Saturday, September 07, 2019

racing in the rain... it's not likely to result in a problem free race. But this is ridiculous, The Citroën DS3 Cup Denmark

Netflix has ordered a full season of a show centered on NASCAR currently titled "The Crew," starring Kevin James.

Written by Jeff Lowell of "The Ranch" and "Two and a Half Men," "The Crew" has been described as something akin to the sitcom classic, "Taxi," but set in a NASCAR garage with James as a curmudgeon crew chief.

 When his team’s owner steps down and passes the team off to his daughter, James’ character finds himself in disagreement with the millennial car owner and her statistic-savvy plan to modernize the team.

https://autoweek.com/article/nascar/kevin-james-star-netflix-nascar-comedy-series

there are some pretty interesting stories on how some drivers won races



Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough ruled the '84 Firecracker 400 at Daytona, leading a combined 132 of the 160 laps. When Petty took the lead with 32 laps remaining, Yarborough settled into 2nd, apparently content to simply draft along. His strategy was obvious: follow Petty until they reached the backstretch on lap 160, use the low-side slingshot to pass, then hold on back to the checkered flag.

Petty thought he knew how to counter that proven strategy. "We'd been running wide open all day," he said. "His car was quicker than mine, and he could have passed whenever he wanted. I had to hoodwinkle him because I had no idea he'd even think about that before the last lap. So, with seven or eight left, I began backing off just a little, maybe a hundred fewer RPMs one lap and another hundred fewer the next lap and another hundred fewer after that."

The strategy was brilliant in it's simplicity. "He must not have realized how much the pace had slowed, " Petty said. "I wanted a little something left for the last lap, something he didn't know I had. If we'd both been wideopen when he passed on the last lap, there's no way I could have caught back up. He would have been long gone."

If Yarborough realized what was happening, he didn't show it. " I was riding along and had Richard right where I wanted him," the three-time champion and 83 time winner said that Wednesday afternoon. "I had him set up for the last-lap slingshot. I knew I was going to win the race, no doubt in my mind. If I had to do it again, I'd be harder to pass"

There was a wreck on the 158th lap, and both knew that whoever made it to the finish line would win because of the caution lap, and get to meet President Reagan.

Yarborough did the draft and slingshot move as best he could - all for naught. "I went wide open the minute I saw the wreck, " Petty said. "I don't know if I got ni the gas quicker than Cale, but I got away from him. It took him til the end of the back stretch to catch me.

Petty took the lower line, and made it to the yellow flag by 2 feet, winning the race. After being so close to winning, Yarborough made a huge mistake, and went to pit road, and came in 3rd instead of 2nd.

https://musclecardreaming.tumblr.com/post/90766849969/july-4th-1984-30-years-ago-the-king-won-his

jrhmobile said 2 months ago "nobody reported that Petty's car was found to have an illegal 390 cu. in. engine, but Bill France initiated his "no race winner gets disqualified – the race winner is the one the spectators see in victory lane" dictum."

https://autoweek.com/article/monster-energy-nascar-cup/memorable-finishes-nascars-july-4-daytona-race-were-many
Autoweek  July 15th 2019 issue

Does WRC have a chance of getting back into racing in the USA? They don't even have a car racing that is sold in the USA. So, probably not

Citroen, Hyundai, Ford, Toyota don't race with a car they sell in the USA, so, can they even find a location where they'll have local appeal?

Autoweek, July 15th 2019, page 28

really out of shape rail roads

have you heard of theluggnutt.com, it's a parody site about auto sports

Rob was born just before his parents sold off their 70 Road Runner, they brought him home from the hospital in it, and he heard stories of how they missed it all his life, 32 years of searching later? He finally found it!


I always heard stories of the car being local and just sitting in a garage somewhere. Growing up I became obsessed with this car, hanging the old photos in my room growing up. Buying every 70 rr orange matchbox , getting all the 70 models and making them into the same car as a child.

Fast forward to becoming a teen and being able to drive. I got the name of the buyer who my dad sold the car to and I tracked him down and knocked on his door. Never heard anything back after that day.

My dad passed away unexpectedly in 2009, and I started pursuing this again but always turned up with no news. Last year I placed a craigslist ad with pics looking for help, and a few weeks later learned of  6 known owners, 2 different states, and still no car but alot more key info to keep in mind.

But then the wife and I were looking to purchase our first home so I take the kids for a quick weekend drive to go past the place. We pull up to the house and directly next door I see a garage door half up with an orange 70 rr. I cant believe my eyes. I quickly went and left a note on the door. Not for sale, didn't really want to talk about the car.

