Dear White People, if you’re too thin and light skinned to handle the title of Justin Simien’s new Netflix series (based on his excellent 2014 movie, Dear White People), then maybe the show just isn’t for you. Actually, on second thought, perhaps it’s precisely for you.

I suppose it all depends on how woke you are. That’s the phrase of the day at Winchester University, a trumped up, modern-day Ivy League school, that likely looks a lot like any of the real ones out there (I wouldn’t know, I couldn’t get into one). But while I get the concept of woke – being fully aware of the world’s pervasive and deplorable social injustices – until I watched all ten half-hour episodes of Dear White People this week, I didn’t realize how sleepy I’ve been, even though I’m fundamentally a believer in “inter-racial harmony in a post-racial” world. See, how woke you are depends not just on believing, but on doing. And in the face of a black-face party taking place on campus, the character’s in Simien’s world take action.

The show gives each of the main characters at least one full episode of POV, which serves to thoroughly expose not just their actions, but also their wants, needs, motivations, fears, and, most importantly, their rage. Not just from realizing that a black-face party could actually happen at a modern-day Ivy, but just from watching the nightly news.

Our main rager is the indignant, powerful, and witty Dear White People radio show host, Samantha White (Logan Browning). Being half black/half white may be a source of personal confusion, but her public stances on the issues have the campus hanging on her every word, even when that word is “protest.” Then there’s Reggie (Marque Richardson), her fellow justice demander, who slings slam poetry as well as he creates “Woke or Not Woke” phone apps; and Lionel (DeRon Horton), the timid, coming-to-grips-with-his-gayness gifted journalist who finds wells of inner strength while leading his fellow black students into the black-face party to properly break up such horseshit. There’s also Troy (Brandon P. Bell), the son of the dean and a nominee for Student Body President, who would just love to be anything but perfect. And finally, there’s Coco (Antoinette Robertson), nee Colandrea, who was plucked from the inner city by a benevolent white philanthropist, and seems to be the perfect model of superficial assimilation until she shows herself to be the deepest and most interesting of all these fully-realized characters.

While such a thematically-serious show might sound like a piss-poor excuse for casual entertainment, I assure you, Dear White People is quite fun, particularly in the satirical sense of the word. Oh, it’s barbs are sharp! The show is also fun in the reminiscing about college sense, as well. God, I miss college. Funny that this show should make me feel so nostalgic, too, as my white-boy, frat-guy ways may be the most thinly represented, and my causes back then far more inclined towards saving goals in Sega hockey, then towards saving the world. So yeah, maybe I was the ideal audience, which makes me even happier I tuned in. And more woke, too, hopefully.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvulsveZeTE

The post If You Don’t Think ‘Dear White People’ Is For You, Think Again appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

You can read the full series on The Bet and learn who won the race only on FactoryTwoFour.

The post Watch Two Unprepared Morons Race Across the Desert appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Well it’s been a while since we’ve met here, hasn’t it? Sorry about that. Turns out most paint shops now couldn’t care less about full re-color jobs. Fender bender fixes and insurance claims are their bailiwick now and painting a whole car from bare metal is just a time-intensive distraction for them. For full color changes you’re left with a choice between the ultra-cheap MAACO/Earl Scheibs of the world or ultra premium shops that charge $25k and up. There is no middle ground, or at least there isn’t one in Los Angeles. There was no way I was going to do a bargain job on this, my dream car, There was also no way I was going to spend more on the paint than I did to purchase the car. So I chose to will a third option into existence.

One reason it has taken months to get to this update is all the conversations I had with potential shops trying to talk them into taking on this project. I’d already ripped the engine out, so I couldn’t exactly drive the car around to get quotes. Instead, I was left to email them cellphone pictures and harass them via phone. I can only imagine that getting pics of stripped cars in email attachments from some guy doing a restoration is a paint shop’s favorite thing. After many near-deals that fell through, both on the high end and small shops in the ghetto I finally found a crew that would do the re-color for a reasonable 5k. There’s no way you could have convinced me $5,000 was reasonable at the beginning of this build, but restoring a Porsche has a way of numbing your wallet fingers so here we are.

