Go for Donny! with Rupert Smith & Dan de Castro

Episode Title: Go for Donny! with Rupert Smith & Dan de Castro

In this exhilarating episode of Go for Donny! Host Donny McGuire sits down with special guests Rupert Smith and Dan de Castro to relive some of their wildest and most memorable moments from their time working on Top Gear USA and other thrilling projects.

Get ready to laugh out loud as they recount the infamous rental car incident, which involved a daring stunt with a bouncy castle that didn't go quite as planned, and the ensuing arguments that set the stage for some unforgettable behind-the-scenes drama.

The trio dives into tales of dusty drives in an old suburban, complete with the comical "vacuum effect" of dust rolling in through the open windows. They also share anecdotes about wearing ridiculous costumes like SPF 1000, a bright red jacket, and even a ghillie suit during shoots and private airfield exploits.

Listeners will hear about the camaraderie and chaos that defined their work, including a gravity-defying off-roading adventure through Utah's national parks and a challenging yet visually stunning shoot with the 101st Airborne Division, complete with military equipment and drones.

From wild weekends in Colorado that started with chance meetings on planes to partying in Death Valley and crashing weddings, Donny, Rupert, and Dan revisit the nights of heavy drinking followed by grueling work the next day, epitomized by Tanner’s backward car descent down a mountain while hungover.

The podcast wraps up with tales of survival and quick thinking during their Iceland excursions, narrowly avoiding disaster on a volcano, resourcefully fixing broken axles, and experiencing the awe-inspiring northern lights. Not to mention, a wild night in the desert filled with booze and unexpected nude escapades.

Often veering into the ridiculous but always grounded in genuine friendship and shared experiences, this episode is a delightful mix of humor, nostalgia, and untamed adventures. Tune in, laugh, and get a real taste of the behind-the-scenes antics that made their past projects both challenging and exhilarating.

Don't forget to check out our website, YouTube channel, social media, and grab your GoForDonny! merchandise. Thank you for listening, and keep the stories alive!

Don’t forget to check out Go for Donny! Switch to Channel 2 where we get to ask our guests some more in depth questions that you the listener want answers too.
“Go for Donny!” & “Switch to Channel 2” can be found on all available podcast platforms.
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Transcript

0:02

Camera for Donny. Go for Donny. Sound for Donny. Go for Donny. Makup for Donny. Go for Donny. Medic for Donny. Go for Donny. Grip department for Donny. Go for Donny. Production for Donny. Go for Donny. Dan for Donny. Rupert for Donny. Go for Donny. Hey, man. What's up, everyone? Hey, welcome to Go for Donny. I'm your host, Donny. And this is Rupert Smith, aka the Bear, and that is Dan de Castro, aka the Peacock. What's up, gentlemen? Thanks for coming on. Hey, Donny, how are you? The Eagle. That's right. I think we did talk about that in episode one. Jen, Jay and I was talking. We're talking about our spirit animals, because he knew that you were the bear and you're the peacock, and we had the puma. And you want to know what mine was? And I was like, I think I'm the eagle because I soar. Freedom, America. God bless it. So, yeah, guys, thanks for coming on, everybody. I was lucky enough to work with these two guys for a number of years on many seasons of Top Gear USA, and we also worked on a few other projects where we had some good times and a lot of shenanigans. And that is what this podcast is about. It's about some good times and shenanigans and behind the scenes fun in reality tv and branded content or even a movie here and there. So, gentlemen, I brought you on here today to talk about some fun times in Top Gear. We had a lot of fun times. I do like to talk about camaraderie and why we had fun times, because I think that we all got together so well and we enjoyed our company, that we wanted to be with each other while we were working. And then when we weren't working, we wanted to be together at that time as well and have fun and tell the same stories. And that's another reason why we're doing this podcast. So, guys, who would like to go first? Anyone want to share a fun story that you may want to tell the viewers and listeners? I miss those days. Yeah, I mean, it was a lot of fun, right? It was the best of times. What do you think made him so special then? It's a mixture of the right kind of personalities that all kind of came together. I think it's quite what kind of made it really work for me, I think, was that there was very little kind of executive interference on what we were doing. We had a small team. We were able to kind of just go and get on with it and make it how we wanted to. I think a lot of shows you work on these days is many executives, many things. It's not really fun. It's work. And this was more like, as you said, having fun and having a good time, but we also managed to