Page 80 - Motor Trend (February 2020)

FEATURE
legitimate race drivers for Ford v Ferrari
took the production to a higher level.
“I can’t say there’s a massive difference
between what experienced stunt drivers
and race drivers can bring to a scene,” Hill
said. “But there’s that unknown quality,
that certain something which makes race
drivers so comfortable in a track environ-
ment. They know exactly how to place the
car, exactly what line to follow and what
maneuver to take.”
Foust agrees. “With this film being so
story-driven,” he said, “how we interacted
with each other on the track was much
more of a factor. Where we were posi-
tioned and how quickly we closed on or
passed each other was really part of the
story, especially around what happened
with Ken Miles and his climb to the front.”
Primary filming locations included
Willow Springs raceway, where Ken Miles
made his mark in sports car racing, and
Agua Dulce airport in California, spacious
enough to erect Le Mans home stretch
grandstands. Also, as today’s Le Mans
looks nothing like it did in 1966, back
roads in rural Georgia were a stand-in for
the Mulsanne Straight.
“Finding a road that was wide and
straight enough with convincing
topography was quite a thing,” Nagle said.
“Increasing the challenge is that these
roads aren’t always as smooth as I would
like them to be.”
Achieving a balance between safety and
realism is key to a successful production.
Foust noted how the cars made that
difficult. “The biggest problem we had
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was running these old-school tires in the
rain,” he said. “They were dry-weather
tires, but if we were shooting a wet scene,
there wasn’t time to change all the tires
on all the cars. When we were shooting in
Agua Dulce, there were 500 extras in the
Le Mans grandstands. Driving past at 100
mph in the wet … there was a lot of pres-
sure to keep the car in line with all those
people around. My experience helped me
read where the water was deep or shallow,
so I was ready for it. But I had to work
pretty hard to keep things controlled.”
Still, get a group of competitive and
skilled drivers behind the wheels of
powerful sports cars, and things are
bound to get exciting. “Generally, we’re
not trying to push the car to the limit, but
we try and create the look of action—not
like we’re just out for a Sunday drive,” Hill
said. “At one point I was driving a GT40
next to Tanner. Our instructions were to
drive into a corner as fast and tight as we
could then exit and split the camera. Race
drivers like to push each other, and over
the takes for that shot, things got a little
dicey,” he laughed.
Things got particularly dicey in one
of the initial stunts of the Le Mans
Period-correct Le Mans grandstands—
and some 500 extras—were assembled at
Southern California’s Agua Dulce airport.
sequence, in which a Ferrari 275 GTB
goes somersaulting through the air then
smashes into pieces on impact with the
track. “That’s not computer graphics—
that was real,” Foust said. “They had
a giant truck with the car loaded on a
cannon, like a tank with a huge piston.
That guy literally drove alongside us on
the track, at our speed, and then triggered
the piston, which brought his truck to
a complete stop. That launched the car
forward through the air.”
Hill drove the GT40 following behind
that flying Ferrari, and he had to use his
racing instincts to make the shot work.
From take to take, no one could predict
what the car might do in the air or when it
hit the ground. “What do you want me to
do?” Hill asked the directors. Their reply:
“Do what you would do in a race—that’s
why you’re here.” For Hill, it became a
matter of avoiding wrecked car parts,
camera gear, and other stunt drivers. “I
ended up having to throw the car off the
track and pull it out of a ditch before I hit
a tire wall,” he said. “But I like that stuff.
It creates authentic, unexpected action.”
Nagle said that stunt was a huge
undertaking. “I had a high-speed camera