Traveler, photographer, and storyteller, Chris Collard on Episode 175

ORMHOF inductee Chris Collard, Class of 2015, shares some great storytelling, which is right in his wheelhouse. Who knew  you could go from UPS driver to premier magazine editor and writer?  That’s my favorite part of the story, how Chris gets invited and takes the opportunity to get in the room. So grateful to interview long-time history-makers in the industry. 

Congratulations to Chris Collard, a 2015 inductee into ORMHOF; Chris is why we say; legends live at ORMHOF.org.  Be sure to tune in on your favorite podcast app.

3:00 – surfing or milking goats, which would you do?

9:03 – I worked since I could walk                                

19:54 –The UPS guys were the world sex symbols 

29:14 – I’m on a first-class flight, and Mark Smith was querying me; the finale – damn kid, get off your ass and do it!

32:21 – if you’re going to be a photographer, you better be a writer, too!

39:45 – good storytellers put you in the seat with them

49:22 – The story starts…I remember being in Zambia (be sure to listen to this one!)

53:46 – I’m historically an optimist, but I’ve had some moments…this one time in Morocco (another great story!)

59:06 – I’ll take some morphine for the road

1:07:03 – The runway is like a worm, but don’t worry, the pilots have some vodka before they land

Special thanks to ORMHOF.org for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:05.290] - 

Welcome to conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off road industry. Being involved, like all 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 off road.

[00:00:46.750] - 

This episode of conversations with big rich is brought to you by the off road motorsports hall of fame. The mission of the hall of Fame is to educate and inspire present and future generations of the off road community by celebrating the achievements of those who came before. We invite you to help fulfill the mission of the Off Road Motorsports Hall of Fame. Join, partner or donate today legends live @ormhof.org.

[00:01:14.630] - Big Rich Klein

On today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I get a chance to interview a friend of mine. He's an offroader, an adventurer, photographer, a writer. 2015 Offroad Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Chris Collard. And Chris, it is so good to finally nail you down and get you on the phone for this interview and I want to say thank you so much.

[00:01:39.870] - Chris Collard

Well, I'm just glad to be here. I'm excited to be here. We've been talking about this for quite a while and schedules were always conflicting. Yeah, it's going to be fun.

[00:01:48.920] - Big Rich Klein

You're a busy man traveling all over the world and we're going to get to that. But first, the first question is, where were you born and raised?

[00:01:57.990] - Chris Collard

Well, there's a few different answers.

[00:01:59.790] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:02:00.260] - Chris Collard

Born in Harbor City Hospital in Long Beach, but we moved around a little bit. I'd say that in my younger years. I grew up in North County, san Diego. Place called Solana Beach.

[00:02:13.440] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:02:14.140] - Chris Collard

And loved that. But then ended up we moved up to Northern California, Rocklin outside of Sacramento, just before high school. And I hated it. I'm like, as soon as I'm 18, I'm moving back to the beach. We lived in a tent, actually on a friend's ranch for like three months during a summer. My folks had a little 13 foot trailer. My sister and I lived in a tent while my dad started to build our first house. So, yeah, Southern California, but it was a good place.

[00:02:49.670] - Big Rich Klein

So up until about high school, you said, what was it about Southern California that you love so much? Growing up on the beach, did you know? What was it?

[00:03:00.970] - Chris Collard

Yeah, the beach wasn't bad. I mean, my friends who went to high school, they had surf PE as the first class of the day. So when we moved up on this ranch, I learned how to milk goats. So there were motivations to move back. I never did that.

[00:03:20.430] - Big Rich Klein

Surfing or milking goats.

[00:03:22.770] - Chris Collard

Pretty much, yeah. It was a total AG community back then. Right. But my dad, I mean, going back into the 60s, him and his buddies, they were into cars and then they got into motorcycles and they got into dirt bikes. And so moving into the mid 60s, they were out racing around in places like Mojave, a place called Holiday, which was up towards Lancaster area on old English bikes, montessas, Greece, Voltacos, Italian bikes. And so I think when I was five, my dad got me a little Honda 50 motorcycle, one of the little mini bikes, and put me on it and pushed me off and probably hit the dirt a few times and he picked me up and pushed me off again. So I kind of grew up out there riding motorcycles. And when we lived in San Diego, we moved down to Solano Beach, and the desert was a little bit further away, but Baja was very close. So then we started going to area, San Felipe area and south of Ensenada down towards so the world was a big was. I had a blessed childhood because my dad, my parents liked to do know whether it was backpacking up in the eastern Sierra or riding dirt bikes or camping.

[00:04:48.040] - Chris Collard

It's like we were always like the weekends came and we were doing something awesome. Yeah, it was good. I was very lucky.

[00:04:56.610] - Big Rich Klein

So, school wise, those early years, do you remember much of that? What kind of student were you, or were you more interested in what happened on the weekends?

[00:05:06.530] - Chris Collard

I was more interested in what was going to happen on the weekends. I wasn't a great student. In fact, I wasn't a good student until I actually got out of high school and went to college. Because I went to college on my own recognizance, I suppose. Nobody was telling me to do it. I'm like, okay, I guess I'm going to go to college. And I actually learned that it wasn't that stupid after all. I mean, I got crappy grades in.

[00:05:30.480] - Big Rich Klein

School.

[00:05:34.010] - Chris Collard

But yeah, I've looked at my life like this. My 20s were way better than my high school years and my 30s were better than my twenty s and forty s and so on.

[00:05:46.590] - Big Rich Klein

Just keeps getting better.

[00:05:49.230] - Chris Collard

Yeah, in my opinion, yeah. I mean, I've had a blessed life, done some crazy, amazing things. I was talking about my dad and riding motorcycles. My dad got lens of well, yeah, this new race that they were going to have that went from barstow to Vegas on motorcycles, it was like the Smoke bombs scramble. And my dad got his Grease 250 and he raced the first B to V. So I grew up in the dirt.

[00:06:16.030] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[00:06:16.460] - Chris Collard

Playing in the dirt. If I have to send you a picture for the thumbnail for this podcast, it might be a picture of me when I was about five, sitting in a big hole of dirt with my legs out and my arms out that we dug and just playing out in the Maha, touched it somewhere.

[00:06:32.520] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. So what was your dad doing down in Southern California that all of a sudden decided to move from the off road Mecca, basically in Southern California and going down to Baja to.

[00:06:55.810] - Chris Collard

I mean, he was in business and he was a plumbing contractor and he started building homes in Solana Beach. But he's also a little bit claustrophobic, not about being in small rooms, but in the crowds. Even this we're talking about the 70s. He says a lot of people started getting so crowded they were building everywhere. And I think I'm going to same reason we moved out of the Los Angeles area before that is because he's claustrophobic. This is just too he grew up in Whittier. He's like, there are no more fields, there's no more trees. It's a concrete jungle. I'm not going to raise my kids here. And then we moved to San Diego and then he looked around and decided to do it again and ended up up here in Northern California.

[00:07:42.170] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, interesting. He was a contractor then?

[00:07:45.270] - Chris Collard

Yeah, his brother had a commercial plumbing job and then his brother moved to Oregon and he continued with the commercial plumbing and started building homes, spec homes, and that became his.

[00:08:01.830] - Big Rich Klein

So you, you went to high school in the Rockland area?

[00:08:05.070] - Chris Collard

I did.

[00:08:05.740] - Big Rich Klein

Did you change from did you start getting involved with four H or FFA or something like that?

[00:08:13.550] - Chris Collard

No, I was a dork. I was a dork in high school. And I don't know if things have ever changed, but I played some sports, I wrestled, played baseball all growing up and actually played on the tennis team for two years. And then I turned 16 and I got my driver's license. And then the Focus was getting a car. I pretty much dropped sports. I mean, my folks didn't buy me a car that wasn't going to be in the card, so I'm like, okay, I had a car. I could drive for a while until I could save my own money. But yeah, it was all about getting a hot rod.

[00:08:56.090] - Big Rich Klein

And what did you do to save money for buying a car?

[00:09:03.310] - Chris Collard

I worked since I could walk, probably. So even when I was 3rd, 4th, 2nd, 3rd grade, I was picking up manuals on the job for my dad. I was cleaning job site paper routes. We had avocado trees. So I'd pick wheelbarrows full of avocados and roll them down to the main road and sell them, make money. I was a thrifty little kid. My dad was a builder. I learned how to frame. So I was 16, I got a job on a framing crew building apartment buildings. And I lived at home. All I had to pay for was my gas and insurance to drive, so it wasn't too hard to save money.

[00:09:49.120] - Big Rich Klein

So what was that first car that you got?

[00:09:52.510] - Chris Collard

Well, I know you're going to appreciate this. Maybe some of our younger listeners might not, but it was a Chevy Vega.

[00:09:59.190] - Big Rich Klein

Vega.

[00:10:00.010] - Chris Collard

Nice. Yeah, right?

[00:10:02.950] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah.

[00:10:03.380] - Chris Collard

There you go. But it wasn't just any Vega, okay? It was 71. It had a 354 volts main Muncie M 21, M 22 Rock Crusher transmission mons at Pausey rear end, had this hearse vertical gate. Remember the drag racing vertical gate shifters? Side number for reverse, it was yellow. Had the coolest slot mags you could. That's what everybody had to have, slot mags. Right. And l 88 hood. And it was way too much horsepower for a 16 year old kid. Just tell you that. Lucky I survived that car.

[00:10:44.350] - Big Rich Klein

That's amazing. That still living under the roof of your parents that they would okay a car like that even though it's your own money. I mean, I understand. Was it because your dad was a car guy?

