
The Only McLaren F1 Technician in North America - iamben
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic-cars/a14453949/the-only-mclaren-f1-technician-in-north-america/
======
flyinglizard
That was transcendental, thank you.

I was just thinking to myself a few days ago that the overlap between tech
workers and car nuts is quite narrow. Not many people I know from my
professional environment are _really_ into cars. Sure, some can say "this is
better than that" or tell a car story or say how some Mini they drove "handled
like a go cart" but nearly none of them is a hardcore car nut (e.g. they're
more interested in the tech of a Tesla than what a Ferrari V12 feels like).

I'm sure there's a good reason somewhere.

~~~
macintux
Random thought, to which I don't give a lot of credence but can't rule out
entirely, is that tech work and car fandom often grow out of childhood/teenage
obsessions, and most kids would only have one such obsession.

Related, it's also possible that it's a class thing. Many kids who grew up
working on computers did so in a white collar household, many who worked on
cars did so on a blue collar family.

Both mostly off-the-cuff speculation based in no small part on clichés.

~~~
anabis
Somewhat countering your >most kids would only have one such obsession

Train nuts and computer nerds seem to have higher overlap.

MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club being a prominent example.

~~~
macintux
Doesn't take many counter-examples to invalidate an idea. Good point.

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msantos
Another McLaren F1 funfact: McLaren used to buy a bunch of old Compaq laptops
for spare parts almost 20years after that laptop had reached EOL.

[https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/5/3/11576032/mcla...](https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/5/3/11576032/mclaren-f1-compaq-
laptop-maintenance)

~~~
nasredin
>The reason we need those specific Compaq laptops is that they run a bespoke
CA card which is installed into them," explains a McLaren spokesperson to
Jalopnik. "The CA card is an interface between the laptop software (which is
DOS-based) and the car." If you've never heard of a CA card, then Jalopnik
commenter Mike Herbst helpfully explains it's a Conditional Access card.
Modern PCs use smart cards or USB keys with special access codes to access
sensitive systems, and the CA card was used as custom hardware as part of an
integrated system for security and copy protection.

~~~
raverbashing
Seems it would be cheaper to circumvent that and run it on a VM

~~~
MrFoof
They do. However they maintain the laptops still as a backup.

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2sk21
Whats interesting about this car is that even if its not driven a mile, many
parts have to be changed as per a timetable. Merely changing the tires on this
car costs $50k! [https://youtu.be/EsKDGdcb6BQ](https://youtu.be/EsKDGdcb6BQ)

~~~
cyberpunk0
Poor design if you ask me

~~~
bigdubs
You should absolutely change your tires regardless of use by age (this isn't
just a McLaren thing). Tires dry out over time and become unsafe.

~~~
flexie
You seem to know about this. Am I risking anything driving my 6 year okd old
winter tires for 3 years non stop (winter and summer, 15k km yearly)?

~~~
nugi
The winter compound will harden and perform worse in freezing temps. The
overly soft compound is ok in summer for non agressive driving. If, however,
they are 'all season tires', it is time to replace. If you see ANY checking
between tread, or on sidewall, it is also time. 6 years is about my cutoff
personally, 4 for winters stored out of the sun (for use in winter) and 2
years for r compounds/<200 treadwear tires.

These are all ballpark values I have found by experince, and hersay at the
track and on the street. I personally find Blizzak and Nokian to fare best in
the winter tire niche. They are both good snow/ice hybrid design now, and
often used in rally/rallycross.

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tbrock
All the new lambos / f-cars are great and Tesla is making exciting things go
fast but this... the F1... this is the car to end all cars.

No compromise: engine bay is lined with gold, the v12 designed by bmw’s m
division is a smooth fucking monster, driver seat in the center, damn, you
need a steel set of balls just to look at this thing.

I’d love to have this job, this is a mechanic dream.

~~~
nugi
I might argue konigsegg is quicky eclipsing them in both tech and
construction. Freevalve engines, transmissionless, hybrid, and bugatti
stomping power. They went 0-250 then back to 0 in the time it took the
previous record holder just to make it to 250. Truly next level tech.

That said, the mclaren is still much better tuned for actual racing, for now.
Not to be minimized.

~~~
torpfactory
To be fair to the F1 it was released in 1992 for goodness sake! It’s still a
no question beast and it’s 25 years old.

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M235i
This article is not true. There are still two other McLaren certified
technicians who worked with BMW NA under their program, and both are
completely able to work on F1. I should know, as I know one of them, and he
was the last BMW/McLaren certified F1 technician trained under Panis
personally, yet he or the other guy is not mentioned in any of the R&T
articles, whom are still able to wrench on these vehicles as long as they have
the tools, which they had to hand back in.

