One of, what I would say is becoming tradition is when I head home I typically fly in via DC in order to spend a day or two with my sister. Unfortunately we don’t see each other more than about 2 times a year but it is always fun to explore her turf with her.

I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I have in the past but we had a chance to do a bit of exploring. One of the places that we visited was the Crime and Punishment museum. This place has a lot of memorabilia from famous gangsters, mobsters and of course devices of torture back to the earliest times. Parts of it are fascinating, parts of it are horrifying but it is pretty interesting. Turns out that is also where Americas most wanted is filmed as well so we explored the set a bit as well.

(sorry about the quality on this one, that’s what happens when you are ramped up to 6400 ISO, 60×4.0!)

Oh and of course the “CAUGHT!” pic

After leaving we were left to our devices at night in DC. I can’t say that I have explored monuments at night there before but it was pretty interesting to check out. We wanted to check out the brand new MLK memorial and on the way we saw the sights. The WWII memorial is a very beautiful structure at night. I really enjoyed seeing it all lit up.

The Washington Monument is also very impressive and after the earthquake it is apparent that it has some damage. We could see some of the chunks that had fallen out, some cracks that were apparent as well, though you had to get pretty close to see that stuff.

Onward and upward we arrived at the MLK memorial. I think it is a great monument, the detail is incredible in the carving but more important in my mind is the quotes that line the memorial.

I quickly became pretty fascinated with the silhouettes of the other people who were reading the quotes. I enjoyed seeing them become part of the memorial as they enjoyed it.

Oh and of course, this little girl was awesome, she kept saying “I want to see Dr King!” I think she found him!

After a couple days in DC, Meg, Val and I headed up to Pennsylvania to enjoy the holidays. It’s always great to spend a couple days catching up!

Each year my parents come out to visit for a week and each year they make it into a bit of an adventure. Sometimes they see and explore and sometimes they try things out and learn. In the past my mom learned to weld, my dad drove a bulldozer and both have found their way along trails and more. I make my way along with them for some of their adventures and they do others on their own.

This year I flew to Las Vegas to join them for a quick roadtrip back to Denver. For my birthday this year they gave me a driving experience. 5 laps in a Ferrari F430 F1! Yes, that sounds pretty good right?! So our first stop was to the track. Now, my parents aren’t exactly race car people, but my mom is up for adventure and she decided to try this out as well. We signed her up for an Aston Martin. After a short briefing and two discovery laps she was on her way. She stepped into the car and her instructor walked her through the operations of the car then onto the track! The track is a 1.4 mile road course. Pretty short but it had a very nice variety of corners to play on.

As mom was continuing her laps I was being introduced to my own driving instructor. He walked me through the setup of the car, the operation of the car and asked me about my driving experience. “Ice racing, some karts, a little bit of play time in a Rally car… But I’ve seen it on TV.” I think he was a bit nervous at first. We headed out and wow, that thing handles so well! Very neutral, very balanced and incredibly smooth. in a lap or two I felt reasonably comfortable. by lap 5 I was wishing that it wasn’t my last lap!

The experience was great and if you ever want to try out an exotic car on the track I’d definitely head over to Exotics Racing.

From there we headed out, a long drive that took us to Page Arizona. What is in Page? Well, it exists solely because of a large Dam. The reason we were there was because of Antelope Canyon. This is a slot canyon that is known for its absolute beauty. When we got there I was excited. I have heard of this, i have seen the pictures and the reports and it was exciting to be able to see it myself. Since Antelope Canyon is on Native American lands you need an escort in order to get into the Canyon. We selected Overland Canyon Tours because they had a photographers tour that sounded pretty exciting. When we arrived we realized that we were not alone. Wow, this is worse than a shopping mall! There were a ton of people in there. Probably 12-15 shuttles out front of the canyon including ours! I got some photos and I am glad that I went, but I think if I went again to something like this I would find a much less popular place to explore. I feel bad, the traffic that is in that canyon will definitely have an impact on it’s longterm viability.

