Category Archives: Planes Trains and Automobiles

At nearly 300MPH, Larry Dixon’s Top Fuel Dragster breaks in half…

Fox Sports link

It was a no-brainer… I have a 1970 Sublime (green) Dodge Challenger RT 4 speed 440 6-pack with hood blackout decal and black side stripes, and here comes Chrysler offering the Needs-no-introduction-baddass-Hellcat in Sublime metallic with a black aluminum hood… DUH… I dumped the f-ing blue Prius and got one. We added some side stripes to match, and here you go: Grandpa and grandson. Now with the Hellcat, the 4 hour drive from Los Angeles to Vegas has been cut down to 90 minutes. Not really…. Sort of. I may or may not be lying. And that’s me, photobombing in the middle.

YouTube account HD MSP Spotting captured a rare appearance by the Antonov 225 aircraft at the Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport back in July 2014. With six turbofan engines and a maximum takeoff weight of more than 700 tons, the Antonov Design Bureau plane is the longest and heaviest ever built and boasts the largest wingspan of any currently operating airplane. According to The Minneapolis StarTribune, the giant plane was in the Twin Cities to pick up air conditioning equipment before heading to the Middle East by way of France or Switzerland.

A couple of weekends ago the Golden Gate Bridge was closed to allow installation of a new safety barrier between northbound and southbound lanes on the San Francisco Bay Area landmark. A key aspect of the $30 million-system is the Road Zipper–a highly specialized truck built by Lindsay Transportation Solutions that can rapidly shift the barrier one lane over to accommodate various traffic patterns throughout the day. It’s no simple feat as each of the system’s 3,500 steel-reinforced barriers weighs 1,500 pounds. The system was tested during the bridge closure, and a number of people caught the truck (the bridge authority has two) in action. The zipper-like action of the truck is curiously mesmerizing.

The new safety system replaces the plastic tubes that were in place for more than 50 years. Crossover accidents were common with the old system–16 people died in 128 head-on collisions between 1970 and 2015.