The fucking essence

 After racing for 25 years now, I have come to know some interesting folk, I have seen some crazy shit go down, and I have always come to philosophize every bit of it that I can wrap my head around. The always asked "Why?" is more of an inescapable ponder than an answerable question. All I know is what I have come to dig up and dust off like some archeologist stuck in their own back yard. My back yard is racing; The art, the act, and the blood, sweat and piss of it. There are some folk who are such divine seekers of perfection, their image is a window to the thoughtfulness of there obsession. Displays of beauty and power have always been in natures arsenal of dominance and survival. I love to walk through a race pit or paddock ogling the display of machinery, gear, and tools. I also really enjoy the back row where there are privateers with no matching outfits or loud banners proclaiming loyalty to a corporate sponsor. Something transparent and organic can be found in the less than perfect and it makes me feel good, warm, and, maybe even at home. That rare place where I feel complete and wholly alive. Like being right on the edge of disaster. Giving it your all and pushing with every bit of will and desire to win. Along with the raged edge comes the mind bending adrenaline and acknowledgment of one's own true self. The insane moments of speed and serenity, the true fucking essence of racing. Mmmmmm, racing.

Sheep and other small brained animals

 There was a moment last month during the LA/Barstow-Vegas were I felt lost and did not trust in my roll chart/ odometer navigation, Ok maybe many moments but a few still stick in my memory. I was trying to make sense of my roll chart and figure out if I had made a wrong turn and would need to re-calculate my mileage. I met a rider head on and after passing I met another rider head on and we were going slow enough through the rocks that I asked him if i was headed the wrong way but he said that I was going the correct way but it was just "hard as hell". I continued and yes it was difficult for a bit and there was a satanic decent of seat puckering down hill. It was one of the most fun challenging things I have ever done on a overweight street bike with less than properly working skimpy old dirt bike brakes. 

Soon after I was again having doubt in my navigation and I stopped at a group of other sheep who like most on the riders were using a GPS and I put my trust in there direction and was soon completely off course and with no GPS I had no way of finding my way and was not going to follow them any longer. I missed out on much of the first day's afternoon course but learned not to follow. 

Near the end of the second day I was finally making my way to the famed red rock canyon into Vegas. I had become stuck on my roll chart and odometer navigation like a little calf to a tit and was sucking it like my life depended on it. Down and down a rocky well beat in shelf trail right into a wash were I was instructed to turn up into the wash and go up it. But all tracks turned and did not go up it. I to turned and my rear tire up turned a stump and for the first time I tipped over the XS750. Fuck she is a heavy bitch to pick up! I met another couple of riders doing the stumble and they said their GPS said the same as my roll chart said so I said fuck it and headed up the wash. As I slipped the clutch hopping logs, stumps, and big rocks from a recent flash flood I thought for sure I was being a fool and was about to expose my Street Bike's weakness to death from clutch punishment but on I went in and out of embankments until I was in a slot wash carving corners where only maybe five others had been before me. Of the 500 entrants, here I was and then just when my roll chart told me to leave the wash there was an exit, out and into the glory from what is only known of those not afraid to not follow. Those are some things I remember.

