The Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum is sending 11 dragsters to England for Goodwood Festival of Speed. The following is from the press release.
___________________

The relationship between the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, presented by Automobile Club of Southern California, and the prestigious Goodwood Festival of Speed continues to prosper. The Museum has been supplying cars to the event for a few years, according to Tony Thacker, executive director of the Parks Museum. "We took Ak Miller's El Caballo over in 2005," he said, "and last year we shipped the Mickey Thompson Challenger along with several other significant land speed record holders. This year, it's the turn of the dragsters so we're coordinating the shipment of 11 cars."

The 3-day festival runs from July 11-13 and is held at the Goodwood House in West Sussex, England.

Thacker said the first American dragsters shipped to England were the Mooneyes dragster (pictured) and Mickey Thompson's Harvey Aluminum Special in 1963. "My dad took me to see them and I'm honored to be a part of this celebration of American horsepower. And the Mooneyes dragster will be a part of the team returning 45 years after it first raced in the UK."

Other dragsters taking part in the "cricket pitch" display, which will give a snapshot of the history of Top Fuel drag racing, include: Art Chrisman's #25 car, the Glass Slipper, Chrisman's Hustler I, Tommy Ivo's Barnstormer and 4-engined Showboat, the Howard Cams Rattler, The Addict, the Beebe & Mulligan car and the Over The Hill Gang car. It is also expected that "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, who raced in England several times, will ship a car as well.

"To display the land speed cars, Goodwood built a replica of the Bonneville Salt Flats using ground marble imported from Spain," said Thacker. "This year they plan to recreate an early dragstrip, much like Lions, and 'cackle' the dragsters several times throughout the festival. It should be pretty spectacular. For more information about the Goodwood Festival, visit here.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary and named for the founder of the National Hot Rod Association, the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by the Automobile Club of Southern California houses the very roots of hot rodding. Scores of famous vehicles spanning American motorsports history are on display, including winning cars representing 50 years of drag racing, dry lakes and salt-flat racers, oval track challengers and exhibits describing their colorful backgrounds.

Fresh off her Japanese IndyCar race win, Danica Patrick may be considering a possible run at F1. Back in 2005 Patrick had said:

"Every driver would love to drive a formula one car at some point in their life, so yeah. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a real, proper test.” Late last month she said she was "dead set" on giving it  a try at some point.

Nick Fry, chief executive of Honda's F1 team recently stated:

"We haven’t instigated anything, but if Danica wanted to be test driver then we’d be more than happy to talk about it.”

Full story here.

Beginning next year F1 will be phasing in the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), resulting in hybrid race cars; and by 2013, all F1 racers will be hybrids.

The KERS works by storing energy expelled under braking, which can then be used via a "push-to-pass"-style button mounted on the steering wheel that drivers can employ for an extra power boost.

Full story here.

"It's a long time coming. Finally."

Danica Patrick becomes the first woman to win an IndyCar race, or any major open-wheel racing event for that matter. Patrick finished 5.8594 seconds ahead of Helio Castroneves to take the Japan 300.

Many have wondered if this win—or any win, for that matter, was to be in the cards for the much ballyhooed 26-year old Patrick, as this was her 50th race start.

Not so for Andretti Green Racing co-owner Michael Andretti, who stated: "Danica is such a fantastic person and I'm thrilled for her that the monkey is finally off of her back. We have all believed in her and she proved today that she is a winner. Frankly, I think this is the first of many."

Full story here and here.

Here's Inside Line's take: Patrick's IndyCar Victory Historic for Her and for Women in Racing

Image: AP

If you recall, last year Porsche developed a special Cayenne to compete in the 4,400 mile Moscow-to-Mongolia Transsyberia Rally. Now they've come up with a new-and-improved version for this year's race.

Improvements over last year's racer include a new sump guard, a beefier tire package, tweaked air suspension, a shorter final drive ratio (shared with the new Cayenne GTS), plus updates to the transmission programming, dynamic chassis control and traction management systems. Also, an upgrade conversion package is available for those who own last year's model.

Full story here.

Here's Inside Line's take: Porsche Updates Rally Cayenne for 2008

Subaru will enter an STI in the upcoming 36th ADAC Zurich 24-Hour Race, which is held at the Nürburgring circuit in May.

The car will be almost stock, but it will be lightened and will have added safety features. It will be run in the SP6 class (3.0-3.5 liter displacement as turbochargers/superchargers account for 1.7 times the actual displacement). Interesting to note that this STI racer has 4 fog lamps.

Subaru has stated that they're looking to this race to help them improve their production cars, vehicles you and I can buy. NASCAR, are you listening?

Full story here.

Now that the dust has settled a bit on the Max Mosley sexcapade, several automakers that participate in F1 have had a chance to respond with their own comments on the matter. BMW and Mercedes issued a joint statement. These two firms, being German, are especially concerned about the alleged Nazi connotations of the incident.

BMW & Mercedes-Benz: "The content of the publications is disgraceful. As a company, we strongly distance ourselves from it. This incident concerns Max Mosley both personally and as President of the FIA, the global umbrella organisation for motoring clubs. Its consequences therefore extend far beyond the motor sport industry. We await a response from the relevant FIA bodies."

Toyota: “Toyota Motorsport does not approve of any behaviour which could be seen to damage Formula 1’s image, in particular any behaviour which could be understood to be racist or anti-Semitic,”

Honda: "The Honda Racing F1 Team is extremely disappointed by recent events surrounding Mr. Mosley and we are concerned that the reputation of Formula 1 and all its participants is being damaged.

