Open House & Car Crush
featuring
Big Dawg
It's always a plus when you can kill two birds with one stone. That is exactly what I was able to do back on April 9th when Vinyl Images held their 2nd Anniversay Open House in Fenton Missouri. I had a project nearing its due date for school in my Video Production class in which I had to make a 30second commercial for a product. I was also in need of some monster truck action as April is always a down month. This event provided me the opportunity to get both completely satisfied. But don't get the idea that this was some simple little trip because do I ever have those?
Hey! Whose cool truck is that in the background?
The day kicked off around 3:00 as I had to go over to campus and rent out one of their pricey "billion" dollar video cameras that the school is way too over protective of. I got to Fenton around 4:30 and found the Vinyl Images building which wasn't too hard considering there happened to be a big monster truck parked in the grass.
There weren't too many people around just yet so I used the time to get shots done for the commercial and screw around with ideas. I tracked Doug and Brenda Noelke down and talked with them for a while and explained what I was doing with all this camera equipment I could never afford in my life. After a little bit, the crowd started to thicken and I put the camera away for a while. I was joined by Ed Hoormann who I chat with online occasionally and we did some in person chatting this time and roamed the complex for a bit. Then the food got hauled out and I stuffed my face for a good half hour. I had to make sure I got all the shots I needed for the commercial so it was back to that and it was starting to look like rain was approaching and now way was I chancing this camera in the weather.
Time ticked away and the 6:00 hour came and I was starting to get anxious for some car crushing. Not only that but this was the Friday before Easter and I was heading alllllllll the way back to Chicago as soon as this got over with. I had to drive back to campus and immediately jump into another car for the long haul north. I kept hounding Doug as to when he was going to get the truck out there but even he was unsure. I put in my feelings that 1. it was starting too look like rain and 2. I needed to leave soon! Thankfully I didn't have to wait much longer as by 6:30, Big Dawg was fired up and heading to the field! Dale Gerding would be doing driving today which was very cool as I had not seen him run in almost a year.
All the Vinyl Images personnel knew I was video taping a commercial on the company and they provided me with access to where ever I needed to get the shots. Big Dawg was going to be prominate in the video so I needed some good action shots. But I was going to have to play double duty. I not only had to worry about where the video camera was pointing on the tripod, but I also had to get pictures taken on my camera to use here! Thankfully Ed was around and he helped out big time, thanks again! There were 5 cars out in the big field and Gerding didn't waste time entertaining the near 300 people in attendance.
Dale went for the cars hard from the start and had plenty of running room on both sides for speed. The cars were pretty dilapidated which didn't allow the truck to get very vertical but provided good distance. I was swapping back and forth from making sure I got the shot on video and then click a few pictures so I ended up missing a few shots including one of his biggest jumps. Enough my yackin', here's the rest of the shots.
On his last jump, the truck hit hard on the left front and was tilting to one side. Dale didn't touch the cars again and instead tore up some of the field with a good donut that I totally missed the shot on. Dale parked the truck on what was left of the pathetic looking cars and called it a day. Big ovation from the very pleased crowd.
I packed up in a hurry and said by to folks and hit the road to then, well, hit the road again back to Chicago. VERY Special Thanks to the Vinyl Images team, Noelke's, Rich Inman and Ed Hoormann for every little bit of help during the day. Great time had by all. If you need anything decal-wise done, give Vinyl Images a call! Thanks for reading, Jason Twite.