2014: The Year Formula One Went Phallic!

When I was a kid, I loved auto racing.  IndyCar, NASCAR, Sprint Car, any of it.  I especially liked Formula One.  Why, I’m not entirely sure.  It was more than just a preference for open wheeled race cars, cause I had that in Indy.  I suppose it became my favorite because it was so exotic.   The races were held in faraway locales such Monaco, Brazil, and even Japan.  Also, the drivers were, with one exception, from outside the USA and spoke with strange accents.   Looking back, I guess it was my own desire for something different from my hum-drum little Southern town which fueled it.

That all changed as I got into my teenage years.  As I got older, I lost interest in a lot of things I’d previously been passionate about and found new hobbies.  That’s a natural part of growing up, I’d say.  Then Gillies Villeneuve, my favorite F1 driver, got killed during qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix.  That put a real damper on my enthusiasm for the sport.   A little while later, I attended a NASCAR race with my Dad and his buddies, which turned out to the last straw.  I was bored to tears watching cars go around in circles without the TV commentary to hold my attention.  I completely quit following any kind of racing after that.

That all changed this past Fall when the Ron Howard film Rush came out.  While I was too young to remember the events in the film, they took place only a couple of years before I fell in love with racing as a small child.  I remembered both James Hunt and Niki Lauda from when they were on the F1 circuit.  The movie captured perfectly the feel and the look of the Formula One racing of my childhood and got me curious about the sport again.

To say things had changed in the intervening 30+ years is an understatement!  Most of the teams I remembered were gone and the cars were radically different in look and sound from the late ’70’s/early ’80’s when I’d last watched.  And to say the technology behind the sport had changed exponentially would be an understatement.

I’d come in to the 2013 season with only a few races left. By that point, it wasn’t a matter of if three-time defending champ Sebastian Vettel would clinch a fourth title as much as when.  He did so soon afterward, going on to win 13 of sixteen races last year; including all of the final eight.  Oh, no, I thought: is it always going to be this one-sided?  Not to fear, I was told!  2014 was bringing a host of rules and regulation changes which would shake things up.

So now, the new year is upon us and the new regulations are in force.  They include changes to the type of engines used (V8’s are out, turbocharged V6’s are in), fuel flow restrictions, and new minimum weight requirements amongst a host of others.  The most noticeable change to the casual observer has been to the nose of car, with the maximum height being lowered from 550mm to 185mm.  This, along with other changes to reduce downforce, has led to some rather… interesting… nose designs.

For comparison, this is what an F1 car looked like in 2013:

Fernando Alsono driving the Ferrari F138 in the wet.

The front end was pretty much a straight plane which, depending on the car, reminded me of an ironing board or a surf board.  The front wings were generally attached below the nose to allow for maximum air under the chassis, and thus maximize downforce.  (I’ll probably be corrected on that by someone more fluent in the sport and it’s aerodynamics.)

To comply with the new regulations, yet still allow enough air to flow under the chassis to maximize downforce, F1 designers have come up with some… creative… designs.  Some would say, rather phallic one’s in fact.  Take the Toro Rosso STR9:

Yes, folks; that’s a giant blue penis on the front of the car!  Here’s a closer look:

Top Gear has already made the obvious joke: you wouldn’t want to be rear-ended by that!

But, you might say; I’m more into BBC.  Well, you’re in luck!  First, there’s the Force India VJM07:

Don’t they look proud?

As well as the Sauber C33:

And their lesser endowed cousin, the Marussia MR03:

At least the Marussia designers managed to camouflage it’s… appendage… within the livery.  At a distance, you don’t notice it’s manly qualities quite as much.  If fact, it’s one of the nicer looking cars in this coming year’s field:

Not all the cars look like they’re competing in a dick measuring contest, however.  The McLaren MP4-29 looks more like a Proboscis Monkey than a porno actor:

mclaren_monkey
Separated at birth?

Unless you view it from above, in which case it’s definitely flipping you off:

But, this isn’t a complete sausage party.  A few teams took a different tack.  None more so than Lotus did with their E22.  The only word I can use to describe it is “cameltoe”:

Particularly when viewed from the proper angle:

Reddit user ZoidbergTheHero made the obvious connection.  I’m sorry, too.

Ferrari also took a different take on the new regs.  It’s mostly drawn comparisons to an anteater:

Ferrari was always my favorite F1 team and, to me at least, they’ve always had the best looking cars.  But not this year.  That thing is just ugly!  Even their lead driver thinks so.

Mercedes took a similar approach with it’s W05, but it’s a bit nicer looking than the Ferrari to me anyway:

At least it doesn’t already look like it’s had it’s nosed pushed in during a front end collision.

And I don’t even want to discuss the monstrosity that is the Caterham CT05:

The less said the better.

But I can’t knock on the entire field. You have to give credit where credit is due and two constructors did manage to come up with a decent looking car and still comply with the new regulations.  One is the Williams FW36:

That’s a slick design, if ask me!  Unfortunately, it won’t be that nice blue color when the season gets underway.  Williams didn’t manage to secure a major sponsor, Martini, until it was almost time to unveil the car.  If it looks anything like the fan made liveries produced online, it should still be a great looking ride.  Although, it might be added to the BBC list before all is said and done.

