Do It Yourself
Cata-morons? Team New Zealand Team members Nick Rogers, Hamish Coubray, Adam Slater, David Cooper, Alex Bowler, Phil Cooney Design concept America’s Cup catamaran Raw materials “The chassis is handwelded,” says Rogers. “We’ve got 20-inch bicycle wheels and the handlebars and brakes are from an old mountain bike.”
The Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix rolls into the Auckland Domain on November 10. In the run-up to the race, we visited competing teams in their workshops to find out how much (or how little) work has gone into making magnificent machines Words: Robert Tighe Photography: Graeme Murray
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ou’ve probably seen the TV advertisement for the well-known building supplies company that goes something like this: “There are two types of people. There’s the lean-back, slap-on-a-coat-of-paint, chuck-up-a-fence, fix-the-toilet, builda-trolley, help-your-Dad-out, growyour-own-veggies, assemble-a-Barbie, drill-holes, stop-for-a-cuppa, never -owned-a-bottle-opener, do-it-yourself type. Then there’s the pay-someone-else type. You don’t want to be this type.” Most of the teams in the Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix are have type-A personalities. “I’m really into pulling things apart and putting them back together again,” says David Hunter, aka GR Egg, team leader of Cook Me Some Eggs, based on Auckland’s North Shore. “I went to the last Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix in Auckland in 2011 and I thought it would be cool to build my own. This year we decided to do it.” 70
A digital creative with Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, Hunter convinced three of his workmates to help him build a giant frying pan on wheels. His greatest coup was roping in his father-in-law Malcolm Buckley, who runs his own engineering company and has 20 years of speedway experience to call on. “We trust Dave and Malcolm completely,” says Matt Sellars, one of the hype men for Cook Me Some Eggs. “Every day we come into work, Dave has a new idea for the trolley.” Hype is one thing the team behind the Pyongyang People’s Rocket have going for them. When The Red Bulletin visited their headquarters in West Auckland, there was evidence of frantic, last-minute preparation involving plywood and a circular saw, but it seemed that more time and effort had been invested in the propaganda on their blog on the race website than in the design and
“Our great win will be of such an astounding margin there will be no question as to our claim to the crown” the red bulletin
Faccae volo endeliqui occullam ilias culliae andent faccaecto comnit explica boratiatur sed ut omni comnimperi rem.
Pyongyang People’s Rocket Team members Marc Dudley Mark Hareb Rob Owens Oliver Tipping Design concept North Korean nuclear rocket Raw materials The hardest part of the design phase was finding a chassis,” says Owens. “We ended up finding one in Taranaki. It came with what look like wheelbarrow wheels that were semiinflated and partially punctured, but for $100 we reckon it was a good buy.”
Team members Ian Foster, aka Stan Clear Scott Pearce Aaron Drever Eddie Beard Darren Blomfield Tomo Gonzalo Design concept World War Two fighter plane replica nicknamed the Mustfang Raw materials “A mate of mine who is into karting helped make the frame,” says Foster. “The wheels came from my low rider garden trailer – at least it’s a low rider now. My missus was a bit pissed off about that.”
Air Force One build of a trolley. Sample post: “With only 72 days left until humiliation faces the other 39 teams in the Trolley Grand Prix, it is imperative that you take this time to begin work on your concession speeches, even though our great win will be of such an astounding margin there will be no question as to our claim to the crown.” Do any of the Pyongyang’s People’s Rocket people have engineering or mechanical skills?
“Oh, absolutely not,” says Rob Owens, one of four friends inspired by the North Korean nuclear missile crisis and Kim Jong-un to enter the Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix. Unlike the Supreme Leader of the totalitarian dictatorship, Owens is not testing
Turbo Team members Nick McClintock Anthony Woolley Mike Watts Design concept Animated film star Turbo, a racing snail Raw materials “The front end is off a quad bike, the back wheels are off a golf kart and the back spoiler is from a Mitsubishi Evo 8,” says McClintock. “The slug and shell of the snail were built using chicken mesh, No 8 fencing wire, plywood and papier-mâché.”
