Episode 264 with Steve Hastings, rock master.

Super spotter, Steve Hastings, was smooth, smooth, smooth. A driver in his own right, he spent a lot of his career as Jason Bunch’s spotter. OG rockcrawler who got started in the 60’s behind the wheel of his dad’s CJ5, Steve has seen a lot of rock. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

5:44 – Two pillows behind and two pillows underneath and low, low, low gear

15:23 – I’m one of Craig’s disciples, one of those rigs he bought high and sold low   

29:12 – More like a lot of tequila and a lot of tacos 

35:40 – Jason’s wife called and said, “Jason was a basket case, don’t you ever leave him behind again!” 

42:36 – We’d look at an obstacle and find the hardest spot, then work backwards to get the right line

51:04 –we weren’t looking for fast, we didn’t care if we finished in nine minutes and 59 seconds, as long as we finished. Smooth, smooth, smooth was our battle cry 

Special thanks to Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:05.310] - 

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 off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.560] - 

Whether you're crawling the Red Rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability. Four wheels or two, Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis tires deliver. Choose Maxxis. Tread victoriously.

[00:01:13.520] - Big Rich Klein

On this episode of Conversations with Big Rich. Be talking to an old-time wheeler, a guy that's spent most of his life off road, either with family, wheeling himself or as a competitor, a spotter, a racer, And a good friend, a lot of guys out there, especially in the old days, Steve Hastings. Good morning, Steve Hastings. So glad to have you here on the podcast, especially following up Jason Bunch, your partner in crime for years. This is going to be fun. I'm looking forward to it.

[00:01:50.720] - Steve Hastings

Good morning, Rich. I listened to the podcast last night about what Jason was rambling on, and he can get He can get going, but we had a lot of fun together. That's for sure.

[00:02:03.510] - Big Rich Klein

Well, great. We're going to get into all of that, plus a little bit about your history. So let's start off there. Where were you born and raised?

[00:02:13.790] - Steve Hastings

Right here in Southern California. Born in Glendale, grew up in T'Hunga, and went to school in Tahanga, Sunland area, high school, and lived with my parents. I was 24 before I moved out.

[00:02:36.340] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. And when you were going to school there, would you consider yourself a good student, an average student or one of those that looked out the window waiting to get out there?

[00:02:50.460] - Steve Hastings

Yeah. Well, maybe between the average and looking out the window.

[00:02:55.560] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:02:56.430] - Steve Hastings

I passed my classes, but there was probably a lot left on the table.

[00:03:01.840] - Big Rich Klein

Right. That seems to be a common thread for a lot of us in this industry. So when you were in school, did you play sports or what activities did you do?

[00:03:12.810] - Steve Hastings

Well, my off-roading got in the way of the sports. Okay. I grew up going camping and stuff with my parents, and that was on weekends. And a lot of sports were on Friday nights and Saturdays. And I did play Kouana's baseball in the summer, but we would miss some of the games because we were going jeeping.

[00:03:39.790] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. What areas were you guys jeeping at there in the high desert?

[00:03:46.380] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, everywhere. I mean, we used to go to Pismo and Red Rock Canyon and Schrockel Summit, Glamis. I mean, any place, a lot of places in Southern California that are now closed. We used to go down to Palm Springs and run the sand dunes, and a lot of people go, Sand dunes? Yeah, right there at Bob Hope Drive, there was some sand dunes, and we used to go down there and play.

[00:04:14.790] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, now that's all resorts and houses and stuff.

[00:04:19.760] - Steve Hastings

Exactly. They leveled it all off, and I don't know how they haul the sand out or build on top of it. I'm not sure, but yeah, they're all gone.

[00:04:31.460] - Big Rich Klein

Those early days, I know you're a product of the '50s. And how young was it that you guys were jeeping? Were you guys out in a flat fendor? Or what was the vehicle of choice Our first Jeep was a 1960 CJ5.

[00:04:49.750] - Steve Hastings

Okay. And four-cylinder. And my two sisters and I, it's sitting in the back, mom and dad, and and the dog, and off we'd go. And that's where it started. Before that, we camped. We had an international travelall, but it was two-wheel drive. And my uncle had a Landrover. And so we'd go down a lot of time down in Anza-Berrego area, and we were getting stuck all the time, and he'd have to pull us out. So we ended up buying... My dad bought the Jeep, and we We started in '61 jeeping, and we've had Jeeps ever since.

[00:05:39.070] - Big Rich Klein

And your first opportunity to drive, was that in that '60 CJ5?

[00:05:44.930] - Steve Hastings

Oh, yeah. Two pillows behind and two pillows underneath me and low, low, low gear. And I was seven or eight when I drove for the first time.

[00:05:58.730] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. Nice. And your sisters, are you guys all split in age? I mean, are you the oldest, youngest, middle?

[00:06:08.710] - Steve Hastings

I'm the youngest. My middle sister is three years older and my older sister is five years older, but they're all jeepers, too. They all have Jeeps and go jeep in. And I just spent five days at Dumont Dunes with my older sister running the dunes. Wow, that's So they're still out there. And my middle sister lives in Texas. They ended up there, military. But they have Jeeps, Rock Crawler and Tj's and stuff. So Yeah, and their kids all have Jeeps. My niece has four Jeeps. My nephew has two Jeeps. And it turned into a lifestyle for sure.

[00:06:58.960] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Generational. That's awesome.

[00:07:01.820] - Steve Hastings

Yes. Yes.

[00:07:04.650] - Big Rich Klein

And- And- Go ahead.

[00:07:07.210] - Steve Hastings

Well, and we had that four banger till late '65. The new Jeep came out with the big V6 in it, right? And so we bought a new Jeep in '66. And then I ended up buying that from my dad in '72 because he got into a full size Blazer because they were doing more traveling and wanted a bigger trailer. I bought that from him in '72, my senior year in high school. I took my driver's license test in that Jeep, and I still have that Jeep.

