Some upset about MTV's Charlotte shoot

Friday, Nov. 20, 2009

CHARLOTTE Ever wanted to race through the streets of uptown Charlotte? An MTV show called "Nitro Circus," about extreme stunts, did and it's making some waves and leading to some policy changes with city leaders. The episode is called "Southern Discomfort." It starts off with video of race cars taking tight curves, flying over pavement, even trading paint. But if you look close, you can see the two cars are racing through the streets of uptown Charlotte.

We showed the video to students at UNC Charlotte.

"I was surprised they were in downtown Charlotte!" said Jason Reno, a fan of the show.

Even one of the drivers on the show, Travis Pastrana, sounds shocked when he introduced the segment.

"Actually given Andy Bell and myself free reign over two full racecars to go terrorize downtown Charlotte," he says.

"He's crazy. This guy's crazy. He's gonna die one day," says Reno, referring to Pastrana.

MTV's own Web site describes Pastrana as someone with a need for horsepower -- constantly putting himself in harm's way.

He's racing Andy Bell. He's described on the site as a "washed up bike rider known more for his beer drinking than his prowess on a bike."

You can hear one of them joke to the other on the show, "I hope you crash into a building and take out about a million dollars worth of (bleep)."

"I thought that was dangerous," said City Councilman Andy Dulin, who wasn't thrilled when he was watching the show with his son. "The teenagers thought it was very cool. They did a good job of making racing down Tryon look like it was fun."

But what really upset the city councilman was when the cars did doughnuts in front of the arena.

"That irritated me. That irritated me enough to go down there to see if they had damaged the street and, as it turns out, they had not," Dulin said.

Still, he says he wanted to know why he had to watch TV to find out about the race.

"I brought it up to council. The mayor didn't know anything about it. The city manager didn't know anything about it," Dulin said.

He was upset enough that it prompted what he calls an investigation. It turns out, an MTV production crew worked with the Charlotte Regional Partnership and the city setting up the shoot, getting all the required permits.

Beth Petty heads up the film division of the Charlotte Regional Partnership and says the race "was very carefully planned and choreographed." It was even shot in four different segments for safety reasons.

The streets were closed down and it was shot on a Sunday.

We also checked in with the Department of Transportation. A spokeswoman told us they, too, worked with the production crew to make sure things went well.

"The most important thing was the safety of the public," said CDOT's Linda Durette.

Even on the show they say, "We got 30 cops over there to shut down the street."

Technically, there were only 21 of Charlotte's finest working security.

"In this particular instance I didn't think it was very safe," Dulin said.

Dulin says he noticed too many spectators and felt the cars were going too fast near Charlotte's iconic buildings, including the Bank of America headquarters.

"Goodness gracious alive!" one spectator remarks.

But the Charlotte Regional Partnership folks told us it was all movie magic -- they were only going 50 mph and there were mostly just extras on set.

"What they try to do is make it look very exciting and thrilling and challenging and they were very successful in doing that, but it's like a movie set where the entire environment is controlled," Petty said.

Not quite says MTV. They tell us they didn't hire any extras, that the interviews are all with people who just wandered up and the Web site says the cars got up to 120 mph.

The whole thing even prompted a memo from the city manager to the mayor and the City Council.

In it, City Manager Curt Walton says, "MTV purposely portrayed the event as being unsafe, when in reality the opposite was true."

But Walton says he was told the hosts of the show would not be driving -- that stunt drivers would be behind the wheel. MTV says absolutely not -- that Travis Pastrana and Andy Bell are stuntmen and were behind the wheel the whole time.

"We are in downtown Charlotte, NC, and they just destroyed the intersection." That's what another cast member says gleefully as the two finish the race in front of the arena.

Andy Dulin was not happy to see that. "I think the people that watch that show nationally think, 'Look what they can get away with in Charlotte.' They were almost punking us a little bit and I didn't appreciate that."

Petty disagrees. "I don't think Charlotte was portrayed in a bad light at all. Months before our NASCAR Hall of Fame opens up, what better publicity than to show the Charlotte skyline and a NASCAR race on national TV? It's great publicity for us."

The city manager, though, doesn't sound so sure in that memo we turned up. "We are disappointed with how the event's safety was portrayed."

And we're told the city staff is working on changing future event planning. We should also point out, Walton says no one was hurt and no one complained, though someone did complain to NewsChannel 36, prompting this story.

Disclaimer