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Where do I begin?

with a photo, of course! ;)
bmw rider crash mud pit

I’ll start by talking about what it was, I guess… RawHyde Adventures in Castaic, CA, hosted a competition called the Adventure Rider Challenge to fill 3 spots on a team to represent the US in the BMW International GS Trophy competition held in South Africa.

Here’s a snippet taken from the Adventure Rider Challenge page:

    “Every two years, BMW Motorrad hosts a 10 day, international skills competition for amateur riders, or in BMW’s own words, ‘Ambitious hobby riders’. Riding BMW F800GS’s and working as a team with your fellow countrymen, you will compete against amateur teams from countries spanning the globe. You’ll face ten days of river crossings, hill climbs, sand dunes, mechanical challenges, and cross county navigational tests designed to test your ingenuity, determination, and riding skills. This is not a race, but a journey to determine which country gets to claim the title of ‘World’s Toughest Adventure Riders’.”

I gotta say…I really didn’t know what to expect. I mean, I knew it was a skills competition with most everyone on BMWs…but I didn’t know exactly what this past weekend would entail. I was a little bit nervous. Luckily, I brought Toe with me. That dude is every bit as versatile as me, and can adapt to any situation quickly, skillfully, and without complaint (I hope he doesn’t read this! hehe).

Sooo…not too terribly long ago, Toe and I went to Rawhyde Adventures to shoot a BMW GS Challenge.

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Quite probably the single phrase/question I heard most during my 9 days in Baja, Mexico was “Choo hab steekers?” I’ve come to understand that stickers mean a lot to those people…the young children running around the streets barefooted to the geriatrics, leathery wrinkled skin and hunched over from probably a lifetime of hard work…work like the most of us would never understand. I’m pretty sure stickers represent status. If you’ve got stickers, and you give them stickers, you become a celebrity of sorts…if you didn’t have any (which I did forget to bring some with me while prerunning and the likes a few times), suddenly their expressions change from excitement to “choo hab monies por tacos?”

baja 500 stickers

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Soooo…yeah… everyone knows that I’m a total poser/camera whore. Everytime I’m riding and I see a camera, I immediately turn into a Ricky-Racer-Wannabe-Badass.

Anyways, I’d never had a photo taken of me in turn 7 at Thunderhill before. I’ve been telling Toe for a few months now “I really want a shot of my in turn 7…because, like, my body positioning is different through there. I feel like I have my outside elbow up really high to help control front end drifts…”

Ken Hill was following behind me recently with his NON GoPro HD camera *snickers* and shot about 1/2 a lap of me before blowing my proverbial doors off and checking-out on me… I was really surprised by what I saw in the video, to be honest. I’m carrying significantly more lean angle through 7 and 8 than I’d previously thought. I’m also nearly dragging elbow at apex of both turns. It’s not that I’m TRYING to…it’s that I’m hanging off the bike pretty far to try and minimize lean angle on the tires.

So anyways, to get back to retardation… Matt got a shot of me in turn 7 yesterday while at an open trackday…well, just as I was exiting turn 7, but still…all the signs are there…

weird body position turn 7 thunderhill

Aaaahhhhkk-waaard!

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First time making a CAR video! Hehe..that’s right… I made a video with CARS! :D

It was at round 2 of a Thunderdrift competition. Amateur drifters are competing in a season-long battle for the chance to earn a full competative pro drift license.

Thanks to drew from Lab 17 for gettin me out there. And to Luke from Blu808 for letting me slap a buncha GoPro HD cameras on his car.

It ended up being a TON of fun out there, watching cars drift through turns 3, 4, and 5 a Thunderhill. I’m looking forward to seeing the next events where they’ll use different section of the track.

Enjoy!

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Those of you that know Matt Taylor know that he’s a phenomenal artist. He’s a great photographer as well, and is responsible for 99% of those wide angle shots that you guys like, where the camera is sitting on the ground…

But enough about his photos…I wanna show you where his REAL talent is…

Pencil sketch of Chris McGuire [aka trackmoney] of CTracing in turn 2 at Thunderhill Raceway
chris trackmonkey pirelli r1 sketch

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Over the last few years, there’s been lots of talk about electric motorcycles and the TTXGP and “electric racing” and “way of the future,” et cetera…frankly, I’m not yet impressed.

With price tags being as high as $60,000 to buy one of your own, I simply do not see how this is the way of the future. At least, not yet. Even electric and hybrid cars are still not cost efficient. I’ve seen a few electric bikes up close and personal so far. I’ve chatted it up with a few designers, engineers, and riders of these electric bikes.

Most recently was this yellow thing that is to be raced in this years TTXGP. I’m not even sure what it’s called…but “thing” seems to fit the bill quite nicely.

garrett willis electric bike ttxgp

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