After a while I decided to embrace the crowds and use them in my photos. I think that the experience of the canyon was “crowded” so I think that people should see that when they see photos…

After the adventure we headed over to see this Dam. It is the dam that holds back the water to create Lake Powell and it is a slightly smaller version of the Hoover dam. These things are always facinating. One small piece of concrete that holds back the 17 years of water that would have flowed through the canyon. That is a huge amount of water and no matter how big the dam is, it is small compared to the impact it has!

From there we were off to Durango. Durango is a really cool town but it is also the home of the Durango to Silverton railroad. This is a long running narrow gauge railroad that runs Steam Locomotives from Durango to Silverton and back. Originally it was used for mining and transportation. But over time it has evolved to a tourist destination. You can arrive and hop on a train and ride the route that has been around for over 100 years. As you bump along the tracks you can look out on the river and the hillsides and imagine people camping along the shores panning for gold. You can imagine the mines on the hillsides and something about that old train makes all this come alive.

Oh and of course there was a quick stop in Silverton before we headed back to Durango.

The trip was very nice and relaxed. We had a great time and saw some beautiful things. It’s always good to take a short adventure with the family!

It seems like so long ago but many moons ago Lisa Myklak needed a place to live in the Boulder area and somehow my spare room became her new home. She was a great roommate and we got along great during the year that she lived here. Over the years we have kept in touch and I value her as a good friend and someone who I am very glad to have met.

Only a month ago I got a call from Lisa and she really wanted me to come to California to visit… because she was getting married! After a bit of figuring and deciding how I could swing yet another trip I made my way out to Santa Cruz to go to Lisa’s wedding. Lisa and Jimi met on bikes. They were both sponsored by Black Market bikes and they quickly came together. I never met Jimi but I heard about him and after this weekend I can see how much they mean to each other! Congrats Lisa, I am so happy for you!

Finally, there is this one. Carter is the creator of Black Market bikes and many moons ago I shot with him as well:

Carter was pretty emotional at the wedding and gave a very heartfelt toast…

I’m glad that I got to go to the wedding and spend the day not only with Lisa and Jimi but also with all the friends that I haven’t seen in too long! It was great to catch up!

It has been a while since I have spent time on a beach. It seems strange however that each time I visit the beach it is cold and rainy. However this time I didn’t mind, it was just so nice to get some sand between my toes!

I headed to California for a friends wedding this time. I will put another post up in the next few days about the wedding however. The trip was just perfect, though a bit short. I arrived in California on Saturday. When I got in I drove straight to Felton California and met with some friends from Desert Dingo Racing. They have been a very great resource for our Class 11 Baja 1000 build. When I arrived Jim took me on out to their shop space. All outdoor and very nice. Crusty, their head mechanic was already working on the car. They showed me around and gave me all their secrets… I didn’t even have to get tough with them! Their vehicle is very tested and we are really excited to be able to apply some of the info toward our build.

Do you want to see more pictures of the Desert Dingo’s car? Check out posts on Project Baja in the next week.

After spending some time with the Dingos I headed off to the beach. Ahhh… When I grew up every year we headed to Ocean City, NJ. Every year we also went to Cape May, NJ and each year I spent other days at the beach too. It is the one thing that Colorado is missing. Imagine this state with a beach! The first moment that I made it out to the beach was to Twin Lakes state park, bright and early on Sunday morning. It was cool out and the beach was active. A boat race left from the cape, people were fishing, running and more. It was a great place to spend a bit of time and look around.

The wedding was in Santa Cruz at a local Vineyard. It was a beautiful setting, the weather was perfect as well! After the wedding I decided I was going to head up the coast along the PCH to make my way back to San Fran for my flight out.

The beach was beautiful, cliffs dropping into the water linked with smaller more isolated areas. It was a great place to spend some time and check out the views.

