Racing… just the thought of it sets y’er blood pounding. The competition, the strategy, the speed. Ultimately, it’s like a game of chess played at 1000x speed. The quick and the dead. Heh! If you’re not quick, you’re dead. Yes, there are connotations of this that are less than savory these days. The popular media is rife with stories of ‘street racing’… of those simple idiots that think with their little heads instead of their big ones. Regardless of the shame brought upon the rest of us by those adolescents that couldn’t make it in a 4-H club, we search to find an outlet for our impulses. These are certainly not anti-social tendencies, because whether the venue be Formula 1, World Rally Championship, National Hot Rod Association or simple parking lot competitions, there always remains the thrill of victory and the "I’ll be back next time" repartee of defeat.

Are we villains for tangibly expressing this most fundamental of human traits? Far from it. I can tell you from personal experience that the individual most likely to resist a street racing challenge, or a road rage encounter, is someone that has just been through a high performance driving event. On the way home, the highway antics of society’s most maladjusted individuals are simply beyond ridicule—they remain only to be pitied. If they could only understand that you have been to the top of the mountain and seen all there is to see, they would not dare to mess with you. Alas, that is not to be so. It is a burden you will bear until the end of time. Continue reading at UberDrive Magazine

So, perhaps you’ve seen a Redline Time Attack event, or somebody has mentioned just how cool this form of competition is and now you’re ready to sign up for the next event. That’s great, but we should take some time and talk about what you’re getting yourself into. Surprises are best left to birthday parties, not for your arrival at the track.

A Time Attack session is your opportunity to pit yourself and your car against the clock, to gain fame and glory by posting a better time than anyone else and not have to worry about some other car crashing in to you. When you’re out there, you’re all alone. It’s you, the track and the clock. Sounds great, but how does it work?

First, there are three classes, or levels of vehicle preparation for track competition – Street,
Modified and Unlimited. Each of these is also broken into Front, Rear and All Wheel drive groups to keep things reasonably balanced. A Time Attack weekend may start on Friday, with a high performance driving event, or open lapping session. This can give you some extra time to get acquainted with the track, particularly if you’ve never been on it before.

On Saturday and Sunday, before the main event, there are also practice sessions and these can get pretty interesting. All Street cars practice together, as do the Modified cars and the Unlimited cars. This can make for some pretty high closing speeds on the track. For example, in the Unlimited class, a nicely prepared CRX Honda with 250 hp could be on the track at the same time as a 750 hp twin Turbo NSX or an American Iron Extreme Mustang. You could come screaming down a straight and into the braking area about 40 mph faster than the car in front of you. Let me tell you, that calls for some fast reflexes to avoid a bad start to the weekend.

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Inspiration—that is something that is shared between this particular ROUSH pickup truck and a nineteenth century novel. ‘Nightmare’ was the original term for the state later known as waking dream, first credited to Mary Shelley in her novel ‘Frankenstien.’ Anonymously published in 1818, the story came about one stormy night in a cottage on the shores of Lake Geneva. Together for the evening, Mary, her husband and Lord Byron challenged each other to write the most fearful ghost story. In 1831, she revised her first novel, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, and republished it under her own name.

When it comes to the ROUSH Nitemare pickup truck though, there is nothing anonymous about it. Back for a second run, the 2008 version was distinctly different from the original black-only predecessor. Once again limited to a run of 100 units, this flare-sided implementation was made available in three colors—black, red and the gleaming white version we were loaned for a long weekend.

Starting from a standard cab, F-150 FX/2 model ensures that this dream isn’t carrying any excess weight. Under the hood, the ROUSHcharger power adder boosts the 5.4L, 3-valve engine to 445-flywheel horsepower and 500 lb-ft. of torque. Additional go-fast pieces include updated intake manifolds, intercooler, radiator and air induction system.

Aside from the color selection, the most obvious change for the new model is the inclusion of 22-inch chromed wheels. A revised graphics package also sets the newer model apart, while ‘stealth’ badges do nothing to hide the fundamental nature of this beast. Driving the truck around the Detroit area elicited only one of two responses from other wannabees—either a ‘thumbs up’ gesture, or an attempt to make some snarling noises out of an anemic aftermarket exhaust.

Read the full story at Uber Drive Magazine.

Labor Day weekend is often a bittersweet rite of passage for many people, signaling the end of summer and the return to a more hectic pace of life, whether at work, school or home. In Motor City, the hectic pace descended a few days earlier, as three different racing series arrived for the Detroit Indy Grand Prix presented by Firestone—a weekend blowout of competition, celebrated on Belle Isle, Detroit’s playground in the river.

Participants in the IndyCar series—the unification of last year’s CART and IRL open wheel series—were being joined by folks from IMSA’s American LeMans endurance series and SCCA’s SPEED World Challenge GT Championship series. For any racing enthusiast, this represents the sirloin of North American competition on four wheels. When the opportunity was offered by Bridgestone-Firestone North America to sit in on the festivities, there was no struggle in formulating an answer.

There has been some fallout as a result of the reunification of the two open wheel racing series in North America. Some of the more interesting people—drivers Paul Tracy and Robert Doornbos, as well as Minardi Team USA principal Paul Stoddard—to name a few, are missing from the ranks this year. If for no other reason, it would be interesting to see how the new series has developed, because the predecessors each had their own flavor. Continue reading…

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When a New Jersey woman fitted a GPS tracking device to her husband’s car last year, she got a lot more than she bargained for. The device, a LandAirSea GPS Tracking Key, is half the size of a cigarette pack, waterproof and comes with a strong, magnetic mount. For as long as its batteries last, it will record driving speed on a second-by-second basis, as well as the location, time and date of every stop the vehicle makes. A set of batteries can easily last two weeks. Suspecting her husband of infidelity, she did not mention the device and by any definition was clearly engaging in an invasion of his privacy.

Days later, the husband was involved in what appeared to be a tragic accident. While taking family babysitter home, they stopped to look at some horses from a countryt road. George Ford, Jr. of Piscataway, NJ, told police that he accidentally ran over the 12-year old girl as he turned his truck around to leave. However, once investigators for the Chenango County Sheriff’s Department found the GPS device, a different story emerged. Continue reading…

Continue reading "Spy Threat" »