Earlier today, the United States Senate rejected an amendment that would have put an end to the $6 billion in .
Introduced by Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), the amendment was unable to martial the 60 votes needed to end debate in the Senate, failing in a 40-in-favor, 59-against procedural vote as members of both parties joined in opposition to the measure.
Coburn, considered by most as a conservative Republican, framed the elimination of ethanol subsidies as a way to slash the nation’s deficit. Coburn stated:
Eliminating the ethanol tax earmark and tariff would be a big step toward restoring fiscal sanity in Washington. Ethanol is bad economic policy, bad energy policy and bad environmental policy.
On Coburn’s side were environmental advocates who have long questioned the ecological benefit of ethanol, claiming that it simply takes too much energy to produce the corn-based fuel.
In opposition stood the Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a group headed by conservative Grover Norquist. The ATR lobbied against the amendment on grounds that the elimination of a tax break should only be considered if it’s offset by tax cuts.
The federal ethanol tax subsidy, , is set to expire on December 31, 2011. This failed amendment would have put an end to the subsidy almost immediately.
Jimmy Keeney’s crash at the Global RallyCross Championship – Click above for high-res image gallery
Marcus Grönholm put on an impressive display at the inaugural Global RallyCross Championship by winning both races, but one of the more talked about happenings of the weekend was a spectacular crash by Jimmy Keeney in his .
Matched up with driver Marcus Dodd in the Friday elimination rounds, Keeney had lost ground and was trying to make up time when he came up short for the 70-foot jump. The result was that the back end of the catapulted over the front, flipping end-over-end twice before finally landing on its side with smoke pouring from under the hood. Fortunately, Keeney climbed out of the wreckage unhurt, but the same couldn’t be said for the car.
With ESPN covering the event and plenty of photographers on hand, there was bound to be some good footage of the event. Sharp shooter John Rettie has been kind enough to let us publish his photos of the wreck, and we’ve also embedded a video of the crash .
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Photos copyright (C)2011
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WRX flips end-over-end at Global RallyCross Championship
2011 Audi RS3 Sportback – Click above for high-res image gallery
Gameloft has teamed up with to launch a free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch app that pits players against each other for the chance to win a brand-new Sportback. The app is effectively a demo for Gameloft’s “Asphalt 6: Adrenaline” driving game and is available as a .
Players compete in a three-race career mode in the game, featuring two regular races and then an elimination round. The races will be on two tracks, one in Tokyo and one in the Bahamas.
The final round of the contest, which kicked off on March 3rd, is a three-lap time trial around the Bahamas circuit. Participants post their times online, and the fastest one at the end of the contest wins a 2011 Audi A3 Sportback Quattro. Get your iPads at the ready…
2011 BMW 335is – Click above for high-res image gallery
Endras in Ajax, Ontario has a sweet blogging gig open. The winner of the dealership’s Ultimate Blogger contest gets a free condo for a year, a new Bimmer every six months and a $65K a year starting salary.
Endras is looking for someone to represent it online, a job that includes attending press events, junkets and auto shows, as well as handling the outfit’s social media efforts.
To enter, write and submit a 200-word blog post on anything BMW-related. After Endras BMW management weeds out the entries that fail to impress, 20 semifinalists be asked to produce a video proving their obsession with performance.
In the last round of eliminations, the 10 finalists will get face-to-face interviews at Endras. After that, someone’s got a new job. If you want a shot at it, hop over to and fire up your writing skills.
2011 McLaren MP4-26 – Click above for high-res image gallery
While rival Formula 1 teams unveiled their new 2011 challengers at or before the recently test session at Valencia, McLaren opted to run its 2010 F1 car instead. The reason? Ostensibly to focus on the varied effects the new Pirelli tires. This week in Berlin, however, the British Formula 1 outfit joined the field and took the wraps off its new racer, the MP4-26, revealing a number of innovative and radical design elements.
In the German capital, the team rolled out the car in pieces and put it together in front of the gathered crowd (not unlike the ). McLaren used a plastic engine and exhaust system so as not to reveal all their secrets, but what we do know is that MP4-26 F1 car features a longer-than-usual wheelbase, an even higher nosecone than its rivals, and odd U-shaped sidepods. That last feature is designed to channel cleaner air to the new rear wing in an effort to regain downforce lost from the regulatory elimination of the double diffuser.
The MP4-26 is also the first McLaren Formula 1 car designed to accomodate Jenson Button’s taller frame, since last year’s racer was largely finalized before his release from Brawn GP. McLaren remains secretive on the rest of the design, releasing only the handful of images you can see in the gallery below. Has McLaren got enough tricks up its sleeve to drive Button or Hamilton to another title? We’ll just have to wait and see.
2010 Korean Grand Prix – Click above for high-res image gallery
The cars aren’t the only thing that move fast in Formula One; everything’s on an accelerated scale, even the calendar. It seems every new season in the modern era of F1 demands a new race. In 2004, Bahrain and Shanghai were added. Turkey joined the calendar in 2005. Things went backward in 2006 and 2007 with the elimination of Belgium (temporarily) followed by San Marino and Hockenheim, respectively. Singapore was added in 2008, followed by Abu Dhabi in 2009. India is set to join next year, the United States the year after and Russia by 2014. This year, however, the new slot belonged to Korea.
Ambitious plans were laid down by ubiquitous track architect Hermann Tilke, who’s firm is responsible for every one of the aforementioned new circuits and then some. But as recently as a couple of weeks ago, there were serious doubts over whether the site would be ready for this weekend’s inaugural grand prix. Fortunately, the hosts managed to get it all together in the end, putting on a race that would enter the books as one of the most exciting christenings in motor sport history. Follow the jump to see how it went down.
