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2021/08/23 Visiting Mclaren Technology Centre in Woking, UK

π 2021-08-23 01:01 in Ncars

Turns out, the Mclaren factory and design center is about 1H out of London and 30mn from Heathrow airport, so this time I had planned to stop there as soon as I landed. Putting aside that United managed to take off 3H late (mechanical issue and no spare plane), I got there 45m for my appointment (nice private tour while the place was mostly shut down during the august holidays which is also the time they use to retool the factory. As a result I didn't get to see the factory, but got a nice tour of their office and private collection of special cars. Thank you to Naveen from Mclaren SF for organizing the tour and Jeff for being my gracious host.

Due to a united plane failure, I arrived a bit late in LHR and 45mn late for my appointment (and do not take cabs from LHR, they are a complete scam, I did because I was late, but it was 80 pounds for a 30mn ride, uber was half that). They nicely waited for me and gave me a tour of the center:

nice welcome gift :)

Artura, the new electric hybrid, I'll take that over a prius :)

We then went through the history of Bruce Mclaren and the company's racing history:

aero was trial and error without wind tunnels back then

James Hunt's car

a nice trio of Mclaren F1s, production car, race car, and mule/test car that ended up racing too

gold for heat reflection

the very first production Mclaren P1

a full scale senna built out of legos, impressive

it weighs a lot more than the original :)

And after about 1h30, the visit was over, thanks a lot to Mclaren for hosting me for the visit:

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2021/08/18 My first time at Buttonwillow, driving the Fast Toys F488C

π 2021-08-18 01:01 in Ncars

Buttonwillow was my first time going to a track in Socal, it was a slightly longer flight than going to Thunderhill, but not a whole lot. I ended up flying to L62, which was the closest airport I could find, and was so unused that it was actually used for RC flying. I found out later that the track actually allows you to land on their drag strip, which saves the drive, good to know.

The sky was very smoky, made for some nice views and sunrise, but not great visibility:

Here's what the track looks like, including an extension that is being built:

Landing at L62 interesting, there was no traffic there, but RC planes

Patrick nicely gave me a ride to the track and we got there just before 9, when it opened:

not my ride

that was my ride :)

Took me a while to learn BW, and got below 2:00 equivalent as the configuration of the day was a bit longer than normal. I'm not sure if I truly love the track, but I took a few sessions to learn it and get better at it.

This was my best session (session #3), 2:07 in the long configuration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU1NbVbKblg

Session 4 was all nice and good until a control arm broke, then the day was over. Apparently it was stress fatigue:

By then the day was over and I flew home:

new google building, fancy looking

I'm not sure if I really love buttonwillow, but it was an interesting track to try nonetheless. Maybe I'll go back one day.

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2021/08/13 A bit of car week in Salinas and Carmel by the Sea

π 2021-08-13 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

Joon was nice enough to hook me up and I signed up for the Mclaren AutoX in Salinas. It had been almost 15 years since I last autocrossed, and never autocrossed any of my more recent fast cars. So I started by going to Salinas Airport, that was fun: