Saturday, December 31, 2011
Why Do The PCM Die?
The PCM is a car computer elected to organize and control the engine control system of a vehicle. The module contains electronics resided in a circuit board which had many layers. The work of PCM is to keep an eye on air/fuel mixture and to fine-tune it accordingly. PCM also employs the catalytic convertor to [...]
Richard Petty's Driver Search is On
If you are an aspiring racer looking to develop your skills and advance your career, Richard Petty’s Driver Search is the program for you.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Cover of the Week: January 2001
I vividly remember getting this issue of HOT ROD in the mail while I was still in college. The 383 build on the cover was inspiring, but my college budget never allowed me to follow even that low-buck recipe for power. The full article is HERE. Spoiler alert: The 383 Chevy made 421 hp at [...]
Seventh Annual Dale Earnhardt Day Set for April 29th
Dale Earnhardt Inc. will host the seventh annual Dale Earnhardt Day at its corporate headquarters in Mooresville, N.C. on Tuesday, April 29th.
The Ultimate Car Enthusiasts Driving Gift, Anytime!
I just saw this unique Groupon offer come through my Inbox.� It is based in Austin, TX, but would be worth driving some distance for this offer. Lone Star Exotic Rentals ? Multiple Locations Exotic-Car Outing or Test-Driving Experience (Half Off) In a Nutshell Flashy sports cars such as Ferrari F430, Lamborghini Gallardo, Corvettes & [...]
MazdaMovement Meet ?n Greet at Roger Beasley Raceway at Harris Hill
Just recently announced, upcoming event at�Roger Beasley Raceway at Harris Hill, formerly known as Harris Hill Road (H2R).� This will be facilitated by MazdaMovement: COME DRIVE WITH US! Roger Beasley Raceway at Harris Hill is happy to invite you to our first driving event. The get-together will be Saturday, December 10, 2011 from 10AM -3PM. [...]
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Ohio George Willys Gasser at The Henry Ford
Ohio George Montgomery's famous Willys Gasser is on display at the Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. Great opportunity for drag racing fans to see a slice of history up close.
Carlos Magalhaes is 100% ready to start a new season alongside Daniel Oliveira
BWRT and Daniel Oliveira are already working for the 2012 season of the FIA World Rally Championship and the first step the Brazilian squad and his young driver took before this 2011 comes to an end was to confirm Carlos Magalhaes as Oliveira?s co-driver. The Portuguese navigator was Daniel?s regular partner since BWRT broke into [...]
Video: Mark Stielow Interview from V8TV
Mark Stielow is a fixture in the pro touring scene. He practically invented the genre when he began building muscle cars to take on the newest OEM sports cars for the One Lap of America. Here’s a recent video from V8TV with Mark talking about the evolution of his cars and a little hint at [...]
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
David?s Blog: Visit to Roush Museum Before MIS
David Ragan made a stop at the Roush Museum before heading over to Michigan International Speedway
You Too Can Be Fast And Fabulous!
Hey race fans- just wanted to let you know that you can win a $25.00 BP gas card from TheFastandTheFabulous.com. Just fill out the form located here. And while you are there poke around- it’s a great racing blog!
A First NASCAR Race, Through the Eyes of a 9-Year-Old
[Note from Larry Edsall: Usually my words would fill the space below, but my 9-year-old grandson, Nicholas Chester, went to his first NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway recently, and I asked him to share experiences. His report follows.)
By Nicholas Chester
The day I went to my first NASCAR race was Sunday, August 21, 2011.
Dad and I got up at 6:10 a.m. and ate breakfast. I guess we were pretty eager to get there.
When we got to the track it was so huge. We found a parking spot, and got on the truck and trailers we could ride from the parking lot to the track.
We got off and walked in through the gate. We looked at all the displays and the trailers where each of the teams was selling shirts and cars and other things. I bought a Dale Jr. T-shirt -- one for me and one for my sister.
Then we walked through a tunnel and went to the garage area and the pits, which was cool because we got to see the race cars and see the pit crews getting ready for the race.
There was still quite a while before the race so we went back to our truck, then went back to the track and found something to eat for lunch.
We went to our seats, which were in the first turn. We watched the big blowers clean the track and watched the drivers being driven around the track in convertibles.
Next, airplanes flew over. There were four old-time planes and then two jets flew over. We sang the National Anthem as the jets were flying over the track.
A few minutes later the pace car went around the track with all the race cars behind it. They weren?t going very fast.
But then the race started and it got really loud. REALLY LOUD!
At first the cars looked slow as they were coming toward us, but by the time they got into the turn they were going super-fast.
Being at the race was way better than watching on television like we usually do. When you?re there in person, you not only see the race but you can feel it when the cars go by. The wind rushes right by the side of your face.
It?s amazing how fast the cars really are.
The race was great, but the best part was getting to go to the pits and the garage before the race -- and getting my picture taken with two members of Dale Jr.?s pit crew.
Nicholas is not a professional writer yet, but his grandfather Larry Edsall is. You can read more of Larry at www.izoom.com.
By Nicholas Chester
The day I went to my first NASCAR race was Sunday, August 21, 2011.
Dad and I got up at 6:10 a.m. and ate breakfast. I guess we were pretty eager to get there.
When we got to the track it was so huge. We found a parking spot, and got on the truck and trailers we could ride from the parking lot to the track.
We got off and walked in through the gate. We looked at all the displays and the trailers where each of the teams was selling shirts and cars and other things. I bought a Dale Jr. T-shirt -- one for me and one for my sister.
Then we walked through a tunnel and went to the garage area and the pits, which was cool because we got to see the race cars and see the pit crews getting ready for the race.
There was still quite a while before the race so we went back to our truck, then went back to the track and found something to eat for lunch.
We went to our seats, which were in the first turn. We watched the big blowers clean the track and watched the drivers being driven around the track in convertibles.
Next, airplanes flew over. There were four old-time planes and then two jets flew over. We sang the National Anthem as the jets were flying over the track.
A few minutes later the pace car went around the track with all the race cars behind it. They weren?t going very fast.
But then the race started and it got really loud. REALLY LOUD!
At first the cars looked slow as they were coming toward us, but by the time they got into the turn they were going super-fast.
Being at the race was way better than watching on television like we usually do. When you?re there in person, you not only see the race but you can feel it when the cars go by. The wind rushes right by the side of your face.
It?s amazing how fast the cars really are.
The race was great, but the best part was getting to go to the pits and the garage before the race -- and getting my picture taken with two members of Dale Jr.?s pit crew.
Nicholas is not a professional writer yet, but his grandfather Larry Edsall is. You can read more of Larry at www.izoom.com.
Brace Yourself For The Off-Season Crew Members
The next couple of weeks will be a time for celebration in NASCAR. We’ll crown three different champions this weekend and then head to the respective banquets. It was a season of improved ratings, competition and the first Cup champion not named Jimmie Johnson since 2005. As some celebrate next week, a lot of others [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Richard Petty Drivers Search
Renowned road course racer Marcos Ambrose and two-time Nationwide series champion Randy LaJoie will, again, be among the guest instructors when Richard Petty's Driver Search III takes place December 6-9, 2010 at Charlotte...
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
What Was Your NASCAR Best and Worst from 2011?
It was a wild season that began with 20-year-old Trevor Bayne winning the Daytona 500 and ended with a wild race that made series veteran Tony Stewart the first Cup Series Champion not named Jimmie Johnson since 2005. In the mean time: we saw 19 different winners, including five different first time winners; Kyle Busch [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Danny Thompson looks to fulfill the speed dreams of his father
By Larry Edsall
In 1960, Mickey Thompson, a racing pioneer and innovative genius who built cars for Indy, for the drag racing, and for off-road competition, set out to become the first American to exceed 400 miles per hour in a piston-driven vehicle.
He built built a Bonneville-style streamliner, the Challenger I, and used its quartet of supercharged Pontiac engines to cover a measured mile at 406.6 mph, nearly 100 mph faster than the 22-year-old world record.
Unfortunately, Thompson was denied the record because his car could not complete the second half of the required two-way run on the Utah salt flats.
Five years later, that record was broken, by the Summers Brothers and their four-engined Goldenrod racer, which completed the necessary two-way run and boosted the wheel-driven record to 409.189 mph.
Undaunted but even more determined, Thompson built a new car. Officially known as the Ford Autolite Special because of its pair of supercharged Ford engines, Thompson?s Challenger 2 was rained out of its bid for a record run in 1968 and the entire effort was put on hold in 1969 when Detroit automakers withdrew their financial support of such motorsports programs.
Thompson went on to other racing endeavors, but early in 1988 he approached his son, Danny, and suggested they revive the quest with Mickey preparing the car and Danny doing the driving.
?A month later, my father was killed,? Danny recalls, tears still filling his eyes these 23 years later as he announces his plan to update his father?s car and to make an attempt late next summer ?to finish my dad?s dream and to fulfill my dream.?
