Synopsis

Bracket Racing and
some tips from
John Bowles

The form of drag racing portrayed in
Cinnamon is called Bracket Racing.

Bracket Racing is not based solely on

beating an opponent but also on the

ability to run a perfect race in rela-

tionship to the performance and ability

of the car. It is basically Handicap

Racing. It places every car, regardless

of amount of money spent, on an
equal plane, a situation quite different from NHRA or NASCAR racing. A $50,000
car has the same potential as a $5000 car.

Each car has a “dial in” which is based on the car’s maximum ability. The “dial in” is
the formula used to program the car’s speed, taking into account the race day,
weather conditions, and the driver’s reaction time. For example, two cars line up at
the starting line; based on the respective “dial in” calculation, one of those cars takes
off before the other.

A good race is based on the driver having a perfect start. The driver must react to the
starting lights (the “tree”, the starting light as it turns green) and must maintain a
consistent race throughout the entire one-eighth of a mile. Put quite simply: The race
can be won and lost at the starting line. And there are a lot of factors involved on the
road to that line…

We asked John Bowles, lifelong mechanic and drag racing enthusiast to share some
wisdom and experience…

“You learn the hard way with trial and error. This is how I learned to work on cars.
Instead of trying something new and then rejecting it if it fails to perform (e.g. working
on a performance engine), I would put it back the way it was, and see if it did the
same thing it did before. I never had a lot of money to do this, so I was basically
interested in testing what I could do and what the car could do with what I had. It’s
what I tell customers and people I meet. Don’t spend all your time and money
changing and trying new things. Try and see what you can do with what you have.
Keep on driving the car and let it come to you. Change your driving habits, learn
about tuning and how to read site conditions, etc. Consistency is the game. You write
down and try to document all the factors at play, every pass you make with the car—
the temperature, barometric pressure. If I feel a temperature change, I will dial a car
quicker and it will run faster.

For example, some people just watch a car at the starting line. I watch how the car
actually works in the time before and after it pulls up to the line. Like a lot of
mechanics and racing enthusiasts, I think of a car as a human being. Cars have
personalities. It’s up to us mechanics to coax and encourage the car and the racer to
perform and express their respective personalities. Drag racing coaching is no
different from coaching football or basketball.

Sometimes people don’t realize the incredible small margin that exists in bracket
racing. Lets say you have a 2400 pound piece of metal, 900 horsepower…you have
got to be able to get that car from point A to point B as consistent in times as you can.
You have to go there within 2/1000th of a second every pass you make. Basically,
you have a car with all these parts, elements, various track conditions, etc and you’ve
got to make that car consistent enough to go within that margin. In this world,
13/1000th of a second is the margin for victory.

Bracket racing is a sport where family and community are tied together. It’s attracting
a pretty wide demographic these days—not only mechanics, and body shop owners
but doctors, lawyers…How many sports can you think of where the father, mother, as
well as the kids, are actively involved? It’s truly a family sport. It’s also a sport that
can teach young people invaluable life lessons. I’ve seen that happen with my
daughter Ashley—she’s not purely focused on winning and takes it in stride if she
doesn’t. It’s really about the sportsmanship, not the victory. As I tell her, the winning
is not what keeps you there day in and day out, it’s the sportsmanship. The way she
looks at it: if it’s my day, it’s my day regardless. I’ve seen her give up her track
position advantage just to let another girl racer be at her best. It’s inspiring to watch
how racing has helped teach her about life in general. It’s filled with ups and down.
Kids start understanding the elusive part of victory; one day, one race, you can be on
the top of your game, then you can’t do anything right.

Even though bracket racing can get expensive, in terms of travel and maintenance
costs, it really does provide the opportunity for anyone to get involved in the sport.
Most racers will never be able to afford to do what they see big racers do on T.V
those big cars are all about speed, and speed costs. The person with the most money
is the one who can go the fastest. The irony is that it’s the 20,000 + viewers who buy
the performance parts, the bracket racers who day in and day out buy the oil, the
tires, the helmets…In a way, the bracket racers are the ones that make the sponsorship
of the big cars possible. A car is the best billboard you can ever have. It’s a rolling
billboard! It travels, people on the highway look at it, they study it at the track. It sells
both product and cars for these companies. That’s what I’m working towards—to get
sponsorship for the junior dragster program I run, and for Ashley and my two
grandchildren.“

Describe your work.

