(Credit:
Autocar.co.uk)
Having spent time behind the steering wheels of the BMW X6 M, the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, the Infiniti FX50S, and the Range Rover Sport, I was fairly certain that I could predict the outcome of Autocar's drag race between the four sporty SUVs (is that a bit redundant?). And for the most part, I was right. I won't spoil the ending for you, but I can't help but to think that the outcome would be decidedly different and much more interesting if this race where held off-road! I mean, these are SUVs after all.
Place your bets and check the video below to see how the contenders stack up in what may be the world's heaviest drag race:
Monday's video blog featured Venezuelan-born race car driver Milka Duno making her first attempt at stock car testing for the Automobile Racing Club of America at Daytona International Speedway a little over a week ago, a foray that turned out to be pretty successful. But it seems it's hard to write about or discuss Duno without IndyCar superstar Danica Patrick being referenced or mentioned in some form or another. Well, sure enough the TV commercial sexpot and would-be NASCAR-bound Patrick was also getting in on the stock car fun at the ARCA's Daytona event December 18 through 20, which is reportedly also Danica's first stab at stock car testing.
With her qualification during this test race, Danica is now slated to appear in an ARCA race on February 6 at the world-famous Daytona Speedway, and she is scheduled to debut in a NASCAR event later in the month at California Auto Club Speedway. Though this video isn't the most exciting thing in the world, it presents Danica giving her insights on her first official stock car event and her orange and green Chevy blazing around the track. If nothing else, this video and the news around it should officially mark Danica's entry into the world of stock car racing.
Hello dear Car Tech readers! I hope y'all drank a boatload of eggnog and had a great Xmas holiday (or Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever it is you celebrate). But we weren't alone in celebrating all the good things (yeah, all three of them) about 2009, but Venezuelan-born racecar driver Milka Duno had a couple more things to celebrate in late December. About a week ago, Duno made history--again--by becoming the first woman of Hispanic descent to do stock car testing for the Automobile Racing Club of America.
It all went down on December 19, 2009, at world famous Daytona International Speedway as depicted in this short, but sweet video clip. Duno suits up and hops into her Braun Racing No. 90 Toyota Camry for her first ARCA Racing Series test. This was also reportedly the first time she had attempted to officially race a stock car, as she is best known for racing open-wheeled vehicles. Still, she finished in 13th place out of more than 60 competitors. It seems likely that Danica Patrick might not be alone in being a famous woman driver in stock car racing...assuming she goes there.
It's less than 12 hours before I will be leaving on a jet plane for a holiday in Ohio with my family, so I'm gonna keep this short: I figured for the Xmas Eve edition of this video blog, I'd present something fun and festive, and I thought this little video from 2000 would suit the bill. Basically what we got here is a 12 Hours of Sebring race car float was morphed into a bright and cute "Santa's Sleigh" for a Xmas parade in Sarasota, Florida. The beginning of the vid shows some of the assembly that was involved in putting this float together, and the rest of the video is the passengers spreading some holiday cheer before parking near the scenic waterfront. And in the last twenty or so seconds of the clip, it appears that the float is rocking - is it hydraulics or is it just the revelers dancing and having a good time? Does it matter? Happy Holidays everyone!
The Need for Speed series returns to the iPhone with NFS:Shift.
(Credit: Screenshot by Antuan Goodwin/CNET)
EA Mobile has released the second iPhone game in the Need for Speed series: Need for Speed Shift.
You may remember that we took a look at Need for Speed Undercover not too long ago and found it was a fun, arcadelike take on racing with a decent number of fully customizable vehicles. Shift is an evolution of that game but with more realistic racing physics in place of the hokey storyline. Also new to Shift are customizable racing views. Users can now select between chase-cam, hood-cam, bumper-cam, and cockpit views. The cockpit view is unique to the vehicle you're driving, but unfortunately there are no working gauges. The cockpit view is also the only view that features damage modeling in the form of a windshield that gets more messed up the as you hit things.
This Nissan Z features an accurate interior, but no working gauges.
(Credit: Screenshot by Antuan Goodwin/CNET)On your first outing with Shift, you'll be treated to a quick tutorial that teaches you how to drive with an iPhone. Shift pretty much plays like Undercover, but with a few key differences. Its steering is still controlled by tilting. The vehicles still auto-accelerate and brake when the screen is tapped. However, the race-breaker, slow-motion feature is gone and the controls are supposedly more realistic. In practice, this means that you can no longer win races without touching the brakes and that the transmission is now manual, which can be frustrating for novice users who just want to drive.
Fortunately, there are driver aids that can be activated that automatically brake and shift for you and assist steering that make your ham-fisted inputs smoother and more accurate. Users who want an easy to play, arcade-style racer can turn on the driving aids and win a few medals on the bus ride to work; and users who want more of a racing-sim experience can set all systems to manual for more control over the game. Driving aids or not, drifting is maddeningly difficult this time around. I prefer the drifting mechanics of Undercover.
