The Iceman Cometh, Dean Bulloch on Episode 24

The Iceman Cometh…Dean Bulloch, all-around adrenaline junkie is on this weeks episode with stories for days.  This one is a long one, but there’s so much good stuff, you’ve just got to listen.  Dean is a world champion in so many disciplines and part of the 2020 class of Off-Road Hall of Fame inductees.  We are proud to call him a friend.  Listen in on your favorite podcast app.  If you don’t know how to listen, go to the pinned post on this page for more info.  

2:11 – What I really wanted, and how hard I worked for it

7:16 –You passed, so what?  

8:56 – I used my paycheck for parts

12:56 – You better be careful throwing out a challenge to Dean

15:32 – The beginning of a long and fruitful friendship

19:07 – hash marks before GPS 

22:25 – From trials bike to drag bikes

25:50 – no one is going to taunt me now

36:12 – we flipped for it 

42:23 – hold my beer, the water is getting deep

51:36 –The Discovery channel takes up residence

55:15 – Clicking together

57:47 – new car blues

1:00:53 – the start of KOH

1:08:51 – September 21, 2012, the accident that changed everything

1:12:48 – Polaris vs. Artic Cat

1:17:33 – a big to-do at Horsepower Ranch

1:23:54 – the importance of Dean’s nomination to ORMHOF

We want to thank our sponsors Maxxis Tires and 4Low Magazine.

www.maxxis.com

www.4lowmagazine.com 

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

Welcome to the Big Rich show, this podcast will focus on conversations with friends and acquaintances within the four wheel drive industry. Many of the people that I will be interviewing, you may know the name, you may know some of the history, but let's get in depth with these people and find out what truly makes them a four wheel drive enthusiast. So now's the time to sit back, grab a cold one and enjoy our conversation.

[00:00:29.660]
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.

[00:00:56.220]
Why should you read 4Low magazine? Because 4Low magazine is about your lifestyle, the Four-Wheel Drive adventure lifestyle that we all enjoy, rock crawling, trail riding, event coverage, vehicle builds and do it yourself tech all in a beautifully presented package. You won't find 4Lpw on a newsstand rack. So subscribe today and have it delivered to you. 

[00:01:20.330] - Big Rich Klein
All right. Today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, we have Dean Bulloch, The Iceman. We are going to discuss with Dean his early years growing up and how he became how he became the iceman. So, Dean, thank you very much for for being here and carrying on a conversation with me and, you know, kind of a campfire talk. So just tell all the stories that you want to tell. Thank you for being here.

[00:01:46.350] - Dean Bulloch
Oh, I'm glad I am. I feel honored. You asked me to be a part of this, and we'll just see where it goes.

[00:01:52.860] - Big Rich Klein
Absolutely. Let's let's start on your early years. Where did you grow up?

[00:01:57.540] - Dean Bulloch
You know, I grew up right here in Cedar City, Utah, come from a ranch and family had very little money.

[00:02:07.080] 

I wanted to, motorcycles were always my thing.

[00:02:11.940] 

That's that's what I wanted. I I wanted to have a motorcycle. I wanted to race motorcycles. And we couldn't afford it, really.

[00:02:22.470] 

I worked my butt off hauling hay and being a farm boy helper and doing everything I could do and saving my shekels so I could I could get a motorcycle and I got a job at Ron Sporting Goods, the Honda dealer here in town when I was 13 years old. Why he hired me, I'll never know. But but he did. And I was able to get a motorcycle and start racing. That was my passion and that was my dream. And my parents didn't like the idea of it.

[00:02:59.550] 

But one of my best friends, Mark Mortensen, him and his brother and his dad, they raced. And of course, back then, this was in 1970, they traveled around the state of Utah and Nevada and raced.

[00:03:15.750] 

And I had no way to get to the races. So they had a single cab truck back then. You know, there was no club cabs or anything like that. And we would put three to four motorcycles in the back of the truck. The three of them would ride in the cab and I would be in the back of the truck in a sleeping bag, a blanket or what have you laying in between all the motorcycles. And that's how I got to go race.

[00:03:51.960] 

But I never complained. I just thought it was the greatest thing ever that I could go to the race. And they helped me through that until I was able to, you know, that happened until I was 16.

[00:04:07.710] 

My my first car was a nineteen. I got to think about this, though. I don't lie, a 1958 Oldsmobile 98, a tank. Oh, it was a tank. This this car.

[00:04:23.460] 

You could park three new ones inside, you know, and it was a pile of shit. But that's what I had. And I custom built myself a motorcycle trailer. I made a hitch and put on the car so that I could go to the races myself without having to ride in the back of the truck.

[00:04:49.050] 

And it's funny because to this day, I still have that trailer. Oh, nice. And it is the crudest thing you've ever seen in your life.

[00:04:59.280] 

There was no MiGs and TiGs back then. It was all stick welded, and I blew holes all over and the welds looked terrible. But, you know, it was mine and I drove junk, but I had a really nice race bike.

[00:05:17.040] - Big Rich Klein

But of course, it's kind of like most of our racers are rock crawlers, especially when they're getting started. Yeah, we get it.

[00:05:26.250] - Dean Bulloch

Yeah. But I continued to to race. I finished high school. I was a terrible student. I barely finished high school. I passed with straight B's. And that's not a joke. That that's a fact.

[00:05:43.920] 

But I wanted to be I wanted to be a mechanic. And I'd got into the Mechanics filed and I really wanted to be a Marine technician in Summertime. When I was in high school, I would go to specialty schools to work on outboard motors and stern drives. I left Cedar City when I was 17, but I had my outboard certificates, so I had passed everything.

[00:06:14.600] 

I was pretty proud I had that's called OB1. I had my certificates, didn't tell anybody, my parents, nobody. I quit my job, loaded my tools and left. I was going to go to California. Lots of boats go to California and try and get a job, work on boats.

[00:06:37.860] 

I don't know why I started that way. And I turned around and I headed north. I went to Orem. There was some boat shops up there and went to the first boat shop. And he's like, yeah, you know, would hire you. But you're a little young. Probably not. So the next boat shop I went to was Robertson's Marine and they had a store in Springville, Utah, and one in Salt Lake City. And I went in there and threw my certificates down on the table.

[00:07:16.580] 

And he says, well, that's great. I can see you passed with 100 percent. I can tell you really want to do this, but did you graduate high school? And I'm like, what does this have to do with my job? Well, luckily, I did graduate high school, but just barely. And I had my certificate and I handed him my graduation certificate from high school. And he's looking at it. And I says, Can I ask you why you needed my graduation certificate?

[00:07:49.730] 

He says, Yeah, that proves to me that you can finish something, make total sense. But, you know, when he first asked me that, it didn't make any sense at all. He says we don't have any openings at this store. But in our Salt Lake City store, we have one of our technicians that's out with back surgery and we have a temporary job. I'm like, I'll take it. So I went up there, got the job.

[00:08:18.650] 

Within a matter of months, I was moving up the chain and it wasn't a temporary job. I met Pauline, my wife. We went out a little when I was in Cedar. She came she's from the Richfield area. Come down here to go to college. We met, dated for a while and then I moved and that kinda went away and we ended up getting back together and we ended up getting married. About two years after I left Cedar, I was still racing, so I got paid once a month and we got married.

[00:08:56.660] 

I blew my paycheck on our honeymoon. We had no money, like literally no money. My birthday was coming up. She went and scrounged money out of the curb and gutters and on the streets and come up with thirty five cents to buy me a cake mix and make me a cake for my birthday. So a couple of days after my birthday was my one month where my paycheck was coming in, I got my paycheck. Well, I had broke the rear hub and spokes and everything out of my race bike.

[00:09:30.110] 

I had had the parts on order through Honda Suzuki of Salt Lake. I took that paycheck that we really needed to live. I went down and spent everything but seventeen dollars of my whole month's paycheck on my race bike so I could go back racing.

[00:09:50.000] - Big Rich Klein

Were you racing for a purse? Was there any kind of purse or was it all trophy 

[00:09:54.720] - Dean Bulloch

back then? It was trophy. There was no purse.

[00:09:58.550] 

And boy, I tell you what, I got home and Pauline was like, Are you kidding me? But the whole thing to me was racing was so important in my life that I had to have my bike back together so I could go racing. You know, when I met Pauline, I met her on a Friday night at a dance Saturday morning, and I took her to a race.

