Ok, so, first, I’ll confess, as much as I do love seeing how things are made, how things work and just the incredible innovations that there are in the world of mechanics, I just haven’t ever really been that into air shows. I like the idea, I like to see all the parts to airplanes and I like to see them fly, but every air show seems as though you stand in 200 degree weather staring into the sun as a plane does its tricks. Without ever being in one of these aircraft it is tough to realize exactly what is going on with the pilot so the danger doesn’t seem quite as real.

With that being said, I got an email from a friend who works at the airport. He told me to come on out the Friday before the show and I could check it out without all the crowds. Well, that seems reasonable, so I headed out there and it turns out this is basically the full show, just in “practice” mode. Each of the planes went up and did their piece, the jets flew around at amazing speeds and I got a chance to walk around in a B24 liberator. The sun was hot, but it seemed to duck behind the clouds at just when you couldn’t take it anymore.

We got a chance to see a group of Yak planes flying in formation for several passes. There was an F18 displaying its power and maneuverability. An F16 was making passes at crazy speeds a Jet car raced a prop plane and stunt planes were defying all types of laws of aerodynamics as they tumbled through the sky.

I left that day and the following day was the show. I didn’t attend the show, but after work I had a nice evening on the patio at my friends place watching the jets buzz his house at crazy speeds and at the end of the night after we saw the liberator fly by we watched the fireworks fire off from the front patio of their house as well. Overall, it was a fun experience. Check it out when you have a chance!

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I’ve been living vicariously through some of my friends by helping them with their race cars. Mostly I’d say it has been Dave and Allison Kern. Originally I had helped them with some work on their Pikes Peak Hill Climb Evo. I did a bunch of work on their aero package, but also ended up welding some parts as well as installing and fitting body parts as well. It is fun to get to work on this stuff. There is a lot of problem solving and a lot of building, creating and working with your hands. Currently they are working on the creation of a BMW rally car.

The BMW will be used as a 2wd Rally car. It is cheaper to run and compete in and with a privateer budget that is good news. It is also going to provide the opportunity to run in Max Attack which is a 2wd specific rally event that will give them good competition in an affordable package. If all that wasn’t enough the BMW will be set up so the drivers seat is able to accommodate a shorter driver or a taller one…so Allison now has the ability to drive!

The car has been caged by SCR Performance but Dave is taking on the majority of the rest of the work. The beginning steps (beyond all the research that he has into figuring out the parts for the car) is the underbody. The BMW isn’t exactly designed for Rally, so you have a couple options. Paint the car and replace the chassis when it gets wrecked or try to protect the chassis. The plan for this car was to protect the chassis with Kevlar and Macropoxy. Macropoxy is a paint that is a good barrier against rust and light impact. Kevlar, well that takes the bigger dings and dents well. The EVO Works well with the Kevlar under body, but it is separating a bit in places, so this time we tried a few different tricks to try to keep the body and the kevlar together.

The Kevlar now has epoxy that has been seeped into all the welded seams so it hopefully gets more adheason, also we put chunks of Kevlar into some of the gaps between seem welds so those will hopefully give the kevlar even more places to adhere.

It is a messy process, so we only have a few photos of this part. This is what the end result looks like. Almost time to flip the car over and start putting parts on it!

I’ll be helping them out whenever I can, so keep an eye back and I’ll post up some progress as we go. In the mean time you can check them out on Facebook

Kern Racing Fan Page

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It has been an eventful month or so. So many visitors and so little time! With each visitor that comes to town I seem to find another adventure to add to the list. It is funny how you can take for granted all the things you have access to when you live somewhere and sometimes it takes visitors to spark you to actually do these things!

My parents arrived in town a few weeks ago and it happened to be my dads birthday. My mom was prepared and had some plans lined up. How about a couple days in Steamboat and a day at Dig This!? Well, that all sounds pretty good to me. We ventured up to Steamboat and enjoyed the view from our condo on the mountain. The Bear Claw Condo’s are right in the midst of everything and I was fortunate to have a co-worker who was a resident of Steamboat who was able to point us to the best places to eat and things to do.

Steamboat is pretty amazing at all times of the year so finding nice scenery, hiking trails and other things to do is pretty easy. We spent some time in town, checking things out, some time on the mountain, hiking and enjoying the views and then of course, our time at Dig this.

Dig This was a whole ‘nother experience compared to the rest. The premise is that most people are curious about how all that heavy equipment works. You see a bull dozer or an excavator and think to yourself, “I wonder what it’s like to drive one of those?! Could I do it?” Well you can do it at Dig This. They provide the machines and the instruction and you get to play with the machines and get the experience of operating them. This was a gift for my dads birthday, but I think my mom and I enjoyed it just as much as he did.

