If the one thing stopping you from buying an Abarth-spec Fiat model is the nagging question of whether you’ll get free track time out of the deal, consider your question answered.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced yesterday that anyone buying or leasing a Fiat 124 Spider Abarth or 500 Abarth model has a year to sign up for the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, free of charge. Your tiny turbo won’t know what hit it.

TTAC’s membership in the Ford GT club just got a whole lot less exclusive (sorry, Sanjay), after Ford Motor Company announced an extension of its supercar production.

Ford Performance will tack on another two years of GT production, meaning thousands of jilted would-be buyers still have a chance to score the carbon fiber beast.

R.I.P. victory lap burnouts? It sure looks that way.

NASCAR seems to have reached a tipping point in its tolerance of post-race victory burnouts, some of which damage the vehicle enough to interfere with the post-race inspection process. After an incident last weekend, the organization says it might have to lay down rules, Autoblog reports.

General Motors just released pricing and performance figures for its 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, and unless Ford comes up with a hotter Mustang, it looks like Dodge still holds the domestic performance crown.

Billed as the most powerful production Camaro ever, the 650-horsepower ZL1 comes with an MSRP of $62,135 for coupe models, $69,135 for drop-tops. Lower-end models stand to benefit from Chevy’s 1LE performance package.

In old mystery novels, it’s usually the butler, gardener or maid that police nab for committing a dastardly crime. In 21st Century São Paulo, Brazil, it’s the helicopter pilot.

After rescuing Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone’s mother-in-law from kidnappers earlier this week, Brazilian authorities arrested the racing tycoon’s pilot on suspicion of involvement, the BBC reports.

Rarely does a high-profile hostage-taking resolve itself in such a nice, PG-13 film manner.

Aparecida Schunck, the 67-year-old mother-in-law of Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone, was found tied up in a dingy apartment near São Paulo, nine days after her kidnapping, the BBC reported last night.

Brazilian media sources say kidnappers are demanding a huge ransom for the safe return of Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone’s mother-in-law.

The São Paulo kidnapping of Aparecida Schunck, mother of Ecclestone’s wife Fabiana Flosi, was reported in Veja and Globo, according to the BBC. The assailants are asking for $36.5 million.

Two years of owner complaints and embarrassing media coverage forced Chevrolet to do something about the Corvette Z06’s overheating problems.

The automaker plans to dial down the engine temperature of 2017 models by installing a new hood with larger vents and a modified supercharger cover, hopefully ending the overheating warnings that plagued Z06 models that ventured onto the track.

It’s a great day for an automaker when it can say it sold an entire year’s worth of vehicles in less than a week. Things get less impressive when it’s the final model year of a niche vehicle.

Still, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is putting on its bragging pants and grabbing the megaphone after it sold every special-edition version of the 2017 Dodge Viper in a matter of days. So great was the response, FCA plans to offer one last version of the 25-year-old nameplate.

Summer officially began this week, meaning we are about as far away as humanly possible from the dark and stormy depths of winter. A perfect time, then, to watch action from the 1997 Maine Winter Forest Rally.

This weekend is the 84th 24 Hours of Le Mans. There are many storylines to follow this year, not the least of which is the return of the Ford GT, marking the 50th anniversary of beating Ferrari and placing 1-2-3 in 1966.

This past weekend was one of the best in motorsport, with action from the Nurburgring, Monaco, Indy, and Charlotte.

Not to be left out, the entertaining FIA Rallycross paid a visit to Lydden Hill in the UK. Next, they’re off to the Hell Circuit (yessir, that’s its name) in Norway on June 10th.

Remember the ‘N’ Division, Hyundai’s effort to bring attainable performance to its buyers? No?

Hyundai launched the division last September, three years after it created Project RM (Racing Midship) to test high-performance technology for use in future vehicles. So far, the division hasn’t yielded a production vehicle, but the automaker appears to be getting closer.

The Thundersaloon (you must read that name like a monster truck announcer: “THUNDERsaloon!”) series of racing featured great UK drivers like Robin Donovan and John Cleland. The series saw V8 Carltons, RS500s, and Honda Legends tearing up tracks across Britain.

It beats hooning your mom’s Honda Odyssey.

A teenager took the top spot in the first three races of the Toyota 86 Racing Series this past weekend, beating back the 38 entrants in the fledgling event.

Former kart champion Cameron Hill’s win is exactly what Toyota had in mind when it crafted the three-year series. Designed as an entry point for up-and-coming drivers, the series pits up to five professional drivers against a field of amateurs, with training being top of mind. (Though a $125,000 prize pool sweetens the deal).

