Driving Sports

Not Done Yet! - Canadians Prep for Rally of the Tall Pines

Unpredictable weather and challenging roads set the stage for a fierce final showdown at Canada’s rally season ender, the Rally of the Tall Pines, November 20-22, in Bancroft, Ontario.

Subaru Rally Team Canada’s Pat Richard and co-driver Alan Ockwell have already secured the Canadian championship title, but defending champions Antoine L'Estage and Nathalie Richard are looking for redemption in what has been a frustrating Canadian season.

Tough Customers - Nissan's 2009 Truck and SUV Line

Nissan has always had a hard row to hoe. The company produces really great cars, but has long been overshadowed by the likes of Honda and Toyota in the import car market. Yet they’ve been a consistent favorite in the import truck world, where Honda doesn’t compete. Nissan is an enthusiast brand - where those in the know look for performance and value.

Nissan had a big win in the last few years with the Titan – a full size half-ton truck, and its corollary SUVs, the Pathfinder and Armada. With V8 power and a tough body style, the Titan was the truck of choice for import aficionados and was even sticking Nissan’s hands into the domestic truck market’s lunchbox: the small business truck market. General contractors, plumbers, gardeners, and others really need trucks for work purposes, and they were looking at Nissan and Toyota as well as the big three domestic makers.

But this year, we’ve got a whole new ball game in the truck market. Gas prices have forced every automaker to stop on a dime and figure out how to respond to a public that is suddenly disenchanted with big heavy V8 cars, trucks, and especially SUVs. Statistics across the market are down - mid-size SUV sales have dropped 60% compared to last year, and small SUVs are down 30%.

Forget Everything You Think You Know About Diesel

The rap on diesel engines is that they're gutless, slow, smoky and stinky. If you lived through the VW Dasher or Rabbit diesels in the 1970s, you've probably got a negative impression of small-displacement diesel engines. Or maybe you think they belong only in big pickups with Cummins or PowerStroke on the side?

Photo: typical action in the TDI Cup

It's easy to dismiss the success of racing diesels like the Audi R10 - they run an exotic fuel blend and they don't even resemble the kind of diesels that people actually drive. But now comes the VW Jetta TDI Cup racing series - and no one can ignore what these people are doing.

Driving Sports Time Attack Draws Hot Machinery

The first ever Driving Sports Time Attack got underway today at Portland International Raceway as part of the Mazda Grand Prix of Portland.

22 cars are entered, ranging from a 1971 Datson 510 with a full Toyota Supra drivetrain to a selection of pumped Subarus, a nice assortment of RX-7s and winding out with a right hand drive JDM-spec Nissan R35 GT-R.

On Friday, competitors had an open 45-minute practice session to get the feel of the new surface and corners at PIR, and they made good use of their time.

One select photo appears at right, but a full gallery of pictures is available here.

The action continues tomorrow evening with 4 rounds of Time Attack competition - timed to 1/1000th of a second. May the hottest shoe win!

Results: http://blog.drivingsports.com/blog/timeattack.html

GT Live at Miller Motorsport Park

Travis and I are hanging out at Miller Motorsport Park in Utah for the 6th running of the GT Live Tour. This is a cornucopia of extreme motorsport action: Drifting, Time Attack, Sim Racing and Grand Am. Oh, and the Umbrella Girls aren't bad, either.

One car we're all hot to check out is the new COBB Tuning Nissan GT-R. They've cracked the ECU (now running an Accessport, of course), modded the suspension and tinkered with the exhaust system. Of course they also have their new 2008 STI and Mazdaspeed3 Time Attack cars, too. A nice round-up of hot motors from the local Utah boys.

Mazda brought out its MX-5 drift demo team. Today I went for a ride around the East Course of Miller in one of these mighty little terrors. Even down on power (due to the altitude here) they were quite a kick going sideways. And, man, the drift team MX-5's were LOUD. Think: Shelby Cobra loud. My ears are still bleeding.

Lots of the Time Attack teams rolled in today. Dyno-Comp brought their previous-gen-chassis STI, JC Meynet on hand to drive for Harman Motive in his STI, Crawford Performance has its hot new 2008 STI to be driven by Tarzan Yamada, Brian Crower's team has their S2000, then there was Robi Spec who brought a trio of cars including their carbon fibre Miata, and a pair of EVOs.  These teams, and the rest of the field, will start to mix it up on course on Saturday at 8am. Gentlemen, place your bets.

We'll have some videos after the event wraps up and Travis is working on some content for an upcoming issue of Subiesport Magazine.

More pictures from pre-event activities after the jump...

