Ready for part two? Joel Randall picks up with a return to Nebraska in Episode 296

From Nebraska farm fields to the forefront of early rock crawling, Joel Randall picks up his story with Big Rich. After a turbulent childhood, Joel lands in Nebraska, builds a ’74 International 4x4, and falls hard for fabrication and off-road life. He dives into mud drags and promoting Midwest mud events, then recounts wild tales—like hauling a 60-foot houseboat across Nebraska and detonating big-blocks on nitrous.

Joel shares the moment rock crawling hooked him: meeting Morris Hansen, wheeling Moab’s Metal Masher solo, and instantly bonding with Ron “Wild Oats” Pepper before joining magazine runs with off-road legends. He traces the rise of “R-club,” the Currie connection, and how shiny, well-built Jeeps earned respect on the gnarliest trails from Moab to Las Cruces.

The episode digs into the birth of organized rockcrawling: the 1998 Las Cruces event (ESPN, cones, and chaos), early results (Jeff/Morris win; Joel 4th), and the rapid evolution from trail rigs to competition machines. Joel talks sponsorships, building a team semi on a shoestring, TV exposure, and the bittersweet shift from family wheeling to full-time competition.

Stay tuned for Part 3 coming next week!

Transcript

[00:00:05.280] - 

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 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 It's 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.

[00:01:12.870] - Big Rich Klein

On this episode, we pick up part two with Joel Randall after describing a crazy childhood.

[00:01:20.390] - Joel Randall

So I ended up moving to Nebraska and I lived with my, I moved down there and I bought a right away, I bought a 74 International pickup four-wheel drive because, you know, the Nova was at this point, I I was afraid if I kept driving it, I'd probably lose my license in Nebraska. Okay, so I got rid of the Nova, which I wish I still had, which everybody says that about their high school car.

[00:01:56.620] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yes.

[00:02:02.020] - Joel Randall

But I started working for my grandfather and he, like I said, he was a really good influence on my life. And I started to turn everything around from there and became the person that you know.

[00:02:18.660] - Big Rich Klein

More of the, what I thought, Yeah.

[00:02:30.580] - Joel Randall

Just a conservative upbringing Nebraska farm boy. Yep. Well, I became that person.

[00:02:33.620] - Big Rich Klein

And did you continue schooling or.

[00:02:36.820] - Joel Randall

No.

[00:02:37.620] - Big Rich Klein

So your third grade was pretty much it for real education.

[00:02:43.880] - Joel Randall

Yep. Yep. Home slaved.

[00:02:47.080] - Big Rich Klein

Home slaved.

[00:02:48.680] - Joel Randall

Yep.

[00:02:49.200] - Big Rich Klein

That's where we that's where we landed. And so you worked on, you went back to Nebraska with your grandfather. You started working for him and that's what you continued to do.

[00:03:04.520] - Joel Randall

Yeah, for quite a while. I mean, I, like I said, I bought that 74 International pickup and then we had, like I said, we always had four or five Jeep pickups and Wagoneers and stuff on the farm. And I built, I started building, of course, right away, you know, I had to start building that binder up. So I, you know, I put 33s on it. I put a roll bar on it. I put, I built the double roll bar that there was a roll bar up against the cab, and then there was a toolbox, and then there was another roll bar that was a little bit shorter. I had a spare tire carrier and stuff that I built up on it. And I got into the, this is because you were supposed to ask me this question. What got you started in off-road right?

[00:03:59.250] - Big Rich Klein

I was getting there. This is a, go ahead.

[00:04:02.460] - Joel Randall

This is, this is what really got me started. I mean, it wasn't enough that we had all those Jeeps and four-wheel drives, you know, when I was a kid, because that nothing with my dad ever continued on, right? We always called him, you know, he goes in two-year spurts. Every two years he changes his life.

[00:04:24.060] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:04:25.420] - Joel Randall

And he pretty much does that to this date. But. But, yeah, that's what pretty much got me started, is this pickup, because I just. I couldn't. I couldn't stop building it, you know, it just. I just kept building onto it and I was fixing the other pickups on the farm to be better for chasing cows and better for fixing fence and better for, you know, service trucks and stuff like that.

[00:04:57.090] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:04:57.730] - Joel Randall

And I just started improving on every vehicle on the farm. And I got hooked up with a couple of guys in town that had jacked up trucks. And really enjoyed, you know, going out and raising heck with them, you know, doing mud and there are a few hills to climb in Nebraska. A lot of people don't realize it. They just drive through the state. But we do have a couple of hills.

[00:05:27.170] - Big Rich Klein

It's not as flat as Kansas.

[00:05:29.930] - Joel Randall

No, not quite, not quite. So we did a lot of four-wheeling and a lot of mud bogging and down on the rivers, you know, the river rat stuff. Did a lot of that. And then in 1980, I ended up getting married. I was 20 years old and I got married. And we had. That's when I had my first child, was in 81. But in that time period, I'd met a friend of mine in Kearney. That had a, what the heck was it? I think it was a 79 Chevy short box with a 400 in it. And he had built, we had, and, and we'd worked on them a little bit together. But when I met him, he already had a good start on it. And we did, we did a lot of things. We started doing pickup poles and we started doing mud racing, and he, his family was, uh.

[00:06:39.190] - Big Rich Klein

In the excavating business. Okay.

[00:06:39.520] - Joel Randall

And I mean, he had a really nice pickup. I mean, it was unbelievable. Yeah, you know, custom paint, flares. It was just, it was beautiful. And, but he was willing to go tear it up because, you know, they had so many pickups. They had so much equipment. It was just crazy. And, We became really close friends and.

[00:07:07.030] - Big Rich Klein

One of the projects that we did.

[00:07:07.120] - Joel Randall

Together is his dad had bought a houseboat down in the Gulf.

[00:07:10.910] - Big Rich Klein

All right.

[00:07:11.550] - Joel Randall

And they drove it up the Missouri River and I think it was 60 feet long. Wow. They drove it up the Missouri River and we took one of his flatbeds that was set up to haul skids, scrapers and road graders and stuff.

[00:07:32.970] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:07:33.000] - Joel Randall

And we built it up to haul this boat. And we went to Omaha on the Missouri River and picked up this boat. And then we hauled it all the way across the state to the biggest lake in the state, the Ogallala Lake. And we had to drive over on the end on I-80. We had to take every exit. Because it was just a little bit, it was like 17 feet tall up on this trailer. And I don't even think they got a permit. They lived above the law. They thought they were above the law. They were big contractors. They built railroads and highways, you know. And so we took this thing all the way to Ogalala. Just to give you an idea of how these people, how this family lived. We took it all the way to Ogalala and backed it in the backed it into the lake, almost lost the deal because it started sliding on the slime on the ramp. And we ended up hooking his pickup to it with the winch because he had a winch on the front. And he actually drove off of the boat ramp over in the sand and dug his pickup down in the sand to keep the semi from sliding down the slidey, this slimy boat ramp and going in the lake with this.

[00:08:58.640] - Joel Randall

60 foot long monster, three-story or two-story houseboat on it. And, yeah, it was, it was quite the adventure. He, and he was, he was a good, good friend and good, you know, really, I don't know. He was good for me because it wasn't all about drinking. It wasn't all about chasing women. It was like, Good clean fun.

[00:09:25.990] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:09:26.030] - Joel Randall

You know, and just wanted to and wanted to build trucks and do things together. Well, he decided and we both had followed the magazines a ton back then and he decided, I'm gonna build a class eight and we're gonna go desert racing.

[00:09:43.500] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:09:45.820] - Joel Randall

Yeah. Two kids from Nebraska, 20 years old, 21. So we fly out to go to the Mint 400. And at that time- and you knew Vegas well, right? Oh yeah, I knew my way around Vegas. I for sure told him my Vegas story on the plane, I guarantee it. But by this time, my mom.

[00:10:19.270] - Big Rich Klein

And.

[00:10:19.300] - Joel Randall

That police officer, they were married, and he worked in Vegas at this time, but he was an air traffic controller.

[00:10:25.000] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:10:26.560] - Joel Randall

During the, during the, I don't know if you, you're old enough. You probably remember the air traffic controller strike.

[00:10:32.120] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yes, absolutely.

[00:10:33.760] - Joel Randall

Yeah. Well, during that, during that, he quit being a police officer because he'd served to, two tours in Vietnam and was a helicopter pilot and. He actually had the certificate to where he could teach people how to fly planes. But he was training air traffic controllers, so they were moving all over the place. But it just so happened, and maybe I worked that in when he said he wanted to build a Class 8. I'm like, well, my mom's in Vegas right now and the 400's coming up. Because we followed the magazines.

[00:11:16.110] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:11:16.170] - Joel Randall

We both got, we both got every off-road magazine that was available at that time. Because, you know, we had to know the newest, the newer, biggest size of tires that was coming out. So we knew how high we were gonna have to lift our trucks up. Right. So, so we go out there and at this time, I mean, class 8 is the trophy truck of that time. Yes.

[00:11:41.190] - Big Rich Klein

They didn't have trophy truck.

[00:11:41.230] - Joel Randall

Class 8 was the best. Yep. That was the fastest. That was the funnest. I mean, there were tons of other classes and we knew them. I mean, I've forgotten more, like, I don't follow it at all now hardly. I'm starting to, but because some of my friends are racing, you know, from King of the Hammers have gone on to do other stuff.

[00:11:59.110] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:12:00.070] - Joel Randall

And from rock crawling.

[00:12:07.270] - Big Rich Klein

But we go out there and back then they were all the racers were.

[00:12:07.390] - Joel Randall

Parked on Fremont Street with trailers. Just regular car trailers and pickups. Like we seriously, I met Walker. I know he doesn't, he definitely didn't remember me, but I told him later when I met him, I actually met you in 1981. But and actually I think it was 80. I'm not really sure.

[00:12:34.720] - Big Rich Klein

But we met like Rod Hall, we.

[00:12:34.810] - Joel Randall

Met Ivan Stewart, we met all of them.

[00:12:34.910] - Big Rich Klein

We talked to all of them.

[00:12:34.990] - Joel Randall

And I'm sure they probably talked to a ton of people that said, we're getting ready to build a truck, we're gonna come do this, you know? And we watched, we stayed and we watched the race. Some of my people that I liked back then were like Don Adams, raced a CJ7 back then.

[00:12:51.720] - Big Rich Klein

Yep.

[00:12:53.280] - Joel Randall

And there was another guy, that raced a Jeep Honcho pickup back then. I can't remember who it was. But anyway, so we had a few people that we wanted to definitely look at their vehicles. And of course, we were taking tons of negative pictures, you know, pictures where you had to reload the camera and put in another roll of film. And we stayed my. Actually, my. My stepdad had a dune buggy.

[00:13:27.890] - Big Rich Klein

Out there he had bought.

[00:13:27.970] - Joel Randall

And so we used that dune buggy to go out and kind of just, and it was right close to town back then. It wasn't out at Primm or wherever they take off from now. It was right there by town they took off. And we watched the whole race and we're, you know, we got all these big plans and all these ideas. And we come back to Nebraska with all these big ideas. And I don't know, it was just the perfect timing of everything, Rich. We got back and I called him a couple days later and I'm like, he's just being really weird. And I said, well, what's up? What's up? And he said, well, they just confiscated all of our equipment. Oh.

