Ep16 Rod Chong

Hello, friends and family, Welcome back to another episode of Car Stories with Song Kang and Amelia Hartford. Today's guest

we have Rod Chong. Rod is the chief creative officer

over at the beloved Race Service and just an artiste.

Yeah, well evolved human being. He shares a lot of

wisdom on his personal journey here.

Yeah, and he's had a very full career outside of motorsports, from also video games to music to fashion.

Yeah, it was just a really pleasant conversation with a person I've never met. But you've been friends with Rod

for a while.

Yeah, I've known Rod for a very long time and he is not afraid to ever go deep with the conversation, which I appreciate the openness and willingness to go there.

All right, Well, enjoy Rod Chong everybody.

So, for the listen out there that aren't familiar with your history and your work, can you give us a little history of Rod and where you are now and where you came from.

Yeah. Well, I'm one of those kids that grew up

racing go karts from an immigrant family in Vancouver, Canada.

And I think a lot of people, I'm sure you find this from all the people that you talk to in the car world that often a passion for cars tends to come from childhood. Usually, I find nine times

out of ten, so I'm no different from that. My

father and his brothers were racing cars and go karts, and my father had a shop where they would build custom car stereos and they'd giant subwoofers and they'd enter them in competition. So I grew up racing. But interestingly,

I never really liked the wheel the wheel sport that much.

It's maybe this very shy, quiet Asian kid and I like drawing and painting cars more like the creative aspect of being a kid that was into cars. I liked

being a racing driver more so I could, you know, have something to help with, you know, being the experience of racism and all that stuff as Asian kid in school.

It gave me a little bit of a leg up, and I liked to have my leather jacket I could wear.

Maybe that's a Jamaican culture coming through. But fast forward on.

I went to art school too with a plan to design cars because I was good at drawing and painting and got distracted with cameras and running around with cameras, so it seemed way more fun. So the first career

was directing music videos, so that I did that in my native Vancouver, then came to Los Angeles and then ended up in London doing that. That kind of fizzled out.

I was living in London and I heard about this video game that you could download all suits of different cars and you could change it and make your own cars for it, in your own tracks. And this was

an e called sports Car GT, a PC simulation game, And because I'd already had a career in media, I put together a crew of people. We started making sports

car mods for f one games, so you would take an EAPC game and make it into a sports car game.

And I love lamon and GT racing, so this is what we focused on. And one of our mods became

very famous, and then suddenly we all got headhunted and overnight I was given a job designing and producing racing games.

I turned that into a job at EA and went back to my native Canada because I figured out in my hometown they were making this very famous racing game, Need for Speed, and this was at the height of tuner cars and all that stuff. There was this big

street racing scenes. Drifting was just coming up, becoming more popular,

and You for Speed was tapping into this. And this

was about two thousand and five or so. Most Wanted

had just come out and I joined the team and they put me in t charge of the cultural elements that were going to be integrated into the games, and they started sending me to La to go to drifting events and I started meeting people and getting more involved with the community, first in SoCal, even though I lived in Vancouver, and then the bosses said to me, Hey, we want to make a website about car culture. Thought

about it for a couple of weeks and then came up with this idea of speed Hunting or speed Hunters, which became a website that we launched in two thousand and eight. And at the same time we launched another

program called Timney for Speed, which was a drifting team, and we started building Carshusima. But we got to travel

the world and go to all the different scenes around the world, and that was an incredible moment to go to Japan, Australia and New Zealand, all across Europe, all across the US and see what people are doing. And

then I left that in twenty fourteen, did a few other projects within racing games, sim racing, even some atanas motorsports stuff the company called Robo Race and then joined the Race Service team. About five years ago moved to

LA and I had the dream of coming to SoCal to be a participant in the car scene here. People

think I'm crazy, but I kind of moved to La so I could drive cars. And I love big cities too,

because there's a great creative scene here. As both of

you know, there's people that are doing fashion, media, films, graphic design, whatever it is art. But you can have

that here but still enjoy driving cars, and having lived in Stockholm. In London, it's much harder to do that.

There's great creative scenes projects. You got a nice car

in London, it's very hard to enjoy it.

