Come to VIR! Or Summit.. or make it an autocross

 

It would be nice if you posted the procedures to get on "RU Faster than a Redneck." That's probably why you get people posting stuff on FB and making callouts, they want to get on the show but there is no place that says how to.

 

looking over the rules:

I take it no Lexan?

 

I wasnt the one that posted to the FB wall. Ive done a little trash talking to Jon Reep on twitter in jest, thats about it. I dont have the time money or resources to travel to Road America for something that may or may not benefit me in the least. If any of these events ever come closer to me I'll consider it. If they arent running a tire that can cope with the horsepower, and cant drive the car properly on the tires theyve chosen then whats the point of all this?

 

Andy, I only know about how RU Faster Than a Redneck was produced, because Optima works with the same production company that produced that show and I know most of the Rednecks. For the contenders, the production company basically did a casting call. They knew they were going to film at CMP and started hitting the phones and sending out e-mails to clubs, shops, and individuals known to them in that area of the country.

People who responded sent in photos of their cars, along with a list of their modifications, their past driving experience, etc... and the show was cast from that pool. I was out in LA when they were going through casting and I looked through the list and shared my personal knowledge about some of the contenders who responded, whom I knew from events like OLOA. The Rednecks were all known to the production company already, through their relationships in the automotive aftermarket in doing work for various companies, including us.

If the show gets picked up by another network for another season, they may put a casting call out on their Facebook page, but when you're dealing with TV production, it's always safer and cheaper to deal with known quantities- people you've met before, gotten to know and trust will show up, as well as cars you've seen perform and know are not likely to blow up or break down during the day. I'm sure they'd prefer to cast as many of those types of folks as possible.

Our Faceoff event is a great way to meet the folks from that production company and show them that your car can run on a track without blowing up. We had three MR2s at our Faceoff event in Arlington last year, but none of them made it through the weekend. Todd Earsley's Evo won it though and ended up getting invited by us to SEMA and the 2012 OUSCI. You can believe he's probably on their short list of people to call if they go to season two.

The whole “come to my backyard and play by rules that favor me” plea is one I heard for years working for car magazines. That's just not how these things work. Whether it's magazine shoots or TV productions, the folks footing the bill for those endeavors decide where they are going to happen and people who want to be a part of it will find a way to get there. There are no shortage of American musclecar owners who want to be a part of these events and we'll fill fields full of those cars all day long. However, I think we'd all like to see more diversity in these fields, which is why I'm always encouraging import owners to get in on the action.

The point of RU Faster is to make good television and while their show may not win an Emmy, it will appeal to a specific demographic and hopefully, be appealing to networks, advertisers, etc... Our Faceoff event and Ultimate Street Car Invitational are intended to help promote the industry, the people who are active in it and if we can sell a few batteries along the way, that would be nice too.

The producers know about Bruce Cambern's original (and totally built, but still street-legal) Cobra, which won our OUSCI event in 2009 with DOT-legal tires and a ringer driver. If they wanted to include world-beater cars that would totally dominate the racing they could do that, but they know it wouldn't make for very good TV. In our past OUSCI events, redneck Kyle Tucker has run within a few ticks of drivers in fully-prepped cars, who have closets full of SCCA national championships and fellow redneck Brian Finch has been even faster. Put “proper” tires on either of their cars and they're likely to stink up the show as well.

We add a lot of rules to our events along the way for a variety of reasons. The windshield rule may be a requirement for event insurance, but it may also have been added to help keep the field balanced. We already have folks dropping six figures on builds just to get into our competition. We don't need to raise the stakes any higher. Our events also include a cruise portion, which takes place rain or shine (it even snowed on us outside of Vegas two years ago). We want people to have fun in our events, but safety comes first and we don't want anyone driving in the rain on barely-legal tires. We also know that many of the folks who compete in these events don't have tire sponsors and even though we want it to be about fun, we know folks also get competitive. If we dropped below 200 treadwear, folks would find they might not be competitive if they didn't show up with fresh tires at each event. Stickier tires also leads to more aggressive driving, which in the wheel-to-wheel format of RU Faster, may not be such a good thing if folks don't want their cars trashed in a three-lap race.

People who compete in our event at Road America will end up on TV. While that may not be of any value to some folks, I know the businesses that have their products on our competitor's cars see value in that exposure. Todd Earsley ran in two of our events last year and his car will be on SPEED again tomorrow at 4PM ET, for the 11th time in less than a year, with at least two more airings coming up later this year. When Pedro Gonzalez was invited to run in the OUSCI from our Faceoff event last year and companies knew his car was going to be on display at SEMA all week and end up on TV, he ended up getting deals on all kinds of parts for his car. I've watched competitors who are well-established in the aftermarket community do even better. Nine former OUSCI competitors are already registered for this year's Faceoff, even though they know they probably won't be invited back to the OUSCI again. They're coming back, because they know it will be a great time on an amazing track and those opportunities are hard to come by.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

 

Thanks for the reply Jim.

I sent an email to the registrar of the FaceOff event, and it doesn't look like my evo is qualified for this event at all (gutted doors, no wipers, Lexan windshield...). I may have to borrow a friend's street evo, transfer a few parts over, and run that. We'll see.

 

Andy, I think you'll have a great time. Let me know if you have any trouble getting ahold of our event organizers.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

 

i think i can take them on

 

Do it. Sign up here.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

 

Watched my first episode on You tube last night. Not sure if the formate is the same. This was the one with the Sti and the 328 BMW. But if thats the format of the show its pretty embarassing. The trash talk is just sad, they try to create characters for all the participants it was just sad.

Oh well people want there 15 min of fame even if they are made out to look like a dumb import kid or a stupid "redneck".

I will try to find more see if this one episode is a good indication of show.

 

I liked the show. Later episodes showed real world racing and sometimes the Red Necks were beaten at their own game. Keep watching it gets better but take it for what it is. My favorite parts are when the dude in the Camaro smacks a kid for taking the inside line real hard so they crashed into each other, he was DQ'd. That and the **** talking Lambo owner who's tansmission over heated and went into limp mode during a race and coulda been beat by a Kia Optima.