[00:14:22.720] - Big Rich Klein

Including my pickup.

[00:14:22.880] - Joel Randall

They were all in the business name and his dad had been living outside of his income.

[00:14:31.700] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:14:32.580] - Joel Randall

For like 10 years. Like that houseboat, everything, everything was seized.

[00:14:39.620] - Big Rich Klein

Jesus.

[00:14:40.740] - Joel Randall

And they had an auction and sold it off. And it devastated that family and it ruined him. I mean, I still see him every once in a while, but he wasn't the same person ever again after that happened.

[00:14:56.300] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:14:57.820] - Joel Randall

And so I didn't have the money or the means to do this. I was definitely on board to help build it, but that went completely out the window. So my hopes of being on a.

[00:15:16.250] - Big Rich Klein

Class 18 was done.

[00:15:16.320] - Joel Randall

I mean, this was seriously within a week of when we got back.

[00:15:17.500] - Big Rich Klein

Jeez.

[00:15:19.340] - Joel Randall

And so I, like I said, it was. But I had other friends out there that still did stuff, and so I really got involved. At this point, I got involved in mud, mud races and mud bogs.

[00:15:32.010] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:15:32.890] - Joel Randall

After that went down, he didn't. He never did anything with me again. Like, I barely saw him after that. It just devastated him. And I always felt horrible, but I did. It didn't feel like anything that I could fix. I tried to get him to come to races, but, no, it was. He was not gonna do it. So. So I. I started doing these mud drags. They were side by side mud drags at this time, and we're. We ended up. There was an association in Iowa that we joined. And I was really, you know, I was going for the, for the series championship every year from probably 85 to 92.

[00:16:24.740] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[00:16:26.260] - Joel Randall

And kept getting, you know, everything kept going faster. I used to at the beginning, I, I had a Dodge extended cab pickup. That I had that I pulled my race truck to the races in and I would race that Dodge in stock class and I would race my truck in modified, unlimited and funny car. And so I was racing every time there was a race, I would be there racing. And of course, I cut that international pickup to the bare bones and more. Just like it's kind of, it's really similar to the rock crawling thing. Like I started out stock truck, big tires, just went to the mud races for fun. And a few years later, I had gutted the whole cab, I'd gutted everything, I'd lightened it all up. I was running, actually back then, I.

[00:17:35.010] - Big Rich Klein

Was running one and a quarter ton military axles, right?

[00:17:35.270] - Joel Randall

And 55 inch tractor tires.

[00:17:38.710] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[00:17:39.670] - Joel Randall

And then truck semi truck tires that were cut for mud racing. And they were more farm tires, not over the road semi truck tires, but more like short haul truck tires. Okay. Or farm truck tires. And so I was building this and it went on to where, you know, that of course even everything I did to the stock motor wasn't enough and so I ended up building a big block Chevy, you know, and it just progressed just like anything that you end up doing.

[00:18:25.700] - Big Rich Klein

You know, if you have a passion.

[00:18:25.860] - Joel Randall

For it and you like doing it. Right. And I, let me see. Well, I had had a really good friend that was a machinist that also liked doing this, and he, he was a engine builder for a local machine shop. And so we, you know, we kept building motors left and right because I was blowing them up about as, you know, every two or three weeks we would blow up another motor because we ended up towards the end of it, we were racing against people that had, you know, blown fuel injected trucks. And throughout this period, I guess I could back up a little bit. To get the association from Iowa to come out to Nebraska, I started promoting mud races.

[00:19:25.010] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:19:26.690] - Joel Randall

So I was actually promoting them, but it was really a kind of a sticky deal because I was go to a town that I thought would host a mud drag and fill the stands and sell some tickets. But I didn't have a company. I didn't have LLC or anything like that. I would just always tell them that it was the, the Kearny off-road and rescue Club. Because, I mean, we, and we did, we were like, if there was a big blizzard or something, all the guys that I hung out with, with these big jacked up trucks, because even when I mud raced, I had another truck that was all jacked up and, you know, built for off-road we would, we would go into town and take the nurses to the hospital or, you know, help clear the roads and help get people where we needed them to get, you know.

[00:20:24.830] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:20:25.150] - Joel Randall

And help the police. I mean, we were, I was, it was, we were good people. And so, but I always just made up these, the names of a club or something. And then the, we would always try and have it be a fundraiser for the town, too. You know, and I would always split the gate and then my brother would always run the construction or the concessions. And we did it, I like, and pretty soon after you do it for a year, you have towns calling you. Right, we want to, yeah, we want to, no, neighboring towns too.

[00:21:04.280] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:21:04.680] - Joel Randall

We want to redo our pool.

[00:21:15.170] - Big Rich Klein

So we want to have a fundraiser to redo the pool. We heard that you made, you know.

[00:21:15.280] - Joel Randall

Like seven thousand dollars, eight thousand dollars in this town next to us for them. And they didn't have to do anything. I did all the work. The town just has to host it and give us the property or the fairgrounds usually. So I did that for a couple years while I was doing it. And my, and my racing suffered. Right. Because I was so busy doing this. But I actually, I mean, at the end, I was doing a series and it was an arena series and we were running with the monster trucks, Bigfoot, and I can't even remember all the names of them, but, and we were like the halftime show. They'd do the crushing of the cars and then they'd have mud bogs and they had a net that they would hang at the side of the arena, you know, at the, at whatever concert venue we were at. So in case we came out of the pit too fast and couldn't stop. And we did that. I did that for one full season. I started with them and they, they invited us back because they only took, like, 12 trucks. And I went back and did that for another season.

[00:22:24.850] - Joel Randall

I traveled all over doing that. I was going to Chicago and.

[00:22:35.250] - Big Rich Klein

I know we went to St. Louis.

[00:22:35.410] - Joel Randall

We went around and I never did very did that great because I just didn't spend the money to get light and get a blower and stuff. I was still trying to go through the mud instead of floating over the top of it.

[00:22:44.960] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:22:47.120] - Joel Randall

And but I'm still racing the association or the the original association from IAA, the Midwest Mud Draggers Association. It covered about three states. It was like the top mud racing series that was around here. And I was racing that and I was doing pretty well. I won two years in a row, the unlimited class. And I never could win the funny car class because unlimited was natural aspirated engine and the funny car was you could have a blower or full fuel injection or whatever. And.

[00:23:37.500] - Big Rich Klein

So I'm racing this at this.

[00:23:37.700] - Joel Randall

Point, and now it's 1990. and you're.

[00:23:38.420] - Big Rich Klein

Still married with one kid at that point, or do you have two?

[00:23:43.260] - Joel Randall

I have two. Two daughters at this point.

[00:23:45.380] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:23:46.220] - Joel Randall

Yep. And. And they're involved. I mean, they go with me. It's just like.

[00:23:58.060] - Big Rich Klein

It was almost like.

[00:23:58.090] - Joel Randall

Like rock crawling. But the competitors did not help each other as much.

[00:24:00.410] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:24:01.370] - Joel Randall

It was way more competitive. And. And I shouldn't say it was way more competitive. It was just. It was. It just wasn't. And also, when you blew up, there was no help in you.

[00:24:13.210] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Because then they were. Yeah. You know, the competition was.

[00:24:19.490] - Joel Randall

Was eliminated. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

[00:24:23.420] - Big Rich Klein

There was no fixing it. And I'm going to a story that's.

[00:24:23.580] - Joel Randall

Going to explain this a little bit better. So I have this big block and I have a buddy that's a machinist at the machine shop here in Kearney. And we have access to so many tools. It's crazy. And the company, you might even know the company now. It's called Blueprint Engines. Okay.

[00:24:52.450] - Big Rich Klein

Yep.

[00:24:52.480] - Joel Randall

Like they, I just went to SEMA couple, like three weeks ago with you for the Off Road Hall of Fame and they have huge booths set up, one outside and one inside.

[00:25:01.730] - Big Rich Klein

Yep.

[00:25:02.690] - Joel Randall

And that's right. That's from the town that we're, that we, that I'm from, from Kearney. And he's the top machinist at this place. It was a really small company back then, but like the way we built this big block, this is how tight I am and how much I cherish the money that I make. We would go through, we would go through a hundred rods and we'd pick the straightest rods with the forging marks right in the center of them because I didn't buy aluminum rods. I was still running steel rods and we would pick everything we would do. We would pick the, we'd go through a pile of heads and we'd get the heads with the tightest compression ratios because, you know, every head's a little bit different. Everyone's Ford's a little different. Everything's different. And he knew exactly. And I learned quite a bit about building engines in this process. But so we have this big block built and it's balanced. And we have, we seriously have spare rods for every hole, have spare Pistons, have. I mean, we have so many parts because he's, he's got unlimited parts of used junkyard motors, because that's all they did is rebuilt Motors.

[00:26:19.980] - Joel Randall

And so I'm racing and I'm at, I'm, I'm, I'm leading the series, and I'm in Iowa, and I'm running nitrous, I'm running a predator carburetor, and I'm running a tunnel. A high rise manifold.

[00:26:43.380] - Big Rich Klein

I can't remember what manifold I was running at that time, but I'm running.

[00:26:43.700] - Joel Randall

This big block, steel heads, steel crank, steel rods. But I'm trying to run at 8,000 RPM. That's a lot of horsepower. Oh yeah, it was stupid. I blew it up so much. I mean, I had a Moroso rev limiter tach.

[00:27:08.800] - Big Rich Klein

That I would just keep turning up.

[00:27:08.910] - Joel Randall

Every race, I would just turn it, you know, and, and he was with me. He was with, he's like, oh, yeah, it sounded good. It sounded good. And this thing, it was a beast. It, and everybody, when you started it, it just made everybody happy. It loped so hard. It was just, oh, it just sounded awesome. It was amazing. The motors that we've built. It was just crazy. I mean, we had, like I said, we had so many springs on the valves that we were, you know, the keepers and the valves and everything would break because we were just trying to run way too fast. We should have been running a small block, but I love big blocks and so did he. So I'm in Iowa. I'm racing this race. I've got nitrous, I've got the predator, I've got everything. The way I take off at the line is I hold it at five grand. I sidestep the clutch and hit the nitrous and Full Throttle all in, you know, less than a tenth of a second. That's just the way. That's the way I drove it. It was a four speed, and I ran one gear for the unlimited class and one gear for the funny car and.

[00:28:30.560] - Joel Randall

Like I said, the nitrous was, I didn't have to push a button. It was on my pedal.

[00:28:31.980] - Big Rich Klein

If I pushed my pedal a little.

[00:28:32.060] - Joel Randall

Past that five grand at the just sitting at the start line, the nitrous would just come in. So right when I sidestepped the clutch, I'd hit that nitrous. Everything would just take off or something would give, which stuff didn't break because you're in slimy, you're in slime, slime mud when you take off. They don't let you start on dry dirt.

[00:28:57.110] - Big Rich Klein

That'd be way too easy.

