Bri Lynch: A Legacy On The Racetrack
How did you get into stunt driving full time?
I started consistently working after filming Creed in 2014. They were rehearsing in a parking lot, doing all their motorcycle stuff and everything, and then somebody had to go home.
They had to leave the set for some reason while they were in the middle of rehearsing and my dad was like, “Oh, my kid can do it.” They’re like, “Okay sure. Where’s your kid?” He’s like, “She’s right there.” So, I got on the motorcycle. It was easy stuff. We’re just riding down the street holding a formation while Michael B. Jordan was running.
Eventually, when the director, Ryan Coogler, came to watch the rehearsal, he was like, “We have a girl in this?” And they were like, “No, she’s just filling in right now.” He’s like, “I think I want her to work on this.” Because there were no girls at all.
Once that movie came out, I never stopped getting phone calls.
Who introduced you to stunt driving?
Easy answer is nepotism. My dad’s a stunt driver and he kind of introduced me to it and showed me the ropes. But I actually did start racing motocross when I was six. I got my first dirt bike when I was three years old.
So that definitely helped me progress into the world of stunt driving. It really set me up for success in that way. Motocross, they say, is the foundation of motorsports.
Would he teach you tricks?
When it would rain, my dad would make me practice hydroplaning in parking lots, so that I knew what to do if that were ever to happen to me in real life. Same thing with drifting and donuts.
What was it like drifting with your mom for the first time?
She was so scared, terrified to get in the car with me. I think what freaks her out so much is that she doesn’t feel like she’s in control. My dad used to drift corners taking me to school, and he’d do the same thing when she was in the car but without any warning. He found it funny. But I had to walk her into her first ride with me. We probably sat in my car with her just sitting in there for ten minutes.
That’s really sweet.
Yeah, it was like, we can just sit here. We don’t have to go anywhere. You don’t even need to put your seat belt on. Just sit here, relax, chill, it’s cool. She was like, “Okay.” I turned my car on. She was all jumpy waiting for the car. I’m like, “No, it’s fine.” And then finally we went out on the track and then I had to try to figure out how to drift slower, so I could walk her into it, which is extremely difficult. It’s so hard to do that!
I was like, “Okay, we’re just going to do one corner and did one corner.” Then I’m like, “Okay, let’s do two corners and now we’re going to connect the two, okay?” I literally had to walk her through it. I was trying my best. I was like, “Mom, please.” I was like, “Please drift with me.”
I imagine your childhood was a little different because of your dad’s job.
My dad wanted a boy, but he ended up not really caring that he had a daughter instead. My dad was just like, “You know what? Screw it. I don’t care. I love this kid and I don’t really care if it’s a boy or girl. I’m just going to do what I know how to do.” That’s why I got my first dirt bike when I was three years old.
I think most of my life, I kind of stuck out like a sore thumb and that’s something that I just had to get used to. I was just like, “I don’t belong anywhere. I don’t fit in anywhere.” But I think it’s good because it really shaped me into who I am today. I raced motocross with a bunch of boys, and I was always the only girl.
On top of that, I was the only Black girl and one of the only Black people in motocross, you know?
What’s your day to day like?
I used to go to the track really often, easily three times a week. Now I go once a week or every other week just because there’s not as many events going on. I used to go to find a track gig just to drive.
Now, for the most part, I spend a lot of time in the garage just trying to get my car ready for the next event. If I’m not in my garage than I’m in one of my friend’s garages trying to help them get their car ready for the next event too. Or, if I’m not doing that, I’m working on a stunt driving job. I’m currently quarantining in Canada to get ready to work on Batwoman (Season 2).
How’s working on Batwoman?
It’s kind of full circle for me. My first car was a Pontiac Solstice and I had it painted just black, similar to the Batmobile, so that’s pretty cool.
What are some recent movies you’ve worked on?
The Fate of the Furious (F8), Venom, and Black Panther.
How was it balancing a full workload with school?
Eventually, I got so busy with stunt driving that I had to drop out of school. But my dad was supportive. He’s like, “You can go back to school anytime.” Because school, you can now do online, and it doesn’t matter what age you are. If you want a degree, go ahead and do it. Because with this, it’s better to start early.
