(Still) Growing Up Rockcrawling with Lil Charlie Melchner on Episode 333

19-year-old rock crawler and son of off-road legend Big Charlie. Lil Charlie grew up in Carmel, New York, competing in rock crawling events since childhood. Currently pilots a Jesse Haines Moonbuggy in national competitions.

Early wheeling at Todd's property in Pennsylvania began around age 3. Started driving buggies at age 8, learning from his father. First rock crawling competition at Field and Forest in New Hampshire. 

The family owns a marina in New York passed down through generations. Charlie helps with boat maintenance, deliveries, and buggy preparation. Took welding classes in high school. Aspires to pursue fabrication and building rock crawlers.

In 2025, there was a boulder incident at WE Rock Mason, Texas—pinned under 40,000+ pound rock requiring four winches to extract. Electrical failures at recent competitions. Definitely prefer cone dodging in WE Rock events, but hopes to compete in Trailbreaker, Texas Top Gun, and Crawl Fest.

Currently learning from mentors in the off-road industry, including Jesse Haines. Open to Ultra 4 racing and desert racing. Lil Charlie is considering relocating west where weather and terrain suit year-round wheeling.

Transcript

[00:00:05.320] 

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 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 explore their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active in 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.

[00:00:46.700] 

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[00:01:13.160] - Big Rich Klein

This week's guest might be my youngest guest to date, but growing up as the son of an OG rock crawling legend, this kid has been around the sport his entire life. My guest is Little Charlie Melchner. Good morning, Little Charlie Melchner. How are you doing today?

[00:01:33.760] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I'm doing pretty darn good.

[00:01:35.450] - Big Rich Klein

How are you doing? Excellent, excellent. So good to have you on the podcast. Um, you're one of the youngest, if not the youngest, um, that I've interviewed. I normally, you know, this is a history of rock crawling, but you've been around the sport, you almost your entire life. Well, you have been around the sport your entire life. So it's good to get you on here. First question I ask everybody is, where were you born and raised?

[00:02:04.300] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I was born in Carmel, New York, about an hour north of the city. I've lived here my entire life. My dad grew up here. My mom grew up around here. So we've been here my entire life, lived in the same house pretty much my entire life. Um, even though most of my time is traveling across the country, I still live here in New York.

[00:02:25.790] - Big Rich Klein

Good. Okay. And when— what's your earliest memory of rock crawling? Oh man, you know, I have so many.

[00:02:38.010] - Lil Charlie Melchner

As you said, I've been around it my entire life. I mean, my dad's been rock crawling since 1999. I know he's told me about how you had the first rock crawling event on the East Coast that he went to. I believe he said that he had won that one, which, surprise, surprise, he was, he was pretty good from what I hear. I don't know about now, but back then he seemed pretty good. Um, my earliest memories, man, you know what rings the bell first is we used to go out wheeling with a bunch of our friends in Pennsylvania with my friend Todd at his place. And I remember there was just a bunch of big Toyotas and Ultra 4 type buggies, and we had the buggy Big over for a long time. Um, even before that, I remember vaguely my dad had an old Campbell moon buggy, and I think it was a, it was a drag axle moon buggy, but big V8 in the back, so it sounded really cool. And I remember it had this little tiny side panel on it wherever the side of the car was, just that side of the chassis was really tiny.

[00:03:43.880] - Lil Charlie Melchner

It had a little, little red panel on it, and I remember when he got rid of that and he got my Uncle Jack's old Jeep buggy that my dad used to compete in, um, the little 99-inch wheelbase drag axle car that I had for a long time. That— so that was one of my earliest memories with buggies in general. But other than that, actually wheeling would be going to Todd's place. We would go and just the streams and waterfalls, and it went from before I ever drove a buggy You know, I was on a quad when I was 3. Um, I had a little like super tiny Polaris side-by-side my parents had got for me and my sister because she's pretty darn good at all this too. Um, but when I started driving, even it was my first time driving was at Todd's. We would go out and for a while it was me sitting in the passenger seat watching my dad and all of his friends. You know, I remember a few times I would just— I used to love walking alongside and videoing. I would take like 30-minute videos. No one wants to watch that if I post it on Instagram or something, but I had no idea.

[00:04:51.570] - Lil Charlie Melchner

So I would just walk alongside the entire trail and video it. And then eventually, um, I would drive a little bit sitting on my dad's lap, you know, he'd work the pedals and, uh, I'd steer the wheel and he'd have the handbrake and everything. And then it turned to— we put pedal extensions on. I remember we would just use whatever for my feet. We would have like a piece of tubing with like a seatbelt buckle would be where I'd put my foot to press against. Like, that would be my pedal. And then it got to the point where I was— we had seat cushions. I'd use the pedals and steer, and he had the handbrake in case anything went wrong. So he'd be pulling on the handbrake, guiding me along. I wasn't doing anything crazy, but that was— I was probably about 8 when I started doing that in the little drag axle 99-inch wheelbase car. I loved that. We have, um, We still know the people who have that and Big Silver, the old buggy. Cool. We're, we're lucky enough to be friends with those people still, so that's pretty cool. But I'd go out to Todd's and I would drive around in the little buggy.

[00:05:54.940] - Lil Charlie Melchner

And then there was also Pennsylvania out at AOAA. We'd go a lot when they were cutting a lot of, a lot of their big name trails there. Now we would take Little Silver too, and which Little Silver, if you didn't get that, that was that buggy. You probably remember it. Oh yeah. Well, you've seen a lot of cars though. The one that my dad used to drive, that was Michael Jack's. Yeah. Um, but we would take that out anytime they cut a new trail, the, the impossible trails that no one could do, which granted this was 10 years ago now, we would take that out there and we broke so many trails out there. Um, that was really a lot of my early memories are breaking trails with my dad, just watching no one else be able to do it and then see him go out and do it all in this little buggy after everyone has their big V8s and rear steer and all that stuff. And that kind of made me go, wow, it doesn't really matter what car you're in. Look at me talking now. I'm in Jesse Haynes' Moonbuggy, and it's my favorite car that there is.

[00:06:55.170] - Lil Charlie Melchner

That's why I have it. I'm fortunate enough where my dad has given me the option to have whatever vehicle I want to compete in. That's— and I still choose to have my Jesse Haynes' Moonbuggy. Perfect. But even that, I loved wheeling that. We take it out to King of the Hammers. I remember the first time I went out to King of the Hammers and drove. I went out to King of the Hammers. Oh God. I mean, it had to have been like, oh, how old was I? It had to have been like 7 or 8 years ago. Okay. And I went for a few years just riding passenger. I'd fly out and then we started driving out. And then one year I wanted to bring Little Silver. Because I'm like, I want to drive. And he said, if you can drive an entire day out in Pennsylvania without taking a break, without sleeping, without needing to stop, then we could take it out there. It was a pretty solid deal, you know. I was, I was a lot younger, but I went, okay, I, I want to go out to King of the Hammers and wheel with all the big boys.

