This really intimidates the little kids at the go-kart tracks. Once they start crying, you can easily put them into the tire wall.

I want to say that I spent a lot of time researching this helmet, but that would be like telling stories on the internet. To be honest, I was looking for the same helmet as the Stig wears, but ultimately decided that the Simpson Diamondback was a bit too expensive, and the Bandit didn’t quite appeal to me.

Instead I looked for the cheapest SA2010 full face helmet that didn’t look dorky. In the end I chose the Bell M4 in black, because black is slimming.

New Bell M4 helmet

“American stuntmen are smart—they think about safety. When they do a jump in a car, they calculate everything: the speed, the distance. But in Hong Kong, we don’t know how to count. Everything we do is a guess. If you’ve got the guts, you do it. All of my stuntmen have gotten hurt.”
--Jackie Chan

With the thought that my helmet choices are strictly fashion related, I recently attended a safety talk by John Melvin, a member of my car club. John had worked for UMTRI (University of Michigan Transport Research Institute) and GM Research. He’s worked with both the IndyCar series and NASCAR on driver safety.

His talk covered safety equipment for cars on the track. He talked about helmets, HANS, nets, and seats. He showed videos of seemingly innocuous crashes where the driver died, and videos where the only identifiable parts of the cars was a wheel in the vicinity of the crash but the driver turned out all right.

We saw videos of a sled test where a test dummy ends up kissing his own belly button while wearing a seat belt. I’ve seen barrier test videos from years of working in the airbag industry, but never with a dummy wearing a helmet. That’s a lot of additional weight that adds to the momentum of the head.

He showed data why a 6-point harness is better than a 5-point harness, and why an SFI-rated 2-inch harness is as good as a 3-inch one. He explained how the HANS (head and neck support) device minimizes basal skull fractures (and the associated probability of bleeding out from a severed carotid artery). The list of race car drivers that have died from this injury is long and sad.

John basically put the fear of God in all of us.

At the end of the presentation we were all mentally calculating the cost of all of this safety equipment. Real racing seats can cost from $2,500 to $10,000 each. Most guys I know with aftermarket seats spend $500-$1,500. A 6-point harness is about $350. Then there are nets and harness/roll bars. And in our club, a car on the track must have equal seats and restraints on both the driver and passenger side, which doubles the costs.

The question becomes how much is my time in a hospital (or cemetery) worth? And why am I driving around with just a 3-point seatbelt with all these wackos behind the wheel all around me?

I once had my 944 Turbo in Germany for a year. After observing what driving on the autobahn and the Nürburgring was like, I decided to put a roll bar in the 944 before shipping it to Germany. Whenever I drove it on the ’Ring, I wore my helmet and 5-point harness. That was about the right level of safety equipment for the situation.

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”
--Oscar Wilde

That was a long introduction to say that the picture below truly freaks me out (just like @natalieneff).

I can’t even ride a bicycle a couple of blocks to the hardware store without a helmet. And yes, this guy is pretty wet from the rain today.

Michigan apparently changed its motorcycle helmet law. I read about this possibility some time ago, but I didn’t think it would actually go through. I know states out West and some around Michigan have not required helmets for many years. But we’re talking about mouth-breathing Buckeyes Ohioans here, so I never cared.

Just to be clear, I love motorcycles. I’m going to steal my own material here, but as much as I love motorcycles, I can never, ever ride one. Ever. Because if I do, I will twist the throttle too hard, causing the motorcycle to wheelie and flip high up in the air, then fall on top of me, crushing me to death in my own driveway. In other words, it’s a probabilistic certainty that a motorcycle for me is a bad idea.

If you’re on a motorcycle, you should wear as much personal armor as you can carry. Have you seen how people drive? They don’t see other cars, let alone motorcycles. A helmet is a really good place to start. I could link about a helmet protestor getting killed for not wearing a helmet. This may seem ironic, but it’s actually statistical. I could go on about more statistics of helmet usage, but I can boil it down to this question: do you want to end up like Gary Busey after his motorcycle accident?

Maybe what we really need is the fear of Darwin in us.

According to College@Home’s infographics (thanks to @klagowski), a long commute is very, very bad for you. (As an aside, it also mentions a phenomenon I’ve called the Traffic Caterpillar of Death. I just have to find someone to officially use my term.) So how does a commute longer than 45 minutes kill you? Let College@Home count the ways:

• you worry more
• you’re angrier
• you’re 40% more likely to get a divorce (smarmy remark... never mind—no comment)
• you develop neck and back pains
• you get high cholesterol
• you get fat
• you sleep less (you lose an average of 2183 minutes of sleep per year to traffic)
• your risk of heart attack triples

I drive over an hour to get to or from work. That’s over two hours every day that I’m dying more quickly (after all, we’re all dying, just not at the same rates). I’ve contemplated different solutions, and actually tried a few things to mitigate my descent to worm food.

“I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.”
--Oscar Wilde (did not star in Soylent Green)

Even German traffic jams are very organized

Take the Long Way Home

I actually take a longer route to work rather than the more direct route, mostly because I hate people (or at least, other drivers). The direct route takes me through the heart of westside traffic in metro Detroit. Going this way makes me more aggressive, angrier, and less patient. I’m pretty stressed out by the time I get to work. I once went to a health screening at work right after this commute and my blood pressure was through the roof.

Instead my route is now a lot of two-lane back roads. There’s the occasional pokey driver, but you just have to remember where the passing areas are. It’s more scenic, too—green in summer, colorful in fall, and crappy in winter (I hate winter). With less traffic, it also tends to be more consistent. This significantly reduces my driving stress. The only problem is it adds over 15 minutes to my drive.

“Death is always around the corner, but often our society gives it inordinate help.”
--Carter Burwell

“Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.”
--Edward W. Howe

Listen to What the Man Says

Listening to music through my iPod can help me be more relaxed as I drive. What I’ve noticed is the more relax I need to be, the older my music tends to be, regressing to the ’90s, ’80s, ’70s, ’60s, down to classical. If all else fails, I switch to Christmas music because who gets stressed at Christmas?

What’s even better than music for me are audio books. With audio books I pay less attention to what’s going on around me to concentrate on the book’s content. This can actually be a concern, as I normally use 125% of my driving concentration to make sure I get good data from my Valentine One by identifying unwanted radar sources like police cars.

I’ve listened to novels, non-fiction, and self-help books. Some books are better than others, of course. For example, while I never actually learned how to repair a 1964 Honda SuperHawk CB77 from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, at least Tom Clancy’s heroes in Dead or Alive get their man in one of those two states.

Ommmmmm... ommmmmmm... ommmmmmm

I’ve also listened to podcasts, which I suppose is like listening to AM radio stations (which Subaru owners are supposed to do). Luckily these are prerecorded so there’s no temptation to call in to hear yourself spew. I would recommend against watching videos while you drive, though. Pointing your car into a wall and mashing on the gas pedal is the only driving maneuver I can think of that will cause you to crash faster.

She Drives Me Crazy

One great idea is simply not to drive. If your work allows it, telecommute by working at home. Unfortunately we have the technology, but not the progressive work places to make this more prevalent.

Another possibility is brought to you by internet searches and their ads—Google’s autonomous car. This is almost as good as Willy Wonka’s Great Glass Elevator. And lest you think this is pie in the sky, my company has put together an automated car. While it doesn’t do as much as the Google car, it’s also much closer to being production-ready.

I’ve also heard that in states beyond Michigan, they let more than one person be in a car. I would presume that only one of these people is driving, allowing the other person to make all of the gestures to other cars that the driver would normally make. In mythical kingdoms like California, these people (and their inflatable dummies) even have their own lanes.

These mystical lands may also have something called “public transportation,” although no one really knows how this works. There are urban legends of “schedules” that can be found in the Book of the Dead, although I think if you check in snopes.com, you’ll find that there are actually buses in Europe with people in them.

She Sells Sanctuary

Another solution to the long commute problem is either to move closer to work, or find another job. While elegantly simple, not everyone can do this. Still, it’s better than moving closer to the cemetery.

My ultimate solution was to buy a faster car. It’s faster not to get me to work faster, because traffic lights keep me from getting there any sooner. It’s faster because that makes me happier. And ultimately, isn’t that what living is all about?

The Happy Maker

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.”
--Woody Allen

“Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.”
--W. Somerset Maugham

Addendum: Doing some math, I realized that I spend just under 20 days per year driving to and from work, equivalent to 4 weeks of vacation. And here’s a Slate article that expands on the infographic.

“Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.”
--Franklin D. Roosevelt

Here are a few rules that come up frequently in my daily commute. I even try to follow some of them. The rules that I left out from this list are generally related to being a considerate driver. Since the last known considerate driver was last seen stopping to help a horse and buggy get out of the mud shortly before getting rear-ended by a distracted driver trying to send a wireless telegram, we’ll leave those rules for a future post.

“A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.”
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. Pass early, pass often: There are many important, critical reasons why you should pass someone, such as they’re in front of you. Actually, that’s the only vital one that comes to mind.

2. Let the police car go faster (do not pass the policeman): So there I was, in the middle of the night heading south towards Flagstaff, AZ on U.S. 89. I was in the Porsche 944 Turbo playing "chase the taillights," a variation on another chasing game I used to play. The particular set of taillights I was chasing were quite a good distance away, but I was making good time.

Back then in 1996, no car had production radar-based blind spot detection, or any radar for that matter, but I used a Valentine One data acquisition device anyway, in case someone from 10 years in the future travelled back in time with their blind spot car. That meant that the radar signal I kept picking up with the Valentine was either a time traveller or police radar. It was intermittent and ahead of me. I was hoping for the time traveller.

That’s when my heart jumped through time and space when I realized that the taillights I had been chasing were in fact an Arizona state policeman. In a police Mustang. That I had caught rather quickly. I felt like the kid that hopes, “maybe mom won’t realize that the lamp in the living room is broken.”

I remember thinking to myself that as long as he can’t get behind me, he can’t pull me over. That’s when he slowed down from 55 mph (the speed limit) to 50 mph. I just stayed behind him. He dropped to 45 mph and I didn’t budge. We then came to an uphill grade with a passing lane, and he pulled to the right lane. I followed right behind him. We’re now both going 40 mph. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and I broke the rule. I started passing the policeman at 45 mph. As I pulled beside him, I looked at him and shrugged my shoulders. He just glared back. I expected him to hit his lights, but he never turned them on. I got in front of him and he just followed me at 45 mph while every one else passed us by. He eventually turned off the highway, letting me continue in peace. I eventually started breathing again when I got onto I-40.

Edit: Found actual photo from actual trip of actual state of actual road before actual event.

7. Never follow a car if the driver is wearing a hat: baseball hat, backward baseball hat, fedora, sombrero, cowboy hat, flower hat, beret, skull cap, police cap, top hat, bowler, sun hat, coonskin cap, fez, Homburg, SA-rated helmet, pork pie hat, tam, tuque, ushanka— they’re all bad (although I wouldn’t mind getting a ushanka). See rule #1. If it’s a police cap, see rule #2.

Ушанка

9. Let the crazy driver by: You’ve seen this driver weaving, accelerating behind traffic and then slamming on the brakes (if you haven’t seen me, I’m apologizing ahead of time). Just let this driver by. Maybe take a different route altogether. The further you are from this person, the better. When he causes that inevitable accident, you want it far from you. As an added bonus, this driver may attract the police traffic ahead of you if you let him by.

Do not race this driver, do not antagonize or otherwise engage him. Let him go. It’s not worth it. If their driving is truly dangerous, consider calling it in (but not while you’re driving).

12. Rock beats scissors: Always.

13. The Hitcher: You’re driving at night down a deserted road far from civilization with just the radio for company. You haven’t seen any signs of life for some time. Suddenly your headlights fixate on a dark stranger looming ahead. He looks a bit disheveled and ragged, like he just finished playing hockey. He says he’s been walking for a while. You listen to his smooth story about breaking down a ways back and see the wild glint in his eye. He just needs to get to the next town so he can get some help for the friends he left back at the car. He’s even willing to pay for the gas.

So here’s the rule.

You can let him throw his suspicious looking satchel in the back seat and let him lead you to that abandoned gas station, but you must not allow him to change the music on the radio. You need to have your principles.

“I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.”
--Oscar Wilde

You can play this game anywhere, although probably not for fun or profit. Even though I don’t like stereotypes, it helps in this game. Casual random conversation is also helpful, but full Google-like stalking is just cheating.

“All the people like us are We, and everyone else is They.”
-- Rudyard Kipling

I play this game at the gym in the morning. The older, really fit gentleman with regular work gloves for weight lifting, and works outside a lot? An older Ford F150. The well-groomed guy with the matching sweats, but never gets too sweaty? The Audi A6. The housewife trying to get her pre-third kid figure back? A Chrysler minivan.

In my house, what does the female, granola crunching, tree-hugging, European liberal teacher who lives too close to Ann Arbor drive? A Subaru Legacy GT station wagon (with a manual transmission). And the male, testosterone-fueled, Tanner Foust wannabe, but more like a Ken “Crash” Block driver? A Subaru Impreza WRX STI (with a manual transmission). These, by the way, are the only two demographics for Subaru.

Once in a while there’ll be some fascinating surprises. The small, blond female engineer at work? A Camaro SS for painting twin black lines in the parking lot and a Kawasaki Ninja for passing people on the I-75 on-ramps.

Or the elderly gentleman I was chatting with at a Subaru dealership. His car was a souped up (!!) Corvette Z06 (this was before the current Corvette ZR1 came out), and a souped up STI in the sho.

Sometimes you can work this process the other way. Someone in the gym mentioned that he was getting his race car together. He didn’t mention what kind of racing he does, but he drives a Chevrolet Malibu. I have no idea what kind of race car he has, but I would guess he races either short ovals or drag races based on his Malibu. Because if he did road racing, he’d be driving a Mazda Miata.

One of me must be compensating for something with this Porsche

Obviously this game has its pitfalls. If a total stranger comes up to me and gives me his life story and psychological profile, I will not know what car he drives. But if also given a short, multiple choice list of possibilities, I think I have a good shot at guessing which is his car in the parking lot.

Try it at the next party (it’s a lot easier than getting skinny teens to fight to the death for food).

