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!
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
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.
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.
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.
As the final rivet went into the front aero package at around 3:00 in the morning on Dave and Allison Kern’s Evo I was anticipating heading out to the track the next day to see how my wing mounts held up. Dave was planning a test session out at the track and I decided to tag along and see if everything went as planned with the wing that I had just modified to work.
After a late night it was a bit difficult to wake up in the morning so I didn’t actually get started until about 10:00 and I didn’t end up getting to the track until after noon. That wasn’t all that important however, the important part was the Evo was heading out on its first laps. Dave was going to run the first laps with just the front aero setup to see how the car felt before he put the big wing on. On his first lap he had some clutch issues so he came in to diagnose them. Everything that he could think of was not working and I am no help in that department…so I began wandering around. There was plenty to see the place was packed so I figured I’d check out a few cars.
As this was going on a big race trailer showed up. The wrap on the trailer drew everyone in. Classics, old school racing cars, formula cars etc. I was really curious what was going to roll out of that thing. as the rear door went down they didn’t disappoint. This thing had a 30′s Bugatti and a 50′s Talbot Lago! Combined, assuming these are pretty original cars, these two cars were worth in the neighborhood of $4 million dollars. I can assure you that all the other cars that were there that day (probably 40 more cars) would not have added up to the value of these two.
They rolled out the cars and began prepping for the day and their little pit spot was a magnet for car guys. I stopped by and chatted with the guys. They were very cool and very interested in showing off the cars. The guys were from High Mountain Classics, which is a restoration shop primarily for Vintage French vehicles. The owner of the shop was there, one of their fabricator/restorers and one of the vehicle owners was there. They were testing the vehicles in order to head to Sears Point next week.
I had a chance to chat with the guys for a while when another trailer pulled up and a 1960 Ferrari 250 SWB emerged from the back of the trailer. Wow! Another half million dollars in car just showed up!
I had a chance to chat with the owner for a bit and he was very interested in talking about the car. It sounded as though he did all his own work on the car as well which is definitely pretty cool with a car like that as well.
My day was balanced between spectating the cars and checking in with Dave to see if there was anything I could do to help, but at one point a small blue car rolled up… I had never seen one of these before.
The owner said that it was a British sports car and he even said the name, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was. I do know that it starts with a G and if you can tell me I’d love to know. This car was so small but the lines of the car were beautiful! It made me reconsider my Seven idea and consider building something like this instead!
Out on the track these cars were great to watch as well. Seeing a 1930′s Bugatti mixing it up with some guy in a Corvette that is blowing every turn was just a strange sight to take in. When you see an 80′s camero following a 1950 Talbot Lago Formula 1 car…well that is pretty interesting as well.
It was a fun day out there, unfortunately Dave never got the car running so he had to head home to pull the motor and trans out of his car… Next week hopefully, the evo will be ready to tear it up again!
It has been several years now that I have shot Hells Belles. It started off with a simple phone call and after I showed them my first shots I have been shooting many of their local shows ever since. I like the challenge of using the “natural” light of a venue. Some venues are definitely more of a challenge than others and some lighting tech’s are more challenging than others.
The Belles are always good fun to shoot and they really do put on a great show! I hadn’t shot them for about 2 years when I finally got a new camera recently and figured it was time to stretch its legs! So how about we see what I got!
Check out that guy smiling…kinda seems out of place doesn’t he?
Anyhow, The new camera is great, sharp pix. I find it to seem a bit less sensitive than my old camera, so I find that I have to shoot a bit lower shutter speed. I also think it really soaks up the reds a lot. so I may have to adjust a bit to that, overall i’m fairly satisfied with the results.
Here are a few favorites from the past several years with the old 1DMKII
Anyhow, if you have never seen the Belles, check them out. They put on an amazing show and it is always worth the price of admission! Hells Belles Website
How nice it would be to have all the time in the world to be able to pursue all of the projects and attend all the events that I would like to do! Well, I headed out to check out some friends who were in the midst of their own projects. I’d say these are inspirational experiences really because I would very much like to pursue some of these possibilities in the future.
