Autoblog

With plans on the drawing board to potentially move the defunct USGP from Indianapolis to Las Vegas, BMW is ostensibly testing the waters by staging one of its popular Pit Lane Park demonstrations in Sin City this coming January.

BMW stages the public demonstrations at various grands prix and events around the world. The park features demonstrations of the team's F1 cars, a live pit lane display and a variety of hands-on experiences for racing fans. At the recent event staged at the British Grand Prix, the team brought in Nigel Mansell and Johnny Herbert who returned to the wheel of an F1 car for the fans' enjoyment.

The Vegas event, which will be located on the Gold Lot by the corner of Paradise Road and Convention Center Drive, will be held during the Consumer Electronics Show, held from January 7 to 10, 2008. At the same time as CES, Vegas is also usually host to a pornographers' convention, which, notwithstanding the wealth of electronic technology packed into a modern F1 car, may actually come closer to the obscenely ecstatic sight of the formula race cars pulling donuts and smokey burn-outs at close range.

[Source: Autosport.com]

While Bernie Ecclestone continues to bring grands prix to new markets every year, additional locations around the world get to see part of the Formula One action through individual teams staging demonstration events.

BMW-Sauber has held several such high-profile events, returning to the Nurburgring Nordschleife and racing on ice in Switzerland, and we reported on Ferrari's demo in Barbados a year ago. The latest event, organized by the Renault F1 team and title sponsor ING, drew a staggering record crowd of 300,000 on the streets of Mexico City, where Giancarlo Fisichella and test driver Nelson Piquet, Jr. drove last year's championship-winning R26 race car for the elated crowd.

The event marked what was undoubtedly the largest F1 event in the city since the last Mexican Grand Prix was held there in 1992, though both the NASCAR Busch Series and A1GP still hold races there.

To view fans' videos from the event, follow the link to Renaultsport's blog here.

[Source: Autosport.com]

Canadian auto outposts Windsor and Essex counties in Ontario have lost thousands of jobs in the recent past. Out of concern for the future of not only their jobs, but their communities and standard of living, nearly 40,000 people took part in a rally organized by the Canadian Auto Workers Union on Sunday, May 27th. The CAW claims that every single manufacturing job supports 12 non-autobuilding jobs, and with the big goings on down south with the sale of Chrysler and Ford's Way Forward, the union is understandably concerned. The rally, part of the CAW's wider "Manufacturing Matters" initiative, was held at Ford's Windsor, Ontario test track, and was intended to demonstrate the gravity of Canada's loss of manufacturing jobs. There will be pain associated with the domestic automakers scramble to stay alive, and part of that has taken the form of shipping jobs elsewhere. It's not just the car assembly plants, it's the multitudes of smaller suppliers that build the subassemblies and components the autoworkers actually assemble. It's happening in the US, as well, and it's tough to realize that in the jaws of the vice are families that have little recourse. Click the pic above for a slideshow of the Windsor rally with audio.

Thanks for the tip, Peter!

[Source: Autonorth]

What's faster, a kart or a Viper? That's the question Nurburgring wunderfrau Sabine Schmidt asked and answered in this ten-minute segment on her German television show DMAX. (You remember Sabine... she's the girl who dragged Clarkson's sorry old ass around the 'Ring in a diesel Jag.)

To make the plum even sweeter, we're not talking about any ordinary Viper or any ordinary kart here. The Viper is the GTR race version based on the first-generation super-snake, and the kart, as far as we can gather (we've yet to launch Autoblog German) is one beast of a suped-up shifter kart with a 164-hp 1100cc motorbike engine.

No contest, you say? The Viper'll win it hands down? Not so fast (no pun intended). Power-to-weight is the name of the game, and even with a quarter the power, the kart doesn't weigh nearly as much as the big American muscle. It's a close race... you'll have to watch to see which crosses the finish line first. Blitzschnell!

[Source: 0-60mag.com via Motorpasion]

As product demonstrations go, this is what you would call a worst case scenario. Right at the one minute mark, the Honda Asimo robot has an issue making it up the steps and takes a faceplant on the floor below, shattering his glass "face" and saying what sounds like "sleeping". We're not sure if it was nap time or too much saki, but the quick dimming of the lights and unfurling of the wheeled wall demonstrates some pretty quick thinking, and obvious preparation for such a mishap. We hope you get a laugh out of it as much as us and the folks in attendance.

[Source: TechEBlog]

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The Caribbean doesn't usually factor in to the F1 world. There's no race on any of the islands. There are, of course, no teams based there. And the closest they have to a home-grown driver is British-born Lewis Hamilton, whose father comes from the region. But Barbados got a taste of the action yesterday when Ferrari brought Schumacher's 248 to the island for a demonstration.

The event was a promotion for Shell, one of the Scuderia's biggest sponsors. Test driver Marc Gene drove the car down an impromptu track on a closed-off section of the island's Ronald Mapp Highway between two Shell stations, a circuit which Gene likened to Monaco.

Over twenty thousand spectators showed up for the event. But while they were screaming with excitement, Gene couldn't hear them over the wail of the engine as he rocketed to sixty in under a second, hitting a top speed of over 270 kph.

It's doubtful the event will prove a precursor to a future Caribbean Grand Prix, but just the same it's good to share the octane.

[Source: The Nation via Italiaspeed]