Sometimes, you meet a guy and just know he’s the real deal. As genuine as they come, Nick Cimmarusti has carved out a space for himself in off-road. Whether you see him on the trail sharing his knowledge with others, or in the shop doing the same, Nick will never lead you astray. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
5:33 – “make sure you don’t leave the keys in the golf cart, or else, he’ll steal it!” I was three years old
11:31 – I got into auto shop, and then it was all over from there – it’s been all automotive from there
18:09 – yeah, it was assault with a deadly weapon, battery with intent to do great bodily injury, and inciting a riot.
28:32 – that’s how my life’s been, as soon as I make something really nice, it gets destroyed
32:11– What came first – Jeepers or Barlow?
38:50 – A lot of things happened in 2016 – Fire Academy, Certification testing and Emily Miller called.
49:27 – it’s a lot of overcoming being uncomfortable in the sand and figuring out what what you can and can’t do
56:52 – The story goes…I met Mike in the middle of the night under the moon to have him give me his wife’s pantyhose
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:39.360] – Big Rich Klein
My guest this week is Nick Cimmarusti. From Georgetown, California, Nick is the lead of the mechanics crew on the Rebelle Rally. He’s also a trail guide and trainer with Barlow Adventures. Having grown up in Georgetown on the Divide in California and living close to the Rubicon Trail for most of his life, he’s also an avid rock Crawler. Hello, Nick Cimmarusti. How are you doing today?
[00:02:06.170] – Nick Cimmarusti
I’m doing great.
[00:02:07.690] – Big Rich Klein
Good to hear from you. Yeah, it’s really good to have you on the podcast. It’ll be interesting to find out more about you. I think I know a lot about you, but it’s all been within the last nine years. Yeah. I know we met prior to that, but we didn’t really interact at that time. So let’s Let’s jump into this and see where it goes.
[00:02:33.510] – Nick Cimmarusti
Sounds good.
[00:02:34.740] – Big Rich Klein
All right. First question, where were you born and raised?
[00:02:39.370] – Nick Cimmarusti
I was born in Glendora, California, which is Southern California, LA County, and lived down in Southern California, mainly Redlands area, until I was six. Then we moved to Georgetown, California, and where I’ve been pretty much the rest of my 39 years.
[00:03:05.890] – Big Rich Klein
So you went from Redlands to Georgetown. How did that come about? We’ll get into your You probably don’t have a lot of memory from six or before, but what’s the… A little bit. How did that happen?
[00:03:21.310] – Nick Cimmarusti
My parents owned a business. My dad’s a flight instructor and an aircraft mechanic, and they had My parents had moved out of Southern California. Prior to me being born, prior to me and my sister being born, they lived in Bishop, California for a while, and they moved back to Southern California. We’re looking to get out of Southern California again, and we We used to camp out of our airplane. We were camping out of our airplane, and they were low-key looking for a place to move. We had looked at Williams, Arizona. We spent a bunch of time up in Idaho. On our way back from Idaho, we stopped in Georgetown to get some fuel. My parents fell in love with the airport in Georgetown and decided that’s where we were going to move. My dad moved up about a year before the rest of us and secured a hangar on the airport and built out a business there and rented a house, and then the rest of us followed a little less than a year later. They ran a business there at the airport for 22 years, I guess. That’s how it transpired.
[00:04:39.860] – Big Rich Klein
Interesting, Idaho, back to Redlands, but go through Georgetown. That is a roundabout way.
[00:04:49.330] – Nick Cimmarusti
Yeah. Yeah. Kind of airport hop and looking for cool little spots. They’d look at the sectionals and try to pick out some rural mountain They knew they wanted to be in pine trees, and they just picked out a bunch of airports that they hadn’t been to. Georgetown happened to be one of them, and there was an opportunity with a recent build on a hangar that was available for rent, and they liked the community. And so that’s just how it happened.
[00:05:25.540] – Big Rich Klein
Nice. That’s awesome. You said you Do you remember a little bit prior to six years old?
[00:05:33.680] – Nick Cimmarusti
Yeah, a little bit. At Redlands, they had a business on the airport that was a flight school and a aircraft maintenance facility. They also had the aerodrome, which was a snack shop, pilot lounge thing. One of my early memories is everybody on the airport, not everybody, but several people on the airport down there had golf carts. And I was three or four years old, and my mom used to tell people, hey, make sure you take the keys out of the golf cart if you’re going to let them play on the golf cart, or else, they’ll steal it. I’m like, oh, he’s fine. Several occasions, I’d steal the golf cart and go drive it across the airport and beelined towards airplanes and people running after me, screaming to stop. READ MORE
