Episode 316 features Paul Dilley, off-road entrepreneur, author, and Raptor specialist

Paul's journey spans car audio, home theater systems, e-commerce, and high-end audio installations during the housing boom. He transitioned to off-road work after joining a Raptor community in 2010, turning hobby expertise into business ventures.

Paul started by rebuilding Raptor shocks when demand exceeded Fox's turnaround time. Developed an exchange system, expanded to a shop in Loomis, and created shock guards, alignment kits, IWE silicone lines, and his signature cabin air filter kit. He recently opened a new company in Reno focused on cabin air filters and ongoing truck development.

Paul’s authorship includes publishing Overwhelmed: Time to Reset, part of the Neural Reset series on neuroplasticity and mindset retraining. He created Doom Scroller's Handbook based on corporate culture shock and Authored comprehensive Raptor generation guides and Dirt Logs—off-road journals for documenting trail adventures.

What’s next – listen in and find out!

Transcript

[00:00:05.320] 

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 their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active in 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.

[00:00:46.600] - Speaker 2

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[00:01:13.690] - Big Rich Klein

On today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I have a gentleman who is an off-road enthusiast, a Raptor enthusiast, a business owner, does off-road recoveries, and is an author. My guest is Paul Dilley. Paul, good to have you on here.

[00:01:33.110] - Paul Dilley

Thanks, Rich. Appreciate it.

[00:01:34.890] - Big Rich Klein

So let's, uh, we're going to get into all the books and all the other stuff, but let's start at the very beginning. Where were you born and raised?

[00:01:43.130] - Paul Dilley

Uh, born in Sacramento, California. Okay. Uh, raised, uh, raised in Auburn area and Northern California. Moved around quite a bit.

[00:01:54.790] - Big Rich Klein

Where did you primarily go to, to school? What communities?

[00:01:59.180] - Paul Dilley

Uh, yeah, mainly in the Auburn area. Auburn, okay.

[00:02:02.710] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. What was it like for you growing up in Auburn? I know what it's like in Placerville, just over, you know, on the other side of the, the river.

[00:02:11.230] - Paul Dilley

But sure, well, uh, well, back when I was in school, Auburn was, uh, very similar to Placerville. Uh, it still has a Pretty small town feel. Knew most everybody, most everybody knew me, which wasn't great for being a kid and getting in trouble. But thank God cell phones didn't exist, huh? Right.

[00:02:37.200] - Big Rich Klein

No record of our deeds, you might say. Thankfully. How— what kind of— what kind of student were you?

[00:02:46.340] - Paul Dilley

Not a great student. Well, let's say I graduated high school and leave it at that.

[00:02:55.080] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. And you were saying something about the small town feel? Yeah, I really like the small town feel.

[00:03:03.950] - Paul Dilley

I like the small town community. That's one of the things when I moved up here to Reno is that it's still very much a small town, even though it's growing.

[00:03:14.620] - Big Rich Klein

Quickly. Right. Right. Yeah. Auburn now is crazy. It's almost built all the way out. Almost all the way out to Grass Valley is how it feels.

[00:03:28.890] - Paul Dilley

Yeah. Yeah. It is definitely not your small town anymore.

[00:03:33.330] - Big Rich Klein

And if it wasn't for the American River, I think it would have spread, spread south too. Agreed. So You were talking about the student, um, not being so, so good. You got graduated. Did you have— and got, get, got graduated. How's that? Let's tell you, I was an English major. So there you go, you were able to graduate. Um, did you take shop classes? Were they still available?

[00:04:02.370] - Paul Dilley

Uh, yes, I did take shop classes. I wish I would have taken some other classes like welding, uh, auto shop. I spent most of my time in woodshop and photography. Okay, photography, huh? Yeah, that's interesting. Not something I do much of these days except taking pictures of my truck out in the middle of nowhere, right?

[00:04:31.810] - Big Rich Klein

We have a similar thing there then, because in high school I, uh, I was deeply into photography, took photography classes, helped as a student aide, and then also worked on the yearbook as the photographer. Um, yeah, and, uh, actually graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara with a commercial degree in product advertising. So that's awesome. Yeah, and only did it for about a year and a half and then moved on.

[00:05:02.760] - Paul Dilley

Sounds about right. Uh, my, uh, my high school career, any, any time I could, I would spend in the woodshop. And, you know, I was, uh, I had a maximum number of classes, I was a TA, uh, spent as much time as I could in there. And right after high school, got a job at a cabinet shop thinking this is the way that I was going to go, and that lasted about a summer.

[00:05:29.470] - Big Rich Klein

And why was that? Was it just not— you figured it wasn't your thing?

[00:05:34.050] - Paul Dilley

Well, it was seasonal work, and I didn't realize that at the end of the summer, business fell off and I got canned along with a couple of others. And I talked to a journeyman that been in the industry for 15 years, and he was making slightly more than I was after 15 years. I said, you know, this is not a good career path. So moving on.

