MotoWorld2 Stories: Walking a Foaming Pitbull Is Not an Easy Task
If you watched motorcycle racing on television in the 1990s and 2000s, then you likely recall the name Jerry Bernardo. Whether on TV or paper, Jerry Bernardo entertained audiences with a Robin Williams-esque ad-lib style that was ahead of its time. Not afraid to speak his mind, and often controversial, Bernardo could care less whether you liked him or not, that was not the goal. But put a microphone in his hand and start filming, and you had the recipe for television gold, such as two Cable Ace nominations for the ESPN2 network with MotoWorld2. But what about the stories behind those television gold moments? We thought it would be fun to hear the stories behind the stories. We bring you this conversation with former MotoWorld2 TV personality Jerry Bernardo, executive producer Lou Seals, and cameramen Doug Franke and Dan Walsh as they share some of their favorite television moments from back in the day.
Dirt Buzz: Jerry, how goes it? These are some crazy times we’re living in at the moment. Have you been able to stay busy and maintain some semblance of sanity while quarantined at home in Melbourne?
Jerry Bernardo: Spoiler alert: You asking me about my sanity right off the bat [laughs]. I have been doing graphic design from home for so many years now that it all seems normal to me. I usually leave the house after lunch and go to the supermarket. That’s the first time the neighbors can catch a glimpse of me squirming out the front door like the chest-burster in Aliens.
DB: Lou Seals, CEO of Seals Media Company and the creator, owner, and executive producer of ESPN’s MotoWorld and MotoWorld2: Rev It Up! has said, “There is only one Jerry Bernardo.” To put it mildly, you’ve always had a unique way of looking at things. Whether it’s watching you on television from back in the day or reading an article you’ve written, it’s abundantly clear that you march to your own drumbeat. Did you consciously create a TV persona, or is that who Jerry Bernardo is in real life?
JB: To be honest, that is just me being me. While I have definitely tamed it down over the years, anyone who knows me knows you have to be brave to go out in public with me [depending on my mood]. Veteran announcer Larry Naston once said that “Jerry is like a train; he can derail at any minute.” When I first got my job on television, I was in newfound territory: at events, in front of a camera and a crowd. I knew how to entertain and get a laugh, but learning the ropes of television and proper storytelling took me a long time. I will credit the big dogs at EPSN for helping to teach me how to better my storytelling skills and adapt them for TV. Lou loved to cut me loose and let me go nuts. His famous quote [to me] was: “Do whatever you want but stay within the parameters. I will explain to you after you cross them.” For 17 years it was a hectic learning curve, that’s for sure.
“I knew how to entertain and get a laugh, but learning the ropes of television and proper storytelling took me a long time.”
DB: Let’s take it back to the MotoWorld2 days. Lou Seals says he had to convince Mel [Harris] [Head of Suzuki Marketing outside of automotive in the USA] that even though MotoWorld on ESPN was a worldwide success by 1993, that the spinoff sister series: “MotoWorld2: Rev It Up” (explicitly designed for ESPN2) would be just as good. You teamed up with Sealsco and long-time MotoWorld freelance cameraman Dougie Franke and created Reality TV before anyone knew any better! Was the idea for MotoWorld2 part of a masterplan between the three of you? Or did the show just naturally evolve into something that was ahead of its time and the only series of its kind to ever garner two Cable Ace nominations for the entire ESPN2 network?
JB: Lou [Seals] and Sealsco came up with the idea for the show after my buddy Joe Colombero from Suzuki pointed him in the direction of my shrapnel. The two of them must have seen a useful gas stain in my holy water, but once Suzuki came on board as a sponsor, we had the dough to start banging out shows. Dougie was a freelance cameraman hired to shoot a show with me, and we hit it off right away. Over the years, the two of us [and shooters like Dan Walsh and Ricky Pendleton] took the show to a place never before seen within the talking head driven world of motorcycle television. Young, green producers would be tasked to try to corral us, and we always tried to peel off from what they had in mind and do our own thing. “Give us a list of who you want, some tape stock, fresh batteries, and leave us alone!” [lol] Walking a foaming Pit Bull is not an easy task, but first, you have to get the leash on him.
