Click on a thumbnail sketch to see the full size picture.

The Zeroeth Day: Art Judging

Dave wrote our song. The tune is from Teddybear Picnic. We sang with accompaniment from Accordians Anonymous.

• If you go down to daVinci days
• You're in for a big surprise!
• And if you ride Frogasaurus Rex
• You'd best wear a frog disguise.
• For all the glory ever there was
• Is why the KSRs race because
• That's the way
• The KSRs have their picnic.
  
  
• Racing time for KSRs,
• The lovely KSRs are racing in Corvallis today.
• Road and sand and well aware,
• The West Hills climb is a few miles away.
• Through the Mud Bog we will go.
• And on the Willamette River we will sail away.
  
  
• And after racing their mommies and daddies
• will take them home to bed,
• Cuz they're tired little KSRs.
• And after racing their mommies and daddies
• will take them home to bed,
• Cuz they're tired little KSRs.

Bats In The Belfry
	Frogasaurus Rex. Dave has a frog-green face, care of an HP face painter.
Cheezy Rider was the 2003 class project.
	June's entry is Sparkle. But I think she should have called it 'Horse of a different color'.
Metal Mayhem.
	Gourd Of The Rings is Ken's entry. Gives new meaning to melon-head.
	Dave, ever dedicated, gives rides to kids. We have lots more pictures of kids getting rides.

The First Day: Road and Sand.

Frogasaurus Rex has a big brass horn from Pakistan. They are used there by the pedicabs. It was graciously donated by Melissa Boyd. It used to produce a lovely basso-profundo honk. Lately it had not been working, producing more of a hissing sound.

Dave donated a smaller brass bicycle horn. It was more of an alto honk. Not quite as satisfying as the big horn, but perfectly acceptable. Unfortunately it fell out of its mount and we drove over it early on. After that it sounded like a yipping toy poodle. I hate toy poodles!

	Frogasaurus Rex in the parade. That's Chris and David piloting. And the dog in the rear seat is Chris's Australian Shepard. [picture by Shep Bassett]
	We give rides to kids of all ages. Naturally. Otherwise we couldn't allow ourselves to ride! More pictures of kids of all ages getting rides.
This boy is a special fan. Notice the frog T-shirt.

Breakdown!

I was about to give one last ride before the start of the race, we still had 10 minutes, when my chain slipped off the sprokets and landed on the ground. The bike chain had actually broken! This had never happened before with Rex, and I've been racing Rex since 1996. Fortunately we carry a small quantity of spare chain and a chain tool. We got the chain fixed with seconds to spare.

Unfortunately, the kids who were going to ride didn't get a chance. I hope they came back later. We took so many passengers between racing that I really can't keep track of all the kids.

	The road race starts. Dave is deep in the shadow of Frogasaurus Rex, but I'm more visible. [picture by Shep Bassett]
Drum Roll on the Sand.
	Gourd Of The Rings and Bats In The Belfry on the Sand.
	Frogasaurus Rex on the Sand. That sand is every bit as soft as it looks. But using our experimental new sand cleats we had no problem at all. The differential brakes performed excellently for steering down the sand. That's half of our pit crew, David, in the rear. Chris, the other pit, took these pictures.
	During the descent from the sand 'dune', Cheezy Rider's frame buckled just behind the head tube. They bent it back, but it really needed to be replaced.

Back at the first day Finish Line

One of these days Frogasaurus Rex is going to turn into a 500 pound prince. Two girls at once are giving him a smooch.
	Did I mention that we give rides to kids? More pictures of kids riding the frog.

The Second Day: Mud and River

Sorry I don't have any pictures of us in the mud. We were a little too busy to worry about pictures.

The mud this year was tough, thick and deep. Even Rex has been stopped by mud like that in the past. The problem is that the ATV wheels plow too much mud ahead of them and the pilots wear out before getting across the bog.

I had been thinking about this problem for years. We had seen bicycle wheels make it though thick mud. But often those wheels fail because they don't have sufficient tread and they just end up spinning while trying to climb out of a minor depression in the underlying hardpan. What we really wanted was wheels that were no wider than bike wheels, but which had treads that were even bigger than ATV wheels.

To do this we created cleats to fit onto the bicycle wheels. They fit on like snow chains. But where the normally chain wraps across the tread, I used PVC pipe. Each pipe formed a massive tread.

Of course, we didn't have a chance to test these new mud cleats before the race. Like the sand cleats, the mud cleats were experimental. And like the sand cleats they performed very well. We had no problem in the mud. Our narrow wheels didn't slow us down much. And we had good traction at all times.

This is not to say that everything was perfect. My secondary chain fell off several times. That delayed us. Dave and I were both thinking we must have exceeded the ten minutes allowed for mud crossing. (More than that and you lose your Leo award.) But somehow we managed to do it all in less than ten minutes. The Frog had triumphed again!

Breakdown!

We had really lucked out. Because when we prepared for the water we noticed that both secondary chains had come loose. The master links had come apart and lost their keepers.

Fortunately we had some time since many of the other sculptures hadn't crossed the mud yet. I caught a ride home where I have spare master links. Suprise, suprise. I only had one spare.

Fortunately Manley was at the race. He lived on a farm and became very adept at working around problems. Using some wire, he fashioned a sort of keeper for the loose master link.

	Locknuts Monster enters the water.
Buns of Steel enters the water.
	Frogasaurus Rex cruising down the Willamette. [picture by Shep Bassett]

Breakdown!

Regular readers will recall when a main axle bearing loosened up, allowing the axle to shift to the side. That happened between OMSI and the Starlight Parade. I thought that was solved when I tightened the bearing. Evidently I didn't get it tight enough. As we were heading from the river back to the finish line, my side became misaligned again.

At this point our race time was very good. Probably the best it's ever been. The new rear wheel increased our road speed by perhaps 25%. We had zipped across the sand. Our mud time was good. And we had not tarried, but had slid thru the river run very quickly. Granted there had been several breakdowns, but most had been off the clock. Only the mud chain problems had hurt our time, and that was perhaps 3 minutes.

Unfortunately this new breakdown would cost us more. I couldn't keep my chain on, so I couldn't pedal. Dave had to take us to the finish line. And with only one person pedaling we don't zip along quite so fast. I'm estimating that this problem cost us 20 minutes. Dave is a trooper; he didn't complain. But it bothered me to do this to him.

Summary

Back at the finish line, Manley hammered on the bearings until they were tight. I'm sure he did a better job than I could have. And at that point I was pretty tired and rather dehydrated. Dave gave some rides. I would like to have. But I found that just standing in the sun was an effort. It was hot. So I chilled until it was time to drive Rex home.

This was a fine year and a fine daVinci Days race. We had many successes.

	Linn-Benton Local Champion trophy
	3d Place Pagentry trophy
	Leo medallion [for never having to push]. Only 7 of the 23 Kinetic Sculptures achieved Leo status. Generally it was the mud that stopped them.

What's Next?

Rex the Kinetic Sculpture Racer, and in particular Frogasaurus Rex, has been very successful over the years. But he has some weaknesses. He has always been slow at water transitions. I have some ideas for ways to improve that. We may roll out those ideas when we go to Port Townsend.

But Rex is getting old. I don't know how much longer he will be capable of racing. We are just starting on a new project for 2005. It will be radically different, and sure to raise eyebrows. But you will have to wait until next year to see it. It's a secret.

Copyright (C) C Allen Brown 2004.