[00:06:04.250] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I think the guys that make money in woodworking and that kind of stuff do like custom high-end things. Correct. You know, and then, yeah. So what kind of stuff were you doing in that shop?

[00:06:21.960] - Paul Dilley

Anything and everything having to do with building and installing kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets, that sort of thing.

[00:06:27.620] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. All right. And what did you do after, after your stint there this summer?

[00:06:35.760] - Paul Dilley

Well, I actually turned my hobby into a business, which has kind of been the theme of my life, really.

[00:06:46.700] - Big Rich Klein

A lot of similarities. And what was that next phase?

[00:06:51.420] - Paul Dilley

Uh, it was car audio. Okay. I, I was doing it for myself and I was doing it for friends and, and building big stereo systems in the cars and found that I really liked doing it and started a shop. Uh, kept pretty busy and then, uh, started a an actual retail business and ran that for 4 or 5 years before, before it, it went as most businesses do, you know, growth, right? And then somebody else comes into town with a big corporate account and you can no longer make any money at it. So on to the next thing.

[00:07:41.970] - Big Rich Klein

And what was that next thing?

[00:07:44.620] - Paul Dilley

Uh, the next thing, I moved from, uh, car audio into home audio, home theater. That was really hot at the time. So I learned how to, how to wire up houses and, uh, became an electrician and, and started putting together multi-room audio and high-end home theater systems. And that was a lot of fun. I actually. And did your carpentry skills come in handy?

[00:08:13.010] - Big Rich Klein

Not only— I would definitely imagine building speaker boxes and car audio, but did it come in handy in the houses as well?

[00:08:21.900] - Paul Dilley

100%. Um, I found that, uh, most people that wanted, uh, home theater systems typically wanted it in their living room in their two-story house that was sitting on a slab. So How do you run wires? Well, I got, I got really good at putting up crown molding, let me tell you.

[00:08:43.420] - Big Rich Klein

I would imagine. And, uh, how long did you do, uh, the home audio?

[00:08:51.450] - Paul Dilley

I spent, uh, 5 or 6 years on my own doing the home theater, and then I actually, uh, went to work for a really high-end, uh, company in Sacramento and stayed in that for another, uh, 7 years. Okay, so doing home audio as well? Yeah, yeah, uh, it was, it was the really, really high-end stuff, uh, uh, you know, you're, you're talking $10,000 amplifiers, $25,000 speakers. I mean It, uh, it was an education for sure. It was a lot of fun playing with stuff that I knew that I could never afford.

[00:09:35.340] - Big Rich Klein

But, uh, you know, I can't, I can't even imagine spending that much money on, on an audio system.

[00:09:43.440] - Paul Dilley

Yeah, I, I put together, uh, you know, anywhere from, you know, our average system was probably $40,000-$50,000, uh, and that went all the way up to you know, millions. Wow.

[00:09:59.270] - Big Rich Klein

I've never been that big of an audiophile, you know. I mean, I, I love music, but not to that point.

[00:10:09.380] - Paul Dilley

Well, I mean, you got to remember, that was in the, uh, real estate housing boom, and, uh, people were making money left, left, right, and sideways flipping houses and And so we got in with a couple of contractors. Well, not even contractors, just house flippers. They'd buy a house and redo the whole thing. We'd come in, do a full audio/video home theater setup throughout the house, you know, $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, and then they'd flip the house and do it again. And we had probably, I don't know, 20, 30 customers like that in the Sacramento area, if you can believe it.

[00:10:50.600] - Big Rich Klein

Wow, that's awesome though.

[00:10:53.670] - Paul Dilley

Yeah, I know, it was great. It was a lot of fun. I got to play with, uh, you know, all the new stuff and, and right on the bleeding edge of technology. And, and, uh, it was, it was a lot of fun, um, right up until, uh, right up until I had kids. And then it was, well And now I need something that's, that's more stable and closer to home. So that was the first time I actually started an internet type business. Okay. Weirdly enough, selling home audio.

[00:11:30.780] - Big Rich Klein

When you were doing the— before selling it and when you were installing it, the— was the— in that 7 years, I would imagine that the technology from, you know, it just expanded immensely in those 7 years? Because that's the one thing I've noticed is just it never stops. I mean, I can remember buying a Walkman and it seemed like, you know, a year later it was way out of date. Absolutely.

[00:11:58.750] - Paul Dilley

Um, and that was, that was something in the audio business that, uh, was, was really difficult. I mean, you had to be you had to be very lean. You couldn't carry a whole lot of inventory because it seemed like every 3 to 6 months there was new product and the old product you couldn't get rid of. I mean, you just couldn't move it. So when I switched over from the job to working out of my office at home, selling the home audio products. That was, that was a massive shift because I was working with other companies. I was just selling their stuff. I'd never even saw it.

