Derek Trent, master fabricator and owner of Trent Fab joins us on Episode 224. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
9:11 – a couple of times I got in some trouble with the law and was told to push my motorcycle home
16:16– I was 21 years old and I hit a point where I had to make a “What am I going to do?” decision
24:31 – out of the box, a YJ was pretty damn tough
31:49 – Jason Berger was driving my car and eneded up breaking the TH400 case, I was really disappointed because all I was looking at was all the things that went wrong, that I didn’t do right
38:18 – I was working a job after college and woke up one day and realized that if I didn’t get out then, that was all I was going to do with the rest of my life.
49:03 – I got the invitation to go the very first King of the Hammers, but I really wanted to take my new car and it wasn’t ready. So I missed the very first one, it would have been 14 instead of OG13
58:25 – that’s when the Top Shelf chassis was born
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:39.730] – Big Rich Klein
On this episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I’ll be talking with a guy that has been doing it his own way. Self-taught, tinkering early in life, from coaster carts and go-karts to race cars. That’s right. Derek Trent with TrentFab. Good morning, Derek Trent. This is Take 2, you might say. Another one of those embarrassing moments when the interviewer does not hit the record button. So, Derek, thank you for taking the time and doing this conversation over again this morning. It’s good to talk to you. How have you been?
[00:02:20.340] – Derek Trent
Been really well. Things are going great. It’s my favorite time of year. I really love summer and getting out and doing stuff. But great to hear from you, Rich.
[00:02:34.900] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah, most excellent. So just let everybody know, I’m sitting in Montana in an RV park with lousy cell service, but luckily, Starlink saves the day. Thank you, Elon Musk. And so here we are, second take. Derek, let’s talk about where you were born and raised.
[00:02:55.870] – Derek Trent
Okay, sure. I was born back east in the Greater Washington DC area. My dad was politically involved and was out there working for, I believe, the Nixon administration at the time. And Anyway, shortly after that, we moved out West. My dad got a job on the Stanford campus working for the Hoover Institution. So we moved to the South San Francisco Bay Area, and we lived in Portola Valley.
[00:03:34.010] – Big Rich Klein
Which is a very nice area to grow up in, the wide open spaces.
[00:03:41.240] – Derek Trent
Yeah, I think everybody had at least a couple of acres and rolling hills and horse trails. It was a great place to be, great climate. Definitely a lot different than it is these days. Like I said, back then, it was pretty much just horse country.
[00:04:02.190] – Big Rich Klein
Right. And now it’s been taken over by all those in the tech industry.
[00:04:10.110] – Derek Trent
Yeah, pretty much. It’s a real busy place. I don’t spend much time down there anymore. It’s just you feel like all you’re doing is spending your time sitting in stop lights and stuff like that.
[00:04:23.860] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah, I grew up in the little farther north on the peninsula, San Bruno, California, and spent a lot of time between Pacifica and San Bruno. And I go back now, I go down to San Jose, Santa Clara for the 49er games, and then try to skirt the whole Bay Area as much as possible because of the traffic and the congestion. It’s just not the same as it was when I was growing up, and it’s not a pleasure to be down there so much.
[00:04:56.490] – Derek Trent
Yeah. Like I said, I really only go down if I have to, and I don’t have a lot of reasons to need to go down there. I guess you could say I’m fortunate in that regard.
[00:05:10.720] – Big Rich Klein
You went to school there We did talk about you going back for first and second grade back east and being in an all Catholic boys school and the cold. The memories there was just the cold, basically?
[00:05:30.400] – Derek Trent
Well, I was really young. It was first grade and half a second grade. And 1980s, my dad was working for Ronald Reagan. And I remember Reagan getting shot. And I remember really cold winters and having to wear a tie to school. And just was a lot different than being a kid that was used to living in the Bay Area wearing shorts and sweatshirts all winter long.
[00:06:04.340] – Big Rich Klein
So then you moved back to the Bay Area with your mom and back to the Portola Valley area?
[00:06:11.790] – Derek Trent
Right.
[00:06:13.470] – Big Rich Klein
And then school, good student, bad student, indifferent?
[00:06:21.460] – Derek Trent
Average student. Right when we moved back to the Bay Area, it was actually discovered that I was dyslexic. And that was explaining a lot of the problems that I was having in school and stuff like that. And I was in a public school and I had a really good teacher who taught me how to deal with it and let me realize that it can be an advantage and that a lot of dyslexic people are above average intelligence and very creative. So I think I got the creative side. And I just always explored that. And basically, I like building things and stuff like that. I learned that early on. READ MORE
