Speaker 1: Hello, friends and family, Welcome back to another episode of
Speaker 1: Car Stories with Song Kang and Amelia Hartford. Today's guest
Speaker 1: we have Rod Chong. Rod is the chief creative officer
Speaker 1: over at the beloved Race Service and just an artiste.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well evolved human being. He shares a lot of
Speaker 2: wisdom on his personal journey here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's had a very full career outside of motorsports,
Speaker 1: from also video games to music to fashion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just a really pleasant conversation with a
Speaker 2: person I've never met. But you've been friends with Rod
Speaker 2: for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've known Rod for a very long time and
Speaker 1: he is not afraid to ever go deep with the conversation,
Speaker 1: which I appreciate the openness and willingness to go there.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, enjoy Rod Chong everybody.
Speaker 2: So, for the listen out there that aren't familiar with
Speaker 2: your history and your work, can you give us a
Speaker 2: little history of Rod and where you are now and
Speaker 2: where you came from.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I'm one of those kids that grew up
Speaker 3: racing go karts from an immigrant family in Vancouver, Canada.
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of people, I'm sure you
Speaker 3: find this from all the people that you talk to
Speaker 3: in the car world that often a passion for cars
Speaker 3: tends to come from childhood. Usually, I find nine times
Speaker 3: out of ten, so I'm no different from that. My
Speaker 3: father and his brothers were racing cars and go karts,
Speaker 3: and my father had a shop where they would build
Speaker 3: custom car stereos and they'd giant subwoofers and they'd enter
Speaker 3: them in competition. So I grew up racing. But interestingly,
Speaker 3: I never really liked the wheel the wheel sport that much.
Speaker 3: It's maybe this very shy, quiet Asian kid and I
Speaker 3: like drawing and painting cars more like the creative aspect
Speaker 3: of being a kid that was into cars. I liked
Speaker 3: being a racing driver more so I could, you know,
Speaker 3: have something to help with, you know, being the experience
Speaker 3: of racism and all that stuff as Asian kid in school.
Speaker 3: It gave me a little bit of a leg up,
Speaker 3: and I liked to have my leather jacket I could wear.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's a Jamaican culture coming through. But fast forward on.
Speaker 3: I went to art school too with a plan to
Speaker 3: design cars because I was good at drawing and painting
Speaker 3: and got distracted with cameras and running around with cameras,
Speaker 3: so it seemed way more fun. So the first career
Speaker 3: was directing music videos, so that I did that in
Speaker 3: my native Vancouver, then came to Los Angeles and then
Speaker 3: ended up in London doing that. That kind of fizzled out.
Speaker 3: I was living in London and I heard about this
Speaker 3: video game that you could download all suits of different
Speaker 3: cars and you could change it and make your own
Speaker 3: cars for it, in your own tracks. And this was
Speaker 3: an e called sports Car GT, a PC simulation game,
Speaker 3: And because I'd already had a career in media, I
Speaker 3: put together a crew of people. We started making sports
Speaker 3: car mods for f one games, so you would take
Speaker 3: an EAPC game and make it into a sports car game.
Speaker 3: And I love lamon and GT racing, so this is
Speaker 3: what we focused on. And one of our mods became
Speaker 3: very famous, and then suddenly we all got headhunted and
Speaker 3: overnight I was given a job designing and producing racing games.
Speaker 3: I turned that into a job at EA and went
Speaker 3: back to my native Canada because I figured out in
Speaker 3: my hometown they were making this very famous racing game,
Speaker 3: Need for Speed, and this was at the height of
Speaker 3: tuner cars and all that stuff. There was this big
Speaker 3: street racing scenes. Drifting was just coming up, becoming more popular,
Speaker 3: and You for Speed was tapping into this. And this
Speaker 3: was about two thousand and five or so. Most Wanted
Speaker 3: had just come out and I joined the team and
Speaker 3: they put me in t charge of the cultural elements
Speaker 3: that were going to be integrated into the games, and
Speaker 3: they started sending me to La to go to drifting
Speaker 3: events and I started meeting people and getting more involved
Speaker 3: with the community, first in SoCal, even though I lived
Speaker 3: in Vancouver, and then the bosses said to me, Hey,
Speaker 3: we want to make a website about car culture. Thought
Speaker 3: about it for a couple of weeks and then came
Speaker 3: up with this idea of speed Hunting or speed Hunters,
Speaker 3: which became a website that we launched in two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight. And at the same time we launched another
Speaker 3: program called Timney for Speed, which was a drifting team,
Speaker 3: and we started building Carshusima. But we got to travel
Speaker 3: the world and go to all the different scenes around
Speaker 3: the world, and that was an incredible moment to go
Speaker 3: to Japan, Australia and New Zealand, all across Europe, all
Speaker 3: across the US and see what people are doing. And
Speaker 3: then I left that in twenty fourteen, did a few
Speaker 3: other projects within racing games, sim racing, even some atanas
Speaker 3: motorsports stuff the company called Robo Race and then joined
Speaker 3: the Race Service team. About five years ago moved to
Speaker 3: LA and I had the dream of coming to SoCal
Speaker 3: to be a participant in the car scene here. People
Speaker 3: think I'm crazy, but I kind of moved to La
Speaker 3: so I could drive cars. And I love big cities too,
Speaker 3: because there's a great creative scene here. As both of
Speaker 3: you know, there's people that are doing fashion, media, films,
Speaker 3: graphic design, whatever it is art. But you can have
Speaker 3: that here but still enjoy driving cars, and having lived
Speaker 3: in Stockholm. In London, it's much harder to do that.
Speaker 3: There's great creative scenes projects. You got a nice car
Speaker 3: in London, it's very hard to enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Sure, and even in Canada because the weather is so
Speaker 2: like it's gonna list out your cars.