[00:28:57.170] - Joel Randall

So I do this. I'm in Iowa and I blow my motor up. I float a valve, bend it, it goes through the motor, takes out one cylinder. Well, it amazingly enough, it did not. I didn't have to bore the cylinder or sleeve it. It was a little bit scratched, but I just needed to get back the next day. And so I had hauled back to Nebraska and I pulled the head off. I pulled the pan off. I dropped that. All I need is a new head because it totaled the head. I can't believe that I just took a wobble stone and just ran down the cylinder and just called it good. And I went to find my machinist, which I had tried right when I got back and I couldn't get ahold of his wife. Well, I got ahold of his wife because this is before cell phones still. And she said, well, he's down at a friend of ours had a four-wheel drive shop in town. She says, he's down there working on something. And I'm like, okay, I loaded all the stuff in my pickup and I ran into town. And he's at this four-wheel drive shop.

[00:30:15.660] - Joel Randall

And I'm like, hey, we got to go. I got to put this motor together, and I want you to go back with me tomorrow anyway. And I said, let's get, you know, let's get out of here, because I thought he was just helping him, you know, just hanging out, because it was a place that we kind of hung out. And he's like, no, I got to put this lift kit on this Jeep. And I said, forget that Jeep. You can do that Monday or next week or whatever, you know, because he worked at the machine shop, but he also helped this kid at four-wheel drive shop a lot. And he said, oh, no, no, this kid's leaving to go to Utah. And I'm like, so what? I don't care. I want my motor. It's all I wanted. Well, that's when I met my first rock crawler, Rich.

[00:31:00.570] - Big Rich Klein

Who was that kid?

[00:31:02.730] - Joel Randall

Morris Hansen.

[00:31:03.850] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:31:13.470] - Joel Randall

And I helped and I don't and I talked to Morris about the and he said, well, you just go ahead and tell the story however you want. But the way I felt is that he was kind of a preppy kid.

[00:31:21.070] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:31:22.190] - Joel Randall

And I got the torch out because he was putting a lift kit on a Jeep. There's no use undoing those bolts because every lift kit came with new U bolts. So I lit the torch and started cutting stuff off of his Jeep. And I thought he hated me by.

[00:31:40.730] - Big Rich Klein

The end of that night because he.

[00:31:40.840] - Joel Randall

Knew what I wanted. I came in that shop telling everybody what I wanted. I wanted to grab Jerry, my best friend, and go to the machine shop, put the rod and the piston together. We had it ahead, but we hadn't ported it and hadn't fixed it. We had to do a bunch of work to it. That's all I wanted to do. But we put that stupid lift kit on that Jeep. And in the process, my best friend friended Morris and kind of got. And yes, I did go to Iowa, and I did win the association that year, too. I ran. I ran the whole series in one unlimited class. I got first, and. But in this time, Jerry had friended with Morris. And I was like, what are you doing? He says, I'm going to build a Jeep. I said, why would you do that? Those things are short wheelbase. They turn sideways on the ice. They're not even that great. I mean, I had tons of Jeeps. Jeeps are, you know, the low, they take low bidder on every part they put in their vehicle.

[00:32:59.440] - Big Rich Klein

I said, why would you want one of those things?

[00:32:59.600] - Joel Randall

I just could not see it. I just made fun of him the whole time. But I helped him. But I helped him. But I picked on him the whole time. And so he built a Jeep. And of course we worked on Morris's Jeep a little bit to get it ready to go. And he's like, okay, come on, just come out with me. And he'd never been before.

[00:33:26.980] - Big Rich Klein

Jerry had never been. And he's like, let's go out there.

[00:33:27.070] - Joel Randall

And just see what this is.

[00:33:28.100] - Big Rich Klein

And what's Jerry's last name?

[00:33:30.820] - Joel Randall

Rafe here. He never went. He only went once. He only went once. That's part of the funny part of this story is so we go out there and Morris and Jerry go out there. They both have Jeeps. I'm riding with Jerry and Jeff Wagner is riding with Morse. He doesn't have a Jeep either. Never had a Jeep. And so we're just hacking on him about, you know, driving and getting, you know, trying to do this crack on Hell's Revenge and this crack over here. And I don't know what all they were doing, but they were spinning out. They didn't have lockers. And so we were kind of hacking on them. We had a good time though. We had fun. I can't remember all the trails we did. And so on the way back, I was like, yeah, that was pretty fun. And I talked to Morris about it and I was like, yeah, I think I'm going to go ahead and buy a Jeep. I'll go ahead and build one.

[00:34:46.940] - Big Rich Klein

So that's how I got started rock crawling. We just jumped right in with. With Morris and Jeff.

[00:34:48.940] - Joel Randall

Well, Jeff. Jeff didn't have a Jeep yet.

[00:34:51.300] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, he didn't have a Jeff.

[00:34:52.340] - Joel Randall

Yeah, that's right. No, he was. He was probably maybe a 18 year old kid.

[00:34:56.580] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:34:58.460] - Joel Randall

No, no, he just rode out there because Morris is his brother-in-law oh, all right. Yeah. Morris spotted for Jeff in the first competition. Ever.

[00:35:12.550] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:35:12.560] - Joel Randall

He was the spotter. And Morris is actually, he's the reason why all of us went rock crawling, for sure. I mean, he started it with that, with that very first Jeep. And we, I started going, we went in 92. That was the, the next year we went in.

[00:35:37.280] - Big Rich Klein

In. 91 as a passenger. And then in 92, I built mine.

[00:35:39.500] - Joel Randall

I bought a 73 cj5, the one that I actually competed in at the very first rock crawl competition in 98. It was the same Jeep. But I've. I bought a 73, and I can't remember the exact circumstances of. Of why I built it the way I did. But I did. I met a lot of people in Moab that first year, amazingly, just riding with Morris. I met. I don't know if you know who Jim door dollar is.

[00:36:11.170] - Big Rich Klein

No, that name's not familiar.

[00:36:13.330] - Joel Randall

No, he used to lead the Behind the Rocks.

[00:36:17.730] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:36:18.690] - Joel Randall

He led behind the rocks, and he had the first reverse pinion. 44 in the rear of, I think he was the very first person to ever put a reverse 44 in the rear. He was from Minnesota, and he was probably 65 years old, but he was a machinist, and we hit it off right away. And we talked a bunch while we did that trail, the behind the rocks Trail. And so I came home and I immediately went and found a highboy Ford with a high pinion 44 in it. And with this friend of mine, the machinist and I, and Morris, we started building 44 axles out of Scout junk, out of Bronco junk, whatever we could find. We were building axles because now we had three Jeeps. We actually were working on other people's Jeeps, helping them get ready to go out there. Jeff still didn't have one. Okay. And he didn't even hang out with us very much back then at that at this point. But I built this Jeep. It was, you know, a V8 five had a it had a three speed in it, but I put a four speed, a T18 in it.

[00:37:37.610] - Joel Randall

And I put a later on, I put a 300 in it. But I went out there the first year. In 92 and I had 33 inch super swampers on black painted wagon wheels with chrome beauty rings. You know what a beauty you know what a beauty ring is, right?

[00:38:03.350] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[00:38:04.750] - Joel Randall

The outer edge of a hubcap, right? Just like the outer inch of a hubcap. Yep. But I didn't like the way the weights looked and it was kind of a pretty Jeep and it was really nice. I mean for a 73 CJ5 it was really nice, pristine, it didn't have any rust, it was like perfect. And so I go out there in 92 for my very first time in this Jeep and I had it, like I said, I had a T18, I had the high pinion 44.

[00:38:45.130] - Big Rich Klein

And I.

[00:38:45.260] - Joel Randall

Had it full floating axles with lockouts on the back so I could pull it on a car dolly.

[00:38:50.730] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:38:52.890] - Joel Randall

And that's how I got it out there. And I went out there and we were signed up for a few of the Red Rocker Trails. And we. I can't remember what happened exactly, but Morris's Jeep broke. And I went on Metal Masher by myself. The other guys that were coming didn't get there until later in the week. And Morris's Jeep broke the first day. I can't remember what we did, but. So I went on Metal Masher by myself. So I pull in the line.

[00:39:30.600] - Big Rich Klein

And this is during Easter Jeep Safari.

[00:39:33.080] - Joel Randall

Oh, yeah.

[00:39:33.720] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:39:34.160] - Joel Randall

Sorry about that. Yeah. Night. This is night. 1992 Easter Jeep Safari.

[00:39:41.260] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:39:41.300] - Joel Randall

So I pull into line at Metal Masher, and I'm kind of late. I think Jeff was riding with me. Maybe. I can't remember if he went with me that year or not. Nope. He did not go at all that year. That's right. He didn't go at all that year. So I'm all by myself. I didn't even take any kids.

[00:39:58.720] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:40:00.560] - Joel Randall

Or my wife at that time. So I line up for Metal Masher, and I'm.

[00:40:08.530] - Big Rich Klein

And I'm late.

[00:40:08.550] - Joel Randall

And, of course, the tail gunner kind of chews me out. And so I pull in right, you know, right beside him because they had already tightened up. And I pulled in kind of beside him, and I don't know. I don't know if I was that late. I didn't think I was, but. So I'm walking up the deal because I was going to go and talk to the trail leader and check in, you know? Because the tail Gunner, I think at that point was just anybody they could find, right, you know, to do it. I don't think they were. So I went to the front to check in because that's what it kind of said in the instructions back then on the Red Rocker list. So I'm walking to the front and I walk by this really pretty pink cj5 Harold. Really pretty. Nope, nope, nope. But I keep walking it was Ron Pepper. Oh, okay. Yeah, so I want I keep walking and I go up and I check in and I told him I was there and of course he same way he was like you're supposed to be here at seven o'clock or whatever, you know, I'm like yeah, yeah, I know I It was something to do with Morris's Jeep or something that I was late.

[00:41:18.630] - Joel Randall

So anyways, I walked back and I started talking to the guy in the pink Jeep, which is Ron Pepper and and Wild Oats and, you know, he's got a CJ5, I got a CJ5, we're just talking back and forth. He's from the Midwest, I'm from the Midwest. Instant friendship. Instant friendship. Before we even drove out of Moab, we were friends. Like we just hit it off. And we went on that trail. And immediately, you know, he's been doing this for years. This is my very, you know, my second day of rock crawling. I'd never even driven the Jeep here hardly because I barely got it done in time to go. And so immediately, you know, he's taking little side shoots. They're going up the trail and he's going over here on the side doing something stupid. And of course he's taunting me to do it.

[00:42:22.490] - Big Rich Klein

And we're taking so much time because.

[00:42:22.560] - Joel Randall

He was waiting for me to catch up all the time because I'd always wait. I'd try and get back in line where I was supposed to be. And by the end of the, well, by lunch break, they're like, no, you two go together. And you get up there closer to the front because people might want to watch.

[00:42:40.370] - Big Rich Klein

And that's, you guys became the sideshow.

[00:42:43.720] - Joel Randall

We were automatically the sideshow. And so at the end of that, at the end of that day, he's like, well, what are you guys, what are you signed up for? And is that other Jeep going to get running? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't even know if I'm signed up for a trail tomorrow. And he's like, well, I'm going on a magazine run tomorrow. You want to come? Oh, yeah. I didn't know what a magazine run was. I was like, okay, whatever.

[00:43:18.340] - Big Rich Klein

So the very next day, I went.

