Diary
Nearly 4 years into the Diary, FrontPage reports it would take 14442 seconds (we just checked and it's over 4 hours) to load this page over a 28.8 kilobaud modem. Fortunately, broadband was invented and so we'll keep going.
What we're trying to do on this page is give an impression that Angerole, Inc has some depth, experience and substance. Depending on your mindset when you read this, you might form an idea of where we stand on some of the issues of the day. You may not agree with us on everything but we do hope you'll think we're capable of civilised discussion.
If you like what you see here, or even if you don't, please feel free to write to us with comments, observations and suggestions.
3/28/2010
Angerole, Inc is at Buttonwillow Raceway, just off I5 in California's central valley. We were here to run Chris Rado's front wheel drive Scion tC in a Redline Time Attack event.
We had a lot to do with this car's conception and original layout and it rewarded us with a win and a track record at every event in 2009. With a bit of Angerole engineering over the winter, it's continuing its winning ways: first in class at Fontana 2 weeks ago and again this weekend with a best lap 3.1 seconds under driver Chris Rado's own lap record.
Please remember that Angerole, Inc engineering is available for your race program. And we don't think this result was anything to do with the full moon!
3/27/2010
Angerole, Inc is in Truckstopville, California. Actually, we made that up: we're in Buttonwillow which was once a little high desert town which has been saved from fading away completely by Interstate 5. The town now clusters around the highway exit and it's kind of cool to see some Americana in a place like this: here's the TA sign next to a palm tree in the morning light.
We joined the wide awake club at Buttonwillow Raceway dragging around some long shadows
3/14/2010
With our first Time Attack win on 2010 in the bag at Fontana, Angerole, Inc has time of a bit of fun at the Planes of Fame museum in Chino, California.
We last came here about 6 years ago when we could get a minute away from a Daytona Prototype race. It's a pleasure to wander around some cavernous hangars and see what's there. It seems the museum has acquired an interest in air racing and there was lots of cool stuff to see, like this replica of the Granville brothers' Gee-Bee Model D. Talk about built to go!
This replica Caudron caught our eye
And so did this cool Schneider Trophy poster. 1931 was the year Britain won the trophy outright with the Supermarine S6B. The actual aircraft can still be seen in London's Science Museum and, an interesting factoid, spectators heading home from the race caused Britain's first ever traffic jam. It's neat to see a little homage paid to Reginald Mitchell and Rolls-Royce (who famously reunited a few years later with the Spitfire) about 5000 miles from Hamble.
Chino is a living museum and it's cool to wander around and see some pretty serious stuff opened up and being worked on. Here's the engine of a B25
And please forgive us for these art shots of a P51 and a P38
Growl!
2/21/2010
A day off! On a perfect clear day Angerole, Inc eased ourselves out of the ice covering much of the eastern US and headed for KFFA, First Flight Airport, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Here's the view as we let down over Albermarle Sound. We're going to the farthest spit of land above and to the right of the compass.
Airnav says that KFFA averages 104 operations a day. You never would have known from the ramp: despite the great day, we had it to ourselves.
We'd spotted from the weather patterns a couple of days ahead that this was likely to be a nice day and it turned out to be a day full of reward for getting our act together enough to actually do something.
The Wright Memorial is on the top of what was once a large and shifting sand dune. Apparently, it's now about 400 feet from where it was in the Wright's time and had to be stabilised with some kind of vine-like grass to build anything that would last on top.
The actual memorial is built to resemble a pylon racing tower (think Reno) and busts of Orville Wright
and Wilbur Wright
stand guard.
Down a ways across the park is the spot where the Wrights set up their launcher on December 17th 1903 and their historic flights were made. There's also a series of markers showing the landing point for each flight and it's astonishing to see the progress they made that single day
2/13/2010
At last! Angerole, Inc gets to go somewhere we want to go in the new Corporate Baron. Here's the obligatory engine photo. The lines are some artifact of the shutter and the left propeller. It's kind of cool to look down on all that clag and feel we've got a little more margin than we used to have in the Bonanza.
2/9/2010
With the weather still clamped down, we decided to go commercial today from Indy to the Edison2 workshops in Lynchburg, VA and let US Air worry about the ice.
It's interesting to watch when and how often the professionals pop the boots on the DH9.
2/2/2010
Friend and former partner in crime at Audi Sport North America, Emanuele Pirro visits the Edison2 (see www.edison2.com) shop in Lynchburg, Virginia. Here he is trying the car for size and talking to team owner Oliver Kuttner
We are very pleased to announce that EP will be driving for Edison2 in the Progressive Automotive Automotive X-Prize competition.
1/24/2010
Angerole, Inc puts on our flared trousers and heads for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
For reasons unfathomable to anyone from Memphis, this is on the shore of Lake Erie in Cleveland. On this grey and windy day, we were glad to get inside and have a look at some really cool stuff. There's a copyright restriction on most of the actual exhibits so no photographs but it's relaxed for the stuff in the lobby. Here's the actual ZZ Top Eliminator Ford coupe.
1/23/2010
Cleveland, Ohio for a function in what used to be the main railway station.
This was built around the beginning of the 20th century and it's impressive to see the optimism and confidence in the future that had to exist at the time for people to build something this nice. Fortunately, this beautiful building survived decades of neglect and has been returned into a place you really want to be.
1/12/2010
Something very dear to our heart, Edison2's Very Light Car made its public debut at the North American Auto Show in Detroit. Angerole, Inc is very proud of our part in designing building this car.
We're pleased to have made the BBC's website
Angerole, Inc has been very busy indeed on the Very Light Car project and we wish we could write more about it here. One day soon, we will.
11/20/2009
Back home again in Indiana / And it seems that I can see / The gleaming candlelight, still shining bright / Through the sycamores for me
It's a good thing you can't hear Angerole, Inc actually singing the unofficial Indiana state song but here's the reason for the high spirits:
We had a spot of luck on the way back in to Eagle Creek in the Corporate Bonanza. Indy Approach were not busy and cleared us for a visual approach about 12 miles out. We interpreted that as, "take a little detour and enjoy the view of downtown" and so we did as we blew by at about 1200 feet AGL on this clear midwestern night.
11/15/2009
Angerole, Inc is at California Speedway, Fontana.
This impressive 1.5 mile oval is built on the site of a former Kaiser Steel plant in what was once desert but is now very definitely part of Metro LA. We were here at the request of Chris Rado's World Motorsports Time Attack team.
It's never good to get cocky but, as we have come to expect, our client's car set a new Unlimited Front Wheel Drive lap record on the way to a dominant win, the team's 7th in 7 races. What's more, this was achieved under the gaze of some visiting Scion managers. We hope this means that next year's car will get the funding to go ahead. Here's Chris being interviewed after the race next to the car's now iconic front wing.
11/6/2009
Angerole, Inc is in Miami, Florida. We like travelling, especially in the Corporate Bonanza, but sometimes we'd like it if they invented transporter beams. Anyway, we were here to review progress and make some decisions about the X-Car's bodywork at Edison2's composites facility. The snap below shows how the door's going to be.
11/4/2009
Friend and associate Barnaby Wainfan drives over to Las Vegas from his home in Long Beach for a meeting. Longtime Diary readers will remember Barnaby's vortex generators on his Grand Am. Today he sported some new ones and reported a 13% fuel saving over the stock car.
We are very pleased that Barnaby is a key member of Edison2's engineering group - he's leading the aero design of their X-Prize contender. Here he is with a 25% model.
11/3/2009
Welcome to Las Vegas, Nevada.
For a lot of reasons to do with the Edison2 X-Car program, Angerole, Inc has flown West for a few days. One of those reasons is the public unveiling of our car, seen here on the SEMA Show Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize stand.
Obviously, it's not finished and we have some big hills still to climb. But one of the things we learned at the Technical Summit (that was arranged to coincide with the SEMA Show) is that we're in much better shape than most of our competitors. We already have cars driving and we have the first body - this one - out of the mould. Pretty soon we'll be mating finished bodies with driving frames and we will be able to verify our fuel mileage and performance calculations. After we do, watch out!
In the meantime we took the chance to sow a bit of Fear, Doubt and Confusion amongst our competitors.
Actually, SEMA (it stands for Specialty Equipment Market Association) made a big deal this year of promoting its Green initiatives. Only 30 feet from the Edison2 car stood our client Corsa Motorsports' Ginetta Zytek, the unique gas/electric hybrid Angerole, Inc has race engineered this year in the American Le Mans Series.
And we had to agree with the Wall Street Journal:
Outside the main show hall, we were pleased to find one of our other projects on display - Chris Rado's World Racing Scion TC.
A modest sign in the window carried a neat message: 6 races, 6 wins, 6 track records.
The same quality of thought and expertise is available for your program from Angerole, inc and our associates.
10/18/2009
Olive Branch, Mississippi. It was a treat to land here a couple of days before and see a piece of history in the evening light as we tied down. It was the EAA's B-17, Aluminum Overcast.
The EAA pays for the Fortress by selling rides and today, we came back to watch the barnstorming. Aluminum Overcast draws a crowd and there were lots of people taking rides and some interesting stuff turned up to join the fun. Here's an art shot of one bank's exhausts on the Commemorative Air Force's Sea Fury.
And this bloke turned up in his T33
10/11/2009
Monterey, California. After the pandemonium of a race weekend it's nice to have a few hours to relax and take in the scenery. Angerole, Inc took a little drive along the coast and stopped to admire how the seals relax.
A little further round the coast, we found Point Pinos Lighthouse.
10/8/2009
Laguna Seca for the last ALMS race of the season. This year the Grand Marshall was Jim Hall of Chaparral fame. When Angerole, Inc's people were kids, we thought Chaparrals were about the coolest race cars ever. A lot of people at Laguna seemed to agree: this one had a crowd around it all weekend long.
It's difficult to imagine a car with more visual style
8/10/2009
Angerole, Inc steers the corporate Bonanza through a bit of weather on the way to Virginia to continue work on the Edison2 X-Prize program. These white and fluffies were a lot meaner than they looked.
8/9/2009
World Racing's Chris Rado sets a track record on his way to another Unlimited Front Wheel Drive win in Time Attack. Here's a clip we liked from World's website:
Angerole, Inc couldn't be there this weekend but we expect to be at the next event, in Englishtown, New Jersey in three weeks and will try to post a decent photo report.
8/8/2009
Mid Ohio ALMS and Angerole is here to race engineer the #48 Corsa Motorsports Ginetta-Zytek hybrid.
This is presently a team where everyone multi-tasks. Here's team owner Steve Pruitt moonlighting as decal man.
It's good to be reunited with driver Stefan Johansson.
Stefan and co-driver Johnny Mowlem brought the car home 6th overall and 4th in class for the team's second successive finish. It's early days here but we have high hopes for the future.
8/1/2009
Angerole, Inc flies through an hour of IMC to Oshkosh for the annual pilgrimage to the EAA Convention.
It's a busman's holiday for us but it's a lot of fun to meet up with old friends and make new. We're pleased to say that Nathan Davis' beautiful checker tail P51 sports one of our Model 241 040 instrument panel mounts.
There's always something to see at Oshkosh: this year we were taken with the C5. It's difficult to imagine how big this thing is.
There was a large Canadian contingent this year, and one of their warbird groups flew down in this pristine Mk16 Spitfire.
It's hard to take photos of the actual airshow and this is the least bad of our many attempts to get a nice shot.
There's a lot to see when you wander the flightline. Our personal favourite was this Grumman Goose amphibian.
After the ooze going up, it was a real treat to fly VFR down the western shore of Lake Michigan on the way home to Indy. We were treated to this spectacular view of downtown Chicago.
7/29/2009
Angerole, Inc tunes up our guitar and heads to Nashville Superspeedway for Round 4 of the Redline Time Attack series.
It was worth the trip: our client Chris Rado won Unlimited Front Wheel Drive again, this time beating the best of the rear wheel drive cars by over 5.3 seconds. Even more significantly, he was closer than ever to the fastest all wheel drive time and an overall win, the real target, beckons.
Please remember that Angerole, Inc engineering and friend and associate Barnaby Wainfan's aerodynamic expertise are available for your race program.
7/18/2009
Angerole, Inc is back in the racing harness at Lime Rock Park, the beautiful New England circuit. We're here to run Corsa Motorsports' Ginetta Zytec P1 car in the ALMS. It's always nice to be back at the racetrack but there are extra two points of significance for us this weekend.
Firstly, we have a long history with the Italian-sounding Ginetta and it's a pleasure to be reunited with them.
Secondly, and importantly for the future of the planet and motor racing, this is the first race for a Prototype running a gas/electric hybrid drive. Corsa's program dovetails nicely with our work on Edison2's Automotive X-Prize entry and we are pleased indeed to be involved with this interesting work.
Even though this weekend was extremely busy, it's best to take a moment to smell the roses and notice what's around us. New England is a place of changeable weather and micro climates and Lime Rock is a place of the hardy breed known as race fans. It's fun to see when the two come together.
Corsa is a young team and we at Angerole, Inc are proud to be part of their first Podium finish. Here's Stefan Johansson on the way to 3rd overall.
7/5/2009
Angerole, Inc heads to Franklin Flying Field, about 30 minutes south of Indianapolis, to check on progress on the corporate Bonanza's repaint. We're pleased with progress and look forwards to getting it back in the air in the near future.
Franklin is something of a barnstorming field and we were treated to this low-level beat-up, er runway inspection, by a visiting Yak.
6/21/2009
Autobahn Country Club, Joliet, Illinois. Angerole, Inc client Chris Rado in his World Motorsports wins again in his Scion tC.
Chris not only won Unlimited Front Wheel Drive (by 3.346 seconds), in his front wheel drive Scion he was fast enough to also beat the fastest Unlimited Rear Wheel Drive car by 1.665 seconds and, had he been entered, would have been third in Unlimited All Wheel Drive.
Ok, we're not shy about this any more: Angerole, Inc race car engineering is available for your race program. Hire us or get left in the dust.
5/31/2009
If you're going to race, win and if you're going to win, dominate. Angerole, Inc's client, Chris Rado of World Motorsports not only won his first race of 2009 but did so 5.1 seconds under the Willow Springs lap record.
Chris Rado drives a factory-backed Scion tC in the Redline Time Attack series. His team, World Motorsports approached Angerole, Inc for some ideas to help get 900hp to the ground through the front wheels. We provided advice and recommendations for suspension design and settings and brought in friend and associate Barnaby Wainfan for expert guidance on how best to exploit the series' very liberal aerodynamic rules.
In the pictures above and below, you can see the result of our collective advice: a dramatic looking car with out-of-the-box speed. Driver feedback: neutral handling with no understeer or oversteer. Watch out for this car as it gets developed.
5/9/2009
Pole Day at Indy and, up the street from The Speedway, Angerole stumbles on a Dodge show at a local dealer.
We were kind of taken with this Charger and its 440 Six-Pack engine. The great virtue of the air filter housing sticking up through the hood is that you can see the engine move on its mounts as you get on and off the throttle. Cool!
On this day a couple of weeks after the Chrysler corporation declared bankruptcy, we couldn't help wondering what went wrong. There was a time quite recently when Angerole, Inc was involved with a Chrysler race program - we contributed to their winning their first road racing championship for over 20 years - and at the time the company seemed on the verge of regaining some of the swagger it had when this beautiful Charger was built. Now, what they had has slipped through their fingers again and it's a shame.
But, maybe it will come back. Anyone who can think of sliding a 426 Hemi into a small coupe with some in-your-face stripes
and calling it a (Barra)cuda has obviously got what it takes.
4/14/2009
Rumours of our death are greatly exaggerated. Actually, Angerole, Inc has been supremely busy doing something we can't yet talk about directly consulting for the Edison2 Automotive X-Prize team. Check out www.progressiveautoxprize.org for a lot more information about this important and timely competition.
Fortunately, we have remembered to take the camera on our travels and what follows is a short montage of what we've seen the last four months. Honestly, we've lost track of when some of these snaps were taken so it's a pot-pourri in no particular date order. Now we're a little bit caught up, we'll try to put some fresh stuff up here more often.
A quick blast through the Virginia countryside in a roadgoing Ford GT is a nice way to blow out the cobwebs on a sunny spring day.
Winter in Indiana leads to some problems when you're trying to go somewhere. Even we're not dumb enough to try to fly the corporate Bonanza in weather like this so we let US Air take the strain. We were kind of grateful we didn't have the de-icing bloke's job.
We were heading for Lynchburg, Virginia to build what, for us, is our natural environment: meaning a clean, warm and dry workshop. Our home for duration of our new project is in what until recently was an abandoned jeans factory. Lynchburg for a time about a century ago had the second highest income per capita in North America and it shows when even the factories had beautiful wooden floors. We're very pleased that our client, the Edison2 team takes renewal and preservation seriously and went to the trouble of sanding ours free of decades of grime and neglect
And then varnishing it
It's amazing how the warm and friendly floor lifts the spirits. A workshop takes on a personality and we're pleased that there's happiness, joking and banter in our new home.
After what seemed like an endless winter, it's nice to go outside and see the cherry trees in blossom.
12/8/2008
OK, we've calmed down now about Audi's North American programs going away, enough to remember what a privilege it's been to have the opportunity to work on some of the most fabulous racing cars the world has ever seen.
Along the way, we've enjoyed the company and considerable talents of drivers Christijan Albers, Frank Biela, Dindo Capello, Mattias Ekstrom, Marcel Fassler, Lucas Luhr, Allan McNish, Emanuele Pirro, Alexandre Premat, Mike Rockenfeller and Marco Werner and the very best racing team we've ever seen: Audi Sport North America. These last three seasons have been a real honour and a pleasure. Fare well, Audi.
As we write, the world is facing very uncertain times and businesses larger, longer established and more famous than us are in trouble. We're pleased to say that Angerole, Inc is in good shape and, next week, we're turning a page and starting a new project and a new direction. Stay tuned .
12/5/2008
Audi pulls the plug. Here's a clip from the official press release:
So, after 3 wonderfully successful seasons with Audi Sport North America, Angerole, Inc's plans for world domination come to a screeching halt. It's a money decision by Audi, driven by the state of the corporate world.
