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• ALMS 2013: Back to Back Wins at Laguna Seca for Muscle Milk

  In Motorsports / By Andre Ravinowich / 13 May 2013

  

  The American Le Mans Series travelled once again (and sadly for the last time) to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca this past weekend. And for the second time in 2 years, the #6 Muscle Milk HPD ARX-03a driven by Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf took the top step at the podium. This was Luhr’s 43rd victory in ALMS, making Lucas the winningest driver in ALMS history.

  Luhr and Graf battled for the entire 4-hour race with the #12 Rebellion Racing Toyota powered Lola B60/12 driven by Neel Jani and former F1 driver Nick Heidfeld. Jani had actually set the fastest time in qualifying the previous day with a lap time of 1:13:429. Both Rebellion and Muscle Milk took turns leading the race, trading places 3 or 4 times throughout the 4-hour battle.

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• 2013 Formula Drift Road Atlanta: Round 2 Sees Daigo Saito Get His Title Defense Back on Track

  In Motorsports / By Tom Anderson / 13 May 2013

  

  While none of the three podium finishers of last month’s opening round of the 2013 Formula Drift championship were very unexpected, the fact that the defending series champion wasn’t among them was. In fact, Daigo Saito was knocked out in the second round of eliminations in Long Beach, clearing the way for the likes of Dai Yoshihara and Vaughn Gittin Jr. to scoop up oodles of points. This begged the question: Was Saito’s fairy tale rookie season in America’s premier drifting series a fluke?

  Well, Daigo Saito responded to that question with an emphatic “No” by winning this past weekend’s second round of the Formula Drift championship trail, held at the world-renown Road Atlanta circuit in Braselton, Georgia. The venue’s Formula D course utilizes the track’s Turn 10a and 10b complex, before negotiating a paved loop through the gravel trap and winding its way back through the chicane in the opposite direction. So who, along with Saito, was best able to tame this tricky layout? Read on and find out!

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• Cadillac Goes Racing: From V-Series to Pirelli World Challenge & Back Again

  In Motorsports / By Ari Cox / 24 April 2013

  

  There was a time when Cadillac was synonymous with white wall tires, flashy old men and giant road-hogging boats of epic proportion. But over the last decade the brand has executed an enormous transition to high-tech and uber-luxury. In a stalled economy, while other manufacturers played it safe, Cadillac took risks, shook things up and launched an aggressive approach to grabbing market share. That effort is best exemplified by their V-Series line of high-performance vehicles.

  But just making a car with a massive engine (in this case a 556 hp supercharged V8) and a host of high-grade components (like Brembo brakes, Recaro seats, a limited-slip diff) doesn’t provide a lot of street cred unless you prove to be a solid contender on the racetrack as well. And so Cadillac went racing to showcase the capabilities of its luxury techno-beast and demonstrate that it was clearly more than the sum of its parts.

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• 2013 IndyCar: Takuma Sato Takes Long Beach Grand Prix Becoming First Japanese Winner

  In Motorsports / By Andre Ravinowich / 22 April 2013

  

  The famed streets of Long Beach saw history take place this past Sunday. Takuma Sato, driving the No. 14 Foyt Racing entry won the 39th Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.  Sato led 50 out the 80 laps on Sunday’s race, the most he has ever led. After 52 IndyCar Series races, this was only the 3rd podium finish of his career in the series. He finished the race under yellow, followed by Graham Rahal after Tony Kanaan crashed on Turn 1 with only 2 laps to go in the race. Justin Wilson finished third, followed by Dario Franchitti in fourth.

  Sato, who spent 6 years in Formula 1 before moving to IndyCar, was the first Japanese to ever win a race in the IndyCar Series. He returned home to his native Tokyo on Monday, to a hero’s welcome, on the cover of every major newspaper in Japan. Sato had qualified fourth for the race, but quickly moved up the field. He passed Will Power to take the lead while Power made a pit stop on Lap 31 during one of the race’s many full-course cautions. He is now second in the IndyCar standings, only 6 points behind leader Helio Castroneves.

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• 2013 ALMS: Muscle Milk Pickett Racing Victorious at Long Beach…Again

  In Motorsports / By Andre Ravinowich / 21 April 2013

  

  For the third time in 3 straight years, the Muscle Milk Pickett Racing P1 entry driven by Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr took the top step on the podium at this year’s Tequila Patron American Le Mans Series race at Long Beach this past Saturday. The HPD ARX-03a prototype took the win by a margin of only 36.329 seconds over second place finisher Rebellion Racing. The No.12 Lola B12/60, driven by ex-Formula 1 driver Nick Heidfeld and Neel Jani had qualified first the day before.

