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WRC Champ Drifting Ferrari in the Snow = Yes

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

by Zack K

 

Sliding a car in the snow is to me what a line of butter-stick-shaped sex toys is to Paula Dean. I saw this video of 1978 WRC Champ Markku Alen and thought, “that’s the most perfect moment the world could offer.” Drifting snowy corners while giggling out loud, “I’m driving a ************** Ferrari right now!” would be incredible.

 

But I think it would also make me a little nervous. Sliding a $35k Subaru around is fun, and the consequences of failure aren’t TOO bad. But a miscalculation in a car costing over $300,000 would leave me a sobbing, self-hating mess. There’s a great feeling you get from not giving a fuck; it removes the limiter on the fun meter. I wouldn’t turn down this opportunity and I’m not saying I wouldn’t put the memory in the spank bank, but I’d be nervous as hell of that front lip clipping a snow bank. Ah well, 84,323 posts and I’ll have that spoiler paid for. Make the jump to watch Alen do it proper.

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03.02.2012 Video 1 Comment

Co-driver Can’t Keep Up

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

"Crest.." "Uh, we're already in the air. Can you talk faster?"

by Zack K

This video from The Daily Hoon is pretty funny. It’s a WRC special stage rally with an unknown driver. The driver is hauling ass through this twisty tarmac stage, and the co-driver just can’t keep up. The guy urges her to speed up several times. He’s practically driving the course without notes, and that makes his crazy speed even more impressive. 4km in, their coms stop working, so she has to shout the notes and she sounds exactly like Rachel Dratch doing that weird, Eastern European accent. You could turn this into a drinking game: how many times does she call out the corner and he’s already in it? Grab a bottle and hit the jump. (more…)

31.01.2012 Video 6 Comments

TUNED: Roadtrip to Art Morrison Enterprises

Monday, January 30th, 2012

 

What makes a vehicle amazing is its chassis. You can bolt on all the after-market suspension, sway bars, strut bars or roll cages you want but their performance is limited, ultimately, by the chassis. You can sprint and lift all you want, but if you’re 5’5″ and 135 lbs your skeleton will keep you out of the NFL. But thanks to Art Morrison, you can take the body off your hot-rod, ditch the weak, flexy, obsolete frame it came with and bolt to a chassis whose abilities probably exceed yours.

 

One of our favorite episodes of TST was the Art Morrison 1960 Corvette 3G. The episode was fun to make and looked amazing but the star of it was the car. It accelerated, turned, and stopped better than many modern Corvettes. Then there was the 1955 Chevy Bel Air, the car that changed Matt’s perception of what a hot rod can be. Art’s chassis are also used as the back-bone of the incredible one-off off-roaders made by ICON. There’s nothing he can’t improve. That’s why we drove up to Washington to film this episode for “TUNED.” We went to see his shop and find out how he -along with his son, Craig- are able to make old cars so damn good. Unfortunately the rain kept us from driving their latest project, but we had fun learning what it is that makes these cars so good. Jump for the video.  (more…)

30.01.2012 Video 2 Comments

Turner Motorsport – 24 Hours of Daytona Episode 1 – Testing

Friday, January 27th, 2012

 

The Smoking Tire heads to Daytona Beach, FL to follow Turner Motosports as they enter the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. It’s the 50th year of the legendary race and they’ve brought 2 nasty E92 BMW M3 GTs to compete. (Turn your volume up for the in-car footage; they sound incredible.)  In part 1 we meet the team and watch the drivers take the cars out for final  testing, addressing issues like tire wear, over-steer and night-time fatigue. Watch for newcomer, Michael Marsal, ripping past an Audi R8 GT on the outside of the oval. Video after the click.

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27.01.2012 News, Video No Comments

No BMW M Diesel Soup for America!

Friday, January 27th, 2012

by Zack K

Last night I was hanging out with our friend and TST podcast member, Chris Hayes, and the news of BMW‘s new diesel M cars came up. We were both excited. They combine huge torque (545 ft-lbs!) with 376HP while getting 36 MPG. Perfect, right? And since the 335d had 51/49 F/R weight distribution, the concern of a heavy nose is gone. Fucking awesome. Except they’re not bring them to the USA. Once again Europe has great fruit we can’t reach. I think the diesel movement is slowly growing here but at a slow rate. Shame. Luxury car buyers would love diesel if they gave it a chance. They feel the torque in a V-8, refer to it as “powerful” and that makes them feel good. But since they rarely wind their cars past 4k, they’re just wasting a good V-8 and a bunch of gas. One day, we’ll get a shot at these. For now, I wrote a little thing I imagine is how a conversation might go with BMW, from the perspective of someone begging them to bring these awesome cars to the USA. Jump for that and the pretty moving picture of the M550d, BMW X5 M50d and BMW X6 M50d. (more…)