We would like to take this opportunity to say that Angerole, Inc's own financial house is kept in very good order. Maybe we could transform the management of countries and large corporations with revolutionary ideas like, don't spend it until you got it. Yeah, that's it - corporate titans, remember your ABC's: Angerole Business Concepts.
Actually, Angerole, Inc has been quietly working in a very interesting new project which we'll start to describe on these pages soon. It will be fun and absorbing and in step with the times.
11/28/2008
The day after Thanksgiving and Angerole, Inc's travels take us and the corporate Bonanza to Okmulgee, Oklahoma. (Don't ask why!) This huge airport is an X-Files kind of place, surrounded by impressive silence. Here's a Grumman Albatross amphibian we stumbled across on the ramp. We would guess the rotting fabric on the rudder indicates it's a little while since this substantial bird last flew.
Maybe this is because it's lost: more than 1000 miles from the sea is a strange place for a flying boat.
11/14/2008
Prototype number 2 for the Bonanza 696 mount. We found the arm that links the two ends could do with some more stiffness. It's easy to turn up the blank at a larger diameter but a bit more involved to modify the bending fixture. Here's the fixture baseplate on the CNC mill.
11/13/2008
Eagle Creek airport, home base for the corporate Bonanza and Angerole, Inc are here to test fly our new mount designed for Garmin's latest 696 portable. We've had superb service from our 396 portable for the last few years and this new piece from Garmin really looks like a winner - it has faster updates, a big screen and built in approach plates.
The snap above is an approximately pilot's eye view of the mounted 696. Note that it doesn't block the view of anything significant on the panel. OK, you have to peer around it a little to see the gyro slaving readout under the right fuel gauge but that's a small price to pay for that nice big screen.
Putting the GPS to the right of the yoke is the natural place for the pilot who can operate it with his free hand if he's flying. Additionally, as you can see above the view from the right seat - it's easy for the co-pilot's to help with navigation.
We hope the pictures here give some clue of how this new mount we're working on will fit.
Today's first flight went well and we have a short list of improvements we'd like to make before releasing this mount. We'll try to keep updated progress reports here in the Diary.
11/8/2008
Angerole, Inc is at the Technical Museum in Sinsheim. This was a day kind of like visiting the Air & Space Museum in Washington: one day is not nearly enough to take it all in.
Actually, we didn't make the trip to central Germany just to take in this extremely interesting museum but visiting it did make a wonderful way to spend the day before Audi Sport's end of season banquet in Neckarsulm.
The Technical Museum is spread out over a number of very large galleries and it's kind of eclectic. For example, it's a bit of a surprise to find a large and well preserved collection of 1950's American chrome barges like this Chrysler Imperial.
Another gallery contains the racing car collection and we had a wonderful surprise when we came across the ADA 02 show car hung on a wall.
Some of Angerole, Inc 's personnel started their racing career at ADA Engineering, a tiny English team based in Brentford, west London. This was a perfect apprenticeship in race car engineering and we count ourselves fortunate to have had the opportunity. After successes including a Group C2 class win at Le Mans in 1986 with a Gebhardt JC843, ADA (it stands for Anglo Dutch American) Engineering designed and built its own car, the ADA 02. The basic monocoque was laid out by ex-Fittipaldi designer Richard Divila and, when he was snapped up by Ligier, some young Angerole, Inc people took over, completing the rest of the car's design, including all the suspension. We went on to design all the car's development chassis and aero pieces over the next three seasons. It was a real treat to be reunited with this piece of our history.
We left the race car section to spend some time with the motorcycles. As teenagers, we really lusted after one of these: a Benelli 750 Sei. Check out the 6 pipes.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, almost next door was this 2 litre single NSU based special.
You climb up a spiral staircase out of the main gallery to what's on the roof: a Concorde and a Tupolev TU144, the only place in the world where you can find both supersonic passenger jets together.
You can climb up into each jet and have a look inside as far as a glass screen protecting the cockpit. Here's Concorde's flight deck.
10/22/2008
Angerole, Inc has a look at rocket power. Actually, today was a very interesting day as guests of XCOR Aerospace in Mojave, California.
We'd love to show you what was behind this door on an otherwise anonymous hangar but, if we did, we'd have to kill you. Instead, we'll try to describe the journey because it's kind of evocative. Mojave is a place we used to read about when we were kids, it's way "out there" a couple of hours north east of LA. Here's a clip from the LA Sectional - Mojave is in the top left corner and the very famous Edwards Air Force Base is in the lower right, only about 15 miles away.
It's cool on the ride up from LA to see street signs like this:
Really cool stuff goes on at Mojave: it's the home of Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites, the company that built the Voyager non-stop-around-the-world plane and Spaceship One, the first private spacecraft. The city of Mojave is very proud of what gets built there.
In the natural way of things, some of the people who have been sucked to this place over the years have moved on from Scaled and gone their own way. So it is some interesting businesses inhabit Mojave airport. XCOR is one of them and we are very pleased to have had this chance to see what they're doing.
10/18/2008
Pirro's last race in an Audi R10. Actually, EP has a lot of possibilities and choices in front of him, hence the careful wording. It's likely he'll be back one way or another.
In the race, we had a very good run: Christijan Albers started this 4-hour race and EP finished. Our pit strategy was such that at the last stop under yellow we needed less fuel and therefore got out quicker than everyone else into the lead.
EP had it in the bag until making a very rare mistake on a restart allowing Marco Werner in the other Audi past into the lead. Still, an Audi 1-2 is not a bad way to finish the season. Audi have their 2009 Le Mans entries and we're very proud of our part in this extremely successful season.
10/16/2008
Today was a watershed for Angerole, Inc because it was announced that Laguna Seca would be friend, colleague and fabulously successful driver Emanuele Pirro's last race in an Audi prototype. Although the natural thing to have done would be to look backwards to the past, we took our cue (as we have often done) from how EP handled himself like the consummate professional. Here he is showing the car to a party of Scouts.
Later, we rode around the track to introduce it to our new co-driver driver for the weekend: Christijan Albers. Christijan (that's spelt right) had never driven in North America apart from the US Grand Prix in Indianapolis, where he scored his best ever Formula One finish. Here's Christijan scoping out the track on the way up to Turn 5.
10/15/2008
Setup day in Laguna Seca for the last ALMS race of the year. Before heading off to the track to put up the tent and get the cars out, we have a minute to take this snap of the moon and the city of Monterey across the bay.
10/4/2008
OK, we've been scolded by a lot of our regular readers about how far behind we are with the diary. We promise there is a good reason - we've been REALLY busy.
One of the things we've been up to is going racing and, today, it all finally came good for us when "our" car, the #1 Audi R10T won the 11th Petit Le Mans outright. Here's a clip from the American Le Mans Series website.
All's well that ends well, obviously, but this was a pretty big hill to climb after Allan McNish crashed the car very heavily on the way to the grid. With less than an hour to go before the race starts, you really don't want to see your car coming back in looking like this:
Audi Sport North America is made of stern stuff: the boys went to work and we got the #1 into the race only 2 laps down. Angerole, Inc race engineering expertise got the car back onto the lead lap before half way and, later in the day, our setup really came into its own as the sun went down and the day cooled off. McNish took the lead with 30 laps to go and held off the factory Peugeot and the #2 Audi to take a superb win, one that looked completely implausible only 9 hours before.
Here's a picture we liked of our car leading the Peugeot into Road Atlanta's turn 6.
We've said it before but today it bears repeating: Angerole, Inc is a commercial organisation and our expertise is available for your race program.
8/23/2008
We're proud of what we were involved with today. Here's a view of Dindo Capello lined up at pit out in "our" car, the #1 Audi R10T just before qualifying. The significance of the picture is that just a few minutes later, Dindo set not only the fastest ever lap at Mosport but the fastest ever American Le Mans Series lap on the way to pole position.
Dindo covered the 2.459 mile Mosport track in 1:04.094 for an average speed of 138.116 mph. To put this in perspective, the last time Formula 1 came here was in 1977 and Mario Andretti's pole time then in his Lotus 78 was 1:11.385. Another interesting factoid: they're going to have to reprint the lap time / lap speed table in the programme: it doesn't go up that fast.
8/18/2008
Indianapolis to Bowmanville, Ontario. Ah, Canada, home of strong ale and racetracks for real men. Today, Angerole, Inc flew the corporate Bonanza northeast across Indiana and Ohio, across Lake Erie and into Ontario. Here's the north shore of Lake Erie as we flew over this hazy summer morning.
Angerole, Inc has Canpass exemption from Canadian Customs inspection (evidently we're in the computer as good guys) and this really makes life easy; we were able to bypass the airports of entry and go direct to Oshawa Municipal where we met the team for the ride to Mosport.
If you scroll down the Diary far enough, you'll find that we waxed lyrical about Mosport when we went last year. The place is a timewarp and it's reassuring to find that nothing much has changed since we were last here. Here's an example: there's a tumbledown house at the junction of the main road and the lane which goes to the track and in the garden lies this bus.
Angerole, Inc first went to Mosport in 1992 and at the time this bus looked like if you spent a weekend working on it you could actually drive it someplace. In the years since it's sunk steadily lower into the ground. This year, it's safe to say it's down to its axles: it's moved about an inch a year closer to the centre of the earth.
As a measure of how far "out there" Mosport is, cellphones barely work and you have to get inventive to get a signal. Here's Jerome Freeman trying some extra elevation to get some bars.
We're not sure whether the haze disappeared or whether it helped, but after we'd set up camp, we were treated to the most fabulous sunset. No filters or photoshop here.
8/1/2008
Our second full day in Mecca and, today we circled seven times. Truth to tell, you have to do this because there's just too much going on to take it all in on one tour. Here's friend and Angerole, Inc business associate Barnaby Wainfan giving a lecture on light aircraft drag reduction. Barnaby's day job involves plenty of wind tunnel time at Northrop Grumman on some very interesting programs and his very substantial aero expertise has been brought to bear on a number of Angerole projects.
Later we wandered off to the classic and vintage aircraft section and found this guy polishing the already mirror-finish propeller on his Waco biplane.
Yesterday, this Marine V22 Osprey tiltwing flew in and the magic of Oshkosh is such that today we could wander around inside it and stand and chat with the pilots.
This amazing aircraft can take off and land vertically like a helicopter and, by tilting its wing and engines, can transition to very fast horizontal flight. Really, it's the world's fastest helicopter. The pilots told us today that it can do 280 knots in level flight and each of its engines makes over 6000hp.
Later in the evening of this hot and sunny day we had a reminder that we're in Wisconsin when we say this pile of firewood outside the gas station. August 1st? It's nearly winter!
7/31/2008
Angerole, Inc's first full day at Oshkosh and there's lots to see. Here's the main entry gate and the Goodyear Blimp flying overhead.
There's lots of interesting stuff to see - we liked this absolutely pristine B25 rumbling out for a hop.
There was some business to do during the day but, towards the evening, we took the chance to wander down the flightline to the Ultralight field. This guy is pushing his plane backwards with one hand - these things are certainly light.
Later still the powered parachutes come out to play. Honestly, these aren't our bag but on this still summer evening, it was easy to see the appeal.
7/30/2008
Angerole, Inc makes the annual pilgrimage to Oshkosh for EAA AirVenture. Actually, today we kind of did and didn't make it and here's the story.
For one week a year, Oshkosh is literally the busiest airport in the world and it's estimated 10% of the US civil aircraft registry flies in. To get that many thousands participating aircraft down in a timely way takes a procedure and, for pilots flying in, the FAA publishes a 32 page NOTAM which explains, in detail, what to expect, what to do and how to do it.
IFR arrivals are strongly discouraged and in fact the NOTAM requires transponders be turned off within 30 miles of the airport. So, today we were approaching the start of the VFR arrival at Ripon, WI when we heard two things on the radio: general aviation parking was saturated (polite speak for full) and, there had been an "incident" and we were to either hold or divert. Faced with this double whammy, we diverted to Fond Du Lac and tied the corporate Bonanza down in the grass about a mile from the FBO at this overflow airport.
Fortunately, because Fond Du Lac is a designated reliever airport for EAA AirVenture, there's a bus to take us to our destination. But, if ever there was a case of, it's better to arrive than travel hopefully, Oshkosh is it.
The scale of what we found here is just stunning. Here's a small part of one of the aircraft parking areas.
Eventually we head back to our digs for the show and on the way stop at an Oshkosh tradition: Leon's Drive In Frozen Custard stand.
7/19/2008
Race day at Mid Ohio and a good day for Audi: 1st and 2nd overall. Here's a snippet from the ALMS website.
American Le Mans shared the billing with the newly resurgent IRL single seaters. The reward for motor racing's upper management stopping their infighting was obvious the whole weekend: they had a crowd there to watch. Mid Ohio was packed - this is a very small part of the grid walkabout.
At Mid Ohio, "our" car didn't quite have the outright speed we had last week at Lime Rock and we had to be content with second place. But in this company, that's not too shabby and the "boys" still had a spring in their step as they pushed the car back from parc ferme.
We were all glad to join the the team on the winning Audi team car in celebrating a wonderful day.
7/16/2008
Indianapolis to Mid Ohio for Round 7 of the American Le Mans Championship. After setting up camp, we have two things we need to do and here's the first: going to have a look at the track on the golf cart with the drivers. It's easy to imagine that Emanuele Pirro has some mischief in mind
And his fellow Italian Dindo Capello is also usually good for a bit of trouble.
The other thing we have to do is issue a setup, apply it and, only when we're done, put the car to bed for the night. Here's the bedroom: the top deck of the truck.
7/12/2008
Race day at Lime Rock and "our" #1 R10 took the race lead on lap 8 and pulled away in style. At this very short track (48 second laps are normal), we were far enough ahead to pit under green for fuel, driver change and new tyres and get back out still on the lead lap. When the other cars stopped, they would be miles behind us.
Sometimes, it's a temptation to think it's in the bag and, the instant you do, it all goes to hell. This time, Dindo Capello clipped a GT car while lapping it and our run was effectively over. Here's Dindo bringing the badly wounded car back into the pits.
The #1's crew worked a minor miracle to get the car back out in slightly over 40 minutes, enough for the car to score enough laps for an official finish and the Championship points that go with it.
Despite the problems, two things made this a proud day for Angerole, Inc. One was our car's speed: even after a lot of repair work in the paddock, it set a new outright lap record. This is a clip from the race results sheet:
And Lime Rock marked the debut and first finish for the next of our Ford GT's to hit the track. Here is Anthony Lazzaro leading an Aston Martin.
7/11/2008
With Frank Biela away on other duties for Audi in Europe, this weekend Rinaldo "Dindo" Capello joins Emanuele Pirro in the #1 R10T. Here's Dindo waiting to go out for Practice
7/9/2008
At last an opportunity to go and have a look at the newly reconfigured and completely resurfaced track. Lime Rock was built 50 years ago and a combination of plenty of harsh New England winters and ground pounding race cars had beaten the original surface within an inch of its life.
It's kind of funny to walk around the circuit - each team naturally groups together and following these little clumps of people around the track reminds us of cars on the racing line.
Track building is apparently like race car building - it all gets done at the last minute. We got to have a look at some of the final touches. Some of them are still wet and someone can't resist the temptation to leave their mark on the new curbing at a turn.
7/8/2008
Setup day at Lime Rock. Under perfect clear blue skies, this was a pleasure. Jockeying the rigs into place in Lime Rock's tight paddock takes a bit of skill from Champion Racing's drivers but Dane, Ricky and Kenny are up to the task.
We can see why the place is called Lime Rock Park. It's a beautiful place and on a perfect summer day it's great to be alive.
7/7/2008
Indianapolis to Lime Rock. Traditionally, the Connecticut circuit has its big race weekends on Memorial Day and the July 4th weekend. This year, the summer race is a week later than normal and Angerole, Inc heads off to New England in the corporate Bonanza the Monday after the holiday weekend. We made the trip between a squall line and a cold front so there were a lot of convective build-ups to dodge.
Everyone on the frequency was doing about the same thing and ATC was very gracious in granting permission to deviate as necessary for a smooth ride. Deteriorating weather meant we missed at Great Barrington and deviated 20 or so miles north to Albany, NY.
7/5/2008
Grissom Air Museum, Peru, Indiana.
For a number of reasons we had driven to Culver and on the way back down US 31 took the opportunity to stop and visit the Grissom Air Museum. This modest and interesting place is funded entirely by donations and occupies a plot of land right next to the approach end of Runway 23 at Grissom Air Reserve Base.
Grissom ARB (named after one of Indiana's favourite sons, the Mercury astronaut "Gus" Grissom) was for many years an active Strategic Air Command base. In its heyday, its tenants included one of our favourite aircraft, the supersonic Convair B58. The museum has on display one of the few remaining B58s - check it out: long needle nose, delta wing and four big engines.
6/29/2008
Culver Academy, Culver, Indiana.
As the stone in the main gate pillar above suggests, there was a time when Culver was an actual Military Academy. Now, 114 years after its founding, it's not quite so formal - after all, they must have relaxed to let Angerole's people show up - but there's still a definite order and regimen about the place.
What are now called Culver Academies occupy about 1500 acres of beautiful grounds on the shore of Lake Maxinkuckee, a deep natural freshwater lake in northern Indiana. Even a short walk turns up wonderful wooden Victorian mansions on the lake shore - it's a pretty area.
Angerole, Inc staff were here to teach an Advanced Aeronautics course at Culver's summer school. This was a new avenue for us and it was a lot of fun to work with some bright, enthusiastic and polite teenagers.
Culver has Naval and Army detachments as well as its Aviation section. The Naval Building is right on the lake shore and is built to look like the bridge of a ship.
And here's the view in the other direction. It's fun to hear the clicking of rigging on masts in the wind.
Angerole, Inc was a bit caught out when we had to admit we could not read the flags flying on the Naval Building's mast. With our eyes newly opened we realised that Culver is very strong on teaching its students enough basic military skills that they will never be embarrassed. So it's fun to see Cadets practicing on the summer lawns. Here are a group working on rifle drill. Any picture you take at Culver is framed with trees. It's a lovely place and we enjoyed our time here.
6/12/2008
Ohlins shaker rig, Hendersonville, NC, working with Robertson Racing and their Ford GT.
