Las Vegas Weekly

December 27, 2008 · 10 AM

Exclusive Interviews, Part I: Two ‘crazy’ daredevil stuntmen are risking it all

By Robin Leach

Two daredevil drivers will stare down death on New Year’s Eve with two mind-blowing stunts on the same live TV show from Las Vegas. It’s ESPN’s New Year No Limits, and motorcyclist Robbie Maddison and truck driver Rhys Millen know they could be seriously injured or die. Both men admit they are “crazy” -- and both men know exactly what could happen if it all goes wrong. There is not one inch of margin for error.

Robbie will break all boundaries in leaping for the first time to the top of the Arc de Triomphe at our Paris Las Vegas on the Strip, and then afterwards free-falling to the ground. Rhys will seek redemption for his failed attempt last year to backflip an off-road truck in the parking lots of The Rio just off the Strip on Flamingo. During final practice a year ago, he overshot the landing, sustained serious injuries and had to withdraw from the attempt.

The stuntmen, who love living on the edge, arrive in Vegas this weekend for their final preparations. Both acts of insanity will be broadcast live in HD on ESPN beginning at 8 p.m. our local Pacific Time (11 p.m. Eastern Time). It also will be simulcast on www.ESPN360.com, and tourists and locals are encouraged to watch both jumps, which are free to the hundreds of thousands of New Year’s Eve revelers.

Robbie, a 27-year-old Australian, will have to jump more than 120 feet to land atop the 96-feet-high, 40-feet-wide Arc at the Paris. He’ll do a live TV interview from the top if the jump is successful and then free-fall 50 feet to the netted ground ramp below. Rhys, a 36-year-old New Zealand native, will have to get his truck to rotate fully over a distance of 80 feet at a height of 50 feet to make his dream come true.

Today, we’ll post our candid conversation with Rhys, and tomorrow we’ll follow up with our chilling chat with Robbie. Rhys would become the first man in the world to complete and land a backflip in an off-road truck.

“Last year, we attempted what was before then thought impossible,” Rhys told me. “Laws of physics and vehicle dynamics were pushed to the limits for success, but failure came in one small miscalculation. My body can be broken, but my mind cannot. This year, I swear people will witness the first ramp-to-ramp backflip in an off-road truck ever!”

Rhys has been the lead stunt driver in numerous TV commercials and movies including The Dukes of Hazzard and The Fast and the Furious. His credibility in motor sports is unrivaled, having won the 2005 Formula Drift Championship and the 2008 Red Bull Drifting World Championship. Rhys is the world record-holder on the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

I talked with Rhys during a break from practicing at the Red Bull Compound training facility north of Los Angeles as he began packing up for the trip to Vegas. Since he knows no fear, I asked him to simply define it.

Robin Leach: What is your definition of fear? Why don’t you get afraid?

Rhys Millen: Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that before. I guess in my line of work, motor sport and some of the other work that I do, it’s really not a subject that we even discuss or that’s ever been presented. I think when fear hits you at the point that it does, it’s so instantaneous that you really don’t have the time to process what is happening -- you just deal with the situation at hand.

RL: So when the backflip went totally wrong in the final practice run last year and we saw the disastrous consequences on the video -- what were the emotions when you took off and you knew it wasn’t going to work? I’m just trying to find out what makes a guy like you tick! Or as everybody wants to know, are you still trying to figure that out yourself?

RM: I think they’ll have to figure that out when they cut me open and figure it out!

RL: A different set of wires inside you?

RM: Yeah, exactly. You know, if you dissect that one particular jump, that was one in 15 jumps that we had done and at that point we had built a lot of security and landing pads, the boxes that we use. The truck had left the ramp and done multiple rotations of 270, you know, 200, 180, 90 degrees, and you’ve got very accustomed to what it felt like when the truck left the ramp. The speed rotation, if everything was going correctly, and obviously the security of landing into the boxes. So to dissect that last jump, when we left the ramp, I knew instantly that the truck was not rotating. At that point, it was not fear or anything like that and what was going to happen, it was more of resignation of the inevitable crash. I don’t even know how to put it into words; gosh I’m blocked up here. After disappointment at that point as to why it didn’t rotate, ’cause that would be the last jump. And the impact rapidly followed that, and that just completely caught me by surprise.

RL: Was that the worst set of injuries you’ve received?

RM: It is. You know, in 16 years of motor sports, rally racing, drift racing, Pike’s Peak, off-road, Baja, I had never broken a bone, and you know everything I do is typically very calculated, very inch perfect. And you know to analyze the jump that we’re doing, I don’t consider myself a daredevil, I don’t plan on doing this at every stadium across the country for the rest of my life. It is really an exercise of engineering. There’s a lot of dynamics and physics involved and preparation of the truck and the ramp and just applying all of that engineering and to figure out and to prove people wrong, that this can happen. And that’s what we set out to do, or what I set out to do personally. I have a great group of staff that work for me full time, that work for me on my motor sport program. This was kind of something to push all of us to think in unique ways and to challenge ourselves in a new direction.