Doug Franke: The beauty of MotoWorld2 was the fact that, although we had a field producer, we never really listened to them. They were awesome to have for the logistics, but the creative content was always Jerry and mine. That was free reign, and for the most part with the advent of the spastic camera, snap zooms, Jerry’s ad-lib fodder, and the infamous mic windsocks, we would let the crazy just come to us. We worked extremely well together. Jerry a Masshole nut case and me a closet nut case we quite often came up with some insane shows.
Dan Walsh: Long before “reality television” had taken over so much of television programming in the United States, there was a small motorcycle show on cable TV called MotoWorld. I was the west coast cameraman stringer that sent stories to the Atlanta based tv show they requested.
One day I was asked to drive to Wrightwood, California to shoot a feature on this helmet painter that was shaking up the motorcycle industry with his over the top helmet treatments. As my field producer and I spent the day with Jerry Bernardo, when we left his shop, our discussion was that “a star was born”! Jerry not only was on camera, but he also OWNED it.
The feature aired on MotoWorld, and the response from viewers was “MORE JERRY”! Show executive producer Lou Seals created a show just for Jerry to premiere on the brand new ESPN2 network. That show was first called MotoWorld2, then eventually MW2, which ran for several years on the network.
Jerry and usually one cameraman would travel to all parts of the globe to bring viewers the coverage and approach to a story that only Jerry could do in a way unique to him. Even today, there is nothing on cable or even YouTube that compares to Jerry’s sometimes outrageous but always over the top presentations for the show.
“We worked extremely well together. Jerry a Masshole nut case and me a closet nut case we quite often came up with some insane shows.”
Jerry also learned how to be a serious show host and personality, which brought him several other television gigs, including acting on “Renegade” with Lorenzo Lamas as an international arms dealer. He aced that part in the show, which made his popularity zoom even further to the top.
Having achieved all his TV goals in the USA, Jerry embarked as only he could, on a new chapter in his life. He moved to Australia to take on an entirely new challenge. One could only imagine how his first few months there went when the locals tried to figure out what part of English Jerry was speaking, which is a very heavy Massachusetts northeastern accent.
Lou Seals: Jerry grew on folks and became a cultural icon on ESPN and ESPN2. He achieved TV greatness and entertained hundreds of thousands of TV viewers for many years in the original heydays of Sealsco. Meaning ESPN2 with hundreds of shows and thousands of hours of programming, many of which with high budgets and produced and owned by ESPN—never won a Cable Ace nomination. He even went on to the X Games.
“Simply put, we made TV history! Kardashians who?”
But I digress, how did he get on TV? By common sense, not casting. By convincing big-time sponsors that we had the secret sauce because we did. By under-promising and over-delivering to the likes of industry heavyweights such as Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and others. So back to Mel and Suzuki. They thought we were unique and that Jerry was unhinged and possibly bat shit crazy, sniffing too many fumes as a very talented custom helmet painter in Victorville, California. But as history proves as well as the show’s performance - Sealsco helped Suzuki and Honda sell tons of product while we were on the air with the MotoWorld brands. Simply put, we made TV history! Kardashians who? And Jerry made Ryan Seacrest much better at age 19 than any other performer in the world. Speaking of which, Ryan, who? Long live Jerry Bernardo! Must-see TV indeed.
Dirt Buzz: To shift gears just a little, we think it would be fun for you and your cameraman Dougie Franke to share your perspective on some of the many surreal moments during the filming of MotoWorld2. The following photos are screen grabs from MotoWorld2 shows from back in the day. Here we go:
Sturgis, South Dakota
DF: We did a Sturgis cross over with the WCW (World Championship Wrestling). At the end of the show, we were supposed to play with Hulk Hogan, but he was sick, so I went to the store and bought this doll and made the close of the show that way.
JB: All I remember is how massive the WCW guys I had seen on TV were in person. The Giant [who later changed his name to the Big Show] was drinking a beer, and it looked like he was holding a fucking D cell battery! I pitched the Big Show on an idea for a shot that I had; They all had custom Harleys on location, and his was [as you can imagine] way bigger than any other bike—he had super tall ape hangers on it. I asked him: “Hey, how about I sit on your bike and do a stand up from it, and you find me sitting on it, get pissed and pick me up off it by my neck?” He wasn’t down to grab me by the throat but did cup his hands under my armpits and lift me off it like I was a baby.
