Matt Farah from The Smoking Tire has a new episode up and it features Matt sporting a Krider Racing/Big Sausage Pizza Delivery 24 Hours of LeMons shirt. Besides looking dapper in our team shirt, he reviews a Hyundai Genesis coupe with an interesting navigator, a French chef named Andre with mother-in-law issues.

Check out the episode below!

The 24 Hours of LeMons Sears Pointless race last weekend was host to 148 teams racing $500 cars. Once the checkered flag dropped on Saturday night, then the action switched from the world famous twelve turn technical road course of Infineon Raceway to a sloped four lane wooden straight track for teams racing $5 cars –pinewood derby cars.

Continue reading Pinewood Derby with a twist of LeMons

We here at S:S:L have always been huge fans of the Corvette Z06 and have said that the Z06 is the best track car of the entire Corvette lineup.  The folks at Chevy have taken an already incredible track car and made it even better with the 2011 Corvette Z06 Carbon Limited Edition.  Limited to just 500 units, the Z06 Carbon is sure to sell out quickly to both track junkies and collectors alike.

To improve on the standard Z06, Chevy has fitted the Z06 Carbon with Brembo carbon ceramic brakes (first seen on the ZR1), black 20-spoke wheels, magnetic selective ride control, and enhanced cooling.  The Z06 Carbon also features black headlight buckets and mirrors, a ZR1 style rear spoiler, carbon fiber hood, and carbon fiber splitter/rockers. 

If you aren’t one of the lucky 500 to pick up a Z06 Carbon, Chevy will be offering the Z07 performance package on the standard Z06 which includes all the upgraded mechanical goodies that the Z06 Carbon has.  The carbon fiber goodies will be available through the optional CFZ package.

No pricing has been announced yet, but deliveries are expected to begin this summer.

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As first gigs go, it wasn’t that bad. From his secret lair beneath a hollowed-out volcano, SSL’s notorious Jack Baruth asked me to head to Las Vegas for a weekend. As a lifelong oval-track fan, I was on the plane before he had a chance to change his mind and send me to a minivan “first drive” instead. The trip didn’t disappoint; I had a chance to watch Kevin Harvick hammer out his thirty-fifth career Nationwide Series win, I saw and met a variety of celebrities of the NASCAR and non-NASCAR variety (see above photo) and I also attended a presentation on the new Pennzoil Ultra “full synthetic” motor oil.

The definition of “full synthetic” in the US is complex enough to rate its own Wikipedia page (and here it is) but all the information we could find indicates that Ultra is, in some or possibly all blends, a “Group III” synthetic. This means that, strictly speaking, it’s not a head-to-head Mobil 1 competitor. Ferrari has chosen the oil for factory fill, as Porsche did with Mobil 1 some time ago. However, oil formulations differ across national borders, so this doesn’t necessarily mean that the Pennzoil Ultra sitting on your AutoZone’s shelf is exactly the same stuff that is being poured into the 458 Italia.

The most interesting thing about Ultra, from my perspective, isn’t the Ferrari endorsement or the admittedly handsome packaging. Rather, it’s the explicit claim that the use of Ultra can prevent sludge formation and significantly clean existing sludge from engines. They’ve backed this testing with numbers, one oil-forum wonk to state that

“They improved the deposit control and improved the detergent system while retaining the very good Seq IVA performance. Throw in API SN and a Tbn of 13, and I think it’s an impressive oil. At least on paper. Specifications met are a good indication of quality. This oil has quality written all over it.”

As soon as we figure out what that means, we’ll let you know.

Continue reading My Oil Brings All The Girls To The Yard: Pennzoil’s new Ferrari synthetic hopes to find a home under the hoods of a million Toyotas.

Krider Racing/Speed:Sport:Life wins the “good class” at the 24 Hours of LeMons at Infineon raceway this weekend in their Big Sausage Pizza Delivery themed Acura Integra.
Continue reading Krider Racing Wins the “Good Class” at LeMons!

Krider Racing/Speed:Sport:Life finished the first day of the 24 Hours of LeMons Infineon in second place out of 147 entries. The team POS FedEx (F’edUp) themed BMW is one lap ahead of the Big Sausage Pizza Delivery themed car with eight more hours of racing to go tomorrow. Krider Racing has to thank I/O Port Racing Supplies, Atomic Speedware, Carbotech Brakes, and ST Suspensions for a great running car.

We’ll give you updates on the event at Speed:Sport:Life as the results come in.

Photography by Allison Shea Malone

Krider Racing, aka Big Sausage Pizza Delivery, is busy delivering pizzas to the other LeMons teams tonight as “tech inspection day” came to a close at the 24 Hours of LeMons at Infineon Raceway this weekend.
Continue reading Speed:Sport:Life/Krider Racing at LeMons Infineon

2010 Honda Accord Crosstour EX-L AWD

by Byron Hurd. Photos courtesy of Honda.

It takes about six seconds to travel from the stop box to the “time writer” official at a NASA Mid-Atlantic autocross (or “NASA-X”). If you’re in it to win it, those six seconds are excruciating. What should really be a short time might as well be an hour-long debriefing. Six. What did I screw up that time? Five.Did that wobbler back at the offset box fall over? Four. Did I tap one in that second slalom? Three. Does Jon Felton hate Miatas? Two.

One.

But this time, I don’t give a damn. I’m not playing for keeps. Brian, this heat’s time writer, is smiling and shaking his head as he leans in to his radio. He writes it on a post-it note and reaches out toward my driver-side window as I roll up. “You are consistent.” He tells me, laughing. I know what that means before I take the slip from him.

Another 67.

That’s a healthy six seconds off what would be my normal pace for a course this size. I normally peak mid-way through my session, and if I’ve settled to a 67.49 on run four, it’s pretty much a given that I’m not going to improve much from here. So why the lack of concern? Simple. Today, I’m not driving a Mazdaspeed3 or an RX-8 or a NA Miata. I’m not even driving our Focus.

I’m driving a 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour. And let me tell you, there’s nothing quite like hanging out the ass end of a 4100lb hatchback-on-stilts.

Continue reading Lord Byron — Over the river and through the cones: The 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour

I don’t care about Toyota.  I haven’t for years. I’ve observed their place in the market and even expressed some degree of interest in a very small handful of their offerings over the last decade, but I’ve never really thought much of them one way or another. That may become a somewhat difficult assertion to defend after the next thousand words or so, but take my word for it.

See, many car enthusiasts care a great deal about Toyota. They’re the ones who take every opportunity to tell you how awful their cars are, how dreadfully overrated they are, and how lifeless and soulless and dishwasher-like they are. They tell you how cheap and how poorly-engineered they are. You want a Prius? This guy tells you to get a used Jetta TDI. Your mom wants a nice, reliable Camry? Tell her to get a Volvo! You like the old MR2s? Wise up and get a 944. You want a MkIV Supra turbo? Supercharge an old F-Body for 1/3 of the price.

It’s the same thing, you know, just without all that Japanese suck.

Continue reading Lord Byron — The Good Ship Toyota

This weekend in beautiful Daytona Florida on the East Coast, The Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona is being held and million dollar machines are being flogged around the track by celebrities like Patrick Dempsey.

Also this weekend in the desert of Southern California on the West Coast the ChumpCar World Series is being run at the Streets of Willow Springs and $500 machines are being flogged around the track by people you’ve probably never heard of.

Speed Sport Life is going to try to give you live updates of both races as the weekend unfolds.
Continue reading Two Days, Two Coasts, Two Men, Two Races