Colorado Seen

THE PROVING GROUNDS03/2011

Also n ICE RACING

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From the Editorsomehow this turned into a “competition”

issue. But it’s not surprising.From the olympic training facility in

Colorado springs to downhill racing in Vail to the perennial football grudge matches between Colorado and Nebraska (or Colorado and Colorado state, for that matter), competition is built into the character of Colorado.

In our continuing project documenting the High school soldiers of Montbello High’s JRoTC program, we exam the role of competition as a learning experience.

And we meet up with a crazy group who think the slicker and colder the track, the better, as they race modified Jeeps and other 4x4’s on an oh-so-temporary winter track on Georgetown lake.

Bring your “A” game to Colorado!

Colorado Seen

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Editor & PublisherAndrew Piper

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Copyright © 2011 Coloradoseen

On ThE cOvEr:The air rifle sight of a Montbello High school JRoTC cadet draws a bead on the target during a statewide marksmanship competition.

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THE PROVING GROUNDSHigh School Soldiers: Second in a series

Isaac hernandez takes a moment to steady his

nerves before making his next shot during a state-

wide JrOTc marksmanship competition.

Competing with other Colorado battalions is a key part of developing character and focus for Montbello High school’s JRoTC cadets

On the shooting range of the U.s. olympic Training Center in Colorado springs, there is a deafen-ing silence.

Conversations are held in whis-pers — or more likely, taken outside. Movement is discouraged, lest a mis-step disturb the participants’ quiet, concentrated tension.

Yet the air crackles constantly with the syncopated pop and snap of competition air rifles, as fifty or more marksmen (and women) from

Colorado’s high school RoTC units go head-to-head in the final meet of the season.

Among them, four riflemen from Denver’s Montbello High school.

Ten miles to the north, in the gigantic echoing field house of the U.s. Air Force Academy, another hand-picked Montbello squad is engaged in competition. But there is no silence here.

sToRY & PHoTos by Andy PIPEr

nahun rodriguez pushes himself to

complete the highest number of pullups in a

minute during a JrOTc meet at the U.S. Air

Force Academy.

Miguel Muñoz removes the safety cord or clear barrel indicator (cbI) from

his cempetition air rifle.

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Grunts, groans, and yells of encouragement reverberate off the distant ceiling as the team struggles to beat other RoTC units in pull-ups, pushups, a mile run, and a 4x400 relay.

These are among the proving grounds for Montbello’s high school soldiers — the places where skill and training cease to be academic exercises and are put to the test in the real world.

“The big benefit (of competitions) for students is getting outside of Montbello and testing themselves against their peers in the wider world,” says U.s. Army lt. Col. (ret.) Wayne Meeu-sen, Montbello’s senior RoTC instructor.

“A lot of students wouldn’t get that chance otherwise. Competition teaches integrity and teamwork.”

Rifle team member Francisco Morales echoes those thoughts.

“I like the chance to travel, and to see if we’re a good team.”

so does luis ortiz, part of the squad com-peting at the Air Force Academy.

“I like the traveling, and testing my fitness against others.”

Kalea Moore is also

On the firing line with the competition, Miguel Muñoz takes aim.

on the school’s regular track team, running the 100 and 200 dashes. But this only her second 4x 400 relay.

“It’s different” says Moore, who is already a Cadet sgt. 1st Class as a sophomore, and hopes to attend Norwich University or Virginia Military Academy when she graduates.

Teams are selected by the retired Army sergeants who serve

as instructors and coaches, sgt. 1st Class Tommie Harden and 1st sgt. Jerome Wil-ford, with input from other team members and the battalion’s cadet officers.

Montbello’s RoTC program fields other teams besides shooting and athletics: Marching and drill teams with and without rifles, the Color Guard, and the Honor Platoon (who do a

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Montbello rOTc shooting team coach and marksmanship instructor 1st Sgt., (ret.) Jerome Wilford tracks his team’s results with a spotting scope on the rifle range of the U.S. Olympic Training center in colorado Springs.

Montbello rifleman Jose Pichardo checks his aim between shots with a spotting scope. In competition, shooters have 30 minutes to make twelve practice shots and ten that make up their score.

Montbello athletes Kalea Moore, left, and blanca castillo compete in a one-mile run on the track of the air Force academy field house.

quick-stepping rhythmic riff on military drill moves not unlike Bill Murray’s “razzle-dazzle” exhibition in the movie Stripes. Those teams face their key competitive events later in March.

Montbello’s achieve-ments in the rifle and athletic competition are middle of the pack. The athletic team wins a trophy for third place in overall performance in the athletic meet, where many of the individual event trophies go to a Navy sEAl RoTC unit from nearby Fountain.

In riflery the team

comes in tenth out of 26 teams.

But in terms of the main goal of generating confidence and experi-ence, they are a great success.