As you walk in, try to guess who drives the Hummer H2 with the dubs (which may or may not have spinners). It’s probably not going to be the grandmotherly 60-year-old high school English teacher. Hint: look for gold jewelry and a Rolex. (If it’s an H1, look for brawny Austrians.)

“All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.”
-- Bob Dylan

“I am free of all prejudices. I hate every one equally.”
-- W. C. Fields

Addendum: We were paying for lunch at Tom’s Diner (no relation). I looked out the window and saw a bright red fifth-generation hard-top Corvette backed into a parking spot off to the side. A few of the booths in the diner were occupied by families with young children. A couple more have some high school kids finished with their classes. A pair of Oakland sheriff regulars are talking with the wait staff. In the corner is a pair of rough-and-tumble construction looking guys. Another pair of guys are wearing untucked flannel shirts and ripped jeans. One table has three 20-somethings, two women and a man. At the counter is a 40-something man wearing a tie, and a 60-something man who looks sadly lost.

The parking lot has a couple of minivans and Jeeps. There’s a pickup truck, an Oakland sheriff’s patrol car, and a work van of some sort (couldn’t read the sign on it). On either side of my Subaru is a Ford Taurus and an old Tahoe. The rest of the cars were as interesting as the asphalt they were parked on.

I bought my Porsche its Valentine in 1994, and it still uses it today. I bought another one in 2008 for my Subaru that is used daily. These Valentine One Radar Locators (V1) are typically called by a more generic name. As an engineer, I call them microwave and coherent light data acquisition sensors. And as far as you know, that’s what I use it for—data acquisition.

The Subaru’s Valentine mounting location

As someone who works with LIDAR and RADAR sensors, this can be very handy. For example, the Valentine can pick up infrared (IR) signals. These signals typically have a wave length around 900 nm. (Visible light is around 390 nm - 750 nm.) There are many vehicles that generated these IR wavelengths. Some Infiniti and Lexus vehicles have used LIDAR-based adaptive cruise control (ACC) for some time. Because of the range necessary to do ACC, the Valentine can detect such vehicles from 100 meters away if pointed right at the Valentine.

Volvo vehicles equipped with the City Safety option also generate infrared signals around this wavelength, but with much shorter ranges.

Older GMC Envoys (and Chevrolet Trailblazers) generated this wavelength from its neon center high mounted stop light (CHMSL). Waiting behind one of these vehicles, or having a Volvo right behind you at a stop light can be very annoying. They will constantly set off the LIDAR “data acquisition” of the Valentine.

By a strange coincidence, a police LIDAR gun, designed to measure an on coming vehicle’s speed, generates a wave length around 904 nm, which will be detected by a Valentine. From personal experience, this usually means that the LIDAR is pointed right at you when the detection occurs.

Most vehicles sold in America today use windshields that significantly cut down infrared transmission, which keeps a vehicle interior cooler. This can be as much as 60-80% reduction of the LIDAR signal getting to the Valentine One. If the Valentine One is behind windshield tinting at the top, that reduces the signal even more.

“Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom.”
--Clifford Stoll

The Valentine One also happens to detect RADAR in the 24 GHz frequency range. There are quite a few sources of this signal. For instance, my older Valentine One is quite adept at detecting the RADAR from CVS automatic door openers.

There are also a few vehicles that generate this frequency range. For trucks, Eaton had developed its VORAD (Vehicle On-board RADAR) as a front facing RADAR unit used to warn drivers if they were dangerously closing in on a vehicle ahead of them. Audi Side Assist, which is used for blind spot detection when changing lanes, also works in the 24 GHz range. Early versions were developed by Hella. Valeo 24 GHz RADAR sensors are used in GM and Jaguar vehicles with blind spot detection. Some Mazdas also have 24 GHz RADAR blind spot sensor from another manufacturer. The Valentine One detects all of these, except for the Mazda. I have, however, seen other “data acquisition” devices detect the Mazda.

Although I’ve been referring to these sensors as 24 GHz RADAR, their exact frequency range may be something else. For example, the ISM (industrial, scientific, and medical) radio band for 24 GHz is actually 24.000-24.250 GHz. The K-band is 18-26.5 GHz, and the Ka-band is 26.5-40 GHz. I don't know what exact radio frequencies those manufacturers above are using for their RADAR sensors, I just know that that Valentine One detects them. Some must be using ultrawide band (UWB), meaning the frequency range is at least 0.5 GHz, because the same sensor will register as K-band and then Ka-band (as if it was sweeping through those frequencies).

For the RADAR applications I’ve listed above, the range is general very short, around 10-20 meters. So, for example, as you’re about to pass a Jeep, at under 20 meters you may start seeing a signal on your Valentine One and peaks when you’re in its blind spot. (You may also see a small yellow light on the side mirror indicating to its driver of your presence.) The level may be high but may not reach the maximum count on your Valentine, however, due to FCC limitation on the output of these types of sensors. The signal may disappear completely after passing the vehicle, with just the possibilities of reflected RADAR signal bouncing back to the Valentine One.

A patented feature (expired since 2011) of the Valentine One is directional arrows showing where the RADAR signal is coming from. You can use this on the previous example to confirm that the vehicle is the source of the signal.

I encountered a BMW once that pegged the Valentine One at about half a mile behind it. That may have just been a vehicle with special equipment, as I drive by a lot of places where vehicle products are being tested.

An odd source of RADAR signals that I’ve discovered around the Detroit area is the typical temporary flashing “contruction ahead” sign you see before a construction zone. Many such signs have them, and I don’t know why. Also, on my drive to Pikes Peak last year, I encountered many Ka-band RADAR signals that seemed to come from the highway infrastructure at regularly spaced intervals. This was in cities like Des Moines and Omaha. My guess is they’re used for traffic monitoring, but I have no idea if that’s true or not.

And again, by an even stranger coincidence, a typical police RADAR gun also emits 24 GHz RADAR, which will be detected by the Valentine One. Most of the police in the Detroit area seem to be using Ka-band RADAR in my informal survey, with the rest using K-band. If you collect data like I do, you may have to separate these police signals from other vehicles on the road.

“Data is what distinguishes the dilettante from the artist.”
--George V. Higgins

Now, while I use and recommend the Valentine One as a data acquisition device (I like arrows), please feel free to use other manufacturers’ products, such as from Escort and Beltronics. Various sites have performed evaluations of these sensors. Pick which ever works for you, and soon you will be enjoying the thrills of finding new vehicles with LIDAR and RADAR sensors like myself. If only the police would stop using their pesky speed detecting devices which adds unwanted noise to this data collection, then this would indeed be a better world.

Colorado Springs police officer using both RADAR and LIDAR. Because the police officer left the RADAR on, I was able to detect it at a far greater range than the LIDAR he was manually aiming at me.

“Experts often possess more data than judgment.”
--Colin Powell

Note: RADAR and LIDAR are acronyms, so I capitalized them to see how they would look. I have to say, I don’t like them capitalized.

I could have gone to the Porsche hospitality suite on Saturday, but I didn’t make it because of El Maguey’s Revenge. You don’t want to know.

Since I work in the auto industry, I know I probably shouldn’t be too critical of the manufacturers. But I’m also a consumer, and I’m old and cranky, so I just have to give my opinion. Here are my thoughts on the cars of the show.

(As a note, I didn’t take pictures of the product specialists, aka “booth babes.” Or “booth bros.” I blame the Booth Babe. Instead, I listened to them and actually made eye contact. However, I couldn’t avoid noticing boots with the extremely high heels many of them were wearing—possibly on the booth bros as well. I think I’m ready for my first fetish.)

I don’t scour car magazines and auto websites like I used to, so I was surprised at some of the concepts I saw. Some debuted elsewhere, but were nonetheless new to me. My favorite is the Chevrolet Miray concept, at least in looks. It’s a hybrid that doesn’t look like a Prius, always a plus in my book. My sentimental favorite is the Acura NSX Concept. The original was one of my favorite cars, and I love the video of Ayrton Senna and his Magic Loafers driving an NSX around Suzuka.

Miray: Your Ray, Our Ray—but only if there’s two of us

Acura NSX: Sadly, this version does not come with the magic loafers option

Infiniti: This ugly concept is on a carousel so you can be convinced of its all-around ugliness. But somehow it looks better in pictures than in real life.

Toyota brought some kind of gilled blue fish to its stand

There were a few new cars that I liked at the show, with a total of two that I can afford, and a total of zero that I’m allowed to buy. I was interested in the Cadillac XTS until I remembered it was actually the Cadillac ATS that interested me. And the CTS-V wagon.

I have a proclivity for hatchbacks, so the Ford Focus ST with a 247 hp engine got my attention as well.

Cadillac XTS: not to be confused with the ATS

Cadillac CTS-V Wagon: For hauling kids to the bus stop as fast as you can

Ford Focus ST: Needs flames

I also like the new Tesla Model S, but with 8,000 pre-orders and starting at $50,000 with the government incentive, I won’t be seeing one in my driveway any time soon. The Lexus LFA isn’t new, but this Ferrari wannabe has a V10 that revs to 9,000 rpms. This $375,000 car doesn’t come in a manual, so I’ll have to pass on it, too.

Tesla: I’ve only seen this as a gutted test mule. It actually looks good with an interior.

... with jump seats. This solved my hypothetical “third child seat” problem. I love these.

Lexus LFA: Now with more ducts

The only car on my must-see list is the Subaru BRZ. A small, light, underpowered car that handles well? Sign me up. While I was trying to soak in the looks (it’s just so-so), I overheard this 20-something guy next to me making up 95% more facts than I typically do about cars, like “it’s called 86 because that’s the height of the engine,” referring presumably to the Toyota GT-86 / Scion FRS version of the car. What does that even mean? Eighty-six what? Inches? Meters? Gigawatts?

After he turned down the brochure from the product specialist, proclaiming he already read it all in the internet, he described how he had lived in Europe for a while, bought an Alfa Romeo there, and drove the Stelvio Pass and Nürburgring. I kept wanting to throw out comments, but luckily I was able to remind myself that I wasn’t in an internet forum. And I also wondered how often I’ve actually been this person.

Subaru BRZ: At least it’s smaller than I thought

Scion FRS: Subaru’s Doppelgänger

After accepting the fact that I probably wouldn’t be able to get two child seats in the back of the BRZ, I walked away to escape from my eavesdropping and save my brain from exploding.

My other random thoughts on the show:

New 911 Convertible: Had I gone to the hospitality suite, I would have been allowed to fondle this new 911 convertible. Instead it stands aloof from me, blocked off, behind glass walls, guarded by invisible but stylish Porsche Ninjas.

Dodge Dart: This is an ugly car. Shouldn’t this be the Dodge Insipid? I can’t believe this came from Chrysler. What happened to their designers? Did they all leave after Fiat took over? Isn’t this an important segment? I prefer the last incarnation of the Dart over this one. Maybe it’ll grow on me. Like fungus. Hopefully for Chrysler this will have other redeeming qualities, like a good personality.

Subaru STI sedan: This set some track record at the Isle of Man even though it almost lost it at 150 mph and has an Ohio license plate.

Honda CBR: I love motorcycles, but I can never, ever ride one. Ever. Because if I do, I will twist the throttle too hard, causing the motorcycle to wheelie and flip up in the air, then falling on top of me, crushing me to death in my own driveway.

Porsche spare tire: The Cayenne’s spare tire must be be inflated before it can be used, like Porsches of old (e.g., my 944). In its flattened state, it is still bigger than the wheels of three of my cars.

AMG SLS: Also ugly, but doesn’t look too bad from this angle.

Falcon F7: Gaudy and ugly, but it has 620 hp so it’s okay.

Maybach: This is what an extinct dinosaur looks like.

Acura TSX Sport Wagon: Look! A station wagon! With a sporty name!

This was a popular gimmick for the auto show—taking audience pictures. Most of the big manufacturers had some kind of photo set up.

Interactive videos were all the rave, too

This was sad. I know they’ve done this before, but the basement used to be where all the quirky, wacky manufacturers were located. Now it’s like a sad, silent carnival ride of golf carts that even carnies would be ashamed of.

This model is not so aerodynamic but it lasts and lasts and lasts.

“Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.”
--Ogden Nash (because he had kids)

A gaggle of Corvettes inexplicably not crashing

After watching those videos, I had to resist the urge to provoke Corvette drivers into doing something video-worthy. Or doing some “engineering analysis” to see if I could replicate the Corvette-turns-on-a-dime-randomly scenario in an all-wheel drive vehicle.

See, here’s my problem. Deep down inside, under this sheer veneer of adulthood, I’m still a juvenile delinquent, especially when it comes to cars.

And from watching many videos from Mr. Internet, I have a suspicion I’m not alone. I’m also pretty sure it’s the same gene that makes us say, “hey, watch this!” or “what could possibly go wrong?” I don’t think this gene is gender specific, but we men seem to choose vehicles as (one of) our implement(s) of destruction. Men think with their stick shift, or something like that.

When we gather with our cars, the results can be dramatic, like the recent infamous Ferrari/Lamborghini (/Prius) crash. I’m actually surprised this hasn’t happened in my car club yet during one of our tours. Of course, we may have had thoughts like, “are my tires still in contact with the pavement?” Or that could have just been me. Maybe the best way to say it is we haven’t been caught on video. So far.

Maybe I should put a video camera on my dad’s car, too, just in case.

Thank God this speed affliction only affects mere mortals like ourselves, and not race car drivers who conduct themselves with utmost professionalism, or even those we entrust to serve and protect us.

But I’m the first to admit that it’s hard not to be seduced with horsepower. When you have 300+hp on tap, you want to race from traffic light to traffic light, shifting at red line, painting lines of black rubber as if marking your territory. It’s hard to resist that temptation.

“Power is not alluring to pure minds.”
--Thomas Jefferson

And sometimes there are other forces that jack the testosterone to Epic Stupid levels, like the Other Guy. When I first got my 944 Turbo, I was constantly being goaded by other cars (usually Mustangs, but sometimes slumming Testarossas) into displaying my masculinity, which I did because I’m stupid, often hitting speeds I can’t post on a family-friendly blog site (hint: almost as fast as my sister).

