| 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 |
Grid before the race, Nordschleife 2008. |
| Songs to check out |
1. Foo Fighters - The Pretender
2. Span - Baby's Come Back
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. Redondo Beach Brewing Co, CA
3. The Standard, Hollywood, CA
4. Paradise Cove, Malibu, CA
5. Nic's, Bevery Hills, CA
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| Other things |
| Spot to be filled with useful content. |
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| Racing event, Kinnekulle Ring, Sweden |
| Monday, August 25, 2008 |
 After testing brakes for Endless and watching the Gumball 3000 spectacle I went to Sweden to host my own track event of extreme sportscars. Working together with my good friend Marcus of Autorapid Motorsport we both had our sponsors visit during the forenoon. They all got to drive and ride-along on the track, some got to ride in the Autorapid 996 GT3 Cup and a few lucky ones got to test drive the Porsche Cayman S Carrera Cup Edition that Porsche Center Gothenburg had sent us to demonstrate at the event.
 Nice Porsche. The Cayman S, Carrera Cup Edition with bucket seats, special rear wing, Sports Chrono Package, 19" GT3 rims, short-shift etc.
 In the afternoon, we had the West Coast Road Challenge visit for an exclusive afternoon on the track. For these guys who had brought a very neat array of cars; Porsche Turbo, Ferrari Spyder, Lamborghini LP560 etc, we mixed coaching and special car control excercises with open track driving.
 Did some demo-laps for the owner of the LP560 as well, definitely a very extreme sportscar, a very cool car.
 During the day I used the Cayman S to post a couple of (unbeaten) reference times in the slalom/autocross courses we used for driver development and I can honestly say it was a blast to drive and definitely an easy car to drive on the limit. Stay tuned for a review of this car!
 I also got to do a nostalgic test drive of the car I raced in the 2005 Swedish Endurance GT Racing Championship (the car is now owned by Autorapid). It was really interesting to feel the big suspension changes it has gone through since then, nowadays built to be fast on the Nordschleife, and it was really fun to have the CEO of my feature sponsor Kemostal Process Technology in the passenger seat!
 All in all a fantastic day for both the guests and us who organized this and I am looking forward to upcoming events and races in 2009. Stay tuned! /CarlLabels: Events, Instructing, Racing |
posted by Carl Rydquist @ 3:36 PM   |
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| Endless MX-72, brake pad testing @ Buttonwillow |
| Friday, August 15, 2008 |
Shortly after my successful trip to the Formula Drift Pro Am Qualifier in Tucson, I went to Buttonwillow to test the new MX-72 street/light track brake pads from Endless USA. The car I used is my own 350Z, basically non-modified, without any Brembo brakes or extra brake cooling ducts, on top of that it is a rather heavy car. The ambience temp was around 97-98 F and the track has several hard braking sections with only a few longer sections where the brakes get time to cool off. This was going to be a very hard workout for these MX-72 pads and a good recipe for a thorough test.
It was my first visit to Buttonwillow but fairly easy to get up to speed with good visibility over the upcoming turns throughout the track. My first 2-3 lap orientation run was done with pretty easy braking and Nexen 3000 tires, but out on a racetrack this still means high temp. During this initiation phase during which the pads got really bedded in, they showed some varying friction on one or two occasion, but by the third lap, they worked nicely with a good consistent effect.
On my 2nd outing I pushed really hard to see how the pads would hold up, I did not allow for them to cool off and I had also mounted some very sticky Hankook C91 tires on the car. Naturally on a heavy car with small brakes, the pedal started to feel a bit soggy after 2-3 laps. I still pushed on without traffic and although I had to start to press harder on the brake pedal to get real stopping power, the brakes went into one consistent feel throughout the session (about 8 laps) and I could use the same brake points (or even later) lap after lap, with full confidence.
The MX-72 pads have a pretty edgy initial bite but not crazy and so they are smooth to swiftly apply full brake power with, without upsetting the balance of the car. It was very easy to modulate the brake torque for trail braking.
All in all, the pads never showed any sign of changing their friction to the worse, once I had done the real heat cycling during the first session.
Riding home from the track, the pedal was initially soft, but as the overheated brake fluid in the calipers blended out, the brakes felt more like normal after a while, and brake friction is still sharp even at low temperatures.
The day after, as the brakes had cooled off and I did a lot of freeway driving going home, I could feel the rotors were a bit warped. That MIGHT have been avoided if I had driven around with the car after my fast session with light braking now and then to keep them straight while gradually cooling off. A couple of weeks later though, the rotors have straightened out again after nursing them during daily driving.