[00:12:46.220] - Big Rich Klein

So everything was drop shipped?

[00:12:48.440] - Paul Dilley

Correct. So I had very little, if any, inventory. You know, every once in a while I'd come across a deal and I'd just have to buy a whole bunch of them and sell them off as quick as I could. And that was, you know, that was back in the early days of the e-commerce boom. So it was fairly easy. And I got to spend a whole lot of time with my kids when they were growing up because of that. So yeah, I don't regret that at all. But at the same time, you really couldn't, at that point in time, you really couldn't hire somebody to build you an e-commerce website. You couldn't go online and just type in, how do I make an e-commerce website? Right. Didn't have any— you didn't have any AI assistance or anything. It was, well, here's a book, read that, figure it out. So that's, that's how I learned to code and, and, and build websites. And yeah, that was, that was an education for sure.

[00:13:51.300] - Big Rich Klein

That's pretty interesting that during that time, um, we're talking the 2000s, um, correct, right? Yeah. See, I'm— my career has been a number of different things along the way. I, I just— nothing more than 5 years, and I either got bored with it or just left it and tried something else because either the money wasn't good enough or something. And, uh, you know, everything from being— having a wood cutting, firewood cutting business, to landscaper, to commercial photographer, you know, um, ran Sears Automotive, um, ran other automotive stores, and then got into off-road and producing off-road events. First CalRocks and then added Vora in on that as well. I owned Vora for 4 years. And in fact, BJ Butcher raced as a kid with us. So, right, you know, and I just, I bounced around as well. But the— I never got into the— I mean, I didn't even buy a computer until about 2002. I think I started my, my off-road business just now. I guess I had a desktop at the time in 2001. But man, it was, it was archaic. I can't even think about doing, having done that, you know, coding and that kind of stuff.

[00:15:29.990] - Big Rich Klein

So what was, what was that like building from the ground up?

[00:15:36.460] - Paul Dilley

Well, you know, kind of my driving forces has always been learning new things. And since I've really never been in a position to ever pay anybody to do anything for me, it was, well, you either learn how to do it and do it yourself or you don't do it, right? And so, I mean, that's, that's how everything came about. And then, you know, as, as I got better with things and I could actually, you know, afford to hire somebody to do things. Um, it, it seemed like anytime you, you did hire somebody to do something, um, you know, a few months later everything changed, and then you had to go back to them and keep going back to them. And, you know, things were slow and not, not happening fast enough for me. I'm sure you can relate. Oh yeah. Um, so, uh, you know, again Now when I'm learning something new, I learn it because I want to learn it and I want to do it myself and I want to be able to do it as on my timeline rather than somebody else's.

[00:16:47.950] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Interesting. And I don't know which way to go with this first.

[00:16:58.000] - Speaker 2

What was—

[00:16:59.400] - Big Rich Klein

what came first for you, the love of off-road or the being, you know, writing books?

[00:17:10.420] - Paul Dilley

Oh, the love of off-road, for sure. I, I— how did that start growing up? Well, growing up in Auburn, um, you know, the Rubicon was in my backyard, right? Uh, Rubicon and Fordyce and, and all of these things that people all over the world have heard of. Well, that was just you know, something to do on the weekend, you know. Um, so that's how I cut my teeth, was building a, uh, a little Toyota and going out and hitting the Rubicon and going from point A to point B. And, and, you know, the old hold my beer and watch this, you know, we did a lot of that. Um, never, never commercially, that was just, that was just for fun, right? Uh, When, when I got into doing raptoring, well, I didn't, to be fair. I had purchased a 2001 BMW E46 convertible M3, and I met a guy out on a on a road run that had a very similar car. And him and I just got to talking. And all of a sudden, I find out that he's got access to a barn with a lift in it. And my car was going to need a clutch sooner than later.

[00:18:44.940] - Paul Dilley

Right. And he's And he said to me, he says, well, you know, come help out at the shop, earn some lift time. And me and my little group here will not only, you know, you help them out, they'll help you out. And I'll line you in on what you need to buy for the clutch and, you know, come over and we'll just do it. And boy, did that take life in a whole new direction because That was my very first introduction to, into what a Raptor was, believe it or not, because in his car group, he also had a Raptor group and started doing— he was one of the first that started doing organized off-road runs through Raptor Off-Road Community. And yeah, I just kind of fell into that. And at the time I had the BMW and I also had an F-350. And, you know, one day he says, well, we're going out on a Raptor run. Why don't you come with us? Your truck will make it. Well, it, It did make it, although on that very first run, I swear to God, I ripped the front end of that truck out 4 or 5 times.