put out some pretty decent content as well, so. But, yeah, I think it was just a perfect mix of people that kind of got on, that didn't take stuff too seriously, but were professional and loved their jobs, and in between doing a great job at a good time as well. And I think that we can. Think we can probably all thank Rupert for that, because I think all of our group of friends that we're really close with were all brought on from. Because of Rupert. So I think me and you'd met on imploders at a discovery. Discovery, yeah, discovery show. Blowing up buildings, traveling around with a kind of crazy family, detonating buildings and stuff. And I think he came on pretty. Came on to Top Gear as soon as I started that. After that, I think along with senior known as the Puma and Mikey Cheyer, he was like a production coordinator when he started, wasn't he, on that? That's right, yeah, he was. He's like a hybrid coordinator. Ap. Yeah, yeah. Dan, when did you come on? Well, mine was thanks to Rupert as well. I was doing a different show in. In America, but for it was the dynamo magician show, and I managed to get Rupert's or someone's number to meet up with Rupert in LA while I was shooting a different show. And then. We met in England on that because I came over to shoot a thing with Tanner for season one of Top Gear, and it was a Morgane Arrow super slip. I told you. I told you. His memory is gone. We met in England. Oh, hi. I do recognize you a little bit. Oh, my God. Yeah, I came over with Tanner to England to shoot a thing, and Dan and a couple of the utopia guys were kind of hired to come and shoot it because it was cheaper than bringing crew over from the states. They obviously knew what they were doing, and they all laughed at me because I had a Canon 5D, which no one had really started using yet, and I sort of brought that out and was shooting bits and pieces and all these kind of old school top gear camera guys. What's that? The only one that took any interest was Dan. So we got chatting, and he was like, I want to come over. And then, yeah, I think we met for french toast in LA a few months later, and kind of it got the ball rolling, and he came over. And became DP, sealed the deal over french toast. It was very quick and very good. It was some of the best times of my life, to be honest. I think you were very hungover for that french toast. I said to rumba. That'S why I went quiet. And when I just got in, that's how you knew. That's how you knew he would work out. This is perfect for this team. That's exactly what we needed. I don't know how much I can mention in this podcast, but I came. Not much of it to meet Rupert. I'll say no more. Yeah, we try to keep a pg for the kids that are listening, you know, but I believe we did. After 8 hours sleep, I woke up in the morning and refreshed. And when I met Rupert and we had a very decent and sane conversation about how fast he could get me working in America and the rest is history. And it was quite. It was kind of. It was really like coming into like, you know, knew like all the group together and like me on one side and kind of like watching it all back, you know, go. And then sometimes they'll turn around and go like, hey, how do you do it in the UK? And I would start the sentence by going like, oh, in the UK? Yeah, that's. That's correct. But I don't believe we were asking you. I believe you were just saying we would say, we're doing something. You would be like in the UK. Well, I'm not going to say that, am I? We were asking him. Do you ever hear that? We were asking him? I don't think so. It was awesome. That's awesome, though, in the UK. I think I just shouted at you a lot, didn't I? Yeah, I loved it. So, Dan, do you have maybe one great memory from an episode that we did that you could share with us? The elephant in the room. That's crazy. I'll say two words. Bouncy Castle. Bouncy Castle. Okay. That would be the episode that we did, monument Valley to Moab, which was rental cars, and that just happened to be Tanner Faust's favorite episode. Well, I think that's the one that strikes, like the proper kind of battle between director and DP that we ever had. I think the director wins. It wasn't a battle, really. It was just. It was a bit of an argument, wasn't it? Why don't you set it up? What were we doing? What were we doing? Well, the idea was to see if we could kind of off road in rental cars. And I'm trying to remember we had. I think we had a Toyota Yaris. I can. Yeah, we had the Yaris. I love the Yaris. There was a Lincoln town car and. That's right, the bouncy town car that you drove. Oh, yeah. With the suspension welded shut at the back, so it was very frisky. And then we had a mustang, I think a kind of crappy mustang. It wasn't even a nice one. Was it a red, crappy mustang? Classic kind of rental car? But, yeah. The idea was to kind of get across Utah through national parks, and then we hit some pretty heavy kind of wheeling trails that normally would challenge jeeps and other four by fours, and we mashed the hell out of the vehicles. But I think the point in question here was at the end, the guys were given a challenge