Through The Lens

By Brad Phillips

When I left you last, we had just gotten back from several very adventurous trips, although, they seem to be dwarfed by what has happened recently. After our trip to Indianapolis for the dealer show, we loaded up and headed south to get out of the cold Iowa weather and to attend round 3 in Gainesville, Florida. But first we had to get the proper equipment for the trip. We had been traveling to the races in a motor home. Although this worked well, it was a bit of a gas hog and then we didn’t have a vehicle to get around in once we got to the races. I had recently purchased a new Chevy Duramax truck and I figured I should utilize it by getting a trailer with living quarters. I looked around on the internet for one that I liked, and finally found it Friday night at 6:00. Luckily the salesman was still there when I called. The next morning I woke up early and drove to Elkhart, Indiana (about a 5 hour drive) to look at the trailer. I ended up picking it up for a good price and drove it back to Iowa. It is a sweet trailer and works well for what we are doing. It is 44’ long with 24’ of cargo and 20’ of living. It is similar to Brock Lyons’ trailer that is in Carpe Diem. I got back to Iowa around 11:00 that night, quickly loaded the trailer, and took off for Florida Sunday morning with a friend of mine, Nick Prohaska.

After an 18 hour drive, we got to a practice track in Waldo, Florida. We had been to this track last year. It is the same track used for the Tim Farr & Shane Hitt scene in Carpe Diem. Skyler Stewart, Brock Lyons, Sage Baker, Chad Weinen, Pat Brown, Roco Arno, as well as several others were all there practicing for the Gatorback National.

We wasted no time looking for things to do. Within 5 minutes of being there, Nick was sizing up the pond by the track as a potential wakeboarding spot. We tied the rope to the Rhino, threw Nick in the pond and started to wakeboard, using the Rhino on the shore to pull him. Pat Brown caught wind of what we were doing and decided to give it a shot. Before long, we had a sizeable audience watching us. After a few days at Waldo, everyone packed up and went to Gatorback.

We spent the weekend filming the races for our next DVD. It was your basic race weekend; nothing that you haven’t read 100 times in other reports, so I will skip that and just give you the behind the scenes stuff. Sunday night, after the races, everyone seemed to be in the mood to party. We heard from the infamous Paul Turner (Doug Gust’s mechanic) that a bunch of people were going out to the Hooters in Gainesville to celebrate Rick’s (current Axis rep and now Suzuki team member) birthday. Several industry heavyweights were at the restaurant celebrating with Rick, including John Pellan, Ryan Cox, Kory Ellis, Paul Turner, and Skyler Stewart. The night quickly progressed with so much happening it is hard to explain let alone remember. But of course we were filming it. After Hooters kicked us out (they said it was closing time, but I’m pretty sure they were tired of P.T. yelling), we all went back to the hotel, for some unknown reason. We stood around in the parking lot for at least and hour just talking and screwing around until we finally called it a night.

 Monday morning Skyler, Nick, and I drove to Hard Rock MX track, we dropped Skyler’s rig and my trailer and headed south to Orlando. Nick, my friend that came with, was looking for a job down there, so while he went on interviews. Skyler and I sat in the hotel room so Skyler could catch up on his reality TV shows.

After Nick was done, we hit the town for some fun. We started in our hotel bar until about 10:00 then Nick and I wanted to go to a club 2 blocks away. Skyler was already tired so we had to actually drag him to the club. Once at the club, Nick and I ordered a round of drinks. We turned around to give Skyler one and he was gone. We had no idea where he went or what he was up to. He ended up leaving without telling us and went back to the hotel. Nick and I kept pressing on by moving to a different club a block away.

When we got to the club we ran into pro wake boarders Shane Bonifay and Eric Ruck. Nick is a huge fan of theirs so we sat and talked with them for awhile. We exchanged numbers in the event we would want to include them in the next film, which is still up in the air, so you may see them in it.

 The next day we went back to Hard Rock to meet up with Doug Gust, John Natalie, and Pat Brown. We had planned to film with them that day at Hard Rock, and even though the weather wasn’t the greatest (overcast and chance of rain), we rented a helicopter to get some aerial shots. If any of you have been to Hard Rock, you will know that there is a huge jump in the middle of the track that a lot of bikes don’t even do. It is a camel hump style jump that is around 100 to 110 feet long. John, Doug, Pat and Skyler were all hitting it continuously all day. They made it look easy and it made for some good footage. The rain set in around 6:00 ending our day prematurely. The next day we checked the weather forecast; it looked like rain all week, thus ending our trip. We hooked up and started our drive back to Iowa.