After an hour or so I headed further up the coast and got to a small town where I picked up some lunch and headed out to another beach to eat. It was brisk outside and I began heading up to San Francisco to get to my flight. I talked to a friend from Ice Racing who works up there and decided to meet up with him as well. First I headed to the icon of San Francisco. When was the last time I saw the Golden Gate Bridge? Probably around 1997! So it was time.

Even though it was raining and crappy there is just something about that bridge! I walked across it I stood out a the first pillar and looked out toward alcatraz and I just enjoyed the marvels that are the Golden Gate Bridge for a while. Then I headed back to the Airport.

When I got to the airport I met Bill the proud owner of Molly. Now before you say anything, Molly is a Bronco. Driven by Bill, Linda and Cheri… Well and pretty much anyone else that wants to drive it too! Bill is just an awesome guy and he gave me a thorough tour of the inner workings of the airport. Bill has previously been an airline pilot and now works in a complete maintenance of airport opperations. With all the maintenance opperations that are at the airport there area lot of gaps and grey areas so he works in a small elite group that is able to fill all the gaps and eliminate the grey areas. He is incredibly knowledgable about the airport and wow, it was awesome! Now I have to go back! He’s promised to make the next tour even bigger and even better!

It’s always great to get out of town and this was no exception. I’m looking forward t the next trip that is coming up soon!

Back at Metro I made some friendships with some good folks. Each has gone their separate way to figure out their career and I got a call from one of them just the other day. Jed has been doing a lot of projects out of his garage in order to get started. Furniture, custom work, bar’s and more. “And more” is something you may want to explore on his site… some of it is pretty funny.

Esinem sounds like S and M… so when you see “Paddles” on his site you may get an idea what I’m talking about. The cool thing about Jed is that he is open to anything. When he was looking for costume stuff with his wife for a 1920′s Gangster party they were having he found his way into a vintage shop. He found some wooden… toys. and was surprised at the quality of craftsmanship and when approached by the shop owner he found himself in a new line of work. Two weeks later he was producing paddles for the shop and to this day they have been a success! It is a fun story that you would expect from him even if you could have never guessed it.

Recently Jed has been making some custom pieces and was commissioned for a Magicians table. Something portable, something antique, something cool… When I got a call from him he asked if I would come take a few photos of it. It is a very cool piece and the Magician was very impressed as well. I’ve been horribly busy, so I unfortunately didn’t have enough battery power to keep shooting all the details, but you’ll get the idea.

Check out some photos and check out his site when you have a chance. http://esinemdesigns.com/

What do you get when you take a high powered EVO made to run the toughest hillclimb in the nation and put its rally shoes back on? Well, you basically get a low level aircraft!

After a bit of a rough ride at Pikes peak this year the car is back in action and ready for another local hill climb. Monarch is part of the CHCA series, in fact it is the last race of the series. The Kerns currently hold the record on the hill when they ran previously in the EVO with almost 200 less horsepower than it has currently. After fixing damage, replacing parts and basically converting it back to a rally car we took the car out to CORE to test it out.

The EVO has so much power that all four wheels spin in nearly every gear on the dirt. It is a bit of an incredible thing. In addition it goes so much faster than the BMW that when you are going along the same course you spend close to double the time simply off the ground. There were several times when I thought: “Hmm, I sure hope we can land, regain traction and make that corner right there.” The funny thing is that the Ohlin suspension is so smooth compared to the BMW that even though you can tell you are going faster, the visual inputs are coming at you quicker, but it feels so smooth that you feel as though you are either going the same speed or going slower than the BMW.

After a solid run at CORE we packed it up and headed home. No need to run it all day but we had a good solid test and it was a bit humbling to see Dave say with what appeared to be genuine surprise. “Wow, after testing with the BMW all summer, the EVO is FAST!”

Yeah, I don’t know what it is, but there is something about a Hot Air Balloon that will bring the neighbors out of their houses. People who have lived next door to one another for years will actually say Hi to one another because of this little event. Every once and a while they will fly from or land at my house. I am sure it is more often than I know, but there are some big fields nearby and they tend to make use of them when they can.

