Tyre Supplier Wanted for F1

Tenders are invited for supply of tyres to high tech automotive company.

Previous inscrutable supplier of past 13 years, exclusive supplier past three, willing to pass on tales of heartaches and drama to successful tenderer at the conclusion of the 2010 season.

Apply – if you’re rich, resourceful, and only slightly demented – to:

Bernie Egglestone PLC -F1 cars Division

(Bridgestone Firestone have announced that they are relinquishing their role as the only tyre supplier to Formula 1 Racing at the end of the 2010 season.)

P.S. The ad is a spoof.

Brad Pitt falls off his Chopper

So Brad Pitt fell off his “chopper” motorcycle. Unfortunately for him as he was in view of the paparazzi.

Hasn’t anyone told him that motorcycles with very high castor angles on the front forks (laid back at an acute angle) have very poor stability at low speeds.

They fall over.

That’s why BMX bicycles and trail bikes have their front forks ALMOST vertical, so they can be manoeuvred at low speeds. If they are vertical, then steering at high speeds becomes very twitchy.

In contrast, high castor angles steer very much in a straight line at higher speeds. Think Peter Fonda (who? say the younger generation) and his “Easy Rider” motor bicycle. Man, was that laid back.

That’s why shopping trolley front wheels always have a small, but positive castor angle on the steering wheels. Otherwise they just jiggle from side to side, and are a pain. Hence why Brad felt!

Your car’s “alignment” incorporates all of the above to keep you safe and in control, and hopefully without the paparazzi.

Tailgating

Our expert, David Matthews writes:

I drive a fairly low-slung sports car- a Nissan 200SX, as regular readers of this blog will know.

What really gets up my nose is the aggressive driver of a four-wheel drive who tailgates me in suburban streets, when I’m doing the speed limit. Because they can see right over the top of my car from their seat on high, they close the gap to frighteningly close dimensions if they want to push you along.

Recently, I was tailgated by a 2 ½ tonne Landcruiser with bull bar, head lights blazing, at less than five metres behind, at the end of the shopping strip, and past the pedestrian crossing. I floored it for 75 metres just to get away. Straight into the arms of the speed trap set up by the police. He had a digital readout to nail my speed, and that was enough to issue the ticket.

Three demerit points! 77 km/h in a 50 km/h area- even if it was for only 75 metres.

Protesting about the four wheel drive, the policeman, who was quite nice about it, admitted that tailgating was a problem, but that he had never booked any-one for doing it! His only advice was that if confronted by this situation, the victim should pull over and let them pass. You can imagine how likely that is in busy city traffic.

Paws for thought

Recently I have noticed rather a lot of new vans in my suburb which advertise dog walking services. I know such enterprises have always been around – in fact when I first moved here I considered it as a possibility.

But it does seem to be a business that is experiencing boom times. As the vans that carry these pooches all look the same they must be an “ideal” pet carrying vehicle.

For dog lovers out there – some car manufacturers have already thought about how to make their vehicle more attractive. Honda has “Honda-Dog” – a Japanese language website which gives information about dog friendly cafes and hotels as well as the dimensions of their cars which are dog friendly.

A US based website, dogcars.com have been giving “paws” ratings on cars which are solely based on doggy concerns such as how well a car holds dogs and whether the seats fold flat.

Because I don’t like my tyres being “marked” by dogs walking down the street and because this is a tyre blog, it did get me thinking….. is there scope for a different kind of paw rating just for tyres? The higher the paw rating the more likely the dog wont do their business…..

Looking for Mr Right (Motor Engineers)

I came across a problem of using print directories at the weekend. Picture this. 830 pm on a Saturday night. Two very tired young kids in the car. The car stalled and doesn’t start. We are blocking two driveways. A few kindly knocks on a door and a request for some brawn to help push it somewhere safer and we are ok. Luckily we are not too far from home.

The next morning the search begins for someone to fix it. Scan the printed directory for our local area. Oh silly me, you don’t look under car service or car repair, but motor engineers and repairers. When was the last time you said “my car is in need of a motor engineer?” Perhaps in 1911.

Were there any service centres listed for our make of car – probably – but unless the manufacturers name was the first name of the business, I wouldn’t know unless I scanned the whole list looking for that key word. No thanks, I have better things to do with my time, like watching paint dry.

And whilst I am in the mood for a rant , and apologies to those who classify and index printed directories, why aren’t the headings intuitive?. Why are some things under “car”, and some things under “motor?” And why isn’t there a consistent cross reference so that you don’t have to go to the front of the directory and scrabble around for a magnifying glass – because the print appears to be designed for mice with 20/20 vision – to find the correct heading for what you are looking for?

So CarbonBlacks’ move to create the largest online automotive directory in Australia searchable by any word you wish to use seems like an absolutely fabulous idea – just wish it had happened last weekend rather than on 1 July this year.

Why do you need information about tyres?

59 articles on the tyre blog, a research centre, a true guide to safety from our experts… Why?

Perhaps, because changing tyres can be dangerous!

Images are worth a thousand words:

This is the first video from a nice little serie. All the videos can be found on the tyre bloopers page.

Former CEO of Yahoo! Australia New Zealand joins the CarbonBlack team

CarbonBlack is happy to announce an addition to our team, Cliff Rosenberg. Cliff is Chairman of Clear Light Digital, a digital strategy agency, and previously the Managing Director of Yahoo! Australia & NZ from 2003 to 2006.

In 2006 Cliff was elected as the inaugural Chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and was Chairman of the Mobile Marketing Awards in 2006 and 2007. Prior to his role at Yahoo!, Cliff was the founder and MD of iTouch Australia, a wireless application service provider. The LSE-listed company delivers products and services to mobile carriers, corporate customers and end consumers via SMS, Interactive Voice Response, WAP, and PDA devices.

Cliff has joined the CarbonBlack advisory board and will assist with securing strategic partnerships to enable our growth strategy.

Daring raid nets $31,000 worth of tyres

I just found this article reporting the tyre theft that happened in Sydney West near Homebush.

Quite funny because I had written in a previous article that tyres are a form of international currency, since they are all made to the same technical standards worldwide.

However, the thieves who took off with a container load of tyres, read currency, in Sydney will find that they are quite bulky, and hard to conceal, even in their container. If they are truck tyres, probably Bridgestones, they will find a market, but where do they get them fitted?

Reminds me of the time that 165-13 tyres were disappearing from a huge warehouse, and no-one knew how. Why only 165-13? Turned out they fitted exactly into a 44 gallon (200 litre) rubbish drum , in fact so neatly that the rubbish (on top) could be emptied out without dislodging the tyres underneath. Didn’t shift much rubbish though, only netted nine months gaol!