On tonight’s Gold Rush, Rick Ness’ crew has a big problem as frustrations about how to drive a large piece of equipment pushes one crew member to a violent cab scene until Rick Ness talks him down from the emotional ledge.
To quote the late great Johnny Cash, you gotta “get rhythm” to chase away the blues!
Ness crewman Ben Hudack opens our exclusive clip as he is observing the driving and loading skills of fellow crewmate Ryan Hofer — who is not quite getting the hang of it.
In his frantic driving motions, Hofer accidentally rams the sluice box with his dozer rig, causing him to lose his cool. Hudack thinks his reactions are a bit much and even suggests that Ryan could easily be replaced.
In the clip, Hudack makes observations regarding his fellow crewmate Ryan Hofer’s very bad day — missing his marks and not doing his work efficiently, to say the least.
He says: “I’m watching him up there all the time just struggle… I mean if he can’t keep up with that, if he wants a nice cushy job that [there are] people here that can replace him.”
Ryan is caught muttering to himself. He says: “F*** this man…I am really getting sick of dealing with this sh**, this is too much right now. Ahhhh…This ain’t as easy as he (Rick) said it was going to be. F*** I just hit this sluice box… f*** this man.”
Flailing his fists, Ryan then has a total meltdown inside the cab and, off camera, Rick sees he is in trouble. He rushes in to help him.
Calmly, Rick Ness says: “What’s up, Ryan?”
Ryan admits he is currently over his head and notes his dilemma: “I’m just getting a little overwhelmed here…”
Taking a cue, its Rick to the rescue.
“Maybe I’ll swap out with you for a minute [and] see if I can find anything different to do or find a rhythm or something. I mean this is about as important as it gets, all of our gold’s coming out of that wash plant! So you got to take care of it, you got to run it right.”
Rick explains further. “He hasn’t been doing this for long. I know he can do it. It’s just… uh it’s just finding a rhythm, you know what I mean? You come up here and fill the hopper, we’re gonna scoop of course… tailings and dump them off the ramp. Carefully move yourself into the fine tailings without getting stuck.”
Rick drives into the finds, gets a scoop of tailings and backs straight out in less than half the time it took Ryan.
Ryan notes the difference in technique: “He’s doing the tailings different than I was, he’s driving right back out. I think that’s the trick and I think that’s probably where I’ll make up my time. ”
Make sure to tune in to see how Rick’s crew handles the hiccup in work and if Ryan gets back on track.
Gold Rush airs on Fridays at 9:00 on Discovery and discovery go