Yes, my loyal followers of all things Tuned, your eyes do not deceive you. that is an F-250 Super Duty with a drag chute. It is also the newest record holder at Bonneville, topping out at 182mph, fastest diesel truck ever. This is another victory for diesels in racing, and they keep coming hard and fast. The last, what? six, seven, 24 Hours of Le Mans have all been won by diesels. The 12 Hours of Sebring has seen the "shakers" roll into victory lane more than a handful of times. Go to your local track on a Friday night and your bound to see at least a dozen of 'em running stupid fast.
It makes sense, diesels are fast, they can make ludicrous amounts of power. Figures of 1200bhp and 2000+ft/lbs of torque are easy to achieve with a big enough wallet. And better still, diesels get fabulous mileage, so they cheaper in the long run. Problem is, until the last ten years or so, almost no R & D had gone into them (from a performance standpoint anyway). I once read someone saying that if 1/100th of the money put into a conventional motor had been put into developing the Wankel engine, everyone would have Wankels. Now that's just stupid, as Wankels are total crap. But if you replace Wankels with Diesels in that sentence, you may have a point. Just look at Europe, you can get a diesel in a Ford Focus and get 42mpg. Fucking brillant. Hell, the most efficent car in the world is a diesel, the VW Polo Bluemotion gets between 75-80mpg! Compare that with the weaksauce Prius which is rated at 56mpg, but rarely gets better than 45 or so.
So obviously, I have no problems with there being "truck motors" in racing. And I really like that Ford has the new record at Bonneville. Now our more avid readers will sense the, large, sweaty, "but" coming up. What bothers me is Ford set the new record for a production truck. As in one you or I can buy. And Ford says the truck was 100% stock........except for the drag chute of course, and a rollcage and racing harnesses (rules ya know) oh and they changed the turbos, injectors, ECU, fuel lines, and fuel pump. But that's it, well and a new bumper......and wheels, but seriously thats it guys! So they set the production world record in a truck with a totally jacked motor! WTF? I'm going to put Steve's Hyundai Accent body on a NASCAR and go set the production Accent world record. Fucking idiots.
Now onto random consumer advice. I just bought a Nintendo 3DS and picked up Ridge Racer 3D for it. My review of it is this. It is both a terrible game, and a must have at the same time. It is terrible in that it is horribly unrealistic, not a true driving simulator at all, psycho drifts, 200mph speeds, and "Triple Nitrous" charges are all par for the course. But its addictive, has awesome music and the unlicensed car designs are very cool. The controls need work, as the upshift/downshift buttons in manual transmission mode are hard to reach for quick changes, but once you lock the car in 5th (no 6-speeds yet, oddly enough) you're good to go. The 3D effect is actually quite good (this from a 3D hater) as your taillight trails, tyre smoke, and winners confetti all come through the screen. Dodging a TV Camera helicopter at a buck eighty in 3D is fun as hell too. All in all, go buy now!
Finally, you may have noticed our new look. You like? You hate? You can't read it cause the shitty new font is terrible? Let me know.
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