[00:43:18.490] - Joel Randall

On a magazine run and met Phil Howe. This is my first day. This is my first trip rock crawling ever. I'd never. I'd never been on the rocks before, except for when I was riding with Jerry the very first year, who was just my machinist, and he never went rock crawling again. And I met Frank Curry. I met, I don't think I met Harold yet, but I met a bunch of people that used to hang out with the Curries. The Curry group they used to call it back in the day. And I can't even remember the trail we went in, but I can tell you this, I fell in love with that. With rock crawling and all the people that day. The very first day of my very, or the very first trip of ever going rock crawling.

[00:44:15.810] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome.

[00:44:17.170] - Joel Randall

And I fell right in the heart of what was driving this, this, I don't really, it was a recreation at this point. It wasn't a sport. It was a lifestyle.

[00:44:36.980] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, exactly.

[00:44:37.020] - Joel Randall

But I fell right into the heart of it. Luckiest thing that probably ever happened to me in my whole life is I met all these great people and I'm, and I mean, they're, it's a great, like you always say, and I like to say it as well. It's just the greatest community that you could, that you could come into.

[00:44:53.380] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:44:54.900] - Joel Randall

I mean, It was and it was something that I love to do. Take a vehicle and make it do the job better. Like I'd been doing it on the farm at this point for, you know, for 10 years I'd been doing it. I've been doing it through mud racing. I did truck, I did some truck pulling for a little bit, you know, and this was just like a whole new way to express myself. And to craft new things. And I got really, I was really lucky in more ways because Morris and all of the people that started going from Nebraska and that I knew from Nebraska but had moved to other places, we started to just meet at these places. And we built, oh my gosh, we built so much stuff. It was crazy. I've been a tie rod and we'd bent some other stuff. Well, immediately we go back, I buy a bunch of chrome ollies, we buy a bunch of taps, we buy a bunch of reamers. We're making tie rods just for our friends. I mean, I, I, we never, well, Morris sold a couple of things, but.

[00:46:23.790] - Big Rich Klein

I never sold anything.

[00:46:23.880] - Joel Randall

Not like he, later on, we built a two, a dual stick shifter for the 300.

[00:46:30.060] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:46:31.100] - Joel Randall

And he sold it to Mark at Mepco, the design, and then Mark took it and, and. And made it, you know, fabricated it. And the same thing, like I know from meeting Frank, because when I met Frank Curry, he was like the dad I never had. I mean, we just connected. It was unbelievable how quickly we connected. And he would look at our Jeeps and do things and he's like, I'm going to steal that idea. And I'm like, fine with me. I don't care. We're not building this stuff. We don't care. And he would take it back.

[00:47:13.190] - Big Rich Klein

And I know John, he improved on.

[00:47:13.350] - Joel Randall

It, changed it, but it sparked, you know, everything we were doing was sparking, you know, for the technology to move further.

[00:47:20.740] - Big Rich Klein

The industry, yep.

[00:47:22.340] - Joel Randall

Yep. It just, and we love doing it. I mean, there was, because Jerry kept helping, he kept building Jeeps, he just never went. He never went again. But he helped us a ton because he, you know, he had access to some really cool tools. Right. And Morris is like, I mean, he's very, he's very good mechanically, but he's, I don't know, with technologies.

[00:47:51.740] - Big Rich Klein

Innovator.

[00:47:53.420] - Joel Randall

Yeah. And just like we called him MacGyver a lot.

[00:47:57.020] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:47:58.070] - Joel Randall

But it was just a great, we just had, we just had like a melting pot of really great people in our group.

[00:48:09.270] - Big Rich Klein

And, and our group was growing.

[00:48:09.420] - Joel Randall

I mean, we hooked up with the, with the Currys and Harold off and all those guys. It was just, it was just unbelievable. We built a Jeep for Jeff finally at 93. Actually, he went out there and rode with me, and I took my two girls because I, I found out right away it's a family deal. I mean, you can do whatever you want. Right.

[00:48:36.180] - Big Rich Klein

And still have fun, still have a great time.

[00:48:36.400] - Joel Randall

And he went out there and he kind of saw how much it had improved since even the first year when we went out there and rode with Morris two years earlier. The Jeeps were already doing better. We were having way more fun. We knew people. We knew where to go. We knew kind of, you know, what was going on. So we immediately built him a Jeep the very next year. In '94, he went out with us.

[00:49:02.870] - Big Rich Klein

So, in your opinion, who was the best driver back then of the group?

[00:49:06.920] - Joel Randall

Oh, there's no doubt it was me. No, I mean, oh, I mean, we taunted each other.

[00:49:17.720] - Big Rich Klein

Well, yeah, that's how it started.

[00:49:20.430] - Joel Randall

We wanted each other to do it. We wanted each other to be able to do it. Right. Like we would go and I'm not really sure how to explain this because it got kind of, I don't know, I think people actually thought we were snobbish. Because we hung out with the Currys and we hung out with Harold and Rod and all these people that had been in the magazines. And we were getting in the magazines because we were hanging out with them. Right. And, yeah, I mean, we had a, we, we seriously, we were not out to show, I, none of us were ever out to show anybody up. We got special treatment at different places, like we pull in, I can remember going down to Las Cruces and they had places for us to park roped off for the KIRBY group. And it did it.

[00:50:26.020] - Big Rich Klein

And we did not deserve it because.

[00:50:26.050] - Joel Randall

We were just, I mean, especially us, we were just hillbillies from the Midwest having fun. But these guys loved us and we loved them. I mean, it was just an instant. And they were a little bit older. Like I said, I really, Harold and Frank and those guys, Harold Off and Frank Curry and Pat Gremillion, They were like family to me. Right.

[00:50:51.000] - Big Rich Klein

They were the dads. Oh, yeah.

[00:50:51.070] - Joel Randall

They were, and they were so much fun. I mean, they were the greatest guys. And they, and they were, they were in the industry. So they had a reason to be there. We didn't have a reason to be there. We went there to be with them. Right. And to do cool, cool trails and just hang out. It was just more fun because I'd competed. Before. And it was fun and I enjoyed it, but it was nothing like this. This is like the family I never had. It was just unbelievable. I loved it. I can't say it enough how much I fell in love with the lifestyle. But yeah, we went out in '94 and Jeff got, we finally got him a Jeep Bill. And all this stuff happened at my shop. Like, we were building all this stuff because I had a farm and I had a shop. We were building all this stuff. We built custom trailers that you could adjust your tongue weight.

[00:51:48.910] - Big Rich Klein

The whole.

[00:51:50.150] - Joel Randall

The two axles slid. You could slide them forward and back and then drill a hole in the frame for the Jeeps. And they only weighed, like, 700 pounds.

[00:52:00.650] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[00:52:01.050] - Joel Randall

So you could drag. You could drag your Jeep right up against your pickup because it was a really short built trailer. And have, you know, we'd set the tongue weight at whatever we thought was appropriate, you know, 400 or 500 pounds or whatever, so you had enough tongue weight. And then the Jeep would be as close to your pickup as possible. And we all ran toppers back then because we were camping a lot.

[00:52:22.010] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:52:23.830] - Joel Randall

And, I mean, you could pull your Jeep out there. Hardly any wind drag, perfect. You know, the trailers were really low to the ground. We, like, we just developed all this stuff. To make this sport even easier and funner. And so we go out there in '94 and that year is the year that Rod Pepper got married on the rocks and that got in the magazines and we got in the magazine. So here we are, we're in the magazines even more and they do, we did that in '94, we did Moab, we did Las Cruces, We did, and actually John Curry came in 94. That's when I met him to the Jeep Safari. That's the first time I met him. And we had daughters that were the same age. And they, you know, we'd be trail riding and those two girls would be off exploring, kicking rocks.

[00:53:25.870] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:53:26.430] - Joel Randall

And picking up, you know, blood agate or whatever it was called they were searching for.

[00:53:38.190] - Big Rich Klein

They were looking for crystals and agates.

[00:53:38.440] - Joel Randall

And all kinds of rocks because my daughter was really into rocks. And she got Amanda started into rocks, John's daughter. And they were just, I mean, my Jeeps on all these trips, whenever I took my girls, my Jeeps would be so weighted down with rocks that I was at a big disadvantage with everybody else. I was hauling so many rocks that it really hurt me on a lot of obstacles, Rich. A lot of them. It was hilarious. And if I would have ever rolled back then, which we didn't roll very much back then, we were seriously having fun. But if I would have ever rolled, I probably would have died because they collected some pretty big rocks. But anyways, that year, '94, we went out there and Rod and B got married. And B didn't have anybody to walk her down the aisle, so Frank Curry walked her down the aisle. And they got married on Hell's Revenge out on the rocks. And it got in the magazines. That was a, that, that cemented our family together. I'm pretty sure that was the time that everybody just realized how lucky we were to be with everybody that we were with.

[00:54:52.940] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:54:54.300] - Joel Randall

I mean, it was way better than, than what, you know, I think a lot of people just thought, that, you know, we were kind of just snobbish elitists that got in the magazines a lot because we did get in the magazines a lot because we were really just friendly with the people in the magazines.

[00:55:14.550] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:55:15.590] - Joel Randall

I mean, it's unbelievable. Like I went through to get ready for this interview, I went through a box of magazines that our group was in. And I was almost embarrassed. It was that many. We just, it's just, but like we went to the Dakota Challenge, Fryberger, David Fryberger rode with Morris. Jeff got on the COVID We did some stupid things where we were, you know, trying to climb waterfalls and stuff and had a blast. And Jeff got on the COVID Second, you know, this is the second time.

[00:56:01.750] - Big Rich Klein

He'D ever went wheeling.

[00:56:01.810] - Joel Randall

He went to Moab and then we went to Dakota Challenge and he gets on the COVID of a magazine. And David Freidberger loved us. I mean, it was a perfect match. You know, we had, he, you know, he liked hot rods, he liked Jeeps, he liked off-road. I don't know how long he even lasted because I kind of lost track of him, but he, you know, he really enjoyed being around this group, as did everybody. Like, I, I looked through my pictures, Rich, and I don't even believe it. I looked through these magazines and I don't believe it.

[00:56:34.810] - Big Rich Klein

It's the who's who of the, the ogs.

[00:56:37.970] - Joel Randall

Yeah, it was just, like I said, when, when I, when I went out there and I went on that metal master by myself and met Rod, if you'd have told me two years later that, or three years later that we would be wheeling with the most innovative people in the off-road industry at the time, or we thought that's kind of who we were with. I'd have never, you know, you've never been able to convince me of that.

[00:57:09.520] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:57:10.960] - Joel Randall

But we just got, we were just lucky and.

[00:57:19.960] - Big Rich Klein

We.

[00:57:19.970] - Joel Randall

We were building stuff that people would.

[00:57:20.050] - Big Rich Klein

Come and look at our Jeeps, and.

[00:57:20.120] - Joel Randall

It'D be like, holy cow, how'd you make those rock sliders? Holy cow. How did you do what? Your axles upside down? How'd you do that? You know, and door dollar had done it before, but he was such a quiet guy. He didn't tell anybody. He didn't see it. You never saw it. You didn't even know. You saw that Jeep. You thought it was a stock cj7 but it was just like. It was just a tidal wave.

[00:57:46.370] - Big Rich Klein

Right. It was awesome.

[00:57:46.410] - Joel Randall

We went to, like I said, we went to the Dakota Challenge, we went to Cruces, we met Max Bennett. I don't know if you know who Max Bennett is, but.

