Smoke and Noise #7
A Racetime Column by TFS

With this Smoke and Noise I want to hopefully close a lingering question from the rocky off season. What happened with Racer X? I was following all the advice around me to let it go, but since Davey Coombs decided to graduate me in his many spin-control tirades from "some people" to someone with a name, I guess it's my turn to explain.

I don't work for Racer X in any way or have any plans to. My problems with them last December resulted in me writing a formal complaint to the FIM about DC's manipulating media business and his practice of "blackballing" people he doesn't agree with. Now that I have experienced this myself and verified it, I think I get to talk about it.

DC did a postcast recently with his employee, Steve Matthes, a good writer and a fun guy on Racer X Canada's site. Here's the link. I'm about 27 minutes into the show.

Matthes asks his boss what happened-

DC- "I am still pretty unsure myself.... Something changed last fall. I do not know what it was. I tried to give him some career advice that he took the wrong way. The last conversation I had with him after a lot of emails over Christmas, honestly it was a mystery, the last time I tried to talk to him was Anaheim 2, he looked at me like I was going to hit him or something. I just wanted to know why he was writing so many negative things about me and the promoters.  He basically told me to f-off and that was it......

I regret the whole situation, I lost a friend forever in that whole ordeal.

I hope that whatever is wrong with him is sorted out."

...

That was how it ended, but not how it started.

To understand what happened, we have to back up to the time the contract fussing started on line. The first shot was Youthstream's 3 part interview on MX Large with Luongo. I covered this in Smoke and Noise already, but the important point is DC wanted a rebuttal on MXLarge, a site owned by a pro-Youthstream freelance journalist - Geoff Meyer (MXGEOFF). Meyer told DC "no, Luongo might not like that."

Oops. This created a fuss like I have never seen. DC is already a media octopus, with magazines, a busy website, and all the airtime he wants on TV, DMXS, whatever. One half of the supercrossonline webcast works for DC. The Arenacross announcer does too. One site tells him "no," and he literally freaks out. All of a sudden Luongo is trying to take over the internet and shut him up. It's crisis time.  I heard DC and his ilk whine and put down Meyer so many times after that, it just got old. Big deal, DC doesn't own the internet.

During this time, the NPG was losing the contract battle and it was pretty clear to us following this honestly that the AMA was getting away from them on purpose for something better, and DC was clearly paranoid and all over the place trying to fight Luongo on line. His choice of battleground was Mototalk, and he was even writing opinions for fans to post for him.

I didn't know this at the time, but I was expected to be at Mototalk during this time "carrying the ball" for the home team. I even got some emails from DC complaining that I wasn't being loyal enough for "the good guys."

I had my own agenda and honestly this was a sideshow for me, because my mind was on a better web site than what I had been doing for ten years. Mototalk was becoming too bitchy and people blamed it on me, some of it legit. I had my own ideas on what the internet needs and had been thinking about a new site for about a year. I left Mototalk with no notice, and just left some funny photos and song lyrics a few times to stir them up-its my way.

I never signed any deals with any sites, but I was impatient to get back to commenting and I appeared somewhere else.

What I didn't know was my step away from Mototalk at that time was seen as a Luongo plot in the DC camp, so they were suspicious. I admit to playing games a little and being mysterious, but I make my decisions and they just read too much into it.

DC should have just left me alone. My work decisions are none of his business. He came after me, but not before stopping in at the Live Nation office for something else, and my name and this site came up.

I won't go on and on about everything, but it ended with me writing a formal complaint to the FIM about him. Here's the complaint, with some names and small talk edited out-

My complaint letter to the FIM about DC-
 
Dec 14, 2007

I wanted to write in confidence and explain a problem I am having in working in media freely in AMA/FIM events. ...It's all about my decision to move some work to --.com. I can't and don't speak for the site, but I would like to share just what is going on right now and how that impacts me being able to accept the work I want to do media in AMA supercross and MX.
 
What happened was Monday, a magazine publisher visited the office of the VP for television at supercross, and they discussed what they did not like about --.com. Unfortunately, my name got dragged into some bad history there.  
I got a call after the meeting from the publisher, who pleaded and warned me, do not work with --.com. He complained about the site content and its business, and I told him I did not control that. He demanded that some of his company's press releases be posted there, and I said someone else controlled that. He got more and more angry, told me if I will not post his material, that is all he needs to know.
 
A few minutes later I get a call from a representative of the NPG. He had just been called to say my name was removed by the publisher from consideration for a web project he was planning where he wanted me to be editor. He said this was over --.com and why was I going there, do not go. He pleaded just like the other, do not go and argued about the site's business and its content, which I said I did not control.  
.....
 
Then he kept asking why did I care to work at --.com and I said there I wanted to use it for a strong platform for independent media, then he said, very firmly, that promoters in the US are not going to allow sites to get strong, because the promoting company loses control of the sport's message, and this will never be allowed.  
....  
I guess my question is - with people going this far to act like this to prevent me from making this move, is this OK in the AMA/FIM world? I just can't believe these people right now and I wonder why I am interested in this sport at all after this.
 
Sorry to drop this one...Is the promoter going to be able to control things like this? This makes planning for building a strong independent media platform difficult if I know going in that the plan on the promoter's part is to prevent me and I have to go through them to get a pass to work. What should I do?
 
regards
Steve Bruhn
-end letter-

So, now I am seen as "MXGEOFF 2." DC just can't stand someone telling him "no." What I didn't realize at the time, was his demands for me to change a website to make him look better was a test. I didn't update the site, so it was his mistake to think that his loss of control of websites and the message was spreading.

I failed his MXGEOFF test, and within minutes, the black-balling started. I got calls minutes later verifying it. It was real.

So, fine. I can't work that way and we move on.

Fast forward to the Racer X Canada podcast where DC is acting like something is just wrong with me. Note that this is Racer X talking to Racer X, and no one seems to have a problem with that.

I saw Matthes on line this morning and half-joking wrote, "Hey DC ball-licker, when do I get my airtime to respond?"

His answer, "I can't, have to get permission from DC."

Oh, the irony.