In this episode, Big Rich Klein sits down with Nate Williams to explore a life immersed in off-road culture. Growing up in Logan, Utah, Nate caught the bug early—rebuilding a 1975 Bronco at just 15, complete with body work and a custom Chevy engine swap. What started as weekend trail runs evolved into competitive rock crawling, and eventually into full-scale desert racing.
Nate shares the origin story of Mount Logan Off-Road, the shop he built with his brother John, and the pivotal lessons learned through business challenges and partnerships gone wrong. After ten years in industrial automation, Nate returned to his true passion, rejoining John to launch Crossfire Off-Road in Logan.
The conversation highlights Nate’s racing achievements, including winning King of Area BFE in 2007 and multiple victories at the Baja 1000, Mint 400, and Silver State 300—all while maintaining a competitive edge at King of the Hammers. Now partnered with Ford, Nate continues chasing championships in Ultra4 and Best in the Desert series, while his shop focuses on custom builds and long-term fabrication projects.
This episode explores the lifestyle, persistence, and brotherhood that define the modern off-road industry.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:13.090] – Big Rich Klein
On this episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I will be discussing life with a guy whose life in 4×4 started off with his dad’s FJ40, then turned a Bronco into a competitive rock crawler But he couldn’t stop there. Next move was to build a comp buggy and then on to race Broncos and Raptors with Ford, racing and winning in desert racing series like Best in the Desert and SCORE. My guest is Nate Williams. Hello, Nate Williams. So good to have you on the podcast. I’m looking forward to not only talking about those OG days of rock crawling, but also what you got going on today. And of course everything in between. So I hope you’re doing well.
[00:01:59.130] – Nate Williams
Yep, doing great. I’m excited to catch up with you and, uh, yeah, just see how things are shaking out.
[00:02:04.920] – Big Rich Klein
Cool. So let’s start off with the, uh, very first question I ask everybody: where are you born and raised?
[00:02:12.840] – Nate Williams
So I was born and raised in Logan, Utah. It’s about 100 miles north of Salt Lake, um, right at the top Right. Pretty close to the border to Idaho.
[00:02:24.310] – Big Rich Klein
And that’s real close to where they filmed— oh, what the heck was that movie?
[00:02:30.980] – Nate Williams
It was in Napoleon Dynamite.
[00:02:33.070] – Big Rich Klein
There you go. You guys are just at the other end of the valley, aren’t you?
[00:02:36.990] – Nate Williams
Yeah, they’re about 20 miles north of us.
[00:02:39.390] – Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:02:39.670] – Nate Williams
Is where they filmed that show.
[00:02:41.170] – Big Rich Klein
Okay. So they didn’t bleed over. I mean, yeah. Okay. Yep. Did you know Pedro?
[00:02:50.070] – Nate Williams
I didn’t. I did not know him. So.
[00:02:53.040] – Big Rich Klein
All right, so let’s get serious. All right. So born and raised in Logan, Utah. Tell me about those early years.
[00:03:01.090] – Nate Williams
I think we had— man, I think that those of us that were kids, you know, I was born in 1980, so I got, you know, remember the end of the ’80s and all of the ’90s. And I think we had just the best childhood, you know, the most freedom that kids had. And, um, just a really good time. And, and where I grew up was a great place, you know, to grow up. We didn’t have crime, and we kind of— we call that little Happy Valley, you know, surrounded by mountains. So we did a lot of stuff outdoors as a family, and it was really a great place to grow up and a good time in the world to grow up also. READ MORE
