Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race
2025 Race Report: Grand Champion: Wheel Horse

The magnificent all-terrain design of Wheel Horse won 2025 Grand Mediocre East Coast Champion—only the second time a solo-pilot sculpture has won Grand Champion in Baltimore history, and the first since the Bartmobile in 2000.

Going into this race, Phil had already won 9 ACE awards—5 in the Lowell, Massachusetts race and 4 in the Baltimore East Coast Championship. Today he sought ACE number ten.

Passing on your left.

The start at the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) had the usual chaos as teams jockeyed for position. The first teams to register get lower numbers, and better positioning close to Key Highway.

Past Federal Hill toward Light Street.

The cobblestones on the Harbor East circle around the National Katyń Memorial posed little problem to the large-ish wheels.

Pilots’ confidence is displayed nowhere better than their chosen descent speed into the Baltimore Harbor. Without hesitation, Phil rode toward splashdown.

Wheel Horse was sure and steady on the water. Pontoons should be roughly half out of the water on calm flat water to ensure stability under highly dynamic wind, current, and propulsion forces. Wheel Horse’s floatation is almost all in the back half, where almost all the sculpture weight. More than one sculpture today would learn the hydrocatastrophic potential of dynamic forces.

An efficient stern paddlewheel provided water propulsion from the same powertrain as on land. A paddlewheel must be carefully placed so it’s not too high or too low relative to the water level. And that water level depends on pontoon placement and weight. Phil said “The trick is to do the initial water test with absolutely everything you need for the race—drinking water, tools, everything.”

For any sculpture attempting ACE, the water exit is the second-most difficult part of the race. Pilots and pit crew cannot push or pull their sculpture. Designing water propulsion that transitions seamlessly to land propulsion climbing the steep wet concrete ramp is a serious engineering challenge.

The front of Wheel Horse includes two license plates—#3 in this 2025 Baltimore race, and #110 in Lowell.

In Patterson Park, crossing the sand requires tires with good traction.

Those tires were not enough on the mud for Phil to keep his ACE. The 2025 mud was dramatically more difficult than prior years. When rain was forecast for race day, the Mud Doctor Volunteers had reduced their water-to-dirt ratio. But that rain never came. Phil said “That stuff was a special kind of mud this time, more like a concrete mix.” In addition to extra-low gears to get through the mud, last year Phil added a hand crank. But even that wasn't enough. “Normally I can line up my hand crank and pedal drive, push hard on both at the same time, and inch my way forward. But the main drive kept derailing; it's never derailed before. The steel of the actual frame was bending. The drive was bending. The ¾-inch steel drive axle was bending.”

Phil required assistance—a lot of assistance to push Wheel Horse through the 2025 mud.

Back through the Inner Harbor.

Breaking the tape at the finish line with Radiolarian Special not far behind.

This is Phil’s tenth entry:

• 2024: Scrapasaurus (ACE)
• 2023: Scrapasaurus (Engineering, ACE)
• 2022: Pinktastic (Engineering, ACE)
• 2018: Oh! Snap! (ACE)
• 2015: Thee Goatman Cometh (Pilots’ Choice)
• 2014: Chessie
• 2013: Greendustrial Revolution
• 2012: Rumspringa (ACE)
• 2011: Am-ish sin Caballo (Engineering)

Phil holds the East Coast Championship Trophy.

We will very much miss Judge Kim (see In Memoriam). We welcome Judge Diamond who joined Judge Ed and Judge Luke.

Each winning team’s name is added to the plaque—but with 24 names it’s now full. What will happen now that we have #25?

Phil constructs his sculptures out of found items, “I don’t buy anything, ever; it’s a challenge. I make my body out of corrugated plastic signs, you can find them in every stream. I use recycled paint out of alleys and stuff.”

Here the whole family team points to their sock creature…

Rule 1+ states:

Each Sculpture must carry at all times 1 comforting item of psychological luxury heretofore referred to as the “Homemade Sock Creature” (HSC). Homemade Sock Creature must be made in a home, from a not-too-recently-worn sock from the home, and resemble a creature homemade from a sock. (penalty: 1 hour)

On the left is a close-up of this sock creature.

On the right is a photo provided by the pilot showing the bent frame after the mud challenge.