Board Track Racing

Motorized Testicular Fortitude

Board Track Racing is a fascinating bit of motorsport history that I’d like to talk about a bit. It’s largely a forgotten sport that was only active for a little over a decade during the early turning of the twentieth century. Why? Insanely dangerous and insanely expensive. During a time when World War I veterans with a death wish and a new level of adrenaline to chase along with the obscene amounts of money being tossed around during the Roaring Twenties, such an exciting form of entertainment was perfect for its era.

Now what WAS board track racing? Imagine oval racing… but scarier. 

Started on two wheels and expanded to four wheel competition, where my interest lies. It was called “board” track racing because the tracks were constructed with wooden boards, and with a minimal knowledge of the engineering behind it, the sketchiness of these tracks was an understatement. Later on there was some number crunching done by somewhat competent engineers, but what remained the same was the insane costs of construction and maintenance… and the speeds.

Indianapolis 500: 111.73mph

Fulford Speedway: 142.93mph

Same year.

With banking that’d put Talladega to shame, these guys took what amounted to basically lawnmowers with bicycle tires up to speeds that wouldn’t be seen at Indianapolis for decades. Where the 1950’s and 1960’s era of racing saw a tremendous amount of fatalities, what was seen during the era of board track racing was basically a blood sport for the spectator’s entertainment. Few survived long enough to retire.


When the Great Depression came Board Track Racing went. With few survivors from that era, there just wasn’t really anybody clamoring for it to come back when the world economy recovered. And with the increased focus on safety over the years we’ll likely never see anything like it again.

That said, the concept of essentially wacky hot wheels inspired track racing just seems fun. You see it in arcade racing videogames and people love the idea of it… but you won’t see anybody with a pulse race this way again… in reality. Perhaps iRacing could give it a crack? Would be pretty cool to see a realistic take on this largely forgotten style of racing.

If you’re curious like me, here’s a few documentaries I enjoyed that do a deep dive on the world of board track racing:

Suicidal Speed and Splinters: The History of Board Track Racing In America
Dancing with the Devil, Board Track Documentary.
Welcome to the Murderdrome | A Brief History of Board Track Racing

-K

Pokerman

With the nostalgia bug latching onto me recently, I’ve started revisiting some old favorites. Pokemon being one that pretty much every kid has at least one major experience with dumping countless hours of their life into.

As an overall property I didn’t watch too much of the anime, Digimon was my jam as a kid and I’ll die on the hill that its theme song blows Pokemon outta the water. Yet I wasn’t a total outcast as a kid, or at least tried not to be, so of course I collected the cards when they came onto the scene during the late 90’s. I was literally the exact target demographic and age. Resistance was futile. 

What saved me was not being able to keep up with my friends. I’d get like… one or two packs a month. I had a friend who would get cards all the time. His dad even took him to a niche collecting card spot and that motherfucker had BINDERS of cards. I think what ended my enthusiasm for card collecting was when we went to Blockbuster one time and my mom bought us each a pack of cards.

Dude pulled a holographic Charizard. Not. Fair.

As for the games… I went hard on those. I vaguely remember getting Blue as a kid and not really knowing what to do, but I ended up getting Yellow and a Game Boy Pocket (that my brother destroyed with a sharpie when he was a stupid baby… that’s a whole other story for a different time. I got a Game Boy Color shortly after that.) and I probably dumped hundreds of hours into each release from that point. Gold/Silver/Crystal was such a huge deal with its day/night cycle. Fire Red and Leaf Green introduced those little wifi warts that made trading on the school bus SO much easier. The last game I really was invested in was Diamond on the DS. After that I was too old and too cool for Pokemon games.

Guilty admission: Around 2004-2005 I used to run role-playing threads on the nsider forums as the ‘leader’ of Team Rocket. As embarrassing as that is to share, it really did cultivate my love for crafting stories. I actually was so involved with it that I grew to be friendly with the Nintendo of America staff that operated the nsider forums and when Twilight Princess was first previewed I got a print with the signatures of all of em on it lol. After so many years and so many moves, I’ve unfortunately lost it.. To be fair… it was kind of a crappy print. Probably off a cheap laser printer as an easy gift for an overactive user in their community lol.

Fast forward 15 years and I started hearing rumblings about a 3D Pokemon game and after getting a Switch to finally play Breath of the Wild with its sequel looming I was mildly curious. I didn’t think much of Arceus when I picked it up, but upon playing it holy crap. I was in. This was the Pokemon game I dreamed of as a kid. And I adored the new battle mechanics. Being even older and yet much less cool, I didn’t care what people thought about me playing Pokemon. It was fun! I even beat the dang game, which is quite an accomplishment for a known quitter like me.

If Ash can become a world champion at 35, then there’s still time for me to become the very best.


When Scarlet and Violet were announced it was the first Pokemon games I actively was excited to see released in ages. They got roasted pretty bad when they finally came out, but I had fun with em. Yes, they were buggy. Yes, Game Freak struggles with the 3rd dimension (Seriously they should’ve adopted that retro 2D/3D Octopath Traveler / Dragon Quest HD-2D style. They used to be SO good at pixel art!), but the core gameplay was FUN. Especially if you played it at the same time with friends. Being able to adventure through the world and catch stuff with others was just a good time. The first DLC was crap. Second DLC was okay. Overall I enjoyed the experience. Enough that I had the craving for more. What about those games in the series I missed during my absence…?

