Kicking off Season 7 with grit and ingenuity, meet Mike Dieu on Episode 313

Tempe-raised fabricator and spotter Mike Dieu shares a life built on grit, ingenuity, and community. From paper routes and roofing a family home at 15 to becoming an all-state football standout, Mike’s hands-on roots led him into automotive school and early work converting fleets to natural gas. That tech savvy set the stage for a pivotal chapter: wiring fuel injection for the Campbells—starting with Shannon’s legendary “Pinky”—and ultimately spotting alongside Shannon through ARCA, WeRock, UROC, ProRock, and more.

Mike shares the stories that led him to a well-earned retirement. Shout-outs to Arizona off-road stalwarts: the Campbells, Rob Bonney, Ian Liljeblad, Randy Ellis, and more.

Transcript

[00:00:05.120] - 

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 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.

[00:01:13.410] - Big Rich Klein

As one of seven kids, my next guest spent his youth exploring the surroundings of Tempe, Arizona. Still rule at that time, finding something to do was easy. Then finding an off road family in the Campbells and off roading and events became a way of life. From automotive to the construction world, Mike Dieu always finds time to hunt and fish while enjoying the outdoors. Hello, Mike. Dieu, this is so good to have you on here. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. We haven't talked in a while, but those old days of rock crawling, man, you were in the middle of the history.

[00:01:54.390] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, it's good to hear from you, Rich. I'm glad. I, you know, I had my birthday a couple weeks ago and I saw on my Facebook you messaged me happy birthday. And then I saw your birthday came up and like, boy, send Rich a happy birthday. Felt good. You know, some of the old school guys, the old days, back when I was a little more involved, you know, it's comforting to know people remember who you are.

[00:02:18.070] - Big Rich Klein

Right? That is true. You know, it's, it's kind of like having that little bit of legacy thing, you know. So let's start off with the interview like I do with everybody. And where were you born and raised?

[00:02:32.100] - Mike Dieu

I was born in Southern California. We lived there just for a couple of years, four or five years, I guess. I went to kindergarten over in Rolling Heights just outside la. And then my dad moved us over here to Tempe, Arizona. I went to grade school, you know, about half my grade school here in Tempe. And then he got an opportunity to Go back to work at the University of Southern California. So our family migrated back over. We lived out in Ontario for four or five years and then things just got kind of too hectic over there. My dad didn't like driving, you know, two hours each way to work every day for a 30 minute drive or a 30 mile drive. Right. So we moved back to Tempe and just happened to move six or eight houses down from our previous location.

[00:03:24.910] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[00:03:26.270] - Mike Dieu

And you know, in grade school you just pick up right where you left off with your buddies. And so I, I really, I grew up in Tempe and went to McClintock High School. I got announced that Charger Pride, Charger pride. Charger you go. Yeah. So in Tempe, I've played a lot of sports and pretty athletic. I come from a fairly, I guess, a large family. I've got, there's seven of us, brothers and sisters. And my parents were always pretty busy, you know, just working and paying bills, keeping food on the table. And I'm the third of seven kids, so my older brother and I were only a year apart. And so Jeff and I, we were. A lot of times my mom would just, you know, shove us out the door. So you boys just go fend for yourselves, come back when the street lights come on. That's pretty much how I was raised. So we did a lot of our own exploring and, you know, fixing, working. I remember as a kid working on our bikes and patching our tires and. Seems to be kind of a lost art that a lot of kids growing up today, they sit behind a screen and a computer.

[00:04:40.400] - Mike Dieu

They don't, they don't get to experience some of those mechanical challenges that we faced growing up, that's for sure.

[00:04:46.080] - Big Rich Klein

Right, that's. That is that, that is so true. You know, growing up in Tempe, at that time it was still pretty rural. Were you guys like on the outskirts of town or did you have multiple blocks to go before you got out into the desert?

[00:05:03.260] - Mike Dieu

No, I mean, we still had. It wasn't pretty much. Tempe now is landlocked. There's not a lot of area for development. But where I grew up, off from Price and Southern, and at that time, if you're familiar with this area, that the Superstition Freeway, the US 60, it ended at Power Road. And we, you know, we'd ride our bikes and, you know, there'd be open construction, dirt lots and stuff, and we'd ride around and make jumps and you know, just, just do kid stuff. I mean, I remember in the Summer riding around and being so hot and the wind blowing in your face and you're just like you're melting. But that's just what we did. Stayed outside, you know, turned on the garden hose. Got a buddy, oh, Vinnie Vasquez, he had a, his dad had a pool table in the garage. We spent a lot of time over there and swimming in the neighbor's pools and our pools and yeah, just had a good, a good upbringing.

[00:05:59.070] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And what was, what did, did the family do any like summer activities or vacations or did you guys, you know, do weekend camps, weekend camp outs or anything like that? Or with that many kids, I would imagine that that's kind of a, that would be kind of a haul.