My dad ended up in a Dozer and my mom and I ended up in Excavators. The instructors were great, they gave us pretty good instruction and it was actually pretty remarkable how simple these machines are to operate. I think that it is a good indicator that with very simple instruction they just put us in the machines, showed us the basic controls and then sent us on our way!

At the end of the session we all were presented certificates from Dig This that said we had completed the Fast Tracks program. It was a 1 hour session in the machines and we were there for a couple hours by the end of our session.

Anyhow, head up to steamboat. It is a beautiful place all times of the year and we had a pretty incredible time in our short stay there!

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If you can’t appreciate natural beauty then you must appreciate architectural marvels right? On the 4th of July, we decided to take in both in the same day!

We started our morning by heading down to the Air force academy in Colorado Springs. I had never been on base before and wasn’t exactly sure what hoops we’d have to jump through to get through their checkpoints. It was a simple process and no cavity searches were performed so the day started off nicely. You can see the Cadet chapel from the highway, though the closer you get to it the more impressive it seems. The chapel stands in distinct contrast to the other buildings there. It has a very modern look with metal and glass standing in a sharp point aimed to the sky.

Melanie is here from Germany studying religion in America and wanted me to join her at one of her church experiences so I asked her to select an architectural masterpiece to visit and this is where we ended up. I am sure you can imagine that we looked maybe a smidge out of place with me looking around at all the architecture and the design and Melanie taking notes through the service. I suspect nobody noticed in the end however. We were able to check out the inside of the building as well however and it is pretty amazing. The background on the building is that it was built from 1959-1962 and designed by Walter Netsch. The chapel is constructed of tubular steel, aluminum panels and colored glass. One of my favorite things is the pews in the protestant chapel, they were designed to resemble WW1 era propellers, both the ends of the pews as well as the seat backs to the pews. The Organ is also on full display in the upper chapel. I have to admit however the cross behind the alter had a lot of resemblance to a sword in my mind and I don’t know how I feel about that.

We made our way downstairs to see the Catholic chapel as well, this is a much smaller space but the walls were nearly entirely stained glass and gave the impression that the ceiling was floating. It is a pretty interesting room. I didn’t know that there were two more rooms downstairs otherwise I would have looked at them as well. The Chapel apparently has a Jewish room and an “all faiths” room.

From there we headed to Pikes Peak. Of course I have been there a billion times, but Melanie had never been on top of this mountain and of course, with all my jibber jabber about the race and the road, well she kinda had to see it in real life to get an idea of what all the fuss was about. So we ascended the road and stopped at a few lookouts to enjoy the scenery. The day was beautiful and the weather couldn’t have been nicer! We spent some time at the top of the mountain before heading back down and took a nice panorama from the top as well!

Afterward we rushed back to get dinner with friends and then not watch fireworks because the rain had eliminated them as a possibility. It was a fun day though and it made me excited to see more architecture! I only brought my G9 with me on this adventure. I didn’t want to stick out to much with a huge camera taking pictures at the church!

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Well after a week on the mountain and posting GoPro’s all over two open wheel cars I had a chance to tinker with the footage we got. Unfortunately I haven’t had as much time as I’d like, but we put together a nice little video. The audio is all engine and the speed is all as it happened. It is pretty impressive to ride along and see how close they get to the edge!

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We crossed the startline at 4:30 AM and joined the procession up the hill. We were constantly moving as we rose up in elevation from 9000ft to 12,800ft and it took us 27 minutes to reach Devils playground. That is 9 miles and probably about 115 turns to get to this point. Racers take between 10.01 and 15 minutes to reach the summit which was another 2.5 miles away! I love this sort of perspective. It is incredible to think of the absolute skill, experience, precision and courage it takes to negotiate some of these corners and conditions at the speeds that it takes to make it to the top in this amount of time.

From our perch at Devils Playground we watched as the sun rose, it is always an amazing sight from the top of a mountain, but Pikes Peak has a certain way about it that seems to saturate the colors to bring the sunrise to life. Our time in the parking area consisted of making a nice hot meal and preparing for our hike up the mountain. Hiking up to Boulder park is a bit of a distance to cover and has an elevation gain of about 1200 ft. But it is worth it. The views from the final sections of dirt road are amazing. As the classes progressed we began making our way back to Devils playground. The clouds were beginning to close in on the mountain and with the threat of lightning it is always nice to know you are reasonably close to shelter.

