SCOTT KALITTA, 46, A NOTED DRAG RACING CHAMPION IN HIS OWN RIGHT, died Saturday afternoon during a qualifying round for an NHRA event in Englishtown, New Jersey.

It was the 4th and final qualifying round for Sunday’s main event at the Old Bridge Township Raceway Park.  As the 2-time champion’s car crossed the finish line, it exploded inside and became a rolling fireball.  The blast compromised the drag chute and left the car going full speed into the catch fence at about 300 mph where it crashed and triggered a second explosion.

Scott Kalitta’s “Funny Car” class dragster
speeds out of control after an onboard
explosion wracks the car.  (AP / Hodapp photo)

Scott was the son of legendary drag racer Connie Kalitta.  The 70-yr.-old patriarch of the racing family still owns and runs the Kallita Motorsports racing team based in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Scott had recently returned to racing after a 3-yr. retirement from active driving.  Old Bridge is the same track where he began his racing career in 1982.

Scott Kalitta (NHRA photo)

The Detroit Free Press has a REPORT.

ESPN2 was televising the qualifying races and captured the crash:

NEARLY TWO YEARS AGO ON JULY 23 OF 2006, an ocean freighter, the Cougar Ace, listed more than 60 degrees after a problematic ballast exchange.

The Singapore-based container ship was near the Aleutian Islands  carrying 4,703 new Mazda automobiles of various models and was enroute to Vancouver, British Columbia.  The ship was performing a mandatory sea-water ballast exchange that is required before entering U. S. waters as a measure to prevent the introduction of invasive species that are not native to the country.  During this exchange, something went wrong and the ship started listing, ending up at the severe angle in about 10 minutes.

The ship was adrift for eight days before salvage tugs were able to tow it to an Alaskan seafood processing plant that had docking space where it was righted.  Later it was towed with its cargo intact to Portland, Oregon.

Alaska Dept. of Environment and Conservation photo

All of the cars were securely strapped down and only about 40 of them broke loose and were damaged.  But Mazda decided to not sell them because of the unknown effects from being on their side in the sea air for so long.  They had offers to buy them as scrap for uses such as school auto shop classes and Hollywood movie makers to be used for stunts and crashes.

Mazda was reluctant to let them go because of liability potential and the fear that they would slip into the black market where they would be smuggled to Latin America and sold as new cars.  So they decided to completely demolish $100 million worth of automobiles, a decision that would cause them to set up a “disassembly line” in Portland.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

It took more than a year to devise a plan that satisfied everyone. The city of Portland wanted assurance that nearly 5,000 cars’ worth of antifreeze, brake fluid and other hazardous goop wasn’t mishandled. Insurers covering Mazda’s losses wanted to be sure the company wouldn’t resell any cars or parts — thereby profiting on the side. So every steel-alloy wheel has to be sliced, every battery rendered inoperable, and every tire damaged beyond repair. All CD players must get smashed.

Little things make a big difference. For instance, most of the cars have six airbags, and discharging them individually (forcing them to inflate so they can’t be resold) takes about five minutes apiece — or a total of a half-hour per car. So engineers back at Mazda’s headquarters, in Hiroshima, fashioned a device that can discharge all six at once. Multiplied by 4,703 cars, that trick alone saved months of work.

 
60% of the cars were the 2007 Model 3s

By the time they are finished, the entire car has been stripped of all fluids and adversarial metals, crushed and chopped into pieces and then shipped back to Japan where it will be recycled into new cars.

The Wall Street Journal has the complete description of this fascinating process HERE.
Alaskan blogger Ben Muse has the story of the Cougar Ace HERE.

WIRED Magazine produced a short video that
explains the salvage effort.  Click to play:

ALL THE PHONE LINES THROUGHOUT THE AUTO RACING WORLD have been humming since Sunday.

Max Mosley, 67, is the president of FIA, the world umbrella organization of auto racing clubs and sanctioning bodies.  Their premier venue is the Formuala One circuit that was in a poor financial situation and suffering from a bad reputation until 1993 when they hired Mosley to head up the organization.

He strengthened the rules, upgraded the competition and reworked the traveling show.  Within a couple of years the F-1 had returned to its premier position in the world of motor sports outside of North America where its antics are not taken as seriously by race fans.