What if this is my dads car? Its 20 minutes from home, and not even 5 minutes from where he worked for 30 years. Every time I left a note, I never got a call back.

Fast forward a year later and we found the perfect home. I pull up to the bank to get the closing check from our acct and as I'm getting out of the car I get a text about the 70 rr and they're ready to sell, I  reply text saying I want it and I'll come by any time.

The call finally comes one month later. My wife and I show up and for the first time I was able to see the whole car. This time it was pulled in with the back end showing.

Instantly the faded black paint on the tail light surrounds caught my eye. My dad painted his along with a few other things that were done in the early 80s, like a gtx honeycomb grille. He has me pull a drain pan out from under the car as he tells me it has a trans leak.

 Back then the 727 trans had a leak and the car got a gtx grille at some point as well. After 32 years of being separated from the car the search is over. We are going to take the kids out on the weekends for rides, just as I did in this exact car!

Every day I look at the car, It brings memories flooding back and reminds me of my dad.



https://www.facebook.com/lostmusclecars/posts/244172685926862
https://www.facebook.com/groups/996045710517424/permalink/2242266342562015/

Union Pacific rail-yard, Cheyenne Wyoming from a drone view... wow, what a cool way to get a look at a place you can't walk around in!





lotta power, not a lotta traction. But terrific vids of wheel slippage, I've never seen this before (turn down your volume before pressing play)



Watch until at least 4:40



https://trainfanatics.com/

able to take care of most anything you're going to do in the forest

The Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Company built the Oregon Trunk Railroad bridge by cantilevering it out from rock walls on both sides of the canyon.


Near the town of Terrebonne, north of Redmond in Central Oregon's high desert



Construction consisted of lowering all steel needed for the bridge by derrick to the bottom of the canyon and then having men go down rope ladders to attach the steel beams to cables in ordered to hoist them back up again as they were needed!


The first train crossed the bridge only four months after construction began

 Half the rivets holding the bridge together were installed after trains started using the bridge. The bridge was built quickly to facilitate laying the last 25 miles of track to Bend where Jim Hill himself drove the "golden" spike on October 5.

https://mailtribune.com/lifestyle/bridges-over-troubled-waters-amp-8212-spanning-the-crooked-river-canyon
https://trainfanatics.com/oregons-crooked-river-bridge/

a pause for the cause



22 vets suicide each day.

Maybe this guy can inspire one or two, maybe more, to keep pushing on through. It gets better, especially if you can find some humor to work with

https://oldnfo.org/2019/08/31/worth-watching-2/ 

Ken Block at Lake Powell

Friday, September 06, 2019

the company truck is as cool as the trailers they were selling!

a 75 year old inmate of Marion Correctional in Ohio blew it, he wrote up what happened in the early 70s when he killed motorists, got his stories published in "Outlaw Biker Magazine" and finally a 1972 case has been solved

"Dangerous Dave," published in Outlaw Biker in September 1985, was about a hitchhiking woman who lured a man to stop for her, and the man is then surprised by a gunman. This is similar to the death of Morgan Peters, 29, a married father who lived in Bay Shore, New York, who had been in Pennsylvania on a work trip. His truck was found about 18 miles from his body, and items were missing from it, including a black Panasonic radio, investigators said.  

Another piece, "Payback in Full," involved a female suspect tying up a victim, similar to the shooting of gas station owner Harvey Hoffman in Geauga County, Ohio, investigators said.

One piece, "Moonlit Ride," contained a setting and facts similar to the murder of Jane Maguire in Summit County, Ohio, police said.

Via was arrested in 1972 for those two deaths and is serving life for killing Maguire.

Among his belongings when he was arrested, police said, was a black Panasonic radio.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/police-biker-mag-fiction-leads-003704712.html?.tsrc=fauxdal
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/6/police-charge-lifer-in-72-pennsylvania-turnpike-ki/

Thanks Mario!

I didn't know Walmart had a museum! It turns out the founder, Sam Walton, was a fan of the F150 - and shotguns for quail hunting. Walmart won't sell you those anymore.


Now slightly dinged and worn, and with 65,000 miles on the odometer, the Ford F-150 Custom was purchased new by Walton in 1979, and he drove it until he died in 1992. It is now in the Walmart Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, where Sam decided to move to for quail hunting




“Sam was a practical man, and liked the utility and versatility he got out of his Ford truck,” said Alan Dranow, senior director, Walmart Heritage Group. “He loved that thing, and it embodied the practicality and frugality that was part of his business and personal life.”

