Please welcome a new writer to the Speed:Sport:Life, Rob Krider.  Rob was the staff writer for NASA NorCal last year, and has been published in AutoWeek and MotoRacing Magazine.  Rob currently is a columnist for the Santa Maria Sun but wants to share his adventures and knowledge with a great group of car guys such as the readers of Speed:Sport:Life.  His column, Racer Boy, will be running bi-weekly and will cover every type of racing that us normal guys can possibly get involved in…from Pinewood Derby to the Demolition Derby.  This week Rob covers Solo 2 Autocross.  Please welcome Rob to the S:S:L team! — Zerin

One of the easiest/cheapest/safest ways to get into some type of motorsports is Autocrossing, otherwise known as Solo 2. Autocrossing is a timed event where an individual car maneuvers around a coned off twisty racecourse which is usually located in a large parking lot or abandoned air field. Each entrant gets three to five shots at going around the course as fast as possible and the fastest time wins. Motorsports glory is yours to be had.

Continue reading Racer Boy: Autocrossing 101, or How to Kill Cones

Click for Larger Image

Let’s get something straight right away: There are only two reasons to participate in motorsports. The first reason is to impress and seduce women, and this applies when you are single. The second reason is to escape your wife, and this applies when you are married. The Cannonball One Lap of America is a miserable failure when it comes to Reason #1. After all, women only know about two kinds of racing: NASCAR and Grand-Am. They know about NASCAR because it’s on TV, and they know about Grand-Am because Patrick Dempsey races in it.

Therefore, if you want to impress women, you’d better be a NASCAR driver, a Grand-Am driver, or a club racer who is willing to blur the barrier between racing an old Neon in the rain and the 24 Hours of Daytona. The One Lap of America, like autocross, rallycross, rallying, drag racing, and the Red Bull Air Races, does not impress women. Don’t bother to try.

It is a fantastic way to get away from your wife, however, which covers Reason 2 and accounts for One Lap’s popularity, waning though it may be. Your humble author is a former One Lap champion, although that, ahem, “championship” came in an uncontested class at the wheel of a diesel Mercedes. For that reason, I feel eminently qualified to make authentic One Lap predictions. We’re also trying to throw Brock a bone here: nobody’s cared about One Lap for years, and we’d like to change that. So, without further ado…

Continue reading 2009 One Lap Of America Preview and Predictions

If you are as obsessed with anything Le Mans related like we are, you have probably heard about Audi’s award winning documentary,  Truth in 24.  This documentary was produced by NFL Films and follows the Audi Motorsport team as they chase the checkered flag at the 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans.  If you missed it on ESPN last week, Audi has good news for you by way of a free iTunes download.  This film is a must see for ANYONE who is even remotely interested in racing, and we promise there are parts that will leave you with goosebumps. 

If you’ve already seen the film, please feel free to leave your thoughts on it in the comments.  Enjoy!

Download Truth in 24 from iTunes

[View with PicLens]

 

With the 57th Annual Mobil 12 Hours of Sebring just a week away, we thought it would be an appropriate time to post up a few wallpaper size images of the all-new Audi R15 TDI.  The Audi R15 is the staff favorite to win overall, and we can’t wait to see it run next weekend against the Peugeot 908 HDi and Acura’s new ARX-02a in LMP1.  In the meantime, enjoy a gallery of 1440×960 images after the jump!

By the way, if you are a fan of the American Le Mans Series, be sure to check out The Race Forums.  They’ll be updating the site with daily news and fantastic photography straight from Sebring all week long. 

Continue reading Weekend Wallpaper: Audi R15 TDI

Yes, we’re back for another week of SSL Radio. Supposedly, the automakers are heading back to Congress this week to beg for their lives, but we’ll have to wait and see if anything actually comes out of it. Aside from that, there’s not that much going on, so we’ll have to see what we can dig up to send your way in glorious podcast format.

On 12/1, we start off by reviewing the stuff that we missed over the vacation (it wasn’t that much), and the news from Monday (which was even less).