  Extreme Speed Motorsports dominated the P2 category at this year’s race – finishing 1-2 in its class. The highly competitive GT class also saw a 1-2 finish by the same team, with the BMW Team RLL’s No. 55 BMW Z4 GTE driven by Bill Auberlen and Maxime Martin taking the win. This was only the team’s second race with the new Z4. The Prototype Challenge class win went to the No. 05 CORE Autosport entry driven by Colin Braun and Jon Bennett, also for the third straight year in a row.

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• 2013 Formula Drift Long Beach: Daijiro Yoshihara Takes the Round 1 Crown

  In Motorsports / By Tom Anderson / 14 April 2013

  

  The 2012 Formula Drift season was as exciting and unpredictable as any in memory, and when the last of the tire smoke settled over the finale at Irwindale Speedway, Formula D newbie Daigo Saito found himself winner of the event and the championship. Not too long after that, Saito grabbed the Formula Drift Asia championship, too. So naturally, most of the Formula Drift community spent the winter trying to figure out how to dethrone the likeable Lexus driver from Japan in 2013.

  And judging by the results of this past weekend’s season opener on the streets of Long Beach, California, it looks like more than a few of Saito’s rivals have stepped up to challenge him. And while some of the names that managed to best the defending champ are familiar, there were a few who weren’t. Make the jump to see who made it the deepest into eliminations.

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• NASCAR 2013: Kyle Busch Dominates the Weekend at Fontana

  In Motorsports / By Andre Ravinowich / 25 March 2013

  

  This past weekend, Sub5Zero traveled to Fontana to cover something a bit different than what we are used to. And we can’t say that we walked away disappointed. More than 80,000 fans descended upon Auto Club Speedway to cheer their favorite drivers in both the Nationwide Series’ Royal Purple 300, as well as the 5th major race of the Sprint Cup season – the Auto Club 400.

  And as you can guess from the title of the article, Kyle Busch won not one, but both races this weekend. Click past the break to read more about this weekend’s races, and also a bit about Sub5Zero’s first experience at covering a NASCAR race.

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• Pocket Liveries: Motorsport Backgrounds for your iOS Device

  In Design, Motorsports / By Vinh Pham / 13 February 2013

  

  Looking for some fresh backgrounds for your iPhone? PJ Tierney runs a daily exercise of converting famous racing liveries into minimalist backgrounds for your iDevice. Many of his designs include the upcoming 2013 liveries for all of Formula One, as well as classic designs like the BASF BMW M1, LeMans-winning Mazda 787B, and my personal favorite, the Gulf livery that adorned the legendary Ford GT40 Mk1.

  There is currently only support for iPhone 4 and iPhone 5, but iPad support should be coming in the future. Head over to his site to check out the rest of his work.

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• Team RLL to Campaign BMW Z4 GTE in 2013 ALMS

  In Motorsports / By Andre Ravinowich / 13 February 2013

  

  BMW Motorsport and BMW Team RLL unveiled their new ALMS entry today at Daytona International Speedway. The new Z4 GTE is based on the Z4 GT3 that has been successfully raced across Europe. “We are setting out on a development year, but are very confident we have once again developed a car that has the potential to win races and titles in the form of the BMW Z4 GTE” said BMW Motorsport Director Jens Marquardt today at Daytona.

  BMW Team RLL will once again field two cars in the GT Class of ALMS, which is the Series’ last year before the previously announced merger with GrandAm Series. Car number 55 will be driven by Bill Auberlen and Maxime Martin, who is new to the Series. Dirk Muller will drive the 56 car, which will be co-driven by both Joey Hand and John Edwards. John will take driving duties of the #56 car when Joey Hand is busy driving in the DTM Series in Europe.

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• 2013 Dakar Rally is Still Racing’s Ultimate Adventure

  In Motorsports / By Tom Anderson / 18 January 2013

  

  The earliest motor races were as much adventures as they were speed contests. Drivers (and, in most cases, riding mechanics) often dashed hundreds of miles from town to town across open countryside, battling not only other competitors, but also the elements, the condition of the roads (if you could call a rutted, lumpy, unpaved horse trail or cart path a road), and the ever-present specter of mechanical failure. Combine these hazards with essentially zero safety precautions and you start to wonder if the first race car drivers made clanking noises when they scratched their wedding vegetables.

  These days, of course, racing is the safest and most sanitized it’s ever been. That’s good for all parties involved, but it also means much of the sport’s danger and romance is gone. Racing has ceased to be – if you’ll excuse our use of a worn-down-to-the-cords term – epic. But this doesn’t mean all racing in the 21^st century is a watered-down shadow of its former self. There is one notable motor race that still requires man and machine to be in peak fitness, as well as participants to have nerves and gonads of steel. That race, of course, is the Dakar Rally, and so far the 2013 edition has been one for the ages.

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