Paul Tracy out of a job

It looks like after more years than most drivers will ever get to be at the top, Forsythe championship racing is out of business and Paul Tracy, the number one driver there finds himself out of a job and is scrambling to secure another seat.

This is a strange time for everyone that was a fan or followed the Champcar/IRL rift over the years.

Without much warning, Champcar hit the skids and finally gave into Tony George and the IRL,a more accurate description would be... rolled over and begged for mercy from George and his organization.

It's a sad day indeed and I for many years considered myself on the CART/Champcar side of the equation and find all of this quite surreal.

In the end even this diehard admits that it's time to bring the split to an end and restore open wheel racing to it's former glory in this country and give NASCAR some competition  for sponsor dollars .

Now that the day has arrived that Tony George will dictate what open wheel racing looks like, he will hopefully have a balanced schedule that give fans a proper balance of road courses and ovals.

Just maybe this new merged series will resemble the cart of the 1990's.

Autoweek

New Volkswagen Scirocco

Volkswagen looks back to it past with a new Scirocco set to debut at this years Geneva auto show. As expected the car will be based on the modern Golf platform.

You can expect the usual variants of this car, and It wouldn't surprise me to se an all wheel drive and some limited production model down the road.

When this car hit our shores it will cost around $32.000 U.S. and change not counting options.

My memory of this car going back 16 years isn't a fond one, I feel that the little V-dubs from back in the day where under powered and over priced and this seem to be one of the issues that Volkswagen has today in the north American market.

It will be interesting to see how the car stacks up against the likes of the new Camaro,Dodge Charger and a reinvigorated mustang.

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No money for big Bill

I promise that this is the last Ford related post for the day, but apparently Bill Ford refuses to accept any money for  services rendered to the company that shares his last name.

According to this latest post on the Autoweek web site, the former CEO will not accept any money until the family business starts to generate some positive cash flow.

From the looks of it, he will be waiting for quite a while and my guess is that present CEO Allan Mulally will be getting the lions share of the money for now.

Link

New Mazda 6 spy shots

As any automotive engineer eventually learns,the chances of having one of your secret test mules discovered by a photographer gets higher the more you go about your business in public.

This latest shot is brought to you complements of the always incredibly efficient Brenda Priddy and company.

These shots show what appears like a significant update to the Mazda 6 chassis that is shared with the latest Ford Fusion.

it's surprising that Fords ongoing problems haven't affected Mazda's fortunes and the company continues to cement it's market share even under the relentless competition in the north American Automobile market.

 Autoweek

More problems for Ford

If Ford CEO Allan Mulally doesn't have enough on his plate, the National Highway safety administration has released what can only be considered  a rare advisory to consumers of what looks like up to ten million Ford Motor company vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it is concerned that only about half of nearly 10 million vehicles have been returned for the repair.
“Failure to have the switch disconnected could lead to a vehicle fire at any time,” the agency advisory said.
NHTSA officials did not say whether they have new reports of fires, which can occur while vehicles are parked with the engine off. Some fires have burned homes with attached garages, owners claimed.
The repair involves installing a wiring harness around the switch. NHTSA said in its advisory that owners of unrepaired vehicles should at least have the switches disconnected.

This company can't seem to get a break, while Ford seems to be making headway and has product in the pipeline that should add money to the bottom line, this can't come at the worst time.

This is a P.R. nightmare

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