It’s Steve McQueen’s birthday today, so here’s the beginning of the race in the 1971 classic Le Mans, a film that proved you could satisfactorily replace dialogue with the droning of race car engines.
It’s also R. Lee Ermey’s birthday, but that doesn’t have a whole lot to do with cars….
…ahh, what the hell, here’s him shouting. Happy B-day, gunny.
Prepare to see more green and yellow this year. Lotus and Cosworth have partnered with IndyCar copetitors KV Racing Technology to run in the 2010 IndyCar series.
Lotus competed for a number of years in the IndyCar Series in the 1960s, winning the Indianapolis 500 race outright in 1965 with the pioneering Lotus Type 38, driven by Jim Clark, and narrowly missing victory to come second in 1963.
Jim Clark in his type 38 with the Lotus Indy 500 team, 1965 (photo:IMS PHOTO)
Dany Bahar, CEO of Group Lotus plc said, “Racing has always defined Lotus and on many occasions in motorsports history Lotus’ numerous innovations have re-defined racing. It’s only fitting that as the Lotus Racing name re-enters Formula 1, we will also race and innovate again in IndyCar. The Lotus name will, once again compete in the top two open-wheel racing series for the passion and enthusiasm of car fans around the globe.”
The return to the IndyCar Series follows on from the recent announcement by Lotus and Cosworth are to become closely associated through a strategic partnership looking at the opportunity to develop high performance engines for Lotus cars.
Driving the Lotus-Cosworth IndyCar will be the former F1 driver Takuma Sato.
The 2010 IndyCar Series starts with the Sao Paolo Indy 300, Brazil on the 14th of March 2010.
Feast your eyes on mechanics and test drivers showing off the Ferrari 599XX in Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit while the rest of us sit in front of our computers and weep as if viewing the Gods fraternize on the unobtainable peak of Olympus. I want one of those bad-ass Stilo helmets with the carbon fiber stripes down the middle to permanently replace my face.
It’s two nights before Christmas, and I’m having a think,
about racing and cars, which happens when I drink.
With Schumi returning for formula gold,
I wonder if such chances have passed cuz I’m old.
Not old per se, just too old to start,
on a path that infants begin racing karts.
I’ve thought this before, as blog posts will tell,
I even emailed, like a schoolboy, Le Mans great, Derek Bell.
“Hey Derek,” I said (we met ‘cuz of Bentley),
“what can I do to see time in Gran prix?”
When he replied, he said the time may have passed,
when engineers would make a mold of my ass,
and fit each contour into my F1 seat,
from where I would see just who I could beat.
Saddened, I moved on and continued writing here,
drunk, bitter, and watching Top Gear.
Around 3 AM, I finally crashed in my bed,
hot laps and pit stops still in my head.
I suddenly found myself in a bright red beast,
with paddle shifters and wings, and a wide open street.
A circuit like one’s never seen before,
made from all different tracks, even Singapore.
Part Monaco, part Monza, with sprinkles of Spa,
the Glen, De La Sarthe and La Guna Seca.
(and before those last two garner comments from the uptight,
I know they’re not F1, but it was my dream, alright?).
Off my car launched with such force, sound seemed to shatter,
downforce pressing my car to be flatter.
I hit S-curves and chicanes, rumble strips and more,
running through bends and straights I adore,
Through Copse!
Down Corkscrew!
Eau Rouge and Piscine!
’round Campsa, Coca-Cola, and all of Hockenhiemring!
Such joy as I felt so much fear and such grace,
I could’ve kept on forever and never dropped pace.
At some point, however, the ride had to end,
and I woke up in bed, I’d cross the last bend.
No miracle had happened, nothing unusual arose,
Didn’t wake up with a pussycat doll or ripped-off fuel hose,
I just sat with my head that throbbed like a drum,
trying to make sense of my dream ( I blame the rum).
It was then it occurred that hey, it’s Christmas eve!
and I should be celebrating, no time to grieve,
for lost times and missed chances I made myself believe.
I’m still young, a quick learner and I’m pretty fit,
(besides, when someone told me “no”, did I ever give a shit?).
and maybe when I go down tonight under the tree,
I might find something else there with my Forza 3.
some tickets to fly and enroll at Skip Barber,
to be taught to live the hopes that I harbor.
Maybe that’ll happen, and then again, maybe not,
but one day I’ll go out and give it all I’ve got.
I’ll learn to race proper and go as fast as I can,
and if I screw up? There’s always Grand-Am!
Thanks for another year of reading my pieces,
have a merry Christmas from AutoKinesis!
