Johnny Rocha is all-in on off-road in Episode 291

From SoCal surf breaks to the rocks of Johnson Valley, fabricator, racer, and builder Johnny Rocha shares a lifetime immersed in dirt, water, and horsepower. Johnny grew up riding desert singletrack, surfing with his dad, and turning wrenches young—then parlayed a career in operation engineering into nights and weekends fabricating Jeeps before going all-in on off-road.

Hear how a 16-year-old Baja road trip lit the fuse, an ’84 CJ-7 changed everything, and magazine-era shop-hopping led to friendships with icons like the Curries—and ultimately to co-building the legendary 88 Savvy car that dominated King of the Hammers EMC. Johnny dives into race-craft, why plans win races, the evolution from crew chief to team manager, and mentoring young talents like Chase Caprera. He’s candid on heartbreaks (DNFs, exploding lockers, bad juju cars), the irresistible pull of KOH, and why he’s transitioning from racing to premium rock-crawler builds.

Transcript

[00:00:05.100] - 

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.

[00:00:46.460] - 

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

[00:01:11.880] – Big Rich Klein

As a Southern California kid, Water has been a big part of his life, but so is the desert. Working construction in the summer for his dad, then he found Baja for an endless summer trip with a friend. Desert Racing came about, and then King of the Hammers. My guest this week is Johnny Rocha. Good morning, Johnny Rocha. How are you doing today? It's so good to have you on the show. I'm really looking forward to this one.

[00:01:39.420] - Johnny Rocha

Good morning. I'm doing well. Thank you. Let's do this. Yeah.

[00:01:45.500] - Big Rich Klein

So the first question I have to ask everybody is, where were you born and raised?

[00:01:51.180] - Johnny Rocha

I'm born and raised in Southern California. I was born in Los Angeles, California, raised in Whittier, my whole life. I never left. I'm still here.

[00:02:06.700] - Big Rich Klein

And those early years, what would you do for entertainment as a kid?

[00:02:14.440] - Johnny Rocha

Entertainment as a kid, I'm going to be honest. I started riding... I was pushing my dad. My dad was road, motor cycles, dirt bikes. I started riding dirt bikes at four years old. I was pushing hard for that. I don't know. I just Dirt was my thing. And then I played sports as a normal child, baseball, basketball, football, pop Warner. And went into high school doing the same thing. Went to a private Catholic high school. And yeah, surfing was really huge in our family. We lived at the beach pretty much my whole life. My dad was a big surfer from the '60s, and that's what we did as kids. We ran the beaches.

[00:03:02.020] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Did you do a lot of desert riding going out back in the inland empire, or was it mostly track?

[00:03:13.700] - Johnny Rocha

Oh, no, it was all desert, and I guess now they would call it. Now today, it's called Hare n Hound. So a lot of single track in. We would go up in the Palmdale area. Now, this is via late '70s. Johnson Valley, I was introduced to Soggy Lake Probably around 1976, '78. Then Means Lake, maybe in the early, probably 1980, because my dad just got a new CJ7. So yeah, we mostly rode desert and Trail, nowhere near local. But local, too, was 20 miles from the house. There was no industry buildings, there was no commercial or nothing. So Azusa the Canyon, stuff like that. That was normal. That was like a half a day trip. Get up in the morning, go do a rip, and then come home. So it was all mainly desert. Mainly we did desert.

[00:04:11.380] - Big Rich Klein

And you mentioned a private Catholic school. Was that correct? Catholic school? Yes. Okay. And were you a good student or were you one of those that were always looking out the window?

[00:04:25.060] - Johnny Rocha

Looking out the window, bored. I went to public school School through elementary and junior high. Then my parents' decision was for me to go to private high school because I was already wild, I guess you would call it. This was in the early '80s. I didn't know, I didn't realize, but parents were seeing a major drug problem. I know my parents, that was the The reason why I wasn't going to go to the public school was they were trying to get me away from all that, which was awesome. I hated my parents for sending me to Catholic school, but later as an adult, I realized why. I stared out the window a lot. I was about a 3. 0 student all the way through. Yeah, that was high school. Really good, really fun times. I thank my parents for doing that. Made me a different person, that's for sure, from all my friends growing up are totally different than I am.

[00:05:36.340] - Big Rich Klein

In the Catholic school, did you play sports then as well?

[00:05:43.620] - Johnny Rocha

Yes, it was a big powerhouse for sports. I played football, basketball, and baseball. By the time I got to my junior year, I was just focusing on basketball and baseball. Reason being that they had a lot of strict rules for football that I didn't really want to do. I didn't want to shave my head no more. I wanted the long hair look. I was tired of it. I played popcorn my whole life, and I think I just got burned out.

[00:06:17.480] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:06:18.460] - Johnny Rocha

Okay.

[00:06:19.160] - Big Rich Klein

What was the name of the high school that you went to?

[00:06:21.420] - Johnny Rocha

I went to Saint Paul High School in Santa Fe, Springs, California. Okay. Yeah. It was a big football powerhouse in the '80s. Angeles League with Servite, modern day, all the other big private schools that were around back then. I guess now it's considered Division One. I don't think the school's at Division One anymore, but back then it was. Okay.

[00:06:46.980] - Big Rich Klein

Did you work at all during those times? Odd jobs?

[00:06:51.940] - Johnny Rocha

Absolutely. My father was a contractor. Okay. I pretty much grew up on the job sites my whole entire use, and I was put to as a slave.

[00:07:03.400] - Big Rich Klein

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

[00:07:06.360] - Johnny Rocha

Absolutely not. You hated it as a child. But as an adult, oh, my God, the things you've learned and what my father taught me and being on the job sites and working with other guys, it comes in very handy. You learn to work. You learn a lot of things, plumbing, electrical, even though that's You're on the job site, drywall. I was pretty much the maintenance guy growing up at home. I was the pool guy, I was the gardener, you name it. I was the handy man around the house at a very young age. Even today, a matter of fact, last week I was pouring concrete out of a wheelbarrow in my backyard because I had to fill a spot. I hated it. I wasn't allowed to sleep in as a child 7: 00, I better be up or my mom would come in and get me on my days off. It was because work needed to get done around the house. It was a brutal childhood on that side, but it paid off later as an adult, learning how to work and work with my hands. I didn't fall into that industry. I smelled drywall in a fresh house, and it just It gets to me.

[00:08:30.930] - Johnny Rocha

I can't do it. That was not me.

[00:08:34.890] - Big Rich Klein

That's the one part of construction that I hate the most is drywall.

[00:08:39.360] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah. Well, you walk into a job site, you just smell that drywall, and you're like, That just smells like hard work. It's like chalkboard. It's like, I did not like it. Absolutely. I did not pursue the construction thing as an adult at all. Can I do everything? Absolutely.

[00:09:02.800] - Big Rich Klein

When you were growing up, what were your aspirations? What did you want to become?

[00:09:09.880] - Johnny Rocha

I wanted to be an engineer, and I did pursue that in college. I got my degree in... What was it? It was Structural Engineering. Then I went on to Operating Engineering, which went into working in canneries and breweries, which we had a lot here in Southern California back then in the late '80s, early '90s. That's where I went to work for. I went and did... I worked 19 years in canneries and breweries throughout Southern California as an operating engineer and made it all the way up to assistant chief and was pursuing the chief position at that time. Then the company that I I worked for decided they were going to leave California and move to Tennessee, and I did not take that job. They offered me to go to Tennessee, and I said, No, I can't leave Southern California. I'm spoiled here. I got my severance pay, which equalled out to about 25… It equalled out to 25 years after my 19, and I was able to get my golden ticket to retire. That was awesome. I have not I'm retired yet, but I retire full benefits from that. I worked for a really good company, which is Mars Incorporated.

[00:10:38.180] - Johnny Rocha

I worked there for 19 years. In between that, I had a small off-road shop that I started, I want to say 2002, and I was just doing fabricating. It was just like Nerf bars and roll cages and stuff like that. I was double-dipping in my 20s I already knew what I wanted to do.

[00:11:03.540] - Big Rich Klein

The small off-road shop, did you have a name for it, or was it just Johnny's?

[00:11:10.700] - Johnny Rocha

No, there was no name. I just rented out a space over in La Haube, California. I was pretty involved in... Back then, it wasn't even forums yet, I believe. I know pirate was around, But the local guys, Southern California, there's a lot of off-road guys, whether it's dirt bikes, Jeeps, Toyotas. It was always just word of mouth. It was word of mouth, and it kept me busy enough to do that for about five years there. I'd go to work at 6: 00 in the morning, get off at 2: 30. I'd be home by 3: 30, eat dinner, and then go to my shop and work till 9: 00, seven days a week. I did that. I did that for a good 20... No, I did that for about 15 years, and I was double-dipping.

[00:12:09.500] - Big Rich Klein

I know that you have at least one son. Is that correct?

[00:12:13.960] - Johnny Rocha

I have five boys Five boys. I have five boys. Five boys? Oh, wow. Yes.

