IMSA Long Beach: Perhaps it was the talismanic power of Porsche enthusiast Jack Baruth’s presence that helped the Sultans of Stuttgart emerge victorious as Street Fightin’ Men! The Porsches gambled and didn’t take tires at their pit stops, and you could see that they were struggling on worn tires at the end of the race. Poor rear end grip (obvious enough to be seen clearly on TV) in the second stint has plagued the 963 since its debut at Daytona.
WEC Portimao: The Porsche’s shortcomings were once more revealed the next day in the WEC race at Portimao. The IMSA GTP / LMDh cars are rear wheel drive and run a spec hybrid system that delivers additional electric power to the rear axle. This means that they absolutely chew the rear tires after the first stint (they don’t receive enough tires to single stint in either series). Meanwhile the WEC Hypercar class cars operate with a freer rule book. The Toyota, Ferrari, and Peugeot have front axle hybrid deployment (at certain speeds), and the privateer Glickenhaus and Vanwall are pure ICE cars. I anticipate a lot of politicking over BOP at Le Mans, but there’s no remotely equitable way I can see to “balance” the inherent tire wear weakness of the Porsche, Cadillac, and Acura versus the Hypercars over a 24 hour race.
IndyCar Long Beach: Scott Dixon didn’t like Pato O’Ward’s move up the inside at Turn 8. I thought it was Pato’s corner.
As for F1: Red Bull has the title sewn up unless they are flagrantly cheating (unlikely) or blow through the cost cop again (also unlikely). Lewis Hamilton’s best days are behind him in my view, and George is clearly the team’s future. Lewis is out of contract at year end. Merc could have their pick of a vastly cheaper driver to support (or challenge) George over the next few years: Leclerc, Norris, Ocon, Albon would all jump at the chance. Or here’s a wild idea - what about a seat swap between Stroll and Hamilton? Fans would get Hamilton vs Alonso 2.0, Stroll Sr would have a box office PR opportunity, and Stroll Jr would have an opportunity to prove himself at one of the historic “top” teams, after which he could return to Aston Martin and deploy everything he’d learned at Mercedes.
Finally, Ashton: She has the strongest jaw I’ve seen since Buzz Lightyear.
'Handsome' in old English was very much used in both contexts, for men AND for women. Having read this through that lens, as much daughter says 'YUCK!'
Hamilton is paid a salary by the team PLUS the commercial sponsorships / endorsements that he receives personally; this is the case for all of the drivers, whether they directly bring money.
E.g., Sainz has personal sponsorship from Spanish beer Estrella Galicia that followed him from McLaren to Ferrari.
Merch is another important factor. Red Bull Racing sells a LOT of merchandise in the Netherlands and Mexico.
Mick Schumacher was brought on board for just this reason. Who gives a crap if he destroys a car or two? He'll bring in sponsor dollars that Merc wants in their home country while also having the correct name.
I often wonder if Mick is even any good. But, what do I know... he was clearly one of the 20 best Formula drivers in the world at one point. (Giant oooooooof about his trial just to even score a freaking point.)
Young Pado owned that corner but seemed to make his decision super late, and that can be a recipe for heartbreak. He was leading the championship going into that race, so might have been better to hold off for a bit.
Dixon seems out of sorts. Not sure what’s up with him.
Well deserved podium; all three drove like hell to get there.
Yes and so what? At least there’s actual racing. But it isn’t completely since the best still rise to the top. F1 is hot garbage as a competitive “sport”.
I like f-1 cause the races are reasonably short. NASCAR has too many laps and oval racing is boring. I should start watching the bike races. Red Bull dominating is boring. Better than Mercedes’ dominating of course but cmon Ferrari and Mclaren. Win some races!
NASCAR’s legacy audience never really recovered from the 2008 recession, and they have failed to garner replacement audiences at the same rate as what they’ve lost.
There are also too many NASCAR events on the annual calendar.
NASCAR went gay when they went away from cigarettes and liquor. Know your audience. They went bud light stupid 15 years ago. CEO probably stilll got rich
While I share in the dissatisfaction in IndyCar spec racing and am especially annoyed that they are essentially running vintage racecars now I'm curious about your opinion of why Rahal is still struggling mightily with qualifying but shows decent race pace? Comparing it to WWF (I'm old) seems a bit much but you seem to have an inside line on what's going on.
Can you imagine Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen getting robbed at Taco Bell? And being robbed by teenagers who didn’t recognize them? I suspect there is no Taco Bell franchise in Monaco, although there IS a Steak & Shake at the turn in point for the first turn (Sainte Devote).
Yeah, but every once in a while you get a season like 2021 with an epic battle for the championship that raged all year long and went down to the wire literally on the last racing lap. Controversial ending, but who gives a fuck? Both drivers gave it their all and were worthy of the crown.
Not long ago, we at Flatout Motorsports welcomed a new client - a young man stepping up from karts. This was at Lime Rock. After a test day, the kid immediately put his Spec Miata on pole (against the usual SM crowd stacked with talented, experienced racers). The class was impounded. When they were released, we noticed the kid bucking and stalling on his way back to our trailer. Somebody wondered out loud if the car's clutch was fried. "Oh no," the kid's mother said. "He's just never driven a stick shift before."
My sister dropped the clutch too fast making a left turn in front of a school bus when she was learning . Every once in awhile I still do it. Maybe once a year.