Remarkably, the official wheel-driven land speed record has climbed only to 417.020 mph, though cars recently have exceeded 440 on one-way runs at Bonneville.
With financial backing from Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels and, he hopes, additional sponsors, a 63-year-old but remarkably fit and trim Danny Thompson will equip Challenger 2.5 with a pair of nitro-fueled 500-cubic-inch engines he expects to provide 3000 horsepower to a set of M/T tires that already have been ?spun? to 590 mph.
Thompson?s eyes brighten as he pronounces such speed -- ?five-hundred ninety miles per hour!!? He says he?d love to hit 500, but his realistic goal, he adds, is to push the record to at least 420.
In addition to updating the car to modern mechanical and safety standards, Danny Thompson plans to simplify some things.
For example, his father had equipped Challenger 2 with a split gas pedal so he could modulate power delivery from each Ford engine -- one of which was supercharged while the other was normally aspirated.
Danny Thompson may be an amazingly capable mechanic and fabricator, but he knows his father also was one of the world?s best drivers as well.
?You don?t want to make any mistakes,? Danny says. At such speeds, he adds, ?mistakes are unacceptable.?
Read more of Larry at www.izoom.com
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Thompson.jpg125.95 KB
In 1960, Mickey Thompson, a racing pioneer and innovative genius who built cars for Indy, for the drag racing, and for off-road competition, set out to become the first American to exceed 400 miles per hour in a piston-driven vehicle.
He built built a Bonneville-style streamliner, the Challenger I, and used its quartet of supercharged Pontiac engines to cover a measured mile at 406.6 mph, nearly 100 mph faster than the 22-year-old world record.
Unfortunately, Thompson was denied the record because his car could not complete the second half of the required two-way run on the Utah salt flats.
Five years later, that record was broken, by the Summers Brothers and their four-engined Goldenrod racer, which completed the necessary two-way run and boosted the wheel-driven record to 409.189 mph.
Undaunted but even more determined, Thompson built a new car. Officially known as the Ford Autolite Special because of its pair of supercharged Ford engines, Thompson?s Challenger 2 was rained out of its bid for a record run in 1968 and the entire effort was put on hold in 1969 when Detroit automakers withdrew their financial support of such motorsports programs.
Thompson went on to other racing endeavors, but early in 1988 he approached his son, Danny, and suggested they revive the quest with Mickey preparing the car and Danny doing the driving.
?A month later, my father was killed,? Danny recalls, tears still filling his eyes these 23 years later as he announces his plan to update his father?s car and to make an attempt late next summer ?to finish my dad?s dream and to fulfill my dream.?
Remarkably, the official wheel-driven land speed record has climbed only to 417.020 mph, though cars recently have exceeded 440 on one-way runs at Bonneville.
With financial backing from Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels and, he hopes, additional sponsors, a 63-year-old but remarkably fit and trim Danny Thompson will equip Challenger 2.5 with a pair of nitro-fueled 500-cubic-inch engines he expects to provide 3000 horsepower to a set of M/T tires that already have been ?spun? to 590 mph.
Thompson?s eyes brighten as he pronounces such speed -- ?five-hundred ninety miles per hour!!? He says he?d love to hit 500, but his realistic goal, he adds, is to push the record to at least 420.
In addition to updating the car to modern mechanical and safety standards, Danny Thompson plans to simplify some things.
For example, his father had equipped Challenger 2 with a split gas pedal so he could modulate power delivery from each Ford engine -- one of which was supercharged while the other was normally aspirated.
Danny Thompson may be an amazingly capable mechanic and fabricator, but he knows his father also was one of the world?s best drivers as well.
?You don?t want to make any mistakes,? Danny says. At such speeds, he adds, ?mistakes are unacceptable.?
Read more of Larry at www.izoom.com
AttachmentSize
Thompson.jpg125.95 KB
Take A Peek About The Functions Performed By PCM
The system that monitors power train gears (engine, transmission, drive shafts, differentials, etc) and make the gears to work together in order to keep vehicle moving efficiently is called Power Train Control Module, abbreviated as PCM. If all gears are working properly then you improve the car to better shape but if any one gear [...]
Monday, December 26, 2011
Ragan Rallies for 21st in Dover
David Ragan and the UPS team started 19th and finished 21st at Dover International Speedway
Miller to Unveil Revolutionary TIG Welder at 2008 SEMA Show
Get hands-on experience and expert demonstrations of MIG welding, TIG welding and plasma cutting. Test Miller TIG and MIG welders that make it easier to learn to weldperfect for enthusiast-level motorsports applications.
Busch?s Sponsors Exercise Influence
Take note of this past week – it was one of the more interesting ones I think we’ve seen in a long time. Championship hopes dashed. A driver suspended. A championship team owner put in a bad spot. And sponsors very publicly exercising their influence. It was a strange mix of expectation and surprise. With [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
New Hampshire Weekend Review
There is never any way, in the US at least, Formula One is going to steal NASCAR’s thunder. The racing world was amazed as 21 year old Sebastion Vettel became the youngest driver ever to win a points Grand Prix race in the history of that series. He did it at Monza in Italy, driving [...]
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Ragan to run UPS My Choice Ford for remainder of season
David Ragan and the UPS team will sport a UPS My Choice car design for the final five races of the season
Ragan Rallies for 21st in Dover
David Ragan and the UPS team started 19th and finished 21st at Dover International Speedway
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Respect among contenders
In the final three races of the Chase for the championship, many drivers in contention profess a respect for fellow drivers, and a sense that what you give, you also deserve to get. View full post on NBCSports.com: NASCAR / Motors addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nascarpitstopblog.com%2Fnascar-racing%2Frespect-among-contenders'; addthis_title = 'Respect+among+contenders'; addthis_pub = ''; Technorati Tags: among, contenders, Respect
How Voltage Regulator Works In Vehicle
Today too modern charging system is just as same as it was 40 years ago. It has same features of alternators, regulators, and the interconnecting wiring. Aim of this charging system is to manage the charge in battery of vehicle and to supply the electrical energy with main source so that engine can get started [...]
Whitt The Heck Is Going On?
It was announced this week that Cole Whitt will attempt to make his Cup Series debut at Phoenix for Red Bull Racing. �The team will enter a third car for Whitt, who will have to qualify on time. �If it goes well, expect Red Bull to enter Whitt at Homestead as well. �The move would [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
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Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
NASCAR Got The Chase They Wanted
And then there were two. Following Sunday’s Cup Series race at Phoenix, only two drivers, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards, still have a shot at the title. �Every other Chaser has been mathematically eliminated. �As we get ready for Homestead, we are in for one hell of �a battle with the two drivers we do [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Friday, December 23, 2011
Video: Gratuitous Camaro ZL1 Track and Burnout Footage From Camaro5.com
No voiceover, no fancy editing, just four minutes of Camaro ZL1 and it’s lovely exhaust note. Check it out!
Replacing Powertrain Control Module
Many different works and functions of a vehicle are performed by ?the power train control module?. Information is acknowledged by the module from different engine sensors and then module calculates the fuel flow rate necessary for protection of right quantity of air or fuel ratio during operational range. PCM, on the basis of information received [...]
Ask The Insiders Wednesday #152
The end is near. �All three series will close out their 2011 seasons this weekend at Homestead. �The Truck and Nationwide battles are all but sewed up, but we’ve got one hell of fight for the Cup title. �As we wait to find out who will be crowned, we’ve got the 152nd round of reader [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
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Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Ragan and UPS Team Finish 12th in Texas
David Ragan and the UPS team started second and finished 12th on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Engine Compression Check Made Easy
Keep tabs on your engine's compression ratio and performance with this cool new compression tester from Katech Performance...
The NASCAR Week That Was: Nov. 13-19
The fight for the Championship was the biggest story of the week as Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart sat just three points apart going into Homestead. The winner will become the sport’s first new Cup champion since 2005. In other news, NASCAR issued an unannounced penalty to Brad Keselowski this week after the driver criticized [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Video: Mark Stielow Interview from V8TV
Mark Stielow is a fixture in the pro touring scene. He practically invented the genre when he began building muscle cars to take on the newest OEM sports cars for the One Lap of America. Here’s a recent video from V8TV with Mark talking about the evolution of his cars and a little hint at [...]
Did the Popularity of Street Courses Lead to the Demise of Road Racing?
By Larry Edsall
In my most recent post, I wrote about the heyday of professional road racing in the United States, back when the Can-Am and Trans-Am and even the F5000 series were as big a deal as NASCAR and even rivaled USAC-sanctioned Indy car races with the exception of the Indy 500, which at the time truly was the ?greatest spectacle in racing,? so important that almost nothing else happened during the entire month of May.
As I mentioned, the heyday-era road racing series -- Can-Am, Trans-Am and even Formula 5000 -- were such big deals that there actually were more people in the grandstands and on the hillsides than in the pits and paddock.
So what happened to cause the demise of road racing as a great American motorsport?