[00:12:16.860] - Big Rich Klein

Maybe I got them all confused into one.

[00:12:18.930] - Johnny Rocha

I don't talk about my boys a lot on social media. I keep that on my private side of my life because that's Just because that's my family and the things we do and stuff like that, is this my time? I think social media, I don't really get into that stuff. My personal life, most people that are around me, that are on social media and know me, they're the ones that know. But yes, I have five boys. I raised five boys with my ex-wife. I've been divorced 17 years now. I raised them. I raised them while I was a single dad. Running around with diaper bags, man.

[00:13:02.460] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. Were you hoping for a basketball team? Is that what it was?

[00:13:06.100] - Johnny Rocha

I wanted a girl. That was the problem. I went from I don't want any kids till I had my first son, to I wanted a girl. I wanted a daddy's girl. Then I wanted to stop after the third one, and then my ex-wife kept pushing me and I fell for it. That was five. That's when I said, We are done. This is going to be insane. I'm thinking college tuition and just life raising them. This is going to be brutal. It was not that hard. I had to work and put food on the table and put a roof over their head, and we did that. Even though me and the wife, the thing didn't work out, we still stayed together on our values for our boys. My youngest just graduated from high school, but all my boys have I've gone through college and degree, except for one. My second youngest, Joel, he decided to join the Marines after two years in college. So he's in the Marines right now. Other than that, they're all on their own. They all have really good jobs, and they're doing well. I feel like I did good.

[00:14:19.040] - Big Rich Klein

Sounds like you did good. That's great.

[00:14:20.600] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah, it was crazy.

[00:14:23.180] - Big Rich Klein

And none of them with mug shots or anything. That's even better.

[00:14:28.920] - Johnny Rocha

Yes, absolutely. That was the biggest scare of my whole part of parenting was, I have five boys, what are the odds? One of them is going to give me a major, major heart attack with problems. I just did… The parenting was the way I was raised and stuff. Parenting was like the top of my list. I didn't care about anything else. As long as my kids were doing well, then I can go do what I needed to do. But if I had to be there, I supported all my boys through all their sports all the way through high school and college. I think I believe that's the ticket, supporting your children through it, and it should be okay. It turned out to be okay for me. Great.

[00:15:18.620] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome.

[00:15:19.560] - Johnny Rocha

No regrets.

[00:15:20.720] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. No regrets, right?

[00:15:23.280] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah, exactly.

[00:15:24.820] - Big Rich Klein

When you said you started in around you had a small off-road shop, and you were doing some fabrication. You learned fabrication through engineering?

[00:15:39.020] - Johnny Rocha

No, I started at home when I was about 15. My dad, we've always had Jeeps. It was about 14, 15, I bought my dad... I had about $300, and I found this 1969 VW bus, and I wanted to make it a Baja bus. I did. The only information I had was what came out in the magazines. I subscribed to every off-road magazine possible, United States, and Hot VWs, and all that stuff. I would just read and read, and I'd go tinker in my dad's garage. We had dune buggies and dirt bikes and Jeeps and all that stuff. We had welders and we had all the tools to tinker with. I think about 14 years old, that's when I started realizing this is what I want to do. This is what I really want to do as this is my passion. That's where it all started. I would say about 14 started. I was a freshman in high school. I was already building Baha bugs busses and all that stuff. Then I got my first four-wheel drive. I was 15. I got a 63 International long bed, stepside, inline 6, four-wheel drive. That's where it went.

[00:17:15.700] - Johnny Rocha

That's where it went south on life.

[00:17:18.100] - Big Rich Klein

Vw bus was your first vehicle?

[00:17:21.140] - Johnny Rocha

Yes. And then you had to jump into international. I wasn't even of age to drive. I wasn't even of age to drive. I was 14, and my parents were letting me drive. Nice.

[00:17:29.340] - Big Rich Klein

And then you You jumped into an international?

[00:17:32.400] - Johnny Rocha

Yes. As my personal vehicle, my dad had the Jeeps and stuff, but I saw that on the side of the road, it was for $100, and it ran. My whole idea was I was going to get it to really good running condition. I went through everything, bearings, everything. Me and my best friend, when I turned 16 on my birthday, we went to Baja. We went all the way down to Cabo in that truck and all the way back up. We had a transister radio in between us. I had my surfboard rack up on top, and we had our bicycles and coronas and everything. We spent about a month in Baja that summer.

[00:18:13.500] - Big Rich Klein

And coronas.

[00:18:15.320] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah, corona was the thing in 1986.

[00:18:21.300] - Big Rich Klein

That's funny. Let's talk about that trip. You just one day decided, let's go to Baja?

[00:18:32.980] - Johnny Rocha

I had a plan already that I wanted to go to Baja because I was going to Baja a lot with my parents. We spent a lot of time down there surfing and riding motorcycles. From Probably 8 years old till current of 15, 14, 15 years old. Surfing over here in Southern California, me and my best friend were like, Dude, we should just go on a trip on our own. His parents give a shit. My mom was like, Yeah, if that's what you want to do. I was a good boy. I wasn't really getting in trouble. I was finding trouble, but I wasn't getting in trouble. I think I had $200 and my buddy had $50. We took off for a month. We went all the way to Los Cabos and just surfed all the way down. Stopped at Rocky Point. We went everywhere. Insanada, Cape K38, did all that, went all the way down. We were gone for about a month and a half. My mom, to this day, asked herself, How did I let you do that? That was insane. This was no cell phones. I think I called home one time from a pay phone in, I think I was in Rocky Point, and that was the only time they heard from me.

[00:19:51.620] - Johnny Rocha

We made it back. We made it back with $5. You talk about it It was a great trip in memory that I'll never forget with just me and my best friend.

[00:20:05.620] - Big Rich Klein

Kind of like one of those endless summer trips.

[00:20:08.180] - Johnny Rocha

It was, and I think that had a lot to do with it. I really do. We watched that movie so many times around VHS. We're driving that old international on the beaches. Nobody around. We'd surf and get out of the water, and all of a sudden, a local would show up out of nowhere and just invite us over and have us for dinner. It was just so great. I wish my kids could do that nowadays, but now it's different.

[00:20:38.580] - Big Rich Klein

It's a lot different.

[00:20:40.120] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah, I mean, just everywhere. Even here, it's different. Yes.

[00:20:43.540] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, so true.

[00:20:45.380] - Johnny Rocha

Yes.

[00:20:46.780] - Big Rich Klein

You get back from that endless summer trip, you were 16?

[00:20:52.260] - Johnny Rocha

I was 16, yes.

[00:20:53.900] - Big Rich Klein

Then you're going to go pull your next year in high school, probably your junior year or something like that?

[00:21:00.700] - Johnny Rocha

I was going in my junior year, yes. I was going in my junior year.

[00:21:03.660] - Big Rich Klein

Was your outlook a lot different after that trip?

[00:21:07.040] - Johnny Rocha

Absolutely, 100%. I just focused on saving money, and I wanted to do another trip. I wanted my own Jeep. That was the next big thing. I probably, around that time, I probably got fired from my dad's company about 10 times and ran off the job because I was the owner's son. My dad had a friend that owned a tile store, a little mom and pop tile store where they sold tile and stuff. My dad said, You should go see Jeff. He can use you in the back. I went and saw him and Jeff said, Yeah, I can use you. You can work in the back, load the contractors up and learn how to bullnose marble because I sell marble and people need the bullnose done. He taught me how to do all that. I was making about... Back then, it was a lot of money. It was like $10 an hour. I'd probably do about 10 hours a week between school and sports and stuff. I was just saving my money, just saving it. I bought an 84 CJ7, and that's what really got me, changed my whole life. Not as much as just off road, but just becoming a real jeeper, I guess you would say.

[00:22:38.820] - Johnny Rocha

I don't think that's today. We're falling away. The real Jeeper guys are not around as much. I'm not saying us, but I'm saying the new generation. The JKJL platform really changed the Jeeper life.

[00:22:58.040] - Big Rich Klein

Yes, but it also saved it.

[00:23:00.000] - Johnny Rocha

It absolutely, it saved it huge.

[00:23:02.440] - Big Rich Klein

Saved the industry.

[00:23:03.360] - Johnny Rocha

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Everyone all the way across the board. I agree on that.

[00:23:11.080] - Big Rich Klein

So then you get that CJ7, you say it changed your life. Mm-hmm. Explain that. How did it do that?

[00:23:23.480] - Johnny Rocha

Well, like I said, the magazine stuff, that was the only info we had in That was probably about '87. So mainly was you see Moab, Jeep Safari, and then we had the Terra Del Sol runs, and all the stuff that came in the magazine, all the events that you just don't know unless you read the magazine or the dates. There was no internet. There was nothing other than word of mouth and being in the Jeep community, knowing what the next event was going to be. That was the push. I wanted to do the. Because back then, it was the biggest roundup on west of the Mississippi back then. It was the biggest Jeep thing going on, according to the magazine. That was my goal. I wanted to go Tierra Rhabsoul. That's where the push step happened. Then after that became Moab. Then what was it? Late '80s, early '90s, I learned of the Victor Valley Four Willers. That was through a mutual friend that I was buying parts from. The Victor Valley Four Willers are the original Jeep club that started all the Hammer Trails. They're the ones. Then found out they had fun in the desert.

