Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2013/03/18/christian-horner-we-know-that-weve-got-a-quick-car/
Thursday
Christian Horner: ?We know that we?ve got a quick car??
Christian Horner insists that the Australian GP was a good weekend for Red Bull, despite the team managing only third place after Sebastian Vettel started from pole. Horner says that while tyres were an issue on Sunday over the course … Continue reading
Wednesday
Derbi DRD 125 SM
Like any respectable dirt bike, the Derbi DRD 125 SM features an unstoppable character and is able to deal with any type of terrain without too much fuss.
The motorcycle is powered by a 124 cc, 4 Stroke, 4V Euro 3 engine which is paired with a six speeds gearbox. The engine rewards you with a peak power of 11 kw achieved at 9750 rpm and 11.4 Nm of torque available at 7500 rpm.
In terms of design, the Derbi DRD 125 SM features a pretty modern style and we especially like the aggressive graphics and the sharp lines.
The motorcycle rides on a front inverted fork with a 41 mm � bar and a rear adjustable shock absorber. This sporty suspension configuration allows it to tackle any track with poise.
The stopping power is assured by 260 mm front and 220 mm rear disc brakes with radial mount calipers.
Hit the jump for more information on the 2013 Derbi DRD 125 SM.
Derbi DRD 125 SM originally appeared on topspeed.com on Thursday, 21 March 2013 00:40 EST.
Source: http://www.topspeed.com/motorcycles/motorcycle-reviews/derbi/2013-derbi-drd-125-sm-ar148365.html
BMW M5 by Vorsteiner
If you ask a Bimmer fan which is the best model launched on the market in the past few months, the M5 will most likely be on the top of the list. In fact, even the guys over Top Gear were impressed by the sports sedan. So, why update it? Well, because you can!!
Vorsteiner, for example, has prepared a tuning kit for the M5 that includes a new aerodynamic kit made in carbon fiber, new wheels and numerous performance products.
For the exterior, the new kit includes a new add-on spoiler, a new splitter and for the rear, a new deck-lid spoiler and a new lightweight trunk lid with integrated wing profile. The tuner also replaced the rear diffuser, so it now integrates the new exhaust system offered in two versions: either stainless steel or titanium.
The Vorsteiner M5 will be offered with new forged wheels offered in various sizes, depending on customer’s wishes: 20, 21 or 22 inches. For the interior, the modifications are limited to embroidered floor mats and trunk mat accessories.
The new BMW M5 kit will be available starting April 2013.
BMW M5 by Vorsteiner originally appeared on topspeed.com on Tuesday, 19 March 2013 19:00 EST.
Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/bmw/2013-bmw-m5-by-vorsteiner-ar150482.html
Tuesday
Happy Hour: Yes, we?re talking about Danica
New season, new Happy Hour! You know the drill. Throughout the week you can send us your best questions, jokes, rants and just plain miscellaneous thoughts to happyhourmailbag@yahoo.com or @NickBromberg. We'll post them here, have a good time and everyone's happy. Right? Oh who are we kidding, this is NASCAR. No one is ever happy.
So, last week. Daytona. Hope you enjoyed our coverage. It was damn fun to be a part of a pretty special crew with some pretty special stories throughout the week. A big part of that coverage? You-know-who. But she did her part to earn that coverage. We'll start with her. (P.S. that's the face I imagine Erin Andrews made as soon as she got a chance to react to her encounter with 50 Cent.)
Can we please give Danica enough respect and stop bringing up she's a girl and start referring to her as just a racer? I don't see the same ooh-and-ahhs for Johanna Long and I think she's hotter.
- Jimmy
I understand the Danica hype. This was one of 4 races she legitimately has a chance to win. So they pumped her up continuously for ratings. She will be trolling between 28-42 for the next few weeks until we get to Dega. Plate tracks take out a lot of driver skill and make everything even. Winning a pole at Daytona doesn't make one a superstar, see Loy Allen Jr. Hope she does great because my girls love her, but ready to see her perform on tracks that take a lot of skill. I think she will struggle all year, but so will Stenhouse and all other rookies.
- Jeff
Note: These are not from Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.
Danica Patrick has always walked the fine line of wanting to be known as a racer first and foremost while using her, uh, talents as a girl to make space for herself in the public spectrum. Sometimes the former can get lost in the latter. There's no denying that.