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[Images: Mark Thompson, Paul Gilham, Clive Mason/Getty Andy Wong, Mark Baker, Greg Baker/AP]
Force India drivers receive their custom blended whiskies – Click above for high-res image gallery
Think drinking and driving don’t mix? Well they don’t. Not in the common sense of the term, at least. But though some advocates have called for its elimination, booze brands have been sponsoring motor racing for decades. And while they may not run on grain alcohol like IndyCars, several F1 teams continue to carry sponsorship from scotch whisky distillers like Johnnie Walker and Whyte & Mackay.
To mark its collaboration with Force India, the latter’s master distiller Richard Paterson – a giant in the scotch business – created special blends for each of the team’s drivers: Adrian Sutil, Tonio Liuzzi and test driver Paul di Resta (who remains the only Scot in F1 following ). Each blend was matched to the driver’s character and presented to the drivers in lead-up to the recently concluded .
Marketing ploy? No doubt. But while we enjoy our jobs more than the next guy, this serves as just one more reason why we’d willingly swap our laptops for an F1 helmet any day. Have a closer look in the gallery below or to see Paterson giving Force India a little extra boost for the race.
The ESPN X Games are coming to the LA Coliseum July 29 to August 1, and for the first time, SuperRally will be coming with them. Americans might know SuperRally as the Harley Davidson events, but it’s actually a renaming of the European sport of RallyCross, which looks for all the world like motocross but with cars.
The field begins with 12 drivers who will do time trial runs to decide the grids for three elimination races. According to ESPN, “The winner of the Elimination heats and the highest seeded driver who has not yet advanced will compete in a four-lap last chance qualifier (LCQ). The winner of the LCQ will join the winners of the Elimination heat races in the five-lap final race.”
We’re not quite sure how that’s going to work, but we’re sure there’ll be a lot of wheelspin, jumps and flying dirt, which is really what this is all about anyway. Tickets for the X Games go on sale June 24. Thanks for the tip, Joe!
The practice of opening the hood at every fuel stop used to be routine. With an oil-soaked rag in hand, the worker reached over and pulled out the hot metal dipstick, and after a quick cleaning swipe, the dipstick was plunged back into its tube and pushed down into the sump of scalding oil. Withdrawn again, a tell-tale black film in the middle of the scored lines marked the oil level very accurately.
Today, many late model vehicles are running sans oil dipstick. Electronic oil level senders have replaced the metal rod – to the bafflement and frustration of the few remaining hands-on enthusiasts everywhere.
In an effort to find out who exactly is responsible for the dipstick-abolishing movement, Autoblog contacted , and – three respected German automakers who have embraced the technology for several years. All three gave us the same answer. Contrary to Internet rumors, the elimination of an inexpensive metal rod is not a cost-cutting measure, nor is it an environmental issue (word on the web said each check of a dipstick introduced ounces of polluting dirty oil into the ecosystem).
Quite frankly, the automakers point out that we simply don’t need dipsticks anymore. Why. Because owners don’t use them. While they don’t specifically say it, those who engineer and assemble our new cars (and guarantee new vehicle warranties) are much more comfortable knowing that a silicon chip is monitoring the oil level – not a consumer who hasn’t checked tire pressures (or even opened the hood) since the last time the Vikings won the Super Bowl.
Today’s comatose driver expects everything to be automated – and it is. Look no further than the myriad of digitized warning lights on the dashboard when the key is turned (um… make that the start button). Don’t blame the automakers for the disappearance of the dipstick – blame the public at large.
Photo by Michael Harley / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.
GM EN-V concepts – Click above for high-res image gallery
Today unveiled a trio of EN-V concepts that showcase the automaker’s idea for a new global, urban mobility vehicle. Developed in conjunction with its partner in China, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., the EN-V concepts build on last year’s that was developed with help from the balancing-on-two-wheels experts at Segway. Each of the three EN-Vs, which stands for Electric Networked-Vehicle, sports a different design. Why three? The various shapes demonstrate the flexibility of the electric drivetrain and are supposed to express three different characteristics: Jiao (Pride), Miao (Magic) and Xiao (Laugh). Jiao (the bubbly blue one) was designed in Austrlia by Holden, Miao (the blocky black one) was designed at GM’s studio in California and Xiao (the streaky red one) was designed in Europe.
The EN-V concepts are GM’s solution for the congested urban centers in which we’re all likely to live by 2030. Their all-electric, two-wheel drivetrains take care of the emissions problem. They’re also fitted with the latest GPS, vehicle-to-vehicle connectivity and an array of sensors and cameras that allow fully autonomous driving. The effect of all this tech is less congestion on city roads and the virtual elimination of accidents. Zero emissions, zero traffic jams and zero accidents – the future’s looking bright!
Lithium ion batteries will take each EN-V up to 40 miles on a charge, which isn’t that hard considering they only weigh 1,100 pounds. And since they’re each less than five feet long, up to five times more of them can fit in a parking lot than your average car of today. Do they look as fun to drive as a Porsche Cayman? No, but driving a Porsche Cayman in a congested city center isn’t all that much fun anyway. If we all end up living on top of each other, these little electric runabouts might be the best way to go.
The EN-Vs will be on display at the SAIC-GM Pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai beginning in May. Feel free to follow the jump for GM’s official press release that talks more about what our crowded future will look like and how the EN-V will help.
