Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Dust To Glor Commentar A RU4Br DANA BROWN ThenJ are few moments In 11fs.••you feel grestness With its OVO release slated for August 23, Dust To Glorv is ready to grab second gear By SCOTT ROUSSEAU PHOTOS BY SCOTT ROUSSEAU AND BRONWA PIcTuRES took Spanish in high school because it was a require- I ment in order graduate. At the age of 14 and completely unaware of how the world works, I Vividly remember at the time that I thought it was stupid to have to Ieam a foreign language, and I conveyed this to my Spanish teacher. "'Mly should I have to take this language?" I asked him. "I'm never going to go to Spain. I really couldn't care less about it.". He responded, "Then that is why. If you are never going to go to Spain, how else will you get to experience any part of what it has to offer?" I have since visited and revisited the wonderful country of Spain. I loved it both times, and I do wish that I had paid a little more attention in Spanish class. There are lot of people who are going to see the BronWa Pictures film Dust To Glory who are never going to race the Baja 1000, but viewing the film should more than whet their appetites for adventure, opening up the imagination by accurately depicting what Baja is all about. The film brilliantly captures the trials, tribulations and ultimate glory that are experienced by various competitors dUring the 2003 running of the longest point-to-point race in North America. Quite simply, Dust To Glexy is an epic. It is the Ben Hur of racing films. A week before the DVD release, Igot the opportunity to sit down with Dust To Glexy producer Scott Waugh and director Dana Brown. The latter is the son of Endless Summer and On Any Sunday producer Bruce Brown. Prior to Dust To GIorr, Waugh and Dana Brown had teamed up to shoot the critically acclaimed surf film Step Into Uquid. So, you could say that with Dust, 45-year-old Brown has pulled even with his legendary father, producing a surf film and a radngfilm. After viewing the film, I got this Ove! whelming desire to race the Baja 1000, and I'm sure a lot of other pe0ple will, too. But that wasn't the goal here, was it? Brown: No. I think ultimately it doesn't matter if people do or don't want to race it. This is not a recruiting film, and it's not meant to be. I know that a lot of people back East who saw it said that they liked it, "But he's such a cheerleader," meaning me. First of all, why wouldn't I be? Second of all, it's kind of a crazy thing - this adventure that's out there - that is representative to anybody wanting to do something. Maybe you want to race the race, or maybe you want to coach your kid's UttIe League team and you're wondering if you should put your name in for it. That was the spirit that Igot from it. It's people doing something, people saying, "I'm going to try this." Because Baja is a hell of a commitment. There are some real themes that emerge from Dust, such as loving to do it for the love of doing it, not to become rich, and also the sense of family. 42 SEPTEMBER 7,2005 • CYCLE NEWS Brown: We learned that with Step Into Uquid, that sort of zero-return thing as far as the financial thing goes, although with Step the nature of the sport is that it's obviously a lot less expensive to get involved. But the older I get, the more I think that's what it's all about. There's really no quantifiable way to number one. I don't care what movie you do, there's not a moment where they can go, "You're the greatest of all time." You can win every award, and there's still going to be someone who doesn't like you. And it's always moving, and it's also up to the individual. Like in my case, my relationship with my children or my appreciation of my folks or my friends have become way more important than fame. I mean, it's lovely when people come up and say hello and are jazzed to meet you, but it's very limited, and ultimately you realize that the zero-gain things are the most important things. The rewarding things in life are like this race and vice versa. You actually got panned by people who thought you were attempting to overdramatize the race. Waugh: We got ridiculed sometimes [in the press] on Dust To Glory by people saying that we were trying to make it look bitchin' or trying to make it look dangerous or trying to show that these people are real people. You know what? We are documentary filmmakers. We documented what happened there. We didn't fabricate it. Brown: I think it's a very interesting thing that there's that segment of people out there who get really testy if you say, "look at these people enjoying themselves." It really seems to irk them that you can go out and have a good time. We had one critic write a review of the movie and say that he liked the movie, but then in the last paragraph he wrote that he knew for a fact that racing Baja wasn't that dangerous and that these people all needed huge corporate sponsors to do the race and that

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