Saturday
F1 constructor rules ?should be eased?
Rosberg denies Mercedes destabilised
SR� Motorsports Adds Jason White to Lineup
Friday
Envisioning a Safer Fourth Avenue in Park Slope
Last night, DOT staff led a public workshop sponsored by Borough President Marty Markowitz’s�Fourth Avenue Task Force�on how to improve�28 blocks of Fourth [...]
Kurt Thomas Busch Kyle Thomas Busch Jeffrey Tyler Burton Richard Allen Craven
Ward, Broekman Lead The Way
Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/iracing-news/ward-broekman-lead-the-way
Legge to legally contest Dragon exit
William Ashton Lewis Jr Sterling Burton Marlin Mark Anthony Martin Jeremy Allan Mayfield
Bloomberg?s Final State of the City Captures the Contradictions of His Legacy
Thursday
ETC: Use this PowerPoint when convincing your spouse to let you buy a Corvette
Filed under: Car Buying, Coupe, Performance, Chevrolet, Humor
When you are not the one in charge of the purse strings, creativity is a must when trying to get the string-holder to bankroll that next shiny object you just can't live without.
When I was a kid, I decided that life wasn't worth living if it weren't in pursuit of owning a GMC Typhoon. My 12-year-old self crafted a fiscal strategy that, when combined with my offer of a 49-percent share of ownership in the car in return for my parents' contribution of 80-percent of the purchase price, would see me behind the wheel of a Typhoon by the time I hit college. They walked away from the negotiating table and, the economic climate of the 8th grade being what it was at the time, another partner wasn't found before the Typhoon was discontinued.
Roy El-Rayes, however, has succeeded where 12-year-old me failed, and he did it by using the sort of professionalism that only a PowerPoint presentation can provide, along with some humor and bold-faced flattery.
Roy's object of desire was a C6 Corvette Z06, and while his wife had already agreed a Corvette would be an okay purchase to replace their Jeep, he had found one a little over budget. No worries, as sound fiscal reasoning, pledges of personal sacrifice, strategic placement of kittens and admiration for the lady's arrears were more than enough to swing the decision in his favor. He reports in the comments on this Reddit post that she said yes. Click here to flip through his pitch.
Use this PowerPoint when convincing your spouse to let you buy a Corvette originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.autoblog.com/2013/02/14/use-this-powerpoint-when-convincing-your-spouse-to-let-you-buy-a/
Rolls-Royce Sends Out Second Wraith Teaser, Car to Have Rear End [2013 Geneva Auto Show]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/caranddriver/blog/~3/iuEPBMwSU34/
Alan Dennis Kulwicki Travis Wade Kvapil Robert Allen Labonte Terrence Lee Labonte
Motorbase retains Jackson and Smith
Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/other-news/touring-cars/btcc/motorbase-retains-jackson-and-smith
Gerino Gerini Peter Gethin Piercarlo Ghinzani Bruno Giacomelli
Draco retains Muller for 2013
Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/real-world-racing/3rdparty/draco-retains-muller-for-2013
Sterling Burton Marlin Mark Anthony Martin Jeremy Allan Mayfield James Christopher McMurray
The Chrome Horn 2013: Episode 1
The Chrome Horn is back! Here's the first 2013 episode of the From the Marbles' Chrome Horn podcast with yours truly, Nick Bromberg, and Geoffrey Miller. Topics include the Sprint Unlimited, NASCAR's new Jet Dryer, Danica's Mac Apps and some unforgettable ARCA discussion.
Click here to download the podcast or here to listen to in your browser. As always, we'd love to hear from you. Email us your thoughts, questions, rants, etc here and we'll talk about them on our next episode from Daytona. Enjoy!
Wednesday
Hulkenberg upbeat about Sauber form
2012 season in the rear view: Denny Hamlin
Vitals: Sixth in the points standings; five wins, 14 top fives, 17 top 10s, four DNFs.
Moment to remember: Denny Hamlin entered the Chase as the top seed thanks to his four pre-Chase wins and got his fifth win in the second race of the Chase in dominating fashion.
At New Hampshire, Hamlin struggled in qualifying, starting 32nd, but quickly, and we mean quickly, drove his way to the front. And when he lost the lead on pit strategy? Well, he just quickly got back up to the front again.
He led a total of 193 of the race's 300 laps, including the race's final 52.
Moment to forget: Hamlin's best track in the Sprint Cup Series has been Martinsville, so it was expected by many that he'd make a move at the paperclip to keep himself in Chase contention. That move in the standings happened. However, it was one that knocked Hamlin out of the title hunt.
Hamlin had already had two speeding penalties, but because he's so good at Martinsville, he looked like he was going to be able to overcome them and still get a good finish. However, the master switch on his car -- a part that costs a pittance compared to others -- failed, and Hamlin's car slowed on track.
He finished 33rd, and left the track with a 49 point deficit to Jimmie Johnson. Hamlin's Chase was over.
The wrap: While Martinsville was the death knell to Hamlin's championship hopes, they took a significant body blow at Chicago that the New Hampshire win couldn't overcome. At Chicago, Hamlin ran out of gas near the checkered flag and coasted to a 16th place finish, ending up 10th of 12 Chasers.
