Original subtitles

Rad is the story of a small-town boy, Crew Jones, who is getting ready to take

his SATs, and there is a big BMX event coming to town called Hell Track.

Through a series of unlikely events, Crew Jones qualifies for Hell Track and

eventually races and wins Hell Track.

How was that guy?

If you have a sport and you have a movie about your sport, that's it.

For BMX, it's Rad.

Rad the movie, you couldn't have named it anything else except Rad.

I understand the development of Rad came through the writer Sam Bernard, who just

happened to see some BMX riders on the street one day. Sam came to me with the

idea to make a Rocky-esque type story about... this new, fast-growing

sport called BMX. And I thought it was a good idea, and I went to Hal Needham,

who directed Smoking the Bandit, and written it with him.

Robert Levy and I had worked together on Smoking the Bandit, and he and Sam

were good friends. I didn't know Sam, and told me what they thought it would

do and their plans and everything and what I cared to get involved.

Never dreaming it was going to be what it is.

Never even give it a thought.

The Karate Kid, I think, was a little bit before us, and I think that that was

very much on our minds. It was successful.

It was about something that was just becoming into the media consciousness.

So I think we had a lot of help, but I think it was natural.

My reputation as a director was Smokey and the Bandit, Hooper, Cannonball Run,

and all those kind of things. This was a little different, and I wanted to give

it a whirl. And when we met the wonderful man, Jack Schwartzman, And his

wife, Talia Shire, and they had a company that was funding movies.

And they had a number of young children. And it was kind of a perfect marriage

because they wanted to make something for the kids. This was a kid's movie.

Listen, we called it Rocky on Bikes as it fits.

I said, oh, I think this is something I could be different with.

The script, as I read it the first time, was pretty much how we shot it. I think

the title Rad was a working title.

A lot of people weren't.

really understood what that word meant.

I mean, it wasn't that much in the lexicon quite yet.

And Hal was the go-to guy for stunt movies at the time.

Hal, you know, was a legend in every way. And, yeah, he was such an icon. I

mean, he shot fast.

He energized the crew.

He knew exactly what he wanted. So if he had it, he moved on.

He'd done every car stunt there ever was.

you know, basically.

So that was like trying to bring his talent to a different kind of... I was

real familiar with motorcycle because I raced the Desert, I raced TT and so on

and so forth.

And there's a great similarity, you know. And when they gave me the script

for Rad, I compared the one to the other and

I...

Got a hold of some of the pros and found out what they could do and what they

couldn't and everything.

And I just thought it would be a step forward for BMX. And so that's the

reason I took the job.

And he didn't believe any of this at first.

We really had to talk him into it. We really had to talk him into it. He just

was like, eh, bicycle.

We were, at the time, we were casting for Rad, and I was watching Hill Street

Blues, or was it? I don't know. Anyway, I think it was a Cop and Robber thing.

But I watched him, and I thought, that kid's got to look.

He's got the age and everything.

So I went into Jack Schwartzman, the producer.

I went in and told him, I said, I've got a kid I want you to look at because I

think he's really got what we're looking for.

And he said, do you like him? I said, yeah. He said, we'll cast him. And

that's the way he got the part.

Well, I was something of an anomaly because I wasn't a Hollywood actor, had

no acting experience, and I wasn't a BMX rider.

But shortly after the 1984 Olympics, I had a fairly high amount of visibility.

I had an agent in New York, and I was doing appearances and promotional

things, and I got a call one day, and they said, there's a director in L.A.

named Hal Needham. You might remember him from Smokey and the Bandit and

Cannonball Run. He wants to talk to you about a movie they're doing about BMX.

And this is completely out of the blue. So I'm like, wow, I mean, I don't ride,

but any athlete is excited about an opportunity that comes along, especially

from Hollywood, I mean, of course.

And so he said, I'm going to stop in Oklahoma. I'd like to have a cup of

coffee with you. And they sent me some lines and stuff. So I was practicing the

lines. I've never auditioned for anything and kind of nervous to meet

him. And he shows up at the airport and I went up to pick him up. And I'm a car

guy as well. And I pick him up in a turbo Porsche.

And we drove around town and we talked about cars for about an hour.

And I said, do you want to sit down somewhere and run some of these lines?

And he goes, oh, no, you're in my movie. Just take me back to the airport. We're

good. And so that was my audition. We just talked cars for an hour.

How is your typical Southern gentleman? And you would not know that just by

meeting the guy right off the bat. All I knew was, here's a guy who directed

Smokey the Bandit.

But being a guy from the South and being used to being around good old boys, we

got along great. I can tell you that the night before filming, he asked that I

show up on time.

And he just related to me a story of...

directing Cannonball Run 2 with Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine right after

she won the Oscar and Dino and Sammy Davis Jr.

He said he had 25 star trailers out in the desert and nobody would show up onto

the set until everybody else was on the set.

He said, so just please be on time. I'm like, it's not going to be a problem. It

only took about two seconds to figure out that Hal Needham was the boss.

And I suffered two chew-outs.

But on the same hand, I suffered a couple of attaboys from Hal Needham,

too. But he was the big cheese and a great guy.

Lori Loughlin was my co-star in the movie. And the reason you hire a Lori

Loughlin, or Lori Loughlin in particular, is so that you can fall in

love with her from frame one. There doesn't have to be explanation. There

doesn't have to be a whole backstory.

She's the kind of person you fall in love with just by seeing her. She was so

nice and so sweet to all of us that, you know, no wonder we all had a crush on

her. Did I have a crush on her? Well, yes, of course.

Jack Weston, watching Jack Weston.

Twilight Zone episodes and a million movies.

Ray Walston, who played Mr. Timmer in it, he was in the original production of

South Pacific.

HB obviously was fun.

HB was our first choice, but, you know, I mean, he was so perfect for it, and he

was great.

You know, he would have been a wrestler.

But we wanted a wrestler. We wanted that kind of guy. We wanted bigger than life.

We wanted, you know, very Americana, you know, apple pie.

Ray Walston and those guys, Alfie Wise, I mean... That was so cool because these

are all Hal's buddies. You know, he just bought all of his pals up there to be in

that film. And so for us, that was a thrill because we're just a bunch of

kids in our first movie, and all of a sudden we're in scenes with these, you

know, Hollywood icons. That was so sweet.

I was surprisingly cast in I think what they call a principal role, a co-star in

the movie as Luke, who turns out to be best friend to crew, boyfriend

to Becky, and just all around. a great BMX rider.

