Flickr: MPH09_Koenigsegg_CCR_2
Koenigsegg CCR.
Tagged: Cars RSS
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Matt Rogowski
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Matt Rogowski
Flickr: MPH09_Aston_Martin_DBR9_Gulf_2
Aston Martin DBR9 Gulf.
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Matt Rogowski
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Matt Rogowski
Flickr: MPH09_Bugatti_Veyron_10
Bugatti Veryon
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Matt Rogowski
Flickr: MPH09_Bugatti_Veyron_6
Bugatti Veryon
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Matt Rogowski
Flickr: MPH09_Bugatti_Veyron_3
Bugatti Veryon
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Matt Rogowski
Snow – Monday 21st December 2009
We don’t get much snow here in the UK, so when we do, there’s always a fuss. Loads of roads closed, traffic chaos, it’s always fun to watch how ape we go. There’s usually loads and loads of hype and then all we get is a light dusting, and this was the case on Friday. However, over the weekend, there was more, it was three inches deep here and 6 inches in places in the field at work.
This is where we live and how we get to the road:
Snow 21/12/09 - House to Road
We turn right out the driveway, right again, and then left or right at the junction depending on where we’re going. Yesterday we had to turn right twice, going across one lane onto the other, and had to take a run up; if we were on the little bit of road waiting to turn we’d just spin the wheels, we were in a rear wheel drive BMW, so we had to reverse back to the start of the longer bit of road we’d just come along, get round the shorter bit, and then just carry on to the main road without stopping, and just hope we saw anything that was coming before we went out.
Then, this morning, it was my turn. I too drive a BMW, so I had some RWD fun in store for me as well. The morning started off bad as the lock in the driver’s door was frozen, only the back-right door would open so I had to get in there and climb through. Finally got going and went along the first bit of road. Got to the first right bend, going slowly, turned, front went round, back kept on coming. I ended up facing the long green patch you see in the picture above, in the middle of the short bit of road. I knew then I was screwed as I’d lost my run up for the junction (even though I was turning left, I still couldn’t stop). I managed to face the right way but could not move anywhere worthwhile, 1st gear, 2nd gear, high revs, low revs, nothing, just span the back wheels. I then though I should try reversing into the bush (pictured here near the top left of the picture, next to the right turn to the short bit of road) and get some traction off the grass bank. This worked to an extent, I could get a good start off it, but I still ended up stopping at the same place I was before. I was getting rather frustrated at this point, but then a guy came from behind me in a Land Rover, gave me a push, and I was on my way.
Got all the way to work without any real issues. The place I work is a small building off someone’s house, and the only way to get to it is a track wide enough for one car, which is basically two concrete tracks that you drive along.
Snow 21/12/09 - Road to Work
This is normally fine. After the straight bit there’s that slight bump, there’s a little corkscrew there, road goes slightly to the left then down and right quite sharply. I had to go down there in 1st today to avoid ploughing into a tree of a flock of sheep. After this there is a cattle grid, marked by the first little red marker. I didn’t want to go over this too fast in case the wheels slipped and I hit the side, so I went over nice and slowly. Unfortunately I stalled after, and that was it. I stopped near the second little red marker and couldn’t get going again. It’s on a bit of an uphill slope which didn’t help. After a few minutes I’d only managed to make things worse by getting the right rear wheel into the ground between the two concrete tracks, leaving all the other wheels still on the concrete, so it was at a bit of an awkward angle. I gave up and went up to the office, and as I was almost there, a colleague came walking round the corner with a shovel and a bucket of sand. We tried to shift it but the sand didn’t help with grip, I was still going nowhere. Another colleague then reversed his Subaru to where we were to pull me out. His car was hide, 4WD, no problems pulling itself, but when it came to pulling me out it too was stuck and just span it’s wheels. So we gave up again and just went indoors, and called the farmer nearby to help get me out with his tractor. At about 14:00 he arrived and got me out, and I went home then, there wasn’t any point in staying as it was only going to get colder and everything could have started freezing over again, plus if we got stuck in the dark it’d be awful, so we left whilst we had the chance.
I hope it’s snowy again tomorrow.
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Matt Rogowski
Random rant on stupid drivers
I’ve been in a bad mood for the past few days, and, even though I wasn’t driving today, there are some idiots on the roads around here and I must vent.
We were going along earlier at about 60, and a car was waiting in a lay-by to pull out. There was a few cars in front of us, with about a 3 second gap between them and us. They went past the guy waiting, and then he decided that 3 seconds was enough time to pull out in front of us.
Well, it wasn’t.
Brakes on hard. Flashing of lights. Swears. My dad drives with his headlights on all the time to help people see him, didn’t seem to help this guy though. If he’d pulled out half a second later we would have gone right up the back of him.
Then, we were stuck behind some idiot in a massive SUV doing anything from 30-45 in a 60 for about 10 miles. Why?? God knows. It was a wide, straight road, perfect conditions, not wet, you could see for miles, but he decided to plod along, not really giving a shit that the people behind may actually need to get somewhere. We got past him eventually, overtaking the two cars in front of us who didn’t have the brains to overtake, and then the slow guy, all at once. Other people then suddenly woke up and overtook him too. That seems to happen a lot up here, nobody overtakes, they’re a bit like sheep, they just follow the person in front, but then when someone with a bit of common sense overtakes, they all do.
We also had to go to the horse place so my sister could have a lesson. The exit from this place into the main road is a nightmare, the junction is on a corner, whether you look left or right, it’s blind, you can’t see very far round it at all. There is a mirror on the other side of the road, but it’s completely pointless because you can’t see anything coming in it unless it’s in your line of sight coming round the corner anyway. We pulled out, and a car then came around the corner, which happens quite a lot. He then had to slow down, nothing we could do about it, every other time it happens people are fine with it, as they accept it’s a blind bend and it wasn’t intentional, but this guy honked us, got right up behind us, then overtook, giving us a lovely hand gesture. I’d like to see him get out of that corner every time without cutting someone up, I’ve not managed it yet.
If these sorts of people weren’t on the road, I swear we’d all get to our destinations in half the time and with a lot less hassle.
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Matt Rogowski
Good car day
Today, I saw a Nissan GTR, a pretty awesome, and rare, supercar.
Someone seems to be coping well in the credit crunch.
I then saw one of these for sale: http://photo.netcarshow.com/BMW-M_635_CSi_1986_photo_02.jpg
They’re affordable, and they look in mint condition. This picture doesn’t do this car justice, it looks epic in the metal or with a decent picture, I so want one of these.
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Matt Rogowski
Saw a nice car and almost crashed
Hmm.
Was going to pick my sister up from her horse riding lesson, and was approaching a T-junction, I was going to be turning right. Approaching the corner, not yet stopped, I saw a nice car coming round from the right, a Lexus IS-F, they’re quite rare and I’d never seen one before, and after it had gone past me I looked at it in my rear-view mirror. It then suddenly occurred to me that I was still moving along, towards the car in front that had stopped… quickly looked back at the road and slammed on my brakes, the engine stalled because I didn’t dump the clutch, and managed to stop, without going into the car in front.
Note to self; make sure you’ve actually stopped before looking at a nice car coming the other way.