My films and artwork are about responding to daily materials, conditions, tasks
and/or gestures of people of African descent. These materials, systems, tasks
and/or gestures are repositioned through a variety of mediums such as
photography, film, sculpture, artist books and paintings. The results usually
have a formal reference to art history and resemble objects or images seen in
working class culture. This strategy invites the work to be interpreted by a
variety of communities.

Over the past ten years I have completed two feature films (Spicebush,
2005 and Cinnamon, Sundance 2006) and over twenty-five short 16mm,
35mm and digital films about the working class culture of Black Americans and
other people of African descent. My films focus on conditions, tasks, gestures,
and materials in these communities. The films focus on the relentlessness of
every day life, as well as its beauty—and have a naturalistic, almost
documentary-like texture.

Discuss some of your choices with respect to the characters in
Cinnamon.

One of the main reasons why I decided to make a film that included a racecar
driver and a bank employee is because the people engaged in these careers
are often asked if the worst case scenario has ever happened: “Has the bank
ever been robbed?” Or “Have you ever crashed?” The other reason is that
my mother is a retired bank teller and my father is a retired mechanic. My
father drove and repaired stock cars in the 1960s. I have always portrayed
individual’s careers or crafts as if they were engaged in an artistic endeavor. I
respond to people of African descent who are experts in their respective fields.
This allows me to find formal as well as social meaning in the task. These crafts
or careers sometimes arrive from what I am personally invested in; the
characters of the bank teller, mechanic and racecar driver are homage to my
parents.

How did you familiarize yourself with this particular drag racing
community?

I always like to hang around working people in black communities, get a
sense of what’s going on and what’s of interest for my own art making. In a
smaller town like Charlottesville, you can find out pretty much who’s doing
what. John Bowles is pretty much a legend down around here, everyone
involved with cars and racing knows him. I talked to him at length on the
phone and really liked his voice. Then I went out to visit him at his garage and
was impressed by his good looks and the way he carried himself.
I
had seen Erin in a local play and was also attracted to her presence and her
look. She reminded me of family members in Mississippi. That happens a lot,
I’m interested in people who remind me of that part of my family.

How does filmmaking relate to your other art making?

For me, it’s all about my other artwork, the sculpture stuff. I don’t like to use
the found object. I like to make the things, I like to have the art object as a
representation of what is real, and in the art object you can see the craft. So in
Cinnamon, the found object is Ashley, Once the thing, the object, is chosen, I
use it as a model. Ashley, the 12-year old racer is the model, and Erin, the
actress, is made up…She’s Ashley at 25. The best way to do that is to make it
up.

Describe your own consistent routine.

I usually go out and get a lot of footage myself, as well as searching for
relevant found footage that might work and then I have one or two intense
days with the crew getting it done! I’m always looking for naturalism, so it’s all
about letting the site be as is, always based on what’s really happening. What
my camera captures is what I respond to.
For my short A Week in the Hole (2001), I shot it in one day on the
worksite; same with Second Shift (1999). In Spicebush, I had one day to
get down the section with the school principal. With Cinnamon, I shot for a
total of about 7 days; one weekend at the Summerduct Racetrack in
Summerduct, Virginia with a whole lot of different cameras going. I was
shooting 24p on the track; some of the students were shooting with an Arri or
Bolex. I’d have them open up the camera to get that “flash”, to expose the
process. I strategically placed cameras all over the track to get a variation of
the permutations of the race, for example in case a car didn’t advance or
finish. The race and the car are shot from a lot of different angles, with a lot of
different cameras. I wanted various permutations of the event.

What I decide to shoot with is informed by what I’m capturing; I use film stock
to “expose” and video to “record”. It’s a conscious, and consistent, distinction.
With Cinnamon, as a filmmaker, I wanted to capture the energy of the race,
from prep to finish and transfer that urgency to the crew. Certain factors had to
be in place; clear weather, car needed to run. Best way to put it: I like getting
it done. I guess that has a lot to do with wanting to finish.

Was this the biggest crew you had? How do you prep your
students, many of whom work as crew on your films?

I also had one of this size for A Week in the Hole. It depends on the film.
For Spicebush, I got people on board in the editing process. For the race
captured in Cinnamon, I had all the students involved view a slide
presentation on the process, show them stills I had taken, etc. This gets them
hyped and also invested in the process and project, and gives them ownership
of their role in the work. The most important thing I’ve always found in art
making is to communicate clearly.

