Through The Lens

By Brad Phillips

My last column ended with a broken foot and a virtually wasted trip to the dunes. Because of the problems we had during our Thanksgiving trip to the dunes we had to pack up and head west again to finish what we had started.

I left Iowa City December 20th to drive out to Skyler’s in Phoenix. I had a 6-day layover at my uncle’s in Park City, UT for some family time over Christmas. I pulled into Skyler’s place on the 27th. Brock Lyons, Klint Anderson and their mechanic were already back from their three-day training break. Brock and Klint both stayed down in Phoenix after our last trip, with the exception of a three-day trip back to Indy for Christmas, they had been down there since November 15th. Right when I got there I tried to make plans to film at the dunes, but that proved harder than usual. It is always difficult to work around other people’s schedules and get everyone to be at the same place at the same time. You would think it would be easy since they don’t have jobs or anything, but trust me it’s not.

I ended up spending my first five days trying to retrieve a surveillance tape from a grocery store where Klint and Brock’s mechanic took a joyride on their 50’s. Unfortunately I didn’t have any luck. By the time I was done with that ordeal, it was New Year’s Eve, I could tell by the “state” Skyler was in we were in for an adventure. Skyler has had a lot of trouble getting his wrist to heal after he broke it at Unadilla. Because of that, he has taken some time away from racing and started a new job in Phoenix, so now he parties every chance he gets, which seemed to be the theme of my trip. We all went to a party at a friend of Skyler’s for New Year’s Eve. It was mostly lame in the beginning. But once Skyler got going there was no stopping him. We brought a camera to the party (we never seem to go anywhere without them) so Skyler used it to his advantage while hitting on the ladies.

The next morning Brock and I were up around 10am to go ride. I hadn’t had a chance to get on my bike for half a year, so I jumped at the opportunity. We went to a track on the east end of Phoenix and rode most of the day. When we finished we each had missed calls and voice mails from Skyler. The last time we saw him was about two in the morning at the party, so I figured he needed someone to bail him out of jail or something. But thankfully that wasn’t the case. He was calling to inform us that we were missing a great party. Skyler, his ex-girlfriend and one of his other friends were all sitting in his bathtub (clothed) watching “The Ladies Man”. He thought it was the greatest idea ever, we disagreed and chose to relax the rest of the night, and worked on bikes and cleaned stuff from the previous day.

The next morning I left Skyler’s to go to San Diego to pick up some DVDs and then to LA. to visit Blingstar, Suzuki, and some other friends. As I was driving to San Diego I got another call from Skyler. He wanted me to turn around and come over to his house. Apparently the tub got too cramped when a fourth friend came over, so they went to Wal-Mart and bought one of those kiddie pools. They set the pool up in Skyler’s kitchen of all places and were just sitting in the pool as if it were an ten-man hot tub. They even had an elaborate scheme to keep the water warm. They boiled five gallon pots of water on the stove and then dumped them into the pool, scooped up another 5 gallons and repeated. Although I was impressed by Skyler’s ingenuity, I had to ask him how he do planned on emptying the water out of the pool. He thought about it for a few seconds and then started laughing, – the phone went dead.

I arrived at my DVD replicator in Sand Diego to pick up 4,000 copies of Carpe Diem DVDs. They decided the best way for me to load the DVDs was to jockey my 44’ trailer through their parking lot and behind their building. The parking lot was no bigger than that of a basic doctor’s office and was filled with cars, it was not easy. After loading the DVDs I tried to maneuver out of the lot. I got the trailer pointed out but as I was leaving the parking lot the trailer high-centered on the driveway. I was stuck. I locked it in 4-wheel drive, but it just spun all four tires, after about an hour of trying we finally got it unstuck and I was on my way to LA.

I had to stop by Blingstar to pick up some products for my new trailer. They have a sweet line of trailer accessories that no one should be without. Because of the time I wasted in San Diego I pulled in after they were closed. I parked my trailer next to Kory Ellis’, which was there to get the Blingstar treatment as well, and went to sleep.

I was awoken by Blingstar’s Freddie Shepard the next day. I quickly got all the stuff I needed for my trailer and then followed him out to Glen Helen. Team Suzuki/Yoshimura was out there setting up their bikes for the 2006 season, Since Blingstar was a major sponsor of Team Suzuki/Yoshimura he had to be there as well. I was also pretty stoked to talk to Doug Gust, JJ, Paul Turner, Ryan Cox and the rest of the team. I hadn’t seen them since August. Unfortunately JJ and Ryan weren’t there. Jeremiah was flying in the next day and Ryan had a run in with a power tool, the power tool won. After a few hours of hanging out at Glen Helen I left to drive down to Glamis.

 I met Klint Anderson at Gordon’s Well that night and waited until the next morning to start filming. August Goebel and Darryl Patton were coming out then. So Klint and I killed some time on the Rhino. I accidentally let him drive. I have never been so high in the air in a Rhino or come down nearly as hard. He was hitting jumps full speed that I’m not sure I would even do on my quad! My back hurt for a week, but it was worth it. The next morning we headed out into the desert to film. We only got to ride for about three hours before we started having mechanical problems, but this time we had enough footage and decided to call it a wrap. Klint had to drive back to Phoenix that night and I was on my way to Cody and Hunter Millers’ house in Greenville, TX.

Destination Caddo Point

I followed my GPS to the Miller’s house and their Caddo Complex and got some sleep. The next morning we drove the Rhino up to the house. Hunter was putting some decals on his quad, Chad was washing his, (just so you know, he is constantly washing his bike). About noon, Jesse Shaeffer, also staying at what some might call “ATV Summer Camp”, woke up and we started filming. The layout of Miller’s track is pretty sweet. I can see why so many people like this place and why it’s the home of this year’s 12 Hours of ATV America, held later this year. As for now, our only problem was the incredible drought that Texas was experiencing at the time. It was so dry I was able to walk across the normally seven foot deep pond in the middle of the track. Dry conditions are not fun to film in. We were hoping to stay there for a few days but it was already Tuesday and I had to get back to Iowa. I had to be on a plane Thursday to Tucson, AZ for a conference. We made plans to come back after the national in Alvord, TX to finish filming.

Truck Woes

Before we knew it, it was the first part of February and time to head back to Texas for the national. For this trip I enlisted the help of the new Premis Intern, Brandon Boulay. He drove down to Iowa from Minnesota to meet me and the on to Texas. Everything was going smoothly until I started to pull onto the interstate to start the trip. Without warning my truck went limp and shut down. This didn’t look good. There were beepers going off and lights flashing. I freaked out! I of course thought the worse, I figured my turbo blew. Making the situation even worse, I had my trailer hooked up. Not wanting to have the whole thing towed I figured if I could get someone to pick up my trailer I could limp my truck home. I gave a quick call to Jason Watt. You may remember him as the guy that lost the finger in Carpe Diem. He came out with his Ford dually and picked up my trailer. I am a die hard Chevy guy, so to be rescued by a Ford was not my first choice, but I still appreciate Jason helping me nonetheless. After some quick research on the Internet I found out the problem. It was a broken connector on the number 2 and 7 injector plugs. I dropped the truck off at the dealer for them to fix in the morning and then went to bed. By nine the next morning my truck was ready to go and Brandon and I were on the road.

More Caddo Boot Camp

After filming the races for three days we packed up and drove the 80 miles back to Hunter and Cody’s house. We spent Monday filming with Chad and Jesse. Most of the other guys were hurt, broken, or sore from the race. We came up with some interesting camera angles and did a lot of on board camera shots that came out really nice! Because everyone was tired from the race, the day quickly turned into a screw off day. We had a pull off between the Premis Rhino and Miller’s Diesel Kubota, it was a draw. We rode 50’s, chased wild pigs and buffalo and even managed to get the Rhino hung up in some small trees. Then at night, the party started. It was Chad’s 21st birthday. Because of their extreme training regimen these guys almost never party, so when they have an excuse they go all out. The whole night is a little hazy, but when I reviewed the video tape it all came back. The night started with a basic game of beruit, progressed to boxing and then eventually fire surfing. We did have one small scare when Sheaffer stayed on the fire a little too long. His pants caught on fire, so no more of that. Satisfied with the footage we got, we hit the road the next day.

