plus 3, BMW S1000RR to Race Isle of Man TT - Motorcycle USA

BMW S1000RR to Race Isle of Man TT - Motorcycle USA
Economy isn't biting into this year's Amelia Island ... - Florida Times-Union
Weather halts Gatornationals today - Gainesville Sun
Friends of the earth - Gulf News

BMW S1000RR to Race Isle of Man TT - Motorcycle USA

Posted: 11 Mar 2010 03:17 PM PST

The 2010 Isle of Man TT entry list gets more varied by the day. First it was news that the KTM RC8R and Moto2 would race in the premier Superbike TTs, now BMW Motorrad tosses its new Superbike into the ring with Rico Penzkofer riding the BMW S1000RR Superbike.

Having worked as a development rider for the latest Beemer, Penzkofer has also campaigned for BMW in the World Endurance races aboard the HP2 Sport. The 34-year-old German bolstered his street racing credentials when he piloted the S1000RR to a fifth-place finish at the 2009 Macau Grand Prix last November. Penzkofer also sports experience on the IOM TT mountain course, racing the 2009 Supersport TTs for the Yamaha/Macau Racing Team to 30th and 33rd-place results. This time around, however, Penkofer will have official factory support and, according to a TT press release, a "full Superbike-spec machine at his disposal."

The return of an official BMW team to Isle of Man racing ends a three-decade gap for the Bavarian marque - the last BMW team being the late '70s duo of Helmut Dahne and Hans Otto Butenuth. In spite of the long absence, BMW has 30 TT victories to its credit, many of them in the sidecar class.

"To be representing BMW on their return to the TT is a tremendous honor for me and after my debut last year I can't wait to return to the Mountain Course," said Penzkofer in the accompanying PR. "Riding the Superbike will obviously present a new challenge but the bike is superb and that, combined with my own improved knowledge of the course, should see us able to make a good impression. Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus have proved in World Superbikes that the bike is competitive and we hope to do the same at the TT."

The Isle of Man Minister for Tourism and Leisure, Martyn Qualye, also expressed enthusiasm over the BMW return in 2010 saying: "It's really exciting to see the return of such a prestigious marque to the Isle of Man TT and their involvement in the 2010 races is a great boost to an already strong list of manufacturers – more evidence that the TT is going from strength to strength."

The 2010 Isle of Man festivities will begin May 30th, with the TT race dates stretching into the first two weeks of June.

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Economy isn't biting into this year's Amelia Island ... - Florida Times-Union

Posted: 11 Mar 2010 01:22 PM PST

Fifteen years ago, about 2,000 people visited the first Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance.

When the crystal anniversary of what is now termed one of the nation's top classic car events rolls around this weekend, an estimated 16,000 are expected on a day when stock car legend Richard Petty drives one of his iconic blue race cars onto the field at 9:45 a.m.

Photo gallery: The 2009 Concours d'Elegance

With ticket sales running 35 percent ahead of last year, fans will see 285 classic cars and motorcycles valued together in excess of who knows how many millions. And the island around the event is showing the effect of 15 years of millionaire car collectors and classic car lovers.

"I imagine there's millions of dollars from the bed tax," said show founder and chairman Bill Warner. "I know of at least three people who have moved to the island as a result, and there are probably more. It's brought business into the Ritz-Carlton; Ford and Fed Ex have done events there and it is as a result of having seen the Ritz-Carlton as part of the concours. The show has a year-round impact."

This weekend alone, all local places to stay are filled, with NASCAR's most winning racer as honoree enticing a big audience, said Gil Langley, president and CEO of the Amelia Island Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"We noticed a lot more interest in tickets, and people making hotel reservations further out once it was announced Petty was coming," he said. "It is a very exciting opportunity, and he has a huge base of fans who will come to the events and be exposed to the island."

The show has also become a draw for car aficionados who escape the winter's lingering chill in the rest of the country, says Mercedes-Benz Classic Center director Mike Kunz, who spearheads the company displays at Amelia.

"It has become very, very popular in terms of the shows as we informally rank them. It is just behind Pebble Beach, which is a juggernaut of events," Kunz said from his California office. "This is more relaxed, and in many ways nicer event because you are all in one location, and a beautiful location on the water."

