Meanwhile, at Daytona...

Gary Grant/ Flickr

Scandinavians Like Bugs

Granted, I have no idea what they are actually saying but I think it has something to do with VW Bugs...

2013 Seat Leon Cup

SEAT is the Spanish subsidiary of VW and their version of the Golf GTI, the Leon, has been doing touring car championship duties for years.  Along with WTCC and ETCC,  SEAT has its own single make championship, the Leon Cup  and their latest car has got to be one of the hottest FWD racers ever, even considering our obvious bias towards orange accents!

1120 kg / 2470 lbs, two liter turbo rated at 330 hp and 350 Nm /258 ft/lb through the front wheels.  Full FIA roll cage, and adjustable suspension, large 362 mm front disks with 6 piston caliper up front,  the Leon Cup will also be available in an endurance racing version which will swap the 6 speed DSG for a sequential, the electronic LSD for a mechanical one and add a larger 60 liter fuel tank.

The Leon Cup will be priced starting at 70000 Euros with the Endurance version starting at 95000 Eu.

Teaching Men With Mustaches How To Hoon

If we still had no ABS and zero grip tires , I don't think texting while driving would be much of an issue...  Dutch Police training film from the 1960s.

Ogier scores first win for the VW Polo R WRC

Sebastien Ogier gave VW their first WRC victory for the Polo R in just their second outing.  For Sebastien Loeb instead, Rally Sweden will remain somewhat of a "bête noire" (or should it be a bête blanche?),  his only winwas  in 2004 and it was obviously one trophy  he hoped to score in this his final abbreviated season.

2013 Rally Sweden:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car              Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Ogier     VW                  3h11m41.9s
 2.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen                + 41.8s
 3.  Mads Ostberg        Qatar M-Sport Ford   + 1m24.5s
 4.  Jari-Matti Latvala  VW                   + 1m30.6s
 5.  Thierry Neuville    Qatar M-Sport Ford   + 5m06.4s
 6.  Juho Hanninen       Qatar M-Sport Ford   + 5m43.1s
 7.  Martin Prokop       Czech Ford          + 11m25.4s
 8.  Henning Solberg     M-Sport Ford        + 11m42.7s
 9.  Evgeny Novikov      Qatar M-Sport Ford  + 13m04.7s
10.  Yazeed Al Rahji     Yazeed Ford         + 16m27.0s

On a side note, Petter Solberg won the historic portion of the rally in a rwd Ford Escort MKII with his wife Pernilla as navigator and ...mechanic!

Ice Racing in Quebec

GAB Eurosport TT

Bolt on the skinny studs and go rip on frozen water.

Lavaltrie, Quebec,  a balmy 16F today,  I have no idea how cold it was when this video was shot but fair guess,  the six point harness has to fit over a snowmobile suit.

With lots of  VAG power and a couple of Hondas tossed in the mix one thing seems certain, if you can see anything, you're winning.

Video Clip by tuner shop Unitronic,  bonus clip after the break.

Chump Car: Minnesota Meltdown

Jonathan Gitlin is back reporting for us from the tropical world of ChumpCar,   It was a buggy and   blistering hot race again but in Minnesota this time where he and his mates literally drove the wheels off their Golf.....check the video if you don't believe me!


The last time I graced the pages of this site, it was fresh off the Golf's ChumpCar debut at historic Road America. Despite running into problems both days, we brought home a pair of 7th places, but it was obvious that Wolfburg's finest had the makings of a great grassroots racing car. Could we bring the fight to the mighty E30 and E36s? The guys had been hard at work in the intervening weeks before we rocked up at another storied Can-Am track, Brainerd International Raceway (nee Donnybrooke), in Minnesota.

There were an awful lot of these guys, and some of them were very fast! 

A suspension refresh saw the car on coilovers, promising even better handling around the shorter 2.6 mile layout at Brainerd. The interior was even tidier than at Road America, and now the passenger footwell now bore a large grey cooler with a pair of blue pipes coming out. With 90˚F+ temps all but guaranteed, investing in a CoolShirt set up for the team was a no brainer. This year there would be no repeat of drivers coming in early with heatstroke!

