We’re getting a new racetrack here in Moscow, which will be suitable for F1. Technical stats and a pic after the jump.

length: 4.070km, width 12-21m,
corners: 15 total, 9 left, 6 right
longest straight segment length: 873m
top speed (F1) before 15th corner 311 km/h, average 185 km/h, lap time 1:16.000
top speed (DTM) before 15th corner 260 km/h, average 167 km/h, lap time 1:35.500
5 shortcuts, 17 configurations
up to 100.000 spectators

There was a really bad accident in the city of Irkutsk. A KamAZ truck ran a red light and broadsided a Toyota Premio. The truck dragged the poor sedan about 30 meters until it bumped into the building. Somehow, the woman driving the Toyota survived! Seeing pics of her car, I would say this was a miracle.

We’ve got a club of auto enthusiasts near St. Petersburg in the city of Zelenogorsk who just opened a museum of vintage rides. These guys have done a great job restoring their cars. Club "Retro-Union" began in 1982 with a 1936 Opel Olimpia. For now the club has three major directions–American rides of 50s to 70s, rides owned by famous people from the 20th century, and exotic rides. As far as I know, this is the first museum in Russia that has import rides. I have included photos of some of the club rides after the jump.

Have you ever noticed things around us that look like faces or smileys? I made a little collection of funny pictures from cars. More pics after the jump.

Russia and the USSR have a long history of motorsport (both rally and autocross). We’ve got professional rally teams, interesting cars, our kids go to carting schools and so on. A couple of years ago I found this short movie, showing Baltic rally-racers driving theirs Lada 1100 (VAZ-2101)–one of the legendary Soviet rides. At the time this clip was taken we’d not even heard the word "drift," but look at those guys! They’ve got a real drift experience!

On the weekend of July 5-6, we held Drag-Bitva, the largest annual Russian drag racing event in the city of Krasnoya. This time (as all three previous years) Sadashi Nezuka from Duke Racing Toyama came out to do the fine-tuning and help the drivers. And for the first time an American driver, John Kiewicz from Los Angeles, competed on the Russian strip with a Hennessey Viper. A total of 31 cars competed for the Winner’s Cup–the most interesting were the Viper, the 1400hp Skyline GTR remade to be RWD, and the Toyota Soarer remade to be 4WD. The Soarer, driven by Mary Panova, made a new Russian record at 8.702 seconds. And the Cup of Drag-Bitva went to Siberian Dmitry Vyalykh and his Skyline GTR. More pics after the jump.