Paris-Bercy Supercross, France
JB: Whenever I went to a foreign country, I tried to learn how to say a few things in the native language. I remember being on the metro telling a story in a cliché loud Boston style, and I spotted some dirty looks coming from a couple of people a few seats over. Mid-sentence, I stop and spin my head and bark at them [in French] “What are you looking at me for?!” Yeah, they say no one likes the French? That day the shoe was on the other foot.
DF: One of the craziest bump shots we ever did. We went down into the metro or tube, and I laid the mic down, and Jerry lay down behind it. Pure luck, the door of the train stopped right between the two, and people just walked right off like it was nothing to have a guy lying there and a big camera.
JB: How about when you and I got busted filming under the Arc de Triomphe? We had been working all over the city doing killer stand-ups at these epic locations, and the tape was almost full. We often got in trouble for doing whatever we wanted but knew the trick of switching the beta tape that was full and replacing it with a blank one. MW2 and the art of distraction!
DF: We decided to do something around the Arc de Triomphe and couldn’t figure out how to get to it. It's in the middle of a five-lane roundabout so, Jerry and I ran across the street dodging cars, which is crazy enough. We get there and start shooting some stuff when all of a sudden, a short woman in a trench coat with a walkie talkie shows up and says, “Come with me” (in her heavy French accent), so we follow and end up in an elevator that takes us to the top of the Arc. Since we had shot around Paris all day and all that footage was on that tape, I was paranoid that they might take the footage, so I whispered to Jerry to distract the woman cop so I could switch tapes—while in the elevator. My plan worked out perfectly, and we ended up in a smoked-out room with a bunch of security guys sitting around watching monitors at their desks inside the Arc de Triomphe. One cop has us sit down and says, “You cannot shoot video around the Arc; it is not allowed.” We both said, “okay!?” And that was it. They let us go, but we had to go back through where we were supposed to have come in, which is a tunnel under the street that comes out on the sidewalk. There, we saw a giant sign that says NO VIDEO INSIDE THE ARC. (Laughs)
ISDE Hämeenlinna, Finland
DF: At the ISDE in Finland I had flown in a few days early to check out Finland and later tried to drive to Russia thinking that once I got there, I could tap my toe on the border and say I had been (still the only continent I’ve never been to). Russia ended up being a five-plus hour drive, so I gave up. After several days in Finland, Jerry shows up, and we start to work. One day we went out to a checkpoint for the race, and there were some typically gorgeous Finnish girls at the checkpoint, and Jerry, with his usual shirt off, asked the girls to write the Finnish word for crazy on his shoulders. So, they did in big black letters with a Sharpie.
Fast forward to later that day, and Jerry was driving our rental Volkswagen and gets pulled over for speeding. The cop asks for Jerry’s license or passport, which he had neither. The cop says (in a Finnish accent), “Out of the car, please.” As Jerry gets out, the cop leans back and looks at Jerry's new tramp stamp, which reads “HULLU” (crazy), and the cop says, “Into the van, please.” Jerry gets hauled off to jail, and Logan, the producer, laughingly says, “We should leave Jerry with the cops for a while.” I said, “Hell no, he would be freaking out.” Jerry said he was put in a cell, and every so often, the little sliding door you would slide food into the cell through would slide open and eyes would peer into the room at Jerry’s still shirtless body. Logan and I went back to the hotel, got his passport, and got him out of jail. He told us that the fine was a percentage of your monthly income, and he had told them how much he made, so his fine was substantial. Jerry still has a warrant in Finland! (Laughs)
“As Jerry gets out, the cop leans back and looks at Jerry’s new tramp stamp, which reads ‘HULLU’ (crazy), and the cop says, ‘Into the van, please.’”
JB: I was shitting myself in jail. When the cops pulled me out of the cell and were doing some paperwork at the desk, they asked me what I did for work and how much I made a month. With my now Casper the Ghost white face, I coughed up the truth faster than an addicted Houdini, making a fresh crack rock disappear. The cop gets his calculator out and tells me my fine is $_____. While I am pondering paying it right there [I had both US and Finnish currencies in each pocket], he tells me I have seven days to pay it. I was flying home in like four days [smiles].