on how to get down this cliff to get to the finish point in Moabite. And I think each of them kind of approached that in their way. I was trying to remember what they were. I know. Was it Tanner winched? The tanner used to winch. Used to winch and kind of went down backwards over the edge of the cliff. I can't remember what Rutledge did with the Yaris. How did he get. We used a crane. A crane came out. He called. That's right. Yeah. And then Adam, of course, came up with the least sensible idea. Put a hang glider, kind of microlight set of wings on top of a probably two ton mustang, and wanted to drive it off the cliff and land to absorb the impact of the fall. Put a bouncy castle on the ground, sort of 120ft below, which is stupid, clearly, but classic top gear attempt at beating science and physics. And, yeah, we had a bit of an argument because it was a stressful day. I remember the stress levels of me were pretty high. We were kind of up against it at the time and just the logistics a bit, working on top of a cliff in the bottom and trying to keep it safe. Anyway, I was trying to set up where the bouncy castle was going to go. Where were we going to be able to release this mustang? Off the cliff and on top of the cliff. So I was kind of looking at the exit point where it was going to go down and kind of pick my spot for the bouncy castle and did that. And the guys down below are walking around and moving it in. And then I went back to talk to Adam and did some shots up top, and then I walked back to the edge of the cliff and the bouncy castle had moved, and not on its own. Maybe Dan can pick it up from there. What happened down below, Dan? Well, down below, because I missed most of the conversations. I'm not blaming it on that, obviously. I think I've just took it upon myself to make a calculation of where the actual car would land. So I said to the guys, it's not going to land there, it's going to land there. I think you should move the over to that side. And then I hear it on the radio and Rupert starts shouting. And I'm with Tanner, Tanner Faust down at the bottom. And I said. And I asked his opinion. I said, where do you think this is going to land? I said. And I said to him, I said, I think it's going to land there. And I said, well, Rupert said he was going to land there. I said, but I think it's going to land there. He said, yeah, you're right. And they said. And I said. And he said, what did Rupert say? And I said, well, he said, over there. And he looked at me and went, no, you've got to put it where Rupert said, it doesn't matter where it fucking says. You need to put it where the director says. And I was like, shit. And then. So I told them to move it. And then Rupert came on and said, why is that fucking bouncy castle move. Fucking bouncy castle. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm not even going to respond to that. So we quickly moved the bouncing castle. To that and then we had a kind of. We had a pretty good walkie talkie bash at each other, arguing and going at each other over it. And then eventually I got it back to where I wanted. So we did the stunt, sent the mustang off over the cliff and the two spots where they were like, dan's spot, my spot, there's probably only like 15ft. It wasn't like a big distance, it was there, but the mustang came off the cliff, hit a kind of needle of rock that was kind of heading for the spot where I wanted. But it came off. It went off slightly at the wrong point, kind of hit a rock on the edge, went off on an angle, hit this like, obelisk of rock that was sitting there, smashed that, which has obviously been there for thousands of years, and pits of it start falling down, the car spirals down, hits the ground exactly where Dan had moved the bouncy castle to. But then in the kind of the tv, God smiled at us, it bounced off the ground and then landed onto the bouncy castle next to it, bursting, exploding. I think we have. I think we have some video of that that will roll for everyone. That was hilarious. I was up top with you, Jay was down below, you know, with you, Dan. It was hilarious. Oh, gosh. But I mean, should we just argue. About that to this day? Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, it was funny that it crashed into the ground and then back went into the bouncing castle, but I don't know, I thought. That was funnier and that technically I won. But you did. You did have that. You did have the spot, right? So. But you always win. It was Adam's fault because he launched it at the wrong bit. If he gone off at the right point where I wanted, he probably would have hit where it said. But, you know, so everyone's at fault except me. What I love about this, I think that. I think that all of our guests that we're going to have on will probably have a story about the rental car episode. It seems like so a little take on it, you know, I love it because we did talk about that. We did the first episode, Jay and I did talk about getting so dirty while driving in the old suburban. Oh, it was us four, matter of fact. And we talked about the vacuum effect. Right, Dan? About how if you have the backup, you