My current car, a Subaru STI, is a magnet for this as well. On my recent trip to Pikes Peak, I had cars come up next to me on the freeway in almost every state I drove through, rev their engines, and try to get me to run with them.

Of course, because I’m an idiot, I was really, really tempted. And amused. (A Honda Civic Si revving its motor next to me? Really? Sure, it could have had a 650+hp twin-turbo motor under the hood, but come on. I own a Civic Si.)

There’s no shortage of stupid in this world.

“I have one speed, I have one gear: go!”
--Charlie Sheen

The difference between then and now is that I have a family, which is a reminder for me not to do something stupid when I’m driving. But that may start backfiring on me, with my two-year-old son screaming, “faster, daddy, faster!” from the back seat at every freeway entrance ramp. I mean, how can a dad disappoint his son?

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, so I’m not going to make one about driving maturely. I’m just going to pretend harder to be a real adult when behind the wheel. Actually, that’s bad. I’ve seen real adults drive.

I’ll just say that I will maintain my higher brain functions when I’m out there on the road. Or start hormone treatments for those pesky testosterones.

Have a safe, smart New Year.

“Speed, for a lack of a better word, is good.”
--somebody must have said this once.

Bonus ZR1 Corvette video (warning: lots of loud, gratuitous swearing in under 11 seconds— don’t show near children, unless they’re German)

I don’t know where they all come from. I work near a shopping mall, and it’s crowded around there all the time now. It seems like a perpetual rush hour. It’s as if you’ve turned on the light in a scary kitchen in an old creepy house, and seen thousands of cockroaches running around the floor in every direction. And you just want to stomp on each and every one of them.

A typical parking deck around Christmas time

I don’t have agoraphobia, a fear of crowded places. I just don’t like all those cars around me, impeding me. If I had to describe it, I think I have EManesiratus, which is Latin for “get the @#$% out of my way.”

Most of these drivers seem to be driving distracted. They’re looking for stores or yelling at their kids in the back or talking on the phone. There’s a lot of randomness to their driving. Some are worse than Sunday drivers. They’re more like once-every-season drivers, and the name of each of those seasons is Drive Slowly in Front of EMan season.

Why have these people not heard of Amazon?!

I think this is where technology will be key. I’m not just talking about Google’s self-driving car. I’m talking about when we all become Googladroids or Facebooklings or Amazonians or iWannaBes, and after years of collecting our intimate, personal data, these companies will tell us and our friends what we need to buy for Christmas without going to the stores, leaving roads and mall parking lots empty, and having presents delivered right to our doors as if transported by an overweight, cherry-nosed, pipe-smoking elf.

Here’s to dreaming of a UPS/Fed-Ex Christmas.

Have a Happy Holiday and a “Good Slide” into the New Year

“Christmas is a necessity.There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves.”
--Eric Sevareid

“Oh, for the good old days when people would stop Christmas shopping when they ran out of money.”
--Author Unknown

“In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!’”
--Dave Barry, Christmas Shopping

Traffic finally clears, and I make my turn. All four tires grab asphalt, motivated by 250 horses. A quick tap for the yield sign, and it’s all clear. I hit the apex for the first curve and then hammer the throttle. As I approach the curve before the freeway, I glance at the traffic. My lane is clear.

Before I know it, I’m way over the speed limit and merging into traffic. And from the back, I hear my two-year-old son, “schneller, papa, schneller!”* I think I hear a “wheee!”** as well.

(* “Faster, daddy-o, faster!”)
(** “This makes fun!”)

Coming from a kid who picks through garbage cans looking for food and eats “chocolate” icicles off my car, I’m thrilled as a life lesson finally gets through.

Excuse me now while I get my son fitted for a go-kart.

I’m pretty sure that’s a real diaper and not body paint

“We are apt to forget that children watch examples better than they listen to preaching.”
--Roy L. Smith

“Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.”
--P. J. O’Rourke

“Parents are not quite interested in justice, they are interested in quiet.”


“Raising children is an incredibly hard and risky business in which no cumulative wisdom is gained: each generation repeats the mistakes the previous one made.”
--Bill Cosby

[Addendum 2011-12-21] Raising kids isn’t like herding cats, or other such similes and metaphors. I think it’s the other way: herding cats is like raising kids (well).

Homer replies, “Don’t worry about the SUVs. There’s a gentle curve up ahead.” As the SUVs reach the curve, they all fall off the road into a burning mass of mangled, molten metal, presumably because the tv writers hate SUVs but like alliteration.

Most fatal rollover crashes are single vehicle crashes. (source: NCSA - pdf)

I wish SUVs would crash in curves more often. That would at least give a real reason why people drive slowly through curves. You know what I’m talking about. You’re following a car as in enters a bend in the road and its driver invariably steps on the brakes. Is it because of a disabled vehicle at the side of the road? An accident perhaps? Pre-trail braking? Bambi’s dad running across the road pushing a stroller filled with nuns holding internet kittens? Nope. It’s The Gentle Curve of Death.

A significant portion of the driving population fear this Gentle Curve of Death. At least, that’s what I believe since I see so many people tapping their brakes for one. My guess is that these drivers think that by slowing down 1 mph before the curve, they will avoid the fiery death and destruction that awaits other vehicles traveling 1 mph faster.

Meanwhile, their Gentle Tap propagates backwards into the Traffic Caterpillar of Death. That’s where each preceding car has to brake harder than the car in front it of, progressively getting slower until cars further than half a mile back of the Gentle Curve of Death are actually driving backwards.

Why? Why do people drive this way? I often ponder this deep in the night as I try to blunt my cranky rage by watching videos of Ken Block doing donuts* on the intertubes. Is it from all of those 1960s driver ed films of people flying through glass windshields of cars? Are these drivers on their phones and don’t know realize until too late that the road is changing direction? Or is breathing through their mouths and driving just too much load on their cerebral cortex?

(*There are two types of Ken Block videos on the intertubes: Ken Block doing donuts, or Ken Block crashing a rally car. Both are hypnotic.)

A local road course in the Detroit area, Waterford Hills, is a small 1.42 mile, 13-turn track, which local car club regions regularly rent for “driving schools.” Its back straight isn’t that long, so ultimate speed isn’t the main thrill on this track. It’s all about the turns. It’s staying out of the gravel in Turn 1, holding your line on Hilltop, not splashing into the swamp in Swamp, and so on. The turn’s the thing. Years of driving here has created a different problem for me on public roads—I tend to speed through corners.

This leads to sometimes having a higher speed on an entrance/exit ramp than the freeway itself. Or forgetting to exit the plentiful Oakland county roundabouts (yelling, “yee haa!” optional). Or subconsciously following a Mustang that just zoomed by me through the curvy parts of I-696 in my wife’s Subaru station wagon at 135 mph. Um... all hypothetically speaking, of course.

Death Awaits Everywhere

So what's the difference? Is it simply driver skill? Does taking driver education classes from sports car clubs on a race track safely provide the instruction, experience, and confidence one needs to control their vehicle through the Gentle Curve of Death over traditional, brain-dead driver education courses designed for 16-year-old students with ADHD? We may never know.

There is a simple solution to this problem. If you fear the Gentle Curve of Death, get off the road. Don’t drive. Stay home. Or hitchhike on lonely highways in the desert. At night. In the rain. Do anything but get behind the wheel. I already have to deal with the Curse of the Freeway Merge. Please, just let me drive through Gentle Curve of Death in peace.

Because I like the curvy parts.

A typical desert hitchhiker

So I would like to spout off a bit regarding winter tires. Am I professionally qualified to do this? Of course not. But I do write random things on the interwebs, and I work for a company that makes tires, although I have nothing to do with tires. Some of my cars have my company’s tires, and some don’t. My basis for the following is simply from buying a lot of tires, debating arguing fighting dueling coming to blows over light-hearted discussions with friends on the topic, the internet, and common sense.*

(*I apologize for putting “internet” and “common sense” in the same sentence.)

It’s possible that over the years I’ve picked up some superstitions about winter tires that I’ve included here. Please feel free to tell me about them in the comment section. Also, I have zero experience with studs or chains, so I won’t comment on them here (although tempted to).

Should I really buy winter tires?

Yup.

Unless, of course, you live in places that don’t get snow in winter. In that case, I hate you and will laugh when light frost shuts down your entire city. But if you live in state like Michigan, which has an eight-month winter (and sometimes nine), then it’s a Very Good Idea. (Or if you live in these godforsaken places with extreme snowfall. By the way, have I mentioned that I hate snow?)

I realize there are a lot of reason for not buying snow tires. Some people have all-season tires, some people can’t afford it, and so on. Those can be valid reasons. In life, we pick our compromises. I choose to spend a few hundred dollars every few years in exchange for minimizing risks to my family and cars in the winter.

It’s not a law here in America like it is in Germany, but it’s a Pretty Good Idea.

But I have all-season tires. Do I really need winter tires?

Like I said, that’s a compromise. An all-season tire doesn’t have the grip and handling of a summer tire, and doesn’t have the grip on ice of a winter tire. I’m generally risk-averse, so I change tires. In my wife’s all-wheel drive Subaru, I can easily turn donuts in a snowy parking lot with all-season tires, but have a really, really hard time doing the same in winter tires (um... this was for engineering analysis, of course, so don’t mention it to her).

One thing to consider is how old or how many miles your tires have. Over time tires wear out their treads and harden reducing grip on snow and ice. Those all-seasons that were okay in the snow two years ago may not do as well this winter. It’s your choice, but I would still recommend buying winter tires.

“Compromise: An agreement between two men to do what both agree is wrong.”
--Lord Edward Cecil

Which winter tire should I buy?

I don’t know. I’ll tell you that I have Blizzak WS70s on my Subaru, and Continental ExtremeWinterContact on my wife’s Subaru, and General Altimax Arctic on my Honda. I’ve also used Pirellis, Dunlops, Yokohams, and Michelins in the past. I’ve been pretty happy with all of these.

In general, any winter tire will have better performance in snow and ice over any summer tire.

You could of course read the reviews online and get confused and frustrated. One of the issues with reviews is that you don’t always know the reviewer’s expectations, so you don’t know if the product was bad, or just didn’t meet the his/her expectations. Still, if a large number of people rate a tire well, that’s probably a good indicator that it’s a good tire (or a manufacturer was stuffing the ballot).

What’s a “performance” winter tire?

There’s a category of winter tires for sporty vehicles called performance winter tires. It’s normally associated with good handling, but I think these tires were designed for the high speeds (and associated heat) of the autobahn. When I bought a set of these in Germany, the tire store put a sticker on my dash reminding me not to exceed 210 km/h (130 mph), as indicated by the tire’s speed rating.

Most “real” winter tires have a Q-rating (160 km/h, 99 mph). These give up high speed driving (and its associated higher operating temperature) for better grip (softer at lower temperatures). Recent “real” winter tires have had higher speed ratings, like my Bridgestone Blizzak WS70, which are T-rated (190 km/h, 118 mph, and presumably two better than R-rated).

I’ve also owned Z-rated (240+ km/h, 149+ mph) snow tires, although I forget now what the service description was (which indicates actual top speed). Those were good from 2 inches of snow to 160 mph, although not at the same time.

The difference between these tires is how they compromise between snow/ice grip versus handling performance. Most people (not Todd) should get the “real” winter tires since they shouldn’t be approaching 99 mph (not Todd) in winter. For people with high performance cars (Todd) that like to drive fast (Todd) year round (Todd), and may approach (Todd) or exceed (Todd) autobahn speeds, go with the performance winter tires.

“A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.”
--Ludwig Erhard

I’ve been using the same set of snow tires for four winters. They should be good for another, right?

Probably not. It depends on the brand and driving conditions, but you can’t drive indefinitely on these tires. I get about three winters on my snow tires, driving 10,000-12,000 miles per winter.

Try and see if they’re still okay. If it seems fine, go for it. I’m penny wise, pound foolish, so I keep trying to get another winter out of my tires when I probably shouldn’t. But don’t do as I do, do as I say.

Can I mix and match my tires?

I wouldn’t recommend it, even with normal tires. If you have different brands or different types of tires on your car, it will have uncertain handling characteristics. In other words, who knows how it will handle as the conditions vary. Depending on where you install your tires on your car, it may understeer more (tendency to go straight in a turn) or oversteer more (tendency to turn sharper than desired in a turn) than it would normally.

But if you like surprises, go for it.

I have an all-wheel drive (AWD) car. Do I need winter tires?

Only if you need to stop. The advantage of all-wheel drive is to make it easier for the car to go in snow or ice. When it comes to stopping, all-wheel drive has no distinct advantage over front or rear-wheel drive vehicles. It all comes down to the grip of your tires.

Consider this data from the following boondoggle with guys screwing around in the snow pretending to do a serious magazine article test regarding the all-wheel drive Subaru WRX STI.

60-0 mph braking test:
Summer tires on asphalt: 106 ft
Summer tires on ice: 391 ft
Winter tires on ice: 274 ft

That’s 117 feet longer to stop on ice when using summer tires instead of winter tires.

You’ll get similar braking results with front-wheel and rear-wheel drive vehicles.

When is the best time to change tires?

In Germany, the rule of thumb is “von O bis O,” or von Oktober bis Ostern (from October to Easter). I change mine on Thanksgiving (November in the U.S.) and Easter (first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox), only because I have the extra time to do it.

Continental Tires recommends using winter tires when the temperature drops below 45°F (7°C). This seems to be the temperature where rubber molecules start to harden and freeze. That last one is hard for me to go by, as temperatures can be in the 30s in the morning and the 50s by afternoon in autumn in Michigan.

Maybe the best way to say it is, change to winter tires if you think you’ll get snow or ice in your region. This can be filed under “common sense.”

April is not a good time to change to summer tires in the Appalachians, apparently. D’oh!

If winter tires are so great, can I drive with them year round?

Technically yes, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Heat is the big enemy of tires. Since winter tires are optimized for lower temperatures, they don’t do as well as the temperature rises. This will lead to faster wear. By the time winter comes around again, the tires will have degraded performance.

Winter tires generally have poor handling characteristics, and are not typically designed to prevent hydroplaning. If you’re switching tires anyway, go ahead and get a good set of summer tires for your car.

I have snow tires, traction control, AWD, ABS, ESC, M-O-U-S-E. I’m invincible in my car, right?

