81 Cave Racer

Build: 7/5 2008

From the yellow mudguards and black engine, it just turned out having a strong vibe of construction equipment, so the pilot had to be dressed as a construction worker.

Inspiration:
Sometime in spring 2008 so-called Cave racers started to appear on Flickr. Initially I thought they was from some computer game, but when checking up on the rules for building, I realized that the whole concept was concieved by fellow lego hobbyist Tim Gould.
I can't help being amazed at the superb idea: combining small easy-to-build crafts with a few basic rules make these fun to build, while the brilliant addition of a totally unprotected pilot dangling behind by a string convey speed, danger, and an easy-to-grasp spacyness that tops everything I've seen in Lego Space so far, and enables the (non-space) audience to identify with the minifig as a person in a way totally unheard of in normal Moonbase layouts or Spacecrafts on a table with pilots safely hidden away in secure cockpits.

Talk about Lego as communication!

Dirty bricks from BL are usually a bloody waste of money (who has time to wish the goo off?), but here a bit of grit was very suitable

Goals: Even if I was too busy because of examns, I simply had to build one myself according to the rules:

  • Minifig spear + wrench for hover-thingies
  • Trans-orange round plates for batteries
  • Exhausts made out of 1x1 slopes (cheeseslopes)
  • Handlebars

The whole design grew out from the black engine section and yellow cowling made out of mudguards

Anyways, Tim has even set up a Flickr-group about cave-racers where you can see many more CR's

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