Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/10/16/brawn-hoping-for-concensus-on-resource-restriction/
Saturday
Brawn hoping for consensus on resource restriction
Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn is convinced that agreement can be reached on resource restriction, despite the ongoing lack of consensus. Mercedes and other teams noted with some interest an increase in spending by Red Bull in 2011, recently revealed … Continue reading
Racin? for bacon: Almirola hands out 600 pounds of bacon at Talladega
If you're like us around here, you greeted the recent rumors of an impending worldwide bacon shortage with a mixture of sadness and sheer terror. A world without bacon is not a world we want to live in, friends.
But fear not! Aric Almirola and Richard Petty Motorsports are teaming with Gwaltney this weekend at Talladega to dispute such fearmongering reports.
"It's great timing to have Gwaltney on our car this week with all this talk about a bacon shortage," Almirola said. "We kind of joke about the rumors and people are calling it the 'Aporkalypse,' but it's actually a serious matter that affects farmers across the country.� It was a rough summer with the drought and we all hope that everyone recovers from it financially.� But for this race week, we're here to assure race fans that they don't have to worry about the bacon case at the grocery store being empty.� Gwaltney will be there, no matter what."
Almirola and Gwaltney put their bacon where their mouths are on Saturday by distributing 600 pounds of bacon in the garage. And it's a good thing they put that news out after the fact; "free bacon" is an incitement to riot in most parts of the South.
Almirola will start Sunday's Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500 in 18th position, which at Talladega means absolutely nothing. If he wins, Almirola hasn't exactly promised bacon for all, but it'll be a victory for the forces of bacon nonetheless.
Birabongse Bhanubandh Lucien Bianchi Gino Bianco Hans Binder
Subaru BRZ with STI Upgrades
We are all waiting to see the STI version of the recently announced Subaru BRZ when it comes out in the next year or so. We’d rely on the BRZ STI Concept that was unveiled at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show for design inspirations, but we all know how concepts sometimes exaggerate the look of the production car. Instead, we are going to take a look at Subaru’s latest STI preview in the form of a Subaru BRZ equipped with STI upgrades. This is not the real STI version, but it still allows us to get a pretty good idea as to the production version’s final look.
The model displayed at the 2012 Australian Motor Show in Sydney was equipped with an aerodynamic kit that includes a front chin spoiler, side skirts, a rear diffuser, and a bootlid spoiler. The model sits on a new set of 17-inch light alloy wheels combined with a set of lower and stiffer coil springs.
Other updates include a low-restriction exhaust muffler, a short-shift gear linkage for manual-equipped BRZ, a wheelnut set, an STI gearknob, an STI push-button starter, and unique interior trim highlights.
Subaru BRZ with STI Upgrades originally appeared on topspeed.com on Friday, 19 October 2012 18:00 EST.
Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/subaru/2013-subaru-brz-with-sti-upgrades-ar136484.html
Friday
2012 Sepang MotoGP Preview Press Releases
Press release previews from the MotoGP teams and single tire supplier Bridgestone ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang:
Round Number:
16 Year:
2012
How I Saw It? 2012 Super Review Part 1: Nuts and Bolts Edition
2012 will be remembered for close racing and an entirely new chassis/engine package that revolutionized the on-track product in the INDYCAR series. Not revolutionized, no, it was more of a renaissance of sorts. A return to a more historically correct … Continue reading 
Carlo Abate George Abecassis Kenny Acheson Andrea de Adamich
2012 Sepang MotoGP Preview Press Releases
Press release previews from the MotoGP teams and single tire supplier Bridgestone ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang:
Round Number:
16 Year:
2012
Mбrio de Araъjo Cabral Frank Armi Chuck Arnold Rene Arnoux
New Opel Salon de Paris 2012
The new ADAM, city car is missing in the Opel range and comes stomping in the International Motor Show in Paris. A car that is designed to customize it to the fullest and enjoy a unique vehicle. With this new model Opel enters a segment that had no representation and where you intend to arouse [...]
Source: http://www.autocarblog.co.uk/18-new-opel-salon-de-paris-2012.html
Thursday
2012 Chase Prospects: Jeff Gordon is in, now can he win?
After winning at Pocono in August, Jeff Gordon finished 21st and 28th the next two weeks. Not exactly the best way to follow up a Wild Card contending win.