The most simple answer -- and albeit perhaps the most over-simplified answer -- can be given in, I suppose, in just two words: Chris Pook.
Born in Britain, Pook moved to the U.S. and in 1975 convinced the city of Long Beach, California, to allow him to stage an F5000 race on the city?s streets. A year later those cars were replaced by Formula One cars, yep, the real Grand Prix.
Nearly a decade later, when F1 sanctioning fees became even more outrageous, Pook offered his street circuit to Indy cars, specifically to the Championship Auto Racing Teams? branch of Indy car racing, which made its Long Beach debut in 1984.
Annually, a couple hundred thousand people showed up, some, no doubt, for the Indy car race, but perhaps just as many for a pro-celebrity race that put Hollywood types into race-prepped sedans. But perhaps even more were there for what was, basically, spring break for grown ups, or for as grown-up as people in Southern California might ever become. College kids went to Lake Havasu or Baja, post-college kids went to Long Beach.
Other cities saw the big crowd at Long Beach and wanted Indy car street races of their own.
Problem was, there are only a couple of weekends each year that work for adult spring break. Another problem was, racing between Jersey barriers on city streets isn?t really racing; it?s more of a fast parade interrupted too often to remove vehicles that collided with those barriers.
As I said, crediting Chris Pook for all of this is over-simplification. Maybe we should blame Indy?s Hulman family for allowing a situation in which the most prominent Indy car team owners revolted and broke away. Or maybe, as conspiracy theorists will tell you, it was actually the France family?s work to split the Speedway from its teams so NASCAR could race at the Brickyard and perhaps, someday, even buy the place for their International Speedway Corp.
Regardless of blame or credit, Indy cars racing on road and street circuits soon became the primary form of American road racing to the demise of the real road racers, the sports cars.
Contributing to the demise, though they would have argued just the opposite at the time, Just as there was a split within the Indy car community that led to the creation of CART, so, too, there was a split within sports car racing, with the new International Motor Sports Association challenging the old-guard SCCA -- and subsequently being challenged itself by the Daytona-backed Grand Am Road Racing.
Once again, Daytona and the France family enter the picture; maybe the conspiracy theorists are right after all?
Such splits never seem to improve the sport, they only open opportunities for some other form of racing to pull out into the passing lane and become more prominent. For example, instead of being the headliner at real road courses, what was left of the Trans-Am series became a support show for Indy car events on city streets.
And the split in sports car racing continues with Grand-Am and its support events on one side and the American Le Mans Series and its partners on the other. With the possible exception of the NFL-AFL split that led to the Super Bowl (and eventually to one united league), sports history clearly shows that unity wins, schism loses.
Sports car racing?s split helped open the way for Indy cars to move not only onto city streets but on traditional road courses as well; Indy car?s split opened the way for NASCAR to expand its schedule to paved oval tracks from coast to coast.
Oops, I need to put the gearbox into Reverse for just a second. Another thing that happened is that the original Can-Am series dissolved and eventually was resurrected as the new ?Can-Am,? actually sort of a merger of the Can-Am name with cars loosely based on those that had been running in F5000, though now with their wheels covered.
This new series did help accelerate the progress of several racing teams and drivers who were ripe to move up to Indy cars (think Carl Haas, Truesports, Bobby Rahal, Al Unser Jr., Danny Sullivan and others) as Indy car racing morphed from a series primarily on oval tracks to one more focused on road and street courses.
As it turned out, road racing wasn?t dead in the United States. But instead of real sports cars, it became dominated by Indy cars, which in turn became occupied not by young American drivers working their way up from dusty local ovals but by foreign-born drivers who grew up racing go-karts on paved courses.
And where did those young American racers go instead? Why, to Daytona and to stock car racing, of course.
So while many of those young American racers now are Chasing the Cup, Indy and sports car racers are left to chase their own tails.
Read more of Larry at www.izoom.com.
In my most recent post, I wrote about the heyday of professional road racing in the United States, back when the Can-Am and Trans-Am and even the F5000 series were as big a deal as NASCAR and even rivaled USAC-sanctioned Indy car races with the exception of the Indy 500, which at the time truly was the ?greatest spectacle in racing,? so important that almost nothing else happened during the entire month of May.
As I mentioned, the heyday-era road racing series -- Can-Am, Trans-Am and even Formula 5000 -- were such big deals that there actually were more people in the grandstands and on the hillsides than in the pits and paddock.
So what happened to cause the demise of road racing as a great American motorsport?
The most simple answer -- and albeit perhaps the most over-simplified answer -- can be given in, I suppose, in just two words: Chris Pook.
Born in Britain, Pook moved to the U.S. and in 1975 convinced the city of Long Beach, California, to allow him to stage an F5000 race on the city?s streets. A year later those cars were replaced by Formula One cars, yep, the real Grand Prix.
Nearly a decade later, when F1 sanctioning fees became even more outrageous, Pook offered his street circuit to Indy cars, specifically to the Championship Auto Racing Teams? branch of Indy car racing, which made its Long Beach debut in 1984.
Annually, a couple hundred thousand people showed up, some, no doubt, for the Indy car race, but perhaps just as many for a pro-celebrity race that put Hollywood types into race-prepped sedans. But perhaps even more were there for what was, basically, spring break for grown ups, or for as grown-up as people in Southern California might ever become. College kids went to Lake Havasu or Baja, post-college kids went to Long Beach.
Other cities saw the big crowd at Long Beach and wanted Indy car street races of their own.
Problem was, there are only a couple of weekends each year that work for adult spring break. Another problem was, racing between Jersey barriers on city streets isn?t really racing; it?s more of a fast parade interrupted too often to remove vehicles that collided with those barriers.
As I said, crediting Chris Pook for all of this is over-simplification. Maybe we should blame Indy?s Hulman family for allowing a situation in which the most prominent Indy car team owners revolted and broke away. Or maybe, as conspiracy theorists will tell you, it was actually the France family?s work to split the Speedway from its teams so NASCAR could race at the Brickyard and perhaps, someday, even buy the place for their International Speedway Corp.
Regardless of blame or credit, Indy cars racing on road and street circuits soon became the primary form of American road racing to the demise of the real road racers, the sports cars.
Contributing to the demise, though they would have argued just the opposite at the time, Just as there was a split within the Indy car community that led to the creation of CART, so, too, there was a split within sports car racing, with the new International Motor Sports Association challenging the old-guard SCCA -- and subsequently being challenged itself by the Daytona-backed Grand Am Road Racing.
Once again, Daytona and the France family enter the picture; maybe the conspiracy theorists are right after all?
Such splits never seem to improve the sport, they only open opportunities for some other form of racing to pull out into the passing lane and become more prominent. For example, instead of being the headliner at real road courses, what was left of the Trans-Am series became a support show for Indy car events on city streets.
And the split in sports car racing continues with Grand-Am and its support events on one side and the American Le Mans Series and its partners on the other. With the possible exception of the NFL-AFL split that led to the Super Bowl (and eventually to one united league), sports history clearly shows that unity wins, schism loses.
Sports car racing?s split helped open the way for Indy cars to move not only onto city streets but on traditional road courses as well; Indy car?s split opened the way for NASCAR to expand its schedule to paved oval tracks from coast to coast.
Oops, I need to put the gearbox into Reverse for just a second. Another thing that happened is that the original Can-Am series dissolved and eventually was resurrected as the new ?Can-Am,? actually sort of a merger of the Can-Am name with cars loosely based on those that had been running in F5000, though now with their wheels covered.
This new series did help accelerate the progress of several racing teams and drivers who were ripe to move up to Indy cars (think Carl Haas, Truesports, Bobby Rahal, Al Unser Jr., Danny Sullivan and others) as Indy car racing morphed from a series primarily on oval tracks to one more focused on road and street courses.
As it turned out, road racing wasn?t dead in the United States. But instead of real sports cars, it became dominated by Indy cars, which in turn became occupied not by young American drivers working their way up from dusty local ovals but by foreign-born drivers who grew up racing go-karts on paved courses.
And where did those young American racers go instead? Why, to Daytona and to stock car racing, of course.
So while many of those young American racers now are Chasing the Cup, Indy and sports car racers are left to chase their own tails.
Read more of Larry at www.izoom.com.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Another Mustang Funny Car Mystery
Who built the notch-back Mustang funny car that appeared briefly at North Brother's Ford in 1967? What happened to it? Help solve a 44 year mystery.
Larry Arnold and the Penetration Dodge Funny Car
Before Larry Arnold established himself as a top funny car driver, he chased the UDRA circuit with his radical Penetration Dodge Charger.
Miller to Unveil Revolutionary TIG Welder at 2008 SEMA Show
Get hands-on experience and expert demonstrations of MIG welding, TIG welding and plasma cutting. Test Miller TIG and MIG welders that make it easier to learn to weldperfect for enthusiast-level motorsports applications.