72
a secret weapon that the world at large, or even other trolley-building teams in New Zealand, must watch with caution. “Our secret weapon is going to be our afterburners, but they’re still in the design phase,” says Owens. “We’ve gone for a solid and reliable design. Our trolley is slow and steady. She’s a turtle, but we’ve still got a bit of work to do on her. We’re going to use white builder’s wrap, the same kind you see covering leaky buildings, to give it that rocket look. You hit it with a hair dryer and it will shrink to fit the frame of the rocket. It might not sound flash, but it will come up pretty good, we hope.” ‘you need ballsy’ A couple of kilometres away, down a steep cul-de-sac in another part of West Auckland, Cata-Morons? Team New Zealand are feeling a lot more confident about their trolley, RB-72, which is modelled on an America’s Cup catamaran. They’re old hands at the trolley-building business, having finished fourth in the 2011 Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix in a DeLorean time machine. With a couple of engineers and a graphic designer in their ranks this year, they’re making good progress. “We’re getting through the work a lot quicker than last time,” says Cata-Morons? driver Nick Rogers. the red bulletin
Faccae volo endeliqui occullam ilias culliae andent faccaecto comnit explica boratiatur sed ut omni comnimperi rem.
Cook Me Some Eggs Team members David Hunter, aka GR Egg Cory Bellringer, aka Kevin Bacon Malcolm Buckley, aka Owen Mitt Matt Sellars , aka Bert Toast Willie Lyons , aka Frank Furter Design concept Giant frying pan with the driver dressed as a fried egg Raw materials “The steering and chassis is from an old go-kart and Malcolm has invented a top secret suspension system,” says Hunter. “The wheels and the front forks are off an old BMX.”
“There were a lot of late nights the week before the last Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix. We got into our work a lot earlier this time around.” Rogers will steer the RB-72 lying on his stomach, hooning head first down the hill at the Domain, while his team-mate David Cooper acts as his co-driver and crew on the boat. Cooper will stand on the tilting base of the trolley and use ropes to help tack and jibe around the corners. Given the impressive speed the RB-72 picked up going down the cul-de-sac on a test run, Cooper is either very 74
brave or very stupid and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Cata-Morons? Team New Zealand lose a man overboard. Test-driving your trolley can be a hazardous business. Just ask Anthony Woolley. Before the 2011 race, Woolley took his team’s pick-up truck trolley for a test run, crashed into a concrete pillar at the bottom of a hill and mangled his foot. “I had to get my tendons reconnected, I broke three toes, shattered my foot into six pieces, snapped my leg and fractured my ankle,” says Woolley, pointing to a picture of his injured foot on the wall of his Browns Bay garage on Auckland’s
North Shore. A month later, Woolley was back behind the wheel for the race and the same crew he entered with in 2011 have joined forces again to build Turbo, a giant snail modelled on the star of the 2013 animated movie of the same name. “We’re putting a bit more thought into our brakes and our steering this time,” says Woolley, who has wisely offered to let one of his team-mates sit behind the wheel this time around. Out in the foothills of the Waitakere Ranges, the men of Air Force One are also concerned with the braking capability of their fighter plane. “I’ve watched the YouTube clips of the last event,” says Ian Foster, “and that last corner in particular looks really fast.” Foster is the brains behind Air Force One and was also the driving force behind the New Zealand Off-Road Racing Association in the 1980s. The walls of the 65-year-old’s hangar are heaving with the trophies he’s won during his driving career. Foster is a six-time winner of the Woodhill 100 off-road race and his alter-ego, Stan Clear, will pilot the plane on race day. “I wouldn’t fit in the seat,” says Foster’s team-mate, Darren Blomfield. “For a race like this, you really need a ballsy pilot.” Foster/Clear is certainly a do-ityourself type. As Matt Sellars from Cook Me Some Eggs puts it: “It’s cheating if you get someone else to do it for you, right?” www.redbull.com/nz/en the red bulletin
The Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix rolls into the Auckland Domain on November 10. In the run-up to the race, we visited competing teams in their workshops to find out how much (or how little) work has gone into making magnificent machines Words: Robert Tighe Photography: Graeme Murray
69
ou’ve probably seen the TV advertisement for the well-known building supplies company that goes something like this: “There are two types of people. There’s the lean-back, slap-on-a-coat-of-paint, chuck-up-a-fence, fix-the-toilet, builda-trolley, help-your-Dad-out, growyour-own-veggies, assemble-a-Barbie, drill-holes, stop-for-a-cuppa, never -owned-a-bottle-opener, do-it-yourself type. Then there’s the pay-someone-else type. You don’t want to be this type.” Most of the teams in the Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix are have type-A personalities. “I’m really into pulling things apart and putting them back together again,” says David Hunter, aka GR Egg, team leader of Cook Me Some Eggs, based on Auckland’s North Shore. “I went to the last Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix in Auckland in 2011 and I thought it would be cool to build my own. This year we decided to do it.” 70
A digital creative with Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, Hunter convinced three of his workmates to help him build a giant frying pan on wheels. His greatest coup was roping in his father-in-law Malcolm Buckley, who runs his own engineering company and has 20 years of speedway experience to call on. “We trust Dave and Malcolm completely,” says Matt Sellars, one of the hype men for Cook Me Some Eggs. “Every day we come into work, Dave has a new idea for the trolley.” Hype is one thing the team behind the Pyongyang People’s Rocket have going for them. When The Red Bulletin visited their headquarters in West Auckland, there was evidence of frantic, last-minute preparation involving plywood and a circular saw, but it seemed that more time and effort had been invested in the propaganda on their blog on the race website than in the design and
“Our great win will be of such an astounding margin there will be no question as to our claim to the crown” the red bulletin
Faccae volo endeliqui occullam ilias culliae andent faccaecto comnit explica boratiatur sed ut omni comnimperi rem.
Pyongyang People’s Rocket Team members Marc Dudley Mark Hareb Rob Owens Oliver Tipping Design concept North Korean nuclear rocket Raw materials The hardest part of the design phase was finding a chassis,” says Owens. “We ended up finding one in Taranaki. It came with what look like wheelbarrow wheels that were semiinflated and partially punctured, but for $100 we reckon it was a good buy.”
Team members Ian Foster, aka Stan Clear Scott Pearce Aaron Drever Eddie Beard Darren Blomfield Tomo Gonzalo Design concept World War Two fighter plane replica nicknamed the Mustfang Raw materials “A mate of mine who is into karting helped make the frame,” says Foster. “The wheels came from my low rider garden trailer – at least it’s a low rider now. My missus was a bit pissed off about that.”
Air Force One build of a trolley. Sample post: “With only 72 days left until humiliation faces the other 39 teams in the Trolley Grand Prix, it is imperative that you take this time to begin work on your concession speeches, even though our great win will be of such an astounding margin there will be no question as to our claim to the crown.” Do any of the Pyongyang’s People’s Rocket people have engineering or mechanical skills?
“Oh, absolutely not,” says Rob Owens, one of four friends inspired by the North Korean nuclear missile crisis and Kim Jong-un to enter the Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix. Unlike the Supreme Leader of the totalitarian dictatorship, Owens is not testing
Turbo Team members Nick McClintock Anthony Woolley Mike Watts Design concept Animated film star Turbo, a racing snail Raw materials “The front end is off a quad bike, the back wheels are off a golf kart and the back spoiler is from a Mitsubishi Evo 8,” says McClintock. “The slug and shell of the snail were built using chicken mesh, No 8 fencing wire, plywood and papier-mâché.”
