decrypting kenny’s mind

It has been a short while since I last posted.  I really wanted to post just to say that I can start uploading pictures to flickr again because it is past the first of the month.  Also, in recent iPhone news, if you own an iPhone, down Fring from the App Store.  It will allow you to make VoIP calls when connected to wifi.  I just hope it offers the push service so that I can close the app and continue to be logged into skype.  If that is the case then I sort of have cell service at my house.  That would be nice.  Anyway, check it out.  That is all for now.  I’ll try to make a decent post this weekend.  Stay tuned.

I have posted some more photo albums on the photos page.  This will be the last bit of photo uploading that I can do this month because of 1) flickr’s upload limit and 2) my stupidity.  I normally resize all of my photos before uploading them.  When I take pictures with my camera, the size is about 3072 kb.  I did remember to resize all of the pictures from Watkins Glen (taking them down to about 500 kb), however, when I uploaded them, I choose the original sized pictures.  I did get all the pictures uploaded dispise the limit, however, the final five pictures in the gallery are hosted on Google’s picasa site.  That is the reason they are not square shaped on the gallery page.  As soon as the first of the month comes around, I will be able to fix it.  But until then, it is what it is.

I’ve been working on adding some more content to my blog, mainly a photos section.  You can find a link to it on the menu just before the RSS link.  You can also get to it by clicking here. There are only three albums on it right now. I will continue to add more as time goes on. Check it out. Photo Albums

There are a lot of things that I want to be able to do to my car.  Mainly I want to be able to be able to auto cross with it again.  In order to do that, I am waiting for a company to get some stock of a part that i need for my suspension.  I called them two days ago and they said that they would have stock again either this Friday or by next Friday.  That is step one in getting my car track ready again.

Step two is not necessary, but I would like to do it because it would make my car better on the track.  There are some suspension components that could be upgraded that would allow me to be more competitive.  Of course these won’t be purchased until I get a little bit more money.  I would also like to get another set of rims and tires for my car, but that too needs to wait until I get some more money.  I am hoping that I will be able to get at least the latter by the first race of next season.  That gives me a few months to come up with the money.

The third thing I would like to do, depending on how mean my car is after the second set of upgrades, is look into either getting my engine a little bit more pep, or getting a racing seat.  If the car is doing what I predict it will do after all the suspension upgrades, I imagine that I will not be able to hold myself in place when I corner, hence the racing seat.  If I can still manage to hold myself in place, I will probably spring for some more engine pep, as in acceleration, not horsepower.  I figure a lightened crankshaft pulley and lightened flywheel ought to do the trick.

Because I know those won’t get the car where I want it to be in the grand scheme of things, there is one final upgrade I would like to do.  One of the last, but definitely not the least of the upgrades to come will be a different engine.  This will take some time, considering I need to first find and engine, then I need to pull mine out (including the transmission), and swap it with the new one.  After that comes the fun part (not really) of getting all the wiring installed and overall getting the thing to work.  I know it is going to be a lot of work, but considering this is my project car, it will be worth it.  My car will be a beast of a track car when I am done.  If all goes well, it could eventually be used for something more than just autocross.

Title: Laurel Classic MTB Race
Location: Wellsboro
Description: This will be my second time racing at the Laurel Classic MTB Race. The first year I competed, I took first overall in the beginner class. I decided to enter the sport class for this year.
Start Time: 11:00
Date: 2008-09-06

It’s official now.  My mountain biking races are finished for this year.  I wish I could say I went out with a bang, however, I did not.  When I was getting ready for the race (the morning of), I was thinking ahead and packed Advil knowing that when I bike in a race I bike very intense and normally my lower back starts to hurt.  Normally if I take some Advil before i race, I don’t notice the pain as much during the race.  Forgetful Kenny didn’t remember to take the Advil before the race started.  Not only that, I couldn’t take any once I started racing either because it was back in the vehicle.

Just like clockwork, I started to feel the lower back pain at the top of the first climb (which is 4 miles by the way).  It still wasn’t bad enough that I was out of the competition, so I continued to push forward.  It wasn’t until after the second climb of the race that I started to realize that I was going to be out of the competition.  It was getting difficult for me to stand and pedal, which is an important aspect of mountain bike riding.  The third and final climb (large climb anyway) put the pain over the top.  I actually had to get off my bike and try to stretch my back and get the blood flowing back into it again (it was another biker’s suggestion I gathered while climbing hill three).  It did work for a little while.  My back felt refreshed for about a mile but then I was right back to were started (not literally, because then I would have finished the race).  After that last mile of feeling good, everything went to crap.  A section of the course that I know I can normally ride at about 10-15 mph I was doing at about 2 mph because that was the only way to keep the pain at a minimum.  All I wanted to do was finish the race in one piece.  And I eventually did, in seventh place.

The other members of Team Summit Junkies also entered the race, as did my uncle Chris.  Steve took first in his age group, my mom took second out of all the beginner females, and Chris took first out of his age group in the beginners.  As for my dad, well, he did come in fourth place in the same age group as Steve, however my dad had a pretty bad accident during the race.  He was probably less than two tenths of a mile away from the finish line and he flipped over the front of his bike and rammed his shoulder into the ground, tearing a ligament that holds one of his shoulder bones in place.  He was able to get back on his bike an finish the race, however, he now needs to have his arm in a sling.  It doesn’t fit my dad seeing him with any type of medical stuff on him.

That is my update on the race.  As I predicted, it wasn’t nearly as much fun as the Ole Bull race.  I am looking forward to that race again next year.