You can watch the video here:http://youtu.be/14hWfpTwKco
Monday, January 18, 2016
Robby Gordon follow up.
This video surfaced today which proves everything I've said about Robby Gordon. He didn't finish the Dakar because he was being an ass on the transport stage on the last day. He rammed a support vehicle causing an accident that was bad enough the his co driver and three people from the support truck had to be airlifted to hospital. This is the epitome of Robby Gordon. He's dangerous, he doesn't care about others and he doesn't care for rules. He should follow through with his threat and never come back.
Not happy with ruining his own rally, Robby Gordon ruined Sheldon Creed's too.
Ah yes. Robby Gordon. The entitled prick I love to hate. In this year's Dakar - as expected - Robby Gordon was a non-feature. Frankly I don't know why he keeps taking part - he clearly doesn't have the skill or mental attitude to even get close to the top. Instead he relies on cheating, then plays the blame game. This year he was caught speeding in one of the transport stages, and immediately blamed the Dakar organisation, saying that they make up the rules as they go. As with almost everything Gordon says, this too was wrong. The Dakar has had established speed limits on transport stages - especially in built-up areas and through villages - since its inception. This is nothing new - this rule was not 'made up on the fly'. But Gordon was the only person to flout this rule, he got caught and penalised, and in his mind that was somehow not his fault. What made this incident worse was that he passed a vehicle that had it's distress beacon running, typically meaning the driver was injured and in need of help. Gordon ignored this too, preferring to look after himself than show some compassion for another driver who might have been badly injured.
When he's not cheating (or punching his co-driver - yes - there's video although it was never shown in the US) he spends a considerable amount of energy berating the other teams. A couple of years ago, he said "MINIs are for girls". This was just before the MINI team handed him his ass on a plate. He's accused every other driver in the top four teams of cheating, despite him being the one who always cheats and gets penalised (remember the air-injection system a couple of years back?). He can't retain team mates, mostly because he's self-centered and thinks everyone should be there to help him, but not the other way around. Nasser Al-Attiyah learned that the hard way in 2012 when he stopped to help Gordon but the next day when he needed help, Gordon blew past him like he didn't exist.
Sadly, it's not just Gordon - it's his team's ethos. This year, his second driver - Sheldon Creed - was showing some excellent progress, coming ahead of Robby in almost every stage. He was humble, he got on well with the other drivers in the bivouak and he was knuckling down and just getting on with it. Sadly he suffered the random hand of fate that happens on the Dakar and his team - at Robby's behest - made him skip checkpoints to get to the end of the stage. As would be expected, Creed was disqualified.
Now to put this into perspective, on the same day, Sébastien Loeb rolled his Peugeot and did far more damage to it than was done to Creed's car. Loeb and his navigator tore the body off (what was left of it), replaced the transmission, the propshaft, one complete suspension assembly and two wheels in 40°C heat, and still made it through all the checkpoints to the finish, losing only an hour. By comparison, the damage to Creed's car was limited to a bent rim, collapsed suspension and bodywork damage.
Gordon is the antithesis of what it is to race in the Dakar. Camaraderie, teamwork, the safety of others and the outright competition are all factors in this rally. But in Gordon's mind, he thinks he deserves to win at any cost, and if someone gets in his way, they'll suffer the consequences. He never stops to assist people who clearly need help. He rams other drivers. He's forced motorbike riders off the trails regularly. He's violent, prone to tantrums and a danger to everyone around him on the rally.
If Robby Gordon follows through with his threat to never come back to the Dakar Rally, it'll be the best outcome I could imagine. He should go back to whatever it is he normally does and leave those of us who love the Dakar to enjoy it without his unneeded presence.
When he's not cheating (or punching his co-driver - yes - there's video although it was never shown in the US) he spends a considerable amount of energy berating the other teams. A couple of years ago, he said "MINIs are for girls". This was just before the MINI team handed him his ass on a plate. He's accused every other driver in the top four teams of cheating, despite him being the one who always cheats and gets penalised (remember the air-injection system a couple of years back?). He can't retain team mates, mostly because he's self-centered and thinks everyone should be there to help him, but not the other way around. Nasser Al-Attiyah learned that the hard way in 2012 when he stopped to help Gordon but the next day when he needed help, Gordon blew past him like he didn't exist.
Sadly, it's not just Gordon - it's his team's ethos. This year, his second driver - Sheldon Creed - was showing some excellent progress, coming ahead of Robby in almost every stage. He was humble, he got on well with the other drivers in the bivouak and he was knuckling down and just getting on with it. Sadly he suffered the random hand of fate that happens on the Dakar and his team - at Robby's behest - made him skip checkpoints to get to the end of the stage. As would be expected, Creed was disqualified.
Now to put this into perspective, on the same day, Sébastien Loeb rolled his Peugeot and did far more damage to it than was done to Creed's car. Loeb and his navigator tore the body off (what was left of it), replaced the transmission, the propshaft, one complete suspension assembly and two wheels in 40°C heat, and still made it through all the checkpoints to the finish, losing only an hour. By comparison, the damage to Creed's car was limited to a bent rim, collapsed suspension and bodywork damage.
Gordon is the antithesis of what it is to race in the Dakar. Camaraderie, teamwork, the safety of others and the outright competition are all factors in this rally. But in Gordon's mind, he thinks he deserves to win at any cost, and if someone gets in his way, they'll suffer the consequences. He never stops to assist people who clearly need help. He rams other drivers. He's forced motorbike riders off the trails regularly. He's violent, prone to tantrums and a danger to everyone around him on the rally.
If Robby Gordon follows through with his threat to never come back to the Dakar Rally, it'll be the best outcome I could imagine. He should go back to whatever it is he normally does and leave those of us who love the Dakar to enjoy it without his unneeded presence.
