Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Polkaudio XRt12, (XM tuner).

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I'm undecided about XM and Sirius. My car reviewer friends who drive all over the country love these services. But it's yet another monthly fee for life, and I'm already paying plenty for all the cable HD stuff I get. For the little I drive, I can't really justify it.

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Count me in on one of the 'spending time in the car' types. The $9.99 monthly rate is well worth not having to listen to those obnoxious radio 'personalities' every morning around 6 a.m. and it doesn't take too long to hear all of the cds one can carry...I'm talking 4 hours of driving daily. The XM home adapter kit makes it sound like an old am radio station.

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Not to offend anyone, but I'll take NPR over NASCAR, but I have great reception for NHPR...it's one of the few stations I DO get well... and Sirius isn't giving away any free receivers!

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Not to hijack the thread but speaking of auto racing, which I enjoy btw (Hey I'm from the south! ), did you read where that 59 year old lady driving a top alcohol dragster was testing a new car, did a blowover about mid track? The car somehow got pointed in the direction of the starting line, picked up speed and hit her tow truck parked behind the starting line at an estimated speed of 250 mph, killing her and her 36 year old son who was in the truck. Unreal.

To continue with the hijack, in my early days I used to race at Niagara, St. Thomas and Cayuga Dragways. Nothing too exotic first a 1966 Chevy Nova and then a 1969 Camaro Z28.

I'm a big fan of most forms of autoracing especially F1 and drag racing. I was shocked to hear of this accident, I've never heard of anything like it before and hopefully never will.


This is from Tulsa Raceway Park:
On Saturday, April 2, 2005 Shelly Howard, and her son Brian Howard, were killed in a racing accident at Tulsa Raceway Park.

The accident occurred while making a test run of Shelly’s new dragster during the bracket racing program. At 10:12 p.m., Shelly made her third pass of the evening in the tower lane. The car left the starting line in what appeared to be a problem-free run. After passing the 1/8 mile mark at 201 miles per hour, the dragster began what is referred to as a blow-over.

A blow-over occurs when too much air goes under the front wing of the dragster causing the front end to lift. At this point, Shelly lifted off the accelerator. As the dragster became vertical, it rotated 180 degrees on its axis and then touched down on all four wheels and against the wall with the car now facing the starting line. The impact of the dragster to the pavement could have been severe enough to cause Shelly Howard to lose consciousness.

This theory is supported by the fact that she did not hit the kill switch, deploy the chutes or turn the fuel supply off to the motor. At that point, either the throttle stuck wide open, or, Shelly’s foot jammed the throttle down. Extensive damage to the dragster and the onboard “black box” made it impossible to determine which occurred.

The car continued down the track backwards making almost continuous contact with the tower lane wall, while the tires were spinning in the opposite direction. The dragster passed the ¼ mile stripe in 6.633 seconds at 115 miles an hour. The car continued down the track backwards until approximately 1,500 feet from the starting line when it ceased its rearward momentum and began to travel forward towards the starting line, under full acceleration.

After traveling several hundred feet uptrack towards the starting line, the car swerved into the spectator lane and then back into the tower lane at the 660’ foot line. The car made hard contact with the wall in the tower lane at the 320’ foot mark and light contact with the tower lane wall at the starting line while traveling an estimated 250 miles per hour. At 125’ past the starting line, the dragster struck the crew’s chase car. The chase car’s occupant, Brian Howard, was sitting in the rear seat, and along with Shelly, was killed instantly. The force of the collision hurled both the dragster and the chase car 225’ through a rear burn-out wall and into an open field and stream. An investigation by the Tulsa Police Department ruled their deaths an accident. No other injuries were reported.

From NHRA:
Howard, a three-time national event winner and Division 4 champion in 2001 and 2003, was runner-up the last two years at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals. She was the 2004 Jeg’s Allstars champion and finished third last season in Division 4 points. This season she already had won the Division 4 Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series opener at Houston Raceway Park.