The first Vahsholtz racer

 If you know me, you know Pikes Peak is in my blood. I have experienced it 12 years. Some have experienced it much more. The Vahsholtz family the most along with the most wins. I first met son Clint Vahshotlz at my first year or two. He was a Nascar cup racer, Pikes Peak region local, and former motorcycle class champion. His stock car had duct tape holding make shift brake vent ducting and Coors beer cans keeping the throttle body intake protected. He was fast and I liked him. He was fastest overall racer this year in his homebuilt open wheel car. After my first few years on the hill, grandson Cody Vahsholtz started to race and he wore old hagard flattrack leathers. Like his father he was all go and not concerned with a super clean image. We became friends. We have had many a tight battle on the dirt CHCA hill climbs. We swapped wins this year in the two CHCA hill climb races (I edged him by a few points by winning qualifying). We never were classed together at Pikes Peak. He won the 250 class when I won the 450 class and then he won the middle weight class when I was on the heavy weight bikes and when I had my first year not racing he was on the factory Ducati big bike team with Carlin and Carlin died marking the end of the bikes. But the beginning of Vahsholtz racing is with grandfather Leonard or actually his wife, she was keeping the books for his mechanic shop and was skimming 10% without telling anybody and when he wanted to buy a brand new 1976 Ford Torino race car she surprised him with the available funds. He raced that car "The Red Sled" for three years at Pikes Peak(1977,78,79), gaining Factory Ford Motor Co sponsorship, and then became the most winning racer of all time on the hill; a record he would then loose to his son. Leonard has built some very special hill climb cars and still builds some fast as fuck Nascar engines. He is a legend amoung the dirt CHCA scene. One of my customers kept on telling me that he had a Vahsholtz car. I finally got him to show me a picture of it. I showed the picture to Cody and as I suspected he verified that it was not a Vahsholtz car. But than a week later he messaged me back and said that it was in fact his grandpa's first race car... So I kept nipping the ear of the owner until he finally said I could come take a look at it. So I brought a trailer. It was under a few fiberglass semi truck body panels rotting into a field of sage brush. I waited until he became frustrated with an old pick up truck of his that wouldn't start. After the 4th cup of gas poured down the carb throat didn't do the trick I pulled out my Benjamin bills and asked if these would make him feel better. We dug the car out with a back-hoe and on to my trailer, home to my shop it went. It has sat for 40 years, It's 427 big block had been robbed. It had spent a cruel spell on the circle tracks doing roundy round smash and crash and it shows a lot of wear and tear. It is in rough shape but I can see some potential. Maybe a long term restoration back to The Red Sled's former glory. Maybe Leonard wants it back and has a spare Nascar small block chevy engine to spare...

Links below:                  

https://coloradomotorsportshalloffame.com/leonard-vahsoltz/

http://www.coloradospringssports.org/wp-content/uploads/Vahsholtz-FINAL.pdf

[HOONIGAN] Gymkhana 2020: Travis Pastrana Takeover; Ultimate Hometown Sh...

I remember when watching the first Ken Block Gymkhana. It was the first time I experienced you tube in a way that was more than two or three minutes at a time and the first time I realized that the internet was becoming a marketing tool that can continually feed one thing into another leading you down a worm hole of never ending feed. Up until then Ken Block and Pastrana were people that I knew from racing with and I was then proud to brag to people that I had met them. I am not sure why. But soon later I got my first computer and discovered blogging and I loved the time I spent with my computer. I was addicted for sure but looking back from the facebook/instagram age I sure miss the good old hay days of blogging. I still get super excited when I see a creation of words or thoughtful pictures on a blog but it has become few and far between as it seems now that the gram has takin control of taking control. A few days after getting Layla I realized that a puppy was far more essential to give my attention to than a stupid phone screen thing that is far more scary than anything Orwell ever wrote about. So I deleted my instagram app and am trying to look at the feed once or twice a week to answer business messages. So far I have reloaded the app twice to post something and then instantly instagram is deleted from my phone again before I can start the droning scroll and feel the need to like the others cought up in it, ok maybe I look at a few of my homies but then I delete!  It is just my way of finding balance and probably has a lot to do with were I am at in my life. I remember others telling me the same thing and I thought to my self what the hell is wrong with them and why cant they keep from endlessly scrolling and then I found my self sucked in doing just that for hours a day! It makes me disgusted to even admit that! So anyhooo. I still like the internet and the wonderful endless library of both media and knowledge, I am just trying to find my elusive balance. The quality. After that first Ken Block Gymkhana many have tried to copy but fall short (Except that Danny MacAskill pedal power duder) but a big enery drink budget and somebody like Pastrana is sure to appease. I remember watching all the Nitro Circus movies over and over again and thinking that Pastrana would never make it out of his youth alive but here he is, still living on and over the edge. Living it up.

Turning gears

 We all have gears inside turning, giving us our drive. I have been keeping my mind sane with the building of different motorbikes for about 15 years now and lately the four wheel virus. Building a race purpose small black chevy on the the cheap has been the latest obsessive venture. Lots of new stuff to learn and learning to exercise needed patience. Most people talk about this year going down about as well as gangster rap karaoke at the babtist church sunday school social. But for me it has been just a busy year, getting to go into the liquor store looking like I am going to rob the place, and an excuse to be as anti-social as I pleas. Any-hoo, I am trying to explain my motivation of lately to build a v8 car engine. Something lots of people know a lot about and I knew nothing about before a few months ago. Last year I got to be involved with the worlds fastest two stroke (as I think of it) and that was really cool. The people involved. Something about the whole experience made me want to not be afraid of attempting things beyond my confidence zone. I have not stopped building project bikes on top of doing customer bikes all day but the race car stuff  has me firing a clean hot burning efficient combustion. Very invigorating. 