Well, not me personally, but the great fellows who did the stunt work. I got

along with Laura Jacoby was her name really well.

You want to be careful about working with kids or animals because, man, they

can steal a scene just like that. And she was one of those scene stealers.

Talia Shire was my boss on this shoot.

Not only was she my boss, but I had seen her in all the Rocky films. I had seen

her in the Godfather films. A very huge thing for a young actor to be around

somebody who is such a luminary in the business.

And the best thing is she's like everybody's mom on the set.

She's the most wonderful, warm-hearted person.

Rad is such a stunt-heavy movie that...

I pretty much had to fit into the mold that they had for me, not vice versa.

Eddie Fiola, who did most of my stunt writings, very dark skin, dark hair, so

I ended up dyeing my hair black to match the stunt guy. That never happens.

You know, I'm just what happened to be crew's stunt double most of the time, or

you could say that crew was my acting double.

It just shows you how much the stunts meant to this movie and how important it

was for me.

to look like a stunt writer. What's good is that Martin and I, we do a lot of

different tricks. So I'm like, he doesn't do a lot of tricks I do. I don't

do a lot of tricks he does. So in the movie, it really made a lot of sense to

keep us both in it to where he could do the things that I couldn't do, and it

worked out really well.

Even after knowing what they can do, I was in awe.

How's innovation as a director, however, is that he sets up maybe a half a dozen

cameras in these action scenes and lets the writers do what they do, crash as

they do, and weave that into the storyline. So that, I would say, is how

things change to take events that actually took place on the set and weave

that into the storyline.

I used to consider myself a pretty good gymnast and athlete, you know, but they

were doing things I'm going, how the hell they do that?

I mean, a guy was doing a handstand, feet up in the air, riding on the front

wheel and everything, and I'm going, wow, what balance, what strength it

takes to do that. They were wonderful.

Hal has a reputation for being rough on stuntmen because he was the highest paid

stuntman of his time.

No special effects back then, you know, everything was real.

If we crashed and got hurt, you have to wait a couple hours until we got better.

Luckily, I was an actor under Hal, not a stuntman, because these guys...

earned their pay.

The interesting thing about this shoot was it was probably the only stunt-heavy

film that Hal was ever on, I don't think he was ever on any other kind of movie,

that he didn't know the stunts better than Stuntman. He was not a BMX rider,

so he had to trust these kids.

Being a stuntman, I didn't want to take advantage of those kids, so when they

did something accidental or on purpose, we compensated them for it.

But I got quite a few freebies, if you want to call them that, things that

weren't planned.

There's free stunts. The free stunts are when guys just eat it great on camera,

unplanned, but that's a free stunt.

And there were a couple memorable free stunts. Eddie Fiola.

As Crew Jones wiping out. All I remember is getting up from off the ground and

saying, where am I at? What am I doing?

We regrouped and Hal just said, okay, now we're going to take it from here. As

if you already fell, you'll get out of the bushes and then take off again. So

that's what we did. That was not planned. And he suffered a concussion.

If you watch that thing again, now that you know that that wasn't planned, he

got racked.

And he was a trooper. And that rung his bell really good. So we're talking about

very dangerous stunts.

And that's what Hal needed. And that was his stock in trade.

And I thought he just did a brilliant job at capturing that.

You know, people out there riding the bikes are real. But I remember that

headshot that Eddie took was quite scary. But that dude, to his credit, you

know, stayed in his character and got up and took off and I think asked for more

money.

I would have paid him.

And we knew that the backflip was going to be the biggest stunt.

And I found out it was also the highest paid stunt.

So I had this brainstorm.

Oh, wow.

So I saddled myself up next to Hal Needham, and I said, Hal, you don't have

a really spectacular crash yet. Do you think maybe when we go around this turn

here, this berm, what if I fly out over the top and wreck?

And he said, yeah, that'd be great.

I said, okay.

You know, I'll do that for $300.

And he just kind of looked at me, and he goes, okay, Hollywood, go ahead.

So we shot the movie, and you know what I'm doing, and I fly over the berm, and

I pull my bike over, and it looks spectacular, and it was great.

A few days later, we're shooting the part where we're going up, jumping the

Canyon of Death or whatever it was, making it up to the top of the ramp.

We're shooting that, and just as I found out we were shooting that, I saddled

myself over to Hal Needham, and I got up next to him, and I said,

Hey, Hal, you know, wouldn't it be kind of cool if somebody went up there and

they didn't quite make it and they fell all the way to the bottom?

And he just looked at me and he laughed and he goes, how much is that going to

cost me, Hollywood?

Barely making it.

And Mike Miranda is out.

Being a stuntman.

I did the same thing. I'd look for a spot to go talk to the director and say,

hey, what if while you're doing that scene, what if the guy did a fall over

here or something, you know? So I picked up a lot of stunts like that. And so

that's what he was doing. He said, hey, listen, what if I come over here and I

slid off and I went in the water or whatever it might be? And I said, do it.

You know, I mean, if he wanted to make a few bucks, I'm willing to go for that.

Now, not being a Hollywood stuntman, but knowing that Hal Needham came from these

big stunt movies, I thought, oh, this is going to be great. There'll probably be

helicopters filming overhead and these giant airbags.

No, we were on a budget. I fell into three cardboard boxes. That's it, into

cardboard boxes.

And, you know, the funny thing was, you know, I'm no stuntman, like I said. So

all I tried to do was fall and, you know, try to dive off and make sure I

landed flat on my back.

And nobody told me, hey, don't hold your breath.

When I hit those boxes, all my wind came out, man. And I was like, oh, and I

scrambled out of the boxes.

And people were clapping. And Hal Needham was right there when I stepped

out of the box. How about another take?

First of all, we came to Canada because at that time, the American dollar was

stronger. And so we could get more for less here.

So I decided I'd shot a movie up here in Canada, in Calgary, in fact, called

Little Big Man. So I kind of knew the area.

So I called the film commissioner and told him what I was looking for, and I

knew what I wanted, and they understood real quick. So it worked out.

Calgary was, Calgary, basically, we went to Calgary because Calgary was one of

the first places to actually embrace.

and help finance movies, you know, and incentives.

And they had a commission, basically opened the doors, you know,

for Cochran and for Calgary to us and gave us access to everything. So we knew

that park, everything around.

And also we could fly nonstop from Los Angeles.

That was a great hotel deal. You know, made it really fun and easy for us to

make the movie there.

