That it's an antiquated, obsolete kind of dualism, and even the basis for his "doubt" is flawed. Concerning the essence of physical beings and their supposed deception, I think Heidegger cleared that little "problem" up nicely.
Here's one of our pit stops from last year's race. Same car, same graphics, and same number this year. Here are some pics I took from 2009. <a class="postlink" href="http://pics.bulletracing.ca/main.php?g2_itemId=3255" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://pics.bulletracing.ca/main.php?g2_itemId=3255</a> I normally sit here: And expensive doesn't begin to cover it. Last year's race cost us $250k. For one race. That is just the consumables (gas, tires, pit air, etc), crew costs (airfair, hotel, cars, food), engine/tranny rebuild, car transport, etc, and doesn't include the price of the car. Never mind that the entire car is pretty well spent when you're done and needs a rebuild. We're small, volunteer, privately funded, and yet we still managed to raise over $160k for Children's Hospital.
So I just got back from that movie. Holy motherfucking fuck. I went to motherfucking Dachau and a Nazi motherfucking concentration camp was still less disturbing than that movie. I know the Nazi comparison is frowned upon these days but let me assure you that I am not being flippant about this. Still got the poutine, though.
Dangit. I missed all the Rush video posting. This is how big of a Rush nerd I am: I live in Georgia. A few years back, I flew to Toronto for the first time to see the SARS benefit show with Rush / AC DC and The Rolling Stones. I kept my YYZ luggage tag. Heh. Sup.
Descartes is like SuperSlimTrampPants - unfocused, hyper-retarded, and lost. Descartes was unsure of himself, others, his thoughts, and even if he had an innie or an outie. He doubted his own navel lint. If you dare quote his philosophy of 'mediations', I'll explode. Please, don't even get me started on this study... In other news, may we please see boobs? Please?
You say he doubted his own navel lint, but I don't think he doubted anything at all. All of the Meditations was just a path to an idea of God that he already wholeheartedly believed in. There was no systematic doubt that took place, just a bunch of shoddy workmanship posing as a rational necessitation of God. In short, his philosophy was ruled by un-philosophic preexisting beliefs, not by doubt.
No diesels, you're thinking ALMS or Le Mans. As to rotary, I think the Mazdas are, and they sure sound loud as fuck. We were pitted beside Patrick Dempsey in 2009 and he was driving Mazdas, and they were revving all sorts of weird compared to our car, so I assume they're rotary. I know for a fact they used to, as our team owner used to be a Mazda factory driver, and has a rather famous pic of him driving down pit lane during one of the 24hr races in the late 80's. Actually, it's a famous pic of his car, with him nowhere to be seen. Seems he fucked up a shift and over revved the engine to something pretty fucking high. High enough that the Crew Chief was going to tear him a new asshole, anyway, and he was a rookie driver on the team and didn't want to get canned. This was back in the analogue days, no data acquisition. So Steve entered pit lane, slowed to 60 mph, undid his belts, bent down and reached for the RPM reset switch that was buried under the dash. The end result was that a pic showed up in the paper the next day of a "driverless" car coming down pit lane at 60mph. I wish I could find a copy of it to show you, but you can't see him in it at all. The original Ghost Rider. Here's our car at the end of the race last year... took a bit of a shit-kicking:
Are the rotaries pretty tough to beat? I know that they've been banned from other races. Oh, and as far as the weird idle: If it sounded like "brap brap brap brap brap", that's a bridge-ported or peripheral ported rotary. Those are some mean fucking engines. Here's a 3 rotor. Even better:
May I ask, how exactly does one get into such high calibre racing at the privateer level? The most I've ever done was a bit of welding with the Formula SAE team at school. And since I'm not an engineer, chemist or physicist of any kind, I'm pretty fucking useless when there isn't space for unskilled labour.
They're tough to beat because nobody wants to get too close behind them because they're shooting apex seals out the exhaust like a machine gun.
