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A conversation about cars, trucks, tugs and other machines of transport that flows like an ADHD fever dream, hosted by Hoonigan co-founder and 321 Action Action director Brian Scotto. Enjoy, it’s gonna be a bizarre ride.
Speaker 1 00:00
And we are back. That's right, another episode of Very Vehicular. As always, I am your host Brian Scotto, and today's guest for me is extremely special. I've got none other than mr. Jeff Swart. If you haven't heard his name, where have you been? This guy is like the mayor of Pikes Peak. He is one of the greatest filmmakers in our business. Started as a photographer, has gone on to make probably some of the most memorable images I remember. Sort of coming up in automotive, especially for brands like Porsche. Crave director for Lufthakult. Crave director for a ton of things, actually. And he co-directed with me on Climb Cano, which was an absolute amazing experience. I always enjoy my conversations with Jeff. This one we happen to record and give to you, so enjoy. We touch on a bit of everything. This is a great one if you are creative, but we also get into a conversation about motorsports, the future of motorsports, the problems with cars today, all of the things that need to change, and he gives some really great advice at the end. So you gotta listen to the whole almost three-hour show we did. Enjoy it. I did. mr. Jeff Swart, welcome to the show. Finally, I've been wanting to have you on since we started this whole thing, and I know you're like somewhat of a faithful listener because you'll occasionally send me notes. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 01:47
I'm more than an occasional listener. I like that's
Speaker 1 01:50
because you drive a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 2 01:51
the good news is I do cover a lot of miles. Yeah, a lot of hours, and it's very beneficial. And it's it's it's kind of my new way of travel, it's got to be a part of that.
Speaker 1 02:02
So one of the things that I want the audience understand this. So first off, like I try to draw as many similarities in my life to Jeff's, just because I want my life to end up like Jeff's, right? Like I look at Jeff and I'm like, that's the right path. So like, just gonna call out a few things. One, we both have like a a slight addiction to Coca Cola, if I remember correctly. Yes, that's correct. Right? Yeah. So there's that. That's not a good one, but hey, it's a connection. It's an
Speaker 3 02:28
opener. We both
Speaker 1 02:29
grew up and love canoeing,
Speaker 3 02:31
which
Speaker 1 02:32
is sort of a weird one. Yeah. Um. Obviously, there's like the 911 connection. Um. We also both started in the print industry.
Speaker 2 02:40
Yes.
Speaker 1 02:40
And sort of like haphazardly found ourselves in the sort of moving picture industry by
Speaker 2 02:46
absolutely by just
Speaker 1 02:47
being there.
Speaker 2 02:48
Yeah,
Speaker 1 02:48
we both specialized in action. We both worked on a film called Climconna
Speaker 2 02:52
Yes,
Speaker 1 02:53
I sort of made that happen, and I appreciate it. We both been heavily involved with very similar things. Like I was involved in creating an exhibit at the Peterson for Ken. You actually currently have an exhibit about yourself. I
Speaker 2 03:08
didn't curate it. That's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't curate your own thing. That was a museum request.
Speaker 1 03:12
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. There's like there's like a bunch of like good list things of like yeah yeah because the one thing we don't have in common is I don't really hold any like records at Pikes Peak, nor have I raced it yet. So, like, that's all the stuff that I'm trying to like manifest into my life. Is I've spent a lot of time doing the working. You have managed to figure out how to balance the two, which I've like never been able to do. Like, you have figured out how to do all of the cool making, some of the most amazing content that we saw for years, and then you also like get to go do it yourself. Like I haven't figured the second part out. How do you do that part? I'm just bringing you on to figure that part. But
Speaker 2 03:49
I would like to point out because I I find a lot of people feel like the racing side of things didn't happen early enough. And for me, quite honestly, my first win at Pikes Peak was when I was 39 years old, so you know it wasn't like I came out and I didn't go kart as a team. Right, didn't kind of do all the things. So you know I kind of had to wait till I had the time and the money to go racing. But it was always there as a passion. But the balance, you know, it's an interesting thing because the balance is something I do think about a lot, and it's it's the core to life of making two sides of things that are very different work. And for me, the big part was just that it really was a perpetual motion kind of moment of like the racing fed my perspective in filmmaking, and my filmmaking fed my racing, and it went. It worked so well hand in hand because, like you, I fell into a high performance genre of filmmaking, and if you wanted something racing on the edge and performing on the edge and. Still looking good, as all the clients and agencies wanted, and really understanding car dynamics and all that. It was I was kind of the go-to person for that, but I really understood it because I'd already lived the high-performance side of things too, and that kind of created a balance where one wasn't distracting the other, you know. I think so often, oh, if I could only do this, I could do this more, or vice versa. They were really melded together, and you know, my you know producer Frank Sherma, the executive producer of Radical Media, still tells the stories of me literally on a Friday, you know, saying to the agencies, "Hey, I got to go to Chillicothe, Ohio, to go run a rally, and and I'll be back on Monday, and we'll keep on shooting. You know, those were the days when, if I had a conflict, they built it into the budget. That doesn't happen anymore. But yeah, but I was running full championships. I was running Pike's Peak. I was doing all this stuff, and still shooting 3040, commercials a year. You know, it was just. But they just were seamless with each other, and I that so the balance on that side was easy. I think always the hard part is balancing a family, being around enough for that, and being home and being really there because you know it's literally I'd be shooting jobs and I'd be driving home on conference calls, you know, finish a rapid sunset on calls in the morning, have calls on the way in with Europe or whatever, it was just it was kind of nonstop. So when you did get home, there wasn't a lot of times there just wasn't the space to hand yourself over
Speaker 3 06:51
to that
Speaker 2 06:52
side. And I think the balance of racing and my outside activities and work that was really organic with each other, but you know, coming home, and I think that's been kind of our ideal for my family and my wife and I is to be in places that once you're there, you're in a completely different environment and you're away from it, and it allows you to focus on the world that is the most important.
Speaker 1 07:21
Yeah,
Speaker 2 07:21
your family.
Speaker 1 07:22
Yeah, I mean, look, I it's something I definitely struggled with. I mean, I still struggle with the balance of it, but I think recently, I think the thing I work on the most is like it's not just like the being there; it's like the being there actually being there. Like instead of being home and the whole time in your head, you're thinking, "How's that? Like, how's that shot gonna work? Yeah, like I gotta get that storyboard done, or I or I need to get this back to the client, and like actually just turning it off. And it's difficult, especially for me early on because my wife was also in the business. So it wasn't until we had our son that I think we both realized, like, oh, we don't leave anything at the office. Yeah, like that's a huge, huge separation. But no,
Speaker 2 08:00
it's it's. But I I really do feel so fortunate that you know that outside world of rallying, racing, Pikes Peak, all the different things I did in motorsport was so fascinating to me to finally get to live it after it happening in front of my lens.
Speaker 1 08:19
Yeah,
Speaker 2 08:20
for all those years, and then what it brought to me in a new awareness of, you know, what a car not only looked like but felt like to be driven on the edge, and it's it's funny because I I kind of have a reverse of it, and I've found that even recently at Pikes Peak and in the Colorado Hill Climb Championship, the things that I'm doing, I kind of pre-visualize things, and instead of thinking about how I'm going to drive up this road, I'm thinking about how I'd want it to look like. And it's a funny feeling because I, you know, I just know, oh, you know, that section. I'm going to get it really pitched in there, get a really nice attitude on the car. I want to be putting that you know left front wheel right on the berm. I want the outside. You know, I've got this whole vision of what certain corners should look like, and it actually becomes my goal to try to position the car, move the car, do everything as I had thought it should look like, and it's actually a fast way to go. And it also is a cool way to kind of remind yourself because because I don't really do circuit racing where you're revisiting turn nine every minute and 32 seconds. I'm hitting new corners and lots of corners. You know, Pike speaks 156 turns. It kind of helps you remember where things are, and it's kind of a you know a photo moment of just everything's kind of laid out. I almost watch the movie play back just before I get to
Speaker 1 09:51
it. That's interesting. I I was curious as to when you started driving at a point where people are actually filming you driving, right? And I think you know you and I were originally I think connected through Will Rogie,
Speaker 2 10:03
yes, right.
Speaker 1 10:04
And that weird shift from being the guy who was filming to now people are filming you, yeah. And you're having to like sort of like critique people filming you as the driver, and it's like it's a weird role like role switch, right? Because like there's a lot of times where I've like wanted to tell Ken like why don't you get out of the car and try to make this work you know but he's also said the same thing to me he's been like you get in the car and go do this I'm like that's not my job yeah
Speaker 2 10:31
yeah we we actually had a running we always had a running joke on my film shoots is with my you know precision drivers and and stunt drivers everything is kind of like if you can't do it, I'm gonna do it for the camera because you know we really you know I could probably do a lot of the stuff. I mean, obviously you know people are that's their job and super talented, but you know it was just kind of a running joke we had in it.
