If you’re a military vet, look up Admiral Mike with Mag7 and WarFighter Made, you’ll likely find him in Baja; he’ll help you find your family. Offroad or military, there is so much love. Mike tells a great story and the history of Mag7 – real and embellished. It’s a great listen, be sure to tune in on your favorite podcast app.
4:43 – I decided I needed something that was a little more comfortable to drive, so I moved up to a class 9
9:29 – What I love about this offroad community is my family, my earned family
15:40 – there is the truth, and then there is the embellishments of the truth
25:05 – The logistics is what makes us successful
34:13 – I look at what we do in Mag7; it’s almost like a special forces organization, they’re self-selecting in what they do
47:48 – I’m absolutely convinced that we lose 22 vets a day to suicide because they’ve lost a sense of purpose and they’ve lost that military family
53:29 – people don’t know that Bruce Meyers was a real hero in World War II
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
If you’re a military vet, look up Admiral Mike with Mag7 and WarFighter Made, you’ll likely find him in Baja; he’ll help you find your family. Offroad or military, there is so much love. Mike tells a great story and the history of Mag7 – real and embellished. It’s a great listen, be sure to tune in on your favorite podcast app.
4:43 – I decided I needed something that was a little more comfortable to drive, so I moved up to a class 9
9:29 – What I love about this offroad community is my family, my earned family
15:40 – there is the truth, and then there is the embellishments of the truth
25:05 – The logistics is what makes us successful
34:13 – I look at what we do in Mag7; it’s almost like a special forces organization, they’re self-selecting in what they do
47:48 – I’m absolutely convinced that we lose 22 vets a day to suicide because they’ve lost a sense of purpose and they’ve lost that military family
53:29 – people don’t know that Bruce Meyers was a real hero in World War II
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
[00:00:00.980]
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 in 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.
[00:00:46.150]
Whether you're crawling the Red Rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability. Four wheels or two. Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis tires deliver. Choose Maxxis. Tread Victoriously.
[00:01:13.000]
Have you seen 4Low Magazine yet? 4Low Magazine is a high quality, well written, 4WD 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.
[00:01:40.200] - Big Rich Klein
On today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I am going to be interviewing Mike Shatynski. Mike is the Secretary of the Board of Directors for MAG7 Pit Services. We're going to talk about MAG7, which was founded in 1967. It's a band of brothers and sisters united by their love of offroad racing, Baja and each other. We'll go into the whole aspect of their 501 and how the pits work and all that stuff and the history. But first, we're going to talk to Mike about his history and how he got involved with MAG7. Mike, thank you so much for spending some time and agreeing to come and talk to me.
[00:02:27.590] - Mike Shatynski
Rich, it's great to talk to you about this. I just love offroad racing and my offroad family and getting a chance to talk about my family. It's exciting.
[00:02:39.180] - Big Rich Klein
Excellent. Let's start off with talking about you and where did you grow up and a little bit about your background schooling and then that stuff?
[00:02:50.180] - Mike Shatynski
Well, I grew up in Los Angeles, and I've always had offroading and driving out in the desert in my heart, I started going out in the desert when I was in high school. I went to Loyala high school in downtown LA. I graduated and then went to the Naval Academy for four years and then spent eight years on active duty. And after that, I went into the reserves and spent 25 years in the reserves and ultimately retired as a two- star Navy Admiral. I was a ship driver in the Navy. Nothing to do with vehicles, although I did everything from small fast boats with automatic weapons, patrol boats to battleships and spent a lot of time on land and the Coast, especially as a Reservist. I wasn't a driver. I did spend some time in the desert, but I wasn't a driver of land vehicles. But anyway, going back to my background, when I graduated from the Naval Academy and bought my first vehicle, I bought a Toyota 4x4 pickup truck. My introduction to offroad racing was when I went down to Baja to do some exploring and I was on a drive to Mike's Sky Ranch and couldn't understand why all these vehicles kept going by me really fast in the wrong direction.
[00:04:03.730] - Mike Shatynski
Turns out I was heading to Mike's Sky Ranch on a prerun weekend before a Baja 500, and I was the knucklehead going the wrong way. But I had always heard about the Mexican 1,000, the Baja 1,000, and things down there. And that's what got me south of the border and offroading. And once I saw that happen, and that was in the very early 80s, I decided I wanted to go racing and built a Class 11 bug and did my first offroad race in a Score Baja 500 in 1985.
[00:04:36.750] - Big Rich Klein
In a.
[00:04:37.030] - Mike Shatynski
Class 11? Involved ever since. Class 11. It was pretty much a stock Volkswagen back in.
[00:04:41.910] - Big Rich Klein
That day. The kidney busters.
[00:04:43.750] - Mike Shatynski
Oh, my goodness. I only did three of those, two Baja 500s and a Baja 1,000. I made it halfway through all three of those in '85 and '86. And I decided I needed to do something, to drive in something that was a little easier to maintain and a little more comfortable. I moved up to class nine, which...
[00:05:03.370] - Big Rich Klein
Something more comfortable, really? Exactly. All you did was stretch the wheelbase a little bit.
[00:05:10.040] - Mike Shatynski
Right. I got a whole six inches of travel in the front and up to nine in the rear, depending on how I set it up. But I've loved it since then. And a bit more about my background, besides the Navy background. I had a real job in the civilian world. After I got out, I ended up going to work for the Los Angeles County Sanitation district. I was a Civil Engineering Master's from Loyal and Merrimount University. I have a mechanical engineer license based on my undergraduate degree from the Naval Academy and my work in the Navy. But I worked in energy recovery at the sanitation districts and ended up retiring from there.
[00:05:49.020] - Big Rich Klein
Wait, I have to ask, the Sanitation Department, and you said it was Energy Recovery?
