Birth of Pro Street debuting on Spike TV Saturday night
The always affable Antonio Alvendia -- photographer extraordinaire and scribe of Drifting: Sideways from Japan to America -- has teamed up with EA Sports to produce a documentary on the transition many racers have made from the street to the track. Birth of Pro Street is a promotion that coincides with EA's launch of the next installment in the Need For Speed franchise -- Pro Street -- and will debut at 1 AM this Saturday night/Sunday morning on Spike. We're assured it'll be worth skipping another trip to the club, or, failing that, the space on your DVR.
EA has hosted an elongated trailer over on its Pro Street page (click the skull) and we've embedded a few teaser clips after the jump.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dan 11:38PM (11/10/2007)
um.....a documentary has already been done. its called Slide America. slideamerica.com
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Matt 1:41AM (11/11/2007)
I'm watching it now, I gotta say, its pretty bad. They just continuously talk about street racing and imports- and not the good kind like 350zs and Supras- more like Civics and Corollas. I love how they call real racing "grip racing". And the fwd cars trying to drag race with really big front tires.
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cwcentral 2:19AM (11/11/2007)
I caught the tail end, last 15min. Nice of spike to have one showing for the whole country (1am EST, 10p PST -- I'm glad I'm on the left coast).
OMFG, guy mentions that "pro street", i.e. EA's street-pro, is just like a video game. Nooooo! EA has sunk to a NEW LOW.
I hope this doesn't inspire the FnF crowd to goto real race tracks--I can see radiator fluid, tow trucks and lots of delays == no seat time for those who are real enthusiasts (like me). I don't drag race anymore cause the delays are way too long such that you get 1 good run within 3 hours cause some idiot brought his daily driver and a 200 shot--and breaks [all the time].
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Ilya 4:31AM (11/11/2007)
Anybody else notice that some parts of the videos above were taken from JDM Insider?
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Antonio Alvendia 6:42PM (11/11/2007)
1) First guy (Dan), you're right. The Slide America crew DID produce the first documentary film on North American Drifting. They're friends of mine, and I'm in their movie too. They put alot of hard work into that film, so they get major props from me. But EA's "Birth of Pro Street" documentary is different - it's a film about kids with a background in illegal street racing (Drift AND Drag racing), who made the transition to real (legal) professional motorsports.
EA's "Birth of Pro Street" documentary is not necessarily a "drifting only" movie. But that doesn't say that Slide America should be the only film about drifting... people should make more! In fact, that's what the Slide America crew is working on right now, their next film. So stay tuned for that!
2) Matt, sorry you didn't like the film, man. There were actually 350Zs and Supras in the film quite a bit, I'm surprised you didn't see them. However, just gotta say, the whole idea was to make a film about "street racers who stepped up into professional motorsports" and the fact of the matter is, the majority of the drivers that the film crew found to interview at different race tracks talked about their experiences racing in cars like Civics and Corollas.
And to be honest, the majority people who can afford high budget cars like 350Zs and Supras aren't the type to get involved in illegal street racing anyway- they spend alot of money on their legit performance cars, so we found that most of those guys run their expensive cars on the track (which is smarter and safer anyway!)!
Haha, I agree the FF(FWD) cars looked kinda odd to me too, the first time I saw them with their Weld wheels and super meaty Mickey Thompson drag slicks up front, and skinnier tires in the back! However, it just makes sense. Those pro FWD drag guys need the big meaty tires up front, because that's where the drive wheels of their cars are. Whether it's a Honda Civic, Acura Integra, Mazda 3, Dodge Neon, Saturn Redline, Chevy Cobalt, etc... and those guys do like 7 and 8 and 9 second 1/4 miles! That's crazy! A hell of alot faster than one of my own rear wheel drive cars, which has a built hemi engine with big cam, forged pistons & rods, flywheel, tuned carbs, yadda yadda...
3) CWcentral, haha I totally agree with you about how there can be some serious idiots out there on the track, no matter if it's drag racing, drifting, autocross, or road racing. People who are newbies and unprepared can really piss off experienced people who know what they're doing. But you know, we were all there at one point! Might be a good idea to sigh, take a deep breath, and help school the idiots so that next time, they won't be idiots anymore! haha!
4) Ilya, you are pretty observant! Yup, some of the Japanese street racing footage was used courtesy of our good friends Toshi and Phil at JDM Insider! The JDM Insider video series is pretty much the best video series to do stuff on the sport compact (japanese car) market. They have it down to a science, and they are all super cool! (Old friends of mine) Just wait and see the NEXT issue of JDM Insider that they're working on... I caught a sneak peek last time I was hanging out with those guys, and it is super bad asssssssssssssssss!
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