We officially have a new motorcycle hero. Genki Hagata rolled his Yamaha YZF-R6 out onto the track during the second AMA Pro Supersport qualifying session at Sears Point recently. Partway through his out-lap, the bike lost traction in the rear before abruptly regaining it. We likely don’t need to tell you that scenario almost always results in a one-way ticket off of the saddle in a not-so-glorious highside. But not for Hagata. The racer exhibited nothing less than super-human strength by clamping onto the handlebars and holding on for dear life.
Miraculously, it worked. After the bike settled down, Hagata managed to cling to the machine as it rode upright until he was able to fling himself back into the saddle. The guy’s efforts kept the Yamaha off of the asphalt, but cost him a spot on the grid. Hagata missed the cut-off by a few tenths of a second. Still, we haven’t seen heroics like this in a long spell. to check it out for yourself.
While most would regard the reunification of open-wheel racing in America as a positive thing, it has been tough on some of the drivers that had come to dominate the Champ Car World Series. Essentially dumped into a field of IndyCar drivers, even the most accomplished Champ Car pilots have had trouble finding a ride.
Take Paul Tracy, for example. The Canadian driver – arguably the nation’s most successful this side of Jacques Villeneuve – started out long before the split after winning the Indy Lights title. He went on to win numerous Indy races, and took the Champ Car title in 2003. But since the two series were reconciled, he’s had trouble finding a ride, contesting a race here and a race there for a variety of different teams.
This year, Tracy will reportedly be back for at least a few races with Dragon Racing – the team operated by the son of his former team boss, Roger Penske, Jay, who recently split with Gil de Ferran. Tracy will drive at Long Beach, Texas, Toronto, Edmonton and Sears Point for Dragon Racing, and will contest the Indy 500 for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing – a team with limited success to its name, but it’s an outfit that has fielded such names as two-time champion Al Unser, Jr. and racing scions Graham Rahal, Tomas Scheckter and John Andretti. We’ll be watching to see how Tracy does against the younger field, particularly his returning nemesis, Sebastien Bourdais.
We know there are a lot of you out there who are just like us; itching to get your hands on Gran Turismo 5. Checking the Sunday paper this morning, we ran across ads from Sears (above) and Target (right) that say that the highly anticipated (and eternally delayed) driving sim will hit store shelves this Tuesday (its former “confirmed” release date). Don’t bother getting in line, though.
As has been well documented, the official saying, “we can confirm that Gran Turismo 5 will not be available this November 2nd, but the game’s release will be coming this holiday season.”
So what gives? It’s pretty simple. Retailers’ national print ads like these are finalized weeks or even months in advance (you can expect the big Black Friday circulars to start leaking any day now). This is likely just a case of the stores getting burned by Sony’s most recent late-in-the-game GT5 postponement after the weekly sale flyers had already been approved and gone to print.
if you take a look at the Target ad, it includes something very important: an asterisk with the warning, “release date subject to change.” Prescient, given Sony’s history GT5 “release dates.” So, despite what you may see in your Sunday paper’s ad inserts, don’t plan on picking up GT5 this Tuesday. The wait continues…
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times, but it warrants repeating – in context especially – that there exists an ocean of difference between stock car racing in America and touring cars overseas. And we’re talking about more than geography here. The cars are different, the tracks are different, the drivers, the fans… and so too is the racing. But the two are about to take one step closer when two-time DTM champion Mattias Ekström takes on NASCAR.
Now Ekstrom wouldn’t be the first European driver to test drive a stock car, but he’s already done that. What we’re talking about here is the full contest of an actual NASCAR race (made possibly by Red Bull, which sponsors and the #83 he’ll be driving Stateside). And not in a feeder series, either: the Toyota/Save Mart 350 is a full-fledged round of the top-tier Sprint Cup, not the Nationwide Series, Camping World Truck Series or ARCA junior league like some European drivers have started out with when making the transition.
Mind you, the race is being held at Infineon Raceway (formerly known as Sears Point) in Sonoma, California – one of only two road-courses on the series calendar – but the round at the Lausitzring EuroSpeedway (run partially on the banked tri-oval) ranks among the fourteen DTM races which Ekström’s won, so he very well might stand a fighting chance on an American oval, too. In the meantime we’ll be watching the weekend after next to see how Mattias fares in his auspicious NASCAR debut. Details in the press release after the jump.