[00:57:53.560] - Big Rich Klein

No.

[00:57:54.960] - Joel Randall

Yeah, he was the all-star of Las Cruces and we went out there with him and two magazines did an article of that trip. Four-wheeler did one and sport utility did one. And we got them both. And I I I didn't even. I I wish people would have went with other groups, but they wanted to go. Max was. Max was like a legend back then, and he's pretty much the mate, the person that made all the trails that we used for the first competition.

[00:58:26.100] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:58:26.980] - Joel Randall

And he was really pushing the sport. He was pushing the sport pretty hard, and we actually pulled in. They, for some reason, I can't remember the guy's name that ran that Chili Challenge, but he put us on that new trail and he's like, you guys don't want to take these Jeeps on this trail. They're too nice. They're way too nice and you're not going to make it.

[00:58:55.870] - Big Rich Klein

That's a challenge.

[00:58:57.390] - Joel Randall

Oh yeah. He was humbled at the end of that day. Because Jeff's Jeep looked like and Frank Curry's Jeep, they seriously looked like they never left a parking lot before. And they did not look like rock crawlers and Max's was definitely a rock crawler. It had over width axles, boggers on it. It was all beat up. Every corner was beat up. Just a typical trail rig.

[00:59:32.940] - Big Rich Klein

And we're driving shiny stuff.

[00:59:32.990] - Joel Randall

And we, and we kept all of our stuff looking good the whole time, even if we beat the heck out of it, which we did. We beat the heck out of it. But I don't really. And, and they pitted us against him on purpose. And, and, and he, and he was coming. I mean, it's. It's a, it's a camaraderie, but it's also, you know, you taunt everybody. Everybody taunts everybody.

[01:00:00.850] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah.

[01:00:01.730] - Joel Randall

Or at least in our groups anyway. And by the end of the, like I said, by the end of the week, he, I think he was disappointed. I think he went and found harder trails. And it, and it was, it was like that everywhere we went. We went out to California and did some trails. We, you know, we would go to Farmington. We would go wherever we went. There, there would always be, we went to Oklahoma. We went, we went a lot of places. Wherever we'd go, there was always that guy in Oklahoma. It was Roy. We had to do Roy Hill. We had to do Roy this, Roy that. And always, it was, it was, I mean, people said, oh, well, the competition started in 98. Well, if you were in our group and you went to a new place, the competition started that morning.

[01:00:56.820] - Big Rich Klein

Right, because everybody, it was a friendly competition, just there was no rules as in the 98.

[01:01:06.660] - Joel Randall

Yeah, no, it was just good fun. Good fun, but it was also being pushed to the limit. Like I can remember, Oh, like I said, we went to that Chili Challenge pretty often. We went to Farmington pretty often. And it was, I mean, it was just good fun all the way. But they were doing magazines. I made kind of a list and it was like seriously 15 magazines in three years. Wow. And they did a couple of articles. We went to Arizona and did a.

[01:01:48.980] - Big Rich Klein

Bunch of hard trails down there.

[01:01:49.010] - Joel Randall

The articles were called, like one of them seriously was titled Arizona Tough Wheeling with our club.

[01:01:58.820] - Big Rich Klein

Because it was our club. It wasn't, I thought it was our gang, but it was our club.

[01:02:02.980] - Joel Randall

It was our club.

[01:02:03.940] - Big Rich Klein

Our club.

[01:02:04.740] - Joel Randall

We never had a club. Jeff tried to get us discounts wherever we went by saying we had our club. And it just became a running joke that we were the art club. And then some of the people made hats and shirts and stuff and you know, it became a club but we didn't have a club meeting, we didn't have club anything, we just had our club.

[01:02:29.870] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:02:30.270] - Joel Randall

And it all started out just as a joke.

[01:02:39.390] - Big Rich Klein

I mean, just kind of kidding around.

[01:02:39.510] - Joel Randall

But, yeah, we went out there. I was a couple years later. We did, we, like I said, we wheeled all over the place, and, and we kept getting in, in the magazines, and we kept meeting more people, and the group got bigger. We, like, you know, we met Ned Bacon. He started hanging out with us. We We had Rick Payway and a bunch of them.

[01:03:05.510] - Big Rich Klein

We had David, we had Kevin Hawkins.

[01:03:05.640] - Joel Randall

We had, I mean, the list just is huge. If you look at the people that actually took part in a bunch of the stuff and kind of considered themselves part of our club or whatever, it just, anybody that went with us, they were part of our club. Because there was no club. But the article thing did, I mean it did create problems for us when we went to certain places. Like I know the first time we went and did those Arizona trails, which got that article that I just told you about, we went out there and Mike, my spotter, lived in Phoenix at the time.

[01:03:59.250] - Big Rich Klein

So he was kind of the trail.

[01:03:59.480] - Joel Randall

Leader, but Don Robbins was there. Okay. And him and I, him and I definitely taunted each other quite a bit. And, I mean, I just met him that morning, and. And we were on that. We were doing those trails and. We actually had to winch Don out of one thing and I can't remember what it was called. It was an obstacle and he was doing the harder lines on everything. But he was like, yeah, we got too big of a group. Probably you guys shouldn't try this. And I'm like, we're out here having fun. We're going to try everything. We're not in any big hurry. It's not like we're, We're doing it. And I can remember because Frank Curry.

[01:04:50.120] - Big Rich Klein

Got on the COVID of the magazine.

[01:04:50.240] - Joel Randall

Going up that crack. And he made it just perfect. And so did Jeff and those two Jeeps. Like I said, those two Jeeps are the ones that look like they shouldn't be on the trail. If you pulled into a parking lot and you wanted to go trail riding, you are not going to go talk to those guys because you're figuring they're just staying here. They're just mall crawlers, right? Yeah. That's what they looked like because they were nice and they didn't, you know, they just were not the normal hardcore Trail rides. And, and trust me, these guys, they went on everything. They went on everything hard. We, every town we went to, if it was, we went on the hardest trails and we figured a ways out to get them up it without beating them up.

[01:05:42.530] - Big Rich Klein

But still doing the same lines.

[01:05:42.630] - Joel Randall

And it just, like I said, we just met. And actually that day, I only remember this because of the weird vehicle that Rob Bonnie was driving. We were out there doing this Trail, and like I said, I didn't know. I just saw the Montana mud flaps and stuff on Don Robbins. I didn't really realize he was from Arizona, but. Here, an old one and a quarter ton truck comes pulling up. Old military truck. And it was Rob Bonnie driving it. And the only reason I remember it is because it had the same axles that my mud racer had underneath it. I didn't remember his name at all until later when I actually met him at the competitions. But it's a small world, happy world. It's like I said, we just happened to fall right in it. Couldn't have worked out better.

[01:06:39.820] - Big Rich Klein

So let's jump into the when the competition, the competition scene started, organized competitions. Because that was the first one was.

[01:07:01.900] - Joel Randall

Las Cruces, correct? Yep. Las Cruces in 98. And I've heard a lot of people on your podcast and a lot of people talk about how that all became part of a deal, you know, and how it, how, and who actually created it and who did this and who did that.

[01:07:16.270] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:07:17.790] - Joel Randall

And my recollection, I'm not saying they're wrong or that I'm right, but in our recollection, looking at it from our side of the story, It was Phil Howe came up with the concept.

[01:07:35.000] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:07:36.360] - Joel Randall

I mean, without a doubt, it was Phil that wanted us to do it. He was like, you know, we go to these places and this stuff happens everywhere you guys go. And he was going with us all the time. Like he was there all the time. I mean, all the other guys were too, like Cole, Quinlan, Ben Stewart, David Freyberger, Rick Payway, Mark Workmeister, all those guys, they would find out where we were going and they would go there because they knew that the hardest trail was going to get unveiled. There was going to be Purdy Jeeps that made good covers.

[01:08:14.750] - Big Rich Klein

The story.

[01:08:16.430] - Joel Randall

Yeah, and it was going to be fun because we had fun. I mean, we had a ball on these trails. And so, Phil, the way we got talked into going is Phil is like, you know, you go to all these places and people are taunting you and now everybody is saying that, you know, you guys are just coasting and that your magazine this and that and that the real buggies and the real Four wheelers are way better. Randy Ellis, Shannon Campbell, you know, he named all these people off and we'd heard of them. I'd never been on a trail with Shannon before or Randy. I'd been with Don Robbins. I'd been with different people. I don't, you know, they not a lot of them came up to wheel, but Kevin Hawkins, I can't remember, he had a whole group of guys that were with him that were really good wheelers and they had.

[01:09:18.840] - Big Rich Klein

Partial buggy, partial Jeeps.

[01:09:19.160] - Joel Randall

Right. But we did everything they did and tried to push them around. You know, we tried to, if we could, if we thought we could do something, we would do something, you know, on the side of the trail to taunt them. And it was, you know, we always thought we were pretty competitive for driving full-size rigs.

[01:09:47.570] - Big Rich Klein

And, and Phil wanted to put us.

[01:09:47.650] - Joel Randall

Together under some rules and to get the, and to get all the buggy guys. Well, they weren't really buggies either, but they were, they were more off-roadish race type cars. And he just wanted to see. And Ned Bacon And I mean all those big names from the past, all of them showed up for that event. And we had a blast. There was, I think, I can't remember exactly if there was two days and then the dirty dozen, wasn't there? Is that how that went? I can't, you know, I believe so. Yeah, I can't remember and I'm gonna do a disclaimer right now that my memory, I'm almost 65 years old and I'm probably gonna remember things differently and if I say something, I'm not saying it to ghost bull or anything. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just, Yeah, because I've listened to your podcast and I've.

[01:11:06.930] - Big Rich Klein

Always been like, well, that isn't exactly.

[01:11:06.970] - Joel Randall

How it is, but I can remember, I can remember one thing clearer than I can another thing at this point in my life.

[01:11:12.400] - Big Rich Klein

Well, and see, I wasn't even at that Las Cruces event. My first event was the one at the hammers, which I think was the Warren, the Warren Nationals. That's correct.

[01:11:32.520] - Joel Randall

Yeah, the 99 war.

[01:11:32.800] - Big Rich Klein

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

[01:11:32.840] - Joel Randall

We ended up going to that one too. But yeah, I mean, you want me to, I feel like we should talk about the very first one maybe.

[01:11:40.760] - Big Rich Klein

Sure, yeah, absolutely. So.

[01:11:44.680] - Joel Randall

I'm in a CJ-5 with springs. I do have an automatic at this point because they did convince me to get an automatic back in like 96. 96 or 97, I switched because I was a pretty hardcore, I wanted to be 101 final ratio, you know. So I needed that super low gear and had, you know, I wanted that 101 to 1 ratio for the total.

[01:12:17.910] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:12:18.470] - Joel Randall

Back in the day when we were crawling and, you know, just trying to make things look graceful and kind of dancing with the rocks or whatever you want to call it. And that was more my style. Anyway, I think if it, if they would have had a class with four speeds, I would have been right there. But so that very first event, we go out there. We don't. We. No, none of us know what to expect. I. And Shannon didn't either. And neither did Randy or, I mean, I could name off tons of people that were out there. I mean, Don Robbins was out there. There were tons of. Tons of people, Ned Bacon, not a lot of the, a lot of, a lot of people, you know, heard about this from this event and came the next year that were really quality, quality drivers.

