For those of you who feel that racing down a quarter mile drag strip in nine and half seconds at 150 miles an hour in car isn't good enough for you, then the alternative has arrived. This comes in the form of an exact replica of Ducati's Moto GP race bike.
Beginning in 2008, Ducati released this new bike, which was named the Desmosedici RR, would be produced at a rate of one per day. The price tag on this particular bike was set at $72,500, and for a motorcycle, that is very, very expensive. Now, to put this into more perspective, a Ferrari La Ferrari which holds the claim to the fastest quarter mile when not modified, can spring the quarter mile in 9.7 seconds and 149.1 MPH on a perfect pass. The Ducati can sprint the quarter mile in 9.4 seconds at 152.8 miles per hour without modification. In fact, there are six other motorcycles that clock in with a better time than the La Ferrari, and that goes to provide some serious street cred for these motorcycles.
Now, this bike is also built for more than just going really fast in a really straight line. This is one of the most directly tied bikes in the world to the Moto GP version. This is evident in the massive brakes, re-tuned ECU and racing inspired exhaust. This bike was built specifically for the purpose of being a fast yet manageable daily driver that could go to the track and destroy all other opponents no questions asked. The closest comparison to a car that I can think of is the old Dodge Viper ACR-X.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Red Bull Rampage
The Red Bull Rampage is known to many in the growing mountain biking world as the pinnacle in free ride downhill cycling. Like many of Red Bull's sponsored events, this event is the preview to the public of an extreme sport at it's highest level.
Located annually in Virgin, Utah deep in the Rocky Mountains, the terrain that these riders experience is some of the roughest in the whole country. It takes a certain amount of skill and insanity that most everyday people would only dream of having. The setup of the obstacles and possible lines down the mountain is changing and increasing every year to allow for even more dynamic and technical rides. For those riders who go for the big air, massive jumps are littered throughout the course. The biggest of which, consists of a 72 foot canyon jump that is accessed from riding over a more than 90 degree cliff and plummeting straight down towards the ramp, which propels you over this massive cavern. Another one of the massive jumps is located on the Oakley icon send center, which sends you down a massive ramp and spits you out over a sheer cliff for nearly endless airtime.
If your dream is to defy gravity, and going to space is out of the question then I would recommend that you begin training to ride here. Nowhere else on the planet can you get as much air time as the Red Bull rampage. Check this video out here for what I am talking about and i am sue you will agree with me. Like I said, this place is crazy. Thankfully however, in the 10 year history of this event, no rider has ever died in a crash. The worst injuries sustained in this event have been a list of broken bones. Hopefully there is never a fatality, which I would imagine is the aim of every rider and every other person associated with making this event happen every year. Thanks for reading.
Located annually in Virgin, Utah deep in the Rocky Mountains, the terrain that these riders experience is some of the roughest in the whole country. It takes a certain amount of skill and insanity that most everyday people would only dream of having. The setup of the obstacles and possible lines down the mountain is changing and increasing every year to allow for even more dynamic and technical rides. For those riders who go for the big air, massive jumps are littered throughout the course. The biggest of which, consists of a 72 foot canyon jump that is accessed from riding over a more than 90 degree cliff and plummeting straight down towards the ramp, which propels you over this massive cavern. Another one of the massive jumps is located on the Oakley icon send center, which sends you down a massive ramp and spits you out over a sheer cliff for nearly endless airtime.
If your dream is to defy gravity, and going to space is out of the question then I would recommend that you begin training to ride here. Nowhere else on the planet can you get as much air time as the Red Bull rampage. Check this video out here for what I am talking about and i am sue you will agree with me. Like I said, this place is crazy. Thankfully however, in the 10 year history of this event, no rider has ever died in a crash. The worst injuries sustained in this event have been a list of broken bones. Hopefully there is never a fatality, which I would imagine is the aim of every rider and every other person associated with making this event happen every year. Thanks for reading.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Why the Lykan Hypersport is a waste.
