The Automotive Thread

One of my favourite things to do as a race car instructor was to humble idiots that would show up to the track with their new 550 hp Porsche. I'd lap them driving an old BMW 325, and they were incredulous. "But my car is way faster than yours!?!?" "But you don't know how to drive it... want to learn?"

Either they were humbled and learned, or they never came back.

Even "good" drivers don't really know how to drive, but today's society seems to default to the "I know what I'm talking about and it's not that hard or complicated" head space, only later to come around to "oh... I didn't realize that".

I honestly think every driver should spend a day on a skid pad and a track and learn how to do actual car control.... we'd have much safer roads because we'd have much better educated drivers.

 

Yep, those are the two main ones, for sure, and I'd add a third which is how wrong the attitude of "I can handle screwy situations even though I've never practised them before" is.

The number of people that get into a scary situation, emergency-stomp the brakes, and then freak out because they've never experienced the ABS shudder so let off, is unbelievably high. Emergency stopping, collision avoidance, are things that you need to be trained for and practise, you won't just "get it right" when it happens. Some reflexive behaviour is the opposite of what you need to do, so you have to re-learn your response. "Look where you go" is a prime example that most motorcyclists learn early on.

Those are the main ones.

The most important, in my opinion, is to give yourself more time to react to situations. That involves a mixture of becoming aware of situations faster, predicting what other drivers are going to do, and giving yourself time to react.

• Be aware of your surroundings... the further away, the better, because the sooner you see things, the more time you have to react. If you're looking 300 yards ahead and see that there's a parked car, then you can react to that sooner. There's a reason people slam into parked cars or garbage/debris on the road... they weren't looking up. Don't stare at your hood ornament... expand your "knowledge zone" out as far as you can. It's hard, and it takes practice.
• Take into account other driver's reactions. you can start to stop sooner, slower, and ensure that you don't get rear-ended by doing an emergency stop, or don't just rear-end the person ahead of you. Driving is a chain reaction... if you emergency stop, then the people behind you will have to, and they will have to, and so on and so on.
  
• Learn to predict what other drivers may do and plan for that reaction. If you see a parked car in the middle of the road that is in front of the car you're following, then start to slow down, knowing that he's going to slow down soon. Or be aware of the dump truck that is riding your bumper and realize that he won't stop as fast as you, so pull over a bit and then stop. Or if you are going past an on-ramp and see a car that will merge soon, then move over and give them room before it's too late. Don't drive in people's blind spots because they will, eventually, merge into your hood. If someone's driving like an idiot, let them go so you get more space between you and them.
• Don't keep a distance buffer around you, keep a time buffer. 50 feet at 20 mph is way more reaction time than 50 feet at 60 mph.

And finally, learn car control. Cars at speed do not behave like they do in a parking lot. Just go watch people try and drive in the snow for the first time. Driving in the snow at slow speed is remarkably similar to driving in anger (racing) at high speeds. In a race, you always feel on the edge of control... like you're floating or skating around. In the rain, you want to make the car do something before it decides to do something on it's own... for instance, in a corner, you want to sometimes induce a skid and control it rather than try and turn and just have it happen unexpectedly.

Those are some high points... but really, learning to drive can be a lifetime pursuit, and honestly our drivers licensing exams are a fucking joke.

If you're really interested in driving, I can't recommend Speed Secrets enough...

https://speedsecrets.com/

It's written by Ross Bentley, a long-time friend and teammate of mine. It goes into more details.

Likewise, Going Faster! is a great introduction to the science behind driving fast and surviving.

https://www.amazon.ca/Going-Faster-Mastering-Driving-Barber/dp/0837602262

 

What a fucking night.

I'm in the process of selling my Jeep before my move, and I need to get it re-registered in BC (it's currently registered in Ontario).

I went through all the paperwork and I have a safety inspection tomorrow at noon... all good.

I was just sitting down to a nice dinner tonight when I remembered... I need to install a third brake light. When I put on my swing-gate spare tire holder 5 years ago, the factory original hit the garbage, and I always thought, "yeah, I'll get around to fabbing up a new one at some point." I drove the thing for years without fixing it, and yet tonight I realized that in order to pass the safety inspection tomorrow, I need to have it in place.

Tonight was a flurry of finding brake wires under caked on mud, finding them to be too short to work with, splicing in new ones, finding a shitty red brake light (none with any enclosures), bending some metal bars, drilling/tapping the tire gate, etc., etc. All in the driveway, in the snow/rain, at a degree above freezing.

The only down side was I didn't have time to make a nice enclosure for the light, so I just made a wooden block and routed out space for the light... then spray painted it all black. It looks almost professional from the splice job under the rear wheel well up to the light enclosure, and at that point it looks pure fucking ghetto. It's not even level. Oh well... it works, and it should get me through the inspection... that's all I give a shit about.

Then I was running the Jeep a bit, and it died. Turns out the battery that's been sitting for a year is fucked... go figure. Then I put in a new one I had lying around, and then it threw an engine code for the alternator field.

So it looks like I may need a new alternator. Hopefully it's not the regulator, because that's handled by the PCM on this Jeep... and I've already swapped it out once. They are fucking hard to find.

Hopefully that doesn't screw up my safety, and they can throw a charging system tester on things to help me figure out what's going on.

It's never fucking easy, is it?

Now it's time for a couple of shower beers.

 

I have oversized off-road tires on the Jeep, and have a big swing-gate that is also a Class 5 receiver and bumper. (Very cool setup by SmittyBuilt, who I highly recommend... great build quality). Anyway, in order to get the light visible over the rear spare, an extension had to be built. It looks goofy, but it works.






The inspector laughed, but it passed.

 

The day after I fabbed it up, I laughed and wondered why I didn't just attach it to the safari rack instead. Oh well... it won't be mine for much longer anyway.

 

Lights mounted and floor painted... now I get to wait for a few days for everything to cure.

Should take a bit due to the snow and rain, but I hope it'll happen eventually.

I was thinking about getting it spray-foamed before the trip, but the cheapest quote I got was $1,800. That can wait.

 

Just finished roughing in all the electrics for the trailer. Shore power, battery power, auto-switched power, heater on a thermostat, breaker control of all the major "sub-systems" for when amps are at a premium... all sorts of good stuff.

It's still messy, but it works. So now it's time for drinks in the hot tub.



Just one small point of pride... I wired and buttoned it all up, and everything, I mean EVERYTHING worked perfectly as expected the first time. No sparks, no drama... just 100% functionality. I think that's the first time ever that's happened.

 

In case you're wondering what all that is, here's a pic with a description of the pieces-parts:

 

Cost. I had the switch and charger already and the inverter was on sale for just under $200.

 

And in the continuing saga of the trailer... today was all new brakes and rotors and hubs and rims and tires oh my. It was fucking cold work, but at least it's done.