| Welcome |
Hey, welcome to my official blog!
This is the place where you will find quick reports directly from my race weekends, plus a lot of other fun stuff going on, not always about racing.
Cheers! /Carl |
| Pic of the week |
Me in the Karousel, Nordschleife 2007. |
| Songs to check out |
1. Foo Fighters - Let it die
2. Foo Fighters - The Pretender
3. Adam Tensta - My Cool
4. Outkast - Take Off Your Cool
5. Sia - Breathe Me
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| Food and Drinks |
1. Vino Pasta, Gothenburg, SWE
2. Le Clafoutis, Sunset Strip, CA
3. The Standard, Hollywood, CA
4. Barney's Beanery, Santa Monica, CA
5. Heaven 23, Gothenburg, SWE
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| Other things |
| Spot to be filled with useful content. |
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| All Star Bash info |
| Wednesday, June 11, 2008 |
Location: Willow Springs, Horse Thief Mile
When: 28-29 June, 2008
Admission: $10, paid cash at the Willow Springs gate
There will be team tandem competitions, awesome to watch, a collection of really nice drift cars being driven totally flat out.
Prepare for a big party on Sat night = bring camp gear/tent/motorhome/whatever!Labels: Drifting |
posted by Carl Rydquist @ 7:59 PM   |
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| Catching up |
| Tuesday, June 10, 2008 |
Hello there, just catching up after some really good times! Little over a month ago I went to the east coast for 10 days to do some testing for Volvo, this was before the 24 hours of Nurburgring. Good to see New York, Boston and D.C. all on the same trip. Interesting weather variations, from well over 20 deg and sunny to below 9 degrees Celcius and pouring rain, felt really strange after having had a great spring in SoCal. Work went great and it was really fun to meet up with one of my former collegues.
Shortly after, Jennifer and I went to our friends wedding in Redlands, which was significantly hotter - and really nice, such a great thing to see how love unites people, and how it rubs off on everybody around them.
Then after the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, I went to Sweden to meet my family and I also took the opportunity to meet up with some Swedish friends. Had some good meetings reg future racing events, went out sailing with Mats Johansson and his crew on the Navteq Maxi Racer and also played golf for the first time in several years, with my dad.
The following week (last week), I went to Copenhagen to drive three different cars for a film production, had the luck of hitting the best weather Scandinavia has seen in years, it was simply an amazingly beautiful trip/work week with a great crew.
Now back in LA, preparing upcoming events. Next up is the SoCal drifting All Star Bash which is going to be a totally epic two day camp weekend event, with the hottest cars and coolest drivers pulling out all stops to look our best in team tandem competitions. If you're anywhere near, don't miss it.Labels: Drifting, Misc, Precision driving |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 10:18 PM |
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| The world's hardest race |
| Sunday, May 25, 2008 |
So after a really hard race to get back to the top, our last misfortune came during the last hour. Some damage, stone shot or other, to the front right cooler caused a leak and Peter had to shut down and park the car in Adenau to save the engine. We were then back up on 25th, which was a good bit from what we were aiming for anyway. The race is tough. I had 4 great fast stints which did not really get rewarded seen to results, but they were a personal display at least. The team has made an amazing job throughout the race and they really deserved a good result. A fuller report and pics will come in the next day or two! Carl
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Skickat från en Sony Ericsson mobiltelefon |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 2:52 PM |
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| Early morning update |
| Saturday, May 24, 2008 |
Rain started coming in during the night and the team timed driver change and tire change perfectly. I got out and it was pretty damp to start, and totally pouring down on the long straight. I could not even see the sides of the track when catching up on other cars. And there was a whole lot of catching up going on, even one of the front running 997 RSR's was left in my spray. Our car was so perfect, the tires and pressures too, and since I felt really good with the track, the darkness and the wet conditions, I could just pass every car in sight. After 6-7 laps the ideal line started to dry up and I went in so Martin could continue on slicks. During that stint we jumped up appr 20-25 spots to 51. Getting closer... Stay tuned.
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Skickat från en Sony Ericsson mobiltelefon |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 8:16 PM |
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| Night report |
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Physical challenge! Doing the first night stint for us was good, kept times at 9.30 to 9.55 in a drizzle that came and went over parts of the track. Also some long oil trails here and there making it trickier in the dark. Most teams above top 20 run at high tens or elevens so I got back 16 mins on most of the teams, from what the team spent fixing the car after the incident. Pulled away from the blue and yellow Z4 GTR and Frentzen's Apollo. The car feels great and super solid. Now I have to rest my neck that is taking the hardest beating on this fast and bumpy track. Later!
