You can’t really go wrong with dirt track racing. It’s wheel to wheel action mixed with drifting and motorcycles. I think it’s enjoyable for the same reason rally racing is enjoyable: low traction means the fastest way around corners is controlled sliding. This is a video about the young gun of dirt track, Sammy Halbert. It starts with Sammy talking about how he’s involved in the sport and then it picks up with some awesome racing footage. One of the races is on an actual circuit instead of a plain oval. I point this out because there’s a section that includes a jump in the middle of a turn which results in air-drifting. The only other place in motorsport where you’ll see something like that is when the World Rally Championship runs the Urria stage in Rally Finland.
What? A Flux Auto post about a bus? Bear with me here. There are a lot of things that make this electric bus interesting. They mostly come from the fact that the Proterra Ecoliner has already been in operation for a year with a 24 hours a day duty cycle. This is made possible by a wireless AC induction charging station that recharges the battery through the roof. It can take the Ecoliner’s battery from 20% to 95% in a mind blowing 10 minutes. The drivetrain consists of a 250 horsepower permanent magnet AC motor by UQM Technologies running through a 2 speed gearbox adapted from offroad racing. The non-conductive body of the bus is made with a balsa wood and fiberglass composite process developed for the hulls of PT boats. The Ecoliner isn’t exciting in the sense that they drift the bus or do a burnout, but it is exciting because it goes to show what EV’s can be capable of when the charging technology and infrastructure get put into place. The Ecoliner addresses a lot of people’s concerns about the future of EV’s and it’s already been running for an entire year.
The HellaFlush/Fatlace crew flew from California to Japan to put on this show last year. Their movement is all about wheel fitment and stance. The culture is a mix of car shows and hip hop and it was a big hit in the land of the rising sun.
It looks like Motor Trend did a little multi-tasking when they flew Jason Cammisa out to Germany. Besides comparing DTM legends, he also took the not-sold-in-the-US Volkswagen Scirocco for a spin. The original concept for the Scirocco was to make a sport coupe with running gear from the GTI. Whoever came up with that idea should get a gold star because it worked for the original car and this new one. The fact that the new car looks awesome doesn’t hurt, either. We ultimately didn’t get the current Scirocco here in the States because VW America thought that a wider/lower/sportier/better looking version of the GTI would poach sales from the best seller that they have in the regular GTI. Somebody also probably cited the constant “Stupid fat Americans don’t like hot hatches, fast wagons and things that are rad.” that usually denies us all the cool cars of the world. Check out the video to see what we missed:
I’m not going to do my usual number of posts today because I’d like everybody to focus their attention to this video released by the Nissan Newsroom. It’s a 20 minute mini-documentary about the GT-R development team’s experience at this year’s 24 hours of Nurburgring. I know it’s a lot to ask of your internet browsing time, but please trust my judgement on this one if you have enjoyed the content of this blog. The documentary has a backdrop of racing, but I wouldn’t say it was about racing. Instead, it’s a truly moving record of a group of engineers and mechanics who have the utmost passion for the development of the automotive pride of Japan. The GT-R development team entered the 24 hours of Nurburgring as a separate entity from Nissan’s factory racing branch, NISMO. Their goals were not to produce a special race car for the event. Their entry was a 2013 GT-R Track Package that was mostly production based. The team used the race to expose the GT-R’s weaknesses at higher speeds and more importantly to grow the skills of the engineers and mechanics responsible for the car’s development under harsh conditions. They knew that they would have to become better at building GT-R’s if they were going to meet the hopes and dreams of their future customers. The GT-R program is unique in that it has continued in full scale development even after the car was released. That’s why the new 2013 model is almost incomparably good when put next to the first 2007 GT-R. In the end, the failure of a 12 cent c-clip prevented the team from having perfect race results, but they were more than successful in growing the teams ability to shape the future of the GT-R. Head over to our Facebook page to discuss this video with other Flux Auto fans.
