MANGLERMIXER

friday i did a filming gig for seadoo down at lowe’s motor speedway. the jist was… all the top selling seadoo dealers won a trip to the QC to come to jeff gordon’s racing school. they wanted the whole day documented so they hired a couple of video guys to film it. with the idea of showing the video later in the weekend or something. so off i went, leaving the twin cities at dark, then watching the sunrise over the back stretch at charlotte. so weird being in that place and it being completely empty. i was very very tempted to take the tl88 for a lap or two. but then 2 bus loads of dealers showed up, thus activating the “no fun gun”. 

oh, i got a sweet shoulder brace rig, which saved my ass that day. my back would have been ded, yes D-E-D. thanks indifocus!

so the dealers go to ride around this smaller infield track in a souped up ‘stang. they took us for a ride before hand, tons of fun. the drivers were bmw test track drivers, so they gave me one hell of a ride.

then they got to ride in a nascar. well its a slightly modified car, its got a passenger seat. usually i guess they don’t have actual nascar drivers there for this, but seadoo must have dumped a lot of money. a lot of the big name guys were there. pretty cool. 

so the dealers got trained and stuff on how to drive, then they got to drive a car on the track for about 3 laps. they were def stoked. but i was probably equally as stoked when the producer asked me to grab my fisheye and a helmet, for i too was going for a ride. i chose jimmy johnson cause the guy i bought our house from had one of his keys made with a jimmie johnson key.  

it was def an awesome time. sometimes the no fun gun can bring omega fun.

turn 3 at charlotte, hittin about 3g’s at around 180mph. fuuuu-uuuuun!

paid off the tl-88 yesterday. its an awesome feeling to have that weigh lifted off my shoulders(for which my neck is in agony right now). i’m kinda kicking myself for not trying to pay it off sooner. and after looking over my paper work i would have paid like $6000 in interest. fuck that. 16 months and a shitload of work.

here’s to you nicholas financial. your customer service sucks.

headin up to richmond this weekend to cover the FBM ghetto big air for vital. should be a hoot. so many cool people that i haven’t seen in a while. i almost feel disconnected from the bmx world at times. but if its anything like the past fbm ghetto jams it will be nothing but fun and excitement. i’ll be tweet’n throughout the weekend, so check it. and also, jholt.com just relaunched carolinabmx.net. 

dan from dvxuser(shrigg) posted up some unboxing photos of his new panasonic hmc150.

check the rest of his pics out here.

and i’m really really digging this camera. it may be a step down from the HVX codec wise, but cost per GB really persuades me. not to mention better lowlight, wider lens, smaller, lighter, and of course, cheaper.

i started working on a really cool piece yesterday. there is a judge in my area who is a falconer, which means he’s got a pet hawk that he’s training. its pretty sweet. its his second hawk, his first was a female named fionna, which was a very large bird by the way everyone talks about her. roussou, is about 8 months old. he’s a good looking guy, real cute! he whistles and chirps so calmingly. its just amazing to see this type of animal up close, not to mention on the bench.

hopefully i’ll be following the relationship between the judge and roussou for the next couple of months for a documentary i’m working on for the N&R. stay tuned…

Will Stroud flew all over the world to make this video. I helped out by flying to St Louis… But still gonna be one of the most bangin videos of the year.