Like almost all Lotus built vehicles, the new Evora is going racing. From their initial design stages, the lightweight English automaker intended for the Evora to be competitive on the track as well as a road going super car, so when Lotus released the Evora 124 endurance race car it was only the next logical step for Colin Chapman’s car company. The Endurance racing Evora maintains the same lines and body panels as the road car with the addition of a ground effects kit that gets the Evora to stick to the racing surface.
In order to make the Evora even more competitive, the mid mounted Toyota V6 has been upgraded from the standard 280 HP to a tire shredding 400 HP in unrestricted trim, while the meticulous design team has managed to shed another 400 pounds from the already lightweight sports car. Lotus has also found room for a six speed sequential gearbox for lightning fast shifts, a full roll cage for safety as well as the obligatory fuel cell and fire extinguisher system. Of course what race car would be complete with a GT spec rear wing made from carbon fiber to compliment the ground effects kit made up of the rear diffuser and front splitter.
Keeping the car on track is a set of 18 inch rims wrapped in Pirelli racing slicks and a set of AP Racing 6 piston calipers underneath, while the suspension has been redesigned for increased adjustability. According to Luke Bennett, Director of Lotus Cars Limited, “Motorsport has been in our blood ever since our founder, Colin Chapman, built the first Lotus back in 1948. We are proud of our motorsport history, which includes victories in Formula One, Le Mans, saloon car, rally car and sportscar racing around the world; more recently, we won the British GT3 Championship in 2006 with the Lotus Exige. The Lotus Evora Type 124 Endurance Racecar is from the same unique stable and we expect it to be a competitive racecar when we enter various endurance races next year.” You can expect to see the new Lotus Evora 124 competing at 24 hour endurance races at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, Silverstone and even in Dubai.
With all the talk of the driver lineup changing in Maranello, it appears that Formula One veteran Giancarlo Fisichella’s stellar performance, coming a close second behind Ferrari’s championship hopeful at Spa just over a week ago, has landed the Italian a spot on the team that he has always dreamed of racing for. Giancarlo was happy to be driving for the Force India team this season, but he always said if the Scuderia ever approached him with an offer, it wouldn’t take much for him to jump ship. Thanks to the prancing horse’s test driver, Luca Badoer’s less than stellar performance in the absence of the recovering Felipe Massa, Fisichella has been given the opportunity of a lifetime.
Giancarlo began racing with the big boys in 1996 when he had a one year stint with Minardi and since then has accumulated 224 Formula One starts, 4 poles, 3 grand prix wins, 19 podiums and a total of 275 carrer points since he began competing in the top tier of motor sport. Not only will he pilot the #3 Ferrari F60 for the remaining five races of the 2009 season, but he has also been contracted to remain in Maranello to test in 2010. However with a little luck and a good showing, Giancarlo Fisichella might just find himself sitting inside of a red monocoque every grand prix weekend next year.
With all of the hype being pumped into the Need For Speed franchise by video game developers Electronic Arts, it would seem that the highly anticipated release of the latest Real Driving Simulator is falling by the wayside. That won’t be the case if the marketing department at Gran Turismo 5’s creators Polyphony Digital has anything to say about it. These screenshots of the game’s menu screen show off the designers ability to blend intricately designed sports cars with highly detailed backgrounds and ever evolving humans.
The vehicle on display is a GT500 Nissan GT-R from Japan’s Super GT racing series. If this were an SAT question we could ask "V8 Super cars is to Austrialia as Super GT is to (blank)", and you ought to know that the four door race cars from down under are bigger than NASCAR is here in the U.S. In what looks like over a billion polygons of GT-R you can see the extensive detail that the game’s designers went to as evident by the countless louvers and intricate head lamps. The surroundings look to be a plaza somewhere in western Europe because of all the German tourists and the Foto hut, but the best part about the people is that they have gained an extra dimension, just another display of the extent that the team at Polyphony go to.
