Wednesday ORT: MotoAmerica, Lizards, VW Pay To Play, Carbon 912, Mach E, CDLs FOAR EVERYWUN

All subscribers welcome

like i’m gonna get my shoes dirty helping this guy

Hello friends! Today I’ll be in the unusual position of needing a reader to do the recap for a race I attended — because most of the time I was in pit lane waiting for something unusual to happen. This was my second year driving the safety/medical car for MotoAmerica. For reasons that I don’t understand but are surely ironic in nature, MA calls the poky little two-liter automatic Acura ILX that I use to transport the first-response medic around Mid-Ohio a “fastcar”.

It’s not fast. As was the case last year, I actually ruined two sets of Continental ExtremeContacts repeatedly putting the thing on the spin-to-win limit with zero warmup or prep in 85-degree heat. Both of the Acuras available to me sounded like washing machines with a bad drum by the end of the weekend. Max recorded speed on the back straight was… 103mph, and that’s taking ALL the Keyhole exit curb.

The racing was pretty good and I did get one decent seat for the action during the second King Of The Baggers race. There was a two-bike incident in the Keyhole at the start of the first lap, so I pulled in for a medic check and ended up sitting in the car next to the flag station for the rest of the race. I know some of you hate the baggers but they are just plain remarkable to watch in that hairpin turn. Among MotoAmerica’s race classes, only the Superbikes are on a par with my Radical for laptime, but they do it very differently. My top speed at Mid-Ohio is 156-157 but even the 600cc Supersports can knock on the door of 170 down the back straight, with the Stock 1000 and Superbikes doing another 10-15mph above that.

All the racing can be seen for free on the MotoAmerica YouTube channel. This is an unpaid promotion. Not only did I not get a check for 26 hours’ worth of work, they locked the free-drinks fridge on me Saturday afternoon!

Neither Jim Morrison nor Robert California is their actual king

My occasional reference to “lizard people” on this site and elsewhere has at least one reader quite upset — but since we strive to serve all (paid) subscribers here at ACF, I thought I’d take a moment to clarify it, once and for all. Even though I’ve done it once before. Note that I do not actually believe in reptiles wearing human skin, and neither does anyone else worth discussing. The media outlets who breathlessly prattle on about Crazy Stuff The Prole Trash Actually Think are revealing more about themselves than about “Qanon”.

The lizard people, in a nutshell, are people whose wealth and/or circumstances have led to a real and serious distance in perception and behavior from normal Americans. I’ve met a handful of them in real life, and they have the strangest affect. What they laugh at, or don’t laugh at, would make little sense to most of us. They believe, or pretend to believe, in a strict meritocracy that justifies their wealth and power. Consequently, they also believe that anyone who is poor or downtrodden deserves to be so — unless that person happens to be part of their favorite protected group or groups.

Far more prevalent than actual lizard people are Lizard Cargo Culturists. These are people, often reasonably but not fabulously successful, who think that emulating the odd behaviors of lizard people, from their aggressive athleisure to the hateful way they speak about the American working poor, will somehow result in an elevation of their social and/or financial status. I’ve worked for a couple people who appeared to think that emulating the worst behaviors of a Zuckerberg or Carly Fiorina would make them instant billionaires.

I’ve often told the story about the former Miss Ohio who walked out into a miserable, hundred-inmate “open office” at Nationwide Insurance, clapped her hands, screeched “I LOVE IT!” then walked back into her double-pane-insulated private office. That’s Lizard Cargo Culture. The insurance executive who allowed one of the worst racing drivers on the globe to SPAC his ass, just so he could be a paper billionaire beholden to someone else instead of an independent man with eight figures safe in the Cayman Islands? He wants to be a Lizard Person, which is why he takes all of his behavior and public speaking cues from people like Peter Thiel or Satya Nadella.

Our friend Sherman, who repeatedly fumbles through a sort of “Australopithecus Portrays Socrates” commenting routine in which he tries to mis-associate Powerball winners, YouTube clowns, incel inheritors, car-show operators, and the like with the concept of Lizard People, has a bit of Cargo Culture about him. His endless rants about how building anything in America amounts to “make-work projects” and “welfare by other means” are, I think, vaguely analogous to the harmless butterflies who attempt to emulate the poisonous monarch butterfly and thus avoid consumption by real predators. He’s acquired a Plato’s Cave version of these sociopathic attitudes from consuming the media made by other Lizard Cargo Culturists, and claims them as his own because he believes they confer status upon him.

I choose to believe he is engaging in a long-con comedy piece, like Joaquin Phoenix did a few years ago.

The shame of it is that history is rife with examples of fabulously wealthy and successful people whose fundamental humanity was beyond question, from Marcus Aurelius to John D. MacArthur. All of them considered it their duty to elevate their fellow man, rather than to aggrandize themselves via a sort of “Objectivism For People Who Got Picked Last In Rec League Kickball And Are Still Frosty About That”.

