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.

Source: ferrariworld

Follow more of Zack’s stupid statements on Twitter, @ZackKlapman

"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.

Source: The Daily Hoon

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. 

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.

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.

“BMW is making performance diesel cars! Yes! Score! Finally torque and speed meet efficiency with it costing $1M like the 918. I can’t wait! Put me down for an M550d…What? You’re not selling it in America? Wh…oh because we don’t buy diesels? Well, yea, that’s true but I think there’s potential. Rich people love them some smooth torque. It’s why they buy the silly 550i and CLS550! Nononono not that the CLS and 550i are similar, of course not did I mention what nice, cliche industrial-looking glasses you have?  I’m telling you, Mr. Hansdietrichbeerfranzenscarypeoplewunderbar, I think if you just put a little work into the marketing-explain the power, torque and handling with hybrid-like MPG- you might be surpri….but what if…not going to even try? True, Ed Hardy people don’t buy diesel, we’re working on a detainment program actually…The money is better spent improving the efficiency at which you develop efficiency?… sounds like Germany all right. What about enthusiasts!? Bam! There ya go, they’ll totally – they don’t buy much? K, got me there. They love buying your hats though… Damn you’re efficient at rebuttles…  *sigh*”

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.

Thanks to Antti Kalhola

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.

The car is set to race at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in May, and after that (hopefully) it will run at Le Mans. I know winning at Le Mans takes years, and even then it’s uncertain, but a rivalry between a Toyota Hybrid and an Audi TDI would make my day. And either way, we win. I’m glad to see Toyota had a few vodka and Monster Rehabs before heading into their meetings.

Pit Lane

Hot laps:

On board:

Thanks to YouTubers racecareng and AutostradaTV.

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.

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?

Of course it did. Motor Trend took it around and reported it had quicker turn-in, rotated easier and was generally more fun and involving to drive. Awesome. And of course, now the speculation begins as to whether or not Nissan will actually sell this psychotic pill bug to the public. I’m betting if the office gets enough inquiries from well-financed buyers (read: not people like you, or me, or 14 year old Forza ‘Ring rats) they will. But my question to you is: Would you actually buy one? Would you spend, say, 6-figures for this car? And if you did, where would you drive it? I’m genuinely curious. Journalists live in impulsive fantasy land, “Should they make a 3,000HP Audi A1 with balloon tires? Of course they should.” But the subtitles there are, “That way I can rub-and-tug my way into a test-drive and have some fun in this ridiculous moon explorer without committing any real money to it.” We want everything built because no way in hell eventually we’ll get to drive it for free. We try to make imagination land real, for free. But that’s not fair.

So the Juke-R is fun, it’s fast, it’s crazy-looking and it’s clearly the love-child of mischief and LSD-inspired design. But would you plunk down the coin for it? If it’s a track toy, aren’t there better or more exciting ones for the money? If it’s a fun street-machine, how soon before that novelty wore off? And if it’s a daily driver, in my opinion, for the money, it’s too ugly. So, comment below: If they built it, would you buy it, and why?

Pics from: Automotor Blog

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.

If you haven’t been following our new series Tuned on the /DRIVE Network, you’ve been missing out. We started by romping on BBi Autosport’s Porsche Turbo S, then moved on to crusing Grant’s Pass, Oregon in the amazing Decoliner RV by Blastolene. This week, we made it to the Dirtfish Rally School in Snoqualmie, WA, where we learned about rally car building and preparation, while Matt got to race six-time X-Games Gold Medalist Bucky Lasek.

Bucky, much more well known for skateboarding than for cars, isn’t exactly an easy takedown. He spends his weekends at the track club racing his modified Porsche 996 Turbo. He has raced Porsche cup cars at Sebring, Daytona, and all over southern California. And his skateboarding background means he’s used to pushing the limit. But when it comes to rally cars, he has the same 2 days of experience that Matt does. The race is closer than you’d think, but who will win? Hit the jump to find out.

by Zack K

By now you’ve heard about the big arrest of the Megaupload founder, Kim Schmitz, in New Zealand. No? You don’t read any websites other than this one and Mama’s Knitting Blog? Jesus. The short version is Kim Schmitz was a Gumball driver and hacker.  He lived life with the character and humility Scarfaces’ secret 16 year old millionaire son would have. He started Megaupload-a file sharing site-and made a shitload of money selling ads and memberships to people seeking pirated content. And now the money, cars, house and *cough* “party girls” are going away. He’s like a nerdy James Bond villain. Make the jump for the details and videos of his high-speed Gumball rallies, and the recent arrest.

I saw the headline of “Megaupload Founder Arrested” on my news app, and as curious citizen with knowledge of the site, I was curious. So I clicked to the story. Then it said “Kim Scmitz” and I thought, “Holy fucking shit! It’s that big dude from the Gumball rallies!” I immediately recognized him as the giant who had burned himself into my brain as the weird German guy who drove his Mercedes “CL3000″ like psychopath, laughing like an infant at 155MPH.

I had watched those videos countless times. They have the rare honor of being internet videos from the early days I still remember vividly. The genesis of my high-speed, long distance rally dreams, and my envy for every real Cannonball participant, were the Gumball and Mischief 3000 videos. The videos made Kim look like the fastest driver in the group (he wasn’t), so naturally I’d remember him. His attitude on camera was one of extreme confidence, almost a playful ego, like walking around with the knowledge you could uproot buildings and cause a lightning strike with a simple thought. After watching the videos I Googled him for a while, trying to find out who soft-spoken giant was. All I could find was a strange website with as much content as an empty refrigerator box. No resume, no history, no employment. This seemed weird, but I paid no mind, because I was 18 and was more focused on things like skateboarding and jungle juice.

Kim on the Gumball 3000 in Morocco.

That invincible attitude is reinforced with the Megupload case. After getting in trouble in Germany and Thailand for insider trading he moved to New Zealand, away from Interpol’s attention span. That’s the great thing about internet crime, it can be based anywhere. If you believe all the Verizon wireless ads, you could run a company like this from a hot air balloon. He rented a giant mansion, which he would have bought had the government not denied his application due to failing the “good character” test they give to hopeful migrants. I guess they were right.

This video is a news report from TV3 in New Zealand.

While living there Kim lived an extroverted life. When his family was granted residency, he paid for a New Year’s Eve firework display over Auckland at a cost of $500,000. He threw countless parties attended by pretty girls. I’m going to go out on a limb and say those ladies probably received “invitations” that looked a lot like cashier’s checks. Living loud and extravagantly is certainly the norm of criminal masterminds from the big screen, but you notice that always draws attention? 007 loved to crash an evil geniuses holiday party and take crumpet-laden crap on the baccarat table. And if you’ve already gotten in trouble, wouldn’t you want to fly a little more under the radar? Maybe not have license plates that say, “HACKER”, “MAFIA”, “GOD”, “STONED” and-best yet- “GUILTY” like Kim did. I know he’s a genius but the border between cocky and stupid is often paper thin. I mean, is it smart to advertise that you’re a criminal who thinks he’s untouchable? I wouldn’t drive a Ferrari with the plate “ISELROX” in 1985 when the drug war was beginning.

The F.B.I. showed up a few days ago. Despite Kim hitting the ” Oh shit, the cops are here.” button, activating some “electronic security” devices and locking himself in a “safe room” with a shotgun, the cops got him.

I’ve seen comments on YouTube both for and against the F.B.I.’s actions. I know some Top Gear UK fans have used torrents to see episodes, due to American cable’s delusional thought we wouldn’t enjoy that show. But Megaupload was different. Despite its legitimate business as a file sharing platform for companies and artists (Kanye West and Will.I.Am did commercials, touting the site’s ability to transfer songs.) most of it’s money came from selling subscriptions and advertising. I’ve “heard” the site is flooded with ads. What that means is someone steals the newest episode of “Bones” and uploads it. Then Kim tells advertisers 50 million people will visit his site and gets paid to put ads in but doesn’t send any money to the studios that made them. It’s a black-market TV network, essentially. Content providers estimate Megaupload cost them $500M in potential revenue and made $175M from advertising. Say what you want about studios already being rich or the internet needing to exist un-tethered but if I found out someone was re-posting our TST videos and making money off ads they’d sold, I’d shove that $500,000 firework display up their ass and start the New Year’s Countdown.

Watching the first video (at top) of Kim, I saw his attitude toward life summed up in one excited sentence, “I wish it could be Gumball every day.” He said it like a kid who just went to a water park for the first time, earnestly asking his parents on the ride home if they can move there. He lived every day like a Gumball rally. It’s the attitude of “Who cares?” It’s the attitude you have on New Year’s Eve when you meet a someone of questionable looks or hygiene, or how you act in Vegas on your 30th birthday. But you can’t live every day like that, because irresponsibility cannot last very long. Kim did, and now he’s going to jail.

by Zack K

We all make engine noises with our mouths. Admit it. You’ve either been describing a car, a race, trying to explain to your friends what your new exhaust sounds like (because surely MY skilled mouth can perfectly mimic the pitch differences between an Invidia exhaust and a Crawford one.) or you’re playing with your die-cast models. Either way, we do it, it’s fun and we don’t care how infantile it is or how many girls it confuses and horrifies.

F1 drivers are no different. Someone put them in front of a video camera and asked them to imitate their own cars. It’s pretty funny. And if you’re wondering “Do I sound that silly?” the answer is yes, yes you do.

by Zack K

 I love this guy. This video is of traffic in Chechnya. The impatient white car is impatiently weaving, looking for a safe place to pass. There’s nowhere to go, really, but he doesn’t care, a silly sentiment I share with him, daily. The camera car honks at him; the automotive equivalent of an old woman’s finger shake. The driver responds with the ultimate “Frankly, ma’am, I don’t give a fuck.” by holding an AK-47 out the window and firing it into the air. Nice move. Amazingly, everyone keeps trundling along, for a moment at least. You’ll have to watch the rest. It’s quite entertaining from the safe location of the internet. Make the jump to watch.

This perfectly encapsulates my attitude in traffic. Yes, I’m an angry, greedy, dick, attempting to apex and WOT my way to some imaginary finish line. I drive as if I got a suggestive text from the cast of “MILF Island” that ends with “You only have 5 minutes before this offer expires.” But in my mind really, I shout through my windshield for the greater good. I’m a red-faced, cursing Mother Theresa; I want everyone to get to their destination faster. Like a sheepdog, I bark and rev, urging the cattle to move faster. I’m an aggressive driver, and most people probably hate me, but if everyone actually knew what their car could do and had the skills to back it up, we’d all get places a lot faster. Ever transfer freeways behind someone going 20MPH under the speed limit, because apparently they’re afraid there could be a dragon waiting around the corner? I hate that person. I want them to die. So, I think I should at least be able to motivate them via a few 7.62mm fired into the air. Forget Colorado, my vacation house will be in Chechnya, where people like me are allowed to run free.

The 24 Hours of Lemons is the fastest growing racing series in America, and for good reason: It’s cheap, at least by normal racing standards. Cars must not be worth more than $500, and poor driving is punished with hilarious penalties, dished out by Matt and the Lemons Supreme Court, comprised of Motor Trend’s Jonny Lieberman and The Truth About Cars’s Phil Greden (aka Murilee Martin). As a bonus, Matt is invited to pilot the safety car before the race, so we built our own replica of Formula One’s Safety Cars out of a brand-new C63 AMG coupe. Hit the jump for the video.

Of course this video was really fun to make, but it does lack the full in-depth review of the C63 that some of you were probably hoping for. Good news! Matt wrote one of those too, and it’s available in the free online magazine Road Lanes. 

Click here to read it.

by Zack K

These guys’ lack of shit-giving would decapitate that stupid honey badger. The picture above should give you an idea of how serious and awesome this video is. Not very and a very damn much. Formula D champ Chris Forsberg and a bunch of his crazy buddies got together and took over a racetrack with their mildly ratty but completely fun-as-shit drift cars. There’s no artsy shots, no game faces, no quick detail spray. What there is is 8 cars drifting around the entire compound (buildings, stands, the ticket booth) inches from each other. Animals were probably harmed in the making of this film. I love drifting, but I haven’t seen a video this fun and reckless in a while. This is what we would do if we had full access to a track (and real drifting talent) and just said “fuck it.”

It’s only the first part of the movie and they’ll probably space them out like an IV drip, keeping us happy through the winter. BloodMasters, if you’re listening, the TST crew approves and would love to have you at our next BBQ. We share your passion for automotive anarchism. Now enjoy the video below. Someone get me a denim vest.

Source: BloodMastersNJ

Last week, on the season premiere of Tuned, Matt visited BBi Autosport in Huntington Beach to drive a very impressive Porsche. This week, we turn it up a notch. Matt and the crew heads 800 miles north to Grant’s Pass, Oregon to visit the world’s greatest living hot rodder, Randy Grubb and his one-man company, Blastolene (greatest name ever ,BTW). Randy’s story is so good, and his passion for his craft so strong, that we simply had to share it with you. While he is best known for his first-ever creation, Jay Leno’s “Tank Car,” each of Randy’s projects seem to be better than the last. We awarded his semi truck, “Piss’d Off Pete” our highly coveted Best of SEMA award in 2009, and now we’re visiting him to drive the vehicle he’s been building since then. Introducing, the DecoLiner. Look at the picture above and consider this: Randy designed and built this functional flybridge motorhome from scratch, by himself, in his garage, in just over 5,000 hours. If you’re anything like us, your first thought is “Please let me drive that.” Fortunately, when you’re Matt, the answer is almost always “Sure.”

Hit the jump for the video review of this amazing custom vehicle.

The Deco-Liner is for sale, and Randy would like it to go to a good home so he can make some room in his garage for his next incredible project. If you’re interested in buying this piece of rolling art, go to www.blastolene.com

by Zack K

The Ferrari 458 Spider configurator has confused me. I clicked the link, and immediately changed it from the dark Rosso mugello to the traditional Rossa Corsa, because if I’m going to buy a Ferrari I want it to be “Ferrari red.” But since this is the internet where you can find a picture that caters to your fantasy about having a threesome with a Halo truck and a furry I decided to click through the other colors, just to see how they looked. I started with the usual blue, black and white but then kept going: Grigio ingrid (like sand), Blue Abu Dhabi, even one resembling British Racing Green-which felt somewhat sacrilegious- looked good enough to drive daily. I questioned my taste, “What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t want a teal car!”

See, I have always said my first Ferrari would be red. Call me typical, predictable, boring, unoriginal, monotone, a sheep, tacky, douchey, lame, boring, trashy or any other insulting word built upon the countless red Ferraris you’ve seen over the years; I don’t care. Partly to blame is something similar to frequency and inception. Like you, I’ve grown up seeing mostly red Ferraris and that repetition has planted the idea in my mind that a Ferrari should be red. That’s probably 20% of it. The other 80% is that I really really like the way their cars look in Rossa Corsa. It’s bright without looking soft, bold without the wannabe toughness that comes with black or matte (All “tough” guys are hedge fund managers and send back bottles of corked Pinot. Bring it!!). Red is a color that screams as loud as the car does and announces to the slower cars ahead of you that moving to the right is in their interest of self-preservation. It exudes the spirit of a Ferrari and suits it perfectly, like a soul-less medieval dungeon master wearing coarsely cut black leather from head to toe.

Yet here I am looking at every different color and thinking (with a few exceptions) they all look fantastic. Was it the color? The quality CGI? The usual exotic car lust that makes us sell our children and do away with eating? Nope. The 458 Spider just looks that good. When Vicky Henderson spent 5 tearfully happy minutes flying around Italy in one, I knew it was a great car to drive, especially without a roof to get in the way of its sonorous wail, but that was more about the driving than the shape. But taking a step back, it looks incredible. I think it looks even better than the coupe, something I can’t remember saying about any car, ever. Ferrari has done such a good job, it looks good in any color. Head over to the configurator and build one yourself. My first Ferrari will still be Rossa Corsa red, but if it’s not a 458 Spider, when I buy one of those I’m going to be as decisive a hypochondriac picking a toilet in a truck stop.

by Zack K

If you cheat accidentally, is it cheating? That’s the question that came to mind when I read Matt Bubbers’ story on retired rally driver, Rauno Aaltonen. They call Rauno the “Original Flying Finn” and after you read his story, you’ll know why. Make the jump to read about the harrowing, snow-covered mountain shortcut Mr. Aaltonen “found” at 85MPH.

In 1962 Aaltonen crashed and found himself upside down in a car that was on fire. He said he heard classical music (due to a lack of orchestras at rallies I’d say that’s a bad sign) and swirling vision. Suddenly, his co-driver screamed for him to get out, and since his belts had the built-in safety feature of melting when presented with fire (that’s a joke), he freed himself. A lesser man might look at the burning car, quit his rally career and go into a safer one- maybe testing the softness of cotton balls-but Aaltonen had been racing on and off-road since the 1940′s, so he didn’t quit.

5 years later he was in Monte Carlo, the most celebrated and important rally of the time. He was driving a Mini Cooper, a car he loved because of it’s tiny wheel-base and short over hangs. Other cars were more powerful but for him the small size allowed him to have more room on the road and gave him a better racing line.

(Here’s what the Col de Turini looks like in the daytime).

One of the special stages was the Col de Turini (click for WRC video). It’s a narrow road set above steep cliffs, climbing then descending to the finish. When they arrived at the stage Aaltonen was in 1st place, 12 seconds ahead of a Porsche. But right as the starting marshall counted down, there was an accident on the road. So Rauno had to wait. And wait…and wait.

