Fast Cars

I’m sorry, but this cracks me up. LandRover is opening a third school for an “off road driving experience”. Which is probably good, because who the hell would actually take a brand new LandRover offroad? Most of these things go straight from the dealer to the local rim-shop for some bling-bling, DVD players, and in-seat LCDs.

I love my truck. Last fall when we tossed around trading her in for a better gas mileage vehicle I cried because I couldn't imagine life without her. Really, its pathetic I know, I cried. I plan on keeping her forever and eventually getting a little 4 seater convertible with manual transmission to keep her company. But, I have to wonder if the poor girl is jinxed!

Jesse James was there for the figure 8 race at the end of the night. You know, a bunch of fairly rough race cars that appear to be held together with decals running on a track that is the shape of an ‘8′. The object is to finish or get t-boned. The only crash was a roll over, and Jesse tried really hard. Man, he is crazy. He would get a car in his sights and punch the go pedal. Crazy to watch the other drivers actually try to get out of his way.

Third, I don't race people (he of course has no way of knowing that). I find that when I'm driving the 'vette, I feel that generally I have very little to prove. Technically, the car is one of the fastest on the street, and even if you put two roughly equal sports cars against each other, it comes down to whoever gets the better start. If my car can do 0-60 in 4.1 seconds, and yours can do it in 4.5 (or whatever), either one of us could win - not that I'd race you, y'all remember back to the future, right? :)

An adamant Mosley apparently did not consider the wider ramifications for formula one in front of 130,000 spectators and a television audience of millions. For him this was “a black-and-white issue”. The chicane undermined the spirit of sporting competition and would have been unfair to the Bridgestone cars - even if Jordan and Minardi supported the Michelin teams. Mosley argues that “I had to apply the rules fairly. In sport you can’t allow the majority to dictate.”

Perhaps this is one of the “gotchas” which await the FIM in its quest to match the popularity of F1. As is often the case, the grass isn’t always greener and the complexities of balancing cost, safety and participation may yet create the same PR controversy for MotoGP that has just exploded in the Formula One world.

Volkswagen also have had not much luck breaking out of the people mover image. The Volkswagen Phaeton, although being a GREAT luxury car has had problems selling because of the people mover image the Volkswagen badge has. The following goes through the mind of the person who is considering the Phaeton. “If I can buy a similiar Audi A8 from Audi, why should I settle for a Volkswagen?

Forget sports utility vehicles–what you need is a “sports tank.”

That’s what the producers of Batman Begins call the Caped Crusader’s new ride, a repurposed military vehicle that can leap buildings and go from 0 to 60 in five seconds. Built by the Applied Sciences division of Wayne Enterprises, the “Tumbler” is meant to move soldiers through hostile territory–which explains the armor plating, jet engine and front-mounted dual .50-caliber machine guns.

It seemed the Formula One president and CEO had seen the error of his words about women racing with men when he called Danica Patrick over the weekend, presumably to apologize.

The main culprit was turn 13 at Indianapolis considered to be the only real banked turn in Formula One racing. With an angle of up to nine degrees, it demands a left-right compromise on suspension set-up. The left tyres take the heaviest strain, particularly their shoulders, with tyre temperature increasing in this area as a result. If this temperature is too high for too long, wear rates rise dramatically and can lead to failure. Michelin's request to allow tyre changes for safety reasons without penalising the teams was denied, as were the teams' requests to add a chicane to turn 13; all ruled as being against regulations. No surprises in the results as Schumi won facing no real competetion. His disappointment at the win was however clearly seen at the podium, with Tiago Monteiro being the only one really celebrating the hollow victory.

It is not necessary to repeat how high oil prices can throw any business model in disarray. There is no part of the economy that is left untouched by energy prices, and except for the energy value chain participant, it is detrimental to almost everyone. Just read how General Motors is in serious trouble now that not many people can afford large SUV’s.

Muntz found it across town in the person of Frank Kurtis, builder of the stylish two-seat Kurtis Sport as a sideline to his primary business of constructing Indianapolis race cars. (Kurtis roadsters finished 1-3-4-5-6-8-9 at Indy in 1954!) But it turned out building cars for the public wasn’t Kurtis’ cup of tea, so he sold the Sport’s rights and tooling to Muntz in 1949. Muntz renamed the car the Muntz Jet.

The F1 race today in Indianapolis, the US Grand Prix, was a complete failure - on many levels.

Michelin failed to make a tire that is capabale of racing more than 10 laps without putting the driver in danger.

The FIA failed to figure out some sort of resolution to the problem.

The teams failed to push Michelin to give them another option.

Many cans of Herbie-emblazoned Pringles (MSG but no Olestra — craps!); inflatable miniature Goodyear blimps; NASCAR gloves with tiny 10,000 lumens bulbs on the pointer fingers (so you can grill burgers on your manifold in a rolling black-out); bigger than a Matchbox Kinsmart 1967 Beetle with opening doors; Subway peppermint after sandwich mints (eat fresh); a “framed” Kodak moment in front of Herbie; Hot Dog On A Stick styrofoam cap.

