To understand why no production car has ever hit 300 mph, we need to understand aerodynamic drag, rolling resistance, cooling systems, parasitic losses, and tires. This video does not make you a master on any of these subject, but hey, it is interesting.
Archive for the ‘Auto Misc.’ Category
Meet a rare breed of devoted racer: Stacy Kohut, the world’s fastest mountain biker on four wheels. Brought up in a drag racing family, as a grom Kohut rode full throttle into everything — BMX, skateboarding, motocross, ski racing. An accident on a swingset in 1992 nearly ended all that.
“I have a responsibility as a person in a wheelchair, with a ‘disability,'” says Crankworx Air Downhill race entrant and four-wheel category athlete Stacy Kohut, “to go out and lay down the hardest run I can.”
Today, Kohut credits those experiences for the athletic prowess needed to master the custom four-wheeled mountain bike of his own design. And as unique as his machine, Kohut is one of the most devout athletes to his sport. As Kohut prepared to compete in the 2016 Crankworx Air Downhill race — epically contested on the planet’s most-trafficked, expert-level jump trail, Whistler Bike Park’s crown jeweled A-Line — we tagged along for the ride.
Jack and his kart could beat Top Fuel dragsters and went 5.89 in the quarter-mile at 228 miles per hour back in 1973
Jack McClure – aka Captain Jack McClure – has skimmed across dragstrips at staggering speeds and sailed into high political adventure at sea. He was a moonshine-runnin’ rebel with a rival to some of NASCAR’s pioneers back in the Southeast hollers and hills. He has been a stunt driver with the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show, a boat skipper whose craft was seized during the 1980 Marielito boatlift from Cuba, and a plucky participant in the 1967 Daytona 24 Hour race. (He was a non-finisher in the endurance race, along with such notables as the Phil Hill, Lloyd Ruby/Dennis Hulme/Mario Andretti team, the A.J. Foyt/Dan Gurney/Bruce McLaren team, Mark Donohue and Peter Revson, ad Bobby Allison.)
He (at first unwittingly) risked blowing himself to smithereens in a Turbonique-branded racing kart with twin T-16 rocket engines – while the manufacturer hid behind a railroad car. (At the first test-firing of those go-kart engines, McClure told close friend Ky Michaelson that he had asked Turbonique owner Gene Middlebrooks why he was hunkering down yards away. Replied Middlebrooks, “because I have a wife and two kids.”) … More
360° Kitebuggy on Fanø Beach in Denmark.