What role does dialogue play in your work?

Talking in my films is more a visual trope than textual. In Cinnamon, although
I had scripted scenes, the dialogue was always in the background. It’s a visual
artwork, so the foreground is the visual, the dialogue is basically inaudible. It’s
more like visuals of dialogue. I’m interested in capturing the act of people
communicating more than translating the actual conversation. For instance,
John was saying something to Erin even before we’ve come into the story, he’s
been showing her how to drag race, So as soon as the film comes on, you are
immediately immersed. An example: if I focused on John showing Erin how to
drag race, and really spelled that out, the viewer would latch on to her as a

point of reference and focus exclusively on Erin. In Cinnamon, I wanted no
one to be the guide.
It’s a way to tell the story and incorporate the history that pre-exists with these
people and also precedes me ever turning a camera on. I remember watching
foreign films for the first time at the University of Akron when I was 19 or 20--I
would have all this anxiety, the fact they were speaking another language, the
text on screen, the lack of constant explication. It made me a more active
viewer. As soon as the film comes on, you realize shit has been going on, and
you, the viewer has to catch up. Now, that’s working!
That mise en scene approach works well for me, because I like people to show
the creative activity they are engaged in. In my case, I’m focusing on the
everyday routine and activities of black people engaged in their own particular
craft, their artisanship. My process is a formal device and also provides a
certain rigor and energy.

Will folks who know nothing about drag racing understand or
even enjoy watching Cinnamon?

I’m trying to upset the assumption that you have to be uniquely knowledgeable
or involved in an activity to find the portrayal of it appealing. Thinking that the
drag race would only appeal to drag racers begs the question. Do martial arts
films only appeal to marital artists? And then there’s the fact that this
community of drag racers in Cinnamon are Black. Maybe people are waiting
for some socio-political thing to weigh the whole thing down. Politics is in it in a
weird, oblique way.

This is a dilemma shared by a lot of American artists. My friend, writer/gallerist
Christian Haye, gave an offhand remark to my class recently, that American art
is either political or decorative. And mine is conceptual, I suppose. I’m
working with playwright Talaya Delaney on a feature called Lowndes
County, about teenage school bus drivers in 1959 Mississippi and their
struggle to keep their secondhand buses running so they can attend their new
county schools. I want it to feature folks with the thickest Eastern Mississippi
accent possible. It’s going to be like they are speaking another language.
Bring on the viewer anxiety!

So, you are encouraging viewers to go beyond their assumptions
of your work being “just a film”…

You’ve got to see it fundamentally as a artwork and try to apply the same
dynamics of interaction and viewing that you do when you view paintings, In
terms of scriptwriting, I guess I do write that three act play, but maybe the final
act is in the middle. The goal is to make art where you are immersed
immediately in it, like Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of Madonna on the Rocks.
Or the Caravaggio painting of the barefoot Madonna at the door (Madonna
de Loreto, Cavalletti Chapel, San Agostino, Rome) Well, there’s a backstory in
that painting: Why is she barefoot, how this impacts on her presentation at that
open door. Details provoke and reveal. That’s what the work of great street
photographers like Garry Winogrand does. If a guy had a Band-Aid on his
head, Winogrand would follow him for blocks to get that shot, (that would
include that Band-Aid). You’d look at that Band-Aid and it would suggest so
much. It’s the way the details reveal the rich backstory of the object/subject.
When we went to edit Cinnamon, I found all this footage I had shot last
winter that I had forgotten about. There’s obviously a good backstory about
John and Erin walking around the yard in the winter.

How are you preparing your next film?

Right now I’m reading a lot about the theater of performance art. Reading a
lot of Samuel Beckett. I’m interested in his attempt to show the structure of the
work. How he demystifies the process for the viewer, strips it bare. I’m
comparing it to the way I’ve worked in the past, how I’m interested in pushing
myself and working new. The film I’m working on now, loosely based on
Alessandro de’Medici, will feature all these weird telephone conversations that
are basically going to be inaudible!

So, yes, I’m working out a different strategy. I don’t want to get stuck or use
previous methodologies as a crutch. The way I’ll go about making that film,
both formally and thematically will definitely be different from how Cinnamon
or my first feature Spicebush was made. With Cinnamon, it’s not a shift, not
quite yet. I still use reality as a device and it continues to have that made-up
quality (like using an actor in it). I’m still figuring it out.

