Thursday, March 03, 2005

Australia Notes

I sure is weird to JPM in a McLaren and DC in anything but. The Williams sure has a pretty front wing configuration while the Ferrari looks like a dog's dick. It looks like a modified version of the X-wing is back with McLaren having what looks like viking horns rising from the cockpit.

It looks like Minardi won't get to run.

About the US commentary. Varsha is a waste of air. Hobbs and Matchet are great - a real driver and a real mechanic. Varsha is a real moron. Over the last couple of years Towsend Bell has stood in when David Hobbs is absent. He is easily my favorite commentator. Unlike Hobbes, he still has the killer instinct of a racer.

More news, It sound like williams had some trouble with their wind-tunnel in the off-season. Something about a calibration problem. They claim to be 45 days behind in development as a result.

Another year and another twitchy Jordan. This must be the third straight year that their car bobs and weaves under braking. It must scare the shit out of the drivers. In addition to the twitchy they are devoid of sponsor decals. Might expensive way to run a team. The new owners better line something up quickly as drivers alone won't pay the bills.

GT4 Tips

I recently won the All-Japan GT championship. The award - a "Option 350z" value 395,000 credits. I already have a 750+HP Nissan 350z Concept racecar (and just won the AJ-GTC with it). I decided I wanted to give it a try to see if it was faster than my current car. In just a couple of laps it was obvious that turbo-lag made it much harder to drive. I decided I would sell it - the value with 6 miles? 42,000 credits. Tip - don't drive award cars if you thnik you might sell them!

I built a 03 BMW M3CSL to compete in the european races. The Mercedes McLaren is faster. Racing the bimmer rates over 150 A-Spec points - winning is hard - that damn Merc can simply walk away on any long straight. Suspension tuning is crucial in winning in underpowered cars. After 3 tries I managed to dial out most of the understeer. Springs, bars, ride hight, and brake balance are all optimized to improve front-end traction.

Why can't you sell crappy concept cars? WTF an I going to do with a 150HP Pontiac Sunfire concept or a Toyota Triathalon?

Nordschleif is hard. It is blindingly fast and in a really fast car it is very hard to stay in the track. If you have done the 1A license test in the 2005 M5 you will know what I mean.

What a game. In a couple of weeks I have gotten all the licences except SuperLicence. I have won over a dozen race series (all the beginner except the sport truck series) and all the professional except the Lightweight Cup. How can a Lotus Elise (which works well in MR and Spider) have a wheelbase too long to compete in the Lightweight Cup? I am still only 9% through the game. I'm looking forward to the remaining 91%...

F1 Tonight!

Tonight is practice for Australia. It looks like Minardi may not be allowed to start. They apparently don't have their 2005 aero package ready and need approval from each team to run in 2004 spec. Ferrari and Red Bull had declined. Bastards.

Trivia Answers:

Luigi Faioli was 53 years and 22 days old when he won the Grand Prix of France in 1951. He drove with an Alfo Romeo that he shared with Juan Manual Fangio.

Fernando Alonso was 22 years and 27 days when he won the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2003 with a comfortable 16.7 second advantage over runner-up Raikkonen. Driving a Renault.

New Trivia Question:

Which now defunct team made it's F1 debut on this date?

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

F1 Trivia

Since this weekend is the first race of the year, here are a couple of trivia questions:

Who are the youngest and oldest F1 race winners?
Extra Credit: What cars were they driving?

New Benchmark

Yesterday 104 people read this blog beating the previous record of 45. I wonder what caused the massive surge in readership?

The Bicycle

I have tried to keep this blog focused on car, but this morning I must let one of my other hobbies intrude. Another way I spend time and money is building bicycle frames. Today I build in steel but I plan my hand at a carbon frame in the future. Anyway, I got an e-mail this morning from a Dazza Llewellyn, professional builder in Austrailia. Dazza is one of the best lugged-steel framebuilders, muse and mentor in my humble attempts.

Here is an example of what can be done in the medium.