Fast & Furious was from his life street racing! Ralphy Estevez | Podcast

Shop our merch on eatsleeprace.com! Save 10% off with promo code: PODCAST
Episode #014 with Ralphy Estevez. An OG NYC Street Racer that was making a living hustling other racers. An editor from Vibe magazine wrote an article about his Street Racing in NYC and the rest is history of this became the foundation of the Fast & Furious franchise. Ralphy has gone on to build a career in motorsports as a racer, tuner, and performance shop owner. Hosts: Brian - @brianesr Ricky - @ricky_clm This week's guest @ralphy Producer - @navlifestylemedia

[@Kev27RS]

34:25 Ken Li was working as a reporter at the "New York Daily News" in New York in the late 90s. The VIBE MAGAZINE studio was in New York City. That’s why the article was featured in the magazine. Ken said in an interview a while ago that he had plans to go to California in the late 90s to explore the import tuner - street racing scene but since he was working in New York at the time, he decided to stay there and simply explore what was going on in New York regarding the street racing scene. He also found it crazy since most people don’t drive a car in New York, so it was interesting to see how the street racers managed to do that illegal activity in a place like New York! 😉

[@Johnnie5213]

😎👍👍

[@Kev27RS]

40:58 I have the original DVD that has the "RACER X" story included as a feature! It takes a few minutes to read the whole article text! It mentions stuff that Rafael talked about here in the interview but also some stuff that he twisted a bit… He’s kinda "New York biased"… 😅 The "RACER X" text clearly mentions that the whole import drag - street racing emerged in California, mainly Southern California and that New York followed a few years later… It also mentions that the fastest cars were on the West Coast, one of them being a Civic Hatchback that did a 10 second 1/4 mile! 😉

[@Kev27RS]

43:37 … It wasn’t because of budget reasons. David Ayer (one of the writers) rewrote the whole script. He didn’t like the initial New York based draft. The initial draft written by Gary Scott Thompson was very stereotypical and only had white people (mostly Italian-American characters) in it. It had no diversity at all… It also didn’t have much car / street racing sequences. Generally speaking, it wasn’t a good script… Some people involved with the production didn’t feel like it would be a good idea. David Ayer set it in California because he felt it was more appropriate as street racing was big on the West Coast and the import tuner scene, like mentioned earlier, was at home over there! The California vibe and sunshine was also a factor, it was more appealing for that type of movie. It was definitely a good decision! 🙂👍

[@Kev27RS]

44:40 A profit of 750 MILLION dollars? Where did he get that from? 😅 Worldwide box office was around 207 million dollars!

[@Kev27RS]

31:05 … Crazy! Makes sense though, as California was the home of the Import Tuner Scene! It was born in So Cal.

[@Kev27RS]

40:11 It was filmed between July and October 2000 in California.

[@AirWalker718]

Great interview!! Really displayed how much influence Ralphy had on the culture💪🏾💪🏾

[@anthonyserpente]

I spoke with Lisa Kubo she bringing the hatch back out. In orlando

[@sajymathew7197]

This was another good one!! Great to listen to Ralphy sharing.

[@Guardianautoservices]

Drag racing isn't dieing

[@K.u.i.MotorSports]

These are the types of pods that I want to listen to/watch!!

[@La-mak1nagarage]

Dominicans stand up baby

[@Kev27RS]

38:10 The VIBE MAGAZINE article from '98 wasn't the only reason why "The Fast And The Furious" was created to begin with… The California Import Tuner Scene and Street Racing was a big reason behind it! In a matter of fact, street racing was big in California, it was all over the place. Has been going on for over 50 years… The Import Tuner Scene was born in Southern California! That's where it emerged from. The producers and even some of the actors (Paul and Vin were two of them) went to street racing spots at night and to certain Import car shows in California during '99 - 2000 before starting production of the movie. It was a West Coast / Cali thing and was supposed to be that way! One of the writers (David Ayer) rewrote the whole script. He didn’t like the initial New York based draft. The initial draft written by Gary Scott Thompson was very stereotypical and only had white people (mostly Italian-American characters) in it. It had no diversity at all… It also didn’t have much car / street racing sequences. Generally speaking, it wasn’t a good draft idea. David Ayer set it in California because he felt it was more appropriate as street racing was big on the West Coast and the import tuner scene, like mentioned earlier, was at home over there! The California vibe and sunshine was also a factor, it was more appealing for that type of movie. In the commentary - narration by director Rob Cohen that can be found on the original 2002 DVD, Rob says that when he first saw the article, he wasn’t convinced by it and didn’t see a movie in it… It wasn’t until he saw a street race going on one night in California a few weeks later, that he finally saw something cool about it and wanted to create a movie! 🙂

[@La-mak1nagarage]

West coast wanna own everything damn

[@Kev27RS]

@@La-mak1nagarage What are you talking about?

[@kevinturbo]

Very good interview !!!!!

[@PopeyeV8]

👏👏👏👏