The Slot Car Track to end all Slot Car Tracks

I saw this amazing setup via the New York Times, and had to share.  The attention to detail in this custom-made slot car track is phenominal, but what really sets this basement layout apart is the fact that its Michigan-based creator, James Harlan, designed the whole layout in 3D CAD, and had the track's undulating surfaces milled by CNC! He even mathematically defined realistic racing lines for the cars to follow.  I just love how he brought 21st Century technology to bear on what is really a mid-20th Century hobby that peaked in the late 1960's.  Check out Mr. Harlan's fascinating and richly-illustrated website here.

All images belong to James Harlan.   Hat tip to Matthew for the heads-up!

Book Review - Art of the Formula One Race Car

 “Art of the Formula 1 Race Car” is a glossy coffee table book covering the evolution of race car design over the last 60-odd years through studio photographs of a well-curated selection of Grand Prix cars.  At first blush I was expecting the type of superficial survey book that a well-meaning relative might get you for the holidays (you like cars, so I got you “Racing Cars Galore”!), but this new release from Motorbooks’ Quayside imprint is surprisingly satisfying, and serves up delight after delight. 

Photographer James Mann meticulously shot 18 of the most important postwar Grand Prix cars, placing each on a black backdrop, and the results are stunningly beautiful.  The cars really pop off the page, and what I really like is that each and every car presented is comprehensively photographed from multiple angles, and from above.  There are also lovely detail shots of the engines and cockpits, plus historic photographs of the cars as they were raced, which round out the story of each machine.  Mann’s studio lighting provides both drama and descriptive detail to the photos.  The suede and stitching on a steering wheel or the crazed and yellowed plastic of an old windscreen all come across so beautifully that you almost feel like you can reach into the image and touch them.  I really appreciated that each car is given equal attention.  Sometimes publishers have this annoying habit of putting tons of photos of the most famous cars in a book, and just one or two of the more obscure ones, but thankfully this book steers clear of that.The text is detailed and informative, and I think it will satisfy both a casual reader as well as the serious enthusiast, though diehard F1 buffs will probably not learn anything new here.  The real kicker is that in addition to the well-written text by automotive journalist Stuart Codling, there is a brief analysis of each car by Gordon Murray, who is most famous for having designed the McLaren F1 Supercar, but who also designed some of McLaren’s most world-beating racing cars as well. I like the Murray commentaries because they add a human touch to the book, as if he is looking over it with you and musing about what he finds interesting about each car.  His expert observations, though brief, are often illuminating.

The following cars are featured in the book:

Alfa Romeo 158, Maserati 250F, Mercedez-Benz W196 (streamliner body), Lancia D50, BRM P57, Brabham BT20, Lotus 49B, Lotus 72, Tyrell 003, Tyrell P34 (six wheeler), Ferrari 312T3, Williams FW07, McLaren MP4/4, Leyton House CG901, Jordan 191, Williams FW14, Ferrari F1-2000, and McLaren MP4-23.

  I might quibble with a few of the choices (Why the Ferrari 312T3 rather than the much more interesting T4?) but overall, they have compiled many of the most innovative and beautiful GP cars ever made into one compelling volume.  To me, the biggest omission was the lack of 1990s-era cars.  The Williams FW14 of 1992 gives way to the Ferrari of the year 2000, skipping 8 years of very interesting cars (A Benetton B194 would have been a nice addition, as would the Ferrari 412T1 of the same year).  Also, if I might indulge myself a little more, the controversial double-hulled Lotus 88 and the infamous Brabham “fan car” would have been great designs to include because each of them was highly innovative to the point of being banned for bending the rules too far. And they were both pretty neat looking to boot.

The book is very polished and refined from a layout point of view, and the printing quality is excellent. I think it would make an excellent gift even for the car nut who has a lot of very specific books, as I do, simply because the artistry of the images is so arresting and reminds you why you fell in love with racing cars to begin with. 

Retails for $45.00

208 Pages (300 color images and 25 B/W)

Available from Motorbooks and Amazon.

Catastrophic F1 Suspension failure at the Shanghai GP!

