Jerry
UberDork
4/15/18 2:52 p.m.
I almost forgot about the show, just popped up recently. Sinus headache and rain keeping me on the couch all day, and a friend asked me about it this morning. Decided to give it a go.
I was afraid it was going to be "West Coast Customs" manufactured drama, silly camera cuts and dumb voice-over dialogue. It's actually well-made. Background stories for the 4 cars that compete each episode, some personal history including how one is in a wheelchair and another built the car for his brother-in-law's memory that was killed when another racer lost control and hit him.
I'm 3 episodes into the 8 so far. If you don't know the premise, 3 "sleeper" cars go up against a supercar in a 1/4 mile race. The winner of each goes to the big finale in epsiode 8.
So far out of 3 episodes, the supercar guys have been total douches (2) and some kid (1) that borrowed a Lambo from his friend? I'm probably finishing the series today, or after work tomorrow. So far my only complaint is the definition of "sleeper". The minivan in #1 was definitely a sleeper (& one of my favorites so far), some of these others? Giant slicks, loud exhausts, blowers sitting 1' above the hood? Does sleeper just mean anything built to Netflix?
Nice review of the show
Jerry
UberDork
4/15/18 3:15 p.m.
In reply to EastCoastMojo :
Dammit. I even did a search first. Didn't pop up.
No worries we all know the search function could use some improvement
kb58
SuperDork
4/15/18 3:46 p.m.
I just finished it. It was interesting enough that I kept watching, they did a decent job of getting a good cross section of car owners on the show. It was different enough from the horribly typical reality shows that it kept my interest. That said, the lawyer with the Lambo and his girlfriend were just, well, I'm not sure what, but I wouldn't ever want to be in the same room with people like that.
Oh, and regarding the last episode, just jump to the last 5 minutes because all they did was rehash everything for an hour before the big showdown.
I enjoyed it amd hope they do a second season, as long as there's no fake drama. I do NOT like the person that won thw while thing. Came off as a rich punk.
And who would name their kid that? Sorry, I hope I didn't offend anyone here
EastCoastMojo said:
No worries we all know the search function could use some improvement
That's a very kind way of saying 'The GRM search function is on par with a chocolate tea pot full of boiling water in death valley..on a record hot day' IT's not that it's not very useful, it's that it's literally worse than useless. If you want to search anything the only way is via Google
I'll have to check it out. RE: Lambo owners - what is seriously up with them? I went to a Cars and Coffee the other day and there were half-a-dozen there. Every single one was owned by a young middle-eastern guy. I have nothing bad to say, but it was just weird. If your dad is a Saudi prince, does he automatically give you a Lambo when you get your license?
Jerry
UberDork
4/16/18 9:16 p.m.
Just finished the show. Disappointed with the winner, don't want to say why because that'll spoil it for others. Feel bad for that guy with the red rotary. Liked both his and electric Datsun a lot.
My only real problem is the 1/4 mile thing. Drag racing is the most boring and pointless versions of racing. It only proves acceleration over a 1/r mile. I'd want this done on a road course where handling and braking matter too.
NOHOME
UltimaDork
4/17/18 1:46 p.m.
Love it. Watch the last 3 minutes of each episode. The Rat Rod in the first episode surprised me but then I remembered that this is "Reality" TV. The scene with the GT40 owner "training" with his video-driving console was sad.
markwemple said:
My only real problem is the 1/4 mile thing. Drag racing is the most boring and pointless versions of racing. It only proves acceleration over a 1/r mile. I'd want this done on a road course where handling and braking matter too.
Or as said before.....the challenge
zordak
Reader
4/18/18 9:41 a.m.
1/4 mile drag race, (not to insult the very talented racers that compete at the top) is simple, stand on the accelerator and keep the car straight. (and they still got 1 person who couldn't do that.) Finding the 24 people to compete and have somewhat interesting backstories was probably hard. This is television not motorsports. I personally only watched a few minutes of the backstories and skipped to the end to see the race.
Honestly people underappreciate the skill in drag racing, especially high hp traction limited cars. Also drag racing makes far better TV viewing than autocross TBH.
Jerry
UberDork
4/18/18 6:06 p.m.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson :
Even I can appreciate the skill to launch properly and quickly. I have tried it twice now, one run each at the Challenge and then a local test -n- tune for the hell of it. But even then that skill set is over in about a second or two. Then it's just gooooooo. And don't turn.
Adrian_Thompson said:
Honestly people underappreciate the skill in drag racing, especially high hp traction limited cars. Also drag racing makes far better TV viewing than autocross TBH.
I agree. It seems simple, but the launch is HARD. Then, if you have lots of HP, keeping it straight, and hooking up for the rest of the run is very difficult, as we saw on the show.
I watched it, and if they do a season two, I'll watch that as well.
Jerry said:
In reply to Adrian_Thompson :
Even I can appreciate the skill to launch properly and quickly. I have tried it twice now, one run each at the Challenge and then a local test -n- tune for the hell of it. But even then that skill set is over in about a second or two. Then it's just gooooooo. And don't turn.
It gets alot harder as you get faster, also dependent on chassis and tire type. My Capri was point and shoot for 12.90s on a 26x8.5 slick, run it on a street tire and it would spin in all 3 gears and run 14s.
Sucks that the guy with the electric datsun turned out to be the kind of cork-soaker who will flat-foot it sideways into your car and say “Meh. Sorry. Not sure what happened.”
Also, it’s easy to talk E36 M3 about how simple drag racing is when you’re not putting down 4 digit numbers on the dyno or running a single digit 1/4.
Autocross is that thing where you swerve around cones right? I’ve done it twice. It’s easy.
Cotton
PowerDork
4/21/18 8:43 p.m.
I used to drag race motorcycles. I wouldn’t call it easy, but it was definitely fun.
Yup. Same thing with roundy round racing. It's easy. Until you try it.