You could fill the better part of a day watching bone-headed wrecks filmed outside Cars and Coffee meetups.

The latest (but not the last) automotive crunchfest entertained spectators at last week’s Reno, Nevada event.

The driver of a first-generation Chevrolet Camaro dragster figured laying a magnificent strip of rubber would lend some much-needed panache to his exit. Oh, and it sounded good. Everything was going according to the one-point plan.

The complaint most often tossed at Formula 1 is that despite being the (alleged) pinnacle of motorsports, its relevancy to road cars has disappeared.

That same feeling is what brought us to the current formula of tiny 1.6-liter turbocharged six-cylinder engines, all coupled to a complex hybrid system. Since that move, the racing series has focused more on engine development that in almost any era before, and with that comes a breakthrough in the way we look at thermal efficiency.

Murilee loves to wax about the scourge of Miserable Econoboxes infesting our shores during the Malaise Era. Turns out, a few of them skipped daily commuter duty and went straight to the track instead.

Mario Berthiaume will never forget May 21, 2015.

The rookie racer from Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada is laying down pre-season testing laps in a brand-new racecar prior to the first race of the Nissan Micra Cup. The car feels good. Mario’s lap times are falling, albeit gradually, thanks in part to a new set of tires. His approach is methodical. He’s taking on one corner at a time; after perfecting one turn as much as he can, he moves on to the next. After all, mastering braking points, lines, and apexes at Mont-Tremblant is key to getting the most out of the low power, pint-size racer.

Everything is going as planned.

That is, until seven laps into the fourth shakedown session of the day. Mario makes a rookie mistake and it happens. The rear of the #7 Micra swings right-then-left like a pendulum. The fresh rubber digs into the warming tarmac on the inside of Circuit Mont-Tremblant’s turn 10, causing the Micra to tip and roll. In under 10 seconds, Mario’s racing dream has turned into a $30,000 nightmare — and the twisted aftermath is resting on its side on the outside of turn 10.

His season is over before it even begins.

A federal judge has ruled against a lawsuit that claimed the Porsche Carrera GT driven by actor Paul Walker and Roger Rodas was to blame for their fatal crash.

The suit, filed by Kristine Rodas (widow of the driver), claimed that the Porsche lacked key safety features that contributed to the death of both men, but no evidence could be found to support this.

When fire destroyed Jaguar’s Browns Lane plant on Feb. 12, 1957, nine of the 25 existing XKSS models were consumed by flames. The spartan roadster — a road going version of the famous D-type race car — went on to become a legend and the remaining 16 examples are among the most valuable collector cars on the market.

Now, the lost nine are going to rise from the ashes, as Jaguar plans to use their serial numbers on a limited run of exact replicas, mirroring last year’s E-type Lightweight.

Is it curtains for modified street cars on the racetrack, or will a compromise save the day?

The first meeting of a congressional committee tasked with deciding the fate of drivers who race modified street vehicles took place on March 15, and a glimmer of hope emerged, according to Jalopnik.

Earlier this month, a bipartisan bill — Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports Act of 2016 — was introduced in the House of Representatives and Senate in a bid to make converted race vehicles exempt from proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

The year was 1984. Rally was all the rage. Danger was mainstream. And carcinogens weren’t exclusively advertised by the rumble of tailpipes.

Also in 1984, Porsche was developing a legend, but it was behind schedule: The 959 wasn’t ready when David Richards, the orchestrator of the Porsche-Rothmans deal, wanted to go rallying. So, along with Weissach, 20 examples of the Porsche 911 SC RS were built to take the manufacturer Group B rallying. Those cars also became the foundation of Prodrive, one of rally’s most famous teams.

This is one of those cars. Drifting. In snow.

Ford will sell a backseat kit for its Ford Mustang GT350R because it’s the family car you’ve been asking for, the automaker announced Thursday.

Ford will sell the backseat it removed back to you for $999 (before installation), and it’s even made from the same herd of Alcantaras as the front seats. The rear seats will sport seatbelts and all original GT350 restraint systems.

The demand was clear, according to Ford Performance folks: people want a four-seater, track-ready car that could pull double duty owning all the apexes and hauling kids — which is not already called a Focus RS.

It is no secret that GM has flirted with mid-engine Corvettes for decades. Until now, the company has lacked the motivation, consensus, and/or resources to move to a mid-engine layout.

