The Story Behind "Red Dirt Rising"

"Red Dirt Rising," a new film about the beginnings of stock car racing will make its world premiere May 15 at North Wilkesboro Speedway. A cinematic labor of love, "Red Dirt Rising" is the end result of a community of folks who love racing.  And the music video used to promote the film even features a cameo by NASCAR Hall of Famer Junior Johnson and his son Robert.

I caught up with Todd Morris, the marketing director for "Red Dirt Rising," and found out a little more about the film, where you can see it, and how the whole thing came together in the first place.

Tell me a little about the story behind “Red Dirt Rising”. How did the film come about?
"The film started with the vision of Gary Lewallen, racing legend Jimmie Lewallen's son. Jimmie is who the movie was based around. Gary grew up in a racing family and had been around many of these first legends his whole life. He realized quickly he was living in the midst of stock cars' earliest heroes and was driven to tell the story of what it was like for these first families. These first drivers never raced for money or trophies - they raced for the love of racing itself and it became a labor of love for everyone involved in making the film. This film would never have seen the light of day if it had not been for all of the support in the racing community and from the friends of Jimmie Lewallen. I'm not sure that another project will ever have as much heart behind it as 'Red Dirt Rising' does."

Why is this an important story to tell – who is your target audience?
"One of many reasons we wanted to tell this story is we want to open the eyes of many younger race fans to the fact that there was a whole generation of drivers that raced prior to NASCAR forming officially. We want them to see what drove these early legends - and why they were so passionate. We also are fulfilling the desires of many other old drivers and their families as well as old race fans to share this story as it was very similar to their own families' experiences with the history of racing."

What do you hope audiences walk away with after leaving the theater?
"We hope when they leave the movie they will have a much stronger appreciation of the first legends of racing and their families - these were the ones who paved the way to stock racing as we know it today and every last one of them, big names or small, really need to be recognized as true pioneering legends. These pioneers of racing were the initial foundation that stock car racing was built on."

What’s the release schedule for "Red Dirt Rising" ?
"Well, that question is asked often lately. We have lots of special events currently lined up to include a special fundraising screening with Racers Reunion/Love Chevrolet Columbia Speedway event on April 17th. May 15th, we have the world premiere at the North Wilkesboro Speedway. This event will be an all day at the track event for everyone to enjoy and includes the Buck Bakers Driving School day program, and then in the evening we have North Wilkesboro Speedway's first race since re-opening with the Legendary Flathead Ford' Racing Series. After the race, a live concert performance by Matt Dylan (Carolina Moonshine) and at dusk watch the movie on the track - this will be a big event and will also include cars from the movie, antique moonshine cars and many if not all of the cast and crew from the movie on hand to meet and greet and sign autographs. In June, we will be in Tennessee at the White Lightning Festival in Cumberland Gap showing the film Friday and Saturday at the Festival. We are currently in discussions with a major theater chain discussing both regional and national releases into their theaters. We are also in discussions with a distributor about releasing the DVD very soon.

How did you get Junior Johnson to do a cameo in the music video for the film?
"How did Junior get involved? Hard to be short on this question, but basically we just asked him! We asked if he and Robert (Junior's son) would like to be in a music video. We got them a copy of the song and they liked it. Carolina Moonshine mentions Junior, Lewallen and Blair (from Red Dirt Rising) in the song and they had all raced together in the past and knew each other. If anyone has met Junior then you already know how much of a gentleman he truly is and he would just about give the shirt off his back if you asked nice enough. It was an incredible experience for all of us making the video and having Junior and Robert as well as North Wilkesboro Speedway be a part of helping us to promote our movie - not to mention Junior fed all of us breakfast on his farm. We are all still talking about that!

How important is the music to this story?
"About the song and our music - we had basically finished our movie, completed, or thought we completed, the soundtrack back in the late fall and then we received a rogue e-mail from a one Matt Dylan telling us about his song about moonshine and stock cars called "Carolina Moonshine". He asked if we would be interested in using it in the film. I told him things were kinda locked up but send it anyway and I would at least share it with everyone since I was sure we would at least appreciate the song. It came in and when we heard it, it stopped us in our tracks. Matt's song truly captured how racing began. Our soundtrack includes Emmy and Grammy winning artists and songwriters and Matt's song fell right in place, so much so we got our crew and many of the race community as well as many noted, retired moonshiners and a retired state trooper together to pull off the music video shoot. It has been well received and has helped tremendously in promoting our film."

And one last note about "Red Dirt Rising" - a portion of the film and soundtrack proceeds will be donated to the Racing Legends Medical and Hardship Fund that was founded in 1991 by Jimmie Lewallen and Mike Sykes. The fund was established to assist drivers, mechanics, and team owners who qualify for assistance.