Press releases issued by Honda, Yamaha, some CRT teams and Bridgestone after the first day of testing at Sepang:
Year:
2013 
Saturday
Jeff Gordon?s DuPont No. 24 will be changing in 2013
Jeff Gordon's DuPont No. 24 is getting a new look and name.
DuPont's paint business, a longtime sponsor of Gordon's No. 24, has been sold to the Carlyle Group and been rebranded as Axalta Coating Systems and the company will fulfill its 14 race sponsorship of Gordon's car.
?While these are big changes for us, our commitment to the No. 24 team, Jeff Gordon and NASCAR remains the same,? Axalta Coating Systems president John McCool said in a release. ?We are proud to continue our sponsorship of the No. 24 team and Jeff Gordon in 2013."
?Our Performance Coatings business started the sponsorship of Jeff Gordon more than 20 years ago, and Axalta Coating Systems will continue the longest current sponsor-driver-team relationship in NASCAR in 2013.?
The changeover will be official in the second quarter of the year -- after the company's first scheduled race at Texas in April. According to the statement, other brands under the now Axalta label will fill Axalta's races until the change is renaming is complete.
After being the four-time champion's main primary sponsor since he started his Sprint Cup Series career, DuPont scaled back to a partial season as a primary sponsor in 2011 and the AARP's Drive to End Hunger came on board. Fittingly, his final race in DuPont colors was in last year's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway where Gordon won.
The Carlyle Group's other holdings include Hertz Rental Car, which recently announced a sponsorship agreement with Penske Racing. Hertz will sponsor Joey Logano in the fall race at Charlotte and seven Nationwide Series races.
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Ernesto Brambilla Vittorio Brambilla Toni Branca Gianfranco Brancatelli
Budweiser Shootout renamed the Sprint Unlimited for 2013
After Budweiser announced that it wouldn't be sponsoring the race now known as the Shootout in 2013, the exhibition race the week before the Daytona 500 was looking for a new sponsor and potentially, a new name.
It now has both. And, the new name is, uh, interesting.
Cup Series title sponsor Sprint is now sponsoring the race, and it will be called the "Sprint Unlimited." Yes, it's named after Sprint's data plan marketing angle.
?Sprint is entering its 10th season as title sponsor of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series,? Steve Gaffney, vice president of marketing for Sprint said in a release. ?From the outset, we promised unprecedented access for race fans, and each year we challenge ourselves to honor that commitment in innovative ways. Thanks to the strength of our partnership with NASCAR and Daytona International Speedway, we have designed The Sprint Unlimited so that fans play a major role in all aspects of the event. It is the ideal way to start this milestone season, and we look forward to sharing all of the details later this month.?
Budweiser's sponsorship has moved to the Duel Daytona 500 qualifying races.
And while you can get unlimited data from Sprint (product plug! I want my royalties!), the field in the "Unlimited" race is not so. It's throttled to 2012 pole winners and past champions of the race. Which means that 2012 series champion Brad Keselowski isn't eligible as he didn't win a pole last season or is a past champion of the race.
Do you like the name? Drop us a line in the comments.
Wikipedia and IndyCar Need Our Help!
For better or worse, Wikipedia is the largest public information repository to be found anywhere on the internet; all of it is all user created and maintained. In some eyes, wiki has a poor reputation, but sometimes with good reason. … Continue reading 
Source: http://anotherindycarblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/wikipedia-and-indycar-need-our-help/
2013 MotoGP Sepang 1 Test Preview: The Questions of the Winter Soon to be Answered
It's nearly time. In a few short hours, the full MotoGP field will roll out onto the track for the first time this year, and the 2013 MotoGP season will officially get underway with preseason testing.
That, at least, is the hope. For testing to truly get underway, MotoGP needs the weather to cooperate, something it has been reluctant to do for the past couple of days during the two days of extra testing laid on for the CRT teams using the new Magneti Marelli ECU. Part of Sunday and just about all of Monday were lost to rain, and the forecast for the next three days is for more rain than usual in this part of the world. Fortunately, the mornings look like being dry, so the fans will at least get to see some action on track.
And there is plenty to look forward to. The biggest topic of conversation among fans, unsurprisingly, is Valentino Rossi's return to Yamaha. The Italian got off to a false start upon leaving the Ducati garage and heading a few doors down to Yamaha, when the weather at the Spanish track made conditions tricky and comparisons difficult. Yamaha then decided to up sticks and head to Aragon, in the hope of finding some dry track time. They were disappointed.
So Sepang should be the first real test of just how competitive Rossi still is once he is back on a bike which he understands and has a front end which provides him with the feedback he relies on to go fast. Rossi has seen his career come to a standstill for the past two years at Ducati, while the men he will have to beat this year have grown in stature and experience, and are now at the peak of their careers. The Italian will have to hit the ground running if he is to catch Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa, and it will not be easy by any stretch of the imagination.
Friday
Turner Motorsports changes name to Turner Scott Motorsports
Minority owner Harry Scott has expanded his role in Turner Motorsports, and the new team will be called Turner Scott Motorsports. The team announced the change on Friday.
?Harry becoming a co-owner is very positive for this organization as a whole,? Steve Turner said in a release. ?This team has grown and accomplished so much in the last few years, and it is still continuing to grow. Harry has been committed to our racing program, its drivers and our sponsors for several years, and he is a vital part of our organization. He is passionate about our sport and our employees, and has proven himself as a very successful businessman, so putting him in charge of our marketing and business efforts is a natural and perfect fit. We have always considered him to be an integral part of the Turner Motorsports family, and this is an opportunity for him to formally take over some of the reins as we continue to build this organization into one of the most successful teams in NASCAR. I am very optimistic that Turner Scott Motorsports will build upon our solid base and achieve continued success.?