[00:06:19.470] - Mike Dieu

There wasn't a, there wasn't a lot of like, you know, big family vacation. Seemed like when I was, you know, grade school age, we might make a trip to Disneyland about every other year. But most of my, when I got into high school, most of my, you know, school breaks and that sort of thing were where I've got family up in Las Vegas. And my mom would literally tell my uncle he always had some kind of side work, trade work going on, whether it was laying block or pouring concrete or something. And yeah, I was always, all right, you boys go up and help your Uncle Gary and, and you know, we'd go up there and hey, his family, right. It was free labor. Good for him, good experience for us. Just, just learning different crafts and that sort of thing. And so, you know, Christmas break we get shipped off to go work up there. Summer break a couple of summers we'd go. I had another uncle that had property up and northern Idaho and we'd go up there and string fence and cut trees and that was our, those are our vacations.

[00:07:19.380] - Big Rich Klein

But, but it gave you, it gave you a lot of experiences doing, doing things besides just sitting in the house like a lot of kids do nowadays.

[00:07:30.740] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I, my dad, when we were over here the second time, my dad worked for a roofing contractor. He was a had estimator for him for Progressive Roofing. They're actually still or for Western Roofing. Then he worked for Progressive. But my brother and I remember we were 14, 15 years old and we needed a new roof on the house, a shingle house. And that's how we spent our Christmas break because he had a couple guys come over and say, okay, here's how you, here's, here's how you do around your drip edge and your starter shingle and here's how you lay out your. You know, he taught us a California weave on the, on the valleys and with hand. You know, I remember having a mouth full of nails. Right. You put them in your hand and just hand nailed a 2200 square foot house with shingles.

[00:08:16.240] - Big Rich Klein

Galvanized nails.

[00:08:18.240] - Mike Dieu

That was our God. That was our. That was our Christmas break one year.

[00:08:22.480] - Big Rich Klein

Galvanized. Galvanized. Galvanized nails in your mouth. Right. That's awesome.

[00:08:27.080] - Mike Dieu

Absolutely.

[00:08:28.160] - Big Rich Klein

That's why people don't get sick.

[00:08:33.100] - Mike Dieu

We drank a lot of milk back then

[00:08:37.260] - Big Rich Klein

and you know those. I didn't have quite the same experiences that way, but you know, I can remember getting my first. I mean, you know, did the whole mowing lawns and all that kind of stuff as a kid. And my dad, every year we'd have to trim this big stupid hedge that we had in our house that separated our house and the neighbor's house. And I hated that hedge. I just, I just wanted to, you know, take it down at the ground and. Because I mean it was a. It was like two days of cutting and a day of cleaning up after cutting that hedge. It was.

[00:09:14.280] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, parts not too bad. It's all the cleanup stuff. That's what that's really.

[00:09:18.640] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly. But you know, that kind of stuff and then, then finally getting a job at 14 working in a shop. And I thought I was in heaven at that point. You know, the owner, the owner's son had come pick me up.

[00:09:32.890] - Mike Dieu

Yeah. So we always, we always. The other thing we always do, we always had paper routes it seemed, and those don't exist anymore. But I remember just even in grade school, you know, fifth, sixth grade, we'd riding our bikes and filling our bags across the handlebars and we'd ride up to the high school and they dropped the papers off at the. Near the swimming pool area because there's kind of a covered area with lights on. We'd roll papers at 4 o' clock in the morning and then go throw. We had this. My mom had a 3/4 ton Chevy van, like about a 1980 Chevy van. If it was raining or on Sundays, she'd get up and she'd help us. But we got wise to that when we're teenagers. And the hardest part is we'd swipe my mom's keys out of her purse and we'd get a couple buddies and we'd put that van in neutral. We'd push it out of the driveway and push it down the street and then we'd fire it up and go through our routes, get back and Cut the motor before we got to the driveway and bounce up in there and park it and sneak back in.

[00:10:32.380] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, we did that pretty, that was a pretty regular basis for us.

[00:10:36.380] - Big Rich Klein

Do you think that she, she actually knew you were doing it?

[00:10:41.020] - Mike Dieu

I, I think sometimes we actually, we got caught one morning because we took my older sister's car and somebody stepped in mud and she had just got her car washed. We didn't realize it. Those little, a little red Honda, Honda Civic with a hatchback, and we'd sit with our feet hanging out the tail, out the hatchback, and one guy, you know, wrap and roll and the other guy throws her out and we just take turns. Yeah, I'm sure they had an idea, but it was a different time then. Who knows what we'd have done if we'd have got pulled over. I guess we just got in trouble.

[00:11:18.510] - Big Rich Klein

So you're, what, what kind of things did you study in high school? Did you have any extracurricular activities or, you know, shop classes or, you know, you said you're pretty athletic. Did you play sports?

[00:11:32.670] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, I played, I played a lot of football. I mean, back in the day, McClintock was kind of a football powerhouse and I, I was moved up to varsity my sophomore year and then my junior senior year. I mean, my junior year, I don't think I ever really came off the field. My senior year was not so much a little, you know, I played a lot of defense, played as a defensive tackle, played offense as a center guard, pretty much every position on the line. And I was a long snapper and I, I made all star teams and all state, all city, all that, all those sort of accolades. And I even, I even played, I had the opportunity to go play on a game down in Australia. So out of high school, I flew down to Australia and played. Wow. On what they call the Down under bowl, an all star game, and then played in the north south game. They play over in Safford and Thatcher every year. So I had the opportunity to go to community college and I just, I, I, I got kind of tired. I was interested in the car stuff and I thought, man, if I'm going to keep playing football.

