Nascar

   Nascar The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family owned and operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sporting events. It was founded by Bill France, Sr. in 1947–48. As of 2014, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of Bill France, Sr. NASCAR is the largest sanctioning body of stock car racing in the United States. In the 1920s and 1930s, Daytona Beach became known as the place to set world land speed records, supplanting France and Belgium as the preferred location for land speed records, with eight consecutive world records set between 1927 and 1935. After a historic race between Ransom Olds and Alexander Winton in 1903, the beach became a mecca for racing enthusiasts and 15 records were set on what became the Daytona Beach road course between 1905 and 1935. By  1936, Daytona Beach had become synonymous with fast cars. Stock car racing in the United States has its origins in bootlegging during Prohibition, when drivers ran bootleg whiskey made primarily in the Appalachian region of the United States. Bootleggers needed to distribute their illicit products, and they typically used small, fast vehicles to better evade the police. Many of the drivers would modify their cars for speed and handling, as well as increased cargo capacity, and some of them came to love the fast-paced driving down twisty mountain roads. The cars continued to improve, and by the late 1940s, races featuring these cars were being run for pride and profit. These races were popular entertainment in the rural Southern United States, and they are most closely associated with the Wilkes County region of North Carolina. Most races in those days were of modified cars. Street vehicles were lightened and reinforced. NASCAR is second only to the National Football League among professional sports franchises in terms of television ratings in the United States. Internationally, NASCAR races are broadcast in over 150 countries. In 2004 NASCAR's Director of Security stated that NASCAR holds 17 of the top 20 regularly attended single-day sporting events in the world.Fortune 500 companies sponsor NASCAR more than any other motor sport,although this has been in decline since the early 2000s.

HSV

 Holden Special Vehicles was founded in 1987 as a joint venture between

Holden and Tom Walkinshaw Racing.  Walkinshaw Racing is an operation owned by Scottish racing car driver and entrepreneur Tom Walkinshaw. The first car produced by HSV was the Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV in 1988 (based on the VL Commodore and not to be confused with the HDT's similarly named Holden VL Commodore SS Group A).  It had a distinctive body kit with a large rear wing (earning it the nicknames "The Batmobile" and the "Plastic Pig") and was powered by a modified version of the Holden 5.0 litre V8, which had dual throttle body electronic fuel injection and was rated at 245 PS (180 kW) in road car form. Over the years HSV have built an array of modified vehicles, most of which have been based on the Commodore and powered by either Holden or GM sourced V8s. Notable models produced by Holden Special Vehicles include the Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SVand Holden VN Commodore SS Group A SV (both developed and produced for Holden), and the HSV badged SV 5000, Clubsport, Senator,GTS, GTS-R, XU6 and Grange models. Since the year 2000, HSV's products have progressively found their way into export markets in limited numbers, most notably to the United Kingdom. In 2007, HSV celebrated its 20th anniversary with the release of the 20th Anniversary Clubsport R8, limited to a production run of 100 vehicles. This anniversary edition was followed by the HSV move into the Middle Eastern market as Chevrolet Special Vehicles (CSV) with the CSV CR8.

Tesla Motors

Tesla Motors, Inc. is an American company that designs, manufactures, and sells electric cars and electric vehicle powertrain components. Tesla Motors was formed in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who financed the company until the Series A round of funding. Tesla Motors is named after electrical engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla.The Tesla Roadster uses an AC motor descended directly from Tesla's original 1882 design.The Tesla Roadster, the company's first vehicle, is the first production automobile to use lithium-ion battery cells and the first production EV with a range greater than 200 miles (320 km) per charge. Between 2008 and March 2012, Tesla sold more than 2,250 Roadsters in 31 countries. Tesla was founded in San Carlos, California, in Silicon Valley. Tesla opened its first retail store in Los Angeles, California, in April 2008 and a second in Menlo Park, California, in July 2008. The company's  display showroom is in New York City's Chelsea art district it opened in July 2009. Tesla Motors first gained widespread attention following their production of the Tesla Roadster, the first fully electric sports car. The company's second vehicle is the Model S, a fully electric luxury sedan.Tesla also markets electric powertrain components, including lithium-ion battery packs to automakers including Daimler and Toyota. A vehicle under $40,000 is not expected until at least 2017.

Autonomous Cars The Future

Autonomous cars are not anticipated to begin hitting the road until 2020, but a new study predicts that once they’re here, they will quickly become a common sight. Come 2035, nearly 54 million autonomous vehicles will be in consumers’ driveways worldwide and annual sales of the vehicles will reach almost 12 million, according to the study by IHS Automotive. After 2050, the study predicts that nearly all of the vehicles in use -- both personal and commercial -- will be self-driving. A future based on driverless cars could mean big changes to the way cities are shaped. Given that there are plenty of things wrong with our relationship to cars today, it’s tempting to fantasize about how much better things would be be once self-driving vehicles become the normal. “U.S. history shows that anytime you make driving easier, there seems to be this inexhaustible desire to live further from things,” said Ken Laberteaux, the senior principal scientist for Toyota’s North American team. It has been said though human-driven cars will still crash into autonomous vehicles, “as the market share of SDCs on the highway grows, overall accident rates will decline steadily. Luxury nameplates like Acura, Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti, Lincoln, Audi and BMW currently offer radar-based cruise control and lane-keeping assist, two early components of autonomous driving.When true SDCs start hitting luxury-vehicle dealer lots between 2020 and 2025, IHS forecasts the features will add $7,000 to $10,000 to purchase prices. By 2030, this premium will drop to around $1,000 for entry-level cars. Legal issues surrounding self-driving cars will also need to be addressed. Michigan recently became only the fourth state in the U.S. to allow the testing of self-driving cars, behind California, Nevada and Florida. Yet each of these states requires that a licensed, capable driver be ready to take control of the vehicle at any moment. When the time comes will you be driving a autonomous vehicle or sticking to the old school way of driving? 