Locosts John Grimberg has been telling be about this car he wants to build, this has been an ongoing conversation actually. He brings this up periodically and then convinces himself that he is perfectly satisfied with his track ready Miata. It turns out that there was a meeting of Lotus Sevens at a friend of John’s house. The meeting was during the day and I had to work, but I was able to get over to see the final cars before they left.
John’s friend Skip owns the blue Caterham. His has a Miata motor and is running around 300hp at the wheels. That doesn’t sound like a lot, however you have to keep in mind that these cars weigh no more than about 1400lbs. That is pretty much half the weight of a current sports car. So this car needs much less power to be able to accelerate like a current sports car! Skip’s car is capable of about 0-60 in 3.5-3.7 seconds and 0-100 in only 7 seconds! It is brutally fast at only 300hp! He took me for a spin to see what it was like.
Now, I feel like I should explain a bit. Lotus introduced the seven in 1957 and designed it by their company philosophy of performance through weight savings. When they stopped producing the car in 1972 a company called Caterham licensed the design and has produced them ever since. Kits have been developed and there seem to be a lot of different variations on the design at this point. There are now blueprints available that allow home builders to create their own car. When people do this they need to modify the design to accommodate their engine and transmission, however the design is pretty all inclusive so it makes this a reasonable vehicle to build if you decide that you want to build a car. These home built cars are referred to as Locost’s (said Low-cost) and there is quite a following including a build forum as well as books and variants.
So after checking this thing out all I could think is “I could do that!” So I have been talking to John and reading other peoples build logs and trying to figure out how I could justify this to myself. How do you justify spending a year to build your own car!? We will see, I now have a lot of ideas and I would love to build one, but I need to make sure I sort out the budget and the plan first so I don’t end up with a pile of steel in my garage that isn’t able to go anywhere!
Lemons
Today I stopped the Ghetto Motorsports complex. Jeff, Ian, Alan and Kirk were there and they were working on their 1980 Mazda. They bought the car for $100 and have been racing it in LeMons races. These races are a play off the 24 hours of Le mans. The goal of the racing is to race a car that is purchased for less than $500. Safety equipment can be added but you have to be ready to either have your car destroyed by vote or purchased for $500 at the end of the race. Often these cars have themes and the racing is filled with repairs and contact. This car has gone through several motors and trackside repairs are typically pretty involved when they happen. This is racing that is affordable and it is racing that is open to anyone who has a place to hide a crappy beater car from their neighbors when they aren’t racing it. Turns out these guys have that. They are racing this weekend down in Pueblo with 5 drivers and two 7 hour races. To be honest it is pretty impressive to think that this car can run for 7 hours straight!
So now of course I think to myself, “well, I have $100 dollars…maybe I should consider something like this!” Of course, time is the problem on this one. Just like everything all these events are on the weekend and of course…guess who works on the weekends currently… Hopefully I can figure something out, because that looks like a lot of fun.
Whenever I get a new toy it rejuvenates my excitement for that activity. So recently when I got my new camera I decided that I should participate in some of these little photo contests that I stumble upon. I participate in a few automotive forums. I am sure that doesn’t come as a surprise if you have read my posts! One of them holds a monthly Photo contest, it is pretty low key and seemed like a nice motivator to get out and take some photos. So the March contest was posted and I began putting together ideas.
The March contests title is “2 Miles.” The goal is to take a photograph within 2 miles of your house using any camera, but no additional photo editing. So no photoshop and no touching up! This is a bit of an interesting twist for me. I shoot primarily in RAW, which is also known as Digital Negative. This mode generally requires you to make the color adjustments in post. So now I have delved into the world of in camera color adjustments, sharpness adjustments. In addition the contest requires you to include in your photo your mode of transportation.