[00:20:11.930] - Paul Dilley

It survived it, but it was definitely not the right vehicle for that. So I actually ended up modifying the suspension on that and making it better. But in the end, the F-350 was not a good high-speed off-road truck. And so, uh, being, being at that point in time that I really couldn't afford a Raptor because, well, due to circumstances, obviously, right? Uh, I ended up, uh, I ended up buying an old Gen 10 F-150 that had been all pre-runnered out from Southern California. Flew down there and drove it back. Uh, my, my truck, aptly named Zombie, um, that, that particular truck had been beat. It, it had been beat and then beat some more and then beat some more, and then I ended up buying it, and all I was doing was beating on it as well. But, you know, all in the process You know, it was, it was just a massive learning process. My, my entire off-road career was, you know, going 5 miles an hour, right? So this was completely different, completely new, extremely exciting. And well, I mean, you know, after, after getting that truck and going on more of these runs and getting to know people, you know, that's, that's how I got into the Raptor community.

[00:21:51.060] - Paul Dilley

And that's also where the whole shock rebuild end of things came in. At that point in time, it was 2010, late 2011, maybe 2012. Anyways, it was right around in there. Trucks were starting to hit you know, 30, 40, 50,000 miles and the shocks were getting blown out. And, you know, we'd done— some of the guys in the shop had bought the replacements from Fox and put the 3.0s on their truck and others just wanted their stock shocks rebuilt. And so one of the sets brought the truck in, threw it up on the lift, ripped the shocks off of it and sent them down to Fox to get rebuilt. Well, that ended up taking a little over a month to get those shocks back. So for a month we couldn't use the lift because there was a truck sitting on it. And so we decided, well, how hard can it be? And so we took apart the shocks and figured out how they worked and figured out what we needed to replace. And through quite a bit of trial and error, we figured out how to rebuild them because At that point in time, there was no information anywhere.

[00:23:17.590] - Paul Dilley

Fox wasn't helpful at all. They didn't want us to do it. They wanted us to send their shocks into them. And so, you know, we were kind of on our own and we started rebuilding the shocks and got pretty good at it and started doing them for, you know, just the locals and our group. And then one day, one of the guys on the forums said, hey, I need you to rebuild my shocks for me. I said, well, no problem. You know, take them off the truck and send them. We'll rebuild them. No problem. Well, he didn't have that kind of time. And I happened to have a set that we had taken off one of the trucks that we had upgraded. And so I said, well, how about this? How about I build this set and I'll send it out to you? You can swap them out on your truck and send me the ones that you have. And just like that, the exchange program was born. And I had two sets of shocks and they were constantly out. My waiting list grew from a couple of people to well over 100. And I said, hmm, maybe there's something here.

[00:24:33.750] - Paul Dilley

So again, turned a hobby into a business. Ended up buying every set of used Raptor shocks I could get my hands on, trying to just keep up with demand, and ended up moving out of the barn into a real shop.

[00:24:49.150] - Big Rich Klein

And yeah, I mean, was that the shop in Loomis?

[00:24:53.510] - Paul Dilley

That was the shop in Loomis, yeah. Okay. And yeah, so we spent about 5 years doing that and and cranking out shocks and building products. And every, every product that I've ever come out with was, was purely selfish. It was, hey, I want something that works better and there's nothing on the market for this, so I'm going to make something.

[00:25:20.690] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. Let's talk about some of those products. Sure. What, what was the first— what was the first thing besides building shocks?

[00:25:30.870] - Paul Dilley

Oh, very first thing. Um, that's a good question. Uh, shock guards, uh, lower shock guards on the, on the rear axle, uh, built those. Um, oh, uh, the, the alignment reinforcement kit for the front end. Um, I was tired of getting alignments on, on the truck every time we took a trip. So made something for that. And after bending back a lot of front end tabs because they were weak, you know, did the whole reinforcement thing. Where else do you go from there? The IWE lines started building those out of silicone because the rubber ones were terrible and would crack and break and not work.

[00:26:21.960] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I went— I ended up going just the deletes because I didn't want to have to deal with that.

[00:26:30.930] - Paul Dilley

Completely understood. Um, I, I eventually ended up doing that as well because I was going off-road every weekend. I didn't see the point of being able to turn it off. It didn't make any sense, right? Um, and then, uh, you know, so spent a lot of time, you know, designing and making stuff And one day my business partner came to me and he offered me an offer to buy me out. So I ended up leaving there and moving to Reno. Just couldn't stomach California anymore. Not to mention, I was driving up here pretty much every other weekend anyways to go play off-road. Might as well move closer to the dirt. And so when I got to Reno, I started a new company, and that's when I came up with the cabin air filter kit. Because, well, I was tired of turning on the air conditioning and getting a face full of dust every time.

[00:27:40.280] - Big Rich Klein

I leave that totally I make it recircle cab recirculation so I don't have to turn that on, except when the— except then all of a sudden you get to the winter and you have to turn the heater on, then you get— right, then you get it. So what does it take for that cabin air filter kit? Is it just something you can pop in or what is it?