Speaker 3: That's salt right, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: So So for the folks that don't know Race Service,
Speaker 2: because we had one of your colleagues here Service Chames,
Speaker 2: could you explain to the listening audience what you guys
Speaker 2: do over there at Race Service.
Speaker 3: Well, Race Service, it's been interesting Race Service has been
Speaker 3: around about five years or so, and for the first
Speaker 3: few years people kept saying to us, what is race Service?
Speaker 3: What do you guys do? It seems very cool, but
Speaker 3: what is this thing? The way that we explain it
Speaker 3: is that it's a creative agency. So we do different
Speaker 3: types of projects, collaborations with different brands, usually in automotive
Speaker 3: and motorsports, but we do work in video gaming. I
Speaker 3: do some projects in fashion as well, and our thesis
Speaker 3: is to connect the worlds of motorsports and automotive to
Speaker 3: wider parts of contemporary or pop culture, streetwear, music, video games,
Speaker 3: even some Web three materials, fashion, different organizations. Like we're
Speaker 3: an agency for NASCAR. We do a lot of projects
Speaker 3: with AMG and Porsche Hot Wheels, this one that I'm
Speaker 3: quite involved with. We'll want us to do content and
Speaker 3: strategy and sometimes events to connect all these worlds together.
Speaker 3: We're also in the middle of launching a streetwear fashion
Speaker 3: brand as well that's kind of focused around collaborations with
Speaker 3: automotive brands. But we have our online as well. That's
Speaker 3: a bit of a new project. And then the last
Speaker 3: part of Race Service is that we are a car
Speaker 3: culture hub. We wanted to have a place that's a destination.
Speaker 3: And we have meetups once a month, the first Friday
Speaker 3: of every month at our space. We occasionally curate events
Speaker 3: and we have a pretty active community of people that
Speaker 3: come out to our different programs on site.
Speaker 1: And can I invite anyone listening to go to a
Speaker 1: Rise and Shine sometimes?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what it's called Rising.
Speaker 3: And Shine yea very first Friday of every month.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a good turnout. And maybe if you're
Speaker 1: not familiar cars, you want to get in the space,
Speaker 1: you want to meet some cool people. I think it's
Speaker 1: a great environment.
Speaker 2: So you know what I love about you guys over
Speaker 2: Race Service is that a lot of times you meet
Speaker 2: you know, car folks and they have no fashion sense.
Speaker 2: They look like they show up like that because you know,
Speaker 2: my wife always bags on me. He's like, you know,
Speaker 2: why don't you like dress up? And then everybody over
Speaker 2: at Race Service, you guys just have a great blend
Speaker 2: of what is hip and fashion and pop culture. And
Speaker 2: then you mailed that with you know, car culture, which
Speaker 2: you know, I got some schwag from you guys, and
Speaker 2: I took it over to my house and my wife
Speaker 2: is like, that's what you should be right, because it's
Speaker 2: a celebration of you know, our love affair for cars
Speaker 2: in the community. But then it's you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: a it's a wonderful blend, you know, so.
Speaker 3: Blends industry where and fashion install But we're quite focused
Speaker 3: on curation. Whether we are designing an event, we'll think
Speaker 3: of every single aspect of what someone experience is going
Speaker 3: through that event, from the music to the posters and
Speaker 3: every little detail and the singles. For any film project
Speaker 3: that we do, the worst Senate Race service is to
Speaker 3: do a project that has no style, or to take
Speaker 3: a photograph that doesn't have visual aesthetic buy in to it.
Speaker 3: It's something that's very important to us and I find
Speaker 3: that that whole trajectory interesting. When I first started going
Speaker 3: to automotive events, say you go to an event, say
Speaker 3: drifting event in la even ten years ago, people had
Speaker 3: some style, you know, ten years ago, ten years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And then i would go to an event in the
Speaker 3: UK and I'm looking around and I'm thinking, what are
Speaker 3: these people wearing? But the interesting thing is in the
Speaker 3: past ten fifteen years that's changed, that has really changed,
Speaker 3: and you see the intersection of street wear and modified
Speaker 3: custom cars a lot more now in that people's personal
Speaker 3: presentation is definitely linked in a lot of scenes anyway,
Speaker 3: maybe not everywhere, to whatever customer car that they're building,
Speaker 3: or how they express their personal style through a custom
Speaker 3: car or a modified car.
Speaker 1: And you guys do a lot of cool collubs and
Speaker 1: help companies bridge those gaps.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: One huge project that you've had lately has been Hot Wheels.
Speaker 4: Yes, what would you guys do that? With Hot Wheels?
Speaker 3: We've I've been personally a collaborator of Hot Wheels for
Speaker 3: a long time through many different programs from speed Hunters,
Speaker 3: had different collabs we did when I was seeing the
Speaker 3: Project Cars video game, we had a line of Hot
Speaker 3: Wheels that we collabed with them. But Hot Wheels has
Speaker 3: been a client and collaborator of Race Service since we
Speaker 3: started for the past five years, so we're involved with
Speaker 3: the Legend's Car Show. We have produced numerous content programs
Speaker 3: with them that you see on their Instagram channel. Currently,
Speaker 3: we are doing a documentary series for a car that's
Speaker 3: been built for rent Sport Reunion. It's going to debut
Speaker 3: in about a week and a half. So we're always
Speaker 3: involved with all sorts of different programs with them. I'm
Speaker 3: a bit of a Hot Wheels collector. I love the brand.
Speaker 3: Those little cars are so much joy in each of them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: well you've done projects with me. Yeah, I have your cars.
Speaker 3: I mean it's it's like every car person's Bucke list.