You know, this is my backyard, being here in Calgary and in Cochrane shooting

this movie. So I was living this double life for a while. I had a trailer.

I had a little chair with my name on it. Yet I knew all along that, you know, the

jackass that I really was, yet here I was sort of placed in this sort of

special spot. So I was kind of living this double life as some sort of a fancy

guy on the set, yet...

There was my friends in the audience or people hanging around that I knew. So it

was a weird sort of double existence for me, but I don't think I ever, well,

maybe I did, but I don't think I ever lost touch with the reality of it. But

it was very surreal to be here, to be in this place, my home, a place I'd been

in, and yet now it had been descended upon by this filmmaking crew.

And to this day, people ask me, well, are you enjoying your visit from L.A.?

No, no, I live here all the time.

No, I really don't remember Cochran much. It was a small town, and I had

never heard of it. But, you know, I'm like most Americans. I couldn't tell you

who the king of Canada is.

On a movie set, there's often click.

And certainly the writers were a click.

The cast was another click. The crew was another click.

Generally at the daily screenings, that was an opportunity for most of us to

mix. Since I was heavily involved in the stunt, I did spend a lot of time with

the stunt writers.

That, to me, really what a masterful director will do. He takes all these

factions. He had old Hollywood with people like Jack Weston. He had young

Hollywood with people like Laurie.

He had the BMX people. He had me, the token Olympic guy.

And yet, he made us all feel like we had an important part in the film. He makes

the dailies a party for the cast and crew.

It's an opportunity. for them to celebrate what they did, blow some steam

off, have some drinks, and to watch these great action sequences in an

atmosphere with all the riders, and it demystified the process.

It was unforgettable.

Even though we were from completely diverse backgrounds, he made us all feel

like we were part of something special.

And he did it in his own way. I mean, he's old Hollywood, rough, tough, hard

-drinking kind of tough guy.

And yet he made us all feel like we were family. It was beautiful.

Working with Hal Needham was definitely an experience.

When he wanted something done, you did it. I mean, it was like, either you do

it or I'll get your sister to do it.

you know and and it's like okay so you did it it was just the way he he put

things in perspective and uh this whole stuntman mentality got it done well

with the bigger films you got big stars you got bigger budget a little more time

and you can do more spectacular things and all that and rad

I mean, we were up against it with budget, with time, with everything. So

you had to be pretty creative and take advantage of everything you could.

As an actor, obviously, my favorite parts were getting to act with Talia

Shire and Laurie and Jack and these wonderful people.

I think Hal, Bill, Laurie, the whole crew, Marta, who played my girlfriend,

they were all very generous and kind to me, knowing that I was so out of my

element and basically so incapable.

So I think the best memory that I have are just those...

Those friendship scenes that we shot throughout the whole movie, hanging out,

getting their guidance, you know, just relax, helping me out, those are the

best memories that I have.

Hal tends to undershoot. He doesn't shoot a lot of close-ups. It's a lot of

masters, and then on to the next thing. He's an action director. He wants to cut

to the chase, literally and figuratively.

So the dialogue scenes were smooth.

And I was surrounded by professionals, so it went very quickly. The action

sequence days were more difficult.

We're talking injuries. We're talking teenage kids, 15-, 16-year-old kids out

there doing stunts on a major movie for the first time in their lives. So there

was a lot going on. There was a lot of moving parts.

It required a lot of cuts, a lot of angles, a lot of...

really output by the bikers. I mean, those kids really worked their butts off

in there. And, you know, you know, in order to get that much footage of

something, you got to have angles and cameras and do it over and over and

over. And they never gave up and they never said, I'm tired. They never,

nothing. They were ready all the time. Well, you know, it's exciting and it's

boring. You're there, you're shooting a scene, you're riding, you're energetic,

and then it comes cut.

And then you'd sit around for two and a half hours. And that was time for

shenanigans. We played a lot of practical jokes during those times.

And I got away with murder.

It was the second time I'd been a lead in a motion picture. That's very

exciting to be around all these amazing athletes and these wonderful actors.

I can tell you it's very daunting to, quote, carry a film.

It seems silly, but it's not when it's your first time out of the gate, really,

as a big national release.

And all you want to do is do the best you can.

You look around the set, and you're seeing people who are the best at what

they do.

And you look in the mirror, and you go, well, who am I? When that camera turns

on, you've got to turn it on.

So I was supported by the best.

players, had an amazing director, an amazing cast around me, so there was no

reason why I should do a horrible job.

I was a trained actor by that time. I had a couple of chops in my bag of

tricks, but it is a nerve-wracking process.

I gotta tell you, I had nothing to do with the music.

Nothing. But they brought in whoever it was, I'm telling you.

The first time I heard it, I said, God damn, that's good.

I mean, that stuff's going to work. And I listen, as I watch it with audiences,

I listen to them, and they really like that music.

It's a jump. Well,

it's an expensive needle drop.

Very expensive song, especially when there were giant hits, the biggest hits

of that time. But Break the Ice was the one that I think got a lot of MTV

players. I mean, it's classic 80s rock, and, you know, it...

The music is incredible.

And, you know, how lucky we are that we had that, you know, outstanding

soundtrack. And that music so captures that time period.

When you hear that music, you hear those soundtracks, you think of the movie Rad.

What is the best scene of Rad? The very beginning?

The very end.

Yeah, they talk about the very beginning, the end, and the dance scene.

The dance scene is the most talked about scene.

But when you get the hardcore bikers and they come in to see the movie, the

beginning and the end. There you go. It's the roots, it's the blend, and it

was accepted by everybody because...

What you were seeing in the freestyle opening credits were probably the best

riders. Ron Wilkerson, R.L. Osborne, Martin, Eddie, Mike Dominguez. Those are

the pioneers and they're legends and they're still riding today.

It sure sets the tone for what these guys can do and what you're about to

see. First time we saw them in the movie theater, it's the first time most of us

saw that scene because we were the BMX racers, so we didn't see the freestyle.

The first thing I noticed was, hey, I know where that's at. That's down at

Torrance Beach. The locals call it burnout. Everybody showed up at Wizard

Publications, and it was an overcast day.

We were all just supposed to sit there.

and wait to find out where we were going to film this.

But because of the overcast and the fogginess of the street, they decided to

film right then and there, right there on the street. Every once in a while,

have fun. That's getting you to have a good time. We looked at that and went,

well, I mean, come on. I mean, it's got to be the first thing you see in the

movie. Okay, dude, let's walk this sucker.

All right.