Only if you live in an alternate universe where the laws of Newtonian physics don’t apply.

The purpose of all those systems in your car is to allow the car to get as close to ideal performance as possible with nut jobs like us behind the wheel. For example, ABS (anti-lock brakes) typically works by letting the tires lock momentarily, releasing them, and then locking them again. This happens over and over, but very quickly. I’m simplifying here, but that’s the gist of what happens. In contrast, an experienced driver, like a race car driver, can brake at the threshold of tires limits without locking the tires. In dry pavement, this would result in better braking than with ABS.

Traction control is another example. Traction control tries to prevent a car from spinning its tires. It’s trying to maximize available grip. It can’t increase the traction of summer tires on ice, it can only use whatever grip is available. It’s the same concept with ESC (electronic stability control).

The point is here is that these systems won’t make driving foolproof, but they are a big help to most drivers.

If you have all these systems in your car, and drive like a mad man in snowy or icy conditions, chances are you will lose grip, which leads to Very Bad Things. We engineers have not perfected the SDW (stupid driver at wheel) module yet, so don’t do that.

Use common sense. I know that’s asking for a lot in today’s day and age. Even if you have all these safety features while driving in wintery conditions, slow down and give yourself more distance for stopping and turning. And in case I lapse into a Walter Mitty/Sebastian Loeb impression because I forgot my meds again, just stay the hell off the roads when conditions are bad.

All right, fine, I’ll get winter tires. One last question—where do I store my tires when I’m not using them?

Tires should be stored in a cool, dry, dark place that’s well ventilated. The tires should be clean. Wrap and seal each tire in an opaque plastic bag.

Although it’s a big pain, I store my tires in the basement where the temperatures are cool and consistent. The temperature in a garage can be extreme, unless it’s regulated. If you have a climate-controlled garage, then give me a call. I have some tires I’d like to store there.

The links here and here have more information on storing tires.

Here are some additional links about winter tires. Maybe if you read this often enough on the interwebs, you’ll think it’s true.

• Tire Rack
• Snow Tire Info FAQ
• About.com Snow Tire FAQ
• Octane

Update [2011-12-16]: And one last thing... gas mileage. This won’t apply to everyone, but it certainly applied to me. My summer tires have a high rolling resistance and reduce my gas mileage. When I switch to my winter tires, I improve my gas mileage 1-2 mpg. This is hard to accurately quantify, as there are many variables (temperature, gas formulation, driving conditions) to consider when comparing winter driving with summer driving. In my wife’s car, I see no measurable difference. Take it for what it’s worth.

I thought we live in an enlightened society. More genteel. Mankind living in harmony, and all that crap. And then I went on the Internets Tubes. And then I was shocked and awed by this: the mis-named 650 hp 2013 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500.

(source: Autoweek)

What. The. Fahrvergnügen?!

“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
--Henry Ford (attributed, but he probably didn’t actually say it)

Chevrolet started this round of salvo with its shot across Ford’s bow, the 580 hp 2012 Camaro ZL1.

Now, I wasn’t old enough to ride in the Great Pony Car Wars from 1966-1972, but I’ve listened to stories from the veterans of that era, tales that their gas fume-soaked minds tried to relate. All things were apparently better back then, especially the size of carburetors and back seats.

The first time a car ever wowed me was probably when I saw a 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1. The model is a guess, because it reminded me of James Bond’s Mustang in Diamonds Are Forever*. My family even owned a Mustang, a 1970 model that my dad bought for a few hundred dollars that was more “rust” than “bucket.”

*(Yes, I tried to find a picture of Bond’s Mustang with Jill St. John’s character Tiffany Case, but the Internets wouldn’t cooperate with me. Instead, I’ll throw in the following exchange from the movie.)

(Tiffany Case emerges from dressing room and has changed her wig from blonde to red.)

Bond: “Weren’t you a blonde a few moments ago?”

Case: “Do you not like red heads?”

Bond: “Of course-- as long as the carpet match the drapes.”

On the other side of the fence, my aunt owned a 1969 Camaro that morphed into a white 1977 Pontiac Trans Am, the same year that Bandit drove into cinemas. I remember that my aunt would come over for a visit, and I would just spontaneously wash her car for her because I liked the car so much.

And yet another chance for a 1970s reference

The fighting stopped for a while when one of the combatants would go MIA (1974-1978 Mustang II, 2003-2009 no Camaro), but now that they’re both back, the ferocity of the action hasn’t waned a bit. And it’s all good.

Now I’m generally opposed to war. Man killing fellow man is insane. But I have to admit that high tech weapons that go BOOM! can be pretty cool. These Mustang and Camaro are good examples of that.

My favorite car of all time, the McLaren F1, had 618 hp

What I find even crazier is the number of cars sold within the last year that are over 600 hp. My non-inclusive list includes:

• 600 hp Dodge Viper ACR (last sold in 2010)
• 620 hp Porsche 911 GT2 RS
• 638 hp Chevrolet Corvette ZR1
• 651 hp Ferrari FF
• 670 hp Mercedes SL 65 AMG (Black Series) / 621 hp S65 AMG
• 690 hp Lamborghini Aventador

I’m even ignoring the 1001 hp Bugatti Veyron, the 806 hp Koenigseggisseggggnignigsegigisegggg CCX, or this announced whatever it is.

Wimpy cars that didn’t make the cut include the 556 hp Cadillac CTS, 592 hp McLaren MP4-12C, 562 hp Ferrari 458 Italia, and the aforementioned 580 hp Camaro ZL1.

And What Would Freddy Drive (WWFD)? (source: Car and Driver)

The current Corvette ZR1 has more than three times the horsepower of the original fourth generation (C4) Corvette in 1984, which had a 205 hp V8. And I didn’t look this up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the current ZR1 gets better gas mileage than the original C4. The original Corvette ZR-1, which Car and Driver dubbed “The Corvette from Hell,” had 380 hp when it debuted it 1990. The current “base” C6 Corvette has 430 hp. I don’t know if Chevrolet/GM gets enough credit for this feat of technology.

Horsepower, for a lack of a better word, is good

It seems each era has its own golden age of cars, and each succeeding era is better than the previous. So is this the last golden era of cars? It would seem so, especially with proposed CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) mandates of 54.5 mph by 2025. But I’m not quite ready to write off the innovations of automotive engineers yet.

Whether this is the last golden age of cars or not, it will pass like other automotive golden ages of my time. I will probably not own any of these 600+ hp cars. But that doesn’t bother me. Just the fact that they exist gives me a good feeling inside. And I have a good reason to check out Craigslist or Auto Trader ten years from now.

The simple reason why I like a manual transmission is because it lets me pretend to be a race car driver. I know in some racing series they’ve been shifting with their thumbs for years, but hey, it’s my fantasy. I can still remember episodes of Speed Racer, that if you just keep shifting gears, you keep going faster. Sometimes in stop and go traffic, I still make engine noises just to pretend I’m actually going somewhere.

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”
--Ernest Hemingway

My daily driver, a 2008 Subaru STI, has the most gears of any car I’ve owned: six. It’s not a bad gearbox, but its total range is actually not much different than the 5-speed it replaced. It just makes me shift an extra time before I can hit 60 mph. And many times, I will actually skip one of the gears (usually 5th) because I’ve already exceeded some random speed limit. In other words, depending on how I accelerate, I drive it more like a 5-speed.

I’ve just read about the new Porsche 911 recently introduced in the Frankfurt auto show. Its new manual transmission has 7 speeds, just like its PDK (Porsche Doppelkupplung) dual clutch manu-matic transmission. And from Autoweek I’ve heard that the next generation Corvette is also supposed to have a 7-speed manual transmission.

My wife won’t let me buy a new 911 either (this time something about feeding our kids), but if I could, what would I do with all of those gears? In theory more is better, but my driveway isn’t an entrance ramp to the autobahn.

One of my cars, a Honda Civic Si, could use seven gears. It has an 8000 rpm redline, and seems to be at least at 4000 rpm all the time in any gear. It always feels like it has to be shifted to a higher gear.

It takes a really, really long time to hit the 8000 rpm redline in 5th gear

It would be fun to run the gears to redline for all seven gears in the 911 or Corvette. Of course in America you’d be exceeding all speed limits by 3rd gear. With “normal” driving, I could see my gear selection being: 1-2-3-6/7. I would probably skip-shift a lot with a 7-speed.

And what about on the race track? In the heat of the moment I don’t always do the right thing. Coming down the middle straightaway in Road America in 7th gear, will I really be able to grab 3rd (or 2nd or whatever gear I need) to make that left-hander?

I’m sure Porsche and Chevrolet have done extensive testing with their transmissions, but I wonder how many Joe-Schmoe, Speed Racer-wannabes like myself have driven their 7-speed cars in the real world. If anyone from either of these companies out there is reading this, please know that I will be a willing guinea pig for this experiment. All in the name of science and the betterment of mankind, of course. And possibly world peace.

Sie müssen auch auf deutsch fahren (source: porscheusa.com)

Then there’s always that added element of danger that the roof can collapse again.

If you go through Paris internationally, hopefully you have at least 2 hours to catch your connection.

I would like to re-locate this tower somewhere up Charles de Gaulle airport’s way

I’ve mentioned my thoughts on the autobahn before, and I don’t have too much more to add except this: why are there so many Geisterfahrer (ghost drivers) on the autobahn? A Geisterfahrer is someone driving the wrong way on the autobahn. As you may expect, this is not good.

“Tower, this is Ghost Rider requesting a fly-by”

“Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.”

If there’s a Geisterfahrer somewhere, they usually announce this on the radio warning you about it. I heard a report for one every day I drove while in Germany. I have a theory about this. First, the entrance and exit on the autobahns are right next to each other, separated by just a white line. That’s it. It would seem pretty easy to drift into the other lane and wind up going in through the out door.

Another problem is that the line separating traffic going in the other direction is white. So if the you are driving next to dashed white lines, you may not know if the other lane has traffic going in the same or opposite direction. I like the method used in the U.S., where a yellow line indicates that traffic is going in the other direction. Germany will never change this, of course, because they have no yellow paint.

Yellow lines of Wyoming

Although I drove over 1,300 km on the autobahn last week, I didn’t see as much of the craziness as I’ve seen in the past. The worst was a guy in a SEAT station wagon from the Czech Republic. A truck with a double trailer filled with cement road barriers went in this guy’s lane while the guy was still in it. This infuriated the SEAT driver, and when the truck moved back to the right lane, the SEAT driver drove next to the truck driver for a while, yelling. Then the SEAT driver got in front of the truck pulling two trailers of heavy stuff, and slammed on his brakes. Somehow the semi was able to keep from completely flattening the SEAT. I steered away as far as I could from this situation. I don’t know if German rental cars are equipped with spatulas.

Of course, I had the typical problems Americans have driving in Germany: “Why does that sign say I can only go straight? They must have forgotten to paint a right-turn arrow. I’ll go ahead with my turn now;” “This car is supposed to fit in that parking space?!” “Wait—what’s the speed rating on this rental car’s tires?”

I’m recycling this picture because I didn’t have a camera with me on this trip.

What is it for this trip? I’ve decided to drive my Subaru up Pikes Peak before it’s completely paved over. At least, that’s what I told my wife.

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen
We daren’t go a-speeding
For fear of radar policemen
--(apologies to William Allingham)

Preparation

I don’t always have the time to plan my trips how I would like to, but it’s still fun to plan. You just open up the map and start looking for places to go. You can go any where. It’s just a matter of how much time you have. Pikes Peak seemed like a good place to go. Unfortunately, I only have the time to drive to the Peak, turn around, then drive back. So even though Devil’s Tower is next door in Wyoming, it is verboten.

Stood alone on a mountain top starin’ out at the Great Divide
I could go east, I could go west, it was all up to me to decide
Just then I saw a young hawk flyin’ and my soul began to rise
And pretty soon, my heart was singin’...
--Bob Seger

One slippery slope in planning is getting equipment. I use GPS loggers to track my travels now, making geotagging photos easier. I wanted a video camera for this trip, but was reluctantly conceding to use my old DV camera. With DV tape (kids, ask an old person what “magnetic tape” is, which was still used at the turn of the century in 2000, when I bought this).

Then I started browsing Amazon and noticed this camera. Plus a 16GB microSD card. And a mount. And software to integrate GPS data into the video. And a data logger/flasher for more data. Which leads to a new ECU map to flash. Which should be checked with a wideband O2 sensor. Which is easier to install on a new downpipe. Which mates nicely with a catback--- $$$$#@!*& GGGRRRRRR-- Stop !!!

So where was I? Oh, yeah-- on my way to Pikes Peak. I think I’ll leave tomorrow morning.

(Check back. I’ll post updates here throughout my drive.)

Day 1: 2011-08-31 Wed 6:25 am EDT (Home: 0 miles)

Crap. I’ve been up for a couple of hours now, but haven’t actually done anything today. I should pack.

The car’s 240GB iPod is loaded up with all the crappy music I like. And several audible books, including a couple from Malcolm Gladwell for inspiration. Or to realize how much I suck. The Subaru STI is cavernous compared to the Porsche 944T that I used to do this kind of thing in. I have to resist bringing too much with me. Only the essentials. I have to focus. Stay lean. But then, with the seats folded down, I could fit my bike back there.

(... much time passes ...)

Yup, I over packed. What started out as a quick trip to Pikes Peak for a couple of pictures is turning into an expedition up Kilimanjaro in search of Yeti. And it doesn’t even live there. Anymore.

I should leave now.

Next stop: first bathroom break.

(P.S. I probably can’t go to lunch at the mall today.)

Wed 11:45 am EDT (Indiana rest stop: 190 miles)

I don’t think a road trip starts until you’re actually on a freeway. It’s like plugging into the internet. Now you can go anywhere. But unlike the squeaky clean internet, it has porn ads (Hot Tokyo massage; Adult superstore-- exit 157, etc.).

With all of the road construction going on, logically, at some point, wouldn’t at least some of the roads be better by now?

Wed 10:10 pm EDT (Kearney, NE: 878 miles)

Nebraska sends out mixed messages. It has a 75 mph speed limit, but around the cities where the limit is lower, they pull a lot of people over. Nebraska, you’re very wide with just one interstate. Cut everyone a break on it. (You’re also very flat. You should think about toning to get some definition. Try the P90 workout.)