Dick Mack?s Satisfaction Chevelle versus Bob DuBrock?s Mustang
Dick Mack ran a full bodied Chevelle funny car with a shortened wheelbase approaching that of a fuel altered. The Satisfaction, running out of Ohio, garnered runner-up honors in the fuel category.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Richard Petty 50th Anniversary
This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of Richard Petty's first race, which occurred on July 12, 1958. In celebration of his half-century of involvement in NASCAR, here is a reproduction of a Petty Enterprises race report...
A Brief About ECU
The electrical system is collection of different subsystems that help you automobile run more smoothly and efficiently. This system is also controlled by excellent device in your automobile, which also takes care of other systems in automobiles, known as engine control unit, or ECU. An ECU is a device that finds out amount of fuel, [...]
Why Do The PCM Die?
The PCM is a car computer elected to organize and control the engine control system of a vehicle. The module contains electronics resided in a circuit board which had many layers. The work of PCM is to keep an eye on air/fuel mixture and to fine-tune it accordingly. PCM also employs the catalytic convertor to [...]
Voltage Regulators In Vehicles
The gears that regulate the steady voltage output are known as Voltage Regulators. Steady voltage outputs cannot be maintained by electronic gears as they are manufactured to recognize low maximum voltage and on giving high voltage they can be dented. Low voltage can also not be able to give sufficient power for the gears. This [...]
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Pfaff Designs Offers Imperial Speedster Goodie Bags in Time for Christmas
HOT ROD featured Pfaff Designs Imperial Speedster in July of 2011 and the guys at Pfaff have taken it around the country, including the SEMA show in Las Vegas. Now they’re offering up goodie bags for sale at PfaffDesigns.com that includes the 100% cotton Hanes shirt (sizes – mens M, L, XL, 2XL, and 3XL) [...]
VP?s Popular 5-Gallon Pails Undergo Makeover
NEW LOOK FOR VP?S 5-GALLON PAILS Same Great Fuel, While New Design Complements Marketing Platform SAN ANTONIO, TX (December 14, 2011) Customers familiar with the blue 5-gallon pails distributed by VP Racing Fuels for more than 20 years will soon see their orders filled with a newly designed pail that has undergone a significant makeover. [...]
UPS Extends NASCAR Partnership; Shifts to Associate at RFR
UPS Extends NASCAR Partnership; Shifts to Associate Sponsor on the No. 99 Car
WITH ROUSH FENWAY RACING
WITH ROUSH FENWAY RACING
Pit Stop USA Announces New Retail Store and Catalog
Pit Stop USA, a leading online retailer to the circle market, will be opening a new retail showroom in March and also announced the release of their 2011 catalog.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
The NASCAR Week That Was: Nov. 13-19
The fight for the Championship was the biggest story of the week as Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart sat just three points apart going into Homestead. The winner will become the sport’s first new Cup champion since 2005. In other news, NASCAR issued an unannounced penalty to Brad Keselowski this week after the driver criticized [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Need a Holiday Gift for the Motorsport Enthusiast? Here's Some Book Suggestions
Need to do some last-minute shopping for the motorsports fan on your list? Or perhaps you?re the motorsports fan and want to drop some last-minute hints to your friends and relatives and co-workers.
Here is a list of recently published books about auto racing that I?ve enjoyed reviewing and that I think you?ll enjoy reading:
Fast Lines: Memorable Moments in Motorsports
By Pete Lyons
$24.95 from www.octanepress.com or www.petelyons.com
Pete Lyons? father, Ozzie, was an acclaimed motorsports photographer, and so is Pete, who also writes about racing for publications on both sides of the Atlantic. This book is a compilation of 55 of the columns he?s written in the past 15 years for Vintage Racecar magazine.
From Lime Rock to Le Mans and Brazil to Barcelona, you?ll enjoy reconnecting through Lyons? insight with some old faces and places. You?ll feel as though you?re walking alongside he and his wife as they explore like auto racing anthropologists what remains of Riverside Raceway. Feel privileged to peak into his notebooks and to see photos from his personal and family collection.
Be prepared to laugh with Lyons at some of the funny stories and also to cry with him at the too-frequent loss of life.
These ?lines? may be fast, but you?ll want to savor them slowly.
Living on the Edge: A History of Auto Racing in Michigan
By Rick Sigsby
$14.95 from www.rsigsby.com
I?m only a third of the way through this one, but am enjoying getting reacquainted with the motorsports history of the state where I lived most of my life and where I covered a lot of racers and racing events as a newspaper sports editor and later as motorsports editor at AutoWeek magazine.
Rick Sigsby also was a Michigan newspaper sports editor, and his book includes a series of interviews he?s done with many of the state?s racing greats -- or in one case -- inaugural Indy 500 winner Ray Harroun, with Ray?s 97-year-old son, Dick. The book also has feature stories about Michigan racers who no longer are around to be interviewed.
I thought I knew a lot about Michigan?s motorsports history, but I? learning something new on seemingly every page.
Real Racers: Formula 1 Racing in the 1950s and 1960s: A Driver?s Perspective
By Stuart Codling
Photography from The Klemantaski Collection
$40 from www.motorbooks.com
Ever wonder what's different about Formula One racing today compared the glory years of the 1950s and 1960s? Buy this book, turn to pages 59 and 1,118, 120 and 123 and so many others and it becomes obvious. See it? It's the drivers' eyes.
No, they didn't have better vision than today's drivers. And they certainly didn't have the technologically advanced equipment used by today's drivers.
So what's the difference? It's the drivers' eyes. Back in the heyday, you could see them, especially in photographs taken by Louis Klemantaski and his camera-carrying contemporaries.
Today, the driver's eyes are hidden behind full-face helmets that provide a slit through which the driver can see out but we cannot see in. But back in the day, helmets barely covered the driver's hair, and the goggles they wore didn't hide their eyes but drew our attention to them.
Put a driver in a protective and fire-proof suit and cover his (or her) head with what could be a Star Warriors helmet and you might think it was a robot driving the racecar. But in the Klemantaski era, you not only saw the drivers' eyes, but even the set of the jaw, the tightness of the lips and, above all, the eyes, those mirrors of the very soul.
While the book is dominated by Kelmantaski?s amazing images, the book's value is enhanced by Codling's captions and especially by the words of the drivers themselves.
The Crew Chief?s Son: A Trackside Memoir of Early NASCAR
By Michael L. Clements
$35 from www.mcfarlandpub.com
From 1957 through 1965, Michael Clements? father, Louie, and uncle Clements were NASCAR crew chiefs, so skillful at their trade that in 1960, Louis and his driver, Rex White, won the NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) championship.
The Crew Chief?s Son is Michael Clements? account of tho years when his family traveled the NASCAR circuit, which at the time meant living in a station wagon as the circus made three or four stops a week at tracks throughout the southeastern United States.
His well-illustrated book is dominated by often detailed accounts of the various races, each with its successes and frustrations, and sometimes with tragedies. But where the book is at its best comes when Michael takes us beyond the race results and into the his dad?s garage and onto pit road, and when he shares stories about family life, from his adventures with his cousin Gary to the times when racers shared family dinners.
Although it wasn?t a dinner, Michael speculates that Cotton Owens may have won one race because he ate so much of prune cake baked by Louie?s wife that he drove faster than usual because he really needed to use a bathroom. In fact, Michael writes, after the race Owens even bypassed the winner?s circle and drove straight to an infield outhouse.
The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit
By Michael Cannell
$25.99 from www.twelvebooks.com (or $12.99 as an e-book)
In the summer and early autumn of 1961, American sports fans were engrossed with a race, a race between New York Yankees teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris as they battled to see which might break the previously unassailable single-season home run record set three decades earlier by the famed Babe Ruth.
But it was another race involving teammates that occupied the attention of European sports fans that season. This was the race was between Wolfgang von Trips, a German count whose family estate had been reduced during World War II to little more than a family farm, and Phil Hill, an American who had found within the insane pace of racing cars the sanity lacking in his parents? home.
Like Mantle and Maris, von Trips and Hill were teammates on the most famous of the teams in their sport -- Ferrari.
Their friendship and rivalry, played out against the backdrop of a period in which driver faced death at every turn, is chronicled in this book by a former New York Times staffer who expertly crafts a tale that unfolds much like a race itself -- from the pre-race driver introductions, though the laps behind the pace car, the early jockeying for position, the pressure of the pit stops and the drama of the late-race passing and the chase for the checkered flag.
But Cannell also takes the reader into the closed garages and even inside the cockpit, into the driver?s thoughts and emotions, and reveals that too often, even in victory there is loss.
They Started in MGs: Profiles of Sports Car Racers of the 1950s
By Carl Goodwin
$35 from www.mcfarlandpub.com
Goodwin profiles 79 men and women, including Carroll Shelby and Steve McQueen, who were among the American sports car racing pioneers who began their competitive careers in MGs. Goodwin, himself one of those pioneers who became an automotive writer and historian, either interviewed those people or those who knew them.