If you want a perfect example of a lizard person, look at Bezos. Not because he’s rich; because he has no idea how normal humans behave — and doesn’t care to know, lest he find himself less enthusiastic about almost single-handedly creating the Piss Jug Economy. If the difference between Bezos and, say, the late Hulk Hogan, who was also rich, is not apparent to you, it would be better to stay quiet about that. So starting today, I will treat people who faux-innocently try to beg this particular question with the same contempt I showed to a street racer friend who, in response to my offhand 1999-era assertion that So-and-so wasn’t exactly a member of the Porcellian Club in terms of social graces, said, “No way, dude, he’s upper class for sure, he has a tits ‘91 Acura Legend coupe, and his family owns a gas station.”

NOW how much would you pay?

Volkswagen is offering customers an “optional power upgrade” to increase the horsepower of its ID.3 range from about 148 horsepower to 168 horsepower. The 20-horsepower upgrade costs £16.50 ($22.50) per month, or £165 ($225) annually. Alternatively, customers can pay £649 ($878) for a lifetime subscription.

If you liked BMW’s monthly subscription plan for heated seats, you’ll love this new VW feature. This idea possesses erotic appeal to the Lizard People (see above) who run various automakers, but I see it as a fundamental breaking of the moral contract between producers and customers.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a subscription, of course. Especially not a subscription to Avoidable Contact Forever, natch, but even things like Sirius XM are fine in my opinion. Sirius pays the manufacturer to put the capability in the car, and if you want to listen to their streaming music you pay for that. You own the radio free and clear, but if you want to use it to hear Sirius then there’s a cost.

Heated seats and extra power, on the other hand, are physical capabilities that are built into the vehicle. It possesses those capabilities and needs no external source to use them. Therefore, ownership of the vehicle should naturally entail ownership of the capabilities, period point blank.

Put another way — if you had a 13-year-old BMW for which you’d never paid the heated seat subscription and that wiring happened to catch fire, burning your BMW to the ground, no court in the United States is going to hold BMW responsible. Those heated seats are your problem. You own them. Even if they aren’t turned on. Even if you never received a moment’s worth of heat from them, because you weren’t licensed. If it turns out that having the extra batteries to enable the extra power in the ID.3 makes it more prone to “bricking”, good luck getting a judge to agree that your non-ownership of those extra batteries means VW “owns” the bricking.

No doubt some of you are thinking, “Well, it makes economic sense to put $500 worth of extra capacity in each car, hoping that most of the people will pay $878 for it.” Economic sense, absolutely. Which is why they do it. But it doesn’t make moral sense.

You may also be thinking, “This happens with software all the time.” Well, it shouldn’t happen with software. We had a whole social movement about that. It was called GNU, or BSD, depending on your chosen allegiance. The software license model is actively evil and no sane governing body would permit it unless they’d been plied by collective billions of dollars throughout history to let it be so.

The desire to make everything “as a Service” in the modern world is one of our largest failings as a society. Lithium Ion Capability Kick as a Service (LICKaaS) is actively evil. Anyone who doesn’t see that should spend some time in deep personal reflection.

The best version of the dumbest Porsche

Our friend Adrian Clarke has a nice piece at the Autopian about possibly the most ridiculous “upcycled” Porsche yet: a $460,000, 1540-pound, 182-horsepower carbon-fiber Porsche 912. Like a Guntherwerks, but even less cool.

Let’s get this out of the way: the 912 is the worst Porsche that doesn’t have four doors on the chassis or two nines in the chassis code. The business about it being “sweeter handling” is pure woo and self-delusion. The car is so slow it can barely be said to need handling; Car and Driver recorded a 18.2 second quarter at a brisk 77 miles per hour in a pre-impact-bumper 912. This was within shouting distance of a 40-horsepower Beetle. The 912E, which is an even more pathetic vehicle because it’s worse than an early 912 yet a full ten years newer, turned a 17.4@76 under the same conditions. It’s not a case of it being weaker than contemporary sporting cars. It was weaker than contemporary economy cars. If you found yourself in a new 912E at a stoplight next to a new Honda Accord hatchback, you’d want to seriously consider acting like you had an urgent right turn to make, because it would be a driver’s race and if you bought a 912 you probably aren’t a driver.

Nobody wants a 912. Yet the new Porsches are so deeply unlovable to so many people, and the aircooled community has disappeared so far into its own belly button, that there is a sort of rude sense in making a half-million-dollar car with 182 horsepower. You won’t see yourself coming and going, even in Malibu.