Even once I found a shop I liked, they decided to take their sweet ass pimp time refinishing my chassis. What was promised as a couple weeks for the whole car turned into two months for just the rolling chassis. Hopefully it’s an example of the old adage that you can choose two out of good/fast/cheap. Oh, and remember all the work I did stripping the car oh-so-carefully to preserve the zinc  (and thus anti-rust) coating on the body panels? Yeah, the shop just sanded it off anyway to give the paint something to bite into to. Awesome. But regardless, I have the chassis back now and it is absolutely glorious. I love this Porsche-correct Grand Prix White more than I love many of my own fingers. Now if only I had the whole car… See, the shop has asked to take the car in pieces and currently still has the fenders, doors, and hoods to go. The chassis is the most important piece right now, however, as it allows me to work on the last major hurdle for this backdate build – the interior.

I’ve separated this build into 3 major components and tackled them in order – mechanic upgrades, exterior refinish, interior refinish. With the first two achieved, we’re finally in the home stretch. 2 years, an uncountable amount of money, and many a late night In-N-Out burger has brought us here. I’ll just take this moment to remind you that I originally called this build at 12 months and 10k. Those predictions disappeared about as fast as strong pornography left at the Vatican.

So now I’ve got this awesome white body shell that I often just stop whatever I’m wrenching on and stare at, and I am happy in a way unknown to the science of man. I’ve got a special little project planned for the interior that is either going to be legendary, a quagmire of terrible, or both knowing the internet. I’ll show you that next time, for now I’m going to go back to staring at my suddenly white car.

If you would like to follow the nitty gritty details of this build, they are 
posted on a Porsche technical forum here.

The post Porsche Backdate Pt 8: White as a Ghost appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Well, Dream Racing in Las Vegas has exactly what you need to experience your dreams while awake – boasting the largest super-car fleet in North America, they offer a truly unprecedented experience. I visited Dream Racing a while back together with F24’s Grant and Alvin. When we pulled up and walked along the stunning assortment of some of the most exclusive vehicles in the world, Grant dropped a classic one-liner that encapsulated the experience pretty well: “…*sigh*…is this what love feels like?”

I did a little bit of calling around to other groups that offer a similar experience in Vegas, or at least claim to, and concluded that Dream Racing offers a better experience, where you simply get more — other groups either don’t offer focused training in a simulator, or have vehicles with an additional set of controls for your driving coach, essentially inhibiting your experience. In addition to this, Dream Racing allows safe overtaking anywhere on the track, whereas other providers only have one or two “zones” where this is allowed. I mean, in that case, whats even the point??

A big thank you to Alec from Dream Racing, who accompanied us throughout the day, and gave us the inside scoop. First, we got a rundown of how our day was looking: spend some time studying the track, both on paper and in a VR simulator, measured to the millimeter to replicate the Dream Racing track. With the coaching of a former pro driver, who offered some hilarious  and accurate —  check the below snapchat clip — advice when driving these cars, we would prepare ourselves for driving the real thing.

After spending time in the simulator, we headed to the changing room to throw on our race suits, and on to the stables. They have a bay of just street cars, and a whole other one with track car. Think stripped out Lamborghinis that make you feel like you’re sitting in a fighter jet cockpit – unlabeled lights, buttons, switches as far as the eye could see, but still nothing but a carbon fiber panel and elastic loop in-place of a door-handle. “It saves about 6.7 lbs or so,” Alec mentioned as he saw me knocking it with my knuckles. It was pretty flexible.

Then he said, “You guys ready to pick your rides?” For me, it was a situation straight out of my 10-year-old self’s dreams — except it was happening. The selection was endless and the choice was difficult, so all of us we spent nearly half an hour thinking. But in the end we each knew exactly what fit our personality.

Grant chose a 573 horsepower Acura NSX hybrid, Alvin the Ferrari 488, and for me it was a no-brainer, I had to pick one straight off my childhood bedroom wall. My choice had to be a Lamborghini. The triple black Lamborghini Huracan boasts a guttural, naturally aspirated 600 horsepower V-10, and for me it was the perfect bull to grab by the horns.