As he sat there, snow fell, covering the icy road in thick fluff, and making his narrow, spiked tires as grippy as a 95 year old woman. Finally, it was clear, and they were off. But soft, deep snow and narrow tires are not friends. Grip on the climb was minimal, and at the peak they were now 2.5 minutes behind. On the downhill the pace quickened; Rauno was doing 85 MPH- mostly sideways- on a road as wide as dental floss but to make up 150 seconds seemed impossible.

Then, mid-corner, they hit a patch of ice. Rauno knew they were going off. There were boulders lining the road, and he knew he could aim for them to stop car. But he didn’t, because he’s a psychopath. Rather than hitting the cave-man’s guard rail, he aimed between the rocks. Why? Check out this logic: He knew the slope below was “only” a 45 degree slope. So he “knew” he wouldn’t die falling down a cliff. His idea was shoot the gap, hopefully miss all the trees and rocks below and magically make it back to a road. Sure. While we’re at it, let’s jump from a plane, take off the chute we brought, and hope we find another one on the way down.

But that’s what happened. Somehow through the blessing of the almighty spaghetti monster, they landed between fir trees and snowy boulders and kept going. “As we had already left the road there was no point of stopping, as the Mini would immediately sink deep, but to continue hoping to find some road.” And find it they did, ending up back on the special stage road, taking a Frontier Airlines shortcut to get there. This guy is out of his mind, “Oh, since we’re already flying through the air into Whoknowsbutyayicicles, let’s just keep going?” Talk about luck. They ended up winning the stage (and the rally) by 5 seconds.

“I told my co-driver to shut-up his mouth and don’t tell anything. And so, for 20 years I never told anybody. It’s no good to tell because it would just stir things up, you see.”

So Aaltonen cheated, technically, but considering the balls it takes to shoot that gap and hope for the best I’m certainly not going to call the WRC or shake my finger at him. What he did was totally insane, and absolute luck. We see rally highlight after highlight of people bouncing into trees, flipping down hills, even happening upon horses. No one would intentionally leave the road, because it’s way safer than what’s around it. I know he didn’t follow the rules, but the guy risked blind flight in the off-chance he could stay in the race. What if there was a cliff at the bottom of the hill? What if there was a marauding band of cannibals with spears and a hatred of small, FWD cars? If you put this in a movie, I’d find it as believable as towing a 20-ton safe while doing controlled drifts. But it was real, it happened, and they lived. This kind of perilous chance is what makes rally driving the greatest racing sport in the world. And considering Rauno stayed puckered for at least 10 years after this race, I’d say we can give him a pass on this.

Source: Autos Sympatico

by Zack K

I’m nominating this video for best video ad of 2012. I know, it’s early. Hollywood does this when they roll out a piece of shit on January 2nd (“The best romantic comedy of the year!”) but when they do it, it’s because that movie will sink to last place in a matter of days and remain there for the rest of time. But this video, sponsored by ICON, GoPro and a littany of other performance companies, just fucking kills it. It’s the sequel to the original, spank-bank-worthy “Motorcycle vs Car Drift Battle” video that came out exactly one year ago. It featured Nick “APEX” Brocha sliding a stretched ZX10 around while an LS-powered RX-7 slid after him. I had never seen someone corner a bike like that, and it’s view count of over 4 million means neither had any of you.

This new video takes it up many notches. Nick is back, with his buddy Ernie Vigil. They take some Triumphs off the racetrack, into the hills of Washington. They’re riding is ridiculous, balancing a slippery rear wheel from turn to turn. But this time, there’s an addition, a “Smokey” played by drifter Dan Brockett. He chases down the 2-wheeled ruffians in the baddest cop car to date (Sorry, Gallardo), a Ford Mustang SVT Cobra. The combination of location, aerial shots, editing, driving, riding and execution is something fellow video nerds and non-blind people will unanimously love. It’s just sick. This is the best commercial since the Gymkhana series. Suck it, GEICO newt.  Ok, I can’t think anymore, I have to go watch it again. Make the jump, raise the resolution and grab a doughnut. Enjoy.

Source: Icon

Some of you may not have heard of Tuned, our new show on the DRIVE Network. Whereas here on The Smoking Tire we tend to focus on factory stock car reviews, Tuned is all about the best custom projects around, from street cars to trucks, offroad to land yachts. In our season premiere, we hit up our old friends at BBi Autosport, who said we absolutely must try their 650 horsepower Porsche 997 Turbo S PDK. The car isn’t just about horsepower, either; it’s got the chassis, suspension, and brake upgrades to match. And as you can imagine, I take it out, drive it hard, and put it away wet. Hit the jump for the video and see what Tuned is all about.

These guys are straight up nutsy-awesome. To give you an idea, they have a video called, “rock crawling is for pussies.” These guys built a buggy with a 638HP ZR1 motor, 4-wheel steering, 4WD and a roll cage that resembles a tarantula. Then they approach a rock trail, usually approached at lower speeds (with exceptions) and just fucking floor it. They hit the ledges, bounce 8 feet in the air, land and keep charging. The rule seems to be, “WOT or die.” with a little yeee-haw thrown in. It’s crazy, but I’ll do anything to get a ride in one of these. Seems safe.

- Zack K

by Zack K

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. My slightly cynical brain has observed enough people making and breaking them to know that just because Ryan Seacrest takes a break from giving Mario Lopez hand jobs to watch a big, lit-up ball drop it won’t make you stick to your diet. I did, however, make a “to do” list for 2012, and one of the things on it is to drive over 200 MPH. Somewhere, sometime, don’t care, needs to happen.

That goal is why I think this car, and the videos below, are so damn awesome. Jeff Gerner took a 1992 Audi S4, jammed 32 lbs of boost into it and brought it to Bonneville. Make the jump to find out the whys and hows, and watch this humble-looking (ok, aside from the stickers) sedan run near Veyron speeds.

A quick background on Jeff: He’s been working with cars and engines his whole life. He started drag racing a ’68 Camaro when he was 18, and then built a purpose-built dragster at 19. He spent his working career as an automotive fleet maintenance manager. Since “retirement” he started a race shop, http://fourringperformance.com/, which focuses on Audi/VW engines. But the guy can build pretty much anything. Basically, he’s been making things go fast since high school.

He chose a 1992 Audi S4, because his daily driver is a 1994 S4. He had already “tested” the high speed abilities and found that it was stable at 160MPH. He also knew the famous 20-valve I-5 motor would be up to the task. He explains:

“For those new to the Audi fold, this engine was originally developed for Audi’s legendary Group B rally cars. It was then used in Audi’s all conquering SCCA Trans Am and IMSA GTO class entries which were so dominant, in the late eighties and early ninety’s, that they were eventually kicked out of both series by the sanctioning bodies. They could not be beaten and all the other manufacturers were going to quit, so they kicked Audi out! How cool is that? So I wanted that engine to have a world speed record as well.”

I’ve known about the strength of the 20V ever since a friend co-worker bought one in college. In layman terms, they’re the Supra motors of Germany, as proven by the insanely high-powered Group B rally cars. Jeff took this one and shoved all his knowledge into it, ending with a car that made about 1100HP at 29 psi.(down form 32 for safety).

He also liked the car for it’s sturdy engineering:

“Additionally, I knew the UR S4′s were built like a tank and that it would hold up in a high speed crash as well or better than any other car I could choose.”

I don’t know how strong metal can be at 240 MPH but I’m glad he didn’t have to find out.  So he built this S4. And build it he did. He spent thousands of hours on the car, putting in safety systems like a cage, fire suppression and the awesome-sounding “inertia activated fuel shutoff.”

(2009 run where he set a class record of 222.996MPH, on the stock block at 9500 RPM.)

I tend to operate cars with a little bravado, probably too much at times. My policy is, if someone else has driven a car X miles per hour- and lived- it’s safe (in the right situation). I’ve topped out every car I’ve owned without incident. (I know it’s illegal and all that, but no one who reads this site has obeyed every law since age 16, so keep it to yourself). This doesn’t mean you can drive fast without focus and skill, but as people like Brock Yates and Alex Roy have proved, high-speed travel can be safe if done in proper cars, by capable drivers.

But speeds like this in a home-built car is a whole different game. Reading his interview I learn Jeff had to put the same kind of thought into his 20-year old car that Bugatti engineers did. The laws of physics are laws, and they don’t care if you’re driving something that cost $1M or $1. Jeff had to account for things I hadn’t thought of; the exhaust pressure exiting under the car possibly causing lift, for example. Cars in his class can’t have after-market aero, so he used the suspension to give the car a natural wedge shape. The stock roof rails were actually extended slightly to provide side to side stability, like a rudder. Jeff left no stone unturned, no foreseeable problem was passed over.
The video is not able to embed, so click the picture to jump to the vimeo page.

The World’s Fastest Audi – Landspeed record attempt in a 1992 Audi S4 from QuattroWorld.com on Vimeo.

Just plain awesome. Jeff has said this car accelerated harder than his old 600HP, 1973 drag car. It’s so powerful, you can’t give it full throttle until the top of 4th gear. Do it wrong and you get wheel-spin at all four corners, even at 190MPH. That’s gotta be interesting.

I hope I can do something like this one day. And while achieving that speed in anything- Veyron or Zonda or Koenigsegg, etc- would be incredible, there’s another element that comes from doing it in something that was never built to go that fast. Jeff Gerner had a dream, set a goal, built this car himself and then successfully ran it. Unfortunately, the motor blew on his follow-up run, ending his chance at an official record. It blew because Jeff wanted to set the record with the stock oil pump, which failed. This guy really loves the 20V motor, doesn’t he? But he’s fixing that issue, and he’ll be back at Bonneville soon. With his expertise and attention to details, i have no doubt he’ll do it. And QuattroWorld promised to be there.

Big thanks to QuattroWord for a great interview and video, and Hooniverse for finding it.

Source: Hooniverse

Original story: Quattro World

World Rally Championship is one of the most exciting and difficult motorsports in the known universe, it’s been that way since it began. Despite Subaru pulling out and leaving a dead spot in my heart, there was plenty of clinical insanity to be watched. Ken Block flipping his car a dozen times, high-speed drifts through snow, Loeb, Raikkonen, Solberg and all the rest. ESPN put together a highlights reel for us, and it’s definitely worth the 8 minute attention span. I’m sure next year will be more of the same. The same being the best damn racing ever. Jump to watch it.

- Zack K

So here’s…something. It’s an entertainment center built out of a real Porsche 996′s ass. It even has real brakes and wheels. That’s not a waste at all. Surprisingly it’s not made by Porsche Design, probably because they think it’s as ridiculous as I do. And that’s a feat, because they had the balls to make a $2,000 hookah and even their own cell phone, “Ze iPhone? Vat is zis iPhone? Bah. Our phone vill be betta! It vont have nearly ze lateral keyboard grip, or lag-free input response of our zellphone.”

No, this was just made by a guy. He’s probably a Porsche fan no shit Zack who saw the ’55 Chevy couches and wanted something similar that a Porschefile like him would appreciate. I understand that. It’s why we have posters, pictures and models filling our house up. They’re all reminders of something you love, an experience you had, the adrenaline of driving. But this is just the most inconvenient thing in the world. It holds a 42″ flat screen TV, which it raises up out where the back seat would be. Again, it takes mad balls to take the brilliantly thin flat-screen television- designed specifically to take up less space- and bolt it to something the size of a breakfast table. Make the jump to watch it in action, and more snark.

I guess sleek, subtle furniture is out. Later, IKEA. The new hotness is gigantic two-toned furniture that blinks several different lights at you while it performs its only function. The taillights are so bright when that TV raises up I was expecting a small rocket to launch. I can’t imagine someone buying this, but the purchasing invoice of Porsche enthusiasts is anything but logical, subtle or classy, so I bet I’m proven wrong.

- Zack K

This is the perfect taxi driven by the perfect driver. This guy knows what “post haste” means. This is customer service at its finest. We’re always rushing to get somewhere, so why not take that up a notch? And taxis are diversifying from the standard Crown Vic so why not a rally-ready Evo? Burnouts and e-brake u-turns are absolutely the quickest way to get around. Do not argue with my logic. I don’t know about you, but if I could drive like this every day I absolutely would. Catch me with low blood sugar, too much caffeine and 20 minutes in traffic, and sometimes I do. “Officer, a slow power-slide is a much quicker way to turn around in the Miata than a 3-point turn. You don’t want me holding up traffic do you?”

Cab drivers of the world, pay attention. This is what we want. You make more money, people enjoy the ride and everyone gets things done a little bit quicker. Makes sense to me. Jump to watch the video. It’s awesome.

Who doesn’t like drag racing? Smoke pouring from tires, cars lined up and shaking like chained dogs staring at a rabbit 1/4 mile away. It’s a very different feeling than road racing. You know you have only a few seconds of WOT and then it’s over. It was on my mind the second I got my license and I raced every weekend in high school, as did Matt (although he did it legally). Today we have some vintage drag porn for you, a documentary called Drag On.

It takes us inside why drivers did it, how fast the cars were, and reminds us what it was like before everyone had a CNC machine, CAD design, aeronautics degree and millions of dollars. The safety equipment here is laughable by today’s standards, and we know having an exposed engine right in front of the driver is a bad idea, but back in those days these were the fastest cars around. Here they are captured on film, with slow-motion burnouts, driver interviews and plenty of noisy, crazy-fast runs. The scary thing is  they’re not that much slower than cars today.  Make the jump to watch.

- Zack K

It’s been a while since Matt has made a guest appearance on The Car Report, by FoxNews.com (no, not that Fox News). Hosted by our old friend Gary Gastelu, The Car Report is a weekly live program discussing all things cars. This being the last show of the year, we simply had to address the North American Car and Truck of the year awards and how, frankly, silly they are. Just for reference, here are the finalists, chosen by them. 

Car: 

Ford Focus

Hyundai Elantra

Volkswagen Passat

Truck:

BMW X3

Honda CR-V

Land Rover Range Rover Evoque

As we can see, these choices are all rather silly. Sure, the Focus is a nice car (as Matt well knows), but three small crossovers making up the “truck” category?  I don’t care if the Evoque looks amazing, that’s just ridiculous. Join myself, Gary, and Jalopnik.com honcho Mike Spinelli on The Car Report as we come up with our own list.

Fox won’t allow us to embed the video here, but hit the link to watch the 15-minute video.

I used to think that every driver was trying to drive the same line, the same way, with the same steering and throttle input, every time. I assumed someone had taken a physics class, calculated the best way to drive a car, and all the drivers would drive like that. I thought, ideally, they should all be mirror images of each other. There’s a racing line, there’s the physical properties of grip, so theoretically everyone should try to drive according to those properties and thus, the same.

But they don’t. Watch the great F1 drivers (slow motion helps) and there are subtle differences. In 2006 former F1 driver and current F1 commentator Martin Brundle made this great video, showing the driving styles of Alonso, Button, Schumacher and Raikkonen. Using Red Bull’s F1 car (in the rain no less) Martin flies around the track, shouting the differences in approach, apex, entry speed, and driving style. All of them go fast, but they have different ways of doing it. Make the jump for the video.

- Zack K

Rally racing is my favorite form of motorsports. I love drifting, but it’s like pizza; always great but also fairly simple. Rallying is way more complex. It is a 8-course meal of nuttiness. The drivers (IMO) are the most skilled on the planet. They race on a variety of surfaces, 2 of which (dirt and snow) are slippery and dangerous and you might encounter both in one rally. The surface even changes between cars, so the fastest line can change. There are a thousand variables at each moment, all while you’re going as fast as possible on a road surrounded by things that make you die. (Contrary to popular belief, trees and rocks are quite firm). It takes engineering skills, driver skills and there’s probably a sign at WRC headquarters with a picture of a racquetball that says, “You balls must be this big to  drive WRC.” Make the jump for 2 videos covering 2 great decades of rallying.

But the balls probably had to be bigger back in the day. HANS devices and roll cages with more metal pipes than Whitney Houston’s nights-stand make the cars relatively safe. But early rallying was just crazy. Group B cars had unlimited horsepower, the brakes and tires weren’t as advanced, and AWD wasn’t even allowed for awhile. Imagine trying to go as fast as Newton’s laws allow with 500+HP shoving you down a dirt road. Insane.

To celebrate this sport we love we would like to show you two videos, made by YouTube-er antoniscyprus, showing the greatest years of rallying, covering the 70s and 80s. Each video is over an hour long, so that gives you almost 3 hours of distraction from grandma’s incessant holiday questions. Call it a documentary and you can probably get out of most household chores for a few hours. If you tell parents it’s “educational” you can watch anything. How I convinced my mom Barb Wire was educational, I’ll never know.

Greatest Years of Rally 1970s

Greatest Years of Rally 1980s

- Zack K

Note: Let’s call this Sunday reading. It’s a bit long but there’s pretty pictures, even one that moves! It’s Sunday, take some time for the story I spent hours on yourself.

SEMA was over. The AdultCon of car shows had packed up, making way for the AdultCon of people; AdultCon. Hundreds of thousands of people stared at thousands of cars, parts, dudes in company polo shirts, failed strippers promo models, obstructing the way for depressed humanoids trying to gamble. Everyone went home on Friday…and missed the best show of the entire week: The Optima Batteries Ultimate Street Car Invitational

You should have gone, because this event is the shit. Matt was invited to compete in his 1998 C5 Corvette. We figured between the car’s lightweight, power and suspension and Matt knowing Spring Mountain like the palm of his hand, he might do pretty well. However we were not prepared for what showed up early on Saturday morning. Make the jump for the story and massive gallery.

