Jeff Gordon Prank #2

[CF DolFan]

This one is pretty funny. This guy was pretty nasty in saying the first one was BS so Gordon almost made him cry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dRIgmKGDqFM

[AZ Fins Fan 55]

I saw this yesterday and it is pretty damn comical.

I liked the first one as well.

[Sunstroke]

That was pretty awesome...

[Tenshot13]

I've still heard rumors that both are fake. Either way it's pretty funny.

[CF DolFan]

I've still heard rumors that both are fake. Either way it's pretty funny.

The first was a fake but the second was not. The guy in the second actually made another blog saying as much. As well he didn't seem to find the humor in the second one that all of us other "bullies" do.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Of course they were faked.  Pepsi isn't stupid, if that taxi had actually injured or killed someone on a real road, Pepsi would have been looking at a multimillion dollar lawsuit and a PR hit that would make the BP spill seem minor. 

[Sunstroke]

Of course they were faked.  Pepsi isn't stupid, if that taxi had actually injured or killed someone on a real road, Pepsi would have been looking at a multimillion dollar lawsuit and a PR hit that would make the BP spill seem minor. 

Did you actually watch the video? Jeff Gordon didn't actually do anything dangerous, unless you count spinning your back tires on the dirt at 30-something mph or bumping some super light empty plastic drums as dangerous. I had a higher risk of injury while washing my dishes this morning. If I had been in the back seat, I would have been whooping it up and telling the cabbie to do another lap...

So, your "of course" seems fairly off course...

[CF DolFan]

Jeff Gordon's response to video #2


Jeff Gordon calls video prank 'most incredible thing I've ever done'


http://www.sportingnews.com/nascar/story/2014-02-28/jeff-gordon-video-prank-car-chase-cab-driver-pepsi-max

PUBLISHED Friday, Feb 28, 2014 at 3:32 pm EST
Bob Pockrass Sporting News  Follow on Twitter  Archive  Email  RSS
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AVONDALE, Ariz. — Jeff Gordon said the video prank that he and sponsor Pepsi pulled on a journalist was a huge risk, but Gordon calls it "the most incredible thing I have ever done."

In early February, Gordon pretended to be a taxi cab driver and took Jalopnik writer Travis Okulski for a wild ride as part of a fake police chase in a North Carolina industrial complex. Okulski had exposed as fake Gordon’s Pepsi Max commerical last year where Gordon supposedly took a car salesman on a crazy ride.



“I had this guys’ safety in my hands,” Gordon said Friday at Phoenix International Raceway. “I took a lot of pride into making sure it was done safe, and so did Pepsi Max.

“I don’t know if you will ever see this done again, I’ll be honest, because it was that risky. But we did it and we can laugh.”

MORE: Gordon video a big hit | Harvick upset with Daytona safety | Phoenix picks | Daytona gallery

Gordon said it took eight months to get the necessary approvals and set up the elaborate ruse. Gordon, Okulski and Pepsi Max insist that the video, which was released Thursday, is real, although some of the video used is from rehearsal runs — the two back antennas attached to the trunk lid appear and disappear throughout the video — but the reactions are real.

The risks could be considered enormous from an injury liability standpoint. It also could have exposed those involved to criminal charges — it is illegal in North Carolina to restrain another person without consent in a car (the doors were locked and Okulski pleaded for Gordon to stop) and travel from one point to another.

Lawyers typically would view that as enough to scrap the project.

“Why would we do that?” Gordon said about the liability. “It is a good question. But I could tell you that it was a blast doing it. And I think the response that it’s getting certainly speaks for itself.

“I was questioning that a few times myself. I know people are going to question that. But after it was over and we came sliding in, I was like, ‘Wow. That was the most incredible thing I have ever done.’”

The original “Test Drive” has had 41 million views. The video released Thursday had 4.8 million views as of Friday afternoon.

“I like stepping outside the boundaries,” Gordon said. “When you look at all the comments from the first video, … everybody was really challenging us to go and do this because of their comments saying, ‘Jeff wasn’t driving the car’ or ‘this wasn’t real’ or ‘that wasn’t real.’

“Here is the results of that because we wanted to go out there and show everybody how authentic and real this could be.”

Gordon, who pretended to be an ex-convict turned taxi driver, said they had a code word — “Nebraska” — that he or a producer would say if they felt the prank was getting out of control.

“When I first took off and I hit about 80 miles per hour and he started kicking that glass, I came this close (to saying the word),” Gordon said. “You don’t know what that situation is going to be like until you have that person in the back of your car that is really scared.”

