Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race |
What a day!
May 3 was a beautiful day for the Baltimore Kinetic Sculture Race East Coast Championship. Our team of 6+ all-terrain photographers took 13,048 photos, which we’re frantically organizing and processing. For now, see our preliminary photo results, and we hope to publish our full results by mid-May. If you’re new to KSR, check out our 2024 results in the meantime.
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| 2025 Grand Mediocre Champion Wheel Horse races along Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Highway toward the water entry at the May 3, 2025 race. Photo by Johanna Goderre. Want to see more photos? |
| Only 349 days until the race on Saturday, May 3, 2026. It’s time to design your kinetic sculpture! |
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Wild Travels Kinetic Video
The July 24, 2024 episode of Wild Travels on PBS featured 26 awesome minutes about the 2022 Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race. Watch it now!
Kinetic Forum
It’s back! Join the online community to talk with other Kinetic racers, spectators, and volunteers! Due to annoyingly persistent spammers, forum registration is disabled—to join please email Tom by clicking on the email address at the bottom of the page, with a brief note about your interest in Kinetics and the username you'd like.
What’s a Kinetic Sculpture Race?
Kinetic Sculptures are amphibious, human powered works of art custom built
for the race. Each May, the American
Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) produces and hosts the East Coast Kinetic Sculpture Race
Championship on the shore of Baltimore’s 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 began in Ferndale, California in 1969 when artist Hobart Brown upgraded his son’s tricycle into a 5-wheeled pentacycle and was challenged to a race down Main Street. (Hobart did not win.) Over the decades since, the California race evolved into a 3-day all-terrain Kinetic Grand Championship including treacherous sand dunes, water crossings, and elaborate sculptures and costumes. You can learn more on Wikipedia including a list of other races nationwide.
For more about the Baltimore race, browse the race photo results in the left menu.
Where can I see Kinetic Sculptures?
You can go to a Kinetic Sculpture Race on race days, or the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. AVAM displays Fifi and their other sculptures year round in the dedicated Sculpture Barn.
How to Build a Kinetic Sculpture
Learn from Elliot’s How To Build a Kinetic Sculpture reference guide.