Snow has fallen here on the Canadian Prairies and like every year the first snowfall equals mayhem on the streets. This was proven to myself yesterday when a Chevy pickup truck with mud-terrain tires slid into the back of my trusty 1998 Honda Odyssey. M/T’s may work well in mud and even in fluffy snow, but when you put them on ice they are like hockey pucks. Now I get to go through insurance hell and what will inevitably lead to the loss of my trusty 4-door minivan-like vehicle. Enough about me, let’s do the Rundown…….
The 2011 edition of the SEMA Show is history and our traveling crew (and Yoda) are back home safe and sound minus a night’s sleep. There is plenty more content to come from this years show but first RyanB will share an account of the trip home with everyone this afternoon. Keep your eyes peeled.
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With the news of the New Jersey/New York F1 race in 2013 coming out last week, I thought I would check up on the progress of the United States Grand Prix being held in Austin Texas next November. Visiting the ‘Cicuit of the Americas’ website I found a bit of news that has me excited. I don’t know how I missed it, but back in June it was announced that the Australian V8 Supercars series had signed a 5-year deal to bring twin 200km races to Austin starting in 2013. To make this even better, V8 Supercar lovers will be able to watch the Falcons and Commodores race live on SPEED.
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The Formula D season is done and there are a lot of rumours flying around about next year. A couple of things were brought to light during Formula D’s annual SEMA Show Press conference. One of the larger announcements was that of who was replacing Tony Angelo’s role of Technical Manger. It was announced that Chris Forsberg’s former Crew Chief, who just happened to step down from that position, would be taking of the Technical Manager duties for Formula Drift.
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Formula Drift Also announced it’s 2012 Championship schedule and it looks like this:
April 6-7 – Streets of Long Beach
May 11-12 – Road Atlanta
June 1-2 – Palm Beach International Raceway
June 22-23 – Wall Speedway
July 20-21 – Evergreen Speedway
August 24-25 – Las Vegas Motor Speedway
October 12-13 – Irwindale Speedway
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The final round of the 2011 WRC series takes place this upcoming weekend in Wales. Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen will be fighting for the overall championship. Hirvonen trails Loeb by only 8 points going into the final round.
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I caught a story on the web the other day that caught my eye. The title stated that ‘Up and Coming Canadian Driver Signs with Andretti Autosport’. After skimming the article to see where in Ontario or Quebec the driver was from I was shocked to see that the driver was from Saskatoon! Thomas McGregor , who is 19, was signed by Andretti to race in the the USF2000 Championship in 2012. It appears that Thomas has been honing his skills with the help of Skip Barber Racing School’s developement series. I will try and keep you posted with results from his races in future Rundowns.
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The LA Auto Show is less than two weeks away and it appears that Nintendo has something to share there. Maybe Nintendo Wii’s will come factory installed in Dodge Caravans or something. Who knows.