[00:07:57.020] - Lil Charlie Melchner

So we went out to, I think it was Todd's again, And I remember that entire day I went and I didn't need a break, didn't need to switch with Dad, none of that. I wheeled the entire day, um, by myself there. He was in the passenger seat, but I drove by myself that entire day. And then we were able to take it out that year to King of the Hammers, and that was pretty cool. And we had those buggies out there for a long time. We did— oh, we did some amazing stuff out there with those cars. I mean, stuff that even now I look at and I go, that was pretty insane, even for these cars, especially Big Silver. I mean, the thing was like £4,600. I think we said it was £4,800. We would write it on our, our table in the garage. It was, um, KOH ready. So that was, we put a third member in there, we put two driveshafts in there, we had axle shafts. We would carry we would be able to rebuild the car. And so KOH Ready was like 4,800, £4,900. And I remember we did like, um, what was it?

[00:09:05.720] - Lil Charlie Melchner

It's a dead blow, the, um, the waterfall at the beginning of it, which I was able to do in my moon buggy. My last moon buggy, I wasn't able to do it in there, but maybe it was just driver error. I'm sure the car could have done it, but This moon buggy, I was able to do it. And even doing it now, I go, how did we fit that giant heavy car through there? Well, we as in my dad. I sat down and I watched it. But, and the things that we've done in those cars is insane. I've— I think I'm the luckiest guy being able to learn from him mechanical-wise and driving. He is— oh, I mean, just the history that he has and the knowledge he has still. There was— I like to think, I like to think I'm pretty good when it comes to driving. Far from the best, but I like to think if I get in the situation, most of the time I could work out of it. But there's still so many times that I look to my dad and I go, I don't even know what to do.

[00:10:06.720] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I remember my first rock crawling competition that I ever did was a few years ago. In New Hampshire. It was an X-Roc event at Field and Forest. My first time being at Field and Forest too. That was a fun event. That was my 3-link moon buggy, and we had Super Swampers on it at the time because Super Swampers are awesome.

[00:10:30.370] - Big Rich Klein

Well, you're East Coast, so it's gonna be wet, muddy, and slippery rocks. Yep.

[00:10:35.590] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Well, even, even that— I mean, BFGs work great in the wet and mud and all that stuff. I mean, mud No tire works amazing, right? But in the wet, BFGs work amazing too, though. That's why we run them, because we started competing more. But I remember that event we went to it. I brought my friend with me and my mom came and a bunch of like other like family friends had come along to watch. That was my first time meeting a bunch of our friends now that we compete with and travel the country with.

[00:11:07.400] - Big Rich Klein

So in the— In the early days, um, the rock crawling, you still had school and everything.

[00:11:15.550] - Lil Charlie Melchner

So did you miss a lot of school, or did you, you know, you know, I, I missed more school trail wheeling than I did competition. Okay. I didn't do much, I didn't do much competition. All right. I'll say we would take off, um, it started off just being a week or two at the King of the Hammers when we would fly out Then it came to a point where we would drive out. I was missing— I would be gone for 31 days. That was, that was, that was, I think, the longest trip. It was 30, 31 days a few times. And then of course there's little trips that we like to go on in between. But taking that time off, I mean, I was lucky enough to— I had a lot of help with— a lot of my friends would help me and teachers. For the most part, the teachers liked me until they learned I was what they would call on vacation, which, I mean, I was on vacation, but they would get a little aggravated about that. But they understood and they would help me get my work done. And I always got really good grades.

[00:12:21.620] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I was always high honor roll and I did pretty good in that. And I never skipped class, never did any of that. I found no point in that. Okay. Um, because you're gonna be there anyways, you know, right? Why, why wouldn't you just go? But yeah, I definitely missed a little bit of school, especially towards the end there. So towards the end, the last couple years, I did, um, a tech school. So I would spend half my day at a tech school about 30 minutes, 40 minutes from my school, and I went for welding. Okay. And of course it was one of those— I go there and the teacher, he's amazing. I got along really well with him. I got along well with I got along well with all the teachers at the tech school, so that was pretty nice. But my teacher was also the engineering teacher, so a lot of the time he was up there. So I went there and I really wanted to learn, and I learned a lot about like the drawings and the math behind it. But it was also a lot of the kids that I ended up being friends with, some of them, they would come to me and go, "Why is my machine doing this?

[00:13:22.570] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Why is the weld coming out like this?" I'm no expert at all. I know how to make stuff look halfway decent, and I like to say it's gonna hold when I do it. But I'm no— I'm no genius behind it. I have plenty of friends that I would consider geniuses. My friend Chris Graham, uh, Matt Cutler, Pete Snodgrass— all those guys I look at and I go, yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing when I see what they do. But I would go there for what was called half the day if I had a full day of school. And, you know, I did projects like I got done with the welding curriculum relatively early and I would go, the auto body teacher next door, he had an old C10 Chevy long bed, but they couldn't find a bed for it. So he had me chop the frame down to a short bed and I learned how to use the plasma table and the press brakes and stuff. And I would make gussets for it and I would shorten it and line it up and weld the frame back together and make it a short bed.

[00:14:21.920] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Do stuff for all sorts of classes, but I would come back and I only had— I think junior year I had 2 classes, and then senior year I had 1 class. So I would leave at 11:40, so my school day was done then. So realistically, I would miss a few days, but it's only 1 class I had to catch up on, not like I was missing 5 or 6 classes I had to catch up.

[00:14:46.470] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, did you Did you participate in any sports, youth sports while you were growing up or anything like that? Any other activities, band or something like that? Yeah.

[00:14:57.210] - Lil Charlie Melchner

So I think as most boys do, I tried out all the sports. My parents, they were— they let me do all of them to see which one I would like. And, you know, I did a lot of them when I was really little. Like I did football for a long time when I was in like elementary school when everyone would do that and no one was really good. So it didn't matter. Right. And then there was T-ball, flag football, basketball. I remember when I was little, I did basketball, like elementary school. Again, I would always shoot at the wrong basket anytime they gave me the ball. And it was like the last game that we ever had, I, I made a basket in the right basket, and I was so happy. It was the only time I did that right. And then I went, not really for me. So I I did the football for a while, then I decided I'd try wrestling. I stuck with that for a long time. I probably wrestled for, I don't know, 5, 6 years. Okay. Um, I did it, I did it up until like through like halfway through high school, but the rock crawling became so important in my life that I wanted to do that more than I wanted to do almost anything else.

[00:16:09.820] - Lil Charlie Melchner

And of course, you know, King of the Hammer's time came up for when they would have states and sectionals and all that stuff. So I wouldn't go to any of the big matches, big quote-unquote matches anyways. I wasn't that good. I don't think I was terrible. I knew what I was doing, but I wasn't that good. It kept me in shape as a way to relieve some stress. And it, you know, it was— it killed some time. Which I liked doing during high school, so I wasn't focused on schoolwork. And I never had— I know I was talking about I had some friends that would help me with homework and stuff, but I never had a lot of friends. I always had, um, even now I got one or two like my age friends. So let me rephrase that. I'm very fortunate I have friends all over, and a lot of the people that I meet that are my age now they get really confused when I say, oh, like, my friend's over there, let me go say hi. And it's a 50-year-old man, right? They get a little confused about that. So saying I don't have a ton of friends, I, I, I like to consider a lot of people that are friends with my dad, I like to think that I'm friends with them as well, because I, I like to think that we get along and I talk to them a lot.

