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This weeks interview is with Hot Rod staff contributor, and Roadkill famous YouTube personality, Mike Finnegan. Many of you are likely fans of Roadkill due to the hilarious real-life antics of David Freiburger and Mike, but what you may not know is that the entire show was somewhat of an accident and that it could have all disappeared just a few months ago!

Taking a step back, Mike grew up in Southern California and attended college in New York for an arts degree.Following college he returned to California and started working at magazines right after college. His first foray was with Trucking Magazine, and Mike sealed the job by arriving in a mini truck he had built and modified. The  figured if Mike could build them, they could teach him to write and take pictures.

From there he jumped around from magazine to magazine, including a hot rod boating rag. Finally though, the dream of having the magazine job occurred with David Freiburger hired him at Hot Rod Magazine. From there forward, life would never be different.

Mike shared that the humble beginnings of Roadkill had a lot to due with timing and luck. Just after starting at Hot Rod he and David Freiburger took a road trip together. Freiburger filmed it, they edited something together, and put it up on YouTube. People enjoyed it, and the decision was made to make it into a regular show. They named the show RoadKill and there was no going back!

Producing Roadkill is not a normal TV type affair. It is three to seven days of filming with no script, no knowing what is going to happen, and there is (according to Mike) rarely a plan. After the trip and after the filming there are still quite a few days of sorting through footage for the best bits and condensing it down to a half hour show. Roadkill is a labor of love that is now showing results (i.e. millions of views within a week of each show airing). I even witnessed the power of Roadkill on the latest Hot Rod Power Tour with many people – old and you – asking me where they could find Mike Finnegan to get his autograph!

As you’ll learn during the show, Mike recently left Southern California to move his family to Georgia. The move was completely personal, and he knew was one that could potentially cost him his job. However, luckily the process of creating Roadkill at this point can be done remotely for most things, and a way was found to keep going that allowed everyone to win. Best of all, Mike was able to live where he wanted but still maintain the dream job of hosting Roadkill!

I did ask Mike about his favorite episodes, and while he has many favorite moments from many shows one of his top experiences is drivng the ’68 Charger “General Mayhem” at the DirtFish Rally School in Oregon.  Since Mike and I are the same age and grew up in the era of The Dukes of Hazzard I can certainly understand why slinging a ’68 or ’69 Charger around in the dirt would be a dream come true! (Side note: it turns out we also share the same  almost stupidly obsessive desire to have one a ’69 Charger. I’m glad to know I’m not alone.)

You can follow Mike on many social pages but he suggests the best place is Instagram as Finnegan999 but you can also find him on Facebook and Twitter. You can catch RoadKill on YouTube every fourth Friday

Thanks for the great interview Mike. Looking forward to the next Roadkill!

-Rob Kibbe

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