I love racing. And I love dogs. And the only things which make modern air travel tolerable—aside from alcohol and Xanax—are good books. So I'm going to take Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain on my next flight. The story revolves around Denny, a guy trying to make it as a professional race driver, and it's told from the perspective of his dog, Enzo. Since I haven't read so much as the first paragraph, I can't recommend the book. But I'm intrigued by the concept, and the little movie-trailer-like ad below has made me curious enough to go pick it up. Hey, haven't you always wondered what a dog thinks about racing? Stay tuned for my review.
Dwaine got a junk '76 Cordoba for free, then let it sit for a period of several years. But when the time came to transform this promising project, he worked fast, gutting the interior and fixing the rust, installing a cage and a built 400 big block. He's building it for open-road racing, and although he didn't get the engine installed in time for this year's Pony Express 130, he towed it down to Nevada anyway for tech inspection. The car won People's Choice and passed tech, and later this month it's going to be doing its first Bonneville 100, a hundred-mile race through the desert on closed highways. Stay tuned!
Regular old air works fine for most people, but racers and off-roaders often use nitrogen or CO2 to fill their tires. The theory is than since those gases are inert, the rubber will be less susceptible to heat, and because their molecules are fatter, they don't seep out as fast as air. It makes sense, and some regular consumers—citing safety and fuel economy—are even choosing to use them in their daily drivers. Since I've always just filled my tires with air, I don't have any firsthand knowledge of whether filling up with "exotic" gases is worth the extra money. But I'm curious... Have you ever used them? And did it make a difference?
You know the best thing about coming back to work after a three-day weekend? Realizing that it's going to be a short week! How's that for a glass-half-full perspective? Anyway, here's the news:
- Here's a question: How many white-collar Ford employees does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer: 12% less than it did yesterday. Detroit News
- When pictures of the BMW M1 Concept surfaced, there was audible drooling from the automotive press. So will we see a similar-looking production model? At least one mag thinks so we just might. World Car Fans
- The quality of Hyundai's cars has been exceptional in recent years, but the Genesis sedan is the company's first real effort to break into the luxury market. Will it fly? Well, the guys from Winding Road just got their hands on one, and it sounds like they were impressed. Winding Road
- Should Danica Patrick go to F1? Personally, I'd like to see her take the checkered in some more IRL races, and raise open-wheeled Stateside profile first. But others aren't so patient. Top Gear
- Consumers want small cars, and they want them faster than anyone could have predicted. Sounds like more bad news for Detroit. Auto Observer
This clip of Danica Patrick getting wrecked by Ryan Briscoe is in Spanish, and it's not the best—read: really crappy—quality, but it does have the several different angels of the wreck. There's also some good footage of her marching toward his pits. I still think it was Briscoe's fault. What's your opinion?
While these cars wear the Prancing Horse badge, the lack of engines—along with the lack of engineering expertise from Maranello—mean they aren't real Ferraris. But the soapboxes created by members of the Scuderia Ferrari Club of Italy are still fun to watch race, and some of the styling is truly inspired. This video has some cool footage of the cars in action, but unless you speak Italian, you probably won't get to much out of the interviews with the participants. via World Car Fans
Last year, when McLaren's F1 team was found with technical documents relating to arch-rival Ferrari's program, the news ripped through the F1 world like an atomic blast through a wall of tissue paper. And while I read lots of news reports of the unfolding drama, this Wired article is the most comprehensive account of the big delicious mess that I've encountered. This story has everything—love, jealousy, betrayal, even extraordinarily perverted sex—and I think it would make a dope movie. Head over and check it out.
Most of the time, the driver that takes the pole doesn't wind up taking the checkered. But today, Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon proved that "most of the time" doesn't mean "all of the time." The New Zealand driver yielded his first place position several times during the 92nd running of the Indy 500, but ultimately, it was his day. A disastrous pit stop and handling issues kept teammate—and 2005 Indy winner—Dan Wheldom out of contention, and Dixon was able to hold off inspired challenges from Marco Andretti and Tony Kannan to take home the Borg-Warner trophy.