I am sure that most of you have heard in recent car news about a new kid on the block in the hypercar world. That new kid comes in the form of an ultra-rare package of the Lykan Hypersport. Checking in at $3.5 million dollars, it definitely is the most expensive car out there, but do you really get that much car for what you pay for? Well, look at it this way, in order to pay for this car, you have to have more money in your pocket than the average MLB baseball player earns in an entire year's salary (3.2 Million, thanks to the Huffington post).
What causes such a high price tag you may ask? Let's look at some of the amenities provided by the Lykan (courtesy of W motors website). When you buy this car, you get an "exclusive heads up display" and "customizeable digital performance cluster" that gives so many different sets of data you begin to get tunnel vision from just looking at a picture of it. One of the most luxurious options you get to make in this car is you are able to select between diamonds, yellow diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds to put on titanium in your headlights. Another exclusive amenity you get is a key made out of carbon fiber, titanium and more precious stones, and you also get to choose a watch that matches paint colors with your car. The body of the car is entirely made up of carbon fiber for weight reduction, powered by a Porsche derived flat six engine with twin intercooled turbos paired with a six speed sequential transmission, or a seven speed dual clutch transmisssion. The max horsepower is 780 horsepower and 708 Lb/ft of torque and it weighs just over 3,000 pounds.
Now, the interior does feature lots of carbon fiber, just like many other cars in the same class as the Lykan, but after that, things go downhill. There is nothing very spectacular about the rest of the interior. In fact, it looks downright boring. Instead of beautiful leather inserts or other unique additions like the car like in the Bugatti Veyron, or the Audi R8 (both cars that cost a significantly less amount of money might i add). The dash board, door paneling, headliner and the seats look like they could have come out of a Ford F-150 with an interior redesign. Now, these are entirely customizable of course, but the options offered like gold wire stitching seem a little ridiculous.
Now, let's crunch some numbers, the most proven and dominant 6 cylinder super car on the planet is undoubtedly the Nissan GT-R. The best version of this car comes from a tuning shop called Alpha Performance. Tuned from 530 BHP and 448 Lb/ft of torque to 1,840 BHP and 1,283 Lb/ft of torque in the Alpha 16 Package, this car is the easily the king. With the cost of this car sitting at around $200,000 (possibly a little more) you could buy 17 1/2 Alpha 16 Nissan GT-R's for the same price. That amounts to over 32,200 BHP and 22,452 Lb/ft of torque. Compare that to the meager numbers of the Lykan at 780 horsepower and 708 Lb/ft of torque. If you still want to choose the Lykan over that much power, then you truly are the type of person who should buy the Lykan.
The Lykan Hypersport was built to appeal to a very specific type of person. That person is who has more money than brains and wants to be able to drive a car that costs more to purchase than private airplane (which they probably also have purchased).
Thursday, October 22, 2015
The AC Cobra: The Greatest American Car Ever
When you think of America, what do you think of first? Of course you think of freedom, and what better expression of this freedom is there in this world than the open cockpit and roaring open exhaust note right underneath you of the AC Cobra.
When you look at this car, with the crazy wheel wells and massive wheels and the subtle, yet elegant curve of the body line from the front to the back of the car. What started out as one of the many revenge projects started by the masterminds called Carroll Shelby and Henry Ford II. After Ferrari pulled out of a deal with Ford, the american car company owner went to racing legend Carroll Shelby and asked him what they could do to beat Ferrari at their own game. Carroll took this challenge and created some monstrous machines. The body of the AC Cobra came from a British Sports car combination of cars, including the AC Ace Racer. Then, Carroll Frankensteined a massive 427 cubic inch engine with as much violence and brute force going on inside those cylinders as a freight train crashing into a brick wall. The end result was a legendary car, whose according to it's name (the cobra) virtually came up and bit the balls off of every prancing horse and bull emblem that it encountered on the road and on the race track.
The wrath and mind boggling power and acceleration of this car along with the great history of what this car represented is what makes it so desirable even today. With original numbers-matching cars calling for easy six digit prices and many rarer ones like Carrol Shelby's personal AC Super Snake fetch a price of well over $5.5 Million dollars at auction. These cars are extremely fun to drive, and the people who own these cars definitely know how to drive them. If you ever get the opportunity in your lifetime to drive this american icon, I would highly recommend it.