In this past Sunday’s edition of News of the World, the UK’s equivalent of National Enquirer, there was a feature article about Mosely and his visit to a German S & M sex club recently.  They acquired a 5-hour video of the motor master doing some really kinky things that involved chains, whips and role-playing.

The News of the World ran a big spread on the story complete with photos and, for a while, online clips from the video.

As you can imagine, this has proved very embarrassing for the FIA and many of the people associated with it.  Several influential people are calling for Mosley to resign while just as many say that he shouldn’t, because it was “off duty,” don’t you know?

Bernie Ecclestone (left) with Max Mosley (right)

Bernie Ecclestone, the head of F-1 and close friend of Mosley is quoted as saying that many would find the disclosures of Mosley’s personal conduct hard to understand. “If Max was in bed with two hookers, they’d say ‘good for you or something like that’,” Mr Ecclestone said. “But this, as it is, people find it replusive. I think that’s the problem.”

If you are interested in motor sport, here are some links for you to follow the story:

The Melbourne Herald Sun has a story in Mosley’s refusal to resign HERE.
The UK Press Association REPORT.
Reuters ARTICLE.
The London Times has good coverage HERE.

The News of the World article that started it all is HERE.
Warning:  The story contains graphic descriptions of perverted behavior.

Motorsport.com photo

AFTER 12 YEARS OF ACRIMONY AND SELF-DESTRUCTIVE COMPETITION, the two major Indy-type racing leagues announced yesterday that they are merging the circuits. The Indy Racing League (IRL) and the Champ Car World Series circuit have come to an agreement in principle and have signed the preliminary papers. However, a press conference scheduled for Friday afternoon was postponed until after the weekend.

The period of upset in the open-wheel racing world began back in 1979. For the 25 years prior to that, all the Championship Car (as the largest of the open-wheel racers were called) races were sanctioned by the United States Auto Club (USAC) and the premier race was the Indianapolis 500. The wide popularity of that one race led to the nickname of Indy Cars for the formula.

Indy 500 - 1927

But a major dispute between USAC and the Champ car team owners directly led to the owners forming their own racing circuit to be self-sanctioned and called it the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART). Initially, it was a good move. The rules were strengthened and the car/engine specifications were made more practical and updated. The CART series flourished and the Indy 500 remained the crown jewel of the circuit.

After a few years of success and growth, the CART league started expanding into bigger markets and began introducing road course races into the schedule. As more and more road courses were added, fewer and fewer ovals were being raced on. This caused three things to happen. First, the fan base for the league was not only eroded, but the staunchest fans became unhappy with it. Secondly, because of their prior experience, a lot of foreign race drivers migrated into the circuit. This had the effect of disconnecting the fans from their favorite drivers that they had followed for years as they came up through the junior circuits of midgets and sprint cars. No more were there people at home or the track rooting for an Andretti, Foyt, Mears, Johncock, Rutherford, et al.

Louis Chevrolet (left) and his mechanic
at the “brickyard” in 1916

And thirdly, CART decided to compete against Formula 1 by traveling to other countries and upgrading the car specifications to a more highly-refined formula. This caused the costs of racing to skyrocket and the feeder system that had provided drivers and mechanics for 50 years became disconnected. That made it almost impossible for the American drivers to work their way up into the Champ car series.

(left) Ray Harroun, 1911 - (right) Louis Meyer, 1928

In 1994 Tony George, the owner of the Indianapolis Speedway, said “Enough!” and announced that he would form a new champ car circuit that would go back to its base and become affordable. He would personally finance the start-up of the league, to be called the Indy Racing League (IRL), which would race on oval tracks only. And as owner of the world-famous track he would reserve the Indy 500 for the new IRL. In 1996 the new league debuted and the internecine war of survival began.

There are plenty of sources that will give you the story of the fractious results, including CART’s miserable attempt to stage their own Memorial Day 500-miler. There is not space here to recount them. But the end result came in January, 2004 when CART’s assets were auctioned off in a bankruptcy sale. In a last-ditch effort of survival, four men jointly bought CART’s remnants and formed an offspring circuit, the Champ Car World Series. But the revenue wasn’t there to sustain it and with this year’s racing season about to begin, they still hadn’t paid off last year’s bills. It was over.

