The mailman just brought me this amazing piece of Lotus F1 history: a piston from the Cosworth DFV engine #339 used in the Lotus 81 Formula 1 car.
In the 70s and 80s, Team Lotus was in the habit of keeping the pistons from rebuilds to use as VIP gifts. Each engines pistons were labeled and stored but not all were presented. With reference to the teams archives, Classic Team Lotus is able to identify the detailed competition history for the engines in which the pistons ran. A great deal of polishing, then mounting on a wooden plinth, complete with presentation plaque, makes a rather special item of memorabilia.
Now while a piston from an F1 engine is amazing in itself (Ferrari charges >$600 for a 2000 piston), this particular engine has some additional history that makes it even more unique. The DFV 339 was used by not one but two F1 world Champions: Mario Andretti used it in his final season at Lotus while Nigel Mansell used it during his first two seasons in F1.
The piston comes with documentation of the engines usage and you can see that while it was used primarily in practice and testing, it was also used by Andretti in the 1980 USA GP West where he retired after a first corner accident.
If you’d like to get your hands on some original Team Lotus history, head on over to the Classic Team Lotus webstore and be prepared to fight the temptation to buy out the entire store.
As many of you know I purchased a Lotus Seven replica called the WCM Ultralite S2K late last year to make it a street legal track toy. While the Ultralite may maintain the spirit of the original Seven, as you can see below, it has a distinctly different shape and has generally larger dimensions to accommodate drivers of all sizes. In order to move this extra bulk (relatively speaking) around it comes with the incredible F20C engine out of the Honda S2000. The end product has some astonishing performance figures:
Weight: 1300 lbs Horsepower: 240 bhp Redline: 9000 rpm Power to weight ratio: 400+ hp/ton 0-60 mph: 3.5 seconds
My particular car was the first prototype built by World Class Motorsports and is the actual car used in most of the magazine tests. The original owner of the car then sold it to an active PCA member who took fantastic care of the car and documented his changes. He also had the car made street legal under the California SB100 exemption for kit cars. After a few years he ended up selling it and the car went through 2 other owners before I found out that it was on sale again and jumped at the chance.
The first and most immediate thing that hits you when driving the Ultralite is sheer mind-blowing acceleration. When I bought the car it was on a set of fairly old 235 width Falken Azenis. Now while the Azenins are actually pretty good tires for autocross, they have nowhere near enough grip for the ridiculous horsepower of the Ultralite. The very first time I tried a hard acceleration run I spun the rear wheels in 3rd gear and got a full on fishtail moment at 60+ mph. This is the only car I have driven where you have to rev match on upshifts or the rear wheels will happily lose traction Even within the same gear the acceleration is phenomenal. The car pulls pretty strongly below 6k rpm but once you go above the 6k threshold the VTEC cuts in an it feels like someone has hit the fast forward button. Plus with the 9k redline you have plenty of time in the powerband and dont have to keep rowing the gears. Also despite the fearsome power, I do have to say that the Ultralite is actually a very benign handling car. The rear gives you plenty of notice before it steps out and you can easily use the throttle to play with oversteer through the bends (see opposite lock below ).
Driving the Seven is very visceral experience where you can see, feel and hear every mechanical thing on the car. While you are “one with the road” it is a very different experience than what you feel in a Lotus Elise. The Elise is delicate, nimble car and will eagerly follow your every command while the Ultralite is like a raging bull that you have to manhandle into position before you step on the throttle and hold on for dear life. It is very much of a “mans car” where the controls are very heavy and you end up smelling of oil and gasoline after every drive.
While the car was in running, registered and mostly-drivable condition when I bought it, I nonetheless had several improvements in mind before it would be truly track worthy. While this car is likely to be a project car for the rest of my life, for the more immediate future I plan on a series of “Setting up a Seven” blog posts about work I have already done including the safety setup, wheels/tires, exhaust, suspension, etc… In the meantime enjoy this video of Rob doing a run at the last Lotus Club autocross of the 2009 season.
In a bittersweet move, the Formula BMW team is officially retiring from Lemons racing and we are putting our “Pink Pig” lemons car for sale. After 3 years of successful racing the team is splitting up and the members are moving onto other pursuits including Spec Racing. As a result we are selling the Pink Pig as a fully setup turnkey LeMons car for teams who want to get into the series without going through the hassle of building their own car.
Car info:
1986 BMW 325 E (E30)
Class winner at Reno-Fernley 2009
2 Top 5s and 2 Top 10s in the last 4 races
Excellent handling and fast lap times
Ultra reliable – no major breakdowns in last 5 races
Click here to follow the history of the car and its racing efforts
Car package includes all safety gear, radios, wheels, tires, drinks systems, fuel filler hoses, etc… – just add gas and race!
