See what happens to video game players, when a real World Rally Championship (WRC) pilot takes them to the real dirt. “Are you ready for the real thing?” Ken Block is not only a good driver, he’s trying his best to have them p…ing their pants.

Source: Autoblog.

I couldn’t resist and I bring you this image I found on an automobile-oriented blog (autoblog).

After a demonstration of how cars evolved or progressed in terms of security in the last years, I also found some old crash tests where you can see what happens with a dreadful combination: High-speed (60+mph) and poor security car design.

We tend to forget it easily, but automotive technology made astounding progress in the past decades. And, there is a domain which has been simply transformed by this leap forward: Car safety. 1970’s cars were crushed by the energy of car accidents. The following video is a witness of what happened to pretty good cars (from VW) in these years, when they suffered a crash test. You will easily notice how the passenger compartment deformed itself and wasn’t doing much to protect the passengers (here, crash test dummies).

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This factory exists in Dresden (Germany) and the visitors can see all the steps of the building of their own car. Right before your eyes.

However, my own experience with other car factories is that -even if they are not completely different- this is really slow manufacturing.

In automobile racing, if you start from the last position, it is difficult to come back to the 1st position. But if you have the same car as the other drivers, this is even worse.

Dean Evans, in 1985 did much better than this in an Australian car race where all the competing cars were Lotus Elise: He went from the 16th and last position to the pole position within a single lap.

Watch this demonstration from a hell of a race driver:

I learned (in karting) that you should not break and that you must choose the best trajectory. These French and Italian drivers are decidedly learning. And they crash so many cars that they are helping reduce the impact of recession on car manufacturers.

Be ready for more than 90 minutes of broken WRC cars, or crash compilation videos.

Final note: Even if most of these crashes happened about 20 years ago (there are plenty of Golf GTI, R5 GT Turbo, 205 GTI, Fiat Uno, Autobianchi Abarth and others 1980’s cars), some of them have killed or maimed people. So, drive safely and use the highway.

If you liked my photos about Le Mans, you’re just in time to jump to Michelle Roohani’s web site. Excellent blogger, graphist and photographer, she has just posted a series of photos of Delahaye, Hispano Suiza, Kurtis 500, Bentley, Ferrari, Bugatti.

 
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After looking at these images I shot myself, I advise you to visit the excellent web site of Thomas Baekdal about Le Mans.

24 heures du Mans, 2008.

Here is a good example of a photographic opportunity caught at the right time. I am going to the first qualification runs of the 24h of Le Mans (endurance car race in the West of France). Of course, I did not forget to bring some photo hardware with me, even if I was told that the wire meshes are everywhere on auto race tracks.

And, while the weather seemed crappy for most of the day, we have an early evening with a superb light. I grab my brand new second-hand Minolta APO G 400mm tele-lens in order to move back and shoot over the metal obstacles (sometimes, under the up-turned corner of a metal net). Here is the result caught by my Sony Alpha 700, the best images I could catch in the stands: A place where there is always something happening -at least before the race itself.

 

 
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Some of these images can be acquired as posters or as laminated prints on RedBubble.

24 heures du Mans, 2008.

 
Click on the thumbnails image to enlarge them

24 heures du Mans, 2008.