By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Yesterday, I must have had too many lunch beers, because I managed to forget what’s become one of my favorite tasks here at CarDomain—picking the Caption Contest winner! Sorry about that, y’all. And since I know everyone was waiting with baited breath to learn who came out on top, I’ll get right to it. Even though his submission is a little off-color, this week’s winner is 74Furyous, who came up with; “If all pandas had an organ like this guy they wouldn’t be in danger of extinction.”. Congrats man! Tune in, um, below, for the next installment of our generally on time Caption Contest!

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Top Alcohol Funny Car legend Frank Manzo is eyeing a tenth consecutive victory at Maple Grove this weekend with his Lucas Oil Chevy Monte Carlo.

“Winning all those races in a row is an unbelievable thing that I could have never dreamt of happening as a young kid. I would love to do it this year and say that I won every race in the decade, but I know I’m going to have to be even better and work harder for it this year. The other racers are going to work a little bit harder because I’m sure they’re tired of hearing about me.”

Full story at NHRA.com

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Power Wheels rule. As kids we actually had one that was a miniature version of the classic Big Foot monster truck. We probably racked up a thousand miles on ours, hauling rocks and junk across our lawn. One thig we can never remember doing is pulling off some legit stunt driving like this kid.

We’ll set the scenario for you. Mom is out for the day and dad is left to watch the kiddo. Dad’s buddies come over and they hatch this idea to train the kid on how to do stunts with his Mustang.

The result is this piece of awesome:

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

As we got ready to start the Speedhunters coverage of Bonneville Speed Week I was silently hoping there was going to be a Japanese campaign at the event. The legendary Japanese tuning shop Jun Auto’s Bonneville runs are now the stuff of legends, and I was praying we’d be able to find something similar to document at Speed Week. However, when I looked at the Bonneville entry list there were no Japanese teams listed… the closest thing to an Asian based team was an entry lodged from Singapore.

It also turned out that the AMS team was not able to get their Evo completed in time for Speed Week, so we went to the event without any expectation of shooting high end Japanese machines. However everything changed as soon as we arrived and I clocked this blue RX7… Continue reading at Speedhunters

By Rod Chong

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

About time.

So let’s look past the environmental malarky. Let’s look past the “give the middle class a break” hoo-ha. The real reason for this, we all know, was to help out the automakers. Yes, I do want to see autoworkers get back to, y’know, working.

And the Detroit Free Press tells us that cash for clunkers succeeded on that point. We returned 1,350 autoworkers to the assembly line. Woohoo!

Now let’s do the math. $3 billion divided by 1,350:

That’s $2.2 million per job. And 247,000 other people lost their jobs in roughly the same time period. Okay, you’ll argue for a trickle-down effect adding jobs at suppliers. So, what, double the number of jobs added? That means we spent $1.1 million per job.

Either way, that was totally worth destroying this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Right?

By Chris Trout

Troutster52

There are few vital elements of our daily living that fall into disrepair with as much character as the automobile. No matter what the cause of this mechanical or aesthetic decomposition, this process creates the most hated and most beloved character in the story of the automobile. This historical relic is called a beater.

Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "The Value of a Beater" »

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

You know the drill: Come up with a caption for the picture below by noon PST next Thursday. If you submit the funniest one, we’ll send you some CarDomain swag. Three entries per member max. Good luck!

By Antonio Alvendia

Antonio Alvendia

I know that many people have been waiting for our coverage of this weekend’s Nisei Showoff carshow, which made its final show in Downtown LA/Little Tokyo. Since I knew I’d run into a ton of old friends at the show, I knew that it would be smart to come to the show early; that was a very good decision. My friend Travis brought his Canon DSLR and his video camera to help me capture the event too, since we knew that it would be hard for me to make my way around the whole show, in between saying hello to all our old school friends that come out the woodwork just for the Nisei Showoff. For some reason, some of these guys don’t go to Formula D events or Just Drift events, but they always make it to Nisei. So for many of us, Nisei Showoff is a time for us to reconnect and chill with good friends who we don’t have the pleasure of seeing all the time, due to the busy work and travel schedules that we all have.

I was happy to see several media outlets at the event covering the show as well; I’m hoping that all the magazines and websites out there run coverage of the show. Super Street Magazine and Project Car Magazine both had a strong showing at Nisei, with booths and a build-off competition of the magazine editors’ personally owned cars. I also saw people from Import Tuner, Japanese Nostalgic Car, Urbanracer, Auto Otaku, DSport, even an ex-Jtuned guy and several other media outlets out there to support and shoot photos of Nisei Showoff. Make sure to check out their coverage of the show as well.

For any other media outlets who weren’t able to make it to the show, but still want to run coverage of the event, please contact us at motormavens(at)gmail.com and we will supply you with photos for free, just to help out our friend Ken Miyoshi who runs the show.

While it may seem to some outsiders that we’ve been hyping this event quite a lot, it’s only because Nisei Showoff really is a big deal to those of us who go there with our friends and family every year – it’s a tradition that we’ve all kept up for the past nine years.

Continue reading and view more photos at MotorMavens.com

By Fireball Tim

Movie Car Design Master

What a spectacular event!

This past Friday was “THE WORLD FAMOUS MALIBU GOLF CLASSIC” where hundreds of people converged for fun, golf, cars and babes. Hollywood Stars even rose from the grave to attend this puppy! And with great sponsors like REACTOR WATCHES, LEI LANA, DUKES OF MALIBU and BIOMETICS, the festivities rocked.

There was a performance by the hot new artist Hannah Mulholland, Megastar Humphrey Bogart (Celebrity Impersonator, John Tobin) and a slew of MOVIE CARS from the bad boys of STAR CAR CENTRAL. They brought in cars from Starsky and Hutch, Herbie, Vanishing Point and Adam 12.

All in all, a wild event with Golf Kart Drifting and awesome play action. A “Fireball Tim’s WORLD OF CARS” episode will appear here in the coming weeks, but check out last year’s episode here.

More photos on the FIREBALL BLOG!

Continue reading "Hollywood and Star Cars Invade Golf Classic" »

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

With a time of 7:11.57, the Gumpert Apollo Sport is now the fastest road-going car to lap the infamous Nurburging, and this in-car video shows just how harrowing this track can be at speed. If you thought the clips of the ZR1, Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR, or the GT-R were impressive, prepare to be blown away, because those cars are hiding under the couch right now. Put this on full-screen, crank up the headphones and enjoy.