Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy: Pistons and Props

Welcome!

The purpose of this blog is to inform those who are interested about my journey as one of three students from around the world who earned placements at Infiniti-Red Bull Racing as a result of the Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy. Family, friends, colleagues, aspiring engineers, and any other followers are welcome to visit this page and, if desired, give me feedback or ask questions. It is an effort to streamline documenting the next 12 months for all of these varying audiences, some of which do not participate in social media.

I have never written a journal, never written a blog. This is a first for me. This being the most meaningful and fantastic opportunity I could ever dream of, I would like to share best I can the details of what goes on in my day-to-day during the academy. I am incredibly honored to have won a placement at Infiniti-Red Bull Racing, and I seek to make this opportunity worth everything it possibly can be.

I will write once or twice a week, depending on the accumulation of events and catching up on the previous few days. If you'd like, you can sign up for email notifications for when I create a new post! See the link toward the bottom of this page. I hope you all enjoy, and thank you so much for visiting!

Saturday 18 October 2014

Pistons and Props

On the Sunday before our trip to Japan, Jason, Will, Will’s friend Jess, and I all went to a regional cars and planes show called Pistons and Props in Sywell. It is only in its second year as an annual show, but the cars and planes that arrive are really cool. Races are run for all sorts of classes of cars, with barriers (by barriers, I mean hay bales) set up alongside the airport runway the event is held at to protect spectators. Will's dad also joined us and hung out for the day, asking us questions about how our placements were going and the backgrounds of me and Jason. He's a really genuine guy and has been involved in the automotive industry for a long time.

Among the attendees, some of my favorites were the following:

These six Ford GT40's

Morgan Three-Wheeler

TVR Sagaris

Awesome Martini-liveried Lancia LC2 Group C car. I think the diffuser

1924 Bentley

A mid-late 60's Sunbeam Tiger

The awesome Ford RS200 Group B rally car of the mid 80's

A few Formula Atlantic (and Formula B?) cars

Caterham Seven

This KTM, which got up to 195mph

Super karts!

And all of these cars either ran a parade lap or raced; they didn't just sit there as superficial museum spectacles. That was really awesome. There were also races of all classes of motorcycles. One bloke in a Vespa absolutely destroyed everybody. I've never seen a Vespa hit 160mph until then.

There were also a lot of really cool planes, including an original Spitfire. I didn't get a good pictures of that, but here's the Blades Aerobatic Team doing their thing.