Sure, and even in Canada because the weather is so like it's gonna list out your cars.

That's salt right, yeah yeah yeah.

So So for the folks that don't know Race Service, because we had one of your colleagues here Service Chames, could you explain to the listening audience what you guys do over there at Race Service.

Well, Race Service, it's been interesting Race Service has been around about five years or so, and for the first few years people kept saying to us, what is race Service?

What do you guys do? It seems very cool, but

what is this thing? The way that we explain it

is that it's a creative agency. So we do different

types of projects, collaborations with different brands, usually in automotive and motorsports, but we do work in video gaming. I

do some projects in fashion as well, and our thesis is to connect the worlds of motorsports and automotive to wider parts of contemporary or pop culture, streetwear, music, video games, even some Web three materials, fashion, different organizations. Like we're

an agency for NASCAR. We do a lot of projects

with AMG and Porsche Hot Wheels, this one that I'm quite involved with. We'll want us to do content and

strategy and sometimes events to connect all these worlds together.

We're also in the middle of launching a streetwear fashion brand as well that's kind of focused around collaborations with automotive brands. But we have our online as well. That's

a bit of a new project. And then the last

part of Race Service is that we are a car culture hub. We wanted to have a place that's a destination.

And we have meetups once a month, the first Friday of every month at our space. We occasionally curate events

and we have a pretty active community of people that come out to our different programs on site.

And can I invite anyone listening to go to a Rise and Shine sometimes?

Absolutely?

Yeah, that's what it's called Rising.

And Shine yea very first Friday of every month.

Yeah, and it's a good turnout. And maybe if you're

not familiar cars, you want to get in the space, you want to meet some cool people. I think it's

a great environment.

So you know what I love about you guys over Race Service is that a lot of times you meet you know, car folks and they have no fashion sense.

They look like they show up like that because you know, my wife always bags on me. He's like, you know,

why don't you like dress up? And then everybody over

at Race Service, you guys just have a great blend of what is hip and fashion and pop culture. And

then you mailed that with you know, car culture, which you know, I got some schwag from you guys, and I took it over to my house and my wife is like, that's what you should be right, because it's a celebration of you know, our love affair for cars in the community. But then it's you know, it's it's

a it's a wonderful blend, you know, so.

Blends industry where and fashion install But we're quite focused on curation. Whether we are designing an event, we'll think

of every single aspect of what someone experience is going through that event, from the music to the posters and every little detail and the singles. For any film project

that we do, the worst Senate Race service is to do a project that has no style, or to take a photograph that doesn't have visual aesthetic buy in to it.

It's something that's very important to us and I find that that whole trajectory interesting. When I first started going

to automotive events, say you go to an event, say drifting event in la even ten years ago, people had some style, you know, ten years ago, ten years ago. Yeah,

And then i would go to an event in the UK and I'm looking around and I'm thinking, what are these people wearing? But the interesting thing is in the

past ten fifteen years that's changed, that has really changed, and you see the intersection of street wear and modified custom cars a lot more now in that people's personal presentation is definitely linked in a lot of scenes anyway, maybe not everywhere, to whatever customer car that they're building, or how they express their personal style through a custom car or a modified car.

And you guys do a lot of cool collubs and help companies bridge those gaps.

Right.

One huge project that you've had lately has been Hot Wheels.

Yes, what would you guys do that? With Hot Wheels?

We've I've been personally a collaborator of Hot Wheels for a long time through many different programs from speed Hunters, had different collabs we did when I was seeing the Project Cars video game, we had a line of Hot Wheels that we collabed with them. But Hot Wheels has

been a client and collaborator of Race Service since we started for the past five years, so we're involved with the Legend's Car Show. We have produced numerous content programs

with them that you see on their Instagram channel. Currently,

we are doing a documentary series for a car that's been built for rent Sport Reunion. It's going to debut

in about a week and a half. So we're always

involved with all sorts of different programs with them. I'm

a bit of a Hot Wheels collector. I love the brand.

Those little cars are so much joy in each of them. Yeah,

well you've done projects with me. Yeah, I have your cars.

I mean it's it's like every car person's Bucke list.

Yeah your car is a hot wheel Yeah.

Yeah, so cool.