Exploding Whale

I am currently weening my self off facebook/instagram with youtube.

LA/Barstow to Vegas 2020

 

I have tried since 2014 to make the final hard section into Vegas through Redrock Canyon. The bike has always broke and left me to far behind but this year we did it and it was everything I had dreamed of. After riding nearly 500 miles my next roll chart note read: 3.8 small rock garden. I rounded a turn and there it was, hundreds of meters of boulders, good proper hard enduro bullshit. Modern bikes and bodies strewn everywhere. Percolating clouds of antifreeze, puddles of blood, tears, and engine innards on the aluminum scared rocks. I never slowed or even acknowledged the other riders waiting in line or conjuring up their courage. Spectators jumped to there feet as I took creative high lines and zig zagged around the carnage of smoking stuck tires and burnt auto clutch KTM being tugged on by the sweaty faced. My stock bouncing diaphragm carbs began to flood and load up the engine so I gave the engine a few revs to clear out the 750cc double pumper. I heard somebody yell: "YEAH TRIALS GUY!" and a few shocked riders jumped out of my way as I kept on chugging through the ledges and boulders and then it was just me and the trail again. Solo as it had been since the morning before, back in Palmdale where we started. Or very nearly never started at all. It was 5:30 AM and still dark when I unloaded Big Beasty to head to a gas station and then to the event start. It was below freezing and the bike was not wanting to run on both cylinders. I checked the new old breaker points that came out of one of my junk storage coffee cans a few days prior. I went through the carb. And just when I was about to admit defeat and unload the back up bike (a preparation advised by the wisdom of the wife this year). I finally tried a new spark plug... Yup two hours late to the start to diagnose a fouled spark plug. DOH! Off I went. hitting all the stop lights out of the city, everything seemed good and then she just died. Nothing. Blown fuse. Grip warmers, lights, ignition? Nope the Regulator/rectifier had shorted. Damn. Who needs a charging system with points ignition anyhoo so I un-plugged everything except the ignition and bought a spare battery from a Chinese scooter shop on my way out of the city. My first stint out into the desert my odometer stopped working. At the next trail intersection I caught up to the sweep riders and fixed my odometer cable. The sweep rider looked at my set up and questioned me using only the roll chart and odo to navigate as he watched me wrap my odo cable with black tape. "No GPS?!" I told him I was good. I even had a spare battery strapped to my chest to prove it. I told him I am going to take off in front of him into the big desert and I hope not to see him again. And I didn't from there on out ol Beasty was as reliable and as nimble as an ox. All the way on into Barstow and then to Vegas the next day. I never had time to open my tool bag to use my left handed cigarettes, PBR beer, or the spare battery that beat my rib cage to a purple pride felt carcass. No casinos, tiki lounges, or even omelet house this trip but instead just good quality vanning with Cookie and Layla. Glory.

Little Layla

 I got a reason to start wearing my seat belt again.

She was the runt of a liter of 7 (actually 9 but two died), her right front leg was paralyzed and she had worms. I gave her a worm pill and she shit giant wads of squirming spaghetti.  A day after shitting out the parasites she started using the paralyzed leg. We have been at each other's sides 24/7 for the past 16 days and life is good.

Up to no good

I got pulled over on the SV last weekend. Actually, technically I got road blocked by a couple of federal officers. Something about speed, passing, and evading. After explaining that if I was evading I wouldn't be there sharing such lovely conversation dressed in my race leathers, so they dropped the evading charge at least but I get to go to federal court next month. I reckon the license plate comes back off, it didn't last long. But like the Irish road racers say: I'm here for a good time, not a long time.

Much love amigos!

 

Shit in the shop October two thousand twenty

 

How to make people hate you; Buy a race car.

