Dust to Glory (2005)

“You’re trying to beat time itself and get to the finish line.” Such dramatic description might overstate the actual dynamics of the SCORE Baja 1000 off-road race, but it does get at the participants’ sense of grand good times. Once a year, a rowdy-ish set of racers — driving everything from motorcycles to monster trucks to Volkswagen beetles — assemble in the Mexican desert to make their way to that finish line (actually over 800 miles, race title notwithstanding). Organized into groups corresponding to the type of vehicles they drive, the racers are gritty, well-financed (NASCAR racer Robby Gordon shows up with nice gear), young and old, mostly white and male (Team Estrogen does offer some welcome diversity).

In 2003, Dana Brown and his film crew (over 50 cameras, in seven formats) tagged along: Dust to Glory enthusiastically tracks events according to their views from choppers, buggy mounts, and helmet cams. As Brown has developed something of a formula, following his popular surfing docs, Step Into Liquid (2003) and the Endless Summer revisitations (2000 and 1994), the new film introduces drivers as barely connected “episodes.” After outlining the hazards of driving these non-roads, the film picks out personalities to stand in for each vehicle grouping, offers plenty of actionated footage, and tells a few stories, arranged to seem alternately exciting, heartwarming, and, in one case, tragic (when a bystander is accidentally killed, filtered through the experience of the guy who sits on a mountain and monitors radio traffic every year — his upset stands in for the people on the ground, say, those who might have been standing near the victim, or his family).

While accidents are awful (even when they take place off camera), they do clarify the risk involved here. So the film also offers up some reasons for wanting to go fast on uneven and dangerous terrain. For instance, it’s good to go fast. If nothing else, Brown and company’s extraordinary mounted-camera footage makes you appreciate the sheer speed of these racers’ careening.

Brown’s narration is on occasion overwrought (“This isn’t about a race,” he says, “It’s about the race, the human race”), though you might appreciate his fervor and occasional wit (“There’s a reason the name Andretti is synonymous with speed: it’s synonymous with speed”). The footage is not quite so magical as in Step Into Liquid (dust and cactus not so thrilling to careen through as giant blue waves of water), but several of the individual stories are compelling, including that of Mike “Mouse” McCoy, one of the film’s producers, who rides the entire course solo on his motorcycle (as opposed to the usual practice of tag-teaming), to the point that he’s riding on a flat tire for 40 miles, losing feeling in his limbs while careening through the desert at night, slightly delirious at one of his stops.

Dust to Glory celebrates such determination, even if the pay-off seems slight and the racing community self-selecting and limited by opportunity (and cash). The racers certainly seem camera-ready, asserting the life-changing significance of their trek: “It’s a place where reality is on holiday,” offers one. “It’s like a girl that breaks your heart,” offers another. It’s also a good familial bonding experience (as demonstrated by the legendary McMillin clan, including septuagenarian grandfather Corky, sons Mark and Scott, and the next generation, Daniel and 16-year-old Andy), as well as boy-team loyalty and love (Steve Hengeveld and Johnny Campbell).

Of the several “human interest” stories included in Dust to Glory, the least effective may be the profiles of some racers as they return to Mexico during off-months in order to contribute money and time to the surrounding, largely impoverished community. The drivers are sincere, if inarticulate: “Thank you for letting us come into your country,” one says, as much for the camera as for his Spanish-speaking host. But for the most part, the drivers look like tourists, happy to visit and act out for their few days each year and happy to go back to their less difficult lives. Providing more of a coda than a climax, these scenes underscore the film’s lurchy enthusiasm, offering up one episode after another to demonstrate the basic energies of the event.