Jet Cars for SpeedTV

jetscr3.doc 1
JET CARS
The Ultimate Thrill
Third Draft
September 10, 2004
Jim Piechocki
Source Tape Codes:
JC: Jet Car
JL: Jet Limo
MB: Michele Brookman Interview #1
NW: Nitro Warriors
PJ: Pro Jet
RR: Racing for the Reich/BBC footage (pending release)
AM: Ak Miller Interview

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1. EXT. DRAG STRIP NIGHT RACE (JC 00:02:03)
OPEN with a dramatic move around a whining, fire-
spouting jet funny car. An angry bull pawing the
pavement, it emits violent bursts of flame as the driver
dumps raw kerosene into the afterburner and locks the
brakes——scrubbing the screeching tires——and struggles
with both feet to keep this fiery beast in check.
The crowd covers its ears amid the deafening roar.
This thing — this unearthly mix of water, fire and air —
growls even more loudly as the driver slams himself back
into the seat with rapid, fiery “burn pops.” In fact,
these thousands of pounds of thrust were not meant to
hug the earth. That’s precisely the point.
We hold our breath as a second car vies with the first
to reach staging line.
Anguished seconds elapse. Whining turbojets scream.
Then...
WHOOOOOOOMMMM!!!
Two trails of flame streak down the dark straightaway
and vanish into the hot night air. Seconds later, 150
decibels of thunder are eclipsed by the roar (SFX) of
the crowd as we:
FADE TO RED
TITLE rushes toward us accompanied by the whine of a jet
engine (SFX—PJ 2:35:11 to 2:35:22):
JET CARS
The Ultimate Thrill
DISSOLVE TO:
MUSIC UP AND UNDER
2. EXT. PRE-RACE DAY
Seen in extreme slow motion, fire and exhaust bellow
from behind a jet funny car. Its strange, crouching
profile appears threatening.
NARRATOR
Six thousand pounds of thrust... 300 miles
an hour... Five gallons of explosive
kerosene every second. And in this race,
there are only five seconds that matter.
3. INTERVIEW — BLONDE FEMALE DRIVER

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MICHELE BROOKMAN (MB 00:07:51)
Oh my god that is so fast it is over in
five seconds. I mean, count to five.
Production sound FADES AWAY as our Narrator counts off
the seconds.
4. MONTAGE/INTERVIEWS EXTREME ACTION
Fire and kerosene fumes engulf a dueling jet-car duo.
NARRATOR
One...
Angry afterburners go full throttle.
NARRATOR
Two...
Two jet cars blaze away from us down the raceway.
NARRATOR
Three...
Reverse angle as they streak to the finish.
NARRATOR
Four...
Chutes pop open. Production sound BLEEDS BACK. Track
Announcer recaps the race and the board displays an
amazing speed.
NARRATOR
Five... Three football fields just blasted
by. The driver soared faster than a 747
at takeoff.
ROCK MUSIC THEME UP AND UNDER
5. SERIES —— QUICK VIEWS/DRIVER BYTES
Jet cars zoom past from all screen directions,
punctuating comments from excited drivers and
enthusiasts.

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TOMMY RESKO (JC 00:12:37)
I can’t compare to any other thing that
anybody else would experience. It’s a
real good kick in the pants.
LOUIS BLOOM (JC 00:10:17)
It’s intense, it’s louder than any band.
It’s more violent, you can feel it in your
chest. Jet cars are the real deal.
MICHELLE BROOKMAN (MB 00:25:38)
It’s like watching Apollo take off but
just going straight on the ground before
you.
AK MILLER (AM 2:15:58 approx)
It's smooth and loud and noisy and
powerful.
DICK ROSBERG
(00:27:52 approx.)
If you don’t respect these cars, they will
jump up and bite you, and a lot of times
that can be real serious.
CUT TO:
6. QUICK SERIES JET CAR DISASTERS
Jet cars flame out (PJ approx. 2:21:04) and fly apart
(JC 00:29:01) as we see emergency rescue workers
struggle with an injured driver (JC approx. 00:24:30).
CUT TO:
7. EXT. GRAPHIC T38 TRAINER JET
A menacing Air Force jet rotates front to side profile.
Cutaway view reveals its turbo-jet engine.
NARRATOR
A supersonic Air Force trainer provides
the power: a GE or Pratt and Whitney
turbo-jet designed to attain speeds of
Mach II in the skies.
View tightens on simple diagram of a turbo-jet.
Highlight turbine.

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View shows path of air into the engine, changing from
blue to red color, sparking in the combustion chamber,
and expelled out the rear.
TITLE: Ak Miller
Jet-Car Engineer
AK MILLER (1:24:22)
A turbo jet is nothing but an air
compressor... a king sized one. In other
words, it will move high volumes of air...
NARRATOR
The air is sucked into the front of the
engine and compressed by hundreds of
turning blades.
AK MILLER (1:25:46)
And then it runs into what we call a
combustion chamber like an automobile.
Except this is only air and fuel that goes
in, tons of fuel, lots of it.
Back to animation of combustion.
NARRATOR
In the combustion chamber air mixes with
fuel, causing a massive explosion.
AK MILLER (AM 1:26:31)
It's gobbling air. The faster it goes,
the more it can pull in.
NARRATOR
A turbine pushes the super-heated gas out
with a force that can propel the jet past
the speed of sound.
Highlight afterburner at rear of jet engine. Blue fuel
is added, creating a large burst of flame in the rear of
the engine.

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NARRATOR
At the rear of the engine, an afterburner
allows the pilot to dump extra fuel into
the exhaust gases for added power. Like
squirting lighter fluid onto a hot bar-b-
cue.
Jet fighter profile DISSOLVES to that of a jet funny
car, engine in the same place.
NARRATOR
The jet car body is a thin, kevlar cloak
around this massive turbojet.
8. BACK TO LIVE ACTION EXT/INT. JET CAR
View takes us into the cockpit where we see the jet
engine inches from the driver’s head. (JC 00:10:39)
INTERCUT with Michele’s comments.
You crawl into the cockpit and the jet
engine is right behind you. Essentially
it’s like having a jet engine strapped to
your butt. There you go.
9. PRE-RACE BURN POPS (PJ 2:29:15 & 2:43:30)
We see and hear rubber squealing.
NARRATOR
The afterburner also creates spectacular
jets of flame, called burn-pops, as
drivers release kerosene into the exhaust.
ROGER GUSTIN
(JC 00:18:00 approx.)
What we’re doing is lighting up the burner
and shutting it off real quick.
TOMMY RESKO
(JC 00:14:29 approx.)
It makes so much power now that they slide
along the track, even though there is a
lot of rubber out there. When they start
cranking up the motors, they actually
slide with the brake, with the brakes
locked.

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NARRATOR
A forty-foot rooster tail shoots out at
temperatures of seventeen-hundred degrees.
Enough to melt a racecar into a puddle of
slag.
HOLD on the red-hot tailpipe as we take MUSIC UP AND OUT
and —
DISSOLVE TO:
10. B-ROLL ROGER GUSTIN (JC 00:25:36)
A friendly jet car driver (Roger Gustin) smiles as he
autographs a happy young fan’s program.
NARRATOR
Roger Gustin is a veteran driver who has
been racing for more than twenty years.
Nitro-powered funny car engines blast out burning gas
and shudder with power. (N 00:02:00 approx.)
NARRATOR
He began his career in top fuel, the loud,
nitro-powered cousins of jet cars. When
he first stepped into a jet-powered
vehicle, Roger was hooked.
SUPER TITLE: Roger Gustin
Driver, TLC
ROGER GUSTIN
(JC 00:18:00 approx.)
Once I got into the jet business, I really
loved it. I got out of the Nitro Funny
Cars to drive jets and I just don’t think
you can beat jets. They’re good, fast
reliable race cars, cost a lot to build
them, but we don’t have the breakage
problem that you experience with the fuel
cars.
B-roll shows views of several jet cars racing and
crossing the finish line.
ROGER GUSTIN (JC 00:19:15)
Driving a jet is very exciting. You’ve
got about...four G’s of pressure that’s
pushing you back in the seat. The instant
you cross that finish line...it’s about
five G’s negative that’s literally trying
to pitch you out of your seat.
EERIE MUSIC CUE UP AND UNDER