Dan Gurney’s 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302 Trans-Am – Click above for image gallery
Here’s your chance to lay your hands on a piece of muscle car history. One of Dan Gurney’s 1969 Boss 302 racecars is up for bid on eBay Motors with a chilly Buy it Now price of $1.1 million. The car campaigned in a number of race series, but the biggest feather in its cap is that it helped Ford secure the silver in the 1969 Trans-Am manufacturer championship. According to the listing, this particular example was the prototype for the rest of the Trans-Am Mustangs driven that year, and it was built for team by Kar Kraft.
Gurney whipped the car around the track at Kent and used it for practice at Sears Point, but Peter Revson piloted the Boss to its best finish of the ‘69 season – fourth at Laguna Seca. After Shelby walked away from the series, the Ford spent some time as a wind-tunnel test car and made its way around a variety of race circuits, nabbing an SCCA Championship along the way. In 2003, it was restored to its 1969 configuration in concourse condition, complete with a 527 horsepower 302 under the hood.
The auction includes a mountain of documentation, including signed letters of authenticity from Carroll Shelby himself, Kar Kraft engineering drawings and a stack of period photos of the car going fender to fender. Hit eBay Motors to check it out.
If you were following the news coming out of Infineon this weekend during the Sears Pointless 24 Hours of LeMons race, you might’ve heard about a nasty crash involving the ONSET Cavalier.
Going into turn 11 at about 1 PM on Saturday, the wagon – an easy top ten contender – squeezed through an opening on the back straight before being tapped on the left rear, sent into a wall and then flipped. The Cavalier slid well over 100 feet before coming to a rest mid-track and just as the driver was extracting himself from the car, the red wagon burst into flames.
Although he was able to remove his harnesses and wiggle his way out the window, the driver did suffer from a back injury resulting in two vertebrae surgeries carried out on Saturday and Sunday. We’ve gotten word from a close friend of Tyler that he’s recovering and doing well, and we wouldn’t be surprised to hear that LeMons could begin requiring HANS devices for future races.
we’ve got two videos of the wreck: One from inside the ONSET car and another from a vehicle traveling further back in the pack. Both are very telling and further proof that LeMons’ strict safety requirements work, even in $500 crap can racers.
According to Automotive News (which is citing four separate yet unknown sources), is preparing to reinstate more than 580 dealers that had applied for government-mediated arbitration to keep their franchises in the United States. For those keeping track, 580 represents exactly half of the 1,160 dealerships that . These selected dealerships would potentially be reinstated outside the process of arbitration.
GM will reportedly send letters to the 580-plus dealerships it has decided to reinstate, offering immediate restoration of their franchise rights, including the ability to order new vehicles. If a dealership does not receive a letter, GM has not chosen to restore its franchise rights and it will have the option to either settle with GM or enter the arbitration process if it so desires.
For those dealerships that aren’t successful in their quest to regain franchise rights, well… , right?
Auto show season keeps marching on in March with wall-to-wall coverage coming your way from the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, which is just winding down. Motorsports enthusiasts can look forward to the start of the 2010 Formula One season with all the action kicking off in Bahrain, followed two weeks later by the Australian Grand Prix. American open-wheel fans have IndyCar action in Brazil and St. Petersburg in March, while NASCAR visits Atlanta, Martinsville and Bristol. For fans of the unorthodox, the LeMons bunch will make a stop at Sears Point.
Classic car season is ramping up too, with the Amelia Island Concours topping the list. There are also plenty of smaller shows like the Cavalcade of Cars, 30th Annual MDA Car Show, Corvette/Chevy Expo, and several auctions as well. RM Auctions visits Amelia and Ft. Lauderdale, Gooding and Co. also stop at the Amelia Concours, while Silver sets up tent in Portland, OR. If none of those events appeal to you, check out our GoogleCalendar for even more listings, all with detailed info and links. And please don’t forget to use the comments section to add or modify listings.
and dealers unsuccessful in government-mediated arbitration to save their franchises from closure are being thrown a potential life saver. This one, however, doesn’t say U.S.S. Government on it, but rather, U.S.S. Sears Auto Center. The nationwide retailer want to expands its Auto Center operations that focus on service and sales and dealers with physical plants but nothing to put in them might be a workable option.
The upside for Sears is not only known dealer locations that are practically built to run Auto Center operations, but having folks who know cars representing the brand. The upshot for dealers would be the chance to run a potentially profitable business supported by a major brand, on top of which they could add used car sales. The first Chrysler-dealer-turned-Sears-outlet will be Coleman Auto Group in East Windsor, New Jersey, a conversion that happens next month.
Follow the jump to read the press release on the endeavor, and who knows, perhaps Craftsman and DieHard can succeed where Chrysler and GM couldn’t.
We know there are a lot of you out there who are just like us; itching to get your hands on Gran Turismo 5. Checking the Sunday paper this morning, we ran across ads from 