Man, I need to clean my window

Day 2: 2011-09-01 Thr 11:15 am EDT (Colorado rest area: 1053 miles)

I left yesterday (Wed) much later than I wanted to, so my kids were up by the time I got going. Seeing them always reminds me of one of my rules: “Don’t do anything (really) stupid today.” This might seem like a pretty simple rule, but sometimes I forget. And looking around at other people, I don’t think some know that this should even be a rule.

So with that in mind, I decided not to tailgate a trailer and take my picture in its reflection. Sure, I may have gotten away with it, but why take the chance?

Not only should you not tailgate this truck, but you can’t eat it either

I had intended to do a gas mileage experiment today. I would drive with one tankful of gas with the windows down, and one tankful with windows up and air conditioning on, both at freeway speeds. I decided not to do it, however. With the windows rolled down at 80 mph, it got loud, which made me turn up the radio, which made my “microwave emission data collecting device” alerts useless. And it kept messing up my hair, and I didn’t want to wear a hat.

I may revisit this experiment in a few years, the next time I get my hair cut.

Thr 3:31 pm EDT (Manitou Springs, CO: 1302 miles)

In case any one is interested, I’m still alive, and I’ve at least made it to my hotel.

Why did they put this on the wrong side of the sun?

Day 3: 2011-09-02 Fri 10:31 am EDT (Pikes Peak: 1347 miles)
(14,110 ft. Or 14,115 ft. Or 14,169 ft *)

Well, now. That was anti-climatic.

Apparently, Pikes Peak Highway is mostly paved. There is about a one-mile stretch around mile 11 that is still dirt road, and that’s about it. Because there’s active construction going on, you can only go by with an escort, both going up and coming down through this area.

So unlike YouTube videos of the Pikes Peak hill climb race, there was no rooster tail of dust, no four-wheel drifts around 1st gear corners over a precipice, no butt-clenching moments around bends. No, I take that last bit back. It’s still pretty intimidating to drive up this road, even if it’s paved. The hill climb racers must have amazing cajones to speed up this mountain like they do. In contrast, it may be a while before I see mine again.

This is today’s 2011 version near the top...

...but back in 1997, the shoulders were a bit wider (and the sky bluer)

Day 4: 2011-09-03 Sat 2:28 am EDT (Illinois rest area: 2340 miles)

Here are some random thoughts for today:

• Is there a coffee table book about the rest areas of America? If there is, I don’t want to read it.
• I’m always surprised at how often I see a Michigan license plate around the country. I guess Michigan is a good state to be from.
• Whenever I read (or listen to) a Malcolm Gladwell book and he uses statistics to prove a point, I have to ignore the internal statistics alarms going off in my head so I can keep enjoying the book.
• Luckily I get to drive on a holiday weekend when there are more police to make sure everyone is “safe.”

Colorado police officer using both RADAR and LIDAR to personally make sure I’m safe

Sat 11:18 am EDT (Home: 2724 miles)

And the next thing I know, I’m home. Just a little more than 24 hours ago, I’m wearing a sweater on top of Pikes Peak, and now I’m hiding from 90+ degree heat inside the house. And because I’m sleep deprived, the last few days don’t have quite a real feel to them right now. At least I’ve avoided doing something really stupid, and I can play with my kids again today.

I have to say that was a good trip for me. But next time, I’m bringing my family.

Addendum

I’ve always said that one of my life goals is to never be on YouTube. Well, I guess this video officially makes my life goals a failure.

Day 1: Home, MI to Kearney, NE (878 miles)

Day 2: Kearney, NE to Manitou Springs, CO (424 miles)

Day 3: Pikes Peak to I-80 (IL), mile marker 51 (993 miles)

Day 4: I-80 (IL) mi 51 to Home, MI (384 miles)

The local Ann Arbor Porsche dealership, Howard Cooper Porsche, sponsored one of the half days for a Porsche Sports Day at the Palace of Auburn Hills. We got to drive pretty much all of the different models that Porsche makes: the 911, Cayenne, Cayman, and Panamera.

(I really want to like the Panamera. It does amazing performance things for a big car. It’s just that back end... woof. But then again, I drive an STI.)

“Who’s the U-boat commander?”
--Joel Goodson’s service manager

We took turns with different cars at three activities: ABS braking, emergency lane change, and autocrossing. The general procedure we were given was: mash on the gas, then mash on the brakes, and if something gets in your way, turn. (Well, not exactly. There were words about “smoothness” and “weight transfer” and stuff, but I’m pretty sure that was code for “mash on the gas.”)

We basically hammered these cars for a few hours. One of the Cayennes was a (company) daily driver for someone, which they also used to pull one of the trailers for the event.

I think it speaks highly of the ruggedness and dependability of Porsches to allow regular schmoes like ourselves flog their cars all day (another group did the same thing in the morning).

Let’s check my mood chart after a sunny afternoon’s worth of brakes and tires smell, and not sitting under florescent lighting staring at a computer screen:

Mood: Not cranky!

Camera? Who needs to bring one of the four cameras sitting around the house that are better than this phone camera to a Porsche driving event?

Hot laps with the instructors = E Ticket

I like sporty tires best, of course— oversized with a low profile. And the stickier the better. When the UPS driver drops off new tires at my house, it might as well be Christmas.

This unhealthy fascination for tires started when I bought my red car about 10 years BF (before family). I bought my first set of sticky tires for it a month after owning it, when I bent a rim after spinning out at work (don’t ask). The cost of an OEM replacement rim was the same as new wheels and tires from Tire Rack. And so started my vulcanized path (no relation to Spock) on the road to the tire store.

“Reinventing the wheel is sometimes the right thing, when the result is the radial tire.”
--Jonathan Gilbert

One big difference with sticky tires and “normal tires” is the tread life. Sticky street tires will typically last from 10,000 to 20,000 miles. For this “feature” you get to pay extra. And so I was buying tires for the red car on a yearly basis.

When I started taking the car to the track, I start buying additional sets of R-compound tires for the car. This is when my local Discount Tire started to know me on a car-guy acquaintance basis.

A car-guy acquaintance is someone whose car you know pretty well. You will know the make, model and possibly year of the car, as well as at least one distinguishing feature. This happens a lot in car circles. You meet someone a few times on the track, and your greetings are something like, “hey, you’re the one with the black E46 M3 with the exhaust.”

“And you have the white GT3 with the BBS rims, right?”

Knowing a car-guy acquaintance’s first name is strictly optional.

I don’t take cars out to the track anymore, but I’m still buying a lot of tires. My four cars now have summer and winter tires, instead of summer and track tires, each on their own set of rims. I don’t even care that winter tires aren’t sporty or have no grip on dry pavement. When I put set of winter tires on a car, I go looking for snow to drive on to properly enjoy my new tires. I’ve gone up people’s steep, snow-covered driveways just to try out new tires.

There is, however, a category of tires I’m ambivalent about— the all-season tire. Engineering is about managing compromises, and that’s what an all-season tire does. It is okay in summer, and decent in winter, but not exceptional in either conditions. Its benefits are in the time and money you save from having to buy another set of tires that you have to switch every half year.

Such a tire has its place, and I use it on my wife’s car as a summer tire. I’m not allowed to make the kids go, “wheee!” in their child seats any more, and my wife likes a quieter ride. And so that’s the compromise I make in her car, all-season instead of ultra high-performance extra super duper extreme summer tires. I still put winter tires on her car, though, because I find them significantly better in winter.

“The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was a genius.”
--Sid Caesar

DISCLAIMER

I have to mention that I work for a company that also makes tires. We can buy 3 sets of tires each year at a hefty discount on-line. In the three years I’ve had this benefit, I’ve hit the limit once and exceeded it twice. And I’m not even a big fan of our tires.

In my attempt to impersonate a grown-up parent, I’ve tried to drive reasonably in my cars. I don’t need to buy the stickiest tires I can get. My company’s summer tires are adequate, and (most of) the winter tires are passable. Except for my daily driver.

The amazing Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec

My daily driver, the black car, gets sticky Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec tires. This is not one of my company’s tires, but I love it. The Dunlops have one major drawback, though. They sound like bad wheel bearings. The OEM tires, Dunlop SP Sport 600, sounded so bad I actually took the car back to my dealer to have all four wheel bearings checked out. My friends and I couldn’t believe that tires could sound so loud.

But I really like the grip in both dry and monsoon conditions, so I just turn the radio up louder.

I did try company winter tires for the black car. The discontinued model I bought were without a doubt, the absolute worse tires I’ve ever owned. I don’t know enough languages to describe how much I hated these tires. I now use Bridgestone Blizzak WS70s for winter, which I really love. Of course.

The other cars have company winter tires, which as I’ve mentioned, are passable.

Bridgestone Blizzak WS70 winter tire

I hated the car I was driving. It is one of our test cars, a big, rear-wheel drive car. It's too big for me. Although it has winter tires, they are old winter tires (and a brand from my company) and really need to be replaced. This certainly had the potential for disaster, since this trip was in March.

My first clue that this could be bad was while trying to change lane in slushy snow a couple hours north of Detroit. The car’s stability control kept me guessing if and when the car would actually move over. And it would get worse.

“Don’t knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn’t start a conversation if it didn’t change once in a while.”
--Kin Hubbard

When I crossed the Mackinac Bridge into the upper peninsula, it didn’t take long before vowing never, ever to come here ever again. Ever. If not longer. I drove in slippery, whiteout conditions the entire time in the upper peninsula until I arrived at my hotel.

The snow had started coming down as I approached the bridge. By the time I crossed it, there was significant accumulation on the roads. I then made the mistake of passing the cars ahead of me. As I drove past them into the whiteout, it occurred to me that I no longer had any reference points ahead of me, like knowing where the road was. D’oh! For some reason, at 10 pm on a Sunday night in a snow storm in the UP, there didn’t seem to be much traffic around. Just lots of trees.

So I just drifted back and forth between the left and right rumble strips, hoping they would be there as well on bridges.

If you’ve never driven in a whiteout, I can try and re-create it for you.

• Paint your windshield black with white spots.
• Spin until you vomit.
• Drive.

This is the part I don’t fully understand. Although the conditions were abysmal, I never stopped. Neither did the handful of people behind me. No one thought about pulling over for a little while and waiting until conditions improved. Or at least until a snow plow came by. Instead, we all decided to take the chance of removing ourselves from the gene pool. I’m guessing it’s probably a guy thing.

I was pretty cranky by the time I pulled into Sault Ste. Marie about an hour and a half later. It stopped snowing right when I took my exit, the last one before driving into Canada.

Luckily for the drive home, I was asked to drive a mid-size, front-drive test car back. I say lucky because it’s more my size, and it drove like a rental car to me, which I like for some reason. This time I drove with my colleagues in a mini convoy. As we got “down state” (a new term for me for the lower peninsula), we hit more snow. It wasn’t whiteout conditions, but it was annoying none the less.

My supervisor drove the car I had driven earlier, and he seemed to have no issues with it. At some point we got separated, and it took me over 20 minutes just to catch him and another colleague who was in a brand new, all-wheel drive BMW 535i. My supervisor was leading the way, driving 70-75 mph in the heavy, freezing snow. I considered it impressive driving on his part. If I was driving that car, I’d still be up there, lodged between two trees deep in the northern Michigan forest, waiting for the spring thaw.

Strangely, when the roads cleared up around Saginaw, he slowed down. It was probably too boring for him.

At least I didn’t have the sun in my eyes

I made it back home, but not without incident. I got stuck once in the snow— in the ever treacherous Subway parking lot when we stopped for dinner. Don’t ask. I’m still paying blackmail tribute for this incident.

What did this little adventure tell me? Well, it snows a lot in Michigan, especially up north. I don’t like snow. I may even hate snow. I definitely hate driving in snow, especially without my Subaru. That just makes me extra cranky. Michi-people drive either really, really fast in snow, or really, really slow. There's nothing in the upper peninsula except road kill and snow. And I’m an idiot.

So basically, I didn’t learn anything new.

“A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.”
--Carl Reiner

We don’t have this same sense of time in America. When was the last time you saw a 500-year-old building in America? We’re more of a disposable society. We package our fast foods in paper and plastic; we lease a new car every two years; we change houses every few years. Some houses are disposable, too (see: Mobile Home vs. the Tornado).

Meanwhile Germans build Porsche 944s with 14-gauge wire going to the tweeter speakers. That’s one less wire I have to worry about.

My latest example of German over-engineering is the car child seat. We borrowed this from friends in Germany. It weighs about as much as a Smart car (and is only slightly smaller). Those two menacing steel prongs are for the ISOFIX latches in the seat. The ISOFIX is similar to the LATCH system American cars have, but is, you know, more European. The other appendage up front goes to the floor of the car, substituting for the rear anchor attachment in our U.S. car seats.

I’m sure this model is called Der Kinder Panzer 2000 or something like that

This is actually a good engineering solution. If you can carry this to your car, it attaches relatively quickly to an ISOFIX seat, and is pretty stable with that plastic and metal stake up front.

“A suburban mother’s role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.”
--Peter De Vries

I’m pretty sure if you buy such a child seat when your baby is born, it’ll still be just as strong and rugged as when your baby is 40-years-old.

My copy from England looked like a BBC representative shredded one corner with his teeth

I hate critics, probably because I don’t like being criticized. I think to be a critic, you have to have done that thing that you are critiquing. If you want to be a restaurant food critic, then you should have worked as a cook in a restaurant. I don’t care if you can taste the age of the duck in the foie gras you just had— being able to eat and type shouldn’t be the prerequisite to being a food critic.

I’ve never written a book (or been a race car driver, or been on tv), so I’m not going to review this book. Instead, I’m going to write randomly about Ben Collins’ autobiography, The Man in the White Suit. While this may sound suspiciously like a review, it’s not. The last book I reviewed was my last paper in high school. After spending the entire night fighting an electric typewriter (a hardware version of Microsoft Word, but less frustrating), I vowed never to review another book again. So this is emphatically not a review.

(The Man in the White Suit is the Stig, the famous, anonymous, tame race car driver from the BBC show Top Gear. Ben Collins, no longer anonymous, played the Stig on the show for the last seven years. Read my other post on this topic.)