When you look at this car, with the crazy wheel wells and massive wheels and the subtle, yet elegant curve of the body line from the front to the back of the car. What started out as one of the many revenge projects started by the masterminds called Carroll Shelby and Henry Ford II. After Ferrari pulled out of a deal with Ford, the american car company owner went to racing legend Carroll Shelby and asked him what they could do to beat Ferrari at their own game. Carroll took this challenge and created some monstrous machines. The body of the AC Cobra came from a British Sports car combination of cars, including the AC Ace Racer. Then, Carroll Frankensteined a massive 427 cubic inch engine with as much violence and brute force going on inside those cylinders as a freight train crashing into a brick wall. The end result was a legendary car, whose according to it's name (the cobra) virtually came up and bit the balls off of every prancing horse and bull emblem that it encountered on the road and on the race track.
The wrath and mind boggling power and acceleration of this car along with the great history of what this car represented is what makes it so desirable even today. With original numbers-matching cars calling for easy six digit prices and many rarer ones like Carrol Shelby's personal AC Super Snake fetch a price of well over $5.5 Million dollars at auction. These cars are extremely fun to drive, and the people who own these cars definitely know how to drive them. If you ever get the opportunity in your lifetime to drive this american icon, I would highly recommend it.
Ricers: An Epidemic
Many of you who have heard of the term "ricer" probably think of a crappy old Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla with an awful muffler and an even worse pain job to match. Although these cars fall underneath this term, the term actually covers an even broader spectrum of cars. There is also a distinct difference between ricers and tuners, and we will address that as well.
The true definition to the term "ricer" is any car that has been tastelessly designed and customized with things that give zero advantages to the performance of the car itself. For example: that "custom homemade" body wrap that you and your buddies got that has the cool flames you wanted that you put on your car in you mom's garage with a hairdryer and putty knife isn't fooling anybody. Another prime example to spotting a ricer is the immediate presence of a ridiculously over sized rear spoiler that adds no performance advantages to the car and actually impedes the performance of the car by adding extra weight and drag.
What was once just a small enclave of mostly Japanese drivers expressing their own views on car styling has turned into a worldwide epidemic in the automotive world. The types of styles that now fall under this category vary greatly. The most obvious is the tuner impersonator, which employs the same main spotting points discussed above with a few more added details. These go on to include a muffler that does about as much good at making the engine quieter as an empty soda can would. Also, many ricers add stickers to the front panels and rear windows of the car that sport products usually not even in the car, or stickers promoting a sportier version of the actual car. This usually comes in the form of different logos like V-TEC or SVT or something along those lines.
Another smaller group of ricers that has become more prevalent is the "donked out" cars. These cars have been given lift kits and over sized wheels with the thinnest tires available to the owner. These wheels can range in size from 24'' all the way up to 36'' and above. Also, it is usually typical to see customized rims and/ or spinning rims on these cars (if that helps you identify who mainly drives these cars). They also usually have very extravagant and extremely customized paint jobs. These can take the form of anything from just some good pin striping, all the way up to full-on themed paint jobs attributing to things like McDonalds, Tampons and Kool-aid (i kid you not they actually pain cars like that). As a nice final touch, these cars are also accompanied by even more loud accessories like questionably legal exhaust cutouts to solid gold truck nuts.
There are many other smaller groups of cars that fall under this category. The most commonly "riced" cars include the following, The Ford Mustang, the Honda Del Sol, the Mitsubishi Lancer (non-evo version), the Acura Integra, Eagle Talon,and the king of them all is the Honda Civic.
With this knowledge now vested within you, i challenge you to go back out into the world more aware of how these cars are dragging down many other types of car owners that i will discuss soon enough like Sleepers and Tuners.
