Through The Lens

By Brad Phillips

Is it just me or does the GNC circuit start earlier every year? I was contemplating this as I was waiting to get on my plane to California for round one at Glen Helen. It seems like we just left Loretta Lynns a few weeks ago, although a lot has happened since then. I am sure part of the feeling was due to me being at Skyler’s in Phoenix for three weeks and only being home for ten days before heading west again, but that is the life I chose. For this trip I brought along the Innervision Intern and good friend of mine Jordan Vaughan to help out. After a nearly nine hour flight, including a layover in Atlanta, we touched down at LAX in Los Angeles, CA. Jordan had a cousin that lived in Hollywood just off of Sunset Boulevard so we stopped by her place to visit and get in a night of fun before heading to the track on Friday. Jordan and I joined a group of his cousins’ friends and went to a bar in downtown Hollywood. It turned out to be a fairly common night with the exception of me getting in a friendly fight with Amanda Detmer (Sandy Perkins from the movie Saving Silverman). At bar close we went back to his cousins’ house and crashed.

Friday morning we started our 55 mile drive to San Bernardino, I had never driven through the infamous LA traffic and I don’t think I want to again; it literally took us 4 ½ hours to drive 55 miles on the interstate. To top that off, on the way there we got a phone call from Brock Lyons, he told us that he was on the way to the hospital to visit Klint Anderson, apparently Klint had a extremely bad crash in practice Friday morning and was rushed to the hospital with a shattered left hip, fractured right hip, broken femur, and three ribs broken off of his spine, not the news I was wanting to hear. We pulled into the track around five at night and met up with Brock, he had just gotten back from the hospital. From there the three of us went to get some supper at Outback and then went up to see Klint in the Hospital. Considering what he had been through he was in high spirits, I am sure the morphine drip they had going helped. After an hour we were kicked out of the hospital due to visiting hours, so, back to the track and to bed.

Saturday was a busy day of filming, walking around, talking to the riders and fixing equipment. Suzuki was gracious enough to let us film a tour of their new semi for use in Carpe Diem 2; of course Paul Turner, (Doug Gust’s wrench) was there which always guarantees you a good time. Saturday was a pretty relaxed day; all of the pros were getting all their equipment ready for Sundays race this gave us a great opportunity to pay all of our riders their royalties. This is one thing Innervision is doing to change the industry standard and to help support and promote the sport. We are paying all of the pro riders in our video a percentage of sales, that weekend we paid out more than $6,000. Although it is a lot of money, it is something we feel we should to do since these racers deserve all the support they can get and all of this money goes directly back into the sport instead of being spent elsewhere.

After all the races were over we went to get some dinner at TGI Fridays with Cory Ellerbroek , Brock Lyons, Skyler Stewart, his mechanic AJ, Skyler’s mom and several of his friends from Phoenix. As we were sitting down the waitress asked if we were celebrating a birthday, I couldn’t resist, I pointed at Cory thinking he may get some cake and free ice cream, instead he got 14 balloons tied to his head throughout the night. It may not seem like a big deal but it was the funniest thing I had seen in a long time, towards the end Brock started grabbing the balloons and inhaling the helium. It was a riot.

In typical GNC fashion, Sunday brought the rain making it difficult to do much filming; we tried to patiently wait out the rain until we couldn’t wait anymore. We waterproofed our cameras as much as possible and hit the track for some filming. As I watched Tim Farr through my camera lens I was amazed at how fast he looked, he had been in the California/ Arizona area for awhile practicing and getting ready for this race, as well as riding in the indoor races, apparently it is paying off. Behind him for nearly the whole race was the Suzuki freight train of Gust and Jones, trying to put the move on Tim with no avail. At the trophy presentation it was apparent who was leading the whole time by looking at their gear, Tim didn’t have any dirt on him, he ran a flawless race start to finish. After the festivities we packed up Brock’s trailer in the rain and started our trip back home. As you may recall from the last article, we had driven Brock’s truck and trailer out to Phoenix earlier in the year and now it was time to bring it back. The 32 hour drive went pretty well with the exception of the huge snow storm we hit in New Mexico.