[00:05:58.950] - Mike Shatynski
Yes. It was actually not the Sanitation Department, it was the Los Angeles County Sanitation district. We do sewage and garbage in the Greater Los Angeles area, but not the city of Los Angeles. But believe it or not, the LA County Sanitation Districts are the 10th largest energy producer in the state of California, and all that energy is made from typically methane gas or raw garbage. The methane gas which comes off of landfills with decomposing garbage or sewage treatment plants decomposing poop. And that's methane gas. It's flammable. And putting that in a boiler or a turbine or whatever is an energy source, and you could make electricity. So I took my Navy experience and education and was able to hire into the brand new renewable energy group at the Sanitation district in the 87, and I worked in the operations side for a decade or so before I moved up to bigger.
[00:07:09.340] - Big Rich Klein
Things at the Sanitation. We can say basically from poop deck to...
[00:07:15.310] - Mike Shatynski
To poop plant.
[00:07:18.550] - Big Rich Klein
There you go. Poop deck to poop plant.
[00:07:21.420] - Mike Shatynski
Well, actually, quite literally, it could have been a poop deck in both organizations. But yeah, it was quite a transition. So who would have thought?
[00:07:35.200] - Big Rich Klein
I always wondered where that term poop deck came from. And then I have a boat that we live on in the wintertime down in Corpus Christi area. And in Port Aranses is where our marina is at. But there's the Lexington is there in Corpus Christi as a Museum. And when I did the tour of the Lexington, the aircraft carrier, we walked out there and it said, Welcome to the poop deck. And literally now I know why they call it the poop deck. The back of the boat. In the old days, before, there were probably toilets on boats or on ships back in the time of the Royal Navy and the early American Navy, that deck area back there was probably the area where they took care of business, you might say.
[00:08:34.400] - Mike Shatynski
Yes, I think we all learn early in life, you don't relieve yourself into the wind. You certainly want to be somewhere Aft where it's not as windy.
[00:08:44.190] - Big Rich Klein
And not off the bow.
[00:08:46.120] - Mike Shatynski
Yeah. It's not good for you or your shipmates.
[00:08:51.020] - Big Rich Klein
Okay. I got a sidetrack there.
[00:08:53.840] - Mike Shatynski
Sorry about that. No worries. I could talk Navy all day, too, and nautical things, too. But we could also get in the discussion as why I was a rear Admiral, as a two star Admiral. A lot of this we can attribute to the British Navy and the customs and traditions and the verbiage that came from there. But yeah, we're we inherited it, we inherited it. We live it. We may not understand it, but it works.
[00:09:20.350] - Big Rich Klein
Right. And as long as the people that are in it and running it understand it, that's truly the biggest thing.
[00:09:29.140] - Mike Shatynski
I guess. Exactly. It's funny talking to people about Navy or Navy or Navy things versus offroad things. It's almost like we're speaking a different language. It gets back to what I love about this is the offroad community is my family. It's another family for me. I've got my biological family, of course, the chosen part of that biological family, my wife and all that. But the offroad family is one of those earned families, like a military family. And I love that. But we have our own language. We talk all day about Baja'a and whoops and these sorts of things, and people will look at us and wonder, What the hell are we talking about? But it's our family. It's how we talk.
[00:10:11.440] - Big Rich Klein
So true. And the language changes with each designated family.
[00:10:20.480] - Mike Shatynski
It does. We could be speaking Martian as far as some people are concerned.
[00:10:26.430] - Big Rich Klein
So back to your background with the Sanitation Department. Districts. Districts. There you go. And you were racing and then working there. Go ahead and take off from there.
[00:10:46.070] - Mike Shatynski
Well, okay. So at 1987, I left active duty and I had raced in those first three races as a... When I was in the military, I actually had a shore base job and it gave me the time to go race. I realized if I was going to put all the work into going racing, I would just assume racing something that was worth the effort for the time. So I figured, well, there's nothing longer or more involved than a Baja 1000 or a Baja 500. Back then, I guess it was called the Baja... I remember it being called the Baja International because of that transition between NORRA and Score. But so I might as well race in those. I, of course, loved going to Baja too. So that just was the icing on the cake. So did those three races and then got out of the Navy, stayed in the reserves, which was been a big part of my life for 25 years after that. And the Sanitation district was very understanding about me making that commitment and doing the things that the Navy and the country asked me to do over the years. But my deal with my wife and family was that, Well, I love doing this.
[00:11:55.720] - Mike Shatynski
I want to keep doing the offroad racing part of it. So I would race once a year in a Baja 500 or a Baja 1,000. When the Nora Races came up, I started doing the... I did the 2010 Nora Mexican 1,000 and just have fallen in love with that series also. But I just kept it in my life and I've raced other than when other things in my life took me away from it. And there was a period of time run just before and after 911 where I really didn't do a lot of offroading and offroad racing because I was busy doing other things on service in my country. But I pretty much have been down there either in Baja, either racing or chasing or pitting since then. I've been a part of a pit organization since the 80s when I joined a group called the Chappala Dusters and did a quick transition to FAIR. Another one called the First Associates of Independent Racers or FAIR for a couple of years and then ended up in MAG7, Magnificent 7 Race team over the years. The offroad community, whether it's racing or pitting, has been something that's been a big part of my life and a really enjoyable part of my life and a fulfilling part of my life for, gosh, I guess, since the mid 80s.
[00:13:20.220] - Mike Shatynski
So four decades, four decades plus.
[00:13:24.190] - Big Rich Klein
Wow, that's awesome. So then let's talk about... Let's drop into MAG7 a bit. And like you said, it was founded in 1967. Do you know who those founding members were?
[00:13:42.050] - Mike Shatynski
I don't have the names in front of me, and there are a few of them alive and I would like to get them interviewed and somehow figure out how to do that. They're in their 90s right now. There's one very active member, Jerry Kruckheimer. Got to get the name right. And he's local and quite active still when he can. But I'm going to get the name right. Give me a second here. No worries. Jerry McMurray, not crash Kruckmeier. We lost him recently. But anyway, some of them are still somewhat active in Los Anciones Motorcycle Club, by the way. It's another small nonprofit organization that races once a year. It's really they go back to the roots of our offroad racing also.