The true definition to the term "ricer" is any car that has been tastelessly designed and customized with things that give zero advantages to the performance of the car itself. For example: that "custom homemade" body wrap that you and your buddies got that has the cool flames you wanted that you put on your car in you mom's garage with a hairdryer and putty knife isn't fooling anybody. Another prime example to spotting a ricer is the immediate presence of a ridiculously over sized rear spoiler that adds no performance advantages to the car and actually impedes the performance of the car by adding extra weight and drag.
What was once just a small enclave of mostly Japanese drivers expressing their own views on car styling has turned into a worldwide epidemic in the automotive world. The types of styles that now fall under this category vary greatly. The most obvious is the tuner impersonator, which employs the same main spotting points discussed above with a few more added details. These go on to include a muffler that does about as much good at making the engine quieter as an empty soda can would. Also, many ricers add stickers to the front panels and rear windows of the car that sport products usually not even in the car, or stickers promoting a sportier version of the actual car. This usually comes in the form of different logos like V-TEC or SVT or something along those lines.
Another smaller group of ricers that has become more prevalent is the "donked out" cars. These cars have been given lift kits and over sized wheels with the thinnest tires available to the owner. These wheels can range in size from 24'' all the way up to 36'' and above. Also, it is usually typical to see customized rims and/ or spinning rims on these cars (if that helps you identify who mainly drives these cars). They also usually have very extravagant and extremely customized paint jobs. These can take the form of anything from just some good pin striping, all the way up to full-on themed paint jobs attributing to things like McDonalds, Tampons and Kool-aid (i kid you not they actually pain cars like that). As a nice final touch, these cars are also accompanied by even more loud accessories like questionably legal exhaust cutouts to solid gold truck nuts.
There are many other smaller groups of cars that fall under this category. The most commonly "riced" cars include the following, The Ford Mustang, the Honda Del Sol, the Mitsubishi Lancer (non-evo version), the Acura Integra, Eagle Talon,and the king of them all is the Honda Civic.
With this knowledge now vested within you, i challenge you to go back out into the world more aware of how these cars are dragging down many other types of car owners that i will discuss soon enough like Sleepers and Tuners.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Car Versus Fighter Jet
Now, as you read this title, I know what you are going to think... "How is this even a choice?", there is one answer to your question. In the world of extremely fast accelerating cars and mach-2 plus capable planes, the only way the car world has a chance is in the Bugatti Veyron, the fastest production car to date.
In the video posted below, I will describe the match up featured in on of the greatest matchups of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoLYPrkwrA4
Stats:
The Bugatti is powered by a W-16 quad-turbo engine that effortlessly makes well over 1183 brake horsepower. Paired with a 7 speed transmission going to all 4 wheels, this car is the car that is the current world record holder for the fastest production car on the planet at over 270 mph, with a zero to sixty time of 2.5 seconds. What makes this car so special and powerful is the unique design of the engine paired with the massive amounts of boost produced by the turbos. Along with brute force, the Bugatti is a technological masterpiece with countless hours of aerodynamics testing. These countless hours can be found in every part of the car, but the most interesting product of this research to me is the rear air brake/ wing. When running at high speeds, it acts to provide down force to the rear wheels. But when the car is slowing form high speeds, the wing flips up, much like air brakes on fighter jets, and it provides the car with as much braking power as a Volkswagen Golf when driving at around 180 mph. Another interesting fact about the Bugatti is the safety features in the car, most specifically the speed governing system. In the side of the diver's side door well there is a key slot that deactivates the aerodynamic speed governor by adjusting the suspension to lower the car almost so that it is touching the ground, This gives the Bugatti it's capability or reaching its fabled top speed. When this is not activated, the car can only push itself up to a lower but still respectable 258 mph.
The Jet in the video is one that might not be as familiar to people as the car. It's name is the Eurofighter Typhoon. the Eurofighter gets it's name due to the many countries who participated jointly to produce the plane (England, Germany, Spain and Italy). It is powered by 2 jet engines, which at full afterburner give the Eurofighter a thrust to weight ratio of 1.76 and pushing it to a disclosed top speed of over mach 2.35 (2.35 times the speed of sound). The super cruise speed (maximum sustainable cruising speed) is Mach 1.5 (1.5 times the speed of sound). This jet is operated through a fly-by-wire system and is also run by over 70 different computers just to keep the plane in the air. The reason for this many computers is due to design by necessity. In order for the Typhoon to have an edge in dogfights before thrust vectoring, the plane had to be made unstable in the air to improve maneuvering in said dogfights. The F-4's and F-14's were a prime example of the need for either smaller planes, or new technological developments in order for these big fighters to be able to stay alive in dogfights with much smaller planes like the MIGs of the time.
