Ball of Steel Stunt Show

Today.

It

is a place with good day mate. When the Australian

team challenges America's best.

If you've never seen flat track racing, Del Mar is the place to be.

These boys share one big ball of steel

and when it comes to desert racing, he's the man of steel. I been the Iron Man Stewart

that and more right now on off road action.

Welcome

to off road action.

Obviously, these jeeps were built to take some serious punishment on the rocks.

But in desert racing, if one man was built to conquer,

it's got to be the Iron Man.

It didn't matter if it was the desert of Baha

or a 60,000 seat stadium

in a career that spanned almost three decades. I in the Iron Man Stewart's resume has earned him a spot in off road racings. Pantheon of greatness.

I

feel so fortunate

to be able to have done what I've done in my 30 years of races despite growing up in the heart of the Southern California racing,

I

road to glory. Got an unusually late start. I didn't start racing until I was 27.

You know, I got married very early and we had the, we had kids, bought a house and got in debt just like a lot of American families. The opportunity didn't even come around until I was, until I was 27. Life changed. After seeing the Baha 1000 in person,

I had to find a way to do that. That was back in the

late sixties, early seventies kind of got me hooked off of racing

in the cockpit. Racing. Always came naturally

in the early days. I think that for off road desert racing anyway, I had a

feeling for the race car

or having a understanding of what was abusing the race car. And that's really kind of hard to, uh,

you know, to teach people what it feels like when you're, when you're hurting, the race car was

giving you information through the steering wheel or the suspension or through the engine or

tells you a lot of time when you're hurting. And I had an understanding of that for some reason in the mid seventies, when valve

offered 500 bucks to race Baha solo, an off road racing legend was born.

So you had to sign up solo drive the whole entire race by yourself and,

and win. So I, I did that three times before anybody else out of the war. And

that become attractive to, uh, a lot of the sponsors that I was able to attract back in the mid seventies and that's attractive right now

that sponsors still use the fact that Ivan Iron Man Stewart chose his products to test race cars as the legend of the Iron Man grew to mythic proportions. Ivan kept the pressure to succeed. In perspective. I worked in construction and I ironically as an iron worker and, and I know about hard work

and that's hard work. When you get a job at driving race cars,

it's pretty hard to say this work. After retiring 10 years ago, Ivan wasn't ready for a life spent on a golf course instead, he started his own race series. My Baha Pro truck series is, is basically the NASCAR formula for off road racing.

It, uh, just like NASCAR,

it's a spec truck and created a class. It's a real drivers class. I probably got more from off road racing than anybody else. This is the way for me to, to give something back to it

when I'm dead and gone.

There'll be Maja

Pro trucks that will still grow and prosper and

there's one way

to get back to the sports

located 20 miles east of San Diego. This nondescript building holds more than just staplers and post it notes. Welcome to my Baja Pro truck shop here in Southern California.

It's about a 6000 square foot building.

I come here to have my fun. Come on, I'll show you around.

Well, this is one of our Baha

Pro trucks that we're just putting together.

We'll start building this one actually. I think this is gonna be built as a Ford in my off time. I enjoy working on, uh, classic cars or old cars and, and this happens to be 1967 Rambler that I'm quite fond of who collects ramblers other than

Ivan Stewart. Right.

Vintage rides, video games and tons of racing history are pretty cool. But the favorite part of the shop has to be Iron Man's race cars to this one of about five or six different stadium trucks that I drove for Toyota and Cal

Wells and the Mickey Thompson series. And this was a little single seat fun co that I drove. We won the Baja 500 in the

two or three

Baha

five hundreds in these cars. And then the one on top is the original

car that I started racing in uh with Bill Rinko of high school buddy

back in uh the early, early seventies. To be honest, I do miss it. I do miss miss doing the Baha

races

because there's such a, uh rewarding feeling, being able to take a, a race truck or a race car from point A

and get it 500 miles down the road. Let alone be in the competition. You know, it's rewarding. I mean, there's nothing like the memories that you get from off road racing.

Iron Man's Baha

Pro Trucks from 14 races a year in the score series and invest in the desert.

Keep

with the theme of our show. We're staying off road this time with some dirt flying to real action.

