drag racing
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An electric dragster has passed 200MPH for the first time
Electric drag racing has a new record.
The yellow flag is out for the motorsport.com app
If you are an auto racing enthusiast, regardless of what form of racing you follow, the motorsport.com app is one you should check out. The free universal app requires iOS 7.0 or later and is a winner is some areas but comes up short of the finish line in others. This app is a one stop location for news, photos, and videos of Formula 1, NASCAR, Indy Car, endurance racing, drag racing, dirt track events, motorcycles, and dozens of other racing series here in the United States and around the world. The app opens with the latest news from all of the various racing series. You can then slide the title bar to the left to choose specific series including all the ones named above. The web site employs its own staff and all the stories I read came from members of the staff likely using a variety of services and their own sources for the information. Some of the categories were up to date with new stories but in others I found no new stories posted for more than six weeks. Drag racing for example had a story from November 26th but the next story was dated back in July, then one in June and then the next story was posted way back in January. So it appears some racing series are covered more thoroughly than others. One area I did find appealing is the selection of photos available. You will find more than one million photos posted in the app covering races and events going back to 1921. Users can utilize a search function to narrow the vast number of photos to a more workable amount. For example I did a search for the Michigan 500 and found more than three hundred photos. Another search for Al Unser Jr. found just under a thousand photos. Users can share the photos easily through the app with friends and followers via Facebook and Twitter. You can also upload your own photos to the web site and app if you have pictures from a race, an event featuring a driver, or just about anything else to do with racing. In the video section users will find a large number of available videos from all the racing series. The videos include stories about drivers, races, technical changes, and a variety of topics. You will also see interviews and news conferences plus highlights for specific drivers or races. I even found the complete two hour plus Indy Car race from Sonoma. There is no shortage of material here. For the most part the motorport.com app mirrors the web site. I did a check though and found more news stories on the web site. To be sure you are getting the latest information the web site is the best bet but for pictures and video the app works just fine. So for now we will wave the Caution flag on the app until they get the same news updated to the app that is on the web site.
Daily iPhone App: Drag Racer World roars out of the gate
Drag Racer World is an iPhone title that sits in a weird place: It's a racing game, but then again it's not. This one's all about drag racing, which isn't so much about steering and speed as much as it is just about hitting the next gear when you need to, and the exact specs of your car. In other words, this is more of a role-playing game than a racing game, where you level up a car rather than a sword-wielding hero. It's really fun, even if you're not a gearhead. As usual, XMG has created a colorful and well-designed game, and the mechanics are simple enough (you just start out shifting gears at the right time and hitting nitro when you need it) that it's very pick up and play. As you progress, however, things get more complex, letting you buy more cars, tweaking them until they're perfect with lots of different parts, and racing up through a career mode. The game is very much a freemium title, and that may turn some people off -- you need to buy everything in there with in-game currency, and if you're not patient, you may occasionally find yourself frustrated by a lack of credits. But there's plenty to earn between the standard campaign, the daily challenges, and even races against friends. Drag Racer World is a really well-done title that offers a nicely social, very addictive, and genuinely different take on what a racing game can be.
Dyson's engineers head off to the races, create dragsters using spare parts, DC-16 motors (video)
Dyson engineers certainly know a thing or two about creating innovative vacuums and fans Air Multipliers, but did you know they've also dabbled in the world of high-speed racing? Such is apparently now the case, as these folks were tasked with building go-kart drag racers out of spare parts, resulting in a variety of wheeled wonders viaing for the fastest run on a makeshift strip in the office. Of course, there was a catch -- all of the dragsters had to use the motor from Dyson's DC-16 handheld vacuum in a battle for maximum torque. We won't spoil the outcomes for you, so scroll down to catch a video mashup of all the hijinks in the video below.
Rice University nanodragster rolls on carbon buckeyball wheels, lives life .0005 inch at a time
Drag racing and nanotech seemingly go together like peanut butter and... very small rocks, but that hasn't stopped a team of researchers at Rice University from creating a microscopic car dubbed a "nanodragster." Its wheels are buckeyballs, the rear composed of 60 carbon atoms each, while its front wheels are made of p-carborane. This gives the car more grip at the back, meaning it'll pop wheelies just like a real dragster -- though only when running on a road paved with gold. Even then it doesn't go very fast, just .0005 inches per hour, meaning for those 1,327,000 days it takes to cover a quarter-mile its driver is free.
Power tool drag racing -- why didn't we think of this?
As much as we support the use of power tools in safe, supervised areas far away from us, we can't help but admire the crazies responsible for this year's Power Tool Drag Racing event. The basic idea is to take a hand-held power tool, mod it up a bit (or a lot), and let it race against other devices in its own class down a plywood track. Hilarity ensues, and the contestants have some pretty amazing entries this time around. MAKE is on the scene, and the event seems to be providing just as much mayhem and adult beverages as were implied. If you didn't make it down Sunday you'll just have to hope they make this an annual event, since it really is so totally punk rock.[Via MAKE]