[00:10:24.260] 

So she knew your racer? Yeah, my family grew up with me racing. My wife grew up with me racing. So it wasn't anything new to them. It was pretty hard for her to think that we had to live another month with out any money. It's just it's crazy how how life goes. And from there I continued racing motocross until nineteen eighty two.

[00:10:52.700] 

I think I was. The last year I raced, I ended up racing and back then it was the expert class, it wasn't the pro class, they paid a little bit of money when you got to the expert class.

[00:11:07.860] 

But it wasn't much you know, it might help pay for the the fuel and the entry fee, but the entry fees weren't that much money either.

[00:11:17.790] 

More of a good old boy sport. I think about the racers of today. These guys are pure athletes. They work out, they train, they do everything they need to do. Well, we would go to the races. We'd set up our tents, have a big party, get drunk, have hangovers and go out and race the next day.

[00:11:42.630] 

You know, there there was no training. We rode a lot. We practiced a lot. But, you know, I look at the the true athletes of today, and, boy, has that changed 

[00:11:56.600] - Big Rich Klein

the dedication to their to their trade or sport.

[00:12:00.780] 

But then again, it's it's no longer when you make that that step to that level of professionalism, it becomes a job. It's not just your passion anymore. 

[00:12:11.760] - Dean Bulloch

Exactly. Exactly. So I had bought trials bike I bought the trials bike in 79 and I bought just to play on.

[00:12:22.890] 

And, you know, I bought an RL 250 Suzuki and it was a fun motorcycle. And after I quit racing motocross, I'm like, you know, I want to I want to go to a trials competition. I want to see what this is all about. At that point in my life, I had got into the snowmobiles, too. I had already been, you know, doing drag races and cross-country races on snowmobiles. And I loved that.

[00:12:56.730] 

So I went to my first trials competition. I didn't know anybody there. I went by myself. I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot. And trials is, you know, really similar to rock crawling. So they use the the same courses for multiple classes with some changes. I ended up I signed up in the novice class because I didn't know how I was going to do or much about the sport. Well, I ended up winning in the novice class.

[00:13:34.680] 

The amateur class rode exactly the same course.

[00:13:43.050] 

The guy that won amateur class, his name was Dean Nelson. And I just went up to hum casually more of a friendship thing and I says, Wow, man, I ended up beating you too because we did the same course and that it must endeared him to.

[00:14:03.910] 

And he told me that I could not beat him on his worst day.

[00:14:11.350] 

And nothing like throwing out a challenge. I tell you what. And he knows this because I told him after I far surpassed his riding ability that I needed to thank him for giving me the drive to kick not only his ass, but everybody else's. And that's it's funny how it happened. You know, if he wouldn't have said that, I don't know where I would have went in the trials, but trials was my love.

[00:14:47.710] 

In nineteen eighty eight, I got my first factory sponsorship.

[00:14:55.660] 

Montesa had just Honda had just bought Montesa, so they had a pretty capable trials bike and they were looking for some riders and they contacted me. We went, we went out, started riding. Part of it was I had to ride the national circuit and I'm like, great, I'd love to ride the national circuit. So we created a team. There was myself, Jeff Kingsford and Carl Mumford. We called ourselves Team Utah, and we went out and really did well.

[00:15:32.650] 

Jeff Kingsford beat me at almost every competition, but Team Utah was right there because we were first, second and third. You know, we we did really well. And the positions that changed once in a while, talking about Carl a little bit in that era, Carl, my brother's wife was Carl's aunt, Carl rode motorcycles. I rode motorcycles. And we're going to back up in time a little bit. So there was a lot of shit talk between me and Carl.

[00:16:13.030] 

He would tell Joanne that was my brother's wife and his aunt that he could beat my ass any day of the week. But I actually raced and Carl didn't.

[00:16:25.030] 

And there was a lot of smack talk through Joanne.

[00:16:31.420] 

So I got the word I really disliked Carl. I wanted to beat the shit out of him and Carl had a dislike for me.

[00:16:40.450] 

In 1982 was the first year they came out with a four wheeler, the very first year, and we ended up at a family reunion together that morning. I jumped on my four wheeler and went one direction and Carl jumped on his and went the other direction midday.

[00:17:02.320] 

And this was down where Sand Hollow is now. Before the lake. Before any of that, we met in a pretty nasty rock area.

[00:17:12.940] 

And, you know, I'm kind of like, what's this little bastard want? You know?

[00:17:18.010] 

And I know he felt the same way.

[00:17:21.040] 

Well, it was pretty challenging when we met up and we decided to try it on your four wheelers, on our four wheelers, on our two wheel drive four wheelers. Of course, they didn't have four wheel drive that afternoon.

[00:17:37.060] 

Something clicked between me and Carl because I helped him through him through the rocks and he helped me. We became the best of friends for two guys that didn't like each other.

[00:17:47.950] 

We found a common ground and a common interest.

[00:17:52.060] 

We started doing a lot of the most extreme riding we could do with the junk that we had, because that's what we love to do. Carl started riding trials a few years after I did. And you know, all that comes into the whole team. Utah thing. In nineteen eighty five, Suzuki came out with a four wheel drive quad, the first four wheel drive. We start to do an extreme adventures. We would leave cedar, we would pack everything on them quad we needed and we would go anywhere from a week to a month.

[00:18:38.650] 

Wow. Trips on a quad, on quads, not knowing where we were going. We had picks, shovels, tents, food. We would end up in a town somewhere and get gas and a lot of the trails in southern Utah were built by me and Carl doing these adventure rides and trips.

[00:19:04.770] 

So what was that? What kind of trails were there to begin with?

[00:19:07.860] 

Where you guys just on game trails or so the old timers, they did hash marks in the trees to find their way through from, you know, let's say Brian Head to Panguitch or from, you know, their herd of cattle or sheep or their ranch to wherever they would go, because, of course, the hash marks were a GPS to them.

[00:19:33.750] 

Right. Once we figured out the hash marks and me talking to my dad and finding more informations, there were trials there. He says when you find the hash marks, you find the next one. You just start putting the dots together and we open some of the coolest trails and we got to see country that most people will never see. That kind of where the extreme stuff started coming in from. We both loved trials. We pushed each other hard.

[00:20:07.320] 

And that was just another part of that Xtreme offroad adventure. In 1989, I took number two in the nation on my trials bike. I had got sponsored, so I got sponsored by Montesa in 88 and 89.

[00:20:29.490] 

Fantic sponsored me with a much better sponsorship, took number two in the nation. So for the 1990 season coming up, I got even a better sponsorship from Beda. Me and Carl was down at Sand Hollow practicing. I was trying to do a big ledge. We call it a splatter, so we set a rock about four feet away from the straight up and down wall. And we used that as a kicker to fly through the air and land up on top of the ledge.

[00:21:07.050] 

Well, I missed it by a little bit and I came off the ledge backwards and of course, Sand Hollow all the sand down there. You know what? I always hold the bike by its bars when I come off something backwards. And, you know, hopefully you plant your feet on the ground when you land in the back, tire hits the ground and you're OK. Well, in the sand, my leg went crooked. So as it ends up, my right foot was setting up by my crotch because I blew my knee to pieces one of a couple of times that I know if we'll get into those.

[00:21:44.700] 

Yeah, yeah. One of one of many anyway. So that put me out for the season and I didn't know what I was going to do. I called Beda, I'm like I have these new bikes.

[00:21:59.610] 

I can't, I can't do the season. And they're just like sell em Dean, do whatever you want with them, we wish you luck. We hope you get better.

[00:22:11.040] 

I was in a cast back then that knee thing was a 12 month deal cast just a mess. I didn't know what I was going to do.

[00:22:25.320] 

Ninety one came around and my leg was still stiff. I couldn't ride a trials bike and Steve Tagami worked for me and he's a big drag racer. Asphalt drags and he'd been on drag bikes for a number of years. And he was my service manager and a good friend. And he's like, well, let's put your drag bike together and let's go to a race. I'm like, OK, might as well. We went to a drag bike national.

[00:23:00.240] 

So it wasn't NHRA, it was a drag bike national.

[00:23:04.500] 

We went to that first race and I won and it was, you know, everybody's like, who's this hillbilly from Utah that got me motivated?