“Some say he’s terrified of ducks and that his penis has a chicane in it. And a four-mile straight. And a hairpin. All we know is.... he’s called the Stig.”
--Jeremy Clarkson

“I’m cool with ducks, but not geese. I hate geese. They’re evil.”
--Ben Collins

With that said, let me get a couple issues I had with the book out of the way. First, in a few places, it just leaves you hanging. For example, there was a long section on driving the Bugatti Veyron. So what was the power lap time of the Veyron? Was it the fastest? He never says. There was a big build up, and then nuthin’. I’m sure there are some guys reading this that know how frustrating that is. He talks about his army training at length, and then stops. His army career was later summed up in one sentence after several chapters of non-summing up. And that’s not the only place he leaves you ha

Secondly, my British is not only horrible, but it’s apparently also rusty. We don’t have “lairds” in Detroit, just “lard-asses.” “Och aye?” “D’oh!” I don’t know the difference between “horrid little oiks” and “jammy dodgers.” Maybe if I “gave it the beans this weekend,” I could figure out what some of this mean. Or I could just wait for an American translation of the book to be released here.

(I once took a business trip to Dunton, England. One night I ate at a Pizza Hut next to the hotel. Although I spoke in my American Midwestern, and the waitress in Duntonese, we literally couldn’t understand a word either of us spoke. I resorted to my best virile grunting and pointing at menu items with a stick to order my meal. I still ended up with the wrong menu item, which I quietly ate.)

Third, it’s an autobiography. I don’t how “enhanced” Collins’ memories of his past are. In my own autobiography, I will explain how my engineering prowess helped Ford and Kettering design cars; how I gave Bill Gates a copy of my software code to use; and how I co-invented the internet with Al Gore. I’ll tell the story how I re-gifted a Christmas present to Steve Jobs for his first black turtle neck shirt. I will try to get a younger, better looking version of Brad Pitt to play me in the movie, but knowing how Hollywood is, I know I’ll get Shia LaBeouf instead (whom did he black mail to star next to Megan Fox? Or to be in movies at all? Indiana Jones? Really?).

Where was I again?

Oh, yes. The book.

Collins talks about three main areas of his life: racing, the army (reserve), and tv/entertainment, which some family life thrown in for spice. Each of these areas are relevant (in a way) to me right now, which made the book very engaging to me.

His brief coverage of his family life included car influences in his life, from his father to random driving adventures. I think most car guys/gals can relate to these typical events. The family episode ends somewhat sadly, though. I won’t spoil it here. Buy the book.

At some point, he wasn’t sure if he could make a living out of racing, so he joined the Army Reserve Regiment. I actually enjoyed reading about the training he was doing, although it could easily be condensed to: get yelled at; carry heavy things uphill a long way over rough terrain in bad conditions; get hurt; repeat.

I’ve been running a lot recently so it was interesting for me to hear him describe his grueling marches. I’m pretty slow (dew forms on me if I run in the mornings), so I try to run for distance. Still, I couldn’t picture myself doing some of the training he had to do.

I found it amusing that he simply mentioned running a marathon. Nobody just “mentions” a marathon. If you ran a marathon, you work that into conversations. You wear your complimentary marathon shirt everywhere you go. You buy a “26.2” sticker for your car. And bike. I don’t know if I would ever run a marathon, but if I did, you can bet you’ll know about it. For Collins, it’s simply an aside to his army training.

His racing exploits were my favorite parts of the book. But I’m a sucker for stories of knifing through the field in Le Mans. His accounts tell the story that sometimes talent isn’t enough. Although he drove well for Paul Stewart Racing, for example, he was let go because he was “too old.” He was almost a test driver for the Formula One team Arrows, but was about £1.5 million short on funds.

“The best way to get a small fortune in racing is to start with a large one.”

Collins started racing in open-wheel cars, going from Formula First to Formula Three in his pursuit for a Formula 1 ride. He landed in a Le Mans prototype instead. He provided a lot of detail in his outings. He described battles for positions, track conditions, and events leading to accidents. I actually found this to be the most exciting part of the book, as I love racing (but not parades). There’s at lot of action and suspense, and you get the read what Collins was thinking about while it was happening. I don’t know how accurate it was, but it made for good stories.

Me and my 944 Turbo on the Mulsanne Straight. In the rain. Not quite in the dark.

Although his team wasn’t able to finish, my favorite racing story was his first drive at Le Mans. In the dark. While it was raining. He was the fastest out on the track, improving their standing from 17th place up to 4th place while unlapping the leaders. In the wet. Until the fuel pump died.

What I’ve always loved about the great drivers like Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher is their ability to excel in the wet. Collins seems to possess this as well. He is, after all, the Stig.

As an aside, Collins discovered in his racing travels that the roads in Romania were bad, much like I did:

“[Nicolae Ceausescu] left nothing in the budget for the roads, which were as pockmarked as the surface of the moon.”

As expected, a large portion of the books is dedicated to his time at Top Gear. I enjoyed reading the trouble he went through to keep his identity anonymous, including ironically dressing up like a terrorist just to get into the airfield where they film the show. He described a lot of power lap stories, where he (or guests) drove around the race course to post their best lap time. He did it in cars they were reviewing, and celebrity guests did it in a reasonably priced car.

This was initially interesting, but when he started talking about how he was trying to squeeze out tenths of seconds, it got a bit painful. I started having flashbacks of my autocross days trying to figure out how to go a little faster each run, but ultimately going slower because I got messier the harder I tried. This didn’t happen to the Stig, of course, but it just conjured up annoying memories for me.

Collins also drove as a stunt driver in a couple of big budget movies, National Treasure 2 and Quantum of Solace, and in Top Gear Live! events. The Live! events were held in arenas with fast vehicles exploding while on fire and being smashed. In the dark.

The behind-the-scenes stories of Top Gear were fun. After reading about him driving a black Corvette Z06 inside a shopping mall while chasing a Ford Fiesta, I had to re-watch that episode, which was already a favorite of mine. Another episode I had to re-watch was where the four Top Gear presenters (Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and the Stig) raced through London by land (car), sea (boat), more land (bicycle) and public transport to see who could get to London City Airport first. Collins had just suffered a serious injury and a personal tragedy prior to this episode. His bits in this story were also funnier to me when I found out some of them were improvisations. The car same dead last, of course.

The stories Collins wrote about Top Gear just enhanced the show for me, especially since they are more interesting than what I’ll have in my autobiography (“so there I was, about to differentiate this menacing equation...”). He also provided some insight about the other hosts, even if just to confirm what I’ve seen so far in the camera.

James May is a bit pedantic, Richard Hammond is ballsy, and Jeremy Clarkson is a big, pompous, arrogant know-it-all ass.

I’m pretty sure if I had to work with Jeremy Clarkson, or Jezza, like Collins did, I would have eventually cut the brake lines in his car, disabled his airbags, and put Justin Bieber in infinite loop in his radio. Then I’d find a step ladder somewhere so I could climb it to slap him upside his head. Unfortunately, I also find Clarkson clever and witty, and is my favorite of the three, so there you go.

I was a bit sad to find out that this book caused a big row between Collins and the other presenters. Jeremy called Collins greedy. James May was a bit put off, or whatever it is the British do when they get mad.

There are many possible reasons for their reaction. The first is Ben Collins was their friend and now they feel betrayed that he outed the Stig. The second is that they’re actually greedy bastards and care only about themselves. Another more cynical possibility is that this spat has been carefully coordinated to maximize ratings when the series returns, and people tune in to see how the Stig will be killed off.

Or it could be simply that the British are simply just “eccentric” and we Americans can’t understand why they drink so much tea, why their beer is so warm, why their money is all in Icelandic banks, and whatever other hackneyed stereotypes we Americans have of the British.

If I had to fall on either side of this squabble, I would side with the fast, low-paid, race car driver over the rich, slow but entertaining presenters.

My non-BBC licensed, Chinese-made, Amazon-bought tribute to the Stig


Organic Stigs (photo: Top Gear)

“Your car should drive itself. It just makes sense. It’s a bug that cars were invented before computers.”
--Eric Schmidt, Google CEO

Their fleet of six Prius (Priuses? Prii? Priora? Prissies?) and one Audi TT has driven over 140,000 miles with only occasional human control, and over 1,000 miles with no human intervention according to the New York Times. These cars have driven on the Pacific Coast Highway and Lombard Street. They’ve gone as far as Lake Tahoe (from Mountain View, CA?). I’m assuming they’ve been holding off venturing onto rough, treacherous venues, like Woodward Avenue in New Detroit until their T-1 is operational.

The cars use GPS, pre-mapped information, and sensors to help guide them. The sensors include scanning LIDAR, cameras, and RADARs. The cars may or may not have a flux capacitor— this I can neither confirm nor deny.

The only incident they’ve reported was minor. One of Google’s vehicle was waiting at a light when it was rear-ended, presumably by a car driven by an old fashioned human.

When I heard this news, I immediately bowed down to our auto overlords. And then I e-mailed Wes (and so did four other colleagues).

Wes has been sort of working with Google with one of our radar sensors. I say “sort of” because Google was somewhat secretive in terms of what they were doing with these sensors, so Wes wasn’t really sure what his code was going into, but he had his suspicions.

And he was wrong. Very wrong. (Actually, we all were.)

“I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented.”
--R. Buckminster Fuller

Personally, I’m glad we were wrong because I think this is better than what we thought. I’m all for autonomous driving. As I’ve mentioned previously, I don’t place a lot of faith in my fellow man’s ability to drive. Or breath through his nose. The sooner we have autonomous cars, the better (even if I didn’t work in a related area).

Autonomous cars will drive the speed limit, won’t run red lights, and won’t flip you off as they cut in front of you in rush hour traffic. They will signal for lane changes and turns. They may even stop for school buses with flashing red lights and emergency vehicles.

Robot cars aren’t going to drink and then drive. They won’t fall asleep at the wheel. They won’t brandish a 9mm if you’re tailgating, at least not until Skynet, or whatever Google decides to call it, goes on-line.

This is a good thing.

Of course some will say that if we have autonomous cars, then people won’t pay attention behind the wheel. Well, that’s precisely the point. People already don’t pay attention behind the wheel. With robot cars, at least someone/something will be watching out.

Think about the people that need to be in robot cars: people that don’t want to drive; people that don’t pay attention; people that are bad drivers; people that wear hats. These people should not drive. Let these 99% of the population have robot cars so they continue texting, eating, reading or whatever these people do in cars, and let the other 1% drive in safety.

From Joy of Tech

Car enthusiast should rejoice at this news. It’s a step towards removing bad drivers off the road. What could possibly go wrong?

“Did gerade Linie ist gottlos.”
--Hundertwasser

A friend of mine is on a foreign assignment to Romania for a couple of years. The city where he’s located is nice enough, with a university and a technical industry, and was the first mainland European city to be lit by electric street lamps in 1884.

When I first travelled there over 10 years ago, the airport was previously used by the military, and AK47-armed soldiers were posted around the terminal building, guiding us as we walked from the airplane to the terminal. Commercial planes did not stay overnight, as the hangers, camouflaged and covered with dirt, were used for military jets. Getting through immigration was always entertaining.

Outside of the airport, the people there are friendly, and we have a lot of young, fun-loving colleagues there. I’ve visited Romania quite often, but I’ve never really wanted to stay for an extended period of time— until this.

This is the Transfăgărăşan, a road in Romania. My friend sent me this vacation photo, apparently in an effort to taunt me (although he does not have an outrageous French accent).

Somewhere in the Romulan neutral zone (photo: L.Ivaldi)
More Google pictures here.

The road was built in the early 1970s by Nicolae Ceauşescu, the former Romanian dictator, as a military route in response to a Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. (Apparently, Romulan tanks must be able to corner like they’re on rails. And what is it with dictators and fabulous roads?) It’s 90 km long over the Făgăraş mountains (Transylvanian Alps). According to Wikipedia, the road connects the historic regions of Transylvania and Wallachia, and one of its attractions is the Poienari citadel, the home of Vlad III the Impaler’s moustache.

It’s also the only decent road in Romania. Every other road I’ve been on looks like it was carpet-bombed to disguise how bad the potholes actually are. In the city where my friend lives, the roads are easily worse than here in the Detroit area (where the buildings also look like they’ve been bombed).

In Top Gear’s first episode of series 14, Jeremy Clarkson declared the Transfăgărăşan as the best road in the world, even better than the Stelvio Pass in Italy. This was shortly after insulting the Romanian people in ways too numerous to count.

So now I’ve added both the Transfăgărăşan and the Stelvio Pass on my list of roads to drive on. Getting a nice sporty car to Romania may be an issue, so I may have to take my chances on whatever car I can get my hands on there.

Road trip!

The Autobahn. The word evokes a mystical essence about German driving. It’s the last automotive frontier, like the old American wild west. It’s still unlimited. Thoroughbreds like Porsche, BMW, Audi and Mercedes (okay— and VW for that GTI guy) still roam the autobahn. And every encounter in the left lane is about who’s faster, and who needs to move now.

Unfortunately, it’s all a big crock.

Sure, it’s still technically possible to find open stretches of unrestricted autobahn today, but in reality, this is becoming more rare. Many sections now have speed limits of some sort, some permanent, some conditional, such at night or during wet weather.

End of Restriction traffic sign. It means no more restrictions on speed, passing, staying up late, sodium in your food, or how much tv you can watch

So what if you just ignore the speed limit signs? In Germany, they check your speed with photo radar and with police cars, marked and unmarked. The unmarked cars can be anything from an old Opel to a blacked-out Mercedes.

They also play radar roulette. There are overhead electronic signs that also contain windows for the radar guns. The radar can be in any lane, and in any sign. You’ll know it’s there if you see a red flash as it takes your picture. They also have mobile radar units that I’ve seen on connector ramps (like from the A93 to the A8— it’s probably there right now).

You’re probably thinking to yourself, I’m just passing through town in a rental car. I’ll never have to worry about it.

Not quite. If caught by a police car, you may have to pay on the spot, with higher fines in city limits. If you’re captured on film, they will track you down, even through the rental agency, and mail you the ticket all the way to the U.S. Or if you’re staying long enough, two uniformed Polizei will knock on your hotel room door to deliver the ticket (probably the best service you’ll get in Germany).

