich Klein
Absolutely. Give an email address so they can get in touch with you.
[01:15:28.630] - Phil Rawlings
Okay. You can just use the same one for everything, the shows or the expos or the TV show at phil@slorex. Com. That's P-H-I-L-O-R-O-R-E. Com. Rex. Com. So it's just the abbreviation of the show name Salt Lake Off-Road and Outdoor Expo. Perfect. And then on the Expo sides, we are looking grow. And so we're looking to grow the Boise show and the Salt Lake show, and we're looking at another market. And so that'll be cool and interesting and scary and all that good stuff.
[01:16:20.900] - Big Rich Klein
Well, good for you. It sounds like you got a lot going on and you're going to keep busy and stay out of trouble.
[01:16:28.140] - Phil Rawlings
That used to be the hardest part, but now I don't have time. I'm just, well, I did get a speeding ticket the other day for 19 over. I had that one coming. Other than that, for the most part, I'm just, you know.
[01:16:45.800] - Big Rich Klein
That actually amazes me in the Salt Lake area, because nobody there drives less than 20 over.
[01:16:54.700] - Phil Rawlings
I know. I wasn't really passing people that fast. I was late to a meeting, and so I was speeding a little bit. I was in my car and I'd been driving my truck with the toy hauler on behind it for the past week on vacation. So yada, yada, yada, excuse, excuse, excuse. I was flying.
[01:17:18.840] - Big Rich Klein
Well, at least you didn't get a mug shot with that one.
[01:17:22.470] - Phil Rawlings
No, not with that one. Yeah, apparently it's just a fix-a-ticket, so I got to watch out for it.
[01:17:29.340] - Big Rich Klein
Well, Excellent. Phil, it's been great having you on here. I appreciate you spending the time and talking about your life and your history and all the things that you got going on. It's a handful. I love talking to people that have handful fulls of stuff. I'm semi-retired from- Yeah, I was going to call you on that one. But I'm busier now than I think I ever have been because I'm not driving all the time.
[01:17:58.550] - Phil Rawlings
Four Lowe is starting to take off. I mean, we've been advertising with you. I think we missed the last two years. Before that, we've been pretty good. I got to know Shelle a little bit through that. You guys have been awesome, and you have your hands in a lot of things as well.
[01:18:19.120] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. Now between the board of directors for the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame and for the Rubicon Trail Foundation, among the magazine and the podcast, and And still helping with the event series, even though we're not boots on the ground at all. The events were behind the scenes, getting ready for events. So, yeah, we got a few things going on.
[01:18:40.770] - Phil Rawlings
Yeah, that's awesome. All right. Well, I hope to see you around.
[01:18:44.880] - Big Rich Klein
Absolutely. In fact, at some point, I'd like to get to one of your expos and maybe set up a booth for the Hall of Fame.
[01:18:53.970] - Phil Rawlings
Oh, that'd be fantastic.
[01:18:55.280] - Big Rich Klein
I'd love that. I'd love to talk to you about that. Okay, cool. Excellent. Well, Phil, again, thank you very much, and say hello to the family for me, and good luck with everything you're doing and everything coming up in the future.
[01:19:10.730] - Phil Rawlings
Oh, thank you. Thank you. And maybe, will Can you be at Trail Hero?
[01:19:16.490] - Big Rich Klein
No, I do. Shelle and I staff The Rebell. And so The Rebell rally, and that starts right afterwards. There's no way I can do one back and forth.
[01:19:29.690] - Phil Rawlings
Too You got to get all your set up done. There's a lot of work in events that people don't realize.
[01:19:35.600] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, especially an event that travels for 10 days, and sets up a bivouac everywhere for basically 300 people. It can be amazing. We're just a small part of that, but we're constantly moving. And then the other thing is, is that having both of those events back to back, I'm away from my We had to take our parents house for too long, and that's what we're doing now is taking care of my mom. And so we can't be gone for too long. So we had to pick one or the other, and Rich is doing a great job on his own. He surely doesn't need me around to For anything. But we're still involved with it with Jake Good and We Rock, putting on the Rock Crawl portion.
[01:20:22.280] - Phil Rawlings
If I watch that every year, I'm there. Cool.
[01:20:27.090] - Big Rich Klein
All right. Well, take care and have a great rest of your All right.
[01:20:31.660] - Phil Rawlings
You too. See you, Rich. All right. Bye-bye. Bye.
[01:20:35.110] - 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.