The best of the lot, IMHO, is the car that will be driven by Mr. Vettel in his fourth title defense, the Red Bull RB10:

Their nose design is the only one of it’s type that would be permissible in polite society. Also, they took a tip from Marussia and camouflaged it’s John Thomas in the livery. Unfortunately for Red Bull, however; the Renault engine that powers this beauty has had a LOT of issues.  Vettel and his teammate only turned in 21 laps over several days of testing a few weeks ago.  Twenty-one laps COMBINED.  Eek!

As for how these cars will perform, it’s anyone’s guess.  Hopefully better than they look.  We’ll just keep our fingers crossed that 2015’s designs are patterned after the Red Bull and not the Caterham.  I’m planning to blog semi-regularly about Formula One this coming season.  Hopefully that will go better than my attempt to do the same thing with baseball did last year.

Follow up on new pistol

Rando here. Resident gun enthusiast of the MLC Taskforce. This may seem strange based on my last post, but I’m in a mood to type, so here we go.

I had mentioned that I wanted to get a .45 calibre pistol. I had shot a rental Glock 21 at the gun range. I put 50 rounds through on one day along with 50 rounds of .40 S&W (Springfield XDM rental) and at least 50 rounds of 9mm (my own gun). Two days later, I shot another 50 rounds of .45 with the Glock 21. I can’t remember if I shot any more .40 or 9mm on the second day, but I probably did. I ended up with nerve damage that sent numbness up my right arm from my wrist to my elbow as well as extremely sharp needle-like tingling pain in my hand and fingers. This lasted for at least 3 months. Not fun!

So I did a bit of research and had fallen in lust with the CZ 97BD. But you’ll find a unicorn before you find one of those specific models. So I continued to look. I wanted to stay under $800 if possible and I wanted at least a 10 round magazine for that price. I also wanted to stay under the 9.6 foot-lbs of recoil energy that the Glock 21 produces (info from  Genitron).

So I wanted a good capacity for the price that would not destroy my body. I looked at lower recoil options and most of them are using the 1911 frame and were limited to 7 to 8 round magazines. Para makes one that holds a double-stack 14 round magazine. I was able to find one and hold it. In my hands, it felt like I was holding a brick. It was very uncomfortable. Considering that with the complicated take-down procedure and I really did not want that one.

I also looked at the Stoeger Cougar 8045. It has only an 8 round magazine, but the price point is far lower than the $1000+ of the 1911 models. But I wanted to hold the weapon and get a feel for its trigger, etc. I could only find it chambered for .40 S&W. So that one’s out.

I also looked at the Springfield XDM .45 (4.5″ barrel), but the recoil energy was at the upper range of what I wanted. But I hadn’t been able to find any other alternatives at the time. I was resigning myself to that weapon– especially after I found a local dealer that had one. Then something unexpected happened.

I visited another local dealer and talked things over with them. They showed me the FNH model FNX 45 pistol. They had one in the case and I was able to hold it. It felt no bigger than the Glock; check. It was a high-capacity .45 calibre pistol with 15 round magazines (2 more than the Glock); check. I looked it up at Genitron. It had 7.63 ft-lbs of recoil energy which is 2 ft-lbs less than the Glock; check. It’s price point was around $800 (much less than the Para model I was looking at); check. So after looking at the weapon again at yet another local dealer, I decided to take advantage of a distributor sale and I bought one.

I’ve taken it out for a spin putting 100 rounds through it along with around 50 .40 S&W and around 30 9mm. While I did have some stress in my arm and some definite fatigue, I was not in any pain. That’s a big win for me!

So now I’m going to work on building up my arm strength a bit and find a holster. I’m going to see if a Blackhawk Serpa Concealment holster for a Sig P220 will fit the FNX 45.

Here’s a picture of the pistol:

Rando!

Once More into the Fray…

Hello there loyal readers! It is Lefty here. I finally decided to shake the dust and crumbs off of my keyboard and finally contribute to the millions of unsolicited opinions out here in internet land. It has been quite a while since I have put anything out here. My partners in crime, Pancho and Rando, however have been keeping you entertained and well-informed I see! I feel since it has been so long since I have written, I need to reintroduce myself and give everyone an idea what my posts and ramblings are all about. Like Pancho and Rando, I muse from time to time about the state of our pop culture. I look at the good, the bad and the ugly and make note of what I think of it all and what we need to do to either cultivate it or kill it with fire. I am a child from a different time. No I do not understand the fascination with Justin Bieber or Lady Ga-Ga. Just typing “Lady Ga-Ga” made me cringe just a little. Maybe I am old fogey or maybe I am someone with a little common sense who can detect crap when he smells it. You will have to be the judge on that. I am too set in my ways to change now. I also take the occasional walk down the rocky path of news and politics. I don’t consider myself a liberal or a conservative, simply because those labels conjure horrible visions that are so extreme for either side. I am more along the line of common sense and let’s try not to fuck things up too much. You will see as we snuggle together in the wooly blanket that is my opinion, that my opinion is like that wooly blanket: it can keep you warm and cozy, but it will also make you itch like a S.O.B. I hope this have given everyone a sense of what is to come. Keep an eye out and there will be more posts soon!

Take care
Lefty