But over the final three weeks of the NASCAR regular season, Gordon closed with a flourish with finishes of third, second and second, flipping the narrative of his season from "can he make the Chase?" to now "can he win the Chase?"
The answer to the latter, of course, is yes. Gordon has had capable cars all season long. But it also comes with the caveat that this is Jeff Gordon's 2012. Anything can, and has, happened.
There was the blown engine at Daytona, the cut tire with Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Bristol, a crash at Talladega after starting on the pole, troubles at Darlington. Yeah, you get the drift.
But all of those issues came in the first 11 races of the season, after which Gordon stood 23rd in the Sprint Cup points standings. Since then, Gordon finished on the lead lap all but once, and that was at Michigan during the great Hendrick engine epidemic of 2012.
Best Chase Track: Gordon was king at Martinsville before Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin challenged his throne, and is still pretty damn good there, with seven wins and 31 top 10s in 39 starts. From the first race of 2003 to the first race of 2010, Gordon didn't finish outside of the top 10.
Worst Chase Track: It's either Talladega or Texas. Gordon's Talladega stats are skewed by wrecks that cancel out his six wins in 39 starts. At Texas, Gordon has one win, and has finished sixth and fourth his last two trips there after three straight finishes outside the top 10.
NB's Prediction: 7th. You can look at Gordon's season one of two ways. Either the NASCAR karmic gods continue to owe him for his horrendous luck at the start of the season, or his good summer stretch has balanced out that awful first 11 races and he's starting the Chase at neutral. Gordon has a fantastic chance of getting to victory lane over the next 10 races, but all it takes is just one race with a bad break to take a driver out of title contention too.
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2012 Sepang MotoGP Preview Press Releases
Press release previews from the MotoGP teams and single tire supplier Bridgestone ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang:
Round Number:
16 Year:
2012
It?s no surprise that Jimmie Johnson is tops at Charlotte
Entering last year's Charlotte race, Jimmie Johnson trailed points leader Carl Edwards by four points. He left trailing by 35.
It was the perfect symbol for the end of Johnson's reign. He crashed at a track that he had dominated throughout his career. In his five championship seasons, the lowest Johnson had ever finished at Charlotte was 14th. That was in 2007, and after that race, he was in second, trailing teammate and points leader Jeff Gordon by 68 points ? or roughly 2o points converting to the current point system.
So this current 14 point deficit to Brad Keselowski? Nah, that's nothing. (For all of his success at Charlotte, Johnson has never taken the points lead during the race. In 2006 and 2007, he's entered and left trailing, and in 2008-2010, he was the points leader both before and after.)
Johnson's average finish at Charlotte is the highest of any Chase driver at 11.8, with six wins and 14 top 10s in 22 races. Yes, it's worth noting that since his last win (the 2009 fall race) that Johnson has finished 28th or lower three times in five races. But, it's Jimmie Johnson at Charlotte. After all, the dude did win four straight races there at one time.
Here's how the other Chasers stack up:
Kasey Kahne: Kahne's won the Coca-Cola 600 earlier this season and you can make a case that he's been the series' best on intermediate tracks this season. That bodes well, as four of the final six races are at 1.5 mile tracks. In his career at Charlotte, Kahne has three wins and an average finish of 12.7.
Tony Stewart: Think of how different the storylines would be surrounding Tony Stewart this week if he would have held onto the lead for another 1/3 of a lap. Anyway, Stewart's average finish is 14.0 at Charlotte and his lone win there came in 2003. In last year's race, he had the pole and led 94 laps, finishing 8th.
Matt Kenseth: Here's the man that won last year's Charlotte Chase race and the guy that won Sunday at Talladega, and he clocks in with a 14.2 average finish. Kenseth has 14 top 10s in 26 starts, and is going to need to repeat if he wants to get out of the Chase cellar.
Denny Hamlin: Hamlin's average finish at Charlotte is a nice, round, 15.0 and he's got 7 top 10s in 14 starts. He finished second in the Coca-Cola 600, and unless he finishes behind Johnson or Keselowski, I'm sure second this time would be just fine too.
Gordon: Gordon clocks in with an average finish of 15.7 and 21 top 10s in 39 starts. His last Charlotte win came in 2007. You know what will probably happen on Saturday night? He'll finish fourth... behind Keselowski, Johnson and Hamlin, in that order.