Speaker 1 10:55
I got to pull that on Drifter because there was a scene and it was an actor who was in and was just asked to do this one thing, and it wasn't that crazy. It was just like a tear off, and I was like, we did like three takes, and finally I was like, all right, just get out. I'm just gonna do it. And they're like, is the director getting in the car right now? And I'm like, yeah, like it's just easier for me to just do it. Well,
Speaker 2 11:14
but you know, going back to the you know when people started filming me, and I kind of became the client in a way of it,
Speaker 1 11:22
and like giving up that trust. Yeah,
Speaker 2 11:24
and I think, but I also think that it was a little bit of what separated me too early on. Is that you know I wouldn't just drive, but I'd figure out a way because I'm you know basically in marketing as a film director. I'm shooting ads for every car company in the world. I'm generally speaking shooting high performance things, so I kind of know all about that. So I could not only apply hopefully some driving skills to what I was doing, but maybe my secret sauce was the way I could expand on it and promote it and provide imagery and everything that most people didn't have in their back pocket. Certainly at the level I was racing, because I wasn't, you know, on a pro level of racing. And and you know, you mentioned Will Rogie. I think that there was such a a culture of people who shot drifting, and I used to. I love being influenced by other people. I don't live in a dark room and don't want to see what anybody else is doing, or don't care. And I care, you know. I I I just love being inspired by other people's work. And when I looked at the culture of drifting, which the activity of the car was already so dynamic. I mean, it wasn't a car at the edge of adhesion going around turn nine at some circuit.
Speaker 3 12:48
It
Speaker 2 12:48
was tires smoking sideways, all the craziness, and then tandem drifting came along. It was just it was a natural visual. But what I noticed was this is all taking place in like fairgrounds and behind fences and crappy guardrails and all stuff. And when I started looking at the drifting photographers who were making so much out of a really kind of terrible situation, you know, hard to shoot the action, the smoke, all the crazy-that's part's hard to shoot. Your access, you're leaning against fences and shooting in gaps of guardrails and all this stuff. So the guys that start were doing that really well, kind of captivated me.
Speaker 1 13:33
Yeah,
Speaker 2 13:33
and I thought, man, if they can do that in a drifting fairground situation, and not just every car's sideways and smoking. It's like artful, you know, creating art out of that. And Will Rogie was one of those guys, you know. And and Will, you know, naturally I kind of followed for a while, and then I saw, you know, he did a video with Reese, I think, at Pikes Peak, and you know, it was just all of a sudden, he was in my world, and I-I just thought, well, that crossover, the work he's doing, and then also the other quality I really like. I love when people their equipment is just an extension of themselves. Right? You aren't really aware that they're shooting. I mean, I feel like I've never seen Larry Chen take a picture.
Speaker 3 14:22
He's
Speaker 2 14:22
just kind of like whatever that thing is, and his hands is just moving with him and just looking like his eyes would travel around looking at things. They just happen, but he knows the moments to capture. He knows the angles how to capture. But you don't get hung up on the equipment of you know what lens is it, what camera? Is it what all that stuff? It's just an extension, and I-that's what I loved about working with Will. It's just like this isn't, you know. There's no real big fanfare here, and I'm coming from a world where I've got 6080, 90 crew members. Everybody's, you know, in their. Zone of their job civically. There's a person to, you know, from cleaning the car. There's a person just to do that to somebody who's just there to flag the sun off my lens. Also, I had so much fanfare in my world of filmmaking that when you could get a guy show up with a camera and maybe one other person, and all of a sudden, they're flying the drones out of one bag and shooting out of another bag and leaving a camera next to the road just for a flyby. All the while, while all these things are running, and I've come from an 80-member crew. It's like, oh, that's liberating. Yeah, I, you know, this is so cool.
Speaker 1 15:38
I think you you you touch on something that I have this conversation a lot with people about. There was this kind of golden era in drifting that, to me, felt a lot like skateboarding, where the media was almost as important as the the athletes. Yeah, right. That you know, there was this era in skateboarding where you had just these amazing content, you know, like or the whether they were filmmakers or whether they were you know photographers, the the Atiba Jeffersons, you know, the Mike Blaybacks, the Grant Brittons, right? Like the Tobin Yellins, like these guys had a style about them, and certain skateboarders would only shoot with certain guys, so they kind of started to create their own style and their advisor. Obviously, you know, Spike Jones comes out of that world, right? Yeah. And these guys would all make these videos that where the media, like the content and the creators, were actually trying to outdo each other. So it wasn't just the trick; it was like how they're capturing the trick, how they're putting it together, how they're trying something new, how they're shooting on a different format or doing these different things, and you know, you know, you know Pierre Vicberg from from our side, and you know, for Kenzie, it's like he was a he's a snowboard guy who we brought to come do car stuff, just because he's also that guy that you're like, I don't even know what camera he has. It's either like today it's like a Ball X 16, tomorrow it's just a point and shoot Panasonic, but like he always grabs that mo, that moment, and he's the guy that barely even understands cameras, but he understands the shot. Like, and he is the definition of it's not the camera you have; it's the camera you have in your hand that matters, right? Like, it doesn't matter what it is as long as it gets the shot, right? But I think that there was this really golden era where you had all of these, you know, you obviously had, you know, the the Will Roges and the Andy Lapukas, and you know, there was just this like team of people who were really kind of competing with each other to make the best drift content they could, and that's actually like I think that shifted a little bit. I think now you're seeing like it looks a lot similar. There's like not as many people pushing it, and there's that's a whole podcast on its own as to why that's happened. I think there's a lot of reasons why that shifted. One of them is just the that type of content doesn't live on YouTube the way it used to, so there's not really an outlet for it. It used to be you could make a three minute video, we would call them banger videos, set to music, and upload them, but like with copyrights and stuff, that doesn't work. But that to me made drifting so different than other motorsports. Like, when was the last time you heard of like an Indy car driver who's like, "Oh, I got this really cool, you know, shooter who only shoots my stuff, and at the end of every race puts out like a banger clip of just my best moments. Like that doesn't exist. Exactly. And then you had guys like I mean, like Hurt, who came to like I found Hurt because he was just going to drift events on his own dime and just shooting his own videos because he just thought it was rad.
Speaker 2 18:28
Yeah,
Speaker 1 18:29
like that was where it was a cottage industry for like up and coming filmmakers who like really weren't accepted elsewhere. And the skateboard industry, I think, was the same thing for me in the 90s and BMX. Like first time I ever picked up a camera was to film BMX riding.
Speaker 2 18:45
Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1 18:46
and like that was it. And it wasn't because I thought we were gonna get famous or I was gonna make money. It's like I just wanted to record this cool stuff my boys are doing, and then we were gonna edit it and we were gonna sit around someone's parents' basement and watch it. You know, and we didn't even have YouTube back then, but it was still a reason to go do it. And it's interesting because I never really thought about this till you brought it up. But so many of those people then transitioned to go cover pikes.
Speaker 2 19:09
Yes, because there are a
Speaker 1 19:10
lot of guys who started, you know, at you know in the you know behind Krells at FD events, who then all of a sudden pikes became the next thing for them. And I think it's similar in that it's the cars have energy and a dynamic state to them that you don't get at like a like an inclusive race.
Speaker 2 19:29
Certainly, when Pikes was dirt,
Speaker 1 19:31
yeah,
Speaker 2 19:31
really made a difference. But I mean, just what you just described. I mean, there's so many touch points of that to talk about. But I think one thing is that you brought up just skateboarding in general.
Speaker 1 19:44
Yeah, well, that's another thing we have in common. Yeah, you're a different generation than me. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2 19:48
I I honestly, you know, my I was a skateboarder. I met my wife skateboarding. I mean, it's you know, it was always an integral put sport or activity. For me, and literally through my years of print out of Art Center, we always had a skateboard in our van, and it was just always part of it. But the the fascinating thing, and it's a little bit like even that the drifting analogy, is that it's so skateboarding's so cool that so when I started skateboarding, I you went and got your metal skates, and you split them in half. You know, one your right foot or your left foot. Split it in half. You nailed it on the bottom of two by fours or two by sixes, and you sat on it, and you rolled down the hill, and you came back up there. You know, you did that. But then it evolved into you know the right composite wheels and all the things to do, but what's amazing to me is the board, the trucks, the wheels have really not changed that much. But look at how the sports of-I mean, it's an Olympics, you know-it's-it's everything now. But what, how people have raised their game on exactly, literally, you know, almost exactly the same piece of equipment that I was skating on.
Speaker 1 21:07
Oh yeah,
Speaker 2 21:07
in you know elementary school, in high school, in college. I mean, I always skated down to my classes at Art Center. You know, it was it was just part of life. But I, I'm just fascinated, and snowboarding is kind of the same way too, but what's happened is the snowboarding terrains really changed to enhance it, but skating hasn't changed as much, and I just love that where the way person to person to person they've upped their game in that. And you know, I mentioned how if you could take a fairground and a car sliding sideways and turn it into art, you know, and do it weekend after weekend. Those are the guys I want to work with, and even my own world of filmmaking, I had, I had, and I have the best drivers. I, you know, I had Rod Millen in the beginning. I had Reese Millen. I have Tanner Faust. I had Paul Dahlen back. You know, Greg Tracy, I've just had so many great drivers that I always had to up my game to cover what they were doing. They always knew I was going to capture it, so they'd up their game, and this dynamic just kind of put me where I was. Of you know, we were all of a sudden shooting non-traditional performance in high-performance commercials with what I was doing from Super Bowl commercial of the Ford GT when it broke out, we're drifting a Ford GT, you know, a brand new Ford GT around Thunder Hill for the Super Bowl. You know that that stuff was not happening then on a regular basis, and that upping your game and bringing that kind of level off and on and on and on in there was a real motivator. But the other side of it too was, I so many of my friends were in racing. Racing was the reason why I was there, and I just felt like I was shooting for my peers, you know. Yeah, I'm shoot. You know, when I do a Super Bowl commercial, millions of people are going to see it. But I could name the 20 people on my hands. I just wanted them to see it, and I wanted them to be impressed. That's all I cared about, you know. And and so that, but that shooting for peers and raising the game and and having the drivers that could do it and you know Reese Millen, you can you know just settle them down in front of the camera and tell them this is what we want to do and it's like bang it's happening and then I'm like whoa what if we did this you know and it's it's just great
Speaker 1 23:38
and I think that that's something that I've loved about my experience in the space is there is this great peer group, and you are trying to impress. I'm like, I'll admit, a text message from you, like a day after Jim Conna comes out, that has a little kudos in it, is like worth like a couple million views to me. Like I trade that for that, and at the same time, a text message from Sebastian Loeb to Ken was the winner. Like that was like if if someone like Loeb would send kind of a thing and be like, new video looks great.
