CurtAfter their event here in Melbourne, I had the rare opportunity to sit down with Mark and Sam, the creative forces behind Nightride, the critically acclaimed YouTube phenomenon from Poland. We talked all things cars, what it’s like being upside down in Australia, and the age-old question: do kangaroos really exist?
I’m here with the guys from Nightride for this edition of Find Your Zen, and I can tell you, this definitely wasn’t on my bingo card today! They’ve just wrapped up their event at Calder Park here in Melbourne.
Guys, welcome, how’s your time been so far in Australia?!
Mark: It’s pretty hard to be upside down for that long. There’s quite a lot of blood in my head, but I’m enjoying it so far. Weather is wonderful – it’s raining every day – but the people are cool, so I’m having fun.
Sam: Yeah, same, man. We actually never checked the weather before coming here. I mean, we checked and it was saying sunny all the time, beautiful spring.
Mark: When Mike Lake invited us, he said, “Guys, let’s do the event, let’s do it in spring. It’s going to be beautiful weather, we’re going to go to the beach, surfing.”
Sam: He also said that there’s a lot of kangaroos in Australia. We haven’t seen a single kangaroo in seven days. But yeah, it’s been beautiful, man.
For those who may not know you guys – I’m personally a big fan – can you introduce yourselves and let us know who you are and what you do?
Sam: Yeah, so we are Nighride, we come from Poland. We started as just a group of friends working on cars. We started making videos and putting them on YouTube, and now we have a pretty big following on YouTube, and we still do what we love the most, which is just playing with cars and having fun making videos. And we travel a lot, we go to events, and that’s why we’re here in Australia too.
Mark: We always kind of wanted to go to Australia. There were a few events that we wanted to see, but we never had the push to actually come here because it is very, very far away. But then we got to know Mike Lake in New Zealand last year, and he’s a very talkative guy and he can persuade you very easily. By that I mean he just messaged us, “Yo, want to come to Australia?” We said, “Yes.”
He’s so good looking, charming…
Mark: Come on! He’s the most beautiful man.
Sam: The hair man!
Mark: That guy is beautiful!
Sam: Halfway Hangs is one of those events. Its so Sick.
Mark: It was one of the bucket-list things we want to come for. I suppose we’ll need to come to Australia a second time for Halfway Hangs (if they ever do it again). I don’t know if it’s happening again or not. May or may not.
Sam started with the Miata and now you’ve got a bunch of JDM cars. What draws you to Japanese cars?
Sam: I always liked Japanese cars because of all the movies and games we used to play and watch when we were young. And then drifting culture, of course – it’s mainly Japanese culture. Going to Japan only made the love for Japan stronger and stronger. I think we’ve been to Japan seven times, and every time we just want to go back.
Mark: For me, it’s slightly different than most of the guys in the crew, because the guys really love Japanese cars, but for me it’s more about cars in general. I don’t really have specific tastes. The CRX is one of my cars, but I also have a Corvette, which is American. I have a Lada, which is Russian… with a Japanese engine – but it doesn’t work. I really love cars in general, so I’m not specifically a JDM guy or a USDM guy. I just love a bit of everything.
Is it how they look, as well?
Mark: Purely a vibe. I’ve been looking into lowriders recently, and donk cars. I would love to get a Lincoln Continental Mk V and make it a donk.
The Miata, from my understanding, it’s still got the 1UZ V8, right? Still driving it? That car is special to me as its why I started watching you guys way back when I had my NA
Sam: I keep it. It’s standing in front of the shop looking cool, but I don’t drive it. It’s drivable, I just don’t drive it.
Do you think you changed the driving dynamics with that motor?
Sam: No, it still drives like a Miata, man. It’s a lightweight engine. You can still take the roof down. It still drives like a Miata, it just has a lot of power. You would think it made the car heavy, but it doesn’t – the weight distribution is 55 to 45, so it doesn’t change much from stock. It’s a very cool car. It’s also super reliable, because it’s a stock NA engine with a lot of power. I just don’t use it anymore.
And Mark, you just picked up a CRX, as a big Honda guy myself, how are you finding it?
Mark: Enjoying it. Same as the Civics we have – exactly the same. I always wanted a CRX, so when I could sell my Civic and buy a CRX for the same price, that’s exactly what I did.
Do you guys want to do more grip days? Or just stick to drifting?
Mark: Next year I would love to try with my CRX. I’m not big on competition, I’m not very comfortable with it at all, but I would just like to try driving fast – well, not fast, its a Honda. It’s hard to justify, because there aren’t many fast track. Well, One really fast track.
Especially with the cars we have now in drifting – when I drive my drift car on the track it’s faster than the grip car. It’s different. But then again, the Honda is very different.
Sam: Also, for me, drifting just gives you more adrenaline and rush. There’s more aggression, more style as well, and it’s very cool to watch.
Grip driving is pretty boring to watch, I would say – even Formula One. When drifting, anything can happen. I did a couple of track days, but it just didn’t excite me as much. I will try, I’m not super into it, but I would like to just try.
Moving away from the cars for a moment, You mentioned the “vibe” earlier when it comes to your taste in cars, the vibe definitely translates to your videos, Great colours, ProMist Filter etc. Do you have a background in cinematography or photography, or did you just decide one day to pick up a camera?
Sam:No. I started very small, when we were super young, before even having a driving licence. We were BMX riding and I was just filming our group of friends riding BMX, and that slowly evolved into really enjoying the process of creating videos. Once I got older and got my first car, I got into videography – I was filming weddings and events, so it was my job. And then I connected that passion with the passion for cars on YouTube.
The question we ask everyone is: how do you Find your Zen?
Mark: For me, it’s all about not setting super high expectations of anything we do. That way you cannot be upset with any outcome. And no matter what we do, we do it for ourselves first.
Lovely.
So if you’re thinking about chasing something that will do well or make money – we do have, of course, those thoughts in the background – but the first thing is always, “What do I want to do? What is something that I always wanted to build or make?” And then the content and everything comes with that. Because once you buy a car that you really love, that you want to do – not for the views, not for the content – the content will come either way, and that feels most natural. So that’s my kind of zen, just making content. I always loved being kind of an entertainer. I played music when I was young. I always loved being on the stage, performing in front of people, so I just have that thing. Fishing too. I mean, I’ve been fishing all my life, but now I’ve picked it up again. I always loved fishing. It’s better than cars – because it’s free. There’s actually some fishing on the second channel.
Sam: Colour grading. Yeah, my zen could be colour grading, editing the videos. And also my zen could be Sunday after 4pm. We work the whole week, we film videos, I edit, and on Sunday I just click publish, post, and then I have half a day of zen before Monday morning, which gets straight back into the content.
And also, lately my zen has been riding motorcycles, man. I’ve got into motorcycles a lot lately.
Hey Mark, whats the go with the Lada?
Mark: Lets not talk about negativity, ok!?
What does “Chuck a skid” mean to you?
Sam: What? what language is this?!
Mark:That sounds like “Do a burnout”… Dymu in polish
The real question is, are we finally going to see a kangaroo in Australia?
We could start a podcast right now about conspiracy theories: Australia is lying about having kangaroos. There’s not a single kangaroo. It’s AI. Seven days without a kangaroo.
We were looking. There’s nothing. There’s no kangaroos…
I need to shoutout Hao from Koka for hooking this one up and Mike lake for bringing the lads to Australia
Check out the links for Nightride below:
Website: https://nightride.pl/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nightride.pl/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@NIGHTRIDEPL
Koka Dept: https://www.kokadept.com/
Mike Lake: https://twostepgarage.com/
