colorado – CameraCourage

October 17, 2012October 23, 2012

Lands End Hill Climb

After an incident at Pikes Peak I really wanted to just get in a car again. I wanted to get in the co-drivers seat and I wanted to do it sooner rather than later. I never really developed a fear after the crash, but I just wanted the opportunity to just get back in the car and do the job again. I was chatting with Dave Kern around the time of Pikes Peak and he mentioned that Allison, his wife and codriver may be out of town during the Lands End Hill Climb. This is a race that is part of the Colorado Hill Climb series put on by the CHCA. So I looked forward to that opportunity.
As time passed Dave realized that Allison didn’t have a conflict after all and I was debating on whether or not I would go to spectate when he and Allison competed. Dave had different plans. He had his ears open and found me a seat after all.

Last year I went up to Bridgestone Winter Driving School with Dave and several others and we had a fun day out on the track. Among the others was Aaron McConnell and Roger Matthews. I had met Aaron several times before but I only met Roger the night before we went to play on the track. At Lands End, Aaron had the opportunity to pilot the Suba Performance Rally car and Roger was debating on whether or not he should bring out his car. Dave described his car to me over the phone as “one pissed off bunny” and mentioned that Roger didn’t have a codriver for the event. I took that opportunity. I knew Rogers demeanor and personality, but not his driving style. I did know a bit of his history, Rally America stage events as well as Pikes Peak were on his resume and I felt pretty comfortable with the person I had met nearly a year before so I loaded up and headed out to Grand Junction to run the event.

Lands End is part of the CHCA series. The format is a two day format. The first day is dedicated to practice. A full day on the mountain with as many runs as everyone can get in from about 8 am till about 4 pm. We ended up with 3 runs of the full course. On day two, it is race day. You get two runs and you need to make them count.

Our class was small. The Kerns were the only other 2wd Rally car in our class. The AWD rally class was a bit more populated but the main classes were the Open wheel, stock car and truck classes. We ran strong for the little rabbit and we pushed it hard. In the end we were second and we had a couple really good, clean runs.

Since I have managed to destroy all of my GoPro’s we didn’t have the best setup for some of our video, however, we did manage to get video from almost all the rally cars as well as Joel Yust in order to throw together a quick compilation video. Enjoy! Thanks also to Joel Yust for that photo on this page!

Side note, check out this last minute camera mount that we threw together with a discarded Iced Tea bottle..

May 12, 2012June 5, 2012

Ballooning

A couple months ago I went out for the first time with Michael Hill to go help crew for his hot air balloon flight. I had never done that before and I have some strange desire to try to learn random skills… just in case. I consider it 007 skills. I mean, what if! What if you just happen to find yourself needing to fly a hot air balloon, you may as well know how, right?

This time we flew Michaels new balloon. It was another new experience. These balloons seem so simple, but the devil is in the details. Yes, it is a simple balloon, yes it is a wicker (raton) basket and yes it is basically a bunch of strings wrapped around a balloon that makes this flight happen, but in order to make this all happen successfully you need to do everything in the right order, with the right technique. The toggles that hold the balloon seem very simple, but attach them correct and things go right, attach them incorrect and it is not ideal.

We ran a 7 mile flight in a perfect morning this week from Frederick Colorado. Take a look at some photos from the day.

March 12, 2012March 19, 2013

Colorado Rally Cross: Season Opener

I was just minding my own business at work on Friday when I get a text message. “Find a truck and Trailer and the BMW is yours to race on Saturday.” I consider myself a fairly honest person, but I’ll steal a truck and trailer for that opportunity! After some quick searches I got another message “truck and trailer are taken care of.” Holy crap, that is even better.

So off we went, we headed out to CORE unloaded and signed up. I realized I hadn’t driven the BMW in about 7 months so I figured it should be quite entertaining to see my tentative first runs.

Once on track we had a pile of fun, it was a very windy day and I was driving with Grant Hughes as a second driver in the car. Dave brought out the EVO aka the Evil (according to voice-to-text) and though we didn’t win any awards (though Grant nearly clinched the Cone Killer award) we had a blast.

The photo in this thread is pulled from this PhotoBucket stream. Once I figure out how to contact the guy I may just have to get this thing printed!

http://s621.photobucket.com/albums/tt291/mrk9182/Colorado%20RX/

November 12, 2011December 6, 2011

Flyin’ Balloons

They always say, one thing leads to another. Well, over the years I have been following Pikes Peak very closely. I work on cars, I take photos, make videos and more. It has all been really fun and I have met some really interesting people along the way. Drivers, tech’s, promotors and of course, more creative folk like myself. The funny thing about meeting someone at an event like that is that you know them for a very narrow area of what they do. So sometimes you learn a bit more about someone or realize who you’ve met. Peter Brock is a good example. I mean, I met him as a photographer on the mountain then realized… Wait. That guy designed the shelby daytona coupe! If you look for his accomplishments you will see that they are, simply put, a significant part of automotive history.

Each person you meet has more to their story and when I got a call from Michael Hill recently it almost wasn’t surprising that he mentioned that he flies Hot Air Balloons. If you have read anything I have written here I think you will figure out pretty quick that if it is something new I would like to try it out. So Michael asked if I would help out crewing for one of his flights and I of course said yes.

I honestly have never been around hot air balloons and really didn’t know what we would be doing so I went along looking for instruction. We set up everything, assembled the balloon and launched it. The balloon is so simple it is kinda remarkable. Wood toggles fit between rope loops holding a raton basket to a cloth “envelope.” When you look at it, it makes sense but when you think about it from the perspective of a climber it seems almost too simple. In climbing everything is double redundant and in ballooning it seems as though it is just made to be simple. It was pretty cool to see how it all works and I am sure I will go check it out again and hopefully at some point get a flight in as well.

Check out a quick time lapse from the launch.

It was

October 18, 2011December 7, 2011

A long weekend

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!

September 6, 2011December 7, 2011

Testing and tuning with the EVO

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!”

August 20, 2011December 7, 2011

There is something about a Hot Air Balloon…

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…

August 15, 2011December 7, 2011

Flying a GoPro

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…

July 28, 2011December 7, 2011

Pikes Peak: Savannah Rickli & Rebecca Greek

The youngest driver and the most encouraging navigator, yup, you guessed it! The Dynamic duo of Savannah Rickli and Rebecca Greek attack Pikes Peak in their Mini cooper with only 200hp. Pretty crazy when you think that others in their class have more than 3 times that kind of power.

Ride along as they rocket up the mountain with only a few mishaps along the way.

July 19, 2011December 7, 2011

PPIHC Video Clips

I spent pretty much the entire week climbing around Pikes Peak in order to get shots for this small video project that I was working on. The project was to create a PPIHC video that features a group of smaller name, lower budget drivers and I guess I root for the underdog so I really enjoy bringing these names to the front of peoples minds if I can.

After spending that week collecting footage, you know I am going too also shoot other cars too so I put together a lot of Extra footage to put that out there as well. This is very comprehensive. It is nearly every car that practiced with the unlimited/time attack cars and a few others as well. There are a ton of locations and this was all shot by me over the 3 practice days, race day and the test and Tune day. Enjoy!