The car is located at Dietsch Werks in Santa Clara and we are happy to show it with an appointment. For pricing and more information please leave a comment below or call Rahul at 510-439-7265
Fatigue – that’s a word you hear being thrown about a lot at endurance racing events. We know that as drivers do long stints behind the wheel, fatigue starts setting in and the lap times start to drop steadily. But the $64,000 question is how long can a driver stay out on track without compromising the performance of his/her car or the safety of the other competitors. People keep throwing around the statistic of F1 drivers having an average heart rate of 170 bpm for the 90 odd minute duration of the race. That data might be useful for a young fit F1 driver who spends the entire duration of the race on the ragged edge, but is not very relevant to the average Lemons driver who is generally older, considerably less fit, often drives longer stints and (speaking for myself) is generally well under the limit?
In order to learn more about the physical demands of Lemons racing, I decided to wear a heart rate monitor during my driving stints behind the wheel of our #23 Pink Pig E30 at the 24 Hours of Lemons race at Buttonwillow this past August. Our friends at Chasecam lent us a PDR100 video kit and copy of their Dashware software that allowed me to sync my heartrate to both the video stream and the in-car telemetry collected using my Race Technologies DL1 data logger. The following is a summary of what I learned with some things being as expected and some things decidedly unexpected.
Current Fitness Level
I’ll start by giving a quick baseline values for my current fitness levels. I have a resting heart rate of just under 50 bpm and I run between 10-20 miles a week which puts me in the above average range of physical fitness. Click here to see an example heart rate trace from my last long run (outdoors, 85 F, 8.5 miles in 84 min, avg heart rate of 164 bpm).
Additionally since Buttonwillow in August is brutally hot (temps of 110 F are quite common) I did hot weather training (outdoor 10k twice a week at 2 in the afternoon) for a couple of months to help prepare for the heat stress. The temperatures during the race ended up being about 100F and I did wear a Cool Shirt which I used intermittently for the first hour and then continuously after that.
Data summary
The graph above shows my heart rate during a 2 hour 50 minute recording window. My average heart rate during this entire period was 120 beats/minute with a maximum of 165 bpm. As you can see there are several distinct segments where my heart rate varied significantly from the average. By syncing the heart rate data to the video I was able to find that each segment points to a specific event during the race.
Specific instances
Looking at the first 25 minutes of the data you can see that my heart rate initially hovers around the 90 bpm mark. At this time I was lined up in the pitlane and waiting for the cars to slowly get released onto the track. The small spike at the 4 minute mark happens exactly as I get out of the pits and onto the racing service. I should add that I had never driven a single lap of Buttonwillow before (mechanical issues on Friday) and was very nervous about going blind onto a new track. As I start doing the yellow flag laps you can see that my heart rate starts dropping again and stays that way for the next 7-8 minutes as I slowly learn my way around the track. The next spike you see is at the 12 minute mark and is shown in this short video below which has my heart rate in the top left corner.
As luck would have it the car right behind me was given the green flag which meant that I had zero warning of the race start. As the cars behind start passing me on the straight my heart rate starts rising from the low 90s and hits 129 bpm in the middle of turn 2.
The graph above shows the last 90 minutes of my stint. There is a gradual drop-off in my heart rate starting at about the 1:21 mark. This corresponds to a long full course yellow out on the track. The heart rate initially does not drop by much as I am staying close to car in front so that I can pass it at the next green flag, but as I drive further along the course I realize its a full course yellow and start relaxing which drop my heart rate to just over a 100. You can see another example of it in the video below which shows a yellow flag segment from my second stint on day 1.
The second dip you see towards the end of my day 1 stint happens when our car breaks down on the exit of turn 1 and I pull off the course and stop. While I’m initially quite agitated as I try to restart the car, I quickly realize that the car is dead and my heart rate starts dropping to the 100 bpm mark. About 5 minutes later the tow truck pulls up to the car and tows me back to the pits. Once I get there my heart rate once again starts rising and goes well past the 150 mark as I get out of the car to try and help fix the problem. It goes back down to the 140 mark as the problem is found and fixed but then rises to a peak of 165 as I am refueling the car (a 40 pound fuel can on your shoulder will do that).
As I went through the data, the most surprising fact for me was that the heart rate does not seem to have much correlation to the speed, g-force, laptime, etc… In fact it seems more psychological than it is physical. While there are some small changes over a lap, there are no significant bumps going through particular turns or even when passing individual cars. Instead the most pronounced changes in heart rate happen when you come up on a large group of cars and are unsure of how to pass them. The following video is a great example of this. Initially my heart rate is in the 115-120 bpm range as I go through the sweeper by myself. As I catch up to a group of five cars it rapidly rises and peaks at 144 bpm as I pass the last car. As soon as I pass them it starts dropping quickly and levels back down at the 120-125 bpm range.