The Sunshine State
Our next trip started March 9th. We were going to Florida and Georgia for two weeks of back-to-back nationals and to take care of some other film appointments. This trip was going smoothly, that is until we got about 60 miles south of Nashville. My truck broke down again! I started to get annoyed. It’s a ’05 Duramax with only 45,000 on it, I shouldn’t have been having problems. We were able to limp the truck and trailer 20 miles to Winchester, TN. They diagnosed it as the number 3 injector plug, the same problem as before, just a different injector. They didn’t have the part to fix it so we stayed the night in Winchester and then limped the truck to Newton Chevy in Chattanooga. We made it halfway before giving up and having it towed. Newton Chevy didn’t have the part but there was a part 60 miles away in Sweetwater. Newton rented me a car at my expense and I drove to pick up the part. But first I had to back my trailer down a hill into an alley to get it out of the way. Long story short, it jack-knifed and put a dent in my cab. After a $500 bill to fix something that should have been under warranty we were on our way. We hooked on to the trailer and pulled out of the alley. Unbelievable, all three passenger side tires on the trailer were flat. We pulled to the side of the road, got the compressor out and filled them, then rushed to the Wal-Mart to get the tires fixed. Finally we were back on the road. After a grueling 36 hours of getting the truck fixed we finally were in Gainesville at the track. We got there around 10:20 pm on Friday, but had to sleep outside the gate because the track owner decided to lock the gates at 10:00, in the process – locking everyone that was inside in and everyone else out.

Gainesville was another basic national, with one tragic exception. The racing community unfortunately lost one of its own again. Zak Griffin was racing in the Youth Production class when he was involved in a wreck that ultimately cost him his life. It is always terrible to lose a racer; my condolences go out to the Griffin family. On top of that, Cody Miller was involved in an accident and broke his femur. I’m starting to think we were a curse because the day after we filmed for the first Carpe Diem with Shane Hitt and Tim Farr in Florida, Shane ended up breaking his leg. Three days after we filmed with Sage Baker for CD2 he broke his leg at London. Now a couple weeks after filming with Cody he breaks his. And to top it all off, later at Budds Creek Cody’s brother, Hunter, broke his leg. It’s insane!

Ice Baby

After the race in Gainesville, We drove down to Miami with Scott Bennett. We had made plans to film at Seminole MX Park with Vanilla Ice for Carpe Diem 3. Ice is an extremely talented dirt bike MX racer and a good friend of GNC racer, Scott Bennett. It was pretty cool to get a chance to hang out with Ice for a day and ride with him. He is definitely not your typical celebrity. He was fun to hang out with and was just there to ride. After a couple hours filming on the MX track we all rode into the woods to check out the trails. A few minutes into the ride we started to have problems with Scott’s quad. We started towing it back with the Rhino, not knowing it was nearly 10 miles of tight trails in the Florida heat. The Rhino overheated forcing us to walk back to the track and come back for it later. When it was all said and done it was a successful trip.

After leaving Miami we drove straight through to Macon, GA for round four. When we got there most of our riders were sitting outside the gate waiting to get in. They had set up a little community there and actually camped outside the gate of Echeconnee for a week while they rode at area tracks to prep for the race. It’s crazy to think that is what it has come to, in order to be competitive even in the Pro-Am ranks you have to constantly be on the road training. You southerners have it easy. We filmed the races for four days and then drove towards home. We stopped at Cale Downen’s house to attempt to film, the weather didn’t allow it. So back to Iowa it was. And now you’re up to date on the progression of Carpe Diem 3.

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