The real reason to buy this car, which no one will want to publicly discuss: people will think it’s a Singer, but it doesn’t cost Singer money and there’s no wait list. I like a lot of the detailing, but I cannot think of a single reason why it wouldn’t be a seriously better car with some truly outrageous power behind the rear seats, like… the 3-liter smog six out of the “Flashdance” 911SC.

Since ACF is a consumer oriented magazine, I feel compelled to point out that it’s possible to get this level of performance for less money. Like a K-swap Honda Fit, or a Fox Mustang with $800 worth of spray on it.

Hold the pitchforks, EV haters

Everyone’s been talking about the video in which a Mach-E appears to be forcing itself at full power along a Jersey barrier before impacting a random Mitsubishi Mirage (those are still on the road?) and causing all sorts of mayhem. The video appears to show the driver praying while the steering wheel moves on its own.

Well, according to the California Highway Patrol, the Mach-E wasn’t necessarily at fault. The driver was drunk. Is that why he was praying?

It occurs to me that the driver could have been drunk and the Mach-E could have been steering itself. I’ll keep an eye out for more information. For now, though, we can all put away the pitchforks — but I still think the CIA used electronic power steering to kill Michael Hastings.

California uber alles CDL issuers

whether you want to or not

Legend has it that not even William Calley looked as mellow after killing innocent people as Harjinder Singh did when a minivan struck his trailer during an illegal freeway U-turn. Seriously — it’s a bit chilling to watch.

What’s been disclosed since the crash would be difficult to believe at any time in American history but right now. Singh crossed into the USA from Mexico in 2018, illegally, and was apprehended two days later. The Trump Administration’s policies at the time made him eligible for “fast-track” deportation, but in 2019 he claimed asylum (from India) and was released on a $5,000 bond.

When we had a change of administration in the safest and most secure election of all time, Singh became eligible to work. California happily issued him a drivers’ license, since that its their state policy for undocumented immigrants, then upgraded him to a CDL. Nominally speaking, he was still waiting for his day in immigration court six years after his original apprehension. According to Fox News, all caveats stipulated,

"During [Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's] interview with the driver, investigators administered an English Language Proficiency (ELP) assessment in accordance with FMCSA guidance," the Department of Transportation said in a statement. "The driver failed the assessment, providing correct responses to just 2 of 12 verbal questions and only accurately identifying 1 of 4 highway traffic signs."

Listen, I know what it’s like to drive in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language — which is why it’s never occurred to me that I should be driving a truck in Tokyo or Tehran.

The worst part is that Singh got ticketed by the New Mexico State Policy for speeding a month ago, but because the troopers didn’t feel like doing their legal duty, he wasn’t administered the English proficiency test that was mandatory starting on June 25 and which would have absolutely and positively resulted in three people being alive right now instead of dead. Can you blame the staties? Imagine it being your job to administer English language proficiency tests in New Mexico. Not even the white people are going to pass.

A comment that I’ve seen quite a bit on social media in the aftermath of this accident is something along the lines of “How many people are killed by undocumented truck drivers, compared to documented citizens with a CDL?” This probably sounds really smart to the people who are typing it, but they wouldn’t like the only logical answer, which is: Every death that occurs in the United States should be at the hands of a legal citizen, visa holder, or green card holder. Because those are the only people who should be here. To say anything else is to engage in a sort of stupidity equivalent to, “Well, Mr. Smarty Pants, how many people are akshully killed by ‘Jarts’ being thrown into a schoolyard… compared to cancer?” Only a child or deeply simple person thinks this question justifies the throwing of Jarts into a schoolyard.

In my first draft of this piece, I wrote something along the lines of “The real tragedy here is that there are plenty of great Sikh truck drivers out there, who are an asset to the country and who shouldn’t be besmirched by this idiot.” While that’s true, it’s not the real tragedy. The real tragedy here is the death of three innocent people. They are literal human sacrifices on the altar of Cheap Labor, the god to whom we have sacrificed more than the Aztecs could ever dream. There’s no humanitarian justification here. It’s just corporations demanding low-cost trucking and politicians using progressive rhetoric to mask their paid submission to those demands.

Perhaps a commenter or two will pop up to decry the hiring of American citizens to drive trucks as “make work programs” or so on, along with a commentary on how lazy Americans think they are entitled to make a living wage for something as trivial as operating a 50-ton vehicle on recapped tires in all weather and road conditions while surrounded by vehicles to which it is a constant and deadly menace. Anyone who truly believes that has a chance to “own some outcomes” here. Three innocents dead.

Postscript: I did, in fact, eventually help with the downed MotoAmerica bike. Turns out my new habit of deadlifting a few hundred pounds while listening to Clairo and sobbing quietly is paying dividends, because nobody else could drag the bike through the “China Beach” gravel. And yes, there’s proof! See you later this week!