Fancy bikes and pretty girls aren't the main attraction that Del Mar. It's the flat track racing coming your way after the break.

Welcome back to off road action.

Since the forties, motorcyclists have raced flat track where the horses run at Del Mar

today. The Del Mar Mile roars on at speeds of over 100

MPH.

Mm.

Yeah.

Pretty cool. You know, it's a real close racing and I think it's one of the closest racing you have out there.

Sometimes 15 guys all within, uh,

four or five bike links seems like sometimes, you know, all in a row, you know, three and four wide. So

it's pretty exciting deal

on this track. Like this one that's

over 100 and 2500 and 30 miles an hour down the street,

you know, watching that, that kind of speed and,

you know, that t together

pretty exciting

that dirt track. Right.

No,

to me it's a lot of fun. Of course, I like going fast and sideways at the same time.

A big part of this racing is drafting, which

the draft you have to be really close. So,

and that's one of the big things about

dirt track racing

with drafting.

The whole deal is everybody knows everybody and everybody trusts everybody. So

we feel pretty comfortable

with each other out there. Drafting, going on straight away is just

half inches apart and you really got to trust your buddy in front of you to

not do nothing stupid and

use the air behind it to hopefully draft right by him.

Oh, you got your heart pumping out there.

Better

about the,

that

the noise the,

when they get close in racing,

when there's an actual race, it's exciting.

It's flat track racing

racing.

Excellent

racing

right now. I'm missing this one. So,

except for a brief period in the 19 eighties, Harley Davidson had a monopoly on flat track racing. Those days are now over.

I

think he's

jumped into the sport this year for

dirt track racing and uh they went with a full factory effort this year.

It's pretty exciting. You know, uh Harley Davidson has been dominant the last

2025 years

in dirt track racing and uh to have a new factory team

coming

to the sport is, it's a big deal for us.

It's definitely a big deal for the fans who want to see different brands of motorcycles out there racing and

it's a fun deal.

Suzuki knew all eyes would be on their new machines and they did not disappoint.

We're running a 1000 CC based V twin engine

production engine out of the V drum motorcycle that Suzuki

sells.

And uh what it has is something that no other dirt tracker has is uh fuel injection.

It's also a water

cooled engine

and with that, with fuel injection. We have a special black box power commander box that we use, that. You can actually plug in a laptop computer

and program

how

the air fuel mixture is with the fuel injection, you can switch in the bike up, lean the bike up all with the touch of a computer. Also at Delmar Austria's KTM revealed their new flat tracker. Today. We're debuting the new

LC eight KTM twin motor and

it's in a stock chassis too. We just lowered it down a couple of weeks ago. Pretty sharp bike.

We got a lot of chassis stuff we need to do with it. It's got a great motor in it right now. It's for this type of a track. I

think we got a great motor for this track and a great shot at winning on it.

We just need to get it handled a little bit better and,

and the riders are all in agreement. Change is good and the new competition is making the future for flat track. A bright one.

I think it's great. You

know, it's

getting more bike brands and,

you

know,

you can't hurt nothing. I like to see.

I

like to

see

what,

you know, you see how the

develop,

get the manufacturers involved. It's, it's better for the riders, it's better for the fans, it's

better for the sport, period's

involvement and hopefully bring in a new fan base

and uh take it to the next level. The theory today. Is, is to keep a little bit of cushion. I'm talking like an eighth of an inch on top where the bike skim across the top rather than dig in and chunk the track out.

It's a ballet man and machine working as one in the dirt separated by inches. They finesse their machines to in excess of 100

MPH.

This is what flat track racing is all about.

Pretty

much. The first practice.

I went out and got behind a couple of people and, uh,

the

next thing, you know, I came in and look at my arms and here we are out having fun.

Whatever floats your boat buddy with the Del Mar race being the season finale, the gladiators of the mile were looking to finish out the year strong.

The

last

race we've been doing well

and finishing high

and

we want to go in the off

season

with a

good

for Joe Kop. It came down to writing the new KTM or waiting to debut the beast until next season. We just talked about it.

We don't want to go out there and look stupid on it and hurt ourselves on it.

And

like I told him, I said,

it felt pretty comfortable in the

first practice. I was out there.

