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Watch This Pokemon Go-Playing Driver Crash Into a Cop Car

8/11/2016

It's an incident that can be more or less summed up in one beautiful sentence: A Pokemon Go-playing driver slammed into a police car in Baltimore on Monday, with the entire incident captured on one of the officer's body cameras.

Luckily, no one seems to have been injured in the incident. The officers were not in the police car when the Pokemon Go player's Toyota RAV4 rammed the cruiser, while the driver and his passengers appear to have been protected by an extremely thick layer of stupidity.

The body camera video both depicts the moment of impact, when the Toyota slammed into the parked Dodge Charger police vehicle hard enough to briefly knock the two-ton car into the air and send it skipping several feet down the asphalt, and the awkward follow-up when the embarrassed young man driving the RAV4 climbed out, phone raised as if in explanation.

"That's what I get for playing a dumb-ass game," the Pokemon Go-playing driver said in a moment of lucidity he really could have used several seconds earlier. Police said the driver fully admitted to playing the app, which enables users to collect virtual monsters placed at real-world locations usually filled with actual people the users could be interacting with instead.

This is hardly the first Pokemon Go-related automobile accident to occur since the game exploded into popularity a little less than two weeks ago. Last week, a 28-year-old in upstate New York collided with a tree while playing the augmented-reality game, prompting the local police department to reiterate that, no, you should not be playing a video game on your phone while driving. Which by now should really, really be obvious.

Fans demand more road courses and NASCAR knows it

8/11/2016

Boy, have times changed.Old-guard stock car enthusiasts used to thumb their noses at any event not held on an oval.

Suddenly, NASCAR fans can’t get enough of road course racing.

“We’re absolutely aware of that,” said NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “I think it becomes the challenge of where we are on the schedule — with the 36 races we have. And then the fact that every race matters.

“Having those two road courses where they are is really important in the schedule--to see people have a chance to potentially make the Chase and go out there and run off a win.”

From an entertainment value standpoint, it’s hard to beat a good battle on a short track. Restrictor-plate racing is an animal all to itself. And with the tweaks the sanctioning body has made to the current rules package, even the intermediate tracks have been competitive.

An increasing demand for more road coursesBut time and time again, fans wonder why there aren’t more road courses on the schedule — particularly in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

“We love the fact that we have road course racing on the schedule,” O’Donnell added. “We do have some weather challenges when you look at road courses.

“But we’re definitely aware of the desire for the fans — it’s not NASCAR ignoring it. There’s a lot of logistics involved. When you talk to (WGI president) Michael Printup or (Sonoma president) Steve Page, they like where they are in the schedule. It really works for them and we have to take that in mind as well.”

Page has often said he doesn’t want to compete against the football in the fall. That’s understandable, given the rich history of the San Francisco 49ers and the University of California across the bay in Berkeley. However, it’s hard to beat wine country in autumn during grape-picking season.

The weather at the Glen last weekend was absolutely ideal. And an early fall date would be lovely as well. But weather isn't the same kind of issue on a road course that it is on an oval since Goodyear provides rain tires to the teams in case of inclement weather.

Still, the dilemma really isn’t about moving Sonoma or the Glen into the playoffs as much as it's about the challenge of finding another road course with adequate infrastructure to support the Sprint Cup Series. But chances are that won’t happen for the next five years. Last October, NASCAR announced the same 23 venues will be on the Cup schedule through 2020.

Ovals that double as road coursesWhile that’s great for the track operators, it’s likely not what the fans want to hear.

Now, several venues have the capability of transforming an oval into a road course. Indianapolis and Daytona modify their facilities for IndyCar and IMSA, respectively. So why not for NASCAR?

As NASCAR evolves into more of a made-for-TV sport, the sanctioning body must give credence to the entertainment value of the on track product. Short of creating an Indy-specific package for the Brickyard 400, the race will never regain the status it enjoyed prior to the 2008 tire debacle. But the event could certainly benefit from something fresh.

For now, the fans will have to wait patiently until the Cup tour rolls into Sonoma — 10 months from now.

Rave reviewsOverall, the Glen was a huge success. The proof was in the number of campers — both inside and out of the circuit — the fans in the infield and grandstands as well as the traffic on Saturday and late into Sunday night.

Although there were some concerns regarding the newly-paved track, with two test sessions and a conservative tire, the Cheez-It 355 at the Glen went off without a hitch.

“Any time there’s a repave, there’s a lot of trepidation heading in,” O’Donnell said. “Typically, it’s a challenge for us but all in all, I thought, no different Watkins Glen. You look at last year versus this year, and I thought it was a great race. The track did a great job — and you could see that from the race teams coming in. The tire certainly performed well. So, all in all, terrific job by everyone.