[00:24:55.660] - Johnny Rocha

That was their event. We're still running, I believe, 33s still at that time. 33s, 35s, probably just coming out. Yeah, 35s weren't coming out yet. So yeah, it was 33s. In the magazine, I found some shops in the back where all the ads were, and that would be Hicks 4x4 in Pomona, California. I don't know if you ever remember that. That was that guy, Jeff Hicks. It was two brothers. Then you had Jason Bunch at Tri County here in Pomona, which was two streets down. Then you had Jim Rill. It was like, I'm here in the mecca of everything that's going on right now, today in the Jeep world. It's all here within reach of my house. I just started hanging around those shops. I started doing the SM 420, four-speed transmission and all that stuff and figuring out, looking Doing the Dana 60 conversion from the AMC 20 and doing a 44 up front with... Then Jason came in with the high steer steering back then, and that was the thing. That's where it went crazy. I had so many people, and then the courries being in Anaheim. I met John. Oh, God. It had to be late '80s, early 2000s.

[00:26:50.040] - Johnny Rocha

That's just by going to the shop, and John wouldn't happen to be walking by. We didn't really know each other at all at that time. We knew each other in my faces. But in one day, he's just like, I was looking for a sway bar. That's what it was. I was already doing a coil over 3Link that had sing done in the magazine on a truck. So that had to be about '91, '90-ish. I had a really good relationship with Mike over at King, and this was way before. They had built me some coilovers, and I was doing a three link. I met John Curry at his shop, and he had just came out with the Annen Rock, and that's where our friendship started, right there. Nice. Crazy. Yeah, lots of... I chased a lot of local Jeep shops in my late teens, early '20s, buying parts them, talking with them, things like that. The only thing we knew was going on was the magazines. That was it. As far as the latest technology and everything. For parts, which was Daddy Adler. He had the one, and then that used to be in a cul-de-sac.

[00:28:24.600] - Johnny Rocha

Right at the end of the cul-de-sac, there was this old block building, and that was the original for all parts. I used to go there with my dad, probably 84, 85, buying leaf springs and stuff like that for my dad, CJ. That was our go-to shop for just bolt on off-the-shelf stuff. It was life in Southern California.

[00:28:54.260] - Big Rich Klein

You said you went to TDS. Was that the first event that you went to, organized event?

[00:29:02.560] - Johnny Rocha

Yes, that wasn't the first organized event, and it blew my mind. It was so many people. It was everything the magazine ever said it was. I think I took a tent and I went for the weekend, and I had the best time ever. As many times that we went to Glamis, I never knew if you made a right turn on that SR-22, that it was like a whole different terrain. It looked like the moon to me back then. That is a weird terrain place, which was fun. It wasn't rock crawling, but it sure would twist you up. You make a mistake very quick and be on your lid.

[00:29:51.380] - Big Rich Klein

Very true. Did you ever get to Moab in those early days?

[00:29:59.200] - Johnny Rocha

No. Now, I never got to Moab. Once I got into school and college and then got married and stuff, and it was like everything slowed down. It really did. Buying my first house, I think I was 20 or 21 when I bought my first house, I started having responsibilities and things just started getting put on hold. I'm not good with dates, but I can't remember the the first Easter Jeep safari I went to, but it was definitely in... I want to say it was in my CJ. Yeah, it was a CJ. I can't remember. But I'll tell you what, Moab is my happy place. Out of everywhere I've wheeled all across the country. I don't go to Moab more. If I do, I don't go to Moab more than once a year. Some people like to go back, consecutive or we have work to do, and, Oh, let's go test at Moab, and stuff like that. I purposely try to only do it once a year because when I go somewhere one time a year or one time every two years, I can take it in. I can take the beauty in. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone, but I can respect it way more than I respect JV.

[00:31:34.620] - Johnny Rocha

You know what I mean?

[00:31:37.320] - Big Rich Klein

Well, JV is an awesome place.

[00:31:39.940] - Johnny Rocha

It really is. It really is.

[00:31:42.440] - Big Rich Klein

But it's not the same.

[00:31:44.800] - Johnny Rocha

It is absolutely not the same. You can make it the same. I tell this to people all the time. If you go to JV, go during the week.

[00:31:57.080] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah.

[00:31:58.560] - Johnny Rocha

On an off season, even in the summer, it's hot. Go at night. Go before the sunsets. That is the most peaceful place that's so beautiful. And you can look 360 degrees and just see nothing but beauty. The desert just does something for me. I don't know what it is. The desert and the ocean. I just come to peace. Everything that I'm Every piece of stress or whatever's going on in my life is forgotten about when I'm there by myself or we're just a couple of people and there's no noise. It's a really beautiful place.

[00:32:43.040] - Big Rich Klein

I find that on my boat. I just don't get to our boat very often.

[00:32:47.660] - Johnny Rocha

That's a whole different podcast.

[00:32:50.220] - Big Rich Klein

Different type of boat than what you have, though, or what you've been doing.

[00:32:55.190] - Johnny Rocha

See, that's the thing. Again, personal thing. Most people that know me or know of me is like, they see me in the off-road world, off-road industry, off-road racing, rock crawling, blah, blah, blah. What they really don't know that boating is my number one passion. Ever since I was a kid, it's been number one. I come to such peace and happiness when I'm boating. When growing up, From, I don't know, probably from what I can remember, as a child, so about high school, my parents would take a three months summer vacation every year. We took three months summer vacation. We would get in my dad's truck and it had a cab over, and we had a boat, and we would just go to lakes the whole summer. Nice. And water ski and just camp, and everything. So boating was another part of our family thing. And yeah, that's a whole different story.

[00:34:06.460] - Big Rich Klein

I grew up in the water, you might say. And water skiing was a big part of that. We went from this little tiny boat with a 35 horsepower Johnson on it or something like that. That I could just stop in the water. I remember going shopping with my dad for a boat. We were We're looking at one that had an open bow in and out. And we came back with a 17 and a half foot flat bottom drag boat. Oh, jeez. And my mom was like, What the hell did you guys do?

[00:34:45.960] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah, I brought boats home, and people just go, what did you just buy? And I'm like, it floats and you just put gas in it, man. That's it. That's all I can afford right now.

[00:34:58.960] - Big Rich Klein

I always wanted another flat bottom. And then now that I've gotten older, I'm thinking, a jet boat would be good.

[00:35:07.540] - Johnny Rocha

The wife is more like party barge. Yeah, that's so funny you said that, because I've never owned a jet boat or a flat bottom. I had tons of friends that did the river, the river, the river. That was the big thing here in SoCal to go to Parker and Blyth and all that stuff inkjet boats. I'm actually telling myself within the next couple of years, I'm getting a jet boat with a big, big, big, stupid motor in it. Yeah, that's one thing. People are like, Why do you want a jet boat, dude? You got these beautiful boats. Listen, then I'm like, I don't know. I got to have one of those, man. They're just so ratty and gnarly and just sound, the horsepower, the noise it puts out. Don't get me wrong. My boat's put out really nice noise, but not when you just got You know.

[00:36:01.420] - Big Rich Klein

Open header.

[00:36:02.060] - Johnny Rocha

Pipe sticking out, open header just sticking right out with no cooling on them, and they're just getting glowing red. I got to have one.

[00:36:13.100] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. And Shelle is like, No, So if you're going to get a smaller boat than our 48-foot Chriscraft, then it's going to be a party barge. And I'm like, okay, well, I saw one of those with, you like two 250s on the back of it that the guy was doing like 80 miles an hour. Okay. I don't think she'll go for that either.

[00:36:40.200] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah. One rule I have that I always tell myself is, I will never buy a pontoon. That's when I'm telling myself, not anybody else. So nobody else take this. That's when I tell myself, I'm old.

[00:37:00.000] - Big Rich Klein

I understand, but I do feel old. But that's why I like that 48-footer because it's so much room, so many people can be on it. We've had 17 people on the boat, and you're not crowded at all. Everybody's just having a good time chasing dolphins, or not chasing dolphins, giving the dolphins the opportunity to chase us.

[00:37:23.720] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah, in the wake. Oh, God, it's so bitching. I go out a lot with Jim Wagner, Cody's father. He's a big ocean boater guy. Oh, yeah. And we just... Man, anytime the dolphins comes up, and then the school comes in, it's just so relaxing. We're doing 14 knots. That's about as hard as he'll push his ship.

[00:37:48.580] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah. That Nardhamen? Oh, Jesus.

[00:37:51.260] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah. And it's just so... It's rad. For people that haven't done it, they need to find somebody with the and go look at that. It's cool. Yeah. I always tell myself, when we pass and we were able to come back as an animal of choice, it'd be a dolphin or an eagle.

[00:38:13.160] - Big Rich Klein

Right. I think I'd do a dolphin.