I witnessed Jeg Coughlin Jr., hugely fortunate son and NHRA champion, try to do a burnout out of my high school parking lot in a then-new Shelby Charger Turbo. He dropped the clutch, smoked the tires for a second, then they caught traction and dragged him through a very short 180 degree turn back into the ditch next to the T-junction.
It’s amazing teenage boys grow into men. We should all be dead with the stupid shit we did. I wrecked my dads 50k Lexus 20 years ago. Fortunately it was his least favorite car ever
One of my high school friends borrowed a car from the local Dodge dealer to drive to Prom; a few particulars:
0-He had turned 16 ONE week before Prom.
1-The local Dodge dealer (later convicted of white collar crimes) owed my buddy’s mother some money - she decorated his lake house and he was cash poor - so he offered to defray part of the cost by letting her son borrow “any car he wanted” to drive to Prom.
2-There was no Dodge Viper on the lot; that was the first request.
3-He ended up in a bright orange Dodge Charger DAYTONA EDITION, complete with the graphics package. It had delivery miles on it.
4-For some reason, I went with him to pick the car up on Saturday morning.
5-We drove across the parking lot to an adjacent gas station. We had to call the dealer - 200 feet away - to figure out how to release the fuel door. Turns out there was no release - you just opened it.
6-The dealer GM had no second thoughts about this transaction at this juncture.
7-My buddy fishtailed out of the gas station and accelerated to the 135 MPH soft limiter as quickly as possible. This involved running a red light in front of the dealership. In the rain.
8-We spent the rest of the morning going 135 MPH anywhere possible, including two lane roads in residential areas.
9-His date refused to ride with him in his bright orange muscle car.
10-He managed to earn an All Points Bulletin with his antics, after which he hid the car in a barn.
11-He spent all day Sunday doing the same shit in the car (but without me); he went on to off-road the car and drive it though several creekbeds.
12-He put nearly 800 miles on the car in a weekend, and the very same car was listed for sale as a used car in the next week’s newspaper for $7,500 off MSRP.
This guy has wrecked more cars and blown more engines than anyone I know. He went through six cars in high school.
Formula 1 has been much less exciting to watch this year. There’s nothing that appears to come close to the Red Bull on pace and even for the midfield aero changes have undone some of the good work that went into treating the dirty air problem. I will still watch every race, because I am fortunate to have a wife who enjoys the sport and wants to watch the races with me.
For my own motorsports hobby: I’ve been trying out various low-cost/entry-level motorsports activities for the last couple of years.
I’ve done track days (risk too high for me with just my daily right now), autocross (fun but very little seat time), SCCA volunteering (awesome way to spend a weekend), and most recently: indoor electric karting.
Indoor electric karting has had, surprisingly, the best cost-to-fun-and-seat-time ratio. Joined a local indoor league for about $300/6 weeks of “racing” for lap times. Each night you run three 8-minute heats, and the place would take the average time of your best two runs to give your finishing position and score points for your division. The average-time scoring helped resolve the issue of unequal rental karts from the equation.
They also ran a couple qualifying sessions to group drivers by skill so you weren’t stuck driving around people much slower than you.
The league was well-organized and fun to be a part of, and the market seems to be responding well to them. Over 200 drivers were in the league!
It’s not “real racing” but it’s fun and affordable motorsports competition that’s accessible like autocross and I personally liked it a lot more than dodging cones.
Shocked by the untimely death of Craig Breen in pre-event testing for this weekend’s Rally Croatia. Seemed like he was on the cusp of his first WRC win. RIP.
Mr. Breen’s death was indeed a shame. It is getting harder and harder to justify off-track racing.
The Isle of Man, the Northwest 200, various rally car crashes. The danger to racers and spectators is just way out of proportion to any thirty seconds of glory.
People die even on closed courses - someone died during a solo incident late in the season (Barber?) during a qual or practice in Supersport of MotoAmerica.
My dad, who did NASA's American Iron, knew two people who died at the track. One was just a heart attack and the corner workers didn't think anything was wrong wrong - just a mechanical causing him to pull off :\
My team mate (we had similar cars) was killed in an F Prod Sprite at an SCCA Nat'l in Phoenix on Saturday (incorrectly mounted seat belts) and we finished 3rd on Sunday.
My crew chief's Dad dropped dead of a heart attack in pit lane while I was on track at the Run Offs in Atlanta on a Tuesday. Broke the motor in the race on Saturday.
Life is hard but it was hard getting there - and it is even harder to quit.....
No one gets out alive. I was never afraid of dying till I had kids. Not for me, I’m ok with after life. Just don’t want my girls to grow up without dad.
I don't watch enough to know, but I seem to recall reading that it's all but assured that a sidecar racer, and it's usually the passenger, will be life-alteringly injured at each year's Isle of Man TT. I don't care what anyone says - those who race the TT, especially those who do so on a sidecar rig, have the biggest balls in all of motorsports.
What a guy. Shows you, even with all these carbon safety cells and harnesses, accidents still happen. We lost an actual car guy. His video bitch slapping a metro 6r4 on british dirt roads is a treat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eURVACmrPbo
Aren't the windows made out of pretty resistant kevlar? Also that's a pretty gruesome and horrible death. What a fucking loss. So young too. Probably could've gotten a championship or two. Also, pretty interesting to see the entire world only noticed wrc when a driver died. Most of them still jerk off over group b, not realising that by the end of group a, the cars were just as fast or faster and cost like half to run. And modern ones are cool as fuck. WRC needs a Drive to Survive to get the 40 year olds out of the viewing demographic because they still idiolize something that ended when USSR was a thing. I am the only person I know of my age that watches WRC. Whereas, almost half my class watches F1 and pretends to know about aerodynamics. WRC needs more of that "pretender" crowd, because some of those pretenders to actually end up falling in love with the thing and pursuing it as a career.