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
JB: Another good mate of mine and famed Texas defense attorney, Dan Cogdell, had everyone down to Cabo San Lucas for his combined bachelors and bridesmaid party. Lyle Lovett was among the guests at the time, and all of us guys rode dirt bikes with Chris Haines tours while the girls, well, they spent all of Dan’s money and made wine disappear.
The guy who owned Kassons Yamaha bike shop in Texas brought his son with him, and the kid and I hooked up near the front of the ride and were hauling ass on the rented Kawasaki KDX200’s we had. The lead rider must have got sick of us hugging his nuts and would let us go ahead of him, and we would just stop and wait at turns until he showed up. So, this is fun; me and the kid riding way over our heads passing each other and having a blast. He had just passed me for the lead when all of a sudden, I see a passing blur and a cloud of dust in front of me. The trail had abruptly ended where we started the ride. It stopped at a fine-bladed road where trucks were hauling gravel in and out. The kid [going a million] bails upon the T intersection just as a big ass truck passed by and bounces [brakes locked up] off of the truck. When I pulled up seconds later, this is what I see: The kid laying on the road wincing with his freshly snapped ankle, a now disfigured bike that had hit the truck and got sucked under the back wheels and run over. I guess the kid flew up and bounced off the truck out of so-called harm's way. I turn to the right, and the truck driver is hurrying back to us after he pulled over. He was ashen-faced, and his eyes were as wide as teacups. The rest of the crew show up, and someone dismissed the driver telling him everything was “OK,” and he could scram, lol. The bike was toasted. What stood out was that the lower forks were crushed as if a giant had stepped on a breadstick.
File this one under a near-death experience? You’re fucking right it was. Dad had to cover the cost of the bike, Jr. had a fresh cast for us to sign, and well, the girls, the girls keep drinking. Side note: I stole Dan’s fiancée’s camera and grabbed my helmet and Dougie for a photo. A month later, Dan calls me and tells me I am an idiot. Back in the days of actual prints, the new wife was showing all the trip photos to someone when she came upon a shot of me, butt naked with the helmet held out in front of my dick. Back then, we did what we wanted to do with no remorse, and no one was safe, not even the rich and famous.
“The bike was toasted. What stood out was that the lower forks were crushed as if a giant had stepped on a breadstick.”
DF: After the kid broke his ankle, a day or so later, we needed to close the show. We thought we could increase the carnage by incorporating the destroyed bike with Lyle’s [Lovett] Americana style music notoriety and Jerry’s insanity. We went into town and bought a cheap guitar to smash over the broken bike (There may have been some sort of symbolism), but I’m sure we weren’t thinking on that level then. Lyle (honestly, he was sad to destroy a musical instrument) played a little song with it and then didn’t feel so bad cause the guitar was, acoustically, a piece of crap. As nightfall came, we had Lyle play another song, and Jerry came and ripped the guitar out of his hands and smashed it over the destroyed Kawasaki. Then the camera shot back to Lyle’s face for the shaking of the head in disgust. It worked out brilliantly.
Unadilla, New York
DF: I can’t remember, but I feel like there was some symbolic thing about the year we did Unadilla, and that led [us] to the “60s” theme of that show. We went into the little town of Utica, NY, to find a second-hand store and bought a Schwinn Stingray bike. I don’t remember where the peace sign necklace, round glasses, or the Afro wig came from, but it was all perfect for the psychedelic open of the show (many shows opened with Jerry ad-libbing some crazy poetry). The thing I remembered most about that show was at the end of the race, (and this may have happened on a different year?) but Jeff Emig was on top of the world this year, and when he won the very muddy race, Jerry came up to interview him just after the finish, and before he said anything, he licked Emig’s cheek and said to the camera “Dilla!” nodding his head with approval. Needless to say, Emig was shocked as he didn’t know what to think of that JB move. I laughed so hard I couldn’t hold the camera steady.