Do I blame her for it? No. She, and her publicists, knew that she could create a niche for herself and she's done it quite well. Now, onto the Johanna Long comparison. You also haven't seen Johanna Long in Maxim or the SI Swimsuit Issue. And that's a perfectly legitimate way of going about your business as a female driver too. There's no right way to do things. And, let's be real here, Johanna's situation (not as many articles, no Super Bowl commercials, small team) makes for the perfect contrast. If there wasn't so much of a contrast, fans wouldn't pit them against each other so much.
As far as Loy Allen is concerned, Patrick already has him beat in the best career finish category. Allen's highest finish was a 10th place at Talladega. Will Patrick make the Chase? Likely not. But this was a great building block. We now will see where it goes from there.
_____________________
Dale Earnhardt's death spawned a revolution of driver safety in NASCAR. I can only hope that NASCAR realizes how close they came to having to start a fan safety revolution after this weekend. They are playing with fire and if they don't figure out a better way to keep these cars or parts of them out of the stands. They are going to get burned. After multiple incidents in the last 10 years where a car has left the ground and ended up destroying sections of fencing just yards away from thousands of fans. How have they not looked into a second layer of fencing that separates the fans from the action on the track? This wouldn't be needed around the entire track but not having this in grandstand sections seems almost negligent.
- Darrell "Furiousd" Watts
Who will never complain about Junior's TV time ever again!
You can always be safe, but you can never be too safe. Daytona re-evaluated and reinstalled its fencing after Carl Edwards flew into the catchfence at Talladega. Is there an even better option? Likely, but we also probably don't know it or it hasn't been significantly tested yet.
We also have to keep in mind that for the most part, the catchfence did it's job, so maybe it's not a matter of reinventing the whole concept. Is a second layer realistic? The tire did fly over the fence. Can the fence go any higher without compromising the structural integrity of the design?
A solid option is probably not a realistic answer at this point. Yeah, plexiglass sounds like a great idea, but you'd have cars bouncing off of it if they hit it and I don't want to even think about what would happen if it shattered. I'm very certain that this is something that you can trust NASCAR will look into thoroughly to find the best possible option to prevent this from happening again.
EDIT: Thanks to an email from Paul and some quick sleuthing by Geoffrey Miller, the tire went through the fence as viewed from this video here. So to reiterate, we're going to have a solution as soon as possible.
_____________________
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Jet Dryer, as PTI reminded us during the end of the show. Which made me think, I don't even remember seeing anything about it during the entire Daytona broadcast (I could have missed an earlier segment, though) That's the type of incident you don't forget and seems like something they would at least acknowledge. It was even used in the NASCAR promo.
Do you think the incident on Saturday made producers not show a clip, or do you think a decision was made beforehand? Looking back, it just seems like an event you would at least talk about a little.
- J Rob
I wasn't paying as much attention to the race broadcast as normal as I was following the race from the press box and missed most of the pre-race soaking in the Daytona festivities. Is this true? I do know that Juan Pablo Montoya does not like talking about the incident as he's not a big fan of fire. Given the crashes and insanity that I saw on the Fox promo before the race, however, it does seem odd if they didn't show it.
_____________________
- Steve Wallace
Another note: This is not that Steve Wallace. I think.
This is awesome. Give Steve some love, y'all! It's a perfect country song and bonus points for the checkered flag shirt! Love the creativity and it's a perfect way to end this week's mailbag. Steve beats the heck out of "Let's Go Racin' Boys."
Twelve-year-old boy races car to photo finish
James Gallaugher is a 12-year-old Australian kid who's fast. Unbelievably fast. Like, getting-called-the-next-Usain-Bolt fast. We've written about him before here for an amazing relay race, but now he's stepping up his competition: he's racing an actual car.
This past weekend at the Top Gear Festival in Sydney, Gallaugher raced a Nissan GT-R in a 100-meter dash. Now, since obviously not even Usain Bolt could beat a car head-to-head (unless you were driving it, slowpoke), the race was a there-and-back affair. Gallaugher gets beaten badly on the way down, then ... well, let's just say it takes a bit of time for the driver to find REVERSE, time enough for Gallaugher to get a substantial lead. Did he take the checkers? We think not, but it was still a fine effort.