From what we can tell from the images, Gran Turismo 5 will offer the classic Arcade mode, online gameplay, something that looks like the best birthday present ever, the tedious driver tests, some sort of a manage everything garage, a multimedia center, and the usual tools for adjusting the game settings and a place to save your progress. From previous experience we aren’t going to bother predicting when GT5 will be available, but one thing is for certain, no matter how many delays each new version of Gran Turismo endures, they are always well worth the wait.
The American aftermarket parts manufacturer Hurst Performance Vehicles is one of the most recognized and revered names in the history of hot-rodding and have long been synonymous with speed and high performance vehicles. Throughout the years Hurst has come up with a host of proven special edition racers and quite a few memorable pace cars. This modified 2010 Ford Mustang will continue the tradition when it leads a pack of purpose built Mustangs around Miller Motorsports Park on September 19th for the Ford Racing Mustang Challenge.
The special edition BFGoodrich/Hurst Mustang pace car has been beefed up with a Roush supercharger that breathes in through a high flow K&N air filter and breathes out though an unrestricted Magnaflow stainless steel exhaust system that work together to increase the pony car’s output to 435 HP and 400 lb-ft of torque. Underneath the 2010 Mustang makes use of a Hurst-tuned Eibach Suspension complete with a fully adjustable set of coilovers and a set of thicker sway bars to keep all four of the Mustang’s hoofs planted as it goes around the bends. The Hurst Mustang Pace Car rides on a set of stunning 20 inch Hurst polished, forged aluminum wheels wrapped in a set of the obligatory BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDW tires and wears the signature Hurst gold paint scheme complete with bold stripes running down the length of the body.
Inside the Mustang convertible comes with a Hurst Competition/Plus short-throw shifter with a gold anodized T-handle. The seats are covered with white Katzkin leather with black inserts and gold details. After the pace car has served out its Mustang Challenge duties, the white and gold drop top pony car will participate in numerous parades and even make an appearance at SEMA before being auctioned off for charity next January, with all proceeds benefiting the newest Victory Junction Camp in Kansas City.
The automotive video game studio Electronic Arts is hedging a lot on their latest installment of the Need for Speed series, SHIFT. The videogame is focused mainly on “driver experience” and has a really good artificial intelligence component. The creators did not want to settle for simply a nice looking game, but also wanted a game that would make players feel like real race drivers. EA is ramping up their promotions before the game becomes available for sale later on this month on September 15. They have released a full list of playable automobiles and race tracks, but if that isn’t enough to entice you, there is one mre tantalizing preorder promotion special.
Depending on which online video game retailer you buy it from Need for Speed: SHIFT will reward you with either a very powerful BMW E92 M3 GT2 car, the popular race ready Porsche Cayman S or gamers can compete in five exclusive Elite Series races, featuring pre-tuned cars available nowhere else, in this case it is a Nissan GT-R SpecV in full race livery. The only way to get one of these special edition vehicles is to preorder the game, at least you will guarantee that there is a copy waiting for you when the game hits stores September 15th.
From the looks of these images and the track video after the jump the hype may be well worth it. From the realistic game footage to the wide variety of high performance machines from around the world, we just might considering ordering ours from Amazon.
The World Drifting Champion Rhys Millen recently raced his new highly modified RMR poweredHyundai Genesis coupe up the 12.4 mile hill climb course that consists of over 150 turns, many of which have no safety barrier and the consequences of running wide is a quick trip down the side of the mountain. However the multi disciplined driver had no prooblem tckling the hill, and broke the record for a 2WD Time Attack production based car in his 17th attempt conquering Pikes Peak, reaching the finish line in 12 minutes and 9.39 seconds.
After last week’s update leading up to the European Grand Prix, Panasonic Toyota Racing’s Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock are back preparing for round twelve of the FIA Formula One World Championship, the Belgian Grand Prix, that will take place on the historic Spa racing circuit this coming Sunday, August 30th. Trulli truly adores Spa not only because of his 2004 pole position, but also for its mix of sharp twists and long straights as well as significant elevation changes as well as the unique combination of low, high and medium speed corners.
