If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up to much space!
John Hall from LiveFastRacing and I got together to to another show after having the show be down for a while.
We go after the usual suspects, NASCAR, the DMG, Max & Bernie, Barber Motorsports Park, etc..
Kick back and relax, this ones a bit of a marathon.
Most people in North America have no idea who Jason Plato is. He is a long time BTCC competitor and it’s 2001 champion, and one of the hosts of Five TV’s Fifth Gear show. Not only is Jason a skilled driver, but his personality is ready made for TV as you can see in the post race interview.
Jason gets booted from behind and makes an incredible save during this BTCC race.
Much has been said about Porsche’s venture into the world of luxury four door cars, going after Massarati, Bentley, and a few others. I’ll admit that I was one of the first people to pan this car and I’m still not sold on the looks. Yes the front has the 911 look, the profile makes it look like an egg and the rear is some sort of amalgamation of a Cayman, early 928 and an E Jag Coupe.
The original take on this is a much more straight cut take on the 911, which I find much more elegant.
Once again for 2009 the British Superbike Series looks to be the premier domestic Superbike series in the world. With many of last years championship contenders now gone to World Superbike and Supersport, there are many names looking to step up and take the title. Leon Camier looks to be a favorite, along with Sylvan Guintoli joining the series from MotoGP and the return of Chris “Stalker” Walker to the series as well.
With the American Superbikes series becoming a joke, do to the organizers, not the level of talent, the BSB series will be a can’t miss for those of us here in The States. Have a look at the official launch video for the BSB Series.
And as OBTW, the BSB series will have 55 hours of LIVE TV coverage. Live racing, what a novel concept. Hello SPEED/DMG!!!!
While I’m sure Adam Dennison and the men and women of General Motors marketing didn’t exactly have this in mind for the relaunch of the Camaro, it’s still pertinent and funny anyway.
Over the next few days we’ll be bringing you our review of the 2009 Ford Flex Limited that we’ve been driving for a few days. Quick take, it’s a very impressive automobile. For today we’ll take you on a photo tour of the Flex, we’ll have a written and video review of it in the next couple of days.
Enjoy!
One of the great things about having a racing budget larger than the GDP of three quarters of the nations of Africa is that you can do cool visualization like this explaining the differences in equipment for 2009.
We had some great response to running that flashback to some of the great Group B Rally cars from the 80’s. Simon Rutter sent us this one of Ari Vatanen, and as he said in the note “Check out a) the co-driver’s reaction at 33-36 seconds and b) how quick Vatanen’s hands were. That guy had the chops.”
Every year the hot rod crowd of Metro Detroit looks forward to the end of February/beginning of March when they take over the 700,000+ square foot Cobo Hall. The Autorama is every bit as large as the North American International Auto Show.
On top of this it is one of the most prestigious shows as well, maybe the Oakland Roadster Show is the only other that is it’s equal. The Riddler Award is handed out to best Hot Rod of the show, and as a caveat, to be eligible it has to debut at the show.
Some of the big name builders show up every year, Chip Foose, Troy Trepanier, Justin Padfield, to name a few bring cars that cost in excess of $500,000 to put together and show them off here. The show RIDES on TLC did an episode about the Detroit Autorama a couple years ago, it’s worth checking out to see just how over the top the judges go to find anything wrong with the cars.
All that being said here is a quick little something I put together, sorry for the quality, trying to shoot with a FLIP camera is a bit tough.
When I was in High School in the mid 80’s I remember ESPN showing the World Rally Championship and was always amaized at the car control these drivers had. To this day I firmly believe the most talent car drivers in the world are Rally drivers. The rally cars, more than any other four wheel form of racing comes the closest to motorcycle roadracing for me in the control and the ballet that is required to excel.
0-60 in under 3 seconds on the dirt, 5-800+ horsepower while weighing under 2500lbs, even today these cars inspire awe. I still find the Lancia 037 to be one of the most beautiful and purposeful cars of that era, even if it wasn’t the quickest, or most reliable. If you are a fan of this era, YouTube is a treasure trove of great video.