Track days

If you're a true petrolhead, or you enjoy motorsport in any form, there's a good chance you've considered doing a track day. I did my first one last week at Miller Motorsport Park here in Utah. The format was a beginner's introduction to track days where we had a classroom session, a bus tour of the circuit for corner familiarisation and then a bunch of laps in formation behind a pace driver.
Once we got into the actual driving part of it, I was OK but when we were in the chute waiting to join the track for the first time, I could feel my vastly increased heartrate in my jugular as it was pushing against my helmet strap.
The idea was simple - you get two laps as the car immediately following the pace car, then you pull over and join the end of the queue allowing someone else to have a go at the front. The pace driver adjusts his pace depending on how well (or badly) you're doing at keeping up with him. The cars we used were modified Ford Mustang GTs with Brembo brake conversions, sports suspension, short-shift gearboxes, roll cages, bucket seats with 5 point race harnesses and remapped throttle response and engine mapping. At the end of the procession laps, we came in and took a passenger ride with the pace driver to illustrate to us just how fast the cars really could go. That was a little demoralising because we'd been under the impression that we were doing pretty well. He ripped 15 seconds off our lap times. Either way, I didn't care. The experience of driving a race-prepped car on a race track was exhilarating. The weather was perfect and racing with the windows down meant we got the full experience of all the smells and sounds, from whining brakes to roaring engine.
One other thing: for sure playing serious racing videogames helps - I was able to remember the track and pick my lines and braking points within 2 laps because of experience playing racing games. The other interesting side effect? When I got home and played the game again, I was able to take 2 to 5 seconds off all my previous lap times.
Now I have to decide whether to go the next step and do a full day Ford Racing school....

The author, with number 22 at Miller Motorsports Park:

You MUST see a Formula 1 race in the flesh.

With the F1 season in full swing, it occurs to me that I never blogged about a trip my wife and I took towards the end of 2010. We flew to Singapore to experience the Singapore F1 race in the flesh. We've always wanted to see an F1 race live, and a night race, street circuit in my most favourite Asian country fitted the bill nicely. If you're an F1 fan, you'll know the noises these cars make from watching it on TV. Well. Actually, you don't. You may think you do - we did - but when you hear them for yourself, you'll realise that the TV does zero justice to the spectacle of an F1 race. 24 800hp engines spinning at 17,000rpm on the start line is quite literally mind-melting. The sound splits the air in two.
We weren't sure if we'd go to the practice and qualifying sessions or just the race but as soon as we got to the track on the first evening, we were sucked in 100%. We went to all the practice sessions, qualifying and of course the race itself. The beauty of Singapore is that you can quite literally stand next to the track while they're racing. The only thing between you and the cars is a concrete K-rail and a 6 foot steel fence. Even in the grandstands on the main straight, you're never more than 30m from the track. The pictures below are taken from a video I made on race night.
The night race was a massive benefit to the look of the race too - the cars looked simply beautiful under the lights, especially the McLaren ones.
The entire experience was something we'll never forget. Singapore is a beautiful city and country to visit and when the F1 circus comes to town, it's transformed. I'm sure it's the same everywhere the Ecclestone empire shines its spotlight but to be there, in the city, watching the race for real was just incredible. Even the support races were fascinating to watch. And if you remember back to that race, at the end of it, one of the Lotus cars caught fire - it pulled up to a stop right in front of us on the main straight as Heikki Kovalainen hopped out and calmly extinguished the blaze himself.
I know F1 is expensive - incredibly so if you choose to fly half way around the planet to see it, but if you're a die-hard F1 fan, there really is no excuse not to see a race live. Pick your track carefully, and I guarantee you'll never forget the experience. You might even bump into someone famous. We quite literally bumped into Sir Jackie Stewart. I'm still buzzing about it now 7 months after we came home .....

