Dove Creek, Colorado produces pinto beans, hay, and one of the finest rockcrawling teams. Rick Deremo and Rick Gersch have known each other for a lifetime and rockcrawled as a team for many years. Retired now, at least from crawling, they share their take on life in a small community. Be sure to tune in on your favorite podcast app.
7:19 – we’ve been around each other forever
12:43 – a lot of kids that went to school here; their folks were miners during the uranium boom
16:12 – you know what? I think we can do this
22:42 – How many adaptors go from a Subaru to a C4 – it was farmerized
28:03 – I didn’t like Goldendale; it seemed like I was farming again, there was so much dirt
31:48 – Back then, ingenuity was a bigger player than money
37:18 – back then, I was drinking Monsters in between courses and stuff and getting a little hyper
47:48 – were you keeping an eye on the gauges? No, I was just having fun!
59:18 – right now, 60% of all farmers are in their mid-60s; there are going to be a lot of retirement farms in the next few years
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
Dove Creek, Colorado produces pinto beans, hay, and one of the finest rockcrawling teams. Rick Deremo and Rick Gersch have known each other for a lifetime and rockcrawled as a team for many years. Retired now, at least from crawling, they share their take on life in a small community. Be sure to tune in on your favorite podcast app.
7:19 – we’ve been around each other forever
12:43 – a lot of kids that went to school here; their folks were miners during the uranium boom
16:12 – you know what? I think we can do this
22:42 – How many adaptors go from a Subaru to a C4 – it was farmerized
28:03 – I didn’t like Goldendale; it seemed like I was farming again, there was so much dirt
31:48 – Back then, ingenuity was a bigger player than money
37:18 – back then, I was drinking Monsters in between courses and stuff and getting a little hyper
47:48 – were you keeping an eye on the gauges? No, I was just having fun!
59:18 – right now, 60% of all farmers are in their mid-60s; there are going to be a lot of retirement farms in the next few years
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
[00:00:05.290] -
Welcome to conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the offroad industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors. Men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call offroad. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and offroad. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call offroad.
[00:00:46.430] -
Whether you're crawling the red rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the Trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability. Four wheels or two? Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis tires deliver, Choose Maxxis, Tread victoriously.
[00:01:12.860] -
Have you seen 4Low Magazine yet? 4Low magazine is a high quality, well written, four wheel drive focused magazine for the enthusiast market. If you still love the idea of a printed magazine, something to save and read at any time, 4Low is the magazine for you. 4Low cannot be found in stores, but you can have it delivered to your home or place of business. Visit 4lowmagazine.com to order your subscription today.
[00:01:39.300] - Big Rich Klein
On today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, we have the Ricks. That's Rick Deremo and Rick Gersch. They're out of Dove Creek, Colorado. They were quite the team back in the days of rock crawling. We're going to get into all of that and more about these two. Ricks, both of you?
[00:01:57.850] - Rick Deremo
Yes.
[00:01:58.380] - Big Rich Klein
Thank you so much for coming on board.
[00:02:00.780] - Rick Deremo
No problem. I enjoy doing this.
[00:02:02.990] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. Gersch, are you there?
[00:02:05.340] - Rick Gersch
Yes, sir.
[00:02:06.170] - Big Rich Klein
Okay, there. I just want to make sure you're still there. You didn't sneak out the back. All right, so let's jump right in. You're both in Dove Creek? Did you both start off in that area?
[00:02:17.600] - Rick Deremo
Yes, I did. This is Rick Deremo. I've been here all my life. Went to Phoenix in the winters. My family were snowbirds. So we'd go down there and come back in the summer and farm.
[00:02:31.140] - Big Rich Klein
Right. And it's always been a farming life, right?
[00:02:34.330] - Rick Deremo
Yes.
[00:02:35.940] - Big Rich Klein
And Rick. How about you? Gersch, how about you?
[00:02:39.620] - Rick Gersch
My family came to Dove Creek when I was ten years old. My dad worked for the State Highway Department, got transferred here, and I've been here ever since, about 59 years. People are starting to look at me as one of theirs now.
[00:02:56.730] - Big Rich Klein
Finally. Yeah, you're finally local. Is that it?
[00:03:00.430] - Rick Gersch
Right? There you go.
[00:03:03.360] - Big Rich Klein
I can understand that small community thing. It really is. It takes a while to assimilate yourself into the local customs as it may be, even if you were there for 59 years. So let's talk about those early years. Deremo, what about growing up there on the farm? What were you guys farming and what was life like for you then?
[00:03:35.320] - Rick Deremo
I started running a tractor by myself when I was twelve years old, so I think we did wheat and Pinto beans and so I got to run a combine when I was 14 and even at that age we put in 10/12 hours days and learned good work ethics learned how to weld and cut and fab equipment that I tore up. Because I was in a hurry as most kids.
[00:04:09.460] - Rick Deremo
Yes.
[00:04:11.700] - Big Rich Klein
Besides working on the farm for ten to 12 hours a day, 14 hours a day, what else did you do besides school?
[00:04:19.960] - Rick Deremo
Yeah, when I was younger, I started riding motocross back in 74 when I was 14. Got my first Cr 125 elsnor the first year they came out, got into riding motor cross and retired from that in 82. The last three years I rode the outdoor national circuit. AMA wow. First year I rode 125, 2nd year I rode two hundred and fifty s. And then my sponsor brought out an open bike for me to ride a 500 and said, see what you can do on this. And first event I went to, local event I won. So I kind of got hooked on that. Riding the 500s, loved them, but I ended up hurting my lower back and that kind of put me out of the motocross scene, compressing discs, and I felt good a few years after I quit racing, and then it kind of came back the last couple of years when I was rock crawling.
[00:05:28.050] - Big Rich Klein
Right. Understand. If you said you were 14 and that was 74, that means you were born in 69. 59. Okay. So you're real close to my age, you're a little younger, thank goodness. Yeah, I was born in 58, but I basically quit working, except for well, I basically quit working now. You still have a farm to run?
[00:05:58.760] - Rick Deremo
Yes.
[00:06:00.120] - Big Rich Klein
So, Gersch, what about you? You moved there when you were ten, you said you've been there 59 years, so you're 69, you're a little older.
[00:06:07.820] - Rick Gersch
Yes, just a little older.
[00:06:09.940] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:06:13.340] - Rick Gersch
I spent most of my summers as a kid until I was 14 up in Ouray, Colorado. My grandparents owned a gas station and a restaurant in Ouray, and I would pump gas and help my grandfather do mechanic work from the time I was six until I was 14.
[00:06:31.620] - Big Rich Klein
Okay, so you learned how to wrench early, right?
[00:06:36.530] - Rick Deremo
Yeah.
[00:06:38.740] - Rick Gersch
Doing a lot of menial stuff. Some of that like straightening nails, I got straightened a lot of nails, did some minor wrenching. But then as my summers went from spending time in Ouray back here, then I actually worked the summers for Rick's dad and uncle.
[00:06:58.340] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. Is that how you guys became friends? I know there's an age difference there, so typically if Rick's that much younger, say when Rick is eight or ten, years old, not normally going to be hanging out with a 15 year old in most situations.
[00:07:17.370] - Rick Deremo
Rick has an older brother that's my.
[00:07:19.280] - Rick Gersch
Age and that we hung out a lot together, so we were around each other all the time. Even though your analogy with the age difference is correct. But yeah, we've been around each other forever.
