Deadly Team Demo Closing In On Reality TV Deal

JOLIET, IL--It's rare to find a reality TV show that isn't contrived in some way, with trumped up deadlines or overdramatized situations. Enter, stage left, CAR WARS, owned by motorsports TV celebrity Mr. Jan C. Gabriel, who presides over the roller derby-meets-automobiles style of extreme motorsport racing found only in Chicagoland at Joliet's Route 66 Raceway. It is there that Gabriel hosts four events a year, to standing room only crowds of 10,000 people. "Last month we had to turn 400 people away," he recalls.

Team Demo features genuine people with a genuine passion for an insanely extreme motor sport. Eight teams have to bring a total of 64 cars to every race. The logistics of finding enough 1970s and 1980s automobiles to transform into demo derby cars is beyond difficult. "Each of those cars requires 40 to 60 hours of preparation. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize the personal toll this takes on the drivers' personal lives in time and in money," says the Director of Media Relations, Denise McDonald Dorman. "Allegedly, one of the driver's wives wants to claim half of the demo team in their divorce settlement. You just can't fake this kind of reality TV. It's too perfect," she adds.

Gabriel's company, Lombard-based Creative One, cameraman Ken Heinemann and McDonald Dorman's WriteBrain Media have been instrumental in developing a TV pilot. "The time feels right," says McDonald Dorman, who has been promoting this pilot for over five years. This is our year to bring it to television." Proving her point, she references Steve Grein of NeWave TV in Palos Hills, who taped two team demo races for his own program, "Lucas Oil Presents" on the Speed Channel. The team demo races rank in the top five for the most-watched episodes on his program.

Gladiators on wheels meet reality TV. Says Gabriel, "It just doesn't get any better than this."

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