Not wanting to stand by the sidelines watching the Mazda Miata and Pontiac Solstice take all the glory in the small roadster segment, Dodge will show their own version at the Geneva Motor Show in March.
The Dodge Demon is powered by a 172-horsepower 2.4 liter engine driving the rear wheels. The power rating seems quite respectable considering the engine will only have to move 2600 pounds of car.
The Demon is "designed to be an attainable dream car," according to Principal Exterior Designer Jae Chung. In purely styling terms, it sure looks like a more affordable version of the Dodge Viper. Or S2000. Hmm, some Audi TT as well.
With the F1 season still weeks away, most F1 fans (myself included) are still replaying old races in order to ease the symptoms of race withdrawal. But you can only watch youtube clips of Juan Pablo Montoya getting attacked by a cameraman so many times before it starts to get repetitive, and you soon find yourself looking for other things to keep you entertained. Like cleaning the bathroom or wondering whether to do taxes early this year.
So that fellow racefans won't have to suffer from those indignities, I decided to make it easy and have collected some of the most entertaining F1 clips available to man. And by entertaining I mean "embarrassing", because there is something satisfying about seeing talented and well-paid individuals fail like the rest of us. In no particular order:
1) Montoya attacked by cameraman or "You broke my f**king head!" Nothing else needs to be said about this that hasn't been already said in countless internet forums.
2) Gerhard Berger breaks mirror on Benneton There are some things on you don't do when you're starting a new job, and breaking the mirror of your new team's racing car is probably somewhere on that list. The look on Berger's face as he realizes what he has just done is priceless.
3) David Coulthard hits a wall during a pit stop while leading the Australian GP David Coulthard showed a lot of promise and speed in 1995 when he raced with Williams, but mistakes like this made for embarrassing moments (f1rejects.com ranks this as the most embarrassing moment in F1 history).
4) Mika Hakkinen almost takes out half the pit crew This moment is more embarrassing for the mechanic who let Mika out of the pits before checking that the car was clear of any tools. In any case, Mika's incident most likely didn't make for a very happy Ron Dennis (someone who is a self-admitted control freak).
5) "Wanker!" - an angry Heidfeld insults the wrong driver Sure, we've all insulted someone we thought had done us wrong and later found out that that it was all a silly misunderstanding. But we are blessed with not having a camera shoved in our face during those moments. Angry about a dicey move Takuma Sato made on him during the 2006 Chinese GP, a confused Nick Heidfeld walks to the Super Aguri Racing pit and starts insulting an even more confused (and innocent) Yamamoto.
To his credit, Heidfeld did apologize to Yamamoto after he was told of his mistake.
6) Michael Schumacher knocks over front jackman Sure, it didn't happen during race conditions, but the idea that the highest-paid and most successful driver would make such a mistake is too perfect.
7) Mansell's wheel comes off after pitstop After a pitstop during the Portugese GP, Nigel Mansell finds himself missing one wheel. Unfortunately for him racing cars work better with four wheels instead of three.
8) Kimi and #2 So it's not really an embarrassing moment, but Martin Brundle seems to be embarrassed for Kimi Raikkonen when he responds to Brundle's question.
9)"Monacogate" I won't even comment on this because this has been talked about ad nauseam.
10) Not F1, but perhaps the most embarrassing moment in open-wheel racing... Bjorn Wirdheim's embarrassing moment at the F3000 race in Monaco is just mind-boggling. Having controlled the race and certain of winning the prestigious event, Wirdheim slowed down to wave to his pit-crew thinking he had already crossed the finish line. Of course, that's not what happened...
During the January 30 Valencia F1 test, Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer gets a friendly nudge from Fernando Alonso. And we thought we were going to miss out on the on-track antics with Michael gone...
What do you do when your company has just announced its largest loss ever? If the company is Ford and your name is Allan Mulally, you spend a day with the troopers in the showroom floors.
According to CNN, Ford chief Allan Mulally will work as a salesman for a day at a to-be-announced Ford dealership. The experience will give Mulally a better understanding of the company's sales problems.
The plans were apparently born during conversations with Ford dealers at a recent National Automobile Dealers Association convention in Las Vegas.
The Toyota Prius has always been a little quirky. From its futuristic exterior body styling to its space-ship dash, Toyota's best-selling hybrid can only be described as "unique" (I'll leave the interpretation of the word to the readers). But Prius owners who encounter snow days have learned that the car's quirkiness extends beyond the superficial.
According to this article, a Prius owner has noticed that the car will come to a complete stop under snowy or icy-road conditions. Even with tire chains, the slip in the wheels is enough to activate the traction control in such a way that the car will refuse to move. The symptoms were duplicated by his Toyota service manager when two other Prius cars were tested on level surfaces covered with snow.
A study conducted in the London (link to the paper here) concludes that drivers of "four wheel drive vehicles" are less likely than drivers of "cars" to follow UK traffic laws on seatbelt and cell phone use while driving.
The researchers explain the difference in driving behavior by citing "risk compensation", a theory proposed in 1975 by Sam Peltzman which claims that individuals make choices based on perceived risks. In the case of this study, the theory would predict that drivers in larger cars (presumably the "four wheel drive vehicles") compensate for the perceived safety of their vehicles by taking more risks while driving.