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Slow motion view of jet car barreling down track. (JC
00:29:01)
NARRATOR
Moving at speeds that leave a conventional
racecar in the dust, drivers wrestle with
two invisible enemies: momentum and wind
shear.
At peak speed, the wind shreds its thin kevlar shell
like tin foil.
NARRATOR
When you least expect it, they will rip
your ride apart.
INTERVIEWS
AL HANNA (JC 00:29:10 approx.)
Runs 290 miles an hour in a quarter mile.
And the little bit of down engine angle
that keeps it from taking off, which is
everybody’s first question, how do you
keep it on the ground?
11. PHOTO: FORD MUSTANG
BUILD TEXT: 3000 lbs.
260 horsepower
0-60: 10 sec.
NARRATOR
A conventional sporty car like the Ford
Mustang weighs about three-thousand pounds
and produces two hundred sixty horsepower.
It can accelerate to 60 miles per hour in
ten seconds. The engine drives the
wheels, which are independently suspended,
giving the driver steering control.
12. PHOTO: JET FUNNY CAR
BUILD TEXT: 1750 lbs.
5000 hp.
0-60: <1/4 sec.

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NARRATOR
A jet car weighs about half as much. Its
engine creates the equivalent of five
thousand horsepower that propels the
driver past sixty miles-an-hour in less
than a quarter-second. There is no
suspension, and it is impossible to steer.
13. INTERVIEW
You’re strapped down and your arms are
restrained as well. All there really is
the throttle, the AB switch, the steering
wheel——you don’t really steer these cars,
you aim them.
14. EXT. NIGHT RACE (JC 00:22:10)
Fans plug their ears to block out the deafening noise.
NARRATOR
One of the greatest dangers occurs at
night, when visibility is reduced to zero.
INTERVIEW
ROGER GUSTIN (2:30:24)
I think night racing’s one hundred times
more exciting than racing in the day, both
for the spectators and the drivers. I
mean, you can’t see as well at night
maybe, but you see what you need to see,
and that’s about all you see day or night
driving one of these cars.
FREEZE ROGER and PUSH IN as Narrator continues.
NARRATOR
Shortly after this interview, Roger
Gustin’s quest to set a night track record
would put him face-to-face with death.
15. EXT. ROGER’S BRUSH WITH DEATH NIGHT (JC 00:20:57)
Roger’s funny car, the burgundy-colored TLC, pulls up to
the starting line. HOLD on the pre-race ritual of fire
and smoke, INTERCUT with Michelle’s warning.
MICHELE BROOKMAN
(MB 00:16:22 & 00:10:17)
It’s hard to have a minor accident in a
jet car. It’s like having a minor plane
crash, if you will... The car can drift
from one side of the track to another...
If you hit a bump... It’s windy... If you

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lose control of it and hit a wall, it’s
not a fun thing to do at 250 miles an
hour.
The cars fire up their jet engines. The race seems to
be proceeding without incident.
NARRATOR
The most perilous time for jet car drivers
is not starting off the line or reaching
peak speeds. It is trying to stop that
poses the greatest danger.
MICHELLE BROOKMAN (?)
When you pull the chute and shut the car
off, you could just fly or have organs fly
out of your body because of the impact of
those g-forces.
MATCH ANGLE TO:
16.-18. ANIMATED SEQUENCE OMITTED
MICHELE BROOKMAN
(00:35:42)
The most common problem that goes wrong is
the chute doesn’t deploy or one gets
burned up by the afterburner. Another is
to lose control. You’re not really
steering but losing control of the
straight line and bumping into the wall
and flipping over.
AK MILLER (AM 2:11:41 approx.)
Whoa. It's nasty. It just makes you
shudder.
FREEZE AND
DISSOLVE TO:
19. EXT. NIGHT RACE ROGER’S BRUSH WITH DEATH
Pick up where we left off (JC 00:22:15 approx) as
Roger’s car streaks into the darkness.
STRAINS OF EERIE MUSIC UP AND UNDER
NARRATOR
At the end of the race, Roger Gustin’s
parachute works. But the wrenching
negative g-forces tear out a side window.
It was all mother nature needed to trash
the speeding car.
INTERVIEW