The team’s test driver, Kamui Kobayashi then joins the two grand prix stars to continue their question and answer session where we learn that Jarno is not only the best soccer player of the three, but he is also the team’s “love doctor” and like any group of friends that are being exposed to a foreign language, they were quick to pick up the dirty words from the Japanese test driver first. Check you local listings to see when you can see the boys of F1 compete at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend.
For many years the Subaru Technica International team has been the only factory backed racing effort to compete in Japan’s most prestigious form of motorsport when it would team up with the aftermarket parts manufacturer Cusco to campaign an entry into what used to be called the Japanese Grand Touring Car Championship or JGTC. The rules are simple, you need to use the firewall from the factory car, an engine from the manufacturer and that is about it. The race is run similar to an American Le Mans Series race, the competition is broken down into two categories, the bigger GT500 cars are limited to 500 HP while the smaller GT300 class competitors are limited to you guessed it, 300 HP, but they also get to run a few less laps.
Subaru has decided to not only pull the Impreza out of World Rally Championship competition but Super GT as well. At least in this case the Japanese automaker is going to offer a substitution. This Legacy based GT300 racecar looks like a Mercedes Benz DTM car with its wide arches and bright silver paint reflecting the sun during the shakedown run at Fuji Speedway. This is also an advanced look at what the redesigned 2010 Lagacy is going to look like before Frankfurt. The Legacy continues the automaker’s tradition of entering an all wheel drive into the championship, a proving factor for their drivetrain.
Perhaps with this blow, Subaru is only distanceing themselves from their once infamous boy racer image with box fendered and wild winged WRXs being replaced by much more civilized and muscular sport sedans, perhaps next year they will have a WRCOutback.
Move over Fernando Alonso because the latest world champion rumored to be making a move in Formula One for 2010 is the Frenchman and 5 time World Rally Championship winner Sebastien Loeb. According to the upstart USF1 team’s sporting director Peter Windsor, "Somebody representing Loeb called us but I won’t give details of the conversation…he is an incredible talent and he would definitely make things interesting in F1. We are looking more on the American side but are going to take him seriously." According to recent interview with the French sports daily L’Equipe.
What is interesting is that ever since Loeb tested last year’s Red Bull F1 car, his current employer, Citroen, has been denying any talks about a move to Formula 1 for the Frenchman. However according to the multi champion Loeb, "I wanted to know if a team was really interested in me for F1. Someone contacted this new team but I don’t know what happened…I am enjoying myself in the WRC and am on the verge of extending my contract with Citroen. But if I get the opportunity to do a couple of races in 2010 when the calendars don’t clash then why not?"
So it looks like Loeb is happy where he is at for the moment, and that a ride with the USF1 team would only occur when the Formula One and WRC schedules permit. It is more often that you hear of retired Formula One drivers looking to continue challenging their car control skills by going sideways in an all wheel drive turbocharged rally car, not the other way around, but if anyone can pull it off it should be Loeb.
Just because it’s the English automaker’s 50th birthday and because we like to point out our friends we decided to bring you this very interesting look on a different kind of racing school. Fellow Southern Automotive Media Association Member and professional racecar driver Bill Adam was on hand to teach a group of the Card and Driver editorial staff’s in-laws in a group of Mini Clubman Sports. Now teaching a group of grannies about the finer points of turning in and hitting the apex is a challenge in and of itself. This is especially true when you consider that the pupils come from a group that is better known for causing traffic than avoiding it. But the elderly women did surprisingly well, and at the same time gained a little bit of appreciation for what their son-in-laws do for a living. Thanks to the trio of talented instructors, they went from a group of nervous Nancys to real racing pros, by the end of the day they were even popping bottles like Rubens did this past Sunday at the European Grand Prix.
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