Though we are not big F1 fans around the Team Swap table, we had a close friend going to the US F1 Grand Prix at Indy this weekend so after we got back from our father’s day meal we flipped to Speed Channel to give it a look – then we find out that all the cars on Michelins are not running. Wow what a bummer. For those that missed the coverage or following stories a nice summary from the Scotmans is below, but the long and short is that Michelin did not feel that their tires were safe to run on the 6 degree banking at high speed. There are all sort of F1 politics going on here, but the fact that Michelin did not bring a tire (in the sixth season of the US Grand Prix) to Indy that could handle the banking is sad.

Well the Formula race at Indianapolis yesterday was interesting. Although IMHO I don’t think that you can entirely blame Michelin for it as they were concerned for the safety of the drivers. I know that if I was a race driver in an F1 car I would be concerned if my tyre company said there was a fault with the tyre and it wasn’t safe to race then I wouldn’t race. I think the blame lies with the FIA for not building that chicane allowing the rest of the teams to race. If that had’ve been built then the race would have been more interesting and all the fans at Indianapolis wouldn’t have been so dissappointed. Still the only bit of excitment during the 6 car race was the fact that Ferrari’s nearly took each other out. Bet Barrichello was fuming.

Sorry this is a day late, but you never know where you are going to find us. Yesterday we went down to the NASCAR Pocono 500 race. This made for a very long hot weekend.

Now before everyone shouts “Hooray, now that Honda Jazz I’ve been eyeing will be affordable to me now!”, there’s some conditions involved. Whatever benefits that the JMEPA brings would only affect vehicles that do not compete with Proton and Perodua. What does this mean? What are the types of cars that Perodua and Proton does not make? Probably only SUVs, high performance sports sedans and luxury vehicles, at least for the time being.

I go on adventures as well, but I go them alone. And I would never go on them in green station wagons, or beige station wagons, or big maroon Cadillacs. He drove a blue Mazda minivan before his latest car, Toyota’s largest sedan, in gray. The first car I bought was a yellow Toyota two door convertible sports car. Toyota doesn’t even make sports cars any more. My current car is a red Mazda two door convertible sports car. I think my father’s green station wagon was nearly twice the size.

Together with his co-driver Allen Oh, Karamjit had won the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) last year, as well as in 2001 and 2002. Because of him, Proton had also snagged the Manufacturer’s title in 2002 and 2004. Karamjit also took the Group N (Production car) titles in 1997, 2000 and 2001. (Source)

Isn’t this a proven track record for success? How come he is unable to get sponsorship from anyone?

For the second year in a row, the MG Owners’ Club was invited to show its members cars at the Ardenwood Celtic Festival in my hometown of Fremont. Several members of the Sorry Safari Touring Club also participated, and there was a good diversity of sports cars displayed. There were a dozen cars which included an MG PA, 2 MG TDs, an MGA, 4 MGB roadsters, a B/GT, an MG Midget, a Jaguar E-Type and a Morgan Plus 4 (I think).

There is an interesting article by Terry Blount of the Dallas Morning News discussing future options that may be available to Danica Patrick in NASCAR or Formula One were she ever to decide to go that route. Though, if Danica is successful in the Indy Racing League and the IRL continues to grow in popularity as a result, the issue of money may become mute as the IRL will enjoy an increase in sponsorship money and television revenues in the same way that the PGA did with Tiger. In addition, Danica’s independent endorsement contracts outside of the sport would likely well exceed her earnings from racing. The article is well worth a read for IRL, NASCAR, and Formula One fans (free login required at Mercury News website).

From the time we’re kids riding in the car with a parent who exclaims, “Yeah, pull on out there, lady!” the sarcasm we realize in traffic is some of the most basic irony of our lives. If you’re like us, you’ve taken the simple invectives offered by parents in traffic and extrapolated an entire lexicon of sarcastic phrases, inflections, and gestures that allow us, if nothing else, to feel superior to bonehead drivers everywhere. These drivers have disrupted an otherwise pleasant driving experience; the least we can do to mitigate our disdain is to smart off.

Because the clutch control is computerized with precised timing, shifts are much quicker than any average driver can ever attempt with a normal manual gearbox and foot-operated clutch. The result is a driving experience that’s zippy and fun. The computer features some form of fuzzy logic which allows the auto mode to adapt to your driving patterns.

Our winters can be temperamental, you really never know what to expect, so I find it really interesting that people buy sports cars and when the roads are slippery and sloppy they take these little cars out on the road and they wonder why (I don’t) their little cars end up in ditches and/or are involved in accidents. At least we know that auto body shops will never be out of work.