[00:07:31.530] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:07:34.020] - Rick Deremo
Rick's younger brother was my age. His name was Danny. Okay. And we hung out together. So as a family, our families went to Lake Powell. We went water skiing a bunch and fishing stuff down there during the summers.
[00:07:48.300] - Big Rich Klein
Okay, that makes a lot of sense then. Excellent. So then working together, working on the farm, the life there, it's not big city at all. It never was and it probably never will be, but there seems like it could be a lot to do for kids. Maybe not to get so much in trouble, but at least a lot of things to do, am I correct?
[00:08:14.920] - Rick Deremo
Yes. A lot of outdoor sports, hunting, fishing, rafting down the Dolores river. We live, what is it, three and a half miles? 4 miles from the Dolores river. So as kids we went down the river and floated down there on tubes and swim in the swimming holes. Back then there was drive in movie theaters and we'd go out to those. Just basic good small town life. And about everybody in town, all the kids had motorcycles, a bunch of us would ride, the police would chase us when we rode across the streets, but they couldn't catch us.
[00:08:58.210] - Big Rich Klein
Couldn't catch you, but they knew where you lived.
[00:09:00.820] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah, that's true.
[00:09:04.580] - Big Rich Klein
See, I grew up in a town of like 50,000 people, and even though it was really big, quite a bit bigger, it seemed that everybody knew my parents and I couldn't get away with nothing. I'd come home and my dad goes, yeah, so I understand you did this today. And I'm like, how the hell did he find that out? So it happened. Big towns and little towns.
[00:09:30.940] - Rick Deremo
Yeah, our town is what, 750/800? The whole county is like 2500 is all. And yeah, pretty much same thing. We do something, our folks would know about it before we got home. And I told my kids, I said, you know, we're going to know when you guys do something. And when they got a little older, sure enough, we got a couple of calls and we were in town and my daughter's like, well, how'd you know I did that? I just did that like three minutes ago. And it wasn't that big of a deal afterwards, I found out.
[00:10:04.730] - Big Rich Klein
Right. So let's talk about school. Working the farm, there's things you got to do all year long besides just the planting and the harvest season. But what was school like? Say, Deremo?
[00:10:24.850] - Rick Deremo
First, I only went to school here until third grade, mid year of third grade. And then my folks bought a house down in Phoenix. So Lyle and I went down there in the winters. Like I said, my parents were snowbirds, wanted to get out of the snow here, so we went down there, and basically I grew up down there in the winters and then came back and farmed in the summers.
[00:10:50.600] - Big Rich Klein
Okay, so school time.
[00:10:52.200] - Rick Deremo
That's why I ended up riding motocross down there, because you can do it year round in Phoenix.
[00:10:56.990] - Big Rich Klein
Right. And did that happen all the way through, like, high school?
[00:11:02.120] - Rick Deremo
Yes, it did. I ended up going to Washington High, played football there, and that was the only sport. Well, I went out for basketball freshman year, but I really stunk at it, so I just can't dribble. So I just stuck with motocross and ended up playing football is the only thing I did. And then raced the rest of the time of the year. But I had some friends. One of them played for the Browns, Mike Pegle, he was our quarterback in high school.
[00:11:35.460] - Big Rich Klein
Nice.
[00:11:36.980] - Rick Deremo
And then the first year, I went to school at a private school because mom and dad didn't know the city of Phoenix or the school system. And I ended up going to school with Ernie Banks's. Boys Joey and Jerry Banks.
[00:11:51.260] - Big Rich Klein
Wow.
[00:11:51.750] - Rick Deremo
And Craig Jackson, that does the Barrett Jackson car auction. He's in my class. And Craig also, I used to ride motocross.
[00:12:00.540] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. Wow. Interesting. And Gersch. How about you? Most of your school years, or formative years, you might say, were there in Dove Creek then.
[00:12:12.000] - Rick Gersch
Yeah, that's right, Rich. I went all the way through 12th grade here in Dove Creek. In those days, we had a few more people around, big classes of 30. I think my graduating class was probably 28. Things have changed quite a bit now. We have a lot smaller, smaller classes, a lot fewer people in the area. But, yeah, all my school time was done here in Dove Creek.
[00:12:41.500] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:12:43.640] - Rick Deremo
A lot of those kids were we had uranium mines here at that time, and so there were a lot of kids that went to school here that their folks were miners.
[00:12:55.200] - Big Rich Klein
Right, okay, that makes sense. Not just the farming community.
[00:13:01.040] - Rick Deremo
Right? Yes. And Rick mined for several years.
[00:13:05.360] - Big Rich Klein
Interesting. Was that mining? That's not like pick and shovel. You went in there with equipment, right?
[00:13:13.620] - Rick Gersch
Yeah, well, yeah, you have equipment, Rich, but you have a 135 pound jack leg. You haul to the face, drill holes, load with powder, shoot it, come in with loaders, and load it up, and then some little shovel work at the end to get things tidied up. But, yeah, like Rick said, there was a tremendous amount of people in this area due to the uranium boom in the it just was totally different community.
[00:13:42.620] - Rick Deremo
I would imagine that's where Rick really learned to stack rock and do it professionally.
[00:13:50.080] - Big Rich Klein
I was going to say that's why Rick Gersh was the spotter.
[00:13:55.200] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. He was probably one of the strongest spotters out there besides BZ's Spotter. George.
[00:14:04.870] - Big Rich Klein
George.
[00:14:06.640] - Rick Deremo
George. But Rick and I, we were at Jeep Safari one year. We were up on Upper Hell Dorado before we even started rock crawling or rock thinking about competing. We were rock crawling at the time, just in our Samurais and we were on Upper Helldorado Jeep Safari and Rich Hudson was there and at the gate and we were watching him stack rock and Rick was commenting on how he stacked them in there a certain way. And then when Rich went to climb over, not one rock moved. He had them wedged in against each other. So that's where Rick came up with his being an awesome spotter for Stacking Rock.
[00:14:55.860] - Big Rich Klein
And how did you guys get into Wheeling Samurai? What was the process there?
[00:15:02.260] - Rick Deremo
It was Rick. He got me going well, and it.
[00:15:05.740] - Rick Gersch
Was my son actually that got me going. Really lived in Farmington at the time. And if you live in Farmington, you like to wheel, the opportunities are endless.
[00:15:16.780] - Big Rich Klein
True. So then that's interesting. So you guys were late in life? Wheedlers.
[00:15:24.380] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah. Well, we had four wheel drives when we were growing up here in school and stuff. We'd go out and mud bog out on the county roads and see who could get through the deepest snow drifts and stuff in the winter and get stuck most of the time. Have to get pulled out or called dad to bring a tractor to Dare, I guess, out. So we did that type of Wheeling, but not really any of the rock stuff to say until Jared got us introduced into it. And we went to our first event was Farmington, wasn't it? Was that a uroc or what was it?
[00:16:08.530] - Rick Gersch
I think it might have been a uroc event. We went to we watched.
[00:16:12.080] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. And that's when we saw Peter Wells there farmer from over in St. Louis Valley. And we watched them and Rick said, you know what? I think we can do this after the event. That's what happened. We went home and started building and got into it.
[00:16:32.260] - Big Rich Klein
That's awesome. What do you remember from that first event besides Peter?
[00:16:37.540] - Rick Deremo
A lot of rollovers.
[00:16:40.020] - Big Rich Klein
Farmington is known for that.
[00:16:42.180] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah. And how that rock is a little sandier, little slicker doing the bump to get up things instead of just crawling. Yeah, just some stuff like that.