After an immersive walk-through of our respective vehicles, and a breakdown of what be aware of while on the track from Dream Racing’s copilots and coaches, we were pumped.  We got the drone in the air, GoPros rolling, and gave Grant the thumbs up, and promptly heard what sounded like a jet engine firing up.  Check a visual summary of the insane experience in detail below:

Each lap we could hear the Acura getting louder and louder — the tires screeching at the limit, and the hybrid engine howling. Finally, Grant pulled into the pit, got out of the car wide-eyed but with the biggest smile I had seen on him in a minute — almost like he had been partying with various stimulants for the last 10 hours at an deep house club in Brooklyn. “Dude…dude…its so fast. It’s SO fast. How?!” he managed to get out as we saw his coach in the background trying to hide a grin and give us a quick thumbs up.

I thought I was prepared for the Huracan: I had driven 911s way too fast up canyon roads, been in an SLR on the Autobahn… hell, I commute on a sports-bike. I thought I knew fast, but  I was sorely mistaken in this instance — the lateral grip this vehicle had, was absolutely insane. It was straight out of my dream as a child, and I couldn’t help but laugh as I took turns tighter and tighter with each lap, the Lamborghini unflinching no matter “how-high-in-the-hundreds” fast I went into turn 1.  The back would get a little wild when you really pushed it, but that’s part of the fun. Getting the hang of how to make the vehicle hold the drift and then regain traction was doable after a surprisingly few number of laps (although I did blow it once in a large cloud of tire-smoke and a few seconds of serious vertigo…shhh)  — especially in “Corsa” mode.

We all had our minds blown by the vehicles, the very knowledgeable and helpful staff, and the the environment and training Dream Racing provides to really help you experience what these vehicles are capable of. In short, get your butt to Dream Racing if you want to make your dreams come true, and really experience what these vehicles have to offer.

The post Dream Racing Gave Us A Track & the Supercars Of Our Dreams appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Now I love vintage vehicles because I’m interested in being able to repair them myself. In fact, having absolutely zero motorcycle experience, I bought myself an old Kawasaki to rebuild just to learn the basics of engine design and functionality. I’ve even rebuilt the bike’s 4 Mikuni carbs and can have them off, jets changed, and the carbs back on the bike in 10 minutes. Yes, I’ve timed it.

None of that, however, prepared me for the labyrinthine mess that is the Weber side-draft. There are adjustment screws all over this thing, the main jets are exposed by loosening a simple wing nut, and there’s something called an “auxiliary venturi.” But after investigating Weber rebuild services and realizing that my spending habits make Scrooge look like a Kardashian at a Louis Vuitton counter, this rebuild had to happen by my hands, venturis be damned. So with an exploded diagram on my iPad, a shiny-new book on Weber rebuilding and tuning, and a toolbox full of enthusiasm, I got to it. And wouldn’t you know, it was not that hard.

Like just about any time I open the hood, rebuilding my carbs taught me something. A few things actually. Little things like the fact that a dinner placemat makes a great rebuilding surface and that you can never use too much carb cleaner. It taught me big, important lessons too. First and foremost is to just jump right in and tackle a daunting project. There is only so much reading you can do to prepare yourself before you have to give it a go yourself. You can read all you want about traffic laws and automobile mechanics but you still don’t know anything until you actually start driving on the road. Get your hands dirty and learn something. Life-affirming lesson learned then.

Another thing learned, and I seem to learn it repeatedly, is that I don’t need an ASE expert to work on my car. I can do this. This entire world, complicated 1970’s European sedans included, was built by humans for humans. Weber carbs may seem completely alien and foreign when compared to other auto components but they still work on the same basic principles as every other part of your vehicle. With a couple of wrenches, a screwdriver, and a toothbrush I was able to tear down my carbs to nothing but the aluminum “chassis”, and then build them back up again even faster.

