132 Comments

I wonder how much of a margin of error there is for other numbers people rely on, like "unemployment rate," "profits per share," "breathalyzer test" or "election results." And don't forget that old chestnut, "R²"!

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Modern accounting at fortune 500 companies might as well be magic. I say this as an accountant. It's just too complex

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(I may have deliberately chosen a set of metrics where the margins of error / possible fudge factors are "more than most people think.")

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Thanks to not being the brightest bulb in the tool shed and a public school education I was at an internship in high school before I understood significant digits. My mentor was shocked at my ignorance as I was copying down meaningless numbers.

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Dude, I was a freshman in college taking statistics. I'd been programming for a decade but if anything that stymied my understanding of math because 8bit computers are so weird about integers.

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I think I was in high school before I learned that significant digits mapped to how good your measurement tools were; that was useful and to this day I don't know why the concept was introduced without the reason.

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I was abruptly introduced to the difference between physics and math. Basically we had an instrument good to, let's say hundredths. So unlike math where 0.02*0.02=0.004, in this case it equals 0.

I am pretty far removed from that time but I do not recall any mathematical concepts being grounded in real-world applications, up to and including Calculus, the most real-world of the maths (think "area under the curve" for horsepower numbers). One of the many failings of our education system. It would be both more engaging, especially, dare I say, for boys, and make them easier to understand.

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Making math and science less engaging for boys is a feature and not a bug of public education.

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For *european-american* boys, yeah.

Everybody else must get STEMed.

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I was three years old when the Soviets launched Sputnik, so probably no cohort of American schoolchildren ever got bathed in STEM as we were. It was glorious to be alive when major corporations competed to see who could spend more money on basic research. That's what got us transistors (yes, I know they were invented before 1957, work with me here), and the space race and cold war got us integrated circuits.

When I was a kid, the regional Detroit science and engineering fair held at Cobo Hall was a really big deal locally, covered by both major daily newspapers and the local tv stations. Apparently the competition still exists but I haven't heard about it in years. Some of the high school level entrants were doing serious science. Heck, I was in the cyclotron club in HS that was actively working on building an atom smasher, with some components already machined.

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I had a math teacher in college who taught class half-asleep; one of those brilliant loons on contract to the government who worked a hundred hours a week for ten months of the year and spent the other two deathly ill with some disease brought on by sleep deprivation.

Anyway, the greatest thing he ever said to us: "So I was reading an article about Marilyn Vos Savant. She's supposed to have an IQ of 228. That can't be right, cause I've had my IQ measured at 185, and there's no way some woman's smarter than me."

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On average, men and women have equal intelligence but the bell curves are different, with men having fewer in the middle and more at both extremes. (As an aside, btw, I've never had a woman complain when I've said there are more men with exceptionally low IQs than women, but they get a little annoyed when I bring up the right side of the curve). My ex and daughters are almost as smart as my son and I. I had a handful of exceptionally bright female teachers in K-12 (this was before feminism, when smart women became teachers, not lawyers and veterinarians). There are brilliant women, just as there are funny women, there are just fewer of them than there are brilliant (or funny) men. Still, the number of brilliant women willing to spend 100 hrs/wk finding the answer to an intellectual question (which is what high level science, engineering, and playing games like chess or bridge well ultimately are) is probably fewer than the number of men willing to do so. One of the smartest women that I've known, with a PhD in chemical engineering from Michigan, really razor sharp, quit her job to raise her kids. Okay, so her husband, who put my knee back together, is an orthopaedic surgeon pulling in mid six figures and she could afford it, but I worked with her and know she loved doing science. She just loved being a mom more.

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At the time I was at my (first) university: the Mechanical Engineering program had no one build anything in any class for the first year. The closest you get is if you take a CAD course and model something! What an incredible oversight on their part, and I'm sure it put off any number of talented young people from that field of study.

I will note that other universities have done a considerably better job of incorporating building machines into the curriculum from the get go to break from the drudgery of chem/calc/physics/elective. At least the chemistry and physics labs were fun.

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My son, my only son, Moshe, whom I love, finished his college career at Wayne State in math & physics but started out in engineering. One of his early courses required teams of students to build stuff with Legos. Everyone wanted Moe to be on their team as he was a legomaniac. Still is, actually. These days he builds accurate replicas of British man o' wars and teaches my three grandsons the lore of Lego. Apparently, like all hobbies, there are orthodoxies and heresies. When I tell him that since I print with ABS I could easily make him custom Lego pieces on my 3D printers, he demurrs, saying that the challenge is making accurate things from existing Lego pieces.