Let me briefly explain the Optima Streetcar Invitational. It’s a triathlon for cars, except it has 5 events; Road Rally, Design, Road Course, Auto-X and Speed/Stop Challenge. Points are awarded to the top 20 finishers of each event. The Road Rally was first, but Matt decided not to run it. “Why?” I’m glad you asked.

Road Rally

The Road Rally was from Vegas to Pahrump. That day, NV decided it was bored of being known as a hot desert, and sent some rain (and at higher elevations, snow). Perhaps nature’s way of cleaning Vegas of neon lights and Lambo doors to make room for those talented actresses. Anyway, Matt loves convertibles. Before he drove from LA to Vegas he took the roof off his ’98 Corvette. Did I mention Matt left that roof behind? “That seems silly Mister Zack.” It is silly, Timmy. “Why?” I don’t remember why, something about his car will be in-doors all week and “so many Car Show groupies, it will be hitting me in the face.” Could be paraphrasing.  Point is he left it behind. “Mister Zack, does it rain in Nevada?”

Yes, Timmy. It does.

Cut to Friday, it’s raining and cold. Highway 15 had been closed due to snow. Matt was scrambling to find a solution. Borrow a roof, find a trailer to hitch a ride with, wait for the rain to die…all fails. We stared at the Optima awning, “I wonder if we can make it into a roof, like Lamborghini does…” We couldn’t. So, Matt quietly  put on 2 jackets, racing gloves and drove to Pahrump quickly. Yes officer, the speed keeps the rain out. He described it as a  less-than-optimal fornication experience, AKA, “that fucking sucked!” We felt his pain, our 2011 BMW X5 diesel was fitted with seat heaters only, no massage. The humanity. We thawed ourselves with potato water. The morning’s events were pushed aside by a young woman telling me about her friend, an “actress” who once made a “movie” where she “entertained”  600 gentlemen. I stared at a woman wearing a bikini in the winter, thinking “Can you catch syphilis from a bar stool?” Sleep.

Points earned: 0.

The morning came too soon. Cold and dark. The casino/gas station/swap-meet coffee was shitty. We pulled into Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch just after daylight did. We parked the car and found Matt in line for tech. He we realized  Optima uses the term “streetcar”  loosely. These cars were serious. A conversation with several owners could have gone like this, “Nice race trailer. Kinda big though isn’t it? You need the space for what?….to hold your 4 rolling Snap-On tool boxes and the soul of Michael Shumacher? Ah I see. Yeah it makes sense then.”

Half the field were classics. Camaros won the  popularity contest, along with 2 ’66 Mustangs that sounded like a NASCAR motor starting in a small cave. In fact, most of these cars had exhaust notes that can pierce a hymen standing too close. One Mustang had a 4-foot tall wing on it… no one laughed. That should say something. It’s the fight club of the pro-touring community. Race engines, wide-bodies, huge huge huge rubber. The fact that a modded Nissan GTR (Gee, wonder how it did?) had serious competition coming from multiple cars 40 years its senior should tell you something. In some ways a battle of generations.  A bright red wide-body Corvette started up. My hangover was overcome with a big grin. This is going to be an epic day. Matt didn’t smile.

Autocross

The good thing about the OUSCI is there’s several events. The bad thing is, two of them are run simultaneously. Because there were so many cars, the event had a tight schedule and the cars were split up. Auto-X and the Road Course would be ran at the same time. So you have to pick whether you want to watch every car do 1 event, or half the cars do both events. We stuck with Matt and headed to the Auto-X course. It was set up to be more open, allowing the high-powered cars to run a bit. No 15 MPH slice and dice.

The lineup was daunting. It included the modded GTR and the down-force-packing Mustang. Oh and Sam Hubinette. He was taking Jamie Howe (the only SPEED host a 13 year old boy should know by name) for an on-camera ride . His parade lap was done dorifto style, the finale stopping in the stop-box while doing a rolling burnout. This is officially the second-best cure of a hangover. Spinning his tires was easy thanks to the frigid 42 degree air and colder tarmac. Despite the cold pavement Matt managed to run the course in 43.5s, 26th place, dead in the middle. Considering it was cold, his tires are old and his car was worth as much as most of the cars’ support tools, finishing mid-pack was fine by him.

The rules say “no pro drivers.” Ok. 10-Time consecutive “recreational” SCCA champion Mary Pozzi came in 2nd ( 39.4s) in a sick, newly-finished 1972 Chevy Camaro. Between its chassis, fender flares and wheel/tire combo it was as classic as an iPad 2. But man, seeing a muscle car rail around an Auto-X with that kind of agility, braking and balance blew me away. I spent a lot of time with these cars as a kid and I never thought I would see them within tenths of a second of a modern Corvette or GTR. And nothing sounds like an old car with race pipes, nothing.

My friends 3ZERO3 Motorsports ran a 43.4s in a VW Beetle with a turboed R32 drivetrain. That silenced several  “un-pimp ze auto” jokes. (There was a particular PT Cruiser that needed to be thrown with a trebuchet due to suffering from whowouldbuildthat-itis. A sweet bonus was watching Goldberg hosting the SPEED coverage of the event. Each car got an introduction, said with the charm of Gerard Butler barking words of encouragement to his men in 300.

Top time went to Danny Popp, turning a 38.2 in his 24 Hour Le Mans GT lookalike  street-capable C6 Corvette. To revisit the conversation on defining “streetcar”; this gentleman had tire warmers on his car while he waited in line. Trailer full of tools, tech team, ok. Fine. Cars are a pain to work on and if you have the $, why not. But tire warmers?  I wanted to look at this gathering as a sort of race amongst gentlemen (and ladies). They all created a car from an idea, brought it to the biggest show and then decided to have a bit of motoring fun in Pahrump. Apparently it’s a bit more serious than that.

Matt’s car was out-gunned and with ninjas like Pozzi and Popp playing, out-driven as well. His goal now was to finish mid-pack, not crash, not break anything and not embarrass himself. Mine was to find water, Advil and warmth. 1 out of 2 ain’t bad.

Points Earned: 0  

Hot Lap Challenge

Thad and I made our way towards the road course, stopping to look at all the pretty metal scenery along the way. I won’t slow this down with commentary on every car but definitely check out the gallery at the bottom. The best viewpoint is the Spring Mountain viewing bridge, perched above the starting line and grid. That’s another great thing about this event: access. You can walk up to the track barrier, there’s viewing towers, you can even go up on the giant Optima trailer. Being able to see everything is what makes a race event fun to attend. Usually it costs extra (pit passes); here were free to roam. Cars lined up as a group, running warm-up laps a few at a time. Each car launches from a stop and ripped directly under us at WOT. I Inhale delicious carcinogens shot out of cat-less exhausts. Thad points North, “We drove over those fuckin’ mountains!“  In the distance, a burnout cracks the cold air. So far, so great.

In the driver’s meeting they had told everyone the warm-up lap was a warm-up lap. We all know where this story is going. Coming around the corner is a ’68 Camaro, driven by someone who is following the meeting’s advice. He’s driving 6 tenths, cruising toward the sweeper. A little behind him is Danny Popp, in his magic car. Danny is also learning the track and exploring his car’s limits on the track but his are a little higher. He’s gaining like a cheetah chasing an old woman. Camaro brakes early. Corvette: Full brake, tire lock, smoke. From my vantage point Danny was close enough to read the other driver’s lips through the rear view mirror.

Someone else had an interesting warm-up lap: Matt. He went off in turn 2 during his warm-up lap. Bad tires and cold ground were charged as the guilty party. Matt shook it off, but we later found out he had broken a sway bar end link, hurting his timed laps later on.

At the end of the event, he had put down a time of 2:00 flat. 26th place again. The other times were all over the place. Some cars that I expected to be slow (1992 2-door Chevy Tahoe with an AT and a big block!?) weren’t. A V6 Mustang had an exhaust that sounded like cicada’s farting into a trumpet buzzed around to everyone’s chagrin.

Others looked fast like the sharp modern/retro 1966 Nova- weren’t. Mary Pozzi’s Camaro thundered round in 1:53.1.  Kyle Tucker put down a 1:48.43 in his 1970 Camaro. But the track was ruled by Corvettes. Danny Popp and Peter Callaway (yeah, that Callaway) ran a 1:42.208 and 1:44.745. The cheater! GTR, with all its computers and TSC:  1:48.441. That shows you how fast those Corvettes are, and also how fast Kyle was in the Camaro.

Points earned: 0

Design Challenge

All day judges were walking around grading the cars for the Raybesto’s Performance Design Challenge. The judges apologized for only having 5 minutes for each car, saying, “There’s some cars we could spend hours looking at.” Cut to Our Super Speeding friend Rob Feretti stood with the judges as they looked over his 1100WHP Supra,  “Yea it’s not probably not one of those 2 hour cars you guys were talking about. Go ahead, pretend to look at it for the entire 5 minutes. ” Matt did not win, but at least he didn’t bring a PT Cruiser with the graphics package off a 1984 surf board.

Points Earned: 0

Speed/Stop Challenge

It was now the last event of the day: The Wilwood Brakes Speed Stop Challenge. The Auto-X course had been cleared and a strip was set up diagonally across the big black slab. Starting at the banner, cars raced towards the stop-box. THe goal was to get to the other side as fast as possible. You had to stop in a box about 40′L x 15′ Wide.  Brake too late you hit the cones and get DQed, too soon and you lose valuable seconds. It was a great test of acceleration and braking, only one of which is a natural skill for old cars.

Thad and I walked out to the tarmac. I never worried about a car getting lose and murdering us, but it is a little interesting standing at that end watching cars with 500+ HP try to contain it at WOT. I saw more than a few hoods waver side to side. The marshals did forbid me from standing behind the stop box for a head-on shot, I guess in case a throttle stuck. Despite having had that experience myself, when the throttle in my ’65 Le Mans stuck at about 95MPH on Highway 1, I thought that type of accident was impossible. At the lease I’d be able to dodge the automotive bull. The marshals are smarter than I, and asked me to move.

Matt hadn’t ever done anything like this but he had plenty of drag racing experience, so the launch was easy. But stopping on cue and calculating that while you’re accelerating as fast as possible must be a strange idea for your brain to understand. Unfortunately Matt hit cones 3 times in a row. No points. Eh, who cares. How often do you need to pull into a garage at 78 MPH?  Back from his runs, “That’s a lot harder than it looks.” I believe him. Another driver advertised confidence. 5 minutes later, “That’s harder than it looks.”

Car after car charged at the box, furiously throwing itself forward with the silence and subtlety of an avalanche and then throw out the anchor and late-brake into the box. The 1957 Chevy Bel Air was fun to watch. It was like a cartoon elephant trying to come to a quick stop right before the cliff. Skid marks were plentiful. It was fucking awesome. A few yards from a juiced up pony car screaming towards us like a rabid dog chasing Lady Gaga.

First place went to Gary Rubio in….the Nissan GTR. It leaped to the box and stopped in 0:06.54s. This surprised no one. What did surprise us is that 2nd place went to Mark Stielo in his ’69 Camaro, which somehow found traction, screaming away with the violence of hesitation of a depleted-uranium round from an AC-10 and came to a rest in only 0:07.096. .6 seconds behind one of the most technically capable cars ever is no joke. Pozzi and Popp were only behind by tenths of a second.

The PT Cruiser showed up. It struggled with the acceleration portion of this event, because it started in 2nd. Then it would downshift from 2nd to 1st about 60 feet from the start line. Its sound was worrisome. “That’s the sound of it trying to kill itself.” a spectator commented. Ba-zing.

Pete Callaway's Corvette

There was one more thing going on during this challenge, that really encapsulates what this event is about. In the middle of the challenge, Peter Callaway was yanking his brake master cylinder, to give to Danny Popp. Danny’s had failed after the road course and its difficult to compete with no brakes. Danny was in competition to win the event, and Peter’s C6 Corvette was a matching tissue doner. This is what weekend racing is about; being competitive without working against each other. It’s just a bunch of really crazy friends. They pulled the part, got it in and Danny was able to get 3rd, putting him tied for the win Mark Stielo. A 2006 Corvette Zo6 and a ’69 Camaro, tied at 80 points in a performance decathlon. Pretty cool.

Points Earned: 0

The judges decision came down to the tie-breaker: the fastest time on the road course wins it. Mark Stielo hadn’t  beat Popp’s time of 1:42.208. But even so, it’s incredible what the pro-touring cars can do. The diversity of the cars, the close-up action, the access and the friendliness of every single person there made this one of the best car shows/races I’ve ever been to. It was relaxed without the bore of a stand around car show. And it was noisy and competitive without feeling to serious or impersonal. New cars, old cars, burnouts, road course, all held together by tens of thousands of horsepower. I was grinning like an 8 year old all day.

Unfortunately the day wasn’t great for Mr. Farah. He actually did pretty well considering the broken end-link, old tires and no tire warmers. But the road rally and Speed Stop Challenge cost him.  Add in judges incapable of appreciating the beautiful and captivating miracle that is a red C5 Corvette and ended up in 46th place.

But Rob Feretti got 47th.

- Zack K

On this episode of The Smoking Tire, we take the 2011 Corvette ZR1, the fastest Corvette ever produced, to the Mojave Mile for a little high-speed testing. Back in May, Matt came to the Mile with a Porsche 911 GT3RS, an amazing, barely street legal track car, and while it ran a very respectable 166.8 mph, that just wasn’t enough. We had a goal of crossing the 1-mile traps going at least 175, and the ZR1 could be the perfect weapon. Hit the jump for the video.

*If the embedded video does not work, please go here to watch it.

There has been much debate over the results of this video, and I address some viewer’s questions and concerns here.

Sometimes, there’s just too much goodness to go into one video, so I also wrote a full cover story review for the November issue of Road Lanes Online Automotive Magazine, which you can view here. 

I love the aftermarket. They are the fringe chefs of the auto world. No content with the way something is made, they will take a classic dish-say, risotto – and then add crazy stuff to it like maple syrup and essence of deadly sea urchin. You might think, “What are you doing?? It was delicious the way it is!” But then chef RENNtech presents his 2012 Mercedes CLS63 AMG risotto and after a taste, you stop complaining. Because RENNtech has found that with a simple tune you can extract another 100 wheel horsepower. Yum. Jump for dyno sheets and a video of a race against a Nissan GTR.

I’m not that surprised the CLS has big power potential, because it has a big V-8 with two turbos feeding it air like it’s making foie gras. But I didn’t think you could get 100WHP out of a simple chip. AMG cars always respond well to mods, but this is ridiculous. The other day we were discussing which is a better idea, buying a CLS 550 and chipping it, or dropping significantly more money for the AMG. Well RENNtech dyno’d all of them, including a CLS63 AMG with the performance package, and one without. Check out the dyno below.

The blue line is a stock CLS63 AMG without the added Performance Package. Red line has the $7,500 Performance Package option ticked, raising power from 518HP/516tq to 550HP/590 tq. The Performance Package isn’t anything intense, it just raises boost from 14.5psi to 18.8. On the dyno, they put down 483WHP/478tq and 516WHP/544tq, respectively. So that means A, they’re both really fast and powerful and B, both are a little under-rated from the factory. Despite what your forum or 13 year old cousin has said, these cars are fast as hell. I know its 0-60 time (4.4) isn’t as fast as the Nissan R38 that had twin-supra motors and really strong guy pushing behind it, but in the real world the CLS63 AMG is fast as fuck. I spent a week with one. The only place this car is slow is on the internet.

Then RENNtech starts throwing things in the pot, to satisfy crazy people like  your cousin or wealthy Russians. Or wealthy anyone, really. Their chip gives the CLS a little more of the boost it craves so much, and just like that, it is putting down 583WHP and 643 torques. These aren’t gains at the crank (those numbers are 669hp/734tq. Yes, that is a “7″), this is at the wheels. You know, the part that pushes on the ground? This brings the 0-60 time down to 3.4 seconds, and the 1/4 mile is gone in 11.3s (or 11.2 with DRs). For proof, watch the video below.

So this brings us back to the CLS 550. We knew this motor had potential, and RENNtech’s 550 chip is essentially the same as Mercedes’ Performance Package. It raises power at the wheels from 392whp/441wtq (again, underrated from the factory) up to 447HP/516tq. At the crank, that’s 530HP and 606 torques. In a “regular” CLS. Price for this is only $2,700.

So we were sitting here trying to decide if the AMG part of the CLS is really worth it. That depends on the soundness of your mind. Is 530HP really not enough? Do you really need 669HP, and 734 ft-lbs of torque to be happy in life? The 550 would be an excellent cruiser-probably more comfortable than the AMG- and it will save you $20,000. I guess it depends on your income, how psychotic you are and how much time you spent watching single-turbo Supra videos(I think of them as the gateway drug to delusional power figures). I believe the internet has artificially raised people’s performance expectations and needs. Almost zero percent of CLS owners will drag race them, and only a few more will ever find out how fast it goes from 120 to 180. But there’s something AMG gives you that RENNtech doesn’t: brakes, suspension and stability control. Those are things you might want if you have 600 ft-lbs of torque. Remember, the proper way to upgrade a car is brakes first, power last.

But that’s no fun.

-Zack K

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Weds night the epic documentary SENNA received the Motor Press Guild’s Dean Bachelor Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism. Good, it deserved it. I don’t know how many films win journalism awards, but considering this movie was up against seasoned journalist and people that wrote books, I think it’s a big deal. (It also won the award for Best Audio/Visual media, but for this movie, that was like playing t-ball.) For the three of you fucking soulless morons who haven’t yet scene SENNA, see it. It’s the epic story of arguably the greatest F1 driver all time told through the lenses of vintage F1 footage. I didn’t know who Senna was until I saw this film, but my kids will know his name. (Don’t let me name my kid Ayrton. Cliche, and difficult to yell).