The final lesson is that it’s always someone’s first time. Simple (illustrated!) books guide you step-by-step. Diagrams show you the big picture. The online forum community is eager to help you learn. All these facets come together to form a kind of mental safety net that can make even the most daunting project seem like a middle school science experiment. It might not be smooth, things may go wrong for a bit, but eventually with some help you figure it all out and learn something. Now when I open my hood and see those now sparkling side-drafts peering back at me, it’s as if there is one less area of mystery to me. I’ve learned a little bit more about my car and myself. And really, what else is there to learn?

The post What Rebuilding Carburetors Taught Me About Life appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

If you’re not the kind to necessarily tune in to auto racing, let me start by explaining that Le Mans is nothing like the cookie-cutter sameness of NASCAR, the Indy 500, or F1. I totally get that to an outsider, all those cars look the same, drive the same, and the races tend to be uneventful multi-hour speeches from the announcers about how epic it would be if X would happen, yet X never happens. Not to fear, because endurance racing and Le Mans in particular are nothing like that.

The FIA World Endurance Championship series, of which the Le Mans race is the crown jewel, is a fantastic race series made of up several different classes of cars. Long story short, this means you’ll see a Corvette battling a Ferrari battling a space-age “prototype” car bred for racing. What these mixed classes mean is that not all the cars are moving at the same pace, yet they are all on the same track at the same time. This pace discrepancy inevitably leads to the ultra-fast prototypes having to work their way through the slower field, and the everyday cars having to race in their class while also dodging faster cars. This traffic-factor makes for some incredible moves and racing in general.

Even when zoomed into a single class, the racing the last few years has been incredibly close and exciting. Check out this crazy finish from a very similar 24 hour race from last month at the Nurburgring. Those last 20 minutes were epic racing and full of drama. Or how about one of the all-time great battles a few year ago at Sebring. These clips are classic endurance car racing, and Le Mans is the big daddy of them all.

Now that I’ve got you amped up, I have to bring you back down with the realization that watching an European 24hr auto race is no easy feat in every country. If you’re in an racing junky country like the UK or Germany, it should be a breeze to catch the action. If, like us, you are in the United States of Freedom, watching Le Mans is an exercise in internet sleuthing and patching together different streams of online feeds.FOX Sports Go will be streaming the race if you qualify to view it in your area, and there’s always a smattering of online streams you can find the day of. One of the best ways is also the most old school. Radio Le Mans consistently has the best commentary on endurance racing, and streaming them on your phone allows you to continue with your normal Saturday and Sunday while staying up to date on the race.

However you do it, make sure you tune in to this race. Ford is back after 50 years to eat Ferrari’s lunch. Porsche is defending last year’s title against an always-hungry Audi. And you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen night racing on a 200mph track…

The post You Should Definitely Be Watching Le Mans This Weekend appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Renting seems the natural solution to this dilemma, but again you are paying good money to walk into another of the prime drawbacks of supercars – they can’t be exploited pushed explored to within 10% of their abilities on public roads. Enter the Xtreme Xperience.

Not only does this company put you in the seat of some of the greatest supercars on the planet right now, but they deliver that supercar to a track for you. Then they put a professional driver in the passenger seat to help you wring the absolute bejeezus out of your steed. You’re welcome.

Ferrari, Porsche, Lambo,GT-R, McLaren – they are all here and yours for 3 of the quickest laps you can manage around your local track. The travelling octane circus that is the Xtreme Xperience brings these rides to tracks around the country, along with their stable of professional drivers. All you need to do is show up, register for your cars, and get down to turning tires into vapor. And when you’re done depreciating the exotic metal, you just walk away and let them deal with it. This is the way our founding fathers wanted it.

The vast majority of people selected more than one car to drive during the day, and I highly suggest you do the same. They also sell onboard video packages, as well as upgraded insurance in case you are prone to a lead foot and a slow head. The staff are all extremely helpful, and if you’re paying attention you can genuinely leave the day as a faster and more capable driver.

So what would you like to do with your next splurging Saturday? Spend a day at Disneyland fighting off disease-ridden sticky children or hot lapping a supercar at your local track? That’s a call only you can make esé. But you’ll find me at the track enjoying these expensive toys without a worry in the world.

The post Xtreme Xperience Provides an Extreme Experience appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.