The Ford Mustang has never set a set of slicks onto the high banked ovals of the NASCAR circuit, that is until now. Brian Wolfe, the director of Ford North American Motorsport division has announced that things area bout to change. For the 2010 season, Ford will debut a NASCAR spec Mustang as part of the sereis’s “new car” limited rollout for the 2010 Nationwide Series.
“We had been talking with NASCAR for some time about Mustang as part of its vision for a muscle car rollout for the Nationwide Series. We both saw it as a way of differentiating the series from Sprint Cup,” said Wolfe. “We loved the idea, so we jumped on the chance to extend Mustang’s racing legacy to a new series reaching a huge and loyal audience. Mustang has dominated other forms of racing, including NHRA drag racing, Grand-Am Cup road racing, and Formula D drifting, and now it’s coming to NASCAR Nationwide.
Even if it will only be a Mustang body shell and not a complete race car it is still a step in the right direction for both companies. Ford hopes to take advantage of the old win on Sunday, sell on Monday strategy; while NASCAR needs to step away from the current trend of every car looking exactly the same, aside from the decal package. However it would be nice to see some of that racing technology make its way into a production version, just like the famed Ford 429 Cobra Jet V8 from the 1960s.
The blue oval recently introduced a highly modified version of the Ford Fiesta that competed in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb with rally aces Andreas Eriksson and Marcus Grönholm at a press launch in Colorado springs back on June 14. Neither driver was bashful about showing off what the lightweight all wheel drive Fiestas could do with their 800 HP turbocharged 2.0 Liter four cylinder engines.
Both the Finnish two time World Rally Champion Grönholm and the Swedish Eriksson then stepped out of their cars and took off their helmets to say a few words to the crowd, the conversation mainly focussed around the team’s tight 3 day training schedule. In a recent conversation with the Fiesta Brand Manager Sam de la Garza, he was most excited about the whole program came together so successfully in such a very short period of time. You can expect to see a pair of caged Fiesta’s competing in ESPN’s X-Games 15 a little later on this week.
The Spanish automaker SEAT has just released a new commercial to promote their World Touring Car Championship season. Having won the series back in 2008, the company has big hopes for 2009, with Finnish driver Hekki Kovalenien behind the wheel of a SEAT Leon TDI WTCC.
Just last week, classic racers were screaming up the hill outside Lord March’s estate at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Have a look back at a previous year’s festival when the Pikes Peak champion Rod Millen brought his record setting Toyota Tacoma race truck to England.
Audi celebrated their centennial at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last weekend and Top Speed previously showed you a teaser image from the German automaker’s centerpiece at the event. Commemorating 100 years of automobile production and over 70 years of rich racing heritage, the four ringed automaker showed off competition proven models like the classic Auto Union Grand Prix cars, Audi Sport Quattro based rally and touring cars as well as their latest alternatively fueled Le Mans competitor. However Audi’s the crown was the sculpture in front of Lord March’s home that showed where the Germans have been and where they are going. At one end pointed an Auto Union streamliner and at the other a V10 powered R8 super car shooting up into the heavens. The two high performance machines are linked by a stretch of road that resemble the historic Avus race track with it’s highly banked, nearly 180 degree curve.
Meanwhile the rest of Audi’s racing fleet was busy entertaining the crowd making passes up the 1.8 Mile hill climb course. Formula 1 and Le Mans legend, Jacky Ickx, and Pink Floyd drummer and Auto Union enthusiast Nick Mason, drove a pair of the 1950s race cars up the hill, the first was a full blown Type D Dual Compressor driven by the professional and D Type with the drummer behind the wheel. This was also the last running of the mostly original 1938 Type D before it goes on permanent display at the Audi Tradition’s museum in Ingolstadt, Germany.
Ford will be bringing the Fiesta Movement to the racetrack when a few of the European minded city cars are campaigned at X Games 15 at the end of this month. However the compact rally racer is slated to make its North American motor sport debut at the upcoming Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado. The vehicle’s run up the hill is guaranteed to be more than just a shakedown run.