[00:16:58.060] - Rick Gersch
And the teamwork, Pete and Frank worked so good together. They really were early on the epitome of guys that really worked together. They talked to each other. It was really fun to watch them. Learned a lot from those guys and both very personable guys and watched them.
[00:17:17.600] - Rick Deremo
Hang off the side of their car back then. That's the other thing, being able to.
[00:17:22.070] - Rick Gersch
Hang off the side of the car and try to push it over and stuff.
[00:17:26.260] - Big Rich Klein
Those days before safety rules. Lap belts, no helmets.
[00:17:32.500] - Rick Deremo
Yeah, it was the kind of stuff.
[00:17:34.760] - Rick Gersch
We did on our own. It was just like doing our own stuff, only with an audience and having some cones out there.
[00:17:40.630] - Big Rich Klein
Right. And what did you think when you went out to your first event to compete and all of a sudden those cones that when you're looking at them from down below, look like they're really wide apart, and then you have to drive through them. What was that like?
[00:17:56.540] - Rick Deremo
We thought you moved him in on us.
[00:18:01.260] - Rick Gersch
Well, Little Rich Did was such an awesome course setter back then. I mean, he was, like, what, 15 years old?
[00:18:09.310] - Big Rich Klein
A little older, but yes.
[00:18:11.600] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. He did such a good job setting courses, things that we didn't see until we got up there to the course, like, oh, my gosh, I think we can do this. And we started out with the Samurai. Had a 1.6 liter, and I wanted to put an automatic in it. And I had an old Chevy Chevell sitting out here on its side. And I was looking at it one day because it had a small transmission, man, that looks like the same bolt pattern as that 1.6 tracker engine. I pulled it out and it bolted up, and it was a T 180. I remember that. And it fit. Yeah. So that's how we came up with an automatic and the Samurai and then took a front Dana 44 and put it in the rear. So we had rear steer, which made it easier for around the cones.
[00:19:06.620] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[00:19:07.160] - Rick Deremo
I still hit them with the rear steer, but yeah.
[00:19:10.340] - Big Rich Klein
And what kind of wheel base did you have? It couldn't still been 82 inches?
[00:19:14.980] - Rick Deremo
No, I think we were 100 or 105, something like that.
[00:19:19.430] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:19:19.910] - Rick Deremo
Somewhere in there, one of the things.
[00:19:22.440] - Big Rich Klein
When you said you had a Chevell sitting there on its side I know there's a whole bunch of hot rod guys that just cringed when they heard that.
[00:19:31.660] - Rick Deremo
There wasn't much left of it. It was pretty crunched up. Yeah. There wasn't much usable. The motor was already gone out of it. So the tranny was setting there and just the A arms and rear axle and some tires. That was pretty much it. The glass was even broken out of all the windows. Yeah. It had seen us better days.
[00:19:57.460] - Big Rich Klein
The first competition you went to, which event series did you run in?
[00:20:05.080] - Rick Deremo
It was Cal rocks.
[00:20:06.430] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:20:07.320] - Rick Deremo
There at farmington. Cal Rocks was running the same time Uroc was, I think, at the same event that day.
[00:20:14.460] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, it was actually the Arca event. The last of the arca.
[00:20:18.000] - Rick Deremo
Arca, yeah. Arca. That's right. Well, it was Arca that we went and saw the year before. Right.
[00:20:24.610] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:20:25.450] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. Thanks for shaking the cobbled stuff.
[00:20:29.170] - Big Rich Klein
No, that's all right. I get to do this. I've done this for three years now and talked to a lot of people about those days. So not most of it. Some of it has fallen back into place. I was talking to somebody this morning at a car show, four wheel drive car show, and in fact, Bob Sweeney from Jeepers Jamboree, and he was talking to somebody, he goes, well, if you had a Cal rocks buggy, this guy would know whose it was. And the guy looks at me and goes, oh, okay. It was this color and this and I'm like, Bob, you know how many years and beers ago that was? Years and beers.
[00:21:14.300] - Rick Deremo
Well, that first event we went to that we watched before we got into crawling, I had no idea who Shannon Campbell was. He was standing over there, and we ended up going over and talking to him. That's what I liked about the events. You could talk to all the drivers and stuff and learn. And Shannon is really a great guy, very personable to everybody, right?
[00:21:35.780] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. And that's one of the great things about rock crawling. Everybody's all together and nearby. It's not like racing where everybody's spread out and you don't see everybody all day long. I mean, you're competing and you're right with everybody.
[00:21:50.600] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. And something Rick and I always tried to do when we were at events, after we got through crawling, doing our obstacle, our course, and we'd go up to the next one to kind of watch what was going on there. We'd walk around and talk to the people in the crowd there, too, and Rick would go, explain things, why somebody's doing something just to help the sport grow, tell them what was going on and why they were doing this or that. So he was great for the sport.
[00:22:21.790] - Big Rich Klein
So how long did you compete in the Samurai?
[00:22:27.380] - Rick Deremo
We just did the one year. We only did a couple of events, and then that was it. And then I built the green right hand drive car with the subaru engine.
[00:22:40.520] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:22:42.920] - Rick Gersch
What transmission was in that? C four.
[00:22:46.270] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah, that had a C four in it.
[00:22:48.590] - Rick Gersch
How many adapters do you know, Rich, that go from a Subaru to a C four?
[00:22:54.940] - Big Rich Klein
You go right down to Napa Auto Parts and they'll have them on the shelf.
[00:22:59.350] - Rick Deremo
It was farmerized. I had the transmission out of the subaru, and I found out which one had the smaller output shaft. And so I drilled a hole in a piece of plate, slid it over that, marked all the holes on the bell housing. Then I drilled it out to the next size that was the C four. Slid it over that and matched all the holes, or turned the holes where they didn't line up with the others, marked all them, and then I made the plate nice. Just that easy.
[00:23:32.510] - Big Rich Klein
And you cut it out with a torch, right?
[00:23:35.480] - Rick Deremo
Pretty much so, yes. And then we had to fab up the starter so it would work. But I found the ring gear on that C 180. We had some old farm machinery up here. And I was looking through ring gear, the teeth cut and went and started pulling starters off a bunch of them. Found one that the ring gear count was just right for the starter and put that on there. And why it was a right hand drive? Because watching your events, all the cars were left hand drives. And the obstacles, it seemed like on the right hand you couldn't see a lot of the stuff that little rich would set up and people were catching cones and stuff. So we thought outside the box made a right hand drive, so we had an advantage.
[00:24:29.020] - Big Rich Klein
Really? That's interesting. I hadn't thought of that.
[00:24:32.300] - Rick Deremo
And it also had we could lengthen the wheel base, what, ten inches? Eight or ten inches, yeah. I had real long splines on the rear drive shaft, and we just kicked the four wheel drive out into two and be driving. I could slide the back end out a little bit to get a little longer. Wheel base. That only lasted two years.
[00:24:54.530] - Big Rich Klein
Was that a frame lengthening then?
[00:24:57.940] - Rick Deremo
No, not frame. Just the three links and the three links and the drive shaft.
[00:25:10.110] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. So between obstacles, you could lengthen it or shorten it or on the course. We could do it, yeah, on the course.
[00:25:17.500] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah.
[00:25:18.210] - Big Rich Klein
God, I don't remember that.