An avid outdoorsman and hunter, Walton had dog boxes installed in the truck bed, though occasionally his dogs rode in the cab with him.

Recently, the Walmart Heritage Museum had an exact replica of the truck made. It’s accurate down to the dents, missing sections of trim, even Ol’ Roy’s bite marks. For those unable to visit the Walmart Museum in Bentonville, the Walmart Digital Museum online features a detailed exhibit on Sam’s iconic F-150.

I think it's clear that Walmart's recent decision to stop selling guns was clearly hypocritical, they sell alcohol, and cigarettes, and those kill a lot more people than all the guns and ammo ever sold at Walmart.

All the people that have driven drunk on alcohol sold at Walmart, and who will continue to do so... and the number of people that those drunk drivers will kill? It's about 500 to 1 ratio of death by drunk driver to death by gun in the USA. But they aren't going to stop selling alcohol. And how many people die from cigarette smoke caused cancer every year? The CDC says about 1300 a day. I shit you not. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm

So, if Walmart were to actually stop selling anything based on it's lethal effects? They'd start with cigarettes. Then they'd stop selling alcohol, beer, wine.... so, let's just be honest about things happening around the country. Just because there are problems, doesn't mean anyone takes any logical actions to prevent them from re-occurring, and what you hear about is usually nothing but virtue signalling for publicity purposes in order to increase profits - while not actually affecting the outcome of the problems they are making noise about

https://walmartmuseum.auth.cap-hosting.com/tour/exhibits/sams-truck/
https://social.ford.com/en_US/story/vehicle-type/truck/sam-waltons-iconic-1979-ford-f-150-custom.html


in 1966 Buick was offering three Gran Sport cars Skylark, Riviera, and Wildcat, but you couldn't get a full size car with a 4 speed, '65 was the last year for those. I've never heard of the Wildcat GS before, or even seen one, so here's a good look at a couple

Don Schumacher’s Stardust Barracuda, I never realized what the reason was for it to be called "Star Dust" and just learned from Autoweek, that it was his sponsor, the Las Vegas Stardust casino


Don Schumacher from Park Ridge, Illinois retired from racing in 1974 to focus on his family business and his rivals were happy to see him go, as he was the winner of the 1972 Coca-Cola Cavalcade of Stars, the 1973 AHRA World Championship, had 5 NHRA (including Indy) and 9 IHRA event titles driving his Plymouth Barracuda Funny Cars always called “Stardust” plus 17 NHRA championships and 339 wins.

He and his parents moved to Chicago in ’47, and lived above their parents’ tavern. They were bookies, and his dad had already started Woodward Schumacher Electric, which was making custom transformers for the radio and TV industry.

"There were a number of tracks around the Chicagoland area," Don said. "After the Pontiac, I got a Oldsmobile and was in the process of changing it into a gasser.

At 18 years old he got the parts of a 426 hemi together and sent them up to the Golden Commandos in the Detroit area to build him a fuel-injected motor to run in the gas class.

He even tapped his parents’ gambling connections to get the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas to sponsor him. He won a lot from 67 to 74, then retired from driving a race car, and turned to being a business man with his dad's electric company.

Then his son went into drag racing, and Don became team owner in 1998. You know Tony Schumacher I'm sure, one year after his dad took the reins, Tony won the top fuel championship. Today, he is the winningest driver in Top Fuel dragster history

Don Schumacher Racing's all-star lineup in 2003 was one top fueler driven by Tony; three Funny Cars driven by Whit Bazemore, Gary Scelzi and Scotty Cannon; and Pro Stock Motorcycle duet of three-time champion Angelle Savoie and her cousin-in-law Antron Brown

Today, in 2019 it includes Top Fuel dragsters for Antron Brown and Leah Pritchett, and funny cars for Ron Capps, Jack Beckman, Tommy Johnson Jr. and Matt Hagan.