It wasn’t a total drop out though. In the middle of college, during finals, I was in South Korea filming the huge car chase for Black Panther. I was the lead. Super important job, and I was so busy stressing out about school the whole time that we were there. In between takes, I was literally studying for finals on my phone.
That’s crazy.
I mean, the movie turned out great, so it’s fine.
But it sounds like college was still a priority for you, even if your parents were supportive for you to focus purely on your stunt career.
Yeah, it was. I mean, I was in school for something that I loved (filmmaking and photography). So, it wasn’t just a chore for me. It was something that I actually wanted to do. Eventually, we were in the middle of shooting. I think we had two weeks left, and I had to submit with my final. I was working nights, so I did my finals during the day when I was supposed to be sleeping.
Anyway, before submitting them and going to work, I looked the answers one last time then left the hotel with my laptop open so it could upload everything.
But when I came back, I saw that they were not submitted. Maybe something happened with the hotel Wi-Fi or something. I don’t know what happened. But they wouldn’t accept it. It was brutal. After that I just never went back to school. I was like, “You know what? It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
Tell us about your favorite project.
I think there’s a few of them. Nobody’s actually ever asked me that. Number one, Black Panther. It was really great because we had a lot of time to test the cars and get ourselves acquainted with the cars and really practice everything before we shot that. Unfortunately, they ended up cutting a whole lot of stuff that we were supposed to do because they were running short on time.
And then this other show called Treadstone, that I worked on was really cool too. It was where I got to do my first cannon (a car flip), which is crème de la crème of stunt driving. It’s probably the biggest stunt driving stunt we could do.
What are some other stunts you enjoy doing?
Dirt drops is another favorite. It’s like when you’re pretty much on the very edge of the track and your wheel actually falls off of the track because you’re that close to the edge of it, that you end up in the dirt a little bit, but you can recover from it. It’s sick. It’s so cool. That just means that you’re trying to find the limit of your car. Trying to find where the edge of the track is.
It seems like you learned how to fix your own cars.
I got tired of handing our car over to a shop, so eventually I learned how to do things on my own. They used to keep it six to nine months at a time. And I was like, “How am I supposed to get any better at driving when these people have our car for so long? And I can’t drive anything else. What am I supposed to do?”
What kind of things are you constantly fixing up?
Honestly, anything that breaks. My race car is kind of the queen of having an attitude for whatever reason, there’s something that goes wrong with it every single time that I drive it. Even if I don’t drive it, I go to turn it on and something else is wrong. I don’t know why.
What are you driving at the moment?
A blue Nissan 350Z.
Did you have to fix it up?
When I bought the car, the person said it needed valve seals. I said, “How difficult can that be? It can’t be that hard.” Turns out, it’s a huge job. One of my friends actually helped me do the valve seals, but I was like, “I want to learn anyway. It’s fine. I want this car to be a full on race car.” Like angle kit, roll cage, the whole nine yards. I was like, “I’ll take my time and figure it out.”
So, I did the valve seals on the car. We put a roll cage in it. I learned how to weld a tiny bit, just because I wanted to see what it was like. I did my suspension. I did all the things that I was supposed to do right to take the car into track. And then we took the car to the track for the first time and the engine seized the first day.
It seized?
Yeah, so then I brought the car back home and had to learn how to take an engine out of a car.
Mind you, I was still learning righty tighty, lefty loosey, different sizes of drives for sockets and such. Now I got to pull an engine, and I’m not going to hand it over to shop, because that’s going to take them forever. So, I bought the stuff I needed, like an engine hoist. I had a couple of friends that knew what they were doing so I asked if they could help if needed.
It took me a week and a half to get the first engine out, because I was still learning. Now, I can take an engine out in a day or a day and a half.
Are you still sticking with the 350Z?
Yeah, I love them. I think they’re great cars to start with. They don’t need a whole lot of work if you buy a good one (doesn’t need valve seals, has low compression etc.).
Is it common to stunt drivers to have to know how to fix up their own cars?
Absolutely not.
What are some of the common injuries you see in stunt driving? Do you have to work out your arms?
No, you don’t have to. I’m sure it would help. I keep up with flexibility and call it a day. I’m like, “You guys, I have balance. I’m good. I don’t need to do anything else.” I don’t like being sore.