The whole chase lasted about 70 seconds, at least according to the video.

“I wanted to do all the driving,” Gordon said. “I think it is known that we had to have a stunt driver for timing purposes in the first one and that I would love to do this thing as the driver throughout the whole thing. … Safety was the first thing on the list of concerns.”

Gordon said the extensive preparation still couldn’t plan for the unknown.

“How you pull this is off is almost near impossible,” Gordon said. “The fact that we were able to pull it off and at the end of the day, Travis had a big smile on his face finally was what made it an adrenalin rush for me.”

[CF DolFan]

The guy who got pranked response to both videos. I tried to edit out picture things but ran out of time.

How Jeff Gordon Scared The Crap Out Of Me With This Epic Prank

http://jalopnik.com/how-jeff-gordon-scared-the-crap-out-of-me-1531016226

374,352g2041
travis
Travis Okulski
ProfileFollow

Travis Okulski
Filed to: AD WATCH   
JEFF GORDON
PEPSI
TEST DRIVE 2
Thursday 7:40am


I keep to myself in cabs. But one thing that gets my attention is a driver with a neck tattoo telling me that he just got out of jail after 10 years and that the cop behind is making him nervous. And especially when he starts a police chase while yelling "I can't go back." I thought this was the end.

I had a conversation with the boss, Matt Hardigree, in mid-January. An opportunity had come up. A chance to get in the brand new Corvette Z06 (aka 'Big Nasty') before anyone else, even most people at GM, had gotten a chance. I thought it was a bit odd because I knew development work on the Z06 had just started, but the marketing side of the car business is far different than the PR side. Maybe they had a preproduction show car filming an ad early, it happens. We get a lot of interesting opportunities, so this was the sort of thing where I didn't ask any questions and just said I'd do it.P

So I flew to Charlotte where I was told that the Z06 was being filmed for an ad series that would happen before Top Gear USA. Ray Wert, former EIC of Jalopnik and current tall-man about town, was working on the ad and was setting up the drive. I was told that if anybody found out what I was doing, including the hosts of Top Gear, he could stand to lose a substantial sum of money. So I kept it totally quiet and only told my parents exactly what I was doing. My coworkers knew I was going away, but Matt and I agreed we wouldn't tell them what it was for.P

Ray picked me up at the airport and took me to the hotel in the middle of nowhere, nearish to Rockingham Speedway, where he was filming. We talked about the car and how excited we were to get some time with it. Early the next morning he heads to the track, leaving me alone in possibly the worst Quality Inn on the east coast. I start writing some posts for the day. Then Ray calls.P

We were accidentally booked into the wrong hotel by a production assistant, which is why we didn't see the crew or vehicles. We were supposed to stay in a different Quality Inn that we had passed a few miles away. Ok, whatever. He picked me up and brought me to the other one where I sat and worked. All day. I was told a car would come get me at 1:30 that day to take me to the track and the Z06. But we got delayed. Until four. I started thinking I wasn't going to get in the Z06 at all. I was getting annoyed. And because I didn't have a car, I hadn't gotten anything to eat since breakfast.

Good thing I didn't.


I get the call that the cab is outside, so I go out the back door of the hotel and approach it from behind. That's when I noticed it was a Chevy Caprice, a new one that is only for municipal use. I thought it was odd but figured it came from a police auction or something. Maybe they just have Caprice cabs in Charlotte. I honestly didn't really care. I get in, the cabbie asks if I'm Travis, which I am, and then I just start looking at my phone and tweeting stupid things. Stupid things like this:1P


We make some small talk about what I'm doing in Charlotte, where I'm from, how the area has changed, but it's mostly silence because I can't hear much through the small window opening.P

Then he says something a bit alarming that I definitely did hear. "There's a cop behind me. I get nervous when cops are on me. I just got out after 10 years in jail." P

How Jeff Gordon Scared The Crap Out Of Me With This Epic Prank
SEXPAND
These aren't things that you think the passenger would normally be told. I didn't ask what he went in for, but a safe assumption is that if it was 10 years it wasn't for littering. The cop turns on his lights to pull us over. I assumed we had been speeding and the driver didn't realize because the speedometer didn't work in the cab (Someone who drove me to the airport when I was younger would unhook the speedo so the miles wouldn't run up, that way his cars would have a higher resale value. This made me think it was a semi-common practice, so a non-working speedo didn't stand out as weird).P

