Mad About Cars

Santa Pod Raceway – Home to the fastest and loudest motorsport on the earth!!

With its infamous quarter mile strip of European Drag Racing – its host to the national televised ‘FIA European Drag Racing Championships’, and here you’ll find all the action – from dragsters to demolition to beetles to bikes!!!

Over the year during the race season (January to November), Pod hosts over 50 events helping to draw in crowds of thousands from all over the UK and abroad…

Besides public track days, they have all kinds of events going on – such as Specialist events like ‘Performance Vauxhall’ and ‘Classic Ford’ Shows, Classic Car Collections, Modified car shows (The Fast Show and Ultimate Street Car) and ‘Run What Ya Brung’

As well as Japanese Performance Car Shows, VW Beetle & Camper Van festivals (Bug Jam and Big Bang) and most importantly! – The National Drag Races!!!

It’s an action packed 3-day monstrosity with all kinds of attractions besides the racing, from Fairground Rides, Music Tents, Cars for Sale, Fun Activities in the Sun, Racing Accessories, Food Stalls and the best bit – aeroplane engine powered Jet Cars!!!

The grounds are full of weekend campers and the weather is usually beautiful! So remember to get involved in the endless fun and stock up the suntan oil and that outdoor equipment!!!

Today im going to look over the art of Left-Foot Breaking!

A more commonly known action in motor racing, however very popular in a range of driving methods…

This technique allows drivers to operate a vehicle’s brake pedal using the left foot – as opposed to the right foot, which is usually naturally bound to the break and acceleration pedals.

The advantage of this method is ‘time saving’, as in racing, – every second counts!

By leaving the left foot free to operate the brakes and using the right foot only to accelerate, it allows the driver to gain fractions of time where it would usually be lost during the change from throttle to brake pedals. These are the minimal, but very beneficial effects when taking part in events utilising time trials and so on – like Sports Racing and Rallying, and technically, it is also possible to control the weight distribution of the vehicle when travelling, particularly cornering at high speeds through the left foot braking method, thus also saving seconds!!!…

NASCAR – one of the most professional and popular motorsports in the U.S with television ratings ranking it second place just behind the National Football League. In terms of money Nascar is also the second richest motorsport in the world, with only Formula One taking the lead.

Nascar is the largest body of stock cars across the united states, its three best races being the ‘Camping World Truck Series’, the ‘Nationwide Series’, and the ‘Sprint Cup’, and Nascar sanctions more than 1,500 events at over 100 tracks across 39 U.S states between Canada and Mexico.

With races drawing 75 million fans across 150 countries and spending in a region of $3 billion in annual sales these fans are considered the ‘brand-loyal’ of all sports.

Best of all is ‘Daytona Beach’ where the best and most extreme land-speed records are set in the world! Synonymous with fast cars, and 8 consecutive World Records between 1927 and 1935.

Lets go there!!!

Red Bull put a spanner in the works by battling two legends head to head on the infamous 800 metre ‘Mur de Grammont’ cycling track in Belgium this weekend.

Just a week before the Tour of Flanders cycle race is due to fly over, the occasion marks the first time that any vehicle, not to mention a ‘rally car’ has had the privilege of driving over the cobbles during race periods.

Yes that’s right, 5 times World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb went up against 10 time World Motor-cross Champion Stefan Everts – Citroen C4 against KTM MX.

Two test runs were done prior to the event but both times were kept a secret leading up to the big duel, where eventually time was on the bikers side but winning by only a ‘tenth’ of a second!!!

Wow, now that’s close! – but for Sebastien the forfeit was to clean Evert’s motor-cross bike after the competition had finished. What a great event idea! Thank God for Red Bull!!!

Sebastien said – “It was a fantastic experience.” Red Bull came up with a great idea when they suggested this duel, and I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to meet Stefan. He’s a truly magnificent champion, and his 10 world titles are an exceptional record of achievement. Of course I would have preferred to have won our duel, but it was a very close contest! I had the upper hand on certain parts of ‘The Wall’ but I lost time in other places. At the end, it was too close to call.”

And Stefan replied – “I hope I’m the only person to beat Sebastien this year – or at least I wish that for him! It was a real honour for me to meet him. I’ve got a deep respect and admiration for rally drivers. I just tried to ride very cleanly in order to gain the maximum time possible and win.”

The Ultima GTR is the fastest supercar available in the world today. It has smashed its own world record for the 0-100mph-0 sprint.
In just 9.8 seconds – this is the first ever sub-ten seconds 0-100mph-0 ever recorded in the world!

They use a standard, factory production Ultima GTR 377c.i 685bhp Chevrolet V8 engine, powered by American Speed, who are the original engine equipment suppliers to Ultima.

Prior to this, the Ultima has already set records for fastest 0-60mph in 2.7 seconds, 0-100mph in 5.8 seconds – and has stopped from a whopping 100mph to zero in 3.8 seconds!..
And these are already world record times!

A submission has been sent to the World Guinness book of Records!!! Now that’s fast!!!