NHL Power Rankings: Ducks rise from dead to No. 1 - SI.com

1. Anaheim Ducks

• record: 31-19-8
• Maybe the pundits were right about the Ducks after all. The preseason favorites to win the Stanley Cup have reeled off five straight wins and are 12-1-1 in their past 14. The change? An offense that’s finally living up to its paper. Anaheim has scored 68 goals in its last 17 games (4.0 per game), including five-or-more in four straight.  
• Last week: 3-0-0

6. Los Angeles Kings

• record: 34-20-4
• No Anze Kopitar. No Marian Gaborik. No wonder the Kings are having trouble scoring. Los Angeles has mustered just three regulation goals over the past four games, heightening expectations that GM Dean Lombardi will be a busy shopper ahead of the deadline. 
• Last week: 1-1-1

8. San Jose Sharks

• record: 32-21-5
• How about a little love for Joe Thornton? With a four-point night in Monday’s win over the Blues, Jumbo has gotten on the board in 25 of his past 28 games. He now has 41 assists, fourth-most in the league, and 55 points, good for 10th in the scoring race. Not bad for a guy who’s supposed to be on his last legs at the ripe old age of 36.  
• Last week: 3-1-0

(SI.com)

 

Weight A Minute

Apples, Oranges, Weights and Measures

There are two primary units of weight measurement that carmakers typically use when they are talking about a vehicle’s mass – dry weight and curb weight.

In simple terms, dry weight is the weight of the vehicle on its own with no fluids. Curb weight is the weight of the vehicle “ready to drive” – with all oils, coolants, fuel and other liquids. If you want to dig deeper, there are weights that we, as manufacturers, are legally obliged to declare as part of the Type approval process. For the EU, we use ‘Mass In Running Order’, which is curb weight plus 68kg for the driver. In the US, we have to declare the ‘Gross’ weight, which is curb weight plus 300lbs.

Some manufacturers don’t calculate curb weight with a full tank of fuel, but with a “nominal” fuel level (e.g. 50%). Various requirements define different amounts of fuel to be included.

As you can see, it can be difficult to compare apples to apples.

(Koenigsegg.com)

Oh, Bob

(CarThrottle.com)

There's Some Truth To This

(CarThrottle.com)

There's Several Surprising Vehicles Listed Here

(Road&Track.com)

New School Logic

(Bits&Pieces.us)

This Is A Top 5 Problem

The Problem with Modern Teaching? Too Much Data

Over the last 20 years, I've witnessed the emergence of a troubling trend in swing analysis: an overabundance of reliance on numbers. Launch monitors tell us way more than we need to know. Clubhead speed, attack angle, ball speed, launch angle, spin rate—and a lot more. Recreational players are beginning to treat this data like golf's Holy Grail, and their pursuit of perfect Tour-player numbers is not only stifling their improvement, it may also be destroying their bodies.

For 400 years or so, golf was played with the left heel coming up on the backswing and the left knee releasing behind the ball, with the hips and the torso turning freely. All of a sudden, around 30 years ago, the modern swing decided that was all wrong. Now you're told to keep your left heel down on the backswing and resist with your lower body to create torque and separation in the hips and shoulders. There is no real reasoning behind this philosophy, other than the fact that the "reverse C" swing of Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson was thought to cause back problems. Well, I'm here to tell you that this "modern" swing has caused more back problems than ever before.

(Golf.com)

The Best Wheel Mod Ever

(CarThrottle.com)

So Mesmerizing

(CarThrottle.com)

Impressive

What Does The ‘i’ In iPhone Actually Mean? It Might Not Be What You Think

(BroBible.com)

Yup

(CavemanCircus.com)

FYI - Car Dealerships Edition

Secrets New-Car Dealerships Don't Want You to Know

The window sticker's not worth the paper it's printed on

• The window sticker, aka the Monroney, isn't the real price you ever want to work with. Instead, there are several sites that provide reasonably close estimates of the actual invoice price of a car and its options. It's not the price the dealership is on the hook for, but it's generally several thousand lower than the MSRP, and it's the number you absolutely, positively need to know before making contact with a dealership.

There are a bunch of incentives, but the salesman doesn't have to tell you sh*t

• Knowledge is power, and I'm not even talking about knowledge of the actual car. I'm talking about all the rebates, incentives, and special financing offers that are available. Most manufacturers offer these, and if you don't know about them, it's quite literally your loss, to the tune of $500, $1,000, or more. The sales manager will usually know them, but there is absolutely zero obligation to pass that information on to you.

Always focus on the sale price, and nothing else

• Down payments, monthly payments, and interest rates can wait. Your trade-in isn't going anywhere, either. You need to negotiate the price of the car based on what the car is worth, not what you can spend. Opening with, "I've got $3,000 to put down and I can afford $300 per month," isn't just bringing a knife to a gun fight, it's bringing the gun, too, then handing it to the dealer, who will use it against you.

Complete list (Thrillist.com)

Some Game Changing Machinery

5 Race Cars That Were Banned For Being Too Good

Motor racing forces engineers to push boundaries, develop ingenious solutions, and to bend rules without breaking them. Here are five times engineers pushed those technological limits to the maximum

2. Toyota Team Europe Celica GT-Four

There are teams that decide to bend the rules, and then there are other teams who decide to break them. Back in 1995, Toyota Team Europe (TTE) was the latter. After the madness of the Group B era, the FIA was determined to not let speeds get out of control. As a result, it required the top tier cars to run restrictor plates on their turbos reducing air intake by around 25 per cent; equating to around a 50bhp loss at the wheels.

The clever boffins in the Toyota race department developed a genius way to bypass the seals around the restrictor. When the car was on the move, the air restrictor would move just enough to render it ineffective. When the car came to a stop, cleverly designed springs would force the restrictor back into position. The design was so beautifully carried out that the car passed numerous technical inspections before someone knew what was up. Max Mosley, the president of the FIA, said: “It is the most sophisticated and ingenious device either I or the FIA’s technical experts have seen for a long-time. It was so well made that there was no gap apparent to suggest there was any means of opening it”

The FIA may well have been impressed with TTE’s ingenuity, but it took such infringements of the rule book very seriously; TTE was banned for the rest of the 1995 and 1996 season.

Complete list (CarThrottle.com)