[00:38:15.140] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah. The dolphin's pretty badass.

[00:38:18.340] - Big Rich Klein

So besides the boating, you're into the CJs. You're working hard, you're raising a family. It goes to the side for a while. And then when did it become, let's say, a necessity?

[00:38:37.100] - Johnny Rocha

It was always a need. I would say I think it really... This is what happened. When I went through my divorce, that's when I... One day I was like, Okay, I don't really need to be working this hard I have my boys, I'm going to raise them, but I don't have the wife. That's a big part of-Cut your credit cards in half. Commitment, and money. That's when I was like, Okay, I'm going to... I was very fortunate that the company I was working for was moving out, and that was an opening. Okay, what am I going to do next? I Then I went into automated warehousing, and I went to go work for Kroger for about three years after that in their automation warehousing, which working with cranes and stuff like that. Then I just one day, I'm like, I'm over this, dude. I had a neighbor that was building, ever since I was a kid, he was building rally cars and road race cars. He was like, Come work for Come work for me. I already had… By that time, I was already a full-blown welder. I went to school for that. I actually went to a private one-on-one school for about five years every single day for five years.

[00:40:18.020] - Johnny Rocha

My company paid for it and stuff like that. Then I started getting into fabric fabbing. Then I went to go work at Road Race Engineering, not the motor sports side, We're just... He had landed, I believe, at that time, he had landed a big deal with Mitsubishi, America. The Lancer was coming in at that time, and we were building rally cars for them. That's where it took off. I don't need a 9: 00 to 5: 00 job anymore. I can do this. But even though I was doing that, I was enjoying it. But off-road jeeping, rock-crawling, racing was still in my heart, and I had to find a way to get away from it, get away from the rally and road race stuff. Then I went on to the motor sports side, and I talked the owner and to, Hey, let me build you a Jeep. And we built a Jeep for Cema. And that was probably around 2006. So we had the brand new JK, 2007 JK, and I built that JK. By that time, going to the events, going to Jeep stuff, I had already established friends that owned Jeep shops and manufacturers at that time.

[00:41:49.090] - Johnny Rocha

So that was the Larry McRay, the Tony Pellegrino's, on and on, rigid industries and all that stuff. I was already with those guys, hanging out with them. And that's where it all like, I changed my whole life around just building Jeeps. And yeah, that was right around 2006. And that's where it all went. And then I was still involved in racing. I got involved in racing right around 1986 with Winners. Winners was the guy that started FABTEK. His shop happened to be in the same commercial building as my father's construction shop, construction company. I would walk over there and he was messing. Back then, he was messing with Toyotas. He was a big Toyota guy, and they were doing the Mickey Thompson series. I would go in there and help. I was just a nat at that time. I was 16. I was a nat. I was sweeping. Hold this here so I can weld it. I was just that kid, bugging, bugging, bugging. And the next thing you know, going to Baja, I'm going to race 1,600 class and stuff like that. And I was just a volunteer, trying to get my foot in the door because that's the only way back.

[00:43:20.650] - Johnny Rocha

It is today, too, but that was the only way in that industry, the race industry. You had to put your time in to to be able to start touching the cars. I still was helping out racing, being a volunteer at that time. Then as years progressed, I was able to start pulling motors and doing prep work and stuff like that. And then the stupid King of the Hammers came about. And I went, I had heard about it. I think Jason Bunch, it might have been Jason Bunch, told me about it. And do you remember? It was also while John Curry, too, was talking about it, but the guy that used to do the off-road maps, I can't remember his name. Sidekick off-road maps. Yes.

[00:44:22.640] - Big Rich Klein

I know who you're talking about.

[00:44:24.220] - Johnny Rocha

I can see him. Yes. He was a really good friend of Frank Curry's. Yes. Then through them, I started meeting Walker. I started meeting a bunch of guys that were just idles of mine growing up that you would read about in the magazines. Here I am now, I'm going to lunch with these guys and just hanging out. That's where the racing side of my career started, pretty much through those guys.

[00:45:00.000] - Big Rich Klein

That bug is.

[00:45:01.500] - Johnny Rocha

That was it. Yeah. And King of the Hammers, and then that started. And then I believe around, I went in 2009 and then 2010, and I think it was a... I'm not good with dates at all. But whenever the announcement came out that they were going to have the EMC class, and that's when it was like, I got a phone call, I can't remember who called me and said, Hey, you need to read this. And they sent it over to me. I read it, and I said, What the hell are we going to build? And got involved really heavy, started I built in the car and was part of that whole Poison Spider, Chassis, Cheater car that was produced. I had produced the second one. At the same time We were building two of them. Poison Spider was building one, and I was building the other one. That's what really... That just nailed it. Nailed it on the cross, and I never looked back from there from building race cars and stuff like that. Then I think about two years after that, John and Jerold kicked our ass, that's for sure, that first year. Then John, I don't remember who called me.

[00:46:36.180] - Johnny Rocha

Somebody called me and said, We want to build a new car. Are you interested? And I said, No, let's go to lunch. And I went to lunch with John and Gerald. And John said, This guy's getting too old. He can't get out of the car and winch anymore. He damn near had a heart attack. I think he did have a heart attack that nobody knew about or stroke. And they were like, We need to build something there. We can just get through these canyons without having to winch. Things we were doing, everybody was doing at that time. We were all following suit on how to build a hammer's car. John pulled out a pen out of his pocket, and he just started drawing on a napkin at lunch. He says, I'm thinking about doing something like this. John is always an innovator. Oh, yes. I was always thinking way out of the box. The whole Curry family was like that. I was blown away on the design, what he just had in mind. I wish I would have kept that napkin. I don't know. To this day, we always talk, whatever happened to that napkin, whatever happened to the first drawing because they were just etched on a piece of paper.

[00:47:53.680] - Johnny Rocha

I said, Yeah, I'm in. I told him, I said, Look, I'm in, but I want to build this car the old-school way, because at that time, we were already doing CNC cars. We were doing CAD cars before that, right? Right. And they weren't working. I'll tell you that they were not working. They looked good. They looked good on the computer screen, and you could cycle them and everything. And then I thought to myself, Well, this car is only as good as the guy that wrote the fucking program. That doesn't mean the car is going to work. So I told John, I said, These things are failing. We need to build it like we used to build a car. Everything by hand. We use plumb-bobs and string and levels and this and that and just knowledge and go for it. And he's like, I said, That's the only way I'll be down to do this. And he said, There's no other way to do it but that way. I said, I'll do it. I'm in. And that was the first building of the '88 car. So I can't remember what year it was. Probably around 2012, 2013.

[00:49:07.320] - Johnny Rocha

Maybe a little bit earlier than that. And you know what? That was the first car that I built with John side by side. And it was fun. It was like back into the groove of building cars. You see photos of the '50s of guys building hot rods in the '50s and by guys standing around the car while it's being built. I know, I probably do, if I go look back, but somebody has all photos of that whole car being built from the ground up with people. Really people that... You had Kyle Leduc there, you had Dittl Leduc there, you had Walker, you had everybody that would come into the shop and chime in on what we should do. I want to say we probably... People would show up about 4: 00 in the afternoon and we'd stand around the car and we'd say, Yeah, that didn't work. Let's cut that out and let's go do this. I would work all day. Then in the evening, I'm cutting everything out that I did. Then I'd do it the next day. Then everything we talked about that night, I would do it the next day. Then we'd cut it out again.

[00:50:30.780] - Johnny Rocha

We must have cut that car 100 times. We knew we were building something bitching. We really did. Being around the courries and even a few of the employees of the courries that had a lot of racing knowledge and ingenuity, it was just... I was at the right place at the right time, basically. I was in Lala land. Just the knowledge everybody had and the ideas everyone had. I'll put as closer as friends and family. We're considered family now. The '88 car is really… I didn't think I was going to be involved in much in ultra four-style rock racing or whatever we want to call it today. As deep as I got into it, the last 10, 15 years. It's called 15. Then it just opened the doors for me. We just went out there and just the car worked, obviously, phenomenal. We just broke records of our own records, our own records, personal records of just win, win, win, win. That car is fully retired now, and I believe that car only got second place two times ever in its racing career. Every race that it did, it won, even down in Mexico. We raced that car in Nora in the evolution 4x4, which is the ultra four class, and There was probably 10 ultra-four cars, and we were the only 4,500.

[00:52:22.760] - Johnny Rocha

We won that race in that car against Jason Shippman in his Campbell car. There were some fast guys. And that's when I was like, this car just doesn't stop. So, yeah, after that, as far as racing went, me and John built a Campbell car after that. Nick and Shannon built the chassis as a roller, and we went and picked it up. It was just a complete bear roller. The only thing it had was the links and the hooked to it and the chassis. Then me and John brought it back to the shop, and then we completed it all. The deal was for Casey to race that car. That was the first two-seat straight-axle Not the first, but I don't know if you remember the 30 pack.

[00:53:21.220] - Big Rich Klein

Yes.