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The Gumball 3000 is just one of the stranger races held yearly around the world.
Every car enthusiast worth his or her salt wants to attend events like the Indy 500, 24 Hours of LeMans, and Monaco Grand Prix, or, for fans of classics, the Monterey Historics, Goodwood Revival, or Mille Miglia Storica. But these are generally expensive propositions even for spectators, and forget about participating if you're not an excellent race driver or millionaire, preferably both. Cars are about glamour and going fast, sure, but life is about getting there and enjoying the ride along the way. This collection celebrates some lesser-known automotive competitions for which humor and good old-fashioned fun are essential elements.
With one exception, you can actually enter these events for low-four-figure sums at most, and for some of them that includes the purchase (or construction) of the actual race car itself. So grab a helmet, build up a sleep reserve, and get ready to have some cheap fun with a bunch of like-minded lunatics. Owning a race team isn't just for Roger Penske anymore.
I finally made it out to the 52nd Annual International Auto Show at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco yesterday, and I'm sure glad that I made the trip. Today is the final day of the show that started over this last Thanksgiving weekend, and in case you can't or didn't make it out to the Moscone to see it all in person, here's an in depth highlight reel to show some of what you may have missed.
Yes, I know the soundtrack to this clip is kinda annoying, but this web video is quite comprehensive in covering many vehicles and manufacturers who participated in this year's show in San Francisco including the Porsche 911, Lamborghini Murcielago, Audi R8, BMW, a few Chryslers (for whatever that's worth), auto racing vehicles and more. This video includes a few of my faves from this year's event and it also leaves out several personal highlights that I will be spotlighting for the next few or more blogs, so get ready
So far, it seems like all the luck in the world has been on driver Jimmie Johnson's side throughout the 2009 Sprint Cup chase, and things have been so lopsided between Johnson and his Nascar competitors that some fans feel they should just throw him the trophy and call it a season. While Johnson remains the odds-on pick to win the whole shebang, he didn't fare so well this past Sunday at the Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. And we got the footage right here...(and by the way, I have no clue what's up with the opera singer at the beginning of this clip).
Right away we cut to Lap 3 where Sam Hornish Jr. makes contact with Jimmie Johnson, sending his 48 car spinning into the wall and across the track again. The damage was significant, and this debacle eventually put Johnson over 100 laps behind and put a serious dent in his points standing.
With that crash out of the way, we pick up later into the race with Kyle Busch in the No. 2 car holding onto the lead. Kyle forgoes a stop for fuel so he can try to hang on to the lead, but eventually his car starts sputtering as it begins running out of gas, and right behind him is his brother and teammate Kurt Busch, who (probably reluctantly) capitalizes on Kyle's miscue to grab the lead.
A mere couple laps later, Kurt Busch gets the checkered flag and wins the Dickies 500.
My video blog yesterday featured the footage of Nascar driver Ryan Newman in a death-defying blow-over flip from Sunday's Sprint Cup chase race at Talladega Speedway. Well, the excitement didn't end there, as you'll see in today's video clip from the final moments of the 2009 AMP Energy 500 featuring a crazy multicar collision, flips, and even a car fire. Here's the evidence:
What appears to happen here is Kurt Busch's car gets nudged--he'd been testing other cars with a little bangin' and bumpin', and here he comes up on the short end of such a battle. Busch's vehicle is pushed sideways and backward across the track, and ends up catching several other drivers including Jeff Gordon, Robby Gordon, and Juan Pablo Montoya. Mark Martin's car suffers the worst fate, sent spinning and doing more flips than Shamu at Sea World and briefly catching fire as well. However, this clip ends on a pleasant note as Jamie McMurray gets the checkered flag and achieves his first victory in 85 Nascar events. Congratulations!
Yesterday Jamie McMurray pulled off a significant upset by winning NASCAR's AMP Energy 500 Sprint Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway. Not that we here at The Car Tech blog would promote gambling, but if you had bet on McMurray, then you would have made out like a bandit with his reported 25 to 1 odds of winning at Talladega. As much as this victory is a feather in McMurray's logo-ridden cap, it doesn't matter much, as it appears that based on points alone Jimmie Johnson is gonna take yet another Sprint Cup championship. Yawn.
But what seems to be getting the most lip service on sports news shows and within the Nascar universe is about the nasty flips and crashes that took place yesterday at the AMP Energy 500. This clip here recaps the first of these accidents, and boy are we glad that no one was seriously injured.
This video begins with just five laps to go in the race, and it looks like Ryan Newman's 39 car gets nudged just enough to set his vehicle into a spin that eventually flips over the hood of Kevin Harvick's 29 car and continues its blowover flip onto its hood into the wall and finally off the track. Newman luckily managed to walk away from the wreck, but his car was mangled something fierce. As always, this Nascar.com clip shows how it happened from every angle imaginable, but perhaps the most horrifying view is the flip happening in real time at the 5:15 mark--it's breathtaking. I think I speak for everyone when I say we're all glad that Ryan escaped this accident with no major injury.