[00:17:27.540] - Lil Charlie Melchner

If they look at it as this is my friend's kid, or this is my friend. I don't know. I know that— I'd like to say pretty confidently a lot of them are at— like Pete, Chris Graham, all them. Um, like Pete, I'll go and I'll stay with him for a few days and I'll work at his shop. Uh, he builds a lot of cool buggies and stuff that he does, and he'll teach me. Chris Graham, he'll— I'll go and I'll, uh, hang out at his house. He's working on his house right now. I remember he is So meticulous and smart about things. I was at his house a few weeks ago. He's building a railing for his house and he was sitting there carving out the wood railings, like the, um, the posts, so exact that they were centered up and gaps that no one would ever see that didn't really matter, getting them so perfect. And I just go hang out while he does that. Um, those are some people that I would say definitely I consider them my friends and I wouldn't hesitate about saying that. Nice. Kids my age, I have— I'm friendly with people.

[00:18:31.310] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I try not to be on bad terms, but I have 1 or 2 people that are my age that I'll hang out with most of the time. It's my dad's my best friend. I spend 99% of my time with him. We're in the garage. We just last night we were wrapping up putting his two-seater back together. He, he has an Iron Man two-seat car. He bought Jeff McKinley's personal car. Okay. And Jeff made it a two-seater for him and moved some stuff around. And there was some stuff we wanted to do, like we put a manual, like a normal, like a Joe's Racing battery switch, like the big red switch that clunks on and off instead of the fancy, um, the fancy electronic stuff that they have in there. Because we like to think that the normal stuff is a little more reliable. And then we did little stuff like, um, we were moving like some seat cushioning around and we wanted to lay out the foam a little different here, just little stuff we want to do, but I'm always working with him there. And if I'm not working with him there, um, I work for him, so I'll see him at work.

[00:19:32.450] - Lil Charlie Melchner

And then we travel so much. I mean, I've spent more time in a car with my dad than I have anywhere else with anyone else, right? So, um, I'm fortunate enough that I like him a lot, so I'm glad that he's my best friend. But he'd be my best friend no matter what, kind of just because I spend so much time for him, right, with him.

[00:19:57.820] - Big Rich Klein

So, so let's talk about, let's talk about your work. If people that don't know you guys, you, your family has had a marina. Yes. Is that correct?

[00:20:10.640] - Lil Charlie Melchner

For generations? Yeah, it was. I believe my grandpa had bought the marina when my dad was really little, like really young, maybe even like a toddler. I don't remember what age he was because I wasn't around then. But then my grandpa had the marina, then my dad had got the marina from my grandpa. And my dad had— I mean, I see the pictures from then to now. My dad is the smartest businessman I know, whether he admits it or not. He thinks about everything in a way that I haven't seen anyone else think about things, and the way he's expanded it all and everything else he's done. Because it's not just the marina. I mean, he did his own stuff. Like, he would, he would work on people's trucks, and he was big into show trucks for a long time when he was younger, like my age. He would have— he was riding around on 40-inch tires, and then when he got a little more into it, he had his show trucks on 48-inch tires. He'd bring them up to like Bloomsburg and, um, some other big ones around here on the East Coast. But that was his thing until I think what he said, it's probably all on his podcast.

[00:21:22.510] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I mean, that would be a good one to go.

[00:21:24.580] - Big Rich Klein

I don't think— I don't think we missed much of his life on, on that podcast. Yeah.

[00:21:30.990] - Lil Charlie Melchner

But so I'm just talking about him a lot.

[00:21:34.280] - Big Rich Klein

I'm sorry. Okay. No, it's all right.

[00:21:35.880] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I don't know. I hear a lot of stories about him and he's, he's really cool. I really like him. Perfect. But he, he had show trucks and then he had the rock crawling. I don't even remember what the original question was.

[00:21:46.330] - Big Rich Klein

Now, now I'm just talking about him, about work, about work and what you do at the marina. And oh, okay.

[00:21:52.900] - Lil Charlie Melchner

So, yeah, he got into it. And then now when I was, when I was little, I used to just go hang out at the marina with him, like during the summertime. And, you know, I'd do the old— I was little and I'd like pump up people's tubes and pump gas and people would hand me tips and I would— I just wanted to go hang out with Dad. And now when I'm not working on the buggies, I'll go and I do kind of whatever he needs. I'll do deliveries and pickups for boats. Um, I'll, I'll— I'm not a great boat mechanic by any means. I don't think I have a ton to learn, but I know the basics. Um, you know, it's one of those in the morning he always goes in and he checks on the waterfront first before he goes to the shop. And we have a bunch of rental boats, you know, I'll go and I'll get the rental boats ready in the morning with him and to make sure that they're all clean and ready to go. And then, but yeah, realistically, I'm lucky I get to kind of do whatever there.

[00:22:58.750] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I get to go, I'll go in the morning, I'll check over everything with him. I ride in with him. And then he'll drop me off at the shop and all the guys will get going there. And I do a lot of— I'll organize boats in the back in the boatyard. And I started to learn how to use— we have a big triple boom Lull forklift and I'm starting to learn how to use that. That's really scary, but I'm starting to learn that, especially when you're putting— it's not your boat, it's not my machine, it's my dad's machine. You're putting them up on racks like 3 high. It gets a little stressful for me, but I've only used it twice, so I think I'll get better at it. Right.

[00:23:35.090] - Big Rich Klein

It's just gotta be— you gotta be patient.

[00:23:38.060] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Yep. It's really slow movements. I've learned as slow as I think I'm going, gotta go even slower. Um, but yeah, I'll just, uh, I'll wrench on some stuff down there. Um, I'll move boats around. I'll help down at the marina if it gets really busy or in the mornings. Um, and then you know, coming up to competition time, he'll go, all right, this whole week I need you to make sure the buggies are all ready. So you get all the prep jobs? Yeah, yeah, the, um, the buggies are a big thing for me. I, I try to make sure that those are all ready. Um, I like to think I do a pretty good job. Most of the time, things that go wrong aren't anything I could have checked. So that's pretty good. I mean, I'll because the buggies are, you know, I mean, you know how they are. They rattle around, they shake around, and everything that can, can come loose will come loose. So, you know, check the oil. There's portal gear oil. Check the engine oil, transmission fluid levels, nut and bolt. Check everything, um, grease everything. Just make sure that nothing looks like it's broken.

[00:24:40.390] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Check the diffs, um, look at all that. I mean, I remember I didn't look at the diffs, like I didn't take the oil cap off of my third member and look at my ring and pinion gear before Indiana. And, you know, it always leaks a little bit of gear oil out of the seal. For some reason, I could just never get it sealed right. Maybe it's because we rush it, I don't know. But we were looking and we're like, man, let's check the fluid level in the front diff. This was 3 hours before the competition started. And we look and we go— I looked in there and I was like, hey Dad, you want to come look at this? He's like, what? I go, We're missing a tooth off of the ring gear. And then we looked and the one next to it was cracked. We're not easy on parts, right? That's why we use the people we do, because they help us out and we believe in them. And if we know that we're gonna be really hard on parts, I mean, there are plenty of companies that go to people and say they want to give them stuff and and people, even if they don't love the product, they'll get it because it's free.