[00:12:41.670] - Mike Dieu

I was playing with torn ligaments and hyperextended elbows and typical football injuries, you know.

[00:12:49.510] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:12:50.870] - Mike Dieu

I thought, I'm just going to tear myself up more and I'm not going to play in the NFL, so I may as well. My family couldn't afford to send me off to, you know, I had a lot of Division 3 offers, but there's no Money in their scholarships.

[00:13:04.550] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:13:06.230] - Mike Dieu

So community college was the route and I signed up to go and then coaching staff changed and there wasn't a lot of follow up and I, I decided, you know what, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to more of a trade school. I enjoyed working on cars and mechanic, mechanicing and stuff and that sort of thing. And really my, my, my family, my, my dad, my mom, you know, my mom's probably more mechanical than my dad and my dad, you know, he's not, I wouldn't say he's you know, a nerd or bookworm or anything like that, but when it came to fixing cars and working on cars, he, he didn't do a whole lot of that. So you know, even back in high school when we, you know, we, my brother and I shared a little Mitsubishi diesel pickup and if something was wrong, I'd go down to the library. Tempe Public Library had all the service manuals and you could go in there and research your, you know, what it was and what was going on. And I just kind of self taught myself some of the automotive stuff. And then I, I went to Mesa Community College.

[00:14:14.750] - Mike Dieu

I never had a problem with class or learning or any of that kind of stuff. And I, I joined their automotive program as a year long program that it didn't really coincide with the schedule of what a typical school would be. It was, it was more just a straight year. You got like a week at Christmas and maybe a couple days at spring break and then you're in school all summer. But I went through all their certificate programs and at that time I, you know, I graduated as the number one student in that program and they thought a lot of theory that I could apply a lot of that to a lot of the stuff I was doing. I, from there I, I had a job at a service station and I don't, yeah, as a, you know, a pump jockey, you know, washing windshields and collecting money. And then I, I went to, they hired me on as a full time technician and you know, I had all my master certifications and, and I did that for two or three years, so.

[00:15:22.610] - Big Rich Klein

And now you're in construction.

[00:15:25.090] - Mike Dieu

Now I'm in construction. And I, I guess the story expands from there as far as the automotive stuff goes. I, I had the opportunity back in the late 90s when you know, there was a big push here in Arizona for natural gas and converting cars to natural gas. So I hired on with a company there over in Phoenix, North American Fleet Service. And I I learned how to go in and manipulate the wiring for the natural gas systems and, you know, install the components and get. It was right along the lines with converting that, you know, to propane. So a lot of natural gas and propane work. And I did that for about three years. And then some of the incentives that the government was offering, the state was offering for conversions, they basically ran out of funding. So a lot of that industry went away. But I've probably converted, I don't know, 200, 300 Crown Victorias and Ford F150s to run on natural gas or propane, did a lot of that work. And what I got exposed to with that was more the technical side. We had a dyno in there and we developed these programs and, you know, manipulating how sensors read so that the OEM sensors would work with the natural gas and more propane.

[00:16:47.960] - Mike Dieu

And I got to work with a lot of those companies come out of Canada or Italy. And so the Canadians, they'd come down, send their tech down. And I got talking to them about, hey, I got some buddies, you know, I, I, my brother, he got married and his wife, her dad was building a Jeep and he wanted to put fuel injection on it. So I said, okay, I'll, I'll see what I can do, what we got to have, you know. And yeah, that was Kenny wet. And that was the first Jeep I wired. Yeah. Just took a junkyard harness, cut it all up, take out everything you don't need and make it run right.

[00:17:33.460] - Big Rich Klein

Building race cars, that's, I mean, that's

[00:17:36.860] - Mike Dieu

where, and that led to, that's where I met the Campbells. And that's, that's been a big, that's big. That's, that's probably the biggest part of my off road experiences with, with those guys, but so can he. So Kenny lived next to Bill, who lived next to Donnie. Shannon's dad and his uncle live next door to each other. That's where, that's where he grew up at Shannon, Nick and, and then their cousin Carrie. And so Kenny lived next door. So he said, mike, come over and, come over and check this out. These guys are building. These Jeeps are pretty cool. And my first car was a 69 Toyota Land Cruiser.

[00:18:13.950] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, nice call.

[00:18:15.550] - Mike Dieu

Column shift. That I, that I, that was the first car I bought on my own. You know, I thought I was something, man. I put a lock right in the rear and I thought, man, I, I can go anywhere with this thing. Yeah, yeah, at that time maybe, but not, not compared to what it is now.

[00:18:33.940] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, things have gotten crazy. It's the thing I always feared when the early years of promoting was how crazy the, the vehicles would become capable, wise, and how, how death defying and, and I mean it, that's an overstatement, you know, but, you know, the, the obstacles that we create nowadays were things that, you know, back in the day, the early 2000s, that we would never really, really put anybody on. You know, Farmington has always been the same, but that was always the most radical place. So, you know, it's, and now we, we look for things like that. I mean, Farmington is really, you know, it's about cone play placement nowadays to make it radical. So. But those early years, you know, you go, you got your, your Toyota Land Cruiser column shift and you meet the Campbells. What was, what was that first meeting like? Do you remember?