[00:25:20.540] - Rick Deremo
Years and years. We had all sorts of stuff. In that first year, we couldn't afford bead locks. We didn't have any sponsors. We got some BFG tires, but we kept losing sidewalls and stuff. Only around two pounds of air. And Rick came out the shop one day with this stuff called Right Stuff from Napa. And it's for like, a sealant. Yeah. So we put them on the beads, put the tires on, aired them up and got the beads set, and then let the air out and let them set overnight. And we went to the next comp, ran two pounds of air, never lost a bead. And everybody always asks how we did that without bead locks. Well, that was it. It's called right stuff. And when we got our new tires halfway through the season, I went to break them down. I couldn't get the tires off the rim.
[00:26:29.980] - Big Rich Klein
I was going to ask.
[00:26:32.400] - Rick Deremo
I took it to our local shop and let them they changed tractor tires and stuff, so I let them break them down. It took them over an hour to get all four broke down.
[00:26:43.540] - Big Rich Klein
Did they ask?
[00:26:46.600] - Rick Deremo
We did put Right Stuff back on those, too.
[00:26:49.560] - Rick Gersch
We still didn't have a sponsor.
[00:26:54.280] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, Lord. So what was your means of travel back there from event to event?
[00:27:03.580] - Rick Deremo
We had a diesel pickup, didn't we?
[00:27:06.220] - Rick Gersch
73 years.
[00:27:07.610] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. And we had my brother in law's car hauler trailer we used. I ended up with it because when we had the green card and took it out and first tested it, we broke it on the first obstacle. I think we broke a rear axle. So we had to drive out there at farmington. And when I went around some rocks to get in so we could load the car, I mangled the fenders up.
[00:27:33.050] - Rick Gersch
In the back end, and so I.
[00:27:34.280] - Rick Deremo
Ended up having to buy the trailer. It was a brand new trailer.
[00:27:38.200] - Rick Gersch
I don't remember the name of the obstacle we were on, but there were a lot of guys pretty impressed that Rick had a four door diesel pickup with a gooseneck trailer up there.
[00:27:48.770] - Rick Deremo
They didn't think you could get it in there.
[00:27:53.660] - Big Rich Klein
It's that farmer ingenuity. What was your favorite place to compete?
[00:28:03.520] - Rick Deremo
I had a couple I really liked. I loved Farmington Choke, Cherry, and I loved Cedar City. I like the hard rock, right. That you can hang on the side of the wall there or climb incredible steep climbs or drop off big ledges. I love the rock. I didn't like the ones well, my worst one I didn't like and sorry, Washington, but yeah, goldenale. I didn't like golden dale. It seemed like I was farming again. I had so much dirt on my face and stuff from spinning on the rocks and the dirt.
[00:28:42.840] - Big Rich Klein
You know what? That dirt is still there. It is still dusty.
[00:28:48.640] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. And the other place I liked was globe. Really?
[00:28:52.550] - Rick Gersch
Like globe.
[00:28:53.190] - Rick Deremo
That was a cool course, right?
[00:28:57.680] - Big Rich Klein
You were there for the rain event, weren't you?
[00:29:00.900] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah, the flooding.
[00:29:02.860] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah.
[00:29:04.580] - Rick Deremo
That was pretty fun. Yeah. I think that's the one that Shannon had, the rotary app, wasn't it?
[00:29:12.820] - Big Rich Klein
I just remember Shannon coming to me on Saturday morning and going, rich, don't make me drive across the creek today. I'll drown. Because it was driving and the rain was over the top of, like, 39 inch tires.
[00:29:29.580] - Rick Deremo
Yeah, I think he had that rotary engine then. I think that only lasted one event, maybe two. He had to keep it wound up so high.
[00:29:39.020] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[00:29:39.810] - Rick Deremo
And I had one of those cars, too, with a rotary, but it never made it onto the course. It was an ifs I-R-S car.
[00:29:50.640] - Big Rich Klein
Right. That was the red and blue one. Red or purple?
[00:29:53.400] - Rick Deremo
No, it was the yellow one.
[00:29:54.810] - Big Rich Klein
The yellow one. Okay.
[00:29:56.440] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. Independent front and rear front were, like swing arms that ran forward instead of a arms.
[00:30:07.000] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:30:08.280] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. And it had a rotary and yeah. You had to keep it wrapped up to even climb anything. It didn't have the torque you need for crawling.
[00:30:17.430] - Big Rich Klein
So was that another car that was designed farmer ingenuity?
[00:30:22.540] - Rick Deremo
All of them are farmer engineer.
[00:30:26.540] - Rick Gersch
Yeah, there's a lot of ingenious stuff came out of this quantit out here.
[00:30:31.120] - Rick Deremo
Rich, a lot of people didn't know are on the car.
[00:30:36.960] - Big Rich Klein
How much of that stuff is still sitting around out there?
[00:30:40.960] - Rick Deremo
The ifsirs car, the frame is still sitting out here, but that's it. Everything else is gone.
[00:30:46.970] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:30:47.430] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. I sold it to get to the to build the next car. And so on. Had to at the time.
[00:30:54.440] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[00:30:56.200] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. I built a steering system one time, and Shannon Campbell, we were at an event, and he walked by and he looked at it and he said, Where did you come up with that? I said, well, it's Farmerized. He laughed about it. And I saw him here a few years ago, something he had on one of his cards. I said, How'd you come up with that idea, Shannon? He looked at me and grand said, Farmerized. I'm glad he's using that technique.
[00:31:24.160] - Big Rich Klein
Back in those early days, there was a lot of Farmerizing going on.
[00:31:28.240] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah. And that's what was so fun about in the early years. There were so many different vehicles and different ideas, different tires.
[00:31:41.620] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. A lot of testing and technology. Just people trying.
[00:31:47.560] - Rick Deremo
Yeah.
[00:31:48.680] - Rick Gersch
Back then, Ingenuity was a bigger player than money.
[00:31:51.470] - Rick Deremo
Really?
[00:31:52.360] - Big Rich Klein
True. Very true.
[00:31:54.920] - Rick Gersch
Aftermarket, wasn't there?
[00:31:56.890] - Big Rich Klein
And now everything that truly works, there's somebody you can call that has parts sitting on the shelf somewhere.
[00:32:06.620] - Rick Deremo
Right. That's what kind of takes away from the fun of the whole aspect of crawling, I think, because everybody can buy it instead of building it.
[00:32:17.630] - Big Rich Klein
Interesting concept, I guess, for the guys that are definitely home builders. Absolutely.
[00:32:27.220] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. And we were always trying to think outside the box on everything we did on each car. What we liked, what we didn't like. We had on the rear axles. I put hooks on the rear axles, on the wheel, on the center of the hub so we could hook our rope on there so Rick could pull my back end around uphill if we needed to burn uphill with the rear. Since we didn't have rear steeler, we could do that. But I think Little Rich frowned on that. And I think the next vent we were at, that cost us points or something. He just sucked all the fun out of it.
[00:33:15.700] - Big Rich Klein
So what was the progression for the next car you had the yellow one. It never made it out. Was that green one.
[00:33:22.440] - Rick Deremo
Well, we actually had two green ones.
[00:33:25.000] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:33:25.590] - Rick Deremo
And the first one was the first oh, the first one was a single seat, and we sat in the middle of it. The second green car was the right hand drive. That's right. And the first one is the one that had the rear axle that extended.
[00:33:42.240] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:33:42.750] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. The subaru didn't extend. I don't remember what motor we had in that first car.
[00:33:49.600] - Rick Gersch
I'm thinking it was a 1.6 in that first car, too.
[00:33:54.800] - Rick Deremo
Oh, it was. We did have a Samurai engine in the first green car because that's what.
[00:34:00.340] - Rick Gersch
We had the most of the Samurai stuff.