Speaker 3: Yeah your car is a hot wheel Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for any automotive personality or car builder, I think
Speaker 3: that's definitely a big checklist item. Right, you've arrived, you know.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've seen a lot of people come and
Speaker 2: go right trying to do what race Service does and
Speaker 2: what do you think that sets you guys apart to
Speaker 2: just be able to kind of help the listeners if
Speaker 2: they have interest in doing what you guys do.
Speaker 3: It's also a wider question of how do you take
Speaker 3: your passion or cars and make that into your career
Speaker 3: and then have that continue, which is not for a
Speaker 3: lot of people. That's not easy, and that that's a
Speaker 3: big question. Right. I would say that it's a mix
Speaker 3: of being driven by passion, taking that passion and having
Speaker 3: that fuel you is really really good. That'll only get
Speaker 3: you so far, though, because you know this concept of
Speaker 3: the ten thousand hours, right, you have to be a
Speaker 3: good craft you have to be to be an expert. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you just have to look at the craft of what
Speaker 3: you want to do. So if you take you know,
Speaker 3: we look at the content creation side of what you do.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of craft of that. How do you shoot,
Speaker 3: how do you talk to the camera, how do you edit?
Speaker 3: How do you build a storyline? I believe that people
Speaker 3: that do the groundwork to become very good at what
Speaker 3: they do. That's very important. And then lastly, it's being
Speaker 3: able to work on your personality so that you can
Speaker 3: talk about what you do, you can connect with people
Speaker 3: and find those opportunities. So for me, those are the
Speaker 3: magic three mixes of you work really hard so that
Speaker 3: when the spotlight swings your way, that you're ready and
Speaker 3: you don't fuck it up, then maybe it's going to fly.
Speaker 4: What do you think, Amelia?
Speaker 1: I lean more towards the ladder where I think you
Speaker 1: can achieve anything that you want to on this earth,
Speaker 1: so long as you work for it and don't give up.
Speaker 1: I always think of this little image of this person
Speaker 1: who's like digging underground trying to find a light or
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and most times people will give up
Speaker 1: before it just takes one more swing to get there.
Speaker 1: In acting world, you may get one hundred or a
Speaker 1: thousands no's before you get one yes. And I think
Speaker 1: as long as you work towards anything, you're a good person,
Speaker 1: you can achieve. You know, what you believe, where you've
Speaker 1: found excites you, or what you set out to do.
Speaker 4: But there's so many fucked up people that achieve success.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But i'stell business they go that guys in the fuck
Speaker 2: or so and so is it's such an asshole?
Speaker 4: What do you think?
Speaker 3: I tend to focus on creatives, being a creative minded
Speaker 3: person myself, and there's a category of creative me and
Speaker 3: my friends call them naturals, and they don't really spend
Speaker 3: a lot of time thinking about it. Yeah, some people
Speaker 3: would would say that if you're too smart or you
Speaker 3: think too much, you might paralyze yourself thinking about all
Speaker 3: the possible abilities and if I do that or should
Speaker 3: I have that strategy? And then that will light to
Speaker 3: that to that, and sometimes if your your brain isn't
Speaker 3: clogged up with all this stuff, you just do stuff
Speaker 3: and you go for it.
Speaker 2: Yah.
Speaker 3: I think that also relates to your culture. I'm not American,
Speaker 3: I'm from Canada originally, and you know immigrant parents and
Speaker 3: all that whole thing. But one thing have immigrant My
Speaker 3: father is from Jamaica, Jamaican Chinese, my mother's from Columbia
Speaker 3: and South American. But one thing, having moved here five
Speaker 3: years ago, that I love about American culture is they
Speaker 3: can do spirit. But also the way that people support
Speaker 3: each other in the communities. I think that that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: If you say I'm going to do this thing and
Speaker 3: you have a good support network, people will generally say,
Speaker 3: from my experience, anyway, Okay, we're going to support you.
Speaker 3: Go for it, we're going to help you. We're going
Speaker 3: to talk to that person do that. Whereas in other
Speaker 3: cultures that may have tall pop syndrome, you say I'm
Speaker 3: going to do this thing, and they're going to say,
Speaker 3: who do you think you are?
Speaker 4: Tall poppies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a field of poppies and one tries
Speaker 3: to grow taller, the other poppies are going to try
Speaker 3: and gang up and cut that thing down. Really get
Speaker 3: back in your place. Yeah, there's a lot of cultures
Speaker 3: like that, and it's harder to get going.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Do you think that fueled your hunger or desire to
Speaker 2: prove everybody wrong because people are trying to cut that poppy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say, because I'm a little older and
Speaker 3: you didn't have the Internet as a place to have
Speaker 3: community to show what you could do. I used to
Speaker 3: make these crazy videos and I would finish them, put
Speaker 3: them on the tape, and put them in a drawer
Speaker 3: because it was before YouTube launched. So now the world
Speaker 3: is a lot flatter. So if you're from a smaller
Speaker 3: city or a different place, you can still show what
Speaker 3: you do. You put it on the internet, build fans,
Speaker 3: figure out how you're gonna blaunch your career and great
Speaker 3: content whatever it is. So things are very different now.
Speaker 2: You know what I what I really envy about you, Amelia,
Speaker 2: is that you're driving the cars that you're building, right,
Speaker 2: Like you always show up here with like some cool cars,
Speaker 2: and you know, I get so frustrated with these cars
Speaker 2: that I have because the notion of like driving a
Speaker 2: vintage car and if you're like, yay, I'm James Deeney,
Speaker 2: you know, Hollywood, and then like an hour later it
Speaker 2: starts to overheat and then you're you're on the side
Speaker 2: of the road. Man, I don't like that anymore. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, it was cool like for the first like
Speaker 2: three times that happened. But then always these old cars
Speaker 2: have some problem and you know, the gauges don't work
Speaker 2: like I think half the cars the gas fuel gauge,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it.
Speaker 4: Sound empty or full, because this is going up.
