Shane Walters - Photography, Blogs from the Founder of RacingNews.co

Shane Walters is the founder of RacingNews.co. Click here to view the latest motorsports photography are racing blogs directly from the editor's desk.

Is Apple Inc buying McLaren Automotive?

Apple buying McLaren Automotive - Apple Takeover

September 26, 2016 by Shane Walters

Is Apple Buying McLaren F1 and McLaren Automotive? – Possibly

It’s a bit of a leap to go there but it’s possible that Apple is buying McLaren. I think it’s possible something big is in the works. If they are interested in a takeover, it’s likely for the McLaren Applied Technologies division of the automotive company.

Apple approached McLaren on a possible investment or purchase. That is according to The Financial Times, a reputable source.

An investment from either a marketing or technology standpoint would make sense. Especially when you have $610 billion to do a bit of marketing with. However, I tend to lean more toward a possible sponsorship of the McLaren F1 Team. Among other reasons, Apple hasn’t been known, in previous cases, to take on acquisitions.

Could that possible Apple McLaren investment be a sponsorship of the McLaren F1 Team? Or is Apple interested in investing in future technology they could bring to their iCar. Which is no joke, well the name I gave it ‘might be’. Apple has been, not so secretly, working on a tech friendly car for years now to go head-to-head with the innovators and friendly California neighbors at Telsa Motors.

Apple has been in a bit of a stall out as far as innovation goes. I fancy the lack of a headphone jack myself. But, this is the company that revolutionized the computer and soon after put the computer in our pocket. Yet, billions of dollars later they haven’t stepped too far outside of the phone and computer box.

The McLaren Applied Technologies division would come along with a bit of a headache. The McLaren Formula One team is costly, $523 million costly. That was the 2015 budget of the McLaren F1 team.

The costs add up fast, very fast. As you can see from the photo of the McLaren MP4-X concept car they push the boundaries. You have to if you want to win.

It’s a cost mostly justified by auto manufactures, with the exception of Red Bull, as they develop and test future auto technology in a highly competitive environment. The innovative technology slowly starts making it’s way into consumer cars. When you’re creating the technology in your car, it gives you an advantage against rival auto makers.

Aside from the use of new technology in their own auto line, the F1 team does have other ways of being useful. McLaren F1 brought in $120 Million from the Constructors Championship fund, paid once per year. The fund is basically a portion of revenue generated from the worldwide television broadcasts. The sport had 600 million tv viewers in 2008, 400 million in 2015.

Usually, McLaren would stand to make more money by finishing higher in the F1 standings as seasons end. However, they’ve been in a development stage with a new Honda engine. F1 is not plug and play. It’s an all out technology development war against other major automotive manufactures. Honda coming into F1, means they have to start from scratch and build their way to the top. Hence the $523 Million budget.

At the same point, McLaren recently lost it’s long time primary sponsor Vodafone, aka British Verizon. Usually, sponsorship helps justify the development costs of the worlds fastest sport. In this case, McLaren appears to be holding out, in a refusal to drop the rate card as they make their slow climb back to the podium step.

Unless… Apple is visiting McLaren F1 to display their freshly bitten Apple logo to millions of viewers, worldwide. This possible marketing partnership makes a lot of sense to me.

They are on the same page. These two tech companies do tend share the same mindset as far as modern design goes. The are certainly on the same page when it comes to marketing style, design and ever the general design of each others headquarters.

However, there’s more pieces of this jigsaw puzzle. Apple recently tripled it’s R&D budget to $10 Billion. In the same breath they laid off a large number of the staff working on the iCar. It’s fairly hard to increase your R&D budget and cut staff at the same time. So, it’s likely that staff will need to be replaced. Why the lay off to make room for the future McLaren Automotive Group employee’s turned Apple employee’s?

McLaren jumped very fast to deny all possibility of an investment. But they jumped so fast to denial that is makes me believe something big is about to happen. If it was false, they likely wouldn’t care to comment.

Here’s what McLaren had to say, “We can confirm McLaren is not in discussion with Apple in regards to any investment,” said McLaren spokesman Adam Gron. He also said, “any other discussions between the two companies would be confidential.”

So, is Apple buying McLaren Automotive? Perhaps! At the end of this, we can only speculate. If something is in the works neither company is interested in sharing it with us at this time. Time will tell, I tend to think we are weeks away from a major announcement.

The Financial Times valued McLaren at $1.3 – $1.9 billion.

Author: Shane Walters

Photos: Mclaren.com

Bristol Motor Speedway Low Groove Returns – Old Bristol is Back!

