Ayrton Senna was arguably the greatest racer to have ever competed in Formula One, and even though Michael Schumacher’s record may look a little better on paper, statistics don’t tell you the true story of what made Senna the stuff of legends. Not only is Ayrton’s nephew Bruno Senna currently racing for the Williams F1 team, the great man himself has even had a film dedicated to his illustrious career, ending with his untimely death at Imola in 1994.
However, all Senna fans out there have a chance to own a one-off piece of memorabilia which is expected to sell for around $20,000. And, it’s none other than the very first steering wheel Senna used in his first race way back at the 1984 Brazilian Grand Prix, and if you ask us, $20,000 seems to be a bargain.
Sure you could by a small sports car like the Mazda MX-5 Miata for that money, but if this estimated price proves to be accurate, it’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper than his helmet which recently sold for $114,000 and one of his racing suits which was sold for $54,000. Silverstone Auctions has been on a Senna memorabilia selling frenzy over the past few months, selling the aforementioned pieces as well as his Toleman TG-184 F1 car which sold for an undisclosed amount last month.
What makes this particular piece so special is that it’s signed and dated by Senna himself, so chances are it will gain value in the coming years.
Of the few lucky and skilled enough to compete in motor racing, the feeling of getting your juices up during a race is something that very few things in this world can replicate. But for the rest of us that can’t handle a race car, watching races live or on television poses as the next best thing.
And then there’s GoPro, a company that wants to redefine the way we watch races. In these videos, GoPro attaches their tiny little HD Hero2 cameras on the ALMS race cars piloted by Gunnar Jeannette and Ken Dobson, showing us what kind of high-action racing we all should be watching on our screens.
The camera angles are amazing, for lack of a better way to describe it. The multitude of camera angles give us a totally new way of appreciating the thrills of racing, right down to the angle experienced by the pit lane mechanics.
Check out the videos GoPro released and there’s a good chance, you’ll start clamoring for these kind of up-close views on the next televised races you watch.
In the past year or so, electric vehicles (EV) have proven that they can be really competitive. You don’t have to take our word for it, though, just take a look at the Electric RaceAbout which got plenty of attention for its bouts on both ice and the Nurburgring. Now that gas prices are on the rise yet again, some companies are fully embracing the fact that electric cars are the future, even in motorsports competition.
This is exactly why Quimera Responsible Racing is preparing to launch a high-performance All Electric Drift Car (AEDC) for the racing season, but they are going to need some help. The car’s official launch is set for October 2012, and before that happens, the team has to decided on the livery that will be used for the racer. This is where all of you come in. All you have to do is enter your designs at Quimerarr.com and get as many Likes as possible. The winner will be awarded with a trip to California’s Irwindale Speedway – aka The House of Drift – for the car’s official unveiling on October 12th and $5000 spending cash.
The All Electric Drift Car’s electric engine will deliver somewhere between 200 - 270 HP and will be powered by super charged lithium iron phosphate batteries with an average range of 150 miles. It can sprint from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.2 seconds, making it one of the fastest electric vehicles.
At one point I really wanted an RX8, almost to the point of doing whatever it took to get the money for one. Well, after a promotion, I managed to get one and was sorely disappointed by it. Well, an Egyptian man decided to put the words “I’ll do anything” into action in an extreme way.
In Egypt, as with many developing countries, vehicles are very expensive and even more so when considering a luxury ride like a BMW 1M. With a $150,000 price tag in Egypt – more than triple its U.S. price – this wise fellow decided that the 1M was not in the cards for him now. Instead of giving up altogether, he decided to build something better than his dream car.
He began his quest with a stock BMW 120d, which once boasted a 161-horsepower 2.0-liter diesel engine, and completely stripped it down. He then pulled an S65 V-8 monster from an M3, which pumps out 414 horsepower, and dropped it in his 120d. Well, “dropping” the engine in included some motor mount and ECU modifications.