[00:53:22.200] - Johnny Rocha

That's the one that Bayly paid for pretty much. That was the chassis style that Bayly started her ultra four career in. Absolutely. We had the first… nick and Shannon built the first one, and John and Jarl had bought that one. But that whole talk went on in Moab one year. Nick and Shannon were around the '88 car, and we were just staring at it and they were like, We need to build this in a tubular full chassis and wider and ultra four size, not 4,500 size. Me and John did that one, and that car was just a piece of shit. It worked well. No, don't get me wrong. It worked well. Obviously, it worked very well. We just had very bad luck with it. We could not finish a race in that car. We had every grambling that could happen to a racer for two or three years happened to us. Every race we went to. Finally, Casey's like, That thing's got bad juju. Sell it. I think he sold it to somebody in Poland or Italy on one of those series over there. The guy came and I think he made it a half a lap in a KOH when he bought that.

[00:54:36.710] - Johnny Rocha

Then I don't ever know what happened to that car, but I know it's never finished a race. Sometimes you just got to eat it and let it go. Then we went on with the Jesse Holmes deal. After John and Brandon, the family was going through the car, everybody was getting a chance to go race it. Then none of the couriers didn't want to race it no more because we were raced out on that car. Then the idea was, Okay, Jessie was always wanting, wanting, wanting to be a part of it, part of the program. And that's when it opened up for her to come in on the program. And she went ahead and she did her duty and she did win. She overhauled a couple of times. And we kept pushing that car, and then Dan Fresh took over after Jessie was done. Dan did very well, too. He overhauled and kept over on. So all these years, I'm just focusing. My whole Jeep thing was just put to the side, and I would go to Jeep events. But racing was my job. That was all I did, just focused on racing. What I did was I took the sport of off-road racing, and I brought it back into a normal sport of baseball and football and everything, and everything becomes strategic.

[00:56:13.480] - Johnny Rocha

I started learning all the drivers. I started learning everybody's cars and their weak points and stuff like that. That really helped our program. We did practice a lot. We We had an unlimited budget of just being the best. But the whole thing is you can't win a race unless you don't have a plan. True. Some people just get in the car and see how far they can take that car. There has to be a plan. And then again, having so many friends that are professional racers at that time, you start learning like, Okay, we need to back down around this time. Okay, wherever position you're at, you're going to back down no matter what. What we tell you on the radio is what you're going to do. It just worked. That philosophy of mine still works today for the other teams that I worked for throughout my career. I went on to go race with the Gomez's. The Gomez's, I raced with them. I put the whole crew chief the thing to the side after I left savvy. I didn't want to be a crew chief anymore. I just wanted to be a manager. I just wanted to have the plan, the program, what it's going to take us to do, where we're going to be.

[00:57:43.120] - Johnny Rocha

I wanted hands-on prep back into that. The Gomez were looking for something like that at that time, and I didn't want to step on anybody's shoes that have been there. I let the brothers know, Look, hey, look, I'm not here to take anybody's job. I I don't want anyone's job here. I just want to come in, do my job and exit. They wanted that, too. We went out and raced. That's when they started winning, and we had a good time. Then after that, I think I went with Healy before that. When I left Savvy, me and Lauren had some talks, and Lauren was looking for someone like me at the time. Things were getting big Lauren. Everything was on paper at that time. It wasn't really happening, but it was going to happen. He was talking about full-blown. He just wanted to arrive and drive style stuff, and we were talking about it. Chris Corbett was a really good friend, and he was pushing for me to take the opportunity and stuff like that. But then again, what happened was Lauren wanted to stay in New Mexico. And then Lauren wanted to build. He wanted to build as his program in New Mexico.

[00:59:05.840] - Johnny Rocha

And I just told him to do it, dude. Do it. Go, go, go, go, balls to the small, dude. I can't do New Mexico. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't do it. Yeah, there's no ocean.

[00:59:19.520] - Big Rich Klein

No, no ocean.

[00:59:21.740] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah. You know, right now I can jump in my truck and I'll be at the marina in 10 minutes. You know what I mean? Right. So what went on with that? Then I went with the goal this is for, I think, a couple of years. Then Brian Caprera called me, and his phone call was about a Jeep, actually. He wanted to... He had a childhood Jeep that he had kept in a container, and he wanted to just upgrade it all and do it all. I said, Yeah, let's talk about it, this and that. Then the conversation started leading to racing. And then I can't remember the actual conversation. We were just like, Let's do this together. I know Chase was coming up. He was, Oh, God, Chase was probably 16, 17 years old then. He had won the side-by-side Championship, and he was going to move into 4800. And there was a 4800 bomber being built for Chase that nobody knew about it at that time. I knew the kid was fast. I watched him race in Mexico. I didn't really know him very well, but that kid reminded me of Casey Curry when Casey was that age.

[01:00:49.160] - Johnny Rocha

He just had raw talent, knowledge. He knew how to drive a car to the fullest. That's how that kid is. He just has just talent that most people don't get. A lot of guys, they just jump in the car and go. They learn from their mistakes and things like this kid, just the way he can just maneuver a car around. And he just knew. He just knew. So I was like, I want to be a part of that kid. I do. I see something in that kid. So we showed up, Hammers that year, his first 4,800-K-O-H race. And we put a program together, we put a plan, and he followed everything, and he won his first race. He overall, he killed everyone. And I said, Okay, here we go. And that was just a one-race deal with Brian. He just wanted me to come out and help with Hammers. When I left Hammers that year, it was like, Dude, I want you. I want you to work for me full-time, and we're going to run the whole season. And it's been going like that for several years now with them. And once I become loyal to someone, I just don't leave because there's a better offer on the table.

[01:02:19.420] - Johnny Rocha

Just don't. That's not me. Anybody that knows me is I'm straightforward, no bullshit. I just want to work and I want to be the best, and I want to reach everyone one's goals, including my own. We're going to work hard. There's people that do it for fun, and there's people that want to go and win. Everybody wants to go and win. We know this. But there's a difference. To go and win, you got to put the time in before you get to the show. When I mean time, I'm not talking just prepping a car and all the groceries. We're talking practice and sitting down and watching film, watching other... I treated it as a professional sport already when I was at that That time, I knew if we were behind... I don't want to say anybody's name because they're going to think I'm picking on them, but I'm not. Just for instance, God, who If we're behind Jason Sheer, we catch up to Jason, we're behind him. My whole philosophy is, don't pass him. This guy's going to show you the most primo lines you'll ever know in your life, and you're going to get schooled.

[01:03:46.520] - Johnny Rocha

The only way you're going to beat this guy because he's on a mission, the only way you're going to beat someone like that is you're going to follow him and you're just going to hope for the best that nothing happens, that something is going to happen I'm saying, and you can make the pass.

[01:04:01.680] - Big Rich Klein

Or try to take him at the end.

[01:04:04.460] - Johnny Rocha

That's what I'm saying. You just wait for that open door that he showed you the lap before, and you're going to take him on his own on his own medicine. That's what I mean by putting the time in, understanding everyone, or you come up on someone, you're coming up on someone, it's like, Oh, yeah, just come up on him because he doesn't like people in his rear view, and he's going to make a mistake, and you're going to go right around him, and You're not going to get in danger. Passing in danger is you might as well just say you don't want to race anymore that day. I purposely used to not put lights on the cars. People thought I was crazy. Dan Fresh thought I was crazy. He's like, Hey, I need my light bar and this and that. I looked at him and said, Dan, if you're not back at the finish line by lunchtime, you might as well just get off the race course, call us so we can come pick up the car, because we're not here to finish, dude. Your race time should be here. You should be finishing this car at one o'clock in the afternoon.

[01:05:01.750] - Johnny Rocha

And he looked at me and he goes, Man, you're fucking crazy. I said, No, that's our philosophy, dude. We're here to win. You start blowing tires and you start falling behind, and we know you're not going to do it. Just Get off the race course. Don't hurt the car anymore. That was how hardcore we were pushing to win and getting in the driver's heads and stuff like that. I don't know. Kind like the Jimmy Johnson style of being a manager. I'm your best friend, but I'm still going to be in you to make you the best. That's the way I looked at it. I know pretty much everybody's car, what engine they're running, what trans they are, what career ratio. I don't know how I know, but I know. It's probably because they either tell me or we have the same engine builders. You know what I mean? I know who can get away and who can't get away. We're chasing them down. I know when to just, Hey, settle down because- Pace it. He's going to lose his transfer case. He can't run that hard with that transfer case. A stuff like that. I had it all down to a science.

[01:06:33.320] - Big Rich Klein

Are you still working with Brian?

[01:06:37.520] - Johnny Rocha

Yes, I still work for Brian. We have not raced since... Well, Brian has not raced since 24 Kinghours. Chaste raced this year. I don't want to say too much, but they're tired. They're tired of the way how things go about. Oh, yeah.

[01:07:02.820] - Big Rich Klein

Everybody knows what I'm talking about.

[01:07:04.620] - Johnny Rocha

You know what I'm talking about.

[01:07:06.080] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely.

