a bridge was a family money-maker for 35 years, but will lose 50- 75% of its traffic to a forthcoming competing bridge, funded by the Canadian government. It is the busiest international crossing in North America.

Between Michigan and Canada, in the Detroit region, is the Ambassador Bridge, which was built in 1929, is wearing out, and is not adequate for today's monster trucks and the vast payloads they carry. Heavy tractor-trailers can't go through the tunnel. There is essentially no backup route other than Port Huron or Buffalo

And recently, a decision was made between Michigan and Canada to build a new one, a couple miles south of the privately owned Ambassador. Michigan wouldn't even have to pay a cent. Knowing how cash-strapped and divided our state government now is, Canada made an astounding offer last month: They'll pay our share of the start-up costs needed, as much as $550 million. Later, when the DRIC bridge is up and running, they'll get it back out of the tolls.

What's the hold up? A billionaire. The guy getting the money from the only bridge, the monopoly on the traffic from auto parts and car manufacturers between Detroit and Windsor Canada.

How profitable is a bridge? In 2007, Moroun won the right to sell fuel tax-free at his adjacent plaza. Each gallon sold earns an estimated 60 cents of profit.

 Last January, a judge threw him in jail for a day for defying an agreement with the state to build new freeway ramps and access roads to the bridge. Instead of following the plan, he routed them right into his fuel plaza. The following October the state sued Moroun’s company, claiming it sold 91-octane fuel labeled as more expensive 93, and also sold winter gas into the summer, when a pricier blend is mandated in order to reduce pollution. http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/aaron-robinson-battling-government-detroit-bridge-raises-national-issues

He is so deranged, he brought a lawsuit to court, against the U.S. government, contending that his company has an exclusive rights to operate a span to Canada in Detroit without competition.

While agreeing that the 1920s legislative acts in the two nations gave the bridge company a valid argument to raise in court, Judge Collyer said that Marouns lawyers "overplay their hand" by suggesting, absent a specific statute, "an exclusive bridge franchise which the federal government cannot interfere (with) in perpetuity."

In March 2016, Maroun finally figured out how to get a new span addition to the Ambassador, by purchasing the city owned park, Riverside Park, from Detroit, and once again, money makes the world go round. Maroun also has to pay for and give about 5 acres to Detroit adjacent to Riverside Park. Effectively, getting 5 acres of what he wants, by trading the unwanted land next to a park for the park land he wants, plus 3 million dollars. Detroit should have asked for 300 million. It would have helped their budget momentarily.

If you read between the lines, for the past 15 years, Maroun had effectively and illegally closed the park he now buys, and paved the way for this purchase with made up post 9-11 national security claims.

After 9/11, Matty conspired with the felon mayor of Detroit, Kwame “Jailbait” Kilpatrick to steal the part of the park that he needed for his proposed new bridge. That, by the way, is the portion of the park that Detroit’s currently unconvicted mayor, Mike Duggan, so brainlessly dealt away to Matty last summer. (It was a move that Detroit’s media enthusiastically endorsed as smart politics on Mike’s part.) The media luminaries forgot how hard the city had to fight for more than three years in court to eject Matty from that piece of public land that he converted from shady basketball courts to a dump for his construction debris. http://www.joelontheroad.com/seize-the-bridge-again/

How ever... Canada isn't giving Maroun permission to set another end of the bridge in their country. Regardless of Maroun's desires, they simply don't want to allow his monopoly to continue, and to be in collusion or to lose their reputation of "nice Canadians" by having anything to do with him anymore.

In response, the Ambassador’s current owner Moroun initiated and poured millions of dollars into a ballot proposal for the 2012 election to amend the Michigan constitution to make the new bridge contingent on a statewide vote.

Guess who is in control of the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority? Billionaire Manuel “Matty” Moroun control of the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority.  Michigan Attorney General William Schuette, without explanation, has declined to review the deal. Any guess how much that cost Mahoun? http://www.joelontheroad.com/good-job-free-press-keep-the-heat-on-matty/

http://www.forbes.com/profile/manuel-moroun/
http://www.alternet.org/story/147154/why_billionaire_matty_moroun_is_one_of_the_worst_corporate_citizens_ever
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/09/30/morouns-lose-virtually-all-counts-bridge-lawsuit/73083798/
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2016/03/coast_guard_grants_matty_morou.html
http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2015/10/16/windsor-says-ambassador-bridge-is-crumbling-matty-moroun-says-nope

Driveshaft angle

Did you know that the tailshaft of the trans and the pinion shaft of the pumpkin must be within 2 degree of parallel? Both parallel looking at it from the side, or the top

Hot Rod magazine asked Currie, Bickle and Miller, and though for some unique race application, the all agreed

http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/paint-body/91758/

What are the best selling car companies in the major markets? Well... just like you'd expect, they aren't native to the country, unless you're in Japan

Here's what bothers me... why can't any native car company make a car that outsells imports? (Does not apply to Japan)

Doesn't any car company CEO have any pride? Any business acumen? Well... of course Toyota and Nissan do, Honda as well.

Why don't GM, Ford, Holden, Chrysler, Jaguar, etc? Is it the food? The coffee? The beer?