Exhorting his forma-tions regarding a different

kind of competitive drill, Colorado’s annual stu-dent Assessment (CsAP) tests, which can make or break a school’s standing, Montbello’s fourth RoTC instructor, Command sgt. Major (ret.) Patrick Roddy sums up why the competitive spirit is important.

“once you leave here, you are forever a Montbello Warrior. You will be known by what this school achieves. Buildings are not flesh and blood and bone. People are what make a school and its reputa-tion.” n

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blanca castillo puts maximum effort into her pullups. At four feet, eight inches, she just meets the requirements to join the U.S. Marines — her goal after high school.

norberto barraza grimaces as he tries to squeeze in another few pushups before time expires.

After his one-mile run, Luis Ortiz recovers on the turf of the Air Force Academy field house.

18Athletic squad coach and rOTc instructor Sgt. 1st class (ret.) Tommie harden, right, celebrates a third-place trophy for overall performance with his cadets.

19Athletic squad coach and rOTc instructor Sgt. 1st class (ret.) Tommie harden, right, celebrates a third-place trophy for overall performance with his cadets.

QUIcK...Before it meltSice racers onGeorgetown lakeget in their final lapsas spring thawsapproach

Frozen Assets or frozen daiquiris? dawn huffaker’s ‘cheater’ tire spikes churn

the surface of colorado’s Georgetown Lake as she races to a victory.

Ice racing is essentially a simple sport. Find a lake frozen thick enough to hold 20 tons of 4x4s. Put the 4x4s on it. Go around in circles — fast.

But as with most things humans do, complexities creep into the details.

First, there’s the lake. It needs to be big enough for a couple of tracks. Because once you’ve torn up the surface with two hours of racing, you need to move on to the next track until

Mother Nature has restored the frozen surface with some freeze-and-thaw cycles. The lake at Georgetown, eleva-tion 8,512 feet, is ideal.

Then there are the 4x4s. While some are simply hopped-up Jeep Wranglers, many

have had a small-block Chevrolet engine transplanted under the hood. other have custom-built frames as well, leaving little but sheet metal remain-ing to reveal their Jeep origins.

Finally, there are the circles. NAsCAR not-

c O L O r A d O

Georgetown Lake

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dawn huffaker makes a victory lap with the checkered flag after her wheel-lifting race (previous pages) — and then (right) gets a hug from competitor Andrea Olson. hefty spikes on the tires are called “cheaters.”

sToRY & PHoTos by Andy PIPEr

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Mark Lannerd laughs as he tries

to pour frigid transmission fluid

into his chevy-powered ice-racing

Jeep. ‘It’s turned into grape jelly!’

withstanding, just going around in a continuous left-hand turn isn’t that much fun. so a couple of curves are added.

And then a couple more — until the track layout re-sembles two gloves joined cuff to cuff, with lots of “fin-

gers” to negotiate.With all those

curves, side-by-side racing would be a bit — tricky. so ice races are run as pursuit races, with each driver carefully staged to a start/fin-ish line on opposite sides of the track. The winner is the first to complete one lap.

Ice racing is one sport where cheaters are welcome. At least the kind that grow on

tires.These sharp-

ened bolts give the ultimate in grip for ice racing.

There’s an attractive heavy-metal kinkiness to the chrome ones, especially when mounted on fresh shiny black rubber. All-black ones give tires the menace of a WWII naval mine.

simpler studs (and even bare rubber) are used for some races. With less grip, stud races have a different dy-namic than cheater races, with smooth gliding cornering that generates a

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Jim Olson adjusts a video camera on the roll cage of his Jeep-bodied, chevy-powered racer “black Ice.” Opposite, Olson uses body language to explain a cornering technique to his son, bryce, behind the wheel.

A coors beer can (another colorado icon) captures radiator overflow on a custom-framed ice racer.

herringbone stud marks contrast with regular tire tracks as they crisscross the 22-inch-thick ice. car names, opposite, carry a theme of ‘cold.’

When using studded tires instead of the more aggressively spiked cheaters, drivers slide through turns with less tip but more spray.

Traction isn’t a problem as Keenan Magnus, 5, tries to drive his micro-radio-controlled 4x4 on the lake. but the frigid temperatures shut down his batteries.

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blizzard instead of the hailstorm of ice chips kicked up by the skittering, hopping turns on cheaters.

I t’s a funny thing.When sum-

mertime car racers finish a race, usually the first thing they do is take off their hot, stuffy helmets.

Ice racers tend to keep theirs on — they keep out the cold and the wind.

The cold is not inconsiderable. It does keep the cars from racing on mud 40 feet below the lake surface. But it also makes for in-teresting moments, as when racer Mark lannerd tries to top up his transmission fluid. Glops of frigid purple oil ooze from the bottle.

“It’s turned into grape jelly,” laughs lannerd.

But spring is just around the corner. soon the race track will be too thin for racing —and then for ice fishing — and then it will re-vert to a really nice swimming hole.

But come next December. . . n

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