Blog readers,

Be sure to watch this clip if you want to see a vivid demonstration of why a radiator is so important in a car rally. Besides that, the racing shots in this video are really fun to watch! Red Bull rally team director, Armin, doesn’t mince words as he demonstrates this point and he does it with an endearing Swedish accent. He makes it clear that if you want to get your rally car out into the elements – dirt, snow, whatever – and win the race, the main thing you need to avoid is an overheating radiator because it is the most important thing under the hood for stopping an overheating engine.

It is the radiator based cooling system that lets you plow through snow banks and up dirt mountains, just as his team car does in a few choice video shots. Armin does more than tell the viewer to avoid a hot engine. He holds an aluminum radiator close enough to the camera so we can see it and he explains the role of the radiator fins in the cooling process that takes in the hot water in one side of the radiator and cools it before it exits out the other side, which guarantees a cool engine for the race.

Even a little hole in radiator can ruin the chances for victory and out in the rally, when there is no time to replace radiator parts, he recommends plugging a radiator hole with anything that happens to be available, even a piece of chewing gum, so you can finish the race. Now, that is my kind of temporary fix!

- Susie