Burnouts, on their own, are pretty darn neat. All that noise and smoke and smell of shredded rubber always makes for a good ol' time, especially here, in America, on the weekend of our Labors, this Labor Day, in America. So why not relax and watch them in slow-motion?
It also helps that the music is weirdly awesome and you have such a wide variety of vehicles at play, including the SpeedyCop Spirit of LeMons race car.
H/t to Dan!
This Labor Day weekend is the NHRA Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway. For those of you unfamiliar with drag racing, this is the grand-daddy of the sport. The event runs till Monday so you still have time to make the trek to the track.
The Roadtrippers team was fortunate enough to be in attendance last night for the "night of fire," and if you've never been, let us tell you why you should go.
Top Fuel Funny Cars and Dragsters
When your car's fuel is so intense the crew wears gas masks while they tune it, you are the craziest, bravest, most insane person on the planet. A nitromethane powered dragster is like a contained bomb exploding into several thousand horsepower. When a top fuel dragster or funny car makes a pass the sound and power are so intense fans literally feel it through their whole body. It is arguably the most intense event in all of spectator motor sports.
Free pit passes
Unlike other auto races, every fan gets a pit pass. Big stars such as John Force and Ron Capps cruise past you on scooters, and you can even watch them start the cars (until the Nitro burns your eyes so badly you run away. Seriously.) If you're into autographs there is no easier place to collect them. The level of access to the drivers and cars is almost unheard of at other mainstream auto racing events.
A thousand other reasons
The U.S. Nationals also draws hundreds of sportsman racers, pro-stockers, pro-stock motorcycles, vintage drag cars (Like the beauties above from Dynamat), and big name vendors. Ever wonder why drag racing always gets some airplay on the television? It's because people at home know just how intense it is to actually view in person. After just one night our eyes are still watery and our pulses are still a little higher than normal.
Join the club of race fans that have seen a top fuel car run. You'll never be the same.
(Cover photo courtesy of http://www.tourhendrickscounty.com/)
Driving along at speed is inherently dangerous, but a good driver can generally control for outside factors like road surface, weather, and traffic conditions. One traffic condition no one can control for, however, is a wrong-way driver heading straight at your car.
In this video, sent to us by JDMUnderground Philippines, driver Joselino Luna was just merrily tootling along the Metro Manila Skyway earlier this week when a possibly intoxicated driver in a Toyota Vios came charging down the wrong way in the left-hand lane. The video cuts out right before impact, as the dash cam was destroyed in the wreck.
The cars spun upon impact, hitting the guardrail twice, but somehow everyone miraculously walked away. To add insult to near-injury, though, the crazed wrong-way maniac had no insurance.
In part 2 of our labor day weekend “Bavarian insanity” special, following the V16 7 series, I present to you the 1999 BMW Z3 V12 roadster
Some of you may be asking: Why? To which BMW engineers would most likely reply because why not. This prototype was apparently an exercise in engine bay ergonomics, so as to assess how to maximize space efficiency in BMW engine bays and fit all its various components. It appears they have succeeded, as unlike yesterday’s 767i, the cooling is in the front. Indeed, there are probably not many engine bays that have been designed to accommodate engines ranging from the Z3’s entry level 1.8 liter fourpot to this dozen of glorious cylinders, approximately 3 times the size.
Good thing BMW engineers aren’t heart surgeons, otherwise they would keep trying to transplant a heart from a whale into a small rodent just to see what happens.
The engine used in this car is the 5.4 liter M73 V12, also used in the e38 7 series, as well as latter versions of the e31 8 series. This unit provided 322 horsepower, so no advantage over the Z3 M (S54 engine at least) horsepower figures. Combined with the fact BMW’s golden 50-50 weight distribution was annihilated in this nose heavy exercise, with reported numbers closer to 70/30 front to rear, it is hard to see the point of this prototype. Only the V12’s turbine like delivery would have proved interesting, as well as the fact it was still mated to a 6 speed manual transmission.