[00:25:49.630] - Lil Charlie Melchner

They want to— yeah, it's free, and they want to be part of a team, which I totally get that. But I'm fortunate enough where my dad's in a position where he can help me get the good parts, and we stuck with them enough that most of the companies that we work with that we believe in, I've reached out to them or vice versa, and we work with them now. And I stuck with it to, um, to see, like, I want these people to be on board, if anybody, because I'm gonna buy their products no matter what, right? So there's a lot of that. But we went and we changed it out and we got it all set last minute. But, um, it's always just— it's a scramble to see if parts are right. And everyone who's competed, and even trail wheeling, you know how it is. You'll get somewhere and something will be— you load it on the trailer just fine, you'll get there and something's wrong. You're like, I haven't touched anything. How is this possible? But it's one of those things you do as much as you can be prepared for. And I like to think I'm pretty good at it.

[00:26:49.320] - Lil Charlie Melchner

There's always little stuff that I'll forget. Like one car, I'll be like, did you check the driveshaft bolts? I'm like, oh, I did it on my car. I did it for the front shaft on yours. I didn't do the rear shaft on yours because whatever, something was in the way and I didn't want to move it right then, so I forgot to do that. And it ends up being everything's pretty good.

[00:27:08.100] - Big Rich Klein

But so you don't have a whiteboard with checklists?

[00:27:11.690] - Lil Charlie Melchner

You know, it would be a really good idea if there's a lot of stuff we're doing to the cars. We'll put blue painter's tape on the hood and we'll write it on Sharpie and we'll cross it off there. Or there's a notebook. My dad's good at writing it all down and notebooking it. I kind of just go, I think I remember it all. Ah, there you go. That's That's the problem there, right? But, um, he's very good at being meticulous with all that, and he's always so busy. I like to try to help out when I can with that stuff because he's always— if there's anything like crazy complicated on the cars, it's like, um, like his car. I know he wanted to do almost— his new car, he wanted to do almost everything to it, and I was like, you know what, I don't want to touch any of this new fancy stuff and mess any of it up. You can do all that. I just helped him, like, you know, the old hand tools, bolt this on, give me some wrenches. That was, that was working on his car, the equivalent, you know, I put the seats in place without him because I was like, all right, Dad, I, I'm not going to mess this up on your car.

[00:28:14.680] - Lil Charlie Melchner

That's pretty easy. My car, we've had my car apart so many times for good or bad. A lot of the time, I mean, every event after every time we go out, we pull my seat out and my side panels off, and we look at everything just to look at it because it can't hurt to, right? But we've had that car apart so much that I know where everything goes on that, so that I can pretty much do all that. There's some things I won't touch, like the inside of a transmission, I won't touch that, and the ring and pinion gears and all that inside of a third member. We send, we send the, um, our third members all up to our friend about an hour away in New Jersey, Andrew Nader with the 4x4 Place. Right. He does a really good job taking care of us with that. And he makes sure that everything's set properly and like lined up right and make sure that it's going to be good. I mean, I'm sure that my dad— I don't know how to do that. Andrew's taught me a few times. I can't remember for the life of me.

[00:29:15.260] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I'm sure my dad knows how to do it, but Andrew's pretty good at it. And we like to get things professionally done. It's better to get that done. I mean, wiring and stuff, we'll wire stuff up and we'll install all the parts. I mean, there's stuff like portal boxes and all that, which we've changed gears in those a million times. Um, we've taken apart and looked at— I mean, I don't think there's a part on my car that we haven't been inside of looking at. Um, even like the transmissions, we've done valve bodies and stuff on them. I remember my old car, because we run— my dad doesn't run a 904 because he has a 2.3 EcoBoost. So I think they run a Ford transmission with that. But I have a 904 transmission in mine. My old car did too. I remember, so those cars, they have like a little ball bearing and a spring for the tension on it that like clicks you into gear. Right. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Um, but I remember my old car, it was the day before Trailbreaker qualifying a couple years ago, I lost all the tension in my shifter and I thought I just blew my transmission right before it.

[00:30:28.290] - Lil Charlie Melchner

But I realized if I held it in place, it would stick in a gear. So for that event, we ended up doing— we took some 2x4s and some wood screws and we screwed the 2x4s down next to my shifter and put and we put screws in the side of the block of wood, and I would bend my shifter and place it in between the screws to hold myself in gear. And that's, that's how I qualified for my first, my Trailbreaker. Well, my first Trailbreaker was the JEP, the Japan one, but my first American Trailbreaker, that's how I qualified for that one. And then when we got home, we took it all apart and we realized that little ball bearing just got stuck. So we took the, we took the pan off and we looked at the valve body and we took it out and looked at all that. And I mean, well, we'll take that stuff apart and be fine, but like the bands and all that, we don't touch that. We have a guy in New Jersey— again, New Jersey, um, Tri-County Transmissions. He handles all of the really fancy transmission work for us.

[00:31:26.880] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Perfect.

[00:31:27.580] - Big Rich Klein

I, I believe in going to experts. There's a lot of things— I mean, I've been a mechanic for a lot of different years, different shops, my own shop, that kind of thing. And it was, uh, it— maybe it's my age now, but forever when it's, when it's been about the four-wheel drive stuff, it's like, okay, you know, we're gonna take it to the experts, the guy that do these all the time, so that I don't have problems, you know. I mean, I don't believe in that, that, oh, it's, it's, uh, It's you got to build it, you know, you can't buy it, you got to build it type thing. Yeah, you have to do it yourself.

[00:32:08.250] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Well, bullshit. You know, if, if you can have someone do it who's an expert at it, why would you like if you're not an expert at it and you're like, this should work. What sounds better? This should work, but I did it myself, or I'm not going to have a problem with this, but someone else did it. Correct. I'd rather have I'm not going to have a problem with this. Right? And I'm fortunate enough to have enough friends, and my dad takes care of a lot of that stuff for me. I'll just do the whole running parts back and forth. But I do like having professionals work on stuff. There's stuff where we— me and my dad, my dad more than me, and my dad's a genius mechanic in my eyes, and I think a lot of others. There's stuff that he comes up with that most people wouldn't think of, but Even me, I know enough where I could take stuff apart and wire stuff up and do certain things. I remember stuff like wiring. I finally learned that pretty good. I'm not no genius by any means, but I know enough to make things work.

[00:33:06.410] - Lil Charlie Melchner

During COVID my dad was making like a quote unquote shop class at home for me and my sister. And I remember he, one day he laid out a bunch of wiring stuff. He, he showed us a diagram of how it all works and taught us about it. Then the next day he gave us some stuff wasn't work, um, like some fuses, some were blown fuses, relays, fans, batteries, a bunch of stuff. And he was like, make this work, like off the switch, make it do this. And he gave us a few different challenges we had to do. And that's when I finally went, oh, I'm starting to get how all this goes together. And other than that, I've wired up like switch panels for the buggies and lights and like pickup trucks. I've wired up some stuff, like stupid little stuff like train horns and rock lights and all that stuff. I've, I've learned enough to get by. But like we had in West Virginia this year, uh, I was doing the whole competition and I was doing pretty good and I was in the lead, and then it was going into the shootout and I was like, all right, I'm gonna move my car over to— I always— so I always like to drive my car right before the shootout.