Yeah, for any automotive personality or car builder, I think that's definitely a big checklist item. Right, you've arrived, you know.

I'm sure you've seen a lot of people come and go right trying to do what race Service does and what do you think that sets you guys apart to just be able to kind of help the listeners if they have interest in doing what you guys do.

It's also a wider question of how do you take your passion or cars and make that into your career and then have that continue, which is not for a lot of people. That's not easy, and that that's a

big question. Right. I would say that it's a mix

of being driven by passion, taking that passion and having that fuel you is really really good. That'll only get

you so far, though, because you know this concept of the ten thousand hours, right, you have to be a good craft you have to be to be an expert. Yeah,

you just have to look at the craft of what you want to do. So if you take you know,

we look at the content creation side of what you do.

There's a lot of craft of that. How do you shoot,

how do you talk to the camera, how do you edit?

How do you build a storyline? I believe that people

that do the groundwork to become very good at what they do. That's very important. And then lastly, it's being

able to work on your personality so that you can talk about what you do, you can connect with people and find those opportunities. So for me, those are the

magic three mixes of you work really hard so that when the spotlight swings your way, that you're ready and you don't fuck it up, then maybe it's going to fly.

What do you think, Amelia?

I lean more towards the ladder where I think you can achieve anything that you want to on this earth, so long as you work for it and don't give up.

I always think of this little image of this person who's like digging underground trying to find a light or whatever it is, and most times people will give up before it just takes one more swing to get there.

In acting world, you may get one hundred or a thousands no's before you get one yes. And I think

as long as you work towards anything, you're a good person, you can achieve. You know, what you believe, where you've

found excites you, or what you set out to do.

But there's so many fucked up people that achieve success.

Right.

But i'stell business they go that guys in the fuck or so and so is it's such an asshole?

What do you think?

I tend to focus on creatives, being a creative minded person myself, and there's a category of creative me and my friends call them naturals, and they don't really spend a lot of time thinking about it. Yeah, some people

would would say that if you're too smart or you think too much, you might paralyze yourself thinking about all the possible abilities and if I do that or should I have that strategy? And then that will light to

that to that, and sometimes if your your brain isn't clogged up with all this stuff, you just do stuff and you go for it.

Yah.

I think that also relates to your culture. I'm not American,

I'm from Canada originally, and you know immigrant parents and all that whole thing. But one thing have immigrant My

father is from Jamaica, Jamaican Chinese, my mother's from Columbia and South American. But one thing, having moved here five

years ago, that I love about American culture is they can do spirit. But also the way that people support

each other in the communities. I think that that's fantastic.

If you say I'm going to do this thing and you have a good support network, people will generally say, from my experience, anyway, Okay, we're going to support you.

Go for it, we're going to help you. We're going

to talk to that person do that. Whereas in other

cultures that may have tall pop syndrome, you say I'm going to do this thing, and they're going to say, who do you think you are?

Tall poppies.

Yeah, it's like a field of poppies and one tries to grow taller, the other poppies are going to try and gang up and cut that thing down. Really get

back in your place. Yeah, there's a lot of cultures

like that, and it's harder to get going.

Right.

Do you think that fueled your hunger or desire to prove everybody wrong because people are trying to cut that poppy.

Yeah, I would say, because I'm a little older and you didn't have the Internet as a place to have community to show what you could do. I used to

make these crazy videos and I would finish them, put them on the tape, and put them in a drawer because it was before YouTube launched. So now the world

is a lot flatter. So if you're from a smaller

city or a different place, you can still show what you do. You put it on the internet, build fans,

figure out how you're gonna blaunch your career and great content whatever it is. So things are very different now.

You know what I what I really envy about you, Amelia, is that you're driving the cars that you're building, right, Like you always show up here with like some cool cars, and you know, I get so frustrated with these cars that I have because the notion of like driving a vintage car and if you're like, yay, I'm James Deeney, you know, Hollywood, and then like an hour later it starts to overheat and then you're you're on the side of the road. Man, I don't like that anymore. Like,

you know, it was cool like for the first like three times that happened. But then always these old cars

have some problem and you know, the gauges don't work like I think half the cars the gas fuel gauge, I'm not sure if it.