Now with the Typhoon having this much speed as it does, it looks like it might be a blowout, but i will leave it to you to choose which you think will win and then watch the video yourself.
In the video posted below, I will describe the match up featured in on of the greatest matchups of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoLYPrkwrA4
Stats:
The Bugatti is powered by a W-16 quad-turbo engine that effortlessly makes well over 1183 brake horsepower. Paired with a 7 speed transmission going to all 4 wheels, this car is the car that is the current world record holder for the fastest production car on the planet at over 270 mph, with a zero to sixty time of 2.5 seconds. What makes this car so special and powerful is the unique design of the engine paired with the massive amounts of boost produced by the turbos. Along with brute force, the Bugatti is a technological masterpiece with countless hours of aerodynamics testing. These countless hours can be found in every part of the car, but the most interesting product of this research to me is the rear air brake/ wing. When running at high speeds, it acts to provide down force to the rear wheels. But when the car is slowing form high speeds, the wing flips up, much like air brakes on fighter jets, and it provides the car with as much braking power as a Volkswagen Golf when driving at around 180 mph. Another interesting fact about the Bugatti is the safety features in the car, most specifically the speed governing system. In the side of the diver's side door well there is a key slot that deactivates the aerodynamic speed governor by adjusting the suspension to lower the car almost so that it is touching the ground, This gives the Bugatti it's capability or reaching its fabled top speed. When this is not activated, the car can only push itself up to a lower but still respectable 258 mph.
The Jet in the video is one that might not be as familiar to people as the car. It's name is the Eurofighter Typhoon. the Eurofighter gets it's name due to the many countries who participated jointly to produce the plane (England, Germany, Spain and Italy). It is powered by 2 jet engines, which at full afterburner give the Eurofighter a thrust to weight ratio of 1.76 and pushing it to a disclosed top speed of over mach 2.35 (2.35 times the speed of sound). The super cruise speed (maximum sustainable cruising speed) is Mach 1.5 (1.5 times the speed of sound). This jet is operated through a fly-by-wire system and is also run by over 70 different computers just to keep the plane in the air. The reason for this many computers is due to design by necessity. In order for the Typhoon to have an edge in dogfights before thrust vectoring, the plane had to be made unstable in the air to improve maneuvering in said dogfights. The F-4's and F-14's were a prime example of the need for either smaller planes, or new technological developments in order for these big fighters to be able to stay alive in dogfights with much smaller planes like the MIGs of the time.
Now with the Typhoon having this much speed as it does, it looks like it might be a blowout, but i will leave it to you to choose which you think will win and then watch the video yourself.
Monday, October 12, 2015
Car of the week: Koenigsegg Agera One:1
A somewhat lesser known super car company comfortably nestled into Sweden, founded by a man named Christian Van Koenigsegg. This man's dream was to create world-class super cars that could hold their own against cars made by much bigger companies. And with the newest addition to the legacy of the Agera model line, they might have just made one of the greatest feats of automotive creation ever. This creation takes the form of a car with an astonishing horsepower to kilogram curb weight ratio of 1:1. Thus the name One:1, and what this also means is that this is the first street legal series produced car to produce one megawatt of power, thus being dubbed the "Mega-car".
The truly amazing thing about this car is that it reaches it's maximum power numbers (1341 horsepower) while running on E85 bio-fuel, not racing gasoline. The engine behind this monster of a car is a twin turbocharged 32 valve V8 with multiple sequential injectors for each cylinder.
With all of this power, an equally large amount of down force is needed to keep the car glued to the track, and with the assistance of a massive rear spoiler, side and front air splitters, and a flat under body with air convectors in the underside, this car would need nothing short of an explosive charge to go off in order for this car to come unglued from the road.