I couldn’t find anything in Appendix J for Rally1 or Rally2 where they specify the material for side windows. Group A& N specifies the road homoligated windows with a shatter-proof film applied. I’m guessing they use the thinnest plexiglass they can to offset the weight of the hybrid.
Disagree about Group B vs. Group A. I saw both in period at Olympus and Group B was incredible. For Group B at Olympus’86, the drivers were wearing full nomex suits, underwear, full face helmets and balaclavas. In ‘87 with Group A they were only wearing nomex bottoms, t-shirts and open face helmets with no balaclavas. They were joking around with their service crews when they got out of the cars in ‘87. No joking in ‘86. They got out covered in sweat and this was in December in the Pacific Northwest.
Pacific Northwest? Is this some unknown esoteric WRC stage event that took place in the US? I know the detroit press on regardless was a WRC event, but never heard of one in California. Also, yeah the safety of the suit was probably higher because they were literally dying and crashing into hundreds of strangers because these people never thought that hmm, short wheelbase, a very finicky double stage charging system for the engine or even a laggy twin turbo setup, and 800 hp, what could possibly go wrong. And none of them were based on road cars. Sure they were crazy as hell. I've seen the metro 6r4 clips too. But see an end of the line group a car making it's way through a stage. That's some proper pace, but with much less danger because all of them were now front engined cars with torque splitting centre diffs that usually had a tendency to understeer first and you usually went in too hot and then used the torque splitter and throttle to accelerate out of the corner like a rwd vehicle. Also wasn't group n showroom stock class tho? I like group B, I wanna make it clear. But the massive obsession over it has literally left modern wrc, which is actually still pretty fucking exciting, unlike F1, struggling. "You" old people will watch vintage rallies, not come to any new WRC event, and then cry when the sport dies. I'm just saying the past was cool great. We should have nostalgia but usually the ratio used to be lower. In the 80's people didn't obsess over 40's rally cars like today's 40-50 year olds obsess over 80's stuff.
Olympus Rally based in Olympia, WA. It was a WRC prototype in 1985 and we saw the competition debut of the S1E2 quattro at the hands of Hannu Mikkola. Olympus was a drivers points only WRC event in ‘86 and saw Kankkunen in the Peugeot 205 battle Alen in the Delta S4 for the drivers championship. It was also the last Group B WRC rally. In ‘87 and ‘88, Olympus was a full manufacturers and drivers points round of the WRC. Olympus is now just a national ARA event. I will be there in the woods spectating this weekend, but I won’t be crying over anything.
the endorphin rush. oh my god the endorphin rush. half a lifetime ago I got into running because I had a girlfriend who got into marathoning. the first couple of miles sucked ass every single time, but then I'd get into a flow state. and then I'd have that endorphin high afterward.
it all came crashing down when, to keep up with her training regiment, I attempted to jump from 9 miles to 14 from one run to the next. "How hard can it be," I thought. Around mile 13, my right knee answered that question and that was that. haven't been able to run without pain ever since.
I don't miss running, but I do miss the high it creates.
My only Full was a result of agreeing to sign up with a friend, who was vastly more experienced as a former high school cross country runner but who couldn't get past mile 18 for some reason. My goal was to complete the experience with as much comfort as possible, as I had taken this up in my forties and was a candidate for Team Clydesdale in any case.
I didn't much like training for three hours every Saturday morning but I finished and then attended my sister's fortieth birthday party without soreness or tiredness. I miss that level of fitness/endurance even more than the endorphins!
I still pace at the Umstead 100. Enjoy the people especially the slower ones. I can identify and there is something vastly more interesting about those who grind it out. The top times are impressive the people closer to the end are more impressive.
Alex Rins' win at COTA was a great ride and it was wonderful to see how proud his team was in both that victory and his second place during the sprint race! He broke a long dry spell for Honda. MotoGP continues to excite as the riders push up to and beyond their limits (as Bagnaia found out). While Suzuki has left the MotoGP scene it's good to see Rins find somewhere the bike and team are working for him.
Just caught up on this today, and it's also been about a decade since I saw a complete race. Can someone please comment on whether it's typical for over a third of MotoGP riders to DNF at COTA?
Kevin Cameron over on the Cycle World site does a weekly commentary on each Moto GP race and some of the factors pertinent to the outcome. It’s a great way to catch up, he’s super knowledgeable.
I really enjoyed the Indy Car race on Sunday. Watching Kirkwood keep the lead in the closing laps ahead of a charging Grosjean was some top notch stuff.
Honestly, I stopped following racing a while ago, so I have zero idea of who is up to what, or what the rules are anymore. Which for some races are written specifically so certain other car makers aren't allowed to compete.