In my many years of watching both contemporary and historic F1 footage, I have never seen anything quite like this.  This past weekend was the Formula One race at Shanghai, and the following suspension failure happened spontaneously to Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Buemi just a few minutes into the practice session.  It looks almost as if C4 were detonated simultaneously on both sides of the car, as the front suspension explodes into a shower of razor sharp carbon fiber shrapnel around the driver.  Miraculously no one was injured, but the event was certainly scary, and could have turned into a tragedy without modern circuit safety barriers.  In the case of this type of failure, the wheels of an F1 car are supposed to remain tethered to the wreck, but in this case, the suspension parts to which the wheels were tethered simply disintegrated, leaving the wheels as potentially lethal projectiles.  As far as I have read, they still haven't precisely determined what happened, but clearly the fact that the car was under a major braking load at the end of a straight contributed a lot of energy to this failure.  I couldn't figure out how to embed the video, so please watch it here! It is a MUST SEE.

Have 2010's F1 Cars been beaten with an Ugly Stick?

I think I might be starting to show my age because as the F1 season is getting ramped up for 2010, all I can think of is how little interest I have in it, and how ugly and weird looking F1 cars have gotten.  F1 has gone through "ugly periods" before.  The cars of the mid seventies were particularly odd and ungainly.  Mechanically they were quite similar to those of the late 1960s, but with the radiators moved out to the sides, large wings and mammoth slicks applied, topped off with ridiculous high-hat airboxes attached to the still-exposed engines.  I enjoy these cars enormously, but beautiful they are not.  It wasn't until the ground effects cars came into vogue and the increased use of full-coverage fiberglass bodyshells came about that F1 cars became more flowing and graceful again.  The Lotus 79 is perhaps the epitome of this more graceful style of late 70s car.  By the time the Brabham BT50 came around in 1982, F1 cars had a new purity.  This was helped even more by the dawning of the turbo era, which eliminated the bulky airboxes of the 70s. 

The introduction of the carbon fiber monocoque as the 80s progressed allowed a new level of refinement and aerodynamic wizardry to improve the breed once more.  By the late 80s and early 90s (let's just call it the Senna era) some of the best looking F1 cars of the modern era were being designed and raced.  Turbos were out, and airboxes were back, but this time with graceful sweeping lines, sculpted directly into the engine cover.  In my opinion, the most elegant F1 car of the modern era was the Jordan 191, with which Michael Schumacher had his debut F1 race at Spa in 1991.  This car epitomized the super-sleek, clean look of the time. It is not a coincidence that the one F1 car in the MoMA collection is a 1990 Ferrari 641.  The car is just pure and purposeful from every angle.

Some might mark the beginning of the end as 1990, when Tyrrell debuted the first "high nose" on its F1 car.  Benetton became more associated with this design feature, which it appropriated and continuously refined from 1991 onward until all the rest of the teams eventually adopted it by 1996.  The last car in F1 to have a "low nose" was the 1995 Ferari 412T2.  It was quite a stunning car - probably the last F1 car that can honestly be called "beautiful"- and it was fittingly raced in the last year before an ascendant Michael Schumacher came over to Ferrari and changed the sport forever.  Although the "low nose" was now consigned to the history books, I think F1 cars for the most part continued to be very sleek, clean and purposeful even with the high noses, but not for long. 

To me, the biggest nail in the coffin was when the FIA decided that F1 cars should be longer, and that the wheels should no longer sit outside the front wing.  When you look at an early 90s F1 car, the big slicks frame a delicate, pencil point nose and front suspension.  Now, the front tires are hidden behind a massive "front loader blade" wing which of late has become covered in various aerodynamic appendages - some of which resembling a concorde jet wearing a false moustache - that do the car no aesthetic favors.  The rear wings on these cars are even worse.  Not only are they enormous, they have a separate section of airfoils that "leans" forward over the rear deck of the car, completely spoiling the proportions of the vehicle from the side view.  And now the engine covers, once sloping fluidly downwards behind the driver's head, now terminate in a vertical fin that continues all the way back to the aforementioned wing. The noses of the cars, once tapering pleasantly, now have all the appeal of a melted sex toy - especially this year's Mercedes (seen above). Side pods are concealed behind all manner of bizarre baffles and fins, it's a wonder the driver can see to his side.  But then again who needs to see to his side if there is no overtaking anyway?  In short, the new cars look like puke.  Only puke covered in loud, tacky graphics.  I am not that old yet, but I can already catch myself saying...Boy back when I was a kid, we had REAL racecars.  Like I said.  I think I might be starting to show my age...
See the full gallery of the cars mentioned above here.