In the USA the top 3 are the same as the top 3 makers in Japan

1.Toyota
2. Honda
3. Nissan

In Australia

1. Toyota
2. Mazda
3.Hyundai

In England

1. Ford
2. VW
3. Nissan

In Brazil

1. Fiat
2. VW
3. Chevrolet

In Japan

1. Toyota
2. Honda
3. Nissan

the best selling sports car in Germany? The Mustang. Not the 911. Why? Costs half as much

http://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/australias-top-selling-new-cars-of-2015-37643
http://www.caranddriver.com/flipbook/10-most-cars-here-are-the-bestselling-cars-in-america-for-2015
http://www.carbuyer.co.uk/reviews/recommended/best-selling-cars
http://thebrazilbusiness.com/article/the-30-best-selling-car-models-in-brazil
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/08/autos/ford-mustang-sales-germany/
http://www.motortrend.com/news/a-tale-of-two-top-tens-japan-us-buy-very-different-vehicles-the-kiinote/

Torque Vectoring... now simplified and no longer solely the realm of super cars like Ferraris, BMW X6, etc

The idea behind torque vectoring is to spin the outside tire slightly faster through a corner to point the car into a turn.

While mechanical differential torque vectoring is awesome and results in physics-defying handling, it's still relegated mostly to pricey luxury cars.

 That's changing, thanks to a simple formula tweak: Instead of speeding up the outside wheel, it now slows down the inside wheel. And that doesn't require anything fancier than brakes and software.

Voila! Torque vectoring is cheap enough to be included since 2013 in the Nissan Altima, where it's called Active Understeer Control. What once required genius mechanical engineering is now handled by a few lines of code.

http://www.mensjournal.com/expert-advice/no-gimmick-car-tech-20121023/torque-vectoring

For some reason, Ford, wasn't aware of, or deliberately deceives its advertisment readers, and claims Nissan Altimas don't have this.

 http://www.fleet.ford.com/resources/ford/general/pdf/brochures/2016/2016%20Fusion.pdf 

who saved Land Rover and Jaguar? Not a single person from England. Not even an English company. Why is that?

Ratan Tata saved them both.

He started working in a steel mill, shoveling limestone and handling the blast furnace. Now he owns JLR, Jaguar Land Rover.

That is very remarkable.

He paid half of the price Ford did.

Now JLR is the largest investor in automotive R and D and engineering in England, and is the largest automaker in England. 

Ever wondered why AM radio stations fuzz out when you drive under an overpass? It's the rebar in the bridge, AM signals get blocked by the mesh gridwork of the metal

http://static.nsta.org/files/sc1103_67.pdf

So, that's how they do that! 25 million pounds of dirt is prepped for the Monster Energy Supercross race inside Sam Boyd Stadium

but you can see a much better video (that doesn't have an embed feature) http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/motor-sports/watch-sam-boyd-stadium-become-supercross-track-under-2-minutes-video

the 15-year-old dirt of Sam Boyd Stadium, where veteran operators of front-end loaders, bulldozers and mini-dozers called skid steers maneuvered their earth-moving machines like ballerinas to create the obstacle bump-filled three-dimensional motorcycle course for the Monster Energy Supercross Finals make up the sport’s playing field, so to speak.

 Feld Motor Sports, based in Aurora, Ill., stores 550 truck loads of the dirt right outside Sam Boyd Stadium, where it’s used for other Feld events, such as the Monster Jam World Finals.

The same dirt is used time after time for Feld sport events at Sam Boyd Stadium. The dirt for the Monster Jam event is not removed from the stadium between the Supercross Finals and the Monster Jam Finals, but instead stored in the center of the venue because the stadium that’s managed by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

It takes trucks two days to transfer the dirt from outside the stadium to inside the venue, so arranging the schedule for both dirt track events, cuts considerable time and cost from set up for the 2nd event.

Immediately after the Monster Jam ends, crews begin pushing the dirt into a two-story-tall mound in the center of the stadium field to store it for preparation of tilling it and adding water to keep it soft, moist and usable for the Supercross, Prater said.

In 2006, crews did not move the dirt into the center of the stadium after the monster truck event. So, when the Supercross workers showed up a few weeks later to begin forming the dirt course in the shapes of table tops and camelback-like mogul bumps, they found dirt that “had settled like brick,” Prater said.

Nathan Swartzendruber, the event paddock manager, said an eight-inch base of dirt sits on two layers of plastic over the UNLV football field. Feld hires a company called Dirt Wurx, based in Monroe, N.Y. outside New York City, to move the dirt and set up the course.

Prater valued the dirt at $100,000-$180,000, noting that Feld tries to acquire dirt coming off construction sites.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/motor-sports/down-and-dirty-heavy-equipment-operators-massage-dirt-position-supercross-event

the two wheel bike that can't be ridden. The handlebar is attached to a gear that switches the direction the front wheel steers

It's an amazing demonstration of the way our brains function

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6107grRI4m0o2-emgoDnAA
https://www.facebook.com/SmarterEveryDay/

freeway 101

https://www.facebook.com/whatguysreallylike/?fref=photo