However, this is the new GM.

The feds are no longer calling the shots and the General has been upstaged by Ford for too long. GM now possesses the financial wherewithal, control, and competitive spirit to harness its resources and once again compete for the title of America’s finest sports car.

Red Bull is known for plastering its brand on every extreme sport it can find — and Frozen Rush is no different. The first round of the off-road snow race series pits nine competitors against each other on the slopes of the Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry, Maine.

A group of documentarians calling themselves RaceReporters/MotorReporters are attempting to piece together what happened during the Cannonball Runs between 1971 and 1979.

Started by Brock Yates, who temporarily found himself at TTAC for a few short weeks, and Steve Smith of Car & Driver, the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash was born in secrecy and kept away from the general public until the Hollywood film of the same name hit the silver screen.

After a “large stash of photography” taken by a Cannonball Run attendee was uncovered in Germany, the filmmakers are putting out a call to others who may have been present to witness what is now one of the most well-known underground “races” in history.

A Utah judge has blocked the sale of Miller Motorsports Park to a Chinese investment firm because county commissioners may have illegally lowered the price to below fair-market value, KSL reported Thursday.

In a filing, Judge Robert Atkins said Tooele county officials tasked with selling the shuttered racetrack ignored higher bids to sell the racetrack for $20 million to Geely-backed Mitime Investment and Development Group. According to the report, county tax officials estimated the value of the track at $28.1 million.

A competing bidder, Center Point Management, said it offered $22.5 million for the park. The Wyoming-based company filed a lawsuit to stop the sale because they said county officials ignored their bid based on unverified promises by the Chinese group.

Jeff “Speedycop” Bloch is arguably the most famous competitor in the history of the 24 Hours of LeMons. Not because he wins the race (although he does have one overall win to my knowledge) and not because he’s been my teammate on a few occasions, but rather because of the unique “Class C” cars that he builds. From an “upside-down” Camaro to the infamous Spirit Of LeMons, Speedycop is always looking for a way to race something that’s never been raced before.

His latest announcement won’t disappoint his fans in the slightest.

In my life, I’ve officiated exactly two LeMons races thanks to the good graces of Murilee Martin. At those races, I’ve watched tech inspectors go over seats, belts and harnesses with more scrutiny than border guards in Israel. To be sure, it’s astounding to me how much safety needs to be welded, worked and crammed into a “junker” from the outside — most people never see that. But even I wondered sometimes why tech was so hard to pass.

There are myriad things that can go wrong on a racetrack. However, there are only a few things that can save lives when those things go wrong. For those lifesaving devices, there’s no substitute or corner-cutting, and there are reasons why good teams spend more on a cage and brakes than they ever spend on an engine.

Case in point: Coming up on a blind crest and running face-first into the rear of a stalled car and everyone is OK after.

FIA’s Formula E first brought its electrified take on open-wheel racing in 2014. Come 2016, the series will bring autonomous racing to the party, as well.

Which begs the question: Is it still racing if there are no drivers in the cars?

Through a partnership with technology investment company Kinetik, Formula E’s 2016-17 season will do away with the driver entirely in a new support series dubbed ROBORACE. Ten teams will field two autonomous cars each, competing on the same circuits as the main Formula E series in one-hour races throughout the entirety of the championship season. The cars will be identical through and through, with “real-time computing algorithms and AI technologies” making the difference between taking the checkered flag first or last.

Federal regulators have postponed rules to require hybrid and EV carmakers to add audible warnings to their cars to alert nearby pedestrians, bicyclists and visually impaired people, Reuters reported.

The audible warnings would be installed on cars made by Ford, Honda and Toyota and be activated when those cars are traveling slower than 18 mph. According to the report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says hybrid and EV cars are 19-percent more likely to be involved in a pedestrian crash when compared to gasoline cars. The rule could prevent 2,800 crashes with pedestrians.

Caparo Industries chairman Angad Paul died Nov. 9 in an apparent suicide just days after the steelmaking company his father founded, and Angad ran, announced massive job cuts and forced administration in Britain, according to The Guardian (via Autoblog).

Caparo Industries is the parent company of Caparo Vehicle Technologies, which produced the Caparo T1 and was planning a higher-end version of the car to go on sale.

The Caparo T1, which was developed with help from McLaren engineers, lived on the fringes of the supercar market with only 16 examples sold in the UK for around $360,000. It was also built at a short-lived plant in the U.S. Prince Albert of Monaco helped unveil the car in 2006 and it later appeared in several racing events around the world, including Goodwood.