Let’s say you’re able to find unrestricted stretches of autobahn. If it’s around the beginning or end of the work day, there will be a herd of traffic going your way. They apparently have rush hour there, too. If it’s the weekend or a holiday, then it could be the same thing— again, just like here. Believe it or not, they even copied the strange practice of putting orange barrels randomly in the middle of the roads just to slow traffic.

The Autobahn: The world’s fastest parking lot

Then there are the Conestoga wagons of the autobahn, the lumbering semi-trailers. By law they’re limited to about 50-60 mph. You’ll run into these trucks (sometimes literally) when they’re passing each other at a delta of 1 mph. Their smaller cousins are the cars from the old Eastern bloc countries. There are fewer of these around now, but you’ll still see the occasional Lada from Hungary who will try to pull into the left lane without realizing how fast that German Panzer is bearing down on him.

Can’t you just drive around in your Ruf-modified Porsche flashing your high-beams at those in front of you, like in the old commercials? Nope. That can be considered road rage. Don’t do that. Or flip someone the bird. Or tap your index finger to your forehead repeatedly/wave your open palm in front of your face. I think mumbling profanities in your own car may still be allowed, but I’d check first.

“The reason there is so little crime in Germany is that it's against the law.”
--Alex Levin

And if there’s an accident, you're screwed. I’ve measured 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) of traffic (or Stau) on the autobahn on a Sunday due to an accident. Much like toll roads, there aren’t too many exits, so if the autobahn is blocked, you might as well break out the picnic basket. I’ve sat in my car for over an hour while they cleared off an accident.

(It goes without saying that an accident at speed on the autobahn equals death-carnage-mangled-metal-old-Ohio-drivers-ed-film-Mike-Tyson's-life-Waterworld disaster. Try to avoid that.)

If you do happen to find a stretch that’s open, don’t be an American— stay out of the left lane except to pass. There are two good reasons why you shouldn’t ride the left lane. First, it’s against the law. (Actually, some drivers do this, but they’re usually going pretty fast and will move out of your way if you’re faster).

It’s apparently a law here, too, but we’re illiterate or something.

Second, it can be dangerous to drive there for extended periods of time. You are a hazard if you are hanging out on the left lane. No matter how fast you’re driving, somebody will eventually come by going faster (I’ve been passed while doing 150+ mph). These cars will brake at the last moment and slow to your speed right at your bumper if you don’t get out of the way.

Also remember, passing on the right is strictly verboten.

If the autobahn is really that bad, is it even worth it for an American to drive there?

Hell, yes.

Because it's still better than anything we have here. Because the roads are smoother. Because the road sides aren't littered with billboards. And because you can go as fast as you want (in those precious few miles of open autobahn).

Not only that, but people actually pay attention when they drive there. That guy in Ohio on I-75 who was in front you for miles and miles in the left lane doing 61 mph— you won't find him on the autobahn.

My wife even drives faster than I do there.

You should experience this driving wonder before it disappears forever.

[Note: You should also know that the “advisory” maximum speed on the autobahn is 130 kph/81 mph.]]]> Sat, 18 Sep 2010 02:34:29 -0400 http://www.crankydriver.com/blog/uhm305977647.html

For those that don’t watch BBC’s Top Gear show with religious fervor, I’m talking about the de-helmeting of the Stig from the show. For the last seven years, the current (and likely ex-) Stig was the test driver for Top Gear, doing stunts and setting lap times on various cars on the show. His identity has always been a mystery, and now Ben Collins has written an autobiography claiming to be the Stig.

“Some say he never blinks, and that he roams around the woods at night foraging for wolves...”

I bet he would be faster if he had more stickers and patches on his suit.
(photo: Top Gear)

The BBC was not happy. And Ben Collins claimed he was crucified for it (after the fact).

The matter was brought to court, and so far Collins and HarperCollins (coincidence?) have won the right to publish the book.

“Some say he is illegal in 17 US states, and he blinks horizontally...”

So now he’s out of a job.

“Some say that he’s terrified of ducks, and that there’s an airport in Russia named after him...”

The writing was probably on the wall, or in this case, power lap board, as his lap time (1:44.4) in a Reasonably Priced Car was recently bested by Rubens Barrichello (1:44.3), Formula 1’s most experienced racing driver ever.

“Some say that on really warm days he sheds his skin like a snake, and that for some reason he’s allergic to the Dutch...”

Collins probably did break the terms of his contract. But did Collins break the hearts of Top Gear enthusiasts? Probably some. Collins is the seconds Stig on the show after the first Stig, Perry McCarthy as the “black” Stig, left the show after two years through similar circumstances. Any one remember Perry? There you go. The show will go on.

“Some say that the outline of his left nipple is exactly the same shape as the Nürburgring, and that if you give him a really important job to do, he’ll skive off and play croquet...”

There will be another Stig, possibly in another color. (I’m hoping for Rambunctiosus Red or Violent Pink.) There have already been other Stigs on the show such as: Stig’s African cousin, the African Stig dressed in a loincloth; Stig’s truck-driving cousin, Rig Stig, complete with requisite truck-driver belly; Stig’s American cousin, Big Stig, with a relaxed driving style; and the Stig’s mullet-wearing German cousin, Herr Stig, or Stiggy Ray Cyrus. Rumors say that a new Stig is already in place. You can place your bet on the next Stig. Personally, I would like it to be Sabine Schmitz, but that may be too obvious.

“Some say that he sucks the moisture from ducks, and that his crash helmet is modeled on Britney Spears’ head...”

I can’t say if Mr. Collins made the right decision or not. I haven’t driven in his racing shoes, but it’s ultimately his life to live, not mine. But his de-masking of the Stig has stripped away some of the mysticism of the character. The Stig was the creature that powered exotics around Top Gear’s test track. He’s been crashed, smashed, and set on fire, and yet he’s still the fastest (or was). Now, another myth has been exposed, or at least lost some of its luster. Thank goodness we still have Santa.

“Some say that his tears are adhesive, and that if he caught fire he’d burn for a thousand days...”

The only thing I would like to see from all this is a spectacular on-screen farewell, like an automotive Viking funeral, or a Death Race on the Nürburgring, backwards. At night. In the rain. The previous Stig met its demise on the HMS Invincible. One can only hope for a similar fitting ending for the current Stig.

“Some say the Scottish released him a little bit too soon. And that he spent all week pushing an effigy of Rubens Barrichello through his desk fan...”

[update 2010-09-14 18:43]
As much as I love Top Gear and the Stig’s mystique, I’ve decided to fall on the side Ben Collins and not the BBC in this case. Americans love the rags-to-riches/ underdog/ Cinderella-in-a-Simpson-racing-slipper story, and love to stick it to big corporations. Relatively speaking, he wasn’t making that much money in Top Gear, although it was probably okay as a side gig. In any case, I will buy his book, The Man in the White Suit, as soon as it is available in the States.

It’s a bit trashy, but here’s a story on Ben Collins from the Daily Mail, although I cannot speak for its veracity. It can’t be any worse than his wiki page.

I used to lovingly craft tape mixes before any road trip. I’m not sure why I did, though. I didn’t have a lot of music at the time, so the tapes tended to have the same songs, just in different order. I liked the old tapes because they could hold 90 minutes of music. When I switched to CDs, I was limited to about an hour. Today an MP3 CD, which many car radios can play, will hold over a hundred songs. And of course, there’s the 600-pound gorilla of mixes: the iPod.

I have a 160GB classic iPod and a video iPod that I upgraded to 240GB. I have one or the other playing in my car when I drive. I’ll say about 98% of the music there are mine, usually ripped from CDs. The rest are off-site backups that I’m holding for other people. I don’t have every song on a CD transferred to the iPod, usually just what I would actually listen to. This works out to be about 5,500 tracks, less than half of what’s on the CDs.

Sing, sing a song
Sing out loud
Sing out strong
Sing of good things not bad
Sing of happy not sad
--Karen Carpenter

You would think that with a large library, the chances of someone hearing a song that makes them say, “That’s a cool song. I haven’t heard that in a while,” would be good. Instead, I get a lot of, “what is this crap we’re listening to?”

As someone who loves numbers and especially statistics, I find that utterly fascinating. I could be driving with someone who hates country songs, and of course some country song will come on, usually exactly the singer that makes this person hate country. Same with rock— it’ll probably be an AC/DC song.

I could be driving with my mom and Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer to God” will start playing (“he wants to ‘what’ her like an animal?”). My co-workers and I will be going to lunch and I’ll get, “is that a show tune?” Yes, the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.

I have a friend who is an opera singer. Inevitably a Bob Dylan song will come up when she’s with me. His voice apparently makes her ears bleed. Literally, I think.

Triangle man, triangle man
Triangle man hates person man
They have a fight, triangle wins
Triangle man
--TMBG

I’m not going to apologize for my taste in music, but I will apologize for the bleeding ears. I happen to like a lot of music. If I listen to something long enough, I may eventually like it. A lot of times, it’s even ironic, like Kylie Minogue’s song, “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head,” which I kept hearing until I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Most of my music is from the 1970s and 1980s. I stopped listening to local radio stations regularly in the late 1990s. Since I don’t listen to radio stations, that means I generally have no idea what’s going on in music. I get have to get my music information from other sources.

For example, according to most social networks on the interwebs, I’m supposed to hate Nickelback for some reason. Since I don’t know Nickelback, I will probably hear one of their songs, like it without realizing it’s them, and as a result become tragically unhip. That’s just what I do.

When I lived in Germany, I had access to a lot of music from other countries, like France, Spain, Italy, Romania, Russia, and of course, Germany. I can’t speak all of these languages (or any, actually), but that doesn’t keep me from enjoying the music of these artists.

One such artist is the Russian group t.A.T.y. (or in English, t.A.T.u.). I’m sure I like them because they channel the existential spirit of Dostoevsky, and not because they’re two hot Russian babes.

Definitely not the Brothers Karamazov

In the end, it probably doesn’t matter where the music comes from, I will probably like it. The tough decision for me would be a variation on the desert island album concept (if you were stuck on a desert island, what 10 albums would you have with you?).

If you were on a road trip and only had an iPod shuffle, what songs would you put on your 1Gb iPod?

Stood alone on a mountain top starin’ out at the Great Divide
I could go east I could go west it was all up to me to decide
--Bob Seger

“If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”
--Mario Andretti

To a driving enthusiast, the allure of Germany is undeniable. An unlimited autobahn? The Nürburgring? Home of Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Audi (and for that GTI owner, VW)? What could be better?

It’s possible to get a taste of this driving paradise in many ways. Companies such as Fast Lane Travel can get you in a Porsche to drive on the autobahn and see the sights of Germany. You can get lessons on how to drive on the Nürburgring with the BMW Car Club of America. And if you want to save some money on your next German automobile, you can take European delivery of you Porsche, BMW, Mercedes or Audi. You can save a few thousand dollars by picking it up at the factory and driving it around Germany (and a few other countries) for up to six months before it’s shipped to the States.

You’re probably thinking to yourself that this is all fantastic. Germany must be the nirvana of the automotive world. The only way it can get better is if you actually moved to Germany and got to do this everyday.

Not so fast, Hans.

Caring for a Nice Car™ in Germany was one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had with a car. It made me very, very cranky. Of course, a large part of my problem was the culture clash of the my American Midwest mentality dealing with the European Way. And because they don’t give me a bag with my groceries.

For every wonderful driving experience in Germany, there’s a frustrating aspect to car ownership there. I’ll cover various topics about this in future posts, but today let’s start with something basic, like parking.

In Germany, there isn’t any. Forget about it. Just park in a field outside of town and take the bus in. Or walk.

If you do feel adventurous, you could try the various 6-story paid park houses in the cities. If you drive up and down for a few hours, somebody is bound to leave. You may find the parking spaces a bit narrow, but rest assured they are designed for tiny European cars, not motorcycles. And yes, somebody will ding your door.

“Those who cannot remember the past will spend a lot of time looking for their cars in mall parking lots.”
--Jay Trachman

There are some metered parking areas in the city streets, but the rest are usually reserved for residents with permits. If you do find one of these metered parking places, it will probably require parallel parking, a skill that’s disappeared from America shortly after the introduction of the automobile. In Germany, you will get the added pleasure of trying to parallel park while busses, cars, and mopeds are all trying to get around you. If you hear people talking, they are making fun of your parking inadequacies. And yes, you will scrape your low-profile wheels on the square curbs.

Somehow this man got his car in and out of this spot with leaving a mark on my red 944’s bumper. The space ahead of my car is no parking.

“When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I’m leaving.”
--Stephen Wright

Are you one of those drivers that use the bumper of the cars around you as a parallel parking aid? That’s not such a good idea in Germany. That would technically constitute an accident if you hit another car, even at low speeds. Leaving a note on the other person’s car doesn’t cut it. You have to wait for them, or call the police. If you leave, that would be leaving the scene of an accident, and yes, somebody will call the police on you.

One of the leading industries in the city where I lived in Germany is the distribution of parking tickets. I used to watch the city parking “guards” (they’re not police) watch the meters run down. They’ll usually give you a few seconds to leave. Otherwise, if you’ve run out of time, you will get a parking ticket. Or two.

“A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works.”
--Bill Vaughn

If you live in the city, you can get a permit to park on the street in some areas, usually for overnight (don’t forget to fold your driver side mirror in). But do you really want to park your Porsche outside? Some apartments have underground parking for their residents. If you’ve had previous experience navigating supertankers into port, then this will be a piece of cake for you. Otherwise, you will scrape a mirror on something, somewhere, somehow.

If you own or rent a house, then there’s a chance you’ll have a garage. The garage will probably be bigger than a breadbox. It should hold one (European) midsize car, like a VW Golf. Your passengers will have to get out before you park it inside. And yes, you will open your door into the brick wall when you get out.

So the next time you take your Nice Car™ out of the garage and park it way in the back of the Meijer’s parking lot, be glad that a) there is a “back of the parking lot” b) if someone parks next to you, you’ll still be able to open your door, and c) parking is free, as in beer (and speech).