[00:34:02.170] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. And we had a Samurai Transfer case that Rick worked on, and it was a twin stick. Remember, you changed that so we could do a front burn or a rear burn with that Samurai Transfer case when Rick had it apart. And I looked in there. At the sprocket that ran the front axle. It looked like the bicycle sprocket. Little tiny thin thing. And I was like, how is that thing going to hold up with these? Well, were they 38 then? Probably? Yeah, 36 or 38.
[00:34:37.020] - Big Rich Klein
But it held up.
[00:34:38.000] - Rick Deremo
We never had a transfer case problem.
[00:34:40.400] - Big Rich Klein
There you go.
[00:34:41.630] - Rick Gersch
And then onto the supercharged one.
[00:34:48.000] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. Then after the two green cars, I was down at Shannon's shop one day, and when I was in Phoenix and looked up there and he had a chassis setting up on top, asked him what he was going to do with that chassis, and he said, It's yours. So I loaded it up in my pickup and brought it back. But I had it in the pickup when I went down to watch you guys event in Tucson.
[00:35:17.960] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:35:18.490] - Rick Deremo
I think it was Tucson. And I had that chassis sitting in the back of my pickup then, and we took it back up, brought it back up here, and it was set up for the Ecotech engine with a power glide and an Atlas transfer case. We put a supercharged V six in it with a 700 R four and an Atlas. And we were at Jeep Safari and Shannon walked past my car and he stopped and looked and goes, what the heck? How did you get that 700 R four and that supercharged in that chassis? It fits. We had to cut some stuff out, put it in, weld it back together, but we got it in there. And that car was fast off the line. It was quick. Great car. That was probably my favorite car out of all of them.
[00:36:16.720] - Rick Gersch
Best powered weight ratio.
[00:36:18.320] - Rick Deremo
Yes. Really hooked up. It did.
[00:36:21.460] - Big Rich Klein
So was that one that you raced XRA in?
[00:36:25.040] - Rick Deremo
Yeah, but we crawled in it with it, too. We did both vents with that car, the XRA. It wasn't that fast. So with that 700 R four, we had gears for either thing we wanted to do without changing out the third members. So we did go through some parts, though, with the ARBs, we kept losing springs on the ARBs, and Chris over there finally got us some different springs for it. And we never had problems after that. Took care of it. And I think I might have been shifting it in and out while I was on throttle. Could have been a little bit, I don't know. I have a throttle problem, put it that way.
[00:37:11.680] - Big Rich Klein
Or you have a right foot problem.
[00:37:14.640] - Rick Deremo
Pretty much that, too. Yeah.
[00:37:17.120] - Big Rich Klein
That's where all the weight is.
[00:37:18.980] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah. And back then I was drinking Monster energies in between courses and stuff, and I was getting a little hyper. And Rick, I was over driving corners on the throttle, over rocks a little too much. And Rick said, I need to quit the Monster energy stuff. So we did, and drove a lot better then.
[00:37:43.640] - Big Rich Klein
That was a good thing to do. No, those drinks, I swear, there should be an age limit after a certain age. You shouldn't drink them anymore.
[00:37:56.460] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah.
[00:37:57.600] - Big Rich Klein
Does funky stuff to your body.
[00:37:59.900] - Rick Deremo
I could feel my heart pounding and stuff, and I had the jitters. Rick was like, Rick, look at your hands. And I'm sitting there, my hands are shaking. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I have no idea.
[00:38:11.120] - Big Rich Klein
Exactly.
[00:38:13.840] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. I love crawling. I really love doing the crawling, but the climbing in and out of the window, twisting my body to get in the window was really hurting my back. My legs would go numb a little bit, my feet and stuff, and that's pretty much why I had to hang it up. I didn't want to have back surgery, and I felt good. After I quit for a few years, it took a little while for everything to relax, I guess. I don't know.
[00:38:47.580] - Big Rich Klein
Settled back in, right?
[00:38:49.450] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. But I haven't had any problems with my back since, so that's good.
[00:38:53.150] - Big Rich Klein
That's good. We've missed you, but I'd rather you be healthy.
[00:38:58.160] - Rick Deremo
Oh, so would I. Yeah, I missed the crawling, and I really loved that last year when I got the call from Shannon and Tammy to drive Bailey's car. That last year?
[00:39:14.920] - Big Rich Klein
The year you won the national championship.
[00:39:18.360] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. Lucky.
[00:39:20.300] - Big Rich Klein
Not lucky.
[00:39:22.440] - Rick Deremo
It was the course. I mean, the area I really liked, too. Cedar City. I love that rock. We were the only ones to do that big wall. And years ago, I remember guys being able to do the wall, but the banners were closer to this event than what they were before, and I remember seeing that. So you didn't get the run out like you needed to make that climb where before the other events, those guys could make the climb, but they had a little bigger run out where the banner was. They could back up a little further right.
[00:40:00.260] - Big Rich Klein
And get more of a bump at it.
[00:40:02.840] - Rick Deremo
Yeah.
[00:40:04.520] - Big Rich Klein
And that last event, that one that we're talking about, the Nationals, cody Folsom spotted you, too, right?
[00:40:11.900] - Rick Deremo
Right. Yeah. And I remember reading talking with Cody about the I think you were allowed to be a little less than halfway out of the course with two tires. Is that correct, or is it one tire?
[00:40:27.860] - Big Rich Klein
You were not supposed to be more than 50%. The rules now are if two tires go out of bounds, you're done.
[00:40:36.560] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. Do you hear that, Rich? You're sucking the fun right out of that rock crawler.
[00:40:47.300] - Big Rich Klein
I'm sucking the fun out of it.
[00:40:49.640] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. We can't twist the rules a little. No, that's how we made that climb. When I made the climb up the hill and let it reject me, it forced me back, and Cody stopped me before the car was 50% past the banners. That gave me a little extra run out. And if I wouldn't have had that, we couldn't made that climb. It's interpreting the rules. I guess they call it.
[00:41:19.410] - Big Rich Klein
Yes, absolutely. So let's talk about you raced Koh as well. Well, let's see, you raced XRA, and you were crawling some of that at the same time, and then you traveled pretty extensively, didn't you, with XRA?
[00:41:41.060] - Rick Deremo
Yeah, we ended up back in Jellico a couple of times and we did missouri, wasn't it? Hannibal, Missouri.
[00:41:52.530] - Rick Gersch
Hannibal, Missouri.
[00:41:53.600] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. And I didn't know what chiggers were until after that. Yeah.
[00:41:59.900] - Big Rich Klein
Lovely little creatures, aren't they?
[00:42:02.160] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah. And we had a pretty good little spot on burning rubber TV. They came and interviewed us at the race there that day, and you can still find it on there. I looked the other day and it was on there. So it just got hunted harder. But, yeah, that's where somebody told us, I wouldn't write in my mind.
[00:42:24.080] - Big Rich Klein
It took them that.
[00:42:27.700] - Rick Gersch
The park owner bet the promoter that nobody could even make any of the courses that he had set up. He said, there's no way people can even go this, much less have a time on it. And Rick was able to clean every one of them. Made them look easy.
[00:42:45.340] - Big Rich Klein
Very good. Yet Tom was one of those guys, that park owner there in Hannibal, that was he liked to set things up that he just thought people could not do. Where I always wanted to set things that I felt people figured they couldn't do, but I thought that there was a line to do it if they could find it.
[00:43:12.420] - Rick Deremo
Yeah, and that's what was great about your events. They were tough obstacles, but they were doable. Just had to see their line.