My good Sir, are you seriously insinuating that for the last 7 years, formula 1 has done all it can to support hamilton in his victories while.....hmmm.....interpreting rules in "ways" to make it difficult for others? /s
lol(brO are you kidding me he's first black driver implies he best!!!!!(ignoring the fact that the two indians who raced were actually middling income and never got up to legend status because they didnt have money and the good teams to race but hamilton was literally funded by ron dennis right from very early in his career)). But serious question Mr Baruth. Why do you think women dont get up to the level of F1?The ones sprinkled through histroy have majorly been lacklustre or frauds.
Wife and I watched MotoGP over the weekend, both the sprint (don't-call-it-a-race) and the race. Really enjoyed both. I've been meaning to get into the sport for years but couldn't get the wife interested until I noticed they had their show on Amazon that we watched together. Caught the final 1/3rd of the last season and really enjoyed it and am looking forward to forty more races this year. We're new to the sport, so the wife picked Pecco as her fave, because he likes carbonara, and I used to ride a Yamaha and like how Quatararo unzips his suit when he's not racing just above where it would become creepy, so he's my guy.
We're serial F1 nuts (I've been watching since the early 80s because I liked drawing cars and could draw a McLaren battling a Ferrari with three crayons) and the wife and I have been watching together since about 2008. I've never been a competitive person, but the wife was a competitive gymnast (rythmic before it turned into a shitty juggling routine) and likes to tell me about what she imagines is going on in everyone's minds before, during and after. I like and dislike everyone for various reasons at various times, but it's a moving set of goalposts. Verstappen drove me nuts for a long time, but the patience he's shown this year has been endearing. He also won me over when he had that horrific tyre failure a couple of years back, then got out and kicked the car. That said, my long running bugbear with the sport is the tyres, which they haven't seemed to be able get right since the mid-90s.
Love racing. I'd watch everything if I could... TSN was showing chuckwagon racing from the Calgary Stampede last year when we were at a pub and I was completely enthralled.
My gut feeling is that Red Bull appears to be sandbagging when they have to. I think the Mercs are cranked to 11 right now and the Aston is for sure close to 10.
While the championship isn't safe, it's also seeming more and more like it is theirs to lose. Best driver potentially in the best car. They don't even appear to be sweating much when things go wrong right now.
Ofc they're sandbagging. I have the feeling max is being told to not absolutely open up the gates on that car. Because then it gets opened to suspicions and chances for formula 1 to give another championship to Lewis "woke favorite" Hamilton. I think they're telling him to keep just enough of a distance to eke a win.
I have no issue with 15 year olds racing against adults. If they can qualify in the field, and are not careening around wrecking every car they come in contact with, more power to ‘em.
The LBGP was fairly entertaining. IndyCar is clearly not on the same level as F1, but it’s good solid open wheel racing. Some of the tracks they race on rank high in my list of favourite tracks globally. I love Road America and Laguna Seca amongst others. I’m repeating myself from earlier posts, but I think IndyCar has almost worked it’s way back to where CART was before Tony George cratered the whole deal.
Hand/eye coordination is superb at that age. I’m not saying this is for everyone, and you would have had to be an idiot to put 15 year old me behind the wheel of a race car, but there are gifted drivers mature enough to do this.
I watched three races over the weekend:
IMSA Long Beach: Perhaps it was the talismanic power of Porsche enthusiast Jack Baruth’s presence that helped the Sultans of Stuttgart emerge victorious as Street Fightin’ Men! The Porsches gambled and didn’t take tires at their pit stops, and you could see that they were struggling on worn tires at the end of the race. Poor rear end grip (obvious enough to be seen clearly on TV) in the second stint has plagued the 963 since its debut at Daytona.
WEC Portimao: The Porsche’s shortcomings were once more revealed the next day in the WEC race at Portimao. The IMSA GTP / LMDh cars are rear wheel drive and run a spec hybrid system that delivers additional electric power to the rear axle. This means that they absolutely chew the rear tires after the first stint (they don’t receive enough tires to single stint in either series). Meanwhile the WEC Hypercar class cars operate with a freer rule book. The Toyota, Ferrari, and Peugeot have front axle hybrid deployment (at certain speeds), and the privateer Glickenhaus and Vanwall are pure ICE cars. I anticipate a lot of politicking over BOP at Le Mans, but there’s no remotely equitable way I can see to “balance” the inherent tire wear weakness of the Porsche, Cadillac, and Acura versus the Hypercars over a 24 hour race.
IndyCar Long Beach: Scott Dixon didn’t like Pato O’Ward’s move up the inside at Turn 8. I thought it was Pato’s corner.
As for F1: Red Bull has the title sewn up unless they are flagrantly cheating (unlikely) or blow through the cost cop again (also unlikely). Lewis Hamilton’s best days are behind him in my view, and George is clearly the team’s future. Lewis is out of contract at year end. Merc could have their pick of a vastly cheaper driver to support (or challenge) George over the next few years: Leclerc, Norris, Ocon, Albon would all jump at the chance. Or here’s a wild idea - what about a seat swap between Stroll and Hamilton? Fans would get Hamilton vs Alonso 2.0, Stroll Sr would have a box office PR opportunity, and Stroll Jr would have an opportunity to prove himself at one of the historic “top” teams, after which he could return to Aston Martin and deploy everything he’d learned at Mercedes.
Finally, Ashton: She has the strongest jaw I’ve seen since Buzz Lightyear.
Shes a handsome lady
'Handsome' in old English was very much used in both contexts, for men AND for women. Having read this through that lens, as much daughter says 'YUCK!'
Pure speculation, but I can't imagine there is a cheaper driver than Hamilton available.
