Archive for January, 2009

Winner

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Proof!!!

I just won the first race of the inaugural GGLC Winter Karting series. We had some 25+ folks shop up at LeMans Karting in Fremont for a fun afternoon of pizza, karting and a little competition. After a series of 10 heat races we were split into 3 semi-finals which were won by Jordan, Jay and me respectively. However because I started the lowest in my semi, I was on pole for the finals with Jordan and Jay right behind me. I knew that both of them were about half a second a lap faster than me which meant that I had no chance of beating them on pure pace. So I went to my “pole position plan” which is to make a good start and then drive a super defensive inside line – this meant that my lap times were crap compared to the others but I was still quick enough that they couldn’t pass me around the outside. Plus this has the effect of bunching up the field so that the people behind couldn’t try too adventurous a pass because it meant that they would lose a spot if they made a mistake.

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Photo by norcalturbo

In the end I was able to hold both of them off and won the race despite having the second slowest quick lap of the field. Jay has taken to calling me “Captain Slow” for winning at the slowest possible pace. I’ll point him to the following quote from Alain Prost: “I always say that my ideal is to get pole with the minimum effort, and to win the race at the slowest speed possible.” What’s good for a four time Formula 1 World Champion is good enough for me :-D

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Photo by norcalturbo

Update: LarryB just posted this awesome video of the final race.

GGLC Karting Race- 1 from Larry B on Vimeo.

The Lemons Experience – Thunderhill 2008

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

As some of you may already know, Team Formula BMW finished in 10th place at the 2008 24 Hours of Lemons race at Thunderhill. Instead of the usual blog post with in-car video, I’ve tried something new with a video blog post of the off-track action. The goal was to create a mini-documentary that shows the Lemons experience as seen through the eyes of Team Formula BMW. It is a 25 minute video that goes all the way from car prep and transport, through tech and judging, ending with the actual race itself. My personal favourite is the section on the Tech Judging which starts at the 7:38 mark.


The Lemons Experience – Thunderhill 2008 from rnair on Vimeo.

All the video footage was shot using a Nokia N96 cameraphone and was then edited together using Adobe Premiere Elements. A big thanks to Nokia and the WOM World folks for lending me the phone to me – I’ll post my official review of the phone in a bit. As I said before this is my first video blog post and obviously isn’t perfect. I learned a lot of things while making this video and I’ll have a future post with tips for making your own videos.

Update: We’ve made it onto AutoFiends and Jalopnik, you would think that professional blogs would be include a pingback when they link.