Ask Rick his favorite piece of merch and he'll tell you straight: the Standby Shirt. Two words, and he says them on almost every single recovery. He names it on camera, mid-giveaway, in an episode that was already getting complicated in a completely different way. Partway through pulling a Toyota Sequoia off a steep Arizona riverbank, his phone rings. It's about his daughter. The diesel hat on the same shelf doesn't spell the phrase out, but it's cut from the same rack.
- Rick calls the Standby Shirt his personal favorite during a merch giveaway segment recorded mid-recovery.
- Same episode: a Toyota Sequoia recovery off an Arizona riverbank, interrupted by a call about his daughter Hazel's arm.
- Rick kept working the recovery, rigging and running the drone, while he waited on news from home.
- Hazel's arm was splinted, not broken, and she was laughing on the phone by the time the crew wrapped.
- "Stand by, folks" is Rick's stock pause phrase, not a request for patience from the viewer.
- The diesel hat search turns up two real options: a 7-panel snapback with a faux leather patch, or a sized Flexfit 6-panel.
1. A recovery that got complicated a different way
It opens like a lot of these episodes do. A Toyota Sequoia's off the road, this one down a bank by a river, and Rick's crew is figuring out how to get a line on it. You've seen this kind of terrain on the channel before: steep enough that walking straight up isn't happening, loose enough that footing matters just as much as the rigging does.
Then, partway through the pull, the job stops being the only thing on his mind. His in-laws call. They'd been watching the kids so Rick and his wife could run this recovery, and his youngest, Hazel, may have hurt herself at home. Rick says it straight to camera: "My in-laws just called and said that Hazel may have broke her arm at home." The recovery doesn't stop. It can't. But you can feel the whole tone of the episode shift the second that line lands.
2. Working while you wait
Most merch posts skip this part. Rick keeps working. He's still rigging the Sequoia. Still calling the pull. Still flying the drone to keep eyes on where the truck is on the bank. And in the same breath he calls out how many feet the Sequoia's climbed, he tells the camera he's waiting to hear whether Hazel needs an X-ray.
"My in-laws just called and said that Hazel may have broke her arm at home."Wrecker Rick, mid-recovery, "Nobody Expected This Off-road Rescue To End At The ER"
That's a small, honest window into what a family towing operation actually looks like. The recovery's the job. The kids are the reason for the job. Both keep running at once, and neither one waits politely for the other.
3. What "stand by, folks" actually means
If you've watched more than one of these videos, you already know it. Rick says "stand by, folks" constantly, almost always right before something's about to change: a rig's about to take load, a truck's about to move, the footage's about to jump ahead. It's not him asking you to wait quietly. Think of it more like a warning shot, the verbal version of stepping back right before a line comes tight.
That's exactly why it works as a shirt. Nobody sat down and wrote it as a slogan. It was already doing real work on every single video, long before it ever had a product page.
4. The shirt that made it official
Later in the same episode, Rick rattles through the merch line fast, one piece after another. Then he gets to the one he actually reaches for himself.
"Or get yourself my personal favorite, a standby shirt."Wrecker Rick, merch segment, "Nobody Expected This Off-road Rescue To End At The ER"
Out of every shirt in that segment, that's the only one he calls his own favorite. It's a short line. It's a real one. And it's the whole reason this shirt gets the product box below instead of any of the others he lists in the same breath.
The two words Rick says on nearly every recovery, printed plain. The one shirt in the whole merch line he calls his own favorite on camera.
5. A diesel hat cut from the same shelf
Rick doesn't name a hat on camera the way he names the shirt. Let's be upfront about that instead of stretching it. What he does have, sitting on the same shelf as the shirt he just called out, are two hats built for exactly the kind of work this channel runs on: the Mountain Logo Hat and the Flexfit 6-Panel.
Look at the specs side by side and it's obvious: these are genuinely different hats, not the same one wearing two labels. The Mountain Logo Hat is a structured 7-panel: cotton front in a twill/poly/mesh build, nylon mesh back, faux leather patch, flat visor, adjustable plastic snapback sized to fit most heads. The Flexfit swaps almost all of that. Six panels. Cotton/polyester stretch fabric. Buckram-fused front for a pro-crown shape. A pre-curved visor stitched in eight rows. A stretch sweatband. Sized to your actual head instead of snapped.
| Mountain Logo Hat | Flexfit 6-Panel | |
|---|---|---|
| Panels | 7-panel | 6-panel |
| Front build | Structured cotton, twill/poly/mesh | Cotton/polyester stretch, buckram-fused |
| Visor | Flat | Pre-curved, eight rows of stitching |
| Closure | Adjustable plastic snapback | Stretch-fit, no snap |
| Fit | One size fits most | Sized: 7–7 1/4, 7 1/8–7 5/8, 7 3/8–8 |
| Front patch | Faux leather patch | None |
| Price | $29.99 | $29.99 |
Don't know your hat size? Go with the Mountain Logo's snapback. Already know you're a 7 1/4 or a 7 5/8, and you want something that doesn't shift around? The Flexfit sits closer to your head.
6. Picking your piece
None of these three needs the other two. The shirt's the sweet spot if you only want one thing: it's the one with an actual quote behind it. Either hat works fine by itself. Buy them together and you've got everything that was on the shelf the day Rick pointed the camera at it.
Rick's own on-camera pick. Two words, plain print, no explanation needed if you've watched the channel.
7-panel, structured cotton front, twill/poly/mesh build, faux leather patch, adjustable snapback. The default pick if you don't know your hat size.
Cotton/polyester stretch fabric, buckram-fused pro-crown shape, pre-curved visor. Sized to a head measurement instead of snapped.
7. How Hazel's doing
By the end of the episode, Rick gives you the update you've been waiting on, and it's genuinely nice news: her arm wasn't broken. His father-in-law splinted it at home so she couldn't move it, and by the time Rick got her on the phone, she was already laughing. Next step was an orthopedic specialist the following day, which is a normal precaution, not an emergency.
The Sequoia came off the bank. Hazel got her splint, and her laugh, back before the credits rolled. And the shirt Rick called his favorite, in the middle of all of it, is still just two words: "stand by."
FAQ
It's a plain, two-word callback to Rick's own on-camera phrase, "stand by, folks." Rick named it his personal favorite during a giveaway segment on the channel. It runs $34.98 and comes in multiple sizes.
It's Rick's stock pause phrase, used on almost every recovery, usually right before a tricky step in a pull or a jump to the next scene. It's one of the most recognizable lines on the channel.
No. The Mountain Logo Hat and the Flexfit 6-Panel Hat carry Murphy's Diesel's mountain logo, not the Standby text. They're a separate design from the shirt, sold off the same merch shelf.
Per their own product pages: the Mountain Logo Hat is a 7-panel with a structured cotton front, a twill/poly/mesh build, a nylon mesh back, a faux leather patch, and an adjustable snapback sized to fit most heads. The Flexfit 6-panel hat uses a cotton/polyester stretch fabric with buckram-fused front panels and a pre-curved visor, sized to a head measurement instead, running from about 7 inches to 8 inches across its size range.
Mid-recovery, Rick got a call that Hazel, his youngest, may have broken her arm at home. By the end of the episode her arm was splinted rather than broken, and Rick reported she was laughing on the phone before the family went to see an orthopedic specialist.
Constantly, in recoveries, family videos, and giveaway segments. This episode uses it two ways: as Rick's usual on-camera pause phrase, and as the name of the shirt he calls his favorite.
Yes, as of this writing it's in stock in multiple sizes at $34.98.