The days before the 17th season of Top Gear are slowly ticking away and BBC is lessening our pain with yet another trailer for the highly anticipated car show. The second trailer is loaded with more images for the upcoming season and also confirms the season opener date: Sunday, June 26th.
The first episode of Top Gear Season 17 is set to be aired on June 26, but for all of those fans that cannot wait another moment to see the Top Gear UK trio at work, BBC has been kind enough to release a teaser trailer of what to expect.
The trailer will refuel your Top Gear obsession by showing clips of Jeremy Clarkson driving the McLaren MP4-12C, James May riding around in the Mini WRC racing car, and Richard Hammond cruising in the Dartz Prombron through city streets. A Porsche Boxster, a Citroën DS3 Racing, and an Abarth 500C will also be making their appearances, plus a short trip to Monte Carlo will help to wrap things up.
We may still have to wait 11 days for the full episode to grace our television screens, but this teaser trailer just cements the fact that Top Gear 17 is starting and will be better than ever.
One thing we ought to know about world records is that at some point in time, somebody’s going to beat them. It may not happen for a while, but sooner or later, there’s going to be someone - or something - that will eclipse it.
Currently, the record for the world’s longest drift sits on the mantle of Vaughn Gittin Jr’s study. The drift champion set the record back in December 18, 2008 with a run of 1,914.15 m (6,280.01 ft) at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas. It’s said that Gittin Jr. could have done longer had the threads on his tires not gotten completely eviscerated.
Fast forward to today and word has it that Mercedes-Benz is planning on besting Gittin Jr.’s record. The man for the job is Mercedes demonstration driver, Mauro Calo, who not only wants to break the record the same way Gittin Jr. did when he broke the previous record of 4,137 feet, but wants to reach 10,000 feet, which is a little under two miles long.
While the task seems to be far easier said than done, Calo is confident that the record will be his after his attempt at Surrey, England while using either a Mercedes C63 or E63 AMG. Calo’s attempt will be made exceptionally more difficult considering that he plans to attempt it on a perimeter track that’s barely ’as wide as a car length’.
No timetable has been set on when this attempt will take place, but seeing as news of it is going around, we won’t be surprised if it takes place before the year ends.
Whatever the case may be, we’ll be sure to give updates when the day for the record-setting attempt draws near.
The Isle of Man’s 37.75-mile, 200-turn Mountain Race Circuit is one of those tracks that test a person’s endurance over a pretty long distance. It’s a little more than two-and-a-half times the length of the Nurburgring so you can expect it to be as daunting as any race track in the world, even for the standards of superbikes that race in the circuit every year.
That’s why we found it surprising to find out that a Subaru Impreza WRX STI broke the lap record for a four-wheeled vehicle in the track after the record stood for 21 years.
Driven by former British Rally champion and WRC veteran Mark Higgins, the Impreza WRX STI clocked an impressive - by its standards – time of just under 20 minutes, with an average lap speed of 115.356 MPH, breaking the previous lap record by more than two minutes. Late rally veteran Tony Pond set the previous record back in 1990 while driving a Rover 827 Vitesse.
Congratulations to both Subaru and Mark Higgins for the new record and here’s to hoping that we won’t have to wait 21 years for this record to be broken.
UPDATE 06/23/2011: Subaru has released a 5 minute 25 second video highlighting rally driver Mark Higgins’ lap that averaged 115.356 MPH. Towards the end of the video, Higgins tells the tale of when he lost and then regained control of the Subaru.
Hit the jump for details on the Subaru WRX STI Isle of Man and to see what Higgins has to say about the record breaking lap.
UPDATE 11/07/2011: The WRX STI Isle of Man TT Mark Higgins has been displayed at this year’s SEMA Show and this was the perfect opportunity for us to give you some live pictures of the car. We hope you will enjoy them. Check the picture gallery to see them.
Looks like we may have to wait a couple more weeks to get our Top Gear fix.
Earlier rumored to debut on June 12, everybody’s favorite automotive show is now reportedly set to begin its 17th season on June 26, 2011. The Applause Store - the company that handles tickets for Top Gear - has posted the filming dates for this summer’s season of Top Gear with the first episode scheduled for June 22. Since episodes are filmed the Wednesday before they air, we can therefore deduce that the first episode will air on June 26th. That’s just 19 days away! Five more episodes will then air each Sunday after that until July 27, which means that the season finale will be aired on July 31. ending on July 31st.
While BBC2 has yet to confirm the season schedule, this timeline looks to be far more legitimate than the earlier date of June 12. So if you’re getting excited about this Sunday, you might have to hold off your expectations for another two weeks.