The difference between stunt driving and stunt performing is most stunt performers have to be a certain size to match the actor or the actress that they’re doubling. But with stunt driving, we’re inside the car. Nobody ever sees us. So, I will be at craft service if you need me!
How did the stunt driving community react to the pandemic?
The stunt industry is really not promised. You can easily go three to nine months without work and the pandemic made that clear. We weren’t essential for a really long time. Most of us went most of 2020 without working, which is scary. You’re used to making a decent living, then all of a sudden there are no shows running and nobody is working on anything, you don’t have a degree or do anything else. What are you supposed to do?
It seems like motorsports is still very much a male-dominated industry.
There is absolutely no reason for females not to drive. There’s literally no reason for us not to because there is no physical difference between us and a guy in the car. We can literally do exactly what they’re doing because it’s not a physical sport. You can be 500 pounds and drift, or you can be 95 pounds and drift, it really does not matter. And everybody is the same once we get in the car. It’s literally a learning curve that you have to pass, and then it’s a mentality.
What is the hardest skill, maneuver or technique to master?
360s. I hate those things.
Like a donut?
No, a 360 is completely different. So, you start off facing one way and then your car does a complete 360 and ends up facing that way again. I’ve done it a handful of times and it’s not just something that I practice because I get really dizzy and I hate doing it so much. I cannot stand it.
It’s like one of my dad’s favorite things to do in the freaking world and I cannot stand it. It’s a very aggressive move.
Is it just because it makes you dizzy?
It makes me really dizzy, yeah. I’m very sensitive when it comes to motion sickness, which is go figure, right?
I will happily flip a car upside down. I will flip a car over all day long.
Flip a car? What do you mean?
Yeah. Literally crash the car and flip it over. Dude, part of stunt driving is crashing and wrecking and stuff. It’s probably my favorite thing to do. It allows me to push the car to its limit without being fearful. Obviously, I’m fearful for my own life, but it’s nice because I can actually push this car to its limit and nobody’s going to say anything, because the more I push it to the limit, the better that it’s going to look on film.
You have permission to just go all out.
Yep. They’re like, “Destroy it.” I’m like, “Yes. Thank you. I’m so excited.”
Do you recall a time when you were genuinely in fear for your life?
My first time that I was ever actually scared for my life was probably on this show called Jay Leno’s Garage. It was Season 4, Episode 11. I flipped a car over for the first time ever. I did not know what to expect. I just had to really trust the people that set it up with my life. My dad, and his two good friends who are two of the top stunt coordinators in the industry, did these kinds of things all the time.
I watched my dad come out of so many different car crashes and roll overs and stuff like that. But I had never done it. So I had no idea what to expect and I just freaked out. I was strapped down completely in the car, in my fire suit, strapped down so tight that I could hardly breathe.
I was like, “Okay, you’re just telling me to drive straight and then hit this ramp, after I did this pointer.” Hit this ramp with only one side of my car, crash into the back of that car and let go on the steering wheel so I don’t break my thumbs.
How old were you?
I was 21. Apparently, I was going to make it out alive. So, I was like, “Okay, that’s fine.” If not, at least it was caught on film.
Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Running my business successfully. I started a company in late 2020 called Chasing Checkers, which resembles the checkered flag at the end of every race. It’s the one thing that every single motorsport has in common. So, I have been completely absorbed in that, and absolutely nothing but that.
Tell us a little more about Chasing Checkers.
Basically, it’s a brand for motorsport enthusiasts (selling apparel, accessories etc.). But for people that have a progressive mindset. I think that’s what all serious motorsports enthusiasts have in common. You can’t just go day by day pretending that race day isn’t coming up. You have to think about every single day because you either need to be prepping your car, need to get yourself ready, or you’re going to be getting your whole trailer ready or whatever it is to get ready for competition day.
What’s a philosophy that’s become a through line in everything you do?
Every single lap you’re doing, you’re trying to be better than the last. It doesn’t matter if you’re drifting, racing, racing motocross, dirt track, whatever it is. You’re trying to be faster; you’re trying to be better, whatever it is so that you can end up on the podium.