While starting the Chase in first and finishing sixth isn't necessarily a success, there's a lot of reasons to expect that a serious championship bid is in the works for Hamlin and crew chief Darian Grubb. They both know what it's like to be in the thick of a championship hunt and they proved that they can get to that championship hunt together. Now it's just time to do it in the Chase.
Richie Ginther Yves Giraud Cabantous Ignazio Giunti Timo Glock
Atlanta Motor Speedway President Ed Clark Makes 2013 Predictions
Would You Rather be NASCAR Driver Kyle Busch or Dale Earnhardt Jr?
Tuesday
NASCAR Unveils ?Air Titan?? Track-Drying Technology
Jeffrey Tyler Burton Richard Allen Craven Kerry Dale Earnhardt Ralph Dale Earnhardt Sr
Carroll Shelby and the Avengers
I don’t want to recap Shelby’s life in this post. Others have written that story over the past several days. The truth is, I’m a little late to be writing an epitaph on the man. From the moment that I heard the [...]
HAYDEN INJURED IN TRAINING ACCIDENT
Source: http://www.motorsportsjournal.com/archives/2011/12/hayden_injured_in_trainin.php
Allmendinger gets IndyCar test
Piquet gets full-time Nationwide deal
Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/nascar-news/nascar/piquet-gets-full-time-nationwide-deal
Monday
Which Driver Has The Best Paint Scheme For 2013? Our Exclusive Top-Five List
*Editor?s Note: While other websites just use one of their writers to break down the best paint schemes for the upcoming NASCAR season, Sicknissified.com isn?t ready to settle for being just another website. We have brought in an expert ? Brett Nicholson ? to rank the Top-five best paint schemes for the 2013 season. Nicholson is an accomplished paint scheme designer. His work has been seen zooming around NASCAR race tracks since the 2003 season. To find out more about Brett visit his website: In The Groove Graphic Design.
Without further adieu, here is Brett Nicholson?s list for the best paint schemes of 2013:
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Before we break down our top-five paint schemes for 2013, how about we take a look at an honorable mention?
Photo Credit: Lionel NASCAR.
Jeff Gordon?s No. 24 Drive To End Hunger Chevy SS ? While the scallop paint scheme provides the desired appearance of natural movement, the candy apple red ...
Video: Helicopter crashes on Top Gear Korea set while chasing Corvette ZR1
Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Chevrolet, South Korea, TV/Movies
The formula of Top Gear Korea is seemingly about the same as it is everywhere else in the world, including the flagship British original: involve interesting cars in fantastical situations with charismatic hosts. That prescription has proved to be pretty reliable over the years, and has lead to some truly memorable and exciting pieces of television.
Something like that was undoubtedly what the Korean producers were after when they lined up this segment - a drag race between a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and an AH1 Cobra military helicopter. The planners almost certainly did not expect the filming of the segment to go quite as wrong as it actually did, with the helicopter actually crashing into the dirt after the "drag race" had been completed. Thankfully, we're told that no one was seriously injured in the crash, but the footage, in the video below, is pretty damn chilling to watch, nevertheless.
Continue reading Helicopter crashes on Top Gear Korea set while chasing Corvette ZR1
Helicopter crashes on Top Gear Korea set while chasing Corvette ZR1 originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 11 Feb 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.autoblog.com/2013/02/11/helicopter-crashes-on-top-gear-korea-set-while-chasing-co/
Kevin Michael Harvick Virgil Ernest Irvan III Kenny Dale Irwin Jr Dale Arnold Jarrett
Shu Ying Liu, 69, Killed by Hit-and-Run Truck Driver in Hell?s Kitchen
Shu Ying Liu, 69, was crossing 41st Street at Ninth Avenue at around 10:00 a.m. yesterday when she was hit by Jack Montelbano, who was making a right turn from Ninth to 41st, [...]
Helm Glцckler Paco Godia Carel Godin de Beaufort Christian Goethals
Michael Shank Racing stripped of third place finish in Rolex 24
Jeremy Allan Mayfield James Christopher McMurray Casey James Mears Juan Pablo Montoya
Sunday
Type 1 Diabetes Driver Ryan Reed Teams Up with the American Diabetes Association for Drive to Stop DiabetesSM Awareness Campaign
Trevor Bayne Out! Pet Care Toyota Jason Leffler David Carl Allison
What?s the impact of NASCAR?s New Media and Fan Engagement Center?
On Monday, NASCAR unveiled its new "Media and Fan Engagement Center," a 500 square foot area at NASCAR Plaza that, in partnership with HP, boasts 13 high-definition 47" screens to "monitor, analyze and better understand the current media landscape in order to respond more effectively and efficiently to fans and respond more rapidly to national, local and global media."
Sounds like a NASA Control Center, huh? Well, pardon me for thinking Truman Show.
?The Fan and Media Engagement Center build has been a thorough process more than a year in the making, and we are excited to see it come to life,? NASCAR CEO Brian France said. ?We believe this tool has the potential to be the best of its kind in sports ? the first ever to combine not only social, but also traditional and broadcast media analysis. We?ll be able to use this to help our industry and business partners and better connect with NASCAR fans across the world. It?s another example of our commitment to innovation.?
