....and Some Things Go FFAASSTT

The picture in the header is the start of the SCCA National Championship race last October. Tom is on the right. He finished third.The stripped down chassis. It has a reinforced space frame. All of the body work and undertray are carbon fiber.

I made an error in my initial blog when I stated that it had an 1100 cc engine which is really a 1000cc engine.

....things that go slow

On a recent trip to Tucson Arizona I found this colection of wagons and carts at a gas station on the way to Tombstone.Most were the 1 HP versions. Early pick up truck.
Most had also been uprated at some point with rubber treaded tires. I imagine it made a huge difference in the ride:-)

Early single seater. Not sure what formula it fell under?

The four seater saloon, 2 HP.

The classic station wagon or shooting brake, depending on which side of the ocean you are on.

2 HP SUV caught at full throttle

This could really GO!!! So Watch the Sky

It has been a while since I posted anything and this is not a car post. Snow and ice have made me think of going to Arizona to get away from it and that is where I visited the last Titan II missile silo that has been converted to a museum. This is not so much a Sky Watch as a Watch the Sky post.

This is a display of the engines used. The big double first stage engine, the large second stage engine and the small steering engines for the war heads. I wish I knew how much HP each would generate. This is a good reminder of the "Cold War" and how close we could have been to a Hot War.

This is the concrete silo cover. It is in the retracted position. If they needed to open it for actual use explosive would have been used to move it.

The missile in the silo. Notice the hole in the side of the nose cone. Every day a Russian satellite does a fly over and takes a picture to make sure that hole is there and that there is NOT a war head inside. The old "trust but verify" still is used.


After going down an elevator a long way, and they wouldn't tell us how far, we had to go through four blast doors to get to the control room.

This is the tunnel from the control room out to the missile. The large cans along the walls are shock absorbers that can withstand anything except a direct atomic bomb blast.

Looking up out of the silo at the nose cone. they have built a glass cover to protect the missile because the cover has to be left open so the Russians can look at it each day, smile.

This is the control panel where the Presidents code would have been entered into the group of thumb switches that opened the oxidiser valve so the missile could launch.

The "safe" for the keys that turned everything on. I wouldn't have thought of a filling cabinet with a few locks on it. High tech at its best. Wonder what it cost?

The Titan II had three individually guided war heads. Here is where the targets were set. Hope they don't have my address. As an engineer I found this really interesting but thinking of what would have happened if these had been used is pretty scary.

Sometimes things don't go!

Winter is the time for garage racing!

I took these at a friend's.

These aren't going now, but just wait for good weather.

What could be under these?
What could possibly be under this? A car cover and cardboard. A big V8 wrapped in plastic.

This doesn't help much.

Carts! I asked why 4? One for tracks, one for street circuits, one for a friend and one for sale.

OH! A Sunbeam Tiger in tube chassis form.

New fiberglass body panels.

A TR2 in wonderful condition.

Pretty in here. Cleaner than a Triumph should be.

A Norton.

Another Norton

Finally the fab shop. What a wonderful place to spend the winter.

Formula 1 Cars Go

2007 US GP

Talking about things that GO, F1 cars go. The US GP is gone. A certain short chubby person that wants all of the money has fixed that. It was such a fun event. We even let the Fins come. Maybe that wasn't the smartest but they know how to have a good time.At the end is a video of the start that I thought would be easy to do. Wrong!
Looks like the red cars were chasing the silver cars.

The race for 5th was the best racing all day.

One of the support races was the Formula BMW.

These guys aren't afraid of anything!

All alone.

Some young kid.

and Now for Something Different

Here is something that goes. A Russian submarine. This was a Cobra class sub built in the mid 70's. NATO called it a Foxtrot. The Russians tried to make their subs sleek. This was about the last diesel class of boats they built.

The rear torpedo room. This tube was so rusty from a leaking outer door that it couldn't be used. Poor maintenance.

Captains small cabin. Enough room for Lenin.

Front torpedo room. Doing maintenance on one tube.

Engine room. Best shape of anyplace on the boat. You could almost eat off of them.

Diving controls. Hope it comes up as easy as it goes down.

Dymaxion - Car of the Future

I live in a geodesic dome invented by Buckminster Fuller. When we built it my wife's father said that he had met him once when he was building his Dymaxion cars.My Father-in-law was a student at George Washington University in Washington DC studying Civil Engineering in 1935. He also had a part time job working for the Bureau of Public Roads who were working to develop smooth roads.
At the same time Fuller built 3 of his Dymaxion cars and needed someplace to test them and the BPR was one of the few places that had plenty of roads.

My father-in-law took these pictures the first day that Fuller showed up with his car. The drawings were taken from the patent application material.

Can you imagine how this car was looked upon when people like Ford had only quit making the Model T a few years earlier. Four seats, three wheels, mid engine and front wheel drive. We believe that Fuller is in the dark suit on the left.