Speaker 3 24:05
Yeah, like
Speaker 1 24:06
he that's that's because getting the acceptance in amongst your peers who really understand how difficult the thing you did is is where the value is because I think an audience can go, wow, that looks sick, and a lot of times like I'll find audiences being excited about the easy stuff. I'm like, that's not the part that was hard. No, that's really it's the parts that you like that you struggled over that other people who know your craft
Speaker 3 24:29
can
Speaker 1 24:30
identify.
Speaker 2 24:30
That that's and that's really true because I constantly get asked, "Oh, what's your favorite commercial? You know, and you know it's hard to describe. I think I've shot like eight, 800, 900 commercials at this point, but the thing is, is that the commercial I'm going to mention they've probably never seen. But the reason why it's my favorite is because we overcame so much to get it done, and nobody, you know, in a 30 second window that I have to communicate in a commercial, nobody ever sees. The process, and there are times when you are shut out weather-wise, shut out because your car breaks down, or shut out because the permits are, you know, not in the location you want to use. You know, all these kind of things that can happen behind the scene, but yet we still are somehow able to pull something out in the last two hours of the day when we were completely fogged in, that you couldn't even see past your 300 millimeter lens. You know, those are the moments that you just revel in that we did this. You know, you're not talking about
Speaker 1 25:30
Clem Connor, right? No, I forgot. That's because that's one of the hardest shoots I've ever been. No, that
Speaker 2 25:34
that was that was that mountain fought us certainly. Yeah, fought us, and it was certainly one of the longest projects. She has three different
Speaker 1 25:41
three different trips in
Speaker 2 25:42
in different years. Two broken cars
Speaker 1 25:44
and a and a complete like weather situation in August.
Speaker 2 25:48
Yeah, and you would never know it. And I remember us standing there and just when the weather problem came in, and you know I live in the mountains and everything, and I just thought you know we could be entering a cycle where it will never get better. Us deciding we're gonna stay another day or two. It just can keep getting. Yeah, and yeah, that was a long, long project. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1 26:11
have you by any chance gone back and rewatched that episode of the Jim Conophiles, the first episode? I've I haven't watched it since we made it. Yeah. And a lot of people have been like, "Man, you should go back and watch that. Like, it's a good watch.
Speaker 2 26:25
It is.
Speaker 1 26:25
I I was so involved in making it. Yeah, it's just one of those things I haven't gone back to. And and since Ken's death, it's been a lot harder to be like, "I really want to go back and sit and watch that. But everyone's like, "Man, that first episode is just so strong, and it it wasn't supposed to be an episode. No, it was supposed to be background. Yeah, it was supposed to be like a five minute. It was really kind of the launch, and it became such a crazy moment that it became the whole first episode. That was supposed to literally be a five minute cold open, and then we were going to get into the rest of it. Yeah,
Speaker 2 26:51
no, and I one thing that I certainly remember of that, and I have watched it a couple times, and it's as you say, it's quite emotional to watch too. But the fact the Evo corner as soon as that shot was over, and Ken came up and drove up to us, and I remember we just kind of walked up to that side of that driver's car, and here's Ken sitting in there so calm, and it's like I just remember say we don't need to do that again. It was just like you know, and when does a director ever say we don't need to do like could you do this a little different this time or you know let's do a little different light or something no that was like we have it we're done well it's funny because
Speaker 1 27:31
I remember him rewatching it and he said something of like oh I was actually in danger he was like I don't think he realized it when he was in the car you know
Speaker 2 27:39
I I mean, there's so many moments in that, but think about it. We're we have all our cameras running. You and I are all you know there. We everything's in position. You know, just literally everything's focused on this one corner, and then you call action, and then we hear the car start, and then we hear the sound of, but we aren't seeing it. We just hear it. It's just coming. Yeah, it's just full on, you know. And we're we're not seeing it because Evo is kind of a reveal corner where it pops out around it. And I just remember that here this 1400 horsepower car tearing at the earth, four tires smoking. It appears in an attitude I've never seen at Pike's Peak. You know, it appears in this attitude, not sets up and turns into it. It appears to us in the most radical cross. It's violent the minute it enters. Yeah, it enters Frank and it's there, and then it keeps going and going and going. And my hair still stands there. Yeah, this is, and it keeps going and going and going. And there was like this moment where all of a sudden there was, and it wasn't, but there was this moment in my head that I still describe as literally, it's like all the sound went away, and we heard a collective gasp from every ranger, from every camera person from every person that we just it was like that moment and that when that breath took in like we thought that was it and then there was this quiet and then it was immediately replaced with this screaming motor the ground you know tearing front wheels on the asphalt rear wheels on the dirt, knocking over our clipping point stock of rocks-all this stuff happening in that millisecond. But what I remember is this collective gasp. It was probably only me, but I just remember. But but literally, it went over the whole mountain, and then they came around, and then the engine slowed down, and everything, and we were just like, "Whoa! What did we just witness?
Speaker 1 29:40
I I I broke character as a director because I was so afraid. Like it all played in slow mo while it was happening in my head, and I'm just like he's going over the edge, like he's past the point of no return. And we had talked about it, like what happens when two tires get out on there, like on the front, going to be able to pull them back in. And it went from oh no, what have we done? And we'd already had such a difficult trip to this is going to be one of the best shots of my entire career. Exactly, and I just walked right out in front of camera. Like I was just like in the middle of the road, like wow! Like at that point, I was like, I don't care, we can get the follow up on the road, like we got the show. And I just like completely like just blew someone else's exit shot because I was just like I can't believe we did
Speaker 2 30:26
it. No, it was yeah.
Speaker 1 30:27
It that was that was I mean that is I think you know at least a top three moment for me and unfortunately all of the top three moments of my career as a director had a gasp. Like I think they all are like this is either going to be really good or really bad. So been lucky that on that one. But yeah, that was that was a that was a really really really fun one. It was something because I got to learn something about you, which I didn't really understand. Which was that you're a director, a DP, and also a cam. Like you do a lot on right, like where I'm like a director court stunt coordinator because I'm usually in the ears of like the driver and like managing and putting all that together. But like I always rely on other people for the cameras. I help with setup in general. It's like I'm always there. Where I was like, wow, you were like a one man army in that in the camera car. Like you're just out there doing things. I'm like, I don't know where he is, but he's just getting this done now. So it's just such a. It's great to see it because it's it's and so that is I think a place where the two of us differ because yeah you're in there doing all of that. Well,
Speaker 2 31:32
and it's funny enough, I was an only child.
Speaker 1 31:34
So was I. Oh, that's another thing. Yeah, I'm out there too. But
Speaker 2 31:37
and you know, you think about it, like in the '60s and the you know days when I was growing up in elementary school and you know your parents would get transferred, you know you'd like they'd have a job and it was always talked about oh he got transferred they're moving kind of thing and that it doesn't seem like that happens much anymore you know it's like work has figured out how to keep you in one place, where then it was a first-person experience. You know, you needed. And my dad was a plastics engineer. Plastics was a huge thing in the '60s, so he was naturally getting better offers all over. And eventually, it took us from Southern California to Delaware, around Dupont, chemical company, all the things. And yeah, my grandfather
Speaker 1 32:19
was a Union Carbide guy. No, yeah. So
Speaker 2 32:22
eventually, my dad got into composites because of the materials, like plastic, and all this stuff. And then he was at McDonnell Douglas, right down the street here at Long Beach, doing the MD 80, the first composite plane. He was kind of one of the lead engineers on that. But all of that going on, I lived in different places all the time. My parents were always moving, and being an only child, you get reliant on yourself to do everything, and that's what's you know you just you have to make it up. You have to figure work it out. You know, there's nobody else, and especially when you're moving, you arrive in places you don't have friends for months. You know, you you're kind of the outsider. You come home and you build your models in the basement or whatever you do. You know that was my life, and and it was so funny because that was one of the hardest things about me going from print. And you know, I came out of Art Center. I was shooting for Road and Track magazine and different magazines and things, and it was pretty much so me with a camera bag on my shoulder, and then I started in advertising, and I had two or three assistants and producer and things. But when I chose to go into film, it was like you know 50, 6070, people on a crew, and it was so hard to relinquish the micromanaging of everything, and become a director where you are in charge of the vision, but not the execution, and that was that was hard because I just couldn't separate. You know that that person on my crew. That's the only thing they did, and they were the best at it, and I needed to stand back and let them do what they did. And once that happened, my career really flourished.
