2009 Race Report Now Available!

The Eleventh Annual Race was May 2, 2009. See complete details!

Get ready for May Day!

The 2010 race will be held Saturday, May 1.

Donate to help the race!

If you would like to help support the race, the Kinetic Sculpture Race, and individual teams, can use your donations.

What’s this all about?

Kinetic Sculptures are amphibious, human powered works of art custom built for the race. Each May, the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) hosts the East Coast Kinetic Sculpture Race Championship on the shore of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in central Maryland.  The eight-hour race covers 15 miles—mostly on pavement, but also including a trip into the Chesapeake Bay and through mud and sand.

Kinetic Sculpture Racing traces its roots to Ferndale, California in 1969 when artist Hobart Brown upgraded his son’s tricycle into a 5-wheeled pentacycle that was part of a race down Main Street. Over the decades since, the California race evolved into a 3-day all-terrain event including treacherous sand dunes, water crossings, and elaborate artwork. You can learn more on Wikipedia.

For more about the Baltimore race, browse the photo galleries in the left menu.

photo courtesy of Ellin Beltz

Hobart Brown, 1934–2007 Hobart Brown, the founder of Kinetic Sculpture Racing, died of pneumonia November 7, 2007 at Redwood Memorial Hospital in Humboldt County, California. Hobart created the first Kinetic Sculpture in 1969, and very actively promoted what became the World Championship Kinetic Sculpture Race during the following decades. He helped guide creation of the Baltimore race in 1999, and also attended in subsequent years, although health problems prevented his participation in 2007. The photo to the left shows him at the 2004 Baltimore Race. His last words were “Tell the press!” You can read about his rich life on Wikipedia.