-Alex K-
We have all found ways to satiate our car lust in the interim time that our supercar of choice is unavailable. Be it a hot wheel collection, a magazine or oft-visited website (made up of handsome, exciting and popular contributors), our greatest automotive fantasies are constructed with the materials available to us. Being just shy of 30 (renew!), I’m fortunate enough to have been a part of the generation that grew up on the magical device that allows us to vicariously experience our wildest fantasies from the comfort of our living room: the home video game console.
The Need for Speed series of games has been around for a very long time, taking its loyal fans on a tumultuous journey throughout its many evolutions. In the beginning it was a virtual cruise through Road & Track, which then expanded to different modes keen to fuel the enthusiast’s desire to perform such acts as outrunning the fuzz in a Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR through a gothic cityscape in the dead of night. The series then went Underground, focusing on modded-out rides and pandering to a demographic that believes an aftermarket spoiler bolted to the trunk of a Honda Accord imbues it with stunning agility and street cred as it sets the highways ablaze with streaks of neon.
Need for Speed: Shift is the beginning of a new era for the series, taking the action off the street and bringing it to the track, with a focus on bringing the player as close to the fray as possible. The game puts you in the role of a driver just setting off at the start of a racing career that will take the player from tracks and events across the globe, mastering different styles and crafting a personality based on your unique driving attitude. Your race engineer is the narrative voice that gives advice and introductions for the game’s many events. He starts you off in a hot lap in a BMW M3 that determines what control setup and difficulty is best recommended for you, which you can arrogantly ignore and apply the most hardcore settings if you so choose (and later humbly reset after some eye-opening humility).
I attempted to be as pro as possible, turning off much of the assists and immediately removing the visible driving line on the track. That’s just…no. The one setting that defeated me was my attempt to play with a manual transmission, as the makers of the game chose to place the upshift and downshift buttons on the controller right above the triggers used for gas and brake, so if I wanted to upshift, my finger had to leave the throttle, and, most frustratingly, the other had to leave the brake for the sake of a downshift, which in a pinch I want to do simultaneously. With no way to re-map the buttons, (this was on the Xbox360 and I assume it’s the same on the Playstation 3), I was forced to relinquish control of the transmission to the game.
In Shift, much attention has been given to emulating the sensation of speed and, indeed, the dramatic loss of it. An in-car view is available, with pleasantly detailed interiors that can be scanned freely, with fully functioning gauges and upgradable features, plus usable mirrors. The development team seems to be aware of how distracting enjoying the interior details can be when you should be paying attention to the race at hand, so you’ll notice everything inside of the car slowly blur at speed, forcing your eyes to concentrate on the world through the windscreen. Looking up too late will treat you to the jarring sight of a tire wall or barrier rushing towards you, and plowing into it turns the screen into a distorted, shaky mess as the game does its best to make you really feel like you’ve had a serious collision. The degree of the impact determines just how dazed the perspective becomes, from the full-blown aforementioned madness, to a little color de-saturation and gauge rattling for minor scrapes. All this knocking about will reflect on the cars as well, depending on the settings you choose. If you’re going for as much realism as possible, the shunts and slams that your car endures will reflect on the body and performance of the vehicle. While there isn’t a way to fully incapacitate your car, a massive accident will leave your ride a crumpled mess with low power and skewed alignment.
The car you choose will be one of many in the 4-tier system available to you based on your driving level. Tier 1 contains cars such as the BMW 135i and the Volkswagen GTI, while higher tiers promise the chance to purchase supercars like the Pagani Zonda and Bugatti Veyron with the in-game currency you’ll earn. Being a green racer when you pop in the disc, only a handful of cars will be unlocked for purchase, and your initial funds allow for only the most frugal choices. As you progress, you will unlock more tiers, with higher performance cars, garage spots, and different visual and performance upgrades for both the interior and exterior.
As mentioned before, your skills in NFS:Shift are measured in your driver level. At level one, you’ll have only bare-bone essentials at your disposal, but as you race, you’ll advance in rank as you earn points for podium finishes and different challenges for particular races (such as hitting a certain speed or spinning out a number of competitors), as well as points earned for the two branches of driving styles that define your progression: Precision and Aggression. You’ll earn Precision points for driving the line, clean passes, and managing corners properly, and gather Aggression points for trading paint, throwing the tail out, and generally muscling your way through the grid. The system seems fairly responsive, but I spent a few races shoving rivals out of my way, only to inexplicably end up with a “Precision” badge at the end of the race because I managed to drive a decent racing line most of the time.