The racing was intense. As a spectator you need to be patient with any TT style racing. One car passes then several minutes later another passes. It isn’t the constant action of a Formula 1 race or motocross race. You have to appreciate what the drivers are doing in order to appreciate this race. To give you an idea of what the drivers are doing here is a bit of a run-through of their drive to the top:
Monster Tajima’s car is said to have about 950hp at the start line. When he takes off he is accelerating through the start line on perfect pavement. Traveling at speeds up to 130 mph in a car by himself with nobody else helping him to know what is coming up. Drivers often loose track of where they are on the road because of the sheer quantity of turns. Each turn starts looking more and more like the last and there are pretty popular corners, like Engineers corner, that claim drivers who fall into this trap. When he approaches the Picnic grounds he is traveling at his max speed of about 130mph when he has to transition to dirt! This year the dirt was treated with Mag-chloride which firms up the dirt, but doesn’t make it drive like tarmac. So at this point he starts getting into switchbacks. (2009 shot of 11 mile’s drifting left hand corner) He needs to adjust his driving style to the type of traction that the new surface provides while going into a complicated drifting turn into a very tight and slower switchback. As he ascends the mountain he is constantly loosing power as he gains elevation and as he passes the ski area there are several deceptive corners. (2006 shot, heading into the Ski Area parking area) One I have heard people refer to as the “rookie corner” but that isn’t its real name. This is, what appears to be a soft right turn, but it has a later apex than people realize. Sliding off to the outside is a definite possibility if you carry to much speed. The corners continue to relentlessly bombard the drivers through this section. Drivers have to drift sideways to carry speed and they are on constantly variable conditions because of the mix of Mag-Chloride and loose dirt. They need to plan for a corner, but at the same time they need to be ready to react to a sudden unexpected spot of traction gain or loss. If you watch their in car cameras you can see constant corrections. A final hairpin left takes the drivers into a section of rough tarmac and dirt mixed together. This is Glen Cove and once they pass through a toll gate they are back on Tarmac. They accelerate up through some of the most intense elevation gains in the course through some of the tightest corners on the course.

A portion of this section is called the “W’s” this section looks like a cursive “W” from above but consists of very tight turns linked with long switchbacks. As they ascend into 18mile they round a corner in excess of 80mph that has no guard rail on the outside and has exposure of nearly 1000 ft.

Drivers corner a hairpin left and a 90 degree right out of devils playground into a drifting turn that changes from tarmac to dirt. This year the Monster nearly lost it on this transition. Carrying that much speed through two distinct surface conditions is a tricky task! This dirt up top is not treated with Mag-Chloride and is definitely more dusty and loose.
Drivers now have yet another condition to adjust too and in addition their cars are loosing power. The Monster has lost at least 140hp by this point just because of the lack of oxygen. Drivers also have to cope with this sudden drop in available oxygen since only 7 minutes before they were at 9000ft and now they are at 13,000ft!

Drivers head into Boulder park which has a series of turns that have claimed some of the best drivers in the past and head up Ragged edge.

This section lives up to its name with a very significant view of the exposure as you head up to a very sharp left hand turn.

Now there is a transition from dirt to pavement here as well, so driver need to adjust their driving style yet again! (2008 shot of the S turn at Boulder Park) As they approach the summit they have a high speed left turn that takes them across the finish line before they can start breathing again. At this final acceleration the monsters 950hp car is pushing only 665hp!

Of course this account is pretty basic and it completely eliminates variables like weather. Each year weather at the summit can vary from warm sun to cold, to rain, to snow, to hail and each year you are very likely to see several of these conditions throughout the day. The number of surface conditions that a driver can see on their way up the mountain are infinite and the number of changes to the course that they practice can be infinite as well. Spectators are often in the wrong place, they will spectate from racing lines and unknowingly cause drivers to have to adjust their line in order to avoid people.

Our view of the race was speckled with lightning strikes in the distance and nice puffy white clouds in the foreground. we could see the clouds sweeping over the summit and hoped that they wouldn’t sweep by as a driver was headed up. Adding the element of fog to the course is very dangerous and would be very hard for a driver to recover from. We watched as drivers drove past and listened as their motors climbed to the summit. Crowds would leap off the side trails when a V8 would rev in the distance and wait for it to pass by. We watched the final motorcycles from Devils playground. the amount of control it takes to drift a motorcycle around a corner is astounding and it is impressive to watch as they transition from tarmac to dirt as well. The final vehicle of the day was driven by Mike Ryan. He drives a Freightliner… that is right, a semi cab. He is an incredible driver and words can not describe the sight of a semi drifting around corners.