roll the windows up, but when the windows are down, that dust just rolls right through. So we have the thumbnail for GFD, which is myself and Jay after the fact. And Jay was caked with dirt and he looked orange. He looked like a Oompa Loompa from his. His PF. It's because he put SPF. 1000. Yeah, 1000. Like caked. Like. Yeah. So I think on australian beach, kind of wipes just get covered then. Yeah, yeah. So I love that. I love. That was the same episode where we had the helicopter and I was showing it down for wearing a red jacket. No, that was the Mustang episode. That was the Mustang. That's what. Pony Express. Tony Express. That's right. That's right. I was to explain. Well, I always kind of wanted crew to wear, like, camo and earthy colors so that we couldn't see them, so they could be positioned to get shots of stuff and all that. And I think this is like one of Dan's first shoots, actually. And I was up in a helicopter with a. With a cineflex camera and stuff. And I looked down and there's someone dressed in bright red, and it's Dan. And he's like, you can't see. But I got rocky, too, and he put a proper ghillie suit on to kind of completely cannibalize himself, and I couldn't see him. The gilly suit. Do you remember the ghillie suit? I got the gilly suit given to me by a military guy. Right? And I loved it. It was amazing. It was amazing. The detail, everything in it. And then, obviously, senior, the puma, liked it because he loves that kind of stuff. And then we were filming in some private airfield, and he'd gone off and done his own thing and put the ghillie suit on. And I was driving this suburban, and I wasn't driving it kindly, and I was just coming off the Runway and, like, sliding it on the grass and going onto the Runway and then sliding onto the grass again. And then I came into a sliding on a halt. Right. I went. And then senior just popped up, like, 10 meters away from me. Sue works. This is why, Dan, we never let you drive cars. This is true. And for all the listeners of yours, for everyone's wondering who senior is, senior is a good friend of ours. Very, very funny guy. He's also an assistant camera operator on Top Gear USA, and he's called the Puma because it dates back to an episode in San Diego of Top Gear, where we were filming live tv, and Rutledge was coming out on some segway with some fog behind him to sell a car live on tv. And the fog machine wasn't working. So senior went running out really quick and got the fog machine working and then ran back, and Rupert looked to me, and he's like, holy shit. Like a puma. Like a smoke puma. And then puma stuck. So that's why we call senior the puma. So, as you wear, Dan. No, I nearly run the puma over because he was wearing a gilly suit. That's exactly why we never let you drive any vehicles. Okay, well, I'm not there anymore. Yeah. That was another great shoot. The 101st airborne. Oh, my God. Yeah, they kind of gave us free rein on lots of military equipment. And chasing Tanner and a g wagon across Fort Campbell in Kentucky, which was. We finally got Dan out of his red rain jacket and into a more camouflaged look for the helicopter. Yeah. Yeah. There's an awesome picture with the red and the helicopter. What's it called? Was that helicopter? Oh, the Kiowas. The Kiowa helicopters. Yeah. We had two Kiowa helicopters chasing tanner. We had a drone overhead for the satellite aerials, and then we had mraps down on the ground pinching tanner to a location where Blackhawk would come in, bring air assault troops, and they would bail out and stop Tanner and try to handcuff him and throw him in the. It was a great shoot off of them. So much fun. My favorite moment of, like, oh, shit, what do I do here? Was when the colonel in charge of all that said, right, you guys need to do a sync matrix. And we had to put together a very kind of exact schedule of exactly where we were going to have cameras on the base at what time, and to be fair, I mean, I'm sort of reasonably organized, but most of the time, we're kind of winging it a little bit and turning up and shooting up. I'll do something there here. But they wanted everything up ahead in front, so that then you went out, kind of put vehicles and have stuff waiting and where their helicopters going to be flying. And then I had to do a presentation to all the troops taking part, and I was like, okay, I'll just be a couple of guys chatting, and I'll tell everyone else. But no, it was a hangar full of soldiers, all kind of, like, hardcore. Yeah, everyone. Soldiers looking at this, like, british tv guy coming in. And I had one of those, like, pointer sticks with a thing, and I could push little helicopters around on a giant map on the floor of the hangar. And like, yeah, this will be here at 1700 hours. And it was. They're looking at me. I'm like, oh, my God. They must think I'm. It seemed to work. We got it, and I think it was one of the best shoots we did, actually. I think to visually and story wise and for drama, it was great. I loved it. The US army says, yes, I agree. They cut. They go all in. They give you everything. It's not a question of can. How many can you have? And