When Matt came back from the event he told me one of the other contenders was Dan Neil’s Rolls Royce Ghost review from “The Car Show.” I worked on that show, and that piece was really good. Up against SENNA? “Hey Bill, you playing in the company softball tournament? We should do pretty w…why are the fucking Yankees putting on name tags?” I’m sure Dan understands. We were lucky enough to interview the director, Asif Kapadia, including footage from the film. Make the jump to watch.

Even if you don’t like racing, it’s an incredibly well-made documentary. I watch a lot of documentaries but this film transcends them. Granted, most of those have an agenda or are trying to save the world. This isn’t that. This is 200MPH in the rain, late-braking in corner and muscling other cars out of the way. This guy drove like he was made of steel and had the devil chasing him. No one drives like this guy. Thanks to the skill, danger, drama and the incredible footage, it feels like you’re watching a brilliantly written fictional movie. But it’s not. It’s just a person’s life story, told perfectly. I know the difficulties the director faced making this movie. F1 footage is hard to get as was the Senna family’s permission. Congrats to Asif for his well-deserved success. I’m sure there’s more to come.

Check out this bonus video of Senna doing some aggressive heel-toe in an NSX, in loafers.

-Zack

Some of you might have seen that YouTube is developing a new channel called DRIVE. You can read the official press release below, but the short of it is it will be a one-stop shop for every kind of automotive content you could want: reviews, comparisons, after market shops, race coverage and interviews. Guess they noticed what people like you and me looked for online (well, not everything). Their goal is to provide a variety of the best automotive content possible.  And, being the nice, smart and generous people they are, they asked the TST team to produce a show called “TUNED” with Matt doubling as the host. With other hosts like Chris Harris (EVO), high-speed god Alex Roy and our own Matt, it should be very good.   Make the jump for a promo video, show description and official press release.

As the name “TUNED” implies, we will be focusing on modified vehicles. I say vehicles because we won’t be focusing only on the latest chip for an Evo or a Corvette with long-tube headers and some dope-rad-awesome-sicknassity HREs. We’re going outside the box to find the craziest things we can. One-offs, projects, the kinds of vehicles that say “suck it” to physics and solar panels alike.  You know those videos you see that make you think “What the fuck is that?!” ? That’s what we want to be filming. We have some seriously amazing stuff in the works and you’ll get an up-close look at it.

But the show won’t just be an excited and/or terrified Matt behind the wheel (although there will be plenty of that). We’re going to talk to the great minds behind the insanity. We want to know where the inspiration for these monsters of the road and dirt come from, and the expertise and problems it took to make them. Look for the first episode of “TUNED” in January. Hopefully you have as much fun watching it as we will making it. Happy New Year.

PRESS RELEASE

One man’s trash is another man’s gold. In this case, one man’s film about a limp-dicked psychopath is another man’s tool for amazing automotive comedy. And wow is it amazing. A few weeks ago specs came out on the future Ford GT500, and the blogs lit up with comparisons to Chevy’s brand new but ultimately less-endowed Camaro ZL1. (Chevy took credit for inspiring the GT500′s power. That’s commitment to PR.)

Someone at the fordgtforum YouTube channel wrote a script about the release of the GT500 specs, made it into subtitles and brilliantly laid it over the 2004 film Downfall. In it, Hitler plays the role of Chevrolet itself, referring to auto shows and track times…god damn it’s funny. As a comedy nerd, I stand up and applaud the awesome work of the creator of this. Make the jump to watch.  Just to keep things even, there’s a bonus video where he plays Ford receiving the news that Boss 302 owners can’t get their Track Keys. Enjoy. Just don’t expect your Polish grandma to laugh. Mine didn’t.

Hitler Finds out the GT500 has more Power than his ZL1

Vat do you mean, CARB won’t let them have zer Track Keys?!?!

- Zack K

Last week a Ferrari 599 GTB spontaneously caught on fire. It didn’t quite melt itself (video after jump) like a dead vampire in From Dusk Til Dawn but it did catch on fucking fire. I’m sorry but WTF?  What year is it again? 2011? And cars are still catching on fire? And not just any cars, these are some of the best  and most expensive cars on the planet. A $7,000 Versa doesn’t catch on fire. The “smart” car doesn’t.  Even my  shitty ’95 Miata managed to drive 300 miles spitting oil out its CAS seal without turning me into Kosher rotisserie. So why are Ferraris and Lamborghinis bursting into flames? Make the jump for a buffet videos featuring exotics on fire. Maybe we can find a commonality?

One man got lucky, kinda. The Ferrari FF he was driving that caught fire wasn’t his yet; he was test-driving it. That should save some insurance trouble. Wish I could have seen the salesman’s reaction. “Oh, mi scuzzi senor. Thank god you had no hair to begin with. Si, it happens now and again. A Ferrari is like a beautiful, passionate woman who has severe bi-polar disorder. Some a day she just begs for more and a some day she hit you in the face with a rolling pin. Haha, yes you understand yes? What say we have espresso and talk about the 599? It’s molto reliable senor.” That guy went over to the Aston Martin dealer.

Or I hope he did. If he went to the Pepsi of Italian cars (Ferrari being Coke), he’d end up in a Lamborghini. Safe bet right? Audi owns them, so now there’s Germans in the factory making sure there’s no blots left over and nap time is no longer than two hours. Except for this little Gallardo fire in Norway.

I just don’t understand how a car ends up this way. With the insane amount of testing and development that goes into them, how can this situation not arise before production? How can having your car catch fucking on fire be part of normal wear and tear for Italian exotics? It’s fire! It’s no a CEL or door buzzer that’s stuck or bad NAV, it’s the hot red stuff that comes out of volcanoes. And even after Ferrari recalled the 458s, replaced those that burned and stopped using the adhesive arsonist that was causing the fires, one still burst into flames in Brazil. Perhaps it’s the price of driving a car that has been built to the limit of human ability. If this happens with 458s and Gallardos, what would happen if there was a “glitch” with a Veyron? It’ll probably explode and throw the Earth off-axis.

But, thanks to the handiness of YouTube and some calls to the FBI, I think I figured out the problem. See, the cars were being driven. Some were even being used to park, commute or get McDonald’s. Completely irresponsible.

I still want a Ferrari.

-Zack K

It appears the old adage “Less is more” was never told to many of the tuners and builders today. Accessorizing, modifying and customizing has been a big part of car culture since the 30s, but its gotten a little out of control. There are cars today that make the cars from Fast and Furious look like a beige Camry. Take the above. It’s a Campagna T-Rex that has been customized by the company Aero3. The changes are all cosmetic, which is fine because a stock alreay T-Rex makes 200HP and weighs 1,000lbs, so it’s fast as hell. It’s cool in a ridiculous, playful sort of way, but I feel this has pushed the visual envelope too far.

The first thought we had when we saw this was, “storm trooper helmet.” There’s ridges and fins and intakes and splitters on the splitters. It’s like a house with 3 roofs. The stock T-Rex isn’t a tame look, but that’s looks dictated by the design of function. If you build a 3-wheeled 2-seater with a ZX-14 motor in the back, its gonna look a little weird. But the somewhat recent trend of adding splitters and vents to everything has gone too far.

Aero3 isn’t the first offender on this, so I don’t want to paint them to be. Mansory of -course- is the worst. There’s tons of other companies that tack on multiple splitters, wide-body fenders and slits, gills and “intakes” on the car with apparently the same tact as your uncle throwing rice at his daughter’s wedding. I love that everyone is pushing the envelope of performance and design. Without breaking limits we wouldn’t know what they are. I just think we’ve found the limit of what looks good with additional bodywork, and what doesn’t. What do you think?

- Zack

"Where I'm from, my people run free." RS5 to CHP officer.

The topic of speed limits comes up in our merry band of arsonists (thanks to Dan Neil for that name) oh; every single time we drive a car. We usually give extra thought and a more “passionate” discussion after receiving speeding tickets. Most of the cars we drive-especially that we make episodes of-are either high-performance cars or expensive cars. Not exactly cars that drive poorly. Yes, they’re fast but they also have good brakes, traction system, air bags, warning lights (which we hate) and good tires. Germany has the Autobahn, proving travel at extremely high speed is safe. We know that won’t happen here, but what about a bump in limits?

Let’s be honest, everyone who drives a car knows in a good car it’s safe to travel above the posted speed limit. Everyone -on highways at least- speeds at least a little bit. I remember learning to drive and asking my dad how fast to go on the highway. He said “65″, to which I replied, “Oh please you never drive that speed. What’s the real number?” I wasn’t asking if it’s ok to max out our Laredo but I paid enough attention when my parents drove to know we weren’t the only families doing 5 over. More

" I wanna go fast."

A lot of people probably think this a silly, dangerous whine that justifies illegal behavior, but now we have evidence. Mwahahaha.

I have two people to thank for this scientific evidence. The first is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The NHTSA recently reported that even though Americans drove more in 2010 than ever, traffic fatalities dropped (2.9%) for the 5th year in a row. They haven’t been this low since 1949. And guess what? The Interstate Highway System hadn’t been built yet. Hell it had barely been thought of. Danger comes with speed; speed with highways, so comparing deaths now to a pre-freeway time is silly.  NHTSA, you get a fruit basket.

So do we!

And the IIHS gave presented my argument with visual aids: a 2009 video showing a head-on crash between a 1959 Chevy Bel Air and a 2009 Chevy Malibu.  They wanted to show people that big, heavy cars are not as safe as we think. People always refer to giant old cars as tanks, but in the video it’s clear you’d rather be in the new Malibu (It’s safer, not cooler). It was done to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the IIHS, but guess what, I’m stealing their gift. If the cars are safer and accident-related death rates are dropping… Right? See where I’m headed?

Click here for director’s cut.

So why can’t we go a little faster? It doesn’t matter if you’re into cars or not and if you have a fairly modern car it doesn’t even matter what it is. A German Ford Fiesta -which can safely go 100MPH- is basically the same as a Fiesta here. In fact, our DOT is even more anal than the Germans and makes companies add all kinds of ugly blinkers and rubber bumpers and crap. And I’m not saying we need an autobahn. But I would like to see some of the well-maintained highways have their limits raised to more realistic numbers. You’re going to tell me a new car with AWD isn’t safe on a new U.S. road  but in Germany it is? And don’t give me the road engineering spiel. For unlimited speeds that matters, but fresh black tarmac is totally safe at 90MPH.

Yeah, you’ll always have your states like South Carolina, known for their strict enforcement. We spent a week there and I’ve never looked at the speedometer so much in my entire life. The normal response to realizing you’re driving 2MPH over the limit is, “Oh. Who cares.” Not there.

But outside these, ahem, slower areas people tend to hover a little over. I think the mentality is that if 65MPH is what the government deems a safe rate of travel, hovering a little above that can’t be dangerous. They wouldn’t set the limit at 65, knowing that cars spontaneously shed all their bolts like a tree’s leaves in a hurricane should the driver go 67. (You’re welcome, Cars 3 for that idea, probably followed by some joke about old cars and losing hair.)

Of course, the fact is not everyone has a new, modern, safe car. Germany has its rigorous TÜV tests, which we don’t have. You can’t raise the limit on the 101 to 75 or 80 because some guy in a 1978 Blazer with a camper shell will kill someone. But what about a higher limit for cars made after a certain year? People might say it’s classist, and they’re stupid, but if you’re travelling in a 2010 Camry with 12 airbags why should you to comply to speed limits decided on cars from 40 years ago or an oil crisis in 1974? Brakes are good now. Cars are basically sticky sleds filled with computers and air mattresses. Getting hit is probably like diving in a pit of Tempurpedic mattresses. The video proves it.

I know it won’t happen yet. Maybe when every car on the road was from 2000 or newer. Maybe. I just hope it happens within my lifetime, because cars will only get better from here. If I’m still have to drive 65 in my 2038 Audi A4 or Corvette, I’ll be fucking pissed.  And since fewer people are dying, we can gamble a bit, right?

- Zack K

Drifting is one of those things that, like golf, bull riding, and porn, professionals make look very easy. It’s also something that many drivers claim to do well, when in fact, they do not. Since Matt is not a professional racing driver, he is more than willing to admit that he doesn’t have the first clue how to drift a car properly. But he’s also the first to admit that when you don’t know something, you get a professional to teach you, and you simply listen and try to be a good student.

The kind folks at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Arizona offered The Smoking Tire the use of their facility and vehicles for a day of private drifting lessons from instructor Corey Hosford, who will be starting his Formula Drift career this coming April at Long Beach in his K-Sport Nissan 350Z. Can Matt start from nothing and become a drifter in just one day? Hit the jump to find out.

When Sebastian Thrun was 18 years old, he lost his best friend Harold in a car accident. From then he vowed to find a way to prevent everyone from suffering a tragedy like this. Accidents are 100% human error, unless you drive a Prius of course (wink). We spend an average of 52 minutes a day in traffic, which is 4 billion hours nationwide.

Thrun hopes to end that. Enter the Google Autonomous car. It’s driven 140,000 miles on freeways, mountain roads and even San Francisco’s super-twisty Lombard street. Sebastian spoke at the TED conference in March, and Huffington post re-posted it as one of their 18 great ideas of 2011. We missed this video, and thought you folks might enjoy it. Especially the Auto-X ride. A driver-less stunt car?! Cool! At least until the Stunt Drivers Union hears about it.Click to watch the video. It’s truly a glimpse of the future.

Seriously impressive sensor mapping.

It’s probably beyond our lifetime to reach that iRobot/Judge Dredd/EveryFuturisticMovieEver point of self-driving cars zipping through traffic while the occupants converse, nap or fight off killer robots, but it will happen.  But I won’t feel comfortable in one until every car has the software to know where every other car is. I’m sure that Prius is awesome, but I don’t know if I trust it to see the 1984 VW pickup with 4 lawn mowers in it that is about to miss that red light due to faulty brakes. If it can I will happily be chauffeured around by Intel while I waste time entertaining write for you good people.
The only thing I don’t like about Thrun, is his future thinking how silly it is humans drove cars. Because my kids are going to kick them in the nuts for such blasphemy.

- Zack k

Using a wash-it-yourself car wash isn’t exactly rocket science. Insert coins, then use power washing hose to soap up the car and scrub it down with the brush before rinsing it off. Sounds easy right? For people with, you know, actual functioning brains, yes. For these guys, not so much. One guy loses control of the power washer and it propels itself about the wash bay, attacking these hapless saps about the head and ankles, until they simply run away. And for some reason, they posted this video? Fortunately their Wrangler makes it through unscathed, but for tips on how not to wash your car, hit the jump.

Two Guys vs. A Car Wash Spray Hose

The Koenigsegg Agera R is very very very fast. No, you don’t understand. It’s really fast. In the video it goes from 0, to 300KMH (186MPH), and back to 0 in… 21.9 seconds. Now, being the internet readers you are, like me you probably have no frame of reference of how fast that really is. For comparison, we have the times of some cars  going from 0 to 300KMH. Make the jump to read and watch this ridiculous thing that I love so much.  

Koenigsegg CCX: 21.9
SLR 722: 29.6
Murci LP 640: 31.5
911 GT2: 36.2
Alpina B6 S: 41.5
Z06: 44.6

No back to 0, no slowing down, nothing. Just from a stop to 300km/h. As you can see, the old Koenigsegg- you know the one, with the twin-supercharged V-8 making 806HP?- That car went to 300kmh in 21.9 seconds, well ahead of the also incredible GT2, Murci and SLR. A Bugatti Veyron, the benchmark of high-priced space ships, takes 19.8 seconds to hit 300kmH, and 23.8s to reach 320km/H. In the real world, all of those cars are crazy crazy fast. All they are doing is accelerating to 186MPH.

THAT is how  incredible this car is. Somehow, in defiance of physics and the Easter bunny, the new Agera R was able to reach 186MPH, and go back to a complete stop, in the same amount of time it takes it’s sibling to reach 186. Want to know how long it takes the R to go from 0-300 KMH? 14.5 seconds. That’s how long it takes a new Honda Accord V6 to reach 98MPH. A car that boring normal people call “quick.”  A Corvette ZR1, which is the fastest car I’ve ever driven, takes 15.9 seconds to reach 150MPH, and around 33 seconds to reach 186 (300kmH). I thought that car was insane but I have had to edit the definition of insanity in my brain. Compared to the Agera, the ZR1 is Catholic nun on Valium. Wait,what?! What the hell is going on?!

I cannot wrap my head around the abilities of the Agera R. This is like saying to Hussein Bolt,

“Ok Mr. Bolt, you are going to run this 100 yard dash, k? Start here, cross that line, that’s it. What am I going to do? Oh, well in the same amount of time it takes your corpulent snail ass to run that little 100 yards, I’m going to run to that line, stop on it, have a sandwich, maybe hit up YouPorn, and then run back to this starting line. Ready?”

That is insanely fast. How? Why? WTF is in that car? Oh, that’s right, it’s has a 5.0 Liter V-8 with two turbos, so it makes 940HP. Oh wait, I forgot, you can put E-85 bio ethanol in it, and it makes 1,115HP. And yet it’s still RWD! What the **** gets the power to the ground? Are the tires made of the toes of millions of geckos? Because I’m ok with that.  If Sarah McLaughlin complains direct her calls to me. I have an excellent collection of Panda bear erotica I’d like to discuss with her. Oh, and if you watch the video, you can see two other things: 1. If you watch the driver turn around, it’s clear the steering radius of this car is very tight. So drive-ability won’t be an issue. 2. The test driver isn’t wearing a helmet, fire suit and 2 HANS devices while doing multiple 200MPH runs. Dear police stations, high speed travel is safe. See video below.

