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Posts Tagged ‘Motorsports’

The 2011 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship season began on February 15th at Daytona International Speedway. 40 drivers began the 18 race season. The champion will win 500 cash. iRacer, Ray Alfalla, won the opening round in a wild race marked by big crashes and exciting racing action.

The 2011 Daytona 24 Hours is here, the first big race of the season. Leo Parente gives us the dirt on Grand-Am and ALMS for the coming season, as well as Tanner Foust switching to a 4-cylinder turbo for Formula Drift. Also, the Porsche 959 from Dakar, right after Leo fights with JF the editor / producer.

Doug Wilks and Leh Keen running the 2011 One lap of America in the TopSpeed Motorsports Nissan GT-R. This video is from the Daytona International Speedway where Leh Keen sets the street tire, production car lap record of a 1:55.4

The Chevy Camaro was introduced to the public in September of 1966 for the 1967 model year. It is reported that GM had begun preliminary production design of the Camaro as early as 1958, but the project didn’t become a priority until after the release of the first Ford Mustang in 1964 which sold nearly half a million units. It was then that GM realized it wanted a piece of the four seat sports car pie.

While in the production stage, the Camaro was code-named “Panther”, the official GM project name for the car was XP-836 and there are a few archived photos that show the name “Chaparral” badged on the final Camaro body. Ultimately, the name “Camaro” stuck and the car was released to the public as such. When asked to define what a “Camaro” was, the product managers told the press it was “a small, vicious animal that eats Mustangs”.

The first generation Camaro ran from 1967 to 1969. It utilized the front-engine, rear-drive configuration which was a big improvement over GM’s former rear-engine compact sporty car, the Corvair. It was available in four different models, including a convertible, and was designed to fit any one of 6 available power plants under the hood…. a rock-solid response to the Mustang.

The second generation was not released until February of 1970. Because of the late release, the sales of some 69′s extended into early 1970 and were titled as 70′s. This created some confusion and prompted Gen 2 to begin with the 1970 1/2. Inspired by Ferrari, the second generation Camaros were bigger and heavier. All of the options that were available in the first generation series were available in the second except for the convertible model. 1977 was a banner year for the Camaro, resulting in sales that trumped the Mustang by almost 40,000 units. Although emissions regulations and power rating changes in the industry zapped much of the power out of the engines, sales stayed strong through 1979. The gas crisis in the early 80′s killed the Camaro’s sales, and 1981 saw the end of the second generation along with the hope of revival with a total re-design for 1982.

The third generation Camaro hit the market in 1982 with all new offerings from the factory such as fuel injection, four speed automatics, five speed manuals, 16 inch wheels, and a hatchback. The engines still left a lot to be desired with a low-end 2.5 liter pumping out a sad 90hp and a high-end option of a carburated 165hp V8. In 1985 they pumped some life into the line-up with the introduction of the IROC-Z. It boasted a Tuned Port Injection powerhouse that could pump out 215 horsepower. In 1987 the big engines made a comeback along with the convertible model, and by 1991 the cars were hammering out 245hp from the factory. Very little was changed in 1992 as most of GM’s effort was put towards unveiling the new fourth generation for 1993.

The gen 4 model options were cut down to just two, the 160hp, V6 sport coupe and the Z-28 which had the honor of harboring Corvette’s 275 hp, 5.7L, LT1 V8 under it’s hood. The convertible was once again deleted from the production line. The Camaro continued to receive power upgrades and eventually cleared the 300hp mark in 1996 with it’s SS model that was engineered by SLP. The first all-aluminum engine since 1969 made it’s appearance in 1998 packing a punch with 305 factory hp that could be boosted to 320 via an available ram-air induction system. Chevy’s fourth generation Camaro ran for 11 years before it exhausted itself in 2002. It was then shelved for the next eight years.

The long-awaited return of the Camaro finally came in 2010. Based largely on the pleasing aesthetics of the classic 1969 model with enough new-age technology to satisfy today’s drivers, the fifth generation Camaro was a huge success. The LS and LT versions come well-equipped with a 300hp V6, and the beast of the line-up is the SS which is packed with a 6.2 liter V8 that smacks down some serious 426hp grunt.

There’s no doubt that 2010′s return of the Camaro marks it’s best design yet. With it’s above-average power and performance and Chevy’s history of continually improving their line-up, it looks like the Camaro will be here to stay (and welcomed) for a long time to come.

Protect your one-of-a-kind Camaro with a classic car insurance policy from Leland West.

Jeff Gordon talks about his season and how much he wants title #5, the size of Jimmie Johnson’s trophy case, congratulates Mark Martin, and thanks his team owner, Rick Hendrick. (December 4th 2009) Credit to the SPEED channel and NASCAR.com.

www.rtrsports.com – Spectacular nascar crashes

Screen capture off ESPN of the starting, middle laps, finish and the winner’s interview of the NASCAR Sprint Cup PepBoys Auto 500 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia. on Sunday, September 6, 2009 Kasey Kahne was the winner. This NASCAR event was captured off the ESPN network. It was made and is presented for entertainment purposes only. No profit or monetary gain is being made from this video and it should not be used for any financial gain. All names, logos, slogans & video are the sole property of NASCAR and the ESPN network and each retains all rights to them. Nascar features at: www.nascar.com ESPN features at espn.go.com PepBoys features at: www.pepboys.com This video was captured using an Aiptek GO-HD (720p) camcorder in DV1 mode connected to a Directv receiver then edited & rendered to a 1280 x 720 High Resolution WM9 .wmv file using Camtasia Studio 6. Although this can be viewed as a HD video, it is NOT true HD.

Screen capture off ESPN of the starting, middle laps, finish and the winner’s interview of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Sharpie 500 at the Bristol Motor Speedway (Worlds Fastest Half Mile) in Bristol, Tenn. on Saturday, August 22, 2009 Kyle Busch was the winner. This NASCAR event was captured off the ESPN Channel. It was made and is presented for entertainment purposes only. No profit or monetary gain is being made from this video and it should not be used for any financial gain. All names, logos, slogans & video are the sole property of NASCAR and the ESPN network and each retains all rights to them. Nascar features at: www.nascar.com ESPN features at espn.go.com Sharpie features at: www.sharpie.com This video was captured using an Aiptek GO-HD (720p) camcorder in DV1 mode connected to a Directv receiver then edited & rendered to a 1280 x 720 High Resolution WM9 .wmv file using Camtasia Studio 6. Although this can be viewed as a HD video, it is NOT true HD.

Screen capture off the Speed Channel of the final 10 lap shoot-out and winner’s interview of the NASCAR Sprint Cup All-Star race at Lowes Motor Speedway in Concord, NC on May 16, 2009 A total of 4 different non points segments (50, 20, 20 & 10 laps) were run in this race with Tony Stewart being the eventual winner of the one million dollar first place prize for this event. This NASCAR event was captured off the Speed Channel. It was made and is being presented for entertainment purposes only. NO profit or monetary gain is being made from this video and it should not be used for any financial gain. All names, logos, slogans & video are the sole property of the NASCAR and Speed Channel networks and each retains all rights to them. This video was captured using an Aiptek GO-HD (720p) camcorder in DV1 mode connected to a Directv receiver then edited & rendered to a 1280 x 720 High Resolution WM9 .wmv file using Camtasia Studio 6. Although this can be viewed as a HD video, it is not true HD.