[00:11:00.130] - Chris Collard

No, he wasn't a car guy. He's still alive. He's not a car guy. But I think I must have wore them down. What I really wanted, I wanted invented early Camaro. And we didn't call him vintage back then because we were talking about the late 70s. Right. I wanted like a Z 28 or an Rs, and I found one. It was eighteen hundred dollars and Rs, blue white stripes. And it was pop up headlights. It was awesome. But it was $1,800, and I only had $1,300. My dad would not loan me the money for that car because he didn't want me to have a hot rod. And then I found this Vega, and it was $1,300 and I had the money. And I guess he finally just threw his hands up.

[00:11:45.410] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome. Yeah. I wanted to buy a god, what was it? It was the Datson 510 I think is what it was. Or that style. Kind of a road racer.

[00:12:04.550] - Chris Collard

Road racer I had for real independent suspension, nothing. So I ride. Yeah.

[00:12:09.630] - Big Rich Klein

And I didn't have the money for the one I found. It was $600. I had three. I was 14 years old and same thing, my parents said no. And I had just started working in a shop, sweeping floors and that kind of stuff and doing OD jobs, the easy stuff. And then my dad's best friend, he was kind of like an uncle to me. He had this 54 Volkswagen Bug that he goes, well, I'll sell you this Bug that I have for $300. And I was like, sold. So it was the old wheel, oval, window, turn signals that came up in the door, post, all that kind of stuff. It had a 25 CC or something like that. Yeah, he was the second owner. He bought it used in Germany when they were in the service over there and he brought it back. But that was 1972.

[00:13:17.870] - Chris Collard

So VW bugs are notorious for freezing your feet in the wintertime. But once it was European spec, they had a gasoline heater in the front that actually ran off of gas from the tank. Very dangerous. But did your dealers have that?

[00:13:33.300] - Big Rich Klein

Mine did not have that, but I knew it was a German model because it had the turn signals.

[00:13:40.070] - Chris Collard

Yeah, I had a Baja Bug at one time, and it was a European spec car, and it had that gasoline heater in the front.

[00:13:47.160] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. I just made sure. So I put these twelve volt electric motors on there, blowers, so that we could have defrosters. The main thing was that because otherwise it was ice scraper on the inside and lots of towels trying to get up to the ski resorts and back down. But it didn't matter, it was a fun car to drive. So you're Vega with a four bolt 350.

[00:14:17.330] - Chris Collard

Yeah. And it was apparently it was a Rex Hutchinson motor. Oh wow. Had eleven and a half to one pistons and it would burn up starters, and it was a challenge to keep it running. Like I said, it was my hot rod days. Go. Only budies had GTOs and Z 28 and Mustangs. It was a hot rod day. We raced out by the truck wall out on Roseville Road, middle of the night, there's nothing out there. And yeah, lucky I survived that car. Ended up wrecking it and getting on the freeway. Hit some water. Thought it was going to pass my friend on the freeway at 60 miles an hour. I mean, it was packing pretty good, but all I had to do was stand on the skinny pedal and it would break the rear tires.

[00:15:14.680] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:15:15.520] - Chris Collard

It was just squirrely.

[00:15:19.990] - Big Rich Klein

So after you wrecked that one, what did you end up in?

[00:15:24.630] - Chris Collard

No more hot rods.

[00:15:25.820] - Big Rich Klein

No more hot rods.

[00:15:26.960] - Chris Collard

Now I got a Dodge Challenger 71.

[00:15:29.910] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm thinking when you say Dodge, I think, okay, you're getting a Dodge Aspen family?

[00:15:37.210] - Chris Collard

No, Dodge Challenger, yellow Craegers BFG Ta radials, which were like the coolest new tires coming out, and of course chrome tracks and bars. But it looked like hot rod, but it wasn't. Had a three team, two barrel automatic. I love that car. It's just awesome car to drive, though. But I became a much more cautious driver. Even at 16, we had a number of kids in my high school that ran a talent died, and I realized how close I was to doing that. I mean, I fun it getting on the freeway. Went across three lanes of traffic, hit the divider, and I got in the car and they were like semis going by, and I was like, holy moly, it got my attention.

[00:16:26.330] - Big Rich Klein

That's amazing that it got your attention and you took heed of the warning. I have to admit that I went through many wrecks or close calls, death defying situations until probably I guess it would have been right around 2009 when I met Shelley that I started curb my enthusiasm for trying to die.

[00:16:58.710] - Chris Collard

I still like to go fast, but I'm just the right place in the right time, right? Yeah. And I realized it's like, man, I just wrecked this car that I loved. It's like, I don't want to wreck the next one. Cost me a lot of money.

[00:17:14.090] - Big Rich Klein

So when you were growing up, did you have certain aspirations of what you wanted to be?

[00:17:23.550] - Chris Collard

I did. I want to be an astronaut.

[00:17:25.880] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah, but you sucked at school.

[00:17:30.190] - Chris Collard

Well, I did, and that was going to be a slight problem. Yeah. Apparently astronauts have to be pretty sharp dudes. And then when I was in fourth grade, actually, my good friend, his dad was the commander of an aircraft carrier. His name was Robert Pearl. So vietnam era. And when they were in port, my entire fourth grade class was able to go down, walk around the aircraft carrier, jump in an F four, and I was like, I think I want to fly planes. That's what I want to do. But apparently I wasn't that focused.

[00:18:05.620] - Big Rich Klein

Right, yeah.

[00:18:07.930] - Chris Collard

I did later on pursue that I did pursue went when I finally went to college on my own, I actually got good grades and I talked to some recruiters and basically air force recruiters because this is before Top gun came out and they were know engineering degree is going to be a better option for you if you actually want to fly. And so I changed my major, spent two years calculus, differential equations, materials and all that stuff, and then I realized that the air force was not going to take me at all, at least not to fly because I was born with my left arm. The radius and my oldness are fused together.

[00:18:48.680] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow.

[00:18:49.400] - Chris Collard

So there's no axial rotation in my left arm. Most people don't notice it. I've lived with it all my life, so I really don't think about it. But the air force was like, yeah, you're never going to see the front of an airplane. Little frustrating at the time, I feel. It's really frustrating. And I was like, you know what? F you guys heck with all this. I basically quit school, leased out my house and rented an apartment over shop at a country airport and started flying on my own. And it's know, I was working at Ups at the time, and I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to save my money and fly and I'll just pay my way and get my commercial endorsement that way. So I eventually did get to that, but yeah, roundabout kind of way.

[00:19:48.430] - Big Rich Klein

So Ups, were you the man in brown making deliveries?

[00:19:54.510] - Chris Collard

Yep. John Tayton I was the guy I started working there at know in college with night shift, and that was actually the time that I ended up taking a driver's job as a driver because I put it on because I thought, it's going to wait, I'm going to finish school. And then I got a little bit cheat off with the Air Force and other things. So I basically bailed out of college after a couple of years and took a full time job as a that right. About time. That Wall Street Journal and all the magazines were talking about. The Ups guys were the world sex symbols, and women would drag them into their houses.

[00:20:37.790] - Big Rich Klein

So was that accurate?

[00:20:42.670] - Chris Collard

That's a side conversation, but no, what it did, it caused a whole bunch of guys a lot of grief because their girlfriends and their wives are like, oh, is that what you're doing at your lunch? Come on. It's media. If it bleeds, it leads. They're going to anyway.

[00:21:04.150] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. So you went from hot rods to big brown racers.

[00:21:10.550] - Chris Collard

I did. Living at an airport and flying planes just about every other day.

[00:21:15.560] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome.

[00:21:16.710] - Chris Collard

That was fun. Good chapter.

[00:21:18.690] - Big Rich Klein

Did you end up buying an airplane, your own airplane?

[00:21:21.490] - Chris Collard

No, ma'am. I was part of an aero club. Okay. So they had about 25 different aircraft ranging from Piper Cub to a really cool old biplane. I was never certified on that plane, but yeah, just Cessna's fixed wing stuff.

[00:21:39.250] - Big Rich Klein

So question now, do you still have your pilot's license and you maintain it?

[00:21:44.210] - Chris Collard

I do not, no. I haven't been active in 20 years.

[00:21:51.600] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:21:52.150] - Chris Collard

Yeah, about 20 years now. The only thing I'm flying these days is a drone. I am licensed to fly a drone.

[00:22:02.490] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. That was a challenging course to take, right?

[00:22:10.090] - Chris Collard

It's a no brainer. When they first came out with that, part 107 is you actually were required to be a pilot. So I actually went back down to the Albany airport, and I was going to get checked out so I could get my drone license. And just about that time, then they lifted that requirement. It was a crazy requirement, but I'm like, hey, I need to get in this thing early, and then they lifted it. So it made it really simple. It's just ground school, right? Yeah.

[00:22:44.630] - Big Rich Klein

I know. That when I met you, I believe, which was in the early 2000s. Was it? I remember you coming up to one of our photography, one of our We Rock or back then, Cal Rock.

[00:22:59.630] - Chris Collard

Cal rocks, right?

[00:23:00.880] - Big Rich Klein

And shooting Lake Amador.

[00:23:02.530] - Chris Collard

Was it amador. It was your first event, I think.

[00:23:05.370] - Big Rich Klein

Yes, it was 2001.

[00:23:08.110] - Chris Collard

Yeah. I came up and I found that, I think for Peterson's, maybe.

[00:23:12.530] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:23:14.350] - Chris Collard

And yeah, I think that is when we met.

[00:23:17.710] - Big Rich Klein

And you weren't working for Ups at that time, were.

