Leave the motorsport news for a proper motorsport site...
Festival of Speed is not held on the Goodwood race circuit... the Revival is, but not FOS.
Nissan backs off from Goodwood reverse-race car stunt
Organisers of the Goodwood Festival of Speed have stopped Nissan's attempt to drive one of its jalopies up the Hill Climb course backwards. The Japanese manufacturer did manage to send a stuntman in a Nissan up the track on two wheels. But organisers put the kybosh on the reverse attempt on safety grounds. The idea – which …
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Monday 4th July 2011 14:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
A solution
Use a Messerschmitt bubble car; by choosing which way you made the engine run, you could have either 4 forward gear or 4 reverse gears. ie technically as fast backwards as going forwards (corners excluded). Everyone's a winner. Apart from the bored spectators...
oh, and welcome Jude....
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This post has been deleted by its author
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Tuesday 5th July 2011 07:33 GMT Scarborough Dave
I test drove a Leaf
According to the customer relations man (sales man to you and me) it can do 0-60 in under 4 seconds, if all restrictions on the engine etc.. are lifted, though the batteries might on last a couple of minutes (or explode??).
I have been looking for a citation for this, but still haven't found one, though might be fun to watch on "Pimp my Ride"
Cheers!
PS Hello Jude and welcome! :)
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Tuesday 5th July 2011 07:42 GMT Manolo
DAF Variomatic
The old Dutch DAF automobiles with Variomatic Continuously Variable Transmission
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variomatic)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmission)
could go as fast backwards as forwards. This gave rise to some of the wackiest television ever to be broadcasted in The Netherlands: reverse DAF racing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7ipFApsFec
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Tuesday 5th July 2011 07:48 GMT Ivan Headache
When I were a lad
we had a 2-stroke SAAB 96.
It was a fabulous car but it had one big issue. You never knew for certain which way the engine was running! The number of times I engaged 1st and shot off backwards, I'm amazed I didn't kill myself - especially on the 3rd floor of the multstory in Scunthorpe.
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Tuesday 5th July 2011 07:51 GMT jake
I have a couple old boat engines that run in reverse[1] ...
... Well, forward & reverse are the same, as far as they are concerned.
Only problem is that once you are going forward, you have to stop the engine, shift the camshaft, and then restart the thing spinning in the other direction ... One's a 10-ton Buda straight eight that is currently looking for a tugboat for me to restore; the other is a four ton Atlas Imperial that powers a late-1920s 45 foot cocktail cruiser ... Fun toys, if you're not afraid of getting grease under your fingernails :-)
[1] I have several boats with counter-rotating engines, which is a completely different concept.
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Tuesday 5th July 2011 18:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
If the challenge lies in the back-wheel steering...
I suggest trying the uphill climbing race in a no-suspension back-steering gas powered Hyster 7- tonnes forklift.
For clarification, this thing has all the handling characteristics of a shopping cart driven backwards, (while going forward, because the rear wheels are doing all the steering), the center of gravity is somewhere above the height of your head (assuming you are smaller than 210cm), and the complete lack of suspension, except for tire's pressure, make it as stable as jello in an earthquake. The only good thing of it being like what it is, it can do 180º turns in a single lane, since the tiny wheels can almost turn sideways.
Now I call that skilled driving if someone manages to pull that off, while driving above 50mph. Hell, even 20mph can prove challenging, if the road isn't anything but silk-smooth.
And it can drive backwards pretty fast too. Well, faster than anyone had the guts to do it, while loaded, inside a warehouse, anyways...
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