[00:07:50.050] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow.

[00:07:51.940] - Steve Hastings

Still have it sitting in the garage, ready to go.

[00:07:55.310] - Big Rich Klein

That's a bit of history. Is it still pretty much in stock form, or Why have you modified? Is that one that's been modified?

[00:08:03.060] - Steve Hastings

It's been modified a little bit. It's still a CJ5 spring under stock wheelbase, but it has a Jason builder, a data 44 for the front. It's Detroit front and rear and a granny box in it. But it's just sitting on 35. It's nothing super special, but it gets the job done.

[00:08:27.580] - Big Rich Klein

Did you do any college or just high school and then into work?

[00:08:33.650] - Steve Hastings

I did a year of junior college, but again, not being as focused as I should have been. I decided that was it, and I went to work at Offenhausers Machining Manifolds. I worked there off and on, even during high school, Easter vacation, Christmas vacation, summer vacation. Karl Offenhauser was a member of the Way We Go's Jeep Club that we joined in 1965. And so all the kids worked at Offenhauser's. And just my sisters worked there off and on just as fill-ins. So that was my first job. And then I I moved on to become a tool and die maker. Okay. And I was a tool and die maker at Keck & Smith Tool & Die for 46 years, and retired from there.

[00:09:47.130] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, very good. That's what my dad did, but he was with the federal government. He worked in the naval shipyard, and then the RAD lab up in San Francisco, the radiation lab, and then the US Mint, and then on to... He worked at Oaknall Naval Hospital, his last job with the government. And he had a machine shop there, building tools for doctors, and prosthetics. Before, the prosthetics were like companies were out there building the stuff.

[00:10:22.660] - Steve Hastings

Right. Yeah.

[00:10:24.860] - Big Rich Klein

Pretty cool.

[00:10:25.700] - Steve Hastings

Yeah.

[00:10:26.670] - Big Rich Klein

And so you made the transition then from doing like Bridgeport work all the way up to the CNC?

[00:10:33.520] - Steve Hastings

A little bit of CNC. When I first started, obviously, there wasn't. We did end up with a CNC, and so I did some. But we were a one-off. We built dies for people, and we had a bunch of punch presses, so we could run them, too. But a lot of it was still handwork, Bridgeport, Grinder type of work.

[00:11:01.300] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, cool. I always asked my dad, I said, you're so good at this. You could be able to make more out in the private sector. And he goes, I don't want to have to learn all that other stuff. But he just passed away. He was 90, so he was a few years before that. I give you guys a lot of credit for being able to How do you detail work like that. I'm not a detail person.

[00:11:35.370] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, it's tough. I got a call just the other day from my old boss, wanting me to come back for a day to sharpen this one guy that's 20,000s wide, there's no clearance. It's piercing 25,000 stainless steel, and the punch is only 20,000s wide. It's got to be It's got to be right or it doesn't work. So he calls me back every couple of months to come in and fix it for him.

[00:12:09.290] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. I can't even imagine working with something that small. That's crazy. Yeah.

[00:12:15.730] - Steve Hastings

It was a challenge. It was a good working for me. I like working with my hands. And yeah, every job gets frustrating in the times, but for the most part, it was a great a great work environment. I have to thank them because they allowed me all the time I needed when we got into this rock crawling and racing, ultra force stuff. They gave me all the time off. If I needed a week to go back east to Rock Crawl, yeah, okay.

[00:12:52.550] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome.

[00:12:53.610] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, they were good to me.

[00:12:57.180] - Big Rich Klein

Are you married?

[00:12:59.480] - Steve Hastings

I'm not. I never married. I never found the right person, lady, to do what I wanted to do. I was so wrapped up in the wheel and stuff that it just didn't happen.

[00:13:15.730] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Okay. Fair enough. You talked about the Way We Go Jeep Club. Right. Were you always a member of that, or what clubs were you involved with?

[00:13:33.840] - Steve Hastings

We started with The Way It Goes. I joined when I got the Jeep and was a member for years. Then we just parted ways. I was a member of the Desert Dog Four-wheel Drive Club, and an associate member of Victor Valley Four-wheelers. I used to do a lot of runs with the Desert Dogs at Cal Four Wheel events, High Desert Roundup, Panama Valley days. I would lead runs and go out and break new trails and then lead a run. Victor Valley, Four Wheelers, I got involved with those guys, and the old Chuck Shanner, and Mike Wickham and those guys building trails. I helped build a couple of the trails out there in Johnson Valley.

[00:14:33.770] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. And that CJ5 that you still have, did you have other vehicles along the way and have just kept on that one?

[00:14:47.810] - Steve Hastings

Yeah. I have an old 60 Willies pickup that I'm working on, but it's a non-runner. I'd like to get out there and work on it more. Then And then the CJ5, and then I have a 99 TJ. It's locked up and lifted, but nothing crazy. And then I have a 2014 Jimmy's Chassis ultra four car. Oh, okay.

[00:15:19.320] - Big Rich Klein

Have you raced that, or is that just like pre-runner?

[00:15:23.350] - Steve Hastings

I raced it a few times. I bought it as a pre-run car and practice car for when Jason and I were still racing. And then obviously, when he got hurt, then it became a race car. I actually bought it from your buddy, Craig Allen. I'm one of Craig's disciples, as they say. One of those that he He bought high and sold low. I give credit to Craig. He helped me out and got me in. I just love it. It's one of Dave Cole's old rental cars that he used to rent. It's beat up, but I've got it cleaned up. Raced it twice, finished 11th in class the first year, and then I crashed the second time and really totaled it. But it's back together again in running, and I'd like to race again. Unfortunately, in my health, I had a stroke in '23, in April '23. So I'm just not back to race condition, but I'm able to go out and play with it and become a play toy instead of a race car. And luckily, it works good at that because it doesn't have the great big motor and such in it. So I'm still out there having fun.