Speaker 3: And that's a little bit of the argument for the
Speaker 3: whole ev swap thing, right if it takes out that
Speaker 3: you can just enjoy the thing. It probably doesn't drive
Speaker 3: in the same way, but the thing runs and it's
Speaker 3: probably ten times as fast. Also, yeah, that's really fair.
Speaker 1: When I build cars, I keep streetability in mind, like hardcore.
Speaker 1: Like I just bought a sixty nine Camaro and I
Speaker 1: already bought everything I need to put AC in it
Speaker 1: because I never again will I take out a C
Speaker 1: from a car build a car that ice'. There's just
Speaker 1: so many layers. I wanted to be comfortable driving because
Speaker 1: I don't want to end up on the side of
Speaker 1: the road. And when I moved here with my two
Speaker 1: forty SX that was constantly overheating, how to pull over
Speaker 1: no AC, going to auditions with like my makeup running
Speaker 1: and sweat driven down my back, spelling like gasoline because
Speaker 1: it was run and rich. I just like I think
Speaker 1: now I want to be able to enjoy the cars,
Speaker 1: and it makes me so sad if they park for
Speaker 1: too long that I maybe it's my OCD a little bit,
Speaker 1: but I almost make them a little too perfect.
Speaker 3: It's a challenge of classic car ownership modified cars. I've
Speaker 3: given up on dreaming of air conditioning in mine. I
Speaker 3: bought a fan off Amazon, and I just just blows
Speaker 3: a little bit of air.
Speaker 2: I've been thinking about liquidating all my cars and just
Speaker 2: focusing on one and like making.
Speaker 3: That that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: I just have one because I love vintagch cars, but like,
Speaker 2: get that thing like completely sorted out, where as they
Speaker 2: see has everything that I need, all the creature comforts
Speaker 2: where I can drive it across country to New York
Speaker 2: and then.
Speaker 4: Drive it every day.
Speaker 2: Because I look at these cars and you know, I'm
Speaker 2: getting older, and I go, when am I going to
Speaker 2: actually enjoy this? When am I going to be able
Speaker 2: to drive it into canyons? When am I going to
Speaker 2: be able to take it to the track, Because I'm
Speaker 2: always paranoid like it's going to break down?
Speaker 3: Yeah, right?
Speaker 2: And I think I shifted to like I love the
Speaker 2: process of bringing these cars to life.
Speaker 4: But then that really fully alive kind of limping through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard. He like lose trust in a car
Speaker 1: sometimes two when it breaks down one too many times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've done something a little crazy with my car.
Speaker 3: Is I had a digital twin made, well, a digital
Speaker 3: twin if I commissioned someone. No, it's an add on
Speaker 3: for this PC simulation game, a set of corsa. So
Speaker 3: I had this guy in Europe build it. We scan
Speaker 3: the car and he built a three D model of it,
Speaker 3: did all the physics and everything. So I can sit
Speaker 3: in my living room because I'm in the PCSM racing
Speaker 3: with a VR head set, and I've driven the car
Speaker 3: across Tokyo for example, two hundred miles an hour in
Speaker 3: virtual reality.
Speaker 1: You have your car on a set of corso, yeah.
Speaker 3: And I've driven it on the on the La Canyon.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's stupid because I could do that in
Speaker 3: real life because that's in LA. But still it's funny
Speaker 3: that I can drive my car in my living room
Speaker 3: around racetracks around the world. Way to enjoy it.
Speaker 1: A set of courso for those listening, think of not
Speaker 1: to compare to Grand Trisma or I racing, but it's
Speaker 1: a racing video game essentially. That I said, of course,
Speaker 1: is specifically a lot of drifters like to use for
Speaker 1: the realism of being able to get a car sideways
Speaker 1: and get seat time without actually spending money on tires
Speaker 1: and gas.
Speaker 3: That's so cool anyway, That's the way that I enjoy
Speaker 3: my my classic car virtually, so much.
Speaker 2: Different than playing it in like Grand Turismo or so
Speaker 2: because I have my car in Grand Turismo and.
Speaker 1: That's less street and more tracks into it.
Speaker 4: I was like, yawn, it's different than we are.
Speaker 3: If you have a full PC simrig, you're you're you're
Speaker 3: able to trick your nervous system. It actually thinks you're driving. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's very different than a TV.
Speaker 4: I like that. Yeah, huh.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about what makes you tick, I guess, and
Speaker 1: how you go into going.
Speaker 3: To get into it? Okay, yeah, let's go. Yeah, let's
Speaker 3: steep dive. What would you like to know?
Speaker 1: Let's start with what makes you tick? What what makes
Speaker 1: you choose the decisions that you do on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: and where are you hoping to go with your career.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting question when you ask someone like why
Speaker 3: are you here? What are you here to do? Or
Speaker 3: what do you stand for? I find that very fascinating.
Speaker 3: Whenever I meet people, I sometimes look in the mirror
Speaker 3: and think, what must I do? Not what do I
Speaker 3: want to do? What must I do in order to
Speaker 3: not go crazy? And for me it comes down to
Speaker 3: two things. One is I exist to imagine things and
Speaker 3: bring those visions to life and through creative projects. That's
Speaker 3: the thing I must do. And if I'm not doing that,
Speaker 3: then there's sadness start going crazy. So that's a bit
Speaker 3: of the hardwiring. For my personal philosophy. I define it
Speaker 3: as I exist to grow and learn. That for me
Speaker 3: is very important to continuously be a student and to
Speaker 3: continuously try and look at where my blind spots are.
