If you are going to speed in your car; read this
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008I refer you here to this post do the fact that many of you have sent me email, sms, calls on the unfortunate tragedy of 5 young men in a BMW M5. Sadly, these have been sent in worry as I myself am infamous for speeding in fast cars on airport strips, straights on public highways and twisty turn racing on mountains. Needless to say, this behavior is completely fucking stupid and many people have offered track time, safety courses, race courses, females, booze all of which have been turn downed. Mostly, because i’m a fucking idiot, so I do it anyway. This tragedy, sadly, won’t stop me in the future and should the unfortunate happen; trust me. I had fun all the way to the end. Interestingly enough the same time this accident happened I was going to begin writing a howto on how to speed on an airport strip. These instructions or warnings are for people like me, who plan on bucking conventional wisdom for an adrenaline high and generally acting with little to no intelligence. That said I plan to be frank, maybe it’ll save a life.
Let me quickly preface with the fact that racing your vehicle or reaching high speeds (70mph or over) on public streets or highways is a pretty fucking stupid idea. Not only is it stupid, but you risk the lives of not just you, or the persons in your vehicle, but anyone on the street, block and/or airport strip. It’s clearly reckless behavior and it’s simply not condoned by myself or anyone else with two nits of common sense.
Now, I’m aware there are people who are reading this right now and saying “Fuck you Chris, if it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me”. To which I say… If you wish to risk your life that’s fine. Personally i’ve risked my life doing many different things (and have the scars to prove it), if this is the way you want to go; continue reading. The only reason i’m still alive today is God because it’s sure as fuck not luck. The odds are stacked in deaths favor just so you know. You can only roll the dice so many times.
Safety
You are about to do something that is completely unsafe, on any scale. The best course of action would include trying to be as safe as possible. Seeing as your chances of dying are quite high you should at the very least try mitigating any external factors. By that I mean, if you have anyone in your car? Tell them in the most polite manner possible, to get the fuck out. If you really need to give them a reason it’s because their extra weight will make it difficult for you to reach X speed goal. Other than that, you really don’t want anyone else in your car. Plus, you need someone to call the paramedics when the unfortunate happens if you do this sort of thing around friends. If they want thrills, let them do it on their own, so long as they aren’t in the vehicle with you we are off to a good start. Also, if you have any booze, guns (legal or not), drugs, or any free moving objects at all. Remove them from the vehicle. Lastly, if you are under the influence or were under the influence recently; now is not a good time to have your body traveling at excessive speed. Take a nap, spoon with your girl, play guitar hero, whatever.
Know what you are speeding on
Is it asphalt? Is it cement? Is it some sort of rubber topping? You need to know this because each one of these has a different sort of property in heat and cold. Asphalt is highly likely to have pot holes or small holes in it’s surface, rubber topping may glaze over, same for cement in any sort of cold. A small hole at 10mph won’t affect you in any manner. That same hole at 100mph could flip your car or cause you to veer in one direction or the other slamming into a tree or wall. At 100mph any unexpected movement could spell death.
Is your car in proper condition?
Well.. is it? Did you check your tires, did you just have an oil change? Is your battery and electrical system in proper order? Are you sure your spark plugs are giving enough spark. Pushing ones car over 100mph if it’s regularly driven 50mph avg without at the very least looking at these items is completely fucking insane. We maybe stupid, even fucking stupid but we aren’t fucking insane. Driving at high speeds utilizes more power from every component in your car, your spark plugs will be put to the test, your engine will be doing much more combusting and using much more fuel. Do you want to die because one of your heads blew or because your engine seized? There is a very good reason race car drivers have full teams dedicated to not just the car, but a team just for the engine.