Just weeks following the conclusion of a rain-soaked United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, certain details are coming to light that threaten the continuation of the event — and quite possibly operation of the facility as a whole.

One of the many pieces that keeps the event in Austin is the state’s Major Events Trust Fund, which has provided $25 million a year to race promoters since COTA began hosting Formula 1 in 2012.

It was believed the annual $25 million payment was assured for at least 10 years, for a total commitment of $250 million, to be paid by the State of Texas. However, a change in government and an audit of how the fund calculates major events payments has meant race organizers received just $19.5 million for 2015, or $5.5 million less than what was expected.

When the Nissan Micra Cup series was announced in late 2014, there was one main goal: be the most affordable, semi-professional racing series in Canada.

In order to achieve that goal, everything about the series needed to be cost-effective. All races were scheduled in Quebec, where the majority of competitors reside, and tires and brakes had to wear in a predictable manner so as not to “fall off” during race weekends. However, the difficult part was building a racing car to a price — $20,000 CAD, or $15,225 USD at today’s exchange rates, to be exact — so that racers could either pony up the personal funds to buy it themselves or more easily woo sponsors to make their racing dreams come true.

During the planning phase of the series, Nissan Canada and series promoter JD Motorsport tapped racing car builder Motorsports In Action of St-Eustache, Quebec to build the pint-sized racers. MIA, which is located in an indescript row of commercial units racing at Autodrome St-Eustache about 40 minutes northwest of Montreal, fabricates and preps vehicles for varying types of racing series and prides itself on build quality. However, as they say, “Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick Two,” it’s much easier to build a racing car with a high-dollar budget than it is to put together an economical package like the one requested for Micra Cup.

Thankfully, due to MIA’s combined knowledge and ingenuity, racers get a decent chunk of all three. And MIA’s Carl Hermez gave us a tour to show us exactly how they do it.

Have you recently wondered, “What would the face of the redesigned Civic look like plastered on a desert-ready racing truck?” Honda has your number. This is the new Ridgeline.

Except it’s not.

The Japanese automaker announced its return to the Baja 1000 at SEMA on Tuesday and revealed the machine that will carry HPD’s HR35TT race engine — a 550 horsepower, a 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 — across the finish line.

In honor of Miller Motorsports Park’s glorious sale back to the people, fellow auto scribe and LeMons chief judge Murilee Martin, Cheat Sheet Managing Editor Andrew Ganz and I made the people’s journey Thursday across the wasteland wonderful state of Wyoming to judge the proletariat’s race. (I’ll have a story on that later.)

The annual Return of the LeMonites will have a decidedly “red” feel this year, thanks to Murilee’s savvy Alibaba skills and dirt-cheap shipping costs from China.

This isn’t my first rodeo as LeMons judge — but it is my first tour for the best race series on the planet back in the Beehive State. I went to school at the University of Utah (AP No. 10, Coaches No. 12, ESPN No. 9) and Utah is my second home for many reasons. Basically, I’m saying I’m comfortable enough here to make terrible drivers go get me Beto’s if they drive like assholes.

They go and make a video like this and totally redeem themselves! (Not really.)

But the video above sure is entertaining. After rumors that Jenson Button would leave the team this year, the less-than dynamic duo of Button and Fernando Alonso appears to be back in 2016 to compete in GP2 Formula 1. The video has a story, apparently:

Red Bull’s F1 team is the latest victim of Volkswagen’s emissions scandal, as a possible deal between the team and the automaker has gone “up in smoke.”

Andrew Comrie-Picard, also known simply as ACP, is a rally champion and team owner, stunt driver, TV host, former Pikes Peak International Hillclimb record holder and BFGoodrich tire spokesman.

We asked him about his experience in rally, how he sets up cars and how it pertains to road cars.

Miller Motorsport Park is going to be caught up in a Chinese finger trap of lawsuits thanks to one butthurt losing bidder.

Center Point Management, represented by Andrew Cartwright, is taking the winner — Geely subsidiary Mitime — and Tooele County to court over the bidding process.

According to Deseret News, the lawsuit filed by Center Point Management states the county broke local and state laws by “basing its decision on future benefits of uncertain value” instead of Center Point Management’s higher bid amount.

