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!
If you looked up the word ‘determined’ in the dictionary, it says “see racekern.com.” The Kerns have had some of the toughest years at Pikes Peak and each year they come out of it wit a smile on their face and a lesson learned. Some of those lessons I don’t think they could have ever avoided so it is amazing how positive and driven they can remain!
This year’s lesson? Dirt may be scary at times, but asphalt has many faces to. The thing about dirt is that you are relying on a surface that has minimal grip, so you are driving in such a way that you are constantly compensating for that lack of grip. On asphalt you are using all the grip that you can get out of the road. So if that grip goes away, you have a much tougher time. This year the Kerns found a part of the course that dust, gravel, something was blown onto the road and braking grip was eliminated! Stephan Verdier found the same place, but his experience was even more catastrophic! So ride along with the Kerns as they take you up the mountain. Keep your eyes peeled for their incidents and for the pieces that decide not to make it all the way to the summit with them!
Take a moment and read the Kern’s recap on the week at Pikes Peak on RaceKern.com
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!
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
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!
We were hard at work on wednesday night! Tearing apart a bug to get prepared to make our Class 11 race car out of it. This thing is actually remarkably clean. It has had impacts on the front, the back, the sides… you know, the normal stuff. There is about 7 gallons of Bondo on it, but overall it is pretty remarkable how little this car has been molested!
We’ve removed nearly everything but we still have a few more things to tear down. The car now resides on a custom made bug stand that wheels around the shop very easily. Seriously convenient!
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)
Every year I head up to Pikes Peak to follow the Pikes Peak international Hill Climb. This is one of the most incredible races in the world. It is followed regularly by people across the globe and competitors are frequently coming in from everywhere in order to challenge the mountain.
This year I was able to head up to check out the practice day. Each year they have one practice weekend for teams that are willing and able to pay an additional fee to get some practice on the road. This is great because they get to run a half of the road at a time rather than 1/3rd of the road during the race week. You only ever can run the full road on race day, one time a year… this is part of the addiction!
This race is pretty incredible, you have the opportunity to experience one of the most incredible views, a sight from 14000 ft with the sun rising and the landscape turning from shadows to colors is pretty fascinating to watch. As you stand on the mountain the cold wraps around you, it always is colder than you think. How could it be 20 degrees when it is 90 down in town? Well, you never know what the mountain will dish out!
Each year I have put together a bit of video from the events. This Year is no different. Here is a quick teaser from today, but keep checking back. I will be making another video after the race this year that I hope will show off a lot of the race.
If you have ever dreamt of racing then you have probably dreamt of some of the epic races in this world. Isle of Man for those of you in the street bike world, Pikes peak for the epic competition against mother nature and probably the SCORE international Baja 1000 for the most incredible race that you can imagine. We have had that dream too and we are excited to announce that we will be racing the Baja 1000.
We have built cars, usually not knowing what we are getting into or what we are doing. but we have a lot of skill, a lot of people to fall back on and well, not really any cash. We’ll figure it out, but there is a lot to do in the mean time. In the past we have competed in the Red Bull Soapbox races, building from scratch vehicles that have blown the minds of competitors, friends and people all over the world who have followed our builds online. These cars come from our desire to race, to build and to simply make an awesome vehicle. We have built rally cars, worked on our own cars and built many other things from furniture to custom car parts.
Our team consists of Car guys, designers, machinists, welders, photographers, videographers, marketing professionals, mechanics and more. Our crew of jack of all trades guys have proven themselves time and time again in their ability to create amazing solutions to complicated problems.
There are a lot of people who come up with these types of plans but one of our biggest strengths is our ability to plan these things and follow through with them. Our guys are ready to go, we have been shopping for a car and we have waded through a lot of rusty cars, lots of junk really. We did come across something that we felt was worth while. So we went down, we checked the car over completely and we fired it up! This is a crazy step in and of itself! All of the vehicles we had looked at before did not run, move or even look like they had hope of moving. So we bought it… Yes we own a car that will become our Baja 1000 Race car.
This is going to be a Class 11 car built to remain mostly stock with full fenders. We will have a lot of updates to come soon, but for now check out our “bringing it home” video
It’s all part of building a race car. Nothing works perfectly the first time around. Ask Rhys Millen. They built a million dollar car for Pikes Peak last year and without enough testing they had issues with the wing, the transmission and on and on. Well, for the Kern’s it isn’t that different. Each test has revealed a problem. The first showed some issues with the diff. The second test showed some issues with the suspension and between those tests we had some issue with the oil pump.
Yesterday we headed out to CORE and we tested again. 11-2:30 with only a few stops that were each under about 10 minutes. About 3 hours of running at 80-100% (except when I was driving that was probably more like 50%!) This thing is proving itself! The engine runs strong, very strong! The transmission is working nicely and the suspension is nearly dialed. One more switch around with valving and possibly a bit of a change on the rear spring rate and this thing should be ready for whatever you can throw at it.
Check out some video from the day and don’t forget to check out RaceKern.com for updates from the Kerns
