Family Man, Jason Blanton on racing vs. rockcrawling; working the grind and working to win. Always great to see work ethic pay off, spend some time with Rich and Jason on this episode of Conversations with Big Rich. Good things come to those who work for them. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast platform.
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5:57 – Snowboarding was pretty big in my life
9:40– I never had a problem because I don’t think I got enough power
17:47 – I’m sure if my first car had been a car, I might have been into streetcars
22:12 – I started with nothing in a Honda
25:18 – If I go to a job and they have me bid against other people, I don’t even bid
30:35 – You guys got to move your camp, you’re on the start/finish line
37:35 – they wanted pictures all day long of dudes with beards
46:09 – it’s serious, we’re there to win and it’s a business
We want to thank our sponsors Maxxis Tires and 4Low Magazine.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:47.050] – Big Rich Klein
on today’s episode of conversations with big rich, we have Jason Blanton. Jason is an old time rock crawler with Calrocs, or WE Rock. I’m not sure where the transition came in, but with him. But we will talk to him about that and his ultra4 racing and his career as a contractor and his life growing up. So, Jason, thank you so much for coming on board and spending the time recording with us.
[00:02:13.870] – Jason Blanton
Thanks for having me.
[00:02:15.390] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah. I’m going to let everybody know that Technical Difficulties has been the name of the game with this one, and it’s all been on my side. But Jason has been very good about me calling him back ten to twelve times. So I think we finally got it worked out.
[00:02:31.750] – Jason Blanton
Let’s hope so. That’s good.
[00:02:33.290] – Big Rich Klein
Okay, so let’s jump right in. And where were you born and raised?
[00:02:40.090] – Jason Blanton
I was born in Mesa, Arizona, and pretty much moved when I was a pretty young child up to Washington. So I’ve been living in Washington and Kirkland, Washington, for my whole life, pretty much.
[00:02:52.320] – Big Rich Klein
Okay, and what is the neighborhood like up there? Is it rural or suburban?
[00:02:57.730] – Jason Blanton
Very suburban. We live 4 miles from Seattle. There’s asphalt everywhere and you’re 40ft from your neighbors. It’s not farmland by any means.
[00:03:09.370] – Big Rich Klein
And what took the family from Mesa to Kirkland?
[00:03:15.430] – Jason Blanton
My mom got a good job opportunity up here, so we moved up from Arizona and she works in the hospitality industry and moved up here to better things.
[00:03:27.370] – Big Rich Klein
Excellent. And it’s a great area to grow up in. I’ve spent a lot of time on the western side of the mountains there and on the eastern side with the events out there. But good area to grow up in, would you agree?
[00:03:41.170] – Jason Blanton
Oh, yeah. I’ve been all over the place and all over the world. It’s a great place to live. It’s a very mild place. It’s like not super hot in summer, not super cold in the winter, but you’ll get all the seasons and trees everywhere and lots of mountains close by, so a lot of stuff to do.
[00:03:57.270] – Big Rich Klein
So what was it like growing up there in Kirkland? What were the family activities? What were your activities?
[00:04:05.110] – Jason Blanton
I did a lot of sports as a child, so I did a lot of sports road bikes and skateboard and snowboard. I didn’t snowboard until I was a little bit older, like middle school, but pretty much grew up playing every sport there is old enough to say I didn’t want to do it anymore.
[00:04:24.130] – Big Rich Klein
I was going to say what’s your favorite and what was your favorite growing up sport to play?
[00:04:31.150] – Jason Blanton
I like baseball, so I played a lot of baseball, and soccer was mainly the biggest things that we played. But I was pretty good at baseball, and I had a lot of fun at baseball. My dad and I got a free pitching machine, so we built like a batting cage in our backyard. It was a good time. It was fun.
[00:04:52.490] – Big Rich Klein
Excellent. And do you still watch baseball? Is it still a fun sport for you?
[00:04:58.780] – Jason Blanton
No, I don’t like to watch. It pretty boring. I’d rather watch soccer. Football or hockey or something, but not baseball.
[00:05:08.400] – Big Rich Klein
Baseball my problem with baseball, and even when I did play, there was so much time, like you were waiting for something to happen. I mean, if you’re a pitcher and catcher, I caught, so at least I was in the action, you might say. But it just seemed like if you were an outfielder, you were waiting sometimes, like all day long for something to happen.
[00:05:37.130] – Jason Blanton
Oh, yeah, I agree. It’s kind of like I played pitcher, and I was short stop, and then I played a little bit outfield. Outfield was just like just hanging out there, waiting for something to come your way. It was quite boring.
[00:05:49.430] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah. And then you got into snowboarding, and how big was that in your life?
[00:05:57.570] – Jason Blanton
That was pretty big in my life. I played all sports really up until high school, and then I was getting pretty good at snowboarding at that time. This is back in the day when there wasn’t a whole lot of snowboarding was new, so it was exciting and new to me. And I gave up all my other sports just to snowboard. So I pretty much just work as much as I could in high school, so I could snowboard in the winter as much as I wanted. READ MORE
