Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

F1">Advanced Driving Lessons From F1

Since I’ve been on a bit of a car & dri­ving tiff for the past few days, I thought I’d share some­thing meatier with every­one: some actual dri­ving lessons!

This first one is about the impor­tance of bal­ance in your car, under­steer and over­steer. This is why you want to get a sports car — the street-legal, consumer-level kind — with as close to 50/50 bal­ance as you can.

This next one is a unique video.  It shows onboard views of the track, the tach, and very impor­tantly, the ped­als.  This is a les­son in dri­ving by a mas­ter who is, sadly, no longer with us.  This is a video of Ayr­ton Senna tak­ing an Acura NSX around the track.  It shows you the dri­ving line and it shows you how his feet con­trol the car’s throt­tle, brake, and how he upshifts and down­shifts.  This is truly a les­son by exam­ple from the man who dom­i­nated the world of For­mula One when dri­vers still had to use a clutch pedal to change gears and how well you con­trolled all 3 ped­als meant the dif­fer­ence between win­ning & losing.

This final video is about get­ting dri­ving lessons from another mas­ter.  This is like a dri­ving les­son from your grand­fa­ther — except that this senior cit­i­zen dri­ves a sports car with more skill than you or I ever will!  Yes, this is an enter­tain­ing clip of Jackie Stew­art try­ing to get a guy to shave 20 sec­onds off his lap time, and suc­ceed­ing at it.  Per­haps it’s good rea­son for you and I to take to heart his advice about throt­tle control.

F1 Car">Road Car vs Rally Car vs F1 Car

Sports cars come in a vari­ety of shapes and sizes. On a road track, you know that a consumer-level sports car can’t com­pete against a WRC rally car. You also know that nei­ther of them are going to be able to com­pete against a For­mula One car.

What you prob­a­bly don’t know is just how badly one will beat the other.

Here’s Top Gear’s humor­ous take on it, and you’ll see just how much each step up out­classes the other on one lap around Sil­ver­stone on a some­what wet and slick day.

F1 or Ferrari Enzo? Maybe Neither.">McLaren F1 or Ferrari Enzo? Maybe Neither.

As I’ve got­ten older, I’ve found that dream cars, or dream any­thing for that mat­ter, aren’t really all they’re cracked up to be. I’ve writ­ten before about how brands don’t have the same appeal or pull on me any­more. I think for the same rea­sons that previously-favorite brands lose their emo­tional power, dream cars lose their pull and mag­net­ism. I sus­pect that even things like dream houses must also lose their luster.

Like so many mil­lions of men around the world, I am a fan of Fer­raris. I’ve also been a long­time fan of the penul­ti­mate road-legal race­car, the McLaren F1. Per­haps nei­ther of these cars are the best-performing vehi­cles on the planet. You’ll find other super­cars with more horse­power, faster lap times, and more impres­sive stats. How­ever, you will not find any­thing with greater emo­tional appeal than the top-of-the-line Fer­rari and the one-and-only McLaren F1, designed as a For­mula 1 car made street-legal.

You can read in mag­a­zines or on car enthu­si­ast web­sites all about what each car can do on the race­track. But, the real ques­tion is what it’s like to really own and drive one, every day.

Per­haps it’s a sign that I really am get­ting older, because the fuel effi­ciency on these beau­ties is atro­cious. And the main­te­nance cost? My good­ness, the McLaren F1 will cost $120,000 per year just for reg­u­lar maintenance!

Could I jus­tify spend­ing that much on fun? I doubt it. I’d prob­a­bly go for a much more eco­nom­i­cal sports car. Yep, some­thing “cheap” but fun like a Lotus. After all, I have some emo­tional attach­ment to the Lotus cars, too: my dad used to own and drive one.

Dream cars are usu­ally dream cars because of their per­for­mance. Boys, young and old, want to have the most pow­er­ful and have the best, so that they feel the most pow­er­ful and feel the best. It’s really all about the emotion.

Between these two cars, I think I get more of an emo­tional kick out of the state-of-the-1980s-art McLaren F1 than the state-of-the-2000s-art Enzo. Even so, I don’t think I’d get enough kick from the F1 to spend $120,000 per year on it.

Take a look at the fol­low­ing video and see how you feel.

Red Bull Gets Automotive Enthusiasts’ Hearts Racing

Car-porn is designed to tit­il­late. It gets guys’ hearts rac­ing, it puts smiles on their faces, and it’s pure visual & audi­tory plea­sure.  Dif­fer­ing from porn of the more fleshy vari­ety, the coolest car-porn is made with slick camera-work, good sound­track, and expert edit­ing.  The end result is a lit­tle morsel of pure, mean­ing­less plea­sure for the auto­mo­tive enthusiast.

I’m not a big fan of the Red Bull For­mula One rac­ing team.  Really, I’m not sure if any­one is a die-hard Red Bull rac­ing fan.  How­ever, I have to say this video, which has real footage and com­puter graph­ics mixed together, is an expert lit­tle pro­mo­tional piece.  It’s total fluff, but it’s good fluff!

And here’s another lit­tle goodie!  It pro­motes Red Bull, but also the Mon­treal Grand Prix return­ing in the 2010 season!

Finally, to give you a lit­tle bit of meat — some­thing a lit­tle edu­ca­tional so that you aren’t scarf­ing up only auto­mo­tive junk food: an expla­na­tion of mod­ern F1 car design & con­struc­tion from the fine folks at Red Bull Racing!

How Handmade Japanese Knives Are Made

To a kitchen knife afi­cionado, japan­ese knives are some of the most insanely well-made cut­ting machines one can use.  To a col­lec­tor of high-quality goods, items made by the hands of skilled arti­sans and mas­ters are par­tic­u­larly delightful.

For all the won­ders of auto­mated man­u­fac­tur­ing, the results that come from the skilled hands of a mas­ter black­smith are still bet­ter than any­thing that rolls off a fac­tory assem­bly line.  Of course, the end cus­tomer pays for this plea­sure and per­for­mance — it’s some­thing any Fer­rari owner knows first-hand, and which any high-end j-knife owner also knows.

So, here are two videos from two very renowned smiths show­ing you how those won­der­ful japan­ese kitchen knives are made!