[00:23:24.430] - Chris Collard

I had a lot of stuff that happened between the hot rod, you know, working at Ups. I didn't get my commercial license. I got kind of sidetracked buying houses, and that took quite a bit of investment. So I just flew privately, decided that was going to be my outlet for being a pilot, just to be private. But went through the hot rods, went through the VW bikes, and then I got my dream truck at time was a Toyota four wheel drive, old Hilux, first gen, right? And I bought that in 83 and just kind of got into the four wheel drive things and I learned how to drive on the rocks up on the Rubicon because it's our backyard. And all kinds of stuff happened. I mean, I don't know, we didn't know each other back then in the.

[00:24:22.810] - Big Rich Klein

90S, but probably came across each other, we probably did.

[00:24:29.910] - Chris Collard

But a friend of mine and I were the ones that designed the first compact two speed underdrive transfer case for the Toyota.

[00:24:37.600] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, wow.

[00:24:39.020] - Chris Collard

And a lot of people might be going, what are you talking about? This guy smoking crap. Well, in December of 93, four wheeler printed a little postage stamp picture of these guys from Iceland that were basically the Arctic truck guys. And it had a picture of this transfer case. And it was basically Chevy 350 adapter from advanced adapters flipped around backwards and then they made a thin, like an inch billet adapter plate to mount it to another gearbox. Because the Totem transfer case splits, it's got the gear reduction portion and it's got the output portion. And a budy of mine who was a Toyota tech and owned a couple of repair shops, we'd been bugging Jim Sickles at Downey, the guys at Partridges, at advance, guys at Northwest about gearing options for the Toyota because there was nothing other than ring opinions. And we'd already done that and broke that. So we saw this thing and we're, huh, that's brilliant. And nobody was doing anything. We found out that Marlin was starting to import these things from Iceland, but Drew and I just like, you know what, let's just put five grand each on the table and make something.

[00:25:54.370] - Chris Collard

And what we came up with after stripping, we're doing a couple of prototypes and different sizes and models. We realized that you could take the Toyota transmitter case, has a long shaft inside. It's got a gear on one end, equals a bearing, and the base is your output shaft. But we realized that you could cut that just past the gear reduction portion, bore it out, hog it out, rebroch it, re harden it, or make it whole new gear. And then you've got this very short gearbox. So we made a two and an 8th inch 60, 61 billet plate for we had a friend that was aerospace machinist. And we came up with this little gearbox. It was like just over six inches long all at the same time. Marlin was coming out with his, which was about eleven inches long. And we actually ended up at the same show at Sierra Track with booths. And I knew who he was, but I don't think he knew who we were and he came over and he was just like I felt bad because he had just done his first production, and he was just like, oh, man, this is really not good.

[00:27:06.010] - Chris Collard

I was like, what do you mean? Anyway, we had this conversation, and it's funny because I didn't know him at the time, since that I mean, we didn't start that thing to make it this huge, long running business. We just were going to do it for ourselves. And by the time we were done, we had, like, 100 people that were just, like, handing us $1,000. We want one. And we're like, oh, guess we're going to make more of these things.

[00:27:33.120] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:27:35.890] - Chris Collard

Anyway, we got out of it because neither one of us wanted to stand at trade shows. We did Easter Jeep Safari and some other events, but neither one of us had really wanted to turn it into a long term business. So we sold the rights to Marlon and I since know we were always at events together, and we ended up becoming pretty good. Mean, everybody knows that he passed away, but it's like, that guy know, we were like, neck and neck, teeth on teeth at competitors for a while, but then I think we realized I realized, man, this guy is a really good guy. And I remember hearing of him dropping everything at two in the morning and driving up to help somebody up on a trail 200 miles away.

[00:28:31.090] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly.

[00:28:32.550] - Chris Collard

Yeah. So that was just like another little chapter in four wheel drive weird kind of life. Yeah. And that was in the mid 90s.

[00:28:43.350] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, so then let's take it from there and let's get into the well from Ups. I know when I met you, I thought you were doing mortgage broker.

[00:28:57.840] - Chris Collard

I was.

[00:28:58.690] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:28:59.250] - Chris Collard

That was a transition job to pay.

[00:29:05.710] - Big Rich Klein

And so you that was that was between Ups and becoming a world famous adventurer.

[00:29:14.770] - Chris Collard

Well, I took the job at Ups for kind of a goal, and that was to start flying. And then I got sidetracked, and before I knew it, like 13 years went by, right. And I happened to be the ups driver in Georgetown for Mark Smith and the cheaper chamber. Jeep. Jamboree USA. And I started this guy's into four wheeling. I started working around the country on events with Mark Smith. And I remember on a flight, mark had upgraded me to a first class seat with him, and we're flying somewhere back east, and he's just querying me. He's hitting me up. What are you doing? What are your dreams be you like being a Ups driver? And I shared it's like, no, I'm just kind of here. And my dream is, like, to quit and be a photographer. Not necessarily writer, but to be a photographer. And I think he knew Mark Smith, but he just kind of looks over. He's like, well, damn a kid. He goes, Get off your ass, and do it. Nobody's going to do it for you. And I kind of felt about two inches tall in that first class seat.

[00:30:29.360] - Chris Collard

I was like, Damn, got a point. And I had another friend of mine, one of my best, budies Jody. Every time he'd see me, he was like, Mr. Creative. He was creative guy always jumping around, doing all kinds of different stuff. Automotive related, paint related, fiberglass deco. An artist, and every time he'd see him, we were good friends. He'd see me and he's like, oh, Budy, how are you doing? Pat me on the back, and he's like, has a big brown piece of shit truck. It's like 140 degrees in there. And he's like, you are wasting your life. And between Jody and Mark Smith, it I finally had the guts to jump off the bridge, and I will always be thankful to both of those guys.

[00:31:23.850] - Big Rich Klein

Were you married at that time?

[00:31:25.790] - Chris Collard

I was not.

[00:31:26.640] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:31:27.400] - Chris Collard

I was not married. I had no kids. I had saved enough money for, like, two years of expenses. I had a house, had roommates in the house. So my cost of living was very low. And I was just like, okay, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to figure out how to make it work. And just started trying to shoot everything I could find and talk to every magazine that would talk to know, find events like Calrocks out in Lake Amadore. I'm like, yeah. Oh, great. I'll be there. I'll shoot, you know, I kept getting calls back for more content.

[00:32:13.450] - Big Rich Klein

And so you were self trained photographer?

[00:32:18.270] - Chris Collard

I had no formal training of photography. That's correct.

[00:32:21.570] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:32:21.940] - Chris Collard

I didn't go to Brooks. I learned how to take pictures. I didn't go to Art Center, no art center. I learned how to take pictures. Black and whites in a cardboard oatmeal. Canister remember those. You poke a hole in it, aluminum foil, and you wrap your foam up. That was my formal training at photography, but when I did that, I went down to Barnes and Nobles, and I wanted to shoot for the you know, I know I was in the off road, and I thought I could try to do some stuff in. I thought, you know, I wanted to shoot for the Geographic. And I bought a book called The Business of Nature Photography by named John Shaw and had some very good points in the ones I picked up on were that if you want to sell a picture, the world has changed. There's like, very few magazines are going to send out a writer and a photographer anymore. So if you want to sell a great picture, you need to sell it with a great story. That means you got to learn how to write and vice versa. And the tough thing was, English was my least best subject in school, English.

[00:33:43.590] - Chris Collard

We didn't want to see some of the things I wrote in the early. Days, but I realized I'm like, that's a very valid point. So I went back to school. I went back to English classes, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, English Lit, whatever I needed to do to learn what the difference was between a colon and a semicolon. And it's like, okay, well, I'm committed to doing this. I'm going to sink or slow.

[00:34:11.810] - Big Rich Klein

That's what editors are for.

[00:34:14.610] - Chris Collard

Well, I became an editor.

[00:34:17.010] - Big Rich Klein

Very good.

[00:34:21.170] - Chris Collard

Yeah. So, yeah, early days, I was shooting whatever features I could find. I was shooting events like yours and early arca events down the Arca finals in Farmington, I think it was 99 had a unique opportunity to go to South America on a Jeeper Jamboree trip in 1998. So I was scraping together every possible content that I could, everything I could write and shoot and practice by submitting articles to my four wheel drive club newsletter every month, not heavy circulation. And then the Cal Four Wheels in Gear magazine, I'd start writing stuff for them. I was just like, I got to get stuff out there, and I got to learn this business.

[00:35:11.410] - Big Rich Klein

Right? And who would you say was your biggest influence during those.

[00:35:23.670] - Chris Collard

Rich? I have had some great mentors, and we are actually still very good friends. One of them was Stu Mead.

[00:35:30.020] - Big Rich Klein

Yes.

[00:35:31.450] - Chris Collard

And I know you know Stu. I think Stu's been on your show.

[00:35:34.160] - Big Rich Klein

Yep. Absolutely.

[00:35:36.090] - Chris Collard

And Rick payway.

[00:35:37.540] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:35:37.980] - Chris Collard

Yep. So, you know, I saw Sue at Easter Jeep Safari. And I'm like, hey, that's Sue Mead. And I made my way up there and introduced myself and figured she'd probably want to blow me off or something. But she's like, oh, that's awesome. Good for you. It's like, here's my card. Call me anytime. And we ended up having all kinds of long conversations, great information about business, and we're still friends. We traveled in South America on the same team at the Dakar Rally. I put on a project in Australia in 2019, and Brad Suen is one of my journalists. Yeah, so good people. And Rick Pewe? Same thing. If you're out there and you want to learn how to write, send it to Rick. And if you're lucky, he will redline everything he doesn't like. He'll send it back to you instead of redlining it, and you'll never see it until it goes to print. But he would send it back to me, and I'm like, Rick, what's the matter with this? He's like, okay, it goes like this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Nobody cares. Delete it. I'm like what? Because nobody gives it rest ooey about that.