Is he not a pay driver? Insofar as sponsors are paying a huge amount of money because he and his celebrity are there.
Hamilton is paid a salary by the team PLUS the commercial sponsorships / endorsements that he receives personally; this is the case for all of the drivers, whether they directly bring money.
E.g., Sainz has personal sponsorship from Spanish beer Estrella Galicia that followed him from McLaren to Ferrari.
Merch is another important factor. Red Bull Racing sells a LOT of merchandise in the Netherlands and Mexico.
I am referring to how much HP and Snapdragon ect. are willing to pay Merc because of the extra exposure having Hamilton brings vs. Russell or other.
I don't know what his contract stipulates regarding sponsor obligations, but it can't be zero.
Mick Schumacher was brought on board for just this reason. Who gives a crap if he destroys a car or two? He'll bring in sponsor dollars that Merc wants in their home country while also having the correct name.
I often wonder if Mick is even any good. But, what do I know... he was clearly one of the 20 best Formula drivers in the world at one point. (Giant oooooooof about his trial just to even score a freaking point.)
Young Pado owned that corner but seemed to make his decision super late, and that can be a recipe for heartbreak. He was leading the championship going into that race, so might have been better to hold off for a bit.
Dixon seems out of sorts. Not sure what’s up with him.
Well deserved podium; all three drove like hell to get there.
Sooo nothing changed before the races have started. What a series, all the excitement of a wet fart in the back of a broken down cadilllac.
I assume you mean F1?
Remember, Indycar is a spec series and all of the “competition” is manufactured.
Roman always seems to be in contention until he is not..... F1 doesn’t change much but both are enjoyable to me for different reasons.
Yes and so what? At least there’s actual racing. But it isn’t completely since the best still rise to the top. F1 is hot garbage as a competitive “sport”.
But then again, F1 has never been competitive.
This is like saying WWE involves “actual wrestling.”
Well one is staged and the other isn’t, so not analogous at all. I get it, people watch F1 for drive to survive.
I’ve watched F1 since 1998, but many people do watch because of Drive to Survive.
Indycar decided they wanted their own Drive to Survive style show FOUR years later, but it airs on the CW, where no one watches it.
I like f-1 cause the races are reasonably short. NASCAR has too many laps and oval racing is boring. I should start watching the bike races. Red Bull dominating is boring. Better than Mercedes’ dominating of course but cmon Ferrari and Mclaren. Win some races!
Speaking of WWE, I see that NASCAR tv ratings are down double digits week-to-week over last year. Looks like plenty of empty seats too.
NASCAR’s legacy audience never really recovered from the 2008 recession, and they have failed to garner replacement audiences at the same rate as what they’ve lost.
There are also too many NASCAR events on the annual calendar.
NASCAR went gay when they went away from cigarettes and liquor. Know your audience. They went bud light stupid 15 years ago. CEO probably stilll got rich
While I share in the dissatisfaction in IndyCar spec racing and am especially annoyed that they are essentially running vintage racecars now I'm curious about your opinion of why Rahal is still struggling mightily with qualifying but shows decent race pace? Comparing it to WWF (I'm old) seems a bit much but you seem to have an inside line on what's going on.
I’m being a bit tongue in cheek.
Each team builds their own car in F1, and the competition you see on track reflects how successful each team has been.
Spec and BOP series are “racing entertainment.” It’s all contrived.
Ironically, F1 has the “heel” and “face” characters, and every Indycar racer is anonymous in comparison.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2711077-dario-franchitti-scott-dixon-robbed-at-gunpoint-by-teenagers-at-taco-bell
Can you imagine Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen getting robbed at Taco Bell? And being robbed by teenagers who didn’t recognize them? I suspect there is no Taco Bell franchise in Monaco, although there IS a Steak & Shake at the turn in point for the first turn (Sainte Devote).
Yeah, but every once in a while you get a season like 2021 with an epic battle for the championship that raged all year long and went down to the wire literally on the last racing lap. Controversial ending, but who gives a fuck? Both drivers gave it their all and were worthy of the crown.
Best F1 season ever….
Not long ago, we at Flatout Motorsports welcomed a new client - a young man stepping up from karts. This was at Lime Rock. After a test day, the kid immediately put his Spec Miata on pole (against the usual SM crowd stacked with talented, experienced racers). The class was impounded. When they were released, we noticed the kid bucking and stalling on his way back to our trailer. Somebody wondered out loud if the car's clutch was fried. "Oh no," the kid's mother said. "He's just never driven a stick shift before."
I had to teach Jesse Lazare to drive our Miata's stick shift AFTER he won Daytona.
My sister dropped the clutch too fast making a left turn in front of a school bus when she was learning . Every once in awhile I still do it. Maybe once a year.
I witnessed Jeg Coughlin Jr., hugely fortunate son and NHRA champion, try to do a burnout out of my high school parking lot in a then-new Shelby Charger Turbo. He dropped the clutch, smoked the tires for a second, then they caught traction and dragged him through a very short 180 degree turn back into the ditch next to the T-junction.
It’s amazing teenage boys grow into men. We should all be dead with the stupid shit we did. I wrecked my dads 50k Lexus 20 years ago. Fortunately it was his least favorite car ever
One of my high school friends borrowed a car from the local Dodge dealer to drive to Prom; a few particulars:
0-He had turned 16 ONE week before Prom.