When the drivers are all finished there is a procession down the mountain. The spectators line the road and the drivers come down. I find this to be one of the most awesome parts of this race. To most spectators a driver is the number on the side of his car. There is no face or personality, there is a car that they are cheering for. At Pikes Peak each driver is someone to congratulate, a hand to slap five and a face that you can put with all that crazy driving you just watched head up the hill! I put a camera on Dave and Allison Kern’s car a couple years ago and at the end of their run they ran the camera on the way down. It is really cool to hear the kids ask them to rev the engine and the fans who are congratulating them on a fast time! (check it out toward the end of this video)

Throughout the day I shoot photos, but anymore I enjoy the race. It is funny, when I get home I always wish I took more photos, but when I am there I really enjoy taking in all that is going on. Anyhow, enjoy this recap and enjoy some of the photos that I DID take this time around.

If you have made it this far, definitely check out my entry from Practice as well. There are lots more photos there and more recap as well. Check back because we ran in-car cameras on several cars and you can follow this link to see the initial video from the incar GoPro’s Open Wheel Car videos

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If you know me, you know I love this race. It is more than just cars racing against a clock, it is cars racing against extremely variable conditions, history, the clock and themselves. The more time I spend on the mountain and the more drivers that I have the good fortune to get to know the more I realize how much this race means to the people who participate.

This year I spend a good deal of my “spare” time helping the Kern’s prep their evo. The car is fantastic, but unfortunately two weeks before practice started at PPIHC they had a major failure. I rod blew through both sides of the engine block causing a large fireball to sweep through their engine compartment and wipe out most of their electronics. This is a HUGE setback, but Dave is probably the most determined guy I know… and apparently requires less sleep than anyone else in human history.

After countless hours packed into two weeks as well as a trip to chicago to have a new motor installed and tuned dave returned the day before the tech inspection and we buttoned up the final details throughout the day of tech inspection. It seemed that the impossible had been done. The car now sported a new aero package, all body panels had been fixed, new rear diff and of course a new power plant. This thing was about as new as could be! So I went to bed anticipating a good day. It is satisfying to go to bed knowing that you helped accomplish what you thought wouldn’t be accomplishable.

Practice began Wednesday and I woke from a bit of a nap at 5:30 am to the sound of a safety car passing by. The practice was about to begin and the sun was just rising. We had the opportunity to see Rhys Millens new car. This thing is a lemans style car that is built specifically for Pikes Peak. It is amazing to watch, but it is clear that it has some bugs to be worked out. The acceleration that it is capable of is intense however! We had the opportunity to see Dave and Allison fly up the mountain as well. Run after run they were looking smooth! Their lines were great and they were definitely looking fast. We had our eye on a few other cars as well. Spencer Steele and Jimmy Olson were running onboard cameras for a little project that I am playing with and they both drive pretty awesome open wheel cars. In addition the Monster has fully updated his vehicle and he is serious about trying to beat the 10 minute barrier again this year. It is always amazing to hear the high RPM roar of a stock car V8 as well. Those things sound so incredibly angry when they are under full throttle and finally Jeff Zwart in his Porsche GT3 cup car…well that thing just sounds amazing.

After the first day of practice we headed down and saw Dave and Allison fussing over the car. I pulled off and they had the motor apart. Turns out their timing belt snapped and basically obliterated the top end of their brand new, 3 run old motor. I couldn’t believe it! Dave hadn’t slept in probably 2 weeks and now this happens.

The next day we were on the top section. This section is the least viewed section since all the spectators typically are stopped at Devils playground. Boulder park is our choice viewing location and we were up there to see Rhys spin out, watch ACP show up and see an amazing sunrise. Dave flew past us again! How could he have possibly fixed that thing? Well, turns out they replaced the top end of the motor and during their run…well the bottom end let go.

On the third day of practice we were on the bottom section of the mountain. I was feeling pretty refreshed from several days of good sleep and recovery and was out taking some photos. We got word from Dave. They now had a stock motor in the car, but it was going onto the Dyno in an hour. That guy is an animal. Nothing will stop the Kerns from competing! Dave hasn’t had proper sleep in easily 2 weeks and yet the spirit hasn’t changed, his motivation is still just as high as it was when the week began. It is incredible!

After a full day of practice I went down to talk to my open wheeler friends. Jimmy and Spencer were having a good day, but Spencers motor let go as well. “Nothing I can’t fix before the race” he said in his normal mater of fact way. I was chatting with Jimmy’s wife Andrea afterward and she mentioned that she’d been coming up here since 1978 and told me about all the changes that have happened. I had a realization that this race is not just a race to most of these drivers. It is a family tradition, it is an annual reunion with racing friends. The banter that goes back and forth is from years and years of handing trophies back and forth to one another. It is fun to watch this race and I can say I have a sincere appreciation for the history and challenge that this race presents but I wonder if it will ever mean as much to me as it does to these people.