27.01.2012 News, Video 4 Comments

“Love for Life” Captures Why We Drive (video)

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

by Zack K

This is a YouTube video called, “Motorsport-Love for Life.” It’s a short film, by Antti Kalhola. It uses a compilation of racing footage – drivers, cars, rally, F1 teams, wins, losses, crashes, etc – but not simply strung together as eye candy. Paired with slow music and a voice over it starts with the question, “Why do we love?” to explain viewer why people race cars. Through images of broken cars, daunting elements, injured drivers or just the pain of defeat written on faces, this short film is about why we voluntarily put ourselves into a situation where we could lose-even die-yet we go back again the next day.

 

I think this video encapsulates the bigger passion of cars. It’s this kind of strange love that gets us up at 5AM for a show, or up all night wrenching, or working two jobs to buy parts and staying up late reading about suspension engineering or the latest crossover comparison. It’s why driving to us isn’t a chore or a simple means. We don’t know why we love, but we do. And to love is to live, and fo people like us, that means having cars in our life. This 4 minute film explains that, and all through the gorgeous imagery of incredibly fast cars doing what they do. Make the jump to watch.

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26.01.2012 Video 1 Comment

King of Hybrids: Toyota’s TS030 (Videos)

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

by Zack K

There’s no fun hybrid out there. The CR-Z has potential, but other than that, until the Porsche 918 Spyder shows up hybrid cars are a night spent at home with a blanket and some decaf tea. Whoopee. I understand their primary goal is MPG and the fun cars will take time but I like some personality in my car. Toyota has been the brand of vanilla ice cream, communion wafers and tepid water. They made really good wafers, but until the FR-S showed up, that’s all they made.

 

But today they showed up with a pepper-crusted steak, stuffed with jalapenos and a tumbler of whiskey on the side. This is their new race car, the TS030, and it’s a hybrid. It’s fast as shit, screaming around the Paul Ricard course. And unlike every hybrid we can buy, it actually screams. There’s overrun coming out of the pits, even pops and back fires. What?! Jump for 3 videos, with one awesome in-car angle with driver, Alex Wurz. (more…)

25.01.2012 News, Video No Comments

Video: Bullrun – Cops, Cars, and Superstars Premieres January 26th!

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Back in July, Matt participated in the Bullrun Rally for the fifth time, and the first as a co-driver. He ran with Rob Ferretti of Super Speeders in a 2000 Mustang Cobra R, and made a series of videos which can be found here.

But the Bullrun was also filmed for a TV show, which premieres on MTV2 This Thursday, January 26th, 2012 at 11:30 PM PST. We personally can’t wait to see more of Matt’s exploits on TV, especially since the promo video uses the word “race” several times (we thought we weren’t supposed to do that?). Hit the jump for the trailer, and leave your thoughts in the comments.

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24.01.2012 News, Video 1 Comment

Tests Say the Juke-R is Awesome. Duh. But Would You BUY One?

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

by Zack K

The Juke R was released into the wild recently, starring as the pace vehicle for the Dunlop 24 Hour race. Everyone and their mom saw the awesome video of it sliding around a small course, being chased by a Gallardo, SLS AMG and some other pretty cars. At that event, every magazine and blog (except this one!) were invited to stop by and drive this midget power-lifter around the course. And what a surprise, it’s really fun and really fast. Shocking. The results of putting a Nissan GTR drive-train into a shorter, lighter car are as risky and predictable as replacing the cheap Hershey’s syrup on your Sunday with a fancy chocolate flown in from Sweden. Gee, I wonder if that will taste good? (more…)

24.01.2012 News, Video 5 Comments

Special Stage Snow Rally: Freeway (video)

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

by Zack K

(UPDATE: A fan tipped us to his local news’ website, which covered this story. Police say the woman was having a “diabetic medical emergency”, which caused her to drive this way. The Fire Chief speculated, “The lights are on, but nobody’s home.” Story here)

So this person is hopefully on heavy hallucinogens. I hope she’s ripping along thinking, “Wow, this Candy Land video game is amazing. It’s like I’m really outside!!! Ok, time to focus. The only way to save the Gumdrop Princess is to reach the end of this giant penguin’s slide in time.”  I love to drive in the snow. I know I’ve looked longingly at a snow-covered center divider plenty of times and maybe if I was driving a Robby Gordon Hummer I would dip a tire into it. But this person is insane. They’re doing about 65MPH in a Hyundai Accent, hurtling into the unknown. Watch her hit the jumps. Think that slows her down? Wrong. That’s what you have to do to get the gold coins. Jump to watch.

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24.01.2012 Video 1 Comment

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