[00:17:07.090] - Steve Hastings

I'm going out. I was out two weeks ago, and I'm going out next weekend. Nice. We're still out there.

[00:17:13.180] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, we, Shelle and I take off for Moab on Tuesday. I wish we could go earlier, but she's got a meeting she has to do on Tuesday. So we're heading out to Moab. And then we have our Cedar City Rock Crawl event that we the weekend after that.

[00:17:31.890] - Steve Hastings

Right. I saw that on the schedule. Yeah.

[00:17:33.080] - Big Rich Klein

It's still doing the West Coast events. Jane Good has got a good handle on everything, so he takes care of everything. I just come along to be in the way, I guess. I guess that's the good part about being retired, semi-retired, however you want to say it.

[00:17:55.130] - Steve Hastings

Exactly. You got to enjoy it. You worked hard all those years to build it up, and I'm glad to hear that you're cutting back and enjoying. I see your posts on the boat and stuff, so that's good.

[00:18:10.510] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, the boat is lovely. You don't have to worry about dusty lungs or anything like that.

[00:18:19.880] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, I hear you.

[00:18:21.840] - Big Rich Klein

Doing the clubs and doing all the areas that you wheeled, what was your favorite area to go explore?

[00:18:33.500] - Steve Hastings

Oh, wow. There's so many. I used to love to go to Pismo. We'd go up there for a week and camp on the beach and dune hard. Then during the week, you just take walks down the beach and so on. Love that. Schrocco summit area used to be because it was more open. Had some great wheeling and was really pretty. That's Panama Valley area, the whole surprise canyon and stuff was pretty. I mean, just, of course, we've been to Moab, which is just gorgeous and canyon lands and in places like that. Grew up going to Death Valley. When it again, before it became so closed, used to be able to get back in some of the mining roads and stuff that are now close. But I love the mountains. I love the desert. I can go out in the desert and sit and just look. I don't look at it and go, Oh, that's ugly. I see the beauty in everything.

[00:19:40.550] - Big Rich Klein

It's nice to be able to do that. I try to find that beauty in all the terrain that we go to. It's the one great thing about doing what I've done is I've gotten to wheel in a lot of different areas, and a lot of different terrain, and a lot of different conditions, and all of it has its own beauty.

[00:20:07.030] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, exactly. We go up and do the Duzy Trail, and we don't do it for three days. We do a week. And you go in and you set up camp at Thompson Lake or at Hursham, and you spend two, three days and hike to the back lakes that nobody goes to. We did But Foudenou, we did the Duzy Trail in 1964 in our old Fort Banger G. It only went from Kaiser Pass to Hursham. It hadn't been broke through yet. By ourselves, tire on the side, gas cans on the side, stock, grave digger type tires. And we got in there and it was a little more than my dad expected. We got in there, looked at the lake and took a couple of pictures and turned around, got out of there. We came down Kaiser Pass right in dark. Wow. That was probably not the smartest thing, but that was something that I'll always remember.

[00:21:14.300] - Big Rich Klein

That's pretty cool. And so what was your first personal trip, where you went out on your own, and maybe not with a club or anything, Did you ever do any of that solo wheeling just by yourself?

[00:21:34.670] - Steve Hastings

Not too much. I have gone up. My parents used to live up at Big Bear, and so I'd go up there and see them, and then I'd come home and I'd go through the trails up there, Gold Mountain and stuff by myself, which I like having other people. I least one more person in case something happens.

[00:22:04.050] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Yeah, I've probably done way too much single wheeling with nobody around, whether it's been on the Rubicon or out in Moab. The one winter, Shelle and I spent at Danny Grimes' house for about 80 some days, and we ended up going out wheeling a lot during the winter by ourselves. And it was very peaceful But the one time, I broke the steering box basically off the frame and only could turn right, which made it very interesting getting back from Rose Garden Hill to Danny's house in the snowstorm. But it's those things like that that made memories. Luckily, we never got into it. I never felt we were ever in danger. Right. During that time in Moab, we always had ways to extract ourselves if we needed to. Right. But it's some of the wheeling that I've done. I mean, I used to go up to the Rubicon and spend a week up there just by myself when the kids were in school and get a little bit of free time to where I could get away from the competitions and things like that. So it was good. Yeah. What group did you hang out with for the most part?

[00:23:40.770] - Big Rich Klein

And how did that evolve into the rock crawling?

[00:23:47.760] - Steve Hastings

Well, it just all the jeeping from the way it goes, the desert dogs, it kept... Obviously, vehicles got a little better. We started locking them up front and rear and gearing them down. Victor Valley, when I was running with them, helping those trails, probably was the catalyst to really getting into the rock crawling. I know Jason talked about it. I showed up at a shop one night and he looks at me and goes, I need to talk to you. Are you in a hurry? I said, No, I need some U joints. Okay, but you're not in a hurry. No, I could say. That was the turning point of my life. I should have turned around and ran. But we kid about that. There used to be a shop here in Pomona, a Jeep shop called Hicks. I kid him, I should have gone to Hicks. But it definitely changed the direction of my life, doing the rock crawling with them, and then the ultra force stuff, and go karting in between.

[00:24:59.380] - Big Rich Klein

Right. So you would travel to Wheel, especially in California. Did you do much traveling before that, before getting into the rock crawling?

[00:25:15.930] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, we always travel. My dad worked hard. He worked for the telephone company and climbing poles and stuff. And so vacation time was always travel time. We never stayed home on vacation. Sometimes if we didn't have the money, we only went 40 miles down to the beach, but we always went somewhere on his vacation. And so we traveled, California, obviously. But Utah, we spent a lot of time in Canyon lands, Moab area, before Moab was Moab.