[00:14:56.270] - Big Rich Klein
A question here. You mentioned the name Magnificent 7, which I understand was taken from the movie that Steve McQueen did with Yul Brenner and a number of other stars about Mexico and the Americans or a group of individuals going down there and saving a village. That's what Magnificent 7, the movie was about based off of a Japanese movie, The Seven Samurai. And there's others that have done the same thing, a genre. Is that correct? Is that how you know how the name came about?
[00:15:40.870] - Mike Shatynski
That is true. And there is the truth, and there is the embellishments of the truth, or the things that we hear that we don't know are true. And I'm trying to compile the history right now and interview some of these aging members to get the details, and I'm working on it. It's a work in progress, and I'm starting to post pictures and things on the Ormhoff website. But going back to the origins of the name, yes, even Steve McQueen was a member of MAG7 back in the day, and we have a picture of the Baja boot with a MAG7 race team logo on the side of it. Painted in gold paint actually fills the bottom panel of the Baja boot in its day, which is pretty cool to see. The legend part of it is that the original 7 and MAG7 were all stunt men from Hollywood. And I've confirmed that that's not true, that all seven were not stunt men in Hollywood, but they were all trying to get pioneers and the sport guys that loved going down and doing this and decided to formalize the organization in later years. We didn't actually become a nonprofit until a decade and a half ago.
[00:16:59.100] - Mike Shatynski
But before that, we were more... I'm not even sure what our formal designation was, but we didn't have the actual nonprofit designation until about just after about 2000.
[00:17:11.550] - Big Rich Klein
Okay, excellent. And with about how many members are there now? I know it's probably a hard pressed number, but say how many active members are there now? Or maybe a better question is, say for a Baja 1,000, not a loop race, but a point to point, how many pits and how many people in each approximately in each pit crew? That gets us a close number, right?
[00:17:44.270] - Mike Shatynski
Yes. We have around 40 active members that participate in meetings and such. Our board of directors meets monthly, and we have members' meetings at a minimum of once a year, but usually more often. There are about 250 people that are regularly associated with us that go down and they're not formally members. They're not dues paying members, but go down and wear the T shirts and are part of the organization as a candidate member, formally for our charter and bylaws. They're members while they're down there. They may someday become a member if they want to and actively participate. So there's about 250 people that routinely go down that are on the call list. And as time tied information permits, they'll come down and participate in the races. And then we get new people that cycle in just to do it. I bring vets down to my pits, and I'm going to answer your question about how many people are in a pit in a moment, but when I go to a pit, I will typically take three or four people with me as a minimum for the pit, and sometimes as many as eight or 10, depending on what we're doing and where we're going.
[00:19:14.340] - Mike Shatynski
And the minimum, I would say, is... And some of those vets, by the way, may come down as just a bucket list thing. I've actually had a couple from Canada that's come down for three races to do the Baja 1000 with me because they like spending time in Baja in the winter. So they'll come down with me and pit for the November Baja 1000 and stay around for a while. So it's a mix of the hardcore members, and many of them are pit captains, and that's about 40. Then the others that will show up periodically, once or twice a year, maybe, and just work in the pits. And then finally, the people that show up and want to do a bucket list thing or find out whether this is something they really want to be involved in for the long term. So pit could be as few as three or four people, depending on where you are and what you're doing, and it could be as many as eight or 10. And it just depends on the race and how busy you're going to be as t's how many people you pull out. I like to do the very remote pits, which means that I'm limited to two trucks and a small trailer to get all the fuel and stuff out there.
[00:20:26.200] - Mike Shatynski
And that limits the people I take to 4 to 6. And with four people, you can be very busy. You will typically be up all night working on... The races are never daylight races. Usually, they extend into the night. So for the long course desert races. So we'll pretty much be up all night. And we've just got a nice rhythm where one of us at my right-hand man, a guy named Kurtis Wagner, who's been going down with me doing pits for just about as long as I've been doing pits, he loves to cook in the desert, so he'll cook us breakfast, lunch, dinner, an evening thing around midnight in the Navy, we would call that MidR ats, and just keeps us fed and happy. And then we'll take naps as we can to keep going. But we're there to support the racers and have fun and be part of it. And it's just part of what you do.
[00:21:20.910] - Big Rich Klein
What would you say is the minimum age, the youngest?
[00:21:29.150] - Mike Shatynski
There are folks that are doing this, that have been doing this since they were kids and they went down with their parents. Our equipment director right now, Brian Walsh, his dad was one of the early MAG 7 members. He's not MAG 7 number 1 through 7, but he's probably MAG 7 number 15 or something like that. His dad took him and his brother down when they were kids and they would help in the pits, not doing the more difficult things like dumping fuel and what have you, but they would be part of what was going on. And they're still doing it today. Brian and Kevin Walsh. Typically, though, if somebody's too young... The pit captains will make the call about who does what in the pit. They're the most experienced individuals in our organization, and all of our pit captains have been doing this for a long time and have done a lot of races. But for me, if somebody's a minor, I'm not going to have them in the active working pit area. They can be on the outskirts and they can do things to support us. It just depends on the chat. It's certainly not going to be anything that's inherently dangerous.
[00:22:43.620] - Mike Shatynski
Of course, mom and dad would be alone, too. Somebody that's a minor is not coming down without mom or dad. I would actively discourage anybody from bringing... I will not bring anybody down that's not certainly in high school or older and with mom and dad.
[00:23:04.620] - Big Rich Klein
Fair enough. I completely understand that. My first time to a Baja 1,000 was working with BFG Pits. My son and I went down, and it was 2003 when they were filming Dust to Glory. Oh, boy. And that was quite an experience. The amount of time we were up, but really regimented. I understand why. At first, I didn't grasp the whole regimentation until I saw the whole thing in operation, especially with the way BFG does things. It's almost like an invasion, I guess. Because with all the different people that are coming down there with the semi trucks and what it takes to get those things through, and then the backup trucks or the box trucks like I drove that are full of tires or empty fuel cans from different teams. Then having to mix them all up in the truck so that you didn't have full sets of tires or everything all together. When you got stopped at the checkpoints, it was quite the operation. Now I know why they were so regimented because they had so many people going down under that corporate umbrella. It's a lot different than going down as a spectator with just a couple of friends.