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you've got till it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
--Joni Mitchell

These days it is pretty easy to have the exact time. Computers automatically sync up to atomagical clocks for the correct time. Cell phones get the correct time from their networks. GPS devices have the exact time from alien countdown satellites. There’s really no excuse not to have the right time.

I’m sure everyone at this elementary school has the correct time. I can imagine the local police pouncing on those whose Timex is a few ticks slow. I’m surprised the speed isn’t 40.225 KPH, or 5² MPH, since counting with fingers and toes is already involved.

Do you have the exact time?

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”
--Albert Einstein

I mentioned in a previous post that slow people in the left lane is my biggest pet peeve. It’s actually more like a wild, feral peeve. And this time I have the State of Michigan backing me on this one. Sort of.

According to Michigan compiled laws:

Chapter 257.634 (2) Upon a roadway having 2 or more lanes for travel in 1 direction, the driver of a vehicle shall drive the vehicle in the extreme right-hand lane available for travel except as otherwise provided in this section. However, the driver of a vehicle may drive the vehicle in any lane lawfully available to traffic moving in the same direction of travel when the lanes are occupied by vehicles moving in substantially continuous lanes of traffic and in any left-hand lane lawfully available to traffic moving in the same direction of travel for a reasonable distance before making a left turn.

(I’m an engineer. I read specifications for fun. Laws are almost the same, although the legalese sometimes escape me.)

So unlike this other guy, the guy below that I’ve been following for miles is technically okay. I will not have to turn the Destructomatic 3000 to the Obliterate-into-Sub-Nanoparticles-and-Spit-on-the-Remains setting because other cars have been in the right lane “moving in substantially continuous lanes of traffic,” or some nonsense like that.

Move. Over. Anyway.


It warms the heart knowing this is the law.

“If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.”
--Francis Bacon

I’m happy that Michigan posts these signs on the freeway. I’ve only seen them in the past few years, so it’ll only take a few decades before drivers start noticing them. The only thing I would change is to place the sign on the left side of the road, not the right. People on the right are already doing what the sign says. It’s the left lane zombies that need to be tortured with ants and honey see this sign.

That’ll be one of the first things on my to do list when I become Czar of All Cardom (mmm...honey...).

Yes, bales of hay are involved. Our homeowners’ association makes us keep the goats and chickens out back.

“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best that we can find in our travels is an honest friend.”
--Robert Louis Stevenson

The 944 and I have been together since 1994. Back then it was considered a fast car, and I was skinny. Today, my daily driver (complete with two child seats) will run rings around it, and I have to drag my butt out of bed at 4 am to run, just to be not fat.

My first major trip with the 944 was in 1995 to Edmonton and back. The following two years we travelled to Battle Mountain, Nevada to run the Pony Express 100 (coming 2nd in class once). We’ve been on race tracks around the country, from Road Atlanta to Road America. We’ve been to Pike’s Peak and the Nürburgring Nordschleife. We’ve gone down the Mulsanne Straight in the rain, and tried to follow the route from Rendezvous in Paris. I was able to do this back in pre-historic times— pre-wife, pre-house, pre-kids.

The 944 during its happier times.

Today we both tend to sit around a lot. Our reflexes aren’t what they used to be, and we both occasionally emit strange, unnatural noises. We both probably have more back pressure than before. We remember being faster than what we are now. And we’re both getting to the point where we just talk about our glory days (actually, we’re there now).

I used to drive the 944 year round. I’ve been dumb enough to get caught in ice storms and blizzards with my summer tires. We’ve driven through the desert in July. Nowadays, if the forecast doesn’t call for at least a week’s worth of sun, I won’t even bother taking the car cover off.

On sunny Saturday mornings, I used to get up early to wash the 944 and drive for a couple hundred miles with no particular place to go. Now on those sunny weekend mornings I think, wow, I can mow the lawn today.

As I write this, it’s July, and I still haven’t restored my insurance coverage for it this year. I disconnected the battery trickle charger sometime during the last recession, so the battery is probably dead. A flock (gaggle? brood? covey?) of lemurs could be living in it by now for all I know.

I find it sad how little time I spend with the 944, and how little energy I have to do anything about it. Who put Old Pills in my water? Who snuck in and made me a grown up? Where did these kids come from? Wait— I might know the answer to that last one.

“Daddy, can I paint your car pink?”

If anyone is looking for me, I’ll be in the corner of my garage crying in my Mountain Dew.
]]> Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:47:29 -0400 http://www.crankydriver.com/blog/jsh299487906.html summer driving events, when I made the mistake of reading the comments. I hate reading the comments, because I lose all hope in my fellow man (again).

As I thought about the article and its comments, I found the whole thing ironic. Here’s an article asking people to behave in a civil manner, and the most of the comments are anything but civil.

The Booth Babe is an anonymous product specialist in the auto industry. She writes for The Truth About Cars and her own blog, Do You Come With The Car? (That’s a lot of links, and I’m not even getting paid for this. I think that’s called “being nice,” or something like that.) She provides a behind-the-scenes peek of the auto show industry, which I find fascinating. I love auto shows.

Some of her articles also deal with people, which I find just as interesting. I think if I hadn’t become an engineer, I would have become a psychologist, because how people act and think intrigue me. (Okay, that’s not true. It would be to experiment on people for fun and profit.)

If you were to read these people articles from the Booth Babe, they may sound bitchy or whiny. I see the message as, “people, get a clue.” In other words, she could be the Cranky Booth Babe.

The anonymity of the internet (or a freeway) seems to give people an excuse to behave badly. We live in a world where the words “please,” “excuse me,” and “thank you,” have disappeared; where common sense isn’t so common any more; and where single-digit salutes have replaced the friendly wave. We’re approaching the world of Idiocracy meets Beavis and Butthead (oh wait, it has).

And then there are the People of Walmart.

I’m not going to kid myself into thinking that our culture could change overnight and fix all of this. All I’m asking is to be nice to each other once in a while, and act with at least a modicum of common sense.

One final thing. I’m not defending the Booth Babe— she doesn’t need defending. But I do get annoyed by comments to her like, “What do you expect when you’re wearing a miniskirt.”

How about: No.

By the same logic, if you were an idiot, I should be allowed to slap you upside the head (mmm... upside the head...), because, well, what do you expect? But I don’t. Most of the time, I will just politely ask you to try breathing through your nose instead.

You don’t have to act on every thought or whim. That’s what the mushy stuff between your ears is for— to think and reason with virtue and decency. One would think that’s one of the few things that separate us from the beasts.

And no, I’m not a misanthrope, but I’m working on it.

“Achievements on the golf course are not what matters, decency and honesty are what matter.”
--Tiger Woods

“Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.”
--H. L. Mencken

“I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.”
--Johannes Kepler

“The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.”
--Henry David Thoreau

“I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Die ganze Welt dreht sich um mich, denn ich bin nur ein Egoist.
Der Mensch, der mir am nächsten ist, bin ich, ich bin ein Egoist.
--Falco

(Thanks to DYCWTC for the image. I need one of these.)

“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.”
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation.”
--Kin Hubbard

“No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather.”
--Michael Pritchard

“The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.”
--Dudley Moore

“Seatbelts, yes; airbags, sure; but all these techno-nannies (from which the aforementioned gents will surely reap monetary rewards by the forced addition of them) will make the roads more dangerous by reducing the necessary driver involvement.”

“I’m a fantastic driver who pays attention all the time. I don’t need these driver aids.”

“Driver aids will add unnecessary costs to the vehicle.”

“I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t pass here.”

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
--Albert Einstein

Not my wife (source: Google images and the inter... wait, what was the question again...?)

It takes a really long time to get the Honda going this fast. Max is about 145 mph.

“Kaffee und Liebe sind heiß am besten.”
--German proverb

(image source: artatm.com)

“Well my baby went out
She didn’t stay long
Bought herself a Mercury, come a cruisin’ home
She’s crazy...”
--K. C. Douglas

“... about a Mercury”
--K. C. Douglas

“A bad day at the track is still better than a good day in the office.”
--Any track participant from any track event

Bunch of Random Cars



More Random Cars



Yet Even More Random Cars



M3 into Turn 1



Go that way very, very fast...



A Mini and its distant cousin



Going down the front straight



It’s like a Porsche Parade



That’s not an SUV but an STI back there, like mine



I just like this picture— one of the few I like a lot



I’m guessing this is the 993 Turbo (and not a 4S with a Turbo spoiler). The last air-cooled turbo 911 is one of my all-time favorites.



This may or may not be the result of a redneck pit crew stopping work for a beer break



I’m (obviously) biased towards the STI



Oh— that can’t be good



Big Red Corvette



Good day, eh?



Ayyyyyy!


[Confession: This entire blog entry was constructed just to be able to post a picture of Mr. Arthur Fonzarelli. Sorry to drag you down this far.]

• environmental impact on the sea life in the Gulf
• environmental impact along the coastal region
• economic impact on the families in the area

Whoa, mercy, mercy me
Oh, things ain’t what they used to be, no no
Oil wasted on the oceans
And upon our seas, fish full of mercury
--Marvin Gaye (1971)

(artwork: Mike Mitchell— but not that Mike Mitchell. source: www.cartoonbrew.com)

“One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything, except a good reputation.”
--Oscar Wilde

“My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.”
--Woody Allen

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.”
--Captain Eric Moody, British Airways Flight 9

I wonder if Utahians (Utes? Utahinonians?*) have a problem with high sodium.

One day I’ll have to learn to take good pictures of cars.

“Wherever you go, there you are.”
--Thomas à Kempis (1440 AD)
--Buckaroo Banzai (1984 AD, for those who are younger and can’t remember Thomas)

Top: EMan (1995), bottom: Google (2009)
Clearmont, WY

Top: EMan (1995), bottom: Google (2009). They changed the sign. Maybe the population changed.
Ucross, WY

(image source: amazon.com)

“You can always find a distraction if you’re looking for one.”
--Tom Kite

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” 
--Arthur C. Clarke (Clarke’s Third Law) 

(image source: autoblog.com)

• I’ve learned driving in ruts is more important than driving in lanes when you can’t see the lanes.
• I’ve learned that driving behind the snow plow truck will create blizzard-like conditions while being pelted with salt.
• I’ve learned to look for parking curbs before doing donuts on snow-filled parking lots.
• I’ve learned not to go Dukes of Hazzard on the snow berm the snow plow leaves in front of my driveway.

“The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.”
--Dave Barry

“Go that way really fast. If something gets in your way, turn.”
--Monique Junot

“I want the world. I want the whole world. I want to lock it all up in my pocket. It’s my bar of chocolate. Give it to me now.”
-- Veruca Salt

• the economy tanked big time
• GM declared bankruptcy
• Chrysler declared bankruptcy
• my company got bought
• I didn’t receive any of the $1 trillion bailout money
• I wasn’t selected to run GM
• Detroit has been overrun by zombies

• my son was born (4 months ago)
• I bought a new car (1 year ago)
• I kept my job
• we discovered a huge black monolith orbiting Jupiter (2010)

“People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.”
--Leo J. Burke

“Americans are broad-minded people. They’ll accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic, a dope fiend, a wife beater, and even a newspaperman, but if a man doesn’t drive, there is something wrong with him.”
--Art Buchwald

“A pedestrian is someone who thought there were a couple of gallons left in the tank.”

“Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.”
--Jean Paul Getty

“To everything (turn, turn, turn)
  There is a driveway (turn, turn, turn)
  And a time for every purpose, under heaven”
  --Pete Seeger (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

“When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?’”
--Don Marquis

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
--Aristotle

1. Blocking the Left Lane on the Freeway

Other than firing armed veterans in post offices and listening to AM talk radio, this has to be one of the most anger-inducing behaviors known to man. Over 20 states in the U.S. have even passed legislation about this, with telling titles like “Road Rage Reduction Act.”

The drivers that commit this offense will enter a freeway, swerve to the left lane regardless of traffic, stay in the left lane come hell or high water. They will dive for their exit just before they pass it up. These drivers are ostensibly driving to the dealership to repair their broken rear-view mirror, but are in fact merely trying to annoy other drivers.

You may wonder, don’t drivers generally have the right to drive in any lane they want within the posted speed limits? In principle, this is true. However, the next time you go shopping for groceries, I will stand in front of your favorite cereal, denying you access to it, because I can. And if you really want this cereal, you can go over to the next aisle and reach through the back of the shelves to get your cereal.

If this is your driving style, please, please, please, get a clue.

2. Tailgating

I have no problems with brats, burgers, and beer in a parking lot before football games, but tailgating on the freeway at 80+ mph is too much. Please, do your grilling responsibly.

(So there I was, driving home late one evening on I-696. A black Ford Focus moves into my lane ahead of me. It seems to have a personalized license plate, so I decide to get closer to read it. The plate read: RU2CLOS. Naturally I proceeded to tailgate it to its exit.)

3. Weaving through Traffic

One of my favorite video games growing up was Pole Position, a driving game. I played a different version of this game on 8 Mile Road (yes, the same road with a movie named after it. Apparently that guy went to my high school). The idea was to stay in front of the traffic pack to catch the green light. It was often necessary to weave through traffic to stay in front and hopefully get an open slot (lane) for the green light.

Man, was I stupid.

Driving like that borders on dangerous, and it gets worse at higher speeds like the freeway (see: Laws of Physics). I think it’s possible to “gently” weave through traffic, but most people who weave tend to be more aggressive about it. This YouTube video shows an extreme example of dangerous weaving.

While I admit to driving fast, I try to do it safely. That may sound paradoxical to some, but what truly is safe? If really you want to drive safely, stay at home.

Disclaimer
I have to admit that I sometimes commit #2 and #3 of this list because of people doing a #1 get me all cranky.

[update: 2010-05-05] I realized that I keep updating my pet peeves list and rearranging positions. I’ll post a full list one day.] ]]> Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:09:10 -0500 http://www.crankydriver.com/blog/roe189811029.html Speed Racer all the time, but I would settle for people getting the heck out of my way. I could to do this more often if it weren’t for all those people on the road.

Ordinarily I like people. Some people are even nice. However, let people have political offices, write blogs, or drive cars, and they turn into idiots. And if you put enough people together, their collective stupidity becomes truly staggering.



“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
--Albert Einstein

“Really stupid people should be slapped upside the head.”
--EMan