This was an interesting project. A director who I had worked with before called me and asked if it was possible to sit in a tire in freefall. I told him it would be no problem, but we should go one step further. Why not try to stand on it? He liked the idea and said that would be the plan, but after I got off the phone with him I seriously wondered if I was getting in over my head. I figured what the heck. If standing didn't work, we could always revert back to the original plan.

    When I showed up to the location, they had about 20 huge truck tires lined up, all shiny and ready to be chucked out of an airplane. None of them had bindings on them, so I had to grab one and get it ready for myself. While I was doing that, Joe Jennings was chasing tires in freefall to get shots for the rest of the commercial. Every tire that went into freefall pummeled into the ground so hard that they were all destroyed. That concerned me, because I only brought one pair of bindings and I needed to do at least three jumps to figure out how to fly the tire. Somebody took off to make a 2 hour drive for more bindings (we were in the middle of nowhere) while Joe and I went up for our first jump.

    Getting the tire out the door of the airplane was a huge pain in the ass. That thing weighed like 70 pounds. But once I was in freefall, it wasn't too bad. I lost control right out the door, but started to get the feel for it pretty quickly. I almost stood up on that first jump, but there was a lug nut cover still on the rim that popped off and hit my binding release. One foot came out of the bindings and I went into a violent spin. It freaked me out because I had broken my ankle from this same sort of thing before. I managed to get rid of the tire unscathed, and was ready to try it again.

    When we landed, Joe and I found out that the tire had survived the freefall perfectly. They dusted it off and it was ready to go again. We were very surprised, but this was going to help us tremendously. The second jump went great and I stood up on the tire almost the entire time. Again the tire survived and we got right back on the plane. On the third jump, I was doing helicopters and flips and having a great time. I actually wanted to go up again, but the director told us that was all he needed. Everybody was stoked and we popped open some beers. A few minutes later the guy showed up with the extra bindings.