When the curtains came down on the recently concluded Nyaribo Time Trial competition, I was left with an empty track and three cars to play with. What to do? Quite obvious:
Organize a drag race.
It’s not the kind of drag you expect, it did have a tweak, the tweak being the drivers were OUTSIDE the cars. The cars ran by themselves for the most part. Here, have a garner:
The real idea behind this was, as track master for Time Trial Motorsports, I had to pick up my cones after the event with the help of the folks you see there. I quickly discovered that it was much faster to round up the little plastic markers if I let the car run slowly by itself as I jogged alongside collecting my assets, a maneuver called “ghost riding”. This is fairly easy to do in an automatic, snick the lever into Drive, down with the parking brake and hop out of the car. You just have to be careful when stepping in and out of the car as it’s moving lest you break your teeth.
(ALSO DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, OR ANYWHERE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER. I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE IF THINGS DON’T GO WELL FOR YOU AS THEY DID FOR ME)
After I was done with the cones, the others noticed what I was doing and hey presto! A driverless drag race was soon under way.
The observations here are interesting. The Mazda Demio DE (same green one we reviewed first week of 2017) is equipped with a CVT while the Toyota Corolla 110 sports a 5-speed manual gearbox. They both have 1500cc 4-cylinder petrol engines, but as you may observe (or hear my gruff voice proclaim), the Corolla is just a little bit faster than the Mazda.
If you have any solid explanation as to why (besides the fairly obvious gear ratio argument), please drop your words in the comments below.