The whole paper route thing was great. The holding the paper route and the dog

grabbing it and, you know, a race against the clock.

Pat Romano is the girl and starts taking off on a wheelie. I'm crew at that time.

Oh, you can tell. If you're a BMX pro, you can tell when it's Eddie and when

it's Bill Allen pedaling. Just a different style. The most intricate part

of the scene, I believe, is Eddie going into the swimming pool and then doing

the 180.

He can do that in his sleep. I think the paper route is really a great, great

opening for this movie in that it just gives a great representative of what

bicycles mean.

It all sets his character that, you know, he's polite and nice, but he will

push the rules. And people look forward to him. When I think about, you know,

Ray Walsh getting the coffee cups knocked out of his hand.

Oops. The world would be a lot better off.

And who's the guy who says, the porch, the porch. I said, the porch. The porch.

I mean,

it's just so great because these, you know, typical irreverent teenagers, you

know, that I think really identified with lots of teenage boys at that time

because they were, you know, they were a little bit rebels and they were a little

bit like punk and they're always trying to get away with something. And that to

me was, you know, I think it set the mood for the film right off the top.

No, he may not be the perfect kid.

He has fun and he'll push the rules, doesn't break the rules.

The first day that I was on the film was when we were shooting

at the lumber mill and the little hangout area.

And that to me was a great way to begin because it didn't actually require any

acting, which is pretty good for me if I don't have to do that.

But what it enabled me was to be able to ride the bike.

and the team were subtly happy that, you know, at least you don't look like a

total moron on the bike.

So it was a great way for me to start, because I could do something I felt

comfortable. I could ride the bike, I could laugh and goof and roll over, you

know, the garbage can and all the rest of it. I think Luke, historically, and

I'd have to check with the creative geniuses behind the whole script, but I

think Luke has always had desires to be crew in a lot of different ways, and had

circumstances been different, you know, I think that he would have preferred the

chase and probably would have been successful as well. But, you know, I

understood my place in this movie, my friend.

And that was a second fiddle to Mr. Jones.

And I was happy to be there.

The police chase in the lumber yard was fun for me because I'm actually up on

lumber and looking about 40, 50 feet down. And you had the motorcycle going

through the scenes. It's a kid's...

So we had a lot of fun shooting that, and there was a lot of leeway in how we

shot it and how it came together in the editing room. Whenever you don't see

Bill's face, it's pretty much me from the legs down. My knees, my shins, my

ankles. The dirty little secret is that I was not allowed to ride a bike as a

child. My mother watched my brother nearly get smeared all over the pavement

when I was probably eight.

years old, maybe a little younger. So I was never allowed to ride a bike. I knew

how to ride a bike, but that was not part of my upbringing.

Music was.

So there's a couple of scenes where you can pick this out. When I'm coming

through the fence and the Hell Track sign pops up, man, I'm barely able to

hang on to that bike. So if you compare that rider...

To the guy in the qualifying races, you're going to see a little bit of

difference. But anyway, it was the best I could do at the time.

And I was so impressed that Bill Allen actually learned how to ride a bike

during the movie Rad.

And he got better and better as time progressed.

If you watch the film today on a big screen, yeah, you can pick out times

where the stuntmen are taking on our role.

Still, the stunt work is so spectacular, it doesn't seem to matter, and that's

why we're talking about it today.

You can see through the lumber yard, or the lumber, and you can see plywood up

on there, and I had to make it look like I was doing, you know, logs.

Riding on logs, yeah.

There's a scene in the lumber yard where he's, you know, trying to get away from

the police.

It was going to be through a factory.

And for some reason, the factory, he wasn't happy with it, the director.

And so he went out on his own and found this lumber yard and said, we're going

to shoot in this lumber yard. It's actually the factory they used in Shoot

to Kill. I think the thing I loved about the police chase was

just seeing H.B. Haggerty, the actor.

And, you know, he's a former professional wrestler.

just to have that guy, knowing that he's going to catch you. And that bike, that

motorcycle, you know, again, you knew that there was some behind-the-scenes

stuff going on there. Obviously, he wasn't riding that bike over those logs.

It was still cool. That was a realistic scene. When we were kids, we did that

exact same thing.

Knott's Prairie Farm would have the donkey trails.

And in the daytime, they had the donkeys going through the trails. But at

nighttime, they'd close it. We'd hook our bikes over the top, get on top of

the platform, shoot up.

20 of us would be bolting through the donkey trails, all wet and just mud all

over us. But that's the kind of thing you do. When you're a kid, you did that

type of stuff. And I thought it was authentic.

Oh, yeah. Now, I remember, you know, going down the street on a late night

and putting my bike on some church roof and starting riding the roof trail.

So yeah, it's as real as it gets. I think the cool thing about the parade

scene was that it involved the whole community.

And that was typical of Hal Needham. He figured out a way, let's get the whole

community involved in this and let them feel a part of this picture. So all of

those folks lining the streets, they're all locals. And they felt like they

mattered and their part in the film was essential.

One thing people might not know about my participation in the parade scene, about

a month before the film was shot up in Canada, I was doing a gymnastics tour

and I was performing in an exhibition.

And I landed on a dismount and I completely dislocated. my knee because

my leg was in an immobilizer I couldn't straighten my leg so I had to get out of

the car and walk back and talk to Lori in her car and I had to keep both knees

bent as I walked along and they shot me from the waist up so it didn't look like

I was limping so you know for me when I think of that scene it looks like okay

I'm going back to flirt with Lori but all I can remember is I was walking

along like this and they were shooting me from the waist up but

Yeah, it was fun.

The bicycle boogie scene is probably the most celebrated part of the movie. It's

been recreated at weddings, I understand.

Man, the music is what made it because even to this day you hear Send Me An

Angel and your brain just goes boom.

Let me tell you, it speaks for itself. I remember thinking, I don't know how he's

going to edit it together. I don't know how it's going to work.

The whole idea was Saturday Night Fever, Flashdance. These movies for this

audience, you need a dance sequence.

Okay, so they could have danced romantically, gone there on a bike,

danced romantically like a normal kind of scene. Or we could do a dance. We

need a dance in the movie.

It has to be on bikes. So let's do it on bikes then. And everyone looked at us

like we were from Mars, obviously. And everybody worked really hard on it. And

how to put it in a sequence, which I think worked so well. I mean, it was the

80s. And the flashing everywhere.

