Gymkhana 7 dropped today

Always impressed with the driving in those, though there wasn't a lot in that one that was particularly new. He needs to get the car airborne or something more often, lol.

I liked the end going up through Hollywood Hills though. I've been on that road riding shotgun with my uncle in his Porsche 911 in the middle of the night, taking those turns blind and sideways. It was the scariest 10 minutes of my life, hands down. He's a local that had done the road a thousand times, but it was completely terrifying for me, lol.

The only thing I'd change is the wheels. Need to be shinier and less.... Importy. I think block.got it right on this one, though 1 is still my favorite, and 5 is probably the best. Now if block had the good sense to get his buddy Travis pastrana (and they are friends) who drives a dodge dart in rally..... Paint that mustang sumbitch green and let em chase each other around San Francisco ala 5.....

turboswede wrote:

Zomby Woof wrote:

Ian F wrote:

tuna55 wrote:

Zomby Woof wrote:

tuna55 wrote: I had to try to convince a co-worker that drifting is not the fastest way around the corner. He remains incorrect.

Go to a dirt track and tell them that. Don't care for the videos either.

Fine... On pavement. That right there is why 90%...

Then explain why rally drivers still drift around hair-pin tarmac corners?

Yeah, what he said

Because that's how the cars are configured to be driven and that's how the driver's drive. If you look at videos of WRC cars on tarmac rally's you'll see they typically take the more common paved line more often than not. Remember they are still driving on roads where they don't get a lot of room to straighten the roads out and they don't have to take care of their tires over the length of an entire race and rarely have people trying to pass them or pass other competitors.

The tail-out technique is easier to adjust mid-corner. That's a big deal for a rally car, as you're always adapting to road conditions. It's not like a road course where you just saw the same corner two minutes ago.

In a really tight corner, it can be faster since you're really not going to carry any speed out of it, you can concentrate on getting the car rotated. During the Targa, I did about three or four handbrake turns, all on tight hairpins. The drivers don't over rotate, most of the "drift" is the beginning of the corner. Once the car's mostly turned, it's about getting straight as soon as possible.

But on more open corners where you can maintain speed, the fastest rally drivers look more like road racers. Loeb is almost boring to watch because of it. Sure, they'll use a bit more oversteer so they can adjust the car's line on the throttle, but sideways is slower than forwards. The racing line is still the fastest. Ever shared a track with drifters? Good god, they're pretty but they're slow as molasses compared to a similar car driven for grip.

The master at work. Check out how rarely he's oversteering on corner exit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUauZ9UX7J8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrOpPfep3VQ

Anyhow, this was a fun way to spend 10 minutes. Love the shot of the tire smoke covering four levels of highway.

I watched a gymkhana event that Block put on a few years back. Heck I think I was given the link to the stream here. Block lost the event to Foust because while you were required to drift the winner was based on time. Foust drifted just enough to count as drifting while Block entered the corner backwards with all four tires spinning forwards. Block was more fun to watch but Foust was faster.

Well, that was awesome.

Thoughts going through my head as I watched this:

With only the utmost respect, admiration, and jealousy towards him...Ken Block is literally the Kim Kardashian of motorsports.

People always talk about how bad L.A. traffic is, but all I see is beautiful open tarmac.

Somebody at CARB just had a heart attack.

Just look at that last shot, he covered the entire city in tire smoke!

Driven5 wrote: People always talk about how bad L.A. traffic is, but all I see is beautiful open tarmac.

Probably had roadblocks just outside of the frame, and I bet it was filmed just after sunrise on a Sunday morning. Look how long those shadows are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMj2OFykSN0

Loeb is faster by a couple tenths, at least, by my stopwatch.

There was a truly awesome video overlay from the WRC showing Sordo and Latvala or Petter Solberg on a tarmac rally a couple years ago. It was shot from a helicopter or high elevation over a series of switchbacks and showed them covering the same stretch of road at the same time. Sordo was taking the racing line and Latvala or Solberg was going into every corner totally sideways. On the tighter corners sideways was faster, on more open corners the traditional racing line was. I'll have to see if I can dig that up somewhere.

It was a fun way to spend a bit of time.

I think Ken Block gets a lot of hate because people watch those videos and think, "If I had the time, equipment and money to practice driving like that all day long, I bet I could do that!"

You don't hear too many people watching F1 or Loeb driving in the stage rally videos hating on the drivers in those sports. Most people know no matter how much money they were given they'd run out of talent long before they had a cash flow problem.

In reply to Mitchell:

That's a joke, son.

.

Brett_Murphy wrote: You don't hear too many people watching F1 or Loeb driving in the stage rally videos hating on the drivers in those sports. Most people know no matter how much money they were given they'd run out of talent long before they had a cash flow problem.

Don't hold back, we all know that when you say "people"...You really mean Ken Block.

mndsm wrote: The only thing I'd change is the wheels. Need to be shinier and less.... Importy. I think block.got it right on this one, though 1 is still my favorite, and 5 is probably the best. Now if block had the good sense to get his buddy Travis pastrana (and they are friends) who drives a dodge dart in rally..... Paint that mustang sumbitch green and let em chase each other around San Francisco ala 5.....

Yeah the Dart deal collapsed and I'm not sure Pastrana is even doing GRC anymore. It was unfortunate because the Dart was fast, he just got put in the wall at the first turn every event. GRC is the real-life equivalent of playing Forza with a random lobby.

