Racecar Roadkill

There is a certian joy in doing as much as possible with as little as possible. There is a point when it becomes redicules and the stomach eats it self. So far I feel both full and fat. Winning I suppose. But I know that one day, puraps tommorow that first trophy I won will sit right next to the last one I have won. If there is anything I have learned in life it is that it doesn't get any easier. Bleeding brakes and making breakfast, keeping a smile on my face and a healthy bill of sale for the organ doners. Every day is a challange and I know that as long as I keep facing up to them than I can keep winning. That is what I call it when I don't give up. Winning. No matter if I am first, last, or in between. The only one who can beat me is me. That said I know that days are numbered but my love of racing is not a love of coming in first. That has just become a side effect. Motivating as it is. It is a load to carry and maybe someday I will dump that load on the side of the road and have some more fun just the same.

The Hayabusa car was great all weekend. Only time I touched a wrench was for a brake balance adjustment. Missed the podium by a couple of seconds and only about 6 seconds of my bike time. The brakes are still an issue but as long as I ratched strapped the pedal down while not in use they worked good enough to keep me from torpedoing of a cliff through the forrest. Yay.

I finally got the old Baja Betty bike out. This bike came back into my hands over a year ago after a 16 year seperation. I have put a lot of work into this thing recently in hopes of having a rejuvenating desert freedom machine. The CR500 hybrid shock needs another re-valve along with the forks. It was great to finally ride it last weekend.

The past few weeks have been a bit mental for me. Sometimes I don't know what to do other than just keep doing what I know how to do. Going to the Monarch hill climb with my daughter was something I don't think I will ever forget. I know I am one lucky Dadda. I did not qualify my bike on pole position for the first time in my ten year history of racing this event but I pulled out the win by a bit over 1 second. Not sure if that means anything at all. I reckon the trophy will end up in a dumpster one day along with my shitty old man underware. The here and now is really where it is at. Bubbles in the brake fluid and all. Pump, bleed, repeat.The big Lands End Hill Climb is in less than two weeks. Captain Ahab Alex flies in form Norway in 8 days. Moped Dick hungers for the salt.... TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO FIND OUT WHAT THE HELL HAPPENS.....

Balance = confidence

 For the past few weeks I’ve been bleeding. Bleeding brains, knuckles, patience, but mostly just bleeding my brakes. Over and over again. The new rotor and caliper were easy enough to fit, not really but they went on in a few nights. But I couldn’t get the air out. More like couldn’t keep air out. I’d get em good and then after a day or a during a test drive they’d go squishy. I found the used sprint car willwood caliper to have loose fittings behind the bleeders so I went and tightened em up until they snapped right the fuck off. So I bought a brand new caliper and it was firm juice for a day so I went and had new brake lines made a couple days ago. All good until again after a day they feel just a bit less firm… wtf! So I keep the pedal ratchet strapped down over night while it sits loaded up on the trailer ready to go racing tomorrow on a mountain side. I hope I have brakes when I need them. 

One week with a Norwegian, two Arkansasians and Moped Dick

 Not long ago, maybe a two months ago, I found myself on a conference call with the lovely people I went to Bonneville with 5 years ago but got rained out and ended up having a really good time non the less. The talk of going back to the salt came up and all were in favor and than the proposition was raised to go this summer... " Why not?" was said. And again; "Why not?" And go....  operation attack of the fastest 50cc, most powerful 2-stoke per displacement commence

What lunching a piston at 16,000 rpm sounds like.

Alex (2StokeStuffing) is not only one of the most interesting minds but.... aw shucks....

Engineer Don. Out front of my shop.

Don, Alex, and Jim doing the Data

Space monkey getting ready to space monkey

Layla disapproves of my work

Out skirts of Mack Colorado is about 70 feet different than the Bonniville 

Lots of Rainer was drank during the late nights.

I think we broke and welded the pipe four times or more. Some furious harmonic sonic

pulse waves are doing the boogie woogie at play. Despite a lot of what some might call failure we kept a positive outlook throughout the week, making up to three trips a day out to the test track 20 minutes away from my shop. We got a few good 75 mph runs, not far off the record, despite never even getting a chance to jet or tune the clutching. I sent the engine home to Norway with Alex so he can do some torture testing on his Dyno. Come August we shall concur!

!!

Care Bear Rage Cage upgrades

 

I hate to admit how many hours I have into this aborted mash of mechanical shift linkage. It reminds me of one of the shits that no matter how many times you wipe your ass it still just shitty!