Saturday started well. Fresh Dunlop Star Specs graced the front wheels, giving plenty of grip, and even if we were outclassed in the power stakes by the rear wheel drive competition, we were able to mix it with the very best of them in the braking zones. Alex (responsible for most of the photos and as talented with a camera as he is behind the wheel) took the first stint, and handed the car over to me in a strong 5th place.

VW flying in Finland

Volkswagen Motorsport continued their tests in Finland with the Polo R WRC and Fabia S2000 with crew Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia on typical Finnish rallying roads.
You might notice any number of sideways jumps...

The Great American Meltdown, Road America, April 2012

We're very happy to have our friend Jonathan Gitlin  as a guest writer on Axis of Oversteer.   
It's endurance racing season and we hope to bring you more reports from inside races of all kinds to add prospectives you might not get elsewhere.   
Chump Car World Series, while focused on extremely low cost ($500 cars) is not to be confused with the 24 hours of Lemons.  As you may recall Axis was banned for life from Lemons guilty of not realizing it had nothing to do with racing....Jon did not make that mistake.


The Great American Meltdown, Road America, April 2012

As a regular reader of Axis of Oversteer, it's probably no surprise that racing is fairly important to me. Holidays often involve visits to various circuits, and it probably wasn't a coincidence that my wife and I spent our honeymoon in the Cote d'Azur when the F1 circus was in town.

But as much fun as watching other people race is, donning nomex and doing it myself has been a goal for quite a while. Sadly, racing isn't the cheapest sport out there, and a career in science has been more intellectually than financially rewarding.  Fortunately different racing series now cater to different budgets, and the advent of the ChumpCar World Series has meant that you too can get your grassroots endurance racing thrills without having to drive a parade float either.

My first ChumpCar experience was at a very cold and somewhat snowy Road America in April 2011, where I discovered that video games actually could help you prepare for some aspects quite well, but were nowhere near as much fun. 

Work commitments and scheduling meant that I had a very long off season, for that was the only time I managed to get out on track last year. A year is a long time to wait, but last month saw us return to Elkhart Lake, WI, for the Great American Meltdown, a pair of 7 hour races that marked the start of my 2012 season and the first outing for our team's new chariot for the year, an immaculately prepped 1991 VW Golf GTI; big thanks to our sponsors, Frozen Rotors, Parts4VWs.com, The Alignment Guy, and The Four Firkins.

Photo: Alex Bellus

Beetlejuice

You have to go to Norway to find some classic California look VW love?.

Racing on the Moon, Chased by Helicopters

That what the Dakar seems like. The race ended today without surprises, VW dominated the car class for the 12th time in 13 tries.

Quatari prince Nasser Al-Attiyah finally defeated El Matador, Carlos Sainz who was faster but ran into trouble and ended up third, behind the other VW of South African De Villiers. The BMW X3 challenger finished 4th with Stephane Peterhansel ruing some navigation errors and technical issues but vowing to be back in 2012.

Aprilia's challenge to Red Bull KTM's domination went nowhere and the Russians won the truck class again.

No big surprises but check out some spectacular pictures after the jump

01. Nasser Al-Attiyah/Timo Gottschalk (QAT/GER Volkswagen) 45hr 04min 07sec
02. Giniel de Villiers/Dirk Von Zitzewitz (RSA/GER/Volkswagen) at 49:41
03. Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz (ESP/Volkswagen) 1hr 20min 38sec
04. Stephane Peterhansel/Jean-Paul Cottret (FRA/BMW) 1h 43:48
05. Krzysztof Holowczyc/Jean-Marc Fortin (POL/BEL/BMW) 4h 11:21
06. Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford (USA/RSA/Volkswagen) 4 h 54:40













(photos: ap, VW, forocoches.com)

Before there was DTM, real men raced in DRM

Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft , the German Racing Championship was the precursor to the now more famous DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) that ran between 1972 and 1985. It started, much like DTM, with fairly agricultural production cars and through the years evolved to the point of absurdity with insanely flared silhouette tube frame cars and sport prototypes until it just priced itself out of existence and was replaced by the (at the time) more sensible touring cars.

