Speaking of tire smoking drift cars and Porsches, another familiar face at the 2009 SEMA Show was Falken with a pair of very different blue and green high performance machines to show off what Team Falken is all about. It is nice to see that one manufacturer can be so successful in two completely different disciplines of motor sport.
Representing the world of drifting where goal is to get sideways, light up the tires and hope for an outstanding crowd reaction in a matter of corners was Formula D driver and recent Japanese export Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s competition drift car, a 2010 Ford Mustang with enough supercharged Detroit iron under the hood to go through a set of Falkens in a matter of minutes. On the other hand, the Falken Porsche that races in the American Le Mans Series is about getting as much grip as possible from the sticky Falken slicks, keeping wheel spin to a minimum and hoping not to get the crowd on its feet until the end of the lengthy endurance race. If they got excited any sooner, it would probably signal the end of the car’s day. However as different as the setup on each of these cars is, they are both able to excel at their particular brand of motor sport.
The Bufori BMS R1’s debut at the Macau GT may have ended prematurely, but in the time it was running full throttle, the car more than lived up to the hype. Driven by former Formula One driver Alex Yoong, the Bufori BMS R1 qualified 28th for the race and within a few laps had already vaulted to 23rd. Everything was going smoothly for Yoong and the BMS R1 – it even posting a top lap time of 3:00:388 – that is until the safety car was deployed, disrupting the momentum Yoong had generated since the start of the race.
When the race was restarted, everything crumbled for Yoong and his BMS after it brushed some barriers and jamming the throttle. Just like that, Yoong’s race was over. Giving his take on the incident, Yoong said, “Unfortunately I brushed the barriers and then debris from the track caused the throttle to be stuck. Without power I had to stop. It is a sad end to the race and I am sorry for my mistake."
Despite the disappointing finish to his race, the BMS R1’s performance drew praise from a lot of people who attended the race. Though expectations were high for the car, not a lot of people expected it to go throttle-for-throttle with the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini. What’s even more impressive is that the car was able to run the race and accomplish what it did without any testing done on the track.
Suffice to say, the Bufori BMS R1 may not have won the race, but it sure did win a lot of fans.
Those who remotely showed any interest in forking over 2 million euros for Michael Schumacher’s 1994 Benetton F1 car will be disappointed to know that the entire auction may have been a hoax from the beginning.
Then again, they should all be relieved that they didn’t just lose that kind of money over nothing.
A few days ago, reports surfaced that Schumi’s ’94 Betton car – the exact same one he used to win his first F1 championship – was being sold on eBay with bids reaching well over 2 million euros. But as the deadline for the auction neared, the eBay auction for the car mysteriously disappeared hours before the supposed deadline was to pass. Now, sceptics are saying that the whole thing may have been a ruse after all.
As if that wasn’t enough to draw a few chuckles from a lot of people, a new auction has started for another 94 Schumi-driven Benneton has now been listed on eBay with a starting bid of 1.15m pounds.
Nobody needs to remind us of the historical significance of this car, but all these faux auctions are slowly becoming ridiculous.
Toyota’s abrupt departure from Formula One has left a lot of people in stunned disbelief, especially when you consider that the supposed 2010 car was already completed well before the 2009 season ended.
Now that Toyota’s out, the question is what becomes of their 2010 car - and their whole design technology for that matter?
Well, they’re not putting it to waste, that’s what. According to the French newspaper Le Parisien, the Toyota F1 Team now has plans of selling off the data and designs of the car, preferably to one of the new teams that are set to make their debuts next year.
Out of the four teams – Lotus, Capos, Manor and USF1 - that are scheduled to have their inaugural race in Formula One in 2010, the two most logical teams to buy Toyota’s designs are Manor and USF1.
We don’t know exactly as to how much Toyota is selling their F1 technology, but we’re pretty sure that it’s going to come up for bid pretty soon between any of these new teams.
The obscene budget that Toyota has shelled out for its F1 division has finally caught up with them and combine that with the fact that the company is now re-directing its attention towards its core road car business prompted the Japanese auto giants to pull out of Formula One.
Remember the Formula One wheel that we found in the Enkei booth at the 2009 SEMA Show, well there was one other item on display that was almost as impressive as a 14 inch wide lightweight wheel that is good for turning in at 200 MPH, one of the most aggressive looking Subaru Impreza WRX STi hatchbacks that we have ever seen. Apparently the car was fully built by Design Craft Fabrication for a former motocross race who wanted to trade in his two stroke bike for an all wheel drive turbocharged flat four cylinder STi. With his initial intentions to rally the new Subaru, the exorbitant costs of campaigning a rally car turned his ambitions towards Time Attack on track ambitions.