Howard, who began racing in 1978, scored her first and final national event victories at the Mopar Parts Mile-High Nationals in Denver, in 1998 and 2001, respectively, and she also was victorious in Topeka in 2001. She also finished second in Division 4 in 2002 and third in 1999 and 2000. She had recorded eight divisional event wins.

Howard, a registered nurse, is survived by her husband, Dr. Paul Howard, and daughters Jennifer and Tracy.


now back to our regular programing.

wow, weird story..

i have some friends that dragrace. they just went to the IHRA nationals in san antonio last week. i will tell them this story..

bigjohn

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To continue with the hijack, in my early days I used to race at Niagara, St. Thomas and Cayuga Dragways. Nothing too exotic first a 1966 Chevy Nova and then a 1969 Camaro Z28.

I'm a big fan of most forms of autoracing especially F1 and drag racing. I was shocked to hear of this accident, I've never heard of anything like it before and hopefully never will.

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I was watching the qaulifying from Houston today, what about WJ after last season's slump! Ford, unlike you, I have never raced but have always been a big fan of most forms of racing. Was right there in Gainsville whenever Shirley dusted off 'Big Daddy' back in the early 80's and John Force was just making the scene...cool stuff! I had a good friend that raced the division bracket classes, even tried his hand at Pro Stock 'till the money ran out and having enough of his fanny getting spanked on a weekly basis. I spent enough time at our local track to see all kinds of weird stuff but the accident in Tulsa really blew my mind, makes me wonder about a kill switch activated by the tower? The forces posed upon the driver in the pro classes are unreal from what I'm told, seems like a smart idea.

RIP Shelly and Brian.

Showing my age but I was there when Shirley got her top fuel license at Cayuga, Garlits signed it and I believe so did Connie.

WJ looks like he's back in form, I'd love to see him win another championship and then retire. First saw him run in a '67 or '68 Camaro at the Indy Nationals. As an engineer he's brilliant.

oh is this an audio board?

PM me if you want the name of the site where they are trying to come up with ways to prevent this type of accident, quite interesting.

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Showing my age but I was there when Shirley got her top fuel license at Cayuga, Garlits signed it and I believe so did Connie.

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Whoa....that IS old! j/k,

That's cool stuff Ford, I remember being a kid and hearing, reading about all of those guys...Grumpy Jenkins was my hero! And what about Jack Roush in the drag days, Gapp and Roush. Moving ahead a few years and being from south Florida I was always a fan of Darrell Gwynn, sure did hate to see his accident.
OK, PMs on the way. Audio forum? Ohhh, OK.

A quick update...I stopped by an electronics reatil store store today and looked at the Polkaudio XM tuner, looks great but what I don't like is that you would have to subscibe for service specific to the tuner, I believe. I already have a SkiFi along with one subscription and was hoping that the SkiFi could somehow be the reciever for the tuner but it doesn't look like it and the 'expert' associate didn't have a clue.
Being mobile was one of the selling points for the sattelite radio from jumpstreet, I take it from the truck to the wife's car to boat or house. I don't really like the idea of paying for another subscription for the house use only.

Oh and btw, while getting out of my truck at the store two dudes parked besides me in (guess what? ) a white suv and asked if I wanted to buy some really good HT speakers, said something about them being worth $3600 but I could get them *real cheap*....I 'bout laughed my butt off.

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Being mobile was one of the selling points for the sattelite radio from jumpstreet

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a buddy of mine has the XM srvc, with hookups in his car and house.. then he bought the litle portable boom-box that they sell that you can plug the little receiver in.. i was VERY disappointed in the radio. it is obvious they spent NO time in trying to make it sound good. for what they are charging for it, you would think it would sound a little better.

its cool in the truck or home, but we listen to that boom-box when we are down on the dock fishing, and i would almost rather listen to the waves..

bigjohn

John I've had the service for over a year and really like it, we go offshore fishing quite often and I really like having it for that use, as far out as you want to go and it never misses a beat! The house adapter kit sounds like crap to me and I thought the tuner would produce great sound with it.
Here's the tuner