After a quick three day stay at home I was on the road again, heading down to St Louis for the final round of the indoor series, I wanted to make sure I went to this race so I could see Innervision rider John Natalie Jr. wrap up the series and take home the year-end award, I was also excited to see Skyler and Brock Race, as well as a few friends from my area. I had planned on racing this one but was unable to because my collarbone hadn’t fully healed yet, Fortunately I was able to talk Dave Sutherland into coming down with me to keep me entertained. Saturday was a busy day as usual, there was so much to do and no one had time to do it. Between practicing, the pit party, rider meetings, and the show starting at 5:30 it was a mad dash all day. To top it off Skyler had electrical complications with his bike during his first lap of practice. After nearly three hours of replacing nearly every piece of his electrical system we discovered his hot wire from his battery was grounding out on the frame causing the problem. Even though he had only one lap of practice he still went out and dominated the first few laps of his heat race. The night seemed to go so fast it was hard to keep up with everything, although in the end John Natalie went home with a perfect score, he won every race he entered (including the dash for cash) and went home with nearly $30,000 worth of prizes for the year. I am extremely glad to see Clear Channel step it up and put that kind of money into an event like this, on top of that, the amount of publicity it gives the sport is undeniable. I am even more excited after a quick chat with Jimmy White, the Formula USA director, he has plans of making the indoors into more of a supercross format, and he is well on his way. This was the first year that quads seemed to be just as big a part of the show as the monster trucks. If you haven’t seen one of these races yet I highly recommend it.

After the races we cruised over to the Holiday Inn across the street from the dome, it was Kory Ellis’ birthday and everyone was over there celebrating, and I mean every one, John Natalie, Michele Reiser, Tim & Julie Farr, Keith (Snowman) Little, Darrell Patton — just to name a few. We of course grabbed the camera and joined along. The night became so crazy words wouldn’t do it justice, only video, and luckily we have that video. By the end of the night Skyler had gotten kicked out the women’s bathroom (twice) and we had hotel guests two floors up from the lounge complaining about the noise, it was a little wild that night to say the least.

After a quick four days at home I was off to Indianapolis, Indiana for the annual Dealer Expo. I love going to this thing, it gives me a chance to see what is coming out in the next couple of years, talk with major industry insiders and hang out with the riders on their very rare weekend off. My producer, Chris Fritz, came along with me on this trip. I thought it would be a good chance to introduce him to the key players in the industry he hasn’t had a chance to meet yet.

As we were driving into Indy, Ryan (Superman) Barnes called me and told me to meet up with him and the guys from Trinity at their hotel bar. When we got there it was very apparent that they had been there for awhile. We then went to a gentlemen’s club with Barnes for a change of scenery. The next day was more walking around and talking with people, I must have walked nearly 20 miles, it is impossible to see everything in the 2 days we were there, but we tried. That night was the last night we were going to be there. We hooked up with Barnes again and the rest of the KY Kult (Zac Willet and Josh Starret). We tried a club called Jillians, it was a pretty nice place in downtown Indy, I was somewhat tired so I stood on the sidelines and watched Barnes try to mack on all the local girls that were there, it was pretty entertaining. Then out of nowhere, 12 of us are piling into a cab to go to the Classy Chassis (not the mechanic’s shop). We spent a few hours there and then headed back towards downtown to call it a night. The next day was even more walking followed by a five hour drive back to Iowa City.

We had plans to go to GNC Round 2 in Lake Whitney the next weekend but due to our insane schedule the past few weeks I was forced to stay home and take care of some business.

Our next trip we have planned is two weeks in Florida beginning March 8th, we have been planning for this for a long time, it should be an awesome trip. Look for more on that in my next column.

 

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