Interview with Rich Christensen

Heath: Is this your first trip to Oklahoma? Rich: Yes. This is my first time to Oklahoma. Heath: Where are you originally from? Rich: It's where I'm still from. I moved back after being in L.A. for 15 years. I'm back in Iowa. Heath: The success of Pinks and Pinks All-Out has been tremendous. Were you a drag racer before Pinks? How did you get involved with the show? Rich: The first time I was on a track was the first time we shot Pinks. Never been to a track, didn't even know what one looked like close up. I got involved because I sell T.V. shows for a living. That's what I went to college for and that's why I was in L.A. I had 200 to 300 shows rejected while I was in Los Angeles until someone said yes. I pitched to every network from MTV to Spike and Speed was the one that said yes. And it became their number one show. Heath: That's amazing because on the show you're really a mediator, a physiologist and a host, knowing what these guys and gals are going through with their cars is it hard for you to help with the negotiations not having a racing background? Rich: Well first we couldn't afford a host because we had so little money for the show when it started. The network was really like a pilot and all I knew was there was really no sacred cow. I didn't care about timing systems, staging lights or trees. I didn't care if everyone was living by that and I wasn't vested in any of it. I made it about the people. I wanted the racer to be the difference in the race not the car. Heath: What had you done in your life up to this point to help you become that negotiator on the show? Rich: I managed a gym in L.A. and dealing with staff and customers really helped. It felt like I was helping two big body builders mediate a problem or some staff that were having an issue. Heath: Pinks started in 2005, how long can this show run? Rich: Well it depends on me and it depends on how honest we continue to be with our audience. The minute we start lying to them and try to pull the wool over their eyes is when we'll have a problem. The day I get sideways with the network is when they start telling me to up the ante and start faking stuff. The show will stay real. That's never going to happen because the way we shoot Pinks and Pink All-Out is chronologically to show you what happens. Everybody knows if we don't get the shot we don't go back for it. It could be tomorrow it could be ten years from now. All I know is that if you're associated with me you're going to give 110%. The second anyone starts taking it for granted they will no longer be a part of the process. Heath: The fans are a huge part of it. Their reaction to a race being agreed upon is always tremendous, how much of the fans cheering and pushing the contestants weighs in to their decisions? Rich: With Pinks it really comes from their own teammates. I push those guys to take them out of their comfort zone with the pace. What might be a four-hour negotiation on the street, I'm going to make them do in four minutes. The pace gets them off their game then the peer pressure from their team gets them to a quicker decision. With All-Out it's a whole different story. These guys are used to doing a test-and-tune with a couple hundred people in the stands. The guys that make the show from the test-and-tune the week before with a 10-second or 11-second car, sometimes a 12-second car, are now performing, racing, in front of 25 to 30 thousand people. All of their senses are heightened and their perspective changes, but really it's the moment. That's my job to put the pressure on the racers in the moment so it really comes down to who they are. Especially in Pinks. You're going to find out if someone's a liar, then they're going to lie. If they're honest they're going to be honest to a fault. That's what I love about Pinks was that the true character of a person came out of the people involved. Heath: These racers know going in that they could lose their ride. You've seen it people load another persons car on a trailer. What's that moment like when the cameras are off and they're loading up the other guy's car? Rich: The problem was when we started Pinks I didn't care if they kept the car or not. Then it got to be where guys were cutting deals and at first I didn't care about that because I needed to get a show for season one. No one knew what Pinks was. After that I would only cast people that not only where willing to lose a car, but I needed to find people that were willing to take cars. Sell them on EBay, race them, and keep them so that became the casting process. Guys felt bad about taking the cars so they would give them back. We had to find guys that said I don't care if the guy sleeps in the car, I'm taking it. Remember, 40 states said we couldn't shoot a show there because they thought it was fake. They viewed it as gambling. Only 10 states would allow us to shoot Pinks. There have been no new orders from the network for any new episodes of Pinks. The focus is now on Pinks All-Out because it's become such an event. Heath: Tell me about this new venture called Armdrop Live. Rich: Armdrop came from us sitting around saying, what am I doing on the weekends? If I do ten Pinks All-Out shows a year, there's a lot of weeks that are available. There's three types of tracks; open, closed and demolished and to stop the demolition of these tracks we felt like we needed to do our part and go out and help them by having these