RideLust

We here at RideLust had a fairly epic 2010: I got track time with the last of the Dodge Viper Coupes, the Shelby GT500 and the Cadillac CTS-V Sedan and Coupe. Mike raced One Lap Of America, 24 Hours of Lemons and got to star in a BMW video alongside people like Buzz Aldrin. Mike and I drove the new Chevy Volt from NYC to Detroit, and we both got to drive a boatload of new cars throughout the year. As cool as all that was, it pales in comparison to the year that Ken Block had. Read More…

I spent a lot of years traveling on business. I’ve worked for companies based in the UK, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S., so it’s safe to assume that I’ve spent a fair amount of time in each country (and plenty of others in between). When people would say, “Oh, you get to travel on business, how lucky,” I’d remind them that I HAD to travel on business, and there’s a distinct difference. You GET to travel when you’re staying in nice hotels, sleeping late and sightseeing. You HAVE to travel when you stay in convenient hotels, sleep when you can and see the inside of a conference room or a convention center. On business, there isn’t much of a difference between Des Moines, Iowa and Tokyo, Japan, except that Tokyo is a longer flight.

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Tunnels underneath Guanajuato. Photo: Hexodus

It sounds like something out of a video game: a rally stage where the competition takes place deep underground, through the tunnels of a World Heritage Site. In 2011, the FIA World Rally Championship will make it a reality when they visit Guanajuato, Mexico. The 2011 Rally Mexico will kick off with a special stage run through Guanajuato’s extensive network of tunnels, created by silver mining that took place in the city from the 16th century through the early part of the 20th century. Over the years, some of the mine tunnels have been turned into neighborhoods, complete with residences, shops and museums.

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This Thanksgiving, family argument time will be forced to compete with Gran Turismo 5 – which is finally (and actually) being released TODAY.  To get a sense of how big a deal this truly is, check out the clip below.  IGN has provided a video solely featuring the opening of the collector’s edition game box.  You may feel dirty after watching this.

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As automotive journalists, manufacturers give us the keys to some pretty cool cars, occasionally on a racetrack, with one prime directive: whatever you do, don’t wreck it. Ken Block, on the other hand, gets paid to bin cars. Journalists and manufacturers call this “crashing”; Ken Block calls this “testing”, “evaluation”, or “research and development”.

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It’s also why they don’t hold WRC events on the Isle on Man anymore. Courses like the Manx Rally don’t allow for mistakes of any kind, and Group B rally cars generally didn’t, either. Ari Vatanen saved his Opel Manta 400 when the back end snapped around on this tarmac stage, but a lot of other Group B drivers weren’t so lucky. Introduced in 1982, Group B rally cars eliminated from competition after a 1986 crash killed Henri Toivonen and his co-driver. The cars were simply too fast to be driven safely.

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As you watch this clip, Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino are in the midst of competing in their first ever tarmac WRC event, the 2010 ADAC Rally Deutschland. Block is confident about a podium finish, just not at this event. He’s also confident about a stage win, “eventually”. For a guy whose only expectation is to finish the event, he seems plenty comfortable with on-pavement car control, and his self-deprecating sense of humor is part of the reason we love him. That, and his ungodly ability to drive a car.

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Mikko Hirvonen is currently third in the WRC Driver’s Championship points. As he demonstrates in this video, sometimes even the best drivers make mistakes. In roadracing, this generally results in a spin and the loss of a few positions. In the WRC, this usually results in the kind of heinous crash usually found in movies like “Red Asphalt” or “Faces of Death”.

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Mini Gets Serious About Racing, Announces Return To WRC

2011 Mini Cooper S Countryman, in non-race trim

In the mid-1960s, Mini Cooper S models were the cars to beat at the WRC Monte Carlo Rally. Coopers competed in the rally as early as 1962, and Cooper S models took victory in 1964, 1965 and 1967. Technically speaking, the giant killers won in 1966 as well, but were disqualified for using illegal headlamps. The French judges awarded victory to a Citroën DS that, ironically, also had non-compliant lighting. Mini received much more publicity for the snub than they could have gotten by winning the race, and the British penciled in one more reason to hate the French.

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I’m not really sure what the minimum price of admission is for a season in the FIA’s World Rally Championship, but I’ll take a scientific wild ass guess and say about $5,000,000. If you want to be remotely competitive, double that; if you have illusions of chasing the championship, triple it.

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