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.

$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. 

 

Look what I stepped in

 

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....

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.

Sideburn Nepal trip 2023

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

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!

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 :)

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...

Pikes Peak Hill Climb 1995 - Leonard Vahsholtz / Ford Bronco

This local legend has more Colorado hill climb records than anybody. I am pretty honord to have his first race car out in my yard....

someday...

Lands End 2023

The old 1964 VW Beetle has been sitting for a year. I drag it inside and get it up in the air to find a plethora or broken, bent, and worn shit that needs fixed. Almost every suspension and steering component is fuct. Victom of a few ditch surfing incedints over the past couple of years. After a week of hammering shit back into shape and using floor jacks chained to roll cage points to re-index the crazy german engineered torsion springs I am sitting in the cacoon at the starting line of this countire's 3rd oldest car race behing the Indy 500 and Pikes Peak. I make a clean run and am glad that I have not forgoten how to drive the 60 year old car. I remember to not let my foot flop under neath the go pedal when I am heal toeing it on down shifts as the pedal has only gravity holding it down against the crude roler atached to a throttle cable I made from scratch. Still working. 3 years after creating my Frankenstien. My first race car. By the end of the weekend we are putting in respectable times behind a Porsche GT3 factory rally car and a stage rally BMW. Come sunday my last race run has me pushing too hard, I cook it hot into a hair pin or two, jabbing at my e-brake handle like a falling ice climber hoping his axe can stop a freefall of certain splatter. In the popular Bob's Knob corner I make spectators dive like chipmunks crossing the highway. And then as I shift into 3rd gear I find a bonus nuetral. 3rd gear has left the party. A $100 lottery transmission I pulled out of a dirty shed 3 years ago has done real well. No complaints. As I limp it back down to the pits the smell of burning engine oil is strong. I slow at my pit and am engulfed in a smoke cloud. The piston rings have also left the party. Well. The 160K mile subaru engine has also done me real good. I payed $400 for the car it came out of and sold the car for $500 after I pulled out the engine. No complaints at all. The end of the last run. 3rd place in the Rally 2wd class. Not bad. And in the Motorcycle class I bagged another win. I think that is number six now at land's end. Pretty un-eventful other than a buck deer crossing my path in practice but that is hill climbing in the Rocky Mountains...

Focus

To be racing is to always be chassing. Some dogs lay, some dogs chase. I have an insacious hunger to chase. A child of the 80's, a teen of the 90's. BMX bikes, Beasty Boys, and X-games. Draged away out to the rural life at 12. Traded in my bus pass for a 80cc two stroke dirtbike and never had a fair chance. An ignorant freedumb. A punk rock rebel with a mohawk feeding cows and fixing fence. Hand cuffed and stuffed too many times but I got my diploma. Just barrely. Punk rock turned into wasting more brain cells than I could afford. I turned to the dirtbike and it turned me to the world. Hard work rewards a privateer. I have called my self boss now for over a decade. But I am still racing. Still chassing.