Pastrana runs Nationwide Series at Richmond International Raceway

The Nationwide series kicks off the weekend tonight at Richmond International Raceway. Travis Pastrana is set to hop back in the saddle once again to make his Nationwide debut, after is was postponed due to an X Games accident at the Los Angeles Arena last year while doing a trick on his dirt bike.

His ankle was shattered into about 20 pieces during that accident, so it wasn’t your typical break. It has taken Pastrana about 9 months to recover from his injuries and countless hours of rehab.

Travis said that he has been spending a ton of time in the iRacing Machine track simulator, to try to prepare for the Virginia 529 College Savings 250 that will run tonight at RIR.

Pastrana also went on to say that he’s a little more prepared now then he would have been last year, and that he didn’t fully understand the language that the drivers use to describe set-ups and how the car may be handling. During his time off he watched more of the sport to educate himself on what the drivers were talking about when describing different scenarios and situations.

Another thing that they had to fix was, when Travis sat in the cock pit of his race car they had to relocate the gas pedal in relation to his repaired ankle so that he could get on and off of the throttle easier while out on the race track.

He said that he would he happy to finish his first race and to stay out of trouble by not hitting the wall or a fellow competitor.

 

9 Days of Body Work in 9 Minutes

For me, the most frustrating work that I have ever done is body work. It’s frightening. In fact, it is the single reason why I have owned my 1964 Impala project car for half of my life and never driven it… legally.  Replacing metal is very doable by nearly anybody with a welder, but making it look “right” takes real talent.  That said, I absolutely LOVE watching people that know what the heck they are doing, replace major body panels. That is why I watch all of those shows on the Speed & Discovery Channel. It is just so refreshing to see rusty or damaged metal removed and repaired with proper methods, and finished to look like new.

In the video above, you get to see 9 straight days of body work in 9 minutes.  They bring the damaged 2010 crew cab GMC truck into the shop, remove the interior, doors, fender, bed, and rocker panel.  They then straighten everything out, and reassemble it to look like new again. Oh, and they recorded it for our enjoyment.

Can’t see the video? Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqzenM8rAlw

Denny Hamlin Pulls Past Martin Truex Jr. and Wins STP 400 in Kansas

With 30 to go, Denny Hamlin put the hammer down, and passed Martin Truex Jr. who led 173 laps of Sunday’s STP 400 at Kansas Speedway. Truex Jr. tried to dive to the inside twice on the last lap to make a winning move on Hamlin, but wasn’t able to make it stick.

Much of the race was ran under cloud cover, but once the sun decided to poke through it seemed to have changed the complexion of the race. While the sun was shining on the track it was also shining on Denny Hamlin. Denny said that his car was tight in the corners while it was cloudy out, but once the sun came out late in the race, it made the track a little slippery which was fine by Denny, he was finally able to gain ground on the 56 of Truex that was dead ahead.

Under the cloud cover track position seemed to be oh.. so important, the easiest way to pass the guy in front of you was in the pits. Once the clouds gave way to some sun, set-ups that other guys had dialed in seemed to come to life, and the race was on.

Jimmie Johnson also had a fast car and took third place, while Matt Kenseth finished fourth, and Gregg Biffle drove her home to claim a fifth place finish.

Clint Bowyer was hoping to have a better day than he did, his motor decided to expire during the race along with teammate Mark Martin.

Other drivers whose motor decided to go south were Jeff Gordon, A.J. Allmendinger, Bobby Labonte and Kurt Busch. Yes that’s a pretty hefty list of drivers who had engine woes.

 

 

 

 

The 48 of Jimmie Johnson Goes Green For Earth Day

Sunday April 22 is Earth Day, and the 48 of Jimmie Johnson will go green at the drop of the green flag. As part of their 60’s throwback paint scheme strategy, Jimmie Johnson and the Lowes Racing Team decided, how cool would it be to paint the five time champs cup car a “Mountain Green” which was the color of choice used by General Motors on quite a few muscle cars back in 1967.

David Sutphin who happens to be the Sports Marketing Manager for Lowes, said that they researched some of the old throwback color schemes that were offered on classic cars as a way to keep switching up the color of the Lowes machine that Johnson drives.

It’s a great way to make the 48 stand out from the rest of the field, and is also pretty cool for those muscle car fans sitting in the grandstands.

Photo Credit: Lowes Racing

Jimmie Johnson

 

Do You Have GMail? Well Come Visit Us On Google Plus Then!

Hi,

As you may have heard, Google makes cool stuff. Most recently, they came out with Google Plus. Some people are calling it “The Facebook for adults”, but I say “isn’t that what LinkedIn is?” With so much socialnessicity these days (yep, made that word up!) – I don’t really know. In any case, if you haven’t checked it out, it is worth perusing for a few minutes.

From my car-guy perspective, I like it because my phone syncs every photo that I take with my G+ account.  This is awesome because it backs up my stuff for when I accidentally light my phone ablaze with my MIG welding electrical hell fire. Then (yes, it gets better) my photos are literally 1 click away from sharing with people (read: you).  Here is an example: Let’s say I’m cruising down route 91 in Connecticut for example, and I see a brand new Camaro convertible parked on the side of the highway, with a beautiful wind-in-the-hair girl inside taking part in a late afternoon, bizarre highway photo-shoot. I can then snap a pic instantly and post it up here for all of my gearhead friends to enjoy, or at least leave a snide comment on. Before you know it, people flock to this clearly impromptu photo shoot on the highway, and this girl becomes the next Cindy Crawford! All because I could share a phone pic with the quickness of G+!  I know. I know. Great example. What’s even crazier though, is that some (very small) parts of that story are actually true! Sadly, I couldn’t get my camera phone out quick enough while driving by this strange photo shoot yesterday. Even if I did, it would have likely been a blur as I was doing …uhh… exactly. the. speed. limit. (or less).

Now where was I? Ah yes, Google Plus! Just this past week, we at 1A Auto decided that we should jump on the fancy new G+ train, and pull that fun whistle (toot tooooot!). We created a page, but alas, we have no friends. True Story! So, that is why I am coming to you, just like I did in kindergarten, begging for friendship.  Is that so wrong? Do it for the cars.  Do it for the humor.  Do it for the beautiful girl on the highway.

Follow Us On G+ Today and let the friendship begin!

We’ll talk about cars, trucks, motorcycles, and share things like pictures and videos.  We can potentially do video hangouts too, which sounds super cool.  We probably won’t have sleepovers, but we may attend the same car shows, racing events, and swap meets. We look forward to this new relationship and are sure that it will be a great one. See you there!

-Jeremy (Your BFF)

Kentucky Speedway Traffic Issues Hopefully Solved

Immediately after the inaugural race at Kentucky Speedway, Bruton Smith sprang into action to resolve the traffic issues that kept so many fans from reaching their destination.

Last year, fans spent hours and hours trying to reach Kentucky Speedway for its inaugural race. The traffic got so bad that some of the fans were eventually turned away, and were never able to even reach the track. Many fans also tried to leave the race early in and effort to beat some of the rush away from the track, but that didn’t seem to work out very well either. At first all you could see were headlights coming to the speedway, and then it was just a sea of tail lights leaving the speedway.

As part of his plan to resolve the traffic issue, Bruton Smith has purchased the land of a 143 acre farm next to the track to create more parking spaces for the race fans; the highway has been widened to seven lanes, an extra lane was also added to the off ramp of Interstate 75, and a new 42 foot wide tunnel was built under highway 35 that will enable fans to safely reach the speedway from additional parking areas.

This years Quaker State 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Kentucky, will be run on June 30th as a night race.