Racing
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So you want to go rally racing? Well you're going to need a car, and it's going to need to be strong. The folks at Team O'Neil Rally School know all about rally-car prep, and instructor (and amazing driver) Wyatt Knox is here to share his knowledge with regards to building up a car for rallying in the video above. Like a Rubik's Cube, it all starts at the corners. You want to simplify things yet also make them stronger. The suspension needs to be able to take massive punishment, yet not bounce the car off the stage. Your brakes will be swapped out for a heavy duty setup, and they won't be...
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Watch Bruce McLaren's 1967 M6A hit the track after 50 years
Bruce McLaren never got the chance to see just how amazing his racing team and the motor car company that would arise from it would become. In fact, he never knew his name would be applied to supercars as his company built amazing racing machines at the time of his death during a test session in...
Jeff Glucker -
Watch FCA's Ralph Gilles track his Voodoo Viper ACR
Ralph Gilles has been a positive fixture in the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles [NYSE: FCAU] world for a number of years now. He's the cheerful head of design who clearly shares the same passion for automobiles that burns strongly in the rest of us. He's also happy to hit the track in his own vehicles...
Jeff Glucker -
2017 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix preview
The 2017 Formula 1 World Championship battle continues this weekend with round 13 at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, home of the Italian Grand Prix. The Monza racetrack was on the calendar for F1’s inaugural season and is often described colloquially as “La Pista Magica”, and with...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Patrick Long piloting a 1968 Porsche 911 T/R at Laguna Seca is vintage racing magic
Are you ready for 13 minutes of Patrick Long flogging an old Porsche 911? You should be because it's wonderful and the man knows what he's doing in the car. The particular car in question is a 1968 Porsche 911 T/R and Long is beating on it at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca at the Rolex Monterey...
Jeff Glucker -
Travis Pastrana thought NASCAR was boring, learned it's intricate
Travis Pastrana has been pretty damn good at nearly everything he tries. He's best known for being a pioneer of freestyle motocross and winning motorsports events on two wheels, but he's also quite skilled on four wheels. He has four Rally America championships to his name, the record time for a...
Jeff Glucker -
The World Endurance Championship's top-level LMP1 class is in trouble. Porsche decided to leave LMP1 after the 2017 season and Audi left it after the 2016 season. That leaves Toyota as the only manufacturer. The reason for the exodus? It costs close to F1 dollars to have a competitive team. According to Motorsport.com, McLaren boss Zak Brown wants his company to jump back into endurance racing, at the LMP1 level. McLaren would like to see the WEC roll back its rules to a point where factory-backed and customer teams could honestly battle it out for endurance racing victory. The step-down LMP2...
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3,000-hp Lamborghini Huracán from Underground Racing sets new 1/2 mile record
Underground Racing has returned to the half-mile three times in the past year, and each time it's outdone itself with its 3,000-horsepower, street-legal Lamborghini Huracán. Most recently, the car was driven to a record speed of 250.27 mph. This has since been obliterated with a 257 mph...
Sean Szymkowski -
Hamilton holds off Vettel at 2017 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix
Mercedes AMG’s Lewis Hamilton claimed victory on Sunday at the 2017 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix. It was a closely contested battle that went right down to the wire, with Hamilton requiring everything he could muster to hold off Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. The Ferrari driver eventually...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Learn the difference between rally and street tires
When you want to learn how to drive a rally car, you have two main options to choose from if you're living in the United States. On the West Coast, there's Dirtfish. While on the East Coast you have the Team O'Neil Rally School. The latter's been cranking out a lot of videos lately, and each one...
Jeff Glucker -
2017 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix preview
After the summer break, the 2017 Formula 1 World Championship returns this weekend with round 12, the Belgian Grand Prix. The race will take place at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the beautiful Ardennes. Its fast, undulating sweeps are a stern test for car and driver, and with an average speed...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
There's a multi-story go-kart racetrack opening in Niagara Falls, Canada
Well, color us jealous. Niagara Falls, Canada, is about to receive one heck of an attraction. A massive, multi-story go-kart track is nearly finished and it will be the first of its kind in the entire country, according to CBC. Atop the Clifton Hill tourist area, the go-kart track will feature a...