This young man then installed the M3’s suspension onto the 120d, added 1M body panels, slapped 19-inch wheels on it, and last, had a custom exhaust and driveshaft fitted to it. In the end “hatembmw,” as he goes by on a popular BMW forum, invested about $45,000 to modify his 120d into a monster that would likely annihilate a 335-horsepower M1. As detailed as this process is, this entire project took him just eight weeks to complete – three to four weeks on mechanical stuff and four weeks on the body.
All we can do is tip my hat to hatembmw… Good show, my friend, good show indeed. Enjoy the videos, we know we certainly did.
Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima is, without question, the king of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Not only is he the record-holder for the fastest ascent to the top of the mountain, but he’s the only man to do it in less than 10 minutes.
For this year, Monster Tajima will be keeping his record-setting Suzuki SX4 Hill Climb Special in the garage in favor of an electric car that his team, Team APEV Monster Sports, is in the process of putting together. And here’s the best part: Tajima isn’t looking to break the EV record for the climb; he actually has his eyes set on the overall record. Yep. The same record he set last year.
From what we’ve seen out of this man, if there’s anybody that can do it, it’s Monster Tajima.
As far as details behind the car is concerned, Team APEV Monster Sports is still keeping information tight-lipped, although we do expect them to reveal the car pretty soon.
In January of this year, Nissan and JRM Racing entered the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 into the Dubai 24-hour endurance race. That was the first we heard about this beautiful hunk of machinery. Just a few months later, in preparation for the upcoming racing season, JRM is testing out this 523-horsepower racer.
That’s not all JRM did… During the testing they filmed the GT-R NISMO GT3 whipping around the track and posted it for all to see. Now we no longer have to just drool over press photos and grainy, poorly shot videos of it racing this past season. Nope, now you get to see, hear, and almost feel this impressive collaboration of mechanics and art with the above video.
In addition to the sights and sounds, JRM puts you right in the cockpit with the driver on several occasions. Nothing like the hum of a turbocharged 3.8-liter V-6 engine churning out 523 horsepower and 451 pound-feet of torque – 22 horsepower and 12 pound-feet shy of the production model – to get your blood flowing in the morning. Toss the Folgers coffee out and just watch this video three or four times, that’ll get you moving.
Now, don’t go thinking that just because GT3 regulations end up decreasing the GT-R GT3’s power that your stock GT-R can run with this bad boy. You will be sadly mistaken, as JRM and Nissan shaved off over 1,000 pounds from the production model – a stock GT-R weighs 3,829 pounds and the GT-R NISMO GT3 weighs roughly 2,860 pounds. Other modifications to the GT3 version from the stock GT-R include heavy suspension tuning and deletion of the front-drive equipment, as required by GT3.
Kick back, crank up your surround system, if you have one, and enjoy the refreshing melodies of the GT-R NISMO GT3 at play.
In 1984, the late Ayrton Senna made his debut in F1 racing by taking second place in a rain-shortened Monaco Grand Prix while driving a Toleman TG184-2 open-wheel racer. You can see this exact car overtaking second place at the 2:33 mark in the above video. Ten years later, in the 1994 racing season, Senna’s life ended abruptly during a freak accident at the San Marino Grand Prix. The legend of this three-time F1 World Champion lives on, as Silverstone Auctions has announced that the Toleman TG184 that Senna made his debut in is coming to auction on May 16, 2012.
Despite the age of this race car, its 1.5-liter engine is still a highly technical piece of machinery that produces horsepower in the range of the 2.4-liter V-8 engines used in today’s F1 series. Though this vehicle is not one that is setup for road driving, it is something that would be neat for a collector to have in his garage. However, it is not without its flaws and uncertainties.
Hit the jump for more details on Ayrton Senna’s F1 race car.
The Dodge Dart hasn’t been around long enough for some people to know it’s back, but that doesn’t mean that a certain cluster of folks haven’t taken notice to Dodge’s new super hatch.
That’s why it’s not surprising that the Dart is already gearing up for its rally debut in RallyCross, particularly that of the Global RallyCross Championship. Going on its second year, the series has already attracted some of the sport’s heavyweights, including Rhys Millen, Tanner Foust, and Ken Block.