I just can’t get over the physical abilities of cars right now. People referred to the muscle car era as the golden age of cars, never to be seen again. Wrong. This is the golden age. Companies realize people want a cars that can go, stop and turn with the quickness and they are in an arms race the US Army should be jealous of. This is the best cars have ever been, and I shake my head and stare in awe when I think of where they will go from here. Now, whose grandma can I give oral treats to for $2 Million?

“It’s much more exciting here than in a Formula One car.” – Ayrton Senna

I believe – and I think the whole TST crew shares my feeling – that F1 and WRC drivers are the best drivers on the planet. I know, bold statement. Next I’ll probably say that humans consider food to be important for living. I’m not saying anything that any sane person wouldn’t say. In F1 you have the sheer speed, power and grip of the cars. Everything happens at the speed of light and if you’re not thinking slightly faster than that, you’ll create an expensive carbon fiber confetti show with a fireball encore. In rally racing, things don’t happen quite as fast, but there’s more variables to deal with: constantly changing surfaces, odd suspension compression, rocks, blind corners, oh my. And don’t forget, if you’re on a wood stage, there’s the added bonus of trying not to think about the thick wooden girders of death that are lining your race track. Slide too far and you will play chicken with a tree, and you will lose.

It is that last line that worries the late Ayrton Senna, perhaps the greatest F1 driver of all time. Senna was a 3-time world champion F1 driver who unfortunately died in 1994 racing in the San Marino Grad Prix. He was the subject of an absolutely incredible documentary, Senna. Even if you don’t like racing, you will love this movie. It’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen, documentary or otherwise. Do yourself a favor and rent it, and everything below will resonate 10 times more. (Also watch our interview with its director.) In this brilliant article by Racecar-engineering.com, author Graham Jones describes (with excellent prose, I might add) the day Ayrton Senna spent learning what it means to drive a rally car. He went to Whales, trying cars of various power levels, drive train and classes, up to a 460HP AWD Ford Escort. (Read on to see how he did, the Senna trailer, and an old video of the rally lessons.)

And you know what? It scared him. I couldn’t believe it. So many F1 drivers have moved on to succeed in the WRC, most recently Kimi Raikkonen, with current slapper of F1 bitches Sebastian Vettle also expressing interest. So I thought this un-earthed article would be filled with Ayrton being proclaimed future rally champion of the world after 5 minutes of driving. He can drive the hell out of an F1 car, so he’s awesome at everything right? I figure a guy like him could perform neurosurgery on instinct alone. But he didn’t. He was scared. He was humble. He called driver Phil Collins a “nut case.”

After that sentence I thought the piece was over. But as the article continues, and Senna listens, trying different cars, getting used to the course, the style, the cornering, and the power… the transformation begins. He isn’t proud or cocky. He asks questions, focuses, and learns. And learns quickly. RCE.com does an excellent job of painting the picture of how a driver of this caliber approaches a new challenge. He goes about it the same way I imagine Einstein would go about learning cooking: Slowly, methodically, recognizing he is out of his element and thus hearing every syllable of advice and immediately applying it perfectly. I mean he is Ayrton Senna. So if he has enough skill to toss a 1000hp F1 car around in the rain, odds are he can figure out rallying. But I was so impressed at how he went about it.

We could all learn something from Senna. You may be great at something, you may be great at a lot of things, but you’re not great at everything. There will be times you try something new, and you’re not as good as you hoped to be. New job, building an addition to your house, cunnilingus, whatever it may be. But rather than get fed up, or worse, over-cook something and crash, take a breath, ask questions, and get a little better each lap. By the end of the day he had it. Collins said, “I would say after a week in a car he would be taking on the World class drivers.” The transformation seems 90% complete. Another F1 driver heading to the woods to play in the dirt. But when asked if he would ever make the leap, Senna replied,

“No. Because the dangers are there as you don’t have the experience and you don’t have the knowledge. The dangers are too big.”

He’s got a point. This man danced with the devil at the limit of traction and rationale, and won races that way. Yet to him, rally racing is too risky. He’s right; I just didn’t expect him to say it. Too bad we couldn’t have gotten him into a Rally-X race. If you have the time for a great read, jump over to the full article. You will feel like you’re standing on the frigid Welsh mud, watching a young genius learn something new.

And go watch Senna. Seriously.

-Zack K

We take a lot of road trips, and see a lot of strange stuff on the highway, but with the exception of someone trying to sell us weed from another car, this has to be the best bonus video we’ve ever filmed. I don’t know what these two dogs love more: the Ford F250 or each other. You be the judge. Video after the jump.

Click for the video.

You gotta love Italians. Only they would commission an artist to create an film to celebrate how super terrific awesome they did at building a super incredible car. Ferrari loves their 458 Spider so much they wanted to give it a present. It’s  kaleidoscopic film edited in 3D, by Marco Brambilla. And what car doesn’t like a good 3D kaleidoscope movie.

It’s actually damn amazing. I’m impressed someone can edit a bunch of F1 footage into that. It’s abstract sensory overload with race cars. Though the genre of “car art” is a gallery in which many, many, many pieces of shit have been hung, but this is a seriously impressive piece of video work. Click to watch it.

The film is called RPM. It’s a crazy 3d depiction of an F1 race through the eye of a kaleidoscope. It was filmed over the course of several months at the Formula One Grand Prix at Monza. Brambilla wanted viewers to feel constantly on edge, driving forward, accelerating towards something yet never reach it. And it worked, on me at least. The entire time I felt like I was going faster and faster, around corners,getting louder, up and down… I remember distinctly thinking Ok, I feel like this is going somewhere big and crazy. I confess, it does remind me a little bit of the brainwashing from A Clockwork Orange. Perhaps this is the video you show to someone you’ve strapped down with their eyes stuck open on a caffeine IV drip, all because they said baseball is just as difficult as F1.

http://www.nowness.com/day/2011/11/29/1747/art-basel-miami–marco-brambilla

We at The Smoking Tire hope everyone had a happy and fattening Thanksgiving, and didn’t get caught up in either the “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday” shitstorm of American consumerism. I know that not a single member of the TST crew went shopping either of those days. However, the holidays are upon us, and we’ve got the ultimate car video junkie’s perfect gift right here.

The DVD series Super Speeders is a project that our old pal Rob has been making since 2005, and Matt and Tom have been working with him on it since 2007. Well over the summer, Matt and Tom went to San Francisco to help Rob film the newest installment in the series, Super Speeders 6: Flat Out. We won’t tell you exactly what we did in San Fran, but trust me, it involves fires, crashes, ghost-riding the whip, and all sorts of vehicular mayhem. On top of that, Rob went to Italy to drive the Stelvio Pass, check out the new Pagani Huyara, and top out a Lamborghini Aventador. Plus, all the best cop moments from the last Bullrun Rally! And we’ve got an exclusive deal on the entire video series for loyal fans of The Smoking Tire. But first, hit the jump to see the trailer for Flat Out.

Now, if you think that was awesome (I know we do), this is where it gets even better: When you order from SuperSpeeders.com, use the following links to get exclusive deals for fans of The Smoking Tire

TST11 – Free shipping on any order

TST15 – Save $15 on any order over $75

And if you want a copy signed by Matt and Rob, Email Rob and we can arrange it.

Happy holidays from The Smoking Tire!

This is the scariest drag racing mishap I’ve seen in a while. Erik Peterson is at the Vegas drag strip, driving a 1969 Pontiac Firebird. Soon after he launches, he gets squirrel-y and hits the wall. This knocks Erik unconscious and breaks the brake master cylinder loose, and it falls, pulling the throttle cable with it. Having the throttle stick WOT in a very powerful car car would be terrifying. I had the throttle stick at WOT in my old ’65 Pontiac. Turns out topping out a Le Mans with a 40-year old 2-barrel carb is a bad idea. I know, I’m surprised too. Luckily the highway was empty, and there were no turns before I turned the ignition key. The car sputtered, died and coasted and I bought a new carb the next day. Not in this case. Click to see the luckiest, most amazing drag racing accident I’ve seen in a long time.

In the Firebird, the throttle is stuck and the car is completely, 100% out of control. After hitting the other wall it starts a slow rotation, apparently the line lock had also stuck. Thank (insert name here) it did. The car sits there, billowing smoke at full bore, aimed at the crowd and trees, like a bull stomping its hoofs across the arena but never charging. Erik is unknowingly creating one of the coolest brake stands ever, and making track worker soil themselves. I would have. It looks like Mad Max has returned and is letting the crowd know he’s really mad at them. (Possibly for saying bad things about Waterworld) That’s scary enough, but this is a runaway car with many hundreds of horsepower that is built to accelerate massively. The luck of those parts sticking, and the car just sitting and roasting tires until it shut off is incredibly lucky.

And watching this video brought up a few thoughts of mine about drag racing safety. What could the officials have done? Shoot it with a  tranquilizer gun? It’s not a charging grizzly bear. I’m sure there’s more than a few drag racing fans with Conceal and Carry permits, but that’s not really fool-proof. Honestly, what could a track do in the admittedly rare situation a car turns around? Short of another driver pulling a Kevin Costner in Bodyguard and intentionally putting himself in the path of Erik’s car I can’t think of anything. I’m sure the odds of this happening are so slim regulations haven’t been necessary, but seeing it has to make you wonder. I joke a lot, but I’m glad Mr. Peterson is ok. I can’t imagine watching that video, having no recollection of the incident but knowing I was in the car.

But probably shouldn’t have used those Toyota Prius floormats.

- Zack K

So you got a fancy new, speedy everyone-crashes-but-I-won’t street bike. It’s fun, but every time you leave the garage you have to stop, put it on the kickstand, walk back, close the garage, then ride. Automatic garages help, but then you have to carry that bulky clicker. Motorcycle leathers aren’t known for their roomy pockets, and the less bulk stored in them the better (rider’s bulk excluded).

A British man was tired of getting off his bike to open the door, so he actually rigged up a sweet new switch. It’s actually way easier than you’d think, and uses materials many of you have at home already.

I’m going to the nearest farmer’s market, to see if I can find one of these.

- Zack K

I feel so betrayed. Since Lincoln introduced the MKS concept in 2006, it’s odd trademark “waterfall” grill has been the topic of many a joke. If you haven’t heard one, you can mad-lib it using the words “whale”, ‘baleen”, “krill” and
“butter face.” As in: The new front of that MKS is weird. It looks like that stuff whales use to strain water and catch krill, what’s that called…baleen! The interior is ok, and the profile isn’t bad, butter face…”

Jump forward a few years and many disappointed eyeballs later, and Lincoln says they’re bringing a redesign to the LA auto show. Yes! Alright boys let’s get back in the game. We had a rough start in ’06, that pass was a little weird, but it’s ok. We survived the recession, we can get the people back on our side. Ok Max (Lincoln’s head of design, Max Wolff) whattya got for us? Wait…that looks…I don’t mean to sound insulting, maybe my glasses are foggy, but that looks …..that looks the same Max. Make the jump to read on.

The redesign wasn’t only about the exterior; better power, efficiency, a sport setting and continuous dampening have improved the driving experience. But you’ll probably never experience those, because the grill is way too close to the old one. Sure the strainers have gotten smaller, enabling them to catch smaller insects than before (yay?), but looking at a timeline, calling it a redesign is like redesigning Lady Gaga’s meat dress by giving her a different purse. Let’s go to the video tape:

Here's the 2007 MKS concept. Ok, interesting, but it's just a concept so maybe the final car will look a bit better..

This is the 2011 MKS sedan.

Ok they went with a bold face, something to identify the brand which is important in the auto world. Sometimes it works (Aston, Ford) sometimes it doesn’t (Acura). But designers have the tough task of deciding what the public will like before the public knows they’ll like it. In fashion, they drive the market. They make products, sell them to the world as the new hot thing, and we (well, people that care about clothing) buy it. Lincoln made a move, crossed their fingers, and prayed but the result was a face that was a bit too bold. A gaping mouth flanked by small headlights. Works for jaguar, not so much here.

Fast forward to now and Lincoln promises a redesign. They get another at bat. What did Max draw?

The grills are thinner, smoothing the transition from grill to body and lights, but it still has the same shape and I think that’s the fundamental problem. You could fill that area with solid aluminum, diamonds or photo copies of Scarlet Johanssen but it still wouldn’t work. To be fair, Max Wolff may have only been given permission to change things within the grill or other binding parameters. But if he was, he wouldn’t have made this video, telling us about all the awesome “new” tools they use to make the car.

This video is more off-putting than the car itself, because unless you’re 8 years old or from a 3rd world country, using computers for design or having a meeting with a giant TV behind it seems like pretty standard procedure. TST is made out of a house, and even we have a big TV to watch footage and edit from. I watched this video and at the end thought, “Yea….so?” A TV? CAD design? No shit you use these to make things today. I’ll bet my pencil holder was designed with a CAD program. If Lincoln wants to grab new, younger customers they have to realize what those customers know. Young people in that tax bracket have seen a computer before. They’ve probably been to development meetings and had their projects up on big projectors. Don’t treat them like they’re fresh off a raft of packing peanuts from Cuba.

It’s not that Lincoln makes a bad car, Matt drove 1500 miles in an MKT, and even tried to convince his dad to buy one. It’s a good vehicle. I drove it as well, and thought the ride and drive-train were great. If you need to be chauffeured (the MKT is set to replace the Town Car for said chauffeuring) it flies under the radar of adoring fans or would-be assassins. And the AWD means it can shuttle you to Beaver Creek just as easily as LAX. But the grill redesign isn’t enough, and trying to excite your customers a fairly mundane video of old techniques is silly. The older buying crowd probably won’t care, and the new crowd will see right through it. I can’t tell Lincoln what to do, but I know it shouldn’t be this.

-Zack K

To quote my cousin’s husband, “This is the best 4 days for football of the year.” I couldn’t agree more, and I couldn’t be less bored. The hub-bub of Thanksgiving is filled with cooking, and quiet alcoholism fueled by passive aggressive familial jabs. On Thanksgivings there’s plenty to keep you busy, between defending your “career” choices, clothing and explaining why you’d rather work in a diamond mine that requires all employees be nude rather than do whatever it is half your family does.

It’s the day after, when your family is still around but nursing Pinot hangovers that it gets boring. Idle hands and what not. Thank god the slave-drivers at Autoblog never let their employees see light, and that is why we have this glorious Porsche rally footage from 2011. It’s a 22-minute IV drip of drifts, tarmac slides and un-wieghted off-camber grassy knolls. Turn the volume up, drown out that 4th quarter crap, and enjoy this oasis of Gt3 doing what they do best: driving. Make the jump, and don’t forget to turn your speakers on.

- Zack K

Rally racing is like swimming in a cage surrounded by great white sharks. Adrenaline is high the entire time and the only thing preventing you from absolute death is a bunch of metal tubing welded up by some dude name Fia. I think it’s the truest test of car control, skill and flat out balls. It’s also one of the only forms of racing where there’s two people in the car. The co-driver’s job is just as essential as the driver. His notes can not only be the difference between victory or defeat, it can also be the deciding factor between rolling down a hill, playing human pachinko with your car. It’s a symbiotic relationship of direction and action.

Our director and DP, Tom Morningstar, has started co-driving for John Burke in his Up Two Mountains Rally Team Subaru STI. The first time he did was at the Desert Storm rally, and they got 3rd. This time though, part of the rally would be at night. Tom was a little nervous the night before, as would anyone who is about to go sliding around un-protected corners at night, with someone else driving. See what happens in the latest episode of The Smoking Tire.

God Bless the Internet. Without it, I wouldn’t have access to hours of car news, be able to rapidly calculate torque figures, price conversions and I would still be wondering if anyone had ever thought of  having a superhero orgy, set at the Taj Mahal (someone did). And I also wouldn’t be able to see every single thing Jeremy Clarkson has ever written, starred in or hosted. “Illegal” Internet downloading convinced the BBC there just might be a small population of people in the USA that want to watch Top Gear (You’re welcome). And now it brings us a great clip from Clarkson’s newest holiday DVD, Powered Up. Make the jump to watch.

Every year Jeremy Clarkson makes a DVD that serves to placate us beasts the subsist on Top Gear. They’re just a smorgasbord of tire smoke, super cars and comparison that couldn’t find room on the TG season schedule. He does a few car comparisons in this DVD (Ferrari FF, 458, MP4-12C), but the best was saved for last: his favorite car of the year. Not the best car of the year, his favorite. It’s the BMW 1M, and it happens to be our favorite car of this year as well. We had a blast in the CTS-V. The ZR1 is the perfect tool for race tracks and scaring people camping in tunnels, but for sheer fun factor, its the 1M all the way. Performance, exclusivity and value are all there, but all we had to do is measure the smiles on our faces after each person drove it. It compels you to apex corners, it begs for downshifts and it’s as capable at high speed mile consumption as it is darting through corners. It’s just fantastic.

Watch Clarkson chuck the little M that could around, then check out our review of the 1M.

- Zack K

You know the day dreams you have when you’re stuck in traffic? Not the ones about murdering the entire population in front of you with bazookas (No? Just me?) or driving over them in a monster truck. The ones where you want to drive 140MPH down the shoulder, or wish you have a Spec B rally car to drive down that cushy, grassy median, shooting fireballs of angry contempt and pity at the sorry souls stuck in traffic. Or perhaps on the sidewalk. Fuck those pedestrians, they could use an agility test. Exercise lowers cholesterol. Make the jump for two videos of Russians finding creative solutions to traffic.