For comparison here is a clean air lap where it drops as low as 97 bpm with a temporary spike at 131 bpm but spends the majority of the lap between 115 and 125 bpm
Summary
My stint in this case was for 2.5 hours in 100 degree weather and I could probably have driven for another hour. One thing to note is that I have plenty of experience driving on track (karting enduro, HPDE, Lemons) and can tell when my performance level goes down. If you are not familiar with driving on track and/or are driving at 10/10ths you will get mentally drained well before you get physically fatigued. If you dont take car to monitor your concentration you will start making more and more mistakes. The optimal stint length can and will vary dramatically even for the same person depending on their mental and physical state – I did a 4+ hour stint at Lemons Thunderhill 07 with no problems but when I drove a Spec Miata there I was wiped out in just 45 minutes.
In summary I can say that while Lemons is indeed quite strenuous, the mental aspect is more taxing than the physical. If you are used to good cardio workouts and can monitor your own concentration levels, it is possible to safely to do long stints. All this of course only applies to me and the way I drive – your mileage WILL vary and I make no statements about your driving abilities
Bonus video
And finally as bonus here is a 15 minute battle I had with the Itallion stallions Fiat X1/9. It starts off with them passing me on the run up to the hill and I then spend the next 15 minutes trying to get the position back. I’ve speeded up the sections where I am trying to catch up to them while the close quarters action is at regular speeds. Total run time is a little over 10 minutes. My favourite section is at the 6:20 mark where I pull alongside on the exit of the bus stop and we go side-by-side for 3 corners till I finally have to give up because they have the inside line over the hill. In case you are wondering they have modified the X1/9 to run motorcycle carbs which is why they were able to stay ahead on the straight. Plus this is within the first 10-12 laps on track so I’m still not very familiar with the track which I hope excuses the bad driving
One of the highlights of the 2008 West Coast Lotus meet were the time trials that were held at the go-kart track of Jackson County Parks facilities. You often hear that the Lotus handles like a go-kart but this was the first time that I got to drive my Elise on an actual go-kart course. Our run format consisted of running 3 back to back laps on the outside of the track to count as one single timed run. It was an interesting day and we got to to run the first session in the dry before the rain came down creating a very wet second session.The following video combines in-car and external footage of my first wet run of the afternoon. Major thanks to Rob and Jen from Dietsch Werks for taping the run from the outside.
Since my R-compound tires were completely slick I had to swap to my AD-07 street tires for the first time in six months. The combination of skinny tires, street compound and wet surface meant that I had no grip and I almost went off while braking for turn 1 (I was later riding with someone who shall not be named when we actually went off at the same spot ). I make the turn with about six inches to spare and am pretty cautious and slow waaaay down for turn two only to find the rear end wants to fishtail on the exit. Turn 3 went much better but the lack of front-end bite at turn 4 lead to a few NSFW comments. At this point I slowed down even further and tiptoed my way around the course for the rest of the run. We later found out that the county had repaved about half the track which meant that the course had sections with both old and new asphalt which account for the wide variance in the grip levels at the turns. Turns 1 through 4 had the lowest grip and you had to tiptoe through them before getting on the throttle for the rest of the course.
The next video is incar from my final run in the dry. The lap is much better and doesnt have too many mistakes apart from a missed shift on the start of lap 3 – I believe it ended up being the second fastest Lotus time of the morning.
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.
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
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.
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.
I’m lucky enough to have a job that has taken me to several different countries and one of things friends keep asking me is how each trip was. This is a really tough question for me to answer since I’m really not much of a tourist, I have no interest in visiting the local monuments and museums which means that I generally dont get out much when I’m at conferences etc… And this isnt restricted to business travel either – my vacations usually involve visiting people rather than the places they live.
The one thing I do like doing on trips is sampling the local food and drink. I’m willing to try a good number of dishes and an even greater number of drinks. If you were to ask me how my average trip went I will give you a monosyllabic answer, ask me about the cuisine and its quite possible that I’ll bore you to death. As a sample I’m going to list some of the more interesting things I tried during my last two trips to Finland and Korea.
Finnish Meatballs
If you’ve ever been to IKEA with me you’ll know that I am a big fan of the Swedish meatballs they sell there. So when we ended up going to a traditional finnish restaurant (the famous Seahorse restaurant) for lunch I absolutely had to try the “Finnish meatballs”. The dish itself was awesome and I am now even more impressed at how good the Ikea version is.
Vendace fish in brine
Vendace fish is a another traditional finnish delicacy which consists of these small headless (decapitated really) fish pickled in brine. A sweetish flavour and an interesting texture make it something I will definitely recommend.