Today they flew in again and as I sat in my livingroom sipping my coffee I thought to myself. What is that sound? Then it occurred to me exactly what it was. I stepped outside and 4 balloons were in the sky and one touched down just 200 yards away. I looked outside and the neighborhood was beginning to emerge from their houses and I stepped out and grabbed my bike to go explore.

I passed by the first to touchdown because it had already been deflated when I got there so I rode onward to the next. I could see it just touching down in the distance and it was definitely a bit of a race to get there before they deflated the balloon. Of course the maze of streets that I was unfamiliar with in that direction proved to be a bit of a challenge. When I arrived the balloon was still inflated and the pilot was just beginning his sequence of deflating it. He hopped out and grabbed a rope then started tugging on it as another passenger in the basket was pulling a separate cord.

As the balloon quickly deflated it was pretty impressive to watch. One person seemed like a small crew to be able to handle such a large beast of material. I mean, I kite can be a handful for one person and here is a guy manhandling hundreds of square feet of material blowing in the wind. Pretty impressive.

When I began to ride away I looked back. It was interesting to see how many people had gathered! The crowd was pretty impressive and the pilot probably could have started signing autographs with how many people were approaching him!

Now as a side note. The last time that I shot some photos of a balloon landing by my house was a couple years ago. That time I woke up to a balloon probably 40ft over my house which ended up landing just 100 yards away in a field. Imagine waking up to a large pig flying over your roof as your house is engulfed in shadow…

For some reason when you buy a GoPro suddenly there is nothing sacred in this world and the GoPro MUST be mounted to everything. I know it sounds silly, but seriously, go buy a gopro and find out for yourself. I can assure you that you will say “Oh! I could put it on ______!” to more things than you can imagine. So when we were out at CORE and Aaron brought along a kite… well guess what happened next!

Turns out the kite is a great way to get an ariel view. However there will be a bit more work to figure out a good way to get it mounted a bit nicer on there. With the aid of a Zip Tie and a My Life @ Speed sticker we were able to get it reasonably mounted on the kite so we could get a few shots.

Of course, timing is a bit tough. The camera takes photos every 2 seconds. (on the setting we were using) and that seems like enough time to get a shot of a car in general part of a course. However that assumption is completely wrong

The GoPro does have a 1 second interval as well and we will try that out in the future as well as some new mounting ideas. In the mean time I bought my own kite to see if we can use a stunt kite to direct the camera a bit more toward what we want to see. I suspect that it will be twitchy and tough to watch like the video that we shot initially (wow, don’t watch that kids you are going to throw up!) But this definitely ads another element to the fun stuff you can do with a gopro… so what do we think, should we try this shot for Pikes Peak next year?

Oh, as a side note. Aaron has this kite for a pretty awesome reason if you ask me. I mean, kites are fun and all, but he bought this so he could fly it at the top of the 14ers that he ascends…

Wow, we have really had some amazing lightning these last couple weeks. Mother nature has really been letting loose. I don’t know what exactly the science is behind this because I haven’t seen storms this consistantly with this much rain at any point in my time here in Colorado.

Yesterday I was in Denver when the storm began. It was intense and we stood and watched as lightning struck all around the building we were in. Center stage for an amazing natural light show. The thunder was so intense that car alarms were triggered and the lightning was so intense that it hung in the sky pulsing as you watched. Later I arrived at my house and the rain was dumping. I wanted to take a photo, but I just couldn’t bring myself to go out with my nice camera and take that risk. The rain eventually let up and I decided to try to get a quick photo off. During the middle of my only exposure the rain began again, slow at first then heavier and heavier… I shielded the camera with my jacket as the exposure counted down and finally was able to run down the street and back into my house. When I finally got a chance to look at the photo I saw that I had actually captured a bit of lightening, 3 bolts from my count and a very interesting scene. It, to me, almost appears as though the light from the city is competing with the lights from nature. Take a look for yourself and click on the photo for a larger image too.