Sound empty or full, because this is going up.

And that's a little bit of the argument for the whole ev swap thing, right if it takes out that you can just enjoy the thing. It probably doesn't drive

in the same way, but the thing runs and it's probably ten times as fast. Also, yeah, that's really fair.

When I build cars, I keep streetability in mind, like hardcore.

Like I just bought a sixty nine Camaro and I already bought everything I need to put AC in it because I never again will I take out a C from a car build a car that ice'. There's just

so many layers. I wanted to be comfortable driving because

I don't want to end up on the side of the road. And when I moved here with my two

forty SX that was constantly overheating, how to pull over no AC, going to auditions with like my makeup running and sweat driven down my back, spelling like gasoline because it was run and rich. I just like I think

now I want to be able to enjoy the cars, and it makes me so sad if they park for too long that I maybe it's my OCD a little bit, but I almost make them a little too perfect.

It's a challenge of classic car ownership modified cars. I've

given up on dreaming of air conditioning in mine. I

bought a fan off Amazon, and I just just blows a little bit of air.

I've been thinking about liquidating all my cars and just focusing on one and like making.

That that's what I'm doing.

I just have one because I love vintagch cars, but like, get that thing like completely sorted out, where as they see has everything that I need, all the creature comforts where I can drive it across country to New York and then.

Drive it every day.

Because I look at these cars and you know, I'm getting older, and I go, when am I going to actually enjoy this? When am I going to be able

to drive it into canyons? When am I going to

be able to take it to the track, Because I'm always paranoid like it's going to break down?

Yeah, right?

And I think I shifted to like I love the process of bringing these cars to life.

But then that really fully alive kind of limping through.

Yeah, it's hard. He like lose trust in a car

sometimes two when it breaks down one too many times.

Yeah, I've done something a little crazy with my car.

Is I had a digital twin made, well, a digital twin if I commissioned someone. No, it's an add on

for this PC simulation game, a set of corsa. So

I had this guy in Europe build it. We scan

the car and he built a three D model of it, did all the physics and everything. So I can sit

in my living room because I'm in the PCSM racing with a VR head set, and I've driven the car across Tokyo for example, two hundred miles an hour in virtual reality.

You have your car on a set of corso, yeah.

And I've driven it on the on the La Canyon.

I mean, that's stupid because I could do that in real life because that's in LA. But still it's funny

that I can drive my car in my living room around racetracks around the world. Way to enjoy it.

A set of courso for those listening, think of not to compare to Grand Trisma or I racing, but it's a racing video game essentially. That I said, of course,

is specifically a lot of drifters like to use for the realism of being able to get a car sideways and get seat time without actually spending money on tires and gas.

That's so cool anyway, That's the way that I enjoy my my classic car virtually, so much.

Different than playing it in like Grand Turismo or so because I have my car in Grand Turismo and.

That's less street and more tracks into it.

I was like, yawn, it's different than we are.

If you have a full PC simrig, you're you're you're able to trick your nervous system. It actually thinks you're driving. Yeah,

it's very different than a TV.

I like that. Yeah, huh.

I'm curious about what makes you tick, I guess, and how you go into going.

To get into it? Okay, yeah, let's go. Yeah, let's

steep dive. What would you like to know?

Let's start with what makes you tick? What what makes

you choose the decisions that you do on a daily basis, and where are you hoping to go with your career.

It's an interesting question when you ask someone like why are you here? What are you here to do? Or

what do you stand for? I find that very fascinating.

Whenever I meet people, I sometimes look in the mirror and think, what must I do? Not what do I

want to do? What must I do in order to

not go crazy? And for me it comes down to

two things. One is I exist to imagine things and

bring those visions to life and through creative projects. That's

the thing I must do. And if I'm not doing that,

then there's sadness start going crazy. So that's a bit

of the hardwiring. For my personal philosophy. I define it

as I exist to grow and learn. That for me

is very important to continuously be a student and to continuously try and look at where my blind spots are.

