Thursday ORT: Sticker Shocked, Smooth Operation, Neon Return, Glasshouse

All subscribers welcome

this is the corner I’ll be repainting

Housekeeping: The ACF cadence and structure are new starting this week, reflecting reader suggestions and my own scheduling challenges. The previous Sunday OT is now Monday OT; it’s for paid subscribers. The Wednesday ORT is now Thursday ORT; it’s for all subscribers. Any topics that deal with explicit political candidates, rather than ideas, will be sent separately as Thunderdome. Until further notice, Thunderdomes will operate under different commentary rules and will be limited to paid subscribers. Thank you for your continued contributions to Avoidable Contact Forever.

A sticker for every time you use the big boy potty

In the years where Porsche was first and foremost an engineering firm, their products were defined by engineering solutions. Which wasn’t always a good thing, in the long run; consider the firm’s brief-but-not-brief-enough fascination with magnesium that led to a pressurized rollcage in a 917 racer and several thousand miserable 911 2.7 owners. It was, however, always admirable. To engineer is the most human, and most admirable, thing. It sets us apart from the animals, who often exceed us in beauty, poise, or prowess but who cannot truly solve any problem more complex than “dig these ants out of a hole, using a stick,” and never do it with conscious thought.

In 2024, Porsche is first and foremost a marketing firm, so it tends to address problems with marketing solutions. The most vexing problem it faces at the moment: the value of Porsches goes up in direct proportion to how far away they are, conceptually and temporally, from the company’s current volume products. The Singer restomods are now listing as used cars for as high as $3.3 million, while the true wholesale price of a low-mile used Taycan electric is south of $50,000. The most sought-after new vehicles sold by the firm as those which ape the older cars and/or forego their refinements, as with the 911 S/T.

The marketing solutions for these problems, despicable though they might be, often verge on the brilliant; faced with the fact that the cognoscenti despise those awkward and unpleasant water-cooled 911s made after 1999, Porsche made the decision to support the “Loofa Cult” air-cooled circlejerk. This, in turn, led to "Air/Water”, a show that celebrates… all the air-cooled Porsches, but also the water-cooled Porsches, but it’s very exclusive because, uh, any Porsches cooled via other methods just aren’t welcome. The joke’s on you, liquid-sodium 911s!

The 2025 911 Carrera T might well be another one of those extremely deft marketing solutions. It’s a $135,995 car with not much in the way of standard equipment and just 388 horsepower from a deliberately crippled 3.0-liter flat six. (That’s about the maximum possible configured price for a Corvette Z06 with 670-horse flat crank V-8, by the way.) The sole available transmission is a 6-speed manual. Not the box found in the GT3 or S/T, mind you; how could you expect such a glorious piece of equipment at this low, low, price? It’s the 7-speed transmission from the Carrera S, minus the 7th gear. Really, this should be an impossible vehicle to sell. Even the name is disgraceful. “Carrera T” is not a trim level that should exist on the 911. Back in the day, the 911T was the cheapo car, basically a 912 with two extra cylinders and the minimum possible fueling. The Carrera was the bad boy. “Carrera T” makes no sense. It’s like having the “Chevrolet Caprice Classic Brougham Biscayne”.

Faced with this dogshit-and-pony price leader, basically the Chevette Scooter of Nine Elevens, the marketers have decided to lean in on it being a “purist” car with a cosplay 917 shift knob and… I can’t even get myself to write about the gearbox surround, I’ll just have to show you.

The car is festooned with graphics celebrating the cost-cutter six-speed, just so your neighbors know that you’re not the kind of nerd who would drive an automatic 911. I find the whole product to be a lamentable exercise, but I’ll give them this much: General Motors could sell a lot of stick-shift C8s if they had the guts to make an entry-level Corvette with a clutch pedal. The Carrera T might be overpriced, underpowered, and profoundly embarrassing to operate in public — but at least the thing exists.

As regards all the manual-gearbox fetish graphics? Well, that’s why God made razor blades.

