What’s Next: The Last Dodge Viper
It’s been awhile since I last wrote up a post here on the ‘ol blog and as usual it’s not for a lack of desire but rather a lack of time and energy…
Sometimes otherwise known as having no good neuron firing solution upstairs…
But the synapses are funny things and as crazy as life has been over the last two or three years, somehow it’s become even nuttier in the interim… (more on that later)… And I find it truly amazing that no matter how fast you think you’re capable of running, you always can seem to run faster and yet still faster…
To what end I am not sure, though I suspect at some point soon I shall find out…
Speed however is an even funnier thing — There’s fast… And then there’s fast…
For the past 18 years the Dodge Viper has been one of the fast, fast cars…
A couple of weeks ago I had the distinct privilege of watching, and filming, one of the last great American Muscle cars roll off the line for the final time…
I’m sure some will quibble with the assertion that the Viper is the last great American Muscle Car — and that’s ok, everyone has the right to their own opinion — but in my mind all the other classic muscle car badges have somehow evolved into something else these days… The Viper has and always will be very different…
As they say, ‘it is what it is’… A raw, unadulterated, 600+ horsepower beast of a Supercar… And it never wavered from that from day until now… There’s no Traction Control, no computerized noth’in… Just full power all the time… The Viper was neither a production car in the truest sense nor was it quite a hand-built ride exotic either, yet somehow it existed in-between those two realms for a very long time. Admittedly that’s a very hard place for a car to stand and it’s not the most friendly business model, however somehow Dodge made it work and I think you have give them incredible props for that…
One of the things that I find most fascinating about the Viper is that it takes just one look at it to know it is a special ride. Somehow that doesn’t happen exactly the same way with Vettes or Mustangs or Camaros… They’re cool but they blend in… They’ve become part of our daily automotive lexicon… The Viper never was — it was rare from day one and stayed that way…
At this point I’ve now had the good fortune of shooting in a hell of a lot of car and motorcycle factories — well over thirty at this point — and I’ve got to say that the folks who build the Viper are unlike any I’ve ever come across. There was a palpable sense of passion in the Viper factory the likes of which I’ve never quite witnessed before in person. A lot of factories say that they have that kind of passion, or more accurately the ’suits’ who sit upstairs say they do, but a lot of times the folks on the actual line are just doing their job and it wouldn’t really matter whether it was building that particular machine or a coffee grinder. That was not the case at the Viper Factory. It instantly felt different. The people there were some of the most caring, artisan, passion-filled wrenchers I’ve ever had the pleasure to get to know and frankly it showed — all day long.
The Viper is not only a hell of a supercar and beauty to look at but it’s crafted by a select group of individuals in a way that somehow articulates not only the incredible engineering that went into making the machine work superbly at speed but also echos each individual mechanics’ personal pride in what they do.
If I had the money, I’d buy a Viper tomorrow, hands down… And there’s a whole host of supercars that show up in the auto mags every month that I’d by-pass in a heartbeat and without even thinking about it… I don’t know that there’s a stronger statement about how moto-romantic I found the Viper factory…
More picts after the jump… (more…)
What’s Next: A Double-Clutch Moment
What Comes Next: A Double-Clutch Moment
Intense. Cramped. Extreme. Dynamic. Powerful – And Pretty Damn Fast!
These are words and phrases that I’d normally associate with any number of Exotic Italian Motorcycles, but not tonight.
No, tonight, those words stand in reference to a different kind of machine.
Something that has more pistons than a bike, more metal than a motorcycle, and more horsepower than an entire superbike race team… Something that has four-wheels and prices tags that make Ducati Desmosedici’s seem ordinary by comparison…
Once again, I’ve had the great pleasure and privilege to delve into the auto-doc universe and to live the last extended moment of my life in a whirlwind of automotive utopia.
Needless to say it’s been fast, fast drive.
I honestly don’t know where the time went – One day we were planning and the next, the machinery had launched and there wasn’t any wheel-spin…
That of course is the reality of production — You plan it, you prep it, you shoot it, and from start to stop, you essentially disappear into a world of an all-consuming kind of magic, where you focus on the task at hand, the moment that’s immediately after that, and if you’re lucky, or good, maybe even a tad bit of tomorrow.
Everything else just vanishes.
It has to.
And for me, that’s one of the most addictive parts of the gig… The singular focus that is essentially forced on you… It’s a beautiful, near blissful way to exist — I wish I could harness and save that sort of highly focused dedication for the rest of my life… There’s something exquisite about being able to apply every single shred of your mental energy on one specific task.