Kevin Jerome Everson-biography

Kevin Jerome Everson, Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia, has a MFA
from Ohio University and a BFA from the University of Akron. His artwork and films
have been exhibited in such venues as the Museum of Modern Art in New York,
Whitney Museum of American Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Studio Museum in
Harlem, Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Palm Beach Institute of
Contemporary Art, William Busta Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio, Spaces Gallery in
Cleveland, Whitechapel Gallery in London, the American Academy, Rome and in
Italy, China, and Germany. His films have been shown at the Sundance Film Festival in
1998, 2000, 2003, 2004, Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2003, 2005 and
2006; Cinematexas, Austin, Texas, Ann Arbor Film Festival (5x), LA Film Festival,
New York Underground Film Festival (3x), International Center of the Arts in London,
New School of Social Research, Black Maria Film Festival (2004 Best Film), Athens
International Film Festival (4 x including a solo screening), Shorts International in New
York (4x), the Siskel Theater in Chicago (solo screening), Virginia Film Festival in
Charlottesville (solo screening), VA, University of Central Florida, Princeton University,
and South by Southwest Film Festival (Best Experimental Award for Thermostat). Kevin
Jerome Everson has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a NEA Fellowship, two NEH
Fellowships, two Ohio Arts Council Fellowships, an American Academy Rome Prize,
Yaddo, MacDowell Colony and numerous university fellowships.

Filmmography

Cinnamon (2006, 71 minutes)
World Premiere, Sundance Film Festival, 2006
Official Selection, Rotterdam Film Festival 2006

Spicebush (2005, 73 minutes) is an experimental feature film that interweaves
various fragmentary narratives concerning education, landscapes, gaining and losing
a job, and the passage of time. The technique and style employed alternates between
the documentary, the symbolic, and more conventionally scripted scenes. Filming
individuals engaged in their careers conveys the documentary aspect. At a symbolic
level, the fossil is a leitmotif suggesting past and present. The title of the film refers to
the state butterfly of Mississippi, Spicebush Swallowtail. In the film, Mississippi is a
place of origin. The Spicebush Swallowtail represents renewal or starting over.
Throughout the film, a little girl appears in different guises and settings, functioning
indirectly in the role of the chorus. The scripted scenes, shot in a documentary style,
collaged with the other scenes begin to create the traces of a narrative structure.

World Premiere, Rotterdam International Film Festival 2005
• Best Documentary, New York Underground Film Festival, 2005

• Cinevegas 2005; Chicago Underground Film Festival 2005

Twenty Minutes (2005) is about understanding materials and Leonardo Da

Vinci. (3:00, 35mm)

Memoir (2005) is a story about an older gentleman telling his story though
Caravaggio’s 1606 painting of St. Jerome. (4:00, 35mm)

Two-Week Vacation (2005) is a short film about not enough time and not enough
money. (1:16, 16mm)

Blind Huber (2005) is a film interpretation of a poem by Nick Flynn. (3:30, 16mm)
• World Premiere, Rotterdam International Film Festival, 2006

Fifeville (2005) is a film about a neighborhood in Charlottesville, Virginia. In
collaboration with Dr. Corey D.B. Walker (15 min, 16mm)

From Pompeii to Xenia (2003) is a 16mm film about love and loss surrounded by
two historical disasters. (4:40)
• Juror Prize Best Film(s), Black Maria Film Festival
• New York Underground Film Festival
• Directors Choice Award, Cinematexas
• Gene Siskel Theater, Chicago; Yale University

Chemistry (2003) is a 16mm film about the composition of one of the elements for
integration of busing. (3:30)
• Gene Siskel Theater, Chicago; Yale University

Aquarius (2003) is a 16mm film about coping. (1:10)
• Juror Prize, New York Underground Film Festival
• Juror Prize Best Films, Black Maria Film Festival
• Gene Siskel Theater, Chicago; Studio Museum of Harlem, Heights Arts, Cleveland

Pictures From Dorothy (2003) is a 16mm color film relating to the Wizard of Oz.
(5:30)
• Sundance Film Festival 2004
• Juror Prize Best Film, Black Maria Film Festival
• South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW
• Dance/Shout, Charlotte, N,C,; MOMA; Gene Siskel Theater, Chicago