[00:36:54.380] - Chris Collard

It's like, get to the meat and potatoes. Tell a story you don't need all this other little garbage in and out of. I always appreciated Rick's very candid input on what I sent him. And years later, when I was the editor of Overland Journal, some people, you look at him and you're like, okay, you know what? This guy actually tells a story. He just needs some help with X, Y and Z, whether it's working on composition of photographs or just writing styles. Unless you're telling me that you had a Goana tail on a stick for breakfast, nobody cares what you had for breakfast. If you had pancakes with syrup and you're in the middle of Mongolia, who cares? Tell us that you had yak milk and something. Those yeah, those were kind of those know Rick and sue were two of.

[00:37:55.190] - Big Rich Klein

What we try to tell people that want to write or submit stories to us is that we want it written in your words and about your adventure. Don't try to make it Hemingway style or anything like that. Just tell your story. And if they're serious about continuing to do it, then we'll help them. Otherwise, Shelley just goes through and makes the edits, and if they ask, then we let them know know what we did. But the main thing is getting that story in that first person. It's hard for somebody to read a story in a second or third person. Well, so and so said this, that kind of thing.

[00:38:45.590] - Chris Collard

That was one of the things that drove me nuts about we're getting on sidetracked here, but about some of the four Wheeler Prime Media publications. Like, they wanted you to write in the third person. It's like, no, this is a very first person thing. I was in the middle of Malaysia, my waist in mud, pulling a and in the middle of the night and how do I say we? No, it's me. I'm standing here dragging this table and there's like, scorpions and creepy crawling things all over the place. Tell the story. I fought them for years.

[00:39:18.610] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly. But I find that that's what people really want to hear, though. They want to hear the story, especially nowadays. They do. Because they want to feel that experience that you had. And the only way they're going to get that is by you telling it in your words, in that first person.

[00:39:42.090] - Chris Collard

Yeah, you got to put them in the seat.

[00:39:43.860] - Big Rich Klein

Yes.

[00:39:45.530] - Chris Collard

You got to put in the seat next to you or on the back of the horse with you or whatever you happen to be doing riding a camel across Morocco. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think that's what good storytellers do is they make you feel like you're there. I mean, people want to feel and you got to put them in that environment with you. Do the best you can to make them feel like I can really visualize mentioned before the show started that I raced with Boy James, who was on your show. And it's like, I open with in the Devil Horse. It's, bronco caballo diablo. Just having basically my teeth getting rattled out, fillings getting rattled out of my teeth going across this rocky riverbed near San Javier. I'm like holy. It's easy to write because I'm just like, Holy, this guy's so calm before he gets behind the wheel. I'm hanging on for dear life, trying to keep track of my road book and watch the gauges and the GPS and look for traffic.

[00:41:03.830] - Big Rich Klein

And he's a madman back there behind the wheel.

[00:41:07.590] - Chris Collard

He was very calm. Now he's, like, super calm. And that's why he's, like, I think, won more class wins in the Nora, Mexico 1000 than anybody else. He's just consistent.

[00:41:20.550] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:41:21.020] - Chris Collard

And calm. Anyway. Yeah, the writing, going back to the writing, it was my least best subject. I worked really hard, and I look back at some of the early stuff and I've talked to other editors that I worked for back then. Yeah, your stuff was pretty rough back then. I look back on it now and I read it and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm so embarrassed. But I was doing the best I could. I'll probably look back in 20 years on the stuff I'm writing now. That's so amateur.

[00:41:55.270] - Big Rich Klein

You know, what if it tells the story and people can share your feelings from reading it? That's what matters.

[00:42:06.570] - Chris Collard

Very true. Yeah, very true. And you've been a publisher and editor for years. As you know, it's about telling the story.

[00:42:17.850] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. So let's talk about some of those stories. You've traveled to all the seven continents.

[00:42:26.830] - Chris Collard

I have, yeah.

[00:42:28.460] - Big Rich Klein

And you've got to wheel them all.

[00:42:31.010] - Chris Collard

I have, yeah. It's been quite a ride. Rich when I started doing domestic stuff, and then around 2005, I was like, you know what? I've been seeing different articles or different events in different places. I'm like the outback challenge. I want to do that. So I booked a ticket and I reached out to the three companies that were sponsoring the event. ARB, Warren, Goodrich. And it might have been earlier than that. Anyway, DF goodrich blew me off. I don't know who you are. Warren blew me off. And Jim Jackson? The airbus. I was just looking for, like, a third of the airfare to get covered by each of them. Jim Jackson was like, yeah, we'll do that. Not a problem. I was like, wow, thank you. But what I had been doing, because I was at the Schema show around 2000, and I bumped into a Russian guy, accidentally got in front of his photo, and I apologize. And he looks he goes, well, no problem, no problem. And I was like, Where are you from? And he reaches his hand up, shake my hand. He goes, Andre, it is four by four magazine, Moscow.

[00:43:52.130] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yes, Andre.

[00:43:53.410] - Chris Collard

And dude, I'm telling you, the light clicked on for me, and I was like, we should talk. And I spent the next many years hard at finding every off road magazine in every country that would talk to me. And before I knew it, I had twelve and 15 different markets, non competing, different language. Germany. England. Italy. France. Spain. Netherlands. Denmark. South africa. Malaysia. So I was tracking down every off road magazine out there. So by the time I went to this event and the Outback Challenge in Australia, I was able to put that out to, like, ten different international publications and the US. So that was a great lesson for me, bumping into Andre. And we're still friends, right, after all these years. I mean, political stuff and some of the Russian friends are some of the best people, but, yeah, I was able to think, wow. And the other thing is, if you can sell an article once the magazine in the States, okay, great. But if you can sell it ten times to people that are different languages in different regions, different demographic markets, it's a win win. And so the next time I wanted to do another international event, it was much easier because I could provide this PDF of all the work to the promoter.

[00:45:27.600] - Chris Collard

Or if it was a sponsored event, I'm like, well, this is what I did when I covered the last event. And they look at it, you got 40 pages of print in different places in the world. And if it's an international company, they're just like, oh, yeah, absolutely. We want you here. Come on in. It was awesome. Yeah. And that was kind of what I built my business on, Rich, was that I could go into an event, didn't matter where it was in the world, and I could provide the promoter with way more than they expected. It's a win win. I got to do some really cool stuff. I got to make enough to pay my bills. And the people that put the event on were able to get some great exposure and still are. Not that many people in the world that do.

[00:46:21.790] - Big Rich Klein

That true.

[00:46:23.100] - Chris Collard

Yeah. There's like a small group of a couple, like four or five journalists that I know we all know each other, but that was kind of been our gig.

[00:46:33.070] - Big Rich Klein

We have a guy that writes and does articles for us in Europe, and I know he does the same thing that you're probably the name escapes me because Shelley deals with him all the time, but is it Chiro Mandre? I don't remember.

[00:46:55.090] - Chris Collard

Okay, yeah, there's that guy named Fred Krugsman who does it as a small.

[00:47:03.030] - Big Rich Klein

You know, it's it's great getting stuff from Europe in the and for him, it's great because he's getting an outlet in the States. Now, besides actual, let's let's talk about some of those trips and things that happened on them like you were talking about. I know that you've done the Outback Challenge and you've done a couple of those type of scenario events. What was the coolest thing about that, about any of those type events?

[00:47:51.190] - Chris Collard

Well, one, I mean, obviously, I like the competition side of it. I like the adventure side of it. Usually when I go into cover an event, one, I did the event like, I covered the Australasian Safari, a number of times out on earth covered the Moroccan APAC challenge, the car rally, a lot of Mexico stuff. But, for example, when I went to Morocco for the challenge, once I'm in country, there's one part of the business that this is the multitasking side. It's one is covering the off road event and having markets for it. The next is everything else that goes on in Morocco. So the other thing that I learned is if you happen, like sport fishing, it's like, what's more exotic than sport fishing off the coast of Morocco for a US magazine or traveling with a 20th generation nomad through ERG Chicago on the Algerian border? Like the adventure side of it. So that's what I did. I would always stay on for a couple of extra weeks in the country and figure out how to get a vehicle, and then I would take off and do the adventure stuff. So usually solo, once you spend all the time and energy to get somewhere, for me, it's like a plus.

[00:49:22.880] - Chris Collard

I love traveling. I love going to third world markets and eating street food, finding out what the locals are doing, or traveling some just remote dirt road, stopping in a village. And you're always like a Martian landing in their village because they're like, we don't get Americans here. We don't get white people. We don't get anybody. Nobody comes here. What are you doing here? I remember I was in Zambia, and I was going from Lusaka to the South Luanga area. Hummer had given me an H3 for a couple months to do this Hummer Africa expedition. And I had been warned, don't drive down the Lasaka Highway at night because it's bad people walking the road. You're going to see dead bodies. And I was okay? Sure. Well, I decided to drive it at night, and they were spot on. Correct. I was like, drunk drivers, cars coming across road, just about taking you out. I pulled over and I was like, I use this program called Tifa Ray, or Tracks for Africa, and I found this little thin line that looked like it cut off two sides of the triangle. I was trying to drive around, and I'm like, okay, I'm going to go find that road.