Every year I go up to Pikes Peak for the hill climb and every year the adventure is a bit different. I have worn many hats on the mountain including Photographer, writer, video guy and even tour guide. This year was a bit different. My roll this year was a bit more involved with the teams and it really gave me a good look at what they have to go through to make it to the summit.

Now let me clarify, the teams that I have been spending more time with are all small budget teams. These are guys and girls that don’t have the big dollar budgets and the ones that are sometimes the most impressive on the mountain with the least amount of fanfare. This year I spend the most time with the Kerns.

Dave and Allison are a great duo of Husband and Wife, Driver and Co-Driver. They have two race cars and I am pretty familiar with nearly all the nuts and bolts on both of them now. Their BMW Compact race car you can see more info on the build on my site and the EVO is their hill climb car for Pikes Peak. They seem to always find just enough support to be able to pull off another hill climb and they don’t show up with junk. The EVO is over 600 hp at the wheels, it is very well thought out with weight reduction measures taken at any place that they implement them. It is a rocketship with tires in my opinion and in the capable hands of the dynamic duo, it is a force to be reckoned with.

The other teams, who’s cars I don’t work on, but who I spend time with instead are the teams of Spencer Steele and Jimmy Olson. I met both of these guys through Ice Racing in Georgetown and these guys, well they are best friends and some of the fastest guys on the mountain. Their budgets are reflected in their vehicles as well. Spencer has a philosophy that you don’t paint a car till you can find out what color duct tape you can buy and Jimmy, well, he’s actually driving a car for a different owner named Butch. Both of them have a collection of used tires that they have collected from other teams, they have motors that they built themselves and every part of the work on the car they have a hand in. None of these teams tuck their driver in to get a good nights sleep then go to finish work on the car, the driver is the main part of the team and is integral in making the car go both on the course and in the pits.

In the weeks leading up to PPIHC these teams were working on cars. The kerns were driving to Chicago to get a new AMS power package put into their car. Spencer was building a motor and Jimmy, well he was trying to get his own car running for the event when catastrophe struck and he ended up running in Butch’s car. Exhaustion leading up to the event is a regular thing for these guys and with minimal support a lot of this is just out of pocket expenses too. On Tuesday night, the night before practice, we were under the Kerns EVO readying the car for the next day on the mountain and though the car was mostly ready, the final touches took till nearly 11pm to get through. With a wakeup call at 2:30, that makes for a short night!

On the mountain the first day, the Kerns were battling an under steer issue. With new suspension that they hadn’t been able to test due to rained out track days, they were experimenting on the mountain with the new suspension setup and it was pushing like crazy. Spencer and Jimmy were experimenting too, but they were working with different tires. With all the new pavement on the mountain the tires that they have used in the past, the Pikes Peak Specials, seemed to be too dirt oriented and not quite as pavement friendly, so they were playing with different front tires, different rear tires and run after run you would see different things being tested.

After practice the Kerns headed off to PPIR to continue testing and tuning. The suspension needed to be changed, tire pressures needed to be dialed in and the handling needed to be corrected. After hours at the track only a minimal improvement was felt. It was clear that they were missing something, but there was still time. With that being said, I as able to ride in the car for the first time at the end of the day and experienced a vehicle that has some intense amount of power. 0-60 seems like a silly measurement in this car as you feel that you could just barely stand to drive this thing 60 when it has so much more power to go. Maybe 0-100 or 0-150 even is more appropriate!

Practice day two came about and the same tweaks were being made. The kerns were working with suspension and at the same time AMS tuner Mitch was dialing in the tune on their motor. Jimmy and Spencer were clearly testing tires on each section to see what they could figure out would be faster and I was on the side of the mountain taking video of all of them. In case you don’t remember, last year we ran cameras on most of these cars and this year we stepped that effort up quite a bit. Cameras on the cars and a lot of video from the side of the mountain as well. This is a huge undertaking so check back in a week or so and I will have our final edit up for you to check out.

