Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. There isn’t the shopping stress of Christmas, and if you’re a single dude like I am, all you have to do is sit around and eat. It’s just perfect. I’m home in Seattle right now, enjoying the cold weather and warm company, and I hope that all our readers have an absolutely awesome Thanksgiving. Thanks so much guys, you’re the reason I love my job so much!

Spotted this at the local tuner shop. How many funnies are in this plate? I count at least four.

I saw that this week’s Caption Contest only got a 64 comments, which I’m pretty sure is due to the fact that commenting on the blog is messed up. We’re trying to get that fixed, and I apologize if it frustrated anyone. Anyway, this week’s winner is NSGrandAm, who came up with; “I don’t know why I couldn’t get the idiot lights to turn off… but now I don’t have to look at them.” Nice work man! Tune in tomorrow for the next installment of our ferociously popular Caption Contest!

One of the reasons that everyone at CarDomain and StreetFire works so hard to cover SEMA is that it’s a trade show, and not open to the public. You either have to be a member of the media or an employee of a vendor to get credentials and as you can probably tell from all the stuff we posted, the show floor is just littered with ridiculous hardware. So in the interest of getting one of our members into to see the circus, our buddies over at E3 Spark Plugs threw a contest where the grand prize was status as an honorary E3 employee. Joseph Porter was the lucky guy, and E3 flew him to Sin City, got him a badge, put him up in a hotel, gave him some walking around money, and showered him in SEMA swag. He had a blast at the show, check out this pic of him in the E3 booth! Big thanks to E3 and everyone who entered!

Mark Smith of Factory 5 (yes, that Mark Smith) popped up on the Car Lounge asking about fitments for turbo kits on the Volkswagen VR6. Turns out, he’s plotting a mid-engined kit based on the VW MkIV (Golf, Jetta, GTI, and presumably New Beetle) platform. He didn’t start with the VR6 - he started with the TDi, VW’s turbodiesel lump. There’s a more serious build thread going on over at tdiclub.com. This has the fixin’s to be the new cool VW kit, reminiscent of days when you could slap a kit over a Type 1 (Beetle) chassis and have yourself a new car. I might just have to hold on to my Diesel MkIV for a bit longer, as I’d love to have all that torque behind me, rather than in front, especially for the sub-$20K pricetag Mark is talking about.

OK, so it’s not like this is the first time that we’ve seen a Gallardo putting down almost 1000 horsepower at the wheels. But are you really supposed to get tired of that? I don’t think so. At all. Listen as they make her scream on the dyno! Oh, and how awesome is the license plate?

For a long time, I thought that the Isle of Man was the craziest, most dangerous bike race in the world. But like I’ve been so many times before, I was totally wrong. The Macau GP is run on a circuit designed for cars, between the four-wheel spectacle, and there are no provisions for keeping the riders safe. At all. If you come in too hot here, you’re going to ditch into a concrete barrier or a steel barrier, and that’s just bad news. There are a bunch of videos posted about this race, and I’ve put the first one below. Head over to StreetFire to check out the rest.

I thought I’d follow up my Toyota Cressida spotllight with another one, this time on a distinctively American machine – a ‘61 Cadillac Coupe De Ville owned by a fellow named Hunter Bender of Sacramento, California. Spotted at Billetproof 2009 in Antioch, this low slung beauty stopped me dead in my tracks, and I’ve been anxiously waiting slammed month to post up a few photos of this car. Continue reading at Speedhunters.

— By Mike Garret

We’ve all seen the viral video series “Gymkhana” by Ken Block, now there is some competition! Angel Dot from Ireland put together an amazing film with his Impreza and Focus rally cars. Some say it’s a flop, some say it’s gold. What do you think? Read more about the Angel Dot Gymkhana at Tampa Sports Car Examiner.

Lot of people over on StreetFire are making fun of these dudes for all their screaming and the top speed claims. But that said, this looks like exactly like what I want to do on vacation, especially if I was in Germany. Bravo, gentlemen.

The year was 1964 and Pontiac was hot on promoting it’s new GTO. The car now credited with officially ushering in the muscle car era was flying off of dealer lots and into the hands of hot rodders and horsepower obsessed young men across America. The hype machine would find a new gear when an issue of Car and Driver came out, pitting the Pontiac GTO against the Ferrari GTO from which it got its name. The Pontiac won.

It launched the career of a young magazine editor by the name of David E. Davis and gave the big Poncho lots of cache with people who not only wanted to drag race but also wanted to hit the road course.

As it turned out, the car involved in the test, supplied by Pontiac publicity maven Jim Wangers, was a total ringer. It was equipped with a very strong 421 that allowed it to run from 0-100 in 11 seconds and trip the clocks at the drag strip in a tick over 13 seconds. At the time, the only guys who knew that were Wangers and the guy’s who gave it the Royal Bobcat treatment.

In the early 1980’s the magazine re-ran the test using a GTO from a collector and a pristine Ferrari. This time the Ferrari won. Pontiac fans cried foul because the car used in the test was a not-so-fresh 80,000 mile original. Dan Gurney drove both cars, which is pretty cool in itself.

The battle rages on and round three will take place during the weekend of May 1, 2010 in Williamsburg, VA. The actual Pontiac used in the first magazine test will be on hand to duke it out with a Ferrari GTO to answer the question once and for all…

OK, so I’m totally happy with my life, my job, my house and everything else. But to be perfectly honest? Sometimes I get jealous of Nads, getting to run around and see everything that’s happening in the world of motorsport. It looks like he had a blast at the last round of  the Redline Time Attack. Watch the video, and let us know whether you like the editing!

I’ve been on the road a lot lately visiting some amazing people in some equally amazing places. Just this month I’ve jumped from Las Vegas to Dubai to Bahrain to San Francisco with a day or two spurts home in Los Angeles in between travels. Next up I’m off to Arizona, and then Japan (pre-Auto Salon and then again for TAS of course!). I apologize for the lack of my personal posts lately, the traveling has made it impossible to keep my regular blogging pace. I’m going to make it up to you, I promise! Continue reading at the Real JDM.

Toyota’s efforts in Formula 1 may have ended, but the final run of their F1 cars sure didn’t hold up the rest of the action during the Toyota Motorsports Festival. Joining the race versions of the LFA, Toyota had a nice surprise for everyone, in the form of a production version of the LF-A, sporting a rather catching shade of matte black. Next to the race cars it sounded much quieter and refined, but it didn’t look any slower when it shot past the main straight.  Continue reading at Speedhunters.

—By Dino Dalle Carbonare

What’d I tell ya about the barn finds yesterday? Here’s another, a 1960 Austin-Healey BT7 being offered for $7,950 out of Osseo, Minnesota. From the seller’s description:

1960 Austin-Healey BT7 3000, barn find, stored for 35 years, good restoration project or use it for parts, solid car minimal rust, missing front bumper.

He’s from Minnesota, so he should know that a solid car with minimal rust sure ain’t a parts car for any Northerner.