August 19, 2016 by Shane Walters

The Lower Groove at Bristol Motor Speedway Has Returned for the 2016 Bristol Night Race

In case you didn’t catch the memo. After years of fan complaints and tens of thousands of season passes canceled, BMS has listened. They have brought the Bristol low groove back into the picture. New Bristol meets the old Bristol, this weekend.

Based on the characteristics of Wednesday nights NASCAR truck race, the fans are sure to start filling the seats again in no time. Fans and drivers are both impressed. It won’t be an empty colosseum for much longer.

It’s racey, so racey the lower groove is once again the preferred groove. Welcome to the old Bristol, circa 2002. One groove right around the bottom, bumper to bumper for an action packed Saturday night short track race.

What was the problem? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

The high groove was nice, but it wasn’t Bristol. Slower drivers could run the high line and block any faster driver behind them. It was literally next to impossible to make any pass at Bristol. Even when we are talking about lapped cars.

Even with multiple grooves and the outside being the longer way around it was impossible to pass. Sure, the outside was a longer lap, distance wise. But you had more banking to work with, a lot more. Your momentum made up the difference rendering the bottom groove useless.

Sure the bump and run was still an option. However, when everyone is running inches from the wall, bumping meant putting someone in the fence and risk collecting yourself in the accident. That’s not racing, that’s wrecking.

Before the multi-groove surface repave in 2007 you could make passes. You could get a better drive off and dive under them at the end of the straight away. In recent years however, you couldn’t out-brake someone running the high groove. You can only slide job them, which rarely works.

With the old Bristol Motor Speedway, you could bump slower drivers slightly in the center of the corner and slide under them. That was racing. Nobody was wrecked in the fence, well a few were, but for the most part the moved car just lost a few positions and the racing resumed.

How did they fix Bristol in 2016? Bristol track officials went to work on the lower line specifically. Instead of tearing up the entire surface and starting from scratch, they polished what was already there.

Very literally, polished. Since April, they have sanded the bottom groove smooth. Smooth as a warehouse floor and in track practice 1 it was as slick as one too. However, once the rubber built up on the surface it came to life.

They treated the bottom groove at Bristol Motor Speedway ahead of the race weekend. The race track concrete treating process included applying a resin and conditioning it with a tire machine, a similar method as is used in drag racing.

Rain did not effect the groove at all. It had the grip and provided a great truck race on Wednesday night. Now, the NASCAR Xfinity Series tonight. Then, Saturday night it’s 500 laps of the old Bristol with the the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

Dale Earnhardt Jr has been offering this very solution for years. He offered an interview back in April of this year about how the track sealer on the old Bristol was a secret to getting around that place. The little bit of track sealer was used over the yellow line on the old track, that gave grip entering the corner. And if you hold it all the way to the bottom, you had a lap time going.

So, here in 2016, ten years later, they have brought it back. Only instead of using the sealer on just the bottom 5 inches of the race track it’s been used on the entire bottom groove. It’s forced everyone back to the bottom for some great racing.

I’m excited. Spread the word.

Author: Shane Walters

Modern Lego City Street Build

August 13, 2016 by Shane Walters

Modern Lego City Street – Lego Update 2

I’ve been busy playing with Lego lately. I’ve made some progress on the train tunnel and the ultra modern Lego city street. The entire custom Lego city project has a completion date of around 2025. I’ll be posting updates along the way. The photo album below shows the current status of the Lego build.

The basic Lego city layout itself was constructed and de-constructed about 3-4 times. I ran into many issues that made me start over from scratch. But I finally found solutions to most of my problems.

Lego Street and Sidewalk

The Lego street itself is 90% done. The finishing tiles have not been placed all the way down the street or sidewalk but the photos give you the idea of where I’m going with the project.

I placed the sidewalk on top of two layers of Lego plates. With the tile that makes the sidewalk the exact height of one Lego brick.

The means that as I start placing buildings in the modern Lego city the first layer of bricks will place the building in-line with the sidewalk. That makes the doors into the buildings at feet level of the Lego minifigures.

Adding plate layers to the sidewalk was important because it resulted in more realistic curb for the street. Using one layer of tiles alone would mean the sidewalk is the same height at the street, that’s not what I wanted.

I used a combination of dark blueish grey and light blueish gray tiles on the sidewalk construction. Lots of various size tiles as well. That gave the sidewalk a very unique, modern and simple look. The base color for the sidewalk is light grey with dark grey used for detail. That allows for contrast between the street itself which is done in tiles of all dark grey.