[01:13:08.200] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:13:09.400] - Joel Randall

Unbelievable. But we went to this first one and there were, I think there were close to 60 entrants in it.

[01:13:17.160] - Big Rich Klein

Yep.

[01:13:18.200] - Joel Randall

55 or something like that. And right away, when we were, when we were reading the rules and trying to figure it out, we were out there practicing the day before, because we just got there one day before the event. And we knew where it was going to be, kind of, because Las Cruces, you know, there's, there's just a couple different Canyons, so we kind of knew what it was going to be like. But I, as I remember, I don't think they let us go up those Canyons because they were designing courses on them. So we just went out there and kind of got, you know, just got our feet wet or whatever you want to call it. And we started the competition. We couldn't believe that ESPN was there. That was just unbelievable to all of us. And that it was going to be, and all of us were a little bit nervous at that point that we were, that, you know, our sport was going to get televised. I know it was all the chatter because I don't think anybody expected it. And I can't believe Phil didn't, didn't spill that news everywhere he went.

[01:14:26.170] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:14:26.970] - Joel Randall

That ESPN was going to be there. Maybe he was shocked that they actually showed up. I don't know. I, I didn't, I, I was going to call Phil and talk to him before we did this, but I, I didn't get a chance to, so, so we went ahead and, and he The way that we remember it, he wanted us, you know, he just wanted to see what, you know, what the difference was between the rigs and the actual drivers and to put them in a place that, you know, was controlled and with points. And the points is what screwed everybody up. Because nobody was used to not backing up.

[01:15:15.270] - Big Rich Klein

Not stopping because I think there was.

[01:15:15.910] - Joel Randall

A penalty for a stop over so many seconds at that very first one. There was, yep. Yeah. So it was, I mean, those rules and the funny thing is, is that, and maybe this is part of the reason why we did so good. I like to think we did well because, you know, we just had honed our skills, but we all got together and talked about it. All the guys in our group did. We talked about the rules and we.

[01:15:42.190] - Big Rich Klein

Kind of went over, you know, like.

[01:15:42.260] - Joel Randall

This is going to be crazy to be able to do this, you know, and it isn't like you had to stay within the cones. You couldn't even touch them. Right. It wasn't like a guideline. Like, you know, normally wheeling, you just barely have guidelines. So it was, we really went over it as a group.

[01:16:06.940] - Big Rich Klein

And we went over and then when.

[01:16:07.060] - Joel Randall

We were doing the obstacles, the same thing. You know, if I saw something, if Jeff saw something, if Rich Hudson, I haven't even mentioned him yet, but he's also a friend of ours from Nebraska. You know, we talked to each other and we tried to help each other. And John and Frank, they were in it. Well, Frank started and then he decided he didn't want to drive. I think he only did two obstacles the first day maybe or something.

[01:16:36.400] - Big Rich Klein

And then John took over and started driving.

[01:16:36.460] - Joel Randall

But yeah, we did that first event and we had a blast. We had to do some winching. They did a good job. I don't know who set up the courses. I don't know if it was Phil or Hazel or who set up the courses, but they were pretty evenly, the courses were pretty even to the vehicles that we had for the time. Because I think everybody, pretty much everybody had to winch once on different waterfalls or whatever. And, and we got some good shots and on TV and the magazines, you know, of people just sitting on their tailgates, and it went really well. I, I mean, we were, we were all pretty happy and. There were 50, like I said, almost 60 people there. And three of us, the R Club people, ended up in the top five. Right.

[01:17:30.820] - Big Rich Klein

And who ended up winning that?

[01:17:33.860] - Joel Randall

Jeff did.

[01:17:34.660] - Big Rich Klein

Jeff did. And who was his spotter?

[01:17:37.460] - Joel Randall

Morris was.

[01:17:38.220] - Big Rich Klein

Morris was his spotter. Okay.

[01:17:39.700] - Joel Randall

Yep, yep. The guys I went wheeling with the first time I went to Moab.

[01:17:45.020] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Did you guys talk strategy?

[01:17:51.500] - Joel Randall

On how the rules were and how.

[01:17:51.720] - Big Rich Klein

To, you know, was that part of the game back then?

[01:17:55.900] - Joel Randall

No, it was. Well, we were just trying to figure it out how it was going to work, you know? But we were also, nobody had enough strategy the first day especially. Everybody had way more strategy the second day.

[01:18:11.360] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:18:11.720] - Joel Randall

As far as the way the rules went. Heck, the first day, We talked about what the rules were, but we didn't talk about how we could use the rules to our advantage.

[01:18:23.200] - Big Rich Klein

True.

[01:18:24.160] - Joel Randall

And I don't think we did even for the second day because we were all so in awe and it was pretty late and everybody's tired, you know, and we had our licks, our wounds to lick. So I, you know, it isn't like we conspired. It isn't like we conspired. Right. And I know Randy and, and.

[01:18:46.540] - Big Rich Klein

And Shannon, I'm sure they talked to each.

[01:18:46.690] - Joel Randall

Other and helped each other.

[01:18:46.780] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:18:46.800] - Joel Randall

I didn't know them that well at that time. I knew them a lot better later, of course. But yeah, we were, and we were so, I mean, we were happy with how it ended up because we, you know, like I said, three of us were in the top five. It was Jeff won it, Jeff and Morris won it, John and Frank actually got second, and then I ended up getting fourth and Rich Hudson got fifth. And Ned Bacon, I think, up, I don't know, maybe eight or nine. Craig Ross from Montrose. I don't know if you know Craig. He raised. He raised King of the Hammers, too, later on and did. And he did rock crawling. He did pretty well. Don Robbins ended up getting 12th Place. Okay, I can remember that, but it was just a good. It was a good thing for us. We didn't think it was going to amount to anything. We had no idea that we'd ever do it again. The next year we made plans to go to all the other, all the same places that we normally go. Farmington, Cruces, Moab, Dakota Challenge. We went, actually I think we went to all those places.

[01:20:01.030] - Joel Randall

I think in '99 there was only one event. Other than the Warren one. But I mean, of the Arca one, because 99 and 2000 were combined for Arca or RCA or whatever, whatever Ranch.

[01:20:14.110] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah.

[01:20:14.550] - Joel Randall

Decided to call it that year.

[01:20:17.150] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:20:18.110] - Joel Randall

But, yeah, I did. I went to the, to the Warren, the 99 Warren competition.

[01:20:26.590] - Big Rich Klein

And that's the, the first one, because I knew I knew then Ranch was coming into Cedar City to put on a rock crawl. So, and I was the club president. So Dave Burling, who is the vice president, and I went down there thinking that it was the same organization and then realized that it wasn't. And then we went to, we'd missed, I guess, the first we didn't get to. Las Cruces, which was Ranch's first event of his season. Right. But Arizona was the second and then Cedar City was the third.

[01:21:06.550] - Joel Randall

That's right. Yep.

[01:21:07.670] - Big Rich Klein

And then I think it finished in Johnson Valley or something. Or Farmington. I don't remember. There was like five or six. I don't remember the whole way the whole season went. But the, because I was just concentrating on Cedar City.

[01:21:26.630] - Joel Randall

Yeah, I remember. I remember. Cedar Cedar City was not always nice to me, unfortunately. But you came to the Warren Nationals that were down in Montrose?

[01:21:35.150] - Big Rich Klein

No, no. We were in at this at the Johnson Valley.

[01:21:41.010] - Joel Randall

That was the next year, wasn't it?

[01:21:43.890] - Big Rich Klein

I thought it was 99, but maybe it was because I went to.

[01:21:55.250] - Joel Randall

The 2000 Warren National Championship was in Montrose. Okay. I mean, I have, I have the.

[01:21:57.090] - Big Rich Klein

That was a Hazel event.

[01:21:59.170] - Joel Randall

Yep.

[01:21:59.690] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah.

[01:22:01.090] - Joel Randall

That was the next event that I went to. And, and, and the only one that I know of, because Hazel didn't end up getting that series. Ranch got it right away from Phil.

[01:22:12.870] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Yeah.

[01:22:14.070] - Joel Randall

And I don't know, I don't know how that went with Phil, if he Hired Hazel as the promoter or if he took it over just for the for I don't know how that all.

[01:22:25.710] - Big Rich Klein

Worked with my understanding from Phil was that they had partnered with that first one in Las Cruces and then they kind of went their own way and Phil was gonna do a series and Bob just wanted to do like one event at a time and and, you know, standalones. And then, so Hazel did Johnson Valley as the next event, while Phil and Ranch, Ranch was working for MEPCO at the time, and they had started Teraflex, and he had thought, wow, this is a great way to advertise our business. So he contacted Phil before Phil could.

[01:23:18.300] - Joel Randall

Put on a first event.

[01:23:18.340] - Big Rich Klein

And he took, he bought the series and he had already gone out and gotten Goodyear as a sponsor.

[01:23:23.260] - Joel Randall

Yeah.

[01:23:24.470] - Big Rich Klein

And then that's when the, when Ranch started the series. And then Hazel continued to do single events and then later started pro rock.

[01:23:36.390] - Joel Randall

But that was, oh, yeah, that's right. He did do, yeah, I did some pro rocks, I guess, back.

[01:23:44.870] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, and I started after helping Ranch with the Cedar City event, when I moved back to California at the end of 2000, I made plans to put on my first event in 2001, which was put up or shut up under the Cal Rocks name, and at the same time Craig Stump started the UROC series. Yeah. And then the first time that I.

[01:24:13.680] - Joel Randall

Can really remember sitting and talking to.

[01:24:13.810] - Big Rich Klein

You was in Farmington at the end of an arc. And that's when it ended up being the last ARCA event. And Ranch went to, went into Uroc.

[01:24:30.550] - Joel Randall

As a partner with the Paties.

[01:24:38.830] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, Patons. Yeah, I kind of forgot they were twins, right?

[01:24:39.620] - Joel Randall

I think so, yeah.

[01:24:39.660] - Big Rich Klein

I know they were brothers at least. And that's when Mark had flown over. We were all sitting on the rocks there talking about the event and what was coming up and how the series were changing and everything. This is what I remember at least. We were sitting there on the rock and this airplane flew over really low. Over the formations there where we were sitting. And you said, oh yeah, that's for you, Rich. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And you said, yeah, that's Mark Pady. He's here to talk to you. And I'm like, okay. Because yeah, that was never in my plans to make it one big combined series, which was what their plan was. Yep. Yeah.

[01:25:32.040] - Joel Randall

I kind of remember that. Yeah. I mean, I think, and I know a lot of people say this when they get to be my age, but I wish I remembered half of what I knew.

[01:25:46.020] - Big Rich Klein

If any of us would have known that we were actually creating something that that became something that we would have.

[01:26:00.830] - Joel Randall

Taken better notes or kept better history.

[01:26:00.910] - Big Rich Klein

I think the one that kept the best history was George Waitsen. Everything that was ever about any of the events he hung on to. And man, what a history trove that would be.

[01:26:25.790] - Joel Randall

Yeah.

[01:26:25.810] - Big Rich Klein

Have you interviewed him? No, he won't do the interview. He said I need to talk to the kids.

[01:26:29.790] - Joel Randall

Yeah. And that's how he was the whole time.