That’s apparently the attitude in Russia. These drivers use some interesting ideas to skip ahead of a big traffic jam.  These guys care so little about any laws that exist, the first “technique” they apply is driving behind a trolley car. That’s the opening move, and it just gets better. As Thad put, this is the best example of the “I don’t give a fucks.” They’re either diplomats, officers or just “connected.” Not Vonage connected, drugs, murder and bribery connected.

I love the complete disinterest by the people on the sidewalk. One woman doesn’t even break stride as the car comes within inches of her on the sidewalk. She just does the crowded-bar-shimmy and slides right past. No one yells, waves a “WTF?”, no one even looks at the drivers. Hm. Methinks they know the people in these cars don’t appreciate driving crtique. And if you thought the reverse move was ballsy in the first video, the second video will show you it’s not that original an idea. Maybe communism isn’t so bad…

- Zack K

Do you have trouble fitting strippers into your busy lifestyle? Have you always thought the one thing missing from camping was the dancing form only fatherly neglect and a handsy uncle can inspire? No more! Introducing, the Platinum Stage Hitch Pole. Take the strip club with you! Made of sturdy stainless steel or classy brass, the Platiinum Stage Hitch Pole has a 3′ x 3′ platform and a whopping 7 feet of usable pole!  The stainless steel is easily cleaned, allowing multiple performers to perform Olympic-caliber clitoral hangs without sharing the Hanta virus. The 200lb weight limit prevents those 10AM  “C team” applicants from crashing your party.

Boring commute? Not anymore! Your rear-view will only be filled the sight of a beautiful girl humanoid swinging her (adams apple…uh oh) hips to the sound of tire  noise. Own a strip club and want to find out if that new 18.00001 year old is committed to the cause? See how she does at 80 MPH (do not attempt) with truck horns blaring. IF she’s still there when you get back, you know you found a truly damaged soul willing to do anything for approval and sticky bills  winner. And let’s not forget, stripping is now an acceptable form of exercise! It’s the gym that comes with you! Call today! Make the jump for the video and special features!

*Stripper not included. Individual results may vary. The allure of the Platinum Stage Hitch Poles is not limited to attractive women. We are not responsible for ocular damage resulting from any “aesthetically unqualified” persons dancing on said pole. Possible side effects of purchase can include but are not limited to: losing $500, FUPA-sightings, nightmares, lost valuables, co-signing a lease with that stupid skank Vikki,  vehicular-hepatitis, shame, blue balls, glitter poisoning, ODing on Red Bull, deportation, family exile, whorish daughters, having shit stolen by hoes and Affliction-wearing. Do not allow  women to dance behind your truck on the freeway.

This gave me a laugh, but these will probably sell like hot cakes. For only $500 you can have the ultimate accessory in the flat-billed hat clan. I went to the REMIX/Drift event at Irwindale last year, and the biggest attraction was the stripper pole mounted on the back of a short semi. Surrounded by what I call The Un-Fuckables (morbidly obese, pre-adolescents, auto journalists and fathers of questionable taste) several women, sporting more makeup and self-inflicted scars than a Twilight autograph line hyper-gyrated to NOS-fed techno. To be able to recreate that scene for only $500 is way too tempting for way too many people. Pismo, Havasu, Daytona, these will be the new habitats where the Platinum Stage trees will take root and flourish. For a fun game, count the number of these that go untouched, especially by anything over a 6. My guess is most of them will be eligible for a never-touched refund.

- Zack k

How does a car gets its sound? Used to be you built a big box of metal that burnt gasoline, then screwed some metal tubing to it and? Voila. Sound. I’m sure there was a time before exhaust systems were treated like the latest pop teensation who just needs a little auto-tune and a push-up bra to be the next billion dollar barely-legal sex object “musician”, when man would bolt a pipe to an engine and say, “Gee, that sounds swell!”

The BBC has a new special, called “How to Build a Super Car.” In part 2, they talk about how a super car gets its sound. They did a study and sound contributes 50% of a car’s sporty feeling. That means, sound accounts for-at the most-as much of the impression as performance. More likely engine, looks, interior and handling are all lumped together. I find it fascinating that all those critical components of greatness are only equal to screaming dinosaurs flying out of some tin pips. So as cool as those carbon brakes are and as awesome as center-locking hubs are, half of your attraction to a car is dictated by how it sounds. Thank god it’s not like that for women, or we’d all have a long past of opera singing mopeds.Make the jump to read about the tuning, and watch the video.

Moving on from offending future dates, the BBC chose (bets?) to follow the sound development of the McLaren MP4-12C, an ironic subject considering the numerous complaints of the new McLaren’s lack of audible stimulation. Journalists commented so much that McLaren did a last-minute sound adjustment before delivering them to customers. In the video acoustic technician Matt Maunder says McLaren wanted it to sound really extreme. So did I. So did everyone. So why doesn’t it?

Your hands will probably go up in the air when the BBC lets you hear some of the options they had at their disposal. Matt also refers to one of their options as “The Kanye West. Very produced. I quite like that one.” I prefer the one he refers to as  ” a dizzy rascal.” It’s a super car, it should sound like a “dizzy rascal.” Watch the end when Lewis Hamilton asks Jenson Button how he feels about the sound. The McLaren MP4-12c has various settings which change the sound, but I still get the sense Lewis was expecting more of the standard sound.

Click here  to go to the video, at BBC.com

-Zack K

"You're nothin' without me."

“”For Mustang fans, you’re welcome. Clearly the Camaro has encouraged Ford to throw everything they can at us.”

That was Al Oppenheiser, Chief Engineer of the Camaro ZL1. This was in regard to the 2013 Mustang GT500, which showed up on the internets sporting a B.F.E. (Think Duke Nukem). 650hp next year. Al is implying that the GT500 wouldn’t be what it is had the ZL1 not come out. Said the battered house wife to her mother, “No, mom, it’s ok. Jerry wouldn’t have punched me if I hadn’t been so silly and gotten mint and spear mint mixed up.” News flash Chevy, Ford will punch you whether you ask for it or not. More scribblings and a short video after the jump …

I guess he thinks Ford was sitting around, playing MW3 and wondering how they can change every model name so it starts with an “F.” (“No Jerry, Fustang won’t work….damn it!”). He thinks they hadn’t even thought of raising the power on the Mustang until someone said “Hey, Autoblog has a video of some Camaro called the ZL1 going really fast on some road call New Burger King?” C’mon Al, you lost (technically). No one is proud of the kid who gets punched and says, “Yeah? I bet your hand hurts though, huh? HA!” The blogs and comments have begun a chicken versus egg argument, but that’s not going to help the bow-tie bearers. The Camaro was gone for several years, and although some argue the 2010 Mustang wouldn’t be what it is if the Camaro SS hadn’t arrived, they’re timing is too close to be a lead/follow situation. Chevy didn’t change the world, it was just their turn in the game of endless pony-car leap frog they play. And, on their first years out, the Mustang GT got more praise in tests. So the Camaro SS didn’t set that bar either, unless you count lining up alphabetically as getting to the line first.

Yeah, well YOU wouldn't have won if it weren't for ME starting it.

As for the ZL1/GT500 game of leap frog, I think Chevy didn’t think Ford was going to leap quite to far. But what were they expecting? The ZL1 has 580HP (which is a lot) and some really awesome chassis and suspension tweaks (it does). They thought that hop forward would give them time to strut their stuff. But this time, Ford got a running start before they jumped. They added 100HP to the GT500. Al’s jaw cracked the breakfast table that day. What did he expect? The last GT500 had 550HP, so the next would have 560? The ZL1 raised the bar, but barely. I’m sure this GT500 had been thought up long ago. Al should just nod to his opponent, and begin developing the next Chevy artillery. I’m sure it will be incredible (*cough*  redesign Camaro *cough*). The ZL1 is a performer, and the next one will be even better. But for now, just admit you were beat.

The competition of building performance cars is a simple game of ping pong. You swing, then I’ll swing, then you swing, then I’ll swing. Ford and Chevy still trade off swinging, Ford just has a stronger and skillful shot now. Maybe the Camaro shouldn’t have sat all those games out.

-Zack K

You may or may not me familiar with my attitude towards NASCAR. Short version: don’t care for it. My disdain for the sport automatically envelopes everyone around it. You could be a 5 year old and I will stubbornly hate you with the maturity of a Bloods and Crips knife fight. Or as applies here, a driver. I don’t hate the drivers personally, just their sport. But after watching this video, Robby Gordon is the man. I’ve watched him do the Baja 1000, and he warmed my heart a bit. After seeing him in this video driving on Bullrun in his 2011 Jeep Cherokee SRT8, I am a fan. Passing a 700WHP GTR is no problem for him. This guy just likes to drive fast. Make the jump for the 12 minute video of Robby absolutely hauling ass.

Better yet, check out his passenger digging his nails into the arm wrests like he’s being electrocuted, the opposite behavior to Robby’s completely calm demeanor. Same demeanor as an 80-year old man clipping rose bushes in his back yard. Passing on a crest over a double yellow? “Hm. Interesting. Should I eat chicken tonight or fish? Well, there’s the mercury to worry about…” I also applaud him for throwing caution, laws and (probably) sponsorships to the wind in the name of adrenaline, fun and rallying. Robby, if you’re taking resumes for passengers, I can make a pretty mean bottle of water and I have an excellent palate for selecting gas station beef jerky.

- Zack K

Here at TST we are close friends to the Road Trip. We haven’t added it up (and I’m sure plenty of others drive more) but put in a few thousand miles per shoot. We’re also a visual people. Constantly analyzing what we pass by, and looking for interesting places to film. Often times it’s just whimsical thoughts, “Ooh what if you could shoot here, at 5:30pm, on a crisp winter day, with an Aventador, driven by a unicorn.” We’ll never be allowed to drive a monster truck in that Wal-Mart, we know that. But we appreciate the sites you pass on a trip. We all love to drive. As much a pain the long trips can be, they’re usually fun one way or another (The Valentine 1 tells the BEST stories!) And we appreciate people that put work into doing something interesting with a car, and putting it out into the world.

Brian DeFrees drove his car 12,225 miles between August and October of this year. Every 5 seconds his camera would snap a picture. If he averages 60 mph, my 4am math tells me he got home with 146,700 pictures to search through. Bet there’s a few stretches in Kansas where they turned that camera off. But we appreciate the documentation of a trip like this. It gives normal people a quick look at what we see on our silly adventures. It’s interesting to see how many different landscapes, weather systems, skies, cities, systems and types of roads exist in this country. If you need a break from work, take 5 minutes and take a quick trip across the U.S.

It might even inspire you to think about taking a trip on this country’s great questionable roads. Just  be glad you don’t have to drive thousands of miles, if you don’t want to.

Here at The Smoking Tire, we love all things fast and crazy. We drive on runways as fast as possible. We break commuting records (through the use of flying carpets, not speeding). Generally speaking, we’re all a little out of whack and “safe” is either a relative term or a the subject of a meeting.

But we are not as crazy as the guys and gals that attack the Isle of Man T.T. They are completely nuts. They actually need the storage compartment under their mouse-pad of a seat to hold their balls. Yup, the women too. 200 MPH through towns, city streets, and along cliffs. A race where low siding could mean flying through someone’s dining room wall. It’s insane, and we love it. We found this video of one of our favorite races, and wanted to share.  The ability of these riders is beyond belief and their talents are highlighted with the beautiful slow motion shots. We would love to go and film this maniacal art,  so buy some t shirts and glasses.  Then make the jump and enjoy the amazing video by TheSmokyProduction.

By Zack and Thad

Let’s get two things out right now. 1. I hate NASCAR. I’m sure many of you feel the same way. It’s boring, it’s given WAY WAY WAY too much attention on SPEED, and it’s races are attended by people that probably disagree with me on everything from favorite book (“It’s pronounced gun brochure, pretty boy.”) to politics (Must bring birth certificate to receive NASCAR ticket at will-call).

2. I am an angry driver. I’ve never been in an accident but if you are going 64MPH in a 65 zone, I will sit 5 feet off your bumper until you move. Because I feel it’s my job to teach the world how to be more efficient on the road, or die trying. Drive perfectly or I will throw a barrage of hateful yet creative words at your back window with the fury of a WWE wrestler, just without the roids. My anger is 100% organic. (To see the crash clip that caused this rant, and the conclusion, make the jump.)

So when I saw the clip (not the whole race) of Kyle Busch putting Ron Hornaday into the wall on purpose, I kinda got it. Yes he overstepped his bounds, his move was deliberate and over the line. He deserves the fines and DQing he received for it. But I know where his head was at. Hornaday got squirrely passing the slow 07 truck, driven by Idongivafuck Stevens, hit Busch and they both tapped the wall. Adrenaline is high, maybe Busch’s wife hasn’t been putting out and he found out his daughter likes rap music and evolution, and he took that anger out on Hornaday’s rear bumper. I get that. Anyone who has overreacted to a situation knows how fast it happens.

What I don’t get it M&M dropping him as a sponsor for the year. WHY? Because now kids will emulate him in their power wheels and tricycles, and ram their friends into walls at a dangers 2.8 MPH? Too many decisions in advertising are made in the name of image. NASCAR fans probably called Busch’s behavior unacceptable (they didn’t use that word. Probably something like “that’s meaner ‘an a rabid dog in July.”), and doesn’t fit the high moral standard of the sport. But you know who doesn’t care? The people that eat M&M’s: kids. How many kids watched that race? Now how many of them were mad about that crash? Zero. Kids love car crashes. I watched The Blues Brothers to relish seeing 70 cop cars crashed. And I didn’t stop eating toast or wearing sun glasses because of it.

Too much importance is placed on  (assumed) uproar and expected revenue-loss these days. When Janet Jackson showed her titty at the Super Bowl, I bet some Pepsi exec. said “Oooooh I don’t know if we should advertise on the NFL anymore, not if they’re going to be doing this.” Yeah, cuz NFL fans hate naked titties. That’s why no one watches football games at Hooters and NO ONE pays for sex when a game comes to town.

All I’m saying is give the man his M&M’s back. Fans like seeing crashes, so do kids. What Kyle did was a brash, immature and incorrect response to something that was beyond Hornaday’s control. For Mars (owner of M&Ms) to pull sponsorship as a preventative measure is just silly. Shove 2 peanut M&Ms in your empty sack, drink a cup of caffeinated coffee, and let him keep your pretty stickers. No one will give a shit. I promise you.

- Zack K

One thing that often lacks in video reviews or driving videos is driver emotion. Cruise youtube and you’ll see a lot of people talking about cars the way your professor taught you about economics: Factual, direct, maybe some trite joke about cost of beer versus volume to keep everyone awake. Or it’s regular people driving really fast, with the same Terminator face we all wear when we’re trying to not die at the hands of several hundred horsepower.

But something is missing. It’s the feeling cars give us. Simply sitting down in my ERA Cobra makes me smile, laugh and make engine sounds. (But if you watch this, you’ll understand I’m not normal).  To be fair, not every car gives your brain a blowjob. I’m not going to laugh like a maniac while driving a new Passat (probably more tears of shame). But I will in a Caterham. That kind of childish emotional display is part of what makes Top Gear UK so great. It’s the difference between watching Steven Hawking and Chris Tucker commenting on Sophia Vergara’s tits.

That’s why I love this video of Fifth Gear’s Vicky Henderson reviewing the new 2012 Ferrari 458 Spider. I’ve never seen her have so much fun in a car, and that visible emotion tells me this car must be unbelievable.

-Zack K

The Smoking Tire is happy to announce a new partnership with Blip.tv, a great way to watch and share videos online. Through Blip, we will be able to extend our reach into AOL, Yahoo, MSN, iTunes, and more, and those of you who don’t like using just YouTube for your videos will have many other options. Blip is the only player that can be embedded into Facebook walls, and it features full HD unlike Castfire, our last super-distribution tool. All episodes of The Smoking Tire are now online at our Blip Showpage, so check out some of our classic episodes and leave your thoughts in the comments! What’s your all-time  favorite episode of The Smoking Tire?

My personal favorite is still the Jaguar XKR 175 top speed run, which I have embedded here for your viewing pleasure.

When we heard the BMW 1M was going to be at TST headquarters for a week, our right feet collectively salivated. It was one of the most anticipated cars of the year. That anticipation was fueled by the simple formula of 135i size+ M3 performance parts + more power – weight= super mega fun time. After driving it, we would describe it with phrases like “Sell my own mother for one.” or “I’m leaving in the 1M for Mexico at 4am. Who’s with me?” Matt took it to his favorite place-an empty canyon- to see if the past year’s hullabaloo was worth it.

10 years ago Al Gama bought a 1965 Chevy Chevelle. The idea was he and his son would restore it. There was a lot to do: body work, interior, engine work. They set about it, but around year 5, with a 40% completed car, Al’s son got married and found it’s hard to have an automotive mistress that early in a marriage. Work stopped. The car sat. Little did they know 5 years later NAPA Autoparts would choose their car to be the NAPA Know HOW Cardomain Project Car. 

The work would be done by Kustom Kreations, and would include boring the 396 ci. engine .030 over, adding an MSD ignition, a full exhaust and the coveted modern technological marvels known as power steering and brakes. The interior would be converted from mouse house to period-correct passenger compartment, and they laid down a NAPA-inspired paint scheme.

