Car Lust

Driving Experiences

A lot of local race tracks have a performance driving school where you can take your daily driver and hurtle it around the track with professional instruction.

However, more recently, several of the high-end sports car manufacturers have set up driving experience schools at specific tracks. For example, Audi announced their new R8 one and two day driving experience programs at Infineon Raceway in California. This particular program gives you the chance to drive a $100k+ car on a race track with professional drivers.

Now, Audi are not by any means the only ones that do this - Porsche and Ferrari offer something similar - but I wonder if these experiences just increase the longing for these high performance machines or at least sate the desire for a short while. I would love to get some comments from anyone that has participated at one of these experiences.

-- Darren

Audi Driving Experience
Ferrari Driving Experience
Porsche Driving School

No Coupe For You

Even though we are firmly in the twenty first century and living in a global economy there are still new cars being released for the European market that will never see the light of day in the United States.

The latest addition to this long list is Ford Focus Coupe Cabriolet (or CC for short). With the Geneva Motor Show starting next month, Ford of Europe is getting ready to unveil its new hard-top convertible edition of the sweet European Focus. Available in multiple trim levels and engine options, this version joins its three, four and five door sedan siblings but brings an extra dash of Italian chic with its Pininfarina styling.

Come on, Ford, how about treating your American customers to a new ride.

-- Darren

Budget Capping Comes to Formula One in 2009

On the newswire this week, from Reuters, comes news that Formula One teams will face a spending cap starting next year. The FIA President, Max Mosley, has sent a letter to all team principals illustrating his intent that the cap would apply to all costs "other than engines, drivers and expenditure exclusively for promotion and marketing."

Although there has been talk of capping for several years now, many in the industry and fans alike believed that the other cost cutting measures - engine changes, standard ECU - would be enough. Details on the level of the cap are still to be revealed.

-- Darren

Top Gear on PS3

 

The popular BBC motoring show Top Gear will be featured in the upcoming PlayStation 3 game Gran Turismo 5 when it is released in summer 2008. Players will be able to imagine themselves as the show’s anonymous test track driver “The Stig” while driving the hundreds of available cars around the Top Gear test track that is a central feature of the program. In addition to the test track, forty episodes of the show itself will also be available for download on a new dedicated Gran Turismo TV channel that operates over the PlayStation 3’s online network.

 

Picture of “The Stig” courtesy of Wikipedia.

Mean Machine

 

Picture courtesy of The Ridge, an off-road riding park in Alabama.

Not all four wheeled fun comes with doors and a steering wheel…

Gentlemen, you will have to redefine the word ‘fast’ after you take a drive on this torque-y Polaris 800 Twin EFI. This beast is a mover in the thick and thin of it. Enjoy THE smoothest ride you will ever experience with front and rear independent suspension and (if you like to be seated while riding) a very cushy seat. Climb rocky mountain sides in low gear or get to the finish line first in high gear. Polaris boasts versatility.

 

 

With too many attachments to name, this machine tempts the imagination. Plow deep snow from your driveway or pull a fallen tree out of the way with your winch. Mow the back pasture or pull a ton and a half on a trailer; it doesn’t matter.

 

 

As for the ladies, go out and get yourself one of these mean machines. It is my wife’s most recent acquisition and she loves it. She uses it daily to tend to her horse farm, but has found a new passion for off-roading. I have become a Polaris widower. Sigh.