What all of these power and numbers add up to is something like this. A predicted Bugatti-smashing 273 mph top speed, a predicted 6:30.00 time lap around the Nurburgring, pending the recent imposed speed limits are lifted, and a car that is one of the most capable feats of engineering ever to grace this planet.
I am looking forward to the many, many records that this car will set and break, along with joining the likes of cars like the Hennessey Venom GT as one of the fastest cars in the world.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Possibly the end to the Naturally Aspirated performance Car?
As the announcement from Ferrari came out about the details for the replacement for the 458 came out, the 488 had some details that are beginning to spell the demise for a realm of this car world.
The end that i am talking about is that of the naturally aspirated performance car. What this means is that many sports and super cars are beginning to feel the pinch of governmental emissions standards that are becoming all too much of a reality for us all. These standards are forcing companies to downsize engine displacement and add either a turbo or a supercharger to the engine to compensate for the loss of power from the smaller engine and also to improve emissions of the car. The all too real world of emission-concerned people (tree-huggers) has even made its way into the almost imaginary racing world of companies like Ferrari, Nissan Nismo, Mercedes AMG, Dodge SRT, and other performance brands.
For example, the new Ferrari 488 features a smaller, turbocharged engine. Now for those of you who are familiar with the 458 engine, this was easily one of the greatest performing V8 engines ever. Period. Now why would Ferrari do away with such am amazingly developed engine? Two words are all that are needed, Emissions Standards. With tighter emission standards, the engine in the old 458 was maxed out in terms of fuel economy, and facing possible restrictions of import from countries like the U.S. sadly it had to lose some bulk and go turbo. Other cars that have faced the same treatment go on to include the BMW M4 coupe, nearly every Porsche 911, Mercedes C63 AMG, and the Nissan 370z and the GTR.
What this means, is that the end is nearing, especially for the V8, with most V6's alerady gone the way of forced induction, the V8 is inevitably soon to follow. in my opinion we may already be seeing the last hurrah of this great american icon. And it is found in the form of a car that couldn't be more befitting to send it off into the sunset. That car is Ford's new Mustang GT350 and GT350R. With Ford finally taking a leaf out of Ferrari's book and came up with a flat crank deign allowing for endless revs all the way up to 9,000 RPM's. When this car is going around the track or simply driving, it seems that you could just pick a gear and let it run forever. Along with this, Ford also has an active valve cutoff valves that change the exhaust dynamics completely when changed from driving to track mode. The video below, thanks to Ford themselves gives a demonstration of what I am talking about. After you listen to the ear-gasmic exhaust I am sure that you will be a believer in this car as well.
At about 20 to 30 seconds you will know what i mean about the active exhaust changing, and be careful, it gets pretty loud.
Sunday, October 4, 2015
What is NASCAR?
As the Chase for the Sprint Cup series continues to add racers to the field to the finals, some people ask, "What is NASCAR, and what is it all about?". Now, I know that most people who read this know what NASCAR is, but i would still like to talk about it to educate those who do not know.
NASCAR stands for the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing. Now, a stock car is by definition, any normal "stock car" that had been modified for racing. Within the association however, there are many different types of classes that allow for different amounts of modifications to be made to the car. The most extreme of these cars are what you see racing around the oval across the country every weekend. Although these cars are designed to look similar to those cars that you can buy from a dealership, they are the farthest thing that you can get from them. For example, a normal Toyota Corolla costs somewhere in the $ 20,000 range brand new and makes 140 horsepower max. The stock car version of the Corolla has been known to cost upwards of $150,000 dollars with the engine alone costing up to $100,000. These monstrous engines are capable of creating power numbers upwards of 900 horsepower that at some tracks, can push the cars to their 200 mph racing speed with the capability of going much faster, if it wasn't for all of those darn left turns and restrictions that are put upon the cars to help maintain safety.
Along with monstrous horsepower numbers and even heftier price tags, these race cars are also equipped with some of the greatest feats of driving safety known to man. These include the roll cage and the front and rear driving assembly, which in case of a crash are designed to crumple and push all harmful parts of the car away from the driver while the roll cage maintains a solid structure around the driver.