?The MG was a great car for the early racing driver,? Goodwin writes. ?It was affordable, durable and easy to drive... in an era when few trailered their cars to races... you could drive it from Columbus, Ohio, to McDill Air Force Base at Tampa, Florida... drive it [and win your class] in the 6-hour race... and drive it back to Columbus.
?These great little cars opened the door to a rewarding life in amateur racing for thousands of people.?
Goodwin?s book reopens that door to today?s readers.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Larry Edsall is an accomplished author himself, and you can read more from him daily at www.izoom.com. Larry didn't want to plug his own latest book, but that doesn't mean we can't. Take a peek at Larry's new book: "Ferrari,' at the following link.
http://www.qbookshop.com/products/193278/9780760340585/Ferrari.html
Here is a list of recently published books about auto racing that I?ve enjoyed reviewing and that I think you?ll enjoy reading:
Fast Lines: Memorable Moments in Motorsports
By Pete Lyons
$24.95 from www.octanepress.com or www.petelyons.com
Pete Lyons? father, Ozzie, was an acclaimed motorsports photographer, and so is Pete, who also writes about racing for publications on both sides of the Atlantic. This book is a compilation of 55 of the columns he?s written in the past 15 years for Vintage Racecar magazine.
From Lime Rock to Le Mans and Brazil to Barcelona, you?ll enjoy reconnecting through Lyons? insight with some old faces and places. You?ll feel as though you?re walking alongside he and his wife as they explore like auto racing anthropologists what remains of Riverside Raceway. Feel privileged to peak into his notebooks and to see photos from his personal and family collection.
Be prepared to laugh with Lyons at some of the funny stories and also to cry with him at the too-frequent loss of life.
These ?lines? may be fast, but you?ll want to savor them slowly.
Living on the Edge: A History of Auto Racing in Michigan
By Rick Sigsby
$14.95 from www.rsigsby.com
I?m only a third of the way through this one, but am enjoying getting reacquainted with the motorsports history of the state where I lived most of my life and where I covered a lot of racers and racing events as a newspaper sports editor and later as motorsports editor at AutoWeek magazine.
Rick Sigsby also was a Michigan newspaper sports editor, and his book includes a series of interviews he?s done with many of the state?s racing greats -- or in one case -- inaugural Indy 500 winner Ray Harroun, with Ray?s 97-year-old son, Dick. The book also has feature stories about Michigan racers who no longer are around to be interviewed.
I thought I knew a lot about Michigan?s motorsports history, but I? learning something new on seemingly every page.
Real Racers: Formula 1 Racing in the 1950s and 1960s: A Driver?s Perspective
By Stuart Codling
Photography from The Klemantaski Collection
$40 from www.motorbooks.com
Ever wonder what's different about Formula One racing today compared the glory years of the 1950s and 1960s? Buy this book, turn to pages 59 and 1,118, 120 and 123 and so many others and it becomes obvious. See it? It's the drivers' eyes.
No, they didn't have better vision than today's drivers. And they certainly didn't have the technologically advanced equipment used by today's drivers.
So what's the difference? It's the drivers' eyes. Back in the heyday, you could see them, especially in photographs taken by Louis Klemantaski and his camera-carrying contemporaries.
Today, the driver's eyes are hidden behind full-face helmets that provide a slit through which the driver can see out but we cannot see in. But back in the day, helmets barely covered the driver's hair, and the goggles they wore didn't hide their eyes but drew our attention to them.
Put a driver in a protective and fire-proof suit and cover his (or her) head with what could be a Star Warriors helmet and you might think it was a robot driving the racecar. But in the Klemantaski era, you not only saw the drivers' eyes, but even the set of the jaw, the tightness of the lips and, above all, the eyes, those mirrors of the very soul.
While the book is dominated by Kelmantaski?s amazing images, the book's value is enhanced by Codling's captions and especially by the words of the drivers themselves.
The Crew Chief?s Son: A Trackside Memoir of Early NASCAR
By Michael L. Clements
$35 from www.mcfarlandpub.com
From 1957 through 1965, Michael Clements? father, Louie, and uncle Clements were NASCAR crew chiefs, so skillful at their trade that in 1960, Louis and his driver, Rex White, won the NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) championship.
The Crew Chief?s Son is Michael Clements? account of tho years when his family traveled the NASCAR circuit, which at the time meant living in a station wagon as the circus made three or four stops a week at tracks throughout the southeastern United States.
His well-illustrated book is dominated by often detailed accounts of the various races, each with its successes and frustrations, and sometimes with tragedies. But where the book is at its best comes when Michael takes us beyond the race results and into the his dad?s garage and onto pit road, and when he shares stories about family life, from his adventures with his cousin Gary to the times when racers shared family dinners.
Although it wasn?t a dinner, Michael speculates that Cotton Owens may have won one race because he ate so much of prune cake baked by Louie?s wife that he drove faster than usual because he really needed to use a bathroom. In fact, Michael writes, after the race Owens even bypassed the winner?s circle and drove straight to an infield outhouse.
The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit
By Michael Cannell
$25.99 from www.twelvebooks.com (or $12.99 as an e-book)
In the summer and early autumn of 1961, American sports fans were engrossed with a race, a race between New York Yankees teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris as they battled to see which might break the previously unassailable single-season home run record set three decades earlier by the famed Babe Ruth.
But it was another race involving teammates that occupied the attention of European sports fans that season. This was the race was between Wolfgang von Trips, a German count whose family estate had been reduced during World War II to little more than a family farm, and Phil Hill, an American who had found within the insane pace of racing cars the sanity lacking in his parents? home.
Like Mantle and Maris, von Trips and Hill were teammates on the most famous of the teams in their sport -- Ferrari.
Their friendship and rivalry, played out against the backdrop of a period in which driver faced death at every turn, is chronicled in this book by a former New York Times staffer who expertly crafts a tale that unfolds much like a race itself -- from the pre-race driver introductions, though the laps behind the pace car, the early jockeying for position, the pressure of the pit stops and the drama of the late-race passing and the chase for the checkered flag.
But Cannell also takes the reader into the closed garages and even inside the cockpit, into the driver?s thoughts and emotions, and reveals that too often, even in victory there is loss.
They Started in MGs: Profiles of Sports Car Racers of the 1950s
By Carl Goodwin
$35 from www.mcfarlandpub.com
Goodwin profiles 79 men and women, including Carroll Shelby and Steve McQueen, who were among the American sports car racing pioneers who began their competitive careers in MGs. Goodwin, himself one of those pioneers who became an automotive writer and historian, either interviewed those people or those who knew them.
?The MG was a great car for the early racing driver,? Goodwin writes. ?It was affordable, durable and easy to drive... in an era when few trailered their cars to races... you could drive it from Columbus, Ohio, to McDill Air Force Base at Tampa, Florida... drive it [and win your class] in the 6-hour race... and drive it back to Columbus.
?These great little cars opened the door to a rewarding life in amateur racing for thousands of people.?
Goodwin?s book reopens that door to today?s readers.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Larry Edsall is an accomplished author himself, and you can read more from him daily at www.izoom.com. Larry didn't want to plug his own latest book, but that doesn't mean we can't. Take a peek at Larry's new book: "Ferrari,' at the following link.
http://www.qbookshop.com/products/193278/9780760340585/Ferrari.html
Friday, December 16, 2011
A Brief About ECU
The electrical system is collection of different subsystems that help you automobile run more smoothly and efficiently. This system is also controlled by excellent device in your automobile, which also takes care of other systems in automobiles, known as engine control unit, or ECU. An ECU is a device that finds out amount of fuel, [...]
How To Maintain The Starting And Charging System of Vehicle
Part of electrical system responsible for starting the vehicle is called the starting system. The system starts the vehicle in two steps. Firstly, you need to insert and then turn the key of vehicle in ignition switch to start the vehicle. Second step is taken when the action of turning key in ignition button closes [...]
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Knowing About Car Batteries and The Fluid Level
There must be a daily refilling of water in car batteries because there is a specific amount of water loss, whenever there is an electrolysis process under every charging cycle. This water loss can be reduced by the regular change of the alloying element of calcium which is the main feature to reduce the water [...]
Video: Machine Gun Fun at the VWerks SEMA Wrap Party
Want to know how the HOT ROD staffers ended SEMA? With a trip to The Gun Store in Las Vegas, that’s how. We got an invite from VWerks to check out the JK-8 they built for Red Jacket Firearms owner Will Hayden and couldn’t refuse. For the life of us, we can’t figure out why [...]
Battle in Bristol; Ragan Finishes 20th
David Ragan and the UPS team battled in Bristol. They started 24th and finished 20th.
Project Car Update: BS Industries ?56 F150
If you’re reading the blog then you know that Bodie Stroud of BS Hot Rods will be coming on Hot Rod Magazine Live this weekend�to talk about what new and upcoming in his�never-ending�string of�custom�builds…and this is a collection of images of his latest project. The truck is a 1956 F100 big back window, thanks to [...]
