A Ground Clamp and a Safety Squint
An interview with Rob Vandermark by Skunk at Ghostride, Part III
To ease us into this installment, we were previously talking about the first Donut Race back in 1987 and some other racing type events, like "Get in the box"...
Rob Vandermark: That was a lot of fun, but we never had
a party around that because it was really dangerous. I still have a scar on my hand from that. We had moved into that big space and there
was all this conduit sticking out of the floor.
It seemed really open, and there'd be nothing in the area, and all of a
sudden you would just flip over. But no
donuts involved in that one. Then there
was the move here [Seven's "Chin on the Rim" Event], and then once a year. What was the one where we had it in the office
we weren't using?
Ghostride: Velopaloser.
RV: That was different, because it was
so small and contained, but there was something cool about being able to see it
all, where as in the others everything was more spread out and you missed a
lot.
GR: So of all the events, what's the
moment that was the most out of control?
RV: The exorcism fits into that. It's sort of a precursor, there was a big
fire.
GR: Did the titanium frame actually
ignite?
RV: No; we coated it in acetone or
something whatever was around, but then below it, Tim had a bunch of shavings
that I think were titanium and magnesium and maybe some aluminum. But it looked like something from the
roadrunner, like buckshot. Tim's trying
to light it, and he finally got it going and it just went bright white. And everybody just got way back. It lit the frame, and the frame just burst
into flames and the ceiling was really low and wood. It burned out pretty quickly. The titanium frame itself defiantly didn't
catch on fire, but it was so smokey, I think some of it was from the fire
extinguisher, and I can't remember if he needed to or was just being safe.
GR: Well, you never know if you don't
use it and when you do need it and then you're in pretty deep trouble.
RV: The ceiling was singeing. But that was really dumb, in retrospect, that
was really not a good thing to end up doing.
A large indoor fire with no safety equipment without any ventilation,
with a fire extinguisher we didn't even know whether or not worked. They've all been so out of control. The dumbest stuff was when we were throwing
Ti tubing into people's spokes. Which
we've done since then, but the first time we did it escalated the danger to
stupidity levels. There were just people
riding about. It was getting boring, so
we just started throwing this Ti tubing, and it would just lock up the rear
wheel. And you'd just go over the bars,
or just go into the bars - so that was a lot of fun - but really dumb.
GR: And usually there's a lot of heavy
machinery around, with a lot of sharp edges.
You'd have to tape it down with cardboard.
RV: That's recent; every year, I can't
believe we're getting away with it. But
in the old pictures you'll see it's all out there, alignment tables--and
they're not very soft. There's tooling
stuff lying around. The first time
there's no plan. The second time Gwyn,
was in disbelief that this stuff was happening, and everyone said this is the
last time, and we won't do it again, and everyone was like "okay" but
nobody ever really wanted to stop doing it.
GR: These events have been some of the
greatest experiences in my life. The
last one was my favorite. It was
absolutely amazing, but I guess there's always the nostalgia factor.
RV: I think things have gotten safer, so
I'm not stressing out as much. Understanding
how to make the track work better, and just being willing to do it.
GR: It's a tremendous risk. It's high stakes, but it's really fun, but someone can get really hurt.
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Get hurt? Hard to believe. Check back for the fourth exciting installment to hear how hurt…
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