The Swedish Olsbergs Motor Sport Evolution (MSE) team has decided to prepare a pair of three door Ford Fiesta’s for the event that will be televised around the globe here in the U.S. on ABC and ESPN. It is fitting that they have chosen someone who speaks their language to get behind the wheel, Swedish driver Kenny Brack. The other driver has not yet been announced. All three Fiestas will compete in the Rally America Open Class. That should be no problem for the 1999 Indianapolis 500 winner who will be making his X Games debut. Brack retired from motor sports in 2006, but has decided to come back in a Ford Fiesta. Could we see the 17 year old rally phenom, Markus Eriksson sitting in the other car?
There is no sight as beautiful as a group of Italian super cars lining up on the grid all wearing enormous GT wings. While we all wish to be in the driving shoes of the individuals who are lucky enough to have the opportunity to compete in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo. Check out the video for more of a behind the scenes look at what it takes to get the cars ready off track and competitive on it.
The GT field will look a little different in the 2010 Le Mans Series because a few teams will be both moving up and down in class. The Corvette Racing Team, hot off their GT1 win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, will be stepping down into the GT2 category in order to compete on the track with the same vehicles that the production car competes with in showrooms. Meanwhile, the Dutch super car builder Spyker, who has been competing in the GT2 category since 2002, has bigger dreams of entering their new C8 Aileron as a GT1 racecar.
The new C8 super car will make its production car debut at the Geneva Motor Show early next year, but on the racetrack the Spyker Squadron plans on entering two machines, while a privateer team will handle the older C8 Laviolette.
The C8 Aileron is powered by an Audi sourced 4.2 Liter engine that delivers 400 HP and will be available with two transmission options. The first is a 6 speed manual gearbox built by Getrag with a set of gear ratios perfectly matched to the FSI powered eight cylinder. If you want to shift your Spyker with paddles, you get a ZF 6 speed automatic. The Spyker C8 Aileron can go from 0 to 60 MPH in 4.5 seconds and hit a top speed of 187 MPH.
Here’s something that might be worth picking up at an auction – that is if you have at least £5.5 million in your pockets.
This Auto Union D-Type racer is a prized commodity – it’s actually one of the rarest vintage cars in the world - in its own right, but does it justify the £5.5million tag it’s expected to command?
Let’s just say that the previous owner of this car is someone our history books are all familiar with: Adolf Hitler.
As a fanatic of motor racing, the Führer spared no expense in building a team that could dominate all the races it ran back then. The German technological superiority wasn’t any more evident when you look back and see how Mercedes and Auto Union – known as Silver Arrows back then – completely wiped out all other competitors that came their way.
The D-Type racer that will be auctioned off was actually driven by one of Hitler’s BFF’s, Hans Stuck during the 1939 Grand Prix season. What makes this car all the more valuable is due to the unfortunate fate its brethren suffered after the fall of the Third Reich.
In the world of high-performance automobiles there are two kinds of owners. First, there are those who buy an exclusive vehicle, only to hide it away, parked inside an enormous warehouse filled with the rest of their toys. Occasionally, those owners invite a friend or two inside to show off the pieces of automobile and maybe even take the classic out for a Sunday drive. Then there is the kind of sports car owner that just so happen to be a driver. These enthusiasts appreciate their vehicles in a way that the previous group only dreams of. There is nothing like fully stretching your super car’s legs or seeing just how deep into a turn your prized possession can go. For those drivers, there are these magical things called track days, a place where speed junkies can get full use out of their big boy toys.
Top Speed recently attended one of these Saturday afternoon visits to one of our local race tracks where we joined up with Henry Gilbert and got Hooked on Driving. The problem with most track days and even racing schools is the price. Not only is participating in one of these programs expensive, but the amount of actual seat time is rather limited. Most instruction programs will have you sitting in a class room for half of the day and then make you wait around amongst all the other pupils for your brief opportunity to make good on everything you learned earlier on in the day. Not at Hooked on Driving, they do conduct a brief chalk talk for first timers, which are always a good idea, but this track day program is geared towards giving clients the most seat time possible in a safe, responsible environment.
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