I

just keep riding it and keep learning on it and try to trust it more and more each lap. You know, it's

definitely not pushing it to its limits. Right. Now,

you know, so new to me that I don't want it to come around and slap me.

But when the flag drops, cop comes out riding the 950 twin running mid pack and George Roder pulled away from the field on a tried and true Harley.

I got a better start that time, you know, and I was in a position I wanted to be, I

think I passed AJ and three and four there and,

and I knew the rest, you know, the Suzuki are fast if I could get them behind me,

you know, I might be able to break away and, uh, work out just like me to

plan it, you know,

when you're leading like that,

uh, the only thing that can happen is bad. So

when you're,

when it's like that you're a lot more nervous than, uh,

when you're dying with somebody.

All you're worried about is a race

all you're worried about now is, is it breaking

led by Kevin Barnes and AJ Easlick Suzuki finished off the season strong going 23 in the main.

It was kind of neat out there running with AJ, you know, your teammate and, uh,

we kind of waving back and forth to each other going down the straight away. So it was a good

time.

Yeah, I got to thank the girls, you know,

16 laps,

16 laps. I saw him, you know, at least 14 times. So

its good

podium finish last race of the year. That's

just a plus for us to

go make the off season a little bit easier for everybody

and sideways at the same time, got to love flat tracking and you guys are going to love what's coming up later.

They came 8000 miles to show their good

when the Australian Crawling team challenges, America's best.

But up next three kids, three bikes and a dad with a sick mind. The ball of steel. When off road action continues,

occasionally, we do some crazy stuff out on the trails.

But if you wanna talk off the charts crazy, then check out the ball of steel stunt show.

Ok.

We're a ball still stunt show in West Texas. And, uh,

we're riding a big steel ball all three of us and we just carry it up in there and go crazy. All three of our boys get in there and we get it on

and it's a great show.

I got the hat, getting ready to put it on the back of his head.

Can't reach it. No. Well,

getting ready to rip it up around them.

We're all in sync. So, uh, one of us leads and the other two follow and, uh, one of us leads and we just go up, give us some gas.

Hopefully we don't crash. Uh, we're going probably average about 33 miles an hour

with their, uh, xr seventies

all board out and big suspension, thick wheels and everything. So we don't crush the wheels. G forces.

They're pretty,

it's pretty bad in there. We pull about probably 2 to 3.

Uh, it took a long time to get used to it. It hurts your back, makes your muscles all sore.

Dizziness was the hardest thing to get over. You know, it gets so dizzy in there. Uh,

probably go about

3 to 5 laps at first and

just fall over because I'm so dizzy whipping it around. Hopefully, we don't hit each other.

We crashed. I don't know how many times you can't count that much.

We just crashed until we learned how to do it. We just had a concussion, broken bones and stuff like that. I mean, there's so many crashes can't even count them all. I can't even

wait so

long. It just, just stuff happens and you

gotta watch out. You gotta learn how to fall because if you fall and stick an arm or a leg out, it's gonna get ripped off. So you gotta just kind of curl and just hope you don't hear too bad. You

got

two screws. I broke the knot off. So they put two screws going up right there

and two screws right there to hold the riding place.

And then up here on my knee,

that scar is where they cut my knee open to put the rod through the top of my bone

runs all the way down

the whole length of my leg.

This is what I spent three months of my life doing

is building this ball. This thing was a headache for me.

I took off. I was in the motorcycle business and I just left the shop and said I'll be back when I get done with this thing. Who knows if it's gonna take three months.

It's about 14 ft in diameter.

I had special

Mior

tubing made for it. It's machine fit,

that ball's not completely square and we're not gonna get it.

It comes in four pieces,

the top comes off and it splits,

the bottom comes and it splits apart. So it comes in four pieces.

It's the only ball that stands on its own legs. This is my baby right here,

even though she needs a little work there once in a while because the boys tear it out.

This, this is what makes the money right here.

It gets pretty rough in there.

It's all good though. Just like adrenaline's pumping so hard. You don't even really pay attention to the crowd. Really? You just still just like, well, that was crazy and just

something like we have real close calls and just concentrate on that and like, get out and just

the

way I live my life. It's awesome.

I thought it was awesome. It was really cool.