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AL HANNA (00:22:37 & 00:22:58)
He was out about two cars and running
really hard. We were running with him,
sort of pulled up, pulled down, a little
bit down the other end. Shut it off a
little early, I went to pull the chute off
and out the side window I saw his car and
his car was up on an angle like this...The
car obviously was pulled off the ground by
the jerk of the parachute and couldn’t
keep on the track.
20. EXT. SWAMP (00:24:30)
Firemen and fellow racecar drivers scramble into the
swamp.
NARRATOR
The flaming wreck has pinned the
unconscious driver upside-down under
several feet of water. The red-hot jet
engine keeps friends and firemen at a
distance. If they cannot pull him out,
Roger will drown or die of his injuries.
Fellow jet racer Bob Vansciver understood
the desperate situation and acted
instantly.
INTERVIEW
BOB VANSCIVER (JC 00:23:27)
It’s a fear, a panic, it’s hard to hear
one of your good friends sitting in the
car gasping for air and bubbles coming out
of the water, the guy was actually
drowning...and the car was still hot. We
went into a panic situation and, you get
that strength you get when you’re scared.
21. THE RESCUE (JC 00:24:30)
Hold on the sequence as a crowd struggles to lift Roger
out of the swamp and revive him.
FIREMAN
Nice and easy... Nice and easy...!
The injured driver finally emerges from the chaos on a
stretcher.
ONLOOKER
Are you all right, Roger!?

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NARRATOR
Bob and the emergency crew rescue and
revive Roger. His injuries included a
severely fractured hip, several broken
ribs, a broken leg and a punctured lung.
A helicopter airlifts Roger to safety. SWITCH TO scenes
of Roger’s loud, menacing jet funny car getting ready to
race again.
NARRATOR
It is a lesson in the danger of jet car technology. But
also a showcase of the vital role played by bravery,
teamwork and even humor.
22. EXT. PIT AREA
Bob Vansciver commiserates with his friends after the
accident.
BOB VANSCIVER (JC 00:37:53)
We have this thing that binds all jet car
drivers together. We have this unity. It
unifies everybody.
(3-4 BEATS, then--)
Except when it comes to paying bills at
restaurants.
23. EXT. NIGHT RACE (JC OO:20:57)
End on the track at night—a lonely place after the
race—and move up to the darkened sky.
NARRATOR
Danger has always been a part of the world
of these fearsome machines.
MEDLEY OF PERIOD MUSIC (RAGTIME, BENNY GOODMAN, 50S POP,
ETC.) UP AND UNDER
24. STILL PHOTOS EARLY JET CARS
Opel RAK car INTERCUT with portrait photo of Fritz Opel.
NARRATOR
The need for speed reaches back to the
early Twentieth Century. The first
thrust-powered car was propelled by twelve
dry-powder rockets. It was the creation
of transportation pioneer Fritz von Opel,
heir to the fortune of the giant German
auto manufacturer.
RAK 1 reaches 60 mph.

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NARRATOR
On April 11, 1928, his bullet-shaped RAK 1
reached speeds of more than 60 miles-per-
hour. Not a world record, but it made
enough noise to captivate the public.
RAK 2 poised for its run.
NARRATOR
A month later, Opel welded 24 rockets to
the aerodynamic RAK 2 and invited more
than 2,000 guests to observe. He drove it
himself. A reporter covering the event
wrote—
Slow ZOOM OUT from RAK 2 burning up the track as we
SUPERIMPOSE and WIPE ACROSS FRAME the newsprint
headline: “Germany Builds the World’s First Rocket-
Powered Vehicle.”
NARRATOR #2 —GERMAN ACCENT
“The car started with a terrific roar,
emitting a ball of flame and a billowing
cloud of yellow, acrid smoke as the
rockets ignited. The mighty machine
gradually gained momentum as one rocket
after another was fired—the car taking a
lunge forward each time one ignited.”
DISSOLVE TO:
25. STOCK PHOTOS BRITISH LAND-SPEED-RECORD CARS, 1930S
The British flag blends into views of Sir Malcolm
Campbell.
NARRATOR
In the Thirties, aerodynamics gave the
British an edge in the race for ever-
faster land speeds. In 1935, Sir Malcolm
Campbell dropped a 2300-horsepower Rolls
Royce airplane engine into his legendary
car, the sleek Bluebird. He set a new
land speed record of more than 300 miles
per hour.
The aerodynamic Thunderbolt.
NARRATOR
Two years later, the French and English
collaborated to build the stunning six-
wheeled Thunderbolt. This time, two
aircraft engines powered the whale-shaped
craft to more than 345 miles-per-hour.