A little bit off the beaten track in the North Carolina mountains, the Swedish damper manufacturer Ohlins has made their North American home in a modest and inconspicuous unit in Hendersonville. This pretty market town is only about 20 miles from Asheville and the Vanderbilt monster mansion, Biltmore.
Angerole, Inc is here to follow up on the Ford GT's compliance rig testing. For the next couple of days we're going to be shaking the car on a very complicated and sophisticated rig.
The snap above shows the car in the test bay with each of its wheels on a computer controlled hydraulic platform. The platforms can be driven such that wheel travels can be generated which mirror those seen on an actual race track. Force sensors in the rig then compare actual wheel load with what would be expected for the position. The objective is to minimise the load anomaly, the difference between expectation and reality and we made a lot of scans of springs, damper valving and settings and anti roll bar settings to get there. On the way, we found to our pleasure how effective the adjustment methods we designed for the Ford GT are. Good engineering never goes out of style.
Adding to the difficulty, aerodynamic downforce needs to be taken into account. The rams in the picture above are mounted in a well underneath the car and pull it down to simulate aero loads while still allowing it to rise and fall over the "bumps". There are lots of rams, pipes, hoses, valves and wires but the data we need is generated much faster than we could find the same information on the track. It's an interesting time and we left with high hopes for the next race.
We found an unexpected bit of Americana on the Comfort Inn's room door:
It's kind of blurred because of the flash but the brass plaque says, "John Denver slept here, August 10, 1992".
6/9/2008
At Morse Measurements, Salisbury, NC.
Angerole, Inc are here to oversee testing of our little baby, the Ford GT on Morse's Kinematics & Compliance rig.
This very sophisticated machine applies motion and forces to the car in ways that accurately represent what it really sees on the track. Nothing is completely stiff so the car will deflect under load, the issue is where and by how much. The string encoders connected to the wheel hub resolve to 0.0004" so there's no guessing: if there's a problem, we'll know about it.
The good news is, we find no structural issues: the rig confirms we have a nice, strong, rigid and stable car. Please remember the same quality design expertise from Angerole, Inc is available for your next race car project.
5/24/2008
Angerole, Inc reduces our carbon footprint and rides the Subway into Washington DC. When you're used to London's Tube, it's a bit surprising to find every Washington station looks the same. It makes it harder to know where you are and the stations don't have their own personality. But, they photograph well.
We were on our way to the holy of holies, the Air and Space Museum. Of all museums you can ever go to, this one has the Actual Real Stuff. Here's Mike Melville's Spaceship One between Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis and Chuck Yeager's Mach 1 Bell X1 Glamorous Glennis. August company, all three.
Angerole, Inc personnel think the X15 rocket plane was about the coolest aircraft ever. Here's the first of three built, this one flew 81 missions, reached Mach 6.06 (over 4100 mph) and an altitude of 266500 ft.
Wandering around the galleries can easily swallow a whole day and gigabytes on the camera memory card. Here's an engine we liked, the Bentley Rotary from a 1917 Sopwith Camel.
5/23/2008
Angerole, Inc has the weekend off and we load up and head on out to Washington, DC. It's cool to call the Indy controller and ask for the clearance to India Alpha Delta, Washington Dulles. This is our third Class B airport, only 13 more to go. After a nice 2 1/2 hour flight, here's the view on final for 1C, at 11501 ft a new record runway for us. Yes, we made the first turn off - hard to miss it on a runway this long.
It's a lot of fun to taxi around amongst the heavy iron, here are two from Lufthansa and one from Air France.
Eventually after couple of miles taxi, we found Signature's ramp and took the hint to follow their truck to where they wanted us to park.
We'd come to DC to see the sights and first on the agenda was the Udvar-Hazy annex of the Air & Space museum. This new museum is attached to Dulles and it's just a short drive.
The Udvar-Hazy annex holds a lot of interesting aircraft they don't have room for at the Air & Space Museum on Washington's Mall. We found it an interesting place to be on a May afternoon. The Space Gallery houses Enterprise, the first Shuttle and the one that was used for all the gliding tests.
We had a soft spot for this pretty Monocoupe.
5/15/2008
Somewhere on I80. When you're based in the Midwest, it's fun to watch the mountains on the morning drive from Salt Lake City to the track in Tooele. And when you're originally from England, it's just amazing to learn about the distances out West. We liked this road sign
Actually, it's not completely empty for the 401 miles between Wendover and Reno. In between, there's Elko, population about 17000.
The drive to the track has lots of fun distractions. Check out the polished aluminium bodywork of this guy's Cobra. Tasty!
Although we didn't run the car today, there's plenty to do. Miller Motorsports Park is surrounded by mountains and Audi marketing took advantage of the scenery to take some promotional shots of "our" car, the #1 R10T.
The sun is setting as we leave the track. It's cool to watch the evening light show on the mountain faces .
5/14/2008
Angerole, Inc are on our way to Salt Lake City in the corporate Bonanza for Round 4 of the American Le Mans series. This trip West has become a yearly treat for us - it's fun but we have to work for it. Yesterday, we were in the soup for 4 hours of the 6.8 it took to reach Cheyenne, Wyoming from Indianapolis. Today, it was another 3.3 hours against the wind across southern Wyoming into Utah. On the way across the Rockies, we were treated to this view of a lenticular cloud. Better respect these babies.
4/19/2008
Audi 1st & 2nd. The first 1-2 for the team since St Petersburg in 2007. It's taken a mighty amount of work to get back on top and Angerole, Inc are very proud of our part in this team effort.
4/17/2008
Running begins at Long Beach and Audi are on the pace immediately. Here's Frank Biela leaving the hairpin in "our" #1 R10T.
Meanwhile, there's another vital line of work going on: at American Le Mans races, the very important position of flag girl has to filled. Her job is to hold the Stars & Stripes (since we're an American team) next to the car while it's on the grid and every race it falls to each car's mechanics to recruit the cutest girl they can find. Here's Mark Murray and Bobby Mouzayck interviewing a candidate for our car.
4/16/2008
There are circadian rhythms and there's the racing season: if it's mid April, we're on the west coast, in Long Beach. This southern California port town has a 34 year history of hosting a race and we were pleased to see this year the beginnings of a Walk of Fame. Here's the first plaque, honouring a very famous name, Dan Gurney.
Long Beach is a street race and, as we move in to the hotel, there's plenty of work going on building the bleachers and setting up the walls and fences that define the track.
Next to our paddock, Patron Tequila has taken over an apartment building that's being restored and hung this enormous banner. The banner was taken down the next day and here's the story: apparently, Patron had not obtained the correct permits for the banner and the city demanded they remove it. From Patron's point of view, this turned out to be a winner because the removal was covered extensively by the LA news media.
After setting up camp, we enjoyed meeting up with friend and associate Barnaby Wainfan. Barnaby is a very experienced aerodynamicist, presently working on some extremely interesting government projects. Like all good engineers, his mind is always working. Here are the vortex generators and tufts on the rear window of his Pontiac Grand Am as he studies and manipulates the airflow on his commute to work.
4/8/2008
Angerole, Inc takes a day out to go to Sun N Fun and do a bit of promotional work for our GPS mounts. Actually, after record rainfall in central Florida, we discovered this year it's more like Mud N Fun. We found out why it took such a long time to get in to the parking fields at Lakeland's Linder Regional as we came in the gate: there were some busy tractors pulling out cars that had sunk up to their axles. But, everybody was in a good mood and pretty soon we were at the show proper.
This was the first time we had been to Sun N Fun and we didn't really know what to expect. It turns out that while this is a very large event, it's very much #2 behind Oshkosh. Still, there's some really neat stuff to see and we could dream about buying the ultimate thrill ride in Crazy Horse.
Snooping around the flightline, we came across this restored T6 showing off her insides. "Better than new" doesn't even begin to apply to this work of art.
4/5/2008
Audi 1st & 24th. Unfortunately "our" car, the #1 R10T was the one in 24th due to wing damage after being hit from behind. But, the good news is, Audi won and our own car set fastest race lap.
It's the team that wins and our management show their pleasure by treating everyone to some champagne. Got to love that explosion of energy and foam.
Another bright spot was our other little baby, the Ford GT scoring its first finish, driven by David Murry and one of its owners, Andrea Robertson.
4/3/2008
After we've set up camp, the race organisers finally are able to close the city streets that make up most of this Monaco-like circuit and it's time to go and have a look. This weekend, the very experienced Frank "The Tank" Biela joins us in the #1 Audi R10T. Frank understands it's all about looking cool, even when you're driving the golf cart.
Frank's helmet is easy to spot (can you tell he's German?). He makes a good pair with the equally shy and modest Emanuele Pirro.
4/2/2008
Angerole, Inc cranks up the corporate Bonanza and heads 12° of latitude south to Albert Whitted for the St Petersburg Grand Prix. It's bumpy but sunny when we arrive in Tampa Bay about lunchtime.
This is the most convenient of all races for flying to. In the photo above, we're on final for runway 36. The diagonal runway at the far end of the airport is 06 / 24 and it's the racetrack's main straight. It's a lot of fun to be able to park the plane about 100ft from the paddock.
3/24/2008
Angerole, Inc heads off to Road Atlanta for some tyre testing. Normally spring would be sprung by late March but in these days of global warming, it's -10°C at 7000 and there's a hard frost on the ground of northern Kentucky as we cross the Ohio.
Further south the clouds thickened and came up to meet us as and we picked up a bit of ice. Fortunately the corporate Bonanza has TKS and we were never in trouble.
Eventually, we make it to the track and join the boys in setting up. After the practice run in Florida 3 weeks ago, this went quickly and smoothly.
Later in the evening we started up the car to be truly sure it was ready for the following morning.
It's a bit of a procedure to start an R10 from cold. The left hand pair of silver pipes carry hot air from a space heater to the intercoolers, the right pair carry the exhaust to a filtration unit. A diesel, the R10 is completely smoke free when running under load but presently it needs some special handling to stay clean when warming it up. This is evolving and eventually the motor engineers will be able to map it to stay clean all the time. Learning how to do this is one of the reasons Audi go racing.
It's a fact the American Le Mans is the only EPA approved racing series. What you see in the picture here is one of the reasons why.
Later, Emanuele Pirro shows up. Ever modest, his new helmet sports glow-in-the-dark paint.
And he stole an ejector seat handle for his radio plug.
Of course, it's good and dark by the time we're finished so here's the car about to be put to bed for the night.
And here it is on the way up on the lift gate.
3/8/2008
The Ford GT makes it onto the track at Sebring.
It's not ideal to make the car's debut in front of absolutely everyone in the racing world but sometimes it just has to happen that way. Fortunately the car is good out of the box and David and Andrea Robertson of the first customer, Robertson Racing are "ecstatic" with their new baby. We at Angerole, Inc are very pleased to have been part of this project.
3/5/2008
Angerole, Inc heads back to Ohio for the final build of Doran's Ford GT ALMS car. It always seems to be late in the day when we're going somewhere so we get to see lots of sunsets. This time it's over the left wing so you know we're heading north.
Things have come down to the wire for the Ford GT and it's a real thrash to get it and all its spares out the door for the trip to Sebring. Here's some of the bodywork, waiting to go into the paint booth.
The detail work on this car is just gorgeous. Here's the view looking in the driver's door. Check out the carbon dash, the billet floor-mounted pedals and the first of Angerole, Inc's new generation of self-exciting shift cut sensors.
At last the paint's done and the bodywork fitted for keeps in the nick of time for the car to be loaded. It looks absolutely stunning and something of which everyone involved can be proud.
It's never easy. Here's the brand new car about to head out into the snow to be loaded.
3/3/2008
If you've ever seen the MASH episode where they have to move the 4077th to the other side of the road, that's what it's like getting a race team packed and actually on the road. Champion Racing is a good enough organisation that this is explicitly recognised and the whole team does a dummy run from the shop down the street to the local Harley Davidson dealer's parking lot. There, the whole show is set up and we check the new tents fit properly and all the new equipment works as it should.
If you've ever wondered what a race team does over the winter, the pictures below maybe give some idea of the scale of work involved. Here are some new high and low stands. The low stands just fit under the car when it's up on air jacks, making it easy to safely take the wheels off for routine between-session work.
The high stands are for more serious work, for example a gearbox change. Both kinds have been made in-house by the team's fabricators: they're nickel plated to make them look nice and they fold up to fit inside a custom travel box.
Race teams rely on nitrogen bottles to pump up tyres and operate "air" tools, like the wheel guns. Nitrogen is readily available and is very safe because it's practically inert. The bottles are compact and heavy so they are commonly used as ballast to hold down the tent legs. The only vulnerable thing left is the regulators and Champion have made and painted new protective "cages" for every bottle.
Next, all the tools have been sorted out and organising inserts made for the team's Lista cabinets. Here is one car's pliers drawer. And all this is just the tip of the iceberg.
We also took the opportunity to do a bit of pitstop practice in full race gear on this year's Audi R10T. It's kind of fun to do this right next to I95.
3/2/2008
Angerole, Inc heads south in the corporate Bonanza for Champion's Spring Training. Here's the sun setting off our right wing over north Florida.
Given the general cold, wet ooze that had taken root over the Midwest for the last few weeks it was nice to have an opportunity to a) fly at all and b) head somewhere nice.
2/20/2008
Angerole, Inc is at Doran Racing working on the Ford GT. This evocative car is finally making headway, just in time actually seeing as there are only two more clear weeks until Sebring. On the plus side, it's really looking nice and something of which everybody involved can be proud.
The detail work on this car is fabulous. Here's the exhaust tips, brought together because it's a styling cue from the original GT40 and because the car will sound like it's turning some serious rpm. Note the Emco gearbox behind the exhaust and the 4-cam Ford heads against the firewall.
Here are the trumpets, echoing the really cool CanAm cars of the late 60's with unequal lengths. These are supposed to be functional and broaden the power band but who cares when they look this good?
Today marked a victory of sorts when the car made it down onto the ground. Here it is on the air lifts, halfway through the transition from chassis stands to workshop floor.
At last, she's on the ground and if she's half as fast as she looks, we'll win every race.
2/2/2008
Angerole, Inc heads to the oldest continuously occupied city in North America, Saint Augustine, FL. We came for the culture and history. Actually, we kind of really did, but it's also nice just to hang out on the Intracoastal, especially when it's really cold back in the Midwest. Here's the view on final for runway 31 at KSGJ. At 10 ft MSL, this is the second lowest airport at which we've landed.
Later, Angerole, Inc found this evocative road sign on the way to see the sea from Anastasia Island. We chose the path less travelled: A1A.
Looking back from the bridge, we could see the Castillo de San Marcos. This coquina fort was built by the Spanish in the late 1600's.
2/1/2008
Angerole, Inc flies in to Lakeland, FL and takes a minute to go to an aircraft museum.
As Lakeland's Sun'n'Fun airshow / meeting / trade show / fly-in has grown in stature and importance, there has been growth around the airport to meet it. The Florida Air Museum's front hangar traces the history of the experimental aircraft movement and it was a real pleasure to spend an hour in this gentle little place.
There was quite an extensive Howard Hughes exhibit and in something of a closing of the circle, we had the same trouble taking a photo of a model H4 Hercules as we did taking one of the real thing when we saw it in July 2006 in McMinnville, OR.
Florida Air Museum has an annex about a quarter of a mile away from the main hangar and this temperate February day we enjoyed the walk between them, past some ancient live oak trees dripping Spanish moss.
Inside the Annex, there's some cool stuff and the light makes it possible to have fun with the camera.
Here's the nose section of Fertile Myrtle, a B29 used at Edwards to launch the Douglas Skyrocket research aircraft. The silhouettes on the side are successful Skyrocket drops. Scott Crossfield was the first man to exceed Mach 2 after being dropped from this aircraft.
And a truly rare bird was seen: this Hawker Tempest. Cool!
1/28/2008
After the weekend's "break" getting 4 Audi R8's and a Bentley up to snuff, it was back to work with the front line cars for this week's official IMSA test. You know it's official when you can't just sign the waiver: you need an actual credential to get in.
Some of it went well (see below) and some of it needs some more work. We'll be back.
1/24/2008
Audi R8 Reunion, Sebring, FL. Not very many of these iconic race cars have escaped from the factory into private hands. Four that have were at Sebring this warm weekend for a special clinic aimed at making sure they're in the best shape they can be.
Below, Timo Hartmann of Audi Sport is inspecting one R8's engine internals with a bore scope.
Later, with all the fettling and rubbing done, it was time for a photo opportunity.
This was a cool event to have been at and Angerole, Inc is proud to have participated.
Motorsport is absolutely a function of the people involved and the social part of a racing weekend is central to what happens on the track. Especially when it's at one of the sport's legendary watering holes, Chicanes at the Inn on the Lakes.
1/21/2008
Drivers are a unique breed. Emanuele Pirro is working on his instrument rating back home in Italy and in between driving duties, he's in the Engineering tent practicing his approaches in Microsoft Flight Simulator.
1/20/2008
There must be something in this global warming you hear so much about: last year when we rolled the corporate Bonanza out of the hangar to head for Sebring, it was 0°F. This year is was 1°F. The reward for getting out of bed this bitter day was a 1300 ft/minute climb out of Eagle Creek at 140 KIAS and severe clear as we headed into the dawn.
Once the sun was up, we could see the OAT gauge start to climb as we headed south. Even over central Kentucky, it was still -5°F (-20°C) at 7000.
A little further south, we were able to see why, in Eastern Tennessee, the Appalachians earn the name Smoky Mountains.
Today's trip was for Audi testing and the strong high over the central plains gave us enough of a tail wind to make Sebring non-stop in 4:32 flying time, an average speed of about 173 knots or 199mph. Got to love a Bonanza.
Once at Sebring, it was straight down to work. Here's Marco Werner "rolling out" the car with some 150mph evening passes up and down the paddock.
12/22/2007
Since getting back from Florida, Angerole, Inc has been on site at Doran Racing's shop in Ohio. This is fun because the Ford GT is coming along nicely and parts and assemblies we've designed are coming together and being fitted.
We've taken advantage of the rules and moved some of the suspension pickups to gain the suspension geometry we wanted. What happens is, a GT car runs very low, much lower than the road car on which it is based. Coupled with the big racing wheels, if we used standard Ford geometry, the suspension would be in full bump before the car ever left the pits.