it's like, how many do you need? It was amazing. Yeah. And wasn't. Was that the. Was that the episode as well, that we had a code name for Tanner? Was it Delta Fox or was that the Fort Owens shoot? It was Delta Fox. No, it was 101st. Yep. Delta Fox. I do. Yeah. I had to find out. I forgot about it. And I asked Adam McFarlane, one of our producers, and he reminded me that it standed for douche face. So we were in the van, we were scouting, and we were trying to come up with what we could call them, and then I think Adam said, or one of the guys said, douche face. And we're like, delta Fox. I'm like, that's perfect. So it was a behind the scenes little thing. I think Tanner's probably just finding out about that right now. Hey, Tanner. Sorry. Hey, Tanner. It is what it is. Oh, the shenanigans. So, any other, you know. So we also talked about Iceland as well, it seems like. I think a lot of the guests are going to talk about Iceland, that journey, because it was such a journey, and we're all together, and once again, the camaraderie and the fun that we had where we had to come together and actually sleep with each other in the shack and double bunk up. So any stories from there? That was a noisy night. I mean, for fuck's sake. It was just incredible. It's just, like, 40 men and some women. Um, in there. It was all together, wasn't it? Quite a lot of scotch as well. I remember Scotch and stew. Yeah. And then the northern lights. Oh, the northern lights was amazing. I was great with that. I mean, it took us, like, hours to get up this mountain. We're basically trying to get the top of this volcano and kind of these crazy icelandic jeeps and stuff with huge tires. And it was a long day. I mean, I think we'd be going, like, 20 hours or something. And everyone was exhausted. And we finally kind of got up onto this kind of plateau just below the summit of the volcano to stay there for the night and then make a push for the summit in the morning. And it's a kind of a. It's a climbers hut, which is kind of open to the public. It's warmed by natural hot springs, I think, and stuff like that. But we got there, the door was encased in, like, you could see the door, but it was through some of the ice, clear ice. It was, like, just a wall of ice. So we're having to ice axe and pick our way just to get in the door, and everyone's sitting there kind of pissed off and moody. And we finally got in there, and I wouldn't call it warm in there. I mean, there was kind of ice inside as well, but it was certainly warmer than outside. This is like February in Iceland, so a little chilly, and. But we got in, and everyone kind of managed to sort of dry out a little bit. And I had a couple of bottles of very nice duty free scotch, and the hosts were, I have to say, moaning quite a lot about this at that point. There was a lot of trouble at the mill going on with those guys, and a little bit sort of annoyed. And I got some little paper cups I found and poured each of them a very large shot of whiskey. And very quickly, they kind of relaxed, and then the next thing we know, everyone's outside kind of drinking and whatever else, and looking at the northern lights or Aurora borealis, which was just stunning. And we actually had a. We had a wonderful night altogether. A lot of farting, though. I was kind of. Who did you guys. Who did you guys bunk with? Who were you guys bumped with? I went to, like, some weird bit in the upstairs bit. I seem to remember I had a bit of space. It wasn't too bad. It was colder, but I didn't have to kind of sleep jowl to jowl with anybody. So, yeah, I was with Rhett. Me and Rhett were buddies also. The food. I remember the food is brilliant. They're like that. I could made a curry. It was like, fantastic. Like, hot food and everything. The icelandic support guys we had was brilliant. The squid, so funny you mentioned that. I want to talk about that because the squidding pasta was amazing. But what also was amazing were our guides, Geesley, and his icelandic crew. Arctic trucks. Right. Arctic trucks. And I believe we'll have Geesley on at some point to talk about our journey with him. But it was amazing what they did. Like, when we didn't we break an axle and they replaced or they had to weld the axle. Yeah, they did sit in the snow. I mean, it was Adam. Was. It was Adam. I think he snapped the axle and they just dug a hole under the truck in the snow. So until it hung loose, took the wheel off, was in there using a car battery to power electric art welder and fixed it and put it on. It took him maybe 20. No, no, the Bronco. Well, we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that. But the Bronco. So Adam had the. The Chevy navy truck. The scout was tanners, and the Bronco was Rutledge's. Rutledge. That's right. Yeah, but. Yeah, what you're saying. So they took a battery out of the Ford Bronco to use to weld a the axle back together. Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy how they did that. They dug, like you said, they dug down in the snow and they just were able to weld it as we were playing in the snow. I mean, it took them. Took him 20 minutes. I was. It was. It's amazing how fast they did it. They told us not to pee when we go out of the car. They told us not to pee next to the car because they were fixing it through the night. So they. Oh, yes. All over the tires and near the tires and the doors and the engine and stuff. Please walk away. And do you remember we had to give them a filter, one of your 5d filters or two of them, so that way they can weld with it. And some glasses. That's right, yeah. They didn't know the welding glasses, so I had to use that variable nd filter to look through and see what they were doing. Yeah, yeah, that was fun. Um, and so Tanner and I did, uh, touch on at the end of the day. Um, as you guys, I'm sure you remember, uh, when the clouds went away and you could see everything and it was beautiful and it was like just before the sun went down and the three guys went driving down and they were just messing around, doing their thing. And then that's when, uh, when Adam found that crevasse. Yeah, I mean, just to make clear, this is at the top of an active volcano with a huge glacier on it, covered in crevasses. There's a very specific route that you can drive up that's safe. And our guides were there to make sure we did do that. And then at the end of the day, the guys just decided to go and do donuts in the snow without asking anyone. And we were like, for a second, like, this is cool. And then, oh, shit. And then I think Gisley was like. Get them out of there. And then I. Adam's car just disappears. It's like, shit. It's the way his front, his front light just disappeared and was lighting the inside of the crevasse. We ran up there to him and you could look down below the car and I shined a flashlight and the car headlights were lighting up and it was probably 70, 80ft drop down through the ice, just an open crevasse. And there was like a little ledge that was holding the car there. So he was very lucky. If he'd gone in like 6ft that way or 6ft that way, he'd have gone down into the car, kind of crushed into a crevasse. I mean, he probably would have survived it, but it would have taken a long time to get him out. But as it was, I mean, their rescue attempts were amazing. They were just like, oh, yeah, here we go. And a couple of ropes, a couple of winches, bit of there, a bit of triangulation and they had it out and back to safety within kind of sort of 2030 minutes. But, um, and we run out of like cards or something for the cameras as well. We couldn't even film it. It didn't even get filmed half of that, because I think we'd literally run out of media, everything. We've been stuck on that mountain for two days. Then there's a few photos that existed from cameras, but it wasn't even part of the show in the end. We made that. The cameras, I think, were put away would run out of media or something. But, yeah, we had cut. We were just. Yeah, yeah, we were getting. Just getting ready to leave. So that's crazy. I remember that day on the beach there. The black sand beach, and it's up, pissing the rain. I don't know, it's like the coldest I've ever been. It wasn't even, like, icy, but it was like howling winds. And then we soaked through the skin from the rain and there's a famous kind of black beach there with an old us navy plane that sort of crashed there years ago. We're filming there. I just remember cold to my bone that day. It was as cold as it would have been. And that sand felt like sandpaper getting everywhere. So you're wet and Sandy. Abrasive. Yeah. Oh, hey, guys. Well, stay tuned for. Go for Donnie switching channel two, where we'll get a chance to ask our guests some more questions that you, the listener, want answers to. We're also going to have the amazing car enthusiast and some insane knowledge on all types of cars ask some questions from his perspective. But the catch is he's only 15 and that's Max's motor minute. That's coming up later. Any other fun stories? I mean, we talked about Detroit with Tanner. Um, we've talked about Niagara Falls when. When Adam sank out going to Toronto. I mean, we've been all over the place. That one, I was shooting from the helicopter on that one, and it was, um. It was unreal to see him disappear like that. It was just like, oh, there he is. Oh. Oh. Oh, fucked. And then he just. And then it just disappears. Yeah. I was on a. I was on the. One of the boats with Graham Sherrington. He was directing that episode. And we had a boat between us and Adam and we couldn't see, but we had to rely on the feed from the helicopter to see what was going on before it went down in the water. So I'm sure. I'm sure Adam will give our. Give his take on that when we have him on the show. I don't know if that should be. Can there be broadcasts? Well, Jay. Jay said his audio rig is still somewhere at the bottom of the lake. So don't put your seatbelts on. Yeah. Oh, and don't turn the fan off. You know, something else we touched base on was out there. Moab again. Moab brings everyone. Everyone together when it was really hot out there, and we ended up hanging out, dancing around a bucket with a phone in it to music. Do you guys remember that? That ring a bell? That ring a bell at