Today, we’re talking to John Ermen, 1/8th on-road racer and one of the RC pros featured in Car Wars, a Dutch television programme currently running in the Netherlands.
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EFRA: Hello John! It’s great to talk with you about Car Wars and your life in RC.
Let’s start at the beginning and let our readers get to know you a bit – where are you based and what is that you do now?
John: Well you got my name already 😉, and I’m from a little town in the south of The Netherlands called St Willebrord. In daily life I’m a Sr. System Engineer in a company called CM.com in Breda. I’m responsible for all the IT related stuff globally for that company. In general it means that I have knowledge of routers, switches, VPN connections, virtualization and all that is needed to get all our ~1000 employees the tools to work efficient. Besides my full time job I also have a shop in RC called Titanium RC and I have distribution of the brands of the companies who sponsor me. Brands like ARC, Team Titan, Blitz and REDS. Besides that, I try to help out at my local club MAC de Baanbrekers in Rucphen.
I got involved because I saw an ad on Facebook
that they were asking for RC professionals…
From your Instagram we can see that you’re pretty well into your RC racing – 1/8 nitro on-road, to be specific! It’s a pretty involved racing class, how did you get into that?
My brother and my father started with the hobby back in 1980 I wasn’t even born back then…. So naturally I traveled with the family to all the tracks and EFRA races all over Europe. When I could hold a transmitter at the age of 7 I got all the “old” stuff of my brother and pretty fast I got involved in racing national and international races. I think my first EFRA EC was at the age of 9.
And how quickly did you find out you were good at it? I hear you’ve won some big races? 😊
Let’s say I had great mentors, who already had 10 years of experience in the international racing scene. But I still had a steep learning curve in my starting years. I won 5 Dutch Nationals and a lot of other national races in other countries like France, Germany and Belgium. I also won an ENS race in Austria back in 2014. And a vice European-B title with some bad luck even further back.
I liked the idea of the show to get our hobby – and my passion – more in the picture.
That’s awesome! Now let’s hear about the Car Wars programme… What’s your involvement with this show and how did you come to be part of it?
I got involved because I saw an ad on Facebook that they were asking for RC professionals to work with a television production company. And because that’s exactly what I am, I made a video to apply for the job. I liked the idea of the show to get our hobby – and my passion – more in the picture. When it gets aired on national TV it will get a lot of exposure.
Here at EFRA we’re definitely interested in anything that will get RC out to normal people and share how awesome it is!
It’s not an average day that I run an RC car through a huge loop,
a burning ring of fire or even send a car of a building flying with a plane or a drone attached to it!
We understand that Jilles Grosskamp is also involved, what’s his part in all this? We’re big Jilles fans, being a former World and European Champ!
He is a coach in the TV show like me. But sometimes the best coach doesn’t have to be a World Champion. Soccer is a great example of that… 😉
Ha! Yes of course the expectations are a bit higher when you’ve got those sorts of titles. What are you hoping to see come out of this show – apart from working with celebrities, of course!
My hope is this will get more young people involved in the hobby/sport after seeing this on TV. Car Wars uses more hobby-level cars instead of track racing cars like I’m used to, because it’s aimed more at the general public and it’s more accessible. But I believe that when there are more RC enthusiasts, the chance they want to get more serious is bigger than if they never join the RC scene in the first place.
How did the recordings go?
Yes, well actually the work for me is already done. We finished recordings at the beginning of July. The program started airing in the Netherlands in late August and will be in Dutch.
De deelnemers van Car Wars moeten nog wel even oefenen! 😂 Gelukkig hebben ze nog even tot de eerste aflevering dit najaar! 🏎
Posted by SBS 6 on Tuesday, June 1, 2021
Excellent! Who are the RC pros, then?
The RC celebrities that play a key role in the show are: John Ermen, Jilles Groskamp, Robbin Hertong, Arie Manten, Wesley van Helmond and Stefan Mesker.
The Dutch celebrities are: Robert Doornbos (ex-Formula 1 and World Champ car driver), Najib Amhali (Comedian/Actor), Rene Froger (Singer), Herman de Blijker (Dutch Chef), Leontine van Moorsel (4-time Olympic gold cyclist) and Jamie Westland (Drummer of the Dutch band Di-Rect).
They put a lot of time and effort into it to create a spectacular TV show.
Wow! It’s quite a list – how do the RC pros and celebrities work together, then?
The story of the program is that real life RC car racing professionals will coach various TV celebrities in RC, so they can drive the cars in all kinds of crazy races with some real spectacular obstacles. The coaches are matched to their celebrities and together are a team who earn points in each show. After the first 3 shows, 1 team is eliminated and also after the 4th show the last team was eliminated. Show number 5 is the big finale with 4 teams in which the first 3 coaches can win prize money. The first place was €5000,- 2nd place was €2500,- and 3rd place was €1000,-
That sounds super cool!
Oh definitely! I mean it’s not an average day that I run an RC car through a huge loop, a burning ring of fire or even send a car of a building flying with a plane or a drone attached to it!
Sure beats the normal day job! So who is behind getting Car Wars off the ground?
The show is produced with Talpa Entertainment Productions, which is a great name in the show business here in The Netherlands, and they put a lot of time and effort into it to create a spectacular TV show.
I can tell you they used some really cool camera technologies to get the RC action in the picture. There were drones flying and filming the action, there were maybe placed 10 Go Pros alongside the track and there is even a Go Pro in each contestant’s car. Also the locations were spectacular. We went inside a snow hall and raced in the snow, went to the beach and even ran with an FPV (first-person view) prepared car in an old factory building.
My hope is this will get more young people involved
in the hobby/sport after seeing this on TV.
What kind of reach is the show hoping to get?
I’m hoping (and I think they are hoping the same) the show is getting international reach, because Talpa Entertainment Productions is hoping to sell the show concept to TV stations abroad to earn more money. For the sport/hobby it would be even better to get more reach in other countries than The Netherlands. Talpa Entertainment Productions also made Marble Mania, this show is now being aired in other European countries like Germany, Belgium and France. If this concept is a hit, it can happen that Car Wars is also aired in other European Countries.
We’re definitely crossing our fingers it’s a big hit! Now how about with your racing, can we expect to see you next year at the European Championships?
Whenever there is a European Championship I’m there! Also the Dutch GP in Rucphen was on my list of races this year.
Thanks John! 😃
You’re welcome!
The first episode of Car Wars aired on the 20th of August on 20:30 on SBS6 in The Netherlands and is aired every Friday after that.