I guess I should explain why I use RAW. In my mind when you are shooting photos, there are times when something happens that is unexpected. When you are shooting film those times always look better in B&W when you were shooing color and they always would have looked better in color when you are shooting B&W. So RAW give you an unmolested color profile that you can turn into the color that Velvia film provided or you can desaturate it to the perfect B&W and you never have to compromise. In addition to that you get a lot more information, the files are uncompressed so you have a lot to work with. To give you an example the JPG files from my new camera average around 6 megabytes and the RAW files average 21 megabites! That is a huge difference in the amount of information that they provide!
There is one primary difference between shooting RAW and shooting a specific color profile. It is the way you approach the shot. You definitely need to visualize things a bit differently when you are only shooting in black and white you need to think about things that way. Or if you are shooting a very saturated color profile you need to think about things that will take advantage of that.
I realized as I left my house and began to look for some shots that I had not simply gone out looking for things to take photographs of in YEARS. I am often someplace looking for something specific to take a photo of. Now the world was my oyster, I could just go and shoot anything! I realized immediately that the surrounding area from my house isn’t terribly interesting. But I pushed on, I had some thoughts about what I could do…then I came across a simple bent piece of metal. It was an old fencepost and it just looked interesting. So I began tinkering with some shots and I began setting up more. I decided on B&W and aligned my shoes in the shot to show the direction that I was traveling at the time. Then CLICK! I got the shot that I liked. It is a simple shot but it seemed to work. I could definitely stand to do this over during a better time of day, but this is the shot, feel free to click on it to see a larger version. Hope you enjoy it!
I realized the by starting this blog fairly late I didn’t get to show some of my biggest projects. So here are a few projects that I have done over the years that I think are pretty cool.
Table Project
A long time ago…or maybe not so long ago, but it seems that way. I started going back to school again and the first project that I started with was a coffee table. Actually, my feet are resting on it as I type this entry! The goal of the table was to make something that I thought was pretty cool, professional looking quality and utilized processes that I had never done before. Machining, welding, powdercoating and specing parts with a company were all part of it and the experience led to more and more projects in the future.
I was fortunate to have a good friend of mine named John Grimberg. John was nice enough to take me under his wing. he taught me a lot about machining aluminum and it really helped move the project along. The table utilizes a welded steel base with a baltic birch top. Above that floats a 1/2″ piece of glass that sits on 6 risers that are all made of 3 sections. Everything was hand made and the glass is the only part I didn’t actually cut. I was the only person in my class to have a finished project and I can assure you that it was a lot of work to get done, but it is one of my favorite pieces of furniture!
Red Bull Soap Box 2008: Team Save Ferris
One day I set out an email to my friends. Hey guys, who wants to compete in the Red Bull Flugtag event? Well turns out that they all wanted to! However we changed our tune when we realized that Red Bull was having a soapbox race in our town! So we sat down and we came up with a new plan. Red Bull Soapbox in Denver. We sat down one evening around a table at Matt Fishers house and came up with the plan. Team Save Ferris. We would construct our version of the Ferrari 250GT from Ferris Buellers day off. We spent a LOT of time on this vehicle. I mean days turned to nights nights turned to weeks and weeks turned into a 1st place finish! We were incredibly excited about our winning finish, but I have to tell you, sharing how we built it is almost more exciting! So cruise on over to teamsaveferris.com and check out all the info on how we built this thing. We did a very extensive writeup.
Red Bull Soapbox 2009: Team Speed Racer
After a successful race the year before we had to try again! How do you follow up not only a very cool looking car but a very successful trick that surprised all of our fans as well as the judges? Well we decided to focus on the car. Lets make the coolest car that has ever been created! We decided the Mach 5 from Speed Racer was the best way to go. We also decided that we were going to take this to the next level. This time we planned on making a female mold and doing this “the right way.” Again, I don’t feel the need to tell you all about it since we did a very extensive writeup so check out www.goteamspeedracer.com for more info on this build.
Both the Ferrari and the Mach 5 are being displayed in the Forney Museum in Denver. If you have a chance stop on by to check them out!