[00:28:03.060] - Paul Dilley

Well, I mean, it's a little bit more involved than that. Takes, uh, takes a few hours to install it. I pull the, uh, pull the, the cowl underneath the windshield off. And I like to pull out the windshield wiper motor because it gives you more access. Basically, you, you turn the— turn that area into an air box, and then the, the filter bolts in and you silicone it in to seal it up. And there's some sticky foam that fills up some other areas so that it has to draw its air through the filter. Okay. And that's pretty much it. And it's a pretty simple concept. It was difficult in execution to get it to fit and work. And I couldn't really find a filter that worked in the area that I had to work with. So I ended up buying a 3D printer and making my own. Oh wow, okay.

[00:29:08.580] - Big Rich Klein

So do you make the frame of it and then, or how do you, and then you add filter material or what do you do?

[00:29:17.280] - Paul Dilley

Well, so the actual cabin air filter frame that accepts the filter, that's all steel. I get those laser cut and then I bend them and weld them up and then we powder coat them so that they won't rust. And, uh, the, the filters themselves, we, we 3D print those and then put in, uh, uh, a MERV 8 filter material and also an activated carbon filter layer as well. So it kind of pulls some of the smells out as, as they're coming into the cab, which is nice. Yeah.

[00:30:00.990] - Big Rich Klein

Interesting. And getting out of, you know, having your partner buy you out, I think the timing on that worked pretty well for you, didn't it?

[00:30:11.440] - Paul Dilley

It did. Yeah, I pretty much— one of the reasons why my partner and I split was, you know, just creative differences. I wanted to go one way and he wanted to go a different way. And so it ended up, it ended up working out. Right.

[00:30:32.670] - Big Rich Klein

The, so let's get into the, into the book writing. You've got, you've got quite the variety of books, titles here, not just Raptor books, but I see Doom Scroller's Handbook. Overwhelmed, Time to Reset. Yep. And the Neutral Reset series. Neural Reset. I put a T in there. Neural Reset. Yeah. And how did it— let's talk about those and then we'll get into the Raptor books.

[00:31:11.010] - Paul Dilley

Okay. Well, for— in my lifetime, I've, you know, everybody faces mental challenges, right? And, you know, some people go to— go and actually get help or, you know, talk to— talk to people or family or whatever. My, my actual experience was a little bit different. I met a guy in, in in the Sacramento area that was an actual sales trainer for Tony Robbins and got to know him pretty well. And he ended up putting on a class. And in this class, he was, it was supposed to be, it was sold as a master sales class. Well, who doesn't want to be a master at selling when that's what your job is? So, I ended up taking that class. Well, what that class actually ended up being was a study in what's called neuroplasticity, which is retraining your brain and opening up new pathways and changing your mindset to simplify it. And so, Going through this class literally changed my life. Going through the exercises and yes, I mean, we ended up doing some sales stuff and I learned some stuff there, but what really ended up changing my life was being able to just reset the brain.

[00:32:57.720] - Paul Dilley

You know, once you reach a certain age, you're kind of locked into your ways and, you know, the learning kind of stops. Well, through the techniques that he taught in this class of neuroplasticity, it just opened up new opportunities, weirdly enough. And once I experienced that, I decided that— well, many, many years later, I decided that I was going to teach those same techniques to my kids. when they seem to be stuck in a rut. And, and well, that ended up leading to the books because, well, got to write this stuff down. Although a writer I am not.

[00:33:44.730] - Big Rich Klein

Uh, I was going to ask, you know, because before you said, you know, you weren't a very good student.

[00:33:50.660] - Paul Dilley

Um, no, as a matter of fact, uh, you know, English, it was 100% my worst subject in school. I hated it, still do. English language is terrible. But if you want to become a writer, you got to kind of learn that stuff. Well, the introduction of AI has been instrumental in getting my thoughts into book form that's actually readable.

[00:34:23.770] - Big Rich Klein

Not just notes everywhere, all jumbled up, huh?

[00:34:27.430] - Paul Dilley

Correct. Uh, you know, I, I could take and, and write down all my thoughts in it, and it's just the ramblings, you know. It's just, that's all it ends up being. And with, with AI, it takes and it actually organizes it and spits it back out into something that's actually readable and makes sense. And of course, you know, it doesn't stop there. There's, there's what seems to be endless editing. But at the same time, if it wasn't for AI, I wouldn't have written even one book, uh, just because, well, anybody that would have read it would have went, what?

[00:35:13.580] - Big Rich Klein

So it— one of which— which is the, the first of the book in that series?

[00:35:20.310] - Paul Dilley

Uh, in, in The Neuro Reset? Yes.