Concours d'elegance is French for "parade of elegance," and this year's show weekend will see the automotive world descend on the island for seminars, a gala Saturday night dinner, and Sunday's show on fairways next to the Ritz-Carlton. Rare classics will be on the greens, while modern car companies will showcase their newest in front of the Ritz-Carlton, including Mercedes, Maybach, Bugatti and Jaguar. And for only the second time in 15 years, there are two classic car auctions.

"It's a nice endorsement of what we have done here. There is only one other show in the world that has more than one [auction] — Pebble Beach. It kind of tells the automotive world that this is the place you need to be in March," Warner said.

RM Auctions returns for its 12th year, the official auction house for the event with more than $25 million dollars in vehicle sales there over the years. This year, more than 100 are for auction, including two Model J Duesenbergs and a 1962 Dual-Ghia Coupe once owned by Dean Martin.

"So many new people attend annually that the event grows based on their experience," said RM president and COO Ian Kelleher. "I have never met anyone who has had a bad experience. … There is no air of anything that has to be cut through. You are kind of there with all of your friends who enjoy the car hobby."

The show's stature attracted Gooding and Co., the official auction house of the granddaddy of all concours at Pebble Beach. More than 70 cars are expected in its Friday sale, including the 1931 Voisin C20 Demi-Berline that was the 2009 Amelia concours winner. President and founder David Gooding has been going to Amelia as a fan since the beginning and calls it a fantastic event.

"This is a great venue that attracts people from all over the world, so it was pretty obvious to us that it is a place that made sense for us to be," Gooding said. "We feel if we get the correct product and it is priced properly, there will be buyers."

Merchants on and near historic Centre Street in Fernandina Beach feel the impact of the concours this weekend as well as other times of the year. The Addison House owner Bob Tidball had 18 guests on Monday at 614 Ash St..

"People who come, they do come back," he said. "Half of those are return guests."

Concours guests have been returning for years to Craig Nelson's French Market Antiques at 203 Centre St.

"We have actually sold and shipped a lot of things out of state based on sales during the concours. It is one of the weekends we look forward to," Nelson said. "They do come back. …. And they come back and visit even if they don't buy."

Not all island businesses are profiting. The Amelia Island Plantation's owner filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November, a reorganization plan being prepared now. Fernandina Beach's landmark 152-year-old Florida House Inn closed in January. But Langley said tourism is Amelia Island's industry, and the concours seems to feed it year-round.

"You can't even estimate the impact the concours has," he said. "Every year, we get comments back from those who come to the concours and make plans to visit Amelia Island. We see it as a real identifying event."

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Weather halts Gatornationals today - Gainesville Sun

Posted: 11 Mar 2010 01:22 PM PST

By Robbie Andreu
Staff writer

Rain was the only winner at the Tire Kingdom Gatornationals on Thursday.

Steady morning rain led the NHRA to postpone Thursday's entire racing schedule — Sportsman qualifying and a Comp eliminations qualifying session. The decision was made at about 10:30 a.m.

The postponement stalled the NHRA drag racing debut of former NASCAR champion Kurt Busch, who is competing this weekend in the Super Gas category in the Sporstman class. Qualifying in the Sportsman and Comp classes will begin today at 8 a.m. Busch, who won the Kobalt 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway last Sunday, will be racing in a 1970 Dodge Challenger that he purchased on eBay for $15,000 in 2008. Busch had the opportunity to come to Gainesville because it is an off week in NASCAR.

The weather forecast for today calls for a chance of scattered thunderstorms.

The good news for racing fans is that none of the four pro classes — Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle — were affected by Thursday's rain. Qualifying in those four classes is expected to start on schedule Friday. There will be two sessions Friday, one beginning at noon, the other at 2:45 p.m. There will be two more qualifying sessions Saturday at the same times.

Gainesville Raceway, which will be overflowing with fans the next three days, was like a ghost town Thursday morning as the rain persisted. The stands were empty and the pit area was pretty much shut down even before races were officially washed out.