Fast, slow and other drivers

Last week, I told you how nothing makes you faster like driving a slow kart. This week I am here to tell you that nothing makes you feel slow like driving a fast kart. As luck would have it, I keep drawing the ailing, slower karts for my qualifiers and heat races. But for my feature this week, I got one of the “fast” karts, and friends there is a world of difference here.

Driving a slow kart makes you feel like a driving god. Braking late, power early, holding the line through a fast bend, having to push and push to squeeze every last bit of speed from your machine.

Driving a fast kart has a way of draining all that talent and bravado right out of you and replacing it with a feeling of sheer terror. All of a sudden where I would dive into a corner flat on the gas, I was stabbing the brakes to settle the kart and lifting earlier where I had, again, been flat out.

Audi's Ubercar - the 2008 R8 Coupe

The Audi R8 is the state of the art in German supercar technology. It’s got 420 horsepower and 317 pound-feet of torque pumped out of a normally-aspirated direct injection 4.2-liter DOHC V8 engine. Power is delivered to all four wheels through Audi’s advanced R-Tronic 6-speed “clutchless manual” transmission and legendary Quattro all wheel drive system. The car will do 0-60 in 4.4 seconds, and has a top speed governed to 187 MPH. The least expensive R8 comes in at $109,000, and the R8 we tested is priced at $132,000 - that’s what it costs to take home the finest engineering that European automakers can provide.

Top Gear USA Starts Production

The UK version of Top Gear is a show that follows three blokes as they perform extreme car tests and generally make a muck of things. It even won an Emmy for "best international unscripted program" a couple years back. (Unscripted? Not exactly.) With 13 years of such success under its belt in the current format, it was only a matter of time before a US network optioned for a domestic version.

Word surfaced about the search for hosts in late 2007, with NBC eventually settling on radio-loudmouth Adam Carolla to take the role of ring-leader (Jeremy Clarkson in the UK version, an automotive journalist more famous to the British population than their own Prime Minister.) Shortly thereafter professional stunt driver, drift champion and rally car racer, Tanner "Foxy" Foust was announced to play the host of shorter stature (James "Hamster" Hammond overseas). But that final third host, to replace James "Cpt. Slow" May was elusive. At one time, LA Times auto writer Dan Neil (a man who likes to fluff his car reviews with excessive use of $5 words) was even signed for a deal with NBC. However, after only one day on the set, the brass at NBC reportedly changed its mind and tore up his contract.

Now, a couple months later and the final host selection has been announced. No, it's not yours truly (even though I was being considered for the part) it's the host of HGTV's Clean Sweep, Eric Stromer. Now, why would they cast a carpenter that clearly has no actual opinions about cars? (According to the press release his "preference" is for the Toyota Camry Hybrid, that alone speaks volumes.) I, too, am wondering. What I would speculate to be his primary qualification is that he is also a regular on Adam Carolla's radio talk show. It seems that neither I, nor any of the other experienced automotive journalists that tried out for the show, really stood any chance of getting the gig because of what I will now call the "Carolla Clause." Exactly who does exactly does Adam think he is, Jeremy Clarkson? Time will tell on that mark.

Top Gear USA (or whatever they end up calling it) will air its pilot on NBC later this year. BBC America still has my tapes on file, so there's still a chance the show could be saved, but the prospects are looking dim.

On track, wheel to wheel, in a kart

Nothing teaches you about winning like losing. This may sound odd, but a win hardly ever teaches one anything, for example, my first race in the “Heavy” karting series at Pat’s Acres. Last week I raced in the “Light” class for more of the fun and training. This week, I felt like I could win, seeing as how I was probably one of the lighter and smaller-statured guys racing in the heavy class, I would actually have a bit of advantage. Lady Luck would prove me wrong, however.

Here is another axiom that is closely related to the first: nothing teaches you about being fast like a slow kart. Ok, let’s tie it all together.

Cut Dunes the Green Way with an Electric Sand Car

Extreme Motorsports of California announced today that it has completed the engineering & manufacturing plans for its second all-electric, zero emissions sandcar.

On April 24th of this year, the company announced the release of the industry's first all-electric sandcar. The company has claimed a "phenomenal" response from customers. "The public realizes the benefits of an all-electric zero emissions vehicle, especially with rising gas prices now averaging over $4.00 per gallon in the US. Utilizing the latest in motor & controller technology, again, from Azure Dynamics, a leader in providing solutions for the electric car industry along with advanced Lithium Ion battery technology from AEVehicles, we are happy to announce the second all-electric sandcar model available from Xtreme Motorsports."