SIDEHIKE.NET

I apologize for pretty much dropping off the face of the Earth the last couple of weeks. (Especially after promising to update more now that I had a good backlog of Nostalgia Tuesday photos to post.) My bad. Life’s just been way too busy recently.

Here’s one thing I’ll tell you about, because I have pictures to help my brain-dead self tell the story. My friend Carol bought this 1973 Challenger a couple weeks ago from a farmer’s field up in Missouri. The car, which she named Ginger, wasn’t exactly in driveable condition (you may have noticed the duct tape “racing stripes” holding the hood down) so I finally gave Herman a good workout towing her back to Texas.

Everywhere we stopped (for gas, to pee, to reapply the duct tape) people would come out of the woodwork to gawk at the Challenger and ask questions. I snapped this picture just before the trucker from that red rig in the background jumped out and told us all about every project car he had in his garage back home.

Twas a fun trip.

I fondly remember May 31, 1986. That was the day I got my own TV in my room. It was a big freaking deal. It was an old RCA relic with a blurry picture that kept glowing after you turned it off at night. But it was finally mine. And when I plugged it in for the first time that Saturday morning the VHF dial went straight to WFAA channel 8, our local ABC affiliate.

This was the first time that the Indianapolis 500 was shown live on TV rather than on tape delay, and I was about to pee myself with excitement. David Hasselhoff (back when he was Knight Rider cool, rather than ironic) sang the national anthem. Chuck Yeager (the badass who broke the sound barrier) drove the Corvette pace car. Rick Mears was the fastest man alive in my book, and he was starting on the pole.

Bobby Rahal ended up winning — the first person to ever finish the race in under three hours. It was a great day.

So as a racing fan, I’m quite happy to see the IRL and Champ Car Series reunified. There’s been a void in American auto racing, and it looks like it’s well on its way to being fixed.

For those who aren’t versed in the history of the sport, the shortened version of this story is that a few of the people in charge of “Indy” style racing have been bickering with each other for the last couple of decades. It resulted in the league splitting into multiple different racing leagues, and quite frankly the racing and the show suffered. This season marks the first season the groups have been reunified back into one entity, the IndyCar Series. And it’s a good thing.

My dad and I have been attending the IRL races at Texas Motor Speedway for the last four years, and while they’ve been very good races, Texas has actually been kind of unique in that regard. For the most part Indy racing just wasn’t all that popular anymore. Not only was NASCAR kicking it’s butt, but IRL wasn’t putting on the kind of spectacle that Indy racing used to be about. People would tune in for the Indianapolis 500, but otherwise people didn’t bother. And well, I can’t blame the casual fan. A race with 18 cars (only 6 or 7 of whom have a chance to win) isn’t nearly as exciting as a field of 30 cars. So it’s great to see that kind of excitement coming back.

If the kid sitting a few seats away from us who kept driving his Hot Wheels across his dad’s head is any judge, the sport’s definitely going to be alright.

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So it took me nearly a month, but my photos from the Bombardier Learjet 550 are finally up over on Flickr. (Here’s a link to the slideshow.) After past races I have rushed home from the track and gone straight to work organizing, editing and posting my photos. When you figure I take anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 shots on the average race weekend you can understand what a grueling process that can be. This time around I decided to pace myself a bit slower and be more selective — and to not kill myself with sleep deprivation after the race. This was partially a conscious effort at forcing myself to produce different and better photos. But it was also a simple matter of realizing that June was a pretty intense month work wise, and I needed to be able to concentrate on projects and let the photos come second. (Besides, it’s not like I lucked into something wicked like the Michael McDowell crash back at the Samsung 500, so there was no rush.)

Anyway, sorry for the delay. Enjoy the pictures.

My buddy Dave took me as the +1 to the press screener of Speed Racer this evening.

HOLY CRAP IT WAS WONDERFUL!

Yes, I’m shouting. I don’t care. This flick was everything I had hoped it would be.

You have to understand, that when I was knee-high to a grasshopper there were two shows that I DID NOT MISS. One was Speed Racer. The other was B.J. and the Bear. Hmmm … both shows prominently feature driving and chimpanzees. Coincidence? But really, this tells you just about everything you need to know about how the mind of a seven-year-old boy works.

