Meet Michael Brassanini, the newly crowned WE Rock Unlimited Champion; all-in family man, keeper of dreams, and seeker of goals. Michael fulfills his kid’s dreams, too. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
4:07 – As a kid there didn’t seem like there was a lot to do, looking back, the world was our oyster.
11:11 – It was hard as a kid being taken away from your family, but looking back, it definitely saved me
17:28 – I got hurt a lot, but girls like cowboys, and I like girls!
23:17 – A lot of cold, lonely nights, but I had a drive and a focus and had goals.
28:84 – Motors, big tires, and being outside, wheeling with my friends attracted me to rockcrawling
35:18 – we have a great community of guys and gals that get out, almost on a daily basis there are drivers headed out
41:59 – there are moments in life when you have this epiphany, I had one in Boulder Canyon near Montrose
48:38 – And once you do that stuff in competition, you go out on the trail, and you’re like, oh, hey, maybe this drop isn’t as bad as I thought it was
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:39.250] – Big Rich Klein
On this week’s episode of Conversations with Big Rich, we start with humble beginnings, a life changing moment, hard work, setting goals, and seizing opportunities can get you far in life. Don’t ever look at my next guest and think or say, It must be nice. It’s been hard work and goals. My guest this week is Michael Brassanini. Hello, Michael Brassanini. How are you doing today?
[00:02:07.030] – Michael Brassanini
I’m good. How about you?
[00:02:08.910] – Big Rich Klein
Excellent. It’s good to have you on the podcast here. Looking forward to this one. We’ve known each other for a while, but we really don’t know each other. I think this will be a good chance, not only for me to get to know you, but along with a lot of our listeners, too, that enjoy rock crawling and off-road motor sports. So let’s get started. Real simple question, where were you born and raised?
[00:02:36.190] – Michael Brassanini
I was born in Boulder, Colorado. And when I was very young, my parents moved to West Yellowstone, Montana, where my grandparents had bought a lodge. And we’d lived there for a couple of years and then moved over into Island Park, Idaho, where they had bought another lodge, the Island Park Lodge. And that’s where I spent most of my childhood.
[00:03:02.930] – Big Rich Klein
Nice. So you were pretty rural being West Yellowstone and Island Park.
[00:03:10.980] – Michael Brassanini
Oh, yeah, very rural, lots of snow and Lots of snow and lots of outdoor exploration to be had.
[00:03:19.320] – Big Rich Klein
Right. Not a lot of probably organized like school sports or anything like that.
[00:03:24.560] – Michael Brassanini
We definitely had organized school sports. I started wrestling I was really, really young, and then played football and wrestled all the way through high school. I think we had a wrestling program in Ashton started in first or second grade.
[00:03:44.070] – Big Rich Klein
Well, what was it like living there? I’ve been up there. I’ve done some snowmobiling in that area. I lived in Blackfoot, Idaho for a while with Shelley, and they vacationed there a lot But what was it like growing up in basically a vacation area?
[00:04:07.630] – Michael Brassanini
Yeah, back then it was, like you said, very, very rural. Snowmobiling hadn’t at the time, taken off to the sport that it is. Nowadays, it was mainly just trail riding and that thing. So there wasn’t a ton of people. As a kid, it didn’t seem like There was a lot to do. But now, as I reflect back on my childhood, it was like, I think that we had everything to do. And the world was our oyster, so to speak. We could go out and do whatever we wanted. We’d go play in the woods in the summer and light stuff on fire like most kids do. READ MORE