[00:50:42.510] - Chris Collard

Took me to some of the most remote Africa that I've been in. I mean, just a bumpy go track for 50 miles through the bush. And the people that live out there, they do not expect you to come in slowly. And I'm just poking along, but into the headlights. Old man on a bicycle with a goat draped over the back of it. You'll see, like, little lights from the rendezvous and little fires out in the bush. Rendezvous is like a teepee. It's made out of branches, and they pack elephant dung around it for insulation.

[00:51:17.850] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:51:21.270] - Chris Collard

So I ended up on this most remote road in the middle of the night, and I finally pulled over. I'm in a clearing. I'm like, oh, this looks like a good place to I think I'm alone, looking around. Okay, set up the tent. All of a sudden, big light from across from 50 yards away in the bush, lights up, like a dozen rendezvous, and there's a few people standing there, and somebody had thrown, like, some paraffin on the paraffin on fire. I was like, okay, I'm not alone. But those people were wonderful. They were basically letting me know that somebody was there. I slept great. I woke up in the morning. I had a whole bunch of new friends. They came over. They want to know what's this mazumba or which this white guy doing here in our village, and this crazy red hover with all these stickers on it. Those are the kind of experiences that I keep with me, that type of thing. You can see tons of waterfalls and beautiful I mean, to Victoria Falls and the classified Zambezi River, iguazu Falls, America. There's lots of beautiful waterfalls, but the people are what you actually really remember, right?

[00:52:47.830] - Big Rich Klein

I haven't done extensive travel, like know, I've been to Japan and Canada, you know, but that's pretty much the extent of it. But in any of those, it's always been the people experiences that make me want to go.

[00:53:11.210] - Chris Collard

Yes, yeah. And Japan's. A place I haven't been. I'd love to go sometime. But the depth of culture in places like that, different than the middle of Zambia, for sure, but unique. And to their.

[00:53:30.770] - Big Rich Klein

The. Where was the place that you've traveled that you didn't know if you were going to make it back from? Was there ever an instance where you thought, okay, this might be the last day or the next hour might be my last hour?

[00:53:46.490] - Chris Collard

Yeah. I'm historically an optimist, so I really don't look at the end. It'll happen someday, but I never look at it. But I have had some moments. I mean, when I was in this covering this event in Marocco, that would have been 2008, and the media car that I was in, in the back, as faster was the previous race car. No cage. They pulled the seatbelts and harnesses and the cage and all this stuff out. It's so ran, so they used it. It's Morocco. And I was like, you know what? I would like to get in one of those other media cars because they had some normal SUVs they were driving. And it's one of those events. You fly in, you find the event, and then you're kind of at their mercy for the next five or six, seven days. And, yeah, they're French Moroccans, and they were very condescending, and they're just like, oh, yeah, this is fine. Everything is fine. And I mentioned again, I said, you know what? I'm not comfortable on this car. I would like to get in another car. And I heard him talking to all the other guys like, oh, american.

[00:55:04.110] - Chris Collard

He's a know. And I was like, bastards. Well, I'm sitting in the back, middle of the night, heading to the Bivouac desert roads, windy desert roads, both on one side on the other, and bounds and just buried terrain. All of a sudden, we just start veering off the road. And I heard the driver say something, but I don't speak French. I don't understand French. I didn't know what he said, but what he said is, no steering. Yeah. So we were exceptionally lucky because where that happened, there was an open range field on the left, and I was behind the driver, and there was like a 45 degree embankment on the right hand side, on the passenger side. And we headed straight to that embankment. We hit it, and it shot us up, and we did a double barrel roll down the road. And I was hanging on for everything I had. I mean, the whole time we were driving, I was looking over the driver's shoulder because I just did bad feeling. I had a gut feeling, and it's not the first time. And I always listen to my gut. And I had my hand on the oh, shit.

[00:56:12.880] - Chris Collard

Bar up on the handle. You have to bleep that out.

[00:56:18.950] - Big Rich Klein

No, that's all good.

[00:56:20.060] - Chris Collard

Like, I was wide awake and watching when we hit in that bank, and I just held on. I was like, I'm not flying out of this car. I just held on and curled up in a ball that I could. And we finally stopped rolling my side up. And everybody survived. The French kid that was on the other side of the car, he broke his right arm. We had a hard time finding him first, and then my whole left side, I told my left Rotator and had some pretty good lacerations on one side of the you know, we stopped rolling it out. I'm like, okay, I'm alive. This is good news. So that was a moment. The other time I was in Argentina, and I've got a kickoff vehicle in South America. And my wife and I were traveling from Cusco, Peru, heading to Buenos Aires. We went down through Chile and we were coming over the most northern pass of Argentina called San Pedro de Atacama. And while we were in Uno, which is where the kitty cock is, we stayed at a DMV and we ate something bad. My wife got sick. The next day I got sick, and after I got sick, I mean, I was just, like even barfing on my shoes in the middle of the street with diarrhea.

[00:57:42.590] - Chris Collard

It just like, hit. Nothing you could do. Bad food. But my stomach hurt. Like, I pulled a muscle after that and after I stopped throwing up on the film later, but it's kind of lingered on until we actually finally crossed over into Argentina. And it was like then I realized, like, you know what? This is not a pull muscle. We got to get to a town. This is bad. We got to a town night. Got a room on the side of the side of the road hotel. And my wife went out to get something, and that's when my appendix ruptured.

[00:58:24.470] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow.

[00:58:25.000] - Chris Collard

She came back, and I was, like, laying on the floor in the most pain I think I'd ever been in. Just literally crying like a baby and just curled up in a ball and felt like somebody was sticking a hot pitchfork stomach and just jamming it around. And she ran out to the front desk. It's a small town. They didn't have a hospital. They had a clinic. So the buff board ambulance comes over and loads me in and takes me to the clinic. They stab me with morphine, which I was ever so happy about. Oh, my God. Thank you. I love you.

[00:59:03.870] - Big Rich Klein

No more pain.

[00:59:06.270] - Chris Collard

Yeah. I'm seeing sunshine and daisies and ice cream. Yeah. So they just pressed on my stomach, and my Spanish is limited. It's okay, but basically it's appendices. Appendices. I'm like, crap. So it was 4 hours to a hospital. They called ahead. I was not getting back in the Buckport ambulance. My wife drove me through the night to this hospital. I took one for the road on the morphine. I was like, hey, one of these for the road, because for 4 hours I need and, you know, I get there. They came to the same conclusion, and this is not like an American hospital. There's two medical systems in Argentina. One is pay to play modern hospitals, and the other is the one that the peasants that drag a steel file behind a mule, that's the one they go to. I was in the public hospital. So sand dunes going down the hallways, electrical plugs hanging out, a wall on wires, that type of thing. I mean, it was better than the Hospital of Morocco, but not, you know, the bottom line is I have a medical evac service that I pay for record. And they were on the phone to the hospital.

[01:00:33.600] - Chris Collard

They were on the phone, like, barrage of questions and information and my wife talking to him, and it's like, listen, we can get you to Buenos Airways in 24 hours, but based on the timing, we're not sure you have 24 hours. Because it had ruptured and had already been I mean, it was like full blown rupture.

[01:00:53.370] - Big Rich Klein

Right?

[01:00:54.770] - Chris Collard

Your body. Exactly. Yeah. So I was like, okay, we're doing it here. Let's go. And they rolled me into surgery. That's a whole nother story I'm going to tell you since we're talking. They rolled me into surgery. It goes from the sand dunes in the hall hospital, through a little window, into another gurney, into a room that looks fairly modern. It's dark, but there's all kinds of machines with flashing lights and monitors and stethoscopes and big bright light over this table. And they slide me on the table, and I'm like, okay, I feel a little bit better about this.

[01:01:40.220] - Big Rich Klein

He whips out the ginsu.

[01:01:42.770] - Chris Collard

Yeah. He starts sharpening it out with a big steel from the cafeteria. Yeah. They didn't put me out. They gave me an epidural. So I'm awake. Yeah. And they put this little privacy screen up so I can't see them, like, cutting my stomach open. It's not like arthroscopic like they do here. It's just know, let's cut them open and find but so I'm laying there for my first thoughts, Rich, are that, oh, my God, where is my cell phone? I don't have a camera with me. Like, I wanted to video what they were doing.

[01:02:17.950] - Big Rich Klein

Since I'm awake, I just put my hand up over the top. Right?

[01:02:21.040] - Chris Collard

Well, I would have done that. I was like, I don't have my phone. I don't have any camera. I couldn't take a picture, couldn't do any video. But there was a window, like a two way mirror, maybe on the wall, and I could see what they were doing. And so I'm watching in this mirror, this window reflection, and Christian Warren pulls out this book. They're having this conversation of rapid fire Spanish. I'm not catching any of it. They pull out this book. It looks like a Chilton's auto manual, dude. And they start which means, is this it? They're pointing at my stomach.

[01:03:00.660] - Big Rich Klein

And I'm like, hey, it's a roadmap for internal roadmap medicine book for the started getting nervous.

[01:03:10.510] - Chris Collard

I'm just like, yes, exactly. Appendix surgery for dummies. Right. I was a little bit nervous at the moment, but I'm just like, holy crap. I hope they know what they were looking like. And the doctor, there was one doctor there. He was the doctor. He was a surgeon. He was like everything Dr. Booth. And he was amazing. I was so humbled by the fact that they bring you in stupid tourists that comes down there gets sick. They bring you in public medical system, no charge. Even for stupid tourists that come into the country and get sick. Because I asked my wife, you got to go figure out the medical side. How we're going to pay for this? And the girl at the counter was like, no, grant this, go at this. It's free. What? And that's when I learned about the Argentinian medical system. So it kept me alive. I will forever be grateful and humbled by their graciousness and their help and the help of local people when I got out. And that helped my wife, because there was a metal chair in the corner of my room. I was there for five days, six days.