[00:23:18.810] 

We finished out that season, but we did start racing NHRA. I never won again, but I never had a first round lost in my life and I would usually make it to the finals. I had a pretty good knack at it. So that winter I built a brand new drag bike, won out in 92 season, and I won Winston Series

[00:23:49.520] 

I won the Las Vegas Track Championship Series, I won the TNN series, I cleaned up nice, you know, Karen Stoffer and Angelica, some of the gals that are still out there racing, they were coming up and Pauline says, you know, you've won everything you've wanted to do.

[00:24:15.590] 

You've not got beat by the girls yet. You haven't went down on the track.

[00:24:20.480] 

Don't you think it's the best time to quit while you're ahead? While I was ahead and for some reason, that made sense to me.

[00:24:28.880] 

And it's crazy because, you know, I had my Wali's, I had my gold cards for NHRA I could go to, any track and race for free and VIP, all these things. I went to the first race, which happened to be at Sears Point, which is Dominion Raceway now put a for sale sign on my bike and I sold it and I never looked back. But drag racing was one of them things. You know, you go to a national event, you're minimum gone five days minimum.

[00:25:05.630] 

You're at the track for three days minimum with qualifying and everything you do at the end of the weekend.

[00:25:13.430] 

And you have about 80 seconds worth of fun the whole time and you're sitting in your leathers, baking. Every track is the hottest stink in this place. And, you know, drag racing is like, hurry up and wait. I love the speed and the thrill, but everything else about it I didn't like. And so it was it was a good time to quit. Trials was still my love. That was still just my love. And in 1988, I bought us Suzuki Samarai and I bought it for him.

[00:25:50.750] 

I got invited to go on a trip to Moab with guys with jeeps that were back in that area. Built lockers, t-cases, everything. And I had my hunting samarai that I literally made the biggest, ugliest steel bumpers and I had steel skid plates underneath it. And because we did a lot of hunting in our life, part of our adventures on the four wheelers were hunting and, you know, we were going to different states and I was destroying my new vehicle.

[00:26:27.560] 

So we took my hunting samurai to Moab with a bunch of Jeep guys, pretty much got laughed at because it was a samurai, because it was a samurai and I didn't know what lockers were and all these things.

[00:26:44.060] 

There was one guy and I'm not going to mention his name that was just taunting me, standing at the top of every obstacle with a tow strap just swinging back and forth and mouthing off and mouthing off.

[00:27:00.080] 

We got home the next day. I ordered over eight thousand dollars worth of parts for my samurai.

[00:27:10.430] 

I'm like, that will never happen again.

[00:27:13.550] - Big Rich Klein

OK, so let me ask then. And he said this guy was dragged by a guy who was working for you. Yes. What were you doing at that time? Employment wise OK.

[00:27:24.470] - Dean Bulloch

So, yeah, I probably should back up to that one. When I moved to Cedar City, I moved back to Cedar in seventy eight.

[00:27:33.710] 

I opened I went in partnership in a powersports store and we sold motorcycles and snowmobiles and boats.

[00:27:45.060] 

OK, I had that partnership, which was not a very good one. We were all too young. I sold out of that partnership in 1982, but I started my own snowmobile rental business and repair business at Duck Creek Village on Cedar Mountain. OK, when I sold out, I signed a no compete clause for Cedar. That company dissolved that I sold out in 1985. So I kept my I still had my shop at Duck Creek. When they dissolved that company.

[00:28:25.430] 

I was getting a lot of pressure to come back to Cedar in 1987. I actually did come back to Cedar, you know, and reopened D&P performance down here. Yeah, I've owned my own business, per se, since 78. OK, I just had the partnership thing that was the best business school I could have ever went to in my life. I learned a lot from it.

[00:28:53.210] - Big Rich Klein

Probably a lot of what not to do exactly.

[00:28:56.870] - Dean Bulloch

Oh, 100 percent. We were all too young and looking in the till at the end of the day and oh my God, look how much money we have. I didn't share quite that same thought, but that was kind of the situation. I had D&P performance on the mountain. My company down here was called CBM Inc. and I just I reopened it as D&P performance in eighty seven going through the years before we go back. I ended up opening a store in St.

[00:29:31.880] 

George, so I had three stores going in and I decided to do some really stupid things like keep them all open seven days a week and it was pretty crazy. And trying to do that and keep racing and doing what I was doing was was interesting, to say the least.

[00:29:50.180] 

Still married to Pauline, so.

[00:29:52.250] 

Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. We just were working on forty four years here.

[00:29:59.300] 

Awesome. That's Congratulations on that. Yeah. That's, I think that's quite an accomplishment nowadays. Standards you know. Absolutely.

[00:30:07.520] 

Yeah. Came in after going back to Moab. Yes. You ordered eight thousand dollars. Yep. And I wanted it to find out where what had happened to where you could afford to drop eight grand instantly into your Suzuki. Right. So thank you for backtracking it. Yeah.

[00:30:27.020] 

Yeah. My, my business has been worked very hard, put a lot of hours in and a lot of years in. But because of my business I was able to race. People think being your own boss is the greatest thing in the world. Well, it can be at times, but a lot of times it's not because every customer that walks in the door. That's your boss. Yes. You're not the boss whether you like him or not.

[00:30:55.580] 

Yeah. Yeah. Your customer is your boss. Correct.

[00:30:58.640] 

You know that I ordered the eight thousand dollars worth of parts and it basically is what that was, is it was gears, lockers, lower gear, t-case gears, axles, everything I could think of. So the next time I went to Moab, I didn't get laughed at.

[00:31:19.910] 

The next time we did go to Moab, it was a whole different story because in that little Samarai, yeah, it's short wheelbase and everything else. But because of my trials experience, I could wheely my Samarai and keep traction and slide my clutch and I could do some pretty big obstacles, that whole splatter technique. And we call we've got 747 techniques, we call them. And, you know, a 747 is you're at the bottom of this gnarly obstacle.

[00:31:55.700] 

And with a standard transmission, you just put the clutch in, go full throttle and start slipping and then just launch it and fly to the top. What, you can do that in a rock crawl? Yes, it's a little bit different technique, but there was a lot from trials riding that came into the rock crawling.

[00:32:21.770] - Big Rich Klein

Well, in the sense of balance as well. Now, whether you're whether you're astride something or you're sitting in something, it's especially rock crawling. Anybody that's listening to this that are rock crawlers. You understand that it's a game of balance. Oh, yeah, on on anything, whether it's a climb drop, a side hill, it's still knowing the balance of that vehicle. Yep.

[00:32:43.730] - Dean Bulloch

Yeah, I call it the bubble in my ass, you know, and I mean, everybody's got to have that if they're if they're going to a rock crawl or if they're going to trials ride.

[00:32:54.560] 

So rock crawling was like my next step. I wanted to be a trials rider, but because of the damage I've done to my legs, I really couldn't go back and be on the same level. Right. And I didn't want to embarrass myself by going back and not being on that same level. After not riding for two years, we started doing the rock crawling thing.

[00:33:25.130] 

There was no competition yet, so it was a bunch of good ol boys out having fun, no organized competition.

[00:33:35.270] 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:33:37.580] 

There just was was not an organization that was doing it. We just kept building, you know, our samurai's. Carl ended up getting a samurai. Steve ended up getting a samurai. I don't remember the year I met you, but you had to dodge Dakota.

[00:33:55.250] 

Yeah. Actually that Dodge D50. Yeah, the D50. Sorry. Yes. Yes.

[00:34:00.200] 

You talk about going to a gunfight with a knife. Yeah. Butter knife.

[00:34:06.230] 

Yeah. You know, we just kept building them bigger, badder, better, stronger.

[00:34:12.020] 

The first rock crawling competition was in 1998, I believe in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

[00:34:20.780] 

Isn't that about right? Yeah. 97. 98, yes. Yeah.

[00:34:25.370] 

Didn't make that one. But the very next one was in the Superstition Mountains out of Phoenix, if I remember. Right. Yes. So a friend of mine wanted me to spot for him, went to that competition.

[00:34:45.110] 

I spotted for him. He didn't listen for shit. He wouldn't do what I told him to do. I was mad. He was mad.

[00:34:57.080] 

The very next competition after that was Cedar City. Yes. I spotted for him again and he he blew his junk in a million pieces. We worked on it all night long, did not go to bed, went out the next day and he blew it to pieces again. And I'm like, I am done, I am done. This, you know, we didn't work together. It didn't click. He had a big motor and all this horsepower and not heavy enough parts.