It's kind of hard to do because of they're blind spots, but try and keep learning and keep never become too solid, never say okay, this is me. I'm not going to

grow anymore. But the thing that I exist for maybe

my mission, which has maybe only come together in the past few years, is you can ask a question, how are you going to contribute to the world? What are

you going to do? And for me, it comes down

to trying to fight for a bit of equality, whether that's in the creative projects or the people that I'm giving opportunities to, or if I'm putting a creative team together, who are those people? Can I try and hire some

women in the automotive scene into the projects that I'm involved with. Can I try and give opportunities to people

of color? Or if I see a young kid that's

just starting who comes from maybe a lack of a better term, disadvantaged background, but they're really passionate, can I help them? Can I give them advice about how to

develop their careers? So those that's the main mission. I'm

still working through the best ways to actualize that, but I'm trying to live by that and to affect change around me.

That's a great answer.

Yeah, very well thought out, and I know you take a Yeah, I know. Have you had many mentors in

your life?

Yes? I don't know where I figured that out. Somewhere

along the line, I figured out that it's helpful to have people to learn from, and from the very beginning of my career, even when I was in art school, I would hang out with the teachers. I'd go for

lunch with them, and I just try and learn, and wherever I went in the different stages of my career, I've always had people that were much further along than me who took an interest in what I was doing and gave me advice. Sometimes might criticize me for the

way I was going about things and give support, maybe make some introductions, and I try and do that as well.

Now with when I'm going about my business, I'm having a bit of a strange year in that I'm for the first time since I can remember, I have a little bit of spare time. And I found that very

disconcerting for me, having a to do list that's you know, crazy long, intense deadlines. That friction creates a sense of order.

Maybe I became addicted to having that friction and just being busy. Now that just for the past four months,

I'm coming off a four year project. I have a

little bit of time to think about things and just to focus on myself, and for the first few months I was kind of disturbing. I have to build internal

motivation versus external motivation from a deadline or just having people calling you or having things that you have to get done it a project on fire?

Is that not setting goals, though, setting deadlines for.

Yourself creating friction.

Sure, I mean friction can be defined as many things, right, I mean anyone would say setting a goals creating friction because you have to do something about it.

Yeah, I've been changing my methodology to be maybe more about having a way of approaching every day or having things that I focus on, but less about saying we're going to have that done by then, I need to earn that amount of money by this point in time, or this has to be done then, because I find that that creates stress and I don't always feel that happy.

So I've been trying to focus more on the art of making every day count in different aspects of life, whether it's physical health, being inspired, updating my skill set, my personal projects like my car, or looking at what how to steer my career, and new goals that I'm setting for myself. So I've been trying to be slightly

less goal oriented and more about having a very good process.

That's a better way to say it. That's a new

thing that I've been working through just this year. You know,

the whole chop would carry water business that I think that might come from the karate kid the saying is, before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood

carry water, and that you focus on making everyday count and it's the art of doing simple tasks or just taking care of business and projects for the sake of doing a good job of that and having a balanced life.

That is the way forward. At least I'm working with this.

I'll get back to you to see if this is all bunch of nonsense or.

Not that reminds me of I'm not going to do the story justice. But there is an old story about

a fisherman who's on a boat and some rich billionaire comes to go fish with him because whatever's on vacation or whatever it is.

I've heard this story.

Have you heard this one song? It's ad one And

I'm not going to do a justice. So this billionaire

goes fishing with this fisherman's small town and he's just fishing, and the billionaires like, oh, well, if you have three fishing rods set up, you can catch three times as much and then you can grow your business here to do this, to then catch more fish, to sell more fish, to make more money. Have employees, yeah, have employees, and

then the Fisherman's like, well, why would I do that.

He's like, well, so then you can.

Retire and then you could come back here and you know, be with your boat and fish. It's a simple retirement.

He's like, but I'm doing that now. Have you been

able to find happiness in that shift from going from being gold driven to focus more on the moment.

Yeah, definitely. I've had moments in my life where I've

been very much about the goal. When I first started

at EA, I was very obsessed with getting to a point where I made one hundred thousand dollars a year.

I was just focused on that, and every time I saw my paycheck, I wasn't making one hundred thousand dollars a year. And then I became very focused, I need

to be a sea level executive, and I would present myself like that when I said, EA, it's very casual.