Tracks like Brands Hatch and Spa-Francorchamps mix in well with the various fictional tracks designed for the game. A series notorious for its product placement has found a good medium in track advert postings and car liveries, so don’t have the feeling that the game is shilling any particular product. Some of the menus for tuning and customization could be a little more user friendly. You can paint the car in numerous configurations and apply decals, but there isn’t a way to have a design on one side of the car perfectly mirror the other, which will work the OCD of in-game car artists hard. Other than this section, your currently selected car will be featured in the background, spinning and being shown off at various angles. This is nothing particularly worth mentioning until you attempt to change the body kit in the upgrade menu, which sits opaquely on top of this animation. The kits are functional and there’s a graph that shows the difference in performance if you choose to install it, but it’d be nice to see what my car would look like if I did so, especially since if you select a kit, it is applied to the car animation as a preview, only visible through the spaces in between the menu windows.
Assuming you don’t play the game in the 3rd-person perspective, the only ways to enjoy your visual tweaks are through the after-race replays where you can also pause and take snapshots of your car at various angles, inside and out. I spent a lot of time in photo mode just for the sake of scrutinizing and enjoying the in-car details without having to worry about driving, taking pleasure in nit-picking features of real-life cars I’ve driven, and pretending to be behind the wheel of cars that I haven’t, which seems to me is the point of the game—fuel for the fantasy. Players of the game will enjoy the gameplay, but most of all, they’ll revel in opportunities, like pitting a Reventon and a Veyron head-to-head at Laguna Seca to see who’d win, even if it’s just make-believe. Even so, in lieu of the real deal, it might be a good way to settle a few bets.
-Alex K-
Hey Everyone,
Last week, me and my trusty Mustang participated in the 2nd annual Vanderbilt Cup Autocross, the exciting addition to the Vanderbilt Cup concours d’elegance. Here’s some photos and video:
-Alex K-
Hello friends,
It’s time for another Vanderbilt Cup autocross and concours, and we here at AK are quite excited. It’s a unique opportunity to not only admire some excellent classic and vintage rides, but watch them run a timed lap among modern sports cars. See what you missed last year.
Also, you’ve been keeping up with vanderbiltcupraces.com, you’ll know that the winner of the 1909 Vanderbilt Cup, the “black beast” ALCO racer, has been meticulously restored and will be returning to run the course at full clip.
The event will be held in a section of the Roosevelt field mall parking lot, so get there early, check out the concours, and bring your car in for some play time at the autocross.
Contact me for a PDF of the entry form if you are looking to enter the autocross, the concours, or both.
-Alex K-
“I run first thing in the morning. If I didn’t, I’d find some reason not to go. I have to do it while I’m asleep“
-Melvin Van Peebles
Call it “holiday pounds” or the “off season” or whatever, the fact is that I’ve done next to no routine training of any kind for a month or so. Yeah, I’ve gone on the odd run and done a handful of sit-ups, but I’ve found budgeting my time for training next to impossible during the holiday season. Well, it’s over now and I don’t have any excuses except getting the (butter)ball rolling again can be a bit of an effort.
I’m a bit anxious about my lack of training because I have Chinese New year approaching rapidly, and I need to get fit quick, otherwise O’l black lion might need a breather mid show.
Also, in just a couple months (April 25th, to be specific), Adventure race season starts up again.
Then the 5 Boro bike tour is a favorite of ours…
and before you know it, it’s Urbanathlon time again.
Plus everything in between. So, I got myself a little runner’s calendar to keep me in check and track just how much I can sweat off in the precious few weeks I have, as the rest of my comrades have been doing for at least 2 months. yeah, it should be humbling. I’m getting out of breath just typing about it.
-Alex K-
Just a few moments ago, Lewis Hamilton secured the mother of all last minute saves at the very last corner of Brazil’s Interlagos making him this year’s Formula 1 champion.
As far as final results go, I think this one will be hard to top for a while (indeed, this was quite an amazing season as well). I can’t say that I prefer McLaren over Ferrari, or vice versa, but I was definitely in Hamilton’s corner this year. Last year’s hollywood-worthy drama made the fight between the two top teams only sweeter, or bitter depending on how emotionally invested you are in one or the other. all of that is summed up fantastically in this article of WIRED, one of the most intriguing pieces I’ve read in a while, made richer by being all completely real. Hamilton was on the short end of many penalties and it seemed to some that the stewards really had it out for him, yet he managed to persevere, regardless of his self sabotaging impulsiveness. Massa (whom I don’t particularly like, but is a fantastic driver) had his equal share of hardships, too. He sometimes schooled himself on the track, put some people out and continued, and had to endure the pit crew’s wildly disastrous performance.
But in the end, Massa won his hometown race, Hamilton one a well deserved championship, and the best car, Ferrari, took the constructor’s championship. You couldn’t have asked for a better end. well, Coulthard could.
I’m left a little bummed only because it’s all over with for the year, and I had genuinely enjoyed myself all these Sundays.
… But at least Top Gear starts in an hour 
-Alex K-
