Through The Lens

By Brad Phillips

New Year’s weekend at Glamis, a fireworks war, five cop cars, two fire trucks, a 45 foot Yamaha Rhino jump, a Yamaha Rhino roll, jumping a new Daewoo car over a tabletop, a 32 hour road trip in Skyler Stewarts’ rig, racing in front of a sold out Houston crowd, and a broken collar bone…Wow! I love my job! (Except for my broken collar bone part of it). That is a quick summary of our recent eventful trip with Brock Lyons and Skyler Stewart.

When I told Skyler Stewart I wanted to go to Glamis for New Year’s to film for Carpe Diem 2, he suggested that we stop by Phoenix on the way. After reviewing our last trip there, I quickly agreed to the suggestion. I called Brock Lyons to see if he was busy for the next three weeks. Luckily he wasn’t and was looking for a place to ride so he came along too. Due to the amount of time we were going to be spending out there and the amount of equipment we needed to bring, we decided to drive the 22 hours to Phoenix. Brock pulled into my driveway around ten at night, we quickly loaded my gear into his 40 foot gooseneck trailer in hopes that we could make it to Brooklyn, Iowa (about an hour drive) by midnight to meet up with Dave Sutherland. Dave was celebrating his girlfriend’s birthday at a nearby club, unfortunately we didn’t make it to Brooklyn in time so we made a 10 mile detour to stop by his house in Montezuma, Iowa. At first it seemed like a reasonable thing to do, until a deer ran out in front of us. Although Brock tried to dodge it, we ended up clipping the deer on the left side of his ‘04 Chevy 3500 Duramax, destroying his rear fender and putting a dent in his door and quarter panel. After we blamed Dave for making us go off our route and hitting the deer we were on the road again. At the end of an otherwise uneventful drive we pulled into Phoenix 22 hours later. The next couple of days served as a form of preparation and regrouping. Actually we just screwed around.

 Friday, Brock, Jordan, and I headed for the dunes, leaving Skyler behind to get his quad ready for the Houston indoor that was coming up the next weekend. We spent two days at Glamis, filming, riding, and just having a good time. I am a virtual virgin to dune activity until I started Innervision so it was really cool to see all the crazy stuff that goes on there and all of the sweet machines that were rolling around. We were able to catch some awesome drag racing, witness the races up comp hill, and just ride around the immensely large area.

When we returned to Skylers from Glamis there was at least 30-40 people out on his track around a bonfire, we grabbed the camera and quickly joined the festivities. About 10 minutes after we got to the party we heard one of Skylers friends wanted to jump a 30 foot double on his BMX bike, he turned out to be all talk. After a noticeable slow-down in activities around the bonfire we broke out the fireworks. It started out innocently enough with a few bottle rockets being shot into nearby fields and up into the air, then it got a little out of hand, mortars got thrown into the fire, bottle rockets became missiles, and everyone was trying to dodge the roman candles. Luckily, we ran out of fireworks about 10 minutes before the police and fire trucks showed up.

 Looking for a way to entertain ourselves with something that didn’t require fire, we turned to the Yamaha Rhino. Bla and I started sizing up Skylers 45 foot tabletop, after a few practice runs we slowly built up the courage to clear the jump. I am amazed at how straight the Rhino flies and how well it lands, we hit the jump 20-25 times until we blew a tire and had to quit. Not to be upstaged, one of Skylers friends attempted to clear the jump in his new Daewoo car, he made several attempts, with the last ending in about a 20 ft jump and trip off the side of the tabletop nearly rolling the car, thus ending our night.

The next day the rain started. Rain in Phoenix? Yep, according to Skylers older brother, the most rain they have had in over 5 years. After witnessing most of the Phoenix area go under water we decided to load up early and head to Texas for the first indoor at Reliant Stadium in Houston. In need of a track to practice at, we called John Natalie Jr., when we met up with John at a practice track we were immediately greeted by some of the nicest most dedicated racers I have ever met, Dee and Michelle Manshack of Rage ATV and STQRA (South Texas Quad Racing Association). They were generous enough to let us ride and film at the track they run, as well as help us out with anything we needed, they were the definition of southern hospitality. After 2 days of practice on one of the best tracks I have been to, we left for Reliant Stadium.

There was a pretty good turnout at the event all though I would have liked to see more pros there, maybe next year. The Formula USA group definitely has their stuff together, I am sure we can expect great things from them in the future. All of the Innervision racers did an awesome job with three of them (John Natalie, Brock Lyons, and Skyler Stewart) finishing 1-2-3 in the Heat and John winning the whole thing with Tim Farr and Keith Little close behind. Unfortunately for me, I had a nasty crash in practice and broke my collar bone in two spots, however I didn’t realize it until I went to the hospital two days later, so I still raced my qualifier and ripped my shoulder apart even more. I was hopping to follow the circuit but I may have to wait until next year now.

We started our 18 hour drive back to Phoenix the next morning, the day trip went fairly smooth until I took over and the rest of the guys decided to add a little liquid encouragement to the mix. Before long we had Skyler singing show tunes, making a rap video, and just running around the rig like a crazy man. When we hit El Paso, TX we decided to stop by a club for a couple hours and then call it a night.

 The next day we finished our drive to Phoenix and spent the remainder of the night in the hospital due to my broken collar bone. Tuesday Skyler and Brock practiced during the day while I caught up on some much needed work. At night Jordan and I drove to Scottsdale to pick up Bla, then down to Gameworks, to meet up with my sister and her new boyfriend. After about 30 minutes at Gameworks all five of us drove to Skylers where the party was already in progress. Bla started a bonfire with some old pallets, Skyler ran around dancing and just being Skyler, Brock was in bed after a hard long day of practicing, and my 25 year old sister was driving the Rhino around with Jordan in it. Anyone that has driven a Rhino would not be surprised to hear that my last words of advice to my sister were “Rhinos have a tendency to roll over very easily.” Of course she proved that fact after cutting a hard left on gravel at 40 MPH, rolling the machine on its side and sliding for about 10 feet. Jordan suffered some bad rashes on his right side and his right knee was extremely swollen, Jeni was saved by Jordans body and wasn’t hurt too bad. Of course I was pretty mad at her.

Wednesday Skyler, Brock, and Keith Little practiced together at Speedworld. The day was fairly basic until Skyler used the porta-potty and his buddy ran into it with his bike and then kicked it over, Skyler escaped without harm or much extra stench.

I flew home on Thursday so I could catch up on my work in the office. I will be flying back out for the Formula USA indoor in Phoenix and then back again February 23rd so we can drive to Lake Whitney for round 2 of the GNC series. Look for reports on those trips when we return.

Once again we had a very eventful and fun trip to Phoenix and we are looking forward to our next one, the chance to hang out with Skyler, Bla, and all the others is easily worth the trip in my opinion. I leave you with some words of advice from Innervision rider Brock Lyons, “Just leave it pinned, it will all work out.”

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