I began my adventure looking back with Heart Gold. That game is quite possibly the most refined old school Pokemon experience you can have. After that, I played Black and Black 2. Peak sprite art from Game Freak and was a delightful play. The later games I’m dabbling with are okay, but if ya wanna go back to the older style those two generations were the peak of traditional Pokemon.

I actually like and prefer the new direction that Arceus introduced in the overall design. Scarlet/Violet was kind of a mix of that and traditional Pokemon. I hope Legends Z-A brings back and expands upon what Arceus started. I liked how much quicker and interactive the battles felt.

I will say there’s a certain charm to the traditional Pokemon formula. Funneling you through an obvious direction and straight up expecting you to grind away mindlessly. Those games ended up being kind of a fidget spinner for me when I wasn’t feeling great due to chronic pain. If I was having a hard time I could at least grind away and level up my pokermans. The end result was the longer I was in pain, the stronger my team would be! 

So while I have a newfound appreciation for that old formula, I still want them to pursue the quicker and more interactive style that Arceus introduced. With its sprawling open-world design… just hire better 3D artists/designers Game Freak. You can afford it.

-K

Tea Time!

I’m so sorry America.

When it was rather cold last winter I craved a hot brew. Unfortunately, since I can’t have too much caffeine due to my heart problems and never liking a decaf cup of coffee, I decided to give tea a shot. It was pretty good… Wondered how a different flavor/brand would taste. Oh my. Lemon Ginger is tasty. Hmm… wonder what a bit of sugar and honey would do… lawd have mercy this is delightful.

What have I done.

Here’s the bedtime tea I look forward to every night: One Celestial “Sleep” tea and one Bigelow “Peppermint” tea together with one spoonful of sugar and three splenda packets. Tastes sooo good and knocks me out…                                                         
…it’s actually kind of a problem as I crave it during the day.

I’ve really fallen in love with the ritual of preparing tea. Especially at night when I’m winding down for bed. Ever since I was a kid I struggled with insomnia. Like, it was really bad. I’d straight up not sleep some nights and end up pounding energy drinks to get through the day after…

It really is a mystery how my heart exploded…

The act of preparing my favorite cup of tea is extremely relaxing and the melatonin in the blend I drink seals the deal by knocking me out. It’s genuinely been a life changing habit. Wish I had this when I was a kid struggling to sleep due to stress over exams or whatever

Since it’s so cheap I already have a dozen boxes of various flavors/brands of tea and I fear this disturbing trend has been escalating. I’ve already acquired an electric tea kettle and I’m curious about graduating from tea bags… I’m dangerously close to experimenting with obscure loose leaf teas and specialized kettles/teapots. My future is grim.

-K

Thinkpad

The only downside to these things is they’re a bit chonky compared to modern laptops…


When my dad passed away five years ago I inherited his work laptop and ever since it has sorta collected dust in storage. I’ve always had a gaming PC and while I liked the keyboards on Thinkpads, this one always felt a bit slow with the spinny hard drive and 8gb of ram. Well lately I’ve been working on the comic and while I was thinking about better methods of writing I recalled how nice this Thinkpad keyboard was. Figured if I could at least make it responsive enough to not be infuriating to use I could try adding it to my workflow. 

Unless you’re replacing the network card (whoever designed the antenna leads for those things is evil) upgrading old laptops is pretty easy!

Well on a whim I spent $39 on a 240gb SSD and a 16gb ram kit and threw a fresh installation of Windows on it… holy crap! This thing is downright snappy now! 

Glancing over at my ultrawide monitor on my sim racing rig, I thought about how it’s generally unused otherwise, as my Mac Mini only supports two monitors. I wondered.. what’s the max resolution output of the Thinkpad T440p…? Ooh it can do 4k 60hz over display port? Hm. The dongle I need is only $10…

..aaand ordered.

What I learned from this is if all you want is a machine to browse the web and do basic office work there’s zero reason to drop a grand on a new laptop. Get something old (<10 years roughly) for under $100 or even free and spend less than $50 getting the ram to 16gb and replace the spinny hard drive with the cheapest SSD you can find. Then just throw on a fresh operating system installation free of bloat and you’re set!

The user experience between one of these machines upgraded this way and a modern $1000 laptop is virtually identical. No, you won’t be gaming on it. The screen is probably mediocre so you won’t be watching movies on this thing. But if you use your laptop for work, there’s no reason to have anything more than this. And in a way by having a mediocre screen and no gaming intentions, my laptop is strictly a focused work machine. No distractions. If I wanna watch videos or play games: I have my phone, gaming systems, TV, and desktop PC to choose from. I like this arrangement.

 -K  

..although when plugged into my ultrawide it makes for one helluva auxiliary media machine… That old 4th gen dual core i5 can even play 4k video on youtube!