Matt stopped by the build 6 times to see it progress from garage bookmark to street machine. He was there for the engine’s first firing, and if you watch the video, it’s obvious he approves of their work. Open headers help, of course. To see the whole video series and the transformation of the Gama family’s forgotten hobby, head to  http://www.cardomain.com/brands/napa.

I love drifting. I love everything about it. What started as an obsession getting my big wheels and BMX bike sideways spread to every car my parents have ever owned. When I found the sport years ago, I got lost in youtube for hours. One day, after attempting to explain it’s awesomeness to my dad, 26 year old Zack brought his lap top to show him a drifting video. Dad had the same reaction dads have when their 7 year old shows them a super cool rock they just found in the dirt. “Uh huh.”

So when I got invited to go to the final round of Formula D 2011, at Irwindale, it was a no brainer. Make the jump to read about the event, see some of the cars at the show, and a short video showing how it all went down.

But because I’m poor and Monster won’t sponsor me, like Marcus Bachmann watching two male dogs hump, I live vicariously through others. Last Weds. I received a text from a pretty lady, asking if I wanted a pass to Formula D. She works for the ID Agency, who coordinated a lot of the event. Her message was met with tactless “YES!!!” Smooth. Our transportation was…anyone? anyone? Honda Element. There’s no less-drifty car in the world. I know, they built a drift car. I’m not talking about a one-off car with whatever platform a PR firm wanted, I mean the stock car, as god intended it. Still, we fault awesome when we saw this guy on the 10.

This color combo works for pie, that’s it. Maybe a ’55 Chevy, but it’s miles behind any other choice.

Parking was insane, because this event had the biggest turnout yet. 30% more attendees than previous years. Luckily, walking through a parking lot at an event like this is it’s own car show. NSXs, Silvia replicas, Subies, Evos, all on display. There were also lots of shitboxes. The matte black ’89 Accord with a front tow hook was a winner, because the tow hook was probably the most expensive part on it.

The parking lot wasn’t nearly as fun as the cars that were inside the gate. I’ll get to the travesties and hilarity in a second, because I have to masturbate talk about Vaugh Gittin Jr’s 1969 Mustang RTR-X. I know everyone reading this has probably read a ton about it, and it’ll be in our next installment of TST Dream Garage, but I f*cking love this car.

It is one of my favorite cars of all time. It combines the styles of two of my favorite things. I grew up driving a muscle car (and new Mustangs prove the style never dies) but it has some acid-fueled dorifto accents tastefully added on. The wheels and paint look awesome, center stacks are such a sick touch, and the interior is quilted Alacantara. Money willing, I will build a replica of this car. Call me a copy cat, I moved past that within seconds. Dorifto muscle done perfectly.

There’s always some odd ducks at any tuner-influenced event. There was a small group of cars parked near the track entrance. Only about 30 cars, but they were diverse. One of my favorites was this 135i. It was a favorite because although it was barely modified, it became retarded by association. Take a look at the picture.

Tow hook. Big deal right? Maybe he tracks his car. Maybe he drifts it and is worried about hitting a wall. Or maybe it’s just for style. I wish. If it was only for show, I’d smirk but really, who cares? Then I saw the letter in the dashboard.

The letter explains why he has the tow hook. Did he pull a car full of babies out of a river? Did he stack it on the Corkscrew at Laguna, fusing the rear end with the barriers because he’s just that-goddamn-’core?

No. No he did not. He explains that one day, driving on the highway, a piece of debris popped up from the road and hit his car. BUT, all was not lost because thine mighty tow hook hath stopped the flying object. Evil, car-hating gremlins had hurled this missile of evil at the car, and by the grace of Jebus it had hit the car at the exact spot where the tow hook was, and thus, saved him from a costly bumper repair.

It’s not for towing. It’s not for looks. It’s not even the most useless cock ring in the world. He keeps it because once, through the most ridiculous display of luck and chance, something bounced of this 2″ Roman shield, saving his car. And don’t forget, a letter in the windshield means he got asked SO many times “Dude, why do you have a tow hook?” that he felt compelled to write an explanation so that his wind pipes wouldn’t blow out from telling millions of people his ridiculous story. You know, I dress up every year for Halloween. But in the off chance those Kanye West-like sunglasses save me from getting a bit of sand in my eye, I’m not going to wear them for the rest of my life.

There was the usual array of ultra-light Miatas, S13s only I would love and weird “VIP”ed out 2000 Lexuses. And if you thought Lambo doors were over, they’re not. If you want to bang overweight 5s from Asuza, CA, bolt those suckers onto to that Mustang.

After cruising the pits, it was time for the show. We went up to the roof above the suites, easily the best seat in the house.

Well, not seat. Our “grandstands” were made out of left over benches. The foundation? Cinder blocks. They quickly toppled, and were cast aside.

Not to say it was all for naught. The fence was crammed, so I stood on a cinder block for the next two hours.

And I’m glad I did. Looking down on the track is the only way to watch drifting. I’d say it’s one of the few views that is better than TV. TV leaves camera choice up to the director, and if you missed out on Deegan’s donuts at X Games (“What donuts?” Exactly) that can be a gamble. Drifting is about angle, speed, proximity to the other car and close calls. From the roof, you could see it all. We were catching fouls the announcers couldn’t see. And there were plenty. I think every driver nailed a pylon. Car-to-car contact was as prevalent as it probably is in Hong Kong, and former champ Chris Forsberg even ended up doing a backside board-slide with his 370Z on a concrete barrier.

At the end, 8 year veteran Dai Yoshihara was crowned Formula D Champion, piloting his Discount Tire LS-powered Nissan S13 to victory. For me though, it was just about watching each run. A perfect night, great high-speed track, and the best seat in the house. I was absolutely floored at the ability these guys have. Their car control is unbelievable, especially their ability to make up lost ground in a hurry. Vaughn Gittin Jr recently told Matt that drifting is about having as much grip as possible. No where is that more apparent than when a car slips up, loses 7 car lengths, then makes up the distance in about 2 seconds, still smoking the tires. Their ability to place the car around a corner, moving laterally while sliding, is incredible. Watching drift videos is awesome, but if you get a good seat, the combination of smoke and noise makes you focus on another level, and you see it with a new respect. I’ll definitely attend another drift event and I recommend any fan does it at least once.

Because this is the only day off we had all week we weren’t filming,

Cinder block. Australian for grand stand.

but luckily the talented AyalaAndChen put together some sweet time-lapse footage. This event was 30% bigger than last year, which is obvious when you watch the grand stand fill.

Zack K

Cinder block. Australian for grand stand.

…except for me. Here I sit, like a young Clay Aiken watching Porky’s…nothin’.

The way this car is being touted you’d think the internet was about to seizure. First it was “Will they make one?!” then “GM says no ZL1″ and now “We’re fast in Europe bitches!” Now the story (from NA President Mark Reuss) is that this is the fastest production car under $75,000 around the ‘Ring, AKA, “Ford…Ford! Lookit! Lookit my time! Dad’s going to put it on the fridge!”

Make the jump to watch the lap, and why I remain flaccid.

I’m glad GM’s chassis engineering is spreading beyond ‘Vettes and the CTS-V (I miss you V, you never call). I think this attitude and R&D will trickle down. GM’s future lineup could live lives filled with track days and auto-x trips filled with approving nods and high-fives.  And don’t paint me for an Al Gore lookalike, the ZL1 has cool stuff: 580HP, new Magnetic Ride suspension. These are things I like. But on the ZL1, for some reason, I just don’t care.

I’m not anti-American, or anti-muscle car. I drove a 1965 Pontiac Le Mans for 3 years and smiled every minute I was behind the wheel. I love muscle cars. The problem I have with the Camaro is it’s too retro for it’s own good. Few muscle cars had interiors with an art to them, and the new Camaro is the same.  The roof-line still make me feel like a little kid wearing a 10 gallon hat. It’s like playing peek-a-boo with traffic.

I don’t mind muscle cars being imperfect, as long as their old. My old car had blown springs, heavy steering, zero lateral support, bad MPG, no heater, poorly sealed doors and required someone in a reflective jacket with glow-in-the-dark batons to help me park it. But that’s all ok, because it was made during the era of rotary phones, when cigarettes were smoked while jogging and people poured scotch on their cereal without hesitation.

But with the auto industry being flooded with new and better competition, it’s not ok. It’s the 30 year old friend that still has a beer bong and shouts “Pussy!!” in your ear if you buy a bottle of wine. This will put Chevy at the top of the muscle car war, at least until Ford unveils their 2013 GT500, but that’s not even the point. The foundation was flawed.

Look, the development is a great thing. The drive-line and suspension tuning should will only mean better cars in the future. The bow-tie-bred will snap them up (yet 99% will never hit an apex) and shake their dicks at every Mustang they see. But to me this is the same as Hollywood kidnapping Margaret Cho for a make-over. They may be able to turn her body into a clone of Angelina Jolie’s, but there’s still a problem: she’s Margaret Cho.

I’d rather spend my money on this.

- Zack K

Matt hates video games for several reasons, but mostly it’s because they aren’t nearly as much fun as the real thing, which he proves in this video. In 2006, Art Morrison won the “Gran Turismo Award” at the SEMA show, which means that they put your show car into the video game Gran Turismo. After testing the video game version, Matt can’t help but dream of driving the real thing. Hit the jump to see what happens when your wish is granted.

This is the scariest near-miss I’ve ever seen on a motorcycle. I have huge respect for anyone that races motorcycles. Your body’s movements are he most important thing in racing. It’s just you with a 200hp, 400lb. machine screaming in the pack of like-minded psychos. Crashing is inevitable. Competition is put before self-preservation.

Nowhere is that more obvious than here. Watch what happens when the rider rounds a corner at 120mph only to see a bike tumbling his way. No big deal. 400lb chunk of metal cart-wheeling toward you. I would turn and bail, shitting myself and crying as I slid on the ground. Not Dirk von Ballzufsteel. Make the jump to see what happens.

The Smoking Tire’s Tom Morningstar is thoroughly obsessed with bike racing. So much so that he DVR’ed the entire Tour De France. That’s 4 hours per day for 3 weeks straight. And he watched the entire thing. So much so that, even though we live in Los Angeles and he doesn’t have a car, he bought a $3,000 road bike. So much so, that he convinced me that the $340,000 Bentley Mulsanne sitting in our driveway would make a perfect crew vehicle for a pro biking team that was practicing for an upcoming race. We used the opportunity to see how the back seat of the Mulsanne, where the bikers’ assistants ride, compares to the front seat, where I like to be. Video after the jump.

After years of fielding requests from fans of this site, we have finally decided to try a video review of a motorcycle. While it’s true that I’ve only been riding bikes for about 2 years, and am not quite as well versed in 2-wheelers as I am with the “quads,” I figured we’d take BMW’s newest “Streetfighter” bike out for a ride to see what it can do. The F800R is a naked sport bike designed to compete with the Ducati Monster, Aprilia Shiver, and Suzuki Gladius (AKA SV650). These bikes are designed for urban utility as well as canyon carving fun. So, how does the F800R stand up to the competition? Hit the jump to find out.

If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle, you have a hatred for bad drivers few people understand. When I had a motorcycle my middle finger got more exercise than Ron Jeremy pleasuring 11 women at once (No feet allowed. This isn’t soccer). Simple driver errors like sudden lane changes, exiting driveways or crossing double-yellows all pose a threat to cars, but to a person on two wheels whose only protected by 4mm of dead cow skin, it can be lethal. Simple driver errors can kill bikers. Literally. And not that “That puppy was so cute! I literally died.”

That’s why the good people at ICON Motosports took it upon themselves to make their own PSA. It’s the best educational video I’ve ever seen. Using a Porsche 928 and a reject from a Lt. Dangle audition, they show you what drivers commonly do wrong and how dangerous it is for bikers. But the real fun starts when the bikers take revenge upon the offending Porsche. Oh how I envy these guys. If you want to know what goes through a biker’s mind when he almost gets taken out, this is it. Enjoy the video, but more importantly, pass it along to friends and family. Tell them to look past the comedy and fire and maybe they’ll think twice before they dart out of that parking lot.

- Zack

We here at The Smoking Tire have been obsessed with the film SENNA for several months now, and we are fortunate enough that the film’s Director, Asif Kapadia, was willing to stop by and talk about the film and its protagonist, Ayrton Senna with us. Exclusive video after the jump.

SENNA is in theaters in Los Angeles and New York now, and opens in the following cities next weekend.

-MF

We know it’s been a little quiet around here recently. Those of you who follow Matt on Facebook or Twitter know that The Car Show on Speed just wrapped and Matt just had back surgery, so between TV and recovery we haven’t been making many videos. But good news TST fans: The Car Show is done for the season and Matt’s all fixed up now so we’re back! And we’ll have many more videos in the coming months. And here’s the first one, the 2011 Dodge Challenger SRT 392, the newly updated version of the Dodge Challenger SRT8. With 470 ponies on tap, this baby was born to drag race, and as pretty and comfortable as it is, has just gotta be road tripped. Hit the jump for the video.

Hey everyone! We know it’s been a little quiet here around The Smoking Tire for the last ten days, and there is a good reason for it. While Zack has been working behind the scenes at The Car Show (Wednesdays at 10ET/7PT), Matt was off on the Bullrun Rally with Rob from SuperSpeeders, and Tom was part of the MTV film crew that was filming the whole event. Now, for those of you who follow Matt on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll know that we weren’t filming the rally this year like other years, because Matt wanted to just be on vacation, and to be honest, Black Magic wasn’t exactly jumping to throw money at us after our 12 tickets last year.

But that doesn’t mean Rob wasn’t filming this year. And although the coverage isn’t as complete as when we filmed in 2010, and it doesn’t have all those awesome Black Magic commercials not-so-stealthily integrated into the video, we’re pretty sure that you will get the idea of how this year’s rally went. Hit the jump to ride along with Team Super Speeders, Matt and Rob, in the 2000 Mustang Cobra R!

** Matt wasn’t in the “Day 1″ video because he was finishing up taping The Car Show and shows up at the beginning of day 2. But watch day 1 anyway to learn a fun fact about Rob!

UPDATED: Now with Day 7 video.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

A lot of people have been asking us how they can watch The Car Show if they don’t have SPEED Channel. Whether it’s because you don’t have that package from DirecTV or you live in a thatched hut in France, if you have an internet connection, we can help you. Our good friends at Streetfire.com will be re-broadcasting each episode after they air for your repetitive viewing pleasure. Make the jump if you want to read the full press release, but basically if you want to watch The Car Show, save your torrent energy and head to streetfire.net.

*Update* – With the exception of the premiere episode, there is a 30 day delay for the online broadcast. There is nothing we can do about this, sorry.

Press Release

For Immediate Release

StreetFire.com to Feature Adam Carolla’s New SPEED Show
‘The Car Show’

Los Angeles, California- July 13 , 2011 – StreetFire.com, the number one site for all car-
related, user-generated video content and premium automotive content, today announced
its partnership with SPEED to officially re-broadcast its new TV show, The Car Show hosted by
actor-comedian Adam Carolla. The Car Show premieres Wednesday, July 13th at 10pm ET on
SPEED and will be available the next day for viewing on StreetFire.com

Funnyman and automotive freak Adam Carolla will host this ultimate car lover’s show, featuring
awesome cars, epic driving adventures and the best of automotive culture. It’s the perfect
mix of comedy, shop talk and eye candy brought to you by Carolla and his co-hosts: Pulitzer
Prize-winning automotive journalist Dan Neil, “TheSmokingTire.com” founder Matt Farah, and
former NBA Champion John Salley.

Popularly known as the “YouTube for car fanatics,” StreetFire.com has over 1.7 million users,
and is the first and largest user-generated video sharing service that caters to car, truck
and motorcycle enthusiasts. Its current library consists of over 2 million videos which have
attracted substantial attention from diehard auto enthusiasts, making it the perfect home for
The Car Show.

“We are thrilled to be one of the few media outlets to have access to this great new show,”
says StreetFire CEO Glenn Rogers. “The Car Show is sure to be a hit and will be a fantastic
addition to the Streetfire.com lineup which already includes millions of car-related videos. Our
members are big fans of all things automotive, so adding SPEED and Adam Carolla into the mix
is a great fit for our audience.”

About StreetFire

StreetFire is the leader in automotive video sharing on the web and caters specifically to car,
truck and motorcycle enthusiasts. Its library of all car-focused material consists of over 2
million user contributed videos and streams over 20 million videos monthly. StreetFire.com
was founded in 2004 and acquired by CarDomain.com in 2009.

Today was a good day. Thaddeus and I spent the morning driving the 2012 Hyundai Accent, and the afternoon in the new Genesis 5.0 R-Spec, which sounds like some kind of ricer meets muscle car but is actually a large-ish luxury sedan. Clearly, Hyundai’s vehicle naming department shares an office with Acura’s exterior design school. Poor naming aside, the Genesis R-Spec is quite the sleeper, a quiet, nonchalant sedan with seemingly nothing to prove. But under the hood of this silver family-mobile lurks a beastly 5-liter V8 churning out 429 horsepower through an 8-speed gearbox. It may not growl like its German competitors, but as Matt demonstrates, it has no problem vaporizing a set of tires.

Video after the jump

While filming has wrapped on The Car Show, Matt’s new TV show on SPEED with Adam Carolla (left), Dan Neil, (Pale, white), and John Salley (Tall, black), the editors have been hard at work throwing together this teaser reel so you guys can see what the show is all about. I think it’s 1/3 Top Gear, 1/3 Best Damn Sports Show, and 1/3 The Man Show, all about cars of every kind. Having seen many of the segments, trust us, it will be good. Hit the jump to see the 1-minute trailer film.

