Jean Pierre Jarier and Ronin

Just and FYI:
While listening to the audio commentary from the movie Ronin , John Frankenheimer notes that J-P Jarier did a fair amount of stunt driving for the movie.
FWIW, I think Ronin has the best car chase scene ever.
Cheers,

Ron

I did not know that. One of my fave auto chases too. Jumper as a stunt driver, well I guess there were signs during his F1 days that this might be a suitable employment for him (and only kidding for the J-PJ fans, I rooted so hard for him to win in the Lotus 79 after Ronnie's tragic death)

Yes, I have heard about that faintly. I can't remember where but it could have been in here as I was a lurker for a while.

Imagine, Gilles Villeneuve on his lightning starts and then suddenly Jarier is fast coming up in his mirrors!

Well, I think movies like "Bullitt", for instance, really paved the way for a killer car chase scene. I do like Ronin, though. Excellent movie. Now its even more cool, knowing a true professional was behind the wheel.

I think this is covered in a bit more detail on the ''Making of..." feature bundled with Ronin on DVD. I seem to recall there is quite a bunch of racers on the stunt team as well as Jarier, including some former European Touring Car luminaries whose indentities escape me for the moment.

The two chase scenes in that movie, one in the paris tunnels and one in nice, are some of the most ridiculous chases ever caught on film. It makes sense that really talented drivers were used to pull off some of the stunts. All of the parts in the paris chase where they are driving the wrong way up the autoroute and dodging big trucks and cars are just ridiculous.

Actually, competition drivers do not often make very good stunt drivers. The racer tries to go as fast as possible, the stunt driver tries to LOOK as if he is going as fast as possible - which isn't the same thing. IIRC, Ford wanted to make a TV commercial with a rally theme some years back. They used rally driversa at first, but had to bring in stunt drivers because the rally boys weren't spectacular enough.

If you think about it, the typical car chase involves cars (usually great Detroit tanks) being flung bodily sideways into corners on full opposite lock. Now, when was the last time you saw the top boys in the DTM, or NASCAR in one of their rare road-course outings, doing that? No, they brake earlier, take the best possible racing line through the corner, clip the apex neatly, seek to keep the car as straight as possible and feed the power back on to minimise wheelspin. It's the fastest way througbn a corner but it is hardly the stuff that gets a film director's juices flowing!