Rob:  When stormy weather rumbles through the state, most head for cover; but not one filmmaker, and with a vehicle built, in great part, by students right here in Oklahoma, he believes his work will change the way we look at tornadoes.  Our Brian Bendele caught up with him as the finishing touches were put on Oklahoma’s tornado car.
Brian:  Images like this strike fear into the hearts of people everywhere, winds blowing hundreds of miles per hour, destroying everything in its path, forcing everyone to take cover; everyone that is except Sean Casey.
Sean Casey:  I get butterflies every day that it looks like there is going to be tornadoes, and I step into that vehicle. You know there are some butterflies and some nerves; but, you know, to do what we have to do, that has to disappear.
Brian:  Casey is an extreme filmmaker and one of the members of the hit show, Storm Chasers; a program that follows a group of storm chasers as they drive into storms in hopes of getting close to the action.  But in order to do that, they have to have a vehicle.
Casey:  We want to get shots, footage, that people haven’t gotten before.  And that entails getting extremely close to a tornado, and going inside of a tornado.  Ideally, we want to park this 16,000 pound beast in a ditch, start filming as a tornado is coming directly at us, and then filming that impact in the IMAX format, which is pretty much the largest, moving picture format there is.
Brian:  And the vehicle he wanted, could only be built in Oklahoma; an opportunity that was presented to Great Plains Technology Center and USA 6x6 in Lawton.
Allen Bellamy:  Basically, each piece is custom cut.  There was no blueprints; there’s no plans.  We do have a clay model that he made.  And basically they gave us the height that they wanted on the inside, and that’s what we had to go off of.
Brian:  The concept already exists in the first tornado intercept vehicle or TIV 1.  What Casey wanted was a bigger, badder version, and he needed it quick.  Something instructor Allen Bellamy says is a unique teaching tool.  
Bellamy:  They’re learning to think for themselves, because I can’t always be here with them.  The guys that have been building it, you know, if they come up to a problem with an angle, a piece that won’t fit just right, they’re solving that; they’re figuring that out.
We just cut a V into it, to make it fit on top of here.  
Brian:  Students, Ethan King and John Morris, have devoted many hours to the vehicle and are excited to see the completion.
Ethan King:  Just working on something that is going out into a tornado, and putting our work to the test.  It’s a pretty amazing deal.
John Morris:  It’s going to be a big help on helping us get a job somewhere.  They may see this on our resume and see it on the TV and stuff, how kids have been helping out.  They’ll be, you really were there helping with this, and did a lot on it, so. 
Brian:  And it’s here, at USA 6x6, where the TIV takes its final shape.
Heath Woods:  It’s kind of a once in a life time thing.  You know not many people in Middle America, Oklahoma, get Hollywood coming out trying to get their camera rig built for them.
Brian:  And when Heath Woods is talking about a camera rig, he is referring to the 16,000 pound TIV 2, fully equipped with thick plates of metal, bullet-proof windows and more traction to get out of any sticky situation.
Woods:  We’ve got ten tires on the ground, and we put ARB air lockers in all three axles.  In a sense it’s a rock crawler chassis.  Anybody who knows anything about 4-wheel drive going from an open differential to a lock differential, with that many tires on the ground, the weight and mass is going to help you; it’s going to get you glued.  You know you’re not going to spin on top.  You’re going to sink in and push along.
Casey:  This time around, we are building the ideal vehicle, and being built by professionals; you know, USA 6x6, guys that understand off-roading; guys that can take a 4x4 truck and turn it into a 6x6.
Brian:  An ideal vehicle, in an ideal state, to get all the action caught on film.
Rob:  Joining me now is our Brian Bendele.  So is the tornado car ready to rumble down the road yet?
Brian:  Well, it is Rob.  It left just last week, headed to Denver to get all the technical computers and the camera mounts set up inside the car, and then it’s off chasing tornadoes.
Rob:  So what exactly does Sean hope to accomplish, besides not getting killed?
Brian:  Well, you know Rob, you could tell with his enthusiasm, the one thing he wants to get is that “money-shot.”  He has three minutes worth of film in that IMAX camera.  And within that time, he’s hoping to catch twenty seconds.  Twenty seconds is all he wants, to get in front of the tornado, see it coming at him, and then catch that impact.
Rob:  Well, I don’t know about you, Brian, but I’ve seen first-hand what an F-5 tornado can do.  Are they concerned whether this vehicle will actually hold up in that type of weather?
Brian:  Well, we’ll find out when the show airs in October.  The guys at USA 6x6, and the students at Great Plains, believe in their product, believe in what they’ve built, and they know it’s a sturdy vehicle.  However the sheer weight of it is a big concern.  Because, we all know this Oklahoma red clay gets sticky, and if that vehicle were to sink, that’s 16,000 pounds, and in order to pull it out, you’d have to have even a larger vehicle just to pull out that beast of a vehicle.