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Skickat från en Sony Ericsson mobiltelefon |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 3:52 PM |
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| First report |
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Due to the engine change the dash display had to be changed too and although that is a 2000 Euro piece the support from Stack did not come until just before the line-up, so we had to start on 70th place at the end of our run group. I got out on the formation lap and it was amazing to see the crowds out there! Got some temp in the brakes and tires and suddenly lost the ABS system. No time to fix, the start lights were on and the car ran really good anyway, very easy to drive and very good grip. Took 35 spots in the first two laps and had 9.20 in loads of traffic. Came in on 31st spot after a short first stint of 6 laps to hand over to Martin. Now I hear he has just spun the car and the team is replacing the rear bumper.... Hopefully a very quick job. Both Manthey and Land Motorsport has been in as well for flat tire and something else so it shows how hard and unpredictable this race can be. Not the end of the world but we can't have this happen if we are to be in the top 10 by tomorrow morning, now we have no margins for unwanted extra stops. Later, Carl
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Skickat från en Sony Ericsson mobiltelefon |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 7:23 AM |
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| Friday summary |
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After the morning practice yesterday the team got busy with changing the engine. Some amazing work and a couple of hours later, the car was race ready again. Peter drove out during night practice to check that all was good and after a couple of outings everything still looked perfect. We got no chance though to improve on our very first lap from the morning session so we will start from 21st pos (next to HH Frentzen), or better if any of the teams in front got a penalty or have withdrawn due to tech problems.
The team is now really charged and eager to start the race, we have a very good package. Race starts at 15.00. I am doing the very first stint today which will be very fun. I will keep in mind that it is a 24 hour race to be gentle on the car. Make sure to follow the action on the 24 Hour website! Cheers, Carl
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Skickat från en Sony Ericsson mobiltelefon |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 2:41 AM |
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| Friday summary |
| Friday, May 23, 2008 |
This has been a busy day for the team. The engine didn't make it through the day, so the team had to get another one. Amazing work got done by the mechanics and we had some nice support from Manthey Racing's Porsche engineer to get a great ECU (Engine Control Unit) program in the car for this new engine. Peter drove out during the night practice to shake down the drivetrain, and all is now good fortomorrow. Unfortunately we couldn't go out to defend our top 20 position, but with the 9.13 from the morning session we still got 21 which is perfectly ok to start the race from. Now we've been having a few hours of hanging out in the team bus with the team, the whole team is really charged and ready to do a great race. Tomorrow we will get to sleep in before the activities start and we'll be rolling out the car for the grid show. I'll post some pics tomorrow, cheers! /Carl |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 5:25 PM |
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| First practice! |
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Hello racerfans, after the driver's meeting this morning I started out with just warming up the tires on the GP-loop before going for a timed lap on the whole Nordschleife. All fast teams did this, since there was a 3 minute delay until the slower categories were let out.
I posted a 9.13 on the first lap, felt good!(video to show later) Two cars held me up a bit for some time, but the car is crazy fast so the time was quite good after all. The car didn't need any setup changes, the team did great setup work before the start.
On the second lap there were just too many slow cars in the way to do anything useful, same on the third although a little bit better.
After those laps, I went into the pits to hand over to Anders who had a lot of traffic.
 The 9.13 had put us just behind top 10 at the beginning of the session, but as the session went on we were eventually pushed down to 17th. There were a few cars that squeezed in on 9min 12s, but that we can easily beat on a free lap - or even just by getting to know the combination of tires and engine - after all this was the first lap of the whole weekend.
Within the top 20 is just what we want and we hope we can stay there until the race starts tomorrow.
Today's second practice starts at 19.30! Keep your fingers crossed!
CarlLabels: Racing |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 5:29 AM |
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| Fast Facts |
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Name: Carl Rydquist
Age: 31
Home: West Hollywood, California, United States
Web: CarlRydquist.com
Reel: Click to watch
Highlights: Winner of Swedish Endurance GT Racing Championship (2001 & 2004). Winner of Zandvoort 500 (2005). Winner of Eurosport Super Racing Weekend Challenge (2001). 24 Hours of Nurburgring (2006, 2007).
Memberships: FIA (international racing license), Performance Two Stunt & Precision Driving Team, Hollywood, CA (professional driver).
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