I discovered cyclekarting late one night several years ago and thought to myself that it looked like a lot of fun.  But I waited until I retired before actually embracing the idea.

Cyclekarting just spoke to the builder within me.  I love building things with my hands and my mind.  I inherited this characteristic from my father who seemed to be able to fix or build anything.  Besides being my father, he was also my best friend and we did everything together.  By hanging around him, it was only natural that some of that capability would rub off onto me.

As a kid I started building plastic model cars and planes, then graduated to u-control flying airplanes from kits and my own design.  As a relatively poor kid, I had to be innovative in scrounging materials and motors, it’s just what I had to do to progress.

I went to college and got a degree in drafting but only worked in that profession briefly before rapidly ascending through engineering, manufacturing, project management, and finally into sales and marketing.  I spent most of my professional life in the radiation safety field which afforded me to travel a great deal throughout the US and Europe.

With 7 kids, we had to improvise so buying a house was not always an option.  Over the years I designed and built three homes and helped others with extensive remodels or additions to their homes.

My father, with my help, built a Thorp T-18, two-place experimental class, high-performance airplane.  It was an all-aluminum design and I helped my dad over a seven year period in building this scratch-built airplane.  I bucked and shot thousands of hard rivets, formed wing ribs, and drilled, dimpled, and countersunk a gazillion holes.  It was while building this plane that I took a personal interest in model airplane building.

Unfortunately, Dad tragically died in that plane before I even got a ride in it.  That experience when I was only 17 years old, squelched my yearning for flight for about two decades.  But then it returned and together with a very good friend we built a Rutan-designed, all fiberglass Long-Eze.  It first flew in 1998 and I had several hundred hours in that awesome bird before selling it to my friend who moved half way across the country for a new job.  So I started over building a Van’s RV-7A, kit plane, two seater aluminum construction very much like my Dad’s T-18.  But travels, several job relocations, growing family, and church responsibilities always took priority and so my planned two year build sat mostly dormat the past 20 years. 

Now that I’m retired, I finally have the time, but unfortunately not the wherewithal to afford this very expensive sport.  I hung on to my dream for a long time despite knowing I could never afford to finish it myself.  Cyclekarting has given me new excitement and enables me to feed the builder hunger within me without breaking the bank. So I sold my RV-7A project and accelerated full steam ahead into my newfound sport.

I love building, it’s in my nature.  It matters not if its building breathing moving machines, furniture, sheds, houses, businesses, or helping to build other people up.  Builders are a special breed of people who need to feed their creative side and receive affirmation at the end of the day that their labors yielded something good and even admired.

Builders, are also wonderful to hang around with.  Sharing experiences, advice, and ideas is second nature to them and they enjoy a good time with one another.

I guess, I call myself a builder, not a flyer, race car driver, businessman, radiation safety professional, just a builder who loves to build and learn new skills.  And that is precisely why cyclekarting is so appealing to me.