This year, the 2013 Dodge Dart will be making its inaugural racing action under SRT Motorsports with no less than four-time Rally America Champion and 17-time X-Games gold medalist Travis Pastrana manning the wheels of the rally car.
As for the car itself, the GRC Dart will share a lot qualities with the production version, with one notable exception: the powertrain. Whereas the standard model comes with a 2.4-liter MultiAir Tigershark engine that produces 184 horsepower, the rally version will pack a 2.0-liter engine that has been tuned to produce a walloping 600 horsepower and 550 lb/ft of torque, numbers that allow the car to hit 0-60 mph in just 1.9 seconds.
If you’re frothing at the mouth waiting to see how Pastrana rocks the Dart in its rally guise, you can check out the 2012 Global RallyCross Championship beginning with its season debut on May 26, 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
UPDATE 04/05/2012: Dodge just increased our slowly growing love for the new Dart by releasing a video of Travis Pastrana, the hired lunatic that will swing the Dart through the dirt at break-neck speeds, testing out his new rally machine. We must say, if this video doesn’t raise the hair on your neck and make you lean into the computer screen, you might want to check your pulse.
This is one of the few times that a maker has included music on a “sneak peak” type of video, but turned off the music when the car is moving, so you can actually hear this bad machine working hard. This video is simply awesome and the Dart seems to perform well with no one else on the track with it.
Take a look at the above video and see for yourself how the Dart handles a closed rally-style course. Yeah, some of it is a little dramatized, but overall Dodge did a good job with it and the inside shots are awesome, as you can see the driver feathering the throttle to perfection. Oh, and keep a close eye on the rear of the car at the 2:05 mark, as a large piece of the rear bumper gets torn off.
At its core, the language of motorsport racing knows no boundaries. Anywhere you go, it’s all predicated on the same premise of being faster than your competition.
But one thing that changes depending on the circumstances are the cars that compete in such races. Over in South Africa, there’s a series called the SA Production Car Championship. One of the teams competing in the series is ADF Motorsport and recently, they, together with partner BMW South Africa, unveiled the prized steed that will be racing under their banner for the 2012 season.
The car, an F30 BMW 335i, is making history of sorts as the very first F30 3-Series racing car in the world, making it noteworthy on a lot of levels.
Developed by ADF Motorsport in collaboration with BMW SA, the F30 335i was given plenty of modifications to adhere to series regulations. In order to keep the car in its intended weight of just over 1,360 kg, ADF opted to replace plenty of the built-in parts on the car with carbon fiber taken from BMW’s new M Performance aftermarket options. Likewise, a new Akrapovic exhaust system was also installed with the car also getting 370mm M Performance front disc brakes, a new set of 18" BBS rims, and an N55 TwinPower turbocharged engine.
As far as the powertrain is concerned, SA Production Car regulations prohibited ADF Motorsport from giving the car any performance enhancements. Nevertheless, the addition of a modified engine management system, a new turbocharger, and the new Akrapovic exhaust system gives the F30 335i enough power - 402 horsepower and 442 lb/ft of torque - to be competitive in the racing series.
The best-selling luxury performance car in the U.S., the Chevrolet Corvette, has finally been inducted into the Sebring Hall of Fame after six decades of proving what it can do on the track. The induction is a great birthday present for the Corvette, since 2013 marks its 60th anniversary.
Corvette first competed at Sebring in 1956, and 231 Corvettes have since competed in the Twelve Hours of Sebring race. Corvette has racked up an impressive 24 class wins in this legendary race, with seven of these won by Corvette Racing, the most successful team in the history of the American Le Mans Series. In Sunday’s 60th anniversary race, Corvette Racing placed second and third in the GT Class.
“We are thrilled that Sebring has recognized the success of the Corvette on the race track by inducting it into the hall of fame,” said Russ Clark, Chevrolet marketing director for Performance Cars.
“Even more important than the awards and race wins are the benefits to our production vehicles as a result of our racing programs,” said Clark. “We have been successful at transferring racing technology to the street, especially in our high-performance vehicles such as the Corvette ZR1, Z06 and our carbon fiber models, including aerodynamic, powertrain, chassis, braking, safety and design features.”
