Kickstarter

Introduction.

The goal of this project is to create a documentary of a real underdog story.  A small team with a radical ultra-lightweight car taking on one of the world's toughest races, against legendary international competitors.  The race, the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb, is scheduled for June 30, 2013.  In 2012 as a rookie team we designed and built a car from scratch in less than six months - and won the prestigious Unlimited class, coming in 5th overall out of over 160 competitors. This was our team's first major race entry ever.  In 2013 our goal is to take everything we've learned and apply it in a quest for an outright overall win and new World Record.  We believe this story will serve as a worthy subject for a documentary.

The film will cover both the human and the technical sides of the challenge. It will show design, development and testing leading up to the race and the race itself.  In racing there are many opinions (including our own) about what works and what doesn't.  We will share how we test to determine what is mere opinion and what is indeed fact, the obstacles we face and the solutions we come up with to overcome them.  

This is a story of achievement by individuals rather than big, well funded teams. We hope that the documentary will inspire other individuals to take on quests of their own by informing them on the specifics of what we do in pursuit of ours.

The story so far.

Early in 2012 the four-person Palatov Motorsport team, joined by race driver David Donner and supported by two summer interns, took on our biggest challenge yet - the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb.  It is the second-oldest race in America and one of the toughest, contested by renowned drivers and teams from all over the world.  What followed was a very eventful journey overcoming countless odds and  resulting in an Unlimited class win. 

After implementing our own crowd funding campaign, in just six short months we designed and built the racecar from scratch, tested, developed and successfully raced it. Our grassroots-supported budget presented one of the biggest challenges. So while we were able to create a dedicated blog of the adventure, there was a lot more to share that we didn't have an opportunity to.

Our 2012 performance showed that we can compete at the top level, go head to head with established competitors, and win.  But we didn't get the overall record falling just 18 seconds short.  This left us with a clear goal for 2013 and the plot for a new story - take everything we've learned, obtain the necessary backing and take on the world once again with a new record as the target. 

All along we have wanted to create a documentary of our Quest but budget and time constraints simply did not allow it. Last year we did get some onboard camera footage  and we've used bits of it to create the video clip for this project (music by Tyler Tamburo).  But it only tells a small part of the story.  There is so much that happens behind the scenes before the car ever rolls up to the start line.  For 2013 our goal is to document everything that goes into an international record attempt, not by a major commercially-funded team but by a small grassroots startup shooting for the stars.

About our Quest.

It all started with a belief.  A conviction that in today's world of 3,000 lb economy cars and 5,000 lb family sedans there has to be a better way.  We are convinced that Light is Right.  How light?  We felt that a 1,000 lb weight is a good target.  The public's perception of such a light car is typically as something very compromised, unsafe, painfully boring and slow.  How do we prove that this needn't be the case? 

How about taking on one of the most difficult international races, regularly contested by major teams with some cars boasting over a thousand horsepower, in the no-holds-barred Unlimited class?!  With cliffs and thousand-foot drops surrounding the course the car would have to be not only fast but very safe, conforming to stringent rules and  making a lightweight machine even more unlikely.

We were told we're crazy and we'd be lucky just to finish. This all proved to be very true!  And yet we not only persevered and overcame, but want to do it again.  In 2012 we did the best we could in the race and told the story the best we could.  Now we want to do it all better.  With everything we've learned from last year we know exactly what needs to be done and what it'll take.

This is therefore the purpose of the documentary - to share our story taking a crazy idea and turning it into a real-life success. To provide insight into what the challenges are and how we overcome them. And perhaps to inspire others to follow their own dreams.

In the past, parts of our story have been told by others:  eGarage, DRIVE channel and SimRaceway blog are some great examples. For the 2013 Quest we'd like to tell it first-hand.

The details.

Last year we started with only an idea.  We had to design, build and test the car. It was a radical lightweight design with countless unknowns.  We were fortunate to secure enough crowd-funded backing and support from a handful of sponsors to get the job done.  We talked to a number of videographers and quickly realized that given the amount of time and travel required for a proper documentary it would have to wait for another year.

This year, the car is already built.  To be sure there is a lot of development, refinement and testing that has to be done.  After all, it is a World Record we're going after!  This is good because it will provide plenty of material for the documentary. But the unknowns are far fewer.  This is also good because it will allow us to take the time and the effort to properly document our progress and share it with the world.

We have worked with the folks at eGarage when they created a quick video highlighting one of our 2012 sessions.  I admire their sense of style, aesthetics, presentation and their approach to telling a story in a way that appeals to the dedicated enthusiast while still being accessible to a broad audience.  It was a natural progression to approach them for help with the 2013 documentary and they will be bringing their skills and experience to the effort.

The filming will take numerous sessions for which we have to rent a racetrack.  We will have to make at least two trips to Colorado, with the entire crew and the car - one for early testing late May and one for the race itself.  Each trip is about a week long.  To get good footage we have to have several cameras running simultaneously. All this requires travel by several skilled people dedicating entire days to the effort. Therefore the film crew expenses are a major portion of overall budget.

Additional expenses involve video equipment, miscellaneous travel expenses, racetrack rental, consumables (fuel, tires, spares, test and prototype parts), as well as some miscellaneous personnel and expert consultant fees.  Based on our previous experience the test sessions and the trips with film crew in attendance will typically cost several thousand per day. We anticipate between 20 and 30 days total of venue based filming with additional days in the workshop and miscellaneous interviews.

Based on the above we feel that at least $75,000 will be necessary to create a documentary record of our Quest as we make it happen.  However there are many things we would like to do which would require additional funds.  

Stretch goals.

It is very difficult to get good external footage of the car at race speed.  Onboard cameras only get one perspective.  Stationary locations only see the car fly by for a split second.  Filming from an ordinary car requires driving slowly at its pace and then artificially speeding up the result which looks fake - and is.  What we really need is one or two camera cars that are fast enough, with good enough drivers, to stay close to the subject at actual speed.  

We happen to have the cars (we build them!) and we know the drivers. However the realities of transporting and running additional cars, outfitting them with video equipment, getting the right driver and so on are expensive.  It would require a stretch goal of $100K to be able to set up, capture and edit high speed external footage to include in the documentary.  We feel it would greatly enhance our ability to communicate to the viewer what driving a car like this is really like. As an example, here's a test clip that we did with two of our cars, at practice pace, with hastily set up cameras.  We can (and would have to!) greatly improve on the quality of both the videography and the driving of course, that's where the additional resources come in. This type of filming wouldn't be possible in the actual race but we think that the footage we can get in testing would be quite exciting.  

If the stretch goal is reached and we are able to do proper car-to car footage there will be special clips available on our backer-accessible blog that won't be a part of the finished documentary but are for our supporters only.  The backer-exclusive DVD set will include a second disc with additional footage, CAD models and behind-the-scenes clips.

Last year we were able to experiment with some aerial videography when a friend brought out a remote-controlled camera ship to one of our test sessions.  While that particular experiment didn't produce any usable footage, one thing we learned is that it's a very specialized skill, requiring an experienced operator, some fairly sophisticated equipment and a lot of practice.  When it turns out well, the footage is a very unique and interesting view of what is happening on the track.  Getting it to turn out well is going to take a fair bit of effort but we believe if we reach a stretch goal of $125K we will be able to do it justice. This will also provide some great additional footage and information for the backer-exclusive second disc.