I just bought my fast car i’m fucking fine
No. Actually you are not. See, if you’ve bought yourself a Lamborghini Diablo, Lotus Elise, Noble M12, Chrysler Crossfire or something along those lines; you may skip down a bit as these cars come equipped with speed in mind. They have wide stable bases, are low to the ground and come equipped with wings that will keep the car grounded at high speed. If you are driving a BMW M5 (IT IS A SEDAN; DO YOU SEE ANY RACE CARS PICTURED IN THAT LINK? IT’S A HIGH PERFORMANCE SEDAN, YEAH, BUT IT’S STILL A SEDAN) or any other SEDAN. Please; STOP READING. If you bought a Honda and put a wing on it. STOP READING. That all said; if you’ve really got the fast car but you haven’t done any of the checks above then you sir/madam are a fucking idiot. Even high quality vehicles need maintenance and break down from time to time. For no other reason than the fact that we are dealing with complex machines with many different systems interacting at once. Do yourself a favor and CHECK EVERYTHING, not once, but a couple of times.
Do I know this road?
If your buddies put you up to speeding on a strip you’ve never sped on in your entire life? Would you do it? If yes? That’s like having sex with a girl you’ve just met for the first time and not using a condom! Sure, it’s tons of fun while you’re doing it but so much can go wrong! So much, and we just aren’t talking diseases. So, if you wouldn’t have unprotected sex why would you put your fast car down a road you don’t know at high speed? Drive the road a little, learn it. See how your car feels going at slow speeds, where the rough patches may be. There may be dips in the road that aren’t prominent at 50 but will send your fastcar flying at 100. All of these facets must be taken into account.
Police, Law Enforcement, Federales
Getting caught speeding at 70-80 mph is one thing. Getting caught at anything over that is most likely jail time. I’d consult with state law but me and a friendly Connecticut state trooper had this discussion on I95 somewhere near Hartford. You may not be as fortunate as me, so, you’ll need a radar and thermal imaging system to avoid law enforcement who hopefully catch you doing something this stupid and at the very least fine you heavily. The radar system should be installed into the front and rear panels of your vehicle and a bonus would be having the thermal imaging cameras in the front and rear securely attached. Radar wise I recommend the Escort Passport SRX Radar Detector. If that is too expensive then I recommend the Escort Passport 8500 X50. Thermal imaging wise there aren’t too many kits available. If you are in the military i’d recommend getting a hook up through supply (ask around). Otherwise you can buy thermal imaging cameras online and route the video to either your dvd player or build a mount on your dashboard. Maybe i’ll write a howto in the future on doing this.
Make sure there is NO ONE ELSE ON THE ROAD!!!
This is going to be a tough one but remember you are putting your OWN life in jeopardy! Obviously, it’s a PUBLIC road meaning that for the most part it is likely to be occupied 24 hours a day 7 days a week until it needs repair. There are however, times where the road will be completely void of traffic. This is usually when you want to do something this stupid. Normally these are in the wee hours of the morning where you will not be able to see things like black ice, new potholes, puddles or malformations in the road. Take a test drive down the strip to see if everything feels rights and that there is no else on the road before a run.
Call that one friend you don’t speak to a lot but you’ve been friends forever. When you die, they will know what happened because having done all of the above. You are now ready to risk your life for the thrill of speed and that adrenaline rush.
A couple of more quick disclaimers. If you pull to a stop light and some other dude with a fast car pulls up to you wanting to race? Do yourself a favor and let it go. If you have a fast car this will happen, and it will happen often. As everyone will want to race you to some stop light. The simple fact is that racing short distances doesn’t prove your car is faster. This compounded by the fact that if you know your car is fast; there is no need to prove it to someone you know you can beat. If you feel like less of a man; because your girl is in the car. Trust me; she’ll appreciate your restraint as she most likely already knows who is “bigger” and will view the other guys behavior as an embarrassment to himself.
With that said, I’ve done my part 
No more emails, or phone calls.. I already get it!! It’s not going to stop me.
The biggest issues will actually be with Fashion Galleries and all of the Workflow that revolves around that. Programming wise it’s no hassle; it’s more taking most of the ideas and reworking them into a nice work-flow that utilizes the content rather than copying it all over the place. Initially I was going to copy from Krang to Plone exactly but the extra day or two spent thinking about the Workflow before I do anything is the best thing at this point. The more legacy “workflow” or ideas that we can get away from the better and there are a lot.