Passes & Canyons Blog

Jeremiah Owsley (left) and Dave Hennessy with the Suzuki sidecar rig they’ll be racing tomorrow.

“I think Dave is just gonna put a major piece of whoop-ass on John, mainly because of his experience and the loose gravel on that top section. Dave is an old MX sidecar racer with a lot of dirt skills. John is a street racer without dirt skills. Plus, Dave’s bike is more powerful.”

That’s the pre-race prognostication from Key Kyler, the mechanic supporting both sidecar racing teams competing in the 2010 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, which runs tomorrow.

The veterans
Dave Hennessy, running a 1000cc Suzuki “motard style” rig with his passenger, Jeremiah Owsley, is a veteran of the course. John Wood, running a Wasp rig with a 750cc Yamaha engine with his passenger, Giorgina Gottlieb, is in the rider’s seat for the first time on this bike. He was the passenger on the rig last year.

With such uneven competitors, beating the other guy is nobody’s main focus.

“We’re going against the records of previous sidecars,” says Dave. “We hope to improve so we’re in the hunt for the record. John and Giorgina are in a slightly different class. If they beat me, good for them. Still, I hope they don’t. We have an advantage over them.”

In Jeremiah’s mind there is no question who will come in first tomorrow, and he is focused on the record.

“I think we’ll beat last year no problem,” he says.

The rookies
For John and Giorgina the challenge is simply to finish the race. They didn’t do so well in the first day of practice.

“Somebody put a ditch in the raceline,” says John. “I’m a roadracer and tried to use a roadracing line, dive to outside to apex, but there was no traction out there. Still, I thought I had it till the last 30 feet.”

It was a bit of a rough landing but the bike was back together for the next day’s practice.

“The passenger was back together, too,” adds Giorgina.

Practice on the mountain is divided into three sections, with each group of racers working a different section each day. Some parts of the road are paved and some are not. On the second day it was a paved section.

“I was back in my element, and we were able to work on technique,” says John. “Every time we went out we got faster. I was trying to ride smooth and let the fast come, and that had tremendous results.”

This is Giorgina’s first race ever so for her there is a great deal to learn.

“Every time we go out I’m learning a lot. It’s fun. Now it’s a matter of making transitions smoother. You lean left for left, right for right. It makes more sense the more I do it. When you turn left you want weight on the left side, either the back for traction or the front for steering. Turning right you want to keep the chair down for traction. My job is traction control.”

In sidecar racing, the job of the passenger, or monkey, is to shift their weight to add traction to whichever tire needs it at the moment. Rough movement from one position to another can make it harder on the driver to maintain control, thus the need for smooth transitions.

The race
On Sunday the sidecars are scheduled to run second in the back half of the program. The first half is the vintage cars, stock cars, open wheel, unlimited and others. The second half is exhibition powersports, sidecars, quads, and motorcycles. Racing starts at 9 a.m., which means everyone will be up by 3 a.m. to get to the mountain and settled in. Once racing starts there is no traffic on the road except for the racers. As racers reach the top they remain up there until racing is completed and they come back down in three groups.

Why do they do it?

“I ask myself that each morning at 3 a.m.,” says Dave. “When you get to the top it feels pretty amazing.”

Rick Litt, a friend of Dave’s for more than 30 years, adds, “His main motivation is he just loves racing.”

For John, this year is all about learning the track so he’ll be ready to come back with his roadracing sidecar when the road to the top is fully paved, in 2012. This year, “As long as I don’t make a fool of myself it’s OK. I just want to see the top.”

And then there is the coming down. In a somewhat new tradition at the Pikes Peak, as the racers come down the mountain, spectators all along the route stand with their hands outstretched to high-five them. For the racers it’s a pretty emotional affair.

“From what I hear, it’s moving,” says Giorgina. “The fandom for this race is amazing. The people who actually watch are passionate about it.”

Many of those fans camp on the mountain the night before in order to get a great view of the race. It is the only night each year when camping is allowed on Pikes Peak.

Today, Saturday, is a day of rest for the racers. Tomorrow is the big day.

Biker Quote for Today

If I could marry my motorcycle, I’d roll her right up to the altar. — Flip Wilson

Giorgina Gottlieb, riding with John Wood, demonstrates the position she’ll take on the sidecar on right turns.

It’s not really a race without competition, so it’s no surprise that the only two competitors in the sidecar class at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb are essentially one team. Dave Hennessy, last year’s winner, has returned with his 1000cc Suzuki rig. He will face off against John Wood, who will be piloting the Wasp/Yamaha rig run by Dave’s brother last year. John was the passenger, or “monkey,” on that rig last year.

Jeremiah Owsley is Dave’s monkey and John has enlisted Giorgina Gottlieb, a sidecar novice, to ride with him.

Wrenching for both teams is Ken Kyler, who is building his own sidecar rig and hopes the experience this year will serve him well when he competes next year.

While Dave and Jeremiah are an experienced team, it’s all new for John and Giorgina. John has his own sidecar rig that he has raced, but it is one of the F1/F2 models designed for road-racing. The MX sidecar rig he will be steering on the mountain is a different animal.