1-The local Dodge dealer (later convicted of white collar crimes) owed my buddy’s mother some money - she decorated his lake house and he was cash poor - so he offered to defray part of the cost by letting her son borrow “any car he wanted” to drive to Prom.
2-There was no Dodge Viper on the lot; that was the first request.
3-He ended up in a bright orange Dodge Charger DAYTONA EDITION, complete with the graphics package. It had delivery miles on it.
4-For some reason, I went with him to pick the car up on Saturday morning.
5-We drove across the parking lot to an adjacent gas station. We had to call the dealer - 200 feet away - to figure out how to release the fuel door. Turns out there was no release - you just opened it.
6-The dealer GM had no second thoughts about this transaction at this juncture.
7-My buddy fishtailed out of the gas station and accelerated to the 135 MPH soft limiter as quickly as possible. This involved running a red light in front of the dealership. In the rain.
8-We spent the rest of the morning going 135 MPH anywhere possible, including two lane roads in residential areas.
9-His date refused to ride with him in his bright orange muscle car.
10-He managed to earn an All Points Bulletin with his antics, after which he hid the car in a barn.
11-He spent all day Sunday doing the same shit in the car (but without me); he went on to off-road the car and drive it though several creekbeds.
12-He put nearly 800 miles on the car in a weekend, and the very same car was listed for sale as a used car in the next week’s newspaper for $7,500 off MSRP.
This guy has wrecked more cars and blown more engines than anyone I know. He went through six cars in high school.
My point exactly. Was he at least a hit with the ladies?
Did those have a limited slip?
Formula 1 has been much less exciting to watch this year. There’s nothing that appears to come close to the Red Bull on pace and even for the midfield aero changes have undone some of the good work that went into treating the dirty air problem. I will still watch every race, because I am fortunate to have a wife who enjoys the sport and wants to watch the races with me.
For my own motorsports hobby: I’ve been trying out various low-cost/entry-level motorsports activities for the last couple of years.
I’ve done track days (risk too high for me with just my daily right now), autocross (fun but very little seat time), SCCA volunteering (awesome way to spend a weekend), and most recently: indoor electric karting.
Indoor electric karting has had, surprisingly, the best cost-to-fun-and-seat-time ratio. Joined a local indoor league for about $300/6 weeks of “racing” for lap times. Each night you run three 8-minute heats, and the place would take the average time of your best two runs to give your finishing position and score points for your division. The average-time scoring helped resolve the issue of unequal rental karts from the equation.
They also ran a couple qualifying sessions to group drivers by skill so you weren’t stuck driving around people much slower than you.
The league was well-organized and fun to be a part of, and the market seems to be responding well to them. Over 200 drivers were in the league!
It’s not “real racing” but it’s fun and affordable motorsports competition that’s accessible like autocross and I personally liked it a lot more than dodging cones.
Shocked by the untimely death of Craig Breen in pre-event testing for this weekend’s Rally Croatia. Seemed like he was on the cusp of his first WRC win. RIP.
Mr. Breen’s death was indeed a shame. It is getting harder and harder to justify off-track racing.
The Isle of Man, the Northwest 200, various rally car crashes. The danger to racers and spectators is just way out of proportion to any thirty seconds of glory.
It’s uncomfortably close to the Colosseum.
they don't have to do it. you don't have to watch
People die even on closed courses - someone died during a solo incident late in the season (Barber?) during a qual or practice in Supersport of MotoAmerica.
My dad, who did NASA's American Iron, knew two people who died at the track. One was just a heart attack and the corner workers didn't think anything was wrong wrong - just a mechanical causing him to pull off :\
I watched three people die in a single year of club racing. I kind of thought at the time that's just how it was.
My team mate (we had similar cars) was killed in an F Prod Sprite at an SCCA Nat'l in Phoenix on Saturday (incorrectly mounted seat belts) and we finished 3rd on Sunday.
My crew chief's Dad dropped dead of a heart attack in pit lane while I was on track at the Run Offs in Atlanta on a Tuesday. Broke the motor in the race on Saturday.
Life is hard but it was hard getting there - and it is even harder to quit.....
No one gets out alive. I was never afraid of dying till I had kids. Not for me, I’m ok with after life. Just don’t want my girls to grow up without dad.
Girls without a dad sounds like the worst idea ever. That's how the degeneracy starts.
But I will still be out in the woods this weekend spectating at Olympus.
The risk of death is part of the allure. Plus, Chicks dig danger.
Yeah, I’ve raced motorcycles.
I don't watch enough to know, but I seem to recall reading that it's all but assured that a sidecar racer, and it's usually the passenger, will be life-alteringly injured at each year's Isle of Man TT. I don't care what anyone says - those who race the TT, especially those who do so on a sidecar rig, have the biggest balls in all of motorsports.
Wiki says 265 dead on the TT course. Five dead in 2016, six dead one year in the 70s.
What a guy. Shows you, even with all these carbon safety cells and harnesses, accidents still happen. We lost an actual car guy. His video bitch slapping a metro 6r4 on british dirt roads is a treat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eURVACmrPbo
Hyundai said it was a low speed off into a fence on the side of the road, and one of the fence posts went thru the drivers side window.
