November 14, 2007

[Redwood]

-Pre-order the Subaru '08 STI tomorrow and it will have a 305hp/290lb-ft engine
-First Photos of the 2008 U.S. Spec Subaru STI
-'GM has its product mojo back,' exec Lutz says (thanks Cody)
-2009 Lincoln MKS: Not your father's Lincoln?
-Follow-up: The truth about the 2009 Cadillac CTS-V
-Autospies' 2007 L.A. Auto Show Photos
-Cargirl: GM Goes a Generation Ahead
-Chevrolet adds hybrid to Silverado pickup
-Audi reveals 'concept' Q5
-2009 Dodge Durango HEMI Hybrid Preview
-2008 Saturn Astra XR Review
-VW to debut Space Up! Blue fuel cell concept at LA
-2009 Chevrolet Aveo5 Preview
-Edmunds' Live LA Auto Show Blog
-2007 Los Angeles Auto Show: Zoom-Zoom Meets Dog Friendly in the 2018 Mazda 3
-10 Best Resale Value Cars
-Lutz Talks More Chevrolet Volt Talk
-Japan Report: Lexus Struggles With LF-A Development
-Volkswagen HyMotion fuel-cell Tiguan
-BMW now with Brembo brakes - These will first be on the 135i (thanks Cody)
-Borgwarner builds a better dual-clutch gearbox
-2010 Jaguar XJ to get XF ‘coupe-like’ styling and 300hp
-Bob Lutz claims pushing Corvette ZR-1 over 200mph
-Autoextremist Rant - GM clings to its one - and newly rediscovered - salvation.
-L.A. Auto Show: Vector Avtech WX-8 to be revealed - Looks like a 4th gen Camaro front end...

[McCall]

Re: November 14, 2007

If you scrolled down the Autoextremeist rant, you can find this article on NASCAR:

FUMES by Peter M. De Lorenzo

The end of the NASCAR season is upon us, thankfully.
Detroit. This weekend, the death march masquerading as racing series - otherwise known as NASCAR - is mercifully and thankfully coming to a close. After 38 weekends of manufactured excitement and relentless hype, racing fans across the country who don't worship the France family Circus of Greed and Co-Branding opportunities are left to ponder how it all went so wrong over another off-season. How did this sport devolve into the mediocre mish-mash of NASCAR and everything else? How did the glory days of Can-Am, Trans-Am, Formula 5000 and CART become the F1, ALMS, Champ Car and IRL blurbs at the end of the motorsports feature dominated by NASCAR in the newspaper? How did we go from begging the television networks for more racing coverage - of any kind - to whole chunks of network programming saturated with all-NASCAR-all-the-time?
The disintegration of this once-great sport has been painful to watch, especially since at a time when road racing needed to come together the most, we have two sports car series and two open-wheel racing series fighting for an ever-shrinking slice of the pie. It would be laughable if it weren't so painfully stupid. There are so many people responsible for the disintegration of racing in this country that the list would dominate this entire website this week. And you can pick your villains, but what does it really matter at this point? We still have too many maniacal people at the top of racing who conduct business with their personal greed meters as their only compass, so that the greater good of the sport - and of the fans - never enters into the discussion. We still have corporate America dumping millions upon millions of dollars into NASCAR without asking the fundamental question - "Uh, why are we doing this again and what are we getting out of it exactly?" We still have entire segments of the media that have forgotten that there even are other forms of racing out there.
Yes, I know, NASCAR definitely has its place in racing, and I have tremendous respect for the drivers and the deeply talented teams around them. But the NASCAR marketing machine? Not so much. The kaleidoscope of corporate messaging in NASCAR has now accelerated into a blur of images that have no beginning and no end, and somewhere, if you look real hard, there's a race in there worth watching. As I said at the beginning of the year, there are only a handful of NASCAR races left that I will actually watch of my own free will: The Daytona 500, the Bristol night race, one of the Charlotte races, one of the Atlanta races, the Richmond fall race, the road races in Sonoma and Watkins Glen (my favorites), and that's about it.
For racing fans who don't really care for NASCAR, it has become a dismal slog of ferreting out when and on which channel you can catch a glimpse of the type of racing you actually like. Is it going to change anytime soon? Is NASCAR going to cut their schedule by ten races and add more road racing into the mix? Nah, not a chance in Hell of that happening. The France family and their minions are the masters of "not invented here." So you shouldn't expect much. The noticeably empty grand stands and the declining television ratings will begin to resonate within corporate America and on Madison Avenue soon enough, and you'll read about some financial "give backs" going to the TV networks to mitigate the blow of the declining ratings, but other than that it will be business as usual for the NASCAR marketing machine for the foreseeable future.
Thank goodness for football, because the only thing worse than contemplating what has happened to racing in the off-season is the notion that testing for next year's NASCAR season is just weeks away.


Pretty good stuff! Now why can't Indy car and Champ just combine again into something like GP2? Because it makes too much sense that's why