Enthusiasts wanting a stupendous amount of cylinders in their Z3 can also turn to Hartge for this task.
The Hartge Z3 coupe 5.0 boasted a 5.0 V8 in a Z3 coupe (enter clownshoe jokes), as well as the exact same production numbers as the Z3 V12: one.
Parking tickets are a fact of life, especially if you live in a big city. You have to have a flagrant and pathological disrespect for the law, though, to be able to rack up $30,000,000 Swedish Kronor in parking fines, like one man did in the city of Malmö. That's $4,525,080 in US dollars. Hooooooooly crap.
To be fair, a lot of this story is even weirder than all the parking tickets, though, again, it may be just another case of flagrant law violation. Despite having no valid drivers license since 2010, the man has been the registered owner of over 2,000 new cars, so it's likely he's either an oil sheikh or the proud recipient of the long arm of the laws of computer-generated error, according to Sweden's The Local:
The driver who has chalked up 30 million kronor in fines appears four separate times among the top 11 offenders. He is ranked second on the list for one offence owing a debt of 7,916,650 kronor ($1,196,000) behind the number one culprit who owes 8,432,800 kronor ($1,274,000).
I like to imagine our anonymous anti-hero just crashing about the city of Malmo, driving a brand new car every day into a different brick wall, whichever wall he finds first, really, before leaving his car in a crumpled, smoking heap stuck perpendicular on the sidewalk. Realizing his brand new car is undriveable upon returning for his daily errands that Swedish people do (meatballs, reindeer, bork bork bork, etc.), he simply goes out and buys another. Maybe it comes flat-packed.
What's perhaps even more impressive is that our anonymous anti-hero has received more tickets than all the foreign diplomats in Sweden, who racked up only $59,642 in fines.
H/t to Hussyville!
Photo credit: Charleston's TheDigitel
Welcome to Little Car in the Big City, where I highlight fascinating cars I found walking around a town that is known for being bigger than everything else, but where every car is fighting to stand out: New York, New York.
It's rare that you see a car that's fully restored, not heavily modified in some heinous way, and yet somehow original. And I don't mean "original" in that the parts are all-original, because hey, parts wear out, but I mean in that the choice of car itself reflects true originality.
Every guy in America who hears the word "Chevy" thinks "I know, when I grow up I'll get a '57 Bel Air!" That's not to say the Bel Air isn't a fine choice. It's a gorgeous car, and whether restored or modified, it's still pretty swell. But if you want to be just slightly different, to just slightly stand out from the pack, to say "I have taste, and I don't buy what everyone else has because that's boring," to make a statement, well, you get a Toyota Land Cruiser. And this 1974 model is just gorgeous.
Now, I know what you may be thinking. Toyota Land Cruisers are a dime a dozen, they made millions of them, they're too utilitarian. The thing is though, because they were so utilitarian, and because they made so many of them, not very many exist anymore, at least not in good condition on the roads, at least not in the US. Sure, they made them in Brazil until 2001, but most Toyota J40s (as these are sometimes known) are from the 1970s at the latest. They were used and abused, taken off road and into the wilds of the world. I've been to many a classic car show, and you'll see plenty of Willys Jeeps and even a few Land Rover Defenders before you'll come across a Land Cruiser in good nick.
So to actually go out and pursue one requires some forethought. This particular example has the soft doors and top, but John, the owner of the vehicle, explained to me that it actually has a hard top as well stored away. Still, the soft openings, slight lift, new wheels and tires, and the winch in the front do a lot to add a little bit of a personal touch. And if you're going for taste, why not reflect a little bit of your own?
When you hear "Corvette Rally Car" you probably think of some dude who ixnayed the exhaust on a gnarly C4 and slapped some truck tires on there. But a C2 Grandsport? Are you kidding me? This is my new hero.
Technically, this looks to be rallycross not straight-up rally, but does it matter? I'm in love.