And if you are, or ever have been, a seven-year-old boy, THIS IS THE MOVIE FOR YOU. With Speed Racer The Wachowski Brothers have created a world where racing is king, the laws of physics don’t apply, comic violence is art and Willy Wonka’s choice of color palettes would be considered “understated.” There’s no shortage of rocket powered cars, cool gadgets, explosions or monkey poop gags.

Seriously, if you even remotely remember what it was like being seven years old, you can’t help but love this movie. (I’m not even ashamed to admit that I cried.)

The kids in the audience clapped at more than a few moments. The critic sitting next to me even gasped “YES!” under his breath when the trademark saw blades popped out of the front of the Mach 5. Yes, this movie totally scored with those in its two core target audiences: Those seven year olds, and every 30-40 year old geezer in the audience who remembers watching the show every afternoon they could.

Seriously, this movie was perfect. (OK, not quite perfect … the Black-Eyed-Peas-esque song over the closing credits practically chased me from the theater.)

But no doubt, there are plenty of people who will probably hate this film, or at the very least should not watch it:
1. People who get motion sick
2. People who may be epileptic or seizure-prone
3. People for whom everything must “make sense”
4. People who can’t appreciate a good monkey poo joke
5. Anyone else who can’t see the world with the wide-eyed wonder of a kid

It’s 3:30am and I’m still totally jazzed about the movie. It may be late, and I may be a little giddy from the lack of sleep, but there are three things I know for certain:

1. I’m going to have to go see this again in the theater.
2. I’m totally jealous of this guy from Road and Track.
3. I need a girlfriend who can fly a helicopter.

Every year I take a bajillion pictures at the races, yet every time I’m surprised at just how much work I’ve made for myself pulling them off the camera, sorting them, editing them and uploading them. I took somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 shots on Sunday alone. Of those, I have processed and uploaded 33. You can check out the set here.

At the next race I hope to have some time to wander the campgrounds and document the culture as much as the cars.

Seriously, stuff like this just NEEDS to be on the internets:

My pictures from the Nationwide Series race on Saturday are now up over on Flickr.

So are the pictures from Friday’s qualifying. (Check ‘em out here.)

Sunday’s Samsung 500 pictures will be coming Monday evening. (I’ve gotta sleep sometime.)

Enjoy!

During qualifying for the Samsung 500 Michael McDowell plowed the #00 “Aaron’s Dream Machine” nose first into the turn one wall at nearly 200 miles per hour. After impact the car flipped into the air, rolling sideways, belching fire and leaving a trail of parts until it finally came to rest about a quarter mile away at the bottom of turn two.

Without a doubt, I can say that it’s the most gruesome and spectacular crash that I have ever seen live.

McDowell pulled himself from the car and walked away with only bumps and scratches.

Luckily, I had my camera aimed that direction and started firing quick enough to catch most of the carnage. Click the image above to see a composite of the scene stitched together from the nine or ten frames I was able to fire off as the car careened down the track.

Or click here to download the original size and scroll around to your heart’s content.

You can also check out the individual photos in a set by clicking here.

Michael McDowell is one supremely fortunate dude.

Well, I’ve traded in the GTI. He served me well for those 88,000 miles, but it was time for a change. I was really looking forward to not making car payments anymore, but the fickle car gods had other ideas. After a string of repairs that made me nervous about its future, I decided to go ahead and trade it in while it still had value.

So the quest for a new vehicle began in earnest about a month ago. Since I don’t commute long distances or in heavy traffic anymore, my options seemed limited only by my wallet. I even tried to get on the list for the new Dodge Challenger SRT8 despite how foolish it might have been. (Unfortunately, they’re going for as much as DOUBLE sticker price!) I test drove everything from hatchbacks (the Volvo C30 is seriously fun) to haulers. Since I don’t commute long distances or in heavy traffic anymore, gas mileage isn’t a big issue for me, and a truck really made a lot of sense. After a ludicrous amount of analysis and internal debate, I eventually settled on the magnificent beast you see below.

So, meet Herman.

I’ve finally processed the rest of my photos from the Dickies 500 race weekend. You can check them out HERE.

As the sun sets on the #8 Budweiser car, and as Jimmie Johnson most assuredly wraps up his second consecutive championship this weekend, I just have one thought running through my head as I post this…

97 days, 4 hours, 11 minutes, 57 seconds until the Daytona 500.

Sam Hornish, Jr. spins across the infield during the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway.

This one’s definitely better BIGGER!