Speaker 1 34:11
Yeah,
Speaker 2 34:11
of just stepping back. But of course, it still requires the management and the eye, and that vision has to come through. But just let them do what they do, and you know how it's a common like observation when somebody shows up on a set. Goes, I can't believe how many people are standing around not doing anything on a set. But the reality is, they're standing around waiting to do their special teams. They're waiting to do exactly what they're there for. And the more you can use them, the less they're standing around. And actually, the more they love it, you know, they get to do their craft.
Speaker 1 34:44
Yeah, you know, it's something that I learned the hard way. I learned the hard way because I didn't come up in the traditional filmmaking. Like, I didn't start as a PA and like, or work on this, or work as a camera op and move my way up. I came across as a. Creative director who had a bunch of magazine experience and then was sort of thrust into it. And Ken was like, "Yeah, you can figure this out. And Ben Conrad at Logan, you know, at the time, you know, he obviously went on to then go do Donut and Gen Pop and everything else and where team effort where he is now. And you know, he was, and I've given him credit for it. Like he was so good about having no ego and just letting me come on his set and start directing, right? But that meant that I didn't get to really learn the process. And it's guys like Jeremy Robinson who would pull me aside and be like, "That's not your job.
Speaker 2 35:32
Yeah, exactly. Like you're not
Speaker 1 35:34
here for that. It's someone else's job. And I, I was just talking to another director and telling them that like the biggest lesson I learned as a director is that they don't all have to be my ideas, but they have to be my decisions, right? So it's like someone else on set will have a better idea on how to light something or what the background should look like, or the driver might have a better idea of how to approach this corner than the way I'm thinking because he's the one in the car. Camera robber may have a better idea of how to run the shutter or even what lensing we should be using. And sometimes the person in crafty might have a creative idea that I never thought of. Yeah, right. And that's not my job is to decide what the best idea is. But then I think this is the important part: is that if for any reason that idea doesn't work, it was the decision's fault, not the idea's fault. Because at the end of the day, I'm the director, and it's all my
Speaker 2 36:28
fault. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like the
Speaker 1 36:30
making the decision is the important part, right? The important part is sitting there being like, this guy is one of the best grips in the world. If he thinks this is the way, it's going to work. And you and I both work with the best scripts in the world, so we know who they are, right? So it's like Bob on my side, John on your side. It's like, and they work together, and you know these are guys who sometimes like I don't think that's gonna work, and Bob's like I do this every day, you know, and and these are those things where you just learn that, and I have to say it made filmmaking more fun because at the beginning, I was carrying so much on my own shoulders by not relinquishing that.
Speaker 2 37:05
Yeah.
Speaker 1 37:06
To eventually be like, okay, I just have to trust this person. Like, I got to trust that they know what they're doing, and then develop a rapport on set where I can. They can also feel like they can come to me. Yeah. Like, like Will Rogie will come to me and be like, I don't think this is a good idea. And it's like that's why that's why I love working with Will, you know, like and he knows the appropriate time to do it. But you know, there's and and same thing like you know, like Colin, you know, will come to me on a POV thing and just be like, this isn't gonna work. I'm like, okay, yeah, like I had a vision, but it doesn't land, and that took me years, I think, to find out. But once I did, it was very freeing.
Speaker 3 37:40
Yeah, and
Speaker 1 37:40
I too, from the magazine world. I mean, I'm sure, like when you were doing when working for Road and Track, like the photography and writer were two different worlds. Like you weren't doing the same. So it's like the writer had a job and the photographer had a job, and sometimes those things weren't even together. Like I could remember driving in the car at Laguna Seca writing my story, and then having Jeff Ludes be like, I want to go find this dry lake bed that's three hours from here, and I'm now just a PA driving the car to get to the lake bed, you know, like like those weren't even sometimes connected. They were like, and then I'm just standing there holding a light for him because my job as a writer was over, you know, and I didn't have as much control over that. And yeah, then you become a director, and it's like I have to control everything, but everybody here is better at it than I am. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2 38:23
and like you said too, is you don't, you're kind of not in a position to understand what it means to be a director. You know, in coming up through it, like you look at my side of things. You know, I was a still photographer and specialized in high action, but that was a couple people, and it was recording 125th of a second moment. The whole story and action didn't really matter as long as I got the 125th of a second hero angle of the action. And then I remember so radical media, or at that time, Sandbank Henry Sandbank, who was a East Coast director in New York City, big time director, the producer for Henry had seen the American photographer article on me calling me the high performance photographer, seen that article and offered me a position, but not just offer me a position, offer for me to work out of the LA office that they were opening just to service Henry Sandbank, and so it was really an office to serve their East Coast director, who was all about their business. But then when I opened the LA office, I needed to shoot something, and I'd never shot anything, so I'd never done it. So there was this like immediate process of, okay, we'll get you a camera, we'll get you a camera assistant, and we'll get you a lens. And what do you want to shoot? And all I could think of, well, Rod Millen has a RX Seven. Tube frame RX seven that's super fast, and I had a white Econoline van that was my Stills equipment van, and we went to a place which still exists today, Cota de Caza, but it was it was a behind the gates built to be a neighborhood with a golf course and everything, but there was nothing built there yet, but a few houses. So we went behind the gates of Cota de Caza, and we went to a dirt road out there. This is in South Orange County, and I climbed on the roof of the van, set up my tripod, and shot Rod Millen just ripping up this road and all those angles. And then there wasn't any purpose in it other than me to learn how to use the camera or feel it, and then it was done. It was just done. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, I got booked on my first job, which was a Dodge Spirit of Dodge or whatever it was. But it was a three spot package, and you know it's like, okay, you got a job. Where do you want to go? And I just said, well, I like Colorado. I've done a lot of things in Colorado, so we just moved. You know, picked up the production, went to Colorado, and I shot my first commercials there. And it's funny because I drive over Independence Pass, you know, on a weekly basis almost now where I live, and every time I drive through this section of road that was exactly the road I shot my first commercial on, but that was my introduction to it. And like you said, I didn't know how. What do I do with the agency? You know how? Why are they here? I don't need. You know what? Why all this stuff? Yeah. And so that was one of the steeper learning curves because it was natural to know what I wanted to shoot in terms of action, but it wasn't natural to managing crew, managing agencies, managing producers, account executives, all these kind of things. That you know, it's as much your people skills as your filming skills, and that's why a great producer. I was going to say that's why you need a yeah. A great producer is you know, they act after they act as the buffer, they act as the instigator, they act as every idea is your idea, even though behind the scenes they know everything's going on. Those are, you know, it's. I often say that in this post kind of time of world for me of not being as busy in filmmaking and doing the other things that I should at my age, you know, the thing I miss the most there's undoubtedly is a producer.
Speaker 3 42:27
Oh yeah,
Speaker 2 42:28
because my producer and I was so fortunate to, you know, I have almost a 40 year career at this point, but I really have only had like four or five producers in all those years. Once they were on board, they stuck with you. But they were, they were again like we talked about the cameras. They were just an extension of yourself. You know, they they thought like you, they moved like you, they were aware of the things like you. But yet, they were the realists.
Speaker 1 42:57
Yeah,
Speaker 2 42:57
they they were the realest time of day of financial side of logistics, you know, they were the realist in the moment.
Speaker 1 43:07
Yeah, and the people who would prevent you from going broke because you're like, I thought I was going to be able to do this all. I couldn't get nine shots off in a day, or do this, or do that. And then also the people who like, you know, are the ones who have to have those hard conversations with you? Like for me, I've learned my producer and my ad are the most important people in my life on set. I I love working with my DPs because like we're the ones that get to go make the fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1 43:34
but it's the AD who sits there and tells you like, hey, this isn't you know you're really not possible. This isn't possible, or or I don't think this is safe, right? Which like I get told a lot. I get told a lot, and I need that person because sometimes all of a sudden I'm a 16 year old kid again building a ramp, you know, out of parts we found and pieces of plywood, and being like, yeah, send it. You're like, oh, there's like real people involved in this who are gonna get hurt. You know, the person that
Speaker 2 44:00
has his index finger in your belt loop to pull you out of the way. That's only going to work for so long. The stunt pull-it works every time. Works every time. But but even to that point too is that one of the things we don't really anticipate is time management. Certainly for people. I mean myself. Yes, I did a lot of work on stage and studio where the sun never goes down. But the majority of my work, you know, 85, 95% of my work was outdoors, and there was something definitive every single day. And that was what time does the sunset? And knowing you had the 20 minutes after, and it was not in my world with the size of crews I had, the amount of equipment. It was never an option to finish that day on the last day of the shoot and go. You know, we didn't get everything. We're going to come back tomorrow. That was not an option. That was $100,000. Screw up, and it just didn't. So that management of reverse engineering your day to that absolute perfect light at the end of the day, where everything's just wrapped on the cars in light, and the way that the you know everything's kind of muted, but the highlights just pop out of it. That moment that you all live all day just for, you can't go past that moment, and that's that's a really hard thing because you're you're like a kid in a candy store. You've got high speed camera cars, you got helicopters, you got drones, you got all this equipment. You just want to be you know using it all day. But the reality was sunset. If sunset was at 736 that evening. You might have 20 minutes. You know, 756. You are really calling rap. There's no, there's no funny business that could change that. No, even with the
Speaker 1 45:53
best cameras and the Sony's and everything they can see in the dark, it just changes the look of it all.