That's what it was. It was trying to have a great dance sequence for the

audience. but do it on bikes, because everything on the movie is done on

bikes. Yeah, you know, a lot of the BMX guys, we don't dance, you know, so I

don't know where they came up with that. You know, Hollywood, I guess.

I remember Hal Needham saying, how the hell are we going to pull this off?

First of all, I think that would be impossible to do a couple of things that

we did in there for real.

So I built...

A platform on wheels that would hold the bikes up like this so they could sit on

them and pedal and do all that kind of stuff and spin the wheels and turn

around everything.

I think my stunt career, my creativity in stunts and coming up with new

equipment and things like that, I think it all came together right there on that

thing to make it work.

They had me on dollies a lot of time with the bike in fixed position. If you

see the one where I'm... on the bike and kind of doing the bunny hop.

It's silly.

Yeah, I was the guy on the balance beam. The balance beam was actually, you know,

a normal balance beam is like this. It was double the width.

But it was still normal height, so I had to bunny hop on that.

Then it was both myself and Pat Romano, that very first scene when we went over

the camera.

I was the first guy, Pat was the second guy. We almost hit the camera.

Then we went in there and started doing all our tricks and that stuff. And not

only that, but the lighting was such that...

When I was using doubles, you couldn't see who it was, but yet you could see

the outline, and you knew that it was supposed to be them. In your mind, it's

them when you're looking at it on the screen.

So you were in the white pants, on the high heel?

At one point.

Just at one point. I knew that was coming.

And obviously the song, you know, helped a lot, and that was, you know, we were

fortunate to find that song. I don't remember any other movie having that

song in it. I mean, like, when you hear that song, it's like...

There's a rat. The rat's on TV. I can hear it.

Bike dancing. Who does bike dancing? That's like great. Whatever we remember.

The bicycle boogie is. And we haven't called it bicycle boogie, but I've heard

that many times. And when you brought it up, that's really the moniker. But there

was a Time magazine or Newsweek magazine article back then, and there was a

little blurb about the bicycle dance and rat.

And it worked out pretty well, actually. I remember when we were doing the

bicycle boogie dance scene. When we were filming it, they were actually playing

White Wedding, Billy Idol, so we could dance to it. Obviously, they didn't use

that for the movie, but that's the time period that we're talking about. The

fact that it's kind of cheesy makes it...

So cool.

And the twins in those sort of space outfits doing those funky push-ups.

I mean, it was pure 80s gold, right?

And they wanted me to dress kind of like a Miami Vice kind of guy. That's why I

had the sport coat pulled up and all this stuff.

You know, when you sign on to do a movie, you go along with whatever the

director wants you to do. So I said, okay, I'm in.

Come on, dude. I mean, that was out of time at the time. You know, that was

like so 70s. But it added to the kitschiness and the flavor of it. So it

was great.

Hey, dude, we're going ass sliding.

You want to come?

No. Ass sliding with you guys? I'm going to wait for my ass sliding with somebody

special, you know? Oh, my coot, Katie.

Well, maybe.

Ass sliding.

Just an unfortunate term. I don't know how he came up with that. I don't know

why, but that's what we were left with, and that was a plot point in the movie,

that Laurie and I go ass-sliding. As far as the innovator of the ass-sliding,

I've got to put that on Sam Bernard, and I really need to talk to him more about

that, because it's disturbing to me.

It was maybe called something else, and Hal loved it, and Hal really thought it

was great, and I think it was almost...

kind of a throwaway of, like, what are these two kids going to do? And what

would Crew do with the hottest baby ever, like, seen in person?

You know, it's just like, hey, let's go ass-lighting. And it was just all just,

in all the reviews and stuff, people, like, in the special personal reviews, I

want to go ass-lighting. In my mind, it suited.

what I had envisioned, all right? And it looked like a slide. It looked like

something maybe they might have built just for that, you know? The unfortunate

thing about that is we're shooting in Canada. There is no warm water in

Canada. So us going into that mountain stream, it was probably about 40-degree

water, and we had a wet suit on, which does no good if you're jumping in and

out of the water. So it was fun and refreshing.

And so cold, parts of a man disappear.

We'll talk about that some other time. And I didn't, you know, even in the

dailies, the little vignettes we saw every day of what they shot the day

before, we never saw that.

So the first time I saw that was at the premiere.

And the aft sliding, the reason it's my favorite is because we knew how cold

that water had to be.

So when we saw them hit the water, it was like, oh, my gosh, that had to hurt.

That had to hurt. That had to be a one-take wonder, right? That water was

ice.

I mean, it was a killer.

And even though you see it twice in the movie, they only did it one time because

they were freezing to death.

So what I did was I had felt the water, and I knew there was going to be

rebellious about doing another one.

So I put two cameras at the end of the slide. I had one on the side and one

looking right up the slide.

The first time they did it, I used this angle for them going into the water. And

the last one, I used the one out here because when they hit the water, the

water just blocked them out to the camera lens. So they only did it one

time, but I tell you what, I knew they were good.

I knew I needed blankets and heaters and things when they came out there.

You over-rotated.

No shit.

One of the other great scenes was the backflip.

This was like, you know, the coming out story of BMX. You know, all the riders,

all the bike companies, everybody wanted to be involved.

You know, Teltrap was sponsored by 7-Eleven, you know, and it was in every

7-Eleven in America. So everyone knew what we were doing. So we were contacted

about, well, there's this guy who can do a backflip. A backflip? A backflip.

Okay, we'll put that in. What does that look like? I couldn't imagine really

what it was going to look like. He went home and did like a home video or

something, a movie. Sent it up to us. We looked at it.

We can do this. We'll put this in.

I don't even know how the subject came up, but we were trying to think of all

kinds of things that we could put in that had never been done before, never

been seen on film especially.

And we heard about this kid and brought him up there.

And I said, you know, let me see what it looks like.

And he built a little ramp and he went up there and come backward. And I said.

Go no further. That's good enough.

Well, we all knew it was Jose Yanez. That was the only guy that could do

backflips back then. He was fantastic.

We were teammates on the same bicycle team at the time.

Even BMX pros, we were just amazed at what that guy could do. To see him do a

backflip on a bike was insane.

He had toe clips and he would ride.

Jose was not a talented rider. He couldn't have rode a lap around a BMX

track without crashing.

But the guy could do these backflips.

Oh, man, it was amazing.

And he can't ride. He couldn't ride a bike. He can't ride from here to there.

He could just do a backflip. He could do a backflip. The only one in the world.