[00:34:18.800] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Since Grand Nationals last year in New Mexico, okay, um, I was in the lead going into shootout, and then I went to move my car. Luckily enough, this was like as they were setting up the course. I go, I'm in first place, it's Grand Nationals, this is pretty cool, I'm gonna move my car in front of the course because it looks cool, you know. And my car, it started but it wouldn't move. And we took up until the last 5 minutes before I went. I didn't get to watch anybody do the courses. I didn't know what was going on. Um, we like somewhat got the car working. It wasn't working amazing, but we got it working to where I could drive it. And that was so stressful. I go, I never want to have to deal with that again. So every competition, I drive my car like the person— I drive it to the shootout course, and then I'll start it and drive it around a few times before. And in West Virginia, as, um, my friend Brett was going, he was in second right behind me, so he was going, and I went, I'll move my car in line, make sure it runs.

[00:35:21.020] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I moved my car over there, shut it off, ran fine. And then when it was my turn to go, I couldn't start my car. I had the fuse block had melted on it. And all the fuses had melted. Like, all the plastic on the fuses melted off in, and it seeped in between where the metal-on-metal contact's supposed to be. So literally, it was just like the metal rods of the fuses sticking out there, and you couldn't even pull half them out. Like, you were using pliers ripping them out. We tried putting new fuses in, it just, it wouldn't work. And then there were some people were haggling us about time and stuff. It turns out we read the rules, we would have had more time where I like to think that we could have come up with an idea. We would have twisted the wires together or something and made my car run. But we didn't know the rules and we were being haggled about time and we thought we ran out of time. So I ended up not being able to run the shootout and I got second in that event. And then we had— what was I talking about before that?

[00:36:23.830] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I was talking about not— I was talking about I'm getting a phone call. Okay. I was talking about not wanting to— I want to make sure my car runs before every event, right? So it was New Mexico, then it was West Virginia. Oh, yeah. I was talking about the wiring. So I'm sorry, I get lost in my own thing that I'm saying. It's all right. It's all good. So we had— luckily, this was— I forget what it was. Oh, yeah. I had messed up my back. That event. I did a pretty nasty front flip in my buggy, and my back was hurting pretty good. And I was inside, like, I was— I couldn't really, like, get up and do much stuff without my back hurting a lot. So I was laying down for a week and a half, 2 weeks or so, not doing much. But my dad was outside making sure my wiring was all set, and he ordered a bunch of really nice high-temp fuses and fuse boxes, and he ripped out all my wiring for that and made a whole new wiring harness for it. And He, um, he got it really nice.

[00:37:27.030] - Lil Charlie Melchner

And we look at it, none of the fuses got hot, none of them. It's all working great. It looks good. So stuff like that, we just, we try to never worry about it. But stuff like that is stuff that we can do. I have reached out to some of our friends, like Matt Cutler does a beautiful job with that, but he has so many projects. It was a while away until we'd be able to get down there and do it. So stuff like that, we're confident enough in our own work that we can go ahead and do that, right?

[00:37:53.180] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, so let's, let's talk about some of the, the events that you've been in. Um, there's one particular one that, that stands out in my mind, and it was because I was standing right there when the whole thing occurred, and it was at the Texas Top Gun Shootout. No, it wasn't. It was the WE Rock event. Excuse me. It was the WE Rock at, at Mason, Texas. And there was this boulder that you had to come up and over. Oh yeah. And as you drop down it, you drug the boulder with you and it pins you on course. I mean, literally this big, massive, I don't know how many thousands of pound boulders, but it was big. Pinned you to the course.

[00:38:46.240] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Yep, that was 2 years ago, WE Rock in Mason, Texas. Um, it was— I was, I was, um, I was really confident in my car. I was on some new tires there and I was trying out a bunch of stuff, but I felt pretty good. I had a few issues, um, at that event, which some driver errors and some car errors. I had, I had some issues this year there again too, just silly stuff. That I should have thought about. But that was— I was coming up, as you said, we were coming up and over, and everyone was watching that rock. Actually, I thought the rock next to it on the other side was going to fall down, but everyone was like, that's coming down at some point. And I came over it, and it was a big drop. And I come down, and my rear tire was so wedged in there, it drug this giant boulder down, and it chased me down Indiana Jones style and it landed on my tire, and it was like a pretty harsh— like, it clamped me in there. I think we had like 3 or 4 buggies with giant winches on them, and they couldn't even move the rock all the way.

[00:39:51.220] - Lil Charlie Melchner

It took about 4 cars with giant winches to get the rock lifted up enough that I could drive out from underneath of it. And then once I was out of the way, they let go and it rolled all the way down. But you couldn't even move that rock all the way out, it was so heavy. I mean, it was I mean, it was probably the size or bigger of my car. Oh, absolutely.

[00:40:10.920] - Big Rich Klein

I mean, and if that was— and probably, you know, that thing had to weigh £40,000, £50,000. Yeah, that thing was giant.

[00:40:23.360] - Lil Charlie Melchner

But that was an interesting one to figure out. I don't know if any of the other competitors really liked it, but it was one of those in the rules, what do you do there because I was stopped on course, but not because I broke, not because any of that, because the course changed on me and stopped me from moving at all. Like, there was no way that my— we couldn't even recover my car, right? Like, without doing anything. Well, so they—

[00:40:51.360] - Big Rich Klein

the way I got out, the way I would have called that was you were on course the rock moved. That's, that's just stuff that happens. And you would have timed out and not be given time after the recovery.

[00:41:10.050] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Yeah, I know that they had them because we like, we stopped time when it happened because you're allowed to stop time during these for safety. Yes. Yeah. So we had stopped time to discuss it. And it ended up being we got the car out, moved the rock and then went back up into place where we were and then started again from there. And then, I mean, I had other issues with the car. Not like I went and won the event, right? Like, he won because of that. I had— I know I had to run a few courses with my booster pack charging my car the whole time because I think my motor had like a— it had like an actual engine light on it, and one of the connectors I think came loose on it. This is what I believe was the issue, if I remember correctly. It was a couple years ago, so I ran like 3 courses with the booster pack on me the entire time, and my car was stalling out. Like, I turned the rear— I turned the steering too much, I let off the gas too fast. So I was stalling out every course like a few times.