All these programmers with their the T shirt that they've been wearing all week.

That's what sea level stands for. Casual.

No no, no, like C suite, like CEO, oh an executive.

I would wear like colored shirts sports jack be I'm a decision maker and all of you will think of me as a decision maker. This is the thirties where

I was felt like I was behind. I went for

years just thinking about my not sea level life, and even more recently, I had this goal. I needed to

have a supercar and I wanted I've done a lot of projects with McLaren and they occasionally give me cars to drive, and you know, the amazing machines. And my

daily is a twenty nineteen Cayman S. It's an amazing car,

but for the longest time it was a not McLaren. Right,

So I'm getting in this beautiful, incredibly engineered, well handling sports car and I'm driving around my not McLaren. And

that's what I mean by external goals, and I'm not appreciating this incredible car that my life has taken me to drive, right, And it's fabulous to be an LA traffic, Canyon track day, just the best, well rounded machine, good fuel economy, turbo four cylinder. I've been working to get

rid of those external checklist items so that you can appreciate the life that you have now. If we get

back to what we're talking about earlier, imagine someone that love shooting cars, right, They've got their camera, they're going to car meets. They've got friends that have some cool cars,

they're getting together to do shoots. But they might still

have a day job, and someone might become so focused on the fact that they're not making a living as a professional automotive media creator that they become miserable. But

the point I'm making is that just the moment where you have good friends, just looking at this case study shooting cars, you're in a position where you have your health and your camera and you're out doing some fun stuff.

You should just have fun with that and be able to be in the moment a little bit more.

So.

That's that's what I'm working through.

I completely understand. I completely understand. You know, the Sienna.

There was a time where I would not ever be seen driving this car, right, And the reason I love this car so much is because not only does it have eighteen cup holders smiles again.

And non sponsor.

Yeah, it's not like I have no association to tellya that, right.

I think they're very They're very especially the minivan departments, like really happy that I talk about the Siana.

Because they get no love.

Nice.

Yeah, but this is this is like a gift to mankind.

But anyway, when I drive this car, and when I look at this car, I get so happy or there's a feeling of contentment because this is a representation of I don't give a fuck what you think about me.

And it took so many years to get to that place.

And once somehow, and it's actually because of this car, right, I met the mentors. Like when I was in Hawaii,

I would see all of these you know, older gentlemen driving this or Toyota Tacoma, like pieces of junk that are being rusted up because of the salt water in Hawaii, and then I would like get to know them, and friends would introduce me and they go, yeah, that guy's like, you know, almost a billionaire, or he owns half of this, or he's this or he's that, And I'm like, but he drives a Sienna. He's like yeah, because he doesn't

care what people think. And I was like, man, that

was my north star. I was like, I need to

get to that place where whatever is on the externals not for others, and like, look, we should love the finer things in life if it's sincere and if it's not for somebody else, Like even the way like I dressed today.

It was like when I was younger.

It was like I dressed because I was like, oh, hey, I need that person to think that I'm something, that I'm cool.

And now I wear what I look as like. I

like that.

I like the ethos behind that. And this the Toyota CNA.

The engineers of this car, they created a masterpiece. Yeah,

well I fix it when it's not broken, right.

I find myself appreciating cameras. Sometimes I look at the

corner of my eye, see this wide loasedan. I think,

what is that? Oh, it's a camera.

Is this what I have to look forward to? As

I get older?

I find as I get older, I become more extreme extreme extreme. It's an interesting one. As you get older,

there's different directions that you can go. I like looking

at archetypes, and there's several art types that I feel myself heading in the direction of. One is the the outlaw.

Sometimes I go to lowrider events in detail. I live

in the arts district in downtown LA and I go to these little rider events and I see I see these older like Mexican gentlemen, you know, with their shaved heads and their tattoos, and I think, damn, this is they look so amazing and they're like sixty. And then

the other the other arch type that I love is the avant garde artist or artiste that people that get older become more out there visually. So I think by

the time I'm like eighty, I'm gonna have like tattoos over.

I don't know, it's just it's the direction I'm heading in.

You know.

Speaking of the low writer community, I don't know if this urban legend is true, but it has been told that the person that actually sparked or created the lowriters is actually a Japanese American.