Australian news reports say Gallaugher has run a 100-meter sprint 11.72 seconds. To put that time in perspective, it would have won the 1896 Olympics and is the fastest ever recorded in the U.S. or Australia for someone his age. Now, take such figures with a shakerful of salt, but what's indisputable is that the kid's got wheels. We'll find out on a world stage whether he's the real deal or not.
The car? It's probably being laughed at by its car brethren for being so slow.
-Follow Jay Busbee on Twitter at @jaybusbee.-
Eugene Chaboud Jay Chamberlain Karun Chandhok Alain de Changy
Warped Wednesday: No flyovers? No big deal
A staple of the ever-present patriotism at NASCAR races is the pre-race flyover. Yeah, it isn't always timed perfectly (but, in a rare moment of Warped Wednesday clarity, it takes a ton of precision to time it correctly) and some are better than others.
But it's the flyover. America. Military. Power. Don't touch it. Hell, there was even a statement issued at the Daytona 500 after low clouds prevented the flyover from happening.
The sequester has touched it though. As part of the budget cuts, you won't be seeing fighter jets buzz the track at the next race you attend. (Unless it's Texas, which is bringing in private jets for a flyover.)
Is that really a bad thing? It's not exactly the most efficient use of our tax dollars.
Be honest, if the reason you like flyovers wasn't listed in the second paragraph? What is it? You can't possible come up with a constructive reason. And where would you rank the flyover on the race day experience scale? You don't leave an uninteresting race raving about the flyover.
Think of the money the U.S. government will save without the costs of flyovers coming out of its military training budgets. Or think of the good those tax dollars could do instead of making sure some 80,000 NASCAR fans can feel good about their country for 15 seconds. It's not like the national anthem, giant flag covering the infield and the honoring of troops can't do that.
No, this isn't a NASCAR specific provision; all sporting events won't have flyovers as part of the sequester. But this isn't like cutting funding for education, something that you'll notice years down the road. If sporting flyovers never returned, a few years from now would people even remember how important they thought they were?
Kurt Adolff Fred Agabashian Kurt Ahrens Jr Christijan Albers
Monday
Press Release: Aprilia WSBK Team Conclude Test at Jerez
The factory Aprilia WSBK team issued the following press release after concluding two days of testing at Jerez:
Year:
2013 
Keith Andrews Elio de Angelis Marco Apicella Mбrio de Araъjo Cabral
Strategic superiority gets Raikkonen and Lotus off to a winning start | 2013 Australian Grand Prix review
Strategic superiority gets Raikkonen and Lotus off to a winning start is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.
Kimi Raikkonen made his way up from seventh on the grid to win the first race of 2012 by making one pit stop fewer than his rivals.
Strategic superiority gets Raikkonen and Lotus off to a winning start is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.
Source: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/03/17/2013-australian-grand-prix-review/
Power Rankings: The Empire Strikes Back
A new year means a new set of Power Rankings! After every race, we'll opine about who we think is at the top of the Sprint Cup heap and how and why they got there. Remember, this isn't scientific, as our formula is the perfect blend of analytics and bias against your favorite driver. So let's get on with it, shall we?
Dropping Out: Dude, it's the first one of the season.
Lucky Dog: Aric Almirola. Not too often that you can bounce back from a pit road speeding penalty under green and come back to finish 13th.
DNF: Carl Edwards. Got in his fifth crash of Speedweeks. Honorable mention goes to Matt Kenseth, Kasey Kahne, Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick. They all finished outside the top 30 too.
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Sunday
Clint Bowyer hits crew member and Travis Kvapil?s car while trying to exit pits
The dangers inherent to pit road were on display again early in Sunday's Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix.
Clint Bowyer, last year's championship runner up, was in his stall for a two-tire pit stop early in the race and, as is customary for many two-tire stops, hit the gas to leave the pits when the jack was released on the right side of his car. One problem, his front tire-changer and carriers were running in front of the car towards pit wall -- there was an apparent miscommunication about a two and four-tire pit stop.
As he left, Bowyer hit one of his crew members. And then, to add insult to the incident, he hit the rear of Travis Kvapil's car as Kvapil pulled into the stall in front of him.
Bowyer's crew member was unhurt, and as soon as Bowyer hit reverse after making contact with Kvapil, his crew went to work fixing the damage on his car. Bowyer finished 6th.
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