Dusty Times - Issue 01

Energizing An Institution

Plain and simple, we love playing in the dust. No different than any other romance. We have no choice once bitten. It’s the way you feel the first time you make a tire spin, the first time you conquer a hill, the first time you wear a helmet. It’s a ritual, passed from generation to generation of hopelessly obsessed.

You know you love it.

We represent this obsession. We place it on a pedestal. We aren’t the first, but we accept the responsibility with all due reverence to what once was. Dusty Times is curated content to feed this fascination, even when we can’t actually get dirty. We want to be a window to the daydreams of our kind.

The places we want to go. The stuff we want to apply throttle. Maybe a story of adventure we’ve never heard before. For like-minded dirt, gear, motor, outdoor, and adventure individuals, with an eye for the well-crafted.

We intend to energize this institution and what it represents.

An experience we are in love with.

Good clean fun.

Put down your Smart phones for a minute and pretend, just for a minute, there is no internet. I want you to get a feel for what it was like to get your Off Road Racing news twenty or thirty years ago. The only way to get the full story on what happened at the races was from magazines and newspapers. Dusty Times magazine came onto the scene in 1984 the same year as the “Brick phone”. Most magazines just gave you the highlights from the race, that was until Dusty Times came onto the scene.

Covering the world of competition in the dirt

The story goes that Jean Calvin had been working for SCORE News magazine up until about 1983 when SCORE was approached by a company to take over the magazine. This was news to Jean and she was somewhat upset that she wasn’t consulted or even made aware of the deal. Jean decided then and there to start up her own magazine with her husband John. While sitting down over a cup of coffee they came up with the name Dusty Times.

As an off road racing fanatic, I could not get enough about the sport. Dusty Times filled that void with in depth race results and stories. Not only did they cover the winners, they also covered everyone else. The Losers was an article that told the other side of the story, the story of the guys who didn’t win and their adventures. This was always a favorite of mine and Judy Smith did a great job of getting the stories and got them in fantastic detail.

Once you opened the mailbox and saw that light brown newspaper folded in half, you could pretty much reschedule the rest of your day because you had shit to do. I would read that magazine front cover to back cover,

absorbing every word and checking out the fantastic photos from Judy, Trackside and Centerline photo.

When moving from fan to racer, Dusty Times became even more important to me. If you were lucky enough to get your race car in the magazine from the last race, it was a great feeling. After reaching that goal, the next milestone would be to have your car gracing the cover. I was never that lucky.

The internet was the beginning of the end for most magazines, Dusty Times included. It took a while for it to happen largely due to the fact Jean, John and Judy did such a masterful job keeping us all informed about our world. Despite Jean’s death in 1997, John kept Dusty Times going until his own passing in 2013. From there John’s family tried to keep it afloat but the last printed issue was in July 2013. After a couple of unsuccessful on-line only issues the doors were finally closed forever.

It was the end of an era for our generation. Print magazines are dead they said, why come out with a magazine when you can just go on-line? Guess what, I

don’t want to go on-line, I want to flip through a magazine at my leisure and still have it 20 years from now. When was the last time your internet went down or your favorite web site crashed? Thanks but no thanks, I’ll take my printed magazine any day of week!

A message for you guys here at the NEW Dusty Times, I will leave you with the words that three time Baja 1000 winner Mark Stahl graced me with before strapping into our recently restored race car and my first stint behind the wheel at the NORRA Mexican 1000:

“Try not to fuck up”

- Rory Ward

Once you opened the mailbox and saw that light brown newspaper folded in half, you could pretty much reschedule the rest of your day because you had shit to do.

ABOVE

THE ACTION

Growing up in east San Diego County, Jim McCoy could ride a dirt bike as far as he wanted, right from his house. That freedom he experienced as a teenager now comes in an adult version: flying his helicopter whenever and wherever he wants. For the past 13 years, he’s turned his passion for flying and knowledge of motorsport into a livelihood, catering to off-road racing teams and action sports filmmakers. He’s a southern California native, a family man and an entrepreneur, but to many people he’s known simply as Heli Jim.

WHAT GOT YOU INTO FLYING?

As a kid, I was always fascinated by helicopters. Anytime a helicopter would fly by, I’d watch it. So a friend of mine: Steve Wright. He bought a helicopter while he was in the process of learning how to fly. He got his license, and a friend of mine invited me to go fly with him, and I was like “Hell yeah!” We take off and we’re flying around, and I’m thinking “Damn this is the coolest thing ever; I have to learn how to do this.” Next thing you know, I decide to start taking lessons. So I go to Corporate Helicopters, sign up for lessons, three months later I got my helicopter license. As

ABOVE

I was going through the licensing process, always in the back of my mind, I was like, “I can’t afford a helicopter,” but then I started looking around, and they weren’t as bad as I thought. And next thing you know, I’m putting offers in on ones, and so I ended up buying an R44. My wife knew I was learning to fly, but I didn’t tell her I had bought one until I flew her and myself to a wedding in Palm Springs. She thought it was a rental. Mid flight, I tell her, “Actually we bought this helicopter,” and she says, “You’re such an idiot.” And I said, “No, I’m going to turn it into a business: chasing off-road races!”

