When a group of JDM superstars get together it’s usually on asphalt. Not this time! An unusual surface type consisting of rich northern Indiana soil is the new track for the likes of Impreza and Lancer. Slinging mud and mess everywhere, the all-wheel drive mud mayhem occurs with the grace we’d expect from symmetrical perfection. Mud drifting, mud racing, whatever you want to call it; it sure does look like fun! It’s not the typical high speed stunt driving like what is seen in WRC and various rally events held through out the world, but it does have the signs of a good time. Covered in evidence of fun, these guys know how to enjoy AWD the right way!

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Source: Tampa Sports Car Examiner

Reiter Engineering of Germany has taken upon itself the role as Lamborghini’s preferred race-spec tuner.  With no factory effort, Reiter has been modifying productions Lambos for decades–earning GT victories from France to Japan.  The latest work is a GT3-class Gallardo LP560.  The GT3 features a tuned 5.2 L V-10 with 570 hp at 8,000 rpm.  Weight has been cut to just 2,620 lbs. thanks to an aluminum chassis and more carbon fiber paneling.  A Halinger geabox is provided and gives racers even quicker shifts than the standard Audi unit.  The final pricing for the LP560 GT3 is €265,000; a GT2 upgrade is available for €295,000.

Phoenix-based Rizk Auto has brought us a forgotten item in the Aston Martin catalog: the short-lived DBR2.  The DBR2 was a Le Mans-class race car released in 1957.  But due to various regulations over engine capacity, the DBR2 was cast out of major competition.  Its chance at glory came with the ’57 Le Mans, but the car couldn’t muster the full twenty-four hours.  It puttered along until 1960, when it was retired and sold to private collectors.

Rizk has resolved those old problems by making its version the perfect balance of Space Age design with ’50s cool.  The featherweight aluminum chassis is linked to a composite body, both lined with heat-resistant shuttle-craft coating.  The curb weight for the car is just 2,100 lbs.  Buyers can opt for old-school equipment, with a carbureted Jaguar inline-six or V-12 mated to a 5-spd. manual, or go modern with a fuel-injected Chevrolet 6.2 L V-8 with a 6-spd. auto or manual.

We reported a couple months back about a rare 1965 Shelby Daytona up for auction at Mecum.  The seller had hoped to have his car become a record-holder with a final bid between $10,000,000 and $11,000,000.  The final bid was nowhere near those figures.  The seller and Mecum group claim there was a post-auction offer of as much as $7,500,000, but the seller was still unsatisfied.

Here we go again.  The seller is pushing the Shelby coupe on the block once again, hoping this season’s Monterey auction will bring in a willing buyer up to the seller’s financial standards.

That’s going to be a hard sell.  With a shaky economy, classic American car values in the dumps, and an astonishingly high sales expectation, we find it very unlikely this car will hit the eight-figure mark.  The only cars we can count hitting eleven million have been Ferrari’s revered 250 Testa Rossas and GTOs.  Still, this Daytona is in marvelous condition, is extremely rare, and has real history behind it.

Looks like the Formula 1 war between the governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), and the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) will be back on after a peacetime discussion fell through.

The FIA previously agreed to give up the regulatory demands it planned to instate if FOTA dropped its bid to start a separate racing league.  Things have since gone sour again.  While reports are going back and forth, the breakup seems to be due to the FIA’s demand that any agreement be reached with unanimity among all the F1 teams–not just those with FOTA.

Looks like the only way this’ll be solved is with violence.  Lots of it.

Max Mosley will not run for re-election as president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), European racing’s governing body.  The longtime English federation manager, and notorious Nazi-dressing sex freak, will be stepping down after a rebellion by the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA).

Mosley, now age sixty-nine, has an extensive history in European motorsports.  He started his career as an amateur racer in the 1960s.  Mosley allied himself with famed entrepreneur Bernie Ecclestone in the 1970s, leading the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) in a protracted standoff with the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA).  In an ironic twist, Mosley went on to lead FISA in the 1980s, followed by his ascent to the FIA presidency in the early 1990s.

Mosley’s tenure has presided over much turmoil.  While Grand Prix racing has continued to be a vastly profitable enterprise in Europe, his tenure saw constant litigation, conflict with team owners, a hilarious sex scandal, and the abandonment of the US series.  The final straw came with Mosley’s decision to impose budgetary caps on Formula One racing teams in order to reduce costs.  The caps were to be accompanied by a broad series of measures to further promote resource equality–to be handled by Mosley personally.

