Ever wonder what one of those guys who smash windows and grab stuff from inside parked cars looks like? Wonder no more, because Neighbor Bud got some crisp security-cam footage of a would-be thief evaluating a potential target on Bocana:
Saturday, March 7th, at 5:40AM, a person with a backpack and a burglar tool came walking down Bocana Street, checking out cars to break into. Our camera caught him checking out our car in front of our home. He came from the direction of Powhattan and was headed downhill toward Eugenia.
Tomorrow morning, March 6, at 10 am, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will solicit input on proposed changes to the intersection of Bernal Heights Boulevard and Bernal Heights Boulevard at the eastern side of the park.
The hearing happens at 10 am on Friday in Room 416 at City Hall. Here’s the announcement in situ:
Three years ago, your Eastern Bureau correspondent attended a Rec and Parks meeting about trail restoration on Bernal Hill, where neighbors discussed the safety of the ‘undefined’ eastern entrances to the park. At the time, someone from the City mentioned that there was “lots you can do with paint.”
Now, the moment is at hand to perhaps do something with some paint. And a few stop signs.
The last time the Citizens of Bernalwood saw the mutant race cars operated by those petrol-huffing papas from the Bernal Dads Racing Team was back in October, during the glamorous 2014 Fiesta On The Hill on Cortland.
Since then, the Bernal Dads have been very busy. There was a 24 Hours of LeMons race at Sonoma Raceway in December, during which both The Whale and The Cookie performed valiantly, with only minimal body-damage to show for more than 16 hours of intense racing in each car. (Click here to go for a musical racing ride-along with your Bernalwood editor.)
Then came another race at Sonoma two weeks ago. The Bernal Dads planned to race only The Whale, although The Cookie made the trip too in the hope that it might attract a sucker willing race team to purchase it for a very reasonable price.
For the first day and a half, The Whale did what it does best: Perform reliably and put big, goofy grins on the faces of everyone who races it:
Everything was going great, Team Bernal was competitive, and Racer Brandon even found time to prepare for the much-coveted Daft Punk “Third DJ” audition:
But toward the end of the second day, with only a few hours of racing remaining, disaster struck. If you’ve ever wondered what it sounds like when a Volvo station wagon engine decides to disembowel itself, then wonder no more: This in-Whale video captures the awful acoustics:
In that instant, The Whale was transformed from a gallant race car into a four-wheeled paperweight.
But since the race was almost over, and The Cookie was just sitting there with a big For Sale sign on the windshield, the decision was made to quickly ready it for race duty. A few minutes later, The Cookie made a surprise on-track cameo appearance:
Best of all, there was a surreal moment when The Cookie race car was pursued at 80+ mph by none other than… a Cookie Monster race car! With the For Sale sign still stuck to the windshield!
We can say with confidence that such a thing has never before happened in the history of global motorsport — or Sesame Street.
Later, the sad, inert Whale was dragged back in San Francisco, where the Bernal Dads Internal Combustion Pathology Team disassembled the motor to identity the cause of death. When the pistons were exposed, one smartass was heard to say, “Well, there’s your problem… right there!”
Diagnosis: #3 intake valve spring failed, dropping valve, allowing shim to work loose. Once loose, the next time the piston hit the valve, the shim wedged under the camshaft lobe so firmly that the camshaft stopped. The crankshaft, however, did not stop. This snapped the timing belt, but more interestingly, it also sheared the cam sprocket locating pin right off the cam!
For those who never attended medical school, that basically means is that the engine is fried.
But fear not, Friends of Whale… the car can be revived with a simple heart transplant.
Which brings up a neighborly request: If you happen to have a spare Volvo 240 engine gathering dust in a closet, and you’d like to donate it to a worthy cause, please dial the number on your screen to contact the Bernal Dads Racing Team’s Volvo Resurrection Hotline. Mechanics and shamans are standing by.
For reasons that remain entirely mysterious and unknown, several photographers have submitted photos to the Bernalwood group on Flickr that show Bernal Heights cars parked in front of color-coordinated Bernal Heights homes. It’s an ad-hoc photo show! Veerrrrry innnnnteresting.
The photo of the low-rider Chevrolet and matching house you see up above was captured by Chris Martin.