On the negative side, the pads had a squeal upon coming to a complete stop, mainly in the rear, but after some more driving also in the front. Maybe they need some cleaning(?) since again, after a few more weeks this squeal is almost gone, most noticable when the discs are half-warm. My front brakes did develope a similar squeal a while ago even with the OEM pads and also the Project Mu pads I tested, so very likely this is only related to my brakes on this particular car, and not only the pads.
Overall, if you have Endless MX72-pads, you can be very confident that they will hold up during track days and the only brake fade you need to be concerned about is depending on the brake fluid temperature. Again, I tested the MX-72 by driving very hard with a heavy car with small brakes on very sticky tires, on a track that is hard on brakes, during a very hot day. The only thing I had to do was to step a bit harder on the brakes. For daily driving, the pads still feel smooth and comfortable with excellent response on brake modulation.
There are some high performance brake fluids to use that I would recommend (if fit for your car), that has a higher boiling point, to ensure best performance. I was running with the regular OEM DOT3 fluid but I will soon start to evaluate a DOT4 high performance fluid from Endless. Also, most high performance sportscars do have real cooling ducts and bigger discs that will evacuate heat in a better way.
I cannot say too much about the level of brake dust, except that my initial impression is the they look better than older street/track light pads I am familiar with, probably due to the hardness of the MX-72. The most impressive thing is how Endless has managed to engineer such good friction at low temperatures with a relatively hard, track durable compound.Labels: Racing, Testing |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 1:14 PM |
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| Success in the Formula Drift Pro Am Qualifier! |
| Monday, August 4, 2008 |
 After keeping City Tire-John company while he was hauling 4 front tires, 8 rear tires and my stock Nissan 350Z for 7,5 hours through the Arizona desert to go drifting in Tucson, AZ, the pressure was on to nail the fast and technical course to score an invitation to the Formula Drift Pro Am Nationals.
At the drivers meeting judges Hiro Sumida and Taka Aono showed a map of the track layout and told us what they would be looking for. We were informed that everyone would get five practice runs and three judged runs out of which the best score would be the final qualifying score.
 The intel we had before the event was that the surface was very rugged, this mostly means sticky and hard on the tires. Therefore we decided to start out on a very durable tire compound and a bit wider dimension. This turned out to be a bad idea since we hadn't adjusted camber for those... The first two runs were basically thrown away as I had no lateral grip and had to drive the car like on ice = really slow transitions and no real aggressive angle.
 After changing tires it got better. Turn 1 was the challenge, a fast lefthander in high range 3rd gear with some really hard bumps that made the harder sprung car almost lift completely. The rest of the track was pretty easy 2nd gear stuff. Some pressure adjustments and trying different approaches got me close to nailing it.
 By the time of qualifying it got dark outside and the drifts looked really cool in the arena lights. The AZ backdrop with major thunderstorms in a distance added dramatic visual effects to the sounds of the heavily tuned drift cars.
 Up to this point drivers had been struggling hard, basically nobody made turn 1, there were a lot of spin outs and understeer after the big bump. On qualifying though, everyone got more composed and there were several really raw looking runs, really cool. In my first qualifying run, I had my Xenon headlights on high beam which made everything outside the beam look black and I initiated too early. Not much to do.
 For the second run I decided to run without headlights at all and just make use of the background lighting. Got a clear view of the whole track and made a long smooth arch slowing from approximately 85mph down to 30mph, then did my best to do really nice lines and lay down lots of smoke. This was the run I was looking for!
In my 3rd run I was so stoked about run 2 and I just went all in to try to max my score, but out on the wider line the track was significantly more dusty so at the very end of turn 1 I ended up running out of steering angle. Almost went to a halt sideways but could finish the run to put on a good show for the specators.
As announcements came, they called up nine drivers that got invitations to the Formula Drift Pro Am Nationals. I got 6th place. Considering I was using my 350Z that's all I could hope for and I'm very pleased with that. Now I really look forward to the Nationals, by that time the City Tire 350Z should be ready, and dialed in. See ya later! Carl
 All pics not marked Alex V or EDrift.com by J. WeidingerLabels: Drifting |
| posted by Carl Rydquist @ 5:47 PM |
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| Fast Facts |
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Name: Carl Rydquist
Age: 33
Home: Redondo Beach
Web: CarlRydquist.com
Reel: Click to watch
Highlights: Winner of Swedish Endurance 8/12h GT Racing Championship (2001). Winner of Swedish Endurance 3h GT Racing Championship (2004). Winner of Zandvoort 500 (2005). Winner of Eurosport Super Racing Weekend Challenge (2001). 24 Hours of Nurburgring (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009).
Memberships: FIA (intl racing license), Formula D, Performance Two Stunt & Precision Driving Team, Hollywood, CA, Screen Actors Guild.
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