“Candidly, during the race, you almost forgot there was a repave. It was like we were at Watkins Glen with the same instance of 2015.”

Bad timing?Perhaps the biggest surprise on Sunday came in the number of speeding penalties on pit road.

While teams received sheets detailing the timing lines — and preemptive warnings were issued by crew chiefs and spotters following a rash of infractions — throughout the course of the race, seven drivers were busted in the first 54 laps.

O’Donnell acknowledged additional timing lines were added to pit road at the Glen in an effort to highlight the work of the pit crews. O’Donnell believes the move will even the playing field.

“You never want to catch anyone speeding, certainly, on pit road,” O’Donnell said. “But the reason those timing loops are there is to make the competition as close as possible and have teams really have to rely on their pit crews to have an advantage versus maybe kind of skirting the rules a little bit in between loops.

“What was happening was we had a bigger gap in the loops that were on pit road than the amount of pit stalls a team could drive through. We were seeing teams really cross that line — and then hit the gas — and have an advantage depending on where they were on pit road. So we just added some additional pit lines that really brought the pit crews back into play more. We were trying to avoid any competitive advantage for a particular pit stall.”

But one of the benefits of being a top qualifier in time trials is selecting the best pit stalls. O’Donnell said the teams supported NASCAR’s decision and are adapting to the additional timing lines.

“Like anything, you’re going to see some challenges with it,” O’Donnell said. “I think all in all it’s the right thing to do and it will continue to play out throughout the year.”

These Two Warbirds Will Give You Goosebumps

8/1/2016

A Spitfire And Bf 109 Make Lots Of NoiseThese were the ultimate rivals during the Battle of Britain. To be fair, Hurricanes did a tremendous amount of fighting as well, but unfortunately this video does not include one. The Spitfire and Bf 109 chase each other through the air and come in hot towards the ground buzzing the cameraman.When it comes to seeing two planes reenacting a dogfight nowadays, that’s one of our favorites.

At the beginning of the war, the greatest advantage the Bf 109s had over British fighters was fuel injected engines.

Until 1942 when Spitfires were fitted with pressure carburetors, Luftwaffe pilots had one major advantage over Spitfires and Hurricanes. When having a RAF fighter on their tail, their fuel injected engines allowed them to simply make a nosedive to avoid them. Since Spitfires used carburetors, giving chase would cause initial fuel starvation which later led to overflowing the carb due to negative ‘gs’. Before remedying the issue, RAF fighters were taught to half-roll their planes in order to feed the engine before diving.

Ride along as a 1,800-horsepower Camaro flips at 195 mph

7/23/2016

A 6-point roll bar, Snell rated helmets and G-FORCE 5-point harnesses helped this driver, Nacho Bernal, and his passenger survive a scary 195 mph crash in a Chevy Camaro at a runway.
This was no ordinary Camaro, however. In fact, this QMP Racing Engines LSX436 Twin Turbo Chevy Camaro, tuned by Cunningham Motorsports, boasted 1,800 horsepower. The result was that, just before the crash, the team hit 195 mph, setting the Camaro half-mile world record speed. Good thing too, because Bernal would have owed his daughter $20 if he hadn’t brought home a trophy.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to bring home the car, as the machine was destroyed in the rollover. Bernal says that, as he hit the brakes, the right front tire locked, sending the car into a wild ride that knocked his passenger unconscious, although he was ultimately OK.

nathan finneman google racing cars breed of speed crash camaro amazing

The Astronaut who took this photo, is the only human, Dead or Alive that isn’t in the frame of this 1969 picture

7/23/2016

This picture of the Lunar Module was taken by Michael Collins. It contains Buzz Aldrin and Neal Aldrin and of course the Earth in the Background. This picture was taken during the Apollo 11 mission, and it makes him the only person to have ever lived who was not inside this photo.

Because Matter cannot be destroyed nor created, it means that every human that ever lived up to the moment in time that this picture was taken, still exists, in some form that is. It also means that every person that was born afterwards is also in this photo, again in some form. Even if you were not born yet, the matter from which you are made off is in this picture.

Collins, in his second and last mission, served as the command module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission. As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first to make a manned landing on the surface of the moon, Collins waited in the command module for over 21 hours for their return. When the command module drifter behind the moon, losing all communication with the Earth, he wrote:“This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two. I don’t mean to deny a feeling of solitude. It is there, reinforced by the fact that radio contact with the Earth abruptly cuts off at the instant I disappear behind the moon, I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side.”