Giorgina has had an introduction to the sport on John’s rig but the first time she ever laid eyes on what she’ll be riding on Sunday was Monday of this week when everyone arrived in Colorado Springs. While John and Giorgina are from California, Dave brought both rigs up on a trailer from New Mexico, where he and his brother live. Ken came in from his home in Maryland.

Demonstrating the moves she’ll be making on the rig, Giorgina explained that the technique is mostly the same as on the F1/F2 sidecars, but “I’ll be closer to the ground, I’ll have to throw myself around more. It’s like a jungle gym.”

Thus the “monkey” designation. Sidecar monkeys move between left, right, and neutral positions, using their weight to counter centrifugal force as the rigs go racing around curves, helping keep all three wheels in touch with the ground.

John, at the helm, says the MX rig is “crazy at first, but it makes a little more sense once you get used to it. The hardest part is being in the dirt.”

While the two have helmet to helmet radio communicators, they don’t work well enough to be much use.

“We’ll be telecommunicating through the frame. The passenger needs to know by feel how far out to lean to meet the driver’s need.”

Changing complexion of the race
Ken Kyler is eager to compete next year, figuring it will be his last chance to race Pikes Peak in the old fashion. In response to lawsuits, Colorado Springs has been gradually paving the road to the top of the mountain and that paving must be complete in 2012.

“The loss of the dirt will change the entire complexion of the race. The F1s and F2s will show up and take over. The same will happen with the bikes.”

Ken figures that if he can learn the logistics and get familiar with the course this year it will reduce the stress he’ll face next year.

“I’ll be scared enough about riding.”

He also hopes he’ll have competition. While he sees the possibility of as many as five sidecars competing next year, at this point there is no assurance there will even be two.

“It’s the greatest race in the world of this type,” he says. “There are 150 turns in 12 miles. You won’t find that anyplace else.”

Tuesday was the day for all competitors to run their machines through tech inspection. After crawling over and around Dave’s Suzuki rig, the judge commented that “I wrote the engine numbers down, I’m looking at it, and it looks really nice.” He then handed Dave a bag of absorbent material to use in case of an oil spill and wished him well.

“Now,” said Ken, “it’s time to walk around and drool over everybody else’s equipment.”

Biker Quote for Today

Told him it was me or the motorcycle. That was the longest wheelie up the street I’d ever seen.

I’m going to resurrect a series of Examiner pieces about some folks riding in the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb a few years ago. This is long past but their stories are timeless.

Andrew Phillips with his BMW R1200GSA.

Andrew Phillips has never raced the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb before. And yet he has, many times.

When Andrew competes in the 450 Supermoto class in Sunday’s race, for the first time he will be doing so from the seat of his BMW G450X. All the other times have been at the controls of an XBox. Andrew has also watched numerous YouTube videos of previous Pikes Peak races, all in an effort to learn the course and get as familiar with it as possible without actually being there.

“It’s hard to practice on the bike when you don’t have access to a race course. It is taking away a lot of the unknown,” he said. The course is no longer completely unfamiliar. And familiarity counts. “When you’re going that speed you want to know where the curves are, when to slow down.”

Andrew’s first actual day on the mountain was Monday of this week, and this morning was his first opportunity to run part of it with his race bike. The bikes, sidecars, and quads in the event did practice runs this morning on the lower third of the mountain, while other classes ran the upper two thirds. Tomorrow they’ll move to the middle and then on Friday they’ll practice on the top third.

Back home in Vermont and along the East Coast, Andrew has participated in a number of hill climbs and some rally moto stuff, riding for the MAX BMW team. He did well in several and even took a first in a rally moto in Tennessee. This is his first shot at a big race.

“I probably won’t be winning this thing,” he says. “My goal is to finish safely and have the experience.”

Although he has been riding motorcycles since he was 17, Andrew, now 43, had ridden mostly on the street. In 2004 he got his first dirt bike, a BMW 1150 GS Adventure. That’s a big bike for riding dirt and he describes that as something of an awakening. When he picked up the G450X from the dealer, a bike with half the weight of the 1150, he headed straight for an event, racing it right off the showroom floor.

He has considerably more experience on the bike now, and is working to get some experience on the mountain. In addition to the practice runs in the morning, he has ridden the road to the top several more times on his R1200GSA, which he brought along, too, to explore Colorado and have fun when he’s not practicing.

Andrew’s wife, Jen, is blogging about his Pikes Peak preparation and experience, and will be flying in Thursday evening to be here for the big event. On Saturday they’ll be riding to places like the Shelf Road, the Royal Gorge, Skyline Drive in Canon City, and visiting Bishop Castle. And then it will be race day.

Biker Quote for Today

So if you’re on the motorcycle, on the track you’re not thinking at all about what’s happening next week or tomorrow or anything. You’re literally thinking about the turn you’re setting up and there’s something about that I find very cathartic and meditative. — Dax Shepard