The cable is going to be much better than all the tubes, bell cranks, and heim links. Also used some old handle bars for a shifter I won't be able to bend when down shifting like a crazed Rat Fink adrenaline junky.

Up grading the rear rotor to a 3/8" thick Paul Bunyan flap jack and a Wilwood sprint car caliper.

Between my ears

First Hill Climb race of 2024. First race in the new car. Built the little sombitch from scratch and I am a might bit proud of that. Fuck I love Hill Climb racing. So much concentration. So much preparation and anticipation rammed into a small period of seat time to make shit happen. I started learning young without really knowing it but what is between the ears is so much more essential than what is below your ass. Still I have read so many books trying to pick up some insight or race craft or even engineering knowledge but when the dust settles it is really all about just making decisions and acting on them.

I told myself a bunch all winter building this car that I needed to hang up my leathers and focus on the car if I wanted to do good with it. Changing in and out of leathers 8 plus times a day leaves no time to adjust suspension or hardly even top the gas tanks or check tire psi. But when it came time to register for the first race I just could not leave that motorcycle class alone. Be it another $200. FTW -Forever Two Wheels. Friday before the race I figured I better drag out my trusty Hill Climb Special 450 class record setting Pikes Peak bike. She would not start. No compression. Checked the valves. They were good. Long over due for a rebuild but WTF. Must be stuck ring. So I drag out the big ol XR650R despite reservations about my self preservation. Mental confidence is all that matters. To compound the mental load of the first race weekend, be it Mother's Day. I made a deal with my Mom many months ago that I was bringing Nova to the races with me this year but I would need Nana to watch her while I was on track. And of course this weekend we can't leave Nova's Mom at home. So they both showed up 24 hours after me and Nova. While I was on the track and Nova was hanging out with her new paddock buddies. Oh and my sister decided to show up with her 4 month old baby and uncle Martin who had stomach flu. No sweat, I can focus on the task. The big ol bike was like an old comfortable glove, dexterous and effective. after Saturday's practice/qualifying I was below my best course time and only a few seconds off course record. The only course record I don't have. So I spooned on a new tire, while grilling burgers on the charcoal, helping Nova with her out door potty going, 3 weeks off diapers, keeping the moms happy, and thinking about what to do with a pleasantly capable race car. In it's first day of competition I was qualified 3rd in class only 4 seconds behind my motorbike time. Sunday. Race day. Bike run first, I break the record. Sweet! First car run I get a red flag and wait for an hour or so on the mountain. Finally the ambulance goes by and then the tow truck with my competition's mangled remains. Consequences are real in Colorado Hill Climb. The road is drying out quick and getting dry slick like marbles on top of concrete. Finally I restart as the starter lets my daughter wave the green flag. I am putting in what feels like a pretty damn fast run, nearing the top I run wide exiting a known car eating corner, I feel my out side rear tire float a bit but have trajectory to stay on the road but my mistake cooks me wide into the next corner, I try briefly to throttle out of the oversteer situation but quickly abort and yank my hand brake so as to spin out staying on the road. But I get flustered trying to spin back around and end up stopped on the road with no reverse and not enough room in front. I cause my first red flag in ten years of hill climb. I spend the next 2.5 hrs at flag station 6 while two other vehicles go off the same corner. One an atv, the other a BMW rally car that flipped twice as it went down the near cliff through all the scrub oak sounding like collapsing building. Everybody was ok. Two more red flags and finally I make it back down to the pits and my family. My family attending their first hill climb. My wife is cool and has made it to Lands End many times but this was everybody so it was different. I knew the road was not getting any faster so I sat out the 2nd motorcycle run focusing on getting my car's rear brake to not lock up; A characteristic it developed coming down from the last run. I found cracks in the in board rear brake rotor and decided to throw in the towel. A bit of a bummer because I am sure otherwise a podium finish was capable. Next race... Live to see a next race...
 

2STROKE STUFFING Back to Bonneville 2024!

Please contact me or Alex if you would like to help out. Mucho!

The art of thrifting - (hording)

 I aint good at much but I do reckon I am good at getting as much as possible from as little as close to nothing as any other self funded racer. It comes natural after enough years of chasing stupid plastic trophies and meaningless championships. The thousands of hours rehabbing injuries and not forget the least unsettling smell of a blown up engine coasting to a stop. All the struggle and the strife lead to few options for a desperado hell bent on never giving in and making the most at this one shot we get living a life on a rock hurtling through space. Racing: a reason to be better than those miserable adults you knew when you were not yet an adult. Either give up and give in to being a washed up old racer instead of a washed up old punk rocker who chose racing over religion, corporate greed, or conformity. Or give every bit of myself to a great cause. A reason to feel good. Is that so much to understand. Perhaps to those never afflicted with the addiction of motorsport racing. I reckon I aint got nothing I can explain to such folks. I am doing my best and that is all I really can say.