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The dissociation of various mathematics to their real world parallels and applications is one of the great travesties of education. I assume it's worse now than when I was in school.

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Perhaps the most common thing that one could use to illustrate calculus to an average person is digital music. A musical signal is a complex waveform. For practical purposes, using calculus we can accurately describe a curve by the rectangles we can fit under it, the narrower the slice, the more accurate the reproduction. Speaking of which, my new (to me at least) CD transport is supposed to arrive today and, like a human, I'm annoyed because I have to stick around for the required signature. I just bought a new laser engraver that cost multiples of the CD player and UPS just left it on my porch.

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This is a great piece.

All of what it contains is a symptom of a larger sickness. We're in a world where high-end cars' capabilities are completely divorced from any sort of reasonable usage of the cars by the vast majority of owners.. The street performance envelopes of all cars in the highest three classes of Lightning Lap are either the same, or different for reasons having nothing at all to do with their all-out capability on track. (And "street performance envelope" itself has little to do with making a loud noise as you leave Cars and Coffee or cruise down the A1A.)

So it's not the capabilities that are selling these cars, at all. It's the image, and the image is defined by whatever relative numbers people can Google to determine that one car is superior to another. The magazines are giving people something to Google.

None of this would matter except that it really does make the cars worse. Many of these cars--not just unattainable supercars, but also performance cars normal-ish people might eventually own--are less enjoyable to drive on the street because of their track capability. We're in a funhouse mirror world where OEMs are chasing split-second differences in numbers that aren't even meaningful, at the cost of what actually makes driving fun.

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Well said, and it's part of why I'm so charmed by the LX Chryslers and the current crop of Genesis cars. I don't have any use for sportiness in a daily driver. It's not that my Radicals are so much more "alive" than any stripes-and-wing Porker -- my NEON is a more engaging drive on-track. Poly bushings, Hoosiers, and uncompromising alignment make a huge difference and you can't have any of that stuff on the street.

I understand where Car and Driver was coming from in 1975; back then a lot of racing was done in cars with factory seats and full-tread tires. A little bit more precision in the handling would pay big dividends and you still had 80-series tires to cushion the ride. Today that's no longer the case IMO.

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As you might remember I went that route too, for almost the same reasons (minus the track driving experience). I tremendously enjoyed my LS 460 ownership and will own another big plush sedan like that someday. But then I switched to more boring cars for dad reasons. Now I"m sick enough of them to want something with three pedals and the ability to take a corner without that hippo feeling, but still a comfortable ride and enough room in the back for the kids. The result was my recent 335i purchase.

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Having owned a 3-series and currently owning an LS460L, I can't believe the 335i has enough space for kids. Maybe young kids. My kids grew to be over 6' tall, which is what led to wanting the "L" ... but now my kids are away at school, and I have no need for such a big sedan, but I can't let it go. It is the best car I've ever owned ... but it isn't exactly sporty.

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My kids are still pretty young. They definitely will not fit in the 335i seven years from now!

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I've spent enough time in the back of a ~2009 335i coupe to know that it's not pleasant for sojourns of more than 10-15 minutes as an average sized adult.

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Mine's a vert, which has even a bit less space because of the top plumbing. The 8-year-old is just about the right size. He'll be fine until he hits his big growth spurt and then he won't want to ride in the back anymore. For now, they LOVE it, because it's the first car Dad has had in their memories that's not just an appliance.

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The E91 wagon served us well carrying 4 people and stuff on 12 hour trips. Still have the thing even though the boys are adults.

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I can die a happy man. I've long waited for this specific article and topic, and it was everything I hoped it to be.

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Please don't die, I need every subscriber!

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I can't even turn in consistent lap times in a video game. I suppose extending that out into the real world it makes sense that there are so many things that affect how fast you're going around a track.

In said video games, I hate the Nurburgring. It's too long, too bumpy, and I just never had the time to digitally circle it to get any kind of good at it. I stopped paying attention to real-world lap times for it something like 15 years ago after everyone became obsessed with it. And then there was the James May rant about how 'Ring lap times were ruining cars, that it was making cars that should be comfortable grand tourers rough and unpleasant to drive. And in Michigan or Ohio, where I've done all my driving the past 7 years, there is nowhere I could go to replicate that cursed German course. When we lived in Japan there were places like that to drive, but I got caught in a speed trap and lost two weekends to traffic safety class and fines totaling over JPY100000 so I was not about to risk any more high-speed fun.