Aren't the windows made out of pretty resistant kevlar? Also that's a pretty gruesome and horrible death. What a fucking loss. So young too. Probably could've gotten a championship or two. Also, pretty interesting to see the entire world only noticed wrc when a driver died. Most of them still jerk off over group b, not realising that by the end of group a, the cars were just as fast or faster and cost like half to run. And modern ones are cool as fuck. WRC needs a Drive to Survive to get the 40 year olds out of the viewing demographic because they still idiolize something that ended when USSR was a thing. I am the only person I know of my age that watches WRC. Whereas, almost half my class watches F1 and pretends to know about aerodynamics. WRC needs more of that "pretender" crowd, because some of those pretenders to actually end up falling in love with the thing and pursuing it as a career.
I couldn’t find anything in Appendix J for Rally1 or Rally2 where they specify the material for side windows. Group A& N specifies the road homoligated windows with a shatter-proof film applied. I’m guessing they use the thinnest plexiglass they can to offset the weight of the hybrid.
Disagree about Group B vs. Group A. I saw both in period at Olympus and Group B was incredible. For Group B at Olympus’86, the drivers were wearing full nomex suits, underwear, full face helmets and balaclavas. In ‘87 with Group A they were only wearing nomex bottoms, t-shirts and open face helmets with no balaclavas. They were joking around with their service crews when they got out of the cars in ‘87. No joking in ‘86. They got out covered in sweat and this was in December in the Pacific Northwest.
Pacific Northwest? Is this some unknown esoteric WRC stage event that took place in the US? I know the detroit press on regardless was a WRC event, but never heard of one in California. Also, yeah the safety of the suit was probably higher because they were literally dying and crashing into hundreds of strangers because these people never thought that hmm, short wheelbase, a very finicky double stage charging system for the engine or even a laggy twin turbo setup, and 800 hp, what could possibly go wrong. And none of them were based on road cars. Sure they were crazy as hell. I've seen the metro 6r4 clips too. But see an end of the line group a car making it's way through a stage. That's some proper pace, but with much less danger because all of them were now front engined cars with torque splitting centre diffs that usually had a tendency to understeer first and you usually went in too hot and then used the torque splitter and throttle to accelerate out of the corner like a rwd vehicle. Also wasn't group n showroom stock class tho? I like group B, I wanna make it clear. But the massive obsession over it has literally left modern wrc, which is actually still pretty fucking exciting, unlike F1, struggling. "You" old people will watch vintage rallies, not come to any new WRC event, and then cry when the sport dies. I'm just saying the past was cool great. We should have nostalgia but usually the ratio used to be lower. In the 80's people didn't obsess over 40's rally cars like today's 40-50 year olds obsess over 80's stuff.
Olympus Rally based in Olympia, WA. It was a WRC prototype in 1985 and we saw the competition debut of the S1E2 quattro at the hands of Hannu Mikkola. Olympus was a drivers points only WRC event in ‘86 and saw Kankkunen in the Peugeot 205 battle Alen in the Delta S4 for the drivers championship. It was also the last Group B WRC rally. In ‘87 and ‘88, Olympus was a full manufacturers and drivers points round of the WRC. Olympus is now just a national ARA event. I will be there in the woods spectating this weekend, but I won’t be crying over anything.
Got a trail half on Saturday. Flagrantly unprepared, but I told too many people whose opinions I care about that I'd show up to puss out now.
More running than I will do between now and my death, God willing.
If God had wanted man to run He wouldn't have given him enough sense to make a derailleur.
Or the wheel. My god running sucks. The first guy ran a marathon died
He probably spent the last 25 miles wishing he were dead.
One should only run if one is being chased.
If you ever see me running please kill whatever is chasing me.
Ya gotta run if you wanna be the one chasing, as it turns out
Eight years since my last street half, and I still miss the endorphins. Good luck and hope the weather is great!
the endorphin rush. oh my god the endorphin rush. half a lifetime ago I got into running because I had a girlfriend who got into marathoning. the first couple of miles sucked ass every single time, but then I'd get into a flow state. and then I'd have that endorphin high afterward.
it all came crashing down when, to keep up with her training regiment, I attempted to jump from 9 miles to 14 from one run to the next. "How hard can it be," I thought. Around mile 13, my right knee answered that question and that was that. haven't been able to run without pain ever since.
I don't miss running, but I do miss the high it creates.
My only Full was a result of agreeing to sign up with a friend, who was vastly more experienced as a former high school cross country runner but who couldn't get past mile 18 for some reason. My goal was to complete the experience with as much comfort as possible, as I had taken this up in my forties and was a candidate for Team Clydesdale in any case.
I didn't much like training for three hours every Saturday morning but I finished and then attended my sister's fortieth birthday party without soreness or tiredness. I miss that level of fitness/endurance even more than the endorphins!
I still pace at the Umstead 100. Enjoy the people especially the slower ones. I can identify and there is something vastly more interesting about those who grind it out. The top times are impressive the people closer to the end are more impressive.
You will do great. Enjoy the scenery.
Alex Rins' win at COTA was a great ride and it was wonderful to see how proud his team was in both that victory and his second place during the sprint race! He broke a long dry spell for Honda. MotoGP continues to excite as the riders push up to and beyond their limits (as Bagnaia found out). While Suzuki has left the MotoGP scene it's good to see Rins find somewhere the bike and team are working for him.
MotoAmerica's real start is this weekend!
Was very happy for Rins, but everyone is toast if Bagnaia can stop making unforced errors. If the new Honda/Kalex frame works that may change things.
The Duc's straight line speed is unreal to watch - when the riders don't wreck out they are giving an indomitable appearance.