[01:04:28.950] - Chris Collard

They don't bring you food. That's family. Family does that.

[01:04:32.870] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[01:04:33.530] - Chris Collard

It's like a zero service hospital as far as that what they do. They do medical. They keep you alive. That's it. Your family brings you food. Had friends, twelve people that they knew in Argentina, in the area. They brought my wife food. I couldn't eat anything. They wouldn't let me eat or drink anything for six days. Like, I couldn't even put water in my mouth to wash it out. It was horrible. Wow. I had to breath like an. So that was a long story for two moments in my life that I was concerned, okay, there's been some others, but those come to the forefront.

[01:05:21.030] - Big Rich Klein

What about your expedition? Seven trip across the Antarctic? What was that like?

[01:05:28.310] - Chris Collard

Well, it was like if I would have had an appendicitis there or anybody would have had appendicitis on that trip, you're dead. You're just going back in a body bag.

[01:05:36.270] - Big Rich Klein

Right?

[01:05:37.020] - Chris Collard

Because there is no yeah. In fact, I think if you work down there, you're actually required to have your appendix taken out. That's the one thing that I think we should allow have voluntary surgery. You're sailing around the world. Get rid of the thing. It doesn't do that much anyway. Rich Antartica was awesome. There were seven legs of that project. That's when I was at Airline Germany, and when it began, it was Greg Miller and who has the Land Cruiser Museum, longtime photograph guy. And Scott Brady, who's my publisher, and I had done a lot of traveling. I kind of done a lot of the routes that they were planning on doing. But when it started, if there was one place, the leg that I want to do, it's Antarctica, because that's kind of the unobtainium. Super expensive to get there, super expensive to travel. There is no public trans. Most people can go to McMurdo, and there's a flight C 130, I think that flies into the Amits and Scott South Pole Station twice a week with supplies. That's how most people get there. But we went to Cape Town because the last leg was Africa.

[01:07:03.680] - Chris Collard

So they went from Durban west across into Namibia and then south into Cape Town. So we flew from Cape Town to Novo Station, which is a Russian air base on the Eastern Hemisphere eastern side of the continent, and met up with the guys named Heasley. Arctic Truck. Awesome guys, awesome equipment, super cool company, great people. And one of the vehicles we flew in, in the back of this cargo plane that we were in. And they don't have an airport there. I mean, they have an airport, but they don't have one that most people would think of as an airport. I was talking I wanted to kind of get up with the pilot so I could watch, or they had a window, like a bubble, almost like a gunner's bubble up front, down below. And I talked to our logistics person, and she was like, no, they won't let you up there. I was like, I just like to see the runway. She goes well and she's Russian. And she's like, It's all ice. And I knew that. And it's not exactly straight and it's not exactly level. It's kind of like. A worm. But the pilots, they have some vodka before they get ready to land, so they're always very relaxed.

[01:08:30.290] - Big Rich Klein

They tell you that after you're in the air.

[01:08:34.770] - Chris Collard

That flight, they don't take off unless they think they have a weather window, because once you get halfway across, you can't go back. You're going to land that plane in Antarctica, whatever the weather's like. So it's one of those things where you're on call when they fly down there, like once a week or something usually, but it's not a schedule, it's like you get a call, basically it's, all right, be at the airport and wheels up in 3 hours. So then everybody that's supposed to go on that site gets the airport. Wow. It's all based on the weather. If the weather closes in, you better hope that the guys drink a lot of vodka.

[01:09:14.610] - Big Rich Klein

So he's really relaxed.

[01:09:17.170] - Chris Collard

Yeah, don't worry about that windshield or any of that stuff, just put her down. But yeah, the whole exhibition was one of the most memorable. I will always be grateful I was part of that. Started in Novo. Basically, the idea was we're going to go to the South Pole at 2400. That's climbing, basically steel up the Antarctic plateau, which ranges between 8000ft and once you get on the plateau, it's pretty flat. I mean, what they call my stratugy, which is like the catabolic winds just cut the ice up and make all these ice sculptures and stuff. But the ice up there doesn't shift that much. Where it shifts and where it's dangerous is coming up. The ice flows on and off of the plateau. So coming up all the glacier fields, getting up on the plateau, that was one of the most spectacular views I've ever seen. And it just kept coming at us because we were traveling for days, even though there was no night, because it's 24/7 daylight. It was just spectacular. But when we were out of the vehicle, I mean, I supposed to be roped up all the time with a climbing harness and a tether, but there were times where it's like, maybe I'm dumb, but I'm like, I'm disconnecting.

[01:10:44.900] - Chris Collard

I got to be up there, you guys. We are the subject right here. We are the photo right here. I got to be up on top of that hill and so I'd grab my ice pole and just start hiking. Did I get lucky? Yeah, better lucky than good sometimes, right? The plan originally was we were going to drive for 20 hours. Two vehicles, four men, rotate shifts driving every 4 hours, every 2 hours, whenever we decided to squat, 20 hours of driving and then we'd have a ten hour rest period. Basically, arctic of intent. We made water from ice, we prepared food, we slept and then basically step and repeat. You do that, do that. The next so called day until we got to the South Pole. Actually, we had a little detour because we were based on the Antarctic Treaty is you can't just go down there on your own. You've got to have some type of a support, somebody that can help you whether it's a plane that you've got scheduled to fly in and whatever. So there was one other expedition on the continent on that hemisphere that season and that was Walking with the Wounded which was a collaborative effort between Australia, New Zealand, United States, Great Britain for wounded soldiers and like Prince Harry was their patron on the whole project.

[01:12:23.810] - Chris Collard

So we got a call from from them on the stout phone that they were hunkered down in a white out and some of their guys were getting CrossFit. We deviated I think they were at 88 south and we were on the approach, so we deviated towards their position. And when we finally got to them, basically just we helped them load up their camp and we transported them down to 89 south. So one degree south and then they were going know continue on there for the a whole nother group of people that were so inspirational. We had a couple of guys in a Brit and a Scott. They were both amputees. They call it a DK or below the knee and just funnier than the barrel of monkeys. Man, to get into these guys were just so fun to ride with that we had a dual cab Toyota six by six. And, yeah, they're great. Had all kinds of stories about Scotch and you name it.

[01:13:38.150] - Big Rich Klein

Pretty awesome. And how long ago was that journey?

[01:13:42.950] - Chris Collard

We were in the ice for three weeks. So the plan was to go to the South Pole and there's a ceremonial south where it's also the Amundsen Scott South Pole Station and it is a massive complex. It's like Space Odyssey 2000 what was that movie?

[01:14:01.470] - Big Rich Klein

2002 maybe 2001 Space Odyssey?

[01:14:04.820] - Chris Collard

Yeah, but it was like super sized enough that it could house like 230 people and greenhouses, basketball courts, I mean hospital, you name it. It was a massive complex. But we got there we were kind of pushing because we really wanted to go all the way across to a full crossing for the ross ice if we got to south pole station in know because whatever we did we had to backtrack. We had to get back to novo because there was only one flight leaving the continent. It was end of the season and the only people that were getting off the continent were going to be on that plane so we kind of had to push hard. But we got to Southwest Station, we did our thing, we took a little tour. Greg family owns a Utah Jazz. He gave the director some shirts and some swag and we're like okay, got to go. And we headed towards the Ross site shell just pushing which is about another 500 km, maybe another incredible Glacier Field whole bit but on that side that goes to Mcnamurto and they actually run a fuel train in twice a year.

[01:15:25.180] - Chris Collard

And we ran into the fuel train. So they actually have kind of an established it's warm because this was the first train of the season, but a whole bunch of heavy equipment on track. They drag these big groups of like ten, 8000 liter bladders of diesel fuel. So they're like a fuel drink. They're bringing supplies in. So we made it down to the Ross sideshow. We had a rest period, drank when we got to South Pole the first time, I opened a bottle of this Jackathon Scotch that I had. So we had a drink, a couple of drams said, hey, we're here. We made it. All right? Now we got another 3000 km back to catch that plane. So we repeated the whole thing. Yeah, but overall, just absolutely stunning area. I was really entranced with Antarctica and I'd like to go back. I'd like to set up a tent in the Emperor Pigeon penguin colony. Probably a smelly place, but for the photographer's side of me. Yeah, that's another thing. That's a place I'd like to go back to.

[01:16:42.390] - Big Rich Klein

Cool. Very cool. So then let's talk.

[01:16:48.130] - Chris Collard

It was very cool. It was cold. Cool. We were sleeping in tents. It was 40 below.

[01:16:54.630] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, that's a bit cold. I did negative 31 once, but that was in Montana.

[01:17:05.270] - Chris Collard

Yeah, it was fine. It's old saying, there's no bad equipment, there's just bad clothing.

[01:17:11.300] - Big Rich Klein

Right?

[01:17:12.120] - Chris Collard

So we had everything. I mean, I was the primary photographer and videographer, so I was out in the vehicle a lot setting up shops, but just had to be very mindful. I got three layers of gloves on it. My big ultra low Temp gloves. And then I had a secondary layer under that. And then inside that had like a North Face Etip gloves that I could work the camera controls with. But when it was cold, I could only get away with maybe 60, 75 seconds before I had to throw my hands back in my gloves and under my armpits and try to warm them up. It was cold.

[01:17:53.180] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[01:17:53.900] - Chris Collard

Especially with the wind.

[01:17:56.490] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, the wind. Really? It cuts.

[01:18:00.250] - Chris Collard

It does.

[01:18:02.890] - Big Rich Klein

So talk about a little bit about Overland Journal and you were on the ground floor of that, weren't you?