[00:35:24.580] - Big Rich Klein

Um, yeah, that's a good question because I see 3 on the page on Amazon, but it, but then it says a 6-book series on—

[00:35:34.280] - Paul Dilley

yeah, which, which I haven't written most of those yet. Okay. Um, still, still working on that. I, I would say that, uh, Overwhelmed. Okay. Time to Reset. I mean, that was the first book in the series. The Rewire Your Brain Without Overthinking, that's simply a coloring book with prompts. Yeah. And then the other one's a journal, which is, again, it's a journal with prompts. So as you're going through and reading the book and doing the coloring exercise, you can actually start writing down ideas that weirdly enough start flowing. Huh. Now the reality is, is that, you know, I have— I've sold probably 20, 30 copies. It's, it's not a— it's not popular. Um, uh, the people that have bought it and read it, uh, you know, have been pretty impressed and, and that sort of thing. So maybe someday it'll catch on. That's— that wasn't really my intention in writing it. It was more of you know, I just, I have this idea, I want to get it down. And that ended up being 3 different books. Nice. And there's a lot more that, that can be and will be added to that series as time permits.

[00:37:04.680] - Paul Dilley

But, you know, again, because it's not very popular, I don't see I don't see the need to put the time into that right at this moment in time. Maybe if that book takes off, then I'll put some more into it. Interesting.

[00:37:20.110] - Big Rich Klein

Kind of cool. I'm gonna have to order one. That's— I could probably use a reset.

[00:37:29.540] - Paul Dilley

Well, I think we all can. And that was kind of the whole point. It's like, A lot of people that I've talked to have never even heard of this. And so because it made such a huge change in my life as the do-it-yourselfer, it ended up just, yeah, like I said, it made a whole lot of sense to me once I actually saw results. It made a whole lot of sense to me. In the beginning, It made no sense to me whatsoever.

[00:38:04.650] - Big Rich Klein

So there you go. Okay, sounds good. And then you get into the automotive books. Well, you have the Doom Scroller's Handbook. Where does that fall in with everything?

[00:38:18.110] - Paul Dilley

Well, when I moved to Reno and started the new company, um, it was doing pretty good, but it was— it was tail end of COVID And the new company just really didn't take off like I had hoped. And well, you know, quite frankly, ran out of money. So I had to go get a job. And so when I got a job, I actually started working for Fox Factory and not in Not in shocks that I know very, very well, but in the bicycle division, which happens to be here in Reno. And so started learning quite a bit about that. But that really, I didn't really see that going anywhere. And then I got offered a new job as a maintenance tech. And so I ended up moving to that job. And for several reasons, it was more money. It was 4 days a week instead of 5. And so that just gave me more time to work on my own stuff. But both of those jobs were my first real experience with any kind of corporate culture. And you're talking about 2 massive, massive worldwide companies and completely foreign world to me being self-employed for the majority of my life and then coming into a corporate environment was shocking.

[00:40:12.170] - Paul Dilley

I mean, literally, just shocking. And that's, uh, that's when I decided that I had to write the Doomscroller book because, uh, that's all about my, my experience, my take on the whole corporate entity. And, um, yeah, yeah, that was, uh, well, again, you know, it was, it was one of those things that's like, well, I can't be the only one that's experiencing this, so here you go. And I have some plans to actually expand on that in a bit of a series as well. One of the things that I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make a corporate meeting bingo card, or maybe even turn that into a book, 'cause that makes corporate meetings actually somewhat bearable.

[00:41:10.130] - Big Rich Klein

That's a good idea. There you go. And then, then you have your off-road books or—

[00:41:19.150] - Paul Dilley

yeah, yeah. So interestingly enough, um, I had already written a couple of books, uh, which, you know, obviously nobody knew about. But, um, one day I was actually talking with a new customer that happens to be a local guy And he'd bought a used Gen 1 and needed to pick my brain. And since I've been working on the things for what, 12 years now, I have a fair amount of knowledge. Right. And at the end of the conversation, he looked at me and he says, you know, you should write a book. And I said, yeah, okay, sure. Well, weirdly enough, that kind of stuck with me. I'm like, why not? Why not write a book on it? I've been working on these things forever. I got a fair amount of knowledge. So, sure. Well, that was 6 months of my life. There's a lot of information in there and there's a— I, you know, God, I must have rewritten the thing 10 times. And, you know, every week more information, you know, it's like, wait a minute. Oh man, I forgot all about that. I got to add this in there. No, there's a new section.

[00:42:46.870] - Paul Dilley

And oh yeah, this has got to— that's got to be in there. And it seemed like it was going to be the never-ending story, you know, because— and it just got to the point where I'm like, okay, There's more information out there. There's more things that I've done, but at 57 years old, I don't remember all of it. I mean, you know, point blank and period. So it's a fairly complete book. How's that? We'll go with fairly complete. Okay. Right.

