Cars & Coffee at F40 Motorsports

.

.

.

.

.

I hear crying on Saturday at 4:30am. Ugh, it was going to be one of those days. To my surprise, my daughter went back to sleep within a few minutes, but I didn’t. Earlier in the week I learned that F40 Motorsports, famous from the HD Theather show Chasing Classic Cars,will be having a cars-and-coffee event. Getting up at 5am on a Saturday to drive almost two hours to look at some cars is not exactly my cup of tea (sorry for the pun), but since I was already up I decided to grab my camera and I quietly sneaked out of the house.* … Continue Reading

Spotted: BABE Rally “99 Problems but the Babe Ain’t One” Car

At first my thought was that this was some 24 Hours of LeMons reject, but I saw no roll-bar and signs of any real battle damage. Googling the “99 Problems” sticker on the car revealed a video which showed the vehicle being part of the 2009 BABE Rally.

In 2009 a team that called themselves “99 Problems but the Babe Ain’t One” has entered the rally in a Volvo 245. Below is a video of the Swedish monster in action. Judging by the video, the Volvo has seen better days. We don’t know how the 245 went from being a perfectly good wagon to this pseudo pick-up-truck-convertible-sedan thing. As weird as it may look, it appears to be completely road legal as it has lights, windshield, and license plane. … Continue Reading

Behind the scenes at Rolex 24 at Daytona

The 48th running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona is now behind us. With heavy rains, record setting 53 lead changes and a margin of victory of less than a minute, this year’s 24 was a spectacular race to watch. The coverage by SpeedTV was decent, but of course at night they had to throw in a re-run of some old NASCAR race that no one could care less about. Fortunately my friends from VelozMedia were in Daytona along with Turner Motorsport Team producing a behind-the-scenes documentary of Turner’s journey through the race.

VelozMedia’s staff photographer, Tim Hourihan, has been kind enough to share some of the images he has gathered for the documentary. Since we have all seen races, be it on TV or live, I have selected over a hundred pictures from Tim’s gallery that give us the best perspective of how it is to be on the crew of a three-car race team at Daytona. At the end of the day one questions remains: which did they consume more of, gasoline or coffee? … Continue Reading

Snow Run! Off-Roading in Snowy California

My buddy Andy, with whom I went off-roading last year, has moved to California for school. His trip west in the Jeep CJ-8 was quite adventurous, but unfortunately all the pictures from it went missing.

Now that Andy has settled in and got the Scrambler back in the proper working order, he went on an off-road snow run. To us normal people that means driving 4WD vehicles with big tires on what essentially are hiking trails. Below pictures are telling a story; from the meeting point, up through the mountains, until they get caught in a storm. At that point  they concluded that beer and burgers are more fun. Enjoy.

… Continue Reading

2010 New York Motorcycle Show

I don’t own a motorcycle and I even failed my motorcycle license test (story below), but I really do appreciate them. Short of cars such as the Lotus Exige, Caterham, or Ariel Atom, motorcycles are the most direct connection between a man (or a chick) and a machine. There is no safety devices, no electronic nannies, no OBD2, no emissions systems, and nothing that does not serve a purpose. That is exactly what makes motorcycles so great. Combine that with the idea of freedom that these machines offer and it is no wonder why they are loved so much.

… Continue Reading

Turner Motorsport’s Journey to the 24 Hours of Daytona

There is only one answer to the age old question: what do you want to do when you grow up? That answer is “do what you love”. So what do you do when you love cars and movies? Simple, you do what what my friends Miguel Aponte-Rios and Baer Connard did – you start Veloz Media, a film production company specializing in motorsport programming.