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26. MONTAGE—EXTREME HAZARDS
Match Narrator with still photos of dangerous wrecks,
surrounded by a black border:
• Stutz Black Hawk
• Sunbeam car bursts into flame
• Sir Henry Hargreave’s boat capsizes
• Donald Campbell dies on water; close on his grave
• Italian racers stay one step ahead of road bandits
NARRATOR
Often the need for speed confounded the
early pioneers with ruin and death… 1928:
a rear tire on the Stutz Black Hawk
collapses, killing dashing, 25-year old
Californian Frank Lockhart…

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NARRATOR
1930: Racer Sir Henry Hargreave drowns
while travelling at full throttle on Lake
Windermere… That same year, the Sunbeam
Silver bullet nearly incinerates its
driver at Daytona Beach…
Italian speed-demons faced the greatest
peril. A crash or breakdown in the
mountains left you at the mercy of
bloodthirsty bandits.
In the skies of wartorn Europe, American
airmen came face-to-face with a new turn
in the quest for speed.
27. PHOTO: AK MILLER IN UNIFORM
I just happened to be in the second
armored Division in the Battle of the
Bulge... I'll never forget the first
sighting of a jet. Going right over you
at five, 600 miles an hour. And our
planes were probably flying 350. That
made quite a difference. And that
elevated my heartbeat just a little.
NARRATOR
The world's first turbo-jet, a
Messerscmidt 262, arrived too late to make
a difference in the war. But the battle
for faster and faster speeds blazed on.
27. STOCK PHOTOS GENERAL MOTORS FIREBIRD CONCEPT CARS
NARRATOR
During the 1950s, General Motors
experimented with jet power in its
Firebird concept vehicles. The parched
deserts of California proved too much for
them, and the project was scrapped due to
its impracticality.

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29. STOCK PHOTOS THE FLYING DOCTOR
NARRATOR
The first man to successfully race a jet
car was neither a scientist nor a
corporate employee. Dr. Nathan Ostich, a
physician from the East Los Angeles
barrio, dreamed of beating the world land
speed record.
Push into Ak miller youth photo.
NARRATOR
His inspiration... A brilliant young hot
rodder. Ak Miller.
29A. AK MILLER RACING SCENES/STOCK
He loved speed, and the doctor was a hot-
rodder. Nothing else you could say about
him. Pretty soon he started talking speed
and more speed. That's how the jet car
came about.
NARRATOR
The child of poor Dutch immigrants, Ak
grew up racing souped-up hot rods on the
backroads of agricultural Southern
California. Here, in the nineteen forties
and fifties, teenagers built open-wheeled
Chevy's and Fords that tore up the
asphalt.
AK MILLER
Every time you saw a guy without fenders
and lowered headlights and a low
windshield, you knew he was a racer. He
wasn't no poet, that's for sure. So then
we'd say, What you got in there? Do you
want to dig or drag or whatever we called
it that day.
Photo of Dr. Ostich.

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NARRATOR
After the Korean war, Ak approached the
doctor with a plan.
You know, now that the war is over and
everything, jet engines are laying around
like matches. So I've got an idea. Why
don't we get a couple of jet engines and
go to work?
Photos of shop.
NARRATOR
Working in the doctor's garage, a team of
21 volunteers——including five
patients——built a dragster around a jet
engine stripped from a Boeing B-36 bomber.
They named their creation...
...the Flying Caduceus. It weighed four
thousand pounds and produced thirty-six
hundred horsepower. The Caduceus rode on
four-foot high wheels custom-built by
friends who worked for Firestone. Ak's
biggest obstacle—how to stop two tons of
metal barreling down the desert at 300
miles-per-hour.
Well, brakes at this rate of speed would
just fry.. it would just rip right apart.
(skid ahead) So we knew it would have to
be stopped by parachute.
Photos of Salt Flats.
NARRATOR
Hundreds of hours of work finally paid
off. The team gathered and anxiously
fired up the turbo-jet.
All of a sudden you heard this big rush of
air come out the back of it and it would
get higher pitched and higher.