 It is a hard thing to be excited about because friends and family do not know what to think of racing sickness. The worried family members think you must be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars while in reality I am just scrounging by on a few hundred, dumpsters, and compassionate fellow race junkies relinquishing bits that need a good home. I bought this 1979 Pontiac Grand Prix a month ago. Between the vibe of weird envy from some of my two wheeler friends and the fact that I don't care to publicize me personal life much on the damn instagram sham  (Not sure why I do here) I have not shared it but here and now I spill my guts; I am into race cars. I am currently reading no less than four books about Pikes Peak Hill Climb History, Eight back issues of Super Chevy, and numerous racing/ performance parts catalogues.  The car has an established history of Hill Climb racing in Colorado. The car was sold race ready.... ten years ago. To somebody who though they wanted to use it for circle track. They never did, thankfully but they did rob it's engine and transmission. Err.  I bought it for $1K even plus $175 in van gas to go pick it up with my super high quality low and light race car trailer. One of my customers then sold me a complete 350 engine and tranny combo for $150 and I am now in the process of figuring out how to build them for under $20K. Not! More like nothing or whatever hepatitis infested machine shop trash cans I have to dig through. Maybe I should just keep earning my spendings the best way I know how and that is fixing and pimping the shit out of motorbikes. My shop has been crazy fucking busy this year. Like three dicked dog busy. It is like my spring time rush has never ended. Make some hay while the sun shines and keep the consumer driven capitalist hamster wheel a spinning I shall. Living that American dream. Long tickle the dick Dick Trickle.

Do somthing origonal, why don't ya!

 The ego tells me that I am a brave racer conquering uncharted frontier but while searching history of the PPHC I find Brian Hartung raced the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in 1981.

Tame The Tall Mountain

1975 Documentary 

Click link below:

Tame The Tall Mountain

Learning to appreciate what we have

 It is a lot more easy to say than to actually truly appreciate. We often don't know how good "it" is until "it" is gone. I am trying. I have found that for me I often have to take risk to find appreciation and risk taking has it's drawbacks though I am shall I say lucky to not know much first hand of these drawbacks but only to know of them and that is something always weighing in on my calculated balance. I think risk taking is actually healthy. I think that learning how and when to take a risk is a survival skill that helps us evolve.

After I raced the Bottpower at Pikes Peak in 2017 I was pretty disgusted with myself for taking such great risk and knowing ahead of time how deadly a machine I was throwing a leg over. I came away from that experience a bit shook but through years of reflection I now know what a rare lesson of life I had learned. That bike may have damaged me a bit but it also made me a stronger risk taker. Case in point, when I had to use my SV in practice with it's 650cc compared to the 1344cc Bott bike It was like comparing ditch weed to black tar heroin. I was hooked on adrenaline and needed a fix so I sold my little SV and bought Hot Carl's proper ZX10 superbike. I wanted to do the late great Carl proud but I found the bike very serious and something about following in Carl's footsteps may have also been rattling chains in the back of my mind so when I moved back to the western slope, 5 hrs away from any tarmac tracks I sold it to help pay mortgage while my new shop got it's feet on the ground.

A couple years later I was asked by an old Denver friend if I wanted to buy my old SV back. The friend had bought it from some person who had bought it from the person I had originally sold it to. I admit that the only reason I brought it back home was because of sentimental fondness of the bike and because that I had put so much work into building the thing. When I rolled it back into my shop it was a bit haggard and smashed up but not neglected. It is after all the perfect learner track bike and I cant say that I didn't lay her down a time or two. Now what? 

 

Since some lucky lessons learnt on my 1993 Katana 600 I owned when I was a teenager I have always been very opinionated about sport bikes not belonging on open public roads. Every time I test ride one I know that handcuffs or a body bag very near. Perhaps it is the lack of racing this season or a 37 year old's brain short circuiting; First I transferred the title into my name just for the fun of it as it was still in the name of the person I originally bought the bike from the first time. Then I wired the license plate on and rode it around the block. It was happy to lift the front wheel and made me giggle like a kid with fire crackers. Then I wired up some lights and put a charging system back on it. I loaded it up in the back of my new shop truck I took in trade for an engine build and went home and drank too much knowing full well I was about to do some dumb shit.