Speaker 3: It's kind of hard to do because of they're blind spots,
Speaker 3: but try and keep learning and keep never become too solid,
Speaker 3: never say okay, this is me. I'm not going to
Speaker 3: grow anymore. But the thing that I exist for maybe
Speaker 3: my mission, which has maybe only come together in the
Speaker 3: past few years, is you can ask a question, how
Speaker 3: are you going to contribute to the world? What are
Speaker 3: you going to do? And for me, it comes down
Speaker 3: to trying to fight for a bit of equality, whether
Speaker 3: that's in the creative projects or the people that I'm
Speaker 3: giving opportunities to, or if I'm putting a creative team together,
Speaker 3: who are those people? Can I try and hire some
Speaker 3: women in the automotive scene into the projects that I'm
Speaker 3: involved with. Can I try and give opportunities to people
Speaker 3: of color? Or if I see a young kid that's
Speaker 3: just starting who comes from maybe a lack of a
Speaker 3: better term, disadvantaged background, but they're really passionate, can I
Speaker 3: help them? Can I give them advice about how to
Speaker 3: develop their careers? So those that's the main mission. I'm
Speaker 3: still working through the best ways to actualize that, but
Speaker 3: I'm trying to live by that and to affect change
Speaker 3: around me.
Speaker 4: That's a great answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very well thought out, and I know you take
Speaker 1: a Yeah, I know. Have you had many mentors in
Speaker 1: your life?
Speaker 3: Yes? I don't know where I figured that out. Somewhere
Speaker 3: along the line, I figured out that it's helpful to
Speaker 3: have people to learn from, and from the very beginning
Speaker 3: of my career, even when I was in art school,
Speaker 3: I would hang out with the teachers. I'd go for
Speaker 3: lunch with them, and I just try and learn, and
Speaker 3: wherever I went in the different stages of my career,
Speaker 3: I've always had people that were much further along than
Speaker 3: me who took an interest in what I was doing
Speaker 3: and gave me advice. Sometimes might criticize me for the
Speaker 3: way I was going about things and give support, maybe
Speaker 3: make some introductions, and I try and do that as well.
Speaker 3: Now with when I'm going about my business, I'm having
Speaker 3: a bit of a strange year in that I'm for
Speaker 3: the first time since I can remember, I have a
Speaker 3: little bit of spare time. And I found that very
Speaker 3: disconcerting for me, having a to do list that's you know,
Speaker 3: crazy long, intense deadlines. That friction creates a sense of order.
Speaker 3: Maybe I became addicted to having that friction and just
Speaker 3: being busy. Now that just for the past four months,
Speaker 3: I'm coming off a four year project. I have a
Speaker 3: little bit of time to think about things and just
Speaker 3: to focus on myself, and for the first few months
Speaker 3: I was kind of disturbing. I have to build internal
Speaker 3: motivation versus external motivation from a deadline or just having
Speaker 3: people calling you or having things that you have to
Speaker 3: get done it a project on fire?
Speaker 1: Is that not setting goals, though, setting deadlines for.
Speaker 3: Yourself creating friction.
Speaker 1: Sure, I mean friction can be defined as many things, right,
Speaker 1: I mean anyone would say setting a goals creating friction
Speaker 1: because you have to do something about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been changing my methodology to be maybe more
Speaker 3: about having a way of approaching every day or having
Speaker 3: things that I focus on, but less about saying we're
Speaker 3: going to have that done by then, I need to
Speaker 3: earn that amount of money by this point in time,
Speaker 3: or this has to be done then, because I find
Speaker 3: that that creates stress and I don't always feel that happy.
Speaker 3: So I've been trying to focus more on the art
Speaker 3: of making every day count in different aspects of life,
Speaker 3: whether it's physical health, being inspired, updating my skill set,
Speaker 3: my personal projects like my car, or looking at what
Speaker 3: how to steer my career, and new goals that I'm
Speaker 3: setting for myself. So I've been trying to be slightly
Speaker 3: less goal oriented and more about having a very good process.
Speaker 3: That's a better way to say it. That's a new
Speaker 3: thing that I've been working through just this year. You know,
Speaker 3: the whole chop would carry water business that I think
Speaker 3: that might come from the karate kid the saying is,
Speaker 3: before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood
Speaker 3: carry water, and that you focus on making everyday count
Speaker 3: and it's the art of doing simple tasks or just
Speaker 3: taking care of business and projects for the sake of
Speaker 3: doing a good job of that and having a balanced life.
Speaker 3: That is the way forward. At least I'm working with this.
Speaker 3: I'll get back to you to see if this is
Speaker 3: all bunch of nonsense or.
Speaker 1: Not that reminds me of I'm not going to do
Speaker 1: the story justice. But there is an old story about
Speaker 1: a fisherman who's on a boat and some rich billionaire
Speaker 1: comes to go fish with him because whatever's on vacation
Speaker 1: or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: I've heard this story.
Speaker 1: Have you heard this one song? It's ad one And
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do a justice. So this billionaire
Speaker 1: goes fishing with this fisherman's small town and he's just fishing,
Speaker 1: and the billionaires like, oh, well, if you have three
Speaker 1: fishing rods set up, you can catch three times as
Speaker 1: much and then you can grow your business here to
Speaker 1: do this, to then catch more fish, to sell more fish,
Speaker 1: to make more money. Have employees, yeah, have employees, and
Speaker 1: then the Fisherman's like, well, why would I do that.
Speaker 1: He's like, well, so then you can.
Speaker 3: Retire and then you could come back here and you know,
Speaker 3: be with your boat and fish. It's a simple retirement.
Speaker 1: He's like, but I'm doing that now. Have you been
Speaker 1: able to find happiness in that shift from going from
Speaker 1: being gold driven to focus more on the moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. I've had moments in my life where I've
Speaker 3: been very much about the goal. When I first started
Speaker 3: at EA, I was very obsessed with getting to a
Speaker 3: point where I made one hundred thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 3: I was just focused on that, and every time I
Speaker 3: saw my paycheck, I wasn't making one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 3: a year. And then I became very focused, I need
Speaker 3: to be a sea level executive, and I would present
Speaker 3: myself like that when I said, EA, it's very casual.