JB: They say that first impressions last forever. I’ve had guys come up to me and ask me if I was that guy that ate dirt on the starting line at the Supercross once [I did in the very first show I ever shot for SealsCo]. One time there even was a crossover incident from my moto fanboy life before TV to later on when I was a TV host. Back in the days when I was still drinking, a van full of us Massholes drove out to the Unadilla National. To save time, I am cutting off a shitload of info from this story to get to the meat in the sandwich. On a wet and muddy day out back at the ‘Dilla amongst the ‘Hill People’ I found a deflated black blow-up doll laying in the mud on the hillside. Not one to pass up a good prop I began to get everyone laughing on the hillside by doing what I will just say is “dumb shit.” I found a big long branch and stuck it in the mouth of the flattened and muddy plastic doll. I began to spin it around like a kite caught in a tornado. I spotted a couple on the hill below us, sitting under a makeshift lean-to. I held the 10’ foot long pole with the blow-up doll hanging off it by its mouth high in the air, and much to everyone’s entertainment behind me, I slowly lowered it down over the lean-to in front of their view. I reckon that caught them off guard. It was a day full of typical drunken madness, East Coast style that day on the hill, and we all had a blast. The doll? Maybe not so much.
Many years later, when I was a so-called TV personality, I had some dude approach me at an event and ask: “Weren’t you that guy on the hill at Unadilla with the black blow-up doll?” I dared not try to plead the fifth, nor would I ever deny such a spectacular achievement, so I just smirked and calmly answered: “Yeah, that was me.” Like I said: first impressions last a lifetime.
Incas Rally, Peru
DF: The Incas Rally was one of our coolest gigs ever thanks to Franco Acerbis. I have so many memories about the eleven days we spent throughout Peru. First off, the airlines lost my bag. So, I literally borrowed the other camera guy’s (Dan Walsh) extra battery and scraped solder from somewhere into a little pile, and soldered wires onto his battery using a match, then duct-taped the battery to the back. (We used different style battery mounts.) After getting that all good, I had to rent a Honda step-thru 70 for $1.70 a day. It had a basket in the front, and I had to ride that into the jungle while it was pouring rain to this crazy log crossing and uphill area.
One of those shots of the muddy uphill became one of the opening shots of the show. (In the picture, I’m the guy in the middle.) Riding out to the area, it was so slippery in the mud I started to swap, with my legs flailing and my camera just hanging across my back from the shoulder strap. The camera whipped around and hit the handlebars, ripping the viewfinder off the camera. Luckily, I had saved some duct tape and taped the viewfinder back on. Jerry was in that race, so I had to do a lot of ad-lib stuff. It’s hard to tell all the stories from that deal, but it was one of the best gigs ever—from riding in a cattle car up the Incas trail to Machu Picchu, flying a Russian helicopter through the valleys of Peru, shooting at 14,600 feet not being able to breathe and getting sick.
That story goes like this: I got my own room in one of the “hotels” we stayed in because I was so ill. The team doctor came in and said, “Drop your pants so I can give you a shot.” Our producer, Logan, stood in the doorway laughing at me because it hurt so much when Paulo, the doctor, shoved that needle in my rear. Later the next day, Paulo came to me and said in his Italian accent, “I’m sorry that hurt so much yesterday, Doug, but the only needle I had with me was a horse needle. He laughed and said, “They are very big!” I smiled and chewed on some cocoa leaves.
JB: I still hail that experience in 1996 as one of the greatest memories of my lifetime. It was a made-for-TV rally dreamed up by Franco Acerbis and probably [in someone’s opinion] paled in comparison to the rally raid style events that we know today. There were no GPS routes and 900 kilometer days, but it still was an international race with many champions and talented riders. Franco and crew would plot out a course each day, and we would race for about three hours. After a short break, there was another stage, always unique, geared for the broadcast aspect of the event. An example is the afternoon stage we did one day, where we raced on the clock down a rocky-as-fuck cart road skirting a mountain to a waiting raft. We loaded the bikes onto pallets and paddled for an hour and a half down Class 3 rapids only to dismount, fire up the bikes and charge up a loose off-camber hill to the checkers.