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Friends of the earth - Gulf News

Posted: 11 Mar 2010 01:01 PM PST

They're like dates initiated on a match-making website. Car shows, you know. You log on, find the profile you like, it's mutual, and then you meet the person in, er, person, at an Italian restaurant. You know what to expect, you've seen the photos…

Car shows today are like that. Point being, all the 'world premieres' and 'debuts' have been seen a thousand times already during the build-up to the show, thanks to the vastness and global reach of the internet. Nothing is a surprise, since the manufacturers whip up hype for weeks with hope of getting extra ink in the press. Come show time, you've seen it all already. Gone are the days of walking up to a booth and being genuinely shocked at what's on display.

Imagine the furore caused when Jaguar took the veil off the E-Type to an unsuspecting public in Geneva 1961? The fastest, most beautiful car of the day (even Enzo Ferrari reportedly admitted it was the most beautiful car ever made), coming at them like a herd of buffaloes, totally unexpected. If I was there in person, I would have probably ran and hid in the toilet from the sheer astonishment. Or maybe just stood there and wept at the gorgeousness of it.

Geneva being Geneva, and Switzerland being the home of oddballs like Rinspeed and Sbarro, you can thankfully always expect at least a couple of semi-surprises, such as Rinspeed's scuba-diving Lotus or Sbarro's four-wheel motorcycle (um, isn't that called a car?). But what actually hit us in Geneva was way above our expectations here at wheels.

Not only has Geneva's expo centre been packed brimful with magnificent supercars, they also made sure that these snuck into the seven halls with the utmost secrecy. And the most secretive of all was a very, very sneaky Porsche.

And it can do that, be sneaky, because this high-performance, mid-engined 918 Spyder prototype with plug-in hybrid technology can run on silent electric power alone. The green accents dotting the body, brakes and interior hint at its environmental serenity, although there's nothing serene about a 9,200rpm 3.4-litre V8 developing over 500bhp. Power is transmitted to the wheels by a seven-speed PDK, which also takes care of delivering the extra 218bhp courtesy of the electric motors.

And if you haven't put two and two together yet, let me remind you that 3.4 litres is also the capacity of Porsche's racing engine dropped into the RS Spyder — it's a family affair. And the roots go deep down in the Porsche family tree when it comes to the 918 Spyder; it's just one digit off the legendary 917, a car that dominated Le Mans and CanAm with its turbocharged flat-12 producing up to and over 1,500bhp in qualifying trim, while weighing below 900kg.

The fuel crisis hit hard in the Seventies though and the 917's gulping 12 cavities rendered the racer obsolete. Now the 21st century 918 has similar fuel concerns to tackle, which is why Porsche has designed it with the possibility of emissions levels of just 70gm/km of CO2 with a fuel consumption of up to 94mpg.

Expect the equation that gave them this figure to boggle even Stephen Hawking, but anyway, the undoubtful figures stand at 3.2 seconds to reach 100kph and a top speed of over 320kph. Oh, and put Walter Röhrl in the driver's seat and the 918 Spyder will lap the 'Ring in less than 7:30 — faster than the Porsche Carrera GT and 911 GT2. It's also probably fair to say that it looks pretty amazing. The lightweight body structure of the 918 Spyder is made of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic, while generous doses of magnesium and aluminium not only reduce weight to less than 1,490kg, but also ensure supreme driving precision.

Now, don't stomp your feet in anger if you feel your petrolhead needs are left out by the green focus here, because if Porsche uses hybrid technology for super speeds and efficiency, then who are we to complain? It's win-win, even though the supercar game is definitely changing. And if you were in Geneva, you only had to take a step away from Porsche's stand to the other side of Hall 6 and commence drooling in front of Citroën's Survolt concept.

This sensational blend of exuberant styling and hints of motorsport points towards the French carmaker's future of coupés. Its environmentally-conscious all-electric drivetrain delivers thrills in complete silence; good or bad, depending on your side of the fence.

Compact dimensions — at 3,850mm, the Survolt is only half a foot longer than a Mini — full of flowing lines focus on aerodynamics, to maximise speed and economy.

And just like the ultra-chic Revolte concept preceding it, the Survolt gets two-tone paintwork as well as a glazed cockpit area. While it may make a much more unlikely production car than Porsche's 918 prototype, the Survolt proves Citroën's direction towards a green sportscar future.

