Mike Ryan

To describe Mike Ryan's career with automobiles is to describe a passion for anything that you can fly, float, ride or drive. From airplanes to cars and trucks, bulldozers, Ferraris, Cigarette Boats, motorcycles, buses and big trucks, Ryan has driven, flown, ridden, crashed or raced just about all of them. Learning to operate trucks and heavy equipment at a local nursery before he was old enough to legally drive and playing with go-karts, motorcycles and boats as a kid spurred Ryan's interest in speed and performance and led him to a 40+ year long stunt driving career that he has no intention of quitting anytime soon. When he was just 19, his passion for automobiles brought him into stuntman Ronnie Ross' (Ronald C. Ross') shop in Southern California, where Ryan began working for free in exchange for stunt driving lessons. Within six months, Ryan performed his first paid stunt, although the modest Californian will tell you that it took seven years before he was well established as a stunt driver. In 1985 at 27 years old, Mike nearly lost his life while flying back home from the Oshkosh Air Show in his Biplane. When Search and Rescue found him, nearly 18-hours after his crash in the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico, he had nearly bled out and had broken 28-bones. It took many months and many surgeries before he was able to walk again and his stunt career would have ended then if not for the kindness of his clients and his driving skills. His more current work can be seen in Jurassic Park "Ancient Futures" Fast & Furious 5,6,7 & 8, Logan, the up-coming Venom and Terminator 6 and all the way back to Thelma & Louise and Terminator 2. With over 500 feature films, television shows and commercials to his credit, Ryan is probably best known for his work with semi-trucks, where he can often be seen crashing, rolling, burning or getting blown up on screens worldwide. Mike set a Guinness World Record for the longest semi-truck and trailer jump and did it as a Lotus F-1 car driven buy Russian Stunt Driver Martin Ivanov crossed underneath. The video has been seen over 12 million times on YouTube and over 30 million times on China's QQ. Ryan is one of the first people in the US to "drift" Semi trucks and his drifting and racing videos can be seen on his YouTube Channel mikeryan777, where they have collectively been viewed more than 10 million views. Millions of people over an 18 year span from From 1997-2016 watched and cheered Mike on as he raced his hand-built Freightliner racing semi-trucks in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. He was undefeated or unchallenged and set or broke his own class records 7-times and is well known in racing circles worldwide. Mike has raced motorcycles on Pikes Peak when it was all dirt. He raced at the Bonneville Salt Flats for 5-years and set a one-way record of 225.675MPH in a 21,000 # 3,200 HP Freightliner semi-truck. He has raced both the SCORE Baja 1000 and the NORRA Mexican 1000 in truck classes and has set big truck racing records twice in New Zealand and established the truck class in New Hampshire in the Mt. Washington Hill Climb. Ryan's unique experience as a big truck stunt driving specialist and record setting racer led him to share his knowledge with others in an effort to educate people about semi-trucks and driving safety. He has often been hired to speak to truck fleets and truck industry manufacturers groups and his truck and film related articles have been published in Motor Trend's "Truck Trends", Overdrive, RPM for Truckers, Transport Topics and many other truck industry publications. Mike has worked on many accident reconstruction cases for both plaintiff and defense firms as well as being on contract with the California Department of Transportation. Ryan lives in Southern California with his wife Maureen and their son Kris Ryan is enjoying a career as a performance driver and coordinator.