To keep this somewhat short, I will add in two tidbits that not many have heard from that epic adventure. My roommate for the entire trip was the self-proclaimed “world's fastest slow bike rider” and Dakar veteran Jimmy Lewis of [now] Dirt Bike Test. When we got to the Amazon jungle in Puerto Maldanado, Jimmy and I hustled off to dump our gear in our so-called “hotel” room. We entered the room in all its bare single light bulb glory, and it was a scene from a man on the run Jason Bourne film. A small and stale room with two single beds complete with a toilet with no seat or cover. Peering out of the urine colored curtains down to the street below, all we could see was a moving mass of humanity, a veritable beehive of motorized rickshaws, small motorbikes and scooters with stacked families on board. No helmets, Moms riding side-saddle with baby in arms, the place was a non-stop flow of a bad accident waiting to happen. The first night we slept there, the noise never ceased into the wee hours. I woke up and looked over at Jimmy, who had jammed in earplugs, wrapped his T-shirt around his head, and was taco’d inside a folded pillow to attempt to drown out the audio agitation of all things two-stroke. Fuck, he looked funny that day.
“We loaded the bikes onto pallets and paddled for an hour and a half down Class 3 rapids only to dismount, fire up the bikes and charge up a loose off-camber hill to the checkers.”
After the whole rally was over, we were loading up and leaving the beachside resort Franco had picked for the final stage. Everyone [about 125 people] was piling into rented buses, and all of a sudden, someone says: “Whose bike is that?” We look out the front of the bus to a lone XR600 sitting lost in the gravel car park. “Shit, that looks like my bike…shit, that is my bike.” I had been given the brand-new Honda to race but had no idea who would claim it, pick it up, or where it was supposed to go after the race. The always quick-thinking Franco Acerbis instructed his boys to drain the fuel out of it then juggle it on its side into the lower side compartments of the bus amongst all of our gear bags. Four hours later, at night, we dropped it off at some random bike shop and were on our merry way.
Franco’s old cohorts he always brought over to America with him for events like the Nevada Rally knew me from those races [I was hired as a driver]. When they first spotted me on day one in my gear, they all laughed at me and asked: “Tu sei un pilota?” [“Are you racing?”] They had just known me as a loose cannon and a clown. After my teammate Chris Smith and I finished 2nd O/A on day one, they changed their tune. Chris and I would go on to finish 2nd every day and end up 2nd overall for the race behind Jimmy Lewis and his teammate, Italian enduro legend Arnaldo Nicoli. Like they say in Boston: Suck it!
Talledega, Alabama NASCAR
DF: I would have to say the number one most creative show was Talladega. MotoWorld2: Rev It Up! was primarily a behind the scenes slap stick motorcycle-related show. But after we got a Cable Ace nomination, and ESPN2 was getting more into the four-wheel side of things, Lou Seals, the marketing guru, sold them on continuing the show and cross-promoting the motorsports genres. That led to us doing the Indianapolis 500 (Jeff Ward’s rookie race), Daytona 24 hours, and many others.
But Talladega was pure genius and my favorite show. Our producer was so late for this race he couldn’t book a hotel room for any of us. So, they rented a motorhome for Jerry and me to stay in at the track. The motor yacht became a part of the show. From Jerry mosh pitting in the unit to sleeping in the baggage compartment with his NASCAR blanket we bought at Walmart (I still have it too).
JB: The NASCAR blanket we bought was printed up with all these gaudy car numbers and cliché racing crap. At one point, I had it with me, and I asked some official if I could bring it with me out on the track. Of course, like a stern good old boy with an authority complex, he quickly told me no. To me, no always meant yes, and once again, we did what we wanted to do and brought it down on to the track in the middle of all the other so-called “normal” media pigeons.
One of the best MotoWorld2 shots happened during this show. I think Dougie came up with it. There was a chain-link gate opening as wide as a race hauler that Dougie noticed, and we went to work. While the masses walked back and forth in both directions on the far side of the fence, I slowly walked backward, huddled in my NASCAR blanket like a drugged-out wanderer at a Grateful Dead concert. When they edited the shot, they ran the tape backward, resulting in all the people walking quickly backward and me sliding in and across the frame, slowly walking left to right. That, in my opinion, was classic MotoWorld2.
“…. I slowly walked backward, huddled in my NASCAR blanket like a drugged-out wanderer at a Grateful Dead concert.”