Apple today rolled out a slew of gadgets including an iPad the size of the 10 Commandments, a new iPhone that sounds a lot like the old iPhone that likes to be touched and touched hard, a Pencil that Steve Jobs never wanted and a Microsoft Surface Pro keyboard.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. The new Apple TV may be what most people will be talking about and it could change how we watch motorsports. Imagine in-car feeds between cars chasing each other, live scoring and timing underneath the feeds, cold beer in your fridge and no lines at the bathroom.

We live in exciting times, people.

* for $450,000 or so.

Audi announced Wednesday that it would make available its race-winning R8 LMS GT3 car for anyone comfortable with its $443,348.12 price tag and access to the race series for which this car is appropriate.

For your cool half-mil you get the R8 LMS, presumably that wing, some spare parts and 585 of the loudest horsepowers you could imagine. Customers can order their cars starting today. (Take a check?)

Seven spectators are dead after a rally car plunged Saturday into a crowd of 20 people, killing at least seven and injuring at least 12 more, media outlets are reporting.

The BBC reported that six people were initially dead after the crash in the province of Galicia, which is in northwest Spain. The Daily Mail reported that a young girl who was severely injured in the crash died from her injuries Saturday night.

The La Coruna rally was immediately cancelled after the deadly crash.

Ford is out at Sebring testing their newest toy — the Ford GT LM GTE — in preparation for the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship. Thankfully, someone was on location and captured a few laps on video.

I’d like to personally thank this intrepid track video reporter. The car sounds like a four-wheeled warzone, completely with six turbocharged AK-47-esque cylinders.

Former and current drivers have called on IndyCar officials to review safety equipment in place after racer Justin Wilson died Monday from injuries suffered Sunday at Pocono Raceway, Reuters is reporting.

Wilson was struck in the head by debris from a car that crashed ahead of him, driven by Sage Karam. The incident was similar to accidents in other race series with open cockpits; Felipe Massa was hit by debris in Hungary in 2009 and required surgery, James Hinchcliffe was struck in the head in 2014, which caused a concussion. Wilson’s death was the first for IndyCar since Dan Wheldon was killed in 2011.

“Safety is not one of those things that because you have a clear record for a certain amount of time that you stop doing development,” former race driver Eddie Cheever told ESPN.

Justin Wilson died Monday from injuries sustained Sunday, when a piece of another crashed race car struck him. He was 37.

His family released a short statement thanking well-wishers and fans for their support after the crash. Wilson was a native of Sheffield, England and lived in Longmont, Colorado with his wife and two daughters.

“Justin was a loving father and devoted husband, as well as a highly competitive racing driver who was respected by his peers.”

Wilson was an advocate for track safety, not only for the racers but also for the spectators.

The fine folks over at The Atlantic (yeah, the fancy magazine) have posted a 5-minute short film on the experience that is LeMons. We love it.

(Spot fellow TTAC scribe Murilee Martin in the robe at 1:45.)

For the uninitiated, it’s a expertly captured glimpse at the personalities that make home-grown racing the best kind of racing. For the car nut, the film serves as motivation to get out and work on your race mongrel — now.

V8 Supercar racer James Courtney was injured when an Australian Navy helicopter fly-over dislodged debris near pitlane, which struck and injured the racer, media in Australia is reporting.

Courtney was transported to a local hospital with relatively minor injuries, but is expected to remain there for several days, effectively ending his race weekend. Courtney is currently fifth in the championship standings with five races to follow this weekend’s Sydney Motorsports Park SuperSprint. Courtney’s missed weekend effectively ends his championship run.

Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah (about 45 minutes outside of Salt Lake City) has a new lease on life, Hot Rod is reporting. The racetrack will be purchased by Chinese carmaker Geely and renamed Utah Motorsports Campus. The facility could receive $50 million in upgrades to host more racing events in the future.

The track had been on the ropes after the Miller family, who took over after patriarch Larry H. Miller died in 2009, said they weren’t renewing the lease and walking away from the world-class racetrack.

News on Thursday that two teens were injured at Lime Rock Park near Salisbury, Connecticut brought forward questions about track safety and security.

Namely, how could tracks be safer and more secure when they’re not operational? And could insurance companies, who already charge a considerable amount of money, eventually sink small town tracks that can’t afford to lockdown tracks completely?

Many tracks are rural parts of the country, and run with skeleton crews — even during race events. That’s because tracks are like golf courses and graveyards, most of their open ground isn’t consistently used and therefore, not always insanely profitable.

Update 2: Connecticut police have sent over a statement.

Update: We’ve received a reply from Lime Rock Park’s Press, PR & Editorial Director, Rick Roso, detailing what happened last night. It is included below.