Faced with the same problem on their GT cars, Porsche and Ferrari simply do nothing and leave their customers to sort out the mess. Angerole, Inc and Doran Racing go to the trouble of doing it properly: we raise the pickups on the chassis and lower them on the uprights so that proper geometry is retained at the low racing ride height.
Here's one of the consequences: new mounting points have to be spot faced on an assembled chassis. The car's frame is too large to put on the machine so instead Angerole, Inc designed a fixture for it to be done (very carefully) by hand.
Later, we are able to trial fit the entire rear suspension.
It's nice when it goes together first time. Note another indication of the quality of this car: Ohlins TTX through-shaft dampers.
And nicer still when the wheel goes on. Another primary advantage of the Ford over other GT contenders is the way the rules allow it to run wider rear wheels.
Please remember that the same competent design and engineering expertise is available from Angerole, Inc for your project.
12/7/2007
Angerole, Inc takes time off from the PRI Show in Orlando to ride over to Cocoa Beach to watch a Space Shuttle launch. As it happened, some fuel sensor problem prevented the launch but sitting on the beach listening to the waves was balm for the soul. Here's a memory:
12/4/2007
Concord, NC to Peachtree Dekalb. The sun was setting even before we fired up the corporate Bonanza to head south and we took a moment to admire this Gulfstream G4 in the evening light.
Angerole, Inc would look really good riding around in a G4 so please buy our products and services!
OK, we're aware we have a limited range of original photo compositions but we still delight in watching sunsets from the air so here's another one, taken on our way south-west to Atlanta.
12/3/2007
At Roush Fenway Racing doing shaker rig testing on the Doran Daytona Prototype. This is an interesting place to be for a couple of days, doing the preparatory work on spring/damper/bump rubber combinations for Doran's assault on the 2008 Daytona 24 Hours. Here's the car on the rig.
Pease remember that Angerole, Inc is a commercial organisation and our experience at closing the loop between rig and track testing is available for your race program.
12/2/2007
Indianapolis to Concord, NC in the corporate Bonanza. Reasons why are in tomorrow's entry but for now the journey is the reason. It's fun to finally break away from the soup covering most of the midwest and watch the sun go down as we approached the Piedmont area.
11/29/2007
Angerole, Inc is at Doran Racing to check on progress on the Ford GT. It's coming along: here's the rear wishbones trial fitted on the chassis.
Work is also being done on the Doran / Dallara hybrid Daytona Prototype. This car has evolved very greatly from the original car we designed in 2002 but a lot of the design intent remains intact. Angerole, Inc is very proud of this car's long competitive history. Anyway, yet another rearrangement of the engine bay requires new exhaust headers. Making headers requires skilled hand work to get stuff to fit and to last. A really good bloke can also make them look nice. Here's the new set under construction.
11/23/2007
Thanksgiving in Memphis. Well, actually the day after thanksgiving and, according to Paul Simon "There's some part of me / Wants to see Graceland". So Angerole, Inc has a day off to visit the home of the King of Rock'n'Roll, Elvis Presley.
It's well known that the Presley fortune was in a sad state indeed when Elvis left the building but maybe a little less well known that Priscilla took up the reins and set about turning the estate, the memory and the music into something that could turn a profit. Here's an example of Americana we like from the souvenir shop that you naturally wander into while waiting for your bus across Elvis Presley Boulevard to the mansion: a 12" tall talking Elvis Action Figure.
We once saw a Bill Clinton one of these that said, "I did not have sex with that woman". OK, we made that up but never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Anyway, back to today's tale: after a while you get called outside to wait for the bus and we had our first sight of Graceland.
Because it's the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas decorations are up and the front lawn is dominated by a large nativity scene. The mansion itself is modestly set back amongst the trees. We liked the modesty aspect and the way Elvis kept the home's name when he bought it in 1957 from the family that built it. Eventually, your turn to ride across the street comes up and about 1 minute later the bus drops you at one of rock'n'roll's more famous front doors.
A home like this is normally a living thing and it becomes clear that during the 20 years Elvis lived here, Graceland was often redecorated. This all suddenly stopped one late summer day in 1977 and the home is caught in a kind of limbo, trapped in 1970's kitsch. Somehow, it survives with "grace" and good humour and the total effect is not bad.
Once you're through the home, there's a chance to see some really neat memorabilia. Here's the leather suit Elvis wore for the 1968 Comeback. Please forgive the darkness: you're not allowed to use flash.
Later still you have your chance to file past Elvis' grave.
It's interesting to look back on this scene as you head for the bus. Check out the lowered heads. The God of Rock'n'Roll lives on.
11/16/2007
It's been a little while since Angerole, Inc went to the museum at Indianapolis Motor Speedway so today we spent our 3 bucks on a very enjoyable couple of hours.
The cars on display rotate through an impressive stock kept safe by the Speedway so there's always something new to see. Today we tried to look at the cars with an aesthete's eyes and it's a pleasure to see the love and care that has been put into making race cars look nice. Here's the engine bay exit duct and exhaust of a Mercedes W196:
And here's the exhaust of an Offy-powered roadster:
Indy has a (presently dormant) tradition of fostering independent thinking amongst car designers and it's nice to have a look at what people have done before. We like the asymmetry of Jim Clark's 1963 2nd place Lotus:
And in a certain sign there's nothing really new under the sun, here's a diesel powered race car, about 6 decades before Audi got round to it:
11/5/2007
Angerole, Inc are at Doran Racing to continue work on what we can now reveal is a new GT car to ALMS rules based on the Ford GT. Please remember that Angerole, Inc is an independent engineering consulting firm with separate clients in Doran and Audi. In no way should Doran's GT car project be construed as having anything to do with Audi. We hope this is a clear statement.
The really good news is that actual commercial clients have recently placed deposits on the Ford GT cars which means we now have to really get on with it. Here's the first bodyshell with Angerole, Inc designed front suspension mounted.
We're continuing work on the rear suspension and go to see the first rear upper wishbone come off the machining centre.
We also had a chance to review progress on a project we were involved with a couple of years ago. The Sports 2000 in the picture is the Doran JE1 raced to a SCCA Runoffs gold medal by David "Big D" Doran. After this triumph, the car was bought and raced by Bill Braucksick and, over the years, it's performance had honestly faded. Bill called in Angerole, Inc to recommend a way forwards.
In the picture above, our recommendations are being applied: a new and structurally complete engine bay structure. This work will be completed in time for the 2008 season. Please remember that good advice and competent engineering from Angerole, Inc are available for your program.
11/2/2007
Angerole, Inc heads for a rendezvous in Atlanta in the corporate Bonanza and on the way had this sight for sore eyes over eastern Tennessee.
10/22/2007
Monterey to Indianapolis. With the pressure off for a day or so, Angerole, Inc enjoyed the drive north to San Francisco. There's plenty to like in California: here's some of the tall trees that line Highway 101.
Later, we had a real treat this clear evening as Frontier 108 climbed out: a wonderful view of San Francisco bay. In the foreground is the former Alameda Naval Air Station, the Bay Bridge is behind it, San Francisco itself on the middle left, Alcatraz near the right edge and the Golden Gate bridge is just visible in the background. Wow!
As we flew east over northern Nevada with the sun setting behind us it was fun to watch the light patterns on the scenery below.
And our altitude meant the wing stayed lit up while the ground darkened.
10/20/2007
Three days of understanding
Of moving with one another
Even the cops grooved with us
Do you believe me?
Yeah!
Down in Monterey
2007 marks 50 years since Laguna Seca was built and 40 years since Eric Burdon & The Animals played at the Monterey Pop Festival, along with The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix and The Grateful Dead. Some things have changed and some stay the same. One that stays the same is that it takes a team, understanding and moving with one another to climb back on top of the results sheets. More below.
Another thing that (thankfully) stays the same is the sea. When you're based in Indiana, it's cool to get up and have a look at the waves. This fine morning gave us a nice shot as the sun lit up the gentle surf.
After this little bit of calm, the pace picks up a lot but it's reassuring to find a corporation like Audi can find time for a bit of fun when Pirro the Bear rode shotgun to the grid with Mike Rockenfeller.
Pirro told us it was a bit draughty in the open cockpit of a 700hp race car so he climbed out and helped us on the pit stand during the race.
Pirro the Bear yelled encouragement to his drivers throughout the race: here's Mike Rockenfeller turning titanium skidplates into sparks in the Corkscrew.
And here's Marco Werner making a masterful comeback from broken bodywork and bent suspension after being rammed by another car.
This very exciting race finished after dark with the #1 Audi winning while Marco's sterling work brought the #2 home 3rd and on the lead lap, completing a 100% finishing record for 2007 by Audi Sport North America in ALMS races.
10/17/2007
Setup day at Laguna Seca. This starts off on the right foot with breakfast in the hotel restaurant overlooking Monterey Bay. It's nice to watch the sea otters playing while enjoying poached eggs and hash browns. There's a minute to enjoy the view of the ocean and then we all have to pile into the rental cars and head off to do some work.
Laguna Seca is built on a former Army base, Ford Ord, land now owned by Monterey County. A couple of years ago Mazda bought the title rights for the track and with a touch of class kept the original name.
Mazda's influence (and dollars) have been very good for this beautiful track, there's investment in quality buildings and infrastructure and, this year, a brand new track surface. All Mazda seem to ask in return is a little space to showcase some of their history. 2007 is the 40th anniversary of Mazda's first rotary engine production car, the Cosmo sportscar. Here's a nice example on display in the tent.
The cockpit is just as clean and stylish. Good design never goes out of fashion.
With Emanuele Pirro still out with concussion after his crash at Road Atlanta, Mike Rockenfeller was brought in for the weekend. Rocky has driven the R10 before and drives for Audi in the ultra-competitive DTM sedan series in Europe. He's young, fast and confident and we're pleased to have him. For Rocky to be able to drive at speed, we have to mould his seat. This is made out of special foam which the driver has to sit in while it sets. The whole job takes the better part of the day - here it is in process.
Later we head out to walk the track to check out the new surface and all the other changes. It's an interesting 2.38 mile walk when your driver for the weekend gives his impressions of the track and describes his thoughts on how he's going to drive it. To work well, the engineer / driver relationship takes vocabulary and imagination. Audi's drivers have it and it's a real privilege to work with them all. Here's Rocky at the top of the famous Corkscrew turn.
10/16/2007
Indianapolis to Laguna Seca. This is a long trip and, even though we had an early start, took the better part of the day. This was the view of the dawn from seat 11A on Frontier 615 as we climbed out of Indy.
We broke off from Highway 101 to go south from San Francisco to Monterey on California 1, the Pacific Coast Highway. It's a cool ride and, luckily, we're staying right on the ocean. Here's how we know we'd found the right exit.
If we get a sunset as nice as the sunrise, we'll post the picture tomorrow.
10/15/2007
Going back together day for the corporate Bonanza. Honestly, we were hoping this would be done earlier and because of the doubt we've booked a commercial ticket to go to California tomorrow. Anyway, it's nice to see our new overhauled propeller going back on. When the guys at Eagle Creek had finished bolting it up we were able to take the Christmas paper off: it looks great and it really runs smoothly.
10/12/2007
At Doran Racing in Lebanon, Ohio. Angerole, Inc travelled to Ohio for a sales meeting with two teams looking to move into the GT car we've been working on. The meetings went well and we have high hopes for a good number of cars on the track next year. We also had a chance to meet up with an old flame in the shop lobby:
This is one of a pair of Dallara SP1's that Doran Racing campaigned very successfully in 2002 - 3, including an outright win in the 2002 Daytona 24 Hours. Angerole, Inc provided race engineering services for this program. It was love at first sight when we saw this car, all those years ago, and it's great to see her looking this good today. Here are another couple of views of the power of curves.
10/8/2007
Atlanta to Indianapolis. With the corporate Bonanza down for a propeller overhaul, we made the trip home on Airtran 401.
Sometimes Angerole, Inc is very productive on airliners and sometimes we just look out of the window and watch the clouds go by. After the events of the last week, you can guess which way it went on the way home.
10/7/2007
Today we turned around the cars, meaning prepared them for Laguna Seca. After that, we broke camp and loaded up the trucks for their long trip across country to California.
And of course, the work goes on into the night. There's something universal about loading race cars: the only time it ever takes place in the daylight is when it's morning and you've been working on them all night.
10/6/2007
Well, after waking up full of optimism, this day turned out to be a big hill to climb.
The bad news began 2 days previously when Emanuele Pirro crashed very heavily in Turn 1 following a sudden tyre deflation. We'd repaired the car but Pirro had concussion. This is not a trivial injury but we were hoping for the best until the news came on race morning that Emanuele had not passed the medical tests and could not race. We've never seen a grown man look so heartbroken.
So what do you do when one of your drivers can't drive? Well, you have to get resourceful. Fortunately, Lucas Luhr was in the paddock. Lucas is an Audi contracted driver who, with Audi's permission, was this weekend taking a sabbatical from the DTM program race a Ferrari GT car. The GT team did the honourable thing and released Lucas to drive the R10T.
If you've been around a Prototype, you'll know that they don't actually have seats. Instead, an insert is moulded to exactly fit both the monocoque and the driver. Typically, you make one for the largest driver and then mould another one that fits inside the first to suit the smaller bloke. This work takes time and getting something that would work for both Marco and Lucas was only completed on the grid.
For a number of very good reasons, we had Lucas start the race. Starting drivers are nominated immediately after qualifying (we'd nominated Marco) so changing driver meant we started from the back of the grid. All that work to get the pole went up in smoke.
As a reminder of why he's a professional, Lucas took a couple of laps at the start of the race to play himself in and then started to move forwards. Here he is on lap 34, in the lead and ahead of Capello in the #1.
And here he is checking out
It was shortly after this photo was taken that the hill suddenly got steeper. With 36 cars from 4 different classes on a 2.5 mile track, the fast cars are overtaking someone every other corner. While it's part of sportscar racing and always will be, over the course of a race distance this gives thousands of opportunities for something to go wrong. And go wrong they did for us when Marco Werner, who had taken over the car in our second stop, tangled with a Corvette while passing it and we had our second trip into the barrier of the weekend.
The time lost for repairs put the #2 completely out of contention but we soldiered round to a finish and a bit of reflected glory when the sister #1 car won the race outright. This is important: after a long summer drought, Audi Sport North America has not only climbed back on top but this win brings with it an entry to Le Mans next summer.
10/5/2007
A Good Day. "Our" car, the #2 Audi R10T is on pole position for tomorrow's Petit Le Mans. Here's a screen we lifted from the American Le Mans website.
Marco Werner not only drove the fastest ever officially timed lap at Road Atlanta, he was 0.460 seconds faster than the other Audi, the #1 car driven by Dindo Capello. We try to be modest about what we do but please remember that Angerole, Inc is a commercial organisation and our engineering expertise is available for your race program.
9/30/2007
On the way to Road Atlanta for the 10th Petit Le Mans. Because the corporate Bonanza is down for a propeller overhaul, we're going commercial and the wait after checking in is an opportunity to catch up on the Diary.
9/21/2007
Gainesville, GA to Indianapolis in the corporate Bonanza. Here's the view looking northeast when we're on top over the Smoky Mountains. No filter used on the camera - that's just how deep blue the sky was.
Further north, the skies cleared and the wind dropped. We stopped by I68, Lebanon, OH to check in with Doran for some work we'll be doing shortly and conditions were perfect for hot air balloons.
It's neat to see how these folks do it: they lay the envelope out and blow it up with a pair of large fans driven by what look like lawnmower engines. Once they have enough air inside, they can start to heat the air with their propane burners.
Only about 15 minutes after starting, off they go. It's fun to watch.
8/30/2007
A day at the (Detroit) races. But first, an interesting start to the day when we find the Old Mariners' Church
This is the church Gordon Lightfoot sang about in The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald: In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed / In the Maritime Sailor's Cathedral / And the church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times / For each Man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
It might be musty but it's beautiful and it's maintained. It's good to see a piece of history like this treated with the respect it deserves.
Later at the track we actually get to do some work. Here's our car being towed down to the pits in the evening so we could do some pitstop practice. As usual this weekend, it's ahead of the #1.
8/29/2007
Indianapolis to Windsor, Ontario for the Detroit ALMS race.
Angerole, Inc decided to fly the corporate Bonanza into Windsor, on the Canadian side of the Detroit River because it was a new airport for us to land, it's actually the closest airport to the track and it's substantially less expensive than the US side of the border. It turned out to be a good decision: Windsor is 15 miles and a world away from the mean streets around KDET, Detroit City. Here we are parked in the Guest spot at the very friendly Windsor Flying Club.
It took a cab ride to downtown Windsor to catch a $3 bus through the tunnel under the river back to the US. There's a ramp down, a level section in the middle and a ramp back up. All told, it's about 2 miles underground and under river. Here's the view half way through.
Another cab ride got us to the track to meet The Boys at the track on Belle Isle. Most of the water that goes over Niagara Falls the other end of Lake Erie flows from Lake Huron through the Detroit River so it's fast moving and has shaped the two main islands, Belle Isle and Grosse Isle into natural streamlined shapes. Belle Isle is a city park and, despite its fabulous location right by downtown Detroit (or maybe because of it), in recent years it's gone to rack and ruin. As you drive over the bridge to the island, the hulk of the former Detroit Yacht Club forlornly watches you. It's too sad to put in a picture.
Races have been run in downtown Detroit since the 1980's: Formula 1 used to come here. At some point, the races were moved from closed city streets to the roads on Belle Isle. The last time Angerole, Inc came here was in 1999 with Hogan Racing running Helio Castroneves in a CART ChampCar. Right around the time single seater racing in the US began to splinter and self-destruct, the City of Detroit was really hit by blight and the last races were run on Belle Isle in 2003.
In what appears to be a gesture of heroic civic-mindedness, Roger Penske this year poured millions of dollars into renovating the Belle Isle facility and promoting a race. You don't have to be in racing long to appreciate how much money a major race generates for the local economy. Oh yeah, and Detroit gets a better park for 51 weekends a year. We hope this marks something of a new beginning for a hurting city.
8/27/2007
Detroit preparation and tear down day at Mosport. And in an example of the resourcefulness a good team can apply to whatever comes up, here's truckie and tyre guy for the #2 Kenny MacMillan balancing the tailgate off one of the team's other semis.