Here comes...

A quest for quality

 I have read Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance a few times. Once because of the tittle, again to try to understand the plot, and then a few more times because the more sense it made the less sense I could make of anything. I reckon it is that whole philosophical ponder into morals, a life worth living, a quest into quality. Undefinable quality. I have no idea why I started this post with this. I haven't touched that tattered book for a long time. Like long before I ever started to doubt my superpowers. The internet is funny. like in a funny clown that you don't know when it goes from making you laugh to the bloody machete massacre.  I miss the days when only your mom's dusty old photo album could scare you with candid embarrassing photographs from your past. The Pikes Peak interviews, the self-posted proclamations on social media, the interweb persona... what a load. Don't get me wrong I love to express myself. On this blog more than anywhere else. But shit this new age of sharing your life online is beyond exhausting. Downright ridicules maybe, at least in my opinion.  I reckon what I am itching at is my obsession with finding quality over quantity, while I amass as much material, mindful, and cosmic junk as I can possibly get greasy, throttle happy hands on....Yeah, quality over quantity.

I went riding with my good ol pal Lord Mick and when I ride with him I rarely look behind me to see if he is there because he is usually on my trail like a blood fucking hound but I happened to look back after crossing a wash only to see him waving his arm at me from behind a tumble weed that was made up of a fair amount of barb wire. Ha ha. 

Being a new dad in my 40's, being both a tiny bit mentally and physically fucked up from covid, plus life in general has me feeling a bit over the hill. Or at least I don't feel like the invincible dirt bike racer hell bent on checkers or wreckers I once was. Hell ask my wife, I might even get a bit bitchy now and then about saddling up and going for a ride if it is below 45 degrees. Peter makes me feel real good. He has been riding dirt bikes and working oil and gas out in the western colorado desert all his life. He dont give a rat's ass about nothing other than having a good time. Feller can ride a dirt bike. even if it is older than all the riders he rides with. He knows better and lives better than all my other friends I reckon. And that is saying something.

My ego was needing a scratching. (I can't help it!) Plus I have always wanted to race the 600 since I built it a few years ago. It had been about 2 years since I last raced dirt bikes proper so I woke up and drove 6 hrs to an AHRMA vitnage cross country. Had about 15 minutes to gear up and take a piss before the sighting lap. Raced my ass off for an hour and drove home. Funny thing about the race was how old I was feeling before the race. On the sight ing lap I saw a young buck on a late 80's CR ooking the business. I figured I was going to have to work hard if I wanted what my stupid over inflated ego expected, an overall win of course. I botched the start but battled my way into the lead on the first lap. I heard a bike behind me for a few laps and then got away form the boggy. However on the last lap they put the pressure on me. I could feel them breathing on my ass as I tried to keep my composure. With two corners left I started to choke and bobble. I kicked my shifter back and it stuck back. rather than try to shift with my heel I just pinned the ol thumper for all it was worth in 2nd gear across the finish. I stopped to high five 2nd place after the finish and who was is but 62 year old Fred Hoess (go ahead and google him if you don't know). Holy shit what a mind fuck about feeling old...

Customer brought in this photo of her dad Elk hunting in my back yard some time ago.

She is my everything

This poor Honda I molested is still around...

I am about one month away from the first hill climb and I have been putting every spare bit of time and resources into this race car. I never would have imagined that building a little buggy from scratch would be so much work. I absolutely fucking love it. what a project it has been!

I am pretty bummed about Sideburn going out of print. Writing for that magazine and for Gary not only made me lots of connections in the racing world but I made a lot of really great friends. I might not reach out much but you all know who you are. 

I reckon life has a way of taking you for a ride. Sometimes far and away. Getting pitted, hanging ten, sufing high on the tide and where it takes you and when it dumps you is just part of the ride. Desires and dreams can fill your sails and take you anywhere but your elbow grease is what ties the knots and mans the ores. I have learned to be carful what you wish for. Often times less is more. I can have as much fun in a junk yard go kart as Mario Andretti.

In my quest for quality over quantity I think I can sum it up best with some words from the great Chris Ledoux - "It aint the years boy - It's the miles."