So, Jose, when he came out doing this flip, I mean, like, nobody ever thought

of doing flips, you know, and making it. So, afterwards, I asked him, I said,

how'd you learn to do that? And he said, he lived at a... on a lake, and they had

a boat ramp out there. And what he'd do, he built a ramp on the end of the boat

ramp, and he'd come down there, and he'd do it into the water.

Jose, actually, he was one of the first guys to perfect a backflip at that time

with that style. He had toe clips on his bike, and he would practice into a lake,

go off onto a lake over and over again. So he had a really, really weird style

of doing backflips compared to the X Games type of styling of backflipping

now. That kid did that thing.

I don't know, half a dozen times, maybe more, before he did the real backflip.

But landing on those boards and those mattresses, that wasn't a piece of cake,

you know.

See, if you let your head lead, your body will just follow naturally.

Really? Mm-hmm. And those lines about, you know, like on the backflip, you

know, you lead with your head because your body follows your head. I mean,

that all came from Hal, and he knows that because Hal knew exactly what he

was talking about in terms of air awareness and how to flip.

I remember Jose being there, and he didn't get the backflip immediately.

No. I think he probably did eight times. A lot of times, yeah.

He would come out and he'd practice his flip and sometimes he'd make it and

sometimes he wouldn't. But he got paid per single flip to do that thing.

And this was a big deal. This was like Neil Armstrong landing on the moon.

Now we've got guys doing double and triple backflips. Well, Jose was the

pioneer of this and he was the only guy in the world who could do it. He could

come out and he could do a backflip on a bike, excuse me.

So in preparing to do this stunt, there would be complete silence on the set.

Jose, I guess he was a religious guy. He got religion at that time because he

would get down on his knees and he would pray that this stunt would go well.

And it blew everyone's mind.

You think now that, you know, the guys in the X Games, I mean, they're doing

backflips on snowmobiles.

A backflip is no big deal. I'm a fat old man now, and I can do them on a beach

cruiser. It's just not a big deal now.

But then it was incredible. And to have a lineup of professional BMX racers

stop what they're doing and just in awe of what talent, really what

guts that took to do the first one.

And it still is impressive that he did it so far before anyone else did it.

Yeah, I was on the scene.

on the set when Jose was doing his famous backflip onto the mattress and I

had to do some insert shots where I fell into the frame but Jose had to do the

actual shots where he got the wind knocked out of him.

And it wasn't supposed to work out, so he was supposed to screw that up. He did

a great job.

Dude, he's a crazy nut.

Jose is just crazy nut.

I think the qualifying scenes, for me, are the best part of the movie. It shows

these guys, unadorned, going through parks as fast as they can. And if you

can watch Eddie Fiola and how fast he is going on one of those one-speed BMX

bikes, you can't believe it.

How was it?

So easy to choke.

Even though we're supposed to be acting, you're on your bike, you want to make it

look dramatic and all that type of stuff, once we got going, it was a real

race.

That is still another marvel to me, how they put that all together, because

all we knew was we would ride for 30 yards, cut, and that was it.

You know, and then two hours later you go, okay, we're going to ride down this

trail. You're going to ride for 30 yards and cut.

You know, it took a couple of days of shooting.

The kids didn't understand. They think if you're going to do a scene, you're

going to do a race. You just do the whole race. You know, they don't know.

You have to do it in little bits and pieces.

So, like, when it's coming down that real rocky hill with the water and

everything, that was treacherous, you know.

And so I said, well, let's do it three or four times. And they went, what,

what, why, why, why? And I said, well, I got to, you know, I'm doing a qualifying

race. I got to do it three or four times. But I had to teach them that, you

know, you do it one piece at a time.

They filmed the end five times and they filmed the corner five times. They

filmed a bunch of it. And then they, you know, they placed the guys in the right.

numerical order where they're supposed to be inside the race. We couldn't

understand a sequence because, you know, Hal had his own system, and all we were

knowing, we were running down, we were racing through the park, coming back,

racing through the park, going back and forth, and we never knew how this thing

was going to work out. Once we saw the dailies, it was incredible how they

really put that thing together.

There's a lot of challenging parts, like jumping over the hay bale, over the

bridge. The hay bale was there. We saw it, and since we're freestylers, we just

decided to jump over the hay bale, and they kept that in there. That was pretty

cool.

speaking line that got cut edited out i was crushed uh my big can i do it for

you now because i really think i you deserve you know this this is an academy

award-winning go for it to get that that's all it was you know i don't

remember who i said it to but i was supposed to turn to them and this was uh

during the qualifier i turned to the guy next to me and said go for it that's it

the best stuff left on the editing room floor Well, in the trials, the prelims,

my character was savagely taken out of the race, I believe because he was

targeted as a potential threat to all the racers that would eventually make it

to Hell Track. Oh, man, that's a tough brake lift. I'm sorry.

Gotta do it for all of us, dude.

So I was taken out, which was unfortunate. I ended up tackling my

front wheel.

I think that that wheel, they actually put on a curb and stomped out from what

I remember to get it to take its shape. It was a very painful stunt performed

not by myself.

But I did watch it and cheer on those who did it.

Helltrap was the, as they say, set piece.

of the movie. It was the climactic theme centered around a fictional track, and

it has elements from almost every discipline.

The 20-foot drop-off at the beginning, the little whoopty-doos, the cereal

bowl. These are things you will not find in conventional BMX racing, but it was

done in such a way that it was exciting.

Essentially, I wrote a 90-page script.

And then I just had a page that said Hell Track. And then the three of us sat

down night after night. Hal Needham and Robert Levy and I were talking and

talking. I had Hal going on. Probably took almost the same amount of time to

write down Hell Track in about 15 pages than it took to write the previous 90

pages.

That's the truth. To me, that's one of the real important legacies that Hal

Needham left is that, you know, had the race track been just an average track,

I think it would have still been cool.

But being a Hollywood stuntman, it had to be the most outrageous thing that

anybody had seen.

Well, Helltrack was created to be the gnarliest, hardest, raddest track ever

created in history.

Helltrack was an experience.

I mean, really, if you look at it, it would have been what...

A prelude to the new Supercross tracks.

BMX back in the 80s, most of the courses were fairly flat. They didn't have a lot

of banks to the turn.

It was a flat-out drag race. Who was the fastest from A to B? Whoever got to the

first corner first usually won. That track was completely different. It was

amped up to the next level. We get to the site, and you're like, are you

kidding me?

This is not a BMX track. And you see the one scene where Rick Moliterno's in the

cast? Sign my cast?

