Discovery Channel Tonight: Bonneville

Ha I finally got my 3 seconds of fame. My brother and I both had short speaking parts during the tech inspection coverage. Those Discovery guys we're all over us which was kind of annoying at the time but I really dig any kind of coverage us land speed guys get. I was really trying hard not to have to say "you have a huge gapping hole in your firewall" on national television...

Yes the show was over dramatized but it was entertaining none the less. I think they did a fairly good job explaining the whole process and how the courses are laid out and what not. For your average Job Blow who doesn't know a thing about Bonneville the program was probably fairly informative and interesting.

Yes Leslie is smoking hot and amazingly brave to ride a NAKED turbocharged 'Busa over 200 mph. That's just plain fucking crazy if you ask me.

George must have enough money to buy good taste because he has some super nice cars. Both he and Troy are very down to earth people. I was lucky enough to be the first inspector to check out the "Blow Fish" when it was new. That car is seriously a work of art.

Some more exposure of some other cars would have been cool but I was stoked just to hear some blower motors get fired up. Oh man I can't wait until August...

 

Old Crow was shown! In one of the opening photo montages about 5-10 minutes into it, you got a 2-3 second shot of the tank at speed with sound.. the only portion of the car you see is the part of the tank that says OLD CROW. Not much, but gave me a glimer of hope in the begining... anyone from Aussie Land gonna record adn make DVD's of it for us???

 

It kind of left the impression that Speed week consists of about 10-15 high dollar cars and little else. I can see if they are going to do a show about a specific team, but if they advertize a show about the whole event, they should show the whole spectrum of what is going on... On the other hand, how many shows about Bonneville were on this week? at least its something.

 

I dreamt i was her motorcycle seat going 208....

 

I just want to see the cars going by at speed. Who could get tired of that??

 

It sure beat watching snow fall. Pretty hard in a 50 minute show to feature all, or even a small portion of, the variety of cars and participants at Speed Week. I spotted several early style rods being driven on the salt, the closing shot was killer, the red "A" sedan, and I thought I saw "Old Crow" in action. Just showing some early style rods that aren't "rat rods" (or unfinished POS's littering ebay these days) I think is a plus.

I've never been, but it made me want to go!

Brian

 

It was OK.

I'm glad I caught it and all, but I would have preferred a little history and old footage to compliment the newer stuff.

As far as the chick is concerned, yeah she's pretty hot and definitely a ballsy chick for riding a naked bike past 200 and all, but I thought they spent way too much time on her. There are probably 200 other people there I would have rather heard about.

All in all I'd probably watch it again if it came on.

 

I'll always watch anything about land speed racing, but that was kind of lame.

Am I the only human who likes pure information? Why do they have to try to add all the drama and shit to every TV show made these days? The whole "She crashed! Will She survive? Stay Tuned!" stuff is such belittling and insulting bullshit. I don't need to be tricked into watching the next segment. If anything, that kind of stuff makes me want to change the channel just to give them the finger. If the subject is interesting I'll stick around.

Give me a comprehensive DOCUMENTARY! I'll take that over forced drama any day.

If I was to make the show:

-Select a streamliner, motorcycle, roadster and door-slammer to follow. Build the history of each category with historical footage (lots of it!) and the subsequent evolution of each.

-Within those same categories, speculate a little about the future of each. Find shops building the "next" contender.

-No created drama. The whole experience and process is dramatic on it's own. There is just as much inherent drama in prepping a car for a year, only to have it fail, as there is in having it succeed. (They tried to save the "disappointments" for the end, like they felt they had to include them, but at the end so I wouldn't change the channel). I would have more respect for my viewers.

 

I have a couple of coffee shop buddies that go out with the Camel Toe Racing team and it was fun watching them psyched up for the Blowfish runs.

Discovery does not make this stuff for gear heads. They make it to appeal to their audience base. That includes some of us. And a lot of folks that don't know what side of their car the gas filler is on.

I'll watch it again.

 

well I saw hooleys studebaker about 5 times in it, it was filler between shots and in the opening moments of it, even saw the number on the door once, and he did set the new record of 249 mph and it was a home built car not exactly cheap like is implied often on here but home built and very hamb friendly .... I enjoyed it , more than a boring drama weekly csi or something. It was bonneville, any shot of that is worth watching

 

Kirk.......that is an outstanding format, and any car guy/girl would watch it. You know that the mainstream media folks don't play to us!!! They need all that bullshit and the high dollar factor to help validate the show. I think that they,the producers, underestimate the depth of many viewers desire to see truly good stuff.

I think that you should use your connections and your format to develope what sounds to be a bitchin' film. I'm with ya!!!!

 

pretty good. liked that the honey came back after her injury to break the record. could have used the old crow segment, and some more hot rods. better than nothing.

