Thursday, September 22, 2016
Firestone tires in the 1960 Indy 500 had a cool design safety feature
Firestone tires were built with a little orange strip molded into the rubber such that when it showed up during use, it meant the tire had about two or three laps of full-speed racing before: “There would be two loud noises. First one, tire blowing and the inner tube couldn’t stand the weight and the second noise was the car banging the wall and all the crap that goes with it, which was usually fire."
http://www.hotrod.com/articles/smokey-stories-jim-rathman-60-indy-500/?wc_mid=4035:3488&wc_rid=4035:162670&_wcsid=E78D1541CFA240A17A4D1D44B7A99FB88B9AC234CCDAB80A
Do any tires have something this simple to indicate the end of useful tire life?
http://www.hotrod.com/articles/smokey-stories-jim-rathman-60-indy-500/?wc_mid=4035:3488&wc_rid=4035:162670&_wcsid=E78D1541CFA240A17A4D1D44B7A99FB88B9AC234CCDAB80A
Do any tires have something this simple to indicate the end of useful tire life?
Ken Block taking Matt Leblanc for a spin around London
watch the video here: https://www.facebook.com/MyWraith/videos/501581153359497/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED
https://youtu.be/PrqYohBV58o
take a look through Hot Rods archives... online
they were there for a bit of everything, drag racing, Bonneville, Pike Peak, and baja racing
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/search/2/image?artist=the%20enthusiast%20network&excludenudity=true&family=editorial&sort=best#license
I believe the whole reason that Getty images has all the digital versions was that the company that now owns Hot Rod, and the photos in the filing cabinets, wanted to make money from everything and anything in the Hot Rod legacy, and so they went into business with Getty. Getty takes all the original photos and makes a high quality digital scan, now creating a database of the images that is searchable, will never deteriorate, and is infinitely duplicateable... and the other side of it is that they can now try and sell the shit out of all those old photos. Meanwhile they are online for interested poeple to look through, and get completely engrossed in while wasting many hours looking around.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
you may not have heard of a tv show called Supernatural, but it's into it's 11th season now, and they recently had an episode told from the point of view of their 1967 Impala
it's called "Baby" on the show, and for one episode, every scene took place in or around the 1967 Impala as the two main characters hit the road headed for Oregon, time on the road, sleeping in the car, having heart-to-heart talks about relationships, and singing Bob Seger’s “Night Moves,” not to mention the car wash scene.
For some shots, they had the sound guy sit in the trunk
http://extratv.com/2015/10/28/all-about-baby-how-supernatural-pulled-off-the-impala-episode/
oh good heavens
these special AMC Pacers were used by Southwest sales staff to call on customers in the 1970s, they also had Gremlins.
found on http://prova275.tumblr.com/page/26
https://www.airlinereporter.com/2013/03/photos-southwest-boeing-737-200-and-amc-gremlins-awe-yea/
Have you heard about the time when Jungle Jim was stuck in traffic outside the dragstrip, and running late?
At Atco, NJ. In about '72, Pat Foster was going to race Jungle in a match race at 8 sharp, but at 7:45 there still no Jungle. He was stuck in traffic a 1/2 mile or so from the gate.
In Pat's own words:
We pull up and I'm dressed and just getting in, everyone in the joint stands up and begins chanting "JUNGLE! JUNGLE! JUNGLE!"
All eyes are on the highway that goes by the track. The starter starts yelling at my guys "Get him in the car! Get him in the car! I look where everybody is looking and here comes Jungle, strapped in, motor lit and sending flames above the roof, driving that bitch from where they unloaded it out by the highway, past the gates and the ticket booth, through the parking lot and one end of the pits, right out onto the starting line, and then through the water for a huge, smokey burn out!
And the crowd went WILD! I had time for one squeaky little chirp behind the line, they booed us. Then we blaze the tires against Jungle and again the crowd goes INSANE!!
but there was a lot of showmanship to Jim, to give the crowd their money's worth, like when
Jungle Jim was up against Richard Tharp in the "Blue Max."
"It was sometime in 1970 at New England, Jungle and Tharp did side-by-side burnouts. As the smoke began to clear, we noticed both cars had swapped lanes. The only ones in on it were the drivers themselves. I mean, they told no one, so it was funny watching the crews scramble to switch lanes."
Though he only won a single national meet, Jungle is arguably the most famous racer to ever go down the quarter-mile, at least in a Funny Car.
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