Ferndale Foto Finishes

A description of the sculpture courtesy its designer:

ART: Team Goddess Racing is pleased to bring you STAR POWER! She is in the shape of our goddess logo and has a lightweight aluminum body, lots of flashy gold fabric, flapping gold wings, a very blingy tail (with lights and stars!), internal storage, carved sand tires, logo branding throughout, and glass art (of course). Our capes are handmade of the same fabric as the wings and goddess body. We also have an awesome variety of artistic bribes for judges, race teams, and spectators. Wave your flag to cheer us on! The Star Power goddess art and frame was designed and built by Tina Kerrigan and Steve Cross with help from Goddess Jen-O and is made to disassemble for easy transport in a horse trailer.

ENGINEERING: Over the last three years we have made significant improvements on the “Plan” design including stronger art frame supports, stronger rear end supports, hydraulic brakes, Delran chain tensioner roller, pillow block bearings, redesigned sand tires, and new rear end sand tire storage/ergonomic legal push zone bar. We thought we had it dialed to perfection going into last year’s race, only to blow out our differential in a spectacular way at the end of day 1. Although we completed day 2 and 3 other than the Eel River crossing, we lost our ACE at water exit due to the broken differential. Upon learning that the differential we used was no longer available, we converted our bike to a dual direct drive system. This winter project involved completely disassembling the bike; rebuilding the frame; purchasing new drive gears, bearings, and parts for a side-by- side split axle drive system; designing and fabricating new tensioner arms and other parts; troubleshooting issues with the new design; and ultimately a full rebuild of the bike into a dual direct drive system. We are hoping that this rebuild, along with extensive physical training, will do the trick this year! 

OTHER: Tina and Steve will be piloting again this year with Stacey Wheeler of Yellow Sub fame, along with his girlfriend Diane O’Banion, as our pit crew. Funny how things work out, 20 years later! Our fabulous entourage is led by pageantry captain Linda Jo while our team and logistics support is expertly handled by Michele and Dave Estabrook. Our goal this year has been to simplify the things we do as a team, coupled with continual improvement of the bike itself. Of course, our ultimate goal is to earn our very first ACE on this machine in the Kinetic Grand Championship!