[00:24:49.240] - Big Rich Klein
I don't know how tight you guys run the ship, but I would imagine it's probably not the same as having big semi trucks going down. But you guys have been doing it for a long time, so I'm sure there's some organization involved.
[00:25:05.530] - Mike Shatynski
Absolutely. I take great pleasure in that. There's a couple of things I learned in the military. Between every one person out on the front line. There's nine people behind them in the US military. The logistics is what makes us successful. If you don't have your logistics right, you're just not going to be successful as an American warrior. And this, in a sense, you use the term invasion, but it's pretty much like an expeditionary event in the military, where whether it's BFG at the scale, they do things. We're not that scale, but you would be probably really pleasantly surprised to see how we do things. It's just as organized and we have all the capabilities, but at a smaller level, we won't break a tire with a machine. We'll have to do it the old fashioned way. And if we have to change a tire for you or patch a tire. And it is way easier with a motorcycle as compared to a buggy, but we do those sorts of things. So when I go down, I'll give you an example. My ideal is a very remote pit, something that would require offroading to get to. Just because if I'm going to go down there, I want to do something that's really a great experience.
[00:26:24.270] - Mike Shatynski
But I'll take my 4WD F 250 and I'll have a small single axel trailer that's an offroad trailer. I have generator, lights, battery powered tools, air tools, enough fuel. I've taken down up to 12 drums of fuel out into the middle of nowhere. It's quite an expedition. But we get down there and we find the location that's the right location. It's a lot easier now that we have satellite views of things. The race promoters now give you Google Maps, for example, or Google Earth maps that we can actually fly the course and pick our pit locations better. Sometimes we'll even have free runners come back and say, Hey, this is the great spot where you should be over here. It looks like the place to be. But we get out there, we find the right spot, make sure we're going to be upwind from the race course. We don't need dust all night. Set up our truck, our trailers, set up our cone, set up our signs, set up the lights in the generator, get everything staged. We do things when we set up pits, place the fuel cans on the inlet side of the pit.
[00:27:38.230] - Mike Shatynski
So if somebody blows the turn coming into the pit and comes in too hot, they won't run into a bunch of fuel cans. Maybe place the tires on the outlet side, even though it doesn't make the most sense, but on the outlet side. So it's a little bit of a safety barrier also. But we'll have them staged over there and stage a generator. Oh, gosh. 20 yards away, 30 yards away. So there's less noise, less chance of fumes and things bothering us. And then set up our easy ups and such and get ourselves staged and ready to go for the race to start. And really, probably the number one thing we do when we get out to these locations in the middle of nowhere is get radio comms up. We always set up a... In the day, it used to be a Ringo range or antenna, these big long range antennas, and put it on the top of a of a 15, 20 foot pole so we can reach the weatherman up on the mountain and be able to talk through the race. And I think that's one of the things I've always taken great pride at, and all my bank, seven brothers and sisters who are pit captains is that we tend to be the ones on the weatherman frequency that the weatherman can talk to you to get statuses, and we can give statuses and be truly integrated in what's going on.
[00:28:56.130] - Mike Shatynski
Even though we're out in the middle of nowhere, we have a situational awareness and are able to figure things out. It is a little different now with satellite communications and all that. The last few times I've been out there, it's been crucial to be up on the Garmin Reach or the Zillow and be texting with the weatherman instead of doing radio comms or supplementing the radio comms with that because plenty of racers still use radios. And for the racers.
[00:29:28.360] - Big Rich Klein
Radios.
[00:29:29.420] - Mike Shatynski
Can be... It's the way you communicate out in the middle of nowhere, especially for the less well funded teams. Anyway, that's a snapshot of how we do it. It's very much like the BFG pits, but only on a much smaller magnitude and smaller. But we get it done and have fun doing it. And we've been doing it safely also for all these years, too, which I think is a really important part about what we do.
[00:30:00.270] - Big Rich Klein
Absolutely. And safety down there is very, very important. I've seen just some horrific things happen down there before the races, during the races, and unfortunately, after the races. I just wish more people would... The thing that Baja Bob Bauer wrote, Don't Let It Be You type thing, that should be in everybody's pit book before they head to Mexico. Well, believe.
[00:30:42.280] - Mike Shatynski
It or not, that is in most of the pit books we put together without will end up being in there. And it certainly is in the race books I put together for the teams I race with nowadays, which are mostly veterans. We're talking about Mag7 right now, but I do race and even get in the vehicle and drive a bit every now and then. But it's all about racing with veterans and getting them out there to be part of this family since they typically are missing their military family, sometimes really missing their military family. So yeah, it's dangerous. I think that's part of the appeal of it, though, too, is that as much as I used to go down to Baja and think to myself, Oh, it's not going to be the same. And in 10 years, it's going to be different. In 20 years, it'll be different. It still has that Wild West flavor where you really are out on an edge and doing something that's really extraordinarily difficult. And you have to do it right. That's on a personal level. That's what I found so rewarding about this is if it was easy, anybody would be doing it.
[00:31:47.980] - Mike Shatynski
But going out there and doing it and then doing it well, that's really rewarding. I find that really rewarding.
[00:31:53.510] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah, I associate it with Baja Mexico dogs. And what I mean by that is that you see old Mexico Baja dogs are extremely intelligent. They'll walk out to the edge of the road. They look both directions, they know they may get hit. The young dogs go, the stupid ones, I guess you could call them, go screaming across the roads and have no care in the world.
[00:32:38.000] - Mike Shatynski
The.