events. Help popularize drag racing again and have some fun. It's taking some of the best things from Pinks and bracket racing and gives racers a chance to come out and win up to $10,000 dollars. If the field is small then the purse goes down, but the entire purse goes back to the racers. Some shows we have 8,000 fans some 2,500. Our job is to go out there and promote drag racing and armdrop style racing. I can go out there and practice my armdrops. I do 150 armdrops a day so I don't throw my back out. I get to practice for the show. It's selfish, but if I take too many weeks off then I get out of my rhythm. We don't have some of the rules like we have on T.V. There's no cameras so we can do some things that normally we wouldn't do. We can match up a Ninja motorcycle against a Camero. Heath: Safety is always a concern at any motor sports event and you're right there between two cars launching really hard off the line. What measures do you take to insure your own safety? Rich: We just shot the pilot for a new show called Armdrop Bikes. It's very similar to Pinks. There was a negotiation where a bike gave up seven links and with a bike I don't have a problem. I would not do that the same way I did it with Pinks, being way out in front of those cars again. Now I try to get a little closer to the cars, but I'm on a platform that's pretty high off the ground. Worst-casescenario, both cars lose the back ends and they both come at me, I have to get up high. My biggest fear is getting pinned under a car with those wheels and tires spinning as hard as they do. I don't have as big of a fear getting hit and rolling over the top of a car. I think it's the difference in getting hurt and getting killed. My job is to not get lazy and drop my head after I drop my arms. I assume every car is going to hit me. The problem is when I'm in my 300th car I get tired. That's why I work out seven days a week and stay in shape. Heath: You've stood in front of some serious racecars with a lot of horsepower. A funny car is no joke. Was it intimidating to be next to cars like that? Rich: You just have to be careful. It's almost like being a bullfighter. You get this sense of something not coming off the line right. They come off the line so fast you really don't have a chance to do anything. If I can react in time my only option is up. The engine blowing up is really a big concern. My shades are safety glasses to help protect my eyes. If a funny car blows up I could get a projectile pretty easy, so that's a fear for sure. Heath: You took the spill on the bike during one of the tapings, what happened? Rich: The first photo of me on a motorcycle was taken in 1969, I was five years old. I can't think in my head when I haven't had a motorcycle. Dirt bikes and Honda cruisers were mainly what I've rode over the years. I've been riding my whole life. That was the second time ever in my life on a sport bike. That particular bike was geared as a racing sport bike. It could hit 113 mph in second gear. I popped that clutch like you would on a 700 cc cruiser and I didn't know better. My cousin tried to warn me, but I climbed on it anyway. I started to lose it, avoided a tractor that could have killed me by a couple of feet to my left and dumped the bike a few feet later. I'm thankful that I dumped it there and not at the end of the track doing 100mph. What you didn't see was the 10 to 15 minutes it took to scrub the track out of my body. I was cut down to the bone in several places. I had to wear a shirt to bed. I had to shower the shirt off because the blood dried overnight. I have two fingers that to this day barely bend. I popped my sternum, my clavicle and almost broke both of my heels. It took three months of heavy-duty recovery to get back from that crash. Heath: You still had a show to shot that night! Rich: I finished both shows that night. I finished the second show completely in shock. I can't remember a thing about it. Don't remember the negotiations are anything. Heath: You mentioned working out seven days a week, what are some other passions in your life outside of the shows? Rich: I don't have a lot and that's the problem. I have an incredible wife, not only is she my wife, but she's a really good friend. I'm very one-dimensional. I live to work, I don't work to live. I work seven days a week, 10-14 hours a day. I don't go on vacations because I don't enjoy them. I watch six to eight hours of T.V. a day because I sell T.V. shows for a living. I workout everyday and I put a lot of emphases on my lifting. I married the right woman, I achieved some weight lifting goals that took twenty-five years to achieve. I don't drink. I've had two sips of beer my entire life. I've never even seen a steroid. And I've never taken a drug, never in my life. Just through the Dan Gable work ethic that comes from Iowa, I've been able to out work everybody. I started with a goal of seeing how many times I could lift 225lbs. With a lawyer and an accountant present I cranked out 225 pounds 33 times. Now my form wasn't perfect. My back was arched like the golden arches of McDonalds, but I don't bounce. That was at the age of 42 and at 160 pounds. So I worked eight years to reach that goal. I do all of this while I watch T.V. I walk on the treadmill at 3.0 and after 1:30 I get off and I've got :30 seconds to do 20 dips then get right back on the treadmill. Tell the high school kid's it's about who works the hardest wins. Really it's about focus.