Meet 18-year-old Taylor James – trying to make his mark on the Tasmanian late night street racing scene in his Mum’s 1994 Holden Barina.
Australia’s Best Street Racer (AUS) creators Dylan Hesp and Michael O’Neill spoke to Melbourne WebFest to tell us all about what went down on the racetrack.
How long have you been working on your series, describe the process.
The initial idea of Australia’s Best Street Racer kicked off three years ago on Launceston’s blockie route in the shape of a low budget online pilot made in our spare time. Fast forward to March 2019 and we had the opportunity to produce a full series with the support of Screen Australia and Screen Tasmania and spent a lot of late nights driving in circles around Launceston in a very embarrassing 1994 Holden Barina.
Why did you choose the web format for your series?
We love online as a platform and always knew that YouTube would be the perfect fit for Street Racer. The series is primarily made for young males in regional Australia and YouTube is where they go to find content, so it was a no brainer.
Australia’s Best Street Racer Trailer
What inspired your series?
We both grew up in Launceston, Tasmania, where like most regional cities, getting your license and doing laps of the CBD in your Mum’s car is a rite of passage. We didn’t do too many blockies ourselves but would see people like Street Racer out and about every weekend. One night when looking for a new idea, we just asked, what would it look like to take this world and combine it with the most loveable and naive try hard possible?
What was the most interesting aspect of developing your series?
We loved creating Australia’s Best Street Racer, but our favourite aspect of developing the series was probably its release. We always hoped that the series would strike a chord with its audience, but we were blown away by how people reacted and where people found the series. At one point we were even marketing the series on Gumtree and Facebook marketplace, offering the ‘Fully sick modified Barina’ up for sale for only $10,000. It was just incredible to sit and watch the views come in and know that we created something people really loved.
Has the end product strayed far from your initial vision?
The final series didn’t stray far from the original vision. The comedic premise, narrative structure and hijinx of the full series are definitely more developed than what featured in our original no-budget pilot, but at its core it’s strikingly similar.
If Street Racer could give the audience one bit of advice, what would it be?
“yeah most peeple like dont realize, that if u go to KFC and ask for an upsized meel, but just get a can of mounten dew and then swap the gravy, not only do u save like a dolla thirty but youll get an extra large chips.”
As a street racer, what requirements are there, if any?
Your Mum’s car and a poor sleeping schedule. The rest is all set dressing.