Neighbor Markus Spiering captured this All-Amercian collection of a faded old Ranchero, a white picket fence, and a trio of muted Bernal houses:
Neighbor Jane Underwood found a red door in Bernal Heights that came with a matching Miata:
And finally, Neighbor Ben Rosengart shot this faded Jaguar with a tan roof that blends smoothly with the house behind it:
Want to help create more ad-hoc photo patterns? Share your sexxxy Bernal photos in the Bernalwood photo group. Please!
UPDATE: Here’s a minty-fresh midcentury pairing on Montcalm, shared via the comments:
The (much welcomed) rains were intense last night — so much so that a storm drain for the Hairball interchange clogged up and flooded the 101 South onramp from eastbound Cesar Chavez.
When I drove past the site at about 8:45 am this morning, the onramp was closed and a DPW crew was vacuuming out the offending storm drain with a giant sucker-truck.
But a tweet from Neighbor Brian informed us that the flooding had been so intense before sunrise that a few cars became thoroughly submerged:
Meanwhile, Neighbor Anita reports things looked similar around the Alemany 101/280 Spaghetti Bowl:
@Bernalwood major mess down under the Alemany spaghetti bowl: debris all over the road, deep flooding including a trapped car.
Neighbor Fiid from Highland Ave. saw the aftermath of a rather nasty collision between an SUV and one of MUNI’s modern Breda streetcars last night on San Jose Avenue at the entrance to the Bernal Cut. Here’s Neighbor Fiid’s report, filed in Bernalwood Action News mode:
Location is San Jose Avenue at the Shell station (north end). The SUV drove up the middle of the platform instead of either side, and ran out of concrete where it drops to just tracks and gravel. Then it either hit or got hit by the train.
Not 100% clear what the chain of events was. Officer at the scene said that this happens quite frequently (less than once per month – so maybe 6-10 times a year??).
The SUV is totalled; but the occupant(s) were unscathed. The Breda had its mating connector damaged, and there was a damaged panel, and some boxes zip-tied up underneath to enable a “get it home” strategy. (Just like the Bernal Dads!)
Could easily have been nastier, but totally avoidable.
With help from a team of indifferent landscaping contractors and Sir Issac Newton’s laws of gravitation, there was an awkward interaction on Monday between a few oversize Bernal trees and a few undersize Bernal cars.
Neighbor Janna reports:
Tree cutting (contractors? from city?) on Cortland with no protection to cars below. Is that legal? Not my car, but a neighbors car.
Awww.
As a matter of policy, Bernalwood celebrates the mutually prosperous relationship that has long existed between Bernal trees and our mechanized vehicles. We would hate to see this relationship grow strained for want of a simple tarp. Thus, looking ahead, we trust that these sorts of interactions can be managed more elegantly.
For 2014, Bernal’s traditional street fair on Cortland got a thoughtful makeover, with a strong emphasis on local character and creativity. The generic street fair vendors and beleaguered farm animals were gone, and in their place Fiesta 2014 gave our neighborhood fest a more homespun feel, with smiling goats, and historic surrealist Doggie Diner Heads, and happy parents steering happy children on mechanized ponies by remote control:
It was a Main Street USA celebration of 21st century urbanism, and the crowds on Cortland were bustling:
People looked like they were having a good time. There was even dancing in the streets. REPEAT: Confirmed dancing in the streets!
Truth be told, however, your Bernalwood editor was unable to make his usual quasi-journalistic rounds at Fiesta on the Hill, because as part of this new 2014 emphasis on local flavor, I was recruited to babysit the two mutant race cars operated by the Bernal Dads Race Team.
So for most of the day, I was parked on Cortland, right in front of Andi’s Market.
It’s become a bit of a ritual: Whenever the Giants have a big win — we’re talking pennant- or World Series-level stuff — crowds flow onto Mission Street in Bernal for a (generally) good-spirited festival of ad hoc anarchy and celebration.
A few fans celebrate Giants win into the World Series by doing donuts in the intersection. This went on for about 15 minutes until the police showed up.
Recently, Bernalwood noticed a big For Sale/Lease sign on the facade of our locavore auto partsmonger, the stylish O’Reilly store on Mission at Precita.
More changes, afoot? Perhaps. Eventually. Inevitably. Because change is the only constant.