[00:35:30.920] 

So me and Carl was actually sitting in this building, we are here at D&P performance. Yes. So this part of my showroom where the offices are now used to be my my fabrication shop where I worked on the rock crawlers and you know, we worked on all our toys in here. There was a competition coming up.

[00:35:54.950] 

It was at Cedar City, which was the following year, because I think that first year they had three. Correct. So the next year, the first one I believe was in Cedar. Me and Carl are sitting here going, we should do this.

[00:36:12.560] 

But we both had vehicles, so we did a flip or I think we flipped to see who drove and who spotted.

[00:36:21.680] 

Well, I'm not sure if I won or lost, but you ended up being the driver. I ended up being the driver. We go to the rock crawling competition. We just thought we sucked bad. We really did. I mean, we did the best we could do. But as far as we were concerned, we were embarrassed with our tails between our legs and they had the awards down at the city park. Right.

[00:36:48.830] 

We weren't going to go at all because we were embarrassed. We didn't think we did. Very good. I think Carl talked me into.

[00:36:54.830] 

Let's just go down and see who won and what happened. So we was like way in the back of the crowd so nobody could see us or anything like that.

[00:37:05.880] 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:37:07.580] 

They started off with the awards, you know, and the different classes. And what was it back then? Legends. Did they call the, I can't remember the names of the classes. Exactly.

[00:37:19.730] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, they had that was UROC, Cuz ARCA I think ARCA at that point only had they may have had two classes by then, but I think they had that was everybody was in one.

[00:37:34.250] - Big Rich Klein

UROC started up the same year I did when I left Cedar City and went and started CalRocs on 

[00:37:40.940] - Dean Bulloch

see and I can't remember if the first competition we went to was an ARCA or a Pro rock or I don't exactly remember which one of them it was back there, if it was the Phoenix, but that that Phoenix, Arizona race, the first one that you spotted in that was that ARCA, ARCA on the woodpecker trails.

[00:38:08.930] 

Yeah, that was yeah. Yeah. That was the first ARCA that I had gone to as well. We went down Dave Bierling, and I went down there because of ARCA coming in to Cedar, which as the club we were helping them in getting in there. And we do all those cleanups and stuff out at Three Peaks. And then the next event was Cedar. And then they did.

[00:38:31.820] 

I don't remember who did the next event here, but I think I think Pro Rock may have had multiple classes. I don't think UROC would have been started yet.

[00:38:42.740] 

Yeah, I don't think UROC was started yet. It was like 91 or 2001. Yeah.

[00:38:48.390] 

Anyway, we're we're at the city park. We're all embarrassed. They got to our class, whichever one it was, because, you know, even ProMod used to be called, you know, all the different names they had coming up through.

[00:39:02.060] 

Yeah. And they got to our class and they announced first place and, you know, were clapping and keeping our heads down. And then they got to second place and they said our name.

[00:39:19.270] 

And I was like, are you shitting me? You know, I was shocked because we just thought we did terrible. That made us feel a whole lot better walking up to the podium, you know, and and that was kind of that was our game on right there. It's like, wow, if we finish sucking, just think if we put more time, money and effort into this vehicle, we can do things with it. And boy, we really went to work on it and we went to the next competition and we won it in a few months later, one of the promoters, there wasn't there wasn't cell phones and all that stuff back then called me and says, Dean, B.F. Goodrich is trying to get a hold of you.

[00:40:09.470] 

And I'm like, for what he says. I think they want to sponsor you. And I'm like, yeah, whatever.

[00:40:15.140] 

You know, that would probably have been Ranch.

[00:40:19.760] 

Very possible. Very possible. And I think it was I think it was ranch.

[00:40:26.630] 

So he says, I gave him your phone number and I'm like, yeah, OK. You know, I didn't believe a word of it really. And it wasn't. But two to three days later, Jeff Cummings calls me and he goes, God damn it, Dean, you're a hard guy to get a hold of. And I'm like, whoa, what are you trying to get a hold of me for? We would like to sponsor you. And he started going over all the details and what they wanted to do for me and like money and tires.

[00:40:56.210] 

And I'm just like, are you kidding me? You know? He says, tell you what, we were supposed to sign this contract before we do anything, but I'm going to start shipping product out today, OK? And like literally in three days, I had tires. I had stuff sitting here and a few days later I got a check, too. And I'm just like, wow. So, you know, we finished we probably were in the old blue Sammy and so many different stages up until 03. Todd Little.

[00:41:34.580] 

We became good friends. And he's like, hey, how about we team up and let's build you, you know, which is the ProMod today. Let's do the most badass ProMod we can possibly build. Everybody was wondering what I was doing. We literally had to cover the windows In Todd's shop because we did not want anybody to know what we were doing. That's one we built.

[00:42:03.650] 

You know, the yellow Sammy Zopp to total change over the first competition in 2004 was at St George.

[00:42:17.270] 

No, that's a lie. It was a cougar. Butte's. Yeah, it was a cougar. Butte's was the first competition.

[00:42:23.840] 

We finished Zuk2 one evening and had to be and contributes the next morning. I'm tasked to hold my beer and watch this, here we go, and we went down and we cleaned house. I mean, it was just the greatest feeling in the world. You know, Todd did such a good job. And of course, me and Carl was down there every day. We would work our jobs until about two o'clock, would jump in my truck, head to St George, work until midnight, 1:00 in the morning, come home, work our jobs.

[00:43:02.980] 

You know, we had a big hand in doing it, too. But just kind of amazing how that went. Some of the Todd stories and I mean, you've talked about a little bit how we met was, you know, just being recreational. Jeepers. And let's go find some new trails and let's do something different. And I think you'll remember this Ash Creek, which is now called Skull Canyon, me and Carl just got a wild hair. One weekend we packed up our camping gear.

[00:43:38.910] 

We didn't go hiking and we had no idea what you're getting. Yeah, we just let let's take our camping gear and let's get on our Sammie's and let's go see what happened. And I and I'll tell you the experience of that. It was pouring, rain pouring.

[00:43:57.510] 

And we jump into that. Canyon, you know you know, the creek was running a little bit. It wasn't that big of a deal. And we get to an area where we're kind of trapped and we're trapped by a tree that is actually growing out of the creek bed. And the tree had to be cut down. And we had our chainsaws and everything with us and it's pouring rain. We got our rain gear on, but we don't care. We're going to find our way through this canyon one way or the other.

[00:44:25.920] 

And I'm cutting the tree down under water with the chainsaw, Carl or Steve or one of them start to scream and flood. Flood. You could hear the water coming down the canyon. We jumped. We had three samurais and we backed them up the face of that wall as high as we could. And the head of that flood was probably five or six feet tall, boulders, trees and everything coming down through there.

[00:44:56.520] 

It was crazy, you know, so the the flood comes through and we wait for probably two hours. And we thought the water had gone down far enough.

[00:45:09.870] 

So I pull into the area where I cut the tree out of the way.

[00:45:14.370] 

Of course, it's what you cut was gone now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's long gone, you know, and who knows what's changed because of the way the boulders were rolling. And I pulled down in there and all of a sudden I dropped into one of them deep holes while the water's running in the passenger door at the windows down and out the driver's door.

[00:45:35.340] 

And I'm sitting in water up to my chest flooded motor. Oh, yeah, what a mess. So it's like, all right, you know, I wonder if winches work underwater and we get mine winched out the other side. They're over there with their Sammie's backed up on the wall, giving me the Utah howdy. They're middle fingers like we're staying here. I pull my sparkplugs out, crank my motor and blow the water out of the cylinders, take the drain plug out.

[00:46:10.320] 

And I'm just watching, you know, water, water, water up. Here's some oil.

[00:46:14.700] 

Put the drain plug back in and I finally get it started and steam the motor out. And I'm like, guys, you're not going to be able to go back. You have to come this way. So we ended up taping some things. I drug them through the water with their motors dead so they didn't hydrolock their motors like I did. It took us. We camped two nights, so almost three days to get through Ash  Creek.

[00:46:45.150] 

Well I told Todd little about this. Of course him and Jan they wanted to come and try it and do a camping trip and it's crazy because you guys were in samurais.