RL: Before I ask you about this year’s challenge, how long did it take you before you got back behind the wheel and didn’t have the slightest hesitation about doing this again?

RM: You know for a couple of months at the start of the year, I was laid up at home. In March, I took on my first TV commercial again, and it was a test for me mentally and physically, knowing that our racing season started at the Long Beach Grand Prix in a month’s time, in April. So I didn’t really sit around too much, I had a lot to move forward on, you know, as an employer of a business, it wasn’t just my own income that I had to worry about, it was the security of my employees, as well. So, to put all that aside, that’s when I really started to think about the jump again, and it was something I could not get out of my head. It was something I could not give up on, I put so much time and effort into designing all of the pieces and coming up with a theory, and then doing as much as we did in the prelims last year, that I knew what it took, last year before the incident happened, that to build a buffer security, we needed to make a change on the ramp. We didn’t have enough time to make that change, only a week out from New Year’s last year. So we were kind of trying to Band-aid the project and unfortunately the incident occurred, and it was one of my directions, my call -- I have no one else to blame but myself.

RL: Is it fixed and are you ready, raring to go?

RM: It is unbelievable. We will not actually do it, ramp to ramp, until New Year’s Eve. It will be the first day and last day that we do it. We were out yesterday, and we actually did our second and third practice jump for the year. With the changes I knew had to happen last year we applied, and the changes to the truck and the ramp, it produced 85 degrees more of rotation at the same speed. And at that point, we did a backup jump, and both jumps were identical. Without being too cocky and confident, I can say that my staff and even my wife now are very, very happy with what she saw yesterday, and we have it in the bag.

RL: Has your wife, Presley, ever told you to stop this nonsense?

RM: This is my last jump. She’s from North Carolina, and we got married six weeks ago. We made a little agreement between the two of us that this is the last one.

RL: Is it the adrenaline, is it feeding -- fueling -- the impossible?

RM: If you take my involvement in motor sports, I’m not that much into cars, as I am in the reward of driving a car on the edge, sliding sideways and so forth. And within my company, I do a lot of our development and our testing out and tuning. And at that point, you’re out on the track, you’re processing what you’re doing and you’re pulling back into the pits, and you’re making changes to the springs, the suspension, the tire settings and all of that is applied to this project. We’ve made changes to ramp angles, to speed, to shock settings, spring shock settings on the truck. It’s a very similar dynamic to what I do, just the third dimension being we’re actually leaving the ground.

RL: You’ll head out this weekend and arrive in Vegas on Monday to prep for this, so its actually not a lot of time before the jump itself.

RM: No, the ramp is actually built on a trailer. So we will tow it in to The Rio parking lot. We will fix it to the ground; it will be lag bolted and staked to the ground. The dirt-landing ramp will be built into place. And that process will happen over Monday and Tuesday, and then we’ll do some practice runs in the morning of New Year’s Eve and the one and only jump that night. ESPN has it scheduled between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., after the Chic-Fil-A Bowl.

RL: So, you only get two practice runs the day of, and obviously you don’t flip the truck itself?

RM: No, we’ll do some speed runs and then we’ll go up and we’ll actually go all the way up and trigger the release mechanism, just to make sure that everything is fine. Reset to our starting point, get the thumbs up, and go for it.

RL: Vegas has had some strange weather the past week or so. Does it matter if it’s raining, snowing, blowing really windy?

RM: It was a little bit of a concern; luckily, it’s been pretty damn cold here this last weekend. We’re actually jumping in weather that was actually 50-degree mark, so you know, there are many, many moving parts on this ramp and that was definitely a concern of mine, with the way that metal sort of contracts and so forth, and the temperatures, too. But we’ve got all of our T’s crossed and our I’s dotted, I think we’re good to go.

RL: Are you a crazy man, or are you a calculated man?

RM: I would say very calculated man; I’m a Virgo, so very precise.

RL: So, the jump takes, from the moment you get in the truck and you take up your position, yank into drive and foot on the floor of the vehicle, talk me through that. How long does it take?

RM: You’re probably looking at about 30 seconds tops! My running distance is about 500 feet. The crazy thing about the ramp is that because it is built on a trailer, it had to meet lane requirements to tow to Vegas, so it’s only 102 inches wide. But the truck is 76 inches wide, so that means I only have 13 inches of error to the left and to the right. And when you’re at 500 feet in front of that thing, it looks like you teeing up on a toothpick.

RL: So what speed do you hit as you go up the ramp?

RM: It’s a manual transmission truck, so it will take off in first, accelerate to 30, shift at 30 mph into second gear, and then between my eye line sight, focusing on the ramp and the speed on the dash, we’ll bring the speed up to 36 mph and then a constant speed approach to the ramp and up the face of the ramp. And as soon as the front tires strike the kicker, which is the moving part of the ramp, I have to lift and decelerate exactly at the very same moment. And why I say exactly, a motorcycle when it jumps, everything is spinning in the direction of travel, everything that is rotating, wheels, chain, cog, all of that. Unlike a motorcycle, on a truck everything is kind of spinning 90 degrees rotation, your crank shaft, your fly wheel, your clutch, your transmission gears, your drive shaft, so if I stay on the throttle too long, it will actually make the truck want to rotate clockwise, basically spinning it upside down. We found that to be the case in some of the test jumps last year. We cured it with spring rates, but ultimately I have to control that.