We'd had to take it off because the recirculating ball jackscrew had jammed and used this borrowed forklift to carry it to the mobile repair guy's trailer. All in a day's work for Kenny.
8/23/2007
Yet another front moves through. We drive to Mosport through showers.
And then, in Practice, get in only a few laps before the heavens open. Here's Bobby Green, car chief on the #1 getting drenched putting the cover over his baby. The professional mechanic's credo: look after the car before yourself - way to go Bobby!
8/22/2007
Setup day at Mosport and time to go and have a look round. This year our qualifying speed around Mosport was over 135 mph and, since one of the corners is taken at about 30, gives a clue about how fast the rest are. Here's Turn 1 - this stunningly fast corner is taken very nearly flat out.
8/21/2007
Indianapolis to Toronto.
Hooray! One of our favourite trips of the year. Northeast across Indiana and northern Ohio, northbound over Lake Erie and out over Lake Ontario for the approach into Toronto City Centre. Here's the view just after we broke out - see how the CN tower is poking up into the clouds.
City Centre was Toronto's original airport before Pearson International was built. It's still an island and still has no bridge but since we came in last year, they've built a nice new ferry terminal at both ends (the ride is free) and the place is busy with commuter airline traffic. Here's the corporate Bonanza parked next to a nice example of Canada's primary form of transport.
We were lucky enough to land at KCGX Chicago Meigs before it was destroyed in a cowardly raid by Mayor Daley's henchmen. City Centre in Toronto is an example of what Meigs could have been - a first class asset to a thriving city.
After meeting up with the Team, we had a nice evening in Toronto's Hard Rock Cafe, taking in a Blue Jays' baseball game.
8/16/2007
Indianapolis to Dayton, OH for the US Air Force Museum.
Angerole, Inc joined the Audi Sport propeller heads at this amazing museum that celebrates more than 100 years of flying with the absolute coolest, most evocative aircraft ever. Actually, it's hard to run out of superlatives at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (Wright-Pat) because there is no shortage of really cool hardware to see.
The R&D exhibit is in a hangar on a secure part of the base and you need to get clearance to even get on the bus to ride over. Here's a couple of snaps of part of the reward. First, the six monster sized jet nozzles of the XB70
Another view of the XB70 Valkyrie. This bomber could and did fly continuously at Mach 3, 40 years ago. The photo is of one edge of the engine pod, the wing's leading edge comes in from the top right and the cockpit with its canard wings is about 100 feet in front and 30 feet above the camera.
Here's a nice shot of an early Air Force One - the Lockheed Super Constellation of Dwight Eisenhower.
They also have the actual Boeing 707 on which Lyndon Johnson was sworn in after JFK was shot. This bay in the aircraft is protected by a clear acrylic panel so you can't stand where Johnson is. But if the acrylic window had been there when this classic Cecil Stoughton photo was taken, Jackie Kennedy would have been leaning on it. Makes you feel that history is very close.
Back in the main hangars, there's plenty to see. Here's a Boeing-built early Stealth study aircraft. Difficult to imagine something like this could fly but apparently it could. Kind of makes you wonder what the ones we don't get to see look like.
And in a certain sign that the US Air Force understands the Essence of Cool, here's a dramatically lit Convair B58.
8/9/2007
Elkhart Lake for American Le Mans race 9. Elkhart Lake is, as the name suggests, on a lake and is also very close to the western shore of Lake Michigan. So there's plenty of moisture around to fuel morning fogs. Here's the view from the middle seats of the crew van on the way to the track in the morning.
A few minutes later, this is what it looks like getting the car out of the truck. Still no sign of the sky.
Actually, gray as it was, we were at least dry when we went through tech. Those behind us weren't so fortunate - here's one of the factory Corvettes waiting patiently in the rain.
8/4/2007
OK, we were getting embarrassed about how far behind we are on the Diary so today got up early to write a brief history of what we've been up to for the last 6 weeks.
7/28/2007
Indianapolis to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for AirVenture 2007.
To anyone with a love of flying, this is THE pilgrimage: you just have to do it . For 10 days in July, a more-or-less ordinary airport called Wittman Regional on the shores of Lake Winnebago comes alive. Angerole, Inc has been to Oshkosh a number of times but, this time, we flew in to what is literally the "World's Busiest Airport".
It's a measure of how busy Oshkosh is that you have to turn your transponder off within 30 miles - presumably ATC's radar would saturate if you didn't. We went up IFR from Indy, cancelled at Madison, WI and flew the Fisk VFR Arrival which involves following roads, railway lines and waggling your wings to acknowledge controller's instructions (the frequency is too busy to reply). It's absolutely wild and a lot of fun. In the photo above we're just about to turn downwind for Runway 27, we'll turn base over the lake and land coming back this way.
The ad-hoc crew of controllers know what they're doing and call your turn to final to slot in between departures from the same runway. The Oshkosh runways are long enough that they land more than one plane at a time, guiding you to where they want you to actually touch down. Once you're on the ground, some of an army of volunteers send you to where they want you to park and, once you're tied down, there's a fleet of school buses to take you to the actual show.
Oshkosh is a gathering, a trade show and an air show, all rolled into one. About 2pm, the serious flying starts, this perfect day with some sky writing.
It's not cheap to get in to Oshkosh but we often think that race organisers and promoters could learn a thing or two from how the Experimental Aircraft Association does it. The entire airport grounds are squeaky clean and the port-a-johns are serviced so often you actually don't mind using them. EAA's reward is an absolutely vast crowd of polite, civilised people.
The crowd's reward is you get to be this close to a P51 taxiing out for the show. We had to step back to get the whole airplane in the photo.
Eventually, a hot and noisy day draws to a close and Angerole, Inc finds an oasis in the EAA's hangar. Here's the view looking out from some very welcome shade.
7/21/2007
Race day at Mid Ohio. Only 8 men have ever won Le Mans three times in a row and here are two of them, Marco Werner and Emanuele Pirro, sitting on the pit wall waiting for the race to start.
It is a privilege to work with these professionals who, in an error-free performance between them, took "our" car from 8th on the grid to the race lead by lap 7. After leading for more than half the race, Marco Werner (below) brought the car home in 3rd place and on top of the P1 class. On the track we won; current refuelling regulations mean that we simply had to spend more time in the pits than the two cars which beat us.
7/2/2007
Indianapolis to Great Barrington, MA. Almost exactly 600 nautical miles great circle in about 4 hours in the corporate Bonanza and the 142nd airport at which we've landed. Trip purpose: the July 4th weekend race at Lime Rock.
New England is usually a pleasant place to be in early July and on a nice day, it's really lovely. We stayed at the Interlaken resort hotel not far from the track (took it over would be more like it) which, because of its long history, has some neat touches. Check out the wooden easy chairs and the cedar shingles.
In this cradle of the American Revolution, July 4th is an excuse for all things to be red, white and blue. Here's a flower pot we nearly tripped over.
7/3/2007
Lime Rock celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and, honestly, the actual track looks its age. Each year, we go out to inspect how bad it is and each year shake our heads and each year race on it anyway.
As cars have got faster and grip levels risen, over the years the track surface has been worn and damaged by the heavily loaded outside wheels. The temporary fix some years ago was to lay concrete patches on the racing line. The trouble is, since the concrete is harder than the surrounding asphalt, at the joint the asphalt gets peeled away leaving a step in the surface. In the photo above, the step is more than 1/2" high, which, to a Prototype, is a violent bump.
At Lime Rock, this very hard bump is but one of many, making this a long weekend for a car designed for the long straights and smooth, wide open corners of Le Mans. It got worse in the race when a sudden tyre deflation at the worst possible point on the track pitched Marco Werner into the barrier. The crew worked a minor miracle getting the car back out in the nick of time to pick up a classified finish and the Championship points to go with it.
Still, we did have some success on the weekend - the #2's crew moved up a round in the Klein Tools pitstop competition. This is a chance for the "boys" to really show their stuff and even make some money in return for all the hours they've spent training and practicing. Here's left side gun man, Donovan Spears in action.
6/17/2007
Paris Airshow at Le Bourget as guests of Embraer.
Wow! At this most historic of airports - this is where Lindbergh landed after his solo flight from New York - the chance to go to a serious airshow was a real breath of fresh air. We got to see some astonishing stuff, for instance here's the engine and ducted fan unit out of the F35 Joint Strike Fighter. With the fan engaged and the vectored thrust nozzle swivelled downwards this Mach 2 fighter can transition to hover like a helicopter.
A very convincing demonstration of what vectored thrust can do was put on by the Russian Air Force's Sukhoi SU29.
6/16/2007
Well, this was truly bittersweet. After more than 20 years in this business, today we got to see "our" car lead Le Mans. Unfortunately, it also was the day we drilled the barrier at Tetre Rouge. Here's a clip from autosport.com
Later, the #1 Audi also crashed when a wheel nut failed and we received an education when the European Audi Sport team rolled up its sleeves and set about winning with the single remaining car. It's truly eye-opening to see how some hardened professionals can stare down misfortune.
This year the race was run mostly in the dry but when it rains at Le Mans, life gets interesting in a hurry. Here's what it looks like when these most aerodynamic of cars lift the water off the road surface.
The hours wind on and the tension is just unbearable as Marco Werner takes the #2 back out onto a streaming wet track for the last time. Marco knows The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - he is one of only 7 men who have won Le Mans, Daytona and Sebring.
A little under an hour later, here's the reward as Marco brings the car home to the checker. This win took Audi ahead of Jaguar for Le Mans wins; they're now third behind only Porsche and Ferrari.
6/15/2007
What's laughingly called "Rest Day" at Le Mans. Although we don't actually hit the track, today we work to apply everything we learnt to the cars and make them as ready as they can humanly be made for the race. "Our" car, the #3 Audi R10T will start the 24 Hours tomorrow from 5th on the grid.
Angerole, Inc's part in this means that we spend practice, qualifying and the race itself from what's called a pit stand, meaning a purpose-built transportable control console that's set up just across the pit lane from the garage. We'd have to kill you if we showed you the equipment that's in ours but here's a view of the one belonging to the team next door.
You're looking down the pit straight, in the direction the cars approach from. The pit lane is on the left with the garages behind it, the track is on the right with some of the grandstands beyond. Looking directly behind us, here's a view of our car waiting to go out for first practice.
Le Mans is mostly on public roads that are closed temporarily for racing. The famous Mulsanne straight is the main highway running south from Le Mans to Tours. Even in France, it's not a trivial thing to close roads for racing so for all sorts of reasons, practice and qualifying take place late in the day. So, at 7:00pm on Wednesday, first practice begins in front of some already well filled grandstands.
There's a one hour break from 9:00 to 10:00 and then the real magic of Le Mans starts as night falls. Here are the Audi team cars just before the 10pm to midnight night practice session.
In between practice sessions, if we're ever in danger of running out of things to do, we fill in by doing a bit of pitstop practice outside the garage in the pit lane.
And then there's getting all the tyres ready. Here are just a few. The box-like thing behind them is the oven that's used to preheat the tyres so they grip a bit better when the car leaves the pits.
6/12/2007
Tuesday at Le Mans. Running begins tomorrow so today everyone has work to do. The track people came along and put up the sign over the garage. These signs are made of paper over a wooden frame and traditionally they're a prize the crew carries home after the race.
Tuesday means Scrutineering for which we have to get the cars downtown to the Place des Jacobins which is right next to Le Mans' gothic cathedral. The organisers use Scrutineering as an opportunity to take the racing to the people - it's an chance to stir up local interest in the race and is directly equivalent ot the circus parading down Main Street when it comes to town. 3 time Le Mans winning team manager John Wyer described Scrutineering as "an ordeal designed to reduce the most equable to a state of gibbering frenzy". It's not quite that bad any more but it is still a very interesting place to be on a June afternoon.
With three cars, it makes sense for Audi to use one of the transporters to go to Scrutineering. As soon as the truck is parked, it's surrounded by people. Once the cars are off, there's a whole lot of standing around while waiting to go into the actual technical inspection. For the crews, this means mostly trying to stop pieces of your car being unbolted and spirited away.
Finally, it's time to push your car into the Tech tents.
Here, the organisers prod and poke, measure and weigh and, if you're lucky, pronounce themselves satisfied. Here also, drivers are declared and, once declared are fixed for the duration of the event. For a variety of reasons, "our" car, the #3, has a changed line up from the Test and our drivers are now Lucas Luhr, Alex Prémat and Mike Rockenfeller.
Finally, the car is through and it's time to take the official photos. Here are The Boys pushing the #3 into place.
Naturally, it's the cars and the drivers that get most of the attention but the time comes when the press want the Team Photo and we all have to line up behind the car. Here's what it looks like to the mice in the cage while the photographers are getting ready.
At last it's all done and while our cars are being loaded for the trip back to the track, there's a couple of minutes to look at how other people are doing it. Most cars make their way downtown on the back of local towing companys' transporters, if you're reading this in the US, they're similar to Jerr Dans. Here are three of them waiting to take their charges back to the track. With all the tow trucks here, we would bet no cars get repo'd on the tuesday of Le Mans week.
It's kind of fun to watch some pretty serious race cars get loaded on these trucks. Here's a GT1 Lamborghini Murcielago setting off back to the track.
6/4/2007
In the garage at Le Mans. Today we turned around our car after the Pre Test. Turn around means inspect the car by the best method: cleaning it. Then we deal with matter arising and do some scheduled stuff. For instance, the gearbox needs to come off so we can inspect the clutch.
In the meantime the engineering staff are looking at data so we can decide what we learnt yesterday and, much more importantly, how we're going to apply it 12 days from now when the world's most famous race starts and 13 days from now when it finishes. There's a lot to look at and a lot to learn but out of it we have a solid basis with which to approach the race.
After the car is back together we get to do something really cool: "roll out" the car at the Aéroport Du Mans. The airport is right next to the track and traditionally it's been a place to go and try out the cars when the track (which is mostly public highway) is not available for racing. In simpler times the cars were probably driven over there but now we have to put them in the truck and unload them 5 minutes later on the airport ramp.
We're not allowed to go on the actual runway so, after warming up the engine, Alexandre Prémat takes the car out for some 200 mph passes up and down the taxiway. We're certainly the fastest thing to hit Le Mans airport today.
After we're done terrorising the airport, and with no problems, it's back to the track to put the car to bed in the garage. Here it is on short stands and under a cover.
6/2/2007
Le Mans. That just trips so smoothly off the tongue. Le Mans. Nice!
The enthusiasm for Le Mans and everything that goes with it is clear when the three Audis are surrounded by people when waiting in line for Scrutineering. At the PreTest this is sort of a Scrutineering Lite: it's the same people using the same equipment to check the cars' eligibility and compliance with the rules but it's done at the track.
In two weeks' time we have to go through the whole performance again and then some at the Place des Jacobins in downtown Le Mans. If we don't measure up today, they'll really put us through the wringer then. Getting the cars through Scrutineering is one of the ordeals that go with the territory at Le Mans. It's their race and if we choose to accept the invitation to come, we play by their rules.
Fortunately, The Boys (above pushing "our" car into the first checking station) have made a wonderful job of preparation and we were through with just one easily fixed infraction. The simple courtesy to the organisers of presenting a legal and compliant car will surely pay dividends later.
Tomorrow, we run.
5/30 - 31/2007
Indianapolis to Le Mans. It's 21 years since Angerole, Inc first raced at Le Mans and came home with a C2 class win and 8th overall with a Gebhardt JC843. This year, we finally get to go with a car and drivers that are good enough to win outright. "Our" car is the #3 Audi R10T to be driven by Mattias Ekstrom, Lucas Luhr and Alexandre Prémat. In other words, we have Audi's young guns.
Le Mans is traditionally the third weekend in June. We're here this early because the Pre Test takes place two weeks before the main event. Le Mans in June is like being at Indy for the Month of May.
5/27/2007
The Indy 500. Some tickets came up and Angerole, Inc jumped at the chance to go to The Greatest Spectacle in Racing with about 300,000 of our closest friends. Our seats were about half way around Turn 1 and this was the view looking each way around the stands.
This place is surely a Temple of Speed. Go there and experience it once and you'll know why everywhere else is just a speedway: Indy is The Speedway.
This year, average lap speeds were about 220mph and it's very hard to take a picture of the cars as they go by. Here's the least blurred.
5/15/2007
Tooele, UT to Wendover, UT. Angerole, Inc personnel try to do something productive every day and today we filled a void by visiting Wendover Airport.
This absolutely vast airbase was built in the early 1940's to train B29 crews. Today it serves a town of 12,000 with two active 8000ft runways and a ramp about the size of Manhattan.
One of the justifications for this strange state of affairs is that Wendover straddles the Utah / Nevada border which means there are casinos. While we were there, a 727 arrived carrying hopeful gamblers. Apparently this plane runs a round-robin trip to Texas, Kansas, Missouri and Chicago to pick up people to bring to Wendover. It arrives in NW Utah about 7:00 each evening.
We didn't come to gamble, we came to see the place for its history and because it's on the edge of the Bonneville salt flats. The salt flats are absolutely mind boggling, difficult to imagine even while you're looking at them. Here's a view of a dead end road leading out onto the flats - the significance of this particular strip of asphalt being it's the paddock for Bonneville Speed Week. From the tip of the paddock road, the actual land speed course leads off to the left.
On the way back to Tooele, this was the view about 1500 ft above Interstate 80.
5/12/2007
No one ever accused Angerole, Inc of not having a good sense of the absurd. Breakfast on the way to the track today tickled our funny bone.
5/11/2007
North Platte, NE to Tooele, UT. A nice clear dawn greeted us at KLBF.
Our route to Utah took us across southern Wyoming and we began to wonder at the very prominent strips of different colour grasses running all over the place.
Bit by bit we came to see that a whole lot of dams are being built in the high plains. It seems that having your water trapped behind a wall is one thing, then you have the problem of getting it where you need it and the solution is a big pipe. Apparently, the pipe has to be buried because, we would guess, the water inside it would freeze in the winter. There are hundreds of miles of very big trenches being dug.
The scale of this work is just stunning. These are really big trenches and they go on for ever. Evidently, in the West, water really does flow uphill towards the money.