[00:32:39.130] - Big Rich Klein
Old dogs are the ones that are the smartest. They figured it out. And I think that the same thing happens in Mexico. In Baja is you get people going down there, and the people that have been there over and over and over and over and over have the smarts. They know what to... You're never complacent. Your head's always on a swivel. You're always looking out for yourself and those with you because it is still the Wild West compared to the United States. So you need to be that way. The ones that run around and aren't paying attention are the ones that end up... Something unfortunate happens to them, whether it's... We had a kid with us one time go and try to get money out of an ATM, and he got swindled and lost all of his money, and we had warned him, but he didn't listen. He didn't pay attention. He didn't do it the right way. And we warned him. We warned him. And he came back and he was all upset. And it was like, Okay, well, we'll make sure that you can get home and stuff. But he never came back down again.
[00:34:04.040] - Big Rich Klein
And I bet that he's telling everybody, Man, I would never go back there. Be careful, where the rest of us are like, We can't wait to go back.
[00:34:13.140] - Mike Shatynski
Right. I look at what we do in MAG7, in profferate racing in general, it's almost like a special forces organization that they tend to be very... They're self selecting in what they do. You have to not only decide to do it and be able to get yourself persist and make the qualification for that special forces organization, but the special forces members themselves are part of the screening process to make sure you're really the right fit for what you do. So the story you just gave about the young man that went down and just deselected himself from the process, on the flip side, too, when I take somebody down to pit with me, they've got to make the cut where they want to go down, and it means a lot to them, and they're going to have to prep appropriately. But when they get down there, if they'd rather sit around and talk and then work on a vehicle when we've got all this activity going on in the pit, then they're probably not the right fit to keep coming down with us. We gave them a shot and tried out, and they just didn't quite make the cut.
[00:35:18.530] - Mike Shatynski
So Mag 7 is quite a... There aren't a lot of things in life that are like that anymore either, I don't think. Life can be pretty benign if you just want to stay home and live a normal life. But it's like when I go down and especially down to Baja to go racing. We're doing something different and exciting and difficult. And it's really not for everybody. And whether they realize it or not, it's just not for everybody. And certainly to do well at it, too, is something that's even more difficult. Right.
[00:35:57.300] - Big Rich Klein
It's not for those that are used to participation trophies.
[00:36:01.220] - Mike Shatynski
Yes, exactly. Well, I've always loved when I raced class nine, it was in the heyday of class nine, which was the one from being called the Challenger class to class nine. And we would end up with 20 or more vehicles in class nine buggies. And that for those that don't know, Class Nine was really pretty much a stock Volkswagen. It was stock Volkswagen components put on a Volkswagen wheelbase frame. And it was not the best components. It was a ball joint front end, not a kingpin front end, and a swing arm rear end, not an IRS rear end. If you wanted to do that, you'd step up to 1, 2, 6, 8 hundred and you could have better things to race in. It was very much an equalizer class. You ran with a stock motor. It could be built to a degree, but you ran with a stock motor and you ran with the built transmission, but it was only a swing arm transmission. There's only so many things you can do. You could use stock components to build it. So it was very much an everyman class. It was moderately affordable and everybody ran with relatively the same vehicle.
[00:37:10.480] - Mike Shatynski
But to do well in it, it just really, to me, figuring out how to do well in it was a challenge. And me and I think all the other people that were a little more experienced at class, I loved having a big class, but honestly, half the people out there had never done it before and really weren't quite prepared to do it. But at least they were figuring out that they made the effort to get out there trying to find out if this was right for them. And they actually did give it a shot. They may not come back. And some of them came back and kept doing really, really well at it. But I love that about Baja from a racing perspective. Today, by the way, I think the UTV class is the new every man class. There's different levels of UTV racing, but it's really cool to see people finding something that's affordable that they can take out and then go racing and they can be part of this adventure. And heck, a third of the entries for the upcoming Baja 500 are UTVs. And it's pretty typical of the races that I'm seeing now is from a mag 7 perspective, about a third of the racers, whether it's the Minn 400 or the Skor Races or the Nora Races.
[00:38:18.270] - Mike Shatynski
It's UTVs that are out there in there. That's the future of racing. That's the future of desert racing. It is.
[00:38:24.440] - Big Rich Klein
Because where else can somebody go buy a potential race car on terms and get a bank loan for it? Yes.
[00:38:33.830] - Mike Shatynski
It's crazy. Not that that's the best way to do things on credit cards, but we can do that now. We can do that now. Then you can find out whether it's really right for you. Just getting out there and giving it a shot. We're shifting our focus in MAG7 too. Back to pit organizations. When I joined Chappala Dusters, and that would have been the late 80s. These different pit organizations were out there, and there were a dozen or so. They had personalities. And I shopped around to find one that was right for me. And Chappala Dusters was very much Volkswagen based, buggy oriented. Part of the buy in to join the club was that you had to donate to the club a front and a rear wheel, five lug wheel that would fit a Volkswagen style vehicle. So most of us were 12 cars, 10 cars, nine cars, 1, 2, 6, 8 hundred vehicles, Baja Bugs. So we had a lot in common. We knew that if we went to a pit that was by that organization, it probably was manned by people that raced and worked on vehicles like the ones we're in. Every pit, it would have a handful of Volkswagen based wheels in it, and you need to work on your vehicle if you pulled in if you had a Volkswagen based vehicle.
[00:39:59.760] - Mike Shatynski
So they all had personalities and they've slowly all died away over the years. And honestly, the only one that's left now of the original groups are us and MAG7. The only ones are actively out there. I know Checkers is still alive and they go out and support some of their own vehicles. Every one for some of the races. If a Checker race, I know they show up and do it. But we're really the last one that's out there and really doing it for the love of doing it. We are a 501 nonprofit and we're all volunteers and nobody gets paid. And if anybody gives us money to be out there doing it for MAG7, number one, they're joining as an associate member because we support members and other MAG7 members. But number two is that all that money goes to making this work for them. As much as I love it, I do appreciate that I'm getting money for gas and so I can get out there in the middle of nowhere and some money to support the people I'm taking out to buy them food and water and such. So the money all goes back into the club, even to the point where we have gear that our pit captains can check out.