Reindeer burger + steak
This was one of the things I tried just to see what it was like. The burger was excellent though to be honest I wasn’t that impressed with the steak which was a little to tough for me.
Tar Schnaps
This was probably the bravest thing I had on my trip. The drink is made by actually dissolving tar – the same tar used to make roads – in alcohol. I wasn’t sure if I should try it but when the finns who were taking us around told us that it was a local delicacy I had to try it for myself. The most surprising thing is that it is actually a very mellow shot and totally not what you’d expect when someone describes it to you.
Absinthe
I finally got to try Absinthe for the first time. My favourite part of the drink is theatrical production involved in actually making the drink (in the video above). The bartender starts with placing a shot of absinthe in a bath of water and soaks a sugar cube in the drink. He them places the cube on a spoon over the glass and pours the drink over the sugar cube. He then sets the cube on fire and lets its caramelize before dropping it into the drink.
The drink itself has a 70% alcohol content and is served with a jar of water so you can dilute it to . Once you add water to it the drink becomes cloudy and supposedly releases the flavours though I really couldn’t tell any difference. I have to admit that in the end the drink was too strong and I gave up with about 20% left
Koskenkorva 60% Vodka
I bought a bottle of this to make some more homemade Salmiakki Koskenkorva. The 60% alcohol content should make it a very interesting batch.
Leijona
This is another drink I picked up at the duty free shop. I was trying to get some Fisu but since they were out of stock the attendant suggested I try Leijona instead. Having tried it I have to say its in a similar vein, has more menthol than fisu but not as much as white opal, definitely worth trying.
Korean multi course meals
While in Korea I didnt really try anything too out of the ordinary. I did get to have a couple of multi-course Korean dinners which are long sedate affairs and give you a chance to taste several different things. The first one was a 9 course version at the official dinner reception for Ubicomp 2008. As you can see it consisted of a variety of different items including the ’5 kinds of side dishes’ as a separate item. Most of the items contained meat which meant that vegetarians didnt always get to eat their fill.
After the end of the conference a group of us decided to try out vegetarian version of the same meal. The restaurant consisted of private booths that had paper walls and sliding doors. You had to take off your shoes before entering and sitting cross-legged on the floor. It was a six course meal that was so incredibly filling that I barely even touched the desert. I was so busy eating that I forgot to photograph the food
Geumsan Insamju
This is a ginseng based korean folk liquor which actually has a real ginseng root in the liquor bottle. The company claims to have been making it since the Age of the Three Kingdoms (1399) and says it has medical properties. The smell reminds me of cutting grass on a wet day while the 43% alcohol content really does hit home.
Bok Boon Ja
Bok Boon Ja is a sweet raspberry wine which is staple at korean celebrations – I haven’t opened this bottle yet so I cant really comment on the drink.
Masu box souvenir
And finally I cant talk about all this liquor without mentioning my all time favourite conference souvenir – these wooden Masu boxes (sake cups) that they gave us at Ubicomp 2005 in Tokyo.
Update: I have since tried the Bok Boon Ja and I have to say that it is spectacular. I’m usually not a big fan of wine but I really like the fruity smell and aftertaste from this wine. I highly recommend it especially to people who like sweeter wines.
I am going to heading to Helsinki for Nokia Open Lab 2008 which is being organized by the folks at WOM World. While the exact program hasn’t been nailed down yet, the invite does sound interesting:
Nokia Open Lab, held in Helsinki, is an event with the aim of provoking global discussion on a mobile future.
The event is the first of its kind hosted by Nokia, where an invited set of social media participants from bloggers to forum members and everyone in between will be taking part in workshops that will focus on the future of mobile and co-creation of media.
The event’s benchmarks of learning for both the attendees and Nokia include how social interactions and technological interactivity affect us. The workshops will also focus on issues such as how everyone will utilize these new technologies and how the most benefit for all will come about.
Since it is an event for “social media participants” they have already created a wiki and a FaceBook event. It should be a fun event and I look forward to meeting the rest of the folks.
In honour of the event I have hacked together a ZoneTag action tag which will allow me to post selected ZoneTag Flickr images to my twitter stream and also set my FaceBook status. If this experiment goes well I’ll eventually open the action tag up to all ZoneTag users.
RT @cjmartin: Fun to see one of @rnair's photos (http://flic.kr/p/aPeaf) featured in this video created using CC Flickr photos: http://b ... 2010/08/18
Just got Sir Stirling Moss to sign my Lotus F1 heritage poster 2010/08/14
Even within the same gear the acceleration is phenomenal. The car pulls pretty strongly below 6k rpm but once you go above the 6k threshold the 
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