[00:42:07.490] - Lil Charlie Melchner

That was an interesting event. Even this past event in Texas, um, that event I got 3rd, I think, and it was really close— 1st, 2nd, 3rd. And I had 2 times where my winch— so we put different axles under my car. They're still Jesse Haynes portal axles, but I got the new Cs. We swapped the axles from my dad's old moon buggy to my moon buggy. Okay. And I guess when I, when I mounted the winch, maybe I mounted— maybe it was ran backwards or maybe it was just the way we put it around the chassis. But when I loosened up the winch and my shocks would compress and my axle would get closer to the body, my winch cable would become really long. It would be really loose and it would wrap around my gas pedal and then as my axle would extend and my shocks would extend, it would pull my gas pedal. And I hit, I hit 2 or 3 cones that event because that happened. And I was like, man, this is— luckily I saw it right away and I knew to press the out button on my winch. Like, immediately I saw it and I knew that that was it, luckily.

[00:43:14.160] - Lil Charlie Melchner

But there was one time I was doing something They were both on pretty technical spots. One time I was trying to do a side hill and I was lining up to it facing the wall and it happened and I like launched at the wall and everyone was going, what did you do that for? I didn't mean to do it. And then another time was on some— it was like a big boulder and you're kind of wrapping around the side of it and my car was super stable. I was going really slow. It was great. I was doing good that course and My dad was standing right in front of me, which was scary, and it did the same thing and the car jolted forward and I hit both those cones. Dad ran out of the way, but it was like, man. And then after that we said, okay, this is obviously going to keep happening. So we wrapped a bungee cord around my winch line and brought it backwards so that there was always tension on it so that wouldn't happen. And it hasn't happened again. So that's pretty— I feel good having the bungee cord there.

[00:44:10.170] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Right. And I picked a green bungee cord for my friend Danny, my friend Danny Better, who's got some stuff going on right now. Right. He's in the hospital. But I was looking at all the bungee cords and I saw the green one and I was like, yeah, I'll do that. And I've been thinking of trying to figure out where I could add more green accents to the car. But that was the start to it. I was like, this is going to work and it's— I'll be able to see it every time I'm in the car. There you go. Every time I'm driving, even something as simple as that, every time I'm driving, it lets me think of him. So that's pretty good.

[00:44:44.530] - Big Rich Klein

So what, what is— what kind of interests do you have outside of rock crawling?

[00:44:52.180] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Um, outside, honestly, rock crawling is most of my life here. But outside of rock crawling, you know, I like fishing and boating. I like water skiing. I, I like to do fun stuff to my pickup trucks. I like to, you know, I like the big lifts and wheels and tires. I like to put stupid horns and lights on it. Um, I like— honestly, I, most of the time, if I wasn't rock crawling and I had free time, I'd go boating, as stupid as it sounds, because we have a marina. Um, I have a little— not like my boat's anything giant. It's a— I, I really like the boat. It was my Uncle Jack's boat. It's a 16-foot or 16.5-foot Boston Whaler. It's like a really— it's like a '68, I think, Boston Whaler with like a baby blue interior. It's got a big Merc 92 stroke on it. And I take that out all over and I go fishing on it and I go hanging out with my friends. And I really enjoy that. I like being on the water and hanging out.

[00:45:55.640] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome. So when you were in school before getting out of school, of course. Um, did you, did you go to any of the dances or prom or anything like that?

[00:46:08.590] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I actually, I never attended a single one of those things. I never— there was junior prom, senior prom, graduation, um, any of the events. I never went to any of them. Well, my thing was, um, I wasn't fond of a lot of the people there. And honestly, a lot of the kids are rude and mean to me. So I was like, why do I want to go hang out with you guys if you guys are just going to be mean the whole time? A lot of them, I don't know what it stems from, but a lot of them liked to find ways to make fun of me and bully me. And I liked not being there because I didn't have to deal with that. Right. And honestly, during that stuff, if I could have a couple of friends with the same mindset that we would have a big bonfire I mean, my graduation, my high school graduation, I was at WE Rock in West Virginia hanging out with— I have— I had 2, 3 friends back home. I had 20 out there that I like so much more than most of the people here. I'm like, why would I not go hang out with all my friends and party out in West Virginia with a bunch of those guys, right?

[00:47:17.550] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Um, so I never went to any of that stuff. I always liked to, um, honestly, I was rock crawling for most of it.

[00:47:23.530] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, cool. Understandable. Yeah, I really enjoy it. So where, where would you like to go wheel that you haven't wheeled?

[00:47:35.890] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Oh, so, uh, first one that strikes my mind is Area BFE. I've never, I've never been to Moab in general. I know that used to be the big thing, and then they found Sand Hollow, and now I've been to Sand Hollow a few times, and that's insane, but Area BFE is like a bucket list, like I want to check that one off, that would be really cool. That, and then there's two other places I could think of off the top of my head. There's Colorado, there looks like there's some really cool stuff out there, and like the big secret trails out in Arizona that everyone goes to that have school bus-sized rocks. And because I love boulder fields, that's my favorite type of wheeling, and the Arizona, the stuff that I'm looking at out there, it looks like a lot of that. Right. So I really want— I'm dying to get out there and wheel with those guys. And we have a lot of friends that go out there and wheel, and we just— we live in New York. It's hard to get all the way out there and do that. Yeah. So it's—

[00:48:30.920] - Big Rich Klein

that's— it probably takes a lot of— it takes a lot of time. I mean, not only just the commute there, but then you have the time there, and then you have the commute back. So, yep, you know, it's— unless you're driving straight through switching drivers and, you know, never shutting the truck off, you know, it's a 3, 4 day drive.

[00:48:51.360] - Lil Charlie Melchner

It definitely is. It's, um, even if you're doing 14-hour days there, it's, it's a, it's probably 4 days, right? Um, which, I mean, I don't know how many people listening have driven across country, but I've never done straight through. I couldn't imagine that. But I mean, me and my dad have done 14-hour days where I'll only drive 5 or 6 of the hours and he'll drive the rest of it. And even then I'm exhausted and it's a lot to do. And, and then it's taking time off work, not as much for me, but my dad trying to step away from the business. And my sister Hannah, she started some really cool— she does mobile dog grooming. If anyone here is close to, um, New York, the area of Putnam County up, up here, she does mobile dog grooming, the Barking Bubble Bus. She does a really good job. She does our dogs and my friend's dogs. But she's always going around working, and my dad helps with a lot of the mechanical stuff. And a lot of— he helps with a lot. He's a really good businessman, so he's always trying to help her. And then my mom with all the animals that we have here and trying to come away and make sure that everything she wants done is done, like around the house, making sure that it's nice so that when the times that she can't come, she's still enjoying it and has stuff to do.

[00:50:07.830] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Um, it's— he's, he's just trying to figure stuff out for everyone. And when we're on the road, I mean, even just friends and family, the amount of people that call him asking him for advice on stuff— he has so much that he's dealing with on top of going away. I mean, it's, it's a lot for me, but I don't have much that I'm leaving behind when I go away, you know. I'm 19 years old. I'm not, I'm not leaving a whole business that I've built. Um, and my family and all those things, I'm not really— I'm not leaving much as opposed to him. It's harder on him to leave, I think.

[00:50:42.420] - Big Rich Klein

Right. My longest drive was I was in— I had to go to Jellico, Tennessee, and on the way back I drove 33 straight hours from Jellico to the Placerville, California, Sacramento area. And wow, it was the only time I stopped was for gas and restrooms. That's insane. How old were you? Um, 40, probably somewhere 45, 48, somewhere in between there.