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Take A Peek About The Functions Performed By PCM
The system that monitors power train gears (engine, transmission, drive shafts, differentials, etc) and make the gears to work together in order to keep vehicle moving efficiently is called Power Train Control Module, abbreviated as PCM. If all gears are working properly then you improve the car to better shape but if any one gear [...]
Fuel Strategy Leads to Seventh-Place Finish at NHMS
David and the UPS team earned a seventh-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway
New Hampshire Weekend Review
There is never any way, in the US at least, Formula One is going to steal NASCAR’s thunder. The racing world was amazed as 21 year old Sebastion Vettel became the youngest driver ever to win a points Grand Prix race in the history of that series. He did it at Monza in Italy, driving [...]
Chevy Fast & Fuel Efficient ? Extreme Hypermiling & Serious Karting!
This is the 3rd installment documenting the specific happenings & details of the Chevy Fast & Fuel Efficient event that occurred 2 weeks ago.� We met, 3 bloggers & 3 drivers, at the Chuck Nash Auto Group dealership,� just north of San Marcos, Texas. We were introduced to the inner workings & interesting details that [...]
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Ohio George Willys Gasser at The Henry Ford
Ohio George Montgomery's famous Willys Gasser is on display at the Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. Great opportunity for drag racing fans to see a slice of history up close.
Chevy Fast & Fuel Efficient ? Extreme Hypermiling & Serious Karting!
This is the 3rd installment documenting the specific happenings & details of the Chevy Fast & Fuel Efficient event that occurred 2 weeks ago.� We met, 3 bloggers & 3 drivers, at the Chuck Nash Auto Group dealership,� just north of San Marcos, Texas. We were introduced to the inner workings & interesting details that [...]
The NASCAR Week That Was: Nov. 13-19
The fight for the Championship was the biggest story of the week as Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart sat just three points apart going into Homestead. The winner will become the sport’s first new Cup champion since 2005. In other news, NASCAR issued an unannounced penalty to Brad Keselowski this week after the driver criticized [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Another Mustang Funny Car Mystery
Who built the notch-back Mustang funny car that appeared briefly at North Brother's Ford in 1967? What happened to it? Help solve a 44 year mystery.
Petty Holdings Announces Richard Petty's Driver Search
Training Camp & Competition Will Award Opportunity in ARCA Racing
Series and Marcos Ambrose and Randy LaJoie have joined the staff of
Richard Petty's Driver Search.
Series and Marcos Ambrose and Randy LaJoie have joined the staff of
Richard Petty's Driver Search.
Monday, December 12, 2011
NASCAR Got The Chase They Wanted
And then there were two. Following Sunday’s Cup Series race at Phoenix, only two drivers, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards, still have a shot at the title. �Every other Chaser has been mathematically eliminated. �As we get ready for Homestead, we are in for one hell of �a battle with the two drivers we do [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Another Mustang Funny Car Mystery
Who built the notch-back Mustang funny car that appeared briefly at North Brother's Ford in 1967? What happened to it? Help solve a 44 year mystery.
Richard Petty 50th Anniversary
This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of Richard Petty's first race, which occurred on July 12, 1958. In celebration of his half-century of involvement in NASCAR, here is a reproduction of a Petty Enterprises race report...
Sunday, December 11, 2011
eBay Find of the Day: Turbonique Drag Axle
Last week we showed you an ad for a Turbonique go cart, and what one of their full-size turbo axles was capable of (for those of you that are too lazy to click on the link, it’s a fiery dragstrip pass). Now, thanks to Elana, a friend of the magazine and true gearhead, we can [...]
Event Reminder: 8th Annual Motor4Toys Car Show and Cruise
This weekend’s Motor4Toys car show in Woodland Hills, CA begins at 6:30am at 21555 Oxnard St and will be followed by a cruise led by Hotchkis Sport Suspension H-Team members up highway 101 to Malibu. If you’d like to participate in the toy drive, please check out Motor4Toys for more information.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
34 down, 2 more to go
That’s right the 2008 season is winding down. �With only two races left, it’s Jimmie’s championship to lose. �Carl did cut down some of Jimmie’s lead in Texas, but Jimmie and Chad have been here before. �I have to admit since Talladega I haven’t been all that excited about the racing. �I guess it’s because [...]
Crash-o-Rama 2011, School Bus Figure 8 Racing
OK, calling it racing is a bit of a stretch, it’s more like a war of attrition, but at least they are using buses and not dirt modified cars that deserve better. If you’ve got about 15 minutes to kill, check this out. If not, just skip to 7:30 for some impressive carnage.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Brace Yourself For The Off-Season Crew Members
The next couple of weeks will be a time for celebration in NASCAR. We’ll crown three different champions this weekend and then head to the respective banquets. It was a season of improved ratings, competition and the first Cup champion not named Jimmie Johnson since 2005. As some celebrate next week, a lot of others [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Starting System Of A Vehicle
Consider battery as a heart of your car?s electrical system. Without battery system cannot be started. To start it, a key is entered in ignition switch and turned. Then some specific quantity of current is passed through the neutral safety switch to a starter relay or starter solenoid. This permits high current to pass all [...]
NASCAR Got The Chase They Wanted
And then there were two. Following Sunday’s Cup Series race at Phoenix, only two drivers, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards, still have a shot at the title. �Every other Chaser has been mathematically eliminated. �As we get ready for Homestead, we are in for one hell of �a battle with the two drivers we do [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Azores organiser preparing outstanding season opener
Sata Rallye Acores bosses are working on plans to introduce a street stage for the opening round of the 2012 Intercontinental Rally Challenge. The Atlantic archipelago will host the first rally of the 13-round IRC season from 23-25 February and event bosses are keen to make a big impact. ?Maybe we will have a new [...]
Bad Luck in Atlanta; Ragan Finishes 35th
David Ragan and the UPS team had a solid run going at Atlanta Motor Speedway before a mechanical issue ended their day early
This Week in the NASCAR Blogosphere
By the end of the race at Lowe’s Motorspeedway the Chase will be half over. When the heck did that happen? I don’t know. Last weekend’s race at Talladega provided Tony Stewart with his first win of the season, his first win there in a sprint cup car and ended his 43 race winless streak. [...]
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Martinsville Qualifying Rained Out
Sorry if I havn’t been on here in a while, I’ve been a bust little kitten! Martinsville qualifying got rained out last Friday, so everyone at this point knows the drill after all that mess goes down. The starting grid goes in order by points. Surprise, surprise! Why don? we just serve Jimmie Johnson his [...]
Starting System Of A Vehicle
Consider battery as a heart of your car?s electrical system. Without battery system cannot be started. To start it, a key is entered in ignition switch and turned. Then some specific quantity of current is passed through the neutral safety switch to a starter relay or starter solenoid. This permits high current to pass all [...]
Richard Petty's 50th Anniversary Celebration
Hard to believe it's been 50 years since Richard Petty made his first start racing in NASCAR, in what was then the Grand National division (later to become Winston Cup)...
Patrick Goodin Getting ready for Formula D Irwindale!
Prepping for Formula D Round 7 Pro-am All Star Event.
Patrick Goodin, Florida Native, has been on a long road to get to this point in his driving career. After 3 years of going through the ranks of the pro-am circuit he finally managed to grab a license.
Competing in, and winning the Streetwise Drift Pro-am Championship
Patrick Goodin, Florida Native, has been on a long road to get to this point in his driving career. After 3 years of going through the ranks of the pro-am circuit he finally managed to grab a license.
Competing in, and winning the Streetwise Drift Pro-am Championship
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Another Mustang Funny Car Mystery
Who built the notch-back Mustang funny car that appeared briefly at North Brother's Ford in 1967? What happened to it? Help solve a 44 year mystery.
Engine Compression Check Made Easy
Keep tabs on your engine's compression ratio and performance with this cool new compression tester from Katech Performance...
David?s Blog: United Way Winner and Off to Chicago
David Ragan spent the day with United Way Auction winner, Katie, before getting back to the shop ahead of Chicago
Monday, December 5, 2011
Build Update >>> Travis Clark
ISIS Performance Canadian Driver, Travis Clark, had a successful DMCC Round 1 outing with his convertible S13. After qualifying 12th at DMCC Round 1 in Calgary, Alberta, Clark competed in Top 16 tandem at the first event of the season. Clark’s S13 is equipped with a variety of ISIS Performance products including:
ISIS Stainless Steel Downpipe
ISIS
ISIS Stainless Steel Downpipe
ISIS
New Backpack Cooler Keeps Cold-Ones Close By
An innovative backpack cooler from TrackPack chills and dispenses 20 beverage cans with the flick of a wrist, complies with most public venues and tracks and is easy for one person to carry. Drink up!
Engine Compression Check Made Easy
Keep tabs on your engine's compression ratio and performance with this cool new compression tester from Katech Performance...
