Mr. Stolz, you will be competing in the special edition of “Wetten, dass ..?” On Saturday.

The announcement only says: "Excavator professional Andi Stolz and master roofer Niél Braun know that you have to snap shut at the right moment to place an excavator bet and impress with skill and exact timing." Since when have you been using excavators?

Sebastian Eder

Editor in the Society department at FAZ.NET.

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Because of my father's business, I have always sat on excavators from an early age.

He had an agricultural and construction machine repair job and took me with him as a toddler.

I have been driving excavators on my own from the age of seven.

Later I trained as a construction machine mechanic and then repaired and maintained machines for a while.

At some point I went my own way and went into civil engineering, which I still do today.

We almost exclusively do dredging work: excavation of houses, a bit of road construction, but we also serve small customers, things like that.

I now take care of the organization a lot, but I still sit 50 percent of my day-to-day work on the excavator.

And do you bring your own excavator?

Yes, I come from Eschweiler near Aachen, our freight forwarder brought a medium-sized crawler excavator down to Nuremberg.

Unfortunately, we are not allowed to talk about the specific bet.

But how long have you been carrying the idea around with you?

About half a year.

I sat on the excavator when I was very young and always did a lot of nonsense.

My mother once said to my father: At some point he'll be at “Wetten, dass ..?”.

And then someone did another crazy job on the construction site, and the thought occurred to me.

For example, what was “nonsense” that you used to do on the excavator?

We worked a lot in a quarry, and I've climbed or driven down one or the other steep wall with the excavator.

That was a bit borderline one or the other time.

You are 36 years old - did you watch the dredger bets on “Wetten, dass ..?” As a child?

I've always loved to watch "Wetten, dass ..?"

Of course, the excavator bets have always been the most interesting for me.

In my opinion, I didn't see the best excavator bet live: It was when an Austrian climbed a 15-meter-high tower in Vienna with a 15-ton excavator.

Is your bet also an outside bet?

No, it's in the hall.

There is probably no bigger stage than “Wetten, dass ..?” In Germany at the weekend.

Are you very excited?

Not really.

I am painless there.

People are always watching on the construction site.

How do you know the master roofer Niél Braun, with whom you compete in the bet?

That is my cousin.

She's just as crazy as I am.

And I was just looking for someone who is just as crazy as me, who goes along with it and has no problem standing in front of such an audience.

Then Niél crossed my mind, I asked her, we thought back and forth a bit - and then it worked perfectly.

How sure are you that you will win the bet?

Pretty sure.

Who are you particularly looking forward to?

I think Udo Lindenberg is good.

I always found Thomas Gottschalk and Michelle Hunziker very good when they did the show.

When Gottschalk stopped back then, it just wasn't what it used to be.

It's already a childhood memory.

I'm looking forward to seeing it all.