It's probably debatable whether this is good or bad. If you're in need of water, for sure it's good and it allows some Western cities to grow. Also, by taking the water away, there will be no growth here on the high plains and it will remain remote, isolated and uninhabited.
Around the Wyoming / Utah border, the scenery gets a lot more rocky and vertical and, in mid May, still capped with snow. Here's the view approaching Salt Lake City.
Followed a few seconds later by this view of downtown.
Approach took us out over the lake before turning us south to Tooele. Here's a view of the Tooele Valley as we arrived from the north.
Tooele airport is only about 2 miles from Miller Motorsports Park so we took the chance to have a look at the track from the air. At 4.5 miles, the full circuit is the longest in North America but the whole facility still looks almost lost within the scale of the Utah scenery.
Miller Motorsports Park was brand new last year and the whole place is absolutely first class. After this super trip, we actually had to do some work - here's our car just after it rolled into one of the garages.
5/10/2007
Indianapolis to North Platte, Nebraska in the corporate Bonanza. This is about as far as we can comfortably go Westbound and, even against the prevailing winds, today we averaged about 168mph ground speed.
Last year we were IMC most of the way but this time had the treat of severe clear over a lot of middle America. If you're in motor racing, you might remember the street races in Des Moines, Iowa in the early 90's and the one that was cancelled due to flooding. Following some very heavy rains the last few days in the Heartland, the Des Moines river was very swollen as we flew over and reminded us of what it looked like back then.
Victor 6 took us right over Omaha and we were treated to this view of Offutt AFB. Check out the 2 B52's on the ramp.
Everybody has heard of the Mason-Dixon line and while it's hard to point out exactly where it is, you kind of just know which side of it you are. The Longitude equivalent is a bit more definite: people agree the West begins at 100°. North Platte is a Western town and finds many ways to remind you. The FBO has this immodest sculpture of a buffalo in the lobby where you come in from the ramp.
A little further back in the building, there is a cool painting of Custer losing at Little Big Horn. Here's a detail.
Later we went out for a bite to eat and saw a nice sunset. Note how the highest structure in the picture is the street light. In the West, they build out, not up.
5/8/2007
We're at Doran Racing working on the secret GT project. We would like to make it clear that Angerole, Inc is an independent engineering consultancy and has separate clients in Doran Racing and Audi Sport North America.
Anyway, lawyer's chorus out of the way, it's always fun when some parts we've designed come off the machine. Here's a shot of the GT car's lower front wishbone.
Doran is very well equipped with CNC machines and it's convenient to make suspension parts out of aluminium billet. We get beautiful parts that are absolutely identical to each other. Here's the upper front wishbone on the machining centre.
4/18/2007
Reliant Arena, Houston, Texas. Today we're setting up for the American Le Mans Series race # 4 on a temporary circuit around what used to be called the Astrodome. We drive to the circuit down Main Street which in places is shaded by rows of these really cool overhanging and manicured trees.
The trucks have driven here from LA the last two days through some pretty serious weather and they're not at all clean when they arrive. A team like Audi has to present properly so this is a problem but fortunately, some entrepreneurial blokes show up with a steam cleaner and long mops and pretty soon the worst of the grime is off.
Then, we just have to do the real elbow work ourselves to get the trucks to shine properly.
4/17/2007
LAX to IAH, Los Angeles, CA to Houston, TX on Continental 385. Here's a nice shot of the 737's wingtip and another airliner we were racing over New Mexico
4/16/2007
Apart from the ever-present need to write reports, this was a day off of sorts and a chance to have a look around the Queen Mary with the team. Here's some of The Boys outside the ship's milkshake parlour.
The longer you spend on this ship, the more there is to see and new details pop into sight all around. Here's a nice veneer panel we stumbled on.
You can't get in to the bridge but you can look in and we saw these cool brass engine control telegraphs.
The bridge telegraphs are connected by physical wires to displays in the engine room where the required valves would be opened and closed in the right sequence to carry out the Bridge's orders.
The Queen Mary has oil fired boilers and three-stage steam turbines that run at about 1500 rpm. To get this down to the 200 rpm or so the propellers need takes an absolutely enormous planetary gearbox. Here's a shot of the gears.
4/14/2007
Well, after 10 successive wins including twice at Sebring, this will go down as the day the R10 was beaten for the first time. Still, we have to take pride in the accomplishments: our car, the #2 led the race in some style and was in the lead when rammed at the hairpin by a backmarker. 2 laps were lost in getting back to the pits and making repairs after which Marco Werner passed both the eventual race winner (getting one of our laps back) and the car that set the fastest race lap. So, it's a disappointment but we're not despondent as we set off for the next race at Houston this coming weekend.
Here's a nice shot lifted from the American Le Mans website: our car is not behind the #1, it's closing in to lap it.
And here's another, taken at Long Beach's turn 3.
4/13/2007
Friday the thirteenth but one of our drivers, Emanuele Pirro finds a way to beat the odds with a very pleasant young lady.
At Long Beach, the sportscar pits are a long way from the paddock and the walk between is a good opportunity to talk to our drivers and decide what to do for the next session. This would be easy if it wasn't for the magnetic attraction between suntanned California girls and charming Italian drivers. But we get the work done somehow between photo ops.
It takes a small mountain of equipment to run a car as sophisticated as the R10 and a high tech village pops up overnight in each team's pits. It's kind of inconsequential but working with a team as good as Audi means that we occasionally have a couple of minutes to spare before a session to appreciate the amount of work that goes into all this stuff. Here's the view looking down-track from the stand where we sit of the nickel plated, insulated fuel rig and the boom that carries the outside wheel gun air supply. Oh yeah, also a cloudless California sky.
4/12/2007
Up with the dawn to have a look around our digs for the weekend. Long Beach is a working port, one of the primary trade arteries for the western United States. Here's a few of the huge cranes we can see from the Queen Mary's deck.
It's a beautiful morning in Southern California and getting up early gives us a chance to begin to see and appreciate some of the detail that defines the Queen Mary. Here's a shot of the teak deck planking that graces this fabulous ship.
It's nice to see the wear patterns in this hardest of woods and the patina it brings makes it easy to imagine the people who have stepped this way and the stories the ship could tell. At the same time, the way it's obvious this ship will never move again except for up and down with the tide makes our stroll a little bittersweet.
4/11/2007
It's easy to see how busy we've been recently when the first chance we've had to bring the Diary up to date for a month is sitting in the Enterprise Car Rental office at LAX waiting for the rest of the team to arrive. Today, the destination is certainly worth the travel: Angerole, Inc is heading for ALMS Race 3 at Long Beach and we're staying on the Queen Mary.
This beautiful and historic liner might never steam anywhere again but she still floats and absolutely still has style and presence.
By the time we've set up camp at the track and get back to the ship, it's evening and a good time to take a snap or two of this floating icon.
Here's a little of the port side with the lifeboats nicely lit up and below what it looks like heading down the corridor to our cabin.
3/27/2007
Back to Florida: Indianapolis to St Petersburg in 5.8 hours on the tach in the corporate Bonanza.
We stopped for a late lunch at what has become our favourite airport in south Georgia - Waycross. The FBO here has some neat touches and each time we stop we notice something new. Here's their Coke machine.
It's real and it works perfectly. We enjoyed a rational sized Coke from a glass bottle. It's nice to see a reminder of the days before supersizing and landfill-filling plastic glasses.
It only takes 90 minutes or so to get from Waycross to St Petersburg but the sun was dropping over the Gulf of Mexico as we got closer, reflecting off the sea.
Runway 6/24 was already closed (it's the main straight for the racetrack) so we had a bit of crosswind landing practice on 18/36. Here we are turning final before landing to the north.
3/9/2007
We're back at Doran Racing working on the GT car program that we can't presently talk about. Here's a teaser: one of the first tangible parts for this program came off the CNC machining centre while we were in the shop. We immediately offered it up on the actual car to see what it looked like.
It's the hard point to attach the (steel) roll cage to the (aluminium) main structure. The design's point is to spread the load properly and be inherently stable by virtue of attaching to multiple planes. It's always nice to see something we've designed come to life. Many more parts will follow this.
While at Doran's we took the chance to have a look at the latest addition to the shop, a brand new Maserati MC12. These things are a cool $1.3 million. The white patch on the door is the Lufthansa freight label.
This car's owner wants Doran to run it in some late season ALMS. He'd better get used to writing checks: the 1.3 he's spent so far includes no spares.
Here's the engine, a 12 cylinder Italian money pump.
2/20/2007
OK, you have to guess what the pictures below are all about.
Answer: Angerole, Inc were called in to design and conduct a torsion test on what is destined to become a production based race car.
It's easy to slew structural tests with inappropriate mounting and methods and generate invalid results. At Angerole, we introduce loads to the car's structure in a way that closely resembles the real suspension and use carefully considered and placed dial gauges to measure deflection. As part of this series of tests, we ran multiple perms and coms on alternative structural possibilities and then closed the circle by returning the car to the starting configuration.
It's gratifying when the starting and finishing measurements agree within better than 0.5% and gives us confidence in the torsion procedure for the project's next step: installing the safety cage. Since the roll cage is mandatory, it's only sensible to make it contribute to the car structurally. Once the cage is installed, we'll re-twist the car and see how we did.
If you're reading this, please remember the same engineering competence is available for your race program.
2/14/2007
Kendall Tamiami Executive to Eagle Creek Airpark. A little over 900 nautical miles great circle in the corporate Bonanza and a 69°F temperature drop between south Florida and central Indiana.
There was plenty to look at outside to take our minds off the falling outside air temp gauge. Here's Daytona International Speedway from 7000ft. It's busy because today is the Gatorade Duel (that's spelt right) 125's, qualifying races for this weekend's Daytona 500.
A bit further north we flew the GPS 36 into Waycross, Georgia to refuel and after climbing back out were treated to sunlit cloud tops.
After being on top for about 3 hours, the clouds parted and we had severe clear into Indianapolis. Approach weren't busy and vectored us right over Indy International on the way to Eagle Creek. Here's I70, KIND and the industrial parks that surround it. It was nice to see evening lights reflecting in the snow.
2/13/2007
You can tell the season is getting going when you go direct from one job to another. Today, Angerole, Inc was at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida for a tyre test with Doran Racing. Homestead Speedway was one of the first structures to rise out of the devastation left behind by Hurricane Andrew, in a venture organised and backed by the group that had promoted the original downtown Miami Grand Prix.
In the way that racetracks seem to do, it has sucked in investment and now the drive to the track is through modern housing and industry.
If you've ever been racing, you know that new tyres are always faster than old and that racing is a constant balancing act between wanting new rubber and what the rules/circumstances/budget will allow you to have. Tyre tests are fun because all you do is throw new tyres on all day and the tyre company is paying you to do it. Here's some of the day's debris: 5 laps? These are spent. Get me some new ones!
Eventually the team's work for Hoosier is done and we have a few minutes at the end of the day to do some stuff we'd had in mind to try. Oh yeah, we also got to try a young driver called Frederico Montoya. Apparently he has a famous brother named Juan Pablo.
2/10/2007
Pompano Beach to Lakeland to St Petersburg. A nice trip in the corporate Bonanza. First stop was at Lakeland, Florida for a Bonanza Pilot Proficiency Program (BPPP) meeting. BPPP is a subsidiary of the American Bonanza Society aimed at maintaining and building pilot skills. ABS has over 10,000 members and seeing 1% of them on the same ramp is quite a sight. Here's a small part of the Bonanza parking lot.
Next on the agenda for the day was a trip to KSPG, Albert Whitted airport in St Petersburg, on the west side of Tampa Bay. This is one of the dwindling number of city centre airports and a real pleasure it is. the wind was out of the northwest so we landed on runway 36. Here's the view on final. The runway itself is right above the compass and there's almost nothing surrounding it so it looks like a carrier deck.
This kind of waterfront property is now extremely valuable and Albert Whitted survived a determined assault from developers a few years ago. Fortunately, the people of St Pete realised that what they would get instead of the airport - a lot of high rise buildings - was a lot less palatable than open space and some airplanes and voted down the proposal.
Whitted is significant to aviation because it was the departure point of the first scheduled airline flight in the United States, across the bay to Tampa.
The main reason Angerole, Inc came here was that it's the site of the second race on this year's American Le Mans schedule and we wanted to scope the combined runway / city streets track. Here's the view from the ramp of what will become Turn 1, where the track turns off the arrival end of Runway 6 and heads off towards downtown St Pete.
We were told the airport remains open during the race so we'll probably arrive in style in the Bonanza. Even today, the ramp guys have to get creative to park all the planes. It will be a interesting to see how they manage when the place is truly busy.
2/7/2007
Sebring to Pompano Beach. While the Midwest was digging out from under even more snow, Angerole, Inc heads another 1.2° of latitude South. Here's the western shore of Lake Okeechobee.
Despite the clear and sunny day, we'd filed IFR in the corporate Bonanza and were glad we'd done so for the complex and busy airspace between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Like many airports, Pompano Beach Airpark was once in the middle of nowhere but the South Florida sprawl now surrounds it and it would be difficult to find without being vectored onto the localiser.
The reward once we landed was to see a B17 and a B24 together on the same ramp.
From the airport, we headed off to Champion Racing / Audi Sport North America's shop, just west of I95. There's plenty to do and we'll be busy for the remainder of this week as we prepare for the new season.
Champion have been fabulously successful over the years and remind you gracefully with a substantial collection of trophies in the lobby. Here's a small part of it.
2/6/2007
Night testing at Sebring. The pitlane is a lonely place when yours is the only car running and it's out on the track doing endurance runs to check how the tyres hold up.
Looking the other way, towards Turn 1, we find that Audi's PR machine has been in action and the bridge carries some fresh new livery.
This year Angerole, Inc will be race engineering the Red Audi R10T and we got off to a good start. Here's Emanuele Pirro bringing the car in after setting some crushingly fast times.
2/4/2007
Indianapolis to Sebring
A lucky break to be going testing in Florida with Audi just when the Midwest gets hammered with some real winter weather. It was 0 Fahrenheit when we pulled the corporate Bonanza from the hangar and fired it up to head south. By north Georgia we were past the worst of the weather, the ground was free of snow and the outside air temperature at 7000 was above freezing. Here's a nice shot of sunlit cloud layers.
The problem was, the very strong crosswinds we had on this trip meant we would be short of fuel if we pressed on to Sebring so we decided to play it safe and stopped at Waycross, Georgia. This was no disappointment: we received some real Southern hospitality from some very friendly folks. Here's the corporate Bonanza on the ramp. It's a real pleasure to have a choice of swing or rocking chair on the FBO veranda to relax on while filing your next leg.
1/2/2007
Angerole, Inc is at Doran Racing working on roll cage design for a new race car program they have under way. Here's a workshop still life: the trestle table and computer right next to the car. A kind of reality version of the bowl of fruit and jug of water - they're all staples of life. Working like this is fun and we're pleased to be involved with this interesting project.
We're doing the roll cage first because it's the structural basis of the car. After we're happy with it (and we'll be thoroughly torsion testing it) we'll embark on the suspension.
1/13/2007
Well, it's official now. We know we're going racing when they send the size sheet for the new team gear. We have to send in the same measurements a tailor would take and the uniform gets made from that. Often, what actually turns up has arms that are too long, legs that are too short and shoes that feel like vices but Audi are the exception: they seem to get it right.
This is part of what came with the size chart. We guess Uvex are a uniform company in Germany, kind of like Cintas in the USA. Looks like we're going to have red jackets this year instead of last year's silver-grey. In common with most race people, we often wear last year's or the year before's gear when not going racing. Indianapolis being what it is, on any random trip to the grocery store you'll see people wearing very fancy embroidered stuff. Look in their closet and you would find they almost don't own any clothes without advertising.
1/11/2007
Measuring at Doran Racing. Following the traditional first weekend in January test, Kevin Doran decided some changes were in order for his Daytona Prototype. The need for this was driven by new 2007 spec tyres with different characteristics from last year's rubber. It's a long time since we've had anything much to do with the JE4 technical specification but this week Angerole, Inc were called in to assess the car's current suspension geometry and recommend a viable way forwards.
As part of this, we put the car on the surface plate to take enough measurements to verify the car agreed with its drawings.
Then, we sat down and ran the numbers through software we've developed over the years study the pros and cons of possible changes. Out of this work we were able to provide results that both gave the desired characteristics and could realistically be implemented in the available time.
1/10/07
Photos arrive from Champion Racing / Audi Sport North America of our future opposition: the new Peugeot 908 which, like the R10T, is a diesel. Looks like Peugeot Media were being lyrical taking this dawn shot.
We'll excuse them: this is a sexy looking car and for anyone who remembers the glory days of Group C / GTP, it's nice to see a closed car built for Le Mans racing.
If it looks good in carbon fibre, it's sure to look really good in an artful paint scheme.
For sure the Peugeot will be formidable opposition for Audi and we'll be watching its development with interest.
12/31/2006
Ring out the old, ring in the new. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Whatever the cliché, getting a racing car truly ready to go is a ceaseless task, wherever you are. Always has been, always will be. For most of this week Angerole, Inc has been working at Doran Racing in Ohio helping get their JE4 Daytona Prototype ready for this weekend's Daytona Test. Here's the hub of all the activity - the car on stands in the assembly shop.
It's fun and stimulating to work at Doran's. The people are intelligent and energetic and the shop can make anything that can be imagined. Also, there's history here: a formidable collection of trophies in the lobby makes it quite obvious how successful Doran has been over the years. Here is a very small part of the collection. Oh yeah, the one in front is for the overall win at Daytona in 2002. Not a trivial accomplishment to get one of these.
12/15/2006
Indianapolis to Lebanon, Ohio
Ohio is keen to remind you on every car license plate that it is the "Birthplace of Aviation". Actually, Wilbur Wright was born in Indiana but he and Orville did live in Dayton when they built the first aircraft so who's to argue.
The present owners bought I68, Warren County Airport about 12 years ago and have changed it from a simple country grass strip to a modern, expanding business airport. One of things they have done is create the Warren County Aerospace Academy to educate local young people about flying and encourage them to take up aviation careers. This kind of thing is a model of how it should be done.
This was an interesting day for us, visiting Doran Racing.
