Sculpt This, Baltimore!

A race to the finish in an arts event that really moves.



Poodle skirt: Auto de Trash, Philadelphia's Dumpster Divers’ craft, followed by Team Fifi in the Human Powered All Terrain Kinetic Art Sculpture Race in Baltimore. photo: Neil Benson

In case you didn’t notice, Philadelphia athletes were competing last Saturday in Baltimore for an East Coast Championship to bring glory to our city.

Okay, okay, so the glory was mainly for themselves. And yeah, they’re not typical "athletes." But there was quite a competition at the American Visionary Art Museum’s (AVAM) Third Annual Kinetic Sculpture Race (KSR), in which human-powered vehicles must navigate a 13-mile course through Baltimore, including pavement, sand, mud and water.

10:05 a.m.: Philly’s Dumpster Divers are readying their 2001 entry, the Auto de Trash. They’re starting late, but not nearly as late as in years past.

The first year, they were at the starting gate, still trying to figure out the "visionary" propulsion system of their craft — an actual-size "Dumpster" with people seesawing to move it — as the rest of the vehicles zoomed off. Last year the Divers again arrived late — so late, in fact, that as ringleader Neil Benson describes it, "We were running the whole race course long after the rest of the race had gone by and there were no more cops holding traffic back or spectators or anything, just us tootling along down the street in this monstrosity."

Fortunately, finishing the course in the shortest amount of time is just one possibility among many for awards and glory in the KSR. Somewhere between triathlon, parade and performance art, this "race" is largely a way of drawing attention to the AVAM and to the arts in general. Still, there are rivalries of a sort among participants in the race’s third year, involving not just Baltimore-area stalwarts such as the Bartmobile and the Bearded Nurses, but the Philly gang as well.

Benson explains. "I originally heard about this thing starting up and I was too lazy to go down there myself and check it out." So he called fellow "scavenger artist" Bobby Hansson, who lives close to Baltimore, and asked him to get the facts. "So," Benson continues, "he winds up sitting in on their planning meeting and I get a phone message — ‘Nyah nyah nyah, you guys are such wusses, you couldn’t even race a Dumpster!’ And that’s how it began for us."

Obsessed with not just beating Hansson but competing exactly on those terms, Benson shanghaied Curtis Anthony of Via Bicycle Shop and a fellow diver called Dr. Photon™ into building the ambitiously complex Dumpster that competed the first year. The team found to their dismay that the vehicle was not seaworthy — many points off. However, that year, the Divers did bring home the Worst Honorable Mention award, for "the sculpture whose half-baked theoretical ‘engineering’ did not deter its Pilot from the challenge of the race."

At the opposite end was Manayunk’s Michael Yozell, who won the Ace award for completing the entire course without getting out of his vehicle or requiring any pushing or pulling from any assistants. Forgoing thematic extravagance for single-minded function, Yozell’s vehicle was a "recumbent tricycle" with a race-car overlay that formed his "Hot Rod Lincoln."

The KSR concept started 32 years ago in California, where "Rock ’n’ Roll," this year’s East Coast champs, will go to compete in the world championship over Memorial Day weekend. Yozell is a serious racer and 1993 world champion "Kinetinaut."

His only mistake this year — again, in a trike-based vehicle — is trying to get through the mud pit with added flaps around his tires. They sink right in, stranding him, though once he removes them he zips through just fine.

The race’s most eye-catching entry, a giant pink poodle named Fifi, has no problem with the mud. That’s because "Team Fifi" (AVAM staff) cheats by laying down two huge swaths of pink bubble wrap for the diva-dog to roll across, prompting both boos and cheers from onlookers.

Another craft, trying for maximum speed, caroms wildly into the pit’s side barriers, ripping a pylon and getting completely stuck in the mud. As its pilots and pit crew pull it out, I see a judge marking the score and find they’ve garnered 18 out of 20 points on the event.

But they got completely stuck! They wiped out, they damaged part of the course itself, they almost took out a couple of spectators! "I know," the judge grins. "It kind of added to the drama!"

Judges in this race may have to make complicated calculations based on such criteria, or they may simply be influenced by bribes. Not only is bribing the judges allowed, it’s encouraged. And this is where the Divers excel, bringing scavenged trinkets and gewgaws — a.k.a. trash — down from Philly to deposit in Baltimore. This year’s big hit was a pocket version of Hungry Hungry Hippos which Benson "fished out of a Dumpster on the Main Line."

Even the Washington Post took note, saying "unless you’re the perennially late Dumpster Divers from Philly, who come armed with bribe bags stuffed with goodies grabbed from the garbage, you need perseverance" for the mud and water events. Indeed, last year the Divers’ craft was again undone by water, this time literally: It snapped in two upon entry, ending the race for them at the halfway point. But that didn’t stop them from winning "Best Bribes."

This year, in fact, the Divers complete the whole course for the first time, whizzing right through the mud and mastering the water. Upon entry into the Inner Harbor, it at first looks like they’re capsizing and/or sinking, and as Dr. Photon™ pulls a wheel-less bicycle frame out of the water, the thousands of spectators crowding around the docks may think (as I did) that part of the craft had broken apart.

But beneath the pedals is a boat propeller, and Dr. Photon™ places the frame sideways on the front of the Auto de Trash, then starts pedaling furiously to make the craft move forward. It looks like a lot of work for so little motion, but the modest success of this idea draws a round of applause from the crowd.

Not to be outdone, Yozell pedals his way right into the water while Bobby Hansson’s Leaping Beaver is still trying to turn around, and he spends the next 15 minutes pedaling his way around the Inner Harbor. A big show-off? No, says Yozell later, "it’s just that the water is my absolute favorite part. It’s too much fun to get right out. I wanted to spend an hour in there." But after a couple dozen effortless laps, he pedals his way out, right up the ramp onto dry land — the only racer to do so.

Yozell, a semi-pro cyclist who’s planning to compete this year in a new mountain-bike adjunct to our Fill-In-Latest-Bank-Name-Here Bike Race, loves the thrill of racing. He says he’s proud of winning the "Pilot’s Choice" award this year — the driver most popular among the other drivers. But there is one sour note.

"They didn’t award the Ace this year. I’m bummed about that. I did get out and push on the first try through the mud pit, yes, but I pushed it out backwards, which is perfectly legal."

Benson is more blunt — apopleptic, in fact: "HE WAS ROBBED!" he shouts in his best WWF voice. "HE ACED THE COURSE! Those Baltimore bozos are so AFRAID of us Philly guys they have to CHEAT and withhold awards rather than acknowledge our GREATNESS! They’re gonna PAY for this!"

Is he being theatrical, or just competitive? When competition becomes theater, as in the Kinetic Sculpture Race, it can be hard to tell. I guess the only way to sort it out is to show up next year, for what promises to be an even crazier showdown.