Yo dawg, we heard you like Mexicans, so we put a Mexican in the Mexican Grand Prix

thanks for keeping the seat warm, cuck-o

Objectively speaking, there’s no reason to be sad for Sergio Perez, who has lived a life of immense privilege and considerable reward — but watching him just plain embarrass himself in Mexico City had me feeling just a bit weepy on the man’s behalf. Wasn’t it just a year and a half ago that some people, albeit some exceptionally stupid and enthusiastic people, were talking about him contending for the WDC? Now he’s closer to Logan Sergeant in the points than he is to Lando Norris — but that’s okay, because he knew he’d deliver in Mexico City, in front of his people.

Except he didn’t. He failed in every way possible. Spectacularly so. Yet they cheered every time they came through. It’s a country that is deeply acquainted with hard times and sorrow, one suspects — but it’s also a country of men who take themselves quite seriously, so the little donnybrook with Liam Lawson was especially humiliating. (Lawson apologized after the fact, but it was for flipping Checo off, not toasting his bread in front of his home crowd).

Thanks to Perez, Red Bull is now third and fading badly. It’s basically impossible for Mercedes to catch them — but it also feels impossible that they could regain position over Ferrari, which has the advantage of fielding two qualified drivers at every race.

Observations from the weekend:

• Christian Horny says that the data didn’t support the penalty against Max — but this wasn’t a data-driven penalty, it was a penalty for Verstappen’s bloodthirsty unwillingness to permit Lando even the slightest bit of room, and perhaps a bit of a true-up for the Lando penalty handed out before. It won’t keep Max from winning the WDC. We can all let this go.

• Yuki’s move at the start was aggressive, but he’s no longer being compared against a somnolent and washed Ricciardo. Had he made it work, he’d have put points in the bag. I’d call it a racing incident, since neither he nor Albon actually made the move that resulted in the crash.

• Speaking of Albon — this was his week to get some pride back against Colapinto. Who knows how it would have gone?

• Surely Mercedes fans will remember 2024 as the year where Lewis Hamilton was able to successfully race against just one person all year — namely, the slightly disaster-prone teammate who out-qualified him almost three to one. How will Sir Ham do in the qualifying battle against Charles Leclerc? Not that well, even.

• Alpine was right to keep Gasly, I think.

• If ever there was a driver who didn’t deserve to lose his seat, it is Carlos Sainz. Need a reminder that F1 is, first and foremost, a business operation? There you go. But don’t cry for the Smooth Operator just yet. The Williams might be quite decent.

• K-Mag went out with a bang. Really first-rate drive on all counts. How is Ocon going to do any better than this guy?

• Rare bad day for Oscar Piastri, and those kinds of days will get rarer. You’d be a fool to bet against him retiring with at least one championship.

At this point, I think the top 9 positions in the driver’s ranking are more or less set in stone. It would be nice to see George sack up and pass Lewis, and there’s a chance for a Norris/Leclerc swap if something interesting happens — but any T-shirts commemorating a Norris WDC are already being bundled for shipment to Africa.

Meanwhile, at Nelson Ledges

The Halloween Divisional at Nelson Ledges is my favorite race of the year. This one was extra special because MVR-SCCA asked me to help get entries for their “Race Experience” one-hour enduro. Race Experience is a way for drivers with licenses from other, lesser sanctions, such as WRL, to try SCCA. Our crew chief, Jon Shevel, was already on the list, but I promptly bullied dannyp into entering. Then I dropped almost two grand on bringing the Neon back from the dead so I could race the enduro as well. In the course of 24 hard hours the crew did the timing belt, the safety belts, a full brake job, rear hubs, and several other tasks.

Because I wanted to win the enduro, or at least my class, I bolted a full 120 pounds’ worth of ballast into the trunk, then bought a set of 205-width Bridgestone RE-71RSes so I wouldn’t take any points for R-compound tires. So configured, the Neon was legal for the “E4” class. The only annoyance: the enduro was right after the “Wings and Things” race in which I was running the Radical SR8, so I’d need to immediately switch cars.