Come what may, the thing to remember about this particular building is that it was originally constructed in the late 1920’s as the showroom for Mission Chevrolet, an automobile dealership established during the early years of the motorcar revolution, at a time when this corner of Bernal Heights was making a dramatic transition from equine industries to internal combustion.
Here’s the location of today’s O’Reilly store, as seen in 1927 on Mission Street looking north at Precita:
Mission Chevrolet was still under construction in left-center of the image, so let’s zoom and enhance to take a closer look at the facade. The Chevrolet bow tie sign is clearly visible, just to the right of the Delicatessen Grill (which is now home to Virgil’s):
It’s nifty to see the front of the old Chevy dealership. But the back side of the building was way cooler.
The front door to the Mission Chevrolet showroom was on Mission Street, but the Service entrance was on Valencia, just south of Army/Cesar Chavez. This contemporary aerial photograph from the Bernalwood Intelligence Agency makes the building’s configuration clear to see:
Now, here’s what Mission Chevrolet’s Valencia facade looked like in the late 1920s, courtesy of a photo from the Bernal History Project:
First. OMG! Look at Bernal Hill in the background. So naked and soooo cuuuuute! No Sutrito Tower. No trees. No party hat!
In the 1920s photo of the Valencia side, some of the architectural details are a little hard to distinguish. But they’re easy to visualize… because they’re still there today! Here’s the same spot, in 2014:
The flagpole remains on the far right side of the building, as well as the Spanish-style roof, and the arches from the original entrances. But the coolest detail is the bas–relief roundel right above the arches. The reliefs are still there, and if you look closely, you can still see a Chevrolet from the late 1920s embedded in the facade:
It’s a fun element, because it’s a representation of a late 1920s Chevrolet that’s baked into the building facade, rather like a bug in amber.
Picture it: Here’s what you’d get for your hard-earned Bernal dollars if you wandered down to Mission Chevrolet in 1928.
Neighbor Margo tells the tale of a Bernal neighbor who followed a trail of antifreeze to find the vehicle that hit his parked car:
On Saturday we noticed police activity outside our home, and upon inquiring, learned that a guy from Peralta Avenue, on other side of the hill, heard a hit and run in the middle of the night outside his home — which damaged his car, parked in front of his house.
The perp or perps were gone before he could get outside.
In the morning, he followed a trail of leaking radiator fluid up and over the hill, and with some deductive reasoning, ended up at a bashed-in car, apparently abandoned on our block, 1500 block of Hampshire, just above the gas station.
I thought it was interesting, because he did his own footwork and found the perp’s car — unlike so many of the hit-and-runs recently.
This weekend, those grease-stained fathers from the Bernal Dads Racing team will depart Bernal Heights to compete at the Thunderhill Park Raceway in scenic Willows, California. That’s where they plan to race The Whale — their battle-scarred Volvo 240 station wagon — in yet another another absurdist 24 Hours of LeMons endurance race.
This represents the latest in a long series of comebacks for The Whale, which has suffered countless blows and indignities during its long racing career.
Indeed, this race car is so valiant, so unstoppable, so tolerant of abuse, and so much more nimble than you’d imagine any erstwhile family truckster to be that Bernalwood is hereby anointing The Whale as America’s Most Badass Volvo Station Wagon. And, just like you, The Whale calls Bernal Heights home.
Neighbor Brandon from Bernal Dads Racing makes the case for The Whale’s paramount badassitude:
Bernal Dads Racing has been circling West Coast race tracks for six-and-a-half years and 20 or so 24 Hours of LeMons races. The Whale, aka La Polpetta Svedese, aka a white 1985 Volvo 240 wagon rescued from Craigslist, has been our main ride for almost all of this storied racing career, taking the green flag in 17 of those 20 races. We later added a second car, a 1995 Miata with identity issues, to allow more Dads to race. But The Whale has always been the heart of our operation — and it remains so to this day.
The Whale is a survivor. We didn’t know this when we chose it; we just wanted a rear-wheel-drive car, and it seemed appropriate for a bunch of dads to race a family wagon optimized for hauling kids to soccer practice. So we bought one. Here’s how The Whale looked before we met… when it was just another suburban Volvo for sale on Craigslist:
Then came the race-prep, and the installation of a roll cage and racing seat, and the happy afterlife. Chloe’s Closet sponsored the back doors, and the Stray Bar (sniff) bought the hood:
In its second race, at the notorious Altamont Speedway, an overly ambitious competitor slammed into the front wheel, bending the strut so far that the tire rubbed against it. Once a spare was sourced from another team running a Volvo, it was back on the track in 30 minutes. This pattern has been repeated many, many times since: Race, wreck, repair, race more.