[00:25:53.150] - Big Rich Klein

We went Oregon, been up to the Oregon dunes, just Utah, just Colorado, a lot of time in Colorado, running the passes and stuff.

[00:26:09.570] - Steve Hastings

So we always went somewhere on this vacation.

[00:26:14.280] - Big Rich Klein

So stepping out on those vacations, do you have one place that was more memorable or a trip that was very memorable?

[00:26:23.920] - Steve Hastings

Probably the Canyon lands, deal. We went with my uncle and we did the White Rim Trail and all that stuff. That was some awesome scenery. And you're way back in there, you're miles from help or people, and you'd go for hours and never see anybody back then. It was just... That was a memorable trip.

[00:26:56.140] - Big Rich Klein

And what about when When you got into the rock crawling with Jason and the competitions, what was that first event like entering?

[00:27:11.420] - Steve Hastings

That was scary. Luckily for us, it was right here in Johnson Valley, so we were close. And it was areas that we had jeeped in. I had helped Victor Valley build some of the trails that they were competing on. And so I knew the area, but we didn't know the jeep. As Jason said, we were working on the trailer. We were late for tech as usual. And so he literally, I know he talked about it, he literally was practicing what gear to be in between obstacles. People would go, What are you doing? That's not a course. No, we're practicing. Because he came from a high horsepower automatic to a four banger stick shift. So that was a memorable weekend. And I know he talked about when he crashed it on the way back and we had to fix it. It was a fiasco, but it's something... It's one of those memories that I always remember.

[00:28:23.360] - Big Rich Klein

And you guys traveled east as well, didn't you? Did you guys get out to Tennessee?

[00:28:30.430] - Steve Hastings

Went to Tennessee one year, went to the, I forgot what they call it in Portland, Indiana, the XPlex or something they called it.

[00:28:40.420] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, the concrete place.

[00:28:42.300] - Steve Hastings

Right. Went back there and we didn't do a lot. We went, of course, went down to Baja and did that deal down there in Baja. That was a lot of fun. It was disappointing that it all turned out the way it did, but it was a lot of fun.

[00:29:03.060] - Big Rich Klein

Not very many people talk about that publicly, what went on down there. I don't know if that's good or bad.

[00:29:12.880] - Steve Hastings

Right. Yeah, I don't either. I don't want to put people under the table or anything, talk that about them, because I don't know the whole story. But let's face it, Baha, even back then, was a little on the corrupt side. So I'm sure the promoter had issues and fees that came up that he knew nothing about. But I look at it, we had a great time. We partied in between. We were down there all week, so it wasn't. And we didn't drive. We hired someone to haul our car down and home. So we just flew in and out. And it was a lot of fun.

[00:30:00.430] - Big Rich Klein

So a little bit of tequila, some tacos?

[00:30:03.800] - Steve Hastings

Probably a lot of tequilas and a lot of tacos. Unfortunately, the competition day, we competed the first day We're in the hunt. We're doing well. And then we go to dinner that night. We'd eat in every dive place, every sidewalk place all week. Everything was fine. Went to have a great meal that night. And Sunday, I was sicker than sick. I mean, I had things coming out everywhere.

[00:30:38.950] - Big Rich Klein

A little Montezuma's revenge.

[00:30:41.300] - Steve Hastings

Oh, it was bad. I couldn't compete. I could hardly I can.

[00:30:49.150] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, there was some interesting things that went on down there.

[00:30:54.050] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, there was. Mike Palmer was down there and just was tearing the place up. He almost got arrested. You talk about the memories. That's one trip that I'll always remember.

[00:31:14.500] - Big Rich Klein

Let's get into some of the other events. You guys, you competed at that first one in Johnson Valley, which was like the Warn Nationals, Bob Hazel. Then the next year, that was the same year that Arca got started. Right. And you guys competed it. Did you guys do the first Farmington event? You wouldn't have done the first Farmington event then. No.

[00:31:40.090] - Steve Hastings

No. No.

[00:31:40.800] - Big Rich Klein

But you came up, did you do the Arizona?

[00:31:44.220] - Steve Hastings

We did Arizona. He had one in Johnson Valley here in Farmington, Las Cruises. We went all over and we were running. It all becomes together because there were so many at Pro-Rock and Arca and U-Rock and Cal-Rock. We were split and just trying to do everything.

[00:32:15.570] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, and the days where almost every weekend there was an event going on.

[00:32:20.230] - Steve Hastings

Exactly. We put some miles on our motor homes. That's for sure. Jason had one, and I had one. We'd split. I'd take mine one time, they take his next, and tow to these places at dark 30, and get there and have no sleep. It was for him, trying to run a business and do this was tough.

[00:32:48.710] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Did you ever go down and work at the business at Tri-County? Not working so much for the vehicle on the comp rig. But just trying to help Jason out to try to get ready to go to an event?

[00:33:09.810] - Steve Hastings

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I was there last night just sweeping. Oh, wow. Yeah. Once we got into it, I used my machineless die maker background. And if he'd have a special project, he'd call me and say, Hey, I need some help doing this. Now that he couldn't do it, but it was easier and quicker for me just to go in. And sometimes I do it at his shop, and sometimes I take it back to my shop and machine it real quick and do it, because I had all my tools there, so I could do it in half the time, and then I'd bring it back to them. So, yeah, that, absolutely. I helped them build a couple of rigs and stuff for customers.

[00:33:57.190] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. And your experience... I know that you ran the Buggy, and I'm not sure if it was Rockstar or the Buggy, but you ran it without Jason, where you were the driver.

[00:34:17.410] - Steve Hastings

Exactly, yeah.

[00:34:18.520] - Big Rich Klein

What was that like for you the first time that you had to step into the driver's seat?

