Learning of a poll taking place on IMDb's Classic Film board for the best movies of 1979,I started searching round for flicks to view from the year. Originally planning to just watch fictional titles,I stumbled on a documentary whose quirkiness led to me diving in the dirt.The outline of the doc:Not wanting to just sit-out in life over his retirement,Clarke Gordon decides to get on the road and witness the world of off-road racing.As drives down this new road,Gordon gets the chance to witness some of the biggest rivalries in this underground sport.View on the film:Crossing paths with the drivers at the pit-stops,Clarke Gordon (who is not credited on IMDb) gives the title a sunny-side-up folk charm as the presenter,with Gordon be very apt at sharing a joke with the drivers,whilst showing clear excitement for each race.Gliding along miles of dusty roads and crumbling gravel displayed in director Eric Karson's sweeping crane shots, composer Dick Halligan sends all the drivers off to the races in layers of Blaxploitation Funk,that run the movie with a playful edge and also give a smooth rhythm to the down and dirty racing.

Dirt (Parts 1 - 9) is available on YouTube and presents a classic historical of off-road motor-sports competitions in the mid-1970s shortly after the Arab Oil Embargo. There is plenty of "retro" music and arguably "Dirt" is similar to Bruce Brown's 1971 epic documentary "On Any Sunday".Considerable time is dedicated to the 1976 SCORE Baja International (or Baja 500) and the dual between Parnelli Jones, team mate Walker Evans and dune buggy sensation and Hollywood stuntman Bobby Ferro. Roger Riddel was instrumental in placing together the funding and advertising for this feature. Our motorcycle (#449) appears at the end of the movie and I was only sixteen when racing in the '76 Baja event along with Benson Ford, Jr., Elliot Kaplan, Rod Hall and former members of Bill Stroppe & Associates.

I originally saw this in a theater when it came out in 1979. It appealed to me because I was heavily into Jeeps and off-roading at the time. The film does a great job of blending a documentary on all sorts of off-road activity around the travels of the narrator all over North America in his motorhome to visit these events. I thought this was one movie that would never see the light of day on a DVD, but was surprised when it recently started showing up at on-line auctions described as a movie released on 2004. I knew it was the same one I saw in 1979 thanks to the very skimpy, but accurate information I found on the IMDb. I highly recommend this to anyone at all interested in off-roading of any kind. Lots of humor, racing, mud, spills, great photography, and 70's culture. The DVD has some special features about the making of the movie along with the original trailer.

This was such a fun film! There are plenty of TV shows today that show car chases and scenes of race car drivers crashing or doing odd things but this movie was and still is unique. It was hosted by two beer drinking fans (actors) of high speed, dirt spitting vehicles. Most of the movie was footage from different types of races and vehichles including motorcycle racing, tractor pulling, 24 hour La Mans racing sprint car racing and many more. They covered almost every different type of vehicle dirt racing you could ever think of. They even had scenes of destruction derbys where cars just crash into each other trying to disable each other. One of the nice parts about the movie was it was not just scenes of cars wrecking on after another but they would interview race stars such as Rick Mears and Parnelli Jones as well as the no-name local heros of backwoods tracks and get thier comments on why they love what they do so much. All the while the hosts kept it fun with their comments and details of what we were seeing on the screen. It is a very entertaining movie and I have never seen anything quite like it before or since that time even with all the thrills and spills shows you see nowadays. A lost gem for racing fans.