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But I thought if you were going over 180, they wouldn't even chase you.

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I had lunch with that fellow a year ago in Vegas. One of the kindest and most genuine people you can imagine. What a shame his Hagerty video deal didn't survive my departure. Why work with Sung Kang when you can fund another series of Cammisa videos?

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Oh, easy answer: Because I'll actually WATCH videos with Sung Kang in them.

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That's about right. Same here.

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And here I was thinking Ice Age's comment was referencing that unintentionally hilarious mid-2000s camp classic, "The Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift."

(Along with the original, one of two F&F movies that are "so bad it's good" instead of "so bad it's unwatchable").

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He was! I'm referring to the actor who played Han in that series.

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I don't see anything wrong with liking Tokyo Drift, although since most of the actors weren't actually Japanese I get to cringe and act all superior when I watch it and that adds a whole new layer of enjoyment!

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Camp? Are you sure?

I mean, I don't remember John Waters having anything to do with it.

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"their jobs would basically devolve to “trained monkey who entertains rich people”. This bullshit can’t stop soon enough to suit me.)"

As always, great writing makes for great reading .

"It cost me perhaps ten seconds. From a single lift of the throttle. Think about that. "

I did and it gave me great pause .

If ever I go fast enough to need this sort of advice, please remember to put carnations on my casket and scatter my ashes over the Angeles Crest Highway as I won't be there to discuss .

-Nate

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That’s very illuminating. I’m not a real racer, being of modest means, but I’ve always suspected that driver skill and risk tolerance were more important than, say, whether you’re driving a GT3 or a Z06. When I was a teenager, I beat a new vette in my rusty plymouth horizon TC3 at highway speeds in moderate traffic. He cut me off, but I wasn’t afraid to die, so I took more stupid risks. Guess he still had 58 payments to make.

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Great read. And one of the more common sense things I've read about the car magazine industry and it's testing. It must be hard to get consistent times from one time of the day to another, let alone from one year to the next. There really shouldn't not, at the very least, be no comparisons made from one year to another. Yet the last time i looked, they had bat graphs showing exactly that.

As an aside, I took a peak at the latest Car and Driver on the newsstand last night. 80 pages of fluff, short articles that really say nothing, and a ridiculous amount of advertising. I've been working my way through the 1985 year of C and D, so the comparison was even more sad. Not that they lacked for advertising, but the latest issue I read had 200 pages of pretty solid content and some fine writing.

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Whenever I'm at the newsstand, I like to flip through C/D just to laugh at how thin it's gotten. It's also down to 10 issues a year. What's left is pure filler that can't hold my attention for more than 15 seconds before I put the magazine back on the stand.

Some of the COMMENTERS on this Substack crank out more substantial content in a month.

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The best part of the C&D website is their archive of 30+ years old articles.

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At least C&D is somewhat more transparent as a result of those videos. They admitted to blowing the GTI's time by forgetting to record it. They said that one of their drivers this year was struggling due to lack of recent experience and that they had to swap some of the car assignments. They stated the times for all tested BMWs were not near the ultimate potential since all were on worn tires. They have noted that times are not comparable across many years for a multitude of reasons (weather, tires, surface, etc.).

If a reader considers those points, it's difficult to take too seriously the times, recorded to tenths of a second or finer. It's all entertainment, Top Gear especially. Sure, people will use it to argue over which is best, but I'm not too interested in being cynical over it. The way things are going, I'm just happy there are cars that might be useful on a track and that anyone actually wants to drive them like that.

Like Jack pointed out with Z car heat management, it's probably useful to know if BRZ brakes don't hold up to even amateur lapping. Or if a McLaren breaks and needs parts flown in from England. Well, maybe not so much the second one in my circumstances.

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"But if you put Jonny Liberman behind the wheel of the Senna and Jimmy Libecco in the Fit? Don’t bet your last dollar on that one. "

I see that every time I'm on the Nürburgring. 620R's and F458's schooled by local-plater Fiat 500s and Fiesta STs. I personally lapped a R34 GT-R with a "Max Speed 350kph" sticker on a GP track in 4 laps in my 3.0si Z4. Should've added brakes to keep Godzilla in check, buddy... I could smell his brakes burning after 1 lap.

