Rams Eye The Track Guy

At its first ever visit to Sebring International Raceway for the World Endurance Championship (WEC) 1000 Miles of Sebring, Toyota Gazoo Racing (GR) set a new lap record on Test Day #1. Mike Conway in the #7 TS050 Hybrid LM P1 car had a best lap time of 1:41.211. Like Brabham's BT62 Bathurst lap record a few weeks ago , the lap time is unofficial because it wasn't set during a competitive session, but it is a verified clocked time. But this is a test session for the WEC 1000 Miles of Sebring so this is likely in race spec unlike the Brabham's BT62 lap time that was set during demonstration laps. Porsche's LM P1 car, the 919 Hybrid, famously obliterated the Nurburgring lap record last summer in 2018 with a lap time of 5:19.55. Before the test, Mike Conway said: "Going into Sebring my expectations are high. We would like to keep up the good run of form we have had in #7, which means continuing to score well and win more races. Sebring is going to be a challengin

I appreciate the entire spectrum of car motorsports; the state-of-the-art and sophisticated F1 side and the horsepower crazed, high speed 200 mph madness of NASCAR, along with everything else in between. But nothing - absolutely nothing - gets me more excited in motorsports than a race car that's closely tied to a production, road-going version. And that's why I LOVE a lot of factory turn-key race cars like the 911 GT2 RS Clubsport. The 911 (991.2) GT2 RS Clubsport was built to meet SRO Motorsport Group's new GT2 racing series. SRO is a company specializing in the promotion and organisation of motorsport series. They mainly focus on GT racing, with some of the series they promote include the Blancpain GT Series, GT4 European Series, and others. It recently acquired the GT2 trademark and announced last year the new GT2 series. The class is intended to offer a new opportunity to amateur racing (assuming you have a lot of funds) and feature ‘true supercars’ with horsepowe

The local chapter of the BMW Club of America - BMW Club Atlantic - arranges one or two Advanced Driver Training weekends every year (HPDE's). That's where I started high performance driving nearly 8 years ago and where I made great friendships so I always look forward to it. I was just getting ready for the driver's meeting at the last event when one of the event's organizers came to me and said: "We have someone who needs an instructor. Can you take on a second driver?" (I was already assigned another 'student'; a guy with a 525 hp Saleen Mustang. You can read my track review for that one here ). I said: "Sure," so they assigned me this new student and I looked for their car on the driver/instructor assignment sheet. It was a 2015 Golf. I assumed it was a GTI because that's the first one that comes to mind when you hear of a Golf on track. But I looked at it, and it was very clearly not a GTI. I thought it must be a 1.8 TSI, the

Wife (R32) vs husband (Mk1 Golf) playing a bit of tag at Atlantic Motorsport Park in Shubie, NS. Both cars are turbocharged, both built by them for them to enjoy on a track. Oh, and the R32 shoots flames on the overrun. Every. Single. Time. This is the best couples bonding activity I've ever seen. Follow Ram's Eye The Track Guy on Facebook and Instagram! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mike R (@ramseyethetrackguy) on Oct 18, 2018 at 5:03pm PDT

The dominance of the Williams FW14B is undeniable, even if the tech may be called into question. It took Nigel Mansell to his first (and only) F1 world title in 1992, the first time a British had won it since 1976. It qualified on a pole position 7 times out of its 13 races. And despite facing off against Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, it set the record of 9 Grand Prix wins in a single season. To this day, the car remains one of the most advanced F1 cars of all time due to rule changes in 1994 that banned a lot of the technology. It came with a semi automatic gearbox (which was just starting to take over), traction control, and active load-leveling hydraulic suspension. To allow all of this to work properly with the required fail-safes, Williams ended up having to come up with their own controller and their own programming. The hydraulic load leveling suspension was initially meant to be an all mechanical system so it was a complete transformation in controls. And in an ag

My 07 Rabbit at BAC Rallycross #2 2018-2019 (I was having A LOT more fun than I look...) - Kevin Doubleday © FWD cars don't win the WRC anymore and they haven't in decades. In fact, all two wheel drive (2WD) cars have been rendered entirely obsolete on the world stage by the original legendary Audi Quattro. That's because 4 driven wheels are obviously far better at putting power down than just 2 and when you are on a loose surface such as mud, gravel, or snow, traction is in SERIOUS short supply. Thankfully, I'm not on the world rally stage or competing for the world title, so I'm happy with my little FWD rallycross car (for now anyway...). I have already been to one event this season (which is my first rallycross season) in this car. You can read more about it here where I nearly caught air going over one of the bumps . Last time was on gravel, though. This time, it was a snow covered course and what I didn't know was that snow wasn't covering gravel