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Advertising has been creeping into video games for a while now, but in most racing games is relegated to billboards that we hardly notice while whizzing by and concentrating on our line for the next turn. Codemasters, however, is working with in-game ad firm Engage to take video game advertising to a new level by including a fully functioning eBay Motors marketplace in the developer's next racing title, Race Driver: Grid. Players in the game will actually buy and sell in-game vehicles using the eBay Motors service just like they would in real life. eBay Motors will also get a title race in the game called "The eBay Motors Mustang Muscle Series" in which they can drive the eBay Motors Mustang GTR concept car in San Francisco, Long Beach, Washington D.C. and Detroit. This type of next-gen in-game advertising should work well within the confines of Grid, since eBay Motors is widely visited and used by the type of person who might pick up the game.

[Source: Joystiq]

If current driving games have left your pulse cruising in the slow lane, then Codemasters, the company behind the well-received DiRT rally game, believes it has the racing game for you: Grid. Using an evolution of the engine from DiRT, Grid is all about racing. And if you think "racing game" means spending hours adjusting damper settings and orange-peel-metallic-fade-to-lilac paint jobs, then prepare to be shocked. Says Chief Game Designer Ralph Fulton, "This is not a game about collecting cars or spending all of your time in the front-end tuning suspension settings or designing liveries. We want to make racing exciting again." Well, for some, adjusting dampers is exciting, but we digress.

Grid says it will be a "step-change" in the racing game world, offering tracks in Japan, Europe, and America that highlight local racing flavors: drifting and underground in Japan, classic race tracks in Europe, and street venues in America that include Detroit. Cars will run from Koenigseggs and Astons in Europe to Camaros and Challengers in the US. We aren't sure how much more focused you could be on racing than in the driving games currently offered, but we're always up for a new player. Grid arrives in the middle of next year.

[Source: Joystiq]

Equal rights activists note that, with few exceptions, motor racing is an almost entirely male-dominated sport. In fact, the vast majority of racing drivers are white men, with only a handful of pioneers like Narayan Karthikeyan, Danica Patrick and Lewis Hamilton breaking through the grid. But this year, the Indianapolis 500, one of the most prominent races in the world (certainly in America) will feature, for the first time in motorsport history, three female drivers.

Lynn St. James and Sarah Fisher made history in 2000 when they became the first two women to line up together at the event, but this year Citgo-sponsored Milka Duno (pictured, right) of Venezuela will be driving a Dallara-Honda for the Samax team, along with Patrick and Fisher. Duno becomes the fifth woman to compete in the Indy 500.

The Indy Racing League is struggling, however, to fill the rest of the field. At the last reporting, only 27 entries have been received for this year's race, and seven of those don't even have drivers assigned to them yet. That's a far cry from the traditional starting grid of 33. Among the 27 currently registered for the race are five from Andretti-Green Racing, four from Vision Racing (owned by Indy chief Tony George), three from AJ Foyt, and three cars from Penske. It has not yet been revealed who will drive the third Penske car, and similar question marks loom over drivers from Vision, Foyt, Beck and Sam Schmidt's Indy Pro Series team. Meanwhile, although neither the Cheever nor Fernandez teams competed in the Indy Racing Series this season, insiders were still surprised the neither filed entries for the Indy 500.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]

Buried within a GreenCarCongress article on Ford’s attendance at the recent Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability conference are some comments made by Niel Golightly, Ford’s Director of Sustainable Business Strategies, about plug-in hybrids. Golightly admits that Ford is investigating the technology that allows hybrids to achieve even greater fuel economy, but cautions there are three obstacles that must be overcome before it could see production: battery life, warranty coverage and safety.

A Ford representative, however, revealed to GreenCarCongress that “the message [about plug-in hybrids] is coming through loud and clear.” When asked about plug-in hybrid conversions being performed on Escape Hybrids by HyMotion, the representative stated “we encourage our customers to be creative with our cars.”

Is there a skunk-works plug-in hybrid program operating over at Ford? Perhaps. Toyota has aleady publicly stated that a plug-in Prius will not happen, which leaves the door open for Ford to swoop in and steal some of the green limelight.