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 every thing opperates 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 allready wrapped up by somebody other than me for the 2nd year in a row. Whatever they truckstop had pinaaple and Wonderbread; all I needed to accomodate 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 raceing was the first good racing of the season. With 10 motorbike entreants 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 his 1st at the one I missid) 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 surguey last winter to correct years and years of being a totally devoted and huge huck loving commited 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 sharring 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 discusion to follow. Mabey after I serve my duty as SIDEBURN ambasador 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.

Biting dust

I have been racing Hill Climbs now for 15 years and I can count the times that I have let my handlbars unintentionally touch the ground on an impatient piece-work carpenter's hand. I high sided my XR650 at Land's End two years ago coming out of a slow hair pin. I don't talk about it to many people but I did lay my SV down in practice at Pikes Peak but it was also a slow no harm lowside. The first year I raced Pikes I did the same during my race run up top in the gravel. I think during all of those I managed to keep at least one hand on the bars so I don't really count them as an actual crash. Last sunday, I crashed. It is getting hard to find roads we are allowed to race on so the club had a Hill Climb on basacilly a big fast autocross track at PPIR Speedway south of the big ol peak that is Pikes Peak. I arrived late after the 6 hr drive as I had to wait for mom to get home from work to take over taking care of little one. She had been home sick with me in the shop all week. No complaints! Quality time at it's finest. Even with a bout of Hand, Foot, And Mouth Disiase. Sure enough my throat started to feel sore Friday evening. I awoke saturday to sores on my toung, inside my throat and nostrals and worst of all on my feet and finger tips. It felt like I was welding slag steel naked. Saturday practice sessions were very wet and suited a motocross bike very well, I was running times fast as the few fastest cars. I think I had the fastest time all morning actually but as the track dried out and I began to feel more and more shit my times stayed the same and even began to slow by Sunday's race runs. My first race run was still 20 seconds faster than any other motorbikes so I secured the win but at the cost of what felt like whiplash in my neck. The kiddy daycare virus was taking a strong hold on me and in my 2nd race run it smacked me down like Mike Tyson. I was struggling keeping my front tire traction and took a high dicey line for some wideopen throttle surfing. My front wheel found a hidden big rock and I instantly gave into the high speed crash. My ol race leathers saved my ass, like a super hero's outfit, that chunk of cow hide is amazing. My bike got pretty banged up with a little ding on the rim, bent handlebars, and a holed stator cover. I like to think of it as paying dues. I watch my daughter learning and quickly evolving. It also makes me realize that as I get older I am going to have to constantly re-calibrate the relation of the gap betweeen my desires and my ablities...

Superbikers 1984 wide world of sports

I know I have posted some of these before but I still can't get enough of it. Right stuff at the right place during the right time. I know that if I would have kept racing for Roland Sands I would be having a blast with his series that is not much different than the old Superbikers. Oh if only didn't have so many slobbery tennis balls to chase. I am just a spazzed out dog chassing slobbery tennis balls! Every chance I get!!!

AMA Flat Track Grand Championship Am Nationals Du Quoin Illnoise 2023

 My racing and the likes of this blog are pretty self centered. Most racers are to some degree in my opinion at minimum a bit self centered. At least I know that for me to focus on racing successfully I must spend a lot of time inside my own head figuring it all out. Sometimes I try too hard to figure shit out and it end ups making no sense. Like trying harder to grab a hold of a slippery fish. The more I try to find meaning of the AMA Flat Track Amateur Grand Championship the more I find nothing other than just simple good times. This was the first time in a long time that I teamed up with others instead of my usual simple solo missions. The team for this effort was the meaning of it all. And it was outstanding!

The Mile was FAST, FUN, and FAST!

Getting to spend time with Jeffery Carver and get one on one instruction was a real treat. When the Wizard talks I listen.

Fish eating smile after taking a podium finish in the TT

The Cushion 1/2 mile was a dream come true. The XR650R was in it's element unfortunately I ran it in hot on the inside of first turn of the main and ran out of nerves opting to gracefully lay it down.

I had an apt arsenal loaded into the back of the van!

Winning the Short Track LCQ on the ol 89 YZ250 was one of the highlights. The lone two smoker made a lot friends especially with all the dads. I did not have a baseline to use with the old Yamaha's suspension, it was ok but fork damping was a bit fast and spring rates were off. That and how fast modern 250 four strokes are along with a stacked field of young talent in the 250 Production class made it a real challenge to qualify but when we did it in the TT and the Short track it was so sweet. On my bikes we ended up 4th overall in the VET 40 plus class with a couple of 3rds in the TT and Short Track which felt like a good pat on the back for not having my hot shoe on for 5 years. All in all it was a pretty damn good time. 12 days on the road. A solid crew with Lambrick Brothers and Jeffery Carver. Will I train and go back next year with a more dialed in ol 1989 YZ250....?

Go time

 

Jeffery Carver shaking down the race bike. Could I ask for anything more?!!

So I loaded up my van with a back up secondary class bike, a back up back up, because I want to know what the xr650r will do against 450s on the mile, and for shits and grins and against all good judgment I brought the Trackmaster KX500 because: live for today…

I writes this post from a rest area in lush green Kansas after successfully finding my tire on a UPS truck and crossing the ol rectangle of Colorado. The birds are singing louder than the whine of the passing 18 wheelers as drizzled rain drops pitter patter out a soothing rhythm on my roof. Tomorrow I’ll visit the Late Great Cosmic Cowboys ol pad, maybe unload the 500 and do a donut in his front yard, leave a Hot Wheels toy as an offering and go stay with the Pottorf’s, friends Cowboy introduced me to. Young Pottorf is contesting some of the AMA pro flattrack series this year. Maybe spin some laps on their private test track before heading out to Carver’s place for some Wizard sessions. Here we go…

Strikes and gutters

First hill climb of the season: CHCA Temple Canyon 

 First practice run the ol Pontiac broke an axle.  A bummer after all the work I put into this car over the winter but at least the rolling projectile didn’t hit any spectators. If it came off on the 100 mph straight section right before it would have been real interesting…

It has been a couple of years since I dusted off the ol Pikes Peak bike. I should call this bike “New Record.. it has set the record at Pikes Peak, every Colorado Hill climb course, which all it still holds except Pikes and Rangel. We set a new course record this weekend.