[00:34:23.990] - Steve Hastings

Well, it was nervous time. I know we went to Reno to Moon Rocks and competed up there. I think it was in Arca. Cody Wagner came up and spotted for me. And so we both were learning, that's for sure. I'd driven a lot and stuff, so I wasn't too concerned, really, or scared. But it was a lot of fun. Yeah, I competed all year. Jason wasn't going to compete. He was just business was taking all his time and he said he couldn't compete. So we had cut the back of Rockstar off and tubed it to try to be competitive with the buggies that were coming out. And so I put all that back on and ran in the stock class and did well, finished fourth overall for the season against Melo and Seasons and Becca Webster and those guys. So it was a lot of fun.

[00:35:34.350] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. And what was Cody like as a spotter?

[00:35:40.520] - Steve Hastings

Well, we both learned. He wasn't competing back then, so it was a learning experience for him and for me, having someone else tell me. We did that event and Jason's wife, Terry, called me and says, Jason was a basket case. Don't ever leave him here again. He got nothing done all week anyway. He might as well have been with you. So do not leave him home anymore. So he came and actually spotted for me for the rest of the year. And we'll just say that that was a real learning experience for both of us.

[00:36:31.080] - Big Rich Klein

I would imagine that in the end, it probably made you guys a better team. Maybe not during that season.

[00:36:39.650] - Steve Hastings

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Because he'd say, well, how come you're this? Or how come you're there? I couldn't see it. All of a sudden, he found out that it's not so easy to run up those rocks and not kill yourself and be in the right place at the right time.

[00:36:58.740] - Big Rich Klein

Then, of course, the other thing is keeping the vehicle online when the vehicle doesn't want to stay online.

[00:37:07.620] - Steve Hastings

Exactly. When I was spotting that, it was like we'd have the plan A And I said, I tell him, sometimes we wouldn't have time, but I tell him, Hey, I have a plan B and C if we need it. So if we bounce way offline, I'd say plan B. And he knew that I had it already in in mind what to do. And it worked out. It was for me, spotting was a challenge, but it was something that I grew up, I guess, preparing for, because even as a little kid, when we go out with the way he goes, I would go, well, how come that guy made it easy and this guy struggled? What's the difference? What was the line? What was the driving style like? What And I didn't just watch, I studied. And that went into the rock crawling when we got there, that I'd watch other people. And to this day, you watch some of the videos rock crawling. You'll have five guys go into the same line and hit the same rock and have the same result. Well, we got nothing better than they do, vehicle-wise. You got to figure a way to hit it Yeah, there's a lot of follow the leader in competitions.

[00:38:39.150] - Big Rich Klein

I've never competed, so I can't say what the mindset is of the competitor that's in line and trying to do that same thing over and over and over again without success. Unless it's just everybody thinks that's the way you got to do it and somebody's going to get it. Yeah. I always, when I set courses courses, I would look at it and say, okay, this is the line that they're going to want to take, but let's try to make that not the line, and then look at the terrain differently and see where they really need to come in from. Not necessarily the straightest line.

[00:39:18.490] - Steve Hastings

Absolutely. Absolutely. Course designers, Phil Collier and Bob Rogui and all those guys, and you, and Little Rich, So you're always thinking, how can I screw them up? And of course, the early days, everybody's just doing four links on the back and stuff. And you had all that rear steer stuff, not rear steering, but rear steer, geometry-wise. And you guys have put flags where it's just like, How do I do this? It just drives the rear end, drives to the flag every time. You guys were smart. I can say that now.

[00:40:07.020] - Big Rich Klein

A lot of people would say we were evil.

[00:40:09.780] - Steve Hastings

Yes. Yeah. Well, those were some of the words that we used back then.

[00:40:17.040] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I always tell everybody, I'm a much nicer person nowadays than I used to be.

[00:40:23.670] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember one of the... I think it was a Cal Rocks event at Cougar Butte. Bob Roggy was involved and put a flag way up on top of the cliff, and everybody was panicking. Oh, no, we can't do that. It was funny. He looked at us and just shakes his head. No. Playing with us.

[00:40:49.780] - Big Rich Klein

There is a game in that. There's an obvious way that everybody looks at it and goes, Okay, this is the way that I've got go.

[00:41:01.400] - Steve Hastings

Right.

[00:41:01.800] - Big Rich Klein

And if you just step back or take a '45 or a 60 degree look at that and go, Oh, no. If I can get my my back end over here and approach it like this.

[00:41:16.970] - Steve Hastings

Exactly.

[00:41:18.000] - Big Rich Klein

It's much easier. Absolutely. And it's amazing. I mean, I had a spot that I did something very I thought was pretty devious. There was a ridge back that I made them break over down in Arizona at one of our events. And I knew that everybody was going to want to break that ridge back. And they had to like, 45 up it and then turn back, was the natural inclination as you got to the top of that so that you were going straight down the hill. But I knew if they If you did that, it was going to pitch you and roll. And four guys did that, four or five guys in a row all pitch themselves and rolled down the hill. And then one of the drivers, it happened to be Jesse Haynes, drives up it And instead of going left and turning down the hill, he goes right and side hills across and just drove right through it. But it looked like that was not the way to go. Right. But as soon as he did that, then everybody else in the field was like, Oh, okay, now I see it, and they all drove it.

[00:42:36.280] - Steve Hastings

Exactly. That was my job as a spotter was to go ahead. Bob Hazel, he didn't let you walk ahead and look at courses. But in the later years, you'd finish a course and you'd go booboo, and Jason would take care of the paperwork and stuff, and I'd run to the next course to watch. And get pointers. I mean, that's what it's all about. We always looked at an obstacle and you'd say, where is the hardest spot? And we'd look at that and work backwards to get the right line for that hard obstacle. If you looked at the stuff in front of it, you might take an easy route through some of this stuff. And now, like you're talking, you're at the wrong angle for the hard spot.

[00:43:30.720] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:43:32.230] - Steve Hastings

So we look at the hard spot and work backwards and maybe take a harder line than we needed to, but it set us up for that hard spot.