Photo courtesy Indianapolis Star
Marty Roth was the slowest driver on the grid for this year's 500, and he probably wouldn't have even gotten the opportunity to race if Mario Dominguez hadn't crashed during qualifying. But his luck ran out on lap 133, when he went wide into turn four and wound up hitting the wall. Check out this clip of his mangled car being brought back to the barn.
This clip is about as far from broadcast-quality video as you can get, but I think that's what makes it so cool. When you watch the race on the tube, it's impossible to grasp how incredibly fast the cars are moving, because there are fancy cameras—which probably cost more than a new BMW—constantly tracking them. But chalk one up for my trusty little $200 Casio, as it manged to capture exactly how it looks when the cars come ripping past with the hammer down. Enjoy.
When I went to the Indy Hall of Fame yesterday, my camera battery died while I was only halfway through, so I went back early this morning to get shots of the cars I missed. I'll get all my pics posted when I get back to CarDomain World Headquarters on Tuesday—sometimes even the wicked get to rest—but I thought this turbine-powered Indy car warranted it's own blog post. With legendary driver Parnelli Jones behind the wheel, the STP Studebaker lead for 171 laps in the 1967 500, but a spun bearing in the gearbox caused it to lose steam just four laps from the checked. It was the first and last time a turbine-powered car completed in the race, as they were banned the following year. Two more pics after the jump.
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The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum is amazing. It's also, from what I can tell, the only place inside the speedway complex where you have to wear a shirt to be admitted—and it's worth it. The track has been around since 1909, and its museum contains examples from every era of the automobile. Most of the time, ancient iron doesn't really do it for me, but it was cool to see a Benz and a Daimler—the two companies would later merge to form Mercedes-Benz—next to each other. It's wild to think these machines are 122 years old. And I was absolutely blown away by the 1954 Mercedes W 196 below, which was a phenomenally successful Grand Prix competitor in it's day. It's easily one of the most beautiful cars I've ever seen. Check out a bunch more pics of classic race cars after the jump.
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Yesterday was Carburetion Day, when teams traditionally get some final track time to fine tune their cars before the green flag drops for the 500. Unfortunately, the weather was miserable. Heavy rain essentially canceled the session—it lasted a scant 12 minutes—and forced the scheduled Indy Lights Freedom 100 to be postponed. But Mother Nature's lack of cooperation was good news for me, as that meant the race was rescheduled for today. The biggest difference between Indy Lights machines and standard Indy cars is horsepower—700 compared to 400—but that didn't make things less interesting. Winner Dillon Battistini dominated—leading 38 of the 40 laps—but only beat his closest competitor, Richard Antinucci, by .02 seconds. The first lap was run under caution, as driver Jon Brownson lost control and hit the wall—or in NASCAR speak, got into the fence—on turn three, but the rest of the race went like clockwork. This video of the start isn't terribly compelling, though I did manage to capture the "most famous words in motorsports" and subsequent deluge of engines firing on tape. This clip of the race cars ripping past—the sound is beyond awesome—is a lot better. The weekend is just getting started, so stay tuned!
Look out! That's the advice I'd give anyone before attempting to walk through the garages at Indy Motor Speedway. While I was navigating that gorgeous mess of carbon fiber and horsepower earlier today, I was living in terror of tripping over something and breaking off a very expensive piece of very expensive race car. And I wasn't even drunk—that's how crowded it is. Crew members on golf carts or bicycles are constantly whizzing by, race cars are being towed through the throngs of fans, and the soundtrack is a cocktail of racing engines, crackling radios and utter awe. All the cars set to race the 500 were safely tucked into their garages, but I did manage to snap a bunch of decent pics of the Indy Lights cars before they hit the track for the Freedom 100. Check them out after the jump.
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