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Story by Jack Baruth, photography and video by Murilee Martin and Jack Baruth

Tragedy struck the 24 Hours of Lemons Saturday afternoon when the #39 Ole’s Volvo struck the wall at full speed. The owner/driver, Court Summerfield, was the owner of Ole’s Waffles in Alameda. Edited to correct previous misspelling. A former CHP officer, he was well-known and loved in his hometown, and while we can never know for sure, the officers who investigated the incident believe that he was already unconscious from a heart attack or stroke before he hit the wall.

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Yeah, you see that post down there? The one that’s right below this one? Umm, ignore that, because here’s a podcast! Well, it’s not a full-blown podcast, no matter how much I’d love to make fun of Volvo’s plan to design cars made out of bubble wrap, Styrofoam packing material and down pillows, GM’s Q1 profits dropping $3.25 billion from last year and applaud Volkswagen for preparing an entry for the Baja 1000, I just don’t have the time. So instead, here’s a brief selection of my favorite news items over the last week. Think of it as a Greatest Hits album, except it’s all brand new. However, this will probably be the last podcast until the week after next, unless my physics professor changes his mind in regards to the importance of homework. So until then, I thank all of you who are still bothering to listen in to my voice talk nonsense about cars, despite my greatest efforts to chase all of you away though poor scheduling. I’m still having the time of my life doing these, and I hope you’re all enjoying listening even one-tenth as much as I’m having making them. Anyway, until next time, Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 5/09/08 [8:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Right now, it is 12:23 AM on a very early Thursday morning. I have spent the last few hours staring at a barely quarter-done podcast script, trying to hammer my mind into the shape required to make something that even approaches what I’d consider an acceptable level of quality, and you know what? It’s just not coming. The sheer mental effort required to cram information about the molecular processes behind intercellular communication and the other things I have to be able to regurgitate in a week’s time has completely sucked up all my time and energy. I could try to slap something together, but it wouldn’t be something that you’d want to listen to, nor would it be what I want to put out. So instead of blowing a big hole in both my college grades and the quality of the podcast, I’m taking this last week and this upcoming weekend off. Speed:Sport:Life Radio will be returning in less than two weeks, not necessarily rested, but certainly ready to deliver the high quality mediocrity that you’ve come to expect from us here at Speed:Sport:Life. If there’s anything that’s particularly groundbreaking that happens between now and the end of the semester, I will make a post about it here, but I highly doubt that something like that will happen. So, failing something completely unexpected, I’ll talk to you again in a week and a half.

Our dedication to our listeners knows no bounds here at Saucer Shaped Ligands Radio, and it’s with that in mind that we present to you the latest edition of our patent-pending automotive news adequacy. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t entirely in my right mind when I recorded this. After shotgunning a Mountain Dew or two though, I regained my sanity enough to edit out the twenty minutes of circular rantings about how the stack of papers and soda cans on my desk was slowly rearranging itself into a gestalt of wood pulp and rolled aluminum in order to exact its bloody revenge on me and my family. So if the sound levels in the podcast are a little uneven, you now know why. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/30/08 [7:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Gather ‘round, everybody. I have an epic tale to tell. It’s the story of how Fake Luxury Conquered The World. There are heroes, and villains, and sweeping vistas, and if we don’t exactly have a princess cooped up in a tower, we might have a few sexually liberated young women in airbrush-mural vans. Interested? Follow along with me as we return to the dark days of the early Seventies…

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Story by Jack Baruth - Photography by the endlessly patient Michelle Baruth

It’s been said that NASCAR’s single-car qualifying is perhaps the most stressful few minutes in motorsport. You’re all alone out there, the sole focus of every track official, every competing team and driver, the thousands of fans in the stands, all the cameras - it’s murder. And yet until this very moment, as I dive into the first turn at Michigan’s Flat Rock Speedway in a tired old Ford Tempo, all by myself on the track, the only show in town, I hadn’t really understood what it might be like. The little quarter-mile bullring is lined with seasoned old oval veterans, leaning casually against the track’s catch-fencing, making the most economical hand gestures possible while speaking in a manner which combines vicious twang and brutal understatements, (e.g. “You mess up like that again and you’re like to hit the wall and crack up a bit”) all idly Staring. Directly. At. Me. They are staring at me and my little Tempo, chugging around the track, and I don’t think any of them are inwardly characterizing me as “the next Kasey Kahne”.