Sportello Quattro (2002) is a film about immigration, work and community among
people of color in contemporary Roma, Italy. (6:00, shot on mini DV to 35mm)
• Studio Museum in Harlem; Robert Flaherty Film Festival; Maryland Film Festival

Vanessa (2002) is a film about loss and Michelangelo. (3:12, shot on 16mm and
mini DV to 35mm film)
• Sundance Film Festival
• Rotterdam International Film Festival
• Los Angeles Film Festival; Ann Arbor Film Festival

Un Euro Venti Due (2002) is a film about family and communication. (5:00, shot
on mini DV to 35mm film)
• Rotterdam International Film Festival
• American Academy in Rome, Italy

Fumble (2002) is a film interpretation of a poem by Vincent Katz. (4:00, shot on
mini DV to 16mm film)
• Studio Museum in Harlem; Vinegar Hill Film Festival, Charlottesville, Virginia

Special Man (2002) is a film interpretation of a poem by Mark Halliday. (17
minutes, shot on mini DV to 16mm film)
• Athens International Film Festival, Athens, Ohio
• Rotterdam International Film Festival

72 (2002) is a 35mm black and white film about a teenage taxicab drive multitasking
to keep his job. (3:30)
• Black Maria Film Festival
• Studio Museum in Harlem
• University of Central Florida, Orlando

A Week in the Hole (2001) is a 35mm color film about a factory employee’s
adjustment to materials, time space and personnel during his first day of work (6:00)
• New York Underground Film Festival
• International Films Seminar; Donnell Media Center of the New York Public Library

Pick Six (2001) is a 35mm black and white film about a particular source of luck.
(1:30)
• Temple University; American Academy, Rome, Chicago Art Institute, Yale
University

The Daily Number (2001) is a 35mm color and black and white film about
particular sources as lucky. (1:30)
• New York Shorts International Film Festival, 2000
• Ann Arbor Film Festival; Vinegar Hill Film Festival; Studio Museum in Harlem

Room Temperature (2001) is a 16mm black and white film about maintenance,
chores and winter. (2:00)

Avenues (2000) is a 35mm black and white film about a teenage taxicab driver
multitasking to keep his job. (5:00)
• New York Shorts International Film Festival 2000

Thermostat (2000) is a 35mm color film about migration, landscape and elevation.
(3:00)
• Best Experimental Short, South By Southwest Film Festival (SXSW)

Second Shift (1999) is a 16mm black and white film about a correctional officer’s
daily routine of gaining access into a correctional facility. (4:00)
• Best Experimental Short, Athens International Film Festival
• International Films Seminar, Donnell Media Center of the New York Public Library

Merger (1999) is a 16mm color film about a disgruntled bank teller’s system before
the morning commute. (2:00)
• Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art; Knoxville Museum of Art
• Athens International Film Festival 2000, New York Shorts International 1999

Imported (1999) is a 16mm black and white film about three methods of ridding
collard and kale greens of a pesky insect. (4:30)
• Sundance Film Festival, 2000
• Ann Arbor Film Festival; Athens International Film Festival

Six Positions (1998) is a 16mm black and white film about a correctional officer
describing his past and present employment. (5:30)
• Ann Arbor Film Festival 1999; Juneteenth, S.F.; Athens International Film Festival
• Wexner Center for the Arts Film Showcase 1999

Eleven Eighty-Two (1997) is a 16mm black and white film about a correctional
officer describing his past and present employment. (5:30)
• Sundance Film Festival 1998
• Best Technical Innovation, Ann Arbor Film Festival 1998
• Athens International Film Festival; York Shorts International 1998
• Spaces Gallery Cleveland; Juneteenth in San Francisco; Black Harvest, Chicago

Kevin Jerome Everson is the director, writer, editor, cinematographer, and producer
on all films. Lin Qiu edited Spicebush. Joe Williams (New York) was the d.p. for Six
Positions. Tom Hayes (Columbus, Ohio) edited Avenues, Thermostat, Second Shift,
Merger and Six Positions. Austin Allen (Cleveland, Ohio,) edited Eleven Eighty-Two.
Poet Mark Halliday (Athens, Ohio) wrote Special Man. Poet Vincent Katz (New York)
wrote Fumble. Writer /Poet Nick Flynn wrote Blind Huber. Composer Derek Bermel
(Brooklyn) wrote and performed the music for Spicebush, Special Man and Fumble.
Musician David Reid (Brooklyn) performed the music for Spicebush and Pictures From
Dorothy.