That was not fit up. That was a real deal. The first, second time on the

track to the moguls, he ended up breaking his ankle. Don't be intimidated

by those guys out there. Just go for it. Thanks, Rick. Yeah, Rick actually, you

know, with that broken leg and he having crew sign it, he had actually broken his

leg during rehearsals and practice in the mogul.

But I got to participate in the building of the cereal bowl thing. So we had a

little path in the middle of the cereal bowl, and you had to go up the ramp on

the cereal bowl platform and then off it.

And so I would test it, and I'd go off it, and I knew it had a little spring on

it, so I'd pull a little wheelie manual and jump off.

Well, Chris Phoenix comes on that thing, and he's riding, and he pulled his front

wheel a little bit premature, and his front wheel goes over and then under.

With his hand stuck on the handlebars. No letting go and doing this or bailing

the bike, and he went, and that was a real... On film. That was like one of

the big smashes of that whole day. He really got Nick's good. For the rest of

history, Chris Phoenix is our hero because of that scene. It is so classic.

Two days before he starts filming, it starts to ring.

Now we've created this mud, I don't know what you want to call it. There's dirt

everywhere. And now all of a sudden there's mud everywhere.

How much?

Everything was mushy. Everything was soft. It was difficult to ride.

Some of the jumps, you can't tell, but we laid plywood up the face of the jumps

just so we could get air because it was so soft.

I don't even have stock car teams. I've been racist with them. In the stock car

world, they use a helicopter to drive the track.

That track was a mud hole.

And I went, oh, my God, because I didn't have a big budget on that film. You

know, I was uptight for a time.

And so I called production, said, give me some helicopters.

And an hour later, there are two helicopters in the middle of this park,

which I've now closed down. They spent two days hovering over this track with

helicopter blades. They could drive this place down.

Everybody was like, what's going on?

Classic Hal Needham. We'll fix it.

What do we need to do? Get us a helicopter.

Get us a helicopter, quick.

And we had one.

When the first time they went by, there was water and mud going everywhere.

And as they kept on, it kept getting less and less. And finally, the bikers,

the riders said, it's good.

It was the most extreme track any of us had ever seen at the time.

A good example is the Hell Track Hill. You had 25 of us that looked at that

hill initially and went, no way. We thought it was a backdrop to the movie.

We didn't know we were actually going to have to ride down it. You know, showing

up and seeing this three-story downhill was just...

Unbelievable. There was a lot of the pro athlete BMXers that were there.

Once they looked down the hill, they had the same thought. It's like, there's no

way anybody's going to survive this.

That wall costs $100,000.

So I said, if I build this thing, we've got to use it, you know?

Nobody wanted to ride down it.

Nobody wanted to.

We got there, and the guys got together with the director and said, we cannot

ride down that.

It's a wall.

Nobody wanted to go down the track the first time. Nobody wanted to take the

walls the first time. It really was scary.

When they started, you know, I remember probably smiling to myself going, wow,

they're kind of scared to go down this thing. That's pretty cool.

You know, just to stand on top of that wall was just terrifying.

I mean, that's one of the things that's so cool is that you have the best riders

in the world, and Hal puts up this hell track, and all these guys get out there

and go, we're not doing it.

No way are we going down that face.

And I didn't blame him because, you know, I did hot falls and things as a

stuntman. And I got up there and looked at it and I said, I wouldn't go off of

here because I'm not a bike rider, you know. Jose was the first one to

actually, you know, just nut up, stand up there, roll straight in.

And when he got down to the bottom, he looped out backwards.

Oh, yeah.

So he goes, well, that didn't work.

Goes back to the top, leans a little forward, just a little bit forward, and

goes over the handlebars at the very bottom. I don't know if Jose was quite

all there. Again, he was the only guy that could do the backflip at the time

because none of the rest of us would try it. I think they hauled him off because

he was unconscious.

So we're all standing there watching this going, well, I'm not sure if I

quite want to be next yet. But I think Jose was the first one to go right from

the top.

Jose, he was kind of like our guinea pig. We saw how he did it, and we said,

don't do it that way. Yeah. Be the road cram.

was, you know, a freestyle ramp rider back then. So they built a ladder, and

he started going up step by step, and he was actually the first guy to go down

it. Beetle was the first one to go down. I mean, like on a foot plant and then

dropping in. He had a ladder. He put a ladder up against the wall, carried his

bike up there, and from the ladder, he got on his bike and rode down about 20

feet. So what we did is we went up a couple steps, did like a foot plan off

to the side, and then kind of rolled in.

Went up a little higher, a little higher, a little higher. As we got to

the top, Beetle was the first one on top, and he was actually the first one

to roll in to actually from very top to very bottom. Being that BMX wasn't my

background, skateboarding was, it made it a lot easier to drop in because that

was skateboarding, you know, dropping and whatnot.

So when he worked to the bottom, gosh, I wanted him to go 5 feet up, 10 feet up,

15 feet. And next thing you know, I was already to the top. The trip was going

to be cut short if, you know, it didn't happen to do it that day. My dad at the

time was saying, you know, either go home or make this movie.

And finally did it after about an hour and a half.

Well, after he did it, being the youngest guy out there, the rest of the

guys had to go for it, you know. And from there on, it was no problem.

A cult classic is a movie that can be viewed and is viewed by a particular

segment of the population again and again and again.

I think it's years after its initial viewing.

still inspires people, still remember, and still moves people, inspires people,

and they remember it fondly when they rediscover it. They didn't have to be

popular movies, just movies that found their audience.

Then they're watching, well, that's a cult classic. Or they remember lines,

like ass-butting, or they remember that song.

Words that you still remember.

What makes Rad a cult classic is the fact that a lot of kids took

that VHS tape and watched it over.

And over and over and over and over again. I know that no matter where I go,

I'm associated with a movie and people want to ask me about it. So it's got to

be a cult classic.

People watch it religiously over and over and over again. They learn the

words, they learn the songs.

At that time, they didn't have DVDs. You had to buy a videotape.

Bicycle shops all over the United States and I don't know, maybe Canada and the

world and everything else were selling.

tapes in their bicycle shops that's the interesting thing about rad and i think

that's one of the things that's turned it into a bit of a cult classic is that

the kids loved it and they wanted it and they figured out a way to get it through

blockbuster video and rentals and stuff i think that's where the studio probably

made most of their money and then it started to catch on and then The tapes

and things started really going out the door. And it built that reputation.

And from there on, it just kept growing.

