I love going to the Hot Rod Reunion. Famoso Raceway is smelly, dusty, and in the middle of nowhere, but for three days every fall there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. And judging by the increased crowds every year, I’m not the only one! In 2010 we celebrated the 19th Hot Rod Reunion, and also marked the 50th anniversary of the famed Winged Express AA/Fuel Altered, which made passes up the quarter in celebration.
In those 19 years, the event has evolved from a small affair recalling the glory days of drag racing to a huge showing of all manner of restored and retro race machinery. At this event we also witnessed 16 Top Fuelers, and almost 40 Funny Cars vying for places in the 16-car field  … Pictures & MoreÂ
It’s been a long cold lonely winterÂ
Longer than just these past few months, in NASCAR.Â
It seems like years … Â
And it really has been, in NASCAR. Â
The gloom set in after the autumn of 2008, when the stock markets crashed and the effects cascaded down through the most money-dependent of sports. Â
Teams folded, teams merged, teams clung to financial life rafts, 10 percent of the work force was laid off, other workers went unpaid … that left only a handful of rich teams to compete, and you the fan base grew restive, discontent. Â
Here comes the sun Â
It came out on Richard Petty’s face  … More
www.stokednews.com
It’s the quickest current Porsche and is expected to spawn a production version before too long.
The Porsche 918 RSR is a two-seat mid-engine coupe that demonstrates what happens when the hybrid technologies of the 911 GT3 R race car and the 918 Spyder concept are combined to create a modern, innovative super sports car.
Using a flywheel accumulator, that sits where a co-driver should be, the mid-engined coupe 918 RSR, is effectively the motor sports version of the 918 Spyder concept car and shows a visual connection at least to the classic 908 long-tail coupe of 1969 and the famous 917 of 40 years ago.
The 918 RSR’s lines are dominated by …Â More
www.stokednews.com
2010 DODGE CHALLENGER SRT8 LIMITED EDITION
BY DAVID COLMAN
It’s not often that you get to drive a factory prototype 4 years before the production version comes out, but in the case of the Dodge Challenger, I had the privilege of being one of the first journalists to drive the mock-up show car years before the final product hit the street. That first drive in the prototype was under whelming, as the show car had a dashboard with fake painted gauge faces, a shifter with just forward and reverse gears, and plastic bodywork that creaked and groaned at 20mph. Since the test car was a million dollar only child, crashing or thrashing it was not an option. But the slick way it looked said it all, and whetted my appetite for the real version to come.
Challenger is an important product for the newly reconstituted Fiat-Chrysler group. Much as Mustang is Ford’s image car and Camaro is GM’s, the Dodge Challenger plays Chrysler’s siren song, especially with Viper production ending. Musclecar lovers who fondly remember the original Challenger that starred in the 1971 cult movie Vanishing Point will not be disappointed in this hottest version of the reborn Challenger, the SRT8 Limited Edition. Read the rest of this entry »