A Slightly Greener Ski Season

As you may or may not know, I try, where possible, to be "green." This means that I recycle, use a personal cup at Starbucks, buy eco-conscious products and clothing, and try my hardest to get good gas mileage.

It's a terrible shame that ski racks cause so much aerodynamic drag when you're driving at relatively high speeds (40+ mph). Your car feels sluggish and your gas mileage tanks (pun totally intended). One way to help that is to buy a fairing. It eliminates the area between your ski rack and the top of the car, thus keeping your top profile continuous, and reducing drag. I won't go into all the nerdy details, but they really help.

I've been meaning to get a ski-rack fairing for quite some time now, its just been a matter of money. I had a birthday recently and got an excellent present from my father in the form of a check. Which I used a rather large chunk of at REI to buy the fairing that was made for my ski rack. Much to my dismay, and not much to my surprise, it didn't fit. I seem to have a non-standard cross bar for my car, which gives me no end of trouble. So now disgusted not only with the product I bought, but the outrageous price I paid for it, I took it back.

Then while I was in class this afternoon, I got a great idea to just build my own! The university has tons of scrap materials, and they'll let you use the machine shop any time its open. So I took an hour this afternoon and fashioned my own with some rudimentary measurements of my rack. The results of my labor and dumpster diving are...


Amazingly, it worked on the first try. Any of you who know me, know that I can hardly ever get anything right the first time. I tried it out on the highway and there was no rattling or buzzing or anything! I coated the bottom edge in cloth (hockey) tape so that it wouldn't scratch my roof.

I paid $3.60 for raw materials (instead of the $80 REI wanted), spent an enjoyable hour in the machine shop, and came out with an easy way to make my car more efficient. Not only did I stop that annoying whistling sound that the rack makes when there are no skis in it, I get to show a little nerd pride with all the stickers.
-Ty

You'll also notice I'm saving water by keeping my car absolutely filthy!