Ragan Rallies for 21st in Dover
David Ragan and the UPS team started 19th and finished 21st at Dover International Speedway
Sunday, December 4, 2011
You Too Can Be Fast And Fabulous!
Hey race fans- just wanted to let you know that you can win a $25.00 BP gas card from TheFastandTheFabulous.com. Just fill out the form located here. And while you are there poke around- it’s a great racing blog!
BBC Sport Version of Austin F1 Coulthard Video
BBC Sport – Coulthard Drives Off-Road on New Circuit of The Americas This is the BBC version of footage depicting David Coulthard & the F1 Team Red Bull crew descending upon Austin this past summer.� Although it’s not as slick as the highly edited Red Bull video, I like it better as it has a [...]
Limelight Dodge: the Jack-Knife Funny Car
The front clip tilted forward, gasser style. The rest of the Limelight's body however, was hinged at the rear and could be titlted up like a typical funny car.
Aptera Closes Its Doors
After showing several lightweight, aerodynamic concepts and getting close to opening a factory to produce a mid-sized sedan capable of nearly 200mpge, Aptera is shutting down. This wasn’t the typical HOT ROD car, but Aptera’s use of lightweight composites was revolutionary and their plans to go up against the biggest players in the automotive market [...]
LIFE Magazine?s Top 75 Covers Includes a Bit of Hot Rodding
LIFE magazine recently picked the Best 75 covers from its 75-year history. The gallery is worth checking out, as it’s filled with amazing images that range from perfectly-timed photos taken during war to staged shots of popular celebrities. Among them is this flag man giving the go-ahead to a ’32 Ford, the most HOT ROD [...]
New Backpack Cooler Keeps Cold-Ones Close By
An innovative backpack cooler from TrackPack chills and dispenses 20 beverage cans with the flick of a wrist, complies with most public venues and tracks and is easy for one person to carry. Drink up!
Saturday, December 3, 2011
The Saga of the Competition + Mustang Funny Car
The story of Competition + and how a collection of drivers, car owners and fuel funny cars lead to a sad event at the 1967 Nationals at Indianapolis
Very Concerned About Circuit of The Americas Recent Extremes!
I’m very concerned about the feast or famine extremes I have recently witnessed at Circuit of The Americas (COTA).� Ten days ago I was SO very pleased to see hundreds of COTA track workers’ trucks in their parking lot.� This was true witness to me that building & track construction was ramping up at a [...]
Villagra celebrates his 10th title in a cliff-hanging race finish
Federico Villagra clinched his tenth Argentine Rally Championship this weekend and became the second driver with most titles within the national series and the first to claim a title in the new Maxi Rally era. After a decade competing on board the different Mitsubishi Lancer evolutions Villagra chose Ford to develop a Fiesta Maxi Rally [...]
Ask The Insiders Wednesday #152
The end is near. �All three series will close out their 2011 seasons this weekend at Homestead. �The Truck and Nationwide battles are all but sewed up, but we’ve got one hell of fight for the Cup title. �As we wait to find out who will be crowned, we’ve got the 152nd round of reader [...]TheNASCARInsiders.com
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Friday, December 2, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Racing, Risk, Longevity and Chance
This past weekend started our pretty good for yours truly. I watched the NASCAR Nationwide Series race from Charlotte and F1 qualifying on Friday night, then caught the Las Vegas truck race, the Sprint Cup race, the Monster Energy Cup motocross event and finally the Korean Grand Prix on Saturday.
The plan for Sunday included a trip to Firebird International Raceway for the NHRA Arizona Nationals, then back home to watch the DVR'd IndyCar finale since I wasn't going to be home for most of the race.
My kind host Jeff had VIP passes which meant all-day access to Firebird's third floor suite overlooking the launch area, where we could watch the action in air-conditioned comfort including closed-circuit television, complimentary refreshments and a free lunch.
But we knew we wouldn't be spending much time in the suite; we'd be walking the pits between rounds and then, as is our preference, become standing-room-only railbirds to smell the nitro fumes, feel the ground shake and mingle with our fellow race fans when the cars were actually running.
Drag racing is the one motorsports discipline that can't be fully, sensory-overload experienced digitally, so far at least; you simply have to be there -- with earplugs.
After round one of the pro cars, when we visited the tower to sample the surpsingly good track fare and watch the sportsman classes, we had the great pleasure of enjoying the company of two drag racing legends: Don Garlits and Shirley Muldowney. Big Daddy was in our suite with us, eating bbq chicken and ribs with beans and cole slaw and cornbread, just watching each run like any true fan. Shirley was outside in the courtyard, chatting and laughing with her guests and visitors, looking spectacularly regal.
How cool was that?
We stayed through the second round of the fuel cars and then took off; Jeff had some other obligations and I had to get home to do the scoring for my company's fantasy racing games.
And when I walked through my front door and saw the look on my wife's face I knew my weekend was about to turn sour. She'd been watching the race and filled me in on the big crash and concern over Dan Wheldon. Then, a few agonizing minutes later, we watched IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard make the accouncement that Wheldon had died.
I can't really express the sorrow and sadness we both felt when we heard that news. It was 1994, 1999 and 2001 all over again, when we watched Ayrton Senna, Greg Moore and then Dale Earnhardt die in the process of doing what they loved with full acceptance and clear recognition of all the inherent risks.
"To achieve anything in this game you must be prepared to dabble in the boundary of disaster." - Sterling Moss
Wikipedia has a depressingly complete list of racing drivers who died in crashes, including the painfully obvious introduction: 'Due to the inherently dangerous nature of auto racing, many individuals, including drivers, crew members, officials and spectators, have been killed in crashes related to the sport, in races, in qualifying, in practice or in private testing sessions. Deaths among racers and spectators were numerous in the early years of racing. However advances in safety technology, and specifications designed by sanctioning bodies to limit speeds, have reduced deaths in recent years.'
It already includes Dan Wheldon's name as the latest fatality in the Indy Racing League (sic) section.
Yes, advances in safety have and are and will continue to be made going forward.
But there will always be risk and there will always be chance and coincidence and perfect storm convergences of seemingly unrelated influences that will result in injury or death.
I keep reading all the tributes, commentaries, opinions and news items related to Wheldon's death and firmly believe positives will come from it. I completely disagree with the cruel, ignorant cretins who want to crucify or lynch the sanctioning body, the $5 million to win promotion, the size of the field, the track and/or especially Mr. Bernard.
But I'm still trying to put all of this into perspective.
"Once you?ve raced, you never forget it?and you never get over it." - Richard Childress
Race car drivers are passionate about what they do, just as most of us are passionate about something in our lives. Performers are addicated to the stage, athletes live to compete in the arena and racers were born to do both; as fast as their racecars will let them in order to finish first.
Racing is their choice and everyone understands the risks vs rewards. And as I learned from an old sociology professor way back when, concerning negative reinforcement to change behavior, "It's not the severity of the punishment, it's the certainty."
Skydiving is a great example. Fatalities result from a very small percentage of the total jumps made each year; its almost a certainty the chute will open although there's always a chance of injury on the landing. But if the chute doesn't open the consequences could not be more severe.
Comparitively speaking, fatalties in racing are fairly rare so drivers do what they were born to do; they don't worry about the severity of injuries or death from a crash, they're playing the odds because they are compelled to race.
But let's be honest; the chances of bad things happening in IndyCar have been signficantly higher over the past decade than they needed to be. The high downforce, relatively low horsepower, equal-to-a-fault spec series created the same kind of pack racing on high banked 1.5 mile ovals that NASCAR has marketed so well at the two restrictor plate tracks.
Except open wheel cars aren't supposed to make contact with each other, under any circumstances. Neither are they supposed to run in too-tight-to-escape packs that lead to Big Ones like the Sprint Cup, NNS and Camping World Truck Series races regularly produce at Daytona and Talladega. Tight, no-room-for-error, two and three wide racing with no separation is the classic recipe for disaster for cars without fenders.
Last night I was commiserating with friends over why IndyCar needs to get rid of flat-out-all-round racing on ovals racing and one buddy couldn't understand why having all the cars equal and tightly packed was a bad idea. He happens to be a former triathlete so I tried to explain.
One year he ran in the Pat Tillman marathon and fell down because someone in front of him tripped on someone else. He and half a dozen other runners suffered a few scrapes and bruises.
Every year there's at least one huge multi-rider crash in the Tour de France stage where one cyclist spills and then a whole bunch more riders crash behind him. Concussions and broken body parts are not uncommon.
When you and the large heavy mass you are driving are going 220 mph, and you're literally inches behind or beside other racecars, and one of them swerves, spins, slows or breaks you have neither the time or space to avoid contact. Disastrous, threat-to-life-and-limb contact.
So count me in as a proponent of the more horsepower/less downforce/next generation Handford device movement. Let's see IndyCar create a formula where drivers have to lift or brake for turns to allow separation that can only be closed through skill.