Another cool thing that not many people know about NASCAR is the story about where it came from. The NASCAR actually originated from moonshiners. Crazy right?? During prohibition, all of these moonshiners needed faster cars to be able to make quick deliveries of moonshine along with being capable of outrunning the police if needed. When these moonshine runners weren't out on delivery runs, they tended to want to cut loose. What better way for young restless men who have these souped up cars to pass their time other than racing them against each other? What began as friendly competition soon turned into a nationwide racing organization. What really spurred the growth of NASCAR was the end of prohibition, with even more free time to organize races and meetings, along with the funding available to them from their "questionably legal business ventures", NASCAR fever quickly caught on in a car-crazy country and the rest is history.
NASCAR stands for the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing. Now, a stock car is by definition, any normal "stock car" that had been modified for racing. Within the association however, there are many different types of classes that allow for different amounts of modifications to be made to the car. The most extreme of these cars are what you see racing around the oval across the country every weekend. Although these cars are designed to look similar to those cars that you can buy from a dealership, they are the farthest thing that you can get from them. For example, a normal Toyota Corolla costs somewhere in the $ 20,000 range brand new and makes 140 horsepower max. The stock car version of the Corolla has been known to cost upwards of $150,000 dollars with the engine alone costing up to $100,000. These monstrous engines are capable of creating power numbers upwards of 900 horsepower that at some tracks, can push the cars to their 200 mph racing speed with the capability of going much faster, if it wasn't for all of those darn left turns and restrictions that are put upon the cars to help maintain safety.
Along with monstrous horsepower numbers and even heftier price tags, these race cars are also equipped with some of the greatest feats of driving safety known to man. These include the roll cage and the front and rear driving assembly, which in case of a crash are designed to crumple and push all harmful parts of the car away from the driver while the roll cage maintains a solid structure around the driver.
Another cool thing that not many people know about NASCAR is the story about where it came from. The NASCAR actually originated from moonshiners. Crazy right?? During prohibition, all of these moonshiners needed faster cars to be able to make quick deliveries of moonshine along with being capable of outrunning the police if needed. When these moonshine runners weren't out on delivery runs, they tended to want to cut loose. What better way for young restless men who have these souped up cars to pass their time other than racing them against each other? What began as friendly competition soon turned into a nationwide racing organization. What really spurred the growth of NASCAR was the end of prohibition, with even more free time to organize races and meetings, along with the funding available to them from their "questionably legal business ventures", NASCAR fever quickly caught on in a car-crazy country and the rest is history.
Friday, October 2, 2015
Car of the week: Corvette C7 Z06
As a fan of one of , if not the longest continual car model on the planet, i had high hopes for the coming of the newest Kentucky bred racehorse. (For those of you that might not know Kentucky is where Corvette started). With the new results out, i have to say, they not only met my expectations on this car, they blew them out of the water.
With one of the most track-ready setups ever put into a street car, it is capable of stealing lunch money from cars costing upwards of two to three times the price, and can hang with even more capable and exotic cars. For instance, cars like the Mclaren 650S had a hard time shaking the Corvette during hot lap testing for the magazine Motor Trend. How is a car that costs over half as much as a car made by a company with one of the greatest racing pedigrees in the world able to keep up? The answer is American brute power and down force, lots of down force. The 6.2 liter supercharged V8 engine creates over 650 horsepower and 650 lb/ft of torque. The entire car is designed to push air either onto the front air splitter and wings, around the car or onto the massive spoiler on the back of the car. In all, this brute produces the most down force ever found in a GM-made car. Ever. Period.
With the choices of either a seven speed manual or an eight speed automatic, the power is easily put to the ground with the assistance of optional Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. Also, what makes this car so different from many of it's competitors is the out-of-this-world suspension system. Almost unlimited tuning and adjustments can be made due to the double wishbone magnetic selective ride control systems that companies like Ferrari asked to borrow from Chevrolet. Crazy huh?
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