 

I must have blinked a couple times - saw Hooley 3 times....I think. Good shots of a lot of great competitors and their cars but as most have said, too much inane chatter. I particularly found the "rider down" dubbed in to be extremely annoying.

Better than no coverage, but just barely to insiders.

Charlie

 

I was not let down because I didn't really expect much more. I saw a real TV show about a real Bonneville meet. What's not to like? It didn't blow me away but it's not like I missed "Dancing with the idiots" or "Help my mother pick my loser bride." Appreciate what little we get.

 

I, for one, enjoyed the show.... and I was there! Really, what do you expect? It's a mainstream TV show.

Yep, some scenes were shown more than once, and they may have catered to the masses with some of the coverage and storylines.... Did they have to cover Speedweek at all??? Nope... But I sure am glad they did.



Malcolm

 

I truly enjoyed it, I am still blown away at the thought of 763 miles per hour for the land speed record. What exactly does a bug hitting the windshield look like at that speed?

 

Come on, we all know that anything presented directly to us isn't gonna be all that good, you've got to search out the good stuff... Ahem, look down.

 

I agree with Kirk on this one.
I realise its 2008 but they could of started the program off from the 40's and 50's with original footage, gradually went to the 1960's with Micky Thompson and Breedlove, then moved up to today's racing. Everything they concentrated on was modern high tech stuff. They should of showed the viewers that there are a lot of teams out there on a budget still rebuilding engines at night on pic nic tables under canopies - the way it was in the beginning. And most importantly a handful of these small income teams are kickin tail and still breaking records!

Instead they talk about million dollar operations and crash after crash, and "will he survive"? stay tuned". My wife knows nothing about this sort of thing and thought it was too Hollywood.

Discovery channel, if you're reading this, i personally think you screwed up!

 

I don't think one could hit the windshield. I'd think the air flow over and around the car would prevent it.

 

Sucked balls IMO. I did catch a glimpse of the Old Crow car for a split second. Blonde was hot, that's about it. $ .02

 

Set!

 

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Do they actually think we're sitting there biting our nails through the commercials saying "OH GOD!!!! IS SHE DEAD???"

Hey, once again...if it's on again I'll probably watch it again. It wasn't unwatchable or anything, but it could have been better. And I don't think there's anything wrong with a little constructive criticism.

Next time give us a little more than 3 characters, talk about some of the little guys, and a little history would be nice too, that's all.

 

IDEA!!!

Okay, little background here, I was there for Sunday (tech). Had to leave for a training seminar that started that Monday (but at least I got to be feet on the ground there for a day ).

I saw the Discovery TV crew all over the place, not just with Old Crow, but IIRC roughly 1/2 dozen other teams as well (+ Old Crow, so 7 that didn't make 'the show').

So I was thinking, right before I left work this morning, 'gee they've got enough 'extra' footage for another episode'. . . .

Could it be??

Are we selling them short???

Is there a Speed Capitol of the World: Bonniville II on the horizon?



Or should I just quit drinkin' this early in the morning?

 

I agree, they should of done some history with it as well as present day footage. Seemed boring to me, almost fell asleep.

 

Personaly I thought they should have spent some time on Packard powered cars. It was painful to see the 7070 'liner knowing what was comming up.

 

I was involved in a Disc. Channel Biker Buildoff shoot, including driving the camera bike, and they shot for 3 full weeks pretty much all day every day, and the final edit was 40 minutes of air time. The post production people can make a great show boring with their choices of what to keep and what to discard. It's really sad to know how much really great camera work is discarded, that job would drive me nuts because I hate to waste and/or discard anything. We tried to get some of the discarded footage to use for our own use, and they said no way. I'm not saying there won't be another show, just saying don't read anything into all the filming. And don't let me interfere with your drinking!

 

We need a station like PBS to do a documentry on Bonneville.

 

FYI ... PBS already did air a documentary about Bonneville ... "Gullwing At Twilight" by Chris Szwedo ... a very well done film about 87 year old John Fitch driving a (Lynn Yakel prepared) 1955 Mercedes Benz 300SL Gullwing @ B'ville ... IMHO, it was the human interest part of the story that made this particular "TV Show" work so well.

As for the "Speed Capital of the World: Bonneville" TV show ... I'll have to agree with most of the others ... worth a watch ... but I could certainly do without all of their version of "human interest" sub-stories (Reality TV drama).

 

Saddly, like raising the Mammoth, discovery turns it into the Troy Treppanier show.

I think if you watch worlds fastest indian, you will get more out of Bonneville.

 

Oh fuck! Don't even get me started on Raising the Mammoth. I so looked forward to that and it turned out to be the biggest pile of shit.