I can't believe the color classic.

I mean, I think we're just proud that people...

still remember and still are inspired, still remember the movie. I'm always

honored and I'm always humbled by the interest in this. I think it's great

it's a cult classic. I have no problem accepting it. People keep asking me this

question. To be a cult classic means you have to be old to begin with. Well, you

are. So I don't believe it. I'm not going to give in to that question. I'm

not ready to hang above it. Well, you always say you're old.

People think it's that, and it's inspired people, and they remember it,

and they want to think it's a classic, and it makes you feel great. We're

making a movie about a bunch of guys on bikes who do spins and dance on bikes.

People thought we were from Mars.

Forget about it. Yeah, I remember. It was a very sort of... Classic. I mean,

you know, what are you talking about?

People think it's a cult classic, and I agree with it, because look what it's

done to...

bmx and and to the fans you find a rad fan they're a fan i had a guy come in

the other day in my office from dhl he was delivering a package and he saw a

poster of rad and he almost fell over he's like 45 years old dhl delivery guy

and he said i can sing every word in every song i know every line in that

movie i can't believe i'm meeting you and i don't think he knew i was ever a

gymnast he just connected with me with rad i think it's become a classic and i

i think i've done two movies that become a classic i think smoky and the bandit

has become a classic so uh the 10 i've done i've had two classics out of it

that ain't all bad well i think the thing that makes rad watchable over and

over again is The kind of G-rated nature of it, the kind of Frankie and Annette

innocence that it portrays, and then it's interspersed with all this amazing

action. Perrin liked it. It was kind of clean cut. It had to be a little edgy at

the time, because you had the word hell and hell track, or you had the little

girl say what she said.

Shit. Yeah.

Oh, shit.

Well, you little shit.

Oh, shit.

That is bullshit. No shit.

Young kids liked it. The older kids liked it. The hardcore BMXers may or may

not have liked it, but they're thankful that it represented BMX. Every kid looks

back on that point in their life, that time in their life, when we were just

enjoying life to the fullest, just out on our BMX bike, riding the trails or

hitting the jumps.

That's the part of life we look back and we cherish.

It could be for anybody.

You know, everyone has it through in them. The fans wouldn't let this movie

go. To me, that's what made it.

magical. The kids wanted it. Now, it may not have made a lot of sense in the big

dollar Hollywood box office accounting, but it connected with kids.

These were just kids with bikes hopping curbs, and all of a sudden there was a

movie for them.

And to me, it was the fans that make it a cult classic.

It's a great story. It's not just similar to what most of us probably did

in our own way.

There's a lot of great action footage out there, but as every director knows,

if you don't have an emotional connection to the characters, it's not

going to mean that much. So they were able to create these characters that

people related to that were able to do these extraordinary things.

And it's what the film is asking you to do, whether your passion is BMX or

piloting or writing for a living, is find that passion.

And then stick with it no matter what. And I'm telling you, this message rings

through the ages. And I get email on a daily basis saying what that movie

has meant to people for that reason.

How often does it come into my day? Well, you know, every day. I try to

start my morning, I watch a few minutes. You know, I always go to the

introduction part, you know, with me. But it'll come up in conversations about

BMX, or as soon as they hear the name Hollywood, they know. Hollywood McMoran

from the movie Rad happens all the time, publicly.

I get messages on Facebook and Twitter sometimes. Not a week goes by where

somebody doesn't run up to me and say something about Rad.

I'm a musician. I do other acting jobs. But this thing is something that has

really taken a hold.

And I don't think I would be doing myself or the sport a service if I

didn't pay attention to that.

Because the story is classic. And that's why Paper Route is so great. Because all

the kids were running Paper Routes.

or want to go out and have freedom. You want your bike and you want to jump over

that fence and you want to do these things to show your freedom and show

your guts. There's a simplicity to it. And that doesn't change because, you

know, that's the roots it has.

It's a very well-loved movie. We went and saw it when it was released. It was

only in the theaters for a week, maybe two weeks.

Officially, it was somewhat of a flub. It didn't make it well in the theaters

originally. But the fan base has just grown exponentially through the

Internet. It's got legs, and I'm not sure I ever anticipated that. You know,

the movie lasted about a minute and a half in the theaters, and yet here we

are now over 30 years later still talking about rad. It's kind of crazy.

Well, a lot of these kids now that are being introduced to the movie are second

- or third-generation BMXers, so their dads are saying...

As dads will do, this is the movie you need to see because it was important to

me, so I think we're getting a lot of fans that way.

They're learning about it from their fathers, and so they're educating these

kids of where the history of BMX really came from. The movie Rad is important

because it captures that part of our lives when we were young and innocent.

Our greatest joy in life was riding our bike.

I think that the reason they love the movie the way they do, the way they've

latched onto it, is because they love BMX.

And if you love BMX, Rad is your movie.

I can't really explain why it still matters, but it does.

And to me, that's really powerful, because it connected with these young

men and these young women at a very impressionable age.

And it's part of their youth.

And they want to stay connected to that. Get them on a bike, it'll keep them from

having a gun in their hand, robbing stores, smoking dope.

I mean, it's kind of the only BMX movie that's ever really been out there.

There's the BMX Bandits, but that wasn't really BMX. This was actually about

racing and, you know, a local kid.

Coming out of nowhere to race the big guys, the big factory riders, you know,

all the kids that saw it think, okay, maybe I can do that. It showed that

sometimes it was going to be hard, but you could do it. You could get past

whatever those struggles were just to get out and ride your bike. And if it

was racing like it was for me, you know, I had to overcome obstacles myself to be

able to race.

And I think if it connects to me that way, I'm sure it connects to a lot of

kids too.

I've talked to Tony Hawk and guys like that who are icons in the extreme sports

world, and a lot of them point to Rad as being sort of the seminal moment for

extreme sports.

And I think it deserves the credit, and I think that goes back once again to Hal

Needham. He didn't want an average track. He wanted something so outrageous

that your jaw would drop.

It's unrealistic to think that somebody could ride this track. He set it up, and

the pro stepped up and did it. It took Eddie Fiola and Martin and Pat Romano,

and it's like they were standing around in their lab coats, you know, figuring

out these tricks and how to perfectly execute them. Before Rad, we had one

drywaller in Arizona who could hit a backflip, and now we got a guy doing

triple backflips.

I think stream sports is not going to go away. It's going to get better and

better. And I think as long as people remember and always be looking back and

finding the roots of these things, then Red will be around.