[00:46:57.900] 

Todd drove a Wagoneer. Oh yeah. A full size. Full size my size like all the glass. Yeah yeah yeah. We get going through there.

[00:47:06.960] 

The first thing Todd did was rip the whole exhaust right off from the exhaust. You know, we stick her in the back of the old Waggoneer and I told them guys I'm like, there's quicksand in here. Like No Joke, there's really quicksand in here. Nobody believe me, I knew where the quicksand was because at that point I'd probably ridden that trail four or five times. Todd pulls the big old turd in there and it sinks like no getting the doors open, it seems we finally, finally got him drug out of there.

[00:47:45.410] 

But what an experience. But that was the first trip where I really got to know Todd and Jan with Todd helping us build the Zuk2 and Todd had his Willys' rock crawler. Todd decided to. Let Jen start driving and, you know, we formed the On Track crawler team, we traveled the country together and had a great time, you know, throughout all of this, you know, in the wintertime, snowmobiling was my love. We did so much racing and so much riding.

[00:48:23.690] 

We got to where we would all try and rock, crawl and do the stupidest things on our snowmobiles that we did in the jeeps and the trials bikes, some of the techniques that that we'd learned from trials riding crossed over to the snowmobiles in it. It crossed over to the Jeep thing, you know, hitting these big ledges on snowmobiles and flying off them and then popping them up in the air and land and flat on top.

[00:48:58.460] 

And just everything about my life, my mom said she knew when I was a little kid that I was going to be into extreme sports.

[00:49:10.580] 

I lived right up in the canyon here. There's a little red house that sets up on the hill. If you went straight up Center Street, you'd run into it. And there's ledges. It's just a big mountain with ledges on it. I'd spend half the day dragging my pedal bike to the top and I'd ride my pedal bike off them ledges. Just I don't know. I always liked the adrenaline rush, the challenge. And I guess that's what made me what I am today.

[00:49:43.400] 

Yeah.

[00:49:43.730] - Big Rich Klein

You know, the adrenaline rushes is a big thing in our sport. I think that everybody that competes or even trail rides extreme, you know, loves that that adrenaline rush. I can remember before that first event here in Cedar City, Walker Evans and Kevin Hawkins came into town and wanted to see what Three Peaks was like. And we took them up on the dam road and then we took him out to West Trail because there was that one obstacle that the weekend before somebody had finally driven it.

[00:50:17.120] 

And that was Ladd Ladd's ladder. Yep, Ladd's ladder. He got to name it. And I can remember Walker and Kevin on that thing for hours. And Walker looked at me and said, OK, who was that guy you said that drove this already? You know, there's there's no way somebody drove this unaided without a winch and or without a spotter.

[00:50:36.110] 

And he said, it's that guy right there. That's Ladd, Ladd Brinley. And, you know, he had that five with bald, big old tires. And he goes, there's no way you drove that in that. And Ladd pulled in there and drove right up. It didn't even take a spin or a back up. Just drove up. And Kevin was like, dang, you know. Yeah, yeah. We've been beaten on this thing for three hours, but a lot of people beat their stuff up on that unlatches ladder.

[00:51:05.330] 

Oh yeah. It was a tough one. I don't know Ladd was pretty good. We always tried to get him to compete, but he, he was more interested in being a tow truck driver and driving that old. Yeah. But you know, we had a side by side event.

[00:51:19.240] 

Oh, it's been four weeks ago here.

[00:51:21.650] 

Two of our rock trials were Wild West and Skull Canyon in the UTVs. Yeah. And it's amazing, you know, to see the the struggle that we had back then.

[00:51:36.980] 

And now we take these UTV's and drive right up Ladd's Ladder and all these different obstacles. And it's just amazing where the off road has went, be it in jeeps or side by sides. Absolutely. But yeah, we, we built the had the Sammy  done for that 2004 season and I got an interesting phone call from Discovery Channel and they wanted to do a documentary on rock crawling. And I'm like, wow, that's kind of cool. Well, me and Carl basically lived with the Discovery film crew that whole season.

[00:52:18.410] 

They spent time in Cedar City. They spent time right here in this building. They went to every event. Wouldn't you know that's the year that I won the Super Crawl. That's awesome. And they were there with us. The the show was called The King of Rocks, and it ran for years and years and years. And I remember calling them because I became pretty good friends with them, spending that much time with them. And I'm like, when are you guys going to quit running this?

[00:52:51.410] 

And they says, as soon as the viewer ratings go down quite, quite the year that was we just we had was very, very fortunate to have the success that we had in the rock crawling sport, you know, people could not understand me and Carl, we didn't have to talk most of the time. We were just on that same page and we had our little techniques and our little weird things in 2015.

[00:53:26.260] 

King of the Hammers, you know, when you have to go up Jack Hammer, there was a big mess up there and everything just it was a total disaster.

[00:53:37.850] 

The line on all these side by side magazines and film crews and everybody was there. They're all trying to make the trail over here. And there's these huge ledges and boulders and nasty like not possible to anybody. And Carl comes down and he's like, I got this. He took you up the right line.

[00:53:56.500] 

Yeah. And, you know, nobody had ever been up before.

[00:54:00.550] 

Carl is literally out of sight. Cannot see. But Karl will whip that winch rope. And when I feel that whip in the winch rope I know it's time to start winching. We passed 18 guys in that crazy thing that we did. And a lot of the side by side guys come to me after that was over and says that is the most amazing thing we've ever seen in our life. How do you guys work together like that with no communication?

[00:54:29.380] 

But we've done it for so long with each other. We have these like the whip of the winch rope. I know it was time to go. If it's time to stop, he'll stomp on that rope and you feel that in the vehicle. I know it's time to stop, you know, and we just we've always the first time we went hunting together, the very, very first time we went hunting together.

[00:54:54.190] 

And we hunted a lot in our life together.

[00:54:57.940] 

We were in an area that neither one of us had ever been. I went north. He went south. We were hunting elk. And we told each other we'll try and meet up midday or whatever.

[00:55:08.410] 

We both ended up in exactly on the same knoll at lunchtime.

[00:55:15.490] 

Just weird things like that. It takes many years to to build that type of relationship and be on the same page and click together. But we did it right away and then it just got better from there. When Karl said, I got you, like if he was on the spotter rope and he said, I got you, there was no question.

[00:55:42.340] 

I remember a rock crawl in St George at the old rock crawling park was on the side of the really steep hill. And on the backside of it was a ledge, a drop off ledge. Nobody could miss the cone on that side. Nobody could. Karls like, we got this. He says, I'm going to go up over the ledge, drop off, stand on a ledge like I'm a rock crawler, put my legs into it, hanging out there midair.

[00:56:10.360] 

He says, I got you. I drove up around that cone like it wasn't even there. But it was just, you know, everybody's like he's so small. But Carl understands leverage and stuff better than any human I've ever met.

[00:56:25.420] 

And you both had to have balance doing what you guys were doing with the ATVs and the trial bike. And balance is huge. Yeah. I mean, like I said, you know, just in that vehicle, you got to understand the balance as well.

[00:56:39.790] 

So, yeah, from that point, we did really well with rock crawling and I continued to race excuse me, snowmobiles until 2002.

[00:56:53.500] 

And I'm like, you know, I've kind of had enough I, I've done enough of this. It's time to hand the torch over whatever you want to call it. And, you know, my employees and everybody were racing and riding and doing everything. And I I'd kind of lost my my love for that little it was kind of almost like a plumber going to a plumber convention on the weekends because it was my business. I'd done it for so many years.

[00:57:24.550] 

And and I needed an out. And honestly, rock crawling was my out from my day to day business we go through.

[00:57:38.230] 

I don't remember exactly what year it was. I believe 2007.

[00:57:47.650] 

Tom Allen from PSC, came on board to sponsor me in probably 2004, was still with BFG and had a lot of other good sponsors too. Tom thought it was time that we build a new rock crawler. He figured that Zuk2, had seen its better days. He hired Twisted Customs to build me a brand new rock crawler instead of us doing it. There was a little bit of an issue there, I'm going to say, because they were one of our fiercest competitors.

[00:58:21.120] 

Joachim and Brian. They had never built one with a standard transmission before because you know me, I always had the standard. And that's I had to have it. Had to have it.

