If you are like us at the Pansy Patrol, you will have a nice car (in my case my Miata), and a beater (in my case an old Honda CRX). The beater will of course become your dedicated winter car, for which you will of course get a set of dedicated snow tires. But that leaves the question of what tires to run on your other car in the winter.

I can definitely tell you what NOT to do. DO NOT use your dedicated summer tires. If you do, your experience will range from mediocre if it is cold and completely dry to a complete and utter disaster if there is ANY amount of snow or ice on the ground. I was going to drive my Miata last week while fixing the alternator on my CRX. That plan failed horribly. While I was able to extract my Miata from the snow on the side of my driveway, the half inch of snow still on my driveway rendered the Miata completely immobile. And I don’t just mean that I couldn’t get up the driveway. I mean that I literally could not make the car move AT ALL. Imagine you jacked up the driving wheels and then gave the car some gas. That is what it is like driving with summer tires in the snow. Actually, its probably even worse with the car not on jacks, for at least the car won’t slide backwards if there is an incline. Read the rest of this entry »

21 year old English driver Dale Lyle has beaten a speeding ticket by proving his car doesn’t go as fast as the Crown alleged on the ticket. Lyle was issued a ticket for 98 MPH taken by a speed camera. He was shocked to receive the ticket because he had sold his car, had a perfect driving record because he never drove that fast, and was pretty sure his car wouldn’t go that fast if he tried.

So he decided to collect empirical evidence of his innocence. He borrowed money to buy the car back from his friend, then gave it to an independent expert to verify its top speed. It was taken to Millbrook’s high speed banked oval, and the 1.3 liter engine took the car to a lightning top speed of 85 MPH. That is 13 MPH slower than the speed camera alleged, just for the record.

Presented with such evidence, the Crown had no option but to dismiss the charges.

This incident of course raises questions about the accuracy of the speed camera system as a whole, and on what recourse drivers have if they are charged with speeding. Unfortunately, most people probably just take the points and pay the fine, as it is not worth the hassle of fighting, much like traffic infractions in this country.

Much to my chagrin, my first attempt this year at ice racing this pasty Sunday turned out to be an absolutely epic fail. The NMIRA (New Meadows Ice Racing Association) up in Maine held a 3 hour endurance race. Chris and I decided to head up as that offers a LOT of seat time. Last year we raced with AMEC, and the few races held are where our footage comes from.

While I checked the forecast beforehand, and saw that they were predicting snow, I totally missed that they were predicting a BLIZZARD. There lies my first failure, and all subsequent failures of course relate directly back to this one. We decided to drive up that morning, so I got up at 5 am, dusted the few inches of snow off of my car, and headed up 93 to meet up with Chris. Conditions were pretty bad the whole way up, and despite a few near misses we eventually made it up to Maine.

Conditions on the lake were absolutely atrocious. It was cold, windy, and snowing very heavily. Additionally, the lighting was completely flat. This proved to be a far worse problem than you might imagine. It is the same phenomenon you get when you go skiing when it is snowing - the lighting is totally flat, and there is no contrast by which you might discern what the surface of the snow is like. In skiing, you go slow or hope you don’t hit something unfortunate. With ice racing, you tip toe around the course and hope you don’t inadvertently drive off of the track. Unlike with skiing, when you drive off of an ice racing track, the snow on the rest of the lake is generally too deep and you get stuck. Horribly stuck. Thus, you have a very major problem when you cannot see where the course ends and the snow begins. I found myself going VERY cautiously around the track for the few practice laps that I did. Read the rest of this entry »