#44 Flying Lizard Porsche 911 type 997 GT3 RSR
I’ve written about the Flying Lizards before. This is its sister car, the #44 Porsche.
At the time of this photo, this was car was driven by Johannes van Overbeek and Flying Lizard team owner Seth Neiman.
Seth has been involved in many high-tech startups and was even VP of Sun Microsystems for awhile.
Johannes now drives for Extreme Speed Motorsports in a Ferrari F458 Italia
Weekend Wallpaper is a weekly series featuring the auto photography of Mike Gillilan. You can see more of his work on Flickr
Level 5 Motorsport during a rainy practice on Friday @ Long Beach
Today marks the 2nd round of the American Le Mans Series at the temporary street circuit of Long Beach, California. This is our Monaco.
Qualifying was rain delayed, then canceled. You can watch the race live on ESPN2 (starting at 7:30 EST) and streamed live on ESPN3 (starting at 7:15 EST). You can find other ways to watch at alms.com.
You may be asking yourself, “With no qualifying, how is the starting order determined?” Good question. Starting order for this race is determined by the point standings coming out of Sebring. New teams get to start at the back of the pack in their class.
What to watch for:
* Carnage. Practice sessions were dogged by heavy rains. Only the GTC cars got some dry time on the track during their qualifying run. No one has really been on the track in the dry.
* More Carnage. This is a street track – a temporary “race track” in the heart of the city. As such, there is no “grassy run off”, no “kitty litter” to slow you down. Mix in multiple classes of cars. Little, to no, practice time. New cars / teams / engineers with very little setup information. Adds up to the potential of watching $500,000+ ~ $2+ million dollar race cars “go squish” against the cold, hard, carbon fiber and composite crushing, cement walls of Long Beach.
* The battle in GT. We have new blood and some old blood looking to make a statement. Lotus makes its GT debut with it’s Evora. Aston Martin makes a welcome come back to the series with it’s beautiful #007 Vantage. Flying Lizard Porsche will be out trying to prove they still have what it takes to lead the class. Falken Porsche has proven they have that little “something extra” to win on street circuits with last years win in Baltimore. BMW, Chevy, and Ferrari round out the mix of cars in GT, all vying for the podium.
* In GTC, look for Valiante to battle his way to the top of his class. During the brief qualifying for GTC, Valiante put down some impressive times, with a fantastic battle against Leh Keen for pole.
And astute watchers might be wondering why there is a black stripe on all the Porsches? A tribute to Ferdinand Porsche who died last week.
[photo credit: ALMS.com]
Take Your Top Off! The Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse Hits YouTube
By Chad Waite | April 12, 2012
I drive a 2001 Mazda Miata. When the top is down and I am doing anything over 65 miles per hour, I feel like I’m stuck behind the engine of a big Boeing jet about to take off. It’s pure windy chaos and makes me feel like I’m either severely violating the speed limit or ready to be blown over by said Boeing jet. Kinda like this.
What I cannot imagine is what that feeling would be like doing 255 mph, which is precisely what the new Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse does. Essentially a droptop version of the Veyron Supersport, which currently the fastest production car in the world, the Gran Sport Vitesse steals the title for both the fastest and most powerful open-top production car in the world, maxing out at a totally unbelievable and unnecessary 1200hp (nearly 10x as much as my Miata).
To show off the car in all of it’s fully done up and totally topless glory, Bugatti put together the little video diddy below. Gearheads, be warned: this is vehicular pornography at its finest.
It was a cold morning at Miller Motorsports Park as we all huddled in a garage listening to the rules of the track day hosted by Kirkham Motorsports, a company dedicated to building aluminum bodied Shelby Cobras. Just looking at the name of the host will tell you this will not be your average track day. This particular event was held by Kirkham Motorsports for one sole reason. The owner of the company, David Kirkham, is running for Governor of Utah and this is his idea of getting people to meet him. It was a great move and got us out to it! Although his political views weren’t the biggest draw for the event, the free rides with professional drivers in some of Kirkham’s cars around Miller Motorsports Park’s East Course was! Now who would turn that down?