Design Craft took every opportunity to develop new parts for the customer vehicle, like a V mount radiator and intercooler set up, a set of custom pistons from J.E. to handle the boost generated by a Garrett GT3582R turbocharger and one of the wildest body kits we have ever seen. However there is one piece of the Time Attack STi puzzle that should seem familiar to you, that is if Subaru hadn’t pulled out of World Rally Championship competition. That is because this STi is wearing a legitimate Prodrive WRC wing on the back, and as far as we know it is the only one in America.
For 2 million euros, you can buy just about anything you’re heart desires. But if there’s item where 2 million wouldn’t be enough, it’s Michael Schumacher’s 1994 Benetton Formula One car.
The said car, which is actually the exact same one Schumacher drove on his way to his first Formula One championship, is being auctioned off at eBay with the current bid price now reaching 2.6 million euro (£2.3m).
The car’s owner and seller has advertised the car on the German eBay site and in addition to the car itself, the whole package comes with two extra sets of wheels and tires, plus a data laptop that monitors the car’s fluid levels and temperatures.
The car has also been restored to its original appearance. If you recall back in 1994, Schumacher crashed into Damon Hill in the last race of season. As a result of the crash, Hill – who finished second to Schumi that season – was forced to retire from the race, thereby handing over the title to the German.
In the event that you’re interested in making the purchase, you have until Monday to make a bid for the F1 car, although at 2.6 million euros, we strongly advise you to just hang on to your cash – unless of course you’re the biggest Michael Schumacher fan in the world.
The Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving is located in sunny Phoenix, Arizona; however the team has picked up shop and moved to Las Vegas last week to give visitor to the SEMA Show a chance to experience what a skilled professional can do behind the wheel of a proper sports car, in this case a Z51 Chevrolet Corvette. While the Bondurant instructors traditionally hone their skills at the Firebird International Raceway, the back lot at the Las Vegas Convention center was more than sufficient for the teachers to show their passengers the finer points of car control with maneuvers like the Scandinavian flick and tire squealing tail slides.
If you want to watch car races, you can’t get any better than having two heavyweights slugging it out. In this video, the Ferrari 599 GTB F1 takes on the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4. It can’t get any more interesting than that.
Check out the video to see which Italian supercar took home the oh-so-important bragging rights.
In another nod at green racing, the German automaker Volkswagen has just launched the Scirocco Bio-CNG-powered race series for 2010. With CO2 emissions reduced by 80%, the new Scirocco Cup will become the most eco-friendly one-make championship in the world, making it even more environmentally friendly than their previous Jetta TDICup. The Scirocco Cup car is based on the standard TSI unit that is fitted in the road going Scirocco, the Bio-CNG-racing version of the 2.0 Liter four pot develops a maximum output of 215 HP and 203 lb-ft of torque from the alternative fuel burning internal combustion engine.
In order to run a compressed natural gas setup, the Sciroccos are fitted with a 22 liter fuel tank mounted directly behind the driver and is protected by the race car’s roll cage. The so-called Bio-CNG that the Volkswagen Scirocco Cup cars will burn is produced from renewable resources such as grass or a special type of corn as well as from refined biological waste. In order to house the alternative fuel, the tanks themselves are made from a composite material and a series of stainless steel pipes and special valves are added which are required for CNG operation. The Scirocco Cup racing cars will use tried and tested components from Volkswagen production models with CNG engines ensuring that the competition cars are not only reliable, but that the innovations learned on the racetrack will be directly applicable to their street cars.
Brazilian Formula 1 race car drivers are among the best in the world with champions like Emerson Fittipaldi, Rubens Barichello, Nelson Piquet and of course Ayrton Senna still described today as one of the best F1 driver ever.
A new generation of brazilian pilots is for sure coming with drivers like Tony Kanaan (winner of the 2004 IRL IndyCar Series championship driving Andretti Green Racing’s 7-Eleven sponsored car) or Mario Moraes.
Mario Moraes (20, born in 1988 in Sao Paulo) is a brazilian professional race car driver, his career is short but he already showed a lot of talent and impressive performances. He is currently racing with KV racing team, car N0 5 in the Indy Racing League (IRL) IndyCar Series.
He spent the all day and evening at the W Hotel with Izod "In pursuit of Fast" event and the other drivers to celebrate the Indycar Series Championship Week, we took this opportunity to ask him few questions on the sunny beach of Miami Beach in between two catch and throw of volley ball.
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