Today is friday, the event is Sunday and Dave now has a car that is in one piece. The car has been dyno tuned and not tested at all. The motor that is in the car is the same motor that they set the standing record in their class. (Time Attack 4wd) But the motor is about 250hp less than the motor that they started the event with. Anticipation is building as the weather reports show poor conditions approaching. It is going to be an interesting year on the mountain this year and only time will tell how it all plays out.

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So for a few years I was a contributer to AutoWeek magazine. I shot photos and wrote articles for the Pikes Peak Hill climb. It was a very fun gig and I really enjoy that race, but eventually I had to give it up. I just have to many things on my plate and I needed to ease back a bit.

One of my first articles for AutoWeek is one that I am most proud of. I was able to write for them with no restrictions. My article was just what I wanted it to be and although I felt that I could have expanded it a bit, it is an article that I would like to save. So take a moment and read this if you have a chance. I’d love to hear feedback, but I also just want to share it.

AutoWeek Link

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Every year there is at least one test and tune day for drivers up on Pikes Peak. Drivers head up and shell out some cash to be able to run the mountain for two mornings well before the mountain opens for normal traffic. In recent years this has been more and more important with more and more of the mountain turning into paved roads.

This year I organized a group of drivers and we are planning on doing a small video project. The project will involve 4 teams and each team will be running cameras on their car. We will have some cameras on the mountain as well and in the end we should have a pretty cool video! Since a couple drivers were heading down to the practice day I threw a camera on Spencer Steele’s car to let him play with the camera and check out the video that it is able to record. Spencer was also worried because having a big block motor putting out serious horsepower bolted straight to a tube chassis, well it is a bit to much for any camera he has used before, so he was worried that this one may not hold up. I was curious as well, so we bolted it up and tried it out.

His second run of the morning resulted in this video. Of course there is a bit of crap on the lens, but check it out.

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I’m a bit of a fake car guy. I have a great appreciation for cool and creative things done with cars. I have a huge appreciation for the amount of work that goes into bringing a car back from a rusty heap to a shiny show car but I have hardly any ability when it comes to working on the mechanics of a car.

With that being said, I really do enjoy seeing what people have built for themselves. There is a lot of vision that goes into building some of these cars and going to the Golden Super Cruise is a great way to see the fruits of their labor.

If you don’t know what the Super Cruise is, check out their site. http://www.goldensupercruise.com/
I would describe it as a HUGE car show that is pretty informal and everyone shows up and just appreciates cars. The Crowds are huge and the variety of cars is equally as large. People line the streets to watch the cars cruise by. Cars are parked in every parking lot along the street. Hundreds of cars, possibly over a thousand, they are everywhere and they are cool!

I have always had a desire to restore a car, but I have never really had the time or cash for that project at the same time. A bigger concern of course is, what do you build! I mean, you can go with the tried and true Cobra, that is pretty much the coolest car ever, right?

But the problem with that is, everyone has a cobra, it just isnt unique at all. So there are of course muscle cars, they are all over the place and I do really love a good cuda, but I don’t need a huge horsepower monster, plus where would I put that thing!

There are the unique collectors as well, but most of them I like, but don’t really want. Plus they are typically so desirable that I couldn’t afford them anyway.

And there are the Rat Rods and hot rods, but they are becoming so cookie cutter to me. Everyone seems to have this “unique” thing to it but they seem to follow a style to closely.

I have in the last few years started thinking more and more about a 30′ ford 4 door. Something that lends to its vintage but that has a bit of style to it too. Think of a bonnie and clyde kinda car or an old school gangster car but lowered a bit with some kickback wheels, but not quite so kickback that they are spoked. Vintage interior, but not old just true to the era.

This car was as close as I could find. The exterior was perfect (maybe a bit to much red for my taste however) these cars came in BLACK, so I’d keep it black. A bit lower on the front, a bit more aggressive all around. The wheels are great, the interior was a bit to modern for me, but overall it is a subtle car that I almost walked by until I really looked at it.

I would consider chopping maybe 1 inch out of the top to be fairly subtle, and doing a light tint on the windows too. (I know it is a modern touch) but think I’d do a very traditional interior with only a few modern design upgrades. Overall though I think that is a great car! So who wants to buy me a 32 ford 4 door so I can get started?

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