[00:41:15.010] - Mike Shatynski
Full pit sets of gear and they don't have to have all their own gear and keep it in a garage or something, they can check it out of our warehouse, which is an RV trailer in somebody's yard, but we call it our warehouse. We've got pit sets of gear that our pit captains can use in their pits. So it's part of what we do as a club. I guess I would give you a parallel. We're a 501 fraternal organization, which is a lot like the other brotherhood sisterhoods you'll see out there, like the Shriners or the.
[00:41:49.810] - Big Rich Klein
Elks, the Lions.
[00:41:51.050] - Mike Shatynski
The Elks, the Lions. Except I guess compared to the Shriners, we don't put on funny little Fez hats and drive little put go cars and parades. We like to go out in the middle of nowhere in the desert and stay up all night and wrench on vehicles and dump gas and things like that. So we have our own odd thing that we do, and a lot of people wouldn't understand that. But that's really, formally, what we are. We're a 501 fraternal organization, per the IRS Code. Right.
[00:42:18.660] - Big Rich Klein
And the funds that come in are from racer fees to be part of the pits? I know anybody can just pull in, but to take down fuel and fuel people and that thing, they become associate members to do that? Yeah.
[00:42:41.560] - Mike Shatynski
We offer people two levels of membership or two levels of service, we'll say, after they join and they want to go racing with us. One is emergency service, which just means we're there for you. If you're the Ironman motorcyclist and you're trying to finish it, you know that you're going to pull into our pit and we'll have water, a place for you to sit in a chair, food, and you can fuel yourself as you're moving down the course, or you're in a fourwheeled vehicle and you need to get fixed. We also carry spare parts in our boxes. We have standard loadouts for spare parts boxes, which includes motorcycle tubes and tools to change fixed motorcycle tires. But for a fourwheeled vehicle, if you need to pull in and get some water, or if you need something fixed, we have welders and the lights to use to work on your vehicle in the middle of the night and at least get you to the next stop. We aren't going to necessarily be able to fix you to get you to the end of the race. We can certainly try, but we're going to... Even if it takes us a come along, a strap and a block of wood, we're going to get you back together so you can get to the highway and get some help there.
[00:43:54.820] - Mike Shatynski
Right. Yeah. So two levels of service are emergency service and then full service, we're going to haul fuel out there and be there for you for fueling. And typically the charge has been for the racers about a dollar per mile for the race to provide the service. And if it's emergency service, it's about half that. That isn't enough to really let us do what we do. If you do the math and you look at the amount of people that sign up, sponsorship is huge. And we haven't been doing a really good job of selling ourselves to sponsors, honestly. And we're going to be doing better at that here in the future. We do have a new website. If anybody wants to learn more about us, it's actually pretty nice website. It's mag7desertpitservices. Org. That. Org means we're a nonprofit, not a business. Com. So mag7desertpitservices. Org. And there's a little bit of our history there, a bit about what we do for racers, a bit about what we can do for sponsors, how to become a sponsor, and then the members aspect also.
[00:45:11.290] - Big Rich Klein
Excellent. What do you think the primary drive? Is it the love of Baja? Is it the family aspect of being in an organization with a lot of like minded people? What do you think is the big drive for people that are involved with MagS tuff? It.
[00:45:30.860] - Mike Shatynski
Is a fraternal organization. It's a social club in a sense. We've always called ourselves a brotherhood. And honestly, we've always had women involved. And we now talk about ourselves as being brothers and sisters, and rather than just the generic term brotherhood. But it is a number of things. It's the love of Baja, because you don't keep going back to Baja unless you love doing it. And whether it's that Wild West sense of things or the challenge of getting things done in an environment like that. Why do bunny rabbits run across the road in front of vehicles with headlights in the middle of the night? I don't know. Why do we go down to Baja and do these incredibly difficult things? I can't explain it, but there's something in me that causes that. You don't want to go do that. And a lot of people like me don't want to go do that. So that's part of it. But really, it's that family part, I think, that makes it more important, most important for us. You don't do these things alone, whether you're race or chase or do a pit down in Baja. You don't do it alone.
[00:46:36.900] - Mike Shatynski
In the military side of what I do, I very much have looked at the Navy as my family. My wife will kid at me and say, That other woman, I'm married to the US Navy. You earn family in the Navy or in the military, and it's just different. It's not like your biological family. You earn it and you may You may very much dislike that person that's next to you in that foxhole or on that ship in the bunk next to you on the ship. But bottom line is that's a person that you're going to give your life for if you need to be. It's just the way it is. And you know that they're going to do the same thing. You just have to have that trust in them. And you train together and you just know you're all good at it and you're going to do well together. And it's that same feeling, that same sense that I get in the military of family I have in the offroad community. This is an aside to this, but I'm very actively involved in a number of nonprofits. I'm chairman of the board of the Battleship Iowa Museum up in Los Angeles, and I'm chairman of a small nonprofit called War Fighter Made in Temecula.
[00:47:48.900] - Mike Shatynski
But both of them have a very strong veteran support component. I'm absolutely convinced that we lose 22 vets a day to suicide because they've lost a sense of purpose and they've lost that military family. And as much as we all, most of us have a good biological family and a good family here in the States, the traditional family that we've got, that earned family is an incredibly powerful family. And one of the things I push very much so with the veteran organizations I'm involved in is that I want them to find that other family, that family to replace the military family, to give them somewhere to go so they don't go into that dark place where they don't feel they have a purpose or a family that loves them enough that they're not contributing back to a family. And I found that the offroad family is very welcoming and very loving. Even the MAG7 component, we talked about how the MAG7 provides a type of service, emergency service, and full service and so on. But the reality of it is that you're never going to turn somebody down that pulls into a pit. It doesn't matter whether you're a member or not.