I qualified at the head of a 4-car pack — two Formula Continentals and Allen Franzolino in his Swift-based Beasley P2 — then drove off to a 25-second win in which I also reset the GTX lap record. I turned the fastest closed-wheel time in Nelson Ledges history since the repave, and also for the past 13 years. Actually, any of my five fastest laps would have sufficed. Then I ran over to the Neon for the enduro.

During enduro qualifying, we’d had issues with the polyurethane shifter bushings on the Neon. So I drove 74 minutes to an AutoZone and got Dorman replacement bushings. The crew then decided the original bushings were “fine” and could be safety-wired on. So you can imagine my surprise when I again got stuck in fourth gear about 7 laps into the race. The crew put the Dorman bushings on in pitlane, requiring just about six minutes to do so. I was unable to regain all of the lost time and finished 9th out of 10 cars running at the finish. Any hopes I had for a battle with Danny were dashed when he retired to save his transmission. The frustrating thing is that I was faster than all the E4 and the E3 cars by a pretty decent margin. It was my race to lose, and I lost it. Actually, my crew lost it for me. It’s so rare for them to screw me up, rather than the other way around, that I feel compelled to broadcast it when it happens.

Oh, I also stepped on the brake instead of the clutch during the start, immediately losing all the positions I’d made up and damaging a Miata fender on the Neon’s reinforced rear bumper. That was totally my fault and I apologized to the field at the end of the race.

(A brief note on the Bridgestone RE-71RS: it’s as good as everyone says and you’re a fool to run anything else in the 200tw category.)

Danger Girl brought a knife to a gunfight — more properly, a backup stock engine to an STU race — but she finished 5th overall on Saturday. Sunday’s race was marred by an engine fire and some timing issues.

Mini Danger Girl qualified first in a 3-car class on a slick track then managed to hold on for 2nd in class, and 5th overall, in a remarkably contentious Sunday race. It seems like just yesterday that she was learning to drive a stick shift — because it almost was yesterday, it was May of this year — and now she’s fighting for position in her own race car. All of this goes to show that I am a natural “girl dad”, as long as the girl in question is:

• at least 20 years old

• five foot ten and as strong as some dudes

• an engineer who likes to punch people

• already comprehensively parented to adulthood by her actual father

Hey, I’m not the stepdad… I’m the dad who stepped up. (And also stepped on her radiator support during prep, possibly cracking it, for which I apologize.)

Anyway, it’s been a season to remember, with my second divisional championship in a row plus Driver Of The Year. I’m grateful to my subscribers for making it happen. Next year we will focus on getting wins in the PR6… and maybe the Neon, too. I mean, I went through all the trouble to get it running.

The wokest science fiction book you’ll ever admire

Glasshouse, Charles Stross, 2007. It’s no great secret, at least to the adults among us, that science fiction makes its closest approach to art when it provides a way to consider current trends or ideas in extremis, as it were. Dune started as a novel of ecology, Foundation was a thought exercise on government and power via information. Think of these books, and others in which ideas from today are examined futuristically, as a distillation, or (in the unfortunate current timeline) a gain-of-function experiment. They allow you to examine something from all sides without the noise of current context.

Therefore, it’s tempting just to say that “Glasshouse is a brilliant meditation on what it means to be male or female” and leave it at that — but that sells this first-rate book by British author Charles Stross quite a bit short. In no particular order, Glasshouse is also: a brilliant bit of world-building that could support a hundred novels, a genuinely insightful look at risk and reward, a finely-plotted adventure story, a horror tale, and a genuine surprise to the reader. The plot is one of the oldest out there: a mercenary soldier on the run takes the midnight train to anywhere, with ultraviolent and terrifying consequences. Only in this case, “anywhere” involves being essentially rebuilt as a woman, on a starship headed towards a frightening experiment.

I don’t think you could write Glasshouse in 2024, as some major parts of it relate to the protagonist’s unwanted weakness, both physical and emotional, as a result of the exchange… or is it because he was always weak and broken? Regardless, you can read this one for the remarkable approach to tech and storytelling, only to contemplate it long after for what it says about today’s often irresponsible and ignorant approach to gender-swapping. Grade: A