The Car Tech blog

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.

Over this past weekend, Denny Hamlin managed to upstage Nascar golden boy Jimmie Johnson at the Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway as part of the current Nascar Sprint Cup chase series. Yeah, Hamlin's probably not going to win the championship this year (my prediction is Mr. Johnny Obvious aka Jimmie Johnson--look at the points advantage!), but still it's a career-highlight victory that stakes his claim as one of Nascar's stars. But while most drivers have their moments of brilliance, they usually also have at least a few moments in their career they'd rather forget and Denny Hamlin's just one of the many who've had a light brush with death. Today's video clip is just one of those scenarios.

This video is from a Nascar Nationwide race from earlier this year in Las Vegas. The clip cuts right to the chase and shows Denny Hamlin (in the No. 20 car) breaking a tire and getting entangled with Mike Bliss (cool name, eh?) and the car catches fire. Shortly the flames extinguish to only smoke, but still that's got to be a scary situation. The video follows up with the cleanup as well as multiple angles of the accident, and you can get the best look at the No. 20 car's combustion about the 2:15 mark.

Chances are if you're reading this, you're probably aware by now that Nascar driver Denny Hamlin won the Tums Fast Relief 500 "chase race" in Martinsville yesterday, where he led the race for over 200 laps. It's a big victory for Hamlin, not just because he guaranteed victory in Martinsville where he was squeezed out earlier this year by rival Jimmie Johnson, but also because it breaks Johnson's fall winning streak at this famous speedway. Hamlin's win on Sunday also broke Johnson's winning ways in this year's Chase as well.

But all everyone seems to be talking about is Jimmie Johnson, who came in second place at yesterday's event and how his advantageous points lead in the Sprint Cup Chase almost make him the winner as a foregone conclusion. ESPN even did a feature about this very concept, and here I am doing the exact same thing. It's really too bad, as this was one of the biggest victories of Denny Hamlin's career. Here's the final few laps that cemented Hamlin's win at Martinsville yesterday. However it's probably a bittersweet victory for Hamlin, who at one point declared himself the man to beat in the Sprint Cup Chase, as Jimmie Johnson still looms large as the seemingly sure bet to claim the Nascar championship once again this year.

Let's face it, Nascar driver Jimmie Johnson is a winner. This guy is never far from the top of the points rankings and damn near always a top finisher in NASCAR events, especially in races that count the most such as those that take place at the end of the Nascar season, the Chase for the Sprint Cup series. Roughly a week ago, Johnson finished in first place and ranked first in the Pepsi 500 race in California, and this past Saturday, Jimmie continued his winning ways for the second week in a row by claiming yet another victory. So here it is--the final laps of the 2009 Nascar Banking 500

The Banking 500 took place at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., and as (seemingly) always, Johnson positioned himself at the top of the racing pack basically from beginning to finale (despite a late rivalry with Jeff Gordon). Speaking of finishing, by the end of the race, Johnson had swept the poles by starting, finishing and ranking No. 1. This not only marks Jimmie's second first-place finish in a row, but it's also notable because he has now won three of the first five Chase races, and it looks like he is the front runner for yet another Nascar championship title.

I've spent the majority of this week trying to hunt down quality (free) web video of the Britcar 500 event that rocked Silverstone Circuit roughly a week ago. So far, the best I've come up with is an in-car cam vid of the first lap around the storied Silverstone track. I mean, it's OK but not quite as eye-appealing as I would prefer. On the other hand, I did dig up a video that served as a preview for the Britcar 500, courtesy of PitLanePro on good ol' YouTube. And here it is...

The inaugural Britcar 500 was held over the first weekend in October of this year, and is unique in that is a 6-hour endurance race that doesn't even begin until 6 in the evening and stretches deep into the night. This video is obviously produced by professionals, and the imagery of all these beautiful sports cars racing into the night is quite a sight. What we see here is but a sampling of roughly 50 multinational GT and sports cars that were slated to participate in the Britcar 500, and oh how I wish I could be there to enjoy it in person...or at least can a brotha get a highlight video on the Web, please???

Over this past weekend (October 2-4) the Silverstone raceway hosted the Britcar 500 race, a 6 hour race featuring European super sports cars slugging it out endurance style. I've tried to be patient and unfortunately I've found scant video worthy of this event to post up on this blog. However, in the process of looking for video for the Britcar 500 I stumbled upon this great clip about preparing a street car for a 24 hour Britcar endurance race, courtesy of those blokes on BBC's Top Gear.

Top Gear is an Emmy award-winning show produced in Britain featuring Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May driving all sorts of different cars and getting themselves into all kinds of funny situations. The snarky sense of humor is totally up my alley, and there's plenty of it to be had on this clip. (For proof of what I'm talking about, check out what's on your screen at the 2:59 mark). Anyway, the basic premise here is that the Top Gear dudes are taking a used BMW 330D and get it race ready with modifications galore. The guys get ready to qualify and they seem over matched, but these savvy Brits have an ace up their sleeve to make the race. Perhaps the highlight of this clip is when the gents have to do their night time qualifying laps, and you can see first hand how dark and sketchy driving a fast car on a curvy race track can be. It's blacker than you may expect. And in case you're interested, part two of this episode is available on YouTube, so check it out.

(Credit: Automotive News)

For years, style was absent without an excuse from American subcompacts. But the days of slab-sided, no-frills hatchbacks may soon be history.

For decades, something was missing in the small cars designed, built and sold in the United States. It was gone for so long that most American consumers probably didn't know what it was.

But to Ralph Gilles, Chrysler Group's chief designer, the missing ingredient was obvious. U.S. subcompacts lacked emotional appeal.

"Small cars of the past were not necessarily done with passion," he said.

Generations of Detroit designers seemed to say: No one buys a small car for its styling, so why bother? Uninspired, appliancelike econoboxes? What else did you expect?

American subcompacts had none of the attributes found in the cool, quirky and even elegant small cars created elsewhere in the world, from the original BMC Mini to the first Peugeot 205 to the modern Citroen C3.

U.S. automakers were forced to churn out small cars to raise corporate average fuel economy averages, so they could keep selling big trucks. Small-car design? An oxymoron.

But consumer preference has shifted -- the result of higher gasoline prices, new fuel-efficiency standards and concern about climate change.

"Small cars and vehicles powered by four-cylinder engines have been on a steady increase since 2004," said Ford Motor Co. sales analyst George Pipas.

U.S. fleets must average 35.5 mpg by 2016, compared with 25.3 mpg this year. Combined with stricter emissions standards, it means the number of small-car nameplates for sale in the United States will increase.

And when a market segment gets crowded, automakers must rely on styling to set their vehicles apart from the crowd.

"It's not business as usual for small cars here anymore," said Moray Callum, Ford Motor's design director for cars.

The expanding lineup of new small cars means styling will get a lot more creative and appealing, just as it did with mid-sized cars recently. (Think of the modern Chevrolet Malibu, the new Ford Taurus and the current Toyota Camry and Honda Accord.)