http://jalopnik.com/5390929/mustang-crash-gallery/

Do consider a Subie.

http://www.drive.subaru.com/Sum06_WhatsInside.htm

During an extrication seminar I was conducting, several members of an area fire department approached me with a question and a challenge. They had encountered a Subaru Forester involved in a crash and were unable to cut through the B-pillar with any of their extrication tools. Their cutter and their reciprocating saw were both unable to sever the pillar. They actually went back to the junkyard the next day and used a gasoline-powered rotary saw with an abrasive blade to totally remove the B-pillar. They brought it to the seminar to show me.

When I saw the pillar, it was clear that something was different about the Forester B-pillar construction. It was eight layers thick! One of the layers was a round steel rod that resembled a concrete reinforcement bar (rebar). That B-pillar had more layers of steel than I had ever seen in a vehicle.

I do realize that it’s not a totally fair comparison. Who knows if the Subaru’s roof could have withstood the same thing…but it does seem clear that the Subaru has superior reinforcement regardless. So why not? That and…I wouldn’t want a car with a live axle anyway.  I should note that the Mustang had a wannabe rollbar in it, too, that totally failed to do anything.

Now here’s an interesting site: http://www.boronextrication.com/2009/10/2010-ford-fusion-side-impact-protection.html

It’s basically a blog for firefighters showing where to cut up cars during an emergency.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/08/video-another-reason-to-watch-rallying-burcu-cetinkaya/

The new Bridgestone RE-11 ( successor to the RE-01R)

The Dunlop Direzza Z1 Star Spec (I’m running on them now and I am quite pleased with them)

The Toyo Proxes R1R

and the Yokohama Advan Neova AD07

The Z1 Star Specs are about a year old now, so I was expecting the RE-11 to totally stomp on them, but that wasn’t the case. I wasn’t too familiar with the R1R’s, but I expected the AD07 to get destroyed by the Bridgestone and Dunlop offerings.

In the first segment they’re doing at least 3 laps per brand of tire: in lap, best lap, dick-around drift lap.

Best times:
Z1*: 1:10.145
RE-11: 1:10.661
R1R: 1:10.858
AD07: 1:11.859

The second and third segment consists of a 15 lap battle. The Z1* put in the fastest lap, but the RE-11 had a better average, though it was a lot closer than I thought.

Ignoring the in lap:
RE-11 averaged: 10.878
Z1* averaged: 10.885

Considering all that, I think I’d still give the RE-11′s a whirl once, but over the long run I think I’d stick with the Star Specs. They’re significantly cheaper. Both Bridgestone and Dunlop are offering special rebates on their respective offerings btw. All but the Toyos can be bought at Tirerack.com.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Anyway, lots of people were wondering why the Koreans didn’t walk Ichiro. Apparently it was due to miscommunication.  Could have been tied at the bottom of the 10th. Great game, though.

Korea manager In Sik Kim said he gestured to Lim from the dugout to walk Ichiro, but the pitcher felt he could get him out. Kim did not question his pitcher afterward, and indicated there was a miscommunication.”We tried to throw him balls out of the zone, and if that didn’t work, we wanted to walk him,” Kim said. “But the message was conveyed wrong from the catcher to the pitcher. In the end, it just didn’t work.”

Kim wanted Lim to throw Ichiro pitches out of the zone, hoping to get him to chase, but if that didn’t work, he wanted him to walk Ichiro.

But new catcher Min Ho Kang apparently read the sign wrong from the bench, and didn’t properly relay the message to Lim.

“When we had a change in the catcher, it was an inexperienced catcher,” Kim said. “Maybe the inexperienced catcher did not communicate and understand very well. So maybe the catcher did not understand well.”

Wow. I have to add a sports category.