[00:19:45.720] - Mike Dieu

Well, they're the Campbells, right? So you never know. You never know what you're gonna get. But I, I went over there and Kenny said, hey, come over and meet these guys. They, they, they want to put. Shannon had pinky, the old pinky flat fender. And he said it, they want to put fuel injection on this thing. And I said, I said, all right. So I went over there one evening and I was like, okay, yeah, I'll be back tomorrow. And they, you know, everything was carbureted then and all junkyard parts. And they had, they had bought a junkyard motor, the throttle body set up. And so they, you know, they drilled out the intake or the four bolts don't align compared to like a carbureted motor. They mounted the intake and the distributor and the throttle body and stuff. And I got there and Shannon had gone down and, and saw Brian Christensen down at Four Wheel Parts and he got a, a painless harness. And I said, and I looked and I said, man, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I said, where's the factory harness? I took that factory harness. And you should have seen the looks on their faces when I took my cable cutters and I cut both the computer connectors off of just the throttle body harness.

[00:20:56.570] - Mike Dieu

That was a big deal back then. So anyways, I, I'm sitting there and I'm wiring it up one evening and, and at that time, I had a girlfriend across town. I get it wired up and they fire it, and they're still working on a couple other loose ends. And I said, okay, I said, let me know if you need anything. And I, you know, I went across town. Well, he calls me up A couple hours later he said, man, this thing, it runs, but it doesn't run good and blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, oh, hold on. I said, don't you know they're talking about ripping the manifold back off, putting a carburetor on it. And little did I realize or did I know is they were actually getting ready to leave like the next day to go to Farmington for a competition or down to Las Cruces. Sorry, okay. For a competition. And I said, well, hold on, I'll be there early in the morning. Let me put a scan tool on it and, and we'll kind of see what's going on. So I get up and I, you know, I call a buddy, I borrow a scan tool.

[00:21:53.810] - Mike Dieu

I get over there, I scan it. He's, he's not there. Nobody's around there. He was at this time he was taken. Waylon was in a car seat and he had to drop Waylon off at daycare, right? That's how that was like in the late 90s. I, I don't think Bailey was even born yet. But nope, I dropped off. So I, I called him and I said, hey, pick up a throttle position sensor. And he said, what, what's that? Anyways, he, I said, go to Checker, get a throttle position sensor. And then we'll, we'll put it on it and we'll go, you know, we'll go from there. That's, we got to try that. It's not working. So he, he gets there, we set it up, we put it on there and he goes, all right, let's go drive it. So we hop on, we hop in, I hop in the passenger seat and I got the scan tool on my lap. He, he goes ripping down the road and he goes, oh yeah, this is, actually responds. This is a lot better. And I said, yeah, all right, you know, doing what it's supposed to do.

[00:22:48.560] - Mike Dieu

So anyhow, he goes, he pulls out onto Ray Road and we're doing about 50 miles an hour, 45, 50 miles an hour. And he just says, hold on. And he lays that thing sideways on the asphalt to go up the next side street. And I could just see these landscapes, boulders. And I'm like, yeah, this, I guess this is it. You know, you've ridden in off road cars and that was my first time riding in like a four link rear end type car. And you know, they kind of lay over and he just lays on the throttle and rips that corner. Goes down in a cul de sac and does a donut. Oh, yeah, you know, he's. Oh, this is a lot better. This is good. This is going to work. I said, perfect. I said, you always drive like that? He said, well, yeah, yeah, usually, Sometimes. I said, okay. So from that experience, they, they went down to Las Cruces. I think him and Mikey Flores, they won the competition. They come back and, and then I, you know, it was just, that's kind of where it started. From there. I worked on a lot of different cars.

[00:23:53.230] - Mike Dieu

It was literally, you know, get some junkyard, buy an old pickup from the junkyard, or just go buy the axles and a motor, we'll cut up a harness, we'll get a stack of tubes and build a car.

[00:24:09.940] - Big Rich Klein

And so that started your four wheeling with the Campbells. And did you guys start trail wheeling as well?

[00:24:18.900] - Mike Dieu

You know, we did almost no trail wheeling. They go out, you know, we go out on some of the state run stuff here and there, but we're always, always building, always building, always building, always building. Shannon. And you know, Shannon, he's always working every day, doesn't matter. Christmas Day, he'll be in the shop working. At Thanksgiving, you know, whatever. You meet in the afternoon, have dinner, but you're in the shop working. So we actually, at that time, we all had real jobs, regular jobs, I guess. And they, you know, they were working for Zeb Pierce and they'd come home and we actually kind of had to put a, put a time limit on how long we're at the shop because we'd work till, you know, midnight, one in the morning, and then you're just beat at work the next day. So Brett Epperly, Shannon, Nick, Carrie, myself, a lot of guys were over there, a lot of. We drank a lot of beer over there, had a lot of fun, built a lot of cars.

[00:25:18.810] - Big Rich Klein

Well. And Don was working for the, for the, the beer distributor, right, or the.

[00:25:26.970] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don, that's Zeb Pierce was the beer distributor distributor. So all three, Donnie ran the shop and then Shannon and Nick both worked there.

