Welcome
Hey, welcome to my official blog!

This is the place where you will find pics and updates directly from my race weekends, plus a lot of other fun stuff such as stunt driving or things 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. Alexandra Stan - Mr Saxobeat
Food and Drinks
1. Redondo Beach Brewing Co, CA
3. The Standard, Hollywood, CA
3. Nic's, Bevery Hills, CA
4. Vino Pasta, Gothenburg, SWE
5. Paradise Cove, Malibu, CA
Other things
Spot to be filled with useful content.
Redline Time Attack official test day
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Here's a link to Redline Time Attack's quick report from the official test day at Willow Springs, CA, which I used to shake down my car after making a few winter upgrades.

I still have a little work to do on brake system, engine tuning and a few more points on weight, but all in all the car ran well.

The traction from the Carbonetic diff turned out to be absolutely fantastic even though I ran a little much negative camber on the rear wheels. That's promising.

From the timesheets I saw four cars running below 1min 22s during the test. These were topped by Mike Cronin in Fontana Nissan GTR on R-comp tires, then myself taking 2nd best time of the day on Hankook Ventus street class tires, then behind me was Duong David in his Robispec Mitsu EVO (tires unknown to me) and Conrad Grunewald in the Gruppe-S Camaro, also on Hankook Ventus.


On a side-note, during the afternoon I also took out the AE Performance 997 GT3 RS for a couple of laps and set 1.22,9 making sure not to run it faster than my own car. :) It was nice to compare the OEM suspension setup of the GT3RS with my own car.

Whoever wasn't there missed a very fun day with full and easy access to the teams, but next chance will be during the last weekend of March at the RTA season premiere at Buttonwillow.

Besides the driving there were a lot of talks between Redline, teams, drivers, sponsors and media, making last minute deals and media preparing for the season etc. More inf soon and first competition just one month away.

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posted by Carl Rydquist @ 7:04 PM   1 comments
Playtime
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Carbonetic LSD. Get bitten.

First drive impression on the 911 Turbo: The rear end bite is spectacular. More drive impressions to come very soon.

Story: Carbonetic hooked me up with this limited slip diff the other day and today I had it installed by Porsche raceshop Tech Trix Motorsports owned by my drifter buddy Michael Essa. Next up is shakedown with the new drive-configuration, suspension etc.

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posted by Carl Rydquist @ 8:42 PM   0 comments
Getting lighter
Friday, February 19, 2010
Removed some deadweight from the Porsche Turbo last weekend.
Now it drives on the rear instead of all four. Car appr 85 lbs lighter and driving passion appr 800% better.

The Afterhours Automotive custom built racingexhaust also got done and mounted, the engine growl with this became totally sick, not disturbing, just a low, slightly muffled powerful growl. And more importantly, additional weight was lost from the rear end by doing this. The exact weight difference between OEM and Afterhours exhaust tba. HP improvement on dyno (Dynapack, reads a little high), including upgraded calibration, nearly 38 peak hp added to the previous tune and OEM exhaust. Driving, the more prominent gain felt was a faster spool and a stronger, flatter torque-band, plus driveability was greatly improved.


Right now in Michigan for work. Snow here, just like back home in Sweden. Just watched Fri night ice-hockey in the Yost Arena, Michigan Wolverines vs Michigan Wildcats (NMU). Great game with some really good intensity, cool to see a couple of Swedes playing well in the game too (Hagelin scoring for Wolverines).

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posted by Carl Rydquist @ 7:25 PM   0 comments
Redondo Beach 10K
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Redondo Beach 10K was really nice, again. Bunch of friends doing some very good times, from 48, 49, 52, 53min etc and I achieved my goal to at least make it under 1 hour, with 58min 15s. I ran twice to prepare, and I think with a few more runs ahead of the next one I can set my next 10K goal to 56min. It's nice to just set some goals. Aside from the running, it was really nice to see the sun out again, been kind of rainy and grey-ish lately.

On Thu or Fri I am supposed to get the 996 Turbo back from a custom exhaust build, I am interested to see the dyno results. Right after I get it back, I'm doing the long awaited 2WD conversion on the car, this car will simply just be a lot funner to drive as 2WD.

Cheers

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posted by Carl Rydquist @ 1:36 PM   0 comments
Gocarts, weight-loss, running and silly season
Saturday, February 6, 2010
What's up lately? I've been taking up gocart practice again, started after returning from Christmas and New Year's celebration in Sweden this winter. Noticed it took only a few visits to get back into the zone and definitely something I looove doing, it really takes that perfectly balanced agression to push a relatively powerless vehicle exactly on the edge, with decent grip on twisty tracks. I miss a little bit the great company from the guys in the indoor winter series back home, but met a couple of fast guys at the local track, and it was also a fun surprise to meet FD driver colleague Joon Maeng there last time I went to drive.

Weight-loss is another natural complement to be fast in gocarts and just a general thing to get a grip around, to feel fit and strong ahead of the racing season. It has gone pretty well so far (9 lbs gone since Jan 1) with not too much effort and it feels consistent too. Want to drop a couple more to get back to my, in my own opinion, ideal match weight I had around 2 years ago, so I just have to stay off the weights and do other sports instead til I'm there.

Tomorrow I'll be running (jogging) my 2nd Redondo Beach 10K, it's nice and local, the start is right outside our gym and and we can walk over there. Having been basically only in the gym during the last 6 months, running is really on the back burner so my target is to make it under 1 hour (if I was actively running I'd set it to 48min but with no practice I have to stay with a real target time). Ran 4 miles Thu (35min) and 5 miles yesterday (46min 20sec), today just relax physically and tomorrow morning it's time to do the 6.2miles (10km) without loosing pace too much at the end. My brother is a killer runner compared to me and has given me some good hints and cheering on, hope it'll help.

Racingwise, Hankook has really worked hard over the winter break to make a good plan for the season, we put a lot of effort into one specific project to race again for Hankook in the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, however from a solid start and a good offer on the table it turned out to nothing. It feels odd, I've raced in the 24H of Nurburgring every year since 2006. Doesn't mean I won't be going back there another season, but for now that outcome means entirely different racing avenues are now being pursued short-term, and a serious plan for 2011 needs to be shaped.

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posted by Carl Rydquist @ 11:41 AM   0 comments
Fast Facts

Name: Carl Rydquist
Age: 34
Home: Redondo Beach
Web: CarlRydquist.com
Reel: Click to watch
Highlights: Winner of Zandvoort 500 (2005), Winner of Swedish Endurance 3h GT Racing Championship (2004), Winner of Swedish Endurance 8/12h GT Racing Championship (2001), Winner of Eurosport Super Racing Weekend Challenge (2001), Winner of Redline Time Attack Mod RWD (2010). 24 Hours of Nurburgring (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011). 24 Hours of Barcelona (2011). 25 Hours of Thunderhill (2010).
Memberships: FIA (intl racing license), DRAW Portfolio, Formula D, Performance Two Stunt & Precision Driving Team (Hollywood, CA), SAG Stunt Driver (Screen Actors Guild).
Teams: City Tire (Drift), AE Performance, STORM GT Racing.
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