Over the years Angerole, Inc has often been involved, sometimes heavily, with Doran Racing. Kevin Doran is a hugely successful Indy Car and Sportscar crew chief turned team owner and car constructor. Angerole, Inc carried out the engineering design of Doran's Daytona 24 Hour winning JE4 Prototype. Today we were in discussion about how we can help with a very exciting new project Doran Enterprises have under way.
11/30/2006
Sebring to Indianapolis
Sebring Regional Airport is a rather grand name for a non-towered field and this morning the bellowing cows make sure we know we're in rural Florida. The good thing is, the airport is proud of its heritage and very proud of its historic race. There are a lot of neat old photographs and original oil paintings in the FBO. Here's a snap of one we liked, a JW Automotive Porsche 917 as made famous by the Steve McQueen movie, Le Mans.
Sebring is home to a number of Light Sport Aircraft dealers and builders and seems to be positioning itself as some kind of centre for what will hopefully be a renaissance for general aviation. Posters told us they're having a big exhibition in January.
Sebring's ramp is very large and we we were worried the corporate Bonanza might have been lonely. Not so: she's made friends with a Dassault Falcon Jet.
We made it non-stop from Sebring to Indy. 899.5 miles in a little under 5 hours flying time for an average speed better than 180mph. A circling approach under a 600ft ceiling with 1 1/2 mile visibility in rain welcomed us back to Indiana but the whole trip was good fun, faster overall than the airlines and, we didn't have to go through the check in zoo at Orlando. Here's our radar track from Flight Aware:
11/28/2006
Testing continues. We'd love to tell you what we were testing but if we did, we'd have to kill you. Actually, today was an interesting time because we ran in the rain. It's always cool to see the big rooster tails of spray.
11/27/2006
The end of November is a nice time to be in Sebring, Florida. We flew in yesterday in the corporate Bonanza for a 3 day test with Audi.
In 1959, Sebring was the site of the first United States Formula 1 Grand Prix, won by a very young New Zealander named Bruce McLaren driving a Cooper. More importantly for us, almost every year since 1952, it has hosted a very famous 12 Hour sportscar race. The solitary exception was 1974 when the fuel crisis caused the race to be cancelled. Legend has it several hundred party animals turned up anyway to drink their sorrows away.
Sebring boasts several different track layouts and the short circuit is often used for testing and club races. For Audi, it's the full 3.7 mile 12 Hour circuit. The pits for this are an open concrete structure that extends most of the way along the front straight. In a nice touch, each bay has a sign for the winning make of car for each year the race was run. Here's the first:
10/21/2006
Race day at Laguna Seca. This beautiful circuit has been good to us over the years and this year looked after us again. "Our" car, the Yellow #2 Audi won the 4 hour ALMS race from 4th on the grid, sealing the R10T's unbeaten debut season.
Here are Dindo Capello and Allan McNish at the finish.
We at Angerole, Inc are proud of our part in this accomplishment. Do please remember that the same quality engineering expertise is available for your program.
10/18/2006
Setup day at Laguna Seca. Northern California in the autumn is a nice place to be and on this clear day we had a lovely dawn view across Monterey Bay.
At the track, there's about an acre of Kiwi Tile to put down which takes a good long time. The good part is, once done it's a lot nicer to work on than blacktop and, if it rains, the water stays underneath.
Both cars travel on the top deck of one of the semis. Here's the view in from the lift gate - it's like a well lit tunnel. The boys are undoing the tie down straps before rolling the car out.
10/17/2006
Indianapolis to Monterey, California.
It's better to arrive than travel uncomfortably. After the ease and style of traveling by Bonanza, it was a bit of a shock today to go commercial. Anyway, Northwest got us to San Francisco safely and we rode in one of Audi's team vans to Monterey for the last ALMS race of the year at Laguna Seca.
It's fun to come here, especially when the hotel is between California 1, the Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean.
It's probably been a long time since Monterey was like anything John Steinbeck wrote about and you can see in the snap above how they've paved paradise and put up a parking lot. Still, they've yet to figure out how to pave the actual beach and, as Indianapolis is a long way from the sea, it's nice to take the opportunity to walk along the sand and listen to the surf.
10/14/2006
Indianapolis to Tullahoma, Tennessee in the corporate Bonanza.
Angerole, Inc is proud to be a Charter Member of the Bonanza/Baron Museum and today we showed up for the Dedication of the new museum building. This ambitious project eventually aims to collect and display one of every single model of Bonanza and Baron and, in only a couple of years, they're off to a flying start. Here's part of what they have already: the oldest known V-tail Bonanza, serial number D18, built in 1947 and the first Baron, serial number TC1, built in 1960.
Tullahoma is home of the Beech Staggerwing Foundation and the Twin Beech 18 Society. The Bonanza/Baron Museum opening took place during the annual Beech Party and it's a real privilege to be present for the migration of these glamorous aircraft. Just standing next to one makes you feel like you're in a movie and you really expect Lauren Bacall to sway into sight any moment.
There was a whole flightline of Staggerwings and they all sport a variation on the speedbird motif. It fits: with a big motor and retractable undercarriage, as biplanes go these are really fast.
Staggerwings have a 450hp 9 cylinder Pratt & Whitney R985 Wasp Jr radial engine. These not only sound the part with their uneven beat but they really look the part. Check out the chrome pushrod tubes and the really cool twin carburetor air intakes. Engineers as artists eh?
Later in the day, it's flying time and at Tullahoma that means lots of low flybys. Here's a Beech 18 about 50 feet above the runway at 200 knots.
9/30/2006
When Don Panoz bought Road Atlanta the circuit in the mid 90's, the paddock was outside the main straight. The original paddock is still there but Panoz almost literally moved a mountain by cutting back the hill on the inside to make room for a new one. They might have moved a million tons of dirt to do it but space is still at a premium so unless you're a real big shot, you get to park at the top of the hill and walk down.
Race day at the Petit Le Mans begins early. We left the hotel before 6:00 and this is the view when we were walking down the hill at about 6:15. Even this early, we're not the first ones there.
It's still dark as we begin work under the lights for what will be a long day.
The Petit Le Mans became an instant classic as soon as it was conceived and its status is right up there with the 12 Hours of Sebring. About 90,000 people showed up to watch this year on race day and there was a real sense of an "Event". Here's the view from the pit wall of the grid walkabout. You can hardly see the car!
Much later in the day, this was the view on the timing and scoring monitor in our pit. Winning a major motor race is a fine result for all the work. Audi Sport North America has locked up the IMSA Drivers', Teams' and Manufacturers' Championships and now has a guaranteed entry for the 2007 Le Mans 24 Hours in France. Angerole, Inc is very pleased to be part of this effort.
9/28/2006
Night time practice at Road Atlanta. Petit Le Mans rules are just like at Le Mans itself: you have to both get your car and your drivers qualified. Part of this involves each driver putting in a minimum of 3 laps in the night time practice session.
We did a lot more than the minimum, running 56 laps between our two drivers and doing a lot of pitstop practice for stuff like driver and tyre changes and also disaster drills where we'll simulate crash damage to the nose for example and practice the methods for fixing it.
Oh yeah, we were also fastest in the session. Hope our luck holds up for the race on Saturday.
9/27/2006
After setting up the travelling village yesterday, it's time to do the real work. The Petit Le Mans is a 1000 mile event that has quickly become a sportscar racing classic. Our cars are legal and very well prepared and getting them through tech turns out to be an easy and pleasant experience.
Wednesday's running is a single 90 minute test session. Our car, the "yellow" R10T is fastest, almost half a second clear of the field. We can't rest on these kind of laurels and are at the track late into the night studying our data and, in the photo below, towing the car back to the pits to practice pit stops. You can practice all you want in the shop but it's telling when we're the only team that sees fit to get in a bit of practice in the actual environment.
9/25/2006
Indianapolis to Gainesville, GA for Audi in the corporate Bonanza. 2 hours and 20 minutes flying time for 353.75 nautical miles great circle distance for an average speed of 151.6 knots or 174.5 mph. Gainesville is an interesting airport which we have seen improve and expand in the years we've been flying to Road Atlanta. Thankfully one thing that doesn't change is the cool Art Deco FBO building. We've come in before to find this building being used as the backdrop for a movie, kind of like Van Nuys airport saw Ingrid Bergman say goodbye to Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.
Champion Aviation understand what they have and carry the building's architecture through into their logo. It's refreshing to find a place that has some sense of history and values a building.
This day, there was something else interesting to see on the ramp: the CAF's Grumman Albatross amphibian. A nice way to start the Petit Le Mans weekend.
9/3/2006
Race day at Mosport. Here's a nice shot of our car taking the checkered flag.
What can you say about a race win and what are now unassailable leads in the Driver's and Team's Championships. This is the culmination of a vast amount of work from all the people involved and we're very proud to be part of the team that made this happen. Here's the visible part: drivers Allan McNish and Dindo Capello on the podium.
Here's an attempt at a racing still life: the trophy and driver's helmets on their electric dryers on the counter in the truck.
Taking the flag is not the end of the day's work. After all the celebrations on the podium, we have to get the car through Tech to make sure it won legally. To make sure there's a verifiable "chain of evidence", an IMSA official helps push the car from Victory Lane to Tech.
Once we're safely through tech, we have to pack up what amounts to a travelling village. This is not glamourous work and it's after midnight before we're finished.
9/1/2006
First day of running at Mosport. Here we are in the line for Tech.
Tech is serious business. We're on good terms with the officials because we present a clean and legal car. Actually, being an official factory program, it is very important indeed to field a car that completely meets the rules. Naturally, the rules are interpreted in the most advantageous way but we are very careful to check that our interpretation is acceptable. Here, two IMSA officials check our pedal arrangement.
8/30/2006
Indianapolis to Mosport Park, Bowmanville, Ontario. Cross border operations in the corporate Bonanza are always fun, especially when the destination is Mosport.
We flew in to Oshawa airport, CYOO and drove northeast to the track. Mosport is in rural Ontario (there's a lot of that) and you get there along some small-ish roads where you'll see an occasional neat and tidy home. That much doesn't change much from year to year but this time, something seemed to be happening: a lot of the houses had "Government Keep Out" signs up and we wondered what was happening to upset people.
Mosport opened in 1961 and, while it has seen many updates and improvements over the years, the track layout thankfully hasn't changed: it is one of the last of the truly great road racing circuits. It has no chicanes, nothing artificial, just really big fast sort the men from the boys turns and a nice long straight. Mosport is right up there with Elkhart Lake, Watkins Glen and Mont Tremblant. Thankfully places like this still exist.
8/26/2006
Indianapolis Airshow. We make a point of going to this show that benefits the Riley Children's Hospital. It's grown in status and attendance every year we've been in Indy; last year it had the Blue Angels, this year the Thunderbirds. It attracts a lot of warbirds, some of them, like this P51, in surely better condition than when they were new.
Another better-then-new bird was this F4U Corsair.
There were a lot of Navy planes this year and we spent some time studying how the wing folding works on each of them. This one is the F4U and the ram that powers the folding is in the outer wing panel.
8/22/2006
On the way home from Elkhart, we stopped off to see Bill Scheunemann. Bill operates out of a double-ended hangar in rural Wisconsin, not far from Juneau. There's a grass runway next to the hangar but we're not quite brave enough to try to get the corporate Bonanza into a 1200 ft strip. If negotiations with the farmer next door are successful, Bill will be able to extend his runway to about 1900ft so next time maybe we can fly in.
Bill's business, Scheunemann Aircraft Products, is multi-faceted and it's always good fun to visit and see what he's up to. He has a large and sophisticated CNC router and primarily makes wooden aeroplane wing parts. Here's a stack of Bucker Jungmeister spars.
Since we last visited, Bill has acquired the design rights to the Rihn DR107 unlimited aerobatics aircraft. Dan Rihn was one of the lead engineers designing the B2 Stealth Bomber - designing the DR107 was one of his hobbies. The one in the picture is being built for one of Bill's clients.
The real reason for visiting is that we're involved with the engine management setup for Bill's Lancair Legacy. Bill is building this for Sport class air racing and it is going to have a turbocharged Lycoming 540. As aviation agents for EFI Technology we supplied Bill with his ECUs and ongoing advice and help. The plane is coming together and we're looking forwards to helping with the engine on the dyno later this year.
Later in the day we shot over to Madison, Wisconsin for another meeting and were lucky enough to park next to B17 Sentimental Journey.
8/20/2006
ALMS Elkhart Lake. A race weekend like this starts the previous Wednesday when the team gathers at the track to set up camp. Audi Sport North America travels in 3 semis and two 48 foot 5th wheel trailers pulled by duallies. When you have this much stuff, it takes a small army many hours to put the tents up, lay the tile and set up all the equipment.
Motor racing at Elkhart Lake has a similar history to Watkins Glen - it's a resort and the town fathers were looking for a way to bring people in. Some street races were run from 1952 to 1954 and were wildly successful. 135,000 people showed up for the 1954 races. This many people was a bit much for a small Wisconsin town so the profits (can you imagine how much the bars took?) were invested in a permanent track and Road America was born. Elkhart Lake continues to welcome racing and wooden resorts like the Victorian Village (where we stayed) seem to be in good repair and doing well.
There's no use counting the hours in motor racing. Here's a shot taken about 10:30 in the evening. We'd been at the track about 15 hours by now and the car is still on the setup scales.
The reward for all the work comes on Sunday morning when the car is on pole position, more than 2.7 seconds under the lap record.
Our luck didn't hold for the race when we got beaten to Turn 1 on the last restart by the other Audi and had to settle for second. Still a 1-2 for the team is always something to be pleased with and our Championship leads were extended. The Monday after the race, we turned the cars around, meaning prepared them for the next race at Mosport. Here's a shot taken from inside the truck: our car is on the lift gate on the way up to the upper deck.
8/1/2006
Alamosa, Colorado to Indianapolis, Indiana
Getting out of Alamosa means climbing to 15,000 to get over the La Veta pass and then for us a long grind East to go home. We flew around the north of St Louis and were privileged to see the confluence of the Mississippi (left to right) and Missouri.
Here's the sun setting over Eagle Creek as we turned final for the last landing of a long trip .
7/31/2006
Bishop, California to Alamosa, Colorado
595 nautical miles great circle distance and 5.2 hours on the tach. Not real fast considering we were going east but the reason is the much larger distance actually flown. Here's a view looking east as we climbed out of Bishop. East is where we wanted to go but we couldn't go through that cumulo-granite so first we had to climb to the north to get high enough to turn.
Once able to turn, we headed southeast towards Las Vegas at 15,000. This is pretty cool on its own - for instance, we got to talk to Nellis Control (evidently Control is military speak for Approach) and saw lots of really high performance military hardware rushing around the sky. We also saw this airbase (the runway is right in front of the fuel filler cap, parallel with our wing's leading edge) which isn't on the charts: it's Desert Rock and we're told there's still activity there. The interesting thing about it is that it's the base which served the first atomic bomb tests in 1945. The trial detonations were on the dry lake you can see in the background. Luckily we didn't have a geiger counter with us. What you don't know about can't hurt you.
Pretty soon we were over Las Vegas. We'd planned our route carefully to be able to see the Hoover Dam but Vegas approach had other ideas and turned us east early. Here's the dam end of Lake Mead, the dam itself is right underneath us.
About 20 flying minutes later we went over the top end of Lake Mead (it's a really big lake). Here's a shot of the Colorado emptying into the lake. It surprised us to find that the Colorado is not some sparkling clean John Denver picture postcard thing - it's actually very muddy. Evidently, the water is still enough in Lake Mead for the sediment to settle out.
ATC gave us the option of direct Alamosa which we politely declined because we wanted to follow our planned route along the south rim of the Grand Canyon. We found it's absolutely impossible to take a photograph of something that big but here's a snap of a section we liked.
Our route also took us over Monument Valley, Utah, John Wayne western country. All these pictures look a bit hazy partly because of the scale of the scenery and partly because of the amount of smoke in the air from summer wildfires further west. A good excuse to go back in the spring.
The scenery kept coming. Here's a snap of Ship Rock.
With all this to take in, and more than 4 hours of breathing oxygen we were very tired when we got to Alamosa which, at over 7500ft, is by far the highest airport at which we've landed. There aren't many higher than this in the US. Although we had mentally rehearsed flying the approach by the IAS numbers, the sight picture is very different when the TAS is about 20 knots faster than you're used to.
Alamosa is high enough that it's the place where the US Army does its high altitude helicopter testing.
After a bit of a rest, we went out for a walk in Alamosa and discovered the upper reaches of the Rio Grande run through here. While the river is not much to look at this near the source, put a message in a bottle, drop it in and eventually your future wife will pick it up in the Gulf of Mexico.
7/30/2006
San Jose, California to Bishop, California
After an agonisingly long wait for a clearance from Reid Hillview, KRHV, we were finally able to get away and head towards Mammoth Pass and the Owens Valley. Here's a snap taken very near Mammoth, once a mountain village and now a first class ski resort. Although it's the end of July, note the snow on the peaks - this is high country.
We were heading for Bishop, CA, a town in the heart of the Owens Valley. There's a very large airport here with three long runways serving a town of about 12,000. This airport (and about 50 others within 500 miles) was built in the early 1940's in response to what was perceived as a possible invasion threat on the west coast - put it behind a range of mountains and it would be very hard indeed to capture.
Bishop is in Inyo County which has some interesting statistics: it has both the highest (Mt Whitney) and lowest (Death Valley) points in the lower 48. It has about 12% of England's land area and only 18,000 people. Most of the Owens Valley where Bishop lies was purchased in the 1920's by the City of Los Angeles for the water rights. Just downstream of Bishop, the Owens River, which drains part of the eastern Sierras, basically runs in to a big pipe which transports the water to LA. In a good example of the law of unintended consequences, LA taking most of the water away prevented any meaningful population growth and so this is still pristine high desert.
We took a ride up to Lake Sabrina, at 9128ft one of the highest lakes anywhere and a jewel within the vast scale of the Sierra scenery. It's just great and if you ever get the chance to visit, do. Here's a snap of downtown Bishop at night. Look how black the sky is - no light pollution here.
7/24/2006
Portland, Oregon to McMinnville, Oregon to San Jose, California.