[00:43:41.180] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, that's one of the things that I think people don't realize, even competitors now, and even good ones, is that that area between the sets of cones is, I like to call it the minefield. And it's not necessarily not necessarily mine as in that's going to blow up, but the mind with a D, and that's where the head games are played.

[00:44:11.240] - Steve Hastings

Exactly. Yeah.

[00:44:12.970] - Big Rich Klein

And it's those transition areas that sometimes are the hard parts of the... Everybody looks at, Oh, that set of gates is easy. We'll go on to the next. It's like, Okay, let's see you get there thinking that's easy.

[00:44:26.940] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, exactly, though. You guys were divas, that's for sure. But it made us think and made it what it is. Back in the day, it was a little different than some of the stuff I watch now. These buggies that they have now are just unbelievable. Portals and rear steer and all this stuff. It's just the things they're doing, of course, they're crashing a lot. But the other thing which my first competition fishing there in Johnson Valley. I was 45 years old already. So we were at a competition in, I think it was Farmington, and Shannon and nick Campbell were running together. Nick ran down and moved this big old rock, and it was a diff catcher. Everybody's getting caught on it. Nick went down there and moved it, and they went past and finished, and they We all had time on the clock, so he ran back down, totally illegally, and moved the rock back. I looked at Jason and said, Don't even think about it. There's no way I'm moving that rock. I'd still be there trying to move that rock. So nick, there was nothing. So, yeah, it hurt Jason a little bit having me physically because I wasn't that strong a guy, fairly slender and not super strong, but I tried to make for it with my knowledge.

[00:46:01.040] - Steve Hastings

Right.

[00:46:03.600] - Big Rich Klein

More intellect than brawn.

[00:46:06.140] - Steve Hastings

Right. I always told them, I said, we need to go down to some junior college and find some 250 pound linebacker and teach them how to rock-crawl. He goes, that'd be great, but that's probably not going to happen. You can't teach and teach some of this stuff. It's just natural. And But we did a lot of testing out here at Cougar Buttes because it's close to us with Rockstar and the Buggy, and we'd go to one obstacle and spend half a day trying different lines, trying different gears, trying different air pressures. We had another friend that helped us build the buggy and stuff, Brian Smith, and he would drive and Jason and I had watched it. And I'd drive and Jason and Brian would watch. And we just would run things off. And the one thing that we were bad at was the five foot vertical stair steps. And so we went to Cougar Buttes and we found one and tested on it all day. And we camp right there at the camp area, we pulled the motorhomes up there. And it became one of our strong points after that. We just tested, tested and took video and watched and watched the tires wrap up at low air pressure and bounce.

[00:47:35.760] - Steve Hastings

And so we started running more air. And all of a sudden, now it became one of the things we looked forward to because we knew we could do it.

[00:47:47.610] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Now, that's important, that practice. I think that's one of the things that is really driving the sport nowadays is you got a group of guys that are that are out of Southern Utah and at that Sand Hollow area and are just pushing the envelope when it comes to extreme wheeling.

[00:48:13.700] - Steve Hastings

Oh, they sure are.

[00:48:15.380] - Big Rich Klein

And doing things are just crazy.

[00:48:19.110] - Steve Hastings

I'm glad I'm not doing it anymore. I'll spectate. I think it's awesome. But man, it's 70 years old. I shouldn't be doing it anyway. But, man, the stuff they're doing And those V-notches they're going in to, they disappear if they hit it wrong.

[00:48:36.940] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly. The thing that I always tried to do, which is different than what they do with the Trailbreaker type events that my son is putting on or the guys in Texas, is that they're setting up... I mean, I always set up obstacles that looked... I wanted the teams to look at it and say, That can't be done. But we're able to figure it out.

[00:49:03.090] - Steve Hastings

Right.

[00:49:04.280] - Big Rich Klein

And in a short time period. And then you have... Because we couldn't allow people to be on the course for half an hour, 45 minutes. You couldn't get through a day of competition.

[00:49:16.160] - Steve Hastings

Exactly.

[00:49:17.500] - Big Rich Klein

So there was that game to play on picking the right line and finding the doable. And then that's the thing about the slow crawling, like we do at We Rock Now, is that you do it in multiple stages so that you're using up that 10 minutes, but there may be only one spot in it that is super difficult. And if they spend too much time somewhere else, they're not going to make it. Exactly. So it becomes a time management. It becomes like these shootouts or the Trailbreaker type things that That like Little Rich does it at Trail Hero. It's more about the single obstacle, and then tying three of them together, and you get 10 minutes on each, or whatever the time period he puts out there. So that they're doing three extreme things, like you might do all day long on a regular rock crawl, but it's working those transitions and stuff get to those hard spots, where his is just the hard spots. Exactly. And it may be even stuff that you look at and say, you know what? It is not going to be driven.

[00:50:41.460] - Steve Hastings

Right.

[00:50:42.320] - Big Rich Klein

And then if somebody pulls it off, it's awesome.

[00:50:45.560] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, right.

[00:50:47.080] - Big Rich Klein

But it's a different mindset and idea behind the rock crawling. I like the extended play, like a long chess match, more so than a than a drag race.

[00:51:04.290] - Steve Hastings

Yes, I agree. That's the way we always competed that way with your stuff, and and ARCA and Pro Rock and stuff was always that way. You'd have that one spot, but it was... The obstacles that we always did well on, they'd come up and say it'd be a 10 minute course and they'd say, well, you did that in six minutes. That's the fastest time. We weren't looking for fast. We didn't care if we finished nine minutes and 59 seconds, as long as we finished. And smooth, smooth, smooth. That was our be smooth. And that was always our battle cry, be smooth, and we can do this.

[00:51:52.400] - Big Rich Klein

Right. So working as a machinist, tool die maker, and being very technical and precise, do you think that helped in the rock crawling, in the mindset?