[00:58:31.830] 

Well, they they built that Twisted Customs car and they put the standard transmission in it. And it changed the vehicle because of lengths, because of everything and nothing really against them guys. But that car was the biggest pile of shit I'd ever drove in my life. It did not work. And, you know, they had a good working chassis, but they had to modify that to get my standard transmission and everything in there.

[00:59:04.110] 

I hated the car, didn't like it. Very well sold at the second event to Barry Beadle out of Texas. And Barry wanted me to drive it the rest of the year. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? You know, the car wasn't competitive, so I drove it had a really not a good year at all. I mean, we had some good finishes, but the car was not good. We went down to Texas and Tom hired some guys and I took Todd Little down and we started a little fab business and we built the next version, which we ended up put in a Jeep Liberty body on.

[00:59:45.720] 

And it was a very capable rock crawler. And that's actually the one that I finished my rock crawling career and all. We'd started building some other cars for other people. Tom didn't really like it, like having a baby sitter. I was flying back and forth from Texas. And before I get off that, well, I'll finish that out and then we'll go back to King of the Hammers. OK, so I actually moved the fabrication business up here and we started building.

[01:00:22.620] 

I had Todd Little, Shon Wilson and I had other guys working for me and we was actually building competitive rock crawlers and 4400 for other people and now all backed up. So, you know, Bob from ProRock. Hazel Yeah. He was the first guy that had the idea of King of the Hammers. He was the first one. He's like and he talked to me. I knew I talked to Tracy. He talked to a bunch of us.

[01:00:53.220] 

What would you guys think if we went to Johnson Valley and we had a race up the rock canyon? Would you guys be willing to do it? Hell, yeah. Let's try it. That'd be fun. Well, Bob, kept talking about it. Well, Jeff and Dave, they're like, we're not going to talk about it. We're going to do it. Pretty sure it was 07, right. The first year. So, you know, we all show up in our rock crawlers.

[01:01:17.520] 

There wasn't a race car out there that there were crawlers.

[01:01:21.630] 

There was no spectators.

[01:01:24.370] 

It was like the good old boys, you know, and we were we were a little teeny drop in that big lake bed.

[01:01:30.360] 

And we go out and tear up our junk and laugh and come on, I can't remember the name of the guy that won it. He was the horn player for.

[01:01:41.910] 

Yeah, John Reynolds. Who. Reynolds the he had his name.

[01:01:46.170] 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It happens again the next year and boy we're like a whole lot bigger. We were still in rock crawlers but we'd made a lot of changes to the rock crawlers.

[01:02:01.080] 

I don't remember the mileage the first year. I think the second year it was like sixty three miles year.

[01:02:11.160] 

Year one.

[01:02:12.240] 

I rolled over and I broke stuff and this and that.

[01:02:16.440] 

And the next year I got in the lead like by forty five minutes I had it and all that I had to do was go down outer limits and drive back around to the finish.

[01:02:30.960] 

I am heading on you know coming out of the wash, going over the entrance of Outer Limits, my Ford nine inch breaks a pinion shaft and the drive line just wipes out the brake lines, poked a hole in the fuel cell, destroys everything.

[01:02:50.760] 

Well, we're rock crawlers, right? We break.

[01:02:53.550] 

We pretty much finish, you know, we're done and they're going to drag us off.

[01:02:57.450] 

So we sat there and sat there and I'd taken my fire suit off, I. Leave it was Casey Currie, I think, after 45 minutes drives by and then a little while later I think Nick Campbell drove by and I'm like, what are we doing sitting here? Let's just take the drive line off. We don't need brakes. Da da da da dah. Let's drive down outer limits and let's finish this race just in front wheel drive. Yeah, front wheel drive, no brakes.

[01:03:32.740] 

And lo and behold, we finish that race in third or fourth place.

[01:03:37.690] 

So if you would just if I would have just had that mentality of let's fix our junk now, we would've won it.

[01:03:46.510] 

So that was kind of the the drive and the motivation and like, OK, we're going to do this thing. We need to build a specific vehicle for this race. What we did, you know, we built the the rock crawler, the liberty buggy and the 4400 right there about in that same same time frame went after it.

[01:04:13.840] 

And the next year, Dave got hooked up with the best in the desert to have a 4400 class. So, you know, that was part of the series in the championship. I believe the first I think the first Best in the Desert race that we did was Vegas to Reno, the long way, thousand and forty two miles. But it was a stage race, right.

[01:04:44.170] 

You know, we were unlucky enough to start dead last because it was just a random draw at that point in time.

[01:04:54.610] 

Carl wasn't co driving with me. Carl's daughter got cancer in her femur, in her leg. Carl was was spending time with his family and doing what he needed to do. Right. So I had Tom was co driving with me. You know, we take off dead last. It was just it was so much fun and so much work. And we ended up finishing the race.

[01:05:23.590] 

We were second or third, I don't remember, but we lost the transmission day two, all's we had was second gear, with the way you had so many minutes to work on them before they had to go in the impound yard or take your panel leaves and what you had to do, you know, we just bandaid it everything we could Band-Aid. And we finished that race and just had so much fun. So I was like, hey, let's race more best in the desert.

[01:05:57.670] 

And Dave started doing more with the Ultra four and just a lot of good times, you know, but doing that and rock crawling at the same time was more than I really wanted to do.

[01:06:17.440] 

In 2010, I quit Rock crawling and my heart was in it. It truly was.

[01:06:23.200] 

And in it I kind of got burned out. So I kept doing the Ultra4 thing. In 2012, Arctic Cat came out with a ROV, a recreational Off-Road vehicle, a side by side that was more sporty.

[01:06:42.010] 

Hey, let's start building some of that. I think the total number of race side by side I built was 196 of them for other people, kept doing the 4400 and started doing the side by side because of the side by side was my business.

[01:07:00.730] 

And I'm like, what a great way to bring people into my business.

[01:07:06.100] 

You know, started a company called Wildcat Willy's and we made aftermarket parts in cages and built race cars for people and we started racing them. And by 2013 I started doing everything in a side by side instead of a 4400 or a Jeep. I kept my I kept my comp buggy.

[01:07:33.850] 

I kept my trail Jeep but they just that sat, probably the the thing that really changed my mind about going to the side by side and doing this is an Easter  Jeep Safari in 2012.

[01:07:51.310] 

Warn always has their run, you know, before everything really gets going. And Warn was one of my great sponsors. So me and Pauline. Showed up in our wildcat our side by side, and everybody laughed their ass off. They thought that was the funniest thing ever.

[01:08:13.880] 

And again, motivation and the ride.

[01:08:16.820] 

Yeah, the ride was getting ready to go in there. Like, when are you going to go get your jeep? Why not? I'm taking this. Yeah, whatever.

[01:08:24.240] 

Well, I don't remember exactly what trail we did, but, you know, they had all the film crews and they had everything and the magazines were there. Well, they spent more time filming us than they did the Jeeps. And I think I still have all the articles from that. But everybody was shocked that a side by side could do that.

[01:08:51.110] 

And if you want to know the truth, I was, too. But there's only one way to find out. Yes. So that just started pushing our limits that direction. We started racing. The more we did some of the ultra4 stuff, of course, we've done the hammers of every year except for 13. And and the reason why is September 21st of 2012. I got in a bad accident race and there was a 90 foot double jump.

[01:09:21.830] 

It was the winter fall. Fuel fast was the race. Twenty thousand dollar first winner take all, well the oldest guy there did the stupidest thing, which was me. We went and walked the course, all of the racers. It was at a motocross track. They did a great job. They put obstacles in it. The obstacles were bitchin' but on them, big high flying jumps for motorcycles. They put a kicker on the lip to kick him, huck them up in the air higher, and we all decided that that was way too dangerous.

[01:10:02.720] 

Well, the oldest guy there hit the first one that they said was too dangerous. And I made it. It was like a 60 footer. There was a run out in between the 60 footer and the 90 footer. Well, I stood on the gas and I hit it and I come up short and it ripped my seat right out of the frame. The front tires came into the driver's compartment. I broke my left, my left leg in thirty one pieces broke my left hip, broke all my ribs on my right side.

[01:10:37.760] 

I was a mess, you know, and I been tires came into the compartment but you didn't exit. I didn't exit the car. Right. My my cage that I built the driver's cockpit. I was safe but it ripped the seat frames right out of the tubes. The impact was so hard. It was you know, I've had multiple surgeries because of it. This last December, I just got two new total knee replacements because of it.

