If it wasn’t for bad luck, it seems Todd Hoffman wouldn’t have any luck at all.
It’s been a brutal season for Hoffman and his crew — and our exclusive Gold Rush clip below reveals that a new disaster strikes at the most inopportune time for Hoffman as the season comes to an end.
The two-hour finale will wrap up the loose threads of the three main storylines of the Todd Hoffman, Parker Schnabel and Tony Beets and his cursing clan.
But our exclusive clip below shows yet another gut-punch delivered to Hoffman, when his engine burns up on him.
Last week we saw Hoffman using dynamite to move dirt and find some pay as he considered creating a third gold mine for next year. But his crew is hurting and did not appear keen on that plan.
Gold recovery and wash plant expert Freddy Dodge has kept Hoffman in the game with his water diversion, but Hoffman is still behind in his gold acquisition.
At the beginning of this season, Hoffman left the low to no yields of his Oregon claims to head to Colorado to set up two working mines. Now as the season is wrapping, he is just beginning to hit some juicy paydirt and winnow enough gold this season to pay his hurting crew.
But the Gold Rush finale wraps up this ‘everything that could go wrong will go wrong’ season for Hoffman.
Our clip takes us to his freezing cold Sacramento claim where Dave Turin is reunited with the rest of the hardworking Hoffman crew.
Turin is not admiring the icicles everywhere and comments: “When it gets down into the teens it’s usually time to go home.”
To reach this season’s final gold tally, Hoffman is still relying on the gold-rich paydirt at Freddy Dodge’s Fairplay’s mine. Always optimistic, Hoffman says: “You know what? If we can get a thousand ounces out, I think the guys will come back, that’s what I want.”
The dirt is described as being poor, but the crew is still pushing hard for every ounce of gold they can get.
But calamity strikes Hoffman once again.
The motor to the dredge craps out. There’s no rewiring it as tell-tale carbon from the fried engine is covering everything. The motor is irretrievably shot. Cue the look of misery from Hoffman.
Also on the two-hour finale, Tony Beets’s off-and-on good luck of this season comes to a halt as his plan to relocate his dredge is abruptly derailed.
And young Parker Schnabel’s lean operation (which includes the infamous washplant Sluicifer) has the last laugh with the best gold weigh-in ever!
The two-hour Gold Rush season finale starts tonight at 9/8c on Discovery.