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Great piece. Driver dependent lap times hit me like a ton of bricks when a teammate (fast laps very similar in the same car) was 8 seconds faster in another vehicle by taking a very aggressive turn-in that I couldn't figure out. The Garmin Catalyst also helps show how wildly different styles result in the 'same' (for endurance racing) times.

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I'm surprised the Catalyst hasn't gotten anyone killed yet. It was largely programmed by autocrossers so it will absolutely send you past the limits of grip in a car.

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I haven't found that limit yet, and when it does give you the live feedback, its always what the car actually has done on that track. Obviously rain/tires/track conditions change, but the data capture and optimal line with you in the seat are useful.

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For enduro cars on street tires it's probably fine. I wouldn't want to use it in a Formula Atlantic.

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I was just thinking of getting one, saw it at Grattan a few weeks ago in a shed-build Miata with a Honda engine swap, looked pretty trick next to my 1st gen Solo. I'm so set in going 7/10ths that it may get me a second or two while still keeping me on track. or is that optimistic?

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I've found it very useful for consistency improvement, and did a lot of research before getting it. Hell, it's worth it just for a reliable, self-contained, transportable predictive lap timer that just works.

Ross Bentley consulted in the development, and he's very well regarded. From his Q&A: "I should point out that the Catalyst will never tell you to do something that you can’t. In fact, everything it’s learned about your driving, it’s learned from you, from what you’ve already done. But it pieces the minor inconsistencies of your driving together in a way that determines whether it can be done again, and then gives you that feedback."

https://speedsecrets.com/q-can-you-tell-me-about-the-garmin-catalyst/

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Ross was involved more after the fact. I like the product and have used it before but there's no getting around the fact that it tells people to brake later and shit like that without having any actual idea of track conditions. As I noted below, if you're driving a car with relatively low limits and a lot of give in the tires it's fine but for cars that depend on 2g cornering it might be tricky.

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For sure. As you noted, in a multiple-driver enduro race in cars with a Miata-on-200TW-tire-performance envelope, however, the ease of switching between drivers and short audio cues in-race, and opportunities review post-race, do help. Obviously if a car oils down a corner or it starts raining, then it's all out the window.

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Thanks Jack, that clears it up. Am I right that my Cayman R with 200 wear Yoko's doesn't qualify as a 2g race car?

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I can't answer for Jack and he's far more experienced in higher-HP machinery than I am, as well as more aggressive on track. From someone with 40 enduros and a few overall and class wins, I and my teammates find it useful in Miata-esque level cars.

Another major benefit is the Catalyst's self-contained simplicity and reliability. Even getting 2-way radios to reliably function in race cars is damn near impossible. The amount of time and money we - and other teams have spent - to wind up with "I CANT HEAR YOU" or worse, frying ECUs, is staggering. We've tried Autosport labs stuff only to wind up with data capture failures, signal issues, tablet issues, etc.

You just stick the Garmin on your dash, align the camera, and go. All it needs is power to accurately deliver predictive lap times, probably the single most important thing you need to make incremental improvements on-track.

And for radios - we now use a clock as we know fuel burn very well, and a cheapo FRS radios with the 'alarm' button. If you have to pit early because of a mechanical, we're out of contention anyways. The alarm button serves as an all-purpose signal, and the marginal tenths you might get from having the drop on a return to green from a full-course yellow is better spent watching the flag stations IMO.

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Don't get me wrong, it's a wicked machine, but a Radical or Formula Enterprises can better your corner speeds by 10-40mph.

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At least with Top Gear, anyone over the age of about 12 could clearly see that the "reviews" and power lap crap were largely for entertainment purposes. The hosts openly couldn't drive worth crap, and everything was dripping with hyperbole and dumbed down for television. At least they acknowledged when something was run in the wet, though.

Come to think of it, having dumb celebrities drive the same shitbox around the track is a pretty useful demonstration of why something like the Lightning Lap is worthless. Even Captain Slow could probably post more relevant lap times than most of the current C/D crew.

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I'm pretty sure the only thing that's unscripted at top gear/the grand tour is when one of those idiots runs into a wall. Still , it's laugh out loud funny entertainment

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The TG/GT magic is not knowing how much of it is scripted and knowing that they get seriously injured during their outside-the-lines crashes. To my mind, they nailed the formula.