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29B STOCK PHOTOS — CADUCEUS
NARRATOR
In one early run, the jet engine starter,
a crucial and irreplaceable part, failed.
The team called Washington and were
immediately put through to Air Force chief
General Curtis LeMay, an avid hot rodder.
AK MILLER (AM paraphrase/1:38:50)
And he said, yeah, I found two of them.
But I said Curtis, we're out on the Salt
Flats. He says, I'll have it there.
Stick around. And it wasn't, I don't
know, seemed like 30 minutes, and here
comes a damn jet plane, screaming. We're
the only ones down on the Salt Flats, so
he gave us a buzz, went over where the
airport is, and brought us two starters.
Magazine photos.
NARRATOR
Jet-power ignited America's imagination,
including the youth-driven movies of the
early Nineteen Sixties.
Movie clip, The Lively Set.
30. SERIES OF STILLS EVOLUTION OF JET CARS
Paced by several JET ENGINE ROARS (SFX), we flip through
a series of still photos of powerful, penile jet cars
with their drivers: The Blue Flame, Wingfoot Express I &
II, Spirit of America, Spirit of America—Sonic I, Green
Monster, and the fiery Budweiser Rocket.
31. STOCK VIDEO 1960S DRAGSTERS
NARRATOR
Driven by the need for speed, a crowd of
young, jet-powered hot rodders began to
blaze past top fuel dragsters and funny
cars at speeds in excess of 300 miles-an-
hour. But the need for speed proved to be
the new sport’s undoing.
NARRATOR
In 1961, after several tragic accidents,
the NHRA banned jet cars from sanctioned
tracks. Jet racers became outlaws, the
bad-boys of the racing world. And the
NHRA keeps a close watch today.
INTERVIEW

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The NHRA reduced the speed limit from 330
to 310 because there have been than a
handful of jet car crashes this summer.
Very, very serious and two deaths. One
person badly burned.
32. BEHIND THE SCENES JET CAR PIT CREW (PJ APPROX.
2:07:38)
Grunts lift off the flimsy kevlar skin and work on the
vehicle.
NARRATOR
Dangerous work conditions. No prize money.
Meager support from sponsors. So why do
they do it?
INTERCUT Schumacher with racing and crowd scenes.
TONY SCHUMACHER (PJ 02:21:46)
Well, it’s a tremendous feeling. You got
the crowd, everyone’s cheering you on….
You’re shooting fire out the back of the
car, and there’s loud thunder.
PRODUCTION NARRATOR (PJ 02:25:06)
So why do you do it?
TAMMY GATLIN (PJ 02:25:07)
Because it’s fun. It’s a rush
AK MILLER (AM 2:45:52 approx.)
it's a thrill because you are entering
into the land of the unknown, and if you
make a mistake, you'll know it.
Have you ever been scared?
BOB VANSCIVER (PJ 02:36:30)
I’m scared every time I drive it.
33. INTERVIEW SHE WANTS TO BE DIFFERENT
Narrator begins under Michele’s interview
NARRATOR
For some drivers, something more personal
is at stake.
SUPER TITLE: Michele Brookman
Driver, Chariot of Fire

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I had begun working for Fedex driving a
truck, and I had wrecked a couple when I
first started actually because I had never
driven a truck ever. Hence the name
trucker Barbie, and I’d be putting
lipstick on as I was leaving the station
and they would just all laugh and say, why
are you doing this?
34. PHOTO MONTAGE MICHELE BROOKMAN
Photos show us Michele growing up, then into her years
as a model and actress.
NARRATOR
Michele Brookman grew up wanting to be
different. Her father, a jet car driver,
suggested she enter the circuit. Michele
jumped at the chance. A former model and
actress, she had never raced.
MICHELE BROOKMAN
(MB approx. 00:20:56)
I was really excited and completely froze
with fear when they started the jet engine
I couldn’t breathe. You’re strapped in
very tightly also and have a helmet on,
end everything has to be extremely tight
and fit like a kid glove if you will for
your protection. You’re strapped in very
tightly and if its warm, or even if its
not, its hard to breathe under those
circumstances. With the fear when they
started this jet engine with this noise, I
could barely draw a breath.
NARRATOR
When she conquered her initial jitters,
Michele had a key realization. Compared
to her male competitors, she had an
advantage.
Women have I think an intuit that gives
them an edge insofar as driving is
concerned. Least likely to wreck because
their intuit would keep them from doing
anything that would go I have to beat the
guys, I have to be the best, I have to
take this one. No, a woman wouldn’t do
that, she’s much more pragmatic, I think,
and smaller, and quicker and her hands are
smaller.
35. B-ROLL SHIRLEY MULDOWNEY

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Top fuel driver Shirley Muldowney (NW approx. 17:00
min.) revs her dragster before admiring crowds.
NARRATOR
The battle of the sexes is not new to
racing. Top fuel driver Shirley Muldowney
regularly beat men she competed with. Her
secret: quicker reflexes and a fierce
competitive spirit.
INTERCUT Shirley with loud, exciting top fuel dragsters
racing.
SHIRLEY MULDOWNEY
(NW approx. 18:30)
I know what I’m doing in my car...etc.
As the angry dragsters blaze down the track, we —
DISSOLVE TO:
36. EXT. JET CAR RACE TAMMY GATLIN VS. TONY SCHUMACHER
Two jet cars power up to the starting line. (PJ 02:20:38
approx.)
NARRATOR
Is Michele right? Do women have an edge
piloting these fast, fire-breathing
monsters?

