OG Rockcrawler, magazine hero and the Ultimate Fab guy, Chris Durham of Chris Durham Motorsports joins us this week. Chris tells us about growing up in South Carolina, how he hates mud, rock crawling competitions and Ultimate Adventure.
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2:56 – 55 BelAir or 79 Ford pickup
3:34 – how muddy can you get?
5:32 – automotive vs. construction
10:13 – the perfect combination
12:37 – vacationing in Farmington
17:41 – what are you doing under my Jeep Walker?
20:48 – fixing drive lines
25:45 – Shupe, the center of attention
31:50 – Free pizza!
40:53 – combining hoods and fenders for lift
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:21.150] – Big Rich Klein
On today’s episode of Conversations with Big Rich, we have Chris Durham, Chris’s original rock crawling competitor, Fab Guy, magazine hero, and just generally an all around great guy. One of my favorite competitors over the years. We’re going to learn a little bit about Chris, hopefully a lot what drove him into off-road and how he got to where he is today. So, Chris, thank you for coming on with me and sharing your life and your history in Off Road and Rockcrawling with our listeners.
[00:01:57.370] – Big Rich Klein
So let’s get started. Tell me about growing up off-road where did you grow up? How did you get started in an off road and kind of your background.
[00:02:08.510] – Chris Durham
So background, I lived in South Carolina pretty much my whole life, other than traveling a lot over the years, I’ve been very fortunate to go see a lot of places four-wheeleing across the United States, for various different entities. So basically, you know, it started out as.
[00:02:25.520]
Kind of a hobby turned into a profession. Still is still a very sought after hobbies. Not a not a profession per se, other than the work side of it now for me. So basically, it’s. Know self-employed shop owner for 20 years now and just kind of running through things that are so the backdrop of that is, you know, I go back to the beginning. One of the things that put me into the off-road industry. Was when I was a kid, when my first vehicle, I had an option of buying a 55 Bel Air or a 79 Ford truck, and I opted for the Ford truck instead.
[00:03:05.230]
And I often wonder where I would be at if I would have bought the fifty five instead. So I know would be deep in the street rods, which I still have a somewhat of a street rod background and build some from time to time for people. But it’s all modernization, you know, taking the old, making new. So from that, you know, just as a teenager I was trail riding some in a full size truck and wasn’t doing no rock crawling, but it was just trail rides and, you know, mud holes because that was a thing.
[00:03:34.420]
When you’re a kid and you see how dirty muddy you can get, learn real quick it costs a lot of money to fix stuff. Muddy. Kind of ventured away from that and try to I will drive way out of the way to avoid a mud hole now. All the media is out there and show it that way, but that’s because we had to go through nowadays. You know, the young ones are getting is you know, if we’re one of the trips where it’s that’s the only way to get through there, you know, there’s no bypasses.
[00:04:01.600]
So but I really don’t like them at all yet in ultimate adventure, they kind of they kind of look for that stuff, don’t they? They look for a variety in the biggest thing of Ultimate Adventure is there’s a lot of places has places to wheel, but it’s either you have mountainous terrain and rock or you have mud holes. Some places you have both, but, you know, we cover such vast areas over the years, a lot of places, Florida, for example, is nothing but mud.
[00:04:31.410]
But you got to sooner or later, you got to go to every state. So in Florida, there’s nothing but deep mud. That’s just an example. Alaska was mud and more mud and more mud and more mud. But, you know, it’s different.
[00:04:43.470]
But it’s a trip of a lifetime. It really is. You know, it was very fortunate to get involved in that after getting out of rock, crawling and falling into that and being to be a part of as long as I have. It’s been a been a real treat. READ MORE