It's not the rotary engines, it's the whole car specification. Porsche's are what are called Prep 2 cars, while just about every other manufacturer of car is Prep 1. Prep 1 is all custom tube frame chasis, custom engine, etc., etc. Basically, it's a built-to-win from scratch car. Prep 2 is basically based on the street tub. If you take a look at the tub we have, it's almost identical to the one you see in a Porsche showroom on the street 911 or GT3. There's a big stink right now in Grand-Am because the rules are so heavily weighted to let the new Mazdas and Camaros win. We are so heavily penalized, by weight, engine RPM, intake volume, etc., that it's fucking impossible for us to really have a legitimate shot against the other makes. Let's just say that this year there is just 1 Porsche GT team competing in Grand Am (not including the 24 hour race). All the other teams, us included, have jumped to the ALMS series. NASCAR bought Grand-Am last year, and have done a fantastic job of fucking it right up. For instance, the Daytona Prototype cars you see in the 24 Hr race... they are only about $150k more to buy, and they get charged the same entrance fee as we do (the GT teams), and are just slightly more expensive to run, but in the end, how much TV time and race coverage do the GT teams get? FUCK ALL. I sat in a pub for 6 hours today and didn't see my fucking car once. NOT ONCE. It's all about the DP cars, and the top 3 GT cars. So it's getting harder and harder for GT teams to get sponsorship, because what do they get out of it? NO TV time, no press coverage, etc. Hell, we're teh ONLY Canadian team competing in the 24 Hour race... not even a team in DP, and yet we aren't getting any recognition or press because of it. So yeah, the Daytona race is the 2nd most famous endurance race ever (next to Le Mans), and it's prestigious, and fun to run, but there's a bit of bitterness with the GT teams too.
Holy shit, the movie Charade is on. What a fucking great movie. Audrey Hepburn is one of the most beautiful people to ever grace this planet.
Money. I'm involved because I race my own Porsche locally, and the Bullet Racing team owner was the local race director and raced a ton of Porsches locally. We got to know each other, and he thought I'd be an asset to the team, so asked me to help out. I was glad to do so. He then lets me race my car under his team banner, and I get to drive his team cars in events when the need arises. Best thing is that on local race weekends, I do team management duties, and the mechanics on the team basically look after all the prep and maintenance on my car for me, which is a HUGE benefit for me. In return, I keep them fed and watered. (I usually bring a couple of BBQ's to the track and cook for the team when I'm not racing, generator and blender drinks, and fancy espresso coffee machine, etc). We have probably the most civilized paddock in our local racing series. Here's a pic of Steve (team owner) standing in front of his car (an 800+ HP twin turbo beast that's the local track record holder) and my car (#45). One of my favourite pics... the two of us at the start of the race. He got the pole (no surprise), as his car is way faster, but my car has better brakes. Makes for an interesting first corner. He fried a clutch for the second race (max rated clutch was 500hp and he put out 800+... you do the math). Made things more fun for me.
The car originally was quite tame, but he had a REALLY bad accident in it on track, and left it a crumpled wreck. Things were slow at the shop (he runs a Porsche/BMW shop in Vancouver), and they were bored, so they did a bit of a "what the hell" project and tried to build it up into a beast of a track car. They chopped out most of the tub and replaced it with tube chasis, and built up the engine. It's basically a street 993 engine that our Crew Chief has made into a twin-turbo... sequential twin turbo. It's fucking UNREAL. I'll go to 2.2 bar, but we barely ever run it more than 1.8. In the end, it weighs about 1800 lbs wet, and dyno'd at 800 HP at 1.8 bar. One of our team drivers used to race Porsche 935's at Le Mans. They were the classic slope-nose twin turbos that put out about 1,100 hp. Think the Martini Porsches, if you're old enough to know them. This is the closest thing he says he's driven to those cars. The boost is basically not there, then it's ALL there. It's a beast. It's a beast, it's old, and we call it the FrankenPorsche. It's a fucking blast to drive, but it'll bite you in the ass if you're not careful.