New Motorcycle World Speed Record, 367.382 mph 253
An anonymous reader, apparently a member of the BUB racing team, wrote to let us know that on Thursday, their crew set the new ultimate motorcycle world speed record at 367.382 mph with the BUB Seven Streamliner at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The Seven is powered by a 3 Liter, turbocharged, 16-valve V4 engine that produces a claimed 500 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque at 8500 rpm. The pilot, Chris Carr, hit 380 mph during the run.
Re:And this is on slashdot why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:not a record (Score:3, Interesting)
To quote the Oxford English Dictionary, which isn't always definitive but I think in this case captures the common meaning well enough, a motorcycle is:
The vehicle linked does not at all "resemble a bicycle", at least as commonly defined (enclosed two-wheel vehicles are not usually considered "bicycles").
Re:not a record (Score:5, Interesting)
I found this part particularly inspiring:
"The shape of 'Seven' is based on that of a Coho Salmon. While watching TV Denis noticed the fluid dynamics of the salmon through water. Knowing that water is more dense than air- Denis figured the shape would work very well at Bonneville. Wind Tunnel testing of Seven at the A2WT proved 'Seven' to have the lowest CoD of any streamliner- 0.09. "
There's nothing more beautiful than taking the best designs from nature and applying them to our own.
Re:And this is on slashdot why? (Score:5, Interesting)
This all boils down to how you define geek.
I'm an automotive mechanic. My friends and family would also consider me to be a big geek. I fix their computers (yes yes, cars too), I build my own (computers, I haven't built a car from scratch... yet!). I love gadgets and hacking stuff together, and I have an abnormal interest in technology related politics (my girlfriend calls me paranoid). So to the general public, i'm a geek.
Among the Slashdot crowd, I don't have quite the same geek credentials. I don't use any flavour of Linux (besides the occasional liveCD like Backtrack) because my PC is a gaming rig first and foremost. I'm not a sys admin or a programmer. The last thing I "programmed" was fifteen years ago and written in BASIC. I don't run a website, and the extent of my HTML knowledge is frames and tables. I hate math and I don't get off on exciting new prime numbers or subatomic particles. Oh, and i've only played D&D like, twice. It was fun but time consuming. Am I still a geek?
My personal opinion is that geek has moved far beyond the 1980's definition of pocket protectors, glasses, and a calculator. Geeks come in all flavours now, from classical computing and math geeks all the way into sports and automotive geeks. The microprocessor really has changed the way we see the modern world, in virtually every way. A geek is now anyone who shares both a passion for a subject and the thirst for related knowledge, no matter what that subject may be.
The geek shall inherit the Earth. :)
interesting stuff is in links from the second link (Score:5, Interesting)
IMO the first linked article was not very interesting. To get to the interesting stuff, you have to go to the second linked article, then click through to the links from there. The pictures of how they fabricated the engine block are really cool. I was surprised there wasn't more info about the tires. My understanding was that tires were the main limiting factor in land speed records -- or maybe that's only for cars. Tires tend to fly apart when rotated that fast. I would assume that at these speeds they get incredible gyroscopic stability, so I guess you don't have to worry about tipping over. They have to run the course in both directions without messing with the engine, which apparently is quite a challenge. I wasn't clear on what's involved in turning around to come back. The bike has both brakes and parachutes. Does the driver actually brake and do a steered u-turn at low speed, or do they use parachutes, then pick the thing back up and turn it around by hand?
Re:And this is on slashdot why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, spec series are about the driver's skill, which is pretty much what sports are about - the skill of the players.
However, it's much more fun to go out, get a cheap Miata, or if FWD is more your thing, a cheap Civic or Golf or something, and autocross it, than to sit around watching a spec series, IMO. Then, it's about honing your own skill, not watching others. (But, you can learn techniques from watching how they handle situations, so watching them can still be educational.)
Of course, the American Le Mans Series is ridiculously fun as a spectator series. Multiple classes of cars of varying power outputs, weights, visibility, handling, and (often) driver experience all out on the track at once, and the drivers and cars are surprisingly accessible. Oh, and it's about as far from a spec series as it gets - you can easily have a big heavy (ok, 900 kg/1980 lb, but still) V12 diesel car and a light (825 kg/1820 lb) 4-cylinder turbocharged gas car fighting for the lead of the entire race, the whole way, meanwhile weaving their way through traffic caused by big slow production-based cars.
Re:And this is on slashdot why? (Score:2, Interesting)
IMO, what you're describing isn't a geek. It's a man - you know, in the traditional sense. Fifty, 60 years ago, it was commonplace for men to fix their own things, and to make new things. It was also expected. Back before that, a man who did not was known as being useless - because there was precious little "general handyman" workers back then, as there are now. It's only been recently that people have gotten away from fixing things themselves.
I think a "geek" is typically seen as not someone who's in the know where others aren't; s/he is the person who is seen as "smarter" than everyone else in one or more domains: not only a competent tradesman but also a statesman of ideas, and someone who can figure things out due to their natural curiosity. A Renaissance Man, if you will. Pocket protectors or no, they often suffer similar social stigmas, though obviously there is going to be a varying degree of social competence. Due to social stratification in the past 30 years, there are certain segments of society which more readily accept (and embrace) the "geek", but there are still a lot of people out there who despise them.
The Drag Coefficient is 0.08 (Score:5, Interesting)
A drag coefficient of 0.08 is amazingly awesome. For example, it's equal third place in the wikipedia concept car drag coefficient list (first is 0.07). And the frontal area is next to nothing, so the CD*A figure is going to be excellent too. Put a 100cc engine in it with appropriately tall gearing and it would most likely get better than 0.5 litres per 100km. Consider that the PAC-II has a Cd of 0.075 and gets 0.017l/100km equivalent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient [wikipedia.org]