Yet, Swedish hypercar maker Koenigsegg is living the future now. Even its first 2006 CCX models ran on E85 (hey, at least it's a little cleaner) and now the company has launched an ultra-focused 910bhp track car called Agera. While it's not nearly as dramatic in styling as the German and French offerings, the super-Swede is basically an evolution of the CCX, with vortex-generating wheels and tail lamps sporting a hole in the middle to extract air from the mid-mounted engine. Oh, and by the way, when fed some E85, that engine is good for 1,100Nm of twist and is tasked with pushing just 1,285kg of weight — 80kg less than an Enzo.

And that brings us to the Italians, who had everyone green with envy in Geneva. The Lamborghini LP570-4 Superleggera and a vettura laboratorio, or experimental vehicle, hybrid Ferrari based on the 599 GTB were the greenest cars on display, literally.

Although Sant'Agata's offering is purely performance-orientated, the means of achieving that performance resulted in efficiency gains too.

Despite being more powerful with 562bhp from the 5.2-litre V10, it's also 70kg lighter than the standard Gallardo boasting a total dry weight of 1,340kg. Mostly due to heavy use of carbon fibre components both inside and out. Together with direct fuel injection, contributing to 20.5 per cent lower CO2 emissions, the Superleggera plays a part in Lamborghini's environmental campaign.

The 0-100kph sprint now takes just 3.4 seconds — a match for the equally-powerful Ferrari Italia — and the speedo needle only stops turning at 325kph.

Maranello's experiment on the other hand, produced the first hybrid bearing a prancing horse badge. After the carmaker's 2007 announcement of a five-year plan to reduce fuel consumption and emissions across the range, the figures have already dropped by 30 per cent, thanks to the California and 458 Italia. And while this 599 Hy-Kers isn't a production vehicle, it's an example of what the finished product will host underneath the loud paint job.

Ferrari has banked on its racing expertise to adapt a lightweight hybrid drivetrain, while ensuring that driving dynamics remain world-class.

All the components of the new drive system are positioned below the centre of gravity and the flat lithium-ion batteries actually sit below the floorpan, inside the aerodynamic underbody. Remarkably, this hybrid 599 therefore boasts a lower centre of gravity than the standard GTB Fiorano. Of course, the whole job adds a bit of weight — 40kg — to the final product, but this is more than offset by the additional 100bhp that the compact, tri-phase electric motor brings to the fore.

Even with these advancements, coupled to the photovoltaic installation on the roof of Ferrari's mechanical machining facility, which reduces the factory's power requirements by over 210,000kWh annually, Ferrari isn't satisfied. By the end of 2010, the carmaker wants a 40 per cent CO2 reduction across the board.

If that means that the future for us petrolheads is one in which we can drive fast and burn environmentally-friendly rubber without evil glances from tree-huggers, we're game.

The good and bad

Geneva was a gathering place mostly for the forces of good, or to put it in other words, the environmentally friendly.

Yet, a few devilish supercars decided to poke their necks out of hell and visit Switzerland, and they caused quite a stir, too. They would, naturally, since one is a Pagani and the others are a pair of Bugattis.

Not only did Volkswagen's ultimate brand display a cutaway version of the Veyron at its stand, showing the public the insides of the hypercar for the first time, but also two highly customised Grand Sports. The blue one is covered in dyed carbon fibre, with matching body and wheel treatments. But you're too late already, because it's gone to a buyer for Dh8.25 million. The other one is much more evil looking (with evil intentions too, judging by the outrageous 596g of CO2 per kilometre), sporting a dark carbon fibre upper body and polished aluminium lower section. Just another exercise for Bugatti's personalisation department, this one also found a buyer, a Dh8.75 million buyer.

Over at the Pagani camp, the supercar manufacturer rolled out a special edition Tricolore Zonda to commemorate 50 years of Italy's aerobatic team. The pilots have been going at it for decades fielding the highest number of aircraft in an aerobatic team, and currently zoom around the skies in ten Aermacchi MB-339-As.

While they reach ground speeds of up to 898kph, the Pagani Zonda Tricolore has to settle for a bit short of that; 350kph. It's still pretty insane, down to the fact that underneath, the Tricolore is basically a 670bhp 7.3-litre V12 Cinque. So we can expect suitably insane 0-100kph figures of around 3.4 seconds; which is a number much, much smaller than its stratospheric C02 output.

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