I awoke with a pounding dehydrated desert dust bowl headache.  I weezed on the burnt wildfire air while squeezing my beer gut into my custom fit leathers, a gift from Roland Sands,  my wife simply said to me "Be wise." My first side road or more like a canyon route,  Colorado State Highway 141, is a dream road for such riding. I am surrounded by literally some of the best twisty roads in the world. Much of this road was freshly paved. The first cager I came up on waved me around and I took this as a pass to not slow for another cager all day. Complete outlaw organ donor style. Naughty. That guy. Sorry. Not sorry.

 

Some hours into my loop and about as far from home as I would be the old trusty SV spat it's chain in the middle of a very, very desolate straight stretch of desert. No shade. No cell service. No tools. 100 plus degree temps. I walked down the road for a while and finally found my old 520 DID ditch snake. A cager past me that I had overtook in the middle of a hairpin corner some time back and they had a look on their face like a pompas judge on American Idle or whatever those talant twat twiddling shows are. Sitting in the shade of my clip on handlbars I began to wish I had packed a bigger water bottle or at least a pair of plies. buzzards began to circle overhead,  no shit.  Just when I started to think about taking a long hot walk somebody finally pulled over and asked if I needed help. "As a matter of fact...." He had to dump a load of trash and said he would return and he did. We chucked the bike into his work truck and he was glad to drive me into busy holiday weekend Moab some 45 minutes away refusing any compensation from me! Not all the world has gone to shit.  I then found out that both bike shops in town were closed. A very busy side by side (golf carts for assholes) rental shop had some friendly mechanics who scrounged up a chain for me. I believe the universe provides and keeping some some faith in fellow humankind may be our only hope.

 

 The Colorado River road out of Moab is a beautiful section of curving cliff wall perfection. It is also busy and it was at this point in my adventure that I took to embracing the risks and overtook cars like I was a Valentino Rossi slash Road Rage 3D video game demon. Knee down, hill crest jumping, full concentration, and zone engaged. The final stretch from Utah back into Colorado took me by my holy ground by the name of Sisco, a now re-awaking ghost town, where Vanishing Point was filmed. As I passed graffiti on a crumbled old filling station wall proclaiming: KOWALSKI LIVES!!  I felt alive. I felt awakened my self. I pondered these feelings all night and all day yesterday into another night and as I walked into my shop this morning I realized that I am very appreciative of what I have and I probably ought to take that license plate off and throw it away. But will I?

Lost in the weeds

 Loosing the Cosmic Cowboy has been tough. Realizing how much somebody means to you after they are gone is a tough load of shit to swallow. Since the first of February when I put Baja dog down I have been depressed. I dream of her often and awake completely sad. Last spring some morning doves nested in the tree right out side of our bedroom window and for months they were the inspiration of my life. After the chicks left the nest I was again left feeling alone. My loving partner is very patient with me but with the Corona Crap forcing her to work from home I have been trying to make sure I don't weigh her down with my moody bullshit. So I took to growing plants. My babies. And of course my shop has been completely over booked with work since the outbreak. I have been more busy than a dog with three dicks in a fire hydrant factory. Good yes, but busy is not as good as some think when you own your own business and have a trouble with telling people "Nope".  Colorado had it's largest wild fire 10 miles from my shop and after over a month of awful air quality and snowing ash,  cooler weather and a bit of rain has cleared things out finally. I feel a lot better just being able to breath clean air and see our beautiful horizons.  Also on the sunny side I was able to take a 3rd overall at an endure a couple of weeks ago. The two enduros and two hill climb races look to be it for 2020 as the last hill climb was just cancelled.  I will keep wrenching and dialing in the race car for next year and pounding my dirtbike through the desert to stay fit. And of course reaping the fruits of my gardening. We'll see...

