The “real feel” temperature at Texas Motor Speedway throughout this previous weekend’s NASCAR occasion tipped the scales at over 110 levels Fahrenheit — a decidedly brutal warmth that you just simply couldn’t escape, even within the shaded grandstands. Thankfully, I used to be truly driving a brand new automotive (the 2024 Alfa Romeo Tonale), and that meant I used to be blessed with one of many best automotive applied sciences in modern historical past: the distant begin, which I might make the most of from the grandstands.
Full disclosure: Alfa Romeo offered me with a Tonale for my journey as much as the Dallas-Fort Worth space to spend a weekend watching inventory automobiles do their factor.
My full assessment of the Tonale is coming quickly (although for readability, I had the Tonale Veloce, the top-of-the-line trim), however I simply wanted to write down about this one life-saving function. See, my husband and I turned up at Texas Motor Speedway at about 11 within the morning, and we roasted within the warmth till the Xfinity Series race wrapped up within the night. By the time the ultimate few laps of the race fell away, we have been sunburned regardless of the common software of sunscreen, dehydrated regardless of chugging the equal of 5 gallons of water, and simply usually exhausted from working across the observe like chickens with our heads lower off. It was a kind of weekends the place I realized simply how a lot I can sweat from some seemingly ridiculous components of my physique, equivalent to my kneecaps, which seemed as in the event that they have been crying.
So, because the Xfinity race got here to a detailed, I turned to my husband and requested, “How much do you wanna bet that I can remotely start the Alfa from here?”
We have been sitting in the primary stretch grandstands near the observe’s first flip, whereas the Alfa was parked within the infield. As the crow flies, it’s in all probability half a mile away.
“I bet you can do it, but you’ll probably have to do the mouth-extender thing,” my husband mentioned, earlier than demonstrating how he used to press a key fob into the underside of his chin earlier than urgent the distant begin button; allegedly this was supposed to increase the vary of the distant starter.
Instead, I simply pointed the keys off into the ether and let ‘er rip. Sure enough, the lights on the Alfa flashed to let us know that it had started up (and since it’s a PHEV, the automotive was working fully on electrical energy). And it remained on as we disembarked from the grandstands, crossed beneath the observe by way of a tunnel, and moseyed our technique to the infield. When we arrived, the Alfa was nonetheless working, and inside, it was blissfully cool.
Yes, I do know distant starters have been round for an precise life age, however as somebody who has firmly adopted the Jalopnik ethos of by no means proudly owning a automotive with any quantity of extra know-how past a half-ass first rate stereo system, it might probably nonetheless really feel like a novelty. Especially after I can begin up my journey from a half-mile away whereas residing in a state hotter than Satan’s asshole.
Source: jalopnik.com