"We request that the FIA gives this matter careful consideration and reaches an immediate decision in the best interests of F1 and motorsport."

Full story here and here.

Here's Inside Line's take: Formula 1: Bizarre Sex Scandal Involving FIA President Max Mosley

Despite the headline news about his 'sadomasochistic orgy' sex video, Max Mosley has no plans of stepping down as the FIA head. He has just issued an apology for the embarrassment this has caused the FIA, but remains committed to remain in his current role of president of the organization. He blames this on a 'covert' operation that's out to discredit him.

In the apology letter, Mosley writes:

"From information provided to me by an impeccable high-level source close to the UK police and security services, I understand that over the last two weeks or so, a covert investigation of my private life and background has been undertaken by a group specialising in such things, for reasons and clients as yet unknown. I have had similar but less well-sourced information from France.

"Regrettably you are now familiar with the results of this covert investigation and I am very sorry if this has embarrassed you or the club. Not content with publicising highly personal and private activities, which are, to say the least, embarrassing, a British tabloid newspaper published the story with the claim that there was some sort of Nazi connotation to the matter. This is entirely false.

"It is against the law in most countries to publish details of a person's private life without good reason. The publications by The News of the World are a wholly unwarranted invasion of my privacy and I intend to issue legal proceedings against the Newspaper in the UK and other jurisdictions."

Here is what some close to the situation are saying:

Jody Scheckter: "There is absolutely no question in my mind that Mosley should resign. From a purely motor racing point of view you can't have somebody like this running the sport or any other sport come to that. I really think he ought to go and I would like to see the press having a concerted campaign to persuade him to do just that."

Unidentified FIA spokesman: "We understand that Mr. Mosley had originally planned to attend Bahrain but is currently unavailable due to consultation with lawyers, and we cannot confirm his plans,"

Bernie Ecclestone: "He shouldn't go [to Bahrain], should he? The problem is he would take all the ink away from the race and put it on something which, honestly and truly, is nobody else's business anyway. .... What Max should do is what he thinks is right because it is only him that's involved, not the FIA. He must do what he believes, in his heart of hearts, is the right thing."

More on this story here and here.

Wow—and nope, this is not an April Fool's joke two days early. Max Mosley, president of the FIA has been caught on a sado-masochist sex video in which he engages hookers in a Nazi orgy.

Mosely is the 67-year old son of infamous British wartime fascist leader, and a friend of Adolf Hitler, Oswald Mosley. In fact Hitler attended his father's wedding; his father died in 1980. He is one of the most powerful men in motorsports as he heads up F1 racing.

This puts the former New York "Luv Guv" sex caper on page two of the British tabloid press, for sure. As news of this has hit the Internet, pressure for Moxley to resign is building speed faster than Schumacher barreling down the straight at the Monaco GP. One can only wonder what sort of fallout damage this news will bring to F1 racing.

“This is sick and depraved,” Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said. “For anyone to be in such a position of influence and power beggars belief. I am absolutely appalled.”

Stirling Moss, who had a Jewish father, was quoted in the Times as saying: "I don't see how he can continue. I hope he can, frankly, because I think he's very good at what he does. I suppose what goes on behind closed doors is his business, but when a thing comes out like this ... it's an absolute shocker."

Full story here, here and here. So far no comment from the FIA.

Straightline has reported before that NASCAR was slipping in terms of fans support, and now Inside Line has a story up reinforcing that claim. While there still is a lot of support for the Daytona 500, that's not the case for other races held throughout the season. TV ratings have also shown a marked decline over the last several years. So there is much concern within NASCAR ranks as to its future.

Those within the sport, such as Humpy Wheeler of Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, feel the problem lies in the greatly increased ticket costs. I'm sure that's part of it, but I think there's far more to it than that.

My take is that NASCAR is suffering from six things:

First, overexposure; you can't go anywhere on TV without finding something NASCAR-related, or finding some NASCAR-type race being televised. I just think the TV audience is drowning in NASCAR coverage, and are saying enough is enough.

Second, I think audiences have finally discovered that the "stock" in stock car racing is nothing more than a myth. Unlike 30, 40 or 50 years ago, when the "SC" in NASCAR truly meant "stock car," today's NASCAR racers are so far removed from what you can buy in a showroom that many fans no longer can relate to the cars being raced. I don't know about you, but when I see race cars that use decals for headlights and a grille, so that from a distance they look sorta look like their street counterparts, I just cringe.

Third, while many claim that oval racing is exciting, there are just as many who claim it's boring as hell.

Fourth, the green movement could be taking its toll on racing in general, and NASCAR is just feeling the same heat that all motorsports are feeling. Many who are not into motorsports racing tend to view NASCAR as a relic from a bygone era, and therefore are more likely to think, that of all forms of motor racing, NASCAR is probably the least green. Whether that's true or not is not the point; it's the perception of that point that matters.

Fifth, politics—or perhaps better stated, political affiliations. I suspect many Americans (Democrats!) feel that NASCAR is a very southern and very conservative organization, with strong Republican leanings, and as such, are supported by like-minded fans. They view NASCAR and their fans as being George Bush supporters—and will reject anything that smacks of the president and his party.

Sixth, I think NASCAR is often associated with a certain group of people, okay... "Redneck Nation," and many Americans just don't identify with them. Call it classism, if you will, but it exists and it's a powerful motivator.

So, where does that leave NASCAR? Where and/or what do they do to reverse their recent slide in popularity?

Daytona 500: Is NASCAR in Trouble?