[00:52:10.740] - Steve Hastings

It might have some, and it probably helped with definite figuring angles and stuff, ways to look at something and say, well, if you're doing this, it's going to be bad for that next obstacle, like we talked earlier. Always take the hard one and work backwards. So it was, yeah, I think it definitely helped in the rock crawling and having that mindset.

[00:52:39.510] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Let's talk about your guys's 24 hours at the Hammers. Because I know that you weren't able to participate in all 24 hours.

[00:52:53.260] - Steve Hastings

I was not. We started out in the outer limits, we went up through Outer Limits, and packer Million, and I forget his name now, Killer Bee, Ned Bacon.

[00:53:10.890] - Big Rich Klein

Ned Bacon, yeah.

[00:53:12.340] - Steve Hastings

They came up right behind us And we go, where do we go? We find the course guide. I didn't think you guys would be here this quick. He hadn't even set the ribbons up yet. Well, where are we supposed to go? Well, you got to go to after-shop Okay, so I know where it is with my time helping Victor Valley. So we went down to Aftershock over to Sun Bonnet, Hillsgate and Sun Bonnet. And coming down closed gate, we noticed that the ARD locker wasn't working. So we stopped at the bottom and fixed it. It was just a line. And I said, I'll just stay out because you go up to the plaque right there, which was the hard spot in Sun Bonet at the time. So I ran up there and all of a sudden, I stepped wrong and popped my knee out. Dislocated my knee. I mean, my leg went down here and four inches over it continued down. It was like, Oh, shoot.

[00:54:21.770] - Big Rich Klein

That makes parts of my body pucker.

[00:54:25.590] - Steve Hastings

Jason comes up, What are you doing? What are you doing? Look at it. Oh, he about passed out. And then it was like, Well, what do we do? He says, Do I do a John Wayne or just pull it? I go, I don't know. This never happened to me. This is new. So he made a splint, splinted it up, got me back in the Jeep. We take off. We're still in the lead. We're still out front. Gives me all the way over to the to the Lake bed. The next course was over there that means dry I don't know if they went up Sledge or what at that time, but anyway, gets me over there. Danny Grimes came over with his pickup. I get in the back of it. They throw me in. Jason plugs in Big Al, who worked for him at the time, into the Jeep, and off they go. And finish this thing, still finished in front in five and a half hours, seven trails in five and a half hours. And dealing with me took a good hour.

[00:55:27.780] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[00:55:29.800] - Steve Hastings

So, yeah, 24 hours of hammers. That was a memory for sure.

[00:55:37.990] - Big Rich Klein

And when Danny took you to the hospital, did you guys just go into Yucca?

[00:55:44.170] - Steve Hastings

Yes, went into Yucca. He dropped me off. And I said, my parents were living in Desert High Spring at the time, so they weren't that far away. I said, Just get back and help wherever you can. And so he took off. But it took... The time was two hours, two and a half hours after it popped out. So all the ligaments and muscles had contracted and they had trouble getting it. They kept shooting me full of pain stuff. And finally they got two doctors and they pulled that sucker in and I kicked a nurse against the wall. And as soon as it popped in, I was out. Just knocked me out. It was like, does that feel better? Yeah, I feel... I was gone. But maybe back that night, parents came and got me and took me back out there. Luckily, everything turned out fine with it. Went to specialists when I got back, and there was no damage or anything. Something that I always after that, I wore braces on both knees.

[00:57:02.960] - Big Rich Klein

After that?

[00:57:03.890] - Steve Hastings

Yeah. Yeah, after that.

[00:57:06.270] - Big Rich Klein

We've had we've had others that have popped knees or ankles. I think the drivers, typically, in most situations, are safer in the vehicle with their helmets and fire suits and window nets and the harnesses, than the spotters are on the outside.

[00:57:34.110] - Steve Hastings

So a few spotters take really bad falls. That was the worst thing that happened. I fell over a few times here and there, but it was just nothing. But I saw, I don't even remember who it was or where it was, but some guy was, and he fell off and went down about 15 feet and he was hurt. And unfortunately, saw a couple of accidents where spotters got ran over by their own driver. So we always played it on your safe side. One time in, I think it was Salt Lake, there was one of these vertical things that you had to just jump up and then the spotter had to pull the front end over. And one guy hit it and nosed it in and rolled over right on top of his He was spotter. And we were next in line. And so we were standing right there. And that really, luckily, the guy was okay. They took him to the hospital, but I thought for sure... Because the roll cage just landed on him.

[00:58:46.850] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Luckily, he had a hydration pack on. Yes. That was nick Socia.

[00:58:55.320] - Steve Hastings

Yeah. Yeah. That was a bad one. We were next up or second up. Casey goes, What are you doing? I said, I've already doubled my rope. I showed him. I said, I've already doubled the spotter rope. I'm not getting that close. Little things like that, doing it safer Trying to do it safer. But yeah, there's a lot of spotting is you're running around and trying to guide and throw rocks, and you forget that You still have to walk. There's been a couple of them that I've just looked at and go these vertical walls. I go, I'm staying here. I'm not showing up there. You're on your own. I remember when I made Spotter start wearing helmets. I remember that.

[00:59:48.340] - Big Rich Klein

And we were at Cougar Buttes. Yeah. Was the first event that I did that. And it was Jody Everding was so mad that he was going to have to wear a helmet. And he was being Jody. And I remember him coming back up to me partway through the event and thanking me for making him wear a helmet because he was standing on a ledge, took a step back, and didn't realize he was right at the ledge, and dropped and landed on his head like six feet, six or seven feet down or something like that, and smacked his head. And he came back and said, You just saved me, because if I hadn't been wearing that helmet, I would have been split open on the rock.