[01:07:07.060] - Johnny Rocha

I was there day one. Yeah. A lot of smart guys stayed away after 2012 or 2015, they were just like, I'm done. But Dave has his crack, dude. He's got the latest drug that everybody still wants.

[01:07:31.160] - Big Rich Klein

No matter what it costs you.

[01:07:33.380] - Johnny Rocha

No matter what it takes, how humiliated it is, how everything, the guy's going to have cars show up on that Lake bed until he can no longer do it because some other issue. Leave it at that.

[01:07:48.940] - Big Rich Klein

It's true.

[01:07:50.000] - Johnny Rocha

It's true. He's got the candy, man. He's got the candy, and everybody wants to lick it. I'll be honest. I tell you. So With that being said, Chase raced this year. He moved up to 4,400 in the last three years. He's racing the Campbell car. It was the identical IFS car that Bayly raced. We made a lot of changes throughout the years. Chase has done very well. Chase has always been that guy that they don't talk in the livestream until the last lap. But he's always that top five guy going into the last canyon. And then We just have failure. Something lets loose by then. And a lot of it is trial and error on new products and things that we have tested and never had problems. But for some reason, for instance, we had an ARB just explode. We never had that happen. The reason why it exploded was we thought it was an ARB issue, blah, blah, blah. Months late afterwards, we're going through the car, we get the car back going and stuff, we start finding out. Well, we had an electrical issue that was intermittently opening and closing the air to the locker.

[01:09:35.890] - Johnny Rocha

So he was basically the whole race, just crash locking that locker the whole race.

[01:09:44.120] - Big Rich Klein

That's right.

[01:09:45.460] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah. And you don't find these things out. You're just like, blame it on the damn ARB. Like, Oh, another ARB blown up. No, it wasn't that. That was our first thing. Like, Oh, man, why didn't we just... And then we started going Other cars in Brian's arsenal, we're running two works lockers, and we go out and test and we blow those up. We were just like, Man, what do we do? We can't make these things work as hard as for pushing the car. It's just wasn't lockers, but it's just components all the way across. There's a lot of R&D and trying and testing and testing and test. Everything can go great. You know all that goes. Everything goes great in testing, and then the car's brand new to go, and then something goes. There was one year, Brian had a bad qualifying. No, he qualified in the bomber because we felt that if he ran his bomber, it was a rock race. It was no longer a desert race. So he's like, I'm going out in the bomber. After all our pre-running, we decided, Brian, run the bomber. You'll win in the rocks. And then we started seeing the speeds at qualifying after he qualified.

[01:11:04.920] - Johnny Rocha

We're like, God, even if you're in the bomber, it's going to be hard to catch up because only Randy can drive that car like that. Only Randy can drive a bomber to the finish line when you got all the big fast guys having a great day. We decided to make a switch, and we made a switch We told Race Ops, Hey, look, we're going to opt out on the bomber. We're going to take a rear start, and we're going to run our IFS car. Okay, great. He lines it. That year, he lined up against Miller. They were the last two off the thing, and they decide they're both going to race out of hammer down. They were running hard out of the short course. And I can no longer see them. I think they were on the straight away going towards short bus. And I just heard Brian's motor just go like 9,000 RPMs, 10,000 RPMs, and then nothing. And I looked at my guys and I said, We're done with that car. Something happened. Right away, go, Brian, it's on the radio. I was like, Loss of transmission. Like, Oh, my God. Not even a mile into this race.

[01:12:28.740] - Johnny Rocha

You know what I mean? So You can have the best of everything. It doesn't mean it's your day. True. And you got to take it with a grain of salt and just hope to go back and get ready for the next year.

[01:12:42.120] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. I remember when Bayly was putting it on everybody, when there was all those lead changes, and then all of a sudden she got out front. I think it was the idler bully or something like that went. Yeah. Then they sat there for an hour and a half trying get the parts, and it was like...

[01:13:03.120] - Johnny Rocha

Oh, yeah. We had the same problem- Something basic. 24. We had the same problem. I think Chase started 30th off the line or something like that, so row 15. And going into lap two, I think he was in wrecking ball, and he was already like that in the top five physical, and we lost our idler Same style. But for some odd reason, we had a few belts on the car, and one of them was for a bomber or something. It was someone put the wrong belt on the car. He's in a place where he can't get help, so it was like, We're done. By the time we get him something in the idler and all that, well, that wrong belt fit right on without the idler.

[01:13:59.360] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow.

[01:14:00.160] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah, and he was able to go. So ever since that, we always kept a belt on the cars. Let's put belts on there. If we were to lose idlers, it would still fit, and we can at least get it to freaking fit. But yeah, It sucks. It sucks. You have a great day, and then something so small takes you out.

[01:14:19.740] - Big Rich Klein

So what's in the future for Johnny?

[01:14:22.520] - Johnny Rocha

The future. Okay, so I'm honestly trying to take a step back from racing. Done. It's not going to happen overnight. It's not going to happen overnight. It can be a year, it can be two years, three years from now. That's the goal. That's the plan. Just to be totally done dealing with racing, race cars and all that stuff. That's why I got back into rock crawling. I've been being pushed for the last seven years to build a rock Crawler, a buggy, an extreme car. I've owned quite a few really nice buggies, and I got a call on one Thanksgiving. I didn't go out. I decided I wanted to stay home for Thanksgiving week, and I wasn't going to Hammers. I got a phone call from Cody Wagner, and he was like, Dude, I just... We both had red dots at the same time. We thought we were Kevin, and I had a really good relationship with Kevin. I was helping out, not initially Kevin, but Kevin wanted me to start building Red Dots on my own. He'd send me everything and I would put it together my way. And that was the plan. And then things happened to Kevin, and But we still had the cars.

[01:15:46.690] - Johnny Rocha

And then Cody was over the red dot. It was just too big of a car for him and too much. It worked well. And he had purchased an Ironman from Jeff McKinnony. And he called me and he goes, Dude, I got this car, Jeff. They just delivered it. And I just went and ran it. And he's like, You have to come out. And I'm like, Dude, I don't plan on going out, man. I want to stay home. I haven't been home on Thanksgiving for 20 something years. This is my first Thanksgiving home with my parents in the last, like I said, 20 something years. He's like, Okay, how about after Thanksgiving? I was like, You need to come out here, Johnny. Okay. So I think I drove out on Saturday, and we went out in that car, and he was doing stuff. I was like, Holy Jesus Christ. My God, this is awesome. We were having a great day. And then ever since then, he's like, I think you need to get into this game, dude. And I was like, I got so much on my plate right now and blah, blah, blah. And I just put it off.

[01:16:56.760] - Johnny Rocha

I just totally put it off. And Like you said, COVID came and my shop was getting slower and slower with all the Jeep stuff going on at Johnny's garage. I needed to figure something out. Finally, I went over to Cody's office and I just walked in. He's like, What's up? I'm like, I think I'm ready, dude. He was like, What? I'm like, Yeah, I think I'm ready to do this whole new era of buggy stuff. I go, I think it's time. And I had some money saved up and we went for it. And he said, I will help you as much as you want with just the knowledge I know of rock crawling, which is huge. Again, the guys want pretty much everything in rock crawling in his years of rock crawling. You still had Johnny B and all those guys that kicked us way back then and Tiny and all that stuff. I said, okay. I hired Matt Taylor as my design guy, and Cody was involved. He gave his time and he volunteered all his time and everything. We put together a team, and I called Jesse Haynes, and I called Quin in over at 74 Weld, and I'm just trying to get everybody's input.

[01:18:34.080] - Johnny Rocha

Gladly, these guys were all really good friends of mine throughout the years of the industry, we build together, we build cool shit together over the years. So these guys were all helpful. So I put together this whole team and I said, I want to build something that most guys in the rock buggy industry don't do. And that is just a clean car, meaning the chassis design is something different than everybody else's. I'm not one to go- Copy. Copy and do all that stuff. And then I was like, And then I'm going to put twist of everything we do in racing as far as plumbing, heat management, just craftsmanship of welding. And you didn't see the beautiful TIG welding stuff at that time when we were designing this car. Yeah, there was a couple of cars. The red dot cars were pretty clean, and Jeff was building really nice cars as well. But I just wanted to go like, If I'm going to do this, I'm not going to sell a chassis in a box. I'm not doing that because that just devalues my name on the cars that I want to build. Does that Does that make sense?

[01:20:00.440] - Johnny Rocha

Yes. I build a car, it cost me X amount of money, time, and craftsmanship, and then I sell. I sell a chassis to somebody, and they're putting Samurai, Yoda. They're just putting just shitbox stuff together. I didn't want my car to represent that. I learned that from Kevin Carroll. I really did. Kevin would We would talk a lot, and he was like, You want to build what people can't have, but only a certain people can have and want. Does that make sense?

[01:20:45.340] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah.