Camera Op Dan Hickey Filming On the Track
Really, it’s not much different than riding at a trackday – You have to spend so much energy focusing on this particular corner and then the corner that immediately follows, that you don’t have much mental energy left for anything else. Unlike the rest of life, what lies six-corners away, really is six-corners away… So you push everything but the current moment to the edge of your peripheral vision, and you keep it there until the ride is over. Perhaps this explains why it all goes by so quickly and ends up being such a blur.
Time it turns out moves pretty damn fast when you’re hanging out with highly tuned V8’s…
DP Trevor Navarra shooting on the track -- It's all a blur
Right now however, the blank page is starring back at me, wondering what might come next – and while I rarely know the answer to that particular question, tonight I most certainly do…
Two new moto-documentaries on two outstanding machines – The Maserati GrandTurismo Cabriolet and the Mercedes AMG SLS Gullwing.
Both are fast, fluid, sexy, handcrafted beasts that have their own unique souls and forms of magic.
Both certainly moved me in similar but different inspired ways.
It would be easy, if not simplistic, to describe each car with the usual adjectives, such as precision or romance or power, but I’ll leave all of that up to the professional auto writers. What I will is that I greatly appreciate that both of these machines exist. Particularly because of what they are and what they are not.
The Tesla & the Prius might be the future – but I’m quite happy that the current happens to exist.
The world would be a very, very sad place if machines like these didn’t live and breath and crack their rubber on the asphalt every now and then.
While in the field, I feel like we were able to successfully capture the essence of each machine; It’s own unique place of birth, It’s home, The process behind their creation, and ultimately what each machine offers a driver.
Of course that’s just my take, which is obviously biased — Whether or not the guys and I really did succeed in capturing all of that, well, in the end that’s really up to you the viewer.
But right now, it sure feels like we were able to do something very, very special with both machines…
I can’t thank my crew enough for that – these kind of docs are awfully inspiring to work on if you’re a gearhead, but most of the time they’re also a bit like being a secret agent whose tasked with parachuting into the unknown. No matter how much you plan or predict, it’s always the unexpected that becomes your greatest asset.
Right now, no matter how tired I am or how jet-lagged or physically beat up, I simply can’t wait to get started putting these films together… And I can’t wait to grab the keys, throw my leg over one of the bikes and soak up a little R&R on a good, seductively curvy piece of asphalt!
Talking the next shot over while on the Track with the SLS
Outside Suttgart with the SLS
On the track with the Grand Turismo
This Week: ‘Man Made Bugatti Super Car’ Premieres
After many months of hard work, long days and sometimes even longer nights, I’ve finally got some fantastic news to share — The Bugatti Veyron documentary that I produced and directed finally has an air-date!
‘Man Made: Bugatti Super Car’ will make it cable television debut this coming Thursday, February 11th, at 8 pm on The National Geographic Channel.
It is a project that I am immensely proud of and am eager to share. The film looks and sounds fantastic, as I briefly wrote about before, and it would be my hope that everyone in the audience enjoys the watch.
The folks at Bugatti were extraordinary in terms of the access they granted us and frankly we were able to capture some tremendous things on tape – Sometimes for the very first time. Even though I’ve had the distinct privilege to go inside of a lot of factories, design studios and engineering departments in the past, I don’t know if there’s any one group of people that I have more respect for then the VW engineering staff, given what they have successfully accomplished with this machinel.
People can knock the Veyron for the price or ask whether the world needs a 1,001 horsepower machine that can break the 250 mph barrier, but it unquestionably one of the most amazing engineering exercises ever undertaken and successfully completed in the automotive world. If you’re lucky enough to sit in the car and pull 1.9 G’s while braking from top speed, I guarantee you’ll agree with me. The Veyron is just an amazing thrill ride…
All told, this has been a wonderfully inspiring project to work on and to be a part of, and now it’s time to let it go… Time for you the audience to enjoy it and to get ready for the next great moto-adventure…
'Man Made: Bugatti Super Car' premieres this week on National Geographic
From the National Geographic Website:
The Bugatti Veyron is a “super” super car - part automobile and part airplane. And with a base price of $1,750,000, it is the most expensive production car in the world. Designed with materials and construction techniques normally found in the aerospace industry, this remarkable engineering achievement is one of the fastest street-legal cars ever built. Now, NGC takes an insider look at the Bugatti factory to see how this modern engineering masterpiece is built.