Speaker 3: All these programmers with their the T shirt that they've
Speaker 3: been wearing all week.
Speaker 4: That's what sea level stands for. Casual.
Speaker 3: No no, no, like C suite, like CEO, oh an executive.
Speaker 3: I would wear like colored shirts sports jack be I'm
Speaker 3: a decision maker and all of you will think of
Speaker 3: me as a decision maker. This is the thirties where
Speaker 3: I was felt like I was behind. I went for
Speaker 3: years just thinking about my not sea level life, and
Speaker 3: even more recently, I had this goal. I needed to
Speaker 3: have a supercar and I wanted I've done a lot
Speaker 3: of projects with McLaren and they occasionally give me cars
Speaker 3: to drive, and you know, the amazing machines. And my
Speaker 3: daily is a twenty nineteen Cayman S. It's an amazing car,
Speaker 3: but for the longest time it was a not McLaren. Right,
Speaker 3: So I'm getting in this beautiful, incredibly engineered, well handling
Speaker 3: sports car and I'm driving around my not McLaren. And
Speaker 3: that's what I mean by external goals, and I'm not
Speaker 3: appreciating this incredible car that my life has taken me
Speaker 3: to drive, right, And it's fabulous to be an LA traffic,
Speaker 3: Canyon track day, just the best, well rounded machine, good
Speaker 3: fuel economy, turbo four cylinder. I've been working to get
Speaker 3: rid of those external checklist items so that you can
Speaker 3: appreciate the life that you have now. If we get
Speaker 3: back to what we're talking about earlier, imagine someone that
Speaker 3: love shooting cars, right, They've got their camera, they're going
Speaker 3: to car meets. They've got friends that have some cool cars,
Speaker 3: they're getting together to do shoots. But they might still
Speaker 3: have a day job, and someone might become so focused
Speaker 3: on the fact that they're not making a living as
Speaker 3: a professional automotive media creator that they become miserable. But
Speaker 3: the point I'm making is that just the moment where
Speaker 3: you have good friends, just looking at this case study
Speaker 3: shooting cars, you're in a position where you have your
Speaker 3: health and your camera and you're out doing some fun stuff.
Speaker 3: You should just have fun with that and be able
Speaker 3: to be in the moment a little bit more.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 3: That's that's what I'm working through.
Speaker 2: I completely understand. I completely understand. You know, the Sienna.
Speaker 2: There was a time where I would not ever be
Speaker 2: seen driving this car, right, And the reason I love
Speaker 2: this car so much is because not only does it
Speaker 2: have eighteen cup holders smiles again.
Speaker 1: And non sponsor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not like I have no association to tellya that, right.
Speaker 2: I think they're very They're very especially the minivan departments,
Speaker 2: like really happy that I talk about the Siana.
Speaker 4: Because they get no love.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this is this is like a gift to mankind.
Speaker 2: But anyway, when I drive this car, and when I
Speaker 2: look at this car, I get so happy or there's
Speaker 2: a feeling of contentment because this is a representation of
Speaker 2: I don't give a fuck what you think about me.
Speaker 4: And it took so many years to get to that place.
Speaker 2: And once somehow, and it's actually because of this car, right,
Speaker 2: I met the mentors. Like when I was in Hawaii,
Speaker 2: I would see all of these you know, older gentlemen
Speaker 2: driving this or Toyota Tacoma, like pieces of junk that
Speaker 2: are being rusted up because of the salt water in Hawaii,
Speaker 2: and then I would like get to know them, and
Speaker 2: friends would introduce me and they go, yeah, that guy's like,
Speaker 2: you know, almost a billionaire, or he owns half of this,
Speaker 2: or he's this or he's that, And I'm like, but
Speaker 2: he drives a Sienna. He's like yeah, because he doesn't
Speaker 2: care what people think. And I was like, man, that
Speaker 2: was my north star. I was like, I need to
Speaker 2: get to that place where whatever is on the externals
Speaker 2: not for others, and like, look, we should love the
Speaker 2: finer things in life if it's sincere and if it's
Speaker 2: not for somebody else, Like even the way like I
Speaker 2: dressed today.
Speaker 4: It was like when I was younger.
Speaker 2: It was like I dressed because I was like, oh, hey,
Speaker 2: I need that person to think that I'm something, that
Speaker 2: I'm cool.
Speaker 4: And now I wear what I look as like. I
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 2: I like the ethos behind that. And this the Toyota CNA.
Speaker 2: The engineers of this car, they created a masterpiece. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well I fix it when it's not broken, right.
Speaker 3: I find myself appreciating cameras. Sometimes I look at the
Speaker 3: corner of my eye, see this wide loasedan. I think,
Speaker 3: what is that? Oh, it's a camera.
Speaker 1: Is this what I have to look forward to? As
Speaker 1: I get older?
Speaker 3: I find as I get older, I become more extreme
Speaker 3: extreme extreme. It's an interesting one. As you get older,
Speaker 3: there's different directions that you can go. I like looking
Speaker 3: at archetypes, and there's several art types that I feel
Speaker 3: myself heading in the direction of. One is the the outlaw.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I go to lowrider events in detail. I live
Speaker 3: in the arts district in downtown LA and I go
Speaker 3: to these little rider events and I see I see
Speaker 3: these older like Mexican gentlemen, you know, with their shaved
Speaker 3: heads and their tattoos, and I think, damn, this is
Speaker 3: they look so amazing and they're like sixty. And then
Speaker 3: the other the other arch type that I love is
Speaker 3: the avant garde artist or artiste that people that get
Speaker 3: older become more out there visually. So I think by
Speaker 3: the time I'm like eighty, I'm gonna have like tattoos over.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's just it's the direction I'm heading in.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Speaking of the low writer community, I don't know if
Speaker 2: this urban legend is true, but it has been told
Speaker 2: that the person that actually sparked or created the lowriters
Speaker 2: is actually a Japanese American.