The move infuriated team owners.  Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s president, led a campaign against Mosley and his close ally, Ecclestone.  Montezemolo organized the formation of FOTA in July of 2008 to create a united front against Mosley and the FIA mandate.  Among the FOTA members were McLaren, BMW-Sauber, Brawn, Williams, Renault, and Toyota.  The FOTA resistance was given added weight by the Association des Constructeurs Européens d’Automobiles, the European manufacturers’ group.

Mosley stood firm, but finally caved in amid FOTA’s threat to create its own “rebel” racing series.  With the lucrative Formula One series in jeopardy, Mosley agreed to call it quits.

So ends a long and troubled chapter in European racing.

Yours truly may not be a fan of British comedy, scripted reality television, bitchy men with accents, or Top Gear, but that doesn’t stop me from giving admiration to the program’s legendary test driver.  Identified only as the “Stig,” he has become an enigma on both sides of the Atlantic.  Imagine my pleasure at finally seeing the man beneath the mask.  A prank?  Maybe.  But it’s a good one.

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The Ford and Dodge motorsport divisions are going to submit versions of their pony cars to compete in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series.  It’s no surprise that NASCAR’s antics have grown stale; audience attendance and TV viewership are really down.  To make matters worse, GM’s cut funding for its NASCAR-related production.  The Mustang/Challenger move is meant to better link their sport coupes to racing.  Don’t expect the NASCAR viariants to be “stock” or even along of the lines of Le Mans and Rolex GTs: the cars will still little in common with their street siblings.  This comes as NASCAR management and team owners were considering abandoning the auto marques altogether.  The plan would have permitted teams to employ in-house vehicles under heavy guidelines.  Like it or not: NASCAR is a personality-driven sport.download jingle all the way free

Here are a couple of clips, one black & white, the other in color, of racing’s ultimate tragedy.  In the early summer of 1955, French driver Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR clipped Lance Macklin’s Austin-Healey, sending the silver Benz airborne at high speed and into a dirt barrier.  The angle and velocity of the Benz caused it flip further and fragment.  Heavy debris killed bystanders, but things quickly got worse when the magnesium alloy that made up the body violently reacted to the ignited fuel tank.  Over eighty people lost their lives–including Levegh.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXtb5eDUuQw]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuKP-rNyiOQ]

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The Le Mans 24, the world’s most prestigious endurance race, ended with Audi’s stunning defeat in the key P1 class.  Audi has dominated the racing series during this decade, forcing out many in the top category who found it pointless to compete against the German blitz.  It was France’s Peugeot factory teams that broke the decade-long Audi stranglehold.

The victors were David Brabham of Australia, Alexander Wurz of Austria, and Marc Gene of Spain (pictured in that order from left to right) in their diesel-powered Number 9 Peugeot 908 HDi.  Theirs was one of three 908s that took part in the race (the others being numbers 7 and 8).  The three teams aggressively, but enjoyed good fortune from Audi’s lack of it.  The new Audi R15 TDi prototypes were less powerful and slightly slower; but the fatal stroke for the Audis were collisions and tech problems.

The Peugeot name isn’t well-known here in the United States, as French automobiles have never taken off here in the way the Germans and Italians have.  But Peugeot, along with Citroen and Renault, is a prominent marque in France, and has a rich racing heritage.  The 905 LM served with distinction in the early 1990s, defeating the likes of Jaguar and Toyota.

The 908 HDi is the second Le Mans prototype (LMP) to be powered by a diesel engine–the first was the Audi R10 TDi.  The 908 debuted in Paris in the summer of 2006 and competed in its first race one year later.  Claude Guillois, a veteran of the 905 project, directed the development effort and handled powertrain construction.  Guillame Cattelani sculpted the overall shape; Paolo Catone worked on the carbon-composite chassis that kept weight down to 2,000 lbs. Guillois produced the aluminum dual-overhead-cam center-mounted 5.5 L V-12.  A Bosch ECU, MS17 direct fuel-injection, and twin Garrett turbochargers were hooked up, along with a Ricardo 6-spd. sequential gearbox.  Maximum horsepower is over 700 hp and the torque range peaks at nearly 900.

Even with those impressive specs, the 908s had trouble.  The problems usually dealt with tech matters.  This time around, however, Peugeot persevered thanks to Brabham, Wurz, and Gene.  David Brabham is the oldest of the trio at forty-three.  He is the son of F1 star, Jack Brabham, and competed for Simtek, Jaguar, Panoz, and Aston-Martin.  Alexander Wurz, age thirty-five, hails from Austria and has served under the Williams, McLaren, Benetton, and Joest banners.  Spaniard Marc Gene, also thirty-five, has held a less-distinguished career with the Williams and Minard teams; he’s more than proven himself at the race that counts.

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