I think

I wouldn't wanna do that. It's crazy

out here having fun doing what we love it.

It is much better than the day. Job. You know,

I'm happy to report the kids are doing well. No new injuries. Keep it tuned right here to off road action because there's more coming up

battling for rock crawling supremacy. 16 of the world's best came to Henderson Nevada for the We Rock World finals.

This event is a really big event. We got people from all over the world.

They came from Canada, Mexico and South Africa

for the American drivers. They were keeping an eye out for the trio of Australians. The guys from Australia, I think they'll do real well. It seems like down under, they seem to do everything a little bit more crazy. Right.

Making the 8000 mile journey was peppering Pete Anton,

jamming Jamie Wade

and slamming Sammy Overton.

They had the lingo down and were pumped to be competing on the yanks home turf.

We've been hit Australia looking up to all these guys and to be out here competing with them.

It's just fantastic.

I jumped at the chance. It's monstrous. It's the biggest thing I've ever been to one look at the course and they knew they were far from Oz.

Literally insane. It's pretty crazy.

It's different to the courses that we've been setting back in Australia. The courses are tighter, more full on like there's no sort of easy courses. Basically, there's no warm ups, you know, straight into it back home. Peter Anton

is the defending points champion. I like to do things big

at

the World finals. He debuted a rig that was built to go. Big

Pete's rig is just, it's just unbelievable.

There's a, a few unique things about this, uh,

Rock Crawler. We've eliminated the use of a CV and the small har

shafts by putting a, uh, stock Dana 60 U joint into the steering setup. The actual spine size inside the CV, of what this was originally out of the, the Hummer portal axle, they're very small and it's a, it's a constant reoccurring problem. If you keep that, you will break

shaft.

So we just eliminated that

and went straight to straight to the big stuff. We haven't had 11 internal failure. So we hope that uh

the success of these axles will continue.

It also features a hydraulic suspension that gives it 14 inches of travel

and a propane powered 472 big block Chevy engine.

This machine proves to the world that Australians aren't in this for a few vegemite sandwiches. It's good to have a few innovative ideas and

push to the extreme and, and then help, help the sport grow and develop and do bigger things

with the expectations of a nation weighing on their countryman's performance.

Peter Anton

was ready

needing to finish in the top six to qualify for the shootout.

Anton

struggled through the course.

I'm just having a bad drive like it's just nothing, nothing swinging my way. I'm not, I'm not making it come my way he would not advance to the shootout.

Jimmy Wade punched his ticket to the world finals after winning the Australian shootouts

in

first

place that

he was ready to show up the Americans.

His first competition in the States was not only humbling

but on this role, a little embarrassing,

I went to turn to get out of it. My steering wheel fell off.

So I had, I had my steering wheel but I wasn't doing anything

to get to the shoot

out. Now, we're gonna have to pull

off a

few more rescue maneuvers and

take some more wild lines and

keep it on all floors. Broken parts forced Jamie Wade out of the competition.

As for Sam Overton, he borrowed a rig from American builder and competitor

Tracy Jordan.

I told Sam when he came over from Australia, you better bring a check book because I didn't know how good of a driver he was going to be qualifying for the shootout and finishing fourth overall slam and Sam was the lone bright spot for team Australia.

Mhm.

Things came along really good

while

Ozzie pride was wounded at the world finals, it is hard to

say.

But

when

Jamie Wade's spotter for one wasn't ready to give the Americans their due.

Get it back together

or

something for next year.

When the eight come out, we'll show them how it done

too.

That was

a spotter, Greg Graham with a little down under attitude. You gotta love it.

Thanks for watching today, guys. Remember two wheels are four. If it's got a throttle, we're on it.

I'm me,

we

keeping it off road.

Be sure to keep it tuned to off road action in the coming weeks when we'll venture south of the border for some surf and sandy turf. Motocross

rock.

You'll see how the trails in Moab. Utah can be unforgiving.

Most of the vehicles out here

are more capable than the drivers. So it's usually the fear factor that keeps you from doing a lot of these obstacles. So it's a lot of fun.

Plus why? One Ohio town is famous for its Eliminator Hill of Pea gravel.

Time rock and roll.

We put you in the driver's seat and behind the handle bars right here on off road action.