Wednesday, February 28, 2024

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

 You know I love my Mr. Rogers quotes. -One of my favorites: "Deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex."

I can collect projects as good as any of 'em. Before becoming a deeply involved and devoted father I used to be able to keep more than a few projects on the burners at the same time. Maybe it is just old age or the aggressions of time itself. But I have felt lately like a drowning rat trying to keep my head above water while a gang of little league swingers are wacking me from all sides with wiffle ball bats.

I have learned to not only pick my battles but more importantly to pick my dreams. I seem to be cursed with having a lot of my dreams come true. What a world! I can't stand to watch the news. The unbearable un justs are just far too many and way to wicked and horrendous. But I am what I am. I reckon my Mom did me a very good thing buying me that clapped out dirt bike from the classifieds adds and re-marring a cattle farmer when I was 10. I've been more than lucky. But still I have conjured up some dreams that ended up coming true only to find myself strapped to a suicide machine. Or just racing motorbikes and not having any fun doing it. It is hard to imagine until you find yourself in the middle of it. Like a gun fight. Or more like a hostage in a gun fight. I can't recall how many times I have shot down offers to ride expense free on a Baja 1000 teams. Or had very good solid job offers in the motorcycle industry that would entail lots of travel. I reckon what I am getting at here is that I like my freedom. I have worked hard to get what I have and I want to keep on doing whatever it is that tickles my fancy. Work hard - play hard, has become a motto ever since I started racing motorbikes 30 years ago. So where the fuck does that put me now. I absolutly refuse to hang up my leathers though thoughts of why I dont creep around more and more like a leaky faucet that you only hear on hot sticky nights when the whiskey and weed were too much and your balls wont stop itching but you know that damn drip drip drip is the same place that provides the quenching salvation your dry tounge needs so desperately while you just toss and turn just trying to sleep. -FTW.-I seemed to have really latched on to the two too many wheel sickness. First the bug, fun but I wanted more power, then the stock car, plenty of power but too damn big and heavy for a motorbike racer. So I set out to build my own little light weight rage cage with a big ol Hayabusa motorbike engine. - The Goldy Locks race car.... mmm just right. At least the shake down runs have me thinking so. This race season will tell. But as I am finishing up the last refinements and picking out the perfect paint livery, along comes a market place ad for a Wells Coyote. The most successful hill climb car in America. Built by a true salt of the earth legend John Wells. It is in rough shape. Perfect. $3500. A fair price. But I don't have that kind of money laying around. I need another race car like JFK needed another hole in the head. But damn if it aint too fucking easy to leave a comment with a few clicks of the keyboard; " I wonder if they'd trade for a motorbike?" Instant message comes back saying I know you build a hell of a bike Newbold, what do you have for sportbikes? Well, I just happen to have a knackered 2000 CBR600F4 in my bone yard that my tow truck driver buddy harvested for me, title and all. Of course I can turn it into a $3500 bike. That is why I was hoarding it with the other 100 bikes in my yard. I end up putting way more elbow grease and a few bucks into it wondering if the deal will ever pan out.... The plan was to hitch a ride with Mom down to Arizona for her craft fair gig and pick up the car with my sketchy old trailer in tow. And damned if it didn't all go down without a hitch. well the trailer popped off the hitch, but just once and that's what safety chains are for. And as far as I know the trailer ramp flopping down for, I don't know how many miles on the interstate did not start any Arizona wild fires. I love my Mom for teaching me how to make it in this world without being another sheep in the flock. But what I am getting at here is why the fuck am I doing all this!? Sure I am stoked to have my dream hill climb car but it needs a shit ton of work and then some. I have my own version of the car that I have spent over a year building from scratch and that is all I really care about at this defined ADHD moment of clarity. I have side projects like the XR650R Baja racer ghost of christmas past that is really all I need to play with here at home in the desert. I have serviced all the chassis, rebuilt the already built forks and recently completed the exciting hybrid CR500 shock bodied rear shock giving it more travel, larger cooling fluid capacity plus high speed compression damping control. Thing is going to be a sick ass mother fucking factory replica Johnny Cambell 5th gear whoop eater! And every day I walk around my lift in the front of my shop hoisting this beautiful Champion framer XS650 with Shell engine covers... And I think what kind of a sick trophy chasing, double ended candle burning, wacked out whisky wanting weirdo would try to do so much with so little. Help me Mister Rogers.