For the race in Macon, Dave Sutherland and I went down together in my trailer. We pulled in Thursday around 7:00 at night. The rain had just stopped and the pits were a mess. We wanted to go into the pro pits to park with our riders but the people at the gate said there was no way I could get my truck and trailer in because of the mud. I felt otherwise. I got a running start of about 200 yards and hit the mud hole at about 45 MPH (with my 44’ trailer in tow). I am proud to say I made it through without a problem, but I had mud all the way up on the roof of my trailer. Friday’s practice was cancelled which caused everyone to be creative to find something to do. I woke up and noticed my truck was gone.

 When I looked around for it, I saw it buried to the doors in the mud in front of Pat Brown’s rig. The passenger window slowly rolled down and there was Brock, Neil Likens, and Klint Anderson. I just shook my head and went over to Skyler’s rig. I have gotten used to this kind of thing, especially with Klint around. That night was the highlight of the trip though. Brock, Dave, Klint, and I went into the local Wal-Mart for supplies. Many of you may remember from my last article that Klint had a pretty big crash at Glen Helen. Due to this, he was on crutches and couldn’t get around well, so while at Wal-Mart he used the electric scooters to get around. It was the funniest thing I had seen in awhile. He was running into walls and shelves and running people over. Dave and Brock didn’t help; they would push him into things as well. I, however, plead the fifth. The next day the weather cleared up for the races and gave perfect track conditions, although the pits sucked. Natalie won his second straight race in stellar fashion and we got some more great footage.

We had to skip round 5 in Virginia due to a scheduling conflict, but we headed out to Budd’s Creek for round 6. Skyler had been staying with me for about a week so he could practice, so we both jumped in his rig and drove the 16 hours to Leonardtown, MD with a quick pit stop in Indianapolis to meet up with Brock, Randy Schilling, and Neil Likens. It is always interesting when you get us together as a group. At one point, Skyler had me get out of his rig while we were on an entry ramp to look at his trailer wheel. He said it looked like it was wobbling. As I got near the trailer, he took off. I ran up to the door and tried to get back in but he had locked the doors. He was laughing hysterically as I tried to hold onto the truck as he sped up onto the interstate. I was out there for at least 3 miles before he let me back in. At first I wasn’t amused, although he obviously was! As it set in though it became pretty funny. The rest of the weekend was pretty much the same as the other nationals – rain and racing – with of course the exception of the Natalie/Gust incident. I am not going to say much about it, because I didn’t see it, but I have talked to both parties and they have both said they aren’t worried about it anymore. I think it has been blown WAY out of proportion by internet forums and sloppy journalism.

After Budd’s Creek was Red Bud. Yet again your basic national, rain and racing; but this one had an interesting start to it. The gates at Red Bud didn’t open until 4:00 on Thursday, forcing nearly 50 rigs to park on the shoulder along the highway by the gate. We arrived around 11:00 in the morning. Brock, Skyler and Sage Baker, who had all been staying at Brock’s house for the week, soon followed. Someone decided to start a war with air-soft guns (Sage, I’m looking in your direction). This went on for hours. It escalated to a full-on shootout. Near the end of it, Neil Likens was hiding behind a tree across the highway and was shooting at Skyler and one other person (I again plead the fifth) who were on top of Brock’s rig. Apparently Skyler shot at Neil as an off duty cop was driving by; the cop mistook the air-soft gun for a real one and called it in. Within seconds, two cop cars pulled up and got out of their cars with their guns drawn. Skyler saw them and quickly threw the gun to someone on the ground who then threw it into Brock’s rig as Skyler laid flat on the roof. The cops searched the entire area, with their guns drawn the whole time, looking for “the shooter.” They finally saw Skyler on top of the rig and asked him to come down. They searched Brock’s rig and found the gun causing Brock to get yelled at for awhile. They put Skyler in the back of the cop car and ran background checks on him. After about 30 minutes they let him go.

Monday after Red Bud we stuck around to film with Team Suzuki for Carpe Diem 2. We started off shooting interviews with Doug and Jeremiah, as well as members of the team. At 1:00 the helicopter came in for some aerial shots. We shot that for about an hour and then continued on the ground for the rest of the day. We got some great shots and I am looking forward to getting it edited and put in the film. It is going to turn out great!

That brings us to the present as I sit in my office at 11:04 on a Thursday night. It has been a busy couple months of traveling and we haven’t even scratched the surface. Monday we are off to film with GNCC racers Jason Lewis and Greg Stuart and then onto Muddy Creek for round 8. After that, we have an appointment set up with the Hetrick racing team and then we are off to Philadelphia to hang out with Pro Skater, Owner of Nocturnal, and Viva La Bam regular, Kerry Getz. I am looking forward to it.

Look for my next column about that in the future.

–Brad Phillips

PS
You may notice that our company is no longer called Innervision Industries. Due to complications with acquiring a trademark for the name, we have decided to change our name to Premis. It has been something we have been working on for several months. We had to come up with a new name that fit well and then re-design a logo. Hopefully this won’t cause too much confusion.

Tags:

Comments

comments