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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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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

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

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

Highway 395 is a lonely stretch of asphalt on the back side of the Sierra Nevadas, and one of the most beautiful roads in California. Situated in the Owens Valley, it has spectacular views of the mountains that surround it on both sides. It’s also apparently a very popular place for butterflies and other insects to breed, as they were doing so in the middle of the road. A great many flying insects met their fates that day, but my personal favorite was the butterflies. They were large enough that you could see them arc into the windshield, where they exploded in a sticky yellow burst that sounded like a small bird detonating on the glass. One particularly good one was smeared from the bottom of the windshield almost to the top. It was a very amusing way to pass time between Lake Tahoe and Death Valley.

Anyway, this week, we have more news on the Tata Motors purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover, BMW considers shedding the pounds on future M cars, Jay Leno weighs in on the potential suck of the US version of Top Gear, and fancy footwear on this week’s Useless Automotive Tchotchke. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/7/08 [12:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A slightly still sugar-buzzed edition of SSL Radio this week. If you eat too many of those marshmallow Peeps at once your heart explodes, so I’ve had to spread it out over the last few days. We wrap up coverage of the New York International Auto Show, finally get an answer to the ridiculous Z06 vs. GT-R battle, GM finds a way to put a stain on the until now spotless new Camaro, yet another corporate CEO is given an amusing characterization, and more miniature car fun on this week’s edition of Suspicious Solar Lighting Radio.

 

 SSL Radio 3/25/08 [15:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Behold, our new, colon-filled title! Seriously, Speed:Sport:Life is a much better title than Dubspeed Driven, despite my ineffectual and half-hearted grousing to the contrary, since, as I mention in the podcast, it’s hard to make a quality first impression that shows off our professionalism and dedication to the honest truth about the automotive industry when I have the word “Dub” tacked onto the front of my name badge. And the fact that I’m roughly 20 years too young to be considered a human being in the automotive industry. And my wardrobe, which consists almost entirely of jeans and t-shirts purchased off the Internet. But I’ll be damned if we didn’t fix that first problem! Anyway, we’ve got a quality but short podcast for you this week. Enjoy.

 

 SSL Radio 3/18/08 [11:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Post and Podcast by Kasey Kagawa

Ah, the air in the Swiss Alps is so fresh this time of year. Or so I’m told, as I’m far too poor to be able to afford to jet to the Alps to cover some fancy motor show. Still, we’ve got a lot of great news for you this week, almost all of it from Geneva. Also, globalism news, Champ Car imploding a lot faster than everyone thought it would, and the death of Mopey McWhinesalot, all of this and more on this SSRI-fueled edition of Dubspeed Radio.

 

 Dubspeed Radio 3/10/08: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Post and Podcast by Kasey Kagawa

It’s really easy to tell when I wrote the script for the podcast. The later at night I finish it, the more dour and depressed I sound at the end of it. The same goes for the post for each podcast, so read on with that in mind. It’s partially driven by exhaustion, but usually the sound of fail that surrounds the end of a late podcast comes from crushing guilt over having botched hitting my largely self-imposed deadline for the podcast. This hits late at night because I’m only ever really burning the 3:00 AM oil when the podcast is way, way late. This one has the added depression multipliers of a absolutely dismal week for news and me sounding like absolute garbage on this podcast. You may not think so, but this is, I guarantee you, the worst podcast I’ve ever done. It’s like using Q-Tips wrapped in sandpaper and cancer on my inner ear for me to listen to this. Usually, it’s poor form to discourage people from listening to the content that I produce, but this one deserves it, and it’s not like anything happened this last week anyway. Except for my own shortcomings being paraded around the Internet. This weekend will be better, I promise. Geneva’s here, so I’ll have news from that. Stick around, regular service will be resumed momentarily.

 

 Dubspeed Radio 3/5/08 [10:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Post and Podcast by Kasey Kagawa

It’s lean times for the automotive podcast writer. Stuck in the doldrums between auto shows, we’re forced to resort to such vulgar measures as intellectual cannibalism and inflating otherwise unimportant stories into the world’s most important news story ever just to stay afloat. Fortunately, we’re not so desperate as to stoop to printing leaks and broken embargoes, but we spent a good long time staring at a few choice leaks, salivating at the extra time those things would generate. Thanks to the ingenuity of our crack team of writers, however, we here at Dubspeed Radio have just managed to make a podcast worthy to be shot through the Intertubes and into our audience’s waiting ears. Enjoy, and when you listen, think of the poor writers who toiled for hours in their boiler room office to bring you this fine bit of automotive journalism.

 

 Dubspeed Radio 2/24/08 [11:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download