November 2009

It looks as if Jenson Button might be joining McLaren and driving alongside Lewis Hamilton in next years F1 championship, Mercedes will buy 75% of Brawn in partnership with an investment company from Abu Dhabi. Brawn will be rebranded as Mercedes Grand Prix and it is thought Nico Rosberg and Nick Heidfeld will be the drivers for the newly named team.

the Mercedes Motorsport vice-president, Norbert Haug, has said that talks with Button are ongoing so he cannot legally announce anything yet concerning the new line up. It is widely believed that Button will be joining the McLaren team though after meeting with manager Richard Goddard last Friday.

So will an all British driving team be brilliant or will it just mean that if the car ends up being rubbish both British drivers are out of the running? It would hopefully lead to a lot more support from the British public in next years championship and that can never be a bad thing.

The investment in the Brawn team by an Abu Dhabi company means that Abu Dhabi is cementing itself as one of the big players in motorsport, what with it also being host to the newest track and also the final race of the season, with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Could we be seeing a new team come from that way soon? Better get the flights to Abu Dhabi booked up now and try to see what is happening over there!

Has anyone played Forza 3 yet? I really want to have a little play because of the awesome customisation available on it. Often said to be the Xbox 360 version of the upcoming Gran Turismo 5, which is only available on PS3, it has over 400 cars that are immensely customisable. The best thing though is the cars it has, fancy a mk1 Golf that can beat a supercar? You can build one easily! they have a full list of cars up here, my only complaint is not enough old Fords, I have come to expect games to leave out Capri’s but there isn’t even a mk1 Escort! Darn. So, yeah, I’m off to try and blag a go on it somewhere, so take a look at this video it looks amazing.

Eco Rods. Could this be a new term in the Rodding community? We have had Hot Rods, Rat Rods, Street Rods, Resto Rods, Trad Rods and erm well there are probably others but much like in music genres it can all go a bit mental when trying to define a name for something.

I like the sound of Eco Rods though and this year at SEMA, global warming was the hot topic. Quite a strange subject really as Motorist’s, especially of the Hot Rodding kind, are not really known for their eco sensibilities. But yet this year saw the unveiling of a few different Rod’s and Customs that all featured in some way or another (read – engines) climate change friendly modifications.

Some people have complained the ‘eco’ part is simply retrofitting newer more economical engines into the Rods and that this has been going on for years anyway and is one of the main points of Hot Rodding – Putting newer and better engines into older cars in the pursuit of speed. No matter what people think though it is nice to see the car community thinking outside the box and showing that we aren’t just a big group of Neanderthals who take everything Jeremy Clarkson says as gospel.

The first car is one of my favourites, a ’55 Chevy, that used Chevrolets new E-Rod LS3 crate engine. The 6.2 L, V8 monster produces 430 bhp but more importantly it passes the very strict Californian smog tests and is therefore a lot more economical than most big V8′s.

Of course people will always want V8′s so trying to make them as economical as possible is a great idea but scaling down the size and number of cylinders will always be the ideal way of getting a greener car. The 1934 3- window that Ford brought along to the show was fitted with a 3.5L EcoBoost V6 which uses a turbo to still make an impressive 400 bhp and 400 lb ft of torque. Ford claims this new engine which is fitted to a lot of the standard new Ford models has 20% better fuel economy and 15% less CO2 emissions.

The real jewel in the SEMA crown though was the electric powered ’33 that a company called Factory Five came along with. Looks wise it was stunning but because it had no hood on it you are instantly drawn to the lack of a normal engine instead you see a load of batteries and some other electrical trickery (OK, I admit I have no idea what the bits are!).

The company says it will reach 60 in 4 seconds with the amazing 660 lb ft of torque it has but the design is not perfect and is meant mainly as a show piece because the electric motor alone costs about $40,000! Still those looks…

93% – Not bad considering most of the questions are about things before I was born….

AND PASSED WITH AN EXCELLENT SCORE! A

That Ken Block guy is back again this time playing around with DC team mate Travis Pastrana in a little competition for the latest episode of Nitro Circus, a program that sees Travis Pastrana and his buddies doing insane stunts on a variety of motorised vehicles and even taking normal things like a slip and slide to extreme new levels. This is a little teaser trailer for the competition between Ken Block And Pastrana.

You can watch the full episode for free on the Nitro Circus website and I highly suggest you do it has all manner of amazing machinery being used throughout the episodes.

You may remember me talking a while ago about how Ken Block helped create Dirt 2, well I have had a good go on that on a mates Xbox 360 and I can safely say it is excellent! I have only played it on the Xbox though but I guess PS3 games and 360 ones are pretty much the same? Anyway I loved it and I’m not much of a games person really only ever bothering to play racing games when over peoples houses properly tempted to try and get hold of a PS3 and the game now if I can find one around cheap enough….

The first ever Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and it was a brilliant race. I think the track owners will be a bit gutted that so much of it was ripped apart by slightly off line cars considering it is all brand new though!

Even though Jenson Button was already World Champ, this didn’t mean all of the drivers went for it 100%, especially Button who probably felt he could take a few more chances because it didn’t matter what happened in the end. It was a shame about Hamilton’s retirement but at least it was only a mechanical fail and not a crash or something worse.

I hope everyone who got to see the event up close enjoyed themselves, I think I might have to book up my flights to Abu Dhabi now and see if i can get it cheap because it is so far advanced.