Speaker 2 45:58
And and that did change. You know, I went. It's funny. There's so many parallels, which certainly can talk about, but so many parallels between like Pikes Peak and my career of filmmaking. You know, I went from film to digital. I went from dirt to pavement. You know, there's such big transitions in two places that I call home, and you know, it is really fun now to have the perspective of both those mediums of film and digital and dirt and pavement. But you know, it's just it's opened up a lot of opportunities and it's taken away things at the same time. Oh yeah!
Speaker 1 46:37
All right, we're gonna take a quick little break and then we'll come back and actually get into the dirt versus caveman conversation. All right, I want to welcome an all new partner to the very vehicular pod, none other than G Technique. But I also want to tell you how they got here. It is all Vinny's fault. Vinny is the exact opposite vehicle owner than I am. Vinny's cars, one, are like really well sorted, and he keeps them really clean, and he's an absolute bully when it comes to all of my cars. One, we already know he gives me just a ton of shit for having too many of them, and most of them not running, and a lot of them being incomplete. Right? Still don't have a headliner in the 911, but he also gives me a ton of crap because every time he comes here, a bunch of my cars are filthy. He's like, dude, let me get you hooked up with G Technic because I want to see the nice things you have actually be nice. His exhibit A is my 1999 Ferrari 360, which like three or four years ago, Vinny actually worked with G Technic to have them remove the horrible clear bra that was on it, do a full paint correction and ceramic coat the car. Here we are, four years later. The other day, my wife and I were going out for our nine-year anniversary. We got out there, and the car was really dusty. I literally just washed it off with a hose, and everything went off of it. Part of this deal is that I promised Vinny and G Technic that like I was going to start taking better care of my cars. You can do the same thing. Hit up gtechnik.com. That's gtechnic with a Q, and check out all of the product they have. These guys make stuff for detailers. I know this because the few times that my cars do get clean, it's because I pay a detailer to come and do it, and this is always the stuff that they use. So yeah, you know, trust what the professionals have. All right. So the question I know you love hearing: dirt versus pavement. I just want your initial knee jerk on it. Like you got to drive through both.
Speaker 2 48:26
Yeah,
Speaker 1 48:27
which is kind of a luxury that a lot of new drivers don't have. Like they may have got a little piece of it. Yeah, but you got to drive during like not complete dirt. Oh yeah, so you were there in the early days where it was just dirt.
Speaker 2 48:39
Yeah, no, when it was
Speaker 1 48:40
part of the SCCA pro rally.
Speaker 2 48:42
I've yeah, I've had more. You know, this year was my 22nd year at Pikes Peak, but oh, I think that 12 of them might have been in dirt, or over half of them were in dirt. So yeah, and and you know the the quick answer is dirt, you know dirt all day. I mean, but it also goes back to the visual side of it, you know, because I was there shooting Arivatnan, you know, and I was there seeing the roosts of dust and and the ripping of the rocks off the side of the mountain, and I remember you know they'd go by and you'd flip yourself away just as they go by and close your eyes and all you could hear was all the rocks dancing around you and tumbling down the hill past you after they went by you know and and that was that was what it was like shooting bike speak let alone I'm up there you know I'm a kid from Orange County, got a camera bag, and I'm at 12,000 feet trying to get into another position before Arivatnan comes through again, or whatever. It was just you know Leonard Vasholtz and David Lee Koinoya, all the people that were just Rod Millen. It was just everybody that I. Was photographing before, you know, I ever raced there, and then to get the race there and thinking about what's it going to be like to have this car moving underneath you and doing all that. Admittedly, I was running pro rally championship at the time, so everything I was doing was on dirt. But this was dirt at a different level on on a number of ways. First of all, you know, a major portion of Pike's Peak is above treeline. There's no safety nets out there to catch you if you screw up or anything. It's just a drop. I, you know, I jokingly say if you make a mistake at Pikes Peak, you have time to think about what you did wrong before you hit anything. You know, it just that's the way it is there. But for me, it was so fun to just again to get to do those things I'd only seen happen in front of my lens, and so the dirt side of it. But the dynamic of it is also really changes. I think there's a perception that oh geez, you know, it must have been so dangerous in the dirt days. Well, it's far more dangerous now than it was in the dirt days. You know, things. If you go by the automotive dynamic of it, in the dirt days we'd rush the corner, we'd brake the car, would go into slip, and then you'd drive it on the throttle around the corner. But the moment a car transitions from grip to slip is when the energy is released, and and so once you went into slip, the energy kind of released, and then you just drove on your throttle. But now today we're there driving absolute up to the limit of adhesion, and if you were to by chance figure out that you're not where you thought you were going to be, and you need to tighten it up, or you need to lift, or you need to do any of those, and the car suddenly goes into slip, the energy that's released is huge, and it's still just a two-lane road. And what people don't realize too is that in the process of paving Pikes Peak, it became narrower, and you know there's almost everywhere two or three feet on the outside of the pavement on both sides of the road. When it was all dirt, that was all usable space to drive on, and you know it. The narrowness is something that really catches you out now. Let alone and then go to the speeds. You know, in general, let's say in the late '90s, in a showroom stock car, I was running 12 and a half minutes plus or minus 15 seconds, something like that. You know, now I'm the last five years or whatever. I'm I'm under 10 minutes.
Speaker 3 52:39
Yeah,
Speaker 2 52:39
that's that's not a marginally faster. That's not a two or three seconds a mile faster. That's a huge leap. It's it's literally watching the same movie in fast forward is what we do now, and so the consequences are much higher. And I just find that you know the dynamic of driving. There was nothing better than it was dirt, and the commitment it takes now is really high.
Speaker 1 53:05
Yeah, I mean, look, remember how long like the 10 minute? We never thought the 10 minute barrier was getting broken. Yeah, Monster Jamie went after that year after year. Rod Melon and yeah, in like an absolute Pikes Peak special. That's something that and which like most people, just know from Gran Turismo, right? But you know that car was built to go do that and couldn't do it. And then all of a sudden, as it got paved, it's like it became. I mean, if you think about it, like Reese went there and broke that time in a car that wasn't built to go do that. You know, and it was like that opened up. I think the floodgates for a different type of car to show up. So, like, I have a very, and I get into this. These are the kind of things that Will Rogey and I talk about on long road trips for hours. We just get into these debates, and I'm always at the end. I'm like, this was a podcast. But so, so I'm mixed as as a rally fan. I love the Dirt Era because it was the Mount Olympus of rally racing in terms of although there actually is an Olympus too, but like but like in the in the you know that term it was this amazing thing that the Europeans would come over and compete in that made it this super cool thing. It doesn't exist anywhere else
Speaker 2 54:15
in the world. Like the
Speaker 1 54:16
idea of climbing at 14,000 feet, right, and the car that you have to build to go do that because it breaks all these things that we're used to doing in motorsport. That part I I miss that era and it being a part of rally, but it is interesting that it's opened up to a whole new world now. And now we have like open wheel and like prototype cars coming, and it's it's a scary thing because I do think there is an element there that goes. This is getting faster, which speed is the most dangerous thing there is. It's actually not speeding; it's stopping. But you know, it's the most dangerous thing there is, and we're adding, adding, and adding, and adding more speed. And there's, you know, we all know that when you throw a rally car sideways, you're scrubbing, you're slowing yourself down to the point. You're not. You're braking, and all it takes is one thing to go wrong, and there's no grabbing it. There's no pulling the handbrake. It's like then throwing it backwards. It's like no, you're just off. And we've seen some crazy, you know, crashes in the past couple of years where you know you watch a car go off, and you don't even realize how fast it's going until you see it go off. I don't know what that is, but like, or even just the thing that happened at the corkscrew two weeks ago, you're looking at you like that feels like a video game. Doesn't feel real that that would happen, but you're not realizing you don't realize the speed until it goes off track. Yeah, and look, I've we learned that in rally when you have to dig, you know, to carry 400 feet in with a with a tow strap to pull somebody out with a winch in it, and once you have to go get use a chainsaw to go get a car out of the woods. You know how fast you went into them, but so it's it's interesting because I I think that in a weird way we have like Pikes Peak is having a revival because of this. Like I wonder if it would have continued to hold its importance in the space if it stayed dirt because there's not as much attention on the dirt sports. We love
Speaker 2 56:03
it
Speaker 1 56:03
as rally
Speaker 2 56:04
fans,
Speaker 1 56:04
but now there's like a whole other group of people who are showing up that would never have been there. Like, would Robin shoot have been there if he didn't come there for that? Would would the IDR have you know Volkswagen had come because like well they don't play in rally so they don't come and like rally was in its peak moment in an era that made Pikes big, but there was also a whole dirt era where like no one from Riley showed up because there wasn't the same support. So I find it a very interesting shift because I am one of the old school guys who immediately the knee dirt because dirt, dirt was better. You missed if you weren't there in that dirt era, and I was lucky in 2007. I got to go up the hill with Mike Ryan in a Freightliner on dirt, which is like that's what it's such a run what you brung mouth. It's like drag racing with 156 turns in between. But you, whatever you show up with, you could go do it. You know, and that same year, a friend of mine took Rookie of the Year in a STI on like street tires.
