Long before Randy Douthit had any inkling that someday he’d be directing and producing a pair of long-running, reality-based court TV shows for the dynamo “take no prisoners” personality Judge Judith Sheindlin — 25 years of the original Judge Judy series; three and counting of Amazon Freevee’s Judy Justice — he, like many kids of his generation caught Speed Racer fever. Douthit harbored Mach 5 dreams and hopes that someday he too might become a race-car driver like the eponymous Speed… or the mysterious Racer X. (Having a go-kart track practically in the backyard of his boyhood home probably didn’t hurt, either.)
But it was during an early gig as a sports reporter that Randy Douthit initially began to notice certain innate intersections between his twin passions for television and motor sports. He believes these connections form a “through line” that have allowed him to successfully stay the distance both at the track and over the course of an award-winning career that’s clocked more than three decades.
Overcoming the Fear Factor
While covering races as a member of a local Portland, Oregon, news crew, Douthit was first able to test his mettle on a professional race course. It was exciting, yes, but also admittedly a bit frightening. “It was pretty scary,” he recalls. “Because we get in a car thinking, ‘OK, it’s like a go-kart or something, right?’ But no, it’s a real, full-fledged race car, and they’re doing 150 miles an hour.”
In pretty much all of the animal kingdom, the fear response to dangerous stimuli is intrinsic to a creature’s internal self-defense mechanisms. “The fear-defense system is an innate system organizing hard-wired species-typical defensive responses to threats that promote survival,” wrote authors Jasmin Ghaemi Kerahrodi and Matthias Michal in a 2020 study published in Science Direct. “The activation of the defensive behavior starts with an arousal reaction processed by the amygdala occurring without conscious awareness.”
However, no matter how fast he was lapping the course as a rookie driver and reporter, even though he knew it was only natural to be scared, Douthit didn’t want to project a fearful image to viewers. “What’s really interesting — it’s a of the human body, I think — because you may start out being scared, but after a few laps, you’re not scared anymore. In fact, you’re pushing it to go faster,” Douthit says.
Once you get used to high speed, even though the cars are so low to the track that you’re just a scant few inches from the tarmac — “which makes it very tight and very scary” — Douthit says you eventually become acclimated. “You’re pushing the throttle down and you’re doing 150, 160, 170, 180, 200 miles per hour, and you’re looking around ,‘OK, I’m alive. This is working.’”
Driving Discipline: Transforming Self-Defense Into Self-Control
Learning to channel the energy of an autonomic fear reaction into a controlled, mindful force behind the wheel of a race car was something Douthit says translated to his experience behind the scenes of the open-throttle, split-second decision atmosphere of television production.
“No matter how many times you’ve done it, the first time you’re on the track and on the day, you’re a little nervous,” Douthit explains. “You don’t want to show that you’re nervous, but there’s always somewhat of fear, which you want to get rid of as soon as possible.”
Whether it’s at the track or in the control room, once your self-confidence locks into gear, Douthit believes you are then able to manage conditions as they come at you and adjust your pace and trajectory accordingly. “You’ve got to follow the line — what’s called the racing line,” he says, adding the caution, “You don’t want to drive too slowly… too slowly can be just as dangerous, if not more so, than driving too fast.”
As producer/director for Judy Justice and its predecessor, Randy Douthit credits the lessons he learned at the track about discipline and overcoming jitters with helping him succeed in a tough and often unpredictable environment. “I’ve got to make sure the cameras are covering the right thing at the right time. And much of that is very similar to racing because if you’re not hitting the right thing at the right time, you could be in trouble — and we don’t want that.”
Over the years, Randy Douthit has lived through enormous changes, both in the television industry and at the racetrack. Breakthroughs in technology have brought TV viewers everything from high-definition broadcasts that let them experience sports on huge at-home screens that are as close to being in the stands as it gets, to catching up with Judge Judy’s latest rulings while on their smartphones.
Meanwhile, with the introduction of electric and hydrogen-fuel-powered cars, recycled tires, more Earth-friendly racing venues, and other cutting-edge innovations, Formula One has embraced the green movement, which promises increasingly powerful performances with a simultaneously diminishing carbon footprint.
But no matter what the future holds in store, Randy Douthit believes he’ll continue to master the ride every time he climbs behind the wheel, whether it’s a literal or figurative one. “It doesn’t matter if racing never changes. What matters is if we let racing change us,” said Racer X in the 2008 film version of Speed Racer. “Every one of us has to find a reason to do this. You don’t climb into a T-180 to be a driver. You do it because you’re driven.” As anyone who knows him can tell you, “being driven” is one thing Randy Douthit knows inside and out.
Article Last Updated: June 25, 2024.
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