Das Auto

Last week VW unveiled their new for 2012 Beetle simultaneously in New York, Berlin and Shanghai. VW apparently tossed out the current Beetle and tried to work from the original again in developing the latest model. The result is something which they hope (and I agree) is a lot less feminine, with a broader market appeal. I don't know if they did this intentionally, but the roofline has a very distinct Porsche 911 look to it now - far more than any previous Beetle model, old or new. It's available in a raft of colours including Toffeebraun Metallic (brown) and the staples of the US car market - silver, white, black and grey. The chassis is bound to be based on the next-gen Golf chassis and VW have given the new Beetle the same front-engine, front-wheel-drive as the current generation.
The Beetle has always been a bit of a marmite car - you either love it or hate it and I think the new redesign falls into the 'love it' category for me. If you want a look at the new model, VW have their 'Konfigurator' live on the German site right now. 2012 VW Beetle Configurator

The average American driver and G-Force.

Having lived here for 10 years now, I've come to the conclusion that the average American driver is desperately afraid of G-forces.
The slightest bend in the road will cause the brake lights to come on, as will any slight change in road condition - a difference in the crash barrier, construction cones, a bump, an different road surface.
I've seen maybe 1 in 1000 drivers actually accelerate away from a green light. The usual method of doing this seems to be to gently rest their foot on the accelerator so the car creeps up to 25mph over the course of 30 seconds or so.
Worse still, when traffic lights go red, they start braking a good 100m ahead of time, drifting idly to a halt.
I can only surmise that this is because they don't like G-forces. Acceleration, braking and cornering all cause you to be moved around in the driver's seat and it seems like no American likes this. Why else would you go around a corner with the brakes on? Brake before the corner, then lift off the brakes and turn - it's not that difficult. If you're braking and cornering at the same time, you're overloading the tyres and asking them to split their grip between slowing you down and keeping the car in the corner.
Freeway intersections are the worst - when you have a large-radius, curving flyover to go from one freeway to another, you should be blasting around that at freeway speed to keep the flow of traffic. They're designed specifically for that. But no - everyone slows down to 40mph and ambles along to the point where - on a motorbike - I've been able to slalom between 8 or 10 cars on a single overpass. With plenty of room too - not cutting anyone off.
Given that G-Force seems to be the issue, lightweight, small-capacity cars are what America needs. 800cc two-cylinder engines in little shopping commuters. V8s, V6s, turbos and superchargers are all wasted in this country - nobody uses them. Low-profile high-grip tyres? A waste of time. Lowered sports suspension packages? Useless.
From a European's perspective, it makes me look like I'm speeding everywhere I go when in fact I'm doing the limit. Everyone else is just driving too damn slow.

Mistaking the accelerator for the brake

There's a show on TV at the moment called 'Destroyed In Seconds' which is a showcase of exactly what its name implies. One of the staples of this program is cars running into store fronts, down steps, up lamp posts etc. In every case, the excuse given by the driver is that they mistook the accelerator for the brake.
I must admit I'm mystified by this. The pedals are in a different place, they're a different shape and size, and the back pressure is different on them. I'm honestly not sure how people can genuinely do this. In most of these cases, I reckon it's actually distraction. People think they've moved their foot to the brake when they haven't, then step on the gas. Even then I wonder how it's possible that they don't realise what's going on and swap to the brake.
Have you ever done this? And what was the cause?

How is this possible?

I've talked about this before, but I have to bring it up again. Why can't American car manufacturers build decent cars or engines? Take the Chrysler Crossfire for example. Somehow, and I just can't fathom how they managed this, they built a 3.2 litre V6 engine and managed to only get 215hp out of it. Or the Plymouth Prowler with it's 3.5 litre V6 that produced 1hp less than the Crossfire at 214hp. I could build the same engine out of Lego and accidentally get 300hp out of it. It's like they're stuck in the 80s - an era when Ford managed to produce a Mustang - a 'muscle car' - that produced a pathetic 111hp out of a 4.2litre V8. Bear in mind the same year that came out, Audi had the 5-cylinder 2 litre inline engine that produced 110hp. How could Ford have 3 extra cylinders, a 'V' engine layout and more than double the capacity and only gain 1 extra horsepower? Given the comparitive weight of the cars, that means a stock 1985 Audi Coupe GT could easily out run a 1984 Ford Mustang (and it could certainly out-handle it).
It takes a peculiar sort of skill to build big engines with no power. To put it into perspective, my current ride - a VW Tiguan - has a 2 litre 4 cylinder engine that produces 200hp. If the Germans and the Japanese can manage it, why can't the Americans. Really. It's not that difficult.