[01:11:10.250] 

But I had had a total of eleven surgeries, you know, from the motorcycle racing my life, just my lifestyle. I've had I've been hard on my body that took the wind out of my sails for a little while. I promised my wife, my family, I'm done racing. I will never race again. 2013 rolls around. I was at King of the Hammers, but I don't believe I was still on crutches. But I wasn't in real great shape.

[01:11:43.460] 

In May of 2013, they had one of the race series come to Cedar, a school, not SCORE, SNORE

[01:11:56.450] 

Well, they had a race there and I promised everybody I was quitting racing.

[01:12:00.650] 

Yeah, but it's in your hometown.

[01:12:03.110] 

Yeah, I told the wife, Pauline and my kids I'm going racing and they're like, we're not going to come and support you. You promised us you was quitting. Well, we decided to go and I limp over and get in the car and put my belts on and Carl jumps in and the green flag drops and we win the race.

[01:12:21.950] 

The worst thing that could happen. Yes, my family was praying to God that we would lose and I would really quit because he didn't want that embarrassment, you know?

[01:12:33.170] 

Yep. Yep. And that just, you know, that brought it to life. And I just I continued racing and we got into the race, the full sized wildcat that was thirteen.

[01:12:48.170] 

I raced it for a couple of years. In 2015, the year model Artic Cat released a sport they call it well, and Polaris has their their nine hundred sport, if you will. We. He was doing a photo shoot for Arctic Cat over and out of Bryce Canyon, and we had all the media there while John Crowley and a bunch of them were there and the shit talk started. It's like I think Polaris and Arctic Catshould have a competition in the Hammer's next year.

[01:13:23.800] 

Your sport against ours.. Well, that's not very fair. I just got a seven hundred in it and the players got a 900 in it. But I'll take your bet we'll do this. And Arctic Cat was 100 percent on board and everything. So we took basically a stock car.

[01:13:38.770] 

We put bigger tires on it.

[01:13:41.890] 

We put beadlock wheels on it, we put a skid plate on it, winches, bumpers, and that's about it. We go to the King of the Hammers race.

[01:13:51.880] 

And of course, they had dropped the sportsman class. So there was only one class now open pro, which that's the way it should be, in my opinion.

[01:14:01.330] 

Me and Carl in a little seven Hundred and the Polaris that we had the bet with was their 900 and all the rest of them were a thousand Turbo's and everything else out there. Well, me and Carl finished second with the seven hundred with a seven hundred sport. We definitely won the bet. So you got everybody that, Mitch? Yep, yep, yep. And Mitch, from my my understanding at that point, really didn't drive the obstacles.

[01:14:27.490] 

They winched them all well.

[01:14:28.960] 

And that year was a Winch fest. Right. And that was the year that we winched around all them people.

[01:14:37.430] 

Yes.

[01:14:39.160] 

There was no qualifying that year. It was luck of the draw. Mitch got a good draw. We didn't OK. But I think Mitch beat us by an hour, you know, but he got up front and didn't have to deal with the logjams that I did. But I still felt really good about our finish. Absolutely. You know, and the next year we raced a 700 sport again. We got into we never got into the lead, but we had passed everybody.

[01:15:13.840] 

Guthrie was broke in.

[01:15:17.110] 

Jack. We caught. I can't remember the kid that ended up winning. We caught him. I made a bad decision. We dropped into a wedge going downhill and really pinned the front tires hard. And Carl's like, let me get out and see what's up. I just stood on the gas. Well, I broke a front axle and what have you. Guthrie gets fixed, he passes us. While we're fixing that, we get fix, Mitch was hurt, you know, his car was hurt, we passed him back.

[01:15:53.960] 

We catch the leader again at the last pit. We've got the desert section to do and we roll through the pit.

[01:16:01.940] 

We go five hundred yards past the pit. We had damaged the tie rods. When I got into that V wedge, we broke the tie rods right there. Now we've got the desert section going back, it's all desert from here and we're in a seven hundred, we get that fixed. We only got passed by one car, we're full throttle. We'll do and everything our 700 could do. It was hilarious. The cat and dog chased me and Mitch had he'd pass me.

[01:16:30.350] 

I passed him. We had so much fun. But he actually crossed the line before I did. But I beat him because of time, because I started clear back and I think I ended up. I can't remember third or fourth, you know, but it's a lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda. But you know what? It's just a lot of fun.

[01:16:53.130] - Big Rich Klein

So there's there's one story that I know of that wasn't a race. It was a BFG event. I think it was. I think it might have been at Horsepower Ranch where you had your rock crawler and there was a bunch of trophy truck guys there. Yup. And everybody was sharing rides. You know, the the rock crawlers were getting in with the trophy truck guys and then the trophy truck guys got in with the rock crawlers. Talk about that one a little bit because that's a I think that's a great story on perspective.

[01:17:28.650] - Dean Bulloch

You know, that was one of the coolest things that could have ever happened.

[01:17:33.330] 

So it was when we were doing the tire release for the new KM2, which. Karl and myself were. Heavily involved with that tire, we did all the testing, my T.J. was the face, that's the vehicle they use for that release. So we had a big to do at Horsepower Ranch.

[01:18:04.850] 

We get down there and there was Bob Standage and myself. And we have our rock crawlers displayed in the grassy area there at Horsepower Ranch.

[01:18:23.600] 

While the trophy truck guys are showing up in some of the buggy guys, you know, a lot of BFG people the opening night, nobody knew who I was there around a bunch of off road races yet. Desert racers. Yeah, yeah.

[01:18:37.160] 

And anyway, they're having a big party and doing what they're doing. And I'm standing out, you know, underneath the awning area and there's all these people around.

[01:18:52.320] 

And they are just smack talking the hell out of why the hell did they bring these rock crawler guys down here? You know, and I just kept my mouth shut. I there was a lot of media.

[01:19:05.400] 

There was a lot of people is how it ended up working out is the media is who we were supposed to give rides to in all these different aspects of off road, me and Carl and Bob Standage in his spot or we end up they send us to Mike's Sky Ranch, why the rest of them are doing this big desert loops coming around in the Sky Ranch, which took them two or three days to get to us.

[01:19:34.830] 

They wanted us to go there, find an area where we could do some badass rock crawling and share that experience with the media on these tires.

[01:19:47.100] 

What they'll do, we got there and we set up a pretty badass course off camber, off camber drops.

[01:19:59.250] 

Where the whole cars all but tipping over and you fall off a ledge and as pretty cool, was pretty cool stuff.

[01:20:06.420] 

We ended up Bob broke a wheel when we was doing it and, you know, they had their helicopters down there and they flew us parts and the whole experience was just really neat. But anyway, they they come in to Mike's Sky Ranch that evening, and there was a whole lot of the media was really excited to go on the rock crawlers and the the desert racers are like, yeah, whatever.

[01:20:36.040] 

And I'm not going to name names.

[01:20:38.190] 

Come on. And we get all of the media ran through the Course, scared the hell out of them. Had a good time. Nobody got hurt, no crashes, no nothin.

[01:20:51.000] 

And we got done earlier than we were supposed to. And a couple of the desert guys are like, hey, why don't you take us for a ride, jump in.

[01:21:00.000] 

Well, my goal was to scare the shit out of them because those guys were talking all this big smack. Yeah, they they do is drive down dirt roads, you know, and they didn't know I was listening to them opening night with all their smack talk. I gave them all rides, scared the hell out of them. You know, they take off. We all head back, you know, the finishes back at Horsepower Ranch.

[01:21:24.300] 

So we get back to Horsepower Ranch and the final night, a big banquet party and everything. And a bunch of guys got up on the podium on the little stage, you know, and. Told their experience with the tires and what they thought and everything else. Well, one of the top dog desert racers of that era. Got up on the stage and was talking about the tires and then he says, I want everybody in this room to know that I rode with that bald guy right over there.

[01:22:03.530] 

And I have never been that scared in my life at three miles an hour, you know?

[01:22:12.710] 

And he says, I have all the respect in the world for these guys now after what he did today, you know, throughout this thing. And it was I mean, it was it was quite an experience. And, you know, to get the guys to I never thought I was better than them, but they thought that what we did was for sissies. Right.

