| 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. The Standard, Hollywood, CA
3. Barney's Beanery, Santa Monica, CA
4. Le Clafoutis, Sunset Strip, CA
5. Heaven 23, Gothenburg, SWE
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| Other things |
| Spot to be filled with useful content. |
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| Happy Easter! |
| Friday, March 21, 2008 |
Had some productive meetings during this quick-trip to Sweden, got some very good racing news to be presented soon. My sponsors Kemostal Process Technology, Ackert (decals) and Billes (print work) are all inspired about upcoming challenges, more to follow I hope, spring is always a time packed with meetings and announcements.
The season feels very far off though in Sweden, right now I see a lot of snow outside the window, but on Sunday I'll be back again in sunny California where the motorsport season started a long time ago - on my end with the 2008 Federal Top Drift competition which went really good. Soon time for 2nd round, I hope to be able to repeat the achievement from first round. To share some inspiration, here's a photo of me drifting captured by a guy who really knows how to shoot great motorsports photos - Paul Lopez!
 Drifting my stock Nissan 350Z at the Federal Top Drift Battle, round 1. Photo: Paul Lopez
Happy Easter to you, take it easy on the eggs. /CarlLabels: Drifting, Misc, Racing |
posted by Carl Rydquist @ 9:31 AM   |
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| Making PR @ Scandinavian Style Mansion |
| Friday, March 14, 2008 |
| Tomorrow I'm flying out to Sweden for a week to meet family and friends, do some work at my old job and I also have some Swedish sponsor meetings for my 2008 racing on the agenda. But first thing's first; tonight Jennifer and I are attending a Scandinavian Style Mansion gala to party with some of the most well-known Hollywood people of today. Good thing I brought not only my Stand21 racing suit but also my very Scandinavian J. Lindeberg... This will be one very upscale event, for sure. Pics to follow. Cheers, Carl Labels: Events, Media, Misc |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 10:52 AM |
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| Porsche race engineering, GTech Pro |
| Thursday, March 13, 2008 |
 On Wednesday I was at Willow Springs with Markus Herm to assist with getting his German Auto Art Porsche 928 GTS Racing "Christine" up to speed. Using a GTech Pro data logger helps your case since you get accurate readings of both londitudinal and lateral G-forces plus rpms by just mounting the unit and connecting it so the car's 12-volt electrical system, without any additional sensors in the car. Reading this type of data lets you see almost as good as with a fullblown data logging system how the car and the driver is performing, and you can mount it in any car and have it up and running within just a few minutes. It also costs only $299. A really cool tool.
 Anyway, with this scientific approach it quickly became evident that some improvments had to be done to increase the overall grip levels. Also, studying the data and driving the car gave a very detailed picture of the car's more specific behaviour at different speeds and sections of the track, going into, through and exiting turns as well as changes at low, medium and high speed braking, turning and acceleration.
All in all a good day and next time out it will be very interesting to see the results of the ordinated improvements!Labels: Racing |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 9:01 PM |
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| Spring Mountain weekend |
| Tuesday, March 11, 2008 |
Lagging a bit on my events, was up at Spring Mountain, a bit northwest from Las Vegas, this weekend to check out this technical, twisty track and help out some drivers with their driving skills. The road up from LA is really cool when reaching the outskirts of Death Valley and luckily this was a nice cool March day and not a summer day. Was a bunch of Corvettes, Radicals and Lotuses up there for the driving school, fun to see the business there seems very strong.
 The Spring Mtn track is a lowspeed, fun and twisty one with some pretty technical parts, ie pretty perfect for drivers who need to learn how to handle their cars at the limit, as well as meet some good combinations of turns.
One of the guys I was helping was new to the track and pretty new to his Exige too but over the weekend he improved so much he won a 3rd in class of the Lotus Challenge. Pretty talented guy at picking up instructions and transforming it into skilled driving. Watch out for this guy in the Lotus Challenge.
The other people I helped were really talented and able to pick up a lot of speed and detailed instructions during the weekend, one of them was running my favorite street car - Porsche 997 Carrera S - which handled beautifully all over the track. Good fun.
Other than the fun at the track, Sat night also offered dinner with friends at the Bellagio, Las Vegas, haven't seen that in a while, always an interesting experience.
 Also found this nicely tricked out Nissan 350Z "Nismo", thought I'd post a pic since I nowadays drive a 350Z myself as my daily driver (completely stock though).
More stuff to come and some good racing news about to be revealed soon, be sure to check back. Cheers, CarlLabels: Instructing |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 4:35 PM |
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| Foo Fighters @ The Forum, LA! |
| Friday, March 7, 2008 |
 Not going to say too much else than that the Thursday concert was AWESOME. They played a really long concert, starting on the big stage for some real power, then mid concert they lowered down a center stage from the roof and went more towards an acoustic sound before heading back on to the big stage to keep pounding out all their great songs, Monkey Wrench, Breakout, The Pretender, Best of You, Hero etc etc etc etc, guitar duels and drums solos w RHCP drummer guesting. Lemmy came in for the second last song of the night and overall it was such a great concert and musical experience. Go see them if you have the opportunity.Labels: Misc |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 1:29 PM |
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| Colorado driving film |
| Wednesday, March 5, 2008 |
Follow this link, enter the Volvo XC60 launch site and click on "gallery". There you'll find some of the Colorado winter film clips I drove on in January (all performance driving).
Volvo XC60 launch film
What do you think about it? Nice car, huh!Labels: Precision driving |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 1:38 PM |
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| Cool weekend |
| Sunday, March 2, 2008 |
Went to Big Willow this Saturday to coach three Porsche drivers incl Markus Herm driving his racing prepped German Auto Art Porsche 928 GTS "Christine". Had a really good time and the guys showed really good progress, developing really well over the day. There were also A LOT of other drivers at this event with a massive set of cars... from 997 GT3 Cup, 993s, Viper GTS-R, Shelby GTs, Ferraris, all in all very entertaining. Also had a fun time running into no less than four Swedes out there, out of which two knew my good racer friend Alexander Haegermark. How big/small is the world again?
Take a look here to check out some images from the weekend. http://www.caliphotography.com
Anyway, kicked back a bit at the Sunset Strip hotspot for good brunches and stuff - Le Clafoutis - after being up early this morning to do a sort of car "stunt"; it was actually 101 cars doing formation driving on the LA freeways (under CHP supervision) in relation to the LA Marathon. Think we got some good news coverage.
This upcoming week will be about keeping fit plus doing some event planning and possibly a trip to the Spring Mountain racetrack for the weekend. Stay cool. /CarlLabels: Instructing, Precision driving |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 3:06 PM |
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| Fast Facts |
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Name: Carl Rydquist
Age: 31
Home: Redondo Beach
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, 2008).
Memberships: FIA (international racing license), Performance Two Stunt & Precision Driving Team, Hollywood, CA (professional driver).
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