Real Time View

The last NonStop TBC held in Burlingame, CA It is hard to have a conversation today where the word hybrid does not come up. You may be interested in cars and wonder whether your next vehicle should be a Plug-In Hybrid or better still, a pure Plug-In Electric. For countries like Australia, Canada and the US the distances out west (in all cases) tend to favor those vehicles that come with some form of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) as the charge station infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired. We have known of hybrid diesel electric power trains that drive trains and of late, cruise ships. We have also known of the hybrid grains that farmers sow each year even as we know that animal breeding programs have led to hybrid stock – those that provide meat even as access to feed and water diminishes. One such hybrid example that, to be honest, intrigued me is the hybrid bison and cow, otherwise known as the beefalo! However, it is in the technology arena where concept of hybrids is b...

This past weekend I seated myself close to the television through much of The Rolex24 at Daytona. Much like other races that span 24 hours, for as long as I can recall it was considered an endurance race, much the same as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and yet with the improved reliability of the participating vehicles, Daytona is now very much a 24 hour sprint race. Mixing prototypes with vehicles you could drive off the showroom floor sort of, these long races make for entertaining viewing. While we have a connection with one of the racers involved, the Indy Car phenom Colton Herta, the grandson of our good friends, the Kennys, who just happened to add yet another Rolex to his collection of Rolex Daytona watches after winning the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class and placed fifth overall (car pictured above), all the same I was surprised at how quickly those 24 hours passed. I remember conversations with my father after listening to Le Mans the time disk brakes first appeared (on a Jaguar...