[01:20:46.300] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah. Then he goes, And your resale values for every owner becomes really well. He put it all down in a business way, and it made total sense to me because I watched it. I watched this happen. So, yeah. So long story short, I did it all and I put together a team, and we built this car. And I put everything in, all my knowledge from the day I started getting into building cars, I put all my knowledge into this car. As far as just luxury craftsmanship car, that works. The car has It has to work. That's the major thing. If the car don't work, it ain't worth nothing. It has to work still. I'll tell you what. We went to go after I built the first car and we went to go shake it down and test it and everything, I looked at a couple of guys and they're like, What's wrong with you, dude? You look all nervous and stuff. I said, I don't know how many races I've been involved in, how many green flags my cars have taken and this and that. I really never had this feeling in my life. They're like, What are you talking about?

[01:22:11.500] - Johnny Rocha

What if this thing doesn't work, dude? I'm telling. I think really, Rich, what it came down to was this was all my money.

[01:22:24.020] - Big Rich Klein

Right. It was your gamble.

[01:22:25.600] - Johnny Rocha

It was my gamble, and it was the biggest gamble. Big gamble because I was at the point where if the car didn't work, do I even have enough money to go back and redesign stuff to make the car work? Or did I just lose all this money? And the way we're building these cars is full-blown race table, chassis table, all fixtures, not just half-ass fixtures. These are all designed fixtures, like building trophy trucks. That's how my tables are and fixtures and all that stuff. It's just so precise. So I had way more money in it in tooling, and the car and everything, then what it cost to build the car.

[01:23:19.390] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:23:21.000] - Johnny Rocha

Huge gamble.

[01:23:21.890] - Big Rich Klein

With the idea that you're going to produce more than one.

[01:23:25.280] - Johnny Rocha

With the idea of exactly, exactly, exactly. I thought, Okay, if I can't sell a car, at least I'll get my money back trying to get rid of this car that works. Because if it don't work, I'm out, I'm done. The face of Johnny would probably never be seen in opera because I'd just be so humiliated.

[01:23:51.130] - Big Rich Klein

It'd be like the guy that built the Titanic.

[01:23:54.190] - Johnny Rocha

Exactly. So that's where I'm at today. I'm pushing this car, and it's my my farewell tour, I want to say, because I have other I have other dreams as well before I go or retire or when I retire and stuff like that.

[01:24:17.180] - Big Rich Klein

Big jet boat.

[01:24:19.000] - Johnny Rocha

The jet boat's the one. Yes, the jet boat. Honestly, I want to live in Mexico. People don't understand that part of life or that piece of land over there that's affordable. But there's places in Baja that are that you can stand in Malibu and look off into the ocean, and you can stand in places over there, and it's the same thing. It's just affordable to me. Yeah, I get it. I'm like, I can sit under this palm tree right here all day. I can leave my fishing line out there. I can have my little wooden panga, and I'm happy for the rest of my life. That's all I want. I think it's possible to just enjoy life in paradise. So anywhere else, I can afford.

[01:25:17.180] - Big Rich Klein

What are you calling the vehicle?

[01:25:20.480] - Johnny Rocha

So that car is best called the Rockabilly Chassis.

[01:25:25.160] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[01:25:26.140] - Johnny Rocha

Yes, that's the Rockabilly Chassis. I have the one, the one Rockabilly One, which is my personal car. I've I've interviewed that this this time last year at the Sandsport show. So it had to be today at the Sand Sport Show. And then I missed Trail Hero because we still had some hiccups in all the programming and stuff. And then after that, I just started rock crawling it. There was no more shows that I wanted to know that I can grab attention to people that were interested. Sandsport Show went very well at that time. But I have right now, there's three being built right now.

[01:26:22.420] - Big Rich Klein

Very good.

[01:26:23.720] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah. One will be done for Thanksgiving for that client that's another Ultra4 racer that is looking to his goodbye to Ultra4 and getting back into the recreational lifestyle. That was another thing I remember, and I'll never forget, when Johnny Bondrant retired from rock crawling, I was flabbergasted. I couldn't understand it. I was like, This guy's at the pinnacle of rock crawling. He's won everything. He's champion. How many years did he go? Five, six years, seven?

[01:27:07.080] - Big Rich Klein

A lot of events.

[01:27:09.420] - Johnny Rocha

Yes. All those guys. He was done. I never could understand it. I actually talked to him one day and I said, Johnny, why are you doing this? You're the man, bro. You're on top of the world right now. You're the Joe Montana or the Tom braided of rock crawling, dude. Why would you walk away from this? And he told me, he's like, Johnny, I miss the days of going wheeling with my friends, relaxing around the campfire, drinking, laughing, and having a great time out there. That's what I want to do.

[01:27:45.540] - Big Rich Klein

Without all that stress of having to win.

[01:27:48.880] - Johnny Rocha

Without all that, yes. I looked at him and I was like, Oh, okay. I'm at that point now where everything that man told me, I understand it 100% today. Because what I did, what I do, is every time I go to the desert, every time I go somewhere, it was work-related. I was working from sun up to sundown. Even if it was Thanksgiving week, a lot of people knew, Thanksgiving for us was work. We were out there testing and practicing. Every time we'd go to the desert, I never had time to chill out. That's what I want to do now. I feel it. I feel exactly what that man said to me. That's where I'm headed. That's why I told Cody, I'm ready to do this. I want to build a car. I want to come hang out with you. I want to just go have fun. I want to go laugh. I want to drink beers. I want to cook. I want to do all that things that you guys are all doing, and I'm out here like an idiot working.

[01:28:55.200] - Big Rich Klein

There's a lot of guys that have gone through that. Tracey Cee Jordan, Cody, Jessie. They've all gotten to that point where they're just like, You know what? I'm tired of the stress and the pressure of having to perform.

[01:29:13.920] - Johnny Rocha

Yes. The fun's gone. Especially when you're doing really good and you always got that X on your back. Oh, yeah.

[01:29:21.460] - Big Rich Klein

Everybody's shooting for you.

[01:29:23.700] - Johnny Rocha

And it's all fun in games, but I'm walking Say I was to walk to Hammer Town. Guys are telling, I'm coming for you. You better watch out. It's funny at that time when they say it. It's like, Oh, a joke. But it's true. You got so much stress, so much. You can't explain it until someone lives through it. I know a lot of the top guys. I know Lauren, and they got so much involved in their program. They have to perform. They have to. I'm tired. I'm really tired of racing. I'm tired of Jeeps, too.

[01:30:14.860] - Big Rich Klein

Too dusty. Need more water?

[01:30:16.540] - Johnny Rocha

No, you know what it is? I don't know. One time I wanted to do a consensus. How many Jeep shops are across the country right now? It just didn't seem like there were so many way back in the day like this. But you're competing for business with so many shops. They don't do really good work. We don't know who they are, but we know they're out there because people are going to them. When the JK and the JL platform came out, I was getting like, Can you fix my Jeep? Because I took it to this place and they took all my money from me. You know what I mean? In my prices were you're paying for high-quality work. I was getting a lot of work, but I had to pick and choose my clients. It just got to the point where even the online stuff, it's just I can't compete with that. It's not worth it to me. I'm like, I'm done. I'm done trying to have a business to build Jeeps. It's just for what I'm doing, in the time and effort and craftsmanship that I'm putting into it, there's only one or two guys a year that want to do that.

[01:31:42.520] - Johnny Rocha

You can't run a business like that.

[01:31:45.000] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, those big, big dollar custom builds. There's a very limited market for that. You see it on Facebook all the time where people go, especially with Kevin's Red Dots. It was like, That's not a $300,000 car. I could build that in my driveway for 50,000.

[01:32:06.340] - Johnny Rocha

Exactly. Bullshit.

[01:32:07.540] - Big Rich Klein

Bullshit. Yeah, with junkyard 60s. Yeah.

[01:32:10.820] - Johnny Rocha

I have one guy right now that's building cars, and I'm not going to say his name, but he's like, I build cars for a third of that price, and I'll run circles around your cars. It's like, Okay, dude, cool. Cool story. But at the end of the day, That's what you do, and this is why I approach mine. I am Johnny Rocha because my hands made who I am today. My hands and my knowledge. I didn't pick up the internet and started learning how to YouTube and all that stuff. There's a difference there. But I don't know. I'm tired of it. I'm just mentally tired of it. So that's where I'm headed. I'm headed just... I'm happy we're going to finish off the racing career and stick with buggies and pushing the limits on innovation. And I mean, these guys now, there's some guys, drivers out there, man. I'm just like, yeah, I think my car can do that, but I don't want to do that. They're doing some wild recreational stuff out there.

[01:33:29.730] - Big Rich Klein

We We got some young kids, especially in that St. George hurricane area, that are just doing stupid stuff.

[01:33:36.920] - Johnny Rocha

Oh, my God. I've wheeled with some of those kids, and I just taken the route that you're supposed to take, and they're going on an offshoot that their eyes just saw. And I just got in the car and I'm just like, Yeah, that's amazing, the balls that you have to do that. One, My whole thing is, one, is I don't want to wreck my car to say I did something.