SO YOU ALREADY HAD THE OFF-ROAD RACING STUFF IN MIND WHEN YOU BOUGHT IT?

Yeah, I knew Ivar was doing it, and I had been to a few races, so I thought I’d do that and photo flights, and then boom. Sure enough, it worked out. Marc Brunett was my first off-road race flying job when he was racing motorcycles back in the day, Baja 500, I think. It really kinda blew up from there, and I go to almost every race now.

FILMING IS A BIG PART OF YOUR BUSINESS NOW ALSO, YES?

Yeah, that all started with the Red Bull TV show, The Great Ride Open, and I was literally only 150 hours deep into flying..

THAT WAS A DIRT BIKE FILM?

Yes, and I think that has been a niche of mine because I was always into moto, and I understand what the

dirt bike’s going to do before the rider does it. And I think other pilots probably don’t understand that, or understand angles of what you want to shoot, and stuff like that. That was season one of The Great Ride Open. They only had budget for one episode in Glamis, and they were so stoked on the stuff we got that trip, that they said, “Next year we want a helicopter the entire trip.” Season two was a twenty-day trip, with Renner, Clowers, Tilton, Drake McElroy and Lance Corey. We had such a great time on that trip, and when it came out on TV, my phone never stopped ringing.

There’s ‘camera courage’ when you want to get the lowest and coolest shot usually filming within ten to fifteen feet of the ground, and it’s dangerous.

HOW IS FLYING FOR FILMING DIFFERENT FROM A REGULAR FLIGHT?

You obviously want to get the best shot, but unfortunately, it always seems like the jump they pick is downwind which is bad for the helicopter, or they sit around all morning and wait for the light to be right, and then the light is good but the wind is bad. Then there’s ‘camera courage’ when you want to get the lowest and coolest shot, usually filming within 10 to 15 feet of the ground, and it’s dangerous. You gotta make sure you’re crossing your T’s and dotting your I’s, making sure you put all the safety precautions in place before you take off, and don’t let yourself get sucked into doing something you don’t

feel comfortable doing. It’s not going to be a great shot if we’re dead. Chances are, it’s going to be a bad crash, you know? Versus like when you’re on your dirt bike, you go for a triple you might break a leg, an arm, back or whatever else, but in a helicopter, it’s near fatality almost every time. So it’s not something you want to mess around with.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR FLYING IN BAJA?

We have a whole booklet of paperwork we carry on

board, you know I’m landing on beaches and in hotel parking lots, and the soldiers always appear out of nowhere. We have all the permits and I hand the soldiers the paperwork; they love paperwork. In the bigger towns, you can’t just land anywhere, but in smaller towns we land wherever and get our paperwork out, but I really should learn more Spanish though.

YOU DON’T FLY AT NIGHT OVER BAJA. WHAT IS THE REASON FOR THAT?

In Mexico, they don’t allow single engine, low altitude,

non instrument (IFR) flight plans at night. I think thats to keep the drug problem down, moving drugs at night. The idea is if there is an airplane flying a low level at night, it’s probably a drug smuggler.

WHAT IF YOU ARE FLYING ALL THE WAY TO LORETO?

WHAT ABOUT FUEL?

I can make it all the way to Loreto now; I have a thirty gallon tank I put in the back seat, and I have a mechanical hand pump., I’ll fill up in San Felipe and from there, with good winds, I can fly about 320-330 miles, then land in

Photo: Brian Binkert

On your dirt bike you go for a triple you might break a leg, an arm, back or whatever else but in a helicopter it’s near fatality almost every time

The idea is if there is an airplane flying a low level at night it’s probably a drug smuggler

the middle of nowhere. I like to be away from people, just land and pump my gas from the tank in the back seat.

I’M SURE YOU’VE SCARED SOME OF YOUR PASSENGERS WHILE FLYING, BUT HAVE YOU EVER SCARED YOURSELF?

One year at the Mint 400, just flying along, chasing the race car and everything is going perfect. We come around the mountain and there isn’t even a puff of wind all day, and I hit something in the air that turned the helicopter so quick, so sideways, that I literally got like a whiplash. My head hit the window, my headset flew off. It was so

instantaneous and unexpected, my heart was racing out of my chest, and of course I didn’t want to make the passengers nervous, so I didn’t say anything. Another time, flying Ryan Dungey to Ocotillo, the wind was so gnarly. [Ryan’s] like “Is this ok?” and I’m like “Nah, this is nothing. A five on a scale to 10.” But in my mind, it was like an 11. Next time I saw him, I had to admit to him that it was actually pretty bad that flight. Recently, coming home from the Mint by myself, I had to land partway home. I just left the helicopter at McGrath’s ranch, and called John Marking to come pick me up because the low clouds and the winds were so bad. I just had to get out of

the helicopter, it just wasn’t good. A few days later, I went back and picked it up. Luckily I was by myself for that one, probably the most scared I’ve ever been. That’s the bad thing, I don’t know why they don’t just have off road races in Santa Barbara, and I could just fly up the coast the whole way… no mountains to cross over.

YOUR FAVORITE AREA TO FLY OVER?

I like the beach. Coastline, I never get tired of it.