Speaker 2 56:58
Yeah,
Speaker 1 56:58
you know, and it was such an interesting place for that, and now I think it's become, you know, it's it's this weird place of like now it's so possible to bring cars that were meant for circuit to go compete there and just kind of work around. And honestly, like the minute they fix the the crack on the way to Cog, a whole bunch of other cars are going to show up. Like I know everyone complains about it, but I'm like, that's like what's stopping Max for stopping from showing up, you know. So, but no, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting debate over like what error was better. Because, and this is a, this is, I didn't feel this way, but this is a Will conversation, because Will's like you have to look at it from the current model. Like, would we have all of the factory stuff that's showing up and all of this, if there wasn't the capability to set new records, because I think Rod and like and Monster kind of proved to everyone like, "Ooh, this record doesn't look like it's going to be an easy one to set. So like, no one wanted to try to show up. Now it's like there's a whole bunch of things up in the air.
Speaker 2 57:54
Yeah, it is, and it's it's you know you talk about it opening up for people, and I think that in 2010, I went there with a GT3 Cup car. Normally, I would say, but a road racing based car. That was the first time I'd kind of looked at it. Well, I know that it's going to be completely paved. Right now, it's half paved. Let's just see what happens when I put a road racing, truly a road, even not just road racing, but a German sports car up there. And I went up there, and it was just funny because all of a sudden the stock car guys, which had ruled the world in the dirt days and had these monster engines and crazy cars, and all of them have driven there for years. They're all like, "Wow, what what's this you're running? You know, because I'm now quicker than the stock cars, and then I ended up, you know, winning the class that year. But I think it broke the record by like 20 seconds or something that year. But it was just that moment where I thought I'm gonna take a step here and step away from rally base, dirt base, whatever, and just show up with that car, and and so I did. But the the side the side that is interesting to me is just the way it's a little more relatable now. Everybody can imagine driving on the pavement, and for a manufacturer, it's more marketable. It
Speaker 1 59:20
translates to what they sell.
Speaker 2 59:21
Translates to what they sell, and so we've seen the innovation. But I grew up in the Can-Am era, and you know there was road racing, and we went to Riverside Raceway, we went to Laguna Seca, we went to Sears Point, I went to all those places with my dad. But then all of a sudden there was this Can-Am series, and you know what captured me and captured a whole motorsport world was there's no rules. No, it
Speaker 1 59:49
was like a psychopath. There was like, you know, yeah, no rules. Let's build as much as you can, or
Speaker 2 59:54
like the UOP shadows. You know, shadows. They like said, okay, we're gonna let's. It's the frontal air. Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah, yeah. So they build a car that was half the width, half the length, but all the engine, all the wings, and everything. When when I listen to
Speaker 1 1:00:07
you or you know your generation talk about Can-Am, it's like the equivalent of like well, probably the same generation. Like my uncle talking about like, oh man, you miss like the free love era of the 60s. It was sick. It's like it was so good, and it's just never going to be that ever again because we messed it up. But but
Speaker 2 1:00:24
look at it now. So we've got this. the The hard part is the venue in almost everything you do. You know, for filming, it's the location. For the event, it's the venue. For the track, it's the it's where it lands. I've often said that if Pikes Peak, the road that 12 and a half miles laid on flat ground in the desert, it would still be the most interesting road you've ever seen. They have a road
Speaker 1 1:00:50
like that. It's in Germany. I'm not sure if you've been there. It's called the Nurburgring. It's basically the same thing. But that's the point:
Speaker 2 1:00:57
is that it still would. But it's now running up the side of a mountain, and this isn't just a mountain in the Continental Divide. This is a mountain that somehow found itself on its own outside of the Continental. It's a mountain that develop that generates its own weather.
Speaker 3 1:01:13
Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:01:13
you know the air comes over the top of the Continental Divide. It starts to drop into the plains, so it's a venturi effect. It starts to accelerate because it's going from a small space to a larger space, the basis of a venturi, and then it starts accelerating across the plains. It's headed to Nebraska. It's headed to Kansas. But then there's this bump out there that's 14,115 feet high. That's Pikes Peak standing alone, and that weather all hits it, and it splits around it, and then suddenly the clouds start forming, and everything starts forming on the top of it. And this is a place they decided to put a race track at, and so now we're racing up it. So not to mention
Speaker 1 1:01:55
also number one lightning strikes. Yeah, yeah, Devil's Playground. Devil's
Speaker 2 1:02:00
Playground is the largest recorded number of strikes. It's at 12,000 feet. You know, it's like beyond where trees can grow. You know, on and on and on. But take all of that that I just described and think about now. There's this place also where you start at 9000 feet, you finish at over 14,000 feet. There's a potential of not having any rules of getting to there, and it becomes that can-am moment again on a on a circuit in a space that's unlike any place in the world. It's no wonder I travel all over the world and I can be sitting at dinner with any group of people generally because there's going to be car people anywhere in the world, and mention Pikes Peak, and they'll know Pikes Peak. You know, they'll know the Indy 500. They'll know some of those things, but a mountain and in Colorado, they know it. So then, if you can get this kind of like dreamlike fantasy world of saying, let's send Romaine Dumas up in an electric car. Let's send Sebastian Loeb up with some wacky modified thing. Let's send you know Paul Dolan back up, or you know in that, or it's just all of a sudden it's like this so compelling story that I don't even think we've tapped into. And you and I had the fortune of directing one of the greatest drivers ever, and he put a car on the limit in front of us day after day to create Klimkana, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Really, you know, we had all the components there, but it's a place where the story hasn't even been told yet.
Speaker 1 1:03:38
You know, I have been trying year after year, and every time that mountain fights me. I mean, last year, you know, whatever was it? Two years ago, we had the half mountain run, and it just kind of shut everything down. And it's just been on the constant because I see that. I mean, it's if you haven't been to Pikes, it's such a unique moment. We did a whole special with the Tim where we talked about this, but you know, it's such a unique place because you have a top-level factory team, right? That has spent a ton of money to be there, and parked in the exact same footprint next to them is like Hackel running his five-cylinder or Quattro up the hill, right? And like that's that's still the run what you brung element to it that I think is so unique, and it is just-it's such a difficult place. And I really think that, as much as we complain about how difficult it is, and it's not just difficult to race a car there. It's difficult to run a team. It's difficult to film. It's difficult to be a spectator. Yes, like everything's difficult. Like and and somehow, like we've all decided to complicate this by being like, and you have to be there at 2o'clock in the morning to get through the gate for some reason. Can we rethink this, guys? But whatever. I know you know some people. Melissa, are you listening? But you know, every like it is a draining
Speaker 3 1:04:53
week,
Speaker 1 1:04:54
right? I mean, when that Sunday night comes, you're like, ah, yeah, like we're through it. Because you've been waking up at one time during the week, and then you have to stay awake till four for some reason. It's it's a wild experience as a race, and I don't think anything's like it. And it's one of those things that wouldn't exist today. You couldn't invent that today.
Speaker 2 1:05:13
No, you couldn't say, "Hey, I
Speaker 1 1:05:15
got this idea. Nobody would if it
Speaker 2 1:05:17
wasn't for the history. Yeah, like insurance companies wouldn't touch it. It
Speaker 1 1:05:21
lives in that special world with Isle of Man, the Baja, the car, like these leftover things of a different era, right? And and I also I think it's one of the most important events in America because it's the one thing that still attracts people to come here.
Speaker 2 1:05:36
I absolutely agree, and and like you said, is it's where grassroots meets professional, you know it really is. And we mentioned it, but in 1994, Rod Millen showed up with a Toyota Celica four wheel drive that looked like a funny car. I mean, it was inches off the ground. It was the last silhouette that you would think would show up to run on the dirt, but he showed up with it, and he ruled it, and and drove to an inch of that car's life and pulled it off and ran a 1001. You know, he nearly broke the record. But interestingly, just I think I may be wrong with it, but maybe only one second off of them, or something, was Robbie Unser driving an open wheel, big wing, crazy thing. And this is a perfect example of a place, yeah. That those two cars put next to each other, you'd say no, they they couldn't even race against each other. The reality was they got there to the summit with as radically a different thought processes of building a car, and yet they got there within a second or two of each other, and then those times sat there year after year after. Rod even came back with a Tacoma, but nobody could break it, and it wasn't really till the pavement came along that it was broken.
Speaker 1 1:06:59
Did you happen to watch Grid life this past weekend are paying attention to it. I did. So as a as a hill climb lover, I was so excited to see both your the Evo right car you've driven and obviously Dixie yeah come from you know the Type Nine Nine DI guys to go and end up being second third in a sport they never competed. I love right. I love it. It's like to watch the hill climb car get pulled out of the mountain and go to Laguna Seca and be that fast and you know be second and third overall or whatever. One, it was also great to see Tanner kind of wheel open. That was really fun. But yeah, I was like those. They didn't show up thinking to do that. Like they didn't bring tire warmers with
Speaker 3 1:07:39
them, and like they
Speaker 1 1:07:41
like they weren't getting heat in the tires till three laps in, so they're sitting there going, "Oh boy! We were going around Sunday morning asking people for tire warmers, like asking the guys running fits, like, "Hey, do you have any tire warmer guys? And I can see. So they weren't really planning, and then all of a sudden, like midway through the first day, they're like, "Well, these are actually really competitive.