[01:26:33.080] - Big Rich Klein

Yes.

[01:26:34.200] - Joel Randall

Yeah, yeah. I became really close friends with George through the years. He was really good for those boys. But yeah, I don't know. I can't remember the Las Cruces one. The Warren one. But I, I did. I have a trophy that says 2000 Warren Nationals in Montrose because I got second place and Steve Rumore in the Assassin got first place. Okay, but that's. I, I.

[01:27:05.140] - Big Rich Klein

That had to be a Hazel event.

[01:27:07.700] - Joel Randall

It was, yeah, but wasn't the one you were talking about in.

[01:27:11.620] - Big Rich Klein

Was a Warren Nationals there in. Johnson Valley. And that's when all the NorCal guys showed up with Samson and Goliath and Brutus, those real big ones on 54-inch tires and everything.

[01:27:28.470] - Joel Randall

I can't remember. I feel like I was there, but...

[01:27:32.790] - Big Rich Klein

There was a hell of a windstorm. Like always happens in Johnson Valley.

[01:27:38.070] - Joel Randall

I was gonna say you'll have to narrow it down a little bit. Every time I've been to Johnson Valley.

[01:27:46.700] - Big Rich Klein

It'S been like that.

[01:27:46.770] - Joel Randall

But yeah, I don't remember that one. I remember the Warren one because it snowed and I can't remember exactly what the circumstances were, but it snowed and we ended up getting second. I think it was all up in one canyon. It was really awkward to get anywhere. If you had to go get parts or tools or anything, you had to go all the way back. It wasn't set up very, you know, it wasn't set up near as well as what the events became.

[01:28:18.330] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:28:18.690] - Joel Randall

You know, they became like, especially in Farmington and St. George and those places, not so much in Crueses, but it was more like an amphitheater.

[01:28:29.370] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And that was done for spectators and also for even recovery.

[01:28:35.690] - Joel Randall

Yeah. Yeah, everything was easier. I mean, that was they figured that these, you know, you promoter guys, you figured this out really quick.

[01:28:46.070] - Big Rich Klein

And we didn't have a lot of help. So we had to do things that were easier to do.

[01:28:54.310] - Joel Randall

Yeah. No, I know what you mean. It was, it was like I said, once again, I fell into the rock crawling. It was kind of like a, you know, just a tidal wave. And then it kind of leveled off and we had fun for like, I don't know, five years or six years. And then it was another tidal wave was this, the competition started. And the competition, it's a double edged sword with me because it took me away from all of those friends. Hardly any of them continued to do the competition. True. And those guys like Frank Curry and Harold Off and Pat, and then Walker became part of our group too.

[01:29:49.350] - Big Rich Klein

Yep.

[01:29:50.630] - Joel Randall

He was in the art club. Ned Bacon was in it. Kevin was in it. I mean, tons of people were in it. They kept doing stuff and they went even further. They went down to Baja. They did things. I've never been to Baja. It's just like, well, except for as a kid, maybe camping, I'm not sure if I was there or not. But yeah, so it was a double edged sword and we lost contact with, I mean, we didn't lose friendships, but we lost contact with them and we quit because you couldn't go. I worked. Jeff worked, we could not go to every event that we wanted to go to and go recreational wheeling with them.

[01:30:30.780] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. And then there was, there ended up being so many events going on.

[01:30:36.860] - Joel Randall

Oh, yeah.

[01:30:37.460] - Big Rich Klein

That people had to pick and choose or just said no and didn't go, you know, just continued to wreck wheel.

[01:30:46.940] - Joel Randall

For fun instead of competition. Yeah, I, like I said, it's a double edged sword. I'm glad that it went the way it did because I really like the competition side of it. And I made a lot of new friends. I met people that I wouldn't have met if I would have kept hanging out with those guys. It expanded my friendship base by a long ways. But I did miss out on a lot. And unfortunately, a lot of them aren't with us anymore.

[01:31:21.560] - Big Rich Klein

Very true.

[01:31:21.570] - Joel Randall

You know, even just right after I quit rock crawling, they were already in bad enough shape or had passed away that you can't make up that time. So, yeah, it was very much a double-edged sword. I guess I could say that one more time and everybody could get annoyed.

[01:31:41.540] - Big Rich Klein

But No, but it was. And I understood it because the recreational wheeling took a backseat for me because I've spent so much time trying to get events going and promoting and getting the permit process going and the advertising of it and all the things that were involved with being a promoter that the only time I got to wheel was our off-season, which was.

[01:32:13.870] - Joel Randall

Which was the snowy season.

[01:32:14.050] - Big Rich Klein

So it became snow wheeling in the Sierras instead of rock crawling.

[01:32:17.310] - Joel Randall

I went rec wheeling a couple times in, well, 99 is kind of a weird year because we did, I think that the ARCA thing only ended up having one competition that year. And then they combined 99 and 2000. Or maybe they had, maybe they had two, but 99 and 2000 as far as for the series were combined.

[01:32:43.690] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[01:32:44.970] - Joel Randall

Because I know Jeff and I, I think I had a higher placing too, but Jeff had it locked up for 99 and would have won back-to-back championships and then they extended it to 2000 and then he ended up second to Chris, everybody knows that story. That was a pretty big story in the early rock crawling days.

[01:33:08.420] - Big Rich Klein

Durham?

[01:33:09.620] - Joel Randall

Yeah. Chris Durham against Jeff.

[01:33:11.940] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:33:12.820] - Joel Randall

They were both good. They're both handsome. They're both young. They're totally different driving styles, which made it really, really fun to watch. And I mean, I was there pushing them around the whole time, but with my demeanor and my driving style, I do not make the highlight reel. Right. You know, and I was, I was, from doing all the promoting that I did in the mud races, I was very respectful of how hard it is to be a judge or a promoter. So I never, I never caused a single, a single problem for anybody because I, I've been on the other side of it a lot when I was running those mud races. And I just, you know, that's probably why I, you know, I probably would know you better if I was more, you know, had more of a- Confrontational? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

[01:34:14.520] - Big Rich Klein

I got to know Tracy pretty good.

[01:34:16.800] - Joel Randall

Everybody did. Everybody did. I love, I love Tracy. That, that kid. Well, there's so many people that I can't remember the first time that he came. Him and Rob Bonnie came and they had that FJ. And I gave them some bolts and stuff. And I kind of looked at their rig and met them at their very first event. I don't know exactly why, because there were tons of people at that first series of ARCA. Heck, we'd have 75-80 competitors. And it was only one class. Yeah. And, but, yeah. Oh, immediately, I I I love those two kids. They were, they were, they were so much fun. And I could see, you know, that if Tracy could ever harness that adrenaline in the right direction, he was going to be scary.

[01:35:15.560] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah.

[01:35:16.980] - Joel Randall

But his adrenaline at the beginning, he could not. He could not harness it in a way that he needed to. He got to be such a better driver. Well, everybody did. All of us did. Everybody was improving. And I can say this pretty honestly. Just about everybody that competed was a great driver.

[01:35:40.020] - Big Rich Klein

I would agree.

[01:35:41.950] - Joel Randall

There was so much, there is in rock crawling, There's a lot of luck involved. A lot of luck, a lot more than what people think. And I would agree, you gotta make people that are lucky say, you know, you make luck happen or whatever. But there were so many great drivers on any day. I always said this, every time we went to a competition on any day, any one of these 25 guys could win. There is nothing.

[01:36:21.330] - Big Rich Klein

There is no, there is no greatest driver. Right.

[01:36:21.580] - Joel Randall

It just, you know, you put, you put the courses in the right direction. Anybody can win, especially those early days.

[01:36:30.770] - Big Rich Klein

It was, there was, oh, yeah, there was so much. Well, and, and the rigs, you know, once Once they went to the moon buggies, it really changed the sport. And then later on when I dropped the rear steer penalty, oh yeah. And everybody in the unlimited class went to rear steer, it really made a difference. You know, it was another revival, you might say.

[01:37:05.190] - Joel Randall

Yeah.

[01:37:12.270] - Big Rich Klein

Nope it but we I mean we.

[01:37:12.390] - Joel Randall

Pushed the industry we did so many things like in 2000 like I said 99 and 2000 they were combined and the vehicles were pretty much the same throughout that that era and I can't even remember where I ended up in in the 2000 I think I I think I ended up fourth overall or something in the series maybe I can't remember exactly, but in 2001, I don't know if everybody had a. If it was a long winter or what, but in 2001, it seemed like everybody came in and everybody came in a new rig. And then every. Every event, it'd be like, holy cow, did you see this? You know? There'd be people that I can't even remember when Mitch Guthrie got his twisted cart. But there was every event, a new car pushing the limits a little bit further. But we also got away from what I thought was one drawback to the way the sport went, was getting away from the sponsors that I had. Like they wanted the vehicle to look like something.

[01:38:37.080] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:38:37.130] - Joel Randall

And, of course, Ranch and I went to a couple of meetings with Ranch and Currys and the Goodyear guys and the Detroit guy and I don't know, you know, all the sponsors. And they were all like, how can we make this competitive and not completely harness everybody to just this type of vehicle? You know, like we can't do a spec car, we can't do this. And there's, they never could figure out how, you know, and they wanted to, and I wanted it to happen too. I wanted this sport to go, you know, to, and everybody did. They wanted it to go to almost like the NASCAR level.

[01:39:17.770] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:39:18.410] - Joel Randall

Where people followed the driver and we had the characters. We had the colorful things. We had the great drivers. We had all of everything. It's just impossible because all these sports, all these motorsports have the same trouble. It's just so hard to keep the sponsors. We lost so many. I was really lucky. After the very first event, I got Goodyear to help me with tires and money. And then, you know, by the next year we had We had more, we had Detroit, I had Warren, I ran that Warren Black Diamond, I ran their shocks for a while. We had, you know, we had sponsors.

[01:40:08.190] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:40:09.230] - Joel Randall

And the only reason, and of course I got that, I don't know if you remember, I had that semi.

[01:40:15.470] - Big Rich Klein

Yep.

[01:40:17.310] - Joel Randall

And I talked to Ranch about it a little bit when I told him I was getting it. And, you know, we hadn't, we didn't have a team name or anything. We didn't have anything. We were just rock crawlers still competing at this point. This was in like late 2000, the second year, third year, because 99 really didn't amount to much the way I remember it anyway. But I talked to him and I said, you know, I'm gonna name my team Extreme Rock Crawlers. Because I'll and I told him, I said, that's what I'm going to put on the side of my truck. That isn't going to be too close to what the name of your deal is or anything. And he's like, no, I'm fine with it. You can name your team whatever you want. And I said, that way when we pull into town, it isn't like they see a vehicle that says, Randall Racing on it or something. It would be extreme rock crawlers.

[01:41:23.050] - Big Rich Klein

That's what the biggest thing on, I.

[01:41:23.180] - Joel Randall

Don'T know if you remember the truck, but the biggest thing on the side was extreme rock crawling. Those were the biggest letters on the whole side of the truck. And then I like Goodyear. Of course, I tried to promote it and tried to get, you know, sponsors for every inch of the truck and all that stuff, but it was too early in the sport to actually get all that, all those things lined up. Right. But Goodyear was helping me, Detroit and.

[01:41:48.440] - Big Rich Klein

Warren and all that.