Plus the right rear tire is rubbing itself to violent death against the fender, and I think the car’s leaking gasoline again. I reflect for a moment about the solid two and a half minutes it took me to get into this car, and I wonder about how long those minutes will seem if this sucker catches aflame, and how the locals will laconically characterize my fiery demise. “He was fixin’ to burn up there.”

“Yup. Sure was.”

“And then he did burn right up. Didn’t even bother to get outta the car. Wonder why that was.”

“Yup.”

How’d I get into this situation? Who’s stupid enough to rent a race car when the rental fee is a measly fifty bucks?

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Yes, it’s another hideously late podcast, which means that it must be getting close to that magical time of year, when those of us who are so obsessed with learning stuff that we (well, not us usually, our parents) are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for the privilege to do so start pulling our hair out with frustration and stress as we approach the dreaded Final Exams. This will play havoc with the posting schedule for the podcast over the next few weeks, but hopefully they won’t be up as late as the last two have been. This week, BMW finds yet another place where they can go racing, the UAW starts throwing its weight around again, I express an opinion that’s sure to finally get me some bona fide hate mail, and a potentially world-record holding vehicle within the reach of the average consumer on this week’s Useless Automotive Tchotchke. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/23/08 [12:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Story by Jack Baruth, photography by Matt Chow and Zerin Dube

Are you a shy person? Do you suffer from social anxiety? Are you uncomfortable with being the center of attention in public settings? If the answer to any of the above questions is “Yes”, then we respectfully suggest you avoid the 2008 Dodge Viper SRT-10 convertible, particularly in the eye-searing shade of blue applied to our test car. As a Viper owner, you will be permanently on the American road’s center stage, targeted by dropped jaws, pointed fingers, and comments ranging from the predictable “NIIIICE CARRRRR!” to the rather confusing statement delivered to us at a gas station by a fading flower of a middle-aged Texas woman in a Town Car -“We’re so proud of you.” Who was “we”, and of whom, exactly, were “they” proud, and why? Perhaps she’d spotted the manufacturer tag on the car and thought we were affiliated with the intrepid (no pun intended) folks at Chrysler’s SRT division, or she simply wanted to let us know how happy she was that we’d chosen an American sports car over the evil foreign competition, or she thought your humble author was a famous bearded celebrity – one of the Geico cavemen, perhaps, or even Michael McDonald, touring the country in a six-hundred-horsepower droptop while contemplating which Motown originals would be easiest to mangle into blandness for his next album. We’ll never know. Apparently, mere possession of America’s most cylinder-intense sporting car turns one into a public figure, with all the attendant positives and negatives. Learn from our experience and consider yourself warned. Driving a Viper is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for the wallflowers among us.

If, however, you are a painfully modest or fearful individual who nonetheless feels compelled to own an SRT-10, there is one potential solution, assuming you have the bucks: buy an Audi R8 and hire somebody to drive it around behind you. In the Audi’s incandescent presence, the big blue Viper becomes well-nigh invisible, just another minnow in the school of freeway fish which clump and cluster in the R8’s wake, camera phones aloft and trembling at The Presence Of The Future Among Us.

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Yes, this podcast is colossally late. Real life has once again dragged me away from spending time with you, the listeners, and forced me to pay attention to other things. Now though, we’re back, and we’ve brought a very special treat for you and put it inside the podcast. As far as news goes, we have some BMW news, some legislature news, some endurance racing news, and the final mention we’re giving NBC’s Gear until the show debuts, unless one of the hosts flips a Ferrari over and is killed. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/16/08 [10:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Photography by Matt Chow

You asked for more event coverage, and we are more than happy to deliver. We are kicking off our first HIN event coverage of the year with the Boost Mobile Nightshift, which was held in Austin, TX this past weekend. We’ve got plenty of photos from the car show, and even more photos of the models. We look forward to October when Hot Import Nights roars into Dallas for another energy packed event.

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