Scott was a minority owner at Braun Racing when Turner puchased the assets of Braun Racing in 2010 and renamed it Turner Motorsports.
Turner won the 2012 Camping World Truck Series title with James Buescher and earlier in the week Buescher announced that he would be returning to the series to defend his title. The team also announced a sponsorship deal with Rheem that will see the company sponsor Buescher for 15 Truck Series races in 2013. Rheem last sponsored the Richard Childress Racing truck that Cale Gale drove to victory lane in the final Truck Series race of 2012.
Buescher also won the season opening race at Daytona in the Nationwide Series for Turner after a last turn crash took out the leaders. On Wednesday, Kasey Kahne and Brad Sweet and sponsor Great Clips moved to JR Motorsports in 2013 while, in turn, a report linked Danica Patrick to Turner for her 10 Nationwide Races this season. According to Fox Sports, the team is expected to field entries in either the Truck or Nationwide Series for Miguel Paludo, Jeb Burton and Justin Allgaier in addition to Buescher
Chaotic First Day of CRT Test at Sepang Sees Little On-Track Action
The first day of the extra two-day test for the CRT teams laid on to allow the teams using the new Magneti Marelli spec ECU has been almost entirely wasted. A lack of parts and above all, a lack of data with the new system meant that the day was spent mostly in the garage, with very few laps turned out on the track.
Only CAME Ioda's Danilo Petrucci got in any serious track time, the Italian posting a total of 27 laps. All of those laps were set without any assistance from the electronics, however: with no data, the team had no base set up to work from, and Petrucci was lapping without any electronic aid. "It's really hard to ride a bike without any electronic controls," Petrucci posted on Twitter afterwards, a fact that is borne out by his times. Petrucci's fastest lap was a 2'06.841, two seconds slower than his best time from the race weekend at Sepang, and four seconds behind the best CRT time set back in October of last year.
Felipe Massa: ?It?s a completely different planet??
Felipe Massa insisted that he was happy with the first day of running in the new Ferrari F138, despite being 1.7s off the quickest time at the end of the day. Massa stressed that it was a much better start … Continue reading 
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2013/02/05/felipe-massa-its-a-completely-different-planet/
Peugeot 208 GTI ?Driving Experience?
Peugeot presented the program “208 GTi Racing Experience,” a program that aims on the one hand provide the possibility to eight participants to become racecar drivers, and on the other hand, promote high performance variant of the Peugeot 208, which will soon be among us. The following European countries: Germany, France, UK, Belgium, Spain, [...]
Source: http://www.autocarblog.co.uk/387-peugeot-208-gti-driving-experience.html
Here?s the new Force India F1 car
The Force India team has unveiled its latest offering at Silverstone. This is the work of a team of engineers led by technical director Andrew Green. The team says that much work has been done on the aerodynamics and on the suspension design and reckon that the car is an improvement of the 2012 car, [...]
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/heres-the-new-force-india-f1-car/
Ernesto Brambilla Vittorio Brambilla Toni Branca Gianfranco Brancatelli
Thursday
2012 season in the rear view: Martin Truex Jr.
Vitals: 11th in the points standings. 0 wins, 7 top 5s, 19 top 10s. 2 DNFs.
Moment to remember: At Texas and Kansas, the seventh and eighth races of the Sprint Cup Series season, Martin Truex Jr. led a combined 242 laps. Texas was a sixth place finish and at Kansas, he looked poised to take his first win since at Dover in 2007. However, after hiding behind the clouds all day, the sun appeared over the final laps of the race and Truex faded while Denny Hamlin's car came to life and he took the win. Truex finished second.
That race was Truex's fifth straight top 10 and through those eight races, he was second in the points standings. While he finished 25th and 28th in the next two races, that stretch showed that Other Junior was going to be a significant player in 2012.
Moment to forget: Given that a typical Sprint Cup race features more than a handful of start and parkers, it takes a significant early calamity for a team who races for the win to finish last. And at Phoenix, the second to last race of the season, that's what happened to Truex. After qualifying second, he lost an engine just 10 laps into the race, or, coincidentally, right before Jason Leffler parked. Truex finished 43rd.
The wrap: In the first 26 races of the season, Truex finished in the top 10 14 times. He didn't deviate far from that trend during the Chase, finishing in the top 10 five times. However, given the torrid pace that Brad Keselowski set and the lack of bonus points from going winless in those first 26 races, Truex never really was in contention. The engine failure at Phoenix dropped him from eighth to 10th in the standings and thanks to Jeff Gordon's win, he fell out of the top 10 and was denied a spot at the banquet despite finishing 6th at Homestead.
Skip Barber Paolo Barilla Rubens Barrichello Michael Bartels
The Batmobile went for $4.2 million at an auction Saturday night
Ever dreamed of owning the original Batmobile? Hopefully you had lots and lots of money in that dream.
On Saturday night at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Phoenix, Rick Champagne paid $4.2 million for the original Batmobile from the Batman TV series in the 1960s.
Yes. $4.2 million. From Reuters:
"I really liked Batman growing up and I came here with the intention of buying the car," Champagne, 56, told Reuters in a brief interview moments after he bought the car. "Sure enough, I was able to buy it. That was a dream come true."
Oh, he also has to pay $420,000 in premiums as well. But what's an extra $420,000 when you've already spent $4.2 million? Of course, I ask that not knowing, because, well, that's a crapload of money.
George Barris bought the car, which was based on a 1955 Lincoln Futura, for $1 in 1965 and had 15 days and $15,000 to make the Batmobile what it was currently for the show. And he's kept it ever since. That's a heck of a profit.
At the same auction, NASCAR owner Rick Hendrick picked up a couple of Corvettes for just over a cool $1 million apiece, including the first production 2014 C7 Corvette.
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