Driven5 wrote: Thoughts going through my head as I watched this: With only the utmost respect, admiration, and jealousy towards him...Ken Block is literally the Kim Kardashian of motorsports.

NOHOME wrote: So, out of curiosity...what does it cost to rent LA for the day?

That would be an interesting question. But when you think about it, LA is a city based on the movie business so I'm sure stuff like this happens all the time. Chances are the locals are used to it.

This probably also has a lot to do with the choppiness of the editting vs. some of his previous videos: polics block of an area for filming; they film for an hour or so; move on to the next location. They probably had (at least) two produciton teams with police escorts. One team to be filming, another to set-up for filming.

And I'm sure the highly visible police presence was to leave in no doubt this was a film made with their assistance.

Watched it last night. Liked it. Some of those turns where he enters backwards (or nearly so) are interesting to watch. Who doesn't need an AWD 850 hp car?

Ian F wrote:

NOHOME wrote: So, out of curiosity...what does it cost to rent LA for the day?

That would be an interesting question. But when you think about it, LA is a city based on the movie business so I'm sure stuff like this happens all the time. Chances are the locals are used to it. This probably also has a lot to do with the choppiness of the editting vs. some of his previous videos: polics block of an area for filming; they film for an hour or so; move on to the next location. They probably had (at least) two produciton teams with police escorts. One team to be filming, another to set-up for filming. And I'm sure the highly visible police presence was to leave in no doubt this was a film made with their assistance.

Not sure about this one, but #5 was claimed to be less than $1,000,000. That's a lot of money, but probably good value considering what it bought.

http://www.adverblog.com/2012/07/26/how-gymkhana-5-was-made-for-under-1m/

So my theory is that the never showed his face because it is not him driving. Some people say that it was actually Tanner Faust, some say it was actually the Stig. All we know is...it was actually the PINCHVALVE!

(ok, my secret is out)

Ian F wrote: One of my friends from the MINI world (now drives a Focus ST) is really into the "Hoonigan" thing. He actually has big "Hoonigan" decals on the side of his car. Not a kid either - late 30's.

So where did the term hooning or hoonigan originate? First I saw it was on this board quite some time ago.

In reply to bentwrench:

My understanding is that hoon is an Aussie term and hoonigan didn't really appear at least in mainstream until Ken Block and gym1

Mitchell wrote:

Driven5 wrote: People always talk about how bad L.A. traffic is, but all I see is beautiful open tarmac.

Probably had roadblocks just outside of the frame, and I bet it was filmed just after sunrise on a Sunday morning. Look how long those shadows are.

at 9:50, look towards the top of the shot. That's the 110/105 interchange, looking north, and you can see the 5-0 has traffic stopped on the 110 South. Presumably they're doing the same out of view on the 110 North.

Hey guys, Gymkhana 5 dropped 860 days ago!!

Yeah, with people referring to San Francisco and #5 as the best of the series by brain went 'I don't remember one in SF' so I headed off to this magic new thing I found called Google. And what do you know, it is the best of the lot. I must have been on vacation on July 12th 2012 or something as I have no memory of it at all. Much awesome sauce and for any other newly arrived aliens or new born humans who haven't seen it yet either, here's the link.

In reply to moparman76_69 & bentwrench:

I am guessing that it plays off the term Hooligan (crazy soccer fan) and what you were saying Mopar.

Also, I am with bentwrench. Favorite car but the first couple of videos were better because they were so original. Love the Mustang though. I wonder if it will increase the value of the 65 coupes (My dad has one).

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

Yep 5 wins. Killer cinematography, great stunts (jump into offcamber turn!), etc...

Zomby Woof wrote:

tuna55 wrote: I had to try to convince a co-worker that drifting is not the fastest way around the corner. He remains incorrect.

Go to a dirt track and tell them that. Don't care for the videos either.

Not to be nit-picky, but dirt track cars aren't "drifting" either. Spinning the tires means giving up forward drive, and that means you are getting passed on corner exit, and quickly. They look sideways in the corner, but that's because 1) they are running on bias ply tires with crazy floppy sidewalls, and as a result the tires like to be run at an extremely high slip angle , and 2) modern dirt cars are set up with a certain amount of rear steer, which points the rear end of the car towards the outside of the corner. They look like they are running sideways, and they are, but that's because they are set up to grip best that way.

Keith Tanner wrote: Loeb is almost boring to watch because of it. Sure, they'll use a bit more oversteer so they can adjust the car's line on the throttle, but sideways is slower than forwards.

I would argue that Loeb takes the racing line to the extreme. As Petter has demonstrated in World Rallycross, sideways IS faster... but to maintain that level of aggression and constantly having the car in an "unstable" condition is almost impossible for a complete rally. Its also MUCH harder on a car/tires.

I also feel that for the most part, your description is correct; loose is fast in the tight stuff, clean is fast at speed.

I guess it is just another sign that I need to do something to stop my slide into being the get off my lawn guy, but the term "dropped" used in the context of a youtube video or mp3 is something I find very silly. I wanted to simply post, "well, then tell ken Block to pick it up" in response to hearing he dropped something. Why can't things be released? Where did it drop from? Maybe it fell out of the cloud? I may occasionally say I'm going to drop a deuce, but that act involves an actual dropping. Don't get it. I guess I'll go sign up for a twitter account so I can announce I just dropped my new post on the GRM forum!?!?