In a race at Sears Point, The Whale was T-boned so severely that the passenger side of the roll cage bent inward and the engine popped right off its mounts. Our resident Volvo expert eyeballed the motor mount dimensions, gave them to a machinist, and The Whale was back on track in short order. (The big dent on the passenger side remains to this day.)
Later, in red-and-white “Team Lettuce” livery, The Whale proved itself to be an adept competitor in fair weather …
… and foul:
At another Sears Point race, while finally in the lead of our class, the engine suffered a catastrophic loss of oil and total failure. This turned out to be the only race where The Whale failed to take the checkered flag at the end of the weekend.
At another race, the transmission gave up the ghost (also at Sears Point… hmmm), but Neighbor Ben, our resident Volvo whisperer, located a spare via a Volvo forum. We picked it up from a home in San Rafael, where the transmission had been used as a lawn ornament. After an overnight swap, The Whale was back on track the next day. That’s still the transmission we’re using.
The Whale has been through more fenders than we can count. Our hoods have not fared much better.
The Dads’ most recent LeMons race, last June at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in wilds of the Central Valley near Bakersfield, proved to be another classic Whale outing. This video pretty much sums up the weekend. Our fastest lap of the weekend was immediately followed by a very hard front-end collision (jump ahead to about 3:30 in the video) as our aspirations for race glory crashed to the ground:
Notice that despite the hard impact, The Whale started right back up again. The other car? It was pushed onto a trailer and carted home a few hours later.
Here’s another view of the crash, as seen from the front seat of the car that triggered the wreck. From this perspective, I like how it looks as if The Whale is eating the other car:
This is me, posing with The Whale after I brought it back in to the paddock:
After lots of banging of sledgehammers, jumping, and jacking, The Whale was back on track fifteen minutes later. The body was a mess, but the mechanicals were fine, the radiator was undamaged, and the front suspension even remained aligned. Then it was back to racing:
The Whale is a survivor. It’s been through vehicular combat. Then more vehicular combat. And then some more after that. And pretty much it does not give up.
Although there were a few more moments of drama, The Whale completed that last race despite all the damage and abuse it had sustained. Here’s how it looked a few weeks later, after we removed the bent sheet metal and rotten flesh:
Now, however, The Whale has received another new hood, a new bumper, a new grill, a new radiator housing, and yet another new fender… with a new shark-mouth painted by Bernalwood’s Cub Reporter:
Then we put it all back together, with more turning of bolts and banging of hammers. Here is what The Whale looks like now, as we head to the track this weekend:
Good as new! Next stop: Thunderhill Raceway.
No matter what happens there, most of the Bernal Dads have already concluded that our kids’ first cars will be old Volvos.
UPDATE: 15 September Wheeee! Here’s your post-race report: Last weekend at Thunderhill, The Whale did what the Whale does best… it just did not quit. The car was flawless all weekend, with no mechanical glitches.
The humans who drove it were not so impeccable, however. In particular, your Bernalwood editor racked up some shameful penalties that proved very costly. Despite that — or, rather, despite me — the Bernal Dads still had an excellent weekend. The Whale not only finished the race, but it finished ninth in it’s class — its best finish ever. Here’s the team’s post-Thunderhill glamor photo:
If you’ve ever had someone break into your car, you’ve probably experienced the fantasy that involves being able to see the face of the dirtball who violated your space and took your stuff — if only to know what kind of person is that kind of an dirtball.
Well, someone broke into Neighbor Mike’s car on Bonview just before 6 am last Monday morning, and his security camera captured the whole thing:
I caught a thief on our security camera canvassing our block and stealing from my car. (I left my car doors unlocked, doh!)
The thief really took his time going through my car, and notice how he doesn’t slam the doors or the trunk, just gently closes them to not make noise. It’s creepy knowing this was happening right below me while I slept.
Side note, he only got a tray full of quarters. Luckily I didn’t have any valuables in the car.
Sit back, grab some popcorn, and get a good look at the dirtball who swiped some stuff from Neighbor Mike’s car:
Bernalwood 