all? I thought we were going to mention that. I wasn't going to mention that video. Tanner brought it up. I have a video of that stuff. I have video of that stuff, which I don't think anyone will ever get to see. Yeah, I think we kind of all cut loose a little bit, didn't we? That night, it was middle of nowhere camping. Half the crew wanted to go to sleep, and the other half somehow, out of everyone's bag came bottles of booze, and the european dance trance music came out, and we had a little bit of a burning man moment in the desert. And then Rutledge decided to take all his clothes off, which was one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen in my life. It was hot. I remember it was hot that night. It was very hot. Yeah, he really enjoyed it. Yeah. What about. What about, Dan? What about from your experience on the. On Top Gear Uk, any. Any shenanigans you can talk about from there? No copy, I guess. No, I mean, it was. It was. It was fun, but it wasn't as fun. I had more fun. 100% more fun on the. I mean, don't get me wrong, I had fun with. With my crewmates, but that's as far as it went. The rest of the. I like what you're saying, because what I'm hearing. What I'm hearing is camaraderie, and you got on with our crew, no offense to any of the crew, a lot better, because I talk about that, about how. How well we got on with each other, like, how close we were, the camaraderie. And that just translated into working, you know, really hard for each other, and then we would hang out and we would drink or hang out really hard with each other, and it was great times. And I just. I haven't replicated that on anything else that I've done today. No, just, I think that's because, obviously, leader. Leader is. The leader is british. I was british. And, you know, and the guys and the crew, the american guys understood the british humor quite well and the sarcasm, and they go on, you know, like you and Mikey and Adam and, you know, everyone really got it, and it was just a funky. It was a really funky american crew. And you could see that because when I lived there, obviously I had to go and do work. And on other shows after Top Gear, it was kind of ending, and it just wasn't the same vibe. And that's one of the reasons why I moved back to England, because if I wasn't going to do Top gear the way that we did it, in the way that we wanted to do it, and with no one else giving you input, it was just really rogue individuals, really artistic individuals that took their job, did their job very well, but also knew how to work hard and party hard. And that was the perfect mix for the perfect. That's. That was a perfect time for us because we were kind of young enough to. To just be the last of the ones that get fucked. Young enough to be able to drink all night and then go to work the next day and still do it. Exactly. You know, we are. We are the last one. Ones that got absolutely smashed at work. I don't remember how we did it. And we're not allowed to do that anymore. And for that. And for that reason, I'm out. I think the best one was. What was the one? We ended up in Vegas, but we had Tanner and I, we crashed the wedding at that hotel up in the mountains. Oh, we did talk about that. That was Death Valley. That was after you went through Death Valley. And that was when we were making our way from, I don't know, Pahrump, I think. Yeah, we were in Pahrump, and we had to get from Pahrump up to Mount Charleston, and that's where we were staying that night before we had to film the next day. Yeah, but we were filming on the way down to Vegas, weren't we? Yeah. Well, all I remember is Donnie driving an RV. The host had, like, an RV, kind of, because they're out in the desert all the time. They had a Rv out in. And he joined, and I joined them for the journey. And it was like a three or four hour drive or something across Death valley at night. Wasn't that the night that they got a song up in laden? Um, no, that was. That was a different time. That was when we were scouting. We were doing some b roll out at that lake bed. Okay. All right. Another time, it all blurs into one anyway. No, that was before the shoot. No, you're right, Rupe. That was. That was before we went on the death Valley shoot, because we had those vehicles. Yeah. Um, Rup had several bottles of Crown Royale, which was his tipple of choice. Um, so it was me, him, and the other, Adam and Tanner, and, uh, one of our producers, Tabitha. And we just started drinking in the rv. Donnie's driving through the darkness, watching a soccer game on his phone. Safety first. He's driving. He's watching Manchester united, hopefully losing to somebody as he's going along. And in the back, we're kind of just getting absolutely riotously drunk. We arrive at the hotel. We fall out, and I fell into a pond that was there with, like, kind of koi carpet. And we went straight in and hit the bar, and there was, like, a big wedding on someone. Some poor couple had hired the whole hotel for their wedding, and suddenly these kind of sweaty, dusty troublemakers all come. Come running in. And we just took it over. And there's video, I think, somewhere