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Oh they are way worse than that. I knew the owner of the replica Stratos they so famously shat on in the Lancia tribute episode. At least they didn't make the owner sign any NDAs so we know what happened: first they did the filming you see in the episode, breaking the wiper (the car is competing in rallyes, I'm sure the wiper flings off now and then, rt?) breaking the check strap holding the driver door, breaking the window lift "mechanism" (it's a track with two lock positions like an MP5's bolt lock) and for the coup de grâce: the Stig (Andy somebody, back then) pushed the Busso V6 so hard that it spun a bearing. TG then told the owner that they will pay for trailering and parts, but they need the car back for the hot lap filming in 2 weeks. He got it fixed with a donated motor and various bits. Next time he and his mechanic went to see how they film the hot lap: the film crew sets up in a corner then the Stig does 3-4 laps, they go to the next corner, 3-4 laps again and so on. The spin was done 4 times to make it look really dramatic.

Needless to say that was the last time they got cars "fuh free" from the UK Lancia community.

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Not surprising. Every single one of those guys has been in some horrific car crash. I wouldn't let them borrow my daughters electric toy car.

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You mentioned Lime Rock. That's probably the reason most pro series of note has bailed from the place over the years. The original design of the place was much bigger. The track is too small for the current stuff. Toss in the fact that for over a lifetime the town STILL despises the place and you get what they have to offer.

A common theme in your story is tires. I truly believe tire advancements has ruined auto racing. Of course, everyone wants the best and they want it now. Overtime, they got it, resulting in races with spectators not GAF.

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I doubt the average fan understands how utterly different the skills needed by today's drivers are from those in the past. That's worth an article right there.

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I'd like to read more about that too. There must be a much higher level of specialization required to win in any particular type of car, with skills developed that don't easily translate to other types.

I find it remarkable that guys like AJ Foyt and Mario Andretti started in Indy cars when they were front-engine Offy-powered roadsters and remained competitive through the technology changes of the 70s and 80s and were still able to qualify well in the 90s. Not to mention the fact that they could - and did - go race stock cars and sprint cars and sports cars and prototypes and win.

Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya demonstrated a similar versatility, but with nowhere near the level of success that Foyt and Andretti had.

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I would like to read said article. You'd probably be able to summarise things I know instinctively and probably add a bunch to my understanding as well.

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I'm on the job.

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MotoGP, American Superbuke, and world SBK still have tire choice and management as a part of the race strategy, if you're into that part of racing.

Real wild is riders managing heat on each side of the tire.

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If you’re knowledgeable about MotoGP, I have a question for you, if I may? I haven’t really paid attention to GP since Kenny Roberts and Freddie Spencer were slugging it out 40 years ago, but I happened to catch part of a race recently.

What is the point of the riders extending their inside leg when turning into a corner? They look like motocrossers. I have to assume it serves some purpose, but I couldn’t figure it out at all,

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I am not knowledgeable and this move has mystified me as well. The leg extension during braking is decidedly not the same as in motocross or supermoto as those involve a straighter leg pushed forward in the turn which makes me assume it's a different purpose.

Brief research indicates they might be trying to get more weight on the back of the bike for that last bit of rear brake loading or just for feel. https://www.visordown.com/news/general/why-do-riders-dangle-leg-sylvain-guintoli-explains-all%E2%80%A6

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Probably the same reason why road racing cyclists flip their inner knee out when banking to turn, it drops your center of gravity, maybe something to do with polar moment too.

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This is the purpose of the ass half off the seat (crack to crack) with the inside hip opened up. Moving that much mass to the side and low on the gyro helps the bike turn with less lean angle.

The leg dangle referenced here is in braking zones and before turn in.

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" This bullshit can’t stop soon enough to suit me."

I will enjoy watching them all go bankrupt. I think this has to happen in order for new owners to pick up what's left of the brand and remake it like the Narsil.

I was an avid R&T reader in college even though I couldn't afford a subscription, and I will always cherish that last moment of glory before the tracks ran out and you and several others parted ways with the once hallowed magazine. The PCOTY issues were mostly good except for the final one (for me anyway) where the award was bought for Hyundai Veloster N. I hope you can devote an article to the last rise and fall of R&T.

I don't think I ever read more than one Lightning Lap article and I quickly lost interest in the Motor Trend Best Driver's Car. The Laguna Seca laps can be entertaining but one quickly becomes focused on the biases of Randy Pobst and the MT staff for certain brands and against others. The videos became unwatchable.

The insurance company seems to have mostly escaped the blade in this one. I was really hoping you would be there for "testing" of the C8 Z06. I guess I'll just have to take care of that one myself!

