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Wanted to wish everyone out there a safe and happy New Year. If you drink, please don’t drive. Keep those dubkeys at home or give to a (sober) friend.
Looking forward to 2007 and some new things to bring to ya! First off will be VW taking on the Dakar Rally!
If you have any ideas or would like to see more focus on a specific area, lemme know! Post in the comments.
An extensive resurfacing project at Road Atlanta is well on its way, the focal point of a series of renovations and capital improvements to the famed Atlanta-area road course.
In addition to repaving the entire 2.54-mile, 12-turn circuit, crews also will move back the walls on both sides of the lower part of the Esses to provide competitors additional runoff room. It also will increase the sight lines for fans on “Spectator Hill” from turns 4 to 5.
All of the concrete patches have been removed. Filling the patches with asphalt will provide better adhesion completely around the track.
Previously, the back half of the main paddock and the front entrance parking lot were paved earlier this year. Originally built in 1970, Road Atlanta was last repaved in 1992. Since purchasing the world-renowned facility in 1996, Dr. Don Panoz has spent millions of dollars in capital improvements including the redesign of turn 10 and elimination of the Dip. More than 300,000 tons of rock and dirt were moved to create the new Main Paddock on the infield side of the track.
Road Atlanta, ALMS, Panoz, oneighturbo
Santa apparently had one last trip to make to northern California this week. Flying Lizard Motorsports took delivery of its two Porsche 997 RSR race cars earlier this week as North American factory-supported teams continue preparations for the 2007 American Le Mans Series season.
Flying Lizard and Tafel Racing will field two Porsche 911 GT3 RSRs in the Series’ highly competitive GT2 class. Rahal Letterman Racing has confirmed one Porsche for the season although team principal Bobby Rahal said in October that two cars for the team is a possibility.
All three teams are expected to have their cars present for the third annual American Le Mans Series Winter Test at Sebring from January 22-24. Flying Lizard received its cars Thurssday. Tafel Racing likely will take possession of their cars Tuesday with Rahal Letterman getting their cars shortly as well. Anticipation of getting the cars on the track for the first time is growing in all camps.
“Until we get to Sebring for the tests it will be hard to tell,” said Flying Lizard’s Darren Law. “Everything on paper looks better. It is really hard to say until we get the cars and take them apart.
“It is totally different bodywise and changes with suspension,” he added. “Sebring will be the first chance to have with the new car. It ran well in Europe and the testing and development have gone well. I cannot see why it will not be better than the 996s.”ALMS, Porsche, GT2, Flying Lizard, Tefel Racing, 997 RSR, oneighturbo
Enough said! I have yet to test drive one, as i usually stay away from new cars I want! VW has been raking in the reviews/awards with this one and even the Rabbit. It could have been any car out there but Automobile choose the GTI for all the right reasons. VW hit the mark and brought back all those emotions of yesterdays GTI and dumped them into today’s.
A lot of us get irritated and made fun at VW’s lack of “performance” options off the lot but we have a great after-market community that puts out some amazing products. Hold on, I drive a New Beetle and we are often left out..
More cars with earth-shattering performance have been launched in the new century than we can shake a multiprofiled camshaft at. Yet, too often, supercars aren’t the most super cars. Automobile Magazine’s Automobile of the Year, the delightful 2007 Volkswagen GTI, reminds us why.
Don’t get us wrong. We’ll never look down our noses at 500-hp screamers with roofs so low you can slip in and out from under semitrailers without a scratch. But if the last year has shown us anything–with its punishing fuel prices and growing recognition of the dire effects of global warming–it’s that what the world really needs now is not cars that are fast, but cars that are practical, fuel-efficient, and fast. And that’s where the new GTI, reborn for the Volkswagen Golf’s–excuse us, Rabbit’s–fifth generation and once again immensely fun to drive, comes in. It’s the right car for our times. Hell, it’s the right car for any time.
A star when Volkswagen conjured the hot hatch segment out of thin air nearly twenty-five years ago, the GTI infamously became–in later generations–if not exactly obese and clumsy then no longer the crazy funster it had been, the one that wanted to tear up tarmac just as much as it wanted to haul you to work and your laundry to the cleaner. Continue reading ‘2007 Automobile of the Year: 2007 Volkswagen GTI’
