Fireball – Pre Ride Check In
Today was the first meeting of all the racing contestants and getting the cars decaled, inspected and checked in. I took this as an opportunity to checkout all the cars while my teammate the “Veil Guy” made last minute tune ups to our BMW 540i sport.
My first project was checking out all the speed countermeasure equipment that many of the cars were using and I was shocked and somewhat disappointed in what I saw.
First off entry into this race is not cheap, it costs over $10,000.00 for the full entry. The cars are not cheap either. There is an Aston Martin, a couple of Bentleys, a few Lambos, a Ford GT40, and couple of Ferrari to boot. But when it came to radar detectors I was shocked to see that some of these drivers really skimped in this area, counting six Cobra’s, one RMR C-450, and even a KAT!
I chuckled when I passed the car with the Rocky Mountain Radar jammer as he was bragging to another driver how his unit was able to jam out all police radar and laser thinking to myself “I wonder how many miles he is going to make it before he gets his first ticket and finds out what a POS detector he really had.”
There were many drivers however that did do their homework and two even mentioned that they had been reading my blog and forum prior to the race and did make some smart buys.
On the high end of the radar detector spectrum I counted four Bel RX65’s, four Escort 8500 X50’s, two Valentine One’s, one Bel STi and one Escort 9500i. One Aston Martin driver that identified himself as a Radar Detector net forum member took me to his ride to show off his Blinder M47, his Veiled headlamps and a SR7.
I then met with the owner of the “Bat Mobile” while he was in the process of installing his Escort 8500 X50 to the dual cockpit style curved windshields. It was certainly a challenge installing the unit above the rocket launcher and booster rocket switches.
Tomorrow at 7:00 am we line up and depart for our first leg of the race, Baton Rouge LA.
Check in tomorrow night for more updates.
Test Drive – Need For Speed
This past Friday, I had the pleasure to work with Screaming Flea productions in Seattle Washington, who are taping a new series called “Test Drive” that will air this fall on the MOJO HD Cable Television Network and other automotive related cable TV channels such as the Speed Channel.
One of the episodes on this new series is called “Need For Speed” where I outfit two high performance cars with the latest in speed counter measure technology in an attempt to outwit an officer from the Washington State Patrol.
First up, we each explain the different types of technology police departments use, and give hands on demonstration of laser and radar guns.
I then discuss the various types of speed countermeasure equipment that is available to the driver, discussing the various types of radar detectors and laser jammers, Veil stealth coating, and provide tips in selecting the right radar detector for your car and driving habits.
Next up, we perform some testing of various radar detectors and laser jammers and make several runs with and without the equipment. In one segment, the driver (really) forgot to plug in his Escort 9500i and found himself pulled over by a trooper on the busy highway.
During the taping of the episode, the Escort 9500i (when plugged in) detected the officers K and Ka band radar guns two miles away on this busy highway, giving our test driver ample time to slow down to avoid the speed trap.
We were also successful in jamming the new Laser Pro-Lite with a new Blinder M-27 that was installed on a black Audi. In five runs we had two jam to guns with Veil and three “punch through strikes” under 275 feet without Veil.
This episode is scheduled to air first on Mojo HD in mid October. When I’m advised of date and time I’ll pass on to our readers….
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