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The person sent by the insurance company, Eddy Eckart, is an accomplished smallbore racer hired by me just a month before I got the chop. Good fellow and if he isn't terribly familiar with this sort of thing he's at least a serious man who can drive well.

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I have to say, in between the dreck, Hagerty's online articles do have some interesting bits. I usually don't notice who wrote what, except Sam Smith's meandering tales, but there is still a good range of content that I enjoy. It's pretty easy to separate the PR fluff from the rest.

Needless to say, I ignore the videos, don't have time for that shit. I learned to read so I wouldn't need to watch someones lips move.

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I have nothing to add here beyond saying "things get hectic in a hurry" would be a great title for an autobiography.

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Back to just acceleration numbers, I was just watching a Motorweek "retro review" upload of the 2000 Ferrari 360 Modena last night. MW's car ran 0-60 in 4.1 seconds and the quarter in 12.4, which is a fair bit quicker than what the HP/weight would suggest, and notably faster times than the mid 4s and high 12s that most actual stock 360s were known to run. The general consensus was that Ferrari's press car was more than a bit "breathed on"

Magazine tests aside, I still think the most honest comparison is the "race on Sunday sell on Monday" production races. Like the Famous Castrol 6 Hour in Australia back in the day (the one that Yamaha's pig-heavy XS11 brute won in '78 against GS1000s and Honda CBXs). Seeing guys muscle around those very stock bikes with 100ish hp on period tires for horus on end is something else. Neon ACRs wiping the floor with everyone in Class C Showroom stock, etc.

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Of all the crooked clown shoe tests out there, I think Motorweek has to be about the most crooked. I would not trust them to tell me if the sun was out at midnight.

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Hey now, I need to hear John Davis to lament about the lack of full instrumentation in a 90s minivan or else my life is simply incomplete.

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Also, Motorweek always has great swag at the Chicago auto show media preview.

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Can't argue with swag.

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As someone said on another forum, him saying the LS1 powered Firebird could achieve "racecar like speeds" was one of the most vacuous things ever uttered by man. It was faster than all but the top classes at the time, slower than an F1 car, so what the hell was that supposed to mean? If his dumb ass was driving it I could probably beat him in a minivan, as long as it had full instrumentation.

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Every car is a race car if it’s a rental.

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John's always been nice to me personally when we've met at the Chicago auto show. To be honest, I sort of admire guys like him, Norm Abrams, and Bob Ross, who figured out how to make money of off "non-profit" public television. Is Davis more of a grifter than Ken Burns?

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I just find John and (old) MW to be such a cozy vibe that I could never hate on the man. I just wanna sit down on cozy velour buckets in a stick shift 2.8 V6 87 Corsica, test the shift action on that Getrag while wearing my leather driving gloves, and then set down a nice crisp Pepsi in the cupholder.

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Bob Ross was not a good painter. He knew it, everyone knew it. His skill was telling people to not be afraid to try to be creative. That's not an easy thing to get into people's heads. "IT'S JUST PAINT!!!!!" I tried his method. Bought the books and the paint. I was proud at phluck at the first painting. It was complete garbage. but I was still proud. I've got some nice looking stuff since then. I can't paint a human or an animal, but my landscapes are liked by people that see them. I don't think they are just being polite. Ross was teaching how to think, more than how to paint. He was a genius at that.

Abrams made it look easy because he had 30 grand in power tools. A talented guy, but the entry into his level based on the equipment needed was open to very few. A more legit guy is Roy Underhill and The Woodwright's Shop.

John Davis was the king before the internet. With videos on cars up the wazoo now, his show isn't nearly as important. I haven't watched it in at least a decade. I do remember Pat Goss passing away earlier this year.

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I can't see Abrams' image without thinking of his love for woodworking bisquits. My late father made furniture with pretty much just a radial arm saw, a circular saw, and a router. I think it's a high end wood shop if it has a jointer/planer. When you're sponsored by Porter Cable and other toolmakers, things are different. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a laser engraver/cutter to build.

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Don't get me started on Burns. Seriously that man has a wildly disproportionate influence on low-information left-leaning voters who consider themselves well informed and occasionally donate to their local PBS station. His "documentaries" are as accurate as a Scorsese biopic.

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If we could accept "The Civil War" as the taught grand narrative, and argued off of that, and the argument can absolutely include it's flaws and omissions, I think there could at least be a coherent dialogue.

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