Police say several teens broke into Lime Rock Park on Wednesday night and crashed go-karts, injuring two teenagers. According to police, a 15-year-old girl was transported to a Hartford children’s hospital via helicopter and a 15-year-old boy was transported to a local hospital, both with non-life threatening injuries. Both teens are in stable condition.

In the area, multiple local news sources are reporting the crash.

Police were called out to the track around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Germany’s Nurburgring Nordschleife will be reopened next year for manufacturers’ bragging rights after officials announced Tuesday that the track’s speed limits — added after a crash during a race killed a spectator in March — will be lifted, PistonHeads is reporting.

Track officials also announced they would be smoothing some parts of the track to keep cars from launching into the air, including the section that launched a Nissan GT-R GT3 into a crowd in March, and keeping spectators from certain areas of the track.

The track may be open for full-speed testing in 2016.

Here’s a little bit of racing trivia you may not have known. In addition to getting a check with a couple of commas in the amount, the winning driver of the Indianapolis 500 is also awarded the pace car for that year’s race. I’m not talking about one of the thousands of replicas they sell at the dealers or even one of the dozens of courtesy cars with pace car graphics that they use at the race. I’m talking about the actual vehicle used to pace the drivers as they come into formation for the flying start and then functions as a safety car when yellow flags are unfurled. That means that racers driving for Roger Penske’s team have won sixteen of those pace cars.

Apparently those drivers’ contracts give the team the right to buy the pace car if they win because Roger owns all sixteen paces cars from the years that his team has won the 500. To celebrate this year’s edition of the massive Woodward Dream Cruise, the Penske organization paraded their collection of authentic Indy 500 pace cars from the Penske Corp’s hospitality tent in Royal Oak all the way up to Pontiac and back, with the spiff that many of the cars were being driven by current and former Penske racers.

Jenson Button and his new wife were the target of apparent Bond villains last weekend after robbers allegedly knocked the couple and their guests out with gas pumped in through the vents and made away with $465,000 in jewelry, the BBC reported.

The Formula One driver, his wife and their guests, who were all staying in St. Tropez, weren’t injured in the robbery. A spokesman for Button muddled things further (emphasis ours):

“The police have indicated that this has become a growing problem in the region with perpetrators going so far as to gas their proposed victims through the air conditioning units before breaking in.”

So you’re saying this happens a lot? That doesn’t sound right.

After Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn said they would have to reassess whether their GT-R LM program was fruitful, the company announced Friday it was pulling the car out of competition.

“We know people will be disappointed, but be assured that nobody is more disappointed than us,” said Shoichi Miyatani, president of NISMO.

The car had struggled in competition this year with one car finishing at Le Mans well behind the leaders, one disqualification and one DNF at the famed race in France.

Topped only by FIFA, the two next-least trustworthy international sports associations have joined forces today to speculate that we could see Formula E cars race through Tokyo streets for the glory of games and country in 2020, according to F1Insider (via Road & Track).

The original report, which was written in German, says FIA executives pitched the idea to Olympic organizers and offered the Formula E cars for competition.

Canadian driver Jacques Villeneuve said he would “definitely” participate and added that 30 years ago tennis wasn’t part of the Olympic program, but now it’s a staple.

But that’s not even the best part.

Mercedes-AMG released a new batch of “spy” shots of its C63 coupe testing at Hockenheimring in Germany, AutoGuide is reporting (via Facebook).

The coupe, which will be unveiled in August ahead of its first public appearance at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, looks remarkably similar to the C-Class sedan from which it’s based.

Somewhat oddly for the site that used to prioritize being FIRST POST above everything else, Jalopnik was last out of the gate with their review of the Viper ACR. I think it was worth the wait, because it was written by legitimate sports-car-racing hero Andy Lally. You can check it out here. As competent a racer and driver as I think I am, Andy’s obviously on the proverbial next level.

Which is why it made me sad to read one of the story’s last paragraphs.

The Southern California Timing Association announced Tuesday that its annual Speed Week, held at the Bonneville Salt Flats near Salt Lake City, will be canceled this year. Officials said poor conditions meant they could only find 2.5 miles of usable salt, far less than the 7 miles needed for the race.

The decision came down one day earlier than expected, and a little more than a week after officials canceled an earlier event at the salt flats for the same reason.

Race officials said nearby salt mining operations have deteriorated salt conditions at the famed flats. Officials say future races could be canceled if the flats aren’t protected.