Ferrari F80

      Ferrari debuted their LaFerrari not too long ago, Raeli thought it was about time to pull the curtain back on his Ferrari F80 Supercar. The vehicle will be powered by a hybrid drivetrain that pairs a KERS system with a combustion engine to produce 1,200 horsepower. The Art Center College of Design graduate has dumped the iconic V12 in favor of a 900 horsepower twin-turbo V8 setup (paired with the 300 horsepower KERS system). The vehicle’s proposed weight of 1,763 pounds means the 2-seater would sprint to 62 mph in just 2.2 seconds with a top speed of 310 miles per hour.  The legendary Ferrari F40 was also powered by the same twin-turbocharged V8 power plant. Don’t look for the car to hit production anytime soon but enjoy the car’s seductive lines above.

Joan Rivers

  Joan Rivers also known as Joan Alexandra Rosenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York in June 8, 1933. Joan Rivers was well known for being an: American actress, comedian, writer, producer, and television host, best known for her stand-up comedy, for co-hosting the E! celebrity fashion show Fashion Police, and for starring in the reality series Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? alongside her daughter Melissa Rivers. Rivers first came to prominence in 1965 as a guest on The Tonight Show, a pioneering late-night program with interviews and comedy, hosted by Johnny Carson, whom she acknowledged as her mentor. During her 55-year career as a comedian, her tough-talking style of satirical humor was both praised and criticized as being truthful, yet too personal, too gossipy, and very often abrasive. Nonetheless, with her ability to “tell it like it is,” she became a pioneer of contemporary stand-up comedy. Her style of humor, which often relied on making jokes about her own life and mock the lives of celebrities and public figures, was sometimes criticized as insensitive. Rivers accepted such criticism as part of her using social satire as a form of humor: "I've learned to have absolutely no regrets about any jokes I've ever done ... You can tune me out, you can click me off, it's OK. I am not going to bow to political correctness. But you do have to learn, if you want to be a satirist, you can't be part of the party." On August 28, 2014, Rivers experienced serious complications and stopped breathing during a procedure on her vocal cords, at a clinic in Yorkville, Manhattan. She was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and was put into a medically induced coma after reportedly suffering cardiac arrest. On August 30, it was reported that Rivers had been put on life support. On September 3, Melissa issued a brief statement that Rivers had been moved from Mount Sinai Hospital's intensive care unit into a private room, without any comment concerning Rivers's condition or prognosis.The following day, she announced via another statement that Rivers had died at 13:17 EDT. Rest is peace Joan Rivers you will be missed.

Legends Car Racing

Legends car racing is a style of race car, designed primarily to promote exciting racing and to keep costs down. The bodyshells are 5/8-scale replicas of American automobiles from the 1930s and 1940s, powered by a Yamaha motorcycle engine. The sanctioning body for Legends car racing is called INEX. INEX stands for inexpensive racing. Legends Cars are a one design series, meaning all cars are mechanically identical, with the exception of 3 styles of car (Standard coupe, 34 Coupe, and Sedan) available with 10 types of body styles. (New cars are currently offered with only 7 body styles, however many used cars exist with the "older" styles). In 1992, Charlotte Motor Speedway (formerly Lowe's Motor Speedway) officials noticed a need for lower cost racing cars with little maintenance time and cost. They found such a car existed, in the guise of the motorcycle-engined Dwarf Car, a 5/8-scale, steel-bodied & fenderless '35 Ford coupe, which was being manufactured by the Dwarf Car Company in Phoenix, AZ. The first Legend car was unveiled in April 1992 at Lowe's by track President and General Manager Humpy Wheeler and road racer Elliott Forbes-Robinson. Legends Cars are produced by US Legend Cars International. (Formerly 600 Racing, Inc.) in Harrisburg, North Carolina. They are the largest mass producer of race cars in the world. On January 22, 2010, it was announced that US Legend Cars International would host a Million Dollar purse race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, on July 15–17, 2010. 301 Legends Cars were on hand for the Inaugural "Legends Million" event. The event was televised live on Speed Channel with Daniel Hemeric of Kannapolis, NC, taking home the top prize of $250,000.The event was hosted again at Charlotte Motor Speedway under the name of The Legends Big Money 100 on August 1–2, 2011. The winner was Kyle Plott of Marietta, Georgia. He held off NASCAR driver David Ragan, a past Legends and Bandolero champion, to win the 100 lap race.The 3rd annual Big Money 100 was once again hosted at Charlotte Motor Speedway on July 4 weekend of 2012. Tyler Green won the 100 lap feature.