[00:25:38.410] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:25:38.810] - Mike Dieu

You know, when I, when I first met him, they were doing. And that's, that's could bring home each night. We try to go through it all. So from that world, that's where I got into more. You know, I go to a couple of their events, hang out at the shop and build cars with them and stuff. Then I, you know, then I met a lot of other guys and they learned that I could cut up harnesses and wire throttle body motors and Vortech motors and I would, I would build A lot of harnesses for different guys. Randy Ellis, Ian. Ian Lilja Blad, Rob Bonney. A lot of guys that came through four wheelers, right. I do work, work for them.

[00:26:27.410] - Big Rich Klein

And when did you. You started spotting, didn't you?

[00:26:33.410] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, yeah, I did. I did. I was. I went to a lot of different events. You know, back. Back then, it was a lot different than I think what it is now. But I remember going to Vernal, Utah one year, and I went up there with my girlfriend at the time. And we stopped halfway. I got to tell this story. The cheapest hotel I ever stayed at up in Vernal on. On the way to Vernal was in southern Utah. Green river, Utah. Okay, $28 total. That was it for a hotel. The bed was crooked, the TV hung crooked. And this faucet linked and leaked in the sink. And the bottom was all rusted. That didn't matter. We just needed a place to crash for the night. But I remember going up on that event and Mike Flores was spotting for Shannon and he blew up his front arb. Front gears, whatever. We hopped in my pickup and we. We went down, around and found a junkyard. Pull the guts out of a donor housing right there. And the guys. It's almost like a guy's front driveway or front yard where he had a bunch of old trucks.

[00:27:40.410] - Mike Dieu

And we gutted that thing and then put. Put it all back together up in the front of that was in Pinky. And Mikey got under there and welded that Lincoln, locked that front end. And I remember the rest of that weekend, he'd drive around. I locked. Lock one side, unlock one side, just back. He was busier than anybody. Lock it and unlock it. I mean, that's what we did back then is. Yeah, we didn't have spare parts. We had what we found at the junkyard next door.

[00:28:07.500] - Big Rich Klein

Right. You just made it work.

[00:28:10.380] - Mike Dieu

Yeah. So then I guess to go. To go on. I kind of. If I'm rambling, tell me I'm rambling.

[00:28:16.260] - Big Rich Klein

No, you're doing great.

[00:28:18.060] - Mike Dieu

Then from there we went to. We go every year. I like to hunt and fish. And that's. We go over to. I'm at Holly Lake and Shannon's at a competition up in. Up in Farmington. And he calls me and we got real limited service, but he's like, hey, can you come up and spot for me? And I said, well, yeah, I guess. I mean, I'm down here fishing and hanging out. He said, well, come up and spot for me for a couple days. And then we'll go back and Nick was his spotter. Nick might not like the story, but Nick, Nick got into a scuffle with some of the local boys at the restaurant next to the hotel. And yeah, he kind of got raccoon eyed. And Shannon said, mike, come up and spot me. And I don't know if Nick even stuck around or if he went home, but went up there and spotted for him in Farmington. And from there we just, I mean, we, we kind of clicked. And I spotted for him for, well, I don't know, three or four years probably, I'm guessing. But it seemed like every time, every event we went to, we'd come back and build another car.

[00:29:24.370] - Mike Dieu

And we very rarely ran the same car to two events in a row.

[00:29:30.010] - Big Rich Klein

And each car handled differently.

[00:29:33.690] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, that was the whole discussion. You know, when we drive together, like, how are we going to change, how should we change this? How can we do this? Let's change this and modify this. And none of the two cars were ever the same. They all had, you know, something different, something changed, something always progressing to make them better. And that's, you know, that's, that's a Campbell thing right there. Just right. Make it better each time. And I've built cars with, with. I got lots of respect for Shannon when it comes to his work ethic and building cars, that sort of thing. You know, we'd, we'd have a chassis, you know, partially together, and he'd literally be like, this isn't going to work. And cut it in half, cut it, cut the front end off, cut everything out, start over again where, you know, you know, a lot of guys don't have that level of protection. Perfection. They want to, ah, we can make this work. I already built it. I don't want to rebuild it. No, he, he has no problem ripping something back apart, starting over.

[00:30:28.070] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that's what gave him his, his success, was that, that drive.

[00:30:33.110] - Mike Dieu

Yep, yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, so I spotted for him, I think I want to say, Rich, we. What? The we, the arca, the We Rock, the U Rock Pro Rock, all the, all those different series at one time or another. We won all of them, you know, not consistently every year, but seemed like we had a pretty good stretch there going where we never finished the event out of, like, out of third place running, you know, with, you know, Cody and Cody Wagner and Mitch Guthrie and Tracy Jordan. When I can't think of a lot of those old guys and all the names. Mike Palmer. We had a lot of fun with Palmer and his crew.

[00:31:15.760] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah.

[00:31:16.400] - Mike Dieu

And we had, we had some good times. Good times with those guys.