The words “practical” and “powerful” a rarely friends. The same way “playmate” goes with “PTA meeting.” But this week we got something that is able to mesh those two words together. It’s the American offering to the uber wagen market. An offering from Cadillac that has enough power and performance to not only run down Europe’s best family haulers, but some of the world’s best sports cars as well.

It’s the Cadillac CTS-V Wagon. After driving it around L.A. for a week, we needed to see what it could really do. So we took it to the El Mirage dry lake bed, one of the greatest places in the U.S., where speed limits do not exist. How else will you find out if a car can make Dora the Explorer horrifying? We wanted to see not only how fast the CTS-V could go, but how it would contend against it’s cousin, a C6 Corvette. Make the jump to see what happened when we took away tarmac, and speed limits.

You’re going to like the next episode of The Smoking Tire. In it, I take a Cadillac CTS-V Wagon, the most impractical, practical car in history, to El Mirage Dry Lake Bed for a little high-speed testing. I’m going to find out just how fast you can get your kids to school, and see if I can figure out why Cadillac would bother with a wagon in the first place, even if it can hit sixty in 4.3 seconds and do massive burnouts.

But first, a little teaser video. My friend Chris decided to bring out his tuned up 2008 Corvette to the desert as well, and we had a half-mile drag race to see if the “Corvette of Station Wagons” had what it takes to keep up with its more established little brother. Chris’s car has some basic bolt-on performance parts and a tune, and spins the dyno to the tune of 420 wheel horsepower, translated into 480 crank horsepower. That’s 76 horsepower less than the Caddy, but it also has nearly 1,200 fewer pounds to lug around.

Video after the jump.

A lot of decision making goes into producing a film. Everything from the script, to locations, to set design, costumes, and in the case of the Fast and the Furious franchise, the cars, must be considered. Looking back on the first three films, the cars weren’t as, well, “tastefully” modified as they are in Fast5, with vinyls, neon, and paint jobs that inspired a whole decade of awful tuner cars. But imagine what the cars that didn’t make the film looked like…..

Matt and Craig Lieberman, technical director for the first 3 Fast and the Furious films, sits down with some hilarious F&F memorabilia we found in his basement and we learn just how awful those movies could have really been.

Video after the jump

Before installing any 600hp supercar drivetrain into your Saab 9-3, it’s important to take it for a 5 mile test drive. If it doesn’t have a body, just spin the wheels in your lot for an equivalent distance. Make the jump for the story on the coolest super vagen ever.

Part of what made-and broke-Saab is their cars were quirky, smooth, unique pieces of automobile whatchamacallit. Some were quick, but not because they were trying to be track cars. They were very comfortable, but I would never put them against real luxury heavyweights. And they weren’t show pieces, but they weren’t ugly either. They just were.

That wasn’t enough to draw customers, but maybe that wouldn’t be the case if they had offered it with a Viper option. Viper option?

Yes. You see, a forum member at Zatzy.com name mrspringer, decided his Saab 9-3 was too slow. I don’t know if anyone ever told him about cars like the RS6 Avant, or E55 AMG wagon, but something tells me mrspringer thinks those cars are for pussies. Pussies without tools that is. He took a Saab 9-3 Sport Combi, and then bought a Dodge Viper with the Buffalo Bill option…skinless.

He bought a Viper with no body, yanked out the guts of the Saab, and forced them together. The result is one of the coolest grocery getters I’ve ever seen. It reminded me of the “Ferrambo” built a few years ago, using a 360 Modena engine and a 1960 Rambler body. This Saab is just for the shopper who needs more than two seats.

I like the look in his eye.

Let’s cut the fluff shall we? Best Motoring is cancelled, and for their last race, their lineup was awesome: Lexus LF-A vs. Porsche GT2 RS vs. Corvette ZR-1 vs. Nissan GTR vs. Ferrari F430 GT3. There’s street cars, super-cars and might-as-well-be-a race-cars. The price is all over the board, as are the cylinders and countries of origin. Each of our favorite countries is represented in a cool, if not the best, way. Thanks Best Motoring, for all your hard *cough* work over the years. You’ve put together some of the coolest and most expensive super-cars in wheel to wheel races.

Make the jump to see who won.

Two years and 25,000 subscribers ago, Tom and I said fairwell to the Garage419 brand with an epic road trip to the Pacific Coast Highway in a BMW 335i Convertible. Now, we hit the same stretch of road with the 2011 BMW M3 with Competition Package, the quickest M3 you can buy in the United States. Even though the V8 – powered coupe from Munich is due to be replaced soon with a forced-induction sixer, we celebrate the sound of the fury of the Alpine White M3 as it was meant to be driven. Video after the jump.

In Fast 5, the latest installment in the Fast and the Furious movie franchise, Brian and Dom are trying to pull off the ultimate heist, which requires the ultimate heist vehicle. In the film, they choose Dodge Charger cop car look-alike’s, not a bad choice if you ask me. But is there something better? Matt and Fireball Tim Lawrence host a contest at Willow Springs Raceway inviting all comers to bring their metal and see how their car stacks up as the ultimate heist vehicle. Featured cars include: Gintani X5M, M5, C63 AMG, CLK 63 AMG Black Series, Nissan GTR, Supercharged Mustang GT, and more, plus the actual Nissan 370z from the movie Fast 5 and several professional racing drivers. Hit the jump for the video to see how it all went down and who came out on top.

Part 1:

Part 2:

The Smoking Tire finds the best driving road in California and the best car we’ve ever driven to tackle it: VF Engineering’s all new Supercharged Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4. With 760HP and 600 lb/ft of torque going through all 4 wheels, this car redefines fast. Video after the jump.

The Smoking Tire has a relaxing day in the country, heading on a fishing trip to wind down from the madness that was the Ford Focus Rally. We take the Volvo S60 to Idyllwild, CA, known for its lakes as well as its mountain roads, to see what the car is made of.

You know those crazy super-fans, that buy anything that was ever touched by their idol? The people that buy a pen that was held by Janis Joplin, or the stained underwear that was allegedly shat in by Bon Jovi? I wonder if there’s people like that for the hosts of every car fan’s favorite ongoing porno, Top Gear? If so, this car will be snatched up in a second. Of course, the super-fan will also have to have a job, and a good one. Jeremy Clarkson’s Gallardo Spyder, is up for sale, for the sum of $146,000.  At least this is something you can use, unlike a Star Wars toy signed by Mark Hamil that’s still in the original box.

I guess between his Ford GT and Mercedes CLK 63 AMG Black Series he has enough excitement. Plus, I think that somehow those are less flamboyant. Or maybe it’s because Clarkson knew that as long as he owned the Gallardo, he could never date Kristin Scott Thomas. Yeah, I’m sure Ms. Thomas will steam the windows of her G whiz when she sees his Ford GT.

Ah marketing. Something about advertising fascinates me. I think it’s the ways companies try subtly trick us into wanting to eat their chips, or show us that by using their new band-aid we will be able to surf big waves and then nail supermodels on the beach. Long gone are the days of simple spokespeople though, now ads have to be either funny, clever, or unexpected.

Enter “guerilla marketing.” It’s the idea of using creativity, unconventional methods, and often hitting their target market directly and unexpectedly. The Nissan ad people decided to follow that definition to a T with their new GTR ad campaign. The GTR is a direct competitor with Porsche, and thus their market is current Porsche owners. Make the jump to watch the video.

Nissan wanted to communicate that message directly, with the subtlety of slamming a can of Coke into the temple of someone holding a Pepsi. Two girls took celophane, with a picture of a GTR’s tail-lights, and laid them over the windshields of parked Porsche’s. When the owners climbed into their car, they were surprised with the view of the back end of a GTR. Depending on which Porsche they own, that could be the case on any weekend back road. Of course in the US this would be illegal, because someone would be stupid enough to drive away with the decal still on their car, crash, and then sue someone. As we like to say here, “I are smart.”

Some people have called this “vandalism” or taking things too far.  I know I know, our automobiles are sacred places and the simple thought of someone touching our windshield makes us want to carry a 1911 cocked and locked, but I gotta say this is a pretty funny idea. And with all the stupid take-out menus, BS car-insurance company ads and strip club pamphlets I find on my windshield,  a hot girl poking some ribs about driving a Porsche is a nice change. What do you think, vandals, or a good joke?

OK, we’ll admint it: the “dancing” challenge in New Orleans was painful to watch, and even more painful to perform and subsequently promote. Not only is Matt a terrible (sober) dancer, but also the costumes were simply ridiculous. Of course, the second online voting challenge had to be something you’d want to see Matt doing even less: singing.

However, we promise that the result is surprisingly decent, with Matt really going for it and channeling his inner angry bluesman. He and Brittany have the most followers, and so they have a good chance of doing well at this challenge, even considering the fact that every other team has completely ganged up against them. Having more followers actually hurts Matt and Brittany in this competition, unless the people who have joined their team actually remain active and involved with the competition.

So please, if you’ve made a Focus Rally account, log in and show your support by ranking the teams’ singing performances in this order:

1) Red

2) Silver

3) Blue

4) Black

5) Yellow

6) Gray

Also, while you’re on the site, hit up “The Garage” section and vote Gray for The Boot.

*Oh, if Matt wins this challenge, he has vowed to grow facial hair just like this guy, the bass player for the band in the singing challenge:

In 1992 Nintendo released a game called Super Mario Kart. It would go on to be accountable for 68% of the world’s procrastinating, 15% of drunken bets made in freshman dorms and even Bill Gates admitted it was really really fun. 2 Years ago a Frenchman (or as we call him, Freedom-man) named Remi Gaillard posted a video on youtube of him playing Mario Kart, real-streets in a shifter-kart style. He took his kart onto the streets of Paris, and the video now has over 35,000,000 views.

Four days ago Remi uploaded a new video, no doubt in an effort to give men something to smile about amidst the stress-test that is Valentine’s day. Remi is back, with his kart, bananas and awesome fake mustache. Of course, like any good video game sequel, there had to be some updates and changes to the original. So Remi added a shopping mall level. I hope the next version has Bowser in it.

Matt and his teammate Brittany are doing really well so far in the Ford Focus Rally, their Red Team is currently tied for 1st place with the Gray Team in overall points standings. They also have the most followers signed up. At over 6800 followers as of this post, Matt and Brittany has nearly double the number of followers of all the other teams. So far, the total number of followers hasn’t really come into play, however tonight, that changes. As you can tell by the above video, all the teams had to have a dance contest in completely ridiculous outfits for their New Orleans challenge. The winner of the challenge will be decided by total number of votes for their team. Since Matt has the most followers, he has the best chance of winning this challenge (even though he will maintain his dancing sucked more than spending a week with a Chevy Camaro SS).

There is a catch: When voting, you can’t just vote for the Red Team to win 1st. You must rank all the teams’ performances from 1st to 6th. Don’t forget that, or your vote won’t count. With your help, Matt and Brittany will maintain their first place position.

*Voting closes at 7PM EST Sunday, February 13th (24 hours total) so don’t delay! Also, if you have amassed garage points, please only vote on the Magical Air Freshener, as it expires on the 14th!

Click here to head on over to Focus Rally to cast your vote!

Right now, Matt is on the road for the Ford Focus Rally, the world’s first truly interactive reality television show. He’s traveling the United States in the 2012 Ford Focus with his co-driver Brittany Boddington, and competing in The Amazing Race-style challenges in order to win $100,000 and a Ford Focus each. The good news is, you can help. By joining Matt’s team, you can DRASTICALLY affect the outcome of the game, either by helping Matt and Brittany or by holding back other teams. There is also live-streaming video from the Red Team’s Focus while on the road, and you can hit Matt up on Twitter and talk to him in real time via the video stream at www.focusrally.com. Most importantly, at the end of every driving leg, there will be a “checkpoint challenge,” in which Matt and Brittany must rely on followers through the livestream video to solve a puzzle or a riddle. Without the followers, they can’t complete the challenge, so when you join, sign up for SMS or Email alerts so you know when the Checkpoint Challenge is happening.

In order to promote the show, Ford has purchased the ENTIRE SUPER BOWL PREGAME SHOW, which is now the “Focus Rally Pre-Kickoff Show.” That’s cool, but not as cool as the commercial in the video above, which will air immediately before the game begins. The whole cast of Focus Rally is featured in the video, but as you can see, Matt kicks the whole thing off (pun completely intended).

Join Matt and Brittany’s team!

Follow Matt on Twitter!

Matt appears on the FoxNews.com car talk show “The Car Report,” hosted by Gary Gastelu. We talk about new Italian supercars, as well as get Tammy Allen, purchaser of the “Fake” JFK Ambulance on the phone to discuss the most controversial car at this year’s Barrett Jackson Auction. As a nice bonus, Mario Andretti calls in to the show to talk about his work driving the two-seat IndyCar demonstrator on US Army Bases around the world.

Click here to watch the video.

The Smoking Tire’s Tom Morningstar was fortunate enough to attend the coolest race ever that no one’s heard of: The 24 Hours of Dubai. Held at the Dubai Autodrome, surrounded by unfinished buildings and general nothingness, the endurance race features privateer racing teams fielding such cool race cars as the Audi R8 LMS, SLS AMG GT3, Porsche 911 Cup, Aston Martin Vantage GT3, and more. Check out the video to see Tom doing what he does best: getting great shots of cars.

(Sorry about the link before, we had to take the video down to fix the music credits and it disappeared)

All throughout the last few years of making The Smoking Tire and Garage419, I’ve wanted to do Adam Carolla’s Car Cast. Well now, thanks to doing my job properly on the SPEED pilot and just straight up asking to do it, my first (hopefully of many) appearance on the Car Cast. Adam, the Professor Sandy Ganz, and I spent an hour in the studio talking about how I became such a car geek, go karting, good advice for cell phones, vintage racing, and fat guys in little cars. And of course, we drop a few nuggets about the SPEED pilot we’re working on together. You gotta stay on your toes in studio with these guys, because my new nickname for Adam is going to be “Tangent.”

We then stepped outside the Gulf-liveried studio so I could show Adam and Sandy the most useful vehicle on earth, my SVT Raptor. Unsurprisingly, I get both Adam and the Professor’s seal of approval, and I teach them about proper Valentine One usage in the process. I also forget what style of engine the 6.2 is, but it’s a single overhead cam.

Video and in-studio audio after the jump.

See photos of my visit, and download the In-Studio audio here

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[Car Cast]

I haven’t been able to talk about this, even though it’s been in the works for months. Yes, it’s true, I’m doing a reality show. And yes, it’s also true that this particular reality show is completely owned by Ford, as a way to promote their 2012 Focus. Nevertheless, this is going to be cool. Myself and my co-driver Brittany Boddington, who some of you may recognize from Team Black Magic on this past year’s Bullrun Rally are competing in a cross-country scavenger hunt (think The Amazing Race, but we get a car), and we need the help of all TST fans and followers in order to win. But there’s something in it for you too! If you help us win this competition, Ford will be giving away 8 brand new 2012 Ford Focus’s to helpers with the most points. For real. Here’s what you have to do to help out and possibly win yourself a car.

Go to www.focusrally.com, and “join our team.” You can only choose one of the six teams, so make sure it’s ours! Then, compete in some of the online challenges. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook and help us out with our challenges in real-time. I know you Facebook stalkers love bothering me anyway, so let’s at least make it productive for once.

Here’s a short video that Ford put together about how the contest works:

And the best part? If I win $100,000 and a Ford Focus for winning the competition, I’m spending all the money making the best TST videos ever.

I wouldn’t believe it unless I’d seen the video myself. A Trailblazer SS, no slouch on its own with a 400hp LS2 motor, simply wasn’t remotely fast enough for a Dallas, TX owner, who yanked the engine out and swapped in a Twin-Turbo 427LSX engine (with direct port Nitrous, not Twin Turbo – Ed.) that makes in the neighborhood of 2,500 horsepower. Depending on launch, the tweaked Trailblazer can either put down a 9-second quarter mile or do a massive wheelstand normally reserved for custom-built, dedicated drag cars, not 4,600 lb trucks with full interiors.

Video after the jump.

On the heels of my open letter to Hollywood asking not to re-make Back to the Future, comes this classic YouTube video featuring a 1983 Delorean and its, well, eccentric owner. The clip, from TruTV’s Operation Repo, shows what happens when the bank tries to repossess the Delorean, and it doesn’t exactly go according to plan. If you haven’t seen it before, this is 4 minutes and 41 seconds of your life worth wasting.

Big ups to Jason Conner via Facebook for reminding us about this one!

Fans of The Smoking Tire are always emailing asking us to do something with Ken Block. They don’t always notice that we have actually filmed Ken before while he was practicing at Brian Deegan’s house for X Games, but that doesn’t matter. Something about a globetrotting, CEO, race-car driver type seems to register with our fans, and it’s no surprise, because although not everyone watches Ken crash out in WRC events, they do watch his Gymkhana videos, which is essentially 4 minutes of him playing in a really fast rally car. However, I know Ken a little bit, and I know his manager, who goes everywhere with him, very well, and the main reason we don’t film more of Ken is because we can’t find him. Monster World Rally Team has released a 4-minute video showing “Six Days In The Life of Ken Block,” and as you can see, there’s more to being a racing driver than simply just hopping in the car and mashing the gas. Long days, long flights, cheap hotel food, no sleep, and more corporate obligations than BP after the oil spill are just the beginning of it.  I would say we don’t envy Ken, but we do, because some of those exercises are, well, hard as fuck. And he’s rich too. Like, disgustingly rich.