[00:43:22.840] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[00:43:23.310] - Rick Deremo
And sometimes they're oblivious to everybody. But that's where Rick and I rick did a really super good job of finding the lines on the climbs and the descents. I'll never forget the one in Congress, you had a bonus line coming off of a ledge that was undercut, and it was probably, what, a twelve foot drop, 1214 foot drop, and it was undercut back. And we sat there and watched Becca Webster go off. At first, she went her front end hit, she gassed it, she stand on her nose, flipped upside down and timed out. And about everybody that went over did the same thing. Shannon went over, rolled, ended up on his side about 5ft from the finish line. And at that time, he only had to have one tire across the line, and he had the flu. And he and his father worked and worked trying to get the car across the line. They couldn't. They finally timed out, and one of the guys with us went over and told Shannon, why don't you just take a lug wrench, take that tire off and roll it through there? You would have time.
[00:44:44.080] - Big Rich Klein
That wouldn't have worked.
[00:44:47.280] - Rick Deremo
Well, the rules didn't say anything about a lug wrench and just said tire had to cross. But anyway, Rick and I talked about that, and watching everybody and we noticed that their rear wheels were up on that ledge when they gassed it and that was throwing the car over. So we just kicked the rear end out and just drove off of it and didn't have any problems.
[00:45:09.720] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, I actually remember that one. I know what you're talking about.
[00:45:14.940] - Rick Deremo
That was a cool obstacle.
[00:45:16.860] - Big Rich Klein
Then you raced Koh as well, didn't you? King of the hammers.
[00:45:21.440] - Rick Deremo
Yes.
[00:45:23.180] - Big Rich Klein
And what car did you start racing in? That in?
[00:45:27.260] - Rick Deremo
That was the Ifs car. Okay. That had an LS two in it, eight into one header, and we had an atlas in it. And at the time when we built the Ifs, shannon and I both built the first Ifs cars when we won the first event with it in Moab. And when we built the car, we didn't make the tabs. Randy Rod from Jimmy's four before gave us the chassis. He built the car for us, the chassis. And then we put everything together. Peter Wells came over and helped me and Rick finish up some parts on the project. Peter welded up the headers for us and it was a great car. But our mistake was not making the tabs heavy enough for the rear shocks. And when I got in the Whoops, I probably passed in that first Whoop section. I probably passed 15 cars, but it cost me. I broke shocks off, but the car handled really good. That was the only downfall. I lasted the race about 20 minutes.
[00:46:50.040] - Big Rich Klein
But you passed a bunch of people.
[00:46:52.140] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah. I think I started out like 67th or 70th somewhere around there. And I passed a lot of people that short course time. But that was my first Hammers race. And then I went back one more time and co drove with Cody Falsom in his little pickup. He did the every man challenge right. And we were doing good. I think we were in second. We broke the front axle and it would have taken us too long to get the axle put in and we would have timed out before we got to the next checkpoint.
[00:47:37.880] - Big Rich Klein
How was that on your back?
[00:47:41.080] - Rick Deremo
Terrible.
[00:47:43.000] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, I was going to say it's a lot worse than twisting to get into a crawler.
[00:47:48.640] - Rick Deremo
Yeah, that was really hard on my back. I had one other race I did, desert race, and it was down in Albuquerque and went down there. I didn't have a car to drive in it. And Brian Shirley asked me if I wanted to drive his old jeep that he had, or his old car from Randy Rod one that he had, his older one. And he said, now the motor is about out on it, but just go drive it and have some fun. And so I talked Randy Rod into riding with me. And let's see, the trophy truck started ahead of us and then we started there was another group. Oh, motorcycle started first and then the trophy trucks. There's only like five trophy trucks there. It wasn't a real big event. And then there was probably ten of us, ten or twelve of us that Rock raced were there. And we started out, and on our first lap, randy and I passed two of the trophy trucks through the rough section. We had to come in, get the hood pulled off, take the fire extinguishers, cool the radiator down, put some more antifreeze in it.
[00:49:08.500] - Rick Deremo
We took off again, and Randy was having a blast. We were flying through the washes and the Whoops until the motor burned up. And I asked Randy, I said, Were you keeping an eye on the gauges? He goes, no, I was just watching the track and having fun. We ended up walking back to the pits, and we were on the very back of the course.
[00:49:35.580] - Big Rich Klein
Nice.
[00:49:36.430] - Rick Deremo
That was a good time. Thanks, Brian, for loaning us to the car.
[00:49:43.040] - Big Rich Klein
And I want to thank you because the tow vehicle that you had back then was that red Volvo and the white trailer, and I'm still running that thing.
[00:49:56.020] - Rick Deremo
Oh, that was a great truck and trailer. I love that titled as RV. We didn't have to stop the ports. Yeah, we got 9 miles, nine and a half miles a gallon with that towing. That was the same as my diesel pickup with what? 26 foot, feather light aluminum trailer with car in it. So we got to sleep in the truck and trailer that way. A lot better set up.
[00:50:25.680] - Big Rich Klein
Absolutely. Once we got that and started moving everything around the country in the semi, I called it the Taj Mahalar. It really was a life changer for us with the events.
[00:50:48.180] - Rick Deremo
The Ifs car would just fit in on top of the living room there. Over top.
[00:50:53.640] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[00:50:54.010] - Rick Deremo
We'd have to dump all the air out of those or I struts to get it in there. But you probably saw the tire tracks on the wall in there on one side. That's where we fell off the ramps. And I was laying in there on the side in the car and had to drive it back out of the trailer on its side. Didn't get the ramp quite fastened down yet.
[00:51:18.640] - Big Rich Klein
That's awesome.
[00:51:21.920] - Rick Deremo
Good times, though. Wouldn't trade it for anything.
[00:51:25.830] - Big Rich Klein
So talk about some of the stories, maybe from when you were running with Brian Shirley and you guys were traveling. There had to be some good stories with you guys.
[00:51:40.900] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah. My son would go with Rick and Cindy, rick's wife Cindy, and my wife and I. And we had Bob Clayton and Chuck Thompson. They worked on our cars and they worked with Rick at Kinder Morgan. So we'd take off on the weekends and go travel all night. We had drivers and stuff that could switch out. Made a lot of fun. We'd catch up. Brian was from Dodge City, so if we're going east, we'd catch them someplace en route. And it was always at a Cracker Barrel. Seemed like that's the only place they could find a park. My son hated Cracker Barrel, and he still does. We can't get him to stop there at all. Yeah.
[00:52:29.130] - Big Rich Klein
So what do you guys drink? What are you guys doing now?
[00:52:32.580] - Rick Deremo
Pardon me?
[00:52:33.410] - Big Rich Klein
What are you doing now? I know you're still working, both of you, or Gersh, are you still working or are you retired now?
[00:52:42.280] - Rick Gersch
I quit a year ago.
[00:52:45.500] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. And farming is still happening?
[00:52:50.860] - Rick Deremo
Yes.
[00:52:51.520] - Big Rich Klein
But what are you guys doing for fun?
[00:52:53.740] - Rick Deremo
It's just my brother and I that farm, and my daughter helps us. My son used to help us, but he works up in Denver now. He comes down some, but once in a while I'll get him to run a piece of equipment for me. But my daughter lives just a quarter mile away from his kelly. Okay. I get her to help some. She was a good driver. Rock crawling and drain, everyone to drive. He just wanted to ride and have fun. But, yeah, as far as fun goes, we got side. Besides, Rick's got a TerraX. He got me into the side beside thing. And I've got a can. Am. Maverick an older one. And my wife wants a four seater because we have grandkids now.