Monday, January 11, 2016
Come winter, come the one-eyed monsters.
PSA: if one of your headlight bulbs goes out, replace it. Don't drive around with the other one on full beam - it's not a substitute and it's inconsiderate (and dangerous) to other drivers. Compared to the costs involved in owning a car, replacing a headlight bulb is basically free. It takes 5 minutes even on the most awkward car so there's no excuse.
The other problem I see in the winter is people who think that daytime running lights = automatic lights. No - they're absolutely not the same thing. Daytime running lights are the sidelights that come on in some cars when the ignition is turned on. They only come on at the front, so when you're driving in the dark on a cold winter morning, the main headlights aren't on, and the tail lights aren't on. You either need to turn the headlights on yourself, or if you have auto lights, make sure the switch is in the 'auto' position.
Either way - manual or auto lights - change the damned bulb and don't be so lazy!
The other problem I see in the winter is people who think that daytime running lights = automatic lights. No - they're absolutely not the same thing. Daytime running lights are the sidelights that come on in some cars when the ignition is turned on. They only come on at the front, so when you're driving in the dark on a cold winter morning, the main headlights aren't on, and the tail lights aren't on. You either need to turn the headlights on yourself, or if you have auto lights, make sure the switch is in the 'auto' position.
Either way - manual or auto lights - change the damned bulb and don't be so lazy!
Monday, January 4, 2016
Drinking and driving on New Year's Eve - why?
This is a short post because it really shouldn't need explaining at this point. We KNOW the cops have drink-drive checkpoints on New Year's Eve. We KNOW driving under the influence of alcohol is A Really Bad Idea. Yet year after year, the police have a bumper crop of drunks on their hands every New Year's Eve. People who shouldn't be driving but are. People who should know better. To those people, I say this : you deserve no sympathy. Deal with it and stop bitching. Better yet, behave like a responsible member of society next year and don't drink and drive.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Stop me if you've heard this before...
As a new year is just around the corner, it's worth wondering if next year will be any better for motoring than 2015. Certainly for the VW group, things couldn't get much worse. But for car manufacturers in general, especially here in the US, things are looking positively rosy.
In the last quarter of 2015, US manufacturers are enjoying some of their best sales in years. It's all evidence of the economic recovery and the halcyon days of car sales. Right? I mean that's what we're told.
Sadly, not so much. The reason the sales numbers are through the roof is because the rate of subprime car loans has shot up. Remember subprime? It's what wrought economic destruction in the housing market a couple of years ago and pushed the US into a recession. Seems the banks don't learn though. Towards the end of 2015, 75% of car loans were made to people with a credit score of less than 600. And when I say 'less than 600', realise that 20% of those loans that were handed out went to buyers with credit scores between 351 and 500.
To put that into perspective, a score of 620 is generally considered to be "unlikely to repay loan". Lenders used to start lending at a score of 630.
More interestingly, 14% of loans were made to people who had no credit score at all. As Zerohedge writes: In order to keep the US car sales miracle alive and thus perpetuate the ridiculous myth of an American auto renaissance, lenders will need to continue to lower their underwriting standards. After all, the pool of creditworthy borrowers is finite and so in order to expand it, you need to make inelligible borrowers eligible and that means the proliferation of subprime lending.
If you have a car and it's paid off, good on you - you're wise and in a financial situation that allowed you to do that. If you're paying off a car loan, also good. But - if you're a deadbeat with no hope of paying off a McDonald's happy meal, please don't contribute to the subprime car loan bubble - it's going to affect everyone when it bursts and the less you contribute, the better. Trust me - you don't need a new car - a good mechanic can make sure your existing ride is safe and roadworthy for a lot less than a car loan.
Have a happy new year and be sensible with your money - please ....
In the last quarter of 2015, US manufacturers are enjoying some of their best sales in years. It's all evidence of the economic recovery and the halcyon days of car sales. Right? I mean that's what we're told.
Sadly, not so much. The reason the sales numbers are through the roof is because the rate of subprime car loans has shot up. Remember subprime? It's what wrought economic destruction in the housing market a couple of years ago and pushed the US into a recession. Seems the banks don't learn though. Towards the end of 2015, 75% of car loans were made to people with a credit score of less than 600. And when I say 'less than 600', realise that 20% of those loans that were handed out went to buyers with credit scores between 351 and 500.
To put that into perspective, a score of 620 is generally considered to be "unlikely to repay loan". Lenders used to start lending at a score of 630.
More interestingly, 14% of loans were made to people who had no credit score at all. As Zerohedge writes: In order to keep the US car sales miracle alive and thus perpetuate the ridiculous myth of an American auto renaissance, lenders will need to continue to lower their underwriting standards. After all, the pool of creditworthy borrowers is finite and so in order to expand it, you need to make inelligible borrowers eligible and that means the proliferation of subprime lending.
If you have a car and it's paid off, good on you - you're wise and in a financial situation that allowed you to do that. If you're paying off a car loan, also good. But - if you're a deadbeat with no hope of paying off a McDonald's happy meal, please don't contribute to the subprime car loan bubble - it's going to affect everyone when it bursts and the less you contribute, the better. Trust me - you don't need a new car - a good mechanic can make sure your existing ride is safe and roadworthy for a lot less than a car loan.
Have a happy new year and be sensible with your money - please ....
Monday, December 21, 2015
Wonder how much horsepower is needed for Santa to travel at 650 miles per second?
No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census)rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west(which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anoint, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake.The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
Merry Christmas .... :)
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census)rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west(which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anoint, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake.The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
Merry Christmas .... :)
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