Friday, January 26, 2024

I just got home from a family trip to San Fransico. A long trip. A trippy trip without any work shop, tools, or machines. Just my mind, my daughter and wife. The eight days flew by as quick as the past several years. Somehow the speed of the clock is quickening like they all said it would. I try to live in the moment and soak it up. Avoid the ever coming hopes and dreams of tomorrow pleading at my desires like a perfectly delivered sales pitch for all that I can't live without. I cling to what I know to be true; The things I have spent my life putting together. One piece at a time like tinker toys. These vehicles that move me by day between green and checkered flags. Piled up like sacks of grain through the cold months. Heaps of firewood. Stacked as neatly as I possibly can. Crammed together like Tetris blocks with handlebars. Avoiding the hoarder's critical mass. But just barely.







 

Thursday, December 21, 2023

PIkes Peak International Hillclimb coverage 1993 -(IT'S POP CORN TIME RACE FANS!!)

I was ten years old when I first saw what is the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Thank you ESPN. I never thought in a million years that I would go on to race there ten times. Podium 8 times. Win my class twice. Set a record. And finish 2nd overall once. And chief crew for an Isle Of Man racer once. The fact that Colorado Hill Climb has taken such a strong hold on me is on the level of sever addiction/true love. This video is great from start and especially to the end. Was it that things were so much cooler before the information interweb revolution or was it just the seirra club's fucking pavement. All I know is I am so grateful for 9 time motorcycle class winner Chuck Lee for being my mentor. (See his name on the brief list of all the motorcycle heroes in the middle of the video.) I am also still in disbelief that Leonard Vahsholtz's first Pikes Peak car is in my yard. And that his grandson is now kicking ass not only on bikes (he only beat me on time:)) but now on the Peak! And also, that Paul Dallenbach gave me the wing that is on my new race car. (he said it might be a $15K wing, probably from a 1992 Penske Indy car.) Will I ever get to race on America's Moutain again? I built this little car of mine with the dream that I will, but I know it is as much of a far fetched dream if not more than any dream I've ever dared. Even just the CHCA patch on Leonard's race suit makes me so very proud. So does that other fella's mustache. And one time I did a press conference next to Tajima and his giant Japanese smile. Another story for another blog post... enjoy this capture of pure Colorado hill climb action. Pure.

Sunday, December 17, 2023

$3k, elbow grease, bit of midnight oil.












Don't ever let anyone make you think that you can't.
The world is full of people spewing the why nots.
The can do usually quietly pulls through.
Nuff said. 




 

Saturday, December 16, 2023

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Christmas sucks my balls. I like it.

 This time of year always drags me down a bit. With no racing on the radar in the near future and the consumer bullshit that is christmas. But with a little one around now I reckon it helps me find the joy in making people smile, even if it means lighting up something that is supposed to hold meaning to something that holds no meaning to me philosophically. But when it all comes around to it I reckon it is just really about the end of another year and being thankful for all it was and all that next season will bring. So I string up the lights, decorate the plastic tree, and pour another Kahlua cocktail. Fuck'n A Santa...

The back yard. The Honda Odyssey out of gas after all the snow melted.

The Champion has been patently waiting for me to transplant a worthy powerplant...





This little race car I built from scratch has had most of my spare attention for almost a year now. I can't wait to see how it does in competition next year with the Colorado Hill Climb Association.

The new shop is starting to feel like home. It is a big space to fill after 3 or 4 more intimate shops before it that were much easier to fill up. I have grand aspirations for it. Time seems to be slowly making it happen....



Saturday, November 25, 2023

State of the union

Well... this might get bitchy. However, know that I am one happy camper. Even when I feel like my nuts are in the vise of consumer driven white trash western world corporate driven slavery. Yes, that money system I bitch about is the same that I use to buy race car parts, put fuel in my van, and honestly keep the family food on the table. All hail the system! Seeing Sideburn Magazine go away brings about a dreary feeling of despaire. And more than just for my own selfish reasons. The print magazines are disappering like a plate of cookies at a High Times party. I expect to stop being offered Racer X, Motocross Action, and even the awful DIRT BIKE issues, any month could be the last but somehow I took Sideburn for granted and never thought the outspoken weirdo becan would cease. But when Ben left it did become more corporate and less punk rock. When I saw it badged as the official Magazine of American Flattrack, I should have known that there were expectations creeping in the shadows. Anyhoo, It sure has been great to meet Gary back in Vegas at my first real flattrack race. The people I have met in the Sideburn network have provided me with many lifetimes worth of experiences. Everything changes. Everything dies. But not everything lives so live it up!!!
I try not to take an of it for granted.
-H.S.T
I got the Hayabusa race car build off the bench and it is pretty fucking insane. Much to my delight it seems to handle well and everything operates as intended. On hard pack dirt it accelerates hard like a Hayabusa does. That kind of hard hitting acceleration that dumps your guts deep into the seat and eyelids peel back with tense focus, hands gripping the controls with deft true life or death action!
Last week I wrapped up work on a project I am proud to have followed through with. I built a wide ratio transmission for my 1995 CR250 with 03-07 CR250 shafts and a wide ratio gear set made for 02-08 CRF450. It was uncharted territory so I took a big gamble on buying the needed bits. I had to chuck up the main and counter shaft in my lathe and working the hardened steel was not a cake walk. Getting it all together and having it shift through the gears put a big smile on my face. The bike has been apart since Gary sunk it last May Day. I am ready to get back on the two stroker and slay some single track.