[01:18:14.510] - Chris Collard

No, I was not. Okay. I was the second editor. It started actually around 2002 or 2003. I did a three part series on traveling in Mexico for one of the magazines and a reader sent in a letter that was just like, man, this is awesome. I want to be in touch with this guy. And I'm trying to remember, Rich, which magazine was whether it was Four Wheeler or four wheeler and sport utility, I don't remember. But anyway, the editor forwarded me the email and I called the guy, his name was, and, you know, we talked. He's like, yeah, this is totally the thing I want to get into, and I've read your stuff on traveling and Overland stuff. I'm like. Okay, great. Thanks. Appreciate the good words and blah, blah, blah. And he called me a couple of years later. He's like, hey, I'm starting this website called Expedition Portal. And I was like, oh, okay. Awesome. He's like, yeah, if you want to send some stuff away, I'm like, that'd be cool. Do you guys have a budget? He's like, no, you don't have any money? I'm sorry, but I do have to make a living.

[01:19:29.910] - Chris Collard

And then a couple of years later, seven, he's like, hey Chris, I don't really ran into SEMA or whatnot, but he's like, we're starting the magazines. And I said, really? And for those in the industry, I remember Prime Media had just slashed a bunch of magazines. They just laid a whole bunch of people off. It was like, it was a rough time for publishing. And I mentioned that. He's like, yeah, it's going to be different. It's completely different. Can you give me $60 for a subscription? And I'm like, sure. Yeah, absolutely. So I got my charter subscription to Overland Journal. And then, I guess around 2010, the end of 2010, he caught up with me at the SEMA show, and I had to send them a couple of articles and he caught up with me at the SEMA show and he just asked if he said there might be some changes happening with the magazine and if I would consider being the Was. Huh. Interesting. Let me think about, you know, they flew me down to Prescott a few months later and we talked. And it was one of those things, Rich. I was at this point in my life, in my career, mean because I wasn't going to pay, diddly squat as an editor from an industry standard.

[01:20:54.070] - Chris Collard

But it was like, you know what? I've been on the contributing side for more than a decade. Yeah, this will be fun, it'd be good chapter, I'll figure out. I'll run a magazine and really had to fine tune my English skills at that point. But it was a good chapter. I appreciated it because I had a lot 100% latitude. We have content meetings, but I had 100% latitude and responsibility. But yeah, it was good. I've got to hunt down some super interesting contributors with stories that stuff from all over the world. I started doing some really high tech involved gear, testing everything from Led lights and testing them at a lab that made searchable headlamps. So they were dead on everything, industry standard tests. And yeah, it was good. He ran his course. I left in, I don't know, 2018 about five years ago, just to kind of jump. I was a contract editor, so I continued to actually do all that other stuff with the international events and travel. And so it was actually a good scenario because I wasn't that deputy employee. It was like I was a contractor. This is something that I identified with, but I still had the latitude to do all the other stuff.

[01:22:31.170] - Chris Collard

My commercial work with auto manufacturers and stuff like that, which allowed know, that type of stuff allowed me the financial attitude to be the editor. So it's great.

[01:22:43.830] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. And at what point in your life did Susie come into.

[01:22:54.890] - Chris Collard

I met Susie and everybody's listening, so we all know each other pretty well. On the best day of my life.

[01:23:03.290] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, okay.

[01:23:04.570] - Chris Collard

Awesome. Best thing that ever happened. It was Halloween. Halloween 2001. Country dance costume contest had just come back from Australia. It's been a month down there and I was like, yeah, I had a roommate. I was like, I have nothing. I don't have anything to wear a costume. And my roommate Sean was like, dude, just go to your closet and just put your pants, your shirt, your hat on, you look like Steve Irwin. And I'd actually just met Steve Irwin while I was in Know on that last trip. That's another whole other story. But yeah, at his zoo, just happened to camp up the road from his neighbors. Anyway, yeah, so I met Susie at a country dance. I say people, I picked her up at a bar, but it was actually a country dance and I was Steve Irwin and I won the contest.

[01:24:02.810] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[01:24:03.280] - Chris Collard

They had you up on the stage and they had a bunch of guys like really elaborate costumes like Dracula and all this stuff. And guy with the mic, the MC was like, okay, tell us your name and what you are. He's like, I'm Bob, I'm Dracula. All these guys are pathetic. And by the time I was like the last one, by the time he got to me, I just grabbed the mic and I had got this big rubber snake around my neck and a crocodile on my hat. I was playing the part and shorts and the stuff I've been wearing for years, right? People thought like overland journal and fitted khaki. It's like, I don't wear this. I pictured myself in South America in the, you know, wearing the same bank pockety pants. Anyway, I grabbed the mic, I was my name's Steel, you might know. I got a show on the telly and just went off on my horrible Aussie accent, some of my Australian friends told me. But anyway, yeah, Susie was in the audience. She condescended to dance with me later. And that was 2001. So, yeah, we met 2001. We got engaged in New Zealand on a glacier, hired a ski plane and flew up and proposed to her, his smart girl.

[01:25:19.110] - Chris Collard

She said yes. It's a long walk down the hill. You got to think about that stuff when you get post. There's no way out. If they know, it's going to be a very long and awkward trip back. If they say no.

[01:25:36.410] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, that's awesome.

[01:25:38.730] - Chris Collard

Yeah, but Susie's great. It's a partnership I mean, she's independent. She allows anybody that would when I bring up two months in Africa driving a Hummer through twelve different countries for my wife, I've never been with a woman like that before. They would say, oh, you have to do that. That's a great opportunity. Yeah, you definitely have to do that. Other women I've been with, girlfriends and whatnot be like, you're going to leave me alone for two months? She's independent, we trust each other, we kind of understand each other, and she's been very supportive of all the crazy raw ass stuff that I've done.

[01:26:24.250] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome. And she's got to participate in some of absolutely, yeah.

[01:26:29.900] - Chris Collard

I'm not that kind of guy, rich. So one of the cool things is that when I travel a lot of frequent flyer miles and so I went to Australia covering an event. She flew in afterwards and we met in Melbourne and I borrowed a rig from ARB for a couple of that. And actually after that Morocco rollover and all that fiasco, I didn't go home. I actually stayed because I was like, I got two more weeks in Morocco and two more weeks in New York with my wife. I'm just going to take whatever antibiotics I need to deal with, know, road rash that. And so after I got home with that, we met in Barcelona, borrowed a Land Rover from a friend and spent some time in Spain and France. So she's definitely included. Yeah, always. Excellent, excellent benefit of a project in London and we met she did it twice. Once in kind of Western Great Britain and then another time in Scotland.

[01:27:33.330] - Big Rich Klein

Cool. Excellent.

[01:27:34.670] - Chris Collard

Happy wife, happy life, dude.

[01:27:36.200] - Big Rich Klein

Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. So then the last thing I really want to talk about is the off road Motorsports Hall of Fame and the person that nominated you was Mark Smith.

[01:27:53.510] - Chris Collard

It was yeah, Mark nominated me.

[01:27:56.220] - Big Rich Klein

And you're a 2015 inductee. I want to say congratulations on that. I know I've told you that a couple of times. Thank you to me, ormhoff has always been really special to me, and even more so now. What was it like that night of your induction?

[01:28:20.830] - Chris Collard

It was pretty surreal. When Mark nominated me, he would call and we'd have lunch every once in a while up in Georgetown, South Florida. Of course I was at DPS, but he nominated me. It's like, Mark, it's not my time. I'm just a snot nose kid in this group. Let's see, it's always in my 50s, but I'm still compared to the people who work around and with and these people in the industry, I'm like, I'm just a new guy. There's so many people that should be there before me. Even if I was deserving of, you know, Mark's pretty no gloves kind of he nominated me and then Rod Hall kind of carried that torch on after Mark passed and I will be super know. It's still kind of surreal. I still just feel know, I'm just a normal guy doing my thing. And there's so many other people that I feel people that I know have become friends with, but people I looked up to. I mean, my category was pioneering journalism, but it's a huge honor. I've done work with the hall of Fame since on different projects. And actually, even when Rod Hall brought it back around 2000, I met him on a project and he called, he's like, Chris Rod Hall.

[01:30:02.190] - Chris Collard

He goes, I'm putting this hall of Fame thing back together. We got an induction ceremony up here in Reno, and we need a photographer, and I got no money. And he's like, can you help us out? I was like, yeah, I think that would be awesome. Sure, of course. So that was the year that I think that Ivan Stewart conducted, and a few others. I don't remember the so super honor. I mean, still I look at that wall with everybody's pictures on them. Can I see my picture? I'm like, really? What is that guy doing up there? But it's humbling. It's humbling because that's an awesome organization. There are great people that are running it, and everybody is super appreciative and thankful that Rod had the intestinal fortitude and gust bring it out of and through his efforts and that of Mark McMillan and the board and Barbara Rainey and Jen Hestrom, it's like, man, the induction ceremony is like it's Hollywood now. It's amazing.

[01:31:18.920] - Big Rich Klein

It sure is. It is absolutely amazing. And anybody that's listening to this. If you've never been to an ormhoff induction, that's off road motorsports hall of to, it needs to be something that, you know, bucket list, life list, whether you know anybody in the hall or not. You can get tickets to the induction dinner and the gala and everything that happens around it that evening. And it's phenomenal. It really is. And it's great for our industry offroad in general. The four wheel drive side of it is starting to be recognized more and more and more, and it's something that's dear to my heart, that's for sure. Every time somebody I know gets inducted, I've got a tear in my eye because I know them. And to hear their story and know their story, I was there when you got yours, and it's just so cool. It really is.

