Tom Harper - I Ride - Dirt Rider Magazine

Stunt coordinator for Ironman, stunted on over 100 films, doubled Keanu Reeves on Point Break and Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. Raced on the AMA National Motocross series, one of the original 12 members of Brand X (elite stunt group). 48 years old.
www.brandxstunts.orgI worked as an extra doing stunts as a kid, because they used to let you do that. I raced motocross through my teens up until the 1980s. Then I went into go-cart racing and won a national championship and eight California championships, thinking I'm gonna go race an IndyCar. I realized how hard that is if you don't come from big money, and so I decided it was time to get into the family business, which is doing stunts.I came up racing in Southern California. At one time I was racing six days a week. Tuesday at Indian Dunes with CRC, then Wednesday was Ascot, Thursday was OCIR, Friday was Indian Dunes, Saturday was Saddleback, and Sunday was kinda wherever the money was. I did that for years, in the intermediate then the pro class.We used to race the nationals out of little shops. At one point I rode for a shop called Revell's Two-Strokes which was a little, tiny shop but the guy, Lou Revell, knew how to make bikes go really fast. At one time he had on his team Billy Payne (father of current racer Billy Payne), Marty Tripes, Bryar Holcomb, my brother Will Harper and myself. I was traveling with guys like that. It was a cool deal.I can take any top motocrosser and I can turn 'em into a stuntman because their eye/hand coordination is so good and they're so far ahead of anybody else. I've worked with other athletes from other disciplines, they're not even close.The biggest thing I love about The Day in the Dirt event is the camaraderie. All the stunt guys are out here, guys you trust your life with on the set. We've saved each other's lives hundreds of times over the years. Out here you're going handlebar to handlebar with 'em into a corner and it's like, "Oh my God, you saved my life last week, and you're gonna kill me right now!"