[00:31:20.800] - Big Rich Klein

I can remember a vernal event and they had. I think I've told this story before on the podcast, but it might be new to you. Everybody was. It was after the event and it may have. I think it was completely after the event and maybe not just the first day, but both days. And there had been a sign at the, at the entrance on the way up to the rocks there that was like, you know, the typical UROC thing with, you know, no, no alcohol. You know, none of this, you know, all the, all the, the anti fun things listed. And I remember that sign disappeared on like Friday. I think it was Friday night after the first day. And everybody is sitting around drinking beer in the pit area. And one of the organizers come up and got really mad because everybody was drinking beer. And I'm pretty sure it was Palmer that said, because he goes, you know, didn't you see the sign down there? And Palmer's like, I don't. What sign? There's no sign down there. And sure enough, he went down and. And there was no sign. But what was hilarious is, you know, everybody was given, given.

[00:32:43.600] - Big Rich Klein

That was Patey given Mark a hard time and went down. Oh, it was after that we went to Moab and then we went back east and then we went home. And when we unloaded our trailer, in the trailer was a sign that said, you rock. No, no alcohol. You know, it was that no fun sign. And it was Dave Schneider. And my son had. Had nabbed it and stashed it away in our trailer. And I thought, oh, this is great. We were the cause of all that. But those were what, you know, the times back then were so much different than the now. Guys have fun. But it's, you know, it's. Everybody's kind of in their pits and you know, the family and the barbecue and all that kind of stuff going on. Not the, not, not so much the rowdiness. You know, I remember Vernal. There was the, the. The bar down there that all the locals hung out at. And I remember Pat Gallagher getting challenged down there and you know, little, little tiny, you know, Pat Gallagher. And you know, everybody else is just jumping in on it, you know, because nobody wanted to see Pat, you know, get, get into a fight, you know, all 110 pounds of him.

[00:34:14.060] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, definitely back in the. And back then there was, you know, kind of a brotherhood and every, like it was the big family thing, right? Like everybody, everybody gets along for the most part. And then you Know, you get little rifts here and there, but as a whole, everybody was definitely there to defend each other when. When any sort of outside influence came in.

[00:34:33.940] - Big Rich Klein

And then you had places like Jellicoe.

[00:34:37.880] - Mike Dieu

Yeah.

[00:34:38.320] - Big Rich Klein

Did you? Yeah, you did?

[00:34:39.880] - Mike Dieu

I never went to the East.

[00:34:41.160] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, you did?

[00:34:41.720] - Mike Dieu

I never went to Tennessee, to the east coast stuff. I went to Indiana a couple times, but. But that. That's as far. Went up to Washington and did. Did a couple of those up there. The Golden Dale, Utah ones. Yeah.

[00:34:57.480] - Big Rich Klein

Goldendale in those early days was pretty wild because we had the big parties down at the park.

[00:35:01.970] - Mike Dieu

Park. But yeah. Yeah, so was. I remember some stories out of Cedar, I can't remember at cedar City or St. George. I think it was St. George. Might have been Cedar City. Randy Ellis, he used to have a good time out there in the parking lot, that's for sure.

[00:35:17.890] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, the hotel in Cedar there on the Corner the. Of 200 north and. And Main Street. Yeah, that was always. I think some people got banned from. From the arc. Might have been arca, might have been. You rock. But it was. Guys got banned.

[00:35:43.820] - Mike Dieu

Yeah. Yeah. On the fun subject, just the same as I, you know, I've usually got a camp trailer or something and a lot of the events we'd go to. And I'd haul my camp trailer over Cougar Butte, St. George, Cedar, when we'd go up to the Utah stuff, you know, Cedar and St. George in the summertime, still pretty warm. So we'd go up on the Kaibab. We'd stay up there for a night, you know, seven, seven, 500ft. Then we'd roll into town the next morning. But, man, we used to. My little camp trailer, we'd sleep six or seven us in there a lot of times. And one story that kind of stands out where Shannon had that liberty card V6 card. And we. We were up there and we went to. We got into. We got into. I think it was St. George. It's either Cedar or St. George, I don't remember. But Nick was coming up later that night and his alternator was going out and we're in bed, we're sleeping, and he calls and he's dead about a mile and a half or two miles away from where we're at. So Shannon and I got up and.

[00:36:47.060] - Mike Dieu

And, oh, we're like, all right, I'll go with you. We'll go get him, throw a strap and drag him in here. And we hop into Liberty. Well, we, you know, we're sleeping, right. We just hop out in our underwear we're in our skivvies. We hop in this liberty, we throw. We're in cowboy boots and skivvies and house slippers, whatever. And Tammy's just like, she's just laughing. She's laughing so hard she can't breathe. And we hop in there. And then that liberty was so narrow. I was like, don't. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. You know, our shoulders are touched. Don't touch. Get away from me. But we found Nick and, and he came down there and he's on the asphalt. 40 inch tires, and he. Same thing. He pitched that thing around. And I could just see the asphalt right next to my face. I'm like, man. And we came out of it and Nick just shook his head, looked at us like, what in the heck are you guys doing? We got him back there. We had a lot of laughs over that. Yeah, a lot of that chaos that went on. Yeah, we had.

[00:37:43.090] - Mike Dieu

We had some good times. Good times.

[00:37:45.650] - Big Rich Klein

And so those days, what were you doing for work during those. Those days? Were you. Had you gotten into construction by then or you're still doing automotive?