Just caught up on this today, and it's also been about a decade since I saw a complete race. Can someone please comment on whether it's typical for over a third of MotoGP riders to DNF at COTA?
Kevin Cameron over on the Cycle World site does a weekly commentary on each Moto GP race and some of the factors pertinent to the outcome. It’s a great way to catch up, he’s super knowledgeable.
Hadn't thought of him in years and shame on me! Thanks, I will check it out.
Also, are there spec tires?
They have slick/wet and Hard/Medium/Soft compounds to choose from and can run a mixture of hardness front and rear.
A ** 15 **-YOA kid in a racing Civic Type-R?
At least there’s SOME hope that the upcoming generations will appreciate cars!
Hmm..that kid and John, in identically-prepared cars! Or BMX, in which case Baruth by a mile!
No doubt this kid could toast my son in any motorsports event, we just haven't done much in the past few years.
That being said, can he shoot a .22 Walther into the mouth of a Dasani bottle, offhand, at 50 yards? Cause my kid can.
Don't introduce that kid to archery... I imagine he'll give Brady Ellison a run.
I really enjoyed the Indy Car race on Sunday. Watching Kirkwood keep the lead in the closing laps ahead of a charging Grosjean was some top notch stuff.
Honestly, I stopped following racing a while ago, so I have zero idea of who is up to what, or what the rules are anymore. Which for some races are written specifically so certain other car makers aren't allowed to compete.
My good Sir, are you seriously insinuating that for the last 7 years, formula 1 has done all it can to support hamilton in his victories while.....hmmm.....interpreting rules in "ways" to make it difficult for others? /s
I would NEVER imply that!
Hamilton has always had to work HARDER than everyone around him!!!!!111!!!eleven!!
lol(brO are you kidding me he's first black driver implies he best!!!!!(ignoring the fact that the two indians who raced were actually middling income and never got up to legend status because they didnt have money and the good teams to race but hamilton was literally funded by ron dennis right from very early in his career)). But serious question Mr Baruth. Why do you think women dont get up to the level of F1?The ones sprinkled through histroy have majorly been lacklustre or frauds.
Wife and I watched MotoGP over the weekend, both the sprint (don't-call-it-a-race) and the race. Really enjoyed both. I've been meaning to get into the sport for years but couldn't get the wife interested until I noticed they had their show on Amazon that we watched together. Caught the final 1/3rd of the last season and really enjoyed it and am looking forward to forty more races this year. We're new to the sport, so the wife picked Pecco as her fave, because he likes carbonara, and I used to ride a Yamaha and like how Quatararo unzips his suit when he's not racing just above where it would become creepy, so he's my guy.
We're serial F1 nuts (I've been watching since the early 80s because I liked drawing cars and could draw a McLaren battling a Ferrari with three crayons) and the wife and I have been watching together since about 2008. I've never been a competitive person, but the wife was a competitive gymnast (rythmic before it turned into a shitty juggling routine) and likes to tell me about what she imagines is going on in everyone's minds before, during and after. I like and dislike everyone for various reasons at various times, but it's a moving set of goalposts. Verstappen drove me nuts for a long time, but the patience he's shown this year has been endearing. He also won me over when he had that horrific tyre failure a couple of years back, then got out and kicked the car. That said, my long running bugbear with the sport is the tyres, which they haven't seemed to be able get right since the mid-90s.
Love racing. I'd watch everything if I could... TSN was showing chuckwagon racing from the Calgary Stampede last year when we were at a pub and I was completely enthralled.
My gut feeling is that Red Bull appears to be sandbagging when they have to. I think the Mercs are cranked to 11 right now and the Aston is for sure close to 10.
While the championship isn't safe, it's also seeming more and more like it is theirs to lose. Best driver potentially in the best car. They don't even appear to be sweating much when things go wrong right now.
Oh yeah, seems like they could put 2 seconds a lap on everyone if they wanted. Holding it back like Mercedes did in the middle of the last decade.
100%. I also think they're trying to slow rule changes that would be completely against them.
Ofc they're sandbagging. I have the feeling max is being told to not absolutely open up the gates on that car. Because then it gets opened to suspicions and chances for formula 1 to give another championship to Lewis "woke favorite" Hamilton. I think they're telling him to keep just enough of a distance to eke a win.
Wow;
That could have (? would have?) been me had anyone been foolish enough to let me drive an actually fast car .
-Nate
I have no issue with 15 year olds racing against adults. If they can qualify in the field, and are not careening around wrecking every car they come in contact with, more power to ‘em.
The LBGP was fairly entertaining. IndyCar is clearly not on the same level as F1, but it’s good solid open wheel racing. Some of the tracks they race on rank high in my list of favourite tracks globally. I love Road America and Laguna Seca amongst others. I’m repeating myself from earlier posts, but I think IndyCar has almost worked it’s way back to where CART was before Tony George cratered the whole deal.
How does a 15 year old drive something at that pace. Speaking as a 17 year old, I can't even find the clutch engagement point on my dad's Toyota.
Hand/eye coordination is superb at that age. I’m not saying this is for everyone, and you would have had to be an idiot to put 15 year old me behind the wheel of a race car, but there are gifted drivers mature enough to do this.
seems true lol and its a manual too which makes it even harder.
Depends on when you start. If you've been driving for a decade in some form by the time you're 15, you absolutely can.