Ken Block goes tooling around London and leaves a great deal of smoke in his path. Ordinarily this would just be grandstanding for a TV show ... but ...
Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to present you with an extended cut of a very special film: Matt LeBlanc on a tour of London with Ken Block and his Hoonicorn Mustang. Turn it up very, very loud, sit back, and enjoy...
Taken from Top Gear: Series 23
- YouTube
This is another gearhead toss-up since the Mustang, I guess, is still a rear-wheel drive vehicle and yet this Hoonicorn vehicle with Ken Block driving was burning rubber from wheel spin on all four of them. How is that even possible without four-wheel drive. Replace the entire drive train?
Note: I've seen now that the drive train is heavily-modified and the car has well over 800 hp.
Also a gearhead question is how can any kind of drift racing even work when all that wheel spin should melt the tires down to the rims in only a few laps.
Then there's the mechanism for gear shifting for intrigue and amusement. Paddle shifters make sense with one of each side of the steering wheel for up and down but the levers used in this car's shifter mechanism work in some arcane way and what the hell does the red button do?
I probably wouldn't have stayed with the video all the way through but I was curious just how tricked out that vehicle really is. Probably the only thing still stock on it is the Mustang emblem.
Ken Block is apparently some kind of gymkhana racer and I still don't really know what Gymkhana racing really looks like so ...
This looks like the next level of drag racing and I don't like the crashing and banging of a densely-packed course but the other vehicles should be on the same track with me so this is a little weird to my taste.
The style is unusual relative to road racing where you would never get away with driving like this. There's got to be some measure of drift with Formula 1 cars but it's so subtle it's tough to see. Even so, they will burn up their tires in not so many laps.
The precision of the driving is the biggest draw and whether it takes more or less for any given racing discipline probably doesn't matter much when the consequence of failure is the same. For my taste, it's got to be Formula 1 but it's still an amazement to see this style since they bring a whole lot of stylin' to racing.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to present you with an extended cut of a very special film: Matt LeBlanc on a tour of London with Ken Block and his Hoonicorn Mustang. Turn it up very, very loud, sit back, and enjoy...
Taken from Top Gear: Series 23
- YouTube
This is another gearhead toss-up since the Mustang, I guess, is still a rear-wheel drive vehicle and yet this Hoonicorn vehicle with Ken Block driving was burning rubber from wheel spin on all four of them. How is that even possible without four-wheel drive. Replace the entire drive train?
Note: I've seen now that the drive train is heavily-modified and the car has well over 800 hp.
Also a gearhead question is how can any kind of drift racing even work when all that wheel spin should melt the tires down to the rims in only a few laps.
Then there's the mechanism for gear shifting for intrigue and amusement. Paddle shifters make sense with one of each side of the steering wheel for up and down but the levers used in this car's shifter mechanism work in some arcane way and what the hell does the red button do?
I probably wouldn't have stayed with the video all the way through but I was curious just how tricked out that vehicle really is. Probably the only thing still stock on it is the Mustang emblem.
Ken Block is apparently some kind of gymkhana racer and I still don't really know what Gymkhana racing really looks like so ...
This looks like the next level of drag racing and I don't like the crashing and banging of a densely-packed course but the other vehicles should be on the same track with me so this is a little weird to my taste.
The style is unusual relative to road racing where you would never get away with driving like this. There's got to be some measure of drift with Formula 1 cars but it's so subtle it's tough to see. Even so, they will burn up their tires in not so many laps.
The precision of the driving is the biggest draw and whether it takes more or less for any given racing discipline probably doesn't matter much when the consequence of failure is the same. For my taste, it's got to be Formula 1 but it's still an amazement to see this style since they bring a whole lot of stylin' to racing.
6 comments:
Well get ready for your robos to take over F1 as the G forces the drivers are enduring are beginning to cause blackouts. So the next steps are pilot G suits to prevent the blood loss to the brain, slow down cornering and braking speeds or replace the drivers with servos .
A gadget you leave it is brake lever for locking up just the rear wheels to allow easier initiating his drifts. And yes his Mustang is all wheel drivery.
When it gets that much fly-by-wire, F1 will likely lose quite a bit of panache. eF1 electric cars will probably get up to the same speeds and then the same problem. Watching NASCAR when it's just a bunch of robos battling out there seems it would be too strange for words.
When the drivers in Indy series were suffering from vertigo at the Texas track, they just changed time track to solve it. I suspect that Formula 1 will reduce the number of high G turns in favor of high speed sweepers and introduce G suits. I doubt they slow then down.
Musk needs to develop better batteries so EF1 doesn't need to switch cars to finish the race
It seems like Musk can invent anything he likes. He should take up fusion reactors and solve that problem in a jiffy.
I can't say I approve of changing tracks to accommodate the cars since that changes the root of road racing. NASCAR is a different approach of go out, get fast, stay fast, don't get dead. Road racing is different and the ultimate was said to be the corner at the end of the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans because the driver had to slow from the fastest section of the track to complete a 15 mph turn to reverse directions.
Le Mans isn't an F1 course and the tracks F1 cars use are usually much more toward the sweeper turns you mention and Nürburgring, Spa Francorchamps, etc are great examples. Maybe that's how it continues going, as you suggest, with changes to track design.
I dont think Musk is the inventor as much as facilitator anymore. And just planting seeds and some pruning as it grows
Management has been the end of many a good techie (sob)
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