[00:37:53.890] - Mike Dieu

When the natural gas stuff slowed down, my dad, in high school, my dad had started our own waterproofing company, our family waterproofing company, Eagle Valley Construction. And so we in high school would work with him, and then he kind of partnered up with a guy and they, and they had their thing going. And then. And then my brother was working for him and he was getting ready to join the fire department, so he was going through the academy. And so my dad was kind of looking for somebody else to come and help manage and run crews. And. And when the natural gas stuff shut down, I. Any good technician to get a job anywhere, you, you know. And so I was like, oh, dad, I got. Went to his house, got laid off. He goes, all right, I'll see you in the morning. And so, yeah, then I just went right back into the construction stuff. And I've done just about everything in that contracting world as far as residential, like commercial construction, from, from new builds to a lot of additions and remodels and tenant improvements and. And then tons and tons of balcony deck waterproofing systems.

[00:39:05.740] - Mike Dieu

They've done multi, you know, four or five hundred unit apartment complex rehabs, tons and tons of that, A lot of that stuff. Got a lot of different experience with that. And then I basically, I ran that business for over. Over 20 years. And one of my customers told me, he said, Mike, he was a manager or a president of a civil division of a large asphalt company. And he said, mike, when you're, when you're tired of this stuff, I got a spot for you. You know, because we're a small outfit and did a lot of work ourselves. I said, okay. So right around the COVID days, you know, one of my, in my hunting world, basically my mentor passed. And we'd been taking care of my mom for about six months and she passed. They passed within about two weeks. And I was really on my last, the last job I was going to take. And I went over and I said, hey, Roger, you got a spot still? I said, yep, as soon as you're ready. So I finished up that, you know, master suite we're adding on, and now I work for, you know, a thousand employee civil contractor, probably primarily asphalt, but I'm in the civil division and I do a lot of work with structural concrete repairs.

[00:40:25.900] - Mike Dieu

So bridges and bridge decks and girders and, you know, a whole, A different world, a different stress level, you know, from running your own business to having the bankroll behind you to work for a larger firm.

[00:40:43.340] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Always make that guaranteed paycheck.

[00:40:48.230] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:40:50.870] - Big Rich Klein

Probably direct deposit. You don't even have to worry about it.

[00:40:53.990] - Mike Dieu

I don't even see it. Yeah.

[00:40:56.470] - Big Rich Klein

And how did you meet your wife, Jessica?

[00:41:01.510] - Mike Dieu

When I was doing the natural gas stuff, I, I, she was, she was, I don't know, I guess a service writer at that outfit. And I was, I was previously married and I was divorced. She was divorced. Her, really. Her mom worked there and she's like, hey, I got a daughter, you're divorced, she's divorced, blah, blah, blah. Maybe. Anyways, I met her and then, and with all the hunting and fishing I was doing and then going and attending the rock crawl event, she used to come to a lot of them and just hang out, but we weren't married. I was living over in Mesa and, And she's. She's living with me. I call her my rat. She's my renter. So we, we're laying in bed one day and we're talking about buying a bigger house. The house I'm in now, I've been there for 20, 23 years, I think, out in Queen Creek.

[00:41:56.570] - Big Rich Klein

And

[00:41:58.810] - Mike Dieu

she's like, oh, maybe we should have a kid. And I'm like, you know, I got. Between my brothers and sisters, I got plenty of nieces and nephews, whatever. You. I don't. I was kind of impartial, you know, I, it wasn't one way or the other. And so I, I said, well, I guess if we're gonna do that, we better get married. And she was like, well, no, we don't have to. I was like, no, we better. If we're gonna buy a house and thinking about having a kid, we're getting married. All right. So we literally, on a Sunday morning, laid in. Laid in bed, looked at a calendar, and it was like, all right, this weekend, you're hunting, you're fishing, you're turkey hunting. You got a rock crawl here, here, here. We found one weekend open, which is. It was April 5th. We got married. We didn't tell it. We didn't tell the soul. We didn't want anybody to feel like they had to be Come up or any of that. And we just went. We just eloped. We went to Vegas and got married. Wow.

[00:42:47.100] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome.

[00:42:48.940] - Mike Dieu

I remember I was on the way up there, and Shannon called me for something, and I was out by Lake Pleasant, and I said, hey, what's going on? I'm going to. Me and Jessica's going up to Vegas. He goes, oh, you getting married? And I said, yeah, we're gonna get married. He didn't. He didn't know. And I. You know, that. That Tammy was in the background. What. She started screaming over on the phone like, what do you. What. What you didn't tell us, you know. But no, it was. Yeah, just a simple, simple deal. Got married at the little. Little Chapel of the west, you know, an old October converted schoolhouse or something. And, man, it was like a factory. And I got. Yeah, it was more entertainment than anything else that you check in at. Little building in the back, and you walk up the side, and the next. People are walking out the front. The front. You're walking in the side. And I remember we met a couple there. They asked us if we're with another. Another wedding. We said, no, we're just here by ourselves. And they said, oh, can we. Can we come in and watch?

