Most of the time, I spend day in and day out at my day job. Between working too many hours and never really doing anything outside of work, my life can be boring. Although I have one trick to unwinding from my monotonous day job and that’s photography. Well not just photography, automotive photography. I live for cars and rally racing. So when Greg Trachy called and explained what Hot Wheels was going to do at the X games this year, I knew I had to be there in person. I mean how many opportunities would I get to see a car drive upside down! Well not only see one car but TWO cars race upside down through a Double Loop. Another huge plus was is I would get to support two of my friends that were driving the cars…. Yeah probably never. I’m sure this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
As a freelance automotive photographer this would be my third appearance at the X games, and I knew this time would be an entirely new and different experience. After arriving in downtown LA, we quickly made our way over to where the Double Loop was and I can not explain what I felt when I saw it in person. Initially the first thing I thought was “Greg sure is crazy.” After spending some time admiring the Hot Wheels Double Loop, we called Greg and headed out to lunch. Throughout the day of being around both Greg Trachy and Tanner Foust, you could see that they were a little nervous when we talked about what would take place the next morning. Although they were eager to run the loop and set a new world record, the danger was still not far from our thoughts.
We then parted ways with Greg and decided to spend some time watching the Global Rallycross cars practice for a while. As the day grew closer to an end, we decided to walk around and see what else we could find. Shortly after beginning our journey, we found the Hot Wheels Orange Carpet kick-off party where we met the Borchetta Group, owners of Big Machine Records who were a huge help and sponsor of the Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare. We took photos of the event and then moved inside, to photograph the festivities as well as spend some more time with Greg and Tanner. This night was a tremendous success and a very incredible time.
Saturday morning brought a huge amount of anticipation and quite a bit of stress. At this point, all I could think about was how I only had one chance to photograph this and I hope everything goes as planned for everyone involved. Mainly Greg and Tanner. After what seemed like hours of waiting, the cars took off from the line and headed for the Double Loop Dare. I never imagined in my life that I would witness a car drive upside down, nonetheless two at the same time. What everyone witnessed that day was history and some incredible driving, as well as a feat of engineering. After the stunt was completed, we hustled over to the press room so Greg and Tanner could talk about what had just happened.
Over the next two days I spent most of my time photographing the rally cars, in and out of the pit area, catching up with drivers, teams and old friends that I usually only see at race events. All in all it was a great event, and I could not be happier to have been a part of this amazing record setting event. I would like to thank Greg Trachy, Tanner Foust, Mattel, My Life at Speed, and Big Machine Records for making this happen. Truly and experience I will never forget.
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