Red Bull Dragsterday!

Have you heard about this? This is an outgrowth, or I guess an americanized version of their popular Flugtag events. Except in this case people were asked to create human powered dragsters, instead of flying machines. (to me this whole idea seems a lot safer. I am not really into trying to fly off of a 40 foot platform into the lake!)

Anyway, as you may have guessed, my design was selected along with only 32 others, nationally, to be built into a fully functional human powered dragster. (gulp..) yeah, I guess when I was drawing it, it seemed like it would be easy, hahahaha! To make matters worse, the day after I got the news that I made it in, I lost my whole team to a wedding... Long story, suffice it to say, I was alone on the project. I thought I was going to have to pull out, and I even called the people at Red Bull and told them as much.

But, they would not be dissuaded so easily. I am not sure why, but they kept pushing me to create my dragster anyway. Finally I gave, I told them that if I could find a sponsosr, I would do it! So I started my search in earnest looking for a bike shop to help me in my dreams of drag racing glory. As it so happens I found a sponsor immediately! Marty's bike shop in Stow. Tom, the owner fell in love with the whole idea immediately, and said he would provide all the bike parts I needed at cost. Now I just needed to find another couple of sponsors to cover the 'at cost'. I made a few more phone calls and now I am also sponsored by Liquid Living, and R & R mechanical both in Cleveland. Woohoo, the dragster will live!

Now is the tough part, I have about 3 1/2 weeks to get my legs in shape, and actually build this beast. Fortunately I have a friend, Tim Shreffler, who knows his way around the fiberglass stuff, and the guys at the bike shop are helping me build my custom components. I will, of course, be creating a video diary of this creation, and I will share it with you after the race on sept. 10th.

The sketch above is the original concept drawing that I entered into the competition. The final car will be a little modified but all in all, pretty much the same. ESPN2 will also be there on raceday, creating an hour long special to air at a later date.

So, if you are in Detroit on the 10th of September, or if you want to make the trip out to see this crazy day, stop on by the pits and say hi!

See you later.

More cool developments!

I have been selected as one of only 10 artists to complete a special commemerative painting for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Sonsored by the Rock Hall "Ten of the city's hottest artitsts have been asked to create a work of art that expresses what 10 years of the Rock Hall in Cleveland means to them". I am very excited to be a part of this 'historic' event, and I am creating a very experimental piece. It utilizes some of my existing techniques with some totally new things incorporated into the design. I am using some new materials and some salvaged items to create a piece that makes an old electirc guitar look like its a fossil.

The idea behind the piece is to say, that the Rock Hall is like a modern history of popular culture. Much of what we take for granted today in our culture was born out of this musical movement. And without the electric guitar, there is no rock n roll! So I wanted to make a piece that would look like something you might find a couple of thousand years after today, and scientists would make all kinds of interesting reports on, suggesting where the guitar came from and who played it an so on...

I am going to document the creation of this piece, and once its done I will put up a short video on my website to share this creative process with you all!

See you soon.