More on the lap in a minute, but first, the car. Tucked away in Provo, Utah is a small shop were Kirkham Motorsports builds these beautiful, aluminum bodied, Cobra replicas. Aside from Shelby American’s Recreation Cobras these are the most expensive replica Cobras your money can buy. All the cars are hand built and built to customer spec so there is no official horsepower rating but in the 427ci models, and most in attendance were(although, there were a couple 289ci Cobras present), it is safe to say that they produce around 500hp. Kirkham say they have produced about 700 cars including a few odd ball orders such as copper and bronze bodied cars. Most orders keep the car unpainted and have a polished finish with unpolished stripes.
Being a track day, there was a more relaxed environment and we were able to walk around pit lane and watch the cars pass from the pit wall. Although not as loud as the FXXs we saw here a few years ago, these things roar! To give you an example, someone had brought their new Boss 302 Mustang out and when he went by it was hardly audible.
As we stood in line waiting for our turn to ride in one of these shiny beasts, we were freezing but, once a helmet was strapped on each of our heads a flood of excitement filled us. Now I can only speak for myself, but fellow editors Chad Waite and AJ Wilcox will probably agree, I forgot about the cold. Then I was called to the next car in line. This one, a 427! The door is open and I was helped into the car. It isn’t an easy car to get in and out of especially for someone of my height. As I climb in I hear the words, “Watch the pipe!” These cars have side exhaust pipes running below the door and they are HOT and notorious for burning the legs of an unsuspecting victim. I am buckled into the car’s 5-point harness, door closed and off we go! The drive down pit road felt like an eternity as we headed to the track. We round the left hand corner, the driver downshifts and punches it. The car finally roars as it is welcomed into its natural habitat. This was my first time ever around MMP or any other track for that matter and a Cobra was a perfect way to get my feet wet. We hit the first turn and the car felt like it was on rails. It was very composed and when we reached the bottom of “The Attitudes” the tail end slid out slightly but held its own and kept going. Since we were on the East Course, the drivers weren’t able to go down full main straight but on the longer straights we were touching 100-105mph. What a rush! As we returned down pit lane to the line again I had a smile a mile wide! I again needed help climbing out of the car and again heard the familiar, “watch the pipe!” and immediately got back in line to go again!
At the end of the day we were all sold. Not only on the car, which was fantastic, but also may have swung us to vote for David Kirkham just for throwing such an awesome event.
For a full gallery of images go to this link.
Musical Idol To Pure Douche: Justin Bieber Chromes Out His Fisker Karma
By Chad Waite | April 10, 2012
What’s the quickest way to change your reputation from a talented teenage pop idol loved by every teenage girl ever to a complete and total douche bag? Get your ear pierced and wear a big diamond earring everywhere you go.
What’s the second quickest way? Completely chrome out your Fisker Karma.
That’s right, that bling bucket picture above belongs to teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber, who is now officially a typical Hollywood result of far too much money, time spent on the front page of magazines, and the self-perception of “being the shit.”
Sound harsh? Take one look at that poor car above and ask yourself if that isn’t a cry for attention and criticism. Do we need to queue a bad karma joke…?
Check out the incredibly annoying TMZ video of the Biebs driving through Chick-fil-A in his gaudy Fisker.
Lamborghini Trademark for "Deimos"
Lamborghini traditionally names their cars after bulls or bullfighting, yet the exotic supercar manufacturer has reportedly trademarked the name “Deimos”. Deimos in ancient Greek mythology was a god, the son of Aphrodite to be exact.
Basically, Deimos was the personification of terror and dread, so if an upcoming model isn’t going to be named after a bull… why not not the god of terror? It seems like an appropriate name for a vehicle made by a manufacturer that builds stupid fast cars.
Lamborghini has had a few concepts on the drawing board of late that stray from the traditional supercar form. The Estoque and that horrible SUV come to mind. With Deimos being a departure in the traditional naming of Lamborghini cars, it’s entirely possible that if a Lamborghini goes into production under that name that it will be uniquely different from traditional Lambo’s of the past.
I for one am hoping for something more along the lines of the Estoque as a Lamborghini SUV named Deimos would definitely be an unsightly terror. I’d rather be scared to death by something that is stupid fast than something that is stupid ugly. Then again maybe we’ll get lucky and the Lamborghini Deimos will be a traditional surprise.
[Source: Car & Driver]