of, like, Tanner wearing the bride's veil and getting the bride to dance on the pool table, and everyone's doing a conga around the bar. And anyway, cut to, like, six, seven am. I hear a banging on my door and somehow gone to bed about ten minutes before, and it's like, call time. We're gonna go. We're going. The worst hangover. Tanner and I have been drinking tequila shots to the last early hours, and he was straight up on camera, having to drive his jeep down a mountain. And I think the day started, I think, where someone put diesel into one of the cars so that it wouldn't start. So we were already behind at the beginning. I lost my shit because I was so grumpy and hungover. I threw my walkie into a snowbank, and then rather sheepishly thought, I suppose I can get that 20 minutes digging in the snow trying to find it. Yeah. And then Tanner. Wait. He was trying to find it. He had his whole head in the snow bank looking for it. I think there's a photo of his whole head in the snowbank. And I fell asleep in the road. Yeah, that was after. But did he. Did Tanner not go and show up in between takes? In between the cars? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had to drive. So he. And this shows what. What a good driver tanner is, I think, despite probably one of the worst hangovers in living memory, he just jumped into this jeep and drove backwards down a kind of sort of one in five slope through trees, off road, and just weaving between the. Between huge pine trees, drop offs each side, and it just goes down backwards quite happily, one handed there, and then stops and does another take, throws up in between, goes back, and does another note in any way we are condoning or promoting the idea of drinking juice, jiving and none of this is true. No. Yeah. As the cameras. As the cameras were filming this, I don't think we knew he was going to go backwards. And we were all watching. I think he knew. Exactly. We thought, this is. We were looking at Tanagan and all of them. Everyone. I'm looking at Rupa as well. I mean, I wasn't great myself, but I wasn't as bad as them for once. And it just went backwards. It just went reversed down the mountainous. Oh, dear. And then, Rupert, you were waiting for so long for. For the cars to come down that you fell asleep on the road. Yeah, I took a nap on the tarmac. Yeah. Gotta be able to grab a nap when you can. Yeah. Well, it was fun. We had a good time. I mean, like I said, I don't. I've never been able to replicate that. Maybe that's why I stayed such close friends with you two and. And many of the others over the years. And that's why we always try to get together once a year and just tell stories. And that's really the reason why we started the podcast, to tell stories. We would do that for two weeks, right. Nonstop or for months at a time, and we'd go on a shoot for, like, five days somewhere and do something crazy like the death valley, and then come back and go out the weekend and then all together again. And then the next week, go off for two weeks to whatever, and then come back and then go out the weekend. I think we're in Colorado and we all got on a plane and we're all kind of bloody Mary's and drinking. Got to know half the people on the plane and about five or six people from the plane. Then came back to my house without the rest of the crew, straight from the airport in LAX, and we just carried on, drank all weekend. Yeah, a whole bunch of people from the plane kind of joined the party. It was shenanigans. It was times, guys. Well, well, gents, thank you. Thank you both for coming on. Hopefully you guys will come back on, maybe individually, and think of some other stories you can share, because we'll talk about more than Top Gear in the future. But for now, we're going to stick with Top Gear. But don't forget to check us out. You can check out our website@gofordany.com, dot. This won't only be an audio podcast. We'll also have a YouTube video podcast to check out with lots of pictures and fun and other videos. So please make sure you check it out and you can follow us on the social media pages at the bottom of the website. You can find us at Amazon Music. All down below, right? All down below. All these right here. And don't forget, we have some merchandise to you guys. We have some great hats. You can get some nice black ones. We got some nice blue ones. There we go. See, everyone's got one. Dan, yours is coming. We got some really cool stickers. So come and check it out. Stay awhile and hang out, but don't forget to check out. Go for Donny. Switching channel two, where I'll be firing off some questions to our guests with the help of Max Hill house in Max's motor minutes later on. Oh, you guys don't get a free DJI pro? Yeah, no, that's not. That's not part of the gig. Well, guys, thanks for listening. Please follow GFG, subscribe to our podcast. We can grow our audience. And don't forget htfu. Hashtag htfu. Thanks, gents. Thanks, guys. Good to see you all. Are you. Are we going. Are you going to cut me off? Production for Donnie? Locations for Donnie. Go for Donnie. Go for donnies. Hey, Donnie. What the hell are they doing?