By Katherine Helmetag

Atomicalex

Bridgestone had a cool display about retreading truck tires. I’m a tire freak, so it was pretty interesting to me. It’s a real remanufacturing process—more indepth than I thought.

By Rich Truesdell

Automotive Traveler

The votes are in on USA Today’s 21st annual Ad Meter competition and Bridgestone had the highest rated car-related video out of the 51 over-hyped commercials that ran during yesterday’s Super Bowl. The spot, featuring Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head driving a Pontiac Solstice, was the best received of the more than dozen spots that featured automobiles. The spot finished behind the online contest-winning winning spot for Doritos and two commercials for Budweiser, which had won the last ten competitions dating back to 1999. We have all the best car-related spots over on Automotive Traveler, so drop in and have a look.

For most people, commercials are the highlight of the Super Bowl, and while the General was the only one of the Big Three to air one, there were still some awesome automotive spots. Cars.com offered some interesting negotiation techniques, Bridgestone narrowly avoided killing Richard Simmons and Alice Cooper, Audi introduced its snarling R8 in a sweet Godfather-themed spot, Garmin used Napoleon to drive home that their units are small and powerful and Toyota used badgers and big wheels to great effect. Which was your favorite?

I just got my February issue of Grassroots Motorsports in the mail. The GRM crew had already told me about this, but there’s nothing like seeing it in print: CarDomain got a Grassroots Motorsports Editor’s Choice award for 2007! We’re on the same page as 24 Hours of LeMonds, Lemis Hamilton, Bridgestone RE-01R tires and Patrick Long–pretty good company I’d say. So thanks Grassroots Motorsports, and congrats to everyone who helps make CarDomain the #1 auto enthusiast community on the web!