There’s also some video from the show available on their website, along with other info & air-date times;
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/man-made/4237/Overview#tab-Overview
6 Channels of Veyron Goodness
Audio Mixing for Bugatti Super Car
Every now and then, the various bits of life come together in truly remarkable ways — Today I got the chance to hear the 5.1 surround sound mix of Bugatti Super Car, our latest documentary for The National Geographic Channel, for the very first time. As much as I love the visuals of the show, there’s nothing quite as exciting as hearing a brand new 5.1 mix for a doc that you’ve been working on for months and months. It’s truly awe-inspiring as it brings new life to something you’ve seen a thousand times. Amazing how sounds has such a remarkable ability to impact the soul.
It’s one thing to be in the field filming for a doc, another to put the show together and yet something even better and more profound to hear it for the very first time… As always the final result will be up to you the audience to judge, but right now I’m very, very excited about it…
Many thanks to Salami Studios in Burbank…
This Week: ‘Motorcycle Crash Tech’ Premieres
As a rider, over the years I’ve become keenly aware that there are roads you know well and ride all the time, roads you’ve never seen but find yourself making plans to visit, and then roads that from a mere photograph have a unique power to consume your dreams — because they are not easy to get to or to conquer.
The last several weeks have been a remarkable stretch of time where all of my personal roads, both the seen and unseen, the known and unknown, have blended together to form a wonderful combination of one single and seamless moment where everything feels like it’s exactly where it is supposed to be for right now…
And I can’t think of a better culmination of that sense of purpose than this Thursday evening, when our newest sportbike documentary, Motorcycle Crash Tech‘, premieres on The National Geographic Channel at 9 PM EST.
In May, I briefly wrote about the project but at the time couldn’t go into much detail about it — Tonight I finally can…
After we finished Twist The Throttle, the next inevitable question was what do we want to shoot next? For month we went back and forth, talking about what would be different then Twist and yet still part of the greater sportbike arena… A few truly intriguing ideas surfaced, but they never quite took off or captured enough of our collective attention span… But then lighting struck… While ‘taking a break’…
We were watching a sportbike race, when a rider crashed. It looked horrific. It looked deadly. It seemed disastrous. Yet the rider got up. Shook his head in frustration. And walked away…
It was a scene punctuated by the notion that twenty, maybe fifteen, hell probably ten years ago, would have required an ambulance or a helicopter. But instead suddenly seemed rather matter-of-fact. The rider later quoted as saying it was a run of the mill event. Barely noticeable and simply a function of ‘push the edge’…
Tonight it seems rather obvious that something interesting was there, but at the time it was simply a curiosity — was racing, and by extension regular-riding, really safer today? Have we actually come to a point where we can engineer out the danger?
The answer as many riders know is, yes.
It is something I learned first hand this January when I crashed (an odd occurrence while working on a sportbike show about crashing no doubt!).
Now, of course I’m not suggesting that racing is 100% safe, nor regular everyday riding, neither one is, but the odds of survival should the worst happen have dramatically increased and that’s something I personally find fascinating… So we set out to see the remarkable advancements in racing and riding gear; from the bikes themselves, to the brakes, to helmets, and the actual riding suits.
I hope everyone in the audience enjoys! (Press Release Below)
Umberto rides the F4
New Motorcycle Documentary Premieres on the National Geographic Channel
September 17, 2009 at 9PM ET
“Motorcycle Crash Tech” is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at the new technologies being used to avoid motorcycle crashes, and prevent injuries or even death when a racer or rider does go down.
Exclusive interviews with racer Neil Hodgson and the legendary Giacomo Agostini describe first-hand what goes through a racer’s mind the moment they know they’re going to crash and vividly recount just how deadly racing was in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. Combining rare archival footage from years past as well as contemporary AMA racing coverage, the film explains the differences between high-sides and low-sides and the extreme forces involved in both types of crashes.
The film captures stunning action photography of world-class test riders Vito Guareschi (Alpinestars, Nolan, and Ducati) and Umberto Rumiano (MV Agusta) in action during what are normally closed test sessions of new riding gear and bikes. Brembo factory riders are also filmed testing the company’s newest brakes on twisting Italian mountain roads and performing incredible braking tests on Brembo’s private test track.
Produced by Cry Havoc Productions, an award winning documentary film company specializing in Moto related films, “Motorcycle Crash Tech” will premiere on September 17, 2009 at 9PM ET on the National Geographic Channel.