Speaker 4: That's true, Pazo. I think his name is Tazzo.
Speaker 3: I saw the story recently that the first car that's
Speaker 3: considered the prototype lowriter there was a Asian American gentleman.
Speaker 3: But it was the same with Have you heard of
Speaker 3: Bob hiro Hata No In the nineteen fifties, he worked
Speaker 3: with Sam barrass and they created the hiro Hata Mercury.
Speaker 3: It's a fifty one Mercury, the most famous custom car
Speaker 3: in the world and dead Japanese American. This is a
Speaker 3: whole other subject, but yeah, certainly the stories of Asian
Speaker 3: Americans in the history of hot rotting, drag, racing, custom cars.
Speaker 3: It's a there's so many stories and people that have
Speaker 3: contributed along the way.
Speaker 2: That have been invisible, I guess because of media. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to control that.
Speaker 3: It's a program I did with Hot Wheels two years
Speaker 3: ago and one year ago to tell more of these
Speaker 3: stories during AAPI month.
Speaker 4: What did they say?
Speaker 3: Well, we we They came to us and said, hey,
Speaker 3: let's celebrate API Asian American Pacific Islanders and their contributions
Speaker 3: to the automobile and car culture. So we did several
Speaker 3: articles that were on Hot Wheels Instagram channel, and we
Speaker 3: looked at who are the people that have done some
Speaker 3: crazy stuff like Larry Shinoda he worked on the Stingray
Speaker 3: Corvette and the really Mustang. But there's numerous people that
Speaker 3: have designed iconic cars, motorsports legends and Yeah, often these
Speaker 3: stories are not told. And it's also fun to try
Speaker 3: and find new people that are coming up to see
Speaker 3: if we can help them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One thing that when you talk about Asian Americans and
Speaker 3: Asian Americans in car culture that I find a little
Speaker 3: maybe worrying to look at is when I look at
Speaker 3: Formula D right now, there's not many Asian Americans competing anymore.
Speaker 4: And there used to be tons. Why do you think
Speaker 4: that is.
Speaker 3: I've talked to Jim Law about this, and Jim Law.
Speaker 2: Used to be the head of FD now so he's
Speaker 2: no longer. There is of Asian he said. He said
Speaker 2: that it's hard for people to find sponsorship because they're Asian.
Speaker 3: That's one thing he said, yeah, and I don't know,
Speaker 3: but it's it's definitely something we've noted. The challenges.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, we had Hurt here formerly from Hoon again
Speaker 2: and we were asking him like, how come there're very
Speaker 2: few pro African American drivers? Yea, if any, like I
Speaker 2: never saw any. And then last FT even I went to,
Speaker 2: I think there was Die was still racing, and there
Speaker 2: was Ken Gucci and that's.
Speaker 3: There from the beginning, right old school.
Speaker 2: But they also were saying I remember kenn Or Die
Speaker 2: was telling me. He's like, yeah, we can't, we can't
Speaker 2: compete with you know, the dudes like h On. He's like,
Speaker 2: I can't, I can't compete with him because he has
Speaker 2: He was look at their like you know, their their pits,
Speaker 2: like you know, it's like it's millions of dollars where
Speaker 2: he was saying like I can bear it. We have
Speaker 2: he had to tow the cars himself, like Ken he
Speaker 2: was saying, right, and like his whole crew are staying
Speaker 2: in a motel six, right, So it's all about sponsorship.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I I don't know, man, it's like
Speaker 2: a challenge. Or you look at women in motorsports, right,
Speaker 2: same thing. It's at least good that there's dialogue about
Speaker 2: these things and there's still people that break through, thankfully,
Speaker 2: and there's still marker moments that happen if we look
Speaker 2: at you know, through the lens of people of color
Speaker 2: and women and their progression and automotive. But I think
Speaker 2: one has to keep pushing and keep trying to help,
Speaker 2: or you can to find opportunities for people, keep encouraging
Speaker 2: others and share what you've learned along the way hopefully.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, it's it's important to talk about this,
Speaker 2: but it's also it's I think it's important also to
Speaker 2: not be delusional. Of course, talk about it realistically, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean you brought up the fact like, yeah,
Speaker 2: why are there are very few Asian like you know
Speaker 2: drifters and the pro league. That's a question that I
Speaker 2: would like to answer you know, and is it because
Speaker 2: they're inferior drivers or is it that because their face
Speaker 2: does not sell the product?
Speaker 4: Is that even true? I mean I deal with that.
Speaker 2: It's like like when I deal with like corporate like America,
Speaker 2: They're like, yeah, your face doesn't work in America, and
Speaker 2: then I go outside and Asia and Europe, it's like
Speaker 2: I'm appreciated. Is like, you know, there's value there, but here,
Speaker 2: being American and growing up here is like has its
Speaker 2: pros and its cons. But I always feel like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm in the backseat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you. I definitely have experienced that.
Speaker 3: In my first career music video directing, I was working
Speaker 3: with industrial metal bands like Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch
Speaker 3: Nails and this kind of stuff. But I think when
Speaker 3: I was up for music videos, if I was going
Speaker 3: to be invited to write on and they saw this
Speaker 3: name Rod Chong, I don't believe that that necessarily helped
Speaker 3: me in my progression. This is in the nineties, but
Speaker 3: I'd like to think that maybe now it wouldn't be
Speaker 3: quite as much friction as it was back then.