[01:32:33.410] - Chris Collard

Yeah. Great organization. What you said about the induction ceremony and the crowd, it's like, if it is absolutely. The who's who in motorsports, off road motorsports, I mean, the people that we've seen there, rich from the Myers brothers to Malcolm Smith and Walker and Ivan Stewart and Jim Fricker, rod's navigator, rod Hall's navigator for decades. And these guys are the OGS. And some of them are still around and they show up and it's like.

[01:33:16.960] - Big Rich Klein

That'S not and that's one of the cool things that now that I've been doing the ormhoff inductees is getting a chance to not just know the name, but to know the the Vic Wilsons and the Bob Hamm and just everybody. You said Sue Mead. It's just incredible to hear those stories and everything that they've done and the amount of history and stuff. So it's quite the organization.

[01:34:03.310] - Chris Collard

Yeah. And so much fun because you mentioned Brian, all these guys that we talk about, the first Nora Mexican 1067. I don't know how old you are, rich, but I was four and these guys were adults and they were out there doing it. So it's like we grew up watching so many of these folks. They're iconic, the front runners of the industry and their names have become synonymous with the pioneering days of off road racing.

[01:34:39.220] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:34:39.720] - Chris Collard

So pretty know and just like in the rock racing side, definitely it's one of the things I think Ormhoff has done and it's really pushed and getting in the right direction is what are we going to be? What are we going to be? Are we the Offroad Racing Motorsports Hall of Fame or are we the Offroad Motorsports Hall of Fame? Whether it's become into new categories, whether they're adventure categories or short course or Rock know, shannon was inducted a couple years ago. We're getting more and more of that. So they're really looking outside of the Baja desert racing crowd and getting much more diversified. Back. When Rod brought it back, I was like you, Rod. He was trying to grow it. And I said, I have a lot of contacts with offshore magazines, but I don't know that Warmhoff is ready for that. You got to really decide. The board of directors need to decide who the organization is and what they're going to represent and if they can expand like that and still do justice to somebody. And it's the world's best rally driver from France or Spain compared to one of our guys who's amazing.

[01:35:53.700] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:35:55.250] - Chris Collard

Anyway, got off a little bit on a sidetrack here, but being inducted being inducted is super cool. And I've made sure that they're back every year for the induction ceremony and they give me this little medallion that I got to wear. Identifier. It's like, wow, really? I'm one of those cool. I get to hang out with the cool kids.

[01:36:18.330] - Big Rich Klein

That's true. There's only what I think this year. It's somewhere like 130 something now.

[01:36:29.690] - Chris Collard

Yeah, 120 maybe.

[01:36:32.080] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah.

[01:36:32.480] - Chris Collard

But it's a pretty cool club. It's a very cool club. I think it one thing about Ormhoff is that they're not. What I've realized in the last years is that being inductive is not necessarily about your trophy room. It can have a huge impact, but it's about all the other stuff. It's how other people in the industry look at you because they've got a selection committee that is super diverse. How does the rest of the industry look at you? What have you been doing besides your business side of it? And obviously we're all in the business of some type of motorsports. But what do you other things do you like Cameron Steele? All of his orphanage work in BA right. Which jumps off the coattails of all of Malcolm Smith's orphanage work. And other guys, they're giving back. That's kind of a coined phrase, but it's like they genuinely care about people and the places they travel and the people that live there.

[01:37:42.340] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:37:42.690] - Chris Collard

And that, I think, is the other thing that really brings a lot to the table for some of these guys. Some of the folks that have been inducted. They represent the industry to the best that it can be represented. They're ambassadors where you might have somebody that has just a credible of trophies, but they're a complete jerk and people think they're dishonest and they really don't care about anything. But one of the next race is like, is that hall of Fame stuff?

[01:38:15.550] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly.

[01:38:16.210] - Chris Collard

Yeah.

[01:38:17.230] - Big Rich Klein

It's cream of the crop. It really is.

[01:38:19.170] - Chris Collard

Yeah. So I'm humbled, and I appreciate you bringing that up. It's not something I wear around with a big hat that says, I'm off Road Motorsports Hall of Fame and T, but it's definitely humbling. Definitely something we can be proud of.

[01:38:39.030] - Big Rich Klein

Last but not least, let's talk about what you got coming up here in a couple of weeks.

[01:38:44.710] - Chris Collard

Couple of weeks. Let's see which one talking about. Sierra Trek. Yeah.

[01:38:49.390] - Big Rich Klein

Sierra Trek.

[01:38:50.670] - Chris Collard

Yeah. All right. Well, you've been to the event or those that are listening that haven't been to the event? Sierra Trek is I guess you could compare it to a Jeepers chambery a little bit. So it's kind of like on the four dice trail. It's a sister trail to the Rubicon, and it's a big event. They get 700, 800 people there usually every year. Hardcore Trail. But it's not so much about the Hardcore Trail anymore because they got like, a dozen different trail rides, meals and bands and campfire. And it's been going on since 1967, so that's pretty cool. It's like 56th annual. I've been involved with it since 1984. I joined a club, local Sacramento club called the Sear Treasure Hunters, and they were one of the three clubs that actually started the event in 67 sack, Jeepers, Camellia City Broncos, and Sear Treasure Hunters. So I just kind of happened to bump into the right guys at the Denny's parking lot 40 years ago or 39 years ago. So I've been involved at all levels. So there's four days trail rides or three days of trail rides. So I kick it off on Thursday.

[01:40:16.130] - Chris Collard

So I lead the Ford Ice Trail run, which goes from Cisco Grove or Eagle Lakes area of Africa to Meadow Lake, which is the old 7300 foot location of Summit City, an 1852 mining town. Kind of a boomer bust. More of the latter than the former mining town.

[01:40:39.150] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:40:40.110] - Chris Collard

But it's super fun. I always look forward to it. We're actually heading up tomorrow since we are like, it's our work party weekend and we set up main camp, big kitchen stage. They got a 50 foot dance floor, they got showers. I'm not saying it's high tech, but it's pretty fancy schmancy for the middle of wilderness. What people think it'd be a wilderness area, but it's public and private land. Yeah, it's fun. And the vehicle I'm driving, you asked me about the early cars I'm driving that 1982 Toyota Highlights that I bought in 1983. Still my same rig.

[01:41:23.700] - Big Rich Klein

Still have it. Yeah, that doesn't happen very often. The people I talk to still have their original rig.

[01:41:33.870] - Chris Collard

Yeah, I'm surprised because I was on the Rubicon with it within the first year I had it and I was like, oh my gosh, I don't want to destroy my rig. It's not even paid for yet. That would have been like 1984. So yeah, I called my pumpkin truck around 1998. The bed had quite a few dents on it. It's original bed, original cab. But it was getting a little bit not like the blundered stuff you see now. Like the rock bug you see now. But it had a few dents on it. Anyway, I was like, you know what, I'm going to plagiarize Ned Bacon's idea with his old black truck. So I made a custom flatbed for top side boxes and yeah, it's kind of like kind of the front runners on the flatbeds.

[01:42:30.730] - Big Rich Klein

Cool.

[01:42:31.140] - Chris Collard

Outside boxes. I call it my pumpkin truck because got half doors and I should look like a pumpkin while I'm driving it.

[01:42:40.450] - Big Rich Klein

So what's your next big adventure coming up? What's in the books? What's on the books to do?

[01:42:48.230] - Chris Collard

Well, that's a really good question. I've worn so many hats as far as I've got my media hat and I do a lot of commercial photography with auto manufacturers as well. But I've had a couple of projects in the works. One of them came to fruition in 2019. That was East West Australia and that was driving basically from the most eastern point on the country, the continent to the most western point and mostly dirt roads and cross the northern Simpson desert that hadn't been crossed in 50 years. So that was a big one. I partnered with my budy, Ben Davidson, publisher at Cheap Action Magazine. And then we had talked about doing another one, kind of a follow up, north South Australia. But I got a couple other projects in the works. Not a couple I can't really talk about right now, but exciting stuff on the horizon. International stuff. Yeah.

[01:43:54.080] - Big Rich Klein

Well cool. I hope to read about them and hear about them shortly.

[01:43:58.450] - Chris Collard

Me too. A lot of times I just can't wait to find out what I'm doing next.

[01:44:04.670] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Well Chris, I want to say thank you so much for spending the last 2 hours on the phone with me and talking about your adventures and your life and I found it fascinating, I really did. And. I'm sure others will, too, but I'm glad we were able to finally get this one recorded. Thank you.

[01:44:30.760] - Chris Collard

Yeah. Thank you, Rich. Me too. This is a lot of fun. You've known me for a long time, and I'm usually not one to jump up and stand in a crowd and like, hey, everybody, look at me. And then you start asking me questions. I'm just rattling off like, it's Daddy. Kathy.

[01:44:48.270] - Big Rich Klein

I have that way.

[01:44:49.820] - Chris Collard

I'm like, I got the mic.

[01:44:53.470] - Big Rich Klein

It's great. Well, Chris, take care. Say hello to Susie for, you know, be healthy and successful and all that kind of stuff in your next endeavors, and we can't wait to read about them.

[01:45:07.730] - Chris Collard

Awesome. Well, thanks for having me, Andre. I will see you in September at the hall of Fame induction ceremony.

[01:45:18.610] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely forward to it. Okay.

[01:45:20.230] - Chris Collard

All right, buddy.

[01:45:20.930] - Big Rich Klein

Talk to you later. Thank you.

[01:45:22.340] - Chris Collard

All right, have a great night.

[01:45:24.790] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message and let me know. Any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that 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.