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."

 

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.

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.

 

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!