A YouTuber wrecked his Tesla Plaid (a super-fast model) by modifying the brakes but failing to upgrade the brake fluid. The high temperatures achieved by braking at 170 mph boiled the fluid, and he lost control of the car. Lucky to be alive, the YouTuber is probably SOL with his insurance company.
While the driver was wearing a seat belt, he did not have a helmet on. He also did not have track-specific seats or a five-point harness. He suffered a fractured knee, a torn ACL, and five broken ribs, but survived the impact.
As Chet stresses, the new brake components were not the source of the problem. In a previous video documenting the brake change, he mentioned that he was moving to new calipers and carbon ceramic discs in the front, plus racing pads on new iron discs in the rear. He also added a steel-braided brake line to the front, but not the rear.
He did not, however, switch away from DOT3 brake fluid. Regular track drivers wisely upgrade to a more track-friendly fluid such as DOT4 (or higher, depending on what else they change in the braking system) that safely operates at higher temps along with any upgrades on pads, rotors, or whatever else. Chet says he will clarify the specifics of the failure in a yet-unreleased video, but his comment on the original video suggest that the lower boiling point of the lower-grade brake fluid caused the crash. That led to the worst-case scenario, with brakes failing near top speed on a 4800 lb sedan.
A decision that either demonstrates a whole lot of confidence Musk will still be purchasing Twitter or is just extremely reckless, has apparently been made by Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. Certainly, Agrawal knows things we all do not, but if Musk doesn't buy his company the damage done by this failed acquisition will certainly be… READ THE REST
While this attempt at jousting from bicycles ends as expected, I still had to watch it two or three times. These aficionados of medieval battle experienced a good, old-fashioned highspeed impact. Luckily there were no horses to fall on top of them. READ THE REST
A bounce house and a Sheriff's helicopter could not co-exist at a Rancho Cucamonga, California police event. As the helicopter approached its landing spot it inadvertently launched a bounce house into the air and blew some children around. Several were rushed to the hospital. Others sound less seriously injured as well. I found it odd… READ THE REST
As much as you hate it, sometimes we have to search for things in places we never want to go, like the kitchen sink's drain, the dusty attic, or the spider-web-laden area underneath the house. Your shrieks might just bring music to their ears! But as much as we don't want to see what's in these… READ THE REST
Whether you have your own cookie business or run a celebrity gossip blog, having an unimpressive landing page can really slow things down. Sure, hiring a professional developer to create a website would be awesome, but their rates can be pretty steep, and that's not something you want to budget for these days. Just because… READ THE REST
How much of your Mac's storage space is actually stuff you use? Odds are good a significant portion of your hard drive is filled with untouched downloads, duplicate files, and apps you forgot existed. You may not have noticed it, but the gradual slowing of your computer could be due to all those files just sitting… READ THE REST
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