Pointless Video of the Week

This video is sheer entertainment value. There is almost nothing that can be said about the video in terms of the vehicle being used because it is an Italian cart that I know nothing about. However, I have seen the cart before. It appears in The American and probably other American movies that take place in Italy. It is just a little motorized cart that is used to zip up and down the tight streets that are found in Italy.

People always find ways to create something low tiered in complexity and then sup it up so that it can do a lot more than the cart was originally intended to do. This is seen all the time with cars as they are constantly tuned to get enormous horsepower and be quick. People do this a lot to lower end cars like the Honda Civic. Here the driver has tuned his little cart and also has tuned his skills. He has figured out the speed to go into the corners and then how hard he needs to turn the car so that it rolls, but just enough so that it goes up on two wheels and then stays like that. It's almost a twist on the blog post that I made with the Secret Service vehicles doing the J-turn.

It is just a video that is entertaining and that's the reason that it was put online. It shows something unusual being done that doesn't happen every day. There are times when in movies a car will go on two wheels but that'll only be for a few seconds and it is usually shown as an accident. This driver figured out how to do it both on purpose and for long durations of time while still maintaining control. Could you do it? No. That is what people like to see, other people doing things that they themselves are unable to.

Isle of Man TT

You don't have to watch the whole thing because it is kind of redundant.

This is one of the more classic car videos that is out there because of great the quality of the video is and what it offers the viewer. For starters it shows the precision that goes into driving one of these rally courses. The speeds are so great that turns are almost always done blind. The driver can't tell what it around each corner or how tight the corner will be. Usually race car drivers, overcome approaching corners very quickly by just memorizing the track and its turns. The Isle of Man is too long and complicated for the drivers to this, so they have a navigator who reads what is coming up. I'm uncertain what is going on with all the "maybe's" however, I'm sure it means that the navigators words are just general statements. It shows how much thought is going into the driving of the car. Each word tells him an amount to turn the wheel and there is a lot of thought process going on to get the car around a corner. This is how not just this race, but most rally type races are done. There are two people in the car instead of one and the race becomes more a team even that is based not just on the driver skill but the degree of how the two work together.

On another note about the video is The Isle of Man racetrack which is one of the most famous courses in the world. Even most car enthusiasts are unaware of the race. The Isle of Man is a strange country that is an island between Ireland and the UK. However, it is most famous for its road course that drives through the countryside. The race is predominantly motorcycles, but they have added cars to the race. It is not the glamorous racing that takes place on professional courses that cost millions of dollars, but instead takes place on the standard roads that the country has to offer.

The "J-Turn" as Demonstrated by the Secret Service

Start watching at about 2:20

This is an extremely interesting video because of what it shows. The Secret Service performs an almost "ballet of cars" as they whip around. The J-turn is seen in movies every once in a while, but rarely is it shown in a format like this one where three cars are doing the turn so closely together and with such a high degree of precision. Something like this does not have much real world practical use for any of us as we will never do something like this, either because we never have the need to or do not have the courage to try. It is extremely risky to try since there is a clear opportunity for damage to occur to the car. That being said it is a very niche type of thing that only certain people can/should do.

It is more a video just for entertainment and there isn't too much that can be said to about it. The video speaks for itself. The feat is basically accomplished solely through the skill and training of the driver and there doesn't really seem to be much the car contributes. The car basically just needs to suspension to handle the turn. Also, the tires need to be able to momentarily lose traction, but that gain it back later when the time is right. There is a necessary balance that needs to be there between the driver and the car. You would also need to have a familiarity between the car that is being driven because so many cars have different suspensions and different driving feels that could easily cause the quick turn to fail. That is what makes the turn of limo even that much crazier. Instead of dealing with normal car dimensions and handling there is an extra 10 feet or so that he has to deal with, along with that added wait. It is just wild to watch and see what these expertly trained drivers are able to do.

KERS

 

KERS is a very new technology that is starting to be in use in race cars and now, some street cars. The video explains how it works pretty much. It stores energy that is expelled through the natural process of driving, in this braking and then when there is enough power stored, that can be expelled to give the car a burst of speed. In Formula 1, they save the power so that it can be used to give the car power so that it can speed up at a higher rate above the cars potential. This does not translate very well to the consumer car market except for a very few cars at the top where that extra little power makes their car faster than their competitors for fast street going cars. Instead, this KERS technology, or Kinetic Energy Recovery System, will be used as a sort of hybrid instead. The car will store natural energy expelled from the car and then it will be used to power the engine instead of fuel at times. It is truly a revolutionary way to go forward with a hybrid because there is no need for a special fuel or anything like that and the cars would be able to be similar to the way that they are today.

It is a strong example which demonstrates the transition from race cars to the street. A lot of technology that is in modern cars was first put into practice to make cars go faster on racetracks. Things like transmissions and traction control were taken from race cars. Racing teams are always looking for advantages and this spurs a lot of new, innovative technologies. Formula 1 teams have budgets in the hundreds of millions. This affords them a lot of money for research and development because they only have produce two cars to go out on the racetrack. This fosters research and the technology gets tested on the tracks by the cars and the companies and then it is a lot easier for it to transition to street cars as the technology has already been tested.