Enjoy this long slide show of some of these epic cars, from a racing VW bug all the way to the monster Joest Porshes of the mid 80's. Check out where the genesis of the famous BMW e30 M3 flares ...a Fiat 128...who knew!

Videos are after the jump.

Grab your Salt Shaker: VW to Formula 1 in 2011

So the story goes like this: struggling Campos Meta GP owes a bunch of money to Dallara for the cars the italian company built for the 2010 season and did not get any of the promised "rescue" money from failed racing series owner Tony Teixeira.

In steps Bernie Ecclestone to convince, perhaps with some help with the middle east, the majority partner in Campos to cough up six million Euros, which he somehow was previously unwilling or unable to raise, and pay off Dallara and allowing the team to race in 2010. This would then lead to the team's namesake, Adrian Campos, leaving the team and being replaced as team manager by Colin Kolles, the former Jordan-Midland-Spyker-Force India manager from Ingolstadt, home of Audi and VW taking over the team.

Colles has a reputation as a tough guy and is know to have personally performed dental surgery on at least two of his drivers before races rather than have them drop out of the racing week end, Tiago Monteiro in 2005 and Christian Albers in 2006. Now there's some cost savings, savings which along with the lower entry price of F1 now would be enough to entice VW into Bernie's circus. through the back door.

All this from an article in Spain's AS newspaper. Pass the salt please.




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Porsche sued for ONE BEEEEEEELLION Dollars!

A group of American hedge funds who had shorted VW stock is suing Porsche for ....acting like a hedge fund.

Axis Financial Division analysis: this will go nowhere, hedge funds losing money playing their own game will get no sympathy, especially in Europe.

Read the all about it in Autocar



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El Matador Wins the Dakar!

"El Matador" Carlos Sainz finally added a Dakar win to his WRC championship today. Volkswagen sweeped the podium with Sainz ahead of UAE's Nasser Al-Attiyah and the USA's Mark Miller. VW main rival was BMW who would have been very close with Stephane Peterhansel but for his driveshaft failing and forcing the Frenchman to complete the stage, after a heroic repair, with just the front wheels driven.

The Bike race went to KTM's Cyril Despres ahead of Norwegian Pal Anders Ullevalseter (also KTM) and Chilean Francisco "Chaleco" Lopez Contardo (Aprilia).

Trucks were mostly a Russian affair with the win going to Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz), his ninth Dakar win. Two Argentinian brothers came in first and second in the quad category on Yamahas.








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Dakar 2010 Video Gallery

We'll leave it up to other sites to bring you the stunning pictures from this year's Dakar Rally (Don't miss Boston.com's Big picture, amazing stuff), we thought we would gather some video for you.

I have to say, after my initial skepticism over a Dakar run in South America, I am totally won over. The scenery in the high deserts of Chile and Argentina is breathtaking and the terrain as challenging as anything in Africa and with the added bonus of not having to deal with terrorists and kidnappers.

There are a few videos here and many more after the jump, enough to keep you busy for a while including recaps of the latest stage, have fun.

Robby Gordon Wins a Dakar Stage!

Robby Gordon won the 4th Dakar Rally stage today. The Rally is now over the Andes into Chile from Argentina, Gordon in his Monster Energy Hummer Baja truck was one single second faster than Rally leader Stephane Peterhansel in a BMW Diesel X3 and four Tiguan shaped VW trucks...





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Uncle Walter Drives a Van...

First time I've ever seen Walter Röhrl look nervous... I can't imagine why?



I mean a 790HP, 195mph VW van with a MclarenF1 driving position on a wet track, what could possibly go wrong?

More after the jump

Porsche 998 Turbo Revealed

After the jump...



read Porsche FAIL

Who said Tracktards are not Green?

This one should get the PETA hero award for risking a major crash in a high speed turn at Mallory Park to spare the life of a duck and her oh so cuddly seven ducklings. God knows PETA would have protested if he had made paté out of them!

(thanks Dale!)



And here is the rest of it.