This time last year we called Audi USA to request a 2008 Audi R8 for a long-term test. You know, as in 12 months of driving. Laughter was the initial response, followed by giggles and eventually the cordial rejection we expected. Audi explained, “We are not allowing long-term loans of the R8 at this time. There just aren’t enough vehicles available.”
A couple of months later our phone rang. Audi was on the line: “We’ve had a change of plans. We still cannot accommodate your request for a 12-month R8 test. But we can offer you the vehicle for three months. Are you interested?” Surely this was a rhetorical question. Audi continued, “The R8 is in Atlanta now, so…Â Details
Last week the New York Times devoted considerable space to speculation on Danica Patrick’s future in the IRL. Her contract with Andretti Green is up after this season, and she seems to be seriously considering a switch to NASCAR. “One of the things I think of is the exposure level that you get in NASCAR with the ratings and viewership,” she told the paper. “Their numbers are so much larger than ours, and with that comes a bigger following, comes more popularity, comes more demand for you to endorse other products. So I think it would be an exponential sort of growth.”
As much as she is a talented racer, Patrick is also a shrewd businesswoman, which is why I see her …Â Details
Chester “Chet†Herbert, a member of the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame who helped develop an exhaust header that blew smoke away from a dragster’s rear tires to improve traction, died Thursday. He was 81.
Herbert died of pneumonia at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, according to Sara Fensterer, a spokeswoman for Herbert’s son, Doug, who followed his father into professional drag racing. The elder Herbert lived in nearby Villa Park.
Herbert was stricken with polio at age 20 and lived the rest of his life in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down.
“My grandmother told me he was so wild about racing, that if he didn’t have polio to slow him down, he probably would have died,†Doug Herbert said in a statement. “When my dad was 12, my grandma bought him a trumpet and hoped he’d learn to play. But he traded the trumpet for a Cushman motorscooter and it was life in the fast lane ever since.â€
Lying in a hospital iron-lung for six months in 1948, Herbert developed ideas for manufacturing racing parts in his head…Â Details
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