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telesilla
An interesting documentary came out recently on Bruce McLaren

[https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/mclaren-2017](https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/mclaren-2017)

Same director as The Worlds Fastest Indian, another fascinating story about a
home-made motorbike. Along with the Britten bike, New Zealand has a handful of
tech innovators to be proud of.

~~~
gregpilling
The Britten is amazing [http://www.britten.co.nz/](http://www.britten.co.nz/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rjJQUnq5Js](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rjJQUnq5Js)

I was on track with the first version at Westwood, in BC when it was ridden by
Gary Goodfellow and Steve Crevier. 88-90 era.

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DanCarvajal
Working on one of the greatest cars every made for a job doesn't look half
bad.

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blt
I've had the privilege to tour the McLaren Formula 1 team production facility
in Surrey. One of the best "engineering tourism" moments of my life. It's
amazing what you can make with an unlimited budget :)

------
eggy
I am glad to have found and read this. My parents never finished high school,
and soon after the trade schools were closed down around NYC. Most lower-
class, working-class people in my neighborhood in Brooklyn were trades people,
but they taught their children to avoid the trades, well some of them. The
children eschewed the trades, but if intellect or the family's economics
didn't allow them to become doctors, lawyers, or teachers, they became
policemen (law enforcement officers), garbage men (sanitation workers), or
firemen (firefighters). Juxtaposing the old terms with new to put a sense of
generation here!

The parents still had respect for the trades, but they wanted their children
to make more money, to climb out of poverty. In the article, he states,

"My dad always had some classic cars. I’d help him in the garage," Hines says.
"He actually told me I shouldn’t work on cars professionally. He said keep it
as a hobby. I wish he was still around so I could call him and say, guess what
I’m doing now. I think he’d be proud."

I really think this is why it is hard to find a good electrician, plumber, you
name it, since the trade schools and apprenticeships in the trades have
dwindled, or just plain disappeared. I will not speak to the unions; I am
speaking of the neighborhood master who plied his trade and then passed it on
to an apprentice - plumber, electrician, machinist (I did this), welder (this
too), iron worker, carpenter, steam fitter, boat builder, etc...

I grew up working with my hands, landed a job doing computer backups at a NYC
law firm at night (learned to code, play Doom when it first came out and
started learning expert systems and neural networks). I quit that job and gave
my wife at the time anxiety to take a job as a welder making 60% of my cushy
night job salary. Best decision ever, since it led me to a lot of different
and interesting jobs all around the world, and without a college degree, yet
with a dotcom bubble salary before the dotcom bubble.

Now the curse has come to bite me back. I have had mechanics tell my daughter
she needs new rotors and pads when I know the rotors were fine, but I didn't
have the time to replace the pads. Another mechanic in a different state told
her she needed a new $150 O2 sensor when she brought it to him to look at when
her engine light came on. A friend hooked it up and it was something totally
unrelated, and cost a whopping $25 dollars to fix. My ex-mother-in-law went in
for an oil change, and they left the filler cap off, and her engine was
sprayed with oil. A different place overtightened the oil drain plug crushing
the o-ring on my ex-wife's car, and as a result she leaked a lot of oil out,
and fortunately she stopped driving when her engine temperature started
soaring. A lot of ill-trained and incompetent people taking care of life-
critical machinery. It is the number one reason I am starting to fear flying.
If the trend goes towards plane maintenance, it is just a matter of time
before accidents increase due to human incompetency or negligence, not just
fatigue or cheap parts or manufacture.

The story gave me hope that there are still people who will value such things,
and carry the torch to future generations and show the worth in an honest
day's work done right.

~~~
mathiasben
[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-
maintenance...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-
disturbing-truth)

------
owenversteeg
So Wikipedia seems to indicate that the famous 3-seat configuration was
removed in the American version in order to make it road legal. But the
pictures don't indicate that. Anyone know why? Were the seats not really
removed? Or did the owners have them put back in?

~~~
gaadd33
Only a few were legalized that way, once the Show and Display act was passed,
they could be imported without going through that process.

------
userbinator
_The manual once belonged to the team at BMW responsible for the 6.1-liter V12
at the heart of the F1._

Despite the fact that I'm unlikely to ever own one, I'd love to read the
service manual.

------
pibefision
I think dhh can add his two cents about cars here ;)

------
rurban
I've worked with the newer F1 variants of such engines. So I'm not impressed
at all. "The problem with this car is that it never stops accelerating. Most
other cars feel like they start to hit a wall. This car just keeps
accelerating at the same rate"

And then I see max 7500 rpm and 231mpH. A normal F1 engine is limited at
19.000 rpm but goes up to 25.000 rpm. How can such an V12 engine provide
enough dynamics within 240mpH? Ridiculous. A race engine goes 3x higher. This
is a completely different experience. You cannot compare Le Mans with a real
F1 race car.

~~~
jdietrich
>A normal F1 engine is limited at 19.000 rpm but goes up to 25.000 rpm.

A normal F1 engine of the 1990s had a lifespan of about 500 miles. Not many
road car owners are willing to replace their engine after every tank of fuel.

What the McLaren F1 lost in revs, it made up for in capacity. The contemporary
McLaren racing car to the F1 was the MP4/6, which had a 3.5L V12 with a
nominal power output of 710bhp. The F1 had a 6.1L V12 with a substantially
lower redline, producing about 620bhp. The F1 had a considerably lower drag
coefficient, because it had a closed-wheel body and produced much less
downforce, meaning it actually had a far higher top speed. The highest speed
achieved in the 1991 Formula 1 Championship was 210.2mph, achieved by Senna at
Hockenheim.

The McLaren F1 wasn't directly equivalent in performance to a Formula 1 car,
but it's about as close as you'll get in a road-legal car.

~~~
rurban
F1 is not won by top speed, it is won by dynamics. High rpm. Those old high HP
monsters are used in the US with drag races, but not in competitive modern
race tracks.

We are not in the 90-ies anymore.

~~~
rurban
Plus he forgot to compare it against the gearless Formula E or Tesla cars,
where the constant acceleration is the first impression, compared to a 7500rpm
capped engine with gears, even if it has paddle shifters.