[00:51:18.960] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Yeah, that's, that's insane. I mean, I don't even know if I could do that now.

[00:51:22.820] - Big Rich Klein

I have done Baja where we've been up for— I think the longest was like 52 hours or 53 hours straight. But by the end of that, I was hallucinating. Yeah, we were. I thought we were on a real twisty road. Even Shelley was, was with me and she thought we same thing. We were on a real twisty road. It was at night. People were passing me and I'm like, man, what is going on here? These people are insane driving this road like this. 2 days later, we leave, we leave and head back north. And we realized that there was— that road was straight as an arrow.

[00:52:05.830] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Everyone else is like, who's this drunk guy on the road right now? Exactly. Let me get around before something happens. You're just tired.

[00:52:13.450] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. And it was during the Baja 1000. So it was one of those, you know, where there's a lot of traffic and it was just We were trying to keep up with the race team and it was, it was, it was not a good situation, but we survived, you know, like they said. But did you die? Nope. Didn't die that time. Nope. Not that time. Not that time. So far.

[00:52:33.820] - Lil Charlie Melchner

So far. That sounds, that sounds really fun. I mean, I've even like the 500, the 1000, all those races. I saw the videos of it. It looks, it looks scary, but that seems so fun even just to go out and watch. I'd love to. Step into more types of racing other than just rock crawling. Um, I would love to do Ultra 4 desert racing, anything like that. I just want— I'm itching to change it up and to try my hand in something else, right? But even going and watching that sounds like such an experience. It sounds so fun.

[00:53:05.840] - Big Rich Klein

It is, it is. Baja is— even though it's, it's changing, um, It's maturing. You know, there's more and more people there. There's more and more paved roads. You know, it's still kind of the wild, wild west. You know, it's not as crazy as it used to be, but you know, you still have— That's probably good. There's still some real dangerous situations you can get yourself into down there if you act like a tourist and if you're dumb. But if you got your head on a swivel and you're being smart about things, it's fine. But it's a great— I've heard the places are a little sketchy there to where they can take you. Some, yeah. There's some places— it's like me when I go in country, as I call it, if I go in through San Diego, Tijuana, I don't stop in Tijuana. I mean, I just, I hit the border, get through, do what I have to do right there, you know, within the, you know, at the border crossing. And then I drive. I do not stop until I get out of Tijuana because it's, you know, I just don't want it. I don't want the hassle.

[00:54:26.660] - Big Rich Klein

So I always try to go in through Tecate. It's a nicer area, even though, you know, there are some things happening in that area. But it's very hard.

[00:54:35.430] - Lil Charlie Melchner

There's things happening all over. I mean, it is even, even where we live, where everyone lives, there's stuff. You check the news some days and you go, this was 5 minutes from my house. Like, what, what is happening?

[00:54:46.900] - Big Rich Klein

But, you know, being, being U.S. residents and being in the U.S., we're used to it. And we're, you know, um, some of us are more prepared for things to happen, is the way I put it. Yeah. Um, where when you go to Mexico, you can't be as prepared because they'll throw you in jail for overpreparation, you might say. I won't get into it. Everybody will know what I'm talking about. But, you know, I mean, it's, it's, you know, there's that Second Amendment here in the United States that, that protects us even in states that don't believe in it. You know, I'd rather be carried by 6 than judged or judged. I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

[00:55:33.320] - Lil Charlie Melchner

That's a good way to put it.

[00:55:34.540] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. You know, and so I'm well prepared here in the United States. Go to Mexico, you know, it's like, okay, buy a flare gun because flare guns are not illegal.

[00:55:48.260] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I guess if it works, I mean, anything's better than nothing. I don't know. I've never, I've never been down there. I mean, of course, I'm, I know who a lot of the people are who go and race down there because I watch all of it because it's super exciting to me. You know, going fast seems really fun, but it's also really scary. I mean, I've driven in like side-by-sides and stuff, and by the time I hit— I'm like out at King of the Hammers. Our friend Kyle Knosp, who owns Badlands Off-Road Park, he, he comes out to King of the Hammers with us and he'll usually stay wherever we're staying. The past year or two, we have our friend Craig Allen. He has a little area that we stay out there, and Kyle usually brings a fleet of side-by-sides out. And I've driven like the new Can-Ams, the new Polaris, that stuff. But once I hit like 70, 80 in the desert, I am terrified. I'm like, this is really cool, but I know how bad this can go, so I'm gonna slow down to like 60.

[00:56:45.230] - Big Rich Klein

That's the better part of Valor, I trust me. Plus racing, the faster you go, the more money it costs. Yep. And it's not just to You know, in horsepower, everybody's like, oh, chase the horsepower. You know, it is when— yeah, you need money for horsepower and for top speed. But what happens when you are going at that speeds, when something goes wrong, you know, like it goes very wrong? Yeah, you break a shock tab and, you know, all of a sudden you're cartwheeling and all four corners of the car are trashed. You know, you break a shock tab.

[00:57:25.050] - Lil Charlie Melchner

We've all seen videos of that.

[00:57:26.680] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, we break— you break a shock tab rock crawling. What happens? You know, you limp it off the course and you weld it back up.

[00:57:33.310] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Doesn't look good. Yeah, you got your carnage welder or something and you go back on. Exactly. You can't do that in this or that stuff. Right.

[00:57:43.140] - Big Rich Klein

So what are your— besides hoping to get a chance to go to Baja or to hit some of the races, What is, what is it that you're looking forward to being as you grow older? Do you have, you know, one of those things that, you know, wow, when I'm 40 years old, this is where I want to be, this is what I want to be doing?

[00:58:04.550] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Um, honestly, no. I kind of like, I don't know how to explain it. Um, I feel a little silly saying it, but I kind of just live like how time is right now. In the moment. I kind of, yeah, I play it a little bit by a little bit. Of course, I would love to figure out how to get a side-by-side and start racing that and move my way to Ultra 4 and some of that stuff. And I would love to become like a sponsored racer for like one of the big companies, like if GM, Ford Motor or something like that. That would be amazing. That would realistically— anytime I get behind the wheel of whatever it is, driving is just what makes me happy. And if I could do that for a living, that would be pretty darn cool. But as far as plans themselves go, I don't know where I'm going to end up living. I'd like to do some sort of fabrication work, building cool stuff. I have a lot of friends who do it, and I, I like all the, the community and everything around it. I'd like to build cool race cars and rock crawlers.

[00:59:19.630] - Lil Charlie Melchner

That would be really cool. But of course, for a while, that's not going to be something to just start into. I have a lot I would have to learn still.

[00:59:28.520] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Do you have a plan to, to, to achieve that?

[00:59:35.330] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Right now, I'm I'm friends with a lot of people who are very smart and are teaching me things little bit by little bit. Last year I went and I spent a couple weeks out with Jesse Haynes at his shop. He's a good friend of ours. I lived with him and I learned from him how he does stuff. And he is— his mind works in different ways. It's pretty cool to see it. But I'd like to go spend more time with people who actually build these things and know what they're doing. And take— I'd like to piece together a little bit more of what everyone does and see what works for me. Like I'm trying to do right now, I still want to try to piece together a little bit more of how everyone does things and what works for me and what they do, if that makes sense. Right, absolutely.