I didn’t post any photo from under the Lego street or sidewalk. However, the entire center section of the street is easily removed. This will allow me to build basements to the Lego city buildings. I’ll highlight the under street details later on.

Underground Lego Train

The train runs under the entire city. I did this to add about an extra 6 inches to the city above. The table is only 30″ wide as it allows me to fit the table between door frames. They narrowness of the table brought limitations.

So, to get the extra inches for the modern Lego city itself I decided to place the track under the city itself. That meant raising the entire foundation and the street. That part was very expensive, but it basically allowed me to place two rows of buildings instead of just one.

The problem with running a lego train underground is that trains often derail. Without escape hatches, that would make picking up the pieces very difficult.

My solution was the make the entire outside of the street foundation covered in hidden hatches. When the train derails I can just pull down several hatches and remove the train pieces from the tunnel itself. That’s much easier than deconstructing the foundation and eventually the buildings on top just to get into the tunnel.

Modern Lego City Street Build Photo Gallery

Dirt Track Racing Safety is Lacking

August 9, 2016 by Shane Walters

Dirt Track Racing Safety – Basically no Advancements

Dirt racing safety improvements are non existent and I can’t understand why. We’ve seen countless dirt track deaths over the years. Basically nothing has changed and nothing is being developed in regards to safety yet we keep going faster.

The death of Bryan Clauson has me frustrated with dirt car sanctions specifically. Drivers and teams aren’t going to act themselves. Safety means added weight and added weight means slower lap times.

Race cars can always be safer, sacrificing weight and/or appearance. But it takes a sanctioning body to enforce new standards in safety. In most cases the sanctioning bodies even need to develop the new technologies themselves.

Furthermore, dirt drivers can usually be run under multiple sanctions with the same car. If a sanction acts too drastically on rule changes they are excluding all dirt teams who consider the other series their ‘primary’ series. Meaning it will divide the class and force drivers/teams to pick between the two.

We cant have that. So, it forces multiple sanctions to act together when enforcing new rules. That in itself is a separate issue as people don’t generally agree, on anything, in any discussion. If people can’t agree and sanctions can’t act together then the vote in general, is to leave things alone.

A midget or sprint car is very unique high-powered racing machinery. Safety components aren’t going to trickle down from NASCAR or the automotive industry. Things that work on a NASCAR Racecar won’t necessary apply to these winged or non-winged machines.

That means the dirt racing sanctioning bodies need to develop their own forms of technology specific to their respective machines. NASCAR isn’t going to do it for them. Yet, nobody is stepping up to the plate to do so, nobody.

There is no form of the NASCAR Research & Development Center for dirt. When accidents happen in NASCAR, cars are impounded and dissected to find solutions and answers.

Just this weekend at Watkins Glen a NASCAR Xfinity Series car exploded. Curiosity all around, as nobody had seen an explosion of that sort. NASCAR impounded the car. They wanted to find out what happened so they could prevent it in the future.

In dirt, there’s virtually no pro-activeness on safety. We just have a lot of head turning going on from sanctions, manufactures, drivers and fans.

If you take look at other forms on motorsports, it’s the very opposite. A death is an eyeopener to something that can be improved. The wrecks are studied to prevent injuries in the future. Cars come back to the track re-built, safer.

The death of Dale Earnhardt brought countless changes to NASCAR. Safer walls designed to hinder the g forces to the driver on impact. Beyond the impact spot itself, foam has been placed inside the doors of the race cars, acting the same as safer walls on the object itself.

The safer barrier as it stands, likely wouldn’t work in dirt racing. Dirt would build up behind the steel wall and in between the foam. That would make the wall harder as the foam itself wouldn’t be allowed to compress and absorb the impact as it was designed.

I’m no rocket scientist, but there certainly seams to be a way around that. A flexible cover. A cover placed over the top of the wall should prevent dirt getting behind the wall.

Again, I’m not an engineer, I don’t have the answers myself. But I haven’t even seen anything so much as tested and that’s more my point. Meaning nobody is even attempting to make safer walls work on dirt tracks.

Safer car components aren’t in development. Cars aren’t being tested. The search for the perfect chassis construction or tube placement isn’t in the works. No progress is being made in any regard to safety. This is the part that irritates me.

The cost of such safer racing walls doesn’t help. These small dirt tracks are barely getting by as it is. These tracks are closing faster than we can build new ones. Asking track owners to install walls in the $100,000 range would put many under. But if the sanctioning bodies would work together they could force safer walls to be installed on every new dirt track built in the future. So only existing tracks would be exempt from building safer walls.