Speaker 4: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think it's you know, it's at bad
Speaker 2: as the nineties. I think it's getting better and better
Speaker 2: and better, but I think the dialogue and not to
Speaker 2: complain about it, like I'm not a soapbox guy, and
Speaker 2: like I don't not like to talk about, Oh, the
Speaker 2: world is racist and I'm the victim, Like it's not that.
Speaker 2: But it's also like again, ignore truth, Like how is
Speaker 2: drifting this sport that so supposedly it was inspired by Japan?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, and there's nobody from Japan participating in the sport
Speaker 2: in America. But Hurt actually brought up a good point
Speaker 2: when we spoke to him. He said, what did you say, Mail?
Speaker 2: He said that the Japanese cars were where there's this
Speaker 2: American sensibility or the American version of Japanese car culture.
Speaker 1: Right. I think he was talking, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: about the different drifting styles, and what he liked about
Speaker 1: Final Bout was it had more Japanese influence where FD
Speaker 1: today has more American influence of form over function, function
Speaker 1: over form.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Finally, I remember talking to some of the OG
Speaker 3: Japanese drifters. I went to Japan for a tour in
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight and we spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time with Team Orange back then they were talking about
Speaker 3: how the style of drifting that was coming up was
Speaker 3: more like sideways power sliding, which kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3: Whereas if you look at those early drifting events where
Speaker 3: they I remember I went to a D one GP
Speaker 3: event in two thousand and six at Arndale and they
Speaker 3: had different rules for cars below three hundred horsepower, So
Speaker 3: the eighty six is that were drifting back then. They
Speaker 3: didn't have to drift the bank at Arundel because they
Speaker 3: couldn't have enough power, and there was a bit more
Speaker 3: of a playing field that was designed for those low
Speaker 3: horsepower cars and all that. But that's a bit more
Speaker 3: of the traditional JDM drifting thing, which it's a bit
Speaker 3: more like final about I'd say, is more of a
Speaker 3: throwback to the original spirit of what drifting was like
Speaker 3: in late nineties, early to mid two thousands. It's kind
Speaker 3: of gone in a different direction now. Yeah, and I
Speaker 3: still am a big fan. I go I try and
Speaker 3: go to the Long Beach and Rundel every year, So
Speaker 3: I still love drifting.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And also you know, when I step back and look
Speaker 2: at you know, the landscape, but you know professional drifting. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the positives is that you know this thing that came
Speaker 2: from Asian culture is now accepted and embraced by people
Speaker 2: that are not Asian. And it's not this like you know,
Speaker 2: this like exotic foreign thing. It's like, oh, it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's part of American culture now, right, which is awesome.
Speaker 3: European culture too. The biggest drifting event in the world
Speaker 3: just happened in Poland. Really there were six thousand people
Speaker 3: there was in a stadium, I mean fifty six thousand.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there. It's it's moving around the world. It's
Speaker 3: kind of become it's its own thing. Yes, the roots
Speaker 3: are in Japan, but.
Speaker 4: What do you think that is.
Speaker 2: You think it's because it's a car event or something
Speaker 2: that is accessible to just the layman.
Speaker 3: Think about skiing and mountains, right, Skiing is being around
Speaker 3: a long time. You know, people go on mountains, and
Speaker 3: it was there for a long time, and then suddenly
Speaker 3: this new group of people came snowboarders, right, they dressed differently,
Speaker 3: this in different mus Totally it was a culture and
Speaker 3: all the traditional skiers were looking at going what is
Speaker 3: this thing?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Who are these people? Snowboarding has you know gone and
Speaker 3: it's its own thing now totally international sport and pastime,
Speaker 3: but it still is happening on ski slopes, right, And
Speaker 3: you could think of traditional motorsports happening on racetracks, et cetera,
Speaker 3: and then suddenly these drifters come out and they're different.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: It's a lifestyle more comparable to snowboarders and skaters, i'd say,
Speaker 3: if you wanted to draw a parallel, But it's also
Speaker 3: just fun to watch. And I believe it's the last
Speaker 3: new motorsport that's happened in an age. I think rallycross
Speaker 3: was invented in the early seventies, but aside from that,
Speaker 3: there's not really anything you maybe maybe monster trucks or
Speaker 3: the other new sport if you want.
Speaker 1: To call it that that's trippy to think about that,
Speaker 1: drifting or maybe monst trucks. I don't know which came first,
Speaker 1: but to think that that's one of the newer forms
Speaker 1: and maybe the last form of motorsport, Yeah, racing.
Speaker 3: And it's just it's it's entertaining.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: You've got the crazy, out of control action that you
Speaker 3: might seem rallying. You've got the side by side door
Speaker 3: banging you might get in NASCAR, the smoke pomp and
Speaker 3: circumstance you get in drag racing, you know, big power cars,
Speaker 3: and but then you've got this knockout timeline, whereas regular motorsports, Right,
Speaker 3: you're going around in circles and you get to sit
Speaker 3: in the grand stand as a fan and room room right,
Speaker 3: the cars are going left right, and then someone wins
Speaker 3: and then it's over. And yeah, it's usually not that
Speaker 3: exciting as much as I love motorsports. So I think
Speaker 3: that that's why drifting has developed in the way that
Speaker 3: it has. You know, there was a while there in
Speaker 3: the US that rally cross came in and took all
Speaker 3: the oxygen out of the room, and all the factory
Speaker 3: programs left. Formula D went to rally cross, and then
Speaker 3: there's new forms of electric rally cross coming in, etc.
Speaker 3: But it stayed that often it keeps going. The fan
Speaker 3: engagements there still fun. We love drifting.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, Ron, this was a great conversation.
Speaker 1: This has been a really deep and lovely conversation.
Speaker 3: My pleasure. Yeah, we went pretty deep. I feel very
Speaker 3: close to both of you now, and so do we