Keselowski: His fifth place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 was Keselowski's first top 10 in six Charlotte starts, and he finished 16th in last year's Bank of America 500. As we've said before, Keselowski is NASCAR's small sample size outlier, so his average finish (16.5), is likely the least indicative of anyone else's.
Greg Biffle: Being in Roush equipment for all of his 19 starts at Charlotte, doesn't it seem that Biffle's average finish would be higher than 17.1 and he would have won a race at the track before? Biffle has 4 top fives and 7 top 10s.
Clint Bowyer: Bowyer has finished outside the top 10 in his last four Charlotte starts, and was 13th in the 600 in May. His average finish is 17.5, and his best run came in 2007's fall race at the track, where he finished second and led 79 laps.
Kevin Harvick: Harvick's only victory at Charlotte came in last year's 600, when he seized the lead on the final lap when Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran out of gas, the second of his four straight top 10 finishes at Charlotte. And he finished second and eighth in his two rookie Charlotte starts. But in the 17 races between his rookie year and the first of those top 10s, he only grabbed one top 10 finish. His average finish is 18.1.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Junior has 11 top 10s in 26 Charlotte starts, with five top fives and no wins and an 18.8 average finish. He finished sixth in the 600, and 19th in last year's fall race. In between finishing fifth in the 2008 600 and seventh in the 2011 race, Junior's highest Charlotte finish was 22nd.
Martin Truex Jr.: Here's Other Junior, and his stats at Charlotte are slightly worse than Junior in the average finish department at 19.4. He's got two top 10s in 14 Charlotte starts and was 12th earlier in the year at the 600.
Ryan Newman: Newman has nine poles in his career at Charlotte, but the worst average finish of any Chaser at 20.1 Kind of weird, eh? Newman had the pole for both 2007 races, and promptly lost an engine in the 600 and crashed in the 500 for finishes of 39th and 28th. He was 10th in last year's Chase race here.
2012 Chase Prospects: Is it Denny Time?
You have to wonder how many times Denny Hamlin has played out the final two weeks of the 2010 Chase in his head.
By now, you know the story just as well as Hamlin does: dominating the season's penultimate race at Phoenix, fuel mileage came into play and Hamlin and then-crew chief Mike Ford pitted for fuel late in the race to ensure that his car would make it to the end under power. Hamlin finished 12th, and Jimmie Johnson finished fifth, closing the gap between himself and Hamlin at the top of the standings. Hamlin was dejected.
Hamlin was still the points leader by 15, but qualified poorly at Homestead and spun and damaged his splitter early in the race. His team scrambled all race and scraped out a 14th place finish. Meanwhile, Johnson qualified sixth and finished second. He won by 39 points. Hamlin was even more dejected.
Hamlin was a non-factor in the Chase in 2011 and started working with a sports psychologist to help his attitude.
Now, as we enter the 2012 Chase, Hamlin's atop the points standings and brimming with positivity. Can you blame him? He ripped off back-to-back wins at Bristol and Atlanta, and hasn't finished outside the top 20 all season except for accidents or mechanical failures. Hamlin's in a prime spot to be in the same position that he was in 2010, and does anyone think the script won't change if that's the case?
Best Chase Track: It's Martinsville, but you probably already knew that too. Hamlin has four wins and 12 top 10s in 14 starts. Given that Martinsville is also Jimmie Johnson's strength, Hamlin has to beat him here.
Worst Chase Track: Dover, where Hamlin has an average finish outside the top 20 and only two top 10s to his credit. He hasn't been incredibly sharp at Chicagoland either, so if he can buttress Loudon (a track where he's good at) with good finishes at Chicago and Dover, watch out.
NB's Prediction: 3rd. This is going to be a three team race down to the wire, and Hamlin will be one of the involved parties. If he's ahead of Johnson after Martinsville, the seventh race of the Chase, it will be advantage, Hamlin.
Wednesday
Chase Power Rankings: Really? You want us to make sense of that Talladega mess?
The fourth race of the Chase is over, and that means it's time for Power Rankings! But we're doing things a little differently now that we're in the postseason. It's all-Chasers, all the time. Good job, good effort for those of you that didn't make it, but we've got bigger fish to focus on. We'll be judging who's running well, considering not just finishing position but quality of run, expected potential, and general gut feelings. As always, we hate your guy and are biased against him. Now, enjoy.