RL: You, in a sense, throttle back?

RM: Exactly. As soon as I strike the kicker or the moving part of the ramp, it’s literally bracing my left foot and lifting completely up on the throttle my right foot.

RL: And how long do you fly through the air?

RM: The rotation actually happens very, very fast. You go from zero degrees at ground level to instantly 90 degrees as you leave the ramp, and then the rotation, gosh, I’m going to say, probably 3 seconds.

And then we start the landing, yes.

RL: You start breathing again?

RM: (Laughs.) It is actually an amazing feeling. You watch the motorcycle guys do backflips, and you watch them arch their back and tilt their heads back so they can spot their landing with their eyesight. I’m doing exactly the same thing in my truck; I’m looking for my landing as it comes around. It’s an incredible feeling when you see those boxes, and you know that you got the rotation right.

RL: And is there a sense of relief sweeping over you as you land? Or is it matter-of-fact, you tested man’s limit, you tested machine’s limit, and you conquer?

RM: You know last year was a backward and forward of emotion. You know, one jump would be progress in the right way and then we would come two steps back. We were effectively doing the same thing each time. Our measurements were not quite right, and it was producing this inconsistency in the jump. Processing everything from last year, applying the changes that needed to be made, and making those for this year and literally on our very first jump and achieving exactly what we knew needed to happen. Yesterday’s first practice jump was just an incredible feeling. For one, for me mentally, to put this behind me and now know that we have it, for family members that chose to support me there was real relief on their faces.

RL: Are they more worried than you?

RM: Well, my father and I have not talked about this all year long. He subsequently went back to New Zealand about two weeks ago, because he just didn’t want to deal with it. But my wife, she didn’t have a choice. I’m here. She’s here. It was an emotional rollercoaster, but she was happy to see the results.

RL: In a sense, there are a hundred things that could go wrong. Are you the master of your faith at all times, or are there certain things that are out of your hands?

RM: You know, I came up with the design, I came up with the theory, and we did a lot of testing, like a ground test. And to dissect them into elements of what the ramp is doing and what the truck is doing, ultimately I need to be inch perfect, within 1 to 2 mph. I need to lift at exactly that right point, so although the ramp is doing a lot to manipulate the truck into the flip, the precision of what I’m doing is also very, very required.

RL: Are you conscious that you are dicing with death at any stage of this?

RM: You know, reflecting again on last year, I would never, I never wanted the outcome, what came about to happen, and to be given an opportunity to do this again and have the support of my sponsors, literally to prove to myself, I knew what needed to be changed. And to see the outcome we had this year, reflecting on last year, I was dicing with that. And as mentioned, we were kind of Band-aiding it just to kind of get it done. The fact that I’ve been given another chance, the fact that we’ve had that support and to produce the outcome of the two jumps that we had yesterday. What we were able to achieve as the rotation is so fast and so high, some 40 feet in the air, that we can now build our dirt-landing ramp up to about 20 feet tall, literally meaning that our full speed as we strike the landing ramp shouldn’t be any greater than 10 mph. With what we were dealing with last year, that landing speed would have been about 35 mph, which in hindsight was crazy. There was a lot of concern of all of that. And what we saw yesterday, I think if you had a video camera on my face, which there were many, that was enough to put it into words.

RL: From a spectator’s point-of-view, people must say you just can’t rotate a truck 360 degrees. It’s impossible and can’t be done!

RM: Agreed: You can’t grasp it. It’s such a shock factor, very unnatural. Although you witness a bike do it, to see this mass of a vehicle do it, it’s awe-inspiring.

RL: They’ve done it in movies using trick photography rotating the celluloid, but nobody’s ever rotated the truck for real, correct?

RM: Correct. And you know for me, I wanted to do it effectively and unassisted. When I started telling people that I wanted to do this, it was hilarious what came out of the woodwork. People thought I needed rockets to fly the truck. All these mad scientists, and I’m like, “No, we need to do this naturally” if we’re going to do it at all. That’s probably the biggest thing that I’m hanging my hat on is my team and myself. You know we’ve really thought about this and we’re effectively, in my way, we’re doing it naturally.

RL: Do you put anything in the truck with you or in your uniform as a good luck charm?

RM: I’ve never been that person. I believe in myself, and if there’s a mistake made, I’ve only myself to blame.

All of us at Vegas DeLuxe wish Rhys much success, and here’s to a safe and successful backflip jump!

Tomorrow, we’ll have our exclusive interview with Robbie Maddison. He admits that he’s become physically ill worrying about his “dice with death” stunt on New Year’s Eve at the Paris and has warned TV producers to be prepared to cut away instantly if it goes wrong! You can’t miss his full, chilling confessional, so be certain to click back here after we post it.

Share This