jetscr3.doc 22
NARRATOR (CONT.)
Today, drivers Tammy Gatlin and Tony
Schumacher settle the dispute on the
asphalt.
37. B-ROLL JET-CAR DRAGSTER
View moves along the bodies of a sleek jet dragster to
rest on the helmeted face of Tammy Gatlin (PJ 02:20:10+)
NARRATOR
These jet car dragsters, with their
needle-like profile, are lighter and more
aerodynamic than jet funny cars. Peak
velocities often exceed 300 miles-an-hour.
Since they travel in a straight line,
quick reflexes are more important than
brute strength.
The cars streak down the straight track! Barely a
second into the race, flames engulf Tony’s dragster.
And away goes Tammy Gatlin. Problems on
Tony Schumacher’s car. And there is
Tammy! She’ll take the light and she’s
got a big smile on her face. Look at the
twin chutes slow the car down. And look
at the fire coming out of Tony
Schumacher’s car...
(TV Narrator trails off)
38. SUPERIMPOSE LIST RECORD HOLDERS
Highlight Jessica Willard in the lineup of fastest jet
car drivers:
All-Time Quickest Jet-Powered Dragsters, 2001
1. Toby Ehrmantraut 314.75 mph
2. Ancel Horton 312.93 mph
3. Lou Brookman 320.13 mph
4. Jessica Willard 308.92 mph
5. David Douthit 304.00 mph
Source:, 9/3/01
NARRATOR
Though the race was inconclusive, women
continue to invade the upper echelons of
jet racing. Never again will the tracks
be dominated by men, as drivers like
Jessica Willard close in on the top spot.
CUT TO:

jetscr3.doc 23
39. SHOCKLEY TRUCK
Twin flames shoot out the exhaust pipes above Les
Shockley’s Shock Wave jet-powered truck.
NARRATOR
Women may demand equality, but men still
want their trucks.
The enormous truck lurches toward the starting line and
creates a volcanic plume of smoke and soot, engulfing
crazed onlookers.
NARRATOR
More than three tons... Thirty-six
thousand horsepower... 120 gallons of gas
each run. The million-dollar Shock Wave
is a Peterbilt truck with three Navy
fighter jets strapped on. It can’t go
airborne. But the fans do.
Sequence builds to a climactic blast of flame as three
tons of truck barrel down the track as a display shows
“192 mph.”
40. EXT. TRACK JET LIMO
The absurdly elegant jet limo streaks away from us (JL
01:00:33—01:00:34).

jetscr3.doc 24
NARRATOR
In the race to capture the imagination of
fans, anything goes. Imagine the ultimate
prom-ride at 220 miles-per-hour in this
jet limousine.
SLOW DISSOLVE
TO:
B-roll shows Michele Brookman playing with her baby
girl.
NARRATOR
In a U-turn from the fast-living Bad Boys
and Girls of the Nineteen Fifties, jet car
drivers now include methane-powered Moms.
Will they pass on the need for speed to
the next generation?
You can be whatever you want to be. You
want to be a doctor and a supermodel, you
can do both. You want to be a racecar
driver, you can do that. If you want to
be a mom and raise children and bake
cookies and make people happy, you can do
that too and you can be great at any or
all of it.
41. EXT TRACK JET ROOSTER TAIL
A white-hot plume rends the air as shimmering heat waves
scorch the bleachers.
NARRATOR
Why take something engineered to travel
twice the speed of sound and make it
earthbound?
For the dedicated drivers and kerosene-
crazed fans of these fire-breathing
dragons, a better question may be——
WHOOSSSSSHHHHH!!!
The jet car blasts down the track.
NARRATOR
——Why not?
LOUD ROCK MUSIC UP AND UNDER
42. MONTAGE (:20-30)

jetscr3.doc 25
Reprise all we have seen——jet car duels, scrubbed tires,
terrible crashes, flame-outs, daring rescues, and wide-
eyed fans——into a brief concluding tribute to the men
and women who put their lives on the starting line.
And finish five seconds later.
MUSIC OUT
END CREDITS

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