The Guardian interviewed Collins in 2009, and he revealed to be anxious about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s safety. Fearing that in the case of a calamity he would have to return to Earth alone. Being the sole survivor of a failed mission, he would be “a marked man for life”.

Corsair & Spitfire Flying Low And Fast Over Channel

6/20/2016

The music’s great but we would love to hear the roar of the engines better. Those war birds are BEASTS! Such lucky camera men! We’d totally be in aircraft heaven listening to the sound in one fly by. The Spitfire pass was incredible. Can’t think of anything more amazing than this. Check out 1:12 — music to my ears! Just imagine standing at the edge of that canal watching this (That’s currently at the top of my bucket list). 10/10 who have seen this would want to do the same.

The Corsair may be the best looking plane but, I bet we all agree with this one, the Spitfire definitely has the nicest sound (can’t beat the Merlin for sure)! This looks a whole lot better than any special effects from movies. Those wings man, those wings! They’re all utterly beautiful and this low level flying is simply epic.

Ken Block’s 900HP Mustang takes a tour of the city… with Matt Leblanc on board.

6/15/2016

Yup, that’s new TG host Matt LeBlanc alongside Ken Block and his wildly modified, 900bhp ‘Hoonicorn’ Mustang.

The pair were spotted filming for the new series of TG telly along Tower Bridge and outside St Paul’s Cathedral this morning, as Block took a guided tour of the city… with Matt on board. Cue some V8 noise and tyre smoke.

American tourists, eh?

We’ll have more for you from the new telly show in due course, so stay tuned to breedofspeed for updates…

13424255_1143737212359159_2049601818_n from Brian on Vimeo.

How a 4-Pound Engine Can Replace a 40-Pound Engine

6/15/2016

Connecticut-based startup LiquidPiston announced today that they have built a small, compact engine that is powerful enough to drive a go-kart. Their X-mini engine weighs just 4 pounds and has three moving parts, and yet can produce 3 horsepower, enough to replace the default 40-pound piston engine that normally powers the go-kart.

LiquidPiston says that their X-mini is still in a testing phase, and they hope to get the weight down to 3 pounds and the power up to 5 hp. (The 40-pound piston engine produces about 6.5 hp.) In the meantime, their little engine already packs a punch, as you can see in the video below.

LiquidPiston announced last year that they received a $1 million DARPA grant to develop their X-mini engine, and it appears that they've succeeded. The 4-pound, 3-hp engine is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, yet it can power everything from vehicles to generators to drones. The X-mini uses LiquidPiston's proprietary rotary engine design and thermodynamic cycle which offer vast improvements over both a traditional Wankel rotary engine and common piston engines.

LiquidPiston says the X-mini can run on Jet Propellant 8, the military's fuel of choice, making it an ideal candidate for all sorts of military applications. For instance, the X-mini is small and light enough to power a UAV, it can be part of a generator that can be carried in a backpack, or it can even be used to power military robotics. According to Alec Shkolnik, LiquidPiston's co-founder and president, "[DARPA] is kinda agnostic as to the actual application … they have so many different applications that need power."

Shkolnik said that the X-mini is still early in testing, and they have only just built their first working prototype, but he's hopeful that the engine could see a commercial release sometime in the next few years. When that happens, the X-mini could find its way into lawnmowers, emergency generators, and even small vehicles like mopeds.

Donzi Powerboat Launches off a Massive Wave

6/14/2016

Donzi Powerboat MASSIVE Drop Dubstepified!What can we say about THIS video off the coast of San Francisco that hasn’t been said before? It doesn’t take a degree to know this wasn’t a good idea! Well, just WATCH!

Corsair And Lightning Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before–Absolutely Stunning!

6/13/2016

If This Isn’t The Most Beautiful Thing You’ve Ever Seen, I Don’t Know What Is.This visually stunning footage from multiple vantage points will probably make your jaw drop. In preparations for a 2015 airshow, this team of pilots practiced formation flying and allowed us to see some of that footage.

What’s more, for one reason or another they looped and barrel rolled in the skies over, wait for it…the Alps. What’s better than two of the best looking fighter planes flying over one of the most beautiful mountain range in the world? That’s right, nothing.

Besides the P-38L Lightning and F4U-4 Corsair, Red Bull has also restored a B-25J Mitchell which they found at a U.S. aircraft cemetery.

These two iconic warbirds are expertly flown by two Red Bull pilots, Raimund Riedmann and Eric Goujon. Both these guys always had a passion for flying but also love historical aviation.

Now, to touch on that subject which splits our readers pretty much in half, Red Bull does put their big, red, non-historical logo on the planes we love the most. They also pump an average of about $1 million in restoration per aircraft. Feel free to discuss.

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