[00:43:26.370] - Big Rich Klein

There's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of information out there that every time I look up something, you know, you have 50 different opinions on how things should be done. Oh, absolutely.

[00:43:47.280] - Paul Dilley

And mine is no different. It is quite literally based on my experience. So right or wrong, there it is. Nobody taught me anything. I didn't go to school for automotives. I didn't, uh, I'm not a formally trained mechanic. I'm not a formally trained fabricator. I'm not formally trained anything. I just make stuff.

[00:44:14.890] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Okay, that's awesome. I mean, Battle Notes, um, or Dirt Logs, that those seem— Dirt Logs is on the Gen 2 Raptors, correct?

[00:44:27.950] - Paul Dilley

No, I made Dirt Logs for, uh, for all of the different generations, uh, including Bronco and, uh, and Ranger Raptor. So here's my thing, is, uh, you know, I have my core group of off-roaders in in the area and we sit down and we talk about stuff and talk about runs that happened. And I just came to the realization I don't remember 70% of what, you know, of the off-road trips that we've done, you know, until somebody reminds me, oh yeah, I kind of remember that. And then it dawned on me, well, why aren't you keeping a log? Why aren't you writing this stuff down? And well, that's, that's how the Off-Road Journal came about is, okay, well, here you go, write it down. Here's an easy and convenient way of doing it. And it's got a picture of the truck on the front and it's got prompts throughout. You just, you know, fill it out and, you know, just jog your memory when you come back to it and say, oh yeah, I remember that.

[00:45:35.050] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Excellent. I find that, you know, I've been doing, working on the Rebel Rally as part of the staff since the inception and 10 years. And the way that I know that we have, that we have done when we get out to these different trails and roads that we're on, I'll call most of them, most of them trails because most people wouldn't drive down these roads unless you're, you know, out exploring. Sure. And we come at them, you know, sometimes we run the same roads, you know, 3 years later or whatever, but we may come in from a different direction or tee into it somewhere or something like that. But I, I use a Lowrance in the truck and I record all the, all the trails every day. Using different colors and so sections for as so that is as we go down. And then when I go out just exploring in Nevada myself, all of a sudden, you know, here we are on, you know, the Lowrance and oh yeah, I've been down this road before. I know because there's my, there's my lane. You know, it's, it's marked out on the Lowrance, but I wished I'd had the Raptor with the Lowrance in it the first year, because I didn't get the Raptor until '19.

[00:47:05.540] - Big Rich Klein

And those first couple of years, we, uh, we were in the Jeep, the XJ. And, uh, I did not keep all of the logs like I do now because it didn't— the old Lowrance I had in there, the 540C or whatever it was, the Baja, was, uh you know, didn't have very much memory in it. Right. So I don't have all of the early logs, although I do have them probably on a computer somewhere. Right. But it was, it— I wished I would— I wish I'd been better at that. I did just find some, some, a Nevada— some— well, my wife found them. I couldn't find them for years. And their map books of Nevada that the state puts out, or did. I don't think they do it any longer. And it's called Nevada Map Atlas, and the last one I have was, it was revised in 2000. And I used to use, I used that to, uh, to set the race courses or find the roads for the race courses that I used at Vora. Gotcha. And so I've got— I mean, I think it's a great atlas to me, better than Delorme, because it's just there's too much, too much information on the map and it's harder to read in Delorme.

[00:48:31.890] - Big Rich Klein

And then the US Forest Service map or the USGS maps, you know, with all the elevations and everything else, all the other information that they put on there. You know, it's hard to see what the roads, you know, where they go. Sure. You know, there's just too many, too many lines. But this, this map atlas, I don't know if you've ever seen one, it's kind of a spiral back. It is awesome. I, I have not seen that. Well, I have an extra copy, so I'm going to have to get it to you. Actually, yeah, I don't need to. I understand. So the— what, what is, what is next? I mean, obviously you can be writing editions for every single one of the books, but what, what, what are the grand plans that are set for Paul?

[00:49:26.830] - Paul Dilley

Well, I mean, right at the moment I am in the middle of writing the Gen 2 book. Okay. After that, I'll probably do the Gen 3 and then maybe move over into the Bronco and the Raptor or the Bronco and the Ranger. But my main goal right at this moment in time is to open up another shop. Right now I'm doing everything out of the house and I am out of room. Well, yeah, I'm out of room, uh, as I'm standing at my brand new, uh, CO2 laser that's in my living room because I have no other place to put it. Wow. Um, so yeah, I, I need more space. Uh, I want to, uh, I want to be, uh, on, on some property, have a nice big shop, um And just continue doing what I'm doing, continue building products, continue working on trucks, continue going out and doing off-road recovery and race recovery. I really love to, to get the Raptor Off-Road community runs going again. But I mean, as you know, that takes a massive amount of time to put together logistically, which I simply don't have. Right. Um, but I, you know, I miss doing the Raptor Runs.