And we enter the week of the American holiday of Thanksgiving, which means diddly-squat will be happening this week in automotive news. Enjoy your day off, everyone, we’ll be here, desperately combing for anything to talk about.

For 11/24, due to reasons beyond my control (read: college), the actual podcast will be going up tomorrow. However, as for right now, we have the text of what you’ll be hearing me say later on tomorrow, anyway! It’s situated right below the jump.

11/25 is the first victim to fall prey to the ravages of the Thanksgiving vacation, as we talk about rumors surrounding a new range-topping VW Scirocco and the mass exodus from the upcoming 2009 North American International Auto Show. It’s only 2:36 people, you can’t even boil an egg in that amount of time.

[display_podcast]

Continue reading Speed:Sport:Life Radio: Turkey Week Edition

Yes, it’s time for the LA Auto Show! I’ll be there, bringing you coverage of all the cars that we actually give a crap about. Also, as this is the first week of our new daily podcasting schedule, the format of this post might change a bit from day to day as we figure out what the Hell we’re doing. And please remember to, as always, Share and Enjoy™.

First, the podcast for 11/18, wherein we kill time before the LA show opens by talking about the VW Touareg V6 TDI, go over Ford’s sale of part of their stake in Mazda, find one great deal on two awful cars, and rediscover just what makes Bernie Ecclestone so damn evil.

For 11/19, we wonder why ABC News is wasting our time complaining about the fact that corporate CEOs are acting like coporate CEOs, and cover the few interesting debuts from the LA Auto Show that we haven’t done previously, which only leaves the Nissan Cube and 370Z and the 2010 Ford Mustang.

11/20 has come and gone, and brought with it news of Porsche finally committing that final sin, and economic crises and the stupid Congressional pissing matches that cause them.

And finally, the podcast for 11/21 contains news of the pricing for the 2010 Ford Fusion refresh, the debut of the US-spec Smart Fortwo Brabus, and final proof of why we’re so awesome.

[display_podcast]

Hello, and welcome to the first of our new daily editions of SSL Radio. We figured it’d be a good idea to make this first edition a special one, and so we present to you an extra-long podcast, all about the current crisis the US automotive industry (GM, mostly) finds itself in. We break down the current debate over the potential new bailout for Detroit, discuss how the Big Three are doing at the moment and if they’re likely to live to see a bailout, and finally, I do Chris Matthews from MSNBC a solid and present my own answer to the question that he and many others have been asking for the last few days: What the Hell happened to the Big Three? If you have any questions, comments or hate mail about this podcast or the new format, my email address is kasey@speedsportlife.com. And as always, Share and Enjoy™.

I apologize for my voice, the fact that half of southern California is on fire and the other half is coated in ash (just in time for the LA Auto Show) has played havoc with my voice today. This week, we have cool leftovers from SEMA, a confusing new Ferrari, some nice diesel news, and all the coverage you could want for the slow collapse of the American automotive industry.

On another note, we will be attempting to move the podcast to a nightly schedule instead of a weekly schedule. Now, that might sound like more work for me, but it should really allow us to get more content to you, the listeners, and more on time, as less news per day means we can cover more esoteric stuff and not have to pound out four or five pages of text for a single podcast. We’ll just have to wait and see how it goes this week, so wish us luck.

Imagine I said something devastatingly witty here, something that caused women to desire me and men to envy my rhetorical skills, at least until I put up a real summary of this episode. Until then, Share and Enjoy™.

Edit: Alright, it’s amazing what actually sleeping will do for one’s disposition. Anyway, here’s what you can expect from this week’s podcast (no promises, though). Audi drops the basic stats for the upcoming TT-S, a bit of rumblings and rumors from Ford, Rolls-Royce muses about a cleaner, greener Phantom, and the British are planning to break the sound barrier yet again. We’re unfortunately forced to talk about the GM-Chrysler merger rumors, the auto industry continues its death spiral, the FIA compounds its mistake, and we get to add a new marque to the “featured on” list in this week’s Useless Automotive Tchotchke.