After practice the kerns headed out to PPIR again, this time they had an infield spot to work on the car. Federal Tires rep Taz Yeh came out to lend a hand and his help was fantastic. His knowledge of the tires and the suspension worked out well and they were able to dial in the suspension and tire pressures to really meet Dave’s driving needs. At the end of the day we laid down a final run on the track. Fully drifting most of the turns in 3rd gear with predictable handing in an AWD car… what an impressive feeling!

Practice day three was qualifying day. This was also the only day on dirt and the dirt was LOOSE. Yeah, The kerns headed up on their newly dialed suspension and they were looking quick. 5:09 was their qualifying time which bettered their previous best qualifying time on the mountain! This was good for second qualifying position however by 4 seconds and they were sure that they could find the extra seconds on the mountain. Jimmy and Spencer were battling out in their own class. Jimmy put down a 5:00 and Spencer a 5:07. With these two guys though that difference in time was going to be cut down… You can just feel the competitive nature between these two best friends! After practice everyone was off to Fan Fest.

Saturday the teams were dialing in, changing oil and just finalizing the prep for race day. Spencer and Jimmy were aligning their cars when I stopped by and as you can imagine it was unique. Big teams, they use tire alignment machines, lasers and other goodies. Jimmy and Spencer? They have a tape measure, a retractable dog leash 4 beer cans and a stick of aluminum. Now keep in mind they have this down to a science. They use two Coors cans on the back of the alignment bar and one Coors and one Bud can on the front… since the Bud can is shorter.

Race day came and the crowds were just huge. It is great to see people recognizing the majestic nature of this mountain and this race. I was asleep at Devils Playground and when I woke up there were probably 500 cars around me. It is a great sight to see! The weather was warm but a bit windy. Overall it was a perfect day for a race and clearly a great day for the unlimited class. Monster set a new record of 9:51, Rhys at 10:09 showed that his car was really capable on the mountain in only two years of running that car and Jean Phillipe had a very impressive appearance at 10:17 which is amazing for the first year on the mountain at all!

The Kerns were poised to break their own record. They headed up the mountain and as they did I turned my radio off. I didn’t want any of that audio on my video. So I waited. They passed by and when I saw their car my heart dropped. Something’s wrong. I turned the radio back on and found that they had crashed at ragged edge and later found out that they crashed, lost a headlight, lost a side skirt, tore a hole in their front suspension and tore the tire on their rear wheel. By the time they got to Cog Cut the were running on a rim and when they got to the top at 12:12 they found that they had just placed 4th in their class… 15 seconds down from the leader while running a flat for the last 5-6 miles of the race. Pretty amazing if you ask me, especially when the race is 12.42 miles long!

Jimmy and Spencer were battling it out as well. Both passed by at a crazy amount of speed and in the end they were separated by 1 second. 1 SECOND! It is incredible. Spencer took the win; Jimmy took second with Spencer’s time being 10:42. Now, here is a little detail for you. This is what impresses me the most. Spencer’s time of 10:42 was set in a car running used tires, a home made motor and duct tape nose cone. This is a homemade project with nearly no support. Spencer’s time was good for 4th fastest overall time on the mountain. This is up with cars that have hundreds of thousands of dollars wrapped up in them. Cars that show up with a crew of mechanics and specialists. Both his time and Jimmy’s time is just incredible to me when you look at the budgets involved. This is what makes Pikes Peak most impressive to me I love that a team with a car built in their garage can show up and challenge the biggest budget factory teams. I think it is an incredible race when money doesn’t dominate and experience skill can win. This really makes this race awesome to me and I am pretty fortunate to have the ability to spend time with these guys and experience the race through their eyes!

I will have a video up from all of these cars and more very soon, in the mean time, check out some quick teasers…