[00:53:42.240] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[00:53:46.700] - Rick Deremo
And we're building a cabin up at Groundhog Lake, which is about 30 miles straight east of Dove Creek. So I spent all winter up there setting logs. And we shoveled the house out 22 times this year. And we had 30 inches of snow one time.
[00:54:04.810] - Big Rich Klein
Wow.
[00:54:05.270] - Rick Deremo
And we had a total of seven foot there while we were working of snow. And it still doesn't have a roof. It's a work in progress, probably for a couple of years.
[00:54:17.640] - Big Rich Klein
So when you say you were shoveling the house out, you meant the interior of the house out as well?
[00:54:22.300] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah, the interior of the house. Yeah. We take the plywood off where the windows were. We didn't put the windows in yet, but we had the openings. We put plywood over to keep a lot of snow out, pull all that up and shovel it out the windows. It got old.
[00:54:40.620] - Big Rich Klein
So when's it going to get finished?
[00:54:45.040] - Rick Deremo
I'm thinking 2029. I'm hoping we can get into it late this summer. It depends on how much farming we got going and stuff.
[00:54:59.460] - Big Rich Klein
So how many acres are you doing? You're doing all now, doing hay?
[00:55:06.920] - Rick Deremo
We have nine pivots and all used to be under hay. But last two years we had drought and we only got a little bit of water, and we ended up losing all fields except for three. So we've got right at 400 acres of irrigated alfalfa. Everything else will be in beans or Quarley or wheat.
[00:55:36.550] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:55:38.080] - Rick Deremo
Until we can get some new hay planted on those, we got them worked up. We just got to rotate them out into some other crop for a year.
[00:55:46.760] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[00:55:47.210] - Rick Deremo
And that hurts because we're all set up for alfalfa.
[00:55:51.060] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. Yeah.
[00:55:53.380] - Rick Deremo
We raised between it depends on a good year or bad year. When we had all the pivots in, we'd have anywhere from 130 semi loads to 150 semi loads a year to ship out.
[00:56:05.720] - Big Rich Klein
And where do most of those loads go? Which direction?
[00:56:08.850] - Rick Deremo
Texas.
[00:56:10.520] - Big Rich Klein
Texas, okay.
[00:56:11.950] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. We have two dairies down there that buy the majority of our hay.
[00:56:15.900] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. Were those the ones just going into El Paso or somewhere else?
[00:56:23.760] - Rick Deremo
One of the dairies, I think he's got five or six dairies down there in the my mind's blank right now. Sorry. Big no worries. Down in the Dublin area, there's one dairy man down there. He's got dairies there in New Mexico, california. Sometimes our loads will go into California for him.
[00:56:50.120] - Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:56:50.570] - Rick Deremo
So it just depends. And then the other one is like the second largest dairy in Texas. Yeah. Owner, I should say. Dairy owner.
[00:56:59.030] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[00:57:00.380] - Rick Deremo
Yeah.
[00:57:01.290] - Big Rich Klein
Well, I hope that this year is much better for you than the last with the drought. I know that most of the west got plenty of water, but we still have to hopefully everybody's reservoirs got filled up and ground reservoirs as well.
[00:57:21.700] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. It looks like our lake is going to fill and it's going to spill this year, so we can maybe do a little rafting before farming season starts.
[00:57:32.750] - Big Rich Klein
There you go.
[00:57:34.040] - Rick Deremo
Yeah.
[00:57:35.560] - Big Rich Klein
So are you a fisherman at all?
[00:57:38.680] - Rick Deremo
I used to fish quite a bit, but with farming and rock crawling and rock racing, I got where I didn't get to do it, but I'm hoping to get to do some more fishing now that I got grandkids.
[00:57:52.220] - Big Rich Klein
That's my goal as well. I haven't fished in years and I really want to fish.
[00:57:59.100] - Rick Deremo
My granddaughter is seven. The person my other one will be five in June and then my grandson will be two in June on my birthday is when he was born.
[00:58:10.550] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, nice.
[00:58:11.920] - Rick Deremo
Yes. And all he wants to do is drive tractors.
[00:58:15.540] - Big Rich Klein
Well, that's a kid thing, that's for sure. There you go.
[00:58:20.100] - Rick Deremo
Yeah.
[00:58:21.140] - Big Rich Klein
And you got to have one to take over the family business.
[00:58:23.830] - Rick Deremo
Right, right. Yeah, definitely. Well, I know my son and daughter both love to farm, but it's so pretty hard to make a living and at the salaries they're used to making compared to what we make. Yeah. Not near as well as good as what people think, but it's a great life.
[00:58:46.770] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that's happening nationwide with farms and ranches is that the next generation coming up either just doesn't want to do it because of the it's what they've done as a kid, and they're just not that interested in it, and they want to get out of the area. And then the big corporate companies come in and buy everything up, and it really changes the American landscape.
[00:59:18.210] - Rick Deremo
Right. Yeah. And I think 60% of all farmers are in the age of mid 60s right now. So mid sixty s to late 60s. So there's going to be a lot of retirement farms here in the next few years. And who can afford to pick up farms these days?
[00:59:42.260] - Big Rich Klein
Corporations.
[00:59:43.840] - Rick Deremo
Yes. And when back East, I was looking Arkansas or where it was at here recently, a farm there sold for $19,999 an acre. That's a chunk of change. And I can't remember how many acres that corporation bought. A couple of thousand.
[01:00:09.240] - Big Rich Klein
That kind of sets up the retiring farmer pretty well at that point.
[01:00:15.000] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. But it doesn't do much for the young farmer that wants to the young person that wants to farm.
[01:00:20.660] - Big Rich Klein
True. Just got to keep it out of the hands of the Chinese.
[01:00:25.980] - Rick Deremo
Exactly. And I don't know why our country allows foreigners to be able to buy land in this country when you can't buy it in theirs, especially where it is a food product for the United States to survive on.
[01:00:43.780] - Big Rich Klein
Agreed. Agreed. Without getting too political, I just say we just need to take it all back. Tell them to go pound sand.
[01:00:54.680] - Rick Deremo
I hate politics anyhow. So do I. I don't even watch the news. And I sleep much better at night.
[01:01:02.030] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, you sleep better. You're happier. There you go.
[01:01:06.380] - Rick Deremo
Yes. I don't worry about anything. Yeah. It's like no matter what happens, there's nothing I can do about it.
[01:01:13.600] - Big Rich Klein
True. So true. That's what Shelley keeps telling me. And I keep going, did you read this? Read this. And she's like, no, I don't want to. And I get it.
[01:01:25.920] - Rick Deremo
I sat down one day thinking about, and don't get this wrong, California, but how the population in California? It takes Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Oklahoma, Utah, to equal the population in the state of California.
[01:01:57.580] - Big Rich Klein
The state of California.
[01:01:59.420] - Rick Deremo
No matter how those states vote, california control all these other states.
[01:02:08.610] - Big Rich Klein
Right.
[01:02:09.150] - Rick Deremo
At the national level. That's scary.
[01:02:12.240] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, it is. And then if you just take the three major populated areas in California, they're the ones that control it all anyway, because you get outside of those major metropolitan areas and it goes from being blue to red.
[01:02:31.300] - Rick Deremo
Right. Yeah. Well and when I saw that, then when I saw the numbers, population wise, I thought, so no matter what I do here, it's not going to make a difference. So that's why I quit watching the news and stuff.
[01:02:46.380] - Big Rich Klein
Stay happy.