Unlike safer walls, the safety equipment worn by NASCAR drivers has actually trickled down to dirt racing drivers. Enter the hans device. This is literally the only thing, other than seat technology, that I’ve seen reach the dirt track level as far as safety advancements in nearly 20 years. 20 years of motorsports safety advancements, countless deaths, we’ve got the hans device. Even still, it should be mandatory yet it’s just an option in most series.

F1 lost Jules Bianchi last year. Since his death F1 and the FIA have been proactive in making the cars safer. A closed cockpit has been in development by F1 teams as a result. The new cockpit was suppose to be on the grid in 2017 but it has been pushed back to 2018. They are at least working on it.

The bulk of new safety improvements aren’t going to come from the track via things like safe walls, it’s too expensive on dying dirt tracks. While moving of wall openings and trackside objects are feasible changes to the tracks. The majority of changes need to be done to the cars themselves.

Maybe that’s an added tube, maybe a bigger tube, maybe it’s slightly bigger car with more of a cushion area around the drivers head. Maybe it’s just a different front bumper. An inch here and an inch there will save lives. But where those extra inches should be and what they should be filled with aren’t being tested. I don’t have the answers. Nobody does because testing scenarios aren’t being carried out.

A slightly different design isn’t going to dramatically increase the cost of cars and/or tickets. A testing facility could be setup and built by all the major dirt sanctioning bodies, or they could rent tests at the current NASCAR Research & Development Center. Then new rules and body modifications need to be formed based on testing results and those rules need to be applied to all series at once, not individually. Those rules would likely only apply to new cars, saving cost on current teams.

When the costs are spread all the way across the board with multiple series acting together then the costs are minimized. Everyone needs to work together or we won’t get anywhere. You can’t place all the burden of dirt car safety development on one series. No one dirt series has the NASCAR sized checkbook for safety development but if you combine all the dirt series you’re getting closer.

Part of the lack of dirt track racing safety improvements is the stubbornness to any change itself. Cars may need to be re-designed, that’s not going to go over well in any series. However, there’s a dirt track death every few months. If you aren’t embracing change or putting pressure on people who write the rules, then you are partially to blame for the next death. You won’t have to wait long to feel that burden again.

Dirt track racing deaths don’t bring safer technology advancements to the dirt cars. Instead we turn our heads and hope for the best the next time the exact same incident occurs.

Author: Shane Walters

Modern Black Oil Painting 2016-3 (17)

July 28, 2016 by Shane Walters

Click here to purchase or learn more about the black canvas oil painting shown above.

Modern black canvas oil painting by Saint Louis based artist Shane Walters.

This large 30″ x 48″ oil on canvas painting features a mostly black canvas with a touch of red paint.

This artwork was created using only the highest level of oil paints and professional grade canvases available.

The art should last more than a lifetime when handled, displayed and preserved correctly.

MEDIUM
Oil Paint

SIZE
30″ x 48″

DEPTH
1.5″

AUTHENTICITY
Each painting is signed on the front by the artist. The back of each piece of art is also labeled and finger printed to ensure authenticity of the art.

OIL PAINT
Only UV resistant professional high grade pigment inks used on the artwork.

CANVAS
Only the highest level of professional grade canvases available for purchase were used on this artwork. This helps ensure the artwork is protected and prepared to last a lifetime.

PROTECTION LAYER
Several layers of matte varnish have already been applied to this painting. The varnish layers protect the painting from UV light, dust and dirt. It helps the painting maintain it’s original color and allows for easy cleaning without damage to the painting under the varnish.

CLEANING
To clean your canvas product, use a clean dry cloth to remove any dust, do not use any abrasive materials or cleaning fluids as this may cause damage and discoloration to the oil paint.

PLACEMENT
The product has been designed for display in a dry covered environment. Items should not be left outdoors. Do not expose to water or very humid atmospheres. It is okay to hang the product in direct sunlight, however you may wish to avoid long periods of sunlight exposure.

SHIPPING
Orders will ship within 1-5 days. US shipping can take up to 5 business days. If purchasing from outside the USA, you may be subject to local import taxes and duty fees.

SHANE WALTERS ART
I strongly believe in quality not quantity. I use nothing but the best products and materials in every aspect of my artwork. Most art you’ll find from other stores or artist’s are mass produced products using machines and the cheapest available supplies and paints. The costs on my end when producing each piece of art are significantly increased when going the high-quality artwork route. However, I’m only interested in offering you the highest quality of luxury art available, no matter the costs on my end.