That's true, Pazo. I think his name is Tazzo.

I saw the story recently that the first car that's considered the prototype lowriter there was a Asian American gentleman.

But it was the same with Have you heard of Bob hiro Hata No In the nineteen fifties, he worked with Sam barrass and they created the hiro Hata Mercury.

It's a fifty one Mercury, the most famous custom car in the world and dead Japanese American. This is a

whole other subject, but yeah, certainly the stories of Asian Americans in the history of hot rotting, drag, racing, custom cars.

It's a there's so many stories and people that have contributed along the way.

That have been invisible, I guess because of media. Yeah,

to control that.

It's a program I did with Hot Wheels two years ago and one year ago to tell more of these stories during AAPI month.

What did they say?

Well, we we They came to us and said, hey, let's celebrate API Asian American Pacific Islanders and their contributions to the automobile and car culture. So we did several

articles that were on Hot Wheels Instagram channel, and we looked at who are the people that have done some crazy stuff like Larry Shinoda he worked on the Stingray Corvette and the really Mustang. But there's numerous people that

have designed iconic cars, motorsports legends and Yeah, often these stories are not told. And it's also fun to try

and find new people that are coming up to see if we can help them.

Yeah.

One thing that when you talk about Asian Americans and Asian Americans in car culture that I find a little maybe worrying to look at is when I look at Formula D right now, there's not many Asian Americans competing anymore.

And there used to be tons. Why do you think

that is.

I've talked to Jim Law about this, and Jim Law.

Used to be the head of FD now so he's no longer. There is of Asian he said. He said

that it's hard for people to find sponsorship because they're Asian.

That's one thing he said, yeah, and I don't know, but it's it's definitely something we've noted. The challenges.

Yeah.

I mean, we had Hurt here formerly from Hoon again and we were asking him like, how come there're very few pro African American drivers? Yea, if any, like I

never saw any. And then last FT even I went to,

I think there was Die was still racing, and there was Ken Gucci and that's.

There from the beginning, right old school.

But they also were saying I remember kenn Or Die was telling me. He's like, yeah, we can't, we can't

compete with you know, the dudes like h On. He's like,

I can't, I can't compete with him because he has He was look at their like you know, their their pits, like you know, it's like it's millions of dollars where he was saying like I can bear it. We have

he had to tow the cars himself, like Ken he was saying, right, and like his whole crew are staying in a motel six, right, So it's all about sponsorship.

So I mean, I I don't know, man, it's like a challenge. Or you look at women in motorsports, right,

same thing. It's at least good that there's dialogue about

these things and there's still people that break through, thankfully, and there's still marker moments that happen if we look at you know, through the lens of people of color and women and their progression and automotive. But I think

one has to keep pushing and keep trying to help, or you can to find opportunities for people, keep encouraging others and share what you've learned along the way hopefully.

Yeah.

I mean, look, it's it's important to talk about this, but it's also it's I think it's important also to not be delusional. Of course, talk about it realistically, right,

I mean, I mean you brought up the fact like, yeah, why are there are very few Asian like you know drifters and the pro league. That's a question that I

would like to answer you know, and is it because they're inferior drivers or is it that because their face does not sell the product?

Is that even true? I mean I deal with that.

It's like like when I deal with like corporate like America, They're like, yeah, your face doesn't work in America, and then I go outside and Asia and Europe, it's like I'm appreciated. Is like, you know, there's value there, but here,

being American and growing up here is like has its pros and its cons. But I always feel like, you know,

I'm in the backseat.

Yeah, I agree with you. I definitely have experienced that.

In my first career music video directing, I was working with industrial metal bands like Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails and this kind of stuff. But I think when

I was up for music videos, if I was going to be invited to write on and they saw this name Rod Chong, I don't believe that that necessarily helped me in my progression. This is in the nineties, but

I'd like to think that maybe now it wouldn't be quite as much friction as it was back then.

I don't think so.

Yeah, I don't think it's you know, it's at bad as the nineties. I think it's getting better and better

and better, but I think the dialogue and not to complain about it, like I'm not a soapbox guy, and like I don't not like to talk about, Oh, the world is racist and I'm the victim, Like it's not that.