Filmed in 1080i high-definition and 5.1 digital surround sound, “Motorcycle Crash Tech” takes viewers on an extraordinary journey across Northern Italy. With rare access to the R & D facilities and research departments at Alpinestars, Brembo, Nolan, and MV Agusta, the film chronicles the very latest technologies being used in motorcycle riding gear, boots, helmets, brakes, and the bikes themselves to make racing and riding safer.
The Sweet Sound of 5.1
'Motorcycle Crash Tech' Audio Mix
It’s been an incredible few days as we wrap up the last remaining bits on our new sportbike doc for the National Geographic Channel (which I briefly wrote about previously) but none was nearly as exciting as sitting down at Salami Studios in Burbank, California, and hearing the 5.1 audio mix for the first time. While I totally dig the move the High-Def in terms of the visuals, there’s nothing quite as exciting hearing the sounds of sportbikes roaring in real, honest to goodness surround sound. It brings the hair on the back of neck up and makes two-dimensional images seem so much deeper… And honestly, I really dig the images in this show, so that’s saying something…
Hopefully you all will enjoy the show & the audio mix as much as I do 
Air-Schedule coming shortly…
What Comes Next v2.0: The Bugatti Veyron
The Bugatti Veyron
“Nothing is too beautiful, nothing is too expensive” — Ettore Bugatti
Every now and then this gig truly has its moments — And the last month has certainly been one of them…
As most longtime readers have undoubtedly noticed, Twisting Asphalt has been dark for quite awhile — again — It’s been just over a month since I penned the last post. This self imposed media blackout is not a harbinger of a slow death for the site but rather the unfortunate side effect of the realities of life superseding the joy that comes from riding or sitting at the screen and hacking away at a post about riding.
For the past month I’ve been existing in a remarkable world of Moto-Lust, where each breath is not filled with only air but also the nuances of ultra-performance at its unequivocal best…
For the last thirty days I’ve had the distinct privileged to live one of the greatest automotive fantasy’s around — An unreal, absolutely marvelous adventure spent documenting the world’s fastest production car — The Bugatti Veyron.
It is a machine unlike any other automobile I’ve ever been around — That’s not to say I’ve lost my taste for Ferrari’s, Lambo’s or Porsche’s — But rather an acknowledgment of just how incredible this machine truly is when you see it in its native environment. From the design and engineering that went into it, to the craftsmanship at every step of the assembly process and, really, the utter lack of concern over time or money spent creating perfection, it is simply a hard to walk away from one and not admire it… Or dare I say fall in love with (though clearly I will never be one of the 300 owners — Starting at 1.7 million Euros I’m fairly certain that’s a hit my wallet will never support)…
While everyone talks about the Veyron’s remarkable top speed of 407 kph or 253 mph — After a month hanging around the car and the folks who build it, I’ve come to the distinct conclusion that talking about the top speed is the easy one-liner, the simple description you tell your buddy at a bar, but there’s so much more to this car… And frankly, I’m not even sure it’s fair to call it car… So much aircraft technology has gone into it that it’s probably more apt to consider it a airplane — just one that happens to have four-wheels.
On the Track with the Veyron
On the Track with the Veyron
What Comes Next…
Photo by Trevor Navarra
“What’s next?” is a seemingly innocuous question…
And yet it’s a documentary filmmakers most constant fear… It’s a refrain you hear often in this business. People ask it off-handily, almost meaninglessly, during hello-how-are-you kinds of conversations, and yet it collectively haunts us all… Because often times there is no known answer when the question is posed.
As someone said to me recently, ‘creating documentaries is like throwing darts at a board and waiting six months to see if they hit.’
And therein lies the fear…
You never quite know what is coming next, even when you think you do… Because nothing in this business, like life itself, is ever certain.
The job is in a constant state of evolution. It’s a system of constant challenges and never-ending risk vs. reward scenarios. And honestly that’s part of the draw too. There’s something amazingly evocative about constantly ‘battling’ for your spot in line. And yet it’s the biggest concern as well. The amount of time you have to breath from one project to the next is minimal at best and yet everyone always expects not only your ‘A Game’, but for your ‘A Game’ to actually improve. The status quo is never good enough. Nor should it be, really. The goal should be — no it has to be — to get better. But you know that when you take the gig… It’s part of the inherent contract you sign with yourself.
