RideLust

We here at Ridelust are big fans of Travis Pastrana and have been following him for quite some time. First off the guy is a complete nut when it comes to piloting anything on two wheels, and now with his entrance into the four wheeled genre, well lets just say that Travis is beginning to leave his mark. This year Travis will be competing in the Race of Champions with teammate and 2007 NASCAR Champion Carl Edwards.

From the ROC website”
This annual event brings together the world’s finest drivers from all the disciplines of competition – on four wheels and two – and sets them free to battle, head-to-head, on the very same track in the very same car.
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Bernie Ecclestone has a thing for Danica Patrick, at least when she’s wearing Nomex. If Ecclestone had his say, she’d make the jump to F1 for the 2012 season. Is he impressed with her driving style? Her ability to make up for an imperfect race car? Her calm, easy going demeanor? No, he’s impressed with her ability to attract huge sponsorship into Formula One, which would be the icing on the cake for the series’ return to the United States in 2012.

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Everyone knows that Shaquille O’Neal is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He’s 7′ 1″ tall, weights in at 335 lbs. and is one of the biggest athletes (both literally and figuratively) in professional sports today. What’s great about Shaq is that not only is he great at what he does at his day job, but he also has a great sense of humor and doesn’t take himself too seriously. “Shaq Vs.” is Shaquille O’Neal’s reality show that is now heading into its second season and follows the simple premise that Shaquille O’Neal is indeed the worlds greatest athlete. By challenging the athletes in their respective sports, Shaq seeks to prove to the himself and the world around him that he is in fact, Superman. Even though the general outcome doesn’t usually fall in Shaq’s favor I have to say that he is still a lot of fun to watch. In the first episode of Season II he locks horns with Nascar Driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. in a multi-lap race to the checker. You guys can probably guess the outcome, but that shouldn’t keep you from watching the show as it really is quite entertaining.

Watch the Full Episode at: ABC.com

What would happen if you ran your street car, equipped with crumple zones, air bags and a three point harness, into a stationary barrier at better than 150 miles per hour? Chances are the results wouldn’t be good, and you certainly wouldn’t be climbing out of your wrecked car on your own.

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Jack Roush has a lot in common with cats; first, he always lands on his feet, and second, the man clearly has nine lives. Roush made a semi-miraculous landing of his Beechcraft Premier business jet after a near stall during a landing attempt on Tuesday night. Witnesses reported that the plane was clearly in trouble, and Roush hit the runway hard before running off the end. The impact was hard enough to crack the fuselage, and the plane settled at the end of the runway with the tail section separated just behind the wings.

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Nationwide Series fans will have one more thing to cheer about at this weekend’s Subway Jalapeno 250 powered by Coca-Cola: the Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger body styles will make their competition debut. The Mustangs and Challengers will be used in four Nationwide events this year, and will become a permanent fixture in 2011.

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Like the Nordschleife, but wish it were a little wider and a few kilometers shorter? Like the TopGear test track, but want to add some negative camber to the Hammerhead to make it more challenging? If Straightline is correct, you’ll be able to design your own tracks in the upcoming release of the Gran Turismo franchise. Game designer Shuhei Yoshida confirmed this feature in an interview with the UK Playstation blog, but there was no additional information on how sophisticated this feature will be.

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Meet James Neal, he’s the former Nascar driver and nimrod that tried to outrun the police in Los Angeles. Apparently Neal had retired from Nascar back in 1987 after racing at the old (and now closed) Ascot Park track in Gardena, CA. It’s also apparent that he thought he still had the chops to allude some of L.A.’s finest by taking them on a 140 mph high speed chase through parts of Southern California. Who knows, with his background Neal may have actually gotten away with it had it not been for the engine in his 2003 Corvette blowing sky high.

On Tuesday Neal pleaded guilty to felony evasion while driving recklessly and will spend a month in the clink plus 3 years probation. Guess he should have had that sucker tuned up before he decided to run.

Source: LA Times.com

Artist rendering of the NASCAR Hall Of Fame

Today is the opening day of the new NASCAR Hall Of Fame museum, celebrating the evolution of stock car racing from it’s bootlegging roots to the corporate mega-teams of today’s Sprint Cup series. The museum will honor stock car’s legendary drivers, crew chiefs, owners and contributors, as well as highlighting the cars that helped build the sport into what it is today.

Charlotte was chosen because of the city’s long term ties to stock car racing. Many teams and drivers call North Carolina home, and the Charlotte Motor Speedway is just half an hour’s drive from the museum. As if this wasn’t reason enough, an astonishing 73% of motorsports employees working in the U.S live in the greater Charlotte area, and 50% of the total U.S. population lives within a 500 mile mile drive of Charlotte.

The museum features three levels and a ceremonial plaza, It incorporates a banked ramp (matching the 33 degrees of Talladega Superspeedway) to showcase cars and tracks, and will rely heavily on multimedia displays and simulators to draw fans into the action. The third floor will cover the history and evolution of the sport, and the complex includes a gift shop, cafe and restaurant on premises. If you’re a fan of the sport, it sounds like the NASCAR Hall Of Fame is worth a visit.

I attended my first NASCAR race last year when I hit up the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Up until this point I had only watched NASCAR on TV and with all honesty, I really didn’t know what to expect. Sure I had seen the thousands of fans and RVs that lined the infield, but again, this was from the comfort of my couch. So now I was there at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a place that is considered to be holy ground by the NASCAR faithful. I was expecting to see a complete madhouse, complete with packed stands, lines of people and motor homes galore, what I got was something completely different.

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