[00:49:05.780] - Mike Shatynski
We're going to get you through. And any of us that have been down to Baja and done desert racing, when you come across an accident, you stop and you help people. You don't drive on. You get people to make sure they're safe. You get them right and you get them ready to go, and then you can take care of yourself. And that's very much a family thing. That's very much a loving thing to do, something like that. I could tell story after story. I know you can, too. But from a veteran perspective, to get veterans like the ones that war fighter made out and get them racing or chasing, or pitting is something that I think makes a difference in their lives. I mentioned earlier, I take veterans down to do my pits with me. I always bring one or two new ones down there and one or two that have been there before when I do pits. So they get that experience and they can be part of my offroad family. Many of them just keep coming back and love doing it like I do and others not. There's other things. Offroad racing and offroading is not for everybody.
[00:50:16.170] - Mike Shatynski
Very true. But it's very important to guys like you and me. And everybody.
[00:50:23.230] - Big Rich Klein
Listening to this. Although I do have to say that I was really surprised. My son was down in Cabo, and they were checking into their timeshare at this hotel. And the guy that was doing the... Oh, helping people book tours and stuff like that was standing off to the side of the reception desk. And when my son said his name, the guy looked over and he goes, Are you Big Rich? And my son was like, No, I'm his son. I'm a little rich. He goes, Oh, you're a little rich. He goes, All my friends, we always listen to his podcast. And my son was just blown away. I was, too, when he told me that. I don't know their names, but if you guys are listening to this podcast, I'm giving a shout out to my Cabo friends down there that enjoy listening to the podcast. Anyway, it's amazing what happens.
[00:51:34.240] - Mike Shatynski
My offroad nickname has become Admiral Mike because of that Navy tie and the veteran tie that I'm doing. I got to make a shout out. And by the way, for all you offroad racers that are veterans, I love you being out here as part of my offroad family and for all of you in the offroad world that have welcomed us into your family and made us feel like we're home and loved and back. I can't thank you enough for that because it makes a difference. Can I take a second to talk about the veteran aspect of our sport? Absolutely.
[00:52:11.250] - Big Rich Klein
Yeah.
[00:52:13.700] - Mike Shatynski
One of the things that struck me over the years is once I started learning more about my MAG7 brothers and sisters, about half of the active members are veterans. And a lot of the people that come out and support us are veterans also. And I didn't know until I started digging deeper into the history of our sport, part of it was me trying to compile the history of MAG 7, is that we have such a strong root in our veterans. We wouldn't be doing what we're doing if the veterans on those small islands in the South Pacific didn't take the Jeeps and go racing them around those islands and come back to the US and start playing with them in the deserts here in Southern California and then doing more, going out and exploring the deserts and going down to Baja and exploring the deserts. There's some names in our offroad family that are founders that we all look up to, like Bruce Meyers and Jim Kirby and Bill Strauss, that were veterans that served in World War II or the Korean War, and brought that love of mechanics and vehicles and stuff back here to the States and gave us what we have today.
[00:53:29.570] - Mike Shatynski
People don't know that Bruce Meyers, he was a real hero in World War II. He was a sailor on board the USS Bunker Hill, a small aircraft carrier that was hit by a Kamikaze off of Japan later in the war. And he was a lifeguard before he went into the Navy. When his ship was sinking and they had to abandon ship, he gave his life jackets to other sailors. And once he got them, he helped them jump off the ship. Once they got in the water, he got them together and made sure they stayed safe until they were picked up. And beyond that, once they got to safety on a destroyer, turns out his ship didn't sink, they needed volunteers to go back on board. And he volunteered or got volunteered to go back on board and ended up restoring the ship to bring it back to the state so it could be repaired and go back into the fight. And the same... And again, the list goes on. I gave you a couple of other names earlier, but Bruce was really a war hero in World War II, and then came back and did so much for our offroad family to get us going.
[00:54:38.730] - Mike Shatynski
Not just inventing the Meyer's Manx, but racing in those early races and making the sport affordable and fun for all of us so we can go out and keep doing it. Right.
[00:54:50.300] - Big Rich Klein
That's awesome. What do you see as the future if you had a crystal ball? What do you think you'd be seeing?
[00:54:59.900] - Mike Shatynski
Gosh, I.
[00:55:01.860] - Big Rich Klein
Had a really.
[00:55:03.690] - Mike Shatynski
Fun interaction with one of the veterans that was down with me for the Nora Mexican 1,000. We just got back a few weeks ago, and of course now we're rolling into the Baja 500. But Meigs have been supported the Nora Mexican 1,000. We did 10 pits down the length of the Peninsula and supported over 100 of the vehicles that signed up and raced with us for fuel or emergency service. Actually, everybody was emergency service for that race and about 100 or so signed up for fuel. So it's a really busy and a really intense race. I love that race because it's like a family reunion and taking veterans down to go race in it is just an extraordinary experience because they start to get that family experience early on. So I was down there with a team of racers for the nonprofit War Fighter Made. We were racing what's called a Cuck V. It's a civilian utility cargo vehicle, which was the 1980s Blazer, basically. Chevy Blazer that was painted green and stripped down and used by the military to transport things. It had an M designation. It was called a CUCV. That was donated to us by some guys that had pulled it out of defense salvage and had run two of these for a number of years down in the Norway.
[00:56:27.760] - Mike Shatynski
They gave it to us last Mexican, 1,000. We worked on it, restored it, and we took it down ourselves and raced it. So we're having an eventful race, but I'm sitting in Beheedah, Los Angeles with the founder of War Fighter Made. His name is Rob Blanton. He's a retired Force 3 Con Marine Master Sergeant, Silver Star recipient, Suicide survivor. And he's one of our two primary drivers for this race. And the other driver is a medically retired Sergeant Danny Nivola. I'm sitting with them in Beatt, Los Angeles. We just had an eventful race. And of course, we're starting at the back of the pack, so we have time to have breakfast or in a little hotel right on the Bay Front in Beatt, Los Angeles. My back's to the Bay and Rob's sitting across from me at the table and the table empties and everybody's starting to get ready to get the vehicle down to the start line for day three out of Beatt, Los Angeles. That rally style race. And my friend, Kurtis Wagner, who typically goes down with me for the magazine pits, is my right-hand. I'm not that he's my right-hand. And then we have a number of people that work with us to get things done.