Speaker 2 1:07:58
Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:07:59
and both, I think both cars, but I definitely know Dixie was lifting wheels over the crest on the straightaway. Yeah, it's like they're moving, like they're, and it's kind of cool. It's like these were hill climb cars that like just showed up to Time Attack and were competitive with what is the biggest Time Attack series in the world now. Oh, you know, with some of the fastest cars. So it
Speaker 2 1:08:18
was an eye opener, and I think this is, you know, this is the new era of motorsport of storytelling and and bringing things together. Like, you know, I like even non traditional, non traditional motorsports with traditional motorsport cars and vice versa. You know that mix where you never, you know, it's like Indy is the shrine for an Indy car, but you could suddenly show up with an Indy car at the ice race or something. You know, all of a sudden, that's the real news. But it's something that people never really dabbled with or tried, and I think that's where Grid Life really has a strength of bringing all of these cultures together in the same way Mike Zeke does. You had J.R. Hildebrand show up, you know, two years ago with this Winston stock car, you know Kyle Petty's car, whatever, and you know we all talked about you know we all saw the Hot Wheels cars and grew up around that NASCAR time and then J R Hildebrand shows up and he just rips in it you know and going up there and it just is it's it's inspiring to me it's humbling that well maybe we haven't come that far in a way you know it's just like it's so cool
Speaker 1 1:09:25
and again I think we need more motorsports like this I think this is what a lot of the attraction to drifting
Speaker 3 1:09:31
is
Speaker 1 1:09:32
because you can show up in a you know in a S 13 or S 14 Nissan or you can show up in a Corvette or you could show up in a Scion that you converted to rear-wheel drive. I mean, it really allowed a lot of different cars, and I think that that becomes more of like in like a point of entry for people who are more like brand loyalists, right? I mean, I'm an Audi and Volkswagen guy, so like I'm always walking around the you know I'm always walking around the pits at you know. Hikes, introducing myself to whoever's driving some old clapped out five cylinder, you know, and because like I love seeing them there, and it gives you that entry, and I think that this is where where drifting really won was like there was a period of time where like everything was there. I mean, there's been Ferraris competing in FD, like they've done a little every a little bit of everything has kind of shown up there, and in most other series, we've gotten so rule booky that like it specs out like only one or two cars to be competitive, and then everything else has to get weight or whatever, you know. So it's like there's this weird thing that like we've I think alienated a lot of like you know sort of types of viewers because of that. But again, it's back to the Rum, which you brung thing of Hill. I love Hillclimb in general, so I want to switch that. You did Mount Washington this year,
Speaker 2 1:10:46
yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 1:10:47
So how was that? Was that your first Mount Washington? First
Speaker 2 1:10:49
time. I'd love to hear because you
Speaker 1 1:10:50
know I was a, I've been a big Mount Washington advocate.
Speaker 2 1:10:53
Yeah, because you're
Speaker 1 1:10:54
from there from that side. I also think it's more Rally Tarmac Road than than like Pikes is. It's a little different, so it's a little feels more like a rally stage. Yeah, even though there's no more dirt there either, like that's completely gone. So, what was your thoughts?
Speaker 2 1:11:08
Oh, well, first of all, you know, I'd always wanted to go there, certainly with watching what Travis did there, and it was always in the same time as Pikes Peak for so many years. For some reason, like two of the best kill times. Yeah, so I never could do it for that reason, and and so then when the separation came, and I I you know I called Travis several times. Do you know anything? Is when is it going to pop up again? You know during COVID it kind of went away completely, and it was like I just but I thought I just really want to run it, so I go there this year, and it was real. I can tell you, first off, very hard to learn. And I'm from what I come from, and the Colorado Hill Climb time and stuff. You know, I'm figuring, okay, you know, first day I'm gonna have it down, you know, whatever. And I was struggling there to learn it because very closed in trees everywhere, everything very tight, very ups and downs and bounding and all that sort of thing. But the other side of it is that it was Pikes Peak has commitment. Obviously, it's commitment. It has consequence. It has everything. But you know, you come into picnic ground. Okay, ah, you know, I can kind of move my arms, do this sort of thing, regroup my head, and then there's you know another section coming you know coming into you know any devil's playground or whatever. Ah, goody! I can kind of like this was commitment from the starting line to the finish line. There was no break in it. There was no regrouping your thoughts when you got a part of the course wrong, it was like, whoa, you know, this is this is on it, and it's was kind of interesting because I'm kind of used to being certainly at Pikes Peak, the local,
Speaker 1 1:12:51
right? I
Speaker 2 1:12:52
mean, that's my home mountain. I show up there, and you know, everybody's just like on it all. I go, you know, we got to kind of build up to it, and the other thing that happened is you only get like two runs there at Pikes Peak. We talk about how little practice you get. I think Mount Washington, you know, now that we use kind of the month to prepare for Pikes Peak, I think Mount Washington is probably 20% of what in terms of prep of what I get to do at Pikes Peak, so it was very steep learning curve, but I will tell you, I absolutely loved it. And as a competitor, it's not that I want to go back and do better. I mean, we had great success. Yeah, I was very happy. But the thing is, I want to really master that place. I I am not used to coming out of an event and go, what did I just do? Where was I? You know, I can't sit here and mentally put that thing together from start to finish like I can everywhere else I've raced. I can literally, I can draw the map every place I've raced. You know, I just that's the way I know, I couldn't begin to do that there, and and that's for me. I want to go back. I want to learn that place that it feels like home, like Pike's Peak does to me. There's zero surprises, and so that part I really love. And the other thing that was that they
Speaker 1 1:14:16
still allow co-drivers, or did they? No, they never. There were there was a rally class with
Speaker 2 1:14:20
co-drivers, but the other side, which is what that is, is that it's very rally centric. You know, suddenly there's like, you know how you know how at when you go to a race, sometimes the best part of the race is what's in the parking lot. This was that case there. I was I wasn't going through like looking at the cars so much as just the cars in the parking lot is like, and it's so Subaru centric, so Audi centric. But then there's Mitsubishi Evo European or Japanese being driven on the street, you know, all this stuff. Like we, you know, in the Porsche world, oh, I can't wait till that car's 25 years old. You know, I can bring. In you know the country, there's people are driving right-hand drive, you know things I've never seen on the West Coast, and so I love that part of it. And it had the weather elements. I mean, it was wet under the trees and dry above and into the clouds and all the stuff going on. And I I absolutely loved it. I really did. But that culture and the rally culture, and John Buffum, who was our chief steward and ran all our rally championship back in the '90s when I ran, he's there. And Vermont sports cars there,
Speaker 1 1:15:33
omnipresent in the world of rally.
Speaker 2 1:15:36
Yeah, so it just I loved it, and you know what? I enjoyed the laid-back nature of it too because Pikes Peak is, you know, it's for me, it's competitive. It's it's you you got to lay it on the line. You know, you lay in bed all night thinking about it. You know, I'm I'm that's 22 years in. I'm still in that process and mode of just in awe of the place, but I got to get up in the morning. I got to attack that place, you know. And there it was humbling. It's like, whoa, you know, I got to be a little careful here. The stuff's happening really fast, and the amount of time there, amount of time one wheel or another is in the air there too. So,
Speaker 1 1:16:16
well, and the thing is, is you know, we always have this conversation of like because it's just a topic that always comes up. Is like pikes looks more dangerous, but there's an argument that parts of Mount Washington are more because there is no time to think about what you did. You're just hitting a tree, and like that tree is bigger and heavier than you are. You know, it's like the the there's such consequence so close to that road. Oh, it's really close, and it feels like
Speaker 2 1:16:41
a time tunnel in places. All of the onboards look insane. Yeah, like you know, I'm you know, I'm sequential gearbox in the cars driving, and you're just pulling back to do this, and you kind of it cross your mind. Wow, I've pulled it back four times now, you know, and I'm still in between the same width of trees. Yeah, it's like whoa, we are ripping. Yeah, and it's also
Speaker 1 1:16:59
another mountain that has incredible weather. Yes, I think it has the highest or highest wind. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2 1:17:05
like, and it's like an insane, like 180 miles an hour or something. So, and part
Speaker 1 1:17:09
of the like Appalachia Trail, which is weird, because while you're there, there'll just be people like hiking who've been hiking for 21 days, and all of a sudden they're like, "What's going on here? Is there like a race? Like, because they've been, you know, on their way.
Speaker 2 1:17:22
And the shocker for me, I live in I live in the mountains, obviously, in in the Rocky Mountains. I live at 9300 feet. The altitude is nothing like Colorado. But what I was surprised of, because you know, growing up, I lived in Delaware. Our family vacations were to Baxter State Park in Maine. We would have our canoe and we'd go canoeing into our gas. Yeah, but but you know it's that kind of. But I guess because of what I learned at Mount Washington, we always went up the coast to get to the main. I honestly didn't know how severe, in a very good way, the topography is. The mountains, it was very rocky, mountain like, but at half the altitude. Right, right. But I was so impressed with the trees
Speaker 1 1:18:05
above tree line. Yeah, that little top. Yeah, and because it's further north, it's a little
Speaker 2 1:18:09
lower. And I mean, but I was so impressed with just I'd go up, and as I'm coming down, you know, you don't look at much around you while you're racing up. But when I'm driving back down, I just go, "Wow, this is this is an amazing space up here, and I didn't honestly. And I'm supposed to be the well-traveled, filming, knowing all the great places person. And I go, why have I never shot here?