"If you can leave two black stripes from the exit of one corner to the braking zone of the next, you have enough horsepower." -- Mark Donohue
Mark Donohue died in 1975 from a head injury suffered in a practice crash that also killed a corner worker who was struck by debris. Both victims knew the risks of their duties.
Yet chance plays such a role in these and all such tragedies.
In 1931 a young 12-year old boy, Wilbur Brink, died when he was struck by a wheel that came off Billy Arnold's Indy 500 racer and bounced over the Brickyard's fence into his front yard, where he was playing.
What are the chances?
In 1987 Lyle Kurtenbach, 41, of Rothschild, Wisconsin was a spectator at the Indy 500 when Tony Bettenhausen lost a wheel in the third turn. Roberto Guerrero came along and hit the tire, launching it into the air, over the catchfence and into the top row of grandstand K, killing Kurtenbach instantly.
In February of 2010, at my very own Firebird Raceway, Susan Zimmer, 52 of Rice Lake, Wisconsin was killed after the left rear wheel broke off Antron Brown's dragster during a first-round race against Troy Buff and struck her while she was sitting in a chair in the pits.
In 2009 Felipe Massa suffered a serious head injury when he was struck by a shock absorber that fell off Rubens Barrichello?s car at the Hungarian GP. The suspension piece was bouncing on the track, across the racing line, and hit the Ferrari driver's helment just above his left eye.
What are the chances?
Ayrton Senna was killed because a suspension piece broke and then pierced his helmet visor when he crashed at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. A few inches difference in the trajectory of that piece and he would have walked away.
I'm reconciling Dan Wheldon's death as the consequences of chance, in full consideration of the racing environment. Just like how in the recent past I've had to consider the losses of Eric Medlen, Darrell Russell, Paul Dana and others as against-all-odds accidents akin to being struck by lightning or getting all six Powerball numbers.
Don Garlits, 79 and Shirley Muldowny, 71 both retired in 2003 as survivors of some of drag racing's most dangerous decades. So did Connie Kalitta, now 73 and a retired driver turned team owner who lost his son Scott in a funny car accident in 2008. What are the chances?
Chance is how Bobby Allison and Richard Petty have lived to be old, retired race car drivers; it's how The King lost his grandson Adam and how the head of the Alabama Gang lost his sons Clifford and Davey.
It's how Thomas Murphy, vice president of corporate brand marketing for Sprint and the guiding force behind its NASCAR program, was killed when a boulder crashed through the windshield of the vehicle he and his family were driving near Aspen, Colorado in 2009.
What are the chances?
There's nothing we can do about chance except do everything possible to keep the odds in our favor without sacrificing whatever gives our lives passion and meaning. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but we've all got to stay in the game.
Godspeed, Dan Wheldon.
Tazio Nuvolari (1892 ? 1953) was an Italian racer who started out on motorcycles in 1920 and captured a championship in 1925, later winning the 1932 European Championship in Grand Prix motor racing. Dr Ferdinand Porsche called Nuvolari "The greatest driver of the past, the present, and the future."
This was one of the most dangerous eras in the sports history. A reporter once asked Nuvolari if he thought he might die at the wheel of a racing car and Tazio admitted he might, to which the reporter challenged, "Then how can you get into a racing car if it is likely you will die there?"
Nuvolari replied back, "Where do you think you will die?" and the reporter said, "Probably in bed."
And Nuvolari asked him, "Then how can you get into bed every night, when it is likely you will die there?"
New Backpack Cooler Keeps Cold-Ones Close By
An innovative backpack cooler from TrackPack chills and dispenses 20 beverage cans with the flick of a wrist, complies with most public venues and tracks and is easy for one person to carry. Drink up!
Danny Thompson looks to fulfill the speed dreams of his father
By Larry Edsall
In 1960, Mickey Thompson, a racing pioneer and innovative genius who built cars for Indy, for the drag racing, and for off-road competition, set out to become the first American to exceed 400 miles per hour in a piston-driven vehicle.
He built built a Bonneville-style streamliner, the Challenger I, and used its quartet of supercharged Pontiac engines to cover a measured mile at 406.6 mph, nearly 100 mph faster than the 22-year-old world record.
Unfortunately, Thompson was denied the record because his car could not complete the second half of the required two-way run on the Utah salt flats.
Five years later, that record was broken, by the Summers Brothers and their four-engined Goldenrod racer, which completed the necessary two-way run and boosted the wheel-driven record to 409.189 mph.
Undaunted but even more determined, Thompson built a new car. Officially known as the Ford Autolite Special because of its pair of supercharged Ford engines, Thompson?s Challenger 2 was rained out of its bid for a record run in 1968 and the entire effort was put on hold in 1969 when Detroit automakers withdrew their financial support of such motorsports programs.
Thompson went on to other racing endeavors, but early in 1988 he approached his son, Danny, and suggested they revive the quest with Mickey preparing the car and Danny doing the driving.
?A month later, my father was killed,? Danny recalls, tears still filling his eyes these 23 years later as he announces his plan to update his father?s car and to make an attempt late next summer ?to finish my dad?s dream and to fulfill my dream.?
Remarkably, the official wheel-driven land speed record has climbed only to 417.020 mph, though cars recently have exceeded 440 on one-way runs at Bonneville.
With financial backing from Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels and, he hopes, additional sponsors, a 63-year-old but remarkably fit and trim Danny Thompson will equip Challenger 2.5 with a pair of nitro-fueled 500-cubic-inch engines he expects to provide 3000 horsepower to a set of M/T tires that already have been ?spun? to 590 mph.
Thompson?s eyes brighten as he pronounces such speed -- ?five-hundred ninety miles per hour!!? He says he?d love to hit 500, but his realistic goal, he adds, is to push the record to at least 420.
In addition to updating the car to modern mechanical and safety standards, Danny Thompson plans to simplify some things.
For example, his father had equipped Challenger 2 with a split gas pedal so he could modulate power delivery from each Ford engine -- one of which was supercharged while the other was normally aspirated.
Danny Thompson may be an amazingly capable mechanic and fabricator, but he knows his father also was one of the world?s best drivers as well.
?You don?t want to make any mistakes,? Danny says. At such speeds, he adds, ?mistakes are unacceptable.?
Read more of Larry at www.izoom.com
AttachmentSize
Thompson.jpg125.95 KB
In 1960, Mickey Thompson, a racing pioneer and innovative genius who built cars for Indy, for the drag racing, and for off-road competition, set out to become the first American to exceed 400 miles per hour in a piston-driven vehicle.
He built built a Bonneville-style streamliner, the Challenger I, and used its quartet of supercharged Pontiac engines to cover a measured mile at 406.6 mph, nearly 100 mph faster than the 22-year-old world record.
Unfortunately, Thompson was denied the record because his car could not complete the second half of the required two-way run on the Utah salt flats.
Five years later, that record was broken, by the Summers Brothers and their four-engined Goldenrod racer, which completed the necessary two-way run and boosted the wheel-driven record to 409.189 mph.
Undaunted but even more determined, Thompson built a new car. Officially known as the Ford Autolite Special because of its pair of supercharged Ford engines, Thompson?s Challenger 2 was rained out of its bid for a record run in 1968 and the entire effort was put on hold in 1969 when Detroit automakers withdrew their financial support of such motorsports programs.
Thompson went on to other racing endeavors, but early in 1988 he approached his son, Danny, and suggested they revive the quest with Mickey preparing the car and Danny doing the driving.
?A month later, my father was killed,? Danny recalls, tears still filling his eyes these 23 years later as he announces his plan to update his father?s car and to make an attempt late next summer ?to finish my dad?s dream and to fulfill my dream.?
Remarkably, the official wheel-driven land speed record has climbed only to 417.020 mph, though cars recently have exceeded 440 on one-way runs at Bonneville.
With financial backing from Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels and, he hopes, additional sponsors, a 63-year-old but remarkably fit and trim Danny Thompson will equip Challenger 2.5 with a pair of nitro-fueled 500-cubic-inch engines he expects to provide 3000 horsepower to a set of M/T tires that already have been ?spun? to 590 mph.
Thompson?s eyes brighten as he pronounces such speed -- ?five-hundred ninety miles per hour!!? He says he?d love to hit 500, but his realistic goal, he adds, is to push the record to at least 420.
In addition to updating the car to modern mechanical and safety standards, Danny Thompson plans to simplify some things.
For example, his father had equipped Challenger 2 with a split gas pedal so he could modulate power delivery from each Ford engine -- one of which was supercharged while the other was normally aspirated.
Danny Thompson may be an amazingly capable mechanic and fabricator, but he knows his father also was one of the world?s best drivers as well.
?You don?t want to make any mistakes,? Danny says. At such speeds, he adds, ?mistakes are unacceptable.?
Read more of Larry at www.izoom.com
AttachmentSize
Thompson.jpg125.95 KB
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