I am curious as to what exactly it means for Mclaren to be thrown out of the contructors championship. What do they lose? Paddock slots? VIP access?

Quote from Tweaker :

Was there anything special that happened in the race?

I opted not to stay up late and watch it live, simply because I had a feeling that the Qualifying results would just reflect the finishing positions anyways.... and sure enough, they were the same... so the race wasn't all that interesting was it? Just people staying in front and no passing?

Just wondering if it is worth it to download the race footage.

You didn't miss a thing. I turned it off after lap 5 or so and turned it on again on the last lap and the positions were virtually the same. I think one person had changed their postion up 5 and another dropped one.

The T1 incident between the two McLaren drivers was fun to watch as alonso pinched hamilton to taking the runoff area, but it was very uneventful, to be brutally honest I think it would have been more interesting to watch the grass grow. It must be really hard to commentate for these races, nothing really happens.

It was interesting to hear exactly what type of pentalty McLaren was handed though.

Quote from BlueFlame :

What was your 1/4 time Chris?

PB is [email protected] on a 2.113 60' I ran a 2.07 60' at Santapod but there was a good 15MPH headwind that knocked the time down to a 13.80@97 Should have been a low 13.7 high 13.6. I haven't done anything performance wise, just brakes and suspension mounts. Tires were factory aswell.

Slicks will easily put you in the high 13's Chris, should do anyways.

Personally I don't see much of a difference in the VX to the Elise. Same chassis and IIRC same suspension what else do you need?

I can't check pics at work, will check them out next week.

So when we going to the track? I have been on Silverstone and santapod. I still think I will keep up to you in the corners =)

Great job, a great improvement over episode 1 =) I will be waiting for your next broadcast. Hopefully something STCC inside =P

I know for the Speed touring cars the SRT-4's were running 250,000USD a car which they had a Hotels were costing them a good 30,000 a race. I don't know other costs, but annual costs are well into the millions, and they were not one of the top teams.

My wife and I went on Sunday. We left after the big formula cars finished. I was getting tired of seeing crashes on warmup laps and the redflags. Like Becky said you see better races just hopping onto LFS. We had just moved into our house the day before and thought our time would be better spent organizing =)

I wish I could have cought up with you all. I figured Sam couldn't get his phone to work, no biggie, will catch you all next time. I was hoping to get someone elses number before you all went to the track, but nobody was exermely forthcoming with numbers and I didn't press the issue too much.

Entry Fee is fine by me considering your reputation Vykos I would not be worried about the money walking away. IMO this is the next step for league racing.

For me I enjoy the Tintops over the single seaters. I don't mind if someone rubs me when we are side-by-side, rubbin's racin' and with Single Seaters that really isnt possible. The season for me would be driven with 1 car over different tracks, excluding most of the really big open tracks in hopes of getting more racing in, I get bored with long straits. For the actual racing I would like to see multiple short heats with a quali to start and a feature at the end.

Prizes, they are always nice and IMO they push people that bit farther. Sure sometimes people go overboard, but thats what a complaint proceedure is in place for, to prevent these. Exactly what, depends =P

They hand out tickets for free at the gate on raceday.

I'll be going with my wife to meet up with UKCT =)

Well for the wet your pulling significantly less lateral G's. If it was me I would want to use that little bit of extra "soft" springrate which would make the car "float" a bit more when under a strait line? Maybe? I would think it would.

focusing just on the preload, if you had a spring preloaded at 100lbs and had one at none, the one with none would vary between 0-100, with the load changes while the preloaded one would prevent the suspension from moving, thus giving the tire the job of absorbing all those forces.

I don't know if it would make it handle better though

:Edit:

Quote from xaotik :

I wouldn't know really apart from following the logic that apparently less preload makes the suspension more "active/sensitive" which would be good for a less twitchy car I suppose.

haha you beat me to it =P

Quote from tristancliffe :

Which I say is tosh. The cars can be made safer, the drivers wear HANS, belts etc. The walls are becoming SAFER (pun intended). Drivers don't HAVE to drive at 220mph. In F1 the speeds reduce in the wet, yet the racing continues.

If the primary aim of oval racing is to please rednecks then I suppose that's a fair reason, as long as the spectators do not then try to claim that skill, bravery or technology are world-leading. It's a dumbed down sport for dumbed down fans. The same sort of thing as World Wrestling, but with engines. I have even less respect if it's that critical for spectators to be able to see...

Well the way it's carried out with it's "chase for the cup" I can't disagree about having a bit of showmanship. I have hated that from the second they started it.

I guess if you can't see it after 4 pages, then you won't and there is no need to discuss this further

The engines are still carburetored. I have never heard of NASCAR being phrased as world leading in terms of technology. As for HANS most drivers wear them now after Earnhart died a few years ago hitting the wall at about 190 or so I thought it was manditory now, but I am not sure, I don't really watch it anymore.

Quote from axus :

Is America not busy "saving the Middle East" while it hasn't actually helped its own people, the victims of hurricane Katrina?

Sorry, still not seeing it. Billions are being spent and there are people from across the states down there rebuilding. Would love to see you try to rebuild a whole city in two years when everything was under twenty feet of stagnant, disease, crocodile infested waters. If you think they need so much help I am sure they could use another person to add to the millions already down there helping rebuild, albeit a bit farther away from that swamp, sinking every year.