Recently Turner Motorsport, a BMW performance shop and a race team, has contracted Veloz Media to do behind-the-scenes chronicle showcasing their efforts and journey in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona race. Turner is entering this race with a new Riley-chassis race car powered by a 5-liter BMW V8 engine racing the GT Class. Below is a teaser video of the preparations going into the race as well as Turner/Veloz Media press release. Have a look, this promises to be an epic series of films. … Continue Reading

Amazing Dakar Rally Pictures

I don’t often post pictures that I that I have not taken myself, but these really took my breath away. If you have never heard of the Dakar Rally, which for the last two years takes place in South America as opposed to Dakar due to terrorist threats, read up on it here. This is one of these things that I would love to do before I die… and hopefully not die during.

Imagine a combination of rally racing and off-roading, all done in a completely remote area with limited support, that is Dakar Rally. All other forms of auto racing are almost amateur in comparison. Enjoy more pics after clicking ->

… Continue Reading

Calling all BMW enthusiasts!

The other day I get an email from a company that was hired by BMW to produce a series of short documentaries. The company is called DIGITALKITCHEN and the goal of the documentaries is to break down the existing BMW driver stereotypes and aim for an inspiring story or personality that revolves around BMW automobiles or motorcycles.

In order to accomplish this task, DIGITALKITCHEN is looking for a few good people – here is what they are asking for: … Continue Reading

Speeding Police Cruiser Kills Two Innocent Teens

On the morning of June 13th in Milford CT, two police officers in their own cruisers were returning from an assistance call in a neighboring town. This video shows the first police car traveling between 66 and 72mph in a 40mph zone, being passed by another police car on the right, which was traveling at over 90mph. Both cruisers are traveling without their signals and sirens on. What happens next is just awful. … Continue Reading

Ten Minutes of Rally Car Crashes

Don’t deny it, one of the reasons you watch any kind of motorsport is to see a crash. Because of its unpredictable conditions and variety of cars and drivers involved, rally racing happens to be one of the most challenging and entertaining forms of motorsport which results in some really cool crashes. After the jump is a ten-minute video of Finns who fail to properly imitate  Mika Häkkinen (yes, I know that he is not a rally racer, but I’m sure he is better than you) and end up rubber side up. Nothing but spectacular crashes. Enjoy! … Continue Reading

Pictures from CTS-V Challenge

Enjoy the pictures, the full and still unedited gallery is below. We had fun; I’ll have a full write up on all the good, the bad, and the ugly over the weekend. … Continue Reading

OFFICIAL: Entered the Bob Lutz’s CTS-V Challenge! – UPDATE

UPDATE – WOW, WE WERE SELECTED  TO GO AGAINST BOB LUTZ IN THE CTS-V. STAY TUNED.

Recently, GM started a new marketing campaign titled “May The Best Car Win”. As part of this campaign, General’s top CarGuy, Bob Lutz challenged the automotive journalists “to find a stock production sedan on the planet that could outperform the CTS-V on the track”. This challenge has been accepted by Jalopnik’s Wes Siler who will be driving a Jaguar XFR. The challenge was further opened to other participants and guess what? For the heck of it, my friend Mike and I have entered the contest to take on this challenge in a 2008 BMW M5! … Continue Reading

Cars and Coffee!

It started off in California (where else?) and is now spreading like virus; a simple idea of car lovers gathering early on a Saturday morning, checking out some cars and chatting. No traffic jams, no minivans on the road, no non-carguys walking around asking dumb questions. Brilliant. … Continue Reading

Mercedes Benz Day!

October is here and only few more Lawn Events at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Boston remain.  So far, you have seen British Car Day, German Car Day, Miata Day,  Italian Car Day, and now Mercedes Benz Day. I was raised under the belief the Mercedes Benz is the oldest car company in the world and they make the best cars, which in the 1970’s and 1980’s was probably true, so seeing all these cars in mint condition gave me that warm fuzzy feeling. … Continue Reading

The New General Motors

I have mentioned in my Cadillac SRX and CTS Sport Wagon quick reviews that American automotive companies absolutely need to step up their game as soon as possible in order to survive. Not only do they need to have products that are comparable to the rest of the world, they also need to find a new way of marketing. On August 10^th 2009, the new-post-bankruptcy General Motors did just that.

… Continue Reading