The IRL is the last-man-standing and will be absorbing most of the Champ Car teams and maybe three of the racing venues. But none of the assets or liabilities. They remain with the defunct corporation. But now the future of major open-wheel racing is 500% brighter and you will see a much-improved product and the racing business will see their fans returning to the grandstands.

THE EVER-POPULAR OSCAR MEYER WEINERMOBILE SPUN OUT into a snowbank near Elmira, New York, on Sunday.

George Osgood / Star-Gazette

For the record, there are six of the motorized hot dogs that traverse the country plugging the tasty tube steaks.  This one had left a party event at Syracuse University and was heading south on U.S. 15 to make their next appointment at Penn State.

Shortly after noon, however, an icy patch of roadway chilled the bun and sent the giant wiener into the snowbank.  Damage was slight and all that was needed was a quick tow out of the ditch and they were on their way.

The Elmira Star-Gazette has the full story.  The money-quote from the article comes from the tow truck driver when he says, “I’ve pulled out a lot of vehicles,” he said. “But that’s the first wiener I’ve ever pulled out.”

The whole article is really cute.  Be sure to read the entire story HERE.

THE DETROIT INTERNATIONAL AUTO SHOW has concluded.  Popular Mechanics has gathered up for us photographs of every new car that was introduced this year.

Dodge ZEO electric

There were nearly 40 of them and you can see them HERE.

THE 2008 INTERNATIONAL AUTO SHOW IN DETROIT is wrapping up and as usual there were some real crowd-pleasers introduced.

And one of the most-anticipated was the 2009 Corvette ZR1.

This aluminum and carbon-fiber beauty is powered by a supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 that can deliver 620 horsepower.

Popular Mechanics has a video of the new model along with the technical specs HERE.

Corvette Photo Gallery
Click on thumbnails to view pics

THE ANNUAL DETROIT AUTO SHOW opens on Saturday, January 19.  It is the premier North American automobile industry event and serves as the kick-off point to introduce new concepts.

NISSAN Motors will be unveiling their new Forum mini-van model.  Pandering to that segment of the population that seemingly cannot function unless they are surrounded by assorted sounds that some people call “music,” they have designed an interior sound system that all-but guarantees to shut out those unwanted noises such as fire and ambulance sirens.

The Forum’s equipment includes an advanced Bose media system with proximity sensor-based information controller, a one-button audio muting system, and individual seat-mounted speakers for every row.

As you can see in the publicity photograph, the speakers are mounted in the wrap-around headrests for that full, enveloping listening experience.  No longer will the driver, or passengers, need to worry about losing precious seconds off their trip by slowing down and pulling over for emergency vehicles.  They just won’t even know that you’re there.

The sun always shines in the new Nissan Forum because it has an all-glass roof from cowling to tailgate.

THE OLDEST SURVIVING, AND THE FOURTH MADE, ROLLS-ROYCE sold at auction in London yesterday for £3.5 million ($7.22 million).

PA photo

The open-topped, two-seater has a 10 hp engine and was completely restored in the 1950’s.  It has been kept in perfect running condition since then.

PA photo

Reuters has the STORY.

Pre-auction Video:

photos courtesy National Corvette Museum 

THE NATIONAL CORVETTE MUSEUM IN BOWLING GREEN, KENTUCKY, is starting a major expansion project.

Last week earth-movers began the site work for a $9 million, 47,000-sq. ft. addition to the existing museum located near the General Motors assembly plant where the Corvettes are produced.

Wendell Strode, director of the museum, said bids for the work should be awarded in February, with the work beginning in March, weather permitting. Strode hopes the project is complete in early summer 2009 so that the finishing touches, including new grass growing, can be ready for the museum’s 15th anniversary on Labor Day that year.

Architect’s drawing of new expansion area

The new area will include a library-archives, an expanded gift store and a conference center with a seating capacity of 400. The center also can be used to display 50 additional cars. 

It also will add a dedicated area for inspection, display and pickup of special-delivery Corvettes people order from the General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plant.

About 17,000 square feet of the existing museum will be renovated and 275 parking spaces will be added.

The 5 generations of Corvette

The National Corvette Museum WEBSITE.