As cool as it is to hear about super dominant cats like the McLaren MP4/4, I find the stories of the crappy cars to be far more interesting. At some level “perfect car beast modes the entire field” gets a bit boring compared to some of the other team stories going on at the same time in F1. Hearing about teams like…

For those of you who don’t get why people love Japanese cars (especially from the 80s and 90s) so much, this is why. They can be true giant killers with a bit of work. A shame so many have ended up horribly abused, but this build shows they can be brought back from the dead if you’re willing to put in the effort.

I went to the GRC Indy event last year.  Had an absolute blast.  Quite happy to see RX still going despite GRC making an utter mess of it.  Definitely attend if you can and watch it on TV or online when it’s available.  You will not be disappointed.

Pretty sure that engine can take more with a little tweaking.  I’ve seen them go over 10K.

Yeah, fuel cut is somewhere around 9300 or so. The turbo does run out of steam pretty quickly (it’s really there for a low-end boost for city driving), but a bigger turbo and a retune can help with that. Definitely on my to-do list.

Oh man, they have a turbo light! Just like my Cappuccino! BOOOOOOOOOST!

The other issue is tires.  Ovals load the absolute hell out of the right side tires and rain tires on an oval would shred themselves very quickly.  It would be like the Brickyard 400 they had about a decade ago where everyone had to pit every 10 laps to keep the tires from exploding.

Using race lap times is incredibly misleading. For a start, Renault ran the medium and hard tires, whereas Mercedes/Ferrari/Red Bull all ran soft/medium. Each team and driver has a different strategy to make it to the end as fast as possible. Sometimes that requires only driving at 90% to do one less pit stop (it…

Having a pure-bred racing bike instead of a street cruiser probably also helped just a little bit. Oh and modern simulation tools to make all the ramp and speed calculations long before a bike ever touches a ramp.

Really, especially when Millennials (the target audience we constantly hear H-D is trying to win over) were watching the hell out of this. You can bet that Indian motorcycles just got a lot cooler for doing this with TP.

Around how many photos did you shoot during the weekend? When I cover the Indy 500 I usually take around 2000 during race day alone (about 1/3 of those get deleted due to being out of focus, or missing the car).

I’m considering streaming and TV to be two separate entities (just as advertisers do).  I haven’t seen the MS Stream of PPHC so I don’t know.

It’s a shame that a lot of the best racing out there isn’t TV friendly. Rallying, hill climbs, time attacks...it’s not about the head-to-head competition, it’s about watching cars go as fast as possible, sometimes in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah but then you really should wear a helmet every time you drive it. Not exactly convenient.

All the more reason to rip em out and put in a proper racing seat and harness.

Didn’t forget these at all. They used to make these in Newark, DE and I remember two distinct things about them (and the Durango of the same period):

I think this highlights the real problem with the sedan market: they’re too expensive new. CUVs are only slightly more expensive and offer more practicality. Sedans are worse value for the money. If sedans were cheaper, they’d be more popular.

Alonso has always been good to his fans. They pay his bills so he treats them well. Teams on the other hand? If he’s winning, they’re the best in the business and it’s one big happy family. If he’s losing they’re incompetent and need to be fired.

He was a prick looooooooong before his return to McLaren. See: