Ken Block takes Top Gear for a ride

[fbrdphreak]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...eature=player_embedded

Watch James May's eyes during some of the scenes...they get awful wide...

 

[Dman877]

Pretty slick.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I can hardly imagine how nauseating that must have been for May. Even riding as a passenger in a race car that isn't drifting all over the place is hard on the stomach. Ken Block really is pretty impressive at that stuff.

 

[BW86]

awesome driving

 

[Baked]

Wow, that's by far the best segment this season. SICK!

 

[PlasmaBomb]

:Q

I missed it... must go find...

 

[sandorski]

hehe, wow. That took a lot of Takes, but was entertaining.

 

[Aharami]

just saw that this morning. awesomely made segment

 

[fbrdphreak]

I must say I never watched TopGear much, but the segments I've seen lately (esp the Corvette & Fiesta bit) have been awesome. :thumbsup:

 

[geokilla]

Is his STI modded to RWD?

So where'd Ken Block come from anyways? Never heard of him till like a few months ago. Also I wonder how he'll fare up against the Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya.

 

[brblx]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
I must say I never watched TopGear much, but the segments I've seen lately (esp the Corvette & Fiesta bit) have been awesome. :thumbsup:

you've probably missed out on some of the best parts. most of the challenges since season one have been pretty priceless, and all of the 'specials' (arctic, africa, vietnam, two US trips) have been highly entertaining.

 

[thegimp03]

That was pretty sick.

 

[Arkaign]

LOL. This reminds me of a major car rag's story about a decade or so ago :

They were testing a prototype Hyundai Tiburon at Pike's Peak, for a rally race. From what I remember, the 'Tiburon' had very little to do with the production versions, it was alcohol-fueled, AWD or RWD (not FWD, but cannot remember the details), pushing something like 500whp. There were pics from the passenger seat from the photographer on the 1st ascent, and the notation said 'The photographer was nowhere to be found for the subsequent runs'. Yeah, several thousand feet racing up the sides of a mountain with no guard rails, on loose dirt and rocks, my ass would have disappeared too!

I wish I could remember more details, perhaps someone else read the same article.

AH-HA, I found it : http://www.motortrend.com/auto..._pikes_peak/index.html

Wow, my memory was pretty close, 470HP, Alcohol, AWD, etc. Cool.

 

[brblx]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edLnXzAwHVc

that's been the ultimate pike's peak video for almost 20 years. world record run at the time. in a peugeot.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: brblx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edLnXzAwHVc

that's been the ultimate pike's peak video for almost 20 years. world record run at the time. in a peugeot.

Very awesome. Would have loved to have found a vid of the 2007 record holder, so close to coming in under 10 minutes!

 

[Aharami]

another impressive display of this guy's skills
http://videos.streetfire.net/v...za-MUST_198595.htm?ref

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: geokilla
Is his STI modded to RWD?

So where'd Ken Block come from anyways? Never heard of him till like a few months ago. Also I wonder how he'll fare up against the Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya.

It's AWD, but heavily modded. Lookup "Ken Block Gymkhana" - several other videos, including a vid of the build of that STi. I'm sure it's rear biased, it has over 400HP, a stiff suspension, and probably some type of anti-lag system to keep the torque on tap.

And he's not a drifter. That style of driving is referred to as "gymkhana" - he's actually a rally driver and I believe came up out of nowhere, either he got sponsored through DC or started on his own (I believe he's rather loaded).

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: geokilla
Is his STI modded to RWD?

So where'd Ken Block come from anyways? Never heard of him till like a few months ago. Also I wonder how he'll fare up against the Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya.

It's AWD, but heavily modded. Lookup "Ken Block Gymkhana" - several other videos, including a vid of the build of that STi. I'm sure it's rear biased, it has over 400HP, a stiff suspension, and probably some type of anti-lag system to keep the torque on tap.

And he's not a drifter. That style of driving is referred to as "gymkhana" - he's actually a rally driver and I believe came up out of nowhere, either he got sponsored through DC or started on his own (I believe he's rather loaded).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Block_(rally_driver)

He does pretty good, and it's easy to get sponsored when your sponsor happens to be the company you started


Autocross gymkana in a 7:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHgjFPhhzY8

 

[geokilla]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: geokilla
Is his STI modded to RWD?

So where'd Ken Block come from anyways? Never heard of him till like a few months ago. Also I wonder how he'll fare up against the Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya.

It's AWD, but heavily modded. Lookup "Ken Block Gymkhana" - several other videos, including a vid of the build of that STi. I'm sure it's rear biased, it has over 400HP, a stiff suspension, and probably some type of anti-lag system to keep the torque on tap.

And he's not a drifter. That style of driving is referred to as "gymkhana" - he's actually a rally driver and I believe came up out of nowhere, either he got sponsored through DC or started on his own (I believe he's rather loaded).

Oh I thought gymkhana was like the name of his "infomercial" or something.

It seems that Ken Block founded DC...

 

[EGGO]

I have not heard of this guy, but I've been out of the WRC loop for a while since I can't find a channel that plays it on cable. Is he even in the WRC? It would be nice to have an American driver there.

Originally posted by: brblx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edLnXzAwHVc

that's been the ultimate pike's peak video for almost 20 years. world record run at the time. in a peugeot.

God those were some good days of rallying. Where the car became too fast for the driver. I still find Group B cars to be very sexy to look at.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: geokilla
Is his STI modded to RWD?

So where'd Ken Block come from anyways? Never heard of him till like a few months ago. Also I wonder how he'll fare up against the Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya.

It's AWD, but heavily modded. Lookup "Ken Block Gymkhana" - several other videos, including a vid of the build of that STi. I'm sure it's rear biased, it has over 400HP, a stiff suspension, and probably some type of anti-lag system to keep the torque on tap.

And he's not a drifter. That style of driving is referred to as "gymkhana" - he's actually a rally driver and I believe came up out of nowhere, either he got sponsored through DC or started on his own (I believe he's rather loaded).

Adjustable center diff. Many road going versions of the scooby have had this, too.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Originally posted by: EGGO
I have not heard of this guy, but I've been out of the WRC loop for a while since I can't find a channel that plays it on cable. Is he even in the WRC? It would be nice to have an American driver there.

Originally posted by: brblx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edLnXzAwHVc

that's been the ultimate pike's peak video for almost 20 years. world record run at the time. in a peugeot.

God those were some good days of rallying. Where the car became too fast for the driver. I still find Group B cars to be very sexy to look at.

The Group B cars are legends 23 years after their demise. They really did change how we see performance cars more than F1 did.

 

[LS21]

im going to see pikes peak rally next weekend
living in colorado ftw