Culture|Garage

The old Cannonball Runs of the 70’s seems to be the inspiration for a lot of folks to get out on the highways and drive as fast as possible. Usually this is disorganized, sporadic, and usually ends with a hefty ticket or fine. Sometimes, however, this trend becomes more of an underground sport, prompting people all over the world to race from one point to another over long distances on public roads.

Last night, I happened to stumble upon superspeeders.com, and it got me thinking about the whole idea of speeding, the rush, the excitement, the danger of it. I won’t lie, I’ve done it (along with just about everyone else on the face of the planet). But I gotta know, what’s your opinion of people who speed habitually, like the good folks at SuperSpeeders?

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Pomona- Tony Schumacher (no relation to the other Schumacher of the Germanic persuasion) wins the Top Fuel class at the 48th annual CARQUEST NHRA Winternationals. Schumacher’s 4.49 second run beat out teammate Cory McClenathan for the win. Read the rest of this entry »

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Can’t afford to pay the dealer markup on the Audi R8 and you simply can’t wait for the Audi R4 that’s set to debut in 2011, well the new Audi TT-S is just around the corner. It’s your basic 2.0L TT given the S-variant treatment like the S4, S6, or even S8.

And if you’re somewhat doubtful of what kind of performance to expect from the 2.0L engine, let the video shock you. The TT-S definitely hauls ass thanks to the TFSI engine outputting 272 hp and 350 Nm of torque. The TT-S accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 5.4 seconds and the top speed is electronically limited to 250 km/h.

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Just a couple days ago the Central Europe Rally has been announced which is taking place instead of the Dakar Rally 2008 that has been canceled to run in Saharan Africa this year.

The president of the Dakar Rally organizing body Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), Patrice Clerc, has confirmed that next year’s race will take place in South America. And there is no date mentioned when the Dakar Rally will be returning to Africa.

The Dakar Rally 2009 will take place in Argentina and Chile, running a 9,000km route starting and arriving in Buenos Aires in January next year.

The Central Europe Rally is the first new series of events that the ASO planned on adding to the Dakar Rally and will be joining the Dakar Rally in the racing calendar starting in 2009.

Press Release Read the rest of this entry »

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Inside Sweden’s ICEHOTEL, is a Saab room, called Move Your Mind. Saab’s press release (after the jump) states, room will allow the public to experience Saab – the brand, its spirit, tonality and core values through innovative design installations made wholly from ice.

Uhhhh, the brand is cold and unchanging like ice? The current flagship 9-5 is based on over a nine year old platform. Oh wait, maybe it’s about Saab’s ice cold revenues…

Why can’t you just make cool shit and say, “Hey we thought it would be cool to carve a car out of ice.” Don’t get all pretentious and talk about how it is a reflection of your brand.

Another picture and the Saab press release

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Thanks Alan for the tip. Up for auction here, we have a Porsche 911 C4 owned by Metallica’s guitarist, Kirk Hammett. Ol’ boy dropped $20k on the stereo alone, back in 1990. Also included are signed gas and oil receipts, surely worth 10’s of dollars. Place your bid on e-bay.

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We’ve all seen them, derelict beside roads and old buildings. In alleyways and junkyards alike, they sit, motionless, frozen in time, slowly, but surely, giving way to Mother Earth’s icy grasp, fading into memory. They are the cars that we once loved, cruising main, going to the beach, going to the dragstrip. They sit, rotting, until there is nothing left, or until they are scrapped, compressed and made into something else. This is the website devoted to these cars, a fitting epitaph, eulogy and obituary all rolled into one for these once fine machines: Carsinbarns.com Read the rest of this entry »

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BMW used Chicago’s Auto Show to announce their return to the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) next year with two race-prepped versions of the E92 M3 coupe, set to race in the GT2 class.

The race car features 485hp version of the 4.0L high-rev V8 engine, race-tuned chassis, and a significantly wider and lighter body with an abundance of carbon fiber parts.

The aerokit is quite aggressive to previous BMW race cars and it was developed using numerous F1 techniques including computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and wind tunnel analysis.

The car also features a new POWER400 ECU system that does away with conventional relays and fuses and saves even more weight.

I wonder if you can get those wheels on the stock E92 ///M3?

Video & Full Gallery Read the rest of this entry »

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