Sean Szymkowski -
In the world of street-legal drag-racing machines, the name Sal Patel is well known. The man has been racing his 1999 Dodge Viper for years now, and he's earned a lot of "World's Fastest" titles. His mean machine is known as the Outlaw Drag Radial Viper, and it's the fastest rear-wheel-drive vehicle to cover a half-mile, according to WannaGoFast, the organization that puts on the events the car competes in. Under the hood is the familiar Viper V-10, but Patel's breathes through a pair of massive 90 mm turbochargers. Instead of a 6-speed manual gearbox backing up the engine, Patel swapped in a...
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Lamborghini Aventador SV drag races Tesla Model X and Model S, loses to one
This is gasoline versus electricity. This is V-12 wail versus motor hum. This is a Lamborghini Aventador SV facing down a pair of Teslas on a quarter-mile dragstrip. First up is a Model X and then comes a Model S. It's a battle of about $150,000 versus well over $500,000. Unfortunately the owner of...
Jeff Glucker -
Documentary reveals Mercedes-Benz AMG developed the CLK GTR in just 128 days
No one at Mercedes-Benz knew it at the time, but the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR would ultimately go down as one of the 1990's most iconic Grand Touring Championship cars and spawn one of the era's wildest limited-edition supercars. It's easy to assume such a project took months, even years to develop...
Sean Szymkowski -
Michael Andretti says Global Rallycross is perfect for EVs
The Red Bull Global Rallycross racing series kicked off in 2011. The series involves short sprint races of just a few laps in an all-out blitz for supremacy. The last few years have been dominated by Andretti Racing. Partnered with Volkswagen and run by Michael Andretti, this team features drivers...
Jeff Glucker -
Full-bodied electric car dispatches the 1/8 mile in 4.89 seconds
It's not a world-record holder yet, but this full-bodied electric car built in Denmark is pretty darn close to becoming one. Recently. the 2,200-horsepower electric drag car clocked a 4.89-second eighth-mile time. For those keeping score at home, that's just over a tenth of a second off the current...
Sean Szymkowski -
Steve McQueen's Porsche 917 from "Le Mans" sells for $14 million
To a fair number of folks, the film Le Mans remains one of the greatest pieces of cinema focusing on the world of motorsport. The star of that film is not Steve McQueen, but rather the Porsche 917K that takes home the checkered flag. As is the case with most films, a number of cars were used to...
Jeff Glucker -
Richard Hammond had a rather big off recently. While shooting footage for the upcoming season of the "The Grand Tour," the presenter lost control of the Rimac Concept_One he was driving and plunged down a hill, clipped a house, and had the car burst into flames. He escaped with some serious knee damage but he's otherwise intact. The organizers of the hill climb event during which this took place just took a hit of their own. According to Motorsport.com, a ruling has come down on the organizers of the Swiss Hillclimb Championship, the event taking place when the accident happened. The...
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Acura ARX-05 prototype race car bows at The Quail
Acura will field this new prototype race car, the ARX-05, in the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the automaker announced Friday. The fifth-generation endurance racer takes the ORECA 07 chassis and powers it with a distant relative of the V-6 engine Acura fits to its sedans and SUVs...
Martin Padgett -
2018 IndyCars to get serious aerodynamic and safety upgrades
Indy cars not only have to ensure stability at high speeds while going in a straight line, but they also must operate at high speeds while cornering. Although much news surrounding the 2018 IndyCar body style has focused on its sharp new looks, the latest design also implements some serious...
Sean Szymkowski -
The world's only street-legal BMW M1 Procar is coming to Pebble Beach
With only 453 built, the BMW M1 remains one of the rarest models from the German marque to this day. However, BMW devised something even rarer in 1979: the BMW M1 Procar. Of the 40 BMW M1 Procars that were built—the car was only produced in 1979—there is just one example that is street...
Sean Szymkowski -
Formula 1 could make some parts standardized to cut costs
As the budget gap between racing teams continues to widen, Formula 1 organizers may look to standardizing some parts to control costs for teams. Motorsport.com reports that F1 CEO Chase Carey recently confirmed the possibility of standardized parts to keep costs down but stated that no final...
Sean Szymkowski -
Vintage midget racer rolls into Jay Leno's Garage
Midget racing got its start back in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The cars were small, the tracks were tight circles, and the action was dangerous. It featured a handful of racers ripping through dirt corners in lightweight, powerful machines with little protection, wearing little more than a...
Jeff Glucker