Innovation. After all, this is the sport that adopted fuel injection... last year. And most companies, including NASCAR, have been combing through data analytics and social media monitoring for some time. This is a PR move that does nothing to affect the product on the track, the main catalyst of fan engagement. (Oh hi NASCAR, I know this just popped up on one of your fancy screens as soon as it was published.)
The sport has embraced social media ? though don't tweet in the car ? and it certainly doesn't hurt that two of the Sprint Cup Series' last three champions are arguably its most impactful users.
It was also the #2 trending sport on Twitter, a fact that's been championed about significantly. It is an accomplishment, though it isn't without context. While the NFL and MLB bracketed NASCAR, each of those leagues' teams also champion their own hashtags ? as evidenced by the San Francisco Giants coming in fifth ? which potentially limits their specific hashtag use significantly. While hashtags for drivers not on Twitter like Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and teams like Hendrick and Roush exist, they're not used nearly to the extent of team hashtags from stick and ball sports. In a larger summation, NASCAR would likely be dwarfed.
For a sport that always talks about its fans, the social media echo chamber for them has never been more crowded. And while the exposure atop the Twitter trends every Sunday is nice, that exposure is largely free. It's the revenue from TV that pays the bills.
When it extended its TV contract, or partnership, as many in the industry are keen to say, Fox upped its per year commitment to NASCAR significantly; the total package was a 36 percent increase from the previous agreement between Fox and NASCAR despite NASCAR viewership dropping about 10 percent in 2012 after increasing in 2011 for the first time since 2005. That annual value increase from $220 million to approximately $300 million in 2015 is another example of the power of live sports.
Those TV ratings presented alongside NASCAR's apparent social media clout also seems a bit incongruous. If fewer people are watching NASCAR, especially in the coveted 18-34 demographic, it stands to reason that it's simply a process of NASCAR's hardcore fans, the ones who watch over 30 races a year, becoming more adept at Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels and immersing themselves in almost every race weekend.
It certainly can't be a case of fans engaging in social media but not tuning in, right? NASCAR's digital media compliments to race broadcasts, while improving, are still a work in progress. Over the past two seasons, ESPN has made most Chase race broadcasts available via its WatchESPN application and RaceBuddy on NASCAR.com while RaceBuddy has also been available for TNT races. NASCAR recently started managing NASCAR.com from Turner and has promised strengthened digital content, but the full extent of those features have yet to be unveiled.
(It's also worth pointing out that while the TV audience for the 2011 Daytona 500 wasn't far off from each game of the 2012 NBA Finals, Lebron James boasts almost 7 million Twitter followers while Danica Patrick, the most recognizable driver in mainstream America on Twitter has less than 700,000 and Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski each have approximately 355,000 followers.)
There's a certain form of irony in a Fan and Media Engagement Center that's not open to the public (likely because of its purposeful placement in NASCAR Plaza) and walled off from everything else in the office around it.
Given the sentence I quoted in the first paragraph, the cynic in me sees this ritzy data center as a fancy way to monitor and attempt to control the company message as best as possible fronted as a service to fans. With the cacophony of voices in social media, it's a task without turn-by-turn navigation. But combined with the constantly dwindling number of independent voices following the sport on a weekly basis, it's certainly an achievable one, especially as soon as something threatening pops up on any one of those 13 flat-screens.
From this vantage point, it seems that the key to engagement isn't one with a bunch of flat screens and people watching every tweet and post. It's the racing. New fans aren't going to tune in to watch a single file parade at another 1.5 mile track, let alone jump on Twitter unless they're going to use hashtags that no one at the command center is going to want to see or respond to.
Hence the expectations being placed on the Sprint Cup Series new car, which may soon be crushed underneath the weight of all of them. If you didn't know any better, the car could reasonably be interpreted as the second coming in motorized form. If all goes according to plan, the car won't have as much grip and be harder to drive, allowing side-by-side racing to be more common at those intermediate tracks and, believe it or not, be easier to crash. More passing and crashes, two things destined to increase fan investment. What more could anyone want from a NASCAR race?
And if the new car doesn't produce racing distinctly different from its COT predecessor? Well, no hashtag or analytic tracking will be able to polish that up or promote it effectively. For all of its flaws, the NFL's rise to the top is a product of its compelling games and close finishes, not on the back of a public relations strategy.
That's NASCAR's key too. An effective social media and communications strategy hinges largely on the product that the company produces. For NASCAR, it's the racing. Entertaining and intriguing competition is a powerful thing.
Team Honda Research - West and Rimicci Corse Prepare for the USAF 25 Hours of Thunderhill
Source: http://www.motorsportsjournal.com/archives/2012/10/team_honda_research_-_wes.php
David Carl Allison Gregory Jack Biffle David Lee Blaney Michael Duane Bliss
Name That Shifter, No. 114: 1958 Hillman Husky
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/caranddriver/blog/~3/RdPqmIRdofY/