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Sideburn Nepal trip 2023

I got to go ride a motorbike through the Nepal mountains and it was the trip of a lifetime!

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Another season finale

The drive to race strong as always. The championship already wrapped up by somebody other than me for the 2nd year in a row. Whatever the truckstop had pineapple and Wonderbread; all I needed to accommodate my only packed ration. In SPAM we trust. The mornings camped right below tree line were cold enough to make Layla dog climb in my sleeping bag. The racing was the first good racing of the season. With 10 motorbike entrants over the 3 or 4 all year and a Brady brother getting back on his bike after a few years away was nipping seconds behind me every run. And the solid old 2nd place finisher to me at all the other races of the year (Except the one I missed) finished 4th. So if not for the attendance points paid (green flag points they call them), I could... have ... would... whatever. Two seasons in a row of not being the bike champion will not kill me off and it is nice to share some love since I think I have won damn near every bike championship since they started allowing bikes in 2014. Ol Lord Mick raced his first race after a major knee/ femur surgery last winter to correct years and years of being a totally devoted and huge huck loving committed shredder of gnar. And all I can take away from all of this is that I love doing what I do. I love going stupid fast on roads that most people are to afraid to drive at all. I love sharing what I love with a few good blokes. And I still have no shame in my love for SPAM. SPAM light is actually my top shelf. P.S. the pictures of race car wings are another topic of discussion to follow. Mabey after I serve my duty as SIDEBURN ambassador for next weeks Nepal adventure. Much!

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Mobil 1 x Hoonigan // Jeff Zwart // Lands End Hill Climb

My competition in the Rally 2WD class. The legendary Jaff Zwart. He like to remind me that my VW bug and his GT3 Porsche are pretty much the same :)

Sunday, September 10, 2023

Blister juice

Somewhere between the whiskey and yoga, the winning of races and the weekly physical therepy appointments, the sunday morning solo shred sessions and the sunday afternoon dadda sessions; I feel weight of my age. I feel the washed up old punk rocker becoming a washed up old motorbike racer. Like an onry mule, I refuse to carry this burden. Whip me, sinch me, tie me up and have a go at breaking me, father time you cursed ever stable devil. I won't stand for it. Not as long as I have my desire. A desire I can't even begin to understand or really even care to. All I know is the doing of it feels good so do it I shal. Hunter S. said somthing about how the dream not be created by the individule but the individual be created by the dream. I am just a simple dude with a desire to race shit and race shit I shal.
This action shot from the last Temple Hill climb on the 5th gear roller coaster section. I was not able to break the course record I set there earlier in the year but I did get the big W. I injured my ACL in my knee a couple weeks prior so I was stoked. And since my knee is feeling much better. True spoken words of a sick individual in knee surgery denial.
After the Sunday race runs at Temple the CHCA had a "mechanics race". for $75 you can race an entered vehicle if you are a club member. Brady Dimick asked me if I would race his dwarf car. I knew better but after thinking about the oppertunity I said sure, why not. After he told me the clutch and brake pedal were reversed and about a dozen or so other important things about how to safely opperate his car, like how it turns left when accelerating and hard right when de-accelerating I climbed right in, Well akwardly sqeezed in, just barely able to fit. Right before I went to the start line he said, "look I mind as well just tell you: the frame is bent and the rear end has over an inch of tow out..." The thing was more squrrely than a bar of soap in a bathtub full of moly grease. It would do everything except drive in a straight line. I have never laughed so hard while trying not to die!
No idea what is going on here
Also no idea what here. Ok, I know what the guy who sold it to me said but he clearly had some far too close of encounters with meth. But to his credit he did save this engine out of the trash. Apparently his buddy built this V4 700cc two stroke snowmobile engine and had it going over 100 mph. The points ign was miss fireing at high rpm so he was trying to put a magneto on it or maybe the guy I got it from was trying to put a magneto on it. I do not know. But the origonal builder was a machiniest for American Airlines and it is very well made. Sand cast cases. Water cooled heads, A crank that looks like a modified sport bike. It looks like it has ran a fair amount so maybe in all my spare time I will rig up an ignition and four expansion chambers. Just to here it run...
The project rage cage is coming along. The Hayabusa's insturment cluster makes the driver seat feel like I am slomst behind the handle bars of a super bike. This weekend I am mounting up the heat exchanger and fuel cell. Then it is test drive time...