Popular Hot Rodding Television
Reviewed by Darr Hawthorne It's always fun to take on an assignment about something that I1m already into. Since getting a TIVO recording system for my family last Christmas, my TV viewing habits have changed radically. An item we set up immediately was the Season Pass, where you pick your favorite shows to record upon every showing. One of the first entries was Popular Hot Rodding Television. Last year PHR-TV grabbed my attention as a standout program from the other cable automotive enthusiast shows like Hot Rod TV, My Classic Car, and Horsepower Television. While all of these shows focus on cool rods, motorsports, car shows, technical issues, and how-to segments, I never felt that their hosts were anything but actors with some technical savvy, reading from prepared cue cards on a garage set in Hollywood. These hosts are interchangeable and could perform each other's hosting duties as soon as their corporate parent company's merged with the other. Initially, I wasn't sure what it was that drew me to a show with a car magazine editor and a funny car pilot as the hosts. Cameron Evans, Popular Hot Rodding Magazine's Editor and son of the late Steve Evans, and Dean Skuza, driver of the Mopar Parts Dodge Stratus R/T Nitro Funny Car, are unpredictably fun to watch. Popular Hot Rodding Television feels a lot more "free-form" than those other, more formulized shows. The technical, how-to segments utilize computer animation to explain difficult concepts such as limited slip differentials, how a trans & torque converter work, centrifugal superchargers, camshafts & lifters, and air filters & exhaust systems in a very simple, conversational way. We then return to the shop for real-world examples of the technical issues explained by one of the hosts. As an interactive aspect of the PHR-TV website, you can access any part of the TV show as well as download the animated technical demonstrations. One segment entitled "Dear Cam & Dean" reads emails and letters from viewers, eliciting genuine, unscripted reactions from the hosts. Much of the mail is positive, but not all of it. Dean reacted to a viewer's complaint of his "sponsor popping," when a driver blurts out each of the team sponsors in rapid succession. Skuza proceeded to mention his sponsors; Mopar Parts and Cornwall Tools repeatedly and finally broke into an exceptional Kenny Bernstein impression as he played the ultimate "King of Sponsor Popping" as KB. PHR-TV also visits the shops of fine rod builders like Troy Trepanier and Chip Foose to see their latest designs and freshest customs in various states of finish. Other episodes find Dean chatting with tattooed Mopar fans or discussing Funny Car basics from burnout to parachute release. I'm sure hosts Cam and Dean are buddies, having seen them hanging together for much of this year's Winternationals; they were joking and laughing and obviously enjoying their friendship. The ability to portray their "alter egos," the Mullet Brothers, in a few segments plays well in a continuing effort to poke fun at themselves as backwater costumed hillbillies tearing down a transmission. These guys are hams. Upon deeper examination I discovered that I knew these guys, these were the same kind of guys I hung with in high school and college in Southern California. These are buddies from down the street that I'd call over to pitch-in to help install a new clutch on a Friday night, before my dad got home from his business trip. I wanted to sit down, pop open a cold one and thumb through this televised car magazine while bench racing and listening to the Stones on the radio. They are cool dudes who play video games and talk cars all day long, as many of us would love to do. What a life! Whenever I watch Popular Hot Rodding Television, I get a sense that Cam and Dean are long-lost friends of mine. Whether Evans and Skuza are warming up a nitro powered margarita blender, playing Rockem Sockem Robots, or racing Briggs & Stratton-powered shop stools, this is an entertaining show with entertaining people. PHR-TV airs on weekends on TNN, and apparently the ratings also show that the viewing public is entertained as well. I wonder if Cam and Dean could come over this weekend and help us position the transmission cross member in our '64 Chevy II funny car before my dad gets home from his business trip . . . . http://www.phrtv.com | 