“If you can turn any profession into your passion, to where you’re willing to work longer and harder than the competition, you will be successful,” Don said. He makes 400 parts for his race cars in house because no one else in his mind could make them good enough. He makes them a little better, a little lighter, a little stronger.


this photo by Ron Lewis, at Carlsbad

https://www.nhra.com/news/2018/top-fuelers-and-funny-cars-1960s
http://www.myrideisme.com/Blog/don-schumacher%E2%80%99s-top-five-most-influential-funny-cars/
https://autoweek.com/article/nhra/racing-legend-don-schumacher-still-driven-dominate-improve-nhra
https://autoweek.com/article/car-news/really-big-shoe-buck-stops-don-schumacher-actually-lots-them

Washington State Patrol has released dashcam footage that caught the '67 Chevelle roll across Interstate 5 near Everett because it rolled off a trailer when the owner used the on ramp, without strapping or chaining it down

a couple of guys, with helmet and cowboy hats, sitting on lawnchairs, ziptied to big skate boards with a boombox playing Run Around Sue... not the craziest thing you'll see in New York City



https://www.instagram.com/p/BysaSsHHjEz/

For a complete day wasting fun time,  check out the "WhatIsNewYork" instagram. Trust me, it's jsut hundreds of crazy short videos, from street boxing, to odd people in the park, some guy singing an opera with both the male and female lead vocals while playing violin.... and dozens of other strange things

https://www.instagram.com/whatisnewyork/

After parking overnight in front of a dumpster in New York City, some lazy mook came out to find his vehicle almost completely buried in dozens of bags of trash.

Some dumb ass was loaned his cousin's Jeep Grand Cherokee, about 40-50 thousand dollar suv, so he wouldn't have to motorcycle around during the storm at Myrtle Beach, but he left it on the sand for Hurricane Dorian to destroy.




So a bagpiper came by to play out a mournful sounding "Amazing Grace"





Looking at the tires, and the hard beach, not soft sugar sand, I don't know what caused dumb ass to leave it... but the police went to the owner - who didn't know his SUV was left on the beach, and gave him the bad news


The red SUV became a social media sensation Thursday as it was bashed by strong surf whipped up as the hurricane moved past South Carolina and up the Atlantic coast. People posed for selfies with the Jeep and some even climbed on top of it. One man dressed in black walked solemnly around the vehicle in his flip-flops while playing "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes. It turns out the SUV's owner had lent it to his cousin so that guy wouldn't have to ride his motorcycle in the bad weather, the owner told CNN affiliate WMBF.

"He thought it would be cool to go on the beach and take a quick video of the sunrise before the storm came," said the Jeep's owner, who according to the station did not want to be identified publicly. The station confirmed his identity, it said.

So, the owner's cousin "got on the beach and started driving it," the owner told WMBF. "I guess there's that runoff there, and he didn't realize it was in front of him. He was looking out the window when he went off and got stuck, which you can see he actually banged up the bumper a bit."


police had public works come tow the suv away with a back hoe


https://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/weather-news/article234785492.html
https://www.thedrive.com/news/29703/beached-jeep-grand-cherokee-turns-into-viral-joke-as-hurricane-dorian-barrels-toward-east-coast
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/us/dorian-myrtle-beach-jeep-owner-trnd/index.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/06/hurricane-dorian-jeep-stuck-myrtle-beach-gains-internet-fame/2231574001/

I dig the design of this Nova II station wagon dragster... but they sure seem to be racing stupid. If no one can make a full power run, because everyone is packing more power than traction, that seems kinda stupid






They're constantly only winning by default of who doesn't cross lanes, wipe out and hit the guardrails, or lifts completely. I didn't see a single race in this video where the better car won, or the more powerful car won.

As for no prep? Bullshit. That's a dragstrip, and that's not painted black... that's been coated for years with track prep. If you want anyone to believe in that no prep crap, go find an airport runway no one's using, then lets see a race on a surface that's actually never been prepped

That's just stupid.

http://www.superchevy.com/features/1508-1200-horsepower-and-patina-make-this-1967-chevrolet-nova-like-no-other/#/

Have you heard of the Dolores Park Hill Bomb?



I can't even begin to guess how much power is running through the stereo system to cause this




https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2017/05/fun-with-way-too-much-bass.html

A Cal Fire airplane dropped fire retardant on a Southern California fire and caught a reporter too damn close to the fires by surprise while he was reporting on live television.

yesterday's banners





Silly chair force, you can't push start a jet! Just go back to your desk jobs and let the Navy get the job done... sigh. Damn shame, someone is wasting a budget on a military branch that doesn't do shit, and ain't got shit to do. The Army Air Corps took care of WW2, and then what did the Air Force do? Yeah, think that over... sit in missile silos, and let the Navy handle any need for planes. Tsk. Tsk. When ws the last time anyone made a movie about the air force? John Wayne? Jimmy Stewart? Rofl... Tom Cruise didn't make a chair force movie, he made Top Gun.