1. Brad Keselowski: All right, here's the deal. There's absolutely no way to make any kind of objective judgment about how each driver is doing based on Talladega, so we're going completely the other direction. We're using the Mafia Name Generator to transform your favorite NASCAR drivers into the world's fastest mob. Hey, it makes about as much sense as determining a race winner by who survives a 31-car pileup. Brad Keselowski? He's @Kes no more. Now he's "Slug-Like Marco Santoro," which makes like no sense in any direction. Hmmm. Clearly this isn't a flawless system.
2. Jimmie Johnson: "Valentino the Stink-Eye." Don't know about the Valentino aspect, but when Johnson lasers his eye on you, you're going to start stinking. Just like the end of Sunday's race did for most Chasers.
3. Denny Hamlin: "Tony Lottaspaghetti." Hmm. No bueno for Denny. But you know what was bueno? The way he managed to dodge most of the mess on Sunday. Of course, hiding out in Birmingham while the rest of the race happens is one way to do that.
4. Jeff Gordon: "Green Jack Ricci." That sounds more like a post-Bieber singer than a made man. Gordon, for his part, continues his amazing run of top-3 finishes, and so once he takes that mulligan he'll be in fine sha- what? No mulligan? Oh. He's screwed.
5. Clint Bowyer: "Luca the Wolf." Yes. YES. Now THAT'S a badass name. Of course, Bowyer ended up like the three little pigs, not the wolf, on Sunday. He looked like he was in line for a big jump, but, well ... no.
6. Kasey Kahne: "Angelo the Bookie." Nah. Kahne's too pretty to be a bookie. Bookies look like they blocked punts with their faces. Kahne? Not so much. He won the pole but not much else at Talladega, and the debt is coming due on his season.
7. Dale Earnhardt Jr.: "Paolo Rubberface." Rub 'er face? But I don't even know her! OHHHHH! Junior was in the lead for awhile, which is mandatory at Talladega, but he got caught up in that whole bloodthirsty wreck and looked more than a little shellshocked afterward. Time's up.
8. Tony Stewart: "Decrepit Roberto Rossi." If there's one thing Stewart is NOT, it's decrepit. Whatever. Just curious, though: what do you think Smoke's reaction would have been if any, and I mean ANY, other driver had caused that wreck? He'd have pulled the guy's skeleton out of his skin.
9. Martin Truex Jr.: "Fat Alphonso Barrow." Aw, come on. Hell, Truex is the only Chase driver who legitimately looks like he could be IN the Mob. AND he's from New Jersey! Hmmm. Anyway, as we've discussed, Truex's window is pretty much slammed shut at this point.
10. Matt Kenseth: "'Heavy Load' Bruno." Yeah, victory when you just happen to be in the right place at the right time is indeed a heavy load to carry. Little bit too late, though, for Kenseth's Chase chances.
11. Kevin Harvick: "Tony Fatface." Hmmm. That seems like it might best apply elsewhere. You know who else ought to apply elsewhere? Anybody working on the 29 crew this season.
12. Greg Biffle: "Twisted Oscar DiMarco." Twisted like Biffle's championship chances, amirite? Better luck next year, Greg.
All right, this didn't quite turn out as well as we'd hoped. Hey, sometimes these columns are ridearounds, too. Anyway, your turn. Oh, and by the way, my Mafia name? "Carlo Chainsaw." YEAH.
MotoGP Qualifying Shake Up: Two 15 Minute QP Sessions To Decide Grid Order
Qualifying for the MotoGP class is to undergo a shake up starting from next year. Instead of the current one-hour qualifying format, two sessions of 15 minutes will settle the starting grid, with the riders divided into two groups on the basis of their combined times through the three sessions of free practice.
The new system is a hybrid of the current system and the superpole format used by World Superbikes and Formula One. An intial selection will be made on the basis of the combined times of the first three sessions of free practice, with the 10 fastest riders going straight through to QP2, with the rest left to fight it out in QP1. The 2 fastest riders in the 15-minute QP1 session will go through to QP2. The original 10 fastest from free practice will be joined by the 2 fastest from QP1 to fight it out for the top 12 grid positions in the 15-minute QP2 session.
To compensate for the shortened qualifying sessions, a 30-minute-long fourth session of free practice will added before qualifying starts.
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