Well another year has passed us by and what a year it has been! 2011 started with a bang. On New Years day in 2011 I spent the day racing on the Ice in Georgetown. Wow what a fun time that is and I wish I could be doing it again this year! Racing at Georgetown has been a very fun experience, but in addition I have met some great people along the way. I am looking forward to some more racing this year as well.

2011 brought new work to my plate as well. Marketing for Excel has been an adventure and a great learning experience for me. I have enjoyed the task and I have enjoyed the challenge. Not every choice is a winner but no success comes without a bit of failure.

The Kerns have been a big part of this year as well. Dave and Allison Kern have become good friends and I have enjoyed helping out with their projects. It is always gratifying to see hard work result in something amazing and nobody puts in more time to accomplish their goals than the Kerns. I’ve really enjoyed being a part of their project and in addition I am glad to be able to help them bring more to their networking. I’m looking forward to what they have in store for 2012

Every year I enjoy heading to Pikes Peak for the race and this year was no different. I have been making a lot of friends up on the mountain and I am glad to be able to work with them and help them show the world what they see. 2011 was a great year for friends like Spencer Steele, Jimmy Olson, Savannah Rickli as well as the Kerns There are a lot of changes coming for 2012 and I can’t wait to see the new cars from Spencer and Savannah, the new setup from the kerns and the success that they will have in 2012

Of course, there is no way that I can forget my amazing friend Lisa getting married this year. In 2011 I was fortunate to head out to California to attend her wedding and what a beautiful wedding it was. Congrats Lisa, I am so happy for you.

Our co-op workshop has been going strong for 2011 as well. It has been great having a large nice place to work for a reasonable cost. Sharing space, tools and other odds and ends has been pretty spectacular and I have to say thanks to Matt Fisher and Jeremiah Hueske for being partners in that place. Without it I am sure that I wouldn’t be motivated to do many of the projects that I line up and without it our Baja project would be substantially harder to figure out.

2011 also brought my friend John Grimberg a new workshop. If there is anyone in this world that can use a nice place to bring ideas into reality it is John and I am glad that I was able to help him with at least some of the construction of the new place. Congrats John, the shop is amazing and I can’t wait to see what comes out of there!

As the year began the old crew got back together again and we began planning for a new adventure. The new adventure was to step up from Soapbox to another dream of ours. Racing the Baja 1000 in 2012 is a goal and a plan that we have for this year. 2012 is going to be amazing and building, troubleshooting, testing, tuning and more will be a huge part of our year, but spending time with the friends that are putting this together is a major reason for these adventures. I’m glad to be able to be a part of this project and I am glad to have everyone along for the ride.

Finally I always spend Christmas with the family and this year was no different. I have always kept a bit to myself but I know my family knows how I feel about them. It was another great visit to Washington to spend time my sister and a bit of time with her Boyfriend Val, then up to Pennsylvania to visit the family. I really enjoy my time with the family and look forward to seeing them again soon.

Every year I learn more about myself and I learn more about what is important. I have a lot of hopes for 2012 and but most of all I hope you have a great 2012 and amazing adventures this year!

Now for a few resolutions. I want to keep it simple. So this year I resolve to:

If you’re following along, did you make any resolutions this year?

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!

Jimmy and Spencer are great friends and it is amazing to see how close they are in all the racing they do. Ride along with Jimmy as he finishes second in open wheel by only 1 second! His time is good enough for 5th fastest on the mountain a pretty awesome thing to be able to say as well!

You can also see this on My Life @ Speed

I will be adding each of the drivers full run’s over the next week, but today we have Spencer’s. He was the fastest in the group of drivers that we had cameras on and I figured it would be nice to get his run up first. Ride along with Spencer as he claims the top rung on the podium in Open Wheel devision and also grabs the 4th fastest on the mountain. Keep your eyes peeled, he’s got a few hairy moments too!

If you haven’t seen already, check out my previous entry with video from all the cars we ran cameras on this year. Video Number one link

You can also see this on My Life @ Speed

Yeah, I decided after working on this first video and realizing that YouTube now allows uploads over 10 minutes that I will also put together individual race runs this year. I will work on that later today actually, for now, here is the first edit from the mountain. Ride along with Spencer Steele, Jimmy Olson, Savannah Rickli, Rebecca Greek and Dave & Allison Kern. It’s quite the adventure and keep your eyes peeled the race runs were, very eventful!

You can also see this on My Life @ Speed

Yes, that is right, the 17 year old, youngest competitor on pikes peak, mini driving, highly motivated and driven young lady has made it onto the news for Pikes Peak. They are calling her the Teen Queen of the mountain. I was up at PP this weekend and did a bunch of video and was able to help out Savannah and her codriver Rebecca Greek with a bit of video for their news coverage. Check out the news coverage here at Colorado Connection’s Website I shot basically everything that was not onboard footage

Here is a quick shot of their car last year (I only shot video so far this year)

I don’t know why I forget this stuff, but I am remembering how much work making a mold is… Yeah. It is one of those things that I remember when I really think about it, but when I haven’t done it for a while I convince myself that it will just take a few hours.

If you haven’t seen part one of this build check it out here. This time I have been going layer after layer, working my way up and trying to get a nice smooth final product. There have been some tricky parts like the airbag area and the vent holes. In addition the portion that I have made with foam is a bit tricky as well, occasionally when you get beyond the bondo layer you find out what happened very quickly when you hit the soft foam! I reached a point where I needed a much better visual indicator of what was going on. So I had to put a coat of glossy paint on in order to see the lines better than I could with the flat primer. So I chose a red paint and painted it up. It gave away some issues immediately. There were some sanding marks that were a bit deeper than anticipated, some waves that I needed to sort out and basically it just did exactly what it needed to do.

So I did a full wet sand on the part and really smoothed it out. some spots got all the way back to bondo again through the paint layer and the primer layer. Once I got it all smoothed out another layer of glossy red and WOW! what a difference! It looks very good right now. There are a few little imperfections, they are all pits and will actually be easier to fix in the mold itself so I am going to leave them and sand them out of the final mold.

After the mold was fully prepped we took aluminum tape to create the rest of the part. Basically the part needs draft, so using the tape is much faster and easier to shape for portions of the mold that we don’t care about. Plus it doesn’t really stick to the fiberglass, so that helps as well.

I believe that there will be two more parts to this project, one more for the mold making and one more part for the final part that we pull off the mold. Check back soon!

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!

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