[01:41:48.520] - Joel Randall

So I put all the sponsors of the event on there and my sponsors on that truck. And whenever we pulled into a town where we were having an event, and I had learned this from doing all those, you know, the mud drag is you can't, you can't put a sign in town that says that because you have to get a permit to put up a sign. But if it's on a truck, you can't stop it.

[01:42:17.370] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:42:17.410] - Joel Randall

So I wanted, and I know a lot of people that, a lot of people that know me know that I'm not really a grandstander, but that truck said once again, like I was rich or something, you know, or I was famous or something. But that isn't, I mean, I was hauling two teams out there. And I own a trucking company.

[01:42:44.110] - Big Rich Klein

It wasn't very big.

[01:42:44.150] - Joel Randall

It's a small trucking company. The most trucks I ever had was five. But people actually looked, they're like, oh, they, you know, and people, competitors even said, oh, man, you know, what do you do for a living? Or what's this, you know, how much is good you're paying you? Things like that. And I would always tell them, and.

[01:43:11.670] - Big Rich Klein

Some of them were friends of mine.

[01:43:11.710] - Joel Randall

And a lot of them became friends of mine later, but I'm a wheeler and dealer from the very beginning of my life about age 10. And I owned that truck and that semi for less than anybody that came to that competition's pickup truck. Right. Because I bought five of those semis from a Lay's potato chip company in Topeka, Kansas. I bought five of those trucks for 15,000, five of those trailers for $15,000.

[01:43:47.630] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[01:43:49.950] - Joel Randall

And I sold them to mud racers, truck pullers and all those, you know, and just people in the area here. So I, I seriously, I always said I only had about two thousand dollars in that trailer. And, and I bought that semi. It was a wrecked over the road semi with a big sleeper on it. And I bought that for fifteen thousand dollars. So I had seventeen thousand dollars in that truck and trailer, Rich.

[01:44:21.080] - Big Rich Klein

Which is.

[01:44:21.560] - Joel Randall

Less than the pickups. Any pickup that anybody was driving to the event.

[01:44:33.750] - Big Rich Klein

Yep. To pull their rig.

[01:44:34.560] - Joel Randall

Like Shannon had a beautiful black Dodge Dually. Yep. That probably back then cost half of what it costs now, 50, 60 Grand. I had 17 Grand in the whole thing, and I painted it. All of us guys that built all the trailers, all the guys from my early rock crawling, Recreation days. We painted that trailer white with a power painter out here at my farm. And I went down, I got the stickers made, and we stuck them all on there. And, you know, Goodyear didn't pay for a sticker. Nobody paid for a sticker except for me. I mean, they were. They were helping me with the vents, and they were giving me tires. But, and Detroit, they gave me a little bit.

[01:45:22.330] - Big Rich Klein

They didn't say, okay, we'll give you.

[01:45:22.440] - Joel Randall

This much money for that sticker or anything like that.

[01:45:24.190] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:45:24.550] - Joel Randall

The whole contingency part and the whole sponsorship part hadn't gotten to any level at that point when I built that truck. But Rich Hudson, who lives in Omaha, he wanted to do the sport and I wanted to do the sport. And so I figured I, I could.

[01:45:47.900] - Big Rich Klein

Do this and haul two rigs out there.

[01:45:47.970] - Joel Randall

And I had a support Jeep that had all of our tools and carried spare tires on the roof and stuff of it. And so I hauled all that. I would have been hauling Jeff, but Jeff was partnered up with Curry's, and John was doing a lot of the prep work for his car by this point.

[01:46:03.820] - Big Rich Klein

So it was coming out of a so Cal.

[01:46:06.220] - Joel Randall

Yeah. So he didn't need it. He rode out in the semi with me. Jeff did. Quite a few times. And, yeah, it was quite, it was quite the, the deal. And I, and I, I liked promote, I, I liked adding to the promotion, and Ranch would leave places for me to park at different things. He knew I was coming.

[01:46:26.780] - Big Rich Klein

Yep.

[01:46:27.580] - Joel Randall

He's no dummy.

[01:46:29.100] - Big Rich Klein

A big bill.

[01:46:29.310] - Joel Randall

And I, like I said, I was, I was trying to work with everybody to, to build the sport that I loved. I wasn't trying to grandstand at all or do or out out showmanship anybody. And like I said, if you followed the competitions, you knew that I wasn't that type of a person anyway.

[01:46:47.740] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:46:48.980] - Joel Randall

Well, you know, you thought I was a conservative Nebraska farmer.

[01:46:53.780] - Big Rich Klein

Yep. Absolutely.

[01:46:56.300] - Joel Randall

Which is what I, which is what I am actually, but yeah. But no, it was a great, I mean, and it blew up so fast. Everybody gained from everything that went right from that point on. Like I can remember in 2001, like I built a TJ. I got rid of my CJ. I built a TJ with a tune port in it, tune port 350. I started trying axles. Curry would give me axles to, to test. So I had axles. I had a Curry front with 300 M axles in it already. Some of the first ones that they made before we went to ctms, John tried making some and I tested a bunch of stuff, the rock jocks and all that. It was just, it was, it was the amazing. And it was great. That first, like I said, in 2001, and this is the first time I'd ever been over 93 inch wheelbase is in 90 is in 2001. I built that TJ and I got up to about 98 inches.

[01:48:09.960] - Big Rich Klein

Was that the one with the white front with the. The paint was kind of blocked out into, like, teal.

[01:48:19.320] - Joel Randall

Or something? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[01:48:25.640] - Big Rich Klein

And it was a. I narrowed it.

[01:48:25.690] - Joel Randall

I cut, like, 11 or 12 inches.

[01:48:25.750] - Big Rich Klein

Out of the center of it and.

[01:48:25.800] - Joel Randall

Narrowed the TJ tub and that hood and the grill. And I had a. A premier power welder on board. We weren't. It was still. I still. And this is the way I was. I was building Jeeps when I fixed up the five from the first event to do the 99-2000 series. I still, I always told myself, well, if this all goes down the tubes, I'll have a nice trail rig.

[01:48:53.700] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:48:53.720] - Joel Randall

I did not, I did not want it to be anything that was, you know, that couldn't be used. Like I said, I put a, and when I built that narrow TJ, I put a welder on board. I still had a bunch of stuff that I didn't, you know, that was just comfort, you know, for, for trail riding. Because I. And we still did a little bit. But I got that wheelbase, which was completely new to me, got a little bit different transmission, a little bit different torque converter. So I had a little bit more control and a little bit more if I needed, because, you know, I could see where the sport was going. It was a little more. It was getting a little more skinny pedal already by then. It was not so much. Just let's see who's the most graceful rock crawler. And just to cover that first year or that 2001 year, this is how close the competitions were. In Cruces, I got third place, but I was tied with Don Robbins for third place. And I don't know how, but whatever, however the tiebreaker worked back then, I got third and Don got fourth.

[01:50:10.800] - Joel Randall

So I got on the box and he didn't. And I didn't, I, I don't know how that worked and I didn't think it was right. I thought we could have just shared it. I mean, it isn't like we, you know, have these, carry these trophies around with us on our shoulders or something, but.

[01:50:24.230] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:50:26.760] - Joel Randall

So then, I don't remember that was your first event in Cedar. And I don't remember, I don't think I got in the top five. Because I broke, I know I broke my drive shaft and this is kind of a funny story. I broke my drive shaft, my constant velocity joint. I was, I'd already ruined one, like the, whatever the competition was before that, so I didn't have a spare built yet. And Jason Pauly came over. And I'm like, yeah, the pin's broke in the middle of it and it's just vibrating like a son of a gun. It hasn't broke anything yet. And I was like, I think I'm just gonna drive it the way it is. And he said, well, what if we just stiffen it up somehow? And the first thing we came up with, we were gonna put sticks all the way around it and wrap it with duct tape. Or something that was our.

[01:51:31.960] - Big Rich Klein

Let's splint it.

[01:51:32.010] - Joel Randall

Well, it's so close to everything there. You can't put that much on it. But we did. What we did is we held it up in the center and we wrapped it so tight with gorilla tape that it kept from breaking that center pin out and just tearing that e out. And I drove it the last two. I drove it the last two obstacles with that. Tape on there as a kind of a stabilizer to keep it straight.

[01:52:01.100] - Big Rich Klein

That's pretty crazy.

[01:52:01.150] - Joel Randall

I guess, I guess, well, I'll go ahead with how we did. And then, so we go to Cedar. I don't know exactly where I ended up, but was that event on 4x4 TV?

[01:52:13.140] - Big Rich Klein

I don't remember. I don't remember television on that. I don't.

[01:52:24.220] - Joel Randall

It could have been and I couldn't recall. Okay, because I was thinking that that year in 2001, towards the end of the year, that 4x4TV covered a couple of our deals, which I thought was a really good thing of moving the right direction, because I think the next year is when John and ESPN started doing it again was in 2002. But I'll get on to that later. So Johnson, then we went to Johnson Valley, and I may not have these in the right order, but believe it or not, here I am tied in third place again with Mitch Guthrie, but I get third place. And then we went to Farmington, and I'm not sure that was the last one, but it very well could have been. That's a lot of times where the finals were, but then I got fourth place there. But, and I think I got third in the series, I'm not sure. But that's how tight these events got.

[01:53:25.090] - Big Rich Klein

Yes.

[01:53:26.610] - Joel Randall

I mean, the points were so close. It was just crazy. This 2001, I think was the most even. Like if you wanted to do a spec series, that was probably the year you needed to lock it down right there.

[01:53:39.470] - Big Rich Klein

Yep.

[01:53:41.230] - Joel Randall

I mean, if you wanted it to continue to be trail type rigs, And to where the people that were promoting the series could really put their mark on it, the best top, the light people, just all the fender makers and bumper makers and everybody, that's the year you should have just copied 2001 and ran with it. And maybe 2002, but it was, 2001 was a really good year for me. I loved it. I mean, I had a brand new rig, had the big truck, had rich, and he brought that way we had twice as many tools, we had twice as many spare parts. We had a welder, we had a crane that went out the side of the semi on an I-beam so we could lift up the whole Jeep or half the Jeep or whatever. And this is all just stuff I cobbled up. It's just stuff I built. The truck was empty when I got it. Everything else was just hard work that went into it. Luckily, I had a huge team. I had so many people helping me. I know a lot of people said, oh, there wasn't a real team until so and so or this person started wearing fire suits or whatever.

[01:55:06.660] - Joel Randall

I don't even know what it was. It's like holy cow, we had matching uniforms. I had 15 people in matching shirts and matching stuff. And I had my daughters and all of her friends would come and they would throw t-shirts and stuff out from the people that were helping me sponsor this deal. I mean, we were trying to push this in the right direction and we were trying to be professional about it in 2001. Right. And it, you know, and I think it paid off.

[01:55:41.010] - Big Rich Klein

I don't know.

[01:55:41.090] - Joel Randall

I mean, we really wanted to push this to the, you know, to a NASCAR level, for lack of a better sport. But yeah, 2000, and then in 2001, I actually, one of the funnest things I did in 2001 was the woman's Skyjacker Nationals.

[01:56:07.560] - Big Rich Klein

Please come back next week to listen to part three of Joel Randall's audio biography. 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 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.