But it's also like again, ignore truth, Like how is drifting this sport that so supposedly it was inspired by Japan?

Yeah?

Right, and there's nobody from Japan participating in the sport in America. But Hurt actually brought up a good point

when we spoke to him. He said, what did you say, Mail?

He said that the Japanese cars were where there's this American sensibility or the American version of Japanese car culture.

Right. I think he was talking, if I remember correctly,

about the different drifting styles, and what he liked about Final Bout was it had more Japanese influence where FD today has more American influence of form over function, function over form.

Yeah. Finally, I remember talking to some of the OG

Japanese drifters. I went to Japan for a tour in

two thousand and eight and we spent a lot of time with Team Orange back then they were talking about how the style of drifting that was coming up was more like sideways power sliding, which kind of makes sense.

Whereas if you look at those early drifting events where they I remember I went to a D one GP event in two thousand and six at Arndale and they had different rules for cars below three hundred horsepower, So the eighty six is that were drifting back then. They

didn't have to drift the bank at Arundel because they couldn't have enough power, and there was a bit more of a playing field that was designed for those low horsepower cars and all that. But that's a bit more

of the traditional JDM drifting thing, which it's a bit more like final about I'd say, is more of a throwback to the original spirit of what drifting was like in late nineties, early to mid two thousands. It's kind

of gone in a different direction now. Yeah, and I

still am a big fan. I go I try and

go to the Long Beach and Rundel every year, So I still love drifting.

Yeah.

And also you know, when I step back and look at you know, the landscape, but you know professional drifting. Yeah,

the positives is that you know this thing that came from Asian culture is now accepted and embraced by people that are not Asian. And it's not this like you know,

this like exotic foreign thing. It's like, oh, it's you know,

it's part of American culture now, right, which is awesome.

European culture too. The biggest drifting event in the world

just happened in Poland. Really there were six thousand people

there was in a stadium, I mean fifty six thousand.

Wow.

Yeah, So there. It's it's moving around the world. It's

kind of become it's its own thing. Yes, the roots

are in Japan, but.

What do you think that is.

You think it's because it's a car event or something that is accessible to just the layman.

Think about skiing and mountains, right, Skiing is being around a long time. You know, people go on mountains, and

it was there for a long time, and then suddenly this new group of people came snowboarders, right, they dressed differently, this in different mus Totally it was a culture and all the traditional skiers were looking at going what is this thing?

Right?

Who are these people? Snowboarding has you know gone and

it's its own thing now totally international sport and pastime, but it still is happening on ski slopes, right, And you could think of traditional motorsports happening on racetracks, et cetera, and then suddenly these drifters come out and they're different.

Right.

It's a lifestyle more comparable to snowboarders and skaters, i'd say, if you wanted to draw a parallel, But it's also just fun to watch. And I believe it's the last

new motorsport that's happened in an age. I think rallycross

was invented in the early seventies, but aside from that, there's not really anything you maybe maybe monster trucks or the other new sport if you want.

To call it that that's trippy to think about that, drifting or maybe monst trucks. I don't know which came first,

but to think that that's one of the newer forms and maybe the last form of motorsport, Yeah, racing.

And it's just it's it's entertaining.

Right.

You've got the crazy, out of control action that you might seem rallying. You've got the side by side door

banging you might get in NASCAR, the smoke pomp and circumstance you get in drag racing, you know, big power cars, and but then you've got this knockout timeline, whereas regular motorsports, Right, you're going around in circles and you get to sit in the grand stand as a fan and room room right, the cars are going left right, and then someone wins and then it's over. And yeah, it's usually not that

exciting as much as I love motorsports. So I think

that that's why drifting has developed in the way that it has. You know, there was a while there in

the US that rally cross came in and took all the oxygen out of the room, and all the factory programs left. Formula D went to rally cross, and then

there's new forms of electric rally cross coming in, etc.

But it stayed that often it keeps going. The fan

engagements there still fun. We love drifting.

Well, thank you, Ron, this was a great conversation.

This has been a really deep and lovely conversation.

My pleasure. Yeah, we went pretty deep. I feel very

close to both of you now, and so do we

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