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Archive for the ‘Automobile’ Category
Danica Patrick has already become the first woman to win an Indy-car race. Now she hopes to become the first to capture the sport’s ultimate prize – the Indianapolis 500.
The 27-year-old American beauty won last year’s Indy Japan 300 for her series breakthrough and will begin her quest to conquer the famed 2 1/2-mile Indy oval when practice starts here on Wednesday for Saturday’s pole qualifying.
“It’s a good opportunity to really just focus on qualifying,” Patrick said. “All the rest of the year we tend to not really be so heavily focused on it, and we kind of do maybe a qualifying practice run or two, but that’s about it.
“Here we get a few days to really focus on it. It’s about getting the car comfortable. You want to start out with a good balanced car, and hopefully you can even take the downforce off and just get faster.” … Details
Epsilon Euskadi, a race car company based in the Basque region of Spain, is working with a bunch of masters students at Cranfield University in England to develop a kinetic energy recovery system for a Le Mans racer that could hit the grid next year.
OK, so yet another outfit is developing some green tech for the track. Interesting. But it’s also part of a broader trend that’s seen automakers and engineers bringing eco-friendlier auto tech – KERS, alternative fuels, hybrid drivetrains and even high-performance electric cars – to a specific arena:
Le Mans-style endurance racing.
You could argue Audi started it off when it rolled into Le Mans with the R10 diesel a few years back …Â Details
Laid-off HP employee makes electric cars at his N. Albany home.
The prospect of seeking work in a tough economy did not appeal to Kirk Swaney. If he had to start over, he decided it would be on his terms.
So Swaney, 43, who had been laid off after 24 years with Hewlett-Packard, decided to give wings to a side business. He had been selling parts for electric-powered race cars from his North Albany home since 1996.
“I decided to take what I was doing on the side and grow it into a full-fledged, full-time business,†he said… Details