 

No Cigar

Last weekend was the annual local off road dirt bike race put on by our local club the Book Cliff Rattlers MC. It was an enduro format with 7 special tests totaling 83 miles of gnar singletrack. Every year I dream of winning the home town race. I have finished on the overall podium at least 6 times but never the top. I started the first test like a bottle rocket and within 5 minutes I was flying upside down, feet first over my handlebars. Some how I still won the over all on the test. I finished the next several tests in 3rd or 2nd without loosing more that a second or two of the leader. After test 4 I gassed up my 12 year old trusty CRF450X and ate a few caffeine electrolyte pills. I blitzed test 5 and felt great. After finishing test 6 I knew that nobody could match what kind of shit I had just done. It was like perfect poetry in motion. Very speedy motion. ( I later learned that I overalled the test by a considerable amount of time.) The last test was the big ten miler and I was ready to squeeze every bit out of it. It started with a couple miles of super steep downhill bob sled deep ditch rear brake locked trench warfare. One mistake would be a huge over the bars, After dropping what felt like thousands of feet the course turned to two track. Fast moister soaked sandy two track with sweeping corners and 5th gear water bar launch ramps. I was giving my tall desert gearing everything it had and loving it. Then the technical rocky climbs came. This was why the final test was for A class only. I made not one mistake. Feeling strong I could almost taste the overall trophy, a huge vintage snowshoe mounted with a trail sign placard. It would look perfect above the mantle... "FUCK!" - The first of many to come out of my mouth after my brake pedal grazed a slab-rock in the middle of the trail causing me to loose balance as my bike and I fell 15 or 20 feet down into a creek. I burned my hand on my rear brake rotor as I flopped my bike off of me. The brake pedal had punched a hole in my clutch cover and there was gear oil all over everything. The rocky creek bed was a rage of foot deep water cascading off one boulder to the next. everything was slicker than greased moose shit. There was a barb wire fence directly downstream so up and out was my only option. I knew my race was over but I knew I needed to get my self out of the shit hole. There were tree limbs and branches as big as my legs everywhere and my poor beat to shit clutch was rattling like some vintage Ducati. With some end over end bike flopping, clutch abuse(No, murder!), and a bunch more "FUCK!"s we got back on the trail ten minutes after ejecting from it, crossing the finish line only a half mile away. I finished the last test in 140th out of the 230 entries, 10 minutes off of the leader, 20th overall for the day. So close yet so far. Could always be worse. Much. And a finish is a finish regardless of position or engine oil quantity...

On the next episode of flogging Molly: will the old red head Honda get a trophy.....

Chasing Silence

Monarch Racer

CHCA round 2 on Monarch pass. A two mile section of mine road climbing thousands of feet just off of US Highway 50 and ending near timber line. Yes there are Monarch butterflies and yes I am lucky to race. I just received word that round 3, the Lands End hill climb has been cancelled. I am trying to find perspective but devastation is the only relative word I can find. I do live to race and though it is something I feel so strongly about I still can not explain why. Racing is just what has felt so sublime for me ever since I was a ten year old booger eater still shitting my pants on occasion. Racing is my savoir. Sphincter control and all. Amen. Anyhoo, the week before Monarch I received a call form the CHCA tech inspector who informed me the rally guys wanted me out of their class. Apparently they didn't like getting their asses kicked by a 1964 rusty slime green Herbie driven by a total rookie. After several failed protests on the rally rules I was supposed to be (and was) following I was allowed to stay entered in the Rally 2WD class and the bitching cry babies who have nice new proper modern race cars were told politely to shut the fuck up.  25 plus years of racing bikes of all sorts and never a protest or anything of the sorts and my first car race I was shown how very little some people hold the prestige of their racing morals. But meanwhile back to real racing; The motorcycle class at Monarch was the biggest class having 13 entries. That is double the most ever. And of course my epic, worthy, and welcome rival (who I cant help but mention races a 701cc and 650cc is the limit but I dont give a flying fuck!) who beat me at round 1 was ready to repeat along with two other riders who were nipping at my times every practice run. After Saturday I ended up in pole position in both motorcycle and Rally 2WD. On race day I ended up losing in my cager by less than a second to the offending protestor. Fair is fair, I'll beat him as I learn how to drive. The real racing action was on two wheels for me as I did not want to loose two of the dwindled four rounds (now 3 if we are lucky). I rode my 450 hill climb special with a fierce precision and won the class, setting a new record and finished 4th fastest vehicle of the day. And I drank a beer. And it was good!

The pit space up top at the mine site was primo, Especially with Marc and Andrew from the front rage there to help support me and my bulging hairy pepperoni titties ego.

I sure do appreciate being able to do this shit. I hope we as humans can somehow get more bonded together and stop bickering like a bunch of middle school cheerleaders all whacked out on laced pixie sticks and school spirit. PEACE!