Local Karting: Motorsports at the Grass Roots

This weekend, I had the pleasure of doing some arrive and drive karting in Englishtown, NJ.  In addition to the city-slicker dilettantes such as myself, there were a whole host of serious amateur racers, including a lot of kids and teen drivers.  In Europe, karting is a more well-publicized sport for youngsters to get started in, but it was nice to see that this obscure activity is alive and well Stateside as well. While it seems on the surface like a somewhat dangerous activity for children to participate in, I couldn't help but think it compares favorably against the head-cracking skateparks we let our kids hang out in unsupervised (with no helmets on), or today's increasingly intense football and hockey squads that leave kids with concussions and torn ACLs at the age of 14.  Here, adult supervision was everywhere, and an ambulance was present as well. Plus there was a lot of family bonding going on which was nice to see, with fathers, sons, daughters, and mothers too working on the karts together.  The setting sun, and smoke from the motors made for some atmospheric photographic conditions. Click HERE for the full gallery.

Friday goofiness: George Lucas feels the Force

I can't stop watching this. The Toyota Celebrity race in Long Beach is always a total clown fest, but I just love this 2007 clip of George Lucas making the most overzealous dive-bomb passing maneuver more like something a 15 year old Alex Zanardi wannabe would try on his Playstation. Naturally, the result: Game Over. The secondary head-on crumple is of course the icing on the cake.

Enjoy the videos! The second clip shows the in-car view. The third clip shows George projecting his unflappable cool and calm before the race. "I'm just here for the fun. I'm not tryin' to win. I just want to have a good time." Ahh, the Red Mist can cloud even the best laid plans, eh George?

GM Styling sketches from the Mitchell Era

Olds Toronado

Buick Riviera

Cadillac Eldorado

I've seen a heck of a lot of styling sketches in my life, but these really knocked my socks off.  Not only are they eye catching designs from Bill Mitchell's crisp "London Tailored" period, but the use of line weight, shading, and forced perspective is just masterful.

Porsche in Formula One - What could have been?

Throughout its history, Porsche has flirted several times with single seater formula cars, but never more seriously than in the early 1960's when Dan Gurney, Jo Bonnier, and Wolfgang von Tripps campaigned their Formula One cars.  The best result acheived was Gurney's 1962 French GP victory at Rouen. Gurney is shown above, at rapt attention behind the wheel of the 804.

At the end of the 1962 season, Porsche withdrew from F1 citing costs, and there is also a belief that they felt F1 was too far divorced from their road cars. Perhaps they just didn't like to lose, and they had never been in a truly competitive position with their air-coooled flat 8 engine, in a time where V-configured engines were far more par for the course.  All this makes one wonder what might have been had Porsche decided to double down on F1, and put the sort of technical and financial resources behind it that saw them develop their world-beating Sports Car prototypes as the decade progressed.  It is also interesting to consider that Ferrari, a smaller volume carmaker (also probably more mismanaged at the time!), was able to carry on simultaneous F1 and Sports Car programs in the 1960s, yet Porsche was not seemingly willing to shoulder the expense. We'll never know what might have been had Porsche gone head to head with Ferrari and  Lotus in the mid 60s. They coulda been a contender. For additional historic photos, click HERE. 

All photos credit: Julius Weitmann

Sacre Bleu! Matra V-12 Prototype Cutaways and Video

I really love these cutaway illustrations by Robert Roux, showing the inner workings of the Matra Prototype race cars.  The Matra V-12 has one of the most spine-tingling, ear-shattering mechanical banshee screams I have ever heard. It was not terribly successful in an F1 chassis, but in the Matra sports prototypes, it propelled the French aerospace company, formerly occupied with advanced missile systems, to 3 time outright victory at La Sarthe in 1972-74.

The good part starts around 0:35 when they fire it up! The exquisite part starts around 1:18 when the dumb piano music fades out and they really uncork it!!