We stopped at McMinnville because across the street from the airport is Evergreen Aviation Museum, the present and future home of the Hughes H4 Hercules flying boat, the famous Spruce Goose. This 8 engine monster is the largest wingspan aircraft ever. It is so big that, in the museum, it's impossible to photograph and it's easy for your mind to filter it out as though it isn't there. Between its only flight, in 1947 and his death in 1976, Howard Hughes kept it ready to go in a special hangar in Long Beach, CA. The photo below is the left wing - the engines are Pratt & Whitney R4360s meaning the big ones, 4 rows, 28 cylinders, 4360 cubic inch or 71 litres and change each.
The museum is also home to a number of other interesting aircraft, many of them in flyable condition. Apparently, they pull the aircraft across the highway to McMinnville airport when they fly them. Aircraft that will never fly again are always a bit sad, in this museum there is aura of hope. Here's a snap of our favourite model Spitfire, a Mk16e which means it has a Packard built Rolls-Royce Merlin 60 series engine, the same as in a P51 and the low rear fuselage with bubble canopy.
Later in the afternoon we headed off south to KRHV, Reid Hillview, San Jose, to meet up with the Newman Wachs team for this weekend's Formula Atlantic street race. The flight was interesting because we were able to watch the scenery change from Oregon's trees to northern California's scrub. California might be a populous state but there's a lot of it that is uninhabited. V27 runs slightly offshore in places so we're now able to say we've flown over the Pacific Ocean. NorCal approach gave us the Point Reyes 1 arrival into Reid Hillview which takes you a few miles offshore as you go past San Francisco bay. They're faint because of the distance but in this picture you can see most of the bay, the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, San Francisco itself and Alcatraz.
NorCal is some busy airspace and we saw a lot of heavy iron up close, like this Alaska 737, before approach dumped us high and close into Reid Hillview.
We had to visit 3 FBO's looking for tie-down space before meeting Hiro, owner of Nice Air. Hiro (in the picture below) charged us 7 bucks a day for a tie-down which, as he cheerfully pointed out, is a lot cheaper than most passenger airports charge you for parking your car. We certainly had no complaints, especially as he later ran us up the road to our hotel.
7/23/2006
Recovery day in Portland, City of Roses. We'd wondered over the years why Portland has this nickname and today we found out when we visited the Rose Garden.
Learning a little about the city, we began to appreciate that it was planned and laid out by some far sighted and philanthropic people and today we felt some of the benefit. The International Rose Test Garden is several acres in the heart of the city of test bed and showroom for rose breeders. It's an oasis of calm after the pace and noise of the race track and on this still summer evening the fragrance from thousands of roses was food for the soul.
7/22/2006
Race day in Portland and a monkey off our back when our car, the #2 "Yellow" Audi R10T won in some style from 3rd on the grid. The R10T maintains its 100% winning record and this was its first 1-2 when the "Red" #1 came home second. Angerole, Inc is very proud to be part of this effort.
7/17/2006
Salt Lake City, Utah to Portland, Oregon. Here's our radar track from Flight Aware.
If you know your US geography, you can see that we went north out of Utah and then northwest across Idaho and Oregon. The less than direct route is due to some big bits of rock in the way. Even at 10000ft, quite a lot of the scenery is above you. Southwestern Idaho seems quite fertile. Evidently there is plenty of water and therefore a lot of agriculture. Eastern Oregon is a bit of a surprise, not being the verdant green conifers and waterfalls you expect from the Pacific Northwest but instead sparse high desert.
We're not sure where the Rockies stop and the Cascades start but the air is so clear that you can see them coming for a long time. Here's one of the volcanoes we flew by. West of the mountains, the land and land use changes quite a bit with a lot more trees. Pretty soon we were descending for KPDX, Portland International. At 30ft, this is 4197ft lower elevation than where we started.
Strangely, Approach gave us 28 Left, the longest of Portland's runways and, at 11,000 feet, the longest runway on which we've ever landed. Here's the view on 2 mile final, runway ahead and Columbia River on the right.
7/15/2006
Race day at Salt Lake City. Audi Sport North America Team Champion bring the R10T's home in 1st and 4th places. This might easily have been a 1-2 but for a punctured LR tyre on the Yellow car. Still, it was a good result and we'll take it and be happy with it.
7/14/2006
Miller Motorsports Park is in Tooele, UT which is rapidly becoming a suburb of Salt Lake City. It's a brand new facility and this is the first car race there.
The owner, Larry Miller apparently has a golden touch. He owns a string of car dealerships across the West and two pro sports franchises. The track started as something he wanted so as to be able to exercise his collection of historic sports cars. The idea evidently grew like Topsy and a truly world class track is now there in the Utah desert.
American Le Mans means that different styles of cars are on the track at the same time, all involved in their own class battles. It's spectacular racing.
In qualifying, we did well, taking first and second on the grid. Here are the cars waiting to go through post qualifying inspection.
7/11/2006
North Platte, NE to Salt Lake City, UT. Yes, we're always on the move. North Platte is shrouded in fog as we start the day, with about 1/8 mile visibility and 100 VV indefinite ceiling.
Fortunately, the runway is wide and the centre line shows up well in the landing light beam so we're able to go, on the gauges as soon as we lift off and climb through about 3000ft of clag to blue skies on top. Around the Nebraska / Wyoming border, the cloud deck parted and we were treated to some spectacular views.
It looks like southern Wyoming's latest cash crop is wind farms. It would be easy to think there are more of them there than people. One nice thing about travelling by small plane is the way in which you're down there amongst the scenery. You'd never see this stuff going commercial.
When you're used to the IFR environment in the eastern US, it comes as a bit of a shock to see your transponder hardly ever flash, the radio to be very quiet and ATC ask you for position reports. As luck would have it, after a couple of hours of almost complete radio silence, we arrived in north eastern Utah at about the same time as squadrons of airliners, meaning that we would have to work hard to not be in the way. Salt Lake City had winds out of the south so ATC brought us in from the north turning us at CARTR intersection just north of Ogden, UT to intercept the localizer for Runway 17. It surprised us how close this turn is to the mountains.
At 9596 ft, 17 is the shortest of the three north-south runways at Salt Lake City. We naively thought this might mean they would put the big iron on the other two. We now know that's not true and getting in to KSLC when they're busy means every transmission from Approach includes something like, "maintain best forwards speed".
The depth of the valley in which Salt Lake City lies means that you have a lot of altitude to lose and you're on the localizer for a long time. Fortunately, it was still early in the day and therefore quite smooth so to help Approach, we flew the approach wheels up at the top of the green, 168 knots. Got to love a Bonanza when you can slow to 150 knots while still on the glideslope, drop the wheels at 500ft on short final, followed a couple of seconds later by the flaps at 120 knots and still be on the runway before the 1000ft marker.
7/9/2006
Race day in Toronto. Here's Joe D'Agostino on the grid, just about to climb into his car.
Both Newman Wachs cars qualified in the top ten, the team's best performance to date. Joe's new team mate, Steve Ott got involved with a multi-car crash at the first corner and retired on the spot with broken suspension. Although having his car damaged in the same incident, Joe soldiered round and brought his car home 7th for the team's best result. We want to be truly at the sharp end but this result was a step in the right direction.
7/6/2006
Indianapolis to Toronto in the corporate Bonanza. We had been looking forwards to this because Toronto is a cool city with a really neat downtown airport, CYTZ, Toronto City Centre. Here we are turning final for runway 33 over Lake Ontario.
This was Toronto's original airport, before Pearson International was built. If you ever landed at KCGX, Chicago Meigs, this is similar. There's a bit less of the aircraft carrier look of Meigs because the island is bigger but closeness and proximity of downtown give it a similar feel.
The major difference between City Centre and Meigs is that Toronto sees this airport as an asset and it is clear there is investment in the place.
7/1/2006
Final race with the Audi R8. What a day! We at Angerole, Inc are very proud to have been part of the last win for this amazing car.
The R8 retires with 63 wins from 80 starts in international sportscar racing. For this farewell event, the car carried livery showing every circuit it's won at and every winning driver.
The final winning trophy:
6/26/2006
Fire up day for the C-type Auto Union. This thing is just amazing. It runs on a methanol / nitromethane mix which, if you know drag racing, you would call "fuel".
OK, so the V16 starts up and, with 8 zoomie pipes each side, methanol and nitro, it sounds exactly like two fuel motors on the burnout pad. In the picture above you can see the pipes and the huge supercharger. The guy in the black t shirt is putting a finger above each pipe to check that cylinder is firing because, when this thing runs, there is so much noise and commotion that you literally can't tell if it's dropped one.
The other thing this car does is draw a crowd. In this case the crowd is the people who built the R10. And they're in awe of the C-type!
6/25/2006
A day off in Germany. We decided to head off on a road trip to Prague, historic city and capital of the Czech Republic. First stop was the Shell station for fuel and a close look at a very common poster in Germany right now: Audi's 24 Hour win promotion:
Prague is a beautiful city, full of ornate architecture. This June day under blue skies and warm sun it's easy to see why it never fell completely under the communist heel. It takes 3 1/2 hours to drive there if you get on with it from Ingolstadt and the reward was views of gorgeous baroque buildings. Check out the gold Grand Hotel Europa in the picture below.
We went on to Wenceslas Square, at the very heart of the city. Here's a statue of Good King Wenceslas, on guard every day making sure his people are ok.
Prague gets around on a very extensive and efficient electric tram system. Check out the gantry system that collects the electric power and the rails in cobblestone streets.
On the way back to Ingolstadt we stopped for dinner in Pilsen. This might not sound auspicious until we mention that that's where pilsner beer is brewed.
It's clear that investment is a little slower arriving in Pilsen than it is in Prague but it is coming. We had a wonderful, fresh-cooked meal in a mom-and-pop cafe in central Pilsen. And the beer was pretty good, too.
6/22/2006
An interesting day at Audi Sport. Audi is very proud of their competition history and have a lot of significant cars in their collection. Amongst them is this gorgeously brutal C-Type Auto Union.
The C-Type has a supercharged V-16 engine, (check out the 8 stub exhausts from one bank in the picture) can spin its tyres in top gear and will do over 210mph. Bernd Rosemeier lapped the original Nurburgring in less than 10 minutes in one of these, in 1935.
It's in perfect running order and we have something to look forward to: they're going to start it up on Monday prior to taking it to the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
6/21/2006
Arrival in Germany. Soccer's World Cup is consuming the nation and reminders of the tournament are everywhere. Here's some promotional thing in the atrium at Munich airport.
We drive north of Munich to Ingolstadt. This takes about 45 minutes at Autobahn speeds, meaning as fast as the car will go. We're in a Volkswagen Golf wagon with a 1.9 litre turbo diesel so this means 185 kilometers or about 120mph. It's amazing what a modern small car will do.
Talking about accident statistics on the way, it turns out that in Germany they're pretty good despite the speeds, probably because people actually pay attention when they drive. Apparently the trucks, which are restricted to 80kmh, about 50mph crash all the time because the drivers fall asleep from boredom.
German signs are clear so we find the Ingolstadt exit and pretty soon we're at Audi Sport.
6/20/2006
On the way to Ingolstadt to collect the Audi R10 sportscars and prepare them for the rest of the season in North America.
We were reminded how significant this program is when the ticket guy at Indianapolis saw our Audi travel clothes and said how impressed he was at Audi winning Le Mans this year with a diesel. Everywhere we go, people seem to know about this car and want to hear more. It's a privilege to be involved.
6/18/2006
Race day at Portland with Newman Wachs. This being our first race with NWR and our first single seater race of any kind for nearly a decade, we naturally wanted this one to go well.
In the event, it was a kind of bittersweet day. With so much to learn about these cars, we were still making setup changes between the warmup and race. We hit it right with Joe D'Agostino's car. From 11th on the grid, he was 6th at the end of the first lap and 2nd by lap 28. After setting fastest race lap (and a new lap record) Joe was shaping up to take the lead when a mechanical failure ended his charge.
Meanwhile, Daniel Gaunt (here waiting to leave the pits before qualifying) made it to the checker with a top 8 finish, his and the Team's best result so far.
Morale is high for the NWR team heading in to next weekend's double header at Cleveland. We are proud to have helped this excellent team effort and look forwards to working with them again in Toronto next month.
6/13/2006
Indianapolis to Portland, Oregon for a Formula Atlantic race with Newman Wachs. Leave home at 0 dark 30 for a 6:00 plane, change in Denver and then on to PDX. Check out the sky colour at Flight Level 390 over southern Wyoming.
Portland International Raceway is in a park owned by the City of Portland. It's quite typical of US racetracks in that the main straight is a drag strip and the return road completes the circuit. Here's a view of the main straight, looking from the burnout pad (note the rubber, literally thick enough to cut with a knife) towards the start/finish.
Newman Wachs Racing runs two cars, one for Joe D'Agostino, the other for Daniel Gaunt. Here's Joe's car on the flat patch, the reference surface where we carry out the actual suspension rigging. Although today is setup day, we've had a chance to think about things since the cars were loaded last Friday evening for the long trip West from Chicago and there's preparation work to do for tomorrow's test day.
6/1/2006
Sebring to Orlando to Indianapolis. Orlando airport is a zoo. If you've ever been to Japan and seen how they herd people there, that's what it's like. Going commercial once in a while certainly makes us appreciate the Bonanza.
Daniel Gaunt, one of Newman Wachs' drivers, is in the picture and is travelling with us on the way back to Indy. We finished our test yesterday 2nd fastest of the 7 teams there, only 0.02s behind the championship leader. And, we've generated a very large job list for the next race in Portland, Oregon. We'll be better prepared there than we were here. All told, a very good experience.
5/30/2006
Dawn at Sebring
We like Sebring. Summer maybe isn't the very best time to be in central Florida but the history of the place along with the skies like this at dawn make it special for us. Of course, we're up with the sun to set up camp for 2 days' testing on the short course with Newman Wachs Racing's Atlantic cars.
NMR has a huge canopy on the side of their truck at it takes a while to put up but we were certainly glad of the shade later in the day.
For some reason we've mostly been involved with sportscars over the years and it makes a nice change to work with single seaters. Formula Atlantic is a proving ground series for up-and-coming young drivers. NMR's drivers are Daniel Gaunt from New Zealand and American, Joe D'Agostino. They're both a pleasure to work with: fast, capable and able to listen. Watch for them in the future.
5/25/2006
At Newman Wachs, owned by Paul Newman (yes, that Paul Newman) and Eddie Wachs, a high-energy guy who has a series of businesses servicing the nuclear power and oil exploration industries. Here's the shop, an (I suspect deliberately) anonymous building.
Inside, Eddie keeps some of his own cars, most notably the Toleman Formula 2 car Brian Henton drove to the European F2 Championship in 1980. Looking at the car took us back to our younger days.
We're actually here to do some work, preparing NWR's Atlantic cars for what we want to accomplish at a test next week in Sebring. Here's one of the cars on high stands patiently letting us do some data system calibration. Chad and Mike, the team's data engineers are in the picture.
5/24/2006
Off to north eastern Illinois to see Newman Wachs Racing. Detoured around the back of a weather system over NW Indiana. Once again the Garmin 396 proved itself to be the best investment we ever made. Here's a picture taken about 15 NM SE of Roberts VOR, just before we turned North to Joliet. Note the difference between the information on the 396 and the Stormscope in the panel beneath the VSI.
5/22/2006
Home from Mid Ohio in the corporate Bonanza. A fabulous day for flying, cool, high pressure & clear and a million. Here's the plane just before we set off to go home from KGQQ, Galion Municipal. With 100 LL fuel at $3.28 and friendly service, a great place to stop.
5/21/2006
ALMS Mid Ohio with Dindo Capello, Allan McNish and the Audi R8. Kind of nice to be able to say that. The curious flag next to Allan's name is Monaco - he's now a citizen of the principality.
Allan qualified the car second but overnight rain brought a green raceday track and very cold northerly winds. We were never able to get the tyres to come in and finished the race a disappointing 3rd. The good news was, the way the points work we extended our Manufacturers, Drivers and Team points lead.
5/12/2006
Race day at Houston in one of the Audi R8's last 3 races. We get the new R10 from Europe after Le Mans, in time for the Salt Lake City race in early July. We've qualified 4th (which isn't where we want to be) but it's a long race on a difficult and bumpy track and we're well prepared.
Here's the nose on its stand outside the truck's awning.
And here's the car in the race, on its way to the R8's 63rd win in international sportscar racing. What a good day! We're very proud to be part of this effort.
5/7/2006
Testing at Paul Ricard, Provence, France. Here's a view out of the car window on the way up the hill to the track.
You're looking approximately south over the Mediterranean. It's a pretty good climb from sea level to the track and the land changes from agricultural smallholdings to semi-arid scrub. If you've ever been to Laguna Seca, outside Monterey, as you get near the track, that's what it looks like.
Paul Ricard is built right next to Le Castellet airport, there's some sort of country club there and the whole place looks like it's gearing up to be an automotive playground for the rich and famous to jet into. It's also a fabulous test track with configurations to suit every kind of work.
5/5/2006
Cinco de Mayo. Bound to be a good day for the Spanish speaking community and a good day for Angerole's engineering staff because, writing this, we're on a Boeing 777 heading from Indianapolis to France. Feels pretty good to be able to write that! This is a long trip, four plane rides, arriving in Marseille late morning tomorrow with a drive to Le Castellet and the Paul Ricard race track to follow.
Paul Ricard is a French aniseed drink and many years ago the company bought the naming rights to the race track at Le Castellet in Provence, a region of France that borders the Mediterranean Sea. We're heading this far East to attend a pre Le Mans test of Audi's new R10 sportscar. Angerole, Inc has been retained to provide race engineering services to Audi Sport & Champion Racing for the R10 in American Le Mans Series races throughout 2006.
There is no doubt the R10 is the premier sportscar racing program in the world and we are very proud to be involved. So far, being "involved" has meant watching, listening and learning. This time we're on the way to do a bit of doing.
We've been around factory race programs before and the scale of the effort and resources manufacturers can bring to bear is always stunning but this is on a higher plane altogether.
Paul Ricard has one of the longest straights anywhere on a road course and, with a neat mix of slow, fast and very fast corners, is a perfect place to test for Le Mans. Audi have rented the track for a week and will have a small army of people. We'll see what comes.