Racecar Testing Is No Sunday Drive

One of the greatest singers of our generation, a young lady from Mississippi who goes by the name Britney Spears, once posited that if you want a Bugatti, or a Maserati, you better work.

Pure poetry, that.

Sarcastic references to mediocre pop-music lyrics aside, the song does hide a good point under its generic dance beats. Work usually does need to come before success. Like the old cliché says: “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

Hard work preceding success is not news, I know, but we can all use a reminder now and then. And there aren’t as many reminders as visceral as watching a pro driver sling a racecar around a track at full speed, sans competition, as he and his co-drivers and crew prep for a race that won’t take place for almost another month.

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  • Dwford Will we ever actually have autonomous vehicles? Right now we have limited consumer grade systems that require constant human attention, or we have commercial grade systems that still rely on remote operators and teams of chase vehicles. Aside from Tesla's FSD, all these systems work only in certain cities or highway routes. A common problem still remains: the system's ability to see and react correctly to obstacles. Until that is solved, count me out. Yes, I could also react incorrectly, but at least the is me taking my fate into my own hands, instead of me screaming in terror as the autonomous vehicles rams me into a parked semi
  • Sayahh I do not know how my car will respond to the trolley problem, but I will be held liable whatever it chooses to do or not do. When technology has reached Star Trek's Data's level of intelligence, I will trust it, so long as it has a moral/ethic/empathy chip/subroutine; I would not trust his brother Lore driving/controlling my car. Until then, I will drive it myself until I no longer can, at which time I will call a friend, a cab or a ride-share service.
  • Daniel J Cx-5 lol. It's why we have one. I love hybrids but the engine in the RAV4 is just loud and obnoxious when it fires up.
  • Oberkanone CX-5 diesel.
  • Oberkanone Autonomous cars are afraid of us.