[00:43:42.300] - Mike Dieu

Like, sure. Here's a camera. Will you take some pictures? And they. And they said they had done the same thing, like, 27 years ago, and they're. Yeah, it was. Yeah, just kind of a fun deal. And. Yeah, and that's. That's how I met her. And then, you know, we had my daughter and then. And two years later had my son. So my daughter, her name is Josie. She just graduated from the U of A. Wow. And my son, he's. He's still going to college. He's been to NAU and asu, and now I think he's at mcc. I. Hard to keep track of what his next decision is going to be. But he's still trying to learn his way. But my daughter's kind of my little mini me. She hunts and fishes with me and she'll hang out in the shop. My son will too, but she seems to be her daddy's girl.

[00:44:38.640] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. So what is in the future for Mike?

[00:44:45.520] - Mike Dieu

For Mike.

[00:44:46.560] - Big Rich Klein

What are your aspirations or dreams?

[00:44:52.180] - Mike Dieu

At some point I'd like to retire.

[00:44:54.580] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:44:56.420] - Mike Dieu

I worked hard. I mean, I worked hard. I need, you know, physically, a lot of this stuff I don't go do anymore because just, just I need. I need my knees. I got no cartilage left in my knees. I've got torn ligaments in both shoulders, you know, torn rotators. Just. Just a lot. The construction life and, and the football life previous. I mean, even all the way back to high school, just been kind of rough. But.

[00:45:24.430] - Big Rich Klein

Right. I. I understand that. Both my shoulders are screwed up, both my knees are arthritic and. And no cartilage. Yeah, I get it.

[00:45:36.590] - Mike Dieu

Yeah. I'm still out doing stuff, but it just. Yeah. Nothing like I used to do. Even last night. I. I've got my truck on my left and I'm. You know, it needs a rear main seal, so. My old Duramax. And I didn't even. I. I even waited for my son to get over there to help me lift the transfer case down. Can you come help me? Like the old. The old man. Can you come help me? So he helped me get that out and pulled that out and pulled the tranny out last night. But so I still do. And, you know, that's something that kept me alive during the downturn. You know, 05067, when the economy really tanked was my ability to work on all my own equipment and take care of all my own stuff. And I didn't. I didn't stretch myself out. You know, I kept anything I had to finance or whatever I kept to an absolute minimum. And I maintained all my own equipment. I wasn't paying anybody else to do it. It made for some really long working days and, you know, sometimes not a lot of personal weekend time, personal time.

[00:46:43.290] - Mike Dieu

But I, you know, I enjoyed it. That's. That's. Yeah. Still. It's still what I do.

[00:46:52.010] - Big Rich Klein

So, like Shelley and I, what we. We wish to do, and our plan is to visit all the lands. And that means countries that end or have land in their name. Is there anything like that that you. That you see in the future? Do you want to travel or, you know.

[00:47:16.610] - Mike Dieu

No. I mean, I like hunting and fishing. And stuff. And, and to me, like, I don't, I don't see the. I don't have the desire to go, to go to other countries and travel the world and that sort of thing. There's so much here, like the little corners of the United States that have just as beautiful or even more beautiful opportunities to see what the earth provides. You know, just. I've got a neighbor that moved here from, from California, Southern California. I don't know, he's been there about three or four years, but he'd never driven like up on the rim and across and over towards New Mexico and through the White Mountains. And he came back and he was just fascinated. Like, man, two hours and you're in pine trees and two hours and you're in, you know, the nastiest desert you could imagine. And just, you know, a lot of different opportunity and a lot of people don't know. I like to bird hunt a lot down in Southern Arizona. There's a lot of opportunity for that. When we, when we've got good years, I just. We've been in such a drought, it's not that good.

[00:48:28.850] - Mike Dieu

But I got my bird dogs and I guess that's what I want to do. I want to go hunting and fishing and walk behind my dogs and let them do their job.

[00:48:37.570] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome. Awesome. Well, Mike, I want to say thank you so much for spending the time this morning. I know you got work to do, but I appreciate you sharing your life and with us and, and talking about those early days. I. I really appreciate it.

[00:48:59.100] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Just, you know, just a shout out to the Arizona guys. Right, right. The Campbells, of course. And. And Rob, Bonnie and Ian. Lilja Blad. I still see Ian every once in a while. Randy Ellis, see him once in a while. You never know where he's gonna show up at.

[00:49:17.480] - Big Rich Klein

When I interviewed him, he was in Puerto Vallarta on his boat.

[00:49:21.640] - Mike Dieu

Yeah, you never know. Ian. I see Ian once in a while. He's. He's. He doesn't live. He lives a couple miles. He built that compound probably four or five miles from me. So I'll pull up over there once in a while. Crashes party, see what's going on, but nice. Yeah. A lot of good guys I met through that, through that off road world. Great people.

[00:49:41.940] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely. Salt of the earth, as they say.

[00:49:45.860] - Mike Dieu

Absolutely, absolutely. And thanks for. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me on the show, Rich. I appreciate it.

[00:49:51.940] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, it was good talking to you and I hope to meet up with you again sometime when I'm down there.

[00:49:58.260] - Mike Dieu

Absolutely.

[00:49:59.140] - Big Rich Klein

All right. You take care. Say hello to the family, and you have a great day.

[00:50:04.610] - Mike Dieu

All right, you, too. Safe travels.

[00:50:06.650] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. You too. Bye. Bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you 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.