Tag Archives: Come Drive With Us ’18

IFMAR Worlds Edit

IFMAR Worlds Edit – Day 0

Now that I’ve got the Silver State II release behind me, and have finished a quick edit on the Mike Reedy Heritage Video for the Reedy Race, it’s time to focus on the next project. I’ve decided to start a blog of sorts on the edit of the IFMAR World championships which were held in Perth, Australia last November.

I truly love the IFMAR worlds…especially when it’s a 1/8 scale year! For me, as a fan of the sport of R/C, the excitement of crowning a world champion for the next two years is hard to beat. Plus, I have access to all the drivers, not just the North American ones thus, IFMAR events are my favorite stories to tell.

The shoot at these worlds wasn’t exactly memorable. 45 minutes into 25 hours of travel I realized that I forgot the view finder (EVF) for my A-Camera. Fortunately I packed my B-Camera which has basically the same quality as my A-Camera so it would only be a minor inconvenience until I received my EVF kit it in the mail on day 2 of the 7 day shoot. Next crisis was blowing out two tires on my POS rental car, then I got hit by two buggies while filming, the live broadcasting company turned out to be a bunch of douche bags and MORBC really had no clue how to treat accredited media…

…even with all these issues, this was a very fun Worlds. Over the course of this 7-day shoot I still managed to capture an amazing event. Once the dust settled, and the nitro fumes subsided, I had 2,944 shots!!!

So where do I start? Well, on Day 0 of this edit, which I am going to assume is going to last around 6-weeks, I am adding all the media coverage and race reports from RedRC.net and from NeoBuggy to my SharePoint Portal. I also go through all my notes I took at the event, and add pertinent content to my site. Once I’ve got everything uploaded…I start reading it…all of it.

The next step…watch every single shot, catalog it and add META data. That’s a task for another day. For today, it’s a refresher course on everything that happened in Perth.

*Feature photo credit: Kai Jaeger

News

COME DRIVE WITH US – SILVER STATE II

It’s finally here! Pro-Line Racing & 5150 Media Productions are very happy to present Come Drive With Us – Silver State II.

It’s been a rough few years in this industry; Companies being sold, others going into financial restructuring or disappearing all together! Tracks closing all across the United States, including RC Tracks of Las Vegas. This one hit us hard because of all the time we spent there in 2016; it was a hard blow. No one will ever really know what happened, and it was hard to make heads or tales of the ‘he said / he said’ around it’s closure…but it was a blow for the industry. Then there was the social media fiasco caused by he who shall not be named…It was just blow after blow for the sport loved by so many.

With RCToLV closing, most of the industry just assumed the Silver State Race was dead too. So when the news hit that Joey Wolters Christensen was taking it over again, it started a buzz throughout the industry. We were really looking forward to this race and he knew it would be more like a really big high-school house party right out of the 80s (hence the sound-track I used). This race did not disappoint, and it was exactly what the industry needed.

Join Charlie Suangka as he tells the story of this amazing event.

News

Three Weeks in May

Like basically everyone on the planet…

…Nickelback bugs me more than just a little bit. I mean, since “The State” all their songs essentially sound exactly the same. That being said, they have one song that has has truly inspired me; it’s more the lyrics than the melody (Duh?)…and said lyrics to the song “If Today was Your Last Day” are absolutely beautiful. Here’s an excerpt:

Against the grain should be a way of life. What’s worth the prize is often worth the fight…

For a few years now this has been my professional motto; and it really helped in this crazy Month of May where I had 3 consecutive shoots for 5150 straddling a conference for my day-job (Which was awesome – I have the best Boss ever) and a trip to head office.

The Silver State Race

This event was the 3rd best event I’ve ever gone to. Period. In case anyone was wondering…first is the Messina words cause I’m patriotic and I consider the Tessmann’s to be friends. Plus Italians are nuts about racing and that post win Mob was absolutely amazing. Second place…AXIALFEST. I can’t explain why it’s awesomeness is so awesomely awesome, but it’s awesome! Silver State II, as I have dubbed it, has now joined “The Drach” elite!

When word got out that R/C Tracks of Las Vegas, premiere facility hosting the World Championships as well as many other Events  was closing…I was gutted. One of the first things I thought was “What about the Silver State Race?” Enter Joey Christensen; famed Track builder and event Promoter to the rescue!