[01:22:38.120] 

Boy, it it really woke him up and they had a change of heart, you know, right before just before the whole thing started, you know, backing up. One of them decides to take me for a ride in his trophy truck. Well, I already went out and rode that area. There's a big cliff out behind Horsepower Ranch, you know, Southwest, and he's doing like a buck 40. And we're coming up on this this ledge.

[01:23:09.860] 

And I mean, it's, what, a thousand feet? Eight hundred feet. Drop it. It's big. Well, he is scaring the shit out of me.

[01:23:17.420] 

There's no doubt about it. And there's a big wash coming, I knew it was coming. Obviously, he didn't. We hit it and ripped the whole front end right out from underneath that truck. We didn't crash. And I'm like, thank God that ride's over, you know?

[01:23:38.150] 

But, yeah, you know, to have to have them guys finally have some respect for what we did was was huge. You know, they were man enough to say that in front of everybody.

[01:23:54.140] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome. That this is a good lead in to to what just happened. We've only had what I considered one rock crawler in the off road hall of Fame, and that's Shannon. And he's been a good representative of rock crawling and rock racing and the sports. He's a great guy and will do anything for any racer out there or rock crawler at an event. There's been others that have been up for, you know, had been nominated but have not received the votes to get in other rock crawlers and and promoters.

[01:24:29.960] 

And when it was announced that that you were now being inducted into the Road Hall of Fame, I thought that was great, having now talked to you and learned more about your history and then reading what was in the the ORMHOF release about your background as well. With everything we've talked about, there was a lot of things in there that I didn't even know. We've known each other since the mid 90s. Right. And I just want to say, I believe that you're wholeheartedly deserving of getting into the into the offroad Hall of Fame.

[01:25:05.300] 

What that shows me is these guys that are desert racing, the guys that really haven't had the respect for the rock crawling world, have now started to get into the ultra4 racing. They're getting some experience experiences, rock crawling like Cameron Steele. It's great to see these guys having the respect for the rocks and that it's that it's not all just how hard you can hold the pedal down. And you getting the recognition and getting inducted is along is it brings us a long ways.

[01:25:41.660] 

A big jump. Yeah, because nobody has gotten the recognition since like six years ago. I think it's been since Shannon got inducted. So congratulations on being inducted. Hopefully that means that every year now we'll get a rock crawler in there. Right. It would be really nice to see our sport be recognized.

[01:26:03.800] - Dean Bulloch

You know, I was I was so honored. I had tears running down my face when I got the phone call. I just I felt so honored that somebody, you know, would think about me that remembered me. And I don't know the whole process, but I guess when they have the inducted party, I'm going to find out how this all happened. But I don't take it for granted. It was something that I never even dreamed about because I figured that was out of my reach.

[01:26:40.130] 

And to actually have it happen, it's just so special to me.

[01:26:44.480] 

It's it it's great to see. See you in there and thank you. I it's a big deal. It's a it's a huge deal. I don't know what else to say other than I'm just so honored that that happened. And obviously I've done something correct in my life or I touched somebody, you know, in somehow or some way that that made them think about me throughout a lot of the things we've talked about. You know, I've been presidents of, you know, the Utah Snowmobile Association clubs in southern Utah, the president of the Trials Association I try and stay involved in, even though I'm not racing, I try and stay involved in the off road community.

[01:27:41.600] 

I still have people contact me that want me to do tire tests for want me to do photo shoots for them.

[01:27:50.750] 

I've been a stand in driver in side by side for a lot of famous people. They're not really driving.

[01:27:58.700] 

I am you know, I love being involved in in this off road community because it's part of my life. I'm pretty sure I'll stay involved until the day I'm dead or I can't do it anymore.

[01:28:12.380] 

That's awesome. Kind of retired from the business end of it. Yes. And with D&P performance, your kids are running the. This now and you get to go out and play a little bit more. Yeah, yeah. Getting ready to head to Moab tomorrow, you know, we'll spend a week there.

[01:28:31.310] 

We're constantly riding somewhere off road all the time. I bought two new vehicles.

[01:28:42.240] 

Let's see, probably in December, January, and I probably have between the two of them.

[01:28:52.800] 

I'll bet I've got six thousand off road miles on them already. Nice. You know, I just like to ride. I like to spend time at my ranch. That's my goal in life, is to enjoy the rest of it recreating off road. My wife loves it. I think my wife likes it more than I do. You know, we enjoy going and do different things, different places. We did something kind of crazy last year and we bought the the Moab book of the 101 trails of Moab and the surrounding areas and we're checking it off.

[01:29:29.430] 

We're going to do every one of them, whether they're extreme or not.

[01:29:33.690] 

We're going to go do these trails. We're going to go see these things for the last. I've been officially retired for over two years, but even before that, you know, we hear of some cool place to go riding. We're there, you know, it doesn't matter what state it's in or whatever. And I just I meet, a lot of people, we do a lot of jamborees and rallies. We started a new organization a year ago called The Can-Am Crew.

[01:30:03.300] 

Because of Covid. This year, we've only been able to put on one event. But it was a great success between, you know, D&P performance, my business and myself and a few other really good key people. We're going to be doing more and more recreational events, not races.

[01:30:24.630] 

More social. Yeah, yeah. You know, we have rides for beginners, intermediate advanced expert riders. I did. You know, I think I told you I did the Skull Canyon and Wild West and I put on there. There are 10 rated trail. The people that went in my group said these are the first 10 rated trails we've ever been on because, you know, you go to something that's rated hard in Moab and you could almost drive your dually on it, you know, and and I guarantee people I said, guys, there's guaranteed body damage.

[01:31:03.120] 

If you ride on these trails, you are going to be an extreme rock crawler. And some of the side obstacles that I put in and the stuff that we used to do in the buggy's and to get a side by side to do it. And there's things that a buggy you'll do that side by side won't, trust me, you know, but what we can get them to do is just totally amazing. I agree. I agree. 

[01:31:31.010] - Big Rich Klein

Well, Dean, I want to say thank you for spending time with us and we'll be sharing your history.

[01:31:38.760] 

And you're part of our history with rock sports. And I really appreciate the time this morning. And again, congratulations on getting into the offroad Hall of Fame. Thank you. And hopefully you're that the beginning of that flood and hopefully that, you know, that we get that we're not going to go another five or six years until we get another rock crawler in the offroad hall of Fame. There are a ton of guys out there that deserve it. Yes.

[01:32:11.520] 

And it's all about getting the other forms, the motorcycle guys, the desert guys, all of those people to understand that there's more to it than just being able to go fast across the desert.

[01:32:25.980] - Dean Bulloch

Yeah, there is a lot more to it. And, you know, I'll just I'll put the offer out right now. I mean, if anybody would want to come and experience Extreme Rock Crawling, I'd be more than happy to take them out and show them that experience. Yeah.

[01:32:45.540] - Big Rich Klein

And, you know, there's more to it. There's more to Utah, southwestern Utah than just sand hollow. Oh, yes.

[01:32:52.470] 

There are trailss out here that that we built back in the 90s and the early 2000s that that still hold the test of time.

[01:33:01.890] - Dean Bulloch

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I haven't tried wrecking yard yet in my side by side, but that will be this fall when the temperatures cool down. And I'm going to see how a side by side does in the wrecking Yard a lot to be awesome, you know.

[01:33:19.520] 

I opened up a trial that me and Shon Wilson built in our. We just finished reopening that nobody had ever done that trial shy of maybe three or four people. Me and Shon did it together. I've reopened it, we;re naming it the Shon Wilson trail. That's fantastic. And it is extreme. It is full on in your face. I'm very, very shocked that we was able to get the side by side through it. And it's one hell of a challenging one.

[01:34:01.610] 

But, you know, without 35 inch or, bigger tires and everything that we did to the side by side, there's no way. But, you know, if somebody wants to experience something like that from a different aspect of offroad motorsports, I'd love to show them that experience.

[01:34:24.720] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that's great. I'd like to do I'd like to get a story done on on some of the local wheeling besides Sand Hollow for the magazine as well and some more UTV stuff. So love to talk about that. Yeah. In the future as well. Perfect. OK, Dean, thank you very much and congratulations. Thank you.

[01:34:45.590] 

If you enjoy these podcasts, please give us a rating, share some feedback with us via Facebook or Instagram and share our link among your friends who might be like minded. Well, that brings this episode to an end hope you enjoyed. It will catch you next week with conversations with Big Rich. Thank you very much.