Thursday, October 27, 2011

1HDC Winter is Coming OCT

There is a cool monthly competition on the www.core77.com forum boards. It is a monthly design competition called "1 Hour Design Challenge" or "1HDC". I have followed it for a long time but for some reason never entered. It is pretty straight forward you have to design something in a hour based on the criteria and design breif then upload it. You win recognition and a post on core77 which is good for getting you name and work out there. I think I will enter every month from here on out.

The design challenge for this month is "Winter is Coming" based on the hit HBO show Game of Thrones. Here is the link to the description of this months design brief and the submitted work:

http://boards.core77.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=25541

Below is what I submitted.



3 Part Light v10 27

I'm back, sort of. After a long summer of racing and traveling things are finally slowing down. As they slow down my creativity levels rise and I need to get the random ideas out. It may not be a design a day. But more and more designs will be showing up from now until racing season of 2012.

This is a idea for table light that can be separated into 3 different lights. I had a dream about it. I might work out some more shapes this was just the initial concept.

Race Anything

My good friend Tim Harney of HarneyBoy Motorcycles made this kart with a Toilet on it for Jimmie Johnson the NASCAR drivers new video game. It is the 70mph ShitterKart...



Watch out for him racing it against JJ soon!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

My thoughts on Dan Wheldon's death

“You ask me about tragic accidents? If I am on my tractor at my farm and it rolls over on me and kills me, that's a tragic accident. If I die in a race car, that's life. I died doing what I love.”
― Dale Earnhardt

Dan Wheldon's death was a tragedy because it never should have happened.

Sunday afternoon I tuned into the highly publicized IndyCar finale. Once again the championship was coming down to Dario Franchitti and Will Power. There was also the intriguing story of Dan Wheldon racing from last place for the win for 5 million dollars. Added the fact it was the largest IndyCar field on a high banked 1.5 mile oval. Oh the excitement.

With the race coming up both drivers and owners voiced concern about the high banks and larger fields. After the test the driver made comments about how fast it was and how they were going to be a lot of side by side racing at 220+ MPH. It is hard to say, but the drivers seemed a little uncomfortable about this, but they are paid to race.

This event was the brain child of Randy Bernard the CEO of IndyCar who was newly appointed last year (2010). He came to IndyCar from PBA (Professional Bullriding Association) which he built into a very successful sporting league in 15 years. Unfortunately he did not know anything about racing. Bull riding is very dangerous but it only last 8 seconds and it is one on one, one rider and one bull. I am not sure that he understands racing is dangerous from the green to checkered which can take 2 to 3 hours with 20-30 people racing at 200mph.

Randy has felt it is important to increase the sport visibility. To do this he has tried to create more intriguing story lines. He has manipulated the racing and made it more dangerous. Well Mr. Bernard you got IndyCar in the spotlight. Not beacuse of an exciting championship finale. But for the lose of great driver, a driver who never should have died. But you cute little plan to add a lot more cars to the track and let Dan race from the back had to happen. Lets just endanger everyone for rating, fans, driver and crew.

This is not Randy's first stupid mistake in managing IndyCar, but it should be his final one. At New Hampshire Motor Speedway in August Randy ordered the start on a wet track. Five cars wrecked before getting back to the green flag. Drivers and Owners were enraged. Bernard should have been fired the next day.

Unfortunately IndyCar still had faith in someone who is willing to gamble with the lives of drivers. Well in Vegas he lost. We all lost. We lost Dan, who was an amazing driver and person. The Drivers lost a brother. The worst part is Dan's children lost a father and his wife lost a husband.

If the race was run like any other IndyCar race with a cap on the field and no gimmicks with people racing from the back. We would have seen an exciting season finale. But we saw something very very different. Something we have not seen in very long time. Something we will not hopefully see ever again. I know personally as racecar driver that is not the case. But the first step to protecting drivers is finding someone to run IndyCar that puts the drivers before the rating.

RIP Dan Wheldon 1978-2010

Friday, October 7, 2011


view my portfolio:
coroflot.com/RagonettiDesigns

My Racecars!


In order Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint, Lotus Super 7 and Nissan Z. In these cars combined, I have won 8 races, finished 2nd 6 times and several 3rd places. Unfortunately this year the coupe had issues, I never drove the Lotus but the Z was good to me! Next year I think I will stick to these cars and only these cars if possible! Unless the opportunity to drive something faster comes along!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

BFDracing RMVR Enduro 2011

Andiamo da corsa

Amo la mia corsa d'epoca Alfa Romeo. Purtroppo la mia Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint avuto problemi tutto l'anno. Ho finito per avere la possibilità di guidare i nostri altri Alfa però. Ecco alcuni dei dietro le quinte di Pietro (me) corsa in America.

Road America KIC 2011 weekend


US Vintage Grand Prix 2011 behind the scenes