[00:50:55.740] - Paul Dilley

It was a lot of fun. And now, now when I'm, I'm hitting the dirt, it's usually to go out and get somebody that's, that's broken down or done something stupid or gotten stuck or whatever. Um, which, you know, that's fun too, but it's, it's not the same. I, I really, really enjoy going to the races. Uh, that I don't see that stopping anytime soon. Doing the race recovery stuff has been phenomenal. I do that for BORA, Best in the Desert, Legacy. I'd like to do more of that. But, you know, again, time, and most of the races are down south. And that's even more of a time commitment that I just, I just can't afford. But yeah, so that's, that's what's next is moving out of Reno. to probably 4 or 5 acres and building an actual shop out in the middle of, well, nowhere, right? And, and just continuing doing what I'm doing.

[00:52:02.400] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome. That's, that's good. And you said you're 57? 57. Yeah. Yeah. You still have, you still have plenty of time.

[00:52:10.660] - Paul Dilley

That's, that's the plan anyways.

[00:52:12.520] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I just turned 68 and just took a new job this year. So after having retired for 3 years, so yeah, it's not because I, I needed a job. It's because I wanted something to do. Yeah, this one was, this was something different. So it's kind of cool.

[00:52:34.640] - Paul Dilley

No, I completely 100% understand that. I've talked to friends that have retired and I'm like, "So what do you do?" Granted, I am done with the W-2. I am done with the corporate. I want to go back to being 100% self-employed and I do have a plan for that. It's probably going to happen. Hopefully before I'm 60, be 100% self-employed again. So that's definitely one of my goals. Got to get rid of that W-2. But I don't ever see myself retiring. I just, I don't think I have it in me.

[00:53:24.070] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. I have to say I was more semi-retired. I did, you know, a couple of nonprofit, sits on the board of directors. Of course, the podcast that this is going— we're in our 7th year already. Nice. Yeah, it's amazing. And it was all because of COVID But talk about being bored. So started the podcast. But the, you know, after 25 years of putting on off-road events, that's what I retired from. Found somebody that, my partner Jake Good, that could take over We Rock and do a good job with it. And he's done that. And I stepped back and then it was like, okay, what am I going to do? And so got on the board of directors and then got hired by a board of directors to oversee some parks in Texas and to run the grant processes and all that kind of stuff for the nonprofit. So it was, it was a great, great for me because I've always wanted to be involved with off-road parks and it just made sense. Yeah. And so that's where I jumped into, but it's still, it's still like being self-employed. So it's, even though, you know, it's not, I'm, it feels like it.

[00:54:47.270] - Big Rich Klein

So there's all sorts of things out there. Yeah, freedom is great.

[00:54:51.340] - Paul Dilley

Yeah, that's— that, that is the— that is the long and the short of it. I want my freedom back, um, and, and we'll get there. Uh, you know, like I said, I'm, uh, uh, the, the current job that I'm in is, uh, is at least interesting. It's something different every day. It's not the same old drudgery, um, and you know, working on stuff, that's kind of my forte. So, uh, you know, it is what it is, and, and, uh, for now that's what has— what it has to be, but it's not going to be that way forever, I hope. Perfect.

[00:55:32.600] - Big Rich Klein

So where is Amazon the place to buy or order your books?

[00:55:37.550] - Paul Dilley

Uh, you can get them on Amazon, you can get, uh, uh, the, the Raptor stuff and the dirt logs, they're all on, on the website. Uh, yeah, interesting thing with Amazon is they didn't like the log books. Um, as a matter of fact, they ended up, uh, terminating my, my book account, uh, because of the dirt logs. So I ended up removing all the dirt logs off of Amazon. They reinstated me, uh, thankfully. So, uh, okay. Yeah, all the, all the books except for the Dirt Logs are available on, on Amazon, um, and just the, just the Dirt Logs and the Raptor books will be available through the, the website as well.

[00:56:20.660] - Big Rich Klein

And the website is Infinity Overland.

[00:56:23.350] - Paul Dilley

Okay, yeah, perfect. Well, awesome. That, and, uh, I'm just, uh, just finishing up some artwork, uh, for some, uh, some new t-shirts and stuff. So some always new things, always new things.

[00:56:39.630] - Big Rich Klein

Got to keep moving and grooving. There you go. All right, Paul, thank you so much for being a guest. And it was, it was entertaining. I, until I did a little bit of research, I had no idea that you were a man of many talents.

[00:56:58.260] - Paul Dilley

Well, how's that saying go? Um, uh, uh, jack of all trades, master of none, right?

[00:57:07.000] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. That's— I, I drop right into that. I think it takes a certain personality to do what we do. Yes, uh, agreed. All right, you take care, and, uh, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Okay, bye-bye. 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.