Joey had worked out a deal with the Southpoint Hotel & Casino to host Silver State indoors for the first time in that races history. Not only that, it was the first major indoor race on the west coast. The equestrian center made for the perfect venue; add to that the amenities that the casino had to offer and this was almost guaranteed to be a great race.

While there were a few things that could have been improved, like the Driver Stand (or lack of one), and the smoke coupled with an endless cloud of dust, this event went off smooth; without a single hitch actually. While there might have been a few “Driver Stand” shenanigans, there really wasn’t a lot of negative drama. After #WaldoGate this is exactly what the industry needed. A highly competitive race with an overwhelmingly positive vibe!

The track developed TONS of Character #bing and made for some absolutely intense racing. It started off with an epic Truggy final which saw Ty drive his XT8 harder than I’ve seen him drive a R/C vehicle ever. It was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen; it was almost as impressive as the rough track driving clinic that Jared Tebo put on. This was the perfect track for Jared and he won the Truggy event with what looked like relative ease. He wasn’t as fast as Ty, but he was nearly flawless over the course of the 45 minute Truggy Final.

Fortunately for Ty, he’s a quick study; he used the lessons learned in the Truggy main and applied what he saw Jared doing in the Truggy final. There was just one tiny obstacle…Ryan Maifield. Even though Maifield and Ty swapped the lead several times, Ryan led most of the race. Ty with much improved his consistency in the second half of the race pressured Ryan and took the lead for the final time on lap 68. Ryan would finish 2nd with Jared Tebo rounding out the Podium.

I’m absolutely stoked that I was there to capture the entire story of this inaugural indoor Silver State Race. Joey Christensen, you are the man! This was a Brilliant Event!!!

Look for “Come Drive With Us – Silver State II” to hit my YouTube Channel sometime in 2018 🙂

Service-Now Knowledge 18 Conference

When I tell some of my fans that I actually have a day-job outside of film production many of them are dumbfounded. But it’s true, I have an amazing job with an amazing company. I manage a software team for the Ledcor group of Companies. Between shoots, I attended the Knowledge 18 user group conference, it was awesome! The size of the conference blew me away; with over 18,000 attendees this was the biggest conference I’d ever gone to. My team learned a ton about this amazing platform and we’re excited about expanding our use of Service-Now.

 
JBRL Round #2 – Palm Desert RC Raceway

Immediately following Knowledge 18, I rented a C7 and zipped over to SoCal for another shoot.

JBRL is a series that runs 8 events in Southern California; and in so many ways, it’s exactly what the industry needs. To me it felt more like a club race that your typical SoCal event. The only pro drivers were my pal Adam Drake and Tekno RC’s Mason Eppley.

I’m trying something a bit different for “Come Drive With Us – JBRL“; the plan is to go to 3 JBRL races and edit them together into a single episode. I would liked to have made the season opener at Thunder Alley, but family responsibilities and an ailing father prevented it.; round 2 will be the firs of the three events I cover. Held at Palm Desert RC Raceway, this was the first JBRL I’d ever been to and it was also the first race I’d been to with such a low pro driver count. I expected this to make the event a bit more low-key. This was not the case. There were some very big personalities there!

The track was cool, the racing was exciting, but I didn’t really find a good story to tell yet. Looking forward to the next JBRL race; I believe it will be July 14th at Dialed In RC Raceway!

Pro-Line’s “By the Fire”

Yesssss! We’re slowing things down again….well on the rocks at least. Enterprise gave me a pretty dialed upgrade…now they call me KOWALSKI.#DidNOTMeasureTreadDepth #Hemi #SmokeShowX4 #24MPG

I absolutely love covering Rock-Crawling events. It’s one of the fastest growing segments in all of Radio Control; and with each manufacturers are showing off new innovations. This event had Pro-Line Release their new “Predator” compound as well as Hobbywing released their new “AXE” completely waterproof sensored brushless system specifically designed for Rock Crawling.

The location was amazing and the rocks made for some very challenging course that took over 4 hours to complete. Rock crawling was only a small part of this event though. Here’s a few things my Video will cover:

  • Show ‘n’ Shine
  • Scale Crawl
  • Comp Crawl
  • Comp Scale Crawl
  • Dead Lift
  • Monster Truck Race
  • Scale City
  • Mud Run
  • Night Crawl

  

While this is a lot of content, the event was a bit too short to include it into the “Come Drive With Us” Series. This one will be a stand-alone video and we’re looking at releasing towards the beginning of July.

Now back to editing the 2017 Xiamen Worlds…it’s going to be something very very special.