[01:00:26.990] - Big Rich Klein

Yep. Do you, uh, do you think you'll take over the marina someday?

[01:00:33.820] - Lil Charlie Melchner

That's— I mean, that's a lot to get into. That realistically, I do as best I can to understand it. And my dad shares a lot of what goes on with it with me. And I try to do my best to understand what's going on. There's still so much that I have no idea about. But you're only 19 still. Yeah, but it's, it's still a lot that I'm trying to figure out, and I do my best to figure out what's going on behind the scenes with it and how he runs things. And that'll realistically, as far as I'm concerned, that's up to him. He might say that's up to me, I don't know. But that'll really be where we end up in the future. I know that, uh, I know that neither of us really want to be in New York that much longer because we don't love New York that much. Um, we'd like to be out with all you guys out west where you can go in your backyard and go wheeling, and the weather's always nice. It's not -15 degrees and ice all over the ground. You know, we don't, we don't really enjoy that.

[01:01:41.580] - Lil Charlie Melchner

So we'd like to end up somewhere else. So that really, I think it'll depend on what comes in the future.

[01:01:49.190] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, sounds good. So you guys are are coming out for Nationals, of course, right? Yes. Okay. And you're going to run the full season East Coast next year. Are you planning on doing East Coast and West Coast? What, what's, what's it look like, you think?

[01:02:08.940] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I don't think East Coast and West Coast. I think that's, that's really hard to make all those events. Um, I do miss trail wheeling a little bit. Um, I don't honestly I don't want to promise that I'm doing one thing or another or say anything. I know for a fact that I want to do big events like Trailbreaker, Texas Top Gun. The Crazy Cruiser Motorsports just started another event this year, uh, the Crawl Fest out there in West Virginia. I want to do that, like a few big events, like definitely. Um, I do enjoy WE Rock. When I first started it, I was like, man, these cones are really annoying. Like, I'd rather hit really big obstacles. But as I got more into it, I learned what the fun in it is of cone dodging, which a lot of people don't understand that trail wheel all the time. They go, what's the fun in having to just move? You're 2 inches away from the cone trying to get around this obstacle when you could just go 5 feet over and there's a big giant fun obstacle that you could hit. They're both very fun, but it's so different to compare.

[01:03:13.520] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I'm— I really, in the past, couple years, year and a half, have been liking the cone dodging. Um, I've— it's— I'm beginning to understand it a lot and I enjoy it. So I'd like to do WE Rock. It honestly, um, a lot of it's going to come down to things that I don't feel like talking about or causing drama about. There's some things that I don't agree with, with a bunch of stuff with everybody everywhere, but It's gonna come down to— there's a few factors that it's gonna come down to that I'm gonna talk about with some people about if I want to compete in that next year. But if not, definitely I want to do Trailbreaker, Texas Top Gun, those big ones, because those are good excuses to go see your friends and hit really hard big stuff. And if WE Rock doesn't end up being in the cards, then I'll do a bunch of trail wheeling and And I love trail wheeling, and we have so many friends who don't compete and just do trail wheeling. That'll be a ton of fun too. I'll have a ton of fun no matter what we end up doing.

[01:04:15.640] - Big Rich Klein

Cool. Excellent. Well, Charlie, Little Charlie, how long— last question— how long do you think you'll hang on to the moniker Little Charlie? Oh, man.

[01:04:31.300] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I don't know.

[01:04:32.110] - Big Rich Klein

I mean, because my son, you know, Little Rich, Tried to— he's trying to get out from being Little Rich, but, you know, he grew up as Little Rich, so it's always going to be there. I know.

[01:04:44.060] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I mean, it's starting to be where I really like Rich. I just call him Rich. I don't call him Little Rich because I've only— I've always known him as Rich. Right. And I've known you as Big Rich. I never knew him as Little Rich because I didn't know him when he was younger. Right. So I always call him just Rich. And I love going out and hanging out with him. He is— he— I'm very fortunate that he's one of our good friends, and, um, you, you and him both are very amazing people, and I like being able to talk with you guys and do all this with you. Um, I don't know how long I'm gonna hang on to the little Charlie thing. I never thought of it. It doesn't really bother me yet, um, because my dad's Big Charlie, and I don't know, I mean, I just I never thought of any other way. It gets confusing. Like, my family doesn't call me, uh, little— actually, sometimes they're starting to, but I have my grandpa's also Charlie. So it goes to when all of us in our room are in a room together, it's grandpa, my dad ends up being Charles, and I'm Charlie.

[01:05:52.230] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Okay. Or they'll do my grandpa and my dad Charles and then me Charlie, but usually this distinction in the household is Charles and Charlie, right?

[01:06:02.870] - Big Rich Klein

I know your dad is Junior, so are you actually the third? I'm the fourth. Oh, you're the fourth?

[01:06:10.810] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Yeah, my grandpa's dad was also Charlie.

[01:06:14.100] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, there you go.

[01:06:16.900] - Lil Charlie Melchner

All right, so it's a long line of Charlies.

[01:06:19.950] - Big Rich Klein

Yes, there you go. All right, well, Charlie, thank you so much for, uh, for being a guest on the podcast. And thank you for having me. It was, it was great to talk to you more. I mean, we've talked a lot at the, at the competitions and stuff, but never like this. And it was good. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, it was good to do it. So thank you. Thank you.

[01:06:43.140] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I had a lot of fun.

[01:06:43.930] - Big Rich Klein

All right. Well, have a good rest of your day and hopefully I'll— I won't see you at Nationals. But hopefully we'll see you on the Trailbreaker or no, you know, I may go there, but only for Wednesday for the— if they do the Rock Sports Gala there again. Oh yeah.

[01:07:03.740] - Lil Charlie Melchner

I didn't even realize what that was last year. They— one of my dad's— one of my dad's friends who I've never met before. Who did—

[01:07:12.020] - Big Rich Klein

who was it last year that they— Chris Durham, myself.

[01:07:17.090] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Yeah, it was Chris Durham. Okay. I met him. I didn't even realize who he was. I felt so stupid. He was with my friend Fred Williams, and they said hi to me, and he introduced me. He didn't say his full name. He just said, this is my friend Chris. And I was like, oh, hi, nice to meet you, blah, blah, blah. And then later on, my dad told me who it was and said that he was being honored into the thing there. And we didn't realize what that thing was because we had got invited to go there and we showed up like really late. I forget what it was. We might have been working on a car or something, but we didn't realize what it was and we felt so bad.

[01:07:56.010] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, it was a pretty good time. It was good to see that, that WE Rock Sports was being honored that way. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. And maybe we'll see you there at Trail Hero. And if— but if not, I'm sure we'll catch up somewhere.

[01:08:12.190] - Lil Charlie Melchner

Well, I'll see you at some place, I'm sure of it. All right, you take care now. Thank you so much again.

[01:08:15.940] - Big Rich Klein

All right. Have a good day. Okay, you too. Bye-bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have or If there's anybody that you have that you think would be 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.