At the Nascar event Frist's attempt to pass as a regular guy failed miserably. The Belle Meade aristocrat gushed that a fellow Tennessean was in the race, veteran stock car racer, "Sterling Martin." Maybe the paler-than-a-ghost aristocratic Senator saw a Sterling Martin back when he was stalking birds to add to his butchered cat collection. But the renowned race car driver and fellow Tennessean Frist meant to reference is Sterling Marlin.

The state of Pennsylvania has hired six people to be tourists to the Keystone State this vacation season. The state is paying all of their expenses, they choose the places they want to visit, and the only requirement is that they record their experiences on a blog. Carrie Fisher of the Pennsylvania tourism office says the goal of using the Internet web logs is to reach consumers in "a voice they can identify with." The chosen bloggers include a computer software salesman, a mountain biker, a motorcyclist, a family of four targeting theme parks and one couple from New York whose wish list ranges from a NASCAR race to milking cows in Amish country. The six blogs just went online last week. The state officials say they aren't influencing the web logging reviews, and none have been negative so far. Fisher says they'll just "cross that bridge when we come to it."

The 2005 Formula One racing schedule is now posted and has been updated with race previews and circuit information. Follow this World Championship Racing Series as it visits 19 different countries and numerous types of courses. Get my perspectives on the importance of each event along with some predictions as to what the outcome will be.

Yesterday was spent walking down Newberry Street. After browsing through all the shops and watching pretty girls walk by, I sat down at a nearby coffee shop and just watched the world go by. Thirty minutes later, I had come to a realization. If you wanna see the most exotic cars in the world, there's no better place than Newberry Street!

Washington State Patrol troopers pulled over Porsches, Ferraris and even a Lamborghini on Interstate 5 this weekend as more than 50 drivers, many in luxury cars, set out on a five-day rally that involves driving from city to city to collect poker cards.

Michael Schumacher crushed rivals with a daunting performance in the Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying round. The world champion set pole position with a lap 0.641 seconds faster than second placed Mark Webber of Jaguar. The German secured the 57th pole of his career and is now just eight poles away from the Formula One record set by the late Brazilian Ayrton Senna. Schumacher is looking to win in Malaysia after failing to win here in two years. Provisional grid positions for the Malaysian Grand Prix after Saturday's qualifying: 1. Michael Schumacher...

Having qualified as a psychologist, Nicky became more specifically involved with sports psychology following a contract with Formula One. In 1997 she became part of the support team for the British eventing squad. She helped the team — including Pippa — to team silver at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Consider the experiences of Lexus. In 1990, just after Lexus frst introduced its line of luxury cars in the United States, the company realized that it had two minor problems with its LS400 line that required a recall. This situation was, by any measure, an awkward one. Lexus had decide, from the beginning, to build its reputation around quality workmanship and reliability. And now, within little more than a year of the brand’s launch, the company was being forced to admit to problems with its flagship. So Lexus decided to make a special effort. Most recalls are handled by making an announcement to the press and mailing a notification letter to owners. Lexus, instead, call each owner individually on the telephone the day the recall was announced. When the owners picked up their cars at the dealership after the work was completed, each car had been washed and the tank filled with gas. If an owner lived more than a hundred miles from a dealership, the dealer sent a mechanic to his or her home. In one instance, a technician flew from Los Angeles to Anchorage to make the necessary repairs.

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, the world's biggest maker of luxury cars, last month chose the Emirates Palace ballroom as the site of a soiree to show off its newest 7 Series sedan to 1,400 guests. Sheikhs in white cotton robes and women in head-to-toe black abayas polished off smoked salmon and lobster soup as the $150,000 car sparkled under a battery of spotlights.

One of Corey's first products on the internet was replacement Ferrari emblems for owners who had theirs stolen. From his internet marketing success, Corey was able to afford expensive sports cars himself, as well as the time to enjoy them.

Car racer, designer, and manufacturer Bruce McLaren was killed when his McLaren M8D lost its back end at high speed and collided with an earthen embankment at the Goodwood racetrack in England.

They are doing some impressive things with electric motors these days:

“Size for size, we can provide 400% more torque than any type of motor currently available,” says managing director John Bryant. He is now hoping to team up with a sports car manufacturer, such as Lotus or TVR. Theoretically an electric racing car driven by four of the motors - one for each wheel - could hold its own in Formula One.

So, leaving Karen behind in Indianapolis, I flew to Los Angeles via Chicago. Tomorrow, I wil drive to Corona – there is a lot of driving, and I hope watching the quick race cars hasn’t gotten on my mind!

Want to see a bunch of dudes get their undies in a bunch because a woman dared drive in the Indy 500?

Here ya go, read the comments.

The Sultan’s interest is also shown in motor racing. He has a private museum displaying all the Formula One championship-winning race cars since 1980, all are real cars bought from the teams. Because of this, Frank Williams was invited to visit the King.