Speaker 1 1:18:30
Well, you know, Travis. I mean, like Travis prefers it to Pike's because he feels like it's more of a rally room. Yeah, like he always says, Pike's a highway. There's a lot of road there. He likes the tightness and and how that all feels, and I've just always loved the event. So I was really excited to see you go there. I was excited a few years back when Mike Ryan went there and the guys because because it was always on the same weekend. It was a real commitment to say how to leave and and go. Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:18:55
it was it was fun because you know Ryan Turk too was up there. He was there. I love
Speaker 1 1:19:00
seeing Ryan Turk come over to the dark side. Yeah, no, rally races. I love it too,
Speaker 2 1:19:06
and it's just so fun. He's such a great guy to begin with, and then we're both there, kind of as rookies, you know, in there. And he's got a four wheel drive. I've got a two wheel drive, and we're just kind of like you know look at each other like in awe of this place. It was it was really kind of fun because you know honestly I just don't find myself in new situations that much you know I find myself I've been so fortunate to do so many things that I was truly in awe of the road and the people and you know the again the cars that are competing and the things that people build but I love that you know that mentality of I you know when I travel you travel you know it's like where's the local go kart track right you know and then you get to that town and then there's some little go kart track there you go you know it's Wednesday night I'm gonna go over there there's no way you're gonna beat the people you know there and you know I'm when I go. Indoor go karting or whatever. I'm serious about. I'm like, I'm gonna go do this in every lap. I'm gonna. That's my own, you know, demand on myself here. And then there's you know some kid beating in. There's some old guy beating here. Whatever it is, but it's going on. And then at the track, the same thing. It was like these local guys showing up with cars, like, wow, that's you know, I don't know about that car. And then they'd be just hauling. You know, it was so fun to see.
Speaker 1 1:20:24
You know who was once that go kart guy, Matt Farah. I've heard the past before like anything he did. Didn't he get paid in last? Yeah, he got like he used to work at GPNY, and they were like a really nice go kart track. So he like went up there from zero to 60, and you know Matt like was was heavier set than a lot of us, and all of us looked at this guy and was like, whatever. And then he just we had a young guy on the team, Crenshaw, who was fast in a car, and he was lightweight, so like you know he was kind of a ringer. And Matt just smoked us, and you're like, that was the guy you weren't expecting. Like he was he was that guy. No, I
Speaker 2 1:21:00
thought I heard him talk about it, and I think he was getting paid back with. Yeah, I think yeah, they just it was like some weird deal where he just got to like drive as much as he wanted there or something,
Speaker 1 1:21:09
you know, bring people out. So, all right, let's take another quick break, and got a lot more for you. Okay, I'm
Speaker 2 1:21:15
here.
Speaker 1 1:21:16
By now, you might have realized I really enjoy European things. I mean, my car is a European. My tools are European. I mean, my producer he's he's British, which I think is still European.
Speaker 4 1:21:27
That was rude, but go on.
Speaker 1 1:21:29
Did I tell you what I did this weekend?
Speaker 4 1:21:30
What did you do?
Speaker 1 1:21:31
So I decided that I'm gonna actually park the Vanagon for a little bit and get back to driving the RS2, like literally knock the dust off of it. And to do that, I figured I'd do a little preventive maintenance.
Speaker 4 1:21:40
It's not something I think of when I think of you, dude.
Speaker 1 1:21:43
Yeah, you see, the problem is that car gets a lot of things right, but there's this one issue where the strut bearings just constantly fail, especially if the car is like slammed on its nuts, like mine is. So I ordered a set of strut bearings from FCP Euro, got them, and was gonna swap them out, and I stripped this really annoying nut. Like seriously, curse the German engineer who designed this. It's like a weird half castle nut. It requires this weird specialty tool, and if you put too much force on it, it gives up. So anyway, I stripped that, and now my car was on a jack stand. And honestly, I was about to just leave it there, like I've left many other projects to die, but it's the RS2. So headed in, went to fcpeuro.com, found the part because they had it in Arizona. They were able to overnight it to me. Boom! I had it the next day at my farm. Got the car back on the road. It was awesome. FCP Euro most likely has the parts you need and can get them to you pronto. You know, so you can keep driving the cool cars. That's what matters. Have you ever questioned why only sockets are privileged enough to get asked to dance by the breaker bar? I mean, seriously, so many other tools could benefit from part snapping leverage. Our favorite German tool company, Wera, has solved this conundrum with their new X Power actuator. What is it, you ask? It's basically a long bar that accepts a ton of different inserts, which range from the Joker self-adjusting wrenches to ratchets, bit drivers, and even a weldable blank insert. You know, so you can make your own unholy creation. Ultimate fan clutch tool. Anyone? See all the batshit things they make for this wild mechanical implement at wearertools.com. He Wave makes some great shades: the Skynet, the Wraith, and my personal favorite, the Vice. But did you know they also make goggles? The MXG 250 is for you motocross, UTV, and dirt sport folks. It features an anti-fog-coated, impact-resistant lens and patented Ramjet Tech to keep the moisture under control for all of you brow sweaters. Plus, it's got a triple post taro system. Now, if you're thinking I only enjoy paved motoring, that's okay. Go full goon style. Rock a set with an open face so that you can cosplay that you're a 70s badass. Works for Travis Pastrana and Matt Field. Find yours at HeatwaveVisual.com. If you haven't noticed, Quiet Wealth is in, Flash is out, and the folks at KW understand they now offer the classic line: "Think the KW suspension you've learned to love and trust, but now in all black, the perfect subtle flex. Plus, if you're trying to fly under the radar with say your future in-laws, you could pass these off as OEM, because after all, you are an adult, right? Anyway, find them and plenty other applications at kwsuspensions.com. All right, here's a question for you. We'll do a little little subject change. What is exciting you in car culture today? I was like, you've been through this. You've been through multiple peaks and valleys of the sport, and like I think you have like a different perspective than probably I do. Like, what's the thing that you look at and you're like, that's really cool.
Speaker 2 1:24:45
Oh, that's a little bit of a tricky question, I guess, because it's just I don't know. I'm so stimulated, you know. It's kind of like the purpose, my purpose in life. Is to somehow document something through filmmaking, and so it's kind of like I have a hard time going to race track unless I'm driving or working, you know. And I, when you ask about what's exciting, it's like in relation to capturing
Speaker 1 1:25:16
it, right?
Speaker 2 1:25:17
You know, it's that that to me is is really interesting. But I think what I like about it is that there's almost there's certainly car culture is changing very quickly. You know the the hypercar super car kind of focus on it. I mean, it's it's showing from viewership on the subject matters to prices at auctions to you know whatever it's just it's kind of a crazy world out there and funny enough you know on my road and track days I was going to Pagani I was going to these places when they were literally trying to figure out how this is a business model you know and and so that's and now now they have customers buying, you know, their eighth or ninth one. You know, so that part is part of it. But I guess I love the way people have congregated and brought been brought together by it. It's really interesting to me on that side because we used to kind of have a solo existence in terms of driving and groups and things like that, just didn't happen that much, you know. Growing up, we had Monterey to go to. You know, Pebble Beach was kind of the anchor there, and now when you think about it, you go to Monterey for a lot of other reasons than Pebble Beach, and I think that makes it really exciting. And I, I love the cross culture of people interested in what you're doing that you would have never been on their radar, and vice versa, they would have never been on my radar. So that side of it also is exciting, but I think it's the innovation of the way people are. Let's face it. The car is our enabler, you know. It it took you to the hospital to have your kid delivered, you know. It it there's as much as we sometimes think that. By the way, for me
Speaker 1 1:27:12
that was a Portia Cayenne GTS six. Well, there just style good move,
Speaker 2 1:27:19
but but that that side of it, where it gets you from point A to point B, is so much more now. And I think that the way that we're embracing it, both positively and negatively,
Speaker 3 1:27:34
is
Speaker 2 1:27:34
a really interesting time of how we will move forward and keep it continually interesting, and at the same time, make it also entertaining. You know, I drive. I'm a 40,000 mile a year person, and I spend so much time on the road. It's still entertaining to me.
Speaker 1 1:27:53
Yeah,
Speaker 2 1:27:53
it's it's not just what I'm driving, but what's happening outside my windshield. You know, it's a it's it's an engaging side of things, and that to me is very exciting. And lesser now, but in before I used to kind of, I used to always relate to that tactile experience of touching a steering wheel and the cause and effect of turning that steering wheel and having some sort of mechanism that goes down and goes through a series of gears that ultimately pushes wheels one way or another, and then it's not just the wheel; it's the sidewall of the tire, it's the tread of the tire, it's touching the ground, and you know that whole little process. But it all started with your hands touching something. That's I. I loved kind of trying to define that in multiple ways in my own filmmaking world of what happens between that user experience and how it equates to moving forward in something that could be as simple as going to the grocery store or driving to the end of the earth.
Speaker 3 1:29:00
Yeah.
Speaker 1 1:29:01
Yeah. Do you feel? I mean, I, I, it's funny just mentioning like we. I talk a lot about how like the steering wheel is my most like the most important part of the car for me because like it's the part that connects me, and like I've driven cars with good steering wheels that are bad cars, but good steering wheels like feel make the car feel better, and then I've also driven great cars with like bad steering wheel. So like when I say bad steel, it's not just the actual texture of the steering wheel, just the way it feels connected, you know. And and and that's such a piece. But question like, do you think? And I've asked this to a bunch of people, and I usually tend to ask it to what I refer to as like OGs, like us who've been here for a while.
Speaker 2 1:29:38
Who's that? I'm an OG. You're now. You're. I'm an exponential OG. You're like an OG. You know, like you know, like with a business drama. But anyway,
Speaker 1 1:29:50
I mean, you're the one we all look up to. Oh God. So, but don't worry. I'm at that point now too, where I get young kids coming the show telling me that, telling me that, like, ah, man, I remember. I was like nine when I watched. I was like,
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