Firebird Raceway, Phoenix, AZ- John Force is back on track, running the fastest time of the session, a 4.782 1/4 mile time in NHRA time trials on Monday, beating out fellow racer Ron Capps by 0.004 second. At 327.51 MPH, it’s clear that the crash that sidelined Force during some of the 2007 season hasn’t changed his winning ways. “We didn’t know what we had,” Force said. “We thought the new car would be good, but we didn’t know. We still have a lot of work to do, but that was a good boost for this team.”

As proof of Force’s recovery, the NHRA-mandated safety rule requiring drivers to be able to exit their car through the roof hatch was satisfied. “It ain’t pretty, but I can do it,” Force said. The Castrol GTX Mustang Funny car sports a new Murf McKinney chassis this year, a big change from the heat-treated chassis from the old car, which is largely blamed for Force’s crash.

It’s good to have you back, Mr. Force.

via: AutoWeek, NHRA

ShareThis

Yeah, this looks photochopped, but it would still be cool if the Michigan State Police had a new ZR-1 to play with.

I guess we’ll have to wait until some drug dealer gets his ZR-1 seized before we have to worry about seeing this in our rearview, unless of course this is a real image.

My dream would be to play with this police vehicle for a day, just owning ricers on the highway.

ShareThis

As the new guy here, I thought it appropriate to find out a little about the readership here at Culture Garage. As you will find out, the American musclecar is on its way back, in a big way. Ford has the Mustang, Chevy the upcoming Ausmaro, or rather, CAMaro, and Dodge has the bigger, better Challenger. Heck, even the GTO is trying to play along, or, rather, has tried to play along. (I’m not even going to entertain the notion of a moredoor as a musclecar, hence the lack of the Dodge Charger.)

So, in trying to find out a little more about you, the reader, I ask: What musclecar would you love to see resurrected in a modern form?

Personally, I’d like to see a modern interpretation of the ‘66-’67 Fairlane roll out of Dearborn, a little bit of midsize muscle to compliment the pony cars, and offer increased utility as a result, WITHOUT the use of any four-door blasphemy.

So what’s your pick?

ShareThis

Who says the current generation of college students aren’t ambitious?  Young Jim is looking to round out some journalism experience and gain some insight in the lovely field of automotive blogging.  He figured it will help him in the pursuit of his current degree and even further as he looks towards graduate school.

He will help lean out the Import (Euro and Asian) bias that we sometimes have at c|g, by focusing most of his time on domestic commentary.

Jim is hailing from Greeley Colorado. A fan of the American musclecar since he saw his first burnout. He has worked as a volunteer restorer and preservationist at the Forney Transportation Museum in Denver, as well as assisting in an autocross buildup. His aspirational goals are to one day work for Ford as a PR rep.  Hopefully, they are still around upon his graduation. 

Welcome to culture|garage, Jim!

ShareThis

Holy crap. Thanks to reader and frequent commenter, Blix. She thought that this would go perfect with the whole, “how to be a fashionable car guy” — series (pt. 1; pt. 2). Only it really wasn’t a series. More I was bored and thought it would be funny to include fashion stuff on a car blog.

Anyways. These “tools” are made of Kraum stainless steel imported from Germany. It’s a 77 piece set of wrenches, pliers, etc. The handles are made of carved mahogany.

But the best part is what you carry the tools around in… an elephant leather case. Elephant. Leather. Yeah.

The set costs a cool five large and is available at G. Lorenzi and Bergdorf Goodman.

culture|garage will be approaching Lorenzi for sponsorship talks. It would only be fitting for us to wield tools of this caliber while kicking ass in a Saab 9000.

ShareThis

April 17th. That’s the date the $40 Prologue will be released. Mind you, this isn’t the full game. But a pretty solid “demo,” it will feature over 60 cars and five full tracks.

You will be able to download it via the PlayStation Network or purchase at a retailer. But if they are willing to release a Prologue of the game, how much longer are people going to have to wait to get the full on game?

And if you buy the Prologue do you (hopefully) get a credit towards the full game when it comes out? Or will you have to pay full price?

In other news, if you want to buy my xBox 360 contact me.

ShareThis

By now you have probably already read that Chip Ganassi’s team took first place, for the third consecutive year, at the Rolex-24.  If you haven’t, Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas piloted the Lexus Riley Daytona Prototype to a first place finish, for the third consecutive year.

Something about Daytona Prototypes just don’t excite me.  It’s almost like NASCAR for the elite class.

Personally, I just prefer GT class cars, LeMans Prototype, etc.

But that isn’t what this is about.  This is about one of our readers, Ricky, who provided me some of the shots he took at the event.  Wow!  Some great photos.  Check out his flickr page for more pictures.

ShareThis

Remember that TV commercial of all the Porsche’s revving? Well now the site is live, Cayenne GTS Bloodlines. On it you can “rev” multiple Porsche models and gain insight on their latest model.

But the enthusiast in all of us is going to run to the Audio IQ, where you are asked to take a test to identify various Porsche models based on, revving, deceleration, down shifting, etc. As you guess correctly, you can track your scores against other visitors and unlock content in the downloads section.

There is also a portion where owners will be able, to eventually upload video of them revving the engine in their Porsche.

ShareThis