[01:34:06.780] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:34:07.620] - Johnny Rocha

These guys have the ability to tumble down an obstacle and go ahead and rebuild the whole car the next week. I don't want to do that. I don't do that, but I'm 55 years old now, and stuff hurts when I go upside down.

[01:34:30.000] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah.

[01:34:31.060] - Johnny Rocha

It hurts. Not only does it hurt that day, but it hurts for a long time after that.

[01:34:36.890] - Big Rich Klein

Well, you get my age and you can remember where you hurt that, where it's like, Oh, yeah. I was only 48 when that happened. Oh, yeah. That was 20 years ago.

[01:34:47.720] - Johnny Rocha

You name anything that can happen other than death or paralyzed or anything in a car, I've done it. I've broken it. There's a joke that goes in a small circle about getting run over by red dots. I think there's seven of us already that have been ran over. I happen to be one of them. And yeah, it's not fun. It's not fun at all So my hat's off to all these guys and young generation are pushing, pushing the limits. Hardcore. I just saw, I think, Little Briggs do something yesterday on a video clip, and I was just like, Holy, my God, I don't even know. I don't even know what to say. It's amazing that what we can do with these cars now.

[01:35:39.960] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely.

[01:35:40.940] - Johnny Rocha

It's crazy. It's just insane. And yeah, the Moon Buggies has always been the leader in doing this, but now these guys are doing this in full-size cars. They're smaller full-size cars, but they're doing them. I had to talk with another guy about Trailbreaker. It just seems like the Moon Buggies, the guys that are doing it are mainly in a recreational car. So we're seeing the differences of a narrow car versus a wide car on track and- Especially when they're not having to worry about cones. Yes, exactly. That's the main thing. That's what I'm saying, a narrow car where you got to worry about cones and got to have a plan and things like that, versus these wider width cars that we're normally used to, but the chassis are narrow, but the track width is wide. They're finding out that they can go have fun and do these crazy obstacles in those cars now. We thought only Moon Buggies can do that. So we're seeing that. We're seeing the innovation there, and it's just going to get better and better.

[01:37:03.080] - Big Rich Klein

It was like Kevin, when he first came out and started rock crawling at We Rock, he was like, well, you need to make the cones wider because I only have an inch on either side of the cones or a couple of inches, because I said, well, everything's one on one. I said, if you're too wide, then you need to change the car, because if I make it wider on the courses that we design, sure, you'll make it. But how much room does that give the moon buggies?

[01:37:31.640] - Johnny Rocha

Exactly.

[01:37:32.300] - Big Rich Klein

That are 20 inches narrower.

[01:37:35.080] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah.

[01:37:35.940] - Big Rich Klein

And he goes, Well, I'm trying to show that my car can do everything. And I said, Your car can do everything. It can go race, and it can go It came rock-crawl. Are you going to be the top one % in each one of those? No, because you have to either build a dedicated race car or you have to build a dedicated rock-crawler to compete in those particular sports.

[01:37:58.840] - Johnny Rocha

And that's how it is in off-road. Yeah.

[01:38:00.820] - Big Rich Klein

Trail breakers. That's it. Which is really what my son has pushed over the last 10 years is, let's throw a course out there, just make it nice and wide. But there's really only one line, but we're going to give everybody the chance. That's new. That's really new in the whole spectrum of things.

[01:38:21.620] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah, and we always talked about, too. Going back to racing, we always talked about, too, it's like, Okay, what if What if you didn't get to pre-run? And what if you didn't know the course before hammers? That would change so much in the race of who's going to win. And he did that this year, right? And it did change it up a little bit. There's so many guys lost on that third lap.

[01:38:48.000] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah.

[01:38:48.960] - Johnny Rocha

You know what I mean? And I think that's awesome. I think that should be done.

[01:38:54.380] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, the first two guys got in there broke or got stuck. Yeah.

[01:38:58.580] - Johnny Rocha

And then see somebody They had no idea what line to take.

[01:39:01.440] - Big Rich Klein

Then the golf car goes around them.

[01:39:02.860] - Johnny Rocha

Yes. And the reason why the golf car only knew that line because those other guys were stuck.

[01:39:07.160] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah.

[01:39:07.900] - Johnny Rocha

They would never have seen that line. And there were so many guys on that last lap that were up in that whole top 10 of making a change of who was going to win. When they were coming down Fisher, they were blowing that one turn because they didn't know what turn it was to go down. And then finally, you'd see it, they'd circle back around and then they'd go. And I I was like, That would change it so much. Maybe make it fun again.

[01:39:35.060] - Big Rich Klein

Make it a lot more interesting.

[01:39:35.840] - Johnny Rocha

We don't want fun. Nobody wants fun anymore.

[01:39:38.980] - Big Rich Klein

No.

[01:39:40.020] - Johnny Rocha

Everybody... So, yeah, that's where I'm headed. Just trying to enjoy the rest of life that I have to give.

[01:39:50.740] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome.

[01:39:51.840] - Johnny Rocha

And still put out top high-quality product. That's my thing. If it's not approved by me or one of my good friends, then it's not good enough for me. People see, like they say, this rockabilly. There's some really good builders around. There's about five really good builders right now. I put myself in that category. I do personally, and there's other guys that say it, too. But I it because they're building really nice cars, and that's where I want to be. I want to be that guy. That's just my model, how I've always been. If it's not perfect, then it should not leave my job, my driveway. That's just how I am. I have really bad OCD, and everything has to be right.

[01:40:59.700] - Big Rich Klein

Well, perfect. Let me say that I really appreciate having this conversation with you today and having you on the podcast. And I'm not sure if we have actually ever had a conversation one on one in person.

[01:41:20.840] - Johnny Rocha

I don't think we did. I think maybe if anything, we've had a handshake, How are you doing?

[01:41:24.860] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly.

[01:41:26.140] - Johnny Rocha

Because I know for a fact that when I'm somewhere Where we're all around, my mind is going 300 miles an hour where I have to be next.

[01:41:35.090] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly.

[01:41:36.020] - Johnny Rocha

And then most of the time when I see someone like you or anybody else like that, we're all on the same page like, Hey, how's it going? Hey, I'll talk to you later. Good seeing you. And just keep walking. But we've never had a conversation.

[01:41:46.660] - Big Rich Klein

That's what I thought. So this was good. I'm glad we got to do this.

[01:41:50.440] - Johnny Rocha

Thank you. Thank you for reaching out. It's been an honor.

[01:41:55.280] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. So we'll have to make that a change at some point.

[01:42:00.000] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah, for sure. Hopefully it's on the water. Let's do a water thing.

[01:42:03.460] - Big Rich Klein

Sounds great. I don't get enough water right now. I only get to my heart like two weeks a year now.

[01:42:11.220] - Johnny Rocha

Unfortunately for me, with this whole new program of designing and building a new car and putting it out there and stuff. I've been missing a lot of water time, a lot more than ever. People text me like, Hey, are you out at the lake? Like, No, no, no. I think the last two years, my boat sat more than it's ever have out of the water. I still go, but not as much. Everyone knows me that I'm pretty much every weekend type of guy.

[01:42:43.780] - Big Rich Klein

So my boat has changed two marinas, and I have not even been on it when it's changed marinas.

[01:42:52.390] - Johnny Rocha

Oh, my.

[01:42:53.600] - Big Rich Klein

So this next time, when we go down after SEMA, it's going to be like, Hey, I got to find my boat in the marina. Yeah.

[01:43:02.580] - Johnny Rocha

Well, I got a phone call this week. It was like, Hey, I'm going down to Laredo from Long Beach, and I'm going with the crew and friends and blah, blah, blah. I was just wondering if when I'm ready to come back from Laredo all the way back up, would you be interested in coming out with me and bringing the boat home? I'm like, Is that even a question, dude? I'm in. I don't even know what the date is, but I'm in. He's like, All right, I'll let you know. I just thought, you'd like to come bring the boat all the way back up from Cabo? I was like, Yeah, absolutely, 100%.

[01:43:42.620] - Big Rich Klein

That'd be awesome.

[01:43:44.520] - Johnny Rocha

I watch Camo do this all the time. Oh, I know. Sometimes I text him, You little rat, and he just laughs.

[01:43:54.020] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly. We've talked about me going on one of the one of the trips with him and helping him work in the boat. And it's like, I just never can seem to free up the time at the right time.

[01:44:09.900] - Johnny Rocha

Yeah.

[01:44:10.340] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. Hopefully that happens. For being a retired guy, I sure find myself really busy.

[01:44:16.220] - Johnny Rocha

All right.

[01:44:17.940] - Big Rich Klein

All right, Johnny, thank you so much for this conversation today.

[01:44:21.290] - Johnny Rocha

Thank you, Rich.

[01:44:22.700] - Big Rich Klein

Send me a picture. We'll do. I'm really glad we got to do this.

[01:44:28.340] - Johnny Rocha

Awesome.

[01:44:29.180] - Big Rich Klein

All right. You Take care. Take care. And have a great day. Okay.

[01:44:31.640] - Johnny Rocha

You, too. Thank you. Bye.

[01:44:34.080] - 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.