2018 Herrmann's Merry Mollusk | Saturday, 5:13 p.m.

A description of the sculpture courtesy its designer:

ART: In glorious honor of Herrmann Spetzler, the recently passed founder of Open Door Community Health Centers, Herrmann’s Merry Mollusk will slime along the 50th Kinetic Grand Championship course. Herrmann had a terrific sense of humor and was an active member of the community. He appreciated the outdoors, supported many Open Door Kinetic race teams over the years, and would often be seen wearing his safari hat with his trusty camera around his neck. The sculpture was built by our 2017 Kinetic team and graced most of the course as Gloria the Glorious Galloping Gastropod. The sculpture was redecorated to honor Herrmann with hat, beard, camera and merry adornments. The sculpture is about 11 feet tall and 15 feet long sporting a safari hat and camera. Also along for the ride is “HO-bear-T”, honoring the glorious founder Hobart Brown.

ENGINEERING: The vehicle is a 4 wheeled two seater with too many gears to really figure out… at least for some of us gearing challenged individuals. The vehicle was constructed by Dave Tschoepte. The structure is characterized by the use of recycled medical items, chicken wire and chicken feed bags. Floatation will be provided by two pontoons with reinforced support with paddlewheel water propulsion. Last year’s bay crossing was more of a short bay mud dredging adventure but maybe we should have anticipated this knowing how slugs respond to salt. 

OTHER: Team members Lynette and Earl Eddy, Sara Simon, Gail Hovorka, Clayton Warren, Heather Marquette, Rob Guthrie, Alden Zwerling, Dave Tschoepte, Travis Burnham, Isabel Truque and Janis, Joe, Stacy and Stephanie Polos bring this extravaganza to fruition; we are adults having fun so children will want to grow up! Of course we could not have done this without the help of our sponsors- Open Door Community Health Centers, McBain Associates who is keeping us afloat and Los Bagels with the slug slime for us to leave our trail down the road.