(QotW) I wanna be a race car driver! (QotW)

Note before I start: It should be "QotW" not "QoTW." The word "the" is not capitalized in titles unless it's the first word. Now, on to my blog.

Okay, so my title is actually lying. I'd really love to race motorcycles. It's the epitome of bad ass. I shouldn't have to explain why, but I'll do so anyways. You're racing, going all out, on a 2 wheel machine that weighs only twice what you do. Your knee scrapes, the bike at an impossible angle, as you rocket around a corner. Then, you lower your head, and twist the throttle. You hang on for dear life as a brutal force attempts to violently rip you off the bike and flind you backwards, the engine serenading at you with a mechanical symphony spinning almost 17,000 revolutions per minute (about three times that of a normal car). Then, you squeeze the brakes at the very last moment, entering the corner at a speed no human should be able to survive, and do it all again.

You know what, how about you just watch some of the bad assery instead of reading through my pathetic attempts to capture such awesomeness.

(Hidden so as not to take up so much space, although I strongly encourage you to watch them as they're zomgamazing.)

First minute of:

Gets really good after :30

I want to be one of those guys so bad. However, that's not the title of my blog. Why? Because despite a lot of improvement in recent years in the safety department, racing those things is still dangerous as hell. I like my life, thank you very much.

In contrast, Scott Sharp crashed his LMP1 car going 140 mph and walked away unscathed. Sounds much better to me. Although race car drivers lose some of the connection and control of the machine (it's hard to get close to leaning into a turn at 70mph), they get to go faster, both in a straight line and especially through the curves, and a lot of the excitement and bad assery is still there. It'd be my dream come true to race cars, even in a lesser league like the Rolex series or something like that.

Again, I'll let a video explain everything instead of trying to do it myself.

This is my favorite commercial EVAR.

Despite how awesome being either a race car driver or motorcycle racer would be, there is a very small chance I'd get to do it. Becoming a professional racer is difficult the same reason becoming a professional basketball player is: there are very few spots, and there are an incredible amount of people that enjoy doing it. A much more realistic dream is becoming an engineer for a team in one of these racing series. My dream is to get hired by a Formula 1 or Le Mans team and work on engine design. I'm well on my way, actually. I'm a semester away from matriculating into the Mechanical Engineering department and NCSU, and I'm already a part of Wolfpack Automotive, a club that designs a race car from scratch (420lbs, ~100hp, 0-60 in ~3 seconds). I'm learning a lot, and the more I'm shown, the more I know I want to do this for the rest of my life.