Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Waugh: The whole marketing campaign was convoluted. Brown: It really bothered me that they didn't bother to contact that core audience. Step had this thing where they stuck with it and it just kept gOing. they couldn't do it themselves. He basically said that it was a great film but that it was all a bunch of lies. Waugh: And that's so bizarre. All it would take is one minute of being down there for you to realize that nothing is fabricated. Brown: And you could really overdo it the other way. Another theme that keeps recurring in the movie is that of family. You chronicle the relationships of sever· aI key players in the film, such as J.N. and Jimmy Roberts, Mike McCoy Sr. and "Mouse" [Mike McCoy Jr.], the McMillins, the Smiths•.• Brown: It seemed to come out. You can't go into it with too much of a preconceived notion, but it became really apparent. really unavoidable. Waugh: If you look beyond the movie, it's interesting how if the parents have a passion for a particular sport. how that translates down to the kids. A good example is ice hockey. I've got friends whose fathers were huge ice hockey fans, and now their sons are pros. I don't know if it's genetic chemistry or an affinity for that kind of a sport, but pick any sport and you'll see that there are generations that do it. I know that there were a lot of people itching to see the moyie when it was in theaters, but it was very dif· ficult to find it playing anywhere. Brown: We had a limited "shotgun" release. [Laughs.] It was strange. Waugh: We heard from so many people who were waiting for the movie to come out when it was already gone. Brown: What we found out after the fact is that, for whatever reason, we were only in a few theaters that first weekend, and they [the distributors] really put a lot of stock in how it was going to do that first weekend. It played really well in Los Angeles, but then they moved it out of there. It didn't do as well in New York, so then they were like, "See, look..." and they immediately stopped supporting the thing. Yet it opened in San Diego and set box office records [for a documentary]. It went through the roof. Then in Long Beach it had the weirdest release. They played it in Edwards Theaters, which are really hard to get into, and it stayed in there for five weeks in a place where they're just bloodthirsty, like, "We've got Star Wars on 10 screens, and what's the bottom 10 screens? They're out of here." And Dust outlasted some big-time movies there. Yet where we didn't get any play was in the little art-house theaters. The DVD will be the chance to discover Dust To Glory, which has to be the closest thing that off·road racing has ever come to a version of On Any Sunday. Brown: We're not trying to sell people on it, but I hope that it is given a cha~ce. I believe it will be. On a rental wall or in a DVD store, it will at least get to hang out, and it's much more of a democratic selection process. What's weird is that a lot of the motorsports people I talked to, even while we were filming it, were going, "Is it going to be out on DVm" I'd say, "Yeah, but it's going to be out in the theaters." They'd just say, "When is it going to be out on DVm" Waugh: just check out the movie! While Dust To Glory offers a lot of coverage of the four·wheeled racing in Baja, the motorcycle guys are prominently featured. There is the saga of Mouse McCoy's ironman effort and the battle between the Hondas of Johnny Campbell and Andy Grider. Mouse actually conceptualized the film and is also one of its producers along with Waugh, right? Brown: Mouse is an interesting guy. He came up to me and said, "You guys should do something with the Baja 1000." This was at a deal where we were shOWing Step Into Uquid. I knew that he knew Scotty, but I didn't give it much thought, because people say shit like that all the time. Then Scotty told me that Mouse wanted to meet with me again and talk about it some more. So we met like four or five times, and Scotty said, "Hey, I think we can do this." So then we went and saw the Baja 500, and we were sold on it. But Mouse never said, "Hey you need to put me in the movie," or anything like that. Waugh: Later on, when we were already" in preproduction, Mouse said, "Hey, what do you think about me racing the thing by myself?" At that time we hadn't scouted the course, so we were like, "Yeah, sure." It wasn't until we scouted the course - and it took us five days - that we realized how gnarly that was going to be. But again, we never had any kind of an agenda for this movie. We just said, "We're going to shoot it, and whatever happens, happens." The commentary of multi-time AMA Supercross and Motocross Champion Ricky Johnson really adds a lot to the film, I think. Brown: Yeah, it was interesting how that all worked out. I've known Ricky for a long time, and I didn't even know until afterward that Ricky had won the damn Pro Truck class until way after the movie was done filming. We knew he was down there, but we didn't know he was racing. There are a lot of things that happened in the 2003 Baja 1000 that probably never would or could happen again. Yet you managed to capture a lot of it, such as the Trophy Trucks being puIlecI over by the Mexican police, the trucWmotor home collision at Valle de Trinidad and Johnny Campbelrs questionable run down the beach while trying to catch Andy Grider. Waugh: So much stuff went down so qUickly with us. The start of the race was just chaos. We were having problems with our film crews. We had helicopter issues and all sorts of stuff, and then they came over the radio and told us that all the Trophy Trucks got stopped. The beach stuff with Andy and johnny was simply a case of good fortune. That helicopter unit was actually directed by Mike McCoy Sr. So - and Ifound this out later - they're filming Mouse, and he's doing his thing, and everything's going fine. Then Senior says, "Hey, let's catch up to number one and number two to see what they're doing." The helicopter pilot was like, 'ke you sure?" Senior said, "Yeah, Mouse is fine." They went up front and saw that whole race unfold. After we were done filming, the talk I had with [SCORE president] Sal Fish about that was very interesting. I said, "Sal, I'm letting you know now before you see it, there's a scene where johnny goes on the beach." Sal said, "He didn't go on the beach." I said, "Sal, there's a scene where johnny goes on the beach!" . Brown: We talked with johnny afterward, and he didn't deny it. One of the minor touches in Dust To Gloty that I dWlk a lot or people wi! appo eciate is your nanadve homage to Danny Hamel. Brown: We talked to a lot of people down there, and a lot of people kept coming back to that. Danny was really loved. Waugh: Dana's right. The sense you get is that Danny's accident changed Baja, from the competition among the motorcydists to the manufacturers. After it happened, a lot of that went away. Which makes you wonder how anyone add dWlk that you manufactured the danger in Baja. Brown: Honest to God, how there isn't 40 or 50 deaths every time is amazing. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen. So, Dana, your dad made two surf films and a motorcycle film. I'm sure that once people see Dust To GIoty, they" be hoping that you just stick to one sari film and do another racing 11m. Brown: We'd like to do motorsports again. The people were so nice, and Dust is just.like racing, where- you look at the course and say, "I'd do that differently so that I could go a little faster," or whatever. All these giant, bitchin' dramas unfold in their own little ways. Let's just say that if we were smart. we would do another motorsports movie. I'd love to do another one just to break that whole prejudice that racing is some Cro-Magnon thing that is beneath everybody. Are you satisfied with the way that Oust To Glory turned out? Brown: Step was a long time in the making, there were a lot of things that went on, and I thought about it a long time. This just came up, and Ireally didn't know a thing abut it, and so it's really that much more special to me. Then Hoilywood kind of did what it did to it. It was expected to make a lot of money, but then they kind of abandoned it. I'm just really proud of it. I got a kick out of it. Do you guys feel that you reaIy capIlIred the essence of Baja with Dust To GIoty? Brown: I really wouldn't want to be so arrogant as to weigh in on that. Waugh: All I would say is that we gave it our best s~t. CYCLE NEWS • SEPTEMBER 7,2005 ~ 43

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