As twisty, turny, and motion-sickness-inducing as the 101 can be in redwood country, kinetic sculpture racers will tell you that it’s nothing compared to the road they traverse from Arcata to Ferndale. In fact, it’s not a road at all. It’s a 42-mile ordeal of land, sand, muds, and suds. The race starts and ends on pavement, but in between, the course encompasses dirt tracks, 30-foot-high sand dunes, open water, and gooey, sloppy mixtures of mud and muck.

Every May in the redwood-friendly moistness of the Northern California coast, a wonderful exhibition of true maker determination and creativity takes place. Approximately 30 racing teams and thousands of spectators descend on eccentric and unconventional little Arcata to attend what might be the most interesting sporting event in the world, at least to the eccentric and unconventional kind of people who read this magazine.

Below Dead Man’s Drop, emergency medical technicians wait, ready to deal with breaks, blood, and twig-pierced eyebrows.

The size and time invested in such an outré event defy easy understanding. On the morning of race day, two-and-a-half dozen human-powered sculptures assemble in the town square. Watching and waiting, the great throng of onlookers stands six deep along the streets.

The elaborate mechanicals and their maniacal makers wait for the blast of the town’s noon whistle. At the sound of the klaxon horn, all begin to circle the town square once, twice, and then a third time until the exit gate is flung open and the racers begin the marathon quest for glory. The crowd cheers them, then heads off to its favorite viewing points along the route. For the next three days, the racers pedal their vehicles up hills and down sand dunes, across the waters of the Eel River and Humboldt Bay, and through the towns of Manila, Eureka, and Loleta.

It’s grueling work, but the harsh conditions are

offset by post-race basking in the personal triumph that comes from merely finishing, and in the wry sense of humor that permeates the entire event. That has to be enough, for there’s absolutely nothing to motivate the racers except the glory of participating and crossing the finish line in Ferndale three days later. Luckily, there’s plenty of glory to go around.

Polymaths, All

What sets this event apart from other competitions with a homebuilt component is that it celebrates the polymath instead of the specialist. To understand this event, and to excel at it, one can’t be only a sculptor, or a mechanical engineer, or a cyclist. One needs to be all three, for the final judgment depends on the sum total of the builder’s artistry, engineering, and physical fitness.

This is an event for polymaths, of the sort that Leonardo Da Vinci, Blaise Pascal, and Buckminster Fuller would enjoy. It’s not just about having overdeveloped leg muscles, and pedaling fast and long. The best, most glorious participants must be clever technologists, designing gear trains and vehicle superstructures that can finish the marathon-and-a-half-long course of diverse terrain.

Some of the racing machines weigh more than a ton fully loaded, and a fair amount of engineering is required to make such weightiness sufficiently mobile to be pedaled across the many conditions encountered. Typically, this involves designs incorporating swing-down pontoons, differential gear boxes, variable-angle recumbent seats, and most important of all, massive drive trains, with more gear ratios than you can shake a Cannondale at. The pilots of kinetic racers often have more than 600 different gear ratios from which to choose.

And even that isn’t all. To be competitive, a racer has to be beautifully sculpted as well. Builders must have artistic talent, for skill and brawn mean little without artfulness.

The Racers

It’s the artistry, whimsy, and imagination that the designers and builders incorporate into their machines that make the experience what it is. The best machines are true works of art, evocative of the sculpture of Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder, and Jean Tinguely.

June Moxon’s racer is called Skaredy Kat, but she

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