On tonight’s Gold Rush, Parker Schnabel is the new Todd Hoffman. Meaning, if it wasn’t for bad luck, Parker would have no luck at all on this season of Discovery’s number one series.
The youngest of all the miners, Parker has set an ambitious 6,000-ounce season gold seven weeks in and he’s only dug up 315 ounces worth $380,000, a third of what he had this time last year. Not good!
In Monsters and Critics’ exclusive clip, Parker is clearly frustrated at the lack of gold production and he says: “This has been the worst start of any season that we’ve ever had, by far…we are way behind schedule and we really need to start bringing in some gold.”
Just when things seem to be all systems go and full steam ahead, Parker’s run of awful luck gets a cherry on the sundae.
“You know there’s a lot of work that needs to get done and in a hurry here,” he says.
He soldiers on in the dirt fields, adding: “So right now we’re just throwing everybody and all the equipment into the cut and trying to get Sluicifer going and on foot.”
Calamity strikes as a horrible noise is heard, a clanking and grinding sound…which for an engine is a bad thing.
Then a bit of smoke comes out of his huge expensive million dollar dozer.
And just when it seemed like the day would be productive, Parker is stopped in his tracks by a huge dozer that refuses to go any further.
“What the f***?!” Parker says as he hops out of the cab and goes to see what has made the engine stop. The enormous treads look kind of okay but something has made the gears cease to operate. Perhaps rocks have been thrown up into the engine block.
“That did not sound good, piece of s*** thing.” A dejected looking Parker walks around the machine hoping to figure out what went wrong.
Parker was the subject of a recent Nightline piece by Ginger Lee where she embedded with the beleaguered miner to find out how he does what he does, and how gold is sifted through the rubble.
His current saga that is playing out on the ninth season reveals that this Gold Rush whiz kid is having major difficulties this season with faulty equipment as we previously reported.
Adding insult to injury, his nemesis Tony Beets is dancing circles around him in the gold retrieval department as he has his kids Monica and Kevin working overtime as wife Minnie minds the books and their plants are firing on all cylinders, cranking their gold production like crazy.
He’s also been rubbing Parker’s nose in it all season, especially on his socials. Last month, Tony posted a video of Parker this season with a comment: “Well at least one of seems to have gold on the table ?.”
In our exclusive interview, Beets was nonchalant about their simmering rivalry and described their relationship as one that could survive any blow up on camera.
Beets said: “No, I think overall we get along pretty good. We have the odd dispute, but don’t let it spoil your whole day. I mean, who the hell cares right? Get over it, carry on.”
Gold Rush airs Fridays at 9/8c on Discovery.