72
a secret weapon that the world at large, or even other trolley-building teams in New Zealand, must watch with caution. “Our secret weapon is going to be our afterburners, but they’re still in the design phase,” says Owens. “We’ve gone for a solid and reliable design. Our trolley is slow and steady. She’s a turtle, but we’ve still got a bit of work to do on her. We’re going to use white builder’s wrap, the same kind you see covering leaky buildings, to give it that rocket look. You hit it with a hair dryer and it will shrink to fit the frame of the rocket. It might not sound flash, but it will come up pretty good, we hope.” ‘you need ballsy’ A couple of kilometres away, down a steep cul-de-sac in another part of West Auckland, Cata-Morons? Team New Zealand are feeling a lot more confident about their trolley, RB-72, which is modelled on an America’s Cup catamaran. They’re old hands at the trolley-building business, having finished fourth in the 2011 Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix in a DeLorean time machine. With a couple of engineers and a graphic designer in their ranks this year, they’re making good progress. “We’re getting through the work a lot quicker than last time,” says Cata-Morons? driver Nick Rogers. the red bulletin
Faccae volo endeliqui occullam ilias culliae andent faccaecto comnit explica boratiatur sed ut omni comnimperi rem.
Cook Me Some Eggs Team members David Hunter, aka GR Egg Cory Bellringer, aka Kevin Bacon Malcolm Buckley, aka Owen Mitt Matt Sellars , aka Bert Toast Willie Lyons , aka Frank Furter Design concept Giant frying pan with the driver dressed as a fried egg Raw materials “The steering and chassis is from an old go-kart and Malcolm has invented a top secret suspension system,” says Hunter. “The wheels and the front forks are off an old BMX.”
“There were a lot of late nights the week before the last Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix. We got into our work a lot earlier this time around.” Rogers will steer the RB-72 lying on his stomach, hooning head first down the hill at the Domain, while his team-mate David Cooper acts as his co-driver and crew on the boat. Cooper will stand on the tilting base of the trolley and use ropes to help tack and jibe around the corners. Given the impressive speed the RB-72 picked up going down the cul-de-sac on a test run, Cooper is either very 74
brave or very stupid and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Cata-Morons? Team New Zealand lose a man overboard. Test-driving your trolley can be a hazardous business. Just ask Anthony Woolley. Before the 2011 race, Woolley took his team’s pick-up truck trolley for a test run, crashed into a concrete pillar at the bottom of a hill and mangled his foot. “I had to get my tendons reconnected, I broke three toes, shattered my foot into six pieces, snapped my leg and fractured my ankle,” says Woolley, pointing to a picture of his injured foot on the wall of his Browns Bay garage on Auckland’s
North Shore. A month later, Woolley was back behind the wheel for the race and the same crew he entered with in 2011 have joined forces again to build Turbo, a giant snail modelled on the star of the 2013 animated movie of the same name. “We’re putting a bit more thought into our brakes and our steering this time,” says Woolley, who has wisely offered to let one of his team-mates sit behind the wheel this time around. Out in the foothills of the Waitakere Ranges, the men of Air Force One are also concerned with the braking capability of their fighter plane. “I’ve watched the YouTube clips of the last event,” says Ian Foster, “and that last corner in particular looks really fast.” Foster is the brains behind Air Force One and was also the driving force behind the New Zealand Off-Road Racing Association in the 1980s. The walls of the 65-year-old’s hangar are heaving with the trophies he’s won during his driving career. Foster is a six-time winner of the Woodhill 100 off-road race and his alter-ego, Stan Clear, will pilot the plane on race day. “I wouldn’t fit in the seat,” says Foster’s team-mate, Darren Blomfield. “For a race like this, you really need a ballsy pilot.” Foster/Clear is certainly a do-ityourself type. As Matt Sellars from Cook Me Some Eggs puts it: “It’s cheating if you get someone else to do it for you, right?” www.redbull.com/nz/en the red bulletin