[01:00:42.060] - Steve Hastings

I think he cracked the helmet, too, if I remember. Yeah, he might have. Because he came to me. I started wearing a bicycle-type helmet even before it became mandatory. And he came up to me after that event and thanked me because he was always one that, are you going to make us all have to wear them and blah, blah, blah, blah. And he came up and shook my hand and thanked me because without that helmet, who knows? And he showed me the helmet, it was cracked. And So, yeah, safety is, let's face it, we're going for a trophy, maybe a little bit of money, but it's not worth dying over, that's for sure. Correct.

[01:01:33.060] - Big Rich Klein

Very, very, very true. Bob Bauer, Baha Bob, he was the one that really pushed me to implement safety rules. And it was tough because at that time, there was four or five different competing sanctioning bodies, and there were no rules. I mean, you didn't even have to wear seatbelts. I mean, well, you had to have seatbelts in the vehicle, but I I don't think anybody ever made sure you were wearing them. Helmets, fire suits, none of that stuff. And he was like, Rich, you got to do something about this. The other guys won't do it. So you have to do something about it. And I'm like, Bob, if I institute all the safety that you're talking about, nobody's going to come to my events because they're all going to look at it going, wow, this is way too restrictive. I could go over here and not have to worry about all this extra money or spending $300 on a fire suit, or DOT home, that thing. And so I started implementing one thing at a time. If something would come up, it would be like, okay, there you go. First, it was like, okay, fire suits, We got to look more professional in the photos and all that stuff, because just wearing T-shirts and shorts didn't necessarily look real professional.

[01:02:56.230] - Big Rich Klein

I can remember going to Budweiser, and Budweiser was like, well, you guys are just a bunch of rednecks. I'm like, Well, yeah, but who do you think buys all your beer? And they go, Well, we want the rednecks. We love rednecks to buy our beer, but we don't want our athletes to look like the rednecks. Not when they're competing. And I'm like, All right, great. So I pushed the fire suits. And then once we had the fire suits, it was the... Well, now that you have a fire suit, window nets make sense. And people were like, Oh, I want to be able to look out the window. My belts are loose. I want to hang out. And then Cody pinched his his forearm between a rock and the cage at vernal. And the next event, I required window nets. It gave me that ability to say, okay, I need to make sure this doesn't happen.

[01:03:51.700] - Steve Hastings

Exactly.

[01:03:52.640] - Big Rich Klein

And we finally got all the safety items in. And now on the harder courses, the safety items are all there. But the sportsmen classes, I don't require all the stuff. But then again, they're not on as difficult courses either.

[01:04:10.290] - Steve Hastings

Right.

[01:04:11.190] - Big Rich Klein

So we're not in that I can remember one time with Skinny Adam Lund, when his car caught on fire, and I'm trying to get him to stop so I can put the fire out. And he's like, no, no, I'm going to keep going. I got him finished It's a course in time. And I said, I've stopped time. It's okay. Stop. But I don't even think we were in fire suits or window nets at that point. And it's like, okay, we got the fire out. Okay, now we'll start time again. Let's go.

[01:04:43.900] - Steve Hastings

Right, right.

[01:04:44.110] - Big Rich Klein

And then there were people in the crowd that were mad at me because I had used his fire extinguisher instead of the one on the course. The one on the course is a big fire extinguisher, and I had to carry it all the way up to the on top of the course, where his fire extinguisher is right on the vehicle, right where the fire was at. It made a lot more sense. That's why we did that. A lot more. Yeah. One inside, one outside. One inside for you guys to get out, one outside for us to help.

[01:05:14.650] - Steve Hastings

Right. Exactly. Adam Lanow,. I remember him. He had his car off the trailer and was doing something, and put it on the trailer, and just was going to it, but he didn't tie it down. And he went through a dip, and the rock buggy ended up in the back of his stickup.

[01:05:36.130] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, jeez.

[01:05:39.160] - Steve Hastings

He laughed. Some of the coaches is all Shoupy, and Chris Durham and all those guys. It brings back memories talking about it, for sure.

[01:05:50.870] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I've been trying to get Shoupy on the podcast, and hopefully we'll get that done this year.

[01:05:56.690] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, that'd be cool.

[01:05:59.260] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. Well, Steve, I want to say thank you so much for participating in the podcast and spending the time this morning and talking about the history and what you've done and how you approach things. I really appreciate it.

[01:06:17.610] - Steve Hastings

Well, I appreciate you having me on. It was a lot of fun and great talking with you again. Like I said, bring it up old memories. It's neat.

[01:06:26.480] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely. I wish you well with your health recovery and getting all of the stroke behind you. I know that can be a nasty thing to have happen because typically you lose different controls.

[01:06:43.750] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, I was lucky. I was at Jason's shop when it happened, and he had me at the hospital within five minutes. And that probably has a lot to do with the recovery. I was in the hospital and rehab for a month, but I still came home in a wheelchair, but I had my strength. I just didn't have my balance, so I had to learn to walk again and stuff. But we're doing okay. Like I said, I'm going out next weekend jeeping, so we're going to go over and do Riffle Canyon. Nice. And so I'm able to do that stuff. Not at the racing level, no, but still getting out there. So enjoying life, and It's been, like I say, we appreciate everything that you did for us over the years, promoting and stuff to give us a chance to go play.

[01:07:40.420] - Big Rich Klein

Well, and I appreciate everybody showing up. I mean, all of us promoters did, even though in those contentious years between the promoters where we were all fighting over the same ground and the same sponsors and the same drivers, it was It was all a competition.

[01:08:02.010] - Steve Hastings

Yeah, exactly.

[01:08:04.100] - Big Rich Klein

All right, Steve, you take care, and thank you so much. Please send me a photo, and we'll tie it up.

[01:08:13.560] - Steve Hastings

All right. Thank you, Rich.

[01:08:15.190] - Big Rich Klein

All right. Sounds good. You take care. Hope to see you again someday. Yes, for sure. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave Give 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 would think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you..