So as some of you might have noticed, lately I’ve been more or less missing in action on the blog front — it certainly wasn’t a pre-planned hiatus but rather the result of being consumed with ‘What has come Next’…
And it’s worth mentioning at this point that right now given where the world is at from an economic standpoint a good portion of me is just thankful there is a ‘next’ anything at all. When all is said and done documentaries, and even movies to some extent, though less so, are completely consumable products. Nobody needs them to live their lives. The world would continue just fine without them. If every network on the face of the planet went into a state of constant re-runs… Sorry, ‘encore presentations’… You have to logically think that some percentage of the TV watching population wouldn’t even notice… We live in a world with more visual diversity and stimulation than at any other point in history and it’s impossible to keep current on it all…
That being said tonight I’m thankful for more than just the gig itself — I’m thankful for my guys. They are truly an amazing group and they were able to make ideas that existed only in my head and turn them into reality.
I simply cannot thank them enough; Directors of Photography Andrew Waruszewski and Trevor Navarra, along with Jason Goodell, who Gripped and Gaffed, and Peter Karr , who handled Location Sound, were absolute magicians.
I bring all of this up because tomorrow the rough cut for the next sportbike doc heads back east for the network to review and it is without a doubt the best piece of work we’ve ever collectively done. Sportbikes have never looked this good. It is light years beyond Speed On Two Wheels and so far past Twist The Throttle it’s not even funny.
It used to be when I was sitting in the edit suite editing a show I knew if something, say a sequence or an act, was good because the hairs on the back of neck would stand up and I’d get that goose-bump feeling that made me think this was something I’d watch… This time I know it’s good because I can’t stop watching it… And I’ve already seen it a couple hundred times…
Now ultimately it’s up to you the audience to really decide if it’s better, but right now I’ve got the strongest hunch of my entire life. I’d bet the farm, the house, the in-laws, maybe even the dog… (Probably not the bikes though 
It feels like something entirely different and yet still consistent with the tenets of filmmaking that we collectively subscribe to… I simply can not wait for all of you to see it.
Photo by Trevor Navarra
Returning Home from The Latest Moto-Adventure
Cry Havoc Team Picture - National Geographic Shoot
Looking out the window at 30,000 feet, I kept thinking it’s an odd life that I’ve chosen and quite an adventure… Because while there are ups and downs, like every other aspect of life, every now and then things coalesce in incredible ways…
On Monday of this past week the first episode of Twist The Throttle premiered on HD Theater and yet at the very same time, the boys and I were just returning home after three weeks of shooting in Italy for our next and latest sportbike documentary project for The National Geographic Channel.
Now I’ve always loved returning home to LA — There’s something utterly romantic to me about the final flight path that you take to get to LAX. The way you drop down through the clouds and start hovering over the city’s amazingly large urban sprawl and the vast array of mountains, which seem to pop up from nowhere and everywhere all at the same time. But then every few miles you drop a bit more and soon you see the freeways, the cars, the traffic, the movements of life and I swear it’s somewhere in that moment when everything just feels ‘right’.
When it feels like you’re coming ‘home’…
However this time around it was even better because Twist was going to debut the next night — and as longtime followers of this blog already know that’s been quite a journey by itself — but it’s strange how the mind works sometimes. The debut of the series was the true completion of a two and half year adventure, my first series was finally getting on the air, certainly my greatest achievement in television to date, and yet while looking out the window I could help myself. My mind already was running through the shots and the scenes of what we just finished shooting. When people say ‘you need to enjoy the moment’, this should have been it. Yet the future seemed so much better.
The shoot in Europe was absolutely spectacular - in every way possible - and unlike other productions we’ve done. From the companies involved to the crew itself, things simply went perfectly almost every step of the way…And that never happens… Yet even more importantly the images are absolutely incredible. And while Twist is good, this project is going to be better. I can see it and I can feel it. It’s just a radically different beast, that’s better visually, more dynamic and more exciting… I don’t mean to pour on the hyperbole but when we were watched the dailies each night I just had to smile. It’s always quite a powerful sensation when you feel the product moving to the next level.
That upward movement is a direct result of the crew — I simply can not thank them enough; Directors of Photography Andrew Waruszewski and Trevor Navarra, along with Jason Goodell, who gripped and gaffed, and Peter Karr , who handled Location Sound, all did magnificent jobs. Collectively they truly put in an incredible effort and it shows on screen.
So now it’s time to get to work and put this sucker together… And I can’t wait