[00:57:42.610] - Mike Shatynski
Kurt's been my partner forever. He stands up. We've been talking about the way things had been. And Kurt says, Well, it was better 25 years ago, and walks away. And Rob, the table's quiet and everybody starts to leave to go take care of things they needed to do. And Rob looks at me and says, Mike, what did Kurtis mean by that? And I said, Well, you're going to have to ask Kurtis that. I got my opinions why I agree with him. I think things were better 25 years ago versus as much as things are different. They don't change either. It's pretty much the same. I said, Well, why do you ask, Rob? And he said, Well, Mike, I can see myself, the old guy sitting in your chair 25 years from now, and some young guy's going to be sitting in my chair, and I'm going to say something like it was better 25 years ago. I just want to hear what you think, so I can answer properly when I get asked the same question. So that long story I just told you, to me, is what I see for the future. I see younger people stepping up and getting involved.
[00:58:50.780] - Mike Shatynski
So whether they're buying that UTV on their credit card and coming out and racing in the stock, you ask, Would you be really aspirated UTV class or going out pitting or chasing? They're the future of the sport. If they find what we found years ago, that love of the desert and the love of being in our offroad family, and they keep coming out, that MAG 7 will be alive for another 50 years. We celebrated our 50th birthday a few years ago, just like the Nora Mexican 1,000, the Skane Baja 1,000 celebrated their 50th. Mag 7 has been around that long. And I can see us being around 50 years from now. And certainly 25 years from now, there's going to be some old guy sitting at a table in Beirut, Los Angeles, saying it was better 25 years ago, and somebody else is going to say, younger is going to say, What do you mean by that? I can see that happening, and I can see a bright future for offroading and offroad racing and doing this in Baja, despite all the changes that are happening, because as much as things change, they still are very much the same.
[00:59:56.850] - Mike Shatynski
I truly.
[00:59:58.040] - Big Rich Klein
Hope that that is what happens. I don't know. I hate that. I'm glad nobody has asked me what the future is if I was looking at that crystal ball. I have no idea. I must admit that more and more and more, I'm saddened with the way things are going, but I know that eventually things will swing back and become, I don't know, different again, you might say.
[01:00:36.270] - Mike Shatynski
Yeah. As I said earlier, as much as things change, things stay the same. I look at the score races and the Nora races down in Baja and whether you have the score mindset just racing all the way down or it's the Nora mindset where you're doing it more rally style and you actually get transits where you're on the highway for a period of time. Both races, you have to transit. You can't get there from here anymore unless you get on a paved road in Baja because the accessible roads, the trails now are highways or paved roads, and you just have to go on them. So it's all about finding a way to fit what we love into the world, the changing world. If we have to transit on a highway and transit safely and being tracked by satellites now, and then they're going to... Do satellites know if we go off course or we're speeding or something like that? They're keeping us safe and honest, to be honest with you. As much as things change, they're still going to be there and it will still be out racing. I think because there's so much valued over that.
[01:01:43.250] - Mike Shatynski
There's so much love in the offroad community. There's so much excitement about going out and doing what we do in offroad and offroad racing. We're just going to find a way to keep doing it. It's too important to not do it. I also look at things in the bright side. I wouldn't probably have done what I did in the Navy for as long as I did. If I didn't truly believe in my whole heart that I'm there making the world a better place and everybody I'm serving with it, we're there to make the world a better place. And I think that's something that is different about American warriors as compared to a lot of other countries around the world. We serve for a higher calling, a bigger purpose. And I do believe that. And I believe general people are good and we're going to keep moving in a good direction. We'll keep those things we love in our lives like offroading and offroad racing. There you go. I know I'm.
[01:02:34.200] - Big Rich Klein
Going to. With some of my family, same thing. They're involved, so it's important. Mike, I'm going to say thank you so much. I think that was a great segue and transition into a final comment here. Again, I want to say thank you so much for spending the time and talking about your history and MAG7's history. And hopefully, if we can get together again and maybe bring in somebody, like you were saying, some of those guys in their 90s that if they're capable of having a conversation, even in short segments, I would love to try to put something together. I'll work to organize something like that. I know there's three of the original MAG7 members near me here. I live in Oceans in.
[01:03:24.270] - Mike Shatynski
The San Diego area now. I will pay a visit on those three and see if I can work something out. We may have to get creative on how we do it, but I'll try and work something out because I'd love to hear their perspective. We got to document it. When you look at what's happened with our military veterans, and there's been a huge effort to document that history before it's gone, and it really is gone. We don't have a lot of World War II vets left. We don't have a lot of Korean War vets left, and we're quickly losing the Vietnam vets. We really need to document more of our off road history. Which, by the way, thank you for what you're doing for Ormhoff doing these podcasts and helping compile history because we got to remember, honor and remember our history. Can I add one last thing before we go? Absolutely. Yeah. So for those, anybody listening to this, it's a veteran and you feel like you want to be part of the veteran family again or the military family again and keep offroad and maybe keep the offroading and offroad racing part of it in your lives.
[01:04:36.110] - Mike Shatynski
The nonprofit I'm involved in in Temecula is called War Fighter Made. Look us up, contact us by the web, give us a call, send us an email. And we'd love to have you in our family. The motto is adapt, inspire, overcome. And we do spend a lot of our effort, most of our effort, trying to make sure that our more damaged vets can continue to do the things they love. Just because you're missing a leg doesn't mean you can't ride a motorcycle and race in the Minn 400. You just have to find a way to do it differently. So whether it's the psychological damage or the physical damage, or if you're healthy and you don't need any of that and you just want to be part of that family again, we're there for you. Look us up and become part of it. And I'd love to spend some time.
[01:05:30.850] - Big Rich Klein
With you in the desert. Excellent. Perfect. Excellent. Thank you, Mike. Let's try to continue this on with the history. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Have a good bye. Take care. Bye.
[01:05:41.880] - Mike Shatynski
Well, that's another episode of Conversations.
[01:05:44.020] - Big Rich Klein
With Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have, or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. 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.