DF: We were fish out of water there. At one point, we wanted an interview with Jeff Gordon, who, at that time, was on top of the world. There were so many reporters around him wanting an interview, it was insane, and since we didn’t know any better, there was a pecking order with his manager as to who got the interviews. Gordon sees Jerry and says to his manager, “those guys.” And the wall of people opened, and in we went. Jerry says who we are, and Jeff says, “Oh, I know, I watch your show.” We both look at each other amazed and started in. Jerry’s first question, or should I say statement, is, “We want to strip you down naked and put you into the infield with all the crazy fans.” Gordon doesn’t even flinch, gives a chuckle, and says, “Oh, no, I’ve been out there with the people, I want to see you out there!” (Of course, the naked statement never made air.) He then looks down at the microphone and notices the doll head that I had put on it for a windscreen. Jerry would spin the head, so as he talked to it, it would look at him, and when Gordon spoke, it would look at Gordon. Gordon starts laughing at this and says, “You guys are crazy.”
Later on, I was stopped by one of the NASCAR officials who said to me, “We don’t condone that kinda advertising here at NASCAR.” I was wearing a white t-shirt with 8” black bold letters that just said BIG ASS on it. As the official was trying to get me to take it off, Jerry was looking behind the man at his BIG ASS and making gestures, which of course, cracked me up, in turn, pisses the guy off even more. (I did eventually comply with his wishes.)
JB: It wasn’t always me that made a fuss or caused a stir. Dougie had his moments of rebellious glory as well. To this day, he is still the king of all things McGyver and my brother from another mother. We used to do sound checks, and in front of whoever we were about to film with, I would say stuff like, “Check one-two, check one-two. Dougie, how’s your wife [now ex-wife] that fucking fat cow? I would love to smother her in her sleep with a pillow.” The shock and horror we brought to the table never ended. If we tried that shit nowadays, I highly doubt we would escape unscathed.
DF: Then, there was Mark Martin. Jerry really didn’t know NASCAR racers. I followed it enough to know some. As we headed out of the pit area, I noticed Mark Martin sitting on the bumper of a truck. “Jerry, Jerry, it’s Mark Martin!” So, Jerry sits down next to him, and the interview begins very non-formal. He says some crazy stuff and then says maybe they should arm wrestle (having found out that Martin, who is quite small, benches like 450 lbs or more). Martin looks down his sunglasses, squeezes Jerry’s bicep, and says, “I think I’ll be okay.”
DB: As you guys have alluded to a few times, things have changed immensely since those days. For example, when we think about reality TV, the level of shock and awe has reached unprecedented levels. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine a TV personality these days at a Supercross or Motocross getting away with the kind of antics you guys did on MotoWorld2. What is your take on the state of motorsports TV and its personalities?
JB: This is a tough one to answer. I am not one to talk shit, but I do call it as I see it. I really don’t watch much moto TV mainly because I live over here in Australia, we just don’t get all of the programming you guys do. I was talking to Emig the other day during a Zoom chat about Frezno Smooth [the FMX cult classic], and he, himself mentioned something about me and moto TV. I think he meant that he now understands that it’s not as easy as one would imagine delivering great content. Knowing the sport inside and out, that’s one thing, but the traffic of a live broadcast setting is an art. The shitty on-camera presenters know who they are. I like my boy Kris Keefer’s style.
DB: That’s a good point about delivering great content in a live setting, especially when you consider that nowadays, most motorcycle races stream live online. If you could pass along advice to aspiring TV announcers or pit reporters, what would you tell them?
JB: I learned many things over the course of my 17-year-long career, some I was taught, some I figured out on my own. These are the ones that stick out in my mind. I offer these up merely as suggestions:
Never give up control of the mic.
It’s not about you; it’s about the athlete/subject.
Yelling does not make anyone a good announcer.
There is no place for manufactured enthusiasm. If you come out hot at a level of 10, where will you go when something truly exciting happens?
Being good-looking doesn’t automatically make you talented. Watch the event and use what happens in your stand-ups and post-race interviews.
Never ask two questions; this just allows them to pick the question they want to answer.
Always ask a question. Random statements like, “You got first. You must be excited,” will just end up making you look dumb on camera.
Whoever signs the checks is the person to listen to.
Good reporters tell the truth. We don’t make the weather; we just tell you if it is crappy out or not.
DB: Thanks for the trip down Motoworld2 memory lane. We enjoyed your candid stories!
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