Quote from Gil07 :

So the reason is safety after all, even though you said it wasn't?

Anyway, I understand all of that, but don't say it isn't because of safety when it clearly is

Well if you read early on it was one of the first reasons for not running in the rain, least I remember saying it. =)

Quote from Bob Smith :

At least packers are easy to understand...

Huh, what are those?

Quote from axus :

Yeah? Am I wrong to assume that America is actually doing all these things that the show claims it is doing? That's what matters here.

It's a satire, they take facts and twist them around to make them funny. Not even 1/2 those things are close, and the other half are in space. It's a comedy show, don't make it into a news broadcast because of his background.

I could cut and paste anything to make it sound like something it's not, which is one thing a satire does. They omit critical bits of the puzzle to make the story sound so crazy that it makes it funny.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I shall test it, with a valve spring.

Let me get this straight.

1. The first load is the preload. Call it 100lbs causing 1 inch compression
2. The preload absorbs the first part of any subsequent load. So 100lbs preload plus 50lb load does not move the spring further than 1.
3. But if I apply a 150lb load to an unloaded spring, it will compress 1.5 inches.

How does the spring 'know' the 100lb is preload, and use it to absorb further load rather than being further load in the first place?

I don't think your way can work!

I thought of this last night and again some more today.

When I used preload on my bike it was used to make it that, when static, including the rider, the suspension didn't move.

If you preloaded a spring with 100lbs. It would take more than 100lbs for the spring to compress any more than it already is.

By your explanation are you meaning total compression or changes in compression after the preload?

LOL thats a link to a satire show.

wheel4hummer, RacerY, and Jayhawk hit it on the head.

the governor is the one that calls evacuations for their own State. Considering that parts of the City are more than 20 feet below sea level and sinking daily I too am suprised how few people died. At first there was soo many people helping. I know that in Wisconsin I had several friends go down there for the first year to help rebuild. The vast majority of them don't want help and were offended that some white people were helping them out.

The City was built on a sandbar, it shouldn't have been there. Every year the whole city is sinking into the Gulf by a couple inches, every year going down faster and faster with larger and larger buildings being built.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Yes, that's what I thought too. On the bike (and to an extent on a car as well) there is an 'optimum' ride height that everything works best at. As rider weight is such a large proportion of a bikes weight, it's fairly critical to get it right. Small tweaks can then be achieved by using the preload to change the static ride height.

This is how I used my preload on my bike.

Quote from tristancliffe :

It seems that most learned people (or at least people who are willing to think for themselves, which is VASTLY more important than any silly qualification, and often VASTLY more useful than experience too) seem to agree with my understanding of how preload works.

Sounds sound to me =P Preload doesn't change the springrate, but I am curious as to exactly what it does for a car.

Helmet's here, race pads installed, and tickets are in my hands. Not going to get many laps( I am guessing 5 laps a session) but hey still thrashing my car around. Just hopefully not enough that I need new tires. These KDW's are not really meant for trackdays. Great wet/dry performance but they tend to chunk when driven hard.

I am going with a car club called Autophoria, hopefully see at least one person here this weekend =P

Quote from thisnameistaken :

What happened to Chris Redman BTW? I haven't seen him around here in ages either.

As for the STCC you would have to talk to him. He had his reasons =P

As for LFS he took a break, he got his VX220 and is/was playing around with that. On top of other things he just didn't have the time really or the motivation. I have seen him online last week and he says he's coming back to LFS, for STCC though I think he will have to grovel very hard to get his seat back. He would have to go through the quali procedure now if he wants to run season two, but he doesn't care for how the FXO has been handed a bad hand this time around and probably won't want to run.

Quote from anttt69 :

**looks around for season two entry form**

the more the merrier =)

Quote from Mithras :

That was awesome! Absolutely awesome!

You did a great job, Becky, and the new camera system is definitely smoother and overall, better. I cringed every time someone came close to scraping those tires on the chicane. First down was Pinola, then Raemisch (my personal RB4 hero and favorite driver :P) pulled up, and when he dropped down to 9th I just couldn't believe it. And then Vierumaki went down! My three favorite drivers, all from the same team, down!

This was definitely the most heart-pumping STCC broadcast for me..

Can't wait for the next!

Glad to hear that your enjoying it! These guys are sooo much fun to race with and everyone races their hearts out, making for some of the best racing I have ever seen anywhere! Nice to see I managed to bring one to my side =P BTW admission it's £10 anymore, it's more like £15 =P The guys up front are so fast, I really can't compete with them properly. I need to head to the track for more practice.

Quote from Vain :

It was a brave move and well executed.
Though I still have a grudge against Chris for insisting to go side-by-side through the chicane. He could've tugged in and challenged me for second on the remaining laps (in which he would propably have succeeded), but noooo, he wanted to become 9th...
But hey, the way it panned out all Muroc cars removed themselves from the top-three. Team ART for the win .

Vain

Well I did think that a corner or two afterwards. Even better it would have helped if I didn't think we were passing the safety car on the RS. It was exciting none the less and there was only paint exchanged so it's all fun =) My championship contention was hurt pretty bad with that race though and I might not be as agressive from now on, but looking at the race there was some excellent passes because of it. I try not to connect with people unless I get sqeezed but sometimes you just can't avoid it =)

A Civic? I don't know if he would care to wait until 5600 to get any power I am almost through first by then =P Then there is the problem of no torque and torque steer.