We pull over for the cop. The driver starts banging his hands on the wheel yelling "I didn't do nothing wrong" and "I can't go back man, I can't go back." The cop instructs us to put our windows down. My window won't go down. He instructs us to get out of the cab. My door won't unlock. 3P

All the while, the car is in neutral, the driver's hand near the shifter. And then, suddenly, we take off. Fast. This is when I start screaming and the driver says he's "sorry." P

I'm a bad passenger in a car, I always have been, but this is slightly different. See, I was just kidnapped by an ex-con in the back of a cab that is now speeding down a hill, busting through a chain fence and narrowly missing buildings while trying to get away from a North Carolina State Trooper. I thought I was going to die. I yelled, I banged the glass, I actually tried to kick through the plexiglass window between the driver and me. I pulled out my phone to call 911, but couldn't keep it steady enough to dial.P

How Jeff Gordon Scared The Crap Out Of Me With This Epic Prank
4
SEXPAND
As far as I'm concerned, I had a license to majorly freak out.P

What was I planning on accomplishing? Not dying? Taking him down with me? Strangling him? I don't know. I just had to do something.P

What I do know is that I was incredibly polite to the man with my life in his hands. I always called him "sir" and said "please" a lot. I guess I did that because if you show someone respect, maybe they won't shoot you in the face later that day when you're tied up in his meth lab and he's planning on how to get rid of all the evidence.P

How Jeff Gordon Scared The Crap Out Of Me With This Epic Prank
SEXPAND
I tried reasoning with him. I've watched Cops and every show Sheriff Jon Bunnell has been on. I know running from the cops never works. I told him that, to which he replied "it has to" and "it'll all be over soon." I said how I didn't do anything wrong. That didn't seem to matter to him. I also saw the cop facing us at one point, so I ducked because maybe they'd shoot at him.P

I don't know, I've never been in a police chase before.

We're on mud in an industrial brickyard, dodging buildings and hitting barrels. At one point water and mud goes all over the windshield and we can't see where we're going. We don't hit the workers that are milling about, but we're going fast.P


After what feels like forever (it was actually about 60 seconds) we do a couple donuts, I thought maybe he was going to let me out or was trying to make tire smoke to obfuscate his car. But then we pull into this garage at full speed and lock up the brakes. A garage full of Pepsi. And cameras. The driver runs around and the first thing he says is "I got you back! I'm Jeff Gordon."5P



The problem is that everything in it was fake. Jeff wasn't driving the car, stunt driver Brad Noffsinger was. The car was the wrong model year. Every person in the ad was actually an actor. We were the first website to call it out and dissect everything. I did a few interviews on TV and wrote three stories about how Pepsi and Gordon duped the public. That pissed Jeff off and he wanted to do it again. Bigger. Better. He wanted to get me back.

And the way they decided to do that was in a mock police chase where I thought I was going to die. Looking back on it now, I'm not sure how I didn't guess beforehand, but it boils down to the fact that I had no reason to believe anything was off. P


I didn't question driving the Z06 so early because it's the sort of opportunity you just take no matter how it's offered to you. I didn't get in the cab imagining that Jeff Gordon is going to pick me up to prank me back for a small amount of investigative reporting that I did a year ago because why would I? You'd think that a felon wouldn't mention he was in prison for 10 years, but who knows? I've never been in a car with a felon before. During a police chase with said felon you don't first think "oh, this is a prank and I'll be fine." P

No. It was a normal day for me that turned into what I thought was going to be my last.P

How Jeff Gordon Scared The Crap Out Of Me With This Epic Prank
SEXPAND
So, just as I was able to say with total certainty that the first Pepsi Test Drive ad was totally fake, I can say with total certainty that this second Pepsi Test Drive ad is unequivocally, one hundred percent, totally, absolutely real. 9P

This day ended far better than I thought it would when I was in that cab, but it did leave me with two lasting issues. First, I didn't drive the Z06 (though Jeff has said he's going to make some calls to get me in a car). Second, if I'm ever really kidnapped, I'll just think it's Pepsi and Jeff Gordon pranking me. P

That could be a real problem.P

(FULL DISCLOSURE: Jalopnik paid to fly Travis to Charlotte and for all of the trip. Travis also isn't getting paid for being in what is, ultimately, an advertisement. After calling out Jeff Gordon last year I agreed to give him a chance to get Travis back. I had no idea it was going to be a police chase and I'm glad Travis doesn't hate me. — Matt)P

[el diablo]

It's never cool to hear the words, "I can't go back." Until you realize who it is that said that.