[01:02:48.540] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. Almost like your vote doesn't count, but to a point.
[01:02:53.930] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah. Unfortunately.
[01:02:56.940] - Rick Deremo
Now, if you're voting on rock crawling, that's a different story. All parks open and all of our trails open.
[01:03:07.200] - Big Rich Klein
Right. So what's on the horizon, Gersh? What are you hoping to do for the rest of your days?
[01:03:18.160] - Rick Gersch
I finishing up watching my grand grandson in sports this year. He's a senior. We got another three weeks, and then that part of chasing him is over. We've had a great time for the last year chasing sports all over the country. So we finished that up. We've got Lake Powell close. I've got a motorcycle dirt bike that I haven't ridden near enough. Yeah, we just have so much stuff to do here, you never get bored.
[01:03:55.840] - Big Rich Klein
Good. That's a good thing. And Dermo. What about yourself? How many more years are you going to be sowing seeds out there?
[01:04:08.020] - Rick Deremo
Well, my brother, he wants to work till he's 70 to retire, and I told him when he retires, I got to retire because I can't do it all. So I'm thinking I only got another year or two, which is fine with my wife Linda. She'd rather do a little traveling and stuff and enjoy the grandkids.
[01:04:26.510] - Big Rich Klein
Excellent.
[01:04:28.300] - Rick Deremo
That's kind of why we're building the cabinet groundhog. So I'm going to take the grandkids up there and have fun with them. Just enjoy it, see the mountains.
[01:04:38.320] - Big Rich Klein
Perfect. Well, on that, I would like to say thank you guys for sharing your history and talking about the early days of rock crawling with you guys and racing and life in general. Thank you.
[01:04:54.420] - Rick Deremo
Well, appreciate it. Big Rich All I can say to everybody is just think outside the box.
[01:04:59.700] - Big Rich Klein
There you go.
[01:05:02.020] - Rick Gersch
Thanks for the opportunity, Rich.
[01:05:03.820] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, no worries. And thank you.
[01:05:07.080] - Rick Deremo
And can I put one more thing in?
[01:05:09.050] - Big Rich Klein
Absolutely.
[01:05:10.680] - Rick Deremo
BZ, step up, boy. Do the interview.
[01:05:15.820] - Big Rich Klein
He says. He told me. He goes, you know, I'm just more of a private individual right now. Nobody needs to hear me talk.
[01:05:25.340] - Rick Deremo
Oh my gosh. You sure he was healthy then, when you talked to him?
[01:05:30.290] - Big Rich Klein
Yes, sure was.
[01:05:33.520] - Rick Deremo
Okay. By the way, did you happen to see him on Undercover Boss?
[01:05:40.060] - Big Rich Klein
Yes, I did. Hilarious.
[01:05:41.680] - Rick Deremo
Wasn't that hilarious? They said they had to cut out, what was it, 80% of all of his jokes. The guys that were filming said they've never laughed so hard the whole time, but they had to cut out 80% because it wasn't fit for TV.
[01:06:02.440] - Big Rich Klein
Doesn't surprise me at all.
[01:06:04.620] - Rick Deremo
Oh, yeah.
[01:06:06.090] - Big Rich Klein
What a character that guy is.
[01:06:08.300] - Rick Deremo
Yeah, I miss all the guys crawling. My thing is too big, Rich. I see somebody and I can't remember the name. I know their face, but I just cannot remember their name for the life of me.
[01:06:23.040] - Big Rich Klein
I get it. I had so many people come up to me. Well, I had a guy today, it was a friend. Well, it was a guy that I first went wheeling with back in 1982. 1st time up in the Sierras in a CJ five. And I handed him one of our magazines and he goes, you're Rich Klein, right? And I'm like, yeah. And he goes, hey, it's buck Teasley. And I'm like, oh my God. I hadn't seen him in probably 20 plus years. Well, probably closer to 25 or 30.
[01:07:05.660] - Rick Deremo
Has he aged well?
[01:07:07.250] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, actually he had. He told me he was 86. Now I realize how old I am.
[01:07:16.720] - Rick Deremo
86. Wow.
[01:07:18.800] - Big Rich Klein
Still wheeling.
[01:07:20.580] - Rick Deremo
Still wheeling. Yeah. I sold my last Samurai last year that I had, and my granddaughter's really mad at me because it was yellow, and she loved it, so I ended up getting with an old Bronco now. 67 Bronco.
[01:07:37.620] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, nice.
[01:07:38.680] - Rick Deremo
Yeah, very nice barn find.
[01:07:42.540] - Big Rich Klein
Oh, yeah.
[01:07:43.510] - Rick Deremo
Uncut uncut. I've been looking for an old Bronco that I could afford. Looked everywhere, and it was in a hay bar, I mean, in a barn a quarter mile from my house, and I had no idea it was there. Been sitting there for 18 years.
[01:08:00.000] - Big Rich Klein
Wow.
[01:08:01.040] - Rick Deremo
Had a rubber garden hose over the hood and full of dust. And we drug it out, put a battery in it, and the brakes needed fluid, so I dumped some brake fluid in it, and I thought I was going to have my brother pull me to see if we could start it. And I thought, you know, I better just turn it over with the battery and make sure that it's not locked up. And I smelled the gas in the tank, and it stunk so bad. So I poured one gallon in of regular gas that I had. I hit the starter, and it was running. I couldn't believe it. 18 years it sat there. Luckily, I was indoors. Oh, yeah. Well, it was kind of indoors. Okay. Roughly. My wife, we went to town, and it died on us. Something was in the fuel tank, plugged the line. I got drugged the gas station. I put fuel in the other tank and changed the valve so it would start fired up. I've been driving it ever since. The classic.
[01:09:08.590] - Big Rich Klein
That is awesome. Okay, now I got to ask, what color is it?
[01:09:13.240] - Rick Deremo
It's that light green that they made in 67.
[01:09:16.380] - Big Rich Klein
Right. Okay.
[01:09:17.800] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. It's rusted under the door panels, in the quarter panels there, and the inside two fenders there has a rusted spot about six inches in diameter. And that's it. The rest of the SunRail. Yeah. Still got the original seats in it, the headliner, everything.
[01:09:38.770] - Big Rich Klein
Wow.
[01:09:39.980] - Rick Deremo
Yeah. That's amazing. The tires on it are dry rotted, and everybody said, oh, you need to put new tires on it. I think these tires are better than the new ones you get. You can still drive on these. They don't leak. And they're up. They've been up the whole time. He's never put air in them.
[01:09:57.330] - Big Rich Klein
Wow. That is insane right there. Okay.
[01:10:02.020] - Rick Deremo
Yeah.
[01:10:04.020] - Big Rich Klein
All right, guys, thank you very much, and I'll let you guys know when this is going to air. Thank you.
[01:10:09.770] - Rick Deremo
Oh, cool. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Take care, you guys.
[01:10:14.060] - Big Rich Klein
Take care.
[01:10:15.160] - Rick Deremo
Is the finals here in Farmington this year?
[01:10:17.230] - Big Rich Klein
Yes, it is.
[01:10:18.330] - Rick Deremo
It is.
[01:10:18.970] - Big Rich Klein
Okay, come on over.
[01:10:21.260] - Rick Deremo
I wanted to go last year, and we were out of town, so I'm going to try to go this year and watch.
[01:10:26.080] - Big Rich Klein
Sounds good. Hope to see you there.
[01:10:28.000] - Rick Deremo
Okay, sounds good. Take. Care.
[01:10:29.790] - Big Rich Klein
Bye, guys. 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 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.