Jack shot me a message a week prior and said he had a pretty wild idea that he wanted me to shoot. If you haven’t met Jack Hartje in person, this isn’t something you say no to. A week later we were down at a small track near Owego, NY, where we met up to make this happen.
Jack showed up with a couple of buddies from Buffalo in a truck that contained the following:
-3 Honda 50cc motorcycles with flatland pegs
-1 FBM Maneater bicycle
-1 Extremely narrow 3 foot launch ramp.
The 50’s were a big hit with everyone, where they even put them on the oval track to do a full on race (where they topped out at about 35 and everyone was bored by turn 2). To quote Jack, “They’re most of the fun [of big bikes], but none of the danger”. Sure thing, man.
Matt Knapp, a mutual friend of ours (and fellow OG rider), was with a bunch of his friends at their bi-monthly meet up, where they took their high performance cars and did shit that you see in the movies. These maneuvers may appear to be out of control, but the precision and skill they have to perform them is incredible.
That last shot was one driver’s version of a “Rodeo Donut” where he straddles the car door and locks the wheel, spinning while hanging halfway out of the car.
Here Jack prep’s the ramp with the necessary modifications to perform the jump, and gives it a quick test run.
The timing involved with this stunt was absolutely insane and it required extremely percise driving from Matt to give Jack a chance to clear the car without hitting the ramp. Both driver and rider took a ton of runs to get things just right before giving it a go. Here Matt just barely clips his bumper on the edge of the ramp and removes his front right headlight. What you probably won’t notice is Jack’s shadow in the bottom left corner, where he dodged the flying ramp by inches.
After a few more test runs, I turned around and saw Jack start tearing ass down the huge runway, and then Matt’s engine